Archive of Our Own ^beta

“Shadow?” Sonic asked in surprise, blinking at this darker lookalike, surprised to find him in the Buddy Buddy Temple.

Shadow turned, immediately clenching his fists and spreading his stance to get into a fighting position. “What are you doing here?” he asked, eyeing Sonic and his other four foes.

After Shadow had tried to destroy the universe, Sonic had decided that the best idea was to befriend Shadow and try to prevent him from ever doing something like that again—not to mention, he thought it would be fun having someone around who could foot-race him. They’d learned from Eggman that Shadow liked to reside in caves, usually ones with some sort of link to the Ancients, but they had scoured the entire island and never found him.

“We’re looking for some mech suit schematics that the Buddy Beavers had,” Tails said.

“Yeah, but we’ve been looking for you, too,” Amy added, trying to give him a friendly smile.

Shadow tightened his fists. “Why? Looking for revenge?” he scoffed.

“Revenge isn’t really our style,” Sonic said, shrugging while also offering him a smile. “We actually wanted to see if you wanted to come to Meh Burger with us sometime.”

“Tch. I would never eat that swill,” Shadow huffed.

Sonic gave a little laugh, and Shadow eyed him. “That’s actually one of the nicer terms you could’ve used for it,” he said.

“Regardless, I would never agree to go anywhere with the likes of you,” he growled. “I have business here, so stay out of my way,” he added, before turning and taking off away from them.

“Hey! Wait!” Sonic said, dashing off after him.

“Sonic!” Amy yelled, frowning in worry, going to try to run after them, but they were out of sight before she could make it five steps.

“Wait a sec’!” Sonic repeated, catching up to Shadow as they went down some stairs and entered a new area. Before Sonic could grab him, to try to stop him, Shadow used his air shoes to make a sharp U-turn, slamming his fist into Sonic’s chest and sending him so hard into the ground that he put a crack in the concrete. “Ugh!” he gasped as he hit the floor, grimacing.

“Don’t follow me,” Shadow growled down to him, turning to continue in the direction he had been traveling, but he stopped and blinked when he found a sealed door in his path. He scowled and turned back to head up the stairs from which they had come from, but clenched his fists when a door slid down, trapping them. “What is this?”

Sonic sat up, grabbing his chest, making a face. “Yeah, I was trying to tell you this place is booby-trapped,” he said, standing up, glancing around. “I’ve been trapped here with Eggman, before.”

“I am the Ultimate Lifeform. I don’t get trapped anywhere,” Shadow said, and then suddenly disappeared with a flash. A split second later, however, he rammed into the ceiling, dropping down to his feet, gritting his teeth. “What the—?”

“Woah, there must be some sort of teleportation guard,” Sonic said, blinking at him.

Shadow growled in anger, skating over to the door that had closed behind them and spin dashing it. When it didn’t break, he did it again. Then a third time.

“Hey, man, chill,” Sonic said, raising his hands. “I’ve done this before. All we have to do is work together to get out. That’s why the Buddy Beavers made these traps.”

“I will never work with you,” Shadow grit out, furious because of the situation, stepping toward Sonic, ready to fight, but just as he did, he stepped on a pressure plate. He looked down, then over at the walls as slits opened in them. Huge axes came swinging out of each opening, more than a dozen in total.

Sonic turned his body so two axes passed on either side of him, his eyes going a little wide. “Listen, all we need to do is press those two buttons over there,” he said, motioning with his head over to the next door.

Shadow turned his body also, scoffing. “Don’t think this means I’ll befriend you and your pathetic friends,” he said harshly, teleporting over to the wall, eyeing him once he got to his spot.

“You should give us a chance. We’re a lot more fun than the froglodytes you probably hang out with,” he said, zipping between the swinging axes, to the unoccupied button, pressing it right as he got to it, and as Shadow pressed the other button. The next door opened, and both of the hedgehogs dashed through it before watching it close behind them.

“I prefer to be alone,” Shadow huffed, looking around, this time careful where he was standing.

Sonic rolled his eyes, about to say something, but then he noticed the holes in the walls. “Darts!” he yelled. Both he and Shadow prepared to avoid them, but they never came. “Huh?” Sonic said after a minute, carefully walking over to one of the walls, leaning in to inspect one of the holes. There was a sharp hissing of air coming from it, as well as all of the others. “Some sort of gas is leaking in here.”

“I’m immune to the effects of all gases,” Shadow said, crossing his arms, looking around the room.

“Yeah, that’s great, but I’m not,” Sonic said, straightening up to look for the next switch, but he frowned when he didn’t see it. “Do you see it?”

“No,” Shadow said, not all that concerned.

“Okay, okay. Think, Sonic. What looks different?” he said to himself, eyeing every inch of the wall, though his mind was slowly beginning to fog up. He moved a hand to his head as a headache began to form. “Do you see it?”

“You just asked me that, fool,” Shadow scoffed, watching Sonic now.

Sonic shook his head to try to focus, but then nodded. “Right, sorry,” he said, taking a slower breath and squeezing his eyes shut for a second. “We need to get out of this one, fast,” he added, his breath coming shorter with every other inhale. He swallowed down nausea, then opened his eyes to look again, but this time dizziness overwhelmed him, and he had to take a knee. “I… can’t…” he tried to say. He moved a hand to the ground and then slowly slid forward to lay down, blinking slowly to fight the tunnel vision suddenly forming. He felt like he couldn’t breathe—his chest tight, dizzy and tired.

When he opened his eyes again. He noticed the lip at the bottom of the wall he was facing, which continued throughout all of the walls in the room. It was deeper there—about two inches of height where the walls connected with the ground. He peered forward, barely able to see, but thinking he could discern a tiny switch. “I see it,” he mumbled, weakly crawling toward the wall, sliding his hand under the lip, closing his eyes. “Here it is,” he whispered.

Shadow eyed him, pausing for a second before moving over to the parallel wall, taking a knee to reach under the lip also. When he knelt, he could hear the gas seeping into the room, but ignored it as he flipped the little lever. The next door slid open, which meant that Sonic must’ve flipped his. Shadow straightened up, wasting no time to grab Sonic by the back of his neckerchief and pull him into the next room, just in time before the door closed again.

“Wake up, Sonic,” Shadow said as he let go of him, bending down to turn him over and give his shoulder a hard shake. The blue hero didn’t budge, and Shadow’s ears twitched as he listened to him take deeper breaths. He growled in frustration, before raising a fist and slamming it into Sonic’s cheek.

Sonic flinched awake. “Gah!” he winced, sitting up and moving a hand to his muzzle, rubbing the spot where he’d been hit, his vision slowly normalizing, and then he blinked at Shadow, who was still kneeling at his side. “Shadow, you… saved me?” he asked.

Shadow scoffed and stood up quickly. “If you tell anyone I’ll make sure you do stop breathing next time,” he growled. Sonic thought to himself, forgetting to answer, just staring at him in shock. Shadow growled again, expecting some sort of response.

“Oh, right. I won’t,” he said quickly, his mind still too foggy to think of a snarky quip.

Shadow crossed his arms and looked away, over at the final door. He frowned, then looked up at the ceiling, eyeing two handles there. He was about to point them out, but before he could, gaps opened in the ceiling, and water came gushing out. Sonic’s eyes widened and he jumped up to his feet.

“W-Water?” he gasped, raising a foot as it already got up to their ankles in a matter of seconds.

“Tch, you sound afraid,” Shadow mocked, glancing over at him, though then he frowned and eyed him. “Wait, you are afraid?”

Sonic moved his hands to his head, looking down in terror. “I can’t swim! What are we gonna do? What are we gonna do?” he said, the panic in his voice rising faster than the water level.

“Pull yourself together, blue boy,” Shadow huffed, teleporting up to one of the handles and turning it, then using his shoes to fly to the other and do the same, though just as he turned the second, the first went back to its original position. He growled in annoyance, trying again, but the same thing happened.

“That won’t work, and we. Are going. To drown!” Sonic yelled, watching Shadow.

Shadow dropped back to the floor, the water just past their knees now. “Run around the walls and get up there,” he commanded, but Sonic shook his head frantically.

“My shoes are wet. I can’t get the traction,” he panted, panicking even more.

“Do I need to hit you again?” he growled, but it was rhetorical. “We’ll wait for the water to get high enough so you can reach.”

“I can’t swim!” Sonic yelled again, leaping out of the water and grabbing onto Shadow.

“Get off, fool,” Shadow snapped, shoving him away, into the water.

“Ahhhhhhh!” he yelled, about to frantically splash about, but Shadow grabbed him by his neckerchief again, lifted him up, and then pinned him to the wall, pressing his forearm across his chest, growling at him.

“Calm down, Sonic,” he snapped. Sonic shook his head and grabbed onto his shoulders, shaking with fear now.

“I can’t do this! I can’t—” he cried out, but before he could finish, Shadow leaned in and smashed their lips together. Sonic blinked a few times, tensing up, totally caught off guard. He gripped Shadow’s shoulders tightly, about to try to push him away, but when the dark hedgehog slid his tongue into his mouth, he froze for a moment. A second later, he suddenly melted into it, not thinking about their current situation, just closing his eyes and leaning up into him. He relaxed his hands and then slid arms around the back of Shadow’s neck, cheeks warming up, distracted from the fact that they were becoming surrounded by a huge amount of water. Shadow pulled away, eyeing him with furrowed brows, but Sonic could only smile like the dope Shadow knew he was. “What was that?” he mumbled.

“We’ll discuss it once we get out of here,” he said, having to push off from the floor since the water had risen considerably, so that he could swim and keep their heads above the surface. He left one arm around Sonic so he could support him, glancing up at the handles. “Stay focused on our task.”

“A little late for that,” Sonic said with a grin, clumsily kicking his legs beneath himself, doing his best to help keep them afloat.

Shadow rolled his eyes. “Grab the handle,” he said once they were high enough for Sonic to reach it. Sonic nodded, extending his hand out and grabbing it. Shadow let go of him, to swim over and grab the other. The two hedgehogs looked at each other, before nodding together and turning the handles. They didn’t hear the door, so Shadow’s ears twitched. “Stay here,” he told Sonic, before diving beneath the water.

Sonic watched him swim down, thinking to himself, cheeks still a little warm. He wasn’t thinking about the water at all. After a half a minute, Shadow came back up, brows knitted together, shaking the water from his head. “It opened, but there’s more water on the other side,” the dark hedgehog said, grabbing Sonic’s free hand. “Hold your breath.”

Sonic blinked. “Wai—” he started, but then Shadow dove down, pulling him along with him. Sonic’s eyes went wide again, and he didn’t have time to get a gulp of air, so he just held in what he had. He kicked his legs uselessly, just being led by his ebony rival. They passed through the open doorway, and then Shadow swam upwards. Sonic squeezed his eyes shut, and just before they got to the surface, his stamina gave out, and his body forced him to take a breath. He got a lung-full of water, but as soon as Shadow pulled him out and onto dry land, he dropped to his knees and began coughing.

Shadow shook off the excess water, eyeing Sonic, before glancing away at the new set of stairs that went back up to where they had come from. He turned and was about to take off before Sonic interrupted him.

“Hey, you said we were gonna talk about what happened in there,” Sonic said, his voice a little hoarse, but he stood back up, wiping away the water from his face with his soaked glove.

Shadow turned his head to glance back at him. He eyed his expression, before frowning. “I’ll meet you and your halfwit friends at the restaurant.”

Sonic blinked once, and then smiled. “I don’t know if I would call Meh Burger a restaurant,” he said. “And I don’t know if I would say that’s talking about it.”

“Tch,” he scoffed, without otherwise acknowledging what Sonic said. “I’ll see you soon, Sonic,” he said, eyeing him back, before disappearing with a small flash of light, teleporting away.