The battleship was about to take off any minute now. He really had to hurry.
The blue hero ran as fast as he could, smashing any sort of robots that stood in his way with only one objective in mind: stopping Eggman's plan.
"Tails, Knuckles! Let's hurry!" Sonic screamed through his communicator in panic after he spin dashed through yet another robot, which caused the machine to shatter in all sorts of directions, some parts cutting through hero's skin and making him wince in slight pain.
He ran, and ran for what seemed like full five minutes, and if you're the fastest thing alive, that might as well be called an eternity.
Especially when the situation was so tense.
Aquatic Base was a pure labyrinth, finding his way around it was not an easy task. He could only hope he will be able to make it before it's too late. The digital map of the place Tails has provided him with turned out to be very useful, but it still didn't mean that reaching his destination will be a piece of cake.
Just when he thought this situation couldn't possibly get any worse, he heard his little brother's voice from speakers again.
"Sonic! We have a problem! You in there?"
Oh, great.
"You mean, apart from Eggman being minutes away from killing us all?" he answered, irritation piercing sharply through his voice much like razor needles on his spines through Eggman's sorry excuses for opponents.
"Actually, yes! I just got intel from Shadow; he got captured by one of the robots and according to my map, you are the closest to his location. Think you could still spare few seconds to go and set him free?"
His face looked as unpleasant as if he had just swallowed a lemon. Shadow, captured by a robot? This all seemed unbelievable to the point it would have been laughable, if not the circumstances. He was pretty sure that his friend would never, ever let himself get captured so easily and even if so, he was certain the dark hedgehog was more than capable of setting himself free. Still, he cannot just leave him be, what if something has gone horribly wrong...
"I'm on it, Tails!"
"Okay! I'll send you the updated Aquatic Base map in a second with two marks; green is Shadow's location, and red is a place where we'll meet up once you're done. Hope to see you soon!"
"No problem, see ya!"
And with that, the communication was over.
True to his word, the markings showed on his map a second later and he hurried to where his friend is supposed to be held.
He pushed himself to his limits, ignoring the pain he's definitely going to feel later. Time, time. He needs more time. And more speed.
And few seconds later indeed, he managed to find his captive friend.
'Wow, that really was close to where I was, I guess that's pretty lucky,' Sonic thought to himself as he walked up to a large metal bar cage located in the middle of the room, guarded by several robots.
The cage didn't look very impressive, apart from the fact that bars were very tight against each other, making it unable for the obsidian hedgehog to stick more than a finger out. The way thin and thick bars melted together gave the cage a look that resembled a spider web more than an actual typical cage one would think of. Well, minus the cubic shape that is.
And he couldn't be more surprised even if he really tried.
Because Shadow was... chilling.
The dark hedgehog stood inside the cage with crossed arms and he looked completely relaxed. Once Shadow noticed him, he looked at the clock at his communicator, then back at Sonic.
"Fourty two seconds? Are you kidding me? You really must be getting old, hedgehog," Sonic heard him say and he couldn't help but feel a tingle of irritation at the sentence, combined with Shadow's typical smirk he used specifically in situations where he was teasing the cobalt hero.
"Beggars can't be choosers, now gimme a sec to smash those pieces of junk," blue hero crossed his arms, annoyance clear in his features but despite that, true to his word, a second later all the enemies guarding Shadow's cage were dealt with.
With that part being out of the way, Sonic walked up to the cage, immediately noticing the lock on it. He looked around, but the key was nowhere to be seen...
"Uh, um... it's locked," the speedster mumbled, and his face looked at stupid as these words were.
This earned a disbelieving look from the dark hedgehog.
"You think I would still be in here if it wasn't? Find another way to open it, shouldn't be so hard. You have plenty of lockpicks in your spines..."
The blue hero looked at his friend dumbfounded.
"...What?"
And oh, Shadow's facepalm meant more in this situation than thousands of words ever could.
"Your quills, faker. They should do just fine, just pull one out. Don't tell me you've never picked locks before?"
"I mean, I just usually stick to smashing everything," hero answered sheepishly and looked away. "but I bet it's not that hard, just give me a sec to figure it out!"
With that being said, Sonic pulled out one of his older quills and began his work.
And it didn't take him long to realize he was dead wrong about what he said before.
It was hard.
He was completely focused on his task, getting more and more desperate with each passing second. He glanced at Shadow and noticed that again, the dark hedgehog looked extremely calm, like he doesn't feel threatened by this situation at all. No, there was more than just that; he was amused.
"...What the hell's so funny?" he glared at his friend, visibly angry at the other's good humour.
"You. One would've thought that from being imprisoned by Eggman so many times you would have developed a basic skill that would help you survive in your adventures. How come you’ve made it so far without even trying it before?" Shadow teased and oh, how much Sonic wanted that smirk gone from his face.
The fact that his muzzle just got an embarrassed shade of red definitely didn't help with that.
"Well excuse me, mister perfect, I might be great at a lot of things, but this one apparently isn't one of them yet!" he barked and came back to his work. Sadly, this earned no reaction from the obsidian hedgehog, but he was glad that at least he could proceed in peace without being riled up even further.
For a while, there was silence and more Shadow staring at the clock until he finally spoke in a smug voice:
"It's been five minutes."
Oh, Chaos dammit. How he hates him sometimes.
"Shut up! I knew that!" was Sonic's only response.
Then, something clicked in his mind as he stared in realization at the dark hedgehog's face. Shadow's attitude finally made sense to him. He let go of the lock.
"... you can get yourself out," his voice was entirely soaked in pure shock.
Upon hearing this accusation, Shadow opened his mouth wide and partially covered it with his hand in a gesture of mocking shock.
"... oh? No, no, you must be mistaken. Me?"
And with that Sonic's glare only got worse.
"... yes, you," blue hero looked at the inhibitor ring at Shadow's right hand.
"Why don't you just Chaos Spear the damn thing? This cage is made out of metal, I'm sure this lock would be shattered in a matter of seconds!"
Shadow's smirk just got wider, happy that the blue hedgehog finally figured his little game. Time for the part he waited for so long.
"But then I wouldn't get to have fun from watching you struggle, right? Get good, scrub. Pick the lock."
"... You cannot be serious."
This situation was way too ridiculous to be real and he refused to believe the dark hedgehog actually meant all the words he just said.
After recovering from his shock, Sonic noticed plot holes in Shadow's plan, though.
"You are aware I could just leave you be and be on with my way, right?" He asked.
"And what kind of hero would you be, leaving an imprisoned friend? "
‘Great, he just had to pick equally effective comeback.’ Sonic groaned in misery at his own thoughts. With a heavy sigh, Sonic gave up the fight and came back to work.
However, it seems like Shadow was feeling merciful towards his miserable companion at last, because he decided to give Sonic tips on how to open the lock and two minutes later, the lock snapped open.
"Oh Chaos, finally!" Sonic yelled, relieved and really happy. This process was so long and unpleasant, but seeing the annoyance comply in the end brought sheer joy, and he just couldn’t help but express his relief for a bit longer.
"I made it!" the cobalt hero was pretty sure that with his face and tone of his voice he resembled Cream right now from his memory of her making her first flower crown. He didn't care.
Mostly because a second later he was back to his angry state when Shadow calmly, casually walked out of his cage. He looked like he was disappointed his 'fun' was over so fast.
"What the hell was that, dude?!" Sonic exclaimed as he roughly grabbed his friend's shoulder "this is a very dangerous situation, we don't have time to play around like that! We wasted so much time!"
And what followed after this was something the blue speedster would not expect. Ever.
Suddenly, he felt soft lips delicately moving against his own. It was so nice, so confusing, and... so short. Too short.
Sonic froze in place and his hold on the dark hedgehog's shoulder softened. His blush could definitely match red stripes on Shadow's body now.
"Well, thanks for saving me despite the circumstances in that case, knight in shining armor. See you later," Shadow's eyes sparkled with inner fire, pride and happiness and even though Sonic had a hard time controlling proper life functions like breathing at this moment, he couldn't help but think that obsidian hedgehog's eyes never looked more beautiful.
Seconds after, Shadow was gone, faint red trail being the only evidence of him ever being here.
And Sonic... just stood where he was, still too confused to move.
What... what was that?
He wasn't sure how long he stayed in this state, but it must've been quite a bit, since a while later Tails' angry voice snapped him out of his thoughts:
"Sonic! Sonic, you in there? I've been trying to reach you for ten minutes now, over and over! Please get over here, we're all waiting!"
