The Ultimate Kiss - Chapter 1: Panic!

Written by Felicia Rondo

Summary: In the aftermath of the Black Comet incident (Shadow the Hedgehog, 2005) resentment towards Shadow has only increased among the public! Shadow's past has been put to rest, but something still plagues him in his heart! Sonic worries for Shadow, since he disappeared from the public, but one kiss turns all of that upside-down! The Ultimate Kiss! Sonadow, inspired by a DeviantArt comic.

An old story, written years ago, presented just as it used to be for posterity’s sake. This version will not be continued.

Contains: Flamin’ Hot Cheetos, Ungloved hands, and Photograph by Nickelback.

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‘Tap, tap, tap,’ the sound repeated below his ankles as he tapped his foot impatiently, waiting for the cashier to provide him with the receipt for his purchase of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos. It had taken two and a half seconds so far—an eternity for the hedgehog. On the radio, he could hear Nickelback’s latest single, “Photograph,” crackling through the speakers. He actually liked it, finding its ungraceful vocals to be ‘really cool, man,’ but he knew not to say so to anyone he didn’t completely trust with his life.

Moments after—only a short while for anyone else in that city—he was handed the receipt by the beaming cashier. He had seen that look before. “What do you want?” He asked, tilting his head slightly as his face twisted into a confused expression.

Hardly able to contain himself, the cashier merely replied, “I j-just wanted to th-thank you for destroying the Black Comet! Y-you saved us all!” It was as though the sixteen year-old would burst into tears at any moment, as he said his thank you.

Sonic blinked at the cashier thanking him. “Great…” he thought, sarcastically, not very thrilled to see he was still being mistaken for his darker counterpart. Taking advantage of the awkward situation, however, he asked, “What’s your name, there, pal?”

“Chris,” the cashier responded simply, calming down a little.

Raising an eyeridge, Sonic responded, “Chris, huh? I like that name.” He flashed his trademark smirk and then swiftly grabbed the bag of spicy Cheetos, walking out of the convenience store before turning back and slyly adding, “I’ll go tell Shadow you thanked him.” A mischievous look in his eyes grew as the cashier’s face turned red with embarrassment, but, before the cashier could stutter out his apology, he sped out of the store.

In the streets of Westopolis, Sonic walked. His ears picked up on the faint sound of the breeze blowing by, his quills wiggled with each step he took, and his kiwi-colored gaze was glued to the unopened snack in his gloved hands. It had been all of four whole days since he had last gotten to burn his mouth with the flaming snacks and he could just barely restrain himself from making a messy fool of himself for all to see, but he knew the cheeto dust would ruin his perfectly good pair of gloves if he were to open it and chow down just like he wanted—driven by his pride and the need to preserve some approximation of dignity in himself. Not one moment later, he zipped from the sidewalk of the city to the doorstep of a home belonging to a certain twin-tailed engineer he knew. He knew only one twin-tailed engineer, of course.

‘Knock, knock, knock,’ the sound repeated against the Prower’s door, “Hellooooo, anybody home?” Sonic asked whomever was on the other side of the door, leaning his ear against the frame of the revolving barrier. “C’mon, Tails, are you here or what?” he asked, pressing his weight further onto the door until it was the only thing supporting him - an action he would immediately regret after, as the door swung open and he collapsed through the door and onto the pink hedgehog who had allowed him to enter. “Oof! Sorry, sorry, sorry,” Sonic grunted as he landed, pushing himself off the ground only to discover Amy Rose below him. “Oh geesh… I’m really sorry,” Sonic gulped, worrying about the compromised position he had found himself in.

To his surprise, however, Amy’s only reaction was a wide-eyed expression on her face—blushing as red as her dress. “A-Amy, ‘you OK?” Sonic inquired, picking the both of them up off the ground and standing Amy on her feet. She was smiling, staring directly in front of her at nothing in particular.

It was then that Tails joined the both of them in that living room. “Sonic? What’re you doing he—” Tails started, before facing the situation that had ensued in his living room. “Uh… what happened to Amy?” the fox asked.

Looking the pink hedgehog up and down as he knelt to pick his bag of Cheetos back up, Sonic answered, “She’ll be fine… I hope.” Right after saying so, however, the momentarily-shocked pink hedgehog snapped out of her trance and squeezed the blue blur in a suffocating embrace. “Yep, yep, she’s fine,” Sonic managed to squeak out as his insides were crushed by the powerful girl.

She nuzzled her face into the sapphire speedster’s chest, sighing happily. Then, as if the world lifted her heart to the highest of heights, she asked with the utmost of confidence, “Hello, my darling Sonic! Aren’t you happy to see your girlfriend?” The way she said it, one could almost believe she was indeed the girlfriend of Sonic the Hedgehog… if they didn’t know already that the two hedgehogs weren’t, in fact, dating.

After pushing her off of him with what strength he had left, Sonic answered, “I-it’s nice to see you, Amy.” He then tossed the bagged snack over to his twin-tailed friend, requesting, “Hey, y’think you can take this off my hands, for now? I was gonna eat it, but…” his gaze leaked back over to the pink hedgehog, suggesting that she was the reason for the delay in his snacking.

Interestingly enough, Amy’s reaction was that of amusement. “What, you can’t have a snack while your girlfriend is around?” she smiled, as if it were some joke she was barely able to contain her laughter from.

“No,” Sonic answered, a sort of smile of his own gracing his face, “I can’t take off my gloves and have a snack while you’re around.” His correction served to reiterate the fact that the two were not actually dating, which merely elicited an eye-roll from the pink hedgehog. The sapphire snack-wanter could only humor Amy’s over-familiarity so much, but he drew the line at allowing her to see him so… exposed. It was different around Tails - the two were practically brothers, which made the swift hedgehog feel much more safe to assume he would not be ogled.

Sure enough, Tails—having caught the bag moments before—replied, “I can hold on to this. C’mon and take a seat, I’ll be done with the Tornado in a sec,” then walking back to his latest project in his workshop in the next room. With that invitation, Sonic promptly sat on the couch facing the TV, followed by Amy sitting right next to him shortly thereafter. With a chuckle, Sonic nudged her, signaling that he wanted more space. He was hugged tightly, in response.

On the Television, the fox had a news program on, reporting on the Black Comet incident nearly a week after it had initially happened. Sonic could tell they were scraping the bottom of the barrel at that point, as they were only finding other Westopolitans to give their first-hand account of where they were when it happened and how they felt. Much was said about his old friend, Shadow, who had become sort of impossible to track down since that last Tuesday. Many thought of him as a hero, a vocal minority hated him, while Sonic simply wondered where the dark hero could be then.

Unfortunately, they were televising an interview with a man who had a grudge against the hedgehog that saved his life. “I heard he’s one of them,” He snarled through his mustache, “I don’t know why ‘muh tax dollars are goin’ to G.U.N. for, lettin’ him go free after what his friends did to us.”

Then, the channel changed. Looking over to his right, Sonic spotted Amy with the TV remote in her hand. It was just as well, as watching corporations trying to squeeze every dime out of the incident was getting to be a bit tiresome. Still, the thought entered into Sonic’s mind, it was nice getting to see Shadow again. “Hey, Amy,” Sonic started, attracting the attention of his biggest fangirl, “it’s nice to see Shadow around again, right?”

Without missing a single beat, Amy replied cheerily, “Of course! Shadow’s our friend and it’s so good to see him.” To his surprise, however, she went on, “I was a little worried about him, when we first started seeing him… but he’s still the same Shadow I said goodbye to on the Space Colony ARK, so that was a relief…”

Nodding along to what he was hearing, Sonic found himself differing from Amy’s view slightly towards the end of what she said. Sure, he was happy to see him, and he was worried, only… he was still worrying, to an extent. It hadn’t dawned on him until then, and he wasn’t quite sure he wanted to bring it up to the girl clinging to him at that moment, so he left it to linger in his mind.

“… Okay, Amy, seriously, is there any way I can get you to let go of me?” Sonic asked, growing desperate to escape the rosy hedgehog’s tight embrace.

Playfully, the girly hedgehog answered, “Only if you say the magic word~”

His skin crawled. “But Amy…” he whined, “I’m supposed to be an edgy dude who does what he wants and lives by his own feeling!” He wasn’t serious, he only needed to amuse himself for as long as he could stand being stuck in the situation. Finally, he relented. “… Please, may I be allowed to leave?” asked the hedgehog, before being let go by the powerful girl without further ado. “Thanks, Amy,” he chuckled, a little happy that their ‘games’ only went as long as he was comfortable with them. Standing up from the couch, Sonic decided to leave the living room to go see what his local twin-tailed nerd was up to.

In the workshop, the hedgehog spotted the familiar sight of a red biplane as he arrived. “Whoa, pretty retro, don’t you think?” Sonic offered, alerting his blue-eyed ‘brother’ of his presence in the workshop. The fox appeared to have been getting ready to take a break, but he seemed to have scrapped those plans as he reached for yet another item from his toolbox. “Hey, hey, don’t let me stop you from chilling out, there, buddy,” the hedgehog smirked.

Shaking his head warily, the twin-tailed engineer replied, “No way - I can’t leave you alone with this, you’re the reason I had to fix it up to begin with!” Tails had spent the last few months trying to fix it after Sonic had taken it for what he called a ‘spin’—‘more like a typhoon,’ Tails commented, at the time—so he was a little protective of the aircraft. He couldn’t be too angry at Sonic, just… cautious.

Even so, with that banter aside, Sonic found his mind returning to the image of Shadow, in his super form, several miles in the sky. “Hey, buddy,” Sonic started, gracefully sidestepping taking responsibility for his actions against Tails’s poor biplane, “I know this is a long shot, but, have you seen Shadow lately?”

The question seemed to take the twin-tailed fox by surprise, only to grow more and more puzzled as he couldn’t name one occasion he had so much as spotted the dark hedgehog. Not on TV, not in public, not in pictures, only in clips from that last Tuesday. “Huh… no, I haven’t,” Tails replied, before asking, “Why do you ask? Did you need something from him?”

Coming as no surprise to Sonic, he nodded and answered, “He’s been on my mind again, I guess… Blame it on the TV, they’ve been going on about last Tuesday nonstop,” he added, scratching the back of his quills awkwardly. Eyeing the bag of cheetos that the twin-tailed fox had left on a counter, it seemed like those would be the perfect thing to distract him from the situation with Shadow, causing him to pose another question to his life-long friend, “Y’know any place I can go to have a snack in peace?” Tails looked back at the hedgehog and smiled, knowingly.

---

Years had passed, but not one blade of grass seemed different from how he remembered it. It was all there. “Of course, why didn’t I think of this before?” Sonic wondered, as he took in the sight of the Chao Garden. The chao that resided in it had been taken to kindergarten by Amy a half-hour before then, so there was nothing standing in the way of the hedgehog and his spicy treat.

Sonic took a deep breath in, enjoying the perpetually gorgeous day the Chao Garden was having. It felt like with each breath he took, more memories came rushing back into his mind. Memories of watching chao races, giving animals to that two-toned shiny blue chao he once knew, and seeing that all-too-memorable baby-blue and pale-yellow cocoon form around the little critters as they metamorphosed into the next stage of their lives.

Thinking back, he couldn’t quite place why he stopped coming to the Chao Island. Why not take some time out of his day to take care of those little ones, slow down and enjoy a more relaxing thing in life? After all, he couldn’t spend his whole life rolling around and stomping badniks—there had to be some time for him to just be… him. Giving it more thought, he realized his absence from the gardens was less a choice and more a lack of action on his part. Looking at it now, with fresh eyes, he knew he couldn’t stay away as long as he had before, so he made a note to return there more often.

Quickly, he found a tree to support his back as he sat down with his legs spread relaxedly on the luscious grass. Without a care, he slipped his gloves off, exposing his bare hands to the cool breeze of the garden where every day was a beautiful day.

He felt vulnerable, exposed, but safe all at once. It was an indulgent moment for him, and he was set to enjoy every bit of it. He picked up the bag and inspected it, gazing upon the try-hard ‘way cool’ mascot printed onto it. “Imagine being that desperate to look cool,” Sonic laughed to himself, without the slightest shred of irony intruding any of his words.

The hedgehog was many things, but ‘self-aware’ was, in that moment, not one of them.

Breaking open the bag, at long last, he dipped his index finger and thumb inside, lifting it up shortly thereafter with a spicy red cheeto between the two fingers. He began to open his mouth up for it, the feeling of burning hotness mere moments away from gracing his unsuspecting taste buds, only to spot Shadow of all people from the corner of his eye.

His eyes widened, his heart skipped a beat before racing, his mind was impossibly empty and yet overflowing with different conflicting thoughts. “oh god, no,” Sonic muttered under his breath, dropping the cheeto back into the bag, before promptly dropping the bag itself in shock—a few cheetos dropping out of it and staining the once-immaculate earth of the garden.

“What do I do, what do I do,” he panicked out loud, looking for his gloves before realizing he had already gotten the cheeto dust on his fingers—and he couldn’t lick it off in front of Shadow.

It was like a nightmare. Caught gloveless by his greatest rival. “Oh god what do I do, what the heck do I do,” Sonic worried even more out loud, getting up clumsily and beginning to run frantically around the Chao Garden.

He was practically running laps, at that point. His arms flailed, his heart was beating like it was performing an absolutely ridiculous drum solo, and he repeated the same question over and over, “what do I do, what do I do?” when the only thing his mind could shout back at him was, “Panic!”

Then, he was stopped.

Suddenly, without warning, Shadow pulled him in close by the back of his head and kissed him full on the lips.

“M-mmff!… Mmmmmm…” Sonic reacted, eyes opened so wide it felt almost like they were going to pop out of his head, before slowly falling calmly half-lidded. He gasped for air for the brief moment Shadow relented, only for the kiss to resume almost instantly. It felt like it lasted for an eternity, Shadow’s lips pressed firmly against his… and it was… amazing. The blue hedgehog’s face turned so red, one could almost forget it was ever blue in the first place; his tail began to wag as Shadow held him there, by the top of his head with one hand while the other gripped his arm. Sonic didn’t know what to think, so he didn’t - allowing the dark hedgehog to continue the kiss without a single thought entering into his euphoric state of mind.

He was being kissed, by Shadow. Shadow, the hedgehog that he had battled countless times before… Shadow, the ultimate lifeform that made the ultimate sacrifice in honor of his fallen best friend… Shadow, the hedgehog he had grown to hate, then, eventually, learned to respect all those years ago, was kissing him. Shadow was kissing him.

It was a kiss he would never have seen coming, a kiss unlike any Sonic had ever experienced before in his life. It could be described in no other way than: ultimate. It was the ultimate kiss.

Just as quickly as it had happened, Shadow pulled away and began to walk off. “Good, now that shut him up…” He said, dismissively, as he left the garden, leaving Sonic with nothing to do but to watch the dark hedgehog as he left.

Shadow had no idea what he had done. Sonic was so dazed he could hardly grasp what happened. Moments passed, and the hedgehog’s emerald eyes were still glued to the exit where Shadow had gone. His face reddened more and more as his mind lingered on the moment further. Nothing else could make its way into the hedgehog’s spiny head, only the kiss that shook him to his core.

What Shadow didn’t know, right then, was that Sonic didn’t just like him anymore. Something new and unfamiliar to the blue blur began to take hold of his heart - something he couldn’t put into words, even if he were still able to form any words at that moment. Even he didn’t realize it when it happened, but there was no stopping it now that it had arrived and taken his heart. “Taken…” the word lingered in the hedgehog’s mind. His heart had not been taken, he felt, it had been stolen.

For on that day, November 21st, 2005, Sonic no longer liked Shadow… he loved him.

To Be Continued…

Originally-published on November 21, 2018