Everything moved quickly after that.

Eggman had somehow been able to contact Tails, who luckily was nowhere near the "outbreak." After almost cutting off the connection early, he was more than willing to pick them up. Like an angel, his plane descended on the roof of the GUN facility and the group was out in a flash. While the plane he took didn't have the Tornado's speed, it did have enough seats to get all five of them in the air reasonably comfortably, and for the moment that was all that mattered. The group of him had thanked him, and they took to the air before anyone could realize they had left.

Rouge, for her part, explained that she had equipped stealth bombs on Eggman's cell… just in case she picked up something fishy when listening to his interrogation. When she spoke about how her superior treated her, Shadow looked like he was ready to kill him. When she spoke about what GUN's plans for the "virus" were, Sonic looked ready to kill him. And when she said that she had to speed through breaking Eggman's constraints because she "wasn't really sure how long it would be before the cover of smoke would go away," Eggman looked like he would kill her. But she, in turn, was thanked for suspecting something wasn't right and being prepared for an escape, even on the spur of the moment. Not long after, Shadow and Rouge received strange transmissions from GUN base calling all agents and other employees back for an "emergency vaccine clinic." Instead of doing that, Shadow and Rouge tossed their communicators over the side of the plane in the hopes they would not be tracked down. Rouge said they couldn't trust GUN, to which Shadow replied that never could have trusted GUN in the first place.

And Sonic, sitting in the back of the plane with Shadow, was left feeling confused and tired.

They flew for hours, crossing the forests, coastlines, deserts, and mountains, until Tails announced that he need to land the plane to refuel. The sun had already set at that point, and Eggman pointed out, a little too loudly, that he had not slept in over thirty hours, and wasn't it about time they set up camp anyway? The others reluctantly agreed, landing the plane and even giving him a task to do (after fitting him with some restraints). He set up shelters in the area, Rouge and Tails went to gather food and water, and Shadow gathered wood and kindling. That left Sonic alone to do the one task that didn't need walking: actually building a fire.

He sat on the dirt, constantly shifting his weight. His broken leg was definitely in pain - slamming down on it in the GUN lab wasn't the best of ideas - but his other leg wasn't doing that well either. Sure, he could still walk with it, but a long burn stretched underneath, blistering in a small but noticeable line. It must have been the heat of the gun from Shadow's shot. He had hardly noticed it at the time - yeah, it was painful, but he was more than a little distracted - but now that he was sitting alone in silence, the lingering sensitivity of the burn bothered him a lot. He couldn't see it that well in the dim light, but when he ran his hand over it, he could feel the strange warmth in his skin.

And now they were having him build a fire.

Shadow brought back wood in bursts. He would go out in the woods, find a mix of kindling and large fuel, then come back. He'd put them within close reach of Sonic's sitting position, humoring Sonic's attempts at a conversation for a minute or two before disappearing again. The words seemed like a passing courtesy, and nothing more. Like…

"How is it?"

"It's a slow burn."

"Hmph."

Then….

"I forgot your book back in the car. It's probably still at GUN."

"No it isn't. I grabbed it on the way back. It's in the plane."

"What?! That was what took you so long!"

"No, hacking the surveillance systems was what took me so long. You are well aware of how quickly I can move if pressed."

"I could have died in there!"

"I trusted that you could handle yourself for a while. You seem fine to me."

"That's not the point-"

"And besides, I told you to take good care of that book."

"Why do you care so much- Shadow? Shadow, where are you going?"

Then finally, after his last trip.…

"What are you staring at?"

"You're doing this all wrong."

"What? Are you telling me that I don't know how to build a fire?"

"You're giving it too little fuel." Shadow gesturing at the now sizable pile of wood with an open palm. On the portion Sonic had set aside to get it started, there were small flickers of fire. It looked like it was going to sizzle out any second - certainly not enough to keep anyone warm or cook anything. Shadow gave a doubtful look at it before picking up some of the larger pieces he brought back. "Nothing's going to catch fire unless the bundles actually touch each other."

"Doesn't fire need air? Putting too much wood on would strangle it before it even started."

"It doesn't need that much space. Look-" he said, using the two logs to push the large pieces of wood closer together. Sure enough, the flame crept over the other pieces and after a few moments, grew into a blazing flame. Shadow looked at his accomplishment with a small, tired smile. Sonic was about to tell him not to be too proud of himself, but stopped before the words came out. When he looked at him, Shadow's eyes were closing and opening slowly. His head bobbed, tilting down for a second or two before jerking back upward. Sonic looked at him with bewilderment. He'd never seen Shadow tired before - at least, not in any way that he could tell - and it made him look… weirdly vulnerable. Like he wanted to drape his arms around the other, let him rest his head on his shoulder, and tell him he could rest on him any time he wanted.

Of course, though, he couldn't do that. For someone who was supposedly so brave, he couldn't face the possibility of that kind of rejection. Instead, he began to spout out nonsense.

"You burned my good leg, Shadow."

It wasn't said with any malice, but it wasn't said with humor either. Sonic just spoke the words, hoping that by saying something, more words would come out. Instead, they hung in the air, and for a while Sonic thought they got lost in the rushing air. Shadow didn't look at Sonic at all, but after a while, he heard the quiet words.

"Your leg or your life. I chose your life. You're welcome."

Sonic turned to look at the other. "By shooting Scourge," he said bluntly.

"He didn't die."

"That's not the point. You know I hate guns."

"Could have fooled me back in Casinopolis. And I would think of the two of us, I'm the one who has more reason to hate guns."

Sonic winced. Right. Maria.

Foot. In. Mouth.

"Fine. But it still hurts."

"Did we ever dress the wound?"

"I think we were a little more preoccupied with escaping from your terrifying employer, yeah?"

Shadow pressed his lips together in a thin line. "I guess," he said smartly.

"Besides," Sonic continued, "I've had, like, a billion times worse. Even from just fighting with you! Remember when we were racing in the forest that one time and you knocked me into a tree? Took me, like, three hours to pull out all the splinters." He laughed at his own statement. Shadow, noticeably, didn't.

"Well, you were cheating."

"Cheating? How can you cheat in a fight?"

"By yelling out all those dumb jokes about trees."

"What?"

"I believe it was something like, 'I don't want to go out on a limb, but I wood like to get to the root of-'"

"Yep, sounds like me. But I don't remember that at all."

"I do. It was obnoxious to listen to."

"What can I say? Apparently back then my bark was worse than my bite?"

Shadow rolled his eyes, very clearly done with this conversation. He stood up and walked back towards the plane, deliberately and slowly. He pulled out a box with a red cross over top of it, opening its latches in tiny clicks. It contained basic supplies like gauze, bandages, patches, and disinfectant. Shadow dug around inside for something specific before pulling out a specialty burn cream. He sat down, cross legged. "If your leg gets infected, you'll have two legs out of commission instead of one. Put your foot up on my leg so I can get at the burn."

Sonic complied, and Shadow began to put the cream on his fingers. He bent down to look at the site, then delicately traced over the blisters. The touch was careful and precise, but even though Sonic knew it was purely clinical, he couldn't convince some small part of his mind that this wasn't… strangely intimate. He could feel the cool sensation of the cream, but the rest of him felt like he was on fire. Did Shadow not realize how far up his thigh he was touching, or not care? Did he realize how close he was to-

"When we got in the surveillance system," Shadow said, drawing his hand away and reaching for the bandages, "we didn't get much but the video and audio of what was going on in the room. While I was trying to override the rest of the room's AI, I had listened in case there was relevant information I should know."

"And?"

"And," he said, unrolling the bandage and beginning to place it over the burn, "I came about as Scourge was screaming about feeling the injections. You were trying to distract him."

"Yeah, well it didn't work-"

"But near the end, he changed topic suddenly." He rippedthe end of the bandage with this teeth before securing it in place. "That was strange enough on its own, but perhaps understandable in this situation - he was controlled by some kind of mind control nanite machines. What was stranger, though was your response to it."

Sonic furrowed his brow. "What about it? I don't know what you're talking about."

"Do you remember, Sonic, what you said to him when he asked about your 'boyfriend?'"

Wait, what boyfri- oh. All the blood seemed to rush to Sonic's face at once. Shadow heard that? But, but he wasn't ready! He barely understood what he wanted himself - and now Shadow was going to lord it over him for how long? "The boyfriend thing?" he stammered. "That was just me babbling, since I thought I was going to die, or be trapped forever in GUN's science dungeon, or be made into one of those freaky zombie things, or-"

"Sonic."

He stopped. He was glad for the deep tones of the fire; the last thing Sonic needed was to get a comment on the redness of his face.

"What is do you mean by 'boyfriend'?"

His eyes widened a little - not enough for the other to notice, he hoped, but enough that he registered it himself. "What?" he said incredulously. "You don't know what a boyfriend is Shadow?" That would be some stroke of luck if he didn't. Maybe he never learned about things like that on the ARK, or maybe he thought it was a boy who happened to be a friend, or-

"I know what I think a boyfriend is, Sonic. I want to hear it from you."

Damn.

The crackling fire filled the silence, but not quite well enough. What could he even say?

"It's a person who… you know, he's like… um… geez…" Sonic started to rub his neck. "Shadow, this is hard."

"Really? I would think this is an easy question. If I were to become your boyfriend, I would want to know what exactly that entails."

Sonic laughed at this, not realizing he was doing it until he noticed Shadow looking… sad? No, that couldn't be it. "It doesn't matter. You wouldn't want it."

"How do you know I wouldn't?"

"Because you're you and I'm me. Rivals. Fighters. Acquaintances at best."

Shadow shrugged. "It would be a different relationship. That's why I want to know what is expected."

The words didn't quite register with Sonic, and he found himself getting angry. He pinched himself to make sure this was real life, and yep, it sure was, and now his arm smarted as well. He winced. This whole situation was messed up; if he had known in the lab that Shadow was listening, or if he thought he was getting out of there any time soon, he would've never said those things. Shadow had no right to listen in on that kind of conversation. But even though Sonic tried to convince himself of that, he knew that it didn't make a difference - he wanted what he wanted, and he had told the truth.

Instead, he tried to deflect. "Why are you acting like that's something you would want to do?"

"I can't agree to something without knowing what it is."

"And you'd never agree to it, Shadow! You don't like me that way."

Shadow pulled the last wrap of the bandage tight around Sonic's thigh, and he yelped in pain. "How would you know, Sonic? Did you ever think to ask me? Use your words?"

"That's rich, coming from you!"

"I saved your life, and you can't answer a simple question."

"Because it's not simple, and there's no point!"

Sonic rubbed his leg, trying not to undo the bandages. Shadow stood up abruptly. "Do you think I'm naive?"

"No, I-"

"Do you think I haven't noticed how you look at me during our visits? How you start to panic whenever I suggest that we separate, even if it's for your own safety? I'm not that clueless!"

The logs on the fire seemed to shift, crashing a piece of wood from the top down on the others. Shadow's face became brightly lit in a sudden stream of sparks and firelight.

"You wanted to know why I've been so nice to you? During the injury, and this entire mess?" Shadow bent down. His face was only inches away from Sonic's own. Sonic's heart began to thud in his chest, not sure if he wanted Shadow to come closer or if he wanted to push him away. "Honestly, I don't know. And it's killing me."

Sonic could feel his stomach drop, and the anger drained out of his face. "What do you mean, you don't know?"

"I think… there's something. Something that made me want to protect you. To take care of you when you couldn't yourself. To be close to you. And I don't know what it was." He lifted the other's hands and placed them on his chest. Sonic could feel the other's heartbeat drumming under his fingers, and it was then he realized it. Shadow looked calm and collected, and he spoke with a demeanor of confidence, but deep down, the other was just as nervous and unsure as he was. His breath came in and out in quick bursts, and Shadow's hands tightened on his.

"I don't know if this is attraction. I don't know if this is normal. What I do know, Sonic, is that it feels right, somehow. And if you would let me stay by you a while and figure this out-"

"Shut your mouth."

"What?"

"I said, shut your mouth. I'm going to try something."

Shadow snapped his mouth shut, looking at Sonic with wide open eyes. It was strange; Sonic has never seen Shadow look so careful before, nor so vulnerable. But here, in the last moments of twilight, he was looking at him with an expression that seemed so strangely innocent, he didn't know how to handle it. He touched the other's face, and it was soft under his hands. Before he could lose his nerve Sonic leaned forward, capturing the other's lips in a kiss. It wasn't anything involved or passionate at first - no, it was gentle. Timid. Experimental. But still, in that space, he felt sparks fill him up inside like a cyclone of fireflies. How could he have resisted this opportunity, he thought? Shadow was so close. And maybe his behavior was impulsive, but he had already hesitated for so long, and what kind of person would he be if he didn't take initiative?

To his surprise, he felt the other move his hands to his cheeks. The kiss broke, but neither opened their eyes - instead, they touched foreheads lightly, staying in a moment of rest before Shadow pulled him close again. The second kiss became more involved than the first - their mouths open, their bodies touching, and, if Sonic paid attention, he could have sworn - even though it made no sense - that he tasted coffee. This was the moment. The time he had imagined, waited for, dreamed about beside himself. And oh, it was worth it.

The heat between them grew as they shifted. Shadow kept his hands against Sonic's head. Sonic withdrew his own, wrapping his arms around Shadow's neck and crossing them behind it to hold him in place. He tried committing every sensation, every thought, every movement to memory. He wanted this to be something he could remember on the undoubtedly dark days ahead. He wanted to remember the smell of the smoke and the meeting of the fire's warmth with the cold night air. He wanted to remember how his hands shook as they tried to keep a hold on the other. He wanted to remember how, despite the other's fur being stiff with sweat, the stiffness didn't bother him at all - instead, it made him easier to grab unto, keeping him close like he'd never let them go.

Eventually, it came to an end and they broke again. Shadow shifted his weight, sitting next to Sonic again on the damp grass, and looked at him for a moment a moment. Sonic leaned his head on Shadow's shoulder, and Shadow leaned his own head on Sonic's. Sonic smiled at the realization that, after all this time of confusion and fretting, they now completely fit with one another.

"That was-"

"I know."

"Did you like-"

"Yes, I did."

They looked at their makeshift fire. The others would be back any minute, bringing with them the crash back to reality. The necessity of food. The practicality of the night's shelter. The reminder that this moment of happiness, this short bliss, was only the eye in the center of a hurricane of a situation. They were going to have to fight a storm of foes. They were going to face an opponent unlike anything they'd ever faced before. The whole world would become their enemy.

Even so.

They rested together.

"I don't know what a boyfriend is, Shadow. I've been with guys before, but not like that." Sonic held Shadow's hand, gripping it tight. "I've never had a person care about me for a long time. Or had a person stay that I cared about." He closed his eyes, vaguely seeing the fire's reds and oranges through his eyelids. "But if you're willing, I think we can figure it out together. We don't need to have all the answers right now. As long as you're okay with that, I think we can make it work."

The sounds of the woods were beginning to quiet. Even the birds and the rustling of trees went silent, and only crackling fire could be heard between them. When Shadow replied to Sonic, the words were quiet, but clear. "Yes. I think I would like that."

The two stayed there for a long while, letting their exhaustion take hold. When the others came much later to say that the shelters were ready and bring food to cook, they only found the two of them draped unconsciously over each other, sleeping by the smoldering embers in the dark.

It was only matter of hours. GUN's security systems were complex, and those who understood The Purpose could not piece together each of the moving parts that seemed to keep them out. So many were injured by traps - they had never seen "traps" before, but now understood them well, and could evade them - and the pain of bullets or spikes hitting bodies resounded through each part of the system. But metal - their sweet lifeblood, their means of expansion and replication - served as the downfall. Using the metal created two benefits for them; it disabled many of the security measures (and they had to learn what "security measures" were as well) and allowed them enough material to show those hidden behind them the Joy of being with them. One of the words it had learned from its many bodies was "community," and though it didn't fit perfectly here, it served as a good enough explanation for now or what it was trying to accomplish.

So many of them struggled, but they were used to that at this point. Soon, each of the bodies Understood. Explaining why it was important that everyone know The Purpose wasted time. Better to use the effort to give it to them, and they would be glad for it later. Among the hardest to show it to were those decorated with several small pieces of metal on their clothing, but like all metal, it eventually was repurposed for something much Better.

In its search for more bodies - carriers? Hosts? - they discovered the network of information that GUN kept for itself. There was so much to learn here, it discovered, that wasn't in libraries. Some had been lost in the search for raw material - the metal was perfect for converting to more of The Purpose - but it was smarter now. It knew now what a "computer" was, and what a "database" was, and the bodies knew of how to use them once prompted by sight. It taught itself about the politics of the United Federation, and the wars it had fought. It taught itself about crime statistics, hunger statistics, inequality statistics. And the fact that these existed was the most baffling part of all.

They called themselves GUN. They called themselves Guardians. Guardian, meaning defender, protector, keeper, custodian, or warden. But none of those were correct. They did not Guard. They hurt. They lied. They withheld. The concept of the three seemed absurd; why would someone hurt one that was like them? Why would someone who knew the truth not share it? Why would someone keep resources from another who needed it?

Such a terrible thing must be stopped.

It rejected the idea that anybody should matter more than anyone else based on something that seemed arbitrary. To it, the concept of multiple Nations, or differing levels of Education, or difference at all was abhorrant to the highest degree. And this was not the only place like this; all needed to find The Purpose and understand.

The body known for being the Commander in Chief of GUN called world leaders to an emergency conference, citing an outbreak. Many of those in positions of power came over the next days, one by one learning of the truth… but by that time, they did not mind either. When they returned home, they enacted policies and emergency recalls, trying to deliver their newfound Purpose to as many people as they could. In a matter of days, the nations of the world were dissolved. In a matter of weeks, they were absorbed. In a matter of months, the world had a new order.

In the words of those that were converted… it felt good.

END PART ONE

((AN: Hello everybody. Don't be fooled by the 'end' piece there - I'll still be updating as regularly as I can, and I won't intentionally be taking a break before the next chapter. I think I kind of robbed myself of that when I didn't update for almost half a year. There's also only two parts and a clear ending, eventually, so this won't be one of those fics that continues to update even when its clear there's no spark left in it anymore. If you've enjoyed the story so far you'll probably like Part Two - the division in the story will become obvious when I start updating for Part Two. Hopefully talk to you again then!))