A/N: OK, so I have this headcanon that whenever Sonic and co. aren't taking on Dr. Robotnik (or Dr. Eggman, if you will), they're taking on the Roseinian Empire, which is what I imagine to be the Sonic world's equivalent of the Soviet Union. This story is just one such tale of that.
A G.U.N. C-130 cargo plane flew high above Mobian airspace, and Shadow the Hedgehog and Amy Rose steeled their nerves for the mission that they were about to undertake. Officially, Shadow had retired from G.U.N., but he gladly took freelance missions from them, and being that they allowed him to bring someone along to help, he convinced Amy to help him out. Their current mission was thus: the Roseinian Empire had constructed a nuclear missile silo in Diamond Dust Zone, well-known for being a point of contention between the Roseinian Empire and the Kingdom of Mobius. Because the silo was located on the Mobian side of the border, it had to be destroyed. Initial reconnaissance showed that it was well-defended against regular military forces, but a smaller force of one or two agents stood a better chance. Shadow looked over Amy, who was dressed in a long-sleeve pink winter dress with white trim, white gloves with white/pink bracelets, black leggings, and pink winter boots with white/pink cuffs and white-trimmed zippers.
"I still don't get why you had to pick that outfit for this mission," said Shadow.
Amy giggled. "Hey, a girl's gotta look cute when she's going out on a mission!"
Shadow – who wore a G-1 bomber jacket over his usual outfit – crossed his arms. "Personally, I think this jacket suits the mission better, but I respect your choice, even if I think it's silly."
Amy put a hand on Shadow's shoulder. "I may not care if you think I'm silly, but I'm glad you respect me!"
Shadow nodded. Deep down inside, he actually liked how Amy made the effort to look so cute no matter the weather. That aside, he didn't really need a jacket to protect against cold weather; he just put this one on because he liked the "bad boy" image that leather jackets gave him.
"All right, Shadow and Amy, ETA to drop zone is one minute," said the C-130 pilot over the plane's intercom.
"You two ready?"
Rouge the Bat – who was sitting beside them wearing a black pea coat over her usual bodysuit ensemble – would be serving as their liaison for the mission.
"I'm ready," said Shadow.
Amy gave a thumbs-up. "Ready!"
"Grand!" said Rouge. "Make us proud!"
"Right!"
Shadow and Amy grabbed the gear they'd need for this mission. The rear ramp to the C-130 opened, and Shadow and Amy jumped out of the plane. Though not immortal like Shadow, Amy was nevertheless hardy enough that she could fall from a great height without a parachute and still survive. Besides, considering that the area around the silo was defended by anti-aircraft artillery and SAM launchers, the quicker both hedgehogs got in, the better. Shadow and Amy ended up hitting the ground feet-first, landing in somewhat deep snow. Immediately, Shadow called Rouge over his watch communicator:
"This is Shadow. Amy and I are on the ground."
"Good. Find your way into the silo. There should be an elevator connecting the silo to the surface."
"Roger that. Shadow out."
Shadow drew his M16A1 assault rifle in case any Roseinian soldiers got wind of their intrusion. However, he couldn't sense any of them coming for him or Amy, so he motioned to her to come along, and they snuck around, trying to find a way into the silo. The surface was peppered with armored vehicles such as T-59 heavy tanks*, T-72 main battle tanks, ZSU-23 self-propelled AA guns and SA-8 mobile SAM launchers, in addition to sandbag walls with DShK and NSV .50-cal machine guns. As much as Shadow would've liked to lay waste to all this equipment, doing so would likely prompt the Roseinians to lock the silo down, and him and Amy would lose a good shot at destroying it.
At one point, both Shadow's and Amy's Hedgehog Senses tingled, so they ducked behind a UAZ-469. A Roseinian soldier wielding an AK-74 passed by on patrol, dressed in the usual shinel longcoat and ushanka that Roseinian troops wore for cold weather conditions. Fortunately, the soldier didn't spot either hedgehog, so once he had passed, Shadow and Amy continued on. Soon enough, Shadow spotted a small concrete structure with the marking "ЛИФТ" above a sliding door, no doubt an elevator. Unfortunately for both hedgehogs, there were two guards stationed out front. Knowing that letting loose with gunfire would cause a lockdown, Shadow instead slung his M16, drew an M7 bayonet and raised his free hand.
"Chaos Control!"
With time slowed down, Shadow slit both guards' throats in one quick motion. After hiding the bodies, and after a quick lookaround, he beckoned Amy over. With her Heckler & Koch G3A4 battle rifle ready, she hurried over to him, and they entered the elevator.
"So far, so good…so what," said Shadow.
The elevator came down to the main silo floor, just as a soldier with an AKM was walking by. As the elevator door opened, he readied his rifle, only to see…nothing?
"Vas…?" said the soldier.
He calmly approached the elevator and looked around inside it. There was no evidence that the elevator had been tampered with, so he figured that it must be an error. He figured wrong, however, for after he turned around, Shadow jumped out of the elevator and tackled the man to the ground. Shadow then administered a sharp blow to the back of the man's neck with the butt of his M16, breaking the guy's neck. Once that soldier was wasted, Amy hopped down while Shadow put the body in the elevator and hit the button marked "ЭКСТРЕННАЯ ХАЛТ", thereby stopping anybody from discovering the dead soldier. Now in, Shadow called Rouge again:
"Rouge, Amy and I have entered the silo."
"Good. Make your way to the fuel room and plant some explosives. Rouge out."
With that, Shadow and Amy proceeded quickly yet carefully throughout the silo's drab concrete corridors. Thus far, things were looking all right, but at one intersection, they had to pause because their Hedgehog Senses alerted them to a soldier coming from one direction. Fortunately, the soldier went a different way, and once they were sure that the soldier was far enough away, they continued on. While not extremely fluent in Roseinian, Shadow knew to look out for markings on the walls saying "ТОПЛИВНАЯ РАУМ" or any sort of directory that would otherwise point them that way. At one point, Shadow and Amy had to be careful because of an open door to some sort of cafeteria/break room, and they could sense at least a couple of soldiers in there, so Shadow looked over to make sure they weren't looking in their direction, and in the process, caught a bit of two soldiers' conversation:
"Hey Misha, die gezein vchera fusbol match?"
"Nai, no ek gekhurt ob etom po radio. Zie zagt chto eto var adskiy match."
"Eto var! Ek sas gants vremya sidel yuf min siden'ya!"
This time, Shadow understood just enough to know that Misha and the other soldier were talking about a soccer game, which held little interest for him because he liked basketball better. Satisfied that neither of them were looking in his direction, Shadow motioned to Amy and continued onwards. Things were still going quite well, but as they approached one corner, their Hedgehog Senses tingled again, and with a quick peek, Shadow saw a soldier coming their direction. He tried to double back, but his Hedgehog Sense told him that at least one other soldier was coming from that direction, so there was only one choice for Shadow: with his M16 at the ready, he swung out around the corner.
"HALT!"
The soldier attempted to ready his AKMS, but Shadow fired a brief burst and ventilated him. This drew the attention of two other soldiers:
"Vas var eto!?"
"Davayte uberprufen eto!"
Shadow doubled back, and Amy readied her G3 as well. The three soldiers coming from behind them attempted to get a bead on them, but Shadow and Amy were quicker on the draw. However, their gunfire hadn't gone unnoticed elsewhere in the base, as evidenced by the flashing red lights and klaxons that went off. Knowing that standing around wasn't the way to go, Shadow and Amy hurried onwards to the fuel room. Along the way, Shadow got a call from Rouge:
"Shaddy, what the hell's going on!? This was supposed to be a stealth mission!"
"Look, we just did what we had to! It wasn't my fault that those guards were closing in on us!"
"Just get to the fuel room and plant those bombs! Oh, and while you're at it, be a good little Shaddy baby and get to the control room in case the Roseinians are planning to launch a missile, hm?"
"Understood. Shadow out."
Shadow and Amy hurried to find the fuel room. Along the way, scores of Roseinian soldiers came after them, filling the corridors with the distinct chattering of AKs as well as the buzzing of PPSh-41 submachine guns. However, the soldiers had evidently all gone to the Imperial Marksmanship Academy, because their shots were missing by the proverbial country mile. Shadow blocked the rare shots that did hit, which deformed upon hitting him and dropped to the ground harmlessly. Despite the Roseinians' tenacity, Shadow and Amy were thus far proving to be superior, mowing their foes down as if they were blades of grass. Sure, the Roseinians were wearing 6B2 ballistic vests, but these were meant for 7.62mm Tokarev pistol rounds, not 5.56mm or 7.62mm NATO rifle rounds. With every burst from their rifles, Shadow and Amy were getting ever closer to the fuel room. However, this didn't stop the Roseinians, who continued to try to ventilate them even though it would prove to be in vain. Finally, after mowing down what seemed like a whole regiment of soldiers, Shadow and Amy finally made it to the fuel room.
"Amy, plant a couple of charges!" said Shadow. "I'll cover you!"
"Right!"
Amy slung her G3 and planted a couple of C-4 charges in critical spots where they were the most likely to do damage. During this time, one soldier cracked the door open and threw in an RGD-5 hand grenade, but in a streak of black and crimson, Shadow caught it, opened the door and threw it back, thereby blowing any soldiers outside the door to pieces.
"Those fools!" said Shadow. "They could've blown us all to Hell!"
Amy readied her G3 and rejoined Shadow. Their next objective was the missile control room, which would be marked "КОМНАТА РАУМ" in Roseinian. The journey to this room was more difficult because by now, whoever was in charge of the silo was sending attack teams after them, these guys not only being armed with RPD and RPK light machine guns, but also wearing 6B3 vests that were capable of stopping 7.62x39mm rounds. Knowing that his M16 was largely incapable of penetrating these vests, Shadow instead made an effort to aim for the soldiers' heads. Another problem was that considering the attack teams had greater capability of sustained fire, he had to work extra-hard to make sure that Amy didn't get hit in the unlikely occasion that these guys actually managed to hit one of them.
Fortunately, both hedgehogs remained unhurt thus far, though Shadow would occasionally use a Chaos Spear if he felt that the soldiers became too numerous in their numbers. Seeing the impressive power of the Chaos Spears, various soldiers dropped their weapons and attempted to flee, but even so, Shadow shot them in the back. As much as Amy liked Shadow, she couldn't understand his need to obliterate foes who were retreating. Nevertheless, she said nothing about it because she figured that he had a good reason for doing so. In what seemed like little time at all, Shadow and Amy were approaching the control room.
"Rouge, this is Shadow. We're almost at the control room."
"Good. Use that code card I gave you to unlock the door, and once you get inside, use it to scramble the launch system. Rouge out."
Upon arriving at the control room, Shadow used the code card, which was the same size and shape as a credit card, to unlock the door to the control room. Much to his surprise, there were no civilian employees here, so he deduced that any civilians working in the silo had been evacuated once crap had hit the fan. There were, however, some soldiers awaiting him and Amy, so they ventilated these guys, and Shadow re-locked the door before looking over the various control consoles. Amy kept her G3 ready during this time. Finally, Shadow's Hedgehog Sense pointed him to a console with a card reader that was just the right size for the code card, so after a brief look at the console – which despite not understanding all of the readouts, he could understand that a missile was being prepped for launch – he inserted the card and readied his M16. Despite the fact that the door leading into the control room was locked, there was a large strip of bulletproof glass next to the door, and a bunch of soldiers and an officer with a Vz. 61 Škorpion lined up in front of it.
"Strelyen po steklu!" shouted the officer.
Without hesitation, the soldiers laid down some serious sustained fire with their RPDs and RPKs, hoping to shoot out the window. Even the officer let loose with his Škorpion despite not having as many bullets per magazine or even as much firepower. Shadow, however, was not one to stand idly by while a bunch of enemy soldiers attempted to force their way in…
"Closing time, Amy! Stand back!"
"Get me a medium soft-serve vanilla!"
Amy got as far back as she could from Shadow, while he ran over to the window. By now, it had sustained enough damage that the soldiers were finishing it off by smacking it with the butts of their guns.
"CHAOS BLAST!"
The resulting blast not only terminated the soldiers and their commanding officer in addition to taking out the nearby wall and door, but very nearly took out Amy and the console with the code card. Fortunately, both survived, and once the launch system was all scrambled, Shadow grabbed the card and headed off with Amy.
"Where are we going now?" asked Amy.
"As far as I'm concerned, our job's not done until we plant some explosives on one of the missiles."
"OK, but I feel like we're going to have the whole Roseinian Army after us if we stay too long!"
"Then let them come after us! Not only have I faced worse, but I've got more than enough bullets for them!"
Though unsure of why Shadow enjoyed so much wanton violence, Amy nevertheless agreed to go along with his trip to the place where the missile was kept. On their way, they mowed down an ever-persistent number of Roseinian soldiers. Shadow wondered how the Roseinian Army could afford to have such a large number of heavily-armed and armored soldiers, but otherwise concentrated on the mission. Soon enough, they reached the launch bay where one of the missiles was kept, and Shadow locked the door with the code card.
"All right, Amy, let's plant that charge and get out of here."
"Don't worry, Shadow, I'll cover you!"
"Well…if you must insist…"
Shadow readied a charge, while Amy stood guard. Hanging off the railing on the catwalk, he planted the charge, not even being interrupted when some enemy soldiers blew the door open.
"Shut the door, Amy; there's a draft!"
Shadow's Hedgehog Sense tingled. He looked over, only to notice that an officer with a Makarov pistol had somehow succeeded in holding Amy hostage. Three other soldiers stood nearby, pointing their RPDs and RPK at Shadow.
"Black and red hedgehog, surrender!" said the officer. "Throw down your weapon and come back onto the catwalk with your hands up!"
"Don't worry about me, Shadow!" said Amy. "Just get out of here!"
"You have ten seconds!"
Without question, Shadow threw his M16 onto the catwalk and hopped back over, putting his hands up. Amy winced, fearing that all was lost. However, her Hedgehog Sense told her that not all was as it seemed…
"CHAOS SPEAR!"
Shadow shocked the officer with a Chaos Spear. Frustrated by seeing their commanding officer dead, the soldiers opened fire on him. Fortunately for him, they had completely ignored Amy, who grabbed her G3 and blew them away.
"Come on, Shadow, let's get out of here!"
"Coming!"
Grabbing his M16, Shadow hightailed it out of the silo with Amy. In spite of the high body count, the soldiers absolutely refused to surrender, and reinforcements even came in from the surface. During their escape, Rouge called Shadow again:
"Shaddy, are you almost done?"
"We're almost there."
"Good. The Crown Armed Forces and G.U.N. got the order to mop up on the surface, so you two shouldn't encounter much resistance up there. Rouge out."
Shadow and Amy continued carving their own little path of death and destruction on their way out of the silo. Though having only been through once, Shadow had a good idea of how to get back to the elevator they came through. They opened the door, and Shadow prepared to deactivate the emergency stop, but unfortunately, somebody had destroyed the control panel.
"Damn it!" Shadow pounded a fist on the wall.
"What do we do now?" said Amy.
"There's only one possibility that sounds good to me right now: we climb up the shaft."
Amy raised an eyebrow. "Are you sure that's a good idea?"
"Well, how long did you set the timers on those bombs for?"
"Four minutes."
"I'm not even going to ask how much time has passed. Let's go."
Shadow and Amy slung their rifles, and they hopped through the hatch in the roof of the elevator, after which they climbed up the elevator cable as quickly as they could, occasionally using whatever protruding objects in the shaft that they could in order to get up more quickly. While Amy still had a few qualms about this plan, she nevertheless had faith in Shadow and believed that if she just tried hard enough, then she'd get through this all right. A few climbs and jumps later, they managed to reach the door to the surface, and Shadow was just about to pry it open when the C-4 explosives went off. Knowing that speed was of the essence, he pried it open as quickly as he could and grabbed Amy's hand, just managing to drag her out of there before the blast obliterated both of them. Panting, Amy looked over at the elevator shaft, considering herself luckier than ever.
"I don't know how to thank you!" said Amy.
Shadow wrapped his arms around Amy and smiled. "I do."
Shadow kissed Amy. While somewhat surprised by this gesture, it was an entirely welcome one for Amy, who eagerly returned the embrace. That was one of the things she loved about Shadow: even if he did seem like a cold, indifferent person, deep down inside, he was a kind, loving soul who would go out of his way to protect the people he truly cared about. That, and his red stripes and red eyes lit her fire just like The Doors. The fact that he had soft, fluffy chest fur helped too. Most of all, he had trusted her to accompany him on a dangerous mission like this, and if there was anything that really mattered to her, it was trust. All of this helped her feel extra-toasty in the bitter cold of Diamond Dust Zone.
Shadow got his own sense of warmth from laying his affections on Amy, too. The fact that she was so soft, warm and cuddly was in itself enough to warm his heart, but her bright pink quills gave him a sense of happiness, mainly because he felt that it suited her personality. He recalled their first meeting, when she glomped him thinking that he was Sonic. While initially unsure of what to think of her back then, as he learned more about her, and as he put demons such as Black Doom and Mephiles the Dark behind him, he not only trusted her more, but he actually liked her more. Having her in his arms at this moment did immeasurable wonders for his happiness, especially considering that he saved her from certain doom. In this moment, neither of them cared if they were seen by the members of the Crown Armed Forces of Mobius or G.U.N. who had come in to mop up on the surface, let alone…
"Awww, look at the two hedgies being in love! This is so adorable!"
Shadow and Amy broke away from the kiss, only to see Rouge standing near them, clasping her hands together next to her head as she smiled.
"Rouge, you're lucky I like you," said Shadow.
Rouge wagged her index finger at Shadow. "Now now, there's no need to be so edgy, Shaddy! I was only giving you a compliment!"
"Rouge's right," said Amy. "There's no need to be embarrassed by public displays of affection!"
"That aside, let's all go home. I have a craving for apple strudel."
Rouge frowned and put her fists on her hips. "Even before that, why don't we talk about why you two shot up the whole place?"
Shadow crossed his arms. "What is there to talk about? The mission's complete, isn't it?"
"As crazy as this sounds, Shadow's right," said Amy. "Besides, he saved my life!"
Rouge looked over at Amy's smiling face. As dissatisfied as she was with the fact that Shadow and Amy engaged in numerous shootouts, Rouge just couldn't help but be proud of "her little Shaddy baby" for protecting someone he genuinely cared about.
"Ah, who am I kidding?" Rouge smiled. "Sometimes, you can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs! Now let's go home; I'm gonna bake the best apple strudel ever!"
With that, Shadow, Amy and Rouge walked over to a waiting UH-60 Blackhawk. Defending the free world was good enough for Shadow, but doing it with somebody he cared for made it that much more worth it.
*-I forgot to mention earlier: the T-59 is what would be known in the real world as "Object 279", which never actually went into full-scale production.
Criticism is gold. Negativity and nitpicking are pyrite.
