Protector
Boom!Shadow x GNReader
Ultimate masterlist
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Alarms were blaring hard and loud as the sound echoed around the entire facility. Bright red lights strobed the walls, seemingly adding to the stress you were feeling. Your movements were quick and precise, but you soon grew out of breath and unsteady on your feet.
"You have to keep moving, unless you want to get caught?" His snide comment sent shivers down your spine. With a growl, you picked up the pace, with the ebony hedgehog following closely behind you. This had all been an exercise, the grand training mission of training missions.
You had known Shadow for a few months now while living on Bygone Island, you were accustomed to people with his type of attitude and grew to accept him as a friend; though he'd never call you that. Shadow had one of those personalities that were hard to bond with initially, but once you broke the exterior you met the real hedgehog behind the mask.
You have always been intrigued by Shadow's fighting skills, begging him on multiple occasions for him to teach you a few moves. He had only agreed as a way to defend yourself whenever he wasn't around, but those small lessons grew into training for missions and using anything as a weapon. Fast-forward a few months and now you're sneaking into one of Eggman's hidden facilities located underground.
Shadow would offer a hint every now and again when prompted, but mostly when you had gone in a circle three times. He was pretty hands-off, letting you make the decisions to see if his teachings had stuck. You weren't doing too bad, a few mistakes along the way but overall you had successfully snuck in; that was until now.
You had walked into a room without checking if there was some kind of alarm set in place and now the whole facility is up in red lights and trumpeting sirens. You had sprinted down countless corridors which ultimately led you to a huge open room.
You were panting, leaning against your bent knees to try and catch your breath. Meanwhile, Shadow was standing beside you, arms crossed over and a grimace on your face "What's our exit strategy?"
You looked around with wide eyes, noting the lack of any other doors except the one you came through which had automatically sealed shut open entry, "Our what?" you nearly cried out. Shadow sighed, pinching the fur between his brows, "We're going to die in here if you don't figure something out, and fast." he barked out.
Maybe you weren't cut out for this yet, maybe it was too soon for you to be sneaking into secret bases with only a few months of training. You heard a deep cough beside you, turning to Shadow his eyes were cast to the ceiling but his head was nudging to his right. You followed his movements and caught the large computer system bound against the wall.
Your mouth formed an 'O' shape as you ran over, pressing random buttons hoping one of them would turn off this blasted screeching sound. Instead, another loud and obnoxious sound came through the speakers, "Ah Shadow the Hedgehog, hello old friend it's a pleasure to see you again."
Eggman.
"I wish I could say the same, doctor." Shadow huffed, arms still folded. Eggman cast his gaze to you, "(Y/N), what a surprise. I never thought I'd see you trying to steal from me, why if this were anyone else I would've been worried but knowing you're the one robbing me makes doing this a lot easier." he began to cackle, pushing a button on his end of the screen.
Badniks popped up through some holes in the floor, they began blasting at you both as you tried to dodge them. Shadow easily avoided them but didn't fight, this was your mission and you were going to get them out of here.
"Aren't you going to help me?" You screamed out, ducking behind the desk chair that was teaming with bullet holes. Shadow scoffed in response, "This isn't my mission, you can defend yourself." he could be so cruel when he wants to be.
You pouted but got to work, remembering your training you launched at the badniks. Using their bullets against them, you were able to take most of the bots down. With a few swift kicks and a whack from a chair, the room of badniks only consisted of scrap parts, you were beaming. Turning to Shadow with the bright smile present, in a blink and you'll miss it moment you caught the small smirk gracing his muzzle before it quickly disappeared.
"Huh," Eggman huffed, scratching his head, "I thought for sure they'd destroy you. No matter, take round two!" This time the bots that arose were bigger, much, much bigger. A small whine fell from your lips, the chair you were holding clenched in your hands. You cast a glance to Shadow, seeing him looking onwards, no sign of helping.
You groaned but got to work, charging ahead with the chair as your weapon raised high. You swung at the first bot, the chair rattling in your hands, this caused your entire body to vibrate. Shaking it off, you tried again but a metal arm swung your body against the wall. You felt all the air inside of you leave like a breeze.
You grunted but got to your knees, you couldn't give up you had already gotten so far. You ran for the bot again, fist raised in the air as Shadow had taught you. However, the bot delivered a swift punch to your gut which sent you flying into the computer console.
Shadow ran to you within a second, holding your back and lowering you to the ground. This time instead of his stone-cold frown his face was full of concern, "(Y/N)," he near enough whispered out, "Are you ok?"
You coughed a bit, "That one hurt, that one really hurt." you coughed some more. Shadow rubbed your back, brows furrowing, "That's enough, doctor. You've proved your point, your machines are strong. Now turn them off and let us leave."
"Or what?" Robotnik chortled, he was getting greedy, he liked the idea of seeing Shadow the Hedgehog beg. Shadow stood away from you, walking closer to the screen with a menacing glare that could kill," Or I break your toys."
It was a simple threat and one he wouldn't take so kindly on, but Eggman being the villain he was continued his attack. Bullets flew past the ebony hedgehog, he joined you on the ground and sat in silence.
"Are you mad? You look mad." you bent your head to look at him, truly look at him. His eyes were as red as the stripes on his quills, teeth bared enough to see the fangs. His fists were tensed against his side and his chest was rapidly moving with his aggravated breaths.
"I'm not mad." he seethed out through clenched teeth, yeah he really seemed so happy. You poked his cheek "Your face is all screwed up like you're mad." he slapped your hand away, "I'm not mad." He leapt up from his spot, his jet shoes firing on as he essentially rugby tackled one of the bots to the ground.
With a raised fist held in the air, he delivered a powerful blow to the bot's chest pulling out all sorts of wiring. He jumped from one bot to the next, but when the rain of bullets continued he returned back to your side until they made an error and he could strike.
"You still look mad," you spoke after a few moments of silence. His head snapped to you, making your head recline into your neck just a tad, "I'm not mad!" He growled out, your cheeks blushing at how close he was suddenly getting towards you. What stopped him from being right on top of you was the whizzing of a bullet that lodged itself between you two.
You both followed the direction from whence it came and caught the red mechanical eyes of the bot, Shadow growled continuing his sentence, "But I will be soon." He darted out of your safe spot again, completely demolishing the rest of the bots in a great display of violence.
Eggman's voice rang out from the screen, "S-shadow, now, now, there's no need to be so brash. I-i'm sorry, I thought you were some other annoying hedgehog that lives on this island. It's an honest mistake, you have to believe me."
"Er, boss? He looks prettyyy angryyy," Cubot sang out, "I agree, maybe it's best we end the call and go hide?" Orbot continued. Eggman growled under his breath, he hated losing; ironic as he lost all the time. Shadow refused to listen until he let you both go, so he continued bashing the bots until they couldn't be repaired.
"Fine, fine, you get what you want!" Eggman finally cracked, "I'll open the doors, you're free to go just please stop breaking my robots, do you know how much those things co-"
The screen went black, the carkcus of a massive robot laid upon a shattered screen. Shadow offered his hand out to you, which you gladly took. He tugged on your arm, yanking you into him on accident. One of your hands held his shoulder while the other was on the tuffs of his white chest fur, you couldn't help but note how soft it felt under your fingers.
Pulling away you quickly thanked him and promptly avoided eye contact. Shadow looked over you checking for injuries, he inspected your back with concern, "Are you sure you're alright?"
"Yes, yes, I'm fine. If anything my pride took the most damage." you really wanted to prove yourself but yet again Shadow had to step in to save you. He kept a grip on your hand and led you to the exit, "You did good today." he suddenly spoke. That caught your attention.
"Good? But not only did I get caught, I got injured too AND I trapped us in a room with one exit and killer robots; how is that good?"
"It isn't about succeeding at everything for the first time, you take the small victories," he smirked. You stared up at him, utterly lost, "Small victories?"
"Yes," he hummed, "For starters, you were able to get into the base without being spotted or setting off any alarms. You were able to think on your feet and lead us through the facility without a map or previous experience. And you fought a small wave of Eggman's robots by yourself."
"Huh," you shrugged, awestruck, "I guess I did do all those things."
"Hmm, and with a little more training soon you'll be able to take down those who did you wrong." you were now stood outside the facility, you'd been in there for so long you'd almost forgotten what fresh air felt like. You felt Shadow's arm wrap around your waist, almost startling you. He looked down towards you with beady eyes, "Ready?" he asked to which you nodded in reply.
He teleported back to your house in the woods, it wasn't far from the village but at a good distance where no one had found it yet. You looked around to see you were in your living room, then it hit you.
"Wait a minute," you were still latched to Shadow, "You could have teleported us out of there at any moment, why didn't you?"
He looked away from your eyes for just a moment, collecting his thoughts before looking back down to your face; god you were so close.
"I wanted to see what you could do, see how much you had learned in your training. But once that bot had- had hit you, I grew revengeful. How dare that piece of junk hurt you, I couldn't allow for it to live."
"You fought that bot...for me? To protect me?" at the time you felt useless, who gets knocked out on the second round? You thought Shadow would have seen you as a waste of time, but low and behold he was just worried about you. Wait a minute, Shadow the Hedgehog was worried about you?
"Y-you remind me of someone very important, I...I have already lost them and I couldn't lose you, I can't live through that pain again. I know with time you'll be able to protect yourself, but right now...I can't help but feel- feel like you need protecting." he was allowing himself to be vulnerable in this very moment, a moment he shared with you.
"Thank you," you whispered, your breath fanning across his face. You apprehensively placed a hand against his cheeks, blushing as he leant into the embrace. You didn't even feel his lips on your, but you did feel the sparks that flooded your brain. Maybe it wasn't such a bad thing that Shadow was the one protecting you after all.
