His mind was a blur.

All the murmurs and talk that his friends spoke of were drowned out by the endless noise within his head. Barely any words from the outside made sense to him, and Fox's talk only made his mind spin ever more. Sometimes it felt like he couldn't breath and his legs failed him on a few occasions which made Sonic and Tails have to drag him across the floor. The hallway that appeared dim was practically pitch black to him except for things that were near a foot away from him. Terrible memories and feelings swelled around him, the creature that made him dream was more like a flashback to what was once real. The city aflame, the monsters of flame killing all that it sees, and even the attempts on Sonic's life that he once made. He could hardly recall those times, those memories alone were barely recognizable, and those flashes that the beast conjured up while Silver slept made them more prominent within his mind. Silver treated these visions as a disease, rounding them all up in a corner in some attempt to purge them from his mind; but yet they still persisted and blackened each part of his well being.

Briefly, he wondered, if Tails too had an image of this mirage but was keeping silent of such memories in fear that it would make the situation worse. Whatever it was, Silver was fine keeping it between the two of them, never needing to mention what transpired in their dreams ever. There was doubt that he could handle reliving those terrible memories (or lies), let alone speak them to his companions.

"You must journey the rest of the way without me." Half lidded eyes opened to look towards the direction that the voice came from. It was Fox's voice, they stood just in front of Silver enough that he could see them.

"Thanks for leading us back, and for babysitting Knux." Sonic smiled as Knuckles whipped his head around to stare at Sonic.

"What was that-?" Knuckles started before he was cut off by Fox.

"It is no problem, I hope you are able to find what you need in your future adventures." They began to walk past the group and towards the center of the sanctuary but stopped just a couple of meters away to continue speaking as the group began to continue. "I would make haste, for I sense more disturbances in the realm."

The group turned wide eyed at the other, Sonic and Tails merely turning their heads whilst Knuckles did an entire 180. "More disturbances-?" Tails questioned. Yet when the words came out of his mouth they soon trailed away as he found Fox had disappeared. All sorts of questions began to ring about the trio's mind, some wondering if they had just saw a hallucination conjured up from the area itself or Fox actually knew how to teleport like Silver. Both possibilities were probable in that Silver's abilities were likely not limited to merely himself and that the place they stood in gave them a feeling of ill (not to mention an actual dragon just appeared out of thin air). Still, they all gawked at the lack of presence there, and it unsettled them all greatly. Sonic was quick to put the theories aside to heft Silver up and usher everyone else to keep walking. It seemed that it felt like they were all being watched at this very moment, as if billions of eyes were upon them and the room itself were made of them. Just briefly one might have seen Knuckles checking the floor to check if the floor was not made of eyes because of how disturbing the feeling was.

"I don't know about you guys, but I'm ready to get out of here." They made their way to the end of the tunnel and came across a rather small doorway made of complete iron. The doors were extremely intricate, vines and roses littered the black slab. Knuckles was the one to push it open with little help and it easily was pried open as small flakes of rust fell to the ground. They arrived to a place within the crags of the rocks where the city was laid upon. There was a small road leading to nowhere wide enough that it didn't feel crowded as the four of them stood there. It seemed that no one had found the door to the inside of the city as there were no guards placed in front of the door. Looking up there was a darkness spreading over the sky and a chilled wind blowing gently across the land kicking up loose snow that had managed to get upon the city. To the side they could see the sun beginning to peek out from the side of the Earth making that area burst into colors. Everyone breathed in the night's air and exhaled the stress that built up within their bodies and it seemed that again that things were getting better.

Sonic and Tails set Silver down against the rock and the hedgehog whilst Knuckles walked over to sit at the edge of the path allowing his feet to dangle dangerously above the ground. Sonic soon joined him and so too Tails as he made sure Silver was fine (he had enough strength to wave the fox away from him as he laid his head against the rocks mulling over the dream).

"You think we're missed?" Knuckles inquired after pausing to take in the scenery. Those words spoken should have been 'were we missed' since their present had already happened. They knew that the past had already happened and yet they kept their mouths shut and pretended that it wasn't true. The thought alone was depression, to venture further within those thoughts became even more upsetting.

There was a chuckle from Sonic as he placed his hands behind his head and laid his back on the pathway. "Amy is probably having a heart attack," he sighed as his eyes slowly closed. The idea of Amy looking endlessly for Sonic would have been funny but in this instance it seemed too dark to laugh at. Briefly he wondered how others were coping with the lack of presence of the trio and Eggman; part of him figured they were glad that Eggman had disappeared from the world, another figured they were in panic that Tails, Knuckles, and Sonic had disappeared without a trace. It felt so wrong.

Silver just sat there, overhearing everything, wanting to say that the past had already transpired and that they probably thought the three of them were dead or worse. Words couldn't form in his mouth though and the dream kept repeating itself in his head and he was left to gently slide to the ground and curl up waiting for sleep to take him. It was probably for the best that he couldn't say anything in retrospect since telling them all this would, no doubt, make them all incredibly upset. The hedgehog hated that he brought these three to this era and fear overcame him as he tried to figure out how to send them all home without messing with his home even further. The only way was to wipe their memories and possibly never return, but he didn't want that, he didn't want to be forgotten.

"I can't wait to go back home," Tails said softly.

"Me too."

They descended back into a slumber.

"We got your bread from the market," the pangolin looked up from his book and cocked his head. Shadow felt stupid saying that, and felt even more stupid when the pangolin inquired what type of bread it was. "Sweet bread," he replied swiftly. Amy stood next to him, looking all around her. The pangolin studied the both of them for some time until he got up from his seat and closed the book he was reading.

"I wasn't expecting someone like you," he spoke as if he were the richest man in the world as he put the book away in its respective shelf. "Maybe someone from G.U.N," he paused momentarily as if pondering what he spoke. "Though, you do look like someone who could be apart of their ranks." The pangolin looked back towards Shadow and Amy who stood patiently (perhaps Shadow a little less patient looking than Amy). "Now what national treasure are you here for?"

"That emerald you stole, the silver one-"

"You must be more specific than that, we gather many of these emeralds daily and the lot get so mixed up."

He held back a growl as his fur bristled just slightly. "You know exactly about what I'm talking about," he placed the fake emerald on the table for the other to see. The pangolin looked down at the fake emerald for some time, then looked back up to Shadow who stood there looking absolutely peeved. "Where is it?"

The more Shadow and Amy stood in this guy's presence the more annoyed the both of them were getting, with feelings mutual it was if the both of them were silently planning a mission to just infiltrate their guild and just steal the damn thing back. "I am afraid you were already outbid." Shadow nearly burst into rage while Amy withheld her tongue by nearly biting it off "We hold a rather respectful guild; you see, we steal the goods and give that to who bids the most. In this case, the bidder was a man with some great power."

"Doubtful," Shadow said doleful. "I assume its against your policy to give out names." He crossed his arms ready to get a grocery list of things that he had to do in order to get one stupid name (on the other hand he was still silently plotting with Amy to just skip the grocery list and just beat the information out of him).

"No." Shadow and Amy nearly fell over when he said that.

"Wait," Amy held up both her hands. "So you sell this stuff to other people and use their names for blackmail!?" The pangolin nodded, they seriously lucked out.

"Lucky for you, our client hasn't been on the best of terms with us, so you are doing me a grand favor." The pangolin gave a cheery grin, "Though there are certain regulations I wish for you to follow." Regulations, Shadow thought. He went through his mental list of what regulations could possibly come from this Pangolin. One was rather short, which he prefered, and the other was rather long and tiresome. The notion of such reminded him of the billions of laws and rules that he was bound to when going on whatever G.U.N mission they sent him on, and although it wouldn't be that difficult, at least to him, he didn't want to think that he was helping some dirty creep out. Still, at least he could bend them.

"What do you want?" came a growl fiercer than he expected.

The pangolin chuckled in turn, "Simple." He began to walk back towards the table, his claws sliding across the metal rather gently. "Scare our client, maybe wreck some of his A.I.s while you're at it. The more the better, perhaps if you scare him well enough we might owe you a debt." He paused before the words debt broke through from his mouth. "Of course taking that emerald back would be enough, and since you're not tied to our little organization I'm sure that enough would suffice." The pangolin shrugged as if he had been through this all before and had been reiterating lines that had been spoken thousands of times before.

Amy just barely touched Shadow's arm, "Shadow?" The black hedgehog looked at her and once she had his attention she glanced barely at the red pangolin as she gently turned away from him. "You can't possibly think about doing this?" came a whisper under her breath.

"Its not like I haven't done it before."

"Still, this isn't exactly our home."

Ah, this. Before Shadow had thought of that for a time, and she wasn't wrong either. This place wasn't exactly the place they knew before, the culture different, the buildings, even the language was somewhat changed from those years. To them, this place was like another world, even if this world was still their own. "It'll be fine," he replied.

"But what about Silver?"

"Don't worry." He turned away from her and back to the pangolin. "Where is your client?"

A devious grin appeared on his mouth just as Shadow spoke those words. "Names aside, he's in that large mansion on that hill I'm sure you've seen." There was growing frown growing on Shadow's face at the lack of details of the infiltration. The pangolin seemed to notice but paid no mind to it, instead he went on, "Just be sure to get the job done by this week." He turned around, the conversation obviously over and Shadow too turned. Amy was about to open her mouth to say something but was ushered out by Shadow before she began to talk. "Another thing," he nearly shouted as they left. "We never had this conversation."

They made their way out rather quickly and as soon as the door shut from the building Amy then began to complain. "What was that all about? That guy sounds so shady!"

Shadow was glad that he wasn't the only one that seemed to notice how he acted. It felt like he wanted them to go there, the whole conversation seemed rather unnatural. The lack of details, questions from the other, and even the way he acted seemed so strange. "There's something more behind this," Shadow crossed his arms and began to ponder for a second. "I'll go alone, we need to make sure that chaos emerald is actually there."

Amy opened her mouth to say something before she shut it and looked away down the road. "Be careful," there was a long pause before she spoke again. "Should we meet at the park we passed by while getting here?" He nodded slowly as his head turned to look towards the mansion atop of the hill that the pangolin spoke of.

"I'll be back by tomorrow morning," and with that he sped away towards the hill. Amy was going to say something before he sped off however the words would have fell on deaf ears anyhow. A raised hand was made as if she was going to shout stop but stopped midway and returned to her side. She bit her lip as her ears drooped and sighed gently then began to make her way towards the park as her stomach rumbled, silently she cursed herself for not eating something before she left to find Sonic (and she cursed herself even more for not bringing a snack at least). Her eyes went this way and that, the money on her being useless as it was so far into the future and in a different country entirely that it would be useless, did they even use bills in this era? It was then that she took her time to observe her surroundings more closely rather than trying to find a single red pangolin.

The architecture was much different than Shamar from the past. The buildings had the illusion that they were the same yet upon a closer look it appeared that they did integrate some of the new technology within itself such as solar panels and doors that opened up by themselves. The newer buildings were made completely of white metal and contained blue streaks running all across them, as if they were energy; however there was few of them and they spotted the place rather lightly. Sometimes she saw a floating piece of metal next to the building shifting back and forth or up and down repeatedly. The buildings were rather small, however, never going past a handful of floors and she figured she was in one of the smaller cities in the future rather one of the grand ones like Empire City or someplace else. The sky having turned dark was still illuminated by the city below and it made navigating through the streets easier.

Her mind wandered everywhere as she entered the park dimly lit by the lanterns placed almost haphazardly about the road. She spotted a bench and placed herself upon it and gave a yawn. She could play the waiting game, or she could take a much needed nap.

Emerald eyes turned upward to the sky as she tried to spot some stars or the eternal half moon. Once she found that her place in reality was returned and she didn't feel at all too lost, just severely homesick and hungry. A nap would be preferable she mused as she closed her eyes about to drift off to dream. Anxiety dripped into her mind like oil on water and she soon found it rather difficult to fall asleep yet it didn't stop her from keeping her eyes closed at at least allowing her to give a moment of repose. It wasn't until she heard a large explosion in the distance that her ears popped up and her body became rigid as her eyes flew open.

Her head spun as she got up finding just a barely visible trail of smoke rising from where the mansion was. She began to walk towards the noise as the public began walking out of their doors, turning on their lights, or opening up their windows to find just what it was that made that ear splitting sound. Voices began to pile up upon one another and it was only a few seconds pass before Amy began to run towards the building that Shadow travelled to. She could see everyone's panicked expression and felt terribly bad for having to put them through this mess yet worry overcame her and she wondered if Shadow would be alright.

As if on queue Shadow appeared in front of her in a bright flash of light almost blinding her for a second. She blinked a few times and before she could comprehend what was happening around her someone grabbed her wrist and there was another flash. The first thing that came to Amy's head head was to empty the already empty contents of her stomach. She gagged immediately and her mouth produced stomach bile that splattered on the sand that she was thrown upon. Knees hit the sand and began to clutch her chest thinking that her heart was about to fall straight out of her ribcage. It felt like someone scooped out her innards and plopped them back in the matter of seconds and everything about her felt so wrong.

"Sorry," she heard as she swallowed acidic saliva and whatever bile that caught her throat. Emerald eyes glanced at a now crouching Shadow beside her, his red eyes glanced up and down as if making sure she was in good health, or rather, to make sure there wasn't any extra limbs sticking out of her.

"What happened?" her voice rasped.

"G.U.N." Just saying those words left a bitter taste in his mouth. Part of Shadow didn't want to admit that it made sense as to why G.U.N was pursuing him, yet how did they come to be aware of his presence if he was absent for so many years? Unless their network grew ten fold and they were made aware of his presence as soon as he set foot into town or there was a duplicate of him was running around then it didn't make sense. The former reason seemed to be more reasonable than the latter, yet the idea of it wasn't so absurd. Still, if G.U.N was chasing him down that meant that he had to keep low. He brought the silver chaos emerald into view, "They 'left' me this."

"I thought they were on our side!" Amy was beginning to become more panicked as this news slowly clicked in her head.

"They were," he got up from his crouched position and looked around. They were on top of a sand dune and from afar he could see the city. Helicopters were flying overhead with search lights and he could see fighter jets flying in from the east.

"But why would they want you?"

"I can think of plenty of reasons." Amy sighed as she slowly got up from the ground, she wobbled slightly and reached out to grab Shadow's shoulder before she nearly tripped herself. Shadow glanced at her for a moment before he crossed his arms and looked away towards the city. "We need to get out of here."

Amy's face went bitter at the notion that she might be sent through that portal again and feel her body spill out before her and chucked back in. She frowned as she glanced from the emerald in his hands to the city whilst her hand removed itself from his began bitterly, "Are we going to be going to Sanwell?" She vaguely remembered that the person whom they inquired about the whereabouts of Sonic and co. were near that city. "Do you know where it is?"

"No." Amy mentally breathed a sigh of relief since she didn't have to be subjected to transportation again. "But Sanwell is in southern Holoska." That frown returned to Amy's face as her eyes went from the city to Shadow. Shadow took notice of Amy's mild panic and gave a sigh, "You won't get sick this time." He was actually mildly surprised that she began to hurl as soon as she was released from the jaws of teleportation, but at the same he figured that it wasn't something too unnormal. He was sloppy, though Shadow wasn't going to admit it outright to Amy he did was starting to feel some overwhelming affects from time travel. Whatever it was he couldn't quite place his finger on it. The feeling was like a dog nipping at an owner's hand or a noise that annoyed someone to no end that wouldn't stop no matter how much they pleaded. Part of the feeling was much like how he felt when Rouge awakened him from his slumber, memories of Maria clawing at the side of his brain as he fought Omega. Those memories were still present within him but the claws were dull, these, meanwhile, were almost fresh in his mind, and yet not. The moon blowing up was a prominent scene that kept repeating in the back of his head, something he couldn't quite remember but the blame still being placed on him. Yet why would time travel bring all these memories to light? Was it that they were passing through time and during that passage things from both past, present, and future came upon him messing with his mind or was it some ill force at work twisting and tainting everything?

"Are you alright?" Amy was standing in front of him now trying to look into Shadow's eyes to find what was eating at him so much.

"I'm fine," he lied. He stretched out his arm holding the chaos emerald and concentrated upon it. Hopefully not too much of the land had changed since those last few hundred years, he wouldn't want to get themselves transported inside any mountain or possibly human. He looked at Amy who he assumed was steeling herself for the transportation. "Chaos control!"