Chapter 13 – The Robotnik – Prower Theorem

Ken was sitting by the table in silence, drinking from his pocket flask from time to time. His face was red, and rather somber. Shadow did not join him, but instead stood aside patiently, his arms folded on his chest.

The two had rarely spoken to one another in the past few days, ever since the 'accident' which occurred during their last training session. Though the sergeant swore that he was not mad with the hedgehog for not holding back his full power that one time, they both agreed that from then on they would train separately.

The mood within the ARK had been kind of a gloomy one, until Tails and Eggman requested to meet with the duo revealing that they had an important announcement. They each said that with so much glee that Ken and Shadow were close to regain their greatly undermined hope- but they needed to see in order to believe, first.

Finally, the doors to the meeting room opened, and the two scientists- the man and the fox- walked inside, each dressed in a lab coat and bearing a toothy grin. They looked like they just won a million rings, or something.

Ken turned his clouded, blood-shot eyes at them in anticipation. Shadow also glared at the two carefully.

"Well?" the hedgehog mouthed a curt inquiry.

Tails and Eggman, however, continued to smile mysteriously.

"My friend," the nefarious doctor addressed his young colleague in a way they had not heard him do that ever before, "don't you think it's an appropriate time for a toast to honor our mutual achievements?"

"I most certainly do!" said the fox, and Shadow immediately thought that if Sonic was here to see this, he would have probably gotten a heart attack.

"ToastBot!" Eggman then called the automaton which rolled into the room behind the two scientists. "Bring us the bubbly!"

Immediately obeying, the robot poured two glasses of non-alcoholic Spumante, giving them to the overjoyed doctor and his furry companion. Next, he went over to Ken, also offering a drink to him, but the astonished man raised his flask, indicating that he had his own stuff. When the adequately-named ToastBot approached Shadow, however, the hedgehog ignored him totally, instead fixing his angry stare at the celebrating science team.

"What is the meaning of this?" he asked, clearly indicating to both Tails and Eggman that he was beginning to lose his patience.

Sipping from their glasses, the duo grinned yet again. Finally, the fox began to explain the reasons of their behavior.

"Everyone, doctor Eggman and I are proud to announce to you that, after working arduously for the past few days, we've been able to discover things the scientists of Earth could until recently only dream about! And all that thanks to the sample of Shadow's blood!"

"Have you found the cure?!" the blood sample's donor inquired directly, not really interested in the details of the research.

The brightness of the duo of colleagues' faces dimmed a bit.

"Not yet," said Eggman, putting his empty glass back on the tray presented to him by ToastBot, "but we are well on the way!"

Ken and Shadow shared a grim look…

"How can you celebrate if the work has not yet been completed?!" said the sergeant, his voice shaking with anger additionally emphasized by the redness of his face.

"Just listen!" Tails lifted up his hands in a calming gesture, still smiling, though a tad more awkwardly. "For the longest time, the doctor and I have been unable to determine the reasons of why the cells in Shadow's blood have such unique properties. Since we needed to know that in order to decipher the genome of the leucocytes, we set off with a series of tests…"

"… and then we remembered that we've been ignoring the obvious!" Eggman took over his companion's monologue, speaking with increasing zeal and a lot of vigorous gesticulation. "The fact that some of the other cells seemed a bit alien to us was because they are, actually, exactly that- alien cells, just like those of the Black Arms, and therefore absent from the bloodstream of any terrestrial being!"

"It was really hard to make out what those were at first," continued Tails. "We gazed at them for hours, and all that came to mind was that they didn't look like regular matter. Ha! We didn't realize that, all along, the answer was right before our noses!"

"See, it's because some of those alien cells are actually not made of ordinary matter…" elaborated the doctor, what made Ken narrow his eyes.

"What?" blurted out the completely confused and only moderately sober sergeant.

"You see," the young fox jumped right in with an explanation, "the whole universe's mass is made up of three different elements. Regular, observable matter constitutes only about 4,9 % of that number. The rest is mostly what's called 'dark energy', which amounts to 68,3 %. The rest, that is 26,8%, is what's usually referred to as 'dark matter'. Dark matter is normally invisible, because it doesn't interact with any observable electromagnetic radiation…"

Then Eggman and Tails, speaking alternately, eagerly and at length explained to Ken and Shadow the basics of a completely new branch of science they've discovered together, which they named 'quantum-physical cosmological molecular biology'.

Apparently, Tails was the first one who suggested that the doctor and him should 'think outside the Standard Model', and assume that Shadow's alien cells were made of dark, not baryonic, matter. They both agreed it was somewhat of a eureka moment.

At first, Eggman thought that theory to be ludicrous, and protested that, if it were true, it would completely disprove the General Theory of Relativity. The fox then acutely retorted, reminding him that the GTR had actually already been proven incorrect generations earlier. Agreeing begrudgingly, the doctor asked how Tails wished to prove his assumption, since the only way for that to be possible for them would be through the use of a Large Hadron Collider (which Eggman had not brought with him from Earth, since the cumbersome contraption would not fit into the Magnum Eggtopus). It was then that Tails showed to his astounded colleague another one of his invention- a hand-held gizmo he called the 'Small Hadron Collider'. Afterwards, as both the scientists agreed, the real fun began…

Apparently, after just a few more days of research, they were able to discover things that, as they themselves estimated, would carve their names written in golden letters into the history of science. Having dissected the alien 'dark cells' in Shadow's blood, they were able to find sub-atomic particles which have until recently only been theorized about. Plus, they also discovered a new chemical element (with the atomic number 124). At one point, Eggman also thought to have discovered a second one, but the element actually turned out to be a very unusual and extremely unstable carbon isotope.

"In conclusion," Tails announced triumphantly, "we agreed to name the new element 'Tailanium', since I was the one who discovered it."

"We had a bit of a squabble over how our theory about how dark matter can coexist with baryonic particles within the cells of a living being can occur," Eggman added, "but in the end, we decided to stick with calling it the 'Robotnik – Prower Theorem'. We expect to publish the results of our research as soon as we get back to Earth."

After such a lengthy elaboration, both of the self-satisfied scientists stood with their chests puffed up for a while. And then, unable to contain their joy, they burst out with a wave of successful laughter. This indeed seemed like a dream come true to them, the greatest achievement of their lives.

Ken and Shadow, who have listened to their whole speech patiently awaiting to hear of the advancement of the Project, now gazed at the duo as if they were a pair of crazies.

"Jūbun'na!" the sergeant suddenly struck the surface of the table with his fist, obviously not too happy about the way Tails and Eggman acted. "Yakunitatanai orokamono!" [1]

Having said that (and he was basically screaming), he took his sword as well as his flask, and walked out of the room.

The happy researchers ignored him, continuing to chortle for a couple more seconds. But when they noticed Shadow's piercing glare, they eventually stopped completely.

The three persons left in the meeting hall now stood in silence. The only sound that could be heard was the silent buzzing of ToastBot's engine.

Making sure that the scientists regained their serious composure, the black hedgehog sighed at them, and said-

"Please, enlighten me. How does this little discovery of yours bring us any further to finding the cure for NIDS?"

Shadow's voice was full of biting sarcasm, what made Tails and Eggman feel a bit hot under their collars.

"Err, it may be a bit complicated…" the doctor began awkwardly. "Sometimes, to achieve anything in science, one must first examine a totally different field than the one he thinks he should be looking at. Or, as was in our case, even create a completely new field of studies…"

Both of the lab coat-wearing individuals now shook under the increasingly exasperated look of the Ultimate Lifeform...

And then, they flinched.

"Ahh!" yelped the Eggman as a terrible, high-pitched sound suddenly echoed within the room.

Tails himself, whom the same noise forced to cover his face with one of his fluffy appendages, sobering up after the initial shock, pointed at the doctor's wrist computer.

"It's a warning message!" the fox noticed, seeing the red glow which the small device emitted.

Curious and concerned, Eggman looked at it himself, ruffling his mustache. With a nasty feeling in his gut, he pressed a button on the panel.

They all then heard the robotic, androgynous voice of the ARK mainframe's AI again.

"WARNING. COMPUTER SECURITY BREACH. DETECTED. SECONDARY DRIVES. UNDER ATTACK. FILE DATABASES. IN DANGER."

"Somebody's trying to hack our computers!" Eggman burst out in outrage, throwing his long arms into the air.

Tails, completely terrified, covered his mouth with a hand. Only Shadow seemed to know exactly what was going on… but that did not make him any less mad.

"Hrn! Come with me, you two!" he groaned, quickly gliding toward both the doctor and Tails before they were even able to protest. Grabbing each of them in one hand by their smocks, he used chaos control in order to warp them all out of where they were.

The duo of scientists suddenly found themselves in the main laboratory again. In front of them, standing by the keyboard of the mainframe, there was sergeant Mitsui- red on the face, sweating, and furious.

After a moment of absolute bewilderment, Tails and Eggman noticed the progress bar on the computer screen…

"He's trying to format our drives!" yelped the fox, sounding as if he was about to cry.

Grinding his teeth, seriously triggered, the doctor ran toward the insolent hacker, screaming-

"Get away from there, you malignant grunt!"

He had to stop before he even laid a single finger on Ken, however, as the man pulled out his katana, pointing the tip of the blade at Eggman's big red nose.

"Not a step further!" ordered the sergeant, sounding very seriously.

All the while, Tails observed in terror as the format of the computer drives with all the data of his and Eggman's recent discoveries slowly progressed…

Shadow watched all of this with a stern expression, yet calmly. He didn't want to anger Ken even more in his present state.

"Gunsō-san!" he addressed the man in his own language. "Sore o yamete, anata wa yotte iru!" [2]

But that only ground Ken's gears even more.

"Fools!" growled the man, gazing at Tails and Eggman. He then pointed his katana at the window. "Look at that planet! While people on Earth are dying, you're here, wasting time! It's because of ambitious scientists like you that the Project was not finished 50 years ago! Why do you also focus on gaining personal fame instead of finding the cure?!"

Sergeant Mitsui's screams filled up the lab up to the ceiling. The duo of researchers felt awfully embarrassed… Yet the destruction of their precious work still continued, and realizing that caused them almost physical pain.

Unable to stand that any longer, Eggman turned to the black hedgehog.

"Shadow!" he ran up to him, demanding his help. "Shadow, what's wrong with you?! Do something!"

But the doctor made one mistake. Not seeing any reaction in his grandfather's creature, he dared to grab him by the wrist…

Shadow only looked his way for a quarter of a second, his red eyes filled with disdain. He was now able to understand the reasons for Ken's tantrum.

He pushed the doctor with a rapid gesture of his arm, knocking him to the floor instantly.

"Argh!" yelled Eggman, twisting in both pain and unbridled fury.

Both him and Tails were now completely powerless. And both forced to watch as the progress bar slowly moved toward 100 %. When that number appeared on screen, the computer announced-

"SECONDARY DRIVE FORMAT. COMPLETE."

It became obvious that the 'Robotnik – Prower Theorem' was not to receive any scientific awards after all. Ken put his sword away.

When Eggman managed to lift himself from the floor finally, before anyone could say anything stupid again, Shadow stood before the two scientists, offering them a scolding look. Yet again, the stupidity of others caused him to lose his temper.

"How can people of such 'great minds' act so foolishly?" he spoke without any mercy, showing that he now fully sided with Ken. "You got extremely sidetracked! Get back to work, and this time, focus on the Project!"

Both Tails and Eggman hung their heads in sorrow and grief. Only the fox had enough courage left in him to respond.

"Shadow… i-it's not that easy," he mumbled. "We've had a lot of trouble working with your leucocytes…"

"… and besides," Eggman suddenly cut him off, "most of them only have a life span of a couple of days. The old ones from your blood are already dead, and we haven't been able to find any way to make them multiply! Which means that we may also need a sample of your bone marrow…"

Hearing that, the hedgehog stood face to face with the man, looking as if he was about to hit him again. That made Eggman cover his head with a yelp.

"I'd like to see you try to acquire that sample, doctor," Shadow uttered venomously.

He snorted at all of them, once again expressing his superiority in a haughty, arrogant manner. The rest of his team wondered what the dark creature meant by that.

"You and your so-called scientific approach!" he continued. "Do you think I'm some kind of a common lab rat, whom you can dissect and experiment with as you please? No. I am much more than that!"

It was then that Shadow reached for something very dear to him, which he always carried, well hidden from the prying eyes of the simple folk.

The hedgehog lifted the item proudly, and the eyes of the fox and the two humans instantly went wide as they reflected the turquoise hue of the magnificent, luminous gem. The powerful stone's glow was bedazzling, and all those present in the lab gazed at it in awe before the voice of Tails finally broke the silence.

"So you finally found that fourth Chaos Emerald!" the youngster remarked, smiling.

"Yes," Shadow answered with a bit of something that may have been satisfaction. "And I've been holding on to it."

Sergeant Mitsui also admired the sight of the legendary artefact which he had never seen before in his life. But the one who was in the greatest state of shock, was Eggman. The doctor, of course, always craved the Chaos Emeralds, and seeing one in Shadow's hand made him realize that this particular one was definitely out of his reach.

"What? Where did you find that, anyway?" he inquired, outraged. "Chaos Emeralds don't just lie around, waiting for hedgehogs to take them! Or, at least, not usually!"

"I found it in a certain… plothole," Shadow retorted sarcastically. "Isn't it amazing what I can do off-screen?"

He then went over to the worktable on top of which stood a vial containing his blood. Everyone else followed him, standing behind the black being's back, observing what he was doing closely.

Still holding the Chaos Emerald in his grasp, Shadow placed his hand close to the sample. He then closed his eyes. The mystical gem's glow intensified, making the spectators gaze at it with mouths agape.

And then, the hedgehog opened his eyes again, quickly put the gem away, and said-

"There. You can now continue your research."

Eggman and Tails gazed at one another, completely stupefied by how brief the whole mysterious procedure was.

"Uh, what just happened?" the fox inquired of Shadow. But the dark creature said nothing, crossing his arms once more.

"Wait a minute," said the doctor, grabbing the glass vial and looking at it curiously. "Let's take a closer look at this sample!"

He quickly put some of the blood under the quark microscope, displaying the image on the screen of a computer console. The sample was now full of different kinds of cells again, most of which were vigorously moving.

"This… is… amazing!" they all heard Eggman gasp as he looked through the eyepiece.

"It appears that the Chaos Emerald has caused the totipotent stem cells in your blood to produce new leucocytes!" Tails announced to them, almost hopping for joy. "This means that we can start working again!"

Ignoring the scientists' glee, turning away from all of them, Shadow whispered to himself-

"Chaos is power."

Then, he vanished, teleporting out of the room.

The two researchers were left alone with sergeant Mitsui, who continued to eye them both sternly.

"Sorry, Ken," the fox apologized to the man, hanging his head in remorse. "I guess Shadow was right- we did get a little sidetracked…"

The man was almost ready to accept Tails' apology. If it weren't for the other scientist, that is. Unlike his young colleague, Eggman still seemed angry with Ken for formatting their drives, looking at him with eyes that bore a promise of retaliation.

The old soldier wiped the sweat from his forehead, fixed his long grey hair, and spoke but one more word to them-

"Hurry."

AN:The 'Robotnik - Prower Theorem' was inspired by the real-life Penrose - Hawking Theorem.

Next chapter's gonna have Sonic in it, I promise. He's slowly becoming really impatient with just being mentioned ;)

[1] Jūbun'na! Yakunitatanai orokamono! – (jap.) enough! You worthless fools!

[2] Gunsō-san! Sore o yamete, anata wa yotte iru! – (jap.) sergeant! Stop it, you are inebriated!