Chapter 25

"Hmm… could it be? Could this… rabble… could they be the ones?" The hooded figure slumped in his chair. He twiddled his thumbs as he contemplated the ramifications of what he saw. "They had better not be."

Silver eyed his surrounds. The airspace was deserted, and just as well, Diesel was asleep in his seat. There didn't seem to be much in the way of entrances to the interior of the tower. After a while, out of pure frustration, he just decided to make his own. He reached back to Diesel's panel and pressed a button. Two missiles shot into the side of the building, blowing a hole in it. Hopefully he didn't hit anyone…

Guiding the ship in was easy; the hole was pretty big. The interior was more than spacious enough to allow it to move around easily. The abandoned ship was made a good beacon for Tails and Blaze, who waved them over when they could see them.

"You guys alright?"

"No thanks to you." Blaze was still somewhat irritated at Silver.

"Look, I didn't see you getting hit, Tails did. Can we put that behind us now?"

"Oh, it's nice knowing I have a trustworthy captain…" She dripped with sarcasm as she tossed her jacket and flamethrower on Diesel's lap. He nearly had a stroke.

"Wha… what the hell? Oh…" He slumped over the console to try and sleep again.

"Look, are you going to get in or not?"

"Oh, I'm coming," She said as she jumped into the back. "I'm just wondering how much you value your life if, should the situation arise, I need to save it…"

"Just drop it, okay? I'm… I'm sorry. Is that what you want?"

"No, what I want is safety in the knowledge that I can rely on others to pull me out of a life-threatening situation regardless of who they are."

"Oh, this is going to be a long trip…" Tails buried his face in his hands as he followed into the back.

Espio checked a body.

"Hmm. Traces of Formula T. Shadow must have passed this way."

"Shh!" Sonic called out. "I hear something." He ran to the corner. There was still nothing there. He could still hear something – screaming, like tortured cries of pain. "He's somewhere here." He ran to the next corner. There, in the centre of the floor, Shadow writhed on the ground, in obvious and extreme pain. He stopped momentarily and held himself up, and coughed up a small amount of blood. Then he fell back to the ground, unconscious.

"Ew… what happened?" Knuckles came round the corner and only saw the end of Shadow's episode.

"I don't know… that stuff could be killing him."

"Where's Tails when you need him…"

"Ugh…"

"He's coming round."

"What happened? Where am I?" He opened his eyes, clutching his head.

"You still in there, buddy?"

"What? Sonic, what the heck are you doing here? The last thing I remember, I was with Nack and Rouge…"

"That must have been, what… two hours ago?"

"I've been out for two hours? Ugh…" His head was still spinning. "I hope I didn't do anything stupid…"

"Not yet…"

"What's that?" Shadow's acute hearing had preceded him. While the others were clueless to what he had heard, he gazed down the hallway that descended into the blackness. He, to everyone's surprise, jumped to his feet. He readied himself for something. To him, time slowed down. This gave him enough room to grab Jet and Wave off their boards as they zoomed past. The boards skidded across the floor, and stopped at the wall.

"Agh… aw, dude, what the fuck? I mean, why the fuck did you do that?"

"Knowing you bird-brains, you'd probably have carried on without us."

"But why the grabbing off of boards? Come on!"

"Shadow has a point. You would have kept racing round the tower if he hadn't stopped you. And we have to wait for the others."

"Slow bastards…"

"Is that our cue?" Nack stepped out of the shadows. Rouge followed.

"What the… how the fuck?"

"We got some help from an old friend…" Rouge looked back to where they had come from. Sonic gazed in awe as he watched his long lost brother Manic emerge. He tried to speak, but his mouth wouldn't form the words. After a few splutters and gibbers, a few words finally arrived.

"Manic? Me… think… you… dead… me… throw… chair… at… Shad… oh, my God…"

"At least it wasn't a knife rack."

"Definitely Manic." Amy knew his flavour of spontaneous, tactless wit.

"Sonic… are you crying?" Manic took a closer look. Sonic sniffed.

"Come here…" Sonic grabbed his brother and hugged him tightly. Quite tightly.

"Okay… you're not juicing melons… a little less tight, can you do that?"

"C'mere you…" Sonic grabbed Manic round the head and gave him a good hard noogie.

"Aagh! Ow! That's messing up my hair…" He let go.

"That's been waiting four years!"

"You haven't seen me for four years, and the first thing you do is give me a noogie?"

"Yeah, I'm a great brother, aren't I?" Both of them broke down laughing. Several eyebrows were raised around the room.