Inside the lab, Tails was snoring whilst his computer was in progress of analyzing Metal's memory, but since it'll take a while the young fox had nothing to do but sleep.

Upon seeing this, Shadow grew impatient and wants to track down whoever was in that base. He knew that this person may be down there for a reason, and it was a sole purpose of theirs.

But Shadow knew if he were to leave Rouge, who was currently eating, she would get mad at him for ditching her. The black hedgehog didn't want to confront his partner right now after... what happened.

He never expected it to happen, especially when it's himself. Much like any other person, he expects himself to focus. Shadow didn't want this, but, he sort of wanted it to happen.

Just then, Amy exited Rouge's room and saw the frustrated Shadow and groaned, "Oh great, what is it this time? " she thought.

She then approached the black hedgehog, "Is there something wrong, Shadow? " She asks, hiding her annoyance from him well enough for him to answer back politely to the pink hedgehog,

"Nothing that would concern you. " He said, crossing his arms and walked over to a dark corner, clearly implying he doesn't wanna be disturbed.

Amy sighed by this notion, but knew why he was being like this,

"You two what??? " Amy gasped, but soon Rouge shushed her as best as she can, as she was still paralyzed. The pink hedgehog covered her mouth and lifted her eyelids in complete shock. "I cannot believe that... "

The ivory bat groaned and closed her eyes shut, not really wanting to talk about any of this to anyone. After she and Shadow kissed, the black hedgehog immediately teleported leaving a shocked expression on Rouge's face.

She wanted to go after him but she has to stay in bed, and she also has to deal with Tails if he ever enters again and asks about what he saw. Rouge was very embarrassed, despite not much people know about this except for her, Shadow and Tails.

Then Amy came in to bring her food and asked about the shocked Tails after he entered the room, which Rouge was very reluctant to tell her about but knew Amy doesn't wanna leave without a proper answer.

But she regretted quickly.

"So let me get this straight, you two were talking and then out of the ordinary, you and Shadow just... kissed??? " Amy recalls what Rouge had told her, the bat sighed and nodded her head, making Amy more surprised knowing Shadow would do something like that, it wasn't like him.

But deep down inside, the pink heroine always knew there was something up with Shadow and Rouge's relationship, even though the two themselves tell her that nothing is going on between them, with Shadow being the one to put it bluntly to her.

Now knowing about what happened, Amy finally had her suspicions confirmed after Rouge had told her, but since Amy knew of the white bat, she knew that Rouge doesn't want anyone to know so she promised the thief she'll keep her mouth shut, to which Rouge thanked her.

She didn't wanna look back at her previous memory and decides to focus on finding Sonic, so Amy walked over to Tails and slightly chuckled at seeing the young kitsune drool in his sleep. She looked at his monitor and saw the analysis was complete.

Happy, she shook Tails awake, but it wasn't such a happy wake up call for Tails, "Wh-wha???? what is it?! " He jumped up, awake. Amy looked at him with wide eyes and laughed, amused by Tails reaction.

Tails himself, however, was annoyed by Amy and groaned but soon became gals as he saw the analysis was complete, assuming Amy woke him up to tell him this. He continued opening up the memory drive and looked into it, finding several memory files, Tails searched for the and previous ones.

Meanwhile, Shadow was finally reliveerelieve to see Tails and Amy looking right into Metal's memory. But like himself, he kept his mouth shut and let his eyes wander around the lab, now that he's at the corner he has full view of what's in front of him.

That's when he noticed, a blue device sitting on top of a desk drawer, it was just there, untouched but looked like it was functional. Curious, he walked over to the device and observed it, he looked over at Tails and Amy, he was sure they don't want him touching anything but nevertheless, teleported away using Chaos Control and arrived at G.U.N. and was able to get a team to look into the tiny gizmo.

After only waiting about half an hour, Shadow was approached by a G.U.N. agent with the news. "We're done digging into that thing you gave us, and what you had in your hands was a tracking device, now bear with me here... You might think it was nothing, but guess what else we found."

Shadow followed the agent and was presented by a hologram screen, "We looked into it further and we found out this tracking device was specialized to track down one specific person, "

"Sonic The Hedgehog."

Shadow was caught by surprise, Sonic?? But why would Tails have a tracking device specifically for Sonic? Unless there was something else he wasn't telling Shadow. "Is there anything else? "

The agent nodded and continued to present Shadow with a slimy substance, Shadow then proceeded to touch it, followed by the agent moving it away from the hedgehog, " I wouldn't do that if I were you. " He warns, knowing something, something that he is yet to tell Shadow. " You're lucky you didn't touch this while you brought the tracker here. "

Shadow was confused and demands for an answer, to which the agent replied. "I brought this to the lab when I saw it and when I got the results, they were shocking. Turns out this goop had the capabilities of some sort of virus, when touched, it immediately takes over the host, anything that's alive. "

The black hedgehog narrows his eyes, he needs to have a chat with Tails.

"How in Mobius would you forget to contain that thing? " Amy continues to yap at Tails, who was stressed and annoyed by Amy's yapping.

"I don't know okay?! We just have to find it before someone-"

"Gets infected? "

The two jumped in surprise and looked to where they heard the voice, walked out from the darkness was Shadow, holding the device in hand and in the other was a small container with the substance inside.

Tails was sweating intensely as he saw Shadow holding the device but more when he saw the virus, waiting for its next victim. The young fox knew he can't hide the truth anymore. "I'm guessing you want answers. "

"Damn straight. "

Amy looked at Tails and nodded, as the young fox sat down on the nearest chair, he sighs. "I'm gonna start when the attacks started. Sonic wanted to figure out what was causing them so he decides to confront Eggman with his suspicions, but it has been a while since we ever got an attack from Eggman himself so Amy told Sonic to go to his recent hideout. "

"So he did, we placed a tracker on him just in case he gets lost, I would've just track him using his communicator but he constantly gets it broken during any battle. While he was in there, he saw a glimpse of Eggman's true plan on one of the computers there, but then he heard something lurking in the darkness and... we lost his signal. Me and Amy noticed that the tracker wasn't moving but when I tracked down Sonic's communicator, it was moving. "

"When Knuckles came to talk about the rampage across Mobius, we told him all what happened and he ran off to Eggman's old lair to look for Sonic, but he came back with Sonic's tracker. " He finishes as he buries his face in his hands, while Amy looked down saddened by the sudden turn of events.

"Then what happened to Sonic's communicator? " Shadow asked.

"We don't know. Before you guys came here, the signal died. " Tails said. Shadow was still suspicious, but seeing how Tails and Amy was desperate to find Sonic and put an end to this rampaging threat, he had to continue to work with them.

Then,

The sound of a broken window echoed across the lab, alarming the three people who by hearing this rushed to the source of the sound, but Shadow decides to see if his partner was still in bed and safe. But when he did, his eyes widened in shock.

The room seemed to be intact, no sign of a struggle, but Rouge's bed was empty, the sheets were ruffled to the left. Shadow then found the source of the sound, there was the broken window he was looking for. He ran up to the window and sees glass outside, his hands then clutched the window sill, the feeling of rage and worry fueled him.

He knew right away he had to find Rouge and bring her back safe, she must've eavesdropped on their conversation but why would she run off just like that? Shadow heard a female gasp from behind him and sees Amy covering her mouth after gasping from what Shadow had discovered, Tails came in afterwards and observed the room.

After looking out the window, he turns around to face Amy and Shadow, "Well... I can say the window was broken from the inside, so it's-" Tails was then cut off by Shadow,

"I know. Rouge ran off, is that it? " He spat, impatience growing inside of him quickly, needing to find his missing partner. Tails was surprised by this, but he bet Shadow wants to find her fast.

"Yeah, that's very likely, so we there wasn't any sign of force entry in here, she just ran off. " Tails continues his sentence.

Amy then stood up from Rouge's bed, with a serious expression look on her face, "Where do you think she is? " She asks nonchalantly, wanting to finally get serious about all of this. Shadow laid his head down, before remembering their previous conversation.

That's when he gained an idea.

"Where exactly is this lair Sonic disappeared at? "