'This isn't happening' he thought 'this can't be happening again; he already died once. Why does he have to die again?' The hot sting of tears slowly began to swell into Sonic's eyes as Shadow's last moments played over and over again in his head, until he felt a warm prickle course throughout his body and the rage began to override the pain and sorrow of watching his friend die before his eyes for the second time. No one should have to go through that, and yet here he was watching the murderer of Shadow the Hedgehog slowly lumber towards them.

Closing his eyes Sonic could feel the rage and furry boil up with in him, granting him power to avenge his friend, because if he couldn't save Shadow then he could at least avenge him. As he slowly bowed his head gathering the power within him there was a slight pull in the air towards the blue hero while the hate and power within him grew, and as that power neared its peak a gold glow started to cover Sonic's body. Looking up form his trance the once sincere emerald eyes that had been there only seconds before were now replaced by a stark white glare, a glare that reflected the power and hate that consumed him.

With a bloodthirsty roar Sonic hurled himself at the creature, his feet barely touching the ground as he zipped around the coffin and body slammed it into the nearest statue. Rolling to the floor the monster lay a few centimeters from the edge of the platform, but a swift kick form Sonic soon changed that. Sliding off the platform the brick that held its hands caught an edge and saved the monstrosity from death, at lest For the few seconds it hung there; slowly trying to pull its self back up and away form the darkness before Sonic began to pummel it back into submission.

The monster futilely struggled to regain its holding on the edge as Sonic's blows continued to hail down upon it, he's rage venting with each blow. The mask on its face slowly deteriorating beneath the force to reveal an almost human face, the only difference was that instead of being all plumb and fleshy like a normal human's the skin seemed to have been torn away leaving behind only morsels of the flesh that once made it human. Its deep blue eyes searched wildly for an opening in the assault to strike back, reclaim some ground; and make a counter strike before it fell into the abyss. The efforts proved to be fruitless as with one last shriek it plummeted into the darkness, leaving only a grief stricken Sonic to return to normal and release all the emotions that had been buried under the anger and bloodlust.

Through all the years Knuckles has known Sonic he had never seen him in such a state. Never had he seen him so filled with rage, with bloodlust, and with power. Sure there where times when he lost he's temper with Eggman, but nothing like this ever happened. It was like he was looking at a completely different person, someone that he had never seen before. Like a side he had kept hidden form the rest of them for whatever reason, and Knuckles knew form experience that if people had something to had it was probably for a good reason, a very good reason. In fact, this was something he would have more expected form Shadow than Sonic.

Shock.

Shock, fear, grief, longing, sorrow. Those where all the emotions swirling through Amy Rose's mind as she watched her self-proclaimed boyfriend drop to his knees and curl up, weeping over the death of Shadow. She had seen Sonic go supper before but nothing like this. This was almost as if he had been possessed by a demon of hate, cruelly lashing out at the monster. She knew the monster was going to kill them, but something about how it struggled to survive reminded her of something. She couldn't quite but her finger on but she had defiantly seen that look somewhere before. It almost seems to fit with Shadow's face, and then it struck. The look was just like the one he had on his face before that monster killed him. With the recollection of memories she too dropped to the floor in tears.

It seemed like it was only minutes ago that the creature had been defeated, but in truth it was hours before they started looking for an escape route. It was hard to believe but they had spent hours just grieving Shadows death, and now seemed that his sacrifice would be in vain after all if they couldn't find a way out of this horrible place. "Damn it! Isn't there anyway out of this fucking place!" Knuckles cursed slamming his fist into a near by corner statue causing it to topple over the edge, which in turn made the coffin lid jerk and the bars that held them captive to give for an instant before diving back into the cold floor.

"Knuckles, what did you do?" Sonic asked trying to raise the sturdy gates.

"Hey, didn't the same thing happen with Shadow…" Amy sniffed holding back the tears. "When he was fighting that monster?" She was barley able to keep from breaking down.

"Maybe, but we where to busy watching Shadow to notice." Knuckles said as he walked over to one of the remaining statues. "And if it did then that means…"

"We would just have to knock down the last two!" Sonic finished for him.

After a bit of preparation and discussion on how to handle the situation they were now ready to free themselves form this hellhole. Knuckles and Amy stood solemnly by the statues ready too knock them over as soon Sonic gave the signal. Since he was to weak form fighting the thing that trapped them in here to begin with he had taken a perch on the coffin. When every thing was set Sonic gave the signal and they sent the statues sailing over the edge and into the darkness only to have the lid of the coffin be yanked off, and Sonic with it. "Yow!" shouted the hero seconds before spinballing off and coming tumbling to the ground.

"Sonic!" yelled Amy rushing to his side. "Are you ok?" she asked helping him to his feet.

"Yeah, I should be fi--ahh." Slumping to one knee the blue hedgehog blindly grouped his back calves looking for the source of the searing pain that racked his body, to find that a gash had been recently ripped into his right calf.

Trying to stand only made the matter worse as the flesh and muscle continued to tear with each movement. "Sonic…" whispered Amy as she watched her hero fall to the ground in pain. Then it hit her, she remembered finding something earlier called 'First-aid Spray.' On the bottle it said it could be used to heal any wound.

"Hold Still Sonic," she said while applying the spray "this should fix you up in no time." When the droplets of chemicals landed on his legs Sonic felt a cold wave of relief wash over his body, in fact he felt better than ever before.

Helping him to his feet Amy carelessly tossed the empty bottle aside where it landed at the feet of Knuckles, and upon further examination he found a horrifying detail Amy overlooked. "For use on human subjects only, do not blend with animal or pets. Unstable effects may occur." He read aloud.

"Heh, what's the worse that could happen?" Sonic asked smirking up at the red echidna. He had no idea of what lay ahead of him.