Eep. Sorry about the long wait, guys. I am now almost officially a college student, so freaking out because of my impending doom has taken up most of my free time.

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That and sleeping. But I digress...

Disclaimer: I do not own or take credit for anything that I didn't originally invent. So there.

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Tails yawned and stretched, eyeing the pile of metal and electronics lying in front of him. He had finally finished disassembling that control collar that had been around Shadow's neck. It had been one heck of a piece of sophisticated hardware, and the fox idly wondered how long it had taken Raven to make it.

It sure had been very freakish when it had been working…as far as they knew, Shadow had been knocked unconscious within minutes of the beginning of the fight, during and by Knuckles' unexpected entrance. And yet his body had gotten back up and gone after the three of them with unbridled ferocity until a lucky blow from Sonic had hit the control collar and snapped the relays inside.
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Tails rubbed his shoulder, which was bandaged from when he had been kicked into a piece of concrete. Sonic was snoring away next to him, even more bandaged, for the collar had sent Shadow after him especially hard.

'But not as hard as we had to be on Shadow,' Tails thought sadly.

Until they had finally damaged the control collar, the three of them had been forced to try to disable their friend's body in order to stop him. And that had gone disastrously bad.
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Pain? The collar couldn't feel pain.
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Injuries? The collar ignored them.
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Knuckles had even tried breaking one of Shadow's legs, but the collar had completely ignored that high level of damage and Knuckles had been promptly driven head-first into the ground for it.

When the hideous fight had finally ended, the strange white hedgehog Raven had just glared at all of them before warping away with three Chaos Emeralds. The fourth had been dropped in the fighting, and Knuckles had gone back to look for it after they had managed to finish dealing with Shadow's body.

And whenever he thought about it, Tails just couldn't believe that someone could be so cruel as to abandon a member of his own family. Even Eggman would recover and repair one of his robots that had gotten damaged in a losing fight - the Meckas had come back often enough…
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Tails took this moment to walk over to where Shadow was lying. They had managed to tend to injuries fairly well, and nothing was permanently damaged…but Tails still felt unbelievable guilt at the sight. Shadow's face was peaceful…but it had been just as peacefully blank during the fight.

"It just doesn't make sense to me…" Tails sighed, then froze as Shadow stirred.

The black hedgehog's eyelids flickered, before opening halfway. If Shadow was in much pain, he concealed it well.
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"Shadow?" Tails asked nervously, "Can you hear me, Shadow?"

The black hedgehog's eyes turned to him at the sound of the fox's voice, but Shadow did not speak right away. Tails waited as Shadow took in every bit of the scene around himself that he could without being able to move.

"Tails?" Shadow finally asked.

His voice was weak, but also carefully neutral.

"Oh thank goodness," Tails cried in relief, "We were worried that you were never going to wake up, Shadow! Sonic and Knuckles and I…well, we had to be, uh, be kinda rough on you…sorry Shadow…"

Something in Shadow's expression flickered - Tails would have sworn bemused surprise had crossed the other's face for a second.
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"…Me too," Shadow murmured after another minute, "Where is…?"

"…Raven?" Tails guessed.
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"Everybody," Shadow corrected.

"Well, Sonic is right over there," Tails said, "But he's asleep right now. Knuckles is back at that GUN base, but he'll be back pretty soon. And Raven…he took off after we finally broke that collar you were wearing."

This news didn't seem to surprise Shadow too much. As Tails watched, the hedgehog began to drift off again.

"You should rest, Shadow," Tails suggested, and there was a barely audible reply by Shadow before the black one's eyes slid shut and he slept.

Tails moved back over to his tools, feeling a little bit better. Shadow was himself again, and that was good. And Sonic and Knuckles would be thrilled to hear that the black hedgehog had woken up.