By the time Amy, Tails and Knuckles found Sonic he was totally
involved in a fight to the death with Snively. Sonic wasn't acting like
himself at all. He stood, not taunting and running but coolly sizing up
the enormous machine and Snively's skills. Knuckles sent Amy away to
fetch someone with some doctoring skills.
Knuckles and Tails watched the battle rage. Sonic was at a stale mate,
Snively's machine had nearly impenetrable shields that moved as fast as
Sonic did. Very slowly Sonic was wearing out and couldn't get at the
machine because of the rotating shields. Finally Sonic stopped dead in
his tracks and Knuckles gasped. Sonic's eyes were red. "I wasn't ready to
do this but I have no choice." Sonic whispered. There was a bright green
flash of light, much like Chaos Control. When Knuckles could see again
he watched the silhouettes of two hedgehogs attack the machine
simultaneously. The machine exploded and one of the silhouettes got to
safety, but the other collapsed by the explosion. The one that got away
was Sonic. He collapsed at Tails' side, completely exhausted. As the
smoke cleared Knuckles ran towards the wreckage, leaving Sonic in
Tails' care. Amongst the wreckage Knuckles found Shadow. He was in
bad shape, like he was from his fight with Robotnik, only worse.
Knuckles feared that he wouldn't make it. As gently as possible he
scooped up Shadow's limp form. When he caught up with him, Tails was
carrying Sonic back to Knothole. Knuckles fell into step behind him and
neither of them said a word.
They went straight to the medical hut and Sonic was quickly checked out.
Knuckles and Tails were informed that he'd passed out from fatigue.
Shadow was a different story. He had several doctors hovering around
him, applying bandages and fussing over him. One of the doctors asked
Knuckles to bring the family in because his chances of survival weren't
looking good. Knuckles immediately ran to get Amy. He brought her and
the yellow Chaos Emerald. Amy was a bit of a basket case, Knuckles
tried to calm her while he placed the Chaos Emerald in Shadow's hand.
The loose Chaos Energy that was thrown off interfered with most of the
medical instruments. Shadow began glowing a very faint silver. The
silver glow kept increasing and the hut's power went out, leaving
everyone in the dark. The silver glow faded away and it took several
minutes to get the lights back on. With the lights back on everyone saw
Amy holding Shadow. He was healed by his hyper form and all the
bandages had been burned away by the excess energy he'd given off.
After having healed, it was painfully obvious to everyone how much
weight Shadow'd lost.