Chapter 7

A Picture of What the Ignorant Believe

This might be the last chapter.(I lied) If it's not, the next one will be(I lied again). Yeah...well, please review. PLEASE? No I'm not BEGGING you or anything. Okay, I'm begging! Please review! n-n; C'mon...

Mm...guess I'm not begging anymore! Not a lot, but better than I thought, and not a single flame...yet(I hate jinxing things)! Thanks for all the super awesome reviews, you people ROCK! Good news everybody! This isn't going to be the last chapter, I figure I need to do a finale chapter after this one, and maybe a resolution after that one! So...be happy?

Disclaimer: I still don't own Sonic or any of them, Sonic Team owns Sonic and all of them. So shut up and go away. Please? (If I owned it, this would probably be an R rated television show! JUST kidding!)

---

Sonic twitched after a moment, making himself come to, "What'd you say?" His voice was shaken as he slowly forced himself to a sitting position Shadow blinked, so this woke him up? He didn't feel like he could get those words out again. Why did he even say that in the first place! Shadow gave an awkward face and just shrugged.

Sonic had to flinch at the burning sensation of pain that seemed to slam into him like a brick wall. The black hedgehog just stared blankly into those green eyes, he was happy they were opened indeed, but his words got caught in a jumble in his throat. Amy looked at the two of them, Amy had heard Shadow mutter something, but was unable to make it out. Two red eyes shot desperately to the ground as he fought with himself to get the words out again, he didn't figure they were coming. "...later." His whisper almost didn't reach Sonic, though luckily for him, Sonic had been paying attention. He knew what Shadow had said before that though, and smiled.

Eggman raised an eyebrow at Sonic, who was now up and giving him a cocky smirk. He wasn't persuaded. "Oh, so you aren't dead...no matter, that gives me the opportunity to make your death all the more painful." Shadow let out a deep snarl and pushed himself back on to his feet. Amy grabbed Sonic's shoulders, begging him to stay down.

The smaller hedgehog stared at him softly, she shook her head desperately, tears burning furiously at her eyes again, "I don't want you to get hurt...anymore." Her voice drifted slightly. She couldn't handle losing him in more than one way, it was bad enough he wasn't returning her love, it would be even worse if he were to die. He gawked at her, she expected him to not fight Eggman? Had she lost any remaining sanity that she had been clinging to?

He drew a quivering breath, and looked up to Shadow. The black hedgehog was looking down at him, still. He said nothing, he couldn't tell Sonic not to fight, but oh how he wanted to. "I..." Amy threw herself into the blue hedgehog's arms, he was still on the floor. His eyes widened briefly as he heard her deep sobs that seemed to be coming from the very bottom of her chest. The red-eyed hedgehog jerked his head back to the doctor, who was busy dealing with Rouge's smart-ass comments; because of this, a smirk tugged at the corners of his mouth. He loved watching the doctor struggle vainly to defend himself verbally in any situation, which eventually turned into countless gibberish words and some kind of language the doctor seemed to have invented personally.

Eggman made a jerky motion with his hand as if to stop the remarks. It didn't really work, but whatever, Eggman figured it looked dramatic. "I've had enough of you babbling idiots! If you think I brought you here simply to be outwitted by you again, you are mistaken. I'm sick of you, all of you, you're no better than these pitiful humans." Shadow let out a hiss at this comment, how dare the doctor compare him to humans, the wretches who had killed Maria.

"You're going to regret your words, doctor." Narrowed red eyes seem to go straight through to even the doctor's soul. Knuckles simply sneered at the egotistic maniac, whom which had outsmarted him again.

Shadow's head jerked as he heard the panic-stricken voice of the green-eyed hedgehog, "Where is Tails?" This comment seemed to bring much joy to a slightly agitated doctor.

"Tails..." Eggman started as if he intended the story to last hours upon in, hours upon in Shadow did not care for enduring. His glance met two angry green eyes as he spoke again, "...is out of commission to say the least." Shadow was glad the story didn't last hours upon hours, though the sentence itself seemed to bug Sonic in more ways than one. Where was Tails, and what exactly was this moron talking about?

A sharp growl escaped Sonic, who still had his arms around Amy, who had yet to stop crying, "That doesn't answer my question, Egg-head!" The anger intimidated the doctor to a slight degree but this was only countered with the fact that he enjoyed shaking up Sonic as he was. Though, the ending result on his face was a frown as the hero used the annoying nickname.

"You don't really need to know that, Sonic...and I think I'm the one who should be asking the questions, seeing you as don't know where he is."

This quieted the hedgehog, but he still seemed angry enough. Sonic supposed the idiotic doctor wasn't bluffing as he had heard Tails scream. He dismissed his worried thoughts in favor of the desperate pain tugging at him. He glanced down at Amy slowly, he was burned and bleeding and she didn't mind clinging to him? He heard her crying still, she seemed to have calmed down a bit though. "Okay, Eggman! You're going to have explain things right now!" Eggman's head jerked to Knuckles angry face.

"In short...I intend to kill you all here...shortly after..." He gestured to the window, and those of them in the room, save Amy and Espio, jerked towards the window. It was the Eclipse Cannon, cliche, but very functional.

Shadow's eyes widened and he took a step back after a moment, "You're a pain in the ass!" He snarled viciously through gritted teeth and Sonic just looked and stared back at the doctor.

"But, you need the chaos emeralds..."

Eggman rudely interrupted Sonic, which infuriated the black hedgehog further, "Oh, but you see...with my genius mind, I have found a way to harbor the energy of the emeralds as long as they are in a designated range." For once, Knuckles thought the doctor did something slightly intelligible. This didn't surprise him, though, considering Shadow probably would have warped as far away from here as possible had he possessed the ability.

Shadow just gave him a hollow laugh, "This isn't going to work, you insolent-minded fool...you have no idea what you're doing." A smirk broke out across his face, no one in the room could tell if he was bluffing or not, having his eyes closed in irritation from his previous thoughts, he opened them after a few short seconds of his ego kicking in.

"What?" This gesture infuriated Eggman, it didn't matter if he was bluffing or not. He wasn't scared, which was precisely what Eggman wanted. The smirk remained on the black and red hedgehog's lips as the doctor searched him furiously for signs of a bluff.

'If I can get to the power room, I can disable the cannon, and get the power back into my own emerald and leave the doctor here to rot on this pathetic excuse for a space colony.'

"You heard your grandfather before..." Eggman seemed interested after this comment, "...that cannon was created for one purpose and one purpose alone, and that was to save the world and all of humanity." He cringed at the thought indeed, a mechanism created to save mankind. What right did he have to talk though? He had saved them as well, he took a stab in the dark and guessed they just had a "savable" air about them. "Do you expect the plan to destroy the Earth with it to work? If you do, you're underestimating me and doctor Gerald." Shadow felt every eye in the room on him.

An inhaling of breath caught his attention, it was Amy. Sonic pulled up and met Amy's contradictory eyes. She wanted him so badly to sit back down, she let him stand though. What right did she have to stop him? Tears still poured down her face, she stared blankly at Sonic's wound. How did he expect to do anything with something like that? "Shadow..." There was one person in the room that knew he wasn't bluffing at all. "Go do what you need to...I'll take care of this moron." He smirked and gestured to Eggman with a flick of his head.

Shadow eyed him wearily, "...Faker...you're hurt." Sonic smiled timorously and shook his head just slightly. Fury ignited within Eggman as he saw the smile return to his nemesis's face. He would have declined, had the look in Shadow's eyes not caught his attention.

"Don't worry about it...I'll be fine." Shadow seemed skeptical, and extremely worried. He suppressed a whimper in the back of his throat. He knew if Eggman stayed out of his business he could do it. But, his worry for Sonic was clouding his common sense.

"You..." He fought back tears, "...you better be." He smiled, the tears welling in his eyes obvious now. Sonic pulled back slightly, biting hard into his bottom lip, he didn't think he had ever actually seen Shadow cry. Of course, he had been crying shortly before he woke up a few moments ago, but...he hadn't seen the tears then. Just the tear stains, and slight pink of his eyes.

"Are you...don't." This time his voice was a whisper and Shadow shut his eyes and drew in a breath. How out of character of him to get all in an uproar about a simple worry. But, thoughts of Maria swirled throughout his memory, he didn't want that memory to be repeated on this same damned space colony! He wasn't going to lose another person he loved in the same fucking place! He tried his best to dismiss his thoughts and focus on the azure hedgehog's intentions, though. After a moment, he nodded his head to Sonic and turned to go. He stopped before he got too far though, he turned to look at Sonic again. The blue hedgehog's eyes had not left him.

Rouge stared at them both and smiled, Knuckles was rather confused though. What the hell was going on? 'Are they going to kiss or what!' He looked to Rouge and caught her smile, what was she smiling at? He was so utterly confused. He saw her glance turn to him, as she raised an eyebrow at him, at how dense he was being. Knuckles shrugged his shoulders, what was the look for?

Amy stared softly at the two of them. Her heart was still racing from worry, confusion and a few random other things. She couldn't seem to pull herself together, nor off her knees. "Sonic..." Her voice was far too quiet for him to even come close to hearing. Her heart sank like a rock in her chest, then seemed to twist in an unnatural fashion.

"You be careful too..." Sonic urged, "...and...keep an eye out for Tails, I have a feeling were going to need to get out of here pretty fast." Shadow nodded his head slightly, then exhaled sharply for another minute.

Eggman felt slightly ...uh, sad that they were not including him in their little conversation. Or maybe he was just mad, yeah, that was probably it, mad that he was being utterly and completely ignored. He was going to clear his throat, but decided better of it, as when he did that, it usually ended in him gagging and gasping for air. "But..." The 'but' sounded familiar, to Sonic at least.

"Hm?" He turned to Shadow, cocking an eyebrow just slightly at him. He felt the familiar grasp on his arm, and a look of exercised affection in the dark hedgehog's eyes met his surprised one. Shadow found the surprise on Sonic's face to be severely adorable, and somehow addictive. He brought the stunned hedgehog close to him once again. "You told me I could do this," he whispered this as Sonic was close enough to be the only one to hear it.

Shadow did it again! Sonic would have to be more wary of that particular 'but' from now on. It was quick this time though, and Shadow didn't keep him there, close to him, for long. Their lips connected, but the embarrassment, the awkwardness, all the feelings Sonic thought would be there, weren't. But how were they not? Eggman, Knuckles, everyone saw. The only thing he felt was his heart doing that peculiar fluttering thing it had done before. Shadow smirked and grabbed Sonic's almost trembling hand, then nodded his head to an almost unnoticeable degree, released his mate's hand, and took off. Sonic was left in quite a volatile daze.

Eggman was rather confused, but, to say the least, unfazed. It was none of his business what Sonic's sexual preference was. Though, it did slightly perturb him to think, Sonic did not seem "gay" at all. In fact, he was very ...guy-ish. Mind you, he realized that word was not going to be in Webster's dictionary, but nonetheless. So, he just shrugged it off and thought of finishing Sonic off, it wasn't really going to matter much at all once both of them were dead. But, Shadow had already left, so he'd have to make quick work of the people in this room if he was to make sure the ultimate life form did not mess everything up, which he was so very capable of doing.

Amy felt faint as she watched, the pain rushed into her heart, like blood, something tangible, real. Not a feeling. But, she wasn't surprised or taken aback. After all, she had expected it since they had been in that room at her house for so long together. But it hurt. Really bad. "Sonic..." Sonic just looked at her and gave her a look, she wanted to ask him if it was different when he kissed Shadow. But, she didn't, she just...looked back at him, and forced a smile.

Rouge had to fight a grin that pulled viciously on the corners of her mouth as she watched Knuckles' jaw nearly hit the floor. She eyed him, he was a picture of what an ignorant guy would believe. "Guys can be so dense..." Knuckles stared at her, realizing this was directed toward him, his jaw not exactly lifting. When he had thought the side thought of them kissing beforehand, he had not meant seriously! No way did he actually think they were going to...well...kiss.

"D-dense...? Sonic and Shadow...YOU KNEW?" He stared at her, how dare she not tell him this! This was an important bit of information. Who else had known? Had everyone known? Why was he always left out of the loop! "Amy, did you?" He stared around the room and his glance stumbled across Eggman. "You didn't know, did you?" A rather frantic tone ensued the question to the doctor, who was just perturbed by it. Amy simply shrugged her shoulders, unable to fake another smile.

The doctor sent him a look, "...uh...yes, Knuckles...I knew all about it." It wasn't like Robotnick to use sarcasm, but Knuckles was at least glad he didn't know. Then his glance slowly met Sonic's sympathetic one.

"Sonic...you and Shadow?" Knuckles was indeed repetitive, but as Rouge had not answered him, Sonic gave him an encouraging smile and nodded his head. Knuckles put his hand to his forehead, and honestly, had to keep himself from fainting. It was an amusing scene, indeed. Shadow had successfully created chaos all around once again.

"Sorry, Knuckles..." Sonic couldn't help but smile, he liked it. It wasn't his fault, but he still declined at the thought of being gay, or the thought of giving it any titles. He just...liked, or loved, as he seemed to have recently discovered, Shadow, and he felt content to leave it at that. But, leaving it at that, did not mean dying right now. So, after the awkwardness of the scene wore off he gave Eggman a glare.

"Yeahh." Knuckles mumbled and then decided to let it slide for now, as the scene seemed twice as awkward as Eggman was just standing there stupidly.

"Too shaken up to fight, stupid, or can you manage?" Eggman glared at Sonic after his remark, the doctor snorted at this and then walked to one of the doors they had not gone through. A door opened and a new improved version(without the retarded slot machine) of his Egg...thing stepped out. After some amusing situations of him struggling to get in, he finally managed. Of course, they would have stopped him. But, as it was, Sonic and Knuckles wanted the challenge of it, and Rouge and Amy were too wrapped up in the two males to do much.

"Now...shall we begin?" Sonic just snickered and nodded his head, rather mockingly. Knuckles walked over to Sonic, still rather sour at him for keeping him in the dark about something so important. Sure, he didn't really seem like the love-life type person. But these things had to be put out in the open before they were revealed as Shadow revealed it.

"I'll be damned if that thing doesn't malfunction and blow us all sky high." It was really a side comment to Sonic, though Eggman heard it quite clearly and was incredibly annoyed with it. Though, his choice to completely ignore it and fire his weapon proved he had at least gained a little bit of common sense.

Sonic immediately jerked out of the way, and Knuckles just side stepped with seemingly no effort, concentrating heavily on bugging the doctor. Rouge found this very amusing, and incredibly cute. On note of her thoughts, her cheeks flushed. Amy gave her a look, but remained on the side of the room where no one was. Blood coated her red dress, so you couldn't really see it, except her arms now had a red tint to them. Her heart was pounding too hard, seeming to slam her into the ground with each beat. "...you can do it, guys!" She managed an encouraging sentiment as she remained there, on her knees, almost pathetically so.

Many weapons seemed to push forward out of Eggman's little mechanism, Sonic found this rather disturbing, "Good fucking God..." A look of annoyance from all the machinery twisted across his face, "say cheese." Knuckles sniggered slightly at this.

Rouge sighed, now worry seeming to get the best of her. Blade and guns mixed in together on one weapon? How was the doctor running a machine with so many gadgets? "Be careful, you two." They both seemingly ignored her, but Knuckles did hear it and took it to heart. He, himself, had mentioned when this all started he needed to listen to Rouge more.

---

Shadow tried to force the smug look he had plastered across his face away, but it wasn't working. Even he had a slightly 'giddy', for lack of better word, feeling in the pit of his stomach. He was assured he had caused more havoc than he ever could have imagined. "Shadowwwww!" He tensed up, gritting his teeth at the sound. The voice cut like a knife into his thoughts.

Charmy buzzed down the hallway, quickly and wrapped Shadow in a freakishly intimate hug. After struggling viciously for a moment, he shoved the little ingrate off of him, annoyed, his right eye twitching again. "Charmy!" He hissed furiously, "What the hell do you want?" The anger in his voice finally had an impact on the overly cheerful bee, as he pulled back slightly.

"Shadow, what's the matter?" He nearly sang the words, Shadow wanted to scream 'nothing until you showed up.' But, he kept his mouth shut and whirled. He needed to hurry if he didn't want Sonic getting hurt anymore than he already was. He started down the hall, but Charmy quickly followed. Where was...?

"Charmy? Where are youuu?" Why had he even thought that? What kind of idiotic thought was that? Who CARED where Vector was? Well, Shadow did now, because he was back and was about to unnerve him to the third degree.

"Vector! I found Shadow!" Oh yay, that thought just made Shadow so happy. How wonderful it was that he had run into Charmy and Vector not two minutes after departing from everyone else. Suddenly, the thought that he could run and completely blow these goof-balls away occurred to him. Before he did, he did manage to get a word of an actually civil tone in.

"Yes, you did. But, Charmy...listen...Sonic and a few others are in the center room fighting Eggman, and I'm sure he's got some ridiculously obnoxious gadget, would you two mind helping them?" Charmy seemed happy to help, that was one good thing about him, he was always ready to lend a hand. Well, Shadow guessed that was good. Cream was always ready to lend a helping hand too, but...yeah.

"No problem, Shadow! We will totally take care of it!" He whirled and passed Vector before he even caught up to them, going the opposite direction, "C'mon, Vector! Time to go kick some Eggman ass!" Vector gave Shadow a look, Shadow returned a cocky, rather skeptical look, that encouraged him to follow Charmy. He whirled finally and took off though, leaving Vector no choice, as Shadow was far too fast to catch.

"Uh, Charmy, hold up, there, buddy!"

---

Sonic let out a gasp, as a spray of bullets, apparently that of a former machine gun, pierced into his leg. Was this just his unlucky day or what? Pain ignited like a match through his veins, as he struggled and failed to stay on his feet. Amy covered her mouth in an attempt not to cry out, still on the floor. Though, Sonic had Knuckles to come to his defense. "Hey, Eggman...it looks like you're going to have to focus on me now..." Eggman screamed in an outraged fashion as Knuckles' fist, strong enough to put a severe dent in the metal and give Eggman a headache, slammed into the machine he was controlling..

"How dare you..." Knuckles simply smirked and interrupted him with another blow, this time a kick, though that just hurt him incredibly, and did manage to shake the vehicle enough to shut the doctor up.

"Smooth, Knuckle-head."

"Hey, Sonic! I'm saving you here...you have no room to give me hell." He looked behind him, quite surprised to find that Sonic had actually moved. He whirled his head again to see Sonic on the other side of the machine, in a rather limp position.

Charmy and Vector chose that moment to bust through one of the many doors, Sonic and Knuckles gave them confused stares. "We're here, guys!" Rouge realized who it was and forced a smile, wondering how they figured out where everyone was. It couldn't have possibly been Shadow, considering his hostility toward them earlier.

"Um...yay?" Sonic just seemed struck with a dazed expression as he eyed Charmy. Where they supposed to be happy that they "were here". He supposed he was being slightly conceited and should have been glad to have some help. But, he really didn't care. He felt like being conceited.

"Oh, like you guys don't need any help." Vector smirked and threw his fist up into the air. Knuckles seemed slightly annoyed at their new presence in the room. Eggman just seemed exasperated, obviously they had not been much of a threat to him in his past ventures on the ARK.

"Not from you..." Sonic muttered, but got a nudge from Knuckles. Charmy just shot him a glance, then noticed the unconscious Espio.

"Espio! We found you!" Amy stared at Charmy like a teacher would stare at a retarded student who busted into the class room and stated something like 'It is I, the Phantom of the Opera' in a valiant tone. Charmy seemed to think Espio could hear him though he was quite obviously unconscious. Amy simply shook her head, managing to overcome her desperate heartache for a moment.

"Charmy, Espio is unconscious." She said this rather dully, he looked at her in befuddlement. As if he didn't understand this comment. She wanted to reach over and slap the little bee right across the face, but she just sat there and gave him a spirit-lifting nod. He took a deep breath and then turned back to Eggman, seeming to accept the fact.

---

Finally, he opened the door to the control room. His stomach churned with unsatisfactory thoughts of Sonic's injury playing through his mind. He walked to the stand which held the chaos emeralds, or some of them and holographic images of the rest of them. He stared blankly at them, "And those are supposed to contain the power the real ones do? That's such a rip off." He stated this bluntly, then realized he sounded a bit like a child unimpressed with a new toy.

After putting in the incredibly simple password of "Maria", he stared, rather dumbfounded at the several images that flashed through the control panel, "How the hell am I...?" His head jerked up at the tube in the center of the room. Tails? How in God's name had Eggman gotten him into that tube tied so tightly, so fast? It didn't seem...possible. His eyes darted around the room. To meet a new version, possibly a hologram, of the vixen Knuckles had been chasing. It was glaring at him, a smug look across it's face. After some careful deductions and observation, the black hedgehog realized that a simple pulled switch would drop the fox into the abyss of space.

The vixen was about to pull that very switch, "Wait...hold it!" Shadow called out desperately across the room. He honestly didn't care much, but Sonic would never let him live it down if he let Tails die. The look on it's face was clear, oh, please, did it honestly expect him to take it on in combat?

After getting his ass kicked for a moment, he realized it did and that he had done some serious underestimating. Not only was the evil looking formerly-possible-hologram real, it was a bitch! Dizziness clouded his vision as he stared blankly in front of him at the female fox. He snarled and forced a kick into her body, slamming her back against a wall. The little annoyance had yet to finish yet though, she jerked back up and sent him stumbling across the room. Before he struck him again, Shadow grasped her hand in irritation. "I really don't have time for you." He felt her kick connect with his rib cage. Typical.

"Do you honestly think you can defeat me as easily as your thinking? I'm far more than meets the eye." Shadow gave her a scolding glare as if she were some type of a child. A psychotic child, bent on helping out an overly obese doctor.

"What's your problem?" He hissed through gritted teeth and she just stared at him. "I don't even know you!" In all reality, Shadow was sure something was wrong with her, as if she had been brainwashed, had a horrific past, or something of the sort. Had he been slightly more compassionate, he would have wasted valuable time trying to help this female he knew nothing about. But, he wasn't, and currently, he was thankful for that.

"My name is Faye." He raised an eyebrow at her. She figured he didn't care much for her story or anything else. The frightening realization that nothing she could do would make her stronger than this hedgehog hit her like a punch in the stomach.

Shadow rolled his eyes, the fake pleasantry in his voice was quite intimidating, "Hi, I'm Shadow. Would you like to go to dinner sometime?" She winced at his taunting tone. "I don't care who you are. But, I really don't have the time nor the patience to deal with you. Thus, this conversation is officially pointless." The red-eyed hedgehog pulled her hard into a door, well, most wouldn't have realized it was a door. But, himself having been a resident of the ARK formerly, knew it was. Pain shot through the vixen like a thousand knives, and she remained there.

He stormed back over to the control panel. "I have somewhere to be, and something to do...I have no intention of dealing with you any further." He glared furiously at the panel, then after a few taps, and a smirk that meant he remembered a few things, a latch opened behind the vixen. A paralyzing pull of space itself remained even after it pulled her out. He slammed it shut with another simple touch of the screen.

Needless to say, she wasn't going to be much of a problem from here on out. "Anti-climactic, yes...but I honestly don't have the time." (Nor do I want to waste anymore valuable writing space on her in this chapter.)

Unfortunately, the door was as far as his memory led him, leaving him to desperately sort through lights and flashing buttons to get Tails down and shut off the power. Light blue eyes stared at Shadow with a hopeful aura about them. "That...can't...be...normal." Shadow glared scornfully at the screen, which revealed a dancing Eggman. Finally, after a few more strange images, he saw it, desperately he stared at the way to disable the power. He'd have to hope the glass surrounding Tails was breakable, because he wasn't going to pass over it. He had no idea how he had even gotten to it, the Ultimate Life Form had been playing with buttons!

He glared and viciously pressed the deactivate button. Lights dimmed around him and he felt the emerald around his neck get its due power back. "Thank God." He smirked when he imagined the look on the doctor's face when the power went out like it did. Awkward, you could find one simple main control and shut the entire colony down. He had to admit, a mistake on Gerald's part.

Tails gave him an encouraging nod, as he walked over and examined the little tube from several different angles. As if! Like he was going to do anything scientific in the least, Shadow jerked up into the air, the energy of his shoes kicking in at the last moment to send a shattering forced down the glass. After a few cracks, it literally shattered, sending Tails sprawling to the floor, with a few additional gashes. "There we go!" Tails mumbled something at Shadow, as he untied him.

"Shadow!" He sounded rather frantic, "Where's Sonic?" Shadow gave him an annoyed stare, and Tails smiled in realization.

"Oh, thanks for saving me! I'd give you a hug, but you'd probably run away screaming." Shadow nodded his head reassuring this would happen if the fox hugged him. Tails just grinned slightly.

"Sorry, but...where are they?" Shadow yanked his arm, tugging him along. He supposed that's where they were going. Truth be known, Shadow would have been more annoyed with the fact he got 'where's Sonic?' before 'thanks!' If his mind hadn't been swirling with thoughts of the blue hedgehog as well.

"They're messing around with Eggman...but, I'm sure you already knew that." He glanced back at the fox he was still tugging, then Tails felt him pick up the pace. The young, light-colored animal felt like his arm was going to be ripped from its socket.

"Well, yeah..." Shadow had no idea how hard it was on Tails' arm. It was a difficult concept to grasp that not everyone ran faster than sound itself, fancy that. How odd.

---

Charmy sighed, exasperated as Eggman screamed furiously about the power. Sonic just had a smug look, though he was back on the floor from the new wound in his leg. "Idiot...what kind of a moron doesn't have a back up power source?" Charmy's comment had some sense in it, it proved that Eggman had not improved in the common sense category all that much, after all.

"Really, Robotnick...what were you thinking about?" He glared in Sonic's direction, he thought it was Sonic anyway. The only light they had in the room were the many stars that shown through the clear floor.

Rouge murmured and complained a bit, "I can't see a damn thing...did Shadow do this?" That thought occurred to Eggman. He had done it, that damn hedgehog had messed everything up...again. How fucking typical. Shadow and Sonic were never going to let him get away with a single plan, no matter how evil it was.

"Every single one of my plans...they never work." Knuckles snickered slightly and stared at the doctor. Eggman knew it was coming.

"Only because they suck." Eggman just gave one of his customary 'hmphs'.

"No, Rouge...it's normal for the entire ARK to just randomly lose power, Shadow had nothing to do with this." Sonic's voice held much sarcasm, which was usual for him. Rouge just pouted and didn't look at him, of course, even if she had wanted to, she wouldn't have been able to find him due to the blackness of the room.

"How are we not spiraling down through space if all the power has been shut off?" Amy's confused voice initiated a response from the doctor himself. Amy didn't really care to hear his voice, but she supposed it was the only answer she was going to get.

"Apparently, just the inner power has been disabled...which means..." The doctor seemed to remember something, and may have gone and proved to them how to get off the space colony by blurting it out, had Vector not interrupted.

But the gator did interrupt! "I guess Shadow did it...he's faster than I thought." Knuckles and Sonic just sighed at Vector's comment, he was only the ultimate life form. Imagine that, him being fast? It was like some kind of a freaking revelation.

"No shit." Charmy complained at Sonic for cursing too much, which triggered more curse words to leave his mouth, this time in simple anger, not sarcasm.

---

A/N: Yay! See, that would be the gayest ending in the history of EVER! So, I'm not ending it...I don't guess. Hmm, but...as you can see. It's kind of winding down. I know, I sped through a lot of things, but romance/emotion is my specialty...not action. So, you're just going to have to deal with that. Well, thanks for the reviews again! That was so totally nice of you guys! Oh! And...uh, since I'm too lazy to look up names right now...the reviewer who told me I update fast, thanks, I try! But, if I let it go too long, I'll forget all together, I have a bad tendency to not finish stories. -sigh- I swear I'm going to get around to it! Really! HeHe, and sorry, Zatcher, just hang loose, buddy. I dunno what about my writing style you like, but thanks! And I can't help the fangirl in me sometimes. ;-P