"I need the Chaos Emerald," he said to Shadow, starting to speed through the room. No explanation, no warning, no apologies. Just the words and hurried motions as he weaved through the statues in the room. His nickname of 'the blue blur' became literal, as he darted to each nook and cranny searching for it – under the statue pillars, in his own spines, over everywhere they had walked or moved. No dice.

Shadow huffed, confused but still miffed enough to pretend not to care. "I don't think you're in any position to demand things of me," he said, "or did you forget that you just ignored my orders and turned those sharp appendages of yours on me? To protect a potential threat to all of our safety?"

Sonic grimaced, ignoring the words and continuing to dig around the room. If he were calmer, he could try to close his eyes and see if he could sense its presence. Shadow could do that, after all, so why couldn't he? But he was frantic, nervous, and maybe – though he wouldn't admit it – scared. That didn't make for good focus, and he wasn't good at it even at the best of times.

There were dozens of ways that Sonic could have told Shadow about his mistake. When you brought that number down to the ones that Sonic could think of in the few seconds, there were three options.

One was to fully come clean – he'd say he lost the book, they would yell for a while, and then they'd figure it out.

One was to ignore that it happened entirely. Never bring up the journal again in conversation, never hint that he remembered it ever existing. Only when Shadow asked would he notice.

One of them…well… one of them was to deal with the damage, then tell him.

In the minutes after he had chosen, he began to regret his decision.

"Where did you put it?" he insisted to Shadow – not with malice or even a raised voice, just erratic energy. "Where is the emerald, Shadow? This is important."

Shadow's face flushed with anger. "Are you not hearing me? Why should I-"

"The Individuals are in trouble. They need to get out of the ice base. Like, now! Yesterday!"

This took Shadow by surprise, only visible for a few moments before his eyes began to narrow. "What do you mean The Individuals are in trouble? There's no reason for their location to be exposed. Nobody else got taken who would know about that. Unless…." Shadow stood up, clenching his fist a bit as he did He crossed his arms and closed his eyes, as if deep in thought, before bringing his hand to his forehead. "Sonic, what are you hiding from me?" he said, as if talking to a child.

This kind of conversation with him was the worst. Shadow wasn't much older than him. Well… okay, maybe if the years in stasis were factored in, he was a lot older. But mentally, physically, emotionally, he was almost exactly his age. Dark and brooding though he may be, he wasn't actually more mature or wise than the other – just more grumpy. He hated it when he took this kind of tone, talking down to him. "You just need to trust me, Shadow," he said, trying to hide his annoyance. "I promise, I'll explain after we reach them."

"Explain what? Why can't you tell me now?"

The voices grew louder, echoing off the figures in the room, and Amy and the Doctor looked on like guests at an awkward family dinner. "Guys, guys, stop it!" Amy yelled from across the room. She stuck to a corner, pinned in place to avoid being bowled over by the racing hedgehog in his irregular movements. "Just sit down and talk this out like adults for once! My goodness."

Shadow held up us hand, as if telling Amy to be quiet. "Why would I trust you right now, Sonic? You're fighting me. You're not listening to me. You're keeping secrets. That doesn't seem like behavior that earns trust."

"And if you don't tell me where that darn emerald is soon, Shadow, nobody will even be able to keep secrets for much longer." He started to slow, his digging only upending dust and continuing to startle Amy. "Where is it? Tell me!"

It was only a split second. Shadow probably didn't even notice that he did it. A quick dart of the eyes to the machine in the corner – the one Doctor Eggman had been fiddling with – only to snap back. Sonic remembered suddenly that it was there, powering the machine. Egghead said something about a signal of some kind that they needed to broadcast. Some kind of scientific mumbo jumbo. Whatever. The point was, he remembered it was there, powering the device, and he knew it wouldn't be for long.

Sonic turned towards the machine and Shadow, catching Sonic's glance, widened his eyes. "Don't. You. Dare! You don't know what you're doing!"

Sonic sprinted to the device, immediately getting to work unhooking the wires and clamps holding the stone in place. It took some prying and a few shocks, but he got it. It seemed to shine in his bare hand, almost as if anticipating being used by a living, breathing thing instead of a cold metal device. Shadow came up behind him and tried to tackle Sonic to the ground, the latter's tight grip preventing the emerald from flying across the floor. Amy's yelling got louder and more persistent as the two grappled, each trying to hold or take the emerald away. Shadow tried to wrest it from Sonic's hands without hurting him, but instead felt himself get pulled in as Sonic curled around it.

"You can't do this!" Shadow yelled. His voice held a note of worry that almost made Sonic stop – almost. "You're going to hurt-"

With the force of Sonic's Chaos Control, all sound evaporated.

They were meant to arrive inside the ice caverns made to keep things safe. The rooms were supposed to be dark, with the sounds of occasional shuffling steps and talking amongst each other. They were supposed to be under cover, finding someone to take them to Tails, the resident doctor, anyone who could get them all out. Instead, Sonic and Shadow got blinded by the light reflecting off snow, chilled by wind, and hushed by silence.

The two stayed in place for a second, Sonic uncurling and staring at the openness surrounding them. Shadow let go of the emerald and of Sonic, standing up slowly and taking a few steps forward. Neither said anything at first, Sonic stuck in place and Shadow searching in the disheveled snow. Shadow was the first to speak, shielding his eyes from the glaring light. "Where is the base? What happened?"

What pointless questions. Shadow knew perfectly well the answers. He knew perfectly well. But he wanted to hear Sonic say it. To tell him it wasn't a bad dream. To make it real.

"This is the base," Sonic said flatly. The adrenaline he had from their earlier plans drained out of him, the truth of their situation setting in like concrete. "They're gone."

"How did you know-"

"They have… no. We're too late," Sonic said. "They've been wiped out. Everyone."

Shadow stopped. "Rouge…." He said to himself, before shaking his head. Sonic barely heard him, the name said in a whisper under the whistling wind, but it was clear enough. His last connection. His last friend. Gone.

"Maybe… maybe they just moved since I left? They don't exactly send warnings to Scouts, right?" Sonic's smile wobbled, knowing even as he said the words that they likely weren't true. He could see it plainly in what remained of the snow and the base. No equipment or supplies left behind whatsoever – normally not the sign of a group in a mad rush to leave. Dragged footprints as if others ran to the base coming towards it, but closer together when leaving. Everyone who left here either did so willingly or was carried away.

Usually, the Taken had no need to carry anyone. They didn't take prisoners. They took bodies.

The howling air stung his ears, and he felt his arms stiffen with the cold. This was his fault. He shook his head fiercely from side to side, like he wanted to dislodge the thought, but he knew it was true. It was his fault The Taken knew where to find this place, and it was his fault that he hadn't been able to come sooner and warn them.

His fault.

His fault.

His fault.

It echoed in his head, like the tolling of bells, like the thudding of footsteps, like the thrumming of a heartbeat. How could he come back from that? How could he have been so irresponsible, so stupid….

Shadow leaned down and wrapped his arms around him. This wasn't the bind like holding him back from Amy, or the grapple like trying to take the emerald back. This was the kind of embrace Sonic loved – the one he had grown accustomed to getting from Shadow. Yes, it was probably just to keep each other warm in the frozen wasteland, and yes, he felt the freshly formed scars and bandages from the wounds that he himself inflicted, but instead of focusing on that, he focused on the attempted comfort that came from it. He didn't deserve this. Not after what he did.

"You lost Rouge… I lost Tails…" Sonic said, so quietly that it the sound didn't make his ears.

"He was the last of your friends left, right?" Shadow murmured into his shoulder, tightening. "The fox kid? The last one still-"

"Still in control of himself. Yeah. And I left him alone to be a hero again. To chase after you." He tightened his hands into fists and banged the ground. Everything was happening too fast, too painfully. "He's gone. They're all gone. I can't…." He couldn't finish the sentence, his throat closing up as though a ball had gone down. He felt like he was choking, and in a way he was, the thoughts and words coming so fast they clogged his mind and speech. So there was nothing.

Ice crystals flew, and he felt small cuts in his bare palms. He took off his gloves earlier. Why the hell did he take off his gloves? He had wanted to make Amy feel better not having her own. It seemed silly, now.

Amy.

Her face lit up in his mind, and he felt something like hope again.

Amy was okay.

Amy was gone before, but now she was okay! Now they could all be okay!"

The ember of that hope began to spark a raging fire. He had to focus. He could fix this. He could bring Tails back. He could bring all of them back.

"Shadow, I-"

"We need to get out of here," Shadow said, cutting him off. "We'll freeze to death if we stay out here with no shelter, and there's nothing left to salvage from what's left." And you'll never feel okay again here, Sonic finished in his head. He couldn't see Shadow's face, his own vision going blurry. Was it the snow-fog? Was it frostbite? Was it tears? He hated it, whatever it was.

"Are we going back to the museum?" he said. "That's the only place we know is still safe, right?" He didn't want to think too much about the significance of that – the only confirmed safe place in the world.

Shadow hummed into him back as he replied. The vibration made him feel safe – alive. "Yes," Shadow said, "but you should brace yourself for a fight."

"Why?"

"Because you took the power source from Amy's cure."

If Sonic had ever, even once in his life, been able to see the consequences of his own actions, he probably would have anticipated seeing Amy going berserk when they got back.

Well, maybe 'berserk' wasn't the word. That would imply a lack of control. Amy's movements seemed a lot of things – powerful, swift, efficient – but 'out of control' wasn't one of them. Her eyes were once again glazed over, her expression devoid of any clear emotion, but the swinging of her hammer made contact like she had at her most angry. Statues scattered everywhere, their pieces covering the ground in sharp fragments. If she or anyone else fell, they'd be cut up all over. For her current purposes, though, that was just fine – more openings to spread her "blessing."

Shadow's reaction to his taking the emerald suddenly made a lot of sense.

Sonic saw her at a glance before Shadow tugged him sharply down. He didn't seem surprised by this at all – a fact that threw Sonic for a loop. "What is she-"

Shadow put his finger on Sonic's lips, as if to shut him up. He'd almost forgotten what it felt like to have anything of Shadow's touch his lips. He mouthed silently to him, "Distract her and move her away from the transmitter. Got it?"

When Shadow withdrew his hand, Sonic blinked, then threw a sharp nod and thumbs up. With practiced stealth, he tiptoed through the fragments remaining of the artwork. He didn't want to be noticed until the time was exactly right.

A glance at Amy tied his stomach in knots. She had been fine before, hadn't she? Was the cure so short lived? He thought about Shadow's words. You took the power source from her cure. So it wasn't a one and done deal? She'd have to be close to that thing for the rest of her life in order to stay herself? How horrible.

Another clattering and smash drew him out of his train of thought, back to the situation at hand. Distraction. I can be distracting, he thought to himself, drawing in a deep breath. With a hard push at still half-frozen muscles, Sonic jumped and perched on one of the displays. "You know," he said, "normally art critics just write about how the art is bad, not break it!"

She didn't respond in words, instead turning and rushing towards his person. Her hammer's handle stayed pressed in clenched hands, at the ready for a moment's attack. As she got close, he jumped to another platform, flipping in the air before landing in a crouched position again.

"The game is called leap frog, not leap hog!"

She turned and kept rushing, and he kept jumping from place to place, leading him to the far edge of the room. You know, he thought, for a piece of a global hivemind with the complete knowledge of literally everything, she really didn't strategize well. He felt almost okay doing this. Dodging enemy blows, throwing out banter, leading the big bad away from the ability to do a bigger bad – this was as close to his comfort zone as he got. Still, when he saw Amy's face, that thundering refrain kept creeping in his mind. Your fault, your fault, your fault-

She threw her hammer at his current platform, leading him to jump in the air before it could be cracked open underneath him. She rushed over to his landing spot, arms outstretched as if to catch him, and he quickly maneuvered in the air. His foot pressed against her shoulder, using her body as a boost as he leaped up to grab one of the hanging light fixtures. "Gotta try harder than that, Amy!"

He wanted her to be annoyed. Angry. Even smug. Instead, her expression did not change at all, her mouth gaping open with dark machines seeping through her teeth. An image of a piranha in a cartoon came to Sonic's mind, waiting in the water beneath the main character whose gravity had been suspended for a laugh. Sonic sure wasn't laughing right now.

The fixture's wires started to fray from Sonic's weight, and he stole a glance at Shadow. He was over by the machine with the emerald, trying to reassemble to pieces that had been torn off and tossed aside. Was he trying to re-cure her? Could he even do that? Doctor Eggman wasn't near there, at least not that he could see. Hadn't the Doctor been the one to make the device in the first place? Could Shadow even do this from memory.

Another creak of the fixture, and Sonic's attention snapped back down. Unless he wanted to fall straight on Amy, who was currently jumping up to try to reach him, he'd have to move and quickly. Rocking back and forth, he started to move on the light fixture. He couldn't help but feel weightless at that moment, like a child at the playground at the top of a swing's arc. At last, he let go, letting himself spin and pirouette in the air before landing in a crouched position on the ground. Bits of statue pieces crunched under his feet and he moved towards the back corner of the room. Come on, Shadow. I can't keep her attention forever.

She retrieved the hammer and rushed behind, following him as fast as he could manage. Sure, he could outrun her easily if he wanted to – Amy was quick on her feed, but hardly legendary material like his own super sonic speed – but that wasn't the point. The point was to get her away.

With a sinking feeling in his gut, he felt his foot snag on something on the ground. A piece of stone, though he couldn't identify what kind, caught against his shoe. If they were in perfect repair, everything would have just glided off them, not so much as making a dent. He'd been gone for a while, though, without materials, and Tails had more important things to work on for The Individuals than fixing the shoes of someone who wouldn't even leave the base to peak performance.

Tails….

He crashed to the floor face first, the shrapnel making at least a dozen tiny cuts in his arms and legs. This must be similar to what Shadow felt from his spines, he realized with a twinge of regret. And for what? Trying to protect him? No wonder he'd been pissed off. He didn't even know about the journal yet.

Amy grew closer, and Sonic was suddenly very aware of all of his scrapes. Each one was an opening to her, a chance for her to take away everything that made him… him. She drew in, mouth open, and he braced for it… only to see her hunch over. She started screaming, even louder than last time since there was no gag in place, but now he knew why. His eyes darted to the device. The Emerald was in place, its glow mesmerizing in the dark room. He said a silent thank you to whatever forces were looking out for him right now as he took his chance, dashing across the floor to the transmission device. Shadow stood next to it, his face weary but solid. Everything was okay now. Everything could go back to their semblance of normal.

"Sonic." Shadow's voice was insistent. Sonic flinched. He expected his boyfriend to have relief, or calm, or something other than this frustration under his voice. It all worked out in the end, right? Why was he still angry?

"Yeah," he said, his own relief draining away.

"How did you know that the Individuals were in danger?"

Oh yeah. That. How to explain that-

"They found your journal."

Sonic and Shadow's heads both bolted up at the sound of the unexpected voice. Amy, wavering and yet upright, looked worse for wear even compared to before. "It's… it's the one with the weird spiral on the binding, right? The one with your handwriting in it?" She tried to look strong, but couldn't pull it off convincingly.

The surprise of it coming from her drew Sonic away from his impending dread of Shadow's reaction. Shadow seemed to be in a similar position, looking back and forth between Sonic and Amy as if trying to decide who to question first. When he looked at Sonic, he seemed full of rage… nearly as angry as Sonic had ever seen him. Angrier than when he thought the world had killed him in the future. Angrier than when he thought Sonic was mimicking him. Almost as angry as when he lost his memory and was literally fueled by nothing but anger.

To be fair, Sonic totally deserved it. He was angry at himself, too.

But when he looked at Amy, that washed away, and he had a look of strong concern on his face. Sonic was puzzled by this, not used to seeing Shadow's sensitive side without a lot of coaxing first. "What…" he managed to get out before stopping, then starting again. "How do you know that? You've never seen the book before."

Amy shook a little, putting her hands against her temples. "I saw when I was connected to them again… I think. It's so blurry, so much at once. My head hurts from trying to remember." She winced, like she was stuck in the remnants of a bad dream, and Sonic felt another pang of sadness for her. "They found it on Angel Island. It fell from a… bird? No, a helicopter. That makes more sense."

Shadow looked at her with grave seriousness. "I need you to dig deep for me. I won't ask anything else after this, I promise." He knelt, looking at her eyes. Chaos, even from across the room, Sonic could tell they were red and puffy. "I need you to tell me whose handwriting you saw in there. What did it look like? How many sets were there?"

Sonic glanced over at Shadow, confused by the question. He'd checked that thing over and over for invisible ink, for black light revealing, for anything that could suggest it had any writing in it before he put down his own. There was nothing but his own scrawl – well, his own scrawl and some bits of mud or spilled beverages, but nothing meaningful besides. Did Shadow have more than one journal? How did he not know about this?

Amy took a deep breath, holding Shadow's gaze. "Just Sonic's. I'd know it anywhere." She glanced at him, a halfhearted smile on her face. "It took me a long time to be able to read it – you know how messy his handwriting is, don't you?"

Shadow looked relieved at this, almost about to laugh. "Thank you," he said to her before standing up. "That's… almost good news." He turned to Sonic, his eyes still sharp as darts, but somehow it stung less than before. "It's too late for The Individuals in the base. We confirmed that earlier. But Sonic was kept out of the loop on a lot of things. I think we'll be safe for now."

Sonic knew that he didn't have any right to be angry. If anything, Shadow had the right to be angry at him – after all, his carelessness lead to many people losing themselves, and brought them that much closer to being wiped out. But something about 'keeping him out of the loop' being mentioned as though it were obvious rubbed him the wrong way. "What do you mean by that? What didn't you tell me about?"

"Sonic," Shadow said, ignoring his question, "we need to move quickly. The signal works – that's proven. And we have enough supplies to make receivers for at least the people at GUN. Once we do that, we can figure out how to make enough for everyone else and broadcast the signal so it can work everywhere."

Sonic furrowed his brow. "And how are we going to do that? The local desk DJ doesn't exactly have enough power to send it out everywhere."

"GUN has the capability to broadcast from a few different places, using satellite to reach towers all over the world. It won't get everyone at first, but once we have enough, we can build some last transmitters in the more rural areas."

Satellites…. He supposed it made sense. The Taken weren't exactly keen on space travel – not when all of the metal for ships could just be used to make more of them. They'd still be in tact out there, ready to transmit the message. Maybe this could work.

Amy's hand lifted, shaking a bit. "There's something else," she said. "The ones that used to be part of GUN… they found a way to… how do I even say this…." She was struggling, closing her eyes and squeezing them together.

"Amy, are you okay?" Sonic asked.

"When I think too hard about trying to get something specific, my head starts hurting. It's like trying to listen to thousands of people talking at once and trying to remember one conversation out of all of it."

"Just try your best. We're not going to make you do anything you aren't comfortable with." These words were said pointedly at Shadow, who responded by rolling their eyes.

She took deep breaths, gripping the hem of her dress. "They're replacing parts of people with robotic ones. Like prosthetics, but they didn't really need them. They got one person whose nanites could plug into it."

"They mastered robotization." Doctor Eggman's stepped out from underneath a fallen bust, the shadows hiding him from view before this point.

"Robotization?" A chill went up Sonic's spine. He didn't like the sound of that at all.

Doctor Eggman sighed, his words not coming out as an explanation, but a statement of defeat. "I've been experimenting for years. The Lost Hex, the Phantom Ruby, Metal Sonic… they were flawed iterations, to be sure, but approaching the same end goal it sounds like the Taken are going for."

"Which is?"

"A total transplant of the person into a metallic form. Same memories, same abilities, same 'soul,' if you believe in that sort of thing… but easily controllable, indestructible, and unable to resist my directions or orders. Perfect foot soldiers in an army, drones in a plant, whatever we would want them to be."

Shadow interjected. "I saw them working on it back at GUN. They had a person who was half formed in metal parts. I was trying to warn the Individuals, but it seems this is more serious than I thought."

Sonic's head jerked. "How could you see 'evil sentient robot virus makes people into even more of mind controlled cyborg than they already are,' and not already think it's as serious as its going to get?"

Shadow's patience had finally snapped. "You're not seeing the big picture, yet again. I shouldn't be surprised." He turned to the Doctor, gesturing at him. "His prototypes had one limitation that this won't have. We can shut down communications between the robots in people like Amy now, where it's still a layer on top of working bodies. If they're replacing body parts with ones that rely on the nanites' presence to work, shutting them down could kill them. There will be no coming back from that."

"Apocalypse round two?"

"More like the end of anything resembling humanity."

Amy started to shake, her hands against her temples. "Yes, yes. That's their plan. Frail bodies replaced with ones that can't corrode or die. Complete control over everything. No differences at all."

"No deviation from the machine."

Sonic felt his heart sink. He knew that Doctor Eggman was evil – or at best, blinded by ambition – but never thought he would succeed on that level. "So, we head to the GUN base then? We stop them from finishing their first 'roboti-whatever,' find a way to broadcast the disrupting signal across the world, start getting the weird receiver band aid things on people, and prepare to face nearly the entire world's population. No sweat." He tried to sound confident, and may have been convincing if the people in the room hadn't followed him for his entire life, been trying to kill him for his entire life, or were currently in a relationship with him. But as it was, they knew that he was compensating for something, and hard.

"It's not that simple," Doctor Eggman said, coming closer to the transmitter.

"What do you mean?" Sonic said. This seemed to not make sense to Shadow either, since he also appeared confused. The look he was giving the Doctor was of one caught off guard.

The Doctor stepped closer to the machine, and put his hand on the Chaos Emerald. His face grew into a smile – broad, goofy, and his old brand of maniacal. "You see, you two simpletons, now that I know the nanites are reversible, I can use that fact to my advantage."

Sonic's eyes widened. "What are you-"

"I wonder how much money the leaders of the world will give me to let them stay in control of their faculties? Or to keep their enemy's armies indisposed?" He started to laugh, and Sonic and Shadow immediately remembered that their truce with Eggman, beneficial as it may had seemed, had always been precarious at best. "Why, even keeping their own people under control? And with enough time and research, I can find out how the network works. My plan can be back on track."

Prong by prong, he began to lift off the metal pieces holding the Chaos Emerald in place. Amy looked terrified, and Sonic was torn between wanting to comfort her and wanting to tear off Doctor Eggman's head. "All I need," he said, "is for you two to be… taken care of. And so long as Miss Rose here does her part, that won't take long."

Sonic started to run. Shadow bent his knees to brace himself. Amy yelled, inundating the Doctor in barely understandable pleas. And Doctor Eggman pulled the Chaos Emerald off the machine, throwing it in a corner, and pulled the formerly attached wires off entirely. With a laugh, he pulled until the pieces fell apart. As the frayed fragments met with the shrapnel of statues, Sonic knew there was no going back.