Author's note: Have you ever had a story that you knew where you wanted it to go, but what you thought would be like one chapter turned into four? …Yeah, I'm coming to that conclusion now.

Kind Words Kudos™ to E-Rank, Noonui, and Awdures! Who, by the way, are all amazing Sonic authors—go check them out!

Chapter 6: Catch-22

"Do you remember waking up?" she asked quietly. She was propped up in bed, a multitude of wires and tubes coming from every which way. Shadow sat next to her, his hand grasping hers gently.

"What do you mean?"

She let in and out a deep breath before answering. Even speaking was draining her right now. "When you were born," she clarified.

"Made," Shadow corrected, unable to hide his own disgust at that.

She couldn't do much more than squeeze his hand, her head shaking a few times to disagree with him. "You are still you, Shadow. You came to be, whether it was Grandpa or not. You were born."

He sighed, unwilling to argue with her further. "Not a lot," he finally replied to her first question.

Her head tilted at him when she probed, "Can you describe it?"

"No." It was sharp, but he had not intended it to be. She glanced away from him, making his guilt inexplicably rise. "It is not … coherent," he said gently, relieved to see her eyes open back up to look at him. "It is only … flashes of images."

They were silent as his gaze travelled to her frail, pale hand. It could barely grip his own.

"Were you afraid?"

Shadow's eyes flicked up towards hers. A defensive, instinctive denial almost kicked in, but quickly faded with the pure vulnerability in her expression.

He didn't break eye contact. "Yes."

"That's how it felt," she agreed, head resting into the pillows behind her. "After the trial."

He nearly scoffed. It hadn't been a trial; it'd been desperation. A last-ditched effort for Gerald to save his dying granddaughter, and it nearly killed her in the process.

"I kept seeing … flashes. Things I couldn't describe, and couldn't remember when I woke up."

This time he was the one to squeeze her hand.

"Grandpa said he had to use a lot of Chaos Drives to rebalance everything."

"He should not have tried that with you." Shadow did his best to hide the anger in his tone. "They should've tested it with me, first."

Her brows creased ever so slightly, confused blue eyes staring up at him. "I thought you knew."

"Knew what?"

"They couldn't test it with you. The ... he said the energy was a part of you."

"This was not Chaos energy," he debated.

"No," she agreed, even though she shook her head. She let out another deep breath in, then out. "The shadow of Chaos energy."

Shadow's eyes snapped open, along with a sizeable gasp of air. He instantly clenched them shut, however, when sand irritatingly rained into them. A cough followed shortly after, bits of grit having found residence in his throat.

He rolled onto his stomach, away from the assault above. Something was cold and hard beneath him, and vibrating.

He frowned, then opened his eyes when he heard additional coughing to his right. Tails was near him, faceplanted, and Sonic not much farther, just now slowly sitting up.

Memories flooded in and Shadow jerked his head up. All he could see was a haze of staticky blue above, surrounded by a combination of stone pillars and metal tracks.

"A lift," he heard Tails croak.

"What?"

"It's a mobile lift. We're—," he paused to cough some more, "we're going down."

That explained the vibration; the clanking of metal links rotating on either side of the platform. Studying the blue color above him, Tails answered his next question before Shadow could even voice it.

"Look," he pointed up, still rasping from the inhalation of sand. "It's a forcefield. That's why the sandpit was so small: it's manufactured."

Sonic was still sitting down, but had managed to follow Tails' hand with his eyes to peer up at the barely-contained sand trap above them. "Well … ain't that convenient," he shakily commented, clear anxiety lacing his demeanor.

Considering the faker's hatred of water, Shadow supposed drowning in sand wouldn't be much different, at least by any irrational fear's standards.

Tails apparently heard it too, as he was at the blue hedgehog's side in an instant. "You okay, Sonic?"

"I'm fine," he lied. He peeked at Shadow, then made a dramatic effort to tilt and whack the side of his head. "Minus the amount of beach in my ears, anyways."

There was a horrendous howl that echoed through the vertical tunnel as they continued to descend. All three glanced up when the blue haze above them seemed to hitch from a brief loss of power.

With the forcefield's momentary glitch came a mini-avalanche of dirt, and all three Mobians ducked their heads just in time to become the desert-equivalent of snowmen.

The platform jolted from the sudden influx of weight, but continued to move without issue.

"So what is this, another secret entrance?" Sonic asked, trying to unbury himself once again.

"I think it's meant for the guards, actually," Tails replied, shaking off his pelt. "This is really small, so there's likely a lot of them surrounding the base, to allow for quick access to the perimeter."

"And we just happened to drop into one."

Tails shrugged. "Maybe it was activated by the sandstorm? Beats the alternative, anyways." He used the back of his glove to gently brush off the computer hanging from the strap on his shoulder.

Shadow had fully stood again, kicking away the excess sand now coating the lift. The old machinery creaked terribly as it continued to lower, ancient gears combined with the rigors of an arid, desolate zone.

An opening in the tunnel slowly emerged as the wall-less elevator made it to the bottom of the underground base. Bright fluorescent lighting briefly blinded the black hedgehog, but he heard the telltale whine of a laser charging up regardless.

In a blink, he jumped through the new gap—before the platform had come to a complete stop—and slammed into the robot, just as its cannon arm had been prepared to fire. There was an explosion of shrapnel, a few pieces bouncing off Shadow's quills as he rolled away.

The distracting sounds of his own attack made him nearly miss the tail-end whir of another gun charging up. He turned in time to see Sonic's own spindash take out the second Shield Hunter, its large form crumpling under the sheer destructive force of sharp spines spinning like a buzzsaw.

Brushing off his arms (which were still coated with an endless amount of sand), Sonic grinned at Shadow and used two fingers to give a half-salute to him, making the latter crack his knuckles in annoyance.

"G.U.N. robots?" Tails asked, unperturbed by the sudden attack. He flew up to the robot sparking next to Sonic, his computer doing some sort of scan. Then, when that apparently didn't give him the answers he wanted, he let it dangle from its strap and started prying open a panel on the side of the Shield Hunter's head.

"They got this place on lockdown or something?" Sonic interrogated further, watching the fox erratically yank out wires and start connecting them to that same tablet. Not getting an answer from the child prodigy, Sonic turned his attention to Shadow.

"I thought you said they weren't holding this fort?"

"They are not."

Sonic blinked before purposely staring at the wreckage next to the black hedgehog. "Um. Right. I wouldn't put plagiarism past Eggman, but generally he goes a step farther and stamps his own logo on it somewhere."

"All G.U.N. property report activity logs," Shadow reasoned coolly. "There are no G.U.N.-controlled assets in Sand Ocean."

"Are you blind?"

"I think you're both right," Tails absently objected, having been reading the screen on his portable computer. "These guys have been reprogrammed to attack non-Eggman property and intruders, but are reporting to G.U.N. falsified reports of an abandoned station."

Shadow let out a terse breath, while Sonic opted for a small, "Oh."

The fox tugged the wires out of his computer, changing the screen to what appeared to be a digital blueprint. Still ignoring both of them, he took a few steps towards the long tunnel ahead. "My previous data of this place didn't account for these tunnels. I suppose they could have been missed," he trailed, looking very much like he didn't agree with that previous oversight, "or they've been recently built to accommodate a larger perimeter watch."

"So I guess Eggman set up camp here, and made a good effort at keeping it under wraps?"

"Including recycling G.U.N.'s tech," Tails concurred. "But this tunnel should take us to level two, and most of his labs are on four. Well, at least they were."

Sonic's hands went to his waist as he dramatically stretched side-to-side. "All right, I'll lead. Stay behind me bud, and Shadow—can you pull up the rear?"

"No." With a whoosh, he left them both in the dust.

"That dude is really starting to get on my nerves."

Tails smirked. "Starting?"

Sonic sighed. "Let's go. And stay close."

It was clear that these tunnels were ancient, the stonework from millenniums ago partially visible between the steel support beams that had been more recently installed. The tunnel twisted and turned to follow the natural terrain of the environment, as well, something Eggman would never do on his own accord. This was definitely him being his usual cheapskate self, utilizing (and destroying) the existing structures to build over and accommodate his needs.

They stuck to a pretty decent pace, coming up to a few badniks—mostly more G.U.N. Shield Hunters, though one had been the ball robot with orbiting spikes; Orbinauts? Uni-something? Whatever—looking worse for wear thanks to the Ultimate Lifeform's head start.

"Hey, Sonic?"

The hero was slightly in front of Tails, but glanced back at his nervous call with an arched brow.

He bit his bottom lip. "You don't think there are any more, um, ghosts here; right?"

"Uh…" the hedgehog started, then faced away to hide his noticeable cringe, "probably not."

"But remember what Knuckles said about that GIANT one and—"

"Knux exaggerates, kiddo," Sonic interrupted with a snort. Which was true, at least. "You got that giant search light on your computer, anyways. You'll zap them out of existence in an instant!"

Tails frowned, but hugged his Miles Electric closer.

Echoes of a battle ahead caused the conversation to thankfully fade. Sonic accelerated to meet up with it, the sounds of explosions in the small, ancient corridors strong enough to shake the walls.

At the end of the tunnel, the hall expanded into a main thoroughfare, a spiderweb of other tunnels likely leading to similar stations along the outer borders of the large pyramid base. In the center were a few dozen E-1000s, Shadow plowing into them as they aimed their dual cannon-arms at the speedy hedgehog.

Sonic grinned. Well, now the speedier hedgehog was here to save the day.

Just as Shadow aimed himself towards a convenient line of the slow-moving guards, Sonic sped up and cut him off, taking out five in a row in a colorful series of explosions.

"I do not need assistance," Shadow growled out, his stance not unlike a toddler about to stomp his foot.

"Didn't say ya did!" He took advantage of his doppelganger's inaction and buzzed his way through another two. "Can't let you have all the fun, y'know!"

Another handful of the bipedal robots took a menacing step forwards, cannons whirring up and creating a surround-sound effect. Shadow glared at Sonic before charging at a couple to the right, with the hero opting to slice through three on his left.

The telltale hum of one of the robot's arms started whining loudly, and both hedgehogs peered up from the wreckage to see Tails mercilessly pulling wiring out of an E-1000's head, sparks flying from its arms. The fox flew up and away before both weapons overloaded and backfired simultaneously, sending the robot somersaulting backwards into a wall.

"Ha! Nice, bud!"

In the center of the large room came a few more of those spherical robots, spikes orbiting around them dangerously fast. Sonic jumped over one of the floating barbed balls that came flying his way, aiming for the middle bot.

It was smart, though, and sharply increased its magnetism, pulling its weapons inwards. Sonic barely had time to leap over them a second time.

His shoes skidded across the floor, just as another annoying whirring alerted him of trouble behind.

Shadow was not having much luck either, barely hopping over the spikes and having no time to attack the controlling mechanism.

"Tails!"

The fox was still in the air, unperturbed by the ground-level bots. He was on top of another E-1000, giving it an unwanted dissection, but looked up at his name.

"The orb guys! Get the center orb!"

His nose crinkled but followed Sonic's pointing. "Oh, the Uniduses?"

A groan escaped at his sidekick's correction. "Yes, the Uno-dweebs, just—!" he cut himself off to roll between another two of those annoying spikes. Why was this room so dang small?

"Got it!"

Jumping into the air, Tails was easily able to land straight atop the main component, the spikes defensively coming close, but unable to reach the fox without tearing itself apart.

Smashing open a side panel, he deftly tore out whatever powered the centrifugal force, making it lose control of its weapons. Without the magnetism, however, the rotating spikes went flying out in all directions.

"Whoa!" Both hedgehogs dived in the same direction, narrowly avoiding the now-uncontrolled projectiles.

"Whoop—sorry!"

"It's fine, just get the rest! We'll take care of the Humpty Dumpties."

"They are E-1000s," Shadow corrected this time.

Letting out an exaggerated huff, Sonic curtly replied, "We don't have to call them that just 'cause Eggy does!"

"Look out!"

Sonic faltered, ducking out of instinct and darting his head around. "Who what now?" His eyes fell on Tails, who had grabbed one of Shadow's arms and lifted the Ultimate Lifeform into the air, apparently away from another errant spike-ball.

He hurriedly flew the frowning black hedgehog back to the ground and sheepishly rubbed his head. "Er, sorry."

Shadow brushed his arm off but nodded once at him. "Thank you."

"See Shads? Teamwork!" Sonic called, running up to assist in taking out another E-1000, which totally looked like Humpty Dumpty had a growth spurt.

There was the sound of a laser firing, followed by Sonic being shoved sideways and skidding along the floor. Dazed, he blinked and saw Shadow standing back up.

"Indeed," the black hedgehog agreed, wasting no time in skyrocketing over to the culprit that had managed to fire a shot at them.

"Sonic, you okay?!" Tails asked, dropping down next to him, an arm out to assist. "Reinforcements came in."

The hero graciously took the outstretched hand to get back to his feet. He shook off the previous close-call and thoroughly studied his surroundings this time. "Doing good, li'l bro."

"All the Uniduses—Unidai?—are out of commission."

"Awesome. Let's just finish up these other guys and—" an explosion interrupted him, both hedgehog and fox wincing from the subsequent high-pitched squeal of metal on metal. It abruptly ended, Shadow nodding to himself in satisfaction and walking up to them.

Besides the insane amount of metal debris smoking—and a few random robot limbs sparking—the room was back to blissful silence.

"Well then, never mind," Sonic said instead. "Where to, buddy?" he asked Tails.

"Uh, it's likely we're heading where those reinforcements came from, but hold on." He had pulled up blueprints on his Miles Electric again, brow furrowing in earnest concentration.

"I agree. This way," Shadow stated impatiently, heading towards the tunnel Tails had briefly mentioned.

Sonic rolled his eyes at Tails, who in turn shrugged at him, but the duo complied by trailing after the black hedgehog. Tails still appeared to be confirming their route while jogging, though, based off the image Sonic could see on the screen.

"Huh," Tails commented loudly. Sonic glanced at his brother and saw him frowning at his Miles Electric.

"What's up, buddy?"

"The cameras are still working."

"Oh?" he prompted uninterestedly.

"So why are there no alarms?"

"Oh." Sonic was sincere this time. "I just thought you hacked into them or something."

"No, definitely did not," the fox argued. "Don't get me wrong, I totally could have, given a little patience." He pointedly looked at both hedgehogs, then, the one farther ahead completely oblivious.

"You're really mastering that passive-aggressiveness, there."

"Thanks."

Shadow, still ahead of the other two, turned abruptly at an indentation in the tunnel wall. He stood there and waited, piquing Sonic's curiosity. Catching up, he arrived next to his doppelganger just as the elevator dinged and the metal doors slid open.

"Fourth floor?" he confirmed with Tails, who nodded just as the black hedgehog pressed the button.

The doors hissed closed as it started its descent, and all three occupants stood idly inside.

"Kinda weird going down to go up two floors, eh?"

Sonic got a brief, "Really?" look from Tails, and complete ignorance from Shadow.

He tapped his foot impatiently. Eventually peering up, he saw the flashing red light of the security camera in the corner, obviously recording them, but oddly no alarms to announce their presence.

A part of him screamed trap, which would make sense any other time Sonic purposely entered one of Eggman's bases. A deeper instinct, however, told him that wasn't the case.

Not this time.

He let out a gruff breath. For going down only two floors, it was an awfully slow elevator.

And it creaked.

Sonic's hands went to his waist indifferently. "What, no ridiculous melody to abate the awkward silence?"

He was rudely left hanging again. After what felt like forever, the elevator finally jolted to a stop, its doors heavily sliding open to reveal the fourth floor.

As the trio carefully stepped out and scrutinized their surroundings, Tails said, "They aren't on high-alert."

"What?"

He was back to studying his computer when he clarified, "The robots. They're set to guard and attack, but definitely not set to Number One Priority or anything." He finally gazed up at Sonic. "That's why they aren't firing at full capacity."

"Huh." Sonic opted to not mention the close calls both he and Shadow had had with the stupid spikey orbiters, which—to be fair—didn't actually fire anything, so maybe they weren't being accounted for.

They made their way through the tall hallways, finding what had to be the command center (if the ridiculous twenty-foot control panel and throne-like chair indicated anything) without incident. It was covered head-to-toe in gaudy red and black alloy, its high ceilings unlit and like a gaping maw above them. The only light source seemed to come from the eerie green backlit buttons and knobs on the giant console, which was ironically enough to illuminate the deserted room.

"Honey, I'm home!" Sonic called out to the stark emptiness.

Unsurprisingly, no one answered.

"Figures," he grumbled.

"Perfect, give me a second," Tails said, flying up to the control panel and instantly typing on it, the empty space above the desk powering on with a beep and showing a hologram-style projection of the kid's inputs. Sonic watched for a moment, but the flow of weird characters was about as exciting as grass growing, so he left his sidekick to work.

Glancing over at Shadow, he found him standing along the far side, seemingly staring out a large window adjacent to the command center. Beyond it was an empty metal hangar, dim blue floor and wall lights exemplifying that it was at least three times as large as the room they were in.

The hero took a few steps closer towards it, familiarity rising. As he took in more of its interior, a flicker of memory surfaced. The floor was still charred from combustion, black streaks stretching not only across, but creeping up vertically along the surrounding walls. High above, barely visible from this angle, there was a hatch that he knew would lead to the surface.

The tip of the pyramid.

He blinked, coming back to reality. There was no rocket; not this time.

The room was barren.

"Guys?"

Sonic and Shadow both turned towards Tails, still at the controls. He was studying camera footage on the holograph screen, some snippet that was playing on a loop.

Zipping up to him, the hero frowned. "Eggman has a Chaos Emerald?"

Tails hummed. "Looks like it." He typed something on the nearby keyboard, fast-forwarding momentarily. "Watch," he added.

The footage was black and white, which was outdated in Sonic's opinion, but—again—not surprising with how cheap Eggman could be. But it was from the camera in this room, behind them. He couldn't help but glimpse back, confirming its location in the corner, and still blinking red.

Attention going to the silent feed, he watched as Eggman held up what was clearly a bright jewel, most likely doing his ridiculous monologuing to anyone that would listen. Cubot and Orbot could be seen nearby, as well.

"Why is there no sound?" Shadow asked.

"Because Eggman is a scrooge."

"What?"

Sonic grinned mischievously. "He maxed out his credit card."

"Sonic—" Tails sighed out, stopping him from continuing. "He opts for very basic, obsolete tech," he succinctly explained to Shadow.

The hero nodded. "He's a cheapskate."

Shadow did not respond to their banter. His eyes were steadfast on the holograph projection above them.

They all watched as the footage continued, Eggman once again holding up his emerald and exuberantly flailing his arms around. A brief loss of reception caused the feed to become blurry, horizontal lines, before it came on less than a second later with no one in the room.

"Wait—what happened?"

"That's what I can't figure out," Tails explained. "The footage just … blips." He rewound the recording, the same resulting cutoff of images occurring right before Eggman and his robot minions disappeared. "No tampering that I can see. He's just … gone."

"Play it again," Shadow demanded. Tails nodded, wordlessly typing in the commands. The picture rewound to the beginning. He stepped closer to the screen, squinting at it as he watched the brief interference.

"Chaos Control," he said at last.

"What?!" Sonic exclaimed at the same that Tails offered, "Maybe."

The hero balked at his sidekick's easy agreement to that notion, before Tails asked Shadow, "Are you feeling any of that energy stuff that you were feeling before?"

"No."

The fox furrowed his brows in thought. "Well, wait." He rewound the security footage once more, watching right up until Eggman disappeared. "Stand right over … there." He indicated a spot close to the center of the room, where it appeared the madman had been standing before he essentially blipped.

Shadow consented, walking over to the area. His steps were determined, but as he neared his destination they hesitated.

"Well, anything?" Sonic impatiently asked, foot tapping like crazy.

"Be quiet," he growled.

"All right, yeesh."

Taking slower steps this time, Shadow walked in a slow circle. He paused, letting out a long, uneasy breath. "Yes."

Sonic darted next to him and searched the air like the energy Shadow was feeling was somehow visible. His eyes narrowed and he circled him, stopping in random places. At last, he jolted to a stop up close and personal to the black hedgehog, making him instinctively take a step back with a fierce glower.

"Nope. Nothing, nada, zilch," Sonic unhappily admitted. Realization suddenly struck, however, and he whipped around to face Tails. "But wait—you're telling me Eggman knows Chaos Control? With a FAKE Chaos Emerald?!"

Shadow crossed his arms. "He could not wield that kind of power."

"Oh!"

Both Sonic and Shadow looked at Tails again. "What?" the former questioned.

The fox's hand was up in the air like he'd had an epiphany, but whatever it was deflated quickly. "No, wait. Drats."

"Use your words, Tails."

"Okay, you're gonna think I'm crazy."

Sonic involuntarily winced. "Never a good way to start a proposition."

"But, what if—" Tails paused again, pulling his Miles Electric up and onto the console, "maybe—just maybe—we can find out where Eggman went?" As he spoke, he opened a small panel, pulling out yet more wires and connecting them to his own device.

"I thought you couldn't find the emeralds?" the hero asked.

"Well, the real Chaos Emeralds are a little harder to pinpoint," the fox slowly reasoned. Finishing connecting his tablet, he switched over to Eggman's control panel to input additional commands, the holographic screen above switching off the video feed and pulling up a mess of characters and numbers that made Sonic's head inexplicably hurt.

"That's because the real emeralds can travel dimensions, which is what I think the others did, or at least they're far away and I don't have a strong enough source to hone in on their energy trail," Tails continued, still tunnel-visioned on his current task. "But, if that was a fake emerald, it's obvious Eggman wouldn't have gone to another dimension, or get recalled to the Master Emerald—since it seems like the M.E. is out of commission anyways—so I should be able to use Eggman's satellites to (for lack of a better term) reverse lookup its energy signature, which is still lingering here."

Tails hadn't once glanced at either hedgehog. Shadow and Sonic shared a brief look before watching the rambling fox again, and Sonic wondered if he was simply thought-processing out loud at this point.

That theory crashed and burned when his kid brother noticeably cringed, finally turning towards Sonic. "Except … well … I need an amplifier to make this work."

Amplifier! He knew that word! "The Chaos Emerald, you mean?" Sonic asked, excited at finally being useful in this situation.

Tails shook his head. Sonic frowned.

"Then what—"

"I need to make another fake Chaos Emerald."

"—do you need and I-ABSOLUTELY not!" Sonic finished his question with a sharp veto.

"Do it," Shadow declared.

Sonic glared at him. "No! We don't need any more of those-those things floating around and getting into the wrong hands!"

"It's just to find where Eggman went!" Tails argued.

"And then what? We make more to—" Sonic couldn't stop himself from letting off a disgusted shiver, "to fake Chaos Control to him, wherever he is?" He started pacing. "And then, well, let's just make some more again to blow up whatever doomsday device he has set up whoknowswhere—"

"Hey! I've refined a lot of the explosive properties from my first prototype!"

"You refined it? Meaning you made more?!"

"Er, well—yeah, before you became a tyrant about them!"

"They're dangerous!"

"So are the Chaos Emeralds!"

"Enough."

Sonic and Tails were nearly nose-to-nose, but stopped and whirled towards Shadow's loud objection. "What do you need?" the black hedgehog asked the fox.

"Oh, come on," Sonic grumbled, stalking away.

Tails glared at his retreating form briefly, but answered Shadow civilly. "Well, while I do have the properties from the old fake Chaos Emerald—which was formed with the yellow one—I will probably need our red one to transfer some of its power to it."

Sonic continued to pout, crossing his arms and pretending not to listen.

"Since I doubt Sonic would be willing to go to the Tornado to retrieve it—"

"It is not necessary. He currently has it."

"Wait, what?" Tails asked, eyes widening. He looked over at him. "Sonic?"

"What."

Tails sighed. "Do you have the red Chaos Emerald?"

Sonic sighed with him. His arms were still crossed and he was facing partially away from the other two, but Shadow had already called him out, so he relented. Sort of. "So what if I do?"

"Sonic."

"Fine, yes, I looped back after racing off with Shads to grab it, because I thought it might come in handy if we came face-to-face with Eggy. All right?"

"Okay," Tails answered slowly—and Sonic swore he heard a note of condescension in there somewhere. "Can I have it?"

The hero stayed silent.

"Sonic, come on—"

"Give him the emerald."

"—I will destroy the fake as soon as we find out where Eggman is, okay?" Tails compromised over Shadow's demand. When Sonic stayed silent, he took a few steps towards him, so he could face the older Mobian. "I'm just really worried about Knuckles, and I know Eggman has something to do with this."

The fox was now standing in front of Sonic, staring up at him hopefully. His tails had wrapped around the front of him, his hands absently holding their tips.

"Please?" he pleaded.

"Stop making those eyes!" Sonic complained, purposefully focusing his glare elsewhere.

"Give it to him before I make you give it to him."

Both Tails and Sonic heard the threat in Shadow's tone. Tails' eyes widened at him, while Sonic opted to direct his sour mood his way. "Hey, Shads, back off. Brotherly squabble here."

"I don't have time for this." The black hedgehog took a menacing step forward to make his point clear.

Tails was still in front of him, and Sonic made the mistake of peering into those giant, imploring blue eyes. "All right, all right, here!" He reached up and pulled the red Chaos Emerald out of his spines, handing it to Tails, who made an excited yip and ran over to Eggman's control station.

Shadow's tense form eased, but he shot his rival a withering glimpse before walking away, presumably to be emo again.

Talk about being ganged up on.

"I'm starting to miss Knuckles, too—he's way less of a stick in the mud," Sonic commented loudly, even though Tails was once more in his inventive mindset and Shadow was almost across the room by now.

With his sidekick diligently working on doing the very thing Sonic did not want him to do, never mind his new partner-in-crime brooding about life in the corner, Sonic took the opportunity to sprawl out on Eggman's surprisingly comfortable throne, arms behind the back of his head as he stared up at nothing in particular.

"This bites," he declared, crossing his feet melodramatically. A button on the arm of the chair got pressed by his heel, and Sonic's breath hitched warily until a side compartment slid open. He sat up and peered over and into its contents.

Sonic's eyes sparkled. "Eggman, you wonderful glutton, you," he whispered, pulling out a couple bags of candy and chips before settling back down.

His first crunch was quite loud in the otherwise hollow room, and he made eye contact with Shadow briefly, before the black hedgehog rolled his eyes and turned away.

Sonic stuck out his tongue before popping another chip.