hahaHA fuckers u thought this fic was dead huh? well its Not i finally finished this chapter and i've conquered my writer's block :)

enjoy the angst! typical warnings, you know the drill.


VII.

encounter (enˈkoun(t)ər)

[verb]

to come upon unexpectedly.


When Silver came to, he was painfully aware of the blinding lights cast on his face. He grumbled restlessly, squirming as his muscles began to stir and an achiness registered across his back from laying against something stiff for too long. It took a solid few minutes to adjust to the harsh lighting.

And then his heart sank a little, because he then realized he was stuck in a cell.

The hedgehog was leaned against a cool, steel wall—surely the perpetrator of his back pain—and a few lamps were propped up and beaming right at him, just five or so feet away, on the other side of the bars. Thick metal braces engulfed his entire hands, keeping them stuck together and useless; his ankles were shackled to the floor.

As the numb began to flee from his body, Silver was able to will his head to tip upwards, meeting the eye of a mobian wearing unfashionable gear—clearly these people favored protection over looks.

(Which was notably strange, because since when did Eggman not care about being stylistic?)

"Who're you guys?" the psychic asked, his tongue not quite cooperating as his words slurred. The sedatives were still dwindling away in his system.

The man outside his cell held up his rifle, to aim it through the bars at his head. It only provoked a trembling smirk from the drained hedgehog.

Idiots. As if cuffing his hands inhibited his powers.

But—no. He'd play along for a little bit. Test the waters.

The armored stranger's finger twitched over the trigger. "We have some questions for you," he said, completely ignoring Silver's own question. "Why were you spying on us?"

His taunting grin fell to an uneasy frown. Spying? The hell did that mean? He and Sonic had only been—oh shit.

"Where's Sonic?" the prisoner demanded, a fire dancing beneath his eyes. He was getting tired of sitting around. He had to take matters into his own hands.

The man was silent for a moment, before dipping his gun down. "See, that's what's so strange. Sonic the Hedgehog is presumed dead, and yet we have an exact replica of him one cell over. Maybe you could provide some insight?"

Dead?

Silver faltered for a few seconds, trying to formulate some sort of plan because none of this was making any sense, when—"Unless you'd like us to confront him instead? And we don't have to play nice cop, you know."

"Okay," the psychic bit out, his shoulders quivering. "That's it. Playtime's over."

Without another second to waste, Silver rose to his feet, his entire body shaking from exhaustion. He shut his eyes, willing his Chaos energy to congregate in his palms, before releasing a burst of psychokinetic force from each hand. The cuffs immediately shattered, and with newly freed arms, the hedgehog thrust them forwards as teal light wrapped around the cell bars and threw them forwards, into the man on the other side.

The armored mobian yelped as the iron bars pushed him to the ground, and Silver seized the chance to yank his ankles free from the chains in the ground, with a mere flick of the wrist. Red lights began to flicker in the room, an 'escaped prisoner' alarm chanting endlessly over the speakers. Dread started to pool in the pit of his stomach but—no, now wasn't the time to panic. He had to find Sonic and get out of here.

"Sonic?! Where are you, man?" he cried out, searching the area frantically and fighting relentlessly against the fatigue dragging him down. His temples pulsated and his vision grayed slightly; he was moving too fast for his own body to comprehend, because the damn drugs were still clogging up his head and muting his senses, but Chaos, he didn't have time to think about that now. He had to get out before things got even worse.

Luckily, it only took the hedgehog a few minutes of darting down a hallway before finding a room practically identical to his own, complete with a cell inside and more soldiers standing guard. Unluckily, it seemed they had been anticipating him to show up.

A shower of gunfire burst through the glass window in the door, and Silver was quick to leap to the side to avoid it. The torrent of bullets never ceased, but he could hear shouting from the inside and shuffling footsteps. There was no time to waste.

With a mighty battle cry, Silver charged forwards, freezing the barrage of shells with a simple flick of his wrist, before letting them clatter to the ground unceremoniously. At the sound of frustrated yelling, the psychic pushed through the door.

Three bickering guards halted upon his entry, before swiftly aiming their rifles right for his head. Silver merely pointed a hand at them, before brushing his fingers upwards slightly; the barrels of the guns were bent upwards in unison with the motion.

The soldiers were petrified at that, and with an impish smirk, the ivory mobian engulfed the trio in a veil of turquoise, before chucking them into the wall to the left and rendering them unconscious.

From behind the bars, a certain blue hedgehog stuck in the same predicament as he was—cuffs, shackles, and all—gazed wearily at him, a small grin playing at his lips.

They shared a knowing glance, before Silver started forwards to pry the bars aside—which bent like clay, thanks to his powers. He knelt beside his friend to start freeing him from his restraints.

As he grabbed the hero's hand to help him to his feet, Sonic murmured a soft, "Thanks." Seeming just slightly uncomfortable with how not-cool that sounded, though, he tacked on, "I really wasn't looking forwards to being a prisoner again," but it only elicited a grim look from Silver.

"Here, put your arm over my shoulders," the time-traveler said, as he noticed just how much Sonic's wounds were troubling him. The blue blur complied easily, and Silver proceeded to practically drag him towards the door. He felt somewhat at ease knowing he had saved his friend, but panic still stirred in his chest from the blaring alarms overhead and the impending thought that more guards could show up any second.

Both hedgehogs breathed out a unanimous sigh of relief when they stepped out into an empty hallway.

"So, uh," Silver huffed out between breaths (he was basically carrying Sonic, give him a break), "Any clue who these people are?"

The speedster gave him a funny look. "Yeah, geez, I wonder who it could be. Maybe the evil scientist that's been trying to kill us?" The sarcasm still oozed out of his words, despite how croaky and slurred they were.

Silver shook his head. "No, I don't think it's Eggman. The guy that was watching my cell said they thought you were some sorta clone, because apparently everyone thinks you're dead. And that doesn't make any sense, because Eggman literally held you captive up until, like, a day ago."

Voices could be heard in the distance, and they took that as their cue to speed up their pace a bit and lower their tones.

Sonic scrunched up his face in confusion. "Yeah, that's weird."

"Besides," the psychic muttered, "I thought Eggman only stuck to robots, not people."

"That's what I thought too," was his reply, "But then he hired Infinite."

"Hey!" someone shouted, a female, from behind them. The duo froze, and Silver used his psychokinesis to grab hold of a wooden crate to use as a projectile. "Stop right th—"

The voice faltered as the hedgehogs began to turn around, which only perplexed them even more.

And then they locked eyes with their enemy.

"… Rouge?"


They only took breaks in small increments, wanting to beat the sunset in reaching their destination. The first hour or so was deathly silent, and Gadget felt like he could hardly breathe from how disgustingly tense the air around them seemed to be. Miles wasn't mad or anything, no; just lost in his own world, a world that the wolf wondered if he'd get the chance to peek into.

Trailing a foot or so ahead of him, the fox absently thumbed at the straps of his knapsack. His steps were slow and almost uncoordinated, like he wasn't thinking straight. It was in the hour of silence that Gadget warred with himself over whether or not he should say anything.

His apprehensions eventually caved to a cresting feeling of seclusion, and he finally just had to speak before it drowned him entirely. "So, Miles… What was your life like before all this?"

And instantly the wolf winced, because okay, maybe he should've started with a lighter subject. Clearly the boy was not entirely at peace with his past.

There was a solid beat of silence, and Gadget wondered if the kid was going to start getting defensive and crying again or even ignore him altogether, when—"It was nice."

With a few hasty steps, the scarlet mobian caught up to walk side-by-side with Miles. "Yeah?"

The kit hummed thoughtfully. "Yeah. I had a lot of really great friends."

"Had?" Gadget found himself blurting, and his face flushed a bright red because fuck he really had no filter, did he?

Miles just shook his head. "They're still alive… most of them. I just—I had to leave them. For my own reasons."

"Oh," he said lamely. Swallowing, Gadget tried to continue the conversation without treading onto some thin ice. "… What about, um, family?"

Something foggy and misty drifted across the boy's teal eyes. "They were my family," he murmured, so low the wolf nearly missed it. Miles paused, then cleared his throat and blinked the look of reminiscence away quickly. "What about you?"

"Um," Gadget stammered, trying to piece together his thoughts because holy hell, he missed before so bad that it hurt. "… Well, I already told you about—about my friends. I didn't really know them all too well, but we were a group and we stuck together. We'd been hiding in one of the college dorms on my old campus before… You know."

Miles' gaze wandered absentmindedly, but he was listening. "What about your family, though?"

The wolf shrugged. "I just lived with my mom when I came home from college. My dad was this—" he faltered, like he couldn't quite find the right words. "… This asshole of a guy, and I haven't seen him since he moved out, and frankly after what he did to us? I don't care where he ended up. I do still worry about my mom, though…"

Miles remained silent, keenly studying Gadget's somber face. There was something he wasn't saying.

"… There was also this guy," the ruby mobian finally said. He wrung his hands uncomfortably. "We started dating for a few months in college, and we got really close, but… He disappeared, a few weeks before the war started."

The fox furrowed his brows. "He just disappeared?"

"Yeah." Gadget gave a dismayed nod. "He was working late one night and never came home. His parents never heard back from him and his boss had no clue either."

Miles eyed his companion sympathetically. "I'm sorry. I—I know what it's like to lose someone you love, too."

The wolf nodded, his gaze melancholy. "Thanks, it's nice to know someone else that gets it."

Gadget opened his mouth to continue the conversation—and possibly veer into a lighter subject—when the kit pressed a hand to his chest, halting him immediately. He startled at the abruptness of Miles' action, and nearly questioned him for it before his mind caught up and registered their location.

They stood on the outskirts of a massive junkyard (vaguely, he recalled Miles mentioning this, back outside the city) congested with mountains' worth of scraps and garbage so piled up Gadget could barely make out the ground. A few hundred meters away, on the opposite side of the yard, a large, gray building—which looked more like a block of concrete and steel than anything else—stood amongst the compost. Emblazoned across each wall was a crimson emblem of a particular madman's face, complete with a wiry mustache and crooked teeth. Miles sneered at the sight, before trekking forwards into the mounds of garbage.

"This is—" the wolf murmured, following reluctantly after the fox, "—this is one of Eggman's bases. Are you sure this is safe?"

Miles was quiet for a moment. "We don't have any other options. Just keep your head low and your voice down."

Gadget nearly refuted, but after stealing another frantic glimpse at the base a ways away, cold and dark and undoubtedly brimming with robots programmed for bloodlust, he swallowed his words and abided.

After a few minutes of precarious steps and ducking behind hills of garbage, the pair came into a small clearing. Miles faltered in his stride, hands trembling just slightly as he wandered uneasily forwards.

The wolf came to a stop as the fox began rummaging through the side of one of the trash-mountains, amber orbs falling to his feet. He stood just on top of a scarlet splatter, and it was faded and dried, but he could still recognize it as blood. Something cold and hard settled in the pit of his stomach.

Deciding he did not want to think about whatever had happened here, Gadget peered back up at Miles to see what he was up to. His heart fluttered when his eyes landed on a biplane of all things, tattered and worn, and its red paint so vivid it looked like it'd spring to life at any moment.

"Holy shit," he breathed, a bewildered smile finding its way to Gadget's face as he approached the boy. "Is that—?"

"How pitiful. A mutt is scavenging around in the dumpster."

The grin was wiped right from his face, hair standing on end as his limbs fell limp and icy. Gadget turned slowly to the source of the voice, eyes blown wide in absolute horror because he had heard stories about this monster, he'd heard exactly what he was capable of, but now he was here and he was going to die.

Infinite's laugh felt like thorns digging into his chest, low and sharp and venomous. A veil of deep red energy cloaked him as he levitated just a foot above the ground, talons curling and visible eye narrowing from beneath the silver mask. Gadget barely let out a whimper before the jackal rushed forwards, catching him in a chokehold and dangling him above the ground.

The tyrant chuckled bitterly, squeezing harder as the wolf clawed fruitlessly at his iron grip. His vision quickly became spotty and his head light, and he wheezed so hard it hurt but he just couldn't breathe.

"You're pathetic," Infinite sneered, and Gadget was sure that his lips were purple as he kicked wildly against him. "You came crawling right into the wolf's den, and for what? Were you hoping I'd come and kill you?"

And he almost—he almost forced out some witty remark, because he's an idiot, but something was—something was off. The piercing yellow eye that shone through the mask, blinding and scathing and absolutely lost in the haze of red that snaked around them both, something about it was so jarring and—and his dreadlocks, now a dull gray and exceedingly messy and matted, as they wandered behind Infinite's head like tendrils, and—

And his voice. It was contorted and warbled and above all else fucking demonic, but he knew that voice. Beneath all the alterations, beneath the cloak of energy, there was something familiar.

Gadget grunted against the chokehold, just barely prying away ebony claws to bite out a single word, a name, spinning and twirling and blaring across his mind because what the fuck, there was no way, how—how was this possible.

"… Zero?"

A lot happened, all at once. Infinite stilled at the mere utterance of the name, his grip subconsciously loosening on Gadget's throat. Something exploded from behind the jackal that he couldn't see, but the pure sound of it made his ears pound and stab his skull in pain. And then Infinite screamed in a sudden agony, body convulsing as he released him and collapsed.

Gadget hit the ground in a matter of seconds, trembling and heaving as tears burned at his eyes.


As soon as they reached the gates of the base, they were ushered inside from a frenzy of people before she could get a single word out. Before she even caught her breath, Amy found herself sitting beside a still-unconscious Knuckles, his hand still glued to the Master Emerald, in the middle of a large, empty chamber. It was relatively dark and the air felt somewhat thick with each breath, which was understandable enough. The room was designed to contain a large fluctuation of Chaos energy like the emeralds, to make it nearly undetectable from the outside—so what if it was a little humid?

The hedgehog sighed wearily and leaned her head on Knuckles' shoulder, who was now propped up against a pillow, combing her fingers through his scalp in a placating manner. She didn't know if he was aware of what was happening, where he was and how he got here, but she hoped he could at least feel a little comfort in her presence. Every now and then his muscles would twitch and jerk, and he'd murmur something so soft it sounded like a whine. It made her heart twist in pain and it sucked, because she just felt so useless.

Espio lingered by the door across the room, simply instructed to stay with the pair and make sure they were okay—Rouge and the others seemed rather preoccupied with, well, something else, but frankly Amy wasn't concerned about that at the moment.

She exhaled slowly, exhaustion starting to settle in her bones as a headache pulsed at her temples. Knuckles' shoulder was comfortable, at least.

And she nearly—just barely—dozed off right there, before a loud gasp cut through the air and the body she leaned against jolted awake.

Amy's eyes snapped open and she scooted away a bit to get a good look at the echidna. Knuckles took shaky breaths, violet eyes locked on the palm of his now freed hand.

"Hey," she said, keeping her tone low and gentle. He startled, regardless, before recognition flashed over his wild gaze and he breathed out in relief. The hedgehog placed a tentative hand on his shoulder. "You okay?"

He seemed jittery still, but swallowed thickly and blew out slowly through his mouth. "Y-Yeah, I just—fuck, what happened?"

"Um," she started, elegantly, fumbling for words. "We found the Master Emerald. But you… I don't know what happened to you. I found you touching it, unconscious. The resistance brought us back here."

Knuckles frowned at his palm, before placing it on the ground and casting a wary glance at the verdant gem beside himself. The blotches of red crystallization taunted him, spreading lethargically across the surface like some sort of virus, doomed to corrupt the Master. It made his chest feel tight with anxiety.

"Do you know what happened to you?" Amy asked, carefully.

He chewed the inside of his cheek. "I entered the Special Zone. Spoke to Tikal."

She righted herself, interest piqued. "Really?"

"Yeah," the guardian said. His eyes grew distant. "I've gone there before, many times, but this time was—everything was so unstable, so out of control. Tikal was so scared."

Amy nodded to him, urging him to continue. Her drowsiness was replaced with a swelling apprehension.

"She was trying to warn me," he explained. Knuckles pointed to the emerald, to the chunks of red in particular, disgust flickering in his stare. "That stuff on the Master—she doesn't even know what it is, but it's bad. She said it'd make her collapse completely, that it'd—" He looked at the hedgehog dead-on, his face grave. "Amy, this could destroy the entire universe."

She let out a shaky breath, trying to steady herself because, okay, this was not good. "Okay… Alright. Okay. We'll figure this out. There has to be some way—"

"Hey!"

The pair turned to the entrance to see a rather delighted Rouge strutting into the room, smiling congenially to Espio, who returned the gesture with a light nod. The agent continued towards Amy and Knuckles, her face lighting up even more to see the latter awake.

"Good, you're up," the bat said with a wide smile.

Knuckles huffed tiredly, rubbing his forehead. "Rouge, now isn't the time. We've got a problem on our hands and it's urgent."

Rouge frowned. "Okay, well, I've got some good news that I think outranks your bad news. Wanna come with me for a second?"

"No," the fuchsia hedgehog said. "Knuckles is right, we don't have time to—"

"Amy," the bat said, her voice lowered and her chipper smile gone, "I'm serious. Come with me. Espio will stay with the emerald."

Begrudgingly, the duo stood up and followed after her.


After an admittedly very strange day, Knuckles wasn't quite sure what he was expecting. And honestly, he didn't think much could catch him off guard after the absolute mess of today's events.

Yet here he stood, in the doorway of a once unoccupied dorm that two hedgehogs he had not seen in quite some time were now resting in. One of them was a pleasant surprise, albeit a little confusing. The other nearly made him keel over.

Sonic the fucking Hedgehog grinned from his bed, bags hanging under his eyes. "Heya, Knucklehead. Ames. Long time, no see, eh?"

At his side, Silver cradled the only Chaos Emerald the resistance had, working on healing various wounds littered across the blue blur's body. "Hi, guys."

Amy cupped her hands over her mouth, letting out an unabashed sob as tears trickled down her face. In an instant she ran to her best friend, hugging the speedster so tight he grunted and wiggled in the embrace.

"Oh Chaos," she muttered into his shoulder.

Sonic chuckled lightly, patting her back. "I missed you too, Ames."

Still frozen in the doorway, Knuckles' words failed him, and his knees threatened to buckle. He had to put his weight against the frame, staring at Sonic like he'd seen a ghost, because to be fucking frank that was exactly what he was looking at.

"… Shadow said—" he mumbled, tongue feeling like cotton.

"Don't worry," Silver calmly said. "Rouge caught us up. We can explain everything."

Amy pulled away slightly, sniffling. Her brows furrowed. "What happened to your arm?"

Sonic smiled, but it was a tired and worn down smile that looked like it had nearly been ripped apart, multiple times, since she'd last seen him. "It, uh, it's been a long couple of months."


He gave them a basic rundown, from being captured, to getting his new arm, to escaping and finding Silver, to the huge misunderstanding of being mistakenly captured again by the resistance before coming across Rouge.

The entire conversation felt—it felt surreal, and not just the story he told. Sonic didn't think he'd ever get the chance to lay in a comfortable bed again, with an IV in his hand and wrappings around his knee, as warmth spread into his side from Silver's work at mending the stab wound. He didn't think he'd get to see any of his friends again, let alone have Amy at his side, squeezing his good arm in comfort, or Knuckles approach him to ruffle his quills playfully, or just—

Chaos, he was just actually happy for the first time in months. Truly content. He felt safe.

Anxiety continued to gnaw at the back of his thoughts, regardless. "—But enough about me," he said offhandedly. "I clearly missed a lot too. Where's everyone else?"

Suddenly Amy's gaze fell, and she refused to meet his eyes when he looked at her. Something was wrong.

The mood seemed to fall significantly and it just made Sonic's heart beat faster because fuck, what now. All he could think about was how the two most important people in his life were not here.

"Ames?" he pressed, voice soft. "Where is everyone?"

She caved and met his eyes, though hers were a tad glossy. She inhaled sharply. "Well, Shadow's been out hunting emeralds for the past few weeks. We've been staying in contact with him—I think the last I heard, he'd just entered Holoska?"

Rouge shook her head, something concerned dawning on her face. "Actually, he hasn't checked in, in probably over twenty-four hours. I've been so preoccupied with—" she beckoned all around the room, "—with all of this, I forgot all about him."

The silence was suddenly so thick they could cut it with a knife.

"I'm gonna go see if I can contact him," the bat said hastily, and she was trying to stay calm but they could all read the panic in her eyes as she sped out of the room.

Sonic paused; contemplated. Shadow wasn't here, but he was okay. They had lost contact with him for a little bit, but surely everything was okay. Because he had to be okay. He had to be.

He looked to Amy again, who bit her lip and squirmed under his gaze. "Everyone else is here or running patrols around the vicinity, but… Tails is missing."

Ice flooded Sonic's veins.

Seeming to spot the absolute horror on the hero's face, Knuckles knelt beside him and wrapped an arm around his shoulders. "I know, man, I know. Look, the day you were—you were captured, Tails… perceived that differently. He thought you died. That's why we all thought you died, because that's what he told us." The echidna bowed his head, almost shamefully. "He said he needed space, time to think, I don't know. But he ran away. We haven't heard a word from him since."

"But," the speedster stammered. "But I'm not dead. I'm okay. We—We have to find him—"

"Sonic," Amy cut in, her voice level and somber. "That was months ago. Trying to find him would be like searching for a needle in a haystack. He could be anywhere."

Before he could get in another word, Knuckles added, "Plus, we've got some more pressing issues to worry about right now. The Master Emerald is… not doing too good."

The strawberry hedgehog stared unwaveringly at the blue blur, and squeezed his arm tighter. Her eyes were starting to water. "He's a smart kid," she said. "He can take care of himself. I promise."

Sonic pressed his lips together tightly, looking so unbelievably distraught and frustrated and it just made Amy's heart ache for him, because she knew, she knew exactly what he was going through. She was just as upset when she had found out about their friend's disappearance, all those months ago.

Eventually the azure male sighed, and his gaze fell to his lap. "… Fine," he conceded, although he didn't look happy about it. But he knew they were right. The fate of the world was more important than Tails—as painful as that was to say. Sonic locked eyes with Knuckles. "What's wrong with the M.E., exactly?"

The echidna shifted, feeling antsy. "I think that's the problem—we aren't entirely sure. Amy and I had just found it outside one of Eggman's bases, but when I touched it I got, like, sucked into the Special Zone."

Sonic quirked a brow in mild surprise. "It's been a while since I was in there."

"It wasn't the same, though," Knuckles muttered. "There's this red stuff all over the Master, and the Special Zone was just as corrupted. It was all… chaotic and muddled. Tikal was trying to warn me about it. She said this could destroy the entire universe if it gets any worse."

Silver finally jumped in, looking wary and confused. "Hang on, red stuff? Like—Like the Phantom Ruby?"

The guardian shrugged. "I dunno, maybe? It was more like these, these little crystals. But it was emitting a similar energy, now that I think about it."

"And what about the Special Zone?" the psychic pressed, looking more frantic by the second. "Elaborate on it. What was it like in there?"

Knuckles swallowed thickly. "Um, I don't know. It was—it was really dark, and kind of reddish. I felt like I could hardly breathe in there, and there was this… This overwhelming sense of negative energy. I thought it was gonna drown me."

Silver inhaled sharply, and whispered in a voice so quiet they could hardly hear him, "The Null."

"Sorry, the what now?" Amy asked.

Sonic's eyes widened. "Oh, Chaos, Silv—I think you're right."

Knuckles gave him a look. "Okay, can you two please explain this epiphany you're having to us?"

Without hesitation the words just spewed out of Silver's mouth, growing faster by the second as they stumbled over each other and he hardly caught his breath. Everything suddenly clicked into place—in the bad future with Infinite and the brainwashed Sonic, the 'Null' he'd been pushed into, it was the Special Zone, it was—

"—The Master Emerald," he breathed, and it was so soft, like any louder and the very words would lay a curse on them. Silver raked his fingers through his quills, exhaling shakily. "That distant future I went to was the aftermath of the war. That Null-thing was a collapsed Master Emerald—the epitome of negative Chaos."

A beat of silence, and nobody could seem to find the words to fill it.

Sonic was the first to speak, his heart beating in his ears and his flesh palm feeling sweaty.

"Well, shit."


Rouge rushed into the control room, a mural of computer monitors greeting her on the adjacent wall. She flipped on the lights, squinting at the sudden burst of luminosity, before adjusting and fumbling for the nearest drawer. After a few seconds of fishing around in it, she withdrew a walkie-talkie and adjusted it to the correct station.

"Shadow?" she hissed into it. "Shadow, are you okay? I haven't heard from you in—"

"Hello there, Rouge."

Her muscles immediately seized, and chills trickled down her spine.

She chewed her lip uneasily; paused. As cordially as possible, she growled, "Eggman. Where is he?"

"Oh, I wouldn't worry," the doctor purred through the communicator. "Shadow's nice and snug in his restraints. He's so drugged up he can hardly register the pain!"

Rouge snarled. "Let him go, you fucking psycho."

"Sure thing!" he said drily. "But you might want to check your computer first. We have a few terms we'd like you to meet."

Suddenly, every monitor on the wall turned to static, before a video flickered to life on all of them. It was hard to make out given the poor camera quality and the darkness of the room, but she could see Shadow. He was strapped to a chair and leaning forwards, like he wasn't even conscious. Infinite stood beside him, all blasé, his talons tracing along the hedgehog's fresh scars.

Rouge's stomach turned at the sight, and she squeezed the walkie-talkie so tight she felt it crumbling in on itself.

"Good evening, rodents," video-Infinite greeted icily. "If you're watching this, you must already know your dear little friend has gone missing. Don't worry, we'll give him back—if you do what we want. So, here's how this works: one of our assets has also gone missing."

Her blood was boiling.

Infinite pressed his claws to Shadow's neck, lifting his head up. Shadow grunted tried to pull away at the touch, and it made Rouge want to lunge through the damn monitor and strangle the jackal herself.

"His name is Sonic." Infinite chuckled darkly. "Surely you've heard of him, no?"


aww yeah shits goin down ;)

chapter 1 actually has significance still w/ all that null space jazz! yay reunions! oh no gadget's in trouble! i mean tbh they're all kinda in trouble lmao.

also i just wanna say: next week i'm gonna be getting top surgery babey, which means one of two things: i'm either gonna have plenty of time on my hands to quickly get out the next chapter, or i'm gonna be too tired/in pain to even want to write for a while. i'm hoping for the former but u never kno ¯\_(ツ)_/¯