"Hey Sonic!" Tail beamed, waking his head on his latest project as he emerged from underneath.

"Hey bud" Sonic weakly smiled.

"Hey you haven't seen Amy have you?" Tails scratched his head "Only she borrowed a chaos Emerald for something and, well I haven't got it back yet..."

Sonic's eye twitched, he didn't know? But how, it had been plastered around the town, every channel, the whole town was talking about it...

"Erm... No, come to think about it haven't seen her in a while." Crap, maybe this wasn't such a good idea after all...

"Well that's odd I mean she's usually glued to you, and well... Um are you okay Sonic, you don't look so well, and well your shaking?" Sonic peered down at his hands; they seemed fine what was he on about.

"And what's that suppose to mean? ... Oh let me guess you're having a go at me again! It's not my fault; I'm not a freaking baby sitter she can look after herself, how come whenever something bad happens its gotta be me involved!"

"No I didn't mean... Wait, what? Bad?"

"Oh here we go with the freaking questions! Just leave me alone okay?" Sonic hissed "Just face it I have no idea. Okay?"

"No, no your getting confused I didn't mean that, you've gotten the wrong idea."

"Confused! How the hell am I confused?"

"Sonic please just calm down, this isn't you." Tails tried to sooth.

"I knew it, you're trying to pin this all on me!" "Oh god I should of listened to Shadow" Sonic muttered. But Tails still heard.

"Shadow? What's he got to do with this?"

"Stop it! Stop trying to get at me!"

Okay now tails was getting confused, had Sonic taken something. "Please just calm down I can h..."

"Don't"

"Help"

"Please"

"You."

"Yeah well I don't need it!" and with that Sonic sped off.

Sonic slammed the apartment door shut, sliding down it slowly, listening to his own ragged breathing.

"You've got a visitor." Shadow stated. Getting up from the couch to peer down at Sonic.

Getting up shakily Sonic looked t Knuckles smiling at him, in a friendly manor, "Get him out of here!" Sonic aid dryly, Ignoring Knuckles attempts to reach out to him and instead walking straight past the both of them.

Shadow couldn't help but smile at himself, it was working. He was so mused, he didn't hear the threatening warnings coming from Knuckles about he didn't know what he'd done to Sonic but he was going to pay, blah, blah, blah. But however was snapped back into reality when he heard the door slam.

"Well best go play the part," He muttered. Searching for Sonic was going to be easy, partly because there were only a few places he could go, and because his breathing was quite loud. "... and what's wrong with you?"

"They know, you said that they couldn't pin it on me! They all think I'm going crazy!"

"Well... It seems there's only one thing you can do..." Sonic's ears pricked up. "Blame it on one of them, after all who are they going t believe... Knuckles or you?"

"No. I can't..."

"You said it yourself faker, their getting suspicious, their playing you around trying to make you weak, can't you see?" Shadow had to suppress a laugh at how pathetic he was sounding, yet Sonic was believing him, so what was the problem.

"I won't!"

"Oh well, it's a little too late..." Sonic turned to look at his dark rival, curiosity taking over his expression. "You see that wasn't the answer I was expecting, and well I had to do something..." Shadow sighed.

"What do you mean?"

"Dropped Knuckles in it." Shadow smirked.

"WHAT!"

"You heard me. But don't worry all you have to do is admit it was you and well there you go..."

"But I can't do that..."

"I know. And besides he would have done it to you."

"..." Sonic was speechless, after Tails' reaction today maybe Shadow as right...

"Either way, I've sorted it... I said I would and I have so get off my back. Okay?"

"Okay..." Sonic stood up, almost falling as he did so "God I'm so tired..." Shadow smiled "I'll get you a coffee."

"Thanks Shads."

The drugs were working faster than Shadow had anticipated. Maybe he should have got a little more info from Scourge or even the internet before deciding to use them; truth be told all he truly knew was that these little pills made you paranoid and, sometimes, hallucinate, what if there were other side effects... he didn't want to kill Sonic, he just wanted him to know how if felt. When everyone is against you, when all your friends are brutally taken from you... and there's nothing you can do about it. Yes. This was the plan to teach Sonic to not take what he had for granted, for him to stop mocking Shadow for being so numb, isolated, and sadistic. Which he wasn't, he didn't like inflicting pain on others, well sometimes he did, he was just good at it; and don't people say to do the things your good at in order to succeed?

Well either way it was too late to back out now.

Now giving Sonic his so called 'medication' wasn't easy, it took a lot of practise on another unknowing and unwilling participant, i.e. Rouge, he had to start by practicing with sugar pill, with every meal every time she ate, which was a lot, and even though the taste wasn't the same the effects seemed to be, for example, paranoia ... for all the weight she had somehow gained during Shadow's experiment. Which to him was funny at first she was demanding his opinion every second of the day. But it had to be done and now he had become unnecessarily good at it.

"Here you go." Shadow handed the cup to Sonic's shaky hands, which Shadow figure must be the start of withdrawal symptoms. He had known it was easily addictive but it wasn't difficult to stop taking the drug once the body had become dependent on it, as long as you were careful. He also knew that in an hour or so Sonic would fall asleep, nothing to do with what he'd done, he generally looked tired; and that would be the best time to put his next part of the plan into action. Tails. He'd gotten rid of Amy and Knuckles but Sonic had to lose everything. He wasn't going to kill him. Or frame him, no deep down he didn't really want to harm the fox, after all he hadn't done anything to him.

But judging on Sonic's so called out burst on Tails it seemed his job would be pretty much easy. He had to think carefully. He was so close to his victory. He just had to keep it together and not get too cocky, that would make him venerable and truth be told he wasn't sure what Scourge meant when he said he would be doing him a favour too.

Either way he was stuck until Sonic actually fell asleep.