"Who?" Isis asked, "Black Doom?" She turned back to the image. "Kinda lame name, huh? 'Black Doom'? Couldn't it be anything more creative than that? Like, I dunno… 'Death Demon' or 'Crazed, Spiked Thingy?" Isis snorted.

Tails grabbed Isis' arm, "Not funny. We gotta get out of here!"

Isis shook her head, "Nope. It's cool."

"But…but you said memories outside of cubes could harm us!"

"Well, yeah…the moving ones can. Does ol' dusty Dracula here look like he's moving?" Isis stepped right up to the overlord and rapped on his side. The image flickered a little bit, but didn't move.

"Wha…? What's going on?" Tails moved beside Isis and poked the image. He flinched slightly when a small jolt went through him, but the image of Black Doom stayed still.

Isis gestured at Black Doom, "You can tell that since freaky here is outside of a cube, he was important to Shadow in some shape or form. But since he's frozen…Shadow's forgotten about him."

"Forgot? How did Shadow forget?"

"I dunno. Probably trauma to the head, or something. Slight amnesia…and I'm thinking there's no reason for us to set Black Doom free, is there?"

"Far from it," Tails replied, shaking his head, "He's nothing but evil."

"So, what's he doing here in Shadow's mind, anyways? A tough enemy of his?" Isis asked, tipping her head to the side.

"Well, yeah…that and he's Shadow's father."

Isis looked at Tails for a moment, and then burst out laughing, "Get out of here! You've got to be kidding! Oh wait, you're not…" Isis calmed down, was silent for a moment, and then snorted, "Ok, then how the hell did something this freaky produce the amazing Shadow?"

"Shadow was artificially created…using Black Doom's DNA…" Tails mumbled, looking back at the alien overlord.

Isis whispered softly, "Oh yeah...Shadow said something about that earlier…" The psychic looked at the image, and then tapped Tails on the shoulder, "Come on. Let's get in a bit of practice before our host awakens.

XXXXXXXXX

Knuckles softly mumbled as Rouge shook his shoulder, "Wake up…we've found it."

The echidna slowly opened his eyes, and then shook his head back and forth, "Huh?" He looked at the blue and white gems in Rouge's hands, "Good work…" He yawned, and then sat up, "Did I sleep the entire time?"

"Yeah, but don't worry about it - it didn't take us that long." Rouge turned and gestured around the room, "You're not the only one who's been napping." Isis and Tails were both sitting on the windowsill and leaning against the glass, while Sonic and Shadow were still curled up in the hospital bed.

Rouge moved over to Shadow's side of the bed, and Knuckles followed her, still a little sleepy. "I wonder why Shadow didn't fight Mephiles?" Rouge mumbled, placing a hand on Shadow's cheek, "I've never seen him get hurt this badly without trying to do some damage."

"He's been getting calmer and friendlier since last year. Maybe too much, though…" Knuckles replied, leaning against the bed.

The bat nodded, "True…but, I wonder…exactly why he is. It was so spontaneous - one day he's grumpy, the next he's nice. Like some parasite invaded his brain and made him forget that he hates everyone."

"That makes perfect sense to me. But do we want to remove the bug?"

"Mmm…" Rouge stayed silent, staring at the black hedgehog.

XXXXXXXXX

"Ok, first things first…it seems like you've gotten powers pretty close to Silver's…which is good. Makes things easier. Anyways, let's give this a go." Isis held out her left hand, which began to glow purple. A small, wooden box appeared about three feet in front of the two. "Ok, lift it."

Tails frowned. He hadn't really known what he was doing before, and wasn't really sure what to do now. All he had done was focused, and…commanded…he had ordered the barrels before to rise. The same principal had to apply here. The fox focused on the box, and slowly it rose ten feet above the technically non-existent ground before he let it go.

"Nice work! You've got that down, so I won't bother showing you more. Just try not to lift anything heavier than half your size for the time being. Now, there are two things I'm going to show you now, and Silver can help you finish it off. The first is how to channel a psychic beam; the other is how to create a shield to defend yourself. If you're up for it, we can try detecting objects and people not in plain sight. Ready?"

"You bet," Tails replied, nodding.

"Alright! First, for the attack…" A few red and white bulls-eye targets appeared, floating above the box, "Other than moving objects and throwing them at your enemies, or just throwing your enemies in general, this is your most basic psychic attack - a beam of energy. It's kind of hard to use at first because it requires quite a bit of focus, but once you've got it you'll be able to bend the beam in any direction you desire with little effort. What you have to do," Isis said, raising her right hand this time, "Is focus on your current emotion. Whether the emotion is happiness, or determination, or anger, you can make an attack out of it. The stronger the feeling is, the stronger the attack will be."

"Ok…so, I'm…" Tails thought for a moment, "Tired, a little confused and a little bit angry."

"Can you make yourself happy? Think of a good memory or something. Happiness is easy to channel, even though it doesn't do that much damage."

"I'll try…" Tails closed his eyes and relaxed. In here, it was much easier to let go of unwanted thoughts and latch onto happy ones. "I've got it," Tails said after a minute.

"Good. Now, this works quite a bit like moving objects - you have to focus on your target, but this time instead of thinking of moving it, you want to see it…explode, for lack of a better word. Imagine that energy flowing from your brain and heart down your arm and out your hand. You want to release the emotion. It's why psychics often seem so cold in battle - the clearer your mind is, the easier it is to fight."

"Let's see…um…" Tails held out his right arm and closed his eyes again, trying to imagine a river of power flowing through his arm, "I…I don't think I can…"

"You can! Any doubt you have will only be an obstacle for you. Put some brain power into it! Will the energy to zap that target into splinters!"

"Come on…come on…" Tails muttered to himself, feeling his palm starting to numb. A few small sparks crackled through his fur, and the fox felt like somebody was poking him with a needle.

"Almost there - you can do it!" Isis was staring at Tails expectantly. He was trying pretty hard, so there should be some kind of result.

There was a result, but it wasn't exactly a good one. A strong blast of multi-colored energy in yellow, blue and purple was sent from Tails' hand. It was strong enough to knock Tails right off his feet, but because of that Tails had no control. Instead of staying in a single beam the energy scattered and became a wave, hitting every target, but destroying none.

Isis helped Tails to his feet, "That was good, but you got frustrated. Using waves of energy can come in handy to hit multiple targets, but as you see," Isis gestured to the targets, "If not controlled, the power isn't that strong."

"Ow…" Tails mumbled, rubbing his head, "That kinda hurt…"

"At least once we get out of here, you can sleep the pain off. But for now, you want to give the attack another go?"

Tails sighed, "Might as well…I have a feeling you won't let me go until I do…"

Isis burst out laughing, "You really are a quick learner!"

XXXXXXXXX

"So the one in the forest was a fake…" Sonic mumbled, taking another drink of apple juice. He had woken up ten minutes ago, already feeling a hundred times stronger. Shadow still lay beside him, sleeping with an emotionless expression, while Isis and Tails were curled up on the windowsill, seemingly concentrating in their sleep. "Why would someone go to the trouble of planting a fake Emerald?"

"Why else? To distract us," Blaze said, swinging her legs. She was sitting between the two on the windowsill, careful not to bump either of them, "Shadow destroyed it, so at least we won't pick it up again."

"But if there's one, there could be others…" Sonic got off of the bed and started to pace, "I wonder if Eggman is scheming something as well."

"How come you think Eggman did it?" Knuckles asked, picking at his bandages which were starting to itch.

"Oh come on! It'd be just like Egghead to make fake Emeralds. He's done it before!"

"He's been quiet since September, and he hasn't sent anything after you lately. Seems kinda random for him just to dump a fake Emerald in the middle of nowhere."

"Hmm…" Sonic moved back to bed and sat on the end, "You think he's working with Mephiles?"

"I don't think either of them is willing to share the planet with the other. I can't see them working together," Silver replied.

"I think Silver's right. Besides, while Eggman does some crazy things, he wouldn't…" Knuckles trailed off, "Never mind."

"He wouldn't what?" Sonic asked, looking right into Knuckles' eyes.

Knuckles gulped slightly, seeing everyone look at him expectantly. The echidna sighed, "I was going to say that he would never rape you, is all."

Sonic slapped his hands over his ears, "I don't want to hear it."

"Well, you asked…"

"The last thing I need right now is the image of being raped by Eggman! So shut up!"

"Alright, alright, chill…" Knuckles went back to rubbing his bandages, "These things are driving me crazy!"

"It should be ok for you to take them off now," Rouge said, moving behind the echidna to help unravel the cloth.

Blaze looked over at Amy, who was standing near the door, "You've been pretty quiet. Any thoughts?"

"Yes. We should get Eggman to help us," Amy replied, looking up.

XXXXXXXXX

Tails could almost see the target exploding in a bright flash of colors…the energy moved down his arm, his fur crackled, and…

"Beautiful!" Isis cheered as a bolt of energy flew in a straight line and obliterated the target, "Try to hit that one, which is at an angle. No, don't turn to face it; move the energy."

After a few more tries, Tails was able to get the energy to curve and smash the target. The other targets soon followed, exploding into dust - or the mind's version of dust.

"I've had enough. Can we stop?" Tails asked, panting.

"You know, just for the record, since we're in Shadow's mind you don't even need to breathe. You're panting for nothing."

"I don't care! I'm just ticked off!" Tails snapped, slamming his foot on the ground. A wave of colors came from his foot, making the world around them shake. "What'd I do?" Tails asked, trying to keep his balance.

"I think Shadow felt you. Cross your fingers that he doesn't wake up, otherwise he'll really be freaked."

XXXXXXXXX

Everybody turned to look at Amy, confused. "Are you crazy? Eggman wouldn't help us!" Knuckles said, tearing a layer of bandages off.

Amy was about to reply when Shadow let out a small cry and grabbed his head, as though he was having a headache.

Sonic whirled around and rubbed Shadow's side, "You ok there? Shadow?"

Shadow snarled in his sleep and shook his head back and forth on the pillow. Sonic looked back at the others, about to ask if they should get a nurse when Shadow went limp again. He rolled onto his stomach and let his hands fall away from his head.

Everyone was quiet for a moment, waiting to see if Shadow would move again. He didn't. "That was…odd…" Silver said, looking at the sleeping black hedgehog.

Sonic nodded, and caught a glance of something shining in Shadow's back quills. "Hold on…what's this?" Careful not to cut himself, Sonic reached into Shadow's quills and grasped onto a fist-sized object. He pulled it out and was surprised to see that he was holding the red Chaos Emerald.

XXXXXXXXX

"Ok…I think I've calmed him…" Isis sighed and turned to face Tails, "I understand you're getting annoyed, but if you release your emotions here Shadow can pick up on them. That's why I asked you to stay happy, because happiness will keep him calm."

"I'm sorry! It's just that…" Tails sighed, "I'm tired."

"I know, I know. I'll make this short. Shields are harder to pull off than a blast, because in this case you want to keep the energy surrounding you or your buddy. In most cases, you use your will power to keep your friend safe, but for now we can just try using an emotion blast, but keeping it around you…so…like…this…" Isis sent out a psychic blast, just like Tails had been doing, but instead of sending it out she brought it back in and held it in a little ball in front of her body. "Then…if you imagine you are playing with clay and pull it like so…" The energy began to spread as Isis moved her hands, slowly stretching into a circular shape, "You can protect yourself from most damage, as long as you keep your strength up in both mind and body. So, it goes like this: shoot a blast like normal, but this time turn it around so it comes back towards you and try to hold it right in front of you. Let's practice that for now, shall we?"

Tails sighed, "Fine, fine…" He began to charge up another blast, "Here it goes…"

XXXXXXXXX

"How did Shadow get this?" Sonic asked, staring at the Emerald.

"Perhaps he found it while running back here," Blaze said.

"Of course! I get it now!" Everyone looked at Rouge, who had just taken the last bandage off of Knuckles, "Shadow let himself get hurt because he was trying to get the Emerald from Mephiles without the guy noticing. If it was well hidden, Shadow might've had to sacrifice protecting himself in order to grab it."

"That's pretty noble…I didn't think Shadow liked admitting he had that side," Knuckles said, finally free of the wrappings.

"Yeah…" Sonic said, looking back at the sleeping hedgehog and thought, "Is it my fault that he's become this way?"

"You ok, Sonic? You seem deep in thought," Blaze asked.

Realizing that everyone was looking at him, Sonic quickly changed the topic, "I'm fine! But still…why should we ask Egghead for help?"

XXXXXXXXX

"Just spread it like Play-Doh…come on, a little bigger!"

Tails struggled to make the energy only move sideways, and in small amounts, instead of just focusing on one point. It was like trying to spread wet cement with your bare hands while somebody wanted to write in it. Currently his biggest shield so far was half his height.

"Once you can cover your front, we'll stop. Go Tails!"

Despite not really being alive inside of Shadow's mind, Tails was sweating and panting with the effort. One more inch…one more centimeter…

"There!" Tails gasped, having spread the energy far enough to cover his entire front half, "Done!" He let the energy disperse and sat down, breathing heavily.

"Bravo!" Isis clapped, "You did it!"

"How can you and Silver do that so fast?" Tails asked, "It was like I was trying to move a mountain!"

Isis laughed softly, "Practice and nothing more. Over time it'll come naturally and won't be so tough."

"Can we leave now? I want to rest," Tails asked, accepting Isis' arm and shakily standing up.

"Not quite. You just as interested as me on how our host lost some memory?"

"You want to know why Shadow doesn't remember Black Doom?" Tails asked. Isis nodded. "I am kinda curious, but -"

"So it's settled! Let's go find out!" Isis grabbed Tails' arm and ran back towards the frozen image of Black Doom, not even bothering to listen to Tails' protests.

XXXXXXXXX

"Well, what I mean is that we should at least find out whose side Eggman is on - whether it is ours, Mephiles', or his own. It'll be hard to fight two villains at once, won't it?" Amy looked around at everyone, waiting for a response.

Sonic crossed his arms and looked down, "Point taken. Eggman can be pretty tough, and I'd rather focus on one crisis at a time."

"So, what do you suggest we do? Go up, knock on his door and ask? Or smash into his base?" Knuckles asked.

"Neither - for the first one, he wouldn't answer, and for the second, it could tick him off enough to actually send out an attack. We'll just sneak in, listen, and then leave once we get an answer," Rouge said, crossing her arms as well, "I can get in just fine, and search for any Emeralds while I'm there."

"You're not saying you go alone, are you?" Blaze asked.

Rouge shrugged, "Well, I would say Shadow should come, but he certainly isn't in any condition to fight. I can go solo."

"I'll come. I haven't done much so far - time for me to get some action." Sonic grinned and jumped to his feet, "Besides, I'd like to repay Eggman for twisting my ankle last time. I hated sitting around for those two days."

Rouge shook her head, "We don't want to confront him; we want to listen in. The less drama we cause right now, the better. And you're all about making a scene."

"Well, I can be silent too, if I want. It's not as fun, but I can."

"I'll come along too," Silver said, stepping forward, "Maybe I'll be able to psychically pick something up. Where's his base, anyways?"

"I know where it is. Just follow me…Knuckles, you guard these!" Sonic tossed the red Emerald to Knuckles and dashed out of the room. Rouge and Silver quickly followed.

The remaining three looked at each other, not quite sure what to do. Amy sighed, "I guess we just wait for these guys to wake up, then…"

XXXXXXXXX

Back at the frozen image of Black Doom, Isis began scouring the cubes that floated by. She never opened any up; only stared at each for a few seconds before moving on. "What exactly are you doing?" Tails asked after Isis looked at her twentieth one.

"Doing a quick scan to see if I can catch any signs of memory loss or remembrance of such…" Isis moved to one cube, and then another, "Nope, nope, nope…bingo!" Isis grabbed a cube painted with multiple colors and missing a small chunk, "This must be it!"

"How do you know?"

Isis shrugged, "I know there's memory loss from the chip; whether it relates to Black Doom being Frozen Doom, I don't know. This memory…" Isis held it out in front of her and looked quizzically at it, "Was from last fall, October or November. In here Shadow's angry…annoyed…confused…hurt…cocky…like he was dragged to a party he didn't want to go to and then got injured."

"Can I see?" Tails asked, coming closer, "It sounds like that's around the time where Shadow got nicer."

"Nicer? He was mean before?"

"Grumpy, really. He wasn't fond of other people and liked to keep to himself. He changed some time ago."

"Ok then…let's take a look." Isis opened the box, and both of them peered inside.

XXXXXXXXX

"Come on, Shadow! So much for being the Ultimate!" Through Shadow's eyes, the two could see Sonic grinning back at the black hedgehog. The two hedgehogs were racing at a high speed through a grassy plain, although the blue one seemed to be enjoying it a lot more than the other.

"Annoying Faker! Give me back my Emerald!" Shadow snapped, reaching for Sonic's right arm. Sonic barely squirmed out of the way, and held a green emerald above his head.

"What's the magic words, Shadow?"

"Give it back to me before I rip your head off!" Shadow snarled going into a sharp turn as Sonic moved away from the black one.

Sonic laughed, "Nope…it's, 'If I win the race, you have to give it back to me!'"

"IF? I will win!"

"You don't even know where the finish line is!"

"Neither do you! You're just going to keep making me chase you until I catch you!"

Sonic grinned, "You know me quite well, don't you?"

The two hedgehogs raced across the plain, through a valley and now were running through a thick forest. Their speed dropped as now more attention had to be paid to dodging objects instead of teasing the other, but their speed was still over a hundred miles an hour.

"Come on Shadow! Catch me if you can!" Sonic took off in a blue blur, and Shadow pressed on right after him.

"Damn it Sonic!" Shadow growled to himself, "Once I get my hands on you, you'll pay. That Faker is such a pain in the ass! I don't get how the hell I can work with him when fighting Black Doom one day, and the next I just want to wring his neck! Why does he even bother helping me with G.U.N and Black Doom and everything when he just -"

During his brooding, Shadow had kept his speed up, but hadn't remembered the fact that he was in a bad place to be moving quickly. He finally looked up when he heard Sonic cry out, "Shadow, look out!"

There was a flash of brown as a huge tree branch appeared right at Shadow's height, and then the image went black for a moment as Shadow slammed straight into it. Both Isis and Tails winced, almost feeling the impact of the tree on their own foreheads.

Shadow's vision slowly cleared, and a blue sky surrounded by the tops of trees was whirling around and around, like seeing clothes go around in the washer. Sonic soon appeared by Shadow's side, the blue hedgehog's image also spinning.

"Shadow, you have to pay more attention! Are you alright?" Shadow moaned in response, still unable to pull himself fully together. "Ok, um…what's your name?" Sonic asked, tilting Shadow's head up so they were staring into each other's eyes.

"Shadow…"

"And what's my name?"

"S…Sonic…"

"Good! Um…" Sonic held up his left hand with his thumb tucked against the palm, "How many fingers am I holding up?"

"Th…three…no, two…uhh…" The world finally stopped spinning, although it was still a little blurry for both Shadow and the two watching the memory. "Four. Definitely four."

"Getting yourself back together, huh?" Sonic grinned, "What's your nickname for me?"

"I…I don't know…" Shadow's vision started to go black at the edges, but Sonic softly shook Shadow and made the black hedgehog alert again.

"Ok…odd…how about your dad? Remember him?"

"…Professor Gerald?"

"Uh, no, that's your creator."

"Creator. Yeah, I remember that. And Maria. Where is she, anyways?"

Sonic jumped slightly, his puzzled expression obviously meaning he had no idea how to explain what had happened to Maria, "She's…not here…um…do you remember Black Doom?"

Shadow shook his head as best as he could while it was still being held by Sonic. Sonic bit his lip, "What's the last thing you remember?"

"…Ouch."

"Ouch?"

"I ran into something…while…chasing you…"

"Oh yeah…those large, solid objects in plain sight are always the hardest to dodge."

Sonic laughed until Shadow tried to push Sonic away. "Not funny," Shadow mumbled, his hand weakly pushing against Sonic's chest.

"Sorry…" Sonic grinned for a moment, and then his expression was sober again, "You gonna be alright?"

"I…I think so…" Sonic stood up as the ebony hedgehog attempted to simply sit up, the world finally looking as it should.

Sonic bent down and looked at Shadow's forehead as the black hedgehog struggled to stay sitting, "Very impressive, Faker. You hit that tree branch so hard you're bleeding."

Shadow rubbed his hand against his forehead and then brought it down. Seeing a fair amount of blood on his glove he snorted, "Wonderful. This is your entire fault, you know."

The blue hedgehog winced, "Yeah…I know…I'm sorry…" Shadow glanced up at Sonic, who was looking at the ground out of guilt. After a moment, the blue hedgehog looked back up, grinning again, "Well, the least I can do is help you get home, right? We can finish our race some other time."

Shadow snarled, struggling to stand up, "I don't need your -" The black hedgehog fell forward, too dizzy to keep his balance, and Sonic caught him just as Shadow finished with, "help."

The sapphire hedgehog laughed, "Sure you don't - and I'm the queen of England! Just keep quiet and I'll help you home. I promise that I won't tell anyone!"

The ebony hedgehog sighed, realizing that there was no chance of him being able to get home by himself or that Sonic was going to leave him alone, "Fine."

Sonic slipped Shadow's right arm over his shoulders and held it there with his own right arm. The blue hedgehog slipped his other arm around Shadow's back and gripped the black one's waist to help keep Shadow upright. "See? That's not so bad!" Sonic said, smiling. Shadow grunted in response, leaning on Sonic's shoulders.

It was slow going, since Shadow was still too disoriented to move much faster than a walking pace. Because Sonic didn't want to injure Shadow's pride any more he only carried the black hedgehog when they had to cross a gorge or to get around some other obstacle that required good coordination.

Eventually the two hedgehogs managed to make it back to Shadow's place, and the black hedgehog unlocked the door. Sonic helped Shadow hobble over to the couch and sit down on it, "I think you've given yourself a concussion. Can I get you anything?" Shadow looked up at Sonic, who was grinning like nothing was wrong.

"First aid kit. It's in the kitchen." Sonic was back with the white box before Shadow had even finished his sentence.

"I'll take care of that cut for you. You can't see what you're doing, and even if you could you're too dizzy." Shadow tried to protest, but Sonic ignored him and continued to clean and bandage the wound. The black hedgehog had to admit that he wouldn't have been able to do a good job in his current state, so he let himself be taken care of by the blue one.

"There! All done!" Sonic tossed thebandage wrapper back into the box and shut it, "Anything else?"

"No," Shadow said, closing his eyes, "Just let me rest, ok?"

Sonic nodded and was about to leave, but then Shadow remembered something else. "Hold on! What was my nickname for you again?"

The blue hedgehog pondered the idea, and then said, "Faker, because I look so much like you but you came first, technically. We both call each other that." Sonic's voice quieted as he continued, "I don't like it that much."

Shadow nodded and stretched out on the couch, "But if you don't like it, why did you tell me? I probably would have forgotten if it wasn't for you."

Sonic shrugged, "Didn't seem nice to lie to you. Well, see ya later."

"Hey, before you go Sonic…thanks."

Those six words, the last two in particular, made Sonic turn around and grin, "Shadow thanking me? What a glorious day! I'll come by tomorrow so we can finish our race!"

The blue blur dashed off, and once Shadow heard the door shut he remembered that he never asked for his Emerald back. The black hedgehog grumbled to himself, but when he rolled onto his side he was surprised to see the green Emerald resting right beside him on the couch. Shadow smirked as he picked up the Emerald and held it up to the light, "So, he gave it back and still expects me to race him, huh? I'll have to repay him for making me run into a tree."

XXXXXXXXX

"I was right - trauma to the head. He was thinking about those things at the time of impact, so he temporarily wiped his memory of them." Isis nodded and closed the cube, letting it float loose again.

"How can something like that make Shadow just forget?"

"Well, haven't you ever had a time when you've forgotten what you were going to say, just before you were going to say it? Or you forgot what you were saying in mid-sentence? This is kinda the same thing, only on a bigger scale. Basically what I think happened is that when Sonic called out, Shadow's brain attempted to erase those thoughts about the bad things from his mind in order to concentrate on what the heck was going on. But when he ran into the tree, it probably startled his brain, so he forgot to remember the bad things." Isis looked at the cube, now floating over their heads, "Did that make any possible sense to you?"

"Uh, sure…" Tails looked up at cube, "Sonic never said anything about this. I wonder why?"

Isis shrugged, "Well, Shadow's happier now. Maybe it's for the best that he's oblivious."

"Perhaps…" Both were quiet, until the area around them started rumbling. "What's going on? Did we do this?" Tails asked, stumbling a bit forward.

Isis shook her head, "Nope; Shadow's waking up! We'd better scram!"

XXXXXXXXX

If the three in the room that were awake had been paying closer attention to those that were sleeping, they probably would have been quite surprised to see that all three woke up at the same time. Although Tails immediately fell asleep for real this time, Isis was too tired to do anything but blink sleepily, and Shadow was simply pissed off.

"Fucking Mephiles! Beating me with that pipe - and not even getting close to me at first, the coward! But at least while he was thinking that he was beating me, I totally got him back…" Shadow sat up, ignoring the pain and reached into his back quills, "Damn it! Don't tell me he took it!"

"The Emerald? Sonic found it." Knuckles held it out to Shadow, "Why didn't you attack Mephiles?"

Shadow chuckled, "I sensed that he was carrying an Emerald on him. If I attacked him, he'd be ready to defend himself and would notice if I kept reaching for a certain point. Since I seemed to do nothing, he thought so high-and-mighty of himself he didn't even realize that I plucked the Emerald from his cloak." Shadow took the Emerald from Knuckles and tossed it up and down, "The pain is worth the Emerald. It saves us the trouble of heading into Mephiles' base to grab it ourselves."

"Nice work," Isis mumbled, yawning, "That's three, and…there's how many?"

"Seven," Shadow replied, leaning back against the pillows and admiring his prize, "Already we're halfway there, or almost." The black hedgehog looked around the room, "Where is everyone?"

"Off to invade Eggman's base; looking for Emeralds and to see if Eggman is up to something," Blaze said to Shadow, and then turned to Isis, "How can you still be tired? You've been sleeping all afternoon!"

Isis yawned again, "I haven't been sleeping well lately. 'Night again." Isis curled up on the windowsill and promptly fell asleep.

"So, where's the Doctor's base? I'll go catch up to them," Shadow said, attempting to stand.

Amy walked over and pushed Shadow back down, "No way; you're not ready to fight. You need to rest."

Shadow shook his head, "I'm fine! Just a little dizzy…" Shadow stood up, his legs wobbling slightly, "I took that beating, no problem."

"He knocked you unconscious."

"Only because I let him! I could easily have beaten him if he wasn't such a coward. He only got close when he saw how badly hurt I was."

"You just admitted you were injured! Now sit down!"

"The key word there being 'were', in this case being past tense. I'm leaving!"

"You're staying here!"

"No way - I'm too pumped up now to rest."

Blaze sighed, "This could go on for a while."

XXXXXXXXX

Sonic had led Silver and Rouge straight to the base, and after Rouge had gotten all three inside undetected she left the two hedgehogs alone. Sonic still preferred making a grand entrance, but since Eggman hadn't actually done anything lately there was no real point to blowing up the place. So Sonic resigned himself to inwardly commenting on the base's design as the two hedgehogs made their way through the base.

Eventually the two hedgehogs came to Eggman's main workshop, or at least what looked like it, judging from a quick peek from Sonic. The room was piled high with robot parts and sheets of paper, covered with writing and equations. Eggman wasn't in the room, so the two hedgehogs crept inside. They silently split up to look for anything useful - either Emeralds or some bit of information pointing to Eggman's alliance.

It took a few minutes, but Silver called out for Sonic, "Over here! I think it's an Emerald!" Sonic came over and followed Silver's pointing to see a purple gem locked in a glass case hung from the ceiling, at least thirty feet above the hedgehog's heads.

Sonic frowned, "I don't know, Silver. I can sense it, and it doesn't seem powerful enough to be real."

"Well, we might as well check and see. I think I'll be able to grab it with my psychic powers…" Silver climbed onto a desk, and from there onto a bookshelf so he was a good seven feet off of the floor, "Yeah, I should be able to."

Sonic shrugged, "Give it a go. Old Egghead's not around here, anyways."

Silver nodded and began to focus, moving slowly so he would detect any alarm systems before he accidentally activated them. The door to the case slowly unlocked, and then opened just wide enough for Silver to slip the Emerald out the door. Silver focused on the Emerald and almost had it out when a huge boom rang throughout the base, as though a few dozen airplanes had smashed into the place spontaneously. The impact was wobbling every piece of furniture in the room, and the walls and ceiling seemed ready to cave in.

Unable to keep his balance, Silver slipped off of the bookshelf and was heading for a nasty headfirst crash onto the floor until Sonic stepped into his path, "I've got you."

Silver, at the same time, was attempting to right himself with his powers when Sonic caught him. Their heads smacked together, and their lips accidentally pressed against each other's in an awkward kiss.

Sonic and Silver stared at each other, both too surprised to pull away. They finally broke contact when they heard a voice say, "Honestly, I don't care if you two are lovers, but at least keep it out of my workshop, will you?"

The two hedgehogs awkwardly stumbled away from each other, and Sonic turned to the voice's owner with flushed cheeks, "Eggman!"

Awkward situation is awkward! How is that for a chapter ending?