Author's note: A big THANK YOU to everyone who has reviewed, I really, really appreciate it! The tips for improving my writing style are especially helpful. Writing in "fanfiction format" is still very much new to me and I know I have a lot to learn.

I'm currently pretty cranky and annoyed as the result of being on a pre-surgery 3 week liquid diet, which means I'm very hungry and suddenly have a lot of extra time since I'm not cooking, eating or cleaning the dishes. And need to distract myself from thinking about food. So, hey, maybe we can get some quickish updates to this...

As a final little note, I got a cover image, woo! Going by my covers for my stories, one might think I' a huge Sonic X fan... I'm not, but the series is great when you're too lazy to get a proper cover XD I did draw the one of Sonic covered in tar, though… But he's so hard to draw :[

On with the story!

Chapter 6

What was that? Sonic strained to focus. It was not easy. For a moment, he thought that he had heard a faint noise, not unlike the sound of a wave hitting the beach. He tried to listen harder. Nothing. His mind must be playing tricks on him. Subconscious wanting his hearing to be back just too much. He sighed and shifted his weight slightly. He was kneeling, still blindfolded and still cuffed. His arms sported various small but painful cuts where he had accidentally scraped his bound hands against his quills. His feet were aching and his head pounding. A host of lesser pains were making themselves known on most of his body. Worst of all though were his frayed nerves. He didn't know where he was or if he was alone. Or if Eggman was still here.

From time to time he had been able to feel slight tremors through the ground when someone - Eggman or his robots, he usually couldn't tell which - passed near him. Not rarely kicking him out of the way as they marched by him. He could faintly smell blood and metal, sometimes Eggman's distinguished odour if he stood near him, but that was about as much as he could tell about his surroundings. He didn't know where he had originally been led and he didn't know if he was still there or if they had moved elsewhere. He had tried to appear confident and unafraid, but he suspected he had called out in pain several times in the last couple of hours as he was hit. Not to mention falling over when he had lost his balance, never knowing when or from where to expect the next attack and being unable to fight back. That injured pride hurt him more than the cuts or bruises. He felt very, very vulnerable, and he hated the feeling. On top of that, he was utterly exhausted from the mental torture as well as the physical pain and lack of nourishment and proper rest.

Eggman's "games" had lasted the better part of two hours. During that time, he had had Sonic shocked, kicked and beaten. He'd have his bots herd him around aimlessly in the room, just to confuse and infuriate him. He had taken great pleasure from seeing his nemesis reduced to little more than a vegetable, unable to communicate with the outside world… though his sense of touch, and thus his ability to feel pain, was unfortunately still quite intact. For the moment being, Eggman had decided to take a break to give the hedgehog time to build up some more energy. Couldn't continue the fun with the hedgehog out cold, could he? He was already looking worse for wear.

He eyed Sonic kneeling on the floor. He looked pitiful, shivering slightly and still bleeding from a cut on his cheek, the result of a particular hard dive to the floor following a well-aimed kick from earlier. Eggman had contemplated removing the blindfold so he could attempt to communicate with him for just a bit. To really rub into his face just how helpless he was. But he was enjoying seeing him so uncertain and letting him see his surroundings would help him feel more confident again. No, it could stay on a bit longer. Still, he would need to ensure that his prisoner was ready to remain standing a while longer yet or the fun would be over too quickly.

Sonic gasped as he felt his chin roughly grabbed, struggling as well as he could before feeling something against his lips. A bowl or glass of some kind? He felt the water against his dry lips and hesitated. It could be poison, or a drug. It could make him ill or worse... He was awfully thirsty, though, he had to admit. Still, he refused to co-operate, out of suspicion as well as old habit of simply going against the doctor's wishes whatever they were.

Feeling the grip lessen, then disappearing completely and the bowl moving away, he re-considered his options. Eggman was apparently giving him the choice to drink, or not. This suggested he didn't care whether he drank it... So hopefully, it was just regular water? Sonic leaned forward, trying his best to find the bowl again and getting some water down his throat. Eggman had been kind enough to hold the bowl still when he felt the hedgehog reach for it. Let the hedgehog drink from his hand like a submissive pet. He grinned at the thought.

Sonic relaxed somewhat as he felt the cold liquid go down into his stomach. He really had needed that, as much as he hated the thought of taking anything from his nemesis. Still, he felt slightly rejuvenated and even attempted to stand up straight again.

Eggman let the hedgehog rise. He was more fun when he was fighting back anyway. The last few minutes had gotten rather boring, when the hedgehog had chosen to simply remain kneeling and refusing to move no matter what he did, a stubborn expression on his face and ears flat against his skull in controlled anger. Now he could continue… if not for the fact that, unfortunately he had other things waiting for him that required his attention.

It had been hard enough to put aside as much time to the hedgehog as he already had. He'd already taken several short breaks to command robots away to other parts of the base. There had been some… snags. Security breaches. Nothing major, probably just more lost jungle animals that had somehow found their way in. He hoped. Eggman eyed the blinking screen before him as the most recent alarm rose in pitch and urgency, a frown on his face. He had to go before things got out of control. Not bothering to even take Sonic back to his cell again, he simply left the hedgehog where he was. Sonic couldn't run, he couldn't spindash. Hell, he didn't even know where he was and even if by some stroke of luck he found the controls, he most certainly wouldn't know the password, never mind be able to type it in with his hands tied behind his back. No, Eggman was fully safe. He didn't even bother to leave the bots with him, expecting the hedgehog to remain as docile as he had been in the last half an hour.

"See you later, pest" he waved as he moved away. He didn't expect a reply and he didn't get one.

Was he alone? Sonic had waited what felt like an eternity. He hadn't felt the tremors of a presence around him for some time now - no kicks, tasings or other unjust attacks, either. He carefully took a step forward. Nothing happened. He took another and waited again. Still nothing. Eggman must have left him alone. Finally. Had he left any bots to guard him, though?

"Hello?" he called out, instantly inwardly rolling his eyes at himself afterwards. How would he know if someone replied to him anyway? No, he'd have to do this by touch alone. Most important though, he had to get the blindfold off before he could take further action. Maybe Eggman had left the keys to the shackles in the room, just to spite him. He had to get his bearings and find out where he was.

He walked carefully, awkwardly. Without the use of his hands, eyes or ears, he resorted to using his feet to tell what was before him. It was slow progress. Finally, he felt a wall in front of him. Okay. He turned around and silently counted the steps as he made his way over to the opposite wall, measuring the size of the room. It was a fairly large room and apparently mostly empty. Two walls left. He very barely avoided tripping over some piece of furniture or other going towards the third wall - Eggman's oversized chair actually, though he couldn't know that - but finally struck gold at the last wall. A control board. It had to be. Turning around so he could use his fingers, he gingerly felt along an edge of some sort, perhaps a table or ledge. The room was built for human standards and his arms couldn't reach high enough in their shackled state, but he was confident this must be the control room going by those instruments he could just barely reach. He briefly considered attempting to jump up and smash as many buttons as possible, but decided against it. One of those buttons might fire off those missiles Eggman been talking about and he couldn't risk that. It was still very tempting, though.

Sonic thought hard. How to get the blindfold off? He'd already tried to rub it against his spines, but it was too snugly fitted around his skull. Eggman had known what he was doing. Instead, he walked along the ledge of the massive control board until he reached the end of it. A door? He pushed against it. It appeared to be locked. He kept stalking along the wall. At least there didn't appear to be any robots in here, or surely they'd attacked him by now for sneaking about.

Almost about to give up and simply plop down somewhere try to get some rest before the doctor returned, Sonic cursed as he tripped and fell over something near the fourth wall. Whatever it was, it had a sharp end and he felt blood slowly trickling down his leg as he laid on the floor, blinking into the blindfold in surprise. He lashed out at the object in fury, a faint kick all his legs could offer while chained up. Then he got an idea. He got back onto his knees and sniffed the air carefully. Metal. It was a metal object. Which he had now kicked Chaos knew where. At least it shouldn't have been able to travel far since he'd not been able to kick hard with his legs tied.

Sonic had rarely used his sense of smell that much. As a matter of fact, hedgehogs did have pretty good noses, something they had retained from their foraging ancestors, but he was far more used to using his eyes and ears to get information about the world. As a result, Sonic's ability to sniff and smell to find something was rather underdeveloped, but the ability was there, if he could learn to use it.

Awkwardly, he snuffed the air and twisted his head, trying to pinpoint the object he had tripped over. It had felt like something that was long and straight when it connected with his leg. It must be near.

Carefully, he moved to the right of his current position. It hadn't travelled far and it took him less than a minute to find the object again, but almost as long just to lift it up. He had to lie down on his side to grab it with his hands. A pole? It was long, fairly light, definitely metal and cold to the touch. It was roughly as thick as his wrist and he clumsily sat up again, still holding on to it. Okay. Step one done. Time for step two. He grabbed a firm hold, holding onto the object with both hands behind him, aiming it straight up.

It took him several minutes, plenty of cursing and several winces as he missed the mark more than once, hitting himself in the process, but it was all worth it when the blindfold loosened enough to fall down from his face to drape around his neck like a scarf. Sonic had attempted to lodge the object – a small leftover pipe, he found out when he could see again – under the blindfold. It had been very painful at first to dig under it, but after many attempts it had loosened enough to make the task easier. Eventually, the tied piece of fabric had simply fallen off his face to dangle around his thin neck.

Sighing in relief, he blinked his eyes wearily. They hurt from being behind that fold for so long and it took a while before he could take in his surroundings again. At first, painfully bright lights fluttered around his face before growing into familiar shapes again. He could see! Suddenly, Sonic felt so much more confident, so much freer. This was almost like a regular capture, now. He mentally shook his head at himself. Regular capture, huh? Said something about the type of life he led.

Standing up again, still holding onto the pipe – just in case – he moved back to the control board. There were simply too many buttons, switches and levers. He had no idea what they might do if he pressed them. With Eggman's threat fresh in mind, he didn't dare attack the console. He needed Tails for something like this.

Speaking of, he hoped the fox was all right. He hadn't seemed too badly hurt when Sonic was taken, but he couldn't be sure. Chances were the fox would come straight after them, as stupid and dangerous as that would be. As dangerous as running off to fight with your enemy while deaf and exhausted? Sonic didn't want to think too hard on that one.

Instead, he glanced over the controls once more before his eyes brightened. Of course! He looked around before his eyes found a small microphone. Surely Eggman had some ways of communicating with others built into this thing? The pipe was dropped onto the floor with a clank, rolling away a little bit before coming to a rest near the board. Sonic was too busy looking over the controls to pay it any attention.

Unfortunately, as he busily searched for something like a radio or intercom, Sonic did not notice someone behind him until the last moment, when he felt the slight, almost non-existent tremor in the floor. Someone was coming. Twisting around instinctively, he barely avoided the doctor's mad grab for his neck.

"How did you…!" Eggman cursed at him before sending the two bots flanking him to attack the hedgehog.

Still unable to move freely, Sonic backed away slowly, bristling. Ready to battle, he felt a dull roar go through his head - adrenaline pumping through his system and getting him ready to fight. He was cornered, still unable to move freely and he was still quite fatigued. Still, he wouldn't go down without a fight and growled darkly as he eyed his opponent. He was not going to miss this chance of getting out of here...

Elsewhere, a young fox was currently trying his best to get his bearings, as well. Fortunately, he had filled his bright young mind with all the knowledge he had come across during his adventures, and carefully observed the moss-covered trees before him.

"Let's see... North is that way, then..."

With a slight nod to himself, he took off again. He was tired, muddy and worried to his very core, but he knew he must not give up. Every minute counted and who knew what Sonic was going through right now?

Determination on his face, Tails twirled his tails and took the air.