"Where did she go?" asked Shadow grimly, his voice sharp with the urgency of the situation. "What made her leave?"
"I don't know," said Tails, his voice shaking. Amy was curled up on the sofa nearby, hugging Cheese tightly, whether more for the chao's benefit or her own no one knew. Blaze and Knuckles had already arrived too; Silver came bolting through the door just that moment.
"Is she still—"
"Yes," rapped Shadow. "But she's gone somewhere."
"Does Vanilla know?" asked Blaze quietly.
A dead silence fell. Some glances shifted unconsciously to Amy, who was closest to Cream's mother.
"I can't tell her," whispered Amy, appalled. "I can't tell her this is happening to Cream. She's barely recovered from the camping incident."
"Somebody's got to," said Shadow. "It will be better for her to brace for the worst. It will be much harder on her if someone has to tell her out of the blue that her daughter is dead."
There were several furious and not slightly horrified looks cast his way.
"The possibility does exist," he said coldly. "If Cream becomes violent towards a stranger, who knows? We have to find her before that happens."
Suddenly the door crashed open and Sonic came barging in, wild-eyed. Everyone whirled to look at him.
"What happened?!" he barked, his ears flat against his head. "Why is the window smashed? Why is everyone here? What's happening?"
"Cream," said Amy softly.
"What's happened to Cream?" Sonic's quills rattled.
"Calm down," said Shadow sharply. Sonic took a few deep breaths.
"Is she hurt?" he asked levelly, his fists clenching and unclenching at his sides in completely self-governed spasms. "Did something hurt her?"
"No. But she seems to have what you had." Tails' voice was quiet.
"Oh my g—Oh no," moaned Sonic, seeming to visibly shatter in despair. "She's caught it from me."
"There is no reason why it would affect only her," said Shadow, his voice frighteningly calm. "Even if it was a transmittable disease, you had no more contact with her than with any of us."
"But what if it was a fluke?" asked Sonic desperately. "What if somehow it did pass from me to only her?"
"Then you're doing a fine lot of good standing here dithering like an idiot," Shadow snapped back. "Get a hold of yourself and help us find her. You know what the condition is like. You're best suited to track her."
Sonic nodded slowly. Closing his eyes, he drew a deep, slow breath, shuddering off the tension that seemed to have him in a chokehold. When he opened his eyes again, the haunted light was gone and the old, familiar glint of determination was back. It seemed to send a shock of hope through the entire room. The signature doom-to-all-who-oppose-me smirk flicked across his face briefly.
"Let's do this."
Amy stayed inside, steeling herself to phone Vanilla and tell her the news. Rouge offered to do it, but Amy decided against it; little as she looked forward to the announcement, she knew Vanilla needed someone sympathetic and tactful, not flatly professional. In times of trauma, Team Dark shed any scant emotionality they possessed and functioned as a smoothly-oiled three-part machine—they would sure as heck get you out of danger alive, but if you needed any kind of emotional support, heaven help you. It was a G.U.N. thing.
Sonic led all the others outside. Tails explained what he had last seen—Cream jumping down from the window and presumably dashing off around the corner of the house. Sonic folded his arms, looking around pensively.
"This is going to be fun," he muttered, and closed his eyes. For a moment he stood, the breeze ruffling his quills, ears twitching, grimacing slightly. The others said nothing, knowing it must be painful to drag his mind back to its corrupted form, to remember what it had felt like and imagine what he would have done in that state.
"The city," he said at last, opening his eyes. "I would've wanted to go to Station Square, to do as much . . . damage as possible."
There were several anxious or angry exclamations—this was bad news. If Cream started to run rampant in Station Square, she would be very likely to hurt someone, and quite possibly get hurt herself when the police came for her.
"Split up and search when you reach the city. Move!" growled Shadow, and melted into a black blur heading for Station Square. Sonic shot off after him, feet pounding the ground, Blaze trailed not far behind, Silver leaped into midair and activated his psychokinesis, and the others, not blessed with as much speed, followed to the best of their capacities.
"Can't you just Chaos Control?" Sonic shouted, gradually gaining on Shadow.
"Don't know where to direct to," Shadow called tersely over his shoulder. "Besides which, it's bad policy Chaos Controlling into populated places during the day. People freak out."
"Ah." Sonic nodded resignedly and continued to pour on the speed.
The few fastest runners reached the outskirts of Station Square quickly, and ricocheted off in various directions, ducking amongst pedestrians and into alleyways. Silver whooshed from skyscraper to skyscraper, peering down for a small Mobian form or any kind of disturbance below.
"Have you seen a small rabbit anywhere around?" called Blaze, skidding to a halt by a construction site. The workers all shook their heads, except one who pointed westwards and said he might have seen something heading that way. Blaze took the advice, for lack of other options.
Meanwhile, Sonic found the police station and asked if any 911 calls had been made regarding Mobians. He tried to explain the situation both quickly and non-alarmingly, glossing over a few bits here and there, and secured the police department's promise that they would go easy on the rabbit if any calls about her were made. Still, Sonic wasn't sure he could trust them to keep to that word if Cream started doing something truly dangerous, and he couldn't blame them. The citizens of the city had to be kept safe too. Cripes, if they could just find Cream, fast . . .
An hour dragged by. An hour and a half. Two hours. The searchers kept running into each other, and every time both their faces would light up with hope, then immediately fall as they realized they were both waiting for the other's news.
At last, after almost two and a half hours of frantic searching, Knuckles hit a lucky trail. As he loped doggedly down a sidewalk, he suddenly heard screams of "Help! Help! Robber!" coming from a side street. Dashing towards the source of the sound, he found a panicked-looking lady standing in the midst of spilled paper grocery bags.
"I was attacked!" she gasped, pointing down the narrow street. "A little creature came and knocked down all my groceries and stole some!"
"Rabbit?" asked Knuckles breathlessly.
"I—I think so? It was sort of tan and orange—"
Knuckles almost took off again, but skidded to a halt just long enough to glance back.
"You hurt?"
"N-n—"
"I'll catch her, don't worry!"
And with that he disappeared.
The street turned several corners, but luckily it didn't seem to have any outlets, except some gated driveways tucked between buildings. Knuckles gambled on Cream taking the path of least resistance and prayed there wouldn't be a cross-street anytime soon.
He almost missed her entirely. Running past a high brick wall surrounding somebody's tiny cement backyard, he almost didn't notice the small Mobian perched on top until it was too late.
Cream was sitting lazily on the wall-top, having clambered up a nearby dumpster. A paper grocery sack was sitting next to her, and she was munching on a stick of celery she had evidently procured therein. When Knuckles caught sight of her, her face lit up in a smile.
"Hi Mister Knuckles!" she called, waving happily as the echidna stopped and stared up at her. "You found me!"
Knuckles blinked in disbelief, then shook himself.
"Cream, what do you think you've been—"
He threw himself to the ground just in time. A bottle of cooking oil shattered to powder against the wall behind him, sending sprays of glass jingling across the ground—Knuckles' stomach clenched briefly as he realized what could have happened—and mingled in with the echo of the breaking bottle came a light thud and a patter of running feet.
"Cream!" shouted Knuckles, bolting after her. "Come back!"
A childish giggle was all the answer he received.
Rouge was still questioning pedestrians, her voice growing hoarse, when a flash of red caught her eye. She turned around just in time to see Cream shoot across the middle of a street, and Knuckles tear after her—just as the gap in the traffic vanished.
"Knuckles!" yelled Rouge in horror, but it was too late. Brakes screamed, speeding cars whooshed by, seemingly whirling in every direction, swerving, honking, roaring chaotically until it seemed like an inescapable tornado of deadly blurring colors—he couldn't dodge them all—which way was the sidewalk?!—and suddenly Rouge's hand was grabbing his and her eyes flashed in terror and Knuckles turned just in time to see an eighteen-wheeler already upon them—
The low howl of the diesel engine faded into the distance. Rouge swallowed a huge mouthful of gravel-exhaust-rubber-scented air, lifting her head from the street. She dimly heard more screeching brakes and some metallic crunches all around, but right now she was more focused on the red head rising beside her. Knuckles' wide eyes met hers for an instant, then wordlessly he grabbed her hand and they threw themselves at the sidewalk, stumbling blindly. Neither of them even remembered the truck roaring straight above them mere milliseconds after they threw themselves flat.
"Knuckles," gasped Rouge, gulping for air. Knuckles stumbled to his feet, still shaking slightly.
"Where'd she go?!"
Meanwhile Sonic was plowing down an avenue when he heard a distant flurry of horns and screeches and sounds of smashing. Realizing that there was a high probability of trouble and Cream occurring in the same place, he started to head that way—but he was passed by a small cream-and-orange form, practically flying in the opposite direction.
"Cream?!" he cried, skidding to a halt, turning, and pounding after her. He saw the little rabbit whisk into an alleyway up ahead, and swerved after her, sliding hard on his ankles when the narrow street turned a corner—
A high-pitched howl of fury, and a trash can lid came whirling frisbee-style towards him, catching him in the chest. He yelped as a sharp metal edge dug in.
The alley was dead-end. Off in the corner, Cream was hunched over an old packing crate, straining at one of the sides, bracing with one foot against the top. A ripping of balsa wood, and one of the slats of the crate came off in Cream's hands. She smiled over at Sonic through narrowed eyes and swung the strip of wood demonstratively—there were nails still bristling from the far end.
"Cream," whispered Sonic, swallowing. "Cream, don't . . ."
The little rabbit lunged, waving her new weapon. Sonic skidded to his feet and dashed away, back around the corner, and swung behind a dumpster. Pressing himself back against the cold metal, he held his breath and listened to the soft patter of little orange-and-yellow clogs approaching.
"Are you still there?" sang the childish voice. Sonic felt sick—it sounded like she was playing hide-and-seek in a meadow somewhere, not trying to maul him in a dirty alleyway.
"Helloooo?" singsonged Cream, creeping by his hiding place with her nail-board held high, peering about shiftily. Sonic dove, wrapping one arm around her torso and grabbing the middle of the nail-board with the other. He barely held her for two seconds; Cream merely yowled, slipped right out of his arms, yanked back the board before Sonic even knew what had happened, and swung. Sonic leaped back just barely enough to feel the end of the board only graze his fur. Swinging furiously, Cream backed him rapidly into a corner and prepared to whack again.
Sonic struggled to hold her off, but it was no contest; he was going to lose an eye or worse, at this rate. He couldn't risk letting her get away again, but he couldn't spindash this little slip of a girl, he just couldn't . . . so he gritted his teeth, drew in his breath, prayed for forgiveness, and struck her in the jaw, trying to pull the punch.
She yelped, startled. For a moment her eyes seemed to slide about against her will and she swayed—but abruptly she came to again, and lunged once more—
In a mindless blur, Sonic struck again. This time Cream gave a plaintive whimper and collapsed forwards; he caught her just in time, the nail-board clattering to the ground beside him as her grip went loose.
"I'm so sorry, Cream," he whispered.
"It's . . . okay . . . " she slurred, and lapsed into unconsciousness. Sonic lifted her gently, grimacing. Cor, he hated himself right now.