A/N: Okay, just a few quick announcements!

One, a big thank you to everyone who's been reviewing/faving/following! You're all amazing. ^_^

Two, I hafta admit: this chapter may not have turned out the best. I feel like it and the next chapter should've been consolidated, but can't figure out how to trim them on a short notice. So, I'll be making an extra update this Friday to get the next chap' out of the way early! Bad idea? Maybe. Doing it anyway? Definitely!

Three, my conscience has been poking me between the shoulderblades. Cream's change in the last chapter has been getting a pretty positive response, and I feel like I should acknowledge the inspiration for it: the sentry turrets from the Portal games. A lot of her behavior and quotes were consciously based on those little guys, so they get a lot of the credit for anything that might have gone right in that respect. If it's going to be confession time, I might as well add that Knuckles' and Rouge's escape from the truck was based on a scene from an old movie called "Milo and Otis," and this chapter will also be making references to an obscure old Sonic fan video from YouTube. Yes, I am shameless. Completely. :P

Anyway, here's the next chapter!

Not wanting to risk the consequences of Cream awakening too soon, Sonic set out for home as fast as he could. Silver caught sight of him on the way, and Sonic sent him to go round up the others—they had no means of communication, but they'd keep searching all night if they weren't informed somehow that Cream had been located.

Arriving back at home, Sonic found only a note from Amy, saying that she had gone over to keep Vanilla in one piece. Darkness had fallen, the lights were all off, and the silent house seemed to radiate a thick, bitter depression. Setting Cream carefully on the sofa, Sonic went to find some ropes. He didn't like the idea one bit, but Cream would have to be restrained somehow, at least for now. She was too violent.

Picking his way through the Sodom and Gomorrah that had formerly been the floor of Tails' workshop, Sonic dug through a heap of scattered supplies, hoping he wasn't breaking anything important. Finding a length of cord, he turned around and nearly walked straight into a dark form.

"Yagh!"

"Get a hold of yourself," hissed Shadow's voice. "Would it kill you to turn on some lights in here?"

"Would it kill you not to sneak up on people?" Sonic hissed back, miffed. "What is this, Jumpscare Day?"

"That's why I don't Chaos Control into populated places," retorted Shadow, taking the cord from Sonic and stalking off. Sonic rolled his eyes and followed to the living room, where Shadow was expertly binding Cream's wrists behind her back.

"Probably would be better to keep her in a pen or something," said Shadow, looking up. "I think some of the cages at HQ would work."

"Forget it," said Sonic sharply. "We're not putting her in a cage like an animal."

"Well, we can't keep her tied up until Tails finds a cure. Cutting off circulation that long is dangerous."

"I know." Sonic flung himself back into an armchair and rubbed his face wearily. "Man, I can't believe it. I thought it was over . . . "

Shadow shrugged. They'd all hoped it was.

The minutes dragged on. One by one the others arrived, depending on their respective speeds. Tails, looking ill at the entire prospect, said it would probably be safe to just keep Cream in the basement, as long as they kept the door locked. They put her comfortably on a little cot down there, amidst Tails' various inventions—the basement served as his secondary workshop—and left her plenty of food and juice boxes for when she woke up. That done, they all settled down and looked at each other glumly for a while.

"I should get to work finding the cure," mumbled Tails, but made no move to get up from the armchair he was slumped in.

"Maybe I can help out at least a little," offered Sonic optimistically. "I could probably recognize the potion I drank by its smell."

"Maybe. Unless your sense of smell was altered when you were in your other form," replied Tails.

"Oh."

Amidst the following lifeless silence, Rouge elbowed Shadow and tapped her wrist. Shadow's ears flicked back slightly, but Rouge half-lowered her eyelids and spread her hands. No matter if the sky was falling down or demons were crawling up from the underworld, Team Dark was expected to report for duty at G.U.N. on time, or else.

The others had mostly missed the silent exchange, so Shadow and Rouge got some startled looks when they suddenly stood up.

"We're due on-duty in an hour," said Rouge. "Sorry. You guys have got this under control though, right?"

There was a sudden thud, the basement door shook wildly, and a howl of fury and several death-threats flew from behind it.

"Yeah," said Tails softly. "Under control."

The others came by in what seemed like self-timed swing shifts, checking to make sure everything was still all right. Vanilla tried to come in, but Amy told her, as gently as possible, that it might not be a good idea. The poor mother was half-distracted, and Tails had a painful time consoling her and convincing her that he'd find the cure—something he was barely sure of himself, just now. Once again he barely slept that night.

The next morning, Cream immediately resumed having a royal tantrum in the basement. There was a lot of hammering (Sonic barricaded the basement door just in case), shouting (much of which included words you would not have expected Cream to know), and general snarling and promising of painful retribution. Cheese sat on the kitchen counter and whimpered to himself, refusing to eat and staring faithfully at the basement door as he waited for his friend to get better.

Tails was working feverishly towards that end. He knew which chemicals had been in his medicine kit when he was trying to cure Sonic, so he had a very rough idea of which brews he had tried and which he hadn't. One of those seemed to be the correct one—but considering how desperately Tails had been mixing potions back then, the sample number was still painfully large.

"You've gotta be kidding me," groaned Sonic, as Tails gave him yet another tray with twenty vials of medicine to test. "How many of these are there? I don't think my nose is even working anymore!"

Tails said nothing, but looked somewhat stricken. Sonic subsided.

"Hey, relax buddy, I never said I was giving up. Just . . . lemme go smell a chili dog first or something, to get my sniffer recal—recali-whatsit."

"Recalibrated?" said Tails, smiling faintly.

"Yeah, that. All these chemical smells are really working a number on my nose. I can't believe I thought that crazy potion back there smelled nice." Sonic wandered off to the kitchen and began to rummage around in the refrigerator. "Hmm, chocolate pudding. Guess that'll have to do." He opened a package and inhaled exaggeratedly as if enjoying an exotic rose, then gagged. "Gahh! Now it's up my nos—ow! Geez!"

Tails almost chuckled watching Sonic goofing around, but the smile dropped from his face immediately when the basement door shook again. Sonic also lowered the cup of pudding and glanced in that direction, his expression serious. A few seconds, then another hinge-creaking impact. A few seconds more, and another. And another.

I think she's sitting on the stairs and throwing things up at the door," remarked Sonic, forcing a tight smile. Cheese gave a plaintive sigh; Sonic patted the chao on the head absently and handed him the chocolate pudding.

"Eat up, little guy. You've gotta get something into ya."

Cheese nodded, but only half-heartedly poked at the pudding with the included diminutive plastic spoon. There was another thud from the door.

"What's going on?" asked a voice. Knuckles had poked his head into the kitchen, evidently stopping in like pretty much everyone else already had.

"She's throwing things at the door," said Tails resignedly, turning back towards his workshop. "Ready to try again, Sonic?"

Knuckles followed curiously as Sonic sat down, eyed the medicine vials in resignation, and began to cautiously whiff at their contents, one by one.

"You're seriously trying to identify it by smell?" he said, looking at Tails. The little fox shrugged glumly.

"We don't have much else to go by, right now. I can't just give her random medicines, it'll poison her."

Sonic was still doggedly going through the vials, one by one. All of a sudden, he stiffened and took a deeper breath, his eyes widening.

"This," he said slowly. "I think . . . I think. It's not quite right, though. Something . . . "

Tails twitched with elation, and Knuckles watched with eyes brightened with interest.

"Something missing?" suggested Tails, his voice tight with hope.

"Maybe?" ventured Sonic, then raised his eyebrows as Tails practically flew across the room, even sans tail-rotor. The little fox scrambled from bottle to bottle, splashing different chemicals together with shaking hands.

"These are all with the same basic recipe as that one, but with one other chemical added," he explained, pressing more vials into Sonic's hands. "Tell me if one is the right one!"

"Take it easy, I might have been imagining it!" warned Sonic, but smiled at Tails' beaming face and began carefully sampling each vial again. At last he looked up, grinning broadly. No words were necessary.

"YES!" hollered Tails, jumping into the air and shooting one fist towards the ceiling. Coming back down to earth, he began to boing about like a rubber rod, still pumping his fists ecstatically. "Yes! Yes! Yes!"

Sonic and Knuckles started to laugh. It wasn't every day you'd see Tails flip out like this—normally he took even the most amazing discoveries coolly in stride. The tension must have been getting to him more than they realized.

"Take it easy li'l bro, before you blow a fuse!" called Sonic, chuckling. "Does this mean you can cure Cream?"

"Yes, yes, yes!" This seemed to be Tails' new favorite word. "I can mix up a larger dose of this brew, and if we can get her to drink it, we'll be home free!"

"Let's do it then!" said Sonic enthusiastically, handing Tails the vial in question. Tails immediately began mixing a new batch.

"I might have known it would be something like this!" he exalted, almost too excited to measure straight. "These are all medicines affecting brain activity, particularly in the frontal and parietal cortices—and that's where you and Cream were being affected, that's for sure!"

"Y'don't say," said Sonic, exchanging a blank look with Knuckles.

"I bet this medicine reboots the brain, somehow," continued Tails, squinting as he fiddled with an eyedropper. "I'll have to study its exact properties later, but right now we just need to see if it works!"

The medicine was ready within minutes; now all that remained was to get Cream to take it. The joyous mood cooled slightly as the three Mobians considered how to do this.

"Well, I guess we'll just have to bring her up out of the basement," said Sonic resignedly. They headed that way, braced for the worst, but it seemed oddly quiet down there. Sonic opened the basement door cautiously and looked down the stairs. He could see Cream hunched up on one end of her cot, looking sulky.

Nodding for the others to wait at the top of the stairs, Sonic began to carefully descend, step by step. Cream glared at him with one eye, but didn't move—maybe she had tired herself out with her earlier tantrums.

Sonic reached the bottom of the stairs and stopped.

"Hey, Cream," he greeted with a winning smile.

"Go away," growled Cream in return, scowling.

"Hey, hey, take it easy," soothed Sonic, raising his hands placatingly. "We just wanted to say hi. Tails has something he'd like for you to try out, upstairs—"

"Go, away!" shouted Cream, hopping to her feet and glaring with all her might. "Get lost! Scram!"

"Whoa—"

"I'll punch you!" warned Cream, shaking her little fist. Sonic looked down at her blankly, unsure of what to do, as Knuckles began to cautiously inch down the basement stairs after him. Losing patience, Cream stamped her foot.

"Arrgggh! Time to fight you!"

That said, she threw herself at Sonic and began to pummel him right viciously.

Knuckles plunged down the stairs to help as Sonic spluttered in disbelief, trying to hold off this surprisingly powerful six-year-old. Unfortunately, the echidna's attempts at aid only made the tangle worse—Cream was nowhere near as strong as some of the other enemies Sonic and Knuckles had fought, of course, but the difference here was that they didn't want to hurt her. Either of them could have taken her down in an instant, had they just been willing to get rough.

As it was, though, Cream was the only one getting rough at all.

"I'm gonna smack you in the face!" she growled, then followed up on this promise. "HA! Ownage!"

"Seriously?" gritted Knuckles, casting Sonic a disbelieving look while trying to gently keep hold of Cream's arm. Cream instead yanked loose and ran to grab some of Tails' (now thoroughly smashed) inventions. They seemed to have some very sharp points and edges.

"Eat this!" she hollered, lunging across the room and waving the implements of war. Sonic and Knuckles weighed their options for only the briefest of instants before bolting back up the stairs, slamming the basement door behind them.

"Sweet Mobius," panted Sonic, his eyes wide with dismay. "We just got served by a six-year-old girl!"

Knuckles growled and leaned back against the door, nursing a bruised arm.

"If this weren't so damn sad," he muttered, "it might actually be funny."