Chapter 17

"What the hell are you talking about you little tech geek?"

"You wouldn't give a shit about all this if the emerald wasn't involved!"

Sonic had given up on trying to keep the peace. He just sat to one side and waited for it all to blow over. He looked around. Tails and Rouge were still arguing. Silver was looking around at the surrounds. Blaze was sitting on a barrel, occasionally casting a glance to the heated debate. Diesel had begun to clean his guns. Shadow was… wait, where was Shadow?

"Uh, guys?"

"And another thing…"

"Hey, can you wait a sec?"

"Don't you lecture me on what I know better than you…"

"SHUT THE HELL UP!" Sonic yelled. Everyone stopped and stared at him. "Now… what was I going to say… oh yeah, where's Shadow?"

"Oh, he's right over…" Rouge looked round. "The… ah…"

"Now we have a problem."

"I think I saw him go that way a while ago," Blaze said nonchalantly, as if she didn't really care. "You guys seemed to busy to care." Sonic looked ready to explode. Silver rolled his eyes. Tails was quietly amused. Rouge gave him a tap on the back of the head (he had begun to stare into space). Sonic trudged off in search of Shadow, with Rouge in tow.

The tunnel came to an abrupt end at a junction with a larger one. However, the first one was about twelve feet above the other. Shadow would have had no problem swinging down these beams. Sure enough, there was Shadow, on the floor unconscious. He had a slight yellow glow on parts of him, but mostly on his right arm, where there was a very large wound, with parts of a chain embedded in the flesh. Rouge swung down from the beams using her whip. She landed with a thud. Sonic had a harder time getting down. On a beam about halfway down, he lost his balance and fell, with a bigger thud. Getting up slowly, he turned to look at Shadow.

"Hey, wakey wakey," Rouge slapped him lightly on the face. He scowled but did not wake. "Get some water," Sonic trudged off to find some. Luckily, there was an open water main nearby.

"Bring him over here," He called back. Rouge dragged him over and dunked his head in the flowing water. He shook himself awake.

"Wha… what the hell? Where am I? What happened?"

"Eh… we were hoping you could tell us,"

"All I remember is that I attacked this guy, and he threw something at me, and then I was in pain, and everything went blank…" He looked down at his arm. "Aagh! What the fuck!?" He exclaimed in alarm. He pulled at the pieces of chain. It didn't hurt. "It… doesn't hurt… it's not even bleeding…"

"Get Tails down to have a look at it,"

"He's a mechanic."

"He's still pretty smart,"

"He's a mechanic."

"Well you've got the metal stuck in your arm, don't you?"

"He's a mechanic. Is that not getting in?"

"Okay, you try and argue with an IQ of 200."

Shadow paused and thought.

"Crap."

"Tails! Get down here! We need you to have a look at something!" Sonic called up to the next floor.

"Oh God, what did they do this time…" He said as he hopped off the barrel he was sitting on, next to Blaze. He used a grappling gun to get down with ease. When he got there, Shadow was standing up, still fixated by the damage to his arm. "What the hell happened?"

"I attacked some guy, he threw some stuff one me, and probably this aswell, and then I passed out,"

"Any ideas what this stuff is?"

"He might have left the bottle over there," He pointed over to where he was. Tails looked at the ground. A small vial was nestled against the wall. He picked it up and inspected the label. He froze.

"Uh Tails? A little feedback? Hello?"

"Oh my God. Shadow, you have no idea how lucky you are."

"Lucky? I've got a frigging chain lodged in my arm! How the fuck is that lucky?"

"You got splashed with Formula T."

"Um… a little enlightenment please?"

"It's more poisonous than cyanide and almost as corrosive as sulphuric acid. You should be very dead."

"How dead?"

"Your face should be melting off by now." There were looks of mixed disgust and surprise all round. "I don't know how you survived. You must have had a previous encounter with this stuff."

"Hmm. I don't remember, but I might have…"

"Really?"

"Well I'm alive now, aren't I?"

"Mm. And about the chain… that's firmly stuck in your arm, right?"

"Yep. Not coming out anytime soon."

"It might have melted into your arm. It means the stuff is in your blood now, effectively part of you. Some weird stuff happens when Formula T doesn't kill people, it plays with their systems. You're still standing, so it can't be too bad,"

"Might make a couple of things awkward though…" Rouge added. Sonic giggled. Shadow glared.

Knuckles walked cheerfully behind Amy and Espio, who were both sopping wet and incredibly frustrated. They arrived at a large door.

"Normally I'd have to go around this, but somebody left the door open." There was a pedestal in the middle; the door had been open for a while. "This is Eggman's secret shortcut. It's usually closed, but who would leave it open?"

"Where does it lead?"

"Where we're going." Espio ventured on into the tunnel. Amy and Knuckles followed.