Tails was worried. Ok, no worried wasn't a strong enough word. Tails was panicking. Sonic was missing, and no one had a clue as to where he'd gone. First his brother had been acting strange, keeping things from them. He'd thought maybe Amy could get something from him, but instead Sonic had bolted after Amy had just asked if he was ok! It hadn't taken long for Tails to resort to tracking his communicator, but that had only led them to the device itself which was hung carefully in a tree. Basically they now had no reliable way to track the blue blur. Sure Tails was an expert at hunting his brother down, but Sonic had been doing a good job at avoiding doing the normal things that made him trackable. Mainly running.

Which absolutely baffled Tails. Sonic loved running and often got impatient and cranky when he couldn't run for long periods of time. For him to intentionally not be running probably meant one of two things. One, he was hurt somehow and couldn't run. Tails found that theory unlikely even despite the fact that Sonic had gotten off Angel Island somehow without using the Tornado or the emeralds. Which very well could have resulted in some sort of injury. The second option, and more likely one despite how crazy it seemed to him, was Sonic was intentionally not running around so they couldn't find him.

Why would he be doing that though? Tails wrung his hands sadly as he sat dejectedly on the steps of the master emerald shrine. If Sonic didn't want to be found… should they even look for him? Clearly he was doing everything he could to avoid them. Wrapping his arms and tails around himself he took a shaky breath. Maybe he should just leave it. If Sonic wanted to come back he would. Simple as that. The hedgehog had vanished for days at a time before and always came back. Why should this time be any different? He sniffled and felt tears well up in his eyes. Sonic would come back… right?

"Tails?" Tails whipped around to see Knuckles looking at him with concern.

"Oh, hey Knuckles." He greeted, sniffling and rubbing his eyes to clear away the tears.

"Are you-" Knuckles shook his head as he cut himself off. Instead he came over and sat down next to the fox and slowly went to drape an arm around him. It gave Tails plenty of time to pull away if he wanted, but Tails leaned into the touch. Burying his face into Knuckles' shoulder he let himself cry. Let himself acknowledge everything he was feeling. Knuckles remained a solid presence next to him the whole time and Tails was thankful for it. "We'll find him." Knuckles said after Tails' sobs had changed into quiet sniffles. "I'll drag him back kicking and screaming myself and make sure he apologizes for putting you and the rest of us through this."

Despite himself Tails chuckled at the mental image of Knuckles dragging Sonic against his will by the leg. "Thanks Knuckles… I-I needed that."

"I'll bet." He grunted. "This has been a lot for all of us." Knuckles shifted to ruffle the top of Tails' head. "We'll make sure to find that idiot and figure out what's going on."

"A-and help him." Tails added quietly.

"Yeah yeah, and help him." Knuckles added after an exaggerated sigh.

"I think we're gonna need more help." Tails sat up a bit straighter, still staying glued to the echidna's side. "Amy is already on board but…"

"We'll need all the help we can get." Knuckles finished. "I assume you have people in mind?"

"A few yeah…"

"Hey hun, this is a pleasant surprise." Rouge smiled at the duo. Tails waved shyly as Knuckles looked like he'd rather be anywhere but there. Rouge glanced around and frowned. "And where's big blue? Can't say I've ever seen you come around here without him Tails."

"W-well that's kinda why we're here." Tails wrung his hands.

Rouge's whole demeanor changed as she took in Tails' behavior. "Come on in boys. Tell me what happened and what I can do to help."

The two were led into a comfortable looking lounge area. Couches ringed a large granite table and various gems were on display around the room. The whole area screamed Rouge, which made sense. Tails took a seat on one of the plush couches and was grateful when Knuckles took a seat next to him. "Do you mind getting Shadow too? If he's around?" Tails asked, namesakes twitching nervously.

"Sure thing." Rouge vanished up a set of stairs for a couple minutes before reappearing leading a disgruntled looking Shadow down with her. The hedgehog glanced over the room and stopped as he took in Tails. His expression softened ever so slightly as he looked away and took a seat. "Alright. Now what's going on?" Rouge asked, folding her hands and placing her chin on them.

"Sonic's run off like an idiot." Knuckles said, leaning back into the couch.

"That seems typical of him." Shadow commented, shooting Knuckles a look.

"Knuckles!" Tails lightly scolded. "You need to give them context!" Knuckles simply shrugged. Tails sighed before starting to explain. "A couple weeks ago Sonic came to me asking for insight on something weird that had happened during our last fight with Eggman. The emeralds apparently resisted after his super transformation ended. We started looking into it and when Sonic had contact with an emerald for the first time after that he acted really strange. Pretty much shut down and heard laughing in his head." Tails folded his ears down. "I tried to figure it out on my own for a bit but that wasn't working. After Sonic found another emerald and heard a voice we decided to get Knuckles' help. We looked into stuff from there but Sonic started becoming more and more distant until he bolted when Amy was asking if he was ok. We're… not sure where he went or why he ran off like that." Tails looked down.

"Have you felt anything off with your chaos energy?" Knuckles looked at Shadow. "I know you usually have an emerald on hand when possible. Has it done anything weird to you?"

Shadow blinked at him. "No, nothing odd has happened to me."

"So whatever's going on really is isolated to Sonic like we thought." Tails sighed.

Rouge tilted her head. "I'm sure if Sonic ran off he had some sort of reason." She pursed her lips. "Whether that's a good reason or not is debatable, but I'm sure whatever it was made sense to him at least."

Tails nodded. "Probably but… we're just worried. Since he was acting strange and all…"

"Don't worry hun. We'll help find him." Rouge smiled and Shadow shot her a look as if to ask "we?". She turned to look at the dark hedgehog. "You'll be helping to. If there's someone who's good at tracking down blue it's you. And Amy."

Shadow huffed. "Just because we happen to run into each other a lot does not mean I am good at intentionally tracking the faker down." He glanced at Tails. "But, I will do my best to assist. Mostly since he's likely to only make the problem worse if left to his own devices."

"Knew I could count on you." Rouge winked before turning back to look at Tails. "Alright, give us whatever you have on his last whereabouts and team dark is on the case."

Shadow skated along making sure to avoid colliding with trees while he searched for any sign of the blue idiot. Thus far all their searching had yielded nothing. It was frustrating to learn that Sonic could in fact hide if he wanted to. Not that Shadow's previous experience with the other hedgehog would have led him to believe that was possible. Shadow had to begrudgingly respect the fact that there was more to Sonic then there seemed. Admittedly he'd already known that. Those were thoughts for another time though. Skidding to a stop he looked around the area.

His ear twitched as he listened for any strange noise. He huffed in annoyance when he didn't hear anything. Initially he'd come to this area to search because the fox had picked up a strange surge of chaos energy. It was entirely possible that it was related to Sonic, and it was the only lead they had, so several of them had gone to check it out. Though for some time now Shadow couldn't help but feel like something was watching him. Something was out there and it knew where he was. The more Shadow thought on it though it felt like less of a physical presence. It was more of a feeling that seemed to permeate his being. He gently traced a finger over one of his inhibitor rings. Perhaps it had something to do with chaos energy. If they were getting close to some sort of anomaly perhaps it was affecting him oddly.

As much as he didn't want to admit it, the feeling unsettled him. He'd checked several times, but there was nothing there. It was nothing more than a feeling yet it still unsettled him. There was no reason to feel like this. He shook his head. Now was not the time to be indulging this. He had a hedgehog to find.

Tails stared at the mouth of a cave as he tucked away the miles electric. For some reason he felt… scared to go inside. Maybe apprehensive was a better word. Like some instinctual part of him knew there was danger in there. What if Sonic was in there? Tails took a step forward before stopping again. If Sonic was in there, why was he scared? Maybe he should let Shadow or Knuckles know that he might have found something first… Hesitantly he stepped away from the entrance and brought his communicator up to his mouth. "Hey guys, I might have found something."

"What is it?" Came Shadow's quick reply.

"I… found a cave and I think there's something in there. Now that I got closer it does seem like the chaos energy anomaly is coming from in there." Tails paused. "It might be Sonic because it nearly matches with the other anomalies I recorded from him. It's not exact though."

"Stay put. We'll come to you." Knuckles chimed in. "We don't know what's going on with him so better to be safe about this."

"Right." Tails nodded even though they couldn't see it.

"It shouldn't be long." Shadow said, ending the communication.

Tail lowered his arm and glanced back at the cave. Right, now to wait. It shouldn't take at least Shadow too long to get there. For Knuckles it would depend on how far away he was. His tails twitched nervously behind him as he waited for them to arrive. His gaze kept being drawn back to the cave entrance. If Sonic was in there, what if he was in trouble? What if him waiting to go in there only made things worse?

He turned to face the entrance and wrung his hands. Knuckles had told him to stay put but… If Sonic was in trouble he couldn't just stand there! He knew he could take care of himself at this point. Steeling his nerves, and sending a mental apology to Knuckles and Shadow, he went into the cave. What was the worst that could happen?

The cave was dark and all in all uninviting. The only sounds Tails picked up as he first stepped in was the dripping of water and wind from outside coming in. Why would Sonic come to a place like this? Tails unintentionally flattened his ears as his footsteps echoed off the cave walls. Even though he was being rather quiet every noise he made felt like it was too loud. Even his soft breathing seemed way too loud. Something was here and Tails felt his skin crawl at the thought.

Finally the cave opened up into a wider chamber which had some light, probably from a fire Tails assumed by the flickering. Unfolding his ears he peered into the chamber and caught a glimpse of gold. Before he could stop himself he called out. "Sonic..?"