"How long has he been like that?" Shadow asked, looking at Super who currently sat unmoving with his eyes closed. Even the ambient chaos energy that usually sparked off him was missing.

"For a few hours…" Tails said, tilting his head. "If I wasn't constantly reading his vitals I'd have thought he was dead but, well." Tails gestured to the mile electric with his free hand. "All his vitals are normal. Or well what I think is normal for him anyway. He was just so still I got worried."

Shadow nodded. That was reasonable. Without the machine monitoring him it was fairly easy to come to the assumption. There wasn't even a single twitch to imply life; simply a rigid body. It was almost impressive that someone that pretty much never stood still could so perfectly now. It was sort of unsettling really. "Well, do you have any idea as to what's going on?"

The fox's ears folded against his head. "No." He ran a hand down his face. "Of all the things I expected him to do, this was not one of them. I don't have any idea as to why he'd just… stop like this."

Shadow looked over the golden hedgehog again. It was certainly unexpected and the fact that they were still unsure as to how to fix this made the situation all the more pressing. It was unlikely that Super wasn't doing something. There had to be a reason for this… right? "Perhaps it has something to do with Sonic." Shadow decided to throw a guess out. Tails had informed him of the talk he'd had with Super. The mention of 'control' had sparked Shadow's interest, plus the information that Super had first given him as to Sonic's location. Perhaps Sonic was trying to wrestle back control and this was Super's attempt to deal with it.

Tails perked up, ears unfolding. "Maybe…" He jogged over to the machine's control panel. As Shadow walked over, the fox began typing away. A small smile twitched onto the fox's face as Shadow peered over at the screen. "I think you're right, look here." Tails pointed at two boxes he'd pulled up. "These are records of brain activity that I've been passively getting. This top one here is from when we first captured him. While this bottom one is from the past couple hours."

"There's a significant uptick in activity in the second one." Shadow commented as he looked back and forth between the two.

Tails nodded enthusiastically. "Yeah! And looking back things have been pretty consistent since we caught him. All up until when he went still." Tails turned to Shadow, a wide smile on his face. "Sonic is definitely trying to fight this. We just need to figure out how to help him."

Shadow hummed in agreement before turning back to look at Super. "How do you think we can help?" He asked, crossing his arms.

Tails tapped his chin. "I have a couple ideas. Though nothing solid." The fox shook his head and frowned, one ear drooping. "If only I'd managed to get him to tell me more, we might have a better idea."

"The fact that you got him to tell you anything is already impressive." Shadow turned to look at Tails. "Don't dwell on what you could have done. Focus on now."

Tails stared at Shadow for a moment, a slightly surprised expression on his face. Finally, he nodded. "You're right. Let's see what we can do."

"What did you do to my friends?" Sonic growled out, fists clenching as Super wandered closer. The memories, that Sonic was now sure were Super's, were fuzzy and incomplete. At this point he had no idea if they were ok. Figuring that out felt like his number one priority at the moment. Once he knew they were ok then he could focus on fixing this.

Super sneered at him. "They're fine, for now." His grin took on a more feral tinge. "They won't be for too much longer though."

Sonic moved forward, it felt slightly easier to move. "Don't you dare."

Super raised a brow at him. "Oh? And just how are you going to stop me? Right now you're powerless to do anything." He mocked tilting his head. He chuckled cruelly. "Maybe it'd be fun to let you watch me do it."

Sonic lunged at Super. His movements still felt restricted so the other easily sidestepped the attempt. Super tsked as Sonic turned around to face him again. The smug look on the other's face was not helping his already poor mood. "As much as I'd love to fight you it's not really possible." He held his arms out in a shrug. "Not in a way that would be entertaining anyway."

"Who are you?" Sonic moved forward aggressively.

"Back to this…" Super trailed off. He looked Sonic in the eyes, Sonic held his gaze. Super made a sweeping bow, with one hand over his chest and the other held out to the side. "My name is Super." He straightened up and shot a toothy grin at Sonic that had his fur standing on end. "And you're going to be stuck with me for the foreseeable future."

Sonic glared at Super before closing his eyes and taking a deep breath. He needed to try and keep a level head here. If he let himself get too worked up he had the feeling that would only make things worse. Since he couldn't just spindash his way through this problem like he normally might he had to think. That was going to be the way he got out of this. Maybe if he could figure out where Super had come from he could work at fixing this… While this was more Tails' strong suit, Sonic had to try. When he looked at Super again the other's smile had dropped slightly. "Where did you even come from? I think I would have known about some… evil super form living in my head before this."

Super started to walk around Sonic after folding his hands behind his back. Sonic followed him with his eyes. "Where…" Super seemed lost in thought for a moment before shrugging. "Is that really so important?" He stopped in front of Sonic again.

"Clearly you didn't come from nowhere." Sonic said evenly. Doing his best to keep calm, which was becoming harder the longer he was in the presence of Super. Why was this guy riling him up so much? Sure it was obvious that Super was trying to do that, but Sonic was usually better at shaking this sort of thing off.

Super scoffed. "Well clearly I came from somewhere." He looked Sonic up and down with a frown. "You really wanna know huh?" He asked, sounding almost bored. Sonic simply answered by giving him a firm look. With a dramatic sigh, Super seemed to relent. "I guess I could tell you… Since it won't really matter in the end." A smile twitched onto his face as he narrowed his eyes. "Not like you'll be able to tell anyone anyway." Sonic growled and Super's grin widened.

Placing a hand on his chest, Super began to explain. "You see, I'm a very simple creature. A manifestation of negative chaos energy. A gift from the emeralds, to you." His grin widened, showing off his sharp teeth. "The more you interacted with chaos energy after that the more aware I became." He placed his other hand on his chest. "Until I became, well me."

"But why?" Sonic asked, pinning his ears down as he took a step towards Super. "Or how did the emeralds even do that?" That didn't make much sense to Sonic. How could the emeralds cause some evil counterpart to be created? Sure the emeralds could do a lot, but that had never done something like this.

Super shrugged, unbothered. "I don't know." He answered simply, and Sonic hated that he knew the other was telling the truth. "I don't pretend to understand and I don't care either. For me it doesn't matter. All that matters is putting that chaos energy to good use."

"And that good use is hurting people?" Sonic growled out.

Super's grin turned more wild. "Of course. What else would I need to do with it?" He held his hands out wide. "It's what I live for."

That was it. Sonic attempted to catch Super off guard by spindashing him but he felt even more restricted than before. As a result the attack was slow and easy to dodge. As Sonic uncurled Super grabbed him and held him up by the throat. "Well that was pathetic. I already told you there's no point in trying to fight me. It won't be satisfying for either of us." He chuckled darkly as he squeezed. Sonic felt like he couldn't breathe. "Though I guess this is sort of fun."

Sonic kicked his legs out sluggishly as Super rose him into the air. Pushing against the grip of the clearly stronger hedgehog did nothing; Sonic just didn't have the strength to fight back at the moment. "It would be better if you could fight back, but I'll take what I can get." Super squeezed harder and Sonic could see black tinging the edge of his vision. "Now just go back to sleep and this will all be over." He chuckled. "You won't even have to watch them die that way."

At that Sonic struggled harder though it didn't make much of a difference. He could feel himself starting to slip into unconsciousness. He didn't want to though. He needed to protect his friends. If he gave up now he could never forgive himself. With the last of his strength he pushed against Super. "Goodbye Sonic. If we're both lucky, you'll never wake back up."

Just as Sonic was about to lose the battle to stay conscious, Super stumbled giving Sonic enough room to get some air and actually pry himself out of Super's grip. He dropped to the ground, but he was awake and that was all he needed. Slowly he pulled himself to his feet and looked at a surprised Super. "Not getting rid of me that easily." Sonic grit out.

"What did you do?" Super growled as any trace of a smile left his face.

"I don't know." Sonic shrugged, a small yet confident smile tugging at his face. "But you won't see me complaining." Experimentally Sonic tried to move. It felt much easier, there was still resistance there, but he could work with this. "Why don't we try this again. When things are a little less one sided?"

Super pinned his ears back and bared his teeth. "This won't change anything. You're only delaying the inevitable."

Sonic stretched out as he felt more and more confident. "I feel like I've heard something like that before. Yet here I am." He took the initiative and this time landed a successful spin dash against the unprepared Super. He was quickly tossed away but as he landed he wasted no time in getting back to his feet and revving up to dash at Super again. Somehow the other was caught off guard again as Sonic plowed into him. Before the other could retaliate Sonic dashed away. Ok so, maybe his assumption of not being able to spin dash his way through the problem from earlier was wrong. The more he moved, the less restricted he felt.

Glaring, Super rushed at him and Sonic ran up to meet him. The two collided, but it became clear to Sonic that the other was physically stronger than him. Well being basically a living bunch of chaos energy would probably do that. Quickly Sonic broke off the contact, curling up and rolling around Super. Uncurling several feet away he skidded backwards from the momentum. "C'mon." Sonic said, cocky smirk on his face. "Where's all that big talk from earlier?"

Super whipped around growling before curling into a spin dash of his own. Sonic was thrown to the side as he barely managed to get skimmed by the attack as he dodged. Admittedly even the glancing blow hurt a lot. He'd have to be careful then. "You're lucky I need you alive-" Super started before Sonic interrupted him.

"Oh? You need me alive huh? Well that's good news. That means you have to be careful right?" Sonic crouched in preparation to sprint. "Well lucky for me I don't have to follow the same rules. I can go all out."

Super spread his feet wide and prepared for the impact. "Give me your best shot hedgehog ."

"Gladly." Sonic shot off again, but instead of colliding head on with Super, Sonic rushed past him and then turned around to strike him in the back after gaining some extra momentum. Super slid against the ground before jumping back to his feet. He glared at Sonic furiously before shooting lasers from his eyes at Sonic. Being caught off guard he unfortunately caught the full force of the attack. Much like Super had moments before, Sonic skid across the ground. He was a bit slower to recover though.

"You're really starting to piss me off." Super growled as he approached.

"Glad you got the memo. Cause that's the point." Sonic said, standing up fully and brushing his shoulder off. With a frustrated growl Super flew after him. Sonic took off, dodging the various blows from Super as best he could. Though the several attacks he'd taken were starting to wear him down. Sonic was well aware of how much faster and stronger he was in his super form. If the knockoff was anywhere near that level of power Sonic knew he was outclassed right now, big time. Though the other did seem to be slowing down though. Maybe if Sonic got lucky he could wait him out, though it would be hard. Sonic grinned as he jumped out of the way of another wild swipe. He'd beaten worse odds though right?

"Ok! Get ready!" Tails said as he looked back and forth between the machine and the control panel. He shook his head. It made sense now, Sonic needed rings to sustain his super transformation, so clearly Super had to be using something to maintain that level of chaos energy. If it was rings like Sonic then he should have run out some time after they captured him. Since it clearly wasn't rings, there was really only one other thing Tails could think of. Super could pull chaos energy straight into himself from any source of it. Be it a chaos emerald or just the natural chaos energy of the planet. If Tails could completely cut him off though then he should be weaker.

The machine was made to trap chaos energy in, so if Tails could get it to do the opposite then Super shouldn't be able to maintain his current level of chaos energy. Shadow stood nearby, ready should something go wrong. This was risky because if Tails was wrong then Super would have the chance to escape. He'd just had to have faith he was right. Taking a deep breath, Tails reversed it .

Super jerked. He was still for a few more moments before he started to move, though his eyes were still shut. An angered frown was set on his face as his body twitched in seemingly random, jerking motions. A glance at Shadow told him that the hedgehog was tense. Maybe they should have called the others before doing this… Tails shook his head hard as he pulled up the brain activity monitor. There was certainly a lot going on; Tails just wished he knew if that was a good thing or not.

After several tense minutes Super went still. Tails prepared himself to run and get help if they needed it. Had he messed up? Super pressed a hand to his head and seemingly took a deep breath. Shadow glanced at Tails and the fox could only shrug. Slowly though the gold began to give way to a familiar blue. The upturned quills began to fall back down into a more relaxed state, and finally eyes opened to reveal green.

Tails felt all the tension leave his body as Sonic smiled tiredly at him. "Hey buddy. What did I miss?"