Hello again. We got a bit of a long one here today. I'm excited for you all to read this one since things are starting to ramp up to a point of no return. Before we dive into this I just wanted to quickly give gratitude to those who keep sticking with this story. This is my first fanfic and I'm pleased with the traction it's been getting. I thank all of you who are reading this.

Chapter 7: Know Who Your Enemies Are

G.U.N. HQ: Situation Room

James was all alone to his loathsome self. His head was covered with documentations and papers as he drowsed away. But he wasn't a heavy sleeper. His head and arms twitch and he starts mumbling incoherent gibberish. His nightmare ends when the creak of the door opening startles him and he wakes up with a small yelp. James jerks his head to the door, only to see Shadow walking inside. James is relieved to see Shadow and he lowers his guard around him. "Where've you been?" James inquired.

"I can't rely on my inhibitor rings anymore. I needed to train against my limits without chaos power. The exercises are tough, but I'm getting better."

"That's good. When do you think you'll be ready to go after those fugitives again?"

"The old me would've wanted to get it done as soon as possible. But I won't be so hasty as I was before. Once we get a new lead, we'll only act if we're all ready." James then shuffles through his papers, searching for something important.

"Speaking of leads, I found something particular I wanted to show you."

"Did you find a trail to the hooded culprits?"

"No, but I found something older." James slides an overview outline of the G.U.N. HQ across the table. The diagram has many different districts highlighted in separate colors, with a legend printed on the bottom left of the paper. "Hear me out, but I think that this will lead back to when this group first arrived at the HQ. Each color represents sections of the building with different required accesses to enter." James takes a pen and points it in the middle of a random district. "An example would be that a rookie or a lieutenant, such as myself, would have access to this entire section, but not to other districts with a higher clearance. What you'll remember from Tower's briefing is that the jacket that was found was located in the waste receptacle on the eastmost side of the building. If we look at the clearance chart here." James taps the east district. "The only people who could ever have access to this receptacle-"

"Were those ranked commander or higher." Shadow quickly figured out. "And there wasn't any evidence of a break-in?" James shook his head. Shadow was trying to wrap his head around the situation. Maybe they had the corrupt G.U.N. personnel theory wrong this whole time. Instead of small groups of recruits or interns, maybe the first person corrupted was an officer. "So they must've been let in. But by whom of that clearance?"

"I'm not sure, at least not yet. But I think that whoever it is, they're still here in this building." Before Shadow could fully process all of that, they're both distracted by loud footsteps outside the room. There were a lot of them at that too. Shadow was curious to see what the commotion was, so he stepped outside into the hallway to see a group of G.U.N. medics rushing down through the hall pushing a stretcher, but Shadow can't get a glimpse of who was in the stretcher. Before he could pursue the medics and find out, he is stopped by a familiar voice.

"Shadow!" The ebony hedgehog turns around and sees Silver approaching him at alarming speeds. Silver stops next to him and begins to talk. "Before I say anything, you're gonna need to calm down."

"I am calm, now what's going on?"

"You have to be calmer than that."

"Why? Wait, who's in that stretcher?"

G.U.N. HQ: Medcenter

Shadow was tipping over the edge, but he did his best to contain any outburst from leaking. Amongst the doctors surrounding the bed, Shadow made out who was currently in critical condition. Rouge was still unconscious, but maybe that was for the best. Her wings were severely damaged—singed marks and holes burnt through her dignified wings. Shadow didn't even want to look at the rest of her body, as he knew it must have been way worse than what he had already seen. 'Why does this always happen when I'm not around?' Shadow thought. 'Was there nothing I could've done to prevent this? Why must I lose control every time I need to protect someone!?' Shadow's mind was racing with anger, travesty, and guilt.

Standing in the room behind Shadow are Silver, James, and Omega. All of them were disheartened the same way. Emerging from the lot of medics was the golden dog, Dr. Solace. She arrives in front of all four of them and ushers with her hands for them to leave. "Clear the space. We need to work here." She commanded. As Silver, James, and Omega begin to leave, Shadow stands his ground.

"I can't just wait outside and pray she'll be alright."

"That's good of you to be considerate, but you'll just get in the way." Solace turns her back on Shadow and continues to examine Rouge. What Shadow did next, he couldn't explain why he made such a decision. In a blind attempt to persuade using aggravation, Shadow barges forward.

"I won't leave my ally out of my sight."

"Trust me, you're doing her a favor if you leave." As more irrational rage built inside of his head, the cold feeling of long claws warp around his shoulder. Shadow peeks behind him and sees Omega tugging him back.

*SHADOW, THERE'S NOTHING MORE YOU CAN DO.* Omega gently said to him. Shadow didn't want to back down though. He didn't want to accept the things around him as truth. No matter how many vows he's made to keep fighting this uphill battle, he realized that he wasn't responsible for everyone else's battles. Discovering this, Shadow loosens up and exits the room with the rest. Outside, Silver shortly tries to pick up another conversation with Shadow.

"I'm sorry. I tried my best to save her, but everything happened so fast." Shadow stayed silent. "Look, I'm sure she'll make it, but I need to talk to you. The future, it's in trouble again."

Situation Room

The room was now brimmed with countless G.U.N. officials and officers, all of which were chattering across with one another in an agitated attitude. Within the mess were Shadow, Silver, Omega, and James, who were politely seated around the table. Across from them was Commander Tower, who was also sitting, but instead was in more of an upset demeanor. He despised these kinds of meetings where nothing was accomplished and everyone just stood around and yelled.

Shadow noticed that the other people in the room were the same ones from the first meeting regarding the secret organization. 'These were the people Tower can trust?' Shadow thought this time as he took more into consideration the ranks of each individual. The majority of the bunch were the same rank as James, lieutenant, but a few were among a higher class like captain or major.

"Can we get this going already?" Tower directed at Shadow. Shadow turns to Silver and gives him a nod. Silver stands up, ready to give his piece amongst his distraught peers.

"Uh… Hello everyone. If you don't know who I am-"

"You're Silver." Everyone in the room except for James blurted out, catching Silver off guard. Tower gives Shadow a harsh, yet earnest look, imploring him to quicken the pace of the rate they've been sluggishly going. "Alright, guess I'll just get right into it." Silver takes a deep breath. "The future… doesn't exist." Everyone started to frantically jitter around in their seats. Even Shadow seemed taken aback by such a bold statement, but he remained silent, as to let Silver continue to elaborate. "Well, not really. But the conditions they're in leave that impression."

"What makes you say that?" Tower asked.

"There was nothing. A blank and empty abyss. At least that's what I gathered."

"How could you tell that you were even in our future, and not some in-between of universes?" Tower further inquired.

"I thought the same at first. However, I started to move around a bit. More than I eventually noticed. An hour passed and there I was, out of the atmosphere of the planet itself. I could see beyond the stars again, but when I looked back down, the world wasn't covered in darkness, it looked perfectly fine. Then I figured, could this be some illusion casted across the world? Every time I reentered the planet's atmosphere, I'd lose vision of all around me again. Although, as I lingered on for a while in the darkness, something else was there to meet me." Shadow starts to recollect one of his dreams he had not too long ago. The setting was similar and familiar. Shrouded in a black void, feeling like the surface has disappeared, causing you to feel weightless. Then being met with… that thing. Whatever entity Shadow saw in the abyss, he wanted to test to see if it correlated with Silver's story.

"Was it… a fox?" Shadow uttered, catching the attention of everyone. Almost all of them look confused at Shadow, all except Silver who was more shocked than bewildered.

"What did you say?" Silver muttered back.

"A colossal fox, with nine tails that scale to a building."

"How do you know about that?" Shadow struck gold. He felt like his dreams were more than such. He just needed to find evidence that they weren't just misguided hallucinations playing over in his head. "Uh, yeah, that's exactly what I saw. I couldn't stick around to see what it was gonna do to me, so I traveled back here to find answers on my own."

Setting to track the conversation back on course, Tower speaks up to realign Silver's attention. "Did you connect anything together?"

"I've only just arrived today. All that was strange were those G.U.N. soldiers planting a bomb on their own outpost. I intervened and…well, you know how that ended."

"Were you able to make out any names before confronting them?" James chimed in.

"No. They weren't wearing any masks, but there was no way I could've identified any of them. Wish they weren't the closest ones to the bomb, I bet you all would've had loads of questions for them."

"Rouge would know." Shadow suddenly piped up, eliciting a striking look from each of the occupants of the room, forcing him to quickly elaborate. "We… have been working day and night on this case. We've exhausted our minds to the point where we simply can't forget any minute piece of information. Which includes all personnel under suspicion of corruption. Rouge was there right before the blast, she must've had to have a good look at the soldiers before the bomb went off."

"How does that matter now if the soldiers are dead?" A random officer questioned quickly.

"Tower, since you've informed us of the presence of this organization, what protocols have you instilled to keep check of your men?" The spotlight was centered on the Commander now, and he wasn't enjoying it one bit, but he reluctantly answered the hedgehog's question.

"I've made a mandatory log recording for each of my agents to fulfill, detailing their routines and contacts with other G.U.N. members each day."

"That's perfect." Shadow commented. "Once Rouge becomes stable, she can give us the names of these defectors. Then you can check their logs and see if they've been in contact with other G.U.N. personnel. That is how we find our trail of traitors."

"Then we'll be on standby till Rouge wakes up. You're all dismissed." Tower orders. The room clears and Shadow exits out into the hallway with Silver following not too far behind.

"Hey! We need to talk about what you said back there. How do you know so much already?"

"I can explain soon. First, we have to make sure that Rouge stays out of harm's way."

Space Station: Secret Laboratory

Beneath the central tower of the space city, there was an underground lab located. Half of the lab was sloppy and covered in work equipment and papers, while the other half was pristine and tidy. Eggman occupied the messy half, and Starline maintained the other. Both of them were typing away on their computers, calibrating information onto a greater network located at the core of the room. The core consisted of a single part that had been detached from a grander structure above. The core was absorbing energy throughout its outlets, with fifteen different wires connected to it. It was hollow inside, but slowly filling up with the said energy connected to it, like gasoline in a fuel tank. The compounds inside are a mix of bright colors fused together, yet its divine nature is tainted when flown into the core's tank. "ETA on fueling?" Eggman hollered across to Starline.

"One more hour."

"Good, make sure diagnostics are up to date before linking the core with the rest of the body."

"You got it… Hey, once this is done, we're getting out of here, right?" Eggman glanced back, seeing that Starline was putting all of his faith into him.

"Yeah." Eggman said with a faint chuckle to follow. "Yeah, we will."

Space Station: Streets

Team Sonic was still trapped in the middle of the road with a group of rebels. Opposing them was their new adversary, Vulnter, captain of the Abyss Voyagers. At least that's what she said she was a part of. Truth is that Sonic could only believe what was being told to him because he was so out of the loop of what was even going on at all. Every minute he's learning something different or contradictory, and he only hoped that in the end, it would all make sense. But now he had to focus because Vulnter didn't seem done with them. In fact, it has only just begun. "I must admit, I'm impressed at your ability to coordinate effective strikes with your team, hedgehog. My Behemoth hasn't seen a blow that big in a long time. However, that's where your interest dies off. You have no long-term relevance to our goals, and trust me that is a mercy. So I advise you this. Turn over the fox, and I'll leave this dying city without a murmur of trouble."

"I'm not letting you lay one more finger on Tails."

"So it's Tails, huh? Well… the little kitsune has a cute name." Vulnter takes out her bo staff and flourishes it into a combat stance. "If none of you are compliant then I'll just make haste with all of you." She slowly approaches them, scrapping her staff against the rough surface of the roads. Almost as if she's given them a chance to cooperate. But Sonic doesn't budge, neither does Knuckles. They both step in front of Tails, shielding them from Vulnter. In an unexpected instance, the city's central tower emits a shockwave of colors across the station's dome. Everyone on the ground takes a second to acknowledge the sudden event. Tails curiously examines the color palette of the shockwave, and sure enough, he makes a deduction.

"Sonic, you have to go."

"What?"

"Starline is in that tower, and I think he's using the chaos emerald's power to power up whatever is inside."

"It's not just Starline, Eggman is in there too." Sonic added. Tails and Knuckles were no less than shocked to hear of the doctor's return. But that revelation had to be put on hold as Tails needed to elaborate more to Sonic what the issue was.

"All the more reason to leave her to us and for you to stop him. That emerald you got, I assume you found it in one of the outer hubs of the station?" Tails asks Sonic, to which he simply nods. "I think that's what they are using to power whatever contraption they have cooking in that tower." Tails kneels down and scrolls through his wristwatch and projects a schematic of the station. Under the city are a series of tubes that Sonic immediately recognizes as the one he rode to the first outer hub, and that all of them are connected in some way. "You can use this supply transport system to make your way to the remaining emeralds. You have to hurry before Eggman and Starline finish whatever trouble they've been cooking."

"Are you sure you'll be ok?" Sonic asked. Tails was asking for a lot of trust from Sonic, some that he particularly didn't like giving. If something went wrong here, and Tails was nabbed by Vulnter, then he'd never forgive himself for leaving him.

"I won't let you down." Tails eagerly replied.

"He's got us too." Knuckles added, followed closely behind by the gang of rebels. "Trust me, Sonic. I won't let her touch another hair on him."

"Thanks, Knuckles. Tails, be careful." In a flash, Sonic zooms away and enters through a manhole to reach the underground section of the station.

G.U.N. HQ: Medcenter

Exhausted medics sit down around the infirmary. They wipe the sweat off from their skin or furs, as the cast of the personnel in G.U.N. has surprisingly been developed more diversely. Still leaning in on the bedridden Rouge, Dr. Solace continues her work to treat her by linking an IV bag to her arm. "Just leave all that for the nurses to handle." One of the medics chirped at Dr. Solace.

"I prefer to be more hands-on with my patients. I must ensure that they are treated correctly." She gets no further response from the medic as he easily gets distracted by one of his buddies sitting next to him. Solace finishes up caring for Rouge, and the bat's breathing has softened. However, she still was unconscious. "Clear the room, everyone. Let's give her some rest." The medics funnel out of the infirmary, leaving Dr. Solace to wrap up her packing before she leaves. Once she finishes packing, she glances over to the corner of the room. "I'll leave the lights out." She says seemingly to no one. She makes her way to the door and flicks the light switch and closes the blinds before leaving, plummeting the room into still darkness.

A cold silence pours into the air, with the whirring of the medical equipment stabilizing Rouge to be the only source of noise. That is until the beats of thunderous footsteps clop over the base of the door. The knob clicks and the door eerily quivers to open. A silhouette in the bright light from the hallway stood a human, and once they stepped inside, they are revealed to be a G.U.N. soldier. The soldier fixates their concentration upon the collapsed Rouge. The soldier walks over to the other side of the bed and examines the IV bag. They disconnect the tube linked to Rouge's arm, causing her heart rate to slightly rise. The soldier reaches into their pocket and prepares a syringe in hand. As the soldier attempts to inject the syringe into the tube of the IV kit, something behind them spooks them in place. "What do you think you're doing?"

The soldier snaps his head back to the corner of the room and barely sees the outline of someone sitting there. The outline stands up and steps into the hallway light shining into the room. Shadow emerges and his temper is visibly on the brink of a frenzy. The soldier tries to escape the infirmary, but meeting them at the door was Omega, blocking the way out. *GOING SOMEWHERE?* Out from behind, Shadow jumps up and chops down between the soldier's shoulder and neck, effectively knocking them out. As they fall to the ground, Omega drags the body out of the room, but not before Shadow picks up the syringe they dropped. Now entering the room was Dr. Solace again.

"He was going to use this on Rouge. Figure it's some kind of poison." Shadow hands over the syringe to Solace, who carefully examines it.

"It would be my first guess too. I'll analyze it when I get the chance. Your plan worked out pretty well. Now you have someone to interrogate."

"It doesn't end there. There had to be some incentive for the traitors to target Rouge. So I tested the waters with some bait. I thought if I told people that Rouge could identify the traitors from the bombing, the real culprits would be desperate to hide their secrets and eliminate any threat of them being caught. And it seemed like they tried to silence Rouge before she could dig them out. But it also confirms a suspicion of mine."

"Being what?" Solace inquires.

"That Commander Tower's group of people he could 'trust' have already been compromised."

Outside of Station Square

Beyond the city's limits, the two hooded figures, Mage and Pyro peer at the city from a meadow outside the highway. The Mage is seen holding a radio up to her hood. The back of the radio has the G.U.N. logo printed on it. The Mage plops the radio to the ground and crushes it to pieces with the heel of her foot. "They got one of us." She said to The Pyro.

"We'll have to dwell in the shadows again until the heat dies down. I don't want to risk botching this and getting caught."

"And lose all the progress we spent a year gaining? No, I think it's time to finally escalate the situation."

"You can't be serious. We're not even close to total conversion, the vessel is nowhere to be found on the planet, and we haven't heard anything from Vulnter in months. It's too messy to act now, and if we do, more innocents are going to get hurt or killed." The Pyro retorted.

"We cannot delay our orders any further. The Highest demands advancement. Whether you are compliant or not, I'm starting this." The Mage then begins to pull back on her hood revealing her black-furred face. She was a silver fox with a faintish carmine outline around her pupils and an overlay on the inside of her ears. Her teeth were knifelike and her mandible had an indistinctive gray patch of hair trailing up to her upper jaw. The gray patch resembles an old battle wound or scar.

"What are you doing? We're not ready to expose ourselves." The Pyro protests.

"We are already exposed. It's only a matter of when that idiot will squeal. Our time to strike comes now. What do you say, Arsonal?" The Mage asks The Pyro, now known as Arsonal. Arsonal dips his head down, contemplating his choices. Before any meaningful time has passed, he decides to remove his hood as well. Like The Mage, he was also a fox, but his fur was tinted vermillion. His fur was shorter and there were small flecks of singed hairs across his right cheek.

"As long as this doesn't get out of hand, it's your call, Harrow." The Mage now known as Harrow digs into her cloak and takes out a container filled with red dust. Harrow then uses a brush to graze the grass and form a circle around her. She sits meditatively and closes her eyes, chanting an inaudible verse. The dust rises into the air and forms an oily scarlet ooze that floats to Harrow's forehead. The ooze sinks beneath her fur and into her skin pores, vanishing from sight entirely. Harrow opens her eyes, revealing both her irises and pupils have vanished, leaving a white void in her sclera. Suddenly, a dark crimson laser shoots out of Harrow's chest and beams up into the clouds, later lost into the night sky. As the clouds move aside, the moon begins to corrupt. A blood-red substance encases the moon, tainting it with a ghastly presence.

Space Station: Secret Laboratory

As Starline and Eggman continue to type away at their respective computers, Starline's screen fills up with multiple alerts. "I got another one! An alarm has been triggered at the north celestial pole hub. Doctor, that's been the third one today. Someone is trying to sabotage our outer cores."

"I have it covered already. Don't fret over it." Eggman briefly responded before resuming his work. However, Starline looks uncertain. He was worried that whatever plan they had would be foiled by an unforeseen variable that Eggman evidently wasn't paying much light towards. Starline felt like the situation was being overshadowed, and someone had to fix it. In order to prove himself, Starline had to act against Eggman's wishes.

"I'm sorry, doctor. I must take care of this myself."

"Wait-I said I have it cov-" It was too late, Starline had already formed a portal and left the laboratory, leaving a disgruntled Eggman to continue on with his project alone.

Space Station: Maintenance Hub

Sonic was on a roll, he just returned back to the central maintenance hub with now three chaos emeralds in hand. He was just still worried about Tails and Knuckles and how they were holding up. But he had to press on, as he still needed to visit the other four outer hubs and snag the remaining chaos emeralds. As Sonic moves forward through the tubes, on his way to another hub, a portal manifests inside the tube and in front of him. Before he could even react, Sonic is met with a kick square in the chest by Starline, causing Sonic to smash out of the tube and back onto the ground of the maintenance hub. "Your interference ends here, pesky vermin."

"Oh, come on! I'm already having enough trouble navigating through this mess. Now you show up to make this harder." Starline doesn't give Sonic the audacity to start a banter battle. He forms a portal above Sonic and out from it are loads of heavy boxes and machinery ready to smush Sonic. But Sonic moves out of the way with ease. "Can we at least have a little chat?"

"No!" Starline creates a portal below Sonic, which he falls through. The exit portal is high above the ground and Sonic plunges fast to the ground. However, Sonic curls into a ball and skims down an angled pipe, which sends him flying back into the air and at Starline. Starline tries to protect himself from the attack by making a portal in front of him, but Sonic pivots himself last second to hit the pipe that Starline was standing on, causing it to snap and collapse below him. Before hitting the ground, Starline forms a portal and lands safely.

"Look, I think it's great that you want to be a genius, but not under his wing. Eggman is only going to further corrupt you."

"Why? He was one of the only people to ever recognize my intellect and achievements. He's giving me a chance to prove myself."

"That's exactly what I mean. You've been idolizing him so much that he's using your passion to create as a tool. But I know Eggman better than you, and I know that eventually, he'll dispose of any tool if it fails to comply." Starline starts to boil with anger and without even conjuring a portal he rushes at Sonic and winds up with a punch. Sonic blocks the attack and both of them are locked in a wrangled stand-off.

"Then I won't disappoint ever again. He's all I have left to value my life. You wouldn't understand."

"I may not be able to understand what you're going through, but I know all the horrible pain Eggman has inflicted on us for years. Is there any pride left in your work when you help someone who has destroyed half of a moon, cracked a planet into pieces, or kidnapped a world full of innocent wisps?" With that last example, Starline began to lean off on Sonic. His eyes widen and his aggressive tendencies begin to shift away into utter shock. An unimaginable revelation trickled through his broken brain.

"You're lying." Which was all that Starline could deliver in response.

"It's the truth. As long as he succeeds, he doesn't care who gets hurt in the process." Starline backs away from Sonic. He was at first skeptical about the first examples Sonic brought up, thinking he was just trying to get in his head. But he was stumped on how he could've possibly known that planet wisp vanished unless, of course, the hedgehog knew the full story that Starline didn't.

"How much do you know of the desolate world neighboring planet wisp?" Starline asks Sonic, to which he shrugs his shoulders and shakes his head. "It was once my home. The core was invoked by a mysterious and corrupt energy many years ago. It was killing the planet… slowly. It was practically too late to fix the issue before the whole world withered away. But my colleague… my… She found a solution within planet wisp. But before they could further any research, the planet was snatched away without a trace. After that, I never saw her again. And our planet was doomed to fall." Sonic looked deeply sorrowed and sympathetic to Starline's words. His ears and eyes dip down as a way to respect the doctor.

"I'm sorry."

"But if what you say is true. If Dr. Eggman really did 'kidnap' the planet. Then this is something I must confront him on myself." Without further notice, Starline opens a portal and quickly jumps into it, leaving no trace behind once the gateway closes. Sonic is alone again, back to where he left off. With no time to lose, he races back in search of the remaining chaos emeralds.

'Starline, it doesn't matter now what happens, as long as the voice inside you makes the right choice.' Sonic thought.

G.U.N. Interrogation Room

A dulled and dimmed box room. The walls made claustrophobic in scale, making space all the more crowded with Omega standing firm in the middle. Sat in a chair in front of Omega was the G.U.N. soldier that attempted to poison Rouge. The other two in the room, standing next to Omega, were Shadow and Silver. Omega takes the cord of the dangling light from the ceiling and pulls it down, shining the blinding light into the treacherous soldier's face. "It won't be wise to lie to us." Shadow opened up. "None of us here are in the greatest of moods, and I think it's time to get some proper answers."

"I'm not saying anything." The soldier quickly returned back. Shadow has had enough of the tough guy nonsense. He taps Omega on the shoulder, which prompts the bot to clamp on the soldier's thigh with his sharp metal claws. Omega tightens his grip, causing unbearable pain and howling from the soldier. Out of everyone in the room, Silver is the least comfortable. Shadow taps Omega again, and the bot loosens his grip.

"Let's be clear here. We are strictly instructed to keep you in one piece, and considering what you were going to do my friend, I say that you're getting off easy. But don't test your luck." Shadow nods to Omega. Omega then goes to the corner of the room, where there is a camera positioned at them. Omega tilts the camera down, making any footage later on useless. "Or else you're going to be in for quite a ride."

"I'll take my chances. If they figure out that I ratted them to you, I'm a dead man."

"Your chances are going to be better with us. Tell us what we want to know and there will be no further issues." Silver chimed in.

"You don't seem to understand. None of you do. You all think of me as a gun for hire, expendable, a sucker for a quick buck. No… I'm much more invested than you all seem to realize. A new world is coming, and none of you will be left alive to see it." The soldier begins to hysterically cackle out of control. The unnerving forced laughter creeps out the two hedgehogs as they watch the eyes of the soldier become bloodshot. The heinous laugh starts to tick off Shadow.

"Will you shut up?" It's no use. The soldier continues to bellow his horrible chortle until his lungs start to collapse, making him regain his breath.

"Despite my failure today, someone else will finish the job on your little friend. That pitiful bat girl is left defenseless, so it's only a matter of time before one of us gets to her. Moreover, there is nothing you can do to help her." Shadow has had enough of this guy, and he starts to wail his fist into his head, knocking him to the ground. However, the beating seems to invoke some sort of pleasure within the soldier, as with each punch, he laughs louder and louder. The more he laughs, the more Shadow's punches strengthen.

"Shadow, stop!" It takes Silver's psychokinesis to restrain Shadow's fury, although he continues to try and fight through his static movement in a moment of pure rage.

"Let me go!"

"I'm not letting you kill him. We need information."

"I don't care. Scum like him doesn't deserve mercy. They-" A sharp and tight feeling pierce inside Shadow's chest. Suddenly, he falls to the ground on his knees. He begins coughing and wheezing wildly. Shadow places his hand to his mouth, blocking anything further from coming out. Shadow stops his hacking and removes his hand from his face. He looks at his glove, horrified to see it stained with his own blood.

"Oh no!" Silver sees the blood on Shadow's hand, and he quickly picks him up and carries him outside the room. Waiting by the door in the hall is James, who is slouched against the wall. As Silver and Shadow bust out the door, James is evidently startled.

"What's going on?" James asked.

"Shadow is coughing up blood! He needs to get to a doctor."

"Silver, wait." Shadow quickly interjected.

"Are you kidding? We need to get you help now."

"I know what's wrong with me. There is nothing more the doctors can do." Silver stops in his place and silently stares at Shadow. Sensing the tension build, James eases himself to the door.

"I'll just help Omega with the interrogation." James enters through the door, leaving the two hedgehogs to themselves.

"Shadow, what's been going on?"

"There is too much to explai-"

"No! I'm tired of being kept out of the loop. I need something to work off of." Shadow could see in Silver's eyes that he was fully serious, which was something he never saw much from the lovable dork. If he was serious, then Shadow could only respect his wishes.

"There is this organization that has infiltrated us ever since the disappearance of Eggman. We didn't know much about them until a few days ago when they used a device on the ARK to siphon and transfer the energy of the chaos emerald to a faraway place. Sonic and his team are trying to bring them back. But it wasn't just the emerald's energy that was stolen. A part of me went with it, and once I removed my inhibitor rings in a desperate situation, I developed this disease that's slowly killing me."

"I'm sorry. That sounds awful." Silver's eyes dull and look down in a form of respect. "But what about what you said in the meeting? How are you seeing all the things I saw?"

"I don't know. But I'm sensing a pattern. These visions have only come to me whenever I'm in a near-death scenario. Why or how this is happening to me, I haven't figured out yet." Out from the door, James and Omega emerge. "How'd that all go?"

"He was actually way more cooperative with us. Gave us a few names that Omega can verify."

"Names? Who?"

"You're not gonna believe it." Shadow was now fully enticed by James' words, but as the human began to open his mouth, the lights of the building shut down, and a red light flickers periodically. An alarm soon follows suit.

*Alert! All personnel report to crowd control stations!* The intercom blasted. Soon, many soldiers and agents flood the halls. Shadow grabs the attention of one of the soldiers.

"What's going on?"

"Just look outside!" The soldier resumes his post and disappears back into the crowd. Shadow, Silver, Omega, and James run through the hallway as well until they reach the exit. At first glance, nothing too notable was out of place, but that was before they looked up. They stare up in disbelief as they watch the moon seep a scarlet-colored form, emitting a menacing light down to the night sky.

To be continued…