Back in the zone of Ineffective Time Wasting, Sonic was doing a bit of high speed pacing in Eggman's computer room.  He anxiously watched Shadow try to get in contact with Rouge who had been MIA for the last eighteen hours.

"It's no use," Shadow sighed as he finally gave up, "The link is broken.  I can't reach her."

Sonic watched as Shadow's frown only deepened and turned inward, the dark hedgehog becoming engrossed in his own thoughts.

Shadow wouldn't admit it to anyone, but it was clear to Sonic that the ebony racer was worried about his partner.  It wasn't like Rouge to blow off something of this importance and that could only mean something had happened to the bat to prevent her from contacting Shadow.

And just as it was obvious that Shadow was worried about her, he certainly wasn't going to waste time with fretting.  Sonic respected his rival's directness and wished he could detach himself from situations like Shadow could.  After all Sonic was going mad with worry for Tails now.

He had combed every inch of Eggman's lair, unwilling to believe that Eggman didn't have his little brother.  He had turned up with no results, and Rouge hadn't confirmed whether Tails was at home.  It had been nearly a full day since he went missing.

Now Shadow was in a similar situation thanks to Sonic's pestering.  The agent's partner was missing because Shadow had consented to put Sonic's mind at ease while they actively searched for Tails elsewhere.

The thought caused a sudden tightness in Sonic's chest.

Why was Shadow doing this for him anyway? Sonic thought suddenly.  He really didn't have to help out like this...  No one was making him.  Sure, Sonic had annoyed him a bit, but Shadow had fully consented to being followed to Eggman's base.

The realization that Shadow was doing this without being forced or ordered to struck Sonic like a brick.
Sonic watched Shadow push his concern for Rouge aside and opened the communication line wired through his glove.

"Shadow here.  I need a high security transport for Doctor Eggman dispatched immediately.  The coordinates will be coming in shortly" The hedgehog said quietly, going straight down to business.  The scientist was bound to his chair with a blanket strategically thrown over his frame to thankfully cover him and his many 'assets.'

Sonic looked over at Shadow in surprise and touched the ebony hedgehog's shoulder to get his attention, "Hey, you're arresting him?"

Shadow nodded shortly, "I see no better time than now to lock him away." He said simply, "Besides, we might still have a use for him."

"Oh," Sonic said easily enough, his hand dropping back down to his side even while his heart began to race at Mach three.  After a long spell of silence in which Sonic fidgeted and Shadow rigidly stood by Eggman's super computer, the blue hero finally put voice to some of his turbulent thoughts.

"Thanks," Sonic said softly, barely audible to even Shadow's Ultimate Hearing.

An ear twitched in Sonic's direction and the rest of Shadow turned to look at him, "For what -- doing my job?" He questioned, not sounding terribly interested in the hero's answer.

Sonic hid a wince at the obvious barb to their conversation the previous night and shifted under Shadow's ruby gaze.  He scratched at the nape of his neck sheepishly, "Well you didn't have to go ahead and play good cop-bad cop with me.  I know it was already against your orders to tell me about this place--"

"You followed me here," Shadow interrupted, correcting Sonic's story on the spot.

"Whatever," Sonic continued impatiently, annoyed that Shadow wasn't taking his heartfelt 'thank you' a bit more seriously.  He could always count on Shadow to get hung up on the technicalities of something so simple, "I'm thanking you because you didn't have to."

A red sneaker kicked at the floor irritably, almost as if Sonic was trying to flick off an imaginary clot of dirt sticking to the tip, "Especially now that Rouge is MIA like Tails and--"

"She hasn't been kidnapped," Shadow interrupted a second time, almost as if he hadn't heard Sonic's little speech.  If he had, he was choosing to ignore it.

Sonic's quills bristled, "I wasn't saying that she was, but--"

"Furthermore, I doubt Tails is in as great a danger as you've been yipping about," Shadow continued deadpanned, the earlier comments completely disregarded.

At this point, all of Sonic's flowery thoughts about thanking Shadow had all but fled out the closest window.  In fact, now Sonic was annoyed with the other and wondering if he could possibly get away with sticking Shadow's in the closest door frame and closing the door repeatedly on his head. 

But of course Eggman had to have automatic sliding doors...

Tails had been kidnapped!  Of course that meant he was in danger!  Sonic had long suspected that Shadow had been barking up the wrong tree for a while now, but this was ridiculous.  Sonic knew that both he and his dark rival harbored very radical ideas of what they considered 'safe,' but being kidnapped and held against your will seemed to fit under a 'danger' category.

That, and Sonic didn't yip.

...His voice just occasionally hit a fairly high octave.

"Well Mr. Dark-and-Angsty, in case you didn't notice my best bud just got kidnapped and your partner is MIA," Sonic glared at Shadow, "Or are you so cold you don't care at all?"

Shadow looked at Sonic impassively, but the hero thought he might have imagined a blazing heat glimmering beneath the surface of those cool ruby eyes.

"There is such a thing as caring too much," Shadow said shortly, "Which obviously you do."

Sonic opened his mouth to disagree but Shadow interrupted -- he was doing that far too often for Sonic's liking.

"You go blazing off half-cocked to Eggman's lair without even checking to see if Tails was safe at home, you accuse both GUN and myself of negligence, you purposefully throw us into danger headfirst and without so much as a plan," Shadow's voice gradually increased in volume so it was now a dark rumble, "Furthermore when we get here you choose to let your heart get in the way of reason and nearly make the doctor crap his pants into silence."

"Considering he wasn't wearing any pants, I suppose that could be considered a bad thing," Sonic said wistfully but was silenced by a withering glare from Shadow.

The dark hedgehog paused throughout all of that, crimson eyes glaring at Sonic, "Yes I am concerned about Rouge, but I'm not worried."

Sonic stared at Shadow, more surprised by the amount of words his partner was saying than what he was saying -- which was just as shocking.

"What's the difference?" Sonic crossed his arms over his chest, feeling somewhat unnerved by the normally reserved hedgehog's rant.

"Unlike you, I have the faith that even if Rouge got into trouble she'd be able to get out of it," Shadow said shortly.  Ruby eyes looked harshly at Sonic, "You peddle that 'believe in yourself' nonsense, but when it's time for you to put a bit of faith in your brother, the great hero of Mobius folds like a deck of playing cards."

Sonic reeled back as if he had been struck by a hard blow, but he quickly recovered, his eyes darkening with anger.

"You have no idea how much faith I have in Tails," Sonic said quietly, glaring at Shadow in such a way that if looks could kill, the Ultimate Lifeform would not be feeling very alive.

"Is that so?" Shadow held his ground, ruby eyes flashing as he looked at Sonic challengingly, "The why don't you prove it instead of wasting your time trying to make fully grown men cry?" Shadow nodded over at Eggman, who still looked rather shaken by Sonic's rough interrogation.

Sonic fell into silence at that, searching for words to reply. 

Sonic looked over at Shadow and he watched the aggravated and stoic hedgehog. He was mulling over the other's words, beating his temper into submission so he could think about what Shadow was saying.   And more importantly, why.

Shadow was extremely analytical.  His thoughts ran as logically as Eggman's supercomputer.  It was difficult for Sonic to think in such a way.  Shadow was a Classicist, while Sonic was a Romanticist.  Perhaps Shadow just... didn’t understand or see the point.

"My faith in Tails has nothing to do with why I'm going out of my way to find him," Sonic replied, staring at Shadow hard, "I'm going because I love my little brother, and I'm not going to leave anything to risk."

Shadow's eyeridge raised in surprise at Sonic's words.  In all actuality he shouldn't have been so shocking.  It was expected from the hero.  The cobalt racer's naïveté never ceased to astonish Shadow, especially how Sonic had somehow managed to keep that part of him unscathed and whole.

Before the ebony racer could open his mouth the reply or question Sonic further, a low beeping caught his attention.  It originated from the computer panel and slowly, Shadow turned away from Sonic's uncharacteristically serious eyes to examine it.

His ruby gaze searched out the source, landing on a flashing yellow button.  Eggman began to twist anxiously in his bonds and Shadow's eyes narrowed, "Is there something you're trying to hide doctor?" He asked softly.

This caught Sonic's attention and he darted over to the panel. "What's the button do?" He asked, blue eyes twitching in time to the button's irritating beeping.

Eggman remained stubbornly silent and looked away, anywhere but at that button.  Sonic eyed it with annoyance and flashed the doctor a wicked grin, "What? You're not going to tell us?"

Before Shadow could understand what that sudden, wicked glint in his partners eyes meant, Sonic was giving the Ultimate Lifeform an insistent push out of the way.  Shadow stepped out of the way easily enough; not yet realizing what Sonic intended to do.  However, the pieces quickly clicked together once Shadow noticed the wicked gleam entering those emerald eyes.  Shadow made an abortive attempt to stop him, but Sonic was too fast.

"I guess we're going to find out ourselves," Sonic grinned and jammed the button down. 

The beeping instantly stopped and Shadow growled, whirling on Sonic with renewed anger, "Are you trying to get us killed?" He demanded, “You just don’t go around pressing buttons to unknown machines!”

"Don't get your quills in a twist Faker, nothing happened," Sonic waved off the angry hedgehog and kept his eyes glued on the computer screen.  When he had pushed the button, a sonar image had popped up, illuminating the two hedgehogs in a dark emerald light.  It colored Sonic’s quills an interesting shade of teal, an observation Shadow found surprisingly hard to ignore.  It was somewhat... attractive.

The agent tore his gaze away from Sonic, trying his best to crush the sudden warmth attempting to crawl its way to the surface of his muzzle. 

‘Focus you fool,’ Shadow mentally berated himself and worked on absorbing himself in the new information flashing not three feet in front of his eyes.

“What’s this?” Shadow murmured softly as he eyed the screen.  He had finally managed to regain enough of his world renowned detachments to observe both the image and Sonic without falling prey to some deluded fan girl’s fantasy.

Six blinking dots were clustered at the far corner of the map.  A single, lone dot was blinking not far from Eggman’s current base.

On the very top of the screen, it was helpfully labeled, ‘Eggman’s Super Secret Chaos Emerald Detector.’

 “Three guesses what this is and the first two don’t count,” Sonic said dryly as he eyed the screen, “After the emeralds again Eggman?”

The doctor huffed haughtily and glared at the two hedgehogs, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”  He sat up innocently, “I was merely checking to see if they were safe and in their proper places – I would never consider using the emeralds for my diabolical schemes.”

Shadow frowned as he eyed the map.  Eggman’s words caused him to think.  Sonic on the other hand was too busy snorting at his mad adversary in contempt to pay it any mind.

“Come off it Eggman.  You just wanted to get your grubby paws on the emeralds so you could rule the world by resurrecting Creature X with their power.”

“No Sonic,” Shadow interrupted, drawing the hero’s gaze towards him, “He’s right.”

Green eyes regarded Shadow somewhat impatiently, blue ears twitching, “C’mon Shadz.  Don’t tell me I got to commit you to the asylum too – I know it’s a bit overdue at this point but...”

“He might have been intending to steal the emeralds for a predictably evil plan, but look at this.” Shadow pointed to the cluster of emeralds gathered in one place, obviously choosing to ignore Sonic’s crack against his sanity, “Don’t you find it unusual that six of the emeralds are in one spot?

“You have a rather nasty habit of losing those emeralds over the entirety of Mobius the second you touch them,” Shadow continued, much to Sonic’s annoyance.

“Well you seem to do a find job of holding onto your emerald,” Sonic shot at him.  This bit of knowledge was promptly ignored by Shadow.

“So what do we know?” The dark agent said flatly, “A.  Someone is stealing the doctor’s tech, B. the Chaos emeralds are being gathered, and C. Tails has been ‘kidnapped.’”

“So you’re saying we’ll find the plot with the rest of the emeralds?” Sonic drawled with a quirked eyeridge.  Green eyes rested on the flickering dots burning against the maps backdrop, “How original.”

“Where else would we find it?” Shadow asked deadpanned and began to zoom in on the map, “Looks like the emeralds are in Green Hill Zone.”

“No way,” Sonic peered over Shadow’s shoulder, much to the darker hedgehog’s discomfort.  Sure enough, the familiar checkered grounds and loops were flashing clearly on the computer.  A wave of nostalgia hit Sonic at the thought of going back there and his lips twitched at the corners of his mouth.

“It’s quite the distance,” Shadow muttered, “Our best bet is to get the emerald nearby and chaos control there.”  Shadow didn’t need to say how shaky the trip would be.  Teleporting two hedgehogs such a far distance would be tricky – Shadow didn’t want to end up in some crazy alternate universe where Sonic was his slave, now that would be insane.

But on second thought, the dark racer wondered if they made mobian shaped muzzles...

Shadow cleared his throat as he realized Sonic was still talking.  Chaos, what was wrong with him?  They were still on a high priority mission and Shadow couldn’t but fantasize about slapping a muzzle on Sonic.

...Among other things, his traitorous mind pointed out.

“And what if Tails isn’t there?” Sonic asked anxiously, forcing Shadow’s attention away from what could have been thoughts appropriate for the rating of this fic.

“Then we wouldn’t have wasted much time by chaos controlling, and the added strength of the emerald certainly couldn’t hurt our chances,” Shadow said patiently, clamping down hard on whatever strange desires were trying to make themselves known.

Sonic stared at the stoic hedgehog for a long moment, oblivious to the other’s inner turmoil.  He was trying to decide if it was worth it. Was Shadow’s judgment worth the effort?

His heart and stomach flipped anxiously in his belly and Sonic felt very unlike the proud and cocky hedgehog he usually was.  Something just didn’t feel right.  The hero couldn’t explain it, but his instincts were screaming at him that something bad was going to happen.

But Shadow...

Despite how the two hedgehogs seemed to clash at every corner, they were working well together.  Regardless of their differing viewpoints, or how much Sonic seemed to annoy Shadow, the ebony racer was still helping him.  They were constantly at one another’s throats, but they had gotten this far together.  Perhaps they could go all the way.

Slowly he smiled and nodded.

“Let’s do this.”

--::--

The bar was dark and rancid, making it extremely difficult to see.  It was made even harder by the thick screen of heavy cigarette smoke blocking out the dim and yellow lights. 

The smell of alcohol permeated through every particle of the air and Mary Sue crinkled her nose in disgust.  She hated being in a place as foul as this, but if her hunch was right it would be well worth a few moments of discomfort.

She wrapped her dark jacket firmly around her shoulders and searched out the purple form she had spent many resources to track him down.  Marry spotted the weasel slumped over on the bar, currently attempting to either drown himself in booze or give himself alcohol poisoning.

Mary took a seat next to him and ordered something light.  The weasel turned one bloodshot eye towards her, annoyed someone was invading his space.  It seemed he was more annoyed by the fact that she was sober than anything else.

“You’re Nack the Weasel?” Mary asked, looking down her nose at the pathetic sight of the once formidable mercenary.

“Who wantz to know?” Nack slurred belligerently.

Mary snorted, “Look at how far you’ve fallen.  It’s such a shame that a shooter of your caliber would be kicked so ruthlessly to the curb just because some blue rodent wanted more screen time.”

Nack looked at her a bit cross eyed, “What’re you talkin’ about lady?” He growled, “I dun know nothin’ about no screen time.”

“You haven’t had business in a while,” Mary said crisply, not noticing how Nack’s eyes were very cross eyed now, “I have a well paying job for you.  Very lucrative and bound to get your name out in the headlines.”

At the mention of money, it became clear by the gleam in Nack’s eyes that Mary was finally speaking a language the weasel could understand.  It was as if the idea of money sobered him and a lucid, greedy spark had Nack sitting up straight attentively.

“You’ve got my attention,” Nack eyed her, “How well paying are you talkin’ about?”

“Handsomely,” Mary purred.  She pulled a bag out from her cloak and settled it in front of him, “Half payment up front.”

Nack weighed the hefty bag, the hungry gleam getting all the more prominent and greedy, “This is a lot of cash.  You must want me to do something pretty damn bad.”  A long ear waggled, “What’s the gig?”

Mary smiled and slid a picture across the bar counter, “I want you to this particular hedgehog.  It has recently come to my attention that he stands a chance of upsetting my carefully laid out plan with his interference.  That and he came out with a truly awful game.”

Nack’s eyes landed on the photo and he snorted, “Have you lost your damn mind?  You couldn’t pay me enough to even try to snipe this guy off!”

“What, are you scared of him?” Mary looked at the weasel, then at her nails as if she were more interested in them than the hired gun.

Nack glared poisonously at her, “I’m not scared of anything, but I don’t make a habit out of flirting with death.”

“A survivalist huh?” Mary smirked, “Well I’ve set up a trap for him.  He’ll be easy pickings, especially since he’s already fallen for it.

“But if that’s not enough, I’ll sweeten the deal for you.”

“Oh?” Nack growled curiously.  Obviously he was interested in what this woman had to offer.  She came with a ridiculous sum of money and high aspirations.  He wanted to know what else he could wring from her before all this was through.

Mary smiled, “Once he’s out of the way, my plan will be finished and Mobius will be free reign for people like you to take what you want.  I can assure you a massive amount of land that you can call your own.  I shall give you Australia.”

The weasel frowned, “What’s ‘Australia’?”

“Where your voice actor probably would have been from if you were included in the neo-generation games,” Mary replied breezily.

Nack honestly couldn’t find words to reply for a very long moment.  It was becoming frighteningly clear that his employer did not have all of her wits together.  That didn’t make him feel very safe about his job.

“So you’re going to give me a zone?” Nack said slowly, hoping to clarify any confusion.

“Specifically a very dangerous one where even the sheep could probably kill you, so yes... pretty much any zone in Mobius would do the trick,” Mary grinned, “I don’t think it matters in the long run.”

She looked at him firmly, immediately losing her good nature, “So do you accept or should I leave you so you can continue drinking yourself under the table and into an early grave?”

Nack looked at the picture, then at the enticing money piled in front of him.  It was all so appealing... and if his target really was going to easy pickings, then he didn’t see why he shouldn’t give it a try at the very least.

“Yeah,” The weasel smirked and eyed the picture, “I’ll kill Shadow the Hedgehog for ya.”

--::--

“Achoo!”

The two hedgehogs watched as GUN loaded Eggman into a cargo hold.  Shadow sniffed and rubbed his nose, ignoring how Sonic was staring at him in surprise.

“Wow Faker, I didn’t know you could get sick,” Sonic grinned.

Shadow gave Sonic an annoyed glare and rolled his eyes, “The Ultimate Lifeform does not get sick.”

“Say what you want but stay away from me, I don’t want to catch whatever you have,” Sonic smirked playfully and took a step away.

Shadow eyed the hedgehog putting distance between them and rolled his eyes, “You couldn’t catch anything, much less a cold – not even if I coughed down your throat.”  He shook his head and cleared his voice as the GUN soldiers started up their cars and began to transport Eggman away.

“We better get going,” Shadow frowned as he crossed his arms over the tuft of fur on his chest.  There was still a bit of silence stretching out between him and Sonic from their earlier, unresolved dispute.  Shadow had been mulling over Sonic’s words for a while now, but he still didn’t know what to think of it.

Sonic nodded and eyed his partner, “Yeah.  So where are we heading?”

“An hour’s trip south,” Shadow pointed to a map, “To Oil Ocean Zone.”