Time and time again, there was the same thing, Eggman would conjure a nest devilish scheme, he would attempt to conquer the earth until he was stopped by Sonic the Hedgehog and his friends. Yet the consistency of these events made many feel complacent towards it, especially Sonic himself, once Eggman was defeated, that was it, wait until he plans something next time.

Shadow however knew better, he understood the danger that Eggman raised, more than that the pure genius of the doctor, he knew what he was doing, he knew very well how to bounce back from failure, so with that in mind the ultimate life form chose to investigate things himself.

Looking over the base from above Shadow jumped down from the mountain he was on, curling into a ball as he rolled down before uncurling himself as he came to a stop at the bottom, the place was wrecked, Eggman had a self destruct sequence that resulted in Sonic and Tails having to make a run for it, but Shadow couldn't help but think there was more to this and thus began his investigation.

He wasn’t the only one.

Amy the pink hedgehog was also making her way through the rubble on foot. She kept her hammer in hand to give extra balance on the uneven grounding. Setting her boot down on top of a board and testing it, the board jerked downwards but came to a stop. It startled her at first but she quickly recovered. She proceeded forward.

Along the way, she came across what seemed like a light peeking through under some wreckage. Amy leveraged her hammer to lift a metal sheet and unveiled what was hidden underneath. It was the head of a robot that had been a part of the fight. One of the eyes still glowed. Frowning, Amy swung her foot forward and kicked it. The light shut off. Then Amy pulled her hammer back and let the metal sheet fall back into place.

Something had been nagging at her about this battle. It all just seemed too strange. Eggman didn’t normally have such a spectacular exit. She had tried to convince Sonic to investigate but he blew it off and left. But Amy couldn’t just walk away. There had to be something. Eggman was incompetent at times but the man was also well known for pulling the rug out from under people. One couldn’t trust the man with anything.

Amy sighed and brushed her bangs aside from her eyes. This was hard to do by herself. If only the others had stuck around to help.

Shadow was very careful and methodical with his search, he found what was left of the front entrance and stepped through, tapping on his communication device on his wrist a small map manifested on his screen. As an agent of GUN he had enough resources to get schematics of what this base originally looked like. He began slowly walking along when all of a sudden he heard something collide with metal and his eyes glanced forward, his head jerking to the side before he took cover against a wall.

He wasn't alone, that was clear, the ultimate life form closed down his communicator as a means of diminishing the light coming from him before leaning his head out from the corner, checking to see if he could identify if his new company was friend or foe.

Having no sighting of any life Shadow decided to hell with it and dashed forward, with great speed that rivaled that of Sonic, Shadow charged forward and grabbed... Amy?

Instinctively grabbing the pink hedgehog by the neck but immediately after realising who it was, Shadow let her go and took a step back. "What the hell are you doing here?" He questioned, crossing his arms over his chest.

At first, Amy screamed as an instinctive reaction to the grab. She didn’t know who or what grabbed her. Plus she was alone which increased the danger factor for her. Just as quickly as she was grabbed, she was released.

Putting a hand over her throat, Amy took a couple of steps back from the black hedgehog. Her eyes were still wide from the attack and her heart was racing. Taking a couple of breaths, her brain caught up and registered it was Shadow. “Oh… *huff*… It’s just you…” Then she stomped her foot to display being upset, “You scared the life out of me! Don’t do that!”

Amy could be kind of wild with her emotions. Luckily the swings were typically short lived. Her posture relaxed and she leaned on her hammer as she continued to breath to relax her body, “Anyway, I suspected that something more was going on with Eggman’s attack. So I decided to investigate and see if I could find any clues. What about you?”

Shadow watched Amy for a few moments as she calmed herself down, he had to admit, he wasn't expecting her to arrive here. He didn't interact with Amy much but when he did she almost always had Sonic on the mind, not really anything important.

However from what he had been told by others Amy was a major help to the resistance during Sonics absence, even though Knuckles took the role of the leader, it was Amy who really held everything together. Shadow of course had his doubts, but he supposed he had to give her credit, she was thinking outside the box.

"Same as you, something isn't adding up, it isn't normal for Eggman to pull a self destruct after all." He explained, turning around before he began walking away to continue his search. "The doctor has only used such detonation to cover his tracks, but the only reason to do it to one of his own bases... Is if he had something he didn't want us to find." He explained.

“That’s what I’m thinking,” Amy slung her hammer over her shoulder and decided to follow the other hedgehog. Shadow could be…challenging to be around at times but he was at least on the side of good. He may not always stay on the path of “good” in the way Sonic would but the end goal was the same: defend the planet from evil. Although… Amy never knew why. His first introduction was to straight up wipe the whole planet from existence. Then he did a 180.

Despite the drawbacks and his moodiness, there was something about Shadow Amy had admired: his dependability. If he said he was going to do something, it got done. By any means necessary… He worked just as hard as anyone else and put himself in harm’s way to ensure everyone else was protected. Kindda like Sonic. Only Shadow was…more mature.

“It can’t be a chaos emerald,” Amy mused, “He wouldn’t leave that behind for Sonic to get. So it’s gotta be something else… Maybe a prototype for some sort of doomsday device? Or plans for a new roboticizer?”

Shadow made his way back into the wreckage that once was Eggmans base, the place was falling apart, with sharp metal pointing out at random parts, blackened due to the explosions that were fired off around them, exposed wiring sparking at random exposed points of remaining wall. All of these resources, exposed for nothing? That was not something Shadow could expect.

"There is no point theorising over what could or couldn't be, you may believe it couldn't be a chaos emerald but don't forget the doctor is no stranger to emerald duplicates or even other gems with similar power, ones we weren't even aware of." Shadow pointed out to her, he wasn't going to start summarising what it could or couldn't be, it was near pointless.

"As for roboticization.. I can only hope he learned his lesson from last time." Shadow remembered the time of the zombots, sure he couldn't really remember his time as a zombot but he had some sense of memory of it, like one would a dream. Rouge had also filled him in on some events, he had caused mass damage and turned many people, if Eggman was doing something like that again and his first two subjects were himself and Amy then- No, no point getting distracted over theories.

Amy twirled her hammer so the head faced outward. She used that to push aside a sharp piece jutting out to keep it from snagging her dress as she passed. Then she placed the hammer back over her shoulder. “I’m just saying, we should be prepared for anything. Because it could be anything. We’re not even sure what it is we’re looking for.”

Amy was glad to have some company but here came the difficult part of dealing with Mr Logic. It’s not that she thought he was wrong or anything like that. More like he was so logic based that he was shooting down possibilities in such a gruff manner. That was something Sonic had over him: friendliness.

“This is Eggman we’re talking about. You never know what he’s going to do. Heck. It could even be a secondary bomb to go off with the assumption some of us would hang around afterwards, for all we know.”

Shadow continued forward, he didn't look back to her to acknowledge her as he walked, after all there was no need, he could already keep up with her words and he already agreed with her point. Eggman could be up to absolutely anything, he was an unpredictable mad man, for all they know there could literally be nothing here.

Shadow suddenly stopped, standing over a large pile of rubble, readying himself Shadow performed a spin kick, knocking the metal and rubble away to reveal a secret hatch.

"If the doctor is up to anything, it will be down here." He stated simply, using one hand to rip the hatch open and toss it to the side.

"You better be coming, I could use a partner." He said unexpectedly before jumping down the hole, needless to say that wasn't a normal thing for Shadow to request, far from it in fact.

Amy lowered her head a little when Shadow revealed a hatch. There it was. It had to be. It made sense. Self-destructing the place definitely did it’s job of burying this thing out of sight. Sonic certainly didn’t suspect it.

With a little twirl, Amy made her PikoPiko hammer disappear then she followed the black hedgehog down the hatch. The entrance may have been sized for Eggman but her hammer still would have made passage difficult. She landed on her feet and looked around to familiarize herself with the area. It was dark but not impossible to see. Lighting was just dim.

“I’m surprised you’re ok with me coming along,” she observed. Normally Shadow would push people away while stating how much of a loner he was or how others would just get in the way. “Not that I’m complaining,” she quickly added, “I was hoping to have someone with me, too. Sonic wasn’t willing to stick around to search the place. Ugh… He could be so impatient.”

She loved the blue hero but she had to admit there were times that he rubbed her the wrong way. Sometimes he was even frustrating and it left her wondering why she even liked him.

The area appeared to be a sort of tunnel system, Shadow pulling out his communicator pressed on the screen, allowing the light to traverse the room and make everything more clear. This wasn't some underground base, or at least it wasn't yet, instead it was a tunnel that already revealed multiple pathways they could take. "There's always the possibility that this is a trap, so I need someone, in this case you to be able to report back to the others if anything goes wrong." He explained having Amy here was a smart move, she was capable enough and more rational than most, it was an important combination.

"Hmph, I honestly don't understand what you see in that hedgehog." Shadow commented, working with Sonic was never a satisfying thing to do, filled with quips, side tracking and of course Sonic’s impulsive behaviour, it was maddening he never unintentionally caused the end of the world.

Old habits kicked in. Whenever someone badmouthed Sonic, Amy felt the compulsion to defend him. Even if she was kind of critical of him prior. “There’s a lot of good qualities! He cares about other people, he’s always fighting evil and saving people, he is pretty nonjudgemental and open to others, brave, an optimistic attitude…”

Sometimes too optimistic. Sometimes that hedgehog’s desire to make everyone his friend backfired. And sometimes it blinded him to dangers, whether that was danger to himself or others.

Amy began to smile as she went over the positives she saw in the blue hero, “There’s a lot to love about him. Everyone has good qualities even if they don’t seem like it. Even you.”

Shadow immediately thought that talking about Sonic for long periods of time was a bad idea, especially around Amy, she was so absolutely obsessed with him that any amount of negativity about him would result in her listing off the best things about him, as if to balance out the criticisms.

"I know who Sonic is, Rose, you don't need to remind me about him." He stated dismissively, but then he stopped for a moment as she mentioned him. To describe Shadow as one of the 'good guys' was an iffy thing, he never joined the resistance and mainly worked in his best interests rather, yet he was an enemy of Eggman, one of the doctor’s greatest threats other than Sonic himself.

He looked back to her, thoughts flickering in his eyes. "Let's keep moving." He finally said, before he turned and kept walking.

Amy paused when Shadow looked at her. She expected him to say something, maybe even question what the positive qualities were of him. Instead there was a moment of silence then a command to move forward. What was that about? The pink hedgehog knew better than to ask him. The taciturn Shadow wasn’t going to just hand over whatever information he was brooding in his head.

Dutifully, she followed the black hedgehog through the dim tunnel system. Amy was keeping close to him in case anything crazy happened and to also ensure she didn’t get lost. It was a good thing he had his communicator for extra light. Would’ve been more difficult to see. Amy frowned remembering that hers was damaged during the battle. Stupid Eggman. He always had to ruin absolutely everything, didn’t he?

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