"Why are we making a stop at Vanilla's home?" Shadow asked.

"I asked Vanilla to house my friend until we figured out a better solution. She was the one person I thought would take her in without any questions." Honesty knocked on the door, then waited for someone to answer.

It was Vanilla who answered the door. "Oh, hello, gentlemen..." She greeted.

"Hello, Miss Vanilla. Is Frost here?" Honesty inquired.

"She always is."

Vanilla allowed the two inside.

"Hello, Mr. Skunk! Hello Shadow!" Cream greeted as she came down the steps. "I didn't know you were coming today!"

"The decision was spur-of-the-moment, Miss Cream." Honesty replied, giving a bow to the bunny and earning a giggle from Cream. "You've been behaving yourself?"

"Of course! What kind of a question is that, Mr. Skunk!?"

"Honesty...?"

Shadow turned, seeing a gray cat peeking out of the back room, her blue eyes fearful. "We can trust this one...?" he asked.

"Y-Yes..." Honesty reached towards her with a hand. "Come here, Frost. It's just Shadow."

"He's a friend, Miss Emerald." Vanilla added. "You can trust him."

Frost cautiously came closer, but seemed more at ease. "Have you felt it, Honesty...?" she asked, looking around slowly. "The world is slowly dying outside."

"I know, but we'll fix it, I promise... Right now, Shadow needs your help."

Shadow hesitantly removed his glove, exposing the crystal that had now seized his whole hand in a frozen state.

Frost gasped, then reached forward and took his hand, rubbing his fingers with her own. "He's crystallizing..." her face turned serious. "This wouldn't be happening if his Chaos Aura was gifted naturally instead of artificially..."

"Is there anything you can do?" Shadow asked.

"Yes, but... You may want to bite down on something."

Shadow clenched his teeth as energy left Frost's hands and entered his own. It felt like his hand was stuck in the middle of a fire, a painful heat that refused to relent. Finally the heat faded, and Shadow wiped away the tears that had welled in his eyes from the pain and flexed his fingers, back to flesh and blood. "Thank you, Frost..." he whispered.

"It's only a temporary fix, I'm afraid." Frost looked to Honesty. "The only way to permanently solve this crisis is to take out the Anarcians and put my mother back on the throne."

"Can somebody please explain what's going on?" Shadow asked.

Honesty nodded. "It'll be easier to pull all of your friends together and explain all at once."

"Right..."

Practically on cue, Shadow's phone rang, and he pulled it out. "This is Shadow the Hedgehog. Who is this?"

Hey, Shadow. Amy's voice answered. I wasn't meaning to call you, actually, I was trying to get a hold of Rouge.

Shadow then heard garbled coughs in the background. "Are you guys alright?"

I'm fine, but Sonic has gotten this really bad cold the past few days... He says "hi."

"Hmm... I'd heard that Silver's gotten sick recently too... I wonder if it has to do with what's going on..."

"Undeniably." Frost replied. "We need to get to work fast."

What's going on, Shadow?

"I'll explain later. Could you call up everyone else and have them meet at me and Rouge's apartment? Say, about three-thirty?"

Sure. I'll talk to you later, Shadow.

"Right... Bye." Shadow hung up. "Well it looks like we've got a time set for you two to give the full story."

"Agreed." Frost said. "My family's been waiting long enough..."

_____________________________________________________________________________

Just like Shadow had hoped, Sonic and Amy arrived at the apartment, and it was clear they'd informed the others, because Knuckles, Tikal, Tails, Cosmo, Silver and Blaze all arrived shortly after.

Sonic smirked as he pointed to Honesty And Frost. "Shadz, who are they?"

"Apparently, people who know more about Chaos Energy than anyone else I know." Shadow replied.

Honesty stepped forward. "My name is Honesty Galaxino, or as I was called in my home dimension, Galaxy's Eighth." he put an arm around Frost. "And this is Princess Frost of Emrels, or Master's Third..."

Frost stood up straight. "I am the one who gave the White Chaos Emerald it's power."

"Aaaaaaaaaand you lost me." Knuckles replied.

"The Chaos Emeralds and the Master Emerald you know are reservoirs of me and my family's power, but a villain from our world has kidnapped my family and drained them of their power. As such, the reservoirs are struggling to keep up, hence the extreme fluctuations in the energy in your world." Frost sighed. "I escaped, and came to seek the help of Honesty."

" I always felt like the Master Emerald had a mind of it's own..." Tikal murmured. "...How are you two going to rescue them?"

Honesty clapped, then a staff with a glowing orb at the end appeared in his hands, and a purple cloak appeared on him as well. "I am Galaxy's Eighth... A wizard in both my realm and here... I was banished to this dimension centuries ago because I was in love with Frost... Which angered the Great Council."

"The Chaos Auras are what grant you your abilities." Frost explained. "If the Aura is weakened by a lack of ambient energy, then the user suffers different reactions. Shadow's aura was granted artificially, so like the stones we use as reservoirs, he is turning to stone. While Sonic and Silver, who were gifted naturally, their immune systems are weakened and are more susceptible to diseases."

"Hence the colds..." Silver mumbled before blowing his nose.

"Well, I'm not having my husband turn to stone!" Rouge announced firmly. "We need to get the Chaos and Master Emeralds back to full power before Shadow becomes a crystal statue!"

"Right." Honesty replied. "We're low on time as it is. We're going to need all the help we can get..."

Frost stood up, turning to face them all. "That being said... Blaze, I need you to do something for me."

Blaze stood up. "What is it?"

"...I need you to go and speak to the Sol Emeralds, and ask them to assist us in our fight."

"I...I don't know Frost. I only just learned that the stones I once guarded are alive. I... I feel like don't know anything about them anymore..."

"Would it help if Tikal and I go with you?" Cosmo asked. "Friendly support?"

Blaze was silent for a moment, then smiled and put an arm around Cosmo. "Sure... Three's better than one."

"The three musketeers!" Tikal cheered.

"You girls be careful!" Knuckles warned. "I don't want any of you getting captured too."

"Not to worry." Frost assured. "None of them are emeralds, so the Anarcians can't track them, and even if they do see them, users of the energies are like specks to them, especially ones from the Chaos Dimension."

"Why is that?"

Honesty blushed. "They kind of consider this dimension like the dump of their universe, where they just throw away what they consider not important."

"Rude!" Amy announced.

"There's also one more Chaos-Strong individual we should check on..." Shadow murmured.

"Who?" Sonic asked.

Shadow was silent for a moment. "...Mephiles."

There was a long moment of silence, Sonic stiff in shock before finally speaking. "...what?"

"Mephiles' file was found while I was looking for Project Kintobor. The farthest back information they had on him was that he was found beaten up and without identification at a train station one night. Nobody knows what happened to him, or how he survived... He's living in a mountain town with a wife now."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"I didn't know if you'd blow up, and you needed as little stress as possible to heal."

Sonic paused to cough into his arm. "Ugh... I hate this crud... So when do we go to see him?"

"We?"

"You think I'm letting you go without me, Shadz? No way!"

"I'm in too." Silver replied. "Besides, you might need more backup."

Shadow sighed. "Alright... We'll make a quick check-in on him, then we can get to freeing Frost's family."

"Don't take too long." Frost warned. "My reversal of the crystallization will wear off soon..."