"...You girls are insane."

"What? Why!?" Tikal asked.

"Girls, there were what... Six guys that showed up? And you want me to fire at them with the Blue Typhoon's Sonic Power Cannon? The most powerful and deadly weapon I have ever conceived?" Tails crossed his arms. "I'm putting this to the equivalent of burning the house down because you saw a spider."

"This is more important than some spider!" Tikal argued. "If the Anarcians get a hold of Emberly, we'll be in even bigger trouble than we are right now!"

"I'm well aware of the stakes, Tikal. This just seems like overkill to me..."

Cosmo elbowed Tails with a grin. "You haven't forgotten how to use it, have you...?"

"Of course not! I designed and built it!" Tails replied. "But what good will it do? Sonic and Shadow aren't here to use it, who else is there?"

"Blaze..." They turned as Silver stumbled into the hangar, blowing his nose before looking up at them. "...This had better be good."

"Seriously...?" Tails whispered to Cosmo as Blaze walked over to her boyfriend.

"Oh sweethog...!" Blaze murmured. "You look terrible...!"

"I'm sick, remember...?" Silver attempted to take in a deep breath and clear his nose. "Ugh... What do you need me to do?"

"You can spindash, right?" Cosmo asked.

"Technically, yes. But I've never..." Silver's gaze shifted from the girls to the cannon placed on the front of the ship. "...No."

"Come on, Silver-"

"No way Jose!" Silver waved his head. "I've never even tried a spindash, much less being fired from a cannon while doing it!"

"Sonic and Shadow are both out of town, Tails has to operate the controls and Knuckles' dreadlocks don't have quite the same effect as hedgehog quills! Please, Silver, you're our only option!"

"I'm not gonna-"

"The world needs you!" Tikal shouted.

Silver grimaced. "Gosh dangit...! You have to throw that card at me...!?" He closed his eyes tightly. "...Fine, but you guys owe me. Big time."

"Yes!" Blaze hugged her boyfriend. "Okay, we're gonna get this done!"

As the girls hurried off, Tails walked over to Silver. "It was their idea, not mine. I swear."

"I know... You're not that mean, Miles..." Silver blew his nose again. "...I'm probably gonna blow snot all over these guys too..."

"Hey, giving people colds could be a weapon too, I suppose."

Silver shook his head. "Let's just get this done so I can go back to the couch and my binge-watching of Unnatural Events."

"Eh, I mostly watch it to make fun of the special effects."

"Of course you would...How do you think Shadow's doing in the other dimension?"

Tails shrugged. "Who knows? He's probably wrecking guys and busting walls right now..."

___________________________________________________________________

"THE PRISONERS HAVE ESCAPED!!!!"

The panicked cry echoed off of the walls, and Shadow rolled his eyes as he ran down one of the corridors, cradling a little green cat in his arms. "You okay, Peri?" He asked.

"This is fun!" Peridot announced. "Especially when you blew up the door!"

Shadow smirked. "Sure... Rouge, you got the other one?"

Erm...More or less.

"What's that supposed to mean!?" Shadow ducked under a sliding door as the building started to go into lockdown. "Either you have him, or you don't!"

He's got me, really.

"Are you hurt?"

Nah! A male voice replied. I can just move faster.

Not true! I can run just fine on my own!

Sure you can...!

Shadow rolled his eyes, then broke free of the building, using his crystalline form to block the shots from hitting the emerald he was carrying. "I got a question, Peridot. If you're older than Tang, how come you're smaller?"

"I am not small!"

"I never said you were, I was just-"

"Everybody says I'm too small to do anything! And Frost says I've got bird legs! I could play football if I really wanted to!"

Shadow sighed. Great, I've set her off on a tangent...

He dropped down into a ditch to wait for the others out of firing range, putting Peridot down. "Okay...We'll wait on the others here."

"Or we an keep going and they'll just catch up." Peridot replied as she started to climb out of the ditch.

"Nope." Shadow pushed her back down to the ground. "Stay put."

Peridot pouted, looking away from Shadow for a moment. "Hey, is your wife pregnant?"

Shadow stiffened then turned to face the little cat. "What...!?"

"Is she pregnant?"

"No!"

"How do you know...?"

"She would've told me if she was."

"Are you sure...?"

Shadow's ears flattened against his head. "You're a weird little kid, you know that?"

"That's what everybody says."

Shadow shook his head, but her question did bother him. Rouge didn't want kids, and personally, with their occupation and how often she got herself in danger anyway, Shadow wasn't sure now would be the best time for them to become parents anyway, but if she was... Would she tell him?

He forced the thought to the back of his head as Rouge and the yellow emerald came hopping into the ditch as well, Rouge indeed in his arms. "Nice to see you both in one piece."

"Right." Rouge climbed out of the boy's arms. "...I can walk on my own, Sunny, thank you very much...!"

Sunny smirked. "You're welcome, Miss Rouge."

The explosion of the building and then Honesty warping back with Pele caught their attention. "Do you have to do that?" Shadow asked.

"His powers are surprisingly flammable." Pele replied. "Besides, where's the fun in just leaving them to come after us?"

Shadow shook his head, then picked Peridot up. "Come on, we've got to get back to HQ with these two... How many is that?"

"Lemme see... Frost, Tang, Sunny, Peri, Ruby, Sky... Six down, three to go. We still need Denim, Violet and Queen Myra."

"The good news however," Honesty cut in, "Is that with six of the emeralds, they can combine their powers to locate the others."

"This just got a lot easier!" Rouge replied. "Let's go!"

As the group resumed their travels away from the Anarcian base, Shadow leaned closer to Rouge. "Rouge... If you had something important going on, you would tell me...right?"

"Of course! Why do you ask?"

"Oh...No reason."

Rouge's eyes narrowed. "If something were going on with you, you'd tell me, right?"

"No doubt about it, Rouge...Just making sure we're on the same page."

"Uh huh..." Rouge shook her head, then moved on, and Shadow hurried after the others.

______________________________________________________________

"Hey!" Frost hurried over to her siblings, hugging Sunny. "You all made it!"

"Hey, hey, n-no hugging." Sunny muttered, pushing himself away from his sister. "I've had enough cooties for today."

"There's no such thing as cooties." Ruby replied.

"Yes there is!"

"Anyway..." Shadow expressed. "...Honesty says you guys can locate the others by combining your powers, or something like that?"

"Indeed we can!" Sky replied. "Let's find Violet, Denim and Mom!"

Frost grinned. "We have to hold hands."

Sunny placed himself between Sky and Tang. "I'm only touching them." he replied.

The others rolled their eyes, then grabbed each other's hands into a small circle. "Alright... Everyone focus..."

After a few moments, their eyes each glowed their respective colors, and formed an image in the center of the circle. "...Violet's in Ceros, and Denim and Mom are...Back on Altearth...!"

"So one more here in this dimension, then Queen Myra and Denim are in the 'dump dimension.'" Rouge replied. "Great."

"We'll find Violet first, then Rouge and I will go back to the Chaos Dimension and free Denim and Myra."

"We're doing this together, Shadow." Honesty replied. "We're not gonna let you take the final butt-whooping all for yourself."

Pele stepped forward. "We Sol Emeralds will get Violet. Shadow, Rouge, Frost and Honesty can go to Altearth, while Marea and rest of you Chaos Emeralds alert the council of the truth. Once the entire region is alerted, then Strike won't be able to get a hold of you again so easily."

"Right." Ruby replied, turning to Frost. "You sure you can go this yourself?"

"Absolutely. Now we'd all better get some sleep. We have a long day tomorrow..."