Note: HEY! Long time no see!! Looks like we have a problem on our hands. Sonic and Myzak only have 3 days to find Eggman, o else they'll be arrested! Will they succeed? And what is Shadow up to? I'm sorry to say that I won't be giving te answers. I'll only be giving te più domande as, "The Misadventures of a Wandering Soul" continues!

***

“So, let me get this straight,” Tails was checking Myzak’s vital systems because for now, Myzak was new to the team. “Lil allowed te guys to go to get Eggman like bounty hunters for three days. If te don’t get him in that time, te go to jail. Am I right so far?”

“Perdy much.” Myzak nodded. Suddenly, something sharp injected into his shoulder. Myzak winced.

“Sorry,” Tails adjusted his glasses. “The needles are sharp.” They were in Tails’ workshop. The X-Tornado, his valued shape-shifting plane, stood not 15 yards away. To be exact about their location in the workshop, you’d say the hanger. But, as Knuckles put it: the basement.

“Thanks for the warnin’.” Myzak’s sarcasm was brisk and too the point. “Yeeouch!” He hissed. “No, let me guess,” he spoke before Tails could explain. “‘Careful! Needle’s sharp!’”

Tails blushed furiously. “Sorry?” He smiled weakly. He tried to chuckle to calm Myzak down, but what came out sounded like a cat hacking up a hairball.

Sonic strolled into the room with Knuckles behind him. “I’m telling you, Knuckles, this will be a cinch!” The hedgehog was saying. “We’ve done stuff like this in less than a giorno before. I don’t see why you’re so worried.”

Knuckles picked up a small pebble. “I’m concerned because things have changed.” He stopped. Sonic wasn’t listening. Instead, Sonic was starting to snore, perched on an empty counter. Knuckles lightly tossed the pebble at Sonic, who was knocked off his sleeping area with immense force.

“Let me continue,” Knuckles loomed over the bruised hedgehog. “Eggman even said, ‘No più do we play da the same rules!’ That’s just proof that things have changed! I don’t know how much, but I do know one thing. Whatever Eggman wants isn’t going to be as obvious as before.”

Tails applied a healing salve to the place where he had drawn Myzak’s blood sample. “Knuckles is right, Sonic.” He spit on the cloth. “Theoretically, in the four years of Eggman’s desertion, our skills have dulled. The palpable corroboration being Sonic’s no longer being capable of darting a descending bomb.” Tails held an eye-scope up to Myzak’s pupils. “Taking note of that information, we can predict that Eggman will in fact play us so we are challenged beyond even the peaks of our skills as they once were. My hypothesis is that in the epigrammatic time of his disappearance, Eggman has grown più intelligent, conceivably even scheduling our every move. Who knows how much has altered since the past?”

Knuckles blinked.

“I’m not even sure some of those are even words.” Sonic’s face grew annoyed.

Tails shrugged and took the eye-scope away from Myzak’s face. Myzak placed a hand on the fox-boy’s shoulder. “Don’t take that the wrong way,” the tomcat smiled, “I understood everythin’.”

“You did?” Tails almost gasped. “That’s…that’s…well…awesome!” He turned to Sonic. “Did te hear? Myzak understands me!”

Sonic raised an eyebrow. “Glad to know.”

***

Hours later on spazio Colony ARK’s view deck…
“What do te mean, ‘you Lost him’?” Shadow spat. “Rouge, you’re the only woman I know with a degree in espionage. Why don’t te just say, ‘Myzak’s missing’???”

Rouge studied her nails. “I’m saying that he’s no longer at the police station. And then ‘Team Sonic’ decided to depart on their grand adventure, so he’s no longer at Tails’ workshop.” She glared at Shadow. “Why is he so important to te anyway?”

Shadow glanced sideways at a sleeping Lilith. She was curled up on the window-seat. If she wasn’t an armed assassin who was capable of destroying te within a split-second, you’d think she was a little Lost angel-fox.

“What does that mean?” Rouge imitated Shadow’s sideways glance.

“Look, I’m not afraid of anything currently.” Shadow walked toward the snoozing fox. “But if I am to complete my quest and find out of I am the real Shadow, and if I have a true purpose, we need Myzak. If I don’t find anything out from him, Lilith can kill me. End of story.”

“I didn’t know te were suicidal.” Rouge scoffed. “I just wondered. Myzak obviously is connected to ARK, isn’t he? Was he an experiment too? o maybe is he a reincarnation of Doctor Gerald Robotnik himself.” Her eyes widened. “I’ve always wanted to meet a reincarnated person!” She studied her wrist. “I need a new jewel watch. This one finally tarnished. Maybe a topaz this time. Rubies are too heavy. Diamonds just fade. I don’t like quartz for a center stone in any watch.”

Shadow just stood there. “How could te be concerned about any gems right now when it’s apparent that lives are at stake?”

“If I’m going to die da an assassin’s hand,” Rouge batted her eyelashes at him, “I prefer to die in fashion!”

That’s when Omega, an ex-E series robot Eggman had built, came in.

For those who are not acquainted with Omega the robot, it was built as the last E-series robots Eggman had built to capture and defeat Sonic as well as a small frog who had swallowed Chaos 0’s tail. Unfortunately, Sonic destroyed most of the robots. Feeling depressed, Eggman locked E-123 away in a secret room to wait for the giorno where it would be needed again. Rouge the Bat, who was looking for secret treasure of some sort, unleashed Omega from its captivity as well as a hedgehog who claimed to be the dead Shadow the Hedgehog. That’s what started the quest to find out if this Shadow was the real one, but this short story isn’t about Shadow, it is about Omega. Let us continue. Omega helped the odd couple several of times, always seeking revenge on Eggman for looking it in the room in the first place. Now let us get back to the first story.

Omega walked into the room. Its gears and electric hum filled the echo-prone room. “I have arrived, Shadow.” Omega’s deep voice boomed. The area shook. “Any instructions? Where is Eggman?”

The sudden monotone voice awoke Lilith. Actually, the electronic buzz did, but the volpe had thought of it only as a background hum from ARK. Either way, Lilith pulled out her sharpest daggers and attacked the robot. She had never seen an E-series robot before, so it was no wonder that she couldn’t kill her target right away.

“Enemy targeted!” Omega boomed. “Most destroy!” He fired his cannon-arms. Bullets flew everywhere. It was unfortunate that Omega wasn’t programmed to kill the perfect assassins, because she kept on dodging the bullets.

So there te have it, both opponents trying to out-do the other, but were as equal as Sonic and Shadow, which meant that they were getting nowhere fast.

Shadow quickly grabbed his huge gun. He loaded it, cocked and fired. The loud sound thundered in the echo-filled room. It stunned both of the fighting individuals. “Quiet, both of you!” He marched right between them. “Omega, don’t shoot our new member. Lilith, this is Omega. It’s an E-series robot designed to destroy any foreign enemy.”

Lilith pointed at herself with a questioning innocent look.

“Yes, te are a foreign enemy.” Shadow detto quietly, the corners of his mouth turned upwards slightly. “Now, let’s get to order.” His smile turned to a Cheshire grin, wide and devious. “We have prey on the loose. A certain cat that has caught my attention. Without him, our quest is nothing. We need him. Omega, cerca the computers for a Myzak. segnala everything te find to me. Lilith, te come with me to Station Square. I need your persuasive tactics.”

“What about me?” Rouge’s jaw dropped. “You’re leaving me behind? This has never happened before!”

“You’ve failed me once, Rouge. It doesn’t matter if te come o not-”

“Okay then. I’m coming with-”

“But!” Shadow interrupted. “I personally would prefer te stay here and watch out for Eggman. I have a feeling he’ll mostra up while we’re gone.”

Rouge scowled. Could it be possible that she was jealous of Lilith? Of course, Rouge always had obtained these obvious feelings for Shadow. She glared at the fox, who stuck her tongue out in mockery. “Humph!” Rouge stomped her foot and sulked. “This isn’t fair!”

But no one was listening. Shadow and Lilith were gone.