Sonic spent the next five days in the infirmary, with its climate controlled atmosphere and easy access to medication being the ideal place for him to recover from the flu. Despite feeling awful, he rather enjoyed his stay there. Having access to his own personal bathroom, a nice cushy bed, getting even more meals a day, even though most consisted of soup and juice. The accomadations made being sick not so bad. He even got extra loving attention from Infinite, whom checked on him regularly, making sure he stayed hydrated, rested properly, and took his medicine accordingly. 

The hedgehog always looked forward to these visits, "There's my favorite nurse!" he would joke. Although some of his quips irritated the jackal, he couldn't help but sport a confident smile every time at the sight of his doting master, whom in turn often scoffed at how his pet could remain so optimistic in his pitiful shape. It was one of his more infuriating yet admirable qualities which Infinite secretly cherished, having never had such a light in his life before. Nevertheless, he made sure to keep his pet in line. 

"Do you want this in your mouth or your ass?" he stated coldly while holding up a thermometer. 
Feeling spry, Sonic began to pull back the covers, "Do you even have to ask?!" he said excitedly. 
However, Infinite chose against indulging his urges and shoved the device into the blue blur's mouth with a sly grin, making his pet pout like a child while he mumbled, "--meanie." 

As they both waited for the reading, Infinite leaned down to press their foreheads together. They closed their eyes, letting each other's presence be a kindling fire of affection for the other. This was one of the ways the mercenary displayed sincere concern for his pet's comfort and wellbeing. After the brief silence, he questioned "how is my little patient feeling?" Sonic wasn't trembling anymore, indicating a positive sign, but the mercenary could still feel the heat resonating from him, robbing him of full contentment. 

Upon hearing the beeps, Infinite removed the thermometer and studied the numbers, "Hmmm" he growled in a dissatisfied tone.
It was eerie how so many of Sonic's symptoms were improving and yet his fever remained unchanged. Furthermore, his injuries weren't healing as quickly as they should, barely at all in fact. The puncture wounds hardly scabbed, making them bleed rather easily while the bruises haven't faded in the least. It was as though his body was stuck in this condition despite the proper treatment being administered. Even a normal individual would be further along in their recovery at this point. Did he have something besides the flu? Something that was somehow disabling his ability to heal? 

"What's the diagnosis?" the hedgehog chimed as he looked on at his worried master. Sonic knew he was still sick, he could feel it, but he knew Infinite was expecting him to be better by now, especially after everything he'd done for him. During his entire stay in the infirmary, he did everything he should to get well, but as best as he could remember, he had never had an ailment last this long before. With it being as much a mystery to him as anyone, he didn't know what else he could do and was starting to become just as worried that there maybe something seriously wrong.  

"You're still ill," the jackal finally replied sharply, "perhaps we need a different tactic. Try some different medication or consult with the Doctor." 

Sonic appeared indifferent to those options, with the mention of Dr. Eggman making his blood run cold. As terrified as he was of Infinite, during his first months on the Death Egg, he saw a side of Doctor Eggman that scarred his soul with unshakeable fear. 

His feverish mind flashed back to the moment he woke up in chains, and raced through how the evil scientist was relentless in torturing him. Day in and day out and nealry every night, the doctor put him through what he considered "Years of Payback". From fighting robots nonstop to being electrocuted, nearly drowned, and beaten on a regular basis, he was subjected to cruelty he never imagined his old nemesis was capable of! He was even locked away in climate controlled chambers where he endured extreme heat to the point of passing out and severe cold for hours at a times until he was at risk of losing his extremities. Thinking back, he was surprised he survived such brutality. He recounted the last session he had with Eggman, who dawned one of his mech suits, had Sonic chained from the neck down, and proceeded to give him the beating of a lfietime until he was barely breathing. If he lost consciousness, Eggman used stimulants to wake him back up before continuing the assault. The memories made Sonic shudder while that croaking voice echoed in his mind.

"Remember this moment, rodent," Eggman declared, "You deserved all of this! You're no more a hero than you are worth saving or else your friends would have done so by now. YOUR PATHETIC LIFE IS FORFEIT!!!" 

From that point, Sonic belonged solely to Infinite. He had already endured his new master's violent brand of intimacy multiple times before when it didn't interrupt with Eggman's schedule, and when he thought things couldn't get any worse, they did. The excrutiating penetrations, the humiliating positions, and the dastardly inventive ways of inflicting pain and embarrasing pleasure made him miss just getting beaten to a pulp. How he hated being trapped in this existence! So many times he wished they would just kill him and get it over with, but then, something changed and things started to get better. He still doesn't know what sparked the sudden small bits of kindness, nor does he understand Infinite entirely, but the first time he saw his face, he saw something worth loving. Those beautiful eyes that shimmered like stars, his warm touch, those strong muscles, and that charismatic nature pulled Sonic into a state of bliss that he didn't want to let go of. Whether the resurgeance of these memories were a result of PTSD or the fever-induced wanderings of a broken hero's sad mental state, they still helped him to put Eggman out of his mind for a few minutes before his master elected to escort him to the doctor's lab. 

The bubbling chemicals, the whirling of machines, the electronic buzzing of various devices alien to all except their creator filled the room. This was Infinite's place of rebirth and where Eggman had been spending much of his time when not face-chatting with world leaders to negotiate their inevitable surrender. Infinite held Sonic close, allowing his pet to lean on him as they ambled through the lair of mad science. Hearing the static and seeing the gushing fluids of unknown nature made the blue hedgehog cringe while the horrid memories invaded his mind, memories depicting strange concoctions being injected into him that were followed by electric shocks that inflicted as much pain in the present as they did months ago. The jackal felt him trembling and tightened his grip on his shoulder as a sign of support. This eased some of the broken hero's angst, but he still couldn't erase the trauma he endured nor the dread that even worse things awaited for him. 

"Ah! Infinite! I thought you were entertaining our guest," the evil genius chimed as he spun around in his chair to view the pair entering his control hub. "And what's this vermin still doing here?" For no reason whatsoever, Infinite shoved Sonic onto the floor, the weak hedgehog toppling over with a pitiful grunt. 
"He requires your expertise," the jackal responded, prompting curiousity from the mad doctor. Eggman hopped up from his chair and swaggered over to what was once his greatest adversary. Kicking him onto his back, he glared down at his frail frame, studying his characteristics as the blue blur kept averting his gaze, unable to bring himself to look at the one whom he had fought for most of life, whom he had allied with on multiple ocassions, whom he had given the benefit of a doubt time and time again, and whom had tortured him to brink of death. 

"Hmmm...you're even more pathetic than I imagined," Eggman quipped, using a pen to push Sonic's face from side to side as he towered over him, "at least you're keeping my general entertained it seems," he continued while poking the bandaged wounds with his ballpoint, making the hedgehog wince while he lay obediently still. 

"Those are over a week old," Infinite clarified as blood began slowly appearing behind the white gauze. 

"Oh?!" Eggman spouted intrigued, "THAT IS FASCINATING!" Taking a step back, the snap of his fingers summoned a robot, whom scooped up the hedgehog from the floor and followed the oval doctor to an adjacent chamber. The room was all too familiar to Sonic, as it was one Eggman had frequently utilized to experiment on him. 

"N-NNO!! NOT MORE OF THIS!!" Sonic screamed as he tried to resist being strapped down to the metal table. He fought as hard as he could against the robot, but then suddenly, the red glow of the Phantom Ruby pulled his arms and legs into the necessary position for the robot to finish its work. "Calm down," Infinite ordered, standing at the foot of the table and watching intently as his pet was securely bound. Tears threatened to burst from the hedgehog's eyes as he forced himself to comply, hating feeling even more helpless than he already was. 

"Now then, first, we need to conduct some preliminary tests," the doctor vocalized as he grabbed a needle and several bottles. Although he could easily use machines to extract what he needed, he found a twisted satisfaction in watching Sonic flinch and stabbing him personally to draw blood. After gathering several samples, he held Sonic's nose to cruelly open his mouth, which he then swabbed at the far back of his throat until he gagged. "Oh please, I've seen you take bigger things than a cottonswab in that throat," Eggman jested before peering into his ears, eyes, and nose in sequence. He then took his vitals before collecting a series of x-rays that scanned his skeleton, muscular, and circulatory systems until he moved on to what he considered was his favorite part of the examination. 

"I discovered quite some time ago that the rodent possesses a unique energy," he explained to Infinite while placing nodes on Sonic's head and chest, "though untraceable, it's present nonetheless, perhaps having been a part of him for his entire life. Regardless of how he got it, it's an irreplaceable part of his biology, and my experiments combined with my superior intellect deduced it is a mutated form of chaos energy. Such explains why he is able to harness the Chaos Emeralds so effortlessly and why his physical accumen is much more advanced than the average Mobian."  

Eggman invited Infinite to step behind a shield as Sonic looked on worried, unable to stop himself from fidgeting in his shackles. "Please. Please, don't let him do this to me." The jackal remained silent, giving one final glance before stepping behind the insulated wall. 

"Now, testing the levels of this energy is tricky," Eggman continued, "in all the tests I conducted on the blue rat, only one way proved to produce viable results. And coincidentally, it's the most fun."

Placing his hand on a dial with a wicked grin, he began slowly turning clockwise, unleashing surges of energy from various machines into the helpless victim in the center of the room. Sonic's body was illuminated by the electricity pulsing with him as he let out a blood-curdling scream while thrashing around in his bonds. "YAAAHHAHAHHHHGGGHHHHHH!!!!" His back arched, his head flung from side to side, and every bandaged wound on him began bleeding profusely. 

"What's the point of this?" Infinite questioned, his steely gaze never waivering from the torment unfolding before him. 

"As I said, the energy is untraceable and difficult to draw out, but by inserting my own ionic cocktail into his body, his system automatically reacts by producing the mutated chaos energy as a dampener, thus allowing me to get a proper reading." While viewing the meter, Eggman continued to raise the voltage, causing the hedgehog to wail and convulse wildly. His mind was completely blank as he couldn't even process the pain that went well beyond the threshold of what he could withstand. 

"ENOUGH", Infinite commanded as he forcibly grabbed Eggman's wrist on the dial, which had already been turned to nearly the highest level. Relently, Eggman pressed a kill switch that cut off the voltage and swiveled the dial back down to the zero. Sonic went limp as vapor steamed from his body, urine dripped off the table, drool dribbled from his mouth, and tears glistened in his bloodshot eyes whose pupils appeared faded, like he was lost in another world. 

Infinite stomped to the table, staring at his pet's torso as it slowly, gently drew breath. "You almost killed him," he growled at the doctor emerging from behind the shield, too preoccupied with his tablet to see the pitiful state Sonic lay in. "I've conducted this experiment on him dozens of times, the atomic ratio of the electricity is incapable of stopping his heart or brain functions, well, the lower brain functions at least." 

"Meaning?" Infinite snarled. 

Eggman waved his hand, "Don't get your dreads in a twist, the rodent will be fine....or maybe...not?.....hmmm."

The jackal's patience had expired, prompting him to threateningly approach the doctor, grab him by his collar and slam him against the shield, "I'm tired of your senseless games, old man. What. Is. Wrong WITH HIM?!"

"HE'S DYING!" the doctor blurted out, shocking the mercenary enough to immediately release his hold and drop the scientist to the floor. 

Eggman let out a small cough as his general stood ominously before him, "Explain!"

With a gruff sigh, the mad scientist got to his feet, adjusted his jacket, and retrieved his tablet nearby, "Allow me to show you." While swiping through screens, he presented an animated chart that had two bar levels, while one side was clear, the other side filled gradually. "There you see? Plain as day."

"Be clearer," Infinite demanded, unable to comprehend the meaning of the graphs. Eggman then pointed at each as he explained, "This bar indicates the rodent's biological energy while this one represents the ionic energy I produced. You can see in past experiments of this nature, when the bar on the right went up, his statistics matched it if not surpassed the levels. Here, they're barely registering even at the maximum level. Since this energy is a vital component of his physiology, it stands to reason that these low levels combined with his inability to recuperate means his body is degenerating."

Eggman then shuffled over to the table, peering over at the fallen hero whom lay uresponsive with his glazed eyes staring at nothing, "To think, all these years of trying to rid myself of you and you're just going to fade away. Poetic." 

Infinite clenched his fists and spun the doctor around, "SAVE HIM!", he demanded, his voice resonating with unbridled anger as his glowing eye pierced into the villain's soul. 

The doctor looked on both amused and frightened, "I know you enjoy chewing on him, but there's nothing I can do! Who knows what's causing the decline, and on top of that, it took MONTHS to figure out how to stimulate his biological energy just to read it! Finding a means to effectively replenish it would take a lot more time than the rodent has! IT'S POINTLESS!!! Just finish fucking him while you have the chance and toss him out the airlock." 

In that split second, Infinite sent Eggman flying across the room, crashing through beakers and utensil tables before landing hard on the ground. Bleeding from the cuts the broken glass induced, the mad scientist was genuinely fearing for his life as he scurried backwards away from the approaching jackal, whose forboding presence manifested death itself. However, the mercenary steadied his hand. Rather than inflict more deserving punishment on the doctor, instead he returned to Sonic's side. With the flick of his finger, the shackles popped off his pet's limp limbs, allowing him to cradle him in his arms. As he carried him out the door, he made one last stern demand, "Find a way to save him, Doctor...or NOTHING will be able to save you."