Gadget left the house immediately after, mood already soured - more than it usually was, anyway. [i]Yet another crappy day to get through.[/i] Infinite’s expression and posture oozed arrogance, and the crimson wolf regretted even sparing him a glance as he stomped by. He scoffed when the illusionist had no trouble catching up and matching his pace.

“You sure are full of energy after your tantrum yesterday.”

The covert villain pretended to pull out a pad of paper and scrawl down a metaphorical mark on his tally.

“And you sure do love when I have my way with you. Keep sassing me, sweetheart… maybe you’ll overexcite me to the point where I’ll have no choice but to take you during your lunch break~”

“Ugh!!” [i]He sucks whether he’s losing his temper or in a good mood![/i]

The walk was luckily shorter than usual due to the rookie’s long, heavy strides. When they arrived at an area that looked short on workers, Gadget was all too happy to finally break free from the obnoxious jackal.

“Have a wonderful day, I will return for you in a bit~”

That had the wolf frozen in his tracks, neck stiffly turning to face the other canine.

“H..huh? Where are you going?”

“I have errands of my own to run. Be a good boy in my absence, hmm? You can misbehave for me in our room later tonight.”

Gadget was graced with an uncomfortably arrogant smirk, before Infinite stepped back between two buildings and teleported away. His hackles rose and his skin crawled at the response.

[i]Please just don’t kill anyone, dear Chaos… and that’s my room, not ours![/i]

___________

Shadow had returned to his place in better spirits than he’d been since his unfortunate discovery of Infinite’s well-being. He’d woken up early and started cooking breakfast for himself and his winged roommate, who now stood at the entrance of the kitchen in awe.

“You hate breakfast…”

“I’m in the mood for it today.”

Rouge continued to look him over as the shock wore off and wariness took its place.

“Shadow. Where were you last night? Everyone’s been worried about you; yesterday I got texts and calls from a few of the others asking how you were, and to keep an eye out on your behaviour. What happened? Are you having another bout of amnesia..?”

The biohog whipped around at the accusation. Rouge didn’t typically get anywhere near this concerned for him; he could only imagine what kind of libel they were making up about him for her to be staring at him as if he was the biolizard.

“[i]No[/i], and I’d rather not talk about it. No one believed me when I tried.” He paused after flipping the eggs, eyes on the yolks yet simultaneously unfocused. His previously scattered and jaded thoughts suddenly connected - it was then that he realized [i]he still had no idea what Infinite was planning.[/i]

“... I had supper with Gadget’s family. I wasn’t out having a manic episode or whatever stories Sonic and his clown troupe were feeding you.”

Shadow sighed when the look didn’t diminish at all. 

“The rookie again, why am I not surprised. He doesn’t need babysitting, and I’m still not sure why you care so much. Take the day off to relax, ‘kay hon?”

“It’s because I know that jackal isn’t what he claims to be, but fine then. It’s not like I’m aching to do volunteer work anyways.” There was no point in trying to talk some sense into her without proof.

After him and his bat companion had quietly eaten breakfast and cleaned up, she left with a quiet thanks and a quick ‘take care of yourself’. He hated when she was nice to him, because it always meant that she thought he wasn’t in his right mind and needed to be tiptoed around. She was going to a different site than Sonic, as they were both somewhat dubbed as directors of cleanup as well as restoration, and Rouge would have to uproot herself if she were to work in a city that was too far. 

“I will definitely regret giving this another shot, but faker can be convinced with enough pressure.”

________

A quick teleport to the areas that Sonic usually frequented had him tracked down fairly quickly. Shadow stood back for a moment, annoyed that he was going to have to get heated with his dumb counterpart. As he stepped forward and made himself known, Sonic was quick to notice him in his peripherals. [i]Hmm… he’s more alert than he gives the impression to be.[/i]

“Shadow… good morning to you! How are you feeling? You sure were out of sorts yesterday.”

The striped hog stared for a moment, crimson eyes hardened as if they could physically piece the weird words together. Sonic just needed a fedora to complete the absurdity in how he’d just spoken to him. Brushing it off, he got straight to the point.

“Faker, I’m not here with a tampered mind or a bone to pick with you, but I’m [i]telling[/i] you that ‘Zero’ is Infinite. I wouldn’t say this without sufficient proof, and it isn’t coming from an ‘I’m a speciesist bastard now’ place.”

Sonic seemed to pause for a moment, before hopping down from the convenience store he’d been helping with sign installation on.

“I’m still worried boutcha, dude! So I’ll let you in on something that Tails wanted to keep on the down low until he dug more into it: we found the guy’s ruby in Eggman’s biological research facility. Shattered, mind ya.”

It was complete shit if he’d ever heard any in his life. “No, definitely not his. Did you forget about all of the prototypes we’ve already been finding since well before Infinite was taken down?”

“Mm no… Tails already did a ton of testing on the remains, and the energy signature they release is a 100% match to what Infinite used.”

“The prototypes must somehow have the same signatures then.”

A grating ‘tut’ was heard from the other, blue quills swaying as he shook his head.

“Nope. He tested some of those and they’re all variants of the final copy, but still have key differences. The way Tails explained it to me is that the prototypes wouldn’t have been just that - [i]prototypes,[/i] that is - if they’d matched what the final product was.”

[i]How is this even possible? He is far too articulate to be lying to me.[/i]

“You should probably get home though, hmm? Rest up and whatnot…”

“Uh- that is not necessary. Farewell, I suppose…” 

With legs that needed elbow grease, Shadow made off to find somewhere out of sight for some thought rearranging. He sat on a dusty yellow milk crate a street over, in front of a china shop. His head was pounding from the annoyance of being brushed off once again.

[i]I don’t have amnesia. I can recognize the type of headache I get after my memory becomes skewed in some way, and this isn’t it at all.[/i]

Looking through the cracks of the decimated buildings, he could see the area he’d just spoken with Sonic in. The blue blur was still standing there even minutes after he’d parted, with a blank look on his face… and an occasional fuchsian hue emanating from his body. He grumbled at his repeated lack of intuition in a hushed tone.

[i]“Okay, no amnesia but maybe some arrogance and poor use of critical thinking skills. I don’t know how this shit works, but I was a fool not to consider that Infinite’s illusionary power wouldn’t have a long-lasting hold on him. Time to find the fox boy, I suppose…”[/i]

———————

It wasn’t like he’d been expected to help out that day, so he didn’t feel guilty when he warped to the formerly-hidden headquarters to hunt down Sonic’s vulpine friend. Though some time had passed since the war had ended, there were countless things aside from buildings that still needed repairs and upgrades - namely all of the military trucks and aircrafts that Infinite’s armies had trashed beyond operation. The first place he checked, the hangar, was of course where the two-tailed fox was found. Before Shadow could ascend the sets of stairs, a muffled boyish voice came from beneath a vehicle-shaped hunk of metal.

“Here to tamper with more of the resistance’s assets?”

Shadow cringed. 

“I figured there was no way that would slip past you. Sorry, but it was necessary to see if-”

“Zero was part of the resistance? He most certainly was, and currently is… he is a very hard worker and we appreciate everything he’s done to help us.”

Having already begun approaching the area where Tails was, he stopped dead in his tracks at the weird tone in his voice. He pinpointed a familiar faint hue of light beneath the damaged vehicle, which had him internally groaning. [i]Should I be surprised at this point? No, but I should [b]definitely[/b] be getting worried.[/i]

“Of course,” he pivoted on his toes to head for the exit, “well I was just checking in on the place since I have some time off to rest. Have a good day.” 

There was no point trying to snap the fox out of it; if Sonic was too enthralled by the phantom ruby’s power, then the meek kit wouldn’t have any better of a chance. The ebony hog ran a hand through his quills, annoyed that his scalp was accumulating sweat from the incoming dread. If Infinite had already put the kit under an illusion, who else would he have gotten to? It was obvious that the dark canine had really put a lot of thought into his plans to manage that while keeping Gadget in his back pocket, and Shadow would have to do things himself - he was only wasting time while the menace was getting further ahead of him, doing only Chaos knows what. 

[i]I might need to pull off a wolf-napping. I don’t even know if Infinite actually likes the rookie to such an extent, but stealing Gadget away is the only potential leverage I can think of.[/I]