"-and I swear for a second I thought that he was dead. But no, he's tough as a brick, that one." 46 finished recounting the past events, giving a low chuckle. He knelt next to Sonic, still lying against the car, as Silver inspected Sonic's numerous burns and injuries. After, the hedgehogs carefully set Sonic on the ground stomach first. 46 lifted up the back of Sonic's charred hoodie as Silver examined it closely, taken aback by the amount of dark, purple bruises like macabre patchwork. He edged his fingers along the hedgehog's spine and latissimus dorsi, lightening his touch when he gasped in pain.

"Hey, 46, you said that you guys were originally trying to find me, right?" asked Silver, providing light conversation.

46 nodded. "Yeah, either you or 23, she's pretty good at this stuff." 46 suddenly lapsed into a trance as he thought of 28, feelings of melancholy happiness rushing through his heart. "Or as a last resort, 28. But he'd probably just make everything worse."

"I really don't know any of these..people..you're talking about. And I don't understand why they're numbers-"

"You'll meet 28 soon, don't worry. And 28's a lot like you. Just a lot more ruthless." 46 settled for that explanation.

"...anyway, I was just wondering how you knew about my abilities. Or even about me, rather." He tensed as his prodding elicited a shriek from Sonic.

"I don't want to explain out here. It's not safe. Let's just say that I have this friend."

Silver finally stopped pressing him for answers and returned his attention to his patient lying on the cold concrete. "Okay, this will probably hurt, but you'll thank me later." And with that, Silver hovered his hands a few inches above Sonic's skin, sucking in a breath. Sonic unwrapped his scarf and stuffed it into his mouth, crossing his arms and laying his head on them.

On the exhale, teal wisps of energy flowed from his glowing veins, through his hands, and into Sonic's back, and at once light spread through his body from that central point, like ripples in a pool. Sonic, tensing violently all over, gave muffled screams. Sharp cracks were heard as the bones in his back reset themselves, growing new sinews and blood vessels, leaving only faint scars. The energy cycled through the blood, removing bruises and rejuvenating the blood cells. The skin patched itself up, healing the gaping wounds and leaving only dried blood. Once the healing was over, the tendrils of light rose out of Sonic's body and back into Silver's hands, which he clenched, stopping the flow of energy. His job done, Silver sat back on his heels, waiting for a response from the hedgehog.

After a few moments, Sonic tore the scarf out of his mouth and took a deep breath, placing his hands by his side on the ground. He slowly lifted himself into a plank position, then stepped his feet forward until he was squatting, then pushed himself into a standing position. He swayed a little on unsteady legs, to which Silver lent a hand. Once he regained his balance and his legs stopped shaking, Sonic patted Silver's shoulder to let him know he'd be alright, and started walking.

Feeling at once energetic, he started stretching his muscles by jogging in a circle, then doing some stretches. "Gee, I really love that power of yours, Silver! Thank you so very much." He exclaimed, smiling.

"It's nothing, really. Just doing a favor for a friend." Silver said. Sonic's smile was contagious.

"I hate to break the moment, but we gotta go. Now, preferably. Since you're better, we should probably make good time getting there." Scourge declared, shrugging his pack on.

"Wait, I have a chaos emerald. I could just teleport us a few miles out from the place." Silver stated, taking out his blue gem.

"That is awfully convenient, but why a few miles out?" Sonic asked.

"Oh, it's a security measure. Keeps people from teleporting directly inside. Even though they would have to know what the place looks like in order to teleport. Can't exactly conjure in your mind what you think it looks like. Doesn't work that way." Silver broke off his speech as he motioned for them to grab a part of his jacket. And with that, they disappeared in a blue flash.

Sonic felt like he was hurtling down a dark shaft, his stomach dropping. It was all over in a matter of seconds, and when he came to, he found himself landing lightly on hard packed ground. 46 and Silver dropped beside him, gaining their footing. Standing, he looked around.

The landscape was vastly different than the city, and slightly reminded him of the empty space of land when they were escaping the hospital/base. They stood on a hill overlooking a fairly large valley. Light flakes of snow drifted in the air, and a blanket of snow covered the ground. The sun was setting below the horizon, only a peek of dim sunshine lighting up the sky. A small town could be seen in the distance, and mountains rose up on the east side of the valley.

Below them, a few miles away, a crashed truck lay on its side, a wreckage of cars piled alongside it. It was horribly misplaced in the empty valley. As for the base they were supposedly going to, Sonic didn't see anything around.

"Hey, I thought you were only placing us a few miles out." Sonic stated, looking at Silver with a confused expression. 46 copied it, looking around.

Silver chuckled, saying, "Come on, Sonic, I thought you were smarter than this." He immediately started walking down the hill, leaving the two hedgehogs to follow after him. Once Sonic saw in which direction he was walking, he understood.

A few minutes later, they were standing in front of the wreckage of vehicles. "See how the cars are piled on the truck? It hides the door and makes it hard to get to." Silver said.

"This can't be your only entrance. It's useful, but what about emergencies?" 46 asked, studying the wreckage.

"Oh, we have another entrance, but to be frank, I don't really trust you enough yet to show it to you," Silver saw 46's hurt expression. "Sorry, but after years of this, you learn to be cautious."

"Years?" Sonic half whispered to himself.

Silver crawled under one of the cars, and Sonic and 46 followed. They could barely see the hatch at the back of the fallen truck, as dark as it was. After punching in a code, Silver opened the hatch and crawled inside. Sonic followed after him, crawling until he got into the truck and saw there was enough room to stand. They were instantly shrouded in darkness as Silver locked the hatch behind them.

"Well this is fun." Sonic said, eliciting a chuckle from 46.

"Hold on, the door's usually somewhere over here." Silver's voice echoed.

"You mean sometimes it likes to move itself?" 46 said sarcastically.

Suddenly a loud bang was heard, making Sonic's skin jump. A shard of light beamed up from the open hatch in the floor.

"I found it." Silver announced, his features lit up.

"I didn't notice." 46 grumbled.

The two made their way over to Silver, dropping down the ladder and shutting the hatch behind them. When Sonic reached the bottom of the ladder, he found himself in a round room, and an elevator was situated in the wall to their left. Besides that, the room was sparse.

Sonic followed behind Silver as the elevator opened, stepping inside and watching as the hedgehog pressed the one of two buttons on the panel, for the first floor.

When the elevator came to a stop, the doors opened with a chorus of shrieks.

Immediately Silver knew something was wrong. The silence was thick where usually there were the heated conversations of his comrades or the whirring of the large computers situated in the anteroom. This was the main room of their base, and as such was host to debates, discussions, and battle plans. Stairs led down from the elevator on each side, and many desks and chairs were scattered throughout. A row of large screens sat in the front wall, currently off. Three tunnels branched off from the main room.

Silver walked out of the elevator and, stilling his breathing, listened. Sonic protested, and Silver put his index finger up, quieting him. The computers were off when they were normally on 24/7. He couldn't hear any voices coming from the tunnels.

"Stay in this room and keep quiet." He muttered to the two behind him and started walking towards one of the tunnels.

"Hey, we are totally capable of handling ourselves-" 46 growled, but was interrupted.

"You will stay, because you don't know the base or the people in it." Silver growled back, and was gone up the stairs. 46 grumbled obscenities and sat in a leatherback chair, propping his feet up on a desk. Sonic was surprised at his lack of alarm, but didn't question it. He felt a need to explore and get to know the base, but he obeyed his friends. Usually. To keep busy, he fiddled with a torn pocket in his jacket.

Sonic jumped when a loud screeching noise sounded from all sides and the lights went out. 46's breathing went still next to him. A few seconds later, screams were heard from the tunnel Silver had gone through moments ago, and Sonic dashed towards the source of the sound. Quickly and quietly, he made his way up a spiral staircase situated at the end of the tunnel. He barely went up ten steps before the lights came on, and the whirring from the anteroom told him the computers were on again.

46 was nowhere to be seen, but Sonic dismissed it, now bounding headlong up the stairs, nearly tripping as he went. Vaguely, he noticed blood slowly streaming down the steps.

He couldn't take in the room as he saw a Silver kneeling in front of what was probably the source of the blood. "Silver?" He asked, alarmed, dashing up to the hedgehog.

The first thing he noticed was orange fur.