The next day, we find Twilight, Starlight, Fluttershy, and Sonic (who now wore "bulkier" gloves and sleeker shoes that had outsoles that were made of metal) inside a large lab that had more advanced equipment than those found in Twilight's and Starlight's labs.

"Twilight, you always seem to amaze me when it comes to getting anything you need." Starlight commented.

"Well, aside from the lead director himself, I am the top scientist here in H.A.R.M.O.N.Y, so it makes sense that I usually get what I want." Twilight said, almost as if she was boasting.

"So everything we need is in this lab?" Starlight asked.

"Almost everything." Twilight corrected, "A few more things are being brought here as we speak. While we wait for them, we might as well get subject 76642 ready."

With that said, Twilight pulled out her tablet and typed in a few commands, causing a nearby stasis pod to open.

"Alright Subject 76642, step inside the stasis pod and prepare for stasis." Twilight said.

Without saying a word, Sonic made his way inside the stasis pod before lifting his arms above his head and separating his his legs. Once in position, titanium clamps closed around his hands and feet, holding him in place.

With Sonic in strapped inside, the stasis pod closed, releasing a gas that made him fall asleep before an air mask was clamped onto his muzzle, followed shortly by water that began to fill the stasis pod.

Pulling out her own tablet, Starlight checked Sonic's vitals and smiled at what she saw.

"Everything went off without a hitch." Starlight said.

"Good, now all that's left is the things I asked for." Twilight said.

As if on cue, Moondancer entered the lab while carrying a large box in her arms.

"Good, there's one of them." Twilight said when she saw this.

"I have no idea what you're planning to do with these things, but you better be careful." Moondancer said as she placed the box on a table next to the stasis pod before exiting the lab.

Smiling, Twilight approached the box and opened it, revealing seven colorful gems within.

"The chaos emeralds?" Starlight asked, a hint of surprise present in her voice, "What do you plan to do with them."

"You'll see." Twilight said, "Now all we need to wait for now is-"

Before Twilight could finish, a blue mobian unicorn entered the lab while pushing a cart that had a tarp over it.

"Trixie does not know what you could possibly want with something so vile, but you're the one using it, not Trixie." The mobian unicorn said before leaving the cart next to the stasis pod and exited the lab.

Curious about what Trixie meant, Starlight made her way to the cart before removing the tarp, revealing several canisters that were labeled D.C.E.

"Dark chaos energy!" Starlight exclaimed in shock (along with a hint of anger in her voice), "Twilight, are you out of your mind! How could you even consider using this stuff after what happened two days ago?!"

"Come on Starlight, we didn't have any control over what happened at the time." Twilight argued, "Besides, now that we're aware of what's happening, we could monitor the amount of dark chaos energy within subject 76642's body and find out what amount is too much for him to handle."

"That doesn't change the fact that this is a bad idea." Starlight argued back, "Due to our lack of understanding of that stuff, there could be a lot of things that could make the entire process go south."

"Come on Starlight, you're overreacting." Twilight said, "As long as we monitor everything very closely, the experiment should go smoothly. Besides, what could go wrong?"

'Famous last words.' Starlight thought to herself about Twilight's last comment, before hesitantly saying, "...Fine, let's get this over with. But expect an "I told you so" if something does end up going wrong."

"Whatever." Twilight said as she rolled her eyes, "Let's just get everything set up."

A couple minutes later, the chaos emeralds and one canister of the dark chaos energy was connected to the stasis pod Sonic was in while Twilight, Starlight, and Fluttershy where at a nearby computer.

"Do you mind running me by the whole process again?" Starlight asked Twilight, "I want to be a hundred percent certain as to what's happening."

Twilight let out an irritated sigh before saying, "Okay to explain how the process goes, AGAIN, the dark chaos energy will be siphoned out of it's canister and poured into the chaos emeralds, making them produce even more dark chaos energy and allowing us to save the rest of the canisters for later experiments. With the chaos emeralds acting as an endless supply of dark chaos energy, we will use the stasis pod's built-in chaos infuser to infuse the dark chaos energy into subject 76642's body similar to how we would in normal tests, except we'll put half of what we normally would inject. After that, we could begin testing to see how much more powerful he is when infused with dark chaos energy compared to normal chaos energy. And once that's done, we can start infusing dark chaos energy into other subjects and further advance our research here in H.A.R.M.O.N.Y."

"...I think you're planning too ahead there, Twilight." Starlight said, "Even if this experiment turns out to be a success, it'll be a long time before any of that could happen."

"Then it would be best to start now so we could make it happen sooner." Twilight said before turning to Fluttershy, "Okay Fluttershy, tell subject 76642 that testing is about to begin."

Nodding, Fluttershy closed her eyes and began to concentrate.

However, before Fluttershy could enter Sonic's mind, Twilight suddenly said, "Oh, before you create the link, know this, you mustn't tell subject 76642 that we're going to infuse him with dark chaos energy."

Taken off guard by this, Fluttershy turned towards Twilight with a confused expression before asking, "Why shouldn't I? It would allow him to be prepared for the pain he may have to endure."

"If he knew that we were going to infuse him with dark chaos energy, he could become panicked, making him more prone to negative effects." Twilight explained, "For his sake and our own, it's best that he doesn't know about this."

Although she didn't want to, Fluttershy nodded before closing her eyes and linking her mind with Sonic's.

Yet again finding herself in a dark void, Fluttershy was about to wonder around when she heard a voice say, "Let me guess, testing is about to begin?"

Although she was a bit caught off guard by the statement, Fluttershy nodded before responding, "That's right. Are you ready?"

"As ready as I'll ever be." Sonic replied as he appeared in front of Fluttershy, "Is there anything I should keep in mind during the experiment?"

Fluttershy hesitated for a moment before finally replying, "...No, nothing at all."

"If you say so." Sonic said, "Well, it's best if we get this over with."

Nodding, Fluttershy closed her eyes and began to concentrate.

However, Fluttershy stopped before the link was broken and exclaimed, "Wait!"

Surprised by the sudden outburst, Sonic said, "What is it?"

Fluttershy hesitated again (she was deciding whether to go through with this after all) before finally saying, "...They're planning to infuse dark chaos energy into you as the experiment."

Hearing this caught Sonic's attention.

"I know that I was told to not tell you this, but you have the right to know and I shouldn't take that away!" Fluttershy exclaimed before lowering her head in shame, expecting Sonic to yell at her for lying.

What Fluttershy didn't expect was to hear Sonic chuckle.

"Looks like it really was a good idea to trust you." Sonic said.

"Y-You're not mad?" Fluttershy asked, confused by the hedgehog's response.

"Of course not." Sonic replied, "Seeing how you were willing to risk getting in trouble for my sake is enough to show me that you actually care about us subjects, unlike everyone else that works here."

"Unlike everyone else?" Fluttershy asked. While she did (in a way) understand why he would say that for Twilight, she could speak for all the other researchers since she hadn't the chance to get to know them yet.

"That isn't important right now." Sonic said, "For now, you should go tell them that I'm ready. Wouldn't want to keep them waiting."

Although still confused about Sonic's earlier statement, Fluttershy concentrated before suddenly being engulfed in a bright light.

After regaining her senses, Fluttershy turned towards Twilight and said, "He's ready."

"Perfect, now we can begin." Twilight said

With that said, Twilight typed in some commands in the computer.

Soon after, dark chaos energy began to make it's way towards the chaos emeralds through a series of tubes before making contact with the gems. The gems themselves took a slightly darker hue as they began to pulse with dark energy.

Simply seeing dark infused gems made Fluttershy shudder. Although she wasn't entirely sure why, she got an incredibly bad vibe from the dark gems and had to resist the urge to get as far away from them as she could.

"Step one is now done, and without no issues whatsoever." Twilight said, "Now to step two."

After more commands were typed in, dark energy was extracted from the chaos emeralds before going into a series of tubes that led into the chaos infuser.

Once there was enough of the dark energy inside the chaos infuser, the machine sparked with dark energy as a sphere of dark energy formed at it's tip.

When the chaos infuser had enough energy, it fired a small beam (about as wide as a pencil) at Sonic, making a dark aura form around his body.

"Chaos reading are steadily rising." Twilight said as she observed Sonic's vitals, "A bit erratic at times, but steady."

This continued for five seconds before Twilight typed in the stop command, halting the entire process.

"Why'd you stop it so soon?" Starlight asked.

"According to the reading, subject 76642 already has reached half of what we would normally infuse with normal chaos energy, in terms of pure power that is." Twilight responded.

"What?!" Starlight excaimed in shock, "Compared to normal chaos energy, we hardly put that much dark chaos energy into him!"

"Just goes to show how much more potent dark chaos energy is compared to it's uncorrupted counterpart." Twilight said before taking a look at Sonic.

The dark aura that surrounded the mobian hedgehog lingered for a moment before retreating into his body, revealing that his entire body was now a shade darker than it normally would be.

"Should his body be like that?" Fluttershy asked in concern.

Twilight took a look at the computer before replying, "His vitals are completely normal. It's probably just a side affect from the dark chaos energy. That aside, it's time for testing."

Turning back to the computer, Twilight typed in some commands before turning towards the stasis pod.

The pod itself opened it's clamps that held Sonic's arms and legs in place before draining the water. (The air mask detaching itself once his head was out of the water)

Once all the water was drained, the stasis pod opened, followed by Sonic opening his eyes (revealing that they were now darker in color like the rest of his body) before he stood up strait.

Not a moment later several parts of the floor behind the pod opened, revealing some of the fitness equipment that would normally be used in testing raise up until it was leveled with the ground.

"Now for the real testing to begin." Twilight said, "First up, we'll test strength."

Without saying a word, Sonic walked up to a machine that had what appeared to be a large red button with a screen above it the read "0000." Sonic simply raised a fist, reared it back, and struck button as hard as he could.

Completely smashing the machine with enough force it was nearly uprooted from the floor.

Seeing this shocked Twilight and Starlight. Never once did something like this happen before. Not even subject 58625537, who's known to be their stongest subject in terms of pure strength, couldn't damage the machine.

"T-That's not possible!" Starlight exclaimed, "The strength measurement device was specifically built to resist all forms of blunt damage!"

After regaining her composure, Twilight cleared her throat before saying, "Well then, that just means we'll need to further reinforce it so that it could be used in future testing. Now then, it's time to measure Subject 76642's speed."

Exactly one second after Twilight said that, Sonic somewhat rushed towards the treadmill and got on it, getting himself in a running position as he waited for the device to start.

Fluttershy was initially confused by this action at first, but quickly remembered that Sonic mentioned that he enjoyed running a lot.

Rolling her eyes at Sonic, Twilight turned towards the computer before activating the treadmill.

Rather than starting off slow like a normal treadmill, the machine instantly began at a thousand miles per hour, a speed Sonic was easily able to keep pace with.

Sonic then began to build up his speed, making the speed meter raise rapidly by doing so.

Seemingly uninterested, Twilight began to stare out into space when she suddenly heard beeping. Turning towards the computer, she was shocked to see that Sonic's speed had already reached well beyond what most mobians could comprehend. Taking a good look at the numbers, she was absolutely shocked to see that he was moving beyond light speed, and that the speed was still raising.

"Subject 76642, stop!" Twilight exclaimed, "You're overloading the speed meter!"

Despite not wanting to just yet, Sonic jumped off the treadmill, allowing the machine to try and stop itself.

However, the speed was too much that the machine could handle and it ended up exploding due to both overwork and overheat, yet again leaving the the researches in awe.

Everyone remained quiet for a moment until Starlight said weakly, "...Looks like we know what else needs reinforcement for future testing."

After some more testing along with more equipment being completely destroyed, we find Sonic inside the stasis pod, fastened inside and in stasis.

"I have to say Twilight, you've proven me wrong." Starlight said, "Despite the fact that Subject 76642 wrecked practically all of the equipment we got for him, he didn't go on a rampage like he did a few days ago."

"It's like I said Starlight, by monitoring how much dark chaos energy is used, we could prevent such outbursts from occurring." Twilight said.

"I'll say." Starlight said, "Maybe dark chaos energy could advance our research if all of our tests are like this."

Hearing this made Twilight somewhat prideful, but it made Fluttershy thoughtful.

'While I'm happy things are currently well, it shouldn't be this well.' Fluttershy thought to herself, 'Considering how bad of a reaction Sonic had when he was first exposed to dark chaos energy, there's no way he should be this calm and collected in such short time. While I hope I'm wrong, another outburst should happen again at some point.'

"Now then," Twilight said as she turned towards the computer, "Time to take the dark energy out of him and save it for later use."

Once the commands were typed in, the chaos infuser came to life again, only now it was set to extraction mode.

However, after running for a moment, the mobian ponies saw that absolutely no energy came out.

"That, doesn't seem good." Starlight commented.

"Perhaps the suction isn't strong enough." Twilight said before typing in a command, only to find the result to be unchanged, "What the?!"

"That shouldn't be possible!" Starlight said, "The energy should of been extracted by now, just like it was before! What could of changed?"

As she analyzed the situation, Twilight thought back to when they initially removed the dark chaos energy two days ago.

Believing she found an answer, Twilight said, "I think I've got it. It's risky, but it should work."

"Just from hearing that, I'm afraid to ask what you've got planned." Starlight said.

Ignoring what Starlight's words, Twilight said, "We're going to put more dark chaos energy into him before immediately putting the chaos infuser back to extraction mode. With there being a somewhat continuous stream of dark energy acting as a connection, the chaos infuser should be able to use it to pull out the dark energy out of subject 76642, similar to how it was done two days ago."

"...While I would argue that plan is incredibly risky, I can't think of any alternatives that would be less risky." Starlight admitted in a somewhat defeated tone.

"Should I attempt to communicate with subject 76642 and attempt to keep him calm throughout the process?" Fluttershy asked.

"It's probably best you didn't." Twilight replied, "If there's even a small possibility the dark chaos energy could be transfered through your mental link, it's risk we cannot take."

'That's what's she isn't willing to risk?!' Starlight mentally exclaimed, 'While Fluttershy is turning out to be very valuable to our research, It's ridiculous how Twilight is willing to put our most important subject at risk but isn't willing to risk something with incredibly low odds!'

With there being nothing else to say, Twilight activated the chaos infuser.

After taking a moment to power up, the machine began to pump more dark energy into Sonic. Thankfully, there didn't appear to be any negative effects upon doing so.

Seeing that there wasn't any issues, Twilight set the chaos infuser into extraction mode.

Within milliseconds, the dark energy's flow went from going into Sonic to exiting him.

Almost as soon as the extraction began, a warning popped up on the computer, saying that Sonic's heart rate was rising. This was accompanied with Sonic occasionally twitching, seemingly in pain.

Noticing this, Fluttershy asked, "Should we be worried about this?"

"I don't believe so." Twilight responded, "This usually happens to new subjects that aren't used to the extraction process. With dark chaos energy being so different from normal chaos energy, it may take Subject 76642 a few tests before his body could-"

Before Twilight could, the computer began to loud bleeps.

Instantly turning towards the computer, Twilight was horrified to see that Sonic's heart rate had reached dangerous levels. Things got worse when she saw that the dark chaos energy was somehow fighting the chaos infusers' pull and forcing it's way back into Sonic.

"Th-That's not possible!" Twilight exclaimed.

Noticing the readings, Starlight yelled, "Twilight, turn it off now!"

"We can't!" Twilight yelled back, "If we do that, we'll end up having a repeat of what happened last time! While it'll cause him some pain, we need to remove the dark chaos energy from Subject 76642's body by any means necessary!"

Also though she didn't like it, Starlight knew that Twilight was right.

"...If that's the case, then do what you need to do." Starlight hesitantly said.

Without saying anything else, Twilight set the chaos infuser to it's highest extraction level.

It was at this point that Sonic began writhing and screaming in pain, (although his screams were muffled by both his air mask and the water that surrounded his body) as the dark chaos energy was forcibly pulled from his body with great force, causing dark sparks to surge around him and the machine.

Clenching his eyes and teeth, Sonic could only think about how painful this entire experiencing is, and how he wanted it to be over already.

However, this led to him think back all his previous experiments he was forced to endure and how many of them caused him a great deal of pain as well.

The more he thought about it, the angrier he became, and this continued until only one thing was on his mind.

'I'M GONNA BURN H.A.R.M.O.N.Y. TO THE GROUND!!!'' Sonic yelled mentally.

Almost as if in response to his thoughts, Sonic's entire body began to turn jet black as he suddenly stopped his struggling.

Sonic the let out a roar as he effortlessly broke the clamps that held him in place, startling the three scientists.

Once free, Sonic let out another roar, this time causing a dark aura to extend out of his body with enough force to destroy both his stasis pod and the chaos infuser, along with vaporizing his air mask and his control collar.

Absolutely terrified, the three scientists huddled together as they watched Sonic straighten his body.

Without saying a word, Sonic turned his head towards the scientists before opening his eyes, revealing that they were completely white.

(Imagine that he has his new gloves and shoes)

Author's Note

Wow, I've been slacking for quite some time now. That aside, I'm happy that I at least released an update. Feel free to give some feedback, I would greatly appreciate it.