A/N : I've literally never published a fic before in my life so we'll see how this goes I guess...
I have not found a single Sonighty fic... not one... and because of that I decided to make a long as hell slow burn fic for them. I have an outline but I'm mostly just going with the flow and what feels right. This is meant to take place in the Archie-verse, post-SGW but assuming all the stuff with Ray, Sonic, Mighty, and the Power Gem all happened the same. If you don't read the comics, you can still enjoy the story! There may be a few characters you're unfamiliar with, though.
I'll be posting the first few chapters relatively close together (since I have them all mostly finished) and then I'll be posting the following chapters as I complete them.
All rights reserved, I don't own anyone in this fic they all belong to Sega, etc etc.
Mighty fiddled with the buckle on the cuff of his glove nervously. The sun had set long ago and Sonic was 20 minutes late for their meeting. He knew the hero of Mobius wasn't exactly the most punctual character, but this mission had him feeling particularly on edge. Ray had taken to resting his head on Mighty's shoulder, his eyes closed and his breathing rhythmic. Mighty was thankful to the young squirrel for the physical contact, as touch usually helped to keep him grounded when nervous.
"Am I going to have to start bringing Tails along just to compete with you two?"
Mighty saw a blur out of the corner of his eye as the hedgehog landed next to him, dusting off twigs and debris from his gloves and shoes. The armadillo sighed and rolled his shoulder to wake Ray up. He stood and turned on his ankle to face the visitor, arms crossed across his chest.
"You're late, blue. We were supposed to be on our way to the base by now." Mighty's expression was stern as he scanned Sonic. The hedgehog's quills were disheveled from his run through the jungle, and his shoes had dirt and mud caked around the soles.
Sonic ran a hand through his quills in embarrassment. "Honestly, Mighty? This place is hella hard to navigate… I mean a guy can only go through so many ravines before they start blending together."
"... You got lost? I thought I sent you guys coordinates before you left sky patrol?" Mighty raised an eyebrow in confusion.
"No yeah uh… I kinda ran into some trouble on the way here and…" The hedgehog held up his wrist to show his communicator, along with a pretty decently sized spike that was lodged in the center of its screen.
"Chaos, how the hell did that happen?" Mighty took a step forward and gingerly removed the communicator from Sonic's wrist. It was pretty heavy with the spike on it, even the blue blur himself would have trouble running with this thing attached to his arm. "You are one lucky hedgehog, any less sturdy and that spike would've cut your hand clean off!"
Sonic rubbed his sore wrist and chuckled before quickly changing the subject, "So my main point to all that was that the badniks really mean business today," Now it was his turn to raise an eyebrow to his friend. "What is it we're dealing with that you couldn't tell me through Nicole?"
Mighty turned his head and nodded to Ray, still rubbing sleep from his eyes. The sunny companion yawned and stood up, stammering out the situation while Mighty attempted to pull the spike out of what was once Sonic's communicator.
"About a w-week ago, w-we were attempting to intercept some signals b-b-between Eggman and Thunderbolt. The signals were almost imp-p-possible to decrypt, and w-we ended up g-getting caught on their servers m-m-more than once. But using some context clues w-w-we were able to f-figure out something!" Ray clapped his hands excitedly, "Y-you see, not too long before Thunderb-bolt started sending all those messages, a m-m-m-meteor crashed only a few miles away from Rocky Jungle, or s-s-so we thought!"
Mighty stepped up to Ray's side, tossing the spike behind him, impaling the trunk of a tree. "Thunderbolt has a Power Gem."
Sonic blinked a few times through the binoculars and spoke aloud: "Okay so that's e-110, plus several guys with what look like some really big guns amongst those with some regular but still decently sized ones, counting T.B. whose probably somewhere with her giant robo-suit, you really think we can take these guys with just the three of us?"
"That's just it, we can't." Mighty said, grabbing the binoculars and peering through to their target. "This isn't a loud mission. We don't need the power gem, we just need to know what they're doing with it." He passed the binoculars off to Ray, "They've been upping security over the past few days, but they probably think we still don't know they have it. The messages were encrypted enough that we only figured out what was going on because the energy readings Thunderbolt was sending Eggman looked familiar."
Sonic raised his hand to his face and pressed a finger to his chin as he looked over the base from a distance. It looked different than the last time he was here. The quarry walls were lined with mining badniks, and the Egg Army soldiers stationed there were placed in a sort of hexagonal pattern around the main building. "Mighty, you know I'm not really the sneaky type. What do you guys even need me for here?"
"M-Mighty and I have been causing Thunderbolt t-trouble for the past few w-w-weeks by ourselves." Ray piped up from behind the binoculars.
Mighty continued "If they do expect an attack from us, they'll just be expecting me and Ray. You're our trump-card, Sonic." Mighty gave the hedgehog a gentle (by Mighty standards) punch to the shoulder, "If we do manage to get a hold of the power gem we're going to need a quick getaway. Not only that but they're not going to expect a visit from the Sonic the hedgehog, not as long as the world isn't in immediate peril."
Sonic felt a bit of a boost in his pride, it was true that he hadn't paid the Soumerca Egg Army a visit since the world had become whole again. He could really grind Egg-head's gears if they managed to pull this off without getting caught. Mighty must have noticed the smirk grow on his face because he grabbed Sonic's shoulder and immediately followed his statement, "Sonic, remember this is an espionage mission, we're not-"
Sonic interrupted "Yeah, yeah, info first, glowing energy stone second. I got this, big man, don't worry about me." He gave a thumbs up and an enthusiastic wink.
Mighty smiled warmly before Ray chimed in once again, "Thunderbolt just came out of the m-main construct to the east, outside the quarry. I th-think that's where they're k-keeping it." He pointed a gloved hand to the largest of the buildings in the quarry.
Sonic tugged up on the cuff of his socks with a grin. "Then that's where we're headed. Try to keep up, Mighty."
Mighty turned to the young flyer "Ray, keep watch, I don't want you going anywhere near the power gem. Beep my comm. three times if you see anything and we'll head right back."
The two moved back into the underbrush and made their way around the perimeter of the quarry. Mighty kept a map with him, marking areas where they found large pieces of debris from the now defunct mining project.
A thought crossed Sonic's mind. "So if the chaos emerald mining is kaput, what's with all the mining badniks?" He asked just above a whisper. "I mean, what else is there to find?"
There was silence for a few moments before Mighty whispered "I'm not sure, but maybe they're just digging for whatever they can find at this point. Moss says nobody's ever tried digging around here before, says it's too far out from any cities for someone to try."
He marked another piece of large debris on his map. Once they reached the opposite side of the quarry the east building came into view. It was huge, a giant metal construct shaped like the top half of a missile, the logo of the Egg Army plastered on all sides. Sonic chuckled a bit at the visual of Eggman's big, grinning face staring down at him.
Mighty pressed a hand to the communicator in his ear, "We're going in, Ray."
"Let's make some noise."
