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Disclaimer: Sonic the Hedgehog and all official characters are copyrighted by SEGA and Sonic Team. This story and any original characters are copyrighted by me.
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SECTOR 687/B CO-ORDINATES 683-445 221-948 1045 LOCAL TIME
It was an unassuming quiet little village. With a collection of huts made mostly from clay bricks with rudimentary straw roofing arrangements, the village was not what you'd call an A-list holiday destination. The few hundred villagers that called this little piece of the outback home were as neat and rustic as the village that they inhabited. Most of the villagers worked in the large expanse of maize fields that took up several acres outside the village boundaries. Every so often, one of them would take a donkey and a wagon and walk the two day trek to one of the larger towns in an attempt to sell their wares. For almost 365 days a year, the view from any window of any hut was the same as it had been the previous day. Harsh sunlight beating down on baked mud flooring, children playing with a few toys bought during the previous trip into town. Often a chicken, a dog or a pig could be found sunning in the road or hunting for a casually dropped piece of grain. But today was a different case. Today, just off the main road that ran through the village, there was a van.
The van was a deep olive-green. It was large, about the size of a camper van and had tinted windows. No logos or symbols adorned it's flanks and, after waking up to this new arrival, the few villagers who had tried the doors had found them resolutely locked
Rouge the bat grabbed another can of soda from the cooler wedged in the footwell of the van and turned the air-conditioning up another notch. The white bat was not dressed in her usual stylish manner and was instead relegated to wearing a plain black suit with a white shirt underneath. Her regular clothing for going on missions was hanging up in her wardrobe back in Club Rouge and the fact that she was wearing a black suit in this triple degree heat was not making her feel any more optimistic about what she was here to do.
She grabbed another can and offered it to the figure slouched in the passenger seat. Shadow glanced up from where he had been staring at a slightly interesting chicken and grabbed the can. Rouge snapped the lid of the cooler shut again and put her feet up on the dashboard. Shadow had already finished his drink and the discarded can now joined several of it's brethren in Shadow's footwell. Rouge opened her own can and glanced at the ebony hedgehog.
"What's wrong Shadow?" she asked, taking a swig of drink. "It's not like you to be so quiet just before a mission." Shadow glared at her. The black hedgehog's eyes were half closed and he kept shaking his head ever so slightly in order to keep himself grounded in reality. Occasionally one his ears would flick as a fly that had squeezed through the tiny chink in the windows landed on his head. If you looked closely, you could tell that his eyes were slightly bloodshot.
"I don't appreciate early starts." he stated bluntly, there was only the faintest hint of anger in his voice but Rouge had been on enough missions with Shadow to pick up on the faint nuances of irritation that, if unchecked could bloom into full-blown fury. Rouge rolled her eyes and picked up a pair of sunglasses from their storage space in the cup-holder. With a flick of her head to get any stray hairs out of her eyes, Rouge put the glasses on and went back to studying the road in front of them. After a few minutes of observation, Rouge half-turned to look through the glass partition into the back of the van.
"You OK in the back there Omega?" She asked. There was silence for a few moments before a digital "Affirmative" filtered through the holes in the glass. Twisting in her seat, Rouge turned to get a better look at the third member of the group.
E-123 Omega was currently sitting in the far corner of the van. Every single compartment on his chassis that held a weapon was empty and Omega was currently inspecting every bullet and magazine with the utmost care before slotting the weapon back into it's appointed space. GUN had at least been thoughtful enough to provide a van large enough to comfortably house Omega and all of his weaponry. Omega's flamethrower, rocket launcher and particle cannon arm weaponry were hanging on hooks mounted in the wall and Omega was trying to screw his chain gun attachment into it's slot on his left arm.
Logically, Shadow was allowed to be angry, after all, he had been woken up at two in the morning and bustled into a private aircraft with his partners. And, after a seven hour flight, Team Dark (as lesser agents had begun calling them) had landed on foreign tarmac. Rouge had had a brown envelope pressed into her hands and the group had been ushered into their vehicle, which had been stowed in the cargo hold on the plane and told to drive to the coordinates written on the cover of the envelope. Once there, Rouge had opened the mission briefing and read it out to her team mates.
Apparently, this quaint village was set to be the drop off point for one of the biggest money drops in the history of organised crime. The mission briefing had been deliberately hazy with regards to the details, as it usually was for security reasons. However, inside the envelope was a wedge of marked bills bound up in a rubber band. Once the drop had been made, the trio would apparently have a two minute window to swap one of the stacks for their own stack of marked bills. Other than this objective, all other details of the mission were left to the operatives themselves. Rouge, assuming her usual mantle of team leader had decided that Shadow would be the sole member of the team to make the exchange, with Rouge and Omega waiting in reserve for support. However, all the intelligence that had been given to them suggested that there were no enemy forces in the area. But, with such a high profile mission, GUN had decided to take no chances with the success of the operation and had placed their most efficient agents on the case.
Shadow hadn't approved of being summoned on what he considered to be such an easy job. Whilst the ebony hedgehog had been grateful in his own way for the pay check and status that GUN had bestowed upon him, the hedgehog still considered himself to be above such trivial missions. But, regardless of his personal feelings, GUN still paid his wages and so he went where he was told.
The heat of the rising sun, and the warm atmosphere of the van's cabin meant that Rouge's attention was growing lax. Her eyelids drooped and more than once she had to jerk herself awake. Whenever she looked over to Shadow, the hedgehog was staring out of the window at the main high street through the village. Confident that Shadow was capable of keeping an eye open for the drop, Rouge allowed herself to doze.
"Rouge." The bat snapped awake as she felt a hand on her shoulder. Sitting bolt upright in her seat, she turned to look at Shadow, who was gesturing towards the end of the road. The sun was higher in the sky than it had been when she last remembered seeing it. However, of more interest was the figure skulking at the end of the lane. It was a rat mobian dressed in a sharp blue suit. He had a large silver briefcase held in his left hand and he was quickly glancing from side to side as he walked with too straight a posture towards an alcove in the wall, where a door had previously been and had been bricked up years ago. Rouge was no expert in body language but she could tell that the rat was nervous. She turned to Shadow.
"You think that's the target?" She asked. Shadow turned an impassive face towards her.
"Well. I doubt he's selling door to door." he said flatly. Rouge nodded and without looking away from the rat, lifted a fist and knocked on the glass window between the two halves of the van. There was a mechanical whirring as Omega's head swivelled to look at her.
"Omega. Stand by." Rouge said, indicating for Shadow to unlock the van's doors. That rat had now hurried into the alcove and had vanished from sight. After only a few minutes, the rat appeared again. Rouge wasn't surprised to see that he no longer held the briefcase. She turned to Shadow as the rat scurried away.
"Activate your communicator." she instructed. Shadow nodded and pressed a button sewn into the lining of his glove. Rouge's ears now filled with the low throb of static.
"Roger that." Shadow said. Rouge could hear the hedgehog easily and he sounded as he was speaking directly into her head. She nodded at Shadow and glanced at the clock. One minute forty five seconds left.
"O.k. Green light. We have green light. Go on Shadow." she said, noting down the time of starting the mission. The hedgehog pulled open the door and was gone. Rouge saw a brief flash of hoverskate as the black hedgehog ghosted towards the alcove with the stack of notes held in one hand.
Then the gunfire started.
Shadow came hurtling out of the alcove with his arms shielding his head. Glancing around, his eye line settled upon a stack of water barrels outside a house and he dived behind them as a burst of semi-automatic fire traced a line in the wall behind him. The black hedgehog was obscured from sight now and Rouge peered out of the window in shock, trying to pinpoint the location of their attackers. She tried to focus on the origin of the gunfire but the shots seemed to be coming from everywhere. She thought she could see dark shapes hidden behind glass windows but flashes of gunfire always drew her attention.
Acting on instinct, Rouge turned the key in the ignition of the van and slammed it into gear. As she did so, she half-turned and yelled back to Omega.
"We've got a situation Omega, go to standby." Her only response was a hum of servos that was barely audible over the gunfire. Rouge quickly thumbed her communicator to switch to Shadow's channel.
"Shadow! What's your status? Did you make the switch?" she called. Shadow's voice was very calm and deliberate considering that he was being fired at.
"Negative, they ambushed me before I could break the code on the briefcase. I need an Emerald." he said. From the driving seat, Rouge sighed and shook her head.
"I'm sorry Shadow. We haven't got clearance for you to have an Emerald." And it was true, after the incident concerning the Black Arm invasion, GUN military had officially classified giving Shadow a Chaos Emerald as a weapon of mass destruction. As such it took several hours and over fifty forms to authorise Shadow to use a Chaos Emerald on any mission. And sadly, GUN hadn't deemed this mission difficult enough to warrant an emerald. Shadow groaned when he realised what this meant.
"Then I need some cover fire. I'm completely pinned." Rouge nodded and, snapping the handbrake off, she floored the accelerator. The van burst out of the side alley with a squeal of tyres. Almost instantly, gunfire began pelting the side of the van. Thanking the GUN technicians for their armour plating technology, Rouge nevertheless ducked down in case any stray bullets hit the window by her head. As the van entered the road, Rouge locked the wheel as quickly as she could letting the back slew round. As she did so, she grinned behind gritted teeth.
"Ok, Shadow, you want cover fire? Omega, engage!" Then, Rouge lifted her fist and slammed it down on a button on the dashboard. The back doors shot open allowing for Omega to burst out into the street with both cannons blazing.
"Destroy!" Omega bellowed, raking fire across the first floor windows. While shooting with his right arm, his left arm morphed into it's flamethrower form and he shot a gout of flame at the few flashes of gunfire visible on the ground floor. Bullets bounced harmlessly off Omega's reinforced armour as he fired constantly, all his shots enhanced by his radar and constantly on target.
Back in the van, Rouge heard the metallic clatter of air-shoes as Shadow leapt into the back of the van and slammed the doors. He pushed his face against the glass and glared at Rouge.
"Drive." Rouge complied, flooring the gas pedal and screaming away down the dirt track. Struggling to keep the van in a straight line, she flipped back to Omega's comm channel.
"Omega. You have two objectives. Firstly, stop that money from getting into the hands of the Eggman Empire. Retrieve the briefcase if possible, destroy it if you have to but don't let it leave the village. Secondly, I want one of those guys alive for questioning. All the details are up to you. Meet us back at the rendezvous in three hours."
"Affirmative." Omega's synthetic voice returned. Then the sounds of gunfire filled Rouge's ears once more as the van roared away down the country road.