Author's Notes: Ok, from now on, I would like my readers to visit my profile for random updates from there. Right now it doesn't look like much but that's because it'm a little busy/too lazy to make it look like much, but I plan to update it everytime I update a chapter, so yeah, would like that.

Ultra Sonic 01

Covert Beginning

The dark hallway was filled with little rats scurrying around. They ran every which way, their little claws making small scratching sounds across the metal floor. On one side of the hall, impossible to see in the dark, a door slowly retracts upward, and immediately light started pouring in along with some wind and sand. The rats quickly scurry away into far off corners and behind boxes. They hide from the light, and are afraid of being blown away by the wind. One rat braves to take a look at what was going on. Outside there was a very fierce sandstorm in progress. It was so fierce you could barely see the pyramids in the distance. Out from the sand came three figures: Sonic, Amy, and a large blue machine walking on two legs. Quills bristling in the wind Sonic quickly searched the wall beside him. He found a switch and pressed it, and slowly the door started to come down and seal off the wind and sand from the inside once more. After a moment, two lights came on from the Walker and the three continued in, navigating the dark passageway.

"Finally, we're here." Sonic said, shaking from side to side to get the sand out of his fur. Amy looked at him and sighed as she pulled out a comb and started to comb the sand out of her hair.

"Sonic, you are so uncivilized sometimes." Amy said as she continued with her task.

"Hey Tails, remind me why we brought Amy along again." Sonic asked, looking up at the Walker. The visor covering the top pulled back to reveal Tails sitting in the cockpit of his new machine, with Cream and Cheese sitting in the back.

"Oh come on Sonic, how could you forget?" Tails asked him. "Amy said she wasn't going to be left behind again and after an hour of her following us and begging you, you finally caved in."

"Oh, yeah..." Sonic then gave a look to Cream and Cheese. Cream was wearing a pair of goggles and fiddling around with the controls at her disposal while Cheese lay on top of Cream's head. "Well, in that case, can you remind me of why those two are with us?"

"Cream and Cheese? It's because I need help to run the Cyclone II you know. It's not just a bigger machine, but it also has some extra firepower and other uses that need two people to run. And other than Knuckles, I don't know anybody else that can work any type of controls. You and Amy never listen when I try to explain that stuff to you, but at least Cream does."

"What happened when you guys asked Knuckles to come along?" Amy spoke up, finally done with her hair and putting her comb away.

"He was already gone. With the chaos emeralds missing again, and Eggman being up to no good for past few weeks, something must have happened. There was no trace of him or the Master Emerald anywhere on Angel Island, which had fallen back into the ocean by the way." Tails said.

"I hope he's ok." Amy said, getting a little worried.

"Oh don't worry, it's Knuckles we're talking about. He'll be ok." Sonic said.

Finally the group made it to the end of their long walk to enter onto an elevator platform, overlooking a large complex. The group stared on in awe for a second. Everywhere you could see robots working, conveyor belts moving rocks, drilling going on, and in the center of it all was a large shrine. Robots were digging everywhere around it, trying to uncover whatever they could. The gang had fallen upon a mining complex.

"Wow, it seems Eggman has really been working recently." Sonic said with a whistle.

"This place is huge. When did he get the time to do all of this?" Amy asked.

"I suppose he works on multiple projects at once. He might have been studying all of this all the way back to when we were fighting Chaos."

"Sonic, I think you might be right." Tails said, pointing at what appeared to be a giant tablet with a picture of echidnas and what seemed to be the Master Emerald.

"So, what do we do now?" Amy asked.

"Well, first off, we won't find out much more until we get down there," Sonic started, "I suggest that you and I look around while Tails and Cream stay up here."

"Ok then, if anything happens, you two can call us with these communicators." Tails said, giving one to each Sonic and Amy.

"Ok, Amy, are you ready?"

"Um, yeah, let's go."

The two hedgehogs jumped off to the side and started running down the side of the wall, quickly arriving at its base. Once touching horizontal ground, they quickly moved behind some barrels as a robot passed carrying a load of dirt. The robot moved on wheels and looked like a mini dump truck, but after it dumped off its load, it transformed and the sets of wheels became two legs. It then quickly ran back to wherever it came from.

"Eggman has new robots." Amy whispered.

"Yeah, and until we know everything they can do we have to be careful." Sonic whispered back.

The two snuck around more barrels, trying their best to get closer to the tablet without being noticed. They moved from barrels to boxes to walls, hiding in the shadows until they made it to their destination. Upon finding the closest hiding spot to the tablet, they heard a familiar voice.

"Ah! My beloved Diggits, how is the excavation of this wonderful artifact going?" Eggman asked, walking over and past where Sonic and Amy was hiding to come into view. One of the digging robots quickly made their way over to him. The robot was mostly a large cylinder head with an Eggman face painted on. It had wings so it could fly like a bee and long arms with shovels for hands for digging. It had no legs at all.

"Excavation 98 complete. Artifact translation 95 complete." The computerized voice of the Diggit answered, hovering in front of Eggman.

"Good, good, very good indeed. How much longer until we can move this rock to my new base?"

"Ten minutes."

"Yes, very good timing. Is there anything else I should know about?"

"Yes. Life forms identified as Sonic, Tails, Amy, and Cream have been spotted in the desert area recently."

"Just as I expected. Ok, we need to speed up the process then. Set the alert status to high and forgo on the rest of the tablet translation. Concentrate all forces on excavating it. I'll finish the translation myself later." Eggman then walked off.

"Ok Sonic, what now?" Amy whispered.

"I say we get out of here. I doubt we'll be able to stop Eggman, so we can try and follow him later." Sonic whispered back.

"Hey, you two behind those boxes, what are you doing there whispering?" A random Diggit said. The two turned to see it coming towards them, but it hadn't identified them yet.

"We've been spotted!" Amy whispered to Sonic.

"Don't move." Sonic said to Amy, waiting for the robot to come closer.

"Wait, I can get him from here." Amy said, pulling out her Piko Piko Hammer.

"No, wait Amy!" Sonic whispered. But it was too late. Amy threw the hammer at the robot, which smashed him completely and caused him to explode, which also caused a whole lot of other Diggits to turn and fly towards the sudden explosion.

"Oops..." Amy said.

"I was going to try and sneak out from behind him, but now we gotta run double speed!" Sonic grabbed Amy's hand and the two ran off, Diggits chasing.

"Tails, how much longer do we have to wait?" Cream asked in the back seat of the Cyclone II. To avoid total boredom she was playing patty cake with Cheese.

"Just until Sonic calls us. We might not even get to do anything but run off."

"Oh, that's so boring! What will we do until then?"

"I don't know, just wait for something to happen."

Cream slumped back into her seat a little, before jumping up from a sudden jolt throughout the Cyclone II.

"Tails, what was that?"

"It's the elevator, someone must have called it down."

"Then what do we do?"

"It's too late to go back, we just have to wait and see who's waiting there for us. Best case scenario is that it'll be Sonic."

"And what about the worst case?"

"It'll be Eggman."

The two waited in silence as the platform lowered itself slowly to the ground floor. With a small thud, the platform locked into the ground and ten Diggits, each with their guns out and pointing, surrounded the Cyclone II. Straight ahead stood Eggman, grinning.

"Oh, well if it isn't fox-boy. I bet you're here with Sonic to try and find what I have hidden here, now aren't you?" Eggman asked, his grin growing ever larger.

"You won't get away with whatever you're doing Eggman!" Tails yelled.

"Ha! That's what you think. My plan is coming along nicely as it is. Now, will you please step off the elevator? Or will my Diggits have to force you?"

Tails gritted his teeth at Eggman's smirk, but proceeded to move the Cyclone II out of Eggman's way. Eggman calmly stepped onto the platform without looking back.

"Just to let you know, this place is set to self destruct five minutes after my package leaves. Toodles." Eggman said, pressing a few buttons on the side and then zooming up and away.

"Cream, fire!" Tails yelled. Cream unleashed a set of homing missiles she had been targeting at the Diggits. In a split second all of the Diggits around them were scrap metal.

"Tails, if you move a little, I think I can get a lock onto Eggman." Cream quickly yelled from the back.

"No, we've gotta go get Sonic so we can get out of here. We don't know how much time we have left for sure." With the end of that sentence, a low rumbling went through the ground all around them. Tails quickly spun the Cyclone II around to point to the center of the area, where the tablet was supposed to be. They saw the tablet, but it was slowly rising with jets attached to it. A couple of missiles were soon fired at the top of the pyramid, blowing open the top, and away the tablet went.

"Change that, we have five minutes left, for sure."