Guess who's back
WOOT! Number five! ;D
This takes place around two months after "Return from the Shadows".
Disclaimer: I only own Kate. The rest belong to Sonic Team SEGA
Anyway, enjoy :)
The sky was a deep, inky blue, partially covered by navy clouds. In the East, the sky began to turn a lighter shade of blue as the sun slowly began to rise to bring an end to the night.
Down below, Mobotropolis was sleeping. Even though it was night, it seemed to be too quiet. There seemed to be an invisible pressure pressing down upon the city. A heavy block of miserableness pressing down on them all. Though no one said it or acknowledged it during the day, they always dwelled on it at night.
The silence of the night was suddenly broken, but only for a second. A backdoor had opened at Uncle Chuck's Diner. Whoever had opened it appeared to have accidentally fell against it, causing it to be flung open with a loud clang, making light spill out to the area behind the diner.
Standing at the door, arms wrapped around a large wooden crate, was Sonic, and he cringed at the sound. He then jolted as his uncle's voice snapped at him from inside the diner.
"Criminy, Sonic! You trying to get caught?"
"I fell! It's heavy!" Sonic hissed back, keeping his voice low.
Not responding, Sir Charles hastily pushed past Sonic, nearly knocking over the cobalt hedgehog. The older of the two peered round the corner of the building, before gesturing Sonic over.
Awkwardly, Sonic waddled over to his uncle, doing his best to keep the large crate steady in his arms. After deeming it to be safe, Charles carried on round the building, with Sonic hobbling behind him.
Even though they knew it was completely ludicrous for someone to be out before dawn, they proceeded with absolute caution, not stopping for a second. Even Sonic, with the large crate cradled in his arms, managed to keep his footsteps as subtle as possible.
Soon, they reached a tree stump, amongst other tree stumps. It looked perfectly normal, even rotting a bit with age. After staring at it for a second, Sonic nodded, and carefully lowered the crate to the ground as Sir Charles kept lookout.
Crouching down, Sonic placed a palm on the top of the tree stump, and then clenched his fist. He knocked once, waited a few seconds, and knocked again. He then knocked three more times at intervals of a few seconds. He then stood up again, frowning at the stump and wondering if he had knocked the right amount of times.
He was about to crouch back down again, before the flat top of the tree stump creaked open on hidden hinges. His face lit up, and he whipped round to pick up the crate again. He carefully balanced it on the edge of the tree stump, and looked down. An orange fox with bright blue eyes stared back up at him from the room below, his arms held upwards.
Sonic began to slowly shift the crate so he could squeeze it into the gap in the stump. He lowered it down, clamping his hands down on it.
"Tails!" he hissed "can you reach it?"
"Almost!" came the reply.
Sir Charles gave an impatient wave of his hand as the sky steadily grew a lighter shade, but didn't look around as he kept a wary eye out.
"Hurry up!"
Scowling, Sonic leaned forwards as far as he could, waiting to feel Tails' hands grip the bottom of the crate.
Suddenly, there was a bump at the bottom of the crate as Tails finally managed to reach it. Sonic began to let it slip out of his hands as he felt Tails get a better grip. He was soon able to let go, and watched as the crate sank into the room below the stump.
Sir Charles noticed, and finally broke his gaze away from their surroundings. He looked towards Sonic, who gave him a thumbs up as he began to clamber into the tree stump after the crate.
"Thanks again," he whispered. Charles nodded and began to back away to go back to the diner.
"Anytime, Sonic,"
He was off in an instant, leaving Sonic to slide into the stump. He landed on the smooth metal floor and the lid of the tree stump snapped shut behind him.
He was in a sizeable underground bunker, lined with cool steel walls. Two doors led off the room. In one corner stood a large table and multiple chairs, and in another there were numerous crates, identical to the one Sonic had retrieved off Sir Charles, stacked in an untidy pile. Across the wall to his left, was a monitor, similar to the one in Freedom Fighter Headquarters.
Typing away at the monitor, was Kate. She had turned away from the screen as Sonic slid into the underground bunker.
"Were you spotted?" she asked, sounding a little disinterested. Sonic shook his head.
"Nope," he answered, before frowning. Besides himself, only Tails and Kate were up "where's everyone else?"
Kate raised her brow as her attention returned to the screen.
"Sleeping," she told him blankly.
Ignoring Kate's disinterest, Sonic yawned and scratched his ear, walking over to the corner to sit down.
"So, what's got you two up?"
Tails had pushed the crate next to others, and was now stood by Kate at the monitor.
"Well I decided to stay up to work on Nicole-"
"-and I couldn't sleep," Kate continued "so now we're both working on Nicole,"
Sonic slumped down on one of the cold metal chairs, his hand against his head.
"How's she been doing?"
There was silence, and Sonic began to feel worried. He hadn't checked up on Nicole's situation for the past few days, as he had been in and out of the bunker.
Kate sighed, not turning round.
"More of the same," she muttered "Naugus completely ravaged her coding. She's pretty much kaput. The only things still working are the nanites and…very limited speech,"
Tails unsuccessfully tried to cover a snort.
"Yeah, she's pretty much a calculator right now,"
His words caused a series of beeps and whirrs from the monitor. Chunky, block capital letters began to pop up across the screen:
"CAREFUL TAILS. BEWARE THE ANGRY CALCULATOR."
This brought a laugh from Sonic, but also a feeling of downheartedness. The fact that one of the most intelligent A.I's invented was reduced to this wasn't very reassuring.
Things had been hard for the last couple of months. The Freedom Fighters were scattered. Only six of them remained at Mobotropolis: Sonic, Sally, Kate, Tails, Elias and Silver. With Nicole down, there was little to no way to contact the others.
On top of that, they had found out that Naugus had been threatening other governments not to intervene, and most of these governments had begun to send out bounty hunters in response to the wizard's threats.
This thought made Sonic suddenly remember what Sir Charles had told him.
"Oh! Guess what?"
He managed to catch the attention of the fox and the wolf at the monitor, and they looked at him. Kate, however, still had an air of tiredness and disinterest about her.
"What is it? Thrill me,"
"Uncle Chuck told me Naugus can now veto any decision the council makes," he explained.
This finally caught Kate's interest, and she widened her eyes and scowled.
"So, essentially, it's a dictatorship?"
Sonic shrugged, and nodded. Kate's ears flattened against her head, and she leant back against the monitor, looking thoroughly fed up.
Apart from Sally and Elias, this whole mess bad clearly effected Kate the worst. Ever since the events that had occurred in front of Castle Acorn, she hadn't been the same. She had been more drawn back and shy with them all. There were times where she would be talking with them normally, before she would descend into a paralysed, fearful state before refusing to speak with any of them for the rest of the day.
Sally and Elias had changed, but for the better. Both of them were now incredibly determined to put things right. Elias especially, who was still recovering from the effects of the mind control spell Naugus had placed on him, was very eager to put a stop to Naugus.
The rest of them were pretty much the same. Fighting for freedom, just like the name suggested. But this time felt different. It felt like a tedious drag that they had been through so many times. Maybe they were just going through the motions.
Sonic looked around the cold steel walls, at the stockpile of food crates in the corner. He missed his home. If it wasn't for the stupid bounty on his head, on all their heads, he could go there. In all, all he wanted was for things to go back to the way they were. He wanted people to leave them alone. He just wanted a normal life.
So yeah, rather a quick chapter there just to introduce y'all to the situation. We're jumping right into the sh*t this time :D
Also, if you fancy reading it again (y tho) "Return" (No.4) is now "Return from the Shadows".
Anywho, hope you enjoyed!
Rate & Review!
~W.O.T~
