A collision rocked the ship. Rouge flopped off her feet. Her head pounded from impact, complimented by the grating of steel against rock that squealed through the control room. The higher frequencies popped Rouge's ears. Shadow only swayed slightly, and easily rocked back into a stand.
"What the hell," Rouge groaned, swallowing to release the pressure in her ears.
"We've hit the bottom," Shadow stated, leaving his post at the front of the helm and starting to leave the room entirely.
"Of the ocean?!" Rouge squawked.
"But of course," Shadow cooed with an edge of venom, exiting the bridge. Rouge staggered to her feet, poked her pinky into her ear to relieve any remaining pressure, and dashed off after Shadow.
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Eggman had greatly improved his machine style since Final Egg. His new designs were sleek, deferring from his usual egg-based machine style. Final Egg was an aerodynamic disgrace, completely round with no angled planes and relying on solely rocket boosters to lift off the ground. Eggman wasted tankers of fuel casting the clump of metal into the sky.
His latest design was ship based, a flying armada of sorts. Egg Carrier2, though destroyed, had a much more functional and efficient design compared to its battleship predecessors. The flop was that Egg Carrier2 was so loaded up with machinery it ate fuel to propel itself skywards, and one knock to the engines could dismantle the entire ship. Instead of concentrating everything on one ship, for his new fleet Eggman had spread out the weapons and specialties of the ships to smaller cruisers, missile carrying clippers, robot carrying frigates, and cannon loaded destroyers all connected by a web of wires and electric rails to the mothership, a large, hyper laser carrying cruise ship. There were smaller versions of the mothership stationed throughout the web for backup, most blown up during Metal Overlord's siege.
Shadow had stolen the mothership to be their submarine. Among all the ships, Shadow reasoned that only the mothership had the aquatic capabilities for deep-sea diving. It had the thickest hull out of all of them, enough to withstand water pressure many fathoms under the surface. That, and the ship had only one main weapon, a mountable hyper laser that could be stowed below deck, and little else. This was good, especially since there weren't any complicated spires or missile towers that would buckle under the pressure of the deep.
There was another ship choice, but Rouge detonated that ship before Shadow could consider it. Its Shadow pods sank to the cold blue.
Shadow renovated everything above the ship's deck. The thin spires were leveled and ammunitions stores moved to holding chambers below deck. Shadow had enlisted Omega's assistance during that time, using the robot to level the towers and move the heavy missiles and bombs. The destruction and interaction with weapons of mass destruction amused Omega during renovation, but when the ship was ready to sink Omega refused to go any further. Rouge and Shadow both had to convince Omega that Eggman had a base under the sea, a base swarming with Eggman robots, and that they had to destroy the stronghold. They lied. Omega believed them.
Shadow stationed Omega in the inner works, spinning the pipes and levers in the belly of the ship. As payment, Shadow promised Omega a long hall of robots left deactivated in the ship for the robot to blast through.
Rouge took an elevator up to the observation deck, up at the bow, or the shark nose, of the ship. Instead of the dome over the bridge, the observation deck had a flat glass screen extending from the floor to the ceiling, the same reinforced hurricane glass over the helm. A sleek, curved gray console was stationed in front of it, buttons glowing.
The black ocean loomed in front of her. As time passed Rouge had seen the clear tropic ocean water of the surface turn dark and deadlier. The trench had opened up for them several fathoms ago, and now they were deep in its throat. Water ate up all the light fathoms ago, leaving the pit as black as octopus ink. The observation deck dropped into nothingness beyond the console.
A small control panel faced the glass. Shadow was tapping on it. Rouge slid to Shadow's side.
"So…what're we going to do now?" Rouge followed bubbles wafting up to the surface. There must have been vents down there somewhere.
"I'm going to try something," said Shadow, an occupied annoyance in his voice. Rouge frowned, but guarded herself for an explosion.
There was an explosion, further down the bow. A steel plate soared up, pinging off the glass screen and crumpling to the surface as the water gripped it. Rouge flinched.
"Tell Omega," Shadow turned to Rouge, "to deploy one of the Eggpawns. He'll know."
Rouge brought the communicator to her cheek, eyes too shocked to blink. "Hey Omega? Deploy one of the Eggpawns, Shadow says."
There wasn't a crackle of a response back. Just the stomping of feet, and the connection broke.
An echo of rushing water, like the bursting of a dam, echoed through the metal hallways of the ship's hold. Rouge felt the vibration under her feet.
An Eggpawn lazily floated up into view. It was one of the many orange robots Rouge had chewed apart with her feet during Metal Overlord's rule over Eggman's armada. It was a lasting testament to Eggman's self-obsession, as the only thing lacking on the Eggpawns were the balding hair of their creator. They were comically shaped models, used because they were easy to produce, had primitive AIs and could collaborate to swarm in large numbers. However, they had little attack prowess, and were usually the worker bees of Eggman's hives.
But they were not meant to swim. The Eggpawn floundered in the water, kicking and rolling to move forward. Rouge found it amusing, and felt a smile tugging at her lips.
The Eggpawn took three strokes before the water pressure crushed it to a ball bearing. It sank.
"Oh my…" Rouge gasped. Shadow frowned deeply, tapping his hand on the console pensively. "It didn't work."
"I know," Shadow grumbled. Rouge heard a squeaking sound. She wondered if Shadow was sucking on his lower lip.
"Deploy Omega."
"What?"
"Do it."
Rouge chewed her lower lip. Omega was a robot, hardly bearing any personal attachment to her, but Omega had rocket missiles. Omega had machine guns embedded in its wrists. Omega was their faithful walking arsenal. It was too valuable throw out into the ocean.
That, and the crushing water might set off the bombs Omega stored in his chest. Even Rouge did not know what kind of firepower Omega kept around to annihilate an army or two.
"No."
"Do it."
"No."
Rouge squared her feet. Shadow's voice grew testy. She'd have to fight to stop them from blowing up.
Shadow whipped out a communicator of his own, clipped to the underside of the control panel. Rouge didn't know he had another one. "Omega. Revert to submersive mode and deploy through gate A. Once submerged, await for coordinate instructions."
Rouge relaxed her back foot. She was supposed to be first mate, the one force who could overpower Shadow should he get out of control, his check. She was the one manipulating him, not the other way around!
He hadn't trusted her the entire time! She was the one who was going to betray him!
Omega hummed into view, folded into a new design. It had tucked its legs and half of its arms into its main body, using its forearms and hands as spinning blade propellers. Omega's body compacted into a tight mass of reinforced armor attacked on all sides by water pressure, like a turtle retreating into its shell in the jowls of a crocodile. Omega bobbed in the water, its red eyes sliding left and right.
"20, 42, 10" Shadow spoke into the communicator. Omega bobbed as the information relayed, then jetted off, deeper into the water.
Rouge snatched the communicator from Shadow's hand. "If he blows up, this is all your fault."
"I need that." Shadow grabbed the communicator back. "Proceed and report visuals via line 346."
Shadow tapped a button on the control console. A flat screen slid down from the ceiling, obscuring most of the window—not that there was anything to see other than the black water.
White lines zigzagged across the screen. They straightened, played leap-frog with each other, then buzzed into a picture. Rouge was in the ocean now, combing through Omega's eyes. The robot's red eyes also functioned as spotlights, useful for scanning the floor for their star.
The ocean floor appeared to be yellow mud. It looked like beach ground, or quicksand.
Omega floated along slowly, searching. A miniature volcano cone rose up into the picture, and erupted bubbles into the screen.
"Omega, steer away from the vents. They expel hydrogen sulfide, highly acidic. We don't want an armor breach," Shadow said into the communicator. Omega veered heavily to the left, clipping the stream of bubbles.
Rouge drummed her fingers on her arm. So Omega didn't explode. Peachy, but how long was he going to stay dormant? Danger flared off in every corner of Rouge's mind.
She had to get out of here. She'd gone farther in than she expected, too far gone now to pull out.
Shadow had her. She was here for the ride, but she was going to reap this ride for all it was worth.
Omega was flagging farther away. The robot chugged on into the darkness, silent as a shark.
Light burned into the visual. The screen shot from black to heaven's white. Shadow and Rouge flinched away, rubbing their eyes.
"Destination…achieved," droned Omega.
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