Good Fortune
Chapter 3 – The Tall Room
Everyone seemed to come to a pretty concrete agreement on who was going to get left behind. Sonic held the keys in front of him, knowing that he had the fate of someone's life in his hands. He just hoped that he made a good decision in the end.
Sonic handed a couple keys to Tails. He opened Vector's door and Espio's door. They were incredibly grateful to the group for making a good decision. Sonic then handed two keys to Knuckles to open up Scourge's door and Jet's door. He nodded and went on to do so.
Sonic then took the final key and stared at it with intent. It was scary for him to make such a decision when it determined someone's life, but he did not hesitate with what he did next. He went over to Shadow's cell and unlocked it. The door swung open and Shadow stepped out.
"To be honest, I almost believed that you would leave me behind," Shadow said sullenly.
Sonic frowned. "I don't think I would be able to leave you behind. You're a pretty vital part of this team."
Shadow nodded. "Well, I appreciate it, then. I'll do all that I can to get us through this."
Sonic smiled again. "That's what I was hoping to hear."
"So…" Shadow started off somewhat awkwardly. "Who is… the one?"
Sonic sighed. He turned around to look at the only cell that didn't have an open door. Inside was Amy the Hedgehog, who clung to the bars as if she would be ripped away from them if she loosened her grip even a little. "She's been a part of our group for so long, but everyone agreed that she would only slow us down."
"Do you regret your decision?" Shadow asked, almost sympathetically.
Sonic thought about the question for a second before shaking his head. "No… none of this is a good decision, but we don't have any other choice."
"I see. I believe that's the best way to think about it."
Sonic nodded. He left Shadow's side and walked over to Amy's cell. Her face was filled with dried-up tears. She cried throughout the whole decision process of who would get left behind. This was sadly a contributing factor to her fate.
"Sonic… Sonic, what's going on? Are you going to let me go?"
Sonic sighed. "No, Amy. I was given enough keys to save everyone… except for one person."
"Wh-what? You're leaving me behind?"
Sonic frowned. "There's nothing else that we can do now, Amy. I-I'm sorry." Sonic turned around and started walking towards the group, ignoring Amy's incessant cries. He figured that this was going to be a recurring theme throughout the time of him being there in the cave. Sonic knew that looking back would only cause him to go insane.
Sonic turned to the group and gestured them to move forward with him to the next room. They all nodded and began following closely behind him, ignoring the growing cries from Amy.
The group went to the hall at the end of the 'Jail' and came across a standard door. They entered through the door into a small room that was surrounded with steel panels. The whole room looked very futuristic, especially in contrast with the rest of the cave so far.
"This place had a lot of work done on it," Vector stated.
"It's a wonder that our captors had enough resources to be able to do all of this," Espio said.
Sonic nodded. "Yeah. This is weird." He stepped forward and saw a door and a note next to it. He picked it up and read it aloud to the rest of the group.
You have sacrificed one of your own. Now, one of you must sacrifice a piece of yourself.
"What does that mean?" Jet asked. "Are they going to rip our limbs off or something?" He asked as he covered his arms.
"I doubt that they would do that," Shadow responded. "They want to test us, not see us suffer."
"I say that they want a little bit of both," Silver said. He walked forward towards the door. It said "Sacrifice a piece of yourself" towards the top of it. Silver shrugged. "I'm going to open the door. You all might want to move out of the way. If something bad happens, I'll use my powers to nullify the blow a little bit."
The entire room nodded as they went towards the walls and held on. "Be careful, Silver," Sonic stated. "We don't want to lose any more people."
"I'll be fine," Silver said seriously. He slowly twisted the knob and opened the door. As it slowly creaked the door open, fear began to build up in his body. But once it was fully open, he noticed that there was nothing out of the ordinary. It just led to the next room. "See, nothing to worry about. We're all just a bit paranoid from what happened in the jail cells."
Silver stepped through the door. The next minute happened very quickly for Silver. The moment that he entered the next room, a pressure plate was triggered and a mechanism was activated. Two steel plates came down onto Silver. He tried to dodge them, but they managed to nick Silver's hands.
He was knocked over and fell on the ground. He was a little disoriented and his hands twitched with pain, but he knew that he was fine. When Silver got his bearings together, he did a "status report" on what happened. He looked down at where the steel plates had hit his hands and came to a realization.
"Uh, guys. I think I now know what "sacrifice a piece of yourself" means now."
The group ran in through the door, avoiding the pressure plate, and asked, "What?"
All of them looked down at Silver and saw something on his hands. There were two heavy metal clamps that encompassed his hands entirely.
Silver frowned. "Without the use of my hands, there is no way for me to use my powers. At least… I can't use my more powerful and important powers."
Sonic sighed. "Okay. Well, even though I'm sorry for you, I'm glad that it wasn't anything worse." He walked forward and looked at the room that they were in.
It was a pretty large room, but the thing that caught Sonic's attention the most was the height. He looked up and noticed that the room went up several feet. A few rafters were at the top to help support someone.
'Why would there be rafters up there?' Sonic thought to himself. He looked back down and walked forward. The door to the next room was all the way across the room. The only issue is that in order to get to the door, someone would have to float over a huge pit in the floor.
"Silver, I see why they wouldn't let you use your psychic powers," Sonic stated. "They didn't want you floating people over this gap. That would be "too easy" for us."
"Then what are we supposed to do," Knuckles asked.
"I think I know what we have to do!" Tails yelled.
Sonic turned and looked at Tails. He was looking at a sign on the wall. Sonic walked over to it and read the little sign to himself.
Everyone is important for their specific skills. However, what is it like to test those skills to the limit?
Sonic wondered what that meant, so he turned to Tails to see what he found out. He saw that Tails was carrying something in his hand. "What is that?"
"It's a very basic Extreme Gear. It's small and doesn't have the best technology, but it still flies."
Jet walked over immediately after Tails said the words 'Extreme Gear'. Jet had been feeling particularly useless up to this point, and figured that being able to do something would be better than doing nothing and dying. "Did someone say Extreme Gear?"
Tails nodded as he held the small board up. "Yeah. It's nothing much, but do you think you can fly it?"
Jet rolled his eyes. "Can I fly it? I'm the best flyer in the world. Of course I can fly it!"
Sonic sighed. "Alright, well this isn't the time to be cocky, Jet. Even though you aren't the best flyer in the world," Sonic stated reminding of their past.
"Whatever." Jet looked over at Tails and put his hands on the Gear. "So… what do you want me to do?"
"There were instructions on the back. They said something about going to the rafters."
"The rafters?" Jet asked.
"Up there," Tails said as he pointed towards the roof.
Sonic managed to get a better look at the rafters. They were a bit larger than he thought they were, but he still figured that they would be unstable.
Jet looked up as well. Even though he was perfectly fine with heights, he wasn't exactly comfortable flying all the way up there with such a primitive Gear. But, he didn't want to show everyone that he's a wimp, so he made his posture bold and said, "I can do that. What am I supposed to do while I'm up there?"
"I guess it's really simple," Tails said. "There's a lever on top, and it opens the door on the other side. Then you take us one-by-one to the other side."
Jet began to sweat. He had the lives of many people in his hands. "What? This Extreme Gear is pretty small for me. How will I be able to carry a second person?"
Sonic sighed. "You can do it, Jet. If not, I can do it for you."
Jet shook his head. "No, I can do it myself Sonic," he said with a cocky tone. He grabbed the Extreme Gear from Tails' grip and placed it on the ground. It hovered there for a moment before Jet hopped on. As soon as he did, he noticed that the board had little to no balance whatsoever. It took him several moments to keep himself straight.
"Are you okay, Jet?" Sonic asked.
Jet nodded after eventually getting his balance. "Yeah, I'm fine." He slowly hovered around the room, testing the new Extreme Gear out. It took him a little bit to get used to the logistics of it, but he eventually managed to get used to it. He finally decided to tilt the Extreme Gear up with his back foot. Raising altitude was even more difficult for Jet to do.
He wobbled a lot, and ever inch that he got off the ground made his anxiety go up. He went higher and higher until he was past the "halfway point". That's when things became scary for Jet. This was the point where falling would either be fatal or incredibly damaging. There would be no doubt that he would be able to go far if he fell. He didn't want to be left behind like Amy was.
He kept going and going, trying to keep his breathing normal and consistent. Though, this wasn't working and his stress levels were shooting through the roof. Eventually, his negative thoughts were effecting his balance and his front foot slipped.
"Ahh!" Jet yelled as both of his feet slid to the back of the Extreme Gear. The Gear went entirely horizontal. Jet knew that if he went any further back, then that would be the end. The Extreme Gear would lose any propulsion upwards and would tumble to the ground. Jet frantically tried to get his footing back to where it should be and tried to push his entire body weight forward to straighten out the Gear.
His heart rate was through the roof as he struggled. He had never been so afraid in his life. But… almost as if something magical happened, his Gear began to straighten out. The more horizontal it was, the easier for Jet to get his footing back together. Finally, when he was back on track to the roof, he held a sigh of relief.
"Why do I even fly? I'm going to have a heart attack," Jet said as he tried to catch his breath. He eventually made it up to the rafters. He quickly jumped off of his board, just glad that he had made it this far. He knew that going down was going to be much easier than going up.
He grabbed his Extreme Gear and held it in his right hand. He then turned around and looked around the rafters. It wasn't very bright up in the area, but he could distinctly see the lever that Tails was referring to. He slowly walked up to it and pulled it. He heard a loud click in the distance, letting him know that it had worked. He let out a sigh of relief and went back to the edge of the rafters.
He put his Extreme Gear down again, but this time he was a lot more timid. He knew that going down was much easier than going up, but if there was even one small issue, he would be on the ground. Jet tried to escape those thoughts as he hopped onto the Extreme Gear.
Jet hovered for a second and then began to head down. As he expected, the trip wasn't that bad. When he reached the ground, he quickly hopped of the Gear and went down to his knees. The whole thing was particularly frightening for Jet.
"Are you okay, Jet?" Sonic asked with a touch of concern in his voice.
Jet released a heavy breath. "I've never been that close to falling down. At least… not at that height."
Sonic knelt down to be next to Jet and said, "Well, that part is over. All we have to do is make it across to the other side. I can even ride the Extreme Gear instead of you if you don't feel up to it."
Jet shook his head. "No." He stood up and faced Sonic. "This whole thing is freaky, but I'm not backing down from this." He grabbed the Extreme Gear and asked, "Who's coming with me first? I can only take one person at a time."
"Why don't you take Shadow?" Sonic asked.
"Why me?" Shadow asked Sonic.
"Because…" Sonic actually had difficult formulating a response for Shadow. "You're an important part of this group, and you should be able to get to the other side with no problem."
Shadow paused, then nodded. He passed by Sonic and said "Thank you" with a tinge of emotion.
Sonic simply smiled and said, "No problem."
Jet hopped onto the Extreme Gear and Shadow held onto him. They began to hover over the hole and towards the door on the other side. Jet seemed to be a bit more comfortable, but he was still fidgety. They managed to get across just fine.
Sonic turned around to the group and asked them to form a uniform line. Everyone did so, trying their best not to push or shove. They wanted as little stress as possible.
Jet returned and grabbed the next person in line, and then another. Eventually Sonic got a ride with Jet until he reached the door as well. Jet then returned for the last person in line.
He climbed onto the Extreme Gear and held on tight to Jet. However, there seemed to be some kind of issue with Jet when they went over the hole. He went through some form of anxiety jump and he no longer felt comfortable with his only flying.
The Extreme Gear began to move back and forth, more rapidly as time went on and on. Jet tried his best to keep things straight, but his passenger didn't fare nearly as well. He was tossed around and…
His grip on Jet finally loosened up.
Jet tried to grab for him as he fell into the pit, but there was no saving him. Jet would've had to jump in after him to save him, which would've meant that they both die. He couldn't even bear the thought of that.