Chapter 6: Return to the Island
"Never in a million years did I think I'd be back here," said Robotnik dejectedly.
They were probably the strangest trio anybody could ever meet. There was Dr. Robotnik, better known as Eggman by his adversaries, who, until about two weeks before, hated hedgehogs with a passion. This, of course, changed because his most powerful ally now happened to be a hedgehog. His motives for being back on Prison Island were clear. He wanted to rule the world.
Of course, there was Rouge the Bat, whose agenda was the most confusing of the three. She is a government spy and yet she had not informed her agency about any specifics of the plan to steal from the island, while she works with Shadow and Eggman but refuses to tell them how she has received information on the whereabouts of the Chaos Emeralds. Was she good, or was she evil? She was decidedly neither, with secret hopes of having all of the Chaos Emeralds all in one place where they would be easy to steal. She had also collected a few Master Emerald shards prior to meeting with the two others, and hoped to have a fully-restored Master Emerald in her possession as well.
Shadow the Hedgehog stood to the left of Robotnik and his Egg Walker with his arms crossed and the same indifferent look on his face. His quiet demeanor had seemed to deflect any suspicion as to his motives, but only he knew the exact reason for why he was ready to steal from the island. It had seemed he was only serving Robotnik to repay him for freeing him from this same island, but this was far from the truth. His motives dated back to a 50-year old promise for revenge. He knew exactly how he was going to do it, too, but he knew he couldn't let the others find out.
"Okay, let's run through the plan one more time," said the doctor, trying to instill confidence in his comrades. "I'll head off towards the aircraft carriers and stir up a commotion, distracting the soldiers and allowing you to get to where you need to be unnoticed," he said to Rouge.
"Right, then I'll head into their security vault and take the Emeralds," said Rouge.
"Mm-hmm, that's right," nodded Eggman approvingly. "Then, Shadow, you will enter the armory in the forested section of the island and plant this dynamite. We'll blow this entire island to bits before anyone knows what happened to them! And maybe we can finally get rid of Sonic once and for all!" He cackled maniacally, aware that he had a grand opportunity to take down Sonic now that he was imprisoned and virtually helpless. Shadow, though, appeared to be bored and didn't appear to be listening. He was looking off in other directions with his arms still crossed and his face still emotionless. "Have you got all this, Shadow?" the doctor asked.
Shadow finally turned his head to look at him. "Of course," he said, with as emotionless a tone as his face appeared.
"All right, I think we're ready!" shouted Eggman. "Now, I'm setting the timer for 30 minutes. That's all the time we have, so we either have the Emeralds by then, or this whole island goes down with them. Got it!" He looked at the other two. They nodded at him. "Okay, let's do this!" He walked off in the direction in which the warships were docked. Rouge looked at Shadow before they followed him.
"Good luck," she said to him while giving him a smile.
He peered over his shoulder to look at her. "Good luck to you, too," he said rather blankly. Rouge giggled to herself and went off to follow the doctor. Shadow paused for a moment before eventually following them too.
All the excitement in Amy Rose's life seemed to revolve around what was going on in the life of the guy she adored, Sonic the Hedgehog. Less than a month ago, she was complaining of how boring her life was. She had just participated in ancient echidna rituals with Knuckles, mainly to let the echidna know that Sonic wasn't going to be able to make it. Now, she was making her way to Prison Island to try and break out her hero from jail.
She had originally needed to speak with Sonic to alert him that it was definitely Eggman that previously broke into Prison Island, but found that he had been arrested. She knew next to nothing about the crime that he supposedly committed, but she did know that he was definitely innocent. Nothing would drive Sonic to break the law, she knew that much.
She was getting to the island via a small paddleboat, which was being rowed by Big the Cat. Even though Big had such meager means of transportation, she couldn't convince anyone else to give her a lift to the island, so she had to settle for this. Big was glad to give her a lift, aware that Sonic was the reason that he himself had escaped capture and probably the reason that Froggy was still alive (with Sonic having saved him from Chaos on the Egg Carrier). Big had originally gotten arrested for breaking into the city aquarium to recover his beloved Froggy, and had made his escape from the G.U.N. helicopter by floating down to the ground using his trusty parasol.
Eventually the two made it to the outer reaches of the island and Amy got off and said farewell to her friend. "Thanks, Big! I'm on a serious mission now!"
"Goodbye, Miss Amy!" Big called out. "Tell Mr. Sonic I say thanks for everything when you saves him!"
The cat rowed off in the direction from which he came and left Amy on her own. She stood on a runway for fighter jets, the air smelling like salt. She was wondering what she should be doing next when she heard explosions from the aircraft carriers docked nearby.
Unbeknownst to her, Shadow, Robotnik, and Rouge appeared on the same runway that she was on. Robotnik had just finished up destroying several G.U.N. droids that had not yet been programmed as well as multiple unmanned fighter jets. The soldiers manned on the island had not yet fully responded to all the commotion.
"Okay, step one of our plan is complete," said Eggman to his mammal allies. "The heat should be on me any minute now, leaving openings for you two. Go on, we don't have much time—"
He was interrupted by an ecstatic Amy who was now caught in an embrace with Shadow. "Sonic, Sonic, you made it out already!" she gushed. "Oh, you're amazing, I should have known you wouldn't have needed my help!" She had her closed throughout this entire embrace while Shadow had something between a fearful and an uncomfortable look on his face. When Amy opened her eyes and realized she was hugging a hedgehog with black fur, not blue, she jumped away from him. "Um, gross! You're not Sonic! And I just hugged you!" She gave a look of disgust.
"What, does he smell bad?" Rouge asked. This was the first time Amy had become aware of her and Eggman's presence. "I told you, Shadow, if you want, you can use my shampoo, really! I mean 50 years is a long time to go without properly bathing—"
"Amy, what are you doing here?" the doctor screamed. He was irate. He had not planned on Amy, of all the anthropomorphic creatures that inhabited this Earth, to be popping up at this instant.
"Dr. Eggman? The bat from the desert? Oh, no!" Amy screamed and ran off down the runway.
"Oh, of all the times for this to happen," Robotnik said with genuine worry to Shadow and Rouge. "Listen, you two go on, I'll take care of the brat." They nodded and ran off to their respective destinations. Meanwhile, Eggman was running off towards Amy in his Egg Walker. He had her trapped between him and the edge of the runway with only miles of sea past the runway's last edge.
"Oh, please, not like this! Any way but this!" Amy pleaded.
The doctor had attempted to lock on to her when a mech popped out the sky between them. It was Miles "Tails" Prower in his new Tornado 3, which he had transformed into his mech form, which he had called the "Cyclone".
"Tails!" Amy squealed, beaming. "You don't know how glad I am to see you!"
"Just stand aside, Amy," Tails said assuredly. "I'll take care of the fat man."
"Fat man? Oh, grow up!" mocked the doctor.
"Don't tell me to grow up, Egghead!" Tails lashed out, slamming a button on his Cyclone. A boxer's glove flew out at the Egg Walker as fast as a bullet, knocking the doctor back a few feet. "Weren't expected that, now were ya?"
Damaged, but not out of it, Eggman steadied himself and prepared for a counterattack. "Is this everything you have, fox boy? I'd be ashamed! Take this!" He yelled and fired several lasers in Tails' and Amy's direction, causing both of them to have to take evasive action in different directions.
Tails was unafraid, having defeated Eggman single-handedly the year before. That time he didn't have his Cyclone and Eggman was using an Egg Walker about 10 times the size of the one he was using now. By his calculations, the odds were clearly in his favor.
He returned fire by shooting fireballs at him through cannons on the front on his Cyclone. Eggman dodged these handily, and fired more lasers at Tails. These missed and hit some stray explosive barrels, starting a fire on the runway.
The two began to pace around slowly in a circle on the runway, eyeing each other very carefully. The battle was going on at an extraordinarily slow pace, as both combatants were trying to outsmart each other, to no avail. This was something they could easily do against enemies with lesser brain power, but they were both geniuses, so it wasn't working very well.
Robotnik fired a few more lasers in Tails direction, and he dodged these too. The problem was that the lasers hit a few more barrels, causing a fire to break out all around him. He wasn't able to move.
"All right, now's my chance," Eggman said with glee. He had upgraded the Power Laser since his trip to the ARK and was confident that he would not experience the same energy drain that he had before. He pointed himself towards the fox in his Cyclone. "Time to say goodbye, boy!"
He fired, but was thrown off-course. Amy had run over in the nick of time to smash Eggman on the side, causing him to rotate slightly enough so that the Power Laser barely missed to Tails' right. Amy and Tails watched in horror. That laser would have blown straight through 20 Cyclones.
"Argh! Amy, what have you done?" The doctor screamed. He was infuriated. "I was about to blow him straight to another continent! Now it'll take forever to recharge for that attack! You're going to have to pay for that!" He turned the Egg Walker towards Amy now, who started to cower away in fear. She put her hands up in front of her face, unable to watch what was about to happen to her.
"Get away from her!" yelled Tails more angrily than he ever had before. He fired several rockets in Eggman's direction, with more than half of them connecting. The Walker wasn't able to get its attack off and it started to smoke and collapse right in front of Amy.
Amy pulled her hands from her eyes and looked around. Then, she checked her body for any wounds. There weren't any. She was okay. She ran to Tails' side as Robotnik started to gather himself. Tails looked at the state of the Walker. There was no way he was going to be able to pull off another attack, was there?
The doctor looked up at him intensely, but he was not going to attack again. "This time," he said in a menacing tone, "I will let you go. Next time, you will not be so lucky." The Walker marched off smoking towards the aircraft carriers from where he had come before.
Tails stared him down the whole way. He gripped the controls of his Cyclone intently and was quite proud of himself. He had defeated Eggman without Sonic once again. Amy then leaned over the Cyclone and gave Tails a nice, tight hug.
"Aw, Tails, you saved me!" she said, still hugging him. "Thank you, thank you, thaaaank you so much!"
Tails was unused to female attention, so he had no idea how to react to this. He tried playing it cool and didn't say anything at first, but then Amy started nudging her head against his chest and ever so slightly stroked his lower back. How does Sonic deal with all this, he thought to himself.
"Hey, you saved me, too, don't forget that," Tails finally mustered the courage to say.
"Aw, that was nothing," she replied, though they both knew it wasn't. Tails surely would have been dead if not for Amy.
Things had become silent now. Amy still had her arms around Tails, and things were becoming pretty awkward for him. Finally, he broke the silence by saying, "So what brings you to Prison Island, Amy? I mean, I'm sure you know it's pretty dangerous here and all—"
"SONIC! I have to save Sonic!" she screamed, pulling her arms of the fox and looking around. "I need to find the prison cells and rescue Sonic, now I remember!"
"Right, okay," said Tails. He almost couldn't believe that Amy had gotten here to save Sonic before he did, although he then realized this was Amy he was talking about. "Well, that's what I came here to do. Now, see, I'm going to go in through one of these gates here, blow through all the guards, steal a keycard, and then use that keycard to open up Sonic's cell."
"'Kay, so what do I do?" Amy asked.
"Well…" Tails hesitated, reacting nervously.
"Don't tell me you were just going to fly solo on this whole thing?" She asked. She took him not responding for a yes. "Oh, c'mon, there has to be something you need help with!"
Tails stood and considered this. He had planned everything out pretty well and the plan was pretty much infallible. There was no need for anybody else's help. "Sorry, Amy, but I think I've got it covered. I have a plan set up, and I really think I should just stick to it. Plus, it ought to be really dangerous in there—"
"Dangerous?" Amy responded almost incredulously. "I knew the danger I was getting into when I came here, Mr. Prower. And besides, how old are you? 8? I should be telling you that this is dangerous!"
Tails would've gotten angry at this insult to his age, but decided against it. There was no need to get mad at Amy, she's a friend. He supposed it wouldn't harm him to let her tag along with him, so long as she didn't get hurt. She handled herself pretty well against Eggman, so she should be fine, he thought to himself.
"All right, Amy, you can come," he said. Amy jumped and screamed joyously. "But we're sticking to MY plan!"
"Whatever you say, Captain Tails! I'm right behind you!"
They marched off towards the prison gates ready to start looking for Sonic. If they knew what the doctor and his mates had in store for them, they probably would have hurried.
