Chapter 10
Robotropolis
1:17 AM
Seltic swallowed the last bite of a home baked cookie and stared longingly into his empty cup, searching for a drop of coffee to wash it down with. He set the cup down, brushed his hands off, and said to his sister, "Wow, that Rosy can bake almost as well as Maya."
"I know, it was so nice of them to let us eat with them before leaving," Sissera replied before yawning loudly. "I wish we could have just stayed there for the whole night."
"I'm not so sure I would have wanted to do that," Kyros interrupted from across the passenger cabin of the hovercraft. "They seemed nice enough, but I get the feeling that Sonic wasn't too keen on us hanging around."
Seltic leaned back in his seat. "I know. He's so different than I would have expected. I think he was jealous of you or something."
"Over the princess? He can keep her, that's a little too high brow for me."
"She's not really much of a princess anymore I suppose, but you're probably right," Seltic replied, checking the reading on his watch. "Either way, we should be arriving soon. The three of us were grouped together, right?"
Kyros nodded and said, "Yeah. The three of us get to have fun skulking around in the main facility tonight. Everyone else is supposed to do what they can about the launches."
Sissera raised an eyebrow and asked, "What were we supposed to do?"
"Beats me. Maya said something about getting any information they need. I guess she means security codes, or spying on Robotnik. I'd have sent Stanley and Kaplain for those jobs, but I don't make the rules."
"I guess she doesn't trust Kaplain enough for something so important, and she likes to keep Stanley on a leash. It does make me wonder what she is going to have them doing though."
"Keep him close I'd wager," Sissera said.
"It's probably better this way. The further away from us he is, the better," Kyros continued, noting an irritated expression on Seltic's face. "If he is a spy, then at least he won't be right next to the roboticizer," he explained with a smirk.
The three flinched as a cloudy blue light flared to life at the front end of the passenger cabin, signifying that they were close to their destination. In unison they stretched and took a deep breath in preparation for the long night ahead.
"Once more into the beast's lair," Seltic muttered dryly.
Stanley stared down the endless series of streets ahead of his team and slowed to a stop. He scratched his temple and asked Tantalus behind him, "Are we headed in the right direction?"
Tantalus stared back in alarm. "You mean you don't know?"
"I'm not sure. I thought for certain that the launch pads that I explored with Kyros earlier were in this direction, but I don't see anything up ahead," he replied, searching about for any signs of the massive launch scaffolding that pock marked the horizon the previous night.
"So, we're lost in Robotropolis? You've got to be kidding." Tantalus turned to face Marcus and Vladimir, noting the concern on their faces.
"We're lost?" the raccoon asked.
"No, I recognize some of these buildings," Stanley reassured. "We have to be headed the right way, but I don't see the missile pads. I just don't get it, we should almost be there by now."
"Within seeing distance?" Tantalus asked.
Stanley picked up the trail again, replying, "Yeah, I would think so. They should be just a few blocks ahead, and a few turns here and there. The tops were clearly visible from here last time."
"Remodeling?" the squirrel questioned, eagerly following.
"Could be, but I doubt it," Stanley answered as he strolled around a turn. "What else could you do with a dozen launch silos?"
"Well, this is Robotnik we're talking about. For all we know he could be building a tanning salon or-"
Stanley cut him off with a gesture and motioned for him to take cover beside him within one of the abandoned buildings. He peered down the street to the others and whispered, "You two, over here right now."
Marcus stumbled over himself for a moment in search of any source of concern before bolting towards the cover. Vladimir snapped to attention and hurried after him, his heavy laser rifle braced for any sudden need. Moments after he stumbled through the partially collapsed door, the unmistakable sound of a buzzbomber began to resonate through the empty street. The machine bolted by, its engines thundering loudly and wings screeching in an abnormally high pitch.
As the street cleared and quietened, Tantalus whispered to his comrades, "Wonder where he was going in such a hurry."
Stanley checked the visible street and replied, "I don't know, but I doubt it was looking for us. There's no way it could have spotted someone in hiding at that speed."
"Was it running from something?"
"I hope not, I haven't seen one scared of anything before. The only thing I can figure is that it's either in a hurry to get out of this area, or it's heading to intercept someone."
The group slipped back into the road and cautiously continued along the path. Tantalus glanced back after the robot and asked, "The others weren't anywhere nearby, were they? It couldn't have been heading to get them, right?"
"Yeah, I doubt it. If they've been discovered Robotnik would have sent something closer to intercept, which makes me very curious about where it was headed." Stanley again slowed to a stop under a lone functional streetlight, and examined his possible options. "Maybe we'll see if we can find the launch sites. There may be a launch soon, and it was clearing the area."
"I guess. Which way now?"
Stanley pointed off down another gloomy street and led the four towards their target. "We've got to be getting close now. I'm getting a little worried that we don't see them yet."
"Me too," Tantalus replied, scanning the bleak sky for any signs of more robotic wasps or missile trails.
"I actually think that we should be able to see them directly right around this corner," Stanley continued, pointing towards the near alley branching from the road. He stepped gingerly towards the alley, hugging the shadows cast from a relatively recently constructed building, and peeked around the corner.
Tantalus followed the motions as well as he could, finding Stanley in a confused stupor. Instead of asking the obvious, he instantly turned his attention down the alley. His jaw dropped slightly as if to speak, but he only managed a guttural grunt as his eyes focused on the opening at the end of the alley.
"Wh-what happened?" he finally asked, surveying the immense piles of smashed concrete, twisted and discarded steel girders, and piping.
"It looks like... he demolished everything..."
The sight of another pair of SWATbot legs shuffling by through an air vent grating removed the final ounce of ease from Kyros' mind. Wandering through the outskirts of Robotropolis seemed safe compared to trying to spy from within the main facilities, where Robotnik himself resided for the majority of his time. It was easy to drift from building to building in the streets, but inside of the massive egg-shaped command center, the only safe streets were the air ducts and sewage lines. And even then, very few were large enough to move around in.
"So, where are we headed?" Seltic broke the silence as the robot drifted far enough away.
Kyros met his gaze and smirked. "Maya said that any targets of opportunity were fair game, so I thought that we'd satisfy my itch to destroy something important."
"What's in here that's vulnerable?" Sissera whispered.
"Plenty, mostly computers," Seltic answered. "Is that what you had in mind?"
Kyros watched the vent opening for a moment before replying, "Yeah. It's been a few years since I've seen the control room itself, and I can't get the idea of writing my name on everything with my gun out of my head."
"Sounds fun," Sissera commented.
Kyros smiled and popped the vent hatch open. "You bet. Let's go before another bot comes by."
The three slipped from the conduit and sneaked towards a nearby corner. Seltic pressed himself up against the wall and directed to Kyros, "The control room is on the top floor, how are we going to get to it?"
"Take the elevator, of course," Kyros joked before darting from his cover behind the corner and down the connected hallway. He slid to a stop near a pair of large downward chutes built into a grime-soiled wall. "I think it's safest if we go this way," he continued, placing his foot onto the lip of one of the large holes.
"Not much of an elevator," Seltic said, catching up to Kyros. "Doesn't that lead to the garbage system in the basement?"
"That's what I'm hoping for. We'll be able to get close to the elevators without being spotted that way," Kyros said. He pulled himself into the chute and urged, "Let's go."
Seltic and Sissera looked at each other and hesitated for a moment before forcing themselves into the stinking pipes. After an agonizing wait as they slid against the slick and lightly clogged chutes, they found themselves crashing into heaps of rotten garbage with a sickening squish. Seltic pulled himself from the mess with a groan and helped his sister from her own pile of trash.
"I'm going to be sick," she complained.
"Maybe this wasn't my greatest idea," Kyros called to them from a short distance away. The two tenrecs turned to find him standing within an enormous drainage pipe leading away from the collection room. "But, we're down here, so let's go."
They worked their way past the semi-solid garbage and into the pipe, stopping to take a look at the marginally lit pipe network extending into the darkness. Seltic sighed and asked, "Are you sure you know where you're going?"
Kyros hopped down from the pipe into the main chamber and answered, "Actually, I was hoping you did."
Seltic answered Sissera's worried expression by pulling the computer form his coat's pouch. "I don't know off hand, but I can probably find out."
The two crowded around him as he sifted through an untold number of schematics and blueprints collected from years ago. He eventually settled on a layout of the sewage system of Robotropolis, and focused on the command center. The overly crowded image shifted a number of times before settling on a complex series of interlocked tunnels.
"That the sewers?" Sissera asked.
"Yeah. I think I can figure out a path to an elevator shaft with this. The plans are pretty old, but Robotnik hasn't been known to remodel frequently."
"So, which way then?" Kyros questioned, standing and staring into the abyss before them.
Seltic closed the screen on his computer and stowed it under his arm. He stepped forward and studied a sign above one of the countless paths before pointing down the shaft. "This way. The signs are all written in Mercian for some reason, but I think I can figure it out. There are two sewage lines in the facility. This one, and one more right near the cargo loading area." He looked at Kyros and continued, "I take it you intended to sneak onto a cargo elevator while the workers weren't looking?"
"Something like that. We'll have to wing it."
Seltic sighed. "I thought so. Maybe you'd best come up with another plan just in case that doesn't work out. Remember, if we get caught, it won't take Robotnik two minutes to get us in the roboticizer." He pointed at a sign painted on the pipe ahead of them and added, "Anyway, it's this way."
Kyros stared at the cryptic sign and climbed into the pipe after Seltic and his sister. "If you say so."
Maya shuffled to a stop a few steps away from a debris pile blocking the street, formed from the violent collapse of several adjacent buildings. She looked over the scorched and disheveled lot of shattered buildings and glanced back to her companion. "So, this is the spot?"
"Yes. I hoped that I would never have to see it again," Kaplain replied in his modulated voice.
"We should move on then. Do you remember where you were working before this happened?"
He stepped forward, his metal hooves clacking loudly against the bare asphalt. "It was up one level, around the final assembly workshop about a block in that direction," he continued, pointing off through a partially collapsed building.
"I was afraid of that," she sighed, "I hope I have the strength to climb up there." She took a deep breath and asked, "How tight was security around here?"
Kaplain stared in the direction he pointed in earlier for a moment before answering, "At the time, things were winding down I believe, so it was getting lax." He grew silent with concentration and said, "I used to be able to hear the radio signals in my head, so I would be able to tell you how it was right now." With a sigh he met her gaze, "But I can't any more. It's too faint to distinguish."
"I'm sure we'll be fine, especially if you know where the patrol routes are," she consoled him. "But, how do we get up there?"
He silently nodded at her remark before nervously saying, "There are dozens of old fire escapes around here, can you manage that?"
She puzzled over the thought and found one of the ladders with her eyes. "I think so."
Kaplain led her over to the ladder and offered, "I can go first and help you up." With her agreement, he mounted the ladder and slowly scaled his way to the next level, ensuring that the weathered metal would not give under his weight. As Maya followed and neared the top he extended his hand.
"Thank you dear," she said to him as he pulled her clear of the ladder and onto the scaffold. Between deep breaths, she huffed, "Okay then, which way?"
Kaplain nervously searched the area with his ears, listening for the distinct sound of metal feet clanging against floors. "This way, I don't hear any workers nearby right now," he answered, motioning towards the corner at the near intersection.
"Do you think that we'll be able to get inside without much trouble?" she asked him as she followed his uncertain footsteps.
He paused at the intersection and listened again. "I honestly don't know. I didn't go inside very often, but I think that we can get on the roof from here. But from there..."
Maya frowned and said, "I guess we'll have to do what we can then."
He nodded and led her around the corner. A string of oddly new looking factories and staging facilities instantly came into view, standing out from their surroundings defiantly as if daring anyone to approach. Kaplain's joints creaked quietly as he tensed at the sight of a small group of workers below. "We're not alone," he warned her.
She stepped towards the guard rail for a better look and sighed. "I figured this wouldn't be that easy. Which way do we need to go?"
Kaplain motioned for her to crouch behind him and whispered, "Just down this catwalk, and step off onto the building. If you stay low, we might be able to just walk by."
Maya agreed and crept along behind him as he tried to leisurely proceed down the path. In his nervousness he walked too naturally, unlike the determined march of other roboticized workers, but managed to avoid attracting undue attention to himself. As they approached the building, Kaplain motioned for her to step back against the wall of the building they stood against. "Let me check ahead, there may be security personnel nearby," he whispered to her, attempting to stand perfectly erect like he would be expected to.
He stepped down the catwalk, carefully observing each alley and branching path as he passed by. At the corner of the building, he jerked to a stop at the sight of another robot appearing from one of the myriad entrances to the factory complex. He waited until the machine was out of sight, and turned to face Maya. With a cautious smile, he waved for her to join him near the building.
Stanley took a step down from his vantage point atop the sea of debris and addressed his team, "I don't understand. There's nothing larger than a car left intact."
Vladimir shouldered his weapon and asked, "Is it possible that someone beat us here?"
"I don't think so, nothing looks like it was knocked down by weapon fire. It just looks demolished. Besides, it would have taken a small army to do this kind of damage, and that would have never made it this far into Robotropolis."
Tantalus slowly scanned the horizon and added, "The main thing that scares me is the lack of robots. Other than that buzzbomber, we've seen nothing."
"Destroyed along with the launch pads?" Vladimir insisted.
"It doesn't add up. Nothing looks like there was any sort of struggle or fighting. I don't see any weapon marks, shrapnel, or destroyed robots. It looks to me like Robotnik just ordered the whole thing razed."
"Why?" Marcus asked from atop a small mound of junk.
"I wish I knew."
"Maybe we should keep moving, we might find something," Tantalus added.
Stanley nodded and said, "Yeah, but it'd be suicide to march over the wasteland here. Let's take cover behind the buildings over there."
The group silently agreed and followed him as he deftly made his way through the twisted lake of decimated construction. One by one they filed through the openings towards the relatively unscathed building complexes. Along the way, Stanley broke the silence, "I thought that Robotnik might just be planning to demolish the missile silos if he's done with them, and build something else here. But, that doesn't make too much sense, because if he planned to do that, there would be legions of robots swarming around here right now."
Tantalus raced to catch up with him and added, "Yeah, and there's tons more space for him to make room for new stuff. He might just be trying to confuse us."
"It's not like him to be so elaborate like that. But, at this point I don't know what else it could be. Either way, he's destroyed the launch pads, and there's got to be a reason for it. Even he has to make some sense some of the time."
The four quietly continued along the street across from the previous launch sites, pausing intermittently to examine newly visible portions of the destruction. The complete lack of security continued to unnerve Tantalus, who spoke up, "I think we should get out of here. Something has got to be wrong, and I don't want to be around when-"
Tantalus halted at the feeling of someone urgently tugging at his tail. He turned to see Marcus pointing towards a bright yellow sign, obscured behind a fallen structural beam. Stanley stopped at the sudden silence, and back tracked to the group.
"Allow me," Vladimir offered. He stepped over and placed himself between the beam and building, and used his entire body's strength to shove the beam far enough away for Stanley to read the sign.
"This area condemned by order of Lord Robotnik. All personnel should avoid entering the area until further notice," he read aloud, frowning at the image of Robotnik's grinning face.
"See? I told you something was wrong," Tantalus said. "We should beat it now while we still can."
"I don't know, the sign looks old, and it seems like whatever was going to happen already has."
Tantalus eyed him skeptically for a moment before forcing himself to agree. "Fine, but maybe we should get in contact with the others and see if they've discovered anything that we should know. Kyros is in the main facilities after all, that's his mission."
"Okay, sounds like a good idea," Stanley said before opening his hand towards Vladimir. The badger removed a radio set from his belt and handed it to him. Stanley fiddled with the settings for a second before finding the correct channel, and raised the phone-like communicator to his ear. He flinched and snatched the radio away as it blared static.
"Is that the busted radio?" Tantalus asked nervously.
"No, I don't think so. I'm just not getting a decent signal for some reason. Even in the thick of the city out here we can usually get something," he replied, examining the readings on the radio's digital display. "That's odd, the signal's getting worse as we speak."
Tantalus opened his mouth to speak, but was cut off as he noticed the lighting around slowly changing. Where the city had been drenched in darkness, a mild blue hue was becoming obvious on the walls surrounding them. He studied the glow for a moment, and imagined that the the light was beginning to intensify.
"What on Mobius is that!?" Stanley shouted suddenly, pointing to the sky. Everyone immediately turned their attention to it, marveling at a strange blue light forming. The stars above slowly faded into obscurity as the light blazed brighter, lighting the sky as if it were day. Stanley looked to Tantalus and said, "I think you were right, run!"
The others immediately took off down the street towards an open alley without further request. An incredible hiss of air boiling into a plasma rolled through the city for a moment, followed by an impossibly bright explosion of heat and energy as a lance of light struck the debris from above.
From within the safety of the alley, they avoided the brunt of the blast, but were still thrown from their feet. Showers of semi-vaporized metal and ceramic rained from the air into the alley, before an immense shock wave blew a row of adjacent buildings down to their foundation. The resulting blast pelted them with cement fragments and hurled them down the street into waiting piles of garbage and crumbled structures.
After an agonizing silence and process of pulling himself free of a shattered wooden crate, Stanley stood and clasped his hands around his ringing ears. He weakly questioned, "Everyone alright?"
Vladimir grunted and forced himself to his feet, dropping the crushed remains of his weapon. "I'm fine."
"I'm okay," Marcus added from the middle of a stack of torn trash bags.
Stanley hobbled down the street a few steps and called, "Tantalus? Where are you?"
"Over here," he replied weakly. Tantalus rolled over where he laid, and sat up. He spat out a tooth stained with blood and placed his hand over the side of his face with a cringe. "What just happened?"
"How can one man need such a sewage system?" Seltic grumbled as he filed along behind Kyros and his sister.
"Don't forget Snively," Kyros jested.
Seltic glowered at him before pulling out his computer once more. He briefly eyed the screen and said, "We need to take a right here."
Kyros silently acknowledged the statement and turned to face a pipe running off from the main route. "How far away are we?" he asked.
"A couple hundred meters, give or take. It's a lot of winding around though."
"Great, doesn't look like we're saving much time after all."
Sissera looked back to her brother and asked, "Is this even any safer than going through the air ducts? I mean, he's got to have robots clean this place out every once in a while."
"Probably. We've only been in here a few times in the years we've been doing this, but I don't think we've ever come across anything down here. It makes me wonder why he even bothers lighting the place."
"Maybe he wants us to come down here," Kyros said. "Could be a trap, you know?"
"Maybe. He's usually a little less subtle than that though," Seltic replied as he sloshed through a puddle of standing sludge. He grunted and added, "It'll take weeks to get the smell out of our clothes."
The other two nodded at his comment but remained silent until they reached an intersection. "Left or right?" Kyros asked.
"Right again. It's a short walk to a treatment station from here."
Kyros chuckled and said, "I wonder if it's been turned on in a decade."
"Probably not," Sissera said, stepping down into the sloped pipe. "What even leads down here? There's got to be more than just Robotnik's plumbing."
"If I had to guess, it's probably mostly chemical plant run off and disposal for anything that's so corrosive he can't leave it around in a drum above ground," Seltic answered. He placed his hand on his chin and added, "Come to think of it, it's probably not a good idea to be standing around in this stuff, or breathing it."
Kyros sighed. "Nice to know that now. But, I guess if we were going to die from this junk it would have happened years ago."
"Yeah," Sissera mumbled. She knew a less appetizing truth about the pollutants, and memories the two-tailed fox that they had met in Knothole kept coming back to her. Even if he had been born too long ago to be affected by this pollution in particular, she knew all too well what it could cause. She also knew that now wasn't the best time to bring it up.
Seltic perked up at the clanking sound of unsophisticated machinery ahead and said, "We must be close. We'll probably have to shut it off to get by, but I don't think that will be a big deal."
"I say we trash it completely. A slime volcano in every toilet in Robotropolis from this mess backing up should give the good doctor something to think about," Kyros added with a smirk. "I should have brought some demolition charges, but I suppose that you can do something with the computer to foul it up, right?" he asked Seltic.
Seltic hopped down from their walkway into the room that housed the source of the noise and shouted over the rumble, "We'll have to see." As his team mates joined him, Seltic casually made his way to an ancient computer system using one of the many walkways above a massive rotating set of stirring blades.
"Well?" Kyros asked.
Seltic flashed him a confused look. "I don't know if I can do anything with this..."
"Is it broken?" Kyros trotted across the same walkway to join his companion. After a momentary glance at the muck covered keys of the computer, he said, "Oh, more Mercian. Why in blazes is everything written in Mercian down here?"
Sissera joined the others, saying, "This must have been here since the palace was built, and I suppose there's any number of reasons."
"Either way, there's no way that I'm going to be able to do anything. I haven't read anything in Mercian since school, and that's been forever ago."
Kyros sneered and glared at the computer. "So, what do we do now? Backtrack and go another way?"
"Maya speaks Mercian," Sissera offered. "She used to live there when she was young, didn't she?"
Kyros blinked. "Wow, I can't believe that I forgot about that. Sounds good though, can we get her on the radio down here?"
Seltic pulled a radio transmitter from his coat pocket and checked a readout. "Amazingly, yeah, I think so. These tunnels must have antennae run through them to allow transmissions. Let me try at least." He keyed in a signal and raised it to his ear.
After a brief wait in silence, a startled female voice asked over the radio, "Wh-what is it?"
"Maya, we need a little help," he responded.
"What do you need?" she asked in frustration.
Seltic leaned back against a guard rail and continued, "We're down in the sewers, and we need to shut off a computer without causing a big commotion. The problem is, everything on it is written in Mercian. I can't decipher it, but I was hoping that you could."
She sighed over the speaker and said, "Okay, but I don't have much time. Read me what's on the screen."
He huddled over the dust stained glass and spoke into the radio, "It looks like an old command shell, this could be difficult. Anyway, it says, 'directoire: C:\, inscrissez'"
After a silence, she responded, "Just what it looks like, directory and inscribe. If you know what that's asking for."
"Yeah, what's the word for help?"
"Could be a lot of things, try aide."
He keyed in the word, which the computer responded to with a string of unidentifiable Mercian words. "No good, what else?"
She took a deep breath. "What about-" she said before being unexpectedly cut off with a surprised cry. Seltic pulled the radio away from his ear in shock at the sounds of an intense struggle ringing from the speaker. His eyes met Kyros and Sissera as her terrified voice continued across the radio, followed by a few short bursts of weapon fire and silence.
Kyros mouthed a curse and met the tenrecs' mortified faces with a command, "Don't just stand there, let's go!"
Tantalus dragged himself along behind Stanley, trying to ignore the stabbing pain in his face and side. He rubbed his bruised eye and whimpered, "Is the radio working yet?"
Stanley brushed ash from his singed fur and replied, "No, it's dead. I'm sure Seltic could tell you why, but all I know is that it's toast."
"Well, at least we know why the buzzbomber was leaving. There still don't appear to be any robots around," Vladimir chimed in.
"And why we're leaving the area. If that's going to happen again, I don't want to be anywhere near it. With any luck, we can meet up with Maya and stick with them until we leave," Stanley grumbled.
Tantalus groaned and looked down at his watch, surprised to find the display blank. "Oh man," he managed to speak at last, coming to an unnerving realization. Everyone stopped in their tracks and spun to face him with a look of tired disgust at his news. "I think all of our equipment is dead."
Stanley puzzled and angled his laser rifle at an odd pile of discarded concrete slabs and pulled the trigger. Instead of the normal crack of ionizing air and exploding rubble, the weapon merely clicked and sputtered a spark. "Great. We're deep inside of Robotropolis with no weapons. At least we should be getting close to Maya's position. Kaplain will be able to hold off most anything if he has to."
Tantalus shot him a confused expression. "Did Seltic hook his weapons back up? Maya and Kyros told him not to, didn't they?"
"Beats me, but regardless he's the strongest and toughest one of us out here."
Tantalus fell silent with acceptance and continued to trudge along in the makeshift convoy until Marcus broke the silence.
"How far away was Ms. Maya?" he asked no one in particular.
Stanley looked back slightly and said dryly, "Another dozen blocks or so I think. She was headed towards the factory where Sissera ran into Kaplain. I'm hoping that security is just as lax now as it was then."
Tantalus faked a chuckle and added, "Yeah, we'll probably run into the one robot around like she did." His speech paused for a second as he pushed his way through a hole in a shattered wall. "If Kaplain's with-" he continued before being cut off by throwing himself to the ground at the sound of a laser discharging.
The others immediately followed him to the ground, frantically searching for the source of the weapon fire. Another beam of air plasma shattered a street lamp next to Vladimir, encouraging him to find better cover within the ruins with Tantalus, who had reflexively drawn his ruined laser rifle.
Tantalus drew aim through a long destroyed window and spotted a pair of roboticized goats before remembering the state of his weapon. He prepared to use a grenade in the hopes that it would still detonate, but after a moment of hesitation he saw the robots utterly annihilated by two violet bursts of plasma. Instantly, the sprinting form of Kyros barreled into sight, placing a few laser shots into the devastated remains of the robots.
Kyros stumbled to a stop in the dark street before whirling around to face the combat torn intersection behind him. "Come on you two! We don't have much time!"
Tantalus spotted Seltic and Sissera hustling towards Kyros, steaming plasma guns in tow. He eagerly skipped towards the entrance of the building and into the street, and shouted, "Kyros, over here!"
He was met with three gun barrels aimed at his head for an instant before Kyros lowered his weapon and let out a winded gasp. "Geez Tant, don't do that!"
"Sorry, but we've got some trouble here," the squirrel apologized. "We were almost hit by some sort of super laser thing earlier, and now none of our weapons work. We're on the way to meet up with Maya."
Kyros puzzled and asked, "Your radio must not be working either." After Tantalus' confirmation he continued, "Then get everyone together and follow me, fast. We've got much bigger trouble than guns not working."
Stanley huffed an exhausted breath as he charged behind Kyros, and found the energy to gasp, "Are you sure about this?"
"Absolutely, you didn't hear it. Something is definitely wrong," the echidna muttered between breaths.
Seltic panted and added, "I don't understand though. Kaplain should have been right there with her." He gasped for breath and continued, "Unless that was him firing on the radio."
Kyros shot him a murderous look and asked, "What do you mean?"
Seltic slowed slightly to keep pace with Kyros and replied, "I... rewired his weapon mounts. I thought it might help."
"And the idea that he might betray us never occurred to you?" Kyros hissed.
"I removed his lasers and replaced them with charged particle projectors, they only do appreciable damage to electronics."
"Did he know that?" Stanley questioned, catching up.
"Yeah, the only thing he could have done to her is maybe singe her fur or something. He knew that, so I don't know why he would do anything."
Kyros slid around a corner and interrupted the conversation, "Well, forget it, we're close to where she was." The team scurried over the mountain of smashed buildings that marked the battle zone where Sissera met Kaplain. "This is where she was heading. There's no telling where she is though."
He started down the street at the double, and raised his weapon in preparation for the security forces that would certainly be swarming the area. Moments later a blue beam of energy lanced from a window down the street, vaporizing a chunk of the debris pile he stop atop. The robot leaped from the window to the street and broke into a sprint. It managed to draw aim at Kyros before being cut down by a staggering volley of laser and plasma fire.
Kyros led the others down the street without a word, ignoring the ravaged roboticized sheep that twitched spasmodically. He stumbled to a halt and emptied the remainder of his energy clip into a pair of SWATbots approaching. "Security is getting close, something has definitely happened here," he whispered to his comrades, slapping a fresh energy pack into his rifle.
He pointed at a safe ladder and called to Tantalus, "You're on point, see if you can spot anything."
Tantalus swallowed and muttered, "Got it." He shuffled past the others and mounted the ladder. As he prepared to ascend, a deafening crackle from dozens of speakers echoed throughout the streets.
"Would a Mr. Kyros please come to the main assembly facility? His party is waiting for him," a deep and unmistakable voice rumbled.
Kyros felt his stomach lurch. "Robotnik," he growled.
"Yes, it is I, the illustrious Doctor Ivo Robotnik," the voice continued. "It would seem that your friend here, a Ms. Morceaux I do believe, was romping around in one of my prized factories. So, I've decided that I'd turn her into a robot, and give her all of the time she wants in there. But, since I'm a sporting fellow, I'll give you a minute or two to save her if you want to try."
"It's a trap," Seltic warned.
"Of course it is... but it might just be what we need to get her back."
Robotnik finished, "I'll be waiting for you, don't disappoint me."
Kyros frantically searched around for a route to take before settling back on the ladder. "Alright everyone, up. If we hurry there might be hope." He scrambled up to the next level and darted down the catwalk towards the factory complex in the distance.
"Enemy spotted!" a robotic voice blared from the street below. The robot gopher fired a volley of lasers at the group, before being blown from the ground and through a building from a pair of plasma bursts.
Seltic juggled the steaming plasma gun in his hands and whimpered, "I don't know how much longer we can keep this up."
"Come on, or we might not have a chance," Kyros snapped before dashing off once more. He thundered along the thin metal plating and jumped over a flight of stairs to the level below. The clang reverberated across the entire scaffold and through the maze of alleys and streets nearby.
Three more robots dashed from the entrance of the factory into view and raised their weapons. Bolts of laser energy and plasma blasts sizzled past, smashing the wall behind them. Seltic collapsed to the floor with a cry as a laser beam grazed his arm, dropping his gun with a clack. Stanley snatched up the gun and released its charged shot into the knot of robots below, destroying one and hurling the other two aside.
Kyros and Sissera finished the two with a hail of shots before taking the moment to regroup. Seltic rolled over and grasped his burnt arm with a cringe. "I-I think I'm fine," he managed to utter. Sissera crouched beside him and agreed after a cursory examination.
"Get it together, then let's go! Stanley, keep his gun," Kyros directed before taking off again.
Seltic sighed in exhaustion and hefted himself to his feet. He cautiously fell into line behind Stanley and forced himself to continue. "Wait up," he called. The explosion of a SWATbot hoverpod around the corner forced him to his knee, and he scarcely managed to pull himself upright before the pod impacted the ground and detonated with a searing blast of heat.
Kyros jumped back in surprise and raised his rifle as a roboticized deer suddenly appeared from a doorway.
"Wait, it's me!" the deer pleaded, leaning away from the scorched rifle barrel.
Kyros paused in confusion and lowered his weapon slightly. "Kaplain?"
The deer nodded eagerly and stood from his cowering position. "Yeah, I'm glad I found you guys."
Kyros scowled and rammed his laser rifle into the robot's face with a clang of metal against metal, forcing Kaplain to lean backwards over a guard rail. He sneered and hissed, "Where's Maya? Where were you?"
"I-I can expl-" he stammered.
"You'd better!" Kyros cut in.
Sissera broke between the two and shouted, "Come on, we don't have time for this! Maya's in trouble!"
Kyros reluctantly stepped back and allowed Kaplain to talk. Kaplain stood up again and tried to calm himself. "We were on top of the factory before it happened. She was trying to find a way inside, and she told me to keep watch for security. I let her out of my sight for a moment, and the next thing I know... there's a dozen robots surrounding her and dragging her off."
"Why didn't you do anything?" Kyros demanded.
"Believe me, I wanted to! But... there was no way I could have handled them... and I froze."
Stanley chimed in, "Did you see where they took her?"
"Yeah, it's this way," Kaplain replied, pointing off. "If we hurry we might still be able to do something."
"Alright, but I'm not taking my eyes off of you," Kyros added.
Kyros clumsily slammed into Kaplain as the deer came to an abrupt halt in the center of the roof that they had been traversing. As the remainder of the group shuffled to an anxious stop, Kaplain crouched and looked back.
"What now?" Kyros demanded before he had a chance to speak.
"They're down there, I think," he responded, pointing towards the edge of the roof. "We should probably all stay low."
Kyros grunted and led the others in crouching and crawling to a better vantage point.. He cautiously peered over the raised edge of the industrial complex roof and rested his laser rifle in a defensive position. A numb feeling instantly flooded through his body like a wave as he swept the sights of the weapon across the legion of robots below. The machines milled around the vast empty space below, overshadowed by the immense command center a few blocks away.
"Robotnik..." he involuntarily hissed at the sight of the monstrous overlander in the center of the crowd atop a raised platform. "Maya!" he said aloud without thought as his eyes passed over a white mink bound at Robotnik's feet.
"Oh man... what do we do?" Tantalus whispered from his new position beside Kyros.
"I'm going to kill that fat egg-headed monster..." Kyros growled, aiming the laser rifle down into the crowd. He stared through the scope and steered the weapon to place the cross hairs on Robotnik's forehead, and tightened his finger around the trigger. At the extreme range, his nervous hand sent the targeting reticle wild. As the scope danced across Robotnik's body, it passed over Maya's face. At the sight of her terror stricken face, he backed away from the sight and dropped the rifle. "I can't make the shot... I might hit her," he mumbled.
"Should I try?" Vladimir asked.
Kyros sank into a sitting position against the raised edge of the roof and answered, "No... it's too risky, and would give away our position."
"What do we do then?" Stanley asked.
Kyros sighed with a blank expression and opened his mouth to speak when the familiar crackle of speakers coming to life interrupted him. "My dear furry friends, if you're listening, then I suppose you should know that you are too late to save your friend. I must admit that I'm a bit disappointed in you, after all, seeing you all cut down by my armies would have been most pleasing. Well, either way, adding this little one to my army is just as pleasing. If only you could have heard her crying out for you... Kyros," the voice of Robotnik spoke over the speakers, before Kyros saw him turn to face their building with a toothy grin.
Kyros jumped to his feet with a growl and aimed his weapon once more at Robotnik. He prepared to empty his energy clip at the monster regardless of the consequences, as Kaplain staggered into him, clutching his ears.
"What's that sound?" he muttered, trying to plug his ears. He stared into the sky and continued, "It sounds like an inferno or something..."
Stanley, Tantalus, Vladimir and Marcus all jumped to their feet in unison. "Coming from the sky?" Stanley asked.
"Yeah, I think.." Kaplain replied.
"Then we've got to get out of here, right now!"
"What?" Seltic butted-in.
"No time to explain, just go!" Stanley insisted, grabbing him and his sister by the sleeves and pulling them along. Vladimir followed by snatching Kyros from his feet and pulling him and Kaplain along. The entire team leaped across a chasm between buildings and sprinted off towards the catwalks they had emerged from minutes ago.
The sound of ionizing air began to fill the air around them, intensifying by the second as they dashed along the roof. Tantalus let out an audible whimper as the dour lighting around them began to be overtaken by a distinct blue-white hue. Without further instruction, each member of the team skipped across the alley onto the catwalks a story below.
Kaplain assisted the wounded Seltic and Marcus across the chasm, and prepared to jump to safety as an incredible beam of energy struck their prior position from the sky. The building exploded with the fury of a power plant detonating, leveling the building he stood on and sending fragments of structural steel and ceramics arcing through the air. The other members suddenly found themselves crashing to the ground as the shock wave and heat from the explosion rocked the catwalks from their supports.
As the debris settled, Kyros pulled himself to his feet and wiped a bloody wound on his leg. He glared at Stanley and asked, "What in the name of Mobius was that!?"
"I don't know," he answered, surveying the status of the others. "But it's happened once before, and could again, let's beat it before it does!"
Kyros hesitated as he watched Kaplain drag himself from the shattered remains of the adjacent building. After the others dragged themselves up and reoriented themselves frantically, he conceded. "Alright... I guess we have no choice."
He gathered everyone's attention and shouted, "Okay everyone, fall back! We're out of here! There's nothing else we can do."
