The heroes met up again in the room they'd seen Eggman dematerialize in. None of them really wanted to be there, it was sort of haunting knowing someone had basically died there, but they needed Eggman's records, and this was the best place to start looking.
"Where do we…?" Leon asked as Espio, Yuffie and Silver walked in.
"What happened to your arm?!" Sonic blurted out. Espio's entire right arm was bloated out of proportion, completely black with the veins, now purple, standing out on bulging flesh. A strip of fabric near his shoulder separated the black, rotten looking flesh from his normal purple scales. Espio looked down for a second at the mutated limb, then up at Sonic with a blank expression.
"It's nothing," he said emotionlessly. "I got a slight infection from IX when we were fighting."
"Slight?"
Shadow said. "You need to have that checked out. It could be
dangerous."
"By who?!" Espio snapped, showing his anger.
"If you didn't notice the last person with the title 'doctor'
got taken over by a monster a few minutes ago." The rest of the
group looked stunned at Espio's outburst. It was very out of
character for him to do anything like that. Espio noticed their
faces. "Sorry," he mumbled. "I'm not quite right at the
moment." Leon looked at him peculiarly, and then looked at Yuffie.
She shook her head sharply, making sure Espio didn't see her do it,
and Leon changed the subject.
"Did they get away?" Espio nodded, regaining his composure.
"IX and XI got…"
"Zeblax," Silver interrupted quietly.
"What?"
"XI's name is Zeblax," Silver said. The white hedgehog looked shaken, not quite himself. Had he been infected as well, or was there something else on his mind? "She told me it before she left…" Silver looked like he was going to say more, but didn't.
"And?" Sonic asked his future friend. Silver shook his head.
"It's nothing," he muttered. "Nothing important." He turned to the purple chameleon. "Do we have any ideas where the doctor's records on the heartless or his connection to GUN would be?" Espio nodded.
"Eggman would keep a link to all his files in his main control hub," he said. "That would be here." The chameleon walked over to Eggman's throne, spotting the holographic keyboard that was floating there. The keyboard was comprised completely of light detectors launched from a camera. When one of the detectors was blocked it would signify this as touching the keys. It was very useful, but also confusing for an amateur to use. Espio went over to it, and made the movement of touching a few keys. A screen lit up, showing the cameras around the complex. Espio grinned widely. "Perfect, he didn't have time to lock it!" Yuffie looked at the grin like it was a manifestation of darkness.
"Sensei?" Espio looked at her, noticing his grin, and wiped it away. Sonic groaned.
"You could have at least let me take a picture of it," he wined. "Do you know how rare it is to see Espio smile like that? It's like a one in a million chance. One in a billion!"
"Shut up," Shadow told him firmly. Sonic gave him a shrug and did what he was told.
"Now where would the records be I wonder?" Espio muttered to himself. He hit a few keys, initiating a search on the word Heartless. The computer beeped encouragingly, showing a list of references. "Perfect."
"What's that one?" Shadow pointed at one of the larger files. It was listed as being last edited by a G. Robotnic. "That looks like it could one of Gerald's reports." Espio clicked on it. Immediately, the screen flashed red and a password box blocked the screen.
"Type in the password," a recording of Eggman's voice said in his annoying tone. Sonic shuddered at hearing the doctor's voice. It just served as a reminder of what had happened. Espio noticed this, and felt a pang of guilt. If this was how Sonic reacted when his worst enemy died, how would he react when he found out his entire world, every person he'd known and loved, were…?
"Try the universal GUN override," Leon suggested. Shadow looked at his curiously.
"How do you know those codes?" he asked the lion. Leon shrugged.
"I'm a GUN agent. It stands to reason I should know the codes." Shadow raised his eyebrow.
"You're GUN?" Leon nodded and turned away, obviously ending to conversation. Shadow shrugged, knowing he'd find out eventually. Espio typed in the code, and the laughing Eggman symbol that the doctor had used as his signature wiggled on the screen.
"Incorrect," the computer said in Eggman's voice. "Try again."
"What about the hacker's code?" Yuffie offered. The Sonic and Silver gave her questioning looks, and Espio explained.
"It's a special code computer hackers use to break down computer defenses. The word releases a virus into all systems that attacks the locks on programs. It sometimes risks damaging the data, but I think it's worth a shot."
"What is the code?" Sonic asked curiously. Espio and Shadow shook their heads in unison.
"Giving you a code like that would be classified as a crime by most countries Sonic." Shadow said. "It would be like giving a terrorist the detonator to a bomb." Yuffie and Silver laughed weakly, but their hearts weren't in it.
"Whatever, I'll just get the code off Tails later." At the kitsune's name, Shadow shot Espio a threatening look, making the ninja cringe. Sonic saw this, but took no notice. Shadow made everyone cringe. Why was Espio any different? Recovering from Shadow death look, Espio typed in the code, moving his hands quickly so that Sonic couldn't make out the digits. On the computer screen, a pixilated purple knight appeared. It looked like a character from an old video game. A very old video game. Shadow raised his eyebrows skeptically , and Espio shrugged. He hand no idea what was going on either. It waved its sword in the air and began running like he was on a treadmill until a locked door appeared in front of him. The knight ran towards the door, but an old style Egg Pawn appeared in his way with one of their long lance weapons. The knight charged at the robot and swung its sword, which the pawn blocked with its pike. It did a few more attacks finally disarming the pawn, proceeding to destroy it.
"I guess that means we're in," Silver said. "Pretty weird hacker's tool Yuffie."
"This didn't happen the last time I used it!" the mouse protested, watching the screen. The little knight walked up to the door, slashing the door open one stroke. The door flew open, knocking the knight back. Out of the door came another Egg Pawn, this one holding a laser bazooka. It took one shot to blow the knight to smithereens. Again, the laughing Eggman face appeared on the screen.
"Too back, Hacker. One try left."
"What does it mean one try left?" Yuffie asked. "One try left or what?"
"Let's not find out," Leon suggested. Everyone agreed unanimously. "So, anyone got any ideas on the password?" Sonic and Silver shook their heads, so did Yuffie and Espio. Shadow was staring at the screen, scratching his chin. "Shadow?"
"Gerald," Shadow said, nearly silently. "Were you really that simple?"
"Shadow?"
"Try Maria." Leon gave him a curious look, Yuffie and Silver gave him a surprised one, and Sonic and Espio understood.
"Why the hell would the password be Shadow's friend?" Yuffie asked.
"Because his friend just happens to be Gerald's nephew and Eggman's cousin," Espio said. "He's used it before."
"And as we know, Eggman is chronically repetitive," Sonic finished. "Give it a try." As Espio typed in Maria's name, Shadow looked hard at Yuffie.
"How do you know who Maria is?" he asked. It was an innocent enough question, but innocent wasn't a word that could describe Shadow, under any circumstances. Yuffie looked away instantly, mumbling something too quietly for Shadow to hear. "What was that?"
"Found her picture on the ground," she mumbled. "Looked her up."
"I see." Shadow glared at Sonic, completely without reason. The moment Shadow's back was turned, Sonic mouthed 'told you' to Yuffie. On the computer the spooky smiling Eggman appeared again.
"Damn i…" Espio nearly swore.
"Welcome doctor," the computerized Eggman said. "Your files are open."
"Phew!" Espio started searching through the files, everyone else staring intently over his shoulder. They were research documents as Shadow had suspected, containing files listed as experiment results, personal notes by Gerald, even a few video files.
"This is it," Silver whispered excitedly. "This will tell us how to beat the heartless!"
"Could tell us how to beat them," Shadow corrected. "Don't get your hopes up yet."
"Lighten up Shad," Sonic said. "We've finally found something! Live a little, will ya!"
"Quiet," Espio hissed. "I'm trying something." The chameleon moved over to one of the video files and hit the open button. A large, full screen picture of an old human man incredibly similar in appearance to Eggman appeared. He had the same oversized moustache, the same bald head, he was even wearing the same style of tinted glasses that Eggman used. He was wearing a white lab coat and appeared to be happy.
"Gerald," Shadow muttered, staring intently at the screen. His beloved creator, the one who had given him life, was once again before him from beyond the grave. Despite the emotion he was feeling, the Ultimate lifeform kept his face completely neutral. No point in showing the others what he was feeling anyway.
The doctor appeared to be standing in a lab of some sort, with a source of extreme bright light off to his left. The light seemed to obscure part of the picture, but Gerald didn't shade his face from it, as if the light cast no glare onto him. The old doctor cleared his throat, and began to speak.
"Fourth of November, 1953," he stated. His voice was exactly how you expected an old man to sound: slow, deliberate, and careful. "My team and I have discovered something truly incredible. Going off the old painting we uncovered in…" There was a fierce burst of static, blocking off whatever Gerald said next.
"Damn!" Espio swore. "The file must have some damage!" The static stopped and Gerald continued.
"The directions were correct! Once we aimed our tool towards the Earth's core, we were able to uncov…" Another burst of static, accompanied by seething from Espio. "of the world. It appears to be a glowing mass made from some unknown luminous matter. We've run some test on the substance, mainly its power output. The results…Scchsh… impossible. It's like nothing we've seen before. If we could harness this sort of power, then anything could be possible! Unlimited energy! No more harmful chemicals to fulfill man's desire. We could even resurrect the…" There was another interruption, but this time it wasn't static. Something had made a crashing sound inside the video. "What was that?" The Gerald on screen walked out of sight. "Ivo, Ansem! What did you do?!"
"Sorry grandfather," a younger voice said. Two young human boys walked across the screen. They were both the same age, around ten. One had brown hair, the other was blonde.
"What happened?" the Gerald off screen ordered.
"Sorry Mr Robotnic," the blonde said. We accidentally knocked over one of…" More damaged tape cut out his next words.
"What have I told you about playing with the equipment, boys," Gerald said in a scolding tone. "You know it'd dangerous! Ivo, where is your cousin? I thought I told her to watch you two." The brown hair boy looked like he was going to answer, when there was the sound of a door slamming.
"Ivo! Ansem!" a female voice said in an angry tone. "How dare you do that to me! Do you know how long it took me to get out of there?!" A girl walked into view. She was wearing a blue dress, long flowing gold hair and looked incredibly angry, a look that didn't fit her pretty features.
"Sorry Maria," the two boys said.
"Maria?" Sonic said to himself. He glanced over at Shadow. The shadow black and blood red hedgehog had the same cold mouth and uninterested eyes he always had when he wasn't fighting or angry. But a single tear still managed to make its way down his cheek.
"That damage is going to cost a lot of money to fix," the recorded Gerald told the two boys. "Neither of you are leaving your rooms until we move to the next destination." Ansem and Ivo hung their heads in shame and were shepherded out by Maria. Gerald turned back to the camera, took a breath, let is out, sighed exasperatedly and turned the camera off.
There was near dead silence after that. Shadow, Espio and Leon seemed to be deep in thought and Sonic and Silver didn't dare break into the ebony hedgehog's thoughts for fear that whatever emotions he was feeling were released. Finally, Yuffie broke the void of sound. "So," she said slowly. "Who were they?" Leon was about to tell the mouse to stop talking, when Shadow answered.
"The one with the moustache was Dr Gerald Robotnic, the extraordinary scientist who was apparently researching the heartless." Yuffie nodded to show that she knew this. "The girl was Maria, his niece. I don't know why she was there. It must have been before my creation. The brown haired boy was Gerald's grandson, Ivo Robotnic, also known as Dr Eggman." Yuffie's eyes widened, as did everyone else's except Espio's. Not much surprised him.
"That was a young Eggman?!" Sonic nearly yelled. "When the hell was he that thin?!" Shadow sighed exasperatedly.
"Most kids don't look that much like what they grow up to be," he explained slowly. "Surely you knew Eggman's first name was Ivo!" Sonic shrugged.
"I never took any notice. I was too busy destroying whatever he created." Shadow didn't want to continue the pointless conversation, so he turned back to Yuffie.
"I don't know who the last boy was. I'd never heard his name before."
"Ansem," Leon said. Everyone turned to him. "I think it must be Ansem the Wise, the leader, ex-leader, of Hollow Bastion. The age fits, around sixty five. That must have been what he looked like before the animaloid virus. I knew he studied a bit with Dr Gerald, but I didn't know that he was friends with Eggman. Interesting."
"OK, so we know who they are, but what was Gerald talking about?" Silver queried. "He talked about some sort of old painting directing him to a glowing mass 'towards the Earth' or something. He said it had readings of unlimited power. Now I don't mean to be skeptical or anything, but if this Organization XIII had an object, possibly a weapon, of unlimited power, we screwed!"
"I wouldn't worry about it," Leon told him.
"Any why would that be Leon?" Yuffie said, going up into the brown lion's face. "Do you know something we don't? Huh? HUH?!" Leon pushed her out of his personal space as gently as he could.
"No Yuffie. I'm just reading the information." Yuffie's look said that she didn't understand. "Whatever this object of unlimited power is, it's obviously flawed." Yuffie's look remained, and the look seemed to also jump to Sonic and Silver. Before the inevitable 'huh?' came, Leon explained more. "If whatever it was were perfect, Gerald would have announced it to the public, most likely resulting in the things that he predicted. As none of these have happened, I'm guessing that whatever he found was flawed, fake or otherwise unusable."
"How the hell did you figure all of that out from one video when we couldn't?" Sonic asked, dumbstruck.
"I'm not going to even point out how stupid you sound asking that," Silver said.
"But you just did."
"Oh, right." Silver shut his mouth and stepped back.
"Let's try another file," Espio offered. "There's a lot of information to get through here." Everyone else nodded, and Espio hit the play button on the next video. Another picture of Gerald appeared in the same room as before, but something was wrong. There was no sound, and the picture wasn't moving.
"What's going on?"
"I don't know," Espio told whoever had asked. "The movie must not be working, or it's damaged or…" As he was talking, the picture began to change, pixel by pixel, until Gerald's face had changed into the dark hood and cloak of one of the heartless of Organization XIII. As the final square changed over, the characters voice blared through the speakers.
"My apologies," it said. The voice was high yet male, the same voice from Station Square. The leader! I!
"You!" Sonic yelled at the screen. "You're the one responsible for all this! Who are you?!"
"You are not authorized to view these files, so I must delete them. I hope there isn't a problem." He was both ignoring and mocking them. Giving a hollow laugh, he pressed a button below the camera. Instantly, all the documents in Gerald's file began to disappear.
"No!" Silver yelled, clamoring at the computer screen. "Nonononononononono! We need those!" The figure on the screen laughed again, no more heartily than the time before.
"I apologize for the inconvenience Silver. Consider it my compensation."
"Compensation?" Shadow asked. "Compensation for what?"
"For you surviving, of course," I said. "You were supposed to be eliminated in Station Square three weeks ago. I must say, transporting yourselves into the future to escape execution was a truly inspired choice of action. Not to mention self-centered. I never expected that you could do such a thing Sonic."
"It wasn't exactly planned," Sonic muttered. "But it doesn't matter now! Tails will be able to retrieve the files, not matter whether you've deleted them or not. That'll show you!" Sonic waited for the figure to reply, but the computer seemed to have frozen. The figure wasn't moving at all, he seemed to be just staring at the screen, at Sonic more specifically. Then, he began to laugh. Slowly, steadily, a true, bellowing laugh that moved from a small rumble to a full blown roar. I leant his head back and laughed like a maniac. "What's so funny?!" Like before, I ignored him and continued laughing. "What's so funny?!" I managed to get himself under control enough to splutter out a few words between bouts of laughter.
"Oh you idiot! You poor, sorry, gullible, foolish little hedgehog! Tails is…" I was cut off completely as Espio jumped through the holographic keyboard and sent his infected black arm into the computer screen, shorting it out instantly.
"Yuffie," Leon said softly to the nearly terrified girl. "We have to leave the room!"
"But, Sensei Espio!"
"Now!" The lion literally lifted the girl over his shoulder and quickly hurried her out of the room.
Espio was panting, sweat trickling down his face from rage as he crouched in front of the destroyed plasma screen. He was furious with everything: I, the world, the Organization, but most of all himself. And he was letting that rage out. He had let it come to this, and now he was going to have to face the consequences. He had to tell them. Sonic and Silver were behind him, looking worried for their friend. Shadow was waiting further back, knowing what Espio was about to do.
"I'm sorry, my friends," he whispered to no one. "I failed you again."
"Espio, are you all right?" Sonic asked.
"Sonic, I have to tell you something," the chameleon said without turning around.
"I can wait until we get that arm of your checked out. It's not safe! I'm sure Tails can come up with…"
"Don't you get it yet," Espio screamed as he jumped round. Tears had filled his eyes, streaming down his cheeks. "Tails isn't coming! None of them are!"
"What are you saying? You're not making sense Espio. Are you saying their captured or something?"
"No!" Espio was literally sobbing now. "They're beyond that now. I'm sorry Sonic."
"They're dead!"
Am I an evil person for doing this to Sonic and the others? Probably. Don't hate me for what happens next, please. I had this ready nearly five days ago, but my internet cut out right before I was going to post it. Curses! Antares, now depressed with himself, out!
