Infiltration
It all went almost like last time. Tails guided the group through the same vent tunnel and the team carefully made their way past laser fences and ventilator blades. Everything pretty much same procedure as last time, just that this time the group consisted of Shadow, Rouge and Omega accompanying him instead of Sonic and Knuckles… Nothing against his new allies, but Tails would have preferred his friends at his side. Maybe he would have felt safer that way…
Breaking into one of Eggman's bases always made him nervous. In fact, Tails knew that – though hiding it well behind a coat of cockiness and displayed casualness – Sonic was nervous as well when they entered the mad scientist's lair. The two-tailed fox could only guess that Knuckles shared the feeling; as long as his temper didn't get the better of him the red echidna's emotions were hard to discern.
Looking briefly over his shoulder, Tails wondered for a moment if his company was experiencing similar feelings. Shadow's face was cast in the typical, frowning look he was known for, the red eyes piercing as they looked straight ahead. Even though he'd never seen the black hedgehog look anything like enthusiastic, he'd never seemed doubtful either. Shadow was walking self-confidence. Usually, Tails used to say he was arrogant with his 'I'm the Ultimate' attitude; right now he found the notion that there was someone around that at least seemed even surer of himself than Sonic strangely reassuring.
Slightly behind the black and red hedgehog, Rouge the bat, dressed in a skin-tight, black jumpsuit, was walking across the curved floor of the large vent tunnel in a mannerism that would have fitted perfectly into an expensive boutique; her movements flowing smoothly, her head confidently held high, large ears perked, turquoise eyes twinkling with almost anticipation and her feet, though in high-heeled boots, hardly made a sound when gracefully touching the metallic floor.
The bat's sound level was nothing compared to the last of the group; Omega's steel feet clamped loudly whenever they hit the ground, no feathering sufficient to completely dampen the force of the bulky robot's weight. Tails wasn't anything like sure on the matter, but he guessed Omega's weight something between two hundred kilos and half a ton. Or something like that…
If the sentient combat robot of the E-series knew actual feelings was unknown to Tails; personally the fox believed he did, after all, he could think and had his own personality. And apparently he'd made friends with Rouge and Shadow. So if you could be friends with someone you had feelings, right? Still, no matter if or if not Omega was feeling anything about entering the base, you couldn't see anything in his face; red optics emitting a steady glow, E-123 Omega was marching after the three Mobians.
The uncommon group reached the end of the air bent, the tunnel ending as a hole in the wall of a high and long corridor, huge pistons labouring to each side of the path about ten feet below them.
Turning around to face the rest, Tails pointed down. "We came in the same way last time. There's a door about three hundred meters behind the next corner. That's where we split up; Sonic and Knuckles went ahead while I tried to hack into Eggman's computer using a terminal at the wall."
"Do we know where Eggman keeps the Chaos Emerald?", Rouge asked, leaning out of the vent opening to take a look at the corridor below.
"When we were here it was at one of Eggman's test sides, a big room at the other end of the base," Tails replied. "We'll head for the computer first; when I get in I should be able to tell you exactly where to find it."
Shadow nodded curtly. "Lead the way, Prower."
Tails turned towards the exit again, trying to spot any robots and consider where they would appear.
"ENVIRONMENT SCAN COMPLETED," Omega's snarling voice cut into the fox' pondering. "No inferior Eggman robots in direct proximity. Continue with scan of further distant locations."
Tails grinned. There were upsides to counting a robot to your team, he found. Using his twin tails for support, Tails jumped down into the main corridor. The others followed suit, Rouge gliding softly, Shadow's landing cushioned by his hoverskates and Omega thankfully activating his jet pack so they all made it down without making any suspicious noises. If things went how Tails wanted, nobody would notice them until they were gone again.
Carefully advancing deeper into the base, Tails led his team to the point where he and his currently missing friends had parted ways a couple days ago. Activating the computer terminal was easier now that he'd done it already before and Tails was quickly granted access to Eggman's data.
"What are you looking for?", Shadow queried, looking over Tails' shoulder.
"Something that looks like a storage list. The… inventory," Tails explained, his eyes not leaving the screen. "Behind everything Eggman builds or does, no matter how weird it looks, there's always a plan. So, I hope he also keeps plans of where everything is in this base."
"He better does," Rouge noticed. "This place is huge; what if he loses something in here somewhere? That'd be trouble for our old Egghead…" She giggled.
Tails listened to her just with one ear, his brain focused on flipping through screens and screens full of file names and registry entries. Finally, a smile curved his lips and he selected a file. "Bingo!"
"Bingo: a gambling activity that requires players to collect numbers according to a linear geometric pattern on a three by three grid," Omega snarled. "Performed in Casino Park. Meeting the requirements is rewarded with rings. Purpose of 'Bingo': Collecting rings quickly. Logical reason for paying out rings when collecting numbers: not found. Bingo is not logical." The robot paused in his speech, tracking Tails with his glooming optics. "This unit does not understand the connection between the activity known as 'bingo' and the current situation."
Tails giggled. "I didn't mean the game; shouting 'bingo' is similar to shouting something like… 'eureka'. It means that I found what I was searching for."
"Why does the fox unit not phrase what he means directly?", Omega wondered.
Shrugging, Tails returned his attention to the screen. "Because shouting 'I found what I was looking for' sounds stupid… And it's too long."
"Understood." The red robot nodded his head.
Scanning the sheer endless list of equipment, Tails still found what he needed rather quickly. What was mostly up to the fact 'Chaos Emerald' began with a 'c'. The fox closed the file and opened up a layout of the base, searching for the room number. "Okay, got it." He pointed his index finger at the screen. "This is the room with the vault Eggman keeps the Chaos Emerald in along with some other things of big value." He moved his finger. "And this is where we are at the moment."
"That's quite a walk," Rouge noticed, folding her arms. "And this place looks like a labyrinth. We're gonna get lost or something."
Shadow shook his head. "We won't if we split up. You got a radio in your belt" - the hedgehog indicated the bat's equipment tucked into the belt around her hips - "and Omega can use his internal radio communication. If Omega stays with Tails, they can guide us right to the vault."
"And Omega can have an eye on our little nerd here," Rouge noticed. "And flamethrowers and machine guns to keep off any bad company." She blinked an eye at Tails.
The two-tailed fox smiled. "Sounds like a plan."
"Mission: Guard current location, keep harm from friendly 'Tails' unit and stay in radio contact with Shadow and Rouge," Omega summarized.
"You got it." Tails smirked, watching Rouge and Shadow exchange a nod before disappearing into the long corridor leading towards the base's center.
"Sonic! They're shooting at us!"
"What?!" Knuckles' call caused Sonic to try another look back.
"Stop it!", the echidna scolded him. "Look where you're going!"
"Tell me what they do then!", Sonic commanded, but got himself to concentrate on driving again. Once you got through it, the controls were actually pretty fine-tuned and easy to use.
"Alright… They're about fifty meters behind us. Try not to go in one direction for too long so they can't take a good aim and –" Knuckles interrupted himself at yet another slightly too abrupt dodging maneuver. "Scratch that… Just go faster."
Sonic shook his head, his index finger already positioned at the frontmost point of the control panel. "Sorry to disappoint you, this thing just isn't any faster."
A grunt came from Knuckles behind him. "Then we have a small problem… As it looks, their things are just as fast as ours."
"Damnit…" Sonic bit his lip, forcing the board into a half stable zigzag course.
"Tell me you got another great escape plan."
Sonic shrugged a little. "One, and I'm not sure if you like it."
"Since when do I like your plans?", Knuckles deadpanned.
"My words exactly." Sonic grinned.
A bluish beam of energy shot by, barely missing Knuckles' left leg.
"Whoa!", the echidna yelped, staring after the bolt. "Uh… I changed my mind… How was your plan again?"
Sonic laughed. "Alright, you called for it. Now listen to the incredible smartness of Sonic the Hedgehog."
"Get to the point, we're kinda on a schedule here, hedgehog," Knuckles groaned.
"Hehe, fine." Sonic curved in in front of yet another slow-moving floaty platform board. "Remember the 'do something unexpected' technique? There's one advantage we have over them: They can't go any faster."
"Huh?" Sonic could practically hear the frown forming on Knuckles' brow now when he retorted: "As we've so nicely noticed already, our ride doesn't go any faster either, dumb-ass."
"Our ride not…" Sonic grinned to himself. "But I do. I outrun these things in my sleep, and going backwards."
The echidna grunted. "Fine for you then, hedgehog. What about me?"
"Don't worry, I won't leave you here. Just hold on to my arm and we're gone in a flash and a whoosh!" The blue hedgehog made a wide gesture with his free arm.
"Hey," Knuckles complained, "Try being careful just once, okay? You have an odd tendency trying to rip out my arms whenever you pull me along! And this time one of them is already broken, y'know?"
Sonic nodded, serious again. He'd not forgotten his friend's injury. He didn't want to hurt him… but he couldn't think of any other way of escape, and so far, all the times they'd performed this move, him just grabbing his friends and running them out of trouble had always worked quite nicely. "I'll do my best, promise."
"Uh-hu," Knuckles muttered, not really sounding trustful.
"Really, I'll be careful," Sonic insisted. He turned so he could hold his left hand out at the echidna. "Just hold on; I'll say when to jump off, 'kay?"
Getting a good grip around Sonic's wrist, Knuckles nodded hesitantly. "Fine…"
Turning back around, Sonic smiled a little. "Good. See that rather narrow left curve in front of us?"
"Yes." Knuckles' answer was short and he still sounded nothing but enthusiastic.
"There's a gap between two skyscrapers to the right of it. See that as well?" Sonic wished he could have pointed at it, but his left hand was interlocked with Knuckles' and his right needed to keep their vehicle going.
Luckily Knuckles' eyes were sharp. "Got it."
"Since there's no road going there, the guys trailing us will get into some trouble. We jump when we're right next to it." The hedgehog's eyes were fixed to the goal as he spoke, instinct judging speed, momentum and angles quicker than anyone else could.
"Alright," his red friend confirmed.
Almost patiently Sonic waited for their vehicle to reach the exact position. Closer, closer, almost there… "NOW!" Knuckles' timing wasn't too bad, the jump nearly synchronized. The nanoseconds Sonic's feet reached the ground faster were actually helpful; as soon as he felt ground under his soles the hedgehog was running, accelerating quick enough to avoid the echidna clinging to his arm touching the ground at all. The last thing they needed was Knuckles bumping into the floor.
Or the wall of a skyscraper, but even as steering and dodging had troubled him a little riding the board, it had been nothing in comparison to running. Sonic had, quite frankly, been born for that kind of thing and he instinctively dodged obstacles before having fully consciously noticed them. Knuckles was another matter; he yelped several times while Sonic was quick-stepping through narrow, dark alleyways.
Grinning, Sonic shot him a short glance over his shoulder. "Relax. This is nothing."
"Look. Where. You're. Going. Hedgehog!", Knuckles shouted over the scream of the wind about them, putting emphasis into each of his words.
Still grinning and a teasing remark readily on his lips Sonic turned around again, just to yelp himself this time. There was a wall, directly in front of them and nowhere left or right to get past it. So it was just up… Shouldn't be a problem…
Concentrated, Sonic tracked the bottom of the wall, timing his steps. The most critical moment always was the first step on the wall; you had to adjust to an entirely different stance to run upwards and a sudden change in gravity.
The balls of his right foot connected with the wall. Knee bend, Sonic forced his movement upwards, leaning towards the wall just slightly and letting the left foot follow the right, running as if there were invisible treads in the wall to hit. Just that there weren't any.
Proud with himself, the hedgehog noticed the 'curve' of his run upwards had been so perfect, so smooth Knuckles had not collided with the wall. He was hanging down on his arm, now that gravity got its grip on his body suddenly a lot heavier. Slowing them down… and the top was still far.
Instinctively Sonic did what he did almost everytime he wanted to run really fast: He sensed out for the energy around him. He'd learned it what felt a long time ago, drawing on the dark blue spectrum of the chaos energy, the power of the Emerald of speed. First, he'd needed to hold this Emerald to boost his speed, but soon he'd learned to tap into the bit of free energy around him. It wasn't enough to keep it up for more than a second or two, but that could already save one's tail as Sonic had learned. The problem of the chaos speed boost's durability had been solved when Sonic had remembered what Knuckles had told him once about the golden rings: They were chaos energy like the Emeralds were, just with a lot less power. By collecting enough of the gold rings as he went, Sonic could always get enough blue chaos energy to boost. As a nice side-effect, drawing on this power surrounded him with a shield of blue wind that in itself drew in rings in the proximity. Tails had tried explaining him how that worked, but all Sonic had understood was that it worked a little like a magnet. The hedgehog didn't actually care how it worked; he'd learned to use this type of energy on instinct.
Now, as he tried to feel out for it and draw it in to escape gravity's throes, suddenly, for the first time he could remember, it wasn't there. There was nothing like it around, not the tiniest trace of blue chaos power. There were rings to the left of him, hovering right in front of the vertical surface of the wall, but even from them no bit of energy was seeping out for him to grab.
The absence of the so familiar energy to use startled Sonic enough to add to the constant loss of speed. "SONIC! We're not gonna make it!", Knuckles shouted.
"I… I can't boost," Sonic gasped out, still confused and not fully knowing how to deal with it.
"Stop talking nonsense and RUN!"
Knuckles' command, though not quite reassuring, still did a good job getting Sonic's mind back on track. He bit his bottom lip as he pushed his legs forwards… uh… upwards, not gaining speed but at least stopping to lose it. He could see the top of the building closing in and in spite of Knuckles' perception of their situation Sonic knew they were indeed going to make it. He'd run a lot more walls than Knuckles, after all.
When he overshot the edge of the wall and was catapulted a few meters further into the air, for a second Sonic just stared at the roof of the skyscraper, cramped with antennas and other weird looking, sharp things. "Oh oh…" Green eyes hastily scanned the messy roof below them in search for a safe landing space. He caught sight of a large rail in the last possible moment, angling the beginning fall towards it. "Over there, Knux! We'll grind on that rail there!"
As the natural glider he was, Knuckles' airborne manoeuvres where better than Sonic's and the echidna followed the move the hedgehog initiated immediately without saying a word.
Sonic softly landed on the rail, sliding along on it. Seeing Knuckles having a stable stand on it as well, he released his wrist, keeping his stability with one arm and pointing ahead with the other one. "This is our way out of town, I guess!"
Knuckles just grumbled and Sonic kept his look ahead. The rail went across several more roofs, passed by what had to be some kind of giant power plant and ended atop a cliff on a chain of hills. Everything behind that spot lay in darkness.
Sonic jumped down when the rail angled at ninety degrees to disappear in the ground. He landed on grass and a short, real look at the rail revealed it to be a kind of pipe rather than anything else. Sonic shrugged about it and turned around to Knuckles who'd also dropped down.
Had Sonic assumed he'd be happy to be out of this future city, he was wrong. Knuckles' violet eyes were blazing. "Just what did you think you were doing back there? You almost got us killed on that wall!"
The blue hedgehog sighed. "I didn't. We landed on that rail thing here just great and we had enough speed left."
"It was luck!", Knuckles insisted, still glaring. "I would have thought you know how fast you are and what kind of wall you can get up safely by now, hedgehog."
"Well, thing is, I do!" Sonic folded his arms, starting to feel insulted. "If everything would have been normal, we'd have been up there in a flash!"
"So, and why weren't things normal, hedgehog? I'll tell you why," Knuckles snapped. "Because you didn't think before doing something. Like you always do. That's why!"
"It is not!", Sonic shouted, closing the distance between them. "Fact is, usually I run up walls alone and not carrying someone heavier than me! Still, I would have handled that just great, but I couldn't boost to get enough speed!"
Confusion mingled into the expression in Knuckles' eyes, replacing some of the anger. "You couldn't – what?"
"Boost," Sonic repeated. "That's… I call it the Sonic boost. I use some chaos energy around me or taken from the rings I collected to increase my speed and acceleration. I do that all the time... I don't even think about it! But when I tried to get some more juice on that wall…"
"Nothing happened," Knuckles finished and the fire in his eyes went out completely.
"Yes." Sonic took a slow breath, feeling the tension between them slip away but he didn't know why it did. "But I don't understand…"
"Have you tried… boosting since we're… lost in time?", Knuckles asked when Sonic trailed off.
Silently the hedgehog shook his head.
"Have you collected a single ring since we're here?"
Another shake.
"Remember what I told you about… how I can't feel the Master Emerald?" Knuckles' voice was quiet.
This time, Sonic nodded, realization dawning. "And you said you couldn't use rings to heal your arm…"
"Yes." Knuckles let out a sigh. "It almost makes sense, doesn't it? I can't use the Master Emerald; you can't use any chaos powers either."
Sonic stared down on his toes. "Guess you're right…" A few moments passed in silence and the blue hedgehog looked back over the city, an endless sea of small lights in the darkness of night. "I think we better find a place to camp," he noticed.
Knuckles just nodded and they strolled along the edge of the cliff separating them from the town. Almost a minute went by without words again before the echidna spoke up. "I'm sorry. For... blaming you… and shouting at you…"
Giving him a smile, Sonic just shrugged lightly. "Forgiven. Just try to believe me when I say something next time, will ya?"
It wasn't bright enough to really see it, but Sonic was still rather sure Knuckles was turning red. At least he was looking down on his feet, his entire stance screaming embarrassment. "Okay…"
Sonic grinned, reaching out to pat the echidna on the back. "Umm… What do you think of dinner?"
Finally, after a wait that had been way too long for his tastes, Robotnik's finger, protected from the freezing cold by thick gloves, pressed the fire button. The reassembly had taken up more time than he had calculated… but that was now forgotten.
Immediately after his fingertip hit the sensor switch, a steady hum was growing behind the laser unit's casing, ever increasing in intensity for a couple of long drawn seconds. A soft vibration ran through the entire cannon, then a beam almost as thick as its creator's torso flashed out of the cannon's muzzle.
Robotnik's eyes went wide with awe. This brightness! Like a beam of the very sun, blazing in hot white, brighter than the snow and hotter than fire. Though lasting just a second, the first test beam already heated the air, formerly well below freezing level, so drastically that when the laser switched itself off again the cooling back down air was compressed so rapidly the sound it caused approached a sonic boom or a small explosion. A wide grin was on Robotnik's face.
He did a quick check of the cannon and laser unit to see what effect firing it had had on the weapon. Apparently, it was doing quite well. Satisfied, the doctor then set off in his Egg-O-Matic to examine the remains of the ice peak he'd fired at.
Upon arriving at the spot, even Robotnik had to admit the sight was quite imposing. The laser had cut fine through the middle of the frozen structure, a hole just slightly larger in diameter than the cannon's beam was situated right in the middle of it, its edges perfectly smooth. A wonderful piece of accurate work.
The bizarre looking ice form now looked even more bizarre. Its socket stood in a poodle of water, the remains of the ice that had been where now there was aforementioned hole. Half of the ice sculpture had toppled to the site, its sharp tips and edges embedded in the snow around. Due to the hole the laser had burned into it, it had lost its stability.
Robotnik smiled, very satisfied with his work now. If the rest of the tests went as good, the world would soon behold his destructive masterpiece…
From somewhere distant, somewhere behind all those large tubes and wires and obscure machinery, a pounding, rhythmic noise what rolling through the tunnels and corridors. It wasn't exactly too loud to bear, not even too loud to disturb a conversation, but it was... yeah, annoying.
Shadow frowned, his pointed ears twitching a little as he tried to get a better grip on the persistent background noise and figure out what might cause it.
His companion was walking half a meter in front of him, her movements flowing smoothly. Elegant. Something about Rouge he couldn't even exactly name was just that.
As if she'd felt his gaze on her, the bat slowed her pace for just two steps to fall back and continue the walk through the odd environment of Eggman's base at the hedgehog's side. For a moment she looked at him sideways wearing just a silent, mysterious smile on her face, then a twinkle lit in her turquoise eyes. "You know, I wouldn't have thought you'd agree on doing the foxy little nerd that favour."
"It seemed fair to me." Shadow shrugged.
"Aw, come on, you can't fool me. Everybody else, maybe, but not me." She was still smiling. "I know you, Shadow. There's more to it."
"No." The black and red hedgehog shook his head. He wasn't exactly lying. He wouldn't lie to her. Not her, or Omega. The only people close enough to him to consider friends.
But he wasn't exactly telling the truth either… Thing was, he wasn't too sure on what really was the truth, why he'd just said yes to Tails. All he knew was that he'd been staring into those cerulean eyes with that pleading look in them… and he'd just said yes. Maybe, deep down, in that moment Tails had reminded him a tad too much of another child he'd once known… long ago. A child that had been his only family.
Nothing about Tails was like Maria… At least Shadow thought so. Until he'd been standing before him, desperately begging for his help, even though he tried to hide the desperation part of it. Perhaps there was something about kids that made them all similar. Sometimes.
But whatever it was, Shadow wasn't going to broadcast his thoughts. Or what he thought could even be feelings.
"Really not?"
Rouge's question dragged Shadow back to reality. Momentarily speechless, he just stared at Rouge.
She smiled. "Are you going to answer me, Shadow?" The bat blinked her eyes at him, her long eyelashes fluttering.
Shadow still stared. Was she flirting with him? Yeah, right, Rouge the bat flirts with everybody if she thinks it'll help her… But so far, he'd always been the one exception. It made Shadow feel special that he was so much a friend to her she dropped her seductive games for him. "No."
Rouge giggled. "Ah, Mister Ultimate Lifeform is having another monosyllabic phase, I see…"
Shadow grumbled, folding his arms. Why did she have to irritate him? "We're on a mission; that's not the time for small talk, Rouge."
The white bat pouted. "Aw, there's nothing happening here. I'm bored."
Swallowing his reply, Shadow stopped his walk where the corridor ended, the floor before them forming a rectangular platform below which a wide hall stretched out, hundreds of meters high, probably a thousand wide. It was full of a lot more giant, noisy machinery. The pounding sound he'd heard before had risen in volume, the source somewhere in the factory maze below, and the smell of oils and some sort of exhausts crept up his nostrils. Between the huge machines, groups of robots marched back and forth, some seeming to work on the automatons, maintaining or cleaning them, other obviously armed ones standing guard over them.
Apparently Rouge had spotted them as well. "Ah, there's the little robot guys. I was wondering if anyone is even at home…"
Shadow nodded, standing with still crossed arms at the edge of the platform, observing the robots. "Call Omega and Tails. We need to know where to go from here."
Rouge complied without comments, drawing her mobile radio from the hold on her belt and walking a few steps back into the corridor they'd come from to escape some of the noise level.
Shadow stood silently as he waited for her return, his red eyes roaming the giant room below, trying to spot possible routes through it already and guessing the numbers of enemies to expect contact with.
"Alright, how's it look down there?", Rouge asked as she reappeared at his left side. Her tone was professional, and when Shadow turned to look at her the playful smile she'd worn before had faded from her lips. Now there was work to do and she was all the professional agent and treasure huntress who'd done the entire sneak-into-dangerous-places deal countless times already.
"I don't think anyone has noticed us yet. Neither Tails and Omega. If they knew intruders were there, they'd be alert already," he noticed, pointing at the robot groups.
Rouge nodded. "They're not expecting us. If we're lucky, we can get past without being seen."
"Lead the way then. Omega told you where to go?" Shadow turned to his friend.
"I'm all set," she affirmed. "Let's go."