Mobius: The Final Stand Ch. 60
8:48 am
On a lone, empty, foggy battlefield valiantly stood an elaborately dressed King. He was clothed in all black; his jewelry and decorative ornaments clinking in the silence. His long cape swirled past his body in the arid wind. As his ornamented crown rested on his head, he paused to glance upwards at the dark sky; it wouldn't be long before they were here soon.
As if in response, a knight dressed in gleaming white armor suddenly appeared from the fog, galloping directly towards the helpless King. As the knight raised his long battle sword up high over his head menacingly, the King scrambled backwards, trying to flee. Yet as he turned to escape, behind him out of the shadows loomed another stoic white-armored warrior, a vicious spiked mace in hand. The King's heart dropped stone cold as he realized it was all over.
"Rggh!" Knuckles flung the chess piece at the nearby wall in frustration as Sonic sat by with a prideful smirk on his face. "You…" Knuckles pointed a finger threateningly at Sonic. "You cheated!"
"Eh." Sonic shrugged apathetically. "That's what you always say. Haven't you stopped to think about the possibility that I just might be better than you?"
Knuckles shook his head vigorously. "No I swear I saw you move that piece when you weren't supposed to!"
Sonic snickered. "And the pizza man is going to show up at our door this instant with two large pepperoni pizzas just for you!"
DING DONG!
Knuckles and Sonic immediately snapped their heads around to look at each other in amazement.
"I didn't—" Sonic started to say before Knuckles brushed past him and raced down the stairs shouting.
"I got it!" Amy emerged from the living room with Cream by her side just as Knuckles bounded down the stairs and flung the door wide open to reveal Tails and Cosmo standing on the front porch.
"Hey—" Was all Tails had time to spit out before he narrowly jumped out of the way to avoid Knuckles running him over.
"FREEEEEDOOOOM!" Knuckles yelled at the top of his lungs, falling to his knees in the snow and flinging his arms out wide in front of him.
"Uhh…" Tails just stood there in dumbfounded silence, watching Knuckles bend over and kiss the ground rapidly out of sheer happiness. "What—"
"Don't ask." Sonic joined Tails and Cosmo by the terrace, rolling his eyes. "But where did you guys come from? Weren't you trapped by the ice?"
Tails turned behind him and gestured at the corridor through the ice that they had tunneled through. "I didn't have the chance to tell you guys, but me and Raymond built this machine I named the "Ice-Twister" that was able to drill through the solid ice. That's how we managed to come here."
Sonic smirked. "Why do I even question your ability to do anything..?"
Tails grinned. "Haha.. thanks!" As he brushed the flecks of snow off of his fur on his body, he and Cosmo both made their way inside Amy's house, pausing to stomp their feet on the welcome mat to dislodge the snow stuck on the soles of their shoes.
"Hi Tails! Hi Cosmo!" Cream beamed and came running over to greet the two, followed by her blue chao, Cheese.
"Hi Cream!" Cosmo smiled and warmly replied back, waving.
"Hi Cream!" Tails also smiled and waved before Cosmo and Cream started to talk enthusiastically with each other, immersing themselves in a friendly conversation after not seeing each other for a while.
Amy joined Cream and Cosmo, and hurriedly took Cosmo's wet coat off of her. "You're going to catch a cold if you keep this on Cosmo!" She gently chided, folding Cosmo's coat before tossing it into the laundry basket in the laundry room.
"Oh, sorry.." Cosmo quickly apologized.
Amy kindly smiled. "No need to be! Just try to be more careful next time!" She replied. Amy usually treated Cosmo like a younger sister, taking care of her but at the same time going out of her way to be nice. Even when Amy would get frustrated and angry at Knuckles and Sonic, there was never a time when she would act that way to Cosmo or Cream.
The front door opened, and Sonic emerged from outside, walking over to where Tails was situated. "Heya how've you been doing by the way?"
Tails shrugged. "I've been doing fine, more or less. What about you?"
Sonic laughed. "Oh I can probably say I had the time of my life trying to prevent a nuclear war between Knuckles and Amy happening…"
Tails winced, twitching one eye involuntarily. "Ouch!"
Sonic smirked. "Tell me about it!" He paused, and closed his eyes, inhaling deeply through his nose.
"Ahh…" Sonic sighed. "It's so good to finally breathe fresh air again…" He slowly opened one eye, a questioning facial expression clouding his face. "Where's Raymond and Galaxina?"
Tails gave a sudden start and smacked himself on the forehead. "That's right! I didn't tell you that either! I totally forgot all about them!"
Sonic opened the other eye and scratched the back of his head in thought. "So… Where are they again?"
Tails tried to explain. "Well on the way here, we encountered another tunnel that Raymond and I suspected to be the work of Eggman. We agreed that he and Galaxina would go down there to search and find out what Eggman was up to while Cosmo and I came here to find you guys. Then we were supposed to go back and help Raymond and Galaxina…"
Sonic yawned, and stretched his arms. "Well, what are we waiting for then? Let's go already!" He replied enthusiastically, ready to go out on another adventure again.
Tails reached for his headset and turned it on. "Wait, let me contact Raymond first.." He positioned the mouthpiece over his mouth and spoke into it: "Hello?"
…..
"Hello? Raymond? Galaxina? Anybooodyyy?" Tails called out, but received no reply.
"Hmm.. That's strange, maybe they're out of range…" Tails thought out loud, as Knuckles, Amy, Cosmo, and Cream all gathered around the silent headset in anticipation.
"Yeah? What's up?" Raymond's voice sharply cut through the buzzing static, prompting Tails to let out a silent sigh of relief. Maybe they hadn't encountered Eggman yet..
Tails' mind was immediately filled with unanswered questions, on the verge of dying with curiosity. "Where are you? What have you been up to? What did you find? What's Eggman doing? Is—"
Tails was cut off as Raymond laughed. "Wait what? Ask one question at a time before you scramble my brain."
"Where are you?" Tails curiously asked. "I mean, you would have to be near our original rendezvous point in order for us to contact you since the range is exactly 15 miles away."
"Yep," Raymond replied. "That's where we are now."
"What have you been up to then?" Tails asked secondly.
"Well…" Raymond sighed. "Actually I have some bad news for you guys…"
"Really? What is it?" Tails wondered out loud in anxiety.
Raymond started to explain what he and Galaxina had been doing. "You see, after you dropped me and Galaxina off, we started to walk down the passageway. But on the way, I discovered one of Eggman's scorpion-like robots frozen in the ice, which would indicate that Eggman and his army probably would have been trapped in the snowstorm and tunneled himself out after the blizzard abated."
Tails slowly nodded. "I know, you told me that, remember? What happened after we lost contact with you after you found that scorpion-robot?"
"Well me and Galaxina were about to continue on when I heard some talking up ahead, so I concealed ourselves as a group of four unidentified people walked by. As they started to talk, I eavesdropped and listened to their conversation. I managed to figure out that they most likely weren't on our side and that they were looking for something…"
"Did you find out what it was?" Tails asked.
"Nope. But after they left, I examined the ground where they were standing and found a piece of metal."
"You found a piece of metal? What's that have to do with anything?" This time it was Sonic spoke clearly into the com-link headset.
Raymond sighed. "And here's where the bad news starts to come in. You have to understand, it's not any ordinary type of metal. As soon as I saw it, I immediately recognized it to be special.."
"Well what is it then?" Sonic asked.
"It's a piece of Titanium-Carbonate. Very highly resistant to heat." Raymond answered.
"So… what's that supposed to mean again?"
"Well first off, it's the exact same material my mechanical wrist-bands are made out of, because of its useful property. Secondly, remember how Eggman created Metal Sonic and Metal Knuckles to try to counteract you and Knuckles?"
"Yeah, what about it?"
"Well," Raymond continued. "This has made me come to believe that Eggman also created a metal impersonation of myself, namely "Metal Raymond"."
"But we can just beat him too, can't we? I mean it's just him against all of us, right?" Tails asked in anxiety.
"Well, that's not exactly the reason why I'm worried right now though…" Raymond replied.
"Why? What's wrong?" Tails wondered.
"Well let's just say that as an inference off of my observations, "Metal Raymond" has been tunneling through the ice by melting it with his fire-power." Raymond explained.
"So, why is that bad again?" Sonic asked, but was answered by Tails as he immediately caught on.
"Oh I see! By tunneling through the ice by melting it, that makes the walls and ceiling much more unstable and possibly fall, posing a hazard to Raymond and Galaxina. And they're trapped since they're far away from us or any other forms of shelter." Tails explained to the rest as the seriousness of the situation set in slowly.
"Well, you're right on one part; I can already see cracks forming in the surrounding walls. But I'm not too far away from shelter actually… I'm thinking about running to Eggman's base and hiding there before the ceiling comes crashing down on both of us…" He elucidated, trailing off as he waiting for a response to his risky plan.
Everyone was dumbstruck. "Wait WHAT? You can't do that!" Sonic exclaimed, grabbing ahold of the com-link headset.
"And why not? We have to or else die out here!" Raymond debated.
"But it's WAY too dangerous first of all! And you have no idea if you'll be able to make it there in time anyways!" Sonic argued.
"Then what do you supposed we do instead!" Raymond countered, trying to drive his point home. As everyone remained silent, he took that as a cue to speak up again. "There's absolutely nothing else we can do. The ceiling is literally dissolving and melting faster by the minute, and now some small shrapnel of ice are starting to fall down on us. You've got to trust us, we'll be fine! I'm worried about you guys though, Metal Raymond is headed your way. Make sure to keep on the lookout for him."
Sonic nodded and involuntarily gulped. "Okay, I trust you. You better start hurrying to Eggman's base now before it's too late."
Raymond laughed. "I was also wondering if you could call the mayor. I want him to be notified of the situation, and when you guys tunnel towards Mobius City, maybe he and his "army" along with you guys can back me up and attack Eggman."
Sonic managed and smirk/grin at the same time. "I'd like that actually, I'll make sure to give the mayor my regards."
Raymond laughed. "A-Ok, I really need to start running now as the ceiling is starting to fall apart, so… cya I guess.."
"Bye! Make sure to kick Eggman's rear for me willya?" Sonic jokingly asked.
"Cya! Take care!" Tails replied.
"Be careful! Don't get hurt!" Cosmo called out as the com-link headset went dead, leaving everyone worried and anxious about what to do now.