i love how random the original story is with Sonic's Story
Tails opened the final door and collapsed. Amy was quick to follow. It was exhausting to search through all that space, opening endless doors to dead ends and triggering traps with little to no warning. Upon actually reaching the room they needed, it was totally within reason to drop onto the floor and recover.
The door hissed shut, and Tails looked around the room for answers. Surprisingly, the room was small. Eggman usually liked big open spaces with plenty of screens, but this time the Doctor had settled for a simple computer with a single screen. Cautiously, Tails approached the console, avoiding a large yellow disk in the direct center of the room.
"I think this room is in the direct center of the pyramid." Amy whistled, marvelling at the hieroglyphs that still remained intact. Yellow tails spun around as Miles lifted himself up to the keyboard. Somehow, the computer was already logged in, making the young fox even more anxious than before. Eggman was certainly in this base. But where exactly was he? Had he noticed the childrens' presence? He had to have accessed the computer recently for sure, but where did he go?
"What's on there?" Asked Amy, running up next to her companion. Tails frizzed. Amy's little shoes had run across the colored disk, surely triggering some type of mechanism. Frantically, the flying fox dug through the computer files, looking for information on this very room. Fortunately, the disk seemed to be some sort of invention of Eggman's.
"Huh… Neat!" Tails marvelled, looking through the file. "This device is some sort of-"
A rumbling nearby caught the two kids' attention, cutting Tails off and putting the both of them on guard. They did not like that noise. The rumbling grew louder, and Amy pulled out her hammer in case a fight started. Literally anything could be making that noise, and it would pay off to be prepared for anything that could pop out of the wall. A vent near the ceiling began to shake, and Tails prepared for a fight. Robots could be patrolling the vents. The metal grate swung open.
"Hey guys! What are you doing in here?" A familiar voice asked. Both children felt infinitely relieved when a red furred head poked out of the wall.
"Knuckles!" Amy cried, running beneath him. "What are you doing in here?"
"Me and Rouge got dragged over to Dry Lagoon." Knuckles explained. "After a fight, we saw a pyramid around and decided to check it out."
"Wait, Rouge is here?" Tails asked, floating up to help his Guardian friend out of the cramped space.
"Yeah, she's right behind me." Knuckles shrugged, taking the fox's paws and letting himself be lowered to the ground. "What are you guys doing here?"
"We were looking for Sonic, when we came across this pyramid too." Tails explained, lifting himself back up to the vent to help Rouge out. "Amy saw Eggman come inside, so we decided to snoop through his computer."
"So that's why there were so many robots." Rouge huffed, dusting herself off and shaking sand out of her shoes. "I had to bash twelve of them in the vents alone."
"I'm trying to find a lead on Sonic." Tails ran back up to the computer, digging through files.
"Oh! That won't be necessary." Knuckles interjected. "We just saw him in our tussle with Shadow."
Amy choked on her own spit.
"You ran into Shadow?" She coughed, leaning over to correct her airways.
"Yeah, you didn't think we were the only ones looking for the Emeralds, right?" Knuckles asked, patting her on the back.
"Well…" A quick cough. "I didn't really think this Shadow guy would be looking for them."
Tails sighed.
"Well, the Eclipse Cannon needs all seven Chaos Emeralds to work properly." He huffed. "I'd think he'd be looking for them."
"Speaking of which, how many did you find?" Tails asked.
Knuckles and Rouge awkwardly looked at each other, shifting their weight uncomfortably and scratching at their messed fur. After a silent conversation, told by shrugs and eyebrows, Knuckles relented with much hesitancy.
"Well… we found three…" He mumbled, scratching his leg with his foot.
"That's good!" Amy chriped, smiling wide. Knuckles awkwardly smiled back.
"That's not the whole story." Rouge sighed, ears drooping in defeat.
"In that scuffle… at Dry Lagoon…" Knuckles drawled, nervously grinding his foot on the stone floor.
"Shadow...uh… stole two of them."
"He WHAT?" Tails shrieked, fur standing on end. Amy ran over and began to brush out one of her friend's tails, which had fluffed to twice the size in his shock (even fluffier still due to baby fur being relatively thick) and stood out on end. Tails composed himself and took the other tail, twisting it in his hands.
"He has six Emeralds?" Tails interrogated. Knuckles sighed defeatedly.
"Yeah… he has six Emeralds…" He confirmed.
Rouge brightened, however slightly, and reached into her pocket. She pulled out a sparkling red gem and handed it over to the fox.
"He didn't take this one, though." She smiled, letting its weight leave her hand and pass into the bristled fox's gloved paws.
"Well… Let's not get too hopeful." Tails groaned. "The Cannon still might work with six."
"We need a backup plan." Amy encouraged, handing Miles his tail back even though it hadn't fully smoothed yet.
"Well… This device here." Tails pondered aloud while gesturing to the disk on the floor. "This is a teleportation device."
"Woah." Rouge gasped, leaning down and brushing her hands against the smooth panel. "So this thing can beam us anywhere?"
"Umm..." Tails hummed, looking back through the files. "No."
"No?" Knuckles exclaimed.
"It needs another pad to teleport matter to." The young inventor summarized.
"Huh, this thing isn't even Eggman's." Rouge announced, reading over the fox's large ears. "It was made by a Professor Gerald guy…"
"Professor Gerald?" Tails piped up, scanning the document for a name. "Oh wow! You're right!"
"Why are you excited?" Knuckles nervously croaked.
"Professor Gerald made the ARK!" Tails exclaimed. "That means there might be a pad on the Colony somewhere!"
"Wow!" Amy cried, excitedly jumping up and down. Tails pulled up a map and looked through the teleporter pads. He jumped around the map, before arriving on a small dot that simply read "ARK".
"Bingo!" Tails cheered, dragging everyone onto the pad. "Hold on Sonic! We're coming!"
