Sonic never expected to find young-Starline's forest base. It… was honestly pretty normal looking. Nothing about the wooden cabin said "Evil Eggman Fanboy lives here." IT looked almost like a family vacation cabin.

Sonic walked up to a desk by the door, and pulled open the top drawer on the left. Sonic was immediately greeted by a piece of material he forgot existed. The very controversial, and very rare, Robotnik the Supervillain comic issue #12, which was the last one before it was canceled. Tails was all too happy to fill Sonic in on the history. Apparently Eggman was quite the self-insert loser.

A piece of the comic Sonic was not expecting to find was that it was signed. In bright red ink, over the cover of the fat Eggman standing over the destroyed castle was the name: Doctor Ivo Robotnik, To my worst fan ever, may your days be forever evil.

Sonic didn't dare pick up the comic. It felt… wrong. Sonic opened the next drawer down. A set of boots that were far too large for Starline. Sonic saw the red ink on the sides, same signature.

"Wow, Star-bitch was a total dweeb." Surge cackled, clutching her stomach as Sonic turned around and walked over to the cabinet. There, on the back of the cabinet was a framed picture of Starline with Doctor Eggman, at least, when Eggman was a bit younger. They appeared to be at some sort of festival, like Science-con or something like that.

Sonic snorted, before looking a little closer at the picture, or rather, the frame…

"Something look off about that picture to you?" Sonic asked, squinting at the frame. It seemed a little crooked, or something, outside of being incredibly dusty.

Surge squinted as well, "Yeah…"

Sonic waited for her response, before turning to see her grinning face, "It has fucking Starline in it. Automatic zero out of ten." Surge cackled at her joke, then jabbed Kitsunami, who joined in, nervously.

Sonic stepped inside the cabinet and grabbed the picture, which flung dust all over him. Sonic sneezed, locking his arm up. Something fell out of the frame. A map.

Sonic picked up the map, and saw several Xs on it. There was a title key which read "Possible secret base areas."

Sonic nodded, and showed it to his companions.

Surge was quick to let him know what she thought of it, "Yeah… and?"

Sonic smiled, hoping that maybe she'd work with him, "Well… if you two are-" Sonic stopped himself after feel Surge's glare. It was clearly still a deep wound.

Sonic caught himself, He wasn't exactly thrilled about the idea of a rumble going down, "I think it might be useful."

Surge growled, "Fuck if I care. Drippy, look around, see what you can find."

"Yes ma'am." The Fennec's water tentacles opened drawers and propped up the little guy. He began to look through the dressers, ransacking the place.

Sonic went back to the dresser he had started looking through. He checked the next drawer, and found a folded-up jacket, just like Eggman's, along with an Eggman figurine. That was weird.

Sonic checked the drawers on the right. He opened the top one to find… paper, with a lot of colors on it. Some were pretty good drawings of Eggman. Some were drawings of new robots that seemed like they would have been fun to fight. Some drawings Sonic wouldn't show in a brothel.

He quickly slammed the drawer shut, and opened the next one. This one had a laser pistol in it. No, it was a toy laser pistol, from the Robotnik the Supervillain toy line. Sonic rolled his eyes, but then got an idea.

"Hey, Surge!" Sonic had to fight to keep himself from snickering as he pointed the toy gun at her.

Surge turned, "What the fuc- Oh shit!" Surge dove out of the way as Sonic fired the toy. A laser flew out and hit the wall, sparking before fizzling out. Sonic gazed at the weapon.

"What the hell was that!" Surge shouted, Kitsunami's eyes glowed with rage.

Sonic held up his hands to stop Surge from plowing into him, "Sorry, I thought it was a toy. I didn't think it would do anything!"

Surge growled, baring her teeth, "Fuck off." She turned around and rummaged through a box on the ground.

Sonic turned around and opened the next drawer. He'd buy her a desert later. Hopefully that would fix everything. The next drawer, however, caught his eye. There was a leather bound book.

Sonic picked it up, and flipped through the pages. Project Xerxes, Project Meerkat, Project Chimera. Sonic realized that it was full of Starline's ideas. It was a journal of possible projects.

"Hey, I think I found something." Sonic called out to his Tenrec… frenemy.

"I got something over here too." Surge sounded pretty please. Sonic looked over, and saw she held what looked like a laser cannon in her hands. Sonic dove out of the way as a hole tore itself through the cabin wall.

"Gotcha bitch!" Surge cackled, dropping the weapon to double over with laughter.

Sonic forced a smile, "Alright, yeah, you got me. I found Starline's journal." Sonic saw Surge's laugh turn into a disappointed smirk. Maybe she was expecting a more extreme reaction.

"Figure's Star-Dweeb would have journal." Surge walked over, and Sonic handed the journal to Kitsunami.

"Project Xerxes, a hypnosis project. Chimera, a fusion of machines and flesh." Kitsunami examined, before blinking, "Huh, it says there's a main base. One where he keeps backups of everything he recorded."

Surge seemed to jerk up at that, "What? You mean-"

"He may have who we were recorded." Kitsunami proposed, looking awestruck.

Sonic tapped his feet, some what impatient, but willing to let the Fennec indulge.

"Well damn Drippy, stop wasting time and get to looking." Surge burst out, throwing her hands up in a clear symbol of her displeasure.

The Fennec continued to flip through each of the pages, "The… Warp Topaz?"

"Too far you fucking idiot!" Surge growled, and grabbed the book, flipping through it in a way that only Sonic or someone like could.

"Nothing in here!" Surge threw the book over her back, and growled, "This is bullshit!"

Sonic stepped up, "Now hold it! Calm down. We're looking for my friends. If things are going to get violent, we won't look anywhere else again!" he had been pretty nice, but at this rate, Surge was going to lose her mind and then Sonic would have to deal with that.

"Grr… get back to looking!" Surge shouted, her teeth gritting to the point Sonic thought they were going to crack.

Sonic held up his hand. If he pushed her, she might decide it was time to get a little rough. He checked the last drawer… to find it empty. Sonic looked at the empty wooden space. Of course Starline wouldn't just keep everything in a simple place and format. He probably got started before-

Sonic saw something about the bottom of the drawer. The footing looked different, like there was a handle. Sonic pushed the handle back, and saw the papers underneath.

He looked down at the top paper. Starline seemed to be monologuing for a majority of the papers until Sonic reached the end.

Central base Alpha will store any data that may be lost in my unfortunate passing, should such an event ever occur.

Sonic picked up the picked up the papers, which took a surprising amount of force to lift. He was going to show Surge when Sonic noticed something else. A red glowing button.

"Hey, I think I found something." Sonic called out looking at the button. He heard the static shock that told Sonic that Surge had arrived to check.

Surge growled, "Come on, quit pussyfooting around, press it and let's go!" Surge shouted.

Sonic smiled. She really was just like him. He pressed the button. Nothing happened.

Sonic and Surge exchanged glances. Then, the wardrobe that they had made fun of moved to the right, and a trap door opened. The two returned to exchanging glances, and they ran over. It was pitch black, with no light giving any idea of where the hole went.

Surge glanced at Sonic, "Age before beauty."

"You scared?" Sonic countered, giving her a grin.

"You wish. Kit, Jump down and check it out." Surge commanded. Sonic jerked up.

"Wait a minute, I'll go down." Sonic demanded. The kid didn't deserve to get skewered by a spike trap at the bottom. Then again, the idea of him getting skewered wasn't great. To add a third point, what idiot would leave a trap for a hidden entrance?

Sonic jumped, and landed on nice, flat rock. It was about five feet down, which wasn't much. Sonic actually saw a little ladder sitting there on the wall.

"Yo faker, you alive?" Surge's voice shouted, "I fucking swear, if I wasted my time dealing with that fucking boat, I'll bring you back just to kick your ass!"

Sonic shouted up, "I'm good, Come on down."

He moved out of the way so Surge could land on her feet, followed by Kitsunami. They looked into what appeared to be a cave or tunnel.

Sonic saw lights, but they appeared to be out of power, "Huh, looks like-"

Surge spun around and fired a bolt up at the lights, lighting up the cave with bright yellow bulbs.

"Thanks." Sonic smiled at her.

"Shut up." Surge growled, and looked around, "There's nothing fucking down here!"

It was true. There were boxes of stuff like older, childish lab equipment, and some snacks, but nothing experimental or anything.

The cave rumbled and shook. The end of the cave burst open to reveal a larger tunnel. It also revealed a ton of motorbugs and drill Badniks.

Sonic got lower, "You ready?" He bent his knees, ready to hit the surprised badniks.

Surge answered by rushing in, curling into a ball and smashing a Motorbug with a spindash.

That was enough for Sonic, and went into jump over one of the drill badnik's drill, before smashing straight down. Sonic then lunged forward, and hit the next drill badnik from the side.

He smashed through the next two badniks, and followed behind Surge's electric trail as she let out a chain of lightning which lit the pathway and fried the badniks.

They were both outclassed when Kitsunami's eyes glowed. Sonic knew to get out of the way, and Surge screamed, "Alright Drippy, knock 'em dead!"

Kitsunami's water tentacles swarmed around the badniks, crushing them as the little fox was sure to let them know just how angry he was. The badniks were cleared out, which meant all that was left was the hole.

Sonic could hear the sound of metal clanking against the stone. He looked at Surge, "You want to go-"

"Quit wasting fucking time." Surge zipped past Sonic. Was she trying to race him? Sonic found himself getting excited at that thought.

He zipped forward into the dark hole right as some lights began to shine through it. Sonic saw the glint of something on the ground… tracks.

Sonic jumped up as Surge tried to zip further ahead, before landing on the tracks with his shoes grinding along it. Sonic flashed a couple finger guns at Surge as he passed her, before arriving at the base of the artificial cave.

There were minecarts, and what appeared to be an Egg base underground. Which meant that Sonic could probably find something interesting in there.

Sonic heard the sound of grinding and turned to look over his back. Surge had used her shoes to grind, but because she didn't get the gravity advantage she came up short. Surge seemed to take a great deal of offense to that, as she tried to force her feet further along the track.

Finally, Surge gave up and walked up next to Sonic. Kitsunami's feet were coming in closer, so he was going to join them soon enough. Surge growled, "So… fatass has to make his bases underground now?"

"I guess so." Sonic sighed, before seeing the doorway, that only had what looked like a light lock. "You want to do the honors?"

"Shut the fuck up." Surge growled, but got ready to run. She sprinted forward, curling into a ball and slamming through the doors. An alarm went off, and Sonic realized they had to move fast.

He ran inside, and got ready to fight. His eagerness was slightly deterred when the badniks seemed to only have construction equipment. There wasn't a lot to say about how it went. Sonic and Surge made it too easy.

The large room only had the large computer screen, and several monitors.

Sonic looked around. He saw one. G-125 "Phantom". Cloaking capabilities? Higher than expected output? Universal traversing?

Sonic wasn't one for technobabble. He looked for Kitsunami, when the screen changed.

The mustache man himself appeared on the big screen, "Ahh hedgehog, I was expecting- you? Starline's little freak… how interesting, and the Hedgehog…. My oh my…"

"Why don't you say it to my face, fatass." Surge growled, cracking her knuckles. The wind seemed to move, Sonic looked up above the monitor, and saw a large black hole, which seemed to be a way for air to get in and out.

"Oh… that would be tempting, but you see, I don't much like touching rats, much less abominations." Eggman taunted the Tenrec. She didn't seem to let it get to her, only letting out a fierce grin.

Sonic stepped up, "Alright Eggman, let my friends go, and I'll give you a headstart." Sonic threw his hands out, "I'd say I'm being pretty cool."

Surge growled, "Oh hell no. I ain't letting him get off without any fun!" she threw her hands out in outrage.

Sonic sighed, "Come on, I want my friends back."

"Well hedgehog, I suppose I can indulge you." Eggman's face told Sonic that was probably a trap.

Sonic got ready, before he felt the doors against his back as he was launched back. Surge's surprised face was totally worth the pain he felt In his ribs.

Surge suddenly was hit by the air, and sent flying back into him.

Eggman's laugh echoed through the cave, "Now, PHANTOM, get rid of them!"

/*-*/

PHANTOM now faces Sonic, Surge and Kit. Will they succeed? Find out next section, coming tomorrow.

Again, feel free to leave a review or PM me if you have questions or comments about this?