The hedgehog trio had managed to use Chaos Control to arrive on the charred remains of Prison Island safely. No soldiers were in sight, but that didn't mean that they weren't there. Shadow made it a point for the three of them to be on full alert; you just couldn't be too sure with G.U.N.
Sara looked on in dismay at all the destroyed and dying plant life that they passed on their way. "What ever did happen here?", she asked sadly. Shadow frowned because he knew she wouldn't like his answer, and was about to confess his hand in it when Amy jumped in. "This really bad man called Dr. Eggman tricked two people into doing his dirty work. It's not their fault; they didn't know it would end up like this." The beige hedgehog shook her head in disapproval. "When will people learn not to abuse the earth.." she mumbled while moving forward, leaving the other two alone for a moment.
Shadow turned towards Amy, with a confused look on his face. "Why'd you defend me like that?", he inquired. "I know that she'd probably never forgive me for the things I've done this past week." Amy just smiled back at him. "Friends defend friends, right?", she giggled. She placed a gloved hand on his shoulder. "You may not have understood what you were doing in the beginning, but you were able to realize what you had to do before it was too late. And right now, you're trying to continue in fulfilling that promise to your friend. So it's about time you were cut some slack." Shadow looked at her once again, this time his signature frown was turned into a half-smile. "Thanks", he said plainly.
Their private moment was abruptly interrupted from a loud scream a few meters ahead. Both rushed over to see Sara struggling a bit to hold her own against some of the few functional G.U.N. beetle bots that still remained on the island. "Get away from me, you pieces of flying rubbish!", she yelled as she landed a direct hit into one of them, sending it crashing to the ground in sizzling fragments. Amy joined in using her Piko Piko Hammer to smash the beetles as flat as pancakes while Shadow did a series of aerial spin attacks to slice and dice the others. In the end, all that remained of the beetle robots was a smoldering pile of metal rubbish.
"You're pretty formidable with that staff of yours," complimented Shadow, who was brushing the last bits of twisted robot off himself. The beige hedgehog smiled as she pulled off a elegant baton-like twirl with the staff. "I was taught well by a dear friend", she beamed. Amy pointed in the direction of an underground opening from which the robots had appeared. "Hey Shadow", she started, "do you suppose that we might make use of this as an entrance?"
All three walked over to examine the opening closer. After a few moments Shadow came to the conclusion that they would be able to enter safely, since they had managed to destroy most of the beetles here on the surface. And finding a better entry point might prove to be dangerous if the beetles they destroyed had sent out a emergency signal for backup.
"It looks more like a straight drop, so I suggest the two of you hold on to me", judged Shadow. "With my hover shoes, we have a better chance of gliding down safely." Both women did as he suggested. Holding on firmly to both girls, Sara with her Kendo Staff outstretched and Amy doing the same with her hammer to slowly inch themselves down just in case, Shadow began their descent into uncertainty.
Meanwhile, on another side of Prison Island….
"Damnit Tails," grumbled Sonic. "Would it kill you to put a few extra seats in this cramped plane of yours?" He was pretty fed up of always having to stand on the Tornado's wings to get to aqua-submerged locations. At this rate, he might have just swam the whole way (even though he absolutely hated water). The little fox just rolled his eyes back in reply. "For someone who's used this plane systematically, you would've figured out by now that the spare seat is compact." He then proceeds to show the blue speedster how to prepare the seat in 3 simple steps. Click, push, and pull.
Knuckles appeared out of nowhere, which sort of caught Rouge off-guard. He said as-a-matter-of-factly, "I had a hunch you'd be here." She just rolled her eyes in reply. "There's still a lot you have to learn about me, echidna", she said softly.
Knuckles cracked his enormous knuckles. Since guarding the Master Emerald took up most of his spare time, he was just aching for a good fight. "Hey fox boy, save the demonstration for later. I want to get this done as quickly as possible." Sonic takes a couple of glances at their surroundings, which were apparently occupied by themselves. "What's the rush?" he asked. "Eggman barbequed the island to extra-crispy. Doubt anyone's going to be around here." Rouge shook her head in disagreement. "Having worked for the government, I know for a fact that they wouldn't just let something like this go by unnoticed. Stronger forces should be here…probably under camouflage. So keep your guard up."
"We'll take your lead on this Rouge", said Tails. Sonic motioned for them to start moving out when they were suddenly surrounded by G.U.N. agents. The strongest looking one out of the group of 6 agents spoke up. "Freeze. We're taking you all in for questioning." He then noticed Rouge out of the corner of his eye.
"Agent Rouge?", he asked curiously. The snow colored bat immediately stepped forward and gave an army salute, during which she managed to give a quick signal to Knuckles and the others.
"Where have you been? Our forces lost contact with you after you contacted the President last week. What has kept you from fully reporting to us? And what are you doing with these characters? They're wanted for questioning." Rouge took a few steps forward towards the agent before saying, "As a matter of fact, I was bringing them in for questioning myself." She watched on as he cocked an eyebrow.
"Is that so?", he taunted. "As a matter of fact", she retorted, "I was. And the reason I lost communication with headquarters was because my com-link was destroyed during battle." Her aqua blue eyes pierced into the agent's own, which she was relying on. The other agents seemed to be staring into her eyes (if not something else) as well.
There were a few moments of silence after that as it seemed to Sonic and the others that Rouge was having a staring contest between that group of agents. It paid off though; within seconds all 6 agents were frozen in place by her stare. She turned over towards her confused comrades. "If you're wondering what I did to them, I hypnotized them. A special kind of hypnotism that we bats possess. By staring directly into someone's eyes, we can render them frozen statues at will."
Knuckles looking a little pissed off, asked, "That makes me wonder…". Rouge turned back at him and added, "We can control it to the point where we can hypnotize certain people." She flashed him a smile to cheer him up. "I never did that with you. I was having to much fun." Turning back to the immobilized agents, she ordered them while still in their frozen trance to swim to the farthest stretch of land, forget that she and the others were ever on this island, and discard their weapons on the island at the snap of her fingers. When she did so, they dropped their guns and ran off past them, jumping into the ocean to begin their swim.
Rouge turned around to face her companions once more. "What are you waiting for?", she asked. She then noticed where the three of them were staring. "Men…"she muttered furiously. The trio snapped out of their prior thoughts to focus on the objective that lay ahead: infiltrate the hidden base on the island and eliminate Project Aozora No Knife.
Tails punched a few digits on the onboard computer in the Tornado to calculate the closest points of entry. After a few seconds, the computer screen showed a large hole that wasn't too far from where they stood. "There's a hole we can jump into that's not too far from here", he piped up. "Even better because there aren't too many agents around. So we'll sneak in practically undetected. AGH!" The two-tailed wonder had been pulled out of his seat by his role-model. "STOP RELYING ON TECHNOLOGY!", yelled Sonic. "You're not taking that pile of metal along for the adventure. You need to learn how to think while on your feet."
All four creatures hurried off to the entry point using as much stealth as possible. Even though the computer had said that there was virtually no interference, they couldn't be too safe. One by one they all jumped into the hole: Sonic spin-attacking all the way through, Rouge and Knuckles using their gliding ability to soften their fall, and Tails slowly propelling his tails to hover downward into the unknown.