The Robotnik Complex
Chapter 12
Location: Great Forest (20 Minutes from Knothole, 15 from Robotropolis)
Brian was sitting in the cockpit of the shuttle, slowly making it's way toward Robotropolis. Brian looked down at the stump where his shoulder ended and his arm should have began. He sighed. "If I have to go into unarmed combat, I don't stand a chance." Brian told Sonic, who was checking their heading. Sonic looked up at him. "Maybe it's time I explain the nature of Robotropolis. You either have speed, like me, dexterity, like Tails, stealth, like Geoffery, Sally, and Amy, or strength in offense, like you. In this city, unarmed combat dosn't exist. You are fighting or sneaking from a 1/2-ton Swat-bot designed to do two thing, kill or capture. And they do it well, but not well enough. If you have a weapon, your fine. But if you don't, and you can't hide yourself good enough, your dead. We know how to fight and how to flee, and we do it well. But, if you want to survive remember 2 things: One, don't be afraid, Swat-Bots have a amazing amount of flaws when you get right down to it, and so do the other kinds of robots. They can't turn fast enough, they can't power weapons fast, and so on. Two, don't let ego or rage cloud your thinking. That will get you killed faster than anything else in the city. Three, remember, this is not friendly ground, things have a way of sneaking up on you, and the ground just seems to open up. If you remember these things, your fine. One other thing, don't destroy a worker bot." Brian curled his forhead in curosity. "Why not?" Sonic looked up from the console again. "There all slaves, it's not their fault. Inside, there still alive, still fighting. And someday, when we finally get a working version of the derobotisizer, they will all be free." Brian shook his head in understanding, sat silent for a few more minutes, than spoke again. "Why dosn't Chuck think the derobotisizer is a possisablity?" Sonic looked up at Brian, then sighed. "A year before the take over of Mobotropolis, when he was still organic, he discovered that the robotisizer turns people into mindless slaves to the programing, he tried to reverse the process. I'm really not sure how the robotisizer works, but I do know that a beam of somekind on a certain frequency and amplitude puts organic tissue into a hyperactive state and emits huge amounts of metallic elements. This changes the cells into nano-machinery. Theres a lot more to it, but from what he has told me, he couldn't get the process to work in reverse, to causing the nano-machines to emit amino acids and carbon. He could never figure out why the process of robotization only works one way." Sonic leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes. "Maybe it's just something that we will never figure out." Brian didn't say anything, just kept driving. But in his mind, he was already forming a idea of why the derobotisization process tried by Charles didn't work. Organic material was a huge abount of other materials and organic materials produced these materials naturally. Anything that was alive could be transformed into virtully anything else, you just had to know how. But metal was cold, dead. They were trying to force metal to do something it couldn't do: live. 'What I have to do is not transform metal to organic matter, but make organic matter and start anew.' Brian thought. "I will build the robotisizer," Brian said to Sonic. "And then I'll succeed where Charles failed. I promise." Sonic leaned forward and sat, looking at Brian for a few minutes. He finally spoke. "I hope so." Sonic sighed. "I miss my parents. Almost no one will admit it, but we all hope for the day when someone speciol to us will be free." Sonic looked at the monitor, then back at Brian. "Do you remember your parents at all?" Brian's right arm stiffened. "You don't have to answer if you don't want to." Sonic quickly added. Brian shok his head. "No, no, It's fine. They died when I was five in a hydrogen explosion. They were on the development team for the Hydrogen separation reactor. One night the accoustic stablizer that kept the hydrogen separation stable and constant failed. The rest of the lab was evacuated in time but my parents were working on the turbine manifolds. They were trapped when the lab sealed. They were killed when something ignited the vented hydrogen trapped in the lab. The explosion decimated 2 square acres. After that, my brother and I were separated and put into separate foster homes. I never saw him again. I tried to find him when I became a Guardian, but I couldn't." Brian coughed and looked at Sonic. "So, are we there yet?" Brian asked, trying to sound cheerful, but failed. Sonic looked down at his monitor. "2 minutes from where we park, a half mile hike from there to the city boundary." Brian looked around them. "Man, this is creepy. Everything looks poisoned or dead." Sonic also looked around them. "Get used to it, this is better by far than the city." Sonic set the throttle at zero and shut off the main power. The monitors went black. Sonic and Brian hit the release buttons on their safety harnesses and opened the doors. Tails, Sally, Amy, and St. John were already outside waiting on them. "Good job, Brian. Are you sure this is your first time flying a hovershuttle?" Brian nodded his head. "Well, anyway, let's get to it." Everyone took out their weapons and prepared them. Tails took out his handgun and loaded a clip, Sally took out what looked to Brian like a cattle prod, Amy had a baseball bat, St. John took out his arrow gun and loaded a clip, Sonic just stood their waiting. Brian pulled out his shotgun and loaded a clip into it. "Where's your weapon?" Brian asked Sonic as he dropped the gun to his side. "I told you earlier, my speed...oh, that's right, you havn't seen me run yet, have you?" Brian looked quizical as he shook his head no. "We have a 1/2 mile hike ahead of us, right Sonic?" Sally asked as she clipped the cattld prod to her belt. "Yeah, Sal. What do you say we give the new guy a example." Sally smiled. "I say why not. Brian, I'll hold onto Sonic's shoulders, you hold onto mine, Tails will hold onto yours, St. John will hold onto Tails, and Amy will hold onto him." Brian raised a eyebrow in question, but before he could say anything, Sally cut him off. "Just do it, OK?" Brian nodded his head. He walked over to Sonic and held onto the hedgehog's shoulders. A second later he felt Sally grab onto his shoulders. 10 seconds later everyone was lined up behind Sonic. "Hold on tight." He told everyone. Brian cluched Sonic's shoulders. "Ready?" Sonic asked everyone. Every answered yes. "They let's juice!" Sonic said, just as he tok off at top speed, leaving the sound barrier behing them.
A few seconds later he slowed down and ended up beside the city boundary. Everyone dropped their hands to their sides and walked over the the path into the city. All except Brian, who stood their open-mouthed. 'My god! A half mile in a few seconds! "That...that...was...amazing! How did you do that?" Sonic turned around. "I was just born with that ability, like some people are born with excess strength, I was born fast." Brian began to walk toward where the others were standing. "Ok" was all he said. "Then lets go." Sally said as she turned around, drew her weapon, and began forward. The other's drew their weapons and began following her. Brian noted the darkness of the city even though his watch said it was bright daylight out. He figured it was because of mass polution, since his lungs stung mildly. Tails slowed his pace so that he was beside Brian. "Remember, stealth above all else!" Tails was about to go back by Amy when Brian whispered to him. "Something is watching us. Tell Sally." Tails nodded and walked forward. A second later Sally was beside him. "How do you know that?" Brian shrugged. "I don't know, I do know however where it is." Sally glanced behind them, but didn't see anything. "Can you take it out?" She asked Brian. "Oh yes." Sally nodded. "When I stop, do it." Brian nodded and she walked forward. 10 seconds later she stopped. Brian spun around, brought up his gun, aimed, and fired within a second. He heard a electronic sizzle and a splat at a Camera-Bot fell from the sky, into a puddle of mud a few feet away. Brian lowered his weapon and walked over to investigate. "How did you do that?" St. John asked Brian, impressed with the human, even though he hated him. "I have several cybernetic devices in my body that allow me to scan the area around me for posisable threats." St. John nodded his head. "That's a camera that allows Robotnik to survey the city from the control center." Amy spoke up. He most likely already knows were here." Sally nodded in agreement with the young hedgehog. "We should keep moving." They continued through the city, slowly making their way toward a junk heap with several components they needed to build more shuttles and to keep their computers working.
Location: Robotropolis Control Center
Robotnik stared at the now blank monitor. He growing pailer by the second. Snively was supervising the refit of the Proteus. It had worked on the 10 prisoners, but they had come out freakishly deformed, unable to do any work of even to complete a simple task like walking. But right now, Robotnik was concerned with what he thought he saw just before the monitor went dead. 'If that was guardian Floyd, and he really is here, than no amount of offensive force will stop him from coming for me if he finds out I'm here. And Snively is another complication...Oh, No!' Robotnik spun in his chair and typed fast on a keyboard. A map of Robotropolis came up on the main screen. He typed some more and zomed in on one section of the city. Six red dots appearedon the screen. They all were headed toward a single green dot. "No!" Robotnik yelled. "Damn it!"
Brian and the others had already salvaged the things they needed and Sonic had ran the parts back to the shuttle. They were about to leave for the shuttle when Brian heard something. "Shh!" He told the others. He signaled them into a alley. They crouched there with Brian and waited. A few seconds later a man in a green tunic halked by the alley. Brian grabbed him and drug him in. He pushed the man up aganst the opposite wall and shoved the buisiness end of his gun in the man's face. "Any of you know..." Brian started, but cut himself off as he regconized the man. Even though he had aged and lost most of his hair, and had somehow been partially disfigured by his nose being enlarged, nothing could stop Brian from recognizing the man who stood in front of him now. "His name's Snively, he works for Robotnik." Sally told him. "We should question him and kill him." Sonic added cold-bloodedly. Brian camly put his gun away and reached into the back of Snively's tunic. He pulled out a transmitter. Brian dropped it onto the ground and crushed it with his boot. He pulled out his gun and knocked Snively out with it. He put it away and then turned to face the group. "Please don't kill him. He's my brother." St. John snorted. "Oh, so now you feel you are part of his race?" Brian shook his head. "No, I don't know how yet, but when I say he's my brother, I mean it. He's changed a lot since i've last seen him, but I'm sure. He is my brother."
Robotnik stared at the screen. "Contacts lost." Said the metallic voice of the Robotropolis computer. "Activate the Brain-Lock chip. Subject: Snively" the computer processed for a minute, them responded. "Brain-lock effective." Robotnik smiled. "So long, Snively. Have fun with your new 'friends'." The evil doctor began to laugh.
"Come on, we can't be expected to believe that!" Sally hissed at Brian. "I thought you were a orphan." Brian sighed. He should have known this wouldn't come easy. "I was orphaned at five. That's when my brother and I became separated. I have no idea how he got here, but I'm sure it's him." Sally sighed. "Fine, we'll bring him back with us, but I want him under 24 hour watch until we figure this thing out." Brian nodded. "Thank you, princess." Brian turned around just as a swat-bot entered the alley, at least 100 other Swat-Bots behind him, lining the street. "Freeze!" It barked in a metallic monotone. "No one move." Brian said as he pushed his watch face. "WatchCom Online. Standing by." Brian closed his eyes and began thinking of the transport and where it was parked. He felt the energy build up inside of him. He knew this would take a lot of effort, but he knew it was there only way out. He used his senses to locate the others and exactly where they were. He felt his body fade away from himself. Someone cried out. Brian didn't care. He let loose the energy that was pent up inside of him. And he felt himself fade away.
He felt himself reappear and drop to the ground like a stone behind the shuttle. 'Good,' he thought to himself. 'I got them all.' Sally and Sonic walked over to him. He felt Sally's hand on his shoulder. "My God, are you alright Brian?" Brian groaned. "All be fine, just help me up." Sonic and Sally helped him stand up. With their help he half walked, half drug himself to the shuttle. He opened the door to the rear passenger copartment, and stepped inside. He fell into the nearest seat. A few seconds later he felt someone buckle him in. A minute later he heard the engines start, and then he fell asleep.
Chapter 12
Location: Great Forest (20 Minutes from Knothole, 15 from Robotropolis)
Brian was sitting in the cockpit of the shuttle, slowly making it's way toward Robotropolis. Brian looked down at the stump where his shoulder ended and his arm should have began. He sighed. "If I have to go into unarmed combat, I don't stand a chance." Brian told Sonic, who was checking their heading. Sonic looked up at him. "Maybe it's time I explain the nature of Robotropolis. You either have speed, like me, dexterity, like Tails, stealth, like Geoffery, Sally, and Amy, or strength in offense, like you. In this city, unarmed combat dosn't exist. You are fighting or sneaking from a 1/2-ton Swat-bot designed to do two thing, kill or capture. And they do it well, but not well enough. If you have a weapon, your fine. But if you don't, and you can't hide yourself good enough, your dead. We know how to fight and how to flee, and we do it well. But, if you want to survive remember 2 things: One, don't be afraid, Swat-Bots have a amazing amount of flaws when you get right down to it, and so do the other kinds of robots. They can't turn fast enough, they can't power weapons fast, and so on. Two, don't let ego or rage cloud your thinking. That will get you killed faster than anything else in the city. Three, remember, this is not friendly ground, things have a way of sneaking up on you, and the ground just seems to open up. If you remember these things, your fine. One other thing, don't destroy a worker bot." Brian curled his forhead in curosity. "Why not?" Sonic looked up from the console again. "There all slaves, it's not their fault. Inside, there still alive, still fighting. And someday, when we finally get a working version of the derobotisizer, they will all be free." Brian shook his head in understanding, sat silent for a few more minutes, than spoke again. "Why dosn't Chuck think the derobotisizer is a possisablity?" Sonic looked up at Brian, then sighed. "A year before the take over of Mobotropolis, when he was still organic, he discovered that the robotisizer turns people into mindless slaves to the programing, he tried to reverse the process. I'm really not sure how the robotisizer works, but I do know that a beam of somekind on a certain frequency and amplitude puts organic tissue into a hyperactive state and emits huge amounts of metallic elements. This changes the cells into nano-machinery. Theres a lot more to it, but from what he has told me, he couldn't get the process to work in reverse, to causing the nano-machines to emit amino acids and carbon. He could never figure out why the process of robotization only works one way." Sonic leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes. "Maybe it's just something that we will never figure out." Brian didn't say anything, just kept driving. But in his mind, he was already forming a idea of why the derobotisization process tried by Charles didn't work. Organic material was a huge abount of other materials and organic materials produced these materials naturally. Anything that was alive could be transformed into virtully anything else, you just had to know how. But metal was cold, dead. They were trying to force metal to do something it couldn't do: live. 'What I have to do is not transform metal to organic matter, but make organic matter and start anew.' Brian thought. "I will build the robotisizer," Brian said to Sonic. "And then I'll succeed where Charles failed. I promise." Sonic leaned forward and sat, looking at Brian for a few minutes. He finally spoke. "I hope so." Sonic sighed. "I miss my parents. Almost no one will admit it, but we all hope for the day when someone speciol to us will be free." Sonic looked at the monitor, then back at Brian. "Do you remember your parents at all?" Brian's right arm stiffened. "You don't have to answer if you don't want to." Sonic quickly added. Brian shok his head. "No, no, It's fine. They died when I was five in a hydrogen explosion. They were on the development team for the Hydrogen separation reactor. One night the accoustic stablizer that kept the hydrogen separation stable and constant failed. The rest of the lab was evacuated in time but my parents were working on the turbine manifolds. They were trapped when the lab sealed. They were killed when something ignited the vented hydrogen trapped in the lab. The explosion decimated 2 square acres. After that, my brother and I were separated and put into separate foster homes. I never saw him again. I tried to find him when I became a Guardian, but I couldn't." Brian coughed and looked at Sonic. "So, are we there yet?" Brian asked, trying to sound cheerful, but failed. Sonic looked down at his monitor. "2 minutes from where we park, a half mile hike from there to the city boundary." Brian looked around them. "Man, this is creepy. Everything looks poisoned or dead." Sonic also looked around them. "Get used to it, this is better by far than the city." Sonic set the throttle at zero and shut off the main power. The monitors went black. Sonic and Brian hit the release buttons on their safety harnesses and opened the doors. Tails, Sally, Amy, and St. John were already outside waiting on them. "Good job, Brian. Are you sure this is your first time flying a hovershuttle?" Brian nodded his head. "Well, anyway, let's get to it." Everyone took out their weapons and prepared them. Tails took out his handgun and loaded a clip, Sally took out what looked to Brian like a cattle prod, Amy had a baseball bat, St. John took out his arrow gun and loaded a clip, Sonic just stood their waiting. Brian pulled out his shotgun and loaded a clip into it. "Where's your weapon?" Brian asked Sonic as he dropped the gun to his side. "I told you earlier, my speed...oh, that's right, you havn't seen me run yet, have you?" Brian looked quizical as he shook his head no. "We have a 1/2 mile hike ahead of us, right Sonic?" Sally asked as she clipped the cattld prod to her belt. "Yeah, Sal. What do you say we give the new guy a example." Sally smiled. "I say why not. Brian, I'll hold onto Sonic's shoulders, you hold onto mine, Tails will hold onto yours, St. John will hold onto Tails, and Amy will hold onto him." Brian raised a eyebrow in question, but before he could say anything, Sally cut him off. "Just do it, OK?" Brian nodded his head. He walked over to Sonic and held onto the hedgehog's shoulders. A second later he felt Sally grab onto his shoulders. 10 seconds later everyone was lined up behind Sonic. "Hold on tight." He told everyone. Brian cluched Sonic's shoulders. "Ready?" Sonic asked everyone. Every answered yes. "They let's juice!" Sonic said, just as he tok off at top speed, leaving the sound barrier behing them.
A few seconds later he slowed down and ended up beside the city boundary. Everyone dropped their hands to their sides and walked over the the path into the city. All except Brian, who stood their open-mouthed. 'My god! A half mile in a few seconds! "That...that...was...amazing! How did you do that?" Sonic turned around. "I was just born with that ability, like some people are born with excess strength, I was born fast." Brian began to walk toward where the others were standing. "Ok" was all he said. "Then lets go." Sally said as she turned around, drew her weapon, and began forward. The other's drew their weapons and began following her. Brian noted the darkness of the city even though his watch said it was bright daylight out. He figured it was because of mass polution, since his lungs stung mildly. Tails slowed his pace so that he was beside Brian. "Remember, stealth above all else!" Tails was about to go back by Amy when Brian whispered to him. "Something is watching us. Tell Sally." Tails nodded and walked forward. A second later Sally was beside him. "How do you know that?" Brian shrugged. "I don't know, I do know however where it is." Sally glanced behind them, but didn't see anything. "Can you take it out?" She asked Brian. "Oh yes." Sally nodded. "When I stop, do it." Brian nodded and she walked forward. 10 seconds later she stopped. Brian spun around, brought up his gun, aimed, and fired within a second. He heard a electronic sizzle and a splat at a Camera-Bot fell from the sky, into a puddle of mud a few feet away. Brian lowered his weapon and walked over to investigate. "How did you do that?" St. John asked Brian, impressed with the human, even though he hated him. "I have several cybernetic devices in my body that allow me to scan the area around me for posisable threats." St. John nodded his head. "That's a camera that allows Robotnik to survey the city from the control center." Amy spoke up. He most likely already knows were here." Sally nodded in agreement with the young hedgehog. "We should keep moving." They continued through the city, slowly making their way toward a junk heap with several components they needed to build more shuttles and to keep their computers working.
Location: Robotropolis Control Center
Robotnik stared at the now blank monitor. He growing pailer by the second. Snively was supervising the refit of the Proteus. It had worked on the 10 prisoners, but they had come out freakishly deformed, unable to do any work of even to complete a simple task like walking. But right now, Robotnik was concerned with what he thought he saw just before the monitor went dead. 'If that was guardian Floyd, and he really is here, than no amount of offensive force will stop him from coming for me if he finds out I'm here. And Snively is another complication...Oh, No!' Robotnik spun in his chair and typed fast on a keyboard. A map of Robotropolis came up on the main screen. He typed some more and zomed in on one section of the city. Six red dots appearedon the screen. They all were headed toward a single green dot. "No!" Robotnik yelled. "Damn it!"
Brian and the others had already salvaged the things they needed and Sonic had ran the parts back to the shuttle. They were about to leave for the shuttle when Brian heard something. "Shh!" He told the others. He signaled them into a alley. They crouched there with Brian and waited. A few seconds later a man in a green tunic halked by the alley. Brian grabbed him and drug him in. He pushed the man up aganst the opposite wall and shoved the buisiness end of his gun in the man's face. "Any of you know..." Brian started, but cut himself off as he regconized the man. Even though he had aged and lost most of his hair, and had somehow been partially disfigured by his nose being enlarged, nothing could stop Brian from recognizing the man who stood in front of him now. "His name's Snively, he works for Robotnik." Sally told him. "We should question him and kill him." Sonic added cold-bloodedly. Brian camly put his gun away and reached into the back of Snively's tunic. He pulled out a transmitter. Brian dropped it onto the ground and crushed it with his boot. He pulled out his gun and knocked Snively out with it. He put it away and then turned to face the group. "Please don't kill him. He's my brother." St. John snorted. "Oh, so now you feel you are part of his race?" Brian shook his head. "No, I don't know how yet, but when I say he's my brother, I mean it. He's changed a lot since i've last seen him, but I'm sure. He is my brother."
Robotnik stared at the screen. "Contacts lost." Said the metallic voice of the Robotropolis computer. "Activate the Brain-Lock chip. Subject: Snively" the computer processed for a minute, them responded. "Brain-lock effective." Robotnik smiled. "So long, Snively. Have fun with your new 'friends'." The evil doctor began to laugh.
"Come on, we can't be expected to believe that!" Sally hissed at Brian. "I thought you were a orphan." Brian sighed. He should have known this wouldn't come easy. "I was orphaned at five. That's when my brother and I became separated. I have no idea how he got here, but I'm sure it's him." Sally sighed. "Fine, we'll bring him back with us, but I want him under 24 hour watch until we figure this thing out." Brian nodded. "Thank you, princess." Brian turned around just as a swat-bot entered the alley, at least 100 other Swat-Bots behind him, lining the street. "Freeze!" It barked in a metallic monotone. "No one move." Brian said as he pushed his watch face. "WatchCom Online. Standing by." Brian closed his eyes and began thinking of the transport and where it was parked. He felt the energy build up inside of him. He knew this would take a lot of effort, but he knew it was there only way out. He used his senses to locate the others and exactly where they were. He felt his body fade away from himself. Someone cried out. Brian didn't care. He let loose the energy that was pent up inside of him. And he felt himself fade away.
He felt himself reappear and drop to the ground like a stone behind the shuttle. 'Good,' he thought to himself. 'I got them all.' Sally and Sonic walked over to him. He felt Sally's hand on his shoulder. "My God, are you alright Brian?" Brian groaned. "All be fine, just help me up." Sonic and Sally helped him stand up. With their help he half walked, half drug himself to the shuttle. He opened the door to the rear passenger copartment, and stepped inside. He fell into the nearest seat. A few seconds later he felt someone buckle him in. A minute later he heard the engines start, and then he fell asleep.