The trio had left the Great Forest behind. Sonic pressed a button on the wristband Tails had made for him. The projected hologram indicated the coordinates to be in a straight line from them, far away in the desert.
"Okay. Now we use afterburner. Kazuo?"
"I will follow," he promised.
"If you say you can. Come on!"
Sonic outran them after a few seconds, but they were able to follow his dust trail easily enough. Lazer was a red bullet in the air, trailing power beams of burning crimson that added to his speed. Below, the dust cloud obstructed any view of Kazuo.
The excursion lasted half an hour, for Lazer at least. The dust cloud ended at the edge of a rough canyon. He was astonished when he saw Kazuo standing beside Sonic, the latter tapping his foot.
"Trust me, I don't know how the hell he did it, either. At least he couldn't outrun me."
"By the Walkers. Sonic, you have competition."
"Wait till Mina hears of this. Anyway. Down there is an opening."
They peered over the edge. Several hundred meters down, on the canyon floor, was a circular pit, heavily guarded by robots and gun turrets. Mining robots were dumping cartloads of rocks into the pit. Peering closer they could make out dim electric lights and a conveyor belt carrying the rocks underground.
"Want me to blast 'em?" Lazer asked. The sight of his enemy had renewed old hatred.
"We'll jump."
"You and Kazuo will die."
"That's where you come in."
Lazer blinked, then understood. He held out his arms for Sonic and Kazuo to hold.
"Wonderful, just bloody wonderful," the red hedgehog muttered. He was about to have his arms ripped off by a smart aleck and someone who had tried to kill him earlier today. Criticisms aside, he and his 'baggage' dived off the cliff.
"BONZAI!" Sonic yelled on the way down, almost breaking Lazer's concentration. When they had fallen past the threshold, he swooped almost horizontally, straining his arms to the limit, nearly skinning his stomach against the conveyor belt. He curved upward and told his companions to let go. They all landed safely, and ran for cover behind several large packing crates. Skydiving had attracted a small army of heavily armed Combots.
"Excellent. We have absolutely no idea where to find Robotnik. Any bright ideas?" Sonic asked over the sound of gunfire.
"Let's follow the conveyor belt. It must lead to a processing plant of some kind," Lazer speculated. Sonic nodded, and, at his signal, they dodged enemy fire while fleeing alongside the rumbling metal track. The payloads of rock were large enough to be used as cover. It was with trepidation that they entered a black tunnel, and discovered that the floor had disappeared beneath them. Lazer bathed the darkness with red light as he dove downward with the rocks, trying to locate Sonic and Kazuo.
"Where are you?" he yelled. He saw two shapes below, hopping between the larger rocks. Kazuo and Sonic were losing momentum by jumping off the rocks as they fell. It was a feat impossible to those with lesser speed. A bright circle of reddish light waited below, where the rocks were falling into a massive steel vat. The aerial acrobats landed and immediately bounded off to avoid the falling debris.
"You got it way too easy, samurai boy," Sonic remarked to Lazer, who had hovered down next to them.
"To each his own. Now what?"
The vat groaned and tipped its contents into a molten pool of orange fire, which in turn was contained within a vat of enormous proportions. From this vat ran an innumerable number of pipes that disappeared into the metallic walls of this area.
"Why is Robotnik melting rocks?" Sonic wondered.
"He's nuttier than a squirrel in spring time. No offense to your wife," Lazer replied. The hedgehogs exchanged a glower. Kazuo lifted a paw and pointed across the room.
"A door, larger than the others, and with more guards."
The vat of molten rock was between them and the door. There were no walkways connected to the service platform they had landed on, either. The controls of the platform required direct interface with a robot in order to function.
"Lazer, I guess we…"
Sonic's words were cut off by the sharp CRACK of energy beams. Lazer threw up a shield of Chaos energy.
"Gun turrets and Combots," he announced, taking the brunt of the brutal assault.
"You have to carry us across," Sonic shouted into his ear above the racket.
"No can do. I can't support both of you and a shield at the same time."
"Damn it!"
Sonic's eyes roamed furiously for a pathway.
"Hey, Kazuo! Let's run along the rim of this container to the other side!"
The container bubbled with orange heat. Kazuo shrugged and motioned for Sonic to lead. Taking a deep, determined breath, the "Fastest Thing Alive" lived up to his name and made it across in two seconds, barely noticing the burning metal beneath his shoes. He took three seconds to destroy all the robots that were guarding the door, and then waved to Kazuo. The rabbit samurai took a mighty leap onto the rim, and darted for his life toward Sonic. He made it across, but had to remove his wooden sandals since they had caught fire. Lazer lowered his shield, destroyed every gun turret with well-aimed energy shots and then flew over to his comrades. Sonic was shaking his head while Kazuo batted the flames off his footwear.
"Damn it, Lazer…"
"To each his own," Lazer interrupted, and led the way forward. The air became cooler with every step, as they walked past several doorways.
"How do we know if Robotnik isn't behind any of these?" Sonic asked, and paused by one of the doors. Lazer shook his head.
"If he comes within a hundred metres of me, I'll know. The Emeralds can see further than any of us. He knows that, too."
That cleared up, they walked another five minutes until Lazer stopped. He looked to the plain-looking door on his left.
"What?" Sonic asked. Lazer did not answer. He walked toward the door and it slid open. When they followed, even Kazuo flinched at what he saw inside.
It was a War Museum. There were no neatly arranged cabinets that held weaponry or armour. There were no pictures that depicted heroism or the profile of a soldier. This museum placed on display the long dead bodies of hundreds of Freedom Fighters.
The violated corpses, furry and non-furry alike, were held in suspended animation within glass chambers, floating in a greenish fluid. Some were missing limbs. Many of them were riddled with holes. One body mutely screamed while its disembodied head floated above the neck.
"I knew her once," Sonic murmured by one of the chambers. The gray vixen, her eyes dead and staring, had a circular hole in the centre of her forehead, "Thank Destiny she died quickly."
He turned away, shaken to the core. Sonic knew Robotnik to be perverse, but this macabre collection was the very depth of depravity. Was it not enough that he persecuted the living?
"Lazer-san?" Kazuo said. The red hedgehog, frozen in place, was gazing at a row of ten bodies. Above, printed on the wall, was a single word: "ADRAX"
The city Lazer came from, Sonic thought in shock. It had been six years since Robotnik had failed to overthrow the city of red hedgehogs. Not accepting defeat, Robotnik had dropped a nuclear bomb, which not only devastated the city but the entire country Xadra as well. From that holocaust Lazer had come, a survivor with vengeance in his eyes. He was standing, back turned to them, and they waited.
Looking upon his fallen comrades in arms, a chill spread across Lazer. It was terrifying and delicious to him at the same time, for it was the same chill he had felt on that day, years ago.
"He took them during the war, while Adrax still existed. They are… trophies."
"Bastard," Sonic muttered.
"Ryan, Karl, and Sid," Lazer said, and lifted his arms to the cadavers before him, "I grew up with them. We played basketball every Friday at the street corner. Where are they now?"
His living friends waited in understanding silence, mulling over their owns thoughts, until his arms lowered and he faced them.
"There is another door over there," he inclined his head toward it, set among the trophies of Robotnik. "Something is alive in there. Go. I have something to finish here."
The coldness of his voice would not be argued with. Once they were gone, he clasped his paws together in silence for several moments, praying for the souls of his friends. His eyes opened but the chill had not left him.
"So be it," he whispered.