Chapter 4:      The Sub-terrestrials

The blue armadillo looked around as he, in Hawk's vehicle, moved steadily through the air, over the town of humans. He couldn't see Hawk, Sama or Phantom anywhere…Just my luck…he thought to himself. They're probably inside the inn, unaware that the volcano will inevitably consume the town…but there was something funny about how the lava had turned to rock all at one certain point…and the rock seemed to be making its way around a certain radius, but not into, of the town. It was almost as if…suddenly Eagle spotted a green hedgehog and what looked like a purple fox leaning against a wall…this was interesting. At this, he turned slightly downward, to get a closer look if he could. Now HE looks familiar…Eagle thought to himself. He drew in closer and got a glimpse of the sunglasses and purple on the quills. Yep, that's the guy. He thought to himself. Suddenly there was the noise of a ricocheting bullet from the wing, as well as a spark. There was a hole in the wing. Ah, shoot…The plane tilted to the right slowly and steadily, Eagle attempted correction but suddenly the plane flipped right over and started spinning. Minimaniac looked up from his and KK's hiding spot, where the sniper couldn't hit them. The plane that had flown over them was spinning around madly. KK let out a cry of surprise at a bang that erupted as the front engine caught fire…Just a bit…further…Eagle thought to himself, eyes half-closed to keep out the smoke and dust expelling from the motor. Breaching the limits of the town he sent the plane straight at the ground, prioritizing his own safety over the plane's front end. Impacting on the ground, the plane threw him straight out of his seat, face first towards the ground and the mud. There was a boom, a wave of heat, and then the simple noise of burning flames. "Well, we know the sniper's still there." Mini shrugged, leaning against the wall. KK smiled slightly, what he said was humorous, but not enough to make her laugh right now.

******

Hawk looked behind him at a whoof noise. He had been right, Phantom had teleported. Sama looked at his ex-position blankly, knowing what had happened but without capacity to react. Hawk looked up at the trees above them. There seemed to be no Phantom there. He would take a while to find…Hawk shrugged and kept moving forward. It was dark in the forest, there was a thick canopy above them. The flap on his backpack was lifted slowly as Skeeter took another peek at the outside world. He had been unhappy about the prospect of leaving the backpack ever since the initial eruption, and fair enough too. That had been a stressful experience for all involved. Sama grunted loudly. There was the sound of running water ahead. Hawk jogged forward, throwing leaves and branches aside, and indeed found a rather peaceful river…too peaceful. Picturesque. There were no trees beyond it, and the trees were thick on their side. There was no bridge though. Suddenly there was a loud splash from Hawk's right as Sama fell in face-first. Bluehawk muttered to himself as he groped around in the water for a hold on Sama to pull him out…but there was no Sama there. Nothing. Just mud…dirt…weeds…He stood up slowly, wondering what the heck had just happened. What had just happened!? Sama had fallen in the water and vanished. Hawk looked around. There was nothing else for it. He crouched and, with no further ado, jumped forward, before feeling the sudden chill of being in a body of water…but that didn't last. Suddenly he was dry again…everything was spinning. But then a blurred image came before him. Dirt. Dirt. Dirt. Then things became clearer…He was in some sort of cave, the walls, roof, and floor were 100% dirt. He started to look around. Unless that river was randomized teleportation, Sama would be nearby. That was unless something had already-suddenly he heard a shout. "No! Last time I did I got in truh-boll!" That was Sama, alright. "I'm hungry!" Came the cry again. Hawk peeked around the corner to see what was going on. A pair of…what looked like moles were checking Sama's pockets for money…well, one of them was.

"WUGGLE!" came a muffled cry. They were taking Paladin! Hawk leapt from his hiding place with an OI! The two mole thugs looked up, startled. Suddenly they pulled out guns, similar to Hawk's own. Great. He thought. Gunfight! Before the others could blink, two shots had been fired from Hawk's gun and he was back behind his wall. No worry of hitting Sama…Hawk thought sarcastically. His head would make the bullets bounce off! Before long he was being pounded with pebbles, coming from the corner he was standing by, and loud bangs. He had to conserve ammo, or he'd run out sometime soon. He checked the magazine, only 8 bullets left. He pulled out the chaos emerald and concentrated intensely. Hand…to hand… quickly, feeling a crackle in his other hand, he jumped out of his hiding place and extended his palm. Pychark! Pychark! Hawk gulped and looked at his hand…it was smoking…that wasn't the attack he had intended the use of. He was expecting seven glowing chaos bolts to shoot from his palm…instead he had attacked with lightning bolts. But there was no time to think about that, Sama was okay, Paladin hugging his neck. Sama slowly got up. "Do moles ever eat?" Sama asked.

Bluehawk nodded. "Will that surgically enlarged brain of yours ever live up to its size?" Sama didn't reply. "C'mon, let's get outta here."

*****

The streets were silent now, dusk was coming on. The sniping teenage fox lowered his gun. A job well done, hopefully his point would be made. He looked to the right, the column of smoke that had been the plane that flew past. But there was something funny about it…those yellow sparks weren't coming from the motor…then suddenly there was a flash. This certainly kept the white fox's eyes to the spot…what was-suddenly a yellow streak shot out of the wreckage…running toward the town…running!? It leapt up…straight toward him…and he was suddenly overwhelmed by thudding pain…Minimaniac looked up to the sound of extreme screams…suddenly a white furry was flung over the roof, beyond the next street…and the next, it seemed…his eyes goggled…he looked to his right, where KK was…she was reacting the same way, but finding it more difficult to come to her senses. Suddenly a dark blue armadillo dropped down beside Mini. "Hey, pal…what's wrong?" Mini asked calmly. Eagle was puffing, absolutely stressed out.

"What…did I just do!?"

"Erm…was that you? Who just…?"

"Just WHAT!?"

"Threw that…guy…beyond the town?"

Eagle cringed. KK and Mini exchanged worried glances. "Shoot…" Eagle whimpered finally. "I gotta go find Hawk…"

"Waitaminute! You know Bluehawk?" KK burst out.

Eagle looked back as he had turned to walk off. "You know him?"

"He's a friend of mine." Minimaniac stated.

"Same. And the wall is my fault." Black Eagle sighed. "I allowed Hawk to deactivate the barrier…and then…cloaked guy took the orb…"

Mini and KK exchanged glances again. "Come with us." KK finally suggested, and she and Minimaniac took off in the direction of the towering wall of rock.

"Wait!" Eagle cried, before they could get far. "We'll never get through that way. It'll take some time, but I have a way better option."

"How long?" Minimaniac asked as he jogged back to Eagle.

"A few days…two weeks tops."

*****

Bluehawk looked behind him, where Sama wasn't moving fast to follow. "Come on! We have to get-"

"I smell!" Sama suddenly cried out, then went to follow Hawk. "My smell and hungry!"

Hawk groaned. "We have to get out of-"

Suddenly they both heard footsteps…running, well, jogging anyway, in their direction from ahead of them. Hawk lashed a hand out to stop Sama from speaking, then readied his own gun. Then the figure came around the corner.

"PHAN-"

"SSSHH!" There was a sudden silence between the three of them. Phantom mimed cutting his throat with an agonized expression. "I don't know where we are, but whatever race we've bumped into it's hostile to visitors!"

"What do you suggest?"

"I suggest we get out of here. How did you guys get here, anyway?"

"Some river…Sama fell in and disappeared, I followed."

"I teleported into the river…for all we know this could be an alternate dimension."

Hawk's face brightened up for a second, then he realized the implications of what Phantom meant. It was possible that if they were in an alternate dimension, and they could well have been, they might never get back to Dimension Prime. Suddenly Hawk felt a vibration. Then there were more vibrations and the earthquake was obvious. Phantom toppled backwards as a clump of dirt dropped out from the roof in a cloud of dust. Sama fell straight over, Hawk teeter-tottered from side to side and braced his balance as another clump of dirt came lose behind him…but this one was followed by a huge clump. The vibrations finally stopped and the way backward was blocked. Hawk punched the air. "Shoot. Even if there was a chance of getting back via the river…" he suddenly stopped at the rumble of his own gut.

"Guess the only way out is in…" Phantom sighed, brushing off his pants.

"I like race." Sama boasted.

Bluehawk peeked over the cliff at the city below…who would dig out that much earth!? Phantom pointed at another opening at the other side. "We have to get over there, hopefully that's our way out of here so we can figure out just where we are…and whether we're in Prime or not."

Hawk shuddered. "And…what do they do to strangers?"

"Do I even need to tell you? Let's just say they got some heavy weapons down there!"

"If it heavy, then I carry!" Sama said usefully. "I want food." Hawk again started regretting bringing the chao along, they ate all the food and never left the backpacks. Hawk turned to his right to make his way down the ramp from the cliff, followed by Sama and then Phantom. They reached the bottom of the ramp to hit dead flat earth, and Hawk stopped for a second, to let the others catch up. "Well, so far so goo-" Suddenly everything was going slowly. Hawk looked in front of him. There was a bullet coming right for the between of his eyes. Quickly he ducked, hoping that neither of the others was right behind him. He straightened up, time reverting to normal, suddenly realizing that he had his hand in his pocket, where the chaos emerald was. "DOWN!" Phantom cried, bringing Hawk to his senses. More shots were being aimed at them. Suddenly the rapid-fire ceased and there was a shout of annoyance, before a few clicks began. "Split up! We all know where to head to!" At that Hawk ran, chaos emerald in tow, straight toward the nearest street. He ducked slightly to avoid another volley of bullets. Anticipating prediction as he leapt up to avoid more shots, he quickly grabbed a lamp post as he floated by, swung around it once and let fly in a new direction, diagonal to his previous direction and heading for a concrete wall. Still avoiding path prediction, he leapt up again upon contact with the ground, again avoiding orange sparks and ping noises. His feet hit the wall first. Then his fingers, and then it all left the wall as he kicked off from it and spotted a gattling-gun dome. Before anyone could say 'holy sh-' he fired with his own gun directly at one of the barrels and the next shot it tried to make was a fireball in the wrong direction. He crouched, looking downwards, gun pointed upwards, for a few seconds as he let his emerald recharge. Hope the others are doing okay…

Phantom again appeared in a new location, just above where he had been, just away from the last few shots of a mole machine-gunner. Oh, if only I had Hawk's emerald! Phantom thought to himself as he zigzagged down the hill. Suddenly there was a loud noise, a mix between a whoosh and a whiz, going straight over his head…suddenly his feet were landing on someone's back…he was on a wide, rounded-top hovering device! He realized as the mole he kicked off grabbed onto a spear missile on the front to prevent from falling. Phantom was surfing through the air, there was no other description. Heh heh…Phantom commandeered the vehicle upwards as suddenly as he could while still letting his feet grip to it, and he suddenly realized he'd done a full backflip just after he noticed the mole drop off. Now it was just a direct route to the destination! WHOO!

Sama ran as fast as his legs would carry him down the hill, a trail of bullets-in-use all landing just behind him. But he didn't realize this. Go to cave! Go to cave! He looked upwards as he realized that the whoosh noise to his upper-left had changed frequency. There was a scream as the mole clinging on to that weird bird was flung off. Sama landed straight on his muzzle, and lost about half of his air as the mole landed directly on top of him and took the bullets. As soon as the gunfire stopped, Sama was back on his previous course.

Bluehawk grabbed the opportunity that presented itself to him in the form of a clothesline and gripped the shirt tightly, allowing it to swing him upwards and allow the two ground vehicles to pass underneath him. He swung back onto the bridge and dashed right before jumping onto the roof of the building that was now on his left, to run along the joined roofs. The next set of roofs was a bit lower, so another jump fixed the distance, and the same with the next, and the next, and the next. Way too easy…he thought to himself…then suddenly a white streak flew past behind him, followed by a deep rumble a few seconds later. They were bringing out the big guns. Hawk leapt to the next set of roofs and was startled as he jumped straight through a hot white streak, and a few seconds later, as he jumped the next gap, the previous one was rained on with dirt. He was at least halfway by now…

Phantom suddenly realized he was aiming straight for the cave through which the gang intended to get through…he was going to block it off in two ways like that! He turned down slightly, aiming for the bottom of the cliff which they all intended to climb. That was when he realized he didn't know how to stop!

Sama just kept on running, like he'd been told to do. Go to cave! Go to cave! He was getting fairly close, but he didn't care. All he cared was to get there.

Bluehawk ran desperately down the final stretch, away from those who were firing at him from the other end of the street…still avoiding prediction, he leapt up sideways for a midair cartwheel and landed on a shop's stall shade, bounced upwards, hit the wall, kicked off it…suddenly he found himself landing dead on top of a skateboard. Awesome! No fees! Realizing that he was almost a sitting duck, he quickly decided to start zigzagging while allowing his emerald to recharge. He was almost home free!

Having finally managed to hold his new glider in position, Phantom waited halfway up the cliff, simply hovering there. Suddenly he saw a white streak heading down a road in his general direction, but obviously not aimed at him. Not hitting its target, it kept going and hit the wall about 15 metres below Phantom. Then another did the same thing. They were firing at Bluehawk…but there were no streaks anywhere else…meaning…There and then, Phantom decided to go help out.

Bluehawk went straight past Sama on his borrowed skateboard, and realized that there may be something he could do to help Sama's exhaustion. He pulled out his emerald. It was slightly dimmed as he held it, but nevertheless… "Sama! Catch!"  Sama didn't know what he was catching, but he caught the emerald all the same and suddenly put on a burst of speed before throwing it back to Hawk. Suddenly Hawk spotted the silvery object headed straight towards them. This wasn't a bother. Whatever it was would be easy to take care of…but suddenly whatever it was came further into view…Phantom! Quickly he swooped in and grabbed Sama's arm, pulling him onto the strange glider, and then they both flew off. Bluehawk was quickly brought to his senses by a white streak that missed him by inches.

"Alright! Let's go!"

Sama was the first to enter the cave, then Bluehawk…and suddenly they were both thrown forward in the force of an explosion. Bluehawk lifted his head and bitterly spat out the dust. "You guys okay?" Phantom outstretched his hand to help Hawk up.

"You teleported." Bluehawk grinned.

"I want water." Sama cried spontaneously.

Bluehawk sighed. "And let's just hope this ain't some dead end!"  Sama coughed. Meanwhile, the moles of the city moved to inspect their handiwork…those intruders were goners…

The passage reached a long way, but, the blue fox noticed, it was one straightforward path unlike the maze they had encountered earlier. Hawk stopped, reacting to Sama stopping. "Ground shake I do!" hawk rolled his eyes, then suddenly he felt it. Sama was right, another quake was coming on. Hawk crouched to the ground to brace, Phantom did the same, and Sama fell forwards on top of Hawk. Rocks and dirt clods fell from the ceiling, but Hawk simply got up and brushed himself off. "C'mon, can't be too far." Hawk (without the emerald's power) ran forward and around a corner, when suddenly he felt a breeze…which smelled quite stale. "Phantom! Do you recognize that smell?"

Phantom sniffed. "No, I don't…do you?"

"No…but it smells…somewhat familiar…possibly during my secret service days, I-" He cut himself short as he felt the earth vibrating again…but the main rumbling seemed to be coming from up ahead. Bluehawk went to speak, but thought better of it. No, even Sama would recognize that as an insult. No, he simply continued forward, but keeping his footsteps quieter now so as to avoid whatever was up ahead from hearing. There was no use in going back, the passage would be blocked in multiple places by now…but that gave rise to the question of this strange wind…He turned his head around the corner and stepped back at what he saw. Another huge cavern had been dug out…but this looked seriously unnatural, and even from the distance it looked fairly new…He jogged up to the hole in the wall in which their tunnel hung…it was a long way down…but what was the statue down there? It looked even more recently put there than anything else, yet so old…Hawk grabbed his own chaos emerald and leapt down, dimming the gem slightly as he hit the ground as its energy protected him from injury. The statue was of what looked like a highly-mutated turtle-like creature…no, more like some kind of ancient dinosaur fossil…but it had a shell on its back which looked like it would allow it to curl up…and it had horns on the front, one over its nose…it was standing on its hind legs, in an upright position, looked like it was roaring, lashing out with its sharp-tipped tongue. Suddenly the statue's eyes glowed a topaz colour…Phantom looked upon it from his and Sama's hole in the wall. "I know…what that is…" He gulped. Suddenly the stone layer over the creature shattered. Hawk quickly shielded his eyes, gripping the chaos emerald tightly in case some kind of unexpected lash grabbed it. No such lash came, but the statue was no longer so. The hulking shelled-creature's bright blue eyes bore down upon Hawk menacingly. Hawk stepped back, gripping his emerald, concentrating, when suddenly seven brightly coloured streaks shot out of his hand in different places, almost simultaneously. The creature reared its head in a roar-like shriek as the streaks collided with it. Quickly manipulating its shell, it curled and rolled at breakneck speed on the spot before suddenly gaining traction…Hawk leapt out of the way just in time before it slammed into the wall, bringing down a few stalactites from the ceiling with a few crashes. It uncurled itself, glared at Hawk and suddenly disappeared in an explosion-like burst of dust and clods of dirt. Hawk looked around desperately. Where was it? Suddenly he was thrown into the air…and landed rump-first on solid ground…dazed, he looked around…he was on a perfectly square pillar of earth. More such pillars were popping up all 'round him until they formed a flat surface. Then there was another dusty burst and the creature was back with another shriek. Hawk looked up to Phantom and Sama for reassurance. They were still there, watching the battle hopelessly. Suddenly Hawk realized he had to again move out of the way as the creature came at him again…with all his concentration, Hawk concentrated on the emerald. Suddenly, just as the creature was passing Hawk's airborne form, it worked. The Lazuli Blade jutted straight out of Hawk's hand and pierced the beast's shell, making no noise except for the creature's higher-pitched shriek. It disappeared in another dust burst and pillars like earlier popped up in a row as a wave…the wave seemed to bounce from the wall and come straight at him…another wave began from another point in the room…Hawk rolled sideways, avoiding a jutting pillar by inches, before being thrown into the air by a separate wave…Hawk hit the ground with a painful thud…Hey, what th-? MY EMERALD! Hawk looked around desperately before seeing the yellow glint in the air being caught by Phantom. Great…But then the unexpected happened. The beast returned in its usual dust burst…and then suddenly Hawk heard Sama cry out. He looked up for any sign of hope…and instantly got more than he was after. A blazing shape of light tore through the air, its heat even Hawk at his lack of height could sense…passed straight through the great shelled creature, bounced up, faded, then shot back down and repeated. Piercing shrieks ensued, forcing Hawk to block his ears with his fingers…and soon the creature keeled over and twisted itself into the ground. The ground shook, and Hawk felt like he was being pushed against it…wait, no…he was rising. The ground was rising. Before long it had reached the same level as the two tunnels on either side of the hollowed out area. "Let's just go." Hawk told Sama and Phantom. Both nodded as Phantom passed the emerald back to Hawk.

Sunlight! Hawk thought happily. We've reached sunlight! Phantom walked out of the tunnel into the dazzling light and shielded his eyes…they had all grown so accustomed to the dank caverns that the light seemed too much. Hawk didn't need to do this, for one thing they were under a tree and secondly he had his sunglasses on like always. Sama didn't react at all, except to say "Can we have food? I want drink." Hawk looked around. "Where are we?"

Phantom stopped. This looked familiar…"I can still smell a little of what we smelled before, Hawk. If my calculations are correct…" Suddenly he took off to see if he could see anything around the side of the hill. Hawk looked back to Sama. "Do you have any cheese?" Sama grunted stupidly. Hawk suddenly decided on a course of action, which was going to Sama's backpack and opening it. Sure enough, there was an unfortunate little yellow chao in there, sitting in the bag, shaking. Hawk reached in to lift him out as Sama tried to turn around. "Can I see?" He kept asking. "I want see!" Paladin weakly lifted himself out of Hawk's hands and tried to jump back up at Sama's backpack. As soon as we find a town…suddenly he heard a distressed cry from Phantom. "ARGH! I KNEW IT!" Sama immediately took off after him, Hawk was soon to follow, without the use of his emerald, although unlike Phantom they took a shorter route over a short slope. Suddenly Bluehawk stopped as he reached the top. There was a black area of ground on the horizon that looked somewhat artificial…it was smoking…then Hawk was able to make out what it was. A ruined city. Quickly he made his way to where Sama and Phantom were now standing. Phantom simply stared at the black area. "The city we're looking at was destroyed about 25 years ago." Phantom stated. "Not even the chimeras know what it was that allowed this to happen, although some witnessed the whole thing." He took a breath, then went on. "Somewhere over in that direction used to be a tower…naturally created of rock. Apparently sometimes you could see the winds swirling around it, which they did continuously. There was a city below it, and many citizens were hired by the royal family to guard that tower…but the city was mysteriously invaded some 25 years ago, by an army of strange, shadow people…they wanted the sphere." Hawk suddenly remembered the ice mountain incident, the volcano.

"Was it like that one-?"

"Yeah, it was like that ice one…columns of earth shot up, tossing the city like a salad, and there is what remains. Not even the pedestal tower still stands, but I never saw this place with my own eyes…"

Bluehawk looked away along the plain on which they stood. Finally he thought of a decent question. "Where are we, then? We're in our own dimension?"

"Seems so. I think we're exactly North-West of the exploding mountain…well, almost, anyway."

Sama grunted. "Hun-greeeee!"

Hawk nodded. "Where's the nearest STANDING town?"

"Erm…"

"Great. We're starving and we can't even find a damn town!" Sama suddenly took off in the direction of the cave. "What th-?"

"He smells something!!!" cried Phantom.

Hawk didn't need a seconder to that notion.

*****

Finally, Sama reached the top of yet another hill and looked to his pursuers. Hawk was gripping his emerald as usual, but not using speed boosts. Finally, Hawk reached the top following Phantom, to see exactly what he wanted to see. A row of houses and a dirt road. It wasn't the best of sights, but it was a huge relief. Sama sniffed. "Pasty!"

Hawk nodded. "Pastry. Let's go, gang!"

As fast as they could all go, they raced down the hill toward the row of houses. Surely they'd have food and shelter spare? Hawk suddenly realized his mouth was watering even at the thought of eating tomatoes. Before he even knew it he was knocking on the first door. A shuffling noise was heard from inside, then finally the door opened slowly and a large, brown male rabbit stood in the doorway.

"Sorry to disturb you, but we've been wandering for a while, looking for a town…would you please spare us some provisions or point us to where we can get some?" Phantom asked politely as possible.

The rabbit in front of the teenage group looked over them, seeming to have trouble seeing them, but then suddenly he started when he saw Bluehawk. He went to say something, then thought better of it. "Come in, young ones." His voice seemed aged, yet not so aged. The tone was like that of one of 80 years experience, yet the sound was that of a forty-year old. Bluehawk entered first and slowly, before urging Sama to touch nothing. Phantom entered nervously, hoping he wouldn't teleport into something. "Sit down, boys…what are your names?"

"Call me Hawk, this is Sama and Phantom."

Sama grunted. Phantom said "Hi!" the rabbit nodded.

"My name is Graim. Are you boys hungry?"

Sama suddenly started nodding furiously. He left the room, and Bluehawk was suddenly left wondering why he was treating them with such trust…he had given a start when he saw Bluehawk, too…soon he came back with some bread rolls, and who were the starving blokes to complain?

Bluehawk sat up in his bed, his head on his knee. He had never been in the area before, yet this rabbit man was treating him like an old friend. Sama mumbled from the bed on the other side of the room. Bluehawk suddenly felt immensely fatigued and flopped to his pillow, instantly asleep.