Chapter Four
Cammy stood between a pair of guards. Her Chaos Emerald sat on a cushion on the table in front of the general. Prison Island Site B was the new base after Shadow had blown the other one up and where Cammy had been taken a year before to be made over into a new living weapon. The general smiled at her.
"Greetings, Project Hunter. How has life treated you?" he asked her, making small talk. Cammy sniffed and turned her head up in disdain.
"Great, until I had to see your ugly mug again. Dummies, all of you! Why bring me here?! Your tests proved I didn't have special powers! Let me go home right now!" she snapped.
"But you had this Emerald and you tried to use Chaos Control, like Project Shadow and the Bio-lizard." the general pointed out. Cammy rolled her eyes.
"The Chaos Emerald crashed onto my front porch during a meteor shower. And the Chaos Control thing was me trying to call a bluff. Silly me, I forgot your stupid soldiers believe everything they hear." she griped.
"Well, you're here now and we're not letting you go this time." the general growled. "Where is Shadow?" Cammy looked innocent.
"Who?" she asked sweetly.
"You know who I mean! The black hedgehog! Where is he?!" the general barked at her.
"Don't boss me around. I'm not one of your overgrown boys. And I don't know what you're talking about. The only shadow I have are these boneheads stalking me. I'm gonna have to get a court order against you people." Cammy replied.
"It seems you still need that attitude adjustment." the general muttered, "Into the tank!" Cammy looked startled.
"The tank?! No way! Not that! Don't put me in there! No! No! No!" she screamed and tried to run. The guards grabbed her, lifted her off the floor and carried her to the core of the base. "Put me down! And gimme back my rod!" she shrieked, "Put me down! Don't put me in the tank! Not the tank! Anything but the tank! Help! HELP!"
Shadow dropped into a room in the secret base and jumped in shock. A military base! He scrambled under the long table and looked around. The room was empty. He crawled out and looked at the table. There was the Emerald. He grabbed it and snuck out of the room.
"I kind of wish there was an easier way of moving around here without having to hide every time I hear something." he muttered and looked at the band. "Oh, yeah. The shield Cammy gave me. She said it could help me. I'll have to remember to thank her for this." Shadow hit the button and ran down the hall, both Emeralds tucked under one arm. He passed by one of the control rooms and ran back to it, looking in. He could make out someone on the screen of one monitor struggling. Shadow waited for one of the men to leave the room, then slid in past him to study the screens up close.
"Cammy!" he whispered, staring at the monitor in shock. The green hedgehog was in a capsule similar to the one he had been put in, but it was full of something liquid and glowing. She had stopped struggling and now was floating limply within the tube. The Tiki Rod was floating next to the capsule, suspended by strange beams of energy. Without waiting for the man to return, Shadow raced out of the room. The other guard saw the door open on its own and hit alarms, shouting that an unknown intruder in stealth was in the base.
"Cammy! Stay alive! Don't give up!" Shadow yelled as he raced down the halls to the base's core. The security defense system attacked and he just blazed by with the Fire Somersault. "Why is it that I can never get any peace from that girl?! She's driving me nuts!" he muttered as a stray beam of laser fire burned across one arm. Shadow hissed in pain as he made it to the core and ran up to the center of the room. A screen over head displayed Cammy's name and status. Shadow skimmed it, stopped, then reread it more slowly.
"'Camilla Maria Hedgehog. Codename: Project Hunter. Prototype of hybrid of the Ultimate Life Form. Designed for espionage and warfare, the first living weapon. Fifty-six percent saturation of E Life Serum.' Camilla Maria? Is that her real name? Maria! Just like Maria!" Shadow exclaimed, "The military destroyed my Maria! And now they're trying to do the same with this one! Hang on, Cammy! I'll get you out of there!" Looking around, he made sure the coast was clear before he turned off the shield. Now visible to the security cameras placed in the room, the general spotted him and smiled cruelly. His voice blared out over the speakers.
"So, you really are alive! I knew you would come for her. I saw that news report. You had to come and get her Emerald, didn't you, Project Shadow?" the general laughed. "Well, Miss Hedgehog has been in that tank for at least three hours. Plenty of time to give her another dosage of the E Life Serum! If you really want her, then try and take her!" The capsule drained out and Cammy dropped to the floor of it, huddled and shivering. "Hunter! There's your prey!" the general shouted, "Your first orders are to take down and capture Shadow! Don't fail me!" With that, the general ran from the control room to find a safe place to wait for the end of the fight.
"Cammy, are you okay in there? What did that screen mean about hybrid and the E Life Serum?" Shadow called out. Cammy stood up and shook herself off, then glared at him, eyes glowing bright white. She kicked the glass and it shattered, setting her free. She jumped forward and grabbed her rod from where it floated. "Cammy?!"
"Tika Blade!" Cammy yelled and held the rod out. It glowed and transformed into a long, dark green pole with a silvery blade at one end. It was almost scythe-like. She twirled it and held it behind her, poised to attack. She didn't have the top, skirt, and boots from the zoo. G.U.N. had her dressed in a green, camouflaged armor chest-plate and waist-plating. She didn't have any shoes on and her gloves were gone as well. "Prepare to be beaten, Project Shadow! I am the Hunter, you are the prey! There's no escaping me!" Cammy shouted and shot forward, bringing the blade around to slash at him.
"No thanks!" Shadow cried and leaped over the attack, "I like freedom better than this place! Cammy! Snap out of it!" Cammy stopped sharply and leaped backwards, doing a back flip to strike out at him again. "Cammy! Knock it off! Are you nuts? I'm not the enemy!" Shadow yelled at her and dodged the blow. He jumped back step by step as Cammy continued to strike out at him with the blade. "Cammy!"
Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles warped into the base and looked around at the flashing lights, billowing smoke and blaring alarms. The halls were littered with wrecked robots and smoldering boxes and crates.
"Well, now I won't have to ask if Shadow's been here." Sonic muttered and sighed, "Okay, guys. Let's follow the trail of destruction and see where it takes us."
"I give you three guesses on who made this mess." Tails told Knuckles as they ran through the hallways and corridors. "And the first two don't count."
"Shadow. Wouldn't you think he would try sneaking in here first?" the echidna muttered. They raced on down the halls, following the wreckage to the base's core.
"I think he tried to do that, but got found out anyway. Hey! You hear that?" Sonic exclaimed as they made it to the center of the island's secret base. Tails pressed his ear to the door blocking their way and frowned.
"I can hear Shadow. And Cammy. They're fighting." he reported and looked surprised, "Each other! Sonic! Cammy's attacking Shadow!"" Knuckles boxed the air.
"Out of the way! I'll break down the door!" he declared and began punching on the steel door. It crumpled in after several blows and fell away to reveal the center.
It was in havoc! Wires, beams, and computers all smashed, torn and scattered across the floor as if some emerald and ebony tornado had been unleashed inside. They spotted the black hedgehog on all fours on the floor amidst the mess, panting.
"Shadow! Where's Cam-?!" Sonic called out just as Cammy shot down from the ceiling and slammed the floor, throwing up a cloud of dust and debris, "Agh! There she is! Shadow!" Shadow was thrown from it and rolled along the floor, bruised and beaten, but unwilling to go down quietly. He scrambled to his feet and leaped aside from Cammy's next charge. Moving fast, he kicked her in the back, slamming her into the far wall and watching her land in a pile of wreckage. The pile moved and Cammy stood up, holding the spear and breathing hard. She was in just as bad a condition as Shadow, who held his arm and gasped in pain.
"Cammy! Listen to me! You're not like this!" he snapped at her, "The military has some kind of mind control over you! Break free!"
"Stop your babbling and surrender, pathetic hedgehog!" Cammy screamed back and leaped up into the air, bringing the spear over her head.
"This doesn't look like the rescue mission Shadow said it was gonna be." Sonic muttered and raced forward to help, "Hang on, Shadow! I'll get her!" Shadow turned to see him, startled. His focus on Cammy had been so intense, he hadn't heard him call the first time.
"No! Sonic, don't...!" he blurted out, but the blue hedgehog had already jumped and used a Homing Attack on Cammy. She flew across the hall and crashed into the circuit-breakers on the back wall. Electricity flowed through her as she was pinned to it, arms and legs splayed apart. She screamed in pain and the power in the base's center began to flicker and fade.
"That should stop her cold!" Sonic declared, "This place looks like it could blow!" Shadow ran past him towards Cammy. "Shadow?! Get back here! She's trying to cut your head off!" Sonic yelled at him.
"You shouldn't have hit her! It's not her fault!" Shadow yelled back and jumped onto the circuit-breakers, gritting his teeth against the electricity attacking him. He grabbed onto Cammy's arms and pulled. She went on screaming and howling until he finally tore her away from the machines and they both fell back into the piles of wrecked equipment. Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles all ran up to check on them. Shadow sat up painfully and looked down at the green hedgehog in his arms. "Cammy?" he called her name. Cammy twitched and opened her eyes slowly, coming around.
"I feel like a Mac truck hit me. Shadow, did you get the number of that eighteen-wheeler?" she asked weakly. Shadow grinned and hugged her.
"Hey, you're back!" he exclaimed, "What happened to you? You were like some psycho with a spear!" Cammy pushed him away and rubbed at her head.
"Ow. Last I remember, those idiot guards had me dressed in this armor thing and shoved me into the tank. Then I wake up and you're hugging me and I feel like the building fell on me." she groaned and looked him over, gasping. "Shadow! Look at you! What happened?! You're all beat up!"
"Your doing. You pack quite a wallop with that rod-turned-spear of yours." Shadow replied. Cammy blinked and held up the spear, finally registering it in her hand.
"My Tiki Rod turned into this? I hurt you? Oh, I'm so sorry!" she cried. She struggled to her feet and looked around at the destruction, "Whoa. Somebody must have made me go postal big time!"
"It was that stupid general. He ordered you to attack and capture me. You called that the Tika Blade and came at me like a living cannonball." Shadow told her and cringed. "Enngh! My arm.... I can barely move it." he added painfully, rubbing it gingerly with one hand.
"So what's the story? Why did the general want you?" Tails asked Cammy, who ground her teeth at the thought of the general ordering her to hurt her friend. Sonic began inspecting Shadow's arm as she began her story, only to get a venomous look from the black hedgehog.
"It started over a year ago. I was out in the field with my colleague, Ben. We were researching one of many legends about the Chaos Emeralds when we were captured and taken prisoner by G.U.N. They said they needed volunteers for an experiment, but didn't have enough." she began to say, "They took us into separate labs and began to inject something called E Life Serum into us. They wanted to make another ultimate life form, like Shadow, but didn't have the notes to make one from scratch. They managed to recreate the serum, but only for beings already fully grown. Prof. Gerald Robotnik's serum for the embryonic stage was gone, so they couldn't make it and use it at the start of a life."
"So that explains the mysterious disappearances of all those people the news talked about. Only adults were being taken for this experiment." Knuckles muttered. The group looked at him in confusion. The echidna turn slightly red. "The Master Emerald's been picking up cable signals recently. I don't want to talk about it, but it comes in handy sometimes." He coughed a bit. "Ah, never mind. Continue." Cammy shook her head with a smile, then went on.
"G.U.N. tested the serum on other 'volunteers' but they mutated horribly and had to be destroyed. I don't know what happened to Ben. Maybe he was one of them." she paused, looking downcast, and wiped away a few tears. "When I got the serum injections, nothing happened. Or so they thought. All their tests showed I didn't react to the serum, but I did. No one knew it, though. They thought it was safe for me to go back to my life, so they wiped out my memory, put me back where I had been and kept an eye on me ever since." Cammy stopped again and brushed herself off, frowning at the bruises that were beginning to appear on her arms.
"Well, I went on like nothing happened, until this Chaos Emerald crashed into my house one day. I touched it and all my buried memories resurfaced. I guess hypnosis ain't all it's made out to be. Oh well. That's how I learned the serum made for Shadow really did change me. It made me sort of like the ultimate life form, but not quite. I know I have some powers, but I'm not sure what they are." Cammy twirled the pole and watched it shrink down to a portable state. She grinned slightly again. "I learned I could use Chaos Control, and when I woke up from my trance, I found the Tiki Rod in my hand. I kept it all secret and went on with life, keeping the Emerald with me. I used Chaos Control only once, and found that it came with a nasty side effect that, apparently, the true ultimate life form doesn't suffer from. I didn't try it again after that."
"What is Project Hunter?" Shadow asked her, alternating between holding his arm and slapping Sonic's hands away. Cammy looked angry.
"G.U.N. wanted to create another version of you, one that would hunt you down and destroy you or bring you back to this base. It would be their way of keeping control over you. You would be their weapon, and if you escaped, Hunter would find you and bring you back. I guess they thought I would be the perfect hunter. I'm a legend hunter, so my tracking skills are great, plus I'm a pretty girl. They figured you'd fall for me and not resist capture." she hissed and unleashed the spear to transform it back into her Rod, then recall it. "That's not why I chased you, Shadow. I wanted to ask you about your powers and if you could show me how to deal with mine." She blushed and smiled at him. "And also, to have a friend again. They took my life, played with my DNA and mind, and killed my friend. I wanted someone to help me come to terms with that and be there for me, too."
"Well, now we know what the story is, so let's get out of here!" Tails exclaimed. Sonic searched the wreckage and pulled out the two Chaos Emeralds Shadow had dropped to fight Cammy.
"My Emerald!" Shadow and Cammy exclaimed and grabbed their Chaos Emeralds.
"You mean my Emerald." Tails muttered, glaring up at Shadow with his arms folded over his chest. Sonic watched the red Chaos Emerald in his hand glow.
"Hey! It's pulsing!" he remarked in surprise and Cammy watched hers as well.
"Yeah, now I remember. G.U.N. recovered the other four Emeralds. They're in a vault down in the sub-basement. Let's go get them, too!" Cammy exclaimed and laughed, "That'll teach them to mess with me!"
"You two get out of here while you can. We'll grab the Emeralds and meet with you outside." Sonic told Knuckles and Tails, then held up his Chaos Emerald. Shadow did the same and Cammy held onto his shoulder, holding her green Emerald close to her. "Okay! Find the other Emeralds! Chaos Control!" Sonic cried and Shadow echoed his words. They both disappeared, warping to the sub-basement.
Cammy led the way to the vault, telling Sonic and Shadow more about her lost friend.
"Ben was a snake, literally. But he was really nice to me. He had this really nice shade of forest green and he was sweet, bringing me coffee when I worked late in the lab." she told them as she stopped at one door and began to open the console, "When he was lost to the military, I thought I'd go nuts. I refused to work with them, disobeyed every command they gave me, and just sabotaged anything I could get my hands on. They put me in the tank for punishment. While I was in there, they'd give me more life serum, trying to make me at least something like Shadow, but more compliant. Didn't work, until today." She began working with the wires after opening the casing.
"You seem to really like green. Your clothes are green, your friend was green, your armor and hammer are green, even your Chaos Emerald is green!" Sonic remarked with a laugh. Cammy blushed and laughed along as she crossed the wiring and unlocked the door.
"Yeah, green's my favorite color." she replied and pushed open the door. "The vault's on the other side of the room. I can crack the codes and we can get out of here with the Emeralds before the base explodes. The circuit-breakers I crashed into controlled the power output for this whole place. With them out of commission, the power generator overloads. I'd give this island another half hour before it goes up in smoke."
"Then we'd better move quickly." Shadow murmured and rushed into the room. The three hedgehogs raced to the vault as the speakers came to life again.
"Hunter! I thought I gave you a direct order to capture Shadow, not steal the Chaos Emeralds!" the general barked at her from some hidden room. Cammy stopped and stuck her tongue out at the ceiling, knowing a secret camera would pick up her image. "You were always a wild card, Camilla. Now I'm glad I held onto Project Predator. He'll take care of you and get Shadow back for us. You should have played it smart and obeyed us!" the general snapped, "Predator! Seek out your prey! Destroy Hunter and retrieve Shadow!"
The room began to shake violently as Cammy rejoined Sonic and Shadow. The floor opened just as she reached them on the steps of the vault. Something huge was rising up from the depths of the island....