Chapter 2: New Friends

May 12th, 2307 - 2:00 AM - Egg City, Robotnik Empire

A light blue hedgehog dressed in military garb was standing outside a massive fortress gate, and around him were hundreds of other soldiers. He could also hear warplanes approaching from the distance, and the rumble of tank engines behind him. Everyone around was extremely tense, and only hushed whispers could be heard among the soldiers. The hedgehog tied a green headband around his forehead as he recalled the events that had brought him to this time and place.

After Robotnik had taken over as Overseer of the Land of Darkness, there had been reports of resources vanishing from several places. Finished metals from Lufetsaw, fuels from Tresed, weapons from the human army's military bases, various pieces of machinery from inbound Earth cargo ships... More disturbing still was the kidnappings of a few Earth military generals and Earth architects who had been visiting in June of 2306. They had been brought over to help build a new base on Planet Freedom for the local human army, but they just vanished soon after landing in New Earth City on South Island. Nobody was sure of what was happening. It was suspected that Robotnik had something to do with it, since these things had started happening right after he was inaugurated as an Overseer.

Finally, on New Years Day 2307, it had all become clear what was going on. Robotnik had been collecting the resources to build his own private army in the Land of Darkness, and he had launched his first attack on Reppoc, Lufetsaw on that day. He had been able to effectively keep his army a secret up until that point because of two factors. He had chosen to build his headquarters in the largely unexplored Land of Darkness, and he had constructed an army of robots to get around the problem of finding living, breathing soldiers he could trust. He seemed well on his way to accomplish his goal of taking over Planet Freedom, which he announced to the populace shortly after the attack.

Due to the surprise attack, he was able to quickly take over Reppoc and rename it Egg City, the first city he had managed to integrate into his new Robotnik Empire. It wasn't long before he had captured a good portion of Lufetsaw, and thus had secured most of the sources of metals on the planet. The human army quickly rose up to try to stop Robotnik's army, but the first mission was a disaster. One third of the million human soldiers on Planet Freedom were killed, and the rest decided to retreat.

Robotnik had built up quite an impressive force over the last two years, and he had fortified himself well within his cities. With the first crushing defeat of the humans, a call was sent out among the Freedomians to join the army and crush the Robotnik Empire. Those who had managed to escape Lufetsaw quickly joined, and more from the other nations soon followed.

Unfortunately though, the Freedomians were mostly equipped with outdated early 21st century weapons, while Robotnik had the latest equipment available to him from when he was still an Overseer. This was the first true mission of the makeshift Freedomian army, and many were wondering if it would make any difference in halting Robotnik's quest for world domination. Regardless, Robotnik had been spotted in this city, and the mission was to capture him and force him to call off his army.

And this was what had brought the light blue hedgehog here today. His name was Swift, a resident of Elona in the Land of the Sky. His wife Kara had died in a car accident, leaving him alone in the world with his son. He regretted leaving his son alone at home, since he was only six years old, but he had felt a strong urge to join up to protect his planet. This wasn't the first time he had made a decision like this, because many times in his life he had gone out of his way to protect others. Even if he was arrogant, he just couldn't stand seeing others suffer unjustly.

"Swift?" a red fox next to him whispered in his ear.

"What is it Kyle?" he replied.

"Get out of your little dream world, because the attack is about to start."

"Oh, okay."

Swift turned to look at his new friend Kyle, the red fox. The two of them had become fast friends since being put in the same unit. Kyle hailed from Ronoh, which wasn't very far away from Lufetsaw. He had joined mostly to halt Robotnik's advance before his country Ronoh fell like Lufetsaw did. He was a killer pilot, but unfortunately he hadn't been able to join the newly formed Freedomian Air Force. He said that he wasn't married yet, but he had his eye on a yellow fox that worked as an engineering professor at Ronoh University. He said her name was Natalie, and that he was going to propose once this war was over.

What had also made them rivals was the fact that both of them were very athletic. Both of them could run extremely fast, and they could jump very high. Swift had noted this when they both always finished way ahead of the others in the obstacle courses and running exercises during basic training. Until that time, Swift thought that he was the only one on Planet Freedom who had been blessed with extreme running speed. Swift was still definitely the faster out of both of them, but Kyle was the better jumper. Each of them tried as hard as they could to beat the other during the training.

An explosion on the other side of the wall broke Swift out of thinking about Kyle, and shook him back into awareness of his situation.

I really shouldn't wander off into my own world like that, Swift thought.

The explosion had probably been caused by one of the bombs from their planes, which were flying overhead. Meanwhile, plasma cannons and missile launchers could be heard inside the fortress walls, shooting back at the attacking planes. It wasn't long before one of the fighters had a trail of black smoke streaking behind it, before it exploded into a massive fireball.

After a few more minutes of listening to the two sides exchange fire, several tanks rolled up to the fortress gates that the soldiers were standing next to. Once everyone was clear of the gates, the tanks fired several rounds into the heavy doors, denting them from the repeated blasts. Finally, the doors collapsed and fell down upon the ground.

"TANKS! MOVE IN!" General Salt shouted out. "SOLDIERS! FOLLOW BEHIND!"

The tanks rolled into the city, firing at will as they trampled over the city gates with sturdy treads. Soldiers began to move in behind them, using the tanks as cover. The troops fired with their assault rifles at unseen foes that Swift couldn't see from outside the city wall. Swift frowned, a little annoyed at how slowly and carefully the soldiers were moving into the city. He wanted to just charge head first into the fighting, using the spines on his back to carve right through anything that got in his way.

"To hell with this..." Swift muttered. "This is too slow. I'm charging in there right now, alone."

"What are you talking about Swift?!" Kyle said next to him. "You're not a one-hog army, you know! You can't go in there alone!"

"Sure I can, watch me!"

Swift threw away his assault rifle as he ran away, thinking it would just weigh him down. He shot off past the other soldiers and the tanks in a blue blur, going so fast that he left a black scorch mark on the dirt as he took off. He glanced over his shoulder, chuckling a bit as Kyle struggled to keep up with him and the other soldiers looked in wonder at his speed. Looking in front again, he sprinted straight down the middle of the road, occasionally curling into a ball and crashing through robotic foes that got in his way.

Now this is more like it, Swift thought.

If he remembered right from the briefing before the mission, Robotnik's suspected location was in the old city hall. Swift screeched to a halt, leaving twin skid marks on the pavement as he suddenly came to a halt. He ducked into a nearby alleyway between two buildings, and pulled out a small electronic GPS map. He found his coordinates on the map, and saw that he had another mile or so to run to get to city hall.

"This is like a daily jog to me," Swift said aloud. "By the time everyone has managed to clear the gate, I'll have already caught Robotnik and it'll be mission complete... I can already see my name in the headlines."

He smirked as he put his GPS map back into his pocket. Out in the street, he heard loud, clunking footsteps approaching. He jumped out to face the new foe, and found himself face to face with a robot four stories high. The massive machine was colored jet black, and had a single red eye in its head for vision. Yellow spikes adorned the shoulders and the top of the head, and for its arms it had a plasma cannon on the left and a missile launcher on the right. Its massive stumpy legs looked like they could crush an entire car with one stomp.

Seeing the small blue hedgehog before it, the robot maneuvered its plasma cannon to fire onto the new target. However, Swift had already sprinted towards the robot and jumped straight up at its chest. He curled himself into a ball, and prepared for the impact. However, all Swift succeeded in doing when he hit the robot was getting a massive headache. The armor was too strong to break through. He fell to the ground, clutching at his head in pain. He landed easily his two feet once he hit the ground.

"Holy hell! That's strong armor!" Swift exclaimed.

The robot maneuvered one of its feet to stomp on Swift, but since it was so massive the movement was quite slow. Swift easily rolled aside to dodge the foot as it stomped down. As he flipped backwards away from the robot, it yanked the foot out of the street, revealing a deep impression in the concrete. After getting its foot loose, the robot aimed at Swift and began firing massive plasma balls all over the place. With his incredible speed though, Swift easily dodged all of the attacks. The street and surrounding buildings were soon covered with craters from where the balls had hit. Swift stopped next to a parked car on the side of the road.

"Is that all you've got?!" the hedgehog shouted at the robot.

The robot fired one more plasma ball at Swift, which he easily dodged. However, the shot hit the car that he was standing next to, which triggered a big explosion. Swift was blown sideways by the explosion and hit the pavement hard, his left side singed from the blast and his right side covered with scratches from hitting the pavement so hard. After shaking off the pain, he jumped to his feet. However, when he looked up the robot had fired a heat-seeking missile at him. He started to run for it, but he already knew that the missile was too close for him to escape.

Suddenly, someone roughly ran into him from the right. The two of them tumbled leftwards into an alleyway. The missile tried to compensate for the sudden change in its target's movement, but it was too slow. It harmlessly crashed into a building down the street from the alley. The blast lit the street and the alley with a blinding light, in addition to creating an earsplitting explosion. It made Swift's head hurt, and he shook it to shake out the pain. He then looked at who had run into him and saved his life. It was Kyle, standing there with a furious expression on his face.

"I told you that you're not a one-hog army!" he yelled. "You would have died if I hadn't been there to save you!"

"I guess you're right, but thanks for saving me, you big red fluff ball," Swift shot back. He peeked around the corner of the alleyway to see the robot. It was scanning the street, looking for the two of them. "How are we gonna get past him?"

"I can shoot out his red eye, because unlike you, I remembered to bring my rifle with me."

"Sounds like a good idea to me..."

Suddenly, the robot jerked its head to face their alleyway. One second later, it started aiming its missile launcher at them. They'd been spotted.

"DAMN! He saw us! We gotta run!"

With a whoosh, the robot fired a missile off. Swift sprinted out of the alleyway, and the missile trailed after him. He was running straight for the robot, and he got an idea.

I'll run right at him, time a somersault so that I'll land on his chest with my feet, and then wall jump backwards. The missile won't be able to turn in time to get me, and it'll hit him instead! he thought.

Swift sprinted towards the robot, slowing down a little to let the missile catch up. He didn't want to give the missile enough room to turn around after he did his wall kick. However, he then realized he had forgotten to take the robot's plasma gun into account, as the robot aimed it at him.

"DAMMIT!" he shouted as the robot started firing. He jumped all over the place to dodge the plasma blasts, and was successful in keeping from getting fried. However, this gave the missile enough time to get frighteningly close to him. Swift ran as hard as he could to get away, even though he knew there wasn't enough time to escape the missile. Suddenly, there was the loud boom of a high caliber rifle, and the missile exploded into a fireball behind Swift. Swift was hurled forward by the blast and scraped along the concrete, but he was otherwise uninjured.

It looked like Kyle had shot down the missile...but that didn't sound anything like the standard issue assault rifle he was equipped with. As he stood up, there was another loud boom in the distance, and he could hear the sound of breaking glass overhead. He looked up at the robot, and saw that whoever was shooting had also successfully shot out the robot's red eye. He turned around to face Kyle, but he was facing back down the street. There was someone else on the street with him.

Someone was hiding behind a rolled-over car down the street. Swift couldn't see much of him since the car was in the way, but he saw the long barrel of a rifle poking out from the right side of the car. Apparently, this new arrival was the one who had fired the two shots earlier. He briefly saw a blue tail swish into view, but the rifle and the tail quickly vanished behind the car after that. After that happened, an orange blur shot out from behind the car. It rushed very quickly at the blind robot in the middle of the street, and leapt high into the air. The orange blur struck the robot's head, and with the noise of a buzz saw, it started to saw the head to pieces. Soon, the head was in two halves, and the pieces fell off the shoulders to the street below. Its head with its computer brain suddenly missing, the body also started to fall towards the ground. Swift quickly rolled out of the way as the body crashed into the pavement.

Once he was clear of the danger he looked around for his savior, and saw the orange blur rushing back towards the rolled-over car where the mystery shooter was hiding. The blur flashed behind the car, and then came out again on the other side. It flashed around a corner and was gone. Swift ran over to the car, but when he looked behind it the shooter was nowhere to be found. It looked like whoever was the orange blur had run off, grabbing the shooter as he had run past. Kyle joined Swift at the car a few seconds later.

"Man, I'm too careless, that's the second time somebody else has had to save me. Still though, it's good that those two other guys were around to save me."

"Do you know who those guys were?" Kyle said.

"No idea," Swift replied. "I didn't get a good look at either of them. All I saw was that the shooter had a blue tail, and the other one was going so fast that all I could see was an orange blur. Speaking of the orange guy, he was using all of my moves! Extreme speed, the high jumping, and the drilling ability."

"I know! Who was he?"

"Who knows, he sure as hell wasn't in basic training with us, or I think he would have been beating the crap out of our times on the obstacle courses and in the running exercises."

"Unless he was deliberately holding back..."

"Whatever, maybe we'll get to meet those two again once this is over. Anyway, let's get on with the mission of finding Robotnik."

"Oh yeah, I almost forgot about that."

The two of them set out towards Reppoc City Hall, Robotnik's suspected location...