The jungle air was thick with humidity and the sound of birds chirping in the trees; the crunching of fallen branches and brush being pushed aside could be heard amongst the sound of someone faintly cursing as a black hedgehog stepped into a clearing.
"Damn jungle," Shadow cursed swatting the cloud of mosquitoes away from his face, "Don't know why I have to do all the leg work Rouge." He said into the small radio he carried
"Well I would help you out, but someone has to be the brains of the operation, you're just the brawn." She said
"Well anyway, I made my way onto the island and I located the target."
"How'd you get all the way up there anyway?" Rouge asked
"Well I tailed the airship until it made an unexpected stop to pick up a bunch of prisoners and then used chaos control to get onto the roof when it took off again about half an hour later."
"Half an hour? Just to load a few escapees?"
"No, most of that time our little target had been engaged by the metal sonic robot, it was a rather interesting fight."
"Glad you're enjoying yourself out there watching people kill each other." She said sarcastically
"It helps pass the time." He said pushing his way through the jungle
"Anyway, I think that now would be a good time to get this plan of ours moving."
"Do you even remember what to do?"
"Of course; I need to get the target to the other island along with both master emeralds, then just sit back and watch this little war reach it's climactic end."
"Whatever, just make sure you don't screw it up." She said
"Bye the way, have you found out anything new while you're living it up in your hideout in the city?"
"Actually I did; during my latest hack of Robotnik's computer files I found something strange."
"Which was?"
"It seems that a large amount of raw material have been reallocated to some unknown project not listed among the usual construction of war materials."
"Really?"
"There's more; also someone has been falsifying records making it seem like all areas of production are operating at normal levels when there's really a small drop instead."
"What's the big deal about that?"
"Well at first it doesn't seem like much but it's been going on for about three years without being noticed, when I tried to trace the source of the tampering I got thousands of different entry points."
"So?"
"So? That's not physically possibly to be in several thousand places at once!"
"Oh, I see."
"Now do you see why I'm the brains and you're not?" she said laughing
"Well miss brains, why don't you run a check on any major activities that have happened three years ago?"
"Hmm..." Rouge said as the sound of a clicking keyboard could be heard
"Find anything?" Shadow said tapping his foot impatiently
"This isn't easy you know, give me a minute." She said
"You done yet?"
"No."
"How about now?"
"Shut up already!"
"I'm still waiting."
"Alright already I'm done."
"And?"
"Here's a list of things: general robot upgrades, power plant construction, mass robotization of prisoners, general computer maintenances, decommissioning of polar R&D station, Metal Sonic reprogramming, recovery of new emerald and strange Lifeforms, Project Phoenix..."
"Stop there, what was that bit about the strange Lifeforms?"
"Let's see, there's a series of log entries made here:
Day 1 Upon discovery of the strange island another master emerald was found along with two bodies preserved inside of separate crystalline structures inside of a shrine, the bodies were taken to the northern research and development facility for further examination.
Day 2 The tests have revealed that they were still alive and that traces of chaos energy resided within them; it is currently unknown what, if anything, they are and how they can be used to further my goals of continual domination of the planet.
Day 3 The large emerald that almost exactly resembles the master emerald on Angle Island, although the only differences are the fact that it is black and gives off a strange energy pulse that interferes with all types of machinery, I've also noticed that it affects organic Lifeforms as well. I've found it hard to focus when I'm around it and have decided to have the machines do the 'hands on' work with the emerald inside of a radiation shielded room.
Day 4 I've managed to determine through carbon dating that the Lifeforms were over several thousand years old. I've decided to try robotizizing them and use them to find and destroy the rebel base known as knothole.
Day 5 My attempts to robotozize the two creatures has ended in failure, it seems that the strange energy within them seemed to protect their bodies from the change, I've decided to go a different route, I shall remove the brain from one of them and input it into the metal sonic robot in an attempt to create a more powerful soldier in my ever growing army.
Day 6 The procedure has yielded less than satisfactory results, the brain put into metal sonic has done nothing, I tried accessing it's memory banks but was unsuccessful, as they seem to have been corrupted beyond recovery.
Day 7 Today I finally figured out what I've been doing wrong, rare the event may be. I've decided to take the remaining body and use my experimental nano- technology on it, thus simulating as much as possible the results I desire.
"All right now, its wrap up time for that, I'm starting to get bored."
"Hold on just a few more minutes, I want to look at that project Phoenix data." Rouge said typing a few more keys
"Well?" Shadow said getting impatient
"Here it is:
Project Phoenix
The surviving lifeform retrieved from the island was surgically engineered to be an unstoppable killing machine. Tests were run on its combat capability but all were failures, the chaos energy previously detected wasn't expressed in any way. The subject was put in a holding cell for further study but managed to escape during a security detail change. Target seemed to be drawn to the black master emerald instinctively but was managed to be recaptured. The target once again escaped but still was unstable; the hybrid technology was being rejected by the body's unique chemistry. The test subject made one last escape during a power failure and get away on a supply transport truck; further investigation of this incident revealed that the break out of the subject was instigated from an outside source. Tracing of the intrusion of the computer system was inconclusive.
"Hmm, fascinating." Shadow said sneaking around through the city of the island avoiding the sight of guards patrolling the grounds
"Glad you think so."
"Well from what it seems, I can guess only one thing."
"Which would be?"
"Someone else is doing more or less the same thing that we are; provoking all sides and parties involved to overthrow all the major powers."
"Guess that means I should be working a bit faster." Shadow said as he made his way to the dark side of the palace walls and began to climb up to the roof
"Well I think that we haven't got much choice but to make sure we are one step ahead of whoever is cutting in on our operation." Rouge said frustrated
"Let's just hope they're not spying on us spying on Robotnik, or we might actually be in trouble." Shadow said laughing
He continued made his way to the edge of the roof and pulled himself over the top, as he walked he noticed a large opening that was the ceiling of a large indoor garden. He looked down through the opening and saw exactly who he was looking for walking about inside.
"Well, well, well, what have we here?" Shadow said quietly to himself as he eavesdropped on the conversation below
"It seems like you have it pretty rough around here, especially now since I got you in a bit of trouble." I said sitting down next to a small pond surrounded by what seemed to be thousands of flowers.
"It's not your fault, it probably would've happened anyway since I'm always going against the council's orders and leaving the island of my own accord so much." She said sitting down next to me leaning her head on my shoulder
"Well it looks like the war is still going to drag on until the more resourceful side wins, sad to say that it is going to be Robotnik."
"If only they'd listen to reason, then we could at least try to help unite the our people together and maybe more would follow our example; most of the citizens on the ground are afraid to fight because of the threat of dying for what they think is a lost cause, the freedom fighters continue their work because dying for a lost cause is better than the alternative." She said sniffing slightly
'Is she crying?' I thought looking down at her, 'maybe I should do something.'
"Well if it makes you feel better I think I have an idea." I said wiping a tear from her cheek
"Hmm?"
"You want to do some good to help end this war right? Well consider me your one man army!" I said boldly
"By yourself?! That's impossible." She said shaking her head
"I think I can handle this more or less; besides if I can manage to do some good I won't have to worry about you crying anymore, now will I?"
"I suppose not; but it still doesn't change the fact that I can't leave this island."
"I've already taken care of that little formality, I have a plan."
"I've seen your plans, remember the prison?"
"That was just practice, this time I've really got it."
"And what would that be?"
"I'm going to kidnap you."
She merely stared at me for a few moments and laughed a bit.
"Well I'm glad you can find time to joke in a serious situation." She said standing up
"I'm not joking, I'll take you off the island and bring down the threat of Robotnik single handed." I said holding up a fist
"That's sounds like suicide."
"You said that it's better to fight for a lost cause then none at all right?"
"Something like that; but you could be killed, and I couldn't live with myself if something happened to you just because you wanted to make me feel better." She said turning her back to me
"Well I promise not to get myself killed, and I'll even keep the recklessness to a minimum." I said leaning down and picking a flower from the ocean of color that surrounded us
"Just saying it doesn't mean that something can't go wrong."
"Well how about this then." I said walking around in front of her and placing the flower in her hair
"What's this flower for?"
"It represents my promise to you; no harm will come to either of us and I'll bring and end to Robotnik's evil and free everyone from his slavery, my job will be done when all the petals have fallen off of that flower."
She smiled, and then hugged me.
"Thank you."
"Just doing my job."
"Is that all?"
"Maybe more than that." I said
Up on the roof Shadow was disgusted at the sight of such emotion, he got up and walked away from the hole and sat on the edge off the roof.
"That's so pathetic." He said out loud to no one
"What's wrong with that?" Rouge said over the radio
"Flowers and mushy stuff, you know how I feel about things like that."
"It's called being nice, maybe you should try it."
"I don't do nice."
"Well I thought it was sweet."
"Yeah, so sweet it nearly rotted out my teeth and gave me indigestion."
"Why don't you ever give me flowers?"
"'Cause I'm not a wuss."
"Jerk."
"Anyway, it sounds like they're going to make a break for it, so I'll just keep watch here until they do and follow them; meanwhile I want you to check for anything else out of the ordinary and see if you can find that other person that helped this guy escape."
"Sure, as if I didn't have enough to do." She said as the transmission cut off
"I really should just work alone." Shadow said leaning against a raised section of roof
This is going to be a short chapter, shorter than I wanted it to be anyhow. But I needed to write it just to advance plot and answer some questions while at the same time opening up for new ones, not just to confuse but to keep readers reading, even though I'm not getting many different reviewers, or more specifically just the one actually...(sigh) oh well, to the one fan of my writing keep reading and enjoy and expect this story to be pretty long, I expect to have it down as one of the longest sonic fics in the whole site, 100k words at least is what I'm shooting for hopefully.