To Petsuchos Isis: Ehehe. Well... I wouldn't call it sneaking, really... (grin) But actually, a lot of what was in the past chapter did come from real-life experiences. No, I'm not really a spy or anything (although a fanfiction writer would be a good disguise, eh?)
(Long-winded explanation that really doesn't belong here, yet I feel like writing it anyway): I have an after-school job (I'm a tech person, I fix computers) and as a result I'm usually walking around the various schools after classes are over. So sometimes it feels like I'm sneaking around. (giggles) And the fence was also drawn from real life... recently, we (the tech team) were gathering up old computers, and we put them all in the lunchroom. Around them, there was a 6 ft. fence (I made the fence taller in the fic.) No, it wasn't electrocuted, but it did have motion sensors and it would set off an alarm.
Well, enjoy the chapter, everyone!
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The halls of G.U.N.'s base were illuminated by artificial light, since the "underground" building could not be reached by the sun's rays.
Luckily for Rouge and her team of amateur spies, whoever had designed the base had apparently wanted to keep electricity usage to a minimum. The hallways were dim, just brightly lit enough for a human to see where it was going.
However, with the combined use of her scope and her natural sight, Rouge needed almost no light at all. She carefully led her team down the hallway, pausing every once in a while to listen for human activity. And, every so often, she would have Tails fly up to disconnect a camera silently.
Silence was the key. Rouge and Tails had taken to the air, and Shadow was trying his best to stay unnoticeable with Sonic's shoes.
Finally, innumerable cameras later, the dim hallway ended, opening up to another hallway running perpendicular to it. Rouge halted, her back to the wall, as she looked up and down the new hallway. She frowned.
"What is it?" Tails whispered.
Rouge shushed him, then pushed him in front of her so he could see the many doors running up and down the hall, each one with an object used for swiping a key card, similar to the one outside. "There's no way to get in from the outside without a card..." she whispered.
"Maybe I could open it up like I did with the outside door...?" Tails whispered.
"Hm... I don't know, you'd have to do it pretty quickly... wait, come this way!"
Suddenly, as if on cue, the door directly in front of them, labeled "Laboratory," hissed, about to open. Rouge grimaced, then grabbed Tails and Shadow. Almost dragging them to the dark left-hand hallway, she pulled them down, hunched against the wall, hiding in the shadows.
A few people walked out of the door, heading right by the three intruders.
Rouge, thinking quickly, dragged Tails and Shadow once more, through the open door and under a nearby table.
"Where are we?" Tails whispered.
"The door said 'Laboratory', didn't it?! Maybe we can find a way to Sonic from here. I won't risk opening a door when one will open for us." Abruptly, the door behind of them hissed shut.
Looking around from under the table, Rouge saw the feet of many people, all wearing lab coats, farther back in the room. She growled quietly, frustrated by not being able to see anything, then quickly stood until she could see level with the tabletop.
Her eyes caught something lying on the table...
...a key card.
Looking around, making sure no one was watching, she quickly snatched it and ducked down.
"Well, that solves one problem," Tails remarked. "We can get into the other doors now, right?"
"Right..." Rouge nodded slowly. "But now we got to get out of here." She looked around. Although the huge room was echoing with the sounds of people talking, no one was standing near the door they had entered. 'Should we go back into the hallway? Or see if there's another door in here that leads farther into the base?'
Rouge whispered to Tails and Shadow, "Stay here for a minute. Make sure no one sees you," she whispered. Looking around, Rouge darted out from under the table to the shadow of a file cabinet. As she searched out more hiding places, she happened to glance up at the ceiling.
The ceiling of the room was about twenty-five feet high. Around the top, there was a metal ledge that jutted out about four feet, probably for storage. Rouge grinned, looked around, then with a few strong flaps of her wings ascended towards that ledge.
She landed as quietly as she could, knowing that the metal tips of her boots would certainly make a little bit of noise. However, from that height no one could hear her, especially over the noise of the numerous conversations going on. Peering over the edge, she made sure that no one had seen her, then slowly made her way to the back of the room.
...there!
In the very back of the room was a large double-door. Slipping on her scope to get a better look, Rouge spotted another place to swipe a key card. She took out the one she had taken from the table. Would the same card work for that door? Or did that door even really lead anywhere? Was seeing what was on the other side worth the risk?
After weighing the consequences in her mind, Rouge shook her head. As curious as she was, it was better not to risk opening the door.
But maybe there was another way in.
'There's got to be something else that leads into there, like an air vent or... something. This whole building's inside a mountain, they have to be able to circulate air through it,' Rouge thought as she made her way across the room. Sure enough, there was an air vent on the other side of the room. Putting her ear to it, Rouge could hear the sound of a fan.
Hm... no. Definitely not a good idea.
Sighing, Rouge made her way back to Tails and Shadow.
Meanwhile, Tails was getting nervous. Where had Rouge gone? After seeing her fly up to the ledge, there hadn't been any contact at all. Oh, if only they had radios or something...!
Sitting and waiting near Shadow hadn't helped the young fox's nerves at all. As much as Tails knew that the black hedgehog could be trusted, he still didn't like how Shadow seemed so cold and silent... such a stark contrast to Sonic.
"Where is she...?" Tails whispered, though not to anyone in particular. "I hope she's all right..."
"She'll be fine," Shadow whispered, startling Tails. "This is nothing compared to what she's been through before."
"Really?"
Shadow nodded, though avoiding eye contact. "When we were working with Eggman, she once stole three Chaos Emeralds from G.U.N. in only five minutes." Shadow smirked. "Then she defeated a guard robot. But then, I had to go and rescue her... she'd locked herself in one of the safes... we were pretty pressed for time that day."
"Why?"
Shadow finally looked at Tails. "Kids shouldn't ask so many questions. But the reason was because there was a bomb planted on the island."
"Oh! I remember that day," Tails said.
"Shh. You heard what Rouge said, be quiet."
"Sorry."
Suddenly, Rouge appeared under the table. "There's a door in the back, but there's too many people around. I think we should go back into the hallway and try our luck with the doors." She sighed. "I just wish we had a map of this place... But if we're going to go, we've got to get away from here fast." She looked around. "You don't know... maybe someone will hear the door open," she said as they crouched under the table. "Or maybe there's a camera in here somewhere..."
"It's no use worrying," Shadow finally pointed out. "If they come after us, they come after us. You're here to get Sonic out, so you'd better just focus on that."
Rouge glared at him. "This is why I usually do my job solo."
"Too bad."
"Ugh!" Rouge sighed in disgust. "Fine! Let's just go! But it won't do Sonic any good if we get caught too!"
"You guys, quiet!" Tails whispered. Then he realized something.
"Wait... maybe it would."
"What?" Rouge looked at Tails in astonishment. "You want to get locked up too?"
Tails shook his head. "No... if we got caught, they'd take us to where they keep their prisoners, right?"
Slowly, Rouge began to smile. "That idea's... not half bad. But who should we use as bait?" She looked at Shadow and Tails...
...and her eyes fell on the latter.
-
"Why me...?" Tails squeaked in terror. "Why not someone else...?!"
"Because you're young and you look fairly harmless," Rouge said, pushing him towards the back of the laboratory. She laughed. "You look as if you couldn't beat an egg."
"Hey, I'll have you know I beat Eggman before, all by myself!" Tails retorted. "A couple of times, actually."
"Yeah, with that mech you've got."
"Not just those times! I've beaten him by myself, and I mean myself!" Tails said, a bit irritated. "That was the day I saved Station Square from the missile! I had to fight Eggman because Sonic wasn't around!"
"Really?" Rouge said, raising an eyebrow. "Well, if that's so, then you'll have no trouble getting away from those G.U.N. soldiers when I tell you to."
"What?"
"Listen, we'll have you walk the workers. Make a big noise, knock something over, just to grab their attention. When they try to catch you, and they will, start looking helpless or something, I don't know. They'll probably take you to the prison cells right away, to hold you for safekeeping. And don't give me that look," Rouge said, for Tails now had an extremely terrified look on his face, "Shadow and I will be right behind you. Now, when we get down there, we'll probably head by Sonic. When I feel that the time is right, I'll give the signal, and you escape. They won't send many soldiers down to take you to the cell, so we can probably knock them out without too much trouble. Then, we free Sonic, he uses the fake Emerald..."
"And we're home free," Tails finished.
"One problem," Shadow cut in. "Just because we free Sonic this time doesn't mean they'll try to capture him again. So how do you plan on preventing that?"
Rouge bit her lip. "Darn... I didn't think about that." She thought, then frowned. "But I said that our mission this time was to save Sonic. We should retreat and regroup after this to shut down G.U.N. for good next time."
"How do you know that there'll be a next time?" Shadow growled.
Pushing Tails forward, Rouge grinned "There you go, kid, you know what to do."
"Ohh..." Tails whimpered as he climbed to the top of a file cabinet and started rocking back and forth...
-
As one worker sat down for lunch, he struck up a conversation with another worker. "So, has anything new happened with that hedgehog in cell 1-A?"
"Nope... not that I've heard of. Did you hear, Dasendo left a key card out in case anyone wants to go try and work with it?"
"Heh. He's probably not going to get many volunteers."
"I know, that thing's a pain in the--"
WHAM!!
Every head in the room turned towards the noise...
...and saw a strange, two-tailed fox standing near a toppled file cabinet, its contents sprawled everywhere.
The fox's baby blue eyes were wide in fright, partially caused by the shock of the noise and by everyone staring at him.
There were a few seconds of startled silence...
...until one G.U.N. worker came to his senses and yelled, "Get him!"
Almost immediately, the entire room seemed to be rushing towards Tails.
The young fox was frozen to the spot, too scared to move. But when the huge crowd of people all rushed toward at once, he instinctively crouched down and pulled his hands over his head, whimpering.
One of the G.U.N. workers halted and motioned for the others to stop too. He kneeled down and took a closer look at the two-tailed fox. "Hey, guys, hold on a second. It's harmless." The worker frowned at the others. "Look, you made it cry."
Tails, still shaking terribly, opened his eyes and looked up. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to knock it over, I just climbed on top to get a better look at you, and it fell, and... oh my gosh, I'm sorry," he said, his voice quavering.
"Look, this one talks too!" the worker exclaimed. To Tails, he said, "Well, you're lucky it didn't fall on you," the G.U.N. worker said, laying a hand on Tails' head gently. "But what are we going to do with you?"
"We should probably put it with the other one until Dasendo hears about it," another worker said. "Actually, someone should go alert him now."
Someone volunteered for the job and ran off. The first worker helped Tails up. "Come on now, we've got somewhere for you to stay."
Tails wiped his face and sniffled. "Thank you very much..." Another worker left to escort Tails to where they were going to keep him.
As they exited the doors, Rouge and Shadow slipped out behind them.
Staying a good distance away, where they were out of eyesight but still within hearing range of the humans, Rouge whispered to Shadow, "Wow... Tails is pretty good at acting."
Shadow replied, "I'm not sure how much of that was actually acting, Rouge..."
-
Sonic leaned back against the wall of his cell and sighed. It was awfully boring, just sitting and waiting for something to happen.
The blue hedgehog stretched his arms, then stood up and started jogging in place. 'If this were a normal day, I'd probably be out running around looking for adventure... or, as Amy puts it, looking for trouble,' he thought, smiling.
Sonic suddenly grinned to himself. 'Well, I was out running and I did find trouble. If only there was a way to run out of trouble...'
The blue hedgehog paused and thought about that last sentence.
'Well, if I ran out of trouble... then life would be pretty dull.'
Sonic shook his head to clear his thoughts. He shrugged, then kept jogging in place.
'Maybe I should just take things into my own hands and break out by myself,' Sonic found himself thinking. 'I'll find my way back to Station Square sometime.'
The blue hedgehog paused to do more stretches. 'Are the others even coming at all? Or do they figure I'll get home by myself?
'Huh... I wonder if I could get out of here by myself?'
Sonic then looked through the wall... again. He made a disgusted face at the ten feet of water that separated him from freedom.
'Then again... maybe it would be better if someone came for me. I mean, Tails would probably come if none of the others would. Probably Amy, too. She's such a hardheaded girl. Maybe when she gets a little older--'
Sonic was snapped out of his thoughts by a sudden noise. Looking up, he walked to the side of the cell and put his ear to the wall.
Sure enough, there was some sort of noise, even though it was somewhat muffled by the water.
Sonic stepped back, a bit confused. Hardly anyone ever came down here, and even if they did there wouldn't be this much noise.
After a while, the noise died down, but a few seconds after things had turned quiet, Sonic heard the mechanical whirr of the bridge starting up. 'Now what?' he thought. 'Not that old man again...'
Imagine his surprise when he saw three familiar faces appear in the far doorway.
"Tails? And Rouge and Shadow, too?!" Sonic jumped up, then pressed his face against the door, grinning.
The three rescuers quickly made their way down the bridge. Tails smiled at Sonic as he held up the key card. Sonic gave his best friend a thumbs up, then watched as Tails unlocked the door.
"See, you guys, it was cell 1-A," Tails said as he walked in.
"Was that you guys who made all that noise?" Sonic asked, grinning. "What the heck was that?"
Tails laughed. "Well... we kind of knocked the people bringing us down here unconscious. It was the only way to get in here."
"We'd better get a move on. You heard what they said, they're bringing their leader down here pretty soon," Rouge cut in. "Tails, get that Emerald."
Tails dug inside his laptop bag before bringing out the small box. "It's the fake Chaos Emerald. Can you get us out of here with Chaos Control?" he asked Sonic.
"No sweat," Sonic grinned. Picking up the yellow Emerald, he twirled it around in the air a bit. "You guys ready?"
"Wait." Shadow stepped forward. As he looked up, Sonic sensed a strange air of determination about the black hedgehog.
"I'm sorry. I can't come."
"Huh? Why not?" Sonic asked.
Rouge looked at Shadow. "You might be right, you know... who knows how your body will react to the Emerald's energy..."
Shadow looked at the fake Emerald with apprehension. "It's not that..." He looked at Rouge. "I'm going. I have to destroy G.U.N. Today."
"Shadow, no." Rouge walked up to the black hedgehog. "We talked about this already. Not today. Not now. We'll come back when we have a plan."
Shadow growled. "I don't care. I'm here. I'm inside G.U.N.'s base. Who knows when another chance like this will come?"
Rouge, her frustration building, finally snapped. Furious, she slapped Shadow right across the face.
"You listen to me, and you listen well! You are not going to attack them now! You know they're building something that's specifically designed to take away your powers! If you go rushing into this, they've got the advantage! Next time, we'll bring everyone! Then we can help you out!" Rouge's voice had a hint of pleading in it. "We don't want you to be sealed away again. We don't want you to be destroyed. Shadow, please listen..."
Shadow didn't respond. He merely turned to walk back across the bridge.
"Maria wouldn't want you to get hurt."
"You just shut up about Maria!" Shadow screamed, startling everyone. "How do you know what she would've wanted?! Even I don't know what she wanted! That's why I'm in this mess in the first place!" The black hedgehog broke into a run. Before anyone could stop him, he'd run back out into the base...
"Shadow!" Sonic called, starting to reach out after him. Suddenly, he remembered that Tails and Rouge were still standing there. Holding the Chaos Control tightly...
...he focused that familiar power into his hands...
...not into his body...
...not this time.
"Chaos Control!!"
A bright flash of light engulfed everything...
-
Rouge blinked, seeing spots. "Wh... where are we?"
Tails rubbed his eyes, then looked around. "I'm not sure... I can't see anything... Where are we, Sonic?" he asked.
But there was no response.
"Sonic?" Tails repeated, finally getting his vision back.
Nothing.
"Tails, we're by the fence," Rouge said. "But on which side?"
"Sonic..." Tails called disbelievingly. "Didn't he come along?"
Rouge flew up into the air. She spotted the mountain base, a little ways off in the distance. So they were outside the fence, then. Good.
"Rouge, I don't think Sonic came!" Tails cried.
Lightly, Rouge touched down. She shook her head. "Don't you see what he did? That little idiot ran off to help Shadow destroy G.U.N. from the inside out. Although who knows how they're going to do that," she added.
"Shouldn't we go and help them...?" Tails asked.
Rouge looked back. "We should... but I don't see how."
Tails thought. "I know... let's go back to the Tornado. We'll grab Amy, go back to the base, and start attacking from the outside."
Rouge nodded. "Okay. Come on."
The two took to the air and flew back to the Tornado...
-
"You shouldn't have come, Sonic. I don't need anyone to fight my battles for me."
"Hey, it's not just your battle anymore. Remember, they attacked me, too!"
"Yes, but... I have something to settle with them."
"Me too! Besides, how do you think you're going to do this on your own?"
"I'll find a way... somehow, I'll find a way."
Sonic grinned. "Finally getting your revenge, eh?"
Shadow looked down at his moving feet. "...I don't know..."
Sonic raised an eyebrow. "I thought that's why you were doing this."
A few seconds of silence passed. Finally, Shadow asked, "Sonic...
"Everyone on Earth has a right to be happy. Does that mean G.U.N. too?"
Sonic's grin faded. He thought. "Well... of course everyone has a right to be happy. But if that means that they've got to hurt someone else to be happy... then I don't think that's right." The blue hedgehog laughed. "I mean, if Eggman got his way, then that means a heck of a lot of people would be pretty miserable. Myself included. That's why I'm always fighting him, I guess. You just got to listen to what your heart says."
Shadow looked at Sonic. "...she wished for everyone to be happy. But I don't know how to do that..."
"Not everyone can be satisfied at the same time. Sometimes, you just have to find a compromise. You just have to find what feels right."
Shadow didn't respond, and the two hedgehogs headed further through the base...
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A/N: Well, guys, I've finally got it down. There's going to be three chapters max after this one. (wails) You've all been so good...!
Well, I'll try to update soon, so please be patient! I'm sorry that I've taken so long to update recently.
-Ryuko