S.O.N.I.C GO

S.O.N.I.C GO

GO GO GO GO, LET'S GO!

Episode 9: The Hunt is on

"Rather extreme security measures for an Office building." Metal Sonic commented, his sensors already picking up infrared cameras, motion detectors, laser beam alarm systems, guards patrolling at ten minute intervals and a hired G.U.N walker robot standing outside the entrance to the lobby. Shadow nodded, sticking his head out momentarily from the bush they were hiding behind. The Foundation's office building stood next to the park and so they found sneaking up through the foliage under cover of darkness preferable to a direct attack. They were just outside of the perimeter fence, a little further along which as a sign marked, (High voltage.)

"Unless they have something inside there other than tones of paperwork." He added, a frown on his face. To confess, even he hadn't counted on this level of security to be present. But this only confirmed his deep routed suspicions about this "Foundation Organisation". And besides, this challenge might actually prove interesting.

He studied the grounds carefully, trying to note every detail before making a move. There was a little in the way of cover inside the fence, only a few cars in a concrete parking lot and a collection of tall buildings stretching upwards directly in the centre. The distant lights of patrolling security guards blinking on the other side of the compound. There was little in the way of moonlight to light his way, but that also worked to his advantage. This meant that he had a better chance at not being spotted.

He forced himself to remember Chuck's warning, as to not get involved in any intense battle until it was confirmed beyond all doubt that the Foundation were the ones responsible for his assailants. "Ok let's go." Shadow added, leaping out the fence and landing without a single sound on the other side. His footsteps as silent as a cats.

Metal Sonic followed quickly, keeping any systems that made the slightest bit of nose offline for the time being. As the two of them made their way quickly and silent through the compound, they caught sight of the giant G.U.N walker standing at the main entrance. It was a HOT SHOT model, especially designed for guard duty. It Didn't notice them, standing as still as a statue. The main entrance completely out of the question, they located a window that lead into a dark room and slipped inside.

The room as an office, filled with filing cabinets and cubicles. Shadow paused to let Metal Sonic scan the room to make sure that they were empty. A thermal scan revealed that the last employee had left about an hour ago, in fact the nearest heat source was a lukewarm cup of coffee someone had left on a desk.

Shadow doubted that anything as delicate as Project Shadow files would hardly be kept in a place like this, so he ignored the cabinets and made his way over the door. Metal Sonic went first, but quickly had to retract himself as he nearly got caught on film. A security camera was placed almost directly opposite the door. Shadow pushed the door open a crack and looked out, narrowing an eye at it carefully. Luckily the camera wasn't looking at the door at the moment, it's lens drawn off down the corridor to the left. Taking a chance, Shadow slipped out, sliding underneath it's field of vision before it looked back. Metal Sonic waited for it to turn again and then copied the technique.

Most of the rooms were completely identical, large offices with cubicles. Hardly anything interesting, that is until they came to one room that was watched far more extensively by security than the others. This looked promising.

From behind a corner, Shadow could see that the door was watched constantly by two security cameras and there were three red beams of light lanced across the bottom, infra-red motion detectors. Very clever, in fact, without Metal Sonic to point them out, he wouldn't have noticed they were there. The black hedgehog pointed to the camera's and made a scissors like gesture with one hand, Metal Sonic nodded and hovered silently over, keeping the roar put out by his engines as quiet as possible. Once he was in the blind side of the cameras, he used his curved talons to cut the wires leading from wall into the cameras themselves. The red light on the top of each one turned itself off as Shadow slid across, pushing the door open and then simply stepping over the beams.

This, it seemed, was the Corporation head's office. A relatively small room with a desk in front of a large window with a pair of drawn blood red curtains, two potted plants sitting the far corners. A fur carpet sat in the middle of the panelled floor and a row of wooden filing cabinets lined the left hand side wall. This seemed odd, why have all that security for a room like this?

As Shadow studied the contents of the desk, Metal Sonic looked around the room. His sensors couldn't pick up anything out of the ordinary but there had to be something interesting here. He checked his internal clock; they had not been inside the building for a grand total of four minutes. It would only be a matter of time until their presence was detected and the impressive security they had seen would be all over them.

Finding nothing relating to Project Shadow within the file folders, Shadow turned his attention to the room around him. He wasn't giving up that easily, there had to be something here even slightly incriminating.

"Hello?" Shadow muttered, finding a cut line travelling down the wall, partially hidden behind a cabinet. He ran his fingers along it and then tapped once. The sound beyond echoed showing that the there was a hallow space beyond here. A wide smile spread over his face as he pushed the cabinet aside and then dug his fingers in, pulling a secret door side. "I knew it." He added, looking down a flight of stairs going down a concealed tunnel the far end of which was concealed in darkness. Metal Sonic joined his side.

"Proceed with caution." He warned. Shadow simply nodded once, before beginning his decent. Metal Sonic stood stark still for a moment before following. The flight of stairs was longer than they had imagined, leading them down well past the ground floor of the building. Every so often the dark decent was lit by a single electric light, its glow a strange green colour.

When they finally reached the bottom, the passageway levelled off and they discovered that they had entered the sewer system. On the roof, ceiling and floor, in-fact every single surface that wasn't touching the flowing river of sewage that travelled through an artificial ditch running through the tunnels, was drawn images of the Foundation's old symbol, the Japanese red Dragon, it's shape and position matching the tattoo Shadow had seen on one of his attackers. People, a lot of people, had been here quite recently. Metal Sonic could still detect the residual heat signature that came from the warmth radiated by a large crowd of twenty or more. On the far side of the ditch was a door stone built into the wall, the same dragon carved into it. From the other side of it they could hear voices exchanging conversation. A large pile of oil drums piled up next to it, evidentially full as a thick puddle of black ooze had gathered around the bottom.

Keeping as quiet as possible, they crept closer, clinging to the wall and the shadows in case one of those talkers decided to venture out for a breath of fresh air. As they reached the door, Metal Sonic gestured to Shadow to take up a position on his right and then they'd charge in, catching whoever was in there by surprise. Shadow nodded and did so and after a count of three, the robotic hedgehog blasted the door down and the two of them shot in, Shadow with the beginnings of a Chaos Spear attack burning between his arched fingers.

To their stunned amazement, they found the chamber empty. But that was impossible; they could both have sworn they'd heard voices coming not two feet from behind that door.

The chamber was oval in shape with an arched ceiling, a single stone pillar standing directly in the centre. More drawings of the dragon were in here as well, but that wasn't what drew their attention as once. At the base of the pillar was some form of alter and upon this was a small carved statue made of some form of black wood. It was carved in the shape of a face with a skull like appearance, goat horns and large tusks. It rang a familiar bell, but Shadow couldn't place it.

"So, you return to seek your destiny." Metal and Shadow shot around to see five figures blocking the door, all clad in dark clocks. Shadow took a couple of steps back. These were those creeper things that attacked him on the desert road, now there was no doubt in his mind of their connection to the Foundation.

"This saves us the trouble of hunting you down." One said, the folds of his cloak rippling in the presence of some invisible wind. "Come, embrace your future."

"Fulfil your purpose and achieve greatness." Another added, all of them encircling the two of them, their feet no even touching the ground as they floated by some dark means.

"It thought I made it perfectly clear I'm not interested." Several of them laughed at Shadow retort.

"You speak as if you have control over your future." Metal Sonic pulled his arm back and then threw it forward again, a blast of chaos emerald erupting from his hand. Like wraiths, these strange tangible spectres simply swung to the side, twisting their bodies in impossible ways.

"Close range combat with these things." Shadow stated, before flying at the nearest one, landing a punch.

"And just where have you been?" Vector asked as Espio slammed the door behind him, an annoyed look on his face. "You know how many cases we had while you were gone?" The chameleon levelled his eyebrows.

"How many?" He asked. The crocodile put his knuckles against his hips, a wide grin spreading over his jaws.

"Two! Can you believe that? We were rushed off our feet!" Espio slapped his forehead.

Chuck seemed incredibly impressed at the rate Mobians healed at. Within a single day, the gash on Amy's face had nearly completely disappeared like it hadn't even been there. Sonic however, who had sustained far worse injuries, wound up with worse consequences.

"Ok, so that didn't go so well." Sonic admitted with most of left arm covered in bandages, drumming the fingers of his right hand on the table as Tanaka helped him with some cracked ribs he'd sustained during his fight with Emerl. "Maybe fighting our way into the Egg Carrier 3 wasn't a smart thing to do." Chuck's garage still under surveillance since the Military discovered he'd been repairing Metal Sonic; they'd all met up in Tails' workshop. Tails was the only one of them had apart from Chuck without any kind of injury and looked rather smug because of it.

"No kiddin'" He stated, a wide smile on his face. Sonic simply shot him a warning glare. "So what now? According to the news report I saw in town, the military lost track of Eggman's ship." Chuck looked up from his own notes. "He could be anywhere, and we still don't know what his plan is yet." Sonic just grinned.

"I can take Eggman with both hands tied behind my back, my eyes closed and holding my breath. No matter what half baked plan he's come up with." Chuck paused, his eye rolled back as he started thinking.

"No modesty on your part then." Amy added slyly, leaning on his shoulder with a seductive look on her face. Sonic winced at the touch as he was still quite sore.

"Sonic…" Chuck began. "You say that weapon Eggman fired resembled the Eclipse Cannon." The Blue hedgehog nodded as Tanaka finished wrapping up his bruises.

"A little yeah." He replied.

"The Eclipse Cannon was powered by Chaos Emeralds." The Butler said before Chuck could. "If Eggman's succeeded in miniaturising a weapon like that, then doesn't it stand to reason he'd collect more Chaos Emeralds to increase its own power?"

"Just what I was about to say." Chuck added; a hint of annoyance in his voice but no one really noticed.

"Chaos Emeralds? Again?" Sonic slumped back into the sofa, groaning loudly. "Not another Chaos Emerald hunt!" he said again, putting his hands in front of his face.

"What did you really expect?" Amy asked. "Chaos Emeralds possess great power and you know great power is one of Eggman's favourite things." They all, apart from Sonic, nodded in agreement. The blue hedgehog groaned again, those emeralds were causing him a lot of grief.

"I have one here to power the X-Tornado." Tails stated. "And since Eggman was able to fire that cannon, I'm willing to bet he has at least two."

"I should probably inform the Government about this." Chuck added, turning to face the computer, his fingers racing over the keyboard.

There was a sudden loud crash and the front door flung itself open, the cold fall air erupting inward in a shower of dead leaves. Shadow was Metal Sonic stumbled in, each looking like they'd just survived an avalanche, a hurricane and an earth quake all at once. Large, heavy dents covered Metal Sonic's skin and he looked like he could barley stand up, leaning on Shadow's shoulder, his left arm completely limp. Shadow's black fur had been sourced and a thin trail of blood running from the corner of his mouth.

"Shadow, you look like hell! What happened to you?" Sonic asked, helping them in.

"Don't ask." The black and red hedgehog replied angrily as he helped Sonic carry his metallic copy over to a chair. "Needless to say my theory about the Foundation has been proved correct." Cream and her mother Vanilla hurried in after them, the small blue Chao Cheese tucked away inside her ears. Turel, Amy's adult Hero class chao who had been asleep on the table in the kitchen area suddenly looked up as he sensed the presence of another Chao. Seeing Cheese, he uncurled his large golden wings and flew over.

"Hey Cream." Tails began. "I haven't seen you in a while." The rabbit did a little curtsey before replying.

"Mom's been taking me around new houses lately." She said in her usual soft, yet high pitched voice. Vanilla nodded.

"We're thinking of buying an apartment along the sea front in Station Square." She blinked: the scene around her finally registering. "My, what happened to you people? You look like you've been through hell and back."

Shadow explained what had happened, how during the fight, a chaos spear attack had accidentally hit one of the oil drums outside the chamber. The resulting explosion had weakened the tunnel, causing it to cave in. A great deal of land collapsed underneath the compound, nearly knocking the entire building down. The police had been called as well as other emergency surfaces and the military. They'd barley gotten away unnoticed. What ticked Shadow off more than anything is that those cloaked freaks had gotten away again and he'd learnt nothing.

"Not true." Chuck disagreed. "As much as it pains me to admit it, you were right about the Foundation. Even that confirmation is worth something."

"Whatever." Sonic began quickly. "We can deal with this later, after we deal Eggman to those Emeralds." He turned to give Shadow a grin. "And now that you're not too busy Shadow, maybe you can lend us a hand."

"No." The black hedgehog said simply.

"Ah come on."

"No."

"Be a pal."

"No."

"But what if…"

"No!"

"Now come on." Sonic added quickly before Shadow could refuse again. "Tell you what, help us out with Eggman this one time and I promise as soon as we're done, we'll go down and tear these Foundation guys a new opening." Shadow glared at him, his piercing red eyes fixing the blue hedgehog with a stern gaze that said 'not interested.' Sonic matched it with his own puppy dog expression that Amy couldn't help laughing at.

"Are you sure your Echidna friend isn't a better choice?" The blue hedgehog rolled his eyes at the question.

"Knuckles is even less reliable than you." Shadow groaned one last time before giving in.

"Oh all right." He said reluctantly. Sonic's smile widened in triumph, putting an arm around the black hedgehog's shoulders.

"Welcome to the team." He said playful. Shadow simply turned to give him another glare.

"Don't touch me."

Bean and Bark, now qualified agents, had been the first ones to be dispatched when the intelligence agency reported the possibility of a chaos emerald in the uncharted jungles in the heart of the Mystic Ruins. Since they were one of the few mobian agents at the Government's disposal, it wads agreed that they would be the ones to investigate.

"I hate this place." Bean commented dryly, slapping the tenth bug off his shoulder as he and his large comrade wadded through thick mud, running water and reeds to reach the other side of the jungle path. They'd barely covered half the terrain since they set out this morning and it was already sunset. "Come on Bark, let's call it a day, I'm tired, hungry and I think the insects of his jungle are partial to roast duck." Bark ignored his complaints and kept going. Bark was the devoted type who once he set his mind to something, he kept going until he either collapsed from exestuation or succeeded. He would not be resting, not without that Chaos Emerald firmly in hand.

There was a sudden commotion up ahead and Bark froze. Was that an Eggman Empire patrol? Better not take any chances, he pulled Bean into the undergrowth and hid his own massive bulk as best he could.

He just picked up the smell of rotting fish when a large purple feline wandered out onto the path before them, a fishing rod carried over his left shoulder and several large fish in the right hand. A green tree frog was sitting on the cat's shoulder, nestled in the fur. "Big fellow." Bean stated and instantly the cat's large pointed ears twitched.

"Who's calling me?" He asked in a slow voice, looking around. Bark slapped a gloved over Bean's mouth and studied the cat carefully before deciding to reveal themselves. Even if this cat was with their enemy, he hardly looked like he could put up much of a fight.

The cat was about his size with shoulders twice as broad as his. A long fluffy tail that spiked off at the end held behind him. A large, fat belt tied around his waist. His feet fitted into a pair of sandals. "I've not seen you before." The cat added, finally seeing them when Bark pushed the large bush he was hiding behind aside and strode out onto the path. "Have you Froggy?" He asked the frog on his shoulder, which simply looked up at him, croaked once and then lay back down.

"I'm Bark the Polar Bear, and this is Bean the Duck." Bark replied, introducing themselves.

"The Dynamite Duck!" Bean corrected his large friend with a wide smile. Bark simply narrowed an eye at him. The cat blinked, then bowed respectfully, nearly loosing his balance at one point and falling over.

"I'm Big."

"No kiddin'." Bean muttered under his breath; only to have Bark smack him on the back of his head.

"We're looking for a jewel about the fist of a fist." The polar carried on. "It varies in colour a little; have you see anything like that?" Big blinked again, reached into his thick fur and withdrew a Chaos Emerald.

"Like this?" He asked.

"A little, yeah." Bean said with wide eyes.

"Don't suppose you'd be willing to part with it?" The polar bear asked. Big looked down at the emerald in his hands, clear reluctance in his eyes. "It is rather important." Bark made sure he didn't let anything he said give the Cat the idea that they were from the military, that could definitely complicate matters.

"Well, if it's important." The large cat began. "I suppose you can borrow it." He was about to reach over to hand them the jewel when a loud rumbling burst through the jungle. The trees collapsed under a pair of steal treads as one of Eggman's robots burst out through the undergrowth. A tank like pair of legs with the upper body very humanoid, portraying a bizarre cybernetic Centaur like appearance. A lazer cannon mounted to each shoulder, the head shrunken into the shoulders.

E1003 Tau had been hunting this chaos emerald for over two hours now. He was not about to let some Government agents take it from him.

Flip Card 1:

Name: E1003: Tau

Sex: n/a

Age: Several days

Species: Robotic tank

Job description: The Third in the new E1000 series