Chapter 16: Jailbreak
March 21st, 2314 – 2:20 PM – Robotnik's Base
After hearing Skeleck's words, Sonic looked at the needle again. He could see a faint outline of the robot next to the needle, although he wouldn't have known it was there if he hadn't been looking for it. Looking around, the hedgehog noticed a splotch of mud in a puddle on the floor near him. Picking it up, he hurled it at the thing. With a splat, mud covered its invisible body and revealed its shape.
To Sonic, it looked kind of like a floating cylinder. Two small robotic eyes peeped out from the top of the cylinder. Meanwhile, quiet hover units on the bottom of the machine allowed it to float along with an almost silent whispering sound. Two arms extended from either side of the cylinder, both of them tipped with syringes full of the knockout solution Skeleck and Zack had been victims of.
"That's what was making the whispering noise I heard before we got to the laser hall!" Tails said. "I knew I heard something back there!"
"Oh no! I can see more of them!" Skeleck shouted, pointing a trembling finger at the area behind Zack.
As more people saw what Dr. Skeleck yelling about, they started gasping in horror too. Sonic looked, and he could see more outlines of the robots. There appeared to be about six or seven total.
"I see you," Sonic said with a grin.
In a flash, he started revving up on the ground with his spin dash, and then catapulted himself towards the machines. While they were invisible, Robotnik didn't think much about their durability. Sonic easily hit three of them on his first pass through them, and they were blown to pieces by the impacts. Metal shrapnel rained down, scattering at Sonic's feet.
They may be invisible, but otherwise they're pansies. I was expecting more out of them.
There were still four left though, counting the one he'd splattered with mud. Luckily for Sonic, the three that were still invisible appeared to be lined up, making them ripe for another spin dash attack. With another quick burst of speed, he rolled right through all of them, sending them crashing into the walls.
Now there was only one left.
"Time to finish this!" Sonic shouted, preparing to launch himself at the remaining bot.
He didn't get the chance to do that though. A crowd of heavily armed robotic soldiers suddenly appeared from the entrance door and trampled over the invisible robot without a second thought. Each one of them clanked along in heavy, blue-colored armor, and all of them had large blaster rifles in their hands.
They swarmed into the room so quickly that Sonic didn't have time to blink. As soon as they had taken up positions, they began firing into the crowd of prisoners. People screamed and yelled, some getting shot and then falling to the floor. Those that managed to keep from getting hit jumped back inside the prison cells to seek cover. Sonic and Tails ran into the nearest cell with them.
Looking back out into the middle of the room, the scene was horrible to witness. Those that had been unlucky enough to get hit lay in the middle of the floor, cradling their new wounds and screaming out in pain. Zack was out there too, and he had gone fully unconscious. Thankfully, the robots did not fire upon the downed targets.
On the other hand, Sonic's ears picked up the sounds of the robots' metal feet marching forward, in perfect synchronicity. Within a few seconds, the robots would be in front of the prison cells, and then they'd have clear shots again. Sonic watched the open cell door, waiting for the soldiers to appear. He steeled himself, preparing to leap into the crowd of bots when they appeared. He'd most likely die, but at least he could give the prisoners an opening to escape.
Before Sonic jumped though, he noticed one of the cops, a dingo, was in a cell on the other side of the room. The dingo pulled a small black object out of his pocket, a hand grenade He started to reach for the pin. Before he pulled it though, the cop spotted Sonic. Sonic edged up to the corner of the cell, and gave a nod to the cop. The policeman nodded back in silent acknowledgement. The two of them prepared to rush the robots at the same time, one for each side of the army.
"Now!" the cop screamed, pulling the pin out.
The dingo hurled the grenade into the middle of the approaching crowd, before jumping out and firing on full automatic with his assault rifle. As numerous robots were riddled by the bullets, an explosion rippled through the crowd behind them, sending other robots flying through the air. Some of the soldiers had been blasted to pieces, their parts clattering all over the floor. The robot's weapons came raining down in front of the cells too.
Even as the explosion sounded off, Sonic jumped out of the cell himself and charged up a spindash. When he took off, he plowed right through the crowd of robots like a bowling ball through pins. The problem was there were just too many soldiers for him to get through, and his forward movement continued to slow as he crashed through the machines. Finally, Sonic came to a halt as he bumped his head on a robot and fell backwards to the floor. Sonic yelped in pain at the new bruise on his head, but there was no time to stop and soothe it. Jumping to his feet, he saw that several of the nearby robots were aiming their rifles at his head.
Sonic froze to the spot, rooted in terror, but then he noticed something. These soldiers had grenades strapped to their utility belts. Getting a giddy smile, the hedgehog reached for the nearest robot and pulled the pins out of its grenades. Then, Sonic jumped high into the air, as the explosion from the explosives went off. The shockwave from the explosion pushed him high into the air, as robotic limbs, heads, and torsos flew past him.
Gravity soon took over and pulled Sonic back down to the ground. He saw that he was about to fall past a fluorescent light hanging from the ceiling. The hedgehog managed to successfully land on top of it after maneuvering a bit. While the light wobbled around on its two support cables, it seemed to be able to hold his weight good enough. Sonic peeked over the side of the light. He grinned as he saw the handiwork at the handiwork both him and the cop had done. The explosions had left two massive holes in the army of robots, and there were parts of the robots scattered across the place.
Unfortunately, the robots saw Sonic up above, and started firing. He ducked his head back over the top of the light for cover. One of the lasers shots hit one of the ropes holding the light, and suddenly one end of Sonic's makeshift platform fell downwards, making his foot space vertical in the process. Unprepared for the sudden drop, Sonic slid right off the light. He managed to grasp the now-loose cable as he fell, keeping him from falling all the way back down into the crowd.
It was hardly an improvement though. Now Sonic was dangling around in front of his attackers in plain view, as he tried to keep his grasp on the swinging rope. He might as well have had a gigantic sign attached to himself that said "Shoot me!"
Sonic heard a whole lot more shooting below, but strangely almost none of the laser blasts came his way. He glanced down to see what was going on. A smile crossed Sonic's face as he saw what was happening. Most of the robots had stopped to fire upon him, and thus they totally ignored the prisoners collecting the discarded weapons from the dead robots. Now the prisoners were firing upon the robots and knocking them down easily. Robotnik had done his work too well with his robot's weapons.
Sonic looked up and noticed Tails flying over towards him. The hedgehog held out his hand, and the fox grabbed it as he came close.
"Thanks..." Sonic said.
"Anytime Sonic," Tails said back.
Sonic realized that they'd said the same things to each other after the laser hall, only their positions had been reversed. Tails noticed it too, and they both grinned a bit. They seemed to make quite a good team together. As they hovered down to the floor though, most of the fighting seemed to be over. The prisoners had cleared out the cell block out very well.
However, now it was time to go around and check out the losses. Dozens of injured people were being collected into the middle of the room. Some looked like they'd be okay, while others were at death's door. Zack was among them too, but since he'd been hit by a sleeping drug only he'd probably be okay. How all these people were going to get out of the base without getting killed or captured again was the biggest problem right now.
The dingo cop walked over to Sonic, armed with one of Robotnik's laser rifles.
"Great work kid, although we weren't counting on having to help this many people. I just don't see a way for us to save all of them."
"I know..." Sonic said. "You sure you don't have any ideas?"
"Hmm... Well normally in a hostage situation, our S.W.A.T. teams rely on a distraction to neutralize the suspect and escape with the hostages. But, I doubt that will do much good in this situation. We just don't have the manpower. There were six of us cops when we got in this prison, myself included. Two officers died in the attack, and Zack is out cold. We're down to three people now."
He flashed three fingers in front of Sonic and Tails, and then let out a sigh.
"Using three people to distract an army would be like using a fly to distract a speeding car. There's just no point in doing it."
"What if me and Tails helped?" Sonic asked.
"Huh? Are you serious? I mean, yeah, you did a great job on the robots, but against a whole army?"
Sonic smiled and chuckled. His victory over the robots just now had given him a great confidence. If he could take on that many robots at the same time and live, then what's was there to say he couldn't take on Robotnik either?
"I sure am serious. I'll go straight up to Robotnik's chamber and fight him myself. He'll be too busy trying to protect himself to chase after you. You can use that time to escape."
The dingo shook his head.
"There's no way you'll be able to do that. You're dreaming too big, kid. People tend to do that a lot at your age, you know? You're overestimating your abilities."
Sonic didn't care, because now was the perfect time to go after Robotnik. The hedgehog was so close to the fat human he could practically smell him. However...Sonic realized he didn't know where to find Robotnik in here. That would be easy to fix though. The hedgehog looked around for Dr. Skeleck, and spotted the doctor nearby tending to a wounded raccoon on the floor.
"Dr. Skeleck," Sonic said.
The doctor turned around, as Sonic ran over to him.
"Ye-yes? What do you need Sonic?"
"How do I get to Robotnik's rooms from here? Do you know?"
"Well, erm...it's actually not all that hard to get to from here if you know the way. At the end of the hallway leading to this prison you go right, and you arrive at a bank of elevators. You can access each floor of this base by using them. That's what the used to transport me and the other doctors to Robotnik's chambers for treatment. You just get off at the top floor, make another right, and there you are."
"Thanks a lot doc! I owe you one!" Sonic said.
"Well why would you need that information?" the bat asked.
"They think they're gonna go up to Robotnik's private rooms and kill him, that's what," the dingo cop said, joining in the conversation. "Crazy kids."
"I'm going after him!" Sonic yelled at the cop. "There's nothing you can do to stop me! Come on Tails! Let's go get egg belly!"
"Right behind you Sonic!"
And before the cop could stop either of them, they zoomed back down the entrance hallway towards the elevators that the doctor had mentioned before. Sonic ran down the hall, as Tails flew alongside him. Both of them looked at each other as they went, and nodded. It was confirmed. They were going to be behind each other all the way, and neither of them would back down.