(I do not own Sonic X, etc.)
S.O.N.I.C
S.O.N.I.C
GO, GO, GO, GO! LET'S GO!
Episode 11: The Seer Called Cosmo
Publicly, the Governments position on the supposed new threat from a Machine Federation was it was nothing but internet rumours. In reality however, they were far more well informer. The President knew the situation completely. He knew that the evil Metal Sonic had returned, he knew he was collecting the Chaos Emeralds to power some ancient machines and take over the world and he knew that Eggman had allied himself with them. He knew all this because he received frequent reports from Major Okida of Freelance Division.
No one in their right mind trusted Eggman. He was infamous for deceit and betrayal. Still, they would need his expertise in order to contour the Machine Federation's robots, or Metal X as their elite called themselves. Armed with the knowledge as he was, the President had ordered a world wide search for the Chaos Emeralds. Those powerful gem stones had to be retrieved before Metal Sonic could use them.
England, left in tattered ruins after the end of the occupation was just one of his growing number of concerns that had made his hair prematurely white. Still, at least this chaos had exposed the Elite and their machinations that had been controlling most if not all of the worlds Governments for years. A frown forced its way onto his face at the thought of most his predecessors in the White House controlled in some way by those arrogant bankers. If the worlds hadn't merged, who knows what the future of man kind would have been.
If nothing else this had taught him one thing. A crack down on corruption was just as important as the security of the nation. The U.S constitution AND the Bill of Rights had to be upheld. Those who gave up their liberty for safety deserved neither; the President believed the saying went.
He sat down at his deck and the giant IN-pile stacked upon it. He'd been right in his assumption. He was the most powerful paper pusher in the world.
"Mr. President, we have Major Okida on the line." Christian Copper, his personal assistant told him through a speaker near the end of his desk.
"Fine, put him through." He replied, before turning to the large video screen they installed a few weeks ago to allow the President to see exactly who he was talking to when people sent him messages. The United States eagle symbol on it dissipated, replaced by the smirking face of the Major. His fur and the red drape around his shoulders were flapping wildly in the wind pouring in from the open door to a chopper interior behind him. Sitting in the seat beside him was Topaz, another member of the Freelance Division; G.U.N's most elite and skilled group.
"Reporting in sir. Chaos Emerald located and retrieved." He brought the jewel up in one hand so the President could see it. Its glow was a soft sky blue, gently lighting the inside of the chopper. Leading a private battalion of G.U.N troops, the Major had followed one of Chuck's devices straight to the Congo of South America; there amongst a patch of dry grass was the Emerald. The President let out a sigh of relief. At least they were getting somewhere with this whole fiasco.
"How are Sonic and the others doing?" He asked after a moment of contemplation.
"They headed off to Southern Europe after another blip." Okida replied; gesturing to the sound bleeping sound Chuck's small watch like machine made now it was so close to the Chaos Emerald. "Charles Thorndyke, Tails, Knuckles and Doctor Eggman heading north into Canada, I already took the liberty of keeping one of our remaining surveillance satellites to keep an eye on them." Once the Eggman Empire spread into space, one of its first objectives was to destroy any Government owned satellite they could get their hands on. Robbed of their eyes in the sky, the intelligence services were virtually blind. Only a few remained, most of which supplied television channels. With Metal X around blasting anything that wasn't under their control, sending up more satellites would simply be a waste of resources.
"Good, keep me informed of progress and anything unusual." The President began. "As for the Emerald…" He continued when he saw Okida about to open his mouth. "Let Sonic and the others hang onto it for now. I thing of no safer place to keep a bunch of super powered jewels at the present time." The mayor nodded, before he dissipated and the United States Eagle came back.
Metal Sonic watched over the three Chaos Emeralds the Machine Federation had been able to collect. One red, one green and the final one grey. He knew Sonic and the others had one more, the purple one. He knew this because he'd been there when Amy presented it as her prize for winning the Emerald Grand Prix. He could wait before confronting Sonic for that Emerald however. He wanted to put off fighting them until he had the other pieces to the puzzle. He didn't want to finish them just yet, not before he attained god hood once again.
The Behemoth, his personal battleship floated in orbit around the Earth, a gigantic metal version of a galleon, thousand of blinking lights glistening over it's surface. Metal Sonic was very proud of his space ship, superior to Eggman's now deceased Egg Carrier in everyway.
His attention was drawn away from the glass container in which he'd housed the Emeralds when an alarm on a nearby sensor went off. The ship's probes had detected the presence of another Chaos Emerald.
Crossing over, he investigated the monitor that switched itself on when he approached. According to the computer, a strong trace of Chaos energy had been detected on the north east coast of Spain, near a place called Barcelona. The robotic Hedgehog paused. It certainly had the signature of Chaos energy that hinted at the presence of a Chaos Emerald, but the readings were erratic and unstable. Something else was there. What that something else was he couldn't say, but it warranted investigation.
Presently, most his Generals were planet side investigating other leads for Chaos Emerald locations. The only one left to go after it was Leviathan.
"General." The robotic hedgehog barked and like he'd been there all along, his third made Elite robot stepped out of the darkness. Leviathan was the leader of the Machine Federation's navy and as such had attempted to adapt himself to water combat. Metal fins ran down each arm and leg, fins that could used for combat as well as underwater navigation. His head was protected by a square box of transparent plastic, the inside housing a pair of round eyes. Its main bulk was a connection of several round pieces, all held together to form a very fish like body. When he swam, it was with the fluid motions of a Shark.
"My lord." His general began with a short bow. Metal Sonic simply pointed to the screen with a single metal talon.
"Go and investigate. If it's a Chaos Emerald bring it back to me."
"As you wish Master." Leviathan added, before disappearing altogether.
In all honestly, Sonic hadn't been prepared for the sweltering heat when they reached Spain, the place Chuck's device told them that the Chaos Emerald lay. The sun blared brightly at him as he stepped out of the X tornado and he had to cover his eyes.
"The day I forgot to bring my sun block." He muttered to himself. Along with him to this expedition was Rouge, Amy, Chris, Cream and Vanilla, who insisted on coming along after her little joy ride with them on the Icarus and of course, wherever Cream went Emerl was not far behind.
Sonic smiled to himself. He could endure the tropical climate. It was either this or to have gone with Tails and the others into Northern Canada. He preferred this extreme to the other.
Amy had brought the X-Tornado down in a perfectly green field, a few grazing cows mooing at them as they aircraft took up valuable eating space. Most of the landscape of this country was field; Sonic had seen that from the air as they flew in. Blocking his view of the horizon to the left was a thick collection of jocks that jutted out of the side of a nearby hillside, long grass hiding their underside from view.
"Ok, where to from here?" Chris asked the pink hedgehog, who was busy consulting the small wrist watch like machine Chuck had given her, a small green bleeping loudly to indicate the close presence of a Chaos Emerald. Amy paused to check the readings from it.
"That way." He answered, pointing off towards the rocks in the distance. Before any of them could say anything, Sonic took off through the tall grass towards them, across the long field and just before reaching them leaping up into the air and landing squarely on the top of one of the tallest rocks. The sight he saw from the top made him shiver involuntarily. The hill ended abruptly a little further on in a cliff that rolled down to a golden coastline; a large seaside resort not too far away down it's length. A good few hundred people had gathered there, a canopy of large umbrella's stretching down towards a large city surrounded by lush wilderness. What got Sonic so upset at the scene was of course, the long blue ocean. Water in other words.
Why did every trail he had to pass involve water in some way? He could face fire, wind and earth, but NOT water!
"According to the map, that's Barcelona." Chris stated as the others joined his side. The human had a map in his hand as he traced his finger along the coastline.
"And According to this thing, the Emerald's somewhere down there." Amy added, the bleeping from her watch like machine beginning to get on her nerves.
It seemed that Sonic's reputation had spread abroad as well, as soon as he got with sight of the public he was instantly surrounded by a teething mass of fans with autograph books flying in the air. They set upon him like a pack of starved dogs and Sonic begged Amy to get him away from all this. This she did, by frightening them back with her hammer. "You loved all that attention really." She stated in a 'as a matter of fact' voice at him with levelled eyes.
"Mom and I'll wait here." Cream told him, half distracted by the lure of the golden sands and the laughter of other children down by the waters edge. "Coming Emerl?" She called over to her robot friend, who obediently followed her.
"I'll leave the Chaos Emerald to you this time." Rouge remarked. "I'll be grabbing come much needed sun." She added with a smirk, heading off to a small road near the end of a road to buy a swim suit.
"Fine, leave all the work to us." Sonic muttered sarcastically, but Rouge was too far away to hear. Groaning, he shook his head. The device Chuck had invented was not as precise as they'd hoped. All it could tell them is that the Emerald lay within a five mile radius of their current location. That was a lot of ground to cover, especially with the city of Barcelona lying within that circle.
"Maybe we should spilt up." Chris commented gaining a long side glance from Sonic. He laughed nervously. "You're right, that isn't going to do it." The blue hedgehog slapped his forehead.
"Can't that thing tell us anything else?" He asked Amy, who was still working her fingers over the watch like machine. After about an hour of fruitless searching, the blue hedgehog's patience was beginning to wear thin, and beginning this close to a large water source did not help either. By the time they'd given up trying to locate a Chaos Emerald with that thing they'd wound up back at the beach, with little to show for their efforts apart from a headache.
"I'm not Tails, I don't know how to make this thing more helpful." She stated.
"Let me have a go." Chris began and Amy wilfully handed him it, glad to be rid of the frustrating thing. Chris looked it over, before turning it upside down in his hands and opening a small panel on the back. Carefully he began altering some of the settings, trying not to press the wrong button and accidentally destroy the thing from the inside out. "There." He added finally, closing the small hatch. Strangely, bleeping from the device did not lessen. "I can't make it tell us where an Emerald is exactly, but it might tell us how warm we're getting." Amy strapped it to her wrist again and tried aiming it in various directions. Depending which way it was facing, the bleeping would either lessen or increase in volume.
"Well what's marginally better." Sonic added. Following the headache inducing noise, the device lead them through the city to a beach on the other side of the bay. This was one far more rocky than the other and the sand was brown instead of gold. Apart from a few fishermen rolling up their nets, it was deserted. The loud cawing of seagulls filling the air above, rivalled only by the omni present noise from the device.
"I don't see any Chaos Emerald." Chris admitted, thinking that perhaps Chuck had crossed a wire somewhere in his machine.
Sonic groaned and sat down on a large rock looking bored while Amy carried on up the beech, following the machines lead. The bleeping was so constant now they were getting close that was for certain. If it was a Chaos Emerald, then the Machine Federation hadn't been here yet.
"Hey, what is that?" The pink hedgehog began in awe. Sonic and Chris looked up, before joining her side.
Whatever it was, it wasn't a chaos emerald that had drawn the attention of the tracker. The air nearby was rippling, like inside an area of compressed heat, only going around in a circle instead of straight up. This was one of those warps Void and those from Maginary world used to travel between their home world and this one. Sonic had seen entire armies of angel like beings disappear through them at one time.
"Woah…" The blue hedgehog began staring at in surprise.
"It's radiating Chaos energy." Amy announced, shutting down the tracker in disappointment. "Probably isn't a Chaos Emerald for miles." Chris however seemed more interested in the warp than the loose of a Chaos Emerald.
As he approached it, the rippling effect radiating around it's edge began to intensify, like reality itself was bending around it. Sonic looked around in confusion; it looked as if the horizon was beginning to travel further and further away, pulled by some force he did not understand. The warp was unstable.
Then with a single burst, a small figure emerged from it's depths and then dropped down to the rough sand below with a loud thud and as soon as she was free from the hole, the warp bent in upon itself and closed, the rippling running down to a single point like water down a plug hole before disappearing entirely.
Apart from her skin being a near pale yellow, this girl looked exactly like Lumina Flowlight. She was of average Mobian height, but obviously she was one of Void's people with a plain face with no nose and large blue eyes. Her hair and clothes were a bright green. A round red jewel hung in the golden wraps of a pendant around her neck. Her dress was like the leaves on a plant, falling into a jagged outline around her legs.
She looked up at Sonic weekly, a great deal of fatigue plain on her face.
"Are you the Speedster?" She asked, her voice slightly more high pitched than Sonic expected as normal.
"Excuse me?" He asked in confusion. Her eyes widened in fear.
"Are you the one I saw in my dream? One half of a whole, the Speedster? Opposite to the Shade?" Sonic was left a little stunned by her query and stood there looking confused.
"Yes, he's the one." Amy stated, her mind working slightly faster than Sonic's; realizing that that was what their visitor needed the hear. A wide smile spread weekly over her face as Sonic looked back at the pink hedgehog in surprise.
"I am?" He asked looking as confused as ever.
"Hey, you ok?" Chris asked, trying to help this new girl to her feet but seemed to lack the ability. She hung limply in his arms, with all the strength of a rag doll. Her eyes were slowly closing, as sleep began creeping over her inch by inch.
"You have a name?" Amy asked once Chris put her down on the sand, tying to make her more comfortable than she had been a minute ago.
"I am…" She began, her eyes inches away from closing. "Cosmo." With that she closed her eyes and settled into a troubled sleep.
-
The black market vendors were notoriously temperamental. Ask the wrong questions and they became agitated even violent. They had to be dealt with cautiously. Unfortunately, Vector was not a cautious croc.
"You'd better start talking buddy!" The reptilian mobian grabbed their contact by the shirt and lifted him into the air before Espio could tell him to stop. On the track of the notorious Fang the Sniper, they had a lead that the weasel would try to sell his stolen equipment in this part of town. The black market was the only place anyone could sell Government registered machines without being asked embarrassing questions. Instead of being diplomatic, Vector charged in like a bull in a china shop into the midst of a small drinking pit in the lower half of New York's underbelly, where all customers carried at least one gun. Several of them already reaching for their concealed weapons.
Espio's shuriken were already through the air, pinning arms to tables and walls before someone could reach a trigger.
Refusing to have trouble in his place, the owner had them evicted before bullets could start flying.
"Do you understand the meaning of the word inconspicuous?" Espio asked their fearless leader angrily as they were turned out into the street.
"Ah he didn't know anything." Vector stated fiercely, scratching the end of his snout. "That's the last one then, seems Nack's not going to put goods up for general auction." Espio nodded in agreement as the two of them made way down a street lamp lit road, a few cars passing by. The loud blaring of police sirens off the distance almost omni present by now. "Must be a private contract. Maybe Rei and Beck had some luck?"
"Nack won't have left many trails, he knows better than that." They all knew that. After all, Vector had been the one who first showed the treacherous weasel the ropes.
"If I was Nack, what would I do?" The crocodile asked himself, looking up the starry sky thoughtfully.
"Collect my money and disappear as quickly as possible." Espio commented as they rounded a corner. If they were going to get any worth while information, there was probably only one guy they could see about it. He kept his ear to the ground and if he didn't know about some of the deals going down then no one would.
His name was Swift. A shadowy character, but friendly in his own way. Occasionally he lent Chaotix a bit of information. Of course they could never actually let anyone know that. After all, he had a reputation to maintain and nobody liked a squealer.
Finding a man of skill on short notice was quiet difficult, but Espio was a person of considerable skill himself.
Eventually, they found him at one of his haunts, a dingy basement bar; sitting at the back hall the half dimmed light from above a pool table.
"Information again?" Swift was human, yet he seemed as able to fade away into invisibility as easily as any chameleon. That was what afforded him his name, Swift as the wind; here one minute gone the next.
"As always." Vector aid with a small chuckle, sitting down at the table with him. Swift always had his face hidden, either by a hat or a scarf. This time he wore both. Neither Espio nor Vector had seen his features directly, only the blue eyes that peered at them from out of the gloom.
"Seems information is demand these days, people from all over the city've been trying to pry know how out of me." Swift stated, folding his arms.
"What sort of people?" Espio asked.
"The sort I would do well to avoid if you catch my meaning." Swift answered ominously. "Now, how can I help you today?"
"We need to know if there are deals going down the involve stolen equipment." Swift chuckled.
"You just described half the deals going down just tonight."
"This one involves machinery stolen from a G.U.N base." Espio added.
"Ah, now that's more specific." The human shuffled his chair to make himself more comfortable. "And as it happens, there is something along those lines. As I understand, military hardware is up for underground auction within the week. No one asks how the guy got it in the first place."
"Where, when?"
"The west side docks, two days, midnight. Oh course, you didn't hear from me." Then he got up and began to walk away. In mid stride he turned back. "Cash or credit?" He asked and even under his scarf they could see his smug smile. Chaotix had a long out standing debt with him. His information did not come cheep.
"Put it on our tab." Espio added and within that, Swift disappeared.
Walking out into the night, Espio looked up at he full power half hidden behind a sky scrapper in the distance. All this running around following leads was his life style, but on this one he wanted to cut right to the chase. He wanted Nack's head on a plate.
Mighty had only been sixteen when they undertook that job. Had he known what would happen, Espio would have obeyed his first impulse and let Vector drop it as far too dangerous. It was Nack who finally managed to persuade them all to go after that criminal.
Chaotix had treated Nack like a brother and given him more than an ample share and how did he thank them, by betraying them to extremely dangerous people. The three of them, Vector, Espio and Charmee barley got out of that situation. One of them didn't even get out at all.
"Earth to Espio." Vector began, slapping him on the back of the head. The chameleon shook his head as if to clear his thoughts and looked up. "It's late." The croc added, pointing to his wrist watch. "Come on, let's get back to the office and see if the others turned up anything." Espio just murmured something under his breath as they walked into the entrance of a new street.
Once there, blocking their path were several large human thugs all armed with large pieces of copper pipe, planks of wood and one of them had a knife. All of them were hired goons from the back allies of the city, muscle for most of the criminal organisations.
"Word on the street is you've been asking for Mr. Sniper." One of them stated, repeatedly taping his weapon against his palm, a scowl on his face.
"Mr. Sniper doesn't like to be disturbed." Another added. With a swift flick on his wrist, several shuriken appeared between Espio's fingers.
"And he certainly doesn't like people poking their noses into business that doesn't concern them!" One of them swung a pipe down, Espio dodged out of the way before a spinning piece of metal was sent coursing through the air, pinning his assailants arm to wall.
Vector smashed a punch into one of them who tried to stab a knife in his back, before tackling him to the ground; knocking the man unconscious. The third swung as Espio several times with a plank of wood, before Espio knocked it out of his hand with a flying shuriken before sending him crashing down to the sidewalk with a kick to his chest.
As their assailants lay unconscious, Vector picked himself back up.
"I think our old buddy was trying to send us a message." The crocodile began, dusting himself off.
"That won't stop me." Espio said, crossing his arms. "That scum deserves to be behind bars for the rest of his natural life and I intend to make sure that's exactly what he gets."
Flip card 1:
Name: Leviathan
Description: The third general of Metal X, leader of the Machine Federation Navy.