Chapter 2- Fun With Plastics
Two years earlier Hydrocity 5:00 AM
There was still plenty of time to pick the lock that would lead to the entrance into the dungeon, but Charmy the Bee didn't want to take this operation slowly. Sure, he didn't have the legendary impatience of Sonic the Hedgehog, or his intense hydrophobia, but Charmy still felt antsy about being at the bottom at the deepest chasm in Hydrocity.
A fast acting acid worked just as well as a lock pick. After a satispfying hissing sound, the lock felt apart and it took just a small push to get that door open. There was nothing inside he didn't expect. Just a dark water cavern. He swam through the dark abyss in a hurry. It took just a minute until he found air. According to Charmy's source, the dungeon would be dry from here on in. That being the case, he removed his scuba suit and threw it in his bag full of equipment.
"Weird," Charmy thought. "Here I am at the bottom of the Floating Island, exploring a dungeon even Knuckles doesn't know about, looking for a treasure he definitely has no idea even exists. The only one who knows about this place is the guy that asked me to come here. Speaking of which, I'd better call him and tell him what's up."
Charmy switched on his communicator, "Tails. Hey, Tails! You there? Tails? I guess I'm not reaching him."
He was wrong. Charmy's voice was loud and clear on the speakers in the sea fox, but the only one who could hear him wasn't in any position to listen. The two-tailed fox who commanded his submarine, the sea fox, was sound asleep inside. He was leaning back in his chair and snoring. His feet were rested on the controls of the cockpit. A snot bubble blew out of his nose, never straying from the source, but going in and out with the rhythm of the snoring.
"Wait a minute. What's that noise?" Charmy could hear the snoring coming through his communicator.
"Wake up, Tails!" Charmy shouted through his mike.
The kitsune awoke and jumped out of his seat. "AAAAAH! We're under attack!" he cried. "Must fire torpedoes!"
"No, Tails. It's fine," came a voice from the speakers. Tails immediately identified it as Charmy's.
"Oh. Hey, Charmy. What's up?" Tails was glad they weren't on video link. He didn't need Charmy to see him freak out.
"Well, I'm in the dungeon and my so-called "guide" decided to take a nap on me."
"Can you blame me? I've been up all night."
"You were the one who decided to head down here at this hour."
"I had to pick this time. It's the safest time to go crash the Floating Island without Knuckles finding us. I really don't want him to know that we're here."
"Yeah, I know. Knux sure does like to roll out the welcome mat."
"If the welcome mat says "scram" on it, then yeah, he does.
"OK, Charmy, I'm awake now. What's your status? Tell me what you see."
"All right," Charmy paused to choose the right words to describe his surroundings. "Well, you were right that the cave is full of air, but it's not from any natural means. There's a wall of water behind me frozen in place. Must have been some kind of spell meant to keep this place dry. The sea should be rushing into this cave, but it's not."
"That makes sense," Tails said as he rubbed his chin. "The ones who built this dungeon obviously wanted to keep the contents protected from water damage." Tails looked at the computer monitor in front of him which presented him with a complete layout of the Hydrocity caverns. He spotted a red blinking spot which showed Charmy's location.
"Ok, Charmy. I know where you are now. I'm looking at the map in front of me. You're gonna make a left at the next turn. After that, you'll see a stair well. Take the stairs down. It's a long way down, so it'll take you about ten minutes until you reach the bottom. Call me back when you get to the bottom."
"OK. Just don't fall asleep on me, man."
"Wouldn't dream of it."
Somehow, Charmy knew Tails was smirking when he said that.
"I'm serious. You have to stay alert in case I need you. Remember, you're my eyes and ears down here."
"Yeah, I'm also your mouth, so just shaddup and keep moving,"
Charmy wasn't offended by Tails' last comment. Obviously, he was joking. Tails never told anybody to shut up before. Hell, Tails never even seriously insulted anybody in his life. Except for Robotnik and his badniks, of course. "But if Tails was going to start telling people to shut up, he would most likely start with a motor mouth like me," Charmy chuckled to himself as he continued on in the dungeon.
His light wasn't necessary anymore. There were torches lining all the dungeon walls. Various hieroglyphics and symbols decorated the stone walls. Charmy wasn't an archeologist, but he didn't need to be one to get a feel of this dungeon's mood. There were pictures of skulls, serpents, demonic beasts, and people getting engulfed in fire. That kind of stuff. Sure enough he got to the stairwell. Just as he thought, the bottom of the stairwell was too far down to see. Even throwing a torch down there didn't help. It just got swallowed by the blackness. "Maybe I should throw some of these explosives down there," Charmy smiled to himself. "But, no. I should really save these for later." His smile now wore off as he descended the haunting looking stairwell.
"Charmy should be heading down there by now," Tails thought to himself. "Good. Now maybe I can just relax for at least a few more minutes." He stretched out his arms and let out a big yawn. It wasn't that Tails was really that tired. He was just feeling really relaxed. He felt so tranquil being at the bottom of this underground sea. It was so quiet, so peaceful. Tails really didn't get what Sonic's problem with water was, anyway. "Why doesn't that guy just learn to swim? Maybe I should teach Sonic how to swim. That should be interesting." Tails mused to himself.
"Hey, Tails," The vulpine's zoning out was interrupted once again by the bee.
"Did you get to the bottom yet, Charmy?"
"I think I'm almost there, but I was just thinking. Whoever set this dungeon up, don't you think they'd leave something to be guarding the treasure? You know, like some huge monster or something?"
"A monster?" Tails didn't even think about the idea of having a monster encounter. It was certainly possible.
"You're right. There could be something around here for us to deal with. At the very least, there could be some booby traps waiting for you. But if you just watch your step, I'm sure you'll be fine."
"Easy for you to say. You're not the one doing all the dungeon delving here."
Tails tried to explain. "You know I have to stay outside so I can monitor everything. But you know, Charmy, you're the best one fit for this job. Remember, you're a bee. It's a bee's job to gather nectar and make honey, and that's exactly what we're doing here. Except we're gonna make something a lot sweeter than honey." Tails smiled to himself, pleased with his pep talk he just gave. He hoped it would be as effective as Sonic's encouragements were on him. If he could've seen Charmy's face though, he'd know it wasn't really appreciated.
"I don't see why I couldn't bring Vector and Espio down here to help me out."
"Oh, believe me. They have their own really important mission."
Meanwhile, on the surface of Angel Island, Vector the crocodile and Espio the chameleon poked their heads out of the bushes to observe their target unseen.
"This is really boring Espio. This is probably the most boring mission I've ever done," Vector growled.
"Why are you complaining already, Vector," Espio the chameleon whispered back. "We've only been here about ten minutes."
"Because I don't think anything's going to happen," Vector answered in a loud whisper. "That echidna is out like a light." Vector was referring to Knuckles the echidna, who was fast asleep at the top of the Master Emerald shrine.
"You know, there's no point in whispering if you're just gonna do it loudly," Espio whispered back "Seriously, it's like you want Knuckles to wake up or something."
Vector shrugged. "At least that'd give us something to do."
"All right. I got an idea," Espio put his arm around Vector and drew him close to his face. "Tails wants us to keep an eye on Knuckles so he won't find out about his screwing around on the Island."
"Yeah. So?"
"So, my crocodile friend. All we really have to do is get Knuckles out of the way. What we could do is we'll grab sleeping beauty up there and haul him off somewhere where he won't be anywhere near us."
"And then Tails and Charmy can mess around as much as they want."
"Exactly. Now doesn't that sound like a lot more fun?"
"Well, yeah, but are you sure we can grab Knux without waking him up?"
No, problem. "You see," Espio explained, "Knuckles is a very deep sleeper. These guardians are all trained so that whenever some huge bruiser decides to crash onto the Floating Island and call himself King of the Mountain, the guardian proceeds to get in his face and open a can of whoop-ass. You see, the reason this is so, is because the echidnas are very honorable people. They couldn't even imagine someone would sneak into their territory and nab an emerald without challenging the guardian to a fight. That leaves guys like Knuckles completely open to deception and stealth. I mean, look at how many times Robotnik has tricked Knuckles already. The point is, once we make our move, Knux'll never know what hit him."
Back in the depths of Hydrocity, Charmy reached the bottom and found himself facing a thick, iron door. "This must be it," he said with excitement. "Time to roll out the plastic explosives."
"OK, Charmy, once you blow open that door, you'll be inside the treasure chamber." Tails told him.
"Gotcha, Tails," Charmy set up the plastic explosives. He was going to enjoy this bang. Charmy always enjoyed a good explosion. The rest of the chaotix were no different. In fact, it was probably this reason why this was the first job Vector chose to take where money wasn't promised. He remembered when Tails showed up at the detective agency yesterday.
Flashback
Tails opened the door to the Chaotix Detective Agency to see a familiar sight. Vector was sleeping in front of his desk, despite the fact that his headphones were blasting into his ears. Espio was sitting in the corner in the lotus position, meditating, and Charmy was most likely inside the locker.
"Hey, guys!" Tails shouted as he burst in with a smile and a wave.
Vector got up from his desk and looked down at Tails with a scowl. "I didn't order a wake up call," he snarled.
"Yeah, but I got a job for you. A really good one, too."
Espio's eyes opened up and his ears perked up with interest. Charmy also heard what was going on and flew towards Tails to hear the details.
Vector just drew his face closer to Tails, that same crocodile scowl met with the fox's exuberant smile. "You got money?" That was all he needed to ask.
"Well," Tails tried to explain, rubbing his fingers together, "I don't actually have any money on me...," His voice trailed off at that point.
"What?" Vector prodded him. "Speak up, sonny."
"But instead, I can give you guys all kinds of cool gadgets!"
"What kind of gadgets?" Espio inquired.
"Oh, you know," Tails said."All the cool stuff hardcore spies and detectives use. Surveillance equipment, utility belts, gas pellets, x-ray specs, tracking devices, cars that transform into other things, ummm…,"
"Explosives!" Charmy interrupted.
"Yeah! Explosives!" Tails agreed. "All kinds of bombs. Mini grenades, big grenades, grenade launchers, those pens that explode when you click them, incendiaries, napalm…"
At this point, both Charmy's and Tails' faces were grinning pretty widely.
Vector shook his head. "It's a good thing Bean isn't here. His mouth would be foaming if he heard this."
"OK. So back to the point," said Tails."It seems like you're all interested in this job. If that's the case, we set out for the Floating Island tomorrow. Our objective is to seek out a hidden mystical treasure deep within the Island. So well kept is this secret treasure that no echidna ever knew of its existence. If we can get it, I could really get to work on building some insane hi-tech inventions!"
End Flashback
"Tails never did mention to us how he knew about this treasure or its location," Charmy thought as he applied the plastic explosives to the door. "Maybe I'll have to ask him about that later. Still, it's great to have Tails around as our techie guy. Every detective should have one. He's like Q to our James Bond. Maybe we should make him an honorary Chaotix member."
Inside the sea fox, Tails was having thoughts of his own. "Maybe I should have told them more about this treasure and how I found out about it. These guys would be able to understand what I'm trying to do here. I guess I'll tell them everything when we get out of here."
Suddenly, the tranquility of the sea fox was disturbed by a violent shaking. "Whoa! Maybe I should make that if we get out of here!" Tails tried to gain his balance to look and see what was going on. He looked outside the window to see that his submarine was now in the jaws of a huge sea serpent. "Damn! I guess Charmy was right to worry about monsters." Getting a steadier look through the window, Tails noticed it was a two-headed hydra. One head already had the sea fox in the grasp of its jaws. The other head was getting ready to tear the submarine apart. Tails started to feel a cold sweat pour down his face. "To tell the truth, I really wouldn't mind doing something more boring right now, like Vector and Espio's job."
---
Vector and Espio had managed to carry the unconscious Knuckles all the way to Carnival Night Zone.
"This is going so great, Espio. The poor shmuck has barely budged."
"It's all about the ninja skills, my friend. But where should we take him?"
"Ha! There's a reason I chose to go to Carnival Night Zone," The crocodile laughed, pointing to one of those black carnival cannons.
"Oh, yeah. Those things can fire a body pretty far."
"And after we throw Knuckles in here, it'll be a one way ride all the way to the Ice Caps."
They slid Knuckles into the cannon and then prepared to fire.
"Wait a minute, Vector. You hear that?"
There was movement coming from the inside the cannon.
Vector's eyes were wide with panic. "Oh, crap! He's awake!"
Knuckles hands and arms popped out of the cannon. He had a menacing look on his face.
"All right! You bozos better start explaining to me just what this is all about!"
"He's mad, Espio!"
"You better not touch that thing, Espio!" Knuckles demanded.
"Sorry, Knux, but you're clearly in no position to talk. It looks like you could use a vacation," Espio told him calmly.
He pulled the firing mechanism, causing Knuckles to shoot out into the sky.
"AAAAARRRGHHH!" the echidna cried, as he disappeared into the stratosphere.
"He'll be mad as a hornet when he gets back, won't he?" Espio asked, with the straightest face he could make.
"Hopefully, we'll be off the island by then." Vector said as he looked up and watched Knuckles vanish with a twinkle.
"All right!" Charmy clapped his hands, "we're ready to blow this thing!" The bee stood back at a safe distance as the door blew apart into fragments. The blast sent a rush of wind past Charmy. There was a large cloud of dust hanging in the air, preventing the bee from looking inside the chamber. "I don't know what's in there, but I've got lots of C-4 if I need it," he said as he proudly patted his pack that was filled with C-4.
The dust started to clear. As more dust settled, Charmy grew more excited. "Wow! I've done it! I've found the secret treasure chamber! I've struck gold! I've struck silver! I've struck…" The dust was cleared away at this point. "…a library?"
Tails was racking his brain, looking for a solution to this dilemma. "This thing is gonna tear everything apart. I've gotta do something quick." Water started leaking into the sub and the monstrous teeth were piercing deeper into the metal. "One chance. I'll have to use all of this vessel's power to break free." He frantically pressed every important looking button surrounding him. Not out of desperation, but to bring everything to full power. The engines started to roar to life. The beast, which now had both heads biting into the sea fox, one at each end, didn't seem to notice or care. "Blast off!" It was a struggle at first. The sub wasn't breaking free and the serpent had no intention of letting go. "Maybe you just need a distraction." Tails launched a pair of torpedoes. It didn't matter what they hit, so long as they made a lot of noise. The torpedoes detonated into the rock formations of the chasm. The explosions did as they were intended to do. The serpent let go of the sub to react to this new threat. Rocks started to fall from all directions. One particularly big one landed right on the creature's head. Tails heard it let out an unnatural howl. It turned its gleaming yellow eyes towards the sub, figuring out that the vulpine inside was responsible for this chaos. "This is going to be bad, but at least I'm free."
Charmy stood in the treasure chamber surveying his surroundings. He didn't expect to find nothing but a pile of old books and scrolls. From the looks of the place, it appeared to be an ancient library. The walls were lined with bookshelves. Most of them were empty, with the exception of some old, musty tomes lying around in a disorganized fashion. Candles were placed around the room in a circle, casting a dim, flickering light. "Those candles must have been burning for centuries." There was a table in the center of the room. On it were more books and scrolls. Charmy felt strange as he approached the table. It was as if they were letting off some kind of aura. Charmy's eyes widened. "So that's what this is all about," he lifted up one of the scrolls and unrolled it. It was written in a script he had never seen before. "Musty old books, eternal flames, walls of water, crazy runes and sigils. These must be magical texts. Tails must be trying to add some magic to his creations. I'd better tell him that I found it."
Tails wasn't in a good position to hear Charmy's good news. The sea fox was flying through the water, with the two-headed monster in fast pursuit.
"Tails. I got the treasure!" Charmy's voice entered the sea fox.
"Oh. That's great, Charmy," he wasn't sure if Charmy heard him with the background noise of that creature's incessant howling. "I hope I'll still be alive to enjoy it."
"Hey, what's going on out there. I hear noises. Is a gigantic sea serpent trying to eat you or something?"
"Wow, Charmy. You're good." Then an idea hit him. "Charmy, I'm coming in there. Just stay there, OK?"
"What? All right."
The dungeon entrance wasn't really big enough for the sea fox to fit through, but Tails was running out of options. The drill at the front of the sea fox was already active and he used it to plow through anything in the way. The monster used its own stubbornness and strength to do the same. He was constantly checking the map of the dungeon on his monitor, looking for when he would be right above the treasure chamber. He also constantly looked back to see how close the serpent was to him.
"You shouldn't have come here," A voice growled in the vulpine's head.
"Was that the serpent? Did that thing just talk to me? So it must be telepathically communicating with me. Right now, I don't have time to talk."
Tails finally pinpointed his location as being directly above Charmy. "Time to go down," he declared as he drilled straight down through the earth, leaving a large hole in his wake. The serpent went down the hole, too, crushing everything that got in its way.
"He probably wants me to take all the ones lying on this table." Charmy stuffed everything he could fit into a large bag. Now he was carrying two bags. One was filled with mystical scrolls, and the other with lots of explosives. "I don't think I can really carry all this stuff. It was very nice of Tails to come down here and help."
The bee stood still and looked at his watch, waiting for Tails to show up. He was standing perfectly still, until something caused him to fall backwards. Charmy then realized that the room was vibrating. He noticed a lot of rumbling coming from above. Then, the ceiling started to crack. Water began dripping down into the chamber. "Yeah, this doesn't look good."
The ceiling exploded as water gushed in. Charmy ran for cover.There was nowhere to run, and so Charmy was swalowed up by the fraging flood. He swam up to the surface and gasped for air. "What the Hell is going on?" he asked. His answer came in the form of the sea fox plunging in, as the room became almost fully submerged in water. The submarine's cockpit opened up and Tails poked his head out.
"Charmy! Hurry up and get in!" Tails called out.
"Coming," Charmy flew towards the sea fox holding up both bags.
"Leave the bag with the explosives behind you," Tails commanded. "Just take the bag with the scrolls."
"Whatever you say, man," Charmy did as Tails said and left the bag full of explosives behind him as he flew into the sea fox. The sub shut its doors just in time. The chamber was now fully submerged underwater.
"That was a pretty crazy entrance, Tails. I guess subtlety isn't for you," Charmy grumbled.
"Well, you know. When you're being chased by monsters, you end up doing a lot of crazy things."
"Monsters?"
As if on cue, the two-headed hydra descended into the chamber.
Charmy's jaw dropped open. "Holy Crap! That thing is huge!"
"I know. Don't remind me."
"So, what are we gonna do?"
"Watch and learn," Tails smirked. He pressed another of his buttons and fired a harpoon out of the sea fox, impaling the creature in one if its necks, lodging it into the chamber walls. The monster screamed and writhed in pain as its blood swam through the water.
"That should hold him down, at least for a little while," Tails said triumphantly.
The sea fox moved into the upright position and exited the chamber through the hole in the ceiling that it made.
"That monster is gonna escape and come after us. We've got to kill it!" Charmy protested.
"We're going to do that right now," Tails assured him. "But I need you to handle the torpedoes."
"I was waiting for you to say that."
"Just make sure that the torpedoes can get through this hole and back in the room with all the explosives. Press the button that sends the torpedoes to fire backwards."
"I get it now. We use the torpedoes to detonate the explosives we left behind, turning the sea serpent into sushi. Good thinking, Tails."
Charmy readied the mechanisms and fired two torpedoes down the hole. While the torpedoes raced towards the chamber, the serpent used its free head to yank the harpoon out of its neck. It was bleeding profusely, but it was too angry to care. It just wanted revenge, but before it could chase after the sub through the whole, the torpedoes came shooting in. One of them made a direct hit on Charmy's pack of C-4. The explosion sent a devastating shock wave throughout the dungeon. The force sent the sea fox smashing into the rocky walls, right and left.
"Oh, my God! There's a gigantic fireball headed straight for us. Go faster, Tails!"
"This is the fastest we can go!" Tails cried out. He could sense the area glow red from the fireball that was traveling closer and closer to them.
"Oh, man! What do we do? What do we do?"
"I don't know! Just scream at the top of your lungs. It'll remove tension."
"Great idea! AAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!"
"And brace yourself!" Tails added. He clenched his hands as hard as he could on the wheel. Maybe it couldn't actually make him go faster, but it felt like it could.
The sea fox shot out of the caves and made its way into the open waters. The explosion destroyed everything behind it. The fireball from the explosion was still hot on the sub's trail.
"Holy Crap!" Charmy cried and he grabbed onto Tails' tails.
""Owww! Don't pull on those!" Tails yelped.
They both screamed as loud as they could. They kept screaming until the sea fox breached the surface of the waters. The journey going up would have ended there, but the force of the explosion sent the waters shooting up like a geyser, with the sea fox resting on top.
"We're headed straight for the top ceiling of Hydrocity. I'm gonna aim the drill at it and fire another torpedo," Tails announced.
"Please," Charmy begged. "I can't take any more explosions." He looked like he was ready to vomit.
"Charmy, please don't barf in the sea fox right now," Tails warned him.
The torpedo blasted into Hydrocity's rocky ceiling and the sea fox's drill burrowed through whatever was still intact. The gushing of the water propelled the sub out of Hydrocity and into the open air.
"We're falling aren't we?" Charmy asked calmly. His eyes were half closed.
"Yup," Tails responded, also in a relaxed manner. "We're falling."
"Wanna bail?"
"After you."
The sea fox's cockpit opened up and the duo leapt out into the air carrying the bag of books in tow. Using their natural flying abilities, they hovered in the air and watched the sea fox crash into the ground of Marble Garden. It landed on a steep hill and kept on rolling down the grassy hill, banging into different obstacles along the way, finally landing on a flat plain of grass.
Tails and Charmy slowly hovered to the ground to observe the wreckage. Tails glanced up and down and stroked his chin. "You know, the sea fox doesn't look that bad," he explained to Charmy. "Repairing it shouldn't be a problem."
Suddenly, and enormous spiked ball of metal attached to a chain swung around and smashed into the sea fox, sending it on another course down the hills. Its descent was stopped as it impaled itself on one of the many beds of spikes that frequented Marble Garden.
"No," Charmy said as he shook his head. "That thing is gone."
"Oh, well," Tails sighed with a smile. "That was my second sea fox anyway. I guess it was just time to build a third. In the meantime, let's just go back to meet with Vector and Espio."
Tails and Charmy both walked along the Marble Garden pathways, enjoying the cool, morning air, happy that nothing was requiring them to run for their lives.
It didn't take long for them to walk back to the X-Tornado, but the meeting place was missing one crocodile and a chameleon.
"That's odd," Tails said as he scratched his head." Vector and Espio were supposed to meet us here. Did something happen to them?
"Maybe they went looking for snacks," Charmy suggested.
"Could be. In the meantime, I want to take a look at some of these scrolls."
Tails opened the bag and dumped out some scrolls. He unrolled one particularly large scroll and glanced at it. Charmy looked on with him. The texts were written in a strange archaic language.
"Can you read that stuff, Tails?"
"Kinda. It's an ancient kitsune language, used amongst my ancestors. I've been studying it a lot lately. You see this scroll here is an astronomical text, complete with star charts of different galaxies. The crazy thing is that this must have been written before space travel. From the looks of these diagrams, their work is very accurate. "
"You're thinking of going into outer space?"
"Mmmmmaybe."
Rustling came from the bushes behind them. Charmy turned around, but Tails was too engrossed in his reading to pay attention. Vector and Espio burst out of the bushes in a panic. They looked as if they trampled by a herd of elephants.
"Tails. Charmy," Vector panted. "Look out. You're gonna get clobbered."
"Not now, Vector," Tails dismissed him with a wave of his hand, not even looking up from the scroll.
His concentration was broken by a tap on the shoulder. Tails pulled the scroll down away from his face.
Knuckles was standing in front of him. He was dripping wet and shivering. He didn't look very happy.
"Knuckles, what happened to you?" Tails asked. "Did you go skinny dipping with penguins or something?"
It was at that moment that a union took place between a fox face and an echidnan fist.
End Chapter 1