Inside of the basement of Eggman's base, Luna, Kit, and Teddy were sitting around, as they had been every day for the past two weeks. After Metal Sonic's relentless attacks against them, they had all gotten quite serious injuries, so they had been put into the basement to wait while their injuries healed. From what the trio had overheard through the now fixed basement door, it seemed Metal had been locked in some sort of room by Eggman, which was backed up by the constant horrible scratching metal noises that could be heard
Maybe sitting inside of a basement for so long wouldn't have been so horrible if there was something to do, it actually would have been a nice break from all of the crazy happenings over the previous days. However, upon investigating the basement for himself, Eggman realized that the crates and their contents were how the trio had escaped the basement in the first place. Because of this, he removed all of the crates, the only interesting things in the basement, except for one. This crate was filled with the same food that the trio had been eating for the entirety of their time here
Back to what was currently happening, the trio were all sitting somewhere inside of the basement, their injuries mostly healed at this point. Luna was looking at the wall, which was the only thing she had been doing aside from sleeping for the entirety of her time there, while Kit and Teddy were chatting with each other
"So, do you think we're finally going to get to leave today?" Kit asked
"You've asked that every day so far," Teddy pointed out
"Well, it's the only way I can think of to start a conversation," Kit justified herself. "Plus, we've already exhausted pretty much every other topic, that question is still relevant every time I ask it"
"I guess you're right," Teddy agreed
As Kit had just mentioned, there was pretty much nothing left to talk about after two weeks, but luckily she had found another method to keep herself entertained. Pulling out her sword, she walked past a wall full of carvings, stopping at a large but incomplete one. Despite Eggman taking away all of the crates, Kit still got to keep her sword, which she used to carve things on the walls. These ranged from a smiley face and an "I'm bored" written in rather large letters, all the way to a simple self portrait that was halfway finished
"Whoa, that carving is coming along really nice," Teddy complimented
"Thanks," Kit replied. "It is pretty accurate, if I do say so myself"
The portrait was not very accurate, as it was scratched into a metal floor with a sword by somebody who had quite little art experience, but that wasn't really important. The somewhat decent looking carving already had a completed legs and a torso, so Kit began carving on a right arm to the self depiction. Kit was making the arm much faster than any other part of the carving, as she held her sword with her right arm, and was very excited to make a drawing of a sword with a sword
After watching Kit work on the carving for a while, Teddy eventually went to do his own non-talking activity, which was similar to Kit's carvings in the fact that it destroyed a small part of the basement. Among Kit's many carvings, early on she had created a rudimentary target for Teddy to practice his aim on, which he been using every day. At first, most of his attacks had missed the target entirely, but he noticed he had been improving lately
After sitting down in a nice spot far away enough from the target, Teddy prepared to do a little bit of practicing his aim. Sitting next to him was the plush he had earned when he first completed his training, he had it with him because he wanted to show it how much better he had gotten at aiming since he first won it. While the plushie's little black eyes focused directly on the target, Teddy began charging up an orb to throw in his hand
A few seconds later, Teddy tossed a ball of electricity towards the target, hitting close to the center. He celebrated this for a bit, before walking closer to the target and looking at the target to gauge how much progress he had made over the two weeks he had been in the basement. There were scorch marks all over the target and the area near it from the repeated electrical pulses, and while the original scorches were spread out and all over the place, they slowly got closer to the center and more dark from repeated impacts
Teddy continued attacking the target for a little while, eventually burning a scorch mark quite close to the center of the target, while Kit was finishing up carving a sword with a sword. All the effort that the two had put in their activities had made them quite hungry, so they decided at about the same time to get some food
"Hey, I'm going to get some lunch," Teddy mentioned. "Are you going to get some, too?"
"Yeah," Kit said as she ran over to the crate of food
The two peered into the relatively large crate, who's lid had been taken off and cut into pieces on the first day of being in the basement. Inside was the same food as always, although the amount of items inside was noticeably a bit low
"So, what is it going to be today?" Kit asked, a tinge of excitement in her voice
"Uhh, I'm not sure, I'll have to see what's left in here," Teddy explained as he dipped one of his hands into the crate's contents
After fishing around for a bit, Teddy pulled out an chili dog, a platter with an assortment of objects on it, and a puff pastry, all individually wrapped. To an observer, these all might have actually looked good, but the trio had figured out a long time ago that this was not the case
While everyone did reluctantly eat the terrible food for a few days, Teddy had figured out a way to make it (slightly) better. After the topic of food inevitably came up in conversation at one point, Teddy mentioned that he knew how to cook a few things, to which Kit responded by immediately asking him to improve the food they had
Improving the food in the basement was difficult to do since not a single available thing tasted that good, but Teddy had two main strategies to make it a bit better. The first of these was cooking the ingredients, which he figured out he could do with the electricity from his hand. The second of these was mixing and matching ingredients from different dishes together, which was made easier by Kit using her sword as a cutting utensil
After unwrapping all of the food he had taken from the crate, Kit brought over the largest part of the sliced crate top, where Teddy had been preparing all of his meals. He placed the three items on the makeshift cutting board, and then stared at all of them for a bit trying to think of something to make
"Any ideas yet?" Kit asked enthusiastically while pointing her sword at the board of food
"Um, I think I might have an idea," Teddy replied. "Yeah, that's actually a pretty good one"
The first item Teddy interacted with was the chili dog, which he plucked out of the bun before brushing the sauce off of it and back into the container. Even holding it in his mechanical hand, he could tell it was very rubbery, which he intended to change. Teddy began charging up electricity in his palm, which transferred directly into the hotdog and began frying it
"Oh, what are you going to use that for?" Kit inquired
"It's a surprise," Teddy said as he continued to cook the first ingredient
Electricity wasn't the best method of cooking, but it was manageable. After less than a minute, the sausage had been turned black and crispy, at which point Teddy put it back down. It would probably still taste pretty bad, but at least now it had a more appealing texture. Moving into the next part of his recipe, Teddy picked up the bun with the intention to rip it apart, but he was stopped by Kit before he could
"Wait, can I cut that?" Kit quickly asked
"Oh, sure," Teddy replied as he set the bun face down on the wooden board
With the ingredient in cutting position, Kit quickly readied her sword before steadying the bun and slicing right down the middle of it. The result was two small, long slices of bread, perfect for what Teddy was making. After watching Kit slice the bun, Teddy put another item on the cutting board, which Kit gladly cut into as well
Immediately upon cutting into the puff, what seemed like slime oozed out from both halves, coating Kit's sword in the strange goop. Kit was confused for a second, until she remembered eating the same thing several days ago, which caused the same thing to happen in her mouth
"I know that this recipe is supposed to be a surprise, but really, what do you need this stuff for?" Kit asked, sounding quite confused
"You'll see in just a second, I'm trying to get this done quickly," Teddy explained
Just as he had done with the sauce from the chili dog, Teddy scooped up as much of the slime as he could, putting it into the container of the puff this time. After this, he picked up the two halves of the bun and toasted them one at a time, before placing them down and moving his attention to the only dish he hadn't touched yet, the platter
This platter was, in fact, the same exact one Teddy had eaten before Kit had even joined the team, so he knew a few things about it. The most important of these things was that every single thing on the platter tasted bad, which he had learned from eating every single thing on the platter, so he would have to improve the ingredients the only way he knew how: Frying then with electricity
Teddy picked up all of the lettuce, tomato, and fried shrimp from the platter, cooking all of them before putting them down next to the bun in the case of the vegetables. For the shrimp, Teddy also stripped off the breadcrumbs after cooking them, turning them back into regular old cooked shrimp. After doing all of this, Teddy reached for the small flan, taking the Eggman flag out and grabbing a small chunk of it
"Ooh, that looks sweet!" Kit noted. "I'm sure whatever you're using that for is going to be good"
"Yep, that's the plan," Teddy said as he prepared to work with the flan
Instead of cooking the flan like everything else, Teddy began squishing and shaking it, eventually churning it into a slime similar to that of the slime from the puff. After sufficiently liquifying the flan, Teddy put it into the same container as the puff slime. before turning to Kit
"Hey, can you stir this for me?" Teddy asked
"Huh? Sure," Kit said as she stuck her sword into the two sludges, trying her best to stir the shallow bowl with a quite long sword. It took quite a long time to fully mix everything, but Kit eventually managed to do it, much to Teddy's relief
"Wow, it's actually mixed together pretty well. Hopefully it'll keep working, because I need you to do this one more time," Teddy said as he poured the sludge mixture into the container with the sauce from the chili dog in it
Kit was a little bit annoyed about having to stir something again after the last attempt took quite a bit of work, but she was hungry, so she did it anyways. After a bit, the sludge had mixed itself completely with the much thinner sauce, creating an almost creamy mixture. Upon seeing the finished product for himself, Teddy seemed very happy, picking the bowl up and placing it next to all of the other prepared ingredients
"Ok, I think everything is prepared now, now I just have to put it together," Teddy stated happily
"Heck yeah!" Kit cheered
With everything finally cooked, Teddy started assembling his planned dish, starting by laying down one of the toasted buns. After that, he set down the cooked lettuce and tomato, followed by the crispy hotdog and the cooked shrimps. Lastly, he picked up the bowl full of mixed sauce and poured it over everything, finishing things up by putting the other bun on top
"Tada! This is the... I don't actually know what to call it, but it's a sandwich!" Teddy declared
"I think you should call it a basement sandwich," Kit suggested
"Oh yeah, that is a good idea," Teddy agreed. "Anyways, all that's left to do now before we eat is to cut it up"
"I'm on it!"
Kit raised her sword over her head, but quickly stopped herself and lowered herself down to the level of the sandwich to avoid cutting it unevenly. Holding down the sandwich with one hand, Kit sliced the sandwich into three evenly sized segments, one for each member of the trio
"Alright, now it's time to finally try this thing," Teddy said as he picked up one of the end segments
"I'm sure it's going to be way better than the food would be normally," Kit stated as she grabbed the middle slice of the sandwich
The two bit into the sandwiches at about the same time, and both enjoyed it somewhat. While the meat still didn't have great flavor, it was crispy, which was a huge upgrade from being rubbery. The vegetables and sauce also both added to the texture quite a bit, with the latter also having soaking everything in a bittersweet flavor
Kit and Teddy both finished their sandwiches after a little while, but while Kit went back to working on her sword carving, Teddy stayed where he was. After picking up the last slice of the sandwich he had made, Teddy walked over to Luna, who had been in the same place she had been almost the entire time in the basement
"Hey, Luna, I made a nice sandwich today," Teddy said. "Do you want to try some?"
Luna didn't give a response. She didn't even look in Teddy's direction, but that didn't deter him from setting down the sandwich next to her
"It's ok, you can eat it later," Teddy added on. "Just, actually eat it, please..."
After giving Luna her slice of the sandwich, Teddy went back to the other activities that he had been doing throughout the day, and Kit got tired of working on her sword carving after finishing the other arm. With the two already having done a lot, they decided to take a rest for a little while, just like Luna had been doing
Quite a while later, the basement door opened again, with a robot standing there. However, this robot was not Metal Sonic, it was a light blue colored Eggpawn that had a pointless stethoscope attached to it. This was a doctor robot that had been checking in on the trio daily to see how their injuries were progressing, and while it was kind of annoying when it actually performed it's procedures, it gave something to expect each day, which was a blessing in disguise
"Oh, it's the doctor robot," Teddy said, watching the machine stepping down the stairs
After a little bit, the robotic doctor had made it's way down the stairs, and walked over to Teddy to begin examining his injuries. The worst of Teddy's injuries was to his spine, it hadn't been cracked, but it had been bruised very deeply. He had also hurt his face, but that was less serious, the pain from there had stopped hurting a few days ago
"Preparing examination. Please do not move," The robotic voice said as it held out a scanner and pointed it at Teddy
Teddy sat still while this was happening, looking at the robot as it processed the scans it just took of him. It took a few seconds of beeping and whirring, but eventually the robot finished and turned the scanner around towards Teddy, showing him a screen on the back of the scanner. It showed what looked like an outline of his body, which was all blue except for the front of his head and his middle back, which both had red gradients of varying intensities over them
"Your injuries are... 90% healed," The robot spoke after turning the scanner back towards itself. "Assessment: Capable of all basic activity"
Now that the doctor had finished assessing Teddy, it walked over to Kit, who had been sitting nearby and watching everything happen. She waited patiently, sword still in hand, until it eventually finished. After a few seconds, the robot once again showed a screen with gradients, although it was obviously different from the one that Teddy had been shown
Looking at the screen, Kit could see a gradient on her back as well, but it wasn't as bad as Teddy's. Her arm, however, had a much more severe red gradient on it, as it had been hit directly by Metal Sonic. It still worked fine, but it did hurt whenever Kit moved it, even after two weeks of healing, sword carvings were still a somewhat painful process
"Your injuries are... 98% healed," The doctor robot told Kit. "Assessment: Capable of most intensive activities"
With the other two members of the trio scanned by the robot, it began walking over to Luna, nearly stepping on the sandwich that Teddy had set down next to her. The machine begun the scanning process once again, which was actually helped out by Luna being as still as she could, but even after it was finished she didn't turn around to see the screen. She merely listened to the robotic voice as it gave out the results, which were probably going to barely differ from yesterday's ones
"Your injuries are... 71% healed. Assessment: Continue resting"
Continue resting. That was all the doctor robot had been saying since the first day after the attack. She had continued resting every day, but it wasn't because she was instructed to, it was because she was too stubborn to do anything else. Luna didn't want to spend time with Kit or Teddy, because they were part of the reason she was in this situation in the first place, and she wasn't capable of performing any little things to pass the time because of her hand. So, she continued to rest and bitterly stare at the walls she was trapped in every day, waiting for sleep to come and temporarily free her
The robot wasn't aware of any of this, and even if it was, it probably wouldn't care. Since it had done all it needed to do, it simply walked out of the room, the door opening and closing as it made it's exit. With the one event that happened every day over with, everyone quickly went back to what they were doing before, while the doctor robot made it's way to Eggman's office
From the top of the room, Eggman could hear the entrance door opening up, and the clanking of metal as the doctor robot slowly stepped up the winding staircase. He had actually opened the doors for it the first few times around, but he quickly grew tired of this and simply gave the robot the power to open doors, as he knew the trio wouldn't be able to escape with their injuries
"How are their injuries doing?" Eggman asked the robot, swiveling around in his chair to face it
To respond, the robot simply held up the scanner that it used earlier, the screen slowly cycling through the three gradient scans accompanied with the percentage that each member's injuries had healed. After looking at these screens for a little bit, Eggman sighed and spun back around, almost as annoyed by the trio's slow recovery as they were
"They're all almost healed, except for her," Eggman remarked in annoyance
Eggman continued to make a few relatively slow rotations in his chair, before he eventually stopped completely and got up
"Ugh, I've already waited long enough," He stated as he looked over to a map on his desk with some markings made on it. "I'll start them off on a stealth mission so they won't have to fight, let's hope they don't mess that up"
While the doctor robot stood in place with nothing else to do, Eggman begin going down the path it had gone down earlier, heading to the basement to talk to the trio for the first time in two weeks. The trio were still relaxing after the doctor robot leaving, but that relaxation was quickly interrupted when the schedule they had accustomed themselves to was interrupted by the door opening a second time
Everyone was confused by the door opening once again, as it had never happened before, but they were even more confused once they looked to the doorframe and saw Eggman standing there. They hadn't seen him since he sent them out on their mission to fight against Sonic, which ended up putting them in the situation they were in
"Why are you here?" Kit asked Eggman before he could even speak, sounding both surprised and annoyed
"I'm here to say that I've found a new purpose for all of you," Eggman said as he descended the stairs
"Huh?" Teddy replied confusedly
"Since you failed your original goal of defeating Sonic, I've decided to use you for less combat oriented missions," Eggman explained. "More specifically, you'll be bringing me the Chaos Emeralds"
"We're not collecting anything for you," Luna said as she stood up for presumably the first time in two weeks
"Well, you don't have any choice in the matter. Not unless you feel like spending a lot more time down here"
After Eggman gave that response, Luna gave an angry look to him for a few seconds, before walking close to where Kit and Teddy were standing, still glaring at him
"Any other objections? No? Alright then," Eggman stated smugly. "The mission won't be starting right away, but it will be soon, I just have to organize a few things"
With that, Eggman walked back up the stairs and out of the room, leaving the trio waiting for him to come back and inevitably bring them on a mission. Even though they apparently wouldn't have to fight like last time, nobody was looking forward to going on another mission, especially Luna. With nothing else to do, Kit and Teddy began talking about what Eggman had told them earlier to figure out exactly what kind of mission he had in store for them
"He said that he have to get him the Chaos Emeralds. Even if we don't have to fight to get them, it's probably still going to be really hard to get them," Teddy remarked
"Yeah, does he even know where any of them are right now?" Kit asked
"I don't know, but I hope wherever the emeralds are they're somewhere safe, not inside of a volcano or anything," Teddy half-joked
"It would be cool to go inside of a volcano, though," Kit answered
"I guess, if you're wearing a protective suit. Lava isn't the only part of the volcano that's hot," Teddy explained
"What?"
"Yeah, the lava inside of the volcano would make the rock and air super hot through convection, so you wouldn't be able to run through one or anything like that"
Luna wasn't listening to the tangent that Kit and Teddy we're going on, but she was also wondering about what would be happening on the next mission. No matter what it was, it would be better than just sitting around in the basement, but she still had little idea of what the mission was going to be like. All she knew was that she had to steal a gem and there wouldn't be any fighting, so it was probably going to be at a building of some sort. It sounded pretty boring, but at least she would be able to do it in her injured state
Twenty minutes of waiting later, Eggman walked back into the room, having prepared everything for the trio's newest mission
"Ok, everything is order. Follow me," Eggman said as he walked away without waiting for the trio to actually start moving themselves. They did follow him, as they were eager to get out of the basement, but they were still thinking the same things they were in there
After a walk through the hallway that was much more peaceful then last time, Luna, Kit, and Teddy ended up in a room that they recognized as the room they had been in the night before, except they could actually see the room this time. From the top of the long staircase, they could see tons of different vehicles, such as airships ranging in size and what seemed like an entire army of robots
"Huh, so I guess that's what this room looks like," Kit said as she peered over the balcony of the staircase
While Teddy did think the room looked rather impressive, the sight of all of the airships made him feel really uncomfortable, especially the ones that looked exactly like the one that had destroyed his home. After a few seconds, he decided to just stop looking over the railing and focus on getting to wherever he was supposed to go
The trio continued to follow Eggman down the stairs, able to now see everything they were walking past, before Eggman eventually arrived in front of a vehicle. It seemed like another airship from a distance, or perhaps even the same one, but upon getting closer the trio could actually see that it had wheels on it
"We're going in a car? Man, the drive is going to be a lot longer this time," Kit said dissapointedly
"Incorrect," Eggman replied to Kit. "While you are traveling in a car, your destination is much closer this time, so the ride won't be that much longer"
Having informed the trio that the ride to their destination wouldn't take long, Eggman actually began the first step of their ride by opening the door to the vehicle, which opened the same way the airship had. All three members of the trio stepped inside, and even before the interior lights turned on, they could tell the seating arrangement was quite different from the airship
From the dim light coming in through the open door, the trio could see that the seats inside of the car were arranged like they would be in a bus or a plane. The seats also looked comfier and larger than the two long seats on the airship, which wasn't a very high bar to cross, but it was still nice that it was there
Once everyone was inside of the vehicle, Eggman closed the door and the interior lights came on once again, although they weren't nearly as blinding this time. Now that the vehicle was ready to drive, Luna, Kit, and Teddy all walked over to the nearest seats to sit down. However, before they actually did, Teddy noticed something that upset him
"Oh no, the rows of seats only have two each," Teddy pointed out. "We won't all be able to sit in the same row"
Without saying a word, Luna walked over from the row of seats that the two were standing at to the one directly across it and sat down in the closer of the two seats. She mostly did this because she still wanted to be left alone by Kit and Teddy, but it did solve the seating problem as well, so it benefited everyone
"Uh, thanks Luna," Teddy said, a bit surprised by Luna's immediate decision to sit in another row
With that issue solved, Teddy sat down himself, choosing the seat in the row that was further out
"Here, you can have the window seat," Teddy told Kit
"Oh, are you sure?" Kit asked, still standing in the middle of the vehicle
"Yeah, it'll give you a nice view during the ride, and you can see where we're going," Teddy insisted
"Thank you, that's really nice," Kit replied as she walked over to the window seat
During this conversation, Luna had heard Teddy mention being able to see where they were going, which prompted her to immediately switch to the window seat of her row. Instead of simply getting up and walking to the other seat, she practically did a small leap from her chair to the other one, which was easy considering none of the chairs had any armrests
At the other row of seats, Kit and Teddy were both sitting comfortably in their seats, with Kit already looking out the window despite not being able to see much. While he wouldn't have much to do for the duration of the ride, Teddy was quite happy simply sitting in his seat, as having something relatively soft to lean against made his injured back feel much better
A little after everybody had settled into their seats, the vehicle's engine turned on and Eggman's voice once again played through a speaker system, although it didn't seem pre-recorded this time
"To be honest, a bus is much more simple to ride in than an airship, so you should already know how to handle this," Eggman stated
Despite the trio wondering whether the announcement Eggman made was really necessary or not, they did somewhat agree with what he was saying, they just needed to sit back and enjoy the ride. The vehicle began slowly moving through the hangar area, eventually going outside and allowing Kit and Luna to see a beautiful forest
While Kit was enjoying the view as the bus slowly moved along, Luna felt off looking at the nearby forest. She knew it was the forest outside Eggman's base, that was obvious, but there was something else about the specific area that the vehicle was going through that felt odd. Eventually, after several minutes of slowly driving along and watching the familiar trees pass by, it dawned on Luna: The bus was headed to the city from before