Chapter 3
Shadow was the first to raise his head above the surface of the water upon arriving at the entrance Omega and Cyber had led the group to. After ensuring that there were no suprises in store for them, he motioned for the others to surface as well. Raccoon instinctively shook himself dry after he surfaced, spraying all of the others in the process before realizing what he had done. Rouge gave him an angry glare as he just sheepishly shrugged. "Great hiding spot. Can't sneak in here without your shoes starting to squish." Jack noted, as he wrang the water out of Cyber's hat. The Wisps exited the Wispons they had been carried in, and Cyber's Burst Wisp began applying some heat to her hat. "It also makes our allies easy to trace." Shadow said, noting the water trail leading out the hall.
Following the trail soon lead the group to Omega and Cyber's hiding spot, where they seemed to be spying on some sort of assembly on the floor below. "What'd you guys find?" Jack asked, handing Cyber's hat back to her. "!" She replied as she placed it on her head. Rouge and Shadow waited for Jack to translate. "ECS Units, working on some sort of metal material." Omega piped in, not even taking his eyes off the ground below. "You can understand her?" Rouge asked. "Affirmative. I reactivated that function while she repaired me."
"Why was it even off?" Shadow asked. "Why would I leave it on? Egg Pawns don't make much conversation." Omega responded, with Cyber nodding in agreement. Jack put his goggles back on and used their magnification function to scan across the room. "Definitely ECS Units...But why are they active?" Jack said, confused. "What do you mean?" Shadow asked. Jack handed his goggles over to Shadow. "See those data ports on the tops of their heads? When plugged in, it keeps their bodies in a sort of suspended animation, reduces weight loss and muscle atrophy while they wait to be deployed. That's the state we find most of them in."
"But these guys are up and active." Shadow noted, taking a closer look through the goggles. "And they have been for a while, judging by how thin some of them are..." Shadow trailed off before handing Jack's goggles back to him. "So who reactivated them, and why?" Shadow began pacing in thought. "Do you have any methods to free them from Eggman's control?" Jack pulled a small, round device out of one of his belt pouches. "Attaching one of these to the data port frees them from the network's control. We just need to get one close enough." With that, Shadow blipped away in a flash of light, before reappearing seconds later with an ECS Unit in tow. "Will this one do?"
"Um...Yeah, just...Get him sitting down." Jack said, as he got the device attached to the ECS Unit's data port. Shadow noticed Cyber seeming oddly excited about something. "Uh, are you-?" he started, confused, before she seemed to get embarrassed about her actions. "Looks like someone has a fangirl." Rouge said, teasingly. Shadow cracked a small smile. "5 T-shirts, huh? Didn't even know they made that many."
"Alright, he's waking up." Jack called over. Shadow observed the ECS Unit he had picked out. An orange cat with black stripes, not as thin as many of the others working below. Probably had more to lose before he got put to work. Although some worry showed on his mechanical eyes, tinged with a light shade of blue by the device's patch, there was some sort of odd calm behind them, as if he had just been lounging on a lazy afternoon. "Ugh, what happened? Where am I?" he asked, finally speaking. "The short version? You died in the war, got revived as a cyborg by Eggman, and now some wacko was using you for slave labor." Rouge replied. Even Shadow and Omega seemed shocked by her bluntness, but the cat was unphased. "Ah, figures it would be something like that. Must've happened on a Monday. I always hated Mondays..."
"Do you know anything about what you were assigned to build?" Jack asked. "You know, now that you mention it, I think it's coming back to me. Been making a lot of specific parts. Arms, legs..." The cat started to trail off, as if distracted by something. "And? What were these parts for?" Shadow asked, almost demanding. Cyber stepped forward, concerned. "?"
"NO! GET...GET OUT OF MY HEAD!" The cat began crying out, holding his head in his hands. "CONCENTRATE! What were you BUILDING!?" Shadow asked again, grabbing the cat by the shoulders. Cyber started pulling a cable out from under her hat before the cat's head swayed back. "Y-You."