WOAH! Guess who's back! So, so sorry for the length of time this update took, and that it's not longer. Life's crazy right now, for obvious reasons, but things are looking up over here and I'm finally in a place to start writing again.
Anyway, here's chapter seven! I remember my dad once complaining about the novel Great Expectations, saying that "all that book is a bunch of suffering. Nothing good ever happens." I promise this one won't be like that! But...there will be a little more suffering, lol.
Also, one part of this chapter reminded me of something that I don't think I've really mentioned yet, but in this sort of semi-AU we're working with here, all of the main characters are slightly aged up. So Sonic, Sally, and the rest are around their early to mid 20's, while Tails (disregarding his mechanical nature) appears to be around 16-17. It's not super pertinent to the plot, but hopefully that helps explain why they're more involved in government affairs.
Now, on with the show and I hope you enjoy!
o~o~o~o
Antoine had learned the hard way in his life that forming an opinion too quickly could be costly. Friendly faces could hide cold hearts, and conversely, those who shut you out may prove later to be steadfast and loyal companions.
Nevertheless, the coyote decided that he rather liked Dr. Bluth, the man who had met them upon their arrival at what they now knew to be the Iron Gate Military Intelligence Compound (or, as one of their pilot escorts had called it, "Iron Mike"). The lynx carried himself with confidence and poise, but retained an air of congeniality that made him approachable rather than intimidating. He was an understated sort of man from a physical standpoint; Antoine guessed he must have stood around 5'7", but his lithe form ensured a gate that invoked a graceful disposition. His lab coat was pressed and shone a brilliant white, with a clipboard secured squarely under his arm.
"A pleasure to meet you both," he had commented upon their introduction, "I've heard much about the illustrious Freedom Fighters, but this is my first time seeing any of you in the flesh!"
And if Antoine's chest puffed out slightly in pride, well, who could blame him?
The pair of them now found themselves following Dr. Bluth through a veritable wonderland of high-tech machinery and equipment. Bluth had explained that, although this location was indeed used as a base for the United Federation's airborne forces, it primarily served as a major arm of the nation's military research and development, with a particular focus on both the combat and civilian applications of chaos energy.
"Not that I don't appreciate having you," Bluth began as they narrowly avoided a collision with a distracted research assistant, "But I highly doubt you risked getting shot out of the sky purely for a social visit."
"Zat is true," Antoine responded, "We are to be acting as official representatives of His Majesty. Zere is a matter of national security to discuss."
The man nodded, his face now one of strictly business, "Unfortunately, I expected as much. This is my office," he said as he stopped near a nondescript wooden door and pulled a key card from one of his seemingly millions of pockets, "We can speak more privately here."
Upon entering, the researcher's workstation was certainly a far cry from what the two Freedom Fighters might have expected. A less charitable person might have called it cramped. Stuffed into every nook and corner of the space were various and seemingly unrelated knick-knacks. Model military planes adorned shelves lining the eastern wall; degrees, certifications, and awards hung proudly and covered the western one; a bust of who-knows-who rested in the corner next to a bag of golf clubs; and in the center of it all sat a large, ornate desk covered in all manner of maps, files, sticky notes, and office supplies.
It seemed that recent developments had been putting strain on more than just the Kingdom.
"Now," he began, settling down behind his desk, "While I'm not exactly on the front lines, as the head of a military R&D department, the President is somewhat obligated to keep me in the loop regarding international relations. I've heard rumblings that the situation with Robotnik has become quite a bit more difficult lately. I assume this is related?"
"Oui," Antoine said with a nod, "Rest assured, monsieur, ze United Federation eez in no direct danger. We are merely to ascertain ze location of ze Chaos Emeralds to ensure zey are being safely kept."
"We spoke with Knuckles recently," Bunnie continued, "He told us that he felt an energy signature in this region, and when we learned your base was here, we figured that you would be the ones containing it."
"You would be correct," the lynx responded, "You'll be happy to know that the Emerald is being held with special containment procedures within one of our basement sub-levels. All due precautions have been taken, I can promise you that."
"That's fantastic to hear. May we see it?" Bunnie questioned, her voice laced with just a touch of that Rabbot charm Antoine had come to recognize, "Not that we don't trust y'all, but we were given this job by King Max, and I'm sure he would want us to be thorough."
Bluth raised an eyebrow, but responded with a playful smile of his own.
"Of course."
o~o~o~o
At first, Tails merely stood staring down the barrel of the laser cannon, frozen in shock. Being discombobulated from his sudden return to consciousness was bad enough, but having to deal with an imminently life-or-death situation on top of that was just a bit much, even for the kind of week he'd been having.
As such, he didn't find the presence of mind to move until the bot opened fire. Tails dodged the first two shots fairly easily, if a bit narrowly, but he had no way of knowing how much charge a SWATbot laser cannon held, and he had no intention of finding out in such close quarters.
The fox lunged toward his attacker and out of the way of the third blast. Still keeping low to the ground, Tails whipped his namesakes around with a quick, precise spin, and his enemy collapsed to the ground as its legs were taken out. Almost reflexively, Tails deployed his wrist ray and sent a powerful and devastating shot through the SWATbot's core, leaving it nothing more than a writhing metal husk.
He didn't have time to bask in his victory however, as when he exited the building he was met by hoards of Robotnik's metal minions closing in. No doubt every bot in the vicinity had been alerted to the intruders' presence.
"Tails! There's too many of 'em!" Rotor hollered through the radio, "I'm comin' down there; you need back-up."
Nope. Nuh-uh. No-can-do. An army of SWATbots was bad, but manageable. With his enhanced combat abilities, Tails had been able to incapacitate Knuckles in moments, after all. But with Rotor in the mix, not only would he have another body to look out for, but he wouldn't be able to overtly use any of his cybernetic enhancements to his advantage.
"Rotor, no!" the fox responded, "You promised you'd stay clear of this; I'll clear a path and work my way toward you."
Tails wasted no time taking to the sky as he flew over the first grouping of bots. He just as quickly dropped down as soon as he was clear, well aware that he was an easy target alone in the air. He sprinted toward the next cluster, using his Tails to propel him, and struck two of his foes with a brutal spindash. It was a move that Sonic had long relied on, but Tails too had picked it up rather quickly after hours of instruction and practice. His newfound speed and strength had only served to amplify its effectiveness.
He barely registered the bots exploding behind him as he raced for the treeline. What he did register, though, was the lazer fire zipping past his right ear. At first, he mentally cheered his good luck, only for the small victory to dissipate into mounting dread as he realized that the blasts hadn't been aimed at him at all.
Near the same underbrush he had used for cover upon his entry, Rotor came into view, having left his perch amongst the trees to join the fray. He'd accumulated a respectable pile of SWATbot corpses in his general vicinity, but was blindsided by the new attackers. Tails only had time for a single shout of warning, and Rotor turned to be met by a blindingly bright laser blast searing through his hip. With a yelp of pain, he went down in a heap.
"Rotor!"
Tails whipped himself around, firing off a perfectly placed blast of his own from his wrist ray straight into the offending bot's core, and the foe was down for the count. While the immediate area had been cleared, Tails had no way of knowing how many enemies were left inside the complex, or if any would be coming from other outposts.
Tails sprinted to his fallen teammate, fearful of what he would find once he got there. He could see the prone form of his friend draped over one of the many metal husks that littered the ground, and prayed with rage and fear in equal measure that he would find a pulse when he got there.
The android slid to a stop on his knees next to his friend, rolling him off of the SWATbot as gently as he dared, and the groan of pain that Rotor let out may as well have been a beautiful symphony to Tails' ears.
"Rotor, stay still. You've been hit. You've been hit," Tails advised. The walrus had a very visible entry wound (and Tails guessed an exit wound as well) just above his right thigh, but thankfully away from anything vital. As a Freedom Fighter, Tails was trained in basic first aid, but he was without any usable supplies and still within extremely hostile territory; they didn't have the luxury.
"Rotor, I'm gonna pick you up, okay? We gotta get back to the Tornado."
His only response was gritted profanity. The blast may not have hit an organ but a laser wound was still serious in its own right, and Rotor was losing blood at a not-insignificant rate. The sooner they got him to the nearest hospital, the better. Tails helped his staggering teammate to his feet, and could see a dreary haze of pain in the walrus' eyes. Tails draped Rotor's left arm over his shoulder and propped him up against his own weight, and the two began a brisk but ungainly journey back through the forest.
Tails could easily have carried Rotor to the plane, but even in his bleary state Rotor would no doubt notice that under normal circumstances a teenage fox shouldn't be capable of bearing his entire weight at once. However, it wasn't purely selfish reasoning that kept them grounded; the thick canopy of trees helped obscure the two escapees from any lingering enemies, and keeping Rotor conscious was an added benefit. So, they trudged through the damp lowlands, marching steadfastly in the direction of the lake from whence they'd come.
Stupid, Miles. Stupid stupid stupid! Tails mentally scolded, Of course he was going to come in after you! You've known Rotor for how long now? And you thought he'd just hang out in the trees while you were getting shot at?
He decided then and there that Robotnik was getting an extra few teeth knocked out for neglecting his common sense programming.
They were just about to crest the treeline when Tails' radar pinged something. Movement, closing in fast on their 4, imperceptible to a normal Mobian. But, of course, an android fox was no normal Mobian, and neither was the airborne SWATbot dicing through the trees.
"GET DOWN!" Tails shouted, and threw himself and Rotor to the forest floor as a laser cannon sailed over them, obliterating the trunk of a nearby tree and sending splinters raining down.
Rotor cried out, obviously not taking the fall very well. Tails hoped the injury hadn't worsened (the brambles and twigs in the thicket couldn't possibly be good for an open wound), but it wasn't as though he could avert his eyes to check.
As the attacker zipped past, Tails jumped to his feet and stood protectively over his friend, his vision flitting from tree to tree for any sign of the SWATbot's inevitable return. He could feel it on the edge of his proximity senses, but he'd still need a good visual if he wanted to get a critical shot off.
"So," Rotor's strained voice piped up from the ground, "I guess it wouldn't be any use...ugh...telling you to go on without me?" Despite being shot literally five minutes ago, he still had the wherewithal to inject some humor into his voice.
Guess that's the old Freedom Fighter spirit. Sonic would be proud.
Tails managed a chuckle himself, despite the situation, "Not anymore useful than me telling you to stay in the trees."
"Touché."
Tails could hear it now, the subtle whirring of the bot's electric engine. It was making its way back, coming from the North.
"Rotor, I need you to stay down. Whatever happens, don't get up," Tails warned, "And if you see anything weird...well, I do owe you an explanation anyway."
The fox had been dead set on avoiding using his cybernetic powers at any point during this mission, for obvious fear of Rotor coming to unsavory conclusions, but he hadn't planned on a mad dash through the woods with his partner on the verge of bleeding out. Rotor needed to get back to the plane, and Tails wasn't about to take any more chances for the sake of his own secret. He wasn't going to let his friend die because of what he was.
He had to act.
As the bot came into view, it seemed to Tails that the whole world shifted. A sheet of focus enveloped his mind, and Tails seemed to be an observer, watching the actions unfold from within his own body. He was making the decisions, but his movements were near autonomous. His emotions swirled and crashed against each other in a fiery whirlwind that his body seemed to channel into pure energy.
Tails removed his bag and stood silently, observing the bot's every move. It could have been years that he stood there, until the faintest glow from his target's front cannon signaled the beginning of the end for the mechanical demon. Tails chucked his bag at the bot just as its cannon fired, and the resulting impact ripped the parchment to shreds, sending the various gadgets and supplies held within flying in a cascade of metal and sparks.
Before the light show even had a chance to clear the air, Tails' arm had transformed fully into a blaster, and was already raised and locked onto its target. A brilliant, deadly blue erupted from what only moments ago was the android's hand, and the doomed droid had no chance in the world of evading.
It was only after his enemy was disintegrated, along with two or three trees on the other side, that Tails' faculties returned to normal. He surveyed the damage with a mix of awe and concern. There was nothing left of the SWATbot that he could see, unless its smoking remains had come to rest somewhere out of view, which was a distinct possibility. Charred wood littered the ground where massive trees once stood, now reduced to nothing but jagged stumps, their trunks burned away and their tops sent crashing to the ground. All from a single blast.
He supposed that was about right. He was built to kill, after all.
A suffocating silence gripped the woods in the aftermath of the brief engagement, which couldn't have lasted more than five seconds. Tails braced himself for his teammate's reaction. Would he fear him? Hate him? Would he shun his assistance? Either way, there was no putting it off. No normal Mobian could have thrown that bag with such precision, much less transformed their arm into a piece of heavy artillery. So, with steely determination, Tails turned to look, to face his possibly former friend…
...only to see him passed out on the forest floor.
Tails had never felt relief and horror at the same time before, and it certainly wasn't a welcome experience. Hastily, Tails dropped down and traced his fingers along Rotor's neck, before finally and thankfully ascertaining a weak but steady pulse.
Blood loss must have caught up with him. We're running out of time.
So, with no way of knowing how much Rotor had seen, no way of explaining what exactly had just happened out in the middle of the woods, and having had just about enough espionage for one day, Tails lifted Rotor into a bridal carry, took to the sky, and made a beeline for the Tornado and its holy grail of first-aid supplies.
o~o~o~o
"One emerald, located and secured for the lady in waiting!"
Sally looked up from her tablet to see Sonic strolling confidently toward the small rock outcrop she'd claimed as her seat, one hand behind his back and the other presenting a brilliant emerald shining from within its electronic prison, an obvious attempt to emulate a maitre d'.
Sally huffed a laugh, only half sarcastic. "Good job, blue wonder. By the way, you know that's not what 'lady in waiting' means, right?"
"Ah, to-may-to to-mah-to. You're a lady, and you're waiting. That's a good enough pun in my eyes."
"Actually, I'm not waiting," the princess retorted, "I just got a hold of Bunnie. They're at Iron Gate, a UF military research complex. She says the emerald is secured, and a Dr. Bluth, head of chaos energy research, has given them full assurance that it will be fully available to us in the event it's needed. He even gave them a full rundown on their energy containment units."
"Boom," Sonic exclaimed, "Looks like we're ready to rock. Y'know, to be honest, I thought this whole search was a little excessive at first, but then we found this guy just laying out here in the open. Coulda been bad if we'd just let it sit."
"Absolutely," Sally concurred, her eyes drifting across the rolling hills of the Marble Gardens. A few trees dotted the landscape here and there, but for the most part the region was windswept grass and open sky as far as the eye could see. Robotnik would have had little to no trouble finding his prize out here, "And it's not just that, either," she continued, "Apparently they met up with some Robotnik drones just before they crossed the border."
"Woah. No kiddin'?"
Sally nodded, "They took care of it with some help from a United Federation squadron, but the last thing I expected was for them to be attacked so far away from enemy territory. If I'd known that would happen I wouldn't have let them go off in just a bi-plane."
"Great, just what we need. Now if we could just get ol' Penn to fork over some planes for us next time we go traipsing half-way across the country, we'd be golden. I mean, I get that there'd be money involved, but we're the Freedom Fighters for cryin' out loud! Tails is just one guy; he can only build so many jets, and I think we can do a little better than having to carpool with planes like kids on the way to soccer practice. And hey-"
Sonic's complaints were all at once cut off by the stark tone of his and Sally's communicators. It was a low, droning sound, one that both of them instantly recognized: the distress signal. The two locked eyes as Sally quickly opened her device.
"It's Tails," she stated simply, and immediately answered the call.
"Freedom Fighter down. Repeat, Freedom Fighter down," Tails reported through the line. His voice was clear and level, so much so that they knew the young fox must have been fighting down his panic in an effort to remain clinical, "Rotor's been shot. He's lost a lot of blood. The closest hospital is in Minton. I'm en route."
Sally found a look of disbelief mirrored in Sonic's eyes.
"Shot!?" Sally exclaimed, "Tails, what happened? How far are you from the hospital?"
"Five minutes, give or take. I'm at top speed, Sally. Just meet me there."
"Tails, how did he get shot? Were you near the outpost? Come in, Tails!"
Sally took in breath to continue, but it was no use as the line immediately went dead. Sonic the Hedgehog and Sally Acorn stood in silence in the middle of an idyllic countryside, processing what they'd just heard.
"Rotor's been shot."