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Sonic and Sash: Tides of Chaos 3:
Phantom Forces
Act 1
Chapter 3: Impromptu Rescue Mission
Space, between planets...
"..."
"...what."
"What do you mean, 'what?'" Aaron retorted to the basset husky opposite of him. "This is your fault we're now on a trip to who-knows-where."
"How the hell is it my fault?!" Sven growled back. "You're the one who had the bright idea to hide in here in the first place!"
"Well, you're the one who decided to yell when they evidently saw Shadow being a traitor!" Aaron growled.
"I'm not lying!" Sven barked.
"Prove it!"
"SHUT UP BOTH OF YOU!" The comm unit yelled, shocking the both of them. "Where are you two?! Why is the radar showing you two heading out into space?!"
"Well..." Sven started.
Mobian Resistance HQ...
"Wh-WHAT?!" Amy gasped at the comm unit. "Why are you two on an Eggman cargo ship heading out into deep space?!" Indeed, the radar showing up on the giant screen of the universe showed a blip leaving Avalice and Mobius.
"Well, the short story is, we got spotted and we hid in a storage crate, and now it got loaded into a ship." Aaron answered through the comm unit. "You can thank bark-for-breath for nearly getting us caught."
"You told us to hide in here in the first place!" Sven argued back.
"Would you two stop?!" Knuckles yelled, slamming his fist onto the console, denting the metal in the process. "Any more bickering out of either of you and I'll crack your skulls together when you get back here alive! Understood?!"
"Knuckles!" Amy yelled, before light whimpering came from the comm unit. "Now look what you did! You made them scared of you!"
"J-just stop the yelling..." Sven merely whimpered through the comm unit.
Amy sighed. "Look, just once you get there, find an escape pod or another drop ship and get yourselves back here safely." She spoke.
"Understood." Aaron spoke, then cutting the comm unit. Amy looked to Knuckles, clearly unhappy.
"What the hell was that Knuckles?!" Amy growled. "Now you've made Sven scared of us! You realize how much you've now traumatized the poor kid?"
"Look, it was the only way to get him to shut up at that point. Otherwise nearly every single Egg Pawn would've been on their tails." Knuckles answered. "And then we'd be out two rookies and no information on Eggman's plans!"
"Knucky, that doesn't excuse you from scaring our recruits shitless." Rouge said. "Now, how about you go check on that rock of yours?"
"Fine..." Knuckles grumbled, heading towards the Master Emerald...
Death Egg Hangar, Outer Space...
"Alright! Bring it in closer!" An Egg Pawn signaled as the massive cargo ship pulled into the hangar of the orbital space station, keeping the ship on track. "Keep 'er going, that's it!"
"Am I in landing position?" The Egg Pawn from the cockpit signaled.
"A little to the left..." The Egg Pawn, motioning to the left, the ship starting to move to the left. "A little more... little more... okay, touch down!" The ship then cut the engines, the entire ship landing on top of the Egg Pawn.
"Right there?" The Egg Pawn in the cockpit asked.
The crushed Egg Pawn under the ship merely gave a thumbs up.
"Alright!" The pilot Egg Pawn responded. "Crew, let's get those crates unloaded! Dr. Robotnik will be pleased with this final shipment!" Egg Pawns of varying calibers soon went to work, unloading the ship of its storage crates and loading them at the side of the hangar. "And be careful with those warheads! They're hair-trigger, so any of them falling could set them all off!"
"Roger that Serial-437!" Another Egg Pawn spoke. "We'll have these shipments unloaded before you'll know it!"
"You better." Another voice said before five other robots came out of an opposing hallway. "We've heard the crash up here. What the hell is going on here?"
"N-nothing Metal Sonic!" An Egg Pawn spoke. "We're just unloading our final shipment! Everything should be ready for quashing the Resistance."
"Good." Metal Sonic spoke. "Robotnik wants no more delays, understood?"
"Yes sir hedgehog sir!" The Egg Pawn replied, soon the rest of them scrambling to their positions. Metal Sonic then turned to the other four.
"Now, it's time we spread out to start our little 'demotivation' plan." Metal Sonic spoke. "Do each of us have our respective prototypes the doctor has created?"
The others nodded, holding out small magenta stones. "Good." Metal Sonic said. "Now, we can have a bit of 'fun' while we do this. Metal Sash, you're with me for Station Square's Red Gate Bridge. Metal Tails and Metal Carol, terrorize Pheonix Highway in Shang Mu and drive Resistance members off the sides of the bridge. Metal Milla, tear up Empire City. Drive the Mobians out of there for roboticizations."
"Roger." Metal Sash spoke.
"On it." Metal Tails and Metal Carol said in unison.
"Will do." Metal Milla said, letting out a synthisized bark.
"Good. Now move out." Metal Sonic spoke, the five heading back into the hallway before one of the crates wiggled a bit, Aaron and Sven collapsing out the side and hitting the floor hard.
"Owwww..." Sven moaned, holding his head. "That hurt..."
"Those damn clunkers couldn't handle the box better?" Aaron growled. "Where are we?"
Sven looked up, looking around at the massive technological hangar around them. Cyan lights were coursing all across the sides of the hangar, and several technical flashing lights were around the walls of the hangars, along with several massive ships throught the area. "Looks like some sort of hangar... and by what Amy told us, we're out in space."
"Joy..." Aaron growled.
"Well, look on the bright side!" Sven said. "We've got that info of where there's going to be attacks, once we get back we can report that to the group!"
"That's true." Aaron spoke. "Alright, how about this; you sneak around and get more recon photos of this place, I'll cause a distraction in another sector of the station to lure 'em away."
"You sure about that?" Sven asked. "Last thing we need is you getting too many bots to handle."
"Kid, I'll be fine." Aaron said. "Just get those recon photos."
Sven nodded, then the two split off to do their seperate jobs...
Egg Prison, several miles away from the Death Egg...
The basset slunk against the wall of her cell, her fur dirty and unkempt, her once vibrant orange hair now dull and matted, her bracelets lost luster as her wrists and ankles were bound together with tight steel cuffs emitting an inhibiting signal, preventing her from using her powers. Her clothing was ripped, the fur under her eyes show she had been heavily crying, as electrical burns and red marks littered her body, looking a little bit thinner than normal from a lack of normal timed meals. Her hopes of ever getting out had been completely shattered after the first two months of the torture and pain, and now she had been completely broken, swimming in her own turmoil and rage.
The doors to her cell opened up, the basset barely looked up seeing who her two 'escorts' were today; one being the short white-skinned Zeti with lavender hair and lips and short horns, holding a cyan rose, Zor, while the other was the lanky pink-skinned Zeti with a purple mohawk and janky horns with spiked bracelets, Zazz.
"Alright runt, get up!" Zazz said, forcefully grabbing Milla and yanking up to her feet. "Consider yerself lucky! The doc is wanting a personal meeting with ya."
"Tell that fat bastard I'd rather die than talk to him." She growled, not wanting any part of the current situation.
"That's not until after the meeting." Zor sighed. "Either way, it's gonna be a lose/lose situation for you, so why not give up and tell us where your little friends are?"
"No." Milla bluntly growled.
"It's your funeral..." Zor spoke, Zazz dragging the basset along towards the exit to the prison area. Though soon a blast rocked the place, the entire prison shaking ever so much as the two Zeti became distracted.
"What the hell was that?" Zazz said, releasing his grip on Milla. "We under attack?!"
"Seems like it..." Zor commented. "Eh, I always had a feeling I'd go out like this..."
"Would you shut your traAAAAAACUUUHH-" was all Zazz got to say before he was attacked from behind, the basset having her light cuffs held harsh against his neck, intending to choke him out.
"Get off of him!" Zor said, making a move for Zazz, but Milla managed to make the Zeti kick, knocking Zor backwards over the railing of the prison walkways, him falling to a lower level. Zazz kept struggling, trying to throw the basset off of him, but the more he struggled, the more air he lost before he fell unconscious, hitting the floor unmoving. Milla moved quickly, tapping her cuffs to the small device on the unconscious Zeti's hip, deactivating the cuffs entirely, giving her free movement of her arms and legs. She flexed herself a bit before summoning several Phantom Cubes and Spheres, smirking.
"Perfect." Milla said. "But now's not the time for a fight. I need to flee. First though..." She made a break for the main prison control, throwing the main gate switch as all the cells opened. "They'll not be able to follow me in this confusion, and hopefully everyone will head for escape pods and get out of here..." She then fled as the several hundreds of Mobians fled in the confusion...
Of course, Zavok had watched the entire thing, and just grew angry. A small blue round Zeti and an alluring green Zeti with darker green hair and a single horn were on either side of him.
"Those idiots." Zavok growled turning away from the monitor. "I'm going to get the Death Queen fired up. Zeena, you head for that Shuigang and Master Zik, head for that Lagoon on that second planet."
"And the prisoners?" Zeena asked.
"Their lives are insignificant." Zavok said, leaving the room.
Milla was panting hard, the ceiling growing lower as she fled the prison hall, soon her diving out of the way as the ceiling came down right behind her. She scrambled to her feet and kept running, the doors slamming shut behind her as she was soon reaching the exit to the outside area. Her panic soon started to rise as she saw the only way forward was a rail, and she was barefoot. Not wanting to tear her feet up, she grabbed two panels and slipped them onto her feet, the bottoms of them now attaching to the metal and shaping to her feet as she lept to the rail. Now out in space, she was surprised she was able to breathe out there; was it because of the overlapping atmospheres, or was it because of her element mastery? She didn't question it as she grinded along the rail, soon seeing the massive orbital station ahead of her.
"So, the doctor built another Death Egg..." Milla muttered to herself, soon jumping to another rail. "How he built it so quickly I have no clue, but I won't allow it to remain intact for long." She soon sped up, increasing her speed grinding on the rail as several Egg Chasers flew past. Milla flipped away from the lasers as soon she flipped into another cell block area.
"I just need to find a dropship somewhere..." Milla muttered to herself as she threw the cell switch for this block...
Death Egg, Weapons Bay...
The white and blue husky basset kept snapping pictures of the gigantic sentinels within the area of the Death Egg. "Jeez... he spared no expense. There's so many of these things..."
At that moment a small sound of a siren went off before the basset dodged out of the way of the shot that hit the ground. With quick reflexes, he pulled a weapon of some sort out of his bag before slashing the electrical whip at the instigators, two Buzzbombers as they dropped out of the air, hitting the ground. Sven then rushed over and checked the collapsed Buzzbombers, checking to see if they were completely off; he was in luck. Quickly Sven stuffed the two models into his backpack, before returning to taking more surveillance pictures.
"Alright, last one!" Salmon said, snapping the picture. "Now, to regroup and meet back up wi-OOOF!" He yipped, crashing into another figure as both were knocked to the ground. "Owww..."
"Oooff..." The other basset spoke, before looking to the figure she knocked down. "Hey, you alright?"
"H-huh?" Sven said, before looking at the figure helping him up. "I-I think so. "Who are you?"
"Milla. No time to explain, we need to go!" The other basset spoke, grabbing Sven's wrist. "Let's g-"
"You two aren't going anywhere." A menacing voice said from behind them, both the dogs looking back to see the familiar large red figure of Zavok.
"What do you want?!" Milla growled, stepping in front of Sven.
"Simple, really." Zavok spoke. "Your little renegade group is trying to pull a prison break; which by the way, isn't worth the time or effort to stop with how much hassle it's caused."
Milla clenched her teeth, Phantom Blocks forming in her hands. "You're not stopping me from escaping this prison."
"That is what you think." Zavok growled, before a yipe came from behind Milla. The basset looked behind her to see the other basset being held by a massive robotic claw.
"!" Milla gasped to herself as soon the floor around them disappeared except for a hexagonal shaped platform made up of tiny hexagons on it as well, a pit into space below their feet. The platform dropped lower to the point where the outside was visible; a massive war between Egg Fleet airships and G.U.N. airships was going on, with the Egg Fleet ever so ahead in ship destruction.
"This will be your burial ground." Zavok growled. "In space, where no one will be able to hear you scream or cry for help."
Milla growled. "I'm not scared of you, you big lug."
Zavok merely darkly chuckled. "But you should be." He said, leaping backwards off the platform... and soon he'd be rising back up on a massive hornet robot, its four yellow wings and six thruster engines running at full power as its crimson-red optics glared down Milla. The prideful red Zeti stood atop the mech, staring down at the basset... before he smashed his fists together twice, then leaned forwards, roaring loudly at the basset. Milla steeled her nerves from the roar, and then the fight began proper.
Zavok merely snapped his clawed fingers before three separate Buzzbombers spawned directly near the platform, soon making a literal beeline for Milla. The basset tensed up before attacking with her Phantom Spheres, blasting each Buzzbomber to shreds. The gigantic hornet then aimed its legs straight at Milla before firing a singing laser beam directly at her location. Milla ducked out of the way of the attack and kept moving; the tracking was too slow to keep up with her.
"Why are you toying with me?" Zavok growled. "Trying to find a bit of fun in all of this?"
"There's no fun when it comes to you." Milla shot back, throwing a Phantom Sphere straight at the hornet's abdomen, causing the entire mech to shake a bit.
"Impudent runt!" Zavok roared, the mech rising high above her, stinger aimed straight down. "I am going to savor watching you suffer!" Milla's nerves steeled as the hornet dropped abdomen first straight down, planning to impale Milla on it's stinger. The basset lept back and up, out of the range of the shockwave it caused on the platform before colliding with Zavok directly, causing him to lose his footing. The basset would then growl angrily, throwing several punches and kicks right onto Zavok's body before throwing in a Super Shield Burst for good measure. The resulting kickback threw Milla back onto the platform as the massive hornet mech raised back into the air.
"You're not making this easy are you?" Zavok growled as more Buzzbombers spawned within the area, chasing Milla. "No matter. Crushing you will be all the more satisfying!" The massive hornet robot would then back away from the arena and rush it's stinger straight at the basset hound in a charge parallel to the arena. Milla went wide-eyed and dodged out of the way to the side, narrowly avoiding the stinger charge. Milla would tense up as the hornet would prepare for another charge, however, when it did, the basset lept up, Phantom Block in hand before she performed another Super Shield Burst straight at Zavok, knocking him off his guard as the hornet mech went by again.
Zavok growled angrily, soon having the hornet mech aim its lasers straight at Milla again. "I've had enough of you! Just lie down, and die!" Zavok roared as the hornet mech fired its lasers again, this time several times powerful than the last blast. Milla stomped and brought up scrap metal from the ground, forming a shield that deflected the laser off in several directions.
"I don't know if you've gotten the memo..." Milla growled, the metal starting to bend as the lasers started to angle more towards Zavok. "But this dog has new tricks!" The metal would now bend towards the mech, striking its main engine core and igniting it, causing it to explode entirely, throwing Zavok off it and onto the platform. The prideful Zeti roared loudly before inhaling and spweing a hot stream of flames from his mouth at the basset. Milla counteracted by dodgerolling out of the way before slamming her fist right into the Zeti's stomach. Zavok recoiled in pain before trading fisticuffs with the basset, both their fists creating minature shockwaves through their bodies as they collided, but Milla soon got the upper hand as she swept Zavok's legs out from under him, causing him to crash down to the ground. Milla then lept up, both her hands cloaked in the jade Phantom Energy as she slammed her fists straight into Zavok's chest, knocking the wind out of him.
"Uuuurghh..." Zavok moaned as Milla got off him. The basset remained tense as she soon heard an odd pulsating sound, soon seeing the prideful Zeti flicker a bit as he slowly faded out of existence...
"What... what was that?" Milla muttered to herself. "And why did that energy feel so... familiar?"
"Hey!" A voice called, Milla looking up to see Sven still trapped in the claw. "You alright Milla?"
"I'm fine!" Milla spoke. "What about you?"
"Don't worry! I'll be outta this thing no problem!" Sven said, soon squirming before he slid out of the claw. With quick reaction he swung his lightning whip, the end attaching to an exposed node on the clawed arm as the electric whip extended like a bungee cord. "Grab my hand!" Sven yelled, extending his hand. Milla would nod and jump up, grabbing Sven's hand before slingshotting back upwards into the weapons bay, the floor closing after the two passed it, both hounds landing on their feet.
"Thanks for the save." Milla spoke. "You here to rescue me?"
"Well, I'm here on accident before, but I guess I am now." Sven spoke. "Let me contact my teammate, then we can make a break back for the hangar."
Milla nodded, before Sven activated his comm unit. "Aaron, got the pics, you there?"
"A little tied up at the moment!" Aaron said among the sounds of flames and metal scraping. "Where the hell are you?!"
"At the weapons bay, meet me at the hangar, I can hijack us a ship outta here!" Sven said.
"Alright, just hurry!" Aaron responded. "I dunno how many more of these damn things I can hold off longer!"
"Got it." Sven said, cutting the transmission. "Alright, let's go."
"You know how to fly a spaceship?" Milla asked.
"Can't be that much harder than my original project I was working on!" Sven said, the two making a break for the hangar. "Let's go!"
The sounds of pounding scrap metal and loud sirens came from the hangar as the lion kept shredding the oncoming Egg Pawns. Soon Sven and Milla burst through another hallway, a slew of shots firing on them as they rushed for a ship.
"Aaron! We gotta bail!" The basset-husky yelled as he and Milla ran up the ramp to the loading ship.
"Hold on a sec!" Aaron said, before diving into the diving ramp of the ship as it went up. The Egg Pawns soon started firing on the hull of the ship, but their shots merely plinked off the steel plating as the ship turned a bit. A hatch opened up and a small black orb came out of the hatch, rolling over to the munitions crates and stopping. The Egg Pawns kept firing on the ship with the escaping trio as it turned and blasted out of the hangar, the black orb soon starting to flash as the orb exploded, setting off the warheads as the series of explosions wracked the hangar entirely and damaged the massive Death Egg.
"Main shields set to protect the rear." Sven panted. "You alright Aaron?"
"I told you I could handle myself." Aaron growled, marred with bruises. "This ain't shit to me."
Sven would roll his eyes, setting the ship in auto pilot. "Alright, let me get a teleporter pad established with the Resistance HQ base." He said, getting up and heading back from the cockpit.
"Why a teleporter?" Aaron asked.
"Chances are they're gonna be looking for this ship since we escaped." Sven said, hooking up the teleporter pad with the coordinates for the Resistance base. "We gotta bail from this thing and leave it for dead."
"Smart thinking." Milla spoke. "But won't they be able to track our coordinates for that pad?"
"I'll be taking double precautions." Sven spoke, the pad firing up. "You two go on ahead first, I'll take care of the ship so they can't follow our trail."
Milla nodded, before heading through the teleporter, Aaron right after her. Salmon then rushed for the cockpit, redirecting the ship to aim straight for the Egg Fleet flagship. "Alright, target locked, let's see... let's see... aha! Light speed jump!" Sven said, modifying the controls. "Set the jump for one minute... and now..." Sven activated it, setting the timer to start as he rushed back to the pad. "Now, set the teleoprt memory to wipe after this next teleport... and done!" Sven said, hopping onto the teleport pad as he warped out of the ship, the memory of the teleport pad wiping clean. Then the lightspeed jump kicked in, the ship blasting off... right into the Egg Fleet's flaghip control tower. The ship exploded and it collapsed, falling through the atmosphere to Mobius...
Mobius Resistance HQ, Station Square
The teleport pad soon whirred to life, startling the entire group inside the room. "Hey..." Amy asked. "Did the other rookies find another teleport pad?"
"If they found it on wherever Eggman base they got it, we're screwed." Knuckles bluntly spoke. "There's no way we'd be able to stop Eggman robots flooding our base."
"I'm picking up the coordinates of the teleport pad..." Gemerl spoke, his eyes glowing a bit. "It appears to be coming from an Eggman serial number cargo ship."
"Meaning either they put the coordinates in on accident, or they're looking to raid us!" Amy said, gripping her hammer. "Everyone look alive, we might have a Badnik invasion on our hands!"
Everyone in the base crowded around the teleported, ready for a brawl against Badniks... but then were utterly shocked when Milla came out of the teleported face-first!
"Milla?!" Amy cried, helping the basset up. "Y-you're alive?!"
"N-never been better..." Milla spoke, coughing a bit. "Is everyone here alright?"
"We thought you were dead!" Cream spoke in a worried tone. "We thought you ended up like Sonic and Sash..."
Milla merely sadly smiled. "You think imprisonment is gonna keep me down?" She spoke softly as Aaron came through the teleport.
"Let's get you healed up." Rouge spoke, escorting Milla out of the area to a med room as Sven came through the teleporter as well before it shut down.
"Phew! Made it." Sven spoke. "Eheh... sorry about the mission guys..."
"You had us worried sick!" Amy spoke. "We thought you and Aaron were gonna get captured!"
"Well, Aaron kept the robots distracted." Sven said, getting out his camera. "And I've got a ton of extra surveilance pics for what Eggman's plans are with his weapon systems!"
"Well well, you kept the mission objective and even managed to rescue Milla in the process!" Knuckles said, setting an arm on Sven's shoulder. "Kid, you and Aaron are showing yourselves to be true freedom fighters! Keep up that morale!"
Sven nodded, handing the camera to Amy. "There'll be a ton of good stuff on there. Now if you guys will excuse me, I've got a new project to work on." He said, walking over to his workbench and dumping the two Buzzbomber models onto it.
"You stole Buzzbombers?" Amy asked. "Why?"
"I figured we could get some use out of them." Sven said, starting to open up the single-eyed one. "...huh?"
"What's up?"
"There's nothing in here!" Sven said. "This Badnik's hollow!"
"What?" Amy asked, confused, before the strange pulsing sound started again as the badnik flickered a bit before disintegrating in a red cloud. "...what in the world?"
"That... that's not normal..." Sven said, soon opening the other Buzzbomber. "This one's perfectly fine though..."
"Might need to look into this." Amy spoke, returning to the computer. "I'll run your recon pics to the Avalican base and see what they have to say."
Sven nodded, before returning work on the Buzzbomber...
A saved hound and a lighter note, the group is starting to gain its foothold against the Eggman Empire ever so slightly. However, the battle is only just beginning for this war. With Sven and Aaron now having saved the group's oracle, they lie in wait for their next part of the plan. What is that plan? Tune in next time for Chapter 4: 'Espionage on Arsenal Pyramid' to find out...
