There was a flash of pale blue light, and Mari fell to the floor. Her skates clattering against the cold hard metal ground. She took a quiet deep breath, and swiveled her dull rounded ears, searching the space for any sound. Once confirming she was alone, her brown eyes opened, and glanced around. Finding herself in some sort of laboratory.
Shadows saturated the room, dark and silent. The only light was coming from her own body; the usually snowy white markings on her limbs, chest, and eye lid, glowing a pale blue as they did at night. They did little to illuminate the space, but she didn't really need it as her Black Arm genetics gave her decent enough night vision.
The air felt still and stagnant, like an ocean without current. Yet, there was no trace of dust in the air. She ran a clawed hand over a nearby counter, confirming that all of the equipment was in a similar state. The test tubes, counter tops, and metal dissection tables, were all perfectly clean, almost sterile even. Despite the empty nature of her environment, this place was not abandoned, or if it was, it hadn't been long since and they weren't in a hurry when they did.
Mari continued through the facility, exiting the first lab (through a sliding glass door surrounded by windows) into a hallway. The corridor was tiled, and she was pretty sure that the walls were painted a pale ivory; though colors lost their meaning in the dark. Her skates, clacked on the hard stone tiles, loudly. Mari's dull ears frizzed at the sound. While her skates were very fast, the metal soles, and wheels were not all that stealthy on certain surfaces. Not to mention the sound was annoying.
It would be another few moments before the ivory walls, ended and the suffocating atmosphere of the corridor, opened up into a large underground warehouse. The corridor opened to the ware house, nearer to the ceiling rather than the floor. Meaning the path Mari had been on now lead to a spider's web of metal bridges.
The warehouse was large, clearly the gaping stomach of the facility. The dark shadows made the far walls almost invisible, making the space seem only more immense. An eerie, yet familiar, green glow, welled up from the lower level. Curious, Mari walked forward, and she leaned over the bridge's railing. On the ground level, was a collection of large vats, filled with green liquid. There was something about those vats. She didn't know what, but there was something wrong with them, and it wasn't their pungent smell that made her black button nose crinkle.
Vaguely she worried about radiation, but she would have felt waves if it was. Though, she did feel something flowing out of the vats. Something she hoped wasn't what she thought it was. Slipping under the railing, and quietly landing on the stone floor. She got closer to the vats, finding that there was something inside of them. She squinted, through a vat's glass wall, resting a clawed hand on it.
Floating lifeless inside of the vat, it was hard to make out at first, was a what looked like black blob. Then the black blob, grew more distinct, with stubby misshapen limbs, liquidly rippling transparent skin (if it could be called that) that showed bright crimson pulsing veins, and finally, a pair of blood red unseeing eyes. This wasn't a vat; this was a gestation chamber.
Whispers began to build in the back of her head, and Mari quickly pulled her hand away from the glass, as if it burned at the touch. Her brown eyes gazed at the creature in the tube, almost fearfully. She swallowed thickly, though the action barely drowned out her pounding heart, and panting breaths.
She turned her gaze towards her hand, flexing it once or twice. A tingling, yet excited, sensation filled the limb, it made her body feel powerful, but also, churned her stomach. Chaos energy. Unstable chaos energy. That's what she was sensing, and not just from the tube, but from this whole room. It reeked, and dripped with the unstable energy.
She opened up her wrist communicator, "Angie, you need to get down here."
Angie had seen a lot of gross and horrifying things: blood, vomit, burns, cuts, bruises, Sparky's cooking. It came with the job of being a Leaguer, as well as being Mari's BFF. She had also been told many horrifying things: shoot outs, war zones, giant water monsters, and planet destroying weapons. It came with being the surrogate niece to multiple former G.U.N agents.
However, she didn't always believe them. Angie had figured out very young that sometimes adults dulled down, or left out certain things, in her bedtime stories. Not that she didn't understand why. So, she had believed that she would be ready when she saw the gory stuff in the flesh. Oh, how she had been wrong.
"Is that what I think it is?" The bright red half-breed whispered in shock.
Mari nodded, "A mutated Black Arm soldier clone, still in fetus stage."
Angie shook her head, "How did they even get the DNA to do this?" taking out a flashlight from her skirt pocket too look around, eventually finding an imperial symbol on the wall, "Since this place clearly wasn't one of our bases."
"Uncle Eclipse, and the Dark Arms were held captive for a few years in the Equinox War."
"Experimentation?"
Mari nodded, "Samples had been taken from them, but Dad thought he destroyed them all."
"No, offence Mari but I think he missed a few."
"Yeah," Mari said, before pulling out a jade blade, and throwing it into the chamber. Slicing through the glass and stabbing the creature inside, while the fluid poured out on to the floor.
Angie jumped back, narrowly avoiding getting whatever that juice was on on her clothing. She looked to Mari, the glare on her face, said one word, 'why?'.
Mari shrugged, "Someone needed to put it out of its misery."
Angie rolled her eyes, but afterward her gaze quickly became fixed on the small, now dead blob floating in the half-empty tank.
"Could you hear them?" She whispered.
Mari paused, looking at the floor, "Not in the way I can hear Dami, or Uncle Eclipse. It wasn't words, or thoughts, just garbled white noise."
"Could they have been…?"
"No, it had no mind of its own."
"Then what were you hearing?"
"Pain signals," Mari shrugged, her eyes drifted back over to the body, "Black Arms who aren't linked reach out to any hivemind leader then can. As they have no mind to tell them what they need or what to do."
"So, why do you look like you've seen a ghost? You're not a hivemind, right?"
"Any sentient creature with Black Arm blood could become a hivemind leader, whether they are or not merely depends on if there are any other hiveminds who are more powerful. And one of the most powerful Black Arm hiveminds, was my biological grandfather. The only ways for another Black Arm to gain sentience would be, for a Hivemind to grant them autonomy, or introduce another species genetics."
"So, couldn't you have…?" Angie looked at her friend.
Mari shook her head, "No, even if I knew how to do that, the body was too misshapen to stay alive beyond the chamber, besides it didn't have long anyway."
Angie, looked back at the floor, "Anything else you found?"
"I didn't get much of a look around this place, before I called you. Its clean, so it hasn't been abandoned for long, what I can guess it's a research lab specialized in Chaos energy."
"Yeah, this place is practically bleeding the stuff," Angie shivered, her fur standing up, "The question is what were they trying to make."
"Possibly chaos creatures for his army, if the Black arm clone and energy levels are anything to go by."
Angie hummed, "Is there an office or some sort of file storage? Maybe we could find some records."
"There's a hall way, on the upper level I haven't checked yet. The others all lead to labs or breakrooms."
It didn't take long to search the hall. It was much shorter than the other halls, ending in an elevator that most likely went to the surface. There were two doors a normal one on the left side and heavily locked metal one on the other. Angie had been correct, the door on the left did lead to an office. A small wooden desk, with a lap and wooden rolling chair, and file cabinet, rested in the back of the room. The floor was stone, like the rest of the facility, not even a homely carpet or rug.
"This is underwhelming," Mari stated.
Angie nodded to her friend, before approaching the desk. Her gloved hand, slide across the desk's top. Something was off as she looked around the room. Where was any of the tech? A sound of metals rubbing against each other, drew her attention. Turning her head, she found Mari, opening the file cabinet.
"Paper files, no security on this thing other than a child's safety lock," Mari grumbled, flipping through the folders.
"Paper?" Angie said, walking over, "Paper files seriously? Who uses paper these days? The ARK didn't have any paper files, and that was over, what, 70 years ago?"
Mari pulled out one of the folders and opened it, "These are fake."
"You sure?" Angie said.
"Well, unless I wasn't told; I'm pretty sure you don't spell science with a 'y'."
"Oh chaos," Angie rolled her eyes, "These are nothing but red herrings. We need to look into the other door."
Both girls left the room, and stormed into the hall way. This door was heavily sealed with a computerized lock, and multiple latches. Whoever built this really didn't want anyone getting inside.
"Can you pick it?" Mari asked.
"Not in the traditional sense," Angie answered, pulling out a device from her pocket.
The device was a small screen, with a wire and two suction cups. One larger cut on the screen and a smaller cup at the end of the wire. She stuck the screen to the door, and the wire over the large lock in the center of the door. Pressing a button on the side of the device, green sparks flew out of the screen and through the wire, zapping the lock; disabling it.
Angie smirked and grabbed the door handle, "Gotta love Sparky's lock zapper."
The door opened silently, but Angie and Mari didn't really notice. They were too busy, wincing away at the raw festering waves of Chaos energy rolling out of the room. And it was for good reason, this was the generator room. Inside was a round room covered, in wires, pipes and heavy machinery. In the center was a large cylinder, that reminded Angie of a lug nut resting halfway on the bolt, with bright glowing green lights, on the sides, and what looked like a hatch on the front.
"Okay, let's make this quick," Angie said walking over to a console on the side of the room, "Because I feel like I'm being smothered."
"Agreed," Mari groaned.
Angie's fingers clacked on the monitor's keyboard. The computer's files were encrypted but the half-breed had thought of this ahead of time. Pulling out the flash drive with Sparky's code cracker program, made quick work of the encryption, and all this place's secrets were now at her finger tips. They were pretty stander for a research lab, day logs, experiments status, inventory, and budgets. But the things these files held, that was another story.
Angie sighed, "You were right, this place was built to make a breed of chaos wielding super soldiers."
"Using black arm DNA?" Mari queried.
"No, their supply was limited, so they had to work with something else."
"What?"
"I'm not sure. What I don't understand is if this is one of You-Know-who's places…He's already one of the most powerful chaos creatures on the planet, draining more than half of the line into his own body. Why would he need more? He can already take out an army by himself."
"Greed, and paranoia. Make stronger soldiers to intimidate us, and if fear doesn't work, sending them to attack us is the next option. He knows we're a threat to him and won't stop until he has the forest under his control."
Angie sighed, "You know, sometimes I wish your blunt dark logic, didn't work."
"I know. But what his future plans should be the is the least of our worries."
"What do you mean?"
"There was a creature in that tank."
"Yeah?" Angie raised a brow.
"Angie, there were dozens of those tanks, and they're empty."
Angie swallowed thickly. If those tanks did have creatures in them, that left two possibilities. Either they had died and were disposed off before this place was abandoned, or…well the other option was one she didn't even want to think about.
She sighed, "Well, this is terrifying. All that's left is one more question. Where are they getting all this chaos energy?"
"The reactor, would be a good bet, judging by how nauseated I feel."
"That be my guess too, but machines can only harness chaos from the stream through an already existing output."
Mari raised a brow at the reactor, "Maybe its time to crack open the egg."
The crossbreed, stepped closer to the reactor, pulling out a jade blade. Channeling chaos of her being into the knife making the crystal glow. With one harsh swing, the hatch of the metal reactor, was sliced off. A bright green beam of light shot out of the now open reactor. Both girls flinched at the raw angry magic that rolled out of the generator like toxic waste.
"Okay," Angie choaked and coughed, "What's in there?"
Mari choaked, but stuck her clawed hand inside of the machine. There was a metallic snapping, and the suffocating veil of energy suddenly lifted, leaving both girls to sigh in relief. Mari pulled out her hand, in it was a dull viridian-colored gem.
"A chaos emerald?" Angie whispered, "That's not possible, all of them are back at the mansion. Where did they find this?"
"They didn't find it."
Aunt Maria stared at the dull, gemstone in front of her. Fear churned her stomach uncomfortably, and she had to swallow rising bile. The discovery her nieces made, wasn't just disturbing, but would change everything.
"Experiments, with Chaos energy," The elder hedgehog, whispered.
"That would be the most likely situation considering what we found," Mari said.
"There's still a chance that none of the other experiments survived," Angie spoke up.
"I appreciate your optimism Angelina, but I'm afraid the chances of that are slim," Aunt Maria sighed, "No wonder the energy line is so unstable," she eyed the gem stone on her desk, "They took the governors, and now added more out puts, there's no balance anymore."
"What do we do?" Mari asked.
"What we can," Aunt Maria stood up from her chair, "Alert our numbers, tell them to prepare. Put our search teams on double time for any more of these labs, maybe we could catch one before they produce anything."
"Is that all?" Angie asked.
"I'm afraid so, we just don't have the resources to with stand a frontal assault. We need to stop one before it happens," Aunt Maria said, rubbing her temples.
"We have a bigger problem," Mari said.
"What do you mean Marisol?" Aunt Maria said, her attention now fully on her eldest niece.
"The emerald is a fake, man-made, the only person who ever one before…"
"Was Tails…" Aunt Maria finished.
"Or someone with his notes," Mari said.
Silence settled on the room.
"Are you saying, we have a mole?" Angie said, "That's not possible, all but the wispon specs are kept under lock and key here. And we've been the only people here, for over a decade. The forest wouldn't even let anyone come close enough to the mansion to get inside."
"I wish I could say it doesn't make sense anything, but…" Aunt Maria murmured.
"Aunt Maria?" Angie questioned, concerned.
"Scourge, knew our every move before it happened," Aunt Maria explained, "Every plan of attack, every team we sent, every mission, like he had been standing beside us in the mission room when we were planning. If he had someone on the inside? Then they have been able to fool us for a long time."
She sighed. She would have to tell Sandy about this; get her and Zero, to check out the troops. And if it was true, send the monster to burn in the fires of the underworld.
"Okay, so what's on the list again?" Zephyr asked.
"Eggs, milk, butter, basically everything we don't grow ourselves and sanitary products for the girls," Sparky answered.
Zephyr nodded, and turned his attention back to the busy city around them. The young hedgehog stretched his arms behind his head, and looked around. Coming from a small town, all of this was amazing to him, even if this wasn't his first time in Equinox city. The tall buildings, the millions of windows, the traffic, it was different, unknown and fast. He liked it.
That was why he wasn't all that upset about being sent on supply run here. Going into cities to get necessities was usually Mari's chore, as she could make a quick getaway if she was every caught. However, she was unable to this time, due to being sent on a mission with Angie. To where? He didn't know. Why? He didn't know. It was all super-secret. Hush. Hush.
So, Zephyr was sent, due to his powers of superspeed being a close second option of a getaway to Mari's more subtle teleportation. And Sparky was sent as well because he made the list.
"So, which store we heading too first?" Zephyr asked.
"The small grocer on 45th street," Sparky answered, "The owner is an elderly chipmunk which is good friends with Aunt Maria."
"And then?"
"The bakery next door. Dami asked for some sourdough."
"And?"
"That's it."
"That's it?"
"Yep."
"Really?"
Sparky nodded.
"You'd think with six of us, we'd have a longer list."
"Yeah, well, with our gardens we're pretty self-sufficient, the mansion is self-cleaning, so we don't really need cleaning supplies, and Aunt Maria makes soap from scratch."
"Aunt Maria makes the soap? I was wondering why; they were all really rough looking bricks and don't have any sort weird fragrance."
"That's one of the perks of Aunt Maria's soap, no weird smell, but the point is that we don't really need to buy all that much from outside. That's why the list is so small. Of course, it will probably get longer later in winter."
Suddenly an explosion crashed nearby, and the ground shook violently, sending both boys tumbling to the ground. Zephyr's head shot up, ears pricked up and alert. The sound of people screaming and running away in terror, rang through out the air.
"You, okay?" Zephyr asked Sparky, while getting back to his feet.
The little fox nodded, "What happened?"
"Not sure."
Another explosion, sounded, making the boys wince.
Zephyr, started running toward the sound (in a normal pace, as to not blow cover and to keep an eye on Sparky, going against the current of the sea of people running away. As they turned a corner, Sparky yanked on Zephyr's arm to stop, and pulled him to the side of a nearby building. Using it as cover as they peered around wall's edge.
In the middle, of the street, was a rabbit. A rabbit, dressed in a bright red skin tight outfit. She had bright menacingly green fur, and crazed blood red eyes. But the strangest thing of was, the fact that she was glowing. Bright green festering energy, was wafting off her in radiating waves. She smirked, gathering the waves in her hand, before throwing the ball of energy at a nearby building. Glass shattered and melted, stone cracked and crumbled, all of it exploding in fiery inferno.
"Bring me the head of the blue blur!" she shouted in an echoing voice.
Well, this wasn't going to be an easy trip.
A/N:
Yess! Finally got this done.
So, to the fellow who left a review, on FFN, I will be doing a squeal to this story, I just have to finish this book first.
I'm exhausted. Too much work!
