It's back! And now for another 1/4 of an episode! AKA, a chapter...
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I covered my eyes as the dust from the missiles struck where Sonic was standing, and they completely obliterated the control panel, causing the oversized deforesting chainsaw bot to start a self-destruct countdown. I looked up to the sky as I saw the Stealth Bots flying overhead go over the Great Forest, and then I noticed the Hovercraft flying back to Robotropolis, with Sally inside! "Sally! I'm coming for ya!"
I quickly ran after the Hovercraft, until it got out of my sight way deep in Robotropolis. I was forced to stop after I saw the SWATbots from earlier returning back to the now destroyed machine, and I quickly hid in some brush, staying out of their sight. 'I'll save ya Sal, just hang on...'
Right after the SWATbots went by, I quickly ran back into the forest, trying to find Knothole from the general direction of where the Ring Pool was...
---
Sally was being held by a pair of SWATbots, and she kept trying to break their grip. "Let go!"
"Oh, don't worry about trying to resist." A chair swiveled around, revealing Snively at the controls of the ship. He turned around in his chair again, getting ready to hit the TV monitor button to relay his message back to Robotnik about his capturing Sally. "Finally, I've done what HE couldn't do!"
Hitting the button, the Hoevercraft's monitors turned on, showing Robotnik looking around his control room, trying to order some SWATbots around, then turning to the monitor. "What Snively?"
"Sir! I've captured one of the Fredom Fighters, the one named Sally..."
"Excellent! Bring her in!" Right then, Robotnik turned off the monitor, leaving Snively to just wonder what was so much more important. Normally, he'd be excited to hear this kind of news.
"Hmm... Something's not right..." Snively said, scratching his chin.
"Face it! He doesn't care about you!" Sally yelled, in her own attempt to still break free.
"Shut up! He's just a little busy, that's all..." Snively said, touching some more buttons on the control panel, showing the front view of where they were flying. Already they were in Robotropolis and flying near the main control tower. "Now, you have anything to say?"
Sally just give him a really pissed off looking face as she stayed silent.
"Good! Now, we're going to the roboticizer with you!" The SWATbots pulled Sally out of the Hovercraft, and Snively followed.
"You'll never get away with this! Sonic'll come here and-"
"Sonic's dead. Here, let me show you..." Snively said menacingly, as he pulled out a small computer device and showed a holoprojection to Sally of the missiles hitting Sonic. "Now what were you saying about Sonic?"
"You... you..." Sally attempted to kick at Snively, but Snively simply moved backwards a little faster, and the SWATbots picked Sally off the ground slightly. "You'll pay for this!"
"We'll see... about THAT!"
---
It had been about 15 minutes already, and I only just now found the Ring Pool, where I found no one there, so I kept running further, this time in the direction of where I remembered I had been pointed from back in Knothole Village by Bunnie.
I eventually caught up with someone ahead, but outside of Knothole. Turns out, it was Tails (who I actually only barely recognized due to his fur color blending in a bit with the trees). "TAILS!!! Yo! over here!"
Tails heard my voice, and turned around mid-air towards me, saying, "Huh? You're Adam right? Where's Sonic?"
"Honestly, I don't know, and that's not important! I need to find Bunnie and Rotor! Sally's been taken by a hovercraft!!!" I said, putting a bit of urgency to my voice.
Tails gasped. "Hang on! I'll be back with them in a second!" Tails quickly spun his tails faster and zoomed off into the distance, back to the apparent location of Knothole, leaving me to trying running after him (and finding my speed unable to even match half his flying speed!).
--
I eventually saw Knothole ahead of me, and found Tails just starting to head back to me with Rotor and Bunnie. I noticed one thing though: Rotor was carrying along the shotgun he had been looking at! I waved over to the group, and Tails saw me, and lead the two others to me. "Hey guys! No time to explain, we gotta go!" I said, starting to head over towards the direction of Robotropolis (you can just find that easy, look for pollution in the sky!).
"Wait up Adam! I need to give you something!" Rotor said, and I stopped turning back to him. "Here, I'm not exactly a gun user... you'll find more use with it than me I'm sure."
"Thanks Rotor, it'll come in handy I bet!" I said, taking the shotgun from his hands. Turning back around, I started off again, Rotor following. Tails was apparently about to also try coming along, but...
"Where do ya think you're going Tails!?" Bunnie said to Tails.
"Aunt Bunnie! I wanna come along too!" Tails tried to persuade Bunnie, but I already knew the answer myself, so I gave him a good reason myself.
"No Tails, stay behind, we still need someone to watch over the Village; since I know Antoine's not exactly a great candidate! And plus, I don't know if we'll run into those shotgun weilding MiniSWATs again!" I said firmly, not even slowing down or turning my head.
"I never get to go on any missions... I'd be a good mission... guy," Tails said, and his twin tails revved up and apparently he went back, since the spinning noise they made started to fade away.
"Can't have him coming along, can we?" I said, trying to have a convo as the three of us ran though the forest.
"Nope, too dangerous!" Bunnie said as she quickly caught up with Rotor and me (how easy can that be? I mean... it SHOULD be easy to catch up to a walrus and a slow human like me!), and then subsequently slowing down to our pace.
"Pretty much what I was thinking. So I guess this is as good a time to explain as much as possible!" I said, starting to pant from all the running. Unlike the time before back in Robotropolis, I was pacing myself to keep more stamina (only a bit slower, but that helped my stamina a bunch).
"Yeah, you haven't told us much yet!" Rotor said, who was already breathing much faster than me (uh-oh!).
"Sonic, Sally, and I were all gonna fight this huge deforesting machine when that a Hovercraft swooped down on Sally and just took her! Right after that, a buncha Stealth Bot fighter jets fired missiles at Sonic and... all I know is that those missiles took out their own deforester, but... I didn't see Sonic afterwards!" I informed them, still trying to keep my pace of running. "And now, I ran back to the Ring Pool, then back to Knothole, and here's where we are!"
"Oh mah stars! Sonic was hit!?" Bunnie gasped, eyes going wide.
"And how are we supposed to get Sally back?" Rotor asked, now visibly slowing down, forcing us to also slow down (which in turn helped me keep more stamina, although it was starting to run low). Eventually, we just stopped to let Rotor get his breath back, and me to regain most of mine back also.
"Here's my plan so far: we just go into Robotropolis, and then we'll try to find that Uncle Chuck guy, then maybe we can find something else about everything. I know that makes no sense, but you'll see what I mean eventually! We still need to hurry! I really wanna get Sal rescued ASAP! Honestly, I feel like it was my fault she got captured... I shoulda noticed that Hovercraft a MILE away!" I mentally beat myself up, knowing my best assets (my ears) were pretty much unable to help, and ended up being what got Sally captured!
"Don't worry suga!" Bunnie said, rubbing my back as I was sitting down. "It's not your fault Sally-girl got captured!"
"Bunnie's right Adam, it wasn't your fault, there would have been nothing that could have stopped it from happening!" Rotor joined in, standing up again, having regained his stamina quickly.
I sighed, and just simply said, "It WAS my fault. But now... I'm gonna make sure we get her back, no matter the cost to me!" I stood up, with an extra pound of determination. Right then, I frowned and just started running forwards again.
Bunnie followed, leaving Rotor behind a bit, who was now shouting to us, "HEY!!! Wait up!"
--
(15 minutes later)
We were at the edge of the city, when we needed to stop again for Rotor to get his breath back again. "Sorry guys, but it's been so long since I've been on a mission!"
"Hey, don't beat yourself down, I was getting tired again too," I said.
BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!
"Huh, what's that noise?" Bunnie asked, looking around, and I looked down to my pocket.
I reached into my pocket, bringing out the small Pocket PC-like thing I picked up earlier from when Sally dropped it. "Think this might be what's making the noise?"
Rotor looked at the object with surprise, and Bunnie let out a small gasp, exclaiming, "That's Sally-girl's! Where'd you get it!"
"Nicole! What happened!? Sally never lets you out of her hands if she can help it!" Rotor asked... the small computer.
And to my surprise, it responded, causing me to nearly drop the thing. "Sally dropped me when she was kidnapped by a pair of SWATbots, and I was picked up by an unknown entity."
"Hey! My name's Adam!" I said in slght frustration at the computer... Nicole... thingy. "Am I still registered as your... unknown entity?"
"Correction: unknown entity was named Adam. After that, you know what happened." Nicole finished, projecting a small hologram projection of what occured during the battle scene, including when Sally dropped this computer.
I sighed, wondering how much more I could take of this computer's remarks. "So now you even got a first-hand video of what happened. All the more reason to go get Sal back!"
"Right, but how are we gonna do that?" Rotor asked, scratching his hat.
"You forgot Adam's plan already? We're gonna meet up with Uncle Chuck and... uh... I don't remember anything after that..." Bunnie said, looking to me a bit confused.
"After that, we go from there. We still gotta get part 1 done! Come on, let's go!" I said, pocketing Nicole again, and pulling the shotgun out of my cargo pant's loophole on my right leg. I smirked, and quoted Duke Nukem: "Time to kick ass and chew bubble gum, but I'm all outta gum!" With that, I ran towards the city, a grin on my face and I only looked forwards.
"What?" Both Rotor and Bunnie looked at me completely confused. They shrugged their shoulders, and just followed me.
"Err... I just remembered what I forgot... you guys need to lead, I don't know where he's at." I said, slowing down and letting Bunnie get the lead. We turned a corner, and quickly had to head right back, as there were about 3 SWATbots all around that corner, and all were holding position. "What now?"
"That's where Uncle Chuck's hideout is!" Bunnie said, looking around the corner for a quick second. I looked out around too again, getting a good glimpse of everything.
"Where? I don't see it," Rotor said as he also looked around the corner.
"Maybe if I get a picture..." I said, fumbling in my pockets for my cell phone, only to find it wasn't there! "Shit! My stuff's gone! Sally must have it all!"
"How? You get your stuff switched?" Rotor pulled himself from looking around the corner, eyeing me quickly.
"I guess. My wallet's gone, but I still have my iPod... useless as that is right now." I said, pulling out the aforementioned iPod, then repocketing it with slight frustration.
"I got an idea! I'll go distract them while you guys can get to the hideout." Bunnie offered, as I leaned around the corner, this time noticing a pile of junk that seemed out of place slightly.
"Sounds like a plan Bunnie, but... we don't know where the door is!" Rotor said, and I smirked as Rotor threw his arms up as if he was basically saying 'what the crap...'
"I found it just now when I looked around a bit more. I say, though... how are ya gonna get inside also?" I asked, turning my attention back to the half-roboticized rabbit.
"Doncha worry 'bout that! I already got it all figured out," Bunnie suddenly ran out in the open, taunting the SWATbots, while Rotor and I ran around the other side of the building, and we got to see a small glimpse of Bunnie starting to lead them to the corner we were just at. As we rounded the other corner, we heard the battle cry of Bunnie as she apparently started combat with the 3 SWATbots.
"I seriously hope she knows what she's doing... I shoulda gave her my shotgun!" I said, reholstering the gun in the loophole on my pants.
"I don't think she'd use it though!"
"Not like it matters now, we gotta get in that hideout quick!" I said, interrupting Rotor as we reached the junk pile I thought I saw the door at, and a portion of the junk suddenly lifted up, and without thinking, we ran into the opening. The passageway was only about 15 feet long, and we found ourselves in a room full of technology and computers... and spy equipment?
"You know, I haven't got all day to stick around waiting on you two! I'm still supposed to be at work on an assembly line today, and I don't have much time before I'm missed!" A voice from the right boomed from almost nowhere, and both Rotor and I turned, revealing a fully robotic hedgehog over by one computer.
"Uncle Chuck!" Rotor exclaimed.
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End chapter.
Wow... for some reason, i just spent the most time writing this chapter over all others... combined. I just couldn't think of ideas for this one... hence why I couldn't end with a real cliffy... well... I guess I did leave one! Things are starting to become hectic for me!
Wait for next week to see what happens to Bunnie, and more importantly, Sonic, and even MORE importantly, Sally!