Chapter 8: Saving the Old Man

Shadow and Knuckles left the restaurant and saw some Eggbots walking somewhere.

"Cool. I get to fight today." Knuckles smirked as he started to run to destroy the robots. Shadow pulled him back. "Why are you stopping me?"

"Because, the Eggbots are clearly going to the doctor's base so if we follow them we will find his base." Shadow whispered.

"That's a great idea!" Knuckles screamed. The Eggbots heard this and turned around. Shad hid both of them so the Eggbots wouldn't catch them.

"You almost cost us you idiot." Shadow scolded.

"Sorry. Now let's follow them."

Shadow and Knuckles slowly followed. They kept following them for a few minutes until the Eggbots stopped. They stopped in front of a building and walked inside.

"That must be Eggman's Central City base." Knux said as he too walked inside. Shadow followed him inside. As soon as they stepped inside an alarm triggered and Eggbots ran at them. "Oh crap."

"Bring it on you hunks of junk." Shadow said as he started homing attacking the Eggbots. Knux joined in by kicking and punching at the bots.

"There's just too many of them!" Knuckles screamed as he bashed the head plate on one of them in.

"But we have to keep fighting. I'm surprised the doctor hasn't upgraded these." Shadow said. "Well you are right that there are too many of them so…. CHAOS BLAST!"

Shadow's chaos attack took out most of them but then more just poured in there.

"How do they keep coming back?" Knuckles asked.

"There is probably just this many. The doctor always keeps a self destruct button in his bases so we should save the old man, activate the switch, and get the hell out of here."

"Good plan."

Knux and Shad fought there way through room after room and finally found the old man tied to a chair. They ran up to him but were immediately blown away by an unknown force.

"What was that?" Shadow asked.

"Listen. You have to go to the control room. The security blew you away!" The old man ordered.

"Okay." Knux said as he ran out.

"Wait!" Shadow screamed as he followed. "We don't even know where the control room is!"

"We didn't know where this room was but we found it. We can find the control room."

"Good point."

They kept fighting off the robots but they found that they were getting harder and harder. They thought it was just coincidence so they continued to the control room. They finally got to it and shut off the security where the old man was. But then robots flooded the room. They looked no different than the others but they were very, very different. Too bad Knux and Shad didn't know this.

Knuckles punched one really hard and it blew up, along with the others, which created a massive explosion injuring Knuckles and Shadow. It knocked them out cold. When they woke up, they were in the basement at the restaurant again.

"How did we get back here?" Knuckles asked before he saw the old man.

"I brought you here." The old man said. "Thanks for rescuing me. I could've gotten out all along if that security system wasn't there. And by the way, my name's Zoolon."

"Thanks for saving us. How did you do it anyway?" Knux asked.

"Well when you freed me I heard the explosion and knew what happened. I rushed to your aid and saved you by bringing you back here. The reason the robots kept getting harder and harder was a new security system Dr. Eggman invented. See, how it works is every new batch of robots get stronger and stronger. The way more robots get created is that the Eggbot making machine senses when the Eggbots that are in currently get destroyed so it is created to make robots of stronger strength. After the highest level robots get destroyed the machine deploys explosive robots." Zoolon explained.

"Wow." Shadow said obviously admiring the system. "Now we need to get to Nightmare City and we believe you know how to get there. Mind telling us?"

"I can show you the secret entrance but you have to tell me why before I let you."

Knuckles and Shadow explained and Zoolon said "That is a good reason to go. I guess I'll let you. Follow me."

Zoolon led them out of the restaurant and they continued walking for what, to Knuckles, seemed like hours. They finally made it o the edge of Central City and Zoolon led them to a place where ten trees were right in front of a mountain. Zoolon stopped here.

"Trees in front of a mountain? This is the secret entrance?" Shadow asked.

"Don't be ridiculous. Trees aren't entrances to anything. They just hide the cave that leads to the secret entrance."

Zoolon walked up to the trees and easily pushed them aside. They revealed a cave. "Let's go."

Knuckles and Shadow walked into the cave and Zoolon moved the trees back to their original position and they walked to the end of the straight cave.

"How did you move those trees aside so easily?" Knuckles asked Zoolon.

"They were fake." Zoolon answered.

"Oh." Knuckles said. "But this cave is a dead end."

"So it appears." Zoolon. "But the wall right there is really an illusion. We walk through it and we are in Nightmare City of Nightmaronka. Shall we go?"

"Sure." Knuckles said.

They all three walked through and…

To be continued.