Section 8: Welcome To Fury. Co
"All the checks are complete sir. We are ready for initialisation and the final countdown". Matt stood overlooking the base "How long before it happens?" "2 hours sir" replied the troop "And is the other machine set up and ready?" Matt said with a glint in his eye. The troop was briefly confused but soon realised what Matt was referring to "Its all ready sir, it's stored in the hanger for you". "Perfect".
The savage sun shown down on the desert with ferocious force, the only shade offered from the buildings of the base and the peaks and mountain spikes surrounding it. Within one of these shadows were Sonic and his team. Tails observed the base with a pair of binoculars they had taken from the log cabin the previous night. The complex consisted of grey concrete buildings and control towers with orange and black warning stripes painted across them and a number allocated to each. The scariest thing was that there was not a single window on any of the buildings except at the control tower bridges where troops and technicians could be seen only doing the mundane work. Corridors stemmed across from some buildings to others and satellite dishes and exhaust pipes were scattered across the rooftops. This was believed to be the research centre but also located nearby was the storage area which contained the massive hangers for the ships, garages for the vehicles and barracks for the troops ."How is it looking tails?" asked Sonic "This won't be easy Sonic" he said feeling his heart drop "Its so bright we have to take care not to be seen when we get in, and the security fence is too tall to climb over quickly, not to mention it's electrified." "So what do we do Tails?" said Sonic, he knew what they had to do but wanted to hear Tails say it knowing that he could easily figure it out "We can't go over or through so the only way is under. Knuckles can you dig in this soil" Knuckles tested the soil and managed to take out a sizable chunk with ease "No problem at all, this is just the ground I like" "Then let's go" said Amy as she took the lead down the hillside. The rest followed her lead down to the desert flatland. "Stand back" dirt and rocks flew as Knuckles dug a tunnel just under the grounds surface but unfortunately covered most of Chris in the process "Yuck, thanks Knuckles" he said looking at his new brown top "At least you will be slightly camouflaged Chris" said Cream who was trying to find an upside to the situation. The team crawled through the tube behind Knuckles as he continued to dig "Urg, If I had known we would be crawling through the dirt I wouldn't have worn my best dress" said Amy in disgust "Tails what's this?" Knuckles had dug straight into a metal pole "That will be a fence support, were inside, just dig around Knuckles I can roughly guide us to the building we need" Tails pulled out an old white napkin with a hand drawn map of the complex he had made while up in the mountains.
Knuckles continued to dig until he once again hit something solid, this time a vertical slab of concrete. "What's that? Are we there Tails? Asked Tikal "Here you go" said Knuckles spiking a few small holes in the ground for tails to look out. Tails scanned the area with the limited view he had watching the top halves of troops with rifles marching past and the odd truck carrying equipment driving past. He turned round to face a large concrete building with orange industrial stripes on it and a large printed number three on the side "This is the right building and the door as right above us." He looked at Cream "What do you want me to do?" she said "When we have gone we need you to seal up the tunnel, if the find the exit we are done for" Cream was slightly upset by this "You don't want me to go with you" Tikal quickly grabbed her and gave her a tight hug "Cream, you know there is nothing I would love more but to have you join us, but I'm afraid this is a bit too dangerous. After you have finished head back to the log cabin" Cream look at her and nodded, she trusted what Tikal said. Tails continued to scan the area "The guards will be gone soon, that will be our chance, get ready everyone" Knuckles placed his fist where he was going to make the exit and the others took a crouched running position "Get ready. Three. Two. One. GO!" Knuckles punched though and leapt out and the others followed. However after they were all on their feet the saw that the door was password locked by a 7 digit code "I knew this was a bad idea" said Shadow as he took a fighting stance in case another patrol came round the corner "I knew we didn't have enough time to plan this out safely" "Chill Shadow, I know the password" Shadow was confused "Really, how do you?" Tails typed in the code, he had watched the code being entered by Matt himself as he was watching the base earlier jotting it down on the napkin "Hurry up Tails!" Shadow was hearing the footsteps and chatter of troops closing in on their position "I got it!" The door clicked and slid open and everyone rushed in just in time to avoid the next patrol.
As they turned to look at where they were the first thing that was obvious was that orange chevrons were only pointing in one direction. They were standing in a single walkway which slopped down underground so far that the light was not powerful to reach the bottom which made it fade to darkness. On the sides of the walls were flashing orange lights which continuously spun all the way down the corridor and hanging from the roof were TV monitors constantly flashing between the statistics and data they had seen in last nights transmission and below were timers which read "PROJECT:OBLIVION ACTIVATION T-MINUS 00:33:12" which kept falling. "Well, there's only one way we can go now" Said Shadow staring into the corridors abyss "But so far so good" added Chris. In single file the team walked down and down even reaching a point where the top and the bottom of the slop had faded into the shadows. "Sonic, Im really scared" Said Amy clutching his arm tight "He's two people in front of me" Amy saw in one of the wall lights' flashes that it was actually Shadow's arm she was holding "Shadow! I'm so sorry" she still couldn't let go of his arm out of fear though "And to make you feel better Amy, Im scared too" "That doesn't make me feel better actually, your supposed to be the fearless one" Amy paused "But thanks for trying" Shadow gripped Amy's arm a bit harder with his "Well I wasn't going to lie to you was I. I'm not the type for false hope" Amy looked Shadow in the eyes "You don't think we're going to succeed?" Shadow looked back "We've got further than I thought we would. But that is what frightens me. They would either attack us with small forces all the way to the machine or..." Amy could feel Shadow's arm tremble "Or what?" Shadow took a deep breath to calm down before he replied "Or there is something very big waiting for us at the end". That was a prospect Amy hadn't even considered which quickly replaced all of her old fears.
"We're here" Tails had finally caught sight of a large blast door which was partially open. Leaving the flashing lights and monitors behind them, they walked through the door which seemed to be a number of meters thick. "I can't see anything in here" moaned Knuckles "Where are we Tails?" Tails was also lost in the dark spinning around trying to find some bearings "I don't know. That corridor completely disorientated me" Tikal noticed there was a very small pulsing red light on the wall next to the door "Hey this might be something" "Careful Tikal, who knows what that might do" said shadow in paranoia of the situation. In complete contrast Tikal heard Sonic say "Pull it Tikal, it can't make things worse can it" She was torn but ultimately sided with Sonic. She pulled a lever and the light changed to green. Lights flickered to life providing a minimal amount of vision but enough to see the entire room. Tails was in awe of what he was seeing. They were stood in a massive room which was empty in the middle but towards the edges housed oil drums, movable ladders, pipes, storage boxes and maintenance machinery. "WOW! I don't believe this" said Tails "Believe what Tails" asked Shadow. "Everyone, we are stood inside the Raptures hanger, obviously it's not here now but this is where they keep it" Sonic couldn't help but chuckle. He knew that Tails secretly admired most things about Fury. Co but placed his hand on his shoulder "Try to remember they're the enemy Tails" Tails instantly got embarrassed "Sorry Sonic" He pointed out a small lit door on the opposite side of the hanger "The ripper is just through there". They walked across to the door "This wasn't so hard, I guess they got sloppy with their defences with all that's happening here" Tails said but just as he was about to walk through the door it slammed down with considerable force trapping his foot under it.
He let out a shriek of pain and the others stood in shock "QUICK! Pull him out NOW!" Knuckles and Shadow gave a tug and freed Tails also allowing this door to seal shut; they laid him down against some fuel containers. Tikal knelt down beside him to check the wound "Oh my god! Tails do not move! You have a huge slice across your foot" Tails was flooded with tears and blood was flowing out of the gash "AAAHHH IT HURTS!" "I know Tails" said Tikal in a soft comforting voice "But I can stop the bleeding" She took the napkin with the map drawn on it and tied it tightly around his foot and smiled "Everything will be fine Tails". "Yes, everything will be fine Tails" A familiar voice echoed from the blast door they had just walked though and stood in a beam of white light was Matt "Because Tails your the one I'm going to let go as a message that we have the authority and power in this world. The rest of you however, well, let's just say you're going to become another statistic" He confidently smiled with narrowed eyes.