The next day started with the best news that we could ever have, I could hear everyone cheering as I made my way to the Command Room. I was happy too and I was cartwheeling down the hallway. Sonic was alive!
I entered the Command Room and I calmed down, everyone was happy. I could see that Amy was jumping up and down in glee, shouting that she knew that he was alive.
"So, where has he been for the past six months?" I asked.
"He's in an orbiting prison." The Commander said. "My spy there says that he is in a solitary confinement cell and that they have been torturing him for months."
"That's horrible!" Amy shouted. "We have to rescue him!"
"So, how are we going to rescue him?" I asked Vector. "And why aren't we breaking out the other prisoners? Sonic can't be the only one up there."
"That's a wait and see Rookie." Vector grinned at me while Knuckles explained to Amy what we were going to do. He was not going to forget about this. "But we don't have the manpower or the resources to break out all of them out of there. We can only afford to get Sonic out now."
"It's not right, to leave them up there."
"Breaking Sonic out will be good for morale." Espio told us. "And right now, we need that more than we need the extra hands that breaking everyone up there will give us."
I frowned. Espio and Vector were right, we needed Sonic. We had come so far on our own but if we wanted to win, we had to have Sonic fighting on our side. "Are we going back, once we've rescued Sonic, to get everyone else out?"
"We will, one day." Espio patted my shoulder as the Commander turned to us.
"C'mon, guys. Who's up for an old-school style jailbreak?"
My first impression of the Chemical Plant Zone was that it smelled. I gagged as I used my new grapple hook to fly over a gap. My communicator crackled before Espio's voice came through.
"Espio here. My team's engaging the enemy in the orbital tunnel! I think that we can hold them off for now.
"No, wait! Watch out! The masked one's here! The monster that took down Sonic!"
I gasped. "Espio!" I yelled as I used a Wire Attack on a nearby robot. "Be careful! He's stronger than he looks!"
The alarms started to go off as the other members of the resistance started their parts in this jailbreak that the Commander had asigned to them.
"Stay focused rookie!" Vector said over the coms, causing me to silently seethe at the fact that he just had to call me a rookie. I knew that I was a rookie at this sort of thing but did he really have to rub it into my face! "We're off to find a shuttle!"
"To steal it." I muttered as I used the grappling line to swing over groups of robots, ignoring my usual habit of blowing them up, six months without my powers had worn me down when it came to habits like this, I missed them but right now, I had more important things to worry about.
Like, using the Wispon.
Pressing the trigger allowed me to shoot a stream of fire at the robots in front of me and if I jumped and fired it downwards, it allowed me to gain some extra height in the air and reach any higher ground above me.
There were other Wispons that I could use but I had to earn the right to use them before I could actually get my hands on one to try it out and to find one that fit my fighting style.
The fire allowed me to break through lines of robots to reach boost pads which sent me flying into the air, close to targets for my grappling hook.
One of these targets was the iconic helix shaped roads that were the first thing to came to anyone's mind when you thought of the Chemical Plant Zone, the hook lodged itself at the bottom and the momentum allowed me to complete a 360 swing, flinging myself through the gap in the middle of the helix before I landed on my feet.
I nearly screwed up that landing but I managed to stay upright, the adrenaline rush that came after that was unexpected. I was not prepared for what it did to me, as I rushed forwards, blowing the robots away with flames as I ran through them. It felt like I was home, blasting away stray robots with my powers and just having fun.
The rush wore off after I came across a set of rails that led to another grapple target that spun me around before I landed in front of a capsule that contained something red. A capsule that I busted open with a kick that released the red thing, which was the Wisp that my Wispon was based on.
Touching the Wisp with the Wispon activated the downwards burst that allowed me to gain extra height that I had found out about earlier but this time, it was more focused and controllable than the risky makeshift boost I got when I found out about it.
The burst allowed me to reach a high platform where I could see another grapple target. The grappling hook latched onto the target and I tugged at it to make sure that it was secure before I took a running jump off of the platform, swinging my legs to increase how far I went before I let go.
But I had made a mistake.
The little boost that was meant to insure that I landed on my target was the reason that I almost fell off of it.
My target was a moving train that was going to be crossing over where I wanted to land, I would have missed it if it wasn't for the noise it made. I thought that I could use it to gain an idea of my surroundings, since it did move around the Zone and it would allow me to get a heads-up if an ambush was waiting for anyone who had taken this route.
I skidded when I landed on the train's roof and the left over momentum almost sent me flying off of it if I hadn't grabbed onto the edge of the roof and used it to crawl onto the roof. I was trying to get my heart to stop with it's efforts to jump out of my chest when I noticed that the roof of the tunnel that my ride was about to enter was too low for me.
I aimed the grapple hook to the sky and fired it at what looked like a bridge on another track, pulling me off of the train roof before the section that I was on, entered the tunnel. The hook disconnected once I reached the bridge, leaving me hanging in the air for a few seconds, right in front of another train before I fired it at another target, pulling myself out of the way seconds before the train was about to run over me.
The whole thing left me breathless but I had no time to catch it as I pressed on, through more grapple targets and robots, my communicator crackled again and the voice of the sliver hedgehog that I knew as Silver now, came through.
"Let's head in while Espio keeps them busy!"
"We need a shuttle to get to Sonic in time!" The Commander said as the path that I was taking made me go upside down as I ran through a loop like the ones you could find in Green Hill, before it became Sand Hill.
The sheer speed that I was going at made it easier to deal with running upside down but I could still hear the rest of the resistance talking, thanks to the communicators.
"All quiet at the launch pad, for now." I heard Amy Rose say. "Grab a shuttle before they sound the alert!"
Another Burst Wisp allowed me to reach higher platforms and to cross gaps and the flames from the Wispon burnt any robot in my way, my lungs felt like they were about to blow but I couldn't help but smile as I made my way through the boost rings, swinging on the grappling hook.
My feet found a grip on some rails as Vector's voice came through the communicator. "Perfect. They won't mind if we borrow this for a while."
Switching rails was harder than it looked, I almost lost my grip as I grinded pass cargo containers and more platforms. I was wobbling and tilting to the side and having the commander yelling in my ears was not helping me live through this!
"Hurry it up, rookie! Get outta there as soon as everyone's aboard. Step on it!"
"I'm going as fast as I can!" I yelled as I switched to another rail that led to a booster and a line of boost rings that flung me towards a grapple target. I could see spaceships and shuttles up ahead, I was almost there.
My feet hit the ground of the landing strip and I took off running, heading towards a shuttle that was taking off. I could see Vector next to the loading ramp that was slowly closing. "Kai! Hurry up!"
I aimed and fired the grappling hook at a pole inside of the ship and I let the wire haul me inside the ship. I crashed into the wall just before the ramp closed behind me. I groaned as Vector pulled me out of the indentation that I had created.
"Hey Rookie! Are you okay?"
"Vector, am I the only one that can see the pretty birdies?"
He laughed.