Chapter 12: Rescue
It was hard to tell how much time had passed. Maybe an hour or so. His impatient and on-the-move nature meant Sonic never really knew how to keep count of it. And if it wasn't for the fact that the person he was waiting for was Tails, there was no way he would be idling around here.
Sonic had run far away enough from the interstate that it, including the lights from the cars and lampposts on it, was no longer visible, even while on top of the grassy hill. He had looked 360 degrees around him to ensure there was no other sign of civilization either.
During all this time the hedgehog had sat in the middle of nowhere and the darkness wondering about how far away he still was from his destination, which led him to think about how big this country was, and in turn to think about how much scenery there was here. It was actually quite like home, really. Closer to New Mobius than Old, but the similarities he could see for now surprised him.
Though as much as he wanted to explore, Sonic reminded himself now was just not the time. There were still too many people that would see him coming, whose chatter about him passing by would be picked up by Robotnik, and once that happened…Sonic was feeling worried. If Tails didn't come in time, then it would already be too late even if he started moving out now. They had last spoken over the earpiece maybe thirty minutes ago, and Tails assured him that he was coming, but-
No! he snapped at himself for such thoughts. Tails was coming, and he knew it. That fox could do amazing things, especially with the Tornado, even if he never saw them that way. Come on, buddy…
His thoughts were interrupted when he heard a low hum. It was coming from afar, in the air, and it was becoming more and more audible. Realizing how familiar it sounded, Sonic looked in its direction and broke into a wide grin. I knew it!
"Hey bud!" Sonic called out loud, waving his arms at the approaching shape, which was slowing down and lowering itself vertically onto the flat area below the hill. As it got closer, he saw there was no mistake, it was the blue and golden plane he knew and loved. The unmistakable outline of Tails in the cockpit appeared to be waving back. It must have been really dark, since he could barely even see the fox's orange-golden fur.
Not wanting to waste time, Sonic jumped off the hill and somersaulted onto the Tornado's left wing. As he landed, the canopy slid open. "Sonic!" an excited young voice called out.
"Hey Tails!" Sonic happily greeted in return. Then he noticed that most of Tails' fur was still really black even up close. "Woah, where'd you dye yourself?" he asked in amusement.
Tails looked down at his blackened body and stuck out his tongue. "Ugh, I don't wanna talk about it now."
"Fair enough," Sonic said, but then his smile disappeared. He walked over to his usual spot on the plane before the vertical stabilizers. "Alright, let's get this done. You sure you can get there in time?"
"Positive," Tails replied, nodding. He was already taking the plane upwards. "I actually came ahead of schedule, in fact."
"How much time left?"
"Fifty-five minutes. We'll make it." Tails sounded unusually confident.
"You actually managed to come all the way here without being detected? Nice."
"Yeah, other than in the beginning, but don't worry about that. Kinda surprised me too. They're probably not going to be too happy that I sneaked through all of their radars and satellites…" He put back on his oxygen mask, closed the canopy and put his hand on the thrust lever. "But I'll deal with that later. Let's go!"
This was strange. The reports of Sonic's appearances had abruptly ceased, with the last one saying he was still on the interstate somewhere around Pennsylvania or Ohio before vanishing. There had been no trace of the hedgehog since then.
The deadline continued to inch closer and closer, but there was no sign that Sonic was approaching Los Angeles at all. Maybe he really was just lost. It didn't matter.
Robotnik knew he certainly had the means to carry out his threats, even the ones beyond this airport situation. There was no reason not to prove he was serious. If he really had to lose the fortress itself though, so be it. He could still salvage more from this huge mechanical beast than they thought.
Besides, he knew he simply couldn't pass up on the chance to cause considerable anguish to Sonic, not to mention damage to his ego and confidence. To remind him that his speed still had its limits.
There wasn't much time left. Ivo Robotnik got up from his seat and walked to another computer terminal near the bridge entrance. It was time to put the preparations in place.
As he started typing, however, something suddenly happened, and it was shown on both his robot camera screens and the live news coverage. As he turned around to watch them, he felt his jaw drop. He could not believe what he was seeing.
"There're only ten minutes left, Knuckles," Sergeant Fulton said to the echidna, not sounding hopeful or optimistic. "And there haven't been any reports of that hedgehog for over two hours since he disappeared in the Midwest. Are you absolutely sure they will arrive?"
Knuckles himself was trying to hide his rapidly fading confidence, but failing badly. "Yes. They will make it," he answered without looking at Fulton, crossing his arms.
"To be honest, you don't sound very convincing or convinced."
The echidna struggled to keep calm. "I'm…not very good at that."
"Only thing I can think of right now is to airlift the Emeralds straight out. They're standing by just for that order. Maybe buy us some-"
"What?" Knuckles turned to face the sergeant, looking half-shocked, half-angry, all-ready to fight, as his fists were raised aggressively. The other Marines had already raised their rifles in response. "If you do that-"
"The people that live underneath that flying island have already been evacuated," Fulton interrupted, his voice raised. "And I'm not saying we give the gemstones to that asshole up there, just pretend to, maybe hold him off just a little longer."
"What if it doesn't work?" Knuckles asked, hissing.
"Then it would be your own damn fault for not trying to do something after saying you would!"
"If I go in there, the people in the other terminal will die. You're willing to let that happen?"
"After what you told me what Robotnik could do? Sure. Short term loss for long term gain, goddammit. It's that simple. I don't like making that choice, but that's the option I'd choose any day."
"But then…" As he trailed off, Knuckles was surprised by just how much he wanted to save all those people as well as defeat Robotnik at the same time. The resemblance to what Sonic would say and think unsettled him somewhat. Of course, there was another other reason he was opposed to the idea. "What about Angel Island?"
"If it doesn't survive the fall, I guess you'd have to find somewhere else to live. It's just a huge rock. A flying one, but still a rock nonetheless, and I'd sacrifice that to save lives any day as well."
Falling from that height, Angel Island would certainly crumble into pieces and become a casualty itself as far as Knuckles was concerned. He could not imagine settling in some place other than Angel Island. Especially not on a planet he knew nothing about. "I can hit you before you even reach that radio, you know," Knuckles warned.
The Marines continued to nervously train their weapons on the echidna. If Sergeant Fulton felt the same way, however, he was doing a good job of hiding it. "If anything happens to me, they've been instructed to lift the damn thing," he said calmly.
Knuckles' eyes widened at that revelation. He was pretty sure he could win this fight almost instantly, but there was no way he could stop those helicopters. "Very devious," he commented in a soft, annoyed tone.
"Devious? More like practical," Fulton shot back. "Now you know who, or rather what, you should be fighting."
Knuckles stood still for a moment, and then sighed. "Fine," he said with resolve. He turned around and slowly walked over to the barrier. He could move a lot faster than this, but he deliberately delayed himself, doing so in the slim hope that Sonic, Tails, or both would suddenly but finally show up.
He stopped as his ears picked up a new sound. A low hum, steadily increasing in volume. It sounded quite familiar and seemed to be coming from…up there. He and the other Marines looked up to see what it was, and only Knuckles recognized it. He was very glad that his slowdown actually paid off. "Finally," he muttered, some relief in his voice for once.
The Tornado was visible against the starry night, hovering quite a distance away from the ground as something blue and spinning appeared to jump off it. It landed on the control tower that stood between the two parking garages before leaping off and landing on the one that Knuckles and Marines were standing on, causing the latter to immediately turn their rifles onto the newcomer while swearing in shock.
"Knux!" Sonic called out, grinning. "We were wondering who you were from up there. Nice to see you're fine. Uh, these your new friends or something?"
"No wonder it looked like you disappeared off the planet's surface," Knuckles responded grumpily, crossing his arms and glancing at the still hovering Tornado. "About time you got here."
"Sorry, it's just that I couldn't let anyone else see I'm coming, and it was really Tails' idea…do you guys really have to keep pointing those at me?"
Sergeant Fulton, as usual, was the only human who kept his cool. "Settle down, squad. So, you're the one Knuckles was waiting for," he spoke as he got closer to get a good look at the hedgehog personally. "Goddamn, so you are real."
"Uh, thanks?" Sonic replied, not really sure what to say to that, but after his tone became more serious. "Anyway, what's the situation? And plan?"
"Hostages are held up in Terminal 2 in front and Terminal 3 over there," Fulton quickly answered while pointing to said locations. "Your red friend here said he'd wait for you to come, and then each of you enter one building and take out those robots, while the cops take out the one at the front door. Apparently they got some tactical advice from the FBI, no idea how the hell they learned about that though."
"Really? Very nice of you to wait for me, knucklehead!" Sonic commented as his usual joking demeanor resurfaced.
"I would have gone in myself if I could, and don't call me that."
"Alright, enough of this. I'm going to talk to those guys downstairs and we can get this damn thing solved," Fulton said as he walked over to the barrier facing World Way and the terminal entrance. "Don't think the reporters have spotted you here…yet."
"Me? Oh yeah, that was exactly what I intended. To not let them see me," Sonic explained.
"Clever. Anyway…" the sergeant leaned over the barrier to talk to the other sergeant. "Watts! He's here!" He informed loudly.
"Seriously? About time!" Watts shouted back.
"Sonic, you better get in position at the other terminal. Now," Knuckles said.
"Okay, I'll go over to that other car park place and jump over the street onto the terminal. We'll enter through the holes Robotnik made on the roofs. When we're both ready, I give hand signals, you give, uh, hair signals, and then we finally drop in and kick butt. All good?"
"That's…yeah, that'll work," Knuckles replied, wide-eyed at the surprisingly sound plan Sonic cooked up in such a short amount of time.
"Oh yeah, and after the robots are gone, we jump back up to the roofs. Tails will swoop down and take us both to the Doc's fortress."
Knuckles nodded. "Got it. Now move."
Without another word, the hedgehog jumped off the parking garage, dashed a short distance horizontally, and then vertically as he climbed onto the other in just a few seconds. As he ran on top of the skybridge that connected the parking garage to Terminal 3, Knuckles did the same with Terminal 2.
"Steady weapons!" Watts ordered both out loud and into his radio so that the forces outside Terminal 3 receive it as well. "Aim only, and only, at the robot's face! Nowhere else!" Their AR-15s had already been loaded to fire the ammo recommended by the FBI, which had some HRT guys next to them for support.
"Check the camera feed!" Watts continued. "When you see them inside trashing the bots, we open fire at the one at the door!"
"Copy that," the others said in acknowledgement.
"Jesus," the SWAT sergeant said quietly to himself, "I really hope they do what they say they can do."
On the roofs of Terminal 2 and 3, Sonic and Knuckles took their positions beside the large holes. They flattened themselves onto the roof and peered inside to see the exact locations of the robots without revealing themselves. Within moments, they already knew what and where to strike.
The two were able to see each other clearly despite the distance between them. First, they flashed each other a thumbs up. Sonic then held up his hand and showed the number three with it. Knuckles, whose boxing gloves covered up his fingers, simply held up three of his dreadlocks. As Sonic folded each finger, Knuckles let go of each dreadlock. Three, two, one…
And off they went. They both dropped in, and the instant they touched the ground, they did what they were good at in their own ways.
Sonic launched himself into a spin at the nearest bot, sawing it roughly into front and back halves, before immediately softening the edges of his quills to bounce off the curved wall towards another bot, during which he sharpened his quills again to cut through, this time diagonally. He kept this motion going this time to cut through another bot before bouncing off the wall again, repeating the whole procedure with the other bots. All while avoiding every shocked civilian present.
Knuckles also did the bouncing-off-the-walls routine, except he simply kept his fists extended in front of him nearly the whole time as he leapt through a bot, off a wall, through another bot, off a wall again, and so on.
"Now! Open fire!" In front of the two terminals, the SWAT and HRT officers all started shooting at the buggy-bot's supposed weak spot. Barrier-blind shots tore straight through the small, lightly armored front plate and into the weapon targeting and engine electronics. The saturation of bullets happened fast enough that the buggies never got to react, and they continued firing even after causing the minimum damage needed to shut it down.
Then to finish it off, both Sonic and Knuckles smashed through the carriers in the center of their respective rooms at the same time. Within just twenty seconds, it was all over. All of the robots were dealt with and everyone was safe.
All except one, as far as Sonic was concerned. He and Knuckles jumped back onto the roofs of the terminals once they confirmed there weren't any robots left that posed a threat. The Tornado had lowered itself onto the area between the two buildings just in time for the two to hop on. "All done, Tails! Let's go get him now!"
The plane already rose into the air even before Sonic started speaking before banking hard to the left, flying at full throttle towards the now vulnerable flying fortress. Below them, the now freed hostages were left wondering, both in confusion and relief, about what exactly just happened.
Still aghast at how they'd somehow managed to avoid media detection before coming out of nowhere to destroy his robots so quickly as to overwhelm their reaction time protocols, Robotnik was furiously typing away at the computer system, hastily selecting what he wanted to salvage from this fortress after it had dawned on him that he, not the hostages, was the one whose deadline had come earlier, already tearing his door down. He berated himself for not having done this earlier, such as when the whole thing was still buried under the mountain.
He was almost about to complete the process when it happened. "No! No! Not now!"
"Sir, we just got confirmation! The hostages in the airport are safe!" the seaman reported to the commander of the Wayne E. Meyer after rushing into the bridge, having gotten the news off the radio.
"Really?" the commander asked, somewhat reflexively. He wasn't going to ask how, though, as he, like the commanders aboard the other destroyers at the moment, was thinking of something else entirely. Something they, and everyone else aboard had wanted to do for three hours, but only now did they finally get the chance.
He pressed a switch to communicate with the Combat Information Center. They were going to want to hear this. "This is Commander Hackett. You have clearance to fire. I repeat: you have clearance to fire, over."
"Hell yeah, resuming fire!" the operators in the CIC exclaimed as they prepared a huge volley of flying hell for the hated target. Just before pressing the last button, one of them defiantly added, "this is for the Stockdale, bitch!"
"Uh, oh," Sonic remarked with concern as they saw the bright flashes coming from the ships below while the Tornado continued to approach the fortress. "Tails, we better hurry!"
The Aggressive Defense System was issuing a multiple missile launch alert, which would prove to be its last. Each destroyer was launching way too many surface-to-air missiles way too fast for the system to handle. It only managed to feebly intercept twenty or so before the other hundred exploded directly on the fortress' outer surface, some of them on the massive thrusters.
Robotnik had only just finished typing and gotten up when the violent trembles shocked him, emotionally and literally. Had he planned this any better, he would already be seated properly, already ready to eject.
Since he wasn't, however, the jittering and shaking environment ended up causing him to fall over. The bridge wasn't really a spacious place for someone, especially a fat person like him, to lose his balance. The doctor hit his head against the edge of a table.
As Robotnik collapsed on the floor, he tried to draw as much as strength as possible from all of his stress, fear, frustration, and desire to not lose to Sonic to get back up, but it wasn't enough to overcome the pain and injury. As his consciousness slipped away, the last thing he could hear was the monotone computer warning that all occupants must follow emergency ejection procedures due to an imminent explosion caused by catastrophic engine damage.
The missile impacts and engine explosions were large enough to affect the Tornado as well. Either that, Tails thought, or he'd been flying way too close to the fortress. Regardless, having seen the missiles approaching even before Sonic's warning, he had attempted to swerve away, choosing to go up. The Tornado fortunately managed to get far away enough to avoid the heat and debris, but not the shock waves, which meant the plane was still shaken roughly.
Sonic was able to grip one of the vertical stabilizers tightly as it happened, but Knuckles wasn't, and he promptly fell over after losing his balance. "Knux!" the hedgehog called out as the echidna continued to yell while plunging into the ocean, albeit more out of surprise than fear.
The height difference between the water surface and the Tornado was smaller than the time went Sonic fell over just before being teleported to Earth, not to mention Tails had only just leveled the plane from the sharp upwards swing, so there was no way to catch Knuckles with the aircraft just in time. The echidna made a big splash as he hit the water.
"Tails, Knux just fell over!" Sonic said, realizing that the fox may not have noticed while he had been handling the plane.
"What?" Tails sounded surprised at first, but then understood immediately how it could have happened. He knew, however, that other priorities still came first. "Sonic, Knuckles can swim, so we can't worry about him now. You have to get to Robotnik," he reminded his friend as he slowed down and banked right, flying behind and above the now rapidly burning fortress. The fires engulfing the thrusters were especially large and fierce, and Tails would have been blinded by them if it weren't for the anti-bloom features in his night vision goggles.
"Um, okay, but how?"
Tails thought very quickly to look for an answer, and had an idea. He set the plane in hovering mode and brought it over to the fortress' starboard side where all the missiles just hit to survey the damage.
Looking properly at what the missiles just did, it seemed to him that the fortress wasn't so well-armored after all despite, or perhaps because of, its size. That meant there should be an opening somewhere. He squinted through his goggles to scan for one, and he got it.
What was probably one of the fortress' entrances was charred and blown wide open. It appeared reasonably close to the bridge too. "Sonic, you see that hole there? Looks like a door? Or used to be one?" Tails asked as he cautiously brought the plane closer.
"Yeah! I'm going-" Sonic was fully ready to jump inside, but a new thought stopped him. "Wait, are you coming?"
"I can't. Something's wrong with my autopilot. I'll go down to get Knuckles instead and come back here in a minute. Hurry, Sonic, the fortress is losing altitude!"
"Gotcha! I'm getting that Eggster outta here!" Sonic declared as he leapt off the plane straight into the hole, narrowly avoiding the incredibly hot edges around it.
"Be careful, too!" Tails added before rapidly taking the plane downwards to get Knuckles.
As Tails got as close to the water as he could, he took off his oxygen mask and pushed his goggles above his eyes before opening the canopy. "Knuckles!" he called out, "Where are you!"
"I'm here!" the echidna, who was keeping himself afloat with kicking motions, replied loudly so that he could be heard over the Tornado's loud engines. "Help me back up on the plane, will ya!"
Suddenly, however, it occurred to Tails that it could be impossible. The echidna certainly could swim, but even he couldn't jump out of water to a high enough height to get back aboard the Tornado. And of all the things Sonic and Tails' plane could do, landing on water wasn't one of them, since with his thrusters pointed downwards, he had to stay a sufficient minimum height above the water just to be safe.
But worst of all was that since the autopilot was damaged, Tails could not simply leave the plane hovering there by itself while he flew with his namesakes to pick Knuckles up. As he realized all of this, the fox felt a great apprehension that this could be a huge problem.
"Tails!" Knuckles called out. "Are you listening? What's wrong?"
Inside the now falling fortress, Sonic dodged various explosions and obstacles that randomly popped out of the walls, adding to the challenge of needing to navigate the maze of corridors and stairs to get to a place whose location he wasn't really sure of. Vision was also a problem thanks to the failing and flickering lights, and Sonic was actually forced to stay in one spot for half a second to read a directions sign properly. He jumped away just as he saw where the bridge was to avoid getting hit by a falling ceiling panel.
Sonic dashed up the stairs and finally entered the bridge. Looking around, he was surprised that it was still in good shape compared to the rest of the fortress' interior. Robotnik, however, clearly was not. The fat doctor was lying motionless on the floor, his head bleeding.
"Eggman!" Sonic exclaimed, actually sounding concerned for him. He quickly put his gloved hand onto the man's neck and was relieved to feel a pulse. Still alive, then, but…how to get him out of here? The hedgehog tried pulling Robotnik out by his legs, and was alarmed to find he couldn't move him much, if at all.
Feeling too rushed for once to make jokes about his weight, Sonic remembered there was only one person who could carry this guy. "Tails? How's Knuckles? Can you get him for me?" he asked, remembering his earpiece.
"I can't," a frustrated young voice replied, "the autopilot's busted, so I can't fly myself to get Knuckles otherwise the Tornado will fall into the water, and he can't jump out of the water high enough to get up here. Why do you need him?"
"Eggman's unconscious. I can't carry him! I think he might die here!"
Tails normally liked to be proven correct in his estimates, but not this time. The notion that they had come here for nothing…"Damn it!"
The fortress was already going to hit the water. Knuckles was already swimming away from ground zero as fast as possible, while Tails snapped out of his funk and hovered away as well. What do we do? He couldn't help but wonder. What do we do?
Sonic was thinking of the same question as well, looking and hearing around for any solution at all. The latter was what finally turned something up. Other than the explosions and other noises, the hedgehog could hear a monotone computer voice being drowned out, and it was saying something very important.
"Warning: severe engine damage. Explosion imminent. Please activate bridge ejection sequence and seat yourself immediately. Warning: severe engine damage…"
The voice was coming from a computer terminal just in front of Robotnik, or would be if he were standing up, next to the door. Sonic got up to it and saw that the screen was showing what appeared to be an emergency ejection sequence for the bridge itself, ready to activate. The only step left was to actually press the 'return' key for confirmation.
The fortress shook heavily again as it finally crashed into the sea. Even if the explosions did not get them, the water certainly would. Sonic took one last look at the unconscious mad scientist. If this was really the only way to save him…he made his decision.
Hitting the return key, the screen then showed a countdown, saying it would take thirty seconds for the bridge's own engines to be ready. Sonic noticed the door was closing and zoomed through it in a panic before it sealed up. He went down the stairs to see water already seeping in, slowly flooding the corridors.
"Tails? I found a way to save Eggman. I'll explain later. For now, come over to the door and ask Knuckles to swim there too. I'll pick him up and we'll both get onboard," he said as he madly rushed through the maze, thankfully remembering where to go exactly. He was not going to drown or get blown up here.
"Um, alright, Sonic," Tails replied, sounding rather bewildered, but he knew there was no time for questions. "Knuckles, you've gotta swim back to the fortress, to the hole where Sonic's coming out," he said loudly to the echidna.
"What?" Knuckles replied even more loudly, the shock evident in his voice. "You crazy? Isn't that whole thing going to explode?"
"That's why you have to go there. You won't be able to escape the explosion by swimming. You can climb onto the hole Sonic entered and then jump onto the Tornado like him. Hurry!"
Understanding the reasoning, Knuckles barely nodded before swimming freestyle towards than the sinking fortress rather than away from it. Tails brought the Tornado over to the entrance to show the echidna where to go, as well as to wait for Sonic.
The explosions around the fortress' thrusters, far from being stopped by the water, were actually happening with greater frequency now. The Big One was undoubtedly coming soon. Time was running out.
And fortunately so was Sonic, who appeared at the entrance just as its bottom edge touched the water, which Knuckles also reached at the same time. Sonic grabbed the echidna's fist as he leapt onto the Tornado, and Tails pushed the thrust lever all the way to the front, making the plane move forwards, which was much faster, rather than upwards. Sonic was barely able to hold onto the vertical stabilizer in time as he pulled Knuckles up.
Thirty seconds after pressing that key, there was a massive flash and loud boom as the fortress disappeared into a huge fireball, causing Sonic and Knuckles to shield their eyes. There was another shock wave, which in turn led to big water waves, though fortunately the Tornado was now far away enough from either. The US Navy ships were likely to be hit by the latter, though their crews were smart enough to keep their distance, so the waves should have diminished by the time they reached them.
When the explosion settled, Sonic took another look at where the fortress was, or, rather, had been. All that was left of the behemoth were large chunks of burning scrap metal sinking into the Pacific. He sighed loudly, not really sure what to feel. He comforted himself by saying even if Robotnik's corpse was really among that wreckage, he had still at least tried his best to save him.
"So, is he dead?" Knuckles asked, breaking the silence, at least relatively speaking, since the Tornado's engine noises were rather overwhelming. He didn't ask very loudly, but Sonic could hear him properly nonetheless.
"I…I really don't know."
"I'm betting he isn't. We've all seen what he's been able to survive all these years. Wish he was, though, just so I never, ever, have to put up with this crap happening to me and the Emeralds ever again," Knuckles added bitterly.
"I was just always hoping we could do that without needing to kill him," Sonic added, his voice having little emotion. He was still staring blankly at the wreckage in the sea.
"I understand, Sonic, but at what cost? Is it really worth it? What he was back then was what he was back then. Now he's just a dangerous madman. He's caused me, you, Tails and everyone on Mobius problems, and if he's still alive he will cause problems for everyone on this planet too. You really should think about others once in a while, Sonic." Knuckles took a deep breath to calm down before continuing in a less harsh voice. "Anyway, could you take me back to Angel Island?"
Tails landed the Tornado right in front of the emerald altar on Angel Island. The Marine twin-bladed helicopters were still hovering above it, though they did not take any other actions. Tails was observing and studying the helicopters curiously from where he stood on the stairs, and knew that the crews were doing the same to them.
Meanwhile, Knuckles walked around the Master Emerald and the seven Chaos Emeralds, feeling glad that they were all here and intact.
Unfortunately, that was the only good news. Leaning against the Master Emerald, he closed his eyes and shook his head.
"Knux, what's wrong?" Sonic, who stood next to him, asked.
"I…I think we're going to be here for a while. On this planet, I mean. At least until the Emeralds recharge completely and are ready again for a teleportation like that." His voice was heavy and full of dread.
"How long would that take?" Sonic said, and begin feeling rather worried about what kind of answer he would get. Tails also came up the stairs, having heard the question being asked, which was more important than the helicopters.
Knuckles was silent for a moment before finally replying. "Could be four or five years, Sonic."
Both Sonic and Tails froze completely after hearing that. The fox was able to recover first, though. "But I thou-I…I guess it's not that surprising," he said unhappily with a sigh. "The Master Emerald had to unleash pretty much all of its energy when it was hit by Robotnik's vaporizer and got massively overloaded, which is what caused the teleportation. I understand…doesn't mean it's not disappointing though," he finished as he looked down at the floor, ears drooping.
"See what I mean, Sonic? Thinking about others?" Knuckles couldn't help but add as he folded his arms. "What exactly are we going to do now?"
Sonic took some time to think about their present situation, and made his decision. "You know, I think we could go back down there, actually."
"Seriously? You think they'll let you live with them just like that?" Knuckles asked with a scoff.
"Sure. They're not all bad. I've met some, trust me, and remember that we did just save a whole bunch of them from those bots. I'd think we'd be at least somewhat welcome among them because of that. Besides, staying around on this island is gonna bore me to death, no offense to you, Knux. We've got a whole new world to explore down there. I think it'd be fun. What d'you say, bud?" he asked Tails after finishing.
"Hmm," the fox contemplated it for a moment, and answered, "that idea's not too bad…I guess." The only problem left for him, of course, was that he had found it hard enough to talk to mobians back home. How was he going to do the same with all the humans here?
"If you're worried how they'll think of you, I don't think you have to be. Just stick with me, make some friends, should be okay."
Tails nodded. "Sure thing, Sonic."
"If you don't want to be here, where exactly are you going to stay?"
"I'm pretty sure Alan's place should work. We still need to find him anyway."
"Okay. And what if Robotnik comes back?" Knuckles said as a reminder. "You know that just might happen."
"We'll be ready for him. Simple as that," Sonic replied in a determined manner.
Knuckles said nothing again for about half a minute, eyes closed as he took everything Sonic said into consideration. After he opened them, he said, "fine. You do that. I'm going to move this island out over the ocean where no one will bother me. If Robotnik does come back, he's your problem, alright? I'd like you to not make it my problem as well. If you fight him again, just keep in mind what I said."
"I will," Sonic replied as he turned to walk down the stairs with Tails towards the Tornado. "Believe me, I will." They walked a short distance before the hedgehog turned around again. "Thanks for helping me out just now. We owe you too."
"Sure. Just please don't owe the whole world over Robotnik, okay?" Knuckles reminded. "The only reason mobians have never thought about this so much is because they barely even have contact with their own neighbors. I should know, I'm like that. But with all the media focus this planet seems to have, don't expect it to happen the exact same way here."
Sonic looked at Knuckles in what seemed like an amused or curious way. "You know, you're sounding kinda like Alan now."
"What?" The echidna was confused.
"He's been telling me things sort of like that while he was with us," Sonic admitted, "in fact he pretty much, uh, woke us up how we found out Eggman was planning to blow up Angel Island."
"Wait a minute," Knuckles said, now feeling suspicious at hearing this news. "So you're saying if it weren't for Alan, I and Angel Island would have been zapped into dust while both of you were sleeping?"
Neither Sonic nor Tails said a word in response as they simply stared at the echidna. It was true, wasn't it?
He shook his head in clear disapproval. "Sonic, that's…you know what, I don't even know what to say about that. Just…" he cringed as he tried to think of how to continue. "Get out of here. Think about what could have happened. And what could happen again. I beg you, okay?"
"Got it, Knux," Sonic said as he walked down the steps with Tails beside him. He didn't expect to be ending this situation in such low spirits, with something so heavy to think about. "Let's get out of here, Tails."
"Where to, though?"
"The airport, I guess. Figure they'd want to see us," Sonic pointed out. "See you, Knux."
"Yeah, bye," Knuckles said gruffly as he sat atop the stairs as if he was glad to see them go.
"He's got a point, Sonic," Tails said as they both got aboard the Tornado. "If it weren't for Alan, we'd have woken up to find all the Emeralds in Robotnik's hands and Knuckles dead." He didn't say any more than that, nor did he have to.
"I know," Sonic replied, sounding both relieved and regretful. "It's just...I can't bring myself to, you know, go that route. If there's another way, I'll always take it. That's what Alan also said he does, remember?"
"True," the fox concurred as he started up the engines.
"Anyway," Sonic continued in a slightly more relaxed tone, "the important thing for now is that we did save the day. Let's cheer up a bit. Wouldn't want to greet the crowd with long faces, would we?"