An Author's Nightmare 2: Going Underground 5AE

by Bat138

An Author's Nightmare 2: Going Underground 5th Anniversary Edition... Five years ago, I wrote this fanfic about me going into the SU world... it was hailed as the worst... now, five years later, I rewrote it, hoping it will revieve better reviews. Enjoy!

13. Returning and SERE I

CHAPTER 13

Returning and S.E.R.E. I

1

FOUR YEARS AGO

The sun was slowly rising over the forest of Fort Bragg. The grass dew was still wet and the morning was chilly even though it was summer. The 14 recruits, with their vast knowledge in the Arabic language, stood around a gazebo wearing their battle dress uniforms, coats, and wool hats and gloves. Next to them are their gear bags full of items they can use to make tents, traps, campfires, and a poncho. The only weapon each one had was a knife. In Ryan's case, he is equipped with a Heckler and Koch 50 Tactical Fixed Blade, the same exact one he has when being taken to Mobius in a few years. He bought it just after Basic Training at a military surplus store.

The recruits were chilly, so they bundled up together, completely unaware of the training that lies ahead. They knew what the training phase was, but they were not expecting such harsh treatment from it.

The recruits heard footsteps approaching them from the front. They looked up and noticed Colonel Moss standing ahead of them, wearing his battle dress uniform, only he bore no coat, no wool gloves, and the only hat he wore was his official green beret, flashing a light blue U-shaped patch, meaning he was part of the 7th Special Forces Group. On the patch is a silver eagle, making him a Colonel. Standing around Moss and the whole gazebo were 14 small Huey helicopters.

"No need to call attention," Colonel Moss quickly said. The recruits were too cold to even flinch. However, Moss seemed to show no sign of being chilly. "Welcome to SERE! Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape. For the next three weeks, you men will be dropped into different undisclosed locations in the forest. You must survive out there for a week. Then we will send our instructors out to collect you, but you must prevent them from finding you. If you are caught, you will spend the rest of SERE in our makeshift prisoner of war camp where we will treat you like a POW. It's not going to be easy and it will be anything but fun. Use your survival training to keep yourselves alive. At this point, I'd say I wish you luck, but I would be lying if I did."

Colonel Samuel Moss' words worried the recruits. He spoke like an unfeeling robot. This is what Ryan got himself into. In fact, he saw documentaries about S.E.R.E. and this training phase was the one where he dreaded the most in his training. It finally came, though and he has got to get through it for three weeks. However, they were going to be the longest three weeks of his life.

There was only one good side to this. Ryan is in training to be an Army Special Forces Operator, and he was told that the Air Force, especially pilots, have a much harsher S.E.R.E. course. Ryan will only have to undergo surviving in the wild, evading enemy capture, and resisting interrogation methods. The Air Force has an extra part about water survival, due to pilots having to eject and survive in the open water. Since Ryan won't have to worry about falling in the water in his line of duty, he and the rest of the recruits are spared that. Still did not make S.E.R.E. any easier.

"Okay, everyone, get in a separate Huey and do exactly as the instructors tell you in there," Moss announced just as the 14 Huey's began rotating their rotors. "Move it!"

The recruits, unaffected by Moss' loud yell, grabbed their bags at their feet and charged for different Huey's. No one fought over which one they wanted because they were all the same. Inside of each Huey was an instructor Sergeant they were all familiar with.

Ryan quickly got into a Huey helicopter where there were two pilots and one Sergeant in front of him. It was Master Sergeant Jonathan Fox, the Intelligence Sergeant that was part of their collective training. Ryan strapped himself in the seat with the bag's strap slung over his shoulder.

"Hey, Perreault," Fox said to Ryan, "even though the Colonel didn't wish you luck, I will. Good luck, Corporal."

Ryan grinned at that. He extended his arm to Fox and the strong Master Sergeant grabbed it and shook his hand. The Huey helicopter, along with the others, lifted in the air and flew off in different directions of the large forest surrounding Fort Bragg. S.E.R.E. just started.

2

PRESENT DAY

It is late at night. Only a few hours remain. The furries and Ryan hid by the side of a street waiting for the SWAT bot patrols to pass by. They all decided to go traditional with their clothes, except for the black vests they bore and the rifles in their hands. They know that once the alarms systems are down, they can get in without being noticed.

"This is taking too long," Sonic said.

"Shut up," Ryan harshly whispered. They waited patiently.

In the adjacent run-down building, Aleena watched over and saw some of the patrols moving away. On her side, leaning against the window, is the M8 sniper rifle and magazine belt Ryan left for her. Aleena peered over to where the generator was and saw that the SWAT bots patrolling it, except for one, were leaving. Aleena pulled out her radio, which looks like a handheld one used for private pilots in training. She turned the frequency to 102.1 MHz and spoke into it.

"Ryan this is Aleena, copy if you read me," Aleena whispered in the radio.

On the ground, hiding amongst the rubble, the six soldiers heard Aleena's call from their earpieces.

"Aleena, we copy," Ryan whispered back. The earpieces the six were wearing were similar to the pieces with the short microphone like cell-phone users wear when driving. Having a cartoon piece sticking in Ryan's ear felt weird but realistic at the same time. He would not of had been able to tell the difference in feelings between a real earpiece and a cartoon earpiece.

"Mother, is that you?" Sonia whispered in with a small tear in her eye. This was not the first time Aleena talked to her kids, but it was so rare that the hedgehogs would feel sad when they could not be with their mother but can talk to her at times.

"Yes, now listen, the SWAT bots patrolling the alarm generator have left, only one remains," Aleena said getting back to business. She knew that there was no time to tell her children how much she loves and misses them. This was business and every second counts.

"Manic, check it out," Ryan whispered to Manic. Manic slowly crawled to the top ridge of the hill of rubble to overlook the generator, but staying low enough so as not to create a silhouette. Sure enough, one SWAT bot remained.

"Confirmed, one remaining," Manic whispered back.

"Aleena, can you take the bot out from your position?" Ryan asked in the radio.

"Yeah, no problem," Aleena replied. She set the radio on the floor next to her laptops. Aleena grabbed on the sniper rifle that Ryan left for her with the 20-round magazine locked and loaded in it. Slowly, Aleena aimed the scope of the rifle right on the SWAT bot. She estimated the bot to be about 90 meters away in no wind. Aleena took in a deep breath, exhaled slowly, inhaled slowly, and held her breath. She aimed the crosshair right on the bot's neck and squeezed the trigger. The gun emitted a muffled snap sound as the bullet hit the SWAT bot square in the chest. Oil spilled out as it short-circuited and collapsed on the ground. Aleena then grabbed her radio and said, "he's down."

"Roger that," Ryan whispered in his headset. He then turned to the furries. "Okay, Manic and Cyrus, on me. The rest of you, hold a perimeter cover around our six. Go."

Immediately, the three got up and made a quick dash to the generator. As soon as Ryan, Manic, and Cyrus reached it, Sonic, Sonia, and Trevor watched each corner for SWAT bots coming. Upon reaching the downed bot, Ryan swung his rifle over his shoulder and grabbed the bot. To his utter surprise, the metallic robot was lighter than he was expecting. It was heavy of course, but he was expecting it to be heavy like a fridge, not as light as a sofa chair. Ryan dragged the bot into a dark corner behind an alley while Manic and Cyrus were working on the generator with their rifles over their shoulders.

The deactivation of the alarms began. Manic pried open a panel door that was colored green. At the same time, Cyrus flipped open his laptop computer.

"Okay, there should be a bunch of panel doors. Your main focus should be the green panel door. Do you see one?" Cyrus asked.

"Already got it," Manic said as he opened the green panel.

"You should see a bunch of thick wires," Cyrus told Manic.

"Yes, I see them," Manic replied.

"You should see three wires that are one half centimeter in diameter. Don't worry about the small wires, just the thick ones," Cyrus said. "Are the colors red and orange?"

"And green, too," Manic said.

"Okay. Cut open the red wire cover but don't cut the wire itself," Cyrus said. Manic took out some special clippers and cut open the covering. "Clip the wire to my laptop." Manic did so, clipping it to a metal rod sticking out of the USB circuit. "Now clip it to the red pylon circuit."

Manic clipped it. "Done."

"I'll take it from here," Cyrus said. He typed in a few things on the keyboard and the laptop beeped. "All done, Manic."

3

Inside, the alarms systems were shut down. However, because Manic clipped the wires to Cyrus' laptop, he was able to send a signal in the building's computers. The computers said that the alarms systems are still online. Due to advanced technology, cutting an alarm wire will sound off an alarm, so Manic and Cyrus bypassed it.

4

"The alarms are down, Ryan," Manic said, "so we can assist you now."

"Finally," Ryan said as he came back from hiding the SWAT bot. Usually, he would have to dig a hole and bury the body, but since the entire city was made of metal, he had to hide it behind a large dumpster. "Sonic and Sonia, fall in."

Sonic and Sonia got up and ran to Ryan. Of course, Sonic zipped to Ryan at high speed with Sonia trailing behind. Sonia looked angrily at being left behind in the wake of Sonic's speed and for behind forced to lay in rubble for a while.

"Okay, Cyrus, you stay here with Trevor and cover this corner," Ryan said to them. He then spoke in his earpiece. "Aleena, you provide cover on the second corner and coordinate our movements within the structure."

"Roger that," Aleena replied in the radios. On her laptops, she pulled up a 3-D grid map of the building. On the side of the building are six heat-signatures, indicating they are the furries and Ryan. Within the building are a countless number of SWAT bots. Ryan felt weird that Aleena was going to play the role of the sniper coordinator of the team. In a way, Aleena assumed the role of Dieter Weber, his favorite character from the Tom Clancy novel Rainbow Six. Dieter Weber, a German sniper and former GSG-9, was Team Rainbow's sniper. In a way, Aleena seemed to be playing as Weber.

"Okay, team, let's move," Ryan whispered to the hedgehogs.

The mission began. Just as Cyrus ran back to meet up with Trevor, the hedgehogs and Ryan ran in a single file toward the bay entrance which Ryan used to escape. Ryan looked over at the control panel he shot weeks ago. It seems to have been fixed, but there was still residue and dents from the bullet. The major parts were fixed though.

"Okay, I count only four inside the loading bay," Aleena said to them over the radios. The three hedgehogs got used to hearing their mother without trying to spark a tear.

Ryan slowly crept inside and saw the four SWAT bots working on electronics, not paying any attention to the open bay door. Ryan looked inside and saw how familiar everything looks since his battle in there. He saw the elevator and the stairs and even bullet holes in the wall shot by his USP. Sadly, Ryan only has two magazines left in his sidearm, the one he used when he came in Mobius.

There was a way inside without alerting the SWAT bots though. Ryan leaned over to the hedgehogs and whispered to them.

"Sonic, I need you to create a diversion," Ryan told him. The words Ryan used was a simple and easy way of marking Sonic as bait.

"A diversion? What do you mean?" Sonic asked.

"Get the SWAT bots after you and take them out using your natural speed powers," Ryan said to him. "Do not, I repeat, do not fire your weapons, we cannot create a disturbance among the complex." Ryan was right, their guns did not have silencers on them sadly. A bots laser blast was muffled in sound as it is and would not raise suspicion, but a loud bang of a firearm was no mistake.

"No problem-o, I'll be back faster than you can say, 'I'm the fastest thing alive,'" Sonic said in his unchanged attitude. In a heartbeat, Sonic zipped inside and faced the SWAT bots. The bots looked over and noticed Sonic, but they also noticed he is wearing a black Kevlar vest and an MP5 submachine gun swung over his shoulder. Nevertheless, it was the 'priority-one hedgehog' standing in front of them. "Yoo-hoo, dumb-bots! Over here!"

The four bots readied themselves for attack. They fired their lasers at Sonic wildly, but Sonic easily zipped in zigzags avoiding the blasts. He then jumped along the ceilings and ran in circles around the bots. Soon, the four got dizzy, and they collapsed with black smoke smoking out of them.

"So much for bad metal-heads," Sonic said to the bots. He turned and waved at the entrance to the gate. "It's all clear."

Ryan, Sonia, and Manic then came running in. There was a security camera in the corner of the room, but they knew that Cyrus looped the security video tapes over so that no one would be able to see them. This was a trick learned in the movie Speed. The four then ran up the small steps on the cement platform leading up to the elevators and the stairs.

Due to safety reasons, they took the stairs. While moving upstairs, they stuck along the outside walls while keeping their guns pointed up above to pie the corners. If they were moving downstairs, soldiers would stay along the inside rails to cover every corner available.

5

Robotnik was asleep at his desk when he heard the door slide open. Robotnik took a look at the door and noticed Sleet and Dingo.

"What is it?" Robotnik asked, rubbing his eyes.

"One of the SWAT bots reported a domestic abuse at the hedgehog's home," Sleet said to them. "Among the ones abused was Sir Bartlby Montclair, sir."

"Bartlby?" Robotnik asked.

"Yes, sir, he reported to the SWAT bot that Ryan was there," Sleet said.

"Ryan!" Robotnik shouted, fully wide awake.

"Yes, sir, we have to assume he's back in Robotropolis," Sleet told him. This put Robotnik deep in thought. Although he was unaware he was unable to sound the alarms, he voluntarily did not do it. He believed Ryan could just be on the other side of the city, so sounding an alarm would most likely scare him away and vanish again. On the other hand, he believed Ryan was still unaware of the portal being opened in a few hours as opposed to a few days. Again, sounding an alarm might reveal a significant importance to the building.

"Sleet, Dingo, I want you two to personally find and capture Ryan," Robotnik told the two bounty hunters. In response, Sleet and Dingo grew worried. He remembered the last times they came in contact with Ryan. First, they had to go to Earth and grab him, but were unprepared for his skills he possessed. Of course, at the time, they had no idea Ryan was a Green Beret. The second time, they found Ryan on accident and tried to grab him then and there, but it resulted in Sleet getting interrogated and shocked by the hedgehog's skills as well. Now, Robotnik is ordering them to find Ryan themselves. Sleet and Dingo were afraid of him. Ryan was a three-year Green Beret veteran who saw combat in Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Georgia, Abkhazia, Armenia, and Kuwait.

"Why alone, sir? Ryan's scary," Dingo said in a scaredy-cat tone. Sleet himself felt Dingo's pain but tried his best not to show it.

"Just do it," Robotnik ordered. "Now, go!"

With that, Sleet and Dingo ran out the room, leaving Robotnik at his computer. Robotnik sat down and stared at it. Only about an hour away until the portal activates. On another computer, the human shield program was initiated and ready to activate once the Dimensional Matter Displacer opened.

Of course, even if Ryan finds out about this, he could not fully stop it. In Robotnik's pocket was a think and reinforced computer disk. The label on the disk said, 'DMD' written in a quick black marker. All the files needed to activate the Dimensional Matter Displacer were in that disk as a backup. Ryan would have to take the disk with him in order to prevent Robotnik from opening it again. However, Ryan knew about it and was not going to let Robotnik go back to Earth again.

6

FOUR YEARS AGO

The Huey helicopter hovered over the jungle far away from other Huey's. Ryan and Fox sat inside, waiting for the insertion point. Ryan was trained heavily in the past few days on survival in the jungle and resisting interrogation methods. Now, this was going to test him on that.

"Sergeant, we're right over the drop zone," one of the pilots called back.

The Huey slowed down to a hover over an area where the trees were low. As soon as it stopped and hovered, a rope dropped down and touched the ground.

"Good luck, Perreault!" Fox shouted over the high-powered rotors. "Go! Go! Go!"

Ryan, with his bag over his shoulder, reached out of the Huey and grabbed the rope. He pressed his body against it and used his boots to grab onto it below. Quickly Ryan slid all the way down spinning a bit. He tightened his grip on the last few feet to prevent injuring his ankles which was known to happen in fast-roping. Once Ryan hit the ground, he ran a few feet away, looked up, and signaled a thumb up to the pilots.

The Huey unhooked the rope just before it gained some altitude and flew off. The thick rope collapsed to the ground and coiled in a large ball. The Huey flew up and away, leaving Ryan all alone.

This was it. Ryan's final phase of training. He was alone and now he has to survive out here for about a week, cut off from the rest of the world. At an unexpected time, instructors will be sent out in the jungle to collect all the recruits and Ryan's job was to avoid getting captured. He picked up his bag and walked off, all alone in the jungle wearing his battle dress uniform, coat, wool hat, gloves, and a bag over his shoulder, to find a place to make camp. The only weapon on him is his knife which he will keep on him and go into the Sonic Underground world in a few long years.

7

It has only been a few days and Ryan was already feeling the chills. He made a makeshift bed by a swamp. Earlier, Ryan found four trees in a rectangle big enough for him and his equipment. He used his knife to saw away thick branches to create poles. He used the poles to lay them along the sides of the four trees, resting them on top of the crosswise short poles. He then placed cross bars all the way along the length of the swamp bed and topped them by covering them with leaves and grass.

Ryan sat in his makeshift bed in the swamp and stared up at the stars in the sky. He missed his home, but still wanted this job badly. He would not be here if he did not really want it. That was proven in Selection, anyone who was not strong or determined enough to want this job was tested hard during Selection where only nine of the original 80 recruits passed. Still, only six of the original recruits that went with Ryan through this harsh qualification course remained. The five recruits that got rolled in the beginning to going with the nine Selection were still in, plus they still got two Lieutenants and one Warrant Officer, each of them lost somewhere alone undergoing this S.E.R.E. training.

Ryan rolled out of his bed and walked over to his campfire which was ten feet away from his bed and any other trees for that matter. After warming up a bit, Ryan felt thirsty. He walked over to a rain trap he made. It was a bamboo leaf suspended at an angle in the shape of a spout hung by two twigs. Underneath the tip of the leaf was his canteen. Ryan looked inside the canteen and saw it was half full of water due to the dew. A half an hour ago, Ryan dropped in a few drops of iodine in the canteen to purify it. Ryan took the canteen and started slowly chugging down the water. His lips were wet as he licked the water off, enjoying the refreshing taste of the water.

Ryan placed the canteen back under the leaf when he saw something strange approach him. Ryan looked up and saw what appears to be a large adult gray wolf slowly stepping toward him. The Special Forces Operator-in-training slowly sat down in Native American style as the wolf lifted its head up and faced Ryan with its yellow eyes. This was an opportunity for Ryan to kill it and cook it. He was trained how to fight all different kids of animals from his Individual phase of training, such as killing a search dog up-close to avoid detection. However, this wolf just stared at Ryan.

Before joining the army, Ryan was a member, and still is, of a branch of the Defenders of Wildlife organization called 'Save Wolves.' Ryan could easily kill the wolf, but he could not do such an act that his organization was all about preventing. This was not the first time Ryan came in contact with a wolf, but it was the first time coming in contact with a wild one all alone. Slowly, Ryan crouched low on his front and looked upward at the wolf. The wolf responded by tilting its head in confusion, but soon understood Ryan's body language. Ryan was telling this mammal that he did not want to harm him and won't as long as the wolf does not harm Ryan.

Then, Ryan was not expecting what happened next. The wolf slowly stepped forward toward Ryan and sniffed his face. Ryan remained still as the wolf sniffed him. It was a familiar feeling to him, kind of like how Roxy always sniffs him, but this wolf was larger. Then the wolf stepped back and looked over at Ryan's campfire. Ryan looked back and noticed the dead rabbits Ryan caught and hung for use to be eaten later. Ryan looked back at the wolf and saw the look of hunger in his face.

"Are you hungry?" Ryan asked the wolf in a quiet high-pitched voice as if he was talking to a little child. The wolf replied by sitting down like the canine he was and gave a whimper. Like all animals, the wolf easily saw the look of innocence in Ryan. Even though Ryan joined the United States Army at age 16 with special permission and was training to be a Special Forces Operator, the wolf saw that Ryan had no intention of hurting him. In return, the wolf shown no signs of wanting to hurt Ryan.

Cautiously, as not to either provoke the wolf or scare him away, Ryan turned and crawled toward his rack of dead rabbits with the skins ripped off of them. Ryan crawled and unhooked a rabbit off of one of the racks. Slowly, Ryan crawled back and saw the wolf waiting patiently for its meal. Ryan easily saw the tail wagging. He approached the wolf with the dead rabbit, this time smoothly without any fear of the wolf attacking him. Ryan set the dead rabbit on the ground in front of the wolf. Almost immediately, the wolf snapped its head down and started chewing on it. It looked like it has not eaten in a day or two.

"You seem more hungry than me," Ryan told the wolf in a normal tone. "You got pups?" The wolf looked up with blood on his lips and, surprisingly, nodded its head. The wolf then stood up to shake, puffing hair in all directions. It then went back down to continue eating the dead rabbit.

Ryan turned and reached for another one movingly slowly so as not to scare it away. Just as Ryan looked back with the dead rabbit in his hand, he saw another wolf joining in the feast. This one looked female and sick-looking. Ryan was able to tell that this wolf was not rabid. No, this wolf just gave birth. Since the male and female wolves seem to be sharing in on the dead rabbit, Ryan figured that the male wolf was the father of the litter somewhere.

"Hey, here's one for the pups," Ryan said to the two wolves. The female wolf took the rabbit corpse out of Ryan's hand and slowly crept its way back in the dark forest where they came from. The male wolf that Ryan first met gave one last look at him. It stuck its tongue out and panted. The wolf then tilted its head and seemed to hum a smooth tune. Ryan could tell that the wolf was happy and thanked Ryan for the food. It then picked up the remaining piece of the dead rabbit, turned and started heading back down the dark path following the female wolf. In a few seconds, the wolf stopped and looked back at Ryan with the dead rabbit in its mouth. He then turned and continued on following the female back in the darkness.

Ryan had one dead rabbit remaining on his rack, but he was not terrible hungry yet. He looked down and saw a worm slithering on the ground. In an instant, Ryan grabbed the worm in his hands, tilted his head back, and dropped it in his mouth. Ryan did not chew the worm, he just swallowed it whole as it went down his throat.

Ryan was getting tired now. He crawled back to his makeshift bed and started to rest. The night was getting cold but he fell asleep soft and soundly. In a few hours, he would wake up and cook the rabbit by sticking it with a branch and roasting it over the dying fire.

8

PRESENT DAY

Ryan and the three hedgehogs slowly climbed their way up the stairs. So far, they encountered no resistance. It would seen understandable since it is rare for anyone to take the stairs many stories high, even for lazy robots.

As soon as they made it to a flat plane where the stairs meet the floor, a SWAT bot happened to walk by and noticed. In an instant, Manic, who was covering the floor doors at the time, burst a few rounds at the bot. The SWAT bots quickly fell back spraying oil everywhere. Unfortunately, there were other SWAT bots in the hallway adjacent to the stairs who heard the gunfire and even saw the bot fall back and short-circuit. In response, many SWAT bots started rushing for the double-doors leading to the stairs.

"Uh, Ryan, you got company coming," Aleena said to them over the radios. She was looking at her laptop and saw a group of electromagnetic fields, obviously the radiation released by the SWAT bots, rushing toward the four head signatures on the stairs.

"Yeah, I see it, Aleena," Ryan snorted back in the radio. The hedgehogs and Ryan got in defensive positions behind the walls, and started firing back. The SWAT bots took defensive positions along the hallway as they returned fire. This was bad, they had to get out of there. They could not risk going up or down the stairs for they could get shot in the back despite the covering fire.

Suddenly, Ryan had an idea. He looked across the hall and saw three sets of elevators with the floor numbers displayed above them. Ryan noticed they were on floor 17, and one of the elevators was on 14 and heading up slowly. Ryan ducked back behind the wall to reload his M8.

"Sonia!" Ryan called out.

"What?" Sonia called back.

"Use your keyboard! Create a smoke screen! On me, dash for the elevator! Go!" Ryan ordered as he reloaded his weapon and fired back.

Sonia then touched her keyboard-shaped medallion around her neck and her keyboard synthesizer showed up. Soon, she started playing keys which emitted a huge amount of thick smoke. This was not unfamiliar to Ryan, since he had his share of throwing smoke grenades to obscure enemy vision while moving.

"Okay, head for the elevator!" Ryan called out. He stood up and tapped Manic's shoulder as he ran in the hallway just as the laser blasts stopped. Manic got up and tapped his palm on Sonic's shoulder and followed Ryan. Sonic did the same to Sonia who minimized her keyboard back and followed them.

Ryan slammed his palm on the call elevator button. Since the elevator was moving, he was expecting SWAT bots on the other side. However, someone could have called the elevator meaning no one in it but there could be some waiting on the requested floor.

Quickly the door opened and, as expected, there were two SWAT bots in there. Ryan did not hesitate to burst several rounds at them in full automatic. Just as the smoke was starting to dissipate, the hedgehogs and Ryan ran in the elevator. Ryan quickly and rapidly tapped on the close-door button, which was the same as the ones back home; two triangle arrows pointing at each other with a vertical line in between them. The doors closed just before the SWAT bots noticed they went in the elevator. The elevator slowly started rising up.

"Ryan, what gives, man?" Manic asked. "I thought you said avoid being in elevators."

"It was the only option," Ryan told them disappointedly. "Besides, I got an idea."

"Oh, like this one was so good?" Manic retorted. Ryan then hit the 'Emergency Stop' button which caused the elevator to stop with a jerk. Both Sonic and Manic lost their balance and fell over. Ryan remembered the first tine he was in an elevator and someone played a joke by hitting the stop button. He lost his balance and fell on his back, but laughed about it.

Ryan took his bag off of him just as Sonic and Manic got back up, keeping this MP5's pointed away from each other. Ryan opened his bag and pulled out a few blocks of cartoon explosives. They looked very similar to the ones used by Sonic in the first episode when he zipped through a factory and dropped them along the way. However, Ryan was proud to open one of them up and see how they are not so different than the explosives on Earth. Although Ryan was a recon scout of his ODA, not a demolitionist, he knew a few things about explosives taught to him by Sergeant Davis.

"What are you doing?" Sonic asked feeling his head.

"Open the elevator doors," Ryan ordered. Sonic and Manic looked at each other confused, but Sonia trusted Ryan's judgment.

Sonia pried open the elevator door and realized they were halfway through in the middle of an upper-floor's doors. She pressed her earpiece-less ear to the door and heard no SWAT bots steps or electric humming. Knowing the area was clear, she pried open the elevator doors and took a peek inside. The hallways looked exactly the same as the firefight they had earlier, but no one was present.

"Clear," Sonia said back.

Sonia looked behind her and was shocked at what Ryan was doing, but at the same time understood. Ryan has connected the wired of the explosives together. The control panel on the elevator has been removed and Ryan was connecting the wires to the button that goes to the top floor with the explosives. He set it up so that the bombs won't go off when the button is pressed, but they will go off when the floor is reached. Manic helped set the explosives up with Ryan.

"Okay, they're ready. Get out," Ryan told them. They all climbed out of the half-way elevators one-by-one. Ryan, being the tallest, reached back in the elevator and hit the top floor button. The doors to the elevator started to close and Ryan quickly pulled his body outside before they closed on him. Above the elevator, they saw the numbers slowly begin to rise as it reached the top floor.

9

At the top floor, most of the SWAT bots are there guarding Robotnik and the Dimensional Matter Displacer programs. Robotnik himself was still unaware of Ryan actually inside the building. Due to being floors up, he did not hear the gunfire many stories down.

The SWAT bots on the top floor were unaware of what is going to happen to them. Sleet and Dingo have taken the few flights of stairs downward to their quarters to get their gear and weapons. They were ordered by Robotnik to hunt down Ryan, in the fear of them losing their lives in the process.

Back on the top floor, the elevator was getting closer. It passed by Sleet and Dingo's floor without suspicion. Finally, it made it to the top floor emitting a ding sound. Instantly, the explosives blew up. Fire swerved through the hallways, destroying all the SWAT bots in their path. It instantly died down once it hit the edges. When it comes to interior explosions, the blast damage will not make turns. Almost all the SWAT bots were destroyed on the top floor.

Robotnik fell out of his seat at the blast shock. At the same time, Sleet and Dingo fell over even though they were floors away.

"What was that?" Dingo asked in shock.

"Stay here," Sleet replied as he ran out to get to Robotnik's office.

All the way down, the shock reached down the walls down to the generator where the alarm systems were deactivated. The sock disconnected the wires from the laptop, which stopped the video loop in the security cameras. Unfortunately, Cyrus has left his laptop in the area to met up with Trevor in the rubble. He was un aware that the wires got disconnected and that a security camera is staring right at them.

10

"Whew, that was radical!" Manic shouted in his surfer-lingo just as the shock died down. Ryan could not help but chuckle at hearing Manic say that.

Now that the top floor was taken care of, the next part would be to actually get up there. The elevators were destroyed in the blast. The stairs would be the second option for SWAT bots to try, so the stairs are a no-go. Then, Ryan looked over and saw the window.

Ryan leaned over and opened the window. He looked down and saw he and the hedgehogs was quite a few stories high. He looked up and saw the top of the building far high up. That was when an idea struck Ryan. He reached in his bag and pulled out a grappling hook, rope, and a hook gun that was issued to him by Cyrus. He loaded it just as the hedgehogs questioned him.

"Ryan, what's going on?" Sonic asked, tapping his foot.

"Well, the elevators are down and the stairs would be full of SWAT bots, so we can up via rope," Ryan explained to them.

Before the hedgehogs got to answer, Ryan leaned out the window and pointed the hook gun up. He fired it and the grappling hook caught a ledge. Ryan leaned out the window with the rope in his hands and he gave it a few test tugs.

"Come on, guys, we got a long way to climb," Ryan told them. "We're almost there."

Ryan sat on the windowsill and pulled himself out using the rope. At this point, Ryan was afraid. He had no idea if the grappling hook has a good hold on what it hooked on to. Luckily, it was latched on a strong and sturdy pipe. Ryan began his long and hard climb up the rope using his legs to literally walk on the wall.

Soon, Ryan felt pressure underneath the rope. He took a glance down and saw Manic following, followed by Sonic and Sonia. He grinned knowing they were following him by example, though Ryan was still no leader. Slowly, the four made their climb up to the top floor.

11

Robotnik looked at his security screen and saw that Ryan and the hedgehogs are climbing up the wall. Robotnik was shocked when he saw all the security cameras at once flickered to the present time after the tapes. First, he saw the four SWAT bots destroyed in the cargo room by Sonic, then he saw several destroyed bots in the hallway where the firefight broke out, and then he saw almost all of his SWAT bots burnt to a crisp on his floor. It was safe to assume that the alarm and lockdown systems were disabled as well.

"So, it's the hedgehogs and that Green Beret," Robotnik said sinisterly rubbing his hands together. Even though he has no SWAT bots, on his floor, he did have the element of surprise. He was sure Ryan had no idea he was being watched due to the override systems being taken down. The question now, is, where were the systems in the security cameras being hacked? Only one place could do that, the outside generator.

Robotnik's thinking was interrupted when Sleet ran in the room. He had the look of tiredness when he panted. Obviously, along the way, he had to notice all of the burnt-to-a-crisp SWAT bots in the hallways.

"Robotnik, sir, I Dingo and I felt an explosion. What's going on?" Sleet asked quickly.

"It's that Green Beret. He's coming inside," Robotnik told him while gesturing Sleet to look on the security monitors of Ryan and the hedgehogs climbing up the walls of the building. Sleet grinned as well, but Robotnik looked around and noticed Sleet came in alone. "Hey, where's Dingo?"

12

Ryan and the hedgehogs continued to climb up. Their muscles in their arms were beginning to get weak; they had to settle down somewhere and fast or they will lose their grips and fall the long distance down. Soon, Ryan noticed a window under the ledge right above where the grappling hook grabbed on to. Just like in his CQB training with the GSG-9, he kicked his feet on the glass window. Unlike in the movies, it is impossible to swing in a window without getting hurt or killed by the broken glass. In real life, a soldier would kick the glass open as big as he could especially at the bottom of the window. Ryan destroyed the glass at the bottom of the window and used his legs to climb inside.

Ryan was inside of the building again, unknowingly on the floor with Dingo. Ryan reached out and pulled on the rope to pull the hedgehogs inside safely. One by one, he yanked all three inside and set them on the floor feet-first.

Dingo all of a sudden walked out of a door.

"Are you back yet, Sleet?" Dingo asked. He then noticed Ryan and the hedgehogs. Dingo lunged forward to grab Ryan, but Ryan grabbed Dingo's legs and flipped him over his back. Dingo laid flat on his back on the floor.

Ryan grabbed Dingo's neck and held him against the wall. He pointed his USP at Dingo's face.

"If you wanna live, tell me the directions to get to Robotnik's office?" Ryan asked harshly. Dingo shook in fear.

"Take the stairs to the left and climb up five stories until you reach a hallway. Take a right at the hallway and you will reach Robotnik's office. Only a half an hour left until the portal opens," Dingo said in fear. Ryan stared at Dingo's eyes and saw no signs of flinching, wrinkles, or eyes twitching.

"Tell me, why did you lie about the portal opening in three days?" Ryan asked.

"Robotnik lied to us!" Dingo shouted in fear of his life. Lucky for Dingo, Ryan believed him. Ryan then remembered being told of a disc that has the Dimensional Matter Displacer data on it.

"Where's the disc that Robotnik has all of the DMD information on it?" Ryan asked.

"Robotnik has it. It's on a floppy disk," Dingo said.

"Which one?" Ryan said as he choked Dingo harder.

"We only have one floppy disk!" Dingo cried.

"Which computer has the human shield program on it?" Ryan asked.

"I don't know!" Dingo responded. He shown no signs of lying. "It's in the computer room with Robotnik, but I don't know which one it is."

All of a sudden, a whole bunch of SWAT bots ran into the hallway from the stairs.

"Oh, shit!" Ryan yelled. He then grabbed Dingo and held him as a hostage just like he did to Robotnik a long time ago. The SWAT bots raised their laser guns ready to shoot Ryan, despite hitting Dingo.

Suddenly, a silent gunshot broke through the glass, shattering it, and right in the lead SWAT bot. Back in the run-down building, Queen Aleena was using the rifle Ryan gave her to take out the SWAT bots across the area. The bots turned and fired laser blasts in Aleena's general direction. None of them hit her or were close to hitting her, so she kept firing silent gunshots at the SWAT bots.

During the confusion, Dingo jumped Ryan and dashed down the hall. Sonic looked back and saw Dingo making a run for it.

"Ryan, Dingo's getting away!" Sonic shouted. Instantly, the four turned heel and ran after the running Dingo.

"Thanks, Aleena," Ryan said in his radio while running.

Just as the four were about to catch Dingo, Dingo ran between two double-doors facing in the direction Dingo ran in. He skidded on his heel and spun around. Quickly, Dingo threw his body forward as he grabbed the two doors and slammed them shut. Ryan threw his body on the double-doors but Dingo held them closed. Quickly, Dingo slid a metal pin, locking the metal doors in place.

"Damnit," Ryan yelled as he kicked the door.

Ryan aimed his M8 and burst a few rounds at it. The bullets did not even penetrate the metal. They made dents and got stuck in holes, but they did not go further than that. He angrily kicked the doors again.

"Aleena, we're locked outside on the 45th floor," Ryan said in his earpiece. "Is there another way to the office room?"

"Hang on," was Aleena's response. Ryan, and the hedgehogs, heard the sound of keyboard tapping on the other end. After a slight pause, Aleena returned. "Yeah, backtrack the way you came out and go around using the main stairway. You should be able to reach the top floor from there."

"Copy that, we're on our way," Ryan responded already moving. He ran back down the hallway where they came from, passing the inactive SWAT bots laying in puddles of their oil, and toward the stairways.

13

PRESENT DAY

Dingo burst into the main computer room where Robotnik and Sleet are. They are staring at the computer monitors. The sound of Dingo opening the doors caused Robotnik and Sleet to turn and face the approaching Dingo.

"What are you doing here?" Sleet asked. "I told you to stay put."

"Ryan's here, he's inside with the hedgehogs," Dingo said out of breath.

"We know, we saw them on the monitors. Unfortunately, they disabled the alarms and lockdown" Robotnik told him.

"Sleet, that guy was asking where this room was and mentioned the human shield program," Dingo told them. That was then it all made sense. Robotnik knew that Ryan was on his way to activate the portal and destroy the human shield program. Sleet, however, has his mind on something else. He was staring at one of the security monitors.

"Robotnik, we have two little rats not too far from the building," Sleet said evilly. Sleet pointed at the monitors where it shown Cyrus and Trevor hiding amongst the rubble. They still had no idea that the shockwave disconnected the wires from Cyrus' laptop at the generator.

"Ooh, that is good," Robotnik said.

"Beware you two little rats because here comes the big bad wolf," Sleet said as he looked at the video screen with Cyrus and Trevor on it.

14

FOUR YEARS AGO

Six days into S.E.R.E. has passed, and Ryan was doing a good job keeping himself alive, but then the test came. Not too far away, Ryan heard the sounds of people, footsteps, and search dogs combing the area. It was dusk, but Ryan had to get rid of his swamp bed, campfire, and water purification tools he made.

With his bag and poncho, Ryan ran through the jungle to avoid getting detected. He was already a mile away after the instructors raided his campsite. At the same time, the instructors were impressed to see blood and pieces of rare-cooked meat around the area. Usually, S.E.R.E. students would be eating bugs, not a lot of energy. Ryan, however, ate meat and drank purified water, thus he must have a lot of energy on him.

Meanwhile, deep in the jungle, Ryan fast-walked his way through the thickest part of the trees. He had to stay away from bike paths and open areas like swamps for the risk of being in the open and exposing one self. Ryan heard dogs coming from behind him, so he had to lose them. One method is to run around in figure eights to confused the dogs scents.

Ryan then came up to a flowing river. This gave Ryan an idea to avoid the dogs. He remembered seeing this in the made-for-television cartoon movie Vuk about a young fox and his vendetta against the fox hunter who killed his family. In the beginning scene, Vuk's father had to lose the hound chasing him by getting in the water, then back-tracking underneath a tree.

Ryan had to use this plan into play. He ran right into the flowing river until he was knee-deep in it. He then ran up river, against the stream, and then dove behind a low tree trunk surrounded by leaves. Luckily it was a night, thus the instructors could not see him due to their flashlight which were limited.

The instructors ran over to the river where Ryan was. Ryan could not risk a peek from behind the tree. He did hear the instructors disappointed when the dogs howled.

"The dogs lost the scent," one of the instructors grunted.

"Go down stream, he must have gone that way," another instructor called out. Soon the small group of instructors and dogs ran down the stream in the opposite direction of Ryan.

Ryan waited for about half an hour before taking a peek. He was sure that the instructors were gone. He got out from the leaves of the tree and started heading back in the opposite direction. He had too much adrenalin to sleep. He had to stay away from the instructors at all cost. This training program, S.E.R.E. was turning out to be the physically and mentally hardest part of his training so far. What was worse was that he was alone, no one to help him out of a jam. He dug this grave and now he has to dig his way out. It was not going to be easy, but it had to get done somehow.

TO BE CONTINUED...