Chapter 12: The undersea ruins
Back in Sonic's world, Vector, Espio, and Charmy were back at their house, doing what they do best. Vector was sleeping at his desk with his legs propped up on the table and his hands acting as pillows. Just then the phone rang.
"ZZzzz…Charmy, get the phone…" Vector said, sleepily.
While Vector was sleeping, Charmy picked up the phone, flew it over Vector and dropped it on his head with a CLANG. Vector recoiled in pain, yelled quite a few cuss words I won't even tell you, and then picked up the phone.
"What? I'm a very grouchy guy today!" Vector asked impatiently.
A little pause and Vector's mouth dropped open.
"Oh. Hey, pal." Vector said apologetically.
Another pause and Vector nodded with the occasional "uh-huh" and "mm-hmm". After that, he nodded in approval.
"Alright. I'll be there, ol' buddy." Vector said before he hung it up.
"Ooh! OOH! Was that Mighty the armadillo? Where has he…" Charmy began excitedly, but Vector cut him off.
"No. That was Tails. He wants us to come over." Vector said, "C'mon, Espio."
Vector then noticed that Espio was asleep in a meditative stance and smacked himself in the face.
"Charmy, you know what to do." Vector said.
A few minutes later, Charmy returned with the pepper mill and began to sprinkle it on Espio's face. Espio's face tinged up a bit and finally, he sneezed. While Vector and Charmy chortled, Espio looked rather ticked off.
"You've got to find a better way to do this, guys." Espio said, grumpily.
In a matter of minutes, Tails had the Chaotix Crew in his lab.
"Well, what did you drag us here for?" Vector said impatiently.
"I'm going to ignore that comment. As for why, I'm kinda worried about Sonic and I think there are more to these 'Dragonoid' things than meets the eye. So I'm asking this of you." Tails said as he went over to a door.
The two-tailed fox opened the door and there were a few cameras and laptop computers.
"Whaddya want us to do with THAT stuff?" Vector asked as he scratched his scaly head.
"Link told me of a dimension where he found some mysterious ruins and that there was a character similar to that Red Wyvern guy. I want to find out what it means and I think you should try to help. I've tracked the area and I've found out that among those ruins hold a Key Item. Can you do it?"
Vector thought for a while, but then said, "Chaotix! Huddle!"
They did so and they whispered so quietly that Tails couldn't overhear them. They finally broke up and Vector had the confident look on his face.
"Of course we'll do it. All in the line of duty, Tails. Chaotix crew AT YOUR SERVICE." Vector answered as he gave the salute of a soldier.
"Yeah! Another adventure awaits us!" Charmy said with the excitement of a younger sibling.
"If we die, you stay away from our funerals." Espio said as he pointed a finger at Tails.
After a few hours, Tails had made a special spaceship for the Chaotix crew that could travel the dimensions. Espio and Charmy were packing up several boxes into their spaceship while Vector and Tails stood nearby with checklists.
"Okay, I think you have all the supplies you may need. If there's anything else you want to bring, go get it now." Tails said as he continued to use his checklist.
"I have a bit of stuff back home I'll want to bring. I'll go get it while you help my buddies pack up." Vector said as he beckoned to walk away.
"You do that, Vector." Tails said as he walked off for the rest of the supplies and Vector went off to fetch a few belongings.
A few hours passed and the supplies included some machinery, food, and other stuff for survival. Vector on the other hand brought things to entertain him and his buddies. He brought a Gameboy Advance, a Video Game system, and even a TV set.
"Alright, guys. Ready to go?" Tails asked as he made the last adjustment.
"Tails, we were born ready." Vector said as he thrust out his chest.
The wacky trio hopped into the spaceship and warped to Tails' coordinates.
When the Chaotix crew arrived at the right planet, they looked around the city. It was full of animal people like them, only a little more human.
"Kinda close to home, isn't it?" Vector asked as he looked around.
"No." Espio answered.
After a while, they started hitchhiking and eventually a wheel vehicle stopped for them. The guy at the wheel was a rough-looking Gila monster guy that flicked his tongue out every once in a while that kind of freaked Vector out.
"Can I give you guys a ride?" It asked in a tough, gravelly voice.
"Why, yes. Your ride will do well."
Vector then proceeded to wrestle the lizard off his ride. Espio flung Vector into the driver's seat and Charmy quickly hopped in just when Vector took off. Vector then happened to notice the driver's manual and flipped it open.
"Yikes! How does this guy afford an apartment?" Vector asked as he put it back.
The minute they reached the same place with the underwater temple, Vector pulled out a rather large suitcase and took out scuba gear.
"Underwater travel, boys. Slip these on and we'll be on our way." Vector said as he tossed them their proper garbs.
"Nice color. Does it come in anything else besides black?" Espio asked, inspecting his wetsuit.
Vector looked at Espio and folded his arms as he said, "It's either black or pink."
"I'll go with black." Espio said as he slipped it on.
When all three members were all dressed up, they waded into the water and began to swim through the water. Underwater travel seemed easy enough, but then something wrapped around Vector's leg.
"AAAAHHH!! It's a giant squid! There's nothing you can do now…go on without me!" Vector screamed.
"Vector, that's kelp." Espio informed.
Vector looked down and, sure enough, there was the long tangle of seaweed wrapped around his leg. Charmy laughed at Vector's antic and a cynical look crossed his face.
"Maybe I shouldn't have read 20,000 leagues under the sea." Vector said as he pulled the kelp off his leg.
The three then entered the underwater temple and found a tablet with a picture of a dragonoid with flames right under its clawed hands. It couldn't have been anything else and even had ancient writing on it. Now the Chaotix crew knew they had no time to lose.
Espio whipped out an underwater camera and began to snap photos of the tablet. He caught at least six of them and when he photographed the last one, a kind of dark-red portal opened up and the tablet disappeared.
"NO! THAT WAS OUR ONLY LINK TO THESE DRAGONOID GUYS AND WE'RE DOOMED!!!" Vector screamed as he clutched his head.
"Take it easy, Vector. I got plenty of pictures." Espio said as he held up his camera.
"Looks like you wasted your whole speech, Vector." Charmy teased.
"Who are you guys?" A female voice asked.
The Chaotix crew turned around to see a dolphin lady with scuba gear and a quizzical look on her face. She then noticed that the tablet was gone and that these three goofballs were the only ones here.
"What did you DO?!" She asked, pointing a finger at Vector and actually touching his nose.
"Nothing. That tablet just vanished in a vortex of red light." Vector answered.
"Say, you wouldn't happen to have a photo developer would you?" Espio asked, trying to change course.
However, this dolphin girl had a look of great fear on her face and she even started to sweat, strangely for a dolphin. Then, she shook the look off her face and turned around.
"I think the long-made prophecy has come true. Follow me." The dolphin said as she swam out of the temple.
While they were moving, Vector had to ask something.
"Uh, Miss? I didn't exactly get your name."
"Teal. Now let's move." She said, not looking over her shoulder.
After a few minutes, the Chaotix and Teal got the photos developed and scanned on a computer. Strangely, the Chaotix didn't need all their computers, because this Teal had several of them as well as several other gadgets.
"Wow. I wouldn't expect someone like you to have something like this." Espio said, somewhat impressed.
"To tell the truth, I'm a government agent. But I can tell you're good guys. Do what you need with my computer. NO, bee boy, there are no games." Teal said, suddenly turning around on the last sentence.
Charmy had tried searching one of the computers for some kind of video game that he could play. However, when he heard Teal, he stopped messing with them.
"Darn." Charmy said as he hung his head.
Now came the tricky part, translation. They went on for many minutes and everyone was getting impatient.
"Aren't you done YET? At this rate, the entire day will be wasted." Vector asked.
"Yeah. Whole day wasted!" Charmy said, rubbing it in.
"Back off, guys. Ancient translation of languages isn't exactly my specialty." Espio warned as he continued to go into the typing again.
"Let ME do it, then." Charmy suggested, tugging at Espio's shoulder.
Vector stopped the energetic bee by grabbing him by the head.
"Stop bugging him, Charmy." Vector said.
Charmy continued to protest, "Let me try! I wanna try! I WANNA TRY!"
Charmy got free of Vector's hand and looked at the hieroglyphics.
"It says, 'The queen wanted the wings of an eagle…'" Charmy said.
Espio and Vector were stunned.
"She had a VCR, but she wanted a DVD, so she took her peanut-butter sandwich for a walk." Charmy finished.
"Let me try, Charmy." Vector said, shoving Charmy out of the way.
Vector ran his finger back and forth across the screen as he put a finger on his chin. Then, he looked at part of it and read it out loud.
"Hmm…Bird, rock, pork chop, bird, and bigger bird. I GOT IT! This is some kind of ancient shopping list!" Vector shouted.
"That's dumber than Charmy's if that's possible." Espio said in the "oh puh-leeze" voice.
Vector shoved Espio out of the driver's seat and typed on the computer a bit. The ancient text then turned into letters.
"Good job, Vector. You translated it into Spanish." Espio said, sarcastically.
Vector got frustrated and gave the keyboard a good whack. Then, it went into English.
"Ol' family touch." Vector said, proudly.
The Chaotix crew read the translation and then their eyes widened and their mouths dropped. Whatever it read, it could NOT have been anything good.
"OH NO! We gotta find Link and Sonic before it's too late!" Vector said as he raced off his seat. "Sorry we're leaving so soon, Teal. We got work to do!" Vector apologized as he raced out the door.