Chapter 11 - Meeting Up

A short series of kicks to the unforgiving steel gate finally paid off as the metal parted from the wall and dropped to the floor with a loud 'clink' and a pair of boots touching down on the metal panels of the floor soon followed.

"Right then, which direction now?" Rex questioned to himself, taking a few deep breaths. After being caged up in the vents for an hour or two was starting to take his toll on him, and his shoulder was giving him hell to pay for it. Now he was glad to finally be free of the icy cold breeze and lack of space that the vents provided.

A quick flick of his torch to brighten up his surroundings quickly gave him a good idea of what to do next. The walls a metallic grey just like every other he had seen but the floor was almost like glass. The sound of footsteps echoing in his direction suggested that he had to be quick to advoid any contact with G.U.N guards. So Rex, wasting no time in attempting to clean up his messy escape from the vents, began walking.

After a short while, he came to a large metal door that, with hardly any trouble, he managed to open with help from his trusty black metal baseball bat to reveal an elevator. With a smirk of accomplishment sped on his face he entered it.

Once inside he searched for a control panel at the side of the door, a large steel rectangle covered in small numbered buttons. Taking a guess at what he thought was obviously the top floor, he pushed the highest digit on the metal panel and waited.

Nothing happened. "Worth a try." He shrugged as he looked about for anything else he could use and he quickly spotted the emergency hatch above him and got another idea. Placing his bat back in it's normal spot in his belt he, he checked his communicator.

~x~x~

Zero and Rouge quickly turned their attention to the small bleep that came from the communicator that the ebony hedgehog held on his wrist.

"Think that could be Rex?" Rouge questioned as she and the wolf moved over to investigate.

"I don't know." Zero admitted with a shrug as he bent down and lifted Shadow's arm to his view. The hedgehog emitted a deep groan in discomfort as he did so, leaning forward slightly, but Zero ignored it and pressed the small red button on the device.

"Nice of you to finally join me." Came a mumbled call from the communicator after a slight hiss of static. Zero smirked as he looked up to Rouge, who was busy checking to see if Shadow was awake.

"Sorry if I took long. I've always thought that rushing leads to mistakes." The ivory wolf commented followed by a short pause. By now Rex had figured out that it wasn't Shadow's voice answering him.

"Long time, Zero. I hope your not here to make trouble" He pointed out, his voice darkened slightly. "Why are you the one answering Shadow's communicator? Is Shadow and Rouge alright?"

"I'm not the one making trouble today." Zero sighed as he took a moment to gaze back at Rouge and the dark hedgehog, his eyes flickering open partly every few seconds and drifting back to there closed position. "Rouge is fine. Shadow is unavailable at the moment though, can I take a message?"

"Turn around and maybe I can tell you." Rex answered. Zero and Rouge quickly turned and noticed the brown canine step from the elevator shaft behind them with his classic smile and give a slight wave. "Thats better."

~x~x~

Knuckles sat up suddenly, hitting his head on a metal pipe hanging over him in the process, and after a brief shout of curses he managed to wobble to his feet.

Cassandra quickly ran to his side and helped him stand up straight. "Ouch, are you ok?" She almost giggled.

Knuckles huffed at her laughter as he held his gloved hand over the painful bump on his head. "What the hell just happened?"

"You just hit your head on that pipe there..." she pointed out as Knuckles rolled his eyes.

"Well no shit Sherlock, even I could tell that. I meant before I was laying on the floor."

"You got yourself knocked out while trying to attack that 'stranger' with my laptop." Cass answered as she gazed down at her device. Knuckles growled with frustration as he removed his hand from his head and looked around at the wires and other devices around him.

"Who was that guy? He was a walking weapon shop." The echidna managed not to shout as he sat himself down next to the grey vixen.

"He's a long time paranormal hunter." Cass acknowledged. "And before you open your mouth, he isn't a slayer of the paranormal, he's a hunter."

The red echidna sat in silence for a moment as he thought about it, something that wasn't really his strong point but it still helped him come up with a reasonably simple question. "What's the difference?"

"Look at this." Cass rolled her eyes as she prepared her simple answer. She removed a small object from beside her now broken laptop, (all thanks going to Knuckles) and held it up to the echidna, a small silver dart. "He dropped this, its filled with a special chemical used to temporarily knock out anything it hits, not kill them."

Knuckles nodded as he folded his arms. "I see. Like a tranquilizer." Cass smiled and gave a positive nod. "So that means he is either after the diamond or Shadow."

"Why else would he be here?" She shrugged. "He took the communicator we had so I'm guessing he wants to use it to trace the signal to them. All we can do is wait."

~x~x~

Shannon. --- Wow… talk about difficulties.

My brother has had a lot of things to do with collage, work, girlfriends and so on… so after 4 months of him doing almost nothing on the story, I'm taking the liberty to try and get a chapter or two finished for him… my apologies for the ridiculously long wait and if I'm not as good as my brother.. O.o … I'm only 13 so be merciful on me.

---

It did take me a few days to read the story so far and get a good idea of what it's roughly about… its taken me about 3-4 weeks to write the chapter (school in between) and I still don't know what the basic plot is so I am kind of making this all up as I go along… so I'm trying to get these done ASAP.

~~Merry Christmas -- Shannon.