AN: Yet another chapter. I hope you enjoy this one, as there will be some humor just for you!
Disclaimer: I own nothing that isn't mine. I own my OC's and this plot, though.
Two vulpine figures knelt in a dark room. It was in a traditional Japanese style, where there were four pillows to kneel down on around a short table. The wall appeared to be made of some kind of wood while the flooring was of a type of bamboo. They sat next to each other in the midst of the night, staring for the longest time, wondering what to say.
The first figure sighed, appearing to look in many other directions. "I don't understand."
"What is there too understand?"
The first figure seemed to look solemnly at the second figure. "Like, why has the Lady ordered to be here?"
The second figure shrugged. "Our job is to do her biding, not ask questions. She did say that a very special guest would be coming upon us tonight, though."
The first figure seemed to scoff. "We're not caretakers. You're very high on the social ladder, being that you are a Rokubi*, and I am a Gobi**. Why do we need to…"
"That is enough!" The second figure cut the other off. "It is because I'm high in this social ladder, as you call it, that I've learned where to place my respects. The lady's will is law."
The first figured exhaled heavily once more. "Still, you'd think we'd have sensed this guest by now. What's he going to do? Fall out of the sky?"
Be it a form of jinx, or pure coincidence, they heard a whirring sound that disappeared as quickly as it came. In its place was a voice that screamed, and only got louder, until there was a loud thump outside and a groan.
The figures rushed outside to see something they hadn't expected to see.
"A Kyubi***?"
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\|\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/
...Syaoron the Fox Presents…
…The Third in the Series…
The Mobius Code
Tribulations
Chapter 8
Success or Failure
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Green Hill
February-1-3457
17:30 Mobius Time
There wasn't much to be said. There wasn't anything to be said. They all stared at the huge crater that was a half kilometer in diameter with teary eyes, wondering when this nightmare would be over. The clouds overshadowed once more, leaving a gloomy atmosphere about them.
"No… no…" Shane kept muttering to himself futilely. The deed had been done; the price had been paid.
Following their emotions, they walked back over to the crater, as if hoping they would find the slightest sign of life. To no avail, they searched strenuously through the field of ash at the basin of the crater. Cosmo could stand it no longer and fell to her knees, bawling her eyes out.
He seemed so strong; so invincible. It was hard to believe that he was taken out of their lives, just like that. Even Sonic, the wall that guarded Mobotropolis, crumbled at the hopelessness of the situation.
Tails' body was likely to be ashen, as was everything else in the crater. There hope was like glass, and someone had just shot that hope with a high-energy orbital particle beam.
It was almost unbelievable, that a person who had achieved such a caliber of power had died, just like that, in practically the blink of an eye.
Even through the sadness, Durin swore he heard a noise, like a missile falling. "Everybody, LOOK OUT!" He shouted as a pod fell from the sky. They scattered just before the cylindrical tube fell from the sky. Before their eyes, the pod began transforming.
After a series of mechanical snapping, the pod had transformed into a display screen. The screen blinked on, showing their most hated mad scientist.
"EGGMAN!" They all accused simultaneously. The rotund scientist only chuckled.
"Ah, I see you have received my gift, nuisances." Eggman sadistically stated, laughing all the while. He was met with many a glare.
As everyone else was, Shadow was enraged. "I swear, Eggman! I will make you pay!" The black hedgehog cursed at him, with flames metaphorically burning in his eyes.
The obese enemy did not flinch at the threat. "I doubt that."
A vein pulsed on Shadow's forehead. "What was that?"
Eggman sighed. It was still the same old Shadow. "Now, I am going to make demands, and you are going to listen." He ordered.
"I don't care!" Sonic obnoxiously shouted. "We are going to bring you down, tyrant! With…" He gulped, "… or without Tails!"
Eggman remained silent for a moment before bursting into maniacal cackling. "Preposterous! You don't have any means of space travel, and I'm the one with the trigger on my finger.
"Now heed my demands." They all listened impatiently. "The cannon will take another month or so to recharge. You have that amount of time to completely submit to my rule. If not, I will leave Castle Acorn in a mound of ash."
Coral smirked slightly in face of the demands. "You're forgetting that we still have access to the X-Tornado, Tails' space operable plane."
"Which is currently under government control, due to the fox's banishment." Eggman quickly retorted, bringing a halt to that idea.
It still brought rise to an uneasy subject.
"How did you know that the parliament banished Tails?" Gary pointed out, bringing a frown to Eggman's face. He had a look of guilt about him that might as well have had, "Hey, I'm suspicious," written upon it in bold lettering.
The scientist just stared at the screen in silence as Amy widened her eyes. "You're in league with them, aren't you?"
Eggman remained stoic, until he finally said, "You have about a month," and the screen flickered out.
Out of anger, Ana punched the screen, shattering it. "Those parliament BACKSTABBERS!" she screamed to no one in particular.
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G.U.N. HQ
February-18-3457
12:05 Mobius Time
Word of Eggman's threat spread far and wide, quickly. There were already mass panic attacks across the country and the insurrection to deal with, and now they had a threat of mass destruction floating through the air, that could only be prevented if space travel could be acquired.
That issue was about to solved today.
"Epsilon Squad, you are probably wondering why I have gathered you today." A grey wolf in military dress stated. His patch showed five silver stars in a pentagon formation; the symbol of a General of the Army.
Felix turned to face them as he stood on the balcony supervising operations control room. Epsilon squad had grown popular in the past few weeks, being formed hastily, but consisting of only the best. Shadow, the squad leader, stepped forward.
"Yes, General," He confirmed. "Why, exactly, are we here?"
Felix stretched his lips into a smirk and clicked a button on a remote. The large middle screen displayed a pod on the screen, giving its dimensions and the like. The pod was cylindrical in shape, but the edges ha a delicate curvature to it and thinned out near the bottom, making it look like a flat bottomed drill.
"This is a Mark XIV Temperance space pod," He explained. "Intel shows that these pods are being used for interstellar travel between an insurrection stronghold and the space station that we have thusly named, the Sententiam****."
The screen then zoomed out, showing the insurrectionist stronghold. "This is one of their most fortified bases. In itself, it is practically a fortress. If you are to take out the Sententiam, you will need to commandeer at least four of these pods; two people to a pod."
Shadow's ear twitched slightly. "I'm sorry, General, but I don't think I heard you correctly."
Felix raised his eyebrow as Shadow continued. "If my math is right, that means I will only be able to take a squad of eight people, compared to our usual twenty."
General O'Donnell nodded. "You heard correctly, lieutenant Shadow. For an operation like this, you must be small, quick, and stealthy."
Understandingly, Shadow turned to the other nineteen. It was sad that he'd have to extract twelve of them, but it had to be done. "For this operation, I want Sonic, Knuckles, Cosmo, Amy, Rouge, Alexa, and Shane.
"Everyone else… you have been dismissed." Most of them turned back and walked out the double doors, leaving only seven behind. "The seven of you are, dare I say, my closest friends."
Everyone either raised an eyebrow or cocked their head to the side. "I've known you the longest, and have worked with you the most. We can coordinate better than if we worked with some of the others, thus, here you stand."
Felix smiled at the feelings he showed. Even Shadow didn't know that those sole words were only able to be spoke by a few lucky commanding officers.
Some people don't come back from war.
O'Donnell nodded at him. "Now, we know that the parliament has had a hand in this, based on what we could extract from the nearly destroyed tape. As such, this operation will be put in the confidential files. I'm sure that this breaks at least five laws somewhere along the lines of politics, but those are little matters."
They nodded toward the General and formed a circle, putting their hands all in a pile. Shadow smirked, stating their motto. "Divided, we fall…"
"BUT, UNITED, WE STAND!" With that, they rushed out the door with new purpose in mind.
Felix turned around once more and made the sign of the cross over his body. God Speed, Epsilon Squad.
Just outside, the other were gathering for a lunch break and preparing to return home. Glances were shared among them, but no words. Nothing needed to be said.
They were going to succeed.
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Insurrectionist Base X-Ray
February-19-3457
5:21 Mobius Time
It was Tango Regiment's lunch break, at last. The five members of the patrol squad walked into the cafeteria, awaiting their lunches. After retrieving one bowl of tomato bisque and a foot long submarine sandwich per person, the ferret, mouse, eagle, bear, and bee sat down at a circular table, beginning a pattern of conversation.
"Hey, Shinow, have you ever wondered why we're here?" The ferret asked, revealing her voice to be feminine. She took a bite of her Cuban sandwich and awaited his reply.
Shinow the mouse shrugged nonchalantly in response. "One of the great mysteries, huh? Why are we here? Are we the product of some cosmic coincidence; or is there really a god, watching everything? I don't know, Yarima, but it keeps me up at night."
They remained in silence, awkwardly staring at each other for a moment until the silence was broken by Yarima. "No, I meant, why are we here; at this base?" The she-ferret cleared up.
"… oh."
The eagle raised his eyebrow at Shinow and laughed inwardly. "And what was all that stuff about 'God'?"
By this point, Shinow was blushing. He was always screwing up, and everyone always picked on him for it. "Just… nothing, Paul."
The eagle they knew as Paul crossed his arms. "Do you want to talk about it?"
"No."
Bickering as usual, the bear thought, while trying to dispel the situation. "So, Conner, I heard you got a call from command."
The bee remained calm and collected and said, "Yes, as a matter of fact, I did, Aden."
There was another break in the conversation where the members stared at each other, until Aden expectantly asked, "Well, what did command say?"
The bee scrunched his face, trying to remember. "Well, they said, 'this is command. We read you loud and clear.'"
Paul, impatient as he was, asked, "Alright, what did they say after that?"
"Then they said, 'Roger; over and out.'"
Shinow crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow. "Before that, or, somewhere in between?" He interrogated. "Hello and Goodbye aren't the important parts of this conversation."
"… oh." Conner muttered while trying to remember what they said afterward. "I think they said, 'In fear of an invasion, we are sending you some supplies to improve your defense condition.'"
"So, they said the cargo would be here…" Yarima stated, drawing out here as if to have Conner finish it up.
Conner, idiotic as usual, answered, "Yes."
"No, not yes." the ferret corrected. "When?"
"When I was on the call with them." the young bee answered, in the wrong yet again.
"I mean the cargo."
"No, see, the operator said that."
"WHEN?"
"When I called command. How else would the-"
"Okay, stop!" Paul suddenly said, silencing them. He liked the bee, but sometimes he was too retarded for his own good. The bear massaged his forehead with his paw and inhaled deeply. "How about you guys go through this step by step, okay?"
There was a unanimous nod and the talk began once more. "Okay, Conner; you called command?" Yarima asked.
The bee simply replied with, "Yes."
"And they said they were sending a cargo shipment?"
"Yes."
"To our base?"
"Yes."
"When did they say this shipment would be coming?"
This time, Conner put his hand to his chin and thought for a moment. "Just before they nicknamed me 'Roger'."
Needless to say, Yarima was fuming and flailing her arms angrily through the air. Her OCD mentality was starting to get to her. "GOD… you know what, just forget about it."
Paul reached into his jacket, pulled out a pocket watched, and sighed. Their breaks seemed to be getting shorter. Maybe our conversations are just getting longer. "Alright ladies, our break's over. Let's move out."
None too hastily, they each took their treys and emptied the remaining contents in to the nearest garbage can. They migrated over to the barracks and picked up their standard militant load out. Each of them shouldered a Diemaco C8A1 assault rifle and picked out an FN Browning Mark III pistol before moving in V-formation down a hall, doing what they do best; guard patrol. As the leader, Paul was allowed to pick out his personal weapon, a Steyr Tactical Machine Pistol. He popped a fresh magazine into the TMP and returned to his comrades so they could do what they do best; patrol duty.
Walking down the halls, they had a sort of professional air about them. Strutting around corners and into the open grounds around the base, they expertly searched for any possible intruders, as their job dictated.
Over the course of their constitutional, they came across one hallway that seemed utterly too quiet.
Conner drew his pistol ad looked around, trying to find even the slightest notion of a trespasser. His long bee antennae twitched as he detected the patter of movement. He turned about, seeming paranoid, and finally asked, "Hey, did you guys hear something?"
Aden sighed and rolled his eyes. Now was his time for payback. "It's probably the sound of you being an idiot."
Conner's watchful expression was lost and replaced by a downcast look. "Yeah, you're probably right."
The hyperactive bee then pocketed his pistol and returned to the formation. If only they realized how right he was.
In the ventilation corridor above, Knuckles held his breath. It seemed like his heart beat once a minute as time came to a near standstill. It seemed like hours before the patrol finally moved on. It was then that he exhaled and Amy began giggling.
Sonic sighed noticeably from behind Amy. "C'mon, Ames. This is supposed to be a silent operation." He whispered to her as she continued to fight her fits of giggles, to no avail.
When she finally calmed down, Knuckles said, "I'll admit, that was actually pretty funny."
On their hands and knees, Epsilon squad continued to crawl through the confined corridor. Many thoughts passed through their heads while in single file. What if they were caught? What hope was there, then?
While attempting to shrug this off, they all continued to crawl. Another turn here and there made the maze seem to go on forever. "Hey, Cosmo." Alexa called, bringing focus from the vegetal woman. "Are you sure your map of the air ducts are accurate?"
Cosmo stopped, halting the rest of the line as she was at the front. She turned to look at the white hedgehog behind her and raised an eyebrow. "Need you really ask?" She confidently replied. She then began moving again starting the slinky movement again.
Every now and then, they would pass over a hallway and quiet themselves as much as possible, even stopping at times to make sure the coast was clear.
When they reached the end, they spotted a grate that led into some kind of balcony. Cosmo, with the silence of a mouse, removed the grate. She stepped out and immediately elbowed the guarding Lynx in the back of the neck, rendering him effectively unconscious.
As they stepped out, they looked at the body and admired her ability. "That was pretty brutal." Rouge commented, while Shadow huffed slightly.
"I could've done better." The black hedgehog stated, causing Shane to raise an eyebrow.
"I'm not sure that's something to be proud of, Shadow."
Shadow only shrugged. After their petty talk, they peered out of the glass window that surrounded the balcony and into the open area.
It was a wide area, with large silos in some parts of the room, extending toward the ceiling. "Oh yeah, I think we found our primary objective." Knuckles said while looking at Cosmo. She said nothing, but looked over to Alexa, who blushed slightly.
A second look told them that several guards were posted around the vast open hanger. Shadow nodded to Cosmo, and she nodded back before pulling out her Barrett M82, equipped with thermally enhanced scope. She then took a clip from her waist and looked at the ammunition. There were one hundred black five centimeter needles inside of the case. If the light reflected right, they gleamed with a purple sheen.
I hope Ana's poison is as effective as she says it is, She thought as she took apart the gun in seconds. She replaced the firing mechanism with a gas operating mechanism instead, and then pieced the gun back into proper condition.
Rouge sweat dropped as she saw the process. Overkill? Perhaps, but it was just for security.
Shadow counted up the guards and totaled about fifty of them. "How long will it take for this to go about silently?"
Cosmo studied the guards like a hawk. "It will take me some time to determine their pattern of movement, so give me a couple minutes."
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In the midst of the hanger, three soldiers were walking; a leopard, a monkey, and a squirrel. They were your average Abstergo insurrectionists, only joining for extremist and financial purposes. That is what they have always exemplified, at least.
"So, let me get this straight." The monkey clarified. "You lived on… a farm?"
The squirrel meekly nodded. "That's right, Jeff. You spend a lot of time thinking, on the farm. Then, you spend a lot of that time repressing those thoughts."
"And, what kind of thoughts were these, Marvin?"
Marvin shrugged. "You know; the meaning of life, alternate universes; that kind of stuff."
They remained in silence, thinking those thoughts before repressing them. It was time for a subject change, which came in the form of a figure wearing a helmet with a rectangular golden visor and some kind of high-tech olive colored body armor that covered his entire body and running around at insane, but not sonic, speeds.
"Whoa! What was that?" Jeff questioned in awe at the soldier.
The leopard smirked in awe at the soldier. "That was a soldier, wearing the new Mark V Neural Enhancement Body Armor. The neural integration system is allowed to support one armor ability at a time; that one was Energy Afterburning. It enhances all of the bodily functions, ten-fold."
The soldier in armor then stopped in front of them, slouching over and appearing exhausted. "… I'm going to go to sleep now." He murmured and almost immediately fainted.
The leopard then sweat dropped. "The issue with that armor ability is that the user experiences a form of sugar crash after using it, so the committee is thinking of taking that armor ability off of the production line."
Jeff had a laugh at that. "Phil, at this point, it wouldn't surprise me if everyone started dropping to the floor."
They then stopped walking, noticing that Marvin was lagging behind. "Hey, Marvin, hurry up!" Jeff called to him, but the squirrel just yawned and began staggering until he finally just fell over.
"Jeez, I wasn't speaking literally." Jeff muttered. It was then that Phil flopped to the ground as well.
He grew skeptical at this point, and went over to investigate his body. He was able to find a black needle sticking out of his partner's body before he felt something hit him. Glancing at his shoulder, he noticed a similar needle. His vision began contorting awkwardly and he to fell victim to the poison.
It was only a matter of minutes before more soldiers began falling, starting on the outer rim of the hanger before moving inward. In five minutes, everyone in the room had been sedated.
"Wow… that was pretty awesome." Shane praised Cosmo's marksmanship. She only nodded.
That said, Knuckles struck the glass on the balcony with his fist, shattering it and providing them with a way down.
They landed lightly, not wishing to draw to much attention. They failed in doing so.
As quick as lightning, Knuckles was struck and flown to the side, but when he tried to find his attacker, there was none. The members of Epsilon Squad formed a perimeter around Knuckles, attempting to find this attacker.
Just glancing around, they could find nothing. Then again, Alexa was not just glancing around.
There was a flicker of light distortion, and it seemed to be coming towards them. Taking this as means to an end, she transformed into her wind form, with sky blue fur and dragon wings. Taking her dual Desert Eagles, she fired upon the light distortion.
The invisibility wore out, revealing a soldier wearing white armor with brown detail. The shoulders were very bulky, as was the helmet, which had a large silver visor that extended around the sides of the facial area. Upon the visor was a manually printed skull painting.
"Man, I thought the active camouflage was supposed to hide you!" The soldier in armor complained, before remembering the enemy in front of him. "I don't know how you found me, but you're going to regret messing with me!"
Shadow did not like the cocky attitude of his enemy. It was one thing to be confident, but he was all out arrogant. In response, He pulled a small metal bar from his pocket.
He flowed chaos energy into the bar and it extended into a form of sword. It was as wide as the bar, but it was split down the middle so it looked like prongs. "I think you'll be the one regretting to mess with us."
In a split second, Shadow as behind him. In another split second, the chaos energy sword was through the soldier's body.
He looked down at his bleeding wounds and sighed. "That was anticlimactic." He managed to mutter before passing out from blood loss.
Sonic was still eyeing the sword. "Where'd you get that weapon, Shadow?"
Shadow looked confused before he looked at the sword. "Oh, this? Tails made it for me before he…"
Shadow quieted himself as they held a moment of silence for their deceased friend.
They clambered inside the pods, two per pod. Using the instructions they were given, they activated the pods and soon enough, four rockets were blazing towards the space station.
We're coming, Eggman, Shadow thought with malice. Tails' sacrifice will not be in vain!
*Rokubi is Japanese. It is normally referred to as a kitsune with six tails.
**Gobi is also Japanese. It is usually referred to as a kitsune with five tails.
***Kyubi is Japanese. It normally refers to a kitsune with nine tails.
****Sententiam is Latin for: Judgment.