Chapter 10. Retrieval and Escape
Deserts aren't normally interesting mainly because there is nothing to see but sand and rocks for miles upon miles away.
Discovering a hidden entrance however makes it more exciting, for the sake of the story.
And right now our heroes were descending into the enterance.
"Man this is a long way down" Calvin said. "I wonder if there is some sort of hidden structure under here."
"And you say that because" Tails asked.
"Because I have seen enough adventure movies to tell that it's ether underground temple or hidden passageway" Calvin said remembering times where he went to a friends house to watch adventure movies.
Suddenly they came to a stop at a door, and next to it a narrow opening that you could put a hand though.
"Ok who wants to put their hand in there" Calvin asked knowing that there was ether a trap or harmless.
No one raised their hands.
"Alright fine i'll do it myself." Calvin said rolling his eyes, and he stuck his hand into the narrow passageway.
Now you would think when he was near the lever he screamed just to freak everyone out.
But no because that would be a bit too cliched.
He managed to find the lever and pull it, opening the door.
When the door was fully opened, everyone could just stare, surprised at what they saw.
Now let's check on our heroes to our sewer, I know you want to know what our heroes in the hidden passageway saw.
Right now they were traveling through the sewer, how exciting.
"Man how far is this emerald." Hobbes asked.
"Beats me" Daxter said "All I want to do is find this emerald and get out of this sewer."
After walking for a while they came across a door.
Man this sounds a bit like what happened to the desert group.
However the difference here is that it had 2 levers on the ground.
"I'm probably guessing we need to pull 2 levers for that door to open" Amy said observing the door.
"You Could be right Amy" Sonic replied studying.
"I'll take the right one." Ratchet said walking over to the right lever.
"Ok I'll.." Hobbes started to say.
"I'll take the left one" Daxter said walking over it.
Once he was at it he and Ratchet began to pull.
Ratchets lever came easily, but Daxter's wouldn't budge no matter how hard he pulled it.
Eventually Sonic walked over, and lightly tapped his foot on the lever, which caused the lever to go the other way and activated the door.
When the door opened they could see nothing but blackness.
Hobbes leaned forward and observed the blackness then said. "I have a bad feeling that something is in there"
"Why do you say that?" Ratchet asked
"My tail is all bushy" Hobbes said looking at his tail.
Sure enough, after he said that Glowing yellow eyes came from the darkness.
And then out of the darkness something leaped towards them.
Daxter instantly screamed, and vanished.
"Hey that's what I do when I'm usually scared." Hobbes said looking at the spot where Daxter was.
And if your wondering about that thing that was leaping towards our heroes, Amy managed to hit it with her hammer.
Everyone looked at the creature that lunged at them.
"What is that thing" Sonic asked.
"I'm probably guessing that's a metalhead" Daxter said
"A metalhead?" Ratchet said confused.
"Their creatures that prerty much invaded the city twice" Daxter explained as he pulled at it's head "And some are still in the sewer"
After he said that he pulled a yellow egg-shaped thing out of its head. "And when they die they drop these Eggs" Daxter said holding it up.
"Can I have that Egg Daxter" Sonic asked. "I have a feeling that it's going to be important later."
"Yeah sure" Daxter said giving him the Egg.
Just then Hobbes noticed something. "Uh guys that Metalhead might not be the only one" He said.
Everyone looked and saw more glowing eyes light up the blackness.
"Were going to have to go though them to get the emerald aren't we?" Ratchet said.
Sonic checked the emerald tracker, which led straight through the Darkness. "Unfortunately yes we have to" He replied.
Ratchet then got out his blaster "Well i'm more then ready to right through them." he said.
With that Everyone ran into the darkness that awaited them.
Ratchet used his various weapons, to blast though the metalheads, as well as using his wrench at those that jumped right at him.
Amy used her hammer to smash any of the creatures that got in front of her.
Sonic used his jump attack and various other moves to take down the metal heads.
Hobbes pounced and clawed at every metal head he saw using his feline agility.
As for Daxter, well he just ran through the battle screaming.
However no mater how many they took out more took their place
I know i'm not describing full details of the battle but writing stories by text it's pretty hard to detail all the battles you know.
Eventually though they made it to the door to the other side.
However the metal heads were catching up to them.
"Close the door" Hobbes cried.
Thankfully there was only one lever to pull, and Ratchet pulled it.
The door closed just in time as the metalheads were an inch away from the door when it closed.
Everyone took a moment to catch their breath.
"That was close" Hobbes said.
"Agreed" Amy replied.
"How far is that emerald now?" Ratchet asked.
Sonic checked the tracker "Were not far now" he said.
Everyone continued down the sewer, until they came to a bridge that looked extremely rusted.
"Look over there" Daxter said noticing something on the bridge.
"What is it?" Amy asked.
Sonic looked closer and his eye's widened.
"Is that what I think it is" He said.
It was indeed a chaos emerald, the white one to be exact.
"What are we waiting for?" Hobbes said "Let's get it"
"Hold on there Hobbes" Daxter said "That bridge looks rusted, it doesn't look like it's going to last another second."
"Daxter has a point there Hobbes" Sonic said. "That bridge does not look stable enough to carry all of us."
"And what your suggesting is" Hobbes said.
"One of us needs to go on that bridge and grab the emerald" Sonic said.
"I'm not going on there" Daxter said shaking his head.
"No way" Amy said.
"How about we draw straws" Hobbes said "The one with the shortest straw gets to go on the bridge."
"We don't have straws" Amy pointed out.
Then Hobbes pulled out 5 straws each one with different lengths. "You were saying" he said raising an eyebrow.
"Then it is decided" Sonic said.
Everyone grabbed a straw from Hobbes hands.
After they grabbed the straws they compared lengths.
Ratchet had the short one.
"Well guess I'll have to go get the emerald." Ratchet sighed.
And with that he walked towards the bridge.
While they were watching him walk to the bridge Hobbes decided that this was the perfect time to have a conversation with Amy.
"Amy can I talk to you for a moment?" Hobbes asked her.
"Sure" Amy said.
"It's about Calvin" Hobbes said.
"Why would you talk about him" Amy asked "He's a jerk."
"Amy just because he was mean to you doesn't make him a bad person" Hobbes said.
"How do you know this?" Amy asked Hobbes.
"I've known him for a long time now" Hobbes replied. "Even though he has created inventions that from my perspective could end the world and the amount of times I have pounced on him, he is a good person, we even saved our world a few times with a few friends."
"So what you saying is that just because someone is mean to me doesn't make them a bad person?" Amy asked.
"Precisely" Hobbes replied.
"Guys I got the emerald" Ratchet said.
Everyone looked and saw Ratchet waving the emerald.
Then the bridge began to break.
"Ratchet get off the bridge now!" Daxter said.
Ratchet quickly noticed this, and ran to where the group was, however before he got there, the bridge completely collapsed, and Ratchet fell down into the murky deaphs of the sewer.
"RATCHET" Everyone yelled.
As everyone looked down at where the bridge was, Ratchet's head popped up from the sewer and cried. "HELP ME!"
"Don't worry we'll get to you soon" Hobbes yelled back.
Amy turned around and saw something that shocked her.
"Uh guys, we might need to fight our way through again." Amy said in a worried tone.
Everyone looked at where Amy was looking and their eyes widened.
What they saw was Eggman's robots ready to kill them.
Back at the villain HQ Eggman was watching from the camera's
"NEFARIOUS, EARL,EROL QUICK THE SHOW IS ABOUT TO START." Eggman yelled gleefully.
All 3 of the villains including a few alien's came running, eager to watch the death of the heroes.
"Now sit back and watch the fireworks" Eggman said.
Now lets go back to the desert shall we because we haven't focused on them for a long time now.
They were still standing there looking at awe.
If your wondering how much time has passed, this was a few seconds after Ratchet fell off the bridge so not much time has passed.
"Wow" Jak said.
What they saw was a temple, and ancient one that seamed to be around for thousands of years.
"I never know this was under the wasteland this whole time" Jak said.
Calvin transmogrifyed a few rocks into headlamps and gave them to tails, jak, and kept one to himself, and then they went into the temple.
"We must be going in the right direction" Calvin said "because the tracker say's it's down here."
As they stepped forward a flame from a dead brazer came up, then another, and soon they could see.
"Well I guess it isn't necessary to use these headlamps." Tails said putting taking his headlamp off.
"I guess so." Calvin said as he took his headlamp off.
So they continued on their way more brazers lighting as they went, until they came to a pair of stairs with a pedestal on top.
"Look" Jak said pointing at the pedestal. "There it is."
Everyone looked and saw the blue Chaos Emerald hovering on the top of the pedestal.
"Let's get it" Tails said beginning to run up the stairs.
"Hold it tails" Calvin said. "From the adventure movies I watched, there are always traps near the treasure."
"Calvin is right" Clank said. "We need to grab it without setting off the traps."
"Hold on, I think I have an idea" Jak said. "Calvin can you use your MTM to grab the emerald?"
"No I don't think..." Calvin said then he realized something and pulled out the MTM. "MTM Can you use your manipulator arms to grab that emerald."
"Ok" The MTM said "But if my arms are chopped off you need to replace them when this is over."
"Fine Just grab the emerald" Calvin said
After Calvin said that 2 arms came out of the CD player and weaved up the steps, once it was at the top of the steps it went around the emerald as if it was going to escape if it tried to grab it. And then quickly the arms grabbed the emerald.
The arms pulled back with the emerald in hand.
"Good job MTM" Calvin said.
"Why thank you" The MTM replied. "And I didn't get my arms chopped off."
Suddenly they felt a gust of wind even though there was no wind down there, and they noticed a brazer had extinguished itself, as with the others.
Soon they were in complete darkness.
"Knew I had that headlamp for something" Jak said as he turned his on.
Calvin and Tails followed suit and just after that, they felt something like an earthquake.
"What's going on?" Tails asked.
"The Temple is collapsing." Calvin said. "We need to get out if we don't want to be burred.
Everyone ran with Tails grabbing Clank as they went to the exit in this crumbling temple.
While all of that was going on our heroes in the sewer were Racing to save Ratchet while fighting robots.
It was just like fighting the metalheads back there, but this time with robots.
And there were numerous of them, too many to fight in fact.
"We aren't going to lose them anytime soon" Hobbes said as he ran dodging laser blasts.
"Does anyone have any idea's?" Sonic asked.
"Hold on a second." Amy said and she took a hammer to a valve letting some gas out.
"H'mm good thinking" Daxter said as they took off again. "Now we just need something to light it with."
"I think I have something" Hobbes said, then he pulled out a lighter "Never used this anyway."
He lit it and thew it at the open valve catching it a flame and preventing the robots from getting by.
"Good job there" Sonic said. "Let's hope ratchet hasn't fallen to a watery grave."
Ratchet meanwhile was caught in a current, having lost the emerald in his fall, and was now trying to find it. Though he was able to not drown because he had a o2 mask
C'mon where are you Ratchet thought.
Then he noticed something spinning among the current.
He swam towards it but however it was easier said then done seeing as he was swimming through a current, for him it was easier when clank was on his back when he swam.
Eventually he caught up to it, and attempted to grab it but it got out of his reach.
After he caught up with it again he managed to grab it with his hands.
Got you he thought to himself.
However he was now getting carried away by the current, and then he noticed a ledge that the water was going down.
I'm going to die Ratchet thought to himself.
Just then a gloved hand came out and grabbed him and pulled him up.
The one who pulled him up was Sonic.
"You okay" Sonic asked Ratchet.
"Yes I'm ok" Ratchet replied catching his breath.
"Do you still have the emerald?" Hobbes asked.
Ratchet answered that question by showing them the Chaos Emerald he got back at the bridge.
"Good now we just need to activate the transmitter to signal the team in the wasteland that we found the emerald" Daxter said, he then turned to Sonic "Do you still have the transmitter Sonic?"
Sonic revealed the transmitter "Of course I do." He said, and pressed the button.
However it didn't work.
"What's going on" Sonic asked confused "Why didn't it work?"
Then an automated voice of Calvin said "Signal is out of range, Try again when I am closer idiot"
"This is bad." Daxter said "Were trapped in a sewer with a transmitter that is out of range. How much worse can this get?"
Just then Eggmans robot's came up.
"Word of Advice, Never. Say That. Again Daxter" Hobbes whispered as the robots closed in on them.
"Shall we run for our lives" Ratchet asked the group.
"I believe that is the best option." Amy replied.
And with that they ran away from the Robots who then gave pursuit of them.
Back at the temple the group in the wastelands were still escaping the Collapsing temple, and not a second has passed since we last saw them.
Right now they were getting closer to the door, that was closing slowly as with most adventure movies involving temples.
They all managed to make it to the door though Calvin left the MTM near the door, and managed to grab it just before the door closed on them.
"That was a close one" Calvin said catching his breath.
"I agree" Jak said.
"I don't want to spend another second in here" Clank said.
Everyone agreed they had enough with temples for today, and went to the surface.
When they got up they discovered the sandstorm was still going but it wasn't as strong as before.
Meanwhile the surveillance drone from the last chapter saw the wasteland group exit the temple. It secretly called for Robots to attack the heroes.
"Man I can't wait to get back to the city and meet up with Sonic" Calvin said.
"Speaking of Sonic have they found the chaos emerald yet?" Tails asked.
"No I haven't got a word from the transmitter yet." Calvin replied. "That could be a bad thing."
Just then Clank turned around and noticed something. "We have company guys" he said.
Calvin and Tails turned around, and saw Eggman robots chasing them.
"Don't these robots have anything better to do?" Calvin asked getting his transmogifyer gun out.
"Well they are trying to get the emerald from us" Tails said.
"Good point Tails" Calvin replied "But i'm still sick of them Chasing us."
So they began to outrun the robots while Calvin fired his transmogifyer gun at the robots.
Meanwhile in the sewer our other heroes were racing to the elevator out of there.
"Were getting close" Hobbes said pointing to the door that leads to the surface.
Ratchet looked behind them hoping that they had lost the robots, no such luck they were still chasing them, and there were closing in.
They were close to the bridge to the elevator, but then the robots blasted it down.
"Well this is bad." Daxter said "How are we going to get across now?"
Sonic thought about it then noticed a ledge big enough for them to go across, he then began to slowly walk across it.
Ratchet noticed what he was doing and followed suit, and soon everyone went to the ledge.
While they were doing that the robot's fired back, and as soon as they did that Ratchet attempted to blast them.
Soon everyone managed to get to the platform where the elevator was and approached the door.
The door automatically opened and got on the elevator, but one of the robots attempted to get on, but Sonic managed to kick the robot out before the door closed.
"That was too close" Amy said
"Agreed" Daxter replied.
"Hopefully were in range of the MTM to activate the transmitter" Sonic said pressing the button on the transmitter.
They didn't get the same message when they tried to activate it back in the sewer, but instead a different one that said "Transmitting to MTM now."
Everyone breathed a sigh of relief.
Now lets zoom out of that elevator shall we, keep zooming out.
We see and shot of the Haven city, and zoom in on the horizon.
Keep zooming in and now stop at the desert, now focus on that vehicle that is being chased by robots and zoom in on it.
Stop zooming in and focus on the MTM.
"They have found the emerald, about time too." The MTM said.
"Good" Calvin said. "Now if we can just get out of this desert."
They then saw the towers of Spargus approaching them.
"Were getting close" Jak said.
However as they got close to the wasteland city, a robot managed to shoot a tire out causing the vehicle to halt.
"Well great" Jak said. "Were going to have to run to the ship back to Haven city."
Everyone got out and started running, the sandstorm by then had been dispersed, so they could easily see as they ran.
They eventually reached the shuttle and got on it.
As the shuttle rose Jak managed to get a few shots on the Robot's before the door closed.
The shuttle then flew to its destination, Haven City.
A few minutes later it landed, and our heroes got out to find that the Haven city group were waiting for them.
"What happened to you Ratchet?" Clank asked noticing that he was a bit wet.
"Well I took a swim into the sewer water that I didn't want to take" Ratchet replied.
"Well were glad that your ok." Tails said.
"Speaking of which" Sonic said pulling out the Chaos Emerald his group found. "Did you find the Chaos Emerald back in the wasteland.?
Jak replied by pulling out the Chaos Emerald his group found.
"Ok now that we found those emeralds" Calvin said fiddling with the MTM. "Let's head to our next nearest planet"
"Which is?" Daxter asked.
"Mine" Calvin said "We shouldn't worry about people panicking when we teleport there."
"Why do you say that" Amy asked.
"You'll see when we get there" Calvin replied rolling his eyes while he remembered his Planet.
He then pressed a button on the MTM and our heroes got encased in a field of electricity again, and with a flash of light, they disappeared.
Then we zoom into a crow to see a hooded figure watch where our heroes once were.
Then he said into a communicator "They Found the first two."
"Good, Get to the next one and observe their progress" the voice on the other end said.
"Roger that" The hooded figure said.
And with the next passing person he disappeared.
Meanwhile our villains re watched the footage of our heroes teleporting out of to the next planet.
"Well that was certainly a disapointment." Earl said.
"Never mind that" Eggman said. "Where are they headed now?"
Dr. Nefarious checked the tracker. "They appear to be heading in your world Earl" he said tracking their progress.
"Good" Earl said "Time to face him in his own territory"
Then Eggman face brightened when he saw something on the screen.
"Gentlemen, our robot scouts say that they have found the location of one of the emeralds." he said.
"Great" Erol said "so what do you plan on doing"
Eggman did an evil grin "Oh I plan to set a trap on them"
Authors Note: Uh Oh what does Eggman have planned?
You'll find out in a few chapters.
See ya next week.