Authors Note: Wow, Just wow. This is possibly the most painful writing ever. Everything seamed to be determined to not get this chapter writen. My computer had to be checked, School, Laziness, Network outages (I had write this in Google drive, which is on Google Chrome.) So writing this was painful for me, as waiting for this chapter was painful with you.
Anyway, ladies and Gentlemen i bring you Universe Collision Chapter 16.
Chapter 16: Mine of Ghosts.
Our heroes saw various workers on the surface, doing various things such as talking to others, and working on various machinery.
"MTM how many people are here?" Calvin asked.
After a few moments the MTM said. "About 119 including the nine of you."
"That's strange." Ratchet said bringing up the logs to the planet. "It was said this mine was abandoned a decade ago."
"Well I guess you were wrong." Hobbes said. "They haven't noticed us yet, in fact I don't think they noticed us going in."
"Maybe this is a everyday thing for them." Sonic remarked.
"Look maybe we can ask them if they have seen the chaos emerald." Calvin suggested.
"That's probably a good idea." Tails said. "Just don't get us kicked out."
"I'll ask this one." Jak said before walking to the worker who seamed to be fixing something.
The worker seamed to not notice them, nor heard them even when Jak approached him.
"Hey, um do you know of any emerald that you've never seen before." Jak asked him.
The worker didn't seam to hear him.
"Hey did you hear me?" Jak asked, then he tried to tap his sholdier, then the oddest thing happened.
His hand went through the worker.
"What the?" Jak said.
"Hey Stop that." A voice said behind him.
Jak turned and noticed a worker who seemed to be staring at him.
"Sorry, I was just trying to..." Jak began before the worker he just asked replied.
"What is it now?"
"You're doing it wrong, if you do that you're gonna hurt yourself." The other worker said.
"Sorry sir it won't happen again." The worker said before going back to work.
Our heroes stood there for a good 30 seconds before the MTM spoke.
"Oh I see what happened." The MTM said.
"What? What happened MTM?" Hobbes asked clearly panicked.
"A glitch in my time travel software caused it to create ghosts of the people who worked there, what you are seeing are the workers last moments before they died." The MTM explained.
"Must have been some disaster if it killed all 110 workers." Jak said.
"Can you remove them?" Tails asked.
"Yes just hold on a second." The MTM said, beginning to remove the ghosts.
However just as the MTM was about to remove the ghosts Calvin spoke up.
"Wait maybe we can use this to our advantage." he said "We obviously don't know this area, maybe these ghosts could help us navigate though the mine."
There was a few seconds of silence as our heroes considered everything.
Finally Sonic spoke "He does have a point we don't know our way around this mine, maybe the ghosts can instruct us on this mine."
"Ok so lets just go through this mine, find the emerald and get out of here." Daxter said.
And so they went through the mine passing through ghosts, some of which looked at them before going along their normal business before they died.
Then they came to a line, and the ghosts were walking through the ruined gate, which was probably once great before whatever happened before the miners.
Before the ghosts went to the elevator, they turned right and went into the door, our heroes followed inside, and saw various suits, and the ghosts were putting them on, well by putting them on I mean just grabbing the suits and miming put them on.
Before I go back to the action i should describe the suits. They were like a mix between biohazard suits and spacesuits with the body before the head looked like a spacesuit, with the helmet looking like a biohazard suit, you know the ones from those epidemic films in which scientists wear to protect themselves from whatever the virus. Anyway back to the story.
One of the ghosts then started talking the miners, and the heroes heard them speaking. "Ok these suits are highly resistant to lava, these allow you to stay in the heat for up to three hours, if you report a tear, please report to me and go back to the elevator"
Then the ghosts went out and got in the elevator presumably the last time they would ride it.
Our heroes stared at the suits. Right now they were only three suits left.
"Ok there are only three suits left." Calvin said. "So i think a few of us could go down there and search for the emerald while the rest of us explores the rest of the mine and tries to figure out what happened here."
After saying all of this he let out a sigh of exhaustion and and asked."Sound good."
Everyone murmured in agreement.
"Ok now who's going down there to find the emerald." Calvin asked.
No one step forward.
"Really no one?" Calvin asked.
Then Jak, Ratchet, Hobbes, and Sonic stepped forward.
"That's better." Calvin said with a smile, before turning to sonic. "Why are you going down there Sonic? There are only three suits."
"Well i survived numerous places with lava in it, and without a suit." Sonic said. "So this would be a piece of cake."
"Alright if you say so." Calvin said.
Then Hobbes went to the suits and tossed two of them to Jak and Ratchet, and they started to put the suits on.
As they were putting the suits on, the group not going in the volcano talked on what they were going to do while the four went down in the volcano.
By the time they finished they looked like they were ready to go on a spacewalk and go in a quarantine zone at the same time.
"Ok were ready to go down there." Hobbes said echoing because of his helmet. "What are the rest of you going to do while you're up here."
"We're going to find out what happened to this place." Calvin said. "Good luck down there."
Then Calvin handed a radio. "Also this is just so i could let you know about what we found out."
Then they went to the elevator, and Sonic, Jak, Hobbes, and Ratchet entered it and pressed the down button.
Before they went down Hobbes said. "Make sure you let us know about any info you find out about this place."
"We will." Tails said.
And with that the elevator descended into the volcano.
"Ok where do we start?" Calvin asked.
Everyone paused not sure of what to do.
Then Daxter noticed a ghost rushing past them, as if he was in a hurry. "Maybe we should start with him."
Everyone turned and saw the ghost rushing past as well.
"Good eye Daxter." Calvin said. "We should probably follow him."
With that they followed the ghost to wherever it was heading.
Meanwhile Sonic, Hobbes, Ratchet, and Jak were in the elevator descending down into the volcano.
"Hopefully this isn't another trap set by Eggman." Ratchet said.
"Well Eggman hasn't attacked us here." Hobbes said.
"Let's not get too confident." Sonic said. "We were fooled once, so lets not do that twice."
Finally the elevator stopped, and opened. Revealing there were bridges that went across lava. As well as the ghosts of miners mining orange crystals that grew from the side of walls.
Jak then got the emerald radar. The radar revealed that the emerald was north.
"Let's find that emerald before Eggman finds out where we are, or the lava gets us." Jak said.
And so they began to run in the direction of the emerald, crossing various bridges to cross the lava.
This went on for a few minutes until they came across a broken railway system, which was as far as they could see their only way across.
"Well, looks like we're not going to go across here." Ratchet said before turning to Hobbes. "Unless you managed to steal the MTM from Calvin."
"Unfortunately no." Hobbes said. "We're going to have to find another way around."
"Well there must be someway around." Sonic said.
Just then a ghost walked past them and walked up to a control panel, pulled a lever, or at least grabbing the letter before pulling his hand down as if it was still there. Before proceeding to seemingly walk on the air.
It took a second before they realized what the ghost was doing.
"Must be a maintinance bridge." Ratchet said. "Must be used to work on that rail."
"Well that could be our ticket to get across the lava." Sonic said. "All we need to is pull that lever, and we can get to the emerald."
Jak went to the control panel and attempted to pull the lever. However it wouldn't budge when he pulled it.
"Looks like it's stuck." Jak said.
Ratchet walked over and checked on the lever. "Here let me try."
But it yielded the same results. Annoyed, Ratchet took a closer look.
"Ah I see the problem."
"What is it?" Jak asked.
"It's jammed by rust." Ratchet explained. "Years of age caused parts of the mechanism to rust, thus caused the lever to jam."
"How can we solve this?" Hobbes asked. "If the lever is rusted we can't cross the bridge. Isn't there someway we can remove the rust?"
Ratchet checked under the panel, and saw a bottle of rust remover.
Hope it still has some left. Ratchet thought as he grabbed the liquid.
Putting the bottle over the area with rust, he tipped it over.
Then a small drop came out and hit the area with the rust. Within seconds the formerly rusted areas became new again.
Ratchet pulled the lever, this time it moved, and the maintenance bridge lifted down.
"Well at least it's working now." Jak said.
They then ran across the maintenance bridge, though it was a bit rickety.
On their way across they noticed the tram submerged in lava. They didn't take a closer look at it, they knew what was in there.
Finally they reached the end of the bridge, Which had the ghost of miners working on crystals.
However they didn't find the emerald anywhere.
"Ok please don't tell me it's another trap." Hobbes said.
"Let's just check the radar, and see if it's right." Ratchet said.
Sonic checked the Radar, the emerald was exactly where they were, then he realized something.
"What if it's buried underground?"
Just then Ratchet realized what Sonic meant. Then he got out a blowtorch like tool, and started making a circle around the emerald was supposedly located under them.
"What are you doing?" Jak asked surprised as Ratchet started to slowly cut a circle around the location where the emerald supposedly is.
"Cutting around the emerald." Ratchet explained. "It's located underground, so we're going to have to dig it out. So im going to cut a circle around the emerald and get it out."
"Ok but how long is this going to take?" Hobbes asked.
"It's going to take a few minutes." Ratchet said. "Let's hope nothing happens under here."
Meanwhile up at the surface, the rest of the heroes were following the ghost. They had lost him for a while but eventually they managed to catch up with him.
Right now he was pressing a code in an open door, presumably because he opened it.
After a few tries the ghost apparently managed to get the code right and opened the door.
Interested they walked through the door and saw that the ghost was frantically activating, a intercom.
However instead of the usual speech they heard, they instead heard faint whispering.
"MTM what is he saying?" Tails asked. "and why could we hear what the ghosts were saying at the when we were going through the mine, but not right now."
"As the ghosts near their last moments, their speech slowly becomes unintelgable, and hard to understand." The MTM explained. "However for your sake, and the audience, ill translate what he is saying."
After a few seconds the ghost's speech became understandable.
"Alert! Alert! The volcano is about to erupt, please evacuate all personel, and get the miners out of here."
The ghost paused to look at something worridly before continuing.
"Please leave any belongings, your safety is more important. To any surviving personel, the mine will be closed for one year."
Then he paused and screamed before promptly vanishing.
Everyone was shocked at the sudden disappearance of the ghost.
"What just happened?" Daxter asked.
"The ghost just reached the end of his lifetime." The MTM explained. "and judging from the announcement, the volcano may have erupted."
Suddenly they felt a tremor. The broken glass on the floor slightly shifted a bit.
"MTM please tell me that was a piece of old equipment falling." Calvin said.
"Sorry, but it look's like the volcano is going to erupt again." The MTM said.
"Wait, if the volcano is about to erupt, and Sonic, Jak, Ratchet, and Hobbes are down there. That means…" Amy said as she put the situation so far.
It didn't take long to put two and two together. Calvin then turned with a worried expression.
"We need to warn them." Calvin said.
Meanwhile in the volcano Ratchet was almost done with cutting out the emerald when they felt the tremor too.
"What was that?" Hobbes asked looking around.
Sonic turned and noticed that the lava was slightly closer than before. "Not sure but it may have caused the lava to rise a bit."
Just then Hobbes heard Calvin's voice. "Hobbes you may want to hurry up down there."
"What? What have you found out?" Hobbes asked.
"The reason the miners died is that the volcano erupted, and right now it's about to erupt again."
Hobbes expression became shocked. Just as Ratchet managed to cut a hole in the rock. The stone crumbled, revealing the Chaos Emerald below the stone.
"Ok i've got the emerald." Ratchet said grabbing it.
"We may need to hurry." Hobbes said. "The volcano is going to erupt any second now."
It didn't take two seconds for the group to realize what was about to happen. Jak grabbed the emerald, and put it in his pack before they began to ran.
By then the lava was being to fly up. The four were running across the maintenance bridge. Just then the a torrent of lava spewed up melting part of the bridge.
"Ok this is bad." Hobbes said. "What do we do now."
"We're going to have to jump." Sonic said.
"WHAT?" We may miss and fall in the lava!."
"Oh come on, it's not that big of a jump."
Suddenly another torrent of lava came up behind them, cutting them off.
"Looks like i don't have much of a choice." Hobbes said
Then Hobbes jumped across the gap in front of them, followed by the other three.
They then proceeded to run across the rest of the bridges to the elevator. All the while the lava rising quickly.
As they ran they noticed the ghosts vanishing, signaling that their time was up for them.
Meanwhile Calvin and the gang were racing to the elevator to help the four in the volcano get out.
"How long until the volcano fully erupts?" Calvin asked.
"We only have 5 minutes left until total eruption." The MTM said.
"Can't we just use you to teleport in and save them?" Daxter asked. "It would be much easier, and quicker."
"My circuits can't withstand extreme heat." The MTM explained. "Normal volcanos i can withstand, but the heat inside this volcano is way past my standards, and besides you don't have those heat protective suits so you wouldn't last long down there."
Finally they reached the elevator and Calvin checked his watch. "Hobbes can you hear me? We're near the elevator waiting for you, you have about 4 more minutes until the volcano fully erupts."
If Hobbes said anything they couldn't hear it because of the static.
Meanwhile the four had managed to reached the elevator,by then the lava had completely consumed the mine, leaving only the elevator remaining.
They quickly got in the elevator, and pressed the up button.
Now that they were out of the heat, no pun intended. Jak, Ratchet and, Hobbes took off their helmets of their suits.
After a brief pause Hobbes asked Ratchet a question, he had been meaning to ask ever since Calvin told him the volcano was about to erupt. "Why didn't you tell us that this was an active volcano?"
"Look i didn't know it would erupt now." Ratchet defended. "And i didn't think you knew it would erupt ether."
Hobbes was about to say something, but stopped himself.
"Thought so."
Just as they were landed on the surface and the elevator doors opened, The elevator began to shake.
"Oh what now?" Hobbes asked.
Sonic looked down and saw that the lava had gotten one of the elevator pillars, and was melting it. "The elevator is about to fall down, if we're going to get out, we're going to have to get out now."
However that was easily said then done as the elevator door was half open, and was closing at random. So effectively they were trapped.
However Jak had some tricks none of the others had found out yet.
And he used one of those tricks right now.
First he clapped his hands in the air, and then the world to him took a blue tint, and time slowed down to a crawl.
Using the time slow to his advantage, he first picked up Hobbes who didn't even notice him until he was thrown.
Sonic, and Ratchet followed, with the same results of Hobbes.
However just before he could get out the last of the elevator supports melted away which caused the elevator to fall down.
Everyone stared at the fallen elevator knowing full well that Jak may have died.
Well, everyone but Daxter who was looking at a watch, as if he knew what was going to happen.
"Three, Two, One."
Just not long after he said that Jak went up this time with wings that were made of light.
After hovering for a few seconds he landed safely, and the wings vanished a second later.
Everyone stood both amazed and shocked.
"I'm probably guessing i should explain that." Jak said.
"Explain that after we get get out of here." Sonic said.
Then they began to ran away, and got into the tram.
As they were in the tram, Jak explained what happened.
"About a few years ago I got captured and expiramented on with Dark Eco, while it may not have killed me it caused me to have a Dark form. Though i managed to control it, I had to balance it with a light form, which you just saw."
"Ah that explains it." Hobbes said. "That's why I suddenly went flying out of the elevator."
"Going off topic for a bit." Calvin said. "We weren't attacked by Eggman's goons here, I wonder why?"
"Maybe they were playing poker." Ratchet joked.
Just then there was a snap, and the tram began to plunge down.
"MTM, TELEPORT US OUT NOW!." Calvin said.
"Roger." The MTM said.
A field of electricity came around them, and with a flash our heroes vanished.
A few seconds later the tram crashed to the ground and exploded.
Meanwhile three villains were, guess what playing poker.
"I'll raise the stakes by 10 chips." Earl said.
"I'll fold." Nefarious said.
"Wait why are we playing this game?" Erol said.
"So we can fill in an obvious punch line from the last scene." Nefarious explained.
"Oh." Erol said putting the cards down.
Just then Eggman entered. "Ok fools, stop playing that game, the heroes are on their way to the final emerald, prepare to make the trap."
The three put the cards down, and walked out of the room. Ready for their biggest trap.
Our heroes didn't know what they were about to enter.
Authors Note: Finally it's finished. I hope you enjoyed this chapter, and just about a week before christmas.
Also I won't be posting any chapter's at Christmas, but i will hopefully publish a chapter the week after that.