Chapter 8
A bit of a side mission. A bit. No fucking shit Sherlock. This wasn't just a bit of a side mission. It was so out of the way that somebody could nuke the base and we wouldn't know until their evac chopper was an hour late and didn't show any signs of showing up. A bit. At least phrase it accurately!
Sonic's and Shadow's team were left at the beach, miles from anywhere. The mission was almost pointless. Investigate disturbances in the area. So? This far away it's not going to affect anyone!
Tails kicked back and lay in the sun.
"Call me when the chopper gets here,"
"Come on, you lazy bastard," Knuckles grabbed him by the back of the neck of his jacket and dragged him along. He dumped his pack on him.
About midday they stopped.
"Is this a mission or a picnic?"
"We've been walking for two hours and there's no sign of anything."
"I can see round the rest of the bay. Nothing." They stopped, seeing no point in continuing. Knuckles started searching through Tails' pack.
"Hey! Hey! What the hell are you doing?"
"You did pack food, right?"
"Nobody said anything to me about food," Awkward silence.
"Did anybody bring any food?"
"Um… no…" Knuckles punched the ground as he heard this.
"I think that's the least of our problems right now…" Sonic pointed at the SUV speeding towards them. He stayed out just long enough to make out the number plate. It read: CH40TIX. Crap.
He ducked in the bushes and called out for everyone to hide. Amy was a bit late on this. He saw the SUV come to a stop where they were. The window rolled down. The barrel of a gun poked out. It fired. Amy turned to look. Still only halfway through the bush, she seemed like an easy target. Because she turned, the bullet hit her in the shoulder. She fell through the bush and landed next to Sonic. The gun fired a few more shots. They slammed into the trees behind them. The gun disappeared. They could hear a grumbled message from the vehicle.
"Espio, turn it round. Go through the bush."
As he heard this, Sonic ran backwards into the dense rainforest behind them. He helped Amy with him. The rest quickly followed. Intense revving followed them. A crack and then a crash confirmed their fears. Another sent them running again.
Tails had an idea. He took a grenade from Sonic's belt. He pulled the pin out and threw it at the base of a tree to their left.
"Turn right!" He called out. The grenade went off, causing the tree to collapse. Luckily, it fell just the way he intended it to. It crashed on to the front of the car. Through the smashed windscreen, they could see Vector having a tantrum. He picked up his gun and fired a few shots. Tails and Shadow pulled out their guns and fired to allow the others time to get away. They followed a few seconds later.
"Amy, are you okay?"
"Yeah, yeah, just patch this up." She indicated the bullet wound on her shoulder.
"Tails, tell me you packed a first aid kit,"
"Duh," he pulled out the box and tossed it to Sonic.
"Daagh!"
"It's okay, I'm just getting the bullet out," He pulled out a small piece of bloodied metal with a small knife. He threw the bullet away, cleaned the knife and put it back in the box. He pulled out the bandages. He noticed a tear in Amy's eye. He put his arm around her.
Tails examined a strange ball of light in the distance. Knuckles walked up to him.
"What are you looking at?"
"There's a weird light over there."
"What is it?"
"I don't know." Knuckles walked over to check it out. "Hey! What are you doing?" Tails waited. Realising this was pointless, he changed his tack. "Hey! Wait up!"
Rouge kicked the ground. A small shard popped out. She bent down to inspect it. It had a green tinge, and appeared to be a shard of gemstone. It glowed slightly.
"It's somewhere around here."
"What is?" Shadow asked.
"The master emerald." She deliberately waited until Knuckles was out of earshot.
"What?"
"It wasn't destroyed, it was just shattered." She picked up the shard. "This is a piece of it. The rest of it must be somewhere around here."
"What like this?" Shadow picked a slightly bigger piece out of the ground.
"Hmm. The bigger the pieces, the closer the rest of it must be…" She set off, randomly digging and kicking at the ground, occasionally picking up a shard of emerald.
"Dammit, this would be so much easier if we had a Chaos emerald!" Shadow set off after her.