Chapter 13

Cream pulled herself out from under the console. It was smashed to pieces. There was no way that it was going to work. She looked around. Everyone else had left. The room was in flames. The door wasn't blocked, which was fortunate. Outside, it had begun to rain. A few buildings had been hit with missiles. Mostly military and political. At least their aim wasn't off. She set off looking for someone. Thank God I chose to wear pants today, because a skirt would have never been able to get past these rocks.

A few minutes later, she saw Tikal wandering aimlessly around, wondering what had happened.

"Hey!" Tikal looked over to see who it was. Cream bounded towards her.

"Are you okay?"

"What happened?" She said in her usual perky demeanour.

"Okay, yes. A few missiles hit the base"

"What's a missile?" She asked innocently. Cream rolled her eyes. God, Knuckles, I mean, fill her in!

"A missile is… it's like a big arrow that explodes when it hits something."

"How big?"

"Really big, now let's go!"

"Somebody say my name?" Big appeared from around the corner. He was holding what looked like a very large baseball bat.

"Uh… should I ask?" She said looking at the bat.

"Oh, this? I ran into a bit of trouble with some soldiers. You should probably take something." Cream flipped a gun out of a holster. Both Big and Tikal stared at it.

"Way ahead of you."

Amy had dried her tears and continued on her way. The pipe seemed to stretch for miles, and there to be no resistance along it. Suddenly they heard a rumbling.

"What's that?" Knuckles sniffed the air.

"Shit. Petrol."

"You mean this is an exhaust pipe?"

"Could be. What I do know is that it's about to get hot in here."

The rumbling got louder and a hot gas started to gush forward from in front of them. Down the straight pipe they could see flames billowing forth. Knuckles punched the pipe wall. The outside was hollow. Peeling away the corrugated iron, there was a platform and some drilling equipment outside. How fortunate. He looked back to check the flames' progress. It was approaching fast. He went to grab Amy, but she had already jumped through the hole. Regrouping, he leapt through himself. He felt the flames soaring past his back as he emerged from the pipe. Amy watched as he fell from the pipe and away from a lick of flame from the ruptured pipe. He landed with a crash on Amy.

Shaking herself off, she looked down at the weight on her chest. Knuckles was groaning, half-conscious, with his face buried in her bosom.

"Take your head out of there before I mount it on my wall."

"What?" He looked up. He looked back down. "Oh, sorry…" He got up hastily.

"Hello?" Amy looked round. It sounded like Jet, but she wasn't sure. Whoever it was, he sounded injured. She got up and came over to look. Sure enough, Jet and Wave were making their way along.

"Where's Storm?"

"We lost him." Wave said with dismay.

"You mean… you got separated?"

"No, he's dead." Jet retorted, a little irately.

"Oh…"

"What happened to your airboards?" Knuckles asked appearing around the corner.

"We lost them aswell. They're somewhere at the bottom of a pit."

"Ah."

Sonic, Shadow and Silver (and in turn, their company) had set off for Naugus' base. He seemed to be in control of Eggman, which was unsurprising. One does not become an evil genius overnight. Something was suspicious.

Up ahead they saw a group of barrels. A small tuft of orange hair stuck out from behind them.

"Blaze, check it out." She promptly obliged. Kicking a barrel aside, she revealed the hiding individual.

"Eggman!" Sonic exclaimed.

"Please… don't… don't kill me… I'm not… I…"

"What do you want?" Shadow tried to get to the point.

"Naugus… he's…" At the word Naugus, Silver's eyes widened. "He's crazy. He ordered his soldiers to terminate my robots… he's taken control…"

"Cut the crap…" Rouge added to Shadow's impatience.

"I need your help."

"Oh, we were already on our way to kill Naugus, but what's to stop us killing you?" Diesel issued bluntly.

"Because… I can help you get in. I know all the defences inside out."

"Or I could just blow your brains out right now." Tails held a shotgun to Eggman's head.

"If you kill me, you'll never get through. There's a wall of soldiers waiting to put a bullet in you, and you'll never kill them all. I know a way round that."

"Hmm…" Sonic thought. "What guarantee do we have that you're not just going to stab us in the back at the worst possible moment?"

"Look at me. I'm reduced to hiding behind a few barrels for protection from Naugus' soldiers. Would someone such as myself stoop that low at will?"

Sonic raised an eyebrow.

"Now that you look at it that way…"