Oh my goshies, I'm soooooo sorry everyone! D:
I know it's been like 2 months or something but school was kind of keeping me busy and Writer's Block was being a SON OF A GUN!
Anyway, just because of that I made this chapter extra long, to satisfy some of you story hungry people ^w^
I hope this chapter is good for you people and don't forget to review, those help me a bunch!
All characters, except for the usual, are mine!
Enjoy!
What Surf didn't know was that Jo-Cher was in the vent watching. She was there the whole time from the start of when everyone came into the room to the very moment of now. The vent gate barely kept her safe from Surf's quills as some are halfway through the openings. Jo-Cher could have swore that one whizzed past her head during the time but she brushed the feeling away.
She was hearing Surf starting to make apologies to everyone for what was about to happen. When the explosions started, she heard Surf apologize… to her.
Her eye twitched a bit and a smile crept onto her face.
"Oh Surf… you're so cute when you're about to die!"
Just then she jumped through the vent gate, just before the quills there blew up, and landed on a sniper that was still alive and walking, well not anymore! She sprinted as fast as she could towards Surf and grabbed his leg.
She giggled a bit when she heard him exclaim from the sudden save. She then jumped up and headed towards the wall in a kick stance.
Jo-Cher knows things about this facility, more things than even Conor knows. She crashed though the wall like nothing and ended up in an older, abandoned ventilation system.
Though she was officially out of the room she didn't stop running. She quickly recovered from the crash through and started running again with her hold still on Surf's leg. Once she took off the fire, which had already engulfed the whole room, followed close behind.
Surf, who was closest to the fire, kept having the tips of his fingers licked by the following flames.
Jo-Cher needed a lead off vent and fast, she was panting from the extra weight. She spotted one a little way off. She ran with all her might the rest of the way there and threw Surf into the lead off while she slammed her back to the wall.
The fire raced past the lead off path in a whooshed rage. After a few seconds of nothing but fire, it vanished. The passage that Jo-Cher jumped out from was now blackened with soot and fire still burned in small patches all over.
She smirked as she once again cheated death, as well has Surf. Jo-Cher looked to where she threw Surf to find him still lying down. She crawled over to his side and sat with legs crossed. Surf's eyes were crossed signaling that he still hasn't processed what has happened.
Jo-Cher started humming while sprinkling dust onto his face that was already all over the floor.
Evidently, Surf ended up sneezing which got him out of the processing moment and into a sitting position. Surf rubbed under his nose with sleepy eyes and looked at Jo-Cher, his eyes immediately widened but he sneezed again before he could say a word.
"Double bless you!" Jo-Cher chirped.
"Jo-Cher, Jo-Cher, you're back!" Surf exclaimed all happy but sneezed again.
"Bless yoooouu." She said in a deep voice.
"Oh Jo-Cher, I'm so sorry! I was stupid an-" Surf started apologizing when Jo-Cher interrupted.
"Stop your blabbering, I already heard you before I saved your butt!" Jo-Cher had a wide smile on her face at the end of the sentence.
"So… do you forgive me?" Surf had his hands together, carefully, with puppy eyes.
Jo-Cher took a moment and looked at Surf, holding her smile.
Suddenly, Jo-Cher embraced Surf in a great big hug. Surf was shocked to see Jo-Cher doing something to him that isn't painful and down grading. Surf's also not use to hugging other people that aren't family so he was blushing like no tomorrow! But he was beginning to like the friendly hug; it wasn't like when Jo-Cher almost choked him with that apple a while back.
'I'll take that as a yes…' Surf thought during the hug.
"Now let's go see Conor!" Jo-Cher shouted as she grabbed Surf's wrist and started down the vent.
"Hugging hedgehog say what?!" Surf was all out confused since he could have sworn that Conor didn't make it out of the room that was just blown to smithereens.
"Wait just onnnee MINUTE!" Surf pulled back on Jo-Cher's force forward which, surprisingly, got Jo-Cher to stop and look at him.
"I know, I don't think! I know! That Conor never made it out of that room and thus means… he didn't survive." Surf whispered serious-like on the last part.
Jo-Cher, now, was the one who looked confused. Then she gave it a bit of thought and smiled.
"Oooooooohhh, you thought that was the real Conor!" Jo-Cher started laughing.
"Conor would never put himself in a situation that could prove fatal!" Jo-Cher laughed some more.
Surf had a question mark above his head.
"Then how…?" Surf was pointing weakly from where they just came from.
"It was an android, Surf! And so were all those snipers! How else weren't they bleeding to death or screaming in agony from those quills?"
Now that Surf thought about it, it was true! None of them were bleeding and none of them were making sounds of any sort.
"Well now that you mention…" Surf had his finger to his chin in wonder.
"Now let's stop wasting time!" Jo-Cher, once again, grabbed Surf's wrist and ran but this time, Surf followed.
UP AT THE SURFACE (BEFORE THE QUILLS DETONATED)
"ARRRRGGGG… there's nothing here!" Blurr was raging on the ground as no one could find an entrance way.
Twilight rolled her eyes as she tapped the ground with the tip of her high heels, listening for any abnormal sounds while the Lisp was still skimming the surface, seemingly trying to sniff out an entrance.
Treador on the other hand gave up a while ago and was resting against a tree that was nearby, cleaning his gear with a piece of grey cloth that he had in his pocket.
"It's no use!"(=3) Blurr was slamming his fists into the ground in frustration.
"He's probably dead by now!"
"Don't say that!" Twilight yelled at him, against the thought of Surf already gone.
"Well it's probably true, seeing how we've taken trying to find a way in!" Blurr crossed his arms and looked away.
Twilight had half a mind just to slap some sense into Blurr right then and there but suddenly Treador stopped cleaning his rocket launcher and his ear shot up.
"Does anybody hear that?"
"What are you on about?" Blurr was on his side with his head resting on his hand while he scratched his tummy with the other.
"It's coming from underground…" Treador put his launcher away, which is basically hooking it onto his back, and put a hand on the ground. He closed his eyes while he did so.
Twilight and Blurr watched him with no clue of what he's trying to accomplish.
"Naaaa…" The Lisp seemed scared and retreated to behind Twilight's legs.
"Aw what's the matter, sweet thing?" Twilight looked down at the frightened Lisp.
"There are explosions happening." Treador said as he got up.
"Explosions, where?!" Twilight gasped at the news.
"I don't know for sure but it's happening…" Treador said as he looked around cautiously.
"I say you're talking smack." Blurr said.
Treador glared at him with Twilight sighing as she shook her head.
'Boys…' She thought when she started feeling a rumbling under her feet.
"Whoa, what's happening?!" The rumbling quickly got from a gentle shake to a maxed out earthquake.
Twilight fell onto her buttocks while Treador used the tree to keep him up. Blurr was just gripping onto the ground in fear.
A little way off to the right of everybody the ground burst with flames coming from under. Ground pieces went flying and so did some unknown objects that came with the fire. Most of the debris fell over the cliff and into the crashing waves below, giant objects made the loudest of splashes that was heard even over the explosions.
The explosions stopped as soon as they began but fire was still rising and burning within the hole that was created in a matter of seconds.
"Surf!" Twilight ran over to the crater, oblivious of the fact that the ground could collapse under her if unstable.
"Twilight, wait!" Treador ran after her.
Blurr was still clutching onto the grass that was under him but noticed that he was now alone. He shook his head and found everyone running towards the fire.
"Wait for me!" He called as he ran on all fours.
Soon enough everyone was near the edge of the flaming crater.
Twilight grabbed Blurr by his jacket and started shaking him violently,"Oh no, Surf must have been caught in that!" Twilight kept panicking and shaking Blurr causing sand to fly all over the place.
"Twilight…" Treador tried to get her attention of what she was doing.
"Surf's family is going to be so devastated!"
"Twilight…"
"He must have suffered so much from the pain of those explosions!"
"Twilight!"
"Oh what if he's still burning down there?!"
"TWILIGHT!"
"Yeah?" Twilight finally stopped and looked at Treador.
Treador pointed and Twilight turned her head to where he was pointing.
"Egad!" Twilight let go of Blurr after seeing that his head was gone.
After Twilight let go, Blurr's arms started flailing and he went about as if he was a headless chicken. (But no he's a headless reptile =P DIFFERENCE!)
The fire in the crater was suppressing now due to the lack of things to continue burning.
Twilight was looking sadly in the crater, feeling guilty for she couldn't help Surf. Treador looked down at it with no feeling readable on his face but soon annoyance came by due to the chicken Blurr.
Treador growled as he turned around and watched Blurr run past him once. The next time he stuck his foot out which of Blurr tripped over on.
When the headless Blurr fell onto the ground, after a dramatic fall, he poofed into a thick cloud of sand. He reformed next to Twilight looking quite steamed.
"Thanks to you I was the Headless Horseman for a minute!"
Twilight eyed him.
"Don't you have any feelings? Especially sadness about someone's death!" Twilight yelled.
"I would love to if I could keep my head from being shaken off!"
The two started arguing senselessly while Treador looked up to the sky.
A small dot was coming towards them, it was too far away for Treador to know what it was but eventually, he knew.
It came closer and closer and the silhouette of a bird slowly came to form.
Treador smirked knowing right away who it was.
A blue bird came into full view and flew around Treador's head. It then landed on his shoulder and snuggled his cheek with a few soft chirps. (Little Blue Bird!)
"Who's your little friend?" Twilight looked at the blue bird and completely ignored Blurr who was still talking. (She forgot D: )
"Experiment 546." Treador replied.
"Wait it's an experiment?"
"The scientists back from where I came from were trying to make realistic robot animals one day. 546 is one of the successes." Treador gestured to the bird. The bird stopped with the snuggling and chirped happily at Twilight.
"Well they did a very good job on the realistic part." Twilight admired the craftsmanship.
"Hey 546, go get some help for us why don't you." Treador commanded. The bird seemed to have nodded and then took off, back into the cloudy sky.
As Treador and Twilight watched the bird disappear, Blurr was getting dangerously close to the crater edge. The fire was completely out now and the whole crater was filled with blackness and piles of things that Blurr couldn't make out.
"What are those…?" Blurr was right on the edge and looking over.
Before he knew it, the land he was standing on broke away and fell into the crater along with him.
He screamed all the way down until he landed with a "CLANG!" due to what's left of the metal floor.
He put his head up and had one of his hands covering his mouth while the other hit the ground due to the pain of possibly having broken one of his teeth.
He had his eyes closed but when he opened them he was face to face with a skull.
He screamed like a girl and started trying to, desperately, climb the wall. He looked back while failing to climb and noticed the "skull" was made of metal. He stopped and got closer to the item.
"A robot?" He said to himself as he noticed all the melted wiring coming from the "eye sockets" and the sparks coming from there too. He looked around and found a partially metal robotic arm next to him.
"At least that's not Surf's."
Then he heard his name and looked up.
"Blurr… BLURR! Are you okay?!" Twilight was calling down to him.
"Yeah I'm just fine! Surrounded by robot body parts but I'm still good!" He picked up the skull and threw it at Twilight.
Twilight caught it and examined it, despite being a little freaked out by it.
"Heeyyy… you don't think?" Twilight was beginning.
"That all those snipers were androids?" Treador finished.
"You read my mind." Twilight put the skull under her arm.
"Well are you guys going to come down here or not?!" Blurr yelled.
"Surrreee, let's break our faces, why not?" Twilight said sarcastically.
Blurr sucked his teeth at that remark and thought for a minute.
"Give me a moment; I need to gather up some sand!" Blurr yelled before exploding into a sand cloud again.
"What is he doing?" Twilight wondered out loud.
Treador only but grunted as a response.
Mind you that Blurr took quite a fall, at least a 35 feet fall.
From the cliffs the two could hear a sound as if someone was playing hundreds of maracas and getting closer and closer. Then before their eyes a wave of sand came flying up and into the crater.
The sand started swirling like a tornado, then went to start making a form, a big formation at that. There was a big body with four column-like legs, the front two longer than the back. Coming from the still forming body was a long stream of sand looking to be the neck of the creature. From the back the same was happening and was expected to be the long tail. The "neck" was long enough to have gotten out of the room and about on level with Twilight and Treador. The sand started compacting and more details were shown. The neck ended with a tiny head, the tail ended with a tip, and the body and legs were getting all bulky. Soon enough, Treador and Twilight were in awe with the sand art, a giant dinosaur in full detail just like when Blurr was a T-Rex.
"A Brachiosaurus!" Twilight exclaimed. The Lisp, which was hiding behind her leg the whole time, became even more timid by the sheer size of the dinosaur.
The Brachiosaurus Blurr laid his head nearby, signaling to slide down.
"Sweet, the ultimate slide!" Twilight grabbed the cowering Lisp and immediately ran over and jumped onto Blurr's head.
"Come on Treador it'll be fun!"
"I think I'd rather smash my face into the ground." Treador replied as he walked over to the "slide".
As soon as Treador hauled himself onto the head Twilight threw herself down.
"Yeeeeeeeaaaaahhhhh!" She screamed all the way down.
"I don't want to do this…" Treador was being his stubborn self as he crossed his arms and looked away.
However, Blurr wasn't having any of Treador's stubbornness so he raised his head suddenly which cause Treador to lose his balance and fall over and down the slide.
At the end, Blurr's tail was a little raised so Twilight got some air after going all the way down. She did three front flips and landed a ten point landed with the Lisp still safe in her arms. Though, it was shaking a bit.
"Aw, it's okay no need to be scared now." Twilight walked a little away while petting the Lisp's head. And she moved right before Treador landed in the same area on his butt.
He breathed through his teeth as he stood up and rubbed his buttocks.
Twilight stifled a laugh and Brachiosaurus Blurr boomed with laughter.
After a couple of laughs the Brachiosaurus fell apart with sand, a lot of that sand went flying out of the crater but just enough was left behind so Blurr could reform himself again.
Blurr reformed away from Treador but he was still laughing. Treador growled at him, he then took out his gun and shot at Blurr.
Blurr stopped laughing and looked at himself.
He shrieked to find that he was Swiss cheese since he was full of holes!
"What did you do to me?!" Blurr panicked.
Treador huffed as he put the gun away.
Blurr managed to fix himself again when he calmed down but during the time of the two not agreeing with each other Twilight was actually doing something helpful.
She was looking around, hoping that she wouldn't find anything signaling that Surf was caught in the explosion and now dead. She was glad that she hasn't so far but then she came across a gap in the wall.
"Whoa what's this?" She looked into it to see some medal making a square opening… as if it was a vent…
She gasped, 'Could Surf have escaped though here?'
"Hey guys, Surf might have gone through here!" Twilight called out to Thing 1 and Thing 2.
They came right over to see what she was so excited about.
"This seemed to have been a vent." Treador stated.
"My thoughts exactly!" Twilight agreed.
…
"Twenty bucks says I'll find Surf first!" Blurr shouted as he hurried into the shaft.
"You probably don't even have twenty dollars!" Twilight hurried after him.
Treador followed the two without saying anything, into the darkness of the old vent.
BACK WITH SURF (Bet you're thinking 'FINALLY!')
"Do you even know where you're going?" Surf was following Jo-Cher through the abandoned ventilation shaft that has been slowly getting smaller and smaller. At the moment Surf and Jo-Cher are hunched over next to each other.
"This time… yes!" Jo-Cher said.
'Shocker…' Surf thought bitterly.
"We just need to turn at that lead off and continue straight until we get a view of Conor's hidden office from a gate." Jo-Cher explained as she pointed at the lead off they needed to turn at.
They turned and kept moving forward. As they made their way down the shaft they could hear as if something was crashing. Jo-Cher hurried her pace and soon enough arrived at a gate. Though Surf had a stupid moment and ended up passing the gate so Jo-Cher grabbed his arm and made him sit next to her in front of the gate.
Through the gate they see a very familiar cobra throwing things across a very dark room while yelling at himself.
"He wass in my graspssss! I could have gotten that data! But nooo, I jussst had to keep alive!" He threw a chair that was behind an official looking desk.
He was panting since it seems that he threw quite a few things. A table that apparently had a vase on it, couple of chair, a computer monitor, and a couple of drawers that Surf's best guess was that it came from the big desk. Conor was resting with a hand on the desk while looking down angrily. He then got off the desk and went to the huge computer monitor on the wall behind the desk.
The huge monitor switched from a screen showing a silver ball bouncing off the sides of the screen to a black screen with thin green bars at the bottom, like the bars that go up and down according to how loud music is or how loud someone's voice is.
"Password needed to enter database." The computer said in a female voice, the bars going up and down due to how loud the voice was.
"Alena Clarvoya" Conor said while he closed his eyes as if he was remembering something.
He opened them again once the computer responded, "Welcome High Honor Conor."
The screen then switched from the black with bars to a screen with multiple icons on it. Conor pressed the one that looked like a camera and a whole bunch of screens appeared, all with different point of views in the facility.
Surf heard Conor hiss in frustration.
"Where are they… I know that ssson of a b**** Jo-Cher ssaved his a** from the explosionsss, sssso where could they be!
Conor then got out of the screen of cameras by swiping it away and pressed on a different icon that looked like a megaphone. Once pressing, a microphone appeared from the wall in front of him. He got close to it and started talking.
"Attention all ssservants, I want you all to sstop what you are doing right now and look in every ssstinking corner of thiss facility! Every ssingle one! And don't sstop looking until ssomeone hass found thossse two!"
Then Conor started chuckling, which sent a chill down Surf's spine.
"And once they're found make sssure that they go nowhere… I'll be the one to ssslaughter them once I get there." And thus was the end of Conor's little… announcement.
Conor pressed another button that looked like an opened door and the screen returned to the ball bouncing around. Conor turned around and approached his desk. He put his hand under the desk as if he left something there then Surf and Jo-Cher heard a clicking sound. Next thing they knew Conor possessed a Double-Barreled Shotgun, Conor opened a drawer and snatched some ammo for his deadly weapon.
Surf gulped, afraid of the powerful gun. Surf is very aware of the damage one could cause in close-range...
Conor put the ammo in his shirt pocket and slithered towards a wall in front of the desk.
"Once I find them…" Conor said creepily with an after chuckle.
"Old Nina will do the job jussst how I like it… messssy and mercilesssss." Conor laughed like a maniac as he phased through the wall as if there wasn't even a wall. Ripples like water came from the wall which eventually settled down.
Jo-Cher and Surf sat where they were for a little longer just to be sure. Then Jo-Cher quickly, and noisily, kicked the gate off so they could enter the room.
"SHHHHHH Jo-Cher you're crazy!" Surf whisper yelled.
"I thought you knew that already!" Jo-Cher replied in a normal voice as she jumped down.
She waved which said to come down too. Surf hesitated but, soon enough, gathered his courage to jump too.
Once he landed next to her, Jo-Cher started walking towards the giant computer screen.
"Aren't you scared?!" Surf continued with the whisper yelling.
"Of?" Jo-Cher twirled around on one foot and balanced herself after facing Surf by having a hand on the desk.
"The fact that Conor could come back any second now…" Surf had all alarm instincts on as he kept swinging his head to look all over the place.
Jo-Cher was still smiling and didn't have a care in the world.
"So?"
"So?!" Surf exclaimed.
"He had a shot gun!" Surf freaked.
"It's just a gun, jeez loize!" Jo-Cher turned back around and approached the computer screen.
"I dunno, Jo-Cher. That one looked really like the 8-guage shotgun… also known as the 8-guage "Elephant" shotgun…" Surf was chewing his nails now as he stared at where Conor disappeared to.
"Elephant as in really, really, really powerful…"
"Stop worryin, Surf! Calm down and take a deep breath." Jo-Cher suggested.
Surf did as he was told and Jo-Cher got the screen to change to the password input screen.
"Password needed to enter database." The computer demanded.
"Alena Clarvoya." Jo-Cher said after remembering from earlier.
The main screen showed with the computer saying its usual greeting, "Welcome High Honor Conor."
Jo-Cher spat when the computer called her Conor.
"I'm no Conor…" Jo-Cher pouted silently to herself.
"Soo… who's this Alene person?" Surf asked after finally calming down.
"I don't know. I've heard that she was Conor's wife." Jo-Cher answered as she started pressing icons.
"Was?" Surf emphasized.
"Before she was murdered!" Jo-Cher threw in the plot twist!
"But those are only rumors I've heard." Jo-Cher was all happy as she continued going though every icon.
"What are you trying to do anyway?" Surf asked as she didn't lay eyes off the screen.
"Well we need to know where the exit is in order to get out, now don't we."
…
"You mean you don't know?!" Surf exclaimed.
"Well it's not my fault! The exit/entrance changes location every hour so no one can find it so easily."
"How exactly?" Surf couldn't really think of a way that made what Jo-Cher claimed possible.
"I don't know, why you expect to know everything?! I'm just a crazy hedgehog!" Jo-Cher yelled at Surf.
"Anyway, so I'm looking for the log that states the location of the exit/entrance daily."
"I see…"
A couple of minutes had passed by when, finally, she came across something.
"Eureka! Found the log." Jo-Cher jumped up in happiness.
"Great job I must say." Surf complimented.
"Now let's see here…" Jo-Cher started scanning the screen.
"That one was from five hours ago." Surf pointed out.
"This one was three hours ago." Jo-Cher pointed another out.
"That's from an hour ago." Surf stated.
"So that means…" They said at the same time.
"It's this one!" Jo-Cher pointed to the one location that was in the middle of all the location names.
Though not even a second after they finally found out where the exit is, a loud "BANG" sound exploded in the room.
Jo-Cher yelped from the sudden sound and ducked while covering her head.
But Surf… oh Surf…
His chest exploded in a bloody shower of blue light with the sound as if a generator powered off. He coughed up some of his own blood before he fell onto his knees. He had his hand onto his chest but he didn't look down, knowing that it was bad.
He did end up looking down and found that a huge gap in his chest was blown out. His eyes widened at the damage and the amount of blood he was quickly loosing… so much blood…
Wires were coming from the hole and so were small blue sparks. It was getting hard for him breathe… things were getting all fuzzy. He couldn't keep himself up by the knees anymore and ended falling forward.
His head ended up being stuck facing the left, where Jo-Cher was. He could see her shocked face, on the verge of tears.
Then in his vision a warning came and flashed about, it said.
Energy Source Destroyed
Unable To Continue With Operations
Shutting Down
Everything was going dark for Surf, couple of static screen here and there. Not like he could do anything about it. He couldn't move his real hand too well, it just twitches. While his mech arm and leg didn't move at all, despite his best efforts.
His breathing was going shallow as his eyes slowly closed. Before his eyes shut fully he heard someone desperately calling his name with a crazy laughter in the background.
…
And the sound of a reloading shotgun…
...