Chapter 5: The Rescue Mission
When Saura returned to the Resistance HQ without getting caught, she went straight to her room and locks the door while deep breathing from running and close to dying. That was way too close! That jackal would have killed her for sure if it weren't for the cloth distracting him. The wolf lays down on her bed-made cloth. She thinks it is best to get some sleep. Who knows what Knuckles will have her do tomorrow. So, Saura closes her eyes to sleep.
"Who are you and why did you save me?" Saura suddenly hears! She opens her eyes and sees the same blue and yellow eyed jackal from last night! She gasps and tries to move away, but the jackal has a grip on her wrist like before and pulled her, if any possible, closer. He growls at her attempt to escape. "Answer me," he demands. Saura shivers and shakes her head. The male black jackal snarls and grips her wrist tighter. Saura yelps at the pain around her wrist. She looks away as she tries again to break free from the jackal. Unfortunately, Saura feels a hand on her muzzle and it forced her to turn to the jackal. "Look at me," she hears the jackal command! Too frightened to disobey now, she looks at the jackal and sees him staring at her. "Tell me who you are and why did you save me right now," he says once more. Saura gulps as she shivers more in fear. She suddenly imagines someone else in the same spot as the jackal, but it instantly went away. Slowly, she opens her mouth to hopefully say something even if this jackal will torture her voice, just like-
Saura was jolted awake by the sound of a knock on her door. She looks around and notices she is in her room and no sign of the jackal. Was that all a dream? The wolf hears knocking on her door. She gets up to answer it. To her surprise, it was Charmy Bee. "Hey, Knuckles needs to see you in the computer room. We have a new mission for you," he says to the wolf.
Saura nods and walks to her wispon to grab it. Only then, she realizes her hand is shaking. Charmy seems to have noticed too since the wolf wasn't grabbing the weapon. "Are you cold?" he asks. Saura flinches a bit and shakes her head to the bee. She grabs the wispon and starts walking out of the room with Charmy.
"Well, well... That was a strange decision you made last night. Why did you save the enemy?"
Saura stops when she heard that voice. She also wondered the same thing... Why did she save that jackal last night? She sure would like to- "Hey, come on," the wolf suddenly hears Charmy. She noticed the bee is already ahead of her. Shaking her head, Saura ignores the voice from before to follow the bee.
When Saura and Charmy arrived, they were greeted by Knuckles, Amy, Rouge, and Vector. Once Knuckles laid his eyes on Saura, he walks up to her. "Alright rookie, I've got a tough one for you. I need you to head back to the city and save those civilians," he explains the mission. "I would send Sonic or Silver there, but they need time to heal from their battle," he says with a small sigh.
Saura looked confused. She had no idea Sonic and Silver were injured. "Oh, come on Knucklehead," she suddenly hears Rouge say to Knuckles. The bat walks towards them and shoves the red echidna a bit away from the wolf. "At least explain to the girl what happened last night," she added. When Knuckles grumbles at the bat, Rouge shrugs; so, she'll go ahead and tell the story. "So, here's some news for you," she began as she has her arm around Saura's shoulders. The wolf flinches at the contact but let's Rouge talk. "Silver was in the Mystic Jungle last night fighting against the masked one," she says to explain what happened to Silver. Saura's eyes shrunk back as she gulps quietly. "Sonic went ahead to the jungle so, he can help Silver out and even the score. However, they both came back here wounded. But we did get the name of the masked one," she then explains what happened to Sonic along with the masked one's identity name revealed. "His name is Infinite," she says the masked one's name. Saura shivers at the name. Infinite, it kind of fits him…
"Alright Rouge, I think the rookie understands the story," said Knuckles with an annoyed look. Once Rouge shrugs and let's go of Saura, he walks to the wolf. "Rookie, go to the city and help those civilians. Espio will be there to help you, alright?" he says to Saura as he places his hand on Saura's shoulder. The echidna feels the wolf shivering and looks confused.
Before Knuckles could ask about Saura's condition, the wolf nods. "Good," Amy says with a smile. The pink hedgehog hands Saura a communicator "Now hurry, I'm receiving an S.O.S message from some of our forces," she states as she mentions a few voices seeking out for help. With a nod, Saura runs out of the room.
Knuckles watches Saura leave with a worried expression. "Why so gloomy boss? After all, it is your idea to send her," Rouge asks as she looks to the echidna. Amy and Vector looks at the echidna as well.
Knuckles sighs as he looks at the screen. "I know, and she does and amazing job, but she still lacks on communication," he says to Rouge. "She's scared, really scared. And yet, she is charging into battle. She won't even say a word if she's in danger," he added.
Amy frowns when she hears Knuckles. "Have you tried training her with a group?" she asks Knuckles. "That could've helped her with communication," she added.
Knuckles shook his head. "I've tried that Amy, but the rookie will continue to not communicate and create some kind of invisible wall between her and any other group or someone else she works with," he answers as he looks down. "The only time she came close to talking to someone is when she was with Sonic at the factory," he states.
Amy would be fuming if another girl was talking to Sonic. But hearing the wolf didn't and she had not talked to others, the pink hedgehog became worried. "That's so sad," she mumbles a bit. Amy wonders why the wolf continues with this wordless behavior. Does it have to do with past experiences? "Do you think something bad might have happened to her before she came here?" she questions while looking towards Knuckles.
Knuckles sighs. That could be it. "Maybe," he says to Amy. "But, whatever it is, she must get over it quickly, for hers and everyone else's sake," he added.
Saura had arrived at the city with a few others who came to do the same mission. Once they arrived, everyone decided to split up to help as many citizens as they can. "Espio here," Espio announces through the communicator. "We're engaging enemy forces and can't search for civilians right now," he says.
"The fighting is too fierce for us to help out as well," a new masculine voice was heard through the communicator.
Saura flinches a bit. It seems she and a few others are the only ones in the city. The wolf keeps going through the city to find any civilians who couldn't evacuate in time. As she kept going, Saura had not seen any citizens yet. Did everyone in this area escape? The wolf suddenly hears someone crying. Running to the source, Saura sees a bunch of huge robots and they appear to be destroying the city. She shivers at the sight, but then she hears the crying again. Snapped out of it, Saura continues to search. Soon, she sees a small child clinging on to her stuff toy for her life. It looks like a female white dog! Saura looks shocked to see one of the huge robots aim its weapon at the child! With huge determination, Saura quickly gets to the young dog, picks her up, and uses her grabbling hook to dodge the robots attack. As she carries the child, the wolf continues to run while attacking enemies with her lightning wispon.
"We've broken through enemy lines! The rescue is underway," the same unknown voice says through the communicator.
"We've also secured an escape route, so there is a safe way out," said Espio through the communicator. Saura nods; she needs to get this child to safety by going to the escape route. And to get there, she needs to the destroy some robots blocking her way. The wolf feels the dog child clinging on to her while shivering. She can relate to the child. Saura is scared… Normally, she would be the one needing rescuing or hides somewhere to safety for being scared to death after the incident with her uncle. But this time, it's her who is doing the rescuing and she can't hide. Hugging the child to comfort her, Saura glares and fights the enemies.
Saura continues her battle while keeping the white dog safe. She then comes across some other civilians surrounded by robots! Quickly, the wolf destroys the enemies with her wispon. Once the robots were destroyed, Saura hears cheering from the crowd. She turns to the crowd while looking a bit embarrassed and a little scared of them from all the stares and attention. "Mommy," she hears the child shout out! Saura looks around the crowd and sees an adult white dog. The wolf releases the child, so the little dog can run to her mother. "Mommy," the little dog shouts again as she runs to the older white dog!
The older white dog notices the child running to her and is shocked. "Jena," the older dog exclaims as she runs to the child and hugs her! "Oh Jena, I'm so glad you're safe," she says to the child with tears in her eyes. While she still hugs her daughter, the older dog looks to Saura with a smile. "Thank you," she says to the wolf.
Saura smiles sadly a bit to the two white dogs. Just then, she sees Espio arrive with his team to help evacuate the rest of the civilians. "Nice work," the chameleon saus to Saura with a nod. Saura nods back as she helps out by taking out any enemies that comes after them.
Eventually, more members of the resistance had united with them and joined in in taking out enemies. When Saura, Espio, the other members of the resistance, and the civilians arrive to their escape route, they no longer see any enemies. "Update from HQ! The enemy is on the run," Knuckles announces through the communicator.
Espio and Saura smile at the big news. Espio looks to the resistance. "Mission complete! Well done everyone," he says to the group. Everyone cheered in victory; well, Saura just smiles and nods. So, without any more interruptions, everyone returned to HQ.
As Espio and Saura walk in to the computer room, they were greeted by not just Knuckles, Amy, Rouge, Vector, and Charmy but Sonic and Silver are there as well! The crowd walks up to the two and praised them on what a great job they did. Espio nods with a smile. Saura, on the other hand, hides behind the chameleon for not being comfortable by the stares.
"Hey, there is nothing to hide from buddy," Sonic says to Saura with a smile. "You did great out there," he added with a smile. Saura continues to hide behind Espio but does smile a little.
Suddenly, everyone hears the big screen beeping and shows something on the map. Rouge goes to the computer screen to check it out. "The system is picking up a couple of strange readings," she announces as she gets the big screen to pull up the location. "They're coming from the laboratory, the one where Sonic and Silver fought Infinite," she added once the location is clear. Saura shivers at the thought of Infinite possibly being there.
"It's probably one of Eggman's robots," Silver suggests. Rouge, on the other hand, shook her head in disagreement.
"They are life readings, two of them. Definitely not robots," Rouge says to the group. The big screen then shows two orange spots at the Mystic Jungle area. Saura stops shivering when it's two instead of one life readings. Could they be others who had evacuated from another city Eggman attacked?
Knuckles thinks a bit on who to send. Even though Sonic and Silver are up, they still need time to heal. His eyes soon caught to Saura. He nods and walks to the wolf. "Hey rookie, go to the lab and check it out, okay?" he says to Saura. Saura nods and immediately heads out to the jungle.
Author's note:
Hello everyone! We are back with another update! REMINDER: The poll for the title choice will close on March 10th! So if you guys didn't vote, feel free to go to my profile and check it out there. It should be above my bio so I don't think it's that hard to find. ^^; Anyways, nothing new about this update aside from Saura and Espio completing a mission. In the next update, be ready to learn a bit of Saura's silent behavior (it's quite a sad one). Also, thank you all for reading and making reviews on this fanfic! I really appreciate it and I always enjoy reading your guys' reviews (yes, even the bad ones). It lets me know how much you guys like the story and/or what I should improve grammar and story wise. Thanks for reading! See you all in the next update!