Hey my dear readers! :)

I'm really-really sorry for my long time absence. A lot of things kept me from writing the fanfic.
But I'm back to business again, and I'll do my best to quicken up a bit. :)

So here's chapter 8, I hope you'll like it. :)
Read and review.

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Chapter 8: Going Underground

Big hustling welcomed Princess Sonia, her brother and parents in the underground hangar of the military organisation. Around the DRAGONFLY numerous engineers and staff members were doing their works. They armed the weapons, and checked every systems. They did everything they had to prepare the plane for the upcoming mission. It might have seemed to be a chaos for an outsider, but Sonia could see the choreography behind the mess, and it truly amazed her. She would have been more glad to see a much calmer scene though. Looking around, in another corner she saw Skye as he kept briefing for his soldiers. Despite the early time, no tiredness could be seen on the boy's face; he was relaxed, spirited and ready to act. In contrast with him however, the princess felt like she hadn't have a sleep for weeks. Last night was a walk in hell for her. Not only she was really worried for Skye's safety, she was tormented by bad intuition too. She couldn't help but think something would go wrong during the mission.
"Hello! Is everything okay there?" someone snapped her out of her thinking. She looked up, and met Skye's concerned eyes looking back at her. "Are you all right? You're not looking well."
Sonia tried to cheer up a bit, and covered up her tiredness with a weak smile. She didn't want him to think she has doubt about his success, or avert his mind with her intuitions.
"Of course I'm okay. I was just... amazed by this hustling. It's not a common sight, is it?" she said with not so convincing cheerfulness. She saw on the boy's face he wasn't fooled by it, so she quickly tried to change topic. "What about your men? Are they nervous?"
"Well, we're all nervous a bit, but also high spirited to do our real job." he answered with wide grin. "And your dad is just putting some more bravery into them." he showed toward his team.
The princess saw her father, Sonic, as he made a speech for the soldiers lined up before him.
"You've already done a lot for our city." began the king proudly. "But now you're going to a terrain that could hide a lot of danger. However, you are qulified and skillful enough to accomplish your mission without any problems. Don't forget that in a team every member is equally responsible for themselves and their teammates. Make sure to watch out for each other the whole time, and you'll be safe." he finished his speech with a thumbs-up, and confident grin. "Good luck everyone!"
"THANK YOU SIR!" hollered 20 soldiers in unison.
The encouraging words clearly did good with them.
"He still knows how to inspire people, doesn't he? " said Skye smilingly.
"Yeah. He would more likely go with you though." she replied with a half smile, then turned to the boy seriously. "Everything will be okay, right?"
Seeing her face mixed with worry and tiredness, the Prower boy answered with warms smile. "There's nothing to worry about. We're prepared for every possibilities. We're going to finish this thing in no time, and come back in one piece."
His confidence meant a bit of relay for Sonia, who finally could give him a more honest smile.
"Commander!" jumped in Simona, who looked at the pair suspiciously first, but continued anyway. "The plane is ready. We're good to go."
"Thank you. Everyone on board!" ordered Skye. While the soldiers took their places on the plane, he took one last glance at the princess. "I'll be back quickly. I promise." he winked at her.
"I'll be waiting for you." she said smilingly, and placed a quick peck on his cheek, what made him blush a bit. She watched Skye as he hurried to get on the troop-carrier that already roared loudly by it's reviving engines. "Good luck!" she said aloud, while the ramp closed up to the bottom of the machine.
"Princess! Please, head to the control center with the others. Only staff members could be in thee hangar during the lift-off." said a staff member to her.
Sonia quickly joined to her family. After they stepped into an elevator, she could still have a glimpse of the plane as it was slowly rolled to it's starting point, with louder and louder engines. The sight was finally cut off by the closing doors of the elevator.

In the cockpit of the DRAGONFLY, Skye and Simona were about to finish preparing for lift-off.
"All systems are green." reported the cat girl sitting in the co-pilot's seat.
"The plane is on starting position. We're ready to go, Control. We're waiting for clearance." spoke Skye into his microphone.
"Clearance given. Opening lock-gates is in progress." arrived the confirmation on the radio.
The red light before the plane changed to green soon. After that, Skye revved up the engines and the airplane began emerging through the vertical tunnel above it. A little later, they flew out of the underground hangar, and they could see the city that was lighted by the rising sun. In the control tower, Sonia and the others watched the scene in amazement, as the respectable looking DRAGONFLY rose into the air.
"Coordinates typed in. Estimated flying time is 1 hour." reported the navigator.
"All right then, let's give this little bird some real flying already!" said Skye, and then pushed the throttle rod forward.
The jet engines buzzed up, and the plane started off into the distance on high speed.

On a higher point of the border-land of the ruinous New-Megaopolis, a small campsite was set up. There was a simple tent, a table with different equipments on it, for example a laptop, a transceiver, binoculars and handguns. By the camp, at the edge of the cliff, two wolf ladies were observing the abandoned city with their binoculars. They really looked alike, like twins. They both had pink fur and dark brown dreadlocks styled hair that reached their backs. Only by the color of their fitting clothes and hairbands they could be told apart from each other. The one standing nearer to the edge had a blue, while the other one had a green set.
"Are you sure you won't come here to the side, Leeta?" asked the girl in blue clothes; the other one was standing a bit further back.
"With the scope I can see more than enough from here, Lyco." she answered.
"It could help against your fear of heigh you know." said Lyco mockingly.
"Would you please, focus on our task? Steam column at point 4."
They both turned to the way of the steam cloud that spouted up deep within the city.
"I can see it. 23 minutes pasted since last one."
"These blow-ups become more and more frequent. It would be good to know what's happening in there." said Leeta while she lowered down her binoculars.
"By the way, that particular squad should be here already, shouldn't they?"
Right after Lyco's question sounded, a message arrived on the radio.
"WOLF-DEN, this is DRAGONFLY. Do you copy?" came Skye's voice.
Leeta ran over to the device to answer the call.
"This is the WOLF-DEN. I hear you loud and clear."
"We're about to reach the meeting point. Shot up a signal-rocket so we could find the landing place."
Meanwhile, Lyco was already heading to the way of the flat surface they marked for landing.
"We shoot it up right away. Over."

"All right people, we're going to land soon. The ladies who welcome us are respectable members of our most important ally. So watch your manners, all right?" said Skye to his soldiers sitting in the cabin.
"There's the landing zone." showed Simona to the way of the green signing light.
"I can see it. Prepare for landing!" ordered the young fox, and began descending.
Down on the ground, the wolf twins watched in amazement as the huge airplane neared to them.
"Could they really land this monstrum here?" thought Leeta aloud.
As the aircraft landed, dust cloud swirled up by it's rotors. The spy ladies tried to cover their faces from it. After landing, the plane's motors died down, as well the dust-storm. The ramp opened, and all the soldiers got off, led by Panzer and Switch.
"Line up, men!" ordered the wolf boy loudly. They stood in lines and saluted.
After that, Skye and Simona also stepped out from the plane. The cat girl joined the line of soldiers, while young Prower stepped to the agents, and saluted to them.
"It's an honour to meet you, ladies." he said while he gave his hand.
"The honour is ours, Skye." said Leeta shaking hands with him.
"Yeah, but let's skip formality. We're not here to do the polite." added Lyco strictly, while also shook hands with Skye.
"You're right." he replied with perplexed grin. "Okay then. Please, inform me about the situation. Simona, Switch, Panzer, you come with me. The others could rest."
The six of them walked up to the camp, and everyone picked up a scope. Lyco began describing.
"We noticed the odd steam break-outs a few days ago. They could be seen deep in the city."
"In the beginning, they appeared only a few times per day." continued Leeta. "But they became more and more common, and now they could be seen every half an hour, or more often."
Right after she finished her sentence, a steam column could be seen again. Everyone looked into their binoculars.
"Simona, could you orientate it?" asked Skye
"1126 meters to north-east." answered the girl, amazing the wolf twins with her precise localization. "I'll check it on the map right away." she hurried to the table and began measuring a digital map on her laptop.
"Switch, opinion?" continued Skye.
"It's hard to tell from this far. A lot of things could cause it." said the rabbit boy uncertainly.
"We have to go over there, and check it closely." added Panzer strictly.
"That's right! Let's see what's going on there!" agreed the fox boy.
They grouped around Simona, who analyzed the map she had in her database.
"The location of the phenomena is somewhere here." she pointed a seemingli big location on the map.
"Some kind of a square?" asked Switch.
"It's not too detailed. Not much of a help." complained Panzer.
"Seems that zone is uncharted." stated the commander. "Well, we'll be more clever, once we check the place by ourselves. Guys, tell the soldiers to get ready while I report to the HQ."
His officers got back to the airplane, and Skye was about to make contact with New Mobotropolis via the laptop, but Lyco stepped in front of him.
"Our superiors at the Wolf Pack gave us the strict command to accompany your team in case of action." she said
"We also want to know at first hand, what's going on here." added her sister.
"There's no way Ladies! We don't know what's in there, and we cannot risk your safety." replied young Prower decisively.
"Sorry, but this is not a request." began Leeta.
"This is an order from us, as ranking members of Wolf Pack! You know you're under our command also, don't you?" finished Lyco with her arms folded in front of her.
Skye frowned by their statement. He indeed had to obey not only to the Acorn Council, but to all the leaders of their allies.
"I can't argue with that. However, at least one of you should stay here. In case we get in trouble in there, there have to be be someone who surely could call for help." reasoned the commander logically.
The twins nodded, and looked at each other.
"I'M GOING!" they said simultaneously.
They began arguing longly about which one of them should go with the team. They even tried to decide it with a rock-paper-scissors challenge, but they always showed similar. No wonder, unison of twins. Skye watched the scene dumbfoundedly. Seems like all the members of the previous generation have their infantile side - he thought. Then he came up with the solution.
"Are you clear with the fact we won't near the location on foot?" he cutted in. "We're going to fly in."
The wolf twins looked at DRAGONFLY, and Leeta's face paled for a second. She quickly composed herself to react.
"Okay, I don't mind. I give the opportunity to you, Lyco." she said smugly.
"That's really kind from you." replied Lyco sarcastically.
Skye just rolled his eyes, but he was glad they finally could get back to the mission.

After reporting to his superiors in New-Mobotropolis, Skye ordered his men to get onboard. They lifted up, and started to the way of the abandoned city. They flew low at a slow pace. It didn't take long to arrive between the first blocks of buildings. All the machine cannons were handled by one of the soldiers, whom continuously scanned the environment, being ready to defend themselves. The city was silent... really silent. Tension could be literally touched in the cockpit.
"900 meters left." reported silently Simona from the navi chair.
"This place is creepy." whispered Lyco, who stood behind the pilots and looked out the windshield amazedly.
"700 meters."
"I hope we won't bump into an enemy group." said Skye. "Are you detecting anything, Switch?" he asked his teammate on the radio.
"No boogies in sight so far." came the reply.
"300 meters. We should see the location soon." said the cat girl.
As they were keeping forward, the lines of buildings abruptly ended, and an enormus square came into their view. It stood in the middle of the city, and it's surface was totally flat. Between the buildings around it, tall chimneys reached up to the sky. As soon as they arrived to the middle of the place, one of the chimneys shot out an enormous column of steam.
"Okay, so now we know where these steam clouds come from." commented Skye.
"But these chimneys are coming out from the ground. Where does the steam come out from?" wondered Simona.
"It's really odd indeed. Maybe there's something underground?" thought Lyco aloud.
"That's easy to find out. Let's go up higher and scan the ground." ordered the commander.
As they did so, on a monitor in front of them the waited picture appeared.
"There are different sized chambers under the ground. But their shapes and arrangement are too symmetric to be natural." commented the wolf lady.
"That's not all." added Simona. "The surface under us is a 4 meters thick reinforced concrete, and there's a 200 meters deep hole beneath it."
"It might be an underground hangar." concluded Skye, then he spoke into his microphone. "Switch, there should be some kind of a remote controlled gate here. Try to find a signal."
"I'm on it."
Several seconds later, the ground under the carrier practically moved. In the middle of the square, a continuously widening rift appeared, and there was the bottomless depth under it. The trio in the cockpit looked at it dumbfoundedly.
"I don't like this at all." said the navigator anxiously.
"We have to find out what's down there." said Lyco strictly.
"Then we don't have any choice but going underground." said the fox boy, and he began to land into the deep hole.
The lower they got the lesser light illuminated the environment. After some time, they had to turn on some reflectors to see anything at all. It was obviously a hangar they could saw around them. Empty dokking stations were placed all around. There was dead silence in the cockpit, since none of them found words. After decending for a couple of minutes, the DRAGONFLY reached the ground and landed. The sound of it's dying down engines echoed longly in the huge hangar. The ramp opened down from the plane's bottom, and the soldiers stepped out of it, this time being really cautious. All of them scanned their surrounds with their assault rifles ready to fire, and tried to compensate the darkness with lamps built in their visors.
"Split up! Look round the place, but be aware!" ordered Panzer, and he stepped away from the plane. As he looked up, he saw a small white spot far up. It was all that could be seen of the huge entry they landed through. "That's a freekin' deep hole for sure." he muttered aloud.
Meanwhile, Skye, Simona and Lyco also got off the plane. The piloting duo had similar kind of rifles as their comrades, while Lyco had her own handgun ready.
"Try to find a terminal, so we could do some light in here." ordered the Prower boy.
After a few minutes of searching, one of the soldiers found what they were looking for. All the officers grouped around it, and Switch connected his handheld computer to the terminal.
"Let's see if I can light up the place." thinked the rabbit boy aloud, while he typed on his machine rapidly. "That's interesting. The base's energy cells are on full charge. The whole system could be activated, but the security sytem would click in right away."
"Try to find a mode which would be enough to turn on some lights at least." said Skye.
"I guess there's a program that activates the emergency lights only." he quickly typed for a few seconds, and abruptly blunt light filled the huge hangar.
"Nice job mate." patted Skye his friend's shoulder. "Can you upload the map of the base to our database?"
As an answer to his question, a detailed layout appeared on his visor.
"Okay men, everyone get here!" all the soldiers gathered around the fox leader. "We're going to check out three sectors. Simona, you take 7 soldiers, and check the control room and the main storage not far from there. Panzer, you look for that huge place with other 7 men. It's not detailed, but mentioned as a power plant. Give me report constantly."
"Roger that!" confirmed the two officers, and the two groups headed to the way of their destinations.
"You four be ready at the cannons." he turned to the soldiers whom left there. "In case of an ambush, the plane have to be defended at all cost." they saluted and got on the plane to seat themselves at the cannons. "Switch, you get as many info as possible. Me and Lyco are going to find the commander's room. Inform us if you find anything important."
"Understood." replied the rabbit boy, and turned back to his computer.
Skye and Lyco headed out to find their target.

The young fox boy, and the elder wolf lady calmly but cautiously walked through the long, and barely lighted corridors.
"I can't believe a huge base like this could be hidden from us for such a long time." complained Lyco.
"I'm not so suprised though. It obviously wasn't used much. I guess they finished building it right before Chaos Knuckles defeated Eggman." reasoned Skye.
Soon, they arrived to the room they looked for. It was quite far away from their starting point. As they stepped through the door, they were really surprised by the looks of the huge office-like room. It was way different from the other parts of the base. Instead of the usual cold and hard iron walls, the room was fully dark-green. At one of it's sides stood a tall and wide wooden bookshelf, packed with writings and data disks here and there. In front of it, at the middle of the room was a quite big desk made of high quality varnished wood, a seemingly comfy boss chair behind it, and a dark-brown carpet under them. On the wall behind the desk was a built-in safe with numeric keyboard. It was closed.
"Wow! Not the kind of room you would expect from the old egghead, that's for sure." wondered Lyco.
"This whole base not fits to Eggman's egoism and megalomania. It's well hidden, and built up practically. I'm sure someone else built it." commented Skye.
"But who whould it be? He surely didn't have any allies during his last years. At least we didn't know about any."
"Let's look around, and maybe we get answers."
Lyco began to browse through the things on the bookshelf, while Skye checked the desk first. The surface of it was completely empty, and he didn't find anything in it's drawers either.
"Well, whoever was in charge here, he was aware to take everything with him." he said.
"There's nothing interesting here either." added the wolf lady. "Only a few military operation plans, but there's no mention of whom they would used them against."
"Document them anyway. They could be useful."
While he was on his way to the safe, Panzer signed in on the radio.
"Boss, we arrived to the power plant."
"And, what did you find?"
"Well, how should I say... This is enormous." the wolf and the soldiers accompanying him looked at the scene in front of them with stunned faces.
As far as the eye could see, giant turbines were lined up, and pipelines wriggled everywhere. The hall was filled by the booming sound of turbines, and the whistle of steam that leaked from the pipes here and there.
"This is a geothermal power plant." joined Switch to the radio conversation. "A line of pipes is led deep down under the ground, from where they bring up hot air on high pressure. The turbines are moved by that, and they produce energy."
"It's more and more obvious that base wasn't built by Eggman." commented Skye. "But the conception is very good."
"It is, but quite unstable at the same time. It's operationed by precise automatism, but if a malfunction happens, that would destroy the whole facility easily. However, it's impressive that all energy cells are completely full. The system could serve a couple of cities with energy for months. And this explains those steam columns out there too. Since the energy level is on maximum, the system let's out more unappropriated steam."
"Amazing. Just imagine how many possibilities we would get, if we occupy this base." said Skye almost dreamily. "Panzer, look around the place, and take pictures about it." he ordered, while he stepped to the safe and connected a small equipment to it's keypad. "What's the status of you, Simona?"
"The storages are completely empty. Nothing were left in them." replied the cat girl. "By the log of the control room, freighter planes were docking in the hangar. They were ordered to go to an unknown place, right before Dr. Eggman was defeated. The whole base was evacuated. The person who gave the order is also unknown."
"I cannot find any more information about the case either." added Switch.
"Whoever commanded here, he took good care to cover up all information about himself." said Skye, while his gadget beeped and the safe door opened. "I would be suprised, if he didn't expect someone could find this base."

At the campsite not far from New-Megaopolis, Leeta patiently waited, while checked the environment with her binoculars every now and then. A several hours passed since the group entered the city. She continuously listened to the radio communication of the team. The transmission was quite noisy, because they were deep under the ground, surrounded by reinforced concrete. The sun was already setting under the horizon, so it became much colder outside. Leeta was about to go and fetch warmer clothes, when something hit her ears through her headphones. It was an odd interference that surely came from an other source. She ran to the receiver unit, and tried to clear the noise, but without any result.
"What is that?" she thinked aloud, then decided to warn the others inside. "Lyco, I detect some weird interference in the radio communication."
"It's because of the walls we're surrounded with." replied her twin sister logically.
"No, I'm absolutely sure it comes from somewhere else. Be cautious. I have a bad feeling about this."
In the hangar, Switch also heard the message from the wolf lady outside. He also experienced some minor oddity with the terminal he worked on, but didn't mind about it so far. Now he heard that something was not right, he also began to worry that something was about to happen.

To be continued...

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So that was chapter 8. I hope you liked it.Please, leave your reviews. They're really appreciated. ^^
Stay tuned for next chapter. :D