The Emerald is Gone!
The group had properly set up camp within the almost completely destroyed base that they had found the Emerald in and it was now dark. Slayde had been missing for a couple of hours now and no one really knew what to do about it.
"Someone should go to find him." Amy finally stated as they all sat round the polluted green-yellow fire. Ebony looked up at her but didn't say a word, Rage continued to stare into the slightly green fire next to her. Prosha, Noir, Alpha and Ebony were off in the distance attempting to find wood that was burnable without letting off deathly fumes and Sonic and Terra were in their tent. Again. Shadow was sitting right next to Amy, likewise watching the fire.
"We can't let someone go in. If that person gets lost then we may well end up having to wait even longer than before. Anyway, he took an Emerald in with him. It may well be impossible to use Chaos Control to teleport through the metal that the Doctor built the base with, but he isn't defenceless either. Just leave him be Rose." Shadow stated rather calmly, but there was a slight underlay of concern in his tone. It was so small that no one noticed except Amy, as she had spent the most time with him.
"Well I'm not the only one worried about him." Amy stated bluntly, once again looking into the fire. Shadow looked across to Rage. Rage seemed unusually calm on the outside. Yet Shadow could see a raging battle going on behind his eyes. He was sure that Rage was deciding whether or not he should go down there. If Shadow was truthful he was the only one that could be trusted not to get lost down there, as he was in Robotnik's service before and all the bases so far had been laid out to follow one of the three plans. They sat in silence for about half an hour more until Rage suddenly jumped up.
"I'm going in." He stated fiercely, as if daring Shadow to argue with him. But on the contrary Shadow suddenly picked something up and threw it at Rage. Rage caught it in the blink of an eye and looked at it. It was the green Chaos Emerald.
"That's my favourite, so you best not lose it." Shadow stated. Eyes not looking up from the fire. Rage stood there, eyes wide in shock for a few minutes until he smirked and ran off to the open hole that was the base doors. The base was exactly like all the others to Rage, so he knew the whole thing like the back of his hand. Unfortunately, that also meant that he knew that the whole base was big, he knew that the top area, which was completely obliterated as it was made of mundane materials like steel, was actually a mere ten percent of the bases actual size, and when including the entire thing it was more a like a small city, a large city if you didn't include Aragot in your estimations. As such there was all sorts in there. Including multiple corrupted who had managed to get past defences and lived inside some of the more abandoned and disused tunnels themselves. Rage had absolutely no idea where Slayde was. He only had the clue of the fact that he was attempting to find out information that they could use against Robotnik. Most stuff was down, so it was unlikely that the main room would be able to provide him with any information.
"Okay... Where to start?" Rage muttered to himself as he looked round. Everything looked exactly the same down here, Robotnik didn't seem to know the meaning of 'decoration' so Rage was lucky he knew his way round the base already... But Slayde didn't. The obvious place to look would probably be the main computer room. So Rage set off, navigating through the endless corridors like he was reading a map. After just a few minutes he made it to the main computer room. The whole place was completely pitch black as the sun could not penetrate to this dark dank area. Although he couldn't see anything, something in here felt very strange. It took him a few seconds to put his finger on it. The place only had one entrance in and out, which meant that there was no way a breeze could be generated, and yet there was a breeze, albeit a weak one, but a breeze none the less. He had to get some light, but there was no longer any power to this base. They had completely cut it off prior to infiltrating the main part. He would just have to use his own resources. "Chaos Flare." He mumbled to himself, creating a small amount of light in his palm for him to see. What he noticed shocked him. There was a small hole in the ground where Robotnik's main seat or 'Throne' was that wasn't in any of the original plans. Was this a coincidence or was it intentional? Rage remembered a small undug area, that went from the middle of the base down miles until it hit the bottom of the base, that The Doctor claimed was because the base needed enough support. Rage leaned over the gap and brightened the light as much as he could, he couldn't see the bottom, so it went very very deep. Perhaps to the underneath of the base, which would indeed make it more than a few miles long. Which would be a long fall in the dark. Rage shook his head, even if he did want to go down there to find out what had been hidden from him he shouldn't, he needed to find Slayde. He backed away and sighed before something caught his eye. A small tuft a black fur. Considering the fact The Doctor only kept none biological company this was odd to say the least. Rage had to make a decision. The fur likely belonged to Slayde, though it would have been unlikely Slayde would ever had found this place. Which meant either he could just continue on his way, risking leaving the only possible clue that he had found thus far behind, or had to think the fur was indeed Slayde's and follow him down...
He sure did want to know what was down there...
Without another though he found himself falling down the deep narrow tunnel of dark, occasionally scraping his extremities as he fell. He must have been falling for ages, for when he finally hit the ground, and did he hit it. He went with a rather loud and painful bang, he didn't expect the floor, so his legs didn't absorb the shock quite right. He fell down, unable to put any weight on his legs because they were dead with numbness. The Mobian body may well have been designed far more hardier than a humans, but that fall must have been over 3 miles, and unlike in Aragot, he couldn't see the ground, so he couldn't slow himself down with Chaos or brace his body for the impact. Just being able to brace and land properly would have been enough for just a numbing tingle in his feet. He groaned and pushed himself up after a minute or two. He looked round, this far down there may be another power source, so defences could be online and searching for intruders. From the place he had fell, which now had a small impression of Rage's feet, there was only one corridor. He hobbled down it as fast as he could with his numb legs and soon met a large door. The small green light above it was switched on. Rage finally snuffed his Chaos Flare. The light from the door was only just enough to see with, a few seconds later however he could see as perfectly as he could with the Flare. He glanced to the side where there was a button next to a hand scanner. The green light meant it was unlocked, so Rage simply hit the button and the door opened. His eyes widened. There was a room that simply didn't seem to end down here. Why did no one ever notice?
The place was badly lit, even for his eyes. Yet there seemed to be just about everything here, everything electronical, ever built, was in this one room. And further in the distance there was what sounded to be animals, the smell was traced in his nose. They were all none carnivorous animals, but there was few he didn't recognise, which seemed almost reptile. After several minutes of wandering Rage was starting to get frustrated.
"If I was an annoying black and blue hedgehog, where would I be?" Rage stated to himself.
"Well there's one standing right in front of me." A voice announced from behind him. He spun round, fully prepared for an offensive. "Woah! No need to get hostile!" Slayde stated as he smirked. Rage dropped his guard, but didn't relax fully. "I thought I told you all to wait for me." Slayde asked rhetorically rather bluntly. His serious side coming out.
"You've already been two hours and a half Slayde." Rage replied. Slayde sighed as he flicked through some documents.
"I did say two hours to three hours. I expected the gang to make camp and sleep anyway, it was starting to get dark when I left." Slayde retorted as he slowly walked back the way Rage came, Rage followed. "I assume you want to know what I've managed to find out?" Slayde asked slowly, no looking behind him.
"Yeah, did you find anything in this place?" Rage replied with a question of his own.
"You'll have to wait until we're in a group, I can't really be bothered to explain it more than once." Slayde finished before he started jogging at a speed that normal people would call sprinting. Rage started jogging to keep up and within tens of seconds they were once again at the door that had managed to close itself, Rage instantly felt like he'd been walking in circles this whole time if he was so close to the door still. Rage hit the button lazily before Slayde could say anything and the two walked through.
"So how we getting back up?" Rage asked. Slayde smirked.
"I assume you know how to triangle jump?" Slayde asked, Rage nodded. "Well it's designed for horizontal progress, but I'm sure if it's used correctly it can be used for vertical ascent. Either way, people who run as fast as us have been known to be able to run up places vertically with a bit of a run up, so you can do that if you wish." Slayde explained before jumping upwards, performing a rather unique method of the triangle jump. Rage shrugged and copied him all the way up.
"Do you think that Rage is going to be able to find Slayde, Shadow?" Amy asked the quiet Shadow. He had not spoken a word since Rage had left.
"He'll be fine Rose." Shadow replied. "They both will." Shadow told her before she mentioned Slayde. "Honestly, you worry more than anyone I've known."
"I miss Rage too." Prosha stated in a grumpy voiced laced with cuteness, indirectly using her age as a cute factor. Shadow, unperturbed by the cuteness, simply glared at her. He was annoyed that he didn't decide to just turn round and take her back. Although Alpha was old enough in his opinion to be there, he had since learnt of Prosha's accelerated aging and, finding out that she was in fact only four, even if it was close to being 5, and was not the physical age of 14 she now looked. She was aging 3 times the normal pace.
"It's almost been a half hour since Rage left. Which means it's almost been three hours since Slayde left." Ebony stated as she looked over at the door as if expecting something. "They can't be that far off getting back, I haven't known Slayde to be off with his timing before... Actually he's always off with his timing, by five minutes."
"So he'll be here in five minutes?" Amy asked. Ebony shook her head.
"Seven minutes, thirty two seconds." Ebony replied. Amy rolled her eyes. Shadow grabbed some of the wood the others had come back with and threw it on the fire. Sonic suddenly came out his tent.
"Hey have I missed anything." Sonic asked looking at everyone one by one. "Where's Rage?" He asked after a couple seconds.
"Rage went in to try and find Slayde, which you'd know if you wasn't too busy in that tent all the time." Shadow replied with a cooled expression on his face.
"Oh I see." Sonic replied, there was silence for a couple of seconds.
"Five minutes." Ebony announced. Sonic looked at her puzzled. Shadow sighed, looking into the fire. He obviously couldn't be bothered to explain.
"It's when she thinks Slayde and Rage will be back." Amy told him. Sonic immediately started talking to Ebony in a loud voice.
"Rose, once they're back. Would you please come with me." Shadow more stated than asked.
"Sure Shadow. But why?" Amy asked. Shadow threw some more wood onto the fire.
"I'll tell you when we're there." He replied. She shrugged before looking over to the conversation Sonic was having with Ebony.
"So I bet you." He thrust his hand into his pocket. "Fifty rings. That they will not be back in..."
"Two minutes, twenty four seconds." Ebony provided.
"Yeah, that." Sonic replied. Smirking. The whole group went silent for two minutes, staring at the hole that they went down and would come back up. "I don't-"
"Twenty seconds." Ebony cut him off. There was a pause. "Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one." Ebony counted down, no one came out the hole.
"What are all you guys staring over there for?" Slayde's voice came from behind them. Everyone except Shadow turned. Sonic face drained as Ebony held her hand out. Sonic handed the rings over, grumbling.
"This is the first money that I've ever had." Ebony announced merrily. Sonic glared at her before heading back to his tent, Shadow also stood up.
"Everyone, wait. Could you call Terra out as well." Slayde stated, asking Sonic the question. Sonic rushed to the tent and in a minute they were all sitting round the fire. "Okay. So the whole base had next to nothing in it besides a bunch of corrupted. They weren't hard to deal with at all with an Emerald. The hard part was finding somewhere with power. I knew there would be a backup generator for at least one part of the base. After about an hour of searching I found a single LED type light on in the main 'throne room' and it got me curious. I demolished the throne and threw it aside to find a hole that was so deep I couldn't see the bottom, yet there was a slight breeze coming from it because of the distance. I had a gut feeling, and not being the type who's gut is wrong I leaped down, entered the only door down there and found something akin to a leisure room. Everything you could think of was down there. Including a computer. Took me a while, but I eventually got a load of stuff out of it including this." He handed out a few pieces of paper to everyone there.
"These are schematics for a giant robot." Shadow announced as he examined them. Slayde nodded.
"One of the types that can kick the ass of someone in super form. The Master Emerald seems to be powering it." Slayde replied.
"Tails showed some of these to me while we was at Aragot. Namely the top one. The external schematics." Sonic announced. No one really looked surprised at that. "We should be able to beat this easily, we have six of the seven Emeralds and there are 4 of us who can go into super form without them. He glanced over to Rage subtly. Maybe more."
"Yes, we have been quite lucky with the Emeralds. But the last one is in the hands of the Doctor according to these documents. So he is technically in possession of three. Master, purple and black." Slayde announced. "We have a choice to make. We march upon the place we suspect the Doctor is. Or we continue going from base to base, trying to find him." Slayde finished before grabbing a bottle of water out of nowhere.
"I don't really care what we do." Shadow announced to the group before standing and walking away from the fire. Amy quickly stood.
"I'm not bothered either. See you guys in a bit." Amy told the group before following Shadow. Sonic sent to open his mouth when suddenly static filled the air. Slayde looked over to Sonic before Sonic ran to his tent and came out carrying a small radio Tails had given to him for emergencies.
"Tails? Are you trying to reach us?" Sonic asked over the radio that seemed to be emanating nothing but static.
"Sonic? Do you read me?" Tails' voice came through really quite unhearable.
"Yeah Tails, we're here. What's happening?" Sonic replied.
"Sonic? Hello, Sonic?" Tails almost shouting in a panicked voice. "I don't know whether you can hear me and I can't hear you or if you can't hear me at all but I don't have much time as it is. The fake Emerald is gone. The only Emerald that was left powering the base has been stolen. We have enough energy stored to last us half an hour at the most but Eggman is pounding at our shield already so it may be less. If we can't find the Emerald before the shields come down... Well I'm afraid that this is it. There'll be no one left. The army outside is larger than the one that Knuckles got killed with and it has more of his favourite boss type robots." Tails shouted before static took hold again. The group were all looking at each other in shock and panic. Shadow and Amy had come back and Shadow and Slayde were the only two not exploding in panic. Tails' voice came back. "They're down! This is the last of the power we have. Tell Slayde he has to use it, I have to go now, or I won't be able to use my experimental inventions before I'm gone. Good luck guys. I'm counting on-." And it cut off. No one spoke for several minutes.
"What did he mean Slayde?" Sonic asked. Everyone except Shadow looked at Slayde.
Everyone's eyes were on Slayde.
"He left me something as a 'just in case' plan before we left. Though it doesn't matter unless we have all the Emeralds." Slayde replied. Prosha, Alpha, Noir, Ebony and Terra seemed satisfied with that. Sonic, Amy and Rage however, did not.
"Yes. What did he leave you?" Sonic asked. Terra pulled on his arm.
"He'll tell you when he's ready." She said to him. "Won't you Slayde?" She confirmed hesitantly. Slayde nodded slowly after a second to think. "See."
"I need to be alone for a little." Slayde announced before disappearing in a flash of yellow. Amy frowned at the spot where he disappeared from.
"Rage, chuck me my Emerald." Shadow stated. Rage threw him his green Emerald back.
"Shadow don't you-" Amy started before Shadow likewise vanished in a flash of green. "Dare..." Amy glared at the spot that Shadow vanished from for several seconds before sitting down in a mood.
"Anyone here know what's going on?" Rage asked. Sonic shrugged before getting dragged into a making out session by Terra as she pulled him towards the tent. The others didn't seem to care at all and Amy was too busy looking into the fire in annoyance to hear what Rage had said. Rage sighed before going to his and Alpha's tent, presumably for a nap.
"That's what Tail's gave me, though you probably already worked that out for yourself." Slayde told Shadow. Shadow simply nodded in confirmation. "Either way, this thing that Natani gave me is useless without the others." Slayde commented as he placed a time stone back inside the cloth that had been covering it all this time and back into his rucksack. "We need to go and get that seventh Emerald or we cannot use it. If only little planet hadn't been destroyed by the Doctor already. We could get the other time stones. I'm pretty sure this one the King had was the only one that was outside at the time."
"I presume that is why the Doctor has destroyed it, otherwise Tails may have already tried it." Shadow contributed. Slayde nodded.
"That is what I was thinking myself. This time line is a mess. Without a paradox machine there is no way we could possibly fix it." Slayde stated. "You should probably get back to Amy. She'll get annoyed if you're gone for too long." Slayde sighed. "And if you could please tell them that we move at first light." Shadow nodded before disappearing in a flash of green, instantly reappearing in another flash of green next to the fire.
"We move at first light." Shadow told the group rather bluntly before he gently pulled Amy aside. As soon as they were out of view Shadow threw a random punch at her. She caught it. "Good. Your reaction speed is fast improving, far faster than I would have imagined. Tomorrow we are hitting the Doctors main fortress. So there will be no sparing tonight. Tonight we relax. Do you wish to sleep?" Shadow stated before asking. Amy shook her head. "Then spend tonight with me." It was a simple enough statement, but it seemed to carry a lot of meaning behind it. Shadow laid down and looked up. Thanks to their efforts on destroying the bases the stars in this area were all fully visible. Amy laid down next to him as they both watched the stars for a little while. Shadow put his hand in Amy's while they continued to watch the stars and this sparked them both to start pointing out constellations to one another until they both finally succumbed to sleep.