In the Zone, Part 1
The "war room" was dim, as of now. Those gathered included Sonic (of course), Tails, Amy, and Trystan. Sally was going to arrive and give them the plan soon enough, but until then, Trystan opted to let the others talk amongst themselves. He heard a couple gems, mostly just the stuff Amy was spitting out, gushing over Sonic and whatnot, as he looked over his gun. He didn't do much with it, aside from flicking it around so that the bullet chamber would detach from the barrel with a metallic click. He had no reason to do that, really. He just liked the sound it made. Tails seemed interested in it, too.
"Hey, Trystan...can I look at that?" he asked.
Trystan shot a sideways glance at him. "Aren't you a little too young to use a gun?" he asked with a smirk.
"I'm not gonna use it," Tails corrected, "I'd like to study it."
Trystan stared at Tails for a minute, but he eventually handed him the revolver, after switching the safety on and adding, "Don't shoot your eye out," with a wink.
Tails immediately set about checking the tiny buttons and switches on the handle of the gun (besides the safety, of course), flicking the bullet chamber open, and generally poking and prodding it.
"Never seen somebody express so much interest in a revolver before," Trystan pointed out.
"Well, I really wanna see what this thing can do." Tails kept looking over the weapon before nodding and handing it back to Trystan. "Besides, I find myself getting new design ideas from new tech I can find."
"Not gonna lie, I envy that brain of yours," Trystan answered. Despite all the fun he and some other people had poked at Tails for being young, he was mature, something even Sonic couldn't seem to pull off if he tried. He then looked over at the man himself, who was busy trying to get Amy to lay off on the hugging. "Hey, Sonic!" Both he and Amy paused and looked over at Trystan, who went on to ask, "How'd that last mission go on the forty-second? I would'a asked earlier but Bunnie conked me on the head harder than I thought and I was out of it for two whole days."
Sonic chuckled at how he imagined Trystan would look stumbling around like a drunk with a goose-egg on his head, and answered, "It was fantastic! Got to see Buttnik on a monitor. Man, ya should'a seen his face! He looked like an oversized tomato!"
"A big, ugly, rotten tomato," Amy added.
"Preach it, sister," Trystan proclaimed as he held up his hands.
There was only a moment of quiet before Sally finally made it back into the room with Nicole in her hand, and she seemed more than ready to go on a covert ops mission. "Well, Sal?" Sonic asked. "What's the skinny?"
"Nicole's got a lock on a facility that's storing the last couple Auto Dusters. We're going to finish these things off," she explained with a triumphant smile.
"Finally, this damn plotline's gonna get some traction," Trystan chuckled.
"You say something, Trys?"
Trystan looked up, wiping the grin off his face. "No, Sonic, why'd you ask?"
"Guys?" Trystan and Sonic swung their heads back to face Sally. "Focus, please?" Sally interrupted.
They both nodded.
"So we're not even being subtle about this, then?" Trystan normally found it easy to talk while driving, but having to watch out for Sonic and Amy running along his right while ducking and weaving through the grimy, cluttered streets of Robotropolis was pushing his focus.
"Nope," Tails answered.
"Hey, what Sal says goes," Sonic remarked, not taking his eyes off the road ahead.
The plan was simple: Sally would go it alone and infiltrate the warehouse, while Amy, Tails, Sonic, and Trystan went loud to distract all of Robotnik's forces nearby. That was part of the fun of going on missions, at least according to Sonic. They always tried to remain unpredictable in their methods, and more often than not, it threw Robotnik off.
The group whizzed by some hard working robians, who took a minute to register what just flew past, and then quickly chased after them. Trystan was the first to take notice. "Hey," he said to get everyone's attention, "we got some bums tryin' to mooch off us. Should we start a fight?"
"I don't think that's a good idea." Amy interjected.
"Amy's right, pal," Sonic added. "I'd rather not have 'hurting mindless drones' on my resumé."
"Jesus, I'm not saying 'Hey, let's kill some motherf-'" He stopped himself, remembering Tails was present, but continued, "...I'm just saying we get their attention so they register us as a threat."
Tails looked behind him. "Well, they've kinda already done that, so I don't see a point."
"...I mean, more of a threat than we already are."
The rooftops were dark, and only Sally's lithe figure could be made out against the backdrop of neon lights and rust-tinted smog. She had split off from her friends a few minutes ago, leaving them to cause some chaos in the streets. The first few times she had to leave Sonic in the beginning days of Robotnik's reign were hard, and she worried about him simply because he wasn't in her line of sight.
She fell to the ground after a few long jumps across the skyline and immediately stuck to an adjacent wall like glue, peeking out to watch two SWATbots march past her. They turned a corner, and Sally continued her advance, briefly pulling Nicole out of her vest pocket to check her progress.
"The warehouse is approximately one-point-seven miles north and zero-point-two-five miles east, Sally."
"Thanks, Nicole," she whispered. Sally continued on through the dimly-lit streets below the blinding skyline, dodging any glances the SWATbots and robians threw in her direction, and she got to the storage for the remaining machines of mass destruction in no time.
The building itself was nothing to outlandishly different from the other warehouses in the city, but Sally had read the floor plans, and according to them, there was a lot more being held below ground level. She dashed around to the front door. It was big, bulky, glazed in a dull chrome, and there were SWATbot guards posted around it. She stuck to the corner of the warehouse.
By now, a few SWATbots had joined the stampede of robians chasing the Freedom Fighters down. Sonic kept them busy by slowing down and taunting them, then speeding away after getting within arm's length. Amy hadn't been passive either, as she had gone in complete 180s, and used her hammer to beat a few SWATbots into submission. Sonic, of course, ran back to grab her, which, of course, she gladly let happen.
Trystan, however, decided that it wasn't enough, and he deftly swung his duffel bag off his back.
"Trystan, what're you doing?" Amy questioned.
"Bringing out my ace in the hole." He pulled out his grenade launcher and slid it over his wrist, switching the settings to "sticky grenade." He looked up at the skyline. He considered trying to blow one up, but remembered that this was Robotnik's design, and that was more trouble than it was worth. "Sonic!"
Sonic had kept pace alongside Trystan for most of their cruise, but seemed a little confused when he said, "Grab Amy and take a detour. We'll meet up back at...wherever it was, that big 'scraper we passed a few streets ago."
"Oh, come on. Do I have to carry Amy?" Sonic called.
The answer was a resounding "Yes!" from both Trystan and Amy in unison. Sonic sighed and turned to scoop Amy up quickly, an opportunity she gleefully used to throw her arms around his neck.
"Kinda not likin' you right now, dude," Sonic grumbled. Tails, on the other hand, couldn't help but giggle to himself.
"I'll make this quick, then," Trystan assured with a wry grin. Sonic and his friends sped off down a different street and he swung his hoverbike around, driving in reverse. He was slightly worried about trying this maneuver, but hopefully, he wouldn't have to hold it for long. He aimed the launcher at the ground and let a grenade drop, detonating it a couple seconds later, after bringing his bike back around to face forward.
He didn't get a good look behind him, but he heard the explosion, saw a flash of light as well as a bunch of SWATbot parts hitting the ground. "Probably not enough to warrant a small army coming after us...need to blow something else up," he mused. He looked around, eventually settling on the city block he was on. He drove down the street until he found a crossing, and went hard to the left, sticking grenades on buildings at various intervals. Level the place, it would not, but damned if it wouldn't be a pretty light show.
He went around the whole block, and when he came to the point where he had previously caused carnage, he kept going straight, and reversed the path he had taken all the way back to a solitary skyscraper that towered over most of the other buildings in the district. And there was Sonic, Tails, and Amy, waiting at its base. Tails and Amy both looked over at Trystan when he drifted by and skidded to a stop. He remained on his bike, but flashed a wide grin. "Told you I'd be quick."
Sonic had been laying on his side, his left hand propping his head up, and a tired look on his face. "If you call that 'quick,' I'd hate to see your definition of 'slow.'"
"Oh, I'm sorry I can't outrun a fighter jet in my sleep," Trystan remarked.
Sonic slowly got to his feet. "Honestly, the big question here is what were you planning on doin'? 'Cause I didn't see anything happen while you were gone."
A low chuckle seeped out of Trystan's mouth as he held up his left hand. "Wanted to make sure you'd get a good view of this." He pressed the DET button on his grenade launcher, and this time, while there was no earth-shaking explosion, there was a lot of red-orange light and black smoke rising in the block of Robotropolis they had left behind, accompanied by a sharp *Boom!*
Everyone except Trystan jumped, who only grinned from ear to ear and swung his hand out, tracing it across the horizon. "Blammo…" he trailed off and looked back at the other three.
Everyone was frozen from shock, considering he still hadn't told anyone about the care package he'd received. Sonic was the only one would could utter a breathless "Whoah…" He turned to Trystan, who was leaned over on his bike, waiting for the signal to get going again. "How'd you do that?"
Before he or anyone of them could do anything else, there was an audible click from somewhere just over their heads, and they looked up to see a camera drone hovering in place above them, it's lens trained on the group. Trystan revved up his bike. "Can it wait a few minutes?"
Sonic brought his gaze back down and chuckled. "Only if you remember you owe me an explanation."
Trystan barely got the word "Deal," out of his mouth before Sonic grinned, took hold of Amy and Tails' wrists, and sped away down the street. He was about to drive away as well, but figured while he had the camera drone's attention…
He turned around, pulled out his revolver, took aim, and shot the drone out of the sky before trying to catch up to Sonic.
Robotnik had watched the clip of the Freedom Fighters running off back into the city at least five times already, and his scowl reached its maximum intensity after the second viewing. Snively remained cautious about saying anything, but Robotnik eventually droned, "It would appear they're...taunting me, Snively."
"And they certainly have no idea what they're dealing with," Snively pandered.
Robotnik looked over his drumming fingers and down on Snively. His scowl disappeared and was slowly replaced with a sick grin. "You've grown too wise to my psyche, Snively." Robotnik propped himself up and stepped down from his throne, walking over to a keypad on the circular main control panel to punch in a few numbers. "Attention, Endogenic Dimensional Transport Division. This is your supreme overlord, Robotnik. I want a progress report of the Zone Flux Cannon prototype, and I want it now."
A voice on the other end, most likely a SWATbot, replied, "The prototype is working as intended, Lord Robotnik, we are still tweaking it so it may work efficiently-"
"I want the newest one you have off the assembly line, and make sure one-hundred percent of its energy is focused into the tachyon transmitter."
"Sir," came the robot on the other end, "the prototype consumes too much energy normally. Creating a custom one with all energy devoted to passing through the tachyon transmitter would only allow it to shoot once before it would become effectively useless."
"One shot," he replied with another twisted smile, "is all I need."
Sally had peered around the side of the warehouse about three times before an alert came over the city-wide speakers. They were the words she needed to hear, not necessarily the words she wanted.
"Alert! Alert! Freedom Fighter squad has been spotted in the northern district of Theta-25. All units, converge on the resistance and crush them!"
The SWATbots posted at the entrance of the warehouse immediately went into combat mode, their visors flashing with intense red LED light as they charged off. Sally remained where she was, and as she predicted, a few combat-specialized robians came barreling out of the warehouse in droves. The stampede died down after a couple seconds, leaving her to jog up to the heavy steel door and plug Nicole into the security keypad after prying the maintenance panel off.
"Processing all possible access codes…done. Cross-referencing...done. We're in, Sally."
She smiled. "Good work, Nicole." The doors slid open and she slipped inside.
The entryway was nothing more than a narrow corridor with a large view port at the end of it, about a dozen feet from the front door, and the end had glass doors and walls to make it easier to see out into the warehouse proper. The storage area had been drilled a few dozen feet down into the ground, and that made it look much larger on the inside. And just as expected, the last few Auto-Dusters were being stored down there, looking sleek and ready to fly.
And they would never get that chance if Sally had anything to say about it. "Nicole, can you get me a perimeter scan?"
"Let me see…" Nicole went quiet and her screen periodically flashed lime green. After a couple moments, she spoke again. "All scans indicate there are exactly twenty-seven worker robians left in this facility. I advise sabotaging each Auto-Duster individually, making sure they explode approximately two minutes after takeoff, so as not to endanger the workers being hurt by destroying the machines in the warehouse."
Sally nodded and slowly propped the doors at the end open and stuck her head around the corner. Nothing out of the ordinary, and she could see some robians mulling about, doing touch-ups on Robotnik's machines, as well as cleaning the facility. She managed to jump over a couple railings and get to ground level without being seen, and stuck close to the walls to avoid being spotted by any of the worker drones. It took her a few minutes longer, but she got around to the first one.
She looked it up and down, and thankfully, it wasn't being worked on. She found no immediate openings to its inner compartments, a deliberate design choice by Robotnik, but having Nicole handy was always a massive advantage.
"Hmm…" Nicole had been plugged into a small adapter on the underside of the vehicle, and Sally was, in turn, waiting while she scanned its systems, while still keeping her ears tuned to any of the robians' activities, should they wander by. "Alright, there should be a panel on the underside of the Duster, closer to the back. Press it."
Sally crawled under the Auto Duster as instructed, although it took her slightly longer than she'd care to admit to find the panel, considering everything was painted the same shade of dirty cream color. When she did find it, however, the panel receded into the vehicle and opened up a small niche, filled with wires, servers, and spatial gyros. "I'm seeing a lot of tech in here, Nicole. What do I do about it?"
"According to my data, there are three wires you need to pull, as well reconfiguring a specific server."
Sally unhooked Nicole from the adapter and brought her monitor closer. "Just tell me which ones."
"There are two green wires and one black wire to your left that must be removed," she explained.
"Those?" Sally asked, pointing to a small band of wires, containing two greens and one black.
Nicole giggled to herself. "Other left."
Sally rolled her eyes while smiling and looked over to find the exact same wire configuration, which she pulled out and stuffed into a pocket on her vest. "Gotta make sure Robotnik can't find them if I throw'em away," she muttered before looking back to Nicole. "Now, how about that server reconfiguration?"
"Already on it," Nicole said. She was silent for a moment before Sally heard her talking to herself. "Reconnecting...cross-referencing passwords...okay, now I should be able to...Yes!"
Nicole paused as one of the servers behind Sally's head started smoking a bit before the lights on it switched colors to blue lights all over, instead of the multitude of LED lights the other servers inside had. "Done!"
"Well, that wasn't as painful as I thought," Sally remarked as she crawled out from under the Auto-Duster. "Now we just do it about…" She looked down the row of planes. "...Five more times, I think?"
Sally guessed it could have been worse. There could have been more of them stashed away, and she was relieved to hear that the major production plant had been blown to kingdom come a few days ago, even if she had never figured out what happened. She set about to ducking between Auto-Dusters and completing the same process for disabling them, and made it to the last one in no time.
"And...there we go!" she quietly exclaimed. "Now to get out of here."
Trystan stole a quick glance behind him, and took a potshot. The bullet rebounded off a building and sailed away into the sky.
Sonic, on the other hand, was busy running between the ranks of the gathered SWATbots and trashing them, while simultaneously throwing robians aside. Tails was dropping Amy on top of targets like an angry pink bomb as well. Trystan was busy running around the square erratically, trying to stay mobile and not get shot again. The Freedom Fighters had been squaring off in the same section of Robotropolis for the past forty-five minutes or so, a few blocks of dessicated buildings combined with a large city square with a golden-copper statue of Robotnik crushing a crown beneath his heel. It was as far away from their established rendezvous point as they could go.
Trystan got a good look at some SWATbots coming down on top of them in personalized hovercraft, and he took a snapshot at one. The bullet missed the automaton's head, but it did take a small piece of its vehicle off. Not enough to cause it to spiral, though. "We got bogeys comin' down on our heads!"
"Ah, that's no problem! Tails!" Amy called. He responded by grabbing Amy by the wrists and throwing her upward. She managed to destroy one before falling down again, and Sonic, being the hero, snatched her out of the air, carrying her bridal-style for about thirty seconds before landing, putting her down, and straight-up wallrunning to get the air he needed to hit the remaining SWATbots. He went up, locked onto one, and spun toward it as a blue ball of death. The hit landed, and he chained that attack together several more times before somersaulting out of it, whooping like crazy.
Just to prove he was the hottest damn thing since the sun, he fell toward a group of SWATbots tailing Trystan and proceeded to stomp on their domed heads and incapacitate them. Trystan finished them off with a few well-placed shots. "Fuckin' show-off," he snickered.
"Hey, you've got the freakin' grenade launcher," Sonic shot back. "Speaking of, where did you get that thing, seriously?"
Trystan looked behind Sonic, rolled to the side, and switched his revolver to "non-lethal" mode in order to stun a combat robian charging toward them. "First, is now really the best time, Sonic? Second, I can't jump thirty feet in the air on a whim, which would help immensely in the 'not-blowing-myself-up-department,' by the by."
"Ya can't at least tell me in a couple words?"
"Wouldn't make sense," Trystan interrupted. "Need to show you the note."
Sonic cocked an eyebrow. "What note?"
"Watch your three!"
Trystan's warning was mostly unnecessary, as Sonic had adapted to pick out when some big hunk of metal was charging him, and he jumped up and swung his legs around in a superfluous kick that sent the charging SWATbot sprawling. Unfortunately, Robotnik's forces weren't letting up, and to make matters worse…
"Hello again, rodent."
Sonic snapped his head upward to see, lo and behold, Dr. Robotnik himself descending in his Egg-Mobile (for being an evil genius, he had some questionable names for his inventions sometimes). It seemed a little different this time, as the vehicle had some sort of cannon attached to the underside. He was hovering just above them, and he held up some sort of remote in his left hand. "This is it, hedgehog!" he proclaimed. "This is the last day you and your tree-hugging friends will ever trouble me!"
He pressed a button on the top of the remote and the cannon's barrel began to glow red before firing off a laser, aimed straight at Sonic. He dodged out of the way no problem.
What he wasn't counting on was for the laser shot to explode outward fifteen feet after impact. If he had been any closer, he would have been fried, but luck always seemed to be on his side when dealing with Robotnik, and he only felt mild pain on his back as the blast threw him away, rolling over a couple times as he skidded across the asphalt.
Amy and Tails cried out, fearing for Sonic's health, while Trystan called up his hoverbike and tore through a few SWATbots and robians to get a clear shot on Robotnik, who must have obviously noticed him, but didn't seem alarmed that obvious death was approaching. He quickly cranked up his revolver's power a couple notches, took aim at Robotnik's head, and pulled the trigger.
The gunshot reverberated off the city buildings loud and clear, but instead of a gaping hole where Robotnik's brain should be, there was only a dark blue aura around Robotnik's Egg-Mobile, and a spark where the bullet should have landed.
Robotnik grinned. "Ah, the youth. So rash...and stupid." He pressed the button, and the cannon charged up again. Tails acted on instinct and hoisted Amy up into the air as fast as he could, while Trystan started moving away from the targeted area. The laser hit and scorched the back of his bike.
Trystan made for Sonic, who looked shaken, but no less worse for wear. He stopped for only a second to blast some encroaching SWATbots and shove him onto the bike. Trystan did a 180 turn and sped down a nearby street, Amy and Tails close behind. Robotnik, of course, gave chase, along with his small army of metallic minions.
"Come now, kinsman," he boasted over a microphone, "don't tell me you thought that would work? I am Doctor Robotnik, after all." He shot another laser blast, which Trystan swerved hard to avoid.
"Come talk to me when I give a damn. And don't screw up my car either, insurance ain't cheap!" Trystan shot back. He whipped out a vial of nanomorphine and handed it to Sonic, who was well enough by now, but still trying to catch his breath.
"Huh? What's this crap?" he asked upon getting a glimpse of the needle.
"Nanomorphine. It'll help knit your skin back together. Stick it into your elbow bridge," he rapidly explained, trying to concentrate on driving.
Sonic was getting increasingly confused and tried to ask again, "Where'd you get all this stuff, Trys?"
"I told you 'later,' damnit!"
Sonic stared at him, puzzled, but shook his head and stuck the needle into his arm. It felt odd at first, like a bunch of small insects were crawling up his arm, but Trystan was right. The searing pain of the laser burns was melting away. He chuckled as he felt his back. "Well, at least my fur didn't get singed." Sonic jumped off Trystan's bike and started sprinting alongside it. "Thanks for the pick-me-up, man. Now, if you'll excuse me…"
Sonic suddenly veered off to the left, taking a higher street. This was met with mild outcry from Tails and Amy. "Sonic! Where're you going?"
Sonic did nothing but wink at them. "Gotta distract ol' Buttnik somehow, right?" With nothing more to say, he jumped up and homing-attacked his way across a swarm of badniks, and out of their sightline. It drew some of Robotnik's forces away, but not enough to really let their guard down.
Tails cried out after him, but by then, it would have fallen on deaf ears. After a moment of silence, he turned to Amy and Trystan. "So...now what?"
Trystan didn't have to think too hard about that. "Simple. We regroup, salvage what victory we can if Sally hasn't disabled the remaining Auto-Dusters yet, and get the lead out. Amy, hop on!"
"Hey, I might not be as fast as Sonic, but I can still keep pace enough to not fall behind him. If I can do that, I can do the same with you and your hovercar!" she replied indignantly.
Trystan shrugged. "'F you say so, kid." He glanceded at Tails quickly before revving up his bike. "Follow me."
Without another pause, Trystan gained serious forward momentum on his bike, and it began to glow, some parts came off and realigned themselves, and it transformed into its speedbike mode. He sped off down the long stretch of freeway they were on, Tails and Amy not too far behind.
Robotnik had been watching their whole ordeal from further back, opting to let his other minions deal with Sonic. He didn't want to run the risk of Sonic breaking his nanite shield and grounding him before the fun could start. He picked up a telecom device from the arm of his chair and said, "Well, Snively? Do you have those triangulation coordinates yet?"
Snively, still in the throne room of Robotropolis, was studying a large holographic screen of the city, and two reticles circling a radar blip moving west, and one moving north by northwest. They crossed the same point three times, directly over a warehouse in the northern district, and the location lit up red. Snively stared at the blinking light for a moment before sighing in defeat and leaning his head on his hand. "Yes, sir."
"Send them over. Let's see if my hypothesis was right." Snively tapped a button and waited only seconds before hearing his uncle's triumphant laugh on the other end, which made him clench his fists and lay his head on the control console. "Of course I was!" Robotnik proclaimed.
"I expected nothing less, sir," Snively droned.
"Well, Snively, you know what that means." Robotnik grinned when he heard Snively hold back a choked sob on the other end of the receiver. "This means you're either polishing the Auto Dusters if they haven't been destroyed already, or you're cleaning my collection of antique robotics to make sure they don't rust." He paused for a moment before adding in a more serious tone, "This is why you don't make bets with a genius, Snively."
SWATbots firing at him from all sides. Combat robians taking swings at him from darkened alleys when they thought he wasn't prepared. This was the life. Sonic swerved to the side after a SWATbot jumped off a building trying to pin him, and he dropped to the ground and kicked, tripping his would-be assailant. He used his momentum to spin around on his shoulders, landing back on his feet and blasting away again.
This highway was, at the very least, a decent tool to measure where he was. He could see, through intermediate breaks in the skyline, that the cityscape was flattening out, and the buildings were slowly turning into factories. Sonic looked behind him. There was still an armada of robots tailing him, some of them effectively well. Not for much longer, at least.
"Well, guys, I'd love to stay and laugh at you more, but I got other places to be!" With that parting shot, he vaulted over the railing on the highway. It was about a seven-story drop, and would have normally severely injured a normal person. Sonic, being anything but normal, wall-jumped his way to ground level, bouncing off rooftops and buildings before reaching the ground and speeding away. Even though there were a couple SWATbots in hovercrafts tailing him, they couldn't keep pace with him in an open factory district, and in no time flat, he reached the warehouse holding the last few Auto-Dusters.
He didn't try to knock on the door, instead opting to bash his way in by hitting it with multiple homing attacks until it gave way, and he rushed through the entrance corridor without any regard for stealth. He vaulted over the handrails on the catwalks over the main area, and fell to the floor. This, understandably, garnered the attention of the robians tending to everything. They all came at Sonic, mindlessly, and he kicked the closest ones aside with minimal effort, spin-dashing his way through a few more, knocking them over like bowling pins. It took him only two minutes to deal with the dozen or so workers, and he dusted his gloves off, whistling causally.
He then called out, "Hey, Sal! Where are ya?"
"Over here!" Sonic turned around to see Sally roll out from under a nearby plane and run over to him, smiling proudly.
"You screw up Buttnik's plans?"
"All thanks to you," Sally replied with a small laugh. They were about to make a swift exit when they both heard the glass door at the end of the entrance hall shatter, and they whipped around to look at what was going on. After a second, Trystan charged into their view, followed shortly by Tails and Amy. Tails, understandably, flew down to Sonic's level, and quickly hugged Sonic.
"...Did we miss anything?" Trystan called down. Sonic only laughed and shook his head.
Amy ran around the walkway, located the nearest stairs, and dashed over to Sonic's side while Trystan just inhaled and jumped the handrails, rolling after he hit the ground. "Great job, everyone! Thanks to you three, the Auto-Dusters won't be deforesting anything anytime soon." Sally's proclamation was met with a cheer from everyone, especially Trystan.
"Yeah, I didn't screw up this time! Whoo-hoo...!"
Sonic snickered at him. "That depends. I mean, you thought you could just try shootin' Robuttnik and expect him to drop dead." Sally's expression shifted over to "slight concern" when Sonic brought up Trystan's preferred method of dealing with problems, but she refrained from saying anything.
"And you nearly got toasted, and I had to bail you out. You have no room to talk here, Sonic," Trystan claimed.
Sally immediately shifted to "worry about your best friend mode," and stared daggers at Sonic. "What did you do this time?"
"Relax, Sal, they weren't serious burns."
Sally's pupils got smaller. "Sonic!"
Trystan had seen the whole "angry girlfriend schtick" before and remained silent as a mouse. Sonic, on the other hand, did what he was best at: deflecting the situation. "And speakin' of which, Trys! Care to actually explain where you got all that gear now?"
It took Sally a minute to notice Trystan now had something attached to his left wrist. "Oh, yeah. See, I, uh...I got this note-"
Trystan was cut off by some kind of bomb going off on the ceiling, and tons of metal tiles and sheathing coming down in truckloads. Everyone screamed, and Sonic instinctively grabbed Amy and Sally and sped over to the nearest Auto-Duster, dragging them under it, while Trystan pulled Tails close and bent over his head to protect him, just in case. The debris fell quickly, and while Trystan hadn't come out scot-free, he was amazed he and Tails didn't get completely buried under it. He stood back up to his full-height, throwing some pieces of the roof off of him in the process. Tails was shivering a little bit, and was still curled up for protection. When he sensed he was still alive, he slowly opened his eyes and looked around.
"You okay there, kid?" Trystan asked. Tails didn't answer with words, just a nod of his head. He must have been in too much shock to speak.
Sonic and the others took a few tentative steps out of their shelter, and it felt like ages before they heard another voice.
It was not the voice they wanted to hear, though.
"We have unfinished business, Freedom Fighters." They all looked up to see Robotnik floating just above the roof in his Egg-Mobile. It was positioned at a slightly downward angle, allowing Robotnik to see them without leaning over the edge of his hovercraft. "Allow me to show you my latest invention…" He slowly but deliberately stood up in his vehicle, aligning his stance so that he wouldn't fall out of the Egg-Mobile as he hoisted an odd looking ray gun out. It had no barrel, instead some sort of crystal and a lot of tubes and wires running from it to the stock, and a few more going forward into what must have been a focusing chamber.
Sally gritted her teeth and stepped forward, pointing up. "Whatever it throws at us, we're not scared!"
"Is that so, my dear?" Robotnik chortled. "What if I told you I had it named the 'Zone Flux Cannon?'"
Her face immediately went from a stalwart defender to horrified shock. Sonic looked a bit worried, too, and whatever they understood about that thing went right over Trystan's head. "There's no way…" Sally muttered breathlessly.
"You forget, Princess Sally, that I am Doctor Julian Robotnik!" He pulled a lever on the left side of the weapon, and the crystal began to flash between red, blue, green, and purple. "And if it hasn't been created before, I can create it!"
He pulled the trigger, and some sort of cosmic ray shot out of the focusing chamber, cutting a swath through the air and impacting the left of the warehouse, as far from the Auto-Dusters as possible. After a second, the impact point exploded and warped the architecture around it, making some kind of strange, alien sounds that can't be explained in text format. What was left after the initial explosion was a swirling vortex of red, blue, and yellow, and even more odd shapes, intermixed with crystalline formations that seemed as viscous as water.
On top of all, that, it seemed to have the gravity well of a black hole, or at the very least a selective black hole. Everything was being drawn toward the gaping maw of the portal at varying speeds, the debris of the roof being the fastest, and the Auto-Dusters slowly inching forward.
Sonic and everyone else were in the "fall in faster" category.
Trystan and Tails were the first to start sliding in, which was met with panicked cries for help from Tails (and more than a few from Trystan). They both fell over as the vortex sucked them in, but Trystan acted as fast as he could manage and called out.
"Tails!" He grabbed Tails' hand before activating the plasma blade on his knife and driving it into the floor. It managed to slow their progress exponentially. "Whoo! Okay, not much better, but it's a start." He turned around to look at Tails, who, although scared, seemed extremely relieved, and he smiled to let Trystan know he was okay.
Amy and Sonic had managed to grab onto the landing gear of the Auto-Duster they had hid under, as they had a bit more of reaction time, and Sonic snatched Sally's hand since she had nothing to grab hold of in her immediate vicinity. Everything looked bleak, but salvageable.
At least until Sally lost her hold on Sonic.
She shrieked and tumbled backward, and Sonic let got of the landing gear to grab her. When he did, he carried her in his arms and started to run back toward the plane as fast as he could.
"Sonic...!" Amy's eyes were wide with fear, and to make matters worse, the vortex's pull seemed to be getting stronger with each passing second. It was enough to cause Amy to slip and roll forward, screaming the whole way into the portal's maw.
"Amy, no!" Sonic shifted his direction to try and get close enough to stop her (how, he hadn't really thought about). Even Sally tried to reach out and grab her arm, or something, but she was just barely out of reach, and she fell into the strange portal, still calling after Sonic.
Sonic gritted his teeth. "Dammit…" He had to rescue Amy now. But he had no way to put Sally down without her being pulled in either. Then, he felt her hand on his shoulder, and he looked into her eyes. She nodded.
Trystan was wondering what in the world Sonic and Sally were planning when he suddenly turned and shouted, "Tails!" Sonic shifted direction again, coming closer to Trystan and Tails, and by extension, the raging vortex.
"W-what is it, Sonic?"
He didn't do anything but smile reluctantly. "...Take care of yourself, buddy."
It took a second before the realization sunk in. "Sonic, no!"
Trystan was pretty angry about that decision, too, and he fumed, "Sonic, there are at least several different ways to attack this situation. Throwing yourself directly into the jaws of death is by far the dumbest!"
"Hey, a guy's gotta do what a guy's gotta do," Sonic answered coolly. He looked as Sally. "Hold on tight, Sal!"
With that last sentence, he stopped trying to fight the suction of the portal and let himself sail backward into its waiting grasp. Tails reached out after him, tears starting to form on the edges of his eyes. It took several seconds for him to turn around and look at Trystan. His expression betrayed his thoughts, and Trystan gave him a death glare.
"...Don't you dare, Tails."
Tails's eyes were now leaking slightly. "Trystan...he's my best friend. I have to."
Trystan got a little angrier and chided, "Young man, you need to stay right here. There's nothing we can do-"
"Yes there is!" Tails shouted. "He's like my big brother, and he's always looked out for me!"
Like my big brother. Trystan was too stunned to react to Tails suddenly wrenching his hand open and watching him fly backward into the portal. "Tails!"
Seconds that felt like years passed. Trystan was the only survivor left of a surprise attack, and he pounded the steel floor under him with his free hand. "God...damnit, Sonic, you fucking idiot!" he spat. Suddenly, the sucking sound the portal was making began to sound like a dying chicken, and he looked backward to see the portal was closing rapidly. "Oh, my God, you've gotta be kidding me."
He stared at the ground for a second before turning his gaze upward. Dr. Robotnik was still there, and he seemed to have been watching the whole scene play out with a mix of hope and malicious glee. Trystan gritted his teeth and let the rage flow. "Listen, you miserable pot-bellied shit-coffin, the others may die or disappear, but I will make it my mission to come back and hunt you down, and none of your hair-brained toys will stop me!" With that out of the way, he wrenched his knife free of the floor with an overdramatic yell and tumbled backward into the vortex.
It closed up a moment later, as if nothing had been there at all.
Robotnik peered meticulously at where the vortex had been for minutes upon minutes before jumping up and down in his Egg-Mobile, cheering, "I did it! I did it! I won! I've finally won!"
His cheering quickly devolved to maniacal laughter as he took control of his vehicle and flew back toward his castle. "With Sonic out of the way, the Freedom Fighters…"
He sucked in a deep breath and shouted so loudly, it almost turned into screeching.
"Are as good as dead…!"