Considering the fact that our previous two treks to a site had gone without a hitch I half expected an ambush to happen on the third. Nothing happened save for me burning out two cigarettes managing my nerves.
Well if Robotnik didn't kill me I guess lung cancer would.
Once more we cautiously approached a ridge and peered over it. A ruin dyed in the warm colors of the evening sun met us and thankfully there was no one about this time. I wished I could properly survey the ruins from a safe distance before closing in however. Alfa likely would have said something if it or any other of the badniks had spotted something with their mechanical eyes but I'd prefer to see and gauge the threat for myself.
The ruin itself seemed to just be a decently large structure partially buried into a cliff face. It might have been some kind of ancient fortification as the shape gave the impression of a castle and gatehouse. I wasn't exactly knowledgeable about architecture but the structure seemed to be built in the same style as the last ruins.
"Nothing and no one about!" The coconuts declared and stood up brushing its hands. "Well let's get in there and see if we find anything."
And there came the double edged side of things. Sure a ruin would be unlikely to have people around to shoot at, and this one didn't thank the spirits, but there was probably a fifty fifty chance that this was a regular ruin. If it was a regular ruin, great fantastic, all we'd find would be long since looted rooms and vandalization by passing prospectors. But if it wasn't…
Quietly I swallowed as the memory of the floor spikes reminded me of the potential danger. If I wasn't careful there was a serious chance that I'd literally lose my head here. Or suffer some other form of horrendous death, I quite frankly found it all very objectionable.
Not like making a run for it was any better. That way just meant certain death by modern deathtrap instead of an ancient one.
Quite suddenly my new arsenal of weapons didn't feel so reassuring to carry.
Alfa led the badnik horde over the ridge and they moved at a relaxed pace down the slope. Considering we weren't charging into battle this time I was more comfortable with being amongst the frontline of the machines. At the very least I should have plenty of time to spot a threat and drop back behind a badnik for cover. Still with nothing showing itself as we came ever closer to the ruin entrance I began to feel like maybe things would work out.
It was here that I began to consider that maybe I shouldn't think or say things like that. It seemed to never go well for me so far and of course just when I did think that the ground began to shake.
There was a deep rumble in the earth that filled the air and seemed to come from the direction of the ruin. I strained my irritatingly itchy ears and briefly wished I was a bat so I could interpret the echoes of the noise.
"What in the spiny hells is that!?" Alfa shouted as we came to a stop before the ancient fort.
I was about to comment on the fact I could hear shouting and screaming when a deafening crash filled the air and half the fort disappeared in a cloud of dust. We all stood frozen for a critical moment when a shadow appeared in the dust cloud, a LARGE one.
It was then that a perfectly round boulder of obnoxious size came rolling at us.
With a leap that was probably more me jumping in fright and an admittedly unmanly scream I moved to the side of the rolling stone. Landing with a face plant into the dirt I couldn't see what happened next but I definitely heard it. There was the sound of metallic shrieking and electronic squeals of shock as various badniks utterly failed to react as fast as I did and were crushed. From the sounds of it the boulder then impacted the hill side and triggered a small rock slide that had us all being pelted with a shower of stones. I lay there trying to present as small a target as possible and made the mistake of covering my helmeted head with my hands. A stone painfully whacked into one of my hands and I ended up rolling around in pain, cursing as I clutched my hand with the uninjured one.
The sounds of shifting stones, tearing metal and the protesting electronic squeals of badnik voices filled the air. My current ramped up state from the sudden near death had me hyper alert to my surroundings and although I couldn't see anything in the kicked up dust cloud I could hear plenty. Off towards the ancient fort I could hear the voice from before, now much louder than before and clear to hear to my ears.
"You see, Jacque? I told you tucking into the corners of the hall was our best bet!"
"Monsieur, Jones! You just screamed, 'Ze Corner!' zen you just pushed me! It is ze luck of ze heavens zat we aren't ze pair of flapjacks right now!"
"It worked didn't it?! Honestly it sounds like you're complaining about being alive!"
The first voice had an accent I could identify anywhere, my hometown was in the UZA and I had spent most of my life and a decent amount of my wandering time there. The second voice though was an accent I just barely recalled, having heard it in passing through Spagonia. Which incidentally brought up a lot of frustrating memories trying to mime meaning to people. Suffice to say wandering through the continent of Euria wasn't as great as my time in my home continent of Arcadia.
Turns out travel wasn't so fun when you could barely understand anyone, go figure.
I shook my head to gather my scattering thoughts and pushed myself to my feet. The dust cloud was beginning to settle and I could now see who the voices belonged to.
Making their way out of a large hole now in the side of the ancient fort were two figures, a human and a mobian. The human man looked about middle age with a short beard and trim moustache, he wore a wide brimmed hat and a brown leather bomber jacket over a pair of khaki shirt, pants and brown leather boots. The other person was actually a mobian and a surprising one at that. A brown snake mobian with black stripes, wearing a khaki cargo vest and had a full set of metallic limbs.
Snake mobians had the foul luck of not having any limbs at all besides their long serpentine body. The ones I've seen and met never seemed terribly upset about that fact but then again there didn't seem to be any kind of purely snake mobian settlements like there were with other mobian breeds. Besides near feral tribes wandering in the wilderness that I've only ever heard about they've always joined a mixed settlement that was willing to have them. Which again made sense as one could hardly build a town with no way of holding a hammer.
Which only brought up questions of what exactly they brought to the table when joining a mixed settlement.
This snake mobian however seemed to have been incredibly lucky as they had a full set of cybernetic limbs. Robotnik could probably pump out enough cybernetics to augment whole armies if he ever wanted to but for everyone else it was state of the art tech whose price tag reflected such. Even a single decent limb could cost a hundred thousand dollars, easily. Since the snake mobian had a full rugged looking set of two arms and two legs it was likely he was walking around with a full million dollars worth of hardware.
The only possible answer for this was a rich sponsor or a rich treasure hunting partner.
Looking again I could see a small figurine cradled in the arm of the human that gleamed golden in the evening sun.
"Ahhh… Monsieur, Jones!" 'Jacque' the snake said with an increasingly alarmed voice.
The dust was settling more now I realized and the snake mobian was first to realize they weren't alone. As the human took notice of our presence I looked around and grimaced at the result of the boulder crashing through us. The mangled pile of metal left on the ground and even scattered about around the crater the boulder made was all that was left of a full third of the badnik horde. This wasn't exactly speaking well of our prospects in investigating the other sites, if this rate of loss continued we'd be in danger of annihilation ourselves.
Would it be safe to request reinforcements from Robotnik? Or would he be upset with me wasting his resources? Perhaps it would be the opposite and it actually be unsafe to NOT call in a need to resupply the horde with more bots? Potentially Robotnik would view it as idiotic to not get a highly expendable resource topped up after use. Well I knew for certain that I would die if we got ambushed and didn't have enough badniks to survive the attack. Compare that with potentially getting ranted at and hopefully punished with something survivable and I knew which choice I'd make any day of the week.
As soon as I got a moment I'd be making the call to Robotnik.
"Run, Jacque!" The human, 'Jones' shouted and the two made a mad dash.
"Hey! What does he have?!" I heard Alfa shout and looking over I was utterly unsurprised to see the monkey bot undamaged. "Something shiny… could be important, GET AFTER HIM!"
With Alfa's bellow the battered badnik horde charged forward at once. Quickly scrambling to my feet I had to keep up with the wave of battered metal by literal leaps and bounds. The human and his mobian partner not only had a headstart on us but had been a distance away from us at the time. Even so the untiring machine horde was quickly catching up despite the desperate pace the two were setting. Inwardly I was grateful that none of the machines had fired a single shot at the fleeing pair though it was obviously because Alfa wanted whatever treasure the human was holding. Hope that felt almost futile thrummed in my chest, never before had I felt such desire for someone to succeed in their efforts since reading an adventure novel in my youth.
'Please let them get away, please don't make me have to kill them.'
It felt like my prayers were swept away to disappear into nothingness as I watched the pair desperately round a corner and our approach steadily made up ground. Any moment now we'd catch up and unless these two were on the same level as Sonic they'd be killed or captured. Which inevitably would lead to them being killed no doubt as I can't see a reason why Robotnik would keep prisoners for long. And to my surprise it seemed like my prayers were suddenly answered.
I heard the sound of a car engine turning over before starting.
"Oh of course!" Alfa groused loudly before chucking several metal spheres at a jeep rapidly speeding away.
"Well…" I began, about to suggest giving up on catching the two as explosions fell short of the speeding vehicle, before pausing mid sentence. I couldn't just suggest giving up after barely taking a token action, Robotnik was definitely watching. Though relieved at my previous efforts to be a part of the earlier fight to avoid looking like I was hiding, it now meant I had to put actual effort into catching these two. Which overall meant I had to be part of the chase after the pair and keep up, I doubted I could command the badniks during the chase in such a way to subtly sabotage the effort. "G-good thing we have wheeled badniks!"
"Good point, Boss Rabbit!" Alfa said with a nod before rapidly continuing. "Okay here's a plan, you take the motobugs and buzz bombers after those two and I'll take the rest and see if we can cut them off somehow! Good?"
I could only nod solemnly, what else could I say to what seemed like a decent strategy? "Ehh, I don't feel like it"? Might as well just announce my intentions to run away and await painful execution. Of course to my further hidden aggravation I suddenly realized that at some point I had lost my shotgun.
Great! Just when I feel like I'm decently protected I lose my strongest weapon.
With a squeal of rubber a motobug suddenly braked to a stop before me. Wedged just under its head with its two arms was my shotgun. I only had enough time to blink in astonishment when it suddenly hopped in place, turning its back towards me, and made waving motions with its antenna at me.
Glancing back up at the rapidly shrinking form of the jeep, I belly flopped atop the back of the motobug and grasped both antennas with my hands. I had to tighten my grip and wiggle in place when the motobug sped forward after the jeep, fellow motobugs and buzz bombers in our wake.
'THIS WAS A STUPID ASS IDEA!'
The thought rang through my mind as I belatedly realized my only means of remaining atop the motobug as it started cruising at high speeds was my grip on its antenna. Even the slightest turn at these speeds would be enough to send me flying away to be dashed upon some boulder. The best I could do was let go of an antenna and grip onto the side of the badnik as we turned and prayed to anyone that was listening that my grip would be enough.
Of course at that moment the jeep turned down a pass into a valley and I had to put action to thought.
I gritted my teeth so hard I was sure I heard several cracking sounds and quickly switched my grip from one antenna to the side of the motobug as it drifted into the turn. Dirt and small stones went flying as the motobug purposefully slid across the ground. The momentum I was fighting against made my fingers immediately ache and my arm stretched to its absolute maximum. Just as I was sure either my fingers would break or my arm would pop out the motobug finally regained complete forward momentum and sped away at breakneck speeds.
It hurt to release my grip on the side of the bot and it hurt even more to close it around the other antenna but I had no choice. I was already beginning to slide about on the back of the motobug now that it was going forward again, I NEEDED to be holding both antennas if I didn't want to slide off.
"I HATE BOTS, JACQUE! I HATE EM!"
"I'm not having much of ze warm feelings for zem either Monsieur Jones!"
Looking up I could see we had made up enough ground to close in on the jeep, at least enough to start overhearing the pair's words in any case. I had expected the human to be the one in the drivers seat but to my surprise it was the snake mobian, Jacques. The human was facing backwards in the passenger seat and…
Aiming a pistol right at me!
I'm not sure if my frantic tugging on an antenna had any impact but the motobug did swerve as the human opened fire on me. The gun seemed to be too low caliber to do much more than dent a badniks armor but it wasn't like I was protected by any of it. I had half a mind to pull out my own gun and fire back. There was no point in that however, I had no practice with firearms and any attempt to fire while bouncing on the back of a badnik at breakneck speeds would result in uncontrolled wildfire. Besides that there was also the fact I'd start sliding off the badnik without a firm grip on both antennas. Not that I was doing a great job of holding on even with both hands holding tightly, the motobugs swerving was saving me from getting shot in the face but at this rate I'd be a miserable pile of broken bones.
Unfortunately the motobug seemed to realize this and tried to ease on its swerving a little in an attempt to keep me on its back. So it was in an abject state of utter helplessness that I watched the human reload and zero in on me with his pistol. I stared directly into my death and I felt like I could see directly down the barrel of the gun even from this distance to spy the shining head of the bullet.
Despite the fact my eyes had remained wide open I didn't see what happened next. There was a bang, a loud ringing noise and a loud curse. It actually took a few moments for me to realize I wasn't dead and the sound of several more gunshots ringing out to really knock the sense back into me. My heart was beating at such a pace it legitimately seemed like I was in danger of a heart attack, I felt weak and like I could just slacken my grip and fall straight to sleep. But with a resurging desperate desire to live I finally shook my head clear and refocused my vision.
Flying in the air before me was a buzz bomber, it's roaring side boosters blasting a wave of uncomfortably hot air towards me.
Had a machine just saved my life? Why would it do that? I can't imagine that Doctor Robotnik would spare the time to program a directive to save me if I was in danger. If anything I could imagine him scoffing at the prospect of needing to save me if I got in over my head. Yet this machine, a thing that couldn't even communicate the same way Alfa could had gone and shielded me from gunfire. Certainly it was under no threat from the low caliber rounds, doing this was no great cost to itself. But was there really a benefit? Well… I was hardly a machine and hardly unbiased enough to make a logical speculation in this situation.
Best to just hold on tight and stop searching gift gloves for holes.
Suddenly the elevation abruptly began to change to my brief alarm. We were going up another ridge but we also appeared to be following a game trail of some kind. Of course driving uphill caused a loss of speed to both the pair and the motobugs, something that the buzz bombers immediately took advantage of or at least try to.
'I'm not sure why the buzz bombers need to be directly overhead to shoot, seems like something of an oversight even for a layman such as me.'
When the jeep lost speed ascending the slope of the ridge the buzz bombers quickly closed the distance. The still gleaming blue hulls of the metal hornets took positions over the jeep while the human did his best to fend them off with his pistol and the swings of a crowbar. He was surprisingly successful in this, at the very least throwing the buzz bombers off their aim, keeping them from coring the jeep and destroying vital parts.
Didn't stop them from blowing various holes in the vehicle and starting some small fires.
To my surprise and well hidden relief, yes even despite the murder attempt I still didn't feel like killing any more people, the pair managed to crest the ridge and disappear over it. The motobugs and I weren't too far behind and soon we too were cresting the ridge.
The sight that met my eyes upon doing so made my heart stop all over again.
"STOP! STOP!" I bellowed, even loosening my almost lockjaw-like grip to whack the side of my metallic mount.
Thankfully the first time I truly exercised my authority as designated field commander of the badniks resulted in their immediate obedience. All the motobugs put on the brakes, kicking up a large dust cloud as they skidded to a halt. My own motobug had even turned to the side to stop more effectively though it also resulted in me finally being thrown from its back onto the ground in a rolling heap. I didn't mind it however, hyped up as I was again on a surge of adrenaline and quickly scuttled into cover behind a nearby boulder.
Carefully glancing out with wide eyes I saw the jeep continue along a worn dirt path. The cloud of buzz bombers had aperently heard my command and started flying back, allowing the pair to continue onto their destination without further harassment. Said destination however had my stomach dropping into infinity.
A mobian town…
-TBC-
Author Note: I'm kinda curious what they'll do with Shadow in the third Sonic movie. Are they going to adapt the plot for Sonic Adventure 2 like they adapted the game events of Sonic and Knuckles for the second movie? They've been doing a good job actually adapting things from the games without falling victim to the typical pitfalls of video game movies.