Disclaimer: All non-original characters are property of SEGA, DiC and/or their respective creators.
Inescapable Past, Act 19: Hard Landing
Whisper ejected another power cell from her hard-light rifle. The polymer cartridge rattled as it hit the ground, joining the three already at her feet. Two of the auto-recharging cells were usually enough to see the wolf through a typical mission. However, Jet's plan to draw the Badniks infesting Metropolis's South Sector away from where Infinite and the others were heading had worked a little too well.
The intersection her vantage point overlooked was teeming with Robotnik's earliest inventions. With barely any ground left to stand on, the remote-controlled Emerl had resorted to jumping from Badnik to Badnik, putting a fist through anything it didn't crush on impact. Whisper was doing her best to help thin the herd, when Buzz Bombers and other flyers weren't pestering her.
She was supposed to be here as an insurance policy in case the technology Jet was using to puppeteer Emerl failed. In the event of a malfunction, her instructions were to defend the Gizoid until backup arrived. Failing that, she was to retrieve the Chaos Emerald from inside Emerl. As things stood, Whisper wasn't sure she'd be able get close enough to accomplish even that.
The wolf was lining up a shot at a Batbrain about to swoop at Emerl when she felt a sudden rush of heat under her right arm. She checked her armpit. Something had burned a hole in her black poncho. Whisper hit the deck, avoiding a follow-up shot by centimeters. She rolled over, unholstering her sidearm as she did so, and dispatched the Octus that'd somehow crept up on her with a blast of blue plasma.
Shaking her head at her own carelessness, Whisper got up and turned to pick up her rifle. Then she saw the Balkiry flying straight at her. Before she could think to move, the Badnik exploded in a flower of flame. Its disembodied yellow beak dinked off her mask.
"I owe you, Smithy," she murmured to herself.
Looking down at the intersection, she saw Emerl standing on the back of a Cameron. Its shell-mounted cannon, which the Gizoid had commandeered, was pointing in her direction.
"Thanks, boss," she said.
"Don't mention it," replied Jet over the commlink. "Just keep shooting."
"Copy that," said Whisper, snatching up her rifle.
〜
A thousand feet above the fray, the neon-green discharges of Whisper's hard-light rifle was all Mighty could see from the back of Infinite's hoverbike. Not that he was looking overly hard. For his own peace of mind, he was consciously limiting himself to the occasional glance, mostly to check how much closer the South Sector's rooftops looked compared to his last peep.
Their angle of descent was still more diagonal than Mighty was comfortable with. It was a vast improvement on their near-vertical drop out of the airship and down through the clouds, but he hadn't loosened his hold on Infinite's midriff. He wasn't in any rush to, either. The jackal had the tautest abs he'd ever encountered.
Mighty hugged the sinewy frame all the tighter as Infinite banked the hoverbike steeply to the left. Out the corner of his eye, the armadillo glimpsed an oversized bullet pass within inches of them.
"Was that a pot-shot?" he asked hopefully.
"Afraid not," said Infinite, "That's the welcoming committee."
Thanks to his headset, Mighty heard the reply loud and clear over the roaring headwind. Part of him wished he hadn't.
"What now?" he asked.
"Get that rifle charged up and I'll make a couple passes," said the jackal.
Mighty glanced down at the sling of the plasma rifle jostling around on his back. He'd almost forgotten about it. Frowning, he craned his neck over Infinite's shoulder. On the rooftop they were headed for, a trio of Cluckers were deployed in a loose triangle, all guns blazing. The armadillo's stomach lurched as they swerved to evade another bullet.
"Can you fly us over them instead?" he asked.
"Huh? Why?"
Because I can't shoot for shit, Mighty wanted to say. He keenly remembered once being outshot by Charmy at a theme park's shooting gallery. As part of that wager with Vector, he'd changed the little bee's diapers for the next week.
"I've got a better idea," he said, "Well, a quicker one, anyway."
"Eh, what the hell," said Infinite.
As the hoverbike levelled off, Mighty reluctantly parted ways with the tautest abs on Mobius and shuffled backwards. At the same time, he tried to recall the pointers Sonic had once given him on how to pull off a certain, deceptively complicated technique. He hadn't done it in years.
"Ten seconds," said Infinite.
Mighty took a measured breath and swung his left leg over the seat. Riding side-saddle, he ran over Sonic's advice one last time while counting down under his breath.
"Five. Four. Three. Two. One."
Mighty jumped off the hoverbike.
"The hell d'you think you're doing?!" blurted Infinite over the commlink.
The freefalling armadillo ignored the outburst. He focused on curling himself into the tightest ball possible.
"Giving up on your boyfriend already?" the jackal went on.
In spite of his rustiness, the Spin Attack worked a treat. Mighty ricocheted from Clucker to Clucker like a red pinball, smashing one outright and caving in the heads of the other two. He unfurled in mid-air, landing on his feet with practiced grace.
"You were saying?"
"You gonna pay for that gun?" Infinite shot back as he brought the hoverbike in to land.
Mighty unslung the plasma rifle. The stock and grip were bent at a right angle from the rest of the weapon.
"As if your boss can't afford a hundred more," he said, dropping the broken gun. "What's the going rate on one of those, anyway?"
"If you have to ask, you can't afford it," said Infinite, dismounting the hoverbike. "Now shut up and follow me."
The jackal and armadillo made their way across the rooftop to the only door in sight. Infinite kicked it open and led them down a gloomy flight of stairs. At the bottom, he kicked open a second door. Beyond it lay the kind of hallway Mighty had seen in a hundred rundown apartment blocks in across a dozen cities.
Most of the overhead lights were out. The couple that still worked flashed intermittently. Black garbage bags lay slumped outside a handful of the doors lining the hallway. The air was accordingly pungent. Infinite unwittingly kicked a stray soda can with his first step inside.
"Well…that's a let-down," said Mighty.
"Hold that thought," said Infinite.
He tapped the frame of his smartglasses, and two built-in flashlights flickered on. With one hand on the hilt of the sword strapped to his back, the jackal proceeded cautiously down the hallway. At the far end, a set of graffiti-daubed elevator doors were jammed open. There was no elevator car beyond them. Just a clutch of slender cables dangling in the concrete shaft.
Reaching these doors, Infinite leaned in to peer down the shaft. The next thing he knew, he was skidding up the hallway on his back. He stopped at Mighty's feet. The bemused armadillo glanced down. Infinite's smartglasses were cracked. He looked back up to find a pair of cybernetic yellow eyes staring back at him.
They didn't belong to a Badnik, or at least not a model Mighty had seen before. A skinny green pronghorn in a school uniform (what Mobian would wear a white shirt and blue suspender-skirt by choice?) seemed a little too eccentric, even by Robotnik's standards. The kid's peculiarly rigid ears suggested her eyes weren't her only augmentation. The nightsticks in her hands suggested a lack of any built-in weaponry.
She assumed a combative stance as Infinite flipped back to his feet, removed his Spex and drew his ruby cutlass. Mighty saw the plucky determination drain from the pronghorn's face as she watched the curved crystalline sword emerge from its scabbard. She turned and ran. Infinite went to pursue her, but Mighty grabbed him by the swordbelt.
The armadillo ignored the jackal's snarl of protest and motioned towards the elevator shaft. The dangling cables were moving. Infinite quickly mellowed, and the duo watched in silence as the elevator car rose into view. Before long, they had the green eyes of Metal Knuckles glaring at them.
Infinite's tall ears twitched as he picked up a low-pitched whine. The next thing Mighty knew, his companion was using him as a battering ram, shoving shoved him headfirst into the nearest apartment. No sooner were they inside than a beam of aquamarine light filled the hallway.
"Wave? Come in, dammit!" yelled Infinite into his headset. "We found him. And, uh—"
The jackal paused, plucked Mighty's headset off his head and tossed it out into the hallway. Before it hit the floor, another aquamarine beam filled the corridor.
"Yeah. The bastard has us pinned."
While Infinite talked away, Mighty's attention was drawn away by a fizzing sound somewhere behind them. He glanced about. With the only light coming from out in the hallway, he could hardly see a thing…until a Flasher that came floating into view. True to its name, the insectoid robot's belly strobed intermittently, affording the armadillo glimpses of other Badniks skulking in the darkness.
"Infi—"
"Way ahead of you. Take the crab!" shouted Infinite as he threw his ruby cutlass.
The impaled Flasher dropped like a stone. Mighty jumped over its sparking corpse. Adjudging the ceiling to be too low for an effective Spin Attack, he grabbed the Crabmeat's eyestalks and tore them off. The blinded Badnik's pincers snapped wildly at thin air until the armadillo's red-carapaced forehead finished it off.
Hearing Infinite grunt, Mighty looked over his shoulder. The jackal was on his back, wrestling with a Slicer, struggling to keep the Badnik's snapping mandibles away from his throat. His sword was still sticking out of the inert Flasher. Mighty yanked the blade free, ran over and decapitated the robotic mantis.
"You do knives but not guns, huh?" wheezed Infinite, pushing the headless Slicer off his chest.
Mighty didn't reply. He'd already turned to face an approaching Crawl. It snapped its enormous yellow claw menacingly. The armadillo cocked a brow, unsure if he'd ever known a Badnik to try to intimidate him before. Since when did these things know how to employ psychology?
"Just don't throw it next time," said Mighty before hurling himself at the Crawl.
Infinite hmphed and turned to confront a Ball Hog about to unload.
〜
Ejecting yet another power cell from her hard-light rifle, Whisper punched in her last fresh clip. At this rate, it would be a matter of time before she was recycling the cartridges at her feet.
"Whisper?" said Wave over the commlink.
"Go ahead," said the wolf as she shot a Coconuts off the side of an adjacent building.
"Keep your eyes peeled for Tekno. She's coming to pick up Jemerl. Infinite needs him."
"Copy that," said Whisper flatly. "What about me?"
"Don't worry. Sonar's on her way. The kid was just closer is—"
The wolf closed the voice channel, lest she tell Wave why it might have been handy to bring a certain lemur along on this nighttime raid. Even as a reserve, just in case they found themselves in need of, say, a fourth hoverbike. Moments like this made her miss her old crew even more than usual. Smithy wouldn't have excluded a useful operative on a petty point of principle.
〜
Tangle fastened the top button on her white polo, zipped up her orange windbreaker and patted her pockets one final time. Cellphone on the left. Headlamp on the right. She was good to go.
She picked up her backpack with her tail. Its lightness caught her off-guard once again. For the umpteenth time, she reminded herself she hadn't come here with all that much stuff to begin with. Moreover, she was leaving almost everything behind. It could've been even lighter, but she wasn't wearing that blush-pink pencil skirt again any sooner than she absolutely had to.
On her way to the front door, Tangle gave the apartment one last sweep. She smiled approvingly at the results of midnight cleaning frenzy. Jewel would probably faint if she saw it. Just thinking about her dormmate broadened the lemur's smile. After today's disappointments, she could hardly wait to see the beetle again, but owed someone else a visit first.
Tangle picked up the Extreme Gear propped up beside the front door, tucked it under her arm, popped the latch and exited her Westopolis apartment for the last time.
〜
"Can't you cut the nose off?" shouted Mighty over the sound of drilling.
"Does this look like plasma to you?" snapped Infinite, brandishing his ruby cutlass.
The armadillo's eyes darted between the slender blade and the grooved steel cone poking through the wall. On closer inspection, it looked as though it might snap if it even touched the whirring drill.
"Better get ready for Round 2, then," he sighed.
The duo had finished off every Badnik in the apartment, only for a Grounder to start boring its way through from the apartment next door, no doubt with more goggled-eyed robots in tow.
"I'm always ready," said Infinite smoothly.
Mighty was searching in vain for an appropriate putdown when there was a crash out in the hallway. The duo looked to the apartment's front door simultaneously. A second Flasher had fried Infinite's headset, cutting them off from Wave, but the bright blue glow in the thick haze of dust told them all they needed to know. Jemerl had landed.
The aquamarine beam filled the hallway. When it dissipated, the dust cloud was gone, but the Gizoid was still there. Unscathed, it strode forwards. A blast of denser bluish-green hard-light washed over it. It was knocked back a step, but remained upright. Mighty and Infinite grinned in unison as Emerl left their line of sight, walking towards the elevator.
Mighty looked back at the wall. The Grounder was nearly through. He tensed.
Clank!
The armadillo cocked his head back towards the front door in time to see Emerl and Metal Knuckles fly past in the opposite direction. The duo raced out into the hallway, the drill all but forgotten. The roof-access door they'd come in through was gone, as was the lower half of the staircase they'd come. In their place was a gaping hole. The robots were nowhere to be seen.
While Infinite went over to inspect the whistling hole, Mighty looked back inside the apartment. The drill had stopped.
"What now?" he asked, watching as Infinite thought twice about the structural integrity of the remaining stairs.
The jackal turned on his heel, looking past the armadillo at the elevator. Metal Knuckles had left behind quite the mess. A curtain of cables dangled from elevator car's ceiling. All of them looked damaged to varying degrees. Many were discharging showers of sparks.
"We take the stairs," said Infinite.