Chapter 18: SA2 Part 3

Sonic was running… what else is new? This time though, there was a bit of hesitation in his steps.

They had just found out through a news report that there were no casualties in the explosion on Prison Island. This meant that Chris and Tangle were probably alright…

Emphasis on probably.

It's true, no-one in the base was found to be dead… but they didn't exactly know that Tangle and Chris were in the base.

Also, an explosion that large could of completely incinerated them for all he knew. Tangle was tough, but not that tough.

As such, there was still that little bit of doubt in Sonic's mind. Not only that, Tanaka had told him that they were warped away by that Shadow guy, so if they were alright, they were most likely captured.

And he did not like that one bit.

And on top of all of this, Eggman just unveiled what he had planned to the entire planet the night before, being a giant cannon in space.

"First thing's first… gotta find a way to get into space…" Sonic said to himself.

At that moment, a group of G.U.N. robots appeared around him.

"Great… you guys aren't making this any easier you know!" Sonic said as he ran away.

Eventually, he ended up being completely surrounded, which resulted in him getting into a brawl with said robots.

"HYAH!" Shouted a familiar voice from around the corner.

"Huh?" Sonic said as he went to investigate.

He was greeted by Knuckles, who was also fighting off a group of robots.

Deciding that the guy could use a hand, he joined in.

A bit later…

"So, you mind telling me what's going on?" Knuckles asked as he destroyed the last robot.

"Eggman's got a base in space, using some lookalike to frame me…" Sonic explained. "You're about to get shot by a robot."

"Oh… alright." Knuckles said. "Wait, wha-"

Knuckles turned around to see a Flying Dog about to shoot him with a powerful laser.

"WATCH OU-"

Thankfully, the laser never fired, as a familiar looking tail burst through the robot, destroying it.

"Geez, I leave you boys alone for a day, and look at what happens!"

When the smoke cleared, they saw Tangle standing there.

"Tangle!" Sonic said.

"Hey, miss me?" Tangle asked.

"More like was worried about you! How did you get out of there?" Sonic asked.

"Well…" Tangle started.

The next wave of robots didn't like that though.

"Uh, we can talk later, we gotta get going!" Knuckles said.

"Right…" Sonic said.

Suddenly, Tanaka came rolling in on a motorcycle, obviously acting as some sort of distraction.

While the robots were busy with that, Cream opened up a manhole and told them to get inside.

"Oh geez… ok… stay calm… stay calm…" Tangle said.

"What's with her?" Knuckles asked.

"Claustrophobia, pretty bad case too." Sonic explained.

"Seemed fine in the tornado…" Knuckles said.

"That's the exception."

"Ms. Tangle! You're ok!" Cream said.

"No time to talk! Let's get out of here!" Tangle said frantically.

"Right, let's go!" Sonic said.


After they got out of the sewers, and Tangle calmed down a bit, they made their way back to the Thorndyke's temporary home.

"So, how did you get out of there before the bombs went off?" Sonic asked. "More importantly, where's Chris?"

"Well… bad news is that Eggman has Chris…" Tangle said. "I'm sorry… I tried to fight that Shadow guy… and got trounced."

"Hey, it's fine!" Sonic said. "You're still recovering, we won't blame you for not being able to handle someone like that quite yet."

"Still… I just feel so useless…"

"Well, stop thinking like that, and start thinking about how we are going to go and rescue Chris!" Sonic said.

"… Right." Tangle said.

"Anyways, how did you get out of there?" Sonic asked.

"Well, that's the thing… I didn't." Tangle said.

"Huh?"

"You see, after Shadow left me there to die…"


"…Oh no…"

Tangle looked around frantically for an exit, and saw that there really wasn't any.

The door was sealed shut, and there wasn't enough time to bust it open.

"Ok… leaving is not an option." Tangle said.

Continuing to look around, she noticed that there were a lot of safes in the room, all littered by marks small enough to be caused by bullets.

"Looks like Rouge was fighting someone in here…" Tangle said. "Wait…"

She saw that during the fight, one of the safes was broken open.

Then, she remembered something Jewel told her once.


"Well… this place is neat…" Tangle said sarcastically.

"Tangle, you didn't have to come if you really didn't want to." Jewel said. "It's good enough that you got the money for us to be able to come here."

"Yeah, but this is for your birthday! No way I am abandoning you on your special day!" Tangle said. "Though I gotta wonder… what's stopping a robber from… I dunno… robbing the place?"

"Well, there are of course security measures put into place for the entire store, but the safes they have here are really good at keeping the contents… well… safe!" Jewel explained.

"Ok, so why can't someone just… I dunno… break the safe?" Tangle asked.

"Tangle, those safes are so sturdy, you could blow it up, and it would still be in one piece!" Jewel said. "They are probably the only thing on the planet more sturdy than you."

"Really? Wow… that's impressive!" Tangle said.

"I know right!" Jewel said with a smile.


At this point, Tangle knew the only way she could survive… but she didn't like it.

"Oooooh boy… I am really going to hate this." Tangle said as she ran over to the safe, dove in and closed the door behind her.

Then, the bombs went off.

Despite her panic, Tangle could feel the safe being tossed about by the explosions before it landed hard on the ground.

"Oof… that hurt…" Tangle said as she listened to see if the explosions were still going off.

After a moment, she couldn't hear anything.

"Now… to get out of here…"

When she stood up, she realized the issue…

The door was now facing the ground.

"… Oh no…" Tangle said before panicking.

"Ok… think… think… think…"

Then, she got desperate, and threw the strongest punch she could at one of the safe walls…

And made a sizable hole in it.

"HAHA! EXPLOSIONS GOT NOTHING ON ME!" She shouted as she leapt through the hole and out of the safe.

"Gotta love that nice open air… even if it is burning…" Tangle said as she got a look around.

"Alright… time to find that swan boat…" She said as she ran off into the forest.


"After that, I made my way back to land, and after resting for the night, I went and found you guys." Tangle finished her explanation.

"Good thinking." Sonic said. "Glad to know that you're alright."

"Yeah… but I am really tired… and really sore…" Tangle said.

"Get some rest here while Tails and Chuck suit up the X-Tornado for space travel, we're gonna go investigate a base that Knuckles found." Sonic said.

"Right… I'll do that." Tangle said as she collapsed.

"Right, let's get going everyone!" Sonic said as they left.

"We're gonna get back to work on the X-Tornado." Tails said. "Call Ella, or any of us really, if you need anything."

"Gotcha…" Tangle said groggily.

When Tails left though, Tangle couldn't help but think.

'Why did Shadow seem to… hesitate when he was about to leave us? Why did he suddenly decide to save Chris and Rouge? Just what is that guy's deal?!'

After a moment though, she got an idea.

"Well, I guess there's one way I might be able to find out…" Tangle said to herself as she closed her eyes.

'Hey… Tikal? You there?'

"Hello Tangle." Tikal's voice rang through her head.

'Oh great! It worked! Listen, I was wondering if you could help me with something.'

"Oh? And that is?"

'You were able to take me back to the past right? Think you can do it again, but so I can see what's up with this Shadow guy?'

"Hmmm… I can, but it will be different than before."

'Different? How so?'

"Well, you'll only be able to see what happened… not actually interact with anything. This is because I have no memories of this time." Tikal explained.

'Gotcha, that's fine. Just show me what you can!'

"Alright… here we go."

A familiar feeling suddenly overcame Tangle, as everything once again went white.

End of Chapter 18


Did you really think that I would just kill off Tangle? Nah, she's the main character of this story! Also, yeah, Tikal is helping out, and we will be diving into Shadow's back story, and how Tangle handles finding out all of this information in the next chapter.

In case you are wondering, the room where Rouge was stuck in is kinda different from where she was in the anime, being a big room with safes littering the walls. The safes look like the ones in Security hall. An alternate version I thought of for this, was that Tangle would be captured by Shadow and pretty much held hostage until the last story of SA2… but I didn't want to make her a hostage, so I went with this. I've been beating her up way too much lately, so I cut her a break.

Also yeah, the way she gets out of there is a reference to the Tangle and Whisper Mini-series. Gonna be a really long time until we get to that point, so I figured I'd throw that in here :)

See you all next time for Chapter 19!