Hop To It - Eclipse 15

[Angora]

Down on Earth, the prevailing attitude was rather confusedly something like apathy.

There were some things that the human mind was just ill-equipped to handle. No one really understood what a million years meant, even as they stood in the museum and looked at dinosaur fossils. No one really knew how to spend a billion dollars, which was obvious every time the very rich short circuited on the news. And no one could really comprehend the potential end of the world, even with a giant hole in the moon looming over them like a promise signed in blood.

And as it was for humans, it was true for the Mobians as well. With the timer counting down to Doctor Eggman’s ultimatum, everyone in Central City and beyond just sort of… went about their business.

The hospitals still needed nurses to show up. The lights still needed to come on, food still needed to be put on the table. Life went on--at least for now.

But it was quieter today. Everyone was looking over their shoulder more, and looking up a lot less. And for the neighborhood of Little Island, everything had more-or-less come to a halt.

An outsider could be forgiven for thinking that an impromptu festival had been put on, except that it was a little too quiet and tense. A farmer’s market had sprung up, and neighbors were trading the fruits of their gardens back and forth. An inflatable playground was set up, to keep the younger children calm and distracted. For the close-knit community, this was a time to come together, to keep an eye on your neighbor, and for families to hold each other close.

The Fiver family were fretting furiously.

“I don’t understand, why isn’t he answering?” Angora asked the kitchen, pacing nervously. She dialed her number one more time, only to get the same response:

“We’re sorry, the number you are trying to reach is not available at the moment.”

“Are you sure your phone was fully charged when you gave it to him?” Wilbur suggested. He was busy helping himself to their pantry.

“Of course it was,” she snapped. “And could you at least ask before making yourself a sandwich?”

Wilbur wilted. “Sorry. I eat when I’m stressed.”

“I know. I’m sorry too.” She sighed. “Make me one, will you? Maybe a full stomach will help calm me down.”

She walked into the living room, where Charlotte was knitting a colorful scarf. Devon sat on the couch, staring at the TV news. His expression was blank, but the way his leg was bouncing told her he was just as nervous as she was.

“Anything?” Devon asked, not looking at her.

“Wherever he is, he doesn’t have service.”

Charlotte looked up. “Are you sure that your phone--”

“It was charged!” Angora said, cutting her off. “Oh, my babies… Poor Humi. Poor Hayden!”

“Poor Iota,” Devon said, straightening. He turned the volume on the television up, and Angora looked over.

“...Units of Nations have ceased responding to our station, and confusion grips the nation. Our news chopper followed the fugitives to the city limits after their contact with the President’s limousine. President Stevens was unharmed, and even stopped to give a brief statement before hurrying away on further business. Stevens disregarded any potential danger to himself, seeming to consider the fugitives Sonic and Prower as non-issues. Commander Tower remains unavailable, but we got in touch with his wife, Ivory Tower, who said--”

Angora tuned out the rest, focusing on the image on the screen. The aerial shot hovered over the Route 101 bridge across the strait, with a clear view of Tails in his car, a blue blur that could only be Sonic, and behind them…

Iota really couldn’t be mistaken for anyone else, even with those pink and red figures perched on his back.

Angora sat down heavily next to her husband, who wrapped an arm around her shoulder. “Devon, I don’t know what’s going on anymore. I hope Hayden and Humi are somewhere safe.”

Devon didn’t answer. The look on his face, however, didn’t reassure her.

--------------------------------

[Heyu]

“Welcome to space… What were you expecting? It’s a… dangerous place…”

I hummed to myself while I sorted through filing cabinets, setting aside anything that looked promising and leaving whatever obviously wouldn’t be helpful.

So far, I’d found a few references to Chaos Energy, exactly one study on rings, and a number of folders stamped with an out-of-date G.U.N. logo that were universally to do with experimental weapons.

I reached the end of that drawer and started flipping through the folders, starting with a G.U.N. folder labeled, ‘Project: Axolotl.’

It was a medical experiment based on the concept of limb and organ regeneration, pitched to G.U.N. as a method to get injured soldiers back on the field after what would normally be career-ending injuries, which would incidentally also be useful in the civilian sector and would likely get the military a lot of good press. The experiment found some limited success, apparently, using DNA from a variety of salamander subspecies, with the axolotl samples being the most successful, having regenerated an entire missing pinky finger in one test subject over the course of two months; the process was described as extremely painful, but ultimately ending up with a healthy finger and a pianist able to perform at concert level once more.

It was honestly a fascinating read, and I wished I had the time to read through it and the others more, but what really grabbed my attention was a reference to ‘Gerald’s pet project.’

Apparently, there was one more sample from a… blacked-out source that was related to Professor Gerald Robotnik, that was able to completely regenerate a subject’s missing eye, with little pain, over just two weeks. Except that two days after vision returned, the subject’s body rejected the organ as the eye mutated into something more animalistic.

Curious.

It wasn’t the only reference to Professor Gerald either. As I read through the folders, it seemed like everyone who worked on the ARK worked with Gerald at some point. The prototype for chaos drives came from Gerald, and he was involved in the tests to refine them into something usable. The one involving rings was disappointingly short, but included a written excerpt from Gerald himself about how they were solidified Chaos that sprung up where the Emeralds had been, which I knew, and that they came in many variants outside just size, which I didn’t. The simplest project was a perfectly normal improved rifle for the military, no esoteric studies involved, but even then Gerald got mentioned for developing a novel ammunition type that released an expanding gum-like substance on impact, allowing a non-lethal capture.

Gerald seemed to have a thumb in every pie.

There were several references to ‘Gerald’s pet project,’ usually phrased exactly like that. What exactly the writer meant wasn’t always clear, though. Why would Project: Axolotl be interested in Shadow, who was not any kind of salamander?

Project: Cyber, which appeared to be a mostly-failed attempt to develop a virtual reality interface for training simulations (and, possibly, once G.U.N. got bored with it, leisure), reference Gerald’s project with sympathetic language.

In cyberspace, the mind will control everything. For subjects like Gerald’s pet project, a failing body will be no obstacle to play.

I could guess that that was actually about Maria, but using the same terms for multiple things made it difficult to know what they were talking about. 

I set the folder aside, stumped. All of this was fascinating, of course, and if we had more time I’d have loved to sit down and puzzle through it all. But there was no mention of anything resembling that giant cannon.

Mom’s phone buzzed, and I flipped it open. “Hello?”

Just static. I frowned and stowed it away. That kept happening. I hoped it wasn’t anything important.

“Humi, have you found anything?” I called over my shoulder. When I didn’t get an immediate response, I looked up. “Humi?”

“I’m here!” she called back, walking back into the room. “Sorry, I had to go deal with some robots.”

Turning to face her, I frowned. “Please stop running off without saying anythi--monkey.”

I pointed at the Kiki mounted on the side of the Y-Nought’s engine case. It had a little gun in front of it.

“Humi, why is there a monkey?”

She smiled, patting the robotic chimp’s head. “He’s my targeting system now,” she said, as if that was a proper response. The Kiki’s eyes darted to her and back, fast enough that I almost thought I’d imagined it. “Have you found anything?”

“I’ve found plenty,” I said, deciding not to get annoyed. “Some of it you’d probably appreciate but nothing we’re looking for.” I scowled, picking up a folder just to toss it back down with a smack. “And you know something really crazy, they keep mentioning Gerald Robotnik, but I haven’t seen hardly anything by him.”

We were literally in the center of the lab area. Assuming there weren’t more, of course, but this little library room didn’t have an ‘A’ on the door, so it didn’t look like there was more than one.

“He probably kept his stuff in his own lab,” Humi reasoned. “A bigshot like him probably had a big one.”

“Most likely,” I agreed. “I don’t suppose you found a legible map?”

She shook her head, ears drooping. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine,” I sighed. “What we really need is to get to a computer room. With any luck we’d be able to use it to search for exactly what we need. Anything not on the system would at least have something telling us where it is.” I walked over to lean on Humi’s mech and rested a hand on the monkey head. “I don’t suppose you know anything, huh chimp?”

The Kiki stared at me.

“Didn’t think so.”

“Computer room…” Humi mumbled. “I think… I might have passed something like that. I didn’t see any computers but I noticed a lot of power coils under the grates in the floor--what’s wrong?”

My ears were twitching. Groaning, settling… then a distant crash. The squeal of twisted metal. “...I think I just heard something collapse. We need to move quickly. Lead the way.”

With a cheeky salute, Humi piloted her mech out the door. I stuffed a bunch of the more interesting folders in my backpack and followed. Who knew if we’d ever get to come back here?

----------------------------------

[Rouge]

This plan was working like a charm. She flew out and gave the brats a scare with a car chase, then Shadow went out and kept an eye on them while they flew over the canyon.

Rouge teleported back onto the ARK just as Eggman was preparing to jump back down and meet them in the Pyramid.

“Right on schedule, Doctor,” she said cheerfully. “I saw them approaching as I flew in.”

“Hohoho. It will take them some time to find the keys,” Eggman said, clenching a fist. “That will give me just enough time to prepare my Egg Golem!”

“I’ll hold down the fort while you’re away.” She smirked. “Let me know once you’ve got the final Emerald.”

She waved him away as he stepped on the teleport pad. Once he was gone, she allowed herself a small chuckle. The Doctor really was easy to fool.

Now, with the ARK all to herself for the time being, she could focus on her secondary mission: research.

---------------------------------

[Heyu]

I’m not sure how it happened. We must have gotten turned around at some point, because we definitely didn’t come across this place on the way in.

“Do you think this was the collapse you heard?” Humi asked.

“Could be,” I hazarded. “I thought it was from farther away, but maybe sound carries weird through the halls?” I rubbed my chin, thinking. How did sound work adjacent to a vacuum? A lot of these hallways were on the surface level. Did the vibration bleed out into the void, lost? Whatever, not important.

We were standing in front of a massive section of collapsed structure. Miraculously, the roof was intact, but several floors had fallen through. Getting across this would take some doing.

I spun up a ring and launched it down to the bottom of the ruin. It bounced off the floor and pinged around for a bit before breaking in a scattering of light motes, ultimately not doing anything. “...Okay, it looks like everything’s settled, so we can probably get across it without it collapsing further--”

“What was that thing you just did?” Humi demanded, standing in her seat to look closer at my rings.

“Oh, I call them Rev-Up Rings,” I said, pleased. “I’ve got more tricks, too. Pretty cool, right?”

Humi blinked, then sat back, waving a hand. “Eh, the name could use work.”

“Eh, what do you know,” I said, unbothered. “Put your mech away and I’ll swing us across.”

Humi made a face. “I… can’t.”

“Sure you can, I saw you do it before.”

“That was the old, lame and broken Y-Nought. This one’s not meant to come apart like that.” She tapped her fingers together. “I could, but I’d have to break it into so many pieces to get them small enough to fit in my pocket. And my pocket is getting really full, anyway.”

“Oh, yeah,” I realized. “I guess you wouldn’t have had much chance to empty them, huh.” I tapped my foot a few times.

“But it’s okay, because I can do this!”

Without any more warning than that, Humi and her mech jumped off the edge of the pit. I let out a startled shout, only to cut myself off when the Y-Nought’s legs folded and hoverjets lit up on the undersides. Her fall slowed to a controlled descent, and I watched anxiously as she landed in a partially-intact office-looking room a floor below.

She looked up at me and waved. “I’ll make my own way across!”

This girl was going to give me gray hair. I was going to look as gray as my dad by the time I reached twenty-five. As it was, I pulled at my ears a bit before giving up. “Alright, but you better stay safe or I swear I’m going to--”

Humi jumped away, taking a running start and leaping into the next room over.

I grumbled. Focusing on a hanging pipe, I whipped out my Sling Rings and launched myself away.

-----------------------

The damage was a lot more extensive than it looked. The entire topography of the ARK changed because of it, and it was impossible to figure out where we were.

After a minute or so of swinging, I landed in a server room. The out-facing wall had collapsed, but all the machines were still intact and running. No console to interface with, more’s the pity. I did, however, find a few scattered papers. Another folder with the G.U.N. logo. A quick glance led me to believe it was a mission briefing of some sort, but that was when I was interrupted by a harsh buzzing from my pocket. I nearly dropped the folder in surprise, tucking it under my arm while I fished in my pouches until I found the source: a G.U.N.-branded walkie-talkie.

Man, they put their logo on everything. I pressed the button. “Hello?”

I had no idea who to expect on the other end, so imagine my surprise when Humi’s voice came out of the speaker.

“--lo? Hello? Does th-s work?”

“Humi?!” I asked, incredulous. “How--”

“I f--nd an old G.U.N. radio! A f-w of them, actually.”

“But how did you get it in my--” I shook my head. The answer would probably only serve to confuse me. “Fine. What’s up?”

“I f--nd a room f-ll of more papers. I wouldn’t have cared exc--t one had a p--ture of the ARK but it looked like Eggman’s f-ce.”

I tilted my head. “I think it rather looks like Gerald’s face, actually. Gather it up, I’ll look them over once we meet back up.”

I heard the Y-Nought, not too distant, tromping around, and jumped into the next room.

When I landed, a jolt of pain lanced through my head, nearly knocking me over. It felt a lot like after I handled an Emerald.

Despite the pain, I took it as a sign we were moving in the right direction.

------------------------------

[Humi]

Humi stomped along a hallway, adjacent to the collapsed area. The last room she fell into didn’t really have a way for her to get back out, but the door to this hall was open, so she was following it in the hopes that it would lead to a less-blocked room.

It would be really embarrassing if she got stuck over something stupid like this.

When Humi still lived alone, she liked to sneak into the casinos. The customer areas were always grand and colorful, but in the employee-only areas they were more spartan, practical. And then there were the maintenance tunnels under even that, which were practically unfinished. That’s what this hallway looked like, even compared to the boring halls in the residential sector.

In fact, it reminded her of sneaking around backstage in the Final Egg, which is why when she came across an unmarked door, she was half expecting another server room, or maybe a janitorial closet. A boiler room, maybe.

It was a bathroom.

Humi’s face flattened, disappointed. Then she noticed the footprints in the dust, the humming echoing off the walls, and the horribly familiar feet visible under one stall.

“Big?!”

The cat yowled, shocked. “Oc-Occupied!”

Humi slammed the door shut and hurried away, mortified. By the time it occurred to her to question how the heck Big got here, she had found another room that led back to the ruined area. It was a security station, judging by the abandoned body armor and minor weapons scattered about. Humi pocketed a few tasers and junk… although her pockets really were getting full. She couldn’t keep grabbing everything she saw, sadly.

The wall in this room was gone, and some collapsed paneling formed a convenient ramp up to another level. In fact, it looked like she might have reached the end, so she jumped and climbed up the broken floors until she reached the surface level once again, and a mostly-undamaged hallway trailed off in front of her.

Turning around to wait, she quickly spotted Heyu hopping about. “Hey, you!”

He laughed, looking up to see her, and after landing on the bottom level, he bunched up and jumped one more time.

Heyu reached the peak of his jump and then slung himself even further with his rings--Humi didn’t know he could do that either, when did he figure these things out?--but it still didn’t quite reach.

She cupped her hands around her mouth. “Jump again!”

“But--!”

“JUMP!”

Heyu’s legs reacted to her shout before the words caught up with his brain, and his Air Shoes activated, giving him a boost. A rush of air pushed him up, and he ended up sprawled on the floor next to her.

He sat there for a few seconds, then rolled over into a sitting position and gave his shoes a considering look, like he hadn’t seen them before. They were a bit different-looking now. “Humi, did you mess with these while I was sleeping?”

“Kinda-sorta,” she said. “I bought you Air Shoes before all this mess, and I attached them after you collapsed.”

Heyu tilted his head. He kicked out with one leg, and a hiss of air escaped the soles of his shoe. “...Neat. Thank you.” He stood up and patted her on the head before they both set back off down the hall.

-------------------------------------

[Shadow]

Personally, he felt that this whole thing was a waste of time. Shadow didn’t think it could be that hard to just blitz these so-called heroes and steal the last Emerald, but the Doctor was insistent that there was a ‘proper’ way to deal with them.

Well, whatever. Rail Canyon had been an amusing diversion, at least. He didn’t understand why he needed to be there at all, since Eggman had clearly sent one of his own robots out to chase them. That same blue one he met at the bank, it seemed.

Shadow supposed the methods didn’t matter as long as the end goal remained the same.

He approached the pyramid, having circled around to an alternate entrance to avoid being seen, and entered the password after the number pad slid out of the stone.

It buzzed red.

Shadow blinked. He was pretty certain that was the correct password, so he did it again. Maybe he did it too fast, or missed a number.

Red again. Shadow frowned. He grabbed his communicator. “Doctor.”

“Ah, Shadow. Back already? Sonic and friends must be close behind. Good, my Egg Golem is ready for them!”

“That’s all well and good, but my passcode isn’t working.”

“...What, again?” The sound of typing filtered through the connection. “I thought I fixed it! Did you put in 3665?”

“That’s the code you gave me, yes.”

“Blast it all… I don’t know how this happened. Gah, give me a second, I’ll override the door.”

Shadow folded his arms and waited impatiently. The sun was beating down on him, and his black fur wasn’t helping him stay cool. The heat couldn’t hurt him but it was still uncomfortable.

“-krrk- Alright, I’m opening the door.”

Shadow rolled his eyes and walked inside. Now the doctor couldn’t even keep his own doors from breaking.

Hm… It would take those fools some time to breach the pyramid’s defenses. Shadow probably had time to grab a bite to eat. Where would Eggman keep the pantry in this place…