Hop To It - Eclipse 14

[G.U.N.?]

Once, a long time ago, the Guardian Units of Nations lived up to their name. They were the guardians not just of the United Federation, but of all nations.

They had a base on every continent. In every country. They had robots when other countries only had tanks. They had more soldiers, or better quality, than anyone else. They had a space station, and a great big laser pointed down. No one made trouble that G.U.N. couldn’t handle. They wouldn’t dare.

Then it all went wrong. The Space Colony ARK went turncoat, and had to be shut down. The Eclipse Cannon was rendered off limits, and the brilliant mind that created it was executed for crimes against the Federation. And without a stick that big to wave around, G.U.N. lost its respect. Bases and forts were shut down, until only the UF’s closest allies still allowed them to operate within their borders.

Once, Major Roark Citadel was a young patriot. The soldiers of G.U.N. were real men, doing great deeds and making hard decisions for the greater good. They worked to make the United Federation the greatest country on Earth, and it was. He signed up at 16, lying about his age to get around the age limit, because he knew his place was on the front lines, making a difference.

At 18, Corporal Roark was part of the strike teams sent to shut down the ARK. It was a dark day. So many brilliant minds, turned against the nation that funded them. So much work, lost because they thought they were above the law. All because one man got too big for his britches and thought he could play god.

Assaulting the ARK was easy. You’d think the grease monkeys building the weapons would have some idea about how to use them, but they offered no resistance. The whole thing was over and done within less than a day. If they hadn’t been traitors, Roark might have felt sorry for them.

Well. 

Things fell apart.

 Despite G.U.N.’s coverup, the loss of the ARK was a huge blow to their reputation, and the suits in Central pulled back on their power. With the best and the brightest reassigned or gone, G.U.N. became a shadow of its former self, and Citadel watched in growing dismay as the decades passed and the organization became a joke. When Tower took control, it was as good as over in Roark’s eyes. Citadel was the last of the old guard, doomed to watch his life’s work be replaced with these know-nothing, starry eyed,  impudent youths. 

Now, that lunatic Gerald’s grandson was the most dangerous man in the world, and G.U.N. was too neutered to properly fight back. No, instead, they had to rely on a blue rodent freak to save them.

Nothing would ever take G.U.N.’s place in the world. But the fact that this vigilante wasn’t even a citizen? Wasn’t even human? Embarrassing. Disrespectful. 

All Mobians were dangerous, but especially that one. And Tower was willing to let him run around as he wished! The world didn’t need a softer touch, it needed control!

Roark had a plan. His opportunity came when Eggman raided Prison Island the first time and released something that Tower didn’t like. Instead of taking care of business like a man, Tower handed the reins off to Citadel so as to not be biased. Roark personally didn’t care what his reason was, all that mattered is that Tower’s orders were to recapture Project: Shadow--but Roark had a different hedgehog in mind.

All they had to do was capture the hedgehog and allow Eggman to wreak havoc unopposed to prove to the President about G.U.N. needing greater power and less regulation in order to become more effective. Soon enough they’d be back on top. Citadel might not live to see G.U.N. reclaim its former glory, but he’d be able to die satisfied that he’d played his part.

“I saw him go this way!”

Except that someone decided to ask questions. More nonsense. When he was ordered to attack the ARK, Roark never asked questions! He did what he was told, like a good soldier!

“Don’t let him get away!”

Tower wasn’t going to see things his way. Not now. If his plan had gone through without a hitch, he might’ve been able to talk him around, but now it was sunk.

“Where did he go?”

He was an old man now. A blaze of glory was out of the question. His hands weren’t steady enough to aim the gun anymore, and while he was still strong he wasn’t going to win against a younger man. Too many years at a desk job. So if he couldn’t fight, he could think.

Roark stepped out into the hallway, dressed in full face-obscuring tactical gear. He rubbed his head and groaned. “He hit me over the head with his pistol,” he called, waving his pursuers over. “He made a run for the vehicle bay, you can still catch him!”

“C’mon!” the squad leader said, giving him a nod of acknowledgement. They ran down the hall, not giving him another glance.

Citadel held his breath until they all turned the corner, then sighed in relief, letting his gut jut back out. His old raid suit still fit, but barely. He was never going to complain about his workout routine to his old lady again. Now, he just needed to wait a few minutes for his ‘headache’ to fade, then he’d actually go down to the vehicle bay and take a squad car to join the pursuit. He’d disable the radio, and GPS locator, anything that could be used to track him, and he’d make a break for it. He wasn’t sure what he’d do after that yet, but getting away was the important thing. He was not going to spend his last few years in a cell--

-click-

The barrel pressed into the back of his head. “The footsoldiers might not see you enough to recognize you, but I’d know that chin anywhere, Roark.”

Citadel let out a breath and raised his hands, before turning around to face his assailant. “Punji, good to see you.”

“I bet,” the middle-aged captain grunted.

Punji was another old soldier. The same age as Tower, but joined up before him. A frontline leader who refused promotion so he could keep leading his men directly. “I’ve always thought we were cut from the same cloth, you know.”

Punji pressed the gun into Roark’s nose. “I’m not interested in this.”

“Aren’t you? You’re the only one of those cowards taking the fight to Eggman,” Citadel said, smiling. “But they’re holding you back. Trust me, Spike, I had a plan. We were going to make G.U.N. strong again.”

Punji’s eyes narrowed, but he didn’t interrupt as Citadel laid out his plan, humming.

When he finished, Punji lowered his weapon slowly and Roark internally cheered. “...It’s a nice plan. It’s a pleasant dream, and it might even work.”

“I’m so glad you see it--”

-BANG-

The bullet crashed through his knee, and Citadel collapsed. “But we don’t have time for it. Eggman just blew up the moon and is holding the whole world hostage.” Punji reached down and plucked Roark’s comm off his belt, holding it out. “Like it or not, we need a hero right now. Call off your men!”

Citadel gasped, unable to talk through the pain. But he still had enough will to spit on Punji’s boots.

Spike sighed. Then he smacked Citadel with the butt of his gun, and the older man slumped, unconscious.

He took his own walkie-talkie out. “Commander, this is Punji. I’ve got Citadel locked down. Call off the other searchers and send two men to take him to the cells, over.”

“-krrk- Captain Punji, this is Trench. Acknowledged. Stay on him until the men arrive. Tower and the other Captains are coordinating and attempting to resolve the infighting. Most squads are recalled, but the robots under Citadel’s command are password-locked. Over.”

Punji groaned. He gave Citadel another kick for good measure. “Great. Well, it’s not like he was going to give me the password anyway.”

What a mess.

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

[Rouge]

Rouge was worried. No, in truth, she was on the verge of panic.

This had gotten way out of hand. If she’d had any idea about the Eclipse Cannon or what it could do she’d never have offered up her Emerald. Of course, if she’d known she wouldn’t have needed to go undercover in the first place.

None of her contacts in G.U.N. were answering her calls. Commander Tower, Captain Bunker, even Agent Topaz wasn’t picking up her phone. And she knew that it wasn’t the distance, Eggman had set the ARK up with enhanced reception capabilities so they could get a news feed from Earth. For none of her usual handlers to be available meant something big was going on.

The only one left to reach out to was the man who sent her on her current mission, President Stevens. But he probably wasn’t going to be happy with her right now… but she had to touch base. The longer she went without reporting in after the moon thing, the more she implicated herself.

The only thing keeping her calm were her Master Emerald shards. Even broken, they were beautiful… they grounded her, reminding her of why she was doing this.

And once she calmed down, she found a little something that might just get her out of this situation, keeping her cover AND potentially foiling Eggman’s plan.

The issue was what to do about Shadow. He was still a puzzle.

She walked into the Cannon’s control room just as the Doctor was slamming his fist on the console. “Why are you so upset?”

Eggman growled wordlessly, throwing his hands up and pacing a small circle in front of the computer.

“Well,” Rouge said, not letting her mask slip. “That was really impressive. You’ve managed to create complete havoc on the whole planet! Does this mean we now control the planet and can do what we please?”

Eggman’s lips quirked and he opened his mouth to answer, but Shadow, also in the room, spoke up before he could.

“At this rate, the cannon will take too much time to charge up,” the moody hedgehog said. “If you want to unleash its full potential, you’ll need all seven Chaos Emeralds.”

Thank you Shadow, that was a perfect lead-in to her plan.

“Where in the world have you been?” Eggman demanded of her, turning back to the computer. He smacked the screen as if that would change anything.

“Something happen?”

“Our threats fell on deaf ears,” Shadow said, not sounding particularly bothered. “The President refused to negotiate.”

“And worse than that,” the Doctor said angrily, “That confounded hedgehog and his kid sidekick just hacked into my signal! They know where we are now!”

Rouge tittered. “Look at you, throwing a tantrum like a little kid. How embarrassing! Especially when this is exactly what we want.” She laid the trap. Now, would he take the bait?

Eggman whirled on her, furious. “Why you--! Why would we want them on to us when we don’t even have the last Emerald yet?!”

“Because,” Rouge said, pulling out the newspaper. “That kid sidekick has the last Emerald.”

“What?! Why didn’t you show me this before?!” He snatched the paper out of her hand. “What is this? ‘Station Square saved from a life-threatening missile attack. The city has awarded its famed prize to the boy who saved Station Square.’ Miles ‘Tails’ Prower was awarded the Emerald?” Eggman humphed and tossed the paper on the counter. “I see! Well, that makes things easy!”

Rouge hid a smile behind her hand. “Oh?”

“You two go back to Earth and intercept them, fast! I want that Chaos Emerald!” Eggman started walking off, as though the conversation was done. But Rouge decided to push one last time.

“Why should we bother?”

Eggman turned a glare on her, pausing midstep. “Say again?”

The bat inspected her nails, appearing disinterested. “Sure, we could play catch-up… or, we could show them where the pyramid is. We could let them come to us.” She grinned. “If we go after them the way you’re suggesting, we’ll be operating on their terms. But if we make them fight on our turf, we’ll have time to prepare for their arrival.”

Rouge watched carefully as Eggman ran that line of thought through his head. “...Yes. Yes, I see what you mean. Yes! Rouge, do you have a car?”

“Of course I do.”

“Chase after them!” he demanded. “Make sure they get to the hidden base, both of you!” He rubbed his hands together. “I can finally get some use out of that, as well…”

Shadow grunted and ran off, Eggman following behind.

Rouge lagged behind, grinning to herself.

All according to plan. Best case scenario, Sonic and his friends show up and ruin Eggman’s plans. Worst case, Eggman actually manages to beat them, in which case Rouge will have already absconded with the other six Emeralds. Either way, the Earth was saved thanks to her!

Oh yes, she could work with this. Rouge pulled out her communicator. “...Hello, Mr. President? This is Agent Rouge reporting. I have things under control. Yes, I’m aware of the situation, but I’ve got a plan to take care of it.”

The President rattled on for a few seconds, and Rogue blinked.

“Project Shadow? Yes, he calls himself the Ultimate Lifeform.” She listened. “Yessir. If that’s what you want, I’ll take some time to research this Project: Shadow Commander Tower mentioned. I will keep you informed.”

She hung up, frowning. Project: Shadow? Why did that sound familiar…

Whatever, it would have to wait. She had to take a drive real quick.

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

[Heyu]

What I wanted, more than anything, was to curl up in a bed and sleep until the world made sense again. Robotnik just blew a giant hole in the moon. We were on the ARK. We were on the same rock as the man who just blew a hole in the moon. Anyone who isn’t terrified after something like that is mad. Even Humi was being quiet.

But in the end, it was only the second scariest thing I’d gone through in the past forty-eight hours.

We made our way back to that bedroom, while we thought over what we saw. Humi tinkered with the bits of tech in the toybox to keep herself distracted, and I was poking through the drawers for anything useful. Anything at all really, I supposed I didn’t expect to find something that would help, but it helped me feel like I was doing something.

After a while, I felt my ear twitch. Whatever it was was too far for me to really know what it was, but it did draw my attention to the silence. “Did that Omochao disappear?”

Humi poked her head out of the toybox. “Did he? Hey, he did!” She tossed a pink ratchet over her shoulder. “I guess he didn’t want that submarine after all.”

I blinked, but decided not to ask. “Those things are weird. You know, that was the third Omochao I’ve met these past few days? They keep showing up.”

“Huh.” She pulled that weird not-Air Shoe thing out and grimaced at it. She turned it over in her hands, like it held the secrets of the universe. “Hey, you.”

I smiled lopsidedly. “Who, me?”

She snorted. “Yeah. Are we going to do something about this?”

I moved away from the drawer and stepped over to the small bookshelf. An eclectic mix of children’s story books and advanced scholarly texts. I pulled out a copy of the Phantom Tollbooth, yellowed with age. I dropped it in my backpack. “About what?”

“This!” Humi jumped out onto the floor and turned a circle with her arms spread. “The cannon! Stopping Eggman, like last time!”

“Last time was a lot less…” I fished for the word. “...less than this time. The entire world wasn’t at stake.”

“It was so,” she argued. “Chaos was gonna flood everything.”

I nodded, conceding the point. “Fair. But I dunno, something about a giant monster feels more manageable than a space laser.”

“You’re making excuses.”

I paused. “...A little,” I admitted. “Humi, I’m going to level with you. I am terrified right now.”

She gave me a sideways look. “Well you look calm.”

I shrugged.

She crawled onto my shoulder. “It’s not like we’re in danger from the laser. We’re on the ARK, which is the only place it can’t point. All we would have to deal with are robots, and we’re pretty good at breaking those.”

My brow furrowed.

Technically speaking she wasn’t wrong. I couldn’t figure out how to properly explain to her what was different this time. “...Humi--” I stopped, then tried again. “I don’t even know how we’d stop it.”

“We just have to take the Chaos Emeralds out, duh.” She said it like it was obvious, and then gave me a judgemental look. “You did figure out that he’s using the Emeralds to power it, right?”

“...Well it’s obvious now.” I stood up more quickly than necessary; not enough to knock her off but enough to unbalance her. “Give me a break, it’s been a long day.”

Humi snorted and grabbed what looked like a photo album off the shelf, flipping through it.

I started pacing. Humi was right, we needed to do something. At the very least, getting to the Emeralds would help me by giving me some clue of what would happen next, which I sorely needed.

I didn’t know what to do.

“Whoa. Heyu, this guy looks like Eggman!”

“What?”

Humi showed me the album. Indeed, there was a man front and center that looked a lot like an even older Robotnik, though I doubt the madman had ever looked so jolly in his life. He had the same mustache, but it was gray, and he had a few more wrinkles and was shaped less strangely. In that picture, he had his arm around a young blonde girl in a… wheelchair.

I glanced at the corner, where the IV stand was. Something was stirring my memory. Or, the Emerald’s memory? I could see the shape of something in my mind.

“Let me see that.” I took back the album and, marking my place with a finger, flipped to the front. I read aloud from the inside cover, “‘Property of Maria… Robotnik.’”

Humi sounded the name out and tilted her head. “Huh! I guess even Eggman must have had family at some point. He had to come from somewhere.” She thought. “Do you think that’s his mom and grandad? Since everything here is fifty years old?”

“I think that’s his cousin, maybe,” I corrected. I pointed at the caption under that first picture: Me and Grandfather. I started turning pages.

They all took place on the ARK. Gray metal backgrounds, the occasional shot of space. This Maria girl always looked pale and washed-out, tired but with a big smile. Sometimes she was able to stand on her own, sometimes she needed crutches or the wheelchair. A lot of these pictures were with the old man, but some were with a gray-haired boy with different-colored eyes. Rarely, there was someone else in a lab coat.

There weren't any pictures with her parents, or anyone who could be. It was odd.

I turned another page, and Humi gasped.

The girl was standing next to a glowing green tube, and floating inside was-- “Shadow?”

I closed the book with a snap and looked around. There were two beds in this room, and I kept getting pricked by black quills. While Humi grabbed the album out of my hands, I fished that scrap of paper from my pocket and unfolded it. Now that I knew who the girl in the drawing was, that pawprint on the bottom stood out all the more.

“She looks healthy now,” Humi said, idly. She was still looking through it. “In all these pictures after Shadow, she looks a lot happier and better.”

“The Ultimate Lifeform,” I murmured, not sure why. “Humi, can you remember how to get to those labs?”

“Hm? Oh, yeah, sure.” She stowed the album away. “Why? Do we have a plan?”

“We’ve got… part of a plan,” I said hesitantly. “Shadow was helping Robotnik with the Emeralds, right? And he was born--made, even--here on the ARK. Maybe he’s connected to this, and if we find out more about him, we’ll find out more about the cannon.”

It was shaky reasoning, I knew. But it felt like a step in the right direction, and even if it wasn’t it beat moping here.

Humi scampered out the door to her mech, and we prepared to search the labs.

My ears twitched. This time I could make out the groaning metal. “Stay close. I think that blast might’ve dislodged some things.”

“Right!”