Hop To It - Eclipse 13

[Iota]

“Informative: Surface level scans indicate that this was once a coal mine.”

“Hmm.” Knuckles walked down the tunnel ahead of him, punching blockages away.

Iota was concerned that the echidna might cause further cave-ins, but on the other hand it was the only way for Iota to continue through the tunnels. But back on the first hand, if a cave-in did happen, Knuckles would be far more suited to escaping…

“Er. Mister Knuckles, how do you presume the Master Emerald shards got this deep into the mountain?” he asked, because doubting Knuckles’ ability to sense the shards would undoubtedly cause friction.

“There are some things even I don’t understand about the Emeralds,” Knuckles said. “Master, Chaos, or whatever.” He paused to knock down a wall, and a rotted support beam fell over. Iota eyed it with concern. “I’ve tried to piece together the texts of my people, but even through the missing parts and ancient tongue, it’s clear that they were just as baffled by the Emeralds as anyone today.”

Iota sped up to speak with him face-to-face. “Confused: Were the Echidnas not able to use the Emerald to make an entire island fly?”

Knuckles smirked. “Did they? Or did the Master Emerald just do that on its own?”

“Astonished: Did it?”

“Who knows?”

Iota wished he was able to emote. He wanted to glare.

Knuckles seemed to sense what he felt, his shoulders shaking and he laughed silently. “I don’t have any idea why the Emerald shards ended up in here. Just that they did.”

Iota considered that. “...Miss Humi mentioned that after the Chaos Incident, she found the White Emerald in Mister Heyu’s kitchen cupboard.”

“Is that what that was?” Knuckles mused. “Some of the ancient Echidnas believed that the Emeralds had a mind of their own. They always seemed to end up where they could be the most useful, though it didn’t always seem like it until way later on.” He stopped walking for a second. “The Master Emerald speaks to me sometimes.”

Iota looked at him. “...What does it say?”

Knuckles looked embarrassed. “It usually. Um. Reminds me to eat, or to brush my teeth.”

Iota’s speaker hissed as he laughed. “You wot?”

“Zip it, tin can,” he grumbled, punching one more wall. The ground shook this time, and instead of more tunnel the passage led into a big important-looking room. Red and rusty iron floors lined a deep, square hole in the ground. Most of the room was flooded.

Iota walked to the edge of the pit and looked down. His optics zoomed in; the mine was very deep. “I say.”

“Say what?”

“That’s right.” Iota rotated his head to scan the entire room.

Knuckles joined him and folded his arms. “...The shards are close. They’re all somewhere nearby. Four--no, three of them.” He scowled. “Your battery is throwing me off.”

“Apologies, chap. I’ll be sure to ask for better shielding next time I meet my makers.”

Iota backed away from the pit and stepped up to a placard. A bright red CAUTION! headed the sign, but cobwebs and dust obscured the rest. Iota wiped it off.

A simplified image of a ghost looked back at him, frowning mournfully.

“Oh no.”

“What?” Knuckles asked, not looking.

Iota looked at him, then back at the sign. Now the ghosts were grinning sadistically at him. “Error!”

Knuckles’ eyes snapped open and he twisted his head to look at the robot. “What is it?!”

“This mine is haunted!”

Knuckles tensed. “...Then I better get searching so we can get out of here.” He stretched his legs. “Been a while since I swam… one downside of a flying island, the beaches stink. Are you going to help me or not?”

“Not. I cannot handle ghosts a second time,” Iota apologized. “It is just as well. I am not waterproof, and cannot swim.”

“Tch.”

“Never fear,” Iota declared. “I will secure our exit.” They hadn’t seen any cave-ins happen as they went, but Knuckles had been shaking the caverns about quite a lot. It would ease Iota’s battery to know that the way out was clear.

Knuckles shrugged carelessly, as unbothered by the idea as a burrowing animal underground could be. Without further conversation, he jumped and dove into the water.

Iota waited a moment, just in case. He chanced a look back at the caution sign; the ghosts were winking at him, and Iota hurried away back into the tunnels.

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

[Shadow]

Eggman had gone off somewhere to sleep through the night. He wanted to be rested for his ransom demands tomorrow. Not that that mattered to Shadow; holding the world hostage? It meant nothing to him. He didn’t intend to get anything out of this. The mission wasn’t about that.

…It meant nothing to him.

The plan was proceeding more or less as planned. It worked. Even if they never found the seventh Chaos Emerald, the Eclipse Cannon was still a weapon of mass destruction unmatched by any other. It would take more time, but six was more than enough to complete his mission.

The moon had a huge hole in it. The people of Earth were no doubt terrified and panicking, knowing they faced their doom.

So why didn’t he feel anything? This is what he wanted. This is what she wanted. Wasn’t it? He was fulfilling his promise. And… he didn’t…

“Well, well, well, look who’s still up and about.”

Shadow sighed. “What do you want, Rouge?”

“Nothing much,” she admitted, leaning back against the wall next to him. “I’m a bat, you know. Nocturnal. I usually take something to help me sleep at night, but with all the excitement I forgot my prescription.” She smiled in that ‘what can you do?’ kind of way. “What’s your excuse for being up?”

“I’m the Ultimate Lifeform,” he said tensely. “I don’t need to sleep.”

A slight lie. Shadow might not suffer any of the physical issues associated with lack of sleep, but he would eventually become mentally exhausted. If he remembered correctly, from when he was… younger, it took a week of no sleep before he started to act like… like Maria, when she stayed up too late. He was nowhere near that limit yet.

Besides, if he tried to sleep, then he might dream. And that didn’t sound wise right now.

“Mm, I’m sure.” Rouge didn’t sound convinced, but she didn’t press either. “So, Mr. Ultimate Lifeform. How does one get a title like that, anyway?”

Shadow didn’t answer.

“C’mon, there’s nothing else to do on this rock!” she whined. She held a hand behind her back. “I won’t tell anyone if it’s embarrassing.”

Shadow glared at her and walked off. “If you’re that desperate for something to do, there’s a racquetball court in the residential zones.”

Rouge blinked rapidly. “Racquetball?”

He was looking away from her, but he smirked anyway. “The room has adjustable gravity, so you might get some exercise for your wings.”

“...Dangit, that does sound fun--but no, I’d rather talk.”

Well, too bad for her. Shadow wanted to be alone. He activated his Air Shoes and ran off. Maybe a run would clear his head.

…Even if part of him wanted to stay and keep talking.

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

[Iota]

Iota became lost immediately. He did not remember passing this many side tunnels.

Iota could remember everything he focused on, but naturally if he wasn’t paying attention to something it wouldn’t get stored in Memory.

Even still, he was surprised at how much he missed. It was embarrassing for a robot to get lost. He should at the very least be able to remember the turns he took, but Memory threw out his servo command history as junk data. Of course it did, it would be ridiculous for every single twitch to be stored in long-term. It would have been helpful here though.

So, as he walked, Iota began constructing a program that would combine his visual input with his pre-deletion motion history to create a minimap. It wouldn’t help him until it was done, and it would take some debugging; trying to create a new section of your brain wasn’t exactly easy. But hopefully it would keep him from getting lost in the future.

Until then, Iota started recording everything. If all else failed, he would be able to go back in the recording and retrace his steps that way. It was a memory hog, but he had plenty to spare for now.

“Thinking: Now… where am I…?”

This coal mine was an interesting place. Iota saw evidence that not all of these tunnels were man made. In fact it seemed likely that the miners dug into natural caverns in their pursuit of coal. 

Encyclopedia: Natural caverns are home to some of the most uniquely adapted lifeforms on earth, including blind cave fish, glow worms, and a variety of amphibians.

“I hope I see an axolotl,” Iota said to himself. Yes, exploring a cave was much better than a haunted, drowned mine.

Iota emerged into a large cavern. As the electric lights were not working this far in, he activated his flashlight and looked around.

“Awed: Oh, my…”

It was beautiful, truly. Granite stalactites and stalagmites formed a jagged landscape, and a variety of lichens lined the walls in shades of green, yellow and blue. Iota walked around the edge of the cavern, sticking to the walls and the remains of abandoned mineshaft supports. The cave was even bigger than it at first seemed, because the mine’s path led to a small lake. A lake, underground!

Iota’s flashlight reflected off the surface, utterly smooth and untouched by wind as it was, and he lowered the brightness. As he did, he noticed something glowing near the distant shore, and turned off his light entirely.

The cave lit up.

The lake was not empty, far from it. It was full of fish, with glowing scales. Purple, glowing fish, feeding off of red, luminous moss. There were so many, and Iota wondered at how their ecosystem maintained itself, when suddenly a fish was pulled out of the water at speed by something he couldn’t see. Iota activated his night vision function, which he hadn’t before because it didn’t show him color, and quietly gasped as he zoomed in.

Bats! Big bats, with large scoop-shaped feet perfectly designed for snatching fish out of the water. He watched as it perched on a stalactite and passed the fish from a foot to the thumbs on its wings, and began eating.

A carnivorous bat. Unheard of. Unprecedented! A new species! The bats were unlike any species he had ever heard of. And come to think of it, the fish and the moss were probably undiscovered as well… but only probably, because the miners must have seen them, yes?

Or perhaps not. They were highly unlikely to have gone anywhere in these tunnels without a light. They wouldn’t have been able to see.

Iota opened a text file and began making notes, recording everything he saw. The average size of the fish, the variance in shade of their glow. The moss, the alkalinity of the water. The bats, their size--quite big, for a bat--their unique adaptations, wingspan… He needed to get closer.

Iota began walking around the shore of the lake, switching between night vision and flashlight to get as many details as possible. The bats were avoiding him; he and his humming machinery must have been so noisy to them. Wait, could they echolocate? The fish were luminous enough that they could likely hunt by sight. Ooh, he caught a glimpse of one in flight and--yes, they must be vision-based, the poor thing shrieked and dipped in the air when his light passed over it. Their fur was a very reflective white--

Iota ran into something and tripped, making a loud clang that caused an oppressive silence to fall over the cave. The fishes’ light dimmed as many of them swam as far from his shore as they could, the bats ceased flight, at a loss as to how to react to a noise they didn’t understand.

“Apologies,” Iota said at his lowest volume. He stood back up and inspected whatever it was he tripped over. It was an industrial machine left by the miners. It was bright yellow and mildly scuffed, and partially submerged. A pipe led out of the top of it and back down to the ground, where it snaked over to a… metal tank attached to a small motor vehicle. This was a pump.

The miners had been preparing to drain the lake before the mine was abandoned. Iota didn’t like that.

It made sense. The section of mine that Knuckles was exploring was flooded, it made sense that the miners would have needed pumping equipment about. But then this ecosystem would have been destroyed.

…

Iota opened the maintenance panel of the pump’s casing and tore a handful of machinery out, rending steel and severing wires. It would never fulfill its original purpose if he had anything to say about it.

…Hm. The innards of the pump were simple. It appeared to make use of a powerful vacuum device, which Encyclopedia hesitantly suggested was unusual. Iota removed the vacuum carefully. Perhaps Miss Humi would enjoy tinkering with it.

Iota looked at the vacuum more closely. On the other hand, it was powerful, and even had a reverse function. It both sucked and blew. And Iota remembered his poor showing against Knuckles when they fought. Iota was not inclined to fighting, but having an option for self-defense was likely a good idea. The trick he figured out with firing dirt and stones was fine, but perhaps this could make it better.

Maybe when he met back up with Knuckles he could--wait. Yes, he needed to meet back up with Knuckles, didn’t he?

Iota gave one last look over the lake, wishing he could stay longer. Then he stored the vacuum in his compartment and went back the way he’d come.

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

The recording did indeed make backtracking easier, and when he made it back to the central mineshaft, Knuckles was attempting to dry himself off by a fire he’d made with some broken crates. He was also wearing a rebreather around his neck that he hadn’t had before.

“Where’d you go?” he asked, looking up. He wrung one of his socks out and slipped it back on.

“Exploring. I found the most wonderful cavern deep inside the mine with glowing fish, and white bats--”

“Speaking of bats,” Knuckles interrupted. “I’ve found the shards in this mine, but I can’t sense any new ones. That bat girl must have found the others and found a way to hide them.” He sighed. “I don’t know where to go now. Let’s get out of here.”

Iota tapped his fingers together awkwardly. “Apologetic: …About that.”

Knuckles, as it turned out, had a terrible sense of direction. Iota presumed that navigating via mystical treasure-detecting powers might have left him out of practice simply finding his way around. That or his never leaving Angel Island… ending thought process--reason: pointless meandering. At any rate, they were lost in the mine.

“...Did you encounter… ghosts, down there?” Iota asked after a while.

“A few.” Knuckles paused, put a hand on a wall, then shook his head and kept going. “There was a chamber below the main shaft full of them. They mostly just wandered around.”

“...They did not chase you down or threaten you?”

“Some of them tried,” he said dismissively. “I punched them and they went away.”

“But--”

“Look here.” The echidna stopped and pointed out another wall as they passed it. “Bricks.”

Iota scanned the wall. He reached out and scraped some dirt away, and sure enough there was crumbling brickwork. He tapped the stone and listened. “Scanning. Analytics suggests that there is an open space beyond this wall.”

“Good enough for me.” Knuckles reared back and punched, and the wall exploded outward. They stepped through the hole and looked around.

Iota powered on his light. There was more brickwork here. Smooth walls, save for some weathering and cracks, tiled floors. Cobwebs everywhere, of course. There was a channel in the middle… “Those are tracks. This is a subway. Or perhaps a train tunnel.”

“Huh.” Knuckles made a face. “I wonder if that weird train in Pumpkin Hill is related to this?”

“Doubtful. Observe.” Iota turned his light to the right, where the tunnel ended in a rough rocky wall. There was a plethora of abandoned digging equipment and hazard tape. It was likely that the tunnel ran into trouble with the mining operation and had to stop for everyone’s safety.

Knuckles grunted. “Well, either way. The other end must let out somewhere. You take point.”

Iota pointed at himself. “Me? Are you sure about that, chap?”

“You’re the one with the flashlight.”

Well, he couldn’t argue with that. “A fair point. Allow me to…” Iota climbed down onto the track and settled his wheels onto the irons. He remained standing, not deploying his back wheel, and briefly checked that he would be able to maintain his balance. What was something Mister Heyu would say? Ah yes. “Announcement: All aboard for the Pumpkin Hill line, now departing. Stand clear.”

He pushed off, wheeling away.

The tunnel was in varying states of disrepair. There were entire patches where the tiled floors gave way to bare stone, where concrete walls were replaced with rough stone.

The tunnel rumbled. Iota looked behind himself. At the edge of his lamp’s range, he saw a cloud of dust. “Mister Knuckles?”

“Right behind you.” The echidna was running alongside the track, a short ways behind him.

“Do you suppose that all that wall-punching might have destabilized the tunnels?”

Knuckles slowed down, falling behind a little as he looked over his shoulder. Something crashed in the distance, the sound distorted by echoes. “...Maybe.”

“Well, then let’s move quick--LEE!”

Iota turned to face forward again, and had no time to react to the sudden end of the track. He went sailing out at two hundred miles per hour, over an abyss that his lamp couldn’t see the bottom of. He increased the brightness to its limit--and saw a smooth sloped floor approaching rapidly. He titled his feet and revved his wheels, and when he landed he leaned into the slope and got away without damage.

“Danger! Danger!”

What followed was a blur of speed and darkness and loops. At some point, the subway must have collapsed into another series of caverns; Iota had to dodge and weave between fallen subway cars and construction equipment. He had to jump over a massive drill in one straightaway. At one point he had to grab a damaged pipe to make a hairpin turn. And then the loop…

No one knew what caused the naturally-occuring loop-the-loops that could be found all over the world, but Iota found them… thrilling.

Tactical: To the left!

Analytics: A flat platform is ahead. Gain speed to and jump at the peak of the ramp to land on it and rest.

Encyclopedia: Was that a dog?

Iota leapt up to the flat ground, which turned out to be a piece of train track that hadn’t fallen all the way down, and looked at what Encyclopedia noticed. At full zoom, he was able to make out what appeared to be a dog Mobini… except it was completely skeletal. Barely any flesh at all.

Encyclopedia returned an empty report, an indicator of the surprise Iota felt. The dog was walking in an aimless circle by a train car.

“...” Iota decided he didn’t want to engage with any more haunting shenanigans, and continued on. Just enjoy the course. “This tunnel is incredible. But where does it lead?”

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

[Tails]

It was a long night. Tails worked through the night, alternating between the Cyclone and his Chaos Emerald tracker. He was so glad that he’d thought to stash it in the glovebox; it had been a last-second decision, but it really paid off… or, well, it should have.

He and Amy were hiding out in another alley near the Little Island district. 

“-krrk- Sheesh!” Sonic said, his voice coming from the tinny walkie-talkie in Tails’s hand. “There always seems to be a lot of police around when you don’t need them!”

Sonic was still running around distracting G.U.N., but it seemed like he didn’t even need to anymore. It was like someone had kicked an anthill. Still, there was 50/50 odds that the next patrol he ran into would shoot him or not, so they couldn’t afford to go back into the open.

Tails tapped his tracker’s screen, frowning. It was about the only thing left to do, nothing else was working.

“At least the infighting is keeping them off my back a little. I even managed to catch a nap while they were going at each other.”

Amy yawned. “Lucky. Me and Tails had to make do with coffee.”

Tails gave her a mild glare. “You slept five hours last night. I made do with coffee.”

“Yikes. -krrk- You guys gonna be okay? I need you on your A-game here!”

“I’ll be fine, Sonic,” Tails assured him. “I’ve done all-nighters before.”

“Well that’s reassuring,” Sonic snarked. “Any luck yet on your end?”

Tails grumbled. “For some reason, I’m not getting a signal from any of the other six Chaos Emeralds! This thing should have a near-global range for all the tinkering I’ve done on it…” A thought occurred. “...maybe Eggman took the Emeralds to outer space?”

Amy blinked, taken aback. “Outer space? Can he do that?”

“He’s had space stations before,” Tails pointed out. “And that big laser was at too weird an angle to have come from somewhere on Earth.”

-beep-

Tails gasped and held up the Emerald detector. “I’ve got something!” Then he frowned. “Wait, no I don’t. This isn’t an Emerald, it’s a--”

The ground shook, and Tails backed the Cyclone’s car mode up so it wasn’t over a manhole cover. The metal plate lifted up, and a familiar face emerged from beneath.

“Knuckles!” Amy said, surprised.

He blinked in the light before noticing them. “Hey, guys, long time no see!” He climbed out and dusted himself off. “Who’d’ve thought that tunnel would let out here? Man, finding the Master Emerald shards has been harder than I expected…”

Amu tilted her head. “But if that was you, what set off Tails’ gizmo?” 

Knuckles shrugged. Instead of answering he leaned over the hole and cupped his hands around his mouth. “The way’s clear! Come on up!”

“...Are you sure I will fit?”

Amy gasped. “Is that…?”

Tails smirked. “I thought so.” He sighed and set the detector aside and started on Plan B. Or was it C, by now?

Knuckles regarded the manhole critically. “...Hm, maybe not. Maybe I could widen this hole…”

“Knuckles! You can’t just go around causing property damage!” Amy said, aghast.

“He might as well, we’re already wanted,” Tails said, not paying attention.

Knuckles took that as permission and punched the ground. The sidewalk shattered and a car alarm went off somewhere nearby, and at the end of it the manhole was twice as wide as before. “Okay, come up now!”

With a faint whirring sound, two metal hands reached up out of the dark and Iota hoisted himself up. He took in the scene with one 360-degree spin of his head. “We are back in Central City. How fortuitous.” He stepped up onto the sidewalk, stepping well away from the hole, and waved happily. “Hello, friends! Forgive me, but did I hear you say you were wanted?”

Tails hummed, twisting a knob on his dashboard. “Yeah. For treason, I think.”

Iota made an alarm sound. “You wot?”

“Hi, Iota! I get it, it was your fake Emerald that set off the detector!” Amy said, distracting him. “Have you seen Heyu and Humi?”

“Not since yesterday morning… I think. My chronometer glitched at some point due to ghosts.” Iota paused. “Why? Has something happened?”

Amy just pointed into the sky, and both Knuckles and Iota looked up. It was still visible despite being daylight.

“Huh. That sure is something,” Knuckles said, perplexed.

Iota grabbed the sides of his head. “Horrified: What happened to the Moon?!”

“We’ve got a lot to catch you guys up on, looks like,” Amy said with a sheepish chuckle.

“We’ll have to do it on the go,” Tails suddenly declared. “I’ve got something! For real this time!”

“What is it?”

Tails pulled up the walkie-talkie again. “I hacked into a government computer and found the transmission logs of a conversation between the President and Eggman! If we can intercept his limo, we can trace the call to where Eggman is!” He revved up the Cyclone’s engine.

The long night of work had given him the chance to bring the Cyclone up to what he considered good enough. What Tails considered ‘good enough’ was most people’s ‘exceeds expectations.’

“I’ll follow the President’s limo! Sonic, I’ll meet you there!”

“-krrk- Right on, Tails! Right behind you!”

Without waiting another second, Tails took off, flying over the manhole and tearing off down the road.

Amy ran after him, but only for a few steps. “Hey! Wait for us!”

Iota tapped his fingers together nervously. “Query: We are, er, going after the President?”

“You don’t have to come, Iota,” Amy said. “Though… we really could use your help.”

Knuckles grunted. “My mission has stalled out for now, and I’m always for messing up Eggman’s plans.”

Iota fidgeted, then sighed. “Reluctant: Very well.”

The goodnik picked up both Amy and Knuckles, to mild protest, and shifted into his wheeled mode. He placed Knuckles on his back and held Amy in his arms, then sped off after Tails.

“You may explain on the way.”

Amy rubbed the back of her neck, awkward. “Okay… So it started with a robbery at the bank…”