Categories > Games > Sonic the Hedgehog > Ultimate Life Forms
Chapter 4 Lies within
Sonic struggled against the restraints pinning him to the table. He struggled with all his might. His eyes were closed, as he jerked left, then right, then left again. He didn't seem to realize that he was making no progress. He pulled, and he tugged, and he tugged, and he pulled, and he yanked, but the restraints around his arms, legs, and chest, and the helmet, that had been strapped to his head, held.
He wasn't one to give up. He never looked at what he wasn't accomplishing. His strategy had always been to pick a goal, and go for it, nonstop. So now he didn't stop, he kept going, one way, and then the other, left with all of his might, and then right with all of his might. It seemed like he had been struggling for hours, even though only a few minutes had passed.
Major Schmit, who had just finished gloating asked, "Any last words?"
Sonic opened his eyes, and glared at Schmit; ready to say something that he hoped would unsettle the major. However someone else beat him to it.
"Yeah, chaos control!"
Sonic turned to see who had spoken, but all he saw was a table similar to the one that he was on, only it was empty.
Out of the corner of his eye Sonic saw one of the scientists in the room point behind Major Schmit, and shout, "Watch out! He's loose!"
Sonic turned to see who the scientist was pointing at, but pain like a bomb exploded in his head, and then... he woke up.
He was lying on his back, breathing hard. He checked his arms, and legs to see if they were strapped down. They weren't. He looked around his cell, without getting up, trying to figure out what had just happened.
"I must have had a nightmare." /He thought. "Yeah that's it a nightmare; brought on by the extremely uncool situation I'm in." He shook his head, in an attempt to cast such thoughts out of his head. They would only bring him more nightmares. "/I need to stop thinking negatively. These G.U.N. people, they're the good guys. They made a mistake, that's all. As soon as they figure that out, that major, no colonel, whatever he is, will let me out, and then I'll be able to go look for Eggman, and that Shadow guy." /He thought. /
Yawning he closed his eyes, and slowly went back to sleep.
............................................................................................................
Tails set the dark blue Chaos Emerald down, and yawned. He had been up late last night, and gotten up early this morning, studying the dark blue stone, that he had accidentally found the other day, while looking for Sonic.
He had an idea that could help them the next time he and Sonic met Shadow. And it looked like his idea had an 83 percent chance of working, which was pretty high compared to most of the projects that Tails worked on.
He looked around his garage\workshop, it was piled with scrap, the projects that he had never finished, or just didn't work. His failures outnumbered his successes by a large number. That used to bother the young fox, but it didn't anymore.
Sonic never let his failures bother him. So Tails had copied his friend, and thought about what he did accomplish rather than what he didn't accomplish.
His eyes drifted to his biggest undertaking yet. Yesterday he had thought that he would be done in a week or so, but now... now he had no idea when he was going to be able to start working on it again.
His thoughts were interrupted when his stomach made a gurgling noise. He realized that he hadn't eaten since the day before yesterday, and immediately put his work down to go make his breakfast.
He made his breakfast quickly, and dug in like a starved fox, but he didn't notice the taste of the food. Sonic had been missing for about 24 hours now, and Tails was worried. What had happened to him? Was he okay? Why wasn't he back yet? His mind spun in circles with no apparent answer. There was one memory however that kept coming back like a ghost unwilling to leave its victim alone, the memory of Shadow knocking Sonic off the edge of the cliff.
Once again his thoughts were interrupted, but this time it was by a knock at the door. He stood up to answer it, but stopped when he remembered what had happened the last time someone had knocked on that door.
Thinking fast, He ran into the garage, ignoring the fact that the knocking was getting louder, put the Chaos Emerald in a box, that would hide its energy signature, hid the box, ran to the door, stopped to take a breath, and opened it.
He was surprised to see that his visitor was Amy. He was about to ask what she was doing here, but she started speaking before he could.
"Tails! It's awful! Just awful!" she moaned.
"What is?" he asked, as he looked her over, and realized that she had been crying a long time.
/"What could have gotten her so worked up?" /he wondered.
"They've arrested Sonic!" she said, as more tears streamed down her face.
.............................................................................................................
Shadow awoke with a start, immediately forgetting whatever he had been dreaming, and tried to figure out where he was, and what had awaken him.
A quick look around revealed where he was. Inside a G.U.N. crate, that was onboard a helicopter, headed for Prison Island.
Shadow went completely still, listening for the sound that had awakened him. He heard the sound of a bunch of men laughing.
"Yeah, but that's not as weird as what they say about Colonel Schmit." one of the men said.
"No duh," another one put in. "Personally I think it's a publicity stunt. Stuff like that just doesn't happen in the real world."
"Yeah," the first one who had spoken put in, "and a two tailed fox can't fly like a helicopter either."
The last statement was followed by more laughing.
"Ignorant fools," /Shadow thought to himself. "They don't realize that the Ultimate Life Form is mere feet away from them. They are lucky that I need to remain hidden, for if I didn't I would kill them now, for disturbing me." /
Shadow was surprised when his stomach turned in response to his thoughts. Why did the thought of killing a few pitiful lives make him sick? After all, when his plan worked he would kill far more than a few guards. He decided to ignore the feeling, and go back to sleep.
He didn't know when he would arrive, but when he did, he was going to need to be well rested. Besides he still had the nagging feeling that Colonel Schmit was a lot smarter than he was letting on, and the Ultimate Life Form wasn't going to be caught flat footed.
.............................................................................................................
Colonel Schmit surveyed the scene before him. G.U.N. officers were hunched over computer monitors, some watching the cameras, others getting, and relaying information, still others sitting at back up computers, ready to start them up at a moments notice should something happen to the originals.
By all appearances Prison Island was about as safe as it could be, but a good officer never trusted appearances.
Colonel Schmit knew that Shadow, and Tails would probably attempt to break in sometime today. And he had no idea how either of them planned to get in. But he did know what they planned to do once they got in, and that gave him an edge.
Shadow was going to go for the Chaos Emerald, that G.U.N. held in one of its armories, and Tails was going to try to break Sonic out of his cell. Colonel Schmit had tangled with Shadow enough times in the past to be able to predict what the dark Hedgehog was probably going to do, and set a trap, but he had never met Tails. In fact all the information that he had on Tails was third or fourth hand, and he didn't know how much of the information he could trust. So he hadn't been able to set up anything for the young Fox, except a tight security system.
However Shadow and Tails weren't the only enemies that G.U.N. had. In fact G.U.N. had quite a few more, but the most dangerous was Dr. Eggman. More than once he had been tempted to put more security around Sonic, but he resisted the temptation each time. If Eggman attacked Schmit had no idea if he could repel him, as things were. If Eggman attacked while Tails, and Shadow were inside it could spell disaster.
Boom! The sound of a muffled explosion came threw the walls, followed by another and another.
"What happened?" Schmit barked.
For a second there was no answer, and the only sound that could be heard were rapid clicks of fingers on a keyboard. Finally after what seemed like forever, but was only a few seconds, one of the officers looked up, and said, "Sir, there appears to be something wrong with the mainframe."
............................................................................................................
Tails pulled out his high-tech binoculars, and surveyed Prison Island. He had landed his plane far enough out on the water that the men at Gun's radar station wouldn't think that their presence was suspicious. The fortress on Prison Island was pretty impressive, and the Aircraft Carrier docked at the island was almost just as impressive.
"Why are we just sitting here?" Amy asked earnestly.
He sighed, and put down the binoculars. He hadn't wanted to bring her, but she had insisted on coming, and he hadn't had the time to argue. So here she was, questioning every move he made, making the whole thing take more time.
"I already told you," he said, with a hint of annoyance in his voice. "I need to get a look at the island before we go there so that I can come up with a plan."
"We don't have time for a plan!" she practically yelled. "We have to help Sonic now!"
"We won't be any help to him if we get captured ourselves," he said, as he put the binoculars back to his face. If he was going to argue with her, he might as well survey the island while he did it.
"Tails we need to."
"Hold on," he interjected, leaning forward in his seat.
Something on the island had caught on fire, or exploded, and he wanted to find out what it was.
"What is it?" she asked.
"I'm not sure," he said, as another explosion went off, followed by several more. "It looks like someone is blowing up all of the radar dishes."
Another explosion caught his attention, this one on the Aircraft Carrier. He checked the location, and sure enough it was where the ship's radar was supposed to be.
/"If someone has blown up all of the radars then we can just fly in." /he thought, as a smile spread across his face.
"Okay we're going in." he said as he restrapped himself to the Tornado.
"It's about time." she said.
............................................................................................................
This time it was an explosion that awoke Shadow. He resisted the urge to break out of the crate to seen what was going on, and listened. He could here men running, and shouting, which was to be expected.
He waited and listened a full two minutes before he finally decided to get out, and see what had happened for himself.
He opened the crate slowly and carefully, watchful for anyone that might notice him. However he found that his caution was uncalled for, since the helicopter was empty.
He looked out the helicopter window, and saw G.U.N. officers running around like they weren't sure what they were supposed to be doing.
/"So much for Gun's tight security." /he thought.
He lost interest in the guards, and turned to look out the window on the other side of the chopper. When he looked out the second window he saw that he wasn't on Prison Island, as he had thought, but on an Aircraft Carrier that had docked at the island. But it didn't matter he could get off this floating tub easy enough. And if he was careful he just might be able to get the Chaos Emerald, and get off of this stinking island before Colonel Schmit even knew that he was here.
............................................................................................................
"Sir, we still don't know anything for sure, but Sergeant Rillmer has taken a look at the explosions, and he strongly thinks that it is the Equality Force." said the Private, who had just come from the Sergeant, since he hadn't been able to contact the Colonel.
Colonel Schmit scowled. The Equality Force, of all the times that they could have shown up, they had chosen today. He knew that he shouldn't be surprised. Today was the perfect day to try to break out their member that he had captured a week ago. If Tails came to break out Sonic today, and Schmit had no doubt that he would, the Equality Force would not only get the bonus of having G.U.N. distracted by Tails, but they would also distract him from Tails, giving the two tailed fox all the more chance of breaking Sonic out. A win, win situation as far as the Equality Force was concerned.
In hindsight he supposed that trying to take them out first, had been a bad idea. But he couldn't have just waited for them to come after him. And he knew that they would have sooner or later. After all, he was against everything that they stood for.
"Have you figured out what's wrong with the mainframe yet?" he called to officers who were at the computers typing, and clicking away.
"It appears to be some sort of virus." one of the officers said, not even looking up from his computer.
"What does it do?" Schmit asked. He needed all the information he could get, so that he could so that he could figure out a way to counter this attack.
"Well, I'm not sure, but it appears to be scrambling the computers, so the digital information from the cameras, and things of that sort are getting mixed up, it also appears to be using the computers uplink to the radios to send fake orders." the same officer told him.
Colonel Schmit turned back to the Private, and said, "Private I want you to pass along the word. Everyone is to return to their posts, and stay there until; an actual person relays an order to the contrary."
"Yes sir." The Private said, then turned, and marched out of the room.
Colonel Schmit scowled again. If he wasn't very careful he very well may loose everything that he had worked so hard for.
............................................................................................................
To be continued...
Sonic struggled against the restraints pinning him to the table. He struggled with all his might. His eyes were closed, as he jerked left, then right, then left again. He didn't seem to realize that he was making no progress. He pulled, and he tugged, and he tugged, and he pulled, and he yanked, but the restraints around his arms, legs, and chest, and the helmet, that had been strapped to his head, held.
He wasn't one to give up. He never looked at what he wasn't accomplishing. His strategy had always been to pick a goal, and go for it, nonstop. So now he didn't stop, he kept going, one way, and then the other, left with all of his might, and then right with all of his might. It seemed like he had been struggling for hours, even though only a few minutes had passed.
Major Schmit, who had just finished gloating asked, "Any last words?"
Sonic opened his eyes, and glared at Schmit; ready to say something that he hoped would unsettle the major. However someone else beat him to it.
"Yeah, chaos control!"
Sonic turned to see who had spoken, but all he saw was a table similar to the one that he was on, only it was empty.
Out of the corner of his eye Sonic saw one of the scientists in the room point behind Major Schmit, and shout, "Watch out! He's loose!"
Sonic turned to see who the scientist was pointing at, but pain like a bomb exploded in his head, and then... he woke up.
He was lying on his back, breathing hard. He checked his arms, and legs to see if they were strapped down. They weren't. He looked around his cell, without getting up, trying to figure out what had just happened.
"I must have had a nightmare." /He thought. "Yeah that's it a nightmare; brought on by the extremely uncool situation I'm in." He shook his head, in an attempt to cast such thoughts out of his head. They would only bring him more nightmares. "/I need to stop thinking negatively. These G.U.N. people, they're the good guys. They made a mistake, that's all. As soon as they figure that out, that major, no colonel, whatever he is, will let me out, and then I'll be able to go look for Eggman, and that Shadow guy." /He thought. /
Yawning he closed his eyes, and slowly went back to sleep.
............................................................................................................
Tails set the dark blue Chaos Emerald down, and yawned. He had been up late last night, and gotten up early this morning, studying the dark blue stone, that he had accidentally found the other day, while looking for Sonic.
He had an idea that could help them the next time he and Sonic met Shadow. And it looked like his idea had an 83 percent chance of working, which was pretty high compared to most of the projects that Tails worked on.
He looked around his garage\workshop, it was piled with scrap, the projects that he had never finished, or just didn't work. His failures outnumbered his successes by a large number. That used to bother the young fox, but it didn't anymore.
Sonic never let his failures bother him. So Tails had copied his friend, and thought about what he did accomplish rather than what he didn't accomplish.
His eyes drifted to his biggest undertaking yet. Yesterday he had thought that he would be done in a week or so, but now... now he had no idea when he was going to be able to start working on it again.
His thoughts were interrupted when his stomach made a gurgling noise. He realized that he hadn't eaten since the day before yesterday, and immediately put his work down to go make his breakfast.
He made his breakfast quickly, and dug in like a starved fox, but he didn't notice the taste of the food. Sonic had been missing for about 24 hours now, and Tails was worried. What had happened to him? Was he okay? Why wasn't he back yet? His mind spun in circles with no apparent answer. There was one memory however that kept coming back like a ghost unwilling to leave its victim alone, the memory of Shadow knocking Sonic off the edge of the cliff.
Once again his thoughts were interrupted, but this time it was by a knock at the door. He stood up to answer it, but stopped when he remembered what had happened the last time someone had knocked on that door.
Thinking fast, He ran into the garage, ignoring the fact that the knocking was getting louder, put the Chaos Emerald in a box, that would hide its energy signature, hid the box, ran to the door, stopped to take a breath, and opened it.
He was surprised to see that his visitor was Amy. He was about to ask what she was doing here, but she started speaking before he could.
"Tails! It's awful! Just awful!" she moaned.
"What is?" he asked, as he looked her over, and realized that she had been crying a long time.
/"What could have gotten her so worked up?" /he wondered.
"They've arrested Sonic!" she said, as more tears streamed down her face.
.............................................................................................................
Shadow awoke with a start, immediately forgetting whatever he had been dreaming, and tried to figure out where he was, and what had awaken him.
A quick look around revealed where he was. Inside a G.U.N. crate, that was onboard a helicopter, headed for Prison Island.
Shadow went completely still, listening for the sound that had awakened him. He heard the sound of a bunch of men laughing.
"Yeah, but that's not as weird as what they say about Colonel Schmit." one of the men said.
"No duh," another one put in. "Personally I think it's a publicity stunt. Stuff like that just doesn't happen in the real world."
"Yeah," the first one who had spoken put in, "and a two tailed fox can't fly like a helicopter either."
The last statement was followed by more laughing.
"Ignorant fools," /Shadow thought to himself. "They don't realize that the Ultimate Life Form is mere feet away from them. They are lucky that I need to remain hidden, for if I didn't I would kill them now, for disturbing me." /
Shadow was surprised when his stomach turned in response to his thoughts. Why did the thought of killing a few pitiful lives make him sick? After all, when his plan worked he would kill far more than a few guards. He decided to ignore the feeling, and go back to sleep.
He didn't know when he would arrive, but when he did, he was going to need to be well rested. Besides he still had the nagging feeling that Colonel Schmit was a lot smarter than he was letting on, and the Ultimate Life Form wasn't going to be caught flat footed.
.............................................................................................................
Colonel Schmit surveyed the scene before him. G.U.N. officers were hunched over computer monitors, some watching the cameras, others getting, and relaying information, still others sitting at back up computers, ready to start them up at a moments notice should something happen to the originals.
By all appearances Prison Island was about as safe as it could be, but a good officer never trusted appearances.
Colonel Schmit knew that Shadow, and Tails would probably attempt to break in sometime today. And he had no idea how either of them planned to get in. But he did know what they planned to do once they got in, and that gave him an edge.
Shadow was going to go for the Chaos Emerald, that G.U.N. held in one of its armories, and Tails was going to try to break Sonic out of his cell. Colonel Schmit had tangled with Shadow enough times in the past to be able to predict what the dark Hedgehog was probably going to do, and set a trap, but he had never met Tails. In fact all the information that he had on Tails was third or fourth hand, and he didn't know how much of the information he could trust. So he hadn't been able to set up anything for the young Fox, except a tight security system.
However Shadow and Tails weren't the only enemies that G.U.N. had. In fact G.U.N. had quite a few more, but the most dangerous was Dr. Eggman. More than once he had been tempted to put more security around Sonic, but he resisted the temptation each time. If Eggman attacked Schmit had no idea if he could repel him, as things were. If Eggman attacked while Tails, and Shadow were inside it could spell disaster.
Boom! The sound of a muffled explosion came threw the walls, followed by another and another.
"What happened?" Schmit barked.
For a second there was no answer, and the only sound that could be heard were rapid clicks of fingers on a keyboard. Finally after what seemed like forever, but was only a few seconds, one of the officers looked up, and said, "Sir, there appears to be something wrong with the mainframe."
............................................................................................................
Tails pulled out his high-tech binoculars, and surveyed Prison Island. He had landed his plane far enough out on the water that the men at Gun's radar station wouldn't think that their presence was suspicious. The fortress on Prison Island was pretty impressive, and the Aircraft Carrier docked at the island was almost just as impressive.
"Why are we just sitting here?" Amy asked earnestly.
He sighed, and put down the binoculars. He hadn't wanted to bring her, but she had insisted on coming, and he hadn't had the time to argue. So here she was, questioning every move he made, making the whole thing take more time.
"I already told you," he said, with a hint of annoyance in his voice. "I need to get a look at the island before we go there so that I can come up with a plan."
"We don't have time for a plan!" she practically yelled. "We have to help Sonic now!"
"We won't be any help to him if we get captured ourselves," he said, as he put the binoculars back to his face. If he was going to argue with her, he might as well survey the island while he did it.
"Tails we need to."
"Hold on," he interjected, leaning forward in his seat.
Something on the island had caught on fire, or exploded, and he wanted to find out what it was.
"What is it?" she asked.
"I'm not sure," he said, as another explosion went off, followed by several more. "It looks like someone is blowing up all of the radar dishes."
Another explosion caught his attention, this one on the Aircraft Carrier. He checked the location, and sure enough it was where the ship's radar was supposed to be.
/"If someone has blown up all of the radars then we can just fly in." /he thought, as a smile spread across his face.
"Okay we're going in." he said as he restrapped himself to the Tornado.
"It's about time." she said.
............................................................................................................
This time it was an explosion that awoke Shadow. He resisted the urge to break out of the crate to seen what was going on, and listened. He could here men running, and shouting, which was to be expected.
He waited and listened a full two minutes before he finally decided to get out, and see what had happened for himself.
He opened the crate slowly and carefully, watchful for anyone that might notice him. However he found that his caution was uncalled for, since the helicopter was empty.
He looked out the helicopter window, and saw G.U.N. officers running around like they weren't sure what they were supposed to be doing.
/"So much for Gun's tight security." /he thought.
He lost interest in the guards, and turned to look out the window on the other side of the chopper. When he looked out the second window he saw that he wasn't on Prison Island, as he had thought, but on an Aircraft Carrier that had docked at the island. But it didn't matter he could get off this floating tub easy enough. And if he was careful he just might be able to get the Chaos Emerald, and get off of this stinking island before Colonel Schmit even knew that he was here.
............................................................................................................
"Sir, we still don't know anything for sure, but Sergeant Rillmer has taken a look at the explosions, and he strongly thinks that it is the Equality Force." said the Private, who had just come from the Sergeant, since he hadn't been able to contact the Colonel.
Colonel Schmit scowled. The Equality Force, of all the times that they could have shown up, they had chosen today. He knew that he shouldn't be surprised. Today was the perfect day to try to break out their member that he had captured a week ago. If Tails came to break out Sonic today, and Schmit had no doubt that he would, the Equality Force would not only get the bonus of having G.U.N. distracted by Tails, but they would also distract him from Tails, giving the two tailed fox all the more chance of breaking Sonic out. A win, win situation as far as the Equality Force was concerned.
In hindsight he supposed that trying to take them out first, had been a bad idea. But he couldn't have just waited for them to come after him. And he knew that they would have sooner or later. After all, he was against everything that they stood for.
"Have you figured out what's wrong with the mainframe yet?" he called to officers who were at the computers typing, and clicking away.
"It appears to be some sort of virus." one of the officers said, not even looking up from his computer.
"What does it do?" Schmit asked. He needed all the information he could get, so that he could so that he could figure out a way to counter this attack.
"Well, I'm not sure, but it appears to be scrambling the computers, so the digital information from the cameras, and things of that sort are getting mixed up, it also appears to be using the computers uplink to the radios to send fake orders." the same officer told him.
Colonel Schmit turned back to the Private, and said, "Private I want you to pass along the word. Everyone is to return to their posts, and stay there until; an actual person relays an order to the contrary."
"Yes sir." The Private said, then turned, and marched out of the room.
Colonel Schmit scowled again. If he wasn't very careful he very well may loose everything that he had worked so hard for.
............................................................................................................
To be continued...
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