Spirit of the Phantom Ruby

Part 21 - Where's the Jackal?

"We're almost there!" The yellow fox belted out, looking down at his GPS coordinates.

Mathilda's scowl deepened. "By the time we get there, it'll be too late!"

The jackal with the green headband shoved past her. "No! Shut up! We're going to succeed!"

She smiled as their eyes locked, his determined stare overcoming her sense of doubt. "Always the optimist, eh Jay?"

Silver was flying overhead, watching their short-breathed conversation. He blinked in surprise. "Hey, what are your names? We've never actually met you guys."

"He's Jay," Mathilda nodded at him, "Derek," she gestured towards the daggered jackal, "and Aaron," the jackal tipped his red beret.

"And you are?" Silver asked her, tilting his head.

Gadget suddenly joined their group. "Mathilda! We have a plan for infiltrating the base, you guys need to listen!"

As he gave them the most concise, quickest explanation he could, as Tails frowned down at his scanning device. He had managed to hack into Dr. Eggman's observatory program viewing the Phantom Ruby. For the first ten minutes of their run, the gem's energy levels had been fairly low, but then, out of the blue, they had suddenly spiked.

"Guys," His voice slowly rose in volume, "We need to pick up the pace!"

The group pushed on harder, everyone panting or gasping as they sprinted out of the forest and into a clearing.

"Why? What's-?" Knuckles took a quick breath, "What's happened?"

Tails glowered. "Eggman's fused Infinite into the ruby."

"What?" Jay squinted up at him. "But he's already fused with-!"

"It's a really long story. Because Infinite's already fused with the ruby-!" Gadget gulped for air, "-getting fused again makes him turn into the ruby-!"

"-And the ruby has more power with him inside it, so Eggman's using it to power his doomsday device!" Tails finished for the wolf, earning a relieved smile from his friend.

"Didn't you hear Infinite when he told us that?" Derek asked, raising a brow at his younger comrade.

Jay grinned sheepishly as he leapt over a fallen tree. A couple of the Resistance didn't see it and tripped, nearly falling flat on their faces had not the other members caught them. "I guess I wasn't really paying attention... It just sounded more like a rant than an explanation."

"I know I'd be exasperated if I were in his place!" Tails exclaimed sympathetically. "It's been nothing but a game of tug-of-war between us and Eggman when it comes to the Phantom Ruby!"

Mathilda eyed him out of the corner of her eye, intrigued by the way his tails pushed him through the air like a set of helicopter propellers. Her look of fascination quickly turned sour when she realized they were upon the doctor's base already.

"Already, team. Stick to the plan!" Sonic called out, and the mass of Mobians split into several groups, each group splitting off to go a different direction.

"Jackal Squad, move in!" Mathilda barked, and the antecedent breathless, excited atmosphere of her group abruptly vanished, everyone maintaining a look of grim focus on the task at hand.

On the exterior wall facing them, there was a silver ventilation pipe jutting out and connecting down into a nonfunctioning, massive air conditioning unit. They slid down the steep dirt hill up to the side of the base, sending dust flying, and then bolted up to the wall, Jay soundlessly cutting one of the outside ventilation tubes in half with his wicked-looking green knife, and each member helped one another jump up onto the AC unit and into the new opening. Shadow watched them go, frowning before following after Rouge. His job was far more important that retrieving the ruby. His was to destroy the doomsday device, but not without the help of Rouge and Omega. In the distance, Team Dark could make out a small hovercraft shooting across the sky, coming closer. Eggman was making an appearance for the show, after all.