Return to the Underground

Freedom Fight

The dirt road in front of them seemed endless, with grass fields lining the sides. They had been driving down this road for a while now and no signs for even landmarks had appeared. Shadow was skating a bit ahead of the van. Manic checked the coordinates again, making sure they were on the right track. Sure enough, the spot was right ahead of them.

Manic turned back in his seat to look at Tails. Halfway through the drive, he had started tapping at the Miles Electric and hadn't stopped since. "Hey, Tails. What'cha doin' over there?"

The fox looked up at him. "I'm just making sure everything is ready to go for the mission. It's not like I have much to do right now anyway."

He went back to his work and Manic turned back to the front. "You think he's okay?"

"I sure hope so," his sister said next to him. "I still feel bad about what happened at Sanctuary."

"Don't worry about that," Tails called from the back. "He was saying the same thing."

Sonia smiled. He had forgiven them. "Thanks a lot, Tails."

"No prob."

Manic looked forward at the ebony hedgehog ahead of them. "Is he gonna be okay?"

Tails spoke up. "He will be when we get Sonic back, safe and sound. He feels like it's his fault Sonic was taken."

Sonia was surprised. "Why's that?"

"Well, the poor guy's been through a lot of hardships. He doesn't like talking about it, but he lost his best friend 53 years ago."

Sonia and Manic exchanged sad looks. Manic took out his drumsticks and beat them against the dash. "So what do you think it'll be like when we get to the base?"

"I don't know." She took her eyes off the road to look at her brother. "But we need to get Sonic back, and his medallion too."

"And we need to make sure he doesn't get ours too," Manic added, tapping his own.

"Right. And there's the fact of his defenseeeee- Woah!" She was interrupted by a laser shot at the van, causing her to swerve. "What was that?!"

Right then, ten robots showed up out of nowhere. At least, they looked like robots. They had large bodies and their arms had different weapons of them. They had wheels and jets so that they could keep up with the van. But what really stood out was the strange purple aura they seemed to be made of.

"What type of robot is that?" Tails had come up to the front now and was gawking out the window with the others.

"I don't now but they're toast! Someone take the wheel." Without waiting for an answer, Sonia jumped out of her seat and raced over to the sunroof of the van.

"Be careful." Manic, who had dived for the wheel when Sonia had left, yelled.

"Of course." The hedgehog reached up to her medallion, revealing her gun and popped out of the top of the van only to have to duck down again as one of the robots fired at her. She was about to shoot when Shadow suddenly started throwing Chaos Spears at them. When all the robots were taken care of, Sonia bounced into the seat next to Manic, who was now driving. "Wow."

"You said it, sis."

"Kinda reminds me of those Dark Gaia monsters."

"Huh?"

Tails snapped his head back up to the two hedgehogs. Had he said that out loud? "Uh, nothing. It's nothing."

Before they could reply a large building appeared out of nowhere, forcing Shadow to stop and Manic to slam on the brakes. "Whoa."