Chapter 10: Hazard

"Let’s go!" Sotsu shouted as he charged at the two, conjuring several shadow blades and throwing them at the two. 

The tall figure jumped up almost twenty feet in the air. He arched his path as he came down, and landed right in front of Sotsu with a ground shaking thump. 

Sotsu now looked up at the ex-earthling. The two red eyes glared at the black echidna. Sotsu never showed an once of fear as a gray wolf now stood in front of him. A brown poncho was all he wore. 

"Are you ready to die?" the wolf said as he quickly pinned Sotsu to the ground with one hand around his neck.

Remoan popped a shot from his Scout at the wolf’s head. It slowed and stopped a few inches away from the ex-earthling. The wolf looked up at the bullet, the silver projectile slowly turned and speed of back toward Remoan.

It zipped across Remoan’s right shoulder, a little blood began to seep forward. Sotsu pressed his hands upward and let off a shadow blast. The wolf somersaulted backwards and avoided the attack. 

The rest of the Freedom Fighters charged forward, and began to attack. The wolf grinned again and jumped back next to Evi-Tanoted.

The two stood awaiting the Freedom Fighters. Several shots headed toward them, both from the Freedom Fighters and the ex-earthlings. All of them seemed to be easily dodged as the two enemies began to charge to meet the Freedom Fighters. 

Sonic was the first to reach Evi-Tanoted. He tried to spin dash through the lizard, only to find the lizard dodging him with reflexes faster then his.

Evi-Tanoted tossed up his guns and shot a blizzard of ice shards out of his extended hands. The ice shards quickly found home right around Sonic, pinning him to the wall. He caught a pistol in each hand when they were coming down.

The wolf quickly charged headfirst into the large group of Freedom Fighters. He conjured a red metal bo and began to pelt all of them with it. The bo sent the Freedom Fighters flying all around as he used it with a proficiency of a trained martial artist. 

Kevin meet up with the wolf. He began shooting ice arrows at the relentless gray monster. He snatched all of them and threw them back at one time. Kevin flipped to his side as they zipped by him. Then he rushed forward and opened his hand, readying a shock blast. When he got close to the wolf he forced his palm toward the wolf’s chest. The wolf got back a ways and the shock wave was dispersed, but instead of hitting the wolf, it formed into a yellow ball of lightning and it sped toward Kevin. 

Remoan got into a far corner of the room and began shooting shots at Evi-Tanoted. The lizard managed to dodge all of them thus far, each time he dodged one he got closer. Once about half way there, the lizard threw several throwing stars. Each one flew across Remoan’s arms and sides causing him to whence in pain, he closed his eyes for a second when he did that, when he opened them he saw the lizard right in front of him, with his claw bracers equipped. He slashed at Remoan’s side and hit, causing three small bleeding gashes. Remoan extended both of his hands and shot out a white blaze of lightning. Evi-Tanoted zipped to his side with blazing speed and began a flurry of swipes, all of them hitting home.

Evi-Tanoted noticed Sotsu charging from behind. He turned to meet the echidna, leaving Remoan sloping to the floor with his robes in tatters and half a dozen wounds. 

"Damn you!" Sotsu said as he dodged the lizard’s first two swipes.

Sotsu quickly pressed his CD on to Track 2: Nerve Rack. Then he conjured his escrima sticks and began a flurry of clashes with his assailant. Sotsu swings left to meet Evi-Tanoted’s swipe going right, and vice versa. Sotsu had been trained to do this with his escrima sticks, he was the fastest person at this back in his Taekwondo class. Yet Evi-Tanoted had a natural speed to his attacks.

Kevin dived to his side as the lightning ball went by him. Zhi Wei and Why Kit charged in with weapons in hand and began to batter the wolf with attacks. The wolf conjured the same bo from before and used both ends simultaneously to block the two’s attacks. Then he jumped up and shot down a large red fireball at the two. The inferno hit the floor and blazed the area as it exploded. The two were sent flying opposite directions. Kevin had managed to avoid the explosion, but was knocked back because of the blast. 

He was facing upwards on the ground, the wolf landed right over him. Kevin recoiled back and squirmed a little. The wolf bent down and smiled in Kevin’s face.

"Hello," the wolf said in a menacing tone. The wolf drew back his hands and conjured a form of metal claws on them. Then he began punching toward Kevin’s head. Kevin managed to slip underneath the wolf’s legs just as the wolf unleashed several quick blows unto the ground, the metal tiles were torn to pieces. Kevin grimaced at the thought of what would have happened if his head were still there. The wolf turned to meet a shock blast from Kevin, which sent the wolf back a few feet and grounded. Kevin began to hail down several ice shards at the wolf. But the ice shards fell short when they meet a flame barrier.

Evi-Tanoted still fought furiously with Sotsu. The lizard quickly sent out a bright flash, which temporarily stunned Sotsu, long enough though to get in a few attacks. His left slashed across Sotsu’s chest, the second was an uppercut to the chin and the third was a swift kick to the stomach that downed the echidna against the wall.

"Now it’s over Sotsu," Evi-Tanoted said as he placed one hand against the wall and drew the other hand back. Just as the lizard’s fist sent flying toward Sotsu’s face to finish him off, a similar sound of a gun shot went off. The claw stopped no more then an inch away, as Evi-Tanoted’s eyes grew big then he fall backwards unconscious. Behind him stood Sally with her pistols smoking. 

"You owe me," Sally said as she lowered her weapon.

"You shot his neck device, right?" Sotsu said as he stood up.

"Well of course. I wouldn’t have killed him," she replied.

"Let’s go help the others," Sotsu said as he ran toward were Kevin and the wolf were still fighting.

Knuckles got himself in a high location of the wall and planned to jump the wolf when he saw an opening. The rest of the Freedom Fighters were now beginning to recover from having been pelting hard by the wolf’s bo assault.

"So you all got it going against me?" the wolf said with a cold smile spreading across his face.

"Let’s even the odds," he added unleashing a loud howl. Two figures jump high in the air and landed at sides. Two large metal wolves, easily six feet in length, now were present.

"Robotnik gave me these. Attack!" he shouted as he charged toward Kevin and the other two began fending off the Freedom Fighters.

Antoine, Bunny. Boomer, Tails and Alex along with Zhi Wei faced against one while Why Kit, Nikki, Geoffrey, and a few others faced against the other.

Sotsu and Kevin faced off against the wolf. Remoan was out of the action, and Sally had just began to head toward Sonic to help him.

"Just you and me," Sotsu said to Kevin as they got ready to fight the wolf.

"This’ll be fun," the wolf said as he conjured his bo and tucked his fire wings behind his back.

Sotsu had his bo in hand, and began with swinging the bo about to strike the wolf’s right temple. Kevin began to shoot off ice arrows when he could get them in, he didn’t want to fight melee to much, seeing that there were two large bo’s being swung around. He helped more then he’d think because he kept diverting the wolf’s blows to block the arrows.

The wolf meet Sotsu’s swing and quickly brought his bo around and aimed for Sotsu’s right temple. Sotsu meet that and jabbed at the wolf’s stomach with the bo’s tip. The wolf spun his bo around knocking one of Kevin’s ice arrows away and at the same time hitting the jab away. Then he angled the spinning bo to try and strike Sotsu. Sotsu backed away and shoved his bo into the spinning attack and went with the direction of the spin, causing the wolf’s bo to fly out of his hands. 

Sotsu swung to the wolf’s ribs, only to be dodged as the wolf backed away. Then Sotsu jabbed at him again and another ice arrow came flying toward the same target. The wolf moved his head to the side just as the bo came by and caught the arrow as he simply brought his hand up. 

The wolf quickly brought the arrow’s tip toward Sotsu’s chest, forcing the echidna to back away. Something heavy fell on top of the wolf’s head with a loud thump. Knuckles had flew down and pelted the wolf in the back of the head. Now the wolf had an echidna on both sides of him.

Another arrow flew toward the wolf and the echidna’s charged at the same target. The wolf dodged the arrow and extended his arms to his sides, unleashing a red blaze from each open hand. Both echidna’s were sent flying backwards, smoking and burned.

The group fighting the first metal wolf really had their hands full. The wolf had two machine guns that had came from it’s sides and were firing them wildly. Aside from being a vicious ranged opponent, it was swift and strong when it came to close-ranged melee. It was also capable of withstanding most of Zhi Wei’s strongest attacks without even being phased. This was also the same with group two as two more of Geoffrey’s men had been killed from machine gun fire. 

Sotsu had now picked up the pace on his attacks. Kevin had joined the melee as seeing that his ice arrows were provided weapons for the wolf.

"Just give up before you get hurt," Sotsu said as he swung his bo about attacking the wolf’s left side.

"Go to hell," the wolf barked (not literally), as he brought down his bo to stop Sotsu’s and at the same time jutting Kevin in the jaw.

All they had to do was remove the device on the back of his neck, why was it so hard.

Sally began to tug at the pieces of ice that held Sonic against the wall. They hadn’t moved a bit, even though Evi-Tanoted was down and out, they hadn’t disappeared, nor did they show any sign of melting.

"Come on Sal. Try using your gun," Sonic said as he tried to pull himself out.

"Okay," she said as she began to shot at the ice pieces. With a few shots one finally came free.

"All right enough! Play time’s over!" the wolf shouted as he jumped back a good ten feet. He let his bo disappear, then he held out both hand in front of him and a large red fireball began to build in size.

Sotsu and Kevin began to charge their attacks. The three all used different elements. Kevin using ice, Sotsu using shadow and the wolf using fire. 

"This’ll be a nice light show," Sotsu said as he drew his hand to his side.

The three all unleashed their attack at the same time. The shadow material crackled with white lines of electricity, with the blue stream of ice both fighting against the blazing red inferno of fire. The three all held their attacks going. 

"Knuckles come on!" Sotsu shouted as the fire began to push forward a little. The red echidna ran and tackled the wolf, then he rolled out of the way as the shadow and ice beams enveloped the wolf. The wolf’s silhouette was seen for a brief second before he was completely absorbed by the two waves of elemental energy. 

As their beams depleted, Sotsu already began to charge a second one. 

"What if we already…" Kevin began but was cut off.

"He’s not, trust me," Sotsu said as he brought up his hand to brace his other one that was holding the attack.

As the smoke cleared the wolf stood their already ready to launch a large fire blast.

"Come on Kevin!" Sotsu shouted as he blasted the large shadow beam to meet the oncoming fire attack. 

Knuckles was about to take another run at the wolf but found himself flying toward a wall by means of a telekinetic attack. 

"Ow shit," he said as he ran headfirst into the metal wall.

"Don’t tell me that’s all you got," the wolf said as he boosted his attack a little more.

"I won’t give in to you," Sotsu said gritting his teeth. 

Kevin began to charge his ice beam again. But the wolf had already ditched the fireball and jumped into the air. Sotsu shot his hand upward and began to fire small shadow blasts, all of them missed the wolf. Kevin quickly brought his aim around as he prepared to fire at the wolf when he landed. When the wolf did land, he quickly kicked Kevin hard in the face, grounding the cooxen. Then not stopping for a second, he slammed his fist into Sotsu’s jaw, sending the echidna back a little.

The group with the first metal wolf finally managed to destroy it with a large beam from Zhi Wei, which pierced through the metal hide and disabled it. They decided to help the other group now.


Sally finally managed to get Sonic free, who quickly took off to help Kevin and Sotsu. 

The wolf turned to see the blue blur attempting to spin dash toward him. He wasn’t fast enough to completely avoid the attack, he dived to his side and his leg got a small cut on it.

The wolf quickly got up as Sonic turned. Kevin and Sotsu got up and prepared their weapons. 

"You still want some more?" the wolf said. He quickly popped off two fireballs. Sotsu and Kevin dodged them and brought about their weapons. Kevin’s ice sword came across to the wolf’s side and Sotsu’s bo came across to the wolf’s temple. Sonic running down a straight path to try and saw the wolf in half.

"Screw it all!" the wolf shouted unleashing a huge fireball right onto the ground he stood on. The huge flame engulfed all four in a bright red fiery flash. Metal Tiles flew about, most smoking and burnt.

The teamed groups finished the other robotic wolf. They now turned to see a huge smoke cloud. Three small figures emerged from it slowly. It was Sotsu, Sonic and Kevin. Sotsu had the wolf slung over his shoulder. 

"We’ve finally got him," Sonic said with a thumbs up.

"He got himself actually, in a last ditch effort he was trying to take us all out," Sotsu said glumly. 

His suit hung in a horrible fashion as it was mostly charred and slashed. His minor wounds had mostly healed, but most of the worse ones had only stopped bleeding. Sonic and Kevin had faired better. Kevin for the most part only had small burns here and there, Sonic hardly had much of a scratch on him, having been able to avoid most of the fight.


"I’m glad to see you guys made it out well. But we’ve gotta keep moving," Knuckles said.

"You guys stay here. I’m going this alone," Sotsu said as he placed the wolf next to Evi-Tanoted and Remoan.

"That’s suicidal!" Sally shouted as the black echidna opened the large blast doors to the barracks.

"So… I owe you guys a lot for what I’ve done. I’m not letting you down!" he shouted as he ran into the barracks.

He found himself running down a long line of inactivated SWATbots. Soon the room opened up into a large factory. Hundreds of DE-55’s line the upper walls, all of them began a hail of gattling fire on the black echidna.

Sotsu dashed forward with all his strength. The bullets erupted around him leaving small craters all around the floor. Heavy smoked puffed out from the holes, but Sotsu paid no attention to any of it. The only thing on his mind was to shut down the main power of the factory, the small console residing in the middle, which he was heading toward.

"Stop him! Stop the echidna!" Robotnik boomed over the speaker. 

A round found it’s way in the ground in front of him, the floor erupted underneath his feet. Sotsu pushed off and the explosion sent him sailing forward. He quickly hit the floor running, and jutted to the side before a shell landed on him. Shrapnel was sent flying and cut a small line across the side of his face, blood ran down, but he still didn’t stop.

"Almost there!" Sotsu shouted as he neared a line of SWATbots guarding the console, which now resided no more then fifty feet away or so.

"Kill him!" the lead SWATbot yelled as they all opened fire.

Sotsu back up a little then unleashed a relentless salvo of shadow blasts at the group. A bullet cut across his left shoulder as he continued firing. 

Finally he dashed off once the numbers thinned. He jumped on the chest of a SWATbot and blasted it, pushing off a it exploded and gaining some more ground heading for the console. There was a big red lever that sat at the top. Another bullet found home, it was into his leg, the painful sensation took up though his thighs. Then he pulled the lever, all of the DE-55’s began to shutdown. The lever was for permanent shutdown, it was normally to be used if the robots began to malfunction and began to destroy whatever was near them, stuff like that. Sotsu turned and fired wildly into the rest of the SWATbots. As he neared the last one a bullet found home into his chest. He felt the warm sensation spread. He then wobbled and collapsed falling unconscious, a pool of blood began to spread around him.

The Freedom Fighters reached the SWATbots in time to take them out before they could finish off Sotsu. Zhi Wei lifted Sotsu up and they quickly headed out, they’d have to patch up the echidna as they made their escape. They’d now have to make it out of here alive. Remoan and Sotsu were out of it for now, and the two ex-earthlings were still blacked-out.

They headed for the Chemical Plant. They entered and found a good amount of SWATbots. They disposed of them and headed for the storage area, trying to backtrack their way out. With difficulty they made it up the two access panels and out of the Chemical Plant. 

"Don’t let them out of here alive!" Robotnik shouted over the loudspeakers.

"If we can make it to the lobby, we can get out of the window there," Sally said as she popped off a few shots at the oncoming squad of SWATbots.

"How are we going to get down at this height?" Tails asked.

"Well we’d better find a way, or we’re all gonna die," Sally said. 

The group made it down a few hallways and into the corridor leading to the lobby. They made it inside to find no one there.

"Good now let’s see what we’ve got," Sally said reaching for a bag of equipment.

"We’ve got a few grappling hooks," Rita said producing one, as each of the ROATA team did as well.

"Okay then, we’ve got a few ropes and hooks so let’s get to work," Sally said beginning to hand the supplies to the group.

Within a few minutes they were almost set, the blastdoors around the lobby were being kicked at from the other side. No doubt the guards were trying to get in. 

"No you idiots just type in the access codes," one the SWATbots yelled. 

"We don’t have them sir," the SWATbots replied.

"Then rewire the keypad!"

"We don’t have much time!" Knuckles shouted as he headed out the window.

The group secured the ropes and jumped out the window. Sonic was the last to go, as he did the SWATbots made it into the room and began to fire.


"Sorry but I gotta juice!" Sonic said as he headed down.

"Get him!" the lead SWATbot yelled as he dashed toward the window and began to fire wildly at the various people sliding down the rope. 

"Oh shoot!" he yelled as he lost his footing and fell out of the window.

The group all stood below as Sonic reached the bottom. 

"Yes we made it!" Tails shouted.

"Hey what’s that?" he added as he pointed at a growing figure from above. The SWATbot flopped down on the ground and broke into pieces in a comical fashion.

"I guess that was one of the SWATbots," Lara said as she kicked at the head a little.

"Well we’ve better get going I think we’ve worn our welcome," Sonic said indicating the door entrance opening and a group of SWATbots running out. 

The group made off into the city, heading back to the safety of Knothole. They had succeeded in their mission and could now rest for the time being. They had also recessed the two other ex-earthlings. This may very well led to the overall downfall of the whole Robotnik Empire. Perhaps… with time, they may rid Mobius of Robotnik forever. But until that day comes… they must keep fighting and struggling. But now with the help of two more powerful ex-earthlings, that say is closer then they may think. 

 

-Nicholas D. Wolfwood-