[sonictk]

This is an old idea from my portfolio. A lot of concept went into this, I was originally planning it for a game, but in the end, it didn't materialize. So now, I'm making it into a story with Sonic and Co. as the main characters.

This is my first and probably my last fanfic that i will ever write, because I don't really have a lot of great ideas.

The fanfic is Faaaar from over, this is only just the beginning, but I thought that I'd upload it and see what people think.

Reviews, please? (Chapter 4 will explain some parts of the story, but it's 1.30 am where I am now, and I have school tomorrow, so it's byebye for now.)

Anyway, here it is. Please note the format is not finalized yet.

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


RED DAWN - THE CONSPIRACY


----------------------------------
(Starring Sonic & Co.) Rated Mature for violence.

Written by Sonictk

Disclaimer: Sonic and all official characters are property of SEGA Co., JP. All other characters and events are by me.

Note: The events and characters in this fanfiction are just that: fiction. Any resemblence to real-life events or characters
is completely coincidental.

Now, with that over, it's time for the Author's Note.

[AUTHOR'S NOTE]
This will probably be the first and last fanfic I ever write. This was a story based around a real-life event, which I wanted
to make into a game, but in the end, I chose not to and instead paralled Sonic and Co. into this story.

I hope you enjoy it as much as I did writing it. (Well, not much, really, I had schoolwork and project work to deal with...
ugh)

For the Sonic fans out there, this story takes place around 4 months after the events of Sonic Adventure 2. The events of
Sonic Heroes are disregarded in this particular Sonic Universe.

And so it begins.

============================================================================

DRAMATIS PERSONNAE
-----------------------------
[SONIC TEAM]
Sonic 'Maurice' The Hedgehog
Tails 'Miles' Prower
Knuckles the Echidna
Amy Rose

[The Eagles]
Micheal Allen
David Benton
Dr. Paul Jenson
Carrie Daniels

[The President]
John Daniels

[The Pheonix]
Daniel Eisler
Shadow(?)




CHAPTER 1: Dawn
------------------------------

HE woke up with a start.

Pain, he felt pain all over his body. He lay back down onto something soft and warm, and regretted it instantly, because the
moment he did so, more pain shot through his spine and threatened to render him immobile. Silently cursing to himself, he
made another tremendous effort to sit up. This time he succeeded, and finally, he managed to prop himself up using a pillow,
and rested his aching body on the bed.

Bed?

The figure shot back up and winced as another wave of pain shot through him, but he could hardly care less. Where was he?
What was he doing on a bed?

He somehow managed to sit up straight without the help of the pillow, and looked around. Four stone walls greeted him, though
one had a window in it. It was dark outside, but the first rays of daylight were begining to seep through. Dawn was fast
approaching. The figure in the bed frowned as he tried to recall how he had ended up there, but his fog-clouded brain was
slow to respond, which was unusual, because he was the fastest thing on the planet. Slowly, as more sunlight began to pour in
through the window, so did the memories of how he had been ambushed, captured, had been brought here...by whom? He wondered.
He was almost fully awake now, save for the pain still present in his body.

He finally stood up, and noticed...his sneakers. The red-and white sneakers were right on the floor beside his bed, as if he
was in his home sleeping and had put them there. Frowning, the hedgehog, pulled the sneakers on and shivered. Cold. The
sneakers were icy, and it filled his mind with feelings of dread.

As he stood up, the light from his window fell on him, illuminating him, showing his blue form as it played over his body.
He took no notice of that, though. He was far too busy trying to clear his mind, trying to remember what had happened to him
within the past few hours.

A loud knock interrupted his thoughts. He swung his blue head around and saw a door in one of the walls. It had seemed to
materialize out of nowhere. He was just wondering about this when the knock came again, this time with more force. It seemed
to clear the fog in the blue hedgehog's thoughts, and he went over to the door and opened it, half-expecting some new evil to
befall him, or some new danger to confront him. He was not totally disappointed.

In his doorway was a man dressed in a black suit, nothing too expensive, but nothing too shabby, either. He was carrying a
black briefcase, and, of course, wore a tie to go with the appearance. 'Man In Black' was the first thing to come to the
blue hedgehog's mind.

The man smiled, revealing white teeth, save for one which was golden in colour. 'Mr. Maurice.' It was a statement, not a
question.

And in that instant, Sonic the hedgehog, fastest thing alive on both Mobius and Earth, remembered everything that happened to
him.

CHAPTER 2: Flashback
----------------------------------

THE screams and cries of his friends were familiar. He had heard it so many times before, when he was fighting Doctor
Robotnik, when he was dealing with one of the mad scientist's creations, when he had fought Chaos so many months before.
Only this time, something was different.

He was as afraid of the new threat as his friends were.

Doctor Robotnik had vanished a long time ago, after the ARk incident. He had simply just gone. His base in Robotropolis was
abandoned, his badniks had simply vanished, and all the mecha-bots had just...disappeared. No one seemed to know where he
had gone, but everyone took it as a blessing and a change for the better.

But now, something new, something dangerous, had surfaced. A new kind of organization had surfaced, targeting anyone and
everyone on Earth, killing and maiming innocent citizens for no reason whatsoever.

Calling themelselves 'Pheonix', the new group had terrorized the population of Station Square like only
a terrorist organization could. Suicide bombings, hostage-taking and assaults on government property became commonplace.
Sonic and his team tried to stop the chaos, but there were just too many incidents for even heroes to respond to. Eventually,
however, Sonic team managed to control the situation somewhat, but the effort to do so was taking a heavy toll on them.
Finally, their luck ran out. One day, after stopping a bomb at the town square from going off, Sonic and his team were
ambushed on their way back home by a group of unknown individuals, whose sole purpose seemed to be to capture Sonic. While
the team fought bravely, their lack of energy and the enemy's superior strength ended up with Tails and Knuckles unconcious,
and with Amy running away as fast as she could. Sonic, ever the fighter to the end, was still spindashing inside the
compartment they had thrown him into, silently praying that his team would make it to safety, and that he would be able to
get out of here, before a sudden stun shock sent him into blackness.

He would remain that way until the next morning.

CHAPTER 3: Reality Check
---------------------------------

'MR. Maurice.' The statement broke through Sonic's vision and brought him back to reality.

Sonic the hedgehog broke out of his flashback and narrowed his eyes at the intruder. 'And who are you supposed to be?'

The man smiled and extended his hand. 'My name is Mr. Allen. Micheal Allen.'

Sonic spat at his extended hand. The phelghm stuck to it like a gooey mass, until the man took out a handkerchief and wiped
away the spit. Oddly enough, he did not seem agitated or angered in the least, but Sonic was too full of hatred for this man
and worry for his friends that he chose not to take notice of this. He raised an accusing finger at the man. 'Mind telling me
what this is all about?'

The man raised a hand, as if to apologize. 'Please. Allow me to explain what has happened. We sent some of our operatives to
retrieve you, but it appears they...well...chose to do so aggresively. I apologize for that. But I would like to assure you
that your friends are safe and in good condition. No lasting damage has been done.'

Sonic felt slightly relieved, but was, naturally, still cautious about this man. He was about to ask where his friends were
when the man answered, 'We have already transferred them back to their homes. I trust this is acceptable to you?'

Sonic was stil slightly groggy from his pain, but managed to ask, 'And can you prove it?'

The man smiled again. 'Better, I can let them talk to you. But only for a while.' He reached into his breast pocket and
retrieved a small PDA. Tapping the screen once, he held out the device to Sonic. Sonic almost dropped it in his haste to take
it, and looked at the small screen.

The screen had been split up into three different windows, and in each window, one of his friends were in it. 'Sonic!' a
voice came over the PDA's speaker. The faces all turned to look at him, and Sonic realized instantly that he was
communicating with his friends via a video link. Sonic looked back at the man called Allen, but he merely smiled and gave
Sonic no other cue. Sonic turned back to the PDA. 'Yeah, I'm here.'

'Sonic, what happened to you? Are you OK?'

'Where are you?'

'What's going on? All I remember is that I woke up back home, and then this dude in a suit called and told me to stand by my
computer and turn on the video conference program to standby for a call - '

Sonic managed to get one word through the barrage of questions: 'Wait.' He then proceeded to explain what had happened, but
before he could inform them of who was with him right now, the video link suddenly cut.

'Hey!' Sonic immediately brought his head back up to face Allen, whose face remained impassive.

Allen merely stared at him and said, 'I think it would be better for all concerned if you do not mention your situation now
to anyone.'

Sonic felt anger building up inside of him and said, 'My friends have a right to know what's happening to me.'

Allen lost his smile and said, "I'll be frank with you, Mr. Maurice. We don't have a lot of time for niceties, and we're
wasting time right now. You can contact your friends to inform them of your status later.'

Sonic started walking towards the man, not aware that his free hand was balling into a fist. 'My friends should know whether
I'm safe or not.' He said through clenched teeth.

Incredibly, the man called Allen was as cool as a cucumber as Sonic continued to close the distance between them. 'You don't
know what's going on. Letting your friends know where you are right now could put them in danger too.'

'How so?'

'Why do you think we saved you and your friends?" Allen asked simply.

'Saved me?!' Sonic yelled. 'Almost killed me and my pals is more like it!'

'That's what you think.' Allen replied.

'Maybe, but your life depends on what I think.' Sonic swung a punch, incredibly fast, at Allen. Surprisingly, Allen dodged
the blow easily and launched an elbow at Sonic, whacking him right in the chest.

For Sonic, his already aching chest felt like it had been whacked with a hammer. Rage built up within him. He dropped the PDA
on the floor and almost launched into a spindash at Allen, when suddenly, the video link came online again. 'Sonic? What's
going on?'

The sound of his friends' voices stopped Sonic. He had to tell them what was going on. He dived for the PDA and grabbed at
it, all the while expecting Allen to pull out a gun or some other contraption and shoot him with it. He hadn't expected Allen
to be able to avoid his punch, and if the guy was as good in marksmanship as he was in close-range combat, Sonic, by all
means, was dead. 'Shooting me in this room would be easier than shooting fish in a barrel,' Sonic thought, as he braced
himself for the pain he was sure would come. It did not matter, though, if only he could get a message off to his friends,
get them to come, to help him -

A hand extended in front of his face. He looked up. Allen was standing above him, with an expression of sympathy, holding
out his hand to Sonic. 'Get up.'

Sonic took his hand and Allen pulled him back upright. Sonic backed away a few steps, before the crackling of the PDA caught
his attention again. Allen raised his other hand, the one that had not been involved in the slight scuffle, and Sonic saw a
small contraption in his palm. Doubtless it was some device that controlled the video link. Sonic couldn't care less, though.
This man was interesting. 'He didn't want to kill me,' Sonic thought, as he raised the PDA to his face again. 'Hello?'

'Sonic? What happened?' That was Tails. Ever the caring one, Tails was almost like a son to Sonic. (Though of course Sonic
would never admit it.)

'I'm basically somewhere, erm...' after receiving a warning look from Allen, Sonic spoke, 'Secret. I can't tell you guys
anything, just don't worry about me, I'm fine. How are you guys?'

'Well, I think we're fine mostly, just a few bruises here and there. Sonic, what the heck happened? How did we end up back
home? I woke up and I was somehow back on the Floating Island!' That was Knuckles.

'Yeah, and when I woke up back in my apartment, my back was aching all over...' Tails complained.

'I don't really know myself, Ok? I just know that you guys were actually returned back home by the guys who attacked us.'
Allen shot a look at Sonic when he heard that, but Sonic didn't care. The link didn't cut, and Sonic assumed that whatever
information he had leaked wasn't Too sensitive.

'What? Who were they? Why did they attack us? And why did they return us back home?' That was Amy, the recent addition to the
team. A big mistake, Sonic had thought at first, but eventually she had proved herself, and in fact, both she and Sonic had
started to develop feelings for each other, though neither would publicly admit it. Sonic silently thanked the Lord that Amy
had the luck to escape the ambush.

'Guys, I can't say much more, just that I'm safe and I'll probably be back soon. Don't worry.' Sonic cast a look at Allen. He
was pointing to his watch, indicating that Sonic's time was almost up.

'How soon is soon?'

'Soon,' was the last word Sonic managed to utter to a visibly distressed Amy before the link was cut. Sonic handed the PDA
back to Allen and narrowed his green eyes again. 'Now,' he said, 'Tell me what the heck is going on.'

[sonictk]

CHAPTER 4: The Eagles
--------------------------------

MICHEAL Allen smiled at the impatient blue hedgehog before him and gestured to the door. 'I believe we should talk somewhere
else more...comfortable.' He stood there, unmoving, obviously waiting for Sonic to go first. Sonic warily stepped through the
doorway, expecting to find himself in a dungeon or some other horrific place, just like so many times before when he had been
captured by Robotnik. 'I escaped every one of those prisons then,' he thought, 'And I'll do the same with this one too. Just
a matter of time...' His thinking was interrupted when he noticed what he had stepped into.

The hallway was filled with people, improtant-looking people, all dressed in suits and ties, almost all of them carrying a
briefcase of some sort. The hallway looked like it was something right out of the FBI complex, with smooth concrete walls
surrounding the area, complete with doors at regular intervals.

'Mr. Maurice, we don't have a lot of time.' That was Allen. He was headed in the other direction, motioning for Sonic to
follow him. Out of curiosity, the hedgehog looked at the label on the door he had just come out from. The sign read, "Visitor
Holding Area.'

'Visitor?' the hedgehog thought to himself as he followed Allen down the hallway, took a left turn, then continued down the
passageway, then took a right...Sonic noticed that the further they went, the less people seemed to be around. He suddenly
had a vision of a torture chamber, with him strapped down on a seat, with Allen laughing sadistically just like the mad
doctor before pulling a switch to -

'We're here.' Allen's voice broke Sonic out of his vision again. In front of them were two guards stationed in front of a
heavily-reinforced door. The label on the door read:

INTERROGATION ROOM 1.
WARNING: ALL UNAUTHORIZED PERSONNEL MUST BE ESCORTED BY A SUITABLE AGENT BEFORE ENTERING THIS ROOM.

Sonic's heart suddenly dropped into his stomach. Interrogation? He had learned over the years that an 'interrogation' session
basically meant a torture session. I have to get out of here! His mind screamed.

Allen nodded to the two guards, then turned to Sonic again. 'Mr. Maurice, please, after you.'

Sonic, whether he was still dumbstruck from the morning's events or whether he just could not seem to summon the strength to
fight, nodded to Allen and walked inside the room. It was not what he expected.

A table and two chairs sat in the middle of the room, with a table lamp casting a dim glow over the area. A lone guard stood
in the shadows, as if ready to pounce on any unsuspecting visitors. Sonic was half-expecting a torture device of some kind to
spring out from nowhere when Allen's voice, once again, interrupted his train of thought.

'Have a seat, please, and we can begin this discussion.'

Dicussion? Sonic wondered. He took a seat and sat down. Allen sat on the other side of the table. Both were silent for a
while, each unsure of who should go first. It was Sonic who broke the awkward silence. 'What's going on here?'

Allen leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes, as if he had so much information to tell the hedgehog, but was trying to
organize it in an understandable manner. Sonic, for the first time, took a good look at Micheal Allen.

His hair was cut in a way that reminded Sonic of the Station Square Army: Long enough to look like a normal citizen, but
short enough to fall within military guidelines. His fringe fell over the front of his face that appeared as if he wanted to
look like a punk, but kept it within range of the eyebrows. His body was muscular, almost as if he was a bodybuilder or a
wrestler. Either way, Sonic knew that the guy was not just strong, but agile; the incident back in the visitor Holding Area
had not slipped out of his mind. He knew at that point that whoever this man was, he was not someone to be underestimated.

At that point, Allen brought his hands down on the table and sighed. 'Where do I begin?'

Sonic felt surprised that Allen would display this kind of...weakness? But he kept his surprise safely hidden behind the mask
of impassiveness. Instead, he narrowed his eyes again and growled, 'How about you start with telling me why you kidnapped me
and assaulted my friends.'

Allen leaned back again in his chair and said, 'I apologize for that. As I said before, our operatives were told just to
retreive you, not the others. We had hoped to do so in a peaceful manner. Unfortunately, I think you and your friends were
already high-strung from your...earlier heroics.' He paused, then continued, "When our operatives arrived, you appeared to
assume that we were hostile, and our men had no choice but to take aggressive action. We could not allow you to escape. We
stunned your friends with our weapons.'

Sonic tried to remember what exactly had happened before the ambush. Yes, it was all coming back to him now. Tails had heard
something moving in the bushes ahead, Sonic had immediately asked everyone to take cover, then the men came from everywhere,
pouring out of the bushes like ants from an anthill...Sonic broke out of his trance to listen to what Allen had to say next.

'After capturing you and stunning your friends..well..with the exception of the pink hedgehog who managed to escape..we
returned them back to their respective homes safely. Shortly after they recovered from the stunning effects of our weapons,
we contacted all of them and told them to standby their computers to receive an important transmission, which was, of course,
the video conference you had with your friends just now.' Allen said simply.

Sonic didn't trust Allen any more than before after he had heard this explanation, though. He asked, 'And why did you want to
capture me?'

Allen looked at the lone guard in the corner and nodded to him. The guard nodded back and left the room, leaving only Allen
and Sonic in it. For some reason, the room suddenly had a more sinister feel to it, as if something was about to happen that
would change their lives forever. Sonic felt a drop of sweat flow down his neck. The room was hot as there was no
air-conditioning. He wiped it away and waited for Allen's answer.

Allen took a few seconds to give a reply. 'Mr. Maurice, do you know what is the SSIA?'

Sonic took a moment to compose himself. He thought only he and a handful of people knew the name. But he decided to play
along. 'No, what?'

'It stands for the Station Square Intelligence Agency. It is an elite group of individuals who conduct operations to gather
intelligence from various sources. You could say that we are the equivalent of the CIA, in the United States.' Allen frowned.
'But surely you knew this already.'

'Why don't you tell me what you think I don't know, then? Like, for example, what this has got to do with me?' Sonic replied.

Allen lowered his head, sighed and said, "Mr. Maurice, this would be much more pleasant for the both of us if you would be
more cooperative.'

Sonic laughed. 'You kidnapped me and stunned my friends, you expect me to be cooperative?' His ever-present temper was
rising again.

Allen sighed again and said, "Do you want me to get right to the point?'

Sonic replied, 'I thought you'd never ask.'

'Fine.' Allen snapped his head upwards and looked directly into Sonic's eyes. 'The reason we have brought you here is because
we require your...assistance in a particular operation.'

Sonic just stared back at him.

Allen continued, 'Keep in mind, however, that we are not operating under the guise of the SSIA.' His eyes seemed even more
piercing to Sonic when he was talking, and Sonic resisted the urge to look away.

'Mr. Maurice, I believe you have not heard of the Eagles.'

Sonic had indeed never heard of it, but he didn't care. 'No, I have not. And?'

Allen seemed to ignore the sarcastic tone in Sonic's reply, but Sonic had no doubt that he'd catalogued it.

'The Eagles is a sub-agency of the SSIA, also known as EG-2. Our mission is to collect information and conduct operations
pertaining to intelligence-gathering.' Allen paused, then continued, "I'm sure that you'd heard of the Pheonix by now.'

'Who hasn't?' Sonic replied.

Allen sighed and continued, 'The Pheonix, has, of course, become a major concern for the SSIA, what with their increasing
number of attacks. The Eagles have also been watching the Pheonix for some time now. Unfortunately, our agents have never
managed to gather much information about this organization.'

Sonic decided to pull the man's chain a bit more. 'And this concerns me how?'

For a moment Allen just looked at him, not sure whether to intepret that as humor or not. 'We have had one very interesting
report, though. An intelligence officer managed to retrive for us an official document. It was dated 4 weeks after the ARK
incident.' Allen opened his briefcase and pulled out a sheet of paper. 'This was probably one of the early heirarchy lists
for the Pheonix organization.' He slid it across the table to Sonic so he could read it. 'I hope you see why we've brought
you into this whole mess now.'

Sonic was suddenly gripped by an old fear. No, it couldn't be, it couldn't be him, he had burned up falling through the
Earth's atmosphere, he was dead, it wasn't possible...

The hierarchy list was composed of a list of names, with the less important people at the bottom, and the leaders of the
group at the top.

The name at the top read, 'Shadow'.

[sonictk]

BTW, all these chapters are WIPs, so you can expect a few changes in the finalized version.

[sonictk]

CHAPTER 5: Recruitment
------------------------------------

IT wasn't possible. He must have seen it wrongly. Sonic looked at the paper again and again, willing the name to change.

But the name stayed there, as if etched in stone. Shadow. Sonic remembered the black hedgehog with red stripes across his
spines, how he had lost his life during the ARK incident, how he had died with that look of peace on his face...

Before burning up...

'No.'

'Excuse me?' Allen asked.

'It's...not Shadow. It's not.' Sonic was on the verge of an emotional breakdown again, just like before. He couldn't believe
that the hedgehog who had threatened to kill the whole world, the hedgehog he had eventually grown to respect, was the
leader of the Pheonix organization. He was dead, wasn't he? He can't be alive. He can't. I saw him die. I saw him burn up.

'I saw him die.' Sonic managed to utter.

Micheal Allen had interviewed enough subjects to realize when someone was on the edge. Changing his tone to a simpler,
more sympathatic tone, he said, 'Look at me, Sonic.' It was the first time he used Sonic's name.

Sonic continued looking at the paper and muttering to himself.

'Look at me.' Allen repeated.

'It's not him...it's not him...'

'Look at me, Sonic.'

'IT'S NOT HIM!' Sonic exploded. He finally snapped his head up and looked right at Allen. A raging fire, one that had been
lit since the Ultimate Lifeform died, was burning in his green eyes. Sonic wanted to punch something, to hit something. It
couldn't be Shadow, he liked Shadow, how could Shadow have gone back to the dark side! Sonic began to stand -

'What's going on in there?'

The door opened and the two guards outside charged in, rifles directly aimed at Sonic. Allen stood up and said, 'It's fine.
Return to your post. Everything is under control in here.'

One of the guards nodded, and tapped his partner on the shoulder. The two exited the room and closed the door. Allen looked
at Sonic, who had a venomous look on his face. 'Sonic, sit down.'

'It can't be Shadow, I saw him die! He wouldn't do this!'

'Sit!' Allen made a bellow of the word, and Sonic, weary and tired, finally sat back down, his posture slumped, one of
defeat. Allen felt sorry for the hedgehog, but he couldn't let him know at this time. he had to maintain his professionalism.

'Sonic.' Allen said. The blue hedgehog ignored him.

'Sonic.'

'What?' The irritation and agony in Sonic's voice was obvious.

'We are not sure this document is valid.' Sonic looked up at that.

'But..you said it was official!'

'I did, but we are not sure that this document is valid. There is a difference, you know. All we know is that our agent
managed to retrieve this document during an operation. It could even be false information planted by the Pheonix, for all we
know.' Allen replied.

Sonic felt a glimmer of hope enter his chest. It died quickly as he realized that if it were true, then he would never see
Shadow again. He didn't understand why he felt so strongly about Shadow. It wasn't like his love for Amy, neither was it like
his brotherhood relationship with Tails, nor his mutual respect with Knuckles. It was...just a sense that Shadow was his
rival, and for some reason, Sonic wanted to see him again. He shook off these thoughts as he asked Allen another question.
'Who is the officer who retrieved this document?'

Allen looked pained. 'He was killed during the operation. He transferred the file to us using his datapad. He was caught
doing so and was immediately shot by the Pheonix members.'

Sonic scratched his head. 'So there is no way to confirm the authencity of this document?'

Allen shook his head. 'No.'

Sonic thought about that. If what Allen said was true, why would they even want him to help them?

Allen read his mind. 'The reason we've brought you here, Sonic, is because you...well...knew the suspected leader of the
Pheonix better than anyone else did. We've brought you here to ask you to help us on this operation.'

'What kind of operation?' Sonic asked cautiously.

Allen smiled. 'One that only you can handle.'

Sonic leaned back in his chair and asked, 'What if I refuse?'

'Then we let you go back, on the condition that you cannot mention this meeting to anyone.' Allen said.

Sonic was surprised. He had half-expected Allen to say, 'Then we'll kill you' or 'We'll take your friends hostage'. This was
getting more and more interesting by the minute. He stood up and said, 'Well, I guess that's it.'

'So you'll accept?'

'No.'

Allen looked surprised, but quickly smoothed it over. 'Very well. You may leave. Two guards will escort you out of the
building.'

Sonic could hardly believe it, he just had to ask, 'That's it?'

'That's it.' Allen replied.

'I get to go?'

'You get to go.'

'So why did you waste so much effort trying to capture me in the first place?'

Allen looked at Sonic and said, 'Frankly, I didn't expect you to say no.'

'Why? It's the obvious answer.' Sonic was curious.

'I would have expected you to pounce on any opportunity to find your friend.' Allen replied.

Sonic realized that Allen had been counting on his desire to find Shadow all along. 'He's not alive. I saw him die. End of
story.'

'That's what you think.' It was the second time Allen had said that.

'It's what I think that matters.' Sonic replied.

Allen sighed. 'You can contact me at any time if you change your mind.' He passed Sonic a name card. 'You can call this
number at any time. I'll arrange a briefing for you the moment you call.'

'I'm sure I will.' Sonic replied, not bothering to censor the sarcasm in his tone.

With that, the interrogation was over.

***********************************************

'So why did you refuse?'

'Are you crazy? I don't even know whether this new lunatic is really Shadow! Hell, for all I know, it might be just one of
their mind tricks to get me to do something they want!'

'But you want to find Shadow, don't you?'

'I do...but...I..Ok, let me put it this way. I don't want to risk everything...on something that may not be real. And even if
I did get it in the end, is it worth it?'

'So you're just going to turn your back on him like that?'

'I'm not turning my back on him! He's dead! There's no changing that.'

'There is a slight chance he could be the leader of the Pheonix. You have to admit that. Would you want your friend to stay
that way, as a member of a terrorist organisation?'

'Even if it was true, as I said, I don't want to risk everything on it.' Sonic replied.

Sonic and Amy were having a heated discussion about Sonic's earlier interrogation. Contary to Allen's instructions, Sonic had
informed the whole team about what had happened to him earlier in the day. He thoroughly regretted it now.

Amy crossed her arms and said, 'Are you afraid of risking your life?'

Sonic didn't answer. He couldn't bear to tell her the truth. He looked down at the floor and endured the barrage that he was
sure would follow.

'So this is what it's all about? You're scared of losing your life to save your friend?'

Sonic remained quiet.

'Friendship doesn't mean anything to you anymore, does it? So now you're more concerned about saving your own skin rather
than saving others'.'

Sonic looked back up at Amy. He couldn't take it anymore. He didn't want Amy to know the truth, but he didn't want her to
think of him as an uncaring person either. His voice almost gave out as he said, 'I'm afraid of losing you, Amy.'

Amy's expression changed from one of anger and disgust to one of sympathy almost immediately. Her childhood love and idol,
Sonic the hedgehog, was afraid of losing her! This was the first time he had ever verbally given any indication that he loved
her. Sure, he had held her hand during dates, he sometimes had that look in his eyes that seemed as if he wanted to kiss her
but was afraid to, but he had always kept it quiet, as if he was shy about it. Now he had finally admitted that he liked her,
even if only somewhat.

Half of Amy wanted to jump up and down, but when he looked at how downcast her hero was, she couldn't help but feel his
pain. He was torn between finding out the truth about his friend, and losing his only love...he looked so lost. She just
couldn't let him be.

She reached out and hugged him.

Sonic was startled by Amy's sudden movement, but when her arms snaked around his neck, he had the presence of mind to wrap
his own arms around her, tears silently flowing down his cheeks as he held tightly onto her. She felt so good...as if all his
worries and sorrows had found another channel to flow to, as if the toxins in his body were slowly being depleted and sent
away...

They stayed like that for a long time, until finally, Amy broke the hug but kept her arms locked around Sonic's neck. She
looked straight into Sonic's eyes.'Sonic,' she whispered.

Sonic sniffed once and drew in a deep breath, inhaling Amy's scent. He had almost forgotten the natural smell of it. 'Yeah?'
He managed to croak out.

'I want you to accept their mission.' Amy said.

Sonic widened his eyes. 'Why?'

'Because Shadow and you are friends.' Amy paused. 'I think that it's only right that you try to find your friends if they are
lost, no matter what the personal cost to you. Friendship is one of the most important things in our life. Wouldn't you do
the same thing for me?' she asked him.

Sonic managed a weak smile. 'You and I are friends.'

'I thought we were already past that stage.' Amy smiled.

'Well...' Sonic started, but decided to change the subject. 'So you really think I should accept this operation, even though
it'll potentially put...the whole team in danger?' He couldn't bear to say 'you' again. Admitting his love for Amy to hear
once, was, as far as he was concerned, enough.

'Yes,' Amy said.

'You know that this may turn out to be just a false lead, that this Shadow may not even be the real Shadow.'

'I know.'

Sonic swallowed and smiled. 'Well, I guess I don't have a choice, do I?'

'You never did,' Amy whispered, as she pulled him back to her for another hug.

*****************************************

The insistent ringing of the phone was what finally woke Micheal Allen up from his sleep. He shivered as he reached for the
phone. He had had a dream, and it wasn't a pleasant one. He picked up the receiver. 'Hello?'

'Hi, it's Sonic.'

Allen smiled. 'Mr. Maurice? You've decided to accept the operation?'

The voice on the other end sounded nervous. 'Erm...just call me Sonic. And yeah, I've decided that I'll accept your...
operation. Where do I meet you?'

Allen looked at his watch. It was currently 9.56 a.m.. 'Meet me outside the Station Square train station at exactly 11 a.m..
I will be standing next to the leftmost pillar facing the hotel. Can you be there by then?', he asked, already knowing the
answer.

'Yeah, 11 is fine, I'll be there.'

'I'll see you there, then. Bye.'

'Bye.' The line cut.

Allen shivered again as he recalled his less-than-pleasant dream. He hoped it wouldn't come true.


-END OF CHAPTER 5

This is probably the last chapter I'll be writing until about 1 - 2 weeks later, school tests are coming up (ulp!)

UPDATE: Chapter 5 is still WIP, but now I have 4 tests next week (3 are right before my birthday!, so I'll probably post the final version in about a week's time.

This post has been edited by sonictk: 26 February 2005 - 09:45 AM

[sonictk]

sorry for the slow update, busy with school and project work. Chapter 7 is still wip. here's no. 6.




CHAPTER 6: The Beginning of a Conspiracy
---------------------------------------------

THE huge town clock, located in the heart of Station Square, boomed as a new hour dawned. It chimed eleven times exactly.

Outside the Station Square train station, a lone blue figure was seen shuffling his feet almost nervously as he waited for a
man, dressed in a black suit, carrying a briefcase to arrive. He was about to try calling the latecomer when he felt a hand
rest on his shoulder.

'Need to learn more about countersurveillence, I see.'

Sonic the hedgehog nearly jumped out of his skin but managed to calm himself. He whipped around to see the smiling face of
Micheal Allen looking at him. Allen extended his hand. 'Pleasure to meet you again, Mr...I mean, Sonic.'

Sonic shook it and got straight to the point. 'So, I've accepted the operation, but you haven't told me a single thing about
what the operation is about. And you haven't gone into detail about your little circus, either.' Sonic was, of course,
referring to the Eagles.

Allen smiled. 'Right to the point. I like that.' He took out a PDA and a stylus. He tapped the PDA's screen a few times while
Sonic waited impatiently, then handed the PDA to Sonic. 'Take a look at this.'

Sonic took the PDA and looked at the screen. On it was the face of a man Sonic didn't know. The caption at the lower right
hand corner read: 'Daniel Eisler'.

Sonic looked back up at Allen. 'And who is this supposed to be?'

Allen just gestured to the PDA. Sonic looked back at it. A box had appeared on the screen and text was flowing onto it.

[Daniel Eisler]
D.O.B. : Unknown
Age: Unknown
Gender : Male
Alias(es) : N/A
Nationality : Unknown
Location: Unknown
Status: Alive(?)

Description:
Suspected leader of the Pheonix, though there is no conclusive evidence to support this theory. Subject has a history of
mental problems and was described as 'very aggressive' by known former friends and associates. Subject is also suspected of
participating in various illegal operations. Current location unknown. Not much is known about this man. Details of subject's
previous criminal records is as follows...

Sonic skipped the details and looked back at Allen. 'This guy's the head honcho?'

Allen shook his head. 'We're not sure. This is mostly information that we gathered over a long period of time. As you can
see, this man isn't exactly keen to take any chances; the intel we have on him is quite thin. But everything we're getting
suggests he's the guy behind the Pheonix.'

Sonic frowned. 'So this 'Daniel Eisler' could be Shadow?'

Allen shook his head. He opened his briefcase and took out a piece of paper. Sonic recognized it instantly; it was the
hierarchy list that Allen had showed him the previous day. Allen held the paper in front of Sonic so that he could see. 'Take
a look at the second name, the one labelled 'Assistant Commdr.''

Sonic took a look and saw 'Daniel Eisler' printed neatly under Shadow's name. He frowned. 'So, Shadow's the head honcho?'

Allen put back the piece of paper, looked around as if to check for eavesdroppers, then answered, 'We don't know for sure.
Actually, as I said before, we're not even sure this Shadow exists. I told you, it could be false intel. We don't even have a
picture of this supposed Shadow.' Allen paused. 'What we do know is that this Eisler person is fairly high up in the Pheonix
organization, if not the leader. One of our agents noted that everything had to go through him first before it could be
approved. So I'd say that makes him one of the big players.'

Sonic thought about that. It didn't make sense. Why would the Eagles want him involved if they weren't even sure that they
were looking for Shadow in the first place?

Allen read his mind. 'The reason we've brought you into this investigation, Sonic, is because we require your assistance not
just in your knowledge of Shadow the hedgehog, but also in your...skills.'

'Skills?' Sonic asked suspiciously.

'Your speed, of course. What else could I be talking about?' Allen replied.

Sonic pondered that statement. A top-secret agency wanting to recruit a well-known and famous hero for their operation?

Allen read his mind again. 'I know that you're suspicious of why we would require your assistance. Under ordinary
circumstances, we would not have considered recruiting you for our operation. However, some...interesting incidents have
occured that have forced us to reshuffle our priorities.'

'What kind of 'interesting incidents' are we talking about?' Sonic asked.

Allen sighed. 'Exactly 2 days after our officer who brought that document to us,' Allen motioned to his briefcase, '..another
of our agents who was sent to invesigate the cause of our officer's death suddenly lost contact with us. We sent another two
agents, and they vanished without trace as well.' Allen finished, with a look of weariness on his face.

Sonic said, 'And you want me to find out what happened to them?'

Allen shook his head. 'Not exactly. We need you to find out what happened to them, then make sure what happened to them
doesn't happen to anyone else. Ever again.'

Sonic took the hint. 'So I'm supposed to kill the guy that killed your guys?'

Allen shook his head again. 'No. Killing isn't the important thing. The important thing is that we need you to help us find
out all that you can about the administration of the Pheonix and if possible, determine who this 'Shadow' character really
is.'

'Do you think it's Robotnik?' Sonic asked.

Allen smiled grimly. 'That's one guy we're sure 'Shadow' isn't. We positively ID'ed his body after the ARK incident.'

'What?' Sonic was stunned. 'You found his body?'

'What remained of it,' Allen corrected. 'His left arm was missing, and his right leg was only half-intact.'

Sonic took a moment to absorb the information. Doctor Robotnik, his nemesis, was finally...dead. Sonic expected to feel some
sort of jubiliation or sense of accomplishment, but instead...nothing. It was as if his death had no bearing at all on Sonic.

Sonic rubbed his eyes. 'Fourteen years I've been fighting him....I didn't think I would survive that long. I always thought
that our fight would continue forever...' his voice trailed off. Fourteen years, Sonic thought. That I'm still alive, heck,
that my friends are still alive...that's like a miracle of miracles.

A sharp voice brought Sonic back to reality. 'Back to the topic at hand, Sonic.'

Sonic focused back on Allen and said, 'Fine. So you want me to help you guys find out about the Pheonix in general, right?'

'That's a...crude way of putting it, but essentially, yes, you are correct.' Allen replied.

Sonic asked, 'And what do I need to do? Sneak into the Pheonix's headquarters like James Bond and sneak back out?'

'In essence...yes,' Allen replied.

Sonic was surprised. 'What does he think I am, some kind of ninja-spy freak?' Sonic thought. It sounded just like a movie,
and Sonic was never one to like watching movies. He cleared his throat and continued, 'So what am I supposed to do now?'

'I thought you'd never ask,' Allen said as he pulled out another PDA from a different pocket and started tapping on it. A few
seconds later, he handed it over to Sonic. 'This PDA is provided to you for your own personal use. We will use it to send you
mission briefings, information, data, and of course, to contact you.' Allen looked at his watch briefly, then continued.
'For now, you will have to take this with you and wait for me to contact you. If you need to contact me urgently, my contact
information is inside.' He pointed at the PDA. 'Naturally, please make sure that you do not lose this or show it to anyone
except your team.'

'My team?' Sonic asked with considerable surprise.

'Your team, I believe, which includes Ms. Rose, Mr. Prower and the Guardian of the Floating Island.' Allen said.

Sonic suddenly had a overwhelming suspicion. 'You -'

'...Knew that you had already informed your friends of your meeting with me and that it was your g...I mean, friend...who
convinced you to accept my offer?' Allen said, with a knowing smile. 'It was kind of obvious that you were going to tell your
friends everything, but I wanted to be sure of what you said, so I merely planted an audio transmitter on you.'

'That's invasion of privacy!' Sonic said, his face turning red, while he started looking all over his body to find the bug.

Allen laughed at the concern the blue hedgehog showed. He already knew what the hedgehog was so agitated about. 'Good thing I
turned the volume way down during that part...' He thought to himself.

Sonic was still frantically searching all over his body when Allen, still laughing, finally said, 'Don't bother, it's gone.'

'What do you mean, gone?' Sonic asked suspiciously.

'It was on your shoulder. When I tapped my hand on your shoulder just now, I removed it.' Allen held up his left hand. In it,
Sonic saw some kind of miniscule device. 'This is the AUD-10 audio recording equipment bug. Able to record up to 500 minutes
of audio information and integrated with live transmission capability.' Allen put the bug in his pocket. 'As you can imagine,
it's proved quite useful in our line of work.'

Sonic was still startled by the thought that he had been bugged, and he struggled to retain his calm image. 'So are you still
bugging me, following me around?'

Allen shook his head. 'No, we won't be doing that again. We had to do so the first time though, partly because we had to
monitor whether you would reveal us to...the wrong people. But fortunately, you didn't.' Allen paused, then resumed, 'And
now it is time for your real briefing to start.'

*****************************************************

'So how is this going to work?' Knuckles asked, while frowning. He didn't like the idea of letting his Chaotix manage the
island for an extended period of time. There were just too many things that could go wrong.

Sonic, back in his house, leaning on a couch, sighed. 'I become the Eagles's errand-boy, and you guys act as support
personnel, you know, if I need you, then you have to be available. No matter what. Each of you guys get to act out different
roles in this operation.'

'So we get to help you out?' Tails asked eagerly. He was itching for some action with Sonic again.

'Not exactly. You guys will be helping out, sure, but you'll be doing so from a safe distance.' Sonic yawned. 'All of you
will be getting different roles based on your 'individual characteristics and skills', as Allen said.' Sonic rolled his eyes.

Knuckles grumbled, 'Now I wish I hadn't asked you what was going on. Now I get to baby-sit.' Upon hearing this, Amy threw one
of Sonic's couch pillows at him. Knuckles dodged it, hastily saying, 'Easy Amy, I was only joking...'

Amy glared at him before settling back in her couch.

Under Allen's orders, Sonic had returned back home and contacted his 'team' to meet-up at his house. 'Operational security is
of the utmost importance,' Allen had said, 'so make sure that the team you choose can be trusted. We cannot afford any leaks
on your side of the operation. You will have to choose up to three additional team members to provide support for you during
your future operations. And please, make sure that you choose wisely. You will not get a second chance.'

Sonic, had of course, decided to go with Tails, Knuckles and Amy. Tails was skilled in machinery and electronics, and could
probably serve on the technical side of things, Sonic had reasoned. Knuckles, on the other hand, could basically fire any
weapon capable of firing, and could drive anything with four wheels or two wings. Amy, though...Sonic had not wanted to
select her as a team member at first, but when she had heard what Sonic was supposed to do, she had insisted with her
customary stubborness, reasoning that she had skill in communications. In the end, against his instincts, Sonic gave in,
finally selecting her as the final team member.

Now he was informing the two other members, Tails and Knuckles, of their status in the team. He groaned inwardly as he
continued to educate them on their roles in the team and the nature of the new organization that had recruited him. For him,
it was going to be a long, long night.

[sonictk]

CHAPTER 7: THE FIRST HINT
---------------------------------------------

THE insistent beeping of the pager was what finally awoke Sonic from his sleep. He fumbled around his bedside desk until his
hands clamped around the noisy instrument. It took a while for Sonic to realize what he was supposed to do.

'Damn!' Sonic muttered as he threw back the bed covers. He got up and squinted at the tiny LCD screen on the device. It was a
short message.

[MESSAGE]
Sonic:
Meet me at the Dan Burger fast food restaurant next to the Station Square shopping mall at 2 PM sharp.

Allen

'The Dan Burger's?' Sonic wondered. 'Now why would he want to meet me there, of all places?' Sighing, he managed to get
himself out of bed. He sniffed the morning air. Early morning air. He glanced at the clock on the bedside desk and shook his
head. 'Trust Allen to give me a wake-up call at 7 am...couldn't he have let me sleep a bit more?' he grumbled as he headed
for the shower.

It had been three weeks since Sonic had informed his friends of their roles in the team. The three weeks had been,
surprisingly, uneventful. No terrorist attacks had been staged. No call from the Eagles or Pheonix or whatever. And (sadly)
also no news of 'Shadow'. Sonic had spent most of his time training himself, because Allen had said that, 'The next time I
contact you, I hope you're fit both physically and mentally.' He didn't know what Allen meant by 'fit', but damn it, he
wasn't about to get his ass handed to him again by Allen like before, he'd learned that lesson, thank you very much. Sonic
winced as he remembered the pain of Allen's elbow whacking his chest. His body had taken about a week to recover after his
'rescue'. Even then, his left thigh was still slightly sore, though the three weeks of exercise had almost straightened it
out.

Sonic stepped into the shower and turned on the hot water. The heat from the liquid jolted his senses instantly and woke him
up from head to toe. As a layer of fog within Sonic's brain began to dissipate, he suddenly realized something was very
wrong.

His apartment door was open.

'What the hell?' Sonic muttered to himself as he turned the water off. He stepped out of the shower, not bothering to dry
himself off with a towel. He headed towards his apartment's entrance in the living room cautiously, leaving a trail of water
droplets all over the floor as he did so. 'Hello?' he called out before realizing that it was stupid, because if anyone was
there, they would have already-

Something flashed past. Most people would not have caught it, but Sonic managed to detect something in the edge of his
peripheral vision. He immediately dropped into a standard unarmed fighting stance and without thinking, leaned back.

A loud BANG resonated throughout the room and a THUK sound came from the nearby wall as a bullet hole appeared in the wall.

'Shit!' Sonic thought as he immediately abandoned his stance and dove behind a nearby table for cover. A second BANG filled
his ears and he felt heat immediately behind his neck as the superheated gases from the bullet made contact with it. He
snarled and went into a spin attack, homing towards the apartment's entrance even though he saw nothing there. He felt
himself making contact with something and heard a 'oof!' as he followed through by placing a kick right into the center of
the mass.

Without waiting to see what he had just attacked, Sonic launched a punch right into it, then did an elbow slam right into his
target, then he finally backed away slightly, to see what or who his attacker was.

It was a human, laying on the floor, his pistol on the ground next to him, his eyes closed, seemingly unconscious. He was
clothed entirely as Sonic would have imagined a terrorist would have been like: dark clothing, mask over the face, baggy
pants, military boots. 'Who the fuck is this clown?' Sonic thought as he stood over the still body. He kneeled down and
picked up the weapon. It was squarish, black, and appeared to be made out of some kind of polymer. The word 'Glock 40' was
written on the slide. Sonic didn't know what a Glock 40 was, but made a mental note to ask Knuckles. 'OK,' Sonic thought. 'I
have an incapacitated assassin in my apartment, what do I do?'

Sonic went back to his bedside desk and picked up the pager. On the side of it was a small recessed button. Sonic tapped it
three times, then went back into the living room, where his would-be assassin was beginning to stir. Sonic quickly headed to
his side and slapped him, hard, on the face.

'Whazza?' The man started to get up.

Sonic pointed the gun at the man's head, forcing him back down. 'Shut up. You are going to answer my questions, or I am going
to shoot you.'

The man's eyes widened as he saw the gun in Sonic's grip. Sonic almost smiled. Predictable reaction.

'Who the fuck are you, and how the fuck did you get in here? Talk.' Sonic said.

The man's eyes set in a determined look. He kept silent.

Sonic thrust the gun towards the man in a menacing way. 'Talk.'

The man laughed and said, 'You will never shoot me.'

Sonic pointed the gun at the man's left hand and fired. The BANG was immediately punctuated by the man's screams. Sonic was
quick to point the gun back at the man's head before he could do anything.

'What the fuck?! You shot my hand! You shot my fucking hand!' The man yelled as he grabbed his hand.

Sonic kept his aim steady. 'You will tell me what I want to know, or I will will repeat that with you right hand, then your
feet, and then your other extremities. Now,' Sonic brought the gun up again, 'Tell me. Who are you?'

The man continued to clutch his ruined hand and refused to answer.

'Oh well, I guess you're going to have to ask someone else to help you write your will,' Sonic said as he aimed the gun at
the man's other hand. He would have fired, too, but-

'What's going on in here?!'

A man dressed in a formal business suit, presumably the manager of the complex, stood in the doorway. His expression changed
from one of annoyance to one of fear immediately. 'What in the world-' he stepped forward as if he was about to do something.

Sonic cut him off. 'Sir, please remain calm and back away. This man,' Sonic jerked the pistol at the assassin, 'entered my
residence illegally and tried to kill me. Please do not intefere.' It took a lot of effort to keep his aim steady on the man
while talking to the dumbfounded manager, but Sonic managed to do so.

'Should I call the police?' the manager managed to say.

Sonic was about to say yes, but then he remembered that he had already called for help, and shook his head. 'No, I've done so
already. It would help if you could get some rope or string, though.' he said.

The manager nodded his head dumbly. 'I'll be right back.' He left the doorway.

Sonic returned his attention to the assassin. 'Well, let's get back to where we were. So what were we doing? Oh yeah, I was
about to shoot off your hands and your dick,' he said menacingly as he took aim at the guy's other hand. 'You have five
seconds to talk. Four seconds. Three...two...' Sonic tightened his grip on the trigger. 'One...'

'No! No, don't shoot! Please! I...my name is Alishad Starkh. I work for...I mean, I am a mercenary. Someone paid me to kill
you.' the man sobbed while still clutching his ruined appendage.

'You lie. I don't like liars,' Sonic said as he pulled the trigger halfway. Just a touch more pressure, and the action would
complete. But Sonic didn't want to kill the man, he just wanted the information, though if he wouldn't give it up, Sonic
would be left with no choice. You never bluffed in a situation like this one. Sonic took a deep breath and prepared for the
second shot.

'No! Don't shoot me! I work for the Pheonix, OK? That's all I know! I swear!'

Sonic thought about that. So the Pheonix now wanted to come after him, did they? He brought his attention back to the man and
asked, 'Who sent you to kill me?'

'I don't know his name! I swear!' the man blubbered.

Sonic scoffed. 'I'm sure you do. You just need a little...memory jog.'

The man swallowed dryly.

'Here's the deal. You tell me who sent you to kill me and how high up he is in the Pheonix, and I turn you over to the proper
people who'll lock you away for a loooong time. You survive, I survive. Both win. You don't tell me what I want, I'll make
you tell me what I want, and there's no guarantee you'll still be alive after that. I win. You lose.' Sonic kept his face
impassive.

The man looked around, as if waiting for something to happen or for someone to tell him what to do, but nothing happened. He
looked back at Sonic and wordlessly nodded his head.

Sonic sighed to himself, relieved that he wouldn't have to kill someone today. He released the pressure on the trigger.

Just then, the sound of approaching footsteps reached his ears and Sonic tensed for action, but relaxed slightly when he saw
about six agents, all dressed up in full body armor, with the word 'POLICE' stenciled in bright day-glo yellow on their
vests. Five of the agents surrounded the downed assassin and proceeded to restrain him while the sixth one, presumably the
team's captain, headed over to Sonic. 'Sir? We're to escort you back to HQ.'

Sonic handed the Glock over to the agent. 'Here's the pistol he was using. I think your lab operatives may get some clues out
of that.' Sonic looked disdainfully at the now-restrained assassin, who was being led out of the room by the other agents.
'You guys are from the Eagles?' Sonic asked.

'Yes, sir. We're from the Eagles' ERT, that's Emergency Response Team. We act as the paramilitary unit for the Eagles, in a
sense,' the agent replied.

Sonic was not surprised. He had already known that there would be more to his new 'friends' than Allen had told him. but he
kept his face to a look of polite interest. 'And what will you do with him?' he nodded to the doorway, where the agents were
just leaving with the wounded assassin.

'We'll be sending him to Interrogation and we'll try to find out how he managed to find out where you lived. In the meantime,
it would be best if you relocated. Your current area has been compromised.' The agent began walking towards the door. 'But
before that, we need to escort you back to HQ, sir.' He stood at the doorway, waiting for Sonic.

The manager suddenly appeared, with a ball of twine in his hands. 'Sir?'

Sonic merely looked at the agent, who then proceeded to explain the situation to the manager. Sonic sighed and followed the
other agents out of the building, where the would-be assassin was whisked away into an armoured van. Sonic followed another
of the agents into a jet-black car, upon which the supposed team leader finally emerged from the building and got into the
car. 'Here,' the team leader said, passing Sonic his pager. 'Don't ever leave it out of your sight.'

'Thanks,' Sonic said, pocketing it. 'So are we gonna drive, or are we gonna sit here all day?'

[sonictk]

I'll be updating in around 3 days time, so stay tuned! (Does anyone even read this??)

This post has been edited by sonictk: 22 March 2005 - 01:59 AM

[sonictk]

CHAPTER 8: THE CALM BEFORE THE STORM
----------------------------------------

THE drive back to the Eagles' headquarters was uneventful enough to make Sonic nervous when he finally stepped out of the
vehicle. 'I wonder what I'm doing back here,' he thought as he followed the agent, who had introduced himself as Jonathan,
back into the building. The agent led Sonic to one of the elevators and pressed the button there. In the distance, Sonic
could see the wounded assassin being hauled off to another corridor, the same one Sonic had gone to when he had first been in
the building. Sonic smiled to himself. 'Tough luck, you son of a bitch,' he thought.

'Sir?' The elevator had arrived.

Sonic stepped inside and the doors closed. Instantly, Sonic's belly twisted in...fear? No, no, that wasn't fear. It was just
a feeling of...what? Apprehension? Sonic wondered as the elevator stopped at the 26th floor. 'Mr. Allen is waiting for you,
sir. You'll find him in the Briefing Room, to the left.' the agent said as Sonic stepped out of the elevator. The agent
hesitated, then said, 'It's been a pleasure to meet you, sir.'

'Likewise,' Sonic said as the elevator doors closed, leaving him all alone. Sonic looked around.

The area around him was a large corridor, with doors placed at regular intevals in the corridor. It seemed similar to the one
on the first floor, except that here, the walls were lit with nice fluorescent lamps, giving a more abstract feel to the
place, with none of the 'prison' feel that Sonic had seen before. Almost as if by instinct, Sonic began walking down the
corridor to the left. The doors were labelled, and Sonic continued walking until he saw the door labelled:

BRIEFING ROOM

Feeling as if he was a student about to get punished, he knocked on the door and waited. 'Come in,' a sound came from beyond.
Sonic opened the door.

Micheal Allen had not changed much since Sonic last saw him three weeks ago. Though he was now dressed in a gray suit instead
of black, his face was still the same, eyes cold at first sight...until you looked closer and saw the fire within them. 'Have
a seat,' he said, gesturing to one of the many chairs placed around the circular room. Sonic looked around.

The briefing room was designed to allow for everyone inside to be able to hear what the speaker had to say, so the room was
circular in structure, with a round table in the centre, and seats placed at regular intervals. In the front of the room,
there was a computer and a projector, presumably for visual aids during briefings. The room had an echoey feel to it as only
Sonic and Allen were in the room. A quick count of the number of seats revealed that the room was built to comfortably seat
eighteen people. Allen was seated at the very front of the room, next to the computer.

Sonic took a seat directly opposite to Allen's and sat down. He didn't really know what he was doing here anyway, but at the
moment, though he didn't know it, he was too rattled by the earlier assassination attempt to actually form any thoughts of
protest. Though he did have the presence of mind to ask, 'So, what do you want?'

Allen sighed and began. 'I know what happened.'

'And?' Sonic asked.

'Please, Sonic, that was not what I meant. The reason I've brought you here is not to reprimand you or to provide you with a
more secure environment.' Allen hit a button on the computer's keyboard, which was next to him. The projector screen scrolled
down and diagrams suddenly started to appear on it. 'You're up for your first assignment.' Allen stated.

Sonic found himself thinking, 'Huh. So that's what this is all about.'

Allen pointed to one of the diagrams. Somehow, the computer registered that; the image zoomed in to a more detailed view and
text started scrolling across the side. 'This is the Astro Enterprises compound, located in a remote area of Station Square.'
The words 'ASTRO ENTERPRISES' appeared in bright blue, emphasizing Allen's statement. Sonic almost snorted, but kept his
amusement in check.

'It's the official compound of a giant software company, specializing in military-grade software. They are the authors of
both DEFCONWatch and RIFLEIssue, both two major software programs that our government uses. They are also the official
contractor for Station Square's military.' Allen paused as the diagram on the screen rotated, providing Sonic with a 3D view
of the compound. Sonic had never heard of any Astro Enterprises before, but that was hardly surprising, given the fact that
Sonic wasn't really into military stuff.

Allen continued the briefing. 'However, we've been monitoring their transmission links for quite some time now, and we've
noticed that in recent months, they've been having one connection to an external source that isn't registered under their
official incoming/outgoing access logs.'

Sonic leaned back in his chair. 'And let me guess, that connection goes straight to the Pheonix, right?'

'Bingo. Upon further investigation, we found out that that connection went to one of the relays that we've suspected for a
long time belonged to the Pheonix. However, only two days ago, we managed to connect to the relay under a piggyback signal.'

Sonic didn't really know what Allen was talking about, but continued to listen.

'...Then our hacker goofed up. He submitted a wrong authorization request, and the relay declined him entry. So we sent a
team to the relay's location to see if we could retrieve anything useful, but by then, the relay had already wiped its
memory clean. Our team is trying to undo the wipe, but frankly, I doubt they'll succeed.' Allen said.

'But here's the deal. The fact that Astro Enterprises did send a signal to the relay means that either one of their employees
is involved with the Pheonix, or that their entire organization is a sub-agency of the Pheonix.'

Sonic frowned when he heard that. 'That would explain a lot.' he said.

'It sure would. It would explain how the hell they've managed to launch so many attacks so successfully.' Allen replied.

Sonic smiled. 'And you want me to go and deal with them.'

'Not 'deal with them' per se. We want you and another agent to infiltrate the building and find out where the earlier signal
came from. You'll need to hack into their databases and check where that signal came from, and when it was sent, and anything
else you can find out about it.' Allen said.

Sonic was surprised. 'Another agent?'

'What, you think I'd let you go alone on your first time?' Allen said while grinning. Then his face took on a more serious
tone. 'But to put it in a more official way, new recruits do not usually get to go on their first assignments alone, without
some form of supervision. This is to keep the number of fatalities caused by inexperience to a minimum.'

'Fatalities?' Sonic asked cautiously.

'Oh, yes. A few. Some overeager newbies to the game.' Allen hastily went on as he saw Sonic's sudden look of alarm. 'But
that was a long time ago.'

Sonic would have liked Allen's tone to be more certain, but decided to let it slide. 'So who's working with me?'

Allen pulled out his cellphone and held a button. 'Kat, can you call Ronald in?' Pause. 'Yes, thanks.' He put the cell back
in his pocket and gave a look to Sonic that said: wait.

Sonic waited.

Thirty seconds later, there was a knock on the door. 'Come in,' Allen said. The door opened. A figure stood in the doorway.

'Sir.'

Allen smiled. 'Benson, please, have a seat. Sonic, this is Agent Ronald Benson. Benson, I'm sure this hedgehog needs no
introduction?'

The man called Ronald Benson looked at the blue hedgehog. Sonic saw his eyes widen as he recognized him, but the look lasted
less than a second before he looked back at Allen. He walked over to another chair two seats away from Sonic and sat, giving
Sonic the opportuity to take a good look at him.

Ronald Benson wasn't exactly very impressive upon first sight. He was of average height, jet-black hair cut short, wearing a
dark blue jacket. Upon closer inspection, though, his muscles were clearly well-defined and his body appeared to be a
smaller version of a bodybuilder's. 'Must be one hell of a strong guy,' Sonic thought. He returned his attention to Allen,
who was now briefing them on the procedure of the mission.

'Benson, you will be working with Sonic on this operation. Usual 'need-to-know' rules apply, you'll be getting the updates on
your celllink.' Ronald nodded. Sonic had no idea what a 'celllink' was, but decided to ask later.

'Details about entry, procedure and extraction are on these celllinks.' Allen passed out two black devices, one each to both
Sonic and Benson. Sonic examined his. It looked pretty much like a PDA, except that there was no stylus, and the buttons
were arranged in such a way that looked as if the device was meant to be used with the screen rotated to a landscape format.

'Both of you will have specific roles in this operation. Sonic, your physical strength, speed, will be the main factor here.
Ron, you are to assist Sonic wherever possible and guide him along the way.' Ron nodded. 'Sonic's team has already been
contacted and they will be arriving here soon.'

'What?' Sonic sat upright. 'You've contacted my team?'

'That's right. They're going to be providing you with additional support for this op.' Allen replied.

'You mean, like right now? It's daytime!' Sonic said.

Allen laughed. 'No, we're getting them over to brief them first. That will take some time.'

'So what are their roles in this op? Is Amy coming along as well?' He groaned inwardly as he remembered about her wanting to
be part of the team. Not that he didn't like her, but still...

Allen grimaced. 'Your g...I mean, 'friend' was very insistent, and well, we decided that it would be in our best interests to
let her serve on the team as well.'

Sonic asked, 'But what is she going to do? I mean...what's her role. In fact, what are Tails' and Knuckles' roles in this
whole thing as well?'

Allen sighed. 'Your friend Tails will be your pilot and eagle-eyes whenever you need aerial support. The Guardian, on the
other hand, will be your field runner. He'll be responsible for both your weapons and ground support if you need a quick
getaway in case something goes wrong. Ms. Rose will remain on station as communications and intelligence specialist.'

'Since when did Amy get involved in that kind of stuff?' Sonic asked, bewildered.

Allen rolled his eyes. 'She claimed to have specific duties in that area before, but frankly, that's basically a role I
created for her, because the only other thing I could think of was 'washroom cleaner'.'

All three of them laughed.

Finally, Sonic asked, 'So are they going to be supporting Ronald as well? Or just me?'

'Both. You two are going to be semi-permanently paired together, under the groupings given out.' Allen cracked his knuckles.
'But we're going off-track here. Where was I? Oh yes.' Allen hit a button on the computer keyboard. The 3D view of the
compound stopped rotating, and the camera zoomed in to focus on a particular room in the building. The room appeared as a
wireframe model at first, then the computer furnished it with false colours, and the result was as if they were looking at a
clay model of a typical office cubicle. The view began to rotate as Allen began to talk. 'This is the main communications
terminal in the building. The employee here is in charge of the companies' communications, and basically has access to all
the incoming and outgoing logs in the compound.' The view changed, and the screen zoomed in on the roof. 'This is the
insertion point. You guys will be dropped in via the Night Stalker.'

'Night Stalker?' Sonic asked.

'It's a helicopter, and a damned good one if I do say so myself. Specially-designed rotor for stealth entries.' Allen
grinned. 'But that's another story. As I was saying, your insertion will be done from the roof, upon which you two will have
to make your way to the objective and accquire the information from the computer terminal. Ms. Rose will assist in hacking
the Astro Enterprises server. Just give us a signal that you're inside, and she'll try to assist you remotely from here.'

'Amy is going to help us HACK the server?' Sonic asked wide-eyed. Since when did she get interested in computers?

'Well, yes. You should pay more attention, Sonic, she already almost has a degree in computer sciences. Apart from her other
more...well...less 'interesting' classes, that is.'

Sonic smiled to himself. He knew what Allen was talking about. 'Cooking classes,' he muttered to himself.

'Mr. Prower will be your pilot, and he will remain in the area beyond radar range to provide immediate aerial support or
aerial reconnaissance, should the situation call for it. The Guardian, for this operation, will be on station in the Night
Stalker, instead of providing ground support. It is unlikely that he will be able to enter the Astro Enterprises compound
via a land vehicle without getting detected.' Allen continued. He looked at Ronald. 'I hope you can help Sonic fit in with
the way things are run here.'

Ronald Benson nodded.

Allen took his gaze off Benson and switched it to Sonic. 'I would like to state at this point that this mission, under no
circumstances, is to involve getting detected. You two must keep your presence on the compound a secret at all costs. That
means we cannot have any fatalities, or perhaps not even any unconscious people left on the premises. The current political
situation is very murky, and we cannot afford to have a major military contractor to the government back out suddenly.' Allen
paused. 'The Director was a bit hesitant about having Sonic on this operation, but I managed to convince him that you were
the right man for the job.' He didn't add that it had taken about three hours of negotiation to do so. 'So let me just get
this straight. We are not at war with the organisation, and we don't need to have piles of dead bodies lying all over the
place, you both get that?'

Both Sonic and Benson nodded.

'Right, then, Sonic, I don't think you've ever used a celllink before, so here's your chance to get accquainted with it.
Power on/off button is here...'

******************************************

'...And this is the central rerouting console,' the agent said as he led the pink hedgehog around the intelligence and
communications room of the Eagles's complex. Amy nodded to the agent. 'Thanks. I've never seen this much equipment before!'

'Well, when you've got a blank check to finance this place, you won't believe some of the crap you can get,' the agent
grinned. 'So do you think you can handle your role here?'

Amy Rose looked around the room full of electronics and sighed happily. Finally she would get to exercise a part of herself
that few had ever seen before: her aptitude for computers. 'Sure. Everything here looks fine, I'm sure I can handle it.'

'Good. This will be your own station everytime your services are required on an operation,' the agent said, handing her a
keycard. 'Don't lose this card. It's authorization for this room.'

'Wow, a whole room to myself?' Amy gaped.

'The benefits of being an Eagles' agent, I guess,' the agent grinned sheepishly. 'Enjoy your new room.'

'So what am I supposed to do now?' Amy asked.

'Well, according to my directions, after this briefing, I'm supposed to escort you back to the rest of your team,' the agent
said.

'So I can finally see Sonic?' she almost squealed.

The agent laughed. 'No, he's still being briefed by Mr. Allen.

'Aww...' Amy sighed. 'Oh well, at least I get to see what Tails and Knuckles got to do...' she said as she followed the agent
out of the room and back into the main hallway, whereupon she saw Tails and Knuckles sitting at one of the many tables
thoughtfully placed around the rest area.

'Hey, Amy, what's up? What're you going to do?' Tails asked.

'I'm in Intelligence and Communications. They sure have a nice setup here. I'm itching to work my computer muscles again, I
haven't done anything like that since the computer class I took a few weeks back,' she said while smiling to herself. 'At
least I get to talk to Sonic during his mission...' she thought. She shook her dreamy thoughts off and asked, 'And what have
you two been up to?'

'I'm gonna be Sonic's pilot! I wanted to fly the Tornado, but they told me it wasn't built for stealth, so I'm flying the
Night Stalker. Hmph,' he said.

'It's probably a good thing, Tails, I mean, at least the bird won't crash as much as you do your Tornado,' Knuckles said. The
three of them laughed.

'Oh well, at least the Night Stalker isn't so bad,' Tails sighed.

Amy looked at Knuckles, who said, 'I know what you want to ask. I'm Sonic's 'field runner''. He rolled his eyes.

'Field runner? What the heck is that?' Amy asked.

Tails laughed as Knuckles visibly became more agitated. 'It means he gets to do ground and weapons support. You know, the
babysitter.'

'I have the power to glide, climb and punch like Jackie Chan, and I'm stuck with trailer duty,' Knuckles grumbled.

Amy laughed. 'Come on, Knuckles, it could have been worse.'

'Yeah, right,' Knuckles muttered. 'So where's Sonic now?'

******************************************

'...And that concludes your familiarization with the HaP C2 celllink, congratulations,' Allen said sarcastically to Sonic.
Sonic laughed and replied, 'Come on Allen, I'm new to this crap.'

'I guess.' Allen replied as he stood up. 'OK, so that's basically it. You guys have the rest of the afternoon off; report to
the operations room at 1830 hours sharp with all your gear ready.' Allen handed a card to Sonic. 'Keep this card safe, Sonic. It contains all the authorization you need to enter
this building and identifies you as an agent of the Eagles.'

Sonic examined the jet-black card. It seemed almost like a identity card, complete with Sonic's name, picture and the words
'AUTHORIZED AGENT OF EG-2' and 'STATION SQUARE INTELLIGENCE AGENCY' embossed on it. He looked back at Allen just in time to
hear his order to Ronald Benson. '...And Ronald, please keep an eye out for our junior agent here. It wouldn't do to have him
enter the Director's office uninvited while looking for the changing room.'

'No problem, sir,' Ronald replied.

'So are we dismissed yet?' Sonic yawned. He wasn't tired, in fact, his adrenaline was pumping through him, but he didn't want
Ronald to see what he was about to do. It wasn't his fault, was it? He got ready to move as he listened to Allen's reply.

'Just one more thing. Stay within the building,' Allen said. 'We can't have you guys heading back outside before an
operation commences.' He suddenly noticed Sonic was giving him a weird look, as if he was trying to look right through Allen
and into his soul, but when he looked at Sonic, Sonic turned away and focused on the screen behind Allen, which was now
empty.

The two agents nodded their heads at Allen's direction. Almost as if on cue, Ronald got up, nodded to both Sonic and Allen,
and left the room. Allen started to get up to leave, too, but Sonic suddenly stood up and blocked the doorway. 'What is it?'
Allen asked.

'I'm not done yet,' Sonic said, suddenly taking on an almost menacing look. Allen was startled, but said, 'Fine,' and resumed
his seat.

Sonic remained standing. 'I want to talk to you about earlier on.'

'I'll try and get the information about the attacker to you as soon as I can-' Allen started, but Sonic cut him off.

'Not that. I want to know why you wanted to meet me at the Dan Burger's earlier today.'

Allen sighed. Was this what it was all about? 'Your briefing was originally meant to take place there, in a public place,
where there would be less chance of being spotted. If I had asked you to head here, and you got spotted, well, that wouldn't
be good, would it?' Allen finished.

Sonic didn't bat an eyelid. 'So what about my apartment?'

'You'll have to move and relocate. We'll help you with the legal complications and other neccessary stuff. Listen, Sonic, I
don't really have time for-' he was cut off again by Sonic.

'Allen, are you hiding something from me?'

He was visibly shocked, Sonic saw. 'Now why would you think that?'

'Because everything that's happened so far doesn't add up. The recruitment. The assassination attempt. Something stinks here.
And I don't like being kept in the dark,' Sonic said.

'Sonic...it's all on a need-to-know basis-' Allen began.

Sonic cut him off again with a statement. 'I don't want to know, Allen. I just want you to think over whether this is
something you should be doing to someone who's risking his life for your agency's sake.' Sonic backed away, then turned
around and left the room silently, leaving Allen in the briefing room.

All alone.


END OF CHAPTER 8

-Sorry I posted this so late, I totally forgot, plus this chapter was pretty long. Chapter 9 is being worked on now, but frankly, I doubt I'll get it done until next week, school is back for me. I know the story's pretty slow now, but hey, this isn't one of those ten chapter stories.

-UPDATE: I added a few lines to make the story flow smoother.

This post has been edited by sonictk: 26 March 2005 - 03:42 PM

[sonictk]

OK, so I lied. Here's the next chapter. But this will be the last update for a while, school will be occupying most of my time. Don't worry, this fic will never die, I'll be back soon in about a week or so. I know it's still kinda boring...but hey. Wait for chapter 10, that's the start of the operation.

Anyway....

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

CHAPTER 9: THE SITUATION ESCALATES
--------------------------------------

SONIC couldn't remember the last time he had been so pissed off. He bashed his hand against the cold wall, and almost wished
that it was Allen's head!

Christ!

By the time he made his way back down to the main lobby of the complex, though, he had calmed down somewhat. 'That was so
goddamn uncool,' he muttered to himself as he stepped out of the elevator. Would Allen fire him? Well, no great loss there,
Sonic wasn't looking forward to joining this organization anyway. Would he go after Sonic's friends?

That thought almost stopped Sonic in his tracks for a second, but it was interrupted by a familiar voice from the rest area.

'Hey, Sonic! Over here!'

Sonic looked in the direction the voice had come from. Over at the rest area, his team, Tails, Knuckles and Amy, were seated
around one of the tables, laughing, chatting. He didn't feel like joining them at the moment, but he didn't feel like making
the same mistake twice, so he grudgingly pulled himself over to where his friends were. 'Hey, guys.'

'And gal,' Amy interrupted.

'And gal,' Sonic agreed. 'So what have you people been up to anyway?'

'Well,' Tails started to grin. 'I do know someone's going to help 'baby-sit' you on your missions...'

************************************

Allen was still wondering about the event earlier on when he knocked on the door that read, 'Director'. 'Was it my fault?' he
thought. Should Sonic be kept in the dark about such things? After all, he IS the one at risk, not us...

A 'Come in,' interrupted Allen's thoughts. Allen took a deep breath, opened the door and stepped into the room, closing the
door behind him.

A man in a chair, dressed in a brown suit with a tie, merely looked up at Allen. 'Well?'

'Ronald Benson and Sonic have been briefed, Sir. They'll be leaving at around six-thirty tonight.'

The man leaned back in his chair. 'I'm still not comfortable with having such a junior agent being given such an enormous
task for his first assignment, Micheal.'

Allen took the use of his first name as a sign that the conversation could be less formal. 'David...'

David Benton, Director of EG-2 a.k.a. The Eagles, held up a hand to forestall the argument. 'But at this time, I am willing
to allow him to accompany our other operative on the mission...provided it turns out successful.'

Allen nodded. 'I'm certain that he can perform up to standard, Sir,' he reverted back to formality. It was the safest way not
to offend someone, wasn't it? Especially when that someone was the head of the whole agency...

David Benton leaned back in his chair. 'Christ, Micheal, things were so much easier when all we had to do was to just run
around and tackle the bad guys to the floor. Now I'm a goddamn 'official', and I can't even go to the range without an escort
of a whole fireteam!' he chortled.

'Well, age has its drawbacks, Sir,' Allen grinned.

'Yeah, at least you don't have an underwater camera lens peeking at you to check that you're ok when you go for a pee,' David
joked.

'Hey, you knew the dangers when you took the job, right?' Allen grinned some more.

'Yeah, yeah. Now out, I still have a ton of files to review before I can finally kick off for the day.'

'Need anything?'

'How about a demotion back down to your rank?'

'Anything you want, pal,' Allen chuckled as he made his exit, closing the door behind him.

**************************************

'Sonic!'

Sonic jumped at the sound of his name being called. He took a quick glance at the clock on the opposite wall. Holy shit, it
was already 6 PM. He'd better get suited up, even though he was sure that there was more to this whole thing that Allen was
telling him, it wouldn't do to be late for his first time, now would it? He turned back in the direction his name had been
called from, surprise, surprise, it was none other than Ronald Benson.

'Yeah?' Sonic asked.

'Well, it's around six now, I thought that it's about time to get suited up, so I wondered if you needed help in finding out
where the whole changing room was and what you need to bring along?' Ronald asked.

Sonic got up and stretched. The time he had spent sitting down had stiffened a few of his muscles. 'Yeah, thanks. I could use
the help.' He waved farewell to his friends as he followed Ronald down the main hallway again. 'Don't forgot to zip your
zipper!' was the last thing he heard, probably from Knuckles, before Ronald led him into a different hallway which was
connected to the main one.

'So, Sonic, I guess we're going to be working together, huh?' Ronald asked casually.

'Yeah, I guess so,' Sonic said, almost running to keep up with Ronald's long strides.

The two said nothing as Ronald led them down another hallway, then took a left turn and ended up in front of a door. Ronald
took out a keycard and held it up to the scanner placed where the door handle would have been. The door marked, 'Changing
Room,' opened. Ronald stepped inside, Sonic right behind him.

The Eagles complex's changing room was nothing special; that is, until you bothered to look past the standard cubicles, the
rows and rows of standard-sized lockers, to the real high-tech stuff in the room. Computers covered an area of the wall,
where a lot of other electronic equipment that Sonic didn't recognize were placed.

Allen led Sonic through the empty room to one of the lockers conviently placed next to a bench, which meant Sonic would have
a place to sit when he was getting suited up. 'This is your locker.'

'Well, that sure was hard to spot,' Sonic replied sarcastically.

Ronald just stood still for a second, and Sonic instantly regretted what he had said. Just because I'm not comfortable with
this situation doesn't mean I have to take it out on Ronald, Sonic thought. He started to say, 'Look, dude, I'm-'

'That's OK,' Ronald said, a little bit too snappily.

A moment of awkwardness passed before Ronald turned away and said, 'When you're done, I'll be over at the other side, where
my locker is. I'll show you to the armory.'Before Sonic could say anything else, he walked off towards his locker, not in a
huff, but in a way that...what? Sonic wondered. Before he pondered on that, though, he vowed to himself that he would never
again do that to someone who didn't deserve it. 'Shit, I really need to stop taking my anger out on others,' he thought as he
opened his locker by pressing his card against the scanner which was on the locker. The scanner beeped and the locker door
swung open. Sonic jerked his head in surprise as he saw what was in it.

'Wow, they sure don't kid around,' Sonic muttered to himself as he pulled out a sleek black suit from the lockerwhich felt
like eleplant skin on the outside, but smooth and comfortable on the inside. The suit looked like it had been custom-designed
for Sonic, with extra cloth to accomodate his spines. Sonic lifted it up and immediately noticed that it was bloody heavy,
almost 2 whole kilograms. 'Well, it is a spy suit, after all,' he thought to himself as he donned the outfit. It covered his
body from the neck to his waist, skin tight sleeves reaching all the way to the beginning of his forearm. Sonic felt weird
putting on something like this. All his life, he had never really worn clothes, and wearing them now, albeit for a special
purpose, just felt...weird. He shrugged his discomposure off and reached into the locker, retrieving a pair of skin-tight
pants, with the same texture as the uniform. He wore them and noted that both the suit and the pants were festooned with
pockets, along with what seemed to be clips and straps to hold certain devices in place. On a hunch, Sonic took his celllink
and pager which he had left on the bench and scrutinized his uniform. He eventually found a spot where his pager clipped to
nicely, all the way at the back of his uniform, near his neck. His celllink, though...Sonic couldn't find a spot for it until
he realized that the locker still had a pair of black gloves hanging on a hook. He retrieved them and slid them over his
hands. The long gloves reached all the way to his forearm, connecting with the sleeves of the suit. Sonic noticed that there
were velcro straps on the gloves and strapped them around the sleeves, securing it. It was then he realized that inner side
of his right glove had a compartment which looked like it was meant for the celllink. He picked up the celllink again and...
yes, it slid right in and fit like a glove. Sonic looked into the locker again, and sighed. He pulled out a pair of armpads
and kneepads, and set about strapping them in place, which didn't take too long. Finally, Sonic reached into the locker one
last time and withdrew a black mask to go with the rest of the outfit, which also had extra room for his spines.

After making sure that everything was put on right, Sonic was surprised at the comfort his uniform provided. He briefly
wondered how Allen had known the exact build of his body in order to create such a well-fitting outfit, but decided to think
about it later. Right now, it was 6.10 PM, and Sonic knew that it was time to go. 'Hey!' he yelled at the far end of the
locker room.

'Yeah?' was the reply.

'I'm ready to go, are you?' Sonic asked, trying to inject more enthusiasm into his voice than he felt. He didn't want Ronald
to think that he was some kind of idiot, at least, not for the time being.

'Make sure you haven't left anything behind and that you've locked your stash, then we'll head off. The door's over here,'
was the reply.

Sonic double-checked his locker to make sure he hadn't missed anything, then swung the door shut with an audible click as the
mechanism locked the door. He then headed off to where Ronald was waiting, dressed in a similar outfit, except that his
didn't have extra room for spines, and he was wearing military boots instead of running shoes like Sonic was. Sonic then
realized that his red and white sneakers stood out like a lighted lampost in a dark thunderstorm. He started to say to
Ronald, 'My sne-'

'Yeah, Allen figured, so come on, it's in the armory,' Ronald said as he led Sonic through another door and back into the
hallway, where they walked to another door labelled 'Armory. Warning: Do Not Enter Without Authorization.' Allen preceded
Sonic into the room, who gaped when he saw what awaited him inside.

'Christ!'

'Yeah, seems like we overdo it a bit, don't we?' Ronald smirked.

The armory wasn't a big room; in fact, it was only about the size of an average classroom. What had amazed Sonic was the
amount of weaponry in the room.

Guns.

Rows and rows of rifles, handguns, all arranged neatly on the shelves , held in place by metal hooks. More stuff was lying
on the top of the cupboards below the shelves, but Sonic didn't take much notice of that. The sight of so much firepower was
just so...

'Awesome,' Sonic mouthed as he headed towards one of the shelves.

'Hey!'

Sonic turned his head around to see a guard, a mean-looking one, shouldering his rifle as he walked towards Sonic. 'Who the
heck are you?'

Ronald quickly intervened, 'He's with me. He has authorization. Sonic, your card.'

Sonic belatedly realized that this room was a secured one, and handed his Eagles ID card to the guard, who looked at it,
nodded, then handed it back to Sonic, letting his rifle fall back to a resting position.

Ronald headed up to Sonic. 'Jesus, next time WAIT before you go around poking everywhere. That could have gotten you shot.'

Sonic almost shot a heated reply back, but remembered about his earlier flare-up with Allen, and managed a simple, 'Sorry.'

Ronald sighed. 'Never mind, let's just get ourselves decked out. We're due at the operations room in around fifteen minutes,'
he said as he headed to one of the shelves. Sonic followed. As Sonic watched Allen reach towards the shelf, he suddenly
thought of something. 'I don't know how to handle a gun properly, how am I going to use it?' He started to voice his concern,
but Ronald interrupted.

'First of all, they are not called guns, guns are the high-caliber things you see mounted on navy ships and such. The proper
term is 'firearms', and if you are refering to a particular type of firearm, there are terms for that like 'rifles',
'pistols', 'sub-machine guns', 'battle rifles'...'

'OK OK, I get the point, they're not guns,' Sonic replied, a little irritated. Who cared what they were called as long as
they could do what they were designed to do: shoot stuff up?

Ronald looked at Sonic. 'I'm serious.'

Sonic merely shrugged.

Ronald sighed and handed Sonic a pair a shoes. 'Here, take off your sneakers and wear these.'

'Are you kidding me? I'd rather go barefoot then take off my sneakers and wear something else,' Sonic protested.

'These shoes are specially designed for your feet, plus they don't stand out like your red sneakers do. Oh, and you can still
achieve your supersonic speeds with them,' he added quickly as he saw Sonic look skeptically at the combat shoes. Well,
technically, they weren't combat shoes per se, they had been specially designed for Sonic's feet, and so lacked the kevlar
that was usually sewn into such boots. However, the shoes had been sewn with spidersilk webbing instead, was which supposedly
far more durable then standard DuPont kevlar. How it would perform in the real world remained to be seen. But then again,
Ronald's mind reasoned, did it really make a difference? No one was going to aim at your foot when he fired his rifle or
whatever he was holding, was he?

Sonic, on the other hand, was a bit peeved at having to give up his favourite sneakers in favour of the black dull ones...but
when he put them on, he was almost amazed at how well the shoes seemed to fit, and how comfortable and cozy they were.
'Almost better than my old sneakers,' he thought. He looked at Ronald, who was looking at Sonic as if he was supposed to
comment on it. 'Well?' Ronald asked.

'They'll do,' Sonic replied. He tapped his foot on the ground to test the sneaker. Surprisingly springy, his mind thought.
'Not too bad,' he allowed. Ronald just shook his head. He walked towards the left side of the room and retrieved two handguns
from the lower shelf. Bending down, he opened one of the cupboards and retrieved four long, rectangular black objects.
Finally, he stood back up, examined the top of the cupboard's surface, and took a box labelled '5.7x28mm SS190' before
motioning for Sonic to come over. Still examining his new footwear, Sonic walked over to where Ronald was. 'What?' he asked.

'Here's your new toy,' Ronald said handing Sonic the handgun. Sonic took it, and was about to pull the trigger to test
whether it worked when Ronald interrupted with a loud yell, 'Stop!'

'What?' Sonic asked. His finger was on the trigger.

Ronald sighed. Of course, he was new to firearms, this was bound to happen, Ronald told himself. He tried to get himself to
talk patiently as he addressed Sonic again. 'Ok, first things first. I know you haven't handled firearms before, so just
listen and remember these rules, OK?'

Sonic didn't like hearing long boring safety talks, but he knew that Ronald was definitely better than him when it came to
this, so for once, he nodded and listened.

'Rule 1: Never put your finger on the trigger unless you are ready to fire. Rule 2: Always treat a firearm as if it is
loaded, whether or not there you think there is a round in the chamber. Rule 3: Never point your firearm at anything you
aren't willing to kill or destroy. Got that?' Ronald finished, looking expectantly at Sonic.

Sonic was surprised. He had expected a long sermon about gun safety and all sorts of other crap. OK, at least these three
rules weren't that hard to remember, he thought. Maybe Ronald isn't so bad after all. 'Yeah, I got it,' Sonic replied.

'Good. So for starters, you can take your finger out of the trigger guard,' Ronald said, angling his head down to where
Sonic's finger was still firmly placed on the trigger.

Sonic complied, then decided that it would be better if he just put the gun down on the table beside them before doing
anything else. He started to put the gun down, but Ronald stopped him, saying, 'No, it's fine, just make sure you don't do an
AD or anything.'

'AD?' Sonic repeated.

'Accidental Discharge. It's what we call if you accidentally fire your weapon,' Ronald replied, opening the box he had
retreived earlier to reveal...'That's a lotta bullets,' Sonic commented.

'OK, number two, these things are called rounds until the leave the chamber, alright? The bullet is a small steel bit right
at the top of the round, not the whole casing,' Ronald said, taking rounds from the box, one by one, and inserting them into
one of the rectangular black boxes he had retrieved earlier, the magazines. He mentally counted the amount of rounds he had
put into each magazine; accidentally overloading the magazines could cause the internal springs inside to compress too much
and refuse to feed the rounds when the trigger was pulled. There was nothing worse than pulling the trigger and hearing a
click sound come out...well, except maybe the other way round, he thought. It reminded him of an old joke, 'The two worst
sounds in the world are a click when there should have been a bang, and a bang when there should have been a click.' He
smiled to himself.

'So, what's in the rest of this thing other than the bullet?' Sonic asked, picking up one of the rounds and examining it.

'The gunpowder, of course. The bullet needs propulsion force in order to fire, doesn't it?' Ronald put down a fully loaded
magazine and picked up the next one, proceeding to fill it as well.

Sonic watched as Ronald loaded the rest of the magazines in silence. Once he was done, he proceeded to slip two of the
magazines into two of the numerous pouches dotting his uniform, holstering his handgun with a waist holster which came with
the uniform as well. Sonic followed suit.

'By the way,' Sonic asked as he slipped the magazines into two of his back pouches, 'What was this...pistol called again?'

Ronald drew his pistol and held it up. Sonic took a good look at it. 'The Fabrique Nationale Five-seveN tactical pistol,' he
said, almost as if reciting it from a manual. 'Weighing in at just slightly below one kilogram, this pistol is the pistol of
choice for all SSIA agents due to the armor-piercing round it uses, the 5.7x28mm round. This baby will punch through most
kevlar vests with enough power left to do some real damage to whatever's behind it. Compact enough to be concealable, yet
big enough to bring down recoil to reasonable levels.' Sonic examined the pistol. The slide had some sort of dotted halftone
pattern on it, which was also present on the front part of the handgrip. The pistol looked like it was designed for both
left-handers and right-handers, both sides of the pistol having the same buttons, though the ejection port was situated on
the right side of the pistol. All in all, it looked damn nice, but Sonic knew that he wouldn't be able to handle it properly
without proper training. Ronald sensed that Sonic was done, and reholstered the pistol. 'Come on, we've still got other gear
to get,' he said, walking to another side of the armory. Sonic followed.

At the other side of the room, Ronald took two goggle headpieces and handed one of them to Sonic. 'Here,' Ronald said,
putting his own one on his forehead by fastening the straps attached to the . Sonic looked at his. They looked like
binoculars, except that the eyepieces weren't as long and clunky, plus there were straps to hold it in place. Sonic had to
adjust his some to once again accomodate his spines, but managed to get it on in the end. 'OK, here's the crash course in
using these things,' Ronald said, shifting so that Sonic could see the side of his goggle headpiece, which had a radial dial
and two buttons on it. 'Put those goggles over your eyes,' Ronald said. As Sonic complied, he noticed that the goggles
suddenly hummed to life when he put them over his eyes. It was as if they knew when he wanted to view the world through them.
However, he didn't expect the world to suddenly go from light to dark in an instant. 'Hey!'

'Relax, that's your nightvision mode, but we're in a lighted room right now, so the filters kicked in to prevent you from
going blind. Try hitting the lower button on the side of your goggles,' Ronald suggested.

Sonic did so, and the world turned into a multitude of blue and red shades. 'Cool, thermal vision,' Sonic commented.

'The upper button activates nightvision, the lower one controls thermal vision, simple, isn't it?' Ronald said.

'So which one turns them both off and lets me view the world as it is?' Sonic asked.

'You could push up the goggles a bit, that automatically turns off the electronics inside. Or, you could press both the upper
and lower buttons together, that'll turn them both off,' Ronald replied.

Sonic complied, and was rewarded with a clear, recognizable view of the room. 'Nice, what's the dial for?' Sonic asked next.

'Try it,' Ronald suggested.

Sonic rolled the dial upwards, and his view suddenly zoomed in. 'Whoa!' He rolled it the other way, and his view went back to
normal. A small box appeared in the top right hand corner of his display with the words, 'Zoom: 100%' on it.

'Rolling it upwards zooms in, vice versa,' Ronald said.

Sonic pulled the goggles upwards, and the device abruptly went click as it powered off. 'Neat,' Sonic remarked, as Ronald
continued to load them out with the rest of the tools and gadgets they would, perhaps, be using later on...

*********************************************

Allen was still thinking about earlier on and what he was going to do about it as he stepped into the Operations Room. He
was surprised to see Sonic and Ronald already there, fully decked out in their uniforms and gear, waiting for him. He had
expected Sonic to be late. He looked at his watch. 6.30 PM. Good a time as any to start, Allen thought. 'Attention,' he said.

Ronald immediately snapped to attention. Sonic, not versed in military regulations, merely stood straight and listened to
Allen, trying not to look directly into his eyes.

'In a few minutes, you two will be heading to the Night Stalker at the hangar. Mr. Prower will on on station to take you to
the insertion zone, and the Guardian will be making final checks on your equipment before you commence the operation. Allen
pulled out a PDA and tapped it; Sonic's own celllink began to vibrate. 'I've just uploaded the mission parameters and
information to your celllinks, along with a map of the compound and all other relevant information that you two may need.
Review it on the way there. The flight time is estimated to be around thirty minutes, plenty of time for you two to prepare
yourselves.' Allen paused, then continued, 'Ms. Rose is already on station in the communications room, and I will be joining
her soon as mission coordinator for this operation. We will be providing continual intel support throughout the course of
this mission. Any questions?' Allen asked.

There were none.

'That's it, then. You two are officially heading out. Sonic, can I have a word with you before you leave? Ronald, please
wait over by the door to the hanger.' Ronald nodded and walked away, leaving Sonic and Allen together, out of earshot.

Allen sighed and looked at Sonic. 'So, mind telling me what went on with you back up there just now?' he stared at Sonic.

Sonic felt anger pulse through him, but he kept it checked. No need for a confrontation before a mission, Sonny-boy, he
thought. 'Allen, I'm putting my friends, myself, on the line here. I just think that I should get the real deal here, no
secrets, no nothing.'

'Why do you think I'm keeping secrets from you?'

Sonic sighed. 'It's a gut feeling I have, and I always trust my feelings.'

Allen nodded. 'I see. Well, in that case, I would like to assure you that there is nothing else you need to know about that I
am keeping hidden from you,' he said.

'Nothing I need to know about, or nothing you feel I need to know about?' Sonic retorted.

Allen sighed in defeat and said, 'What do you want?'

'I want you to be straight with me. No secrets, no 'it's on a need-to-know basis bullshit. You can keep your top drawer shut,
I don't care, but if there's something that concerns me or my team, I want to know about it. Is that acceptable?' he added,
the sarcasm practically dripping with his tone.

Allen raised his hands and said, 'Ok. Fine. So can we forget this and move on?' He extended his hand to Sonic.

Sonic looked at it, then suddenly felt shame ruffle his spines. 'He didn't do anything, and I bit his head right off.
Still...' Sonic shook it. 'Look, I'm sorry about my erm...language. I just don't like...bureaucracy,' he said, stopping
himself from saying 'bullshit' in the nick of time.

'That's quite alright, I was a young teenager once,' Allen grinned as he shook Sonic's hand. He felt a slight pang of guilt
for lying to Sonic, but shook it off. He'd deal with it later...

'So,' Sonic said, breaking the handshake, 'I guess it's time for me to go.'

Allen nodded. 'Good luck.'

Sonic gave him a nod and headed to where Ronald was.

Thus began the start of the uneasy truce.

-END OF CHAPTER 9

This post has been edited by sonictk: 27 March 2005 - 02:43 PM

[sonictk]

CHAPTER 10: OPERATION DARK LIGHTNING
-----------------------------------------

SONIC walked briskly to keep up With Ronald as the both of them headed off to the hangar. 'So, I guess this is it, then.'

'Yep, it is,' Ronald replied as they rounded a corner and entered the hangar. Sonic's mouth opened in surprise.

He had expected to see a full assortment of high-tech planes and other high-tech stuff, given the agency he was dealing with.
Instead, he saw something, if possible, even more impressive.

The Eagles' hangar was built to withstand shock and compression waves that rivaled a 50-kiloton bomb's explosion. This was
due to the fact that the fastest way out of the complex was via aircraft and that it was far easier to escape on air rather
than on foot. The hangar was about the size of two full soccer fields, and housed six aircraft and two helicopters, one of
which Tails and Knuckles were both standing next to, Sonic saw. This was not the thing that had captured Sonic's attention,
though; the main point of the hangar was a sleek, black aircraft that was different from all the others.

Ronald noticed where Sonic was looking and smirked as he saw the hulking mass of machinery that had caught Sonic's eye.
'Yeah, that's our latest toy, the F-117 Nighthawk. Damn fine stealth plane, and with our own modifications, it's right up
there with the other gadgets of today's world. Incorporating the best aspects of stealth aircraft technology...'

Sonic was too awed to notice what Ronald was saying. He just kept looking at the aircraft, it looked beautiful, decked on the
hangar floor, the perfect image of immunity and power...he returned his thoughts back to the present and looked at Ronald,
who was still reciting information about the Nighthawk as if he was reading it off a textbook. 'Let's go, they're waiting for
us,' Sonic said, indicating Tails and Knuckles, who were both tapping their feet impatiently by this time. Well, at least
Knuckles was; once Tails saw Sonic dressed up all spy-like, his eyes lit up as he took in Sonic's new look. 'Wow, Sonic!'

'Yeah, I know, I look good in anything, don't I?' he grinned as he stepped past Knuckles, making sure that he saw every part
of Sonic's outfit. Knuckles muttered something that Sonic didn't catch, but Tails flushed red with silent laughter.

Tails reached out with his arm and pulled the Night Stalker's door, revealing the passenger compartment. 'Welcome aboard
Eagles airlines, where we transport agents of doom to their doom. Please make sure you've strapped yourselves down tight,
because if we have to make an emergency landing, you can bet as hell we're not going to have cute cuddly rubber duckies for
you guys to sail on.'

'You suck at humor, Tails,' Sonic said as he climbed aboard the special-operations helicopter, followed by Ronald and
Knuckles.

'Whatever,' Tails said as he headed for the cockpit. Sonic sighed and sat down on one of the benches. 'Hold, it, Sonny-boy,
hand over your Five-seveN,' Knuckles said, holding his hand out expectantly.

'What?' Sonic said.

Knuckles sighed. 'Your pistol, dude.'

'Oh,' Sonic drew the suppressed handgun from his holster and handed it to Knuckles, barrel facing downwards. 'What did you
call it?'

Ronald interrupted. 'Sorry, I forgot to tell you, the pistol that we're all issued is the Fabrique Nationale Five-seveN
Tactical pistol. It's the best choice for operatives like us because we only use our weapons if neccessary, and if we do have
to use it, well, it's better to have a pistol that uses AP rounds rather than a puny 9mm, eh?'

'AP?' Sonic asked.

'Armor-piercing, sorry. Christ, I think I'm gonna have to give you a course on this when we get back,' Ronald apologized.

Knuckles pulled back the slide on Sonic's Five-seveN and inspected the chamber. 'This thing sure is clean,' he thought. He
had never really gotten to handle the Five-seveN before, and he found that he kind of liked the weight and balance of it.
'I'll have to try and play around with one of these,' he thought to himself as he let the slide rack back. He pulled the
trigger and the gun went click as the hammer decocked. He handed it back to Sonic. 'Gotcha. Clean as a whistle.'

'I cleaned it,' Ronald said, somewhat with a lopsided grin on his face.

Knuckles extended his open hand to Ronald. 'Your turn.'

'Totally unneccessary, dude, but if it'll make you feel better...' Ronald unholstered his own handgun and handed it to
Knuckles.

After a while, Knuckles announced Ronald's own handgun was clear as well, and then the three of them proceeded to wait in
silence as Tails readied for takeoff. Ronald looked at his celllink and started to review something on it that Sonic could
not from where he was sitting.

Sonic, on an impulse, raised his wrist, turned on his celllink, and looked at the time. 6.43 PM, his celllink reported. He
sighed to himself and started to review the notes that were waiting for him on his celllink...

****************************************

'Thirty minutes till we're at the insertion point, guys.'

Tails's voice jerked Sonic from his trance of being half-asleep. He looked around; Knuckles and Ronald had also been brought
out of la-la-land prematurely, both of them had jerked awake as well.

Knuckles looked at his watch, then looked back at Sonic. 'OK, I guess we've still got enough time. Sonic, hand me your
Five-seveN and one of your magazines.'

Sonic took a moment to remember what a 'magazine' was. He pulled out one of the black rectangular boxes in his pouch, and
along with his handgun, handed it to Knuckles.

Knuckles took the items and set the magazine down on the bench he was sitting on. 'OK, I'm going to tech you how to operate
this particular firearm, the Five-seveN.'

'Erm, he doesn't really need to learn that now, we're not even authorized to fire our weapons for this operation,' Ronald
interrupted.

Knuckles snorted. 'So you're bringing a gun along so that you can't use it?'

'Firearm,' Sonic corrected, grinning.

'Yeah, yeah, whatever,' Knuckles waved him off. 'He'll have to learn about this sooner or later, and I'd rather it be
sooner.'

Ronald shrugged. 'Anything's fine with me, I guess.'

Knuckles shook his head and turned his attention back to Sonic. 'So where was I...oh, yes. This is the Five-seveN pistol
tactical version, specially designed for people like you who go on secret missions to save the world. Anyway, the reason it's
called the Five-seveN is because the ammo it uses is the 5.7x28mm round, which punches through body armor like a hot knife
through butter at a hundred metres, assuming you can shoot that well,' he pulled the pistol's slide back and locked it in
position. 'OK, a few basic things you need to know. This,' he indicated the slide, 'is the slide. It basically covers the
ejection port, and racks back everytime you pull the trigger. The chamber is what holds the rounds,' he hastily added. He
then indicated a button slightly above the grip. 'This is the slide release button. When you tap it like so...' he hit the
button, and the slide racked back to the ready positon. '...the slide goes back to the closed position, and the hammer is
cocked back. And finally, here's the safety switch, which basically blocks the firing pin until it's set to fire mode, so
you can't fire until you take it off.'

Sonic nodded, motioning for Knuckles to continue.

'...And this is the magazine release button. Hit this if you want to clear the magazine well of your current mag. Now,' he
said, picking up the magazine, 'It's time to show you how to load, unload, and reload your handgun.' He picked up the
magazine, orienting it in the correct direction. 'Loading.' He slid the magazine into the Five-seveN's magazine well, and a
click was heard as the magazine locked in place. 'Magazine loaded and round NOT in chamber.' He racked the slide once.
'Loaded and one round in the chamber. He held the pistol up, showing Sonic. 'This pistol is now fully loaded and ready to
rock'n'roll. Now, for unloading.' He hit the magazine release button, causing the now-one-round-less-than-full magazine to
fall into his other hand. 'Pistol with no magazine BUT with one round in the chamber.' He racked the slide once, fast, and a
round was ejected from the port. He caught the round with his other hand. 'This pistol is now fully unloaded.' he held it up
for Sonic to see.

Sonic nodded. He was starting to understand how pistols worked.

'Now, for reloading.' Knuckles inserted the ejected round back into the magazine, making sure it was reseated properly.

'Now this magazine is fully loaded. OK, assuming you still have rounds in the pistol and want to reload while you have the
chance, you just hit the mag release button and load in a fresh mag. Clear?' Sonic nodded. 'If you fire till your pistol
empties, though, your slide will automatically kick back and hold in place after the last round leaves the chamber.' Knuckles
racked the slide back again and held it in postion with the slide lock. 'When this happens, just insert a fresh magazine
and hit the slide release button. The pistol will strip a round from the magazine and chamber it when the slide kicks back,'
he inserted the magazine again and demonstrated, the slide falling back into place with an audible KA-CHINK. 'Remember, the
hammer is now cocked, so it's now ready to fire. Be careful where you point that,' he added as he handed the loaded
handgun back to Sonic.

Sonic retrieved the pistol and and set the fire selector to the 'SAFE' position before reholstering it.

'There's a lot more, but that's basically what you need to know about it.' Knuckles sat down.

Ronald leaned forward. 'And now it's time to get down to more important things.'

***********************************************

'Two minutes to drop-off, guys. Make sure your chutes are secured and ready,' Tails gave the final warning before point
insertion.

Sonic checked the pack he was carrying again for the thirteenth time. Yep, the straps were all snug and tight. He looked at
Ronald, who smiled at him and asked, 'Your first jump?'

'No, I've had plenty of practice before with Tails,' Sonic replied with a touch of nervousness, though it was true. But he
still could not get used to the feeling of freefalling through the air, even with a chute. There was something nice about
having your feet on the damn ground, and he sure as hell couldn't run on air, could he?

Ronald read his mind. 'Don't worry, you'll do fine. I have great faith in you, son.'

'Gee thanks, dad,' was the sarcastic reply Sonic gave, with a grin on his face.

'One minute,' came the voice from the cockpit.

Knuckles, who had been waiting beside the Night Stalker's hatch, pulled the hatch lever. The door separating them from the
cold air outside opened, blasting Sonic with a rush of frigid air. 'Good thing I had my goggles on,' Sonic thought as the
wind threatened to make him shiver, even with his ninja suit. 'You guys ready?' Knuckles shouted over the howling wind.

Ronald nodded, his mask making it impossible for him to make his voice audible over the roar of the wind.

'Thirty seconds!' Tails yelled.

Sonic shifted uneasily and suddenly, he felt a wave of adrenaline rush over him, coursing through him like fire, eliminating
his fears, calming his nerves, heightening his senses to full alert. He braced for the take-off.

'Ten seconds!'

The world seemed to slow down. The wind began to howl less, and the helicopter seemed to move slower as it began to reach the
designated drop-off point. The countdown sounded softer, and Sonic's heartbeat began to pound in his ears as he tensed for
the beginning of the operation.

'One!'

Sonic jumped out of the helicopter, and aligned himself like a missle, hurtling towards the ground at a hundred feet per
second, just like Tails had taught him so long so. In a moment of clarity, he suddenly realized he was jumping from a few
hundred feet in the air, the parachute being the only thing between life and death, and for some reason, he immediately
thought of Amy. The sweet pink hedgehog who had been chasing him since childhood, the one he had rescued from Metal Sonic,
the same one who had comforted him, consoled him, after the ARK incident, the one whom he, Sonic the hedgehog, had been
pushing away every time she tried to get closer to him, now suddenly felt so very close to...

Sonic jerked out of his trance and noticed that Ronald was beside him, in a similar dive. 'Having fun?' Ronald's voice came
in Sonic's ears through the transmitter attached to the strap on the goggles.

'I've done this before,' Sonic replied. The ground was coming up faster, and they would have to deploy their parachutes
right about...

Sonic pulled the strap attached to his backpack. For a second, he imagined that the parachute would fail to deploy, that he
would fall down to the earth at full speed, that he would not ever get a chance to see Amy again...

The backpack opened up and the parachute deployed as it was supposed to. About twenty metres away from himself, Sonic could
see Ronald doing the same.

The sudden jerk and reduction in speed was what broke Sonic from his trance again. He shook his head to clear it. 'I can't
think about these things right now,' he muttered to himself.

'What?' came Ronald's voice over the com. Damn ultra-sensitive mikes, Sonic thought.

'Nothing.'

The rest of the descent passed in silence, until they were right over their target. Sonic couldn't help but gasp in awe.
'That's...'

'Yep, that's Astro Enterprises,' was the grim reply over the com.

Astro Enterprises was a gigantic compound, built like a fortress, in the middle of Station Square's rural district. Sonic
had, of course, ran through the area a few times before, but he had never stopped in the middle of the rural district to take
a good look at things. Now, though, he was getting the top-seat view of the entire area. Astro Enterprises wasn't terribly
different from the other major corporate buildings in the city district...until you saw the numerous defenses that were
visible, even from the height Sonic was at. Sonic could see multiple anti-aircraft guns from where he was, and...he squinted
his eyes. 'What the hell are those?'

'Zoom in,' was the reply. Good idea, Sonic thought. He rolled the dial on his goggles, and the view zoomed in to give him a
view of...'Shit, what the heck do they need those for?'

'Hey, this is a military facility, they're definitely going to need tanks to be able to ward off land-based threats, you
know. These guys are a major military contractor for our government.'

'Yeah, but they've like what? An army of them?'

'I dunno...that's what we're here to find out,' Ronald replied as the building got bigger and bigger.

Sonic then thought of something. 'Won't those big guns down there, erm, shoot us?'

'Well, that's why you have to hope your pink friend managed to do her job.'

'What?!'

*********************************************************

Back in the Eagles's intelligence and communication room, Amy Rose, the Intelligence specialist for Sonic's team, frowned.
'Something's wrong.'

Micheal Allen, working as coordinator and thus sitting at the communications console, turned his swivel chair around to face
her. 'What?'

'The systems for the anti-aircraft guns were too easy to hack into. I didn't even need to send a second request in before
they let me have the access codes for the system. I disabled all of them, and no one even sent a return query to question the
order given.'

Allen crossed his arms. 'That's good, isn't it?'

'Well, yeah, if you look at it from the surface. But if this Astro Enterprises thingy is as heavyweight a corporation as you
said it was, why would their supposedly secured systems be so insecure? It doesn't make sense,' Amy questioned.

Allen shrugged. 'Hey, so long as it works, it'll do. Besides, we DO have the best equipment down here. Maybe their IT
department got a little sloppy. It happens.'

Amy's reply didn't sound convincing. 'Maybe.'

Unknown to her, Allen was already wondering about his earlier dream from a few weeks ago...

**********************************************************

Sonic found it hard to believe that he was still alive when he and Ronald finally touched down on the roof of Astro
Enterprises' main building. He quickly hit a catch on his backpack, retracting the parachute that was trailing behind him. He
then stuffed the now-crumpled chute into his backpack, then looked at Ronald, who, of course, was slower. 'So, what now?'

'Well, it appears your friend isn't that bad, after all,' Ronald said as he finally zipped his backpack shut. He brought his
wrist up, looking at his celllink, and tapped it. He then looked back at Sonic. 'OK, I've just sent the signal that we've
landed safely. We should be getting contact from HQ right about-'

'Are you two there?' Allen's deep voice jolted Sonic.

'...Yeah, we're here, we just landed,' Ronald replied.

'Good, Listen, you two need to stay sharp. We have slight indication that they may be aware of your presence.'

Sonic felt his heart drop into his stomach. 'What?'

'Nothing's confirmed yet. Just a friendly reminder,' was the reply.

Sonic looked at Ronald, who waved his hand in a this-happens-all-the-time motion. Sonic nodded.

'Anyway, you two watch yourselves down there. Remember, under no circumstances should there be a firefight. If you have to
draw your weapon, it means the mission's scrubbed. Got it?'

'Affirmative,' Sonic replied, with overly-done sarcasm. Ronald grinned at him, and Sonic grinned back.

Sonic could hear Allen's exasperated sigh over the com. 'Good luck, then. I'll be observing your communications, so if you
need help, just say the word.'

'Is Amy there?' Sonic asked.

'You really shouldn't be thinking about that now, Sonic,' Allen said, but-

'Sonic? Is that you? Hello?' Sonic almost laughed when he heard the cute voice over the com.

'Ms. Rose, you should not be on the communications link with the team, I've told you about that-'

'Sonic? Are you there?'

Sonic quickly replied, 'Yeah Amy, I'm here. Listen to Allen, Amy. Off the com. Do what he says.' He felt a pang of guilt as
he said it, but he knew that he couldn't afford to be distracted during his operations. Still...

'Ok, I'll get off the com. Sorry, MISTER Allen,' the sarcasm was evident in her tone. Sonic resisted the urge to smile. She's
so like me, he thought. How could I not have seen it before...he shook his head. Later. I can think about that later, he
thought to himself.

Allen's stressed voice came back. 'OK...anyway, I hope you two know what you have to do. Ronald, please try to help Sonic
along, and good luck again to the both of you.'

'Got it,' both Ronald and Sonic replied. There was a faint click as Allen's voice link cut off.

'Where to now?' Sonic asked.

Ronald pointed to the rooftop access door directly ahead of them. The two headed towards the door, Sonic flattening himself
against the wall next to one side of the door, Ronald doing the same on the other side. The doorknob was next to Sonic.
'Ready?' Sonic asked. Ronald held up three fingers in reply. Two fingers. One finger...

Ronald pumped his fist up and down.

Sonic turned the doorknob and pulled...

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
AUTHOR'S NOTE:

Yes, this chapter was a bit shorter compared to the others, but hey, I had to leave a cliffhanger somewhere, didn't I?

By the way, just because the Eagles' agents use the Five-seveN, does not mean that this fic is a rip-off of Splinter Cell's
storyline. I have always been a fan of the Five-seveN, and I don't like the fact that a schoolkid could probably shoot that
pistol better than Sam Fisher himself. (Don't get me wrong, I love Splinter Cell, just not the gay arthritis that Sam has.)

Another update in about a week or two again, I suppose. But my exams will be starting in about 4 - 5 weeks' time, so I may
try to update earlier before the exam period, in which I won't be able to write much. :\

See you guys again, then. And c'mon, any reviews at all?

[Bahamas]

Well that's quite long, but sadly, the only fiction I'll read is Atelophobia.

[sonictk]

Quote

Well that's quite long, but sadly, the only fiction I'll read is Atelophobia.

What in the world is Atelophobia?

This post has been edited by sonictk: 04 April 2005 - 08:59 AM

[Mr. Orange]

I can smell crap from a mile away.

[Cookie Monster]

It's too long, I lost interest. Maybe thats because it sucked too...

[Mr. Orange]

Nobody wants to read a long-ass story, unless you get something to catch their eye at the beggining. Who gives a fuck about a sob story? WE WANT SEX AND BOOZE!

[sonictk]

That's all that's important in your life, isn't it?

And this isn't a sob story o.O I have no idea where you got that from.

(BTW, why are the three of you using the same avatar?)

[sonictk]

Regardless of negative reviews, I'm continuing to write it, because it's kind of stress-relief.

Anyway, here's the next chapter.

CHAPTER 11: THE SECOND HINT
------------------------------------

THE world seemed to come to a standstill as Sonic opened the door. In reality, he was giving it a hard tug, but in his
vision, the door moved ever so slowly, centimeter by centimeter, the light beyond filtering into the doorway bit by bit. He
watched his hand seemingly move of its own accord, unable to do anything except watch the door open wider and wider. He could
hear his heart pounding against his ribs, the sound deafening him, rendering him oblivious to all other things around him.
His entire world was focused on that one door, and to open it...

The door opened.

Sonic suddenly felt a rush of emotions flowing through him, so strong, so intense, that he couldn't define what he was
feeling, only that he knew he could feel it. It was almost as if he was high on drugs, but no...he couldn't quite place what
he was feeling, he couldn't stand it, he was going to explode, his head was on fire, his mind was screaming for release from
its cage of emotions...

And then they left him, leaving him stranded, alone with his own body, alone with his own mind. All alone.

Sonic gave out and nearly collapsed to the floor, dropping to a kneeling position, the door fully opened and bathing him with
light. Ronald, seeing Sonic's predicament, immediately abandoned his position and moved to crouch beside Sonic, safely out of
view. He pulled Sonic away from the beam of light now emanating from the doorway. 'Are you alright?' he asked with a hint of
worry in his voice.

It took Sonic a while to get his voice back. "I..I'll be fine. I...don't know, I just felt I had to sit down for a second.
I'll be fine,' he said, while pushing Ronald's hand away, which was on his shoulder. He stood up, which nearly caused him to
double over, his energy leaving him. He managed to stand up again with great difficulty. 'Shit, what the heck's happening to
me?' he thought.

Ronald's repeated question of 'Are you sure you're alright?' drove through Sonic's cloudy mind. 'I'm fine,' he replied
reflexively, not feeling fine at all. He shook his blue head fast, his spines whipping around, and suddenly his mind cleared,
his drowsiness gone, his senses fully alert again. 'What the hell?' he thought. He looked at Ronald and nodded, then moved
back into position beside the doorway.

Ronald didn't have any idea of what had just happened, but he decided that since Sonic looked fine and had also said that he
was fine...Ronald shrugged and moved back to his earlier position as well, slipping past the open doorway in a flash and
leaning against the wall on the other side.

Sonic was still slightly shaken by what he had gone through just now, and it showed when he dove into the doorway, rolling
inside and coming to a crouched position. He banged his shoulder badly on the ground, but he had had plenty of practice
before, plus his suit absorbed most of the impact, so it wasn't too bad. Sonic didn't bother to look around where he had just
gotten himself into; he scanned the room for any human-shaped figures or security devices. There were none. He then took a
moment to take in his surroundings.

The roof access room connecting the top floor of the building to the roof was nothing more than a plain empty room, with a
few damaged tables and chairs stacked at one corner of the room. A staircase was the only way leading out of the room. Sonic
pointed to the beginning of the stairway and looked at Ronald. Ronald nodded and moved to the corner, his back against the
wall. Sonic followed suit.

Ronald crouched down and retrieved something from his pouch. Sonic couldn't see what it was, but a few seconds later, Ronald
fished out whatever he was trying to get and Sonic heard a soft click as Ronald brought his hands apart. He held up the
device, and Sonic saw what it was. 'Corner mirror?' he asked over the mike.

'Yep. Small mirror, like a dentist's one. You should have one of those in your suit,' Ronald said as he arranged the mirror,
twisting it and placing it so that it would...yes. The reflection in the tiny instrument showed Ronald a clear view of the
stairway, which was completely devoid of life. He retracted the handle of the mirror and replaced it in his pocket. 'All
clear,' he announced over the com.

'Great. Now what?'

'Now we move,' Ronald said, sliding around the corner and inching down the steps, Sonic a second behind him.

The duo moved down the stairway slowly, not daring to dash down lest the steps creak and give away their presence. Sonic
didn't like it. He wasn't used to moving this slowly, and his earlier disorientation didn't help at all. In a moment of
clarity, Sonic suddenly realized that he was doing this becuase he wanted to find out about Shadow, but how was infiltrating
this top-secret facility going to help him find his friend? Could it be that-

'Focus.'

The voice brought Sonic out of his reverie and he snapped back to the situation at hand. Shit, why couldn't he just keep his
mind on the mission and save his thinking for later? He caught up with Ronald, who was already at the bottom of the stairway
and was using his mirror to check the corner again. Sonic just waited while Ronald fiddled around with the mirror. Finally,
after what seemed like an eternity, Ronald gave an all-clear hand sign, and Sonic shot down the stairway and, throwing
caution to the winds, whipped around the corner.

They had entered a storeroom of some sort. A dim overhead light provided all the illumination, which wasn't much. Shelves
adjourned the two walls of the small room, and a door was left in the last wall, the one directly ahead of them. The shelves
were stacked with bottles of cleaning fluid and other items, including what appeared to be a broom and a mop. 'Janitor's
stash?' Sonic asked.

'Probably,' was the reply as Ronald moved to the door. Sonic was about to follow, when his sharp green eyes caught something
that shouldn't have been there. Frowning, he reached out to one of the shelves and moved one of the brooms away. 'Ronald.'

'What?'

'Take a look.' Sonic stepped away, letting Ronald take a closer look at what he had just found.

The dark red stain, visible even in the dim light, sent a shiver down Ronald's spine. He looked back at Sonic. 'Maybe
someone just bashed his head against this?'

Sonic shook his head. 'It's fresh. And there's a lot more of it.'

'Where?' The stain appeared to to be dry, and it wasn't a BIG stain per se. At least, not that Ronald could see.

'Look closer,' was the answer.

Ronald did, but didn't see anything...until he saw what was behind the broom. He didn't feel sick; he had seen death
countless times over, but the sight of so much red, so much dark red, blood red, slowly dripping down the wall, leaving
strangely beautiful patterns in their wake, it was just so...'Sick,' he muttered.

"I have a feeling that's not the half of it,' Sonic replied grimly.

Ronald was about to turn away from the sight when his training finally took over. He held up his celllink and pressed a
button on the side. 'What are you doing?' Sonic asked.

'Taking a photo,' Ronald replied, somewhat awkwardly.

The two stood in silence as Ronald's celllink performed its task. Then Ronald headed towards the door to-

'Wait.'

Ronald turned. Sonic was opening one of his side pouches. 'What?'

'Let me do this one. I need the experience.'

Ronald hesitated, remembering what Allen had said: that Sonic needed more guidance before he could be trusted to perform well
in missions. But how was he supposed to learn if he didn't have any hands-on experience? Ronald relented. 'OK. You can't use
the mirror, you know. You'll have to use the Opti-Wand.'

Sonic took out a long, thin, instrument, which had a plug at one end and a very small appendage on the other. 'I've used
these, before, Ronald,' he said as he bent the instument and slipped the small appendage under the door, placing the plug
into his celllink. His celllink's screen lit up, to his relief, and it displayed a view on the other side of the door. Sonic
was glad that at least there was SOMETHING that worked like Tails' gadgets in the Eagles' arsenal.

He had used the same instument before, many times, though he had never really bothered to understand how it worked. The only
thing he knew about it was that it was damn useful for peeking under doors and around corners, and that it was called the
'Opti-Wand', though he preferred to call it the 'corner periscope'. The Opti-Wand consisted of a very small, very thin long
wire that was made of fibre-optic glass, which allowed it to be bent in almost any way imaginable and yet conduct light
through it. The damn thing measured only about 2mm at its widest point, which allowed it to be slipped under doors and used
around corners without eliciting suspicion. The opti-wand was more advanced than the standard 'relflect around the corner'
mirror that Ronald was using though. There was a cable at the end of it that allowed it to broadcast whatever it was
receiving to Sonic's celllink, and there was even a optical zoom function. The reason that this instrument wasn't practical
for looking around corners was because it took way too long to set up, plus a mirror would do the job equally well.

The view behind the storedoom's door showed nothing fancy, just a blank corridor with doors set in at intervals on the side
of the wall that Sonic could see. It kind of reminded him of the corridor in the Eagles' complex. 'Looks clear.'

'Wait.' Ronald crouched down and took Sonic's hand, tilting it to the right.

The view on Sonic's celllink rotated and tilted along, showing the end of the corridor...and a lone security guard sitting in
a chair right at the end, watching the entire corridor. If Sonic had opened the door, he would have seen them immediately
from where he was. Sonic looked at Ronald, who shrugged and said, 'Practice.'

Sonic looked back at the celllink. The guard appeared to be absorbed in reading some book, and didn't look like he was on
full battle alert. That was good. It meant no one had detected their presence. Sonic couldn't see any firearms on the guard
either, but he did have a radio strapped to his belt. A bottle of Guiness was at his side, and every now and then, he would
reach down to take a swig of the stuff. For all it seemed, the guard looked like the average 17-year-old kid trying to earn
his way through college.

Maybe.

Sonic pulled back the opti-wand and pocketed it. 'So how're we going to do this?'

Ronald smiled. 'The simple way.'

*****************************************************************

Amy frowned more as she reviewed Astro Enterprises' records as part of her duty on the operation. Something didn't seem quite
right. The records indicated that they had recently purchased quite a few SAM Launchers, but hadn't purchased or manufactured
any SAM missles...at least, not that they wanted the public to know, she reminded herself. The intelligence business sure was
a quirky one, she thought as she went over the files again. Other oddities in the records included Astro Enterprises
purchasing about a hundred M1 tanks and enough spare parts to build another hundred of those...but no orders had been
received for them, so why would a military corporation spend thousands, millions of dollars on wasted material? Unless they
had some sort of secret buyer...but why would they want to hide their buyer's identity? The publicity would be good for them
...unless their buyer wasn't one they wanted to advertise? But who would want to purchase a few million dollars' worth of
military goods, or better yet, who even had the resources available to do so?

She sipped her cup of coffee, and made a face. She had never liked the stuff, but drank it anyway to keep herself awake and
going. She sighed as she pondered over the rest of the inconsistencies in Astro Enterprises' records. It was going to be a
long night...

And when would she be able to see Sonic again...?

******************************************************************

Sonic, carrying the now-unconscious guard to the storeroom while Ronald acted as his eyes and ears, finally heaved a sigh of
relief as he got the heavy load off his back, dumping the body onto the floor. He arranged the body such that it would
appear as if he had been reading and drinking beer, then passed out onto the floor. He took the guard's chair and placed it
nearby, complete with the beer bottle, to complete the illusion. 'How's it look?' he asked Ronald.

'Not too shabby,' Ronald allowed.

'You really think he'll forget what happened to him?' Sonic asked.

Ronald shrugged. 'I did hit his head hard, you know.'

The duo had opened the door slowly, steadily, until Sonic, with his smaller frame, could sneak out. He had shot towards the
guard with his customary speed, knocking him off the chair and making a helluva noise. Thankfully, Ronald had chosen that
moment to intervene; he had rushed at the fallen guard and had, with one swift blow, snapped his head back with a move right
out of a Hollywood movie, causing the guard to go limp.

'I hope the whole base didn't get woken up,' Sonic said, looking at the guard. He'd have a headache when he woke up, but at
least he would not remember what had happened to him, if what Ronald had said was true.

'Nah, there's no one else around here. Besides, you didn't even hit supersonic speed. No sonic boom.' Ronald waved Sonic back
over. 'Come on, we've still got a crapload of work to do.'

The two left the storeroom, quietly closing the door behind them. They then moved as one element down the corridor. 'Keep
your eyes peeled,' Ronald said over the com. 'If you see any of those doors open, find cover immediately. We can't afford to
take out too many people.'

'Why's that?' Sonic asked.

'A few people having a headache when they wake up isn't exactly what we should be aiming for here,' Ronald replied.

Sonic moved faster to keep up with Ronald, who, he noticed, was moving like a snake, sliently and quickly. Sonic was trying
his best to mimic Ronald's movement, but was failing miserably. 'So what's our first order of business?'

'Communications room,' Ronald answered.

The communications room, Sonic recalled from the maps on his celllink, was two stories down and a turn to the left, before
heading down a corridor and entering the door on the right. 'So what? We're using the lifts?'

Ronald stopped and stared at Sonic, who hastily said, 'I was only joking...'

Ronald shook his head and resumed his movement. 'No, we're either going to have to rappel or take the stairs.'

'Rappel?' Sonic asked hesitantly.

'Yeah, down the sides of the building. Why? Vertigo?' Ronald asked.

'Something like that,' Sonic admitted.

Sonic could hear Ronald's muted groan as the two of them continued to head down the hallway. The entire place was like a
ghost town, dark and silent, without a trace of human life. It didn't seem right to Sonic, as he followed Ronald, treading
carefully on the carpeted floor (which he was thankful for, for it helped mask his unbearably loud footsteps), checking his
six every now and then to ensure that they weren't missing anything.

The two of them continued down the long passageway when Sonic finally realized what was wrong with the place. 'Ronald?'

'What?'

'Why isn't anyone here?'

Ronald stopped and turned to look at Sonic. Even in the darkness, Sonic could see that Ronald's eyebrow was raised.

'Isn't this supposed to be some sort of high-tech military facility? Wouldn't their people be working 7-day weeks or
something?' Sonic asked.

Ronald shrugged. 'I don't know. Early Easter celebrations?'

Sonic frowned.

Ronald saw his concern. 'Perhaps they left because they were ordered to? This could be why the signal that was sent to the
Pheonix wasn't registered under the official logs.'

Sonic shook his head. 'That wouldn't work. That'd just get the employees to become even more suspicious. Which company
encourages its workers to leave on time? And even if they ordered their workers to leave, why would they leave one lone
college kid in the way?'

Ronald shrugged again. 'It doesn't matter. We're here to collect information, and frankly, the less people around, the
better.' He turned around again and continued down the hallway.

Not quite convinced, Sonic followed. The end of the hallway, and the door to the stairs, was now a few metres away...

**************************************************************************

Tails, who had set the Night Stalker down on a nearby hill, safely out of both visual and sensor range of Astro Enterprises,
was playing Poker with Knuckles when his celllink that Allen had given him started to vibrate. Frowning, Tails took it out
and looked at the ID of who was calling.

'Sonic?' he muttered as he hit the 'Accept Call' button. 'Go ahead.'

'Tails? Where are you now?'

'On a hill nearby. Why?'

'Can you take the heli up? We need some aerial recon of the north side of the complex.'

'What for?'

'We, uh...we're rappelling down the sides of the building to get to the communicatons room.'

Sonic could almost see Tails' grin on his face as he said that. His blue face turned red as he imagined the young kitsune
laughing at his precadiment. 'Hello?' he asked.

'Yeah, I'm still here. North side, you say?' Tails' voice had a hint of laughter in it.

'Yes, north side. How long will you take?'

'5, maybe 6 minutes. I'll call you back.'

'Good. Out.' Sonic glared at Ronald, who was standing beside a window which was in a room adjacent to the staircase. 'What?'

'You said we could take the stairs.'

'Yeah well, I said we COULD rappel, too.'

'My faith is shattered.'

'You KNEW, when I said rappel, that we were going to do it. You KNEW. So any hopes you had for taking the stairs is
irrelevant.'

'It's still your fault.'

Ronald laughed.

****************************************************************************

Tails stopped his approach at 500 metres, bringing the Night Stalker from flying to hovering so fast that Knuckles, now
acting as co-pilot, looked at him in amazement at how fast he had brought it off. 'How'd you do that?'

'Practice,' Tails replied as he rotated the Night Stalker to get a better view. 'Get out the binoculars.'

'Gotcha.' Knuckles took out the instrument and looked through it. Zooming in, he saw that the north side of Astro Enterprises
was composed of mainly glass windows, kind of like a normal office building. 'Well?' Tails asked.

'Seems fine for rappelling. It's just glass. Though they'll have to make sure no one's below before they smash open the
windows.'

'Who said they were going to smash it?'

'Then how are they gonna get through it? Phase?'

*****************************************************************************

'Ever heard of handles?' Ronald took the window handle, turned it, and pushed the window open.

Sonic sighed as the blast of cold air hit him. He really didn't like the idea of going out there, with only a fibreglass rope
as his lifeline, but he knew that he would have to do it sooner or later, and it might as well be sooner. Oh well. At least
they wouldn't be going ninja-smashing-through-window style. Even with his suit on, Sonic wasn't confident that it would save
him entirely from any scratches or cuts. 'You ready to do this?' Ronald asked.

'Yeah,' Sonic replied, not at all feeling up to the task ahead.

'You'll do fine. Just watch what I do and don't look down too much.' Ronald took out a length of rope from one of his pouches
which had two ends. One end he attached to his suit's hook on his belt. The other he anchored to the small pole that was
conviently placed at the side of the window. He tugged the rope to make sure it was secure, then, giving Sonic a thumbs-up,
jumped out of the window and disappeared from view. Sonic saw the rope jerk as it felt the impact of Ronald's weight and
snapped tight, stopping Ronald's descent. Looking out of the now-open window, Sonic could see Ronald one storey down and
slowly moving down to the next storey. 'How's the view down there?' he asked.

'Fine,' was the reply. Sonic watched as Ronald continued to edge his way down, inch by inch, until he was finally in front of
the window he was aiming for. With swift, precise movements, Ronald secured his harness, then retrieved his lockpicks from
his rear pocket. It took him a mere five seconds to pick the window's lock, and he kicked it open, causing himself to sway
precariously in the air before he grabbed the sides of the window ledge and pulled himself inside, disappearing out of sight.
A few seconds later, the rope attached to the pole slackened, and Ronald's voice came over the com. 'You saw what I did?'

'Yeah, I think so,' Sonic swallowed dryly, hoping the sound wouldn't carry over the com.

'Good. Tails is monitoring the situation below, so if you hear his voice come over the com, just try to stay out of sight,
OK? If you're stuck or something, call me.'

'Right.' Sonic followed Ronald's lead, attaching a rope to the same pole, tugging it, and then, taking a deep breath, he
jumped out of the window.


-END OF CHAPTER 11

[sonictk]

Sweet Jesus, I totally forgot about updating here. Sorry.

CHAPTER 12: A DISCOVERY OF TITANIC PORPORTIONS
------------------------------------------------

THE view from 100 feet above the ground was, indeed, breathtaking, Sonic had to admit as his body fell, in slow motion, down
towards the hard ground below...faster, faster...

The rope recoiled and tensed, jerking Sonic from his freefall. The suddenness of it almost made him dizzy, but he managed to
get his hand around the rope and, slowly, he managed to swing himself towards the side of the building. He made his way to
the opening below and swung himself in, where Ronald was already waiting. 'How was the view?' Ronald asked.

'Not bad, when I was trying my best not to let go or look down.' Sonic took a look around the room he had just entered. It
appeared to be a normal office, with the usual computer table and office cabinets placed around the room. The room had a
single door leading out of it. 'Where are we?' Sonic asked.

'In the north side of this floor. The communications room is just two offices away. I say we-' the sound of sudden, but
definite gunfire broke through Ronald's voice. Repeated gunfire. Shouts. Screams. More gunfire.

Then silence.

Ronald looked at Sonic wordlessly. Sonic nodded, somehow unable to speak. Ronald moved over to the door and once again used
the opti-wand to look under it. After a few moments, he retracted the device and moved to cover one side of the doorway.
Sonic moved to cover the other side. A sudden memory of the blood he and Ronald had seen in the storeroom earlier suddenly
flashed through Sonic's mind. Was there some other intruder in the building? He wondered to himself.

Ronald swung the door open.

The sudden change in air pressure, in room temperature, it startled Sonic, brought his senses back, heightening his tension.
He felt adrenaline rush, no, course through him, like he was some sort of wire conveying an electrical current, his entire
body moving without thinking-

He entered yet another open hallway, his vision scanning for visible threats, and noting something odd about the room...it
was painted red? His nose twitched as he inhaled a metallic scent.

Blood?

The whole room was covered in it. And he saw, as his vision swept around the room-

Bodies. The corpses of so many people, so many-

'I think I'm going to be sick,' Sonic managed to say over the com.

'Keep it down and stay alert. This isn't a time for niceties.' Ronald pulled out his Five-seveN and assumed the Weaver
stance, scanning the area for possible threats. There WAS the order that they weren't supposed to kill anyone, but when the
shit hit the fan, all bets were off. Beside him, Sonic did the same, albeit a bit nervously, which was out of place for one
of his character. Then the duo's comlinks buzzed with activity, making both of them jump. 'Sonic? Ronald? What's going on
down there? I heard a lot of gunfire. Are you two alright?' Allen's voice, with a hint of anxiety.

Ronald kept his attention on the sights of his pistol. 'That's an affirmative. The shots came up ahead, we're not sure from
where, and we don't know who's firing. We have multiple civiies K.I.A. on the communications room floor, we're not sure who
killed them either. Possible Tango presence. Please advise, over.' Ronald spared a glance at Sonic, whom, he saw, was leaning
over one of the corpses, using his left hand to do something, while his pistol was kept firm in his right hand. He was about
to ask Sonic what he was doing when the com buzzed again.

'Ronald, this is Allen, new orders. You and Sonic are to proceed with the primary objective, and in addition, you two are to
identify whoever killed those Astro Enterprises desk jockeys, and apprehend or neutralize the culprit if possible. I'm
lifting the no-kill zone. You two are now weapons-free. Repeat, you are now weapons-free at this time.'

'Ronald copies weapons-free. Out.' The com clicked. Ronald waved Sonic over, who finally stopped whatever he was doing and
scooted over. 'Son-'

'They weren't killed by bullets,' Sonic said without waiting for Ronald to finish. He pointed back at the corpse he had been
inspecting. 'That's no bullet hole.' Ronald went over to have a closer look.

The corpse had been mutilated beyond recognition. What was left of the face was now a messy pile of cranium, spilled brain
matter and blood on the floor. The body had two clear entry wounds in it, and each entry wound was around 10 cm wide.
Ronald searched his mind until he found what he was looking for. '5.56 x 45 mm JHP,' he muttered.

'What?' Sonic asked.

'That wound was done with a rifle, probably the 5.56 x 45 mm rounds, and,' Ronald looked at the wounds on the body. It didn't
go through all the way to the other side. 'Probably jacketed hollow point rounds...'

'What?' Sonic asked again.

Ronald turned away from the mess and faced Sonic. 'Well, at least our man isn't using a lightsaber or anything. This was done
with a bullet.'

'You serious?' Sonic looked at the corpse again and winced. 'It looks like he got run over by a goddamn tank.'

'Trust me, there's worse.' Ronald said grimly. 'Anyway, I think we found out where the blood in the storeroom came from.'

'Yeah, but where's the body?' Sonic asked.

'You know, there are some things I don't want to know.' Ronald replied. Sonic saw the grim look in his eyes, and fell silent.

'So, you heard the new orders from Allen?' Ronald asked.

'Yeah, I got it. Am I actually supposed to shoot this thing?' he indicated his Five-seveN.

'Well, yes, unless you like getting your ass shot into next week.' Ronald slid past Sonic, his attention back on the mission.

Ronald brought his Five-seveN up again and headed towards the only visible exit in the room, an
open doorway. Sonic followed, trying his best not to inhale the stench. The two kept to the side of the room they were on,
lest there be a hostile on the other side of the adjacent room. Ronald moved around the open doorway in a semicircle,
cutting a tangent with each step he took, peering through the doorway. Sonic stayed at the other side of the open aperture,
wondering what the hell Ronald was doing. Once Ronald had made his way to the other side of the doorway, he nodded to Sonic,
who promptly dove into the room, doing a forward roll as he did so, and coming up on one knee, his pistol drawn. Ronald was a
split second behind, moving around the perimeter of the room and scanning his area of responsibility.

The new room that Ronald and Sonic had entered seemed to be some sort of lounge. Sofas, a coffee table, a coffee machine, and
a television set were placed around the room, complete with soft lights to complement the whole image...until Sonic noticed
the corpses around the room, blood still flowing steadily from their wounds.

Ronald immediately took in his surroundings, assessing possible threats, using the 'up-down, left-right' method that his
instructor had taught him so long ago. There were none, and he was about to call Sonic to fall in and regroup to continue on,
but-

'Trouble!'

Ronald whipped around to see a dark silhouette standing in an open doorway of Sonic's area of responsibility. He couldn't
identify the face of the figure, but the fact that the shape included that of a rifle, and that the rifle was moving-

The suppressed sound of the Five-seveN's 5.7 x 28 mm subsonic round was somehow louder than the roar of a jet plane. Worse,
the sound of the figure's head turning into a cloud of pink, red and dark red was somehow worse than the gargle that tried to
come out of the figure's throat as its hands tried to claw at a face that was no longer there. The figure dropped to the
floor like a sack of beans, and the hands moved briefly, still clawing at the non-existant face, then lay still. The rifle,
abandoned, lay on the floor, specks of blood on the receiver and foregrip. A G36, Ronald saw. The aftervision of the muzzle
flash of Sonic's pistol cleared just in time for Ronald to regain his sense of his surroundings. The yell of another
individual behind him immediately triggered his combat senses, whipping around, he didn't bother to line up the sights of his
Five-seveN, at this range, indexing the whole target with the weapon would do just fine. Ronald fired once, twice,
successfully doing a double-tap. The first round was single-action, and the round drilled into the left of his target's
skull, just above the cheek and under the left eye. The second round was wilder, but still on target; it hit the target's
temple. The result was the same as Sonic's, however; the face exploded into a shower of gore that quickly drained the life
from his target, dropping him to the floor, hard. Behind him, he heard the yell of another hostile individual, heard two more
suppressed shots, and the sickening splat of a body falling to the floor.

'Find some cover!' Ronald finally yelled over the com.

Sonic was gone in a flash, hopping over one of the sofas and assuming a covering position. He was trembling, Ronald saw, but
there was no time to worry about that now. He got up, leapt towards one of the other sofas, doing a forward roll.

He felt the heat of a superheated bullet zooming right in front of his face, and cursed silently. He completed the roll and
got behind the furniture just as the spot he had been standing on erupted into a cloud of dust as a stray round slammed into
it. His ears finally registered the familiar sound of the Heckler-Koch rifle firing, the sound threatening to deafen him.
Over the din, he heard six more PUKT sounds that could only have come from Sonic's pistol, and the grunt of someone. The
gunfire stopped abruptly, with the two last rounds hitting the ceiling, causing dust and concrete particles to float down
slowly onto the ground. Ronald risked a peek around his less-than-ideal cover position. Clear.

Sonic was on his feet, pistol drawn, his attention focused on the iron sights in front of him. He had been surprised at how
much recoil the pistol had, and he was still shaking uncontrollably from the situation he had just gone through. He'd never
trembled in front of Robotnik or his goons, why was this happening to him now? He was still focused on the doorway adjacent
to him when Ronald's voice came over the com. 'Clear!'

'Copy.' Sonic moved slowly out of his cover and proceeded to check the adjacent room he had been pointing his fire at. The
room was empty, with no exit points leading out of the area. 'Confirm clear,' he replied.

'I got an opening here.' was the reply over the com. 'Fall in.'

'As ordered.' Sonic moved to regroup with Ronald. Funny, he thought to himself. How in the world did I suddenly learn all
these military commands?

The comlink buzzed again, and Allen's voice, laced with worry, came over the com. 'Sonic? Ronald? What the heck's going on?
We're hearing a lot of gunfire down there! Hello? Are you two there?'

'Allen, Murphy, I repeat, our status is Murphy. We have a situation right now, hold on.' Ronald replied for both of them.

'Copy. Standing by for report,' was the reply over the com. The com clicked and shut off. Good, Sonic thought. They didn't
need any distractions right now. He followed Ronald into the opening and proceeded to scan the area he was assigned to. The
place consisted of desk tables divided into cubicles, much like those in an ordinary office. There was but one door in the
new room, and after clearing the room, Ronald positioned himself against one side of the door, which was closed. He nodded to
Sonic, who got into position, standing at the other side.

'Shouldn't we use the wand first?' Sonic asked.

'No time, they already know something's wrong, trust me. We need to get out of here ASAP, the noise of the shots would have
carried a long way.' Almost as if on cue, the wail of a siren in the distance cut through the air. 'Hurry!'

Sonic, who was closest to the door handle, took it, and slammed the door open with all his strength. He felt a WHUMP as he
did so, and entered after Ronald to see another unknown figure lying on the floor out cold. 'Not bad,' Ronald said as he
moved on to a computer in the room. It was only then Sonic realized that the room was filled with rows and rows of computer
CPUs. 'This is the communications room?'

'Yep,' Ronald replied. 'Now hang on, I got some hacking to do.' Ronald took out his celllink and a cable, which he quickly
used to connect the device to the main computer. He then proceeded to load up the program that his earlier computer
specialist had worked up for him earlier on. It worked, and the files that contained the information about the signal to the
Pheonix organization was downloaded onto his celllink. Disconnecting the device, he turned around and motioned to Sonic.
'Let's blow this joint.'

'Wait. We're supposed to find out who killed the Astro Enterprises people, remember?' Sonic prodded the unconscious man with
his boot. 'Maybe this guy knows something.'

Ronald stayed silent for a while. Then - 'OK. Let me get Tails before they turn this whole place into a armored fortress.'

*************************************************************

Two lone figures, one carrying another body over his shoulders, were seen on the roof of the Astro Enterprises complex,
waiting for a certain two-tailed fox to bring something else that could fly down to the roof for extraction. All around
them, alarms sounded, red lights flashed, and the anti-aircraft weapons were starting to power up, despite Amy's efforts...

The Night Stalker appeared almost out of nowhere, its camofluage blending perfectly with the evening sky. The two figures
boarded the aircraft, one entering first, then helping the other retrieve the limp form of another body, and finally pulling
his partner up to the inside of the helicopter. The Night Stalker gained altitude and the two figures both heaved sighs of
relief, one of them yelling in ecstasy as the helicopter banked towards the night sky, back towards the city, and to freedom.

*************************************************************

'Well, that was certainly the adventure you two had over there.'

Sonic sighed as his thoughts of a victory parade were cut short by Allen's voice. He hadn't really expected a party or
anything of the sort, of course, but he hadn't expected a debrief that could last more than one hour. The earlier stress and
tension was starting to show its ugly effects, and he rubbed his eyes as Allen continued his debrief. Sonic looked around.
He and Ronald were back in the Briefing Room, but now they were accompanied by the rest of the support team that had
provided assistance throughout the mission. Tails and Knuckles were on Sonic's right, both still dressed in their flight
suits. And, Sonic saw, even Tails' head to starting to droop thanks to the boring nature of the debrief. Amy was next to
Knuckles, her expression one of rapt attention. Sonic briefly wondered how she could manage to actually PAY ATTENTION to the
debrief, when, in essence, it was really nothing more than a summary of what events had transpired that night. Beside Amy was
an operative Sonic didn't know, but he guessed that she must be in the same department that Amy was, for both of them were
wearing the same kind of uniform. She was pretty cute, too, how old was she, about 18? 19? Amy suddenly looked at Sonic, and
he smiled back almost z, even though he hadn't done anything. He returned his attention to Allen, who was finally winding up.

'So in future, you two had better watch the way you infiltrate areas more carefully. Even though this time, I know
circumstances weren't exactly in your favour, we can't afford too many of these screw-ups. I suppose you could take it as a
textbook example of how everything can go to hell in a few moments,' Allen paused. 'OK, overall, not too shabby of a job,
especially for a first-time team. Sonic, any questions?'

'Yeah, so what happens now?' Sonic asked.

'We'll begin analyzing the data that you two got out of their computer immediately. Not you, Miss Rose; you're off-duty until
Sonic is on-duty again. The rest of you will be getting some well-deserved rest. However, we can't forget that Sonic barely
survived an assassination attempt a few hours before this mission, and thus the question of security has been brought up. Due
to time constraints, you people will be spending the night in one of the hotels close by. Don't worry, it isn't one of those
broken-down, pipe-leaking-sewage-all-over-your-bed kind of hotels, it's a decent one.' Allen clapped his hands together. 'If
there are no other questions, I guess you guys are tired and all, so sleep well. Tomorrow we'll try and relocate you guys to
safer, more secure locations. Any questions at all? No? Dismissed.'

***************************************************************

'So, what do you think?'

The team were standing in front of the El Grande, a five-star hotel conviently located near the Eagles' headquarters. In
fact, the hotel had a cordial relationship with the Eagles, and was accustomed to providing lodging and shelter to both
Eagles' personnel and VIPs who needed a safehouse of sorts. Because of its secondary purpose, El Grande ALWAYS had a 24-hour
security staff, ready to deal with any threat at any time, though the scene had been pretty quiet for the past couple of
years, even with the Pheonix's attacks growing in quantity and ferocity.

It had been a long time since Sonic had visited the hotel, around 6 months ago. He remembered meeting with the President, the
first time he had heard of the 'Pheonix'...

'You coming, Sonic?'

Amy's voice startled Sonic out of his reverie. 'Yeah,' he nodded. Then he frowned to himself. Why was it that he was having
so much trouble focusing on things?

Amy somehow detected a hint of discomfort within Sonic. 'What's up?' That was one thing Sonic liked about Amy. She always
knew when something was wrong with someone. In fact, she had an uncanny knack for it.

'Nothing, just thinking, that's all.' He brushed his memories off. They only served to haunt him. Instead, he turned and
smiled at Amy. 'So, where're we going to coop up tonight?' She blushed slightly, and was about to say something-

'Sonic!' Tails was waving to him from the front desk. Sonic sighed and walked towards where Tails was. 'Yeah?'

'Sorry to interrupt your...conversation, mister, but here's your key.' Tails snickered as he placed two cards into Sonic's
hand. 'The other one's for Amy, guess what, you two have one room to yourselves, how about that?' Tails laughed.

'Yeah, wait till you get a pal of your own, Tails, just you wait.' Sonic started rubbing Tails' head, while Tails tried to
push him away in vain. Amy, watching from a distance, sighed. Her dream boyfriend was so cute, fooling around with his buddy
that way. Too bad she wasn't really a part of Sonic's heart yet, though she thought she had come close that night, when he
had actually cried over Shadow. Shadow...Amy didn't know what to think of the dark hedgehog with blood-red stripes, but she
was sure that while he and Sonic had been bitter adversaries, there was some sort of bond between them. True, Shadow was the
only other hedgehog she had seen actually utilize the chaos emeralds. Perhaps during that brief stint where both Super Sonic
and Hyper Shadow had managed to save the Earth from the ARK, something had happened between them. And now, where was Shadow?
The pink hedgehog wondered.

A distance away from Sonic and Tails, Knuckles and Ronald were standing, watching the situation. Ronald was intrigued by the
echidna's knowledge of firearms and weaponry, and the two chatted endlessly about firearms until Tails, finally
finished with struggling with Sonic, came over and gave them their cards. Sonic and Amy would have one room to themselves,
Knuckles and Tails another, and Ronald would be by himself.

It was around midnight when the team finally made their way to their rooms.


-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Author's Note]
I know I've passed a lot on the deadline, I've been extremely busy lately, despite the holidays coming up. I've also been
sick for about two weeks, and I mean REALLY sick, not the kind that you can get up and type while still coughing like Death
himself. I apologize if this chapter sucks, but frankly, I'm quite busy at the moment, so it will have to do. The next
chapter shouldn't take as long, I promise.

Hope you enjoyed this one, if you didn't, I guess there's not much I can do about it, is there?