Chaos Born

Battle For The Chaos Born - Part 4

All over the factory were red lights and loud alarms which were making it impossible to think or to even begin formulating a decent plan of action. Under their feet came the rumbling of heavy machinery firing into life.

"Let's face it," Silver groaned over the blare of the alarms, "our cover is blown! It's no sneak and pinch anymore - it's a grab and run!"

"Then let's grab an' run already," Vector snarled, forever looking over his shoulder anxiously. "I gotta bad feelin' that somethin's comin' our way!"

Peering around the next corner, Knuckles had brandished one his namesakes in readiness. 

"I say we stick to the plan and split up," he said to which Blaze gave a firm nod.

"I agree. We'll cover more distance."

"And if you bump into Metal Sonic?" asked Cubot, rightly guessing that Metal was probably aware of what Cubot and Orbot had done.

The answer to his worry came from Knuckles who smirked and rolled his shoulders. "We smash him!"

Cubot and Orbot glanced at one another.

"Sounds unmissable," Orbot then jokingly admitted, "but... well, Cubot and I weren't designed for combat." 

All eyes turned to them in surprise.

"What?" Amy asked in confusion.

"Seeing as neither of us know where to find Sonic or Tails, we would only be an added burden for you. On the other hand, I've given Omega a detailed schematic on how to get to the living quarters upstairs," Orbot simply stated, holding up his hands.

"But... You can't go back to Eggman like that!"

Cubot turned to his partner with wide optics. "We can't? How do we go back to Eggman then?"

"Rest assured," Orbot told them, "we will contact you to let you know if we find your friends. In the meantime, sayonara!"

"That means goodbye in Swedish."

"But you can't-"

"Oh let them go," Shadow hissed as the two robots floated back along the way they had just come with a decent amount of speed. "They don't have a backbone between them."

"Assistance from Eggman lackeys will not be necessary," Omega happily agreed, finding his voice again.

"Look, we've got two corridors," Espio interrupted, his eyes darting in all directions in a way that only a chameleon knew how (to really freak out close friends). "Now is a good time to split if we're going to."

One corridor was long with several double doors leading off on both sides while the other corridor was shorter but seemed to turn a sharp left corner so it wasn't clear what was lurking deeper within.

"Let's make it clear that we aren't sticking around a moment longer once we have Sonic and Tails," Amy announced, gripping her hammer tightly. "The longer we delay in this festering dump the more likely we won't be leaving for a long time."

Shadow nodded to her and the rest of Team 2 before they made to take the long corridor. 

"Keep in touch and when we find them, rendezvous on our coordinates," he murmured, leading the way down the shorter corridor and making a grab for Knuckles' arm as he went, still aware that he had to keep an eye on the echidna so as to ensure his safe position in Rouge's 'good books'.

- - - - -

That safety was called into question ten minutes later when they had managed to make it as far as a large round room without being detected. It was one of those ominous rooms that didn't exactly take the likes of Miles Prower to tell you that it was the ideal spot for a confrontation; wide, tall, echoey...