HELLBOUND {Sequel}

Eighteen

__Tails followed closely behind Sonic and Shadow as they went further down the cave. They stopped when the cave started to get bigger and tried to stay hidden. Tails, with T-Pup hanging on his shoulder, was the one to look past the crystals to see ahead. The area ahead was so open and loud. There were so many different kinds of robots and machines harvesting these crystals and bringing them to a large factory-looking base. When T-Pup started growling Tails put his hand over its mouth and pulled back to the others. He looked at Sonic. "Yep, it's Eggman's base all right. It doesn't look like we can easily sneak in." Just as he said that Shadow had teleported. This annoyed him. "Wow. Okay. Show me up, fucker."
__Sonic was quietly snickering as he patted Tails on his other shoulder. "Scourge and I will join him then. We'll be able to go around undetected."
__Tails knew Scourge could handle this. As an ex-villain you have to know how to sneak around. But he was still uneasy about Sonic. "You sure? If you're still..."
__But Sonic shook his head. "I'm fine, Tails. Really. I need this distraction anyway." He took a second to pet T-Pup before he and Scourge ran into the base.
__Tails ears twitched as he turned to Espio. "You better go, too."
__Espio nodded before he started walking as he camouflaged, basically turning invisible.
__Tails then sighed as he turned and looked at the others. "I guess we'll have to sit here and wait." He looked around at all the rocks crystals that formed nice hiding places. "We can hide, too, just to be safe." He gave T-Pup a little pat as he went to a spot close to the entrance and sat down.
__When all of the others moved to hide, Rouge had scurried over to Fiona and whispered something in her ear. The red vixen was trying not to laugh as she nodded. Fiona then went over and grabbed Cream by the arm and led her and Cheese over to Tails. They both sat down beside him. Vector looked concerned, but Charmy had grabbed his arm and shook his head at him. This made Tails uncomfortable as he brought T-Pup down on his lap.
__"Oh no," Rouge had said. She was walking around E-123 Omega. It was trying to hide, but it was way to large. "We may have a problem."
__Tails was about to speak when Sally spoke out first. "Just bring him outside and have him wait there. We can't risk it."
__Rouge nodded. She waited until E-123 Omega stood up before she led it back towards outside.
__Tails looked down as T-Pup started whining quietly and started rubbing its head. "You'll see him again," he whispered. "I know you wanna play, but we have to focus." He then shifted uncomfortably. Fiona was sitting by his right while Cream sat by his left. He leaned over to Fiona. "Why'd you bring her here?"
__Fiona was sitting crisscrossed while keeping her hands on her stomach. When she looked at Tails she smirked. "What?" She whispered back. "You want her to be in an awkward situation with Vector?"
__Tails flattened his ears and managed to stifle a groan. "I guess not." He knew what she was doing. He had known what Rouge had been doing. It just annoyed him. Just because he and Cream got closer didn't mean everyone else had to try and escalate things between them. He knew Cream didn't like him like that anyway. She never told him otherwise and that was enough.
__Cream had Cheese lay on her head while she hugged her knees to her chest. She hid her muzzle in her knees and groaned. "He's staring at me."
__Tails moved only his eyes to see Vector. He wasn't really staring, but every so often he would glance over at Cream while he looked around the cave. "You're fine. He's not doing anything else."
__Cheese had been waving at T-Pup. The robot dog started panting happily while wagging its tail. Tails had to cover its mouth to make it quiet. T-Pup then stood up on its hind legs and placed its paws on Cream's arm. It was still wagging its tail while it watched Cheese.
__"T-Pup, down," Tails muttered.
__"No, it's fine," Cream whispered. "Let him have some fun."
__"Everyone, hush!" Sally whispered yelled.
__Everyone kept quiet as a few robots started marching this way. They were headed towards the entrance. Tails was a little worried about Rouge and E-123 Omega. Once the robots left Tails got Charmy's attention and motioned him to go. The bee nodded and flew up close to the ceiling and carefully trailed after the robots.
__After eleven minutes Shadow had appeared back with the others. He looked around in confusion until Tails stood up from his hiding place. "His base is heavily secured. A handful amount of people can sneak around in there if separated and careful."
__Tails nodded before he looked back at the base. "Where are Sonic and Scourge?"
__Shadow leaned back.
__This made Tails worried. "You didn't know they were in there with you!?" He hissed.
__Shadow shook his head. "No one else was supposed to come with me."
__Tails groaned as he pulled down on his face. He then pointed angrily at the black hedgehog. "This... this, Shadow, is why you need to learn to stop and cooperate!"
__Suddenly loud sirens sounded from the base. Everyone had stood up and covered their ears. Tails was growling as he stared back at the base. Idiots.
__Scourge was running back while Espio followed after him. He looked around at everyone. "My fault! Sorry!"
__"What did you do!?" Fiona shrieked.
__"Sonic almost fell into this weird hot liquid, so I had to risk blowing my cover to get him!" Scourge shouted back. He looked around at everyone. "Just keep going!"
__"Where's Sonic!?" Amy shouted.
__"He's still back there! I can...!"
__Shadow moved first. He ran back there with no hesitation.
__A whole horde of robots started marching their way. There wasn't enough room to fight in this cave with this many people. This made Tails grab T-Pup and started running. "Go! Go!"
__As everyone started running Scourge picked up Fiona and ran ahead of all of them. The robots were starting to close in, though. Tails was looking up at the ceiling with all the dangling rocks and crystals. He slowed down and threw T-Pup. He waited for the robot dog to start flying before he pointed at the ceiling and kept running. "Knock it down!" He knew Shadow would be able to simply teleport with Sonic out of the cave.
__As he kept running T-Pup flew up and started shooting its laser vision at the ceiling, dropping large rocks and crystals onto the ground. Just as the robots caught up, their way was blocked. But T-Pup did not stop. It kept backing up and made the wall real thick before flying back with the others.
__Tails saw up ahead that Rouge, Charmy and E-123 Omega had just finished destroying all of the robots that had left earlier. Once everyone stopped running Tails looked down at T-Pup and smirked. "Damn, I hope you didn't completely block out the oxygen. You're brutal, T-Pup." The robot dog was just sitting by his feet while panting.
__Shadow had teleported in the middle of the group. He had been tightly gripping Sonic's arm. Once he made sure it was safe he let go and went to join Rouge and E-123 Omega. "You fucking idiot," he muttered to Sonic as he went.
__Sonic shot Shadow a glare. "Shut the hell up! I slipped!" He then knelt down to rub his left ankle as Amy went to check up on him.
__"What the heck happened in there?" Amy nagged as she lightly smacked Sonic's quills. "You're supposed to be too fast to be detected!"
__Sonic groaned and stood up. He started rolling his left ankle. "Scourge and I were trying to find Shadow. We found Eggman's factory where he makes all his tech and shit and were trying to get a good look around. We then saw Eggman and hid to try and see what he was doing. We were close above this thing of hot metal and my hand slipped."
__Scourge carefully set Fiona down and went over to Sonic and checked his ankle. "I had to quickly push Sonic so he would miss the liquid metal and then I had to run the opposite way and distract Eggman so none of the robots could get to Sonic and only focus on me. I ran into Espio. He's got something."
__Tails perked his ears and looked at the purple chameleon. "What did you get?" He asked excitedly.
__Espio pulled out a USB Flash Drive. It had Doctor Eggman's logo on it. "That Sage girl left it in Eggman's computer. She had to leave it when the alarms went off." He then handed it over to Tails.
__Tails took the drive and examined it. "Knowing Eggman he definitely made sure no one else will be able to access it. I'll have to hack it."
__T-Pup started growling and its eyes turned red. Tails instinctively hid the flash drive and picked up T-Pup. "We need to go!"
__Sage suddenly appeared before them. She looked angry. "Impressive. You were able to make it to this location, but I can assure you that you won't get back out."
__Tails felt nervous. He needed to get this flash drive away from here before she found out he had it. He looked around. It would be difficult to escape without flying.
__Just as Sage was about to shoot an energy blast she was shot with a Chaos Spear. She shrieked and looked down at Shadow. "You!" She readied another blast while Shadow ran further from the group to lead her away.
__Sally quickly ran over to Sonic. "You, Fiona, and Tails need to go! We can distract her and escape!"
__Sonic shook his head. "I can help!"
__"You twisted your ankle!" Sally protested. She turned around. "Rouge! Cream! Fly them out of here!" She then looked at Tails. "You, too! Go!"
__Tails bit back an angry remark and forced himself to obey her. He saw that Cream went to get Sonic and ran over to her. "No! Go help Rouge carry Fiona. We can't risk her condition."
__He waited for Cream to move before he grabbed Sonic's arms and started flying. T-Pup was flying up beside him. He looked over and saw that Rouge had picked Fiona up by herself and started flying. Cream and Cheese were flying directly underneath them. Once the girls flew on ahead Tails followed after them. It was very difficult to get past the leaves, vines, and branches. But once they were out they made a brake for it.
__Tails looked down at Sonic. "You let yourself twist your ankle?" He teased.
__"Shut up!" Sonic snapped. "I spent a whole year raising my daughter!"
__Fiona was carefully looking back. "You think they'll be okay?"
__There was a sudden energy beam hurtling towards them. They had to quickly dodge while T-Pup shot its plasma beam at it to cancel it out. There wasn't another one to come after them. The first one was just an accident. Tails sighed in relief. "Yeah. They're fine."
__"I wouldn't call that fine!" Fiona snapped.
__Cream looked back while she flew. "Shadow and Scourge are down there. They can fend off Sage while the others escape."
__Tails suddenly shifted when T-Pup flew into him. "Ack! T-Pup!"
__Sonic had tightened his grip on Tails as he flailed his legs. "Oi! Steady as she goes!" He yelled.
__T-Pup had the flash drive in its mouth and flew by Tails's head. "Later, T-Pup, god dammit!" Tails growled. "Let us get back home safely first before we hack it!" T-Pup had pouted and whined as it continued flying by Tails.