Return to the Underground

Power

"This is bad. This is really bad."

The five had been running through the maze of hallways for five minutes now, looking for Randell with no luck. He had simply disappeared.

"You said that he needed some powerful force to combine our medallions' power, right?" Sonic asked from the front of the group.

"Yeah." Tails was flying right above the hedgehog, messing with the Miles Electric. "And according to the readings I got from that black, torrent-thing he made, he might have enough power to do it."

"Does that thing show where he went, maybe?" Manic was right behind his brother with Sonia running next to him, Shadow skating behind them. Manic had started panting about two minutes in, but he refused to let up.

"No," Tails replied. "Let me think for a minute." The fox held the small computer down at his side and narrowed his eyes in concentration. "If it's an ultimate weapon, then releasing it would probably cause a lot of damage. He wouldn't be in the building unless he had some special room for it, but there wasn't anything that suggested that on his computer, so he's probably outside. Somewhere with a lot of space, probably a bit out of the way from the base."

"So, outside, probably a few miles from the base?"

"Yep." He came out of his trance. "That about sums it up."

"All right, but how will we know which direction to go?" Sonia's voice sounded very worried, more worried than Sonic had ever heard her. "There's about a million ways you can go out there!"

They found the door giving them access to the outside world, which was still open from the entry.

"If I had to guess," Shadow poked his head out the door. "I'd say it's where all the black lightning is coming from."

"Huh?" Sonia ran out the door and looked in the direction her genetically-engineered brother was pointing. Sure enough, a group of dark thunderclouds surrounded a small area within the blue sky, releasing pitch black lightning bolts to the ground. "Good guess."

Manic ran ahead of the others, heading toward the storm. "Come on! Let's go!"

"Right." Sonia started to follow, but stopped when she noticed her older brothers not following. "What's wrong, Sonic?"

"It's nothing. We'll catch up to you guys in a sec." His sister nodded then ran to go catch up to her other brother. Sonic and Shadow turned to Tails, whose ears were folded back against his head and was staring at the storm, fear evident in his eyes. "Tails, buddy. You gonna be all right?"

The fox shook his head to try and clear it. "I'll be fine, Sonic."

Shadow ruffled the kit's bangs. "Uh-huh. Why don't you stick close to us while we're in there? We know how you can get in thunderstorms."

He visibly relaxed when he heard him say that. "Thanks, Shadow."

Sonic held up a thumbs up to his friend. "Of course. Now let's go catch up to the others."

The three ran back to the two ahead of them, startling Sonia in the process. "What were you three doing?"

"Nothin' much." Sonic looked in front of her, at the clouds growing as the came closer. "Let's hope we're not too late."

They stopped as the came to the edge of the storm. Inside the barrier was darkness. Not a bit of sunlight could be seen through the clouds. The only light came from the lightning, which didn't provide much, considering they were already black.

Sonic took a deep breath and stepped into the storm. He cautiously walked forward, waiting for the lightning to strike at him, but none did. Assuming it was not dangerous, he signaled to his family that it should be safe to follow. For him that is. As soon as they stepped through a black arch of lightning came hurtling toward them, missing by inches. The four ran, dodging the lightning as they went.