Chaos Race Part 6: Green Written by: Adrian Tymes and Alessandro Sanasi [Legal disclaimer: This story is based on characters created by SEGA and Archie Comic Publications, Inc., and Commander Packbell by David Pistone. Permission is granted to freely distribute this story, so long as: a: no recompense of financial value is received or given by the person who distributes the story, and b: the distributed copy is identical to the story as originally authored. In other words, don't sell it, and don't alter it. Copyright (c) 1996, all rights reserved, et cetera.] ****** In the long swath of jagged peaks known only as the Dark Mountains, one peak seemed to be missing. Its corresponding mountain thrust up from the earth, only to suddenly level off halfway up. A miniature mountain rose in the plateau's center, as if whatever force had deprived the mountain of most of its top had left the tip behind. The area was now devoid of life, although a road winding up the peak to an observatory on its top indicated that someone had once lived there. The many machines in the observatory, most rendered nonfunctional by time, bore silent testimony to the resident's vile nature. A statue had once identified this person, but the edifice had long since rusted and collapsed into an unrecognizable pile. Only an inscription on the statue's pedestal still bore its maker's name: Ivo Robotnik. This observatory had once been Robotnik's favorite hideaway, where he plotted his takeover of Mobius when he could not use Robotropolis, but it was now deserted. The area might have been left to sleep forever, a forgotten footnote in Mobian history, if not a certain green meteor had shattered its slumber. ****** Inside the observatory, a capsule large enough to hold a small Mobian hummed to life, as did the building's main computer. The capsule opened with a hiss, to reveal a robot that looked as if, at one time, it had been intended to resemble a monkey. Most of its skin was metal, and a light bulb protruded from its skull. The robot opened his eyes, which seemed to gleam with evil intelligence, and looked around the dark room, confused. "Good afternoon, Coconuts," a snivelling voice greeted him from the darkness. Coco replied out of habit, in case whatever had activated his capsule was listening. "Good afternoon. What does Robotnik want?" He looked around. "And why are the lights out?" "I'm afraid that Robotnik is not here anymore. He left this place long ago," the voice replied. "He left?" Coco jumped to his feet and slowly paced arond, waving his arms in the air desperately. "Oh, I *knew* that something like this would happen! Robotnik never tells me anything. He only orders me to cleaning duty all the time! No one bothers to tell me what's going on!" He ran a finger through the inches of dust that had collected on the capsule's outside. "And look at this mess! It will take days to clean it up again." He stopped, squinting into the darkness. "Who are you, anyway?" A cloaked figure stepped out of the shadows. "I am Robotnik's nephew, and first in the line of command." He stretched his body, trying to appear taller than he was. "My name is Snively - the Great!" "So why did you activate me?" "Robotnik sent me on a very important mission. He needs the green Chaos Emerald that has crashed into this building a short while ago. Unfortunately, I lost all my SWATbots in an earlier encounter with some Freedom Fighters, so I need all the help I can get." Coco pondered for a moment. "Ok, then let's get Scratch and Grounder. They can help, too." "Good. If we find the gem in time, I'm sure that Robotnik won't order you to do cleaning duties ever again!" "No cleaning duty anymore? That's great! Finally he will realize my true value! Let's go!" "In fact, Robotnik won't give orders to *anyone* ever again," Snively thought to himself, grinning evilly, while following the robot monkey upstairs. ****** In a small attic near the building's top, a rat's nest of wires had been arranged to look like a nest. Inside the nest was a large, metal egg, with a prominent crack around its midline. A few of the wires had fallen apart over time; one of the larger ones sparked at its severed end. It was here that Coco headed first. Carefully avoiding the live wire, he grabbed the egg's top and pulled. The egg popped open, revealing a robot that looked like a giant chicken. Unlike Coco, it had been enlongated vertically, almost as if it had been stretched like rubber. The robochicken was sitting in a lotus position, blissfully unaware of its surroundings. Seeing no hope of putting the wires back into place, Coco grabbed the sparking wire and held it to the other robot's back. "YE-HOW!" Scratch leapt to his feet in an instant. "I'm up! I'm up!" He looked around for his master, but saw only Coco and Snively. Coco dropped the wire. "Hello, Stretch. It's been a while." "That's Scratch, CocoNUTS. And don't do that again, or I'll tell Robotnik!" "Robotnik is not here, but he sent his nephew." Coco pointed toward Snively. "He needs us to find a missing Chaos Emerald. Come on, let's find Grounder." Coco walked out of the room. Scratch followed, his face reflecting his mind's blankness. "Chaos Emerald?" ****** A short mine shaft lead from the observatory's bottom to an underground cave. The cave's only access to outside air was through the shaft, as evidenced by the change in atmospheric composition Coco and Scratch registered as they travelled. Had any living creatures accompanied them, they would have noticed a different smell. The cave seemed to be littered with inverse stalactites and stalagmites. Everywhere Scratch and Coco looked, cone shaped holes had been drilled into the walls. Only four green objects broke up this landscape, three of which looked like they had probably caused the holes. Coco picked up the smallest of the objects. It was a cylinder, with a face that looked like it had been created out of spare parts: a drill bit for a nose, gauge-shaped cameras for eyes, and a flexible metal mouth. Coco grinned, held the robot head with both hands and started to shake. A hard *clunk* was heard from inside the head. "Hey, stop it. You're making me dizzy," the head spoke. "'Lo, Grounder. Pull yourself together. We've got work to do." "Oh, ok." One of the other parts, a rounded box on treads, started moving towards the head. The other two, which looked like arms with drills instead of hands, tunneled their way into the floor, shot up next to the box, and landed in sockets designed for them. The assembly retracted its arm drill bits, extended machanical hands where the drills had been, and grabbed the head piece from Coco, placing it on a socket in the body's top. "Hey, something's wrong!" Grounder blinked at his behind for a moment, then removed the head again, turned it for 180 degrees, and placed it back on its socket. "There." Snively made a face as if he had just bitten into a grapefruit. "Oh well. I guess this will have to do," he sighed. "Now let's find that Chaos Emerald. We will start upstairs." "Uh...what's a Chaos Emerald, again?" Grounder looked to Scratch with a blank expression on his face. Scratch whispered something into Grounder's audio sensor. ****** The hoverbot Tails was piloting had taken him to the observatory faster than he could fly. He had tried to get some rest during the trip after setting the hoverbot to autopilot, but it seemed that he had just dozed off when the proximity alarm woke him. Below him, he could see the building that had once been Robotnik's base. Tails smirked. "Piece of cake. I'll just land, find the emerald, and be off to Knothole faster than Sonic can eat a chilidog." He landed the hoverbot, got out, and entered the building. Then everything went black. ****** Sinvely grinned as he rubbed his rifle where it had just hit the now-unconcious fox on the head. "What's Tails doing here? Sonic can't be far behind," Coco deduced. "I'd better put him in the holding cell." Snively motioned with his rifle. "No. Leave him in my custody. You go search for that Chaos Emerald." "Are you sure? Wherever Tails goes, Sonic is sure to follow." "Find that emerald fast, then, so I can get out of here before he shows up. Check out the area with the observatory's telescope, if you want to be sure no one followed him." With that, Snively lifted Tails up, and walked off. ****** "Go away, it's my turn now!" Scratch pushed Grounder away from the large telescope, then held his eye to the lense, trying to make something out. "Hey, I wasn't finished yet," Grounder protested, pushing back. "I can spot Sonic much faster than you. You looked through this thing for ten minutes straight, without seeing anything." Scratch closed one eye, then put his other up to the telescope's viewer. "Hmm...that's strange, everything looks green." Coco, who had just walked in, needed a few seconds to fully contemplate this. "Green?" ****** Tails woke with a headache, to find himself tied up on a chair. "Oh no, not again," he wailed. "I knew I should have stayed in bed this morning. This is just not my day..." "Ah, so you're awake!" Snively was holding a laser rifle, its buisiness end aimed at Tails' nose. "Snively? But you're dead." "Almost, but not quite. Now, where is he?" "Who?" "Sonic. He'd never let you do this alone." "He doesn't know I'm here. He's chasing down the other emeralds right now." "Then who's your backup? Or did you sneak out of Knothole?" "Antoine, but he chickened out." Snively lowered his rifle. "Chickened out? Let me guess, he's safeguarding the yellow emerald. I'd better recall that squad, then." He spoke a few commands into a communicator, then turned back to Tails. "I am willing to make a deal with you, little fox. I'm going to let you go, if you don't tell Scratch, Grounder, or Coco what happened to Robotnik..." ****** Coco whistled a merry tune as he strode away from the telescope. The emerald had fallen down the telescope's shaft, breaking most of its lenses. Coco now held the emerald, and was polishing it with a rag as he walked. Scratch and Grounder were whispering as he approached. Coco held up the emerald. "When I bring this to Snively, he will make ME the leader of the Super Sonic Search and Squash Squad, so then you'll have to obey MY orders!" "Well, then let us lead the way, great Coco." Scratch made an inviting gesture towards a door. Coco proudly marched toward it. "Uh, a person with such a high rank shouldn't carry things himself," Grounder objected. "I'll take that emerald for you." "Oh, right." Coco handed over the emerald and walked through the door. No sooner had he passed through than Scratch slammed it shut behind him. "Hey, this isn't the way to Snively. It's a storage compartment," Coco's voice yelled from inside. "Let me out! Help!" "Now WE will bring the emerald to Snively," Scratch yelled back. "And then WE will command YOU around!" He laughed his trademark laugh. "Yeah," Grounder affirmed as he put the emerald in a large storage compartment in his chest. "Now let's go find him." ****** "I don't make deals with evil people like you," Tails stated firmly. "You'd just trick me anyway." "No, honestly," Snively replied. "All I want is the green Chaos Emerald. Once I have it, I'll leave. Just don't tell anyone here what happened to Robotnik." "Why?" Scratch preceeded Grounder through a door opposite from where Tails was ready to exit. "What happened?" "He's dead." Tails turned his body to face the robots. "Didn't you hear?" Scratch's lower jaw fell off and hit the floor. He bent over to pick it up, and snapped it back into place. "D...dead?" Grounder slowly vibrated in place, then pointed a drill-tipped arm at Snively. "But you said Robotnik sent you!" "So I lied." Snively shrugged, then pointed his laser at the robots. "But I was first in command after Robotnik." "Oh, yeah?" Tails smirked. "Then how come Packbell's running Robotropolis?" "Packbell?" Grounder kept his drill pointed at Snively. "Your replacement." Scratch looked from Snively to Tails. "Shouldn't we be taking orders from him, then? It sounds like Packbell was Robotnik's second, not Snively." Grounder opened his compartment, and brought out the gem. "Let's give it to Packbell. He'll know what to do with it." "No, I was his second! Packbell was subservient to me!" Snively was livid with rage. "You will give the emerald to ME!" He grabbed for the gem, but Grounder rolled out of reach. "Packbell will probably make us commanders when he gets the emerald," Scratch continued with glee. Tails shook his head. "He wouldn't. Robotnik dumped you here because you always failed to capture Sonic, and now you think Packbell would act different? You don't have the brains for commanding anything. You probably don't even know your own shutoff codes." "Sure we do," Grounder stated. "Sigma Octo Nova Ire Crisis..." "No, wa-" Scratch's interruption was itself interrupted, as both robots deactivated. "Well done." Snively stepped toward Grounder's still open compartment and took the emerald. "Finally! It's mine! But, where's Coco?" ****** Coco banged against the room's walls, but was unable to even dent them. The sealed compartment had been designed like an airlock, in order to store vapors and liquids whose capacity to escape far exceeded Coco's. The substances had long since been removed, as had the interior controls. Resigning himself to his fate, Coco plugged himself into a power outlet, and proceeded to wait for someone to free him. ****** Snively looked around, but saw no active robots. "Never mind. All that counts is the emerald." Tails struggled. "Ok, looks like you have what you wanted. Now let me go." Snively just grinned. "No. I'm sure you will be quite useful later." With that, he grabbed the tied fox by the scruff of his neck and carried him away. "Hey, no fair!" Tails protested. "Help! Leggo! HELP!" Snively could barely keep a grip on the twisting kitsune. "Don't struggle. You're only making things worse for yourself." "Worse for you, you mean." "I don't think you understand." Snively held his rifle up to Tails, so that the fox's nose almost entered the weapon's barrel. "Whether or not your body lives is your choice. Either way, it will come with me." Tails growled in reply. ****** When Snively piloted the only remaining functional hoverbot away, with a laser rifle, a Chaos Emerald, and Tails as his cargo, the observatory once again had nothing but time. A sudden blizzard mercifully covered the edifice's scars, leaving only the outline of a monument to a lost cause.