Sonic Series Fan Fiction ❯ Sonic Matrix 2 ❯ Lake Valley ( Chapter 3 )

Tails landed the ship at the dock. “It’ll be great to finally have real food.”

 Sonic waved out the window. “Oh, Sonia, your friend is here.”

 Sonia huffed. “That lunatic badger is not my friend.”

 “She’s not that bad, Princess.” Manic said. “She’s a whole lot more tolerable than that stupid oracle program you’re hung up on.”

 “What is your issue with her?” Shadow asked.

 “She comes up with lunatic theories.” Sonia replied.

 “Which are sometimes right.” Manic said. “If more Mobians listened to her, then they wouldn’t be batteries for Robotnik’s robots.”

 “But if she hasn’t gotten any sleep, she does lean more to the crazy side.” Sonic added. 

 “Is she the one who claimed that clothes were spy devices for aliens?” Shadow asked. 

 “Yes.” Sonia muttered. “She wouldn’t pay for a new coat after she burned my three hundred dollar trench coat.”

 “Alright, I admit that was stupid, but we all get weird when we’re sleep deprived.” Manic said.

 Sonia folded her arms. “No, that’s just you and Glitch, dear brother.”

 Manic turned away. “You’d get weird too if you didn’t sleep well for a week because Shadow died.” He muttered under his breath.

 Shadow looked over at Manic.

 Manic roughly wiped his eyes with his shirt sleeve and drew a shaky breath.

  Sonia stepped over to Manic. “Is that why Jade’s name was removed from the priority target board?”

 “Three weeks ago, I found out she’s been dead since before we pulled Shadow out of the matrix.” Manic said. 

 Sonia hugged Manic. “I’m so sorry.”

 “We’ve landed.” Tails said.

 Shadow and the rest of the crew of the Tornado 2.0 stepped out of the ship.

 Sticks cautiously approached them with her laser gun. 

 “Sticks?” Sonic asked. “Oh, the code… yeah… uh….”

 Sticks groaned and lowered her gun. “Your habit of forgetting the codes and scrambling to think of it should be a code of its own.” She replied. She turned slightly toward the cabins and motioned for them to follow her. “Come on, I’m sure you all are hungry.”

 Shadow and the team followed Sticks to one of the cabins.

 Sticks glanced at Sonic. “Glad your team survived, Blue Blur.”

 “Have you heard from Cyrus and Trevor?” Sonic asked.

 “We haven’t heard from them.” Sticks replied. “They could be at another safe haven or something. It doesn’t mean they’re all dead.”

 Shadow quietly picked at his beef stir fry as he watched Sonic and Manic eat.

 Sonic was now on his fourth plate of chili dogs while Manic was on his third plate of sushi.

 “Boys, save some for everyone else.” Sally scolded.

 “I’m starving.” Manic replied.

 “I have a faster metabolism.” Sonic said.

 “We still have to ration our food.” Sally replied.

 Shadow leaned closer to Sonia. “I have a faster metabolism too, but I understand the rations rule.” He whispered.

 Sonia nodded.

 Sticks finally sat down at the table. “Okay, we still have a decent army, but the assault on the fortress probably won’t be as coordinated as we’d want,” She said. “He’s made it harder to hack into his VR system and is actively seeking out our safe houses.”

 “I think you’re right.” Sonic replied.

 “We need your team to do the recon and rescue missions while we plan the attack.” Sticks said. “We’ll discuss the plans as soon as you all are done with dinner.”

  Sticks, Shadow and the rest of the team gathered in the basement of the cabin.

 Sticks turned on a projector and pulled down a screen as everyone else sat down. “Okay, these are the orders from Robotnik to his metal Sonic army we intercepted and decoded after the assault on Sanctuary.”

 Manic got up and pointed to the hit list section. “Wait. It looks like Lake valley is next on the list. Why are we sitting here?”

 Sticks did a double take at the screenshot and groaned. “How’d I miss this?”

 Everyone got up and headed for the door.

 Shadow, Manic, and Sonic stepped out of the base.

 Manic grabbed Sonic’s arm. “Metals on your left.”

 Shadow and Sonic looked at the metal army.

 “Rogue, you and Destroyer get everyone to the airship.” Shadow said. “We’ll take care of them.”

 Manic nodded and headed back inside.

 Shadow and Sonic rushed over to the robots.

 The metal Sonic army raised their blaster arms.

 Shadow pulled his laser gun out as Sonic got ready to spin dash the robots. 

 Shadow fired a few shots at the robots, taking out three metal Sonics. “Don’t do anything stupid-”

 A laser blast grazed Sonic.

 Sonic hissed in pain and landed in a crumpled heap.

 Knuckles and Sticks ran over.

 Sticks threw her knife at one metal Sonic’s exposed and partially damaged circuitry, frying the robot. 

 Knuckles and Shadow took out the rest with their blasters.

 Shadow went over and helped Sonic stand up.

 Sonic’s left side was burned.

 “You’re lucky it’s just a first degree burn.” Shadow said.

 Sonic checked his injuries. “Yeah.”

 Shadow, Knuckles, and Sonic got back into the airship.

 Tails started the airship and blasted off.

 Sonia looked at Sonic and sighed. “What did you do this time?”

 “Tried to spin dash the metals.” Shadow said. He shook his head at Sonic. “You are not in the matrix. Spin dashing robots who know exactly what you’re going to do while you’re in the real world is not a good idea.”

 “We’ve been over this several times, Sonic.” Sally said. “You have to throw them off guard by using one of our guns. They won’t expect you to do that since they’re set with a fixed program.”

 Sonic sighed. “I know, I know.” He muttered. “I thought they were distracted by Shadow.”

 Shadow rolled his eyes. “I’m surprised you made it this long.” He muttered.

 Sonic whipped around. “Hey, I was smart enough not to get caught by Robotnik.”

 “Because of me.” Tails mouthed to Shadow.

 Shadow gave Tails a slight nod.

 “You were caught in the matrix.” Sonic continued. “Not me, Shadow.”

 Shadow huffed. “If you checked my posts, I nearly had things figured out. I would’ve gotten out without your help.”

 “Boys.” Sonia scolded. “Stop it.”

 Sonic walked away, muttering under his breath.

 Shadow locked his gun in the locker. “So where are we headed now, Tails?” 

 “The valley outside Mobotropolis.” Tails replied. “Then we’ll hack into the Matrix and rally up the rest of the resistance factions if we can. Hopefully, we can all hit the fortress at the exact same time, but if not we’ll hopefully have backup.”