The co-ordinates Liana sent corresponded to a old
warehouse in the Oil Ocean Zone, to the north of Emerald Coast. Armed with
these co-ordinates, Sonic headed off with Bunnie and Sally to rescue Sgt. Nero.
Solstice had insisted on coming along with them, but Sonic had refused.
"It's too dangerous," he had said. "The place is probably
crawling with SWATbots. You stay here until we get him back." Reluctantly,
Solstice agreed, and Sonic set off for Oil Ocean Zone with the others in tow.
Arriving at the industrial complex containing the
warehouse, the trio sheltered behind a low wall to avoid detection. Sally
peered over the top of the wall with her binoculars, searching for Badniks.
"There's a few SWATbots patrolling the area, and two SWATbots guarding the
entrance to the warehouse," she said."
"Only two?" sneered Sonic. "It'll take a
lot more than that to stop me. C'mon, you two: we're bustin' Nero outta
there!" With that, Sonic flipped over the wall and zoomed off into the
open. Instead of attacking the SWATbots, however, he merely raced right past
them, drawing their attention. "Come on, you tinpots," he yelled,
"I'm right here!"
"PRIORITY ONE: HEDGEHOG," droned the SWATbots
in unison, turning towards Sonic and opening fire. None of the machines came
anywhere close to striking the speedy hedgehog, and while they were all preoccupied
with trying to shoot him, Bunnie was able to sneak up on each of them in turn and
smash them to pieces with her bionic limbs. Sonic, however, took the liberty of
taking out the last one himself, Spin-Dashing straight through it and causing
it to explode.
While Sonic and Bunnie took care of the SWATbots, Sally
proceeded to the now-unguarded warehouse entrance. Like most of Robotnik's
warehouses, the entrance was covered by a heavy steel door, protected by a
passcode system. Fortunately, Rotor had developed a device that was able to
decipher the codes and bypass the system. Sally slipped the device out of her
jacket pocket, placed it on top of the keypad, and waited for it to do its job.
"All clear out here, Sal," said Bunnie, and she
and Sonic headed over to join Sally.
"There'll be more SWATbots inside, though,"
said Sonic. "Maybe Buttnik himself, if we're lucky. Man, wouldn’t that be
a treat."
"It certainly would," said Sally, "unless
he has one of his robots in there, waiting for us."
"All the better!" said Sonic. "I get to
smash Buttnik and his ugly machines! Come on, what are we waiting for?"
At that precise moment, the decipher device beeped as it
finished unscrambling the entry codes, and the steel door began to slide
upwards. "Nothing," said Sally, retrieving the device. "Let's
get in there and rescue that hedgehog."
"You got it, Sal," said Sonic. "Here I
come, Nero!" Sonic zoomed inside the half-lit warehouse and quickly came
to a stop, confused. "Huh…? There's nothing in here!" he said.
"What?" Sally and Bunnie followed Sonic inside
and saw that he was right: the inside of the warehouse, though seemingly
pristine, was completely and utterly empty. There were no SWATbots, no Badniks,
no machines at all, and certainly no Nero or Robotnik.
"The heck is goin' on here?" asked Bunnie.
"Did we get the wrong warehouse?"
Sally double-checked the co-ordinates. "No, this is
definitely the right one," she said. "He can't have cleared out
already…"
Sonic scowled, an uncomfortable feeling rising in his
stomach. "I've got a bad feeling about this," he said.
Sally, confused, activated her radio and called Liana.
"Liana, we're at the warehouse," she said. "It's completely
empty. Are you sure this is where they're holding Nero?"
"Maybe there's a secret tunnel or somethin'?"
Bunnie suggested, though she too was starting to get a sinking feeling in her
stomach.
"Oh, there's no secret tunnel there," Liana
responded, her voice jarringly nonchalant. "There's no Nero there
either."
"Liana," said Sally warily, "what's going
on here?"
"Well, you see," said Liana, "the thing is…
I'm the one who betrayed the Resistance's location to Robotnik." As Sally gasped
in shock, dozens of red lights suddenly began to flicker on all around them,
indicating the presence of a large number of SWATbots hidden in the shadows. "Obviously I
can't let you find Nero," Liana continued, "and now that you know the
truth, I can't let you escape from here either, so…"
One by one, the SWATbots began to emerge from the
shadows, closing in on the stunned Freedom Fighters. "Why didn't I see
this coming?" asked Sonic.
"Quick!" said Sally. "The warehouse door
is still open! We can escape!"
"Oh right, almost forgot about that," said
Liana suddenly. "Thanks for leaving your radio on, suckers."
As the warehouse door slowly began to close again, Bunnie
snatched the radio from Sally's hand and crushed it in her metallic fist.
"Sonic! Get us outta here!" she said.
"That's kinda the plan!" Sonic retorted,
grabbing hold of the girls' hands. "Hold on tight, ladies!" As the
SWATbots began to open fire, Sonic raced off, sliding underneath the lowering warehouse
door a second before it closed behind him, shutting the machines inside. The
trio then headed back to Knothole, their betrayal and failure weighing heavily
on all of their minds.
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