Belly of the Beast

[Tails]

Tails feels weird that this cat and possibly the deer know him somehow. He closes the elevator and wonders what to press. He simply stares at the cat in confusion. "You might know of me Mr. C-C-Cat. However, I've never seen you ... before. Nor the ... deer and certainly not ... that d-d-ddragon. I feel scared that the dragon will simply burn us alive."

Tails shakes away some of his fear. However, its still evident in his movements. He clicks the microphone on his watch. "CT23, did you find a very great eascape route?"

CT23: Diagnostics say that if we don't go to the dragon and fly out of here, it may take longer and Robotnik might wake up.

Tails feels worry and he shakes a little bit at the fact that somehow people he's never met know him. He clicks the microphone again. "Is there a way that doesn't involve the d-dragon? Is there a faster way?"

CT23: No, there's nothing quicker. That's what my logic says. You either trust the dragon or risk getting captured.

Tails sighs and presses the elevator button. Although he shakes in fear, he's still manages to ask a simple question. "Are any of you willing to ride a dragon?"

On the ride to the floor the dragon is on, Tails simply sits down and rocks back and forth in confusion and fear. "Its okay Tails. You're just all alone. This deer and cat that know you are figments of your imagination. Your safe in your bed. You're only dreaming."

The elevator door opens. He steps out of the elevator and sits back down and rocks back and forth. "What's going on here?"

[Dulcy]

With all the bots out of commission, Dulcy continues to wait in the Server Room, hoping that the others that Tails went up to help came down here. She was beginning to wonder if any more SWATbots were going to come when she once again heard the sound of an elevator car coming toward the floor she is on. She tenses up a bit and locks her gaze on the door to the elevator as it began to open. Once she saw who was inside though, she relaxed and smiled softly. "Good to see you again Tails." She said softly as she looked up at the deer and cat behind him. She could swear that the deer looked kinda familiar. "Well, if everyone's here, let's get going before more of those SWATbots show up. I'd rather not have to fight another squadron of them. If you'd like a ride out of here, go ahead and hop on." She said warmly as she moves toward the hole in the wall and lowers herself to the floor a bit so it would be easier for anyone to climb onto her back.

[Giichi Twinkieland]

Giichi's eyes bulged wide open at the sight of Dulcy. This whole day had been so crazy that he hadn't even really acknowledged everyone had been talking about a dragon before. But seeing her now before them, Giichi couldn't believe his eyes.

And they were riding out on her?

"Uh...all right..." Even Giichi, who wasn't in the least scared of heights, seemed timid about the idea of escaping this way. As he walked over, he looked at Chadin, then back at Dulcy. "Can you take both of us?"

[Dr. Robotnik]

Meanwhile, Robotnik started swaying to his feet as the sleeping dart wore off. He couldn't remember what had happened in the short span of time he'd been out. One second he'd been laughing at Chadin, and now he was covered with broken glass and splayed out on the floor.

He gazed around the room, trying to get his vision to focus. When the holding cell swirled back into view, he saw that it was empty and the door hung wide open.

"What? How did this happen? HOW?"

His surprise melted away to pure anger, as he roared with rage that he had been humiliated so easily. The doctor flipped over another table, letting his papers and more vials spill to the floor.

For a moment, he stood there, letting his rage run its course. As he calmed down, he decided to assess the situation. Time for damage control.

They've got intelligence on my attack on Soleanna. For all I know they've transmitted the information to their other friends in the city and they're already setting about spoiling my plans. I suppose I should move the fleet now, before Soleanna has time to mobilize against me. Earlier than I'd planned, but oh well. No better time to strike than right now, before the rest of the world has time to organize a proper defense.

Smiling, he walked over to the nearest terminal and input several long and hard-to-remember commands. But for Robotnik, it was cake.

Hmm...maybe I should have some cake while I enjoy the show...

He chuckled a bit.

---

On the other side of town, at the airbase, Robotnik's air fleet began to hum to life. Airships disconnected from their refuelling and charging hoses. Robotic soldiers marched along the boarding ramps with tanks and other heavy equipment. The entire base suddenly felt jolted with energy, as the entire force moved together in a dazzling synchronicity, like a ballet.

[Chadin]

Who the heck is that kid talking to? I wondered as Tails spoke to his wristwatch. Judging by the disembodied voice that answered, I had to wager that wristwatch was some kind of mini-computer. The Knothole Freedom Fighter's leader had something like that too if I remembered correctly... Shelly or, Nicky or something, she called it. That settled it for me though, this Tails definitely wasn't the same one from my reality.

"Are any of you willing to ride a dragon?"

"If that dragon is the same one I'm thinking of, we'll be safe enough; and frankly, after everything that's happened tonight, I'd be willing to ride pogo stick if it meant we could escape." I answered with a surprising amount of faith coming from me. I met the Knothole Freedom Fighters prior to Robotnik's experiments on me. Maybe it was the nostalgia of those memories from happier times that gave me the confidence to put my trust in a near stranger. Maybe it was simply the fact we shared the same enemy. Heck, maybe I was just desperate to get out in one form or another. It doesn't really matter.

When I saw Tails curl up on the floor and whimper to himself I became a bit worried for him. He looked positively petrified. I was just about to say something when the elevator doors opened up once more and to my amazement, there stood Dulcy.

I couldn't contain my disbelief as we exited the elevator and walked up beside her. "I don't believe it... it really is you..." Okay, I'll admit, that sounded like something a screaming fan-boy would say; matter of fact, I think I might have said something similar when I saw her for the first time too. Of course, last time it really was more akin to a kid meeting their childhood heroes for the first time. Back home in the mountains, rumors had spread even up there about the resistance group fighting Robotnik at the very heart of his empire. Sure, most of the stories were about a certain blue hedgehog, but still. The exploits of all the Freedom Fighters practically made them legends for the rest of us. Sure we had our fair share of adventures, but they all seemed trivial compared to the Knothole group.

This time... this time I was just dumbstruck that after all the strange things that have happened in the past few hours, after finding out about the dimensional merge and seeing first hand how different everything was... It just blew me away what the chances of finding another person from my reality, here of all places.

Suddenly, just as I was about to climb onto Dulcy's back, my ears shot straight up. Off in the distance I could hear something... A low rumbling on the far side of the city. "You hear that?" I asked as my eyes fixed on a place on the horizon where I could hear the sound coming from. The sound was growing in volume. Soon, it was loud enough to be heard by just about anyone. It sounded like a distance, continuous clap of thunder, or an earthquake. The air felt like it was alive. You could almost feel the rumbling as much as hear it. "Oh no.... Giichi... it's the invasion fleet, they're taking off..."

[Tails]

Tails rocks back and forth and doesn't appear to be stopping.

CT23: Emergency System Activated.

The watch vibrates and an alarm blares from the watch. It snaps Tails out of his trance and remembers what he's supposed to do.

Tails rushes toward the edge of the hole in the wall and jumps. He activates his two tails and flies into the trees.

[Dulcy]

Dulcy smiles softly at the cat's reaction to her, thinking it's been a while since someone looked at her like that. "Never seen a dragon huh?" She asks with a light laugh, then looks them all over a bit. She considers that Giichi is fairly small and shouldn't weight much (even if with the gadgets she doesn't know about), but Chadin was a little taller and particularly with those antlers, maybe slightly heavier than the average Knothole freedom fighter, while Tails was still smaller and thus lighter. "Well, I'm pretty sure I could carry all three of you if I really had to, though one would have to hold onto the other two, or ride in my pouch."

She then has her attention drawn to Chadin as the buck comes closer and begins to talk to her. Getting a better look at him, and hearing his voice, it clicks in her head that they have met, and her eyes light up a bit, though she blushes slightly at his reaction to seeing her. "It's really me, Dulcy, and I think I remember you.... Chadin was it?"

Then as Chadin moves to climb on her back, her ears twitch a bit as she hears the sound too. It made her shiver to hear so many of Robotnik's machines taking flight, and at the word invasion, she blinked and turned to Chadin. "Invasion fleet? Where is he invading?" She now felt even more rushed to get out of here. She wondered how much the four of them could do against a fleet so large as to sound like an earthquake. However, she hoped that Chadin and Giichi might have some sort of plan, as she was never really very good at that sort of thing. As Tails finally snapped out of his trance and jumped right out of the building, she blinked a bit, then turned back to Chadin and Giichi as she waited for both of them to climb on. "So, what's the plan now...?"

She would wait for both of them to climb on her back and get a good grip on the hand holds sticking up from her back before moving to leave. "Hang on, here we go!" She calls back to them as she begins to run toward the hole in the side of the building, taking a leap at the edge of the floor and flapping her wings hard to gain altitude as she soars away from Robotnik's command center, for now just taking the quickest path out of Robotropolis.

[Giichi Twinkieland]

"Never seen a dragon huh?"

Giichi, giving Dulcy a blank look, shook his head. So, Sonic and Co. were underground freedom fighters, Robotnik had conquered most of the planet, and they had dragons there too. What else did they have? Princesses? The situation just felt so surreal that he actually didn't move for a bit.

"You hear that?"

Giichi's ears rotated around like little radar dishes for a moment, before they stopped moving while pointed at the hole.

"Oh no.... Giichi... it's the invasion fleet, they're taking off..."

The sound of Robotnik's fleet starting up in the distance woke him from his trance. That fleet was headed for his homeland...Soleanna. The fear of losing his home completely overrode his fear of jumping onto a strange creature's back and flying over the horizon on it.

"Invasion fleet? Where is he invading?"

"Soleanna!" Giichi practically shouted it, as he leaped onto Dulcy's back. All of a sudden he was a lot more enthusiastic about this escape plan. "Me and Chadin downloaded some intel about it. We have to get to Soleanna fast!"

Fortunately, Dulcy seemed all too happy to comply about getting them out of there quickly. Giichi held on tight as she took off through the hole, and then off into the sky.

As they gained altitude, Giichi cast a worried eye to the airbase on the other side of the city. Large shapes, silhouetted in the moonlight, were starting to lift off. Oh, they were moving slowly now, but Giichi imagined it wouldn't take long for them to build speed. He really hoped Dulcy didn't mind flying for a good long while to get them back to his home.

[Dr. Robotnik]

By this time, Robotnik had gone up to his quarters so that he could watch the fleet as it departed from the air base. He'd been smiling before, but not now. Because his hand had been forced earlier than intended, he wouldn't be able to send all of his ships at once to attack Soleanna. A number of the bigger ships with heavier weapons would have to stay behind, because they wouldn't be finished for a good while. The sky wasn't filled up as impressively as he would have liked tonight.

It should be enough to get the job done, but since when have I settled for merely adequate? I wanted to fill the entire sky over Soleanna, and not just because I think it would look gorgeous. I wanted so many forces that no one would even dare to think of attacking me. Just imagine...taking over the entire city without firing a single shot.

Despite what his critics thought, Robotnik did not believe in just bombing everything that opposed him. Rather, he wanted to keep the world as intact as possible. You couldn't tax or oppress dead citizens, after all.

But now it looked like people were going to have to die who didn't need to.

Tragic...they'll never live to see my glorious reconstruction of Soleanna in my image. Oh well...I suppose I should prepare to depart. Just as soon as I tie up one loose end...

[Chadin]

""It's really me, Dulcy, and I think I remember you.... Chadin was it?"

"Wow, you must have a really good memory. I don't think we were ever formally introduced, but yes, my name is Chadin." It was the truth really. At first the MFF was isolated and cut off from the rest of the outside world. We thought we might be the last free Mobians left on the planet until one day we received a very garbled radio message. We'd just destroyed a small outpost and from what we could tell the message was a broadband signal. The message kept repeating a short, simple message: You are not alone. We are Freedom Fighters and we are fighting back.

It was the first time we learned there were other survivors. Not long after that, the rumours began to reach us. People who managed to escape Robotropolis told us stories about what was happening; about the rebels fighting from a secret stronghold deep in the Great Forest, about Sonic.

It took us a few weeks to salvage the parts to make a working radio but eventually we managed to send a signal of our own. Before long we received a reply. They wanted to meet us. That's the first time I met the Knothole Freedom Fighters.

"So, what's the plan now...?"

As Dulcy took off, I felt my stomach leap up into my throat, then sink into my toes as we first plummeted, then pulled up out of the dive and climbed into the air. I'd never flown before, and let me tell you, those first few seconds I was white-knuckled terrified. I thought I could feel my fur turn the purest of white until I became accustomed to this new sensation. After that I felt light as a feather.

"Me and Chadin downloaded some intel about it. We have to get to Soleanna fast!"

It wasn't long before the sights, and more notably the smells of Robotopolis fell behind us and the familiar odors of the forest filled my lungs. That pleasant sensation reminded me of something. "Giichi, wait... I know we need to get to this... Solenna place quickly, but do you think we could make a quick pit stop into the Great Forest first? I'm not going to be any good to anyone in a fight with this shrapnel in my shoulder; there's herbs there I can use to patch myself up. Not only that, but we have to let the Knothole Freedom Fighters know about this attack. The four of us alone aren't going to be enough to stop an army that size by ourselves. I'm sure they can do something to help."