Chapter 10: Neonopolis: Act I

Raket landed nimbly on his feet, Light and Sonia following only seconds after. The sun had long-since set over this new area. Though the three heroes would have preferred to run along it in the day time. This new area was nothing but bright, flashing lights, and the darkness only made it brighter. Sonia squeezed the bridge of her nose with her eyes closed, but the bright flashes of pink, blue, red, and other colors could still be seen through her eyelids. Though it hurt his retinas, Raket looked around this new zone; The ground they would be traveling on was a slow revolution of the bright neon colors in rainbow order, the buildings, mostly skyscrapers and other buildings found in cities, flashed at a faster pace, keeping in-beat with fast paced music that seemed to blare from the buildings themselves. The silver hedgehog covered his eyes with a hand, spots appearing in front of his them.

“The faster we get outta here, the better.” Light said, looking up at the sky to clear his vision.

“Agreed.” The two hedgehogs answered with a nod. Without another word, the three jetted down the brightly colored path, carefully avoiding eye contact with the ground or buildings around them. They had not gone far before a herd of Egg-bots discovered them and attacked the three heroes. These robots must have been designed for this zone; they were all brightly colored and lit up like Christmas trees. As one group fell, another came, now armed and ready. Light, Raket and Sonia went forward, they could keep going and fight at once. As the next wave was fought off, they three found the breaking point of each bot. The biggest ones, which were a florescent yellow, were the weakest, but had strong attacks they were taken out with a single hit. The bright blues ones, about the height of Raket, were fast, but were down with two hits. And the smallest, a painfully pink robot that seemed to hover over the ground, proved to be the toughest, it took about four hits to destroy. But its attacks were weak and uncoordinated. A fourth wave was now scrap metal as Team Raket came to a complexly locked steel door. The only thing in the city that wasn’t brightly lit.

“I wish manic was here...” murmured Sonia, “He knows ho to pick a lock...”

“Maybe we don’t need to take off the lock.” Light suggested. His hedgehog friends looked at him in a questioning manner. “Up there...” Light pointed to a small square of light. “If Raket can lift me and Sonia up, we can pull him up and get through.” He explained. Raket examined it cautiously; the white light they intended to get to was about twenty feet above them in the wall.

“That...just might work...” Raket admitted, carefully looking around. “We may need something for me to climb up, but I think we can do this.”

“Easy.” Sonia smiled, pulling a cord from a near-by building, shutting its bright light show down. “We’ll use this.”

“I’ll go first, to see if everything’s alright.” Light volunteered. Raket, seeing no point to argue, nodded and carefully lifted his friend with his telekinesis. The light blue color neatly outlined Light’s figure and lifted him to his destination. The electric yellow fox grabbed the edge and hulled himself inside the small space. The light had disappeared as soon as the fox had gotten near it. It looked like a small tunnel, but it only would take a few feet of crawling to get them to the other side. “All clear!” he called over his shoulder, stepping onto the ground on the other side to wait for his friends. The cord Sonia had gotten was carefully tied around the silver hedgehog’s waist. He looked at Sonia.

“You ready?” he asked, carefully levitating her off the ground. The female hedgehog nodded in response. Sonia reached the top and pulled Raket up to join her, the two were in and out of the tunnel in a minute, rejoining Light on the other side.

                                               OoOoO

Team Guardian looked around the same surroundings as Team Raket.

“Now where are we?” Acio asked, looking around then quickly covering her eyes. Anash avoided the brightly colored atmosphere altogether and only looked ahead and into the sky. Cloud was already seeing spots from the fast-changing colors the surrounded her and the other two Guardians.

“I dunno, but I’d say it’s better we get out.” Cloud said, rubbing her eyes. She quickly took the lead, her comrades following just as fast. The music surrounding them pounded in their heads and vibrated the air with each note played, resulting headaches for the three members. An ambush of brightly colored, gun-wielding yellow robots jumped the three mammals as soon they exited a loop, they proved to be too easy as Cloud, out of reflex, shot her fist out and hit the closest one spot on. The robot exploded into a bright bust and left only scraps of yellow metal behind.

“If they’re all like that, this’ll be too easy.” Anash sneered, kicking a fragment of the yellow metal. Anash to the half of the ambush coming at him and Cloud, Acio destroying the other half, ‘Emparo’ was brought out once more and sliced easily through the Egg-bots’ hauls like a hot knife through butter. The few that had managed to dodge or survive the sword’s damaging move were handled by Cloud with the help of her speed. Acio had her usual weapon of choice: her bow and arrows. Arrows flew rapidly into the herd of robots coming at the black cat, as soon as the arrow was in place it flew swiftly through the music-filled air and nailed its target dead center. As the battle finished, the three looked just in time to see a building suddenly cut its power and blacken. The three looked to one another questioningly, should they investigate? Maybe the building had some sort of significance to them...but why did it go out? Acio didn’t give her team any more time to think of it, she started in a quick jog forward, letting her team catch up before going off at full speed. The dark building towered over them as they approached to front door. A sign was sitting above the door, the power was out, but they could still see what was on it. The bright tubes of grey neon color seemed to make the shape of a robot, like one a child would draw, consisting mostly of squares.

“Think we should go check it out?” Anash asked, looking at the door, it was open a jar, and the three would easily slip through.

“We came all this way, why not?” Cloud shrugged, though she was curious why this building had suddenly died away. The cobalt hedgehog followed her black teammates into the building; it looked like a warehouse on the inside...or a storage building. Wooden crates surrounded them, piling almost to the ceiling. Anash went over to one box, standing alone and ripped the nailed down lid off. “Anash!” Cloud growled at the black echidna. He ignored her and dug through the carefully packed box.

“Look at this.” He said, pulling a robot limb out to the crate. “This must be where Eggman stores his robotic parts.”

“We should destroy it, then.” Acio commented, pointing an arrow at the piece.

“Wait a second.” Cloud said, staring at the limb. “Something isn’t right...” The female took the red robotic limb from Anash and examined it. “I was right...” she muttered.

“About what?” Anash asked, being the only one close enough to hear. Cloud looked up, at Anash, and then to Acio, who lowered her bow. “These aren’t made by Eggman...They’re made by Tails...”

                                               OoOoO

“You okay? I mean, after the ‘being frozen’ thing.” Laya asked, concerned about her older sister.

“Yeah, I’m fine.” Sumowa answered. Cosmo was already looking around their new location and the same reaction as others had when first arriving. The green seedrian covered her eyes.

“It’s so bright...” she complained.

“And loud.” Sumowa added. “Who’d wanna live here?”

“Not a clue, let’s go.” Laya answered, taking charge of the group. The oldest of the seedrians quickly took the front after catching her littlest sister.

“I guess we have no choice.” She shrugged, pulling Cosmo along with her. The three girls followed a path that slowly revolved all colors of the rainbow, only magnifying the brightness of them. It was much narrower than what they had started on, but it took them through a detour of the city. A far away building suddenly dulled and blended with the night sky as they came to a dead end. The three entered an area that seemed to be a dead end, but was brightly lit with white light. Cosmo quickly turned off the blinding light, and the three could see a small square tunnel that was easily reachable, about at eye level with the Sumowa.

“All clear!” a voice from inside yelled, startling the three of Team Earthia.

“There’s someone in there.” Laya whispered, holding tightly to Sumowa’s arm.

“Come on, we should go...” the rainbow seedrian replied, pushing her sisters away from the voice.

“But where?” Cosmo asked, “It’s a dead end.”

“There’s gotta be somewhere we can go...There!” Sumowa pointed to a small, wooden door, painted bright neon green with a knocker blended almost perfectly into it. Cosmo knelt down to better examine the door. There was a knocker, but no knob.

“How do we open it?” she asked, searching it once again. There was a moment of silence before they heard shuffling from the tunnel and Laya grabbed the knocker. The orange seedrian twisted the knocker and pulled, the door flung silently open. All three barely made it inside and closed the door before whatever was in the tunnel, a yellow fox, poked his head through. From there, the three crawled on their knees several meters before emerging outside. Laya, who had crawled in first, looked around carefully before getting out and gesturing for her sisters to do that same.

“Come on, we’re in a building of some sort...” Laya trailed off before she could make her guess. Cosmo and Sumowa crawled out and looked for what had silenced their sister. They didn’t have to look far. The room they stood in looked like a production line. A production line for robots. Cosmo went forward to examine one that had been tossed aside, no doubt because of an error in its making.

“Whose are they?” she asked, examining the robot over, it all fit together well, but the styles for the pieces seemed...different. One arm was sleek and curved, another was dull and sharp. The head was blue, and the body a very noticeable dark blue, nothing on the robot matched. Sumowa and Laya joined her in looking over the robots, they were all different, some had eyes, and some had none. Up on the conveyer belt, then robots seemed to be becoming more and more like a single person made it. Laya picked up one and almost immediately dropped it.

“Sumowa, Cosmo...Look...” the orange seedrian showed her sister’s her discovery, the symbol on the robot was part of Eggman’s face, and one familiar orange tail with a white tip.

                                               OoOoO

The three female detectives quickly surveyed their surroundings, bright lights, pounding music...no amount of aspirin was gonna help them now.

“We’ve already been running for a day.” Waffle commented. Silence hung in the air around the three. “Do ya think they’re...?”

“Dead?” Kaity finished, getting glares from her teammates. “What? Everyone’s thinkin’ it, I’m just sayin’ it.” She said, jumping to her own defense.

“Even so,” Snow started, turning her attention to Waffle, “there wasn’t a ransom note or anything, so they have a larger chance of being alive.” The white tiger assured her friend. Waffle smiled at her tiger friend, at least there was a chance...

“Come on guys, I think I’m seeing spots...” Kaity said, wobbling slightly as they went on their way. The music pounded on their ear drums with every step, though Waffle and Snow seemed to have more effect from it. They raced down a street, keeping in-step and steady. Waffle suddenly thrust her arm out in front of her friends, causing them to crash into the arm.

“Look.” The tan fox said, pointing to a sign with a neon grey robot on it, and a neon purple outline around the sign itself.

“What? A robot factory?” Kaity asked, as if it were nothing special.

“Yes.”

“What’s so weird about it?”

“In a skyscraper?” Waffle chuckled.

“...I see you’re point. We goin’ in?”

“Of course.” The door looked to have an old lock on it, easily broken. “Come on.” Waffle opened to door just enough for the three to slip in unnoticed. Inside the three looked around the brightly lit room, a storage room, maybe. Each box was carefully stacked, keeping the floor clear.

“Watch out below!” Snow called from the top of a stack, shoving a crate over the side. The chameleon and vixen quickly jumped away as the wooden cube landed, but didn’t break. “What’s inside?” the white tiger called down, jumping from box to box until she reached the ground.

“I can’t open it.” Waffle sighed, giving the lid a final tug.

“Maybe there’s more here...” Kaity pondered, looking around. The lights suddenly switched off, leaving the room in the dulled light of neon colors outside the dusty window. “Well, that was unexpected.”

“Now what? We can’t get any of the boxes open.” Snow asked. Both teammates were about to answer before the sound of footsteps alerted them of someone outside.

“We find a way out.” Waffle said, changing her original answer. The tan female pulled her friends quickly up the pile of boxes to hide. As the peered over the edge, a cobalt hedgehog, black cat, and black Echidna slipped in and began examining the same box they had. She gestured for her friends to follow her, and started carefully down the other side of the crate tower and through another door, leading them to what they thought was a production line for something. They went farther in, examining what was going through the lines and being put together. They were shaped like Eggman’s Egg-bots, but their design didn’t quite fit Eggman’s. Waffle suddenly gasped, startling her friends. “Look at the arms...” she said, gesturing to the right arm of each passing robot. They all carried Tails’ symbol.

“Tails made these...?” Snow gasped, breaking the silence that had taken over.