💾 Archived View for tilde.team › ~khuxkm › writing › infinite_possibilities › ch5.md captured on 2022-06-04 at 01:37:53.
⬅️ Previous capture (2020-11-07)
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
After a light breakfast (Sonic made pancakes), Zero was pushed out of the kitchen. It made sense: since the kitchen doubled as a war room, they clearly needed to be able to hold a meeting in there. He felt miffed that he wasn't involved in proceedings, but he understood why: some of them were still on the fence about whether he could be trusted. Still, maybe he couldn't be trusted, since he waited just outside of the war room to hear whatever he could. "Alright, today's the day. Sergeant, do you have the battle plans?" Zero gawked. They were really trusting that idiot to come up with battle plans? "Yes, I do. We'll cause a commotion to the east, drawing the defence robots there, before attacking from the south. He won't know what hit him." Zero mentally facepalmed (actually facepalming at that moment was so tempting, but Zero knew they would hear it). The doctor may make boneheaded decisions every now and again, but the man still had 300 IQ and plenty of bots to go around. A small contingency attacking from the east would be easily spotted for what it was (a diversion) and he'd focus his efforts elsewhere (still sending a few bots to deal with the intruders, but focusing his defence efforts elsewhere). "Sounds like a great idea!" Of course, Knuckles thought it was a good idea; he thought Operation Big Wave would work. Zero shook his head; he'd probably need to fish this operation out of the fire. "Alright, then it's settled! We'll rally the troops and get Operation Tsunami on the road." Sonic was ready to go, but Tails interrupted him. "What about Zero?" "What about him?" Tails seemed confused. "Why aren't we including him in this meeting? He worked with Doctor Eggman, clearly, he'd know more about Eggman's defences-" "Yeah, and he could tell Eggman of our plan in advance. No way. I still don't trust him." Knuckles seemed firm on this much. Sonic stopped Tails from throwing a fit. "Alright, but I'm still including him as a soldier. We need as many attackers as we can." Knuckles tried to protest, but ultimately decided to keep his mouth shut. "Fine." Sonic seemed to smile. "Good! I'll go get him-" Zero sped down the stairs and hopped onto his "bed", taking care to make it look as if he hadn't been listening in on them. Soon enough, Sonic appeared in the door. "Hey, In-" He stopped himself. "Zero, we're going to attack Eggman's base." Zero put on his best surprised face. "Really? Why?" Sonic walked into the cell, not particularly feeling threatened at the moment. "Well, we want to pay him back for the badnik raids." Zero smiled, remembering the time he saved that defence from the Sergeant's stupidity. "Ah, I see." Sonic paused. "Tails wanted to include you in the meetings, but Knuckles still doesn't trust you." Zero rolled over to face the wall. "I don't really blame him. Haven't done much to gain *his* trust." He rolled back over to look at Sonic. "And you're telling me this why?" "Well, we could use an extra body attacking on the ground." Sonic didn't need to tell Zero twice. "I'm in." Sonic smiled. "Good to have you on the team." --- When they got within a mile of Eggman's base, they split into their two groups. Zero was placed in the Sergeant's group, along with a few other soldiers, including a red wolf and a few other nondescript Mobians. The plan was to trek east, double back and attack, making it seem as if they had come from a different settlement to the east. Then, while Eggman was dealing with them, the rest of the troops would sneak in from the South, taking advantage of what little time they'd have while the defences shifted to cover them. Zero knew this plan was dumb, but he couldn't do anything until he was proven right. He hung near the back, "to watch for any spy robots", as he put it to the Sergeant. Surprisingly, the red wolf stayed back with him. They were both out of earshot, and the wolf was the first to speak up. "So, what do you think of the Sergeant?" When Zero looked at him quizzically, he responded. "You seemed pretty eager to fall to the back of the group." Zero nodded. "Yeah, because otherwise, I'd tear his head off. He has a death wish; none of this will work, mark my words." The wolf seemed confused. "Are you sure? It seems well thought out." Zero smiled. "It would *seem* that way, sure, but the Doctor has an IQ of 300. Clearly, he'd have planned for being able to quickly scale his defences." He paused. "Either way, the Sergeant's a numbskull, and the less I have to hear from him, the better." The wolf smiled back. "Yeah. As crazy as it sounds, I preferred when Knuckles was in charge of battle plans." "Why?" "At least Knuckles failed in style." The wolf paused. "I'm not sure I agree that the Sergeant's a complete numbskull though; he held Red Gate pretty well." Zero smirked. "Yeah, when I basically overthrew his battle strategy and substituted my own, it worked out pretty well." The red wolf looked at him weirdly, so he continued. "The Sergeant was just going to attack head-on. I was the one who decided to take some soldiers and flank the badniks." "Oh. Well, how are you going to save this one then?" Zero paused. "I don't know. The answer usually comes to me when I need it, though." "Ah." The wolf smiled. "Anyways, it's nice to meet you. I'm Gadget." He held out his hand. "Zero. Likewise." Zero shook Gadget's hand. "Not that many people trust me, especially those that know of my past." He could sense the curiosity on the wolf's face, but he decided to shoot that down before it grew too much. "I don't want to talk about it." Gadget rubbed the back of his head. "I can imagine." Zero could tell there was a hidden past there, but decided to ignore it. "Anyways, it was nice to meet you. I'd better get back near the front of the formation, before the Sergeant notices I'm gone." Zero nodded. "Nice to meet you, too." Soon, they were at the east wall of the Doctor's fortress. Sure enough, as soon as they got over the wall, they were swarmed by bots. As they fought back wave after wave of badniks, Zero could hear the Sergeant key up his communicator. "We are go for phase 2. I repeat, Operation Tsunami is a go for phase 2." "Roger that." The waves of badniks sent to them died down. Zero kept a countdown in his head, and when it hit zero, he already knew what Sonic was going to say. "We've been hemmed in, there's no escape! They surrounded us way too quickly." The Sergeant was incredulous. "How? We gave you plenty of distraction!" Zero cleared his throat. "The Doctor is smarter than we give him credit for. He probably spun up badnik production when he saw us come from the east." Sonic sounded panicked. "Well, that doesn't do us any good! Retreat!" The Sergeant started to retreat as ordered, before Zero stopped him. "Are you kidding me? We're just going to leave them to die?" "There's nothing we can do for them now. If they don't survive, we need to be able to continue the Resistance." Zero shook his head. "You numbskull! If they die, there won't **be** a Resistance to continue!" He turned back towards the fortress. "I'm going in. We might be able to pull some badniks back from the south if we get a little closer to Eggman. Anybody with me?" Unsuprisingly, nobody stepped up to be with him. Zero shook his head again. "Fine, I'll go by myself." He turned back towards the base, only to feel a hand on his shoulder. He spun around to see everybody gone, except for Gadget. "I'm going with. I'm done being a coward." Zero nodded. "Let's get going, then." --- Admittedly, going from around 30 soldiers to 2 meant that they didn't pull as many badniks away from the conflict at the south as Zero had planned, but it still increased the survival chance of Sonic and the rest of the army. Gadget and Zero eventually got to a point in the halls where Zero turned around. "Stay here. Pick off any badniks that come this way." Gadget was incredulous. "Where are you going?" Zero looked down the hall, a wicked grin on his face. "To meet the Eggman himself." Gadget tried to stop him. "Are you out of your mind?" Zero looked back at him. "A little bit." Before Gadget could stop him again, Zero sped off down the hall. --- Zero had traveled these halls and corridors so many times he had lost count. Infinite had traveled them even more than Zero had. So, obviously, it should come as no surprise that within about a half an hour, Zero showed up at the Doctor's door. Doctor Eggman, for his part, had turned on a camera feed to the main area of the fortress so he could gloat at Sonic. "Your plan failed! I have you now, Sonic!" Zero smirked. "Hello, Doctor." Eggman almost jumped several feet out of his chair, prompting a laugh from Sonic on the other end. "What are you doing here?" Zero looked at Eggman the way an adult looks at a child who is throwing a temper tantrum (when the child isn't theirs). "Putting your life in danger so you have to send more badniks up here to save your rotund behind. What does it look like I'm doing?" Eggman looked at Zero incredulously. "That's what I've been doing! Why hasn't it worked?" Zero smirked again. "For one, you've been sending barely any badniks my way. Secondly, I have a..." He paused, to fish the word for "someone working alongside you" out of his memory, since he had repressed that word from his memory when the Jackal Squad died. "...partner who is further down the hall who's taking out badniks that come this way." It was Sonic's turn to ask Zero a question. "Not to complain about the help, Zero, but weren't you supposed to retreat?" Zero looked to the camera and smiled. "The Sergeant said something about that, yes, but I tend to ignore idiots who aren't worth their title. I'm just fishing this plan out of the fire, like I did at Red Gate." Sonic didn't respond, so Eggman decided to speak up. "So, Zero, come to work for me again?" It seemed like he already knew the answer, but he was asking in a last-ditch effort to save his skin. Zero spat in Eggman's general direction. "Like I'd ever work with you again. You can't even handle an empire when you have a gem of almost infinite power. Even **if** I still wanted to destroy the world -- and that's a BIG **if** -- I wouldn't work with you again no matter what you offered." He walked up to Eggman, brandishing his stolen Wispon. "You've wronged me. You know how you've wronged me, so I won't repeat it." He loaded the wispon with more energy. "And I'm not particularly merciful to those who have wronged me. Any last words?" As if on cue, a bunch of badniks swarmed the room, followed by Gadget hot on their heels. Sonic looked up to the camera again. "They all left! We're free!" He seemed conflicted in his next words. "Thanks. I'll talk to you... later?" Zero smiled. "Later." --- Between Gadget and Zero, both using wispons, they were able to clear the room. Unfortunately, Eggman got away, but Zero knew Eggman would need to regroup before he planned any more advances against Sonic and company. He was happy. He and Gadget talked more on the way back to the base. As it turns out, Gadget was actually the owner of the wispon Zero stole. He returned it, clearly, apologizing for taking it. Gadget had forgiven him, noting that he had needed it to take care of the badniks anyways. Zero told Gadget about his sword, lamenting the fact that he no longer had it in his possession. Gadget hadn't said anything in response to that, but Zero swore he could see a plotting smile on Gadget's face. Also, Zero learned that Gadget was shy around groups of people, and preferred sign language. Luckily, Zero already knew Mobian Sign Language. (It was the easiest way to silently communicate between Jackal Squad members during a heist.) Soon, however, they got back to base. Knuckles was the first to address Zero. "Are you mad? You could've gotten Gadget killed!" Zero snorted. "Sure, like listening to the Sergeant didn't put you all in serious danger already." He walked up to the red echidna, unfazed by his anger. "Besides, I actually told Gadget to stay back at the last chokepoint before Eggman's lair. He's the one who rushed in and helped me take the badniks out." Knuckles was still red hot. "Yeah, but you still put a life at risk! I-" Zero cut Knuckles off, knowing exactly where he was going and what he was implying. "And I saved at least 300 lives by it. The only Resistance life I personally put at risk was my own. Gadget helping me with the badnik swarm was his idea, not mine." He looked over at the red wolf. "Not that I minded the help." Gadget took the cue and signed back "[You're welcome.]" Knuckles was speechless. "What do you mean, you saved 300 lives?" Zero paused, not entirely sure how stupid Knuckles could be. "By putting Eggman's life in danger, I forced him to call the badniks away from the battle out front to save him." Sonic spoke up. "We were hemmed in, remember, Knucklehead?" He gestured to Zero. "If it weren't for him almost blasting Egghead's face off, we probably would've lost badly." Knuckles rubbed the back of his head. "Oh. Right." He turned to Zero. "Hey, sorry about not including you in battle plans. I just wasn't sure I could trust you. No offense." Zero smiled. "None taken." He paused for a second. "Either way, based on what I know of Eggman, he's going to be out of commission for a while. We're safe, for now." Sonic smiled, although Zero swore there was still conflict in his eyes. "That's good to hear." Knuckles didn't seem to notice. "I'll call a town hall, and we'll let the people know we succeeded." Sonic gave the same weak smile. "Sounds like a plan, Knucklehead." Knuckles smiled back at Sonic. "I'll go write my speech." After Knuckles left, Zero walked over to Sonic. "Is everything okay?" Sonic almost recoiled, before relaxing. "Yeah! I just... need some time to figure things out." Zero smiled at him. "Well, I'll leave you to it." --- Knuckles gave his speech later that day. Sonic was noticeably absent, but nobody seemed to notice. Because Knuckles was such a bad speech-giver (honestly, they should've had Sonic give the speech, then it would have been full of energy and passion), Zero found it more fun to sign jokes at Gadget from across the room. Once the wolf caught on to what Zero was trying, they signed at each other for a while, substituting Knuckles' boring speech with an interesting conversation of their own. They were quickly becoming friends. Meanwhile, as Gadget and Zero joked around with each other, Sonic was sitting in the headquarters, seriously lost with a dilemma all his own to worry about. For now, the Resistance celebrated a mission completed, a problem solved. Unfortunately for Sonic, he still had a problem to solve. And that problem didn't seem to be going away.