Exploration Game

Back to basics.

In other words back to angel island, back to the root of the problem, back to means and the power to cleanse the world.

Back to the home of the guardian.

The doctors mood was melancholic as his bandaged fingers slid across the rouch surface of a ruined wall. His location? Sandopolis ruins, angel island. It had been an old albion fascility once, outdated, but it had served his purpose before and he hardly expected the guardian to come looking for him here. After all he'd abandoned this hide out for a long time.

But there were ofcourse, parts he hadn't explored, parts that didn't suit his purpose. Except maybe they did. He'd found some interesting tid bits back in down unda. Now all he had to do was keep a nice low profile, at least for a little while longer.

He squinted in the direction of the master emerald, so close and yet so far. Just a little bit longer and it would all be in his grasp. He just needed to get rid of one stuborn child who refused to see things his way. Fool of a guardian. He shook his head. Sometimes the only thing more agrevating then the young guardian was his own inability to stop obsessing over the boy. He didn't nescesarily need him as a means to and end, but he wanted to... aurora knew he wanted to.

Mood turning sour the doctor headed deeper into the ruins at a brisk pace.

* A young hedgeleon sits outside of her uncle's home far away from most ninja civilizations, looking up at that green thing in the air *

The hot desert winds seem to cut through the ruins, sand blowing within the gust.  This didn’t make travel hard for a figure that was lurking nearby the ruins.  An orange furred echidna glared over the entrance of the ruins where Finitevus went into.  He had been carefully tracking him after spotting him on the island several hours earlier and unfortunately, knows all too well what he’s capable of.

The echidna definitely stood out as various cybernetic enhancements riddles his chest area as well as both his arms.  To most, he was just some echidna with cybernetics, but to others he was known as once good commander.  The figure himself was Duke, an ex-Dark Egg Legionnaire who was a commander within the echidna chapter of the DEL until he escaped his duties and ran off to help his friends.  But now branded as a traitor and risking death if he returned back to his “home” he had nothing better to do than to try to be the hero he wanted to be.

Duke looked on to see if anyone else was nearby, listening and looking for any signs.  After determining it was clear, he shook his head a bit and slowly crept over to the entrance.  “I need to get to the bottom of this.” He thought to himself as he slowly reached the entrance, listening for voices within.

The young hedgeleon finally stops gazing at the weird green thing in the sky and walks off into the distance, knowing that she'll get in trouble for doing so, but not caring one bit. She starts to run when her uncle screams her name: " Madigan!". But Maddie could care less.

The good doctor touched what seemed to be a random glyph and as if by magic the ruins lit up by hidden lights. Though they looked ancient and where ancient for the matter, they were also an old albion scientific facility, used for research and experimenting. A place where they created weapons to fight the war with the ixis mages so long ago.

He looked at the glyph with ill veiled disgust. Albion tech had changed little even if it had been thousands of years. He wasn't able to operate the machinery in these ruins through research but simply because they had hardly changed from the tech albion had used up to this day. Stagnant, no longer growing, ground to a halt...useless...

It was exactly why he had destroyed them. They no longer grew, they had all stagnated, petty squable upon petty squable the world was better off without human, mobians and overlanders, let it recover from them, and grow anew... no longer tainted.

He tapped a few more glyphs before continueing to the inner chamber of the fascility, seemingly oblivious to Duke trailing him.

Maddie passed a few ruined temples. Nothing too special, just a ruined temple. Then, Maddie noticed a strange light..... She was a bit curious, because she knew the natives had no idea how to work technology. But common sense takes over curiosity and Maddie decides to walk away from the ruins.

Cautiously, Duke moved inside the ruins, trying to remain quiet as possible as he moved.  It was actually rather difficult due to his cybernetics make ever so slight noises as he moved.  “Just got to move slowly and not get detected.” He said to himself as he moved further, following the path Finitevus took.  As he moved he began to see some light up ahead, pausing to a stop.  He tilted his head a bit to try to figure out what the lighting was coming from and moved slowly over.

He didn’t realize they were indeed just glyphs that light the walls and let out a sigh of relief.  “Looks like some old Albion tech…” he muttered as he put his hand gentle up to one of the glyphs on the wall, staring for a good minute before moving on.  He pressed further on, following the glyphs and using them as a guide to figure out where the crazy echidna was heading.

Maddie keeps on walking. She wants to check it out, but past experience has taught her not to explore. The suspicious sounds remain on her mind.

" Maybe I'll go back later ", she thinks, since most Mobians use the night as a time to sleep.

Sadly for Duke, the light glyph wasn't the only one the good doctor had activated. As he walked he side eyed the wall, some of the glyphs lighting up red, telling him that someone else had entered and was following him. For all its redundancy the old albion tech still had its uses. He'd been having the nagging suspicion that he was being followed and the detection system had just confirmed it. Now the question was, who? Not the guardian, the boy wasn't one for caution, especially if it came to a threat to his home.

So then who was the fool trying to sneak after him? Well, he'd have to take care of that, it wouldn't do for him to be detected prematurely and having to go another round. It took much too long the last time for his arm to heal after he'd broken it getting thrown off the island by Knuckles.

He darted around a corner and waited untill Duke passed him, opening a warpring behind the orange furred echidna, the only warning he got was the fwoom of the warpring opening before the doctors arm had darted through and grabbed him by the scruff jerking him through and slamming him into the wall with surprising strenght, arm pinning his throat.

"whats this then.."he couldn't quite keep the surprise out of his voice as his cybernetic eyes ran over the former legionaire"A legionaire? I thought I was rid of you lot...".

Night fall came. Maddie made herself invisible, an ability she inherited from her father, a chameleon.

" This is gonna get me killed.", she thinks. But she really doesn't care.

It happened so fast... Duke remember touching the wall and seeing the gylphs light up with a bright red.  He could remember getting fluster as he knew that he just gave himself away to the enemy.  His only though now was to run and hide somewhere in hope of not being spotted.  He had dashed down the hallway and before he knew it, he felt a tug at the back of his neck, a rather painful tug.

It was all a blur until... he felt himself slammed into a wall, staring back at the mad doctor himself.  Duke attempted to lift his pinned arms, trying to pull the arm at his throat. "We...were never...gone..." he wheezed as he struggled to get free.  "We're very.... much alive."

Maddie notices that the one temple is still glowing, in an invisible state still, she approached the temple. When in the " doorway ", Maddie looks around for a way in without being revealed by the light.

The entire manouvre pulled off without a hitch, to be honest finitevus felt a little dissapointed,as well as mildly disgusted at the fact it had been so easy to grab the legionaire, but it didn't quite match the annoyance he felt at the fact that they were NOT gone. Really it was simple enough, he'd given that stupid beast of a devildog the means to get rid off all the echidna's , made him think it was his idea, and he failed to get rid of them completely.

Shouldn't sent a stupid mutt to do a man's job.

Still he did know for a fact that the majority of albion and the legionaires that where currently there had been sent through the warpring. Did he know where they'd been sent? Probably, but he certainly wasn't going to tell anyone, this was exactly what he'd wanted after all.

He widened his eyes in mock surprise"Never gone you say? I must have missed that memo on my last trip to albion, because last I checked it was deserted and completely echidna free". He grinned nastily, baring his sharp pointy teeth"Seems the stupid dog missed a few of you however... nothing I can't fix I'm sure..."He didn't budge an inch.

What to do with him though? It wouldn't do to kill him outright if he could be useful.

Maddie was starting to have second thoughts. Common sense took over curiosity, Maddie made a run for it.

" I might have just saved my own life ", she thinks.

Duke growled at Finitevus' word, deep in the back of his mind he knew that there might have been a possibility that the doctor could have been behind the disappearance of his species but never was able to turn up enough information to prove it. He only knew the Tasmanian devil known as Thrash was behind it and that he didn't get all the echidnas, he knew several escaped, most being legionnaires.

He began to struggle more, managing to get both his hands on the arm at his throat and began to push it forward, an attempt to get free and take advantage of Finitevus long enough to make a retreat.  Even the former commander knew he was no match against him and would need help.  But... where to go?  He knew his tiger friends were off on another mission.  Maybe the legionnaires?  Even he knew he would risking being shot at by his former colleagues if he turned to them for help.

"You aren't going... to find them." he grunted "You aren't going... to harm them!" he growled as he put all his might in his arms, hoping luck will be on his side and overwhelm the white echidna.