Episode 2: Search Party


Characters

Knuckles the Echidna
Vector Crocidile
Espio Chameleon
Mighty the Armidillo
Julie-su
Ray the Squirrel
Constable Remington
Lightning Lynx
Flying Frog
Sgt.Simon
Predator Hawk
Jim
??????(Cloaked Figure)
A Dingo



Knuckles tore through the trees, rushing to find his friends.  He had just been told that Vector the Crocidile and Espio the Chameleon, had been attacked and captured.  " How in the world could this happen?" Knuckles wondered with anger and confusion filling his thoughts at once " Espio and Vector should have been able to at least get some good licks in and then gave us some sort of signal that they were being attacked.  But from the looks of it, they didn't even stand a chance against them."  Knuckles balled his fists at the thoughts of his friends being so easily beaten by these rejects.  Mighty was trailing Knuckles by a few feet but he could still tell that his friend was really angry about the whole situation. " Man, Knuckles must really be upset about this whole thing. I just wish that I could have been there to help them during this whole thing."  Mighty began running harder to try to catch up with his friend.  " What do we do when we actually find the spot where they were attacked.  Who knows where they could be? For all we know they could be long gone."  Mighty was filled with these thoughts and cried out to Knuckles "Hey Knux, what do we do when we find the spot where they were kidnapped, they could be long gone by now." Knuckles mumbled something under his breath and began to run faster. " What?" Mighty said " I said we'll worry about when we get there!" Mighty realized that he should have kept his mouth shut.  He looked behind him to make sure that Julie-su and Ray hadn't gotten lost trying to follow them. They hadn't. "I sure hope we stop soon," Mighty thought " I'm getting tired of all this running."

**Remington awoke in a sweat.  "Whoa, just a dream" he said wiping the beads of sweat off his forehead.  He sat up and looked around the room. "I don't know why, but I have a bad feeling about today."  Remington stood up and walked to the bathroom and washed up.  " The first day off in months and I'm worrying about what can happen," He splashed water onto his face " chill out Remington, try to go the whole day without worrying about what could happen."  He fixed himself a bowl of cereal and plopped himself down on the couch and turned on the T.V. " I wonder what's on the blube tube" he thought to himself.  Just as he was making himself comfortable on the couch his walky talky whirred to life.  " Oh man, what now" Remington picked it up "Remington here" "Remington, it's the dingos are at it again, they've used bombs and planes to take out a whole city block and are careless for all the civilians.  Their forces are stronger than ever before and we need back-up, including you" Remington let out an annoyed grunt "I knew this would be a bad day" he mumbled " All right I'll be there as fast as I can" " Thank you Remington, hurry we need you".  " Yeah" Remington said to himself as he put on his uniform " So does everyone else on this dog on island.

**" Are we there yet, are we there yet, are we there yet?"  " NO!".  Vector had been compaining for hours and the fearsome foursome were more than annoyed at him.  Even Espio was beggining to get irritated at his comrade.  Vector didn't seem to care, on the count that he wouldn't keep his mouth shut for one second. " Man I'm cramped. Hey Simon, you stink. I'm hungry. Do any of you have any food?"  Vector complained. " If you don't shut up I'll string you by a rope and feed you to the sharks you talking freak." Sgt. Simon yelled in anger.  He had been the most annoyed at Vector's rambling because he had been stuck watching him.  They were on a hover craft over the water heading toward their destination which was still unknown to Vector and Espio.  Espio sat in silence thinking to himself many things all at once.  " How were they able to catch us so easily?" Espio wondered in complete confusion "They were never smart enough to pull something like this alone before, who could they possibly work for now. Mogul was out of the picture for good thanks to Knuckles terminating him. It just doesn't add up" Espio slammed his fist down and let out a small growl.  " What do they want with that prophecy tablet anyway? Could they possibly know what it means?  Could it actually mean the end of the world is near and they know what to do to save themselves? And if I am right about it, how did they know about the tablet and who the heck would need it so they could do something so powerful it could alter everyone's future?"

**" Well now what do we do?"  Mighty said as they had entered the clearing where their friends had been captured.  Knuckles was just standing in the middle of it looking around in wonder on what was going to happen next. " Well" Knuckles began " we should start off looking around for clues"  He bent down on one knee as he noticed Julie-su coming over to him.  She bent down as well and said " Knuckles, don't get too upset if we can't actually find a clue around here.  I mean, it may be kind of hard to find one since it's  probably been hours since they've all been here and.." she stopped as soon as she noticed Knuckles getting more angry the more she talked. " You know, you could be a little more helpful" he growled and continued looking for clues.  "Note to self," Julie-su thought "do not bother Knuckles in a bad mood" she walked over to another part of the site and began to help search for the clues also.

**The air was filled with smoke.  Sirens were blarring every where. Constable Remington was just arriving at the scene.  He could hardly see through all of the thick smoke and he couldn't here himself think because of all of the noise and chaos surronding him.  Constable Remington pulled out his gun ready for any type of dingo trickery that was most likely to occur.  " Hey Jim, how long have things been like this?" Remington asked one of the other officers.  " About an hour, it's been getting worse by the minute, we've already had some troops go into the pit of the smoke and they haven't returned yet" Jim yelled.  " About how long ago did you send those troops in?" Remington screamed above all of the noise. " About half an hour ago" was the reply.  Remington let out a loud sigh, " I have a feeling that they arn't coming back" he said as he edged his way deeper and deeper into the smoke "I'm going after them, if I'm not back within the next hour I want you send every man you have in after me, cuz if they take me out, it's big trouble." " Yes sir".  Remington walked deeper and deeper, ignoring the noise he was leaving behind and was suddenly feeling lonely.  He was just about to turn around when he felt something powerful struck the back of his head and he fell down. Remington quickly picked up his gun and turned around to see the outline of a dingo jump up and kick him in the head hard.  Remington fell down hard, and slowly lost conciousness.

**" I say we jump them" Espio whispered suddenly. They were both sitting towards the back of the hover craft and since they had been riding for some time now the fearsome foursome left them alone, and were engaged in their own conversation. "What?" Vector said. " I say we sneak up behind them and jump them, I think if we do things just right, we can take em', are you scared" Espio said trying to get Vector to help him.  He knew Vector thought he was crazy, heck HE thoughty he was crazy, whether it was for trying to do it or was it asking Vector for help.  Espio didn't care, right now he just wanted to get out of that hover craft and he needed help to do so. " How are we going to do this?" Vector said.  You get the jump on Simon and Hawk while I get the other two." Vector made a face thinking about this. " Why do I have to get Simon?"  Espio smiled "Because I don't want to.".  Vector stood up and prepared for his attack. He leaped out and landed on Sgt. Simon knocking him off balance and caused him to fall. "Arghh, you overgrown lizard get off of me" Simon yelled. Espio had arlready made his attack and was doing a pretty good job at it. " Hey Vec, we're doing it!." Vector swung his tail at Predator Hawk and watched as he he fell back, Vector pounced on him and began to vicously punch Predator Hawk in the head.  As L. Lynx was going toe to toe with Espio (on the count the F.Frog was now out cold) Espio was concentrating around him to find some thing that would end the fight quickly.  L. Lynx knocked Espio back hard and he hit the controls.  A few sparks flew followed by an explosion.  " No" Espio said.  The whole hover craft began to take a nose dive towards a montain.  Vector looked down in terror, " Dude, we're not going to survive this one Espy". Espio had the exact same thoughts.  Simon and Lynx were screaming all the way down.  The very next second, the hover craft crashed causing a huge explosion, swallowing up anything in it.

**Knuckels and the gang had been searching for what seemed like hours with little luck whatsoever.  "That's it if I have to smell this stench any longer I'll snap" Mighty said out loud. Knuckles sniffed the air " Yeah, I've noticed that smell too, it's been here since we got here."  Ray stood up "Y-y-yeah, it s-sm-smells f-f-familiar" Julie-su suddenly jumped " I know that smell it's Vector's cheap cologne." The others stood as well. "We'll follow that smell and find our friends" Knuckles said as he began to run. The other were following when a beam of light shot down at Julie-su. "Ah" Julie said as she was being lifted up into the air. Knuckles turned around and his eyes opened in terror. A huge spacecraft was giving out a light and sucking up Julie with it.  "Noooo" Knuckles leaped up and grabbed Julie-su's feet.  " I won't let go Julie.". Just then a laser beam came from the ship and blasted Knuckles off Julie-su.  Knuckles fell to the ground and hit it hard. He opened his eyes just in time to see the spacecraft door close with Julie-su in it. The spacecraft took off.

**Out in the arctic a cloaked figure walked through the snow.  " Soon Knuckles your time will come.  Too bad all of this battling and pain you've been through will be in vain. We'll see what you can do to against that weak wizard Merlin's nephew, the Chosen One."  He chuckled, snapped his finger then disapeared.

                    TO BE CONTINUED