Chapitre 104: Hermit Hacks
"Alright, we're almost to the hills," Vector sighed into the walkie-talkie, taking a ride in an undersized taxi with the rest of Team Chaotix. "We're in Seaside Square right now."
"Very good!" Their mystery client exclaimed. "Be careful, I— I mean, I believe LORD EGGMAN deployed a lot of robots in Seaside Hill not too long ago. He's going to take over the entire world someday with that kind of army!" Vector and Espio felt an uncertain feeling creep into their chests as Charmy annoyed the driver, oblivious to their client.
"Uh-huh. Since we're pretty much there, mind telling us our—?" Vector asked, shifting around and trying to be comfortable in the tiny taxi. Suddenly, the taxi that may as well have been a clown car screeched to a halt. A sense of whiplash. "Hey, what's the deal, man?!" Vector shouted at the cabbie.
"Sorry, sorry! There's someone on the road," The cabbie panicked, hands sweating on the steering wheel. Vector grumbled in irritation.
"It's okay, I'll move 'em," Vector groaned. He stepped out of the car, and walked up to the woman who was asleep on the road. Vector lifted the woman in the air and began to walk her over to the sidewalk. "Never thought I'd say this, but some things were just easier back in the empire. People didn't fall asleep in the road because nobody there is nice enough to hit the brakes!"
…
The Chaotix busted out of the taxi doors and landed on the sand grain-speckled sidewalk. "Wooo! All right, mystery man. We're at the beach. Time for you to spill what you want us here for," Vector spoke into the walkie-talkie. The taxi drove away.
"Splendid! Your first trial will be to track down twenty hermit crabs," their client replied. Vector, Espio and Charmy all looked disappointed to varying degrees. "That handsome fiend Eggman has sent his robots out to collect them. We cannot let him kidnap the hermit crabs, or else he'll turn them into Super Badniks known as… Big Chasers."
"Why are we doing this? Sounds more like a job for Sonic," Vector argued. "We don't wanna get put on Eggman's hit list!"
"If you act like true detectives, nobody will have to know," the client whispered. "Now get out there and save some hermit crabs!"
The Chaotix hurried to search for hermit crabs, turning over small rocks and digging in the sand. They did their best to steer clear of Badniks, and were going unnoticed until… "A crab! Guys guys I found a crab!" Charmy cried. The Egg Pawns turned to face him. They readied their guns.
"Charmy!" Vector cried. With a roar, he breathed fire onto the Egg Pawns, reducing them to ashes before Charmy even realized what was going on. "C'mon, we gotta go somewhere else!" Vector grabbed Charmy and ran, Espio following from the shadows.
"Hm…. another hermit crab has been collected," he murmured to himself from the hill tops. His eyes widened as he looked closer to the little beeping creature in his hand. It was… "A plush?!" A little squeaking sound came from the stuffed animal toy as Espio threw it against the wall. It blew up, sending small bits of plastic insides and checkerboarded rock everywhere. "I could have sworn it was an authentic hermit crab… somebody's onto our mission here." He threw a grappling hook into the sky. It stabbed through multiple Flappers. The grappling hook landed yards away, and Espio zipped over to regroup with the rest of the Chaotix on Whale Island. He ran alongside them under fire from the Badniks. "Be cautious, you two! Somebody's sabotaging us. I found a bomb disguised as a plush disguised as one of the hermit crabs."
"Shoot! The one Charmy picked up must be a bomb too!" Vector panicked, taking the hermit crab from Charmy. "Where do I toss it?!"
"Throw it in the ocean!" Charmy screamed. "Explosions do less damage underwater."
"In your VIDEO GAMES, maybe!" Vector shouted, tossing it back to Charmy.
"Why are you giving it back to me?!" Charmy cried.
"Stop it, you two! That's a real hermit crab," Espio scolded them, reaching over and snatching the hermit crab in an instant. "Shh… you're safe now, more or less. Remain calm, yet never let your guard down, young hermit." The hermit crab escaped into its shell as a shadow glided across the grass.
"I see that I've taught you well, Espio," a familiar woman's voice stated, as somebody landed in front of them. She held her wooden staff forward, and the Chaotix stopped right in front of her. "Spoken like a true master."
"Master Zik?!" Espio cried.
"Who's this?" Vector asked, confused. "I've never seen her before."
"My master. I've been seeing her regularly in secret," Espio muttered. "I wish it didn't have to come out like this, but I require further training to become the best ninja I can be. My studies in the Iron Dominion were… in truth… short-lived."
"THAT explains why you joined our lowlife detective team instead of becoming a ninja movie star," Charmy exclaimed. Vector glanced at him in anger, before they were blasted forward by an explosion. Zik landed on her feet, only to be knocked over by Vector as he fell to the ground. Charmy and Espio watched as a decently-sized platoon of Egg Pawns closed in.
"Ugh… does Eggman have to ruin ALL of my trips to the beach?" Zik asked, rolling Vector aside and getting up. She controlled a Flapper that was passing by to snipe a bunch of the Egg Pawns below, but it wasn't enough to stop their advance. "Espio, I trust you can take them out?"
"I should be able to do that just fi—" Espio muttered. He trailed off as a dark shadow was cast overhead. "No way…!" Everyone looked up at a giant red robot bird. What type of bird it was supposed to resemble was anyone's guess, obscured by abstract shapes and mish-mashes of all kinds of incongruent avian features. Only one man was insane enough to create something so out there.
"So you're the ones who have been playing games with my army!" Eggman exclaimed, rolling down the windshield and taking a good look at the Chaotix. "I would've expected the so-called 'Sonic Heroes', not a Hexi and a bunch of backwater gumshoes with some 15 seconds of fame under their belt. What a letdown!"
"Sorry to disappoint, but we've got work to do here," Vector called over the sounds of the robo-bird's flight systems. "So you can either stay in your lane or crash your new ride!"
"Fine! I'll make you rue the day you ever stood up against me. You won't even last as long as Sonic would against my... EGG HAWK!" Eggman laughed, rolling down the windshield and firing round after round from the Egg Hawk's turrets. Charmy swept through and picked everyone up, including Zik. He flew above the line of fire.
"Let's go, boys! Main target's the hawk, ignore the lackeys!" Vector exclaimed, as the Chaotix jumped down and started chipping away at the Egg Hawk. They weren't able to land any hits on the mech's weaker spots as it spun around in attempts to shake them off. Zik landed on the sand and spectated from the sidelines. After a while of watching, she shook her head.
"Tsk tsk, you really have no idea how these things work, do you?" Zik asked, knocking out a platoon of before untouched Egg Pawns by launching pineapples at them. One Egg Pawn that was about to shoot Charmy had its gun fire at Eggman's windshield as it fell over. He hardly reacted. The Egg Pawn was then crushed by a giant watermelon. "You're a team of three, you should be able to have one person at a time focus on the backup Badniks." Zik's ears rang, causing her to instinctively shoot a coconut at a Coconuts Badnik perched atop a palm tree, destroying it as well. Little pieces of charred metal fell onto the sand along with little bits of coconut.
"She's right, Chaotix! Charmy, keep the Egg Pawns distracted so they quit it with the ankle-biting!" Vector shouted, bodyslamming the Egg Hawk's left wing. Espio whistled, summoning a whirlwind that made the Egg Hawk spin out of control. Charmy gave up on repeatedly stinging the Egg Hawk's tail.
"Okay, okay!" Charmy exclaimed, flying down like a bullet and stinging each Egg Pawn. This made them freeze as the venom shot through their circuitry. "Stinging, stinging, stinging away! Sting the robots, make them pay!" He sang as he flew from Badnik to Badnik and stabbed them with his stinger.
"We're almost there!" Espio exclaimed, as Vector snapped off the left wing of the Egg Hawk. Espio then called another vortex to scramble the Egg Hawk's hover systems. The Egg Hawk crashed, and sat there on the grass like a beached whale. Vector jumped into the air and smirked. With a roar, he bodyslammed the windshield, breaking it.
"N-no! Get back!" Eggman shouted, as Vector landed on the Egg-O-Matic. Espio and Charmy both regrouped by Vector's side and stood over Eggman. Just as they were about to wreck house, Eggman slammed his fist down on a button that released the Egg-O-Matic from the Egg hawk. It rocketed off into the distance, the Chaotix all falling back to the ground. "Bah! I don't have time for this. There's plenty of other hermit crabs around here. Have fun with your little scavenger hunt, you deplorable snoops!" Eggman flew off, only for Zik to summon a huge watermelon right over him. It fell onto the Egg-O-Matic before it could fly too far, knocking it out of the sky and letting it crash land. It blew up, leaving a smoldering beacon of smoke. The Chaotix rushed over to the remains, Zik in tow.
"No way! Is he dead?!" Charmy asked, as they stood over the crater. Espio whistled and summoned a calm breeze that blew the smoke away. Zik splashed some fruit juice on the fire to make it dwindle. They all looked down into the charred Egg-O-Matic. Suddenly, a head popped out of the fire on a spring. It looked just like Eggman. Charmy screamed, jolting back. Vector and Espio stepped away. The last words the thing said repeated on loop, as its voicebox died out and its painted-on grin had a few teeth fall out.
"A decoy?" Zik asked, shocked.
"Looks like it," Vector muttered. "Hopefully this is a mystery we won't have to solve. Let's get back to work finding those crabs." Vector marched off, proud of himself and his team for successfully taking down an Eggman mech. Regardless of the fact it was piloted by what very well could have just been a test dummy.
"If you don't mind, I'd be happy to assist you in this endeavor," Zik offered, walking behind Vector. Espio dashed forth in a blur followed by a gust of wind with Charmy flying after him. "I feel the rumblings of a grand adventure. I feel it in my very feet as it shakes the ground we stand on. But…" Zik put a finger to her chin. "Espio's been lacking in his studies, and I fear should he be subject to Eggman's wrath without my guidance… he may not make it back home." Vector side-eyed Zik.
"That's kinda weird to say," Vector mumbled, picking a hermit crab up off the ground. "But you seem like you know what you're talking about, lady. Welcome to your new temporary role in the Chaotix!"
État de l’alimentation hebdomadaire
-- Classement
Power Stone 
-- Power
stone