Axel's POV

I continued crawling through the vents, slowly but surely did I soon find a way out and according to what I could remember, the exit I'm at is close to the area where the others are being held. I kicked the grating off and crawled out before stretching a bit and heading on

"TAU, how close am I to the cells?" I asked as I drew Silvertooth

"Very close, keep heading in the direction you're going and you should see a door or a room that'll let you access the cells" He replied as I felt a cold chill suddenly rush through the hall. But that feeling was quickly changed as I heard more explosions going on up on the surface

"Please tell me I just heard a good bang and not a bad bang?" I asked Vesper over the com

"A good bang, we've just breached the mining walls, the pit is a few walls behind but capturing this place is harder than we thought, keep going through, as long as you hear fighting, you'll be good" She replied

The hall ways here felt like a maze rather than a easy path, even though all the legion troops were on the surface, I couldn't help but feel as if I wasn't alone in here and someone was following me. Eventually I found myself staring at the front of a door that had a sign on it that said, authorized access only, with a keypad next to it. Screw it, I shot the hinges of the door off and it fell down. I found myself in a room where it was extremely cold and looked around at all the giant pillars of ice that surrounded the room

"TAU, is Jack's tracker still emitting a signal?" I asked as I rubbed the fog of the ice to see that these pillars were actually stasis chambers for the more 'extreme' prisoners

"It is but it's weak, head down the lane you are in and you should be getting...." The line suddenly went dead

"Now I've got you!" I heard Lien-Da exclaim as I felt something grip me around the waist and throw me to the other end of the room

"What the hell..." I groaned as I got up and tried to figure out what had gotten me while at the same time, walked between pillars to still try and find Jack

"This room is for authorized personal only, you idiot!" She exclaimed as I felt that same pincer before grip me around the chest

As it gripped me I stabbed Silvertooth into it, forcing whatever it was to let me go. I landed on the ground and quickly turned around to discover a giant, scorpion like mech with Lien-Da piloting it in front me.

"Son of a bitch..." I moaned as I dodged its incoming tail

"I hope you like my SCORPIUS-Mech, It was a gift from a friend" She laughed as the tail turned into a minigun before firing at me, I quickly dived behind a pillar before the shots hit me but I felt a bullet nip leg leg, luckily it was just a scratch.

"TAU, Come in damn it!" I exclaimed

"Signal week.... be quick" TAU said with statically

"Lien-Da's got a damn mech here, get Vesper with some back up here... NOW!" I yelled as the mech came around the corner and started jabbing at me with its tail

Dodge after dodge followed as Lien-Da did everything in her power to try and stop me from freeing Jack and the others, I turned Silvertooth into its pistol forms and opened fire on the pilot window but it seemed to be bullet proof and I had no clue on how to get Silvertooth to launch fire or ice rounds.

"Face it, the legion and Mogul have won, surrender now and maybe I'll let you continue to walk!" She growled as she opened the mini-gun again and started to fire it.

I looked under all the mist and found a crawling space, I climbed in before shutting the hatch and left Lien-Da to continue firing at an empty space. I continued to crawl and started to notice that the names of the prisoners had been engraved on the walls of the vents along with reference numbers.

"TAU, you still got me?" I whispered as I heard the mech crawling around

"I've got a solid connection, that robot must be giving off some sort of jamming field, what do you need?" He replied

"Go through the database I sent you earlier and find the reference number for Jack's spot, every prisoner down here is frozen so I'm gonna have to try and find a way to thaw him out" I instructed as I heard Lien-Da crying out all over the place

"I've got a number, it's one-nine-nine-six-eight-five"

"Thanks, now I know which direction I need to go in" I replied as I slowly got out of the vent without creating too much noise

I ran as fast as I could towards where Jack was located before Lien-Da could find me, with each step I felt a rumble coming from behind me which meant that she was catching up or somehow knew I had appeared again which meant her mech must have a motion sensor of some sort

"Think you can hide from me can you, think again!" She exclaimed as I saw the mech shadow appear in front of me and quickly dived onto the ground to avoid the pincer

"Seriously, are all of Eggman's lackeys like this" I sighed as I shot at the pincer which seemed to pierce the protective metal and left a bullet hole in it, but I quickly found myself in the predicament of the other pincer and felt everything below my waist line being slowly crushed

"Enjoy being a wheel chair rat" Lien-Da grinned

"Fore!" I heard a voice exclaim as a rocket came flying at the pincer and threw the entire mech including me into a wall

"Vesper... where the hell have you been!" I exclaimed

"It's not Vesper dumbass" I heard the voice laugh as another rocket went flying out of the mist and struck down the mech as it got up, as the rocket hit, Jack, Knuckles and Julie-Su came walking out of the mist

"How did you get out?" I asked as we all started to attack Lien-Da

"I dunno, thing must've hay wired or something, but in the process I found myself a nice cache of rockets here which just saved your ass" He laughed as he threw me an RPG

"Have I missed your sense of humour" I grinned as I fired the rocket at the tail, completing destroying the mini-gun

"I will not be defeated by base mobians like you!" She exclaimed as the pincers glowed a hot red and sent Knuckles and Julie-Su flying right at us.

"Where did she get that mech?" I asked as we got up

"That's the other thing, remember the Dycorp building?!" Jack replied as he started firing rockets at the mech

"Hey, can the fact lesson wait, in case you haven't noticed there is a giant robot kicking our butts!" Knuckles exclaimed as well dodged the jabbing pincer

"Any ideas on how to destroy that thing then?!" Julie yelled

"We have rockets, use them!" Jack yelled as I suddenly had an idea

"Keep that thing focused on the front the front, I think I know it's weak spot" I grinned as I slid under the Mech without Lien-Da noticing me

I pulled the rocket out of the firing barrel and pulled some semtex explosives out as well, I planted them on the front of it while also setting the trigger as impact and not timed. I put the rocket back in the barrel before opening the lock-on scope which had been installed

"Oi red head, over here!" Jack exclaimed as he stood right in front of it, attracting Lien-Da's attention

"I thought I froze you to the point of your bones breaking!" She exclaimed as she raised the stinger on the back

"Your machine had a few glitches and thawed me out, speaking of which, I think you need to repair your mech" He laughed as I fired the rocket and sent it flying into the back of the tail

"NO!" She screamed as the rockets hit the robots rear and blew it to pieces for before sending the cockpit flying up wards and then straight back into the ground

"The.... it was..... indestructible" She moaned before passing out

"Yeah, indestructible my ass" I laughed as we heard the doors open from down the hall

"You guys needed help?" Vesper asked as she ran in with Guntiver and Sonic following from behind

"Not anymore, Through Miss Da here might need some medical attention" I grinned

"Well if it helps, we've captured the camp and the rest of the walrus heard has been freed, it turned out they had a back up station here, Rotor's turning it off since it's just a smaller scale so it doesn't need as much work done to it as the egg totem one did" Sonic replied

"Good, then that just leaves everyone or thing in this room to be thawed out" I sighed

"Guys, you may want to come to the pit, we've found something very interesting" Sally said over the com

"Alright, we'll be there in a moment" Vesper replied

"I'm gonna stay behind and get to work on thawing these people out,  you guys go on ahead" Jack said as he headed off

"We might as well go with, never know what's down here, we'll catch up with you pair later" Sonic added as he Gunt followed on while Vesper and I decided to head off to the pit

"TAU, were you able to find out anything about this pit?" I asked over the com as we continued running

"Most of the info about the pit was heavily encrypted but I was able to bypass it using..."

"Yeah yeah, we dont need the entire 'how I did it talk' this time" I added

"Fine i'll skip ahead then, the pit is a excavation site for a building that is housing some sort of powerful energy, they haven't been able to identify where it came from but it's big, very big" He replied as we came out into the snow covered camp

"Energy big or scale big?" Vesper asked

"Energy big, scale wise, well, you'll have to find that part out" He added as we walked into the pit and saw everyone standing around the soon to be crater sight.

"We've planted charges around the snow to try and blow open an entry into that construct, detonators all yours" Sally explained as she threw me the detonator

"My pleasure" I grinned as I pressed the button and blew up the snow, creating an entry into the small structure

"So, who wants to bet that there is a monster in there waiting for us?" I asked as the smoke from the detonation cleared and showed the entry

"Eh, I'll bet fifty percent chance" Sally replied as we headed down

"Please with my experience, a dark space always has something tucked away in it" Vesper added as kicked down the remaining wood and opened the full entrance

"Well then, let's not keep the relic waiting" I grinned as we headed in and turned a flash light on

I knew without a doubt that something would be guarding this relic but still, what I've been through today, this thing might as well be a giant bug for all I care.