At The End Of The Tunnel

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At The End Of The Tunnel

Co-Written By Harley Quinn hyenaholic and Froggy22651

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Harley: My friends, kissing is the least of your worries. Thankyou, and read on.

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Chapter Nineteen: You Hero!

James watched as Breech rounded the corner of a building, disappearing from sight. He released a breath he wasn’t aware of holding. He wrapped the cultist robe tighter around him, making sure that his armor was well hidden inside it. Standing in the train station, he tried to gather his thoughts and prepare himself for his infiltration of the facility. But it wasn’t working so well.

What the hell was I thinking?! I can’t blame her this time…I did that on the train. I started that kiss. …I can’t get romantically involved with her. She’s a bounty hunter, a slave to Robotnik, and a murderer. She would screw up my life even more than it already has been. It wouldn’t work, and chances are that it would end with me dead. It’s insane! Snap out of it, Prower!

The fox shook his head and tired to ignore the conflict in his mind. He had a job to do. The fate of the world was at stake (again) and he couldn’t afford to be distracted. He snuck away from the train station. The sun was setting, casting long shadows that he hid in as he slipped from alley to alley, making his way towards his target. The city really would be a beautiful place, if it wasn’t filled with patrolling robots.

James had always liked Korriban and how the place always seemed to carry the past with it through the ages, never letting it die. It was a shame that he had to sneak through it out of fear of attracting mechanical attention. His route, though, had a lot less enemies to contend with. The research facility was constantly patrolled by SWATbots, hover units, spy orbs, and security walkers; Breech would have as hard a time sneaking onto the roof. But he had confidence in her abilities; she would be fine.

The guardsman found his method of entry, an unprotected manhole in the street. He knew much about the security setups of important facilities in Korriban from a previous visit, and he knew that Robotnik had foolishly left the sewers largely unprotected and an easy access point to the labs. The hardest part was navigating through the underground mess, but when you have a digital map of the place in your head, that wasn’t a problem. Checking to make sure there were no bots in the area to give him trouble, James hopped down into the sewer, closing the hatch behind him. He fought the urge to vomit as his boots splashed down in the filthy water. He had forgotten just how bad the place stank. The cyborg fox immediately shut down his olfactory senses. Sometimes, he really liked being part machine…

James switched on his heads-up display, overlaying a map of the sewers on his field of vision. Using the map, he navigated through the smelly tunnels until he was under the research facility. He found the door to the maintenance level and hoped that they hadn’t changed the code. Typing a five-number code into a nearby keypad resulted in the door unlocking. They hadn’t changed it, and James slipped inside. The maintenance level was a mess of pipes, wiring, air ducts, and power generators. It was the beating heart of the building, and a place from which you could get anywhere you wanted, if you knew how. He just wasn’t sure where the emerald was being tested on. There were many different laboratories in the building: robotics, nano-tech, biology…

"Selling her son into slavery is treating her well, right?"

"What? She... told you? He'd have taken Keith anyway... at least this way... we got a choice what he did... and money…"

"She had a picture of a newborn feline/weasel hybrid in her room. I connected the dots. Can you tell me where he is, you piece of shit?"

"He's a scientist... genetic modifications... 300+ IQ... biology division..."

"Where?!"

"Korriban... he was sent to Korriban right after he was born..."

James froze, the memory rising to the forefront of his consciousness. Breech had a son in the facility, manipulated and forced to work for Robotnik. The guardsman’s conscience told him that it wouldn’t be right to leave the boy in there; his mind told him that the emerald was a greater priority and his duty to retrieve.

But then again, he had a duty to kill Breech. Duty wasn’t always right.

“Are you crazy?!” Breech shouted, “I know I’d be a lousy mom, but I’d give anything to be able to see my son again!”

The fox winced and looked down, ears flattening against his head, tail curling up underneath him. He had made a lot of mistakes in his life. Fought when he should have run. Squandered the time he was given on the affairs of the Guard when he should have been with his family. Followed blindly when he should have made his own mind. Stayed away from his son out of fear… James raised his head back up, a determined look full of resolve on his face. It was time to stop screwing up and start fixing things. Breech could find the emerald; he was confident in her abilities. He was going to find something more precious. The fox crouched down and entered the ventilation shaft that would lead to the biological research wing.

Crawling along the ventilation shaft, James was glad that Robotnik was a poor designer of facilities like this. Were it up to the fox, there would be no vents large enough to crawl through. Typical evil overlord mistake. Relying on his digital map, he made his way to the bio lab. Looking down through a grate, he watched as SWATbots patrolled a catwalk overlooking the lab. He bided his time, waiting for the right time to leave the safety of the vent. During a lull in the patrol, the fox opened the grate and hopped down onto the catwalk and looked over the railing.

What James saw was repulsive, grotesque, and chilling. The lab was filling with tubes of fluid will all manner of horribly mutated creatures, many of them looking like they may have once been Mobian… and they probably were. The prisoners of Korriban City were used for experimentation all the time. But perhaps even worse than the poor subjects imprisoned in the glass tubes were the ones experimenting on them.

Children. Small children; none of them could be any older than twelve, and they were dressed in lab coats and performing various tests on the creatures with no regard to their comfort or the morality of their actions. James had only heard rumors of them, infants that Robotnik had taken and manipulated to turn them into his obedient genius scientists. Hearing about it, though, had not prepared James for seeing it himself.

The guardsman pushed back his ever-growing revulsion and hatred for Robotnik and searched for one child, a hybrid of feline and weasel. There! He spotted the kid prodding something in a tank that, if it was lucky, was already dead. Moving swiftly and silently, James hopped onto one of the tanks and slid down behind the child.

“Hey kid… over here,” he whispered.

“Huh?” the young child turned around and nearly dropped his test tube, “Who are you? You're not one of us!”

“Shhh! Keep it down... I don't have long to explain, but I need you to come with me. I'm a friend of your mother.”

“My mother?” the boy looked puzzled, “My mother is dead - she died when she was having me!”

“I said keep it down,” James said, gesturing sharply, “No, she didn't die. She's still alive. Someone must have lied to you to make you think otherwise.”

The boy looked confused, “But Mr Robotnik said-“

James frowned. He knew the kid was smart; in fact the child’s intelligence far surpassed his own. He hoped the kid was smart enough to break through his life-long brainwashing.

“Mr. Robotnik is a liar. He lied to me... he will do the same to you.”

“But Mr. Robotnik gave us all this cool stuff to play with and helped us get smart...”

“So that you could serve him better,” James explained, “You're just another tool to him, just as I once was. But I broke free, and you can too. I can help, and so can your mom.”

The boy's eyes narrowed, “I don't believe you,” he jumped over to a large red button and pushed it, “That's the silent alarm. Now Mr. Kay will arrest you - and maybe we'll get to play with you too.”

“Damn it!” James shouted as he leapt over to the kid, too late to stop him. So much for the sneaky approach, “Fine… I can do this the hard way,” he said, picking the little genius up and carrying him on his shoulder, “Mr. Kay can kiss my furry ass; I’m not going back to Hell’s Gate!”

The lab was in uproar now. The children were trying to put important equipment away - their experiments came before their own safety. Some guards appeared from outside the door. With his free hand, James drew his magnetic accelerator pistol and fired a few slugs in the bots’ direction. A direct hit on one of their chrome-dome head resulted in a new addition to the scrap heap. Plasma bolts streaked from the other one’s wrist, flying wildly and shattering the experimentation tubes, the mutant subjects falling to the floor, twitching and babbling incoherently. James hopped over them and gunned the other robot down.

“Let me go!” howled the boy, then shouted at the children, “A5-387! G3-274! Help!”

Good gods, Robotnik didn’t even give them names?!

The alarm was no longer silent, red lights flickering and a deafening wail echoing down the corridors; the whole city was going to be alerted to their presence. He needed to get out, and get out fast. Remembering what Breech told him, he squeezed his slave tags together, signaling that she needed to run as well. The hallways started to become thick with SWATs, many of which he blasted to scrap. Unfortunately, there were too many to fight, and he quickly ran out of uranium slugs for the MAG pistol. He did the next best thing, something his kind was good at: running.

A booming voice said, “Intruder in Safe Nine, Intruder in Safe Nine...”

That was probably Breech.

“Get out of there, Breech…” he mumbled to himself.

James continued running down the hallway until he saw SWATs running towards him. He fired his remaining MAG ammunition at them, dropping a few of the mechanical soldiers. However, there still were a lot coming at him. James figured it best to change direction. He ran back the way he came, but skid to a halt when he noticed that another group of SWATs were running from that direction as well. The fox could feel sweat run down his back as he realized that he was trapped. Almost. There was one last path he could take, a large steel door with the words “Experimental Vehicle Testing” written over it. With a burst of mechanical strength, James smashed the door down and ran inside.

“Let me go! I'm not supposed to be in here! You'll get me into trouble!” howled the boy.

“Didn't you hear? Your mother is in worse trouble.”

“But my mother's dead!” the boy insisted. He didn't sound so sure now, “Isn't she?”

“Your mom, Bridget Loranski, is alive - but she won't be for long if you don't help me out!”

“I'm biology dept!” the hybrid wailed, then pointed at something that looked like a skiddo, “But my mate in engineering told me that's fast.” He hesitated, “He also said it blew up a lot.”

James looked over the experimental hoverbike with a critical eye. The thing was an absorbent black, slick and smooth without a single right-angle in its design, like a stealth fighter. The thing looked like it was made to rip up the sky. A big grin spread over his face. Maybe it would blow up, maybe it wouldn’t. But what a fun way to die it would be if it did.

“That will do.”

“My name's K3-174,” said the boy, “What's yours?”

James carried the boy over to the bike and set him down on it. He climbed on afterwards and scanned the controls and gauges. Throttle, steering, altitude, weapons systems, energy shields… it had energy shields? No doubt, the thing was advanced.

“I’m James.”

“James, I don't know how to drive this, but it's probably worth more than I am,” said K3-174, “So don't crash, okay?”

“Don't worry... crashing is the last thing I want,” James said as he activated the bike. The machine rumbled to life with a throaty roar, and the fox felt a gleeful shiver run up his spine. He had always been a speed freak. The bike rose off the ground, and the guardsman rotated it towards the doorway. SWATbots poured in, firing their blasters at the fox. Their bolts splashed across the invisible shield as James thumbed on the bike’s own blasters. He pressed the trigger, and a thunderous boom rocked the room as twin beams of destruction ripped into the bots, tearing them to pieces and sending globs of molten metal spraying across the room. The fox grinned, gunned the engine, and resumed his journey down the passages of the facility.

Now to find Breech.

~~~

Breech ripped off the entrance to the ventilation shaft with her claws. She was now quite glad that Robotnik had paid no attention to her suggestion for all ventilation shafts to be lined with broken glass and barbed wire.

She headed down it head first, knowing that finding the Emerald safe was going to be the easy part – the tough part involved breaking out of it. Occasionally she passed an air vent, but one of the things she looked into was a badnik processing plant, and another was full of foul smelling chemicals being processed. That is, they were being put into barrels and loaded into trucks, doubtless to be dumped in the sea.

Breech shook her head and continued on down.

She could just slide down, but that would make too much noise, and she didn’t know how deep it was.

When she did reach the bottom, it was to a T-junction. Right or left?

She froze as her ears picked up a buzzing noise. In the echoing caverns of the vents, it was impossible to tell which direction it was coming from, or to properly use her staff in the confined space. So she tensed her claws and stood ready.

Three Whisps rounded the corner. They were just small enough to patrol the vents, and Breech knew it was pointless running – she was nearly bent double anyway.

“Life-form detected,” one buzzed, and headed straight for her.

She twisted in the vent until she was almost horizontal, and kicked out at the first one. It blew up, and was knocked backwards into the other two. Typical stupid robots.

She shook her head, and went right. This had to be the way to the safes. She hoped she was right; the darkness was starting to close in on her.

Come on, let’s get lucky, I’m cramped here…

She stopped at a vent, and looked out. Okay… huge door, several SWATbots guarding it… this had better be the place.

She ripped off the vent and jumped out. The SWATbots immiediantly started up.

~~~

James rocketed down the steel hallways, closing in on Breech’s position, guided by the vibrating slave tags around his neck. He was going so fast that he didn’t even have time to aim and fire at SWATs, opting to just run them over instead. He turned one more corner, and there she was, firing bolts of lightning at a group of SWATbots with her staff in one hand, and hammering at the call button of an elevator.

The elevator doors opened, revealing the hideous visage of Raphael Kavakos, dressed as usual in his black and red bastardization of an Acorn military uniform, and his SWATbot escorts. The feline’s one eye widened in surprise at seeing Breech, hidden in her cultist robe.

“I knew you foolish fanatics would be trouble…” the insane cyborg cat growled.

Kavakos looked up in James’ direction, looked inside his hood…and saw the familiar face of his most hated adversary.

“Prower... Somehow I am not surprised.”

“Hello there, Kavakos. How's your face? Still hurting?” James taunted.

“Actually, yes it is. Quite exquisite; you should feel it sometime,” the governor of Korriban said, “I believe that your companion is in possession of an important relic my master values. I can't allow you to leave.”

“Yeah, well I can't stay. Life isn't perfect,” the guardsman retorted.

“Oh, leaving so soon? After I went through the trouble of preparing a special room for you?” Kavakos asked, disappointment in his voice, “Very well. Kill them.”

The SWATbots spread out and prepared to fire. Breech squeezed her tags twice, hoping James would have the sense to not try to help her. James wasn’t going to listen. He gunned the engine, darted in between her and the robots, and let the shields absorb the plasma fire as he grabbed one of her arms and hoisted her aboard behind him. James slammed on the afterburners, blasting away from the machines. The force of takeoff hurled the SWATbots and Kavakos back into the lift. Hard.

“You… you HERO!” Breech screamed at him, in the same way that one might say, ‘you idiot’, “Why the hell did you risk your life by coming back for me?!”

James chuckled as he blasted away the main doors and rocketed out of the research facility.

“A good guardsman never leaves someone behind. And neither does a good friend.”

“You could have gotten killed!” Breech shouted over the engines, “You can come back for that Emerald some other time, but I'm expendable-“

The smile on James’ face melted away, “No one is expendable.”

Breech blinked. For a large part of her life she had been expendable. If she didn't look after herself, who would? The idea that somebody could be irreplaceable was new to her.

A pair of egg-shaped hover units closed in on them, their heavy blasters ripping up the landscape around them. James changed course towards the train station, pushing the engines to their limits and gaining altitude, trying to lose the units. The craft on his tail were surprisingly fast, something he would have never guessed based on appearance and their usual languid pace. Looking down, James noticed the train leaving the station and heading for its next destination. Time to act fast. He slammed on the brakes suddenly, letting the hover units pass him. Once they were in his sights, it took just the press of a button to blow them into oblivion.

The fox had to work fast before he was spotted by more aircraft. He dove for the train, pressing the brakes to slow their decent. Once in range, James fired his blasters, blowing away the roof of one car. In a move that was part landing and part crash, James brought the hoverbike down inside the opened car.

“So... this means... we're friends?” Breech asked him.

“Yeah... we're friends,” James said, slumping onto the bike, feeling exhausted as the adrenaline left him... but he quickly remembered just who it was that was sitting in front of him. “Umm... Breech, there's someone here that you need to meet...”

Breech stepped off the bike and turned to the cat-weasel cub, “You're not serious, are you?”

James cleared his throat as he slid off the bike. “Breech, I'd like to introduce you to... your son.”

“If you're kidding me, I'll snap your legs off, robot or no,” she said.

James just smiled, “You did say that you would give anything to see him again... so I got him out of that place. That's why I was somewhat... delayed in reaching you.”

Breech just stood there. Part of her wanted to say, “Yeah, when I said anything, I didn't mean anything...” Part of her wanted to hug James forever. Instead, she dropped to her knees and hugged the surprised hybrid, then burst into tears.

The boy was obviously shocked, “I thought my mom was dead. Are you really my mom? I’m K3-174.”

Breech nodded, wiping back tears. “I always called you Keith,” she whispered, “Even when you weren't there... Robotnik stole you from me and I thought I'd never see you again...”

“Oh, Mom,” Keith smiled, “I've got a mom... I always wanted a mom... maybe later I can do a DNA test to check it's true...”

Breech just smiled, “It's true, it's true…” She hugged the boy tightly.

“If you're really my mom... I love you, mom,” said Keith.

Breech flinched, “Yes,” she answered quietly.

James raised one eyebrow, noticing some sort of inner conflict in her, but decided to ask about it later. He smiled and walked out of the car, leaving them both to their reunion. Yes, he had made a lot of mistakes in his life, but he finally had corrected at least one. It felt good. It felt really good.

It felt right.

~~~

Harley: Creepy and emotional. My favorite combination in a fic.

Froggy: Now head on over to Chapter Twenty.

Harley: But Read and Review this Chapter first! Come on, review it! I need opinions!