Chapter 1:

The large overbearing fleet eclipsed the sky like a looming shadow, casting its intimidating darkness over the city. It was quite the sight from down below as onlookers would point and tremble in fear from from what felt like an impending doom preparing to make them suffer. But just as others saw the fleet monopolize the air space over the city, they could just barely make out a blue blur dashing from one ship to the next.

Sonic stood on the hull of the ship and breathed in slow reveling in the rush of air as it slightly tickled his quills. He had done this oh so many times before but the rush he felt never stopped feeling real. He'd feel weird if he wasn't just about to dodge more turret fire and spin dash into another robot. He was truly in his element. He took off again dodging missiles and weaving around deathbots with practiced ease, approaching Eggman's main ship. One of the pawns had tried to cut off his advance and he homing attacked without hesitation.

As the blue blur continued his advances, two other hedgehogs, Shadow and Silver were following close behind. The other two heroes had gotten involved in Eggman's latest plan to steal the chaos emeralds.

"Hey Sonic doesn't there seem to be an awfully large number of robots around? Weren't Tails and Knuckles supposed to disable the defenses?" Silver said using his telekinesis to send missiles into other turrets.

"I dunno, but I'm fine without em," Sonic said. "I like a nice workout before we kick Eggman's butt!" Shadow rolled his eyes, irritated by his rivals overly enthusiastic personality. Just before the blue hedgehog could respond to the ebony hedgehog's comment, he made eye contact with a rather large group of egg pawns and ran right through them. Unfortunately Shadow who was quite close to the other when he barreled through them, was forced to dodge flaming pieces of scrap metal flying in every direction.

"Watch it faker," he said annoyed at his rival for acting reckless again.

"Sorry Shads. Can't help it if I get a bit excited," The hero said smiling heartedly. No sooner had he apologized another hunk of scrap metal came flying in their direction prompting Shadow to move again.

The black hedgehog glared in the direction of the ivory hedgehog who levitated right beside the two. Silver apologized and Sonic couldn't help but grin a bit himself. Shadow simply rolled his eyes and mumbled something about being surrounded by idiots before skating off a bit ahead. Sonic watched the silver hedgehog fly through the air. He had experienced what it felt like to be carried by psychic powers before and he always found it strange, but he wasn't the one being carried so he didn't care. Besides running was way more fun in his opinion.

Second's later both Sonic and Silver promptly heard an explosion further on. Shadow had blasted a hole through the main ship with one of his chaos spears and the other two followed closely behind looking around with alert eyes.

They ran inside, their speed carrying them past many corridors and hallways as they tried to sense the chaos that emanates from the large gems. Usually whenever huge fortresses like this were entered, Sonic expected there to be a hundred or so of Eggman's robots rushing in to kill them. Or if he was lucky, Eggman himself would arrive in some sort of giant robot meant to destroy them.

When they arrived at a dead end, they noticed that the only way out was the way they came in. "Hey wait a minute!" Sonic said looking around. Despite the experience the blue hero had in dealing with the doctor he wasn't prepared for this. It was just an enormous room with nothing in it. Sonic was confused standing there with a dumbfounded expression on his face as Shadow and Silver looked around. Shadows eyes narrowed as he scoffed at the sight of nothing. "All that for an empty room. What a complete waste of time." Shadow closed his eyes and crossed his arms in a display of indifference.

Silver was just as confused as Sonic. Even with his strong mental power, Silver could not wrap his mind around what was happening. "Do you think we have the wrong ship?" He asked looking over his shoulder at Sonic who was frowning in thought

"No. Believe me I've done this enough times to know the difference between Eggman's main ship and the others. I think I smell a trap..." Sonic pondered. "We better retrace our steps," he said. They were about to go back the way they came when suddenly a loud voice cackled on an intercom that couldn't be seen. "I wouldn't leave if I were you! I'm sure you're precious friends would miss you too much!"

A giant screen from the back wall had appeared on one of the metal panels winking to life. Upon it turning on, it showed the doctor in all his bald mustachioed glory and a two tailed fox and echidna with metal restraints pinning their arms and legs to the wall in the background. A giant laser was pointed at their unconscious figures, steadily glowing and humming, ready to slice something to pieces. Sonic glared as concern for two of his closest friends filled his mind.

"I seem to have a pest problem. I captured these two vermin in my security room," Eggman said. "If you want to save them, you'll have to escape that room first." Eggman threw his head back laughing which soon turned into a violent cough. Then the monitor winked out of existence. Eggman chuckled to himself. He tapped his fingers together sitting in his egg shaped chair. "Those foolish hedgehogs are trapped in my most brilliant trap ever!"

The doctor sat back in his chair as the video link went off leaving him in silence. It was only a matter of time before that blue rodent and his accomplices finished off the distraction he had planned for them, but by then it won't matter anymore. He heard a groan behind him and looked to see both the echidna and the fox wide awake.

Tails struggled to move, but the metal bolting his hands to the wall we're way too strong. His ankles were the same as his wrists and there was no way he could struggle out of it. Knuckles was in the same position, the mighty echidna was now powerless as energy shackles kept him firmly in place on the wall. The doctor certainly didn't want to take any chances."Well I see you're wide awake now," Eggman sneered. "Did you two really think you could walk into my security room and turn off all my defenses without me noticing?"

"Eggman.." Knuckles growled shooting daggers at the man who held them prisoner. "Once I'm outta here I'm gonna crack you like the egg you are!" Eggman laughed at the echidnas response. "Only in your dreams! Those cuffs were specifically made to withstand even the strongest of captives! You two will soon join your friends though if it's any consolation. So sit back and enjoy the show!" Eggman snickered. "Those hedgehogs will never get past my defenses! And even if they do, it will already be too late."

"Sonic will stop you, he always does," Tails said. He was scared but he tried his best to put on a brave face. He didn't doubt his big brother would come through those doors any minute now.

"And that's exactly what I'm counting on fox. When I think about how predictable that rodent is, it makes me want to pull out my mustache (to which Knuckles thought it would be an improvement) from the fact that I haven't been able to use it against him. But this time it'll be different."

He went over to the control panel to check the progress of the laser.

87% and charging...

It was only a matter of time now…

Sonic ran through the corridors as guns came out of panels. He adjusted his speed to run along the wall before using his momentum to rip off the panels. He sidestepped more fire and tossed the broken panel into the other satisfied when the damaged wiring made it explode.

Silver had thrown a huge generator breaking down the door and conveniently smashing one of the robots guarding a computer room. Shadow had strolled in promptly after and began searching for information on one of the computers.

"What are you doing?" Sonic asked.

"Searching for the lab the echidna and fox are being held in," Shadow saw movement in the corner of his eye.

"Silver, destroy that camera."

"Got it." The small camera began to glow cyan before being crumbled like a wad of paper.

Shadow was the most skilled at computers, he was able to hack into Eggman's database and was soon rifling through his files. Shadow showed a look of disgust that the other two noticed, "Almost everything in here is garbage," the agent said, "Most of it is diagrams and blueprints pertaining to his plans to build his empire, it's sickening."

"Just try and find our friends," Silver said keeping his guard up for anything Eggman might have hidden.

Shadow soon came across a map, "I think I found them." He pointed to three heat signals in a room. "Looks like Eggman's with them."

"Ok they're in a lab a few floors down, and down the corridor" Sonic said, "Let's make a shortcut. Shads?"

"Hmph," Shadow raised his hand collecting chaos in it. "Chaos Spear!" He aimed the spears of energy below him as the floor was severely weakened from the blast. When the smoke cleared both hedgehogs began spin dashing through whatever support was left, deepening the hole in the floor until they busted through it. Silver soon levitated down after them as they repeated it again.

Then with a loud crash that shook the floor and nearly knocked them to the ground, three giant robots appeared surrounding them. Sonic and Shadow's faces immediately recognized the three threats standing before them, for Eggman had taken three old bosses they had fought and brought them back. Sonic gaped at the Egg Lancer, a beetle shaped robot with six mobile laser guns, and deadly electric pincers that wanted to squeeze the life out of him. Shadow glared up at the Egg Dealer, a spider shaped robot that had slot machines that had no predictable moves. Silver tensed as he looked at the Egg Genesis, a UFO shaped robot that had four long arms, each armed with deadly missiles and lasers. The hedgehog trio backed into each other forming a ring as the robots surrounded them. "Well well, this is going to be interesting," Sonic grinned.

Just as the three egg bosses launched an array of missiles, lasers, and bullets, Silver used his telekinesis to pull up the metal surrounding them to form a shield. As the huge metal pieces took a hit after, Sonic and Shadow used the opportunity to leap above them and quickly attack the two closest targets the Egg Beetle and the Egg Genesis.

"Been awhile since I've fought these robots. I didn't think Eggy bothered to put them back in one piece after they so monumentally failed," the blue blur said dodging bullets from the four small robots the Egg Genesis had released. He kept running around fire eventually running on the wall until he was high enough to jump and homing attack each in a path. When he managed to step foot on the rust colored hull of the robot, he was nearly decapitated by a blue laser coming from his left. He looked over to see his rival jumping around to avoid the lasers and the gigantic pincer that was too slow to catch him.

"Hey! Keep your robot to yourself" he shouted a little peeved by the near miss that would have left more than a nasty mark.

"Mind your own business faker, it's not my fault if you carelessly let your guard down." Shadow threw a chaos spear right between where the two purple pincers, damaging it severely.

Eggman scoffed as he watched the fight unfold. Those three were too cocky about taking down the old bosses. He knew that his previous inventions would fail to bring them down, but they would succeed in stalling them. Eggman watched as the robots continued fighting. What he didn't see was that Tails had managed to pick Knuckles cuffs. The echidna was released and quickly snapped off the fox kit's.

Knuckles quickly approached Eggman sitting in front of the control panel oblivious to the danger behind him. He harshly turned his chair around and put his namesakes in the face of the large man. "I think that'll be enough of that doc. Now call off your robots or you're going to find out what it feels like to have a spiked fist dislocate your jaw," the guardian said with Tails looking at the doctor defiantly behind him.

A bit shocked from having his former hostages escape and threaten him, the Doctor quickly tensed but a smirk was still present on his face despite his position. "What's so funny?" Knux asked frowning as the doctor began to cackle evilly.

"Do you really think you can stop me now, once my weapon fully charges it will fire automatically. While those three nuisances are busy fighting my robots, the blast from my Egg Photon Ray will incinerate them all!"

Both mobians widened their eyes at this statement but Knuckles was the first to recover. "Tails look for a way to override the laser!"

"Right!" he said going over to the console in attempt to hack the system. Just in that moment of Knuckles being distracted, Eggman had hit a button under one the arms of his chair causing an opening to appear underneath where his chair descended quickly out of sight. "Hey come back here!" Knuckles said punching the metal floor that had snapped back into place where Eggman had been sitting.

"Knuckles! It's not working, the system's too heavily guarded with firewalls and passcodes. I'll never be able to break through it all in time!"

Knuckles cursed. Everything was quickly spiraling out of control as it seems now he was left with the only option to go down and warn the others. "We'll have to warn them ourselves Tails, now let's go." He ran as fast as he could out of the room with Tail's flying closely behind.

The hedgehog trio were quickly gaining the upper hand. With Sonic and Shadow's experience from beating these robots before and Silver's telekinesis to back them up, it wouldn't be long before they could finally wrap up this battle.

The hedgehogs heard a bang as part of the wall caved open. Knuckles and Tails ran in frantic. "You guys!" Sonic grinned. "You're alright! Come on and help us finish taking out the trash."

"There's no time for that. If we don't get out of here now we'll all be incinerated!" Tails said scared. "This room is a test area for A giant laser! It's going to fire any second!" Unfortunately, the warning came too late as the panels hiding the laser were revealed before any of them could react.

And then it fired...