Author Note: Hello, and welcome to a story that exists only because nobody seems to do this as a main pairing. Funny though, it's much more action than romance, but then that's how I saw this ship working. Leave a review if you want the story to continue with even more explosive fights.

Chapter 1: How Manic met Sally

"You know, the least he could have done was warn us he was still alive." Manic said, spraying a burst of lasers at the robots marching down the hall. "I mean, besides not taking every single person who's actually good at fighting Eggman." He ducked behind the corner as return fire came back at him, taking his time to look at the squirrel he was addressing. "To be fair though, G.U.N. did go down like chumps."

"So why are you complaining to me?" the squirrel said.

"Well, Sonic was your boyfriend." The green hedgehog pointed out. Sally swung around the corner and let loose a precise burst of laser-fire, taking out the front three machines.

"You do realize there was a reason we broke up?"

"Hey, from what I can tell he was basically just doing his duty. It's not like the rest of you could take the island." Sally ducked back and grunted.

"You don't need to remind me."

"But seriously, that is nowhere near as bad as abandoning his family and his real job so he could hang out with a girl who wears no pants."

"THERE WAS NOTHING THAT FIT!" Sally roared, poking out and wildly spraying fire down the hall, destroying every last robot in it.

OOOOOOOOOO

It had been a year after Eggman's supposed death, and Sonic and the rest of the world's main defenders had been investigating the recent "Marauder" attacks. During this time a wormhole was ripped open in the sky over Eggman's old citadel, and had begun to suck in loose debris and orbiting objects that came too close. After its appearance Sonic and his crew were never heard from again. Six months afterwards Eggman suddenly appeared on every TV screen in the world, announcing Sonic's departure to the Twilight Cage and his own survival. He launched a series of strikes that quickly crippled G.U.N. and any other nation's personal army. In short order he had taken more of the planet than he had ever ruled before, leaving only a few small pockets of resistance. As his final claim to authority he once again seated himself on the throne of Mobodoon. It had been two years since then.

OOOOOOOOOO

Manic and Sally reached the elevator at the end of the hallway and took it to the top-most levels of the factory. Unfortunately it would not take them all the way to the roof. When the door opened a helicopter-topped hover drone was waiting, only to be torn apart by the combined fire of the hedgehog and the squirrel.

"I take right, you take left." Sally said as they began to run over the factory catwalk.

More hover-drones came from the murky rafter tops above them, hard pressing the pair as they shot wildly to cover themselves. Manic shoved Sally to the floor in time for a bolt to go over her head. He dragged her up and dashed to a crane booth near the middle of the catwalk. When they got in Sally slapped him in the face

"Ah. What was that for?" Manic muttered.

"For not letting me handle myself."

"Your welcome."

OOOOOOOOOO

It had been a simple plan: go in, blow up the factory, get out. Manic had been in a completely different unit in charge of providing a distraction, something he was usually good at. But his time it didn't work. Eggman had simply let Manic run rampant and ordered his machines to assault the factory, forcing Sally to call in Manic for help. The fighting had been fierce, and they were the only two left alive and free.

OOOOOOOOOO

Manic looked out the booth's window, ignoring the hover-drones to look at the factory floor below.

"Sally," He said "We need to get out of here."

"We already know that." She growled. Why did Manic always have to act so stupid? He was worse than his brother had ever been, and even more desperately called upon with the revolution's lack of overall firepower. Manic pointed to the window, and Sally went over to see a squad of swatbots armed with missile launchers gathering on the factory floor.

"They're kinda' bringing up the heavy artillery." The squirrel glanced at the drones swarming around the booth, ready to fire at a second's notice. She frowned and looked back at Manic. Come to think about it, she couldn't recall why she had started putting him on combat missions. She put it down to mistaking him for his brother and filed the thought away.

"We'll have to run for it." She said.

"Yep."

They went to the door and wrenched it open, firing as soon as the gap appeared. They turned and began the mad dash to the catwalk's end, ducking to avoid the lasers and missiles. The catwalk shuddered as a stray missile destroyed the back part, knocking Manic and Sally flat. They struggled to get up as the catwalk began to creak and groan, seeing the other end close by. A sudden shudder through the metal jolted them into running. They felt as a missile struck right behind them, and jumped away from the fireball.

OOOOOOOOOO

The first thing Sally felt was the warmth. It reminded her of how Sonic used to hug her when the stress of her role started to become too much for her. Funnily enough, it actually felt like she was being hugged now. She opened her eyes and found herself pressed against Manic's face

Slap!

"Ah. What was that for?" Manic muttered. Sally pushed herself the rest of the way up and got off of him.

"For… being a perv." She finally said.

"I was just trying to cushion your fall." Manic said, giving an apologetic smile. "I did not plan to get knocked out."

"Don't do it again." Sally finally began to take in their surroundings. The room was dark and cement walled, the lights flickered and barely illuminated, and there seemed to be trash everywhere. "Where are we?"

"I guess we fell down the garbage chute." Manic said, patting the pile of rubbish underneath of him. "Definitely some kind of basement section."

"If we fell that far we'd be dead." Even as Sally said it, she began to recollect stumbling into a not entirely vertical chute and when Manic had hugged her… She shook her head and straightened up. "We still need a way out," she said and turned to start poking through the rubbish. "And we need to find our guns. Now would be a good time to get your drums working, by the way." Manic simply groaned as he stood up.

"How many times do I have to say this?" The prince said. "I need my siblings to make them work."

"Really?" Sally asked. She had never heard that.

"Yeah something about family unity or… stuff. It's was on the fritz ever since Sonic left to hang out with you, and it just died when he took his little trip."

"It's not my fault."

"Never said it was." Manic added defensively. Sally grunted and sat down. Nothing. They were outnumbered and unarmed in enemy territory. Manic's head twitched around.

"They're coming." He said.

OOOOOOOOOO

Manic panted as he ran behind Sally. Now was the worst time to think about it, but he could completely understand why Sonic had liked her so much. Not-wearing-clothes aside, she was still very well built, and had a good face on top of it. It was even better when she got annoyed. There was also something about her bossiness that attracted him, though for the life of him he couldn't think of why. A pity they couldn't have met more before Eggman took over again. Manic felt a flash of heat go by his head. Obviously the robots were catching up.

Sally turned her head frantically, looking for some branch they could turn onto, but nothing appeared. Another laser went between her and Manic's head. Thankfully Eggman's robots still weren't good at shooting running targets, though they had been getting faster every year. Sally and Manic had both gotten much experience in moving fast from Sonic and could outpace the robots for now, but they could only run for so long before they became too tired to keep going. The hallway twisted suddenly and they found themselves facing a second squad of machines, bulbous combat robots with hand held lasers.

Manic was the first to react, ducking under the gun of the closest robot and kicking out its thin legs. Sally grabbed one by the arm as it charged her, shifting its momentum into one of the ones behind them, knocking both over. Manic had scooped up one of the guns and began firing into the robots still in front, ducking through them to avoid their fire. Sally grabbed a gun herself and ducked as a robot fired at her, letting the bolt destroy a different machine behind her. She opened fire, and helped finish off the machines. Sally nodded as she met back up with Manic. They had weapons now, and the green hedgehog hadn't been hurt. Now all they needed was a way out.

OOOOOOOOOO

The guard swatbot turned around the first time it thought it heard something. After doing so its sensors failed to register anything, so it recorded the instance as an error and continued down the hallway. Two Extreme-High Priority Targets were still present and unaccounted for in the factory. The robot, however, had been active for twelve hours and was due to be replaced by a fully charged machine. As it neared the upper levels, it barely heard the whine of a charging laser.

OOOOOOOOOO

"We're good." Manic called back to Sally, letting her catch up with him. He had gone first because. after all, he was the more stealthy of the two. He let Sally lead the way through the door and followed after her.

The working light temporarily blinded Sally, and she almost didn't see it: a robot, gun ready, aiming straight at her. She felt a hand from behind push her back as Manic jumped in front of her, gun firing at the same time as the machine's. A smoking gap was left in the machine, and a smoking mark on Manic's side. He gasped and fell to the ground, grunting in pain as he grabbed the wound.

"Are you alright?" Sally found herself saying as she ran over to Manic and helped him up.

"Just a flesh wound." The former thief said between his teeth, letting out a litany of curses as he straightened himself. "I've seen worse."

"Why did you do that!" Sally yelled, regaining her composure. "I could have dodged that on my own."

"Let's just say I had a vested interest involved, okay? Thanks for the thought though."

Manic quickly turned around and kissed Sally, before turning back and heading through the exit. The squirrel was left shaking where she stood.

She was going to kill him. When this was over, she was seriously going to kill him. The sheer nerve… utterly worse than his brother. And he was going the wrong way.

"Manic!" She yelled. "City limit's the other way."

"I know." Manic called back. "But we still need to break out everyone else." Sally sighed. He was right: it was their duty as leaders, but she did not want to admit it. "Well? Come on. It's gonna' be a long walk."