Chapter 1: Kill

"That pesky hedgehog..." Eggman scowled as he paced the dim control room of the Egg Carrier. Frustrated and fuming, he slammed his hand down on the armrest of his artificial, robotic throne before collapsing in it. All of his intricate schemes, all demolished by that unrelenting force of nature... Thinking about it made him grind his teeth like a madman.

Another slam on the armrest controls made the screens before him illuminate the room. Blueprints of former robots, dating back several years, flashed before his old eyes. All destroyed now, of course. "And it's all that stupid hedgehog's fault!"

He peered at his blueprints. "He must have a weakness of some sort... There must be some way I can get back at him."

Sonic the Hedgehog rolled out of bed, but didn't wake up. He decided the floor was a much nicer place to sleep...

Just then, Tails opened the door. "Sonic?" The hedgehog didn't open his eyes.

"SONIC!" exclaimed Knuckles as he burst through the door Tails had just managed to close, smashing in a hinge or two. Tails let out an "eek!" and jumped aside. Startled awake, Sonic also jumped and yelled before banging his head on the edge of his bed, making him hug the floor all over again.

Knuckles took a step over to his friend, pulled him up by the quills, and tried to stand him up straight. Sonic let out an estranged chuckle... Before getting a good ol' slap across his face.

That woke him up. "Gee, thanks Knuckles!" He grinned and with one quick swoop of the leg, tripped the echidna on his butt. "Agh, HEY!" he growled, while Sonic stood there laughing heartily.

Tails decided to remain at a safe distance as red and blue butted heads. "You think you're hot stuff huh?" said Knuckles, ironically fuming himself. Sonic just gave him a cocky smile.

Seeing a fight about to break out in his workshop, Tails leapt up between them. "Hey hey hey! You guys! Quit it!" He gave a feeble attempt at pushing them apart. "If you're gonna prove how hot you are, can't you do it outside at least?"

Accepting that challenge, they both stumbled through the doorway and raced out of the workshop. Tails sighed, and peered out the window at his hopeless friends. Then chuckled at how silly they were at times. The morning had started with Knuckles coming over to give Sonic some crucial message. He wondered how important it really had been, seeing as Knuckles was now busy chasing him around.

Before Tails could give it a second thought, he was struck by the sight of Eggman's aerial fleet zooming through the sky, toward the workshop.

"Sonic!" Tails called out through the window. But Sonic had already heard the roar from the jets; he was running straight at them at full speed, with Knuckles trailing behind.

"Damnit!" the echidna cursed under his breath. "I completely forgot to warn him!"

Sonic zig-zagged across the field, dodging missiles and laser beams. Once he could see the herd of bots overhead, he shot up through the sky, spinning straight through their weak under-armor. Then he proceeded to take his time dancing around on top of one flying machine's heads, long enough for the others to lock on and shoot down one of their own. Leaping from one robot to the next, he soon realized how overwhelmingly many there were. The horde didn't seem to diminish at all!

Caught off guard, two armed robots seized his arms. "Hey! Agh!" He didn't stop struggling in their steel grips, even when he heard that menacing laugh.

The wicked doctor emerged from his robotic crowd in his classic Egg Mobile. His moustache and round belly bounced as he laughed at Sonic's unfortunate situation. "Eggman!" the blue hedgehog growled and kept pulling his arms in every direction, but it was still no use.

"It appears that you've been outnumbered this time, Hedgehog!" he spat. "You see, there's real strength in numbers. And when it's 45 to one, you lose." Eggman laughed even louder, thinking about how he had finally captured the pesky hedgehog. Maybe what he needed all along was simply more robots.

Sonic didn't give up struggling, even though the robotic claws were digging into his skin. Where is Knuckles? Tails? He didn't want to admit to needing help... Although, he'd done that before...

"Sonic!" Knuckles called out to him from below. Sonic strained his neck and tried to peer through the bodies of black and silver metal.

Then he saw something that made his eyes widen.

A little pink figure, frozen on the edge of the field... A little pink hedgehog with her eyes toward the black sky.

Sonic looked up to see Eggman noticing the same thing, grinning, in a way that Sonic could tell: he was about to do something terrible to her.