The dire wolf marched into the battleship's bridge, his dark red and black-accented armour gleaming under the glow of the lights on the ceiling and matching his almost white fur.
A brown fox woman, dressed in a similar dark red uniform beneath a white lab coat, whirled around and saluted the wolf as approached the ship's master control panel. Just over the railing were rows of similarly garbed canines, intently clicking and typing away on computers.
"General, sir," she began, "we've just finished running diagnostics on the planet below, and I am ready to report our findings."
"Very good, Chief Doctor," the wolf nodded, practically dwarfing the scientist whose ears came up to his crossed arms. His amber eyes were fixed on the enormous screen across the bridge, showing the planet in question with windows of data appearing and disappearing around it. "What have you found?"
"The planet's name is Mobius," the fox began her report, "densely populated with roughly six billion sentient lifeforms, almost all of which resemble us. The planet is approximately seventy-three-point-five percent water, and orbits at a speed similar to our world."
The General nodded. "Are these lifeforms intelligent?"
"They appear to be," the fox confirmed with a nod, and brought up still images of towns, cities and villages onto the screen, "according to our scout drones, there are settlements all over the land, seeming to vary in culture and size depending on the territory."
The dire wolf blinked as one of the still images caught his eye, and he pointed a clawed finger toward it. "Zoom in on that one on the top right."
The fox complied, and typed on the control panel to expand the image. The high definition showed the aerial view of some kind of fortress, with what appeared to be a statue of a man with a ridiculously large mustache posing triumphantly. The fortress's entrance appeared to resemble the head, mustache and all.
His eyebrows furrowed, having absolutely no idea what to think of what he was looking at. "What in blazes is that?"
"Our scouts' searches confirmed that this location is known locally as… Eggmanland." The fox forced the name out, thinking it just as ridiculous as her commander did.
"What-land?!" The wolf barked, his pointed ear cocking to one side in utter disbelief. "Chief Doctor, please tell me that's an inaccurate translation."
"Believe me, sir," the fox muttered, shaking her head, "I hope it is as well, but so far, every possible translation I've tried comes back with the same name. I'll keep running it through the Omniglot, but I'm losing hope with each search."
"Ugh, doesn't help that the place is hideous to look at either," the General growled, curling his upper lip. Then, he blinked as something in the image caught his eye. "What's that? On the ground near that… mustached monstrosity?"
With a few clicks, the image zoomed in again, to focus on a blue-tinted, wide chested thing with a comically small dome-like head. It had limbs, and all the proportions of a machine.
"It appears to be some kind of robot," the fox assumed.
"Interesting, it seems that despite their lack of taste, whoever owns this… Eggmanland-" like his subordinate, he had to force the word out with disgust, "-has some technological prowess. With some luck, it will match their ego."
The fox stifled a giggle before she continued her report. "Anyway, there's more to this planet than it appears, sir. Our energy scanners are picking up multiple traces of power. In the hundreds, in fact - the inhabitants of this world seem to have this energy infused within them."
The ridiculous photo was removed from the screen to reveal Mobius again, this time to show arrows darting from the planet with data windows depicting colourful auras and power ratings next to them.
"I see," the wolf murmured, "what have you found out about this energy?"
"The inhabitants seem to call it 'Chaos'. Traces of it can be found within lifeforms, though the strongest concentrations appear in eight locations. However, one of them had energy readings off the charts!"
"Show me that one."
After some more typing, the map of the planet zoomed in to another part, revealing an aerial view of a piece of land. A line shot out from an area near the centre, leading to a popup window on the side showing an aura nearly bursting off the screen. The numbers next to it flickered madly, trying to find an accurate reading.
"Now, this was the most peculiar find," the Chief Doctor explained, "because it seems that the island is… floating in the planet's atmosphere."
"A floating island?" The wolf repeated, raising an eyebrow quizzically. "Is it because of this 'Chaos' energy?"
"That's what I've deduced. I had a troop of Hunter Droids go down to investigate the power source, but…" She trailed off nervously.
The large wolf slowly turned his head, glaring down at the fox scientist. "But…?"
"It… seems that the island is inhabited. I have a live feed set up right now." The fox typed in the control panel and brought up a window filling up the screen. An aerial view of what looked like a tall stone altar could be seen, with a red creature tearing identical robots apart with their bare fists in front of a large green jewel.
"The limitless energy source is coming from that gem," the fox explained, a square cropping around the jewel onscreen, and then it moved to surround the red fighter, "and it was masking this inhabitant's Chaos energy. From how powerful it is, and how intently it's fighting our Hunters, I assume it's the guardian of that gem."
The wolf nodded, and kept watching the fight, which was incredibly one-sided in the red creature's favour. Instead of being mad that so many of his subordinate robots were being so easily destroyed, he got an idea.
"Send out more Hunters to that island," he ordered, "as many as it takes to wear this 'guardian' down."
"But, sir," the fox yelped, ears lowered in fear that her creations were literally being sent on a suicide mission, "that would take a few dozen of them, by the looks of it!"
"And you can simply make a few dozen more, Chief Doctor," the dire wolf argued calmly, not taking his eyes off the screen, "they're assembly line fighter robots, in case you forgot."
She simply let out a defeated sigh and nodded. "Yes, General."
"Once he's worn down, I'll go down there myself and imprison him personally. Our base will be on that island, around that gem."
"Yes sir, but what about the other large energy readings? Our scouters can only get so much information." The live feed was minimised to show the planet again, to emphasise her point.
"That's simple," the wolf's grey muzzle cracked a devious smile as he eyed up the seven other large readings, "send Vex up to me. I have a job for him."