Nicole held on as long as she safely could, drawing Sally's attention until the moment Sonic and Tails leapt free of the Death Egg, each one carrying the dazed body of a friend. As they cleared the ruined room the AI leapt with them, sweeping from her body into the chassis of the most advanced aircraft she had found. Corrosive data strings tore through the auto-body's drives, burning out any information that may have been stored there. It wasn't exactly a great loss – any useful information she'd gathered, of which there was little, came with her into the plane that had shadowed the suicide run, and the rest was simply destroyed, fragmenting into loose ends. It would give Robotnik a few red herrings to chase, trying to piece together what was left.
Seeing was an altogether disorienting experience in the the aircraft- She had to project her sight through the plane's radar, scanning her surroundings as she swept lower, bringing herself as close to her friends as she safely could.
Mecha Sally watched them from the bridge, her fingers clenching around a broken piece of framework in frustration, as she looked over her shoulder at the azure robot.
"This is a loss." She mused, flatly. "The Death Egg is crippled, and all three of our superiors have been incapacitated."
Snively and Lien-Da had been allowed up to the bridge once Eggman was certain that they had not taken Mecha Sally into their own service, and he had completed Mecha Sonic to watch his back. However, neither of them had been seated, let alone strapped in, when the station had crashed, and had lost consciousness during the crash.
"Take some surviving robots and try and salvage a shuttle. We will pull out and return to Megapolis. We will need to acquire a vehicle which can lift the station into an upright position before we can relaunch."
It was a moment before Mecha Sonic responded. "I can find no records of vessels or machinery with the required engine power to significantly affect the Death Egg's rotation."
"In our absence repairs with be directed to reinforcing compromised structural integrity and damaged thrusters. The station will provide partial thrust. We will require significantly less power."
They would need to stop other powers destroying the station before they returned, but to effectively do that they would need to rob it of its defenders. She amended her previous order. "As soon as we are away, all other fighters will disperse into security patterns. Enemy forces will attempt to locate Robotnik in fleeing formations. When we return, we will be able to retake the station from occupying forces."
"Roger that." Mecha Sonic nodded, turning away. It looked back over its shoulder at her. "Did the lynx get anywhere into your files?"
"Negatory. She did not get any deeper than the surface."
It nodded again, then stalked out of the room, as she turned her attention to her unconscious allies. Stepping over to them, she began to shift Eggman into a seated position, propping him up against the upturned floor. A lack of seatbelts had not been kind – one arm was broken, a compound fracture, accompanied by numerous theoretical stress cracks and a concussion. He would be incapable of managing their forces and the recovery effort, nor would Lien Da or Snively. Now until such a time as they could be judged fit for service, she would be the acting authority.
Very well.
GUN's entire headquarters had been on-edge since the Death Egg lifted off from Megapolis, all hands rushing to prepare for any full-scale assault. Mobilizing the squadron that had attacked the statin after the Republic of Acorn's plea was a small matter - most of the air force was already prepared to scramble.
Tensions had been relieved when the enormous station crashed into the desert, until a second message had been sent from their nearest allies.
[Mission failure. Though the Death Egg is crippled, Sally Acorn, Bunnie Rabbot and Rotor Walrus remain captured or missing. Our forces weren't sufficient to retrieve them.]
Then, further compounded by the reports of their own soldiers, as all of their remaining targets broke from the fight, reforming into new patterns and streaking out away from their base at maximum speed.
It seemed that Robotnik and his forces were simply abandoning the Death Egg, something the dictator would not do willingly. They were missing something, a factor which they were quick to try and remedy. Engineering teams followed vanguard squads into the station, mapping the layout and attempting to get readings on weapon and power systems. They didn't want the reactor going critical and wiping out their air force, many aircraft holding back in a patrol pattern until it was confirmed as stable. The search still continued for traps.
"I don't like this..." Shadow the Hedgehog grumbled, watching the information flash up on a screen in Team Dark's quarters. He was slumped on the couch, arms folded, his characteristic frown on his features. "It just doesn't add up."
"I understand that the Princess got roboticized, but... Surely she can't be that powerful, right?" Rouge completed the train of thought, leaning against a wall. "What could've driven them off?"
"If I remember correctly…losing Bunnie, Rotor and Sally does leave the team underpowered, but they'd still have Sonic and Tails. They're not pushovers."
"Hmm…yeah, but who else do they have? They're not exactly brimming with adepts, you know." The bat shrugged. Everything had been going so well, though. The station had crashed, they'd gotten in untouched, but then they'd run. "There's gotta be something else."
"Perhaps a new weapon." Omega rumbled. "Or the weaker members may have sustained injuries that forced the stronger ones to retreat to preserve them."
"So the machine nut could be busting out even more shiny toys? You'd think he'd have a new tune by now. Want me to go poke around with the FF, see what I can pick up on?" Though she was now part of an organised team in a government military, Rouge hadn't had the chance to lose her skills. There was always some reason for her to sneak in somewhere.
"No need." Unfolding his arms and propelling himself off the seat to the screens, the hedgehog rolled back through the information, picking out bits to examine more closely. "The army is going to be focussed on controlling the Death Egg, and if the Freedom Fighters have managed to lose two fights in a row, HQ will want an appraisal from enemy lines."
"We are most likely to be requested. It will require infiltration. Breaking & entering. Sabotage." Omega's modular, artificial body clanked and whirred, punctuating his words as he ran through pre-combat checks.
"Exactly." Shadow nodded.
"I'd rather not go into this without all the information. What condition were the higher-ups in? Did they have a chance to make contact with her highness, or is her Robian form still an unknown? Did they see any of these supposed new weapons?" Rouge sighed, walking over to join the hedgehog at the screens.
"The only thing in the report is that they failed and their forces weren't enough..."
"They have to know more than that!"
"If we're going to find it, it will be by calling them. We don't have time to waste on travelling to New Mobotropolis and sneaking in to get something they'll gladly tell us over the phone." The black hedgehog groaned. "Besides, we're already not their favourite people after that incident with the Sol Emerald."
"Well, they've got to get over it sometime." Leaning across him the bat lady seized the controls, dialling up a link to Freedom HQ despite his half-hearted objection.
"We should wait for an official order, you know. That at least gives us a warrant we can show them when we ask what the problem is."
"Come on Shadow, we all know they're gonna ask us. Might as well get the ball rolling." She shrugged away his concern without really looking, drumming her hands idly against her hips as she waited for someone to pick up the signal.
"Freedom HQ, Nicole the Lynx speaking." The lynx's voice crackled slightly through the speakers. "To what do we owe the pleasure?"
"Rouge here, we wanted to give you guys a hand." She replied. "Call it an apology for last time."
"At this juncture, we need all the help we can get. Antoine and Amy were injured by Eggman's new robot, and Sonic and Tails are exhausted."
"What happened out there?" Shadow cut in. "It looked like everything was going well, and then suddenly, you were pulling out."
"They have a new robot copy of Sonic. It's taller, about human-sized, and much stronger. It only vaguely looks like him, really, but either way, it quickly put a hole in the temporary body I was using, and took down half the team. Then it tanked a plane that I tried to ram Eggman with."
"You threw a plane at him?"
"I was getting a little desperate at that point..."
"I approve." Omega cut in.
"Uh... thank you?" The lynx replied, more than a little bewildered. "In any case, I attempted to get into Sally's head and free her from the mind control, but I couldn't even get below the surface. Something stabbed me in the back, and threw me out..."
"Sounds like you've been through a lot... But we can go in and clean up, if you like." Rouge suggested.
"That would be appreciated. We will try to join you as quickly as we can."
"Before we do that, though, can you tell us everything you know about what's in there? What can Sally do with her new body, what can this new robot do besides beat down your non-Adepts, and what happened to Eggman himself?"
"I wish I had more for you, but we don't know much beyond what I've said already. The new robot has a cannon on one arm and it can move fast, but beyond that I don't know it's capabilities. It took down Amy and Antoine, like I said, but they weren't prepared for something like that. They're just not suited to handling it."
"What about Sally and moustache wax?"
There was a moment's pause as Nicole got the joke. "We don't know about Robotnik; none of us got a clear look at him. Sally though…at the moment her body can't do much. Standard tech Robian more or less, but whatever is in her head isn't standard. There's some heavily-modified code going on in there, and I didn't get far enough to examine it in enough detail. It's more intelligent than we're used to, I know that much."
It really wasn't much for them. Two trips then – first to stop by on the Death Egg and meet up with the squads deployed there, then on to the outskirts of Robotnik's empire, to see if they could tap into an information node.
"We've been monitoring the station for a while now. They seem to be preparing to leave, and while there have been shuttles arriving and leaving, none of them has been Eggman's personal one, and Sally's signal is still transmitting from the wreck itself. It seems likely that evacuating the staff is taking some time. If possible, it might be worth running in, grabbing her, and using Chaos Control to bring her back here."
"We'll see what we can do." Rouge nodded. "See you shortly."
The static died with the link, leaving the three in silence for a moment. They didn't really expect his to be just a simple smash and grab – if previous missions were anything to go on, a job that went according to plan would be a sign of the apocalypse.
Omega broke the silence, tromping forward to the console. "I will wait for the order to assist to be received. You two should acquire transportation."
"And you're volunteering why, exactly?" Shadow cast him a suspicious glance.
"If damage inflicted is official, I am not required to justify my actions in the mission report."
The two organics glanced at each other, then turned to leave.
"Let's go and get one of the Emeralds." Shadow decided. "It'll be faster than taking a jet."
"Will they let us?"
"Probably."
"And if they don't?"
"We wait for Tower to give the order to go the Death Egg, and then pull rank."
"Fair enough."
Their position did come with a number of perks like that. As one of GUN's elite teams, Teak Dark was expected to carry itself with a certain amount of professionalism, something easily done when all of the rank and file just anticipated it from them. Unless they were dealing with someone ranked above them, the squad's reign was freer than it technically should have been, many of the lesser ranks jumping to carry out commands. The duo made their way from their quarters down to a vault constructed specifically to contain Chaos Emeralds. With the stones being in such high-demand, Shadow couldn't help but feel that designing it to house all seven was a little over-ambitious, especially considering that they didn't even have a full set on Mobius Prime yet.
Though, it was this mindset that was signature of GUN. If they weren't so thorough, so careful to track any possible chance of collecting another emerald, they wouldn't have ended up at odds with the Freedom Fighters before. They probably saw this as a chance to recover the emerald in the core of the Death Egg.
Two guards stood outside the vault, armed with rather large cannons. Both saluted as Shadow and Rouge approached. The corridor was suitably dim and imposing, double doors stamped with numerous item numbers and names, along with the department designation itself.
"Agent Rouge, Agent Shadow, to what do we owe the pleasure?"
"We need to borrow one of the Emeralds. We're warping to the Death Egg to clean up after the strike force and the Freedom Fighters crashed it." The bat explained.
"It's a little too far to travel unaided, so I'll need a boost." They both knew how it was played nowadays. Shadow kept them going in the right direction, Rouge kept everyone in the way off-guard.
"And we get to sit around here twiddling our thumbs eh?" One of the faceless guards patted his weapon. They looked impressive, but rarely saw use.
Rouge gave him a sympathetic look. "That's the way the hand's been played, boys. But hey, don't worry; when the tech department get their mitts on all the stuff the madman left around, you'll be seeing some interesting things coming through here."
"Considering that one of our objectives is a Robian, and there could easily be more victims among the doctor's army, let alone Legionnaires, I'd prefer to keep weapons like those away from this particular op." Shadow grunted.
"Fine fine, take one. Just be sure to bring it back." The shorter of the two men sighed.
"Of course. With any luck, we'll have another one to add to the collection too." Rouge grinned. "We're good friends, right? Always bringing back souvenirs."
The taller of the two humans chuckled an agreement as he swiped a card against a scanner built into one wall, the machine clicking for a moment as it processed the information until a cheery beep confirmed their entry.
Within the vault sat a small table with a curved glass lid over it, with seven indents shaped to hold the fist-sized stones. Only two of them were occupied, holding the green and red Emeralds. The lid retracted, allowing them access to the ancient artefacts. Shadow's hand when instinctively to the green one, plucking it from the stand and turning it over in his palm.
"Old faithful?" One of the bat's many running jokes.
"Hasn't done wrong thus far." The hedgehog delivered his retort calmly. "We'll retrieve the other emerald and make sure nothing's going to explode without it there, then hand it over to an evac team on-site. We can just go straight on to the empire outskirts."
"And what about the upper echelon? If we're quick, we might be able to snag Eggman and the rest of his staff. If we arrest them, then that will be a major turning point in the war!"
"Not if this new Sonic is as tough as they say. Like we said, the Freedom Fighter's aren't pushovers. We secure the emerald first, get it out, then prepare to move on to the outskirts. If that just happens to take us through Robotnik and his cohorts, it'll be a happy coincidence." Shadow smirks into the emerald. "One step at a time, Rouge."
"I think you with at least one Chaos Emerald and Omega with his full arsenal are probably on a whole separate level to Amy and Antoine, but whatever." She shrugged. "Let's find our metal friend and get going."
"Keep in mind that we have to be guarding you too."
"You-" There was a flash of anger in her eyes, and then she got it. "You know, you need to get a better tone if you're going to start making jokes like that. It was a joke, right?" The bat lady shot him a sideways glance as they turned to leave.
He returned the glance and then started out of the room. "I'll tell you later."
"Damnit Shadow!"
Aboard the crashed Death Egg, Mecha Sally still stood in the remains of the bridge, perched on an upturned console, as she watched several drones carefully lift up the injured organics and place them on stretchers.
"Shouldn't the Legionnaires at least have woken up by now?" Mecha Sonic rumbled, lowering himself down from the door, the light blue Chaos Emerald clenched firmly in his grip. "Your kind are supposed to be tougher than humans."
"They are not my kind anymore. Owing to the injuries sustained, I elected to keep them asleep until we are away from here. Added, my files indicate that, were Grandmaster Lien-Da to awaken, she could attempt a coup. I must keep the Empire's best interests at core, and right now, survival is the highest priority. Finally, it will allow me to put the software update I have written to use. It takes longer to install in cyborgs than it does in you or any of the other machines."
The explanation seemed satisfactory. "And the incoming enemy forces?"
"They will not track the correct shuttle when we launch. Until then, ensure that breached forces do not reach us. Maximum force authorised."
