Cream the rabbit stared down into the huge hole in the ground with a confused look on her face. For the last two hours or so, Knuckles had been digging furiously in the same place. He had been so focused on the task that he probably didn't realize how deep the hole was getting.
"Mr. Knuckles... are you close to finding the emerald?" The rabbit asked shyly. The pair of them had actually already found three of the seven chaos emeralds, which seemed to be the main task at this point. Her eyes widened when the red echidna finally flew up out of the ground grinning profusely.
"Check it out Cream! Got another one! Told ya I was an expert." He boasted, showing off the bright green gem.
"Wow that's great Mr. Knuckles!" She smiled sheepishly. The guardian ran the back of his arm across his forehead. The sun was already setting, but they had made incredible progress. That reminded him that the six-year-old had been with him that entire time.
"Hey Cream are you tired or anything? Maybe I should be 'responsible' and find you somewhere to rest for a while." Knuckles said, putting a hand on his hip. Cream puffed up her cheeks as if offended by the idea.
"Mr. Knuckles, we have to help Mr. Sonic so I won't stop until we do! I'm okay I promise! I don't want to stop, especially if Mr. Sonic, Tails and Amy need our help... so please lets continue."
Knuckles raised an eyebrow and couldn't help but smile. All the same, he saw the little yawn that the rabbit tried to hide earlier. She needed some rest, even if she didn't think so. The red echidna made up his mind to take her to Station Square for the night.
The closer they got to the normally bustling city, the more suspicious it seemed. Normally several lights and signs would have been lit up by now, but the entire city was completely dark. Not a single light was on anywhere in sight. Cream looked up at him in confusion, where Knuckles shrugged.
"Were doooomed!" A man wearing a fedora and a suit shouted as soon as the animals had gotten closer.
"What are you talking about man?" Knuckles asked impatiently. The man shook his head, "Weve had a black-out! The entire city is out-of-order right now. Its chaos all over again!" He said before walking away.
"Mr. Knuckles, what do you think he meant?" Cream asked, hiding another yawn behind her glove. The red echidna didn't answer. Something was definitely wrong though... and it seemed like more than just an average black-out. He had a feeling this 'issue' with Sonic was related, but he didn't know enough about it yet to confirm the theory.
Tails drummed a gloved hand across the computer interface with his brows furrowed. It hadn't been as difficult as he thought to find out what was used on Sonic, the tricky part was getting a small sample of it. Eventually though, he managed to pocket a vile of the puffy gas. Maybe now he could analyze it and figure out how to fix Sonic. He heard sudden beep from his wristwatch and clicked it on to see Amy's determined face on screen.
She started in harsh whisper, "Tails I found out something big! It's not really surprising... but Eggman is trying to take over Station Square, and pretty much everything around it. He IS the one who's causing the blackouts Tails! Sonic is helping him create Eggmanland."
Tails eyes widened. Eggman had never succeeded before, not really. Sonic was always there to stop his schemes. But with Sonic helping... there was an extremely high chance that this time, Eggman really would win. The little fox was about to answer when he saw something flash behind the hedgehog's face.
"Amy look out!" He shouted. She turned around and sudden;y the screen went gray with dead-pan static.
"Amy!? AMY!?" He called out, clicking buttons in attempt to get the image back. Giving up on that, he swished his twin-tails into gear and sped off where Amy's transmission was coming from.
Amy Rose stared up with bright green eyes full of terror. Eggman's robots were never particularly menacing, but this one could have made an exception. It was enormous, spiked head to toe and had enough gadgets on it to make a weapons-dealer jealous. One of its arms shot into the pink hedgehog, knocking her into the metal railing. Her watch cracked with the impact and cut off Tails's transmission.
"Ohoho looks like some rats have found their way into my home. Ruptureator here can deal out the rat poison for me." Eggman laughed, staring directly at Amy with a sickening grin. It seemed that whatever he had come down here to do was finished. He, Orbot and Cubot were making their way out through an elevator.
"Have fun kiddies!" He taunted as the doors slid shut. Amy was alone and facing what could have been the combined offspring of a lawnmower and a chainsaw. She really hoped Tails would get the message and come to help, but until then she would have no choice but to fight.
The robot lurched and sent a thick-razor buzz-saw straight at her. Amy dove for it to avoid getting her quills chopped off. She was about to pull her hammer out when a metal rod swept her off her feet. With so many weapons and so little other than the hedgehog to focus on, the robot would make short work of her. Amy's doll-like form was caught up in a metal hand. She squirmed and shrieked to no avail.
"Amy hang on!" The familiar fox's voice called out over the clinking of metal. Tails busted through a loose grate and fell onto the floor with a thud. He instantly felt like cowering, seeing all the sharp looking moving parts on the robot. The fox flew up to dodge s spike. He scanned around for a weakness o shut-off of any kind on the robot but didn't see a thing.
"Tails get out of the way!" Amy shouted. The fox cut his tails from spinning just in time to drop out of the line of fire of a metal punch to the face. Tails hot the floor painfully. Amy got her arm loose enough to pull it out of the metallic grip. She materialized a piko piko hammer and slammed it against the robot. It barely made a dent, but it did manage to surprise it enough to drop her. She ran over to Tails and shook his shoulder.
"Tails get up!" She shrieked hoarsely. The robot's huge metal fist was about to squash them. Suddenly the gnashing of metal stopped all at once. A bright flash erupted inside the robot and it just practically malfunctioned, no longer moving altogether. Amy and Tails stared up in disbelief. The so-called Ruptureator lumbered to a stop and promptly fell over, breaking into several pieces. Amy and Tails looked up from the floor where another flash of blinding light. When it finally died down, Shadow the hedgehog was standing there holding a purple chaos emerald, looking very annoyed.
"Rose, Prower. I have a few questions if you don't mind." The black and red hedgehog said in matter-of-fact tone.
"Shadow! How did you do that?" Tails said, jumping to his feet. Amy was also up and dusting herself off. Shadow looked down inquisitively and held up the emerald for a second.
"Chaos controlled inside of it. Its just a robot, and hardly any of those are defensible on the inside. More to the point however, the blue faker is causing quite an uproar out there. He mentioned you two earlier, so I'd wager you know something?" He said raising a brow and putting a hand on his hip.
Tails put a hand to his forehead and nodded. "Its a little complicated."
