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9

Resurgence

Blaze looked to Silver, trying to get his attention with a worried glare. He was busy juggling four kids trying to take advantage of his powers by belly-flopping off the swings and get him to catch them on the way down.

"How wrong?" She asked.

"We're still trying to get numbers," Miles said with a weak scoff. "But just by looking out the window? Even I won't go up against that many robots on my—Wave! Move!"

A burst of gunfire—Blaze shot up to her feet, "Miles? Miles!"

Silver immediately hopped off the swings and bolted through the air covered in his telekinetic aura. He spun and caught Skye as he tried to follow, sitting him back down in the swing seat and stopping the rest of the kids.

A roll of static. Then, "The console had a self-defense system. We're fine. Pinned down by a few turrets, but—"

"Bloody hell, I knew it!" A harsh female voice butted in. "Who—what the hell are you doing?"

"Miles?" Blaze asked, slightly confused.

"What's going on?" Silver asked as he landed, a bit of a demanding tone in his voice. He stuck his ear to the phone.

"…it seems my hologram got knocked off," He said before scoffing. In his normal voice, "Hello, Wave. Nice to see you too. Anyway, Blaze. That was Silver I heard, right? Good. I sent word out to the usual Chicken Littles… why am I using that analogy with you—you'll be hearing sirens soon."

"Espio is here as well…?" Blaze started said as much to herself as to Silver and Miles. The chameleon was rushing down the street towards them.

Miles sighed, relieved, "Good, they passed word to him—Vector's somewhere but it's ultimately just us here in Westop—hey-heyheyHEY! Get back here!"

"Oof! Listen foxboy!" Wave's voice crackled through the phone. "We don't have time to plan here! We wait, and those robots are going to tear the place apart!"

"You go out there and you'll be pillow-stuffing."

"Hands off! Or I'll make you into a scarf, shorty!"

"I'm not exactly shor—how do you know I'm Tails?" Miles said in confusion. He groaned. "I just told you, didn't I?"

"Tch! As if there's any other fox in the world with two tails that—what the hell happened to you?"

"Later. Wave."

"The hell with later! Those two tails are not connected to—what the frack happened?"

Blaze exchanged glances with Silver.

"…he's attacking again… isn't he?" The old lady said from the bench. The pensive looks on the two's faces was all she needed. She dropped her crocheting and put her face in her hands, "Oh lord…."

"Wait—you got caught up in that temporal anomaly we detected a few days back, didn't you?!" Wave stabbed on the other end of the phone.

"Whatever is happening, they are leaderless," Espio said, stopping in front of them. "Eggman can't be at the helm this time." He glanced to Silver and Blaze, "Vector is at the hospital—not injured, there on a case. He'll be staying there to defend it in case the worst comes to pass. Unlike the rest of us, he's best if he stays in one place. Charmy's elsewhere—Station Square Library doing research. Don't ask how we got him to."

Espio of the Chaotix was the team's espionage and information agent. Bolstered by his ninja training and his Chameleon invisibility, the fact that he was purple was mitigated. His golden eyes darted between Blaze, Silver, the old lady, and the kids. Skye was standing halfway to them, Nikki was at the swing set, glancing back to the other two on their swings with words Espio couldn't make out.

"Why isn't he?"

Blaze, Espio, and Silver exchanged glances.

"How did you guys detect—you figured out what I was building. Where did you get the blueprints…." Miles trailed off, sighing.

"It's complicated," Blaze assured.

"He's indisposed," Espio abbreviated.

"It was easier to fix all the flaws in the plan than to steal it. And it was easy to steal it too. The way you had it? Tch, some time machine that was."

"Well, you see. Eggman is— wait a second," Silver grabbed the phone. "I heard time machine. Who said time machine?"

"Who the hell is that?"

"Silver. He's basically a time cop."

"If anyone builds a time machine—and I don't care who it is—this time cop will be the one making a fur coat with feather insulation. Rule number one of time machines—you don't build them! Bad stuff happens! Bad stuff that does bad things that I have bad headaches trying to fix!"

Espio ignored him and looked down to the lady, "Emergency response is preparing to move; we'll be hearing the alarm in a few minutes. If you can take the children to shelter, we can make sure that, whatever happens, nothing will harm this town."

The old lady slowly nodded and grabbed her purse, abandoning her crocheting, and hurried over to the swings.

"Blaze, if I may," Espio held his hand out for the phone. She gave it to him. "You're on speaker, Tails."

"So Silver," Wave butted in. "Don't you have a DeLorean to ticket—mmf!"

Miles sighed, "No time to plan, but time to berate. Eh, Wave?"

"Mmt! Off! How bout I muzzle you—?"

"Wave, shut up." Then, more directly to the phone, "From what we saw before the terminal locked down, there's three bays under the city, each chocked full of robots, each with their own terminal to shut them all down. Now, Wave here activated them—"

"On accident!"

"…from this one, but we can't shut them all down from here and we're pinned by turrets right now. Eggman wasn't messing around when he built this place—I think he took a few notes from Nega so be careful. I can only assume the others have similar countermeasures."

"Can you deactivate the turrets at least?" Silver asked.

"With where they are, I think I can jam them. But I need my phone to do that so I'll wrap this up fast. Espio! Congrats! You know who signed you up for hacking this time around! As for the other, Blaze, Silver, between the two of you a rather large, scary platoon of deadly robots really doesn't stand a chance. Wave, you saw where they… what are you doing?"

"More than you! Gimmie!"

The phone crackled with static as the other end was grabbed.

"Oh, right. Your little computer thingie. The phone's on speaker."

"Whatever. I was cloning the data as I hacked it… schematics. A lot of excavation had to be done to decontaminate the area from the Black Arms creep. Eggman, of course, had his robots start the work before anyone else could and put these things in then…." Her voice lost the matter-of-factness. "…shit. The access hatches—they're connected directly to the shelters—W, B, and J. They're going to wait until the city takes refuge then rip straight through them all."

"We didn't go through a bunker to get here."

"Duh, we went in the back way, foxbreath. Through the robot's hangers. The shelters have alarms on them so no one messes with them. The point is! He's going for total destruction this time. A massacre for the world to remember him by. They're on a timer—I didn't activate them. A timer. That Eggman had to reset every so often."

"So how much time is left?" Skye's voice called out. Espio, Blaze, and Silver turned to see the little kit standing behind them.

"Who the frack—lemme guess, that's Gold."

"That's Skye, my six year old cousin," Miles' voice glared. He sighed. "Skye, this is a computer, not a plane—calculators, not power tools! And Blaze on how Nega builds his robots and add on a few more laser guns and a flame thrower. Maybe a buzz saw. …Wave, is that really a sandwich maker?"

"Walks, talks, bakes its own bread, has all the all the fixings, and kills with all of them. And I'm being serious over there."

"I can still help!" Skye said determinedly, then shrunk slightly under the eyes of the adults. He sniffed, rolled his shoulders, and stood straight again. "I really can!"

Miles sighed, "…okay. Fine. Just stay sa—" He cut himself off. "They're activating—but they won't mobilize until a little later. Wave, where's the access hatches in the other two bunkers?"

"The-the bottommost storage level. Eggman planted a crate that acted as a sealed doorway in the far right-back corner of each. There's an access pad under a false panel that opens them but I can't find the—"

"Zero-six-eight-five-E-G-G-five in bunkers B and J. If that doesn't work, make your own entry."

Wave scoffed, "How do you—"

"Robotnik was reusing codes from the Flying Battery at about the time he built these… we have to go."

The phone crackled with static, then fell silent. A second later the klaxons started to blare.

"Three, two, one. Jammed—go!"

Miles more threw Wave over to the command console than pushed her, he himself running to the pillar that held one of the two turrets. He pulled a knife out of his boot, more like a small dagger, and stabbed through the metal plating below the turret at the seam, prying it away from the wall.

"How'zit looking over there, Wave?"

Wave scowled back over her shoulder, blinking in surprise when she saw the knife, "It locked itself again. The password isn't working—you don't know this one, do you?"

"Try 'ihatethathedgehog'—one word, all lowercase, hedgehog misspelled with a lowercase 'A' after the 'H' just to throw us off. Classic Robotnik."

"I know that one," Wave scoffed. "Didn't work."

Miles stabbed his knife into the pillar then pulled off the rest of the panel. He glanced back, "When did you figure—ah, right. The first time I set you guys to work."

The purple swallow sneered, her icy blue eyes glaring daggers at Miles. Even with counting everyone he met in the six extra years, the brains of the Babylon Rogues was the only person Miles knew that could glare with her entire body. Shoulders locked half-towards him, arms crossed over her white tube-top, red shoes tapping. She was also the only bird who could effectively make a sneer more menacing with a beak than with a muzzle full of fangs. Even her two long bands of feather-hair seemed to writhe with sheer annoyance in the slight draft.

Miles grinned and nodded, turning to what was behind the panel, "I guess you're not too happy about all that."

"Ya think," She seethed, then snorted at him. "The code. Gimmie."

"Listen—it could be any code from in the Flying Battery-or-or even the second Death Egg. There's about two hundred of them and it'll be faster for your little necklace to crack the code on its own then to—" He pulled a wire out from inside the pillar. He froze for a second, then glanced around the room. Then moved the barrel of the turret to point away from Wave. "Either this is going to fire when I pull the wire or when I turn the jammer off. Just to let you know."

Wave groaned, "You're f—" She flinched as the turret fired twice, then glowered. "And you almost forgot to aim it away!?"

"Wave. Try Six-Two-Three-Four-E-G-G-Four," Miles sighed, pulling his knife out of the wall and moving towards the other turret. "Was the password to the Death Egg's—"

"Didn't work. How the hell can you remember all that? What the hell happened to you?"

Miles took two steps backwards, stopping when he was next to her. He was an inch taller than her.

He nodded at her, politely, but fatigued, "I didn't fall down the rabbit hole; it swallowed me whole and spat me out six years in the past. Stuff. Happened." He sighed. "Can we leave it at that, Wave? Please? This town's seen enough strife to last for its lifetime. I know, I was here and stayed here for the entire fiasco. And I'll be damned if it gets destroyed again." he nodded to the console. "Your thing's found the code." He laughed.

"Should have guessed that one. It's…" his eyes went distant for a second. "…the codes to the third deck's Master Capsule lock. At least for the fifth Capsule bay—one, two, three—yeah fifth door from the lift, across from the Second Pacification Room's fourth door." He shook his head. Wave was looking at him, looking at him with a confused and incredulous look. "Paradoxes are not nice." Miles walked back to the other turret and stabbed his knife in.

Wave shook her head and let her hands fly over the console's keyboard. "So what," She said after a minute. "Besides manipulating us to go on scavenger hunts for parts for a time machine—how'd that turn out?"

"Time machine was a dimension traveler, got sent to Silver and Blaze's world."

"Oh," Wave said, disappointed. "Alistair kinda disappeared after the last job; we hoped it went nuke on him. I should have known he was really you because of how terrible the plans were."

"It kinda did," Miles pulled the panel off and started working inside the pillar. "At least you know why I wanted to build one now. Ended up just… taking the long road back."

"Tch. With how crappy your life was, I bet it was better the second time."

"…I'm going to ignore that one—or do you say that because I met with you more often as Alistair the Eagle rather than Tails the shrimp?"

"Don't flatter yourself, foxbreath. You'd have to hide that mug of yours with a much better hologram for any girl with some sense to like it."

"Pulling the wire."

Wave was drowned out by the turret firing again.

"Enough Wave," Miles said sternly, putting the knife away. He pulled out his phone and touched the screen. "There are three thousand robots, two hundred airplanes, and two sandwich makers out there that's going to tear the city up. And that's just what's in this bay. What's the hold-up?"

"I can't find the master switch," Wave said. "Everything's hidden under encryption—each battalion out there has their own deactivation code and there's like, twelve of them." She looked to Miles, eyes set in a questioning half-glare.

"He always used new codes for the robots, don't look at me on that one."

"Not that. …you don't hear that, big-ears?"

"Hear…" He blinked, said big ears flaring. "…high-pitched whine?"

"That. What is that?"

The two looked around the room, the sound steadily getting louder. They looked at the two turrets.

"That was the wrong wire," Miles muttered, then looked to Wave. "Sorry about this!" He tackled her to the ground.

"What—?" She cut herself off and braced herself.

…after a minute, she opened an eye to see the back of Miles' ear. With a bit of effort, she reached up and yanked it out of the way, glaring into his eye and glancing at the holographic shield around them. "It stopped. Can you get off or is it just on a delay?"

Exploding fire and shrapnel was the answer.