"And then I sliced him with my CyberSword, causing enough damage to make him loggout," Lan concluded, finishing telling the others of his battle.
"So from both yours and Sonic's stories we know for a fact that this Eggman character has joined up with Nebula," Famous said. "And that will only make them both more dangerous."
"No kidding," Sonic agreed. "The Chaos infused Dark Chips made long nails stronger than ever and took me by surprise. I wouldn't have defeated him without form Protoman and Chaud."
"And I wouldn't have beaten that robot NetNavi without the boost I got from the Emerald," Lan added. "I just hope it didn't have any other affects."
"No need to worry about that," Dr. Hikari said, walking into the room carring Lan's PET. "I just finished examing your PET and Megaman and it are both fine. Although, both Megaman and your battlechips have been permanently enhanced by the Emerald's energies."
"Really? That's awesome!" Lan said, taking his PET back. "Now me and Megaman are stronger than ever."
"And we're going to need to be to defeat this new threat," Megaman said.
"Don't worry we'll take them down," Lan replied. "And if we don't, we can always use another Emerald."
"I wouldn't recommend it," Sonic inturrpted. "You got lucky this time, but using another Emerald with your technology would likely spell disaster."
"He's right Lan," agreed Dr. Hikari. "Megman's fine now, but another boost would overwhelm his systems."
"Aw man," Lan sighed.
"It's fine Lan," Megaman said. "We should be grateful we got a big as a boost to our chips as we did."
"And I suggest you begin training with them," Famous said. "We don't know when they'll strike again and you need to be ready."
"Right," Lan and Megaman agreed.
Megaman spent the rest of the afternoon and the next several days getting used to their powered up chips. Sonic wanted to work on summoning his Excalibur form, but he couldn't without advancing his condition. So Famous finally let Sonic leave SciLabs and search for the other Emeralds, after he made Sonic promise not be seen of course.
Sonic had no luck finding more Emeralds, not had there been any sign of Nebula or Eggman. Tensions were high as everyone waited for their next move. It was almost a relief when Eggman finally made himself known… almost. He was launching a massive robot attack downtown, himself being in the largest one. The police were trying to stop him, but they were unable to stand against all the robots. Eggman then began broadcasting his demands for the city to surrender.
"You have to let me go and face him," Sonic argued with Famous. "I'm the only one that can stop him and I will not let him hurt anyone!"
"But then you'll be seen," Famous argued back. "All that time hiding you would be pointless."
"Like I care about that! Eggman doesn't seem to mind making a show of himself and frankly I'm sick of all this hiding."
"And it's kind of pointless for him to be hiding anymore anyway," Dr. Hikari replied. "The whole thing was to keep Nebula from finding out too much about him, but with Eggman on their side they already know everything."
"See, I'm with Brainiac," Sonic said. "It's useless for me to hide now and will only put more people in danger. I know you sent Lan and Chaud, but They've never really faced Eggman before. I have. I'm you're only chance at defeating him."
"Fine," Famous sighed. "You can go. I have the feeling you were going to go no matter what I say anyway."
"Got that right! Now I'll be back in a flash!"
Sonic ran from the lab in a gust of wind and sped down the streets. As he approached the battle, he could see Lan and Chaud confronting a few robots, but they could only hack them one at a time. Sonic tucked into a ball, spinning at high speeds and easily destroying the robots around the two humans. Without even pausing to see their reaction, Sonic sped off once again, destroying robots and pulling humans out of the line of fire.
Sonic skidded to a stop after destroying another robot to find himself surrounded, each robot having its gun pointed at him. Sonic's ear twitched as a laugh filled the air, one he was all too familiar with.
"There you are Sonic," Eggman greeted from his position. "I was wondering when you were going to show up. Seems to me you were a bit slower than usual."
"Sorry I was later to the party," Sonic smirked. "I guess I had misplaced my invitation."
"No matter. You're here now and I'll have the pleasure of watching you're destruction. Ready!"
The robot's guns all clicked and began to charge. Sonic crouched into a defensive stance, ready to fight his way out of this."
"Aim!"
"Sonic!" A familiar voice rang through the air, causing everyone to pause and look up. A small plane was flying overhead with a very familiar two tailed pilot.
"Tails!" Sonic greeted happily. "I was wondering if you had been sent to this world or not."
"Here Sonic!" Tails replied, tossing him a power ring. Sonic easily caught it and its energy began to fill him.
"Fire you fools! Fire!" Eggman shouted, but it was too late. With the energy boost from the ring, Sonic was easily able to tear through all the robots surrounding him. Once they were all destroyed, Sonic set his sights on the one Eggman was in. He began attacking it, but was barely able to make a dent, even with the ring's energy.
"Nice try Sonic," Eggman taunted when Sonic stopped for a breather. "But I specifically designed this robot's armor to withstand your attacks. You'll never be able break through."
"Well if I can't beat it from the outside, I'll just have to beat it from the inside," Sonic replied. With a smirk, Sonic ran toward the robot and jumped. Just before he made contact the armor, a portal to the net opened up and Sonic passed through it, entering the robot's mainframe. As soon as he landed, Sonic began taking care of the viruses that were standing guard.
"We have to help him somehow," Lan said, having gotten there just in time to see Sonic jump into the robot.
"I want to as well," MegaMan agreed. "But I'm uncertain of how we could offer assistance."
"There must be something. It isn't good if Sonic ends up staying a while in the Net."
"Are you a friend of Sonic's" Tails asked landing nest to them.
"Yes we are," MegaMan said when Lan didn't answer. Lan was still surprised by the small fox talking to them.
"Yeah and we want to help," Lan said, recovering. "But in order to do that I need to jack MegaMan into that robot."
"Can I see that?" Tails asked, pointing to the PET.
"Um… sure?" Lan replied hesitantly, handing it over to the fox. Tails looked it over and then opened it up and began rewiring it. "Hey! What are you doing!"
"Well you obviously can't just plug this into Eggman's robot," Tails said, finishing up. "You'd get killed that way. I'm making it so you don't have to do that. There you go."
"So what do I do?" Lan asked looking over his PET. It didn't seem any different.
"Just point it at whatever computer you want, press this button on the screen, and MegaMan will be able to enter its mainframe."
"Awesome," Lan said, immediately pointing it at Eggman's robot. "MegaMan logging in!"
Megaman appeared in the robot's mainframe. Sonic ran up beside him, panting slightly.
"It's about time you showed up," Sonic said. "Eggman keeps programing in more virus before I can shut down the robot."
"Then let's get to work," Megaman said. The two of them began fighting all the viruses, but more enimies just kept coming. "Sonic you need to leave! You've been in here too long."
"Not a chance. I never back away from a battle!"
"But Sonic! I'm here to help you!"
"We're doing just fine."
"But we've been mostly fighting seperatly. If we're going to win this, we need to truly work together!"
Sonic slowed, looking at MegaMan who had his hand stretched out to him. Glancing briefly at the swarm of viruses, Sonic nodded.
"Alright, Together," Sonic agreed, clasping MegaMan's hand. As soon as their hands touched, a light began to grow between them.
"What's going on?" Sonic said in surprise, but was unable to let go. Him and MegaMan began to merge
"Impossible," Lan said stunned as he watched the readings. "It's Double Soul."
When the light faded, MegaMan stood. His helmet gained Sonic's spikes and his boots turned red. He had glowing green stripes and accents. With a smirk, MegaMan zoomed forward, easily blasting through the virus and tearing apart the mainframe. The robot began to spark wildly and Eggman had to abandon it and escape. With the job finished, MegaMan and Sonic separated and they both left the robot's main frame.
"I never want to do that again," Sonic mumbled as he appeared next to Lan and Tails. "That was the weirdest thing ever. I was me, but I wasn't. Ugh, my head hurts."
"Well you don't have to worry about that," Lan said holding up his new battle chip. "I can use this whenever I want now. I'm just surprised we could do double soul in the first place."
"We'll figure that out later," Sonic said straitening up. "Let's get out of here, it won't be long before reporters come looking for us."
The others agree and they left to return to the lab.
