After we got done destroying the remaining badniks- still shut down- and we got back to the plane, an hour long wait awaited us. Still. It would be spent inside the confines of the cockpit, canopy once again provided by Cindy. Knuckles wasn't a fan of the squeeze, but it was better than catching cold right before we went on our mission.

Still, the wait was not empty.

On her side of the seat, Amy pondered to herself in boredom while thrumming her fingers along the glass. She couldn't do anything with her legs to get comfortable, because of the shared seat.

As for Knuckles, he just sat there with an awkward stare on his face, kinda huddled up to himself. I don't believe he was even thinking about anything but that word. Awkward.

Finally, I was deep in thought, staring at the fuel bar as it twitched ever so slightly in the direction of the F, already back out of the red. I couldn't stop thinking about Metal Legion this, plan that, what we might see, etc. It was monotony at it's finest with barely any let up...

After about ten straight minutes, Knuckles finally broke the silence, having seemed to snap out of that mile-long stare of his. He looked at the back of my seat. A nod from his head later, he spoke up. "Since we have time to wait around, don't you think we should talk about what we know? Y'know... Compile facts?"

It was jarring to me to hear Knuckles talk SENSE, but he was right. Still, it made me blink a little in confusion. I turned around and stared at him through purely awestruck surprise.

He squinted and raised his brows. "What...?"

Even Amy was similarly surprised, to his annoyance. "What?!"

The pink hedgehog cut me off with the same thing I was gonna say. "How did THAT come from YOU?"

I could almost see the fumes leaving the echidna's annoyed head. Crossing his arms with an irritated "pff", he changed the subject. "Yeah yeah, whatever. Look. We need to discuss the big elephant of a problem here. Roboticizations have returned and it's pretty obvious how. Someone either found a machine that wasn't broken or built a new one. That or there is some other way to do it, now."

After recovering from the initial shock of a healthy thought process from Knuckles, I climbed up atop my chair and leaned myself over it. "Yeah, I've been wondering about that for a while now. The roboticization machines weren't many, but they were cleverly hidden. It's possible we missed some. Two months isn't nearly long enough to scour the globe. Maybe key locations, but we don't know about every base Eggman has ever had. just the big ones." Leaning my head on a hand for support, I looked off above us at the slowly darkening sky. The sun was setting, making the sky look half orange and gradually darker blue. "Thing is, though, that there is a problem with that line of thinking, too. Because we haven't seen roboticized citizens of any kind for a while."

"It's possible they were all cured, but it's also very possible that we missed some and they just hid from us until now. And then, we don't know what happened to Wily or any of Eggman's other allies. Heck, we don't even know what happened to Eggman. It's reasonable to believe that Wily ended up the same way or in the same place as Eggman and Sonic, but any number of things are possible."

With that, Amy nodded. "But enough about that," she said. With a serious and concerned look on her face, she changed the subject. "We need to talk about how the badniks we just fought didn't have any animals inside of them. Every single one was empty!"

With that, our red echidna squinted before he nodded with a hum. "Yeah... I noticed that, actually."

Having looked back down at them with a genuinely surprised stare, I sweat. "...Th-they were... empty?" I felt the side of my head with a hand, wiping the sweat away. Not only did that just occur to me, but I never even realized. How had I not noticed?

The pink hedgehog stared at me with a confused look on her face. "Wait, you never realized?" Hesitation stalled me for a moment, but I did nod. She seemed a little concerned by that. "But weren't you fighting them, too? How did you never notice?"

I didn't have an answer for that... It made me feel oblivious and stupid, but it never occurred to me. I never even thought to make sure the animals were released after I took an enemy down. Shaking my head a bit, I then clear my throat and focused on Amy. "A-anyway... That must mean that they had a different power source. One that can serve just as well for them as animal batteries..."

Holding my chin, I thought aloud, deep in thought. "Does that mean that they use a new power source or the old one? It's definitely possible to power any of them with First Generation Robotnik Batteries. And if you ask me, that was a more efficient battery than the Animal Batteries ever were. But then, why go back to that all of the sudden? Could have been something else. I never bothered to look is the problem."

With an annoyed frown, I leaned my chin in my arms. "That's annoying, but it means that someone is definitely responsible for making a new series of Badnik out of old concepts."

Amy blinked at my one-sided conversation with myself, then asked, "Should we go back?"

"Huh?" I looked at her with a momentary stare, then oh'd and smiled a little. "Naw, there's no need. We already know all that would have been useful. A new power source just means that we can go to town on badniks as hard as we want, because there aren't any living creatures inside."

Both of my friends nodded at that.

With that subject ended, there was the final subject that came into my mind. With a troubled expression on my face, I felt the back of my neck with a hand and spoke. "Now... There's the fact that we now know there's a new enemy out there. One that thinks Roboticization is justified and ideal for all life. The Metal Legion..."

Upon broaching the subject, both fighters' eyes focused upon me.

"It racks my brain to think that anyone could believe being a robot is some greater life. But it gives me a headache thinking that these same people are so convinced of this that they would force it upon someone else. That, along with an enemy that's hijacked a large portion of badniks, is enough to class as a major threat. And now, that same enemy has enslaved nearly every mobian native to this island!" Holding my head, I glared at the floor and my friends' feet. "I mean, what did Sonic fight for?! These people are doing their best to ruin whatever success we had! It makes me so angry!"

"Tails, calm down," Knuckles told me. I looked up to face the echidna, who seemed calm and collected. "It's not gonna last. We're here and we're gonna make sure of that, right?"

I just stared at him for a moment. "He's quite right, Master," Cindy spoke up. I turned around to look at her. She smiling a bit, despite what she knew about our situation. "We are two of the greatest minds in the Freedom Fighters, if I may claim to be one myself even though I AM an A.I., and two of the strongest fighters the world has ever seen. Though we are indeed only four, we've personally seen how much we can do. Lady Amy and Sir Knuckles destroyed approximately two dozen badniks on their own and Amy defeated a being known as a leader of sorts within this Metal Legion. They would have routed the enemy in it's entirety unassisted, had this Coal not intervened and taken hostages. Not only that, but we dealt with our fair share of the enemy's drones and your flying skills seem to be steadily improving."

With a nod, she went on to claim, "We may not be the most specialized, but the tasks we do cover are, in no small way, well taken care of."

As much sense as Cindy was making, there was a flaw in her logic when my plan came in. I nodded, either way, then followed up with what I had to say as I relaxed. "Good points, but let's not get ahead of ourselves. I never said that my plan was one about fighting our way through. That's just asking for trouble."

Everyone seemed taken off guard a bit by this, exchanging confused glances, the A.I. included. She returned her blank gaze to me before she asked, "Then, you plan an infiltration?"

I nodded before smacking my fist into my other hand. "Exactly. If it wasn't for the fact that there could be tons of mobians that are roboticized and brainwashed, I'd be okay with going in all guns blazing, but we aren't dealing with just any enemy force. I fully expect a large sum of who we see to be roboticized victims. We can't go in expecting we can just destroy them. After they're destroyed, that's it."

"Yeah," Amy agreed with a nod. "There's no way I'd wanna fight them anyway." With a frown, she grew quiet. "I mean... It didn't... feel good to... *mumble*"

I stared at her with a confused look on my face, tilting my head. Likewise did Knuckles raise his brow at her. "Come again?"

She looked at the both of us with a pause... Then she groaned as she curled up on the seat, arms around her legs and face buried in both. Her position made Knuckles complain as he squirmed around a bit. "I said that it didn't feel good to kill that guy..." And of course her words were muffled.

My eyes squinted as I leaned in on her and turned my head, flicking my ear. "One more time."

"Oh, for the love of," she muffled. Snapping her head up from her curled up limbs, she yelled, "I SAID, it didn't feel good killing that guy!"

I immediately flinched back and massaged my now ringing ear, whining. "Ow..."

The hedgehog frowned before her face went right back to hiding in her arms and legs. "Sorry..."

Getting done rubbing my ear, I propped myself up on my elbows and spoke. "Amy, I know you don't like the concept of taking life, but in that situation, it was either him or most of Chase's family, including Chase himself. You had to."

She pulled her face up and shook her head. "Are you kidding me? Cindy was the one that saved them. If it weren't for her, I would have gotten them killed because I hesitated too long... I didn't save ANYONE..."

"Oh hogwash!"

She raised her head up, blinking through her frown as she asked, "Cindy?"

I turned to look over at a disapproving Cindy's face. "I couldn't have done any of what I had alone! If it were not for you, Lady Amy, my efforts would have been for naught!"

Her expression soften through a slight frown. "I can't imagine I would have been quick enough to shut the drones down, had you not been occupying them at the very least through your fight. Also, the bear could have easily turned them right back on after I shut them down, had you not... dispatched him..."

She smiled passed me and my seat at Amy, though she actually couldn't see her with her current position in the dash. "You were invaluable to my task and, indeed, I could hardly have done it without your help! You were invaluable to saving their lives!"

Furrowing her brows as she came back to that part of the subject, she continued to smile, despite how she understood the situation. "And... I am fully aware you detest killing... Though, it is very good that you feel as you do about it. The concept of taking life seems dirty enough as it is without some deranged fool getting pleasure from it all... I know this does not change how you feel now, having done it... but I hope my words at least have granted you even slight solace..."

Amy took a moment to herself, despite all eyes being on her... Eventually, she uncurled herself and let a small smile curve her mouth, sighing... "I... Thank you, Cindy. Really... Sometimes, it's hard to believe that you are what you are... but I guess I could say that about Nicole, too... You're a great friend, Cin..."

"Cin...?" The A.I. blinked a few times as she repeated that nickname to herself... With a chuckle, she shook her head. "Umm... Sorry, but let's not go with that nickname~. It seems a bit... edgy? Cin? Sin? No thank you~."

Amy made a slight pout with her lips. "Dangit."

I could help but smile at it all, shaking my head. "These guys," I whispered under a sigh.

For the remainder of the hour, we went over possible strategies we'd need to use, much to Knuckles's reluctance to pay attention. I had to hammer a few into his thick head just to make them stick. Some were important.

After that, we started up the plane's engine as Cindy materialized a wire-frame hand and spun up the propeller. Slipping my goggles on for personal comfort, I began to run the plane through the rough run-way that was the snow. Seeing that we couldn't gain much speed, I deployed the forward water landing gear so that it flattened the snow even just a little bit so that passing over it was smoother. That did the trick as the plane picked up speed and began to lift from the ground. I pulled up and away, taking to the air and pulling us up into the sky soon after!

Soaring through the air, we were easily able to clear the mountain range within a few minutes. I looked at Cindy as she displayed the radar again... It was to the right of us. A huge concentration of nearly solid red. No green was visible, but we were on the wrong side for any to appear. It was just that big of an area. When I first glanced to my right, I had to squint as light blinded me... but I couldn't have been looking at the sun. I didn't know why, but there was a great, shimmering wall of some kind in the mountains blinding me a bit. It appeared to be reflecting sunlight. "What- ugh... wha- ...!" My eyes grew wide when we were at a different angle where the glare died... "W-what in the world...?!"

I was horrified and neither Knuckles nor Amy understood why, looking at me as they somewhat stood up. They looked at each other, but this meant that Amy saw it next, much to her jaw-dropped, gasping shock, pointing passed Knuckles.

He whirled around immediately, then just as quickly gasped and leaned in on the window. "Wh-what?! How did they build that?!"

It bore a structural resemblance to a place from my deepest darkest memories, yet it wasn't the one. Robotnik Citadel... The dark, metal structure and chromed finish were what gave me the vivid recall, but the structure itself was vastly different. Far bigger and nearly taking up a fifth of the entire mountain range. Speaking of, the massive castle was mounted directly TO the mountain range by it's side and underbelly, the tallest of many towers sitting on the mountain-hugged wall. It almost looked like a tower "grew" wherever the mind could imagine, due to it's bizarre design. On side of the surrounding walls itself, too. That meant that every side was covered and watched. It was almost inconceivable to approach the place by land, unless you climbed it's very walls, which had to reach at least two hundred feet up, because there was no level enough ground at the foot. In the center of the walls, the main body was almost obscured. You could definitely see a sort of city within. Below that aforementioned tallest tower was a large, vast, governmental-type building that took inspirations from Greek designs.

The place was not only imposing in size. There were tons of badniks and/or roboticized mobians patrolling the structure and the sky above it in patrol cars and other hovercrafts specialized with laser turrets. If it weren't for our distance, this may well have turned into a battle we didn't want to fight...

I just stared at the castle for the longest time, very unnerved by the simple fact that it was no trick of the light or even my imagination. My sight began to take on tunnel vision and I felt myself sweat. The memories were flooding in without want nor desire. It was like someone pulled the entire drawer of a filing cabinet out and letting every last file come spilling out. You don't want to see everything, but you don't have a choice if you want to keep it all organized...

The screaming, the bodies of friends or acquaintances being transformed into metal-made parts with entirely different minds from whom they used to be, Uncle Chuck before we de-roboticized him and yes... even Robotnik's grinning, towering figure... More and more of our terrible past was rushing through my mind... I began to have hot flashes as nerve after nerve inflamed...

... I don't directly remember what happened next, but you can guess... I passed out. Cindy ended up having to make an emergency landing. It happened to be upon a small plateau just large enough to land and take off from.

When I came back around, I cracked my eyes open with a near silent moan... before I remembered where I was and what I was previously doing with a gasp! Sitting up from my slump in my seat, I looked around the plane in a panic, taking a hasty hold of the stick... but... I quickly realized we had not been in the air. Not only that, but upon looking around and starting to calm down, I realized the plane was empty, aside from Cindy, who was looking at me in smiling relief.

She sighed and said, "Finally, you've awoken..."

I sat there with this furrow in my brows and a confused frown. "W-what...? What happened?" Looking behind me at the empty seat, I once again confirmed it was empty and asked, "Where are Amy and Knuckles?"

"You passed out soon after you saw the enemy stronghold." I turned back around, still standing in my seat unconsciously. She wore a frown with her "head" lowered a bit. "Amy is just outside the plane acting as guard, though Knuckles is patrolling the perimeter to make certain we do not get ambushed."

And yet again, I felt more a burden than a help... I frowned and bowed my head, sighing as I held my face. "What is WRONG with me? I feel so pathetic. Fainting just because I saw something vaguely similar..."

The A.I. blinked into a neutral expression. "I beg pardon? Similar to what, Master?"

I faced her with a discomforted grimace, but immediately went back to frowning when I recalled it. That place... "Robotnik's Citadel. Castle Acorns after he had his way with it... The way the castle was designed looked every bit like his handy work... Which means there's a real chance that he's responsible for what we just found..." Looking off to the side, I just shook my head. "But that I fainted from just seeing that... I just can't believe how bad I've gotten... I need to be mentally stronger than this for myself and the others. If I keep letting stuff like this happen, then I might as well have stayed home..."

"Oh Master..."

I took a deep breath and shut my eyes for a moment... then breathed it out. Re-opening my lids, I smiled a little. "It's okay. I'm okay. I just need to get stronger."

She nodded with a reluctant smiled. "Understandable. Though, as I've stated many times in many forms, don't be so harsh upon yourself, Miles."

I nodded. "Wanna drop the canopy? We should let Amy know I'm okay."

With a returned nod, she let the canopy flash and disintegrate into particles of blue. Amy, who was out on the left side of the parked plane and standing in the snow with hammer in hands, whipped around in surprise to hum at the plane curiously. She smiled when she saw me stood up on the seat, taking Cindy out of the dash and slipping her into her sling. "Tails!"

I hopped out into the snow next to her with a short spin of my tails to slow my descent, then smiled up at her while slipping my hood on. "Good..." I quickly looked up at the sky to make sure of the time of day. It was basically night and the stars had come out. Looking back to her with a sheepish grin, I tried again. "Uuuh, goodnight, Amy! Sorry about fainting like that."

She shook her head with a sigh, brows furrowed as she planted her hammer to the ground and leaned. "Next time, I'm gonna wake you up with this baby. No more sleeping at the stick. You had us worried."

With a nod, my next act was to look around for our knuckle-headed echidna... and of course see him nowhere within my line of sight. "Think Knucklehead will be back soon?"

"He's back now, fox-brain,"came his voice as I immediately stiffened up.

The red echidna flipped over the plane from the other side and landed down in front of the two of us. Turning and looking at us with a stern stare, he folded his arms, as per usual lately. "We've been pretty clear so far, considering we're just a few mountains away from a big bad's doorstep."

"It was that, or we'd be turning back to land about where we'd come from," Cindy admonished. "Besides, this is also a great place to be, if you recall the favorable location we sit atop."

At that, he nodded once again. "Fair enough." He pointed behind himself, meaning for us to follow as he turned and began to walk to the edge of the plateau's descent.

With a curious look on my face, I followed close behind with Amy heading up the rear.

When we got there, He pointed down the ridge, causing me to looked down and take notice of this slim, flat trail running the middle of the mountain all the way across several others to the Castle in the distance. The sound of an engine down below made me look right back below me and take notice of a large convoy of sorts hovering the path. It was accompanied by several others of it's kind, all with enclosed trailers... I was already getting the picture, but Knuckles flat out said it. "That trail leads from a mining zone all the way back to that castle. That means we can definitely get in from the ground."

I continued his though with a determined glare. "Stow away on one of those trucks without being detected and make our way into the place from there. Pretty straight forward, but we're not exactly invisible after we make it in. Even if we get into a trailer without being seen, we still need a way of making sure nothing else inside catches us."

Amy sighed and shook her head with an annoyed glare on her face. The whole situation was a headache. "And just how are we supposed to do that?"

"I hate to keep resorting to the same thing but," I pat Cindy's sling, looking at the pink hedgehog. "Our enemy is still a machine. They have programs and coding flags to tell them what to attack. interfere with that and they can't do a thing. And we're gonna need to rely on that if we want to do this without hurting any mobians."

"I hear a lot of "avoid hurting roboticized mobians"..." We both looked at Knuckles, who looked skeptical with the squint of his eyes. "... But exactly how do we turn them back into normal flesh and blood again, if we actually plan on it?"

And there was the question I couldn't possibly hold the exact answer to. I looked down and thought for one, holding my chin. "... I can't really say how we'll do that. It's gonna rely on what we learn while we're in the castle. They have to have a Roboticizer, but where it is and how well guarded, we can bank on it being somewhere close to their leader and under constant watch, lock and key. There's no way they'd leave that out in the open for us to use. And it's not the quietest piece of machinery ever. Really, I can't plan for anything like de-roboticization, Knuckles. We just don't have the means or time for that. All we can hope to do at the very most is free their latest captives..."

The reality seemed to hit the echidna and hedgehog pretty hard. Knuckles came to curse under his breath. Amy seemed to just frown and sigh, closing her eyes.

With a quick shake of his head, Knuckles threw a stern glare my way. "If that's all we can do, why did you tell Chase we'd save EVERYONE?" There was obvious anger laced throughout that question.

I frowned and looked away. "Think of me what you want for this..." Meeting his eyes with my own, I didn't attempt to butter this up. "... But I told him what he wanted to hear."

He growled in frustration and took a step toward me with a scowl on his face. "So you lied!" Swiping a hand through the air, he grunt before he began to shout at me. "We can't just leave it at that! You saw how many there are! If even half of those are mobians, we have to save them!"

"That's right, I did lie," I spat right back, much to his surprise. I shook my head with a glare, then threw his point right back at him. "So, Knuckles, exactly what amazing and miraculous idea did you have? You made the point that there are tons of robo-mobians that could be there waiting for us, but there are only four of us. Three, if you don't count the one of us that doesn't have a body. I've planned for getting everyone I can out of there. That means every non-roboticized mobian. It all hinges on contingencies, by the way, because there's no way I'll get every single one out after we just pop in, ask nicely and hope to god! Because guess what? The Metal Legion doesn't sound like they'll just give them up! So, you tell me." Folding my arms, I asked, "With what little we know and how few we are, can we really free all of the captives AND de-roboticize every robot mobian in that building, then get back out with every single one alive? Remember that we aren't just fighting badniks anymore and that they are all, more than likely, BRAINWASHED against wanting that."

With all of that, the Echidna became silent, despite his obvious irritated glare. He basically jolted a turn away from me, punching the air as he squeezed his eyes shut. "... I just want to save them all... I can't stand when we have to just do what we can when we might have been able to do so much more...!" He was talking about more than just this mission, I felt.

I shook my head, looking away with a frown. "I do too, Knuckles. It's not like I don't. I just have to be realistic, right now. And even getting every captive out alive is hopeful. If and when something changes so drastically that we can do something here, I will do everything to make it happen." Returning my gaze upon him, I finished. "But for now, there's only room for infiltration and freeing the non-roboticized civilians. Civilians is the key word, here. No way any of the fighters aren't roboticized. They were taken first."

After a moment of silence, he eventually turned back my way, but couldn't bring his eyes to look away from the ground, defeated. "... Fine... I get it. I won't argue further..." Finally looking me in the eye, the echidna's eyes firmed again with renewed resolve. "But remember your words. If we learn there's a way to free everyone, we need to do it."

Of course, I nodded in complete agreement. "Nothing crazy, though. We don't need another missing or gone friend."

The road below was busy with patrols of flying badniks/robo-mobians and the very convoys we were hoping to stow away onto. It appeared that they were more active as the day was ending, because as the night sky began to take hold, they only grew more frequent in trips and more numerous.

We managed to scale the wall of the mountain above their vision either by climbing as Knuckles always did or flight, courtesy of my own twin spinning tails.

Don't ask how carrying both Cindy and Amy felt after a solid ten minutes or so. Once I touched down on some cliff a few hundred feet up from the mine entrance, I nearly just fell into a heap with Amy, but she caught my body before I could. I smiled up at her thankfully, but my huffing and puffing for air was a bit heavy. "H-haff- I need to r-really hit the gym...!"

Knuckles arrived a minute later, climbing along side us before dropping off the wall and landing beside me. He wasn't even out of breath! He just stood there, surveying the security below. "Hmm... The entrance is swarmed with bots. There's no way we can get in directly. Soo..." He turned to the rock wall before raising his hands. In seconds, his aura collected and formed the familiar shape of shovel claws, but it still remains see-through green, even as it solidified.

Before I could pipe up and warn against the obvious, he began to drive his claws through the mountain wall with intense speed and strength, quickly forming the beginnings of a tunnel as he walked forward!

Both me and Amy were alert and walking behind him as debris flew out of our way and down the mountain! Hope and prayer alone were the only things that saved us from being spotted. Somehow, they neither heard nor saw our digging, at least for the time being.

Following Knuckles extremely closely, he broke through rock, stone, gravel and more as he tunneled down at an angle. It would take us quite a bit of time before that tunnel led us to the side of the cave's vicinity. about a half hour, but without Knuckles, it could have taken days or the time we were that far in, however, all of us were dirty with dust, mineral deposit and other such things.

Amy whined about it, constantly trying to dust her white dress off, but more grime kept getting on it from Knuckle's digging. "Can you just calm down a little, Knucklehead? My dress is gonna get ruined like this!"

To that, he simply shook his head and continued at the same pace, saying, "Should have wore something you wouldn't have regret getting ruined!"

The hedgehog only whined even more before stomping her foot. "Well, excuse me for looking fashionable! Ugh!" She threw her arms into a fold before turning away and standing there, nose in the air.

"Shh!" She jumped a little, as did I, when that sound came from Knuckles's lips and turned back to him.

He had stopped all of the sudden as the gravel started to settle... then held a hand up as he pressed the side of his head to the end of the tunnel.

Me and Amy looked at each other in silence and shrugged.

"Rats," Knuckles spat in a harsh whisper. He took his head off of the wall and began to dig to the left, carefully and less noisily scooping away at the minerals and ore. "We were right beside a few tin-cans. I'm gonna have to tunnel around them."

With a nod, I took out Cindy from her sleeve. "Me and Cindy will help you find a nice, empty spot." Looking down at her, I said, "Cindy, overhead radar, please."

"At once, master." And that was all the time she needed to pull up the radar displaying every enemy on the other side of the right wall beside us.

Though, I didn't really understand the presence of the few light-blue dots, cocking a brow. Five were aligned in a row of what seemed to be on the other side of us a few yards away. "Hey, Cindy? What are these other dots?"

"Convoys, Master Tails."

"You know what they are for sure," I asked with skepticism. "Does that mean you have an inside view of the cave itself?"

"Indeed! It appears that there are microbots in the area that the enemy has not even noticed, meaning that I should be able to give us a clear view of the inside, if you wish it."

I nodded and smirked. "Yes. Please, Cindy."

The screen flashed into a camera view of the inside of the cave. The scene was a bit dark, but it could be made up clearly enough. The cave was dank, brown for the most part, but lined with precious ores and multiple tunnels we'd yet to come into contact with while making our own. Lucky us. Sounds of crunching rock and falling debris were intense, as well. There was good sound cover. Navigating each of these tunnels and even digging new ones were a few dozen new-type badniks specifically made to drill and mine.

First type was essentially a drill with a large, smoothed, cylindrical body, skinny arms and tank treads for legs. Small red eyes on either side of it's drill. Large as the tunnels it dug... and yet, strangely cute. Not so much their bother unit...

They were these taller badniks with double pickaxe arms that spun at super speed and mined out minerals and metals like they were merely canned food on shelves. Tens of chunks of ore spilled out around them, meaning that they knew where to dig, exactly. They were tauric and their legs were arachnid. Similar eyes to the wider brother badniks mentioned before.

Cindy's screen flashed again to reveal a new scene. This one showed the convoys. They were surprisingly not well guarded for how overwhelming the castle forces were. I'd call it short-sighted, but maybe the enemy didn't think anyone would be fool enough to try and get in. Who could fight all of the robots inside, after all?

Regardless, the only guard there was a rather normal looking mole robo-mobian. And that was even more insult, to be honest. Moles had terrible eyesight. ... That was only upon first glance however. There were two other guarding robo-mobians that came walking up to the mole. A squirrel and a rather large walrus. The squirrel spoke and seemed to be a woman. "The next few boxes will be the last of this batch of trucks."

The mole nodded while feeling his claws together. "Mmmn- excellent. Prep the loaders, pronto! Oban's not very nice to poor workers and we don't want him thinking that's what WE are. Scrap metal isn't a good look for anybody, mmmh?"

"Hmm... Interesting," Cindy mused as the two other guards turned and walked off. "It appears that this implies that there is intense disciplinary action for failure. But that can wait. It would ALSO appear as though we haven't the time to lose, unless we wish to wait for the next convoy or so... but I believe that we have indeed found our entry point." The screen flashed again to another scene... where there was merely a barren wall that was being used like a junk corner. A lot of broken equipment and not one single robot on the spot, other than one junked Picker- what I decided to dub the tall pickaxe weilding badniks. "Mmh... Here, I'll shift the angle to make certain."

With that, the camera view turned around, showing that the work was a safe couple of yards away. With all of the noise that was going on in that cave and the ore-filled crates essentially lining our path, they it would be easy enough. And the entrance of the cave seemed to be on the left of that shot, meaning that we were close to the area. "It appears to be a godsend, Master." The screen flashed again and displayed the radar once more. A few feet ahead of us was a radiating, dark blue blip. It was a small ways away from the convoy, but also away from any red dots at the same time.

Nodding to her, I looked at Knuckles and walked over to him, weaker rock debris crushing under my feet along the tunnel floor. Careful not to get too close while the echidna was shoveling out more rock and ore with those ... chaos shovels? ... Chaos Shovels. I called out his name several times. "Knuckles! Knuckles! Quit digging, Knucklehead!"

Another strike flew for the weak tunnel wall, but stopped short of making contact as rocks and such began to settle around us. He turned around to look at me, blinking and tilting his head. "What?"

I showed him Cindy and the radar as he leaned in and squinted. "Dig us over to that dark blue blip. It's a perfect entry point, according to the microbot cameras outside."

At the mention of microbots, he just cocked his brow...

With an annoyed, dull glare, I groaned. "Just trust me, okay?"

With a shrug, the echidna let it go and attempted to orientate himself toward the blip. "Uh..." He made two 360's on the spot before looking down at Cindy. "Okay, in WHAT direction? I'm not all that good with uh... well, with radars."

She giggled a bit, but answered his question. "Turn to the front of the tunnel."

He did so with an awkward straightness to him as he held up his claws and just stared like a lost child.

"Now turn slightly to your left."

He began to turn, but as he did so, she said, "Stop." And he grunted, immediately freezing! "Perfect! The direction you're facing is the precise direction in which you should dig. I will alert you when you've dug enough, Sir Knuckles. Then, you will turn to your right and punch an entry hole..."

Clawing his way through the wall's inside, Knuckles was careful not to disturb it so much that it collapsed. And before too long, we'd reached our destination...

One shovel-clawed fist busted through the wall to the other side, then tore down, ripping rock and ore away to tumble to the ground! After a few precision punches more, the Red echidna crawled free of the hole and looked around, still low to the ground. Amy and I crawled out behind him, carefully scouting around ourselves. Miraculously, we seemed to be alright. No robot had noticed us and they were all still going about their business.

As Knuckles hugged down behind one of the nearby crates, Amy and I hid behind the busted mine cart. The red echidna turned to look at us, then back over at the bots, who were hard at work, breaking down walls and carving out their resources. Most of it was metal. The drillbots would sometimes come by the pickers. When they did, the drill in their head would pull up and expose a hole, then suck up the ore in a powerful vacuum, collecting it all within. "Looks like the Metal Legion is gathering materials for something. A lot of metals going to something, whatever it is."

I nodded my head as I watched all of this. It was so efficient that it was almost exciting... but I kept cool. This wasn't the time for taking note.

Looking away from all that, I turned my attention to the five assembled transports at the entrance of the cave. They were Eighteen Wheelers... but without the wheel part. Instead, they had strange thrusters of about the same number that appeared to be of a combustion type. They probably burned fossil fuels to use them. There was also one further difference. There was no use for a driver. The cab was entirely a machine merely shaped like the truck's cab. No inside to be had or needed, apparently. Automated. This seemed like yet another lucky break. It meant there was no need to worry about being discovered by the driver.

Away from all of that, I found that there were not enough crates lining our path toward the transports to use them for cover About half way there- in a dotted path, might I add- they ran out...

Looking down at Cindy, I nodded. "Are you sure you can do this?"

"Easily, master. Allow me a moment and be ready to err... book it? What a strange phrase. Oh well~. Now then..."

I poked my head up from cover and looked over at the mole, then around at the mining bots. Nothing happened for a long moment... Then, just as the mole was beginning to turn his head toward us, his body shuddered, eyes turning blue! The same thing happened to the bots and even the other robo-mobians! I watched in amazement as they all looked around and even right around at us a few times!

Knuckles and Amy began to take notice of this as well, blinking and looking a bit confused. Amy pipped up, looking at me with a cocked brow. "Didn't they just see us? They looked right at us and didn't even flinch."

And in response, I grinned and said, "Yeah. That's right. That's what Cindy just did," much to their intrigue.

As the mole settled down again, he left his spot, walking over to his friends as they began to discuss what just happened.

"We must move now, Master. I do not know how long their systems will take to reset from the reconfiguration."

I nodded. "R-"

"And please." I choked back the word forming in my throat, then froze. "Be as quiet as you possibly can. There is no way to keep them from hearing you. I can merely assure that they cannot "see" us."

... I nodded again in silence, sweat running the side of my face as I got up to expose myself before the others, much to their unease. Walking out of cover, I stood there and watched the talking robo-mobians. They didn't say anything that wasn't predictable for the situation, but it also seemed they didn't even notice their eyes were a different color... Maybe they couldn't. Robot visuals can be hard to get right.

Looking around at the mining bots, none of them even seemed to turn from their work.

None of them had noticed me standing there. With a smile on my face, I looked over to Knuckles and Amy and waved them on to follow. Then, we all quickly walked over to the transports. Lucky us. The three of the trailers were left wide open. The middle one being the emptiest, a few large crates full of materials sitting at the back in perfect orderly fashion. I carefully climbed my way inside, walking to the back as Amy followed me inside.

Knuckles lifted his hands and let his shovel claws disappear into embers... but that made an unwelcome, loud, resonating sound, much to his and our alarm!

The robot mole twitched at the sound and immediately whirled around, eyes frantically scanning the area as he shouted, "Who's there, mh?!"

I panicked and waved the echidna in as he carefully moved inside as naturally as he could, but the truck shivered a bit! I harshly whispered, "To the back!"

We all piled in atop the crates and their dirty contents as the bot approached with a scrutinizing squint. We did our best to lay as flat to the rocks, ores and such as we could, though anyone who wasn't a robot would obviously see pink, yellow and red when they looked at us, so this might have seemed a bit silly.

The mole stopped in front of our trailer and looked inside... but never really directly at us. Jumping up into the trailer, all three of us were on edge and ready for the worst... He walked up to the crates, looking down at them, then open their tops... Tilting his head, he cocked a brow. "... Must be the truck." He turned away from us and walked out of the trailer, but we still dared not let out sighs or breaths of any kind. "Gonna need to get the techies to look them over, mmmh. Glitchy hunks of junk. Nugh..." He jumped out as his friends came over.

"Anything weird," the squirrel woman asked.

"No, just the truck acting up. I thought for sure they were fixed, but the bugs are still there, I guess." He was heavily puzzled by the looks of things, but none the wiser. With the shake of his head, he shrugged and turned to the walrus. "Get Ratchet to look into them when we get back, Helmer, mmmh."

"Gotcha boss!" The walrus saluted in an entirely new way to me. He slammed his balled fist to the opposite shoulder and stood at attention. This probably wouldn't be useful to us, but it may be a good way of indicating our enemy for the future.

"Indeed... Metals! Pick up the slack! We're behind schedule, mmmh!"

They all seemed to walk away, leaving us with nothing but the noise of digging and grinding in the distance.

... We sighed after a while, resting there against the hard ore beneath us. They were not comfortable in the least, but they were more comfortable than a moment ago with the added pins and needles, if you catch my drift.

Amy looked over to me and asked, "Well, my dress is gonna need some soaking, but that's beside everything else. What now?"

Sitting up, I looked over to her. "We wait. That's all we can do. Patience, silence and level heads are what this all rides on, now. They'll eventually take us right where we need to be, then, we follow the energy signatures of our fellow mobians to wherever their being held and free them all."

Knuckles groaned a bit, turning over onto his back to lay there, a leg atop the other and hands behind his head. The rocks must not have bothered him much at all. "I hate all of this waiting...! But I can't think of another way, so I'm stuck with this plan of your's..."

Shrugging at that, I put Cindy in my lap and asked, "Still pushing out the signal to HQ?"

"Without fail, Master. I've even took the liberty of making certain our last known location will be broadcast to our friends should this signal be cut off. Jamming and the like are certain to be a factor. I am also providing feedback of all we see to make certain comrades will not be stumbling in the dark. However, there is something that troubles me..."

I tilted my head at that. "And what's that?"

"The enemy is apparently willing to destroy their own men. When I think of the things Lady Amy has told us about this Coal, there is no sense to this. Why would a man such as himself make that out to be a heavenly fate? He was obviously delusional, if he truly believed that. With that said, he must b-"

"Guys, shh," Amy alerted us as I snapped up from Cindy to look at her! She was glaring passed me with a hand pointing out of the trailer. I turned to see pickers hauling crates back toward the transports in three perfectly uniform lines. Their spider legs worked so efficiently and quickly. These were different from their working friends. They had actual arms instead of those spinning pick-axes.

-Taka-taka-taka-taka-taka-taka!-

Multiply that by ten and overlap them, then you might have something close to what it sounded like to hear those picky, skinny legs of theirs stepping along the ground.

As the first in line to our trailer got mere inches away from the entry way, it lifted it's crate into the bed and pushed it further inside. It's arms stretched as it did this, allowing it to push the crate as far back into my own as it could, not even having to strain in order to do that! Yet still, it did not see us...

The robot turned itself to the side, but only it's body. It legs remained stationary. Then, it walked out of line and away from the trailer with another of it's kind following close behind. The next guy in line stepped forward and did exactly as the one before it had., pushing it's crate inside and stepping out of line, but in the opposite direction. One other followed close behind like last time.

This process continued on and on while we kept painfully silent and still. I could feel my heart hammering in my chest. I know they couldn't see us, being that their eyes were still blue, but it was still not a comfortable place to be.

After the very last of them were gone, the three robo-mobians walked up to the trails. The mole took hold of a door in each hand, then forced the squeaky things shut with a -Tsom!-, leaving us with our only light being from Cindy's screen! Outside, we could clearly hear K-chunks and other metal squeaks. By the time that was done, the doors were given a light shake of some kind and that pretty much ended what must have been the locking of the doors. Now, we were thoroughly locked into this course of action. "Mmh! Alright, that's more like it! Are the other two secure, mmmh?"

"Yup!" The female voice of the squirrel.

"Locked tighter than a frozen jail cell, boss!" The male voice of the walrus.

"No need for such enthusiasm, Helmer. It's just a lock, mmmh?"

"Err... Sorry, boss. But I can't lie. This is kinda fun to me!"

"You would think mining is fun~. Weren't you a miner when they converted you?"

The walrus started to say something, but the mole shut him down quickly. "Enough already! We are late. So very late, mmmh?! Do you like the idea of being part of the product? I think not, mmmn! Now. Mocha, if you don't mind. Make us even for the day."

"Ah. Right..."

There was silence directly after that. We all exchanged glances between each other, but immediately after that, A roaring engine's -VRUUUHM!- made us gasp aloud, eyes wide! I felt like my heart stop for a split second there before I felt myself breathe again.

The mole was saying something outside, but the engine was totally blocking him out for me! And then, we shuddered in place, before the engine grew louder! The boxes beneath and around us shifted, much like ourselves and the rest of the trailer and I felt like we rose from the ground a bit! Then came the constant feeling of increasing movement speed that obviously signaled the fact that we were on our way.

I could no longer hear the mole even in the slightest, meaning we'd left the cave... or the sound around us had deafened me.

It would be some time before the trucks would reach their destination and from then on, we'd need to be even more careful.

I looked between my friends once more, then spoke as loudly as I could so they could hear me. "If we get discovered from this point on, we're toast! Make sure that you don't press your luck around anyone!"

Cindy chimed in as well, having raised her voice volume, yet spoken as if she weren't straining. "And due to the test of my ability to "blind" our enemies to our presence, I now understand how long it can last. Two minutes all all we get from this action and it takes a substantial amount of battery. This has cost my battery to lose approximately five-point-twenty-seven percent of my stores. I am currently down to ninety-four-point-seventy-three percent. Said battery renews with solar energy, however it takes time. A minute for every singular percent. We cannot abuse this ability, as it would only alot us approximately one-hundred and twenty minutes at best, which is hopeful, due to the need of sunlight in order to charge."

With all of that said, it was understandable for me to be sweating and nervous about this whole thing. Everything was a gamble. And it looks like our "invisibility" option would be one as well. I swallowed dryly, but over all of the noise from the truck, who would hear such a soft sound? "Right," I spoke too softly for anyone to hear.

Knuckles turned to me with a seriousness. "So, what's the plan, then?!"

The plan? At this point, there was hardly what you would call a plan. I couldn't say that, though. I took a deep breath, drawing in the raw smell of dirt, rock and freshly excavated metals. It wasn't the worst smell to me in particular, being who I was... if that makes sense. Exhaling it back out, I was able to think a little bit more clearly, strangely enough. "The plan hasn't changed! Intel is both secondary and vital to the success of this mission! And to gather it, we need to remain undetected! This just means that we can't rely on Cindy for it!"

Amy squinted at that, seeming nervous. "But what if literally every inch of the place is swarming with guards?!"

To that, there was only one answer, which was not a nice one to think about. Dipping my head low, I momentarily paused... then looked at her with a grave seriousness to my face. "Then we'll have less than two hours to get in, gather intel, plan accordingly to what we find out and free the prisoners! No two ways around that!"

She frowned at that answer, but seemed to understand. Looking away and down at the rocky materials she was essentially laid atop, she spoke. "Well... here's hoping we can actually do this right!" The hedgehog brought her hands to grip each other and seemed to pray for success, but I couldn't hear what she was saying at that point. It was all just whispers.

I sat there with a nervousness in my chest as I looked away and at the doors of the trailer, letting the shivering, clunking sounds of the full crates fill my ears.

As the truck hovered noisily down the mountain road, it brought us ever closer to the castle, robots still swarming the place from on high and down low. Just a few more minutes and we'd be in over our necks with the Metal Legion...

Part 1/3 - To be continued...

Okay... So, I planned to release this and the next two chapters together... Obviously, that's not gonna happen.

I'm just burnt out, honestly. I came so close to finishing it up to be that way, but I'm just not satisfied with what I have in the next chapters. It came out a bit hasty and unrealistic. I want to redo them, but like I said. I'm burnt out of Sonic. I struggled way more than I should have getting to a point in which I felt comfortable with this one chapter.

I'm going to take this time to go into Hiatus and clear my mind. Hopefully, not for as long as it took to get this out.

There is more to this than what I'm saying, but I feel it shouldn't be brought up here, of all places. Look up Net Neutrality, if you really must, but take my word for it. You won't like the recent news about it.

I feel dirty for even looking at it, so I'm just gonna shut up about it.

I'll get myself out of this funk before too long, but I need to just get away from all of this, right now. It's almost Christmas and I want to find some way to make it better. This ain't gonna ruin my favorite holiday.

See ya~.