Brave soldier boy, comes marching home…

Disclaimer: I do not own Sonic the hedgehog or other relating characters.

Chapter Fourteen: Blueprints

"What ya' got there, Blue?" Scourge asked as he watched Sonic mess around with something on his wrist.

"It's from Egghead. A smart watch…I guess?" Sonic still wasn't sure what it really was. He was trying to mess around with it, searching for a settings option on the screen. "It's nice and all, but I'm trying to figure out how to take it off."

"Just pull it off."

"It's a little more difficult than that." He had been trying for a good twenty minutes before giving up.

"Step aside." Scourge rolled up his jacket sleeves. "You need some real muscles to do this."

"Right." Sonic rolled his eyes, but allowed Scourge to have a try.

Scourge tried his best to pull the cuff apart at the metal crease to no avail. Too stubborn to admit when he was beat, the green hedgehog forcefully continued.

It was then when Shadow entered the lounge. He immediately caught sight of Scourge attempting to remove the device.

A sudden whiplash of air struck Sonic as he suddenly found himself standing alone. He looked to the end of the room to see Shadow pinning Scourge to the wall. "Shadow!" He sped to the black and red hedgehog's side, grabbing his arm and pulling him away from Scourge. "What are you doing?!"

"Yeah, what gives, Stripes?" Scourge rubbed his head where Shadow had slammed him into the metallic walls.

Shadow just growled in frustration, knowing full well he could not tell Sonic what was on his wrist lest he risk either him or Scourge attempting some botched method at disarming it.

"Shadow," Sonic grabbed his arm, forcing the black and red hedgehog to look at him. "What's gotten into you lately? Are you okay?"

"I'm fine!" Shadow pulled his arm out of Sonic's grasp. Turning around, he shouted "Don't mess with that thing, Sonic! That goes for you too, Scourge!" He added as he left.

Rouge glanced upwards from her book as Shadow entered the library, visibly upset. Choosing not to acknowledge the obvious, she returned her attention to her book. Even she needed her down time.

Shadow began pacing back and forth through the library, trying to find a way out of his current predicament.

Though she tried her best to stay focused, Rouge gave a defeated sigh. Shadow would stick around until he had her attention. "No, I wasn't doing anything," She said in a sweet yet sarcastic manner, "Come on in, let me get you some tea."

"The Doctor has put a huge dent in our plans. Not only can I not get Sonic out of here, G.U.N. will no longer be helping us."

Rouge set her book down and dropped all traces of humor from her tone. "Why won't G.U.N. help us?" They had been providing support and resources for them the whole time she was up on the ARK. Why would the suddenly stop now? And for what reason?

Right. Rouge probably had no idea of what he had done that morning. "I may or may not have…destroyed the place."

"Destroyed? What do you mean destroyed?"

"I mean I rigged every room in the headquarters with C4 and blew the place off the map. The whole building is gone!"

Rouge gasped in shock. "And everyone…inside?" She knew Shadow, he would never do take innocent lives. Would he?

"I personally made sure no one was inside, but that's not the problem. The problem is that Eggman has strapped a bomb to Sonic. A bomb that's set to go off if he leaves the ARK or tries to dismantle it."

"Alright, alright. Let's relax, we can figure this out; we're just going to need some time."

"No!" Shadow shouted suddenly. "We don't have any more time. I can't risk Sonic's life! I can't be alone! Not again…" He sat down beside Rouge on the library couch and began rubbing his temples. "We're going to have to speed things up."

"We don't even know what Eggman's plans are to speed them up."

"Then we're going to have to find out. Next time the good Doctor steps out, we'll raid his workshop and try to find out what he's been doing up here all this time. We'll search for blue prints, files, clues, anything that will give us some of idea of what he had planned or any way of getting that…thing off Sonic."

Shadow slammed his fist on the metallic doors in frustration. "Why won't they open!? We've always been able to get in before!"

"Can you really blame him?" Rouge asked. "It's not too surprising that you would try to break in. The man is a genius; it's going to take a little more than just some snooping around to foil his plans."

"Then why don't you throw a whole wrench into them?"

Rouge and Shadow turned around to see Scourge standing a bit down the hall with some rolled up papers, clearly blueprints, in his hand.

"Scourge?" Rouge was surprised. It wasn't like Scourge to be of any help to them, especially if they were trying to save the world. Why would he go out of his way to get the blueprints?

"Oh come on, don't look at me like that!" He was actually doing something nice for once, couldn't they just be grateful? "You know I hate Fatso as much as the next guy."

Shadow and Rouge still stared in disbelief, not sure if Scourge was pulling their legs.

"You want these or not?" Scourge asked angrily. So much for trying to help.

Shadow suddenly appeared alongside Scourge, pulling the rolled up papers out of his hands. "Yes, we want these!" Not wasting any time, he unrolled the papers on the floor.

Rouge and Scourge kneeled down beside Shadow, observing the plans.

Rouge felt a sense of dread as she recognized the device on the papers. "I know what this is. This is…a roboticizer."

"So he wants to turn everyone on the planet into robots?" Though he had never seen one in his life, Shadow did recall hearing about this type of machine from Sonic. According to his brother, it was what Eggman was doing to everyone back in his early days of attempting to take over Mobius.

"It all makes sense now. The emeralds, the generators, the fact that he picked the ARK to orchestrate it all. It makes perfect sense." The ARK already had a massive energy bean pointed at earth, all it would take was some tweaking to get it shoot a roboticizer ray instead of the death ray Gerald had programmed it for. The second generator would provide more energy or prevent an overload depending on what was needed.

"Where is Eggman now?" Shadow asked Scourge. "What is he doing?"

"He told me he's going to initiate 'phase three' of his plans. Said he needed to destroy some satellites or something, he took a bunch of robots with him."

"The G.U.N. satellites. With the headquarters gone and a virus running amok in the national database, it'll be too difficult for the government to put up a decent military resistance against Eggman's attack." Shadow wondered why Eggman had gone to take care of the task himself rather than have him finish it himself.

"With G.U.N. in shambles, he's got the whole world in the palm of his hands. Are we going to stop him?" Rouge asked Shadow, unsure of how much of a risk he was willing to take with Sonic's life on the line.

"With everything in place, I highly doubt the Doctor will be needing us any longer. We're," Shadow took ahold of Rouge's wrist, "Going to earth to stop Eggman. That man's ego is way too big to pull off a scheme like this without gloating to the entire planet. We still have time to stop him. You," He jabbed Scourge sharply in the chest, "Are going to stay up here and not do anything stupid!"

Scourge pulled the chaos emeralds out of the heart of the ARK, a frown plastered across his face. "Don't do anything stupid, Scourge." He spoke in a high-pitched mocking voice to himself. "We're just going to ignore you, Scourge." He removed another emerald from the engine. "Don't do anything that could be of help, Scourge. We want to hog all the glory for ourselves!"

Once all the emeralds were out, Scourge turned his attention to the other devices and machines in the workshop. He didn't know what they were for, but it couldn't be anything good.

Doing what he did best, the green hedgehog curled up into a ball and began bouncing around the room, destroying everything in sight.

He stopped once all the loose machines were in pieces on the floor. Not wanting to risk bringing the ARK crashing to the planet, he avoided anything that looked like it might have been part of the life support system or anti-gravity system. Satisfied, he pulled one of the six emeralds out of his jacket. "Chaos control!"

Tails held the table leg in place as he rotated the screws on the base, securing it in place. It would be nice to finally have a table to eat from instead of taking all his meals standing or on the ground.

With the last leg on, he flipped the table right-side up.

His celebration was short-lived as a blinding flash of light suddenly announced the arrival of a guest. As soon as Tails laid eyes on the green hedgehog, he dropped everything, scooting backwards in absolute terror. "Wh-what do you want?" He asked, stuttering from nerves. He grabbed the nearest tool, a wrench, and held it up as a weapon.

"Relax, Squirt. I'm not here to hurt you."

Not believing a word he said, Tails swallowed his fear and stood up, charging for Scourge as he swung the wrench around.

Scourge side-stepped the attack easily as Tails came around again, still swinging the wrench. "Come on, Kid, I'm being serious!"

"You really think I'm going to believe anything you say?" Tails shouted back. Scourge must have been delusional to think he would welcome him back into the workshop he spent months rebuilding thanks to said hedgehog. "I'm young, not stupid!"

"Come on, don't be like that." Scourge genuinely pleaded. To be fair, he could understand Tails' reluctance. Waiting until Tails was close enough; he reached out and grabbed both of the kit's arms, wrestling the wrench out of his grasp.

In a moment of pure adrenaline and desperation, Tails leaned over and sunk his teeth directly into Scourge's arm.

Scourge shouted in pain, letting go of Tails. In his shock, he was caught off guard as Tails suddenly swung around, using his tails to send him flying out of the new window.

The green hedgehog groaned as he landed outside of the workshop. He could feel the shards of glass in his back and could feel the blood running down his quills. Unfortunately, he needed the little fox alive, so he would have to put a lid on his anger. "Fine," He growled between his teeth, "Make this hard on the both of us!"

With a roll and jump, Scourge was back inside the workshop, having entered through the broken window. Looking around, he found no trace of the young fox, save for the open back door which he had certainly used to escape.

Not wasting any time, he took off and caught up with Tails in only a second. He immediately jumped, grabbing the fox by the waist and tackling him to the ground.

Doing the only thing that had worked before, Tails took another bite out of Scourge's arm.

Gritting his teeth to prevent from letting go, he shouted. "Chaos control!"

Tails had been too preoccupied with trying to defeat Scourge, he never noticed the change in scenery. Even as Scourge let go of him, he still held on with his mouth, kicking all the while.

Their current whereabouts were the ARK library, where Sonic sat in one of the armchairs, his mouth agape in shock at the sight of Tails madly attacking Scourge.

"Get him off of me, Blue!" Scourge held his arm out, where Tails still had his teeth imbedded with his eyes shut, not wanting to see what Scourge was planning on doing to him.

With a small burst of speed, Sonic was suddenly behind Tails, gently grabbing the kit from underneath his arms, trying to pry him off. "Tails, buddy, it's okay." He spoke gently into his little brother's ear. "Don't be afraid."

Recognizing whose voice it was, Tails opened his eyes immediately and let go of Scourge. "Sonic?" Suddenly, he was in a bone crushing hug as Sonic pressed him close to him.

Immediately wrapping his arms around hisbrother, he tried his best to hold back his tears, finally happy to see Sonic alive and well. He felt his fur dampen; indicating Sonic had let his own tears flow freely.

"Yeah, don't mind me." Scourge muttered, unaware and uncaring of the deep, emotional moment occurring before him. "I'll be fine." He wiped the blood from the bite marks away.

"Stop moving, Blue!" Scourge said frantically.

Sonic sat in the library, his arm resting on a table as Tails had tools scattered all around them, attempting to disarm the bomb on his brother's wrist.

"This is a little nerve-wracking. You try knowing you might just blow up at any minute!" Sonic couldn't stop his legs from tapping and seemed to have a constant itch in his ears that started when Tails first successfully opened up the metal surrounding of the cuff.

"Sonic, if you don't stop moving, we're all going to know what it's like to be splattered across the wall." As much as Tails hated to admit it, Scourge was right. Sonic needed to relax.

"…I need to pee."

Both Tails and Scourge looked at Sonic unbelievably.

Tails sighed. "Scourge, would you go get him a bucket, please?" This whole situation would probably have been a lot less stressful if Sonic would stop distracting him and just calm down.

"What?!" Sonic cried. "I'm not going to piss in a bucket with you two watching!"

"Don't be gross, Blue!" Scourge would have slapped him upside the head had he not have to worry about accidentally triggering the bomb. "If you ever want to piss again, you'll piss in the bucket. I promise I won't watch." He added while rolling his eyes.

"Never mind," Sonic muttered. "I'll just hold it."

"Good morning, citizens of Station Square and the rest of the world!" Eggman's voice boomed on every electronic device and screen around the globe.

Rouge and Shadow jumped back suddenly as the robots they had been working on disarming suddenly came to life. Shadow grabbed Rouge's arm and jumped back even further, out of the robot's blasting range.

The remaining intact robots began marching forward, paying no mind to their destroyed brethren.

"What's the point of these robots anyways?" Rouge asked as they landed. "He doesn't need to level the city to roboticize it."

From the blue prints Scourge had stolen, they were able to see what plans Eggman had laid out in preparation for the robotization. Part of those plans included hiding robots across the city and activating them once he was ready. The two used this information to find these hidden hubs and destroy as many as they could before Eggman moved forward.

"Doesn't matter. With G.U.N. out of commission and Sonic trapped, we're going to have to be the ones to stop them." Shadow remarked as he watched the platoon of robots trample everything in their path.

"I wonder whose fault that is." Rouge nudged Shadow with a smirk on her face.

"Not now, Rouge!"

Meanwhile, on the completely other side of the city at the Mystic Ruins, Knuckles lay against the master emerald, completely unaware of what was becoming of the city. That fact was soon to change as he cracked an eye open, hearing someone calling out his name.

"Knuckles!" Amy shouted as she approached the master emerald shrine. Her need to warn Knuckles of what was going on was fulfilled when a group of robots suddenly appeared around the master emerald.

Knuckles immediately jumped up into a defensive stance. Not wasting any time, he began doing hwat he did best, punching wildly.

Amy too joined the attack as she called her Piko Piko hammer into her hand.

With only a few robots attempting to take the shrine, they were defeated quickly by the two mobians.

"What are these robots?" Knuckles asked Amy as he began picking up the remaining metallic scraps and throwing them off the edge of the shrine, into the ocean below.

"I don't know." Amy answered truthfully. "But they're appearing all over the world. Most of them are just…stationary."

"Stationary?"

"Yeah. According to the news, they're just standing in major cities around the world, including Station Square, doing nothing. Maybe they're waiting for orders to strike?"

Knuckles frowned at the oil stains left behind on the ancient rock of the shrine. He would have to come back and clean the rest of the mess up later. "Whatever they are, they can't be good. Let's get Tails; he's good with this kind of stuff. Maybe he can give us a better idea of what these robots are for."

"Tails?" Amy called as she stepped into the front door, which had been left wide open.

Dread had immediately filled Knuckles and Amy as they had approached the workshop. Though Tails has made amazing progress in restoring the structure, the shattered window had immediately tipped them off to some foul play.

Inside, Amy could see Tails' tools and supplies strewn about in a mess on the floor. The table the kit had recently purchased had been smashed in half and thrown aside.

"What happened here?" Knuckles asked, surprised to see the place in ruins again.

Amy approached the shattered window when a piece of fabric caught her eye. Grabbing the piece of black cloth, she knew exactly what had happened. "Scourge," She turned to show Knuckles what she had found, "He came back to finish the job."

"That bastard!" Knuckles was so angry, he could have smashed another hole right in the wall of the workshop.

Tremors shook the ground as an explosion was heard nearby.

"What now?" Amy asked, not believing so many bad things were happening in such close proximity to each other.

The two mobians ran outside to see the nearby train station on fire.

"Eggman." Knuckles said between clenched teeth. "He must be trying to trap us here so we can't stop him." With him and Amy unable to use chaos control, they would have to rely on the train to get them to the city. "Whatever happened to Tails, we'll have to figure out later. Right now, we have to stop that Egghead before he destroys the city and our only way there!"

Woohoo, alright. I'm just really happy to have gotten this far with this fic. It's been so long since I wrote a multi-chapter story.

Review please!