Eggman just stood there, grinning at me. I couldn't figure out what scheme he was trying this time, but I doubted he was going to help out of the kindness of his own heart. And yet, even though I knew his intentions were malicious, I was willing to take any help I could get right now, and if working with Eggman would get everything back to normal, then I had to work with him. I didn't enjoy any part of this, but I really had no other choice.
"You've known from the start, haven't you?" Sonic asked the obese human.
"Believe me, I have, and I'm not alone in that," Eggman laughed.
"What are you giving Shadow for this?" Sonic asked.
"Nothing," Eggman replied coldly. He stood calmly as he faced his biggest adversary, a very smug smile on his face, "Shadow agrees this is the best course of action. Even I admit it's a better plan than when I tricked Knuckles into letting me have access to the flying islands defences."
Those words seemed odd to Sonic, but he couldn't put his finger on why. He watched carefully as Eggman continued, illuminated by the glow of the Eclipse Canon behind him.
"Lets face it Sonic, you can't win here. There's only one emerald left, and it's in my hand here," the scientist said, revealing a large orange gem. He twirled it in the light, "Too bad really, to think I once had all seven in warps of confusion, and now there is but one."
"I can still beat you yet Eggman," Sonic said, his body just itching to smack the smug scientist square in the jaw, just to knock that all knowing smirk off his face.
"But of course," Eggman replied, "You've blown up many of my machines, be they giant space stations to tiny badniks, capable of nothing more than being a flying light. You even destroyed my greatest machine, Metal Dawn," Eggman paused, watching Sonic's mind flood with hazy memoires of his chaotic fight with Dawn on the freeway, where he had killed her.
"Yet no matter what of my machines you destroy now, you simply cannot win," Eggman chuckled, "You could attack me right now if you wanted, I'm unarmed, unprotected, it would be so easy for you. But you'd still be here, in a world that's not of yours. That is the beauty of this plan, you were the one who put yourself in it. You broke several of the emeralds yourself. Not even my grandmother Maria thought of that."
"Your grandmother?" Sonic asked inquisitively.
Eggman nodded, "The woman who built the Ark, assuming you can even remember that," he laughed.
"Gerald built the ark!" Sonic shouted, a sudden realisation coming over him, "You don't know reality any better than I do!"
Eggman said nothing. He turned away from the hedgehog, staring at the Sol Emerald, "What does it matter," he relented, "I still have the upper hand, I know that unlike you I'm capable of functioning in this admittedly abnormal world, but most importantly, I have backup to assist me in defeating you."
As if on cue, four pairs of eyes materialised out of thin air. Five bodies formed around those eyes, each of them a slightly different shade of red, each of them a hazy and ghostly figure, all around Sonic's height, all with long dreadlocks dangling off what Sonic thought was there heads, all looking intently in Sonic's direction.
"You see Sonic," Eggman continued, "when this began, and you were running around aimlessly asking for answers, I did my research. I studied the creatures you see before you, I looked in to the legends, and they were real." Eggman said, his voice flaring up to emphasise this last point.
Sonic stood his ground, ready to move at a moments notice, "The Monsters of Chaos," he said. Sonic watched them nod, each of them agreeing to his observation, "But there are only four."
"That's because three of us were able to escape early," Eggman answered, his smirk beginning to annoy Sonic.
"'Three of us'?" Sonic repeated, "but that means..."
"Yes," Eggman interrupted, "I am one of the Monsters of Chaos. Fitting in a way, you, one of the seven servers, myself one of the seven monsters. It was destined to be."
"There's no such thing Eggman!" Sonic yelled, unsure himself whether he actually believed it, or if he was deliberately opposing Eggman's new found view on what was supposed to be. Deep inside Sonic was troubled, a lot of this information was difficult to take in, and each answer just lead to more and more questions. If Eggman was a monster, why was he human, when none of the others were? Where were the other two? Just what happened to make everything so mixed up? Why couldn't Eggman remember everything?
Before Sonic could ask, the four ghostly monsters had begun advancing, "We can't let you keep talking," the first one said.
"It would ruin everything," the second one continued.
"And we can't let that happen" the third finished.
"But you're forgetting something," Sonic replied with a smug grin over his face. Eggman could see the hedgehog had a plan, but he wasn't going to do anything until he could be sure just what the blue hedgehog was thinking, "I've got the exit right behind me, and I'm the fastest thing alive!"
With that Sonic made a dash for the exit of the cave. He looked back to see the Monsters of Chaos unable to keep pace, but Eggman remained unflinching.
"Found you," Dawn's voice rang out, as she stood in the entrance to the cave. To Sonic's surprise she tackled the speeding hedgehog and sent him flying backwards, where the four monsters caught up to him and held him down. As Sonic fought to get free, he asked just what was going on.
"Sonic, you poor fool," Eggman taunted, as he was held in place by the four ghostly Monsters of Chaos, "Did you real think that Dawn was on your side? There's something you should probably know, she's one of the seven Monsters of Chaos. Infact she's the one who got this whole thing started, long before I even knew of what I really was."
"I'm sorry Sonic," Dawn said quietly, "But this just has to be. I didn't want it to come to this, really," she whispered quietly to Sonic, as the other monsters held him in place, "you just left me no choice."