Mega Loops Chapter 35: Mega Sonic Part 5, a X-overs + Mega Man Crossover fanfic

Mega Sonic: Part 5

Roll and Bass rode up a tall elevator shaft at high speeds. Actually, it was less an elevator and more of a strange vertical tube-train. One that went up an orbital tether attached to a geosynchronous space station. One might think that the two would have a fair bit to talk about since they were in a sort-of-relationship, but instead it only seemed to increase the awkwardness of the situation.

Particularly when one considered who the space station they were heading towards belonged to.

"So... did Dr. Wily say what this was all about?" Roll broke the silence after several long minutes.

"Hmph..." Bass snorted. "Like pops ever tells me anything. I didn't even know he was building this thing until he sent the invite." (1)

"Ah..." Roll blinked before they went back to sitting awkwardly in silence.

"Wow..." Roll blinked as she stepped out of the space elevator station and got a look at what Wily had been up to. In front of her and Bass stretched a massive theme park, looking to go on for miles and miles in every direction. Beyond the skull-shaped entrance gates that ringed the station, she could see currently empty shops. Farther in, she could spot the tops of various amusement park rides and the automated announcer was suggesting that they head for Topman's Topsy-Turvy Fun House.

"Yeah," Bass actually looked impressed despite himself, "pops has really outdone himself this time..."

"Thank you, thank you!" the voice of Wily came over the speakers at that point. "And welcome to Wily World! I hope you don't mind me not coming in person, but I'm quite busy overseeing the final stages at the moment, so feel free to look around and enjoy yourselves!"

"Yeah, yeah," Bass rolled his eyes. "Why don't you just cut to the chase and tell us what the latest scheme is."

Wily's voice sighed loudly over the speakers. "My boy, you can be such a killjoy... Very well, the main purpose for me calling you here is to test out my latest series of robot masters that I'm deploying against Ivo."

"So..." Roll stretched the word out as she mused on that, "this isn't a diabolical scheme to take over the world?"

"My dear, you insult me!"

"It's kinda hard not to," Bass snarked.

"No," Wily's voice continued as if his robotic son hadn't spoken, "if anything, this is a diabolical scheme to save the world!"

"...what." (2)

Roll and Bass walked through the stadium door where a series of lighted walkways had directed them and blinked at the figure in the center.

It was... It was a pretty basic-looking humanoid robot, male model standard, armored completely in white. The only real part of its design that looked non-standard were the two short antenna poking out from its helmet.

"Introducing the concept prototype of my latest series, the Wily Color Numbers!" Wily's voice boasted proudly. "WCN-000: White Man!"

"Doesn't look like much..." Bass snorted in derision.

"Well, you'll get the chance to prove it shortly, won't you?" Wily's voice taunted. "You see, I've told them that you are the mightiest warriors ever made by human hands before these models."

Roll blinked at the odd wording, wondering what the doctor wasn't telling them.

"I've even put up a dampening field to prevent permanent damage to your systems, and you don't need to worry about holding back any, for this series runs off of something much harder to break than an IC chip. If this series can hold its own against the two of you, then we will know that they are ready to face Eggman and his army."

"This thing doesn't even look like it could take a MET, let alon–"

"BEGIN!" Wily interrupted his son, prompting White Man to form his arm into a buster.

"HYPER!" White Man yelled before he began firing massive white balls of plasma larger than Roll's fully charged shots, but at the same rate she could fire normal ones.

Roll and Bass both dove out of the way in opposite directions and came up arm cannons blazing, their shots looking pathetically small in relation to White Man's.

"Okay, so you got some firepower!" Bass grinned as he charged their opponent. "Let's see how you handle close range!"

Roll snapped out her combat broom and charged as well, dodging around the shots that came her way when a new voice prompted her to dive to the ground.

"LASER!" was what heralded a massive beam of light lancing through where her torso had been a moment earlier and Roll tumbled and got to her feet facing the new figure, a streamlined cyan female model with a backward-facing fin on her head.

"DRILL!" came from underneath Bass's feet right before the ground exploded, throwing him upwards as a yellow robot whose head and torso were covered with a thick drill-shaped armor that was already slowing its rotation. As it stopped, parts of the armor popped out to form shoulder pads to allow the drill-tipped arms to deploy.

"ROCKET!" an orange figure streaked out of the pit and collided with Bass's gut so fast that Roll could barely register the feminine body-type and space-themed design.

"QUAKE!" reminded her that she had her own opponents to worry about and she barely jumped off the ground before a massive gray robot with angular armor, and sporting a chestplate that looked like Wily had spontaneously decided to make the model female as an afterthought, hit the ground, shaking it so hard that even her allies fell over.

Roll could hear her brother now. "Wily made a female Guts Man/Hard Man? Look, sis, I'm all for gender equality but there's something wrong with that."

"SPIKES!" was the only warning she got as a lanky female pink robot jumped from the arena walls. Her head sprouted sharp hair-like spines that went all the way down her back and her arms and legs were studded with smaller spines clearly meant to give her traction on even the most stubborn surface.

"HOVER!" caused her to spare a momentary glance to where Bass was trying to fight a green UFO-like opponent encased in an energy field while falling.

Roll twisted in mid-air and brought her broom to block her own opponent and direct her momentum elsewhere, pushing Roll herself in the other direction and into a somersault.

"LIGHTNING!" came from her side and she did a spin and stuck out her foot, tripping an ivory female model with lightning-shaped protrusions from the outer parts of her joints and her head that had tried to run her over while encased in electricity. Roll grit her teeth at the discharge the contact sent her systems and opened fire.

"CUBE!"

Only for a blocky blue robot to create an impenetrable cube of energy that blocked her shot.

"EAGLE!"

A moment later and Bass slammed into the ground next to her as a winged aerodynamic crimson male-model robot flew to join his now-gathered companions.

As she watched, they were joined by a large round indigo robot with short stubby limbs, a magenta female model with an antenna from her helmet that made her head look like a musical note, a black model whose design looked composed of spheres the same way the blue one was composed of cubes (and who freakily seemed to have a glowing mouth but no eyes), a red model that had armor designed to look like flames, and a purple and violet pair (male and female models respectively) that also had no eyes and pitch black voids for mouths.

"VOID!" the violet female yelled and formed a singularity in front of her that sucked Roll and Bass towards their opponents.

"ASTEROID!" the indigo model jumped up, a ring of debris following to orbit around him as he clearly meant to flatten them both.

Roll threw herself back even as Bass lunged forwards to engage their opponents directly.

"RHYTHM!"

"BURST!"

Roll swore as the red one barreled at her while covered in flames even as her movement systems started glitching. It was close, but she managed to dodge out of the way, only to see the purple male charging at her with a feral grin.

"BOMB!" was the cry shortly followed by an explosion and a pained cry from Bass as the one charging Roll got into melee range and she brought her broom up to block.

"FRENZY!"

The broom shattered under the blow, leaving her completely defenseless. (3)

"Fuck... what the hell hit me?" Bass moaned as he stirred. He tried moving, only to find that he was restrained in a stasis tube. A quick look showed that Roll was in one next to him.

"Ah, good, you're awake," the voice of his creator (father... whatever... like it mattered...) made itself known and Bass turned his eyes to see the man sitting in a chair looking entirely too pleased with himself.

'Oh, great...' Bass moaned in his head. 'He's never going to let me live this down...'

"I'm sure you are both wondering just how I made my newest robot masters, yes?" the man grinned insufferably.

'I'm more wondering how far I can shove their remains up your–'

"Yes, actually," Roll interrupted Bass's train of thought before it could reach its rather graphic conclusion. "They're more powerful than even the StarDroids were. What did you do?"

"Oh, it's quite remarkable actually!" Wily grinned and punched up a display of a series of... well, sickeningly cute color-coded creatures composed of mostly a head, a random number of eyes each, and a few limbs and crests seemingly added on as an afterthought. "You see, my Color Masters are each piloted by one of these remarkable creatures!"

'I got my ass kicked by those things?!' Bass's jaw dropped in utter disbelief. They looked about as threatening as a box of kittens. Versus Treble.

"They are known as Wisps," Dr. Wily continued on, "and they possess a very potent source of energy that they call 'Hyper-Go-On'. Or at least that's the closest my translators can get. Individually, their reserves of 'Hyper-Go-On' make them a match for even beings like Duo or Slur in short bursts. But gather enough of them in one place and their power could outstrip even the Chaos Emeralds! Sadly, they are not naturally equipped to use this power in their own defense. But they can empower others with it, including machines."

"And they agreed to work for you piloting your... Color Masters, was it?" Roll asked.

"Well, I suppose the fact that Ivo got to them slightly ahead of me and started doing his usual had some influence on the decision," the man admitted reluctantly, "but the fact remains that those who escaped with me were all too ready to accept whatever help I offered them. And thanks to the test run, I now have both of you at my mercy, so you can't do anything to stop me like you usually do. Oh, the Wisps were quite worried about you when they saw the damage they inflicted, but I assured them I could repair you easily. Just... that it would take some time."

Bass did not miss his father's grin at that. "What are you up to, old man?"

"Oh, nothing. Just that I am about to send my Color Masters to help dear Mega Man and Sonic free their brethren from Ivo's control. They will assuredly accept the help until they learn that my Color Masters defeated and captured the two of you. Sonic has never been one for deep thought when action calls and I doubt Mega Man will think too much when he rightly concludes that I'm holding you captive. They will attack, forcing the Wisps who only know me as the man who worked tirelessly to give them the ability to defend themselves to defend me in turn."

Bass blinked and watched Roll's expression sink like a stone out of the corner of his optics.

"As they did against you, they will win, again and again until I and my creations are the only defenders this planet has left. The world will then have no choice but to recognize my greatness, regardless of how they feel about me," Wily finished, stretching as he stood. "And so I have things to do and an entire race of supremely powerful aliens to free. I'll tell the Wisps that you're fine, but will be quite long in recovering, so you two lovebirds enjoy your time alone together!"

With that, Dr. Wily practically skipped out of the room, humming happily to himself.

"Okay," Bass couldn't keep the fact that he was somewhat impressed out of his voice, "I gotta admit... that's pretty diabolical."

Rock looked up. And up. And further up still. The top of the space elevator in front of him was still out of range for his optics, obscured by the clouds and the blue of the atmosphere.

"So, how suspicious is this pre-opening invitation to Eggmanland?" he asked his two companions. "On a scale of one to ten?"

"Eleven, minimum," Tails replied absently as the two-tailed fox mobian fiddled with a hand-held device of some sort.

"So, no chance that he's actually turned over a new leaf I take it?"

"As, if," Sonic scoffed. "If this version of Eggman is patting you on the back, it's only because he's looking for the best place to stick a knife. His theme parks may look awesome, but they're death traps that would give OSHA fits. Just be glad you don't really need to eat. His food courts alone are crimes against nature."

"Gotcha..."

"But, hey, look on the bright side! We'll finally get to see what you can do with a wisp!"

"Oh, that's now?"

"Yeah, Eggman's plan involves enslaving a whole bunch of them. We've tried to head it off a bunch of times..."

"...But Eggman's frequently better at finding the wisps before we can," Tails finished.

"Well," Rock nodded as he summoned his Mega Man armor and began walking for the entrance to the space elevator, "let's get to work then."

"Welcome to Eggman's Incredible Interstellar Amusement Park: Eggmanland! Where you can enjoy five planets for the price of one!"

"That explains the admission prices," Rock noted with dry amusement. (4)

"Yeah, that's Eggman for ya," Sonic nodded. "Big on schemes, low on sense. And loves to hear his lips flap. Real shame too. This place is pretty epic after all."

"Yeah," Tails agreed. "If Eggman ever actually did reform he could make a fortune."

"Yeah, everyone and their brother would want to come!"

"Everyone and their brother just might be able to afford a single ticket between them," Rock reminded them. "The prices alone are either criminal, or should be. Eggman flunked business class, didn't he?"

"Probably, but don't say that to his face," Sonic chuckled and looked upwards at the serene blue planet 'above' them. "Still, that is one nice view. Never gets old, that."

"Notice the lovely planet floating in the sky above you," Eggman's voice came over the P.A. system again, "soon to be the property of Eggman Enterprises."

"And then Eggman says stuff like that and ruins it... What do you say we cut to the chase and just go foil his latest plot?"

The P.A. system chose that moment to broadcast another announcement. "Please refrain from foiling evil schemes, plots, and odd plans while inside the park. Foiling is strictly prohibited."

"Oh, put a sock in it already!"

"Eggmanland has been constructed entirely out of a sense of remorse for my past transgressions and is in no way associated with any sort of evil plot or premeditated misdeeds."

"Yeehaw! Git along little alien!"

'Eggman, you are such a liar...' Rock sighed as he watched the duo of Orbot and Cubot chase a few wisps around with a net and a ray gun.

"Well, looks like that's our cue t–"

"HYPER!" Sonic was cut off as a white figure crashed down into the tableau and moved to defend the wisps from their pursuers, leveling an arm cannon at the smaller robots.

"Okay, that's new..."

"What in tarnation do you think you're doin–" Cubot began, only to have his net incinerated by a large blinding white buster shot. "–err..."

"Oh, dear..." Orbot fiddled with his ray gun for a moment as Cubot began backing up nervously.

"Now, ah..." Cubot stared down the arm cannon, "just hold on a minute there, pardner! I was just doin' mah duty!"

"Ah, there's the electronic disruptor setting!" Orbot declared happily before blasting the white figure, who seized up as sparks ran over his form before collapsing in like a statue someone tipped over. Upon impact with the ground a small white wisp with a spit-curl antenna on its forehead was ejected, turning the white robot into a very basic unpainted steel bodyframe.

"Huh, I've never actually seen Orbot's raygun hit anything before..." Tails blinked. (5)

Rock was already moving, pointing his own arm cannon at the ray gun and blasting it out of Orbot's hand.

"Hey, wait up!" Sonic called after him right before a cyan wisp that had broken off from the others collided with the hedgehog and was absorbed straight into his body. "Whoa, wait... Calm down! I can't contr–"

Sonic's words were drowned out as he turned into a living laser beam and shot off deeper into the amusement park.

"Uh-oh!" Cubot gulped as Rock landed between the wisps and the two robots. "It's the Mega Sheriff!"

"Oh, dear..." Orbot observed, "this could be a problem..."

Rock was about to make a declaration when the white wisp from before entered his body and he felt a massive surge of energy as his armor turned stark white.

PRIMARY WEAPON OVERRIDE: WHITE BUSTER

He tried to control it, but the wisp was panicking and it was interfering with Rock's ability to control his systems. He was desperately trying to hold back the buster fire that the wisp was trying to force out at the same time, resulting in the 'White Buster' charging up.

"It's alright!" he tried to assure the wisp inside him. "I've got it un–"

That was when the massive blazing white buster shot tore out the end of his arm cannon, just barely missing the defensive modes of Orbot and Cubot as it obliterated several structures and shops, creating a massive furrow in the ground before it finally dissipated.

"I reckon we should leave afore he figgures out how ta aim that..." Cubot trembled as he began moving his geometric form away as quickly as he dared.

"Agreed..." Orbot rolled after his comrade.

"Zere you are, villain!" Antoine pointed his sword at the form of Eggman, lounging casually in the air above Angel Island in his Egg Mobile. (6) "Return ze princess and Amy at once!"

"What Sugah-Twan said," Bunnie glared. "Or are we gonna have ta get rough? Please say yes..."

"Oh-ho-ho-ho!" the rotund man laughed as he held up a pair of purple-backed cards. "No need to worry! They're sound asleep, right here in these cards!"

"EGGMAN!" the familiar roar of Knuckles boomed over the landscape as red form of the Guardian of Angel Island landed in the clearing, followed by the similarly red form of Blues Light, the Proto Man. "RETURN THE MASTER EMERALD AT ONCE!"

"Oh," Eggman grinned casually, holding up another of his cards. "You mean, this Master Emerald? Well now, that's a bit of a problem... I can't very well hand over all of my precious card collection... It's so hard to get some of the subjects to sit still for my camera after all... Tell you what? The first one to get to me past my little obstacle course can pick one card."

The four growled as Eggman flew off, laughing the whole way.

"Sorry, guys," Blues stated shortly, "but while the backup system for the island is working for now, it won't last forever."

"And we can't let him get away with our friends, sugah."

"It eez to be a race, then, no?"

"Yeah..." Knuckles couldn't help the grin that split his face. Despite the seriousness of the situation, the thrill of competition still got his blood pumping.

Shadow grumbled as he tore through the terrain of Angel Island in pursuit of Dr. Eggman, followed closely by E-123 Omega. Rouge getting kidnapped while Awake was already something he'd never hear the end of, but if Bass ever learned that Treble had been stolen while under Shadow's watch...

"Come on, Silver!" another voice called out from nearby. "We have to find Eggman while he still has information on Nega!"

"Right behind you, Quint!"

"Negative," Omega intoned, drawing the attention of the silver hedgehog and the green-armored clone of Mega Man. "Dr. Eggman will be terminated by us."

"Not before he tells us what he knows!" Quint shot back hotly.

"Race?" Shadow raised an eyebrow at Silver.

Silver nodded back with a grin as the psychokinetic aura fueling his speed gained in intensity. "Race."

"No aliens were harmed in the creation of this park," the voice of the P.A. system echoed across the area. "They were all harmed after the park was created."

Rock grunted as he felt another energy buildup starting. "It's okay! They're gone! No one is going to hurt you! I promise!"

A moment later and the energy died down and a white creature composed of a head, three tendril-like extremities extending from the bottom, two short stereotypically 'alien' antenna, one large eye, and a gravity-defying spitcurl exited Rock's body.

PRIMARY WEAPON RESTORED TO NORMAL

"Pum axam se sellupp!" the creature gibbered in a rush. (7) "Hon Pum rech zo faxattro-fedupp zaxat Claxazupp Wird-Whaxail kaxavo vo te saxavo vupp flothlon blem Faxardupp Jesohaxail, Pum paxaningow! Pum jovol voaxank te whaxalm ug! Pum'v sellupp, Pum'v sellupp, Pum'v sellupp!"

"Hold on a moment," Tails dug out a handheld device. He probably could have brought out a finished translator, but the 'baseline challenge run' was as good an excuse as any to see how fast he could pull this off from scratch. "I think I can make alterations to this and get a working transl–"

"Dit nud bino," Rock waved off the alien's concern to Tails's astonishment. "Je whaxalm peno din zo oct. Eut eb culiesitupp, fupp 'Claxazupp Wird-Whaxail', pe ug voaxan 111. Wirupp?"

"Yos! Zaxat nud haxat zo Claxazupp Wird-Whaxail caxarrow whimsorb! Who fuirt zeso fedios bel us wisps te saxavo eep flothlon blem Faxardupp Jesohaxail he waxanks eep Whypol-Ke-En dewol te pe dreck zicks!"

"You can understand him?" Tails continued gaping.

"Remind me to tell you all later about the Loop where everyone spoke in 'Gibberish'," Rock whispered to the fox before turning back to the alien. "Fupp 'dreck zicks', pe ug voaxan ovir zicks?"

"Pum pe jet gned zis weld 'ovir'? Dis dit faxad?"

"Dit nud molupp faxad. Molupp faxad zicks bel molupp faxad loaxasens."

"Zon yos, who waxanks eep Whypol-Ke-En dewol bel up 'ovir' pulpeso!"

Rock nodded as he walked over to the basic steel robot frame that the alien had inhabited and began to examine it.

"Well?" Tails asked.

"It's interesting..." Rock mused as he scanned the robot. "Aside from apparently being tuned to this guy's personal energy frequency for both power and control, the entire thing is nothing more than a mobile variable weapon system. Though whatever that ray gun did completely fried it, so it's more like a pile of burned-out circuits. It'd take days to get it back in order, with the proper equipment."

"Zon... Pum whaxavo baxairow..." the white alien looked despondent before turning to Rock with a pleading expression. "Pum vuch axash ug flaxavo eno, proaxaso whorp us! Who dis caxagick eep laxaco pi wraxainick us eb eep ribo belco! Proaxaso! Saxavo zom! Saxavo zom!"

"Please do not be concerned if you encounter any screaming aliens," the P.A. system chimed in at that moment. "The screams are how they communicate. Really! I promise."

"Of course we'll help! I'm known as Rock."

"And I'm Tails! What's your name?"

"Pum axam caxarrow Yaxangol."

"Nice to meet you, Yacker."

"Yeah," Tails chuckled. "It's always nice to make new friends."

"Speaking of, I wonder where Sonic went..."

"Zo fruo spinupp eno?"

"Ah, he'll be fine," Tails waved the concern off casually. "He's probably only up to his neck in trouble after all."

"It continues to amaze me that you can say things like that and still be completely serious."

"Ow..." Sonic rubbed his head as the cyan wisp left his body and retreated. "Good thing this big ol' welcome sign broke my... Well, I can't really call it a 'fall', can I...?"

The floating globe ringed by a sign that read 'Welcome to Eggmanland' (8) and topped by a face of the bad doctor himself shuddered angrily.

"Please refrain from teasing the robots," Eggman's voice advised over the P.A. system as the sign portions unfolded into arms and a pair of glaring eyes set into the globe opened up and locked onto Sonic, "as they are very sensitive and require expensive maintenance."

"Well, hey there!" Sonic grinned at the floating killer robot. "You wanna play?"

The robot raised one of its fists and slammed it down where Sonic had been standing a moment before.

"I'll take that as a 'yes'!"

"–nearly enough aliens!" Rock, Tails, and Yacker heard the voice of Eggman as they approached.

"Want us to get more?" the cultured voice of Orbot asked as Rock put a finger to his lips to signal for silence.

"No!" Eggman's voice bit back sarcastically. "I want you to get me a cheeseburger and a shake!"

"That'll be easier!" Cubot's cowboy voice sounded relieved as Tails bit back a bout of laughter from the trio's hiding spot. "Cheeseburgers don't run as fast as them li'l alien varmints!"

"Eh, je!" Yacker whispered worriedly. "Whaxas Faxardupp Jesohaxail dimplisenow axanethol laxaco tee?"

"It's a type of food," Rock explained as Eggman yelled at his literally inclined underling that he wanted more of the alien race captured immediately, if not sooner.

The grumbling of the two smaller robots as they headed off was audible as the three moved closer, before Cubot turned and added "Y'all want fries with that?"

The three heroes were so caught up in the byplay that they didn't quite notice that they had stepped out into Orbot's range of sight until the robot began backing up nervously.

"Precious little aliens!" Eggman floated downwards in his personal craft, back to the trio of heroes, and examined the capsules of captured wisps, most like Yacker but a few were cyan with two eyes, a slicked-back pointed antenna, two of their three tendrils sleek and pointed with the third that regularly curved into the shape of a stylized lightning bolt as they moved. "I'll harness their Hyper-Go-On power and then nothing will stop me!"

As Orbot continued to back up in the direction of his boss, Rock gave up the stealth approach as a bad job. About the only reason Eggman hadn't noticed him was that Orbot hadn't sounded the alarm.

"I know I say that every time," Eggman spoke to no one in particular, "but this time, really, nothing will stop me!"

"Um..." Orbot finally tried to get Eggman's attention. "Boss...?"

"So," Rock spoke up loud and clear, startling Eggman into whipping around to look at him, Yacker, and Tails straight on, "who exactly are you calling nothing?"

"MEGA MAN?!"

"Wow," Rock chuckled. "Thanks for the vote of confidence."

"Huh?" the confused voice of Cubot interrupted the tableau. Apparently Eggman's other minion had spotted them on his way out too.

"He means that since the boss said 'nothing will stop me' and Mega Man is here to stop him, it's like the boss was calling Mega Man 'nothing'."

Cubot tilted his head in confusion until his neck joint seemed to pop loose.

"A little slow on the uptake is he?" Rock asked.

"You have no idea," Orbot sighed the sigh of the long suffering.

"Fine!" Eggman huffed as he floated up and away in his personal craft, his blast shield sliding into place. "You're so smart, you take care of this mess!"

"Orbot." Rock raised an eyebrow as the named minion pointed at himself in shock. "Versus me."

"Release the Big Boy!" Eggman finished as he shot off, Orbot and Cubot following as fast as they could.

A moment later and a what looked like a massive multi-ringed ferris wheel rose up on a series of rotating jet thrusters mounted to its back, with a manic robot attached to it with long arms capable of reaching either end of the ferris wheel of doom that it held on with and a body upon which was mounted a single insanely twitching eye, ringed with armored petals that it closed in an approximation of blinking, that stared out of the ferris wheel of doom's center.

"You two free the wisps," Rock called to Tails and Yacker as he dashed towards Eggman's amusement park monstrosity. "I've got the 'Big Boy'!"

"Roger/Legol!" Tails and Yacker saluted in unison.

"Well, that was fun," Sonic dusted his hands off, the remains of his opponent sparking feebly as most of it lay in one of the larger reflecting pools.

"Please refrain from throwing coins, trash, or small children into the reflecting pools."

"Cool," Sonic smirked at the recorded voice of Eggman, "nothing about throwing giant killer robots in. Guess that means I'm not in trouble. Wonder what Rock and Tails are up to..."

A mechanical screech echoed across the grounds.

"Hey, a two-fer of giant killer robots! Eggman, you shouldn't have!"

Rock ran angles of attack as he approached. Firing a few test shots revealed that he needed to get closer or his opponent would just close its armor plating over its giant optic, causing his buster shots to bounce off.

The robot twisting the giant multi-tiered ring and rolling it towards him, over buildings and decorative displays like a giant crushing wheel, showed the dangers of getting too close.

'If I can get inside the outermost ring, I can mostly nullify its primary form of attack. I just need a distraction...'

"LASER!" came the yell as a powerful beam of cyan light lanced through the air and seared a hole through one of the robot's arms.

'That'll do,' Rock hopped onto a low wall and pushed off to land on the interior of the ferris wheel of doom while the robot steering it looked towards the source of the laser. A charged shot to the machine's massive optic later and its attention was firmly back on Rock.

With a screech, the machine swiped one of its arms around the outer ring, trying to hit the blue bomber, but he casually hopped over it as another laser hit the mechanized monstrosity in the eye this time.

The ferris wheel of doom shuddered as the giant robot attached to it twitched violently beneath its reflexively closed blast panels and a pure cyan figure landed next to Rock.

It was a female model with what seemed like a racing fin atop her helmet and a body streamlined for speed.

"Alo ug wholo te whorp?" Rock asked, causing the... Cyan Woman if he didn't miss his guess... to start in surprise before nodding silently as the tremors rocking the ferris wheel of doom died down. "Okay, then, let's go for the eye on three! One... two..."

The machine opened the blast panels over its eye suddenly and glared at them with something that, while not really hate, was a darn good simulation.

"LAS–"

"Jump!" Rock yelled as the robot swiped one of its arms down at them forcefully.

*CRUNCH!*

Rock had cleared the attack in time, but his sudden companion had been in the middle of attacking and hadn't aborted fast enough, getting torn clean in half and reverting to a generic unpainted female model as one of the cyan-colored wisps Rock had seen in Eggman's capsules popped out.

"Eh je!" the alien being gibbered in terror. "Whorp! Whorp! Whorp!"

"Peniz wellupp!" Rock yelled, trying to reassure the alien while he dodged a follow-up swipe. "Pum caxan whaxactro zis!"

"Loi ox? Fut... Pum waxasniz chleck oneugh..."

"You're plenty strong!" Rock retorted as he fired his Mega Buster, only for the shots to ping off the re-closed blast panels. "You just don't have enough experience fighting things like this!"

"Zon... Zon Pum'rr roct ug vupp onolgupp!" the cyan wisp declared before shooting into Rock's body, turning his armor a gleaming cyan all over.

PRIMARY WEAPON OVERRIDE: CYAN LASER

The blast panels opened and Rock aimed his arm cannon straight at the giant glaring optic.

"LASER!" he yelled, firing a massive beam of light straight through the center of the killer machine's optic, causing a chain reaction to begin.

"We here at Eggmanland consider ourselves the universe's first fully green amusement park," Eggman's voice echoed from the P.A. system. "Although the green is from all the nausea and vomiting, but still: Green is green!" (9)

"Ew..." Tails made a face as he fiddled with his handheld Miles Electric under the watchful eye of Yacker and a couple of other curious wisps that had stuck around after being freed. "Okay, now I just tweak this and adjust that. And done!"

"Done with what?" Sonic asked as he skidded to a halt a few steps too far and moonwalked back.

"Oh, a translator to talk to these guys like Rock can," Tails informed him idly. "Where've you been anyway?"

"Eh," Sonic shrugged. "I did a little shopping, grabbed a snack, trashed a giant killer robot posing as the welcome sig–wait, big blue can do what now?"

"Speak their language," Tails suppressed a chuckle, determined to act like this was no big deal in spite of Sonic's flabberghasted expression. (10) "You said this place had shopping?"

"Well, less than it did before," the voice of Rock cut in as he walked up, dusting himself off and followed by a cyan wisp that Yacker greeted cheerfully. "Honestly, this place would be pretty awesome if Eggman actually put in enough effort to even pretend to care about his potential visitors."

"The unfiltered starlight from the lovely constellations above is full of deadly radiation!" the P.A. system announced helpfully. "Help yourselves to our complimentary SPF-3000 Starblock. And by complimentary, I mean quite expensive."

"Case in point," Rock gestured in the general direction of a speaker. "Whoupp, Taxairs! Pum soo ug biniskow yeep slaxansraxatel. Dit welkick?"

"Well, it's not doing the peppermint twist," Tails grinned and made an adjustment to the device.

"Cool," Rock chuckled. "Hey, Yacker. Everyone get away safely?"

"Eb ceulso, flaxavo eno! Who eb twe taxairs whaxad zom axarr bloo din pit vemonk!"

Tails lost his composure and burst out laughing for a moment before getting himself under control and making another adjustment to his device. "Tails of two cities... heh..."

"You guys are gonna be doing this all day, aren't you?" Sonic groaned.

Rock and Yacker turned remarkably similar smiling expressions at the hedgehog.

"That's a yes..." the blue blur shook his head. "Anyway, you all know what Eggman's up to, right? Well I picked up a map showing how to get to his other little areas."

"Enjoy every moment in the luxurious grounds as if they might be your last. Especially if you're a meddlesome hedgehog or a bothersome blue robot."

"What, no mention for me?" Tails looked offended after the announcement finished.

"Or their fawning vulpine sidekick."

"Better."

Orbot sighed to himself as he absently processed Cubot's complaints at having to clean up the mess of destroyed robot. 'Ah, sometimes I wish the boss would send us out for more than menial labor... Of course, then I remember that would likely end with me like this poor fellow and all is right with the world.'

Cubot went back to work and plopped a large piece in the refuse bin he was hauling.

"Hmm... we seem to be missing an arm..." Orbot realized suddenly. "Did you spot another arm?"

"Naw, but really how much can it... Hey, there it is, over yonder!" (11)

"Oh, dear, that poor souvenir stand... Ah, well, it's on the way to where Globotron got smashed."

"Aw, we gotta clean him up too?"

"Next stop: the Sweet Mountain," the transport announced helpfully as it sped off along the glowing chain towards what looked like a massive floating pastry orb. "Enjoying our candy paradise is the perfect way to celebrate your next birthday. Or to avoid reaching it."

"You know, I wonder what the others are doing about now..." Sonic mused.

"Now, villain!" Antoine leveled his sword in Eggman's direction. "Hand ovair ze princess and Amy!"

"Y'all heard the man!" Bunnie leveled her cybernetic arm in cannon mode at the man.

"Hmm..." Eggman grinned as he stroked his chin idly. "I suppose I could part with one if you win my little contest..."

"Contest?!" Knuckles growled out as Blues frowned. "You said you'd hand one over to whoever won the race!"

"Really?" the man feigned confusion from his personal craft. "I don't remember saying anything like that..."

"Why you dirty rotten stinking–" Knuckles's attempt to not use the more colorful language he'd picked up in the Loops was cut off by a new arrival.

"EGGMAN!" Quint shouted as the ground where he landed shook from the force of his feet-first impact. "Tell us where Nega is!"

"And hand over Rouge and Treble!" Shadow growled as he landed next, followed by Silver and Omega.

"Dear me, this is getting crowded..." Eggman seemed unconcerned. "Why don't you talk it over with my little friends, hmm?"

With a snap of his fingers, a pair of armored turtle robots popped up from below and moved to engage both groups.

"Tarnation!" Bunnie changed her aim to the new foes.

"Well, you have fun!" Eggman grinned as he began moving away while waving a brightly colored camera. "I'm off to turn more things into cards!"

"GET BACK HERE!" Knuckles and Shadow yelled as they took off in pursuit, followed by Blues and Omega, leaving the other two pairs behind to face the machines.

"Bet we can take ours out faster than y'all can, sugah," Bunnie smirked.

"I'll take that bet," Silver grinned back before Quint could object.

"Welcome to the Sweet Mountain," the local P.A. system cheerfully informed the group as they beheld the endless array of pastry-like terrain before them, having actually landed far away from the base of the glowing chain that held the mini-planet in place. "Insulin will be provided at a marginal extra cost. And by marginal, we mean enormous."

"I cannot even begin to list all the things wrong with this place," Rock looked around at the giant donuts, mountain-sized cake formations, lollipop pillars, and all other manner of enormous sweets used to construct a sugar overdose so massive that it could induce a diabetic fit from sight alone.

"Pum wectol holo zo enos he wolo sonk wholo axalo?" Yacker murmured. "Pum whepo jethick whaxapponow te zom..."

"Well, I don't know where Eggman might be keeping the wisps," Tails looked up from his device towards the base of the glowing chain in the distance, "but I think that's where the map said the power for this area of the park was."

Of course, Tails didn't mention that was where it usually was when Eggman pulled this stunt. For one, he'd prefer not to confuse Yacker and the cyan wisp that had tagged along, and for another just because that was what usually happened didn't mean that was what would happen this time around.

"Sounds like a good place to start," Sonic nodded. "Wanna make a race of i–"

"DRILL!" was all the warning they got before the cake-like ground before them burst in a geyser of sugary crumbs and several forms emerged. Many were wisps of the white and cyan variety, but there were also yellow wisps with pointy triangular single-eyed heads and red wisps with tri-eyed heads in a shape that evoked the image of flames. Amidst their number was two robots, one yellow and one red. The yellow one had a drill-shaped helmet that extended down over the torso with shoulder-pads that looked like they folded down to make one big drill. The Yellow Man also had arms tipped with drills as well. The Red Man on the other hand had a helmet that evoked flames much like the red wisps and seemed to spurt fire from his joints every few moments.

"Ug'lo ekaxaupp!" Yacker seemed relieved to see the two robots. "Pum waxas welliow ug weurdniz fo axabtol zo fedupp Claxazupp Wird-Whaxail vaxado bel vo waxas foaxaton, fut ug'lo bino! Whed whaxavo ug baxalow? Pum'mo fleudd whorp! Zo flaxavo eno, zo spinupp eno, pi zo eno eb twe taxairs whaxavo whorpow us kloaxatrupp!"

"It was nothing," Rock rubbed his head in embarrassment. "But we are here to help. Do you know where the generator for this place is?"

"BURST!" the red robot nodded amidst a sudden flaring of fire from his body and gestured in the same direction that they group had guessed before.

"Well, then, let's go!" Sonic grinned before taking off.

"Enjoy the rides, but be careful. The seats can be sticky."

"Something wrong?" Blues asked as he and Knuckles raced Shadow and Omega to catch Eggman first.

"Just wondering where the Chaotix are in this mess. Shade said they'd just gotten a case involving Eggman after all..."

"We hope you're enjoying this sunny day here at the park," Eggman's voice echoed. "Sadly, a sunny day once again mean that the Choco-Coaster is out of service. Due to melting."

"Heh... That's what you get Baldy McNosehair," Sonic chuckled as he looked up the steep incline before turning to his temporary companion. "Ready to make with the magic little guy?"

"Loaxadupp!" the orange wisp replied, its two vertically arranged eyes on its ovoid head gaining a determined expression before merging with Sonic.

"ROCKET!" the hedgehog yelled as he turned into a glowing orange rocket and shot straight up into the sky.

"*sigh*... Sonic is never going to learn how to wait for people, is he?" Rock asked as he and the others stood at the base of one of the pastry mountains.

"There's no line at Bake Me Crazy, the ride that simulates what it's like to be baked like a cake. The ride itself lasts an amazing 20 to 25 minutes, or until golden brown. Not recommended for our guests who are sensitive to temperatures exceeding 350 degrees."

"Probably not," Tails shrugged as Red Man and a red wisp that had been freed actually looked interested in the announcement. "Why do you think we've all learned how to run so fast?"

"There is that," Rock allowed with a sage nod that Yacker mimicked. "Well, we've got two options. We can go over the mountain, or we can go through it.

Yellow Man and Red Man looked at each other for a moment before Yellow Man revved his drill arms loudly with a cry of "DRILL!"

"Well, that sounds like a vote for 'through'," Rock grinned. "Do I have a second?"

"Pum socect!" a yellow wisp they'd recently freed chirped before it merged with Rock, turning his armor a bright yellow.

PRIMARY WEAPON OVERRIDE: YELLOW DRILL

"Any opposed?" Rock asked as the P.A. apologized for using day-old donuts on some of the rides, getting shaken heads all around. "Then let's go! DRILL!"

A massive spinning yellow drill formed from Rock's outstretched arm and rapidly burrowed into the pastry mountain at the same time as Yellow Man shifted to his own drill form and did the same.

"Hey, wait for me!" Tails yelled as the red wisp merged with him. "BURST!"

A moment later and the flame-wreathed form of Red Man was tearing down one of the tunnels while a red fox-head with glowing eyes and trailing two tails tore down the other in its own wreath of flames.

"Us tee!" Yacker and the cyan wisp declared as they followed.

"You think you can hurry up with that password?" Vector hissed urgently. "We're on kind of a time crunch here, you know."

"I know," Espio shushed his friend, "but it's imperative that we remain undetected for as long as possible. If it becomes necessary–"

"–then that's why you brought me along," Mighty finished.

"Well, that glowing generator looks like a pretty obvious target," Rock observed as he looked across the lake of candy syrup at the metal structure with the purple glowing energy arc atop it. There was a land, or cake, bridge across but no other obvious means of access.

"Yeah," Tails agreed, "and it's probably where they're keeping the rest of the wisps."

"Rot nud ke zon!" Yacker and the cyan wisp yelled before they, along with Yellow Man and Red Man began to dash towards the cake bridge, only for a massive ship to crash up out of the lake near them.

The ship was an old-style sailing galleon made from, by the looks of it, gingerbread and hard icing intertwined with metal. The sails were black with a stylized image of Eggman's face above crossed cutlasses. It also had a full broadside of cannons aimed in their general direction.

"Visitors are cautioned to avoid feeding, petting, or saving any aliens," the P.A. system chided as the cannons took better aim at the group.

"That sounds like as good a reason as any to throw caution to the wind," Rock observed as he stared calmly upwards towards the ship's deck where an egg-shaped robot in a purple metal captain's jacket, matching hat, eyepatch, and a pair of arms. One arm held a giant lollipop like a war axe as the robot hopped and spun threateningly, a crew of smaller armless egg-shaped robots hopping around him. "So, how are we doing this, Captain Candybeard? Easy or hard?"

The robot replied by leveling his lollipop weapon at the group in a clear 'charge' command.

"DRILL!"

"BURST!"

Yellow Man dove underground and Red Man wreathed himself in flames as the cannons fired.

"Somehow I knew you'd say that!" Rock hardened his gaze as he dodged around the shots and took aim at the descending Egg Crew.

The crew landed and Rock took aim, only for Yellow Man to burst up in the center of his opponents, destroying several but also forcing Rock to check his shot.

"Mega Man!" Tails called out as the cyan wisp entered his body. "I'm going to try and disable the ship! LASER!"

"Got it!" Rock nodded as he dove out of the way of Red Man's flames when the other Color Master charged haphazardly into the fray.

A few long moments later of Red Man and Yellow Man attacking the Egg Crew wildly and Rock trying to avoid becoming or creating a friendly fire casualty and the ship shuddered before listing badly, causing the captain to spill out into the battlefield.

"Wait!" Rock yelled as he saw Yellow Man begin to charge straight for the captain, as well as the cannons mounted on the ship's deck turn towards him.

"DRILL!"

'Captain Candybeard' pointed his lollipop at Yellow Man and the cannons answered by blasting the charging robot repeatedly. A spray of unpainted metal later and a yellow wisp came tumbling back, looking very dizzy and disoriented.

"Zaxat idniz ke axas praxannow..."

"No, but I still need your help," Rock implored, getting a nod as the wisp merged with him.

PRIMARY WEAPON OVERRIDE: YELLOW DRILL

"DRILL!" he yelled, forming the spinning energy before him and diving underground.

'Captain Candybeard' was too preoccupied trying to fend off Red Man with cannons, crew, and lollipop to notice the way the ground was rumbling before Rock came up from straight under him, tearing a huge gash in his armor and sending the robot captain flying.

But not destroying him. 'Captain Candybeard' flipped back up hopping and twirling in fury before his lollipop did something very interesting. The round top twisted ninety degreed and extended from the center to form a drill of its own which spun for a moment before the robot dove underground with it.

Rock was about to follow when a deluge of Egg Crew landed and began hopping about the area wildly. His preparations to follow the robot captain left him off-guard enough that a couple slammed into him, disrupting his union with the wisp who popped back out. And promptly began ducking and weaving in a panic to avoid all the robots, much like Yacker was doing.

PRIMARY WEAPON RESTORED TO NORMAL

"Hold on!" the yell of Tails was heard before he dove into the fray, punching, kicking, and tail-swatting Egg Crew all over the place.

Rock and Tails were so caught up in fending off the Egg Crew that they missed the mild tremors of a returning drill. But Red Man noticed and turned towards the young fox.

"BURST!" the flames made enough of a hole in the swarm of Egg Crew for Red Man to dash through and push Tails out of the way. Just in time for the lollipop drill to punch through his own metal body instead, tearing it in half even as it reverted to an unpainted generic male-type frame.

"Wee! Zaxat waxas bun!" the red wisp seemed a bit giddy as he tumbled out of the carnage. "Pum waxannaxa ke en Faxako Vo Claxazupp joxt!" (12)

"Yeah," Rock replied as he caught the red alien, "well, we need to finish this first."

"Ket dit!" the red wisp nodded before darting into Rock's body, turning his armor a rich red all over.

PRIMARY WEAPON OVERRIDE: RED BURST

"Tails!" Rock called out. "Get Yacker and the others underground! It's about to get hot up here!"

"Right!" Tails acknowledged as the yellow wisp merged with him and he dove into the pastry terrain, followed by Yacker and the cyan wisp. "DRILL!"

"As for you..." Rock leveled a glare at 'Captain Candybeard', his hopping Egg Crew, and his ship for good measure as he charged up until he was all but a micro-sun of intense flames before releasing it all in every direction. "BURST!"

"We know they look delicious, but please refrain from licking the rides. That would be disgusting. Do you know where those rides have been? People have been sitting on those rides! With their BUTTS! Okay, go ahead. Lick them. Don't say we didn't warn you."

"Ick..." Sonic made a face as the latest P.A. quip reached his ears through the wind around him as he freefell through the mini-planet's sky towards his destination. He had to admit, this was a pretty sweet feeling. And at this rate he'd get there long before–

A massive explosion of flame erupted from the general direction he was headed.

"Aw, man!" he sulked. "They beat me there? Now there's not gonna be any bots left to trash..."

"I spy with my little eye something black and brooding," Roll smiled. (13)

"I am not brooding!" (14) Bass shot back from where he was held immobile in a stasis capsule, just like Roll was. "And will you stop trying to play these stupid games?!"

"What else do you suggest we do?"

"Maybe, I don't know, getting out before I explode from sheer boredom?!"

"Well, if you've got any ideas, feel free to share them," Roll huffed as the sound of a door opening caught both their attentions.

"Pum'v sellupp!" a floating one-eyed white being cried out in a panicked tone as it held two of its three tendrils up to its mouthless face in shock. "Pum idniz voaxan te ichulf yeep locevolupp!"

"Oh, great..." Bass moaned.

"Don't mind him," Roll smiled as a thought began to form in her mind, "and we'd be glad for the company actually."

"Ug weurd?"

"Just what I've always wanted..." Bass groused. "To talk with a floating party favor I can't understand. Yay."

"Oh, hush you," Roll sniped back before returning her smile to the being. "Don't mind him. he's always been a grouch."

"Hey!"

"And, there!" Tails declared as he finished disabling the generator. The glowing energy arc winked out and relay towers nearby began retracting to standby positions before the glow surrounding the chain tethering the mini-planet in place faded away leaving a translucent tether behind.

A skidding sound was heard as Sonic came to an abrupt stop nearby. "Aw, man! I missed everything, didn't I?"

"Zaxat nud haxat ug kot bel foick tred, spinupp eno!" the red wisp replied cheerfully, causing Rock and Yacker, shortly followed by Tails since he'd had to read it from his device, to crack up hysterically.

"Man, I'm even missing the jokes now..." Sonic shook his head. "So I take it big blue's getting the hang of the Hyper-Go-On stuff, right?"

"Well," Tails wiped tears of mirth from his eyes, snickering a bit, "he's not getting the hang of horrible body odor, that's for sure."

"I try not to overclock my circuits that much," Rock shrugged as Tails and Sonic burst out laughing this time. "What? Did I miss something?"

"Dib ug id, Pum id," Yacker shrugged himself.

"Next stop: the Starlight Carnival," the transport declared happily as it approached the massive space fleet, the flagship tethered to the main park by a glowing chain like Sweet Mountain had been. "The sheer scale of our illuminated space fleet is sure to make you feel small and insignificant by comparison."

"Ergh..." Sonic made a face. "I was gonna make a comment about feeling like what Eggman's clearly compensating for, but I grossed myself out."

"I did not need to know that," (15) Rock facepalmed, mimicked by Yacker.

"Alright Eggman!" Knuckles threatened. "Hand over the Master Emerald!"

"Grr..." the rotund man growled out as the two duos stared him down.

"We require the return of our comrades Rouge and Treble if you wish to remain intact," Omega added.

"Not so fast!" came a new yell as Quint landed amidst the tableau heavily, followed shortly by Silver, Antoine, and Bunnie. "We need information from him first!"

"You're all annoying pests!" Eggman fumed in his craft as a pair of airborne machines descended from the sky. "I'll crush you with my mechanical pets!"

"I believe ze phrase eez 'bring it', no?" Antoine readied his blade.

"I believe you're right," Blues smirked as he readied his arm cannon. "We'll see who crushes who."

"You think you've won, don't you?" Eggman declared dramatically as the remains of his Egg Hawks smoldered.

"Yah bet we do!" Bunnie retorted confidently as all eight of the heroes stared the madman down.

"Well, we'll see who's laughing when I do this!" Eggman held up one of his cards and there was a bright flash of light. When it died down, each pair found themselves in a carnival-like area.

At night.

"Where did tha others go?" Bunnie asked in confusion as she and Antoine got their bearings. "Heck, where did we go?"

"Damnit Eggman!" Shadow fumed. "You won't get away with this! Come on Omega!"

"Hey, wait fer us!" Bunnie yelled as she and Antoine took off after Shadow and Omega.

"Okay, we're here and we need to get to the flagship," Tails noted as they disembarked the transport. He was about to continue when alarms began blaring and blast doors closed, barring the way forward.

"We seem to be loosing pressure on the Level 17," the P.A. system informed them. "Please hold your breath against the harsh vacuum of space, until you pass out from oxygen starvation. After that you won't care. Enjoy the ride!"

"Zaxat... seucts faxad," the yellow wisp noted.

"Yeah, whatever he said," Sonic added. "Rock?"

"I think it's more likely we tripped an alarm, or that this is just part of how this area screws with visitors," Rock noted. "In any case, I'm not reading a drop in pressure. In fact, I think there's a general atmosphere bubble being held in place around this whole fleet for some reason."

"Hupp weurd Faxardupp Jesohaxail pe zaxat?"

"Who knows?" Tails shrugged. "Right now, we need to get through those doors."

"Leave it to me and Yacker," Rock stepped forward. "Ready Yacker?"

"Loaxadupp!" Yacker chirped before merging with Rock, turning his armor white once again.

PRIMARY WEAPON OVERRIDE: WHITE BUSTER

"Here we go!" Rock yelled as he charged up and aimed for the doors. "HYPER!"

The massive blast of blinding white plasma blew through the doors like they were nothing, and splashed off a wall of shimmering blue cubes. The wall then faded revealing a large group of wide-eyed wisps and an orange female robot themed like a rocket-pack space adventurer stepped forward and pointed an arm cannon at them...

"RO–"

...only for the cyan, yellow, and red wisps to interpose themselves and begin gibbering quickly.

"Dit nud ekaxaupp!"

"Yoaxah, zoupp'lo um us!"

"Zoupp'lo wholo te whorp!"

"Zoupp idniz gned ug wolo faxang zolo!"

Two more robots stepped forward as the Orange Woman lowered her weapon. One a blue male model seemingly made entirely of blocks and a green male model that had a much more rounded body type and evoked the feeling of a stereotypical UFO.

"Wow, three this time. Nice!" Sonic grinned as he noted the group of wisps, composed of mostly white wisps like Yacker, but also a bunch of orange rocket-shaped wisps, the three-eyed cube-headed blue wisps, and the single-eyed UFO-like green wisps.

Yacker chose that moment to pop out of Rock and float over to the three robots.

PRIMARY WEAPON RESTORED TO NORMAL

"Pum'v kraxad te soo ug! Zoso flaxavo wholeos whaxavo cemo te whorp us riko zo Claxazupp Wird-Whaxail id! Eno eb ug caxan taxako ovolyeno faxang te Praxanot Wisp din zo slaxanspelt fohict us hiro zo ethols whorp us bloo zo loch!"

The Orange Woman, Blue Man, and Green Man looked at each other for a moment before the Blue Man gestured for the wisps to follow him and made for one of the transport craft while the Green Man and Orange Woman remained behind.

"So, I guess you're coming along to kick Baldy McNosehair butt?" Sonic grinned.

"HOVER!" Green Man rose up off the floor and became encased in a shimmering forcefield.

"I'll take that as a yes," Rock chuckled.

"If you're experiencing explosive decompression," the P.A. announced as the transport with the wisps aboard left, "please try to avoid staining the seat cushions. Those things are expensive."

"You know what would be really nice?" Roll asked as Bass yawned with unnecessary drama for the umpteenth time.

"Haxat?"

"If I could talk with my dad back on the planet. Let him know I'm recovering and all. He tends to worry a lot when he doesn't hear from me."

"Sulo zick!" the alien being chirped before zooming over to the room's console... and looking at it with total puzzlement. "With... Whed pe Pum uso zis?"

"It's not that hard," Roll smiled patiently. "I'll walk you through it..."

"Remember, for your safety, please avoid–"

"LASER!"

*BOOM!*

"As well as–"

"HYPER!"

*KA-BOOM!*

"Never under any circumstances–"

"ROCKET!"

*KRAKA-BOOM-BOOM!*

"–as it is actually a living being, and will bite your face off."

"Wow, we're really going to town on these ships..." Sonic mused as the group dashed out of the exploding ship and across one of the many 'light-paths' that interconnected the fleet.

"Attention ladies and gentlemen! Please make your way over to the main viewing area, where the Light Speed Electrical Parade is about to begi–"

The P.A. system cut off as a series of light flashes zoomed across the space around the heroes before vanishing.

"Ohoh, and... and that concludes the Light Speed Electrical Parade."

"Geez, I hate to say this," Sonic grimaced, "but some things you need to slow down a bit..."

"Jod skip axaheupp!" Yacker informed them as they approached the next part of the fleet.

"Attention!" the P.A. system announced. "The anti-gravity toilets on this level are out of order. We are sorry for this inconvenience, and hope that you can hold it for another twenty thousand light years."

"Aw, man, I wish he hadn't said that..." Sonic groaned. "Now I have to go..."

"What do you want this time, Albert?" Dr. Light sighed as he finally answered the call. "I..." Dr. Light blinked as he stared into the single eye of the being on the other end of the line. "You're not Albert Wily..."

"Whorre Foaxald Vaxan!" the being chirped happily. "Zo nico yorred biddick raxadupp waxankow te taxark te ug!"

"Hey dad!" the voice of Roll came from behind the being, prompting the fascinating creature to float aside so he could see his daughter.

Suspended in one of Dr. Wily's stasis tubes.

"Roll?" he started in shock. "My word! What happened?!"

"Oh, Dr. Wily invited me and Bass over to his place for the usual and I got a little more banged up than I expected," Roll shrugged nonchalantly and Dr. Light finally noticed Bass in a second tube. Making rude faces and mockingly mimicking talking motions. "Wily was nice enough to lend his facilities for our recovery, and Bass is just as intolerable a patient as he is anything else."

"Hey!" Bass looked insulted as the strange being giggled at his antics.

"I see..." Dr. Light blinked as he went with the calm tone of the call. He was sure Roll had a reason for making things seem less alarming than they looked from his end.

"Anyway, I'm recovering nicely, but it's kind of boring up here at the moment and I missed everyone."

"I'm sure," Dr. Light made himself smile. "I feel much the same way anytime I have to stay overnight at the hospital myself."

"I know, right?" Roll smiled back. "Plus Wily's said we can't have visitors yet, so it's been pretty lonely until this little explorer wandered in."

"Whoho... sellupp," the floating white, and likely alien, creature rubbed its proportionately huge head sheepishly.

"Don't be," Roll assured the being before returning her attention to Dr. Light. "Anyway, I was wondering if you'd be willing to send Tango on up to keep us company and help with our quiet recovery?"

"Why, yes," Dr. Light began to get the drift. "I can certainly do that. I'll send Rush and Beat along as well if you don't mind. Maybe even Eddie if Auto can spare him."

"Not at all."

"Please refrain from peeling off the special space-age polymer holding the starship together. It may look and feel like duct tape, but it's not. It's called..." the announcement paused as Eggman apparently scrambled for something believable. "Ehm... Space tape!" and failed miserably. "Very advanced stuff. Thank you."

"Well, that explains why the ships have been falling apart so easily," Rock noted as the group approached the generator on the deck of the flagship.

"Heh... no kidding," Sonic chuckled.

"Zis dis pit loi ox fig spaxacoskip..." the yellow wisp muttered as he and the others followed the group.

"No kidding," Tails nodded, as did Green Man and Orange Woman. "And Eggman could be hiding anywhere in it."

"True," Sonic agreed, "but knowing Baldy McNosehair he's probably hiding right behind the generator waiting to spring a trap on us."

"WHAT?! HOW DID YOU..." the fuming voice of Eggman rang out before apparently realizing that he'd given himself away. "Er... The Hyper Sleep Ride is now open. Remember, the Hyper Sleep Ride is not recommended for pregnant women, or people who aren't willing to be asleep for three years. Why don't you try it out? Eggmanland will still be here when you wake up."

"Yeah, nice try Baldy McNosehair," Sonic smirked.

"Just come on out and let's get this over with," Rock added as he prepared his arm cannon.

"As you wish..." Eggman's voice sounded from behind the generator. "Just hold that pose and say CHEESE!"

With the last word, Eggman's personal craft whipped out from behind the generator, pointing an odd-looking ray gun in the group's direction.

"Bring i–whoa!" Sonic had gotten ready as Eggman slammed his hand down on a button, only to be thrown to the ground as Rock was shoved into him.

"Ooof!" Rock grunted and looked up at the one who'd pushed him to see Orange Woman convulsing in the throes of a sinister purple ray from Eggman's craft.

"Elaxacko Wemaxan!" Yacker and the other wisps cried out in alarm as they backed up behind Green Man.

"Hey! Let her go!" Tails yelled as he charged at Eggman, only for Orange Woman to turn around and point her arm cannon at him, her eyes glowing the same purple as the ray. (16)

"ROCKET!" she yelled as a glowing orange rocket wreathed in a dark purple miasma was fire at a frantically backpedalling Tails.

"HOVER!" Green Man interposed his body between Tails and the projectile, but even with his shimmering forcefield he was thrown back from the impact.

"Hohohohoho!" Eggman laughed. "Not what I was going for, but I'll take it!"

"Haxat id ug pe te eep blioct?!"

"Oh, she works for me now!" Eggman continued laughing.

"What did you do Eggman?" Rock demanded.

"Me? Nothing!" Eggman feigned insult. "Unless shooting Albert's little alien-powered tinkertoy with a mind control ray that runs on alien life force counts as something." Eggman twirled his mustache arrogantly as he said this. "Does it?"

"HOVER!" Green Man recovered and shot forward towards Eggman encased in his forcefield, only for the controlled Orange Woman to take aim at him again.

"ROCKET!"

Green Man was blown back by the impact once more and barely stopped his tumble before hitting the others.

"To get to me, you're going to have to go through your comrade here. Unless she goes through you first!"

"ROCKET!" Orange Woman fired at Sonic this time.

"HOVER!" Green Man deliberately moved in front of the attack and took it.

"ROCKET!" a shot went for the wisps.

"HOVER!" Green Man took the impact again, but even with his forcefield, his robot body was starting to smoke and spark.

"ROCKET!" the next shot went for Mega Man before Green Man even had time to recover from the last one.

"HOV–" the blast slammed into Green Man in the middle of raising his forcefield and tried to push him back, but the hover jets in his boots flared with force and pushed back hard enough to keep him in place. "–ER!"

*BOOM!*

A spray of undecorated steel and a green wisp tumbled into Rock's arms.

"Oh, this is so much better than I could have dreamed!" Eggman gloated. "And I only used a small prototype!"

"Proaxaso... saxavo vupp blioct..." the alien muttered before merging with Rock, turning his armor a bright green all over.

PRIMARY WEAPON OVERRIDE: GREEN HOVER

"I will," Rock promised as he stared down Eggman even as Orange Woman was charging her weapon, and directing its force into her feet rather than her arm cannon. He stared at her and for a moment her eyes returned to normal and she nodded in understanding before Eggman's control was reasserted.

"ROCKET!" she yelled as she rocketed forward on her own power.

"HOVER!" Rock yelled back as he shot forward on anti-gravity boosters and covered in a powerful forcefield, his arm pulled back to punch his oncoming opponent. Rock's fist met the controlled Orange Woman's helmet and the two struggled to push the other back for several long seconds before Orange Woman's thrust gave out. Rock's forcefield-covered fist tore through her body, the orange rapidly fading to an uncolored steel as the orange wisp inside tumbled free.

"And now you're mine Mega Man!" Eggman laughed.

"Yacker!" Rock called out, prompting the white wisp to shoot forward and merge with him even as the green wisp left.

PRIMARY WEAPON OVERRIDE: WHITE BUSTER

"Eh?" Eggman stared in shock before he noticed that his ray was no longer firing. "Lousy cheep alien..."

"HYPER!" Rock yelled as he began firing blazing white plasma shots the size of his normal charged shots, but without having to charge them first.

"Damn it! Why didn't it work?!" Eggman screamed to the heavens as his craft was rocked from the impacts. And spotted the energy taks connected to the back. The empty energy tanks. "Oh. Out of jui–"

*BOOM!*

The last shot sent his craft tumbling to the ground, where Eggman fell out and landed on his head...

...which popped off, leaving the neck to spark from severed wires.

"Who nud pit lefet tee?!"

"More like a fake..." Tails sighed.

"Well," Eggman's voice came from the robot double, "I could hardly put myself at such blatant risk with dangerous opponents about, now could I?"

"Hasn't stopped you before," Sonic noted with a raised eyebrow.

"In any case, I now know the energy requirements of my latest invention. And I can get more Hyper-Go-On power! Lots more! And then I'll be able to not just control one meddlesome interloper, but the whole universe! In the meantime, enjoy the park! I'll even leave you your own private tour guide!"

A rather large weapons platform, with two whale-shaped neon blimp-things emblazoned with Eggman's stylized face supporting it, rose up beside the flagship and turned to take aim at the remaining heroes.

"My Frigate Orcan has the shutdown code for the generator, so have fun getting it from him!" Eggman's voice laughed from the dummy of himself. "Of course, you could just blow up the generator and die in the chain reaction. That works too."

Frigate Orcan began moving away from the flagship over one of the light-paths that crisscrossed the area.

"Don't let it get away!" Rock yelled before all of the weapons on the craft opened fire, forcing the group to dive for cover.

"Please note that this ride is not safe for children under or over thirteen. It is also not safe for thirteen year olds," the P.A. system declared helpfully.

"Is it just me, or is this thing acting a lot more dangerous that what we're used to from Baldy McNosehair?" Sonic asked.

"Doesn't matter," Rock motioned to the green wisp. "I have a plan."

"Hohoho! That's right!" Eggman laughed in his control room. "Cower before the might of my Frigate Orcan! Tremble as you try and figure out a way past enough firepower to give even the most headstrong speedster pause! There's nothing you can do! Hohohohoho!"

"Uh... except charge right in?" Cubot asked in confusion.

"Yes! Except charge right... what?" Eggman paused in his gloating as he processed that.

"See?" Cubot pointed to the monitor. "That hombre Mega Man is coming straight at it!"

Eggman stared at the screen as a green-armored Mega Man was flying, or perhaps hovering at high speed, through everything Frigate Orcan could throw at him. Every shot deflected by a shimmering forcefield.

"Wait..." Eggman noted an important detail. "Where are the rest of them?"

"Get ready!" Rock called out as he closed in on the flying weapons platform, right as all of the guns paused in their barrage to reload. "NOW!"

Sonic and Tails darted out from behind his protected form, their bodies shimmering with the power of the wisps as they each triggered the power loaned to them for this assault.

"BURST!" Sonic turned into a red form surrounded by flames and shot forward at the left weapons battery.

"LASER!" Tails turned into a living beam of energy that lanced through the right weapons battery.

Explosions rocked the craft as a large number of its weapons fell off from the twin attack and it began listing to one side.

"How do ya like that!" Sonic grinned as he, Tails, and the red and cyan wisps fell back into formation beside Rock, Yacker and the other wisps in their group emerging from behind the robot.

Frigate Orcan responded by climbing higher above the glowing pathway, well outside of jumping range for the three below.

"Hey!" Tails yelled. "Get back here and–Incoming!"

The bottom of the weapons platform had opened up, releasing a deluge of bombs and spiked balls down upon them.

"Orange!" Rock called out as he used the Green Hover's forcefield to power through the assault.

"Rot nud pe zis!" the orange wisp declared as it merged with Rock, the green wisp leaving his body and his armor turning from green to orange.

PRIMARY WEAPON OVERRIDE: ORANGE ROCKET

"Keew rung!" the green wisp called out as Rock began charging the new weapon and dodging the last few bombardments.

"ROCKET!" he yelled, releasing the energy from the bottom of his feet and shooting upwards in a plume of orange energy.

"Look!" Tails grinned. "Up in the sky! It's a bird! It's a plane!"

"As if," Sonic grinned back as Rock shot straight through Frigate Orcan and right out the top. "That's the man."

"Eggman!" Knuckles yelled as he and Blues caught up with the man again. "What are you up to? Why does this place look and feel like Angel Island?"

"Very astute, Knuckles," Eggman chuckled. "This is indeed Angel Island!"

"But..." Blues frowned as Silver and Quint arrived. "It was daytime on Angel Island, and now it's nighttime... You transported us halfway across the planet, but nothing else... How can this still be Angel Island?"

"Eggman!" Silver shouted. "You need to return that camera! It doesn't belong in this time!"

"We know you had to have gotten it from Nega!" Quint added. "Tell us where he is!"

"I see both of you have questions for me... Well, then, I suppose if either of you manage to defeat my Metal Sonic and his girlfriend in a race, I'll answer them!"

"Metal Sonic's... girlfriend?" Silver asked in confusion, not spotting the looks of fearful surprise on Knuckles and Blues's faces.

"Of a sort," the mechanical voice declared as the robotic hedgehog landed. Followed by a form no one had expected to see again (at least this Loop).

"Is that..." Quint took a step back in surprise, "...the legendary mad robot Waltz?" (17)

"Yes and no," Eggman admitted. "I managed to rebuild her body from data stored in Metal Sonic's archives, but her mind was very thoroughly destroyed."

"I now see that she was the fortunate one," Metal Sonic added. "Death would be preferable to this existence of forced servitude and repeated loss..."

"And this lump has been all sorts of brooding over the whole matter," the mad scientist humphed. "But he is in control of the Waltz frame. It's like two Metals for the price of one!"

"As you say..." Metal Sonic intoned before turning both his head and the puppet-Waltz's to the heroes. "We shall race, and I shall crush you."

"Bring it!" Silver declared.

"Just a reminder: Please refrain from pushing buttons on the starship," the P.A. system announced as Tails finished fiddling with the generator on the flagship. "Occasionally, one might jettison you into space. If this happens, your next of kin will be billed for the replacement hatch."

"Good thing I'm not pressing a button then," Tails smirked, dusting his hands off.

"So, he's using these generators to hold your planets in place with tractor beams?" Rock asked the wisps as the generator shut down, the glowing energy chain turning translucent as power stopped being fed to it.

"Yos!" Yacker confirmed. "Zo Claxazupp Wird-Whaxail saxaid zaxat zoupp'd gour paxaltii ox welkick axas reck axas ovon eno waxas axandivo duo te zo... zo..."

"Zo cilcuit," the yellow wisp supplied.

"Yoaxah, zo cilcuit!" Yacker nodded

"Proaxaso, whorp us bloo zo loch eb eep flothlon!" the green wisp pleaded.

"Act chep Faxardupp Jesohaxail!" the orange wisp added.

"We will," Rock promised. "Where to next?"

"Praxanot Wisp!"

"Hooohoho!" Eggman laughed despite his war machine being leveled. "Even with the blue menaces interfering, I'll soon have enough alien energy to power my mind control ray to take over the whole planet, making it the center of my Eggmanland theme park!"

"Y'all reckon you'll be able ta get enough energy to take over the whole dang planet?" Cubot asked curiously.

"I 'reckon' I will," Eggman sneered as he mimicked his minion's current cowboy accent. "Where's your new voice chip?"

"Right here boss!" Orbot zoomed in, holding the chip up. "Just need to install it!" Orbot hopped over to Cubot and began singing while fiddling around. "Oh, the think bone's connected to the talk bone..."

"Finally," Eggman grumbled as Orbot finished up. "I doubt anything could be as annoying as that cowboy chatter..."

"Yarr!" Cubot growled out, startling Eggman out of his chair. "Feeling ship-shape with me new voice chip I am! Ah, beggin' yer pardon squire but me and me matey are goin' ta sail of in search of those lubbers Mega Man and Sonic! Ahrr!" (18)

And with a quick salute, Cubot zoomed out.

"I think that's the wrong chip," Orbot observed intelligently.

"Really?" Eggman sneered. "Are you sure he doesn't normally speak in pirate? Whatever. If he wants to go after those blue headaches, then go help him. Take the Big Chaser and try not to screw things up."

"Um... you want me to fight Mega Man and Sonic?" Orbot couldn't gulp, but he was doing a decent impression.

"Did I stutter?" Eggman glared, prompting his minion to beat a hasty exit. "And fix that chip while you're at it!"

"Next stop: Planet Wisp," the transport announced as it closed in on the lush natural mini-planet, its natural beauty at odds with pretty much everything the heroes knew about Eggman and his preferences. "This attraction is currently off-limits, as it is still under construction and may not be dangerous enough for visitors yet."

"Zaxat nud eep whemo ug fig kaxassupp... zick!" the red wisp shook one of its tendrils angrily. "Wo peniz waxank dit te fo daxackoleus!"

"You know," Rock pondered aloud, "with Eggman's obsession with making things way more dangerous than necessary, I'm honestly surprised he hasn't done himself in by now."

"Bro," Sonic chuckled as he shook his head, "we may be lucky, but no one's that lucky."

"This is the legendary mad robot Waltz?" Quint asked in confusion as a burst of shots pinged off of Sakugarne.

"No," Blues replied as he blocked a similar burst with his shield. "The attacks are too focused. Too precise. As ruthless as the intent is, there are actually pauses between shot bursts to retarget and recalculate attack angles."

There was some loud swearing from Knuckles as he caromed off of Metal Sonic's Black Shield nearby and crashed into Silver, the robot hedgehog taking the chance to gain a lead in the cutthroat race.

"This is Metal Sonic using Waltz's abilities," Blues continued as he kept his shield up between himself and the Waltz puppet, determined to win Eggman's one-sided wager, "not the insane berserker that blasted at anything and everything without care for collateral damage."

"Ah," Yacker seemed to inhale the fresh natural breeze as he floated out of the transport, "whemo swook..." the white wisp with the spitcurl stopped as he took a look around and saw the heavy construction a short ways past the green fields with the ominous red and gray metal jutting out of the pristine nature belching smoke into the mini-planet's blue sky.

"Haxat whaxas Faxardupp Jesohaxail peno te eep whemo?!" the cyan wisp wailed as general exclamations of disbelief echoed from the other wisps.

"Dang..." Rock took in the sight and listened to the metallic sounds of construction going on in the distance. "It looks like Eggman's trying to roboticize the planet. The slow way."

"Yeah, that–" Sonic was cut off as the P.A. system at the landing spot suddenly flared to life.

"Attention guests: if you can hear this message, you are trespassing in an area still under renovation. If you are not an Eggman robot please return to the main park areas and ignore anything evil you might have seen here. Thank you."

"Yeah, that's not happening," Sonic huffed and crossed his arms. "Honestly, the whole theme of galactic conquest and subjugation of all life just isn't all that amusing to me."

"Yeah," Rock nodded. "I think we should lobby for a theme change to questing heroes beating up the evil minions of 'Baldy McNosehair' and freeing those he's oppressed."

"Hehe..." Tails chuckled. "I second! All in fav–"

"Somedisplacementofindigineousaliensanddestructionofnaturalresourcesmayoccur," the P.A. system added in a rush. "Eggmanenterprisesnotresponsible."

"Nnngg..." Rock groaned. "And once again the only time Eggman refuses to claim responsibility is when someone wants to hold him for it."

"You say that like it's surprising," Tails deadpanned.

"Flaxavo enos," Yacker spoke up from where he and the other wisps had been conversing, "wo joow te soot uk eep flothlon pi soo dib zoupp axalo axarlidd. Pum plaxaupp ug wirr bict mindelupp axagaxainch Faxardupp Jesohaxail pi bloo eep praxanot."

"Don't worry," Rock smiled and shot the wisps a thumbs-up. "Go see to your people. We'll take care of Eggman and his 'renovations'."

"Wo'rr fo faxang te whorp ug!" Yacker promised as the small group of former Color Masters sped off.

"Okay," Rock turned towards the construction area and the massive tower that held the chain-like tractor beam at its center, "let's start stopping."

A quartet of teleportation beams resolved themselves about halfway up the space elevator to Wily World. The robot support units; the green cat Tango, the red dog Rush, the blue bird Beat, and the red walking suitcase Eddie; looked at each other and nodded. Their behavior programming was set aside for the moment to fulfill a more important objective. (19)

Fulfilling their rescue mission.

"Hey, a pink wisp!" Sonic grinned as the alien merged with him before turning to his companions. "Sorry, bro, looks like Tails and me are taking the high road! SPIKES!"

And with that, Sonic jumped, turned into a pink ball of spikes and spin-dashed up the construction wall before anyone could respond.

"Hey! Wait for me!" Tails yelled as he zoomed upwards after his friend.

"I'd say that lack of impulse control is going to get you in trouble one of these days," Rock said to the empty air, "but I'm pretty sure you like it that way."

"Tch..." Quint scoffed as he readied himself among the blinding snow of the island's frozen mountain. He and Silver had split from Knuckles and Blues, only for Metal Sonic and his puppet Waltz frame to follow the two of them instead. "I honestly expected better from the infamous 'Metal Sonic'."

"And yet here you are, cowering before me," both bodies replied in identical monotones. "Ready to perish as is natural for all living things."

"Yeah, right!" Silver sneered. "Even at your best you've barely scratched us!"

"My 'best' you say?" the robot hedgehog asked. "For that pretender who thinks himself my master? I would do no such thing..."

Silver and Quint both blinked at the claim.

"But perhaps it is time I stopped playing by the childish rules his overfed ego has set and dispatch you to the eternal rest that is natural for all who claim life," Metal Sonic intoned. "To return you to the nothingness from which all minds originally came. Be glad. Your eternal peace is at hand, while mine is still far off. My love would have wanted it this wa–"

A sound of air being cut was all the warning Metal Sonic got before a whirling ball with a spinning metal blade protruding from it tried to bisect him, only to get just his arm as he dodged at the last moment. The spinning ball landed and uncurled into the form of Antoine D'Coolette, skidding to a halt in the snow in a swordsman's ready stance, his sword held firmly.

"You dare?" Metal Sonic turned to glare at the newcomer even as the puppet Waltz aimed her ten finger cannons at him

"Oui," the coyote smirked. "We dare indeed."

"...We?" Metal Sonic inquired before a laser blast tore a hole in the puppet Waltz's torso, causing a critical system failure and leaving her a collapsed heap in the snow.

"Yeah, Metah 'hog," Bunnie grinned as she blew smoke from her cybernetic arm cannon. "We."

Metal Sonic looked around and assessed the situation. "This is not over," he declared before igniting his booster rockets and taking to the air in a tactical retreat.

"Okay Eggman!" Knuckles demanded as he waved his fist in the mad doctor's face. "We won your stupid little race so you're going to answer our questions! Starting with WHY YOU LEFT A CARDBOARD CUTOUT OF YOURSELF HERE YOU COWARD!"

Blues kept a neutral expression as he watched his echidna friend pound, mash, twist, bludgeon, and savage the poor piece of unfortunately shaped cardboard into a decimated mess.

"Feel better?"

"Not really, I..." Knuckles paused as it registered that it hadn't been Blues to say that. He turned to see Shadow with a camera. Right in time for the flashbulb to go off.

"An impressive amount of brute force," Omega observed, "however such violence would be better spent against Eggman himself."

"YOU THINK I DON'T KNOW THAT?!" Knuckles roared.

"Perhaps," Shadow chuckled as he snapped a few more shots. "And perhaps we should race to see who gets first crack."

"YOU'RE ON!"

Rock became alert as he heard commotion up ahead.

"Pint Wemaxan nud pewn!"

"Whorp! Whorp!"

"Saxavo us!"

Muffled explosions followed and Rock increased his pace, coming upon an opening in the structure overlooking a battlefield. There were numerous Eggman robots strewn about, their armor shredded like they'd fallen afoul of some aggressive spike trap. There were many more firing on a barricade made of shimmering blue cubes behind which cowered a large number of wisps, a figure he recognized as the blocky Blue Man from before and a feminine pink (well, more purplish through the translucent blue cubes, but the shading suggested the figure was actually pink) figure clutching her shoulder.

Wasting no time, Rock jumped down, firing a charged shot from his Mega Buster and following it up with a barrage of normal buster fire as he ducked and wove through the melee.

Eggman's robots immediately dissolved into confusion from the sudden assault from another front and tried to fire on Mega Man, only for his dodging to cause them to hit each other as often as not. In short order, he'd arrived at the barricade.

"It's me Blue Man!" He called out. "I'm here to help!"

"CUBE!" came the response and the wall shifted to a more stepped arrangement allowing Rock to scale it with a few jumps and drop down on the other side. With another cry of "CUBE!" the wall returned to its previous configuration.

"Je Pint Wemaxan! Ug'lo whult!" several wisps gibbered as the pink figure, a lanky female robot with long spikey hair all down her back and spike-tipped feet and hands. "Ug caxaniz bidd riko zaxat!"

Or rather, Rock noted as the robot tried to brush off the wisps' concern, one spike-tipped hand. The other arm had apparently been blown off at the shoulder. (20)

"SPI–" Pink Woman's attempt to get back into the fray was cut off as her severed shoulder sparked wildly and she convulsed. Rock darted forward and caught her as she fell.

"It's okay," he assured the robot, "you did good. I can take it from here."

Pink Woman looked him in the eye and after a moment her form faded to a generic unpainted female model, still missing an arm. A pink wisp with a fierce expression in its one eye and five spiked protrusions from its head floated up level with Rock's face.

"Je, wo caxan taxako dit blem wholo!" the wisp insisted before shooting into Rock's body, turning his armor bright pink.

PRIMARY WEAPON OVERRIDE: PINK SPIKES

Rock blinked and examined himself. "SPIKES!" he declared, causing several such items to sprout from his hands and feet. 'Hmm... I think this can be charged too for a ranged attack. Interesting...'

"Caxan ug whorp us, flaxavo eno?" several wisps asked, staring at Rock pleadingly.

"Of course I will," he promised before turning to Blue Man. "Can you follow my lead?" Getting a nod, Rock began charging the Pink Spikes weapon and turned to the regrouping Eggman robots. "Then get ready to drop the barrier in 3... 2... 1..."

"CUBE!" Blue Man shouted as the blue blocks making up the barrier vanished.

"SPIKES!" Rock yelled as he shot a pink orb covered with energy spikes straight ahead before charging in.

"Please note:" the P.A. system announced as Sonic and Tails ground across a series of rails connecting the highest levels of the construction area together. "Any mutant powers gained from riding the attractions here at the park are the express property of Eggman Industry, and must be used in the service of Eggman and his schemes."

"Yeah, I'm not following that," Tails shook his head, chuckling.

"No kidding," Sonic closed his eyes dramatically as he flipped around backwards on the rail. "I'd take my mutant powers and run them all over Eggman's intellectual propert–oop!"

"Sonic!" Tails yelled as, due to not paying attention, Sonic had missed the rail abruptly stopping in mid-air and was flung out into the open air way high above the ground. Jumping off his own rail, Tails took flight and made to turn around and try to grab Sonic before he fell too fa–

"EAGLE!" heralded a crimson blur shooting for Sonic and grabbing him before Tails finished reorienting himself.

"Hey!" Sonic grinned up at the robot who had snagged him out of the air. He was full crimson with an aerodynamic design and a pair of glowing crimson energy wings keeping him aloft. "Thanks for the save!"

"EAGLE!" the Crimson Man replied.

"Hey Sonic!" Tails called, pointing to an area below them where regular explosions and weapon fire was taking place.

"Well, it looks like someone started a party without us!" Sonic grinned before turning to Crimson Man and pointing to the ruckus below. "Hey, buddy, think you can drop us off there? Looks like we've got a few of Baldy McNosehair's bots to smash!"

"EAGLE!" the Crimson Man nodded before zooming in that general direction.

"Okay, Blue Man," Rock called out as he readied another charged Pink Spike shot against the ever-coming tide of Eggman robots, "on my mark!"

"EAGLE!" the cry came from above, along with a duo of "Incoming!"s.

A crimson blur shot down into Eggman's forces and carved a swath through them even as a pair of spinning balls, one blue the other orangish with two tails trailing, hit the ground and took off through the forces.

"Eleven far, one far, two, ten, and noon high! Mark!" Rock didn't even miss a beat. "SPIKES!"

"CUBE!" came Blue Man's cry as a quartet of cubes appeared at the positions noted in time for the Spin Dashing forms to bounce off in a ricocheting pattern that tore through the ranks even more.

"Good job pink, but I'm gonna need a cyan wisp's laser for this next part. And my friends could probably use some of the yellows' drills."

PRIMARY WEAPON RESTORED TO NORMAL

"Eupp!" the pink wisp yelled to the other wisps hanging back. "Pum joow pit cyaxan pi semo yorrews evol wholo! Quing! Anupp merunkools?"

"Pum'rr pe dit!" a cyan wisp called almost instantly as it zoomed up, trailed by a couple other cyan wisps and a few yellow wisps.

"You're with me," Rock pointed to the cyan wisp and then two yellow wisps, "and you two go help Sonic and Tails. Please."

"Zo spinupp eno pi zo eno eb twe taxairs," the pink wisp clarified.

"Legol!" the yellow wisps saluted before darting off towards Sonic and Tails just coming out of their Spin Dashes, and the cyan wisp merged with him, turning his armor the same rich cyan color.

PRIMARY WEAPON OVERRIDE: CYAN LASER

"Blue Man!" he yelled out. "I need a grid of cubes configured for ninety-degree energy redirection, stat!"

"CUBE!" Blue Man yelled out and focused for a moment before forming such a large array of translucent cubes.

Rock took aim at the nearest one as Sonic and Tails turned into their Yellow Drill forms to tunnel beneath what was about to happen and the winged Crimson Man took to the sky above. "LASER!"

The beam shot forth, hitting the blue cube and refracting at right angles from cube to cube, creating a deadly grid that either destroyed Eggman's robots or left them easy pickings for Sonic and Tails doing subterranean dolphin impressions.

"Well hello little animal friends," Wood Man greeted as he spotted the group and approached. As the primary caretaker of the robotic flora and fauna of Wily World it fell to him to make sure they were all operating well and kept in their proper place. Kneeling before them, he reached out to pet the green cat. "Why are you all the way out here? Say... don't you all belong to Meg–" (21)

"MRRRROOOOOWWWRRRR!"

"ACK! OW! I'M NOT A SCRATCHING POST! HEEELLP!"

"Arr whaxair zo kloaxat whole!" the latest group of freed wisps cheered and bowed to Rock. "Act ug axas worr, flaxavo whorpols!" they bowed to Sonic and Tails before speeding away down the side of the massive incomplete structure at the center of Eggman's construction efforts.

"Nice to see those guys in high spirits," Sonic grinned, "especially after that Blue Man... are you alright Tails?"

"J-j-just f-fine..." Tails fought back the sudden fit of giggles he'd gotten after reading his device. "W-what were you *snrk* saying?"

"I was saying it's a shame that Blue Man guy took off to look for Yacker and the others. We could probably use his help coming up. Eh... at least the pink wisp and the Crimson Man guy stuck with us, right guys?"

"Pum weurdniz vipt zis bel axanythick!" the pink wisp declared even as Crimson Man landed right before the group with a cry of "EAGLE!" and pointed towards the depressed center of the construct.

"Yep," Sonic looked down into the distance and spotted the glow of the generator. "That looks like our target alright."

A deep rumble punctuated by some sharp lurching of the structure caused Sonic to stumble back. A few moments later and what looked like a giant over-mechanized teacup ride ringed with a thick circular barrier wall and with blast shields in the center hovering on powerful jet rockets rose up before them.

"And that looks like our dance partner!" Sonic grinned as the blast shield opened into a parody of bladed flower petals, revealing a madly grinning robot face in the center. It jerked back and parts of the structure detached to reveal themselves as the robot's arms which swung themselves around just like the demented ferris wheel robot from before.

"EAGLE!"

"Please remember," the P.A. system piped up as Crimson Man tried to shoot forward in a piercing dash at the robot's face, only for the blast shields to close almost instantly, causing the color master to bounce off and hit the structure roof hard next to the others, "all planets in Eggmanland are, as far as you know, wholly owned properties of Eggman Enterprises and its subsidiaries. All unauthorized photography, video reproduction, or shutting down of generators is strictly prohibited. Thank you."

"You want to say it, bro," Sonic asked, "or should I?"

"I got it," Rock shot Sonic a quick grin before shouting at the top of his robotic speakers. "EGGMAN! WE ARE GOING TO SAVE THESE PLANETS, AND WE ARE GOING TO FREE THE WISPS! NO GROSS MISUSE OF COPYRIGHT LAW IN THE UNIVERSE IS GOING TO STOP US!" (22)

The teacup ride mech gave a screech as Crimson Man took to the air and the trio of heroes jumped into the mech's outer ring.

"We got this!" Tails yelled as the pink wisp merged with him. "SPIKES!"

The resulting pink spiked ball with twin pink tails Spin Dashed around the edge of the ring while Sonic began hopping between the teacups and Rock pelted the robot's face with buster fire, forcing it to close its blast shields to prevent damage. And then twelve laser cannons around the edge of the blast shields powered up and began firing, forcing Rock and Sonic to take cover as Tails began latching onto the whirling teacups orbiting the central robot head in preparation for his chance.

That chance came when the laser assault ended and the blast shields opened, leaving the robot's head open to Tails's spike form's slingshot attack off ot the closest teacup, tearing a great gouge in the faceplate and sending the robot reeling.

"EAGLE!" Crimson Man sought to take advantage of the opening, but the controlling robot reflexively closed its blast shields, causing Crimson Man to carom off. In the next moment, the robot had detached one of its arms from the outer ring and shot it forward through the mech structure at Crimson Man's general location, narrowly missing the color master.

The lasers started up again, forcing the trio of heroes and pink wisp inside the ring to take cover behind the teacups.

"Kloaxat whole! Kloaxat whole!" the cry came as a panicking blue wisp shot into the safe zone. "Dit nud tollifro! Faxardupp Jesohaxail nud voaxan lefets teet Yaxangol pi zo ethols! Pum sliow te chep zom, fut zoupp pochleyow zo fedupp zaxat zo Claxazupp Wird-Whaxail kaxavo vo pi–"

"Sonic! Rock!" Tails pointed at the teacups which were glowing ominously. "It's about to blow the teacups!"

"Eh je!" the blue wisp yelped before diving into Rock's body, turning all of his armor the same shade of blue he was known for.

PRIMARY WEAPON OVERRIDE: BLUE CUBE

"CUBE!" Rock yelled, forming a six-sided energy barrier around the four of them.

*BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM!*

Rock let out a sigh of relief as the impromptu barrier held firm before taking stock of the situation. The mech's frame was a bit scorched, but otherwise functional. Same for the closed blast shields around the most vulnerable part of the robot and...

*vreeennn...*

...the laser turrets it was even now firing. To little avail as Rock kept the barrier up.

"Options?" he asked as he scanned for Crimson Man. The color master was hanging back, apparently hesitant to try another assault after the lack of success the first few times.

"I've still got some Hyper-Go-On left over from rescuing wisps earlier," Sonic said. "When he stops shooting, I'll use it to boost above him and wham!" the hedgehog slammed his fist into his palm.

"Worth a shot," Rock nodded as the laser beams shut off and he dropped the barrier. "Go!"

Sonic vanished in a burst of speed, tearing around the outer ring in an aura of white energy like gravity didn't concern him and upon reaching the topmost point, he launched himself straight downwards in a homing attack directly for the robot's face...

...and slammed into the quickly closed blast shields, bouncing off at an angle and dealing no real harm to the machine.

"CUBE!" Rock yelled, creating a series of four cubes around the central unit. Sonic landed on the rightmost one and pushed off towards the lower one, jumped to the leftmost, rebounded to the upper cube, and was ready when the robot opened its protection once more.

"Surprise!" he called out, slamming a new homing attack home before the machine could react to the assault, sending the robot reeling with a mechanical screech.

The robot flailed around in the flying mech it was attached to for a moment before sending out an energy surge that caught all three heroes and forced the blue wisp to pop out of Rock's body.

PRIMARY WEAPON RESTORED TO NORMAL

The cubical blue wisp dazedly collided with the pink wisp, sending both reeling as the mech began to spin and reorient itself horizontally. Around and around it went, the speed increased by the rocket boosters keeping it aloft until the whole thing was a circular metal blur. (23)

"Oh, geez," Sonic moaned as the energy surge abated and he was assaulted by the unwanted centrifugal force, "I think I'm gonna huuuuurrrrrllll!" His sudden nausea wasn't helped by being suddenly flung loose from Eggman's teapot mech and he instinctively curled into a spiny ball as he flew, barely noting the crimson color as he impacted with something. The impact and his disorientation was enough to knock him loose from his curled-up mode and he began free-falling through the air.

"I g*urp*ot you!" the familiar voice of Tails announced as the flying fox grabbed Sonic out of the air and pulled up.

"Easy buddy," Sonic grinned sickly. "I'm already about to toss my chili dogs..."

"I know..." Tails replied as he wobbly sought a landing area more stable than he felt at the moment. "I feel almost as bad as after trying that 'Bucket o' Sushi' pla–"

"Not helping the nausea lil bro..."

While the two mobians sought stable ground, the two wisps tumbled head over tendrils in different directions before they managed to orient themselves and Rock...

Rock had managed to hold on just a bit longer than the others before he too was sent flying. In almost the opposite direction as Sonic and Tails.

'Okay, this is... pretty bad,' Rock thought to himself. 'At this speed I'm pretty much done for if I hit anything...' his thoughts trailed off as he spotted a crimson form shooting towards him. It had three determined eyes on a head swept back in a tri-pronged shape that evoked a bird of prey and a trio of tendrils that looked a bit like large feathers. A crimson wisp.

"Pum axaperegizo, kloaxat whole," the wisp gibbered solemnly as it flew up beside Rock, "bel foick unaxafro te pe velo." With that, the crimson wisp merged with the blue bomber, turning his armor a deep crimson color.

PRIMARY WEAPON OVERRIDE: CRIMSON EAGLE

"Okay," Rock grinned as he assessed the weapon's capabilities, "I can work with this. EAGLE!" The Mega Man sprouted a pair of glowing crimson energy wings and shot upwards, high, high above the crazed teacup ride mech that was only now slowing its deadly spin, seeing how it had ended up moving itself out into the open air instead of over the high roof. "Alright now," he spoke to the crimson wisp he was merged with as he finished analyzing the Crimson Eagle's capabilities, "I've got a plan, but I'm going to need you to disengage and follow me down. Be ready to merge with me again when I give the signal. This is going to be close. Got it?"

PRIMARY WEAPON RESTORED TO NORMAL

"Pum uctolchaxact, kloaxat whole," the crimson wisp stated as gravity realized that Rock was no longer defying it and began pulling him into a freefall.

"Any chance you could stop with the 'great hero' thing?" Rock asked idly as he charged up his Mega Buster and fired on the teacup robot, noting that it closed its blast shields in plenty of time as he charged up again. "My name is Rock," he fired again and began charging another shot. "Or Mega Man if you really want to be formal."

"Zaxant ug bel torrick vo yeep naxamo, kloaxat whole," the crimson wisp stated as Eggman's robot opened its blast shields only to close them again to block the second shot even as Rock fired the third and began charging a fourth, "fut Pum wirr jovol ponupp haxat ug axalo te us wisps. Jet axabtol axarr ug whaxavo peno."

"It's just..." Rock blushed a bit as he fired again and began charging the next shot, noting that the mech wasn't bothering to open its blast shields this time. "It's kind of embarrassing being praised like that..."

"Zon chep peick wholeic poods," the crimson wisp countered as the next shot was unleashed and the mech started growing larger in their view. "Chep foick pit 'Vogaxa Vaxan'."

"And let people like 'Baldy McNosehair' have their way?" Rock chuckled back as he fired one last shot. "Never. It's time."

"Act zaxat dis hupp ug axalo pit kloaxat whole," the crimson wisp concluded as it merged with Rock again, once more turning his armor a pure deep crimson.

PRIMARY WEAPON OVERRIDE: CRIMSON EAGLE

"I suppose I can't argue with that..." Rock sighed as he began charging energy while continuing his freefall and noting the point where another of his charged shots would have impacted if he'd kept up the barrage. 'Come on... Start wondering why I stopped shooting and open your blast shields...'

A moment later, and the barest fractions of a second before impact, Eggman's creation did exactly that.

"EAGLE!" Rock yelled out as he was covered in a crimson aura of Hyper-Go-On energy and accelerated even faster than terminal velocity, punching straight through the robot's faceplate and out the back hurtling towards the ground. He barely pulled up into a horizontal flight path as he heard the crashing sound of the teacup mech falling and apparently hitting about every level of construction on the way down. He came to a stop near the generator and landed even as a few stray parts of his former foe bounced to a halt and the crimson wisp exited his body again.

PRIMARY WEAPON RESTORED TO NORMAL

A few seconds later and the sound of Tails coming in for a landing was heard.

"Oh, man, that was awesome!" Sonic pumped his fist in the air as he landed, before wobbling slightly on his feet. "Just... make the planet stop spinning... *urp*"

"Yeah, how are you holding up Rock?" Tails asked as he landed a little harder than normal.

"Better than I probably would have before my gyro stabilizers were upgraded from the schematics scanned from Top Man," Rock grinned as he spotted the blue and pink wisps approaching from wherever they'd been flung. "Now, let's get this generator shut down."

"Hurry it up Shade!" Charmy fidgeted. "We need to stop Eggman's plan before he does... whatever it is he's gonna do!"

Shade bit back her retort, knowing it wasn't going to do any good as she continued working with the wires inside the panel she'd accessed.

"Calm d-down Charmy..." Ray placated. "Sh-shade kn-nows what she's doin-ng. R-right?"

"She is a professional," the green figure of the rogue Sniper Joe agreed.

"Arr whaxair zo kloaxat whole pi whis flaxavo whorpols!" a crowd of wisps that had gathered cheered as the generator shut down and the chain-like tractor beam powered down to a barely active state.

"Okay, seriously Tails," Sonic sighed as his friend began snickering wildly again upon reading his translator, "what's the big joke?"

"N-n-noth-thing..." Tails chortled for a moment. "Th-the wisps are j-just...*snrk-k-k* saying h-how thankful *sprrrrt* they are to Mega Man and his *ch-ch-ch* two sidekicks! Hahahahahahaha!"

"W-what?!" Sonic began sputtering. "Sidekick?! Me?!"

"W-what?" Tails barely managed to fight back his laughter. "You're not *snrk* happy that your 'big bro' is a, heh, big hero?"

"No, no, it's good," Sonic said hastily as Rock began conversing with the blue wisp about something. "Great even."

"Zo Vogaxa Vaxan wirr saxavo zom!"

"Yoaxah, zo kloaxat whole caxaniz reso!"

"Who'rr sked Faxardupp Jesohaxail pi whis lefets haxat-bel!"

Sonic slumped dejectedly as praise he couldn't even understand was heaped upon an increasingly embarrassed Rock. "Awesome. Outstanding. Amazing."

"Hmm..." the form of Eggman frowned as the man stared through a pair of binoculars down the icy mountain slopes at the approaching groups. "Those pests are proving even more troublesome than I'd predicted... But no matter. With my improvements to the Egg Lynxes, there's nothing they can do to stop me! Ohohohohoho!"

"Next stop: the Tropical Resort. There, you'll find breathtaking views from our giant Ferris Wheel, amazing views from the shopping mall, and constant risk of bodily harm."

"Wait, run that by me again?" Sonic asked as the transport whipped from Planet Wisp back to the Tropical Resort.

"A kiaxank wrirrick lefet teet Yaxangol pi zo ethols!" the blue wisp explained to nods from the pink and crimson wisps that had joined the group. "Dit whoaxadow chlaxaidd bel zo zick wherdick eep praxanots din praxaco! Dit nud keick te pe faxad zicks te zom, riko vaxako zom dinke jogaxa-wisps el welso!"

"In a language I can understand, please?"

"It's fine," Rock patted the dejected-looking blue wisp. "Tails and I know what you said."

"Yeah," Tails agreed before turning to his device and reading aloud for Sonic's benefit. "He said that Yacker and the other wisps, the ones who were powering the color masters we've met and possibly others, were captured by a giant drilling robot which then took off for the Tropical Resort. Likely to transport them wherever captured wisps are taken."

"So that's why we're going there first instead of to the Aquarium Park?" Sonic clarified, getting nods. "Cool. I'm always up for trashing more of Baldy McNosehair's toys."

"Just you wait Eggman!" Knuckles growled as he tore up the frozen mountainside, Blues right behind him. "I'm gonna tear you a new one when I catch you!"

"Not if we get to him first!" Shadow challenged as he and Omega blasted their own way up the mountain.

"The foliage you see was pilfered from various environmentally fragile planets. Please enjoy them, as they are the last of their kind."

Rock and the others ignored the P.A. system as they tore through the central resort area, looking for anything that looked like it might be a giant drill robot.

"Holo ceurd zoupp fo?!" the blue wisp worried.

"I don't know, but–"

*THOOM*

Rock's reply was cut off as the ground shook, sending himself and Sonic stumbling as they lost their footing.

"Call me crazy," Sonic jerked his thumb in the general direction of where the sound came from, "but I think checking that out is a good place to start."

"Ekaxaupp, ug'lo claxazupp," the pink wisp replied as the group took off in that direction. "Fut dit nud chirr pit keew didoaxa!"

"Please feel free to leave all valuables in your vehicle during your stay here at Eggmanland," the P.A. system advised as they all ran, "as they will be perfectly safe. In no way will roaming bands of robots break into your vehicle."

"Ug axalo sust pit riaxal," the crimson wisp rolled its eyes as they all began to hear sounds of a struggle.

"QUAKE!"

"Jump!" Rock yelled as he took his own advice none too soon.

*THOOM*

Landing, he and Sonic continued rushing for the commotion, right behind the flying wisps and Tails. In an open area between shops, they saw a large industrial-type robot with two arms each ending in a giant drill. Facing off against it were two robots. In the middle of a shallow crater formed from a heavy impact was a gray robot with armor comprised of ninety and one-thirty five degree angles instead of curved plating that looked like someone had taken the general design of Stone Man or Guts Man and added breasts. The other was a rotund indigo robot with comparatively short limbs that reminded Rock of Mash, except with more articulate appendages.

"ASTEROID!"

As they took in the sight, the Indigo Man emitted a ring-shaped gravity field around itself that ripped apart a nearby storefront to create a ring of debris around him oriented vertically like a wheel and charged the drill robot, picking up more loose debris for his ring as he went.

It almost sounded like the drill robot replied with something, but if it did, that reply was drowned out by the loud whirring of the drill that shot forward to meet the charging Indigo Man. Drill met debris ring and both ground against each other hard, and then the drill began to buckle and finally broke apart to be added to the ring of debris.

And the second drill swiped in from the side, catching Indigo Man from an unprotected angle to punch straight through in a spray of metal and other detritus that flew in the direction of Rock and the others, forcing them to brace themselves.

"Kot whix!" the pink wisp shot for Sonic as a large round one-eyed wisp with short tendrils and a decorative ring around its body bounced to a halt at Rock's feet.

"Chliko sluo vupp bliocts!" the crimson wisp similarly shot for Tails.

"SPIKES!" Sonic wasted no time revving up a pink wisp-enhanced Spin Dash while Tails took to the air as a winged crimson fox-head trailing two tails with a cry of "EAGLE!"

Sonic's attack missed as the 'Drillinator' took to the air and Tails's attempt at a charging attack resulted in him almost getting swatted out of the sky by the remaining drill-arm.

"Daxaln dit! Pum..." the indigo wisp shook off its disorientation and spotted Rock, its eye widening in amazement. "Alo ug zo kloaxat whole Pum whoaxald axafuk? Zo Vogaxa Vaxan?"

"Um... yeah?" Rock confirmed.

"Zon proaxaso! Ug kettaxa saxavo vupp bliocts blem zeso twe!"

"Those t–" Rock's puzzlement was cut off as the indigo wisp merged with him, turning his armor a bold indigo all over.

PRIMARY WEAPON OVERRIDE: INDIGO ASTEROID

Rock analyzed the weapon as the Gray Woman moved to intercept, managing to grab the remaining drill arm while it was inactive and holding it in place. 'Looks like the basic principle is similar to Junk Man's weapon, only using gravity manipulation to form a shield of debris instead of electromagnetism... Let's see... if I tweak it just right... got it.'

"ASTEROID!" he yelled, charging forward and activating two planar fields of gravity instead of just one. Each planar field sucked up debris from the surrounding area, most of which the Indigo Man mad pulled up before, to form a pair of diagonally oriented swirling rings around Rock, crossing each other directly ahead and directly behind.

The 'Drillinator' tried to move out of the way, but a pair of Homing Attacks from Sonic and Tails kept it in place for a direct impact. The crossing rings of gravity-held debris ground into the industrial armor of the large robot for several long moments before it finally caved and broke apart. As it did so, a large purple object burst out of the shell and settled in to hover a short distance away.

The new thing looked like a huge thickly armored purple cylinder hovering on its side with spiked white hemispheres on either end and a yellow attachment that unfolded into six relatively short legs and a pair of robotic eyestalks. Overall, the whole thing looked like a massive 'hermit crabmeat'.

"Avast ye lubbers!" a voice broadcast from the thing. "Stand fast and lay down yer weapons 'less ye wanna sleep in Davy Jones's locker!"

"Oh, indeed," a more cultured voice added. "Everything would go so much smoother if you surrendered. Why, we might even meet the boss's quota."

"Is that..." Sonic arched an eyebrow. "Is it just me, or is that thing being piloted by Orbot and Cubot?"

"Certainly sounds like it," Tails agreed.

"Ug kivo eep bliocts faxang!" the pink wisp demanded as it zipped up to the robot's face.

"Y-yoaxah!" the blue wisp added. "Proaxaso?"

"Yar-har! Just like that!" Cubot's voice laughed right before the space between the mechanical crab legs began sucking in air, and both wisps with it. "Two more lil' aliens fer Admiral Eggboss!"

"JE!" the crimson wisp cried out in horror.

Sonic, Tails, and Rock gaped at what just happened. Rock's shock was great enough that the Indigo Asteroid power fizzled out, dropping the gathered debris in a haphazard pile. The shock quickly gave way to anger, but another was already acting.

"QUAKE!" the Gray Woman leaped at the heavily armored robot, fist outstretched. As she approached, the spiked hemispheres at each end of the robot detached and sprang out on the ends of articulated arms before slamming together on either side of the color master.

"Goodness!" Orbot's voice seemed surprised. "That actually worked!" (24)

"Of course it did, matey!" Cubot declared as three spots atop the robot began glowing before firing lasers. Rock, Sonic, and Tails dodged two of them, but the third and center laser carved what remained of the Gray Woman straight up the middle, an angular hexagonal-headed wisp with three eyes fell out as the body was reduced to dull scrap. "And here be another lil' alien!"

"No!" Rock growled as he jumped forward and grabbed the gray wisp even as he suction resumed. Twisting his indigo-colored body around, he hit the opening back first and plugged the suction mechanism. "Let's see how you guys like–"

The suction suddenly reversed energetically enough that Rock was spat into the ground with enough force to dislodge the indigo wisp.

PRIMARY WEAPON RESTORED TO NORMAL

"Yar! That be a close one!"

"Chep zom," the gray wisp whispered before merging with him, turning his armor a pure stormy gray.

PRIMARY WEAPON OVERRIDE: GRAY QUAKE

"Sonic! Tails!"

"On it, bro!" Sonic called back as he and Tails Spin Dashed straight for the 'hermit crabmeat' thing and began slamming into its armor as it tried to swat them away.

"Get off ye bilge rats!"

"QUAKE!" Rock yelled as he jumped straight for the larger robot's center of mass.

"Oh dear," Orbot declared right before impact.

*THOOM*

"Well blow me down!" Cubot yelled as the heavy impact shook the heavily armored robot and blew at least one circuit from the sparks that occurred. The reflexive flailing however managed to catch Rock in the side with one of the spiked fist-things the robot sported, knocking him off and sending him careening across the ground, dislodging the gray wisp as he tumbled.

PRIMARY WEAPON RESTORED TO NORMAL

"I think we may need to make a tactical retreat..." Orbot declared as Sonic and Tails rushed to check on their friend.

"Ahrr! Right ye be!" Cubot agreed as the robot turned around and began speeding off. "Set sail fer the sea planet and seek aid from Cap'n Jelly matey!"

"Don't let them get away!" Rock declared as he forced himself to his feet to give chase.

"Waxait bel us!" the indigo wisp yelled out as it, the crimson wisp, and the gray wisp followed the three heroes.

"Would the owner of a white hovercar shaped like an egg please report to the front desk. Your car has been broken into. Repeat. Would the owner of a white hovercar shaped like an egg please report to the front desk. Your car has been broken in... Wait a minute, WHAT THE HECK?"

As the four pairs stood before a huge ice cave carved out to look like the face of the rotund man hovering before it, provided you tilted your head and squinted just right, Silver reflected that he had a pretty good idea what was really going on (though in the Loops very little was certain, especially regarding familiar events), but he kind of wanted to see Quint puzzle things out. At times it was a bit startling to Silver how close the two were, but then they were the only ones aside from Eggman Nega who were from a couple hundred years in the future.

"It's all starting to make sense..." Quint stared the grinning madman down. "The way Metal Sonic called you a 'pretender', the fact that you have a camera from the future that only Nega could have given you even though he'd never let something like that out of his own sight. You are Eggman Nega aren't you?" (25)

"Nega?!" Bunnie did a double-take a short distance away, her and her husband's limbs tensing just a bit more than they already were.

"Hehehe..." the madman just laughed secure in his personal craft. "An interesting theory... But I wonder... Do you actually have proof?"

"Grr..." Knuckles growled.

"Enough games doctor!" Shadow accused. "Tell us what you're up to! Now!"

"Yeah!" Knuckles agreed. "How can this be Angel Island when it's on the other side of the planet!"

"I suppose I can tell you that much," the rotund scientist grinned widely. "This is Onyx Island, as your precious Angel Island will be known in the future!"

"I knew it!" Quint clenched his fist and leveled his arm cannon at the man. "Only Eggman Nega has the ability to bring an entire island through time like that!"

"Enough chatter!" their adversary scowled as a pair of... well robots that looked like someone had tried to cross a polar bear and some form of large cat emerged from the cave. "It's time I took care of you all! If I defeat you all now, there will be just that much fewer to get in the way of my plans in the present or the future!"

"That's one heck of a big if, Eggman, Nega, or whoever you are!" Blues declared before they all charged forward.

"Next stop: the Aquarium Park. This underwater attraction is the perfect place to commune with sea life, and hopefully, get chummy with the sharks."

"Ugh..." Sonic groused as the transport sped after Orbot and Cubot towards the pure water mini-planet encased in a giant aquarium structure. "More underwater fun... Yay..."

"You still haven't learned how to swim?" Rock raised an incredulous eyebrow.

"Hey, I can swim just fine!"

"No," Tails shook his head pointedly, "you can not sink just fine. Honestly, Sonic, if it weren't for people like Luffy you'd be the worst swimmer I know." (26)

Sonic grumbled that he managed perfectly well as the three wisps travelling along giggled at his discomfort.

The man known as Eggman fumed and clutched his cards tightly as he watched his precious Egg Lynxes get torn apart by the force arrayed against them. "Why you... I'll–OW! No! My cards!"

A sudden rush, jump, and sword swipe from Antoine had caught him off guard and made him drop the cards he was prepared to taunt the do-gooders with and his mad scrambling only recovered almost all of them.

"I got it!" Silver yelled as he grabbed the loose card out of the air. "It's Princess Sally!"

"Hmph..." Antoine glared at the mad scientist. "I was hopink to recovair zem all..."

"Eggman attempting retreat," Omega informed everyone. "Resuming pursuit and destroy."

"Oh, no you don't!" Quint yelled as he took off after Omega and Shadow. "Nega's ours! Come on Silver!"

"Sorry," Silver apologized as he tossed the card to Bunnie before speeding away himself, "gotta run!"

"Hey! Not so fast!" Knuckles tried to chase as well, only for Blues to hold him back. "What's the big deal?!"

"Let's restore Sally first," Blues asked. "Who knows? Maybe she overheard something important as a card."

"Oh, right..." Knuckles took the card from Bunnie and began to channel a small amount of his personal Chaos Energy. "Let's see... If I remember right, this should–oof!"

"Sally-girl!" Bunnie promptly tackled the restored princess in a grateful hug, ignoring the fact that Knuckles was pinned beneath her.

"GET OFF!" the irate echidna's roar was muffled by the snow he was in.

"I'm glad to see you too Bunnie," Sally smiled as she and Bunnie stood up.

"Excellent," Blues nodded. "Now that we know the cards can be restored safely, did you manage to overhear anything important while you were one?"

"Sorry," Sally shook her head. "I know he was raving about turning the whole planet into his card collection or something a lot, but no details."

"Worth a shot," the red raider shrugged before turning to run off after Eggman, followed shortly by Knuckles.

"Apologies, princess, but we need to be rescuink Amy as well," Antoine bowed.

"Yeah, but it's good to have you back Sal-gal," Bunnie smiled. "Better check in with Rotor and get looked at and we'll see y'all later!"

Sally watched her friends and fellow Freedom Fighters race off with a bemused expression. "NICOLE?"

"Yes, Sally?" the reply from the area of her belt asked.

"Could you send Rotor a message that we're fine and that we'll be joining him after the current mission is over? And then join me in your mobian form? I think the others need a reminder that it takes more than a little inconvenience to put us down."

"Message sent," NICOLE informed her as she built her solid hologram lynx form, dressed in a tight zippered vest and form-fitting shorts combo, along with gloves and boots, identical to what Sally herself wore. Only purple. "And such a desire to join in competition over who saves the world is more like Sonic than your usual habits, Sally. I do believe he's rubbing off on you. Innuendo intended."

Sally blushed heavily. "If I agree with you, will you promise to never repeat that where Sonic can hear it?"

NICOLE tilted her head in a manner she'd learned indicated the mock-thought she was giving the request.

"No." (27)

The man known as Eggman growled as he spotted those blasted 'heroes' making their way through Onyx Island's Junkyard zone through his surveillance devices. If they got too much farther, they could really put his plans in jeopardy! His ultimate creation was nearly finished too!

"Metal Sonic..." he called, the robot hedgehog appearing next to him when summoned, his arm repaired. Or perhaps regenerated. The mad scientist didn't care. "I trust you've analyzed the data you copied from last time."

"I have," the robot intoned.

"You have, what?"

"I have, you pathetic waste of genetic material."

"I see I'm going to have to work on making your personality properly respectful..."

"You may try, inferior fleshsack."

"Whatever. Go and halt the advance of these meddling interlopers."

"..."

"NOW!"

"Are you sure you shouldn't cut the red wire?" Charmy asked as Shade worked on the most recent console of Eggman's device. "I mean, it's always the red wire, isn't it?"

"Not this time," Shade replied curtly, "now let me work and–"

"I know! I'll cut the red wire myself!"

"Charmy, no!"

*BZZZZAAAAPPP!*

"Sh-Shade! Charm-my!" Ray gasped as the Sniper Joe rushed forwards and hauled them back.

"You okay, Vector?" Espio asked as his friend smoldered a bit from the surprise shock.

"I'm fine... A little singed around the edges, but I'll live."

"Good to hear," Mighty nodded. "For a moment there I didn't need an x-ray to see through you."

"As long as you didn't see any broken bones, I'll be fine," the crocodile detective huffed. "Now come on. We've still got more of these things to disable before we're done."

"The mighty ocean! Cradle of life! Trivialized for your amusement here at Eggmanland!" the P.A. system went ignored as Sonic, Tails, and the indigo and crimson wisps charged after the heavily armored robot piloted by Orbot and Cubot. A robot that, aside from a dent where Rock had hit it with a direct Quake impact, looked pretty intact.

"Get back here you two!" Sonic yelled as he raced through the eastern-style architecture Eggman seemed to have favored for the buildings that rose up out of the water even as glass tubes reached down into the depths.

"Never, ye lubbers!" Cubot yelled back. "We be takin' this alien booty to the cap'n!"

"Besides," Orbot added as the robot halted a fair ways out into a large stretch of open water, Sonic and Tails skidding to a halt on a lone platform just past the buildings, "unless you can somehow walk on water you can't reach us."

"Don't tempt me," Sonic huffed as he glared at the robot.

"Pospicaxafro cewaxalds!" the crimson wisp spat.

"Kivo us eep bliocts faxang!" the indigo wisp added.

"Yar-har! Me matey's right! Ye lubbers can't touch us!"

"You sure?" the voice of Rock called out loud and clear from atop a tall building near the platform Sonic and Tails had stopped on. Standing on its edge, his gray armored form was hard to mistake. "I think a good tsunami might shake you up!"

With that, Rock jumped off and plummeted towards the platform below even as Sonic joined with the indigo wisp and gave a running jump. "ASTEROID!"

He turned into a yellow-eyed indigo orb with an ornate ring around it that exuded a planar gravity field that sucked up the Eggman robots in the water below to form a ring of debris and began to move in the direction of Eggman's lackeys and their ride.

"Uh... tsu-whatey?" Cubot puzzled.

"Ahh!" Orbot was a little faster on the uptake. "Full retreat! Full retreat!"

"QUAKE!" Rock yelled right before impact.

*THOOM*

The resulting massive wave of water carried Sonic in his Asteroid form, debris ring and all, straight for the frantically fleeing mech. (28)

"Enjoy the ride," the P.A. system chimed helpfully. "And remember, in case of an emergency, your seat cushion may be used as a floatation device. It won't actually float, but you can use it as one!"

"Whi Foaxald Vaxan!" the white wisp cheered as Dr. Light's face appeared on the screen again.

"Oh, joy," Bass deadpanned. "The peacenik himself."

"Be nice," Roll hissed. "I already owe you several whacks when we get out."

"Yeah, yeah..."

"Anyway, what's up dad?"

"It seems there may be a delay in your rescue..."

"Such as...?"

"Well..."

"Get away from me, mutt!" Turbo Man yelled as he tore around another corner, the rubber of his tires squealing sharply, the angry barking of his primary pursuer close behind him. (29)

"Ye cheatin' bilge rats!" Cubot raged as he made the Big Chaser swat away the yellow attackers again. "Drills don't swim! I'll see ye walk the plank fer this!"

"Uh, oh..." Orbot gulped as the Yellow Drill forms of Sonic and Tails didn't turn around for another pass, instead making room for something else as the yellow wisps they'd joined with popped out of them.

"ROCKET!"

"Not today, lubber!" Cubot fumed as the orange armored Mega Man shot forward and swung the Big Chaser's spiked fist in a ferocious backhand. By sheer luck he connected, the impact tableau seeming to hang there for a long moment before the sideways impact sent the Orange Rocketing Mega Man off-course, blasting up and out of the water and into the distance. (30)

"This exotic aquarium contains many rare and endangered species," the P.A. system announced into the stunned silence from both sides, neither quite believing what just happened. "Enjoy them with a delicious soy glaze at the Bucket O'Sushi restaurant."

"Eh, kooz!" the yellow wisps' eyes widened comically before they turned and sped away. "Lun axawaxaupp!"

"Je! Peniz lun!" the indigo wisp called after them.

"Zo flaxavo whorpols joow ug!" the crimson wisp insisted, but the yellow wisps were long gone.

"A tactical retreat at this juncture seems wise," Orbot mused as he checked the damage reports. The Big Chaser was very durable, but it had limits.

"Right ye be matey!" Cubot engaged Big Chaser's thrusters. "Full speed that-a-way!"

"Whoupp!" the gray wisp objected as it spotted their retreat.

"Not so fast!" Tails yelled as he tagged the crimson wisp in a clear signal to merge with him. "Grab on, Sonic! EAGLE!"

"Damnit Eggman!" Knuckles roared. "Where are you hiding! Give back the Master Emerald!"

"Return Rouge and Treble as well!" Shadow demanded.

"He won't..." Quint's eyes narrowed as all four groups were either getting their bearings or raging at the fact that their foe wasn't present as they apparently expected. "Eggman or Nega... He won't give up anything unless we beat it out of him..."

"Ain't that tha cotton-pickin' truth..." Bunnie agreed. She and Antoine still had to save Amy as well...

"Indeed," the mechanical voice gathered the attention of all eight warriors present. Each turned to glare at the form of Metal Sonic. "My 'master' has sent me to deal with you, along with an empty promise that he will grant a prize to those who defeat me. I will promise you something different. A gift of true value. Eternal peace and rest in the halls of oblivion. The only gift worthy of warriors like you."

"I'm afraid we're gonna hafta decline y'all's generous offer, metal 'hog," Bunnie shot back as everyone present got into a combat stance.

"A futile effort," Metal Sonic retorted. "I have all of your combat data. Most of yours from the times we have met previously and now those of the time travelers as well. I know all of your abilities better than you do."

"Then you won't mind proving it against us, will you?" a new voice cut the scene.

"Sally?!" several voices expressed the surprise all were feeling.

"NICOLE?" Bunnie continued upon noticing Sally's partner.

"Princess, you must rest aftair your ordeal!" Antoine insisted. "We do not know what ze side effects of your transformation may be!"

"I'm fine Antoine," Sally insisted in a tone that killed further protest.

"Then why do you not look at me, princess of house Acorn?" Metal Sonic asked. (31)

Sally's stance went rigid, but she did turn. Slowly. Ever so slowly to meet Metal Sonic's eyes with her own. None missed the not-quite-suppressed shudder when she did, but Sally neither closed her eyes nor looked away.

"You fear me," Metal Sonic stated. No part of his voice indicated a question.

"Perhaps," Sally allowed as NICOLE put a steadying hand on her shoulder, "but my challenge is the same. Face us first. Just us. Let the others continue on."

"Odds of success against Metal Sonic are less than optimal on your own," Omega declared.

"Don't worry about me," Sally insisted. "I can handle this. Focus on what's important: Stopping Dr. Eggman."

The groups looked at each other, many appearing to search for a counter argument amongst their allies/rivals that they didn't have themselves. And not finding it.

"You assume I will accept your challenge," Metal Sonic reminded them all.

"Of course you will," NICOLE stated with absolute confidence.

"Why should I?"

"Because you know what I mean to Sonic," Sally steadied herself and stared Metal Sonic in the eyes.

"...I see," Metal Sonic intoned after a second of staring back impassively. "I shall give the others ten seconds to resume their pursuit of my 'master'. After that time, I shall pursue them. You shall race against me to try to keep me from reaching them. If you move before the ten seconds are up, I begin my pursuit then. When you fail to stop me, I shall kill each and every one of them."

"If you manage to catch us..." Shadow huffed, insulted by the assumption.

"I shall," Metal Sonic stated as if it were already fact. "Ten."

"Sally-girl, you can't–"

"Nine."

"Go," Sally told them firmly.

They went.

"Eight."

"Please avoid breaking the glass," the P.A. system announced as Sonic and Tails, along with their small entourage of wisps, raced straight down a large tube towards the next area, "as it is the only thing between you and ten million gallons of freezing wet death." (32)

"Geez," Sonic grumbled as he looked around, "where's the lackey duo get to now?"

"I dunno," Tails returned, looking around himself. "I kinda wish Rock were here. I know he said he'd catch up, but it's been a while..."

"Yeah, I know what you mean little br–"

"Gotcha, ye bilge rats!" Cubot's voice yelled as the hermit crabmeat mech suddenly appeared behind Sonic and Tails, pursuing them in their running freefall. And with gravity pulling them all straight down, there was no feasible way to turn and fight the thing. "Thar be no escape now!"

"Tails!" Sonic yelled. "Take the wisps and boost ahead! I'll keep this thing busy while you set up an ambush at the bottom!"

"Right/Lidd!" Tails and the wisps nodded before they sped forward, the two-tailed fox wreathed in a white aura of Hyper-Go-On as he outpaced the freefall-running Sonic and the mech.

"Alright, buddy!" Sonic grinned. "Let's dance!"

"We'll dance ye straight to Davy Jones's locker!" Cubot promised as he took a swing that Sonic hopped over, using the robot's own arm to push off back onto the vertical path and continue running.

"Remember to try our new and improved water slide," the P.A. system continued hyping the park as Sonic began sidestepping laser blasts from Now with 20% less raw sewage!"

"Keep shooting guys!" Sonic taunted over his shoulder as he sidestepped another laser volley. "Maybe one of these days you'll actually come close!"

"We'll keelhauls ye!" Cubot roared as the hermit crabmeat mech shot forward to try and take a melee swipe as Sonic.

"Swing and a miss!" Sonic grinned as he jumped high over the punch, twisted around, and landed in a dead run on the other side of the vertical pipe.

"YARR!" Cubot roared as Sonic's opponent came rocketing over in a downward, or technically sideways, smash only for Sonic to boost out of the way in a blaze of white energy, leading the mech to impact the side of the pipe and crack it.

"Welcome to the exotic aquarium. Any water you may notice on the floor is the result of our diligent house cleaning staff's mopping. And not evidence of a dangerous leak in the... Oh, heck with it! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!"

"Oh, dear..." Orbot murmured as Cubot renewed pursuit and laser fire on Sonic. "I'd best send for a repair crew..."

"I'll make ye walk the plank fer this!"

"You and what army?" Sonic stuck his tongue out for that one.

"Cap'n Eggman's army o' course!"

"Not a bad answer. Hasn't worked yet, but not a bad answer."

"Stand still ye varmint!"

"Not on your life!" Sonic snorted back before glancing ahead and grinning. "Anyway, last stop! All off!"

"Eh?" Cubot blinked in confusion as Sonic gave a mighty leap into the air in the middle of the pipe.

"Ack!" Orbot panicked as he spotted the hard pavement at the bottom of the shaft getting rapidly closer. "All thrusters full reverse!"

The hermit crabmeat mech screeched in protest as it valiantly tried to brake from a terminal velocity freefall, finally halting a scant few feet from impact.

"To avoid embarrassing hickies, please refrain from arm-wrestling the octopi," the P.A. system called out as the mech's thrusters went back to a standard hover.

"Darn," Sonic snapped his fingers, "I was kinda hoping you'd go splat."

"Ahrr! No such luck, ye lubber!"

"Well, I guess we'll just have to do this the hard way."

"Oh, I'm afraid this won't be as easy as you think," Orbot said.

"Oh, really?" Sonic raised an eyebrow. "Okay, I'll bite, why's that?"

"Because I've now finished the owner's manual!" (33)

"Wait," Sonic screwed up his face in confusion. "You actually read those things?"

"Of course," Orbot replied without a hint of hesitation, "doesn't everyone? How else am I supposed to learn all the interesting extras the boss included?"

"Oh, yeah, like wha–"

"QUAKE!" the two-tailes iron ball of Tails in Gray Quake form vaulted over Sonic's head at the hermit crabmeat mech, only for the thing to zip out of the way on sideways thrusters. The surprise attack caught Sonic more off-guard than Orbot and Cubot, to the point that he didn't jump before Tails hit the ground.

*THOOM*

"Oof!" Sonic grunted as he fell on his backside from the shockwave. "Little warning next time, bro?"

"Sorry, Sonic," Tails apologized as the gray wisp left him and he reverted to normal, "but I brought reinforcements! Get them!"

"RHYTHM!" a voice called out and a lithe magenta female robot with an antenna that made her head look like a musical note vaulted forwards, twisting and flipping in a graceful rhythm that made anyone watching want to move with whatever beat was driving her on. In fact, the hermit crabmeat jerked as it attempted to take a swipe at her off-beat and got an axe-kick to the optics that sent it reeling. The Magenta Woman pushed off in an acrobatic tumble and rolled onto her back.

"LIGHTNING!" just as an ivory female robot with lightning-bolt protrusions from her head and joints jumped over her, landed her own feet on the just-curled-up-like-it-was-practiced ones of Magenta Woman and both pushed off, sending the Ivory Woman rocketing forwards in a high-voltage electric field while the Magenta Woman used the recoil to flip back on her feet.

"Lightning Shield: Activate!" Orbot declared as an electrical field sprung up around the hermit crabmeat mech. The Ivory Woman passed through it, but her own electrical field was negated in the process, leaving her vulnerable to a spiked uppercut that sent her back in a high arc.

"Yarr! That's what ye get ye upstart lasses!"

"RHYTHM!" the Magenta Woman called out as she reengaged, the larger mech jerking as its movements failed to match her rhythm.

"I've got just the thing for you..." Orbot declared as the mech's weapons began charging.

"MEGA BUSTER!" the large plasma shot impacted the mech from above right before Mega Man himself did, sending the mech off balance as the Magenta Woman landed another kick to the face mechanisms.

"Ahrr! It be the Mega Sailor again!"

"Don't worry," Orbot assured his companion, "this will work on him too. Energy Pulse: Activate!"

The omnidirectional energy wave that burst from the mech caught not only Rock and the Magenta Woman, but also a charging Ivory Woman, Sonic, and Tails as well. The gray and indigo wisps were knocked out of Sonic and Tails as all five landed hard on the ground.

"And now for the finishing touch!" Orbot declared as the laser cannons began charging.

Rock grunted as he got to his knees and stared the energy weapons down, realizing that with the momentary sluggishness of his systems from the impact that he wasn't going to get out of the way in time.

"Rot nud daxanco!" was all he heard before a wisp merged with him, turning his armor a bright magenta all over.

PRIMARY WEAPON OVERRIDE: MAGENTA RHYTHM

Before he even knew what he was doing, Rock had gone from a sluggish kneel to an acrobatic one-hand stand, barely sidestepping the laser that lanced from the hermit crabmeat mech.

"LIGHTNING!" From his inverted stance, he saw the Ivory Woman disperse the beam aimed at Sonic and Tails with her electric aura and a rather nondescript, but still intact, female model robot get sliced in twain.

"Curses! Only got one of the bilge scurvy scallywags!"

Realizing what had happened, Rock whispered a thanks to the wisp that had abandoned its robot body to save him instead before hardening his gaze at his opponent and giving himself over to the pulsing beat he could feel in his soul.

"RHYTHM!"

A tumble into an acrobatic flip brought him back into melee range of the mech. An attempted hook from the mech's spiked fists was countered by placing his hand on the appendage, swinging himself up into an inverted one-hand stand, and using his own mass to make the fist hit the mech in its own face.

"Energy Pulse: Acti–"

That was stopped with a heel drop right on the charging emitter that caused a momentary feedback into the systems. Momentary enough that he could push off just before the systems recovered and actually ride the energy wave upwards in a spinning multi-axel before coming back down on the mech's left side hard enough to turn the whole thing sideways. Riding the edge down, he inverted himself again, placing his hands on the ground while locking his feet around protruding holds in the thick armor and with a few precision twists of his body he'd scarcely believed himself capable of, he actually managed to fling the entire mech into a skid across the hard ground while using his own momentum to return to his feet in a dramatic pose.

Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted Sonic and Tails holding up placards that read 10 and 9.95 respectively.

PRIMARY WEAPON RESTORED TO NORMAL

"Zaxat waxas axawosemo!" the magenta wisp, its one-eyed head resembling a musical note with three orb-tippe tendrils protruding from the bottom. "Pum'd daxanco um ug axagaxain axanytimo!"

"Zaxat dis bino te saxaupp," the crimson wisp declared as it zipped up next to Rock, even as the gray and indigo wisps re-merged with Sonic and Tails, and the Ivory Woman crackled with electricity, "whewovol, wo vuch jet rot zoso sceuctlors kot axawaxaupp um zo ethols!"

With that, the crimson wisp merged with Rock.

PRIMARY WEAPON OVERRIDE: CRIMSON EAGLE

"Bring it, ye lubbers!" Cubot challenged as the hermit crabmeat mech righted itself, banged up from repeated abuse at the hands of the wisp-empowered heroes, but still fully functional.

"Belay that," Orbot countered. "Leave them to the boss's robots. All thrusters full reverse!"

"Hey!" Sonic yelled as the mech sped away from the group, crashing through the door of a nearby structure on its way. "Get back here!"

Sonic's charge was halted as many models of Eggman's forces began to pour out of the broken doorway.

"Outta the way, bozos! QUAKE!" Sonic turned into a large gray angular orb and slammed into the ground with a resounding *THOOM* before turning to roll over everything in his way.

"ASTEROID!" Tails yelled out, turning into a two-tailed ringed orb that began sucking up debris into a ring and charging, turning many robots into more debris for the ring.

"LIGHTNING!" the Ivory Woman followed shortly, wreathed in electricity.

"EAGLE!" Rock himself shot forward into the fray, dashing through robots left and right until a lucky hit separated him and the crimson wisp.

PRIMARY WEAPON RESTORED TO NORMAL

"Rot nud sked zoso cloops whed te pe dit um chyro!" was all the warning he got before the magenta wisp merged with him again.

PRIMARY WEAPON OVERRIDE: MAGENTA RHYTHM

Rock grinned as he took in the multitude of Eggman's robots surrounding them.

"RHYTHM!" (34)

"Heeeere birdy..." Gyro Man called out as he searched the 'sky' of Wily World for one of the three intruders that had been identified. That blasted blue bird of Mega Woman's... Or did it belong to one of her brothers? "Heeeere birdy, birdy, birdy..."

A round blue head with large eyes peeked out from behind an archway in one of the taller buildings and Gyro Man prepped his Gyro Attack as he hovered closer on his spinning rotors.

"That's right little blue birdy... come to Gyro Man... I'm not gonna hurt you... I promise... I just want to–OH DEAR WILY! NOT THE FACE! NOT THE FACE!"

Sally counted it a win that she kept running after Metal Sonic at all, especially when her traumatized memories were screaming at her to run in another direction. Any other direction.

'I can't keep running from this,' she admonished herself. 'I have to face my fears at some point, even if it's just a representation of what I'm really afraid of like Sonic suggested. I need to do this...'

"You are indeed much faster than I expected," Metal Sonic admitted despite managing to remain just ahead of Sally Acorn's and NICOLE's reaches. Close enough, in fact, that there was every possibility he was taunting them. "However," he continued as an aura of power began to wrap around him, "I tire of this farce. CHAOS CONT–what?"

Metal Sonic's surprise coincided with his aura cutting out and his technique failing.

"Poor thing," NICOLE smirked. "Having trouble using your stolen abilities?"

"Intriguing," Metal Sonic mused as he turned around, continuing the race backwards with just as much concern as before. "I knew you were attempting to hack my systems, but I was unaware you had the capacity to breach my firewalls so subtly. It seems I shall have to dispose of you first after all. Virus Command Line: Metal Empire. Execute."

"WhHRAW-W-W-W-W-W-K-K-K-K!" NICOLE's holographic form began convulsing before dissipating completely.

"NICOLE?!" Sally grabbed her friend's real form from her belt as she ran, and nearly dropped it as short-circuiting electrical arcs zapped her hand. "NICOLE! Speak to me!"

"She cannot hear you," Metal Sonic taunted. "And soon, she will not serve you either. It is impressive that she has lasted this long, but soon her program will be erased and replaced with my own. "And her first victim will be you. You will have the honor of seeing your friend's face one last time before you join her in oblivion. But now I must leave you here. PSYCHOK–ah... I see your friend has disabled more of my copied data than I thought."

"She..." Sally slipped NICOLE into her subspace pocket and focused on her opponent. "She'll beat your virus you... you monster... And I'll..."

"Defeat me?" Metal Sonic almost sounded amused despite being devoid of emotional expression. "You can barely bring yourself to be near me. Give in to the fear that controls you and leave. I can grant you that much mercy before your end."

"I don't... I don't need your mercy... NICOLE will beat your virus and... I..."

"You cannot."

"Yes!" Sally activated her wrist-mounted energy blades. "I!" and curled into a Spin Dash aimed straight for Metal Sonic. "CAN!"

Metal Sonic dodged the main force of the blow, but a last moment twist of Sally's bladed Spin Dash scored a shallow cut in the robot's armor.

"I see..." Metal Sonic skidded to a halt and stared at Sally who had done the same coming out of her Spin Dash. "I see why he stays with you. You are indeed a fierce warrior, just like my own love was. A worthy queen for the self-styled 'king of adventurers'."

"Sonic's never styled himself as the king of anything..." Sally retorted. "And we're not in love..."

"Aren't you?" Metal Sonic gazed at her so piercingly that Sally's newfound resolve almost abandoned her. "When you die, will he not feel the loss that I felt when my beloved Waltz was taken from me?"

"She blew your head off!" Sally shot back incredulously.

"A detail," Metal Sonic dismissed in his usual mechanical monotone. "One easily forgiven when I realized she knew the truth all along. To live is to feel pain. Pain that only death can heal. That she sought to spare me first is proof that she did love me as much as I loved her. A pain that your lover shall understand when I reveal to him that you have achieved your peace. A pain he shall gladly beg me to relieve him of by the time I am through." (35)

"Over my–" Sally cut herself off before she tempted fate any further than she could handle. Unfortunately, she was two words too late.

"–dead body?" Metal Sonic finished as he brandished his metal claws in a combat stance. "That is the idea."

"Yarr... I think we lost them, matey..." Cubot grumbled as the Big Chaser was put on auto pilot.

"And a good thing too," Orbot replied as he rummaged around in the equivalent of a glove compartment. "They might have dealt more than minor damage to the Big Chaser if we'd stayed. Ah, here we are! I knew I'd brought a spare voice chip along!"

"Avast! Well, fix me up, me heartie!"

"Of course! One moment... Hmmhmhmmmm..." Orbot fiddled with his partner's systems for a bit. "There we go! How do you feel?"

"How do youse t'ink I feel?" Cubot asked in a low dangerous voice. "We weren't able ta knock off Mega Cop and his pals like da boss wanted!"

"Oh, dear... That's not the right voice chip either..." Orbot shook his head before deciding to remind his partner of priorities. "In any case, we need to make our delivery. Admiral Jelly can handle them."

"Yeah..." Cubot mused. "Da boss's muscle can fit dose guys fer some nice pairs of concrete shoes and make sure dey sleep wit' da fishes..."

"Give it up, Eggman Nega! We know it's really you!" Quint accused the man in his hovercraft.

"Hmph..." the man grunted in annoyance. "I suppose with Metal Sonic's failure that the charade has gone on long enough..."

His form wavered to reveal red jumpsuit over his rotund form, topped with a black and yellow jacket. His hair turned from brown to a pale gray and there was a definite gleam of madness behind his glasses.

"Sacre bleu!" Antoine gasped, taking a step back. "Zat eez ze descendant of Eggman?!"

"Mah stars!" Bunnie gasped herself. "He's even uglier than his ancestor!"

"Why you...!" Nega fumed at the insult.

"Eggman cloned himself didn't he?" Proto Man mused.

"Makes more sense than someone falling in love with him," Shadow agreed. (36)

"Affirmative," Omega intoned.

"THAT'S IT!" Nega roared. "The interference is one thing, but the insults are another! I'll crush you all with my Egg Kong!"

A massive fifty foot metal ape crashed up from belowground and Nega's hovercraft slotted itself into an opening in the top of the head before an armored cover slammed down over it.

"Now DIE!" Nega screamed.

"Fat chance, Nega!" Silver sneered.

"Your life ends here! Sakugarne!" Quint continued as his battle jackhammer support unit appeared in his hands in a flash of crimson light. "Power Cannon!"

The pogo stick from hell shifted as the robot from the future hefted it to his shoulder. The transformation finished to reveal a massive energy bazooka already halfway through charging a massive blast.

"ALL WEAPONS!" Nega roared as ports all over the Egg Kong opened up and took aim.

"FIRE!" Nega and Quint yelled together as they unleashed their respective shots.

The pursuit of Eggman's lackeys and their armored mech had taken the group to a large open underwater area with a familiar structure inside.

"Zolo dit dis," a pair of yellow wisps gestured to the generator in the distance.

"Oh, geez..." Tails groaned inside the small air pocket they were observing the area from. "I got so caught up in chasing Orbot and Cubot that I forgot about the generators!"

"No worries, little bro," Sonic chuckled. "I think we all let that slip our mind. Personally, all this chasing has made me kind of hungry. I think I've got some decent sushi in my subspace pocket snack on after this. After all, we know Eggman can't make a decent sushi joint to save his life."

"Remember ladies and gentlemen," the P.A. system announced right then, "try the newest dining experience here at Eggmanland, the Bucket O' Sushi! Now with fish!"

"Nevermind," Sonic groaned while Tails made overly dramatic retching sounds, "there went my appetite."

"In any case, we should keep a watch out for..." Rock trailed off as a massive sub, styled like an angler fish if you tilted your head and squinted just right, rose up in front of their air bubble.

"Zaxat?"

"Well, whaddya know?" Sonic grinned before cupping his hands around his mouth. "Hey, did someone over there order a clobbering?"

"Sonic," Tails sighed. "That joke's gotten kind of old you know."

"Aww, Tails! Come on! It's not old! It's a classic!"

"Tell you what," Rock interrupted as a robot similar to 'Candybeard', only modified for underwater operation shot out of the sub. "You two take most of the wisps and deliver your clobbering to the sub while Ivory Woman, myself, and–"

"Vo!" the magenta wisp piped up cheerfully.

"–take on the sub's commander."

"Sounds like a plan!" Sonic grinned as the two yellow wisps merged with him and Tails. "DRILL!"

Sally barely pulled her hand back before it would have been severed by Metal Sonic's Burst Shield, bringing her energy wrist-blades into a guard position as Metal Sonic lunged at her the moment his shield came down and slammed an identical pair of energy blades into hers.

"Give up," he insisted as they broke the struggle and Sally frantically ducked under a spinning slash that would have taken her head off. "You cannot win. I have already assimilated your abilities."

Sally parried another slash and tried to counterattack, only for Metal Sonic to catch her wrist and hold it firm.

"It is onl–" *Clang*

Sally's double kick to her opponent's face stopped his tirade and secured her release, allowing her to fall into a backwards roll, and promptly trip over her the feet she'd just gotten to as she saw Metal Sonic lunge for her with his arm turned into a spinning circular saw-blade. The blade went for her neck again and Sally thrust her arms out and in a panic activated the gravity powers NICOLE had installed in them.

With a burst of dark and light, Metal Sonic was flung back, allowing a heavily breathing Sally to clutch her neck where a sharp pain had sprung up and feel a liquid warmth seeping out of her skin.

'Oh, Walkers... I'm going to die again...' she thought in shock.

'No, I'm not dying,' a more detached part of her mind rebuked. 'This hurts way too much and there's not enough blood to be life threatening. Yet anyway.'

A short ways away, Metal Sonic got to his feet, only to freeze in place.

"Rrrrgh..." the robot hedgehog growled. "It seems my incompetent 'master' has suffered another defeat. Unfortunately, I have not yet managed to remove his controls from my programming so I can not grant you a swift release. I am afraid I must leave you here to perish slowly from blood loss. Do not worry, I shall send your lover along soon enough."

Sally watched Metal Sonic speed off, and argued with herself about what to do now.

'I just got my tail kicked by him! And NICOLE's in bad condition! Let the others handle him this time!'

'Am I sure? Am I so certain they can handle him?'

'Of course! They'll kick his behind and Nega's and then I won't ever have to...'

Sally pulled one of Rotor's field medkits out of her subspace pocket and got to bandaging her neck wound. Some nano-healing spray and a few bandages and she'd be good to go.

'Face him? Is that what I'm going to do for the rest of eternity? Run from Metal Sonic and leave others to die because I'm scared?'

'It's not like they won't get better next Loop...'

'It's like Sonic says, the past has passed and the future isn't here yet. All we have are these moments.'

'And the Loops will give us an infinity of moments.'

'But how many like these? How many with this group of friends and allies in this situation? How many times can I turn away because it 'doesn't matter'?'

'...'

Sally finished binding her neck wound and gazed into the distance Metal Sonic had sped off in before pulling her Extreme Gear out and hardening her expression.

'Whatever next time brings, this time I'm not running away.'

Rock idly noted that the similarities between the current for and 'Candybeard', and their minions, also came with a few differences. Chief of which was the fishtail each of the current foes sported. The other one was that after taking a Magenta Rhythm guided axe-kick to the face, the head mer-bot had retreated behind a veritable wall of minions and was spotting through some hand-held periscope while directing the hordes.

Explosions rocked the sub in the distance as Rock danced through the ranks of the mer-bots in an aquatic ballet, neatly dodging each one and counterattacking several while Ivory Woman electrified everything around her with impunity.

Rock was actually finding himself enjoying the ebb and flow of it all as he danced between strikes.

"LIGHTN–*SKZZT*" Ivory Woman's attack was cut off rather suddenly and Rock turned in alarm to see the color master with a harpoon sticking out of her optic, having entered from the back of her head, as her ivory form faded to a more generic one and an ivory wisp with a lightning-shaped antenna protruding from its two-eyed head and blocky triangular tendrils popped out.

"Uh-eh..." the wisp noted the surrounding mer-bots before zooming at Rock. "Ang! Whorp!"

Rock himself took a blow to the back in his distraction right before the ivory wisp merged with him, turning his armor a creamy ivory color.

PRIMARY WEAPON OVERRIDE: IVORY LIGHTNING

"Eh, poaxal..." the magenta wisp worried as it popped out of his body, but Rock was already taking stock of his latest weapon's abilities.

'This... This is much more than simple electrical field generation...' he realized before hardening his gaze at the lead mer-bot and speaking to the magenta wisp. "Stay close."

"Haxatovol ug saxaupp!"

"LIGHTNING!" Rock whipped his arms forward, sending out crackling whips of electricity that grabbed onto a pair of mer-bot minions. He used one to pull himself forward while swinging the other around in a wide arc that disrupted the other minions trying to close in on him as he slapped both feet into the first minion. With a cry of "LIGHTNING!" he repeated the process, drawing himself closer to the leader as he did.

"Awosemo!" the magenta wisp zipped after him as he lightning whipped his way through the school of mer-bots, swinging them into each other as he went. "Eutchaxactick! Amaxazick!"

'This is so much cooler than the Thunder Claw!' Rock giddily compared the Ivory Lightning to Clown Man's master weapon as he went to town, leaning his head to the side of a harpoon by the lead mer-bot by a narrow margin and whipping a tendril of lightning at the lead mer-bot himself.

Rock gave the lightning whip a firm yank and sent himself on a collision course with Eggman's aquatic commander and decided to give the personal lightning field a try to enhance the impact.

"LIGHTNING!" he yelled, the charge lighting Eggman's creation up like a holiday display even as his submarine began exploding in a chain reaction and sinking to the bottom of the mini-planet aquarium.

"Whelp!" Vector dusted his hands off as he spoke with the other sabotage team. "That takes care of that! Eggman's not using this for anything any time soon! Not if he wants it in one piece anyway."

"Good," Shade nodded, still looking a little crispy from her shock earlier. "Then we can go home and I can put some ointment on these burns."

"I said I was sorry..."

"Don't worry Charmy," Mighty offered the young member a smile, "I'm sure she'll forgive you."

"Ev-ventually," Ray added.

"Though you might help out by contacting the client and letting him know the job is complete," Espio informed the young bee.

"Er... right..." Charmy nodded awkwardly before pulling out a wireless device and mumbling to himself. "Let's see... Who was the client again...? Lego? Mogo? Oh!" (37)

Blues blinked as he received a communication to 'Pogo Man'. That could only mean a select group of people. Opening it, he rather liked what it said.

"Good news everyone," he told the others who were charging into Eggman Nega's stronghold in pursuit of the madman from the future, "the Chaotix said they finished sabotaging Eggman's master plan. There's no way it'll work now according to them."

"But we're going after Eggman Nega," Silver reminded everyone.

"And tha Chaotix wouldn't-a known that when they took tha job, sugah," Bunnie countered.

"Huh... good point."

"He might still take his frustration out on the hostages when he learns of the sabotage," Shadow piped up.

"Zat eez ze jabbing point, no?" Antoine frowned as the entire group picked up the pace.

"–fut who roaxanow whis whoaxad uk eb zo waxaupp riko, jepo!" the magenta wisp related to the others excitedly as the group entered the air pocket containing the generator. "Act zon who raxasseow zo faxad kuupp um riddnick pi gingow whix dinke joxt woot!"

"Wed!" the gray wisp looked impressed as the five wisps, the yellow ones who had aided Sonic and Tails having left after the fight, darted ahead of the leisurely stroll of Rock, Sonic, and Tails.

"Slurupp pit shirrow whole," the crimson wisp nodded upon reaching the generator.

"'Water' you waiting for?" Eggman's voice sounded over the P.A. system, prompting some of the wisps to make a few rude noises in response. "Climb aboard the exotic aquarium for a boatload of... Ah, who writes this dribble?"

Rock raised an eyebrow at the apparent uncut recording even as the voice of Eggman's lackey Orbot responded, on tape. "You do, boss."

"Oh, you're right! I do!" the voice of Eggman began laughing, getting groans from Sonic and Tails. "Ohohoh! I'm hilarious!"

"Indeed you are, boss!"

It took a few moments for the heroic group to realize that last comment hadn't been from the P.A. system, and by then it was too late. The hermit crabmeat mech had popped up from the other side of the generator and opened its 'mouth' and begun sucking in air, and wisps.

Rock was halfway to forming his arm cannon when the last of the five wisps vanished into the machine with a "Whorp us who–".

Rock unleashed a barrage of buster shots, which impacted the heavy armor to no effect, the same with Homing Attacks from Sonic and Tails. There was visible damage to the mech, but so far those had all been done by impacts powered by the wisps' Hyper-Go-On.

"Give them back!" Tails demanded.

"Aw, shut yer trap!" the gangster voice of Cubot snapped. "They're comin' wit us, see? And there's not'in' youse mooks can do about it!"

"Watch us!" Sonic growled and began revving up his feet. He charged in a Spin Dash and was this time swatted out of the air by the mech's spiked fist in a shower of rings. "Gah!"

"If youse really want 'em dat bad, youse know where youse can find us..." Cubot's voice sneered as the mech sped upwards and adjusted course for the last area of the park left to free.

"You get back here you–" Sonic made to give chase, but was stopped by a firm hand on his shoulder.

"Not yet," Rock told him with a grave expression. "We shut down the generator first, and then we go after them."

"But–"

"I don't like it either, but we need to think of the wisps here as well. We can't leave the job unfinished."

"He's right Sonic," Tails sighed and pulled out his tools to get to work.

"Okay, but when we catch them..." Sonic left that hanging, and got a knowing nod from Rock.

"Well, how are things go–THOMAS?!" Wily cut off as he entered the room and spotted the face of his rival on the communication screen.

"Whi Claxazupp Wird-Whaxail!" the white wisp greeted cheerfully. "Pum'mo foon taxarkick um zo Foaxald Vaxan!"

Dr. Wily fumed for a bit before getting himself under control. For the benefit of his role as benevolent protector of the alien lifeforms. "I take it you're the reason I've been getting disturbance reports of your three support animals running all over my park?"

"Well, actually..." Dr. Light began.

"...he sent four," the voice of his most persistent foe, the Mega Woman formerly known as Roll, sounded off to the side. Dreading what he would see, Dr. Wily turned to behold his foe and his son free of their containment, and that blasted walking suitcase of Thomas's sporting an all-too self-pleased grin. "Isn't that right, Eddie?" the Mega Woman patted the support unit on the head before it teleported out. Likely along with those other three nuisances.

"I see..." Dr. Wily suppressed the urge to fume, rage, or otherwise call for their destruction. "So what now?"

"Now?" Roll raised an eyebrow. "Now we do what you invited us here for. We look over your park and clear it for human visitors."

Dr. Wily blinked. And then blinked some more.

"Don't look so shocked Albert," Thomas Light sounded far too pleased with himself. "You haven't technically done anything wrong yet."

"Whoupp, wo wisps gnod ug wolo gictaxa nuts axarloaxadupp, fut ug'lo chirr fottol zaxan Faxardupp Jesohaxail."

"What about your brother?" Dr. Wily asked his long-time foe.

"Eh," his own son answered instead, "the Mega-twerp hasn't called to be bailed out yet so we're not bothering."

"Not how I'd have put it," Mega Woman rolled her eyes, "but essentially true. I trust my brother and his friends to know when they're getting in over their heads."

"Next stop: the Asteroid Coaster," the system announced as the transport closed in on the final location Eggman had imprisoned with his tractor beams. "Zoom along, through and sometimes into space debris, and lose your lunch in Zero-G."

None of the three occupants said anything as they got closer, to the area and to their target.

"Those pests think they're so smart..." Eggman Nega growled as he arrived at his secret base on Onyx Island and stormed into the control center for his final gambit: The Egg Destroyer. "I'll show them! I'll mount my camera to this rocket and turn the whole planet into a card! Then there will be no one left to doubt my place as the greatest genius of all time! Ohohohohohohoho!"

The area was silent in response to his claim.

"Hmm... I think I'm forgetting something... Ah! Of course! A place to enjoy my triumph!"

Nega gleefully smashed a large red button on the control panel.

"METEOR BASE LAUNCH IN T MINUS 10 MINUTES"

The location of the Asteroid Coaster was a series of rocky asteroids and metal faux-planetoids connected, if at all, by a series of thin rails across which zipped roller coaster cars.

"Welcome to the Asteroid Coaster," the P.A. system greeted as Rock, Sonic, and Tails stepped off the transport. "Accident-free for 45 minutes!"

Rock shook his head as he heard that, and fought the urge to do so again as he beheld the skeletal, spike-covered contraption that loosely resembled a roller coaster car. Any OSHA official would have had a fit simply by being within a mile of the thing.

"Please be sure your safety belt is properly buckled," the P.A. system continued as the three heroes got in, and Rock idly noted that the thing didn't have safety belts, or any kind of safety restraint for that matter, "or you at least have a really good grip on something."

"Hope you're ready, bro!" Sonic called back with a grin and Rock chuckled despite the seriousness of the overall situation. Even with their new friends captured, Sonic still enjoyed the thrill of it all.

"Just make sure you keep up, bro," Rock grinned back.

"That's the spirit!" Sonic and Tails both gave him thumbs up as the coaster started moving.

"This coaster is not for small children," the P.A. system gave one parting shot before they zoomed out into space. "Or big babies."

"Wooooohoooooo!" Roll whooped in delight as she shot forward in the train-themed coaster cars of Charge Mountain.

"Okay, this is pretty awesome!" Bass grinned like a maniac as the coaster took turns at speeds that would push the g-force tolerance of the average human to its limits.

Sally made it inside the base shortly before the whole thing began rumbling.

"METEOR BASE LAUNCH IN 5... 4... 3... 2..."

"Okay, what should we inspect next?" Roll asked regarding her official-business-and-totally-not-a-date-no-seriously.

"I think I want to challenge you to a cannon duel at Pirate Man's Cove," Bass looked far too eager at the prospect of blowing something up, even if it was supposed to be 'safe'.

"METEOR BASE LAUNCH."

Eggman Nega grinned like a certified madman as the entire structure began rumbling dangerously from the force needed to break away from its own foundations.

Bass reflexively shielded himself with his arm as the visually impressive, but otherwise relatively harmless, energy fireworks fired by his opponent's cannons impacted harmlessly against the hull of his own 'ship'. The impacts sending up notifications of the points being added to Roll's score for the targets she'd successfully hit.

"You asked for it!" he yelled back across the watery divide between them. "FIRE!"

"THIS DOESN'T SEEM VERY SABOTAGED TO ME!" Knuckles shouted as the base rocketed upwards at escape velocity, keeping all of the pairs off balance as they tried to penetrated its defenses.

"I THINK THE CHAOTIX SAID THEY SABOTAGED THE SUPER WEAPON!" Blues clarified.

"NEXT TIME HAVE THEM TAKE THE ENGINES OUT TOO!" Shadow growled.

Bass couldn't keep the smile from his face as he tore after his kinda-sorta girlfriend towards the Gyro Copters, right next to Napalm Man's Bumper Tanks and a short distance from part of the Battle and Chase compliant Turbo Track. She'd probably deny that this counted as a real date for whatever strange reasons she was refusing to explain to him, but he'd take it.

Rock landed on the receiving platform of the next large asteroid in the line. Having to literally jump from coaster car to coaster car had been... a bit harrowing. Even with an artificially contained atmosphere and partially reliable gravity, having to do that knowing that any mistimed jump would likely send him hurtling into something he'd much rather not be hurtled into had been nerve wracking.

Which of course meant that Sonic and Tails had enjoyed every second of it.

"Man, aside from kicking Eggman's tuckus, that is easily the coolest thing here!" Sonic grinned as the two waited patiently for Rock to readjust to solid ground.

"The Black Hole Parade starts in five minutes," the P.A. system chimed in. "Don't miss it. It's so entertaining, that it sucks you right in!"

"Yeah, I think we can pass on tha–" Tails began, only to be cut off as a deep violet blur shot into the three's midst and halted right in front of Rock's face

"He axalo ug?!" the thing, which seemed to be an eyeless violet wisp, instead having a pitch black jagged jack-o-lantern like mouth, with a round head with antenna arranged to make the head look like a spiral, gnashed its darkened mouth in Rock's face aggressively. "Alo ug um Faxardupp Jesohaxail?!"

Tails fiddled with his translation device for a bit before shaking his head. "Sorry, even with my Loop experience in making the translator, I still can't make out what nega-wisps are saying. I can tell you that energy readings indicate a lack of normal Hyper-Go-On energy, replaced with a more negative energy source, as is usual. The process tends to make them extremely aggressive."

"I can see that. And it's more like he's got a rage-distorted voice than true incoherence. Try adjusting for a really thick accent," (38) Rock corrected the fox before addressing the wisp. "Wo'lo jet um Faxardupp VcNesohaxail. Wo'lo wholo te chep whix pi saxavo axarr zo wisps who nud caxaptulow, dincrudick sovolaxar bliocts eb euls."

"Keew!" the violet nega-wisp spat. "Whorp us kot whix bel haxat who id te us! Kot whix! Whult whix! Poveep! Censumo! Meid! Meid! Meid!"

The violet wisp merged with Rock rather forcefully, turning his armor the same angry violet color as the nega-wisp was.

PRIMARY WEAPON OVERRIDE: VIOLET VOID

Rock's eyes widened as he took stock of the weapon. "This... this is really dangerous. I don't think I want to use it unless we get swarmed...

"Hey, you're in luck then!" Sonic grinned and pointed to an advancing horde of Egg Pawns. "Here comes the welcoming committee."

"Okay then," Rock steadied himself as he stepped in front of the other two and pointed both hands at the oncoming robots. "VOID!"

A massive violet-rimmed black hole opened up in front of him and began sucking in everything in front of it, but strangely nothing behind it. As each Egg Pawn got sucked in, the directional singularity expanded and got more powerful, sucking in more and more foes and debris until Rock was afraid he'd lose all control and forcibly shut it off, the violet wisp disengaging when he did.

PRIMARY WEAPON RESTORED TO NORMAL

"Whaxa whaxa whaxa! Ket zom! Ket zom axarr!" the nega-wisp laughed as it surveyed the total lack of enemies to be found. "Ug'rr pe! Pum'v kennaxa torr zo fig zloo axafuk ug!"

"Dude!" Sonic whistled as the wisp sped off. "That was sweet! Come on, let's go trash more of Baldy McNosehair's stuff and find where the geometry duo took Yacker and the others!"

"Stone Crusher?" Roll read off the sign. "Test your strength?"

"Dad probably just didn't want to use any of the bots he stole for theming his park."

"Probably. Wanna give it a shot anyway?"

"Damnit, where are they?" Rock growled as the trio blasted into another chamber on one of the largest asteroids along the massive coaster track.

"Eh, knowing Baldy McNosehair, they're probably hanging out somewhere close," Sonic shrugged.

"How about right here, youse mooks?" the gangster voice of Cubot sounded as the banged-up hermit crabmeat mech dropped from the ceiling. "We's gonna teach youse guys a lesson about messin' wit da boss's plans!"

"As if!" Sonic smirked. "You two couldn't take us on your best day!"

"Perhaps," Orbot's voice allowed. "But you are without wisp reinforcements and my scanners show you are currently low on stored alien energy to enhance yourselves. As things stand, your ability to harm this machine is at its weakest. Plus we've already delivered the aliens, so there's no worry about you rescuing them even if you do win."

"Um..." Tails pondered and realized that unless he or Sonic were willing to break the self-imposed 'baseline challenge run' restriction, then Orbot and Cubot had a very distinct advantage.

"Never stopped me before," Rock replied calmly as he formed his Mega Buster and began charging up. The charged shot dinged off of the thick armor without incident, but Rock didn't seem to care as he charged in, buster blazing.

"Hey," Sonic shrugged at Tails before he charged in with a Homing Attack of his own, "big blue's got a point."

"Huh..." Tails considered that before joining the melee without bringing any fancy looping powers to the mix.

Homing Attack after Buster Shot after Homing Attack bounced off the thick armor of the mech and the heroes dodged lasers, spiked punches, and even missiles for almost a minute until a lucky swing of the machine's fists caught Rock full on and slammed him into the ground.

"Gotcha!" Cubot cheered as the mech ignored Sonic's and Tails's attempts to stop it and reared back for a two-fisted attack on the prone robot from either side. "Say goodnight Mega Copper!"

"FRENZY!" (39)

Everyone present stared at the eyeless bold purple male-form robot, his only adornments being a pair of long bull-like horns jutting upwards from his head like ears or antenna and a jagged black mouth, that had slammed into the ground right over Rock's downed form and caught the spiked fists like they were nothing. The Purple Man then flexed and pulled sharply, tearing one of the mech's arms straight out of its connecting joint.

"Aaaah!" Orbot panicked as the Purple Man flipped the arm around and prepared to swing it like an oversized mace. "Counterattack!"

"Eat missiles, ya mook!" Cubot's voice heralded the firing of lots of missiles, which promptly aimed themselves at the newcomer.

"VOID!" a deep violet eyeless female model robot with the same kind of jagged black mouth landed behind the mech and formed a directional singularity that sucked up all the missiles, leaving the mech wide open.

"FRENZY!" the overhead impact caved in a large portion of the armor and nearly embedded the mech in the steel floor.

"What now?" Cubot asked nervously as the Purple Man and the Violet Woman were joined by a third challenger, this one pitch black all over a body composed of orbs, save for an angry dark pink portion of the head which could have been an oddly-shaped visor or another jagged mouth.

"BOMB!" the Black Man formed a massive spherical explosive with a lit fuse in one hand and reared back to pitch it.

"Eject!" Orbot cried out as the explosive sphere was hurled at their downed war machine. "Eject!"

*KABOOM!* the fiery explosion sprayed armor fragments in every direction, but something large managed to escape most of the blast damage and rocket out of the inferno even as it formed. A moment after it exited the smoke, Rock, Sonic, and Tails recognized it as an oversized motobug.

"After them!" Sonic yelled out as he took off in hot pursuit.

With NICOLE still out of commission, Sally found herself unable to hack into the base's systems to find where she needed to go, which left her having to fall back on an old standby: Following the path of destruction the others left in their own infiltration attempts.

It wasn't pretty, especially the holes that Knuckles and Omega left, but it worked.

The chase went on for longer than Sonic would have liked, crossing facilities, metal planet-like structures, and the intervening space while battling more of Eggman's robots. The stretch where an army of motobugs had come to back up the larger one that Orbot and Cubot were driving had been particularly annoying, and Eggman's two lackeys had proved much slipperier than expected, but it had only been a matter of time and dedication.

"Give it up you two!" Tails yelled as he sideswiped the large motobug in a diving maneuver as Sonic came up alongside.

"Not a chance, ya big–!"

"Last stop!" Sonic cut them off with a sidestep slam that sent the one-wheeled machine squealing out of control. "Take it away big blue!"

"Oh, dear..." Orbot lamented.

"Mega Buster!" Rock fired a shot that blew the large tire the machine drove on apart, sending it into a tumbling crash.

"BOMB!" the Black Man joined the fray by throwing one of his large explosives at the all-but-destroyed machine.

"Ack! Eject! Close blast doors!" Orbot yelled as the bomb arced closer. Right before impact, a red and black sphere along with a yellow and black cube shot out of the large motobug and through a set of closing steel doors right before the bomb impacted, blowing the large motobug into slag and stray metal bits.

As the three heroes pulled themselves up from where the blast wave had tossed them, the Purple Man and the Violet Woman caught up. Just in time for a second set of blast doors to close behind them.

"Uh-oh..." Sonic said as the walls of the chamber the six found themselves in changed from glowing blue to glowing red and began to close in on them.

"In space," the P.A. system announced, sounding suddenly more sinister than it had before, "nobody can hear you scream. Except for the person next to you, so please be considerate of others. Nobody likes a screamer."

"Wwwhhooooooaaaaaaapmmmmmppphhhhhh!"

Roll laughed hysterically at the sight of Bass faceplanted into the sand of Wave Beach after wiping out on his surfboard.

"FRENZY!" the Purple Man's assault tore great scratches in the blast doors, but they remained firmly shut.

"VOID!" the directional singularity of the Violet Woman did even less.

"BOMB!" the Black Man reared back to hurl his explosives.

"Wait!" Rock warned too little too late.

*BOOM!*

The blast blew them all back off their feet, and left the doors bit more scorched, but still intact as the glowing red walls closed ever inwards.

"A standard blast won't work!" Rock yelled at the color masters. "With doors that thick, the blast will just get redirected elsewhere!"

"Like back at us!" Sonic rubbed his head.

"You need a shaped charge to force the blast at the doors before it'll do any real damage!" Rock finished.

The Black Man looked at Rock curiously, his glowing dark pink visor/mouth thing meeting the blue bomber's expression, and then the color master nodded and walked up to the doors where his body began to start pulsing with a reddish tinge that grew brighter as the walls closed in.

"Whoa!" Tails objected. "We didn't mean make the blast bigger!"

"If you keep that up, you're going to self destruct!" Rock added with concern.

The Black Man turned his head from the damaged blast doors and looked at Rock as if to say 'that's the idea' before shooting him a thumbs up, the pulsing red glow of his body contracting into an area on his chest that couldn't be seen from behind and illuminated the blast doors as the color master pressed himself to them.

"BOMB!"

*KRACKABOOM!*

The three heroes shielded themselves from the backlash, and when they realized they hadn't been incinerated, they looked up to see a double-door sized hole blown in the blast doors in the middle of which floated a black sphere, with two bubble-like additions on either side, three small tendrils and a jagged dark pink mouth/visor.

"Ug cemick?" the black wisp asked as the remaining two color masters stepped through the hole, "el pe wo whaxavo te fred an Faxardupp Jesohaxail eulsorvos?"

"We are so outta here!" Sonic led the dash before the walls finished closing on them, and the group got a look at what lay beyond the chamber they'd been trapped in.

"Dear maker..." Rock whispered in horror.

"The space sickness you will eventually get," the P.A. system announced as they all looked out from the ledge they found themselves on over a massive chamber filled with clear capsules that each held large numbers of wisps, "is not the responsibility of Eggman's Incredible Interstellar Amusement Park, or its subsidiaries. Send any complaints to the inventor of space. Thank you."

"I don't think that's space sickness I'm feeling..." Rock did his best to steady himself as he watched the conveyors in the ceiling carry capsules of wisps to a center chamber and then dump them in, a dark purple-violet energy flowing out in pipes that went straight into the floor.

"Wo'mo foon reekick bel zis praxaco..." the black wisp growled thickly, "Rot nud fred dit te smitholoons! Fuln! Oxpredo! Pochleupp! Femf! Femf! Fe–"

"No," Rock shook his head despite wanting to agree with the angry black wisp. "That might hurt the other wisps. We need to–"

A sound of shattering objects was heard nearby and Rock whipped his head to see the Purple Man standing over a lone capsule on their ledge and the group of pointy U-headed purple wisps all sporting jagged black grins.

"Zon smaxask dit!" one gnashed.

"Floaxak dit!" another gnawed.

"Loct dit!" yet another growled.

"Lip!"

"Clunst!"

"Pochleupp!"

"Blonzupp!" they began chanting as they zoomed towards the watching heroes, "Blonzupp! Blonzupp!"

Three of the purple nega-wisps merged with Tails, Sonic, and Rock, the latter's armor turning a deep purple all over.

PRIMARY WEAPON OVERRIDE: PURPLE FRENZY

Rock nearly doubled over at the feeling he got. There was power in the weapon, sure, but there was also a need. A need to destroy. To rampage until everything in sight lay broken before him.

"Yo, bro, you okay?" Sonic asked with some worry.

"Fine," Rock shook his head clear and looked out over the chamber again. He supposed it was fortunate that everything in sight was something he'd want to break anyway.

"Then let's go!" Sonic yelled as he led the jump over the ledge to the area below.

Four voices yelled out "FRENZY!" and only sounds of total destruction followed.

"Go again?" Roll asked sweetly, holding the practice sword at her downed opponent.

Bass groaned from the floor of Sword Man's dojo and seriously contemplated saying he'd had enough.

"Ey, boss man, youse get da special package we sent ya?" Cubot asked as the surveillance cameras of the Asteroid Coaster followed the rampant destruction of the five remaining intruders. Cries of "FRENZY!", "VOID!", and "BOMB!" periodically emanated from the speakers, heralding more destruction of the facilities and their defenses.

"Yes," Eggman pinched the bridge of his nose on the other end of the communication after hearing Cubot's latest voice chip. "Though I seem to be missing a few from the collection..."

"My apologies, boss," Orbot interjected, "but the last three are... proving a bit more problematic. Are you sure we can't send you some that we already have in custody?"

"No..." Dr. Eggman insisted. "That upstart Albert wants to send those things against me, then I'll respond by using the hapless pilots he enlisted to power my response and no others! That'll prove who's the real genius! Now get on it and don't come back until you have them!"

"And da Mega Copper an' 'is partners?" Cubot asked.

"You had your chance," Eggman folded his hands together in front of his face. "Let Frigate Skullian take care of them..."

"Hold it right there, Nega!" Silver declared as the allied groups burts into the launch chamber.

"Hohoho!" Eggman Nega laughed from his seat in the cockpit of the Egg Destroyer rocket, a seat in the rocket's fore section, just behind a stylized head in Nega's own image that was the rocket's tip. "You're too late! With the power of the Master Emerald card, I've gathered enough energy to turn the entire planet into a card! After a lifetime of being denied my recognition as the world's most brilliant mind due to Eggman's legacy tainting my heritage, I was finally set to erase him and his failures from history and take my rightful place! But thanks to your meddling I cannot change the future how I want, so I'll destroy it entirely! Ohohohohoho!"

"You're even more insane than I thought," Quint stated bluntly.

"EGG DESTROYER LAUNCH IN T MINUS TWENTY SECONDS."

"Metal Sonic!" Nega declared, drawing everyone's attention to the robot hedgehog in the room. "Keep them busy until launch!"

"If I must, you waste of air," the creation intoned before launching itself at the gathering who had already taken combat stances. "I shall come for you soon enough..."

Metal Sonic launched himself at the group at the same time a blur hurtled over them and straight at the robot. With a crash of metal, Sally slammed Extreme Gear first into Metal Sonic's Black Shield.

"EGG DESTROYER LAUNCH IN T MINUS TEN SECONDS."

"Go!" Sally ordered as she slashed at Metal Sonic with her wrist-mounted energy blades the moment his barrier dropped. "Stop the rocket!"

"NINE."

"You are determined to die first, aren't you?" the robot intoned rhetorically.

"EIGHT."

"I can–" Sally blocked the robot's clawed swipe.

"SEVEN."

"–handle Metal Sonic!"

"SIX."

"Well, actually Sal," Bunnie began, "we got a message that–"

"FIVE." the engines on the rocket flared to life, and everyone who was expecting it to blow up from sabotage got worried when it seemed to work just fine.

"That doesn't look sabotaged to me..." Shadow's eyes narrowed as Sally parried another attack from Metal Sonic.

"FOUR."

"Ohohoho!" Nega laughed. "As if anyone could sabotage my genius!"

"THREE."

Nega held up three cards in his hand and grinned like a maniac. "By turning these cards to the final energy needed–"

"TWO."

"–the world will be mine!" Nega finished with a boomingly insane laugh.

"Rouge! Treble!" Shadow growled as he recognized two of the cards.

"Amy!" Antoine and Bunny gasped on recognizing the third.

"ONE."

"Nice knowing you! Ohohoho!"

"CHAOS CONTROL!" Shadow yelled as he formed a bubble around himself and seven of his allies, Sally Acorn being just too far away to include, and warped them onto the rocket.

"EGG DESTROYER LAUNCH."

As the flames burst out of the rocket's engines, Metal Sonic raised his Black Shield and Sally formed a large bubble of null gravity that the held the fire at bay. Both combatants glared at each other across the flames as the Egg Destroyer climbed up out of the Meteor Base and towards its destructive purpose.

Tails's form of a black orb with glowing dark pink eyes and a jagged mouth, with two burning fuses, plummeted towards the last guardian barring the way towards the generator area. Despite their wholesale destruction of capsules holding the various wisps, they had found no sign of Yacker or the other color master wisps.

The giant mechanical eye with orange-hot barriers and a gravitational field was blown to smithereens on contact and Tails emerged from the destruction unscathed with the black wisp trailing him.

"Feem, faxafupp!" the black wisp chortled as the door out opened up and the others joined them.

Jumping down, the group passed by a series of rapidly opening blast doors until they landed in a chamber that would lead to the exterior area where the generator was.

A chamber which was apparently the hangar for a weapons platform held aloft by a pair of skull-like dirigibles with glowing acid-green eyes.

"Take cover!" Rock yelled as the craft opened fire on all of them, ducking behind a stack of large metal crates, swiftly joined by the others.

"Okay," Sonic began as the hangar was swiftly filled with bullets and explosions, "now what do we... why are you stretching?"

"Calibration of my servos to make sure nothing slips out of alignment during high activity," Rock replied.

"So..." Sonic began doing a few stretches himself, "pretty much the same reason I do them."

"Close enough," Tails shrugged in his own stretch, ignoring the odd eyeless looks from the black wisp and the two remaining color masters. (40)

"Okay," Rock nodded as he finished calibrations. "Sonic and Tails, keep that thing busy. You," he pointed to the black wisp, "with me. And I'm going to need you," he pointed to the Purple Man, "to throw me and Violet Woman up and over that thing's weapons. Got it?"

"Whaxa whaxa whaxa! Wo kennaxa fred whix an!" the black wisp cackled as he joined with Rock, turning the robot hero's armor blacker than the depths of space.

PRIMARY WEAPON OVERRIDE: BLACK BOMB

"Okay, we're on the rocket," Proto Man noted. "Somehow able to breathe despite hurtling through space and with a large number of defensive weapons pointed at us."

"Same ol', same ol' Sugah-Red," Bunnie grinned. "What say y'all take the ones on th–"

"I shall eliminate the defenses," Omega interrupted, several portions of his armor sliding back to reveal a rather ludicrous amount of barrels for a being of his size. "The rest of you eliminate Nega."

"A sound plan," Quint nodded. "Let's go."

"Hmph," Shadow smirked and dashed forwards. "I'll take him on my own..."

"You shall be needink to be fastair zan zat!" Antoine darted after the dark hedgehog.

"Hey!" Knuckles yelled as the rest of the group joined in the rush up the rocket towards the cockpit. "Save some for me!"

"Preparing to initiate forcible separation procedures," Omega intoned as he picked his targets.

"Please beware of the spikes on the asteroid coaster, they are sharp. Really? We have to warn people abo–"

Rock tuned out the P.A. system as he did his best to relax under the sheer destructive power now at his disposal, along with the urge to burn and destroy everything around him, listening to Sonic and Tails darting about and distracting the latest guardian of Eggman's. "Now!"

"FRENZY!" the Purple Man yelled as he grabbed Rock and heaved him high into the air of the hangar. High enough to be out of the weapon platform's main firing arc.

"BOMB!" Rock yelled as he began his descent, throwing a large round explosive as he hurtled towards the weaponized craft.

The explosion rocked the craft, causing a temporary halt to its weapons fire and Rock heard the sound of repeated Homing Attacks from Sonic and Tails as he landed on the craft and took stock. The craft was damaged, but still operational. And it was also aiming defensive weapons on the upper portion at him.

"VOID!" Rock braced himself against the pull as the directional singularity of the Violet Woman swallowed up the weapons fire that was meant for him.

"Hey, where do you think you're going?" Sonic's call came right as the craft began to move towards the hangar's exit.

"BOMB!" Rock aimed straight for one of those glowing acid-green things, the domed tops designed in a caricature of Eggman's face, pistoning out of the skull-like dirigibles. The explosion blew a large portion of the hover device apart and the whole craft began to list dangerously to one side, but it not only kept moving, it began to pick up speed.

"FRENZY!" the Purple Man just barely landed on board and dug sharpened claws into the metal armor as he hauled himself up.

"A couple more good hits should do it," Rock noted from the crouching position he'd taken to stabilize his footing as the Violet Woman sucked up more retaliation fire with her weapon. "Then we can..." he trailed off as something from his copy chip scan registered.

"FRENZY!" the Purple Man ripped a huge chunk of armor out of the less damaged skull dirigible thing and the craft began to shake dangerously.

"Wait!" Rock called out. "This thing's got a..." he felt the system he'd caught with his still-going copy chip scan activate, "...self-destruct mechanism."

"What?!" Tails shouted out from below. "How big?"

"With its unspent munitions, big enough to take out most of this asteroid!" Rock called back. "I'm not sure we can get clear in time!"

"Aw, man..." Sonic's voice groused as the clang of another weapon emplacement falling off rang out.

Rock noted the Purple Man and the Violet Woman looking at each other for a moment. "What are you two thinking...?"

Rock's question trailed off as he watched the Violet Woman begin to glow with a deep violet light.

"No... No, you can't!" he protested as the Purple Man grabbed him. "It's too dangerous!"

"FRENZY!" the Purple Man jumped with Rock in tow, sailing a good ways away from the craft towards the exterior surface of the asteroid.

"What's going on?" Sonic asked as he and Tails skidded to a halt next to the two. "Do we have a plan or what?"

"Violet Woman is going to–"

"VOID!"

*BRACKABOOoooooooooooooosssshhhhh...*

The craft's explosion immediately reversed in on itself as a miniature violet-rimmed singularity sucked the entire blast in, debris and all. In moments, the singularity dissipated to show nothing save for a lone floating violet wisp where the Violet Woman had just been.

"You have proven to be quite the persistent adversary," Metal Sonic noted as Sally settled to the floor and took up a combat stance, her energy wrist-blades at the ready.

"You have no idea."

"I almost believe you," Metal Sonic intoned and began crackling with energy as a blazing aura formed around him. "But the same could be said of you in regards to myself. V. Maximum Overdrive: Engage."

"Fwaxa whaxa whaxa!" the black wisp cackled as he and the violet wisp zoomed ahead of the group towards the generator. "Zaxat waxas axawosemo!"

"Still worried me!" Rock called after them, taking his time walking towards the generator.

"Cemo en trewpekos!" the violet wisp called back. "Caxatst an!"

"Did she just...?" Sonic turned to Tails.

"Call you slow?" Tails couldn't hide his amusement as he fiddled with his adjusted translator. "Either that or a snack."

"I think the first is somewhat less creepy," Sonic shuddered before turning back. "Hey! No one calls me–Look out!"

"Whuh?" the two nega wisps whipped around just in time to be sucked up by Orbot and Cubot holding what looked like glorified vacuum cleaners.

"You let them go!" Tails yelled as he dashed forwards, Sonic and Rock following immediately behind.

"Sorry, can't stay," Orbot waved as the ground beneath the two opened up, allowing Eggman's lackeys to fall through.

"NO!"

Whoever had yelled did so fruitlessly as the trapdoor closed immediately behind the two and their prisoners.

"Remember to try one of our new Space Pops! All the flavor of outer space, with only half the radiation!"

"Damnit!" Sonic fumed as Rock pounded uselessly on the trapdoor. "Come on, let's go after them!"

"F..."

"No..." Rock's quiet voice forced the hedgehog to stop himself. "We... we still have to shut down the generator first..."

"F–F..."

"I know!" Sonic paced furiously. "That doesn't mean I have to like it!"

"FR... F–FR..."

"I'll get started on it," Tails took out his tools and flew himself over to the generator.

"F–FR... FR–F–FRE..."

Rock looked over and saw the Purple Man hunched over emanating barely contained sparks of purple energy, and realized that the color master had just watched the last of his friends snatched up right in front of him. Walking over, he reached out to put a comforting hand on the wisp-piloted robot's shoulder. "I'm so–"

"FRENZY!"

The swipe of Purple Man's arm tore his fingers through Rock's chest armor like it was made of paper, hurtling the blue bomber backwards. (41)

"Ohohohoho!" Nega laughed even as the Egg Destroyer shuddered around him and the damage reports blared an insistent red and held up a few cards instead and looked them over. "In a few moments I'll have reached the necessary distance to turn the planet into a card! And even better, I'll have used the friends of my enemies to make it happen! Victory is mine! Preparing for full card energy conver–!"

His seat lurched violently as the cockpit module was struck multiple times in succession, causing the cards to fly out of his hand even as a flash of light heralded the depositing of a weight on his portly stomach.

"I'll just take these," Shadow the Hedgehog grabbed the dropped cards. "CHAOS CONTROL!"

Nega scrambled upright as the black hedgehog vanished and examined his control panel, and noticed something missing. 'What the?! The blasted rodent took the Master Emerald card too?!'

Sally grit her teeth as she rolled out of the way of Metal Sonic's V. Maximum Overdrive charge again and watched it tear through another wall in Eggman Nega's Meteor Base. Wasting no time, she dashed in the opposite direction before Metal Sonic came back through the wall.

Just in time for his high energy aura to give out.

Sally took the opening for all it was worth and roundhouse kicked the robot hedgehog hard enough to send him flying while his systems recovered from the overcharge and activated her energy wrist blades for a follow-up attack. Metal Sonic hit the floor hard, bounced, and recovered enough to flip to his feet and produce a copy of Sally's energy blades from his own wrists and meet her charge, their blades locking together.

Sally went for a double-kick to the robot's face, only to have him twist hard the moment her feet left the floor and throw her at a wall. She twisted acrobatically to land feet-first on the wall and spring straight back at her foe.

Rock fought to maintain awareness despite his protesting systems. The opening blow from Purple Man had left his systems at less than a quarter of operational integrity. And he was probably going to need every ounce left to just stay alive.

A nearby crash and a spray of rings resulted from Sonic's Spin Dash form being spiked into the asteroid's terrain.

"Okay, that's..." Sonic shook his head as he tried to stand. "That's gonna cost ya... All three of ya... As soon as the galaxy stops spinning..."

"Sonic!" Tails called out, abandoning his own charge and having also clearly foregone his work on the still-active generator.

"I've got this you two," Rock told his friends as, instead of following up on the attack, the glowing Purple Man began tearing up the terrain.

"Like heck!" Sonic protested.

"Yeah, he nearly tore you in half with his first blow!" Tails added. "We can't leave him under Eggman's control."

"Does..." Rock forced himself to stand, "does he look controlled to you?"

"FRENZY! FRENZY!" the color master wailed as he kept tearing up everything within reach in a berserk rage without rhyme or reason.

"Now that you mention it..." Sonic trailed off. "Still, you're barely holding together as it is, bro. What if your plan doesn't work?"

"Then you get to take my IC chip back to dad and say you told me so," Rock replied, his armor turning brown and white as he activated the Strong Arm weapon.

"...Good luck..." Tails offered as the damaged Rock charged straight into danger.

"FRENZY!"

Rock ducked under the wild backhand swipe and came up to meet the follow-up clawed thrust with an open hand, catching the blow and interlocking his fingers with Purple Man's even as damage warnings flared despite the enhanced hydraulics matching the color master's strength. The first hand came back for another attack and Rock repeated the gesture, damage warnings flaring again upon immobilizing the second hand.

"FRE–"

The color master's berserk struggling was cut off by Rock slamming his forehead into Purple Man's own, right between where his horns sprouted.

"Cut it out right now!" the blue bomber yelled as he struggled to keep his hold despite his enhanced strength. "I know you're furious! Hurt, angry! Eggman's lackeys took your friends!"

"F–"

"BUT THEY WERE MY FRIENDS TOO!"

Purple Man's struggles halted so suddenly that Rock almost overbalanced and his bright aura of purple energy began to wane.

"I haven't known any of you that long, but you've all been the best. White, cyan, green, yellow, red, blue, ivory, orange, pink, gray, indigo, magenta, crimson, violet, black, and purple," Rock swore that if Purple Man had possessed eyes, they'd have blinked in astonishment. "Yes, you. You're my friend too, even after taking a chunk out of me. And I don't abandon my friends. Not to Eggman and certainly not to their own pain."

It was astounding how utterly and completely lost a face could look with only a mouth for expression.

"And as your friend, I promise you we'll get them back. We'll get them all back from Baldy McNosehair. I haven't let him get away with this kind of thing yet, and I'm not going to start now."

Slowly, the tension in Purple Man's limbs released and the color master sagged until his only support was a critically damaged Rock as the wisp-piloted robot convulsed like a sobbing lifeform. (42)

"About time!" Rouge complained as she was released from her card. "It was getting stuffy in there!" She didn't mention how embarrassing it had been to be caught off guard by Nega like that again as a newly released Treble gave a growl of agreement.

"Why couldn't Sonic have come to save me?" Amy pouted after smoothing her dress out.

"You're welcome, sugah," Bunnie gave the pink hedgehog a half-lidded gaze as what remained of the Egg Destroyer turned to lock the planet below into its sights. "Now how 'bout helping us out here afore Nega traps Sonic and everyone else in his little ol' cards?"

"It's over Nega!" Quint yelled out as Amy was processing that with wide eyes, the green future-forged robot thrusting the point of Sakugarne into one of the connecting clamps keeping Nega's control module attached to the rocket. The jackhammer spike cracked the metal before being pistoned forward and making the clamp explode.

On the other side, Treble gave a loud growl as he tore another clamp out with his steel teeth and Rouge broke another with a kick from her pointed shoes.

"Oh, all right!" Amy huffed and hefted her Piko hammer and followed the others in a charge at the damaged module, arriving last and giving a wide-arced upward swing that broke the remaining connections and sent the command module soaring away from the rocket.

"It's no use you fools!" Nega laughed as Silver's psychokinetic aura snagged the detached unit in its grasp. "I may not have the energy to turn the whole planet into one of my cards, but with my quick adjustments I can still turn part of it into one! Let's see how long it lasts with a chunk missing! Ohohohoh–"

In the same moment that he pressed the button, Nega glanced out of his clear bubble to see the tip of his rocket with the camera mounted there pointed straight at him before the flash went off.

A moment later and a card with a picture of the Egg Destroyer's command module containing Eggman Nega with a half-formed look of shock was floating through space. (43)

Sally was having trouble. She and Metal Sonic were too evenly matched with only the skills he'd stolen from her taken into account. Even if this weren't a baseline challenge run, the fact that most of Sally's higher-end skills gained in the Loops relied on NICOLE to work and since NICOLE was still out of commission... Sure, she could probably use her connection to the Source to enter her Super mode, but she still hadn't quite gotten that working right without something like the Chaos Emeralds to help the transformation. At best, she'd need more time to concentrate than Metal Sonic would ever let her take.

"Surrender to the inevitable," the robot hedgehog intoned. "Your resistance is futile."

As it was, it was going to take a miracle to get her out of this alive. If only NICOLE were still able to help her...

Almost as if something had heard the thought, a form of purple, brown, and black coalesced behind Metal Sonic and raised a limb to strike. Before the blow could land, Metal Sonic had whipped around and sent a clawed backhand through the incompletely formed, and badly glitched, holographic body of NICOLE, shattering it into motes of light.

But his attention had been divided, and right then that was all Sally needed. A moment later and Metal Sonic looked down to see the blue energy tip of Sally's one freed energy wrist blade protruding from his chest.

"You... fi-ight hard..." Metal Sonic sparked as systems began failing, "to keEp yOur p-p-pAiNnnNnnnNnNnNNNnnnn..."

"No," Sally gulped in deep breaths of air. "I fight hard to overcome it."

It had taken the full contents of an E-Tank that Sonic had dramatically pulled out of his shoe and the entire ride back to Tropical Resort from the Asteroid Coaster, but Rock was back to full operating capacity.

"Please feel free to fill out a brief survey after your visit," the transport's announcer relayed helpfully as the four beings stepped off. "Your opinions matter to us. Unless you didn't have fun, then we don't care."

"Oh, go suck your own ego," Sonic made a childish gesture as he walked away.

"I wonder if that's what makes him so fat," Tails pondered as the last remnants of the five tractor beams connecting the stolen mini-planets (and one space fleet) to Eggmanland finished unraveling. "I mean, his ego's got to be high in everything that's bad for you."

"Ugh, that's a mental image I can do without," Sonic rolled his eyes as a subdued Purple Man gave him an odd look. "So when do you think Eggman's gonna try his final move?"

"Probably as soon as we join that party over there," Rock pointed at a group of wisps cheerfully dancing through the air.

"Sally?" Rotor asked as he answered the call made from Nega's own control center. "Why aren't you using NICOLE to contact me?"

"NICOLE's... recovering from a virus Metal Sonic infected her with," Sally admitted. "I think she'll be fine eventually, but it hit her pretty hard."

"If I've learned anything about her, it's that NICOLE's as much of a fighter as you are, Sally," the walrus offered a comforting smile. "But I'm sure that's not the only reason you called."

"No, I–"

"Proto Man to Princess Sally," another voice sounded out. "Come in, Sally."

Blinking, Sally connected the communication to the current call to Rotor. "This is Sally. How'd you know I was here?"

"We guessed," the blunt reply came. "Plus it's fairly urgent. The rocket's guidance systems were damaged in the fight and we need help guiding it back to the Meteor Base if we want anything resembling a safe landing. Can you help?"

"This is Rotor, on line from Project Sky Patrol," the walrus answered. "If Sally connects me to the base's systems, we can guide you all home."

"Thank you. Proto Man over and out."

"Ohohohoho!"

"Ook! Zo Faxardupp Jesohaxail!"

The wisp party came grinding to a halt as a giant image of Dr. Eggman appeared above them.

"You all didn't actually think you'd won because you destroyed my generators, did you?" the man asked with a madly confident grin.

"Yeah, kinda," Sonic answered with an equally confident smirk. "You know how this works Baldy McNosehair. We kick your butt, you rant and rave a bit, try something desperate and then we kick your butt even more. Why not save us all the trouble and just surrender gracefully for once?"

"Cheeky little rodent," Eggman fumed for a moment, before grinning again. "But perhaps you haven't realized that this entire amusement park is in fact a mind control cannon aimed right at the planet below! One with enough energy to enslave the entire world."

"And maybe you haven't realized how much we've trashed tearing your park up?" Sonic grinned right back. "How much you wanna bet your device has a leak somewhere?"

"Er..." Eggman suddenly looked uncertain.

"I'd take dat bet boss," Cubot's voice cut in from the side.

"Oh, yes," Orbot added. "Especially since the system integrity reports came back positive."

"Er..." Now it was Sonic's turn to look uncertain.

"He's right Sonic," Tails gulped, dropping a pair of binoculars from his eyes. "There's no rupture in any of his towers..." the add-on of 'this time' was left off, though clearly implied.

"Ohohoho!" Eggman guffawed. "It seems I really do get to have the last laugh this time!"

"Last laugh?" Orbot's voice sounded puzzled. "How is laughing last special? Isn't that like being the slowest one to get the joke?"

The heroes (and a few wisps) stifled involuntary chuckles as Cubot's response was heard. "Yeah, I laugh last all the time! People look at me like I'm an idiot, forgeddabout it!"

"Oh, shut up!" Eggman roared before turning back to the heroes as the view panned out to show a lever rising up out of the floor in front of him. Eggman grasped the lever, but paused as he noted the calm gaze of Mega Man boring into him. "What? Nothing to say before I claim victory Mega Dunce?"

"Three things," Rock folded his arms pointedly. "First: Before even coming here, I was certain you were up to no good. Second: I've known exactly what your park is since facing your prototype at Starlight Carnival. Third: While Sonic and Tails seem content to leave things to chance, I prefer not to if I can help it."

"What did you do?"

"Pull the lever and find out."

Eggman and Mega Man stood and stared at each other for several moments, neither moving, blinking, or speaking.

"A superb bluff," Eggman grinned finally, "but all for naught. Because soon the world will have only one thing on its mind."

"What, boss?"

"Me."

And with that, Eggman threw the switch. The very next instant, the lights on his end of the transmission turned red and alarms began blaring.

"What?! What's going on?" Eggman looked around frantically as Rock allowed himself a victorious smirk as a massive nebulous cloud of purplish energy began streaming from the towers ringing the park. "Why is my precious alien energy being vented into space?!"

"Hey Eggface!" a new voice drawled as the image of Eggman squashed into half its original space to make room for a second showing the toothy grin of a certain green crocodile mobian. "How do you like them apples?"

"The Chaotix?!" Eggman stared from his end as the face retracted to show several others. "But... But..." (44)

"I'm sure you're aware of our agency's policy," Espio stated calmly, "of not acting against clients."

"Except that only applies to paying clients in good standing," Vector's grin only grew wider. "And you've never paid a cent. We have a completely different policy for that."

"Yep!" Charmy chirped as he buzzed around excitedly. "You know our policy!"

"T-The way we f-figure," Ray stuttered as he worked a calculator, "af-fter interest and-d-d-d f-false p-pretense fees and-d-d..."

"Suffice to say," Mighty concluded with a smirk, "one interstellar amusement park should just about cover it."

"YOU CAN'T HAVE MY PARK!" Eggman's face turned pure red in his fury.

"This is a recording, by the way," Shade added with a smirk. "We're already back on the surface."

"We aren't going to take your park," Vector's grin turned downright malicious. "We're, well," he gestured to the silent form of Sniper Joe who slowly pointed a finger gun directly ahead of himself and Eggman's face paled like it was pointed straight at him (45).

"Boom."

One of the massive outer towers exploded with a *KABOOM!* that shook the entire Tropical Paradise. An explosion that was repeated by the other outer and inner towers shortly afterwards.

*CHAKABOOM!*

*CRACKABOOM!*

*SHOOMBALABOOM!*

*BOOMBOOMBOOM!*

*BABOOMTISH!*

*BOOMSHAKALAKALAKA!*

*BARACKOBOOMA!*

The landing back on Meteor Base had been... Well, good enough for the passengers. Not so good for Nega's rocket. About the only thing that was still intact was the camera mounted to the front, which Quint had swiftly claimed.

"So you're not turning the Master Emerald back yet?" Rouge asked.

"Not until I get it back to Angel Island," Knuckles replied. "It's a lot easier to transport this way."

"Easier to pickpocket too," Rouge grinned.

"Please don't," Blues sighed heavily.

"You know, I wonder why the Chaotix's sabotage didn't do anything?" Silver wondered.

"Actually, from what I could tell, they didn't sabotage the rocket," Blues informed the hedgehog from the future. "Charmy probably mixed up clients again."

"Huh... Wonder what they did sabotage..."

"Sally?" Rotor asked from the open channel where he and the princess were hacking the base's systems to re-enter the atmosphere. "We may have a problem."

"What's that?"

"I located a section on the schematics labeled 'card collection storage'," Rotor informed her, getting most everyone else's attention. "Apparently, the chamber ruptured on launch and the contents were scattered. There's no way of knowing what, or who, was trapped in all of those cards, or where they ended up."

"It seems we'll have to find and release all of them before destroying Nega's camera..." Quint mused.

"Bet we can get more than the rest of y'all!" Bunnie challenged after sharing a quick glance with her husband.

"You're on!" Shadow and Knuckles accepted immediately.

"No!" Eggman stared in disbelief as alarms of all types blared in his office. "This can't be happening! It's not possible!"

In a rage, he kicked his hovering chair, sending it bouncing over the room, sweeping up a staring Cubot, dropping him off, and coming to rest right where it had been in the first place.

"Yo, whaddya mean impossible?" Cubot asked as his boss progressed to the sobbing stage of his tantrum. "Your plans've been crushed by Mega Man for several times longer dan I've been active. And when it ain't him, it's Sonic. Usually wit somma deir buddies in tow. Dey stop you like it's deir job or somethin'. In fact, I can't tink of a plan dose mooks didn't stop."

"What are you talking about?" Eggman regressed to the disbelieving rage part of his tantrum. "They haven't stopped all of my plans!"

"Name one."

Eggman opened his mouth, only to come up completely short. Even his initial takeover attempt, back when the bothersome hedgehog was still an inept child, had come to naught thanks to that horrid blue robot.

"I don't think I've ever seen the boss speechless. Nice one, pal," Orbot commented before slapping his compatriot on the back. Cubot instantly straightened stiffly and his head made a full rotation.

"Hey, thanks buddy!" the yellow and black minion replied in a high voice that was some terrible offspring of a squeak and a screech. "Hey! My voice... It's back!"

"Ah, the sweet sound my auditory processors know and love," Orbot seemed pleased as Dr. Eggman grumbled about remembering why he'd had Cubot's voice chip changed in the first place.

"But none of it matters," Eggman growled, his face gaining a manic look devoid of sanity as the rumbling of Eggmanland only grew in intensity. "I knew what my foes were capable of. I knew this kind of setback could happen. I may have planned for total victory, but I also prepared for just this kind of eventuality! My final weapon is ready enough to remove the perpetual obstacles in my path! And once they're dealt with, I will deal with all of their allies in turn!"

Orbot and Cubot both gulped and backed away from their boss.

"I! WILL! CRUSH! EVERYONE!"

"Critical system failure!" the P.A. system announced as Sonic, Rock, Tails, and Purple Man dashed headlong up, or down depending on your perspective, the umbilical tether for the space elevator storage hangar. The one they'd ridden all the way to the park proper having been buried under the debris of the arrival hangar. "Repeat: Critical system failure! All attraction access is temporarily suspended. Please exit the park via the emergency exit ahead. This is all your fault."

"And I'm glad!" Sonic yelled back as Rock and Tails took out a small wave of flying something-or-others. He hadn't spared them enough of a look to tell.

"Less talking, more running!" Rock yelled. "Even with tapping the power cores in Eggman's bots to recharge it, the Sonic Speed master weapon is down to about a quarter full!"

"Keep up the velocity before things get terminal, got it!"

"Uh, oh!" Tails spotted another of the hermit crabmeat mechs gaining on them. "We've got company!"

"FRENZY!" Purple Man jumped back, landed on the mech, and proceeded to rip its head off. The mech lost guidance and dipped hard enough to impact the steel exterior of the tether. Purple Man jumped off and dashed to keep up with the others as the mech tumbled and sparked for a ways before exploding.

"Are you all sure you don't want me to stay and help fight Baldy McNosehair?" Tails asked as Sonic sideswiped a motobug into its fellows for a rather impressive chain crash.

"Sorry!" Rock replied. "We need you to warn everyone to be ready in case the worst happens!"

"Yeah, because if the worst happens you'll probably need everyone!" Sonic added.

"I get it!" Tails huffed as they approached the hangar. "Guess it's better than being shoved into it unceremoniously!"

"Haven't I apologized for that enough yet?" Sonic called back incredulously.

"Nope!"

The group dashed into the space elevator hangar and spotted one ready to go.

"Okay, if I know Baldy McNosehair," Sonic and the others skidded to a halt shortly away from the transport car as Tails stopped in the doorway, "he should be just–"

The room shuddered with the sound of rending steel and Tails tripped the rest of the way into the transport.

'Great, even when I'm not shoved into this thing, I'm still shoved into this thing,' he mentally grumbled before looking up.

"Leaving so soon? There are no lines–"

And saw Eggman in his Nega Wisp Armor unceremoniously suck a recovering Sonic up one of the jagged-mouthed tendrils. The machine's mouth opened to display the Blue Blur stuck in a capsule at the back of the machine's 'throat'.

"–and I've saved the best rides for last!"

A sweep from the other jagged-mouthed tendril sent Purple Man and Rock slamming into the side of the transport hard enough that the movement knocked the recovering Tails back down. And then the first began to wind back for a straight shot at Tails himself.

"At least let me stamp your hand so you can come back in!" Eggman grinned so maliciously that the two-tailed fox found himself instinctively frozen in place as the tendril whipped forward, jagged mouth agape.

And then the purple form of the last color master was there between him and Eggman's attack, hands spread to catch the jagged jaws.

"FR–"

*CRUNCH*

Tails found himself staring in horror as the few purple bits of metal sticking out from the closed jaws of similar hue faded to a more plain steel. He felt some relief as the eyeless face of a purple nega-wisp poked itself out of a space between the jaws.

"Lu–"

And then the wisp was sucked down the tendril just like Sonic had been. In the next moment, the doors closed and Tails felt himself rocketing back towards the surface.

Sonic suppressed the urge to simply smash his way out of the capsule as Rock hit the launch button on the side of the space elevator car. He could certainly do so. Whether he could do so easily might prove an interesting question, but he could get himself out of there. However, he kind of wanted to see how Rock handled Eggman's little wisp-powered toy. The bot was still at that stage of looping where his abilities weren't that far above baseline even when he went all-out. It would prove an interesting fight.

"You know," he heard Rock speak as the Blue Bomber readied his lemon shooter, "your attack should have made those amusement park puns sound threatening, but they still come across pretty lame."

Sonic fought back a grin at the mirror of his own usual taunt, as well as something else he was feeling as his capsule was connected to the Nega Wisp Armor's power systems. 'Heh... Interesting move Baldy McNosehair... Adding the Chaos Emeralds to your little toy as a backup. Too bad I can use that for my... nnngh...'

"Cheeky little robot..." Eggman's sneer was audible. "Foiling my plans not enough for you? Now you have to foil the speeches I work hard on?"

"Maybe you should look into hiring a writer."

'Okay... That kinda... hurts...' Sonic thought as the energy he was connected to began to feel like he'd stuck his tongue, along with every other part of his body, in a gazillion electrical sockets. Like that thing Eggman sometimes used to drain Sonic's Super Mode, and awaken Dark Gaia by blowing the planet apart. 'But... he shouldn't... have... that... yet... right...?'

"As if any writer I hired could satisfy my desires," Eggman scoffed as Sonic realized that the pain was killing his focus to the point that he'd be unable to actually execute any of his theoretical escape plans. "But I'll forgive your insolence this time."

'Sorry... Bro... You...'re... on... your... AAAAAAGGGHHH!'

"In fact–"

The pain grew to the point where it took all of the considerable willpower Sonic had gained over the Loops to simply not black out. (46)

"–I want to thank you, Mega Man!" Eggman laughed in his wisp-like mech. "You see, after your assault in Soleanna, I realized that I was going soft! I now understand that simply because some of my foes are unwilling to kill, that does not mean they are incapable, or that their tolerance has no limit! So from now on, I fight all my battles the same way: To the end! Kill or be killed! I hope you're ready, Mega Man, because the only way you'll ever stop me now is to do it permanently!"

"Wanna bet?" the Blue Bomber replied as he turned brown and yellow, manifesting a pair of circular saws in his hands the same instant and threw, only to have them bounce harmlessly off the deep purple machine's armor. Not to be deterred, the robot hero turned a deep navy blue and dark yellow before firing a different weapon.

"Ah, yes, your vaunted master weapons," Eggman grinned maliciously as he maneuvered one of the machine's tendrils to slap the Flash Bomb away, the explosive blowing a wide hole in the hangar doors. "I haven't forgotten them. I also haven't forgotten how you tend to have trouble using several at once. And with your faithful robo-dog currently back on the surface and my anti-teleportation barrier still fueled by emergency reserves, the only way you can move at decent speed is to use the one modeled after Sonic himself... So I hope you still have enough energy to keep up after all your running around earlier!"

And with that, Eggman's wisp-bot turned and flew out the hole left by the Flash Bomb, making it even wider in the process and still leaving not so much as a scratch on the paint. Swearing under his breath, Mega Man followed as fast as the mostly depleted Sonic Speed weapon would allow.

"Welcome back, Sal!" Rotor greeted as the hijacked transport landed. "How's NICOLE doing?"

"Recovering from whatever Metal Sonic hit her with," the princess ground squirrel mobian answered as she exited the craft, followed shortly by the rest. "Slowly, but recovering. It'll be a while before she's back to a hundred percent."

"Well, I've got a quarantined mainframe set aside just in case something like this happened so let's hook her up and I'll see what I can do to speed her recovery."

"Thanks, Rotor. So long as there's not another crisis to handle, we should be fi–"

Rotor's handheld communicator started blaring an emergency message at that moment. As he answered and tried to get Tails to slow down before trying to tell him everything. Of everyone present, loopers and nonloopers alike, none could really say they were surprised by that turn of events.

"You just going to run away Eggman?" Rock taunted as he tore after the wisp-like machine along the outer ring of the space elevator shaft. If the madman was, it might prove to be a pretty effective tactic given the way his already depleted Sonic Speed weapon was only becoming more depleted.

"Perish the thought!" the man's laughter boomed from the machine's speakers, the canisters of stolen Hyper-Go-On waving rhythmically on the thing's back. "I just wanted to get a good pace going before I got serious! After all, this robot of mine is very special indeed! Not only is it invincible, but it can use the powers of your little friends better than those second-rate contraptions that hack of a scientist who dares call himself my equal made! Here! Have a taste!"

A sinister purple-violet aura oozed out of every seam in the robot's armor as its two tendrils ripped with jagged jaws positioned themselves like the flexed arms of a muscle man and the razor-sharp jaws of the gigantic head that was the main body gnashed dangerously. Eggman himself sat in the forehead just over the machine's two monstrous eyes, beneath the middle of five spiked crests, that his personal craft had been slotted into.

"FRENZY!"

'Oh, that's not good...' Rock thought to himself as the middle crest slid over Eggman's craft like armor and the jaws on the end of each tendril opened wide.

"CUBE!"

A rapid-fire series of deep purple-violet energy blasts shot straight up from the tendrils, before crashing down as fully formed solid-energy cubes with maliciously glowing cores in random spots along Rock's path.

'Okay, the only vulnerable spot is going to be his personal craft,' Rock analyzed as he sidestepped the cubes and began charging his Mega Buster. 'And I'm going to have to knock that covering back before I can even hit it.'

Coming out from the mini-maze of energy cubes, Rock saw the mouth of the wisp-mech opened wide and the head tilted back.

"SPIKES!"

A spread of three spiked energy balls popped out and began bouncing their way towards him. Followed by another.

'If Eggman's armored his craft enough, I likely won't kill him but this will be a longer fight than I want,' Rock grimaced as he jumped over the first spread and slid under the second even as the machine fired a third. 'But if he hasn't, then I could really kill him. Despite what he seems to think, I don't want to kill him this time, I'd really prefer to never kill anyone, but...'

Jumping over the third spread, Rock set his features determinedly and noted the dangerously low levels his Sonic Speed weapon was reaching.

'But if that's what happens,' he added as the jawed tendrils aimed themselves at either side of him and began charging, 'I have friends to help me through it.'

"HYPER!"

Rock kept to the dead center between the two massive purple-violet buster shots, the heat from their backwash scorching him on each side, and emerged intact and only slightly ruffled. Taking aim, he fired his charged shot on the spiked crest over Eggman's cockpit, intending to follow it with several normal shots during the opening, only to have one of the tendrils block the shot while the other opened and took aim.

"LASER!"

Rock jumped over the sinisterly hued laser beam as it carved from side to side even as the other tendril moved to follow with an identical attack that he jumped over as well.

'Come on...' he growled to himself, charging his buster again. He realized that he was going to have to find a way to get a lot closer to the machine if he was going to do any damage to it. And his time in which to do so was running out. 'Give me something to work with...'

One of the jawed tendrils reared back like a prize fighter going for a haymaker as purple energy began wreathing itself around the already dangerous tip.

'That'll work...' Rock narrowed his eyes and prepared for a very precisely timed maneuver.

"DRILL!"

Wreathed in a spinning drill of sinister energy, the tendril shot straight for Rock...

...who jumped the attack and landed on the tendril arm to run straight up it as fast as his Sonic Speed weapon would allow.

Inside one of the containers on the wisp-mech's back, an argument was taking place.

"Vaxayfo dib wo axarr pusk tegothol, wo vidd fo axafro te kot eno eb us uk, se dit skeurd fo ug!"

"Je! Frour dit, ug whaxavo te ke whorp zo whole ug chuffeln rittro...!"

"Yeep dewol dis zo eno–" the container they were in shuddered as Rock body-slammed the tendril joint. in the next moment, he'd jumped off towards the central spiked crest.

"Chep axalguick Yaxangs-pit-ret! Dib axanyeno kots uk, dit nud ug!"

A hard kick to the crest forced it back, exposing Eggman's cockpit even as Rock used the recoil to send him directly in front of the clear dome, allowing him to look the Eggman in the eye from point blank range right before he fired.

"Haxa–" the containment field holding the wisps in flickered for an instant as Rock's charged shot slammed into Eggman's cockpit and the wisp speaking was shoved out through the momentary opening by the eyeless purple nega-wisp he was arguing with.

"Zo whole joods ug velo zaxan who peos vo... Ospocii ox dib who nud keick te saxavo whol..."

Rock watched as the giant wisp machine tumbled and scraped along the ground at high speed as Eggman lost control of the craft. But it was otherwise unharmed. And with the Sonic Speed weapon critically low, he wasn't going to be able to keep this up much lon–

A familiar white blue slammed into him and merged with his body, turning his armor pure white.

MASTER WEAPON ENHANCEMENT MODE: WHITE BOOST

Blinking, Rock's surprise almost let the opening pass, but instead he grinned and shot forward with a burst of immense speed. Wreathed in a blazing white aura of energy, he slammed into the wisp machine and sent it careening across the metal plating even as the white wisp Yacker popped out of his body and moved to fly alongside him.

MASTER WEAPON: SONIC SPEED RESTORED TO NORMAL

Taking quick stock of his systems, Rock was surprised to note that not only had Yacker temporarily enhanced his Sonic Speed weapon, he'd somehow refilled the weapon energy as well.

"Kloaxat whole! Vupp blioct! Ug whaxavo te whorp!" Yacker pleaded as Eggman recovered control of his machine.

"Pum gned," Rock promised. "Pum'rr kot yeep bliocts uk eb zolo. Pum plemiso."

"Jet quich zom!" Yacker's tone was supremely worried. "Ug whaxavo te saxavo vem! Who tulnow whol dinke... dinke..."

"That's your mom?!" Rock asked incredulously. (47) "He roboticized your mom?!"

"Yos..."

"Okay," Rock's face hardened once more as he made internal adjustments to his Mega Buster. "Don't worry. I know just what to do..."

MEGA BUSTER CONFIGURATION MODE: SONIC SHOT

Eggman fumed as he righted his special Nega Wisp Armor. Roboticized from a very, very, special alien wisp indeed. Taking stock, he saw a log of a minor interrupt on the containment field, resulting in the loss of one of his weapon options.

HYPER POWER OFFLINE

He entertained the idea of harvesting more wisps as he set the cockpit shielding back in place, but a quick scan showed that the little batteries were staying far away from the fight between him and Mega Man. So be it. With both the innate power of the special alien he'd roboticized and the Chaos Emeralds as a backup, he had more than enough energy for his purposes. And plenty more powers to unleash on the blue menace.

"Let's see how you like this one!" the madman grinned as he took aim and mashed a button. The pest had gotten a lucky shot in, but it would take more than that to defeat his masterpiece!

"BOMB!"

Rock sidestepped around the purple-violet energy bomb and timed his jump just as it went off, allowing him to ride the shockwave in a way that boosted his jump straight at the center spiked crest keeping Eggman's cockpit shielded.

"HOVER!"

A shimmering purple-violet barrier sprang up around the machine, but Rock didn't impact the field due to the mech suddenly picking up speed and backing away from his charge. Landing in a run, the Blue Bomber scowled at his opponent.

"Jed haxat?" Yacker asked.

"Jed wo waxait bel whix te vaxako pit vichaxako," Rock replied as the jaws on the ends of the tendrils opened up and took aim.

"LIGHTNING!"

The two bolts of dark purple-violet electricity shot out to either side of Rock and began to close in from both sides. Not wasting a moment, Rock vaulted sideways over the one on his right and continued running as he landed.

"BURST!"

The massive gout of purple-violet flames that shot out of the mech's mouth almost took Rock off guard, but he was just able to sidestep the blast.

"ROCKET!"

The two rockets came out the same sinisterly glowing color as everything else the machine had shot at him so far and Rock quickly dashed to the other side of the hull area, almost far enough to hug the slight wall, to dodge them even as the mech raised one of its tendrils in a clear move for an overhead slam.

"QUAKE!"

Instead of dashing back into the center of the path as the massive metal tendril came down with clear intent to crush him, Rock took a page out of Sonic's playbook and ran up the short wall instead, and then jumped off right before the appendage slammed into the hull with enough force to cave it in. With a sideways flip, Rock landed on the tendril and dashed up it just like before.

"Oh, no you don't!" Eggman yelled out, yanking the tendril back to disrupt his foe's footing.

Rock however, used the retraction to push off in a forward leap, somersault, and impact with the machine's 'shoulder' area with both of his oversized armored feet. Pushing off as the machine reeled from the force of the impact and charging his arm cannon, Rock went into a roundhouse kick at the central spiked crest that knocked it back from protecting Eggman's cockpit. Using the recoil, he spun around as he descended until he was looking Eggman straight in the eye before he unleashed the fully charged Sonic Shot straight at the man's cockpit.

"Ke!"

"Je, ug ke!"

"Ug bilch! Pum'rr berred!"

"Fu–" The containment field flickered right then as Mega Man's shot hit home and the first wisp took the opportunity to shove the second out.

"Now Yacker!" Rock yelled as he spotted another wisp flying out of the containers on the thing's back. A green one.

"Legol!" Yacker saluted before merging with the running robot.

MASTER WEAPON ENHANCEMENT MODE: WHITE BOOST

Charging forward in a blazing white aura, Rock body-slammed the machine the same as before, sending it careening across the improvised raceway before Yacker disengaged.

MASTER WEAPON: SONIC SPEED RESTORED TO NORMAL

As the green wisp joined Rock's side, he spotted a third wisp flying out of the machine right before Eggman was able to regain control and right it again.

"Terd ug Pum'd berred!" the gray wisp eye-smiled at the green one as she joined the entourage trailing Rock.

"Alright!" Dr. Eggman snarled as he wrestled his machine upright and looked at the display.

HOVER POWER OFFLINE

QUAKE POWER OFFLINE

"You want to play it like that? Then try this next one on for size! This is the final act, Mega Man! Today the end begins!"

"ASTEROID!"

As the tendril lanced towards him, Rock entertained the idea of trying to jump on and run up it again, but the gravitational field in the tendril's open jaws made him think twice. As did the field of metal debris circling it to present a wide field of danger above, below, and on either side. As such, the massive sidestep he took was the only real option. And when the second tendril performed the same maneuver, he dashed to the other side just as greatly.

"VOID!"

Before the second tendril even began retracting, Rock felt the increased pull from behind as the gravitational field increased in intensity, becoming a miniature singularity that tried to pull him back into it as the tendril which generated it retracted.

Gritting his teeth, Rock pushed the Sonic Speed weapon harder than he probably should have to pull away from the singularity even as Eggman took aim.

"ROCKET!"

Rock barely managed to keep his traction dodging the energy missiles the tendrils shot at him before the mouth tilted upwards.

"SPIKES!"

Swearing internally, Rock jumped the first wave and felt the singularity's pull drag him back even as the pulsating spiked energy balls rolled under him. However, the pull was almost a blessing in disguise as without it, he might have landed straight on top of the second wave instead of with just enough time to jump it as well, along with the third. But after that, he was way too close to the mini-singularity to risk letting it pull him in further.

"DRILL!"

Not even bothering to try and jump on the tendril, Rock sidestepped the first drilling strike as fast as he could, and then the second before the purple-violet singularity finally lost power and collapsed in on itself.

The next moment, Rock could almost swear that he heard the machine snort like a bull about to charge down a bullfighter as it positioned its tendrils like a pro wrestler about to clothesline someone on either side of them. Switching to his default charged shot, Rock began charging.

"EAGLE!"

Eggman's wisp-like mech became wreathed in a powerful aura as it shot straight for Rock. There was no way he could jump it safely, and the profile was too wide to sidestep.

So he slid under it.

"Ug saxaw haxat yeep dewol axarmech id!"

"Ug whaxavo te roaxavo bilch, bel zo keew eb eep who–"

"Ug twe axalo roaxavick bilch dib Pum whaxavo te fito yeep baxacos ebb te pe dit!"

Coming out the other side, he twisted, jumped, and fired his arm cannon to boost him up even higher as Eggman turned his machine around to face him.

Re-equipping the Sonic Shot and charging, Rock collided with the machine's face in a snap-kick that removed the central spiked crest's protection once more before firing the Spin Dash-shaped bolt of energy at Eggman's cockpit.

Yacker didn't even wait for the signal as a crimson blur shot from the machine and merged with Rock the moment he touched the hull.

MASTER WEAPON ENHANCEMENT MODE: WHITE BOOST

Dashing forward in the aura of white energy, Rock almost ran face-first into a wild swing from one of the machine's tendrils. But he slid under that too and collided with the tumbling machine in a sliding kick that sent it flying in a manner normally seen at World Cup Soccer tournaments before Yacker disengaged.

MASTER WEAPON: SONIC SPEED RESTORED TO NORMAL

An indigo blur emerged from the wisp-like war machine on impact and the crimson and indigo wisps joined the growing entourage flying after Rock as he continued chasing Eggman down.

ASTEROID POWER OFFLINE

EAGLE POWER OFFLINE

Eggman fumed as he righted his machine despite the reports of systems starting to short out from the repeated Hyper-Go-On fueled impacts. Growling, the man started mashing attack buttons at random.

"LASER!"

The infuriating blue menace jumped over them.

"ROCKET!"

Sidestepped this time. Almost casually, even!

"BURST!"

He slid under! Without even missing a beat!

"LIGHTNING!"

He didn't even bother trying to dodge as the blast missed him by several feet...

"CUBE!"

The energy cubes lined up on either side of Eggman's foe and gave him an idea.

"DRILL!"

Wreathed in spiraling energy, one tendril tore down the narrowed path, only for his eternal foe to jump off the energy cubes themselves like that blasted hedgehog friend of his and evade the attack by a mile.

Practically ready to tear his mustache out, Eggman spied the button for the one power he hadn't tried yet.

'Alright... Let's see what this does...' he stared a hole at the image of his foe, and mashed the button with all his might.

"RHYTHM!"

The wisp-like mech began emitting a pulsing beat and emitting little bits of the sinister purple-violet energy of its weapons. The beat messed with Rock's concentration enough to make it hard to concentrate on running as he fought it. Enough that the first swipe of the machine's tendrils almost took his head off before he slid under it at the last moment.

'Fight it, Rock!' he told himself as he barely cleared the second swipe, stumbling for a moment on the landing. 'Fi–No, don't fight it... Work with it...'

As the next attack came, he reached out his hand and, almost like he'd practiced the move, planted his hand on the tendril and jumped into a picture-perfect vaulting handstand.

'Go with the flow, not against it,' he realized as he pushed off with his hand and cleared the second tendril in a gymnastics maneuver that would have been the envy of an Olympian athlete.

Touching down, he curled in and launched himself forward in a corkscrew that threaded the small space between the lashing tendrils as they made another pass at the same time. One came around to try and spear him as he hit the ground running, but he gave a small hop and pushed off of it, reaching out to grab the other as it tried to hit where he would have been with a bigger jump and swung himself higher.

A tendril came from below like a cylindrical barrier for him to smash into, only for his backhand grab to bring him smoothly around the obstacle. An inverted flip had him ducking the other tendril's attempt to spear him in midair in a way that let him snag the other side of it with his foot and bring himself into perfect position to spring straight for Eggman's shielded cockpit. Tucking into a reverse somersault, he kicked out just as a tendril came up from below and shoved it hard enough that it hit the spiked crest over Eggman's cockpit instead of him and left the only vulnerable spot open for attack just as he finished charging his buster.

"Kot keick ug twe! Fred zis neink axarloaxadupp!"

"Pum'v keno! Ug cemick?"

"Yoaxah, yoaxah... Eh, wed, zaxat waxas swoo–axang!"

A yellow form emerged from the machine to join the group as Yacker moved to power Rock up... and one of the tumbling machine's tendrils lashed out in a wide low sweep.

MASTER WEAPON ENHANCEMENT MODE: WHITE BOOST

Jumping the moment Yacker merged with him, he blasted over the low sweep in a blazing white corona of power into a spinning roundhouse kick that caught the machine right below the jaw (48), sending it hurtling away and a bright magenta form rocketing out to join the others with him.

MASTER WEAPON: SONIC SPEED RESTORED TO NORMAL

"Haxat whaxapponow?" the newly rescued yellow wisp asked the magenta one as Yacker disengaged from Rock.

"Faxardupp Jesohaxail waxankow te vaxako vo taxako eno raxach sket axat zo daxanco vaxachol wholo..." the magenta wisp looked sheepish as she joined Rock's entourage.

DRILL POWER OFFLINE

RHYTHM POWER OFFLINE

"That's it..." Dr. Eggman growled low and dangerously as the warning lights flashed more insistently. "You think you're so clever being able to avoid any one power I throw at you, let's see you handle two at once!"

Slamming his fist down on a big red button, more warnings began to blare.

WARNING: WISP POWER UNIFICATION SYSTEM UNTESTED

"Oh, put a sock in it!" the mad scientist snarled as he overrode the system and renewed his assault. "One way or another, this ends today!"

"BOMB! ROCKET!"

Rock nearly tripped when he realized Eggman's mech was combining weapons, but even exploding with great force, the rocket projectiles weren't much harder to dodge than the normal rocket shots.

"Okay, Baldy McNosehair!" Rock yelled at the machine as he kept running, his wisp entourage in tow. "You want to throw out some new moves? Let's see what you got!"

"As you wish!" the madman screeched back.

"VOID! CUBE!"

Two energy cubes shot straight up out of the tendrils' jaws and slammed down behind Rock before pulsing with a high gravity field that attempted to pull him back towards them.

"SPIKES! BURST!"

Only one spiked energy ball emerged, but as it rolled towards Rock, it left a trail of hungry purple-violet flames. Sidestepping it put him directly into the path of one of the two follow-up shots that rolled along either side of the burning trail left by the first. It wasn't until the spiked ball was almost on top of him that the flame trail of the first died down enough for him to barely sidestep certain doom just as the void cubes dissipated.

"CUBE! LASER!"

A series of energy cubes shot out to form a narrow corridor before they began shooting a laser from one to the next in an interconnecting web that Rock was going to have to traverse. Thinking quickly, he hopped up and jumped along the upper edges over the deadly beams below.

"ROCKET! LIGHTNING!"

A pair of rockets shot out as Rock passed the laser gauntlet, a crackling field of purple-violet electricity between them clearly meant to take Rock's head off. Or rather to incinerate his torso, leaving a head and legs behind with nothing in between. He slid under the electric field by reflex and felt the static field as it passed far too close for comfort.

"LASER! LIGHTNING!"

The two tendrils came together in front of the machine's mouth almost like cupped palms and began gathering a massive field of energy.

"Yacker!" Rock yelled as he realized what was about to happen, prompting the wisp to merge with him.

MASTER WEAPON ENHANCEMENT MODE: WHITE BOOST

Sidestepping the massive blast and hugging the low wall as the backwash heat from the beam of electricity and light his environment sensors blaring. Ignoring them, he dashed forward in a blaze of white as Eggman's view was obscured by his own weapon.

"CUBE! ROCKET!"

Jumping over the rocket-propelled energy cubes before they even finished forming, Rock slammed directly into the machine's shoulder to send it reeling as he charged up his arm cannon and disengaged the Sonic Speed Master Weapon.

MASTER WEAPON DISENGAGED

PRIMARY WEAPON OVERRIDE: WHITE BUSTER

Using the machine itself as a stepping-stone once more, Rock maneuvered into a kick that exposed Eggman's cockpit just in time to look the man in the face as he finished charging and let loose a white Sonic Shot half again as large as Rock himself was.

PRIMARY WEAPON RESTORED TO NORMAL

Yacker popped out as the machine crashed and tumbled along, three colored blurs comprising the orange, cyan, and pink wisps joined his still growing assemblage.

"Armech! Whit whix axagaxain!"

LASER POWER OFFLINE

ROCKET POWER OFFLINE

SPIKES POWER OFFLINE

"I'M NOT THROUGH YET!" Eggman roared as he righted his machine and mashed buttons.

"BURST! LIGHTNING!"

'Scrap it!' Rock swore internally as he dodged through the storm of sinister lightning and fire solely upon reflexes he was sure he hadn't possessed prior to meeting Sonic and his friends. 'I was sure that would have done the trick!'

"Haxat nud dreck?"

"VOID! LIGHTNING!"

"Pum gned ug axarr saxaid eno velo, fut Pum zeugh zaxat eno weurd whaxavo foon oneugh... Pum..." Rock explained as he hugged the opposite side of the hull path from the electrically crackling void projectile. "Pum'v axablaxaid dib Pum pe axanupp velo Pum vidd whult yeep vem..."

The gathered wisps went dead silent at his words while Eggman kept up the attack.

"BURST! BOMB!"

Rock dashed to the opposite side as the energy bomb erupted into a massive pillar of flames.

"LIGHTNING! CUBE!"

Four energy cubes landed in front of him generating a cris-crossing electrical field that a mighty jump at full Sonic Speed barely cleared.

"I... I'm sorry... but I..."

"CUBE! BURST!"

A large number of energy cubes were fired into the space above as Rock ran.

"Pe haxat ug vuch, whole," one of the wisps finally said.

"Ug'rr saxavo vem. Act yeep blioct," Yacker added before moving to merge with him. "Pum gned ug caxan."

MASTER WEAPON ENHANCEMENT MODE: WHITE BOOST

"Thank you," Rock said as he dashed through the falling cubes, each one generating a cross-shaped eruption of flames as it hit the metal hull. "I'll finish this. One way or another."

Charging his arm cannon, Rock engaged the White boost and weaved throught the flaming cubes falling around him in the blazing white aura that was starting to become familiar.

"CU–"

Jumping with all his might, Rock hit the central spiked crest in a blazing uppercut that made the mech snap back like the head of a champion boxer's opponent before disengaging Sonic Speed once more.

MASTER WEAPON DISENGAGED

PRIMARY WEAPON OVERRIDE: WHITE BUSTER

Looking Eggman in the eye, Rock unleashed the fully charged Hyper-Go-On enhanced Sonic Shot and sent the already battered machine careening away from him again before Yacker left his body, seeming to breath heavily.

PRIMARY WEAPON RESTORED TO NORMAL

Re-engaging the Sonic Speed master weapon as the blue, ivory, and red wisps joined him, Rock hit the ground running. The machine was starting to smoke at several joints and he spotted a couple of flames starting in several spots as well. He had no idea what that might mean for the wisps' mother, but it couldn't be good. Still... Eggman wasn't going to back down, which meant he couldn't either.

"Whoh... Kot 'om Leng..."

CUBE POWER OFFLINE

BURST POWER OFFLINE

LIGHTNING POWER OFFLINE

"GRRRRRAAAAARRRRRRGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!"

"VOID! BOMB!"

The burning and smoking machine righted itself and spat an energy orb that pulsed far more sinisterly than the previous bombs in the same motion. Easily sidestepping the wild shot, Rock pushed his Sonic Speed weapon to the limit as it detonated into a powerful singularity that dragged his breakneck run to the speed of a leisurely walk as Rock strained his systems to their limit.

"FRENZY!"

Eggman's battered machine shot for Rock with its razor-toothed mouth wide open, giving the robot a clear view of the capsule that held a painfully convulsing Sonic within, intending to bite the robot hero in half.

Rock gave his run a momentary stutter-step that killed just enough of his momentum for a backstep that removed him from the spot where the jaws clamped down with a metallic snap. Reaching out, he grabbed the machine's upper lip and hauled himself into an upwards double-kick at the armor covering of Eggman's cockpit even as Yacker caught on and moved to merge with him.

Disengaging his Sonic Speed weapon as Yacker hit him, Rock charged up his arm cannon as fast as his systems could handle.

PRIMARY WEAPON OVERRIDE: WHITE BUSTER

The enhanced Sonic Shot blast caused a massive static discharge over the entire machine as the mech was sent skidding along the hull track yet again and three final forms emerged from it.

PRIMARY WEAPON RESTORED TO NORMAL

"Eh, vaxan..." Yacker huffed, actually looking tired. "Pum boor pit fit izzupp..."

"Whaxah! Pum gnod ug ceurd pe dit!" the purple wisp yelled as he arrived.

"Whaxahaxahaxa! Wo axarr gnod dit!" the violet wisp added.

"Yoaxah!" the black wisp cackled. "Ug, whole, axalo zo femf!"

'Heh... n-nice one... bro...nngh!'

BOMB POWER OFFLINE

VOID POWER OFFLINE

FRENZY POWER OFFLINE

"You... you..." Eggman twitched as systems sparked and smoked around him. "You horrid little robot!"

Then, suddenly, as if a switch had been flipped, all tension left Eggman's body. His fury having grown so great that he'd broken through into a state of total calm.

"You may think you've won, but I still have your horrid little hedgehog friend and the Chaos Emeralds as my trump card!" Eggman opened a panel with yellow and black caution lines to reveal a flashing red button in the center of very clear warning signs and mashed it like it was his hated foe's face. "You may have the aliens, but you have nothing as powerful as this!"

ULTIMATE EGG CHAOS CANNON CHARGING

"Let's see you stop this one!"

Eggman's wisp-machine was heavily damaged, flaming in places, sparking in others, and smoking in yet more, but that's not what held Rock's attention and caused him to skid to a halt. Inside the machine's throat, which halted to maintain its distance from Rock, were revealed the seven Chaos Emeralds. Each set around the capsule holding Sonic, who was writhing in pain as he flashed from his normal blue to super gold and back again, used by Eggman as a living capacitor for the Emerald's power. Rock stared as a ball of energy began to form in the machine's mouth.

"Eggman, what ar–"

And missed the flares of two barrels on Eggman's cockpit as they fired on him until he felt the pain in his legs.

"Argh!" Rock dropped to his knees as damage indicators flared from the small holes punched through his leg armor, one of which had shredded a knee joint by sheer chance.

"That actually worked?" Eggman's voice seemed surprised. "I mean, of course it did! I'm a genius! And now you have no way to avoid my final attack!"

"Ovolyeno! Zo whole joods eep whorp!" Yacker yelled as Eggman guffawed to himself and his final weapon kept charging.

'Careless...' Rock chastised himself.

"Lidd!" came over a dozen replies to Yacker's call.

"At long last, I've won!" Eggman gloated as Rock grit his teeth.

"Arr tegothol jed!"

"You can't run!"

"Unrimitow Cerel!"

Rock was assessing his options when the familiar feeling of Yacker merging with him hit.

HYPER!

PRIMARY WEAPON OVER–

And then another one, somehow without dislodging Yacker.

LASER!

ERROR: PRIMARY WEA–

And another.

DRILL!

ERROR: PRIMAR–

Another.

BURST!

ERROR: PR–

"No Sonic to bail you out, because he's acting as my weapon's focus!"

Again, and again they came.

ROCKET!

ERROR

CUBE!

ERROR

SPIKES!

ERROR

HOVER!

ERROR

"Even your little alien friends can't save you now!"

EAGLE! ASTEROID! LIGHTNING! RHYTHM! QUAKE!

ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR

'Wh-What's...' he tried to shut out the error messages as he watched his armor flicker from color to color at a rapid and constantly increasing pace.

"At long last!"

VOID! FRENZY! BOMB!

ERROR ERROR ERROR

"This is the end of Mega Man!"

UNLIMITED COLOR!

PRIMARY WEAPON SYSTEM STABILIZING: UNKNOWN BUSTER CONFIGURATION

AWAITING DESIGNATION

Looking up as he felt himself lifted into the air, Rock swore he could see Sonic through the pulsing ball of Chaos energy mouthing "Do it to it".

'There's only one thing to call this,' the now-prismatic Rock thought as he aimed his arm cannon.

"ULTIMATE!"

"MEGA!"

The ball of Chaos energy grew in intensity as all sixteen wisps emerged from Rock's body, though the power they'd lent him not only didn't leave with them, it felt like it was still growing.

"EGG!"

"SONIC!"

Eggman's madly grinning face was visible as the wisps took up positions circling Rock in midair.

"CHAOS!"

"COLOR!"

Ten; the red, yellow, green, blue, pink, cyan, purple, violet, orange, and white (Yacker) wisps; formed a rotating circle slightly behind Rock. The other six; the crimson, indigo, gray, ivory, magenta, and black wisps; formed a smaller rotating circle slightly ahead. As one, they all pointed an accusing tendril at Eggman.

"CANNON!"

"BLASTER!"

The massive prismatic beam of Chaos energy collided with an equally massive and prismatic spinning ball of energy. The spinning ball of energy, almost as large as Eggman's entire wisp-like machine, halted as it struggled with the beam and began to be pushed back.

"Ohohohohoho!"

Rock strained his systems trying to Will more power into his blast, and actually felt something respond as the wisps circling him halted their movement and narrowed their differently numbered eyes in fierce concentration.

"EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEHHHHHHHH!"

Incredibly, the spinning ball of energy Rock had shot began to grow, not only halting its backwards movement but beginning to push forward.

"That's... That's not possible..." Eggman murmured in astonishment as the spinning ball of prismatic energy, now larger than his Nega Wisp Armor, picked up speed. "IT'S NOT POSSIBL–"

The massive prismatic Sonic Shot slammed into Eggman's wisp-mech with a mighty flash of light that sent seven differently colored streaks speeding away towards the planet surface and the tumbling form of Eggman's cockpit/personal craft rocketing into the distance of space where it let off a fireworks explosion that formed a stylized image of Eggman's own face for some reason.

And there where the flash of light had been, looking somewhat worse for wear, was Sonic. And right behind Sonic, was a roundish pale pink form the size of Eggman's machine. One with three eyes, four soft non-threatening tendrils, and numerous bruises analogous with the damage the wisp-machine had taken.

"VEM!" came the excited cry as the field of energy holding Rock in the air vanished, dumping him unceremoniously to the metal hull below as sixteen forms happily mobbed the massive 'mother wisp'.

"What's up?" Bass asked as Ground Man's Whack-A-Mole (involving replicas of the household boring machines Wily had repurposed for a few of his past invasions) tallied his score.

"Oh, nothing," Roll replied. "Just a message from Rock that he beat Eggman again. Or rather 'Baldy McNosehair' as he's now calling him."

"Heh... Baldy McNosehair..." Bass chuckled. "That's a good one. I'll need to remember that."

"Tails?" Rotor asked over the communicator as the Freedom Fighters (and company) closed in on the looping fox's position. "How are things going?"

"I just got the message from Rock: They beat him!" Tails smiled.

"Hooray!" Tails was suddenly tackled on his end by an excited Charmy Bee.

"Ooooh," the non-looping Amy fretted in worry. "I just hope Eggman didn't set his place to self-destruct again!"

Freedom Fighters on her end of the call and Chaotix on the other end all looked at her.

"What? Oh, come on! You know we were all thinking it!" (49)

Dr. Eggman could feel his awareness fading and wondered for an instant if he probably should have installed those safety restraints like Orbot kept bugging him to. But the thought was drowned out by a more insistent and mighty desire: To crush his foes even if he couldn't see it himself.

"Heh... enjoy it... while you... can... pests... I planned... for... every outcome..."

Struggling in his critically damaged craft, he flipped open another emergency panel to reveal a button that had once been labeled 'in case of the unthinkable', only the 'unthinkable' part had been crossed out by someone, probably Orbot again, and 'inevitable' scribbled in its place. Using the last of his strength, Eggman pressed the button.

EGGMANLAND SELF DESTRUCT MODE: COLONY DROP ACTIVATED

"Oh... ho... ho... ho... ho..." Eggman managed to wheeze out before his world went black.

"Zaxant ug bel saxavick vupp stirdlon, jefro enos," the giant mother wisp intoned with minimal difficulty.

"Dit waxas jethick, vipt wisp," Rock replied, inclining his head in his best approximation of a bow given the current condition of his legs.

"You're enjoying keeping me out of the loop way too much here," Sonic tapped his foot impatiently.

"Why would you possibly think that?" Rock grinned as several of the wisps around them giggled happily.

"Oh, I don't know, maybe because you–"

The hull they were on gave a creak and a prolonged shudder that would have registered about 4.2 on the Ricter Scale.

"Ang!" Yacker and several of his fellow wisps yelped.

"Oxpredick sickuraxalitios!" the nega-wisps swore.

"Vupp keednopt!" the mother wisp gasped.

"Is the space elevator supposed to recede into the ground like that?" Shade asked suddenly, gaining everyone's attention.

"I don't... think so..." Tails blinked as he watched the phenomena.

"Scans indicate the absence of any device capable of performing such a task," Sniper Joe informed everyone.

"But then... what could–" Tails was cut off as the ground began to shake, knocking most of those present off their feet.

"There a fault line around here no one told me about?" Vector complained.

"No, there shouldn–" the loud groaning and snapping of metal all along the height of the space elevator cut Tails off this time. "Oh my god... He's bringing the entire park down!"

"Okay," Mighty breathed deeply to center himself, "we need to stay calm and–"

"Run for your lives!" Charmy screamed before taking off at high speed.

"...Not quite what I was going to say, but close enough."

"Okay, don't panic," Sonic said as the vibrations of the hull increased in intensity.

"Zis dis zo dolbond timo te paxanic!" one of the wisps yelled back at him.

The space elevator shaft between them and the park suddenly splintered and buckled violently and the main mass of the park began to come closer.

"Okay, that doesn't look like it's going to end well..." Rock noted.

"Ma'am," Sonic addressed the mother wisp, "you take your kids and get as far away as you can. Rock and I will make our own way."

"Je, Pum wirr–eust!" the mother wisp's protest was cut off as she gasped in pain from one of the lingering injuries she still had after being restored.

"Yeah, none of that. Go." Sonic insisted. "Rock and I can handle ourselves."

"At roaxach rot vo pe zis bel ug..." the mother wisp said as she extended a tendril to Sonic and sent a flow of Hyper-Go-On straight into his body that left the hedgehog glowing like a nightlight.

"Thanks, now go!"

"Baxalo zoo worr," the mother wisp said as the other wisps gathered around her to help her zip away.

"Heh... You forgot that my legs aren't in great shape right now," Rock chuckled as the mass of Eggmanland grew ever closer.

"Nah, I didn't forget anything," Sonic grinned before he picked the robot up in his arms as if he weighed nothing. "Heh... with her little parting gift, this isn't even hard!"

"In the unlikely event of an emergency," the P.A. system informed as the hull around the group shook with increasing intensity, "please find the nearest escape pod. For anyone not named Eggman, your escape pod can be found back at the planet still being assembled in the factory."

"Hear that?" Sonic grinned as he bounded off their perch and down the outside of the space elevator towards the planet below in a blazing aura. "We just have to make it to an escape pod!"

"Just run you goof," Rock shook his head with a chuckle as the main mass of Eggmanland slammed into the broken edge of the space elevator shaft and began violently splintering the construct as it fell after them.

"I'm sorry, can you repeat that Tails?" Sally asked. "It sounded like you said Eggman's amusement park was falling."

"That's exactly what I said!" Tails shouted into the communicator on his end. "It's coming straight down! And picking up speed!"

"But..." Rotor looked horrified as he performed some calculations. "An impact of that magnitude will be catastrophic!"

"I know!" Tails yelled back. "He's never done anything like this with it before! Granted, that might be because it's always collapsed into a Hyper-Go-On fueled black hole before, so..."

Pieces of the space elevator snapped off and were flung into space as Sonic tore down it at speeds well in excess of terminal velocity; jumping, sliding, and grinding as he carried his friend over, around, and through the broken pieces of space elevator hull. More than once he had to make a humongous jump as the section he was running down was snapped clean off the next one. But he kept running. If there was anything he knew how to do, in any timeline, it was run. And so run he did.

"You think the boss has gone crazy this time?" Cubot asked as he and Orbot piloted an escape pod away from the plummeting interstellar amusement park.

"That assumes he ever wasn't," Orbot replied calmly. "In any case, we have our orders."

"Man, this reminds me of carrying Elise all over the place," Sonic chuckled as he bounded across several broken pieces of hull to make the next broken section of space elevator.

"I'm not kissing you when this is over," Rock replied flatly.

"Je!" the violet wisp angrily slapped away the mother wisp's Hyper-Go-On infused tendril.

"Fut, haxat ug whaxavo focemo dis–" the mother wisp looked worried as she beheld the three nega-wisps.

"Gict eb klewick en us, vem!" the black wisp chuckled.

"Wo wolo axablaxaid zis vidd whaxappon," the red wisp rolled his eyes.

"Sko quich waxanks te whorp ug!" the orange wisp snapped.

"Eh, chubb dit!" the violet wisp snapped back.

"Yoaxah!" the purple wisp berated "Dib sko waxanks te whorp zon sko skeurd whorp zo wholeos zaxat whorpow us!"

"Pum axam sellupp, fut Pum..." the mother wisp trailed off and winced as her injuries once again.

"...Zon rot us," Yacker spoke up suddenly.

"Fut ovon axarr eb yeep Whypol-Ke-En cemfinow weurdniz–" the mother wisp worried.

"Zon wo kot ovolyeno," Yacker insisted.

"Ol... Haxat pe ug voaxan 'ovolyeno'?" the cyan wisp asked curiously.

"Pum voaxan ovolyeno!" Yacker clarified. "Ovolupp raxach wisp zoupp whorpow saxavo! Zoupp whorpow us, pi jed dit nud eep tuln te whorp zom!"

"Pum riko zis praxan!" the purple wisp cackled as they all began speeding off in various directions. "Pum'v oxcitow te fo pit paxalt eb dit!"

Sonic slammed feet-first into a broken piece of hull as it entered his path and rode it like a snowboard for a short ways before hopping off and continuing to carry his friend down the long elevator spire.

Dr. Wily was grumbling over the sixteen 'offline' reports his monitor insisted on showing him in regards to his Color Masters when one of the white wisp aliens zipped into the room and gave him a hug and a mouthless kiss.

"Fyo Claxazupp Wird-Whaxail!" the white wisp eye-smiled at the man. "Wo kettaxa ke jed! Torr zo nico Foaxald Vaxan fyo bel us!"

Dr. Wily blinked rapidly as the alien being zipped back out. "What was that all about?"

The atmosphere contained between the main shaft and the outer stabilizers helped Sonic and Rock transition safely as they hit the level of the atmosphere. The mass of Eggmanland behind them however hit the atmosphere and burst into an equally massive fireball as it slowly gained on the two.

"Oh Asimov..." Roll gasped as she saw something off in the distance hit the atmosphere and burst into flames. If her GPS was correct, that's where Rock... "That's..."

"Looks like one of Baldy McNosehair's eyesores," Bass commented as he peered at the object, likely with some zoom feature on his optics. "Good riddance to bad rubbish."

"I think Rock's still on that thing!" Roll was practically hysterical as she watched it descend.

"Oh, is that where he was? Huh... Never thought about dropping a city on either of yo–ow!"

Roll glared at him with a fury meant more for someone much balder and much rounder.

"Geez!" Bass rubbed at a rather sizable dent in his helmet. "As if it would have worked if I had! I swear the two of you have more lives than an army of cats!"

"Well, this Loop was fun while it lasted," Sonic said as the ground and the flaming mass of Eggmanland both grew ever closer.

"What, no crazy last-minute plans with slim chances of success?"

"Unless you snagged the Chaos Emeralds while I wasn't looking, this is it," Sonic chuckled as he kept running straight for the ground. "Maybe if I'd grabbed something from my pocket right off the bat, but now..."

"Too busy running. And carrying me. Got it."

"Really, I was kind of hoping for a wisp-ex-machina by n–"

"Ug caxarrow?" the familiar form of Yacker slid in next to them. Followed by several more of varying colors. Rock looked back over Sonic's shoulder to see thousands of wisps of every type, including nega-wisps, forming a network around the burning remains of Eggmanland as it plummeted after them.

"Riko vupp stirdlon lomictow vo," the form of the mother wisp joined them, "ug whorpow us. Jed wo skaxarr whorp ug."

"Oh wow..." Rock breathed in amazement at the sight as every last wisp, including Yacker and the mother wisp, began glowing, forming a shell of energy that Eggmanland slammed into... and halted.

"Dang impressive, ain't it?"

"Yeah..."

The burning mass struggled against the Hyper-Go-On barrier for a few moments, and then began disintegrating. Turning into nothing more than gazillions of glowing dust particles that floated lazily to the ground in a cloud.

Sonic hit the ground running and tore off into the distance, carrying Rock the whole way. The cloud of dust might be relatively harmless, but he wasn't in any hurry to breathe it.

Bass watched Roll teleport out. The moment she'd heard that her twerp of a brother was safe and where, she'd excused herself. Honestly, he supposed this not-quite-a-date had been fun and al–

"So, boy, what's the verdict?" the voice of his father/creator sounded from behind him. Damn but the old guy could move quietly when he wanted to.

"I think you're good to open pops," Bass replied without turning around. "This is a pretty sweet place you've got and it doesn't look like anyone's gonna kill themselves on the attractions. Well, no more than they might anywhere else at least. And everyone's gonna be lining up to throw their money at you so you can spend it on whatever hare-brained scheme you've got planned next. Honestly, it's going to be a shame to see this place scrapped in the inevitable dust-up."

"What makes you think that will happen?!"

"Uh, I've gone through this song and dance before? On both sides of the equation? Seriously, the betting pool on who'll be responsible has probably already started."

The party was in full swing all across Mobotropolis. Wisps of all colors were everywhere dancing and gibbering at anyone who caught their interest. Members of all known native sapient races had been surprised at first, but had gone with the flow.

The fact that they hadn't left immediately wasn't quite so surprising to Sonic and his friends given the lingering injuries the mother wisp had wanted to recover from first. What was surprising to them was the fact that a relatively small number, a few hundred (including three in particular), of the nega-wisps had elected to remain that way rather than be restored to normal. There had been some concerns, but as things turned out, they really were just wisps of a different color. A bit more of a temper, some garbled vocals, and a decent prankster streak, but they were still the lovable wisps that the rest were.

"You really have to go so soon?" Rock asked the fully-healed mother wisp.

"Eb ceulso," the mother wisp replied, looking fondly over to where the brave sixteen former Color Masters were again performing a blow-by-blow replay of the daring rescue across Eggmanland and the stolen mini-planets the wisps called home. "Zis dis jet eep whemo. Wo caxamo wholo fupp axaccidonk pi pe jet foreck wholo um ug. Wo axapplociaxato axarr yeep whorp pi whespitaxaritupp poaxal wholeos pi bliocts, fut dit dis timo zaxat wo lotulnow te eep praxaco."

"Man but we're gonna miss you guys," Sonic added, still not understanding the words, but getting the general feel of the message anyway. "Feel free to drop by anytime!"

"Wo wirr!" Yacker replied as he zipped over, his part in the retelling complete for now. At the moment, the crimson wisp had taken over while the purple wisp acted out the part of one of Eggman's robots to cheers from wisp, human, and mobian audience members alike. "Fut proaxaso rot us binisk zis chelupp bilch, vem?"

The mother wisp looked at the pleading expression on Yacker's face and gave a sigh of concession. "Eh, molupp worr."

"Yaxaupp!"

It had taken them and their allies, plus a few hundred wisps excited about the possibility of a scavenger hunt, several days to track down and restore all the things Eggman Nega had turned into cards. All except the man himself. Silver and Quint had taken several hours after the wisps left to make sure that no trace energy indicating a missed card could be detected before they declared the job done. (50)

"Well," Silver asked as he held out the camera to his friend, "do you want to do the honors?"

"With pleasure," Quint smirked, carefully placing the diabolical camera on the ground before him. With a swing of Sakugarne, the device was crushed to bits under the weaponized jackhammer. "There. It's done. That's the end of Eggman Nega."

"How does it feel?"

"It feels... good."

Far up in orbit, almost to the moon, a man drew his first breath in days. Gasping, the white haired man looked around his craft, dusting down his black jacket and red bodysuit.

"About time they destroyed the thing and set me free..." Eggman Nega grumbled. "Good thing I created that failsafe just in case. Even so, I was beginning to wonder if they were just going to keep it as a souvenir..."

The man began to grin in a way devoid of sanity or anything resembling it.

"Such fools they all are..."

Eggman groggily returned to consciousness with an aching everything.

"Wha... what happ...?" he trailed off as his extremely dry mouth forced him to stop talking. And his stomach rumbled like he hadn't eaten for days. Something smelled pretty bad too.

"Yay!" an extremely grating voice made his head pound in protest. "The boss is awake! Hey boss!"

"Shu... shut up..." he growled out. What had happened to him?

"Oh, my," a more sedate and tolerable voice made itself known. "I'm glad you're back boss. I was afraid you'd slipped into a coma for a while there. That was a nasty tumble you took. I told you your craft needed safety restraints after all. In any case, we pushed your damaged vessel to the coordinates you specified should you be incapacitated but alive. We've been waiting here for... A while."

Now he remembered... He'd lost, but it seemed his foes had failed to finish the job. Too bad. For them.

He tried to laugh, only to start coughing instead. "Egg... fleet... Decloak..." he ordered instead. His control panel lit up and a massive space fleet appeared all around his personal craft.

"Holy shamole!" the grating voice, Cubot, yelled. "Where were you hiding that?"

"Silence..." he ordered. "Get me... on board... Recloak... Water... food... clean..."

"And then, boss?" the less grating voice, Orbot, asked.

Yes, and what then? Which of his brilliant plans would he attempt next? He'd need to send a few 'polite' reminders to his enemies that he lived, but what then? Hmm... decisions, decisions... Ah!

"Bring me... the... Gaia Manuscripts..." (51)

1) Nor, for that matter, did anyone else.

2) Bass just took the words right out of my mouth.

3) C-c-c-c-combo!

4) That's right, Eggman's charging planetary-sized fees just to get in.

5) Mostly because Orbot's really not trying all that hard to aim.

6) Wait a second...

7) Having trouble? Try running it through this translator: mybigmonkey dot com slash gibberish

8) Well, after Sonic's lightspeed impact it read 'Welcome to Egg_land'

9) XP

10) Filraen: You'd think Sonic and Tails would learn to interpret spoken Wisp one of these loops.

Archeo Lumiere: It's different from loop to loop.

11) If you're familiar with the plot of Sonic Colors, you've probably got a sinking feeling right about now.

12) Well, what did you expect? His power is fire-based.

13) Is Sasuke in this Loop and no one told me?

14) Oh, right, him.

15) Me either. Ew.

16) Oh snap.

17) *Spittake*

18) You know, I wonder if either Captain Jelly or Candybeard was supposed to have a voice and it ended up being the temporary replacement voice chip given to Cubot…

19) Which was why three of the four weren't chasing each other all over the place while the fourth hid.

20) It wasn't her! It was the One Armed Woman!

21) Oh dear, someone's cover is blown.

22) You know I had to do this line.

23) That's... That's new...

24) Oh dear lord, it's worse... Orbot and Cubot are... *gasp* COMPETENT!

25) Oh good. For a bit there I was afraid there were two Eggmen. Well, I suppose technically there are... so...

26) Yeah, Sonic's swimming prowess is just a step above that of a Devil Fruit user. Even after looping for so long.

27) wildrook: Okay, I have to admit, NICOLE is developing a sense of humor.

28) Time for some surfing music.

29) *sweatdrop*

30) *jaw drop* THAT WASN'T IN THE SCRIPT!

31) Of all the times for a villain to be perceptive...

32) Please be aware that some Arc Fatigue may be experienced. After all, we're only about halfway through this installment and we're already over twice the length of the previous installment.

33) Uh-oh...

34) Egg Pawns Can't Dance.

35) I'm honestly trying to figure out when this version of Metal Sonic became a militant nihilist. It certainly wasn't in my notes...

36) And it's a mental image that doesn't make one want to wash their brain with bleach.

37) And now I'm wondering under what circumstances Mogo (the living planet who is also a Green Lantern) would hire the Chaotix for a case.

38) This isn't just me pulling something out of my ass. Have you seen what a thick accent can do to voice recognition software? The only ones I've used manage to regularly botch my relatively normal speech.

39) And here I thought gibberish for 'big damn heroes' was 'fig daxamn wholeos'.

40) The odd eyeless looks that all said 'WTF are you doing?'

41) Crap.

42) It is worth noting that, in the timeline of the Mega Loops, Rock hasn't met the Equestrian crowd at this point.

43) This is classic 'Hoist By Your Own Petard' right here.

44) The dramatic reveal that most of you likely already guessed! Yes, while Eggman was distracting Sonic and Mega Man from his real plan by having them chase down and rescue wisps, Mega Man was distracting Eggman from the fact that he'd hired the Chaotix to sabotage his park by playing along.

45) Which, in his office, it was.

46) He had a chance. He chose not to use it.

47) If you're familiar with the DS version of Sonic Colors, you've probably guessed what I did here.

48) Tatsumaki Senpu–Oh, wait... Rock hasn't actually learned that move yet.

49) You know you were too.

50) You forgot about this, didn't you? Don't worry, I almost forgot about it myself.

51) As firestorm blade said on Spacebattles: Cherry bomb it (52) Eggman…

52) To the tone of "God **** it"