The Nomad gave a mock salute as Tails and Cream climbed into the Tornado.
"Good luck, old pal," Sonic said. Eggman climbed into the Egg Mobile, and everyone else was armed and ready. However, the two air vehicles were about to take off when suddenly, one of the walls exploded. Everyone except Tails, Cream, and Eggman were knocked to the ground as Daleks stormed in.
"Take cover!" Shadow shouted.
"There are too many!" Sally shouted. "We have to get out of here!"
Amy gestured to several motor ground vehicles behind them. The Nomad hopped into the drivers seat of one and shouted up at Eggman and Tails. "Get out of here, now! We'll follow."
Sonic said, "I'll go on my own."
Amy, Rouge, and Shadow hopped into the Nomad's vehicle while Blaze, Silver, and Sally got into the other. The Nomad used his Sonic Screwdriver to manually open the garage door and they sped out, Daleks in tow - and in front, but the vehicles driven by Sally and the Nomad rammed into them, destroying them. Silver, who was about to use his telekinesis was too late. However, Daleks fired at the two vehicles as they sped across the ground, not even attempting to target the blue blur himself.
"Shadow!" the Nomad shouted. "See if you can slow them down!"
Shadow nodded and aimed his weapon backwards, firing at the Daleks, but aim was difficult at such high speeds.
"We have to relocate to a new base," Sally said, getting into radio contact with the Tornado, the Nomad's car, and the Egg Mobile using the radio Tails installed onto each.
"Some of my old factories could do the trick," Eggman suggested.
"Too far," Sally said.
"What about the old GUN base?" Rouge asked.
"Probably destroyed by now," Shadow said.
"I say we flee to Green Hill Zone and make our base there," Amy suggested.
"Describe it," the Nomad said.
Silver was about to answer, but the wasteland he was going to describe was likely nothing like the lush green land that could exist now.
"It's pretty nice - lots of grassy hills," Sally said.
"It's perfect - interferes with Dalek traction," the Nomad said.
"Speaking of Daleks!" Shadow shouted, as Daleks surrounded the heroes as they sped down the street. Luckily, the refit Tornado unleashed a flurry of laser fire that destroyed them, with the Egg Mobile providing supporting fire as well.
"How long to city limits?" the Nomad asked.
Shadow knew the city better than most. "Just a few minutes now."
Knuckles hadn't been able to move very fast through Station Square, ducking through alley after alley to evade Daleks. He could take one or two, but patrols of three or more were dicey at best. He had managed to use the power of the Master Emerald to conceal itself, and was relieved to hear the sound of the TARDIS materializing behind him. He turned around and un-concealed the Emerald as the TARDIS finished materializing, this time in the form of an ornate grandfather clock. The door opened, and who appeared to be the Nomad stepped out, followed by who looked to be Sonic. His color looked slightly different, a bit more green, but Knuckles brushed it off and ignored it as being a side effect of staring at the Master Emerald so long. However, he was surprised as "Sonic" sped at him and pushed him into the brick wall of the alley. Knuckles panted for breath as the Master Emerald was taken into the TARDIS by the pair. The door slammed shut before Knuckles had recovered, and it dematerialized. He was furious!
Finally having passed the outskirts of the city and into the sunny Green Hill Zone, the Daleks had stopped chasing them, so the vehicles stopped.
"We're not safe for long," the Nomad cautioned. "They'll chase us from above."
"Brief respite is respite all the same," Sally said.
Sonic, who had beaten them all hear, shouted, "Over here, slowpokes!"
Everyone dashed over to Sonic. "Our plan still needs to go forward," Amy said.
"She's right," the Nomad agreed. "It won't be long before they've repaired the time corridor and they might even be able to forcibly open the TARDIS."
"Are we keeping the plan the same?" Blaze asked. Sally nodded.
Sonic suddenly came in on radio. "I'm a couple miles ahead, I've found a good spot. Meet me there."
The Tornado and the Egg Mobile were the first to fly over. The Nomad and Sally quickly put their feet and their respective gas pedals, and their vehicles accelerated. However, they weren't expecting to see a Dalek approaching from above so soon, levitating using a levitating disc attached to the bottom. It fired at the vehicles, but the two cars swerved out of the way.
"Tails, this is Sally, we're under attack!" she shouted.
"We've landed, Eggman's on his way," Tails calmly stated, maintaining his composure largely in an effort to appear macho to Cream, who was sitting behind him.
"Die, Dalek chumps!" Eggman shouted, firing at the Dalek. However, the Dalek struck Rouge's bag of Chaos Emeralds, which had been attached to the car, sending it flying.
"My Emeralds!" Rouge shouted. The Dalek landed and picked up the Chaos Emeralds, fleeing and levitating away.
"Cease pursuit," Tails said. "Let's set up camp."
"But they've got the Chaos Emeralds!"
"We'll get them back."
The Wanderer's TARDIS materialized in Scourge's throne room. The pair of men stepped out.
"The Master Emerald is ours!" Scourge announced.
"I know, I know, I was there," the Wanderer said.
"You were just the getaway driver," Scourge said.
"Yeah, right."
"Absolute power..." Scourge mused.
"We could go to war with Gallifrey. And win."
"Yes, Wanderer, I'm well aware of the debt I owe you, to help you settle the score with your people."
"Now, if you'll excuse me, I'll check on our guest in the dungeon."
"Don't have too much fun with her, I don't want her to be too tired for tonight."
"Fiona's out again?"
"We live a difficult life."
"I'll drink to that," the Wanderer said, chuckling, as he strode out.
"How's my favorite prisoner with the voice of a nightingale?" the Wanderer asked as he walked down to the dungeon cell.
"You again?" Alicia asked.
"Or do you prefer the regular guard?"
"He is taller," Alicia said.
"That's very hurtful, Alicia."
"You're the one who locked me up."
"That was Scourge, not me."
"You're just his messenger boy?"
"Something like that."
"I thought you preferred to be called his 'senior advisor'?" she asked slowly, placing her face to the cell bars.
"We've been over this. I wasn't able to change your mind about what to call me before, I know better than to try again now," the Wanderer continued, sliding a bowl of food under the bars.
"There is... something else... I could have..." Alicia said in a sensual and sultry tone. The Wanderer smirked and nodded. He opened the cell and kissed Alicia. She wrapped her arms around him and kissed him as well.
"We're almost ready," the Nomad began.
"Sans Chaos Emeralds," Rouge responded.
"We'll get them back," Sonic said.
"My men are still in place in the city," Shadow said.
"Then it's still on."
The Wanderer continued kissing Alicia passionately, not giving a damn about his infidelity towards his wife. He pushed her against a wall, but suddenly felt something sharp plunge into his chest. He looked down - Alicia had stabbed him with a concealed knife. The Wanderer fell to the ground. Alicia smirked at him as he lost consciousness, clutching his chest.
Alicia strode out, but leapt back to the wall as she saw a guard at the top of the dungeon stairs. As he walked down the stairs, having seen her, she swung at him in the chest, knocking him out, and took his gun. Gripping his disintegrator, she walked through the castle halls. Seeing another guard, she shot at him, smiling as he was vaporized. However, she was mortified to see a Dalek approach.
"You will return to your cell!" it cried.
"Not on your life," she said, making a run for it - but she didn't last long.
"Halt!" the Dalek cried, as it precision-aimed its gunstick and fired. Alicia screamed, dead before she hit the ground. Scourge was awoken by the sound, as was the Wanderer. Luckily, his wound had healed, but he was still quite woozy as he bumped into Scourge over Alicia's body.
The Tornado and the Egg Mobile were scouting ahead, blasting at Daleks as they flew over Station Square. Tails expertly twisted his joystick to take it down - close to the ground.
"Dalek, twelve o'clock!" Cream shouted over the noise of the biplane, being Tails' eyes and ears.
Tails was worried sick, but he twisted the joystick again and plunged his finger into the red fire button. Immediately, yellow laser blasts pelted the Daleks below, vaporizing them. Two Daleks on the ground maneuvered to return fire, but Tails swerved the plane again to evade the blue energy bolts. Cream gripped the edges of her seat, terrified as well. Another Dalek was about to get a hit in, but he suddenly saw it vaporized before his eyes - the Egg Mobile has hit it with its own laser cannons.
Having destroyed a healthy number of Daleks, Tails pressed in a few switches to transmit the go-ahead signal to both ground force teams and Shadow's troops in hiding. Before long, the two cars carrying both teams drove up and everyone poured into the building. The three of Shadow's soldiers who had survived positioned themselves outside the Thorndyke tower, guns at the ready in case any other Daleks arrived.
Sally, Sonic, the Nomad, Amy, Shadow, Blaze, Silver, and Rouge dashed inside the building.
"The time corridor is on floor thirteen," the Nomad said. "The TARDIS is probably on one of the top floors."
"Good luck," Sonic said to Sally and those who would be going with her.
"See you in hell," Sally said, but both her and Sonic had been in tougher scrapes than this. Sally, Blaze, Silver, and Shadow dashed up the stairs first, Sally and Shadow gripping their machine guns.
The Nomad then turned to Sonic, Rouge, and Amy. "I've got a TARDIS locator, but the time corridor is interfering with the signal."
"So then we've got absolutely no idea where we're going," Rouge surmised.
"Exactly," the Nomad said.
"Do you always go into things so blindly?" Amy asked.
"Ask your boyfriend the same question," the Nomad said as he started up the stairs. Amy and Sonic exchanged glances, Rouge chased after the Nomad. Amy and Sonic did the same, with both of their faces flushed red somewhat.
Shadow's lieutenant knelt to combat the incoming force of Daleks. Having run out of bastic bullets, his magazine was loaded with the earlier kind, but he and his two fellow soldiers at least knew to aim for the eyepiece. Ten Daleks were approaching, and it was their job to keep them back.
"Exterminate!"
Shadow's men quickly opened fire, bullets bouncing off of the Daleks. Eggman pressed in the firing button on the Egg Mobile, vaporizing one of the Daleks. The other two fired at Shadow's men - killing one, the other two ducked out of the way. They then turned their fire on the Egg Mobile, narrowly missing.
Meanwhile, Tails flew the Tornado over the city. Loaded with two missiles, he primed one for launch. "Cream, hold on," he said, giving her a reassuring smile. Cream nodded. Trying to clear some of the Daleks off of the streets, Tails launched one of his missiles. Immediately, ten Daleks disappeared off of the face of Mobius as soon as the missile exploded. Tails then pulled the nose of his ship up. Beads of sweat ran down his face as he spotted another ship on radar.
"That thing's big," Cream said, giving the only information they had, still too far for visual identification.
As they reached it, they realized that it was Eggman's flagship - but retrofitted, armed with extra laser cannons and crawling with Daleks levitating around it.
"Hold on!" Tails said again as he accelerated, launching his final rocket at the flagship. He and Cream cheered as the flagship seemed to disappear in the explosion, but their faces fell as the smoke cleared, and it was still there. Seeing that its laser cannons were hot, Tails angled his nose up and tried to shoot past it, but the Dalek lasers made glancing blows. Tails turned around and returned fire, but then the Dalek ship launched a missile - which sliced off the right wing of the Tornado! He tried to fly back to safety at their base in Green Hill Zone, but it was too late. He got out of his seat and put his arms around Cream in an attempt to protect her as they struck the ground.
Sally moved carefully and deliberately, but also gracefully, Shadow observed, as the party of four skulked through the Thorndyke tower. However, they all knew that confrontation was inevitable. Three Daleks stood guard on the top of floor eight. Sally and Shadow loaded their guns, being the first to leap into the open, quickly opening fire with bastic bullets, the pressure they applied to the trigger unleashing a flurry of bullets. Silver and Blaze were next - Blaze was careful to modulate her fire power to not engulf the entire room as she sent a flamethrower against one of the Daleks. Silver used his telekinesis to throw another out the window.
As the bastic bullets slammed into the Daleks, they quickly punched holes in them until they exploded. The remaining Dalek recoiled from the fire, but launched an energy blast, striking one of the walls and causing an explosion. Its casing finally melted, the creature inside dying a painful death.
Shadow was the first to stand up, looking over the Dalek wreckage. "Let's go," he said. Sally, Blaze, and Silver nodded. They all followed. Up to the next floor.
"How will you know we haven't missed the TARDIS?" Sonic asked.
"I'll be able to tell once we're close. We're linked telepathically, you see," the Nomad explained.
"Does it still look as tacky as before?" Rouge asked.
"Would a giant jewel be better?" the Nomad teased, eager to turn Rouge's personality back on her to show he was formidable.
Rouge chuckled. Amy said, "Keep the chatter to a minimum, I'd rather not be caught."
However, they hadn't expected Daleks to have arrived from behind them. "Exterminate them!" the lead Dalek shouted.
The Nomad quickly aimed his gun at the onslaught of five Daleks, but was quite impressed to see Rouge kick the bottom of a Dalek open. Sonic sped through a Dalek and then back over to the far side of the room. The Nomad's gun jammed, and he was knocked over by a Dalek. Amy raised her hammer, but it was blasted out of her hands.
"Sonic!" Amy cried as she was pushed against a wall by a Dalek. The Nomad reached for his impulse laser, Sonic quickly, on an impulse, rammed through the remaining Daleks and grabbed Amy in his arms. Rouge helped the Nomad to his feet.
"Thanks," the Nomad said.
"Don't mention it," Rouge responded.
"Are you alright, Ames?" Sonic asked.
Amy nodded. "Thanks for saving me, Sonniku!" she cried as she picked up her hammer.
"Amy, I wanted to tell you - never mind, it can wait," Sonic said. "Let's go."
Amy skipped off, Rouge following. Sonic was about to follow them when the Nomad grabbed his shoulder.
"What is it?" Sonic asked.
"You have to stop running away from her, Sonic. You can't run forever. What that Dalek did should be an ever-present reminder of not just her mortality, but yours. Life is fleeting."
"And I'm taking that from the immortal Time Lord?"
"I may live long, but I'm hardly immortal, and my point still stands."
"Isn't that what you do? When you visit a society in that TARDIS of yours, I don't imagine you stay behind to see all the chaos you cause!"
"The difference is that I don't have someone waiting for me back home, you do!"
Sonic realized the logic of what the Nomad was saying.
"And don't claim she doesn't like you back because it's obvious, almost as obvious as the fact that you like her back."
Sonic wanted to tell her, but decided that he'd do it later. "And is there someone here that you like?"
There was someone on the Nomad's mind, but he didn't get to say anything, as another Dalek came up the stairs, and he ran alongside Sonic.
Eggman was on his own, trying to hold the Daleks - Shadow's men had been killed. He quickly radioed the team leaders. "This is Eggman, we've got problems here."
"Being?" Sally asked, having responded before Sonic.
"Tails is gone, not responding on radio, Shadow's men are dead, and there are more Daleks on the way."
"This isn't quite going to plan, but we've almost reached the time corridor."
"The Nomad thinks we're close to his TARDIS," Sonic said. "And I should hope so, we're near the top."
Eggman had to swerve out of the way to evade another Dalek blast, quickly unleashing a flurry of laser fire onto the Daleks.
The Nomad poked his head up through the roof access, then back down.
"Well?" Rouge asked.
"A fair few Daleks waiting for us surrounding the TARDIS," the Nomad said.
"Who says we need to take them first?" Sonic asked. "I'm the fastest thing alive, I could blow past them and get inside."
"Good thinking," Amy said. The Nomad handed over the key. Sonic grabbed it and sped onto the roof. Right as he exited the roof access, the battle computer inside each of the six Daleks atop the roof communicated with each other, calculating Sonic's position at several time intervals instantly. Calculating the time for their own weapons to fire, they all concentrated their fire in an area around all of Sonic's potential positions so that they'd be unable to resist. Firing simultaneously, one of the beams struck gold, hitting Sonic mid-run. He was flung back, the keys shooting out of his hand.
"Sonic!" Amy shouted, running over to him, not giving a damn about the Daleks or anything else. She grabbed his hand, extending her arm over the roof, pulling him up while the Nomad and Rouge did battle with the Daleks together.
That was the moment Sonic knew that Amy wasn't just another fangirl pining for his attention. But he still wasn't sure what the feeling inside him was, and he owed it to Amy not to pick her hopes up for nothing.
The Nomad knelt to blast another Dalek open as he edged his way over to his TARDIS, kicking the door open for Rouge. "After you!" he shouted.
"How gentlemanly!" she responded as she entered. Sonic picked up Amy bridal-style and sped into the TARDIS. The Nomad entered and closed the door.
Sally and Shadow stood on opposite sides of the door to the time corridor, loading their weapons. Silver was next to Sally, Blaze next to Shadow. Sally gave the signal and circles on Silver's hands began to glow. The door also began to glow as it opened. Sally and Shadow ran into the opening, spraying bastic bullets across the Daleks.
"Under attack!" the Daleks cried. "Defend the time corridor! Exterminate!"
Blaze summoned a flamethrower onto the Daleks as Silver placed explosives across the time corridor, evading Dalek fire by ducking. Sally and Shadow continued to provide cover fire. Forced to reload, Sally ducked while Shadow emptied what was left of his clip into a nearby Dalek, blowing it wide open. Trying to shield Sally, he tossed his machine gun at one of the Daleks as Silver gave the signal that he was done. He and Shadow sped out. Blaze was out next, Sally covering the exit with her bastic bullets before the door closed.
The TARDIS then materialized in front of them, the door opening. Shadow, Blaze, Silver, and then Sally dashed inside, and then the door closed and the time machine dematerialized.
"I know it's some of your first time in the TARDIS," the Nomad mused. "But please be quiet, I've work to do."
Rouge admired the architecture of the TARDIS, not to mention its technology as the Nomad set coordinates. He then looked up from the console. "I suggest one of you detonates the charges and another signals Eggman and Tails."
One of the Daleks tried to pull a charge off using its manipulator arm as the charge exploded. Immediately, the top ten floors of Thorndyke Industries were vaporized in fire and fury. Eggman watched in awe as he suddenly got a radio contact, and flew off back towards the Green Hill Zone HQ, before noticing that Tails' biplane was crashed in the street. He then radioed the others onboard the TARDIS.
"Yes?" Sally asked.
"It's Tails. He's crashed. In Station Square."
"We're on our way," Sally began. "Nomad?"
"On it," the Nomad said, adjusting the coordinates by flicking several switches. The central column on the console stopped. "We've landed."
He flicked the door control and the double doors slid closed. He strode out, followed by the others.
The TARDIS had landed in a living room, the Nomad noted, as he stepped out. Coordinates must have slipped a little. He was about to pop back inside and correct them when he saw Tails and Cream asleep on the couch.
"What happened?" Sonic asked.
"Take a wild guess," Rouge said. "They were shot down." She turned to Amy. "You really don't want him, his mouth moves faster than his head."
"Hey!" Sonic protested.
Vanilla, who looked nearly identical to Cream, just older, as she tended to the couple. However, neither Sonic nor the Nomad had time to ponder this as a certain red echidna dashed into the room and pinned them both to the ground.
"YOU!" Knuckles shouted. "You took the Master Emerald! Where is it?!"