The Resistance mobilized for a showdown at the mine, and Sonic was well ahead of them, disguised as a pizza delivery boy. The mine wasn't exceedingly hard to find, for it looked like an ordinary mine entrance, albeit with defenses such as guard towers with searchlights, hovertanks, plus a heaping helping of SWATbots and other Badniks. Despite this large contingent of defenses, the Blue Blur strode up to the entrance with confidence.

"Intruder alert, priority one!" said a SWATbot.

All of the Badniks trained their weapons on Sonic.

"Hey, don't shoot! I'm the pizza man!"

"Identify yourself, Hedgehog!" said the same SWATbot.

"I'm uh…Maurice! Yeah, I understand somebody here ordered some pizzas!"

"Nobody ordered pizzas! Surrender and be assimilated!"

Sonic looked at a slip of paper. "Funny, they told me to deliver to this address…"

"Hand that over!"

Sonic handed the slip of paper to the SWATbot. It read "If you're reading this, then you're a dumbbot!" The SWATbot then raised its laser rifle at Sonic.

"Prepare to be…"

Before the SWATbot could open fire, a shell from an M1A1 Abrams took out one of the guard towers. Sonic used this as his cue to just raise sheer hell, and he went every which way but loose, Spin Dashing, Homing Attacking and just generally tearing up the place with assistance from his friends. Within a couple minutes' worth of time, the defenses outside the mine had been reduced to scrap metal with no casualties on the Resistance side.

"CHARGE!"

With the defenses torn to shreds, Sonic beckoned the rest of the Resistance along, and Tails, Sally, the soldiers, Constables and Marines all dismounted from their vehicles and charged into the mine. However, their efforts were nearly cut short by a gang of Heavy SWATbots charging out of the mine entrance. These proved to be quite resistant to the 5.56mm rounds of the M16s and CAR-15s, but there were a couple of men armed with 7.62mm M60 machine guns who had an easier time taking them down. Having fought their way into the mine, the Resistance continued shooting the place up, gunshots echoing throughout the tunnels. Sonic kept a smile on his face, knowing that it was his efforts that helped the remnants of the CAFM get here. Deeper and deeper they got into the mine, the Badniks refusing to cede an inch of ground despite getting turned into piles of scrap metal. Then, the Resistance came upon some sort of control center, judging by all the computer terminals that were here.

"Intruders have reached control center!" said a roboticized hedgehog. "We need assistance immediately!"

The Resistance pointed their guns at him, but Sonic got in their way.

"Guys, don't shoot!" said Sonic. "That's my Uncle Chuck!"

Sally whipped out a hand-held computer of some sort. "NICOLE, initiate robot reprogramming subroutine."

"Initiating…" said NICOLE.

Within seconds, the hedgehog known as "Uncle Chuck" blinked and shook his head.

"Huh? Where am I?" said Uncle Chuck. "Sonny…I…is that you? You look so different."

Sonic nodded. "Well…the name's Sonic now, but yeah, it's me."

"Charles, are you OK?" asked Sally.

Sonic swung his hands out to the sides, palms forward. "Whoa…hold the freakin' phone! You're tellin' me that MY Uncle Chuck and the Sir Charles ya told me about are the SAME cat?"

"I'm afraid it's true, Sonny," said Chuck. "Oh, curse me for not destroying that Roboticizer sooner! If I'd known it would lead to the oppression of our people, I would've never built that thing!"

"What's past is past," said Sally. "Right now, we need your help."

"I'll do whatever I can," said Chuck.

"Chuck, since you're the one who created the Roboticizer, you must have some blueprints or plans for it laying around somewhere, right?" said Tails.

Chuck nodded. "I do recall a copy of the plans being stored in a database in the basement of Emerald Tower. Be careful; it'll be heavily defended."

"Right! By the way, I'm Tails; I'm a friend of Sonic's."

Chuck smiled. "Nice to meet you, Tails!"

Tails and Chuck shook hands in spite of the former being a bit weirded out by shaking hands with someone who'd been roboticized.

"Well guys, what are we waitin' for?" said Sonic. "Let's haul ass to Emerald City!"

"Charles, please keep those robots off our back," said Sally.

"Will do."


After exiting the mine, there was a question from one Marine:

"Hey Gunny, how are we gonna get to Emerald City without runnin' outta fuel?"

"Don't ya worry, Stevens!" said Bailey. "We'll figure somethin' out! We're Marines, after all!"

"Hey, what about those?"

Tails pointed to some nearby Hover Units, grenish-blue egg-shaped flying cars with laser cannons, parked near the mine entrance.

"Good thinkin', Fox Boy!" Bailey gave a thumbs up.

"Men, let's move out!" said Sally.

The members of the Resistance piled into as many Hover Units as they could and took off for Eggopolis. After a rather lengthy flight over the Badlands, they reached the capital. Thus far, no Badniks paid any particular attention to them, and they made it to Emerald Tower in due time. Considering that the usual traffic laws were out the window, they parked in the streets, after which they piled out.

"It's quiet," said Powell. "Too quiet."

Sonic nodded. "Yeah, my Hedgehog Sense is tellin' me we ain't gonna be alone here."

"Hell with it!" said Bailey. "CHARGE!"

"Bailey, wait…!"

Sally reached out her hand, but the rest of the Resistance ignored her and charged through the front of Emerald Tower, where a huge group of SWATbots awaited them. Despite the extreme odds, the Resistance made short work of them, not only thanks to Sonic and Tails, but also because of one Marine with an M203 grenade launcher attached to his M16 and a couple of Resistance members who threw M26 lemon grenades.

"Ugh!" Sally crossed her arms. "What is wrong with you guys!? You could've gotten us all killed!"

"Hey, we didn't lose that many guys, did we?" said Sonic.

"Still, we can't afford to lose too many troops. Now let's look for that database."

Despite suffering a few casualties, the Resistance proceeded forth to the basement. They elected to take the stairs, which were locked with an electronic keypad.

"NICOLE, hack into the lock," said Sally.

"Unlocking…" said NICOLE. "Door unlocked."

"Let's go!" said Sally.

The Resistance proceeded down the stairs and into the basement, where various computer servers beeped, booped and gave off a fantastic array of blinking lights. Sonic didn't even need his Hedgehog Sense to tell him that these servers would be quite well guarded.

"Watch your fire, men!" said Sally. "We don't want any stray bullets hitting the servers!"

Taking note of this, the members of the Resistance set their rifles and submachine guns on semi-auto, though the men carrying M60s didn't have such a luxury. Despite this, they did their best to ventilate all the SWATbots guarding this room, and with Sonic and Tails' assistance, they reduced the Badniks to scrap metal without any further casualties.

"All right, cover me while I hack into the servers!" said Sally. "Don't be afraid to fire them up!"

Taking this as a cue, anyone with select-fire weapons set their guns back on full-auto and took up positions covering any possible entries to the basement.

"NICOLE, hack into the servers and locate Charles' plans for the Roboticizer," said Sally.

"Accessing…" said NICOLE.

While NICOLE attempted to hack into the databanks to get the plans, Sonic, Tails, Powell, Bailey and everyone else readied themselves for anyone – or anything – that might come at them during this time. Sonic knew that at least some Badniks were coming for them because his Hedgehog Sense told him so. Sure enough, some of them did come down, mainly SWATbots and Buzz Bombers. Immediately, the Resistance let loose with a hail of lead – or blaster bolts in Tails' case.

"Sal, how much longer ya got on that download!?" said Sonic.

"37 percent!" replied Sal.

"Well, I guess it's juice time!"

To reduce the workload on the Resistance, Sonic primarily struck down Buzz Bombers with Homing Attacks, thereby leaving everyone else to concentrate on the SWATbots. However, Robotnik's forces would occasionally try to throw a wrench into the Resistance's works by sending those sphere-shaped Badniks surrounded by spiked balls or the dive-bombing seagull bots from Launch Base Zone. Despite these change-ups, Sonic and Tails vowed not to give up. They already foiled Robotnik's grand plans twice, and neither of them could stomach the thought of losing when they'd come this far. With victory on their minds, they fought valiantly against their metal foes, oblivious to how loud the machine gun fire was. As the battle progressed, more scrap metal and electronic components piled up on the floor, a sure sign that Sonic's speed was making a difference. Then again, having a bunch of soldiers, Constables and Marines with automatic weapons helped, too. Granted, a few shots from the SWATbots got uncomfortably close, but Sally remained unharmed, and…

"All right, I've downloaded the plans!" said Sally.

"Then we are up, over and gone!" said Sonic.

While Sonic was leading the Resistance out of there, Tails took a little time to stuff random pieces of scrap metal and electronic components into a brown canvas bag that he was carrying.


Criticism is gold. Negativity and nitpicking are pyrite.