5:49pm, Atop the Wall, Trolberg, 18 days after the anomaly.
"And... there, done." Tails slotted the Phantom Ruby into the top of the portal and stood back, taking a moment to appreciate his work. Construction of the portal had understandably taken a few setbacks, given its location. Strong wind the previous day had cut building to a minimum, and any building after sundown was out of the question, as that would have angered the Trolls.
In light of that, and of the fact Eggman already had a head-start on them, it was imperative that He and Sonic got back to their own world as soon as possible.
"Come on, Sonic? Where are you?" Tails implored.
"He'll be here." Hilda assured him. "He'll know when it's getting late soon enough."
Frida was looking through one of her spell books to see if there was a way to communicate with him. Ultimately though, it didn't matter if she did, as true to Hilda's word, Sonic showed up within a couple of minutes.
"Hey guys, what did I miss?" Sonic asked as he came to a sudden stop right in front of Hilda and co.
"Tails finished the portal." Hilda replied. "Did you find Eggman?"
"Not a sign of him. There was a little house with some weird circles outside it, but the windows were boarded up, so I don't think anyone lives there." Sonic explained. David began to scribble furiously onto a piece of paper.
"Did the circles look like this?" David held up the sketch and showed it to Sonic.
"Yeah, pretty much. Something wrong?"
"That's one of Van Gale's conjuring circles. If they're not there then they're probably gone already. You should really get going." Frida explained.
"Okay then." Tails got up and switched on the machine. The portal whirred and hummed as the energy from the Phantom Ruby coursed its way through the machine several times over, the wires glowing a bright blue as the portal formed in the centre of the machine.
"Is it supposed to do that?" Hilda asked.
"Yes." Tails replied. "I designed it so it can use the surplus energy from the Phantom Ruby to power itself even if I take it out. If someone evil from your world were to get a hold of this, it would create a huge power imbalance..."
"The consequences of which would be very bad for us." Frida crossed her arms as she listened closely to Tails' explanation.
"How long is the portal going to stay open then?" Hilda asked.
"Without the Phantom Ruby, the portal should have enough Hyper-Go-On energy to last a week or two, at least. Unfortunately, that means we can't switch it off for a good while, or the energy circling around the machine will crash into itself and blow up the whole thing!" Tails warned.
"And a large chunk of the wall, probably." Frida added.
"Precisely." Tails admitted.
"What should we do?" Hilda asked. "Do you want our help, or anything?"
"Thanks for the offer, but no. You should stay here. Eggman has probably covered a lot of ground already and we're going to need Sonic's speed more than anything." Tails politely declined. "Of course, if there's a big emergency, or if Eggman's robots start swarming through the portal, don't hesitate to let us know."
"We will." Hilda promised.
"Right, let's go." Sonic dashed through the portal, as Tails followed, taking the Phantom Ruby with him. "See ya around!" Tails chimed as he left. Hilda Frida and David looked at each other as their new friends disappeared into another world.
"What do we do now?" David asked.
"Game of Dragon Panic at my house?" Hilda replied, shrugging her shoulders.
"Sure." Frida replied, as the three walked back down to the city level.
Ruins of Egg Port Factory Alpha, Mobius, 6pm, the same day
Sonic and Tails emerged from the portal and saw the rubble they were surrounded by.
"Man, Eggman really made a mess of this place." Sonic said with a serious face.
"Actually, I'm not so sure." Tails doubted, looking around as he managed to get his bearings. "This looks a lot like the Eggman base we fought at just before the anomaly. Look at the rubble. It's the same stuff."
"What are those?" Sonic pointed Tails towards the felled robots in front of him. 12 clanky metal carcasses lined the floor, as some of their heads flopped helplessly up and down in a vain attempt to reconnect with their bodies. "These don't look like the usual Egg Pawns." Sonic looked slightly disturbed from seeing the bouncing heads, as Tails noticed the crude nature of their construction.
"So this is what Eggman was using all that scrap metal for." He deduced. "Perhaps he combined this with Van Gale's conjuring magic to make some new kind of 'undead' robot?"
"A Necro-bot?" Sonic joked.
"Knowing Eggman, he's probably already named it that." Tails mused.
"We'll see about that when we catch up to him. Come on, let's go." Sonic departed from the scene with his usual speed, as Tails followed closely behind.
Over at Land Factory Theta, Eggman's production line was already in full swing, churning out Egg Pawns, Buzz Bombers and Motobugs by the bucketful, and Eggman and his army were advancing quickly in the direction of Restoration HQ, and the ruined city surrounding it, taking over any settlement that stood in his way.
Van Gale, meanwhile, had been left to her own devices, tasking herself with finding out whether her magic was capable of working in this world. She'd left the confines of the base and was pottering around in the nearby forest looking for any carrion to test with.
Her search had come to no avail, thus far, though she didn't seem fussed about it, especially since the forest was teeming with life. She marvelled at the natural beauty of the trees and plants that filled her surroundings, and was surprised to see so many animals and critters living peacefully within it, especially since there were none to be found when she and Eggman drove through it beforehand. Van Gale heard the sound of rustling bushes as a number of flickies emerged from them onto the path. Struck by their cuteness, Van Gale reached a hand out to pet them.
"Oh, you little things are adorable!" She tried to pet one, but timid as they are, it naturally recoiled in fear. "No, no. I'm not going to hurt you, you're safe here." Victoria cooed softly, as the flicky eventually allowed her to pet it.
It did concern her, however, that despite the abundance of life in the forest, the ecosystem itself showed signs of decay. Some areas of grass had become patchy, and looked starved of nutrients. As a scientist, Van Gale understood that in order for nature to thrive, the life cycle has to run full circle, uninterrupted by human interference, like hunting, or poaching.
Given the lack of any dead animals at all, Van Gale naturally concluded that these creatures were either being hunted or forcibly removed from their habitat, but by whom? And for what purpose? Van Gale didn't know just yet. Nevertheless, she took out a notepad and began to scribble down her findings.
Getting back on her Eggmobile, she headed back to base, considering what course of action she should take next. She was just about to re-enter the factory when Eggman called. Victoria tapped the screen on her dashboard and the screen began to broadcast Eggman's face.
"Dr Robotnik! Good evening! How was your expedition?"
"It's going swell! I should be at the edge of Emeraldville within the next 24 hours. Were you able to find a suitable method to replicate your necromancy skills?"
"Unfortunately not. I've hit a few setbacks on that front. Tomorrow, I plan to search further afield to find a solution, if that's alright with you." Van Gale answered.
"Fine by me. If you're at the base, can you make sure some of today's batch of robots get sent to the portal. I need the chaos emeralds for the next phase of my plan." Eggman requested.
"As you wish." Victoria responded. "Is that everything?"
"That is all, don't let me down." Eggman confirmed.
"I won't." Victoria replied as Eggman hung up. Opening the door to the factory, she was presented with the latest platoon of robots that had been manufactured that day.
"Evening, all." Van Gale addressed them politely. "At the request of Dr Eggman, the majority of you, those in the second row and beyond are needed with him on his expedition to Emeraldville. Those of you in the front row have a special task: retrieve the Chaos Emeralds from Egg Port Factory Alpha. Good luck to the both of you." She commanded. The robots saluted her and began to move as per instruction, as Van Gale retired to the comfort of the factory kitchen and made herself dinner.
Meanwhile, Sonic and Tails had just arrived at the first settlement Eggman had taken over, and were making light work of the modicum of Necrobots he had left behind.
"How's it going, Tails?"
"I'm fine here, you focus on the ones to your left." Tails replied, spin dashing into another Necrobot and demolishing it.
"On it already." Sonic responded confidently, dashing into the heads of three of them in quick succession. Before long all the robots in the village had been destroyed, and the village was liberated. A smattering of villagers emerged from their homes as the commotion died down.
"Hey, it's Sonic!" one of them called out. "He's back!"
"We're saved!" shouted another.
"What took you so long?" Grumbled someone else.
"Well, we just got back, it's a long story, but Eggman got the jump on us, as you can see." Tails answered.
"What even happened here?" Sonic asked.
"Eggman and this weird grey-haired lady we don't know the name of came rolling in with a huge army of robots. We had next to no defences, so he just trampled over us and then moved on that way." One of the citizens explained.
"Thanks for the tip!" Sonic replied. "Come on, Tails!" the pair took off, while the crowd waved them off with wishes of good luck. Sonic and Tails liberated the next two villages in short order as they continued to follow Eggman's trail of destruction. As they were about to leave, Tails spotted a telephone hanging on the wall.
"Hey, Sonic, we should ring Jewel. She needs to know that we're back." Tails advised.
"Okay, but we still need to catch up to Egghead, so don't take too long." Sonic tapped his foot impatiently.
"I know." Tails replied grumpily, dialling the number for Jewel's office. Jewel was racking her brains over hastily drawn battle plans when the phone rang.
"Hello?" Jewel picked up the phone and spoke into it uncertainly.
"Hey, Jewel! This is Tails, and Sonic's here too, how are things, not too good I presume?"
"Well, let me put it this way, I feel a lot better now that you're here!" Jewel struggled to hide her elation at Sonic being back on home soil. "It's been tough. Eggman basically steamrolled everything in between us and the port. We've defended as many strategic positions as we could but he still has a lot of robots marching towards us. Lanolin and the other scouts tell me he's going to make it to the city gates within a day. Where are you guys right now?"
"Third village from the port, Wheelbarrow Weir, I think this place is called? We've managed to liberate what villages we've come across so far, the first three closest to the portal." Tails replied.
"Copy." Jewel confirmed. "From there we're north east of you, so head in that direction. we know where Eggman will likely be when he runs into us, and what defences we have are already in position."
"We were planning on just following Eggman's trail but that works too." Tails concurred. "Have you worked out where his robots are coming from?"
"No, not yet. Our current estimate is that it's somewhere between your location and our HQ at some point the villagers who rang for help stopped mentioning the so called 'Necrobots' and started mention his regular army, in much larger numbers."
"Understood. We'll be with you as soon as we can." Tails replied, hanging up the phone. "Jewel wants us up north-east of here, Eggman's planning a march on Restoration HQ." He reported to Sonic.
"Got it." Sonic replied, as they sped off north-east.
Jewel immediately got on the radio to Lanolin, a massive weight finally lifted off her shoulders as she smiled for the first time in days.
"Lanolin, this is Jewel! Sonic's on his way to HQ, so things should be easier from here on out." Jewel spoke with lots more pep in her voice.
"What should we do now?" Lanolin responded.
"Follow Eggman from behind, so that when his forces and ours meet, we'll have him surrounded."
"We'd be horrendously outnumbered." Lanolin interjected.
"I wasn't finished. Sonic and Tails will likely be liberating any villages they come across on the way. Gather as many people as you can who are willing to fight. We need as many people as we can get." Jewel implored.
"Copy. We'll be there as soon as we can. Lanolin out." She hung up and holstered her radio, and led her troop up towards the oncoming storm.