Chaos. Panic. Pandemonium. This and more could describe just what went down over those grassy plains in the middle of the wood zone. What could also describe it may have been an old-fashioned hootenanny. Lasers were being fired by the SWATbots and rifle blasts by the Troopers; motobugs were charging into their foes; small floating orbs were sending out flying spike balls one after the other, all while getting smashed to smithereens by the opposition.

Mina was busy sideswiping foes with a sharp new pair of bladed wrist gauntlets from Rotor, ("OH GAEA!") while Amy was dodging fire and shooting some of her own left and right. ("Sonic, you watching? Get a load of this!") Big was lashing out at foes with his fishing rod, his sheer strength turning what would have been a useless line of twine with a hook stuck onto the end into a force to be reckoned with. Nevermind Porker having replaced said with a brand spanking new one just recently. With Froggy sitting right on his shoulder, he didn't have much to worry about. "(Keep your eye on the prize, kiddo!")

Chirps aside, the rest were left to Sonic, Johnny, and Porker to deal with. Porker to just crush all of the bots with one motion from his gauntlet, but as more sweat started to race from his forehead, it just couldn't be done. "Darnit! Sorry guys! I'm still getting used to this, and moving all those trucks really took it out of me. On top of that, the bots seem to be coated with some special alloy. I can't see, but I can feel it. And it makes it that much harder to handle them."

"Hey, don't worry bout it, Porker!" said Sonic. "You already did plenty. Now it's time for us to have some fun!"

"Careful now, Sonic," said Johnny. "Don't get cocky."

"Hey, don't worry about it! I'll be fine! Now, let's get this show on the road, shall we?"

"I couldn't agree more." Thunderbolt had waited long enough. And she was done waiting. "ATTACK! AGAIN! POSTHASTE!" And so they did.

Porker did what he could. He tossed around one badnik and smashed another, but he couldn't trash the lot of them at once. Not yet anyway. Even what he could accomplish took the wind out of him, but he was determined to stay in the game. As far as he was concerned, he had to.

Johnny had his own fish to fry. "Porker's got some of the bots! I'll take care of the rest and the four standouts! Porker can help when he's done! You take on Thunderbolt!"

Sonic was puzzled, as though a close friend was just about to throw his life into the nearest garbage bin. "No offence, but do you seriously think you can take all of them on your own?"

Like the man with all the answers, Johnny smirked. He pressed one of the switches on his mace. Just as the bots began opening fire, a shield of grey energy formed around the two of them, protecting them from everything coming their way.

"Hey!" said Grounder. "That's not fair!"

"You think?!" Coconuts was just trying to stay alive. His agility helped him manuver around the battlefield well enough, but a fighter he was not. Whereas Grounder was a different story.

"It isn't," said Thunderbolt to Grounder. "So why don't you make it unfair and start doing something useful?"

"Oh," said Grounder. "Okay. Just give me a minute here…"

"True warriors do not go by such paltry terms as 'minutes'!" Sir Logik had rejoined the fray, and with his trident in his hand, he was looking to bash in some heads. "But let us see if any of these miscreants ARE true warriors, shall we?" Logik then lunged for Johnny, his trident aiming right for Johnny's shield.

Sonic was practically staring death straight in the eye. "WHOA!" He was all set to get Johnny out of the way, but as Johnny looked him in the eyes, it was clear he had something else in now, he'd let it be. Instead, Johnny lowered his force field, leaving it wide open for anyone to come in and stick a sword in his gullet. Or a trident as the case may have been.

Sir Logik finally made it close enough to Johnny to swing his trident down like a smiting a great evil, or perhaps a great good. Not that it did him any favours. Johnny raised his mace and swung it against Logik's trident like a master of his craft.

Rather than said mace being trashed to smithereens like so much tissue paper, Logik's blow was met and held with aplomb. The two fell into a deadlock, each trying to gain footing over the other and each too equally matched for their own good.

As for Sonic, he could scarcely believe it. "Whoa. Wasn't expecting that."

"Marvelous!" said Sir Logik. "This is most unprecedented! Not that I am complaining."

"Go on, Sonic!" said Johnny. He was sweating and a tad nervous, but he hid it with a face of steel. "I've got this!"

Before Sonic could so much as breathe, his choice was made for him. A blast of electricity from Thunderbolt barreled through at Sonic, followed by a barrage of laser fire from Grounder's opened up 'hands.' He managed to dodge the blasts like a knight of the wind, even if he didn't have much wiggle room. "Whoah! THAT was… kinda fun!"

"This isn't about fun!" said Thunderbolt. "This is about making you bleed until it hurts!"

As much as Sonic hated to say it, Johnny would have to deal with Logik on his own. In a flash, the blur was off towards Thunderbolt. And as Thunderbolt and the three dumdums' eyes went wide, she wondered if this had been such a good idea after all.

Some yards away from everyone else, Chirps had a different problem. Or at least he was soon to have one. He was all set to turn a lone SWATbot into kibble, but said SWATbot had different plans. Or at least it would've if it had actually been a SWATbot. Chirps raised an eyebrow as it suddenly began to swirl, to twist and contort, but it didn't take him long to figure it out.

"Dingo."

And as the grey and black mass started to turn orange and slowed and settled, Chirps knew he was right.

"Chirps. Long time no see. How long's it been? Three years? Four? When you've been around as long as I have, you tend to lose count. But then, you've got the same problem, don't ya, mate?"

"Depends on how you look at it. Way I figure it, it just means I've got less to keep track of."

"Same as ever. Personally, I couldn't give two shakes. But I know you do. Deep down, you want to know the truth. Don't you, mate?"

Chirps outstretched his hand, ready to get to business. "Truth's in the eye of the beholder. Which from where I'm standing is a very ugly one."

Surprisingly, Dingo didn't seem the least bit phased. "Normally, I'd be tearin' into you like a rare steak, but I've got a job to do. It's why I was hiding out aboard this bloody gang of drongo's in the first place. The boss is willing to give you another shot."

"Hey, that's great! I was all out of bourbon. Really helps when I have those migraines."

"You're about have another one. See, Eggman's willin' to offer you somethin' in exchange for your services. Somethin' you can't get anywhere else."

"A conscience? Because, I really hate to say it, but I've already got one, sorry to say."

"Information. About you. And me. Again, I couldn't care less. But I know you do. Always have."

"Yeah, let's cut the chit-chat, shall we? As far as I can tell, there's a war going on just thataway, and I want to have a piece of the pie. Because Chirps loves his pie. Apple pie. Blueberry pie. PIE."

"Oy. Fine. I was hopin' I didn't have to resort to this."

Chirps chuckled, almost as his noggin was being filled with all manner of ill-conceived imagery. "Hey now, don't feel the need to compensate. You don't got it, you don't got it. There's nothing' wrong with that."

"Then there's nothing wrong with hearin' an old mate out. Tell me somethin'. Does the name 'Gerald Robotnik' ring a bell?"

It came to Chirps in an instant. Pain. From head to toe. Suddenly, every iota of his body was filled with it. The earth began to pulse with minor quakes and tremors as Chirps collapsed to his knees, his hands clasped to his head as he tried to sort through the blinding amount of images running through his brain. In fact, they were more like snapshots, providing glimpses and clues rather than a concrete picture. But it was enough to finally make Chirps shut his big gaping beak. Well, aside from the occasional grunt.

"Finally managed to shut you up. Brings back memories, don't it? Did for me. Oh, it's still all jumbled about in there, to be sure, but it's somethin'. But it takes quite a bit of time to really dull the pain. And time ain't something you've got."

Chirps clenched his teeth, trying his best not to lie down in a fetal position and even more not to show it. The pain slowly dulled with every second that passed, but it wasn't easing fast enough.

"Now," said Dingo. "Seeing as you may be a mite more agreeable, I'll ask again. Care to join up with us once more? Raise some hell? Or would you rather go for the rest of your life not knowin' the truth? Your choice. Mate."

Chirps slowly lifted up his head, the pain having lessened just enough to form mostly coherent sentences, and he looked Dingo straight in the eyes. Dingo could see in Chirps' baby blues something that was rarely seen. They were old and tired, betraying the relatively young body he possessed. And as Chirps again opened his beak, all Dingo knew was that this was the Chirps he wanted to see. And yet, in an instant, he began to regret it.

"Never. Compromise. Not even in the face of armageddon." And as Chirps grimaced, Dingo at once knew that he never should have even tried this in the first place. "That was me trying to be serious for once in my life. How I'd do? Makes you wanna kiss me, don't it?"

Dingo spat right on top of his red spiked comb. "Knew it was a waste of time. Should've done you in when I had the chance. Still, never too late to make amends." Dingo then shifted his hand into a giant lance. He held it out like holding a rifle one-hand, keeping it completely straight. And then it shot out. It extended and grew from Dingo's hand at the speed of a moving train, and as the ever growing lance seemed to gun for Chirps in the blink of an eye, one had to wonder how he was possibly going to get out of this one. Or if he even could.

"Sweet dreams, mate."

Just as the lance was about to impale Chirps on the spot, and just as he seemed to move his hand in an effort to make a last-minute save, it turned out that neither needed have bothered. At that instant, a blast of energy shot down from on-high, blasting Dingo's arm to smithereens. He yelled like the dickens, reeling his arm back in and caressing it like a mother would a child. "There, there, sweetums! Daddy's got ya! And Daddy wants to know who did this!"

"Howdy, sugar!" Dingo looked up to see just who had decided to speak to him in such a gawdy accent. Not that he was one to talk. Flying in from on-high was a blond-haired rabbit with a robotic arm and legs. A pair of jet boosters on each foot propelled her forward, and though she was doing her best to stay balanced, she seemed to be getting the hang of it. She turned to a squirrel in a full-bodied suit of armor by soaring by her side. Whether or not he was pleased or pissed was anyone's guess. "So, how'd I do?"

"For someone who shouldn't have the faintest idea what the hell they're doing?" said Shortfuse. "Pretty damn good. And coming from me, that's a damn lot."

"Didn't expect to be hearing such praise from you, sugar. Still, guess we can't leave them hangin.'" She then began to divebomb down to the ground like a rogue missile. Shortfuse shook his head, and then he did the same.

"You're damn right about that," he said.

"Who the hell are those freaks?" said Dingo.

Chirps at last began to get himself together. His breathing had slowed, the seizures had subsided, and he started to feel like his old self again. Not that he always liked his old self, but what could he do? He wasn't sure what was going on, or how Bunnie had started flying at the drop of a hat, but he did know one thing: Someone was about to get rocked.


"Please!" said Antoine. "Please tell me there is another way!"

"Afraid not," said Quack. "Either you let us operate and we get that tracker out, which will probably kill him in the process, or you don't and we all meet our respective makers. That's the long and short of it."

"Oh, please, Doctor Quack!" said Cream. "Isn't there anything else you can do?"

"Not as far as I can see. But either way, we need to make a decision sooner than later."

Sonia and Manic didn't know what to say. How could they? Antoine certainly didn't. He sat there, unsure of what to do or even what to think. He had been given a hell of a choice. Almost surely kill his father and save everyone else, or almost certainly damn everyone else to certain death while keeping his father alive. Though seeing as he'd still be in a coma, could one even truly call that living? And it was then that something else popped into his brain.

"Doctor Quack. You said that if Doctor Eggman and his forces come here, they would surely murder every single Mobian they could find. Is that correct?"

"THAT IS AN ACCURATE ASSESSMENT," said Nicole.

"Then with that being the case, they would also surely murder my father as well. Is that not also an 'accurate assessment'? " Everyone's eyes went wide as though they'd been thrown for a loop. With everything that had been going on, it wasn't even something they had considered, but in hindsight, it made perfect sense. "If Eggman makes it to our location, there is no reason for him not to slaughter everyone in sight. And as much I would give anything not to say this, that would no doubt include my father. After all, what use would he have for him?"

Quack shook his head. He was bemused, but not surprised. "You're probably right."

Antoine's hands were shaking up a storm, and his eyes were starting to mist over like a fine spray, yet he did his best to keep himself as calm and collected as he could. "My father is dead either way. The only difference will be that if I do not make the choice to do it here and now, I will have sent so many others to die with him. And that would be disgracing his memory more than anything else I could imagine."

"So, does that mean…"

"It does. On my authority and honor as a Coolete, I give you permission to remove the tracker within my father's skull. I can only pray that he somehow survives. And that I have not just damned myself in the process."

Quack placed his arm on Antoine's shoulder. One look into his eyes was enough to tell Antoine he understood completely. He and Nicole then headed back into the Operating Room, and the former slammed the doors behind him.

"Ant'?" said Sonia. "You okay?"

"I am fine, thank you. I am fine. I am…" And as Antoine kneeled to the ground, sobbing onto the wooden floor, and as Cream and Sonia and Manic rushed to comfort him, all that was sure was that he was anything but fine.


"Bloody drongos!" Dingo began to shift and ooze, turning himself into a pool of slime and moved away like a stream of water. Bunnie slammed into the dirt like a meteor, not that there was much to slam.

"Whoo! That felt good! And dizzy! Ya know, maybe I should've done those tests first…" After having landed on her feet, Bunnie started to wonder how long she'd stay awake. She was staggering from right to left, and while she was managing to reorient herself, she still had to wonder if this had been such a good idea.

"Oh for the love of…" As Shortfuse began to wonder why he'd even bothered to look after Miss Nothing's Wrong With Me, like a skilled pilot, he started to look for a good place to land. And as he noticed Dingo leaving a trail of ooze as he crawled across the plains, he found it. He let out a few blasts of laser fire around Dingo to let him know where he stood, and then landed straight in his path. "Goin' somewhere?"

Dingo didn't even bother to recompose. He instead tried to keep crawling across the grassy fields, to try and get out of this rather dire predicament anyway he could.

This was a mistake.

A faint rumbling in the earth served as a prelude to the mayhem to come. Dingo could just barely hear it, and as his heart began to race, he knew what was coming. A pillar of earth then shot up out of the ground and bent and shifted, the top coming towards Dingo to flatten him into the paste. He turned himself into a non-Mobian cat, leaping out of the way before changing into a seagull and soaring to the sky as he tried to get out of dodge.

Another blue blast of energy then shot right over his left wing. A red laser over the right. And a stone spike from below. They all came after another, again and again, and as each attack came, Dingo became more and more exhausted by the second. "BLOODY BIKES!" At last, he turned himself back into his original form and fell to the ground like a rock. His nostrils were flaring and his eyes were ready to pop out of his skull, as though he had simply had-

"ENOUGH! What the hell is it with you hoons?!"

At this point, Shortfuse had had enough as well. Or at least of Dingo's accent. "'Hoons'? The hell is he sayin' now?"

"'Hooligans'," said Chirps. "Which," he said to Dingo, "I've got to admit, is kind of quaint coming from you. You losing your touch?"

"You shut your yap! And just when did you get so powerful anyway?!"

Chirps barely even had to say so much as a single syllable. He gestured to the grass and the plains around him, almost as if soaking it all in. "Look around you. That may sound like the first line of some bad children's TV show, but the fact is, we're in my element. And what I just did is only a fraction of what I'm capable of. You stick around, and maybe I'll REALLY get serious. You wanna chance that?"

"Damn. You ratbag!"

"Why, thank you! Now, if you don't mind, you wanna clear on out of here before we pound you into paste? Because I'm pretty sure the rest of your guys are busy with the rest of our guys, and aside from a few bruises, our guys are making mincemeat out of them. Because none of you knew just what you were really up against. So why don't you clear on out of here before I stick something right up your ass?"

Bunnie was shocked. She hadn't known Chirps all that well, but from what she'd seen of him, she never thought she had this in him. He was always making puns, cracking jokes, and making as much as an ass out of himself as he could. And so, for all intents and purposes, this was something new.

Dingo was nearly foaming at the mouth. Mind you, contrary to popular belief, foaming at the mouth wasn't something most people could do on command, but seeing as Dingo could do nearly anything on command, that wasn't very far-fetched. "You always were a right blighter. Fine then! I'm out of here! Besides, it isn't like I've got to do much of anything anyway. All Eggman needs to do is send enough reinforcements to make mincemeat of the lot you."

Shortfuse shot another blast. It grazed Dingo's cheek like a bullet, and if it weren't for Dingo's particular talents, he would've been smarting like hell. "Anything else you wanna add?"

"Strewth!" Dingo took a good look around him. To the west, there was Chirps. To the south, there was Shortfuse. To the north, there was Bunnie. And to the east, there was a fierce battle going on only so many yards away. And it wasn't one his side was winning. "Bloody hell. You win. For now. But this isn't the end of it! Bloody bikes." He then turned himself into a raven, and as he soared into the heavens, they knew he was right. Shortfuse raised his arm and fired another shot, but Dingo managed to evade it just barely. Though he still suffered from a singed feather or two.

"You got lucky," said Shortfuse, lamenting that he hadn't been able to down Dingo with one single blast.

"WE got lucky," said Chirps. He wiped beads of sweat from his brow, glistening under the autumn sun. "The only thing holding Dingo back is that he's got as much courage as a pack of hoagies. If he ever had half a brain, he could take us easy. And he still nearly took me."

Shortfuse couldn't help but be impressed. "Ya know, this is the first time I've ever seen you take thing things seriously. For you anyway. Makes a guy wonder."

"Then I guess I'll have to fix that. Either way, we've still got some cleanup to do."

"Right!" said Bunnie. Let's all go whoop some butt! And no lookin' back."

"You're gonna have to explain when you started zipping around as the Six Million Dollar Bunny."

"Come again?"

"You Wood Zone folks don't really get out much, do you? Anyway, let's get moving!" And so they did. Shortfuse jetted once more into the sky while Bunnie tried her to best keep herself airborne.

As for Chirps, he had the rare opportunity to do something extraordinary. Placing his hand on the ground, powerful vibrations rippled throughout his body and caused his jacket to flutter in the wind. A large mound of earth then rose up below him, lifting him high into the air. He concentrated as his eyes went steely, almost as if he saw something no-one else could. The mound then formed two small rocky manacles and fasted them around Chirp's legs before tearing through the landscape like a wild beast. The wind rushed past him, his comb flew in the wild breeze, and all Chirps could say was that he was, "Born to be wild, baby!"

Back in the thick of it, the battle wasn't going so well. For Eggman, that was. While Mina and co hadn't managed to trash each and every last bot, they were coming close, and it would only be a matter of time before they routed the lot of them. That said, some of the more specialised troops were giving them a run for their money.

In a more secluded area of the battlefield, Johnny and Sir Logik were still going at it. Johnny wasn't a match for Logik in terms of pure strength, but his new double-sided mace more than evened the odds. With his skill backing him up, he was a force to be reckoned with, and as their weapons clashed again and again, Logik knew it. In fact, he was ecstatic.

"Beautiful! Truly astonishing! I must admit, your skill with that weapon of yours is a sight to behold! Where did you learn to fight with such finesse, if I may ask?"

Johnny was standing a ways from Logik, his weapon at the ready, all set to tear him a new one. So as one might expect, being asked such a question in that particular situation took him a mite off-guard.

"We're in the middle of fighting for our lives, and you're wondering how I learned to kick your ass? Get your priorities straight!"

"Forgive me, but whenever I see such extraordinary skill as yours, I cannot help but observe it. Still, let us see how you fare with something a bit more out of your comfort zone, shall we?"

With one motion of his thumb, he pressed a button on his trident. Like a bolt from on high, it let out a blast of crackling electricity that would give Thunderbolt a run for her money. If Johnny had gone up against Sir Logik as far back as yesterday, he would have been screwed, but now, he had a few tricks up his sleeve. With one press of a button, his prayers were answered. A grey force-field popped up around Johnny, with the mace as the epicentre. The blast struck it with all the force of an explosion, and yet, nothing happened. The blast was dispersed, deflected away like a mighty waterfall splitting into two upon a large, dense rock before slowly tapering off. In short, it hadn't been what he was expecting.

Before Logik could form a substantial thought, Johnny decided to beat him at his own game. He pressed another button. The forcefield dissipated in an instant. Instead, he held out his staff like a magic wand, and out came a blast of energy that would make Bunnie envious. Logik produced his own forcefield in kind, but it barely blocked the blast. "Zounds!"

But Johnny wasn't done. Right after he fired the blast, he tightened his grip and pressed the third and final button. Like a mighty bird, he flew at Logik like a charging Eagle. He then began to batter Logik's forcefield, whacking it again and again, grunting until said grunts soon evolved into wild shouts and screams, and soon Logik was doing his best just to stay standing. With each blow, the field slowly began to dissipate little by little, until it finally fell. Like a mighty knight whose fortress had crumbled around him, Logik could scarcely believe it. "Good Gaea…"

With Logik momentarily finding any and all logic escaping him, Johnny pressed for the final blow, swinging his mace like a mighty axe and lobbing his head clean off his neck. Had Logik been human or his head not been repairable, Johnny wouldn't have even thought about going to such extremes, but that both of these were the case led to him having little to no qualms about going all in. It almost made him wonder what he'd be capable of if he started to listen to what Hershey and some of the others had been telling him. Almost.

Meanwhile, Sonic was having a field day. He was running circles around Thunderbolt and Grounder's blasts, the two of them carving a trail into the plains as they tried and failed to make Sonic the deadest hedgehog alive.

"Hey!" said Grounder. "Slow down, hedgehog! I gotta capture you if I want a chance at being promoted!"

"Promoted, 'schmoted!" said Thunderbolt. "All that matters is doing what Eggy-poo thinks best! And maybe then I finally get the attention from him that I deserve!"

"Oh, brother!" Sonic decided to cut the farce. He made a mad dash for Grounder, zipping and darting past nearly every blast until he was already halfway there.

Grounder started to panic like a scared child out of his depth. "Uh, he's getting closer! What do we do?!"

"Calm down!" Just then, as though lightning struck her brain, Thunderbolt had an epiphany. "That's it!" She started to fire another blast of electricity, but just as Sonic began pouring on the juice, she powered down straight away. She came right back on and changed the direction of her blast, putting it directly ahead of the blue blur himself. By the time Sonic got the memo, he was already being blasted off his feet and dazed by a surge of epic proportions.

"I GOT YOU! I GOT YOU!" And upon making this declaration, she promptly laughed like a Gaea-forsaken manic. Even Grounder had chills.

"Uh," said Grounder, "that's great and all, , but how you'd do it?"

"It's simple! Shoot where he's going to be! By the time he realizes what's up, there shouldn't be much else he can do about it! Now, shall we?"

"Uh, okay. If you say so. Just make sure I get to capture Sonic!"

"Whatever! He's coming to! It's do or die!"

"Well, I can't die. So I guess I'll be A-okay!"

Sonic quickly began to come to, and he started to wonder how that even happened. "Yeesh. What hit me?"

Another blast from Thunderbolt came, and another from Grounder. And another and another and another. One blast kept Sonic from going a certain way, while the other nearly toasted his hiney. Of course, his sheer speed still should have been enough to overcome it all. The problem was that there was not one blast, but two. With Thunderbolt leading the way, they were fired in so strategic a manner that he found himself being nearly sizzled at every turn, and it wasn't a prospect he relished. There had to have been a way to take the both of them out, to level the play field. And as he looked straight between Grounder and Thunderbolt, he seemed to finally have found a way.

He zipped straight ahead. Not toward the prospect of freedom, but rather to a large vacant space between Thunderbolt and Grounder. Big enough to run through and get out of there in one piece. He quickly zipped on over, and just as Thunderbolt and Grounder realized their mistakes, they fired full stop.

"Oh." Was all Thunderbolt could say. Next thing they knew, those two blasts had created a small explosion right in between the two of them, and it was enough to send the both of them blasting off to Kingdom Come.

Grounder careened straight into a tree, his thick neck bending until it resembled a battered twisting pipe. "Oh, lookie! All the pretty stars…"

Thunderbolt meanwhile had been blown straight out of the battle zone. She was only unconscious for the briefest of moments before she came to like a sleepy child, but when she did, the only reaction she could deem for the sight that lay before her was sheer and utter horror. Nearly all of the robots had been busted into smithereens, and the ones that weren't were soon on their way there. Logik had had his head lopped off, and Coconuts and Scratch had apparently knocked each other unconscious purely out of sheer dumb luck and stupidity. And while the heroes were undoubtedly battered and bruised, they were still standing.

This wasn't a simple failure. This wasn't even an unmitigated disaster. This was a fiasco. Most people knew of fiascos as folk tales told to others that made them feel more alive because they hadn't happened to them. But this was no folk tale. And whatever situation Thunderbolt was in, she was sitting knee deep in it. She reached into her nearest pocket and pulled out her phone. Beating down on the keypad like a madwoman, she tried to call her dearest Eggy-poo. He'd know what to do!

She hoped.