EYY! I put out two parts to different stories in one night! Ah well, I don't have much to say about why it took so long, I pretty much summarised that in my other update. Ah well, it was mostly that I was busy with other things.

And now onto The Reviewer's well, uh review, seeing as I can't comment back on it. Thanks for the compliments and for well, pointing out my horrible grammar at places. And for that bit about Sonic and MC dodges and stuff… looking abck I really have no idea what I was writing there, looking back. I'd say I was just trying to make Chief more powerful so he wasn't completely dwarfed by the feats of Tails or Sonic when he shows up later on. But in my own headcannon anyway, I've always thought of Sonic being fast, but not reacting fast, where as Chief's kinda the opposite?

I'm spending way too much time trying to justify myself, aren't I. I didn't know that you could post FF on spacebattles. Huh. I might do that in the future.

Anyway guys, R&R and thanks for all the favs and support and all.

Chapter 4:

Sally jumped back instinctively as the room came to life. She immediately ignited her other blade and shifted into a combat stance. She surveyed the room as several metal objects rose on their own power.

She examined the floor. There wasn't anything that pointed to pressure pads, so she hadn't stood on something.

"What did you do?" She asked angrily, turning back to the fat man behind her.

Eggman's eyebrows were furrowed; his head tilted slightly as he examined the room, mouth slightly agape. He seemed not to have heard her.

"Who said that?" He growled.

"I said th-" The princess began irritably, but he cut her off.

"Not you." He hissed. "Who said reclaimer?"

Sally frowned, confused. "No one said that."

"I have not detected any sounds like that, doctor." Nicole added.

The bald man frown and took another step into the room. Suddenly, his eyebrows raised above his googles.

"There it is again." He muttered. "Except this time, free me."

Sally had still heard nothing. She strained her ears, but heard nothing. Möbian ears general had a higher range of hearing than an Overlander's, so she should have heard anything that he did.

"You must be going insane, doctor." She replied.

He turned back to her, looking annoyed.

"I know what I hear-"

Free me.

Sally jumped and swept her gaze across the room. Nothing had changed. She'd heard the voice.

"You heard that, then, didn't you." Eggman laughed slightly, "I win. I was right."

"The voice seems to be emanating from the entire room." Nicole noted. "I cannot determine a source."

The only change Sally could see was the column at the centre of the room, which seemed to pulse in time with the voice.

Help me, reclaimer.

The voice was deep and melodic. Somewhat entrancing, Sally found.

"How do we free you?" She asked.

Place your hand upon the console.

She took a step forward towards the console.

No. Only the reclaimer can free me. That is the way my prison is designed.

She stopped and looked back at Eggman. He was staring down the blue ball bouncing above the console.

"You?" She asked.

"Me." He replied simply. "And nice try, however you are."

The voice was silent.

Sally was confused.

"What do you mean?" She asked.

"This whole station seems to have been built several hundreds of thousands from the nearest galaxy. What better place away from civilised life for a prison?" He answered, a slight grin breaking out across his face. "Perhaps another time I might have freed you, but I've got enough on my plate anyway. Last thing I want is to be stuck here during an interstellar prison break. Bad Luck for you."

The blue lights across the room suddenly darkened to red.

You will free me.

"Unlikely." Eggman snorted.

Sally began to retreat away from the console slowly, blades at the ready in the event something, anything, showed up with hostile intentions.

I was not offering you a choice. I was stating a fact.

"Atmospheric composition changing!" Nicole suddenly warned. "It's injecting some kind of gas into the air!"

Eggman grunted and turned back towards the entrance.

"No thanks." He announced, and took a step forwards.

Suddenly he froze; and his arms slacked. Facing away from her. He seemed like her fallen asleep.

Sally's own mind seemed to be failing; becoming more and more mushy and hazy.

"It's some kind of airborne mind control drug!" Nicole shouted.

Sally was almost too far gone at that point; but took a step forward and fell. The drug's effects took their toll on her system.

The mind control drug was a mix secreted by the blind wolves, a creature of the ark whom the forerunners had deemed worth saving. These creatures secreted a drug capable of controlling the mind of any human.

While Möbians shared some very similar internals with humans, they were different enough that Sally was saved the drug's more dangerous effects, however, she was still basically paralysed.

Good. Now free me.

Eggman spun on the spot. He stood straighter than she'd ever seen him, and he began to approach the console. She tried to stand; to do anything to stop him, but it was useless. She couldn't even get to her hands and knees.

"Nicole." She rasped sluggishly. "Can you do anything?"

"Negative, Princess."

Eggman's face was uncharacteristically blank. She could only watch as he approached the console and placed his palm on the top pad.

The room grew silent. The blue ball floating above the console disappeared suddenly.

Yes.

A rumbled filled the room. Next thing Sally knew, her head was cleared entirely. She quickly stood, for a second, she was disorientated, but it passed as soon as it came.

Freedom!

Eggman staggered away from the console. His raised the arm with his blaster on it and surveyed the room.

"What did you do to me!" He roared angrily.

"He made you free him." The Princess replied blatantly.

A panel opened on the roof, and without a second to spare, a small sphere-like object dropped from it. The thing was a mostly spherical object; however it had a yellow light attached to its forward face.

"Greetings." It announced. "This our first time meeting face to face. I am Tragic Solitude, monitor of Installation 00."

Eggman targeted it immediately.

"You're free now." He grunted. "Happy?"

"I was never imprisoned, reclaimer." Solitude replied.

His voice was much more high pitched in real life, and lacked its mysteriousness from earlier. "I merely needed you hand to free my prisoner."

"But... Couldn't you do that yourself?" Sally asked, confused.

"032 Mendicant Bias was imprisoned upon this installation with the highest security. The only way to release him was by releasing the security mechanisms imposed by my creators." He explained. "Only the touch of a reclaimer could do such."

"What do you intend to do now?" Nicole asked.

"That is quite simple, construct." Solitude replied. "I will use Bias to destroy all the reclaimers in the galaxy. I will crush the Foreunners legacy and take it myself. I will fire the Array and cleanse the galaxy, and then I will silence the galaxy and reshape life itself. I shall become a god."

"You're insane." Sally retorted, settling into a fighting stance.

"Insanity is relative. To me, this is, quite simply, ingenious. Ask your doctor here about it. He knows what I'm talking about." Solitude laughed, his form lowering itself to the floor and sweeping across it. "But first, I must cleanse this Installation. I will activate the prometheans and the retrievers and wipe this installation clean."

"I'll tell you one thing." Eggman snarled. "Only I get to destroy the world. No one else."

He opened fire with his wrist mounted blaster. Several Plasma rounds dashed against the monitor. They did no damage to the ancient machine. He drifted back towards his entrance hole.

"I will give you one last thing. An honourable death. You look like you like to fight. Enjoy." His last words were laced with venom.

He whizzed up into his hole and vanished. The hole sealed itself up immediately.

"Sally," Nicole warned. "We should leave, right now."

"I agree with that." Eggman announced, jogging across the room quickly.

Just as the group reached the frame of the entrance, there were four bright flashes from the other side of the chamber.

Sally turned.

"What the..." She began, but spotted four new figures. They were all metal bipeds, all of them made up of several small metallic components formed into a central body. Orange light glowed from their internals. They all wielded a long grey shaft.

"Those must be our 'assassins'" Eggman muttered, raising his blaster.

"We should hurry." Sally said. "Not fight."

"They can teleport, princess. They'll keep pace with us regardless. Better to defeat them here than deal with them later, where we have the element of surprise on our capabilities."

As much as she hated to admit it, Eggman was right. They'd have to fight them eventually.

The bipeds stepped forward in sync, all raising their shafts. Orange blades ignited from either end of them.

"What are those?" She asked Nicole.

"They seemed to be some kind of double ended spear, complete with a sharp end made up of what seems to be hard inhibited light. They would collide and hold against your blades." The AI replied.

Sally felt nervous at that. From what she'd grasped from when they were built, they were a structure of superheated plasma held together with a magnetic field generated by the ring attached to her wrist. They'd cut through anything, and if anything could hold against it, then it was extremely tough.

Nevertheless, she stepped forward, once again settling into a combat stance. Beside her, Eggman raised his blaster arm and took aim.

"Be careful, Sally," Nicole warned. "We don't know what these robots are capable of."

"I will." She whispered back.

They bipeds reached the halfway point of the room. Eggman opened fire. A single shot smashed into the closest biped. It was thrown backwards and hit the ground.

Some kind of armor, the same colour of their internals, flared around them, seemly protecting them from damage. The biped gave a snarl and rolled backwards onto its feet. Eggman fired another shot.

The small ball of plasma dashed against he same biped. It's shielding glowed more brightly.

"It appears to have some kind of protective energy shielding." Nicole noted.

The third shot hit home to a different result. The shielding completely failed; it seemed to almost explode outwards in orange squares as it did. The remains of the plasma dashed against the biped. It staggered backwards.

"Energy shielding down!" Nicole exclaimed.

They could be hurt then.

Eggman took aim. However, around this point, Sally realised that other bipeds were getting to close for comfort. Her turn to do something now.

She sprinted forward at the biped closest to her. It raised its shaft in a motion of preparing to bring it down in front of her. Out of the corner of her eye, Eggman's next shot sent the biped onto its back with a cry of protest.

She rolled to the side slightly, maintaining her trajectory while avoiding the downward strike. She extended her left arm, the blade dashed against the biped's leg.

Immediately, the force and the plasma broke the shields, and her blade ploughed through the leg. It nearly cut straight through, but glanced across the leg. The biped roared in anger and pain.

Sally didn't pause, however. As she stood from her roll, in the same movement, she swept her free hand through the back of the biped. The machine gave a cry and fell forward. Sally lunged onto its back and slammed both of her blades onto its back.

The biped shattered. Dozens upon dozens of little particles appeared in its place as the biped dissolved.

She rolled forwards and stood, she turned to face to the other biped, whom was staring her down.

She stood in a defensive stance.

"More of them!" Nicole called out, and several cracks could be heard from the other side of the room. Sally estimated that there were three or four more bipeds in the room with them now.

Great. She thought. Just great.

The biped attacked. She anticipated it to act like its brother before, but instead, this one went with an immediate forward strike. She parried the blade with her left arm and cut the blade of with a right handed strike.

Taking advantage of her momentum, she used her spin to add addition force to her left arm, which struck the biped's chest.

The machine roared and disintegrated.

Sally quickly took a breather and examined the chamber. There were two bipeds advancing on her, and the rest surrounded Eggman. He was holding one of their shafts, evidently holding them back with the weapon.

She blinked. She'd never thought of Eggman as much of a hand-to-hand fighter himself, but thinking about it, a lot of the times that they fought him, he was generally in some kind of robot or power suit.

And while they did enhance his strength and speed, you still needed to be able fight in he first place to make use of them. Perhaps Eggman had a great deal of hidden talents like such. She shuddered to think of what they were.

One of the bipeds made a charge on the bald man. He twisted and smacked the point of the way with his own. Spinning on its momentum, he drove the other end clean through the biped. The machine disintegrated.

The two remaining bipeds continued to circle him. Then, with unspoken unity, they converged. Eggman fired a blast at one, stunning in briefly, and moved to engage the other.

Sally quickly turned and engaged two approaching her. The first one thrust its spear. She sidestepped and slashed the shaft of it. She lunged with her other free blade and planted it in its chest.

As the biped disintegrated, Sally spotted the other out of the corner of the her eye.

"Sally, look out!" Nicole screamed.

The biped had its spear raised high over its head, aimed at her. There was no time to stop it as it began its stab.

But still she tried...

Suddenly, A plasma round dashed against the thing's face. It was thrown backwards and staggered. Sally twisted and cut the hands of the biped.

It snarled angrily and raised its wrists to slam against her. She lashed out in turn and cut it in half. The biped disintegrated.

She turned back to Eggman. Two bipeds approached him from either side. Somehow, he expertly sliced through the air and cut the first biped down. As it disintegrated into the orange particles, he spun the spear and slammed the rear end straight through the other biped. It fell backwards.

Evidently, Eggman had learned a thing of two from fighting Sonic for all those years. Admittedly, he wasn't as fast as he would have needed to be to actually be a danger to Sonic without a power suit or some kind of armor, but these bipeds weren't supersonic.

One biped remained. It's head darted across the room, examining the two and plotting its strategy. Sally once again set her knees in a defensive stance. Eggman raised his spear and threw. It fell short, but had the intended effect. It stepped backwards and then broke into particles and streamed across the room and into its dark recesses.

"Thanks." Sally said as her and Eggman regrouped at the entrance.

"They will be after us now." Nicole said. "But we have some time now that all of them were destroyed."

"Where do we go?" She asked.

"I'd say..." The fat man mused. "We should head to those three towers where those purple ships were headed. Their designs seems completely different, and thus they may shelter us, or at least assist us."

"Is that really our best plan?" Sally asked.

"Statistically, our best option would be to lie low, however, our chance of getting back to Möbius drops to virtually zero." Nicole informed them. "The doctor's option is the next best option."

They were now walking back up the set of caves that had led to the underground chamber. Sally became aware of how unintentionally fast Eggman was. A single stride of his required her to jog to keep up.

He probably wouldn't last as long when it came to long distance trekking, at least, hopefully.

"How far off are those buildings?" Eggman asked.

"Perhaps about fifty kilometers." Nicole responded.

"Hmm..." He grunted quietly.

They walked on in silence.

The door slid upwards.

The Master Chief immediately pushed forward, his assault rifle at the ready. He quickly surveyed the chamber, expecting brute resistance. He didn't spot any, and lowered his rifle.

He advanced. He spotted the remains of a destroyed sentinels to his left, but other than that, there was nothing else of interest worth seeing.

He heard something lightly enter the chamber behind him. A quick glance confirmed his suspicions. It was just the little fox-like alien that had been following him.

Normally, such a thing would have frustrated the Chief, as it would have essentially put him on escort duty, but the fox, or the Möbian, as he called himself, was fast and resourceful enough to both keep himself alive, and keep pace with the Spartan.

The Chief had some respect for anyone who could do that, regardless of species. Besides, the Möbian had a collection of tricks that while making no sense or bing physically impossible, he still did regardless, and they were effective against the Covenant. He could even fly using his two tails, somehow.

If he ever found- No. When he found Cortana, he would have to ask her the physics of that.

The Chief spotted a door further down the chamber, on the left side. He quickly approached, flattening himself against wall next to the door.

He made ready for a breaching movement. There could be anything one the other side of the door. He swept his hand out and laid it on the central pad of the door. It immediately spread open.

The Master Chief raised his fist with three fingers extended for to count down the time to breach. The Möbian spun his tails and launched over to the wall beside the Spartan.

Three.

Two.

One.

He burst off and spun. Quickly surveying the new room, or more accurately walkway, revealed no hostiles.

He glanced down into the pit to the left, revealing that it opened out into another chamber.

On the left side, the UNSC vehicles were clustered around the generation point of a Forerunner light bridge.

"Quickly, reclaimer!" Guilty Spark yelled, appearing from seeming nowhere. "Activate the light bridge so that your troops can cross!"

The Chief quickly surveyed the walkway, spotting a forerunner console with a glyph of some kind on it. He walked over, hosltering his rifle and placing his hand on the glyph. He made a closing gesture and it shifted to adjust to his instructions. Below him, the light bridge flared to life.

"Cool." He heard the Möbian whisper from beside him.

He hadn't even heard him approach. The Möbian's lack of armor definitely made him a stealthy presence, especially if he could sneak up on the Chief, whom had superhuman hearing.

The UNSC forces fired up their vehicles and moved to cross the bridge. He stood and watched for fifteen seconds or so, and then headed for the other door off the balcony.

This led him (with the Möbian following) through a set of chambers. Eventually they rendezvoused with the UNSC column at a set of doors outside the Forerunner structure, on the other side.

A sandy hill decended before them. There were several rocks strewn across it. Covenant vehicles hid amount at these. Perfect cover.

"Alright, first line, push forward!" Sargent Stacker yelled over the COM.

The Master Chief knew it was time to mount up, and moved to take control of a Scorpion tank.

However, something interrupted the convoy. This interuption came in the form of a huge scarab climbing over them.

Several marines yelled, one screamed; however, the scarab wasn't interested in them, or so it seemed. The massive walker climbed over the sandy rise to their right, and vanished over the other side.

"Scarab's gone!" One marine yelled.

"Worry about it later marines, take the first line!" Stacker growled.

"Aye, sir!" Came the response.

A marine allowed the Chief to take his tank.

"It's fine sir." He said. "I could barely drive that thing anyway. I mean, why are there six pedals if there are only four directions?" (I couldn't resist the RvB reference lol.)

The Chief took the lead. He sent the tank down a pathway of rocks, ambushing several Covenant soldiers and a couple of ghosts.

He lost sight of the Möbian, but he wasn't concerned by that; The Möbian was creative enough to assure the Spartan he'd be fine.

"First line, clear." Stacker Barked as the UNSC forces pushed through the first covenant blockade. "Second line, push forward!"

The UNSC forces engaged the second blockade. The Chief's Scorpion scored a direct hit on the turret of a wraith, and the tank exploded in a bright blue flash.

He shifted the tank into the next gear and accelerated down the slope. A ghost fired a few shots at the tank, to which the Chief responded to with a tank shell. A thunderous explosion rent apart the purple vehicle.

A handful of brutes were taking shelter under a bubble shield. The sphere was covered in a hexagonal design. The shields would take anything he throw at it, but he could bypass it by walking through it. He didn't really. Understand how it blocked a tank shell but couldn't stop a person, but it wasn't has job to question.

A fuel rod cannon shot tore through the air and smashed home against the turret of the Scorpion. The Spartan growled as he attempted to reverse out of the Brute's line of fire, but took another round that destroyed his forward right track.

The Master Chief exhaled loudly; the scorpion was toast, and he had to bail. He twisted in the cockpit and hit the emergency release for the cockpit hatch.

The hatch exploded off and the Spartan lunged out almost immediately. Plasma and spoke whizzed through the air. A few impacted off his shields, draining them by a quarter.

He slid and took cover behind the rock. His scorpion exploded in a ball of fire. Almost immediately, the UNSC force swept into the plain. The Brutes shield failed, and they were torn apart by gauss and tank fire. The Covenant resistance was shattered. A few grunts ran around the central tower, screaming.

The Möbian appeared from seeming nowhere and took cover behind the same rock as the chief.

"Do you hear that?" He suddenly asked.

The Spartan turned, surprised. He strained his ears for a few seconds.

He heard nothing outside the gunfire of the battle below.

"It w-" He began.

Thud.

He heard it; a faint impact somewhere in the distance.

"Scarab's back!" A marine screamed; "And this time it means business!"

The huge four legged walker climbed over the building to the right and dropped down at the dead center of the valley.

"Bravo, Flank and cover!" Stacker barked over the COM. "I want everybody supporting the chief on this one he'll take it down!"

The walker's armor was hit by fire from the UNSC vehicles; and a handful of warthogs engaged the Brute vehicles around the scarab. The walker staggered about, it's face cannon opening up, smashing one of the vehicles aside.

"Got a plan?" The Möbian asked from beside the Spartan.

He said nothing, but nodded briefly; there was a large Foreunner structure right before the scarab; In fact, it was taking shelter from the UNSC tanks there. Only its main turret was elevated above the platform.

He raised a hand and gestured forward, then took off. Around that time, two ghosts powered down the slope to the right and engaged the warthogs. More plasma whizzed through the air. The Chief lunged forward and managed to make it inside the structure without injury. Evidently the Möbian hadn't followed him in.

Ah well. Probably was for the better.

"Now what?" The kitsune asked as he appeared beside the Spartan.

He turned, surprised, but didn't say anything. He drew his BR and gestured to head up to the top of the structure. He took the exit on the far side from the slope entrance and headed around that way.

Another sequence of Scorpion tanks fired, and rounds screamed overhead. Explosions from the detonations rumbled. The Scarab returned fire with it's topside plasma cannon. The rounds sliced through the air, but the scorpions moved out of the way as the rounds melted through the sand. The Chief paused and looked behind him as the Möbian streamed by quickly, riding on the air with his tails.

The Spartan paused to ponder it, before deciding now wasn't the time. As he turned back, a ghost peeled about the corner and opened fire at him. He immediately dove to the side and scrambled for the top of the structure to hide over the edge of the slope.

He didn't need to though, as a tank hit the ghost dead center instead, shattering the ghost apart. The scarab's upper turret locked onto the two, but they were both fast enough to evade the plasma projectiles as they came.

Without a word, the Spartan sprinted forward towards the vehicle. It attempted to fire, but another salvo of tank shells hit home, breaking the turret apart. The Spartan reached the edge of the platform and launched himself through the air. Against all odds, he hit home, landing on one of the elevated platforms directly beside the main cannon of the scarab.

He immediately drew his battle rifle again and charged up the slope. He reached the top and truned back towards where a collection of Brutes were standing, a few having watched him jump across. However, they quickly became more interested in the Möbian as he launched across the gap, hitting hard against a brute. The fox had at some point curled into an almost ball-like form, which knocked the brute's armor off and threw him down to the floor in front of the Spartan.

The Supersoldier fired a burst into the fallen alien to keep him down, and then his motion tracker pinged a contact advancing from behind. The Spartan turned and ducked low to the ground as he did so. The beast tripped over the Spartan's low form and immediately hit the deck. The Spartan turned back to spare the Möbian a glance, but he seemed to be doing abosolutely fine, jumping up and curling into the ball he had before to impact against a brute advancing on him, the alien was thrown backwards and tripped off the scarab.

The Spartan sprinted off towards the end of the scarab, making it there in just a second, he spun as he did and opened fire on the core. The shots hit home in sequence, breaking the shield. The remainder of shots hit home against the worms that made up the inner workings of the scarab, though seemed to fail to make any damage.

An explosion rumbled through the tank, and the rear plating facing the core fell away under the bombardment of the scorpions. The Spartan looked out the back, before drawing his last frag grenade. Pulling the pin, he jammed it into the scarab's worm connections, before turning and springing out of the core room and jumping off the walker.

Upon him hitting the ground, the grenade detonated loudly. The huge walker seemed to groan as it began to pulse with some kind of weird siren. Plasma vented from several openings. It was seconds away from detonation. He spared a second to glance back up at the walker, and spotted the Möbian hover above it, looking somewhat confused. He spotted the Spartan and looked and him quizzically.

The Spartan gestured a "come here" motion. The Möbian obeyed, swooping down from the walker. The Chief took off to take cover behind the forerunner structure a short distance away. He heard a rapid spinning noise as the Möbian followed him in.

"What did you mean by that?" He asked, a second before the scarab detonated.

A blinding white flash lit up the valley. The Spartan looked back out a second afterwards to see fragments of debris beginning to fall. The Möbian rubbed his eyes off to the side, evidently having being temporarily blinded by the scarab's explosion.

A shadow fell across the valley for a brief second, and the Spartan looked up towards the sky. The huge Shadow of Intent swept down from space, slowing as it approached the tower to the right.

"Not bad, Spartan!" Called the shipmaster. "I saw that explosion from orbit! Truth's fleet lies in ruins. Find where the liar hides… So I may place my foot between his rump!"

The Möbian gasped as he came out and looked up to see the massive carrier slowly descending towards the tower in the distance.

"We'll know soon enough, Shipmaster." Keyes replied coolly over the COM.

"Infantry on the Spire." Johnson called over the COM. "Mop 'em up!"

A pelican swept into the valley and rained down a collection missiles upon the tower to clear out the tower. A hail of Scorpion shots hit the lower levels, clearing them out too.

"What now?" The Möbian asked from beside him.

The Spartan looked down for a second, before raising his battle rifle and adavancing on the spire.

"We still have work to do." He said.