The next morning and afternoon passed relatively without incident. Most of the day had been spend finishing up the trail that the rhinos had left, before once again resuming the trek through the trees and wild brush they had come to be quite familiar with. They only ever stopped to grab a mid-day snack of local fruit, as to preserve their remaining food stores.
Just as daylight began to fade, however, they finally approached a clearing that came seemingly out of nowhere. It was large and circular, with trees chopped down at very odd angles. Jack walked over to inspect the trees as Marbles noticed a small, orange creature curled up in the center. "Hey, little guy! Are you hurt?" She called out, approaching it.
Jack felt the edge of one of the trees. The cut was clean, too clean for a random animal to have been the culprit. Something had set this up...
Raccoon growled as he sensed something in the trees ahead. Cyber raised her Wispon as she saw it too. Jack turned to Marbles as she knelt down to inspect the fallen creature, only for the KiKi to jump up and fully reveal itself, startling her and making her fall into a sitting position. Realizing what was about to happen, Jack quickly leapt and rolled as he grabbed Marbles, hurtling himself and her out of the way as the creature they had been hunting attempted to clamp its jaw around the young, marbled cat.
Looking up, the group watched as the creature revealed itself in its full glory: A gigantic, mechanical snake. Its body was red, with a white underbelly that matched well with the Eggman symbol on its forehead. Its sharp, silver teeth looked ready to destroy anyone who got in its way, and the gaze of its orange eyes was as fiery as the exhaust coming out of its throat.
"HA! I KNEW it was a snake!" Marbles said, triumphantly pointing. "Fair enough. Now RUN!" Jack shouted as the four began evading the behemoth behind them. The trees provided little protection to the speed and pure destructive force the EggConda held, and once it had charged its fire breath enough, it created a wall of flame to divert them back towards the clearing where it could more easily pick them off.
"-We're getting nowhere like this!-" Cyber shouted to Jack. "I know. We need to try Maneuver 9 on a MASSIVE scale!" He shouted back, attaching a grapnel launcher from his belt onto his wrist. Cyber looked to Raccoon, who nodded. It was their best bet. The two quickly lined up behind Jack and joined hands. In turn, he did a backflip and landed on their combined hands, the enhanced strength of the two launching him high into the air. Then, using the grapnel launcher, he began to swing around the snake in a giant loop, wrapping it in the strong line and rendering it temporarily immobile. Then, he quickly grappled up towards the head as he activated his energy sword, ready to strike the killing blow...But it managed to get JUST loose enough to maneuver its head towards Jack, catching him by surprise as it swallowed him whole. His energy blade fell to the ground, its power wasted.
"!" Cyber screamed.
"JA!" Raccoon cried out in shock.
Marbles, however, quickly dove into action, climbing the remains of the line to get on top of its head and slamming her fist on it repeatably. "HEY! You spit that mean man out! He's probably too salty for you anyway!"
Unmoved by Marbles' statement, the EggConda merely swung its head and flung the cat into the air, getting ready to swallow her as it had with Jack. Marbles grinned as she worked with the dive as if she was going into a pool of relaxing water, entering the belly of the beast with pride.