The dust had only begun to settle over the hillside of wreckage when it was knocked up again, chunks of wall plating spinning and pushed loose as the air was sullied once more with grimy particles. The source of the disturbance was a hand that had broken through the metal soil, followed shortly by a bald head and fat body. The Doctor coughed and took in a few gasps of the filthy oxygen, craning his neck as he heaved on the yoke of his mecha, the Egg Walker kicking free as well with every thrust of its legs.
Before long, the metal feet were restored to their dominant relationship with the floor, Eggman still shaking the cobwebs from his genius brain. Behind the protective lens of his glasses, Ivo's eyes scanned the room and surveyed the damage. It was obvious now – the ceiling had indeed caved in, mostly in the straight line where Shadow's chaos spears had struck. He'd been on the far side of the fault line with the black hedgehog, while the Cyclone and Rouge had been along the other. The ultimate life form had a faster reaction time though, and might have very well warped away from the area of collapse.
That left two options: Either they were buried alive, on the other side of the collapsed room, or some combination of the two. He guessed toward the latter, but the great Eggman had better things to do than dig through wreckage to confirm it. Besides, if they were still both alive and buried, they'd dig themselves out on their own… Probably.
The Doctor stared at the wall of debris for a few more seconds before muttering something indecipherable under his breath, tapping a green button on his main monitor between and behind the control yoke. Static buzzed across the screen for half a second, resolving into a map he'd downloaded from the first console they'd found aboard the ARK. He traced his finger along the tiny passageways again, quickly mapping another route that would take him to the central control room.
Satisfied with the corrected course, Eggman grabbed the controls and coaxed his mecha down the hill of rubble. The Egg Walker hopped and jogged in concert, and was soon heading on the move again down another series of corridors, its pilot not even sparing a backwards glance.
Unfortunately for the self-proclaimed genius, his ego was soon once again demanding something to talk to. It was his curse, sadly; Ivo was such a brilliant and talented conversationalist that letting the benefit of his company go to waste was just a crime. That, and the fact the Empire of Eggman kept being formed because of the intervention of animals… Regardless, he rectified it by doing what he always did at times like this: share his loquacity with himself.
"So," he said aloud and to nobody in particular, the Egg Walker continuing to trudge along through the otherwise silent halls, "What do we know so far?"
"Grandfather is involved through proxy," he answered himself, "or at least of interest to whomever else is aboard. And they are also quite clearly not wanting company, if Artificial Chaos and the GUN bots are any indication."
"But that's still vague," responded Ivo. "Let's see if we can narrow down the suspect list. We know that it is not Sonic or his pesky friends. And Tails is the probably the only one in that lot with the technological skill necessary anyway… Who else am I enemies with?"
"…Nobody in this world." said Eggman.
"Damn," he answered. "Well it could have been the presidential office or G.U.N. back on Earth, but they don't have the moxie for it either."
"So that means…" Ivo started.
"…It's probably not anyone that I know." Eggman finished.
An explosion from somewhere up ahead snapped the Doctor out of this obviously not monologue, causing him to jolt the controls before rushing up to find the source. After passing through two storage rooms, the Egg Walker quickly slowed down. Smoke tinted crimson by the lighting was billowing out from the next set of doors, with Tails, a dirty wreck of a kitsune, coughing and leaning on an iron crate to the side of it.
Ivo called out his fellow, but of course lesser, genius's name, the kitsune's head snapping up in response. "Eggman!" he cried, limping over to the Doctor. "Hurry! You've got to help them!"
"What?" said the Robotnik, raising a hairless brow. "Why- What's going on? Where's Shadow, or Rouge, or the Cyclone or even your girlfriend? And what's with all the smoke?"
"Artificial Chaos…" said the kitsune, finally making it over to the Egg Walker, "Ambushed us. Shadow's already gotten knocked out and the Cyclone is trashed. Rouge is fighting it all alone in there! You've got to help! You… You've got to save them!"
Eggman snorted. "Fine," he said, "fine, fine, I'll go. Just don't start thinking of it as a favor. I'm the bad guy, remember?"
The Doctor let out his Santa Claus evil laugh, rushing the Egg Walker into the fog. Behind him, the kitsune slowly lowered the hand he had been leaning on, standing straight up without even a flinch and watching with frosted calculation as the mecha disappeared into the smoke. Eggman may have been too caught up in the moment to notice, but the lack of both wound and bandage on the right tail of the yellow fox told all too well that something was very much off about this scenario…
Heedless to peril, Ivo continued to rush through and past the veil of thick, black air for quite a while before he started to slow down, puzzled. Where was the action promised by Tails? After another two rooms, he stopped completely. Hell, where was anything? But this second guessing had come already too late; the double-layered door behind him sealing with a hiss and displaying as locked with a red dash mark splashed across the octagonal monitor.
Reaching up to scratch his head in confusion, the Doctor stopped dead as the ground beneath the Egg Walker trembled. He just as quickly snapped back into action, sending the mecha dashing forward, coming about moments before the iron floor was wrenched apart. An enormous worm-like creature tore up through the metal earth, flesh of dark rock and violet lava. It had no head, but the top of the monster instead split into three twitching mandibles.
It shrieked; a long, thunderous roar that pounded around the room and grated even on Eggman's ears. Then the beast reared back and vomited a spiked, purple rock from its maw that bounced right at the Doctor. The mecha jumped and engaged its jet engine in attempt to fly over the rolling boulder, but directly beneath the Egg Walker it detonated in an explosion of compressed gas.
Ivo barely got the his creation landed, hopping down on one metal foot before getting back into stride. A laser pointed out from somewhere on the rust-coloured armor, painting the worm before a green ball of light burst out from the energy cannon over Eggman's shoulder. The projectile immediately homed it, blowing off one of the monster's mandibles in a small shower of hot, violet fluid. The beast shrieked again, the self-proclaimed genius responding with gunfire from his cannon, peppering the creature with rapid fire until it blew apart in a mess of magma and rock.
Giggling madly, the Doctor rubbed his hands together as he turned around and came nearly face-to-face with a pair of enormous dogs with elongated teeth and heads, both made out of the same material as the serpentine monster he'd just reduced to a pulp. Ivo paused for half a second, surprised, before reacting a hair too slow. The left one opened its jaws, and fired a laser of all things, the orange beam burning into the Egg Walker's armor at point-blank range.
Then the mecha jumped forward… And landed right on top of the Stalker, turning it into a resemblance of its snake-like cousin. The one on the right got a taste of a boxing glove, Ivo turning his creation and causing the weighted fist to spring out of a covered compartment on the front of the mecha upon an extending arm and sock the beast in the jaw. It flew back a good ten feet, twitching for a few seconds until another green energy projectile impacted right into the creature's face.
"And the crowd goes wild!" shouted Eggman, waving his arms in the air and promptly withdrawing them when a crystal bird swooped just over him, its spiked tail missing his scalp by half a foot. The balding genius looked up, his eyes dilating upon witnessing the ceiling covered with the Takers.
All at once, they lit up, burning violet as flames sprang up on crystalline wings. The tiny phoenixes then descended like a carpet, a tide of purple glass descending upon the Doctor. Ivo 's laser splashed out across the horde, his blaster glowing like a sun as emerald fire streamed forth and detonating in blasts of indigo light from the twin energy sources.
He did some damage, but had yet to stem the crystal minions. As the Egg Walker actually began to withdraw against its opponents, the Takers began releasing blasts like black holes, sucking in the projectiles Eggman was throwing at them while he only just managed to continue to dodge the attacks.
Taking a strong left and going into a U-turn, the Doctor fired a flanking barrage from both his weapons, the combined assault shredding a massive number of the strange stringer-birds, the rest scattering as he continued to pick them off as they fled for vents and cover.
"Anyone else?!" yelled Eggman, somehow panting and sweating despite the fact he'd been sitting in a cockpit the whole fight. His challenge, unfortunately, was answered: the floor in the center of the wide room was rent open, shrapnel flying out in enormous amounts that made the worm he'd fought look like a mouse. From the center, an enormous form rose, all violet lava and obsidian rock; a humanoid seemingly wrought from hell itself.
Ivo's jaw dropped a good three inches before he slammed the oversized maw shut, grabbing the yoke of the Egg Walker again. One of these days, he really was going to need cut back on the ego; tempting fate was going to be the death of him. Pushing the mecha into a sprint, his right-mounted cannon started spewing out fire that did…
Nothing?
Before he could rectify his attack, the Titan reared back in a silent proclamation of fury, then slammed its massive fists down with incredible force. The shockwave caused the Egg Walker to trip and fall over, Eggman spinning out of his pilot chair in a daze. Staring up a hulking lava monster rearing back again can get you moving really quite quickly, however, adrenaline causing the Doctor to rush back to his mecha and get it upright in record time considering his weight.
As Ivo turned back to face his foe, it reared up again, this time its gigantic, purple veined hand calling a huge boulder of magma from seemingly nowhere. Before he could get out of the way, it swung the rock like a bowling ball, Eggman only blowing it apart a yard before impact. The explosion of heated air blew the mecha back again, the Doctor at least managing to stay in his chair this time.
Above, more problems came in the shrieks of the returning crystalline birds, the Robotnik's left eye twitching from frustration and anger now. His hand came down like a mallet on a control lever to the right, the scorched front half of his rust-red armor detaching and clanging off. It seems he hadn't forgone some of his former arsenal after all – his fingers clicking in a targeting code as his laser once again painted the annoyance that was the Takers.
With the pull of a trigger, the air around the Egg Walker exploded with a venerable arsenal of projectiles. Green Lights streamed away from the Energy cannon, an array of missiles streaking from the formerly covered racks. Detonations followed them; explosions of green, yellow, and blue fire, shards of violet and black raining all over the room.
Yet still, as the smoke cleared, the Titan stood. What was this thing?! It was harder to kill than Sonic! The Doctor shook his fists in composureless rage, slapping the front of the Egg Walker like an upset child. As the monster lifted it bloated hand to summon another soccer ball from hell, however, a glint of bright violet light caught Ivo's eye. There, in the retracted area where a head and neck should have been, a small portion of obsidian had pulled back like a lid to reveal the monster's core as it prepared its attack.
Seizing the opportunity, a single missile streaked out and crashed into the weak point, the creature's hand falling limp as it swayed, stunned. Chortling in his trademark laugh, more hysteric than ever, Eggman rushed his mecha forward, unloading all three weapon sets on the exposed portion. Stopping just in front of the wounded monster, he pummeled its legs with rounds from his volkan cannon until the rocky flesh finally chipped away.
"TIIIIM-" started Ivo, silenced promptly when the entire Titan swayed a last time and collapsed atop him. Dust sprayed out from the fall of the giant, and for a few seconds, silence returned to the room that had been so long quiet before. Then came the muffled sounds of exertion, followed by a hand reaching out from under the lava-beast's corpse, and then another, and then a head. Pulling out his upper torso before taking a moment to catch his breath, the Doctor suddenly stopped and then slowly bared his square teeth.
"I'm going to KILL that fox," he swore.