"Well, this isn't good," remarked Sonic, rather unnecessarily. Knuckles growled and put up his fists. In an enclosed space, and heavily outnumbered, they were in for a rough time—but they were ready. Patiently they stood, waiting for the enemy to make the first move. Then a metallic blur suddenly broke from the pack and charged at Sonic, raising a pickaxe. A smashing of metal, the robot lay in pieces on the floor—and the fight was on.
"Gerroutta my way!" roared Knuckles, springing headlong into the fray and mowing down swathes of robots with each swing of his fists. He also demolished any bus seats that happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, but collateral damage wasn't really high on the team's list of worries just then.
Sonic had just been grabbed from behind and hoisted into the air by a robot. Kicking furiously, he struggled to squirm free, but the robot's grip was tight. Never at a loss, Sonic swung his feet back and braced them against the robot's chest. Then, pushing off as hard as he could, he flipped himself upside-down and kicked the robot in the head, knocking it off cleanly. The disabled 'bot's grip loosened at once, and Sonic fell headfirst. Tumbling lightly, he rolled back onto his feet and dove at the next opponent.
Meanwhile, Tails was surrounded by a good half-dozen robots, all closing in menacingly with sharp mining implements. The little fox seemed to cower, waiting for the mass of steel to pile upon him—then at the last second, when the robots were practically on him, he sprang into the air and powered up his tails. With a scream of slicing metal, the robots hit the floor, one after another.
"Seven in one shot!" whooped Tails, pumping his fist above his head in exuberance. The moment of lapsed focus nearly got him clobbered by another 'bot, but Knuckles swung in at the last second and punched the attacker all the way to the front of the bus.
"Not a bad move, squirt, but stay focused!" he shouted above the noise of combat.
"Right, right," said Tails, reddening and returning hastily to the brawl.
"Heads up, fellas!" Sonic hollered from the back. Jumping up onto the backseat of the bus, he tumbled into a spindash, launched suddenly into the air, and ricocheted off the ceiling. Hitting a robot on the way down, he glanced off and struck a wall. Soon he was pinballing all over the bus, leaving dents in the walls and ceiling, smashing windows as well as robots, and forcing Knuckles and Tails to dive for cover.
When at last Sonic's spindash ran out of steam, he gave one final bounce off the floor and landed neatly on his feet, looking around for more 'bots to smash—only to find there were none. The interior of the bus was a wreck: bolts and shards of broken windows were sprinkled all over a thick layer of exploded 'bots, demolished bus seats, and dropped pickaxes, all of which in turn rested on a carpet of discarded raincoats.
"Guys?" called Sonic, looking around. "Guys, where'd ya go?"
One of the overturned bus seats heaved, and a grumbling Knuckles clambered out from underneath it. Tails slipped out from under another, twitching fragments of safety glass from his fluffy tails.
"You could at least give us a warning," scowled Knuckles. Evidently he was annoyed that he hadn't gotten a bigger piece of the action before Sonic cleaned up the opposition.
"Hey, I said 'heads up'!" protested Sonic. He looked around at the wreckage again. "You know, I think we'd better get going. The old Egghead might have security sensors on his buses, and either way the next busload is bound to come and find out about this eventually." Picking his way to the door, he began tugging aside various mangled pieces of metal that were piled up against it. Knuckles watched his efforts for a moment, then lost patience.
"Move aside, pipsqueak," he grunted, and heaved away the entire heap of metal in one go.
"There, Knucklehead, what would we do withoutcha?" grinned Sonic with a grand sweep of his hand.
"Don't give me that," Knuckles retorted grumpily, but gave a somewhat mollified smirk all the same.
"Didja see me get those robots all at once?" asked Tails hopefully, as Knuckles got to work forcing open the bus's doors.
Sonic scruffed up Tails' hair proudly. "Oh, I saw it all right. Good job little buddy, seven in one go! New record, isn't it?"
"Uh-huh," said Tails, beaming. "What's your record, Sonic?"
"Ahh—trade secret," laughed Sonic. Actually his record was something like thirty-eight in one spindash, but he didn't want to say that and ruin Tails' moment. The kid was learning yet—his thirty-eight would come someday.
"So, I guess the rumors were true, huh?" remarked Knuckles, finally prying his mittened hands between the bus's doors and hopping outside into the now-drizzling rain. "Eggman really is up to something in here."
"He must be after something in the mines," agreed Tails. "Look at those robots. They were all carrying pickaxes, and they weren't designed for battle at all. They didn't even have any built-in weapons! Eggman isn't trying a forceful takeover, he's digging for something."
"Time to talk to the man himself," said Sonic grimly.
They set out to find Eggman, peering around themselves at the strange scenery. Nearby, an enormous wall of stone again towered into the sky—but this time its curve was concave, because they were inside the volcano's crater. If you followed its curve to the left or the right, it eventually trailed off into the distance, becoming murky through the hazy rainfall. Far, far off, a good mile or two, the wall on the opposite side of the crater occasionally peeked darkly through the mist. Above them the sky was still gray and weepy, and below them the ground was moist and springy, smelling strongly of rich wet earth and coated with a thick mat of grass.
"The nature preserve must be that way," said Tails, pointing at a looming mass of jungly green. "And the mines must be that way," pointing towards a distant clanking and roaring.
Finding Eggman wasn't hard. An enormous tent was set up near the mine compound, its drab canvas color almost matching the drab biege of the trailers and buildings—although the giant bright-red Eggman logo on the side kind of spoiled the effect.
Sonic nodded to the others and led them softly around to the back of the tent. Feeling along the bottom edge of the canvas, he found an area where the it was loosely fastened and pried it up gently. Then, drawing a deep breath, he lifted up the canvas and slipped through—
"Hello there, Sonic."
—Apparently, right under Eggman's nose.
Sure enough, when Sonic's head jerked up, he found himself looking straight up into Eggman's bespectacled eyes. The hedgehog's teeth bared, as he rose stiffly to his feet, fists clenched, shoulders drawn up in preparation to fight.
"You can stop bristling," said Eggman almost boredly. And tell your little friends—" Tails, caught half-in and half-out of the canvas gap, gave a little yelp of startlement "—that they might as well come in too."
Sonic only snarled again, and motioned for Tails to back out of the tent to safety instead. Stubbornly, Tails shimmied inside anyway, and Knuckles slipped in after him. The three of them stood and glared at Eggman silently for a moment. Dr. Eggman himself was settled comfortably back in a large office chair, currently swiveled away from a large desk bestrewn with papers. A greasy-looking cup of coffee was leaving a dark ring on a sheet of graphing paper. Silently the evil genius surveyed the intruders, stroking one side of his mustache between his fingertips.
"Well?" he said at length. "What do you want? Come to have yourselves a little thrill, ganging up on an unarmed old man? Oh yes, I'm unarmed," he scoffed, catching Sonic's disbelieving look. "Unarmed and completely defenseless. Unless you count him." He gestured disparagingly over towards Bokkun, who was perched on a packing crate nearby scarfing a candy bar and watching something on one of his TVs. Apparently, there was some way of preventing the devices from exploding.
"Don't play innocent with us, Eggman," snapped Sonic, stepping forward. "We know you're up to something!"
"Do you?" Eggman leered amusedly. "Then what exactly am I up to?"
"I didn't say we knew what," growled Sonic, momentarily thrown. "But whatever it is, it's no good. Did you seriously think we wouldn't catch on to you?"
"Listen, hedgehog," grunted Eggman, turning back to his desk and rummaging among the papers. "Genius or no, I can't make something out of nothing. Manufacturing robots takes up a lot of resources, a lot of raw metal, and it's not exactly cost-efficient either. I happen to go through robots rather quickly—mostly thanks to you and your little friends, I might add—" he gave them a dirty look "—and I often need to purchase more bulk metal and electronic equipment. This mine, through a contract agreeable to both its owner and myself, is my means of obtaining enough capital and assets to fund my—hrm, projects." He glanced up, and appeared unimpressed when he saw that only Tails didn't look utterly confused.
"It's a diamond mine," he said flatly. "I earn money from it."
"Seriously?" Sonic snorted, recovering from his brief confusion. "You're just sitting here innocently diamond mining?"
"More or less, yes," shrugged Eggman. "There are also metallic lodes mixed in with the diamond deposits, which provide some of the raw metal I use. Mostly though, I use my share of the diamonds from this mine to finance my work. It's all strictly legal, my pestilential blue friend."
"Oh, suuuure," scoffed Sonic. "How many times have you done something that looked totally legal, but was really an evil plot? Let me see now." He began to count exaggeratedly on his fingers. "Eggman's Interstellar Amusement Park, Eggman's Day-Glo Sun-Light thingymajigs, Eggman's Fake-Team-Chaotix-Client, Eggman's Warm-Weather Suntan Balm—"
"I didn't ask for the Broadway routine!" interrupted Eggman annoyedly, waving at Sonic as if he was a particularly large mosquito. "Cut the theatrics, rodent, I'm a busy man. Go talk to the mine foreman, Sam, and if he doesn't tell you it's all perfectly legal, you can come back and lay this place to flinders if you so choose."
Sonic and his friends looked at each other dubiously.
"All right," said Sonic at last, his tone still belligerent. "We'll ask him. And we'll keep you to your word, Egghead, so don't try anything funny!"
"Get out of here, before I act upon my urge to destroy you," grunted Eggman. Slowly, never taking their eyes off the Doctor and his messenger robo, Team Sonic backed out through the front flap of the tent.
Once outside, they headed straight for the mine. Unlike most mines, which dig downwards, this one dug horizontally into the wall of the volcano. The gaping maw of a tunnel split through the rock, lit dimly inside by electric work lights. A large generator roared just outside, powering the lights, and an occasional cart full of rubble trundled out on a set of tracks, bumping to a halt against a battered pair of buffers. Nearby, a weather-worn man with a clipboard stood by the approaching carts, counting and examining them. Sonic trotted over.
"Hi mister, are you Sam?"
"Yup." The man looked up from his clipboard and peered at Sonic, Knuckles, and Tails dubiously, rain dripping from the brim of his hard hat. "What in the world are you, and who let you in here?"
"We got permits from Riley," said Tails boldly, stepping up and proferring the bus permits. Sam studied them for a while, then looked the Mobians up and down again.
"And what exactly are you here for, then?"
This time, Knuckles spoke up.
"We're here for research," he said smoothly, his sixteen-year-old voice adding a very convincing ring to the statement. "We're part of an environmental protection society, and we were planning to study the Brassoons in the wild here."
Tails winced and mouthed "Brassica," but luckily refrained from correcting Knuckles out loud.
"The nature preserve is that way," said Sam wearily, pointing with one arm while already looking back to his clipboard.
"It's not about that!" persisted Knuckles. "We couldn't help but notice the Eggman logo on that tent over there, and we got concerned. Eggman's plots are famous for causing huge environmental damage! Are you sure it's a good idea letting him camp here, where he might upset the delicate balance of nature with his scheming?"
Sonic and Tails were trying very hard not to stare at Knuckles with their mouths open now. Who'd have thought the old Knucklehead could come up with such a slick and convincing fib? It didn't seem to suit his bluntly honest personality. But then again—he'd seen what Eggman could do to his beloved Angel Island. Environmental damage was probably high on his list of "Top 10 Reasons to Hate Eggman."
Meanwhile, Sam was looking at Knuckles as if he were a whiny two-year-old.
"Look, kiddo," he grunted impatiently. "The mine isn't causing any environmental damage, y'hear? We run strictly by government protection standards."
"It's not the mine, it's him," said Knuckles, adopting a similar tone of resigned explanation to a toddler. "Are you just going to let him plot something dangerous, right on your land?"
"He's not plotting, all right?" groaned Sam. "He has a contract signed with us. He provides us with robot workmen to get the job done faster; we give him a share of the diamonds and all the junk metal we dig up. It's all legit, kiddos. Let the man dig for his fortune, why doncha?"
"But—but—how do you know—"
"Kiddos," said the foreman, now becoming very annoyed. "It's a standard mine. I run it. I decide where we dig, how we dig, when we dig. All he does is provide labor and take some of the diggings. You got a problem with that?"
"Uh—we—I—" Knuckles looked helplessly to his teammates.
"I hate to say this," said Tails heavily, "but this may be on the level after all. I mean, they're right—Eggman does need to get money and metal for his robots somewhere. Would it be impossible for him to do it in a non-evil way?"
"I dunno," muttered Sonic, clearly not happy. He peered suspiciously into the dim depths of the mine, as if expecting a demon to come riding out on the next cartload of ore.
While Team Sonic continued to poke around and discuss in hushed tones, a workman came striding from one of the nearby buildings and spoke rapidly to Sam. Sam listened, growing grimmer and grimmer, then nodded and stepped up to Team Sonic.
"Hey, you three," he said, towering over the startled Mobians. "Didja get here by bus?"
"Yeah, we showed you the permits," said Tails uneasily, fumbling for the little plastic cards again. Sam scowled.
"I just got word that Bus 24 and its robot crew were found in the end lot, completely trashed. We phoned Riley, and he said the only people getting on Bus 24 were you three. Kinda shady lot, he said you looked like—and I'd agree!"
Before Sonic could even snap "Hey!", Sam had reached down and grabbed his arm.
"I reckon you've got some answering to do," growled the man. Sonic tried to make a run for it, but only succeeded in dragging Sam along a short ways before he grabbed the nearby buffers and held firm, hoisting Sonic up into the air by his arm. Sonic saw the jig was up.
"Run guys, run!"
Knuckles and Tails ran all right, but not in the direction Sonic had meant.
"No! Get out of here, save yoursel—" He was interrupted by Sam clamping a hand over his mouth.
"That's enough out of you," he growled. "All three of you."
Sonic, kicking furiously but unwilling to seriously injure his captor, could only watch as Knuckles and Tails were seized.