Chapter 42: Freeway Capers - Part 1:

The brief conversation between Blaze and Dr. Eggman Nega woke everyone else in the house up.

"Blaze, what's wrong?" Amy asked, being the first one to arrive on the scene.

"Eggman Nega is here! We've got to hurry after him!" Blaze replied, having clearly decided to put their previous dispute aside for now.

Meanwhile, Cream and Tails were sitting awake in bed.

"I can't believe we actually tried that." Tails commented.

"Yeah, but y'know, it really wasn't all that bad." Cream replied.

"Just one problem though:" Tails said, "You used those rabbit's teeth of yours, and as a result, I ended up feeling more pain than you did, and you were the virgin!"

"Oops! Heh heh!" Cream replied sheepishly, only to slightly jump at the sight of the door opening.

"Guys! We've gotta get out of here!" Silver yelled, quickly running off.

Before Tails was completely out of bed, Cream quickly left too.

"Cream! Wait!" He said, but she did not hear.

Soon, everyone had gotten the message and started following her out the front door.

"Eggman Nega? Could it really be...?" Silver pondered as he followed everyone else.

However, Amy stopped as she saw Sonic still rummaging around in their room.

"Sonic! Hurry Up!" She said.

"I'm coming!" Sonic said, not looking up from the drawer in his nightstand, "Just go! I'll catch up!"

Amy sighed.

He is SONIC after all! She thought before leaving without a word, and soon she, Blaze, Cream, Silver and Sonic Jr. were in her car and had driven off.

Soon after they left, Sonic finally found the small chest that contained the chaos emeralds. He snatched them all out and put them into Hammerspace, quickly giving chase, without realizing that one of the emeralds was gone. As Sonic was preparing to leave, Knuckles came in from behind, still pulling on his left shoe.

"Alright, I'm ready!" He said, before realizing that everyone else had gone, "Damn it! Did they leave?"

"Yup." Sonic replied.

"Well no need to just stand here! We can still catch up! C'mon!" Tails replied as he pulled up in the circular driveway in his Tornado, which had started working again.

Soon, the trio was off, following the others.

Meanwhile, Eggman Nega had already left the neighborhood and was hurriedly flying his Egg Mobile through City Escape.

"Abort! Abort!" He panicked, "Change in plans! They're on my tail!"

He kept moving until he entered an alleyway. Quickly hopping out and diving into a trap door in the side of a building (without even bothering to turn his pod invisible first), he entered his hideout and after doing a somersault to break his fall, hurriedly pulled a chain, causing a small office light to come on.

This room was nothing more than a small hidden workshop that Nega had set up during his first visit to Mobius, and he had recently been using it to build a mech that he would use to take it over.

"Alright, I'd better use the backup power unit." He said, "...Though thankfully it should be enough to get rid of those pests so I if not 'we' can rule Mobius!"

Eggman Nega pulled a large switch on the wall, and a surge of power started moving through two thick wires before going into the mech. After at least 30 seconds, the white lines that the large robot was covered with started to glow yellow with power and the charge stopped flowing. Without delay, the doctor let out a dog-whistle in order to call his Egg Mobile, before attaching it to the mech. Emerging from his hideout, he started to peek around the corner of the building his workshop was in, only to quickly pull back, as the car that Amy was driving was coming along that very street. After briefly looking around his control panel, he found the invisibility button and pressed it, concealing himself from view as he watched them pass by.

"Wait a minute, that's it! I can sneak attack them!" Nega exclaimed, proceeding to follow the car.

"Are you sure you saw Eggman Nega?" Amy asked, not taking her eyes off the road.

"I'm sure of it. I always knew he would come here someday and look for the Sol Emeralds, but little did I know that day was tonight." Blaze replied, before quickly twitching.

"What's wrong?" Amy asked.

"I sense something. It feels...powerful." Blaze replied, eyes closed with her index finger touching her forehead.

"Well, of course silly! You have the Sol Emeralds on you right now!" Amy concluded.

"No, this is different!" Blaze replied, "It feels much stronger than the Sol Emeralds alone!"

"Well, Sonic has the Chaos Emeralds on him. Maybe he's finally caught up with us and that's what you're sensing." Amy suggested.

"I dunno." Blaze replied.

Suddenly, a giant chainsaw came in from the left side and started grinding the asphalt right next to the car. Amy swerved to the right, (accidentally entering the freeway) narrowly avoiding it as both she and Cream were letting out high-pitched screams.

"What the fuck was that!?" Amy shrieked, looking behind the car briefly.

"Heh heh heh, they have no idea!" Eggman Nega grinned, quickly slapping a hand over his mouth as he saw Cream look behind the car, one of her large ears perked upwards.

"Did you hear that?" she asked.

"Hear what?" Silver asked.

"Someone is talking back there." Cream answered.

"It's probably just that convertible behind us." Amy replied, having checked her rearview mirror.

"I guess so." Cream replied.

"That was a close one!" Nega muttered, "Because if I had blown my cover now, I wouldn't be able to do this!"

He pressed a button, and a mechanical arm was extended from the invisible mech, the claw at the end about ten times as large as the one he had used while attempting to nab the Sol Emeralds earlier. Everyone in the car suddenly felt themselves being lifted up as they looked around for the source of the cackling that started to occur.

Without warning, the mech showed itself, revealing a grinning Eggman Nega beneath the glass dome of its cockpit.

"See? I told you!" Blaze said to Amy.

"My my my, what have we here? A group of friends going on a road trip?" Nega said, examining the group of animals packed in the pink sports car, "Well I hate to disrupt your travels, but I must ask that you give me your Sol Emeralds in exchange for keeping your lives."

He raised the chainsaw once more.

"Absolutely not!" Amy replied, readying her hammer.

"Wait, Amy! Dr. Eggman Nega! Please tell me why you came here to take over!" Blaze requested.

Without a word, the doctor pulled out a remote and pressed a button on it. A projection was emitted from the antenna, showing a black-and-white video that took place in the Sol Dimension. Without taking his eyes of the screen, Nega casually handed Blaze a carton of popcorn.

"Well, I was intending to take over the Sol Dimension after you left, but since you were smart enough to take the Sol Emeralds with you, I needed another source of power." He explained, "So I made a hypno ray powered by the sun of that world, which I would use to take over the kingdom in one clean stroke. However, the machine malfunctioned and exploded, destroying the entire kingdom and all within it...including a certain raccoon who was ruling in your place."

The film's camera briefly focused on Marine the Raccoon lying dead in the collapsed palace.

"Marine!" Blaze said, shocked.

"Yes, quite a disaster." The doctor said, turning off the holographic projection, "So with your kingdom being reduced to a dark wasteland, I had no choice but to travel to another world and attempt to take it over, and this time I won't let this baby malfunction! And I was even planning to share my new empire with Dr. Eggman, but I can't get ahold of him at all."

Suddenly, a large missile hit the mech in the side, knocking it off balance as Amy's car began plummeting back onto the highway, (though it was saved due to Silver's telekinesis). Meanwhile, Blaze's uneaten popcorn had spilled onto the mech due to the impact, and some of the butter was running along the side of it, coming dangerously close to the line between two of the sheets of metal that made up its body. Not noticing this, everyone looked in the direction that the missile came from and realized that it was the Tornado, being piloted by Tails as Sonic and Knuckles each stood on one of the wings.

"Well good luck with that!" Sonic said, having overheard the conversation, "Because Eggman died a long time ago!"

"WHAT!?" Nega asked, "But how...*gasp* You killed him!?"

"Ohhh, you nailed it! Bingo! Eureka! Couldn't have said it better myself! ...In short, damn straight." Sonic replied.

"Rrgh! Curse you, Sonic! You killed my only friend!" Nega yelled, slightly tearing up, "I was going to have him help me finish filling out my collection of crossword books! We were going to enter retirement together once we killed you! I should've known you'd interfere!"

"Old people, am I right?" Sonic sighed.

Before Sonic could continue, Knuckles dove off his side of the plane and started gliding towards the mech, his sharp knuckles extended out in front of him.

"Well maybe you can do that once you find him in hell!" He shouted, winding up a large punch.

The doctor quickly activated a thick metal shield over the glass on his cockpit. The shield resembled his face and had large glowing yellow eyes. Knuckles' attack proved ineffective and bounced off.

"Aagh!" He yelled as he flew down onto the highway.

"KNUCKLES!" Sonic and Tails yelled in unison.