Auther'sNote: Thanks to everyone who's read my story so far, this is my first attempt at this kind of writing, and I appreciate the attentiveness. I do have a few more chapters written out already, but I want to hear how y'all are feeling about the current ones so please give me any feedback you find necessary. Anyways, on to the main event.

Gun-Type Assembly

Tails toiled away at his workbench, making sure every piece of his creations worked as intended. If I can just get the timer to activate this mechanism… A small LED display began to count down. Three. Two. One. Zero. The display began to flash as a small metal piston shot forward. Perfect. Now all I need to do is make sure the timer can handle hour intervals, set the piston to a higher speed, get the charges in place, then carefully place it all in the casing. The young inventor then looked over to the large teleporter on the opposite side of the room. I'll have to get that up and running again as well. Let's just hope it can handle the chaos emeralds' energy output this time. Tails' glance then drifted over to the Emeralds sitting on the table near the teleporter, all of them sealed inside a disc-like container. These things have definitely got Sonic and me out of some jams throughout the years, although they were also part of the reason we got into those situations half the time.

Tails began to reminisce about the journeys he had gone on. Ever since I started hanging out with Sonic, I've found myself in more life-or-death situations than any person should be in. For a brief moment, Tails saw himself back on Westside Island, trapped inside a metallic chamber that was slowly being flooded with crude oil; Sonic desperately searching for an escape. "There's gotta be a way out. We've come too far for it to end like this." Sonic said with an increasingly worried tone, his eyes wide with a primal fear. Tails' cast the memory aside and continued his work. It's been almost three years since Sonic and I last fought Eggman; I was getting used to not having to wander the globe stopping evil scheme after evil scheme. Now that he's back though… Tails finally gave in to his urge to look at the TV again, seeing miles of the Martian surface covered with various metallic structures. It's like he never left.

Just then, the familiar crack of a broken sound barrier rang in the distance bringing the young inventor out of his trance. With a faint smile on his face, Tails turned his attention to the front door, anticipating Sonic's arrival. He better slow down or he's gonna break the- Suddenly, the simple wooden door was blasted from its hinges with the blue hedgehog close behind, his feet digging into the floor as he screeched to a halt. Upon successfully decelerating, Sonic leaned against a nearby wall and placed his hand on his now bruised shoulder.

"Somebody likes to make an entrance." Tails quickly jested as he returned to work on the device on his workbench.

"Yeah, I definitely need to work on applying the brakes." Sonic responded, still winded by his high-speed collision. "But we have bigger problems now, so you might as well give me the run-down on Eggman's little homecoming party."

"Lucky for you, I had the sense to record as much of the broadcast as possible." Tails reassured as he pressed a few buttons on the TV's VHS player. "Let me just rewind a bit and…"

The TV display then lit up with the image of the War Egg and Eggman's voice continuing in the background. "I took what had remained of my Death Egg and reconstructed it into the grand fortress you see now." His tone grew more confident as the announcement continued. "It's equipped with interplanetary missiles, plasma shields, and a state-of-the-art energy cannon capable of shattering asteroids. That's the big glowing tower in the middle if you couldn't tell."

"And if you order in the next three minutes, we'll throw in a free blender." Sonic said, attempting his best Eggman impersonation.

"Wait, you gotta listen to this part." Tails interjected as he increased the television's volume.

"You may be asking yourselves how I could possibly be powering and maintaining all of this." The mad Doctor continued. "Well, if I could direct your attention to the upper left side of your screen." There was a slight pause as the camera's focus shifted to a large spinning gear embedded in the War Egg's upper half, partially obscured behind the energy cannon. "This grand dynamo you see here is hooked up to one of the largest and most efficient geothermal systems ever constructed. It can effortlessly generate seven times as much energy as the average geothermal power plant. Sure, it might be a bit on the exposed side, but that's not gonna matter when I'm about thirty-eight million miles away from any potential threats, especially a certain blue rodent."

A faint laugh began to emanate from Sonic as he watched on. "Grand dynamo, huh? So how are we gonna trash it?"

"You might find this a little crazy." Tails began, still putting the finishing touches on the device on his workbench. "But we're gonna use this to disable that dynamo."

"Wait, is that?" Sonic said with a slight tone of disbelief.

"Yes, it's a nuclear bomb." Tails reassured. "We just need to very carefully slip in the uranium charges and this thing is ready to go." He stepped away from his workbench and opened a large safe on the opposite side of the room. From it, he retrieved a football-sized container with a large yellow trefoil attached to it. "If Eggman wants to step up his game, then we need to follow suit."