"Aaaahhhh! Help!" Cream yelled through the glass glass belly on the giant robot. "I'm a damsel and I'm in distress!" She winked to her boyfriend, who was currently flying straight towards the robot, Vector and Espio lagging behind.

"Honey, you're a lot of wonderful things," Charmy thought, "but an actress you are not."

"You're not seriously charging that thing without a plan, are you?!" Vector yelled at the bee.

Charmy looked over his shoulder. "The sooner this is over, the sooner you're out of my life for good! I can take this thing down without your help!"

Vector gritted his teeth. He turned to Espio. "Make sure the kid doesn't get himself hurt- or worse!"

Espio nodded.

The bee rolled his eyes. "Come on, quit worrying. This is like wrestling, it's all fake!"

Almost as if in response, the giant robot's hand slapped Charmy, sending him off balance and tumbling out of the sky. Vector and Espio ran to the spot he landed. "And yet, just like wrestling," the crocodile said, crossing his arms and staring down at the bee, "the fighting is still real."

"Don't start this argument again," Espio warned. "We've got, as the saying goes, bigger fish to fry."

Not too long after he finished speaking, the giant stomping foot steps of the machine began to run towards them. The trio looked in the direction of the sound, Charmy getting back up on his feet. The giant Mr. Beast-branded Death Egg Robot began marching in their direction. Charmy groaned. "Alright," he muttered, "got a plan?"

"Well, Sonic took it out by hitting the head, right?" Vector recalled. "That seems like a sure hit."

"I doubt it will be that easy," Espio replied. "It looks like they upgraded the armor in that section."

Vector scratched his chin. "So, the only obvious weak spot is that glass belly they added…"

Charmy shook his head. "Out of the question. You break that glass, it's flying straight into Cream. I'm not risking her getting hurt.

The crocodile frowned. "Yeah, that's true…" He scratched his head. "Damn, they really thought of everything didn't they?"

Resting his hand on his chin, Espio muttered, "looks like we'll need more data. In mean time, I suggest we fall back to the DLO method."

Charmy began flapping his wings. Pulling down his goggles over his eyes, he said, "I'll handle the distraction, as per usual," before taking to the skies.

"I got the legs!" Vector yelled, before charging at the robot.

"To the shadows I go," Espio muttered, before vanishing.

From behind the controls of the robot itself, clad in his special villain outfit, Jimmy smiled. "You, know it's funny," he said into his robot's microphone. "Did you really think a guy going up against a group of detectives wouldn't do his research?"

Before the trio could process what he said, the robot suddenly held up its fingers, three of which popped off before forming their own bodies mid-air. One grew wings and a stinger, another gained a large, muscular-esc build, and the last one became thin and agile, with night vision deployed. In an instant, all three Chaotix members were stopped in their tracks. The stinger robot sped straight towards Charmy, causing him to divert his flight path, the robot giving chase. The muscular robot met Vector head first, both grabbing each other's arms and trying desperately to overpower each other. Espio's focus shifted the robot, who kept dodging his attacks due to being easily seen through the night vision. With all three now stuck in their own stalemates, Jimmy sat back and admired his work. "Well, that was much easier than I thought!" he said, genuine surprise in his voice.

Vector gritted his teeth. "Where does this guy get the money for all this stuff?!" he growled angrily.

Almost in response, Jimmy turned his chair around and looked at a camera positioned behind him. "While they're dealing with my robot minions," he said to the camera, the microphone still picking up his voice, "let me tell you about today's sponsor: Venmo!"

"I hate Venmo!" the croc snapped. "Don't use it, it sucks!"

"Half our clients pay us through Venmo, you idiot!" Charmy snapped, doing his best to outpace the robot chasing them.

"Oh, that's right…"

Vector sighed. Here they were, on the verge of losing the challenge, unable to work as a team. On top of all that, Charmy was about to leave and never speak to him again. "I guess it's now or never," he thought. Still grappling with the robot, he looked up at the bee flying around in the sky. "Hey, kid!" he yelled.

"Kinda busy here!" Charmy yelled back, annoyed.

"Just listen to me for a sec, will ya?"

"Fine. What is it?"

The crocodile took a deep breath. "I… I'm sorry," he whispered.

"What was that? Hard to hear ya from up here ya know."

Vector inhaled deeply, closing his eyes as he braced himself. For some reason, it was a lot harder for him to say this than it was for him to grapple with the robot trying to force him to the ground. Opening his eyes, he looked up at the bee flying above him. Their eyes locked, and Vector said to him, "I'm sorry. I mean it, kid. I'm sorry."

Charmy froze. "What?" he asked, staring at the crocodile.

Neither of them were sure what to say, until Vector noticed the stinger robot still speeding towards Charmy. "Charmy!" he screamed. "Look out!"

"Huh?" the bee looked over his shoulder, only to see the gap between him and the robot had closed significantly. "Uh-oh," he muttered, before bracing himself for a sharp sting.

Except, the sting didn't come. Instead, a dashing ball of yellow knocked the robot out of the sky, turning it to scrap as it hit the ground. "Wha-" the bee stammered.

"What the heck was that?!" Vector finished, only to suddenly lose balance as the grip the robot had on him loosened significantly. Turning his attention back to in front of him, he saw the robot tear apart as a ball of black stomped it into the ground. Soon enough, the yellow and black balls sped off towards the agile robot pestering Espio. The machine tried desperately to track both at once, but it was clearly not designed to handle more than one opponent at time. Soon enough, it was starting to smoke, at which point both balls smashed right into it, causing the machine to explode.

Charmy, Vector and Espio regrouped in front of the cloud of smoke, watching as two figures emerged from it. The smoke cleared, revealing a yellow flying squirrel in a shirt, jeans and sneakers and an armadillo in a tank top, shorts and running shoes. "Someone call for backup?" Mighty asked with a grin.

"Cuz we're heeeerrreeee!" Ray chimed in. "We totally would've been here sooner, but you have no idea how hard it was to get inside this hangar!"

Charmy couldn't believe his eyes. "What the- how- who- what-"

"Yes, that was me who called for the backup," Espio casually said.

"Well, I'm sure glad ya did!" Vector said to him. "We were about to lose then and there!"

The bee face the crocodile with a look of confusion. "WHAT?! But- I- you-!"

Vector turned to Charmy. "I've been trying to tell ya kid, Espio took me out to see Mighty and Ray about a week ago. We talked things out, I apologized, said I was wrong- very wrong- and that I wanted him back in my life. For some reason, they agreed."

"I told you the reason," Mighty said, walking up to them alongside Ray. "Besides, you bawling your eyes out with joy after finding out Ray and I had married was proof enough you weren't the same croc who threw me out all those years ago."

Charmy looked from Vector to Mighty and back again. "Why didn't you tell me all this?!"

"Wh-" the croc threw his arms up in offense. "You wouldn't let me!"

"Hey, I know this is all a big shock and surprise and kinda totally out of nowhere and all that," Ray but in, "but I'm pretty sure we gotta start thinking of a plan of action."

"…Remember, that's code BEAST50!" Jimmy said to the camera. "Be sure to use the link in the description! Now back to the video- whAT THE?!" As he turned his chair around, the first thing he noticed was his three robots smashed to pieces. The next thing he noticed was the two additional people standing alongside the trio of contestants. "WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE?!" he yelled into the mic, controlling his his robot's arm to point at Mighty and Ray.

"Backup!" Ray said cheerfully.

"Backup?! The Chaotix has backup?! Since when?!"

"Like a week ago," Mighty responded with a shrug. "It's a long story. Give us a sec, will ya? We're in the middle of something here."

"What…? Is this allowed…?" Jimmy scratched his head, unsure of what to do.

The Chaotix group seized the opportunity to create a group huddle. "Alright, I have like, a million questions right now," Charmy said, catching his breath, "but clearly I'm not gonna get answers right this second, so let's focus on a plan."

"Understandably, I wasn't able to spot any obvious weak spots," Espio noted.

"We literally just got here, so we're working with even less knowledge than you guys are," Mighty admitted.

"So we've got nothing then?" Charmy sighed.

"Not so fast," Vector said, eyeing the three holes in the robot's hand where fingers once were. "I think I got an idea."

"Hey, I've seen that look," Ray said, catching Vector's expression. "That's the 'Detective's Twinkle' as Mighty calls it." The armadillo elbowed his husband. "Intuition! I meant intuition," the flying squirrel corrected. "The look of Detective's Intuition."

"You have a plan, I presume?" Espio asked the crocodile.

"Something like that," Vector nodded. "Listen close, guys…"

As the crocodile relayed his plan to the group, Jimmy regained his composure. "Well, quite frankly it doesn't matter how many of you pesky Chaotix members there are!" he said, slipping back into his villain persona. "Three, four, even five! You're no match for the Beast Machine! Mwahahaha!" As soon as he said this, the Chaotix team seemed to finish their discussion.

"Ya know, that's not a bad idea," Ray said, scratching his chin.

"It's worth a shot!" Mighty shrugged.

"I see no other alternative," Espio muttered softly.

"Well…" Charmy muttered. He looked over at Vector, who looked back at him expectantly. The bee sighed. "Alright. But if things go wrong-"

"Her safety is number one, of course," Vector assured.

"Good."

The group broke apart and looked towards the robot, which had begun to advance towards them. "Alright everyone," Vector said, bracing himself for the fight to come, "you all know what to do, so get in position!"

"Hey, before that," Mighty said, reaching into his pocket, "I got you something." The armadillo pulled out an old portable cassette player with a pair of headphones plugged into it, a cassette still in it.

The crocodile's eyes widened. "No way. Is that-?"

"Yep. It's your old Walkman, complete with your old mixtape and everything."

Vector took the Walkman. "I thought this was lost for good! Where did ya get it?!"

"I uh… I kinda stole it out of spite when you kicked me out," the armadillo admitted, scratching the back of his neck sheepishly.

Vector shrugged. "I probably deserved it."

"You know," Charmy muttered, "it kinda feels like I missed a lot of important information."

"Later," the croc replied. "For right now, we got a robot to destroy, a rich guy to beat, and a girl to save! Chaotix- get in formation!"

The others cheered and ran off in separate directions. Mighty charged straight ahead, Charmy and Ray took to the skies and Espio vanished. Vector looked down at the Walkman in his hand. He checked the battery compartment. Fresh batteries. "After all I've done, I don't deserve this kindness," he thought as he put his old pair of headphones on, "but now I'll have plenty of time to earn it." He clicked the old device on and his ears were filled with the heavy droning of a guitar. The crocodile smiled. "Glad to know I always had good taste in music." Another droning guitar sound. Then came a grating, robotic voice.

"I AM IRON MAN!"

Vector cracked his knuckles and stretched his muscles out as the rest of the music kicked in before marching towards the robot. Soon enough, he was sprinting.

"Has he lost his mind? Can he see, or is he blind?"

He took a leap, and soon enough the giant crocodile was landing a punch right on the robot's knee. Not much of a dent, but he didn't care.

"Can he walk at all, or if he moves will he fall?"

He continued to wail on the robot's leg. To his left, Mighty was taking care of the other one. Neither of them were really doing much damage, but they were certainly slowing it down.

"Is he alive or dead? Has he thoughts within his head?"

By this point, Jimmy was starting to realize they were slowing down the robot. Just as planned.

"We'll just pass him there. Why should we even care?"

"That won't work!" Jimmy yelled. "Your puny punches are nothing against my mighty Beast Machine! Mwahahaha!"

"We're not trying to take you down, Doc!" Mighty yelled with a grin. "Not from the outside, at least!"

Jimmy paused. "Not from the…?" His eyes widened. Her turned his attention to the hand that now had only a thumb and a pinkie on it- just in time to see Ray and Charmy fly into the newly made holes in the hand. "No, no, NO!" The cat began quickly controlling the arm to shake the two out of the hand, but to no avail. The two had already began to crawl through the circuitry.

"I can't believe that worked," Charmy said, genuinely surprised.

"If what I've heard is right, he's great at making plans in a pinch," Ray replied.

"Hey, while we're crawling through this thing, wanna fill me in on some stuff?"

"Sure! What do you wanna know?"

"Well, uh, when did Vector start, you know, allowing you guys back in his life?"

Ray smiled. "Espio always kept contact with us. A week ago, he brought Vector to our home for dinner. I wasn't too sure about it, but… he was nothing but apologetic. Mighty was willing to forgive him, so I don't see why I shouldn't. Like it or not, he's family."

"But… he kicked you guys out. He forbade you from seeing me. Why would you just forgive him?"

"He's not the same Vector he was all those years ago, Charmy. I know it's hard for a kid like you to understand, but people change. If you don't accept people who genuinely reform themselves and change their ways- people who actually do understand what they did was horrible- you'll just push them back down the wrong path. There's always exceptions to that rule, of course, but I trust Mighty's judgment."

"Huh. I see…"

Charmy thought to himself silently, processing what he had learned. His thoughts were broken up by Ray, who suddenly pulled him in for a hug. "Dawwww, I can't hold it in any longer!" the flying squirrel squealed. "Look at you, kiddo! All grown up and in love! And a total niche internet micro-celebrity too, no less! I've missed ya so much, Charm!"

The bee blushed. He wasn't exactly used to anyone other than his girlfriend hugging him so tightly. "Y-yeah, it's really great to see you too after all these years. How have you been, anyways?"

"Oh, we've been great!" Ray said as he let go of the bee. "I'm a nurse, Mighty is a chef, we own a home, it's great. But enough about me, we got a challenge to win!"

Charmy nodded. "Right."

As the two went back to crawling through the machinery, Espio was also crawling- crawling up the back of the robot while under camouflage, that is. It was easy, given that Jimmy was distracted both with the two strongmen wailing on his robot's legs and the two flying men crawling around inside the machine itself. "Watch from a distance," Vector had told him. "He's gotta have some way of getting inside that thing, right? Once you find it, try and make your way to it and break in." Sure enough, there was the outline of a door on the back of the robot's head. Still camouflaged, he began to pick the lock on the door.

Inside the control room, Jimmy's ear twitched. He glanced over at the door behind him. Then he looked again. The handle on the door was twisting and rattling. In a panic, he left the controls and held his hand on it, pressing his body against the door to keep it closed. "No you don't-!" he yelled. As soon as he managed to block the door, another sound came from across the room- the sound of a foot kicking metal. The cat turned his gaze to the vent on the floor, just in time to see Ray kick the grate off.

The flying squirrel popped his upper half through the vent. With a smile, he looked at Jimmy and said, "Heeeyyyyy!" while waving his fingers at the cat. Climbing out of the vent, he put his hand on a lever on the controls. "What's this do?" he asked.

"Don't touch that!" Jimmy snapped.

"You can't tell me what to do. Trust me darling, people worse than you have tried."

"No, seriously! You pull that lever, your friend back there will be squashed!"

The flying squirrel smirked. "Who said he was still behind that door?" On cue, Espio removed his camouflage, revealing himself to now be hanging onto one of the see-through eyes on the robot's face.

Jimmy's eyes shrunk. "Uh-oh."

In the belly of the machine, Charmy managed to kick down a vent into the glass cage Cream was stuck in, landing beside her. "Ah, my knight in shining armor!" Cream said dramatically, fluttering her eyelashes and resting the back of her palm on her head.

"Hey babe!" the bee replied, slightly annoyed. "Why didn't you tell me about this?"

"Jimmy told me to keep it a surprise. I did try and hint to it though."

"That you did," Charmy sighed.

"By the way, did I fall asleep and have a wild dream, or did Mighty and Ray just show up to help you guys?"

"Babe, I'm still processing that, trust me."

The bee hugged the rabbit tightly. "Hang on to me," he whispered to her. "Something stupid is about to happen."

"Something- what?"

Back in the control room, the flying squirrel and cat were still at a standstill. "What's your plan, huh?" Jimmy asked Ray.

"I was told to get to the controls and do something stupid," Ray replied simply.

"What?"

The flying squirrel pulled down on the switch in his hand. "Mission accomplished," he said, a grin on his face. Almost immediately, a loud shutdown sound rang through the whole robot.

Jimmy's pupils shrunk. "That's not good." Slowly, the robot began to fall backwards, before finally hitting the ground with a loud thud and the shattering and cracking of glass.

"Heavy boots of lead, fills his victims full of dread! Running as fast as they can, Iron Man lives again!"

Vector pulled off his headphones, then looked to Mighty. "Did we do that?"

"IIIIII'm pretty sure my husband did that," the armadillo replied, pointing to Espio helping him and Jimmy out of one of the robot's shattered eyes.

"So… did my plan actually work?"

"Why are you always surprised when it works? Have you really been like this for the past decade? Have more faith in yourself."

"Eh, I'll try to." He looked around. "Where's the kid go?" As if on command, Charmy burst through the glass of the robot's belly, his girlfriend curled up in his arms. The two of them looked at each other lovingly, then shared a kiss. "Show off," the crocodile scoffed.

Espio lightly threw Jimmy to the ground and the rest of the crew walked up to his side, camera crews following close behind. Jimmy fake coughed. "How…?" he asked dramatically. "How could I, the great genius Dr. Beast, have possibly been defeated by the likes of you?! You- you- you lowly detectives!"

"Well, you failed to realize one thing, doc," Vector said with a smirk. "We're not just a detective agency- we're a family."

"Heh. I guess so. But not just that… you're a family that just wON A HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS!" The cat leaped to his feet as a bunch of confetti cannons fired off. Karly, Chris and Chandler came out and handed over briefcases full of cash to Vector.

Espio and Vector stood there dumbfounded while the rest of the group began to cheer and scream with excitement. As Jimmy looked into the camera and began to give his outro, the two looked at each other, then shrugged before joining in on the celebration.

Author's Note: At long last, the challenge is over. Hope you guys enjoyed this side story. A future chapter will cover what happens right after the filming of the challenge ends. For now though, expect Tails, Knuckles, Rouge, a Scott Pilgrim vs. the World reference and perhaps Amy in the next chapter. If you haven't read it yet, check out my Tailamy Christmas oneshot. big thanks to those of you that read it and enjoyed. Have a happy holidays, everyone! Don't forget to R&R.