Tails quickly found Eggman's prison. There was only one desert area on the island that was close to a river. Tails circled the internment camp at the edge of radar range a few times, being careful to stay out of range of any anti-air or sensors the base had. While Eggman had access to the Ancients' Cyberspace for longer than he had, this base was entirely made with outdated designs and technology. If Tails had to guess, the facility was using tech from somewhere between Neo-Metal's coup and the Black Arms Invasion. Eventually, Tails landed the Pteropodidae behind a rocky hill.
Getting out of the plane, Tails could hear Cosmo's voice, "Is something wrong?"
"Not at all," Tails called back, "We just need to talk strategy."
"What's there ta talk about?" Marrow asked, "Your plane has a bunch'a scary lookin' guns on it, why not just bomb the prison."
Most everyone simply jumped off the Pteropodidae and used the sand to break their falls. Tails used his namesake to hover down, "For one, Cosmo is the only one who has any idea where her people are being held."
Everyone instinctively huddled under the plane for shade. Once everyone was gathered, Tails put on his goggles and tapped the bridge between the lenses, activating the hologram projector. Using data recorded by the Pteropodidae, Tails could display the outdoor sections of the camp for everyone. It was standard Eggman design philosophy: metal buildings with concrete road in between them and statues of himself and his logo everywhere he could put it. What made this place different from most Eggman bases was the massive tower in the middle. Instead of an intimidating fortress made in Eggman's image, there was some kind of broadcasting tower with the dish pointed straight up. While the structure was impressive in size, neither it nor its dish was big enough to cast the shadow covering the camp. It was like there was a perfect dome of shade over the camp, despite the largely cloudless day.
"Another problem with bombing the place, is we won't know what kind of power source Eggman is using until we begin the operation," Tails explained, "Even if it's just basic Hyper Go-On energy, blowing up the power storage facilities and batteries could cause a massive explosion that the Oak Clan couldn't escape from."
Cosmo took advantage of the compass rose superimposed over the projection, "The holding cells are at the inner part of the camp, South of the tower."
"While food can help sustain my people, we need water and sunlight to live," Cosmo said, "While I don't see any Eggman Robots out now, there have to be over a hundred of them."
"The robots are patrolling," Tails replied, "I didn't bother including them in the hologram because it would just be a recording of the same bots going through the same routes."
"That wouldn't give us anything useful," Tails claimed, "Eggman has his bots patrol in highly erratic borderline non-sensical routes to make planning attacks more difficult."
"And if he has over a hundred of 'em, there isn't a chance at a gap we can take advantage of," Marrow advised, "So, what do you suggest?"
"Nicole and I can race on ahead and circle to the North side of the camp," Tails started, "I'm the only person on the whole planet who's as high-up on Eggman's hitlist as Sonic. The bots will start swarming us as soon as they realize I'm there."
"You two," Tails said, gesturing at Cosmo and Marrow, "Can approach from the South. Eggman won't leave the cells unguarded, and Cosmo is still in no shape to fight. Once the dedicated prison guards are neutralized, Marrow can come flank the robots while Cosmo works on freeing everyone."
Marrow and Cosmo hadn't noticed that Nicole had left and retrieved something from one of the cargo compartments in the underside of the plane. She walked up to Cosmo and handed her a bag full of black palm sized boxes with flash drives sticking out of them.
"Eggman tech this old will have USB Ports everywhere," Nicole said, "Plug that into the ports you find by the cells, and they should open."
"And Cosmo," Tails said, getting her attention, "Do not try to support us until all of your people are freed. It doesn't matter what you hear or see, get all of your people out of their cells before you do anything else."
"That was my plan," Cosmo admitted, "But is there any particular reason?"
"Eggman is enough a sociopath that he will start killing prisoners to force us to surrender," Tails explained, "However, it will not be immediate. His bots' inferior AI often cause false alarms in his own security networks. To compensate for this, Eggman has multi-minute delays in these alerts so he can verify the legitimacy of the alarm."
"I am nowhere near fast enough to manage that, even when perfectly healthy," Cosmo said with growing panic, "I would need everyone's help to get to all of the cells in time."
"Which is why you have dozens of Override Bombs," Nicole said, "If Eggman hasn't started robotizing your people in the time he has them captive, he needs them alive for something. There should be plenty of Seedrians healthy enough to take a bomb and find more cells."
"Oh! Yes, that makes since," Cosmo said, not hiding her embarrassment very well, "I… should have realized that."
"I told you we were going to help your people," Tails said with a reassuring smile, "We won't take any risks with them that we don't have to. If Nicole and I can find the command center, we can cancel the alarm and open all of the cells at the same time."
"How long should Cosmo and I wait before we start making our way to the base?" Marrow asked.
"Nicole and I can both move close to sound speed, so we should leave at the same time" Tails answered.
Tails handed Marrow and Cosmo an earpiece, "These will let us stay in contact with each other if something happens, their range should be more than enough to cover the circumference of the camp."
"If there's nothing else, we should get going," Nicole said. As she started walking away from the group, large mechanical constructs sprouted from her shoulder blades. They were similar to the hover jets the Pteropodidae used, but obviously scaled down. They looked like giant bee stingers with ridges jutting from them making horizontal rings, like a tesla coil.
"You're a robot!?" Cosmo exclaimed, causing Tails to flinch. Please be gentle with her Nicole.
"Cyborg," Nicole corrected bitterly, "I am not interested in discussing it now."
Tails following Nicole to the other side of the hill in silence. Now that there was a barrier between them and the others, Tails and Nicole were both free to break the sound barrier. While the shock waves could have drawn attention to them from the camp, it was a safe bet that Eggman wasn't at this facility personally. There were no Eggmobiles parked anywhere and none of his more advanced creations to guard him. The outdated designs at the camp likely didn't have advanced enough AI to notice the noise of breaking sound, even as the prisoners clearly did.
Tails was thankful that Nicole was very easy with Cosmo. It wasn't exactly polite or friendly, but she didn't glare or yell at the well-meaning Seedrian. Tails knew exactly why it was a touchy subject for Nicole, but it wasn't his story to tell. Nicole would share on her own when and if she wanted, and Tails had no interest in telling tales behind her back.
Cosmo didn't know how many minutes it took her and Marrow to get to the camp, but she did know that the desert was awful. The land, if you could call it that, was so barren and lifeless that she couldn't feel Marrow's presence despite him only being a few feet in front of her. The sand under her feet made her feel like she had to walk carefully to not get sucked in. To be so disconnected from all other life on Mobius was disorienting for her, but Cosmo knew it was worse for the rest of her people in Eggman's prison. So, she carried on without a single complaint. However, she never thought she would be thankful to be within the influence of Eggman's light sucking tower. While just as lifeless as sand and snow, the concrete didn't shift under her feet. It also let Cosmo know that the hour of the Oak Clan's liberation was at hand.
Even as they approached the camp, Cosmo and Marrow could hear Miles and Nicole fighting Eggman's robots. Explosions and the sound of shattering metal ringing throughout the prison and the surrounding areas. Just as Miles had said, it appeared nearly all of the robots had gone off to fight him. Cosmo knew they basically did this for a living, but she couldn't help but pray for Miles and Nicole's safety.
"I'll have to lead the way from here," Cosmo said determinedly.
"That ya will Rosebud," Marrow replied, his voice muffled by his spine-armor.
Cosmo and Marrow started sprinting further into the camp. Miles and Nicole circled to the North side of the prison without getting closer before they launched their attack, giving Cosmo and Marrow time to sneak in and start freeing people. They knew they wouldn't have too much time at the speeds Tails and Nicole were running, but they also couldn't run in the desert. The Angletic Island didn't naturally have any desert areas on it, so neither Cosmo nor Marrow had any experience traversing sand like this. They also had to conserve stamina in case they had to defend themselves.
Not having to sneak by and wait for openings made Cosmo realize the camp wasn't nearly as big as it had seemed the night of her escape. They made their way to the first of the cells in little over a minute. There were a pair of the odd person-shaped robots with shields and lances at the of every other cell door. None of Eggman's flying creations could be spotted, though the sound of fighting was loud enough to make the end of days seem close at hand.
"Cos," Marrow whispered, "I'll get the attention a'those tin cans and you get to breaking yer people out."
"R-right," Marrow had taught Cosmo hand-to-hand combat, but she didn't know if she could do more than dent any of Eggman's robots at her full strength, she'd probably just get a bruised hand if she tried fighting now. That fact didn't make her feel better about letting a family friend go and fight by himself.
Marrow rounded the corner he and Cosmo were hiding behind and charged with a battle cry. The closest bot had just turned its head when one of Marrow's claws ripped through its face. The machine's body wasn't enough to stop Marrow, as he tore thought the next one in the same charge. He then distanced himself from the building to attack the robots that had started approaching him from across the road. Cosmo was almost certain this was so the robots on the walkways up above would see and pursue him. As they came down, Cosmo saw them using mechanical lifts built into the walkways. Lifts that didn't go back up when the robots got off to engage Marrow.
Cosmo started running to the closest lift when she decided it was safe enough. As she ran by the cells built into the sides of the buildings, her head darted back and forth as she looked for any of the 'ports' Miles' devices could access. The buildings were all large enough to be warehouses, but Cosmo had never been inside any of them. If these ports were all inside, she wasn't sure if it would be possible to find them in time to save anyone. As Cosmo got onto the lift, she looked for controls or levers to no avail. However, she did almost trip as her foot sank when she went into the middle of the lift. Looking down, Cosmo saw that there were large square buttons built into the floor of the lift. Stepping on these buttons turned out to be how one worked them.
Cosmo got off the lift when it stopped moving. While she didn't see any ports in the walls looking around, she did see odd plastic boxes. Cosmo ran over to one of the boxes and knelt next to it. It wasn't perfect, but Cosmo could see little holes in the wall the box was protecting that the bombs could fit into. Fiddling with the box, Cosmo found that they could be easily lifted to allow access. Oh, thank goodness.
Cosmo plugged the first bomb into the port, causing the walls of light imprisoning some of her people to fizzle out. Cosmo heard a voice she feared she would never hear again, "Cosmo!?"
Not trusting her ears, Cosmo turned her head to make sure it was who she thought it was. It was an older Seedrian female, one that was old enough to be considered an adult. She was almost a head taller than Cosmo with same colored skin, though it was dull and withered from only having just enough sustenance to be kept alive. Instead of closed flowers from the sides of her head, this Seedrian woman had a daisy sprouting from and covering the whole of her scalp. She kept her teal hair longer than Cosmo's, but it was especially long now from being denied the opportunity to cut it. Her coat was navy-blue at the shoulders and around the chest with a softer blue trim and was white in between with yellow cuffs, though it slightly torn and dirty. Her coat had a grassy-green broach set over the chest. Cosmo also knew that she normally wore a pollen-colored belt, but that was stolen away by Eggman's robots. Her purple eyes displayed a mix of confusion, surprise, and worry. This woman was Cosmo's older sister: Galaxina.
"Sister!" Cosmo set down her bag before nearly jumping up into Galaxina's chest for a hug.
Hearing more Seedrians around her, Cosmo released her grip on her sister and gently pushed her back, "Cosmo?" Galaxina asked.
"Now is not the time for rejoicing," Cosmo said as she picked the bag back up, "Everyone! Take one of these and look for plastic boxes around the cells."
"That's machina!" Galaxina exclaimed.
"It is also our peoples' salvation," Cosmo insisted, "We don't have much time before Eggman's machina starts killing our people."
While clearly uncomfortable, that revelation quelled any and all complaints. The released Seedrians quickly started getting the bombs from the bags. Looking over the railing, Cosmo was pleased to see that port in the walkway also connected to the cells down below. However, it also only opened four cells. Despite being overcrowded, there had to be dozens of cells to contain the whole of the Oak Clan. Cosmo ran over to the lift and lowered herself, rushing over to the lifts on the building on the other side of the road.
Marrow was breaking Eggman's machines like glass and several Seedrians had Miles' bombs. It wouldn't be long before Cosmo's people knew freedom once more. Cosmo was relieved to see none of the Oak Clan's warriors were trying to help her Mobian friends fight. Cosmo was currently the healthiest member of the Oak Clan, the warriors would either just get in the way or get themselves killed. Minutes later, a Seedrian approached Cosmo to tell her where the Oak Clan was gathering while they waited for the fighting to stop. Cosmo followed and nearly wept when she saw her people. They were neglected and scared, but they were here and alive. In the days Cosmo had to spend recovering at Newfound Sanctuary, she was haunted by nightmares that she was the last of the Oak Clan.
Cosmo started to eagerly approach her people when something fell from the sky in between them. It was Marrow. His spine-armor was broken to the point of exposing his fur in several places. Anywhere the armor was exposed was damaged beyond effectiveness. He had fallen on his stomach. While Marrow was still breathing, he was either too badly beaten to stand or unconscious.
"Marrow!" Cosmo yelled out.
"BACK INTO YOUR CELLS, ALL OF YOU!" A robotic voice demanded from above.
"Here we go!" Miles cheered.
He and Nicole had determined which building in the base was the command center. Many of the robots abandoned their patrols and posts to ensure this building was protected; this had to be the place. However, Eggman had clearly started incorporating everything he had learned from Cyberspace into his design philosophy, making the building more alien and stranger than most things Eggman had built. Four minutes of brute forcing their way past machine guards and through sealed bulkheads had paid off.
"Nicole," Miles said, "I'll cover you while you disconnect this place."
"Understood," Nicole replied.
The cyborg Lynx made her way to the command console and sat herself in the chair before it. The iris of her right eye rotated before her pupil seemed to pop out like a cork. Bringing a hand up to her eye, Nicole grabbed her pupil and pulled, revealing that her eye contained a cord and jack. Pulling on her eye-jack gave out the soft sound of unwinding wire as Nicole plugged herself into the console.
Her vision was consumed by binary spewing from a black abyss for a brief moment before the cybernetics in her brain turned it into something comprehensible. Nicole found her consciousness within the Eggnet: Eggman's personal cyberworld network. While waiting for her mind to load the sever, Nicole generated a double-ended holographic bident for self-defense. Nicole didn't like the hot pink color, but it was a color that Eggman would never let his creations use and stuck out from the darker shades he did use. She needed an odd color like this to tell what came from her and to tell her what came Virus/Hacker Countermeasures.
Weapons Program in hand, Nicole advanced into the digital world. Almost instantly, she was set upon by hostile programs. Her mind's eye turned the tornado-esque groups of cubes spinning around each other into Egg Pawns and Buzz Bombers. Nicole knew these were the lesser of Eggman's Robots, so these had to minor programs: most likely spam filters.
Time moved differently in any cyberworld, but they didn't know how much they had to save the Seedrians or how quickly they could move in their condition. With this in mind, Nicole elected to simply blitz through the Egg Pawns and cleaved through the center ranks of their formation like open air. Since she had someone watching her back in the real world, Nicole could shut down her real-world senses and divert more processing power to her cyberform. This made her like a demi-god in the cyber world.
The Eggnet was all rectangular structures with Eggman's logo printed onto every bit of data. It was all very plain with little to no thought given to making the web pages flashy or fun looking. While depressing to look at for long periods, it also made traversing the Eggnet easier for Nicole as she had less to process. She needed to find the data stream to and from Eggman's main base to this one to disconnect it, this would give her total control of the camp.
As Nicole wall kicked from monolith to monolith, being able to quickly determine that they weren't what she was looking for in the split-second it took to log in and out, she triggered the virus detection software. Almost all color faded to black in the Eggnet, save for the red glow of Eggman's logo and the red outlines of hyperlinks and web pages. Her mind started to load Death Egg Robots: programs meant to repeal ammeter hackers and basic computer viruses.
I guess this place isn't too important to Robotnik Nicole thought A lack of resources maybe? Information and knowledge was only so valuable if you didn't have the ability to act on it. Eggman had to fall back on abandoned warehouses full of outdated robots. There was little question as to whether or not Eggman was rebuilding his 'empire,' but it was just as certain that his stream of resources was more of a drip than a flood. This would make it easy to save the Oak Clan, but it made Nicole wonder, Why Eggman would expose himself like this if he didn't have the resources to modernize the camp.
Nicole had to take the scenic route through the server to avoid the countermeasures, but she did eventually find the data stream. A massive highway going out into the horizon with streams of slaves coming from and to the server to the rest of the Eggnet. This was how Eggman saw other people, so it was how Nicole's mind perceived the data stream. The stream was surrounded by Death Egg Robots, but Nicole was confident she could delete these programs and break the stream before more could come and reinforce them.
Nicole rushed to the stream, but stopped herself as something caused her to freeze up. She didn't crash, there was a secondary program woven into the server bringing her pause. It would completely ruin more traditional methods of hacking, but there was nothing traditional about Nicole. The Death Egg Robots had barely started stepping to her when she broke free of the secondary program.
"ENEMY AI PRESENCE CONFIRMED," They announced in unison, "COMPILING INTRUSION COUNTERMEASURES."
What? Was all Nicole thought as she watched the scene before her. The Death Egg Robots became holographic wireframes and started weaving into each other like they were caught in a spool. Nicole could see wires shooting from all over the server into this one data-mass. It was complete, Nicole didn't know what to make of the result. It was an opaque neon green cyberform. It looked like a Mobian Hedgehog at first glance, but the quills made a backwards talon formation from the skull. The fingers ended in spikes and a comparatively large jet engine jutted out from the back. It looked like Metal Sonic. A massive shield, the same neon green as Cyber Sonic, formed around the data stream. Nicole was going to have to delete this super program to get at the data steam.
I wonder if deleting the Death Egg Robots from before would have made this easier, or if this would have happened when they detected me Nicole took the initiative to charge at Cyber Sonic. She twisted the shaft of her bident, causing the blades on either end to come closer to each other. Nicole swung wildly as she charged, leasing bolts of malicious code at Cyber Sonic. Cyber Sonic launched a counter charge and swatted away Nicole's bolts with its claws.
Blade met claw as the two clashed. Nicole had the entirety of her bident, giving her the advantage of reach. However, this made her telegraph her attacks and Cyber Sonic was able to either parry or dodge. But every time Cyber Sonic was made to parry, little chips of its neon-green shell broke off from it. So even glancing blows do actual damage Nicole realized It looks like I'll only need a few direct hits to finish it.
While Eggman had obviously retrofitted preexisting software with developments from Cyberspace, Cyber Sonic was ancient and slow compared to Nicole. She sidestepped a jet-charge, and it rushed past her, not being to able stop itself before gaining significant distance from Nicole. The Lynx then used this opportunity to steal a page from the server's book. Nicole gripped her bident with both hands, held it in front of her, and charged a blast in the lower head. She pierced the floor the floor and used the energy to begin hacking into server's directory. Cyber Sonic was made from all of the server's protective measures, so there was nothing to stop Nicole from accessing any files she desired.
Cyber Sonic finally managed to slow down enough to reverse direction but was stopped before it could charge again. Nicole accessed the curious program that had paused her earlier and had it target Cyber Sonic. It seemed that not even Eggman was paranoid enough to make protections for his programs from each other, so Cyber Sonic was going to spend the remainder of its runtime frozen.
Nicole withdrew her bident and charged Cyber Sonic as she fired bolt after bolt of malicious code at it. Each bolt connected and each one reduced Cyber Sonic's Integrity. By the time Nicole got into melee range with Cyber Sonic, it was little more than a wireframe model of Metal Sonic. Nicole opened the blades of her bident so she could close them around Cyber Sonic's neck. She suplexed Cyber Sonic with her weapon and finished it off with a concentrated blast of malicious code, completely deleting the odd cyberform.
Though satisfied with her performance, Nicole knew she wasn't done yet. Nicole returned to the data stream as quickly as she could. She was all but certain that the rest of the Eggnet had picked up on this server's fall, so it needed to be disconnected as quickly as possible. The digital highway was no longer sending data to the server, but it was still sending. Using the directory, Nicole was able to stop the data transfer remotely. They may not have been able to stop Eggman from wiping some of the server data, but they had secured nearly seventy percent of it. The directory was also helpful in killing the data feed.
Nicole not only knew the best places to strike, but she was able to turn processes and runtimes still in the server against it. It was comical how fast the data stream fell, and none too soon. Nicole could see security programs coming from the horizon of the Eggnet as it suffered total collapse. Nicole gave a sigh of relief. Nicole believed she could take on Eggman's Sage AI one-on-one, but not even she could take on the entire Eggnet at once.
Nicole started disabling the real-world security measures. Eggman had put the robots on a completely different sever, but they were pathetically easy to destroy. Nicole was surprised to find that all of the cells had already been opened. Cosmo and her people work fast Nicole patched the camera feeds from the camp into her cybernetics and was stunned. There were no secret countermeasures for hackers or viruses that tapped into the cameras, it was what she saw on the other end.
Marrow had been soundly beaten, almost definitely unconscious. While most of the basic robots appeared to have been reduced to scrap metal, the Seedrians were surrounded by those that were left. What gave Nicole pause were the three robots hovering above them. Their shells were a soft sandy-brown color. They had small jets, bursting with flames, in their backs and the soles of their feet. They had visors of black glass with a single orange-red light in the center in place of eyes. Their stomachs had similar visors built into them, though Nicole already knew this was mostly for intimidation factor. Their fingers and feet all ended in sharp points that could rend flesh and metal alike. Their most notable feature was that, while definitely Eggman Robots, they looked nothing like Eggman. Their appearance was obviously based on Sonic the Hedgehog.
"Mecha Sonics!?" Nicole exclaimed. Compiling and organizing the terabytes of data her just went even further down on her priority list.
Nicole jacked out of the server and withdrew her eye-jack, "Miles, we have problems!"
"Way ahead of you!" His voice echoed from outside the room.
Nicole rushed out into the hallway and followed the sounds of open battle. She found herself in some kind of manufacturing plant built into the command center. Within, Nicole saw that Miles was already fighting three more of the brown Mecha Sonics. The trio of droids had taken noticeable damage, but Nicole's internal systems told her that Miles had less than three hundred Rings in his PSG.
Nicole climbed onto the railing and used her hover jets to blindside one of the Mechas in the air. Specifically, she sucked punched the jet built into its back. While these models were more reinforced than the original Mecha Sonic, Nicole knew exactly where and how to hit their weak points. The jets weren't meant to take direct damage, they were meant to make sure the Mechas could keep up with Sonic's speed and provide lift. The jet was still firing, but the Mecha no longer had direct control of it. Nicole angled the jet with her arms and used her own jets to send the both of them flying towards the Mecha at Miles' flank. Nicole let go of her prey and it crashed into its 'brother' as it was charging at the boy genius. The Mechas collided into each other, and their jets caused them to crash into an assembly line where they exploded violently.
Miles was able to take cover behind a different assembly line, but Nicole was caught in the blast. She was sent flying through the air in a series of forced backflips. Nicole leaned into this motion and used her jets to change direction into the last remaining Mecha. The Mecha avoided a direct hit, but Nicole did leave scratches that stretched from shoulder to hip as she passed. Nicole landed roughly in a crouching position and the momentum sent her into a shelving unit, hitting hard enough to cause it to tip over and fall to the floor.
"CHANGE IN BATTLE PARAMATERS: UNKNOWN ENEMY COMBATANT," The Mecha announced, "FALLING BACK TO REST OF SQUADRON."
The Mecha's hands split open to reveal gun barrels. It turned around and fired a pair of energy blasts into the nearest wall, creating a sizable hole. It then used its jets to race through it. Miles could have intercepted, but he rushed to Nicole's side instead.
"Nicole!" The Fox yelled, "Are you okay?"
"Just fine," Nicole assured, "I was able to close my jets before impact and I'm still at over half Ring capacity."
"Marrow and the Seedrians are not so well off," Nicole said with a frown.
"Then let's go save them," Miles said.
Instead of running through the hole the Mecha had blasted, Miles made his way over to another shelving unit, "Catch!" Miles called as he tossed a Ring Box at Nicole. The two of them took a moment to restock on Rings before heading out. Both Nicole and Miles now had Four Hundred Rings in their PSGs, but Nicole was still worried. We'll have to take extra risks to keep the Seedrians, and especially Marrow, out of danger. Can we do this two-to-one?
