It's been a few months since Sonic's defeat. One day, Eggman and his robot army attacked City Heights. Sonic the Hedgehog tried to stop him but was defeated by the mad doctor's newest weapon. A masked being of untold power.

After that, Eggman began a his conquest of the world. No one's sure how, but he's manufactured millions of robot designated as Badniks, far beyond what everyone thought was possible. Now, all but a few isolated areas in the world are under his control.

While most of the Guardian of United Nations, G.U.N., military retreated back to their home countries, Commander Topaz was one of a hundred of humans that chose to take the fight to Eggman and help the Mobians under his oppression. Despite General Tower's objection, the President green lighted the operation, if to at least draw Eggman's attention away for a later counter offensive.

Now, the G.U.N. airship Retribution was on it's way to support the Resistance fighting off the Eggman Empire's attack. It's one of the few aircraft still flying after Eggman's take over most of the world. It's mainly used as a air carrier for vehicles and troops. If G.U.N. and the Resistance fighters don't push back the assault, it'll be one more loss till there's nothing left to defend.

In the Retribution's lower hanger, Gear the Dire Dog was sitting down leaning against the hanger wall of the Retribution battleship, waiting for the ship to arrive. Just then, he heard his radio go off.

"Gear, you read?" He heard Commander Topaz.

"I'm here, Commander. How goes the battle?" Gear asked.

"Not good. The badniks are invading in force, and there's two mass produced death egg robots rampaging in the city." Topaz informed me.

"Understood. I'll handle the death egg robots." Gear told her as he headed for the hanger doors.

Walking over to the hanger doors, he hit the switch and opened it up. Below him, Gear could see the robotic assault force. There are hundreds of badniks rampaging through the city. With them were a few of Death Egg Robot sentinels. From what Gear read about these Death Egg Robots, they are mass produced Super Badniks created by Eggman. They were based off the original Death Egg Robot, but much larger, being over three times of an apartment building. They have egg-shaped body with narrow pelvis, stubby and heavily armored legs, thin arms with cone-like forearms, thick gauntlets, cap-shaped shoulders attached to bars rather than sockets, three straight spikes for fingers, and a jet pack on its back. The face of the Death Egg Robot sentinel is a single red eye and a red field for a mouth.

Right when Gear was above one of them, he jumped out of the hanger, and dived right towards one of them. As he got closer to the death egg robot, the lines on his body lit up blue as he formed the Smack Hands on his arms. Gear slammed the Smack Hands into the death egg's head, toppling the robot on it's back. He then preceded to spin his Smack Hand into a Combat Drill, piercing through the machine's red eye and into it's processors. Looking up to his right, Gear saw the second Death Egg Robot looking down at him with it's red glowing eye. Knowing what it was about to do, Gear retracted the Smack Hands and built the Boogie Pack.

Flying off the ground, Gear dodged right before the Death Egg Robot fired red laser fired on him. The huge machine kept trying to shoot Gear down as he maneuvered through the air. One of the buildings got hit by the laser and a few large rubbles of it broke off, falling towards a group of civilians trying to hide. Seeing this, Gear flew towards the rubbles, firing the twin turbines like bolas, knocking the large pieces of debris away before they fell on the civilians.

While Gear was focused on the civilians being safe, the Death Egg Robot's laser blasted his left wing off. With one wing down, Gear crashed into the side of a building and into the ruined street. Slowly getting back on his feet from the fall, the Death Egg Robot marched it's way towards Gear.

The Dire Dog let out a low growl at the machine. "Let's see how you like being shot at." He raised his right arm and formed the Slam Cannon.

The maw at the back end of the cannon opened up and scooped up a large broken off concrete, turning it into ammunition. Taking aim, Gear fired off three balled concretes at the giant robot, destroying it's head. With the Death Egg Robots destroyed, Gear retracted the Slam Cannon as the blue glow on his circuit marks died down and he took a breather.

"Commenter Topaz, the Death Egg Robots are down. Where am I needed next?" Gear asked.

"Great work, Gear. We're pushing the badniks back, but I'm multiple reports of heavy badniks movements one the west side of the city. Wait... WHAT! Gear, I just got word of a masked being near the center of the city. He's heading right for you!" Topaz told Gear in absolute urgency.

The Dire Dog froze in fear at what Topaz just said. From what he heard, the masked being that defeated Sonic is incredibly powerful. So far, no one has been able to stop him. Looking ahead in the distance, Gear spotted a dark figure flying towards him.

"Commander, make sure all the civilians and our fighters are evacuated. I'll stall him." He told her.

"WHAT! Gear, get out of there! You can't beat him!" Topaz ordered him.

"I know. But if I don't, he'll probably just attack everyone else. This way, I can buy some time for everyone to evacuate." Gear explained.

"Gear, don't…" Gear didn't let her finish as he hung up. Soon after, the dark being arrived floating with a strange vibrating noise in the air.

The person floating was a Mobian Jackal with black fur. He has white long and stiff dreadlocks, a white collar of some kind, and white stripes on his back. he also has a bushy tail with a white tip and wears black gloves with silver streaks on the back. The Jackal also has black hi-tops. He wears a silver colored mask with large ears with white and black circular patterns on the inside. While his left yellow eye is visible through a red visor, is right eye is covered by a black lightning bolt shaped piece, somewhat like an eyepatch, that's glowing red. In the center of his chest was strange magenta crystal with black ripple patterns.

"So, your Eggman's new henchmen I assume." Gear said. The lines on his body started to glow blue again, ready to create a build.

The masked jackal began chuckling. "More like his new weapon. One that spread fear to the weak."

"Oh? Then where's my fear." Gear replied, putting on a brave face. He was trying to put on a brave face, but was having difficulty. Truth is, he was more than slightly worried. The dire dog's instincts were telling him to run.

"It's there, just buried beneath the surface. Not like the red wolf I encountered earlier. He was shaking in fear." Jackal told me.

Gear's right eyebrow raised, wondering who he was taking about until he remembered a red wolf from his childhood.

'He couldn't mean Gadget.' Gear thought. He knows Gadget isn't the only red wolf, but still, the mere thought of his old friend getting hurt by this monster forced the Dire Dog to let out a vicious growl. "What did you do to him!" Gear demanded.

To this, the jackal tilted his head. "Concerned about the scared child. Don't worry, he ran away in despair. It was quiet amusing."

Gear was somewhat relieved they got away, even if it wasn't his old friend. "How merciful, here's my thanks."

The Dire Dog generated the Smack Hands and threw a large concrete rubble at the jackal. The floating jackal reached out his hand and fired a laser bolt, destroying the rock apart. At that moment, Gear switched to the Punk Busters on his legs and jumped to a nearby ally. Now out of sight, Gear brought out the Slam Cannon, loaded it with concrete, and took aim at the end of the alley. Once the Masked Jackal entered the alleyway, Gear fired off a shot. This took the jackal off guard as he was hit by the ball of cement, slamming right against the opposite building. With the jackal dazed from the hit, Gear created the Punk Busters again, launching himself at the jackal. As he was heading towards him, Gear brought out the Big Fat Sword, swinging the giant blade at the Jackal, only for him disappear at the last second as the sword pieced the wall.

"What!" Gear said in shock before he got kicked in the ribs hard. Gear slid against the street before he saw red glowing pixelated cubes impacted him. At that moment, everything around the Dire Dog was distorted in a haze.

"You're somewhat better than I thought, but you'll just end up like all the rest of the heroes." The jackal said as multiple cannons manifested out of thin air, completely surrounding me. "Broken."

Quickly, Gear generated the Smack Hands and drilled through the ground beneath him. He fell through the hole right before the cannons opened fire, destroying the ground behind him. Now in the sewers, Gear ran through the sewage water and hid in a large pipe. Soon after, the distorted haze around him faded away. The jackal floated in the sewer looking for him.

"So we're playing a children's game now? What was it again? Hide and go shriek." The jackal said.

Gear peeked over the edge of the pipe to see the Jackal floating towards a different tunnel. The Dire Wolf let out a quiet sigh and took a moment to think.

'Alright, I bought some time, but what do I do? It's obvious that I can't take him head on with my builds, especially with his strange abilities and speed. While the narrowed sewer ways would limit his movements, I don't have anyway of blocking his strange red cube attacks. Add that to the fact I don't know if he has any weaknesses, my best option is to stick with stalling him until everyone is able to escape. After that, I can focus on my own escape strategy.' Gear pondered.

As Gear was thinking, The jackal was looking for any trace of him. Seeing the pipes as potential hiding spots, he decided to start blasting the pipes to draw out his prey. Gear heard the pipes being quickly destroyed. He jumped out of his hiding spot right before it was destroyed by a red laser blast.

"Ah, there you are." Jackal said, creating more red cubes.

Gear created the Smack Hands and smashed the ceiling above the two, collapsing it between them. Turning around, Gear generated the Smack Hands and smashed the ceiling above the two, collapsing it between them. Turning around, Gear switched to his Gear Ride and drove through the sewers. It didn't take long for the jackal to blast his way through the debris. The Jackal launched trails of red cubes at Gear as they race through the sewers. He recalled the first time he got hit by them.

'I don't know how, but it appears his power works by attacking his targets with his cubes. So if things touch me, he'll somehow create something else terrible.' Gear thought to himself.

The dire dog narrowly dodged the cubes and continued through the sewers. Racing as fast as he could, Gear spotted that the ceiling in the sewer collapse up ahead, making an opening to the surface. The dire dog quickly switched to the Punk Busters, and jumped through the hole, dodging the multiple trails of cubes from the Jackal.

Just as Gear was in the air, the jackal came up behind him fast. Swapping to the Smack Hands, Gear managed to protect myself from the Jackal's laser bolt, though he was blasted into a nearby building. He crashed through a window and landed on the floor of a apartment room.

"Don't tell me your done already." The Jackal said, floating in front of him.

Gear's only response was throwing a broken table at him, to which he dodged out of the way. The jackal created a couple dozen of crimson cubes and sent them at Gear. Smashing through the walls, Gear jumped out of the building and onto the street, dodging the attack, and replaced his build with the Slam Cannon. Loading the cannon from the wall of the building, he fired a few shots at the enemy. The Jackal effortlessly dodged the shots and rushed him. Gear brought out the BFS and thrusted the sword the jackal.

The Jackal flipped over him, avoiding my attack. Gear countered by generating the Punk Busters, side kicking him through a abandoned store. Following up, Gear created the Slam Cannon, shooting the buildings support structures, causing the store to collapse on the Masked Jackal. With the Jackal down for the moment, Gear created the Boogie Pack and flew away, not waiting to see if the jackal was down for the count. It only took a moment for the masked one to come out of the building unscathed and enraged before chased after him.

Continued pursuing Gear through the ruined city, the Jackal blasted lasers at Gear until he stopped. Noticing the lasers stopped firing, Gear looked over his shoulder just to see that the jackal disappeared. Gear thought he lost him, until the jackal appeared in front of the dire dog, blasting one of his wing off. He followed up with kicking Gear to the side of his head. Slamming hard against the side of a building, Gear crashed down into the streets hard as the Boogie Pack fell apart, leaving him into a severe daze. The jackal slowly floated down towards the Gear as he was slowly trying getting up.

"I enjoyed the chase, but all good things must come to an end." He gloated.

The Masked Jackal created a red cube in his palm and threw it at Gear. Next thing Gear knew, a wall of red pixelated cubes appeared, slamming right against him. With that, Gear was knocked unconsciousness.