Author's Notes: Nothing new. Read previous chapter for disclaimers. Well, nothing new except this...YAY! I FINALLY BROKE FREE FROM MY WRITER AND ART BLOCK COMBO ENOUGH TO GET A MUCH NEEDED UPDATE!

Chapter 27

"So, let me get this straight. Your plan is to somehow get Tails out of Knothole, have the freaky talking animatronics we recently met sneak into Knothole and knockout every guard in the place, find Antoine, beat the ever living shit out of him before finally killing him and then get Tails back to normal?" said Shade.

"Yeah, that basically sums it up." said TD after thinking it over for a second.

"And how do you plan to get Tails out of Knothole? The fact that I can see burn marks on Sonic, means he's not at full speed."

"Wait, burn marks? I didn't get hit." said Sonic, raising an eyebrow at that because when he ran from Tails after returning to Knothole to try to get information, he never got hit. Or at least, not to his knowledge.

"You have three plasma burns on your back." said Shade before he punched one of the burn marks to make a point and Sonic's red-pupil eyes widened before he fall forward, screaming in agony.

"WHAT THE HELL?! I DIDN'T FEEL ANYTHING WHEN I GOT HIT BUT THAT MADE THEM HURT LIKE HELL!" yelled Sonic as he writhed in agony.

"Way to take him out of the game Shade." said TD crossing his arms and sending a small glare at Shade.

"I didn't know it would hurt him like that! What's your plan anyway?"

"Hey Freddy, got any blue paint that's still good back in storage?" said TD looking at the brown animatronic bear who was listening and watching silently as the three talked.

"I think so. I'll go check." said the bear animatronic before he went down the hole that lead into the ruins of the restaurant. After a few moments, he came back with a bucket of blue paint and a paintbrush, "Here you go."

He hands the bucket of paint and the paintbrush to TD who then looked at Shade.

"Okay Shade, close your eyes." said TD prying the lid off the bucket.

"Wait, what?" said Shade looking confused as heck.

"You're right, Sonic's not at his full speed but you..."

"Oh no. No, I am not being painted blue! I refuse to look anything remotely like Sonic!"

"You won't have to deal with the fan girls."

Shade choked on his next argument and hung his head in defeat.

"Fine...paint away."

After a few minutes, Shade is painted blue and now looks like Sonic, or how Sonic looked before he drowned minus the sneakers.

"So, what do you plan to have me do?" said Shade crossing his arms, "And this paint better not be permanent."

"I doubt it's permanent." said TD tossing the empty bucket aside and the fine-print on the label says "permanent unless exposed to water or Chaos Emeralds, whichever's easier", "Anyway, the plan's simple, you get Tails to chase you and lead him on a wild goose chase. Try to out maneuver him. Just keep him away from Knothole until we give the all clear."

"And what's the all clear?"

"Antoine's agonizing screams being heard for miles and miles." said TD, his eyes turning black before he shook his head and his eyes returned to normal and Shade was hiding behind Bonnie.

"Okay, that was freaky." said the purple bunny animatronic as he backed up.

"I'm angry, okay?! I'm a Mobian now, not a doll. I still don't know how my emotions act now that I'm alive."

"So, all I have to do is get Tails' attention right?" said Shade thinking it over.

"Yeah but come to think of it, your voice is a dead giveaway. Try clearing your throat."

"What?"

"I said try clearing your throat."

"I don't see what that's gonna do." said Shade before he cleared his throat.

"There? Happy now?" said Shade before...

*Glass Shatters*

Everyone present is trying to stifle their laughter as Shade's eyes widen.

"WHAT THE FUCK?! I SOUND LIKE SONIC?! WHAT AM I?! SOME KIND OF FUTURE SONIC THAT GOT HIS MEMORY ERASED AFTER TRAVELING BACK IN TIME OR SOMETHING?!" yelled Shade in anger before he kicks Sonic in the face, knocking him to the floor again, "DON'T ANSWER THAT FAKER! THIS IS STUPID! Tails isn't dumb enough to fall for a simple voice change and a coat of blue paint."

"Sure he will, just act like Sonic. You know, cocky and arrogant." said TD leading Shade to the door.

"HEY!" yelled Sonic at being called "cocky and arrogant".

"You make yourself the biggest target whenever we attacked Robotropolis. Of course you're cocky." said TD as he slammed the door in Shade's face despite the blue painted hedgehog's protests.

Sonic crosses his arms and grumbles under his breath angrily.

"You do realize this plan has a 97% chance of failing miserably right?" said Eggman as he sat nearby, working on several EMP grenades.

"But we still have a 3% chance of success." said TD smiling, without showing his teeth, as his gem turned green.

"I don't like those odds, at all."

"Deal with it. We're going through with it."

"Good thing I'm making a backup plan then." said Eggman as he resumed making the tenth EMP grenade.

Knothole Outskirts, 30 minutes later...

Shade cautiously approached Knothole, not liking the odds of this whole plan. Unlike TD, or Sonic for that matter now, he wasn't unkillable. In fact, if he got shot in the head by one of Tails' more powerful plasma shots, it'd be all over, even with ring protection. Of course, he was as fast Sonic...before he drowned and came back as some kind of being that was neither dead or alive. Nor undead. Sonic smelled like algae and water-soaked fur, not rotting flesh.

He suddenly jumped back as a plasma bolt struck the ground in front of him and he looked up to see Tails, without anything that made him look alive. He was just metal and robotic. Heck, his normally sapphire eyes/optics were now a red-orange tint. His mind was racing before he got it under control and then, he did his best Sonic impression.

"Hey Tails, nice aim! You missed me by ten feet!" said Shade, smirking as he crossed his arms before he side-stepped another plasma bolt, "That one was way too slow! I saw it moving in slow motion! Come on buddy, actually try to hit me!"

Tails turned both his arms into Plasma Cannons and open fired on Shade, who his sensors were saying was Sonic, but Shade avoided every shot before Shade mooned him.

"Kiss my ass metal head!" said Shade before he took off at max speed.

Despite Tails' new programming making him a emotionless war machine, a part of him surfaced that made him chase after Shade, unaware of four animatronics making their way towards the gates of Knothole.

"Okay, that Shade guy got the two-tailed fox robot out of the way, now we deal with any guards." said Freddy as he watched the two disappear.

"That means I hit 'em with the flat end of the hook, not the pointed end right?" said Foxy as he looked up at the walls.

"Yes, that means the flat end, not the pointed end." said Freddy face-palming.

"Hey, I was deactivated for the last...couple thousand years! I can't help it if I'm still just coming online!"

"They're not like that Robotnik guy's robots Foxy. We can do some serious damage if we're not careful." said Chica.

"Can we get this over with? I'm getting worried something's gonna go wrong." said Bonnie as his knees started to shake.

The other three nod before Freddy throws Foxy onto the walls and the animatronic fox lands with a roll and he looks around. Bonnie and Chica climb up the wall while Freddy appears in some nearby shadows. The four look around before they split up.

15 minutes later...

Freddy stands behind a guard as the dog crumples to the floor, the good-sized lump seen on his head from Freddy bopping him on the head. The bear animatronic jumps when he hears a rifle being cocked behind him and turns to see a squirrel with a SWAT-bot laser arm turned into a makeshift laser rifle and Freddy does the only thing he can think of as he stares the squirrel down.

[FNAF- Toreador March]

The squirrel looks confused before a frying pan smacks him on the back of the head and he falls forward, unconscious. Chica stands there with the frying pan.

"How'd you get a frying pan?" said Freddy raising an eyebrow.

"I found a kitchen." said Chica shrugging.

The four meet back up at the gates and work on getting the hidden tunnel system open for TD, Eggman and Sonic before they freeze upon hearing the roar of an engine approaching along with crazed laughter.

"I'M THE CONDUCTOR OF THE POOP TRAIN!" yelled the psychotic porcupine as he drove a hijacked Robotnik Ant Tank, which was missing its head, towards one of the walls. Said tank was also covered in explosives. Klaxon was also tied to the front of the Ant Tank, with a lit bowling bomb shoved into his mouth like an apple.

"That's not part of the plan." said Foxy as the four watched the explosive deathtrap approach rapidly.

"Find cover!" yelled Freddy and the four ducked for cover as the explosive-covered tank collided with a wall and a fireball can be seen for miles, even from Robotnik's new flying fortress base but he ignores it as he prepares a Roboticization chamber. Luckily, none of the guards the four animatronics had knocked out, were caught in the blast.

The four slowly peek out from behind their cover before something black flies past them, smashing through the tunnel blockade and sending splinters of broken wood all over. They look and see Klaxon slide down a wall, wood shards embedded in his skin all over.

"Owie." said Klaxon as he flopped onto his stomach before TD, Sonic and Eggman use him as a fall breaker, "Thank you for using me as a landing platform..."

"Well, we found Klaxon." said TD getting up.

The group all freezes when they hear makeshift laser rifles powering up and see a whole bunch of guards, all ready to fire, staring them down before an insane laugh is heard and the guards all turn white upon seeing the psychotic porcupine, formerly human, Krieg charging them with his buzz axe.

"NIPPLE SALADS!" yelled Krieg as he charged them and the guards all ran, screaming as the porcupine chased them.

"GET BACK HERE SO I CAN FACE YOUR FINGERNAILS!" yelled Krieg as he chased them.

"Well, that's helpful." said TD as he stood up.

"Aren't they just following blind orders?" said Eggman as he watched Krieg chase the guards, laughing insanely.

"Oh, he's just giving us a distraction." said Klaxon as he leaned against a tree, his wounds healed.

"In other words, he won't kill them?" asked Sonic.

"He won't. He's just scaring them."

"Okay, time for Antoine." said TD before a metallic thud is heard as Shade threw a deactivated Tails to the ground.

"Okay, next time Tails gets his mind messed with, run through Emerald Hill Zone. He can't handle it."

"Really? That's the easiest area." said Sonic questioningly.

"Yeah, I know. He didn't do too good. He's deactivated because he tripped over a rock and flew into a boulder."

"I'm not even gonna question that."

The group then heads for the command center.

5 minutes later...

Antoine is slammed into a wall by an angry TD before being thrown halfway across the room. The coyote gets up slowly before a knife pierces his shoulder and TD grabs him by his...hair?

"Wait...Antoine has a toupee not a whole lot of actual hair." said TD noticing this and at that moment a closet door bursts open and a tied up Antoine falls forward, the impact with the floor making him spit out the gag in his mouth.

"He iz the Anti-me!" yelled Antoine before he noticed Sonic and passed out.

"Oh shit." muttered the Antoine with the knife in his shoulder before Sonic and Shade cracked their knuckles and he looks to see TD smiling, teeth and he pales, "Wait, wait! You kill me and you won't find something very important out!"

"What's that supposed to mean?" said Shade crossing his arms.

"It means, you kill me and you don't get a important piece of information before it's too late."

"What is this "important piece of information"?" said Sonic rolling his eyes.

"That I gave Sally to Robotnik." said the Anti-Antoine before he chokes as TD's claws wrap around his throat.

"You did what?!" snapped TD, his gem turning a brilliant red as his eyes turned blood-red.

"I gave her to Robotnik as a "peace offering". I locked up the other Freedom Fighters and made those who live here believe they all left on a long-term mission. I believe you don't have long to save Sally so make your choice. Either kill me or you can try to save your precious princess." choked Anti-Antoine.

TD growled before he slammed Anti-Antoine's face into the ground, knocking the evil double unconscious.

"Sonic, go!" said TD turning towards the red-eyed hedgehog who nods before taking off as fast as he can for Robotnik's new flying fortress as Robotropolis had been abandoned at some point due to the possible numerous attacks from TD.

As he ran, Sonic knew Shade was right, he wasn't at full speed. His legs felt like they had iron shackles on them despite the speed he was running, he felt sluggish. He needed to go at max speed for this though. He couldn't let Robotnik win this time, there was no way he was letting Robotnik roboticize Sally. He kept running, trying to push his body to go faster until he was a spinning blue buzzsaw of death and he hit a ramp that lead to the massive flying fortress, impacting with a wall but he cut through it.

Upon coming out on the other side of the wall, he fell to the floor clumsily. He began getting up before he heard Robotnik's laughter.

"A bit of a klutz now are we Sonic?" jeered the mad doctor before he noticed Sonic's eyes, "Um...are you feeling alright?"

"No, I drowned. Why? Do you actually care about your number one enemy?" said Sonic crossing his arms as he glared at Buttnik.

"No, it's just your eyes are a bit unnerving."

"You know why I'm Buttnik. Where's Sally?"

"Oh, you're here for her? Well, I think you might be a bit too late to save the one you were hoping for but I can still let you have her." said Robotnik as he pressed a button on his chair, his evil smile sending Sonic's nerves on edge before he avoided an energy blade meant for his neck and he jumped back and looked towards his attacking, expecting one of Robotnik's Metal-Sonic copies or a prototype Mobian-sized robot but his eyes widened what he saw instead.

Sally had been completely roboticized. This wasn't a clone that had been roboticized and went haywire, this was Sally herself as a robotic soldier to Robotnik. Her brown fur was now brown metal and her blue eyes were now blue optics yet they lacked any emotion or recognition of Sonic, even with his new eyes.

"No..." wheezed Sonic as he felt his heart sink before he barely avoided another energy blade swing, this one meant for his neck again. All he could do was dodge, as he couldn't fight Sally even if she was roboticized. He grabbed his arm in pain as he felt the blade slice through the flesh and he jumped back. He couldn't win this fight and nobody else had followed him.

A nearby wall exploded and he turned to see a blue-eyed metal fox, with his orange fur starting to grow back, standing there with his plasma cannon smoking. Sonic sighed in relief slightly before the metal fox blocked an energy blade from Mecha-Sally meant for his head.

"Sonic, watch your surroundings better." said Tails before he kicked Mecha-Sally away.

"What do we do?" said Sonic, still holding his wounded arm.

"Try to knock her offline. It's the only thing we can do."

"What about the Deroboticizer?"

"Still broken and even worse since that fake replaced Antoine, tried to kill TD and well...succeeded in killing you and basically imprisoned everyone else. He ruined what we had fixed with the machine."

"So, even if we do render her unconscious, we won't be able to change her back yet."

"Yeah and then there's another problem."

"She knows where Knothole is. So if we retreat, we have to move our base."

"Yeah."

"That's a whole lot of pressure."

"Oh yeah and I don't like it."

"Makes it more interesting."

"Yeah and riskier."

"You know I'm good with risks."

[Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance OST- The Only Thing I Know For Real]

Tails blocked another energy blade from Mecha-Sally as Sonic did a non-lethal spin-dash into her stomach, causing her to skid back where she got hit by two metal tails, sending her rolling across the floor before she recovered and used jet boosts to close the distance on the two, aiming for Sonic but was intercepted by Tails who deflected the energy blades before head-butting her. He winced as he jumped back, his robotic head ringing from the impact.

Sonic saw an opening and aimed for Robotnik in his lab chair but hit a electrified forcefield instead, causing him to hit the ground as electricity arced through his body for several seconds and barely managed to avoid Mecha-Sally's metal boot from crushing his head. He rolled to his feet and watched everything carefully, aware that if Buttnik was hiding behind a forcefield then he had more planned.

As if right on cue, Buttnik made the fight harder for the two as several squads of SWATbots stormed the room, firing their lasers at the duo, forcing them to divide their attention between the bots and Mecha-Sally.

"Mecha-Sally, change targets! Your new target is now Gamma 59B!" yelled Robotnik and then Sonic realized something, he was splitting them apart with the SWATbot swarm.

"Tails! Watch out! He's separating us!" yelled Sonic as he ripped a SWATbot's head off, not realizing he had jumped onto its body until after he had ripped its head off.

"I noticed that!" yelled Tails as he fired his plasma cannon at the SWATbots and avoided and deflected the energy blades of Mecha-Sally.

After several minutes, both of them were getting exhausted but the SWATbots kept coming and Sonic couldn't see Tails anymore as he kept fighting the swarming SWATbots. Heck, they seemed to be swarming only him to keep him from helping Tails. Tails meanwhile, was only able to deflect Mecha-Sally's attacks as they kept getting faster and faster and harder and harder to predict until he made two mistakes.

One, he tripped over a destroyed SWATbot's leg and began falling. Two, he let his guard down when Mecha-Sally prevented him from falling and he now regretted it as her fist was embedded in his chest before she pulled something out and he stumbled back before falling to a knee and he looked at the gaping hole in his chest as blood leaked out of the wound before he looked at Mecha-Sally who was holding his Power Core.

He tried to say something but he couldn't speak and he felt funny. The world was spinning as he fell to his other knee. One thing was certain, he needed his Power Core back. He tried to stand back up but all he could do, was fall to his hands so he tried to crawl to get his core back. He then saw several warning lights flash before his vision as his systems began to shut down.

His limbs felt like lead as he tried to get his power core back before Mecha-Sally kicked him to the floor and then crushed the Power Core and Tails couldn't even see straight as his systems finally began to die. He did the only thing he knew, call for help.

"S-sonic...h-help..." said Tails weakly before he shut down completely and his optics faded to black.

Mecha-Sally stands over Tails' lifeless body, reactivating her energy blade and gets ready to ensure the defective robotic fox stays offline by cutting him apart before a blue buzzsaw, smashes into her, sending her into a wall and knocking one of her optics lose from the impact.

Sonic looks down at Tails in horror at seeing his two-tailed buddy dead before that horror turns to sadness and then anger even as blood tears flow from his eyes as he closes them before he turns to Robotnik angrily and outstretches one of his hands towards the section Robotnik is in, confusing the doctor before his control terminal sparks heavily and then Robotnik notices that the room he's in, is being crushed and he looks at Sonic again and he has a heart attack as he sees a nightmare Sonic face zoom towards him and the mad doctor passes out from fear.

Sonic meanwhile, despite seeing the doctor have a heart attack but not knowing why, wants to just crush the piece of shit evil scientist for what he's done. Be done with the war, be done with all of it! He struggles with the idea before he looks at Tails' lifeless form again and then makes a decision. He bends down and picks up Tails, the crushing effect fading away.

He walks silently, unaware that as he walks, SWATbots are still trying to stop him but they get crushed by a invisible force around him. Some of them even end themselves when they get within a certain distance of him.

His ear piece, which he didn't know he still had after drowning, chirps and he hears Eggman's voice.

"Sonic, what's going on in there?! The whole place has energy like TD's in there but it's off the charts! I can't even land safely without fear of being effected by it!" came the reformed doctor's voice over the communicator.

"I'll...I'll meet you in Knothole." replied Sonic, his voice cracking.

"Wait...what about Tails?"

Sonic didn't reply. He couldn't reply. His little brother was dead. It was like the whole world was coming undone for him. He couldn't think straight. Two things had been lost, Sally Acorn. The leader of the Freedom Fighters and the true leader of Mobious and Tails, his two-tailed fox buddy. Everything hurt. His arms and legs hurt. He didn't even notice the explosions taking place behind him after the fortress had crashed and several sections had exploded, sending shrapnel into his back but he didn't notice. He was in too much pain anyway.

He walked silently all the way back to Knothole, carrying his dead pal.

Ruined commander center of flying fortress, 6 hours...

Robotnik climbed out of the debris, after having been unconscious for who knows how long. He checked what systems he could and despite 35% of the fortress having been destroyed as Sonic left and another 20% in the crash, he found that most of the production facilities had survived and that Snively had also survived, if the heartbeat monitoring system said anything. Although, the fact that Snively's heart rate was in the "terrified" heart rate region, Robotnik didn't care. It was probably from the sudden crash.

He rubbed his head as he got up, deciding that, maybe for once, some rest would do him so good. Some actual rest and not some fear-induced coma-like state. He knew that with the recent upgrades, that fox doll couldn't get into this place to terrify him as punishment for killing Tails. He looked over at Mecha-Sally and saw her fixing her dislocated optic and he smiled evilly. Despite the damage to the fortress, the day wasn't a total loss.

He now knew the location of Knothole and could destroy the Freedom Fighters in one swoop. The fact that they had also lost a member, albeit a defective robot, he knew it would hit their morale, badly. He knew how they saw that two-tailed fox. He mentally patted himself on the back as he walked for his room, having a slight limp as he still wasn't used to his robotic leg despite how long it had been since that fox doll had eaten it.

On his way, he passed by a orange fur covered head with closed eyes. He didn't notice it at first but then he stopped, confused about it because there was nobody here but him and Snively plus an army of robots. And it couldn't be TD as the head looked draconic and none of the features matched TD as the Freedom Fighters called the fox doll.

He turned back around to look at it and noticed that it indeed was a dragon-like head with one smoothly curved back horn and one twisted looking horn that also curved back. It was also hanging by several black strings from a ventilation shaft. It then opened its eyes and he paled as the eyes were empty black sockets. It then smiled and he knew that this wasn't a trick of TD's because he could see the head's jawline as it smiled and given by how the teeth looked along the jawline, its teeth wrapped around its head.

He took a step away from the head but it was a mistake as the head seemed to zoom towards him...

*Sinistar Roar* (1)

Robotnik passed out, his body completely white and his eyes wide in horror. The head laughs before its pulled back into the ventilation shaft and a tall figure removes the strings before reattaching its head, upside down. With a slow and unnerving bone-snapping sound, it turns its head right-side up before it stands up completely and walks through the ventilation system, whistling "Bad Blood by Creature Feature" as it walks.

Meanwhile, Snively's in his room, watching the ventilation shafts with a riot shotgun at the ready. The long-nosed man shaking heavily as he tries to hide from the whistling.

END CHAPTER

Wow, that felt good to finally get an update out for this story. It's not dead. Just really, really slowed down.

(1) If you've played Sinistar, you know this roar. If not, go look it up on YouTube. Be warned though, depending on the video you find, it can be extremely loud, even with headphones.

Added an OC (Original Character) at the end of the chapter and said OC is mine.