Author's notes: Nothing new.

CHAPTER 51

Outside Snively's Base, outskirts...

Scratch and Grounder stealthily make their way towards the location holding Sonic. Scratch's feet making almost no noise as he tip-toed through the shadows. Grounder's treads though began squeaking slightly and Scratch quickly spun and looked down at his "twin" while making a shushing gesture.

"Oil your treads again you idiot!" whispered Scratch harshly.

"Oops. My bad." replied Grounder as quietly as possible as he switched out one of his drills for an oil can and used it to oil up his treads. He backed up a bit to test them out and they were no silent.

The two resume their sneaking before Grounder begins vibranting, with his body making some rattling noises. He quickly opens up his stomach and pulls out the old styled phone located within.

"H-hello?" whispered Grounder nervously.

"HAVE YOU TWO FREED SONIC YET OR-[Muffled yelling]-?!" came Eggman's enraged voice over the phone before Grounder covered the lower part with a hand and looked quickly around to make sure nobody heard them.

"Sssshhhh! Not so loud! This isn't as easy as we thought it would be! Security is insane!"

"You two did a good job helping me against Momma Robotnik. DON'T LOUSE UP THIS JOB OF RESCUING THE HEDGEHOG! DO I MAKE MYSELF CLEAR YOU BUCKET OF DOLTS?!"

"Yes your bossiness." said Grounder meekly as he hung up.

"What did he want?" asked Scratch quietly.

"For us not to mess this up." replied Grounder.

"Oh that really makes it clear."

The two resume their sneaking, unaware of a hedgehog-like figure following them.

Egg Carrier...

Eggman slammed the phone down angrily as he sat back down in the command center's chair as he rubbed his eyes in anger.

"If those two screw this up and they survive, I swear I'll melt them down this time." muttered Eggman as he put his glasses back on and stood back up.

"Attention all forces aboard the Egg-Carrier! I am pulling the vessel back to ensure its safety! To all gunnery crews, keep firing at all defensive positions within the target location. Switch to long-range munitions! We must break the ground defenses before we make any sort of assault! Otherwise we risk casualties we cannot afford at this critical junction! If you have shots on Iblis or Dark Gaia, you are free to take them but your focus is to be any and all defenses on the ground as well as any hostile aircraft! I will engage the enemy alongside Shard! This is not up for debate! All other forces are to remain aboard the Egg Carrier until further notice!" said Eggman as he spoke through the ship's intercom system, walking towards a hidden hangar.

"What's your game Eggman?" came Shade's angry voice over the comms.

"No games Shadow. I will not risk the Egg Carrier taking a stray shot from two powerful hostile entities, even if they are just clones and not the real deal. Besides, I may have been preparing a new mech for this occasion."

"No way you saw this whole set of events coming to pass."

"No, but I was working on a mech in case something I made ever got beyond my control and I had to join forces with Sonic. In the original timeline at least. It's not fully finished, but it should be more than enough for the two clones."

"You're insane."

"Yes, yes I am. I am Eggman after all!"

Eggman entered the hidden hangar and walks across a catwalk towards the mech's head. He climbed inside the machine and began putting on specially designed gloves and boots as well as powering the mech up. As it powered up, he put on a visor. A data feed appeared within the visor's field of view and he could see through the mech's eyes. He began testing movement response time with the mech and found it acceptable. He then began launch procedures and within moments, the hangar floor began opening as the clamps holding the mech in place released and the massive mech dropped down out of the hangar before the thrusters on the back, shoulders and feet activated and it blasted off towards the enemies that were slowly overpowering Shardic Overlord.

[Sonic Heroes OST- What I'm Made Of]

Iblis had gotten a grip on Shardic Overlord and was holding him in place as Dark Gaia began charging up dark energy from several tendrils and its mouth. As Dark Gaia readied the dark energy though, a massive blade suddenly cut through Iblis' arms, causing the clone to lose its grip on Shardic Overlord and to recoil in pain at having its arms cut off as they dispersed into flames. The massive mech brought a shield in front of itself and Shardic Overlord as Dark Gaia finally fired the dark energy. The beams do some damage to the sides of the shield but it remains largely intact.

"Okay, shield strength is at 80%. As long as it doesn't get anymore powerful, the Egg Paladin (1) can block four more shots." said Eggman from the control center of the massive mech.

"You're just bringing this out now?" asked Shardic Overlord as he shook the flames off.

"Hey! This isn't exactly complete. I'm running it at about sixty-six percent capacity."

"Well, let's hope it stands up to the challenge. You get Iblis by the way."

"Of course you give me monster made from a god being split in two."

Iblis is recovering and reforming its cut off arms. It roars, sending flames into the sky before it charges the Egg Paladin which braces with the shield as the monster collides with it. The mech is pushed back but stops itself using its thrusters. The massive sword the mech has is then switched out for wrist blade-like weapon and the Egg Paladin stabs Iblis in the lower torso with it. It roars before spewing flames against the shield. The Egg Paladin shield bashes Iblis, staggering it before stabbing it in the neck. It roars in pain and swings one of its massive claws at the Egg Paladin, catching it on one of its armored pauldrons and sending it crashing into the ground. Eggman grunts from the impact but quickly has the mech gets back to its feet. However, he then notices all of the defensive turrets aiming at the mech before they fire homing missiles at the massive mech. He then reactivates the thrusters and uses it to get some distance from the missiles as flares are launched to try to counteract the missiles. Only three missiles ignore the flares and two strike the shield while one flies past the shield and hits the mech in the face, staggering it. Eggman grunts again but the damage is minimal, mostly armor and paint.

The wrist-blade is switched out for a gatling cannon like the ones mounted on the Egg Dragoon and he open fires on the defensive turrets as he has the mech regain altitude. As he rains destruction down on the turrets, he hears Iblis roar and turns his attention back to it as he brings the shield up again. The impact knocking the mech back again but this time, he headbutts Iblis in retaliation. Iblis begins to recover before the wrist-blade is back in its neck but this time Eggman doesn't give it a chance to react and draws the blade fully through the clone's neck and decapitates it. As it falls towards the ground, the dark energy that was used to create reforms into its original state and flies towards and into Dark Gaia.

Dark Gaia roars, gathering more dark energy as the skies above begin to darken and purple cracks form in the ground across the planet.

"No! That's not possible! Defeating Iblis made Dark Gaia real?!"

Down on the ground Mephiles chuckled as he watched the two metal giants fight Dark Gaia. He hadn't expected his Iblis clone to be defeated so easily but this made the whole thing much more interesting.

Shardic Overlord fires his dual Chaos Cannons as well as Chaos Spear missiles at Dark Gaia but they do nothing to the dark entity as it summons the tendrils again and tries to use them to grab Overlord but he quickly moves away from it.

"Did you see this coming?" asked Shardic Overlord to Eggman, trying to find a weakspot on Dark Gaia.

"No! I didn't expect Mephiles to completely recreate Dark Gaia! Especially not to just counter you!" said Eggman before he got in front of Shardic Overlord with the shield ready as Dark Gaia fired another dark energy beam at the two. This time, the damage to the shield is much more severe.

"Okay! I can't block another one of those! Shield's down to only 15%! Mephiles might be feeding it power!" said Eggman as he brought up several different scanners, trying to find a weakness and trying to counteract Dark Gaia from destroying the world.

"Any ideas before he attacks again?" asked Overlord as he eyed the monster in front of them.

"I have one...but it might cost us your Overlord form. And this mech." replied Eggman nervously as he brought up schematics on the mech.

"I don't think we have a choice."

"Alright. Shard, wrap around the non-shield arm and begin charging up the Chaos Cannons."

The Egg Paladin switches out the blade for a massive cannon, mirroring that of the Death Egg's cannon. Green energy begins to gather along several rail-like lines on the side as Shardic Overlord wraps around the arm, charging up his Chaos Cannons. The green energy gaining a gold hue.

Dark Gaia also begins charging up for another attack.

"When do we fire?" asked Shardic Overlord as he charged the mouth cannons.

"When the central eye opens! We split the thing in half with one shot but if we fire too soon, we'll just enrage it and leave ourselves vulnerable!" as he deactivated the reactor failsafes on the Egg Paladin to ensure it fired everything it could produce with the cannon shot.

"And if it fires before we are ready?"

"We hope for a miracle..." muttered Eggman as he began to sweat from the heat building up in the mech.

At that moment, Dark Gaia fires another dark energy beam at the mech and metal dragon and Eggman brings up the damaged shield to block. The beam hits the shield and begins ripping it apart as strands of the dark energy beam begin cutting into the mech's armor and underlying circuitry in seconds. Alarms begin to ring off in the mech's control center as structural warnings appear through the visual feed on the visor warning about the shield's structure failing rapidly. The shield eventually fails and Eggman has the Egg Paladin puts its former shield arm's hand in front to block as much of the beam as possible but it begins to rapidly disintegrate due to the sheer power behind the dark energy beam. The planet below the three giants also begins to crack apart violently, even exposing the planet's core.

"Is it ready yet?!" yelled Shard as he kept charging the Chaos Cannons, with Chaos Energy sparking out of the two mouths and across the form's draconic head.

"No! We're only at eighty percent!" yelled Eggman as he tried to keep the mech intact even as the hand shielding the mech finally gave way and he switched to using the arm the best he could. Smoke filled the control center's interior and he coughed from the smoke filling his lungs but focused on charging the cannon.

"We're not gonna last long enough egghead!"

90%

Eggman ignored the Metal Sonic as he kept the cannon charging even as the arm began to break apart.

95%

At that moment a while light exploded out of a time portal and flew in front of the now heavily damaged mech, creating a bright white shield for it. Protecting it from Dark Gaia's attack.

"Save Sonic for me guys." said an ethereal voice from the bright light as it shielded the mech from the attack. Dark Gaia increased the intensity of its attack at seeing the bright light.

100%

"NOW! FIRE!" yelled Eggman as he brough the cannon and Shardic Overlord forward again.

The overcharged Cannon and Chaos Cannons fire and as it passes through the bright field of light, a third beam joins the two. The third beam being a bright white energy beam. The three beams hit Dark Gaia straight through the central eye and it cuts straight through the monster The dark energy beam it had been firing ending abruptly before the monster begins to fall in half. Before it comes even close to hitting the ground, the dark entity fully disperses. The bright light part of the beam continues while the other two dissapate. The white light flies across the planet, fixing the cracks Dark Gaia had created. Once that is done, the light disappears.

[End Music]

Eggman is breathing heavily as red light and thick black smoke fills the control center of the Egg Paladin.

Shardic Overlord unwraps himself from the cannon arm, barely able to stay in the sky himself.

The Egg Paladin suddenly loses power before the head and chest on the mech explode violently and the mech crashes to the ground. However, there's no sign of an Egg-mobile escaping the crashing mech.

END CHAPTER

Hope you enjoyed and don't forget to read, review, follow and/or favorite.

(1) I have no idea if "Egg Paladin" has been used before but the name was cool and I had to use it.