This chapter was incredibly hard to write... Major plot-point(s) incoming

"There!" said Prime indicating where Sonic should shoot at in order to make an entrance, it was the same location as one from the previous raids to the Death Egg, Sonic made a clean shot and the hatch was open for Prime to enter, which he did in a quick spin dash, as Prime would do his thing from the inside, Sonic would stay airborne in case anything happened but to be fair, it didn't look that that would be the case because the Death Egg was still not doing anything other than 'being there'.

Inside the ship, Prime was just walking around hoping that Mecha Sally would show up at any time, however, this didn't happen either, so all this scenario was beginning to look freaky and heavily suspicious, this amount of silence wasn't how Eggman operated, there was definitely something else going on that the doctor was hiding and Prime was starting to feel that he walked directly into a trap.

And while that made the situation feel uneasy, it was a situation he was willing to face. And after a few minutes of walking, he found an elevator that he was familiar with so he decided to go and retrace the steps of one of his visits, after all, he didn't normally travel through this ship on his own.

He reached a large room that he remembered quite well, it was the room where Eggman showed off his plans of complete and instant world-robotization and the room where those plans were stopped by Sally herself but with no way of saving herself, it was this room where Mecha Sally was born. And right now the room was somewhat damaged and rusty but still resembled the same place as always.

And it was a loud, coming-from-nowhere laugh that echoed through the room that made those memories feel fresh.

"Ho, ho, ho!"

"There you are, let's skip to the part where you send a robot and I beat it, shall we?"

"Oh, Sonic… you remember this place do you?"

"Yeah I do, and you were so confident in your little plan that you didn't even try to hide, so, what's the gizmo today?"

"My, my, don't wanna rush the action, do we?"

Yes he did, Eggman was too predictable, and right now he was expecting a robot to jump at him at any moment and those expectations were about to become true as he suddenly heard a loud metallic sound clashing against the loud metallic ground.

"There you are".

On the same Death Egg but in an entirely different place, there was a figure also walking among the corridors of the ship with a similar goal, observation, and rescuing, but also with the addition of bringing down the whole ship in the process.

"Oh, finally!"

Back with Prime, the robot that was right in front of him was Mecha Sally, not a new one like Sonic assumed but still a robot and by this point, he was unphased by Mecha's appearance and maybe even pleased that she showed up to this battle given that Eggman had now brought her to the exact place where they had everything they needed to save her.

"Heh, you know how we roll Sal," he said "Why don't you pretend that I beat you… it'll save us a lot of time".

Unlike previous encounters, Mecha didn't go for a quirky banter and instead just charged at the hedgehog with him holding the impact, Mecha grabbed his hands going air-bone and throwing him away. Sonic quickly stood up dodging an incoming punch, got up on his feet, and started a spin-dash, he dashed forward hitting Mecha away in one rapid hit. He was going to keep hitting and not give her a chance to react to the attacks in order to wear her down but he was thrown off by a blast seemingly out of nowhere.

He looked all around him to see where it came from but -again- a loud 'thunk' of metal behind him showed who the intruder was… Mecha Sally.

No, it wasn't quite her… right? Sonic looked back in confusion and Mecha Sally was there but now there were two Mecha Sally's but this one looked different, most notably the fact that this was all metal and not an ounce of color excluding the red eyes, a Metal Sally, if you may. The only other difference was that this Sally seemed to have a 'delay' when it came to attacks as Sonic was able to easily avoid a punch due to the slow speed it came, it sounds weird but that's how it was.

Mecha Sally used Sonic's confusion to strike first which he didn't avoid. Although there was confusion, he had to stay in the fight and sort things out later. Mecha Sally was the real worry because the Metal Sally's speed was not an issue and was quite inconsistent at times. The clash between Sonic and Mecha continued with assistance from the new contender, he wasn't going to prolong the fight especially now that it was getting confusing. He attempted to get some distance away from the Sally's and charge up a spin-dash before Mecha reached him, once he did, he launched an attack on the two bots with repeated charges and he was doing a good amount of damage. That was until there was a loud rumble throughout the ship along with some slight tilting stopping the whole fight instantly.

"What?! Orbot! Cub-" shouted Eggman as he cut off the transmission with the current room.

Sonic wasn't going to waste this, he pushed Metal Sally aside before focusing entirely on Mecha Sally.

A Few Seconds Ago

The mystery figure had arrived at the wished location, and-

"You know, I think you're overdue in saying my name, there was also no need to cut off like that during my introduction".

Oh, yeah, I forgot you do that... Sticks the Badger had had quite the time inside the Death Egg, in fact, it was the place where she appeared the moment she came into this world and while not everything, she was aware of many of the things that had transpired in the ship, and right now she was going to rescue Sonic all by herself, it wasn't her Sonic of course but not that it mattered, also she knew that he was the battery of the whole ship so it was a win-win situation. All that needed to be done was to find and unplug the socket... and lo and behold, there was one! So she did just that and the big spherical cell fell, along with the stability of the ship.

"Right, that was going to happen- Hey! Are you there?" she shouted upwards and there were a few seconds of silence but Sonic ultimately came down in a landing.

"Um, who are-".

"Well, you see, I'm actually someone who knows who you are but not really because you're not the version I know and you don't know me because I'm not the version you know. Do you even know me where you're from? Anyway, I just rescued you, you're welcome and you should probably leave because this ship is about to stop because it has no support if you're not in there... Did I get that correct?"

Silence for a few seconds.

"What?"

Another rumble, this one beginning to tilt the ship.

"Ready to leave this place?" asked Sticks.

"I am".

The ship was going down, there was no denying that and Sonic needed the fight to end now and so he was going to end it, except he didn't. He was ready to keep hitting until a flash of light came from behind Mecha Sally completely disabling her, and the one who did that was none other than-

"Silver?!"

"Sonic, wait, I have to tell you something-!"

"Yeah, whatever you have, you can hold it" Sonic replied with a tone of anger, not being too fond of the time-traveler.

"Wait, it's important!"

"And I've had enough of your 'important' calls already".

"But-".

Another rumble and the tilt of the ship was starting to be felt although you couldn't tell if it was falling or drifting away.

"You wanna be useful? Can you make us an exit with your powers?"

"Um, sure..?"

"Great, then start doing it... And take Mecha Sally with you, both of them".

On the outsides of the ship, it was easy to see that it stopped functioning and that it was going down, and for a Sonic that had been on a holding pattern in the Tornado just waiting, it allowed him some time for him to fully appreciate the city but also dread what was happening inside the Death Egg seeing how its movement. Suddenly, a loud and massive blue electric wave shot out of the sky seemingly coming from inside the ship, it wasn't exactly an explosion but it was like an explosion. The Death Egg began to veer wildly to its right thanks to the tilting along with pieces from the bottom part of the ship beginning to fall apart.

Sonic looked at the city below seeing the debris about to damage the city. Luckily, he wasn't the only Sonic around as he saw a blue blur, this one being the 'little one' who was also on the scene helping around.

"Heh, finally showed up-" and without any warning, fright, Sonic noticed his left arm turning into metal, gooey metal to be more precise and the next thing that happened was without a thought process. Sonic jumped out of the Tornado and stormed out of New Mobotropolis in a blast that was seen by many including the lil' Sonic, however, his attention turned to the about-to-crash plane and its possible collateral damage. As for Sonic himself, all he did was run away, as fast and far away as possible... all over again.

But we need to return to the lovely place that is a broken Sky Patrol in the middle of the frozen north, its reparations being almost complete although the cold was kind of annoying when they needed to go outside to do something, the fact that no one had heard anything about Sally, Bunnie, Antoine or Boom lowered the morale a little bit low, that along with Sonic now having some weird issues in his body -issues that he shouldn't be having mind you-. Also at this point, they were aware of the invasion of New Mobotropolis so there's that.

"Um, guys..?" Boom Tails called "A portal just opened inside the ship, is that normal?"

The other two Tails' decided to answer also curious about this said portal both of them not being strangers to having a portal randomly popping up, however, what came out from the other was as unexpected as it was welcoming.

"Knuckles?"

Finally, it's done. This chapter was hard and it's not going to be the last one like this, they're getting harder, believe me, but at the same time, I can't wait to write them ;)

Anyways, thanks for waiting and see you soon!