As Sonic flew through the weapon fire and approached the strange aircraft trailing the shuttle, one of the aircraft opened its rear door as a human manned a large, boxy weapon mounted on a tripod.
Almost immediately, rounds started flying, and Sonic now had to also dodge what he assumed were the same rounds that the large mech had used to reduce the restoration peacekeepers into nothing more but gore.
"Sonic! Aim for the jets; that should slow them down!" Tails yelled, and Sonic nodded as he started firing upon the aircraft's jets, though most of his shots went too wide and simply hit the aircraft's hull or just missed.
To go alongside him not being the best shot, Sonic had to deal with the fact that he had just lost an ear, along with the fact that one robot, creature, whatever, something that didn't look that special, was able to do more bodily damage in a moment than EggMan could do in years.
As he continued to dodge the rounds while firing back with his own, Tails spoke as he prepared to jump off the tornado, "Sonic, bring me in close; I have an idea!" Sonic nodded, and as they got closer, Tails leaped off before flying with his tails.
He then landed on the front of the aircraft before spinning and dashing one of the wings, damaging it and causing the aircraft to quickly descend downward, Tails jumping off of it before using his tails to reach the other aircraft and do the same.
Tails flew back onto the tornado, and as they approached the restoration shuttle, "It sort of felt nice to be back behind the stick...though, umm...Tails?" Tails responded as he lay on the wings, "Yeah?"
"Do you think you could make a cybernetic ear for me?" Sonic said, and Tails nodded as Sonic wondered what EggMan was doing...
EggMan saw an Egg Hammer get blown through with a single shot from some type of laser weapon; the shot tore through the armor of it like a hot knife through butter, just like every other weapon these people had.
20 strange robots landed alongside it in pods and were currently wrecking houses on his forces, with none of his weapons being able to pierce their armor while their weapons were able to pierce his or stagger them easily.
Not to mention that a lot of them were trying to shoot him! Which was a strange feeling; it was rare that he would be shot at, and especially shot at with weapons that were definitely more lethal than wispons considering the mess that they left the restoration forces in.
"Fall back you useless pieces of scrap—what the!" EggMan yelled as one of the robots had just jumped onto the EggMobile, a brutish weapon in his hand, a mixture of a chainsaw and a sword that growled angrily.
EggMan reached for his sidearm (though it was both experimental and he doubted that it could actually pierce the armor). though he was soon saved as Metal Sonic dived on the robot, knocking it off the EggMobile.
EggMan began observing the fight. Metal Sonic was much faster than the robot, even if the thing was strangely fast due to how large it was, but Metal's claws couldn't pierce the armor, with the robot's weapon struggling against Metal Sonic's armor.
But Metal Sonic of course won the fight after blowing the robot in half, the upper part of the body following onto some nearby scrap. That's when EggMan was able to see that these weren't simply robots, but living beings, and with how some of the organs looked, human.
Though very different, before he could continue that thought, he realized the fact that he was still losing the fight; even with one down, there were still countless more to go, and EggMan didn't want to take the chance of one of them having a weapon that could destroy Metal Sonic.
"Death to the foes of humanity!" He heard one of things yell, and that signaled for EggMan to dodge a missile before it slammed into the EggMobile; his forces were depleting faster than he had expected.
He saw Metal Sonic take down another one of the things before getting his left arm melted off by some sort of heat weapon, what remained of it slagging off of Metal Sonic as he fell back quickly, caught off guard by its power.
That was probably the foe's greatest strength; catching EggMan off guard when his forces were already being depleted by Sonic and friends, he groaned and ordered all of his forces to retreat before they were decimated.
As the remaining badniks fell back while a few buzz bombers covered them, EggMan knew that these foes would kneel to him before the end of the year.
Apothecary Sydar tended to Brother Doliad; his torso armor had been punctured by the automata along with his ribs; luckily, he was still salvageable and would be able to live on; the same could not be said to Brother Alcon.
Even with his enhanced biology, he wouldn't survive for more than mere hours. Sydar gave him the Emperor's peace before harvesting his gene-seed, which would be even more valuable considering they are in unknown territory.
"Apothecary." Sydar heard Sergeant Gorar over the vox and turned to see the Sergeant; compared to Brother Doliad and Alcon, he had only suffered the loss of his arm, which could easily be grafted back on without the need of a cybernetic.
"Sergeant. Doliad will live but must have recovery time; Alcon is dead."
"Very well. The battle has been won; the traitor and his automata are in retreat along with the xenos as well." Gorar said as he sheathed his power sword and looked to the skies, "We'll be moving out soon; our cousins in the Imperial fists will be taking this site alongside the Iron Hands."
"What is our next objective then?" Apothecary Sydar said, and Gorar replied as the sound of chimeras and leman russes closed in. "We will be in support of the mortals of the Steel Legion."
Shadow waited at one of the landing pads at Restoration HQ as a shuttle landed. Restoration members left, but Shadow noticed that there were a lot fewer people returning than there were that went. How bad did the battle go?
He soon saw Whisper and Tangle leave. With what looked like a shocked Amy walking alongside them, Shadow approached and spoke, "Is something wrong? You've returned with barely any people; were you ambushed?"
Amy then collapsed on Shadow, mumbling quietly, "Then they died, they died... I had some of them on me. Why?" Shadow spoke as he saw the tornado coming in to land, "We'll talk later, and Amy, get some rest." Shadow said as he handed Amy to Whisper and sped off to where the tornado landed.
As he approached, he saw that Sonic and Tails had mostly gotten off scot free...mostly, Sonic was seemingly missing an ear now. Shadow spoke as Sonic waved at him, "What happened?" Sonic spoke as he acted strangely calm, "Well, a third party got the drop on us, and one of them cut off my ear...though to be fair, I did cut off his arm, so maybe it was more than fair trade."
"Sonic, you still got hurt! Even in some of your worst defeats, you never lost a part of your body, and in your first encounter with these guys, you lost your ear." Tails said and Shadow spoke, "Let me guess, you were overconfident, and that's how you lost your ear."
"Bingo! Anyway, probably just going to rest up before I go and knock some sense into both EggMan and those gray and yellow boys." Sonic said as he walked away, and Shadow sighed as he looked at Tails.
"What did they look like?" Shadow asked, and Tails spoke as he grabbed his Miles Electric and showed a few pics: a large boxy mech adorned with seals and candles, a squad of robots, with one missing an arm, and then...humans? The shapes were undeniably human, along with him seeing one not wearing a mask.
"Hmm. Interesting." Shadow said as he walked away. Tails walked behind him and tugged at Shadow and spoke, "Shadow, may I ask you? Since... well, I think you would be the only one that will be able to do it."
Shadow looked down at the kit and spoke, "Hmm...alright, what is it?" Tails looked down and spoke, "I know Sonic wouldn't like me doing this, and I'm not sure if this is right as well... but could you perhaps go looking for those guys?"
Shadow smirked, and Tails continued to speak, "I may not have the evidence, but I believe they're responsible for the destruction of the ARK, and...where are you going?" Tails asked as Shadow started to walk away, smile on his face before he spoke.
"That is enough for me; I'll see you in a few." Shadow said as he walked off, He needed to go find his old armory...
Everyone sat around Amy, who was still shocked at what had happened today; she was as white as a ghost, and Silver started comforting her before speaking, "Everything is fine; you're safe now, Amy."
Amy still didn't reply, and Blaze spoke as she looked towards Sonic, who now had a cybernetic ear thanks to Tails. "How bad was that fight to leave Amy traumatized and you missing an ear?" Blaze asked, and Sonic shrugged before speaking, "Well, it wasn't bad, just bloody."
"Sonic!" Blaze yelled, and Sonic scratched his quills before speaking, "Alright, my fault, but we've got to push back against...whoever these people were, they obviously can't be good." Knuckles spoke up after chuckling, "Pretty obvious, Sonic; however, I do want to curb stomp some of those robot soldiers."
"Same here." Sonic said, and after Tails entered the room, Whisper spoke up, "I'll scout ahead and see if I can monitor their progress. If so, we can start reacting and preparing for them, unlike in the first war, where we just sat around and let EggMan do something before attacking him."
"Yeah! We'll teach them not to mess with the restoration!" Tangle said, and everyone started to cheer until Amy finally broke out of her daze. "Scout ahead; do whatever you can to gain information; I'll send out a message saying that the restoration is mobilizing; maybe I can grab whatever remains of G.U.N."
Everyone nodded, and Blaze spoke, "I'll see if I can bring any of the Sol empire forces to help; the empire has been hungry for a war for a while, and I think I can help not only on the field but behind the lines."
"If anyone can bring back some tech, I'll gladly reverse engineer and see what I can do." Tails said, and soon enough everyone was planning on what to do, though they all eventually came to the conclusion that the world needed to be united once more against an external threat, especially after Tails was able to hack into a dormant G.U.N. satellite to see the space above Mobius filled with ships.
Though they eventually came to one question, one that led to many arguments before they could agree on an answer, that being whether or not they should ally themselves with EggMan, just like they had done in the Black Arms invasion.
"I say we ask for his help." Tails said, and Knuckles responded quickly, "How do we know this isn't some elaborate attempt at EggMan luring us and everyone into a trap?" Tails smirked and spoke, "Because Sonic got hurt."
"Huh?" Everyone responded, and Tails spoke as he pulled a stack of notes: "You see, Sonic and EggMan have a fierce rivalry, and many times one or another could have killed each other but they didn't. Anyways, EggMan wants to beat Sonic in a certain way to show he's superior, but having some random human do it with a sword? Nah, that's not EggMam."
"So what you're saying is... EggMan believes that he can be the only one that beats Sonic." Tangle said, and Tails smiled, "Exactly, and I think EggMan also wouldn't appreciate some third party taking over the world."
"Precisely!" An EggMan hologram appeared, and everyone immediately tensed up. EggMan spoke, "I had snuck a hologram projector on that lemur over there, but the fox is right, so how about a deal? We all help each other, kick whoever these people are off my planet, and then we can go back to our regularly scheduled fights."
EggMan spoke as he twirled his mustache, "Deal?" Everyone nodded, and EggMam clasped his hands together and spoke.
"Oh, this will be a wonderful war!"
"Uhh...what-what are you cooking?" Boy said as he looked up at Kitten, they decided to invite the young vox adept into the throne room, and he was currently watching Kitten cook what the Emperor said was a dish called curry.
"I don't know." Kitten said as Dorn built a massive diorama out of some color bricks, the structure had to be perfect so that even a bolt slamming into it wouldn't make it budge, all the while Magnus was reading comics.
"I must say, the two first comic series had very...well, not ugly art, but very inconsistent art and writing...and a lot of stuff; however, this one has a consistent style, so points there." Magnus said as the Emperor was playing one of the games with his powers.
"Father, I do not understand how this can be stimulating; you are essentially steering the lever eternally right." Dorn said and the Emperor spoke, "FUCK OFF ROGAL, THIS HAS BEEN THE ONLY HAPPY THING I'VE BEEN ABLE TO DO IN YEARS, AND IT WON'T BE RUINED."
Awaken my quivering Abbs Intensifies*
"FUCK." The Emperor muttered as the three Fabstodes landed in the throne room. Custodisci is the first to speak while the other two drag in multiple cryo-caskets that should be in the vaults.
"Oh my Glorious emperor, we've heard of your little game night and decided to bring in some of the stuff we stole from the black library ourselves!" Karstodes spoke up as he dropped one of the caskets. "I do not understand why you grabbed these instead of something important; why would our holy emperor need some caskets?"
"What exactly are in those caskets?" Kitten asked, and Wamuudes spoke as he pulled out the board, "Apparently some xenos that the elder had for some reason; I don't know why, but apparently they made them laugh." Magnus picked up one of the coffins and spoke, "Oh hey, there's some writing on the casket."
"Maybe it's for who's in it?" The boy asked, and Custodisis spoke, "That would be dumb; the names are on sighs and/or great structures, not the casket itself." Magnus then spoke as he picked up one of the comics.
"Umm…. Father, the writing on the casket says it belongs to one called 'Sally Acorn.'" Magnus said, and Kitten spoke, "So?" Magnus spoke as he tossed him the comic: "It's the exact same name as one of the characters. Check the other caskets."
They did so, and after checking and confirming names, the Emperor spoke, "WELL, THAT'S SOMETHING. CRACK ONE OPEN." Magnus spoke as he looked up at the Emperor, "Father, is that the best idea? I mean, if they are like they are in the comics I've read, which I'm starting to think are some sort of warp magic due to the fact this is happening, then they may not be the most tolerant to us."
"OH, WHAT'S THE WORST THING THAT COULD HAPPEN? Crack open a cold one." The Emperor said, and Kitten opened one while speaking, "I'll be ready to reduce whatever steps out into gore."
The Emperor thought as this all happened, 'JUST WHAT I HOPED FOR.'