Restoration HQ

Sonic looked at Team Dark incredulously. "Let me get this straight, GUN sent you to find the Cyan Chaos Emerald the second they lost the green one? And after that, you decided to try to attack Eggman's Egg base?" He asked.

Shadow just rolled his eyes. "Yes Faker, try to keep up. I already had the Purple Chaos Emerald in my possession, but no one knew where the Cyan Emerald was. Well, until Rouge was able to track it into some kind of ancient ruin on Angel Island." He said, throwing a glance Rouge's way.

Knuckles looked angrily at Rouge. "You went to my island?" He asked. Rouge also rolled her eyes. "Yes knucklehead. I didn't touch your precious Master Emerald, we really were there just for the Chaos Emerald." She said, a smile flitting over her face.

Knuckles just shook his head with his eyes closed angrily. Rouge looked over at Sonic. "Well, that was our adventure in a nutshell. What the hell happened here? Everyone looks like they're dead on their feet. All we know is that Eggman went and stole an emerald from GUN and that he had some accomplices. They didn't really even provide video footage, saying something about it all being corrupted." She asked, an eyebrow raised.

Sonic sighed, before he explained everything that happened over the past two weeks. Throughout the explanation, Rouge's face slowly morphed from her usual smug resting face into pure shock. Shadow also slowly sat straighter throughout the story, his focus becoming far sharper. Omega made no outward expression, but even he seemed to be quieter through the recounting.

By the end of it, Rouge and Shadow both look stunned, in their own ways. Rouge's mouth was even hanging open. Shadow looked away, his face a shifting enigma of emotions.

Rouge shook her shock away, before asking, "Wait, Eggman made a device that could turn people evil? And he's already shot Blaze and Tangle with it?" She asked, for once her voice dead serious.

Sonic just nodded, while sighing. "Yeah. Frankly, I was wondering if you guys were crazy when you told me that you went to his base. You don't have enough members to counteract if one of your group was hit with that thing." He muttered.

Rouge just looked worried, but Shadow scoffed. "We would have handled it." He said, his face back into the neutral glare he always had. Rouge turned to him, before rolling her eyes. Then she turned back to Sonic. "Regardless, even if we were woefully underprepared, it didn't matter. He wasn't there. We went inside and all we found was evidence that he and his group moved earlier that day." She said, a shadow passing over her face.

Sonic's face transformed into frustration. "Damn it. We were hoping that he was too confident to bother moving. Now we have to track him down all over again." he mumbled. Team dark glanced at him in surprise.

"You ok there, Blue?" Rouge asked. Sonic just shook his head. "Why is everyone asking me that? I'm fine. Or at least, I will be when we take down Eggman's latest scheme." He said, the usual confident grin breaking through his face.

It was quickly dashed when Shadow asked him a question. "So, you're the current guardian of the Sol Emeralds while Blaze is indisposed?" He looked at Sonic critically.

Sonic just nodded. Shadow looked at him for a moment longer, before he scoffed. "You couldn't guard a chilly dog if you put your mind to it, you're not worthy to be a guardian of something as powerful as the Sol Emeralds." He said dismissively.

Sonic desperately wanted to bite back, but he just couldn't. Shadow had hit all the fears Sonic had. Seriously, how does Knuckles handle this? I really do need to cut back with all my jokes about his guardianship. He thought, grimacing.

Even Rouge looked at Shadow with a disapproving glance. Apparently, even she thought that was a step too far in an already bad situation. She glanced back at Sonic. "Well, while we are still on the subject of bases, we've got good news. Beside the Chaos Emeralds we brought, we have also discovered where the Eggman Empire's next base is. Apparently, Eggman didn't bother to clean out his servers at his original base, so it showed almost exact coordinates to his newest egg base." She said, pulling up some kind of black circular device.

She clicked a button on it, and a holographic map of a location Sonic hadn't been before appeared. It didn't show any details, but it did show coordinates and elevation statistics. Rouge smiled confidently. "Well, ready to go on another heist Blue?" She asked.

Sonic looked at the map, a smile appearing in his face. Finally, a break! He thought ecstatically.

The smug look on Rouge's face was slowly replaced by one far more serious. "While I bring good news, I also bring some bad news. At his base were some kind of plans for his next big world conquering scheme." She said, clicking another button on the hologram device.

The map was then replaced with what looked like an image of a giant robot, one that seemed to be able to hold a person in the center. The small glass pod in the spot right above the chest seemed like it would be able to only hold an islander. There were words scrawled along the top, the Robot seeming to be labeled: "Chaos King Initiative".

Sonic stared at the robot. He looked over at Rouge. "So it's another big robot. So what? We stop those all the time." he said, looking back to the design.

Despite his apparent confidence, something about this robot was giving him chills. It was designed to look much like Eggman's usual giant mechs, but instead the bulkiness seemed to be replaced with a more lean look. Once again, what seemed to be the cockpit was a small glass dome inside of the robot, set just at the tip of the robot's chest. What concerned Sonic about it was that once again, it seemed like it was made to hold an islander, not Eggman. Another detail Sonic nearly missed was that it looked like several large strands of metal were interconnected with the glass dome, more so than the rest of the robot. The large metal… cables? Seemed to encircle the entire robot, making a multi-X mark over the chest, while more of the cables seemed to encircle to the back of the machine as well. Lastly, the head was shaped to look like a king's head with a crown on top. It didn't seem to look like how Eggman usually made it, with his iconic mock face. The holographic designs didn't look truly complete, so Sonic couldn't make out what the face was designed as, but it wasn't the usual for sure.

He didn't feel all that great when Rouge shook her head. "That's the thing. Whatever this robot is designed for, it's not just another big robot. From what little schematics we found about this thing, Eggman really made something unique here. Apparently, it's power source-" Rouge was about to say. But suddenly, the HQ shook violently.

Everyone stood up, looking around hyper attentively.

Then, a loud voice reverberated through the Restoration HQ.

"Hello foolish mortals! It is I! The Great Tangle! On behalf of the Eggman Empire, we inquire that you give up the two Chaos Emeralds you now possess. Oh, and if you resist our demands, then we would be happy to show you our hospitality! We have a very large army of badniks currently stationed in several air cruisers that I would be delighted to use! Oh, and if we're still not convincing enough, we have brought enough morality switch charges to mess up everyone important in the Restoration! Now, come out and let's PLAY!" Tangle's loud voice suddenly cut out, before the group could hear loud thuds from outside.

Shadow and Sonic glanced at each other, before Shadow tossed him the Cyan Chaos Emerald. Sonic deftly caught it, and when he did, Shadow was out of the building faster than most could blink.

Sonic cursed. NO! Not here, not now!

Omega quickly followed Shadow, yelling something about dibs on destroying all the big robots. Rouge gave Sonic a sympathetic look, before also running after Omega. Sonic looked around at Tails and Knuckles, both of whom were still inside the room. He sighed, then put on a smile. "Alright guys, looks like we got some of Egg-head's toys to crush." He said, quickly pulling Knuckles off the couch. Knuckles and Tails just nodded, before the three beelined out of the room.

When sonic was able to make it outside, it was total chaos, and not the energy kind. A bunch of Restoration members were firing at an oncoming horde or badniks with their wisps, trying to stem a tide. Sonic could see Whisper shooting out some of the more dangerous ones from a sniper's position, while Lanolin was out directly into the fray, firing her wispon at whatever she could see.

Shadow seemed to be tearing through whole groups with his efficient fighting, while Omega was blasting two chainsaw gun hands at the largest group nearby, yelling about the badniks being 'inferior models'. Rouge also seemed to be flying through the air, both coming to kick down like a missile and giving recon on the more dangerous opponents.

Sonic looked another direction, and saw Silver using his telekinesis to both throw and freeze badniks for Restoration members to shoot at. He definitely seemed to be getting tired though. Luckily, his back seemed to be covered by the various Restoration members, and every once in a while a sniper shot from Whisper would take out a badnik that was getting far too close to Silver for comfort. Eventually, Amy ran over to Silver To watch his back, and the sniper shots moved back to more dangerous targets.

Sonic immediately jumped into the fray, spindashing to any Badnik he was near to. And oh boy was he. There were so many robots that he never seemed to stop smashing into anything even for a moment. Every now and then though, he would spot Knuckles smashing a robot into the air or Tails firing at a group with his arm cannon.

No matter how many robots the Restoration smashed though, there were always more. Apparently, Eggman had pulled out all the stops in this invasion, because the Restoration was trying to fight back a veritable army. And it wasn't just a sizable amount of regular egg pawns or motorbugs, but also some of the bigger heavy hitters, which were the ones truly giving problems to the Restoration.

Sonic was knocked back by a sudden hit from an egg pawn, his eyes focused on other parts of the battle. He quickly got back up, about to homing attack the robot. But before he could, the robot was destroyed in a blast of fire. Sonic turned over and saw that the one who destroyed it was an orange wolf islander with weird eyes and a 'Gamer' hat.

The orange wolf smiled creepily and gave a nod to Sonic, before running back into the fray.

Sonic shook the confusion away from his head, before he suddenly had to jump out of the way. He turned around, spotting one of the bigger hammer badniks, which was trying to squash him. Sonic smirked. He quickly sped up the badnik's hammer, before ramming straight into its face. Unfortunately, Sonic miscalculated and he was grabbed by the badnik. With Sonic in its clutches, it started to squeeze. Sonic struggled, trying to free himself to no avail.

Suddenly, two avian islanders grappled onto the badnik, before they both kicked the badnik's face at the same time. One of them was a female with black feathers and a combat suit, while the other seemed to be a light grey feathered avian wearing… Was that a business suit?

The badnik was brutally pushed into the ground, releasing Sonic while it fell over. The second Sonic was released, he started charging his homing attack in the air, before smashing into the robot's face once again. That hit seemed to be the final straw, and the robot's head exploded.

Sonic turned over to look at the two who helped him, but he sadly couldn't speak to them as they were already moving on. Both of them were also arguing a bit with each other, the male whining and the female mocking him. "I'm just a lawyer! I was supposed to go home today! Why does this always happen!" "Oh quit your whining. It's fun, isn't it?"

Sonic decided to turn his attention back to the battle at hand, which finally seemed to be winding down after a bit. He went back to spin dashing through badniks, finally starting to clear the area up. Suddenly, Sonic was smacked from behind, a surprise attack from one of the smarter egg pawns. Sonic turned around, his back to the floor. The egg pawn was about to hit him while he was down, but before it could a blue laser went right through its chest. Sonic sighed, standing up.

"Thanks Whis-" he started, until he noticed that the islander who shot the egg pawn was not Whisper, but another wolf. This wolf had bright pink fur, and was wearing combat boots with combat gloves. She was also wearing a face covering, a black bandana which also seemed to have big white sharp teeth painted on the front. The wolf's eyes were closed like how Whisper's usually were. Even so, Sonic could still see the confused look the wolf was giving him, her heavily modified wispon still up.

Sonic just rubbed the back of his head embarrassedly. "Sorry about that, I thought you were someone else. Thanks for the save though. And nice wispon, by the way!" Sonic said, cheerfully giving a thumbs up. The wolf seemed to smile behind her mask, waving to Sonic before running off, presumably to save more Restoration members.

Man, just how many people in the Restoration have I never interacted with? I'm meeting tons of new people today! Sonic thought, turning back to the fight at hand.

After a few more spindashed, the final egg pawn on the ground was destroyed, crumpling backwards after getting punched by a female hedgehog islander with blue and green highlights, wearing a blue bodysuit with dark blue and pink gloves and boots.

Everyone stood on guard for a few moments. When nothing but silence passed, the whole Restoration started cheering in celebration. They had done it! They had beat back an entire robot army!

The celebrations didn't last long though, as suddenly three Eggman Air Cruisers appeared from the clouds, all of their guns pointed at the Restoration. Before the Restoration got even a moment to think about how screwed they were, latches underneath the Cruisers opened up, releasing several large Death Egg Robots.

Suddenly, a large speaker from the middle of the tree cruisers crackled on, the large start up whine causing the islanders with sensitive ears to drop down and try to cover them. While they were groaning in pain, Tangle's voice crackled over the speakers, starting with laughter.

"HAHAHAHA! WOW! That was AMAZING! That was one of the coolest things I've ever seen! Bravo! Sadly, as much fun as that was to watch, seriously, it was like a movie! …The boss man still wants me to get those Chaos Emeralds, and I've got a job to do! So, we have all our guns leveled on Restoration HQ, and we have several Super Badniks deployed, ready to rock your world! So, what's it going to be, heroes?" Tangle said through the speakers, her voice menacing.