Chaos Born

Lightning Strikes Twice

"...So... are you happy?"

Knuckles folded his mighty arms, arms that could snap a train in two with hands that could bend a steel pole into the shape of Perfect Chaos and yet were gentle enough to pluck a grape from a vine without crushing it.

"Yes," he answered, "Just so long as you are too."

The soon to be expanding family were interrupted, however, when the whole place gave a tremour. Knuckles' immediate thought was the Master Emerald but, then again, the vibrations were gone a moment later. It was as though a low-flying plane had just cruised over Angel Island and shaved the top of the shrine.

"What was that?" the echidna growled, dashing for the door with Rouge hot on his heels.

They made it outside just in time to see a fleet of large tank-like robots vanishing into the distance, heading straight for the mainland.

"...That doesn't bode well," Rouge muttered, flitting back into the house and sinking in front of her computer. Three clicks later, she had answers. "My radar identifies them as Eggman robots."

Go figure.

"So he's making his move, is he?" Knuckles snarled, punching his palm with his fist, "Wait until Sonic's out of the way and then - wham!"

"Deja vu, much? Makes you wonder what the intentions are..." Rouge swallowed.

Absent Sonic alone was bad enough but if the good doctor, not satsified with his current catch, had considered the hedgehog as simply an ingredient for something else and had sent his swot bots out on a hunt...

"Stay on the radar and keep an eye on them," Knuckles told her, "I'll bring Angel Island inland and go warn the others."

- - - - -

The menacing rumbles of the approaching robots had alerted Tails as well, poking his head from the top window and spying the dots in the sky.

"Zooey!" he had called, "Get down in the basement and stay safe! Look after Rosemary!"

Then he was gone.

- - - - -

Big the Cat's sensitive ears flattened as the first robot thundered overhead.

"That doesn't look like a plane to me," he pouted.

Shade, who had been watching him fish, narrowed her eyes. "Yeah and neither do the rest of them."

The sky literally darkened for a moment as the rest of the hoarde followed suit after the first.

Where Flickies were singing before, now they huddled on their branches, trembling.

- - - - -

Silver and Charmy were flying through the air, on their way to meet with Vector, when they were suddenly confronted with the notion that they weren't alone in the sky.

The silvery hedgehog glided gracefully to a stop in mid-air, turning elegently in his aura of aqua blue to glance behind.

"Uh-oh."

Charmy, grunting from the effort of slowing down which pulled painfully at his lace wings, managed to manouver his proportionately large body in a 180 turn to see what it was that had elicited such a negative response from his older companion.

"Woah."

The fleet of oncoming robots were threatening enough if you happened to be a lucky fella walking about on good old planet Mobius, but to those who oft found themselves cruising the Mobian atmosphere it was a downright sinister view.