Regrouping

[Dr. Robotnik]

Robotnik looked off into space, far away as he recalled the strange shadow beasts rampaging through the city.

"I wish I could say. All I can offer up are theories."

As he looked around the bridge of the Egg Carrier, one such theory did come to mind though.

"You weren't working for me yet, but years ago I had one of my usual evil ideas. I wanted to destroy Station Square. But instead of me doing it, I would give Chaos Emeralds to Chaos, the water god of destruction. Then once he attained his perfect form with all seven emeralds, he would destroy Station Square and then I would build my own city in its place." Robotnik went silent for a moment. Looking back, it was a pretty stupid idea he had to admit. Never again would he ally with another being with more power than himself. "In the end, he managed to absorb the negative energy of all the Chaos Emeralds to become perfect. Sonic then used the positive energy of the emeralds to become Super Sonic, and of course he won."

Robotnik neglected to mention to Rampage that Perfect Chaos also one-shot one of his Egg Carriers as well.

"After Chaos was defeated, his evil energy was expelled from his being and he became peaceful. I'm wondering if this evil energy has decided to re-manifest itself as these shadow creatures we saw today. Like I say though, it's only a theory."

[Rampage]

"Huh... Boy, and I thought the things I saw back in my own dimension were weird. That however, sure takes the cake. So, assuming I understood any of that... Do you think the merge might have... I don't know jumbled up something like Chaos from another reality? Either way, how do you fight something like that which can just suddenly pop out of thin air?"

[Dr. Robotnik]

"I might not know where the shadows came from, but I have reviewed footage of the shadow creatures as they invaded Robotropolis. After all, my city is filled with surveillance cameras and almost every street is covered."

He tapped several commands into a console. Monitors around the bridge started to play back footage from surveillance cameras set up around Robotropolis. Robotnik pointed at one in particular, showing a nighttime wide shot of the cityscape with the downtown area and the HQ building in the middle. As they watched, a black cloud rolled into the city. It was hard to distinguish due to the low light, but the cloud blotted out lights coming from the tall buildings as it washed over the city like a wave.

"It looks like they don't exactly pop out of thin air. This cloud is a warning that they are approaching. But since they came at night, you would probably think it's just storm clouds instead."

Robotnik fast forwarded the tape, as the cloud completely enveloped the city and blocked out most of the lights. Eventually all of the lights vanished, as the city's power was cut.

"The freedom fighters didn't cut the power. It was the shadow creatures. I didn't see any footage of the freedom fighters at our power stations. So apparently these shadows hate light. They appear when it's night time, and they're smart enough to extinguish lights before they attack."

He cut to another view, with a high camera angle viewing a battle between the freedom fighters, the Robotopolis citizens, and the shadow creatures after they all formed into the massive dragon-like beast. But instead, Robotnik waved his hand at what was happening around the dragon.

"Notice that as the dragon forms, you can see that the area around it is becoming lighter. I think these dark, misty clouds are their default state. When they need to attack, the mist that makes up the clouds forms into the creatures. And once every part of the cloud has formed into a body, the mist is gone completely. It's like watery mist condensing into droplets." He gave a small smirk. "It fits, because Chaos himself was made of water."

"So...going by these videos, we know what their modus operandi is when it comes to the time and method of their attack. We might be able to develop some countermeatures with this knowledge."

[Rampage]

"Maybe. They sure seemed eager to gobble them shards up. They seemed to get bigger and bigger as they got their hands on more of 'em too. It might also be a good idea to keep these things separate from one another too."

Limping back over to a console, Rampage cued up some of the footage from the few remaining cameras that had survived the beast attacks thanks to their independent power supplies. "Huh, anything you can tell be about these Freedom Fighters here? I think I recognize the purple one. One of Knuckle's Chaotix right? I don't recognize the rest. Well, two of 'em I remember seeing on Angel Island." Rampage asked as he paused the video on Espio's image.

Rampage paused the video as he saw a couple of familiar faces. Specifically Alpha, the hedgehog he'd fought in the city. "That hedgehog Alpha, I was interrogating on Angel Island before the alarms started going off. Guess he escaped somehow. Don't know much about him, but he seems to have these rings that give special powers. Packs a pretty solid punch that one."

"That one however, I don't know at all. The deer. Wasn't he the one who beat you on Angel Island? Whadda ya know about 'em?"

[Dr. Robotnik]

"The purple one is Espio, from Knuckles' Chaotix like you said. Usually they work together with him, so I'm wondering where Knuckles and the others are. Let's see..."

Images popped up of a gray wolf, a brown echidna, a yellow cat, a lizard and a bug in Egyptian regalia, and a number of others.

"I don't recognize most of the others. I think that wolf was with them on Angel Island, but I can't remember what he did." He pondered the last two. "Those Freedom Fighters may be annoying, but they sure aren't lacking for variety are they? I mean... They're running around with Pharaoh girl there. Must be another victim of the merge then, taken out of her time. Looks like she didn't do much, in any case."

Rampage again tried to get Robotnik to focus on the deer, and of course helpfully remind him again about how he got beaten by him. Rolling his eyes, Robotnik reached back into his memory.

"If I recall, he was the result of some sort of experiment. I don't remember him specifically, but I was playing around with the idea of capturing freedom fighters, implanting them with mind control devices, and then sending them back to their groups for spying purposes. I could never get it to work right, but I think I can see the device there." Robotnik pointed to a metallic square-ish object on the back of the deer's neck. "It's partially why he's got some other electrical powers too."

And chalk that up to another one of my ideas backfiring on me...

"I must say that I'm a lot more interested in those newcomers though, the raptors. Some of them were on the ground helping civilians, but then I saw this in one of the feeds..."

The video played back a recording from inside a building. A raptor suddenly spun around as if frightened by something. He dodged a plasma bolt, but then another one struck him and he fell down. Two other raptors moved to stand over him, before one of them picked up the unconscious raptor and took him away.

"Whoever these raptors are, they're not all on the same side. In fact, I think that big ship coming out of the wormhole was being piloted by other dinosaurs too."

[Rampage]

"Well then. I reckon we ought to see if we can wrangle one of them raptors and get 'em to spill their guts. They must be here for a reason. Like you said, the timing was just too perfect." Rampage ran his robotic hand over his chin in thought.

"Still, ain't nothing we can do 'bout them till we find 'em. Your spy bot's will have to do their job first. In the mean time. I reckon I'm going to look into gather'n some intel of my own."

[Dr. Robotnik]

"Ah yes...my ever dependable spybots." Robotnik had just about forgotten he had a supply on board. He punched more commands into the console. A small flock of black dots appeared from below the Egg Carrier and began to fly back towards Robotropolis, the last known location of the raptors. "Hard to believe that years ago, I was the only one who had these. Now everyone's got them. Spy bots, that is. Except everyone else calls them drones. Am I really that evil compared to legitimate governments, when they use these 'drones' for the same purposes I do?" He chuckled.

It was just then that Rampage mentioned he was going to do some of his own research. That raised Robotnik's eyebrows. He didn't know where this could be going.

"Intel? May I ask what kind of intel, Rampage?"

[Rampage]

Rampage's organic face curled back into a cruel, disconcerting half-grin as he turned his head towards the good doctor.

"The kind that tells me how to take care of all those pesky little nuisances in your life. After all, you don't keep me around for my good looks, now do you?" He replied as he drew his thumb across his throat as he spoke, leaving little to the imagination as to what he might be referring to.

[Dr. Robotnik]

Of course by this point Robotnik had long since gotten used to Rampage's creepy half-grins, so that didn't phase him. However, while the badger ostensibly did everything he did to help the empire, Robotnik always wondered about the hidden agenda that Rampage had. There wasn't a question he had one with how fishy he acted at times, but Robotnik just didn't know what that agenda contained. So far as he could tell, Rampage never once shied away from a fight or a chance to get into one. He was a very good soldier for Robotnik's cause.

"Mind telling me what you plan to do then, to gather this intelligence? You going to lead a team into the Great Forest to look for the Freedom Fighters or something?"

[Rampage]

"Pfft... Like finding needles in a 100 acre haystack. Nah, the way I figure, Solenna is my best bet. Place is bound t' be safer than the Great Forest, albeit a bigger target. Still, it's the only real piece of civilization left around here, so it's bound to attract them there for one reason or another. When they do show up, I plan to have a few test dummies in place to see what they can do. What their limitations are. How best to kill 'em."