Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It was debated by many wasteland historians when America truly died; some said that it died during the Great War, while others argued that it died when Control Station Enclave was destroyed by the Chosen one all those years ago.

While neither are completely wrong, America died once and for all when, on April 20, 2275, Franklin Anderson became president of The Enclave, damning the world to a new dark age as The Enclave started building up once more.

First was the Sierra Army depot, then Enclave Intelligence, and then lastly, the military. But while rebuilding, they soon learned that the territory next to them, New Reno, was taken over by another enclave group.

Thus, the two groups joined together and Anderson’s Enclave group exponentially, along with getting a boost in numbers and weaponry.
Though the two groups joined together, Anderson immediately began the hunt to rebuild the enclave communications and satellite equipment, which led to one of Anderson’s enclave's greatest challenges, Chicago.

The Chicago Enclave, led by the mysterious Secretary, did not like Anderson’s Enclave, and along with the fact that another president had come to power, this began a struggle for both sides to try and see who was the real president.

Though news of the Chicago Enclave winning over the Midwest Brotherhood did shake the Anderson Enclave, they pushed forward, trying to make sure that Anderson was going to win this fight for power.

But then two answers came up: the southern parts of Nevada that held technology that would give Anderson the edge and Texas, where the Anderson Enclave would gain much-needed support.

There were originally three Enclave groups in Texas, with two of those being from Chicago, one led by the brother of Colonel Sam Houston the V and another led by General Novel. General Novel’s group fell and retreated back to Chicago, but the other one still stood.

The enclave led by Colonel Sam Houston was in bad shape, but Anderson was determined to make sure that the Texclave survived, no matter what.

Thus, the Anderson Enclave started sending support over to Texas while also cleaning up Nevada, with the help of the restoration of the Enclave’s robotics division, led by Colonel Mary Orwich.

Though Mary did have to head over to Texas to be reunited with her lost brother Vaehlin, with the machine of man showing emotion, which happened to be fear due to her berating him about her abandonment at Fort Summers before both of them collapsed due to emotions at seeing their sibling had lived.

Callahan and his brother were more boisterous in their reunion, and both were dragged out of a makeshift bar by MPs. Safe to say, the Anderson Enclave and the Texclave got together well.

Back in Nevada, The Enclave’s robotic divisions were busy cleaning up Esmeralda while their PA divisions dealt with Vault City, and the tribes and the infantry were trained to be hardline defenders.

While taking over Nevada and supporting the Texclave, Anderson’s Enclave soon received survivors from an Enclave base out in Montana known as MacArthur, which was created by the Chicago Enclave.

Chicago still held the advantage, and while it was sad that some more brothers and sisters were once again killed by the mutants, it showed that Anderson was more caring than the Chicago Enclave.

Thus the months went by, but slowly Anderson’s influence grew stronger, and more enclave personnel flocked underneath his banner. Sure, he couldn’t establish complete control over the enclave just yet, but they sure as hell weren’t some false enclave.

After that was taken care of, Anderson’s enclave invested in two places: Vault 9, a vault, whose experiment was organized crime running the vault, which surprisingly ended up as a functioning society.
Though it now sits as ruins due to the passage of time, Anderson knew that it would better serve the enclave than nature, and thus the Army Corps of Engineers began reconstruction of the vault.

And the second place was Area 51, where the enclave could finally gain some of the best technology in the world, along with paving the way to big MT.

Though apparently Chicago wasn’t done trying to dethrone Anderson due to them creating the newest Eyebots, which, while useful, still could not compare to what the Anderson Enclave was building.

Though outside of Chicago’s continuous attempts to overthrow Anderson’s enclave, it was mostly calm for the enclave due to them keeping hidden from all the threats around them, progressing in technology, and brutally until the day comes.

But then they received news—the news that the Chicago Enclave had fallen—and enclave forces that came to Anderson’s Enclave reported that the Secretary seemingly committed suicide for no apparent reason.

With the death of the Secretary, enclave forces in Chicago shattered and spread all around the continent, with a majority going to Anderson’s enclave.

Anderson feigned being sad about the secretary’s death but was in reality overjoyed that he had finally won over that bastard, though Eden still remained, but that was an issue for later.

Though the Enclave eventually needed to expand the tribal nation of the White Legs, they were large enough to allow more factories to be built but not advanced enough to pose a threat.

Thus, the enclave invaded the tribal nation and was easily able to push through them with PA divisions, all of them under the command of Sergeant Major Dornan.

The tribal nation naturally resisted but quickly fell under the might of the enclave, bringing more slaves under the enclave’s rule and even more test subjects for the Science Division.

The Enclave started their exploration into Big MT not long after their war with the White Legs, but something fantastic happened: the NCR civil war, which allowed the Enclave to finally roam free without the fear of being found out.

With their newly found freedom, the Enclave started to rapidly expand, conquering many of the smaller nations near them, including the heretics of New Canaan.

General Song was the leader of the assault and personally ordered the burning of mutant village after mutant village in the name of the Lord, claiming that the Lord would see the pyres and smile at their work.

Though some of the Enclave’s forces did leave for the great trek to Washington, DC, after they received a message, not from the false president Eden but from one named Colonel Autumn,.

Thus, an expedition led by Jack ‘Shadow’ Churchill set out to help their allies; even if they did serve the false president, they were all enclaves and united against the mutants.

After a long trek and stopping at multiple Enclave bunkers to resupply, the expedition made it to Raven Rock, and Churchill talked to Colonel Autumn about the situation.

It is safe to say that Colonel Autumn was stripped of his rank, and Churchill was placed in charge as he cleaned up both the mistakes of Autumn and the false president, with the false president actually being a ZAX.

The ZAX was then taken by Enclave Intelligence and thrown to the Chemical Corps, who wanted to experiment on it. No one questioned why they wanted a computer, but President Anderson allowed it and even encouraged them to experiment with the false president.

The main threat to the region was a large group of raiders who didn’t last long against Enclave PA divisions armed with plasma, Tesla, flame, Mini-Nukes, and FEVs.

Then came the Brotherhood of Steel, and after the Colonel made a deal with a vault dweller to help them, the Enclave were able to push them back, with the vault dweller being made an agent for enclave intelligence.

After the Brotherhood was dealt with, Churchill put the vault dweller, now Agent James, in charge of DC as Churchill and his forces went back to Nevada.

Back in Nevada, The Enclave, since Chicago and Eden weren’t really able to claim the name, was focusing on cloning so that while they kept their own forces in Nevada, they could support other enclaves with clones.

Though they of course needed someone to base the clones off of, and who else but Sergeant Major Arch Dornan? He was mildly pissed off that he was going to be used as the basis for clones, but eventually agreed.

Thus, the Enclave started building up clone armies while ignoring the NCR civil war, ending with the Californian State winning out, the Legion falling into its own civil war, and the Legion of Hades rising up.
Both sides continued to build up their armies, furthering their research and cracking down on their citizens; except for the Enclave, they actually care about their people.

But eventually it all would come to an end. At 1:00 am on July 4, 2280, enclave forces moved into California and engaged Californian divisions.

It was a bloodbath, and in only six days, the CS had taken 116k casualties while the Enclave only took 12 in total. On the 16th of July, the Enclave flag flew over the mutant capital of Shady Sands.

The Enclave continued their warpath into the mutant nation, butchering any mutant forces they came across and purging those that tried to stand up against them.

After months of fighting, on the 2nd of October, the CS fell under enclave rule, and a shadow fell over California. Soon after, a shadow fell over Texas as Colonel Sam Houston consolidated his rule over all of Texas and parts of Mexico.

With the conquest of California, many things changed. Mutants were placed in Andersonvilles, labor camps, or were simply killed en masse as humanity claimed its rightful place.

Along with the purges came the rebuilding of many vaults that would shelter humanity, help the enclave’s population grow to new heights, and allow them to rightfully reclaim the continent.

Though three vaults were slightly problematic since apparently they were planning on nuking not only the CS but also the Enclave, this made the Enclave make sure that the vault dwellers minded their Uncle Sam.

Another had become a shelter for mutants, led by mutants; it was subsequently purged by FEVs and flamers to make sure that the vault was sterilized.

Each vault was unique; some were easier to clean out or harder, but nothing was too difficult for the enclave. Even if one had a seemingly functioning time machine, which the enclave threw out because they weren’t trusting that, it was just a ridiculous idea.

Eventually, though, the enclave would be dragged back into war. The Legion of Hades pushed against them, though they were foolish enough to place all of their eggs into one basket and have most of their forces in the Mojave.

After some verti-drops from Sigma teams, almost all of the Legion’s army was encircled and killed by Enclave forces, leaving the road to flagstaff completely open for humanity.

With the Enclave pushing in from the west and the Texclave joining in and pushing from the east, the legion and its allies didn’t last long and crumbled under the combined might of the Enclave.

Thus, the last power on the continent that could stand against the enclave was the Washington Brotherhood. All forces were set on the border, and after some quiet, all hell broke loose.

PA vs. PA, monsters versus monsters, and possibly the greatest duel to happen in history happened during the war with the Washington Brotherhood, that being the Immortal, the chapter’s leader, and General Song, the hero of humanity.

They battled on top of the space needle that still stood; both exchanged blows again and again, their armor breaking and their weapons dulling until it came down to their fists.

Eventually, though, General Song won against The Immortal and tossed his corpse off the space needle before planting the Enclave flag on top of it, breaking the morale of the mutants and bolstering Enclave forces.

Of course, any vaults that were found were restored to working order to shield the enclave’s citizens, except for one vault that was strangely stricken from the records, Vault 103.

Normal security measures were to be deployed, but a division of the Chemical Corps, the 10th Chemical Corps, decided that they would be the ones to secure the vault, and with the President reinforcing their decision, everyone went along with it.

With the vaults being rebuilt and the Washington Brotherhood destroyed, there was no stopping the Enclave as it moved into a new golden age while the rest of the continent entered into a new dark age.

The armies of the enclave tore through the lands, purging and enslaving all mutants they found, along with linking up with any other enclave forces they found.

When the Enclave reached Alaska, to their surprise, they found that the land was hit very little, and along with having its own Enclave, it sported pure US military remnants and even pure Americans, all of them being integrated into the Enclave and boosting the Enclave’s gene pool.

Then, down to Mexico, the Enclave finished off the cartels, resistance fighters, and tribals that littered the landscape before reactivating Talocan to occupy the Mexican territories before doing the same with Nordikon in Canada.

Eventually, though, the Enclave arrived in the lands of the Midwest, finding out that much of the land was purified thanks to the work of Chicago, and even there were still Enclave forces there, with them nervously accepting Anderson as their president.

After the Midwest came the east coast and the south, which Agent James had done an excellent job of taking over with the help of another enclave in Boston and the technology of some place called the institute.

Thus, on December 25th, 2285, The Enclave had won, its dream fulfilled, and all that was left was to clean up pockets of mutant resistance and make sure that the mutants couldn’t get back up.

The years passed by, and the Enclave continued onward in its efforts to improve humanity, perfecting both genetic engineering and cybernetics so that humanity could truly be different from the mutants.
The Enclave then started to expand into South America and even parts of Europe, though much of the expeditions were made up of robots, clones, and any enslaved mutants that were left.

But the Enclave would embark on a new journey after finding another vault that was struck from the records. They uncovered a masterpiece of technology, one that would let them travel to a new world.

A shadow had fallen over America, and while it reached into the other parts of what remained of its world, it hungered for the bounties of the new one.

Chapter Text

Sergeant Juno sighed as he and his squad patrolled around Research Station Zip. Most would see it as an unremarkable research base that also doubled as a supply hub, but underneath was a wide range of laboratories and storage rooms, with the station having around 400 personnel, with 300 of those being soldiers.

Now Sergeant Juno wasn't always apart of the resistance; he originally was working for G.U.N. as the fastest-ranking Mobian personnel, but now he was some lowly sergeant due to G.U.N. being in ruins since EggMan's attempt at world dominance.

"Hey Sarge?" Juno shook his head as he looked at Maple, the squirrel standing completely still as everyone else looked at the ground.

"Yeah?"

"Did we place mines around the station?" She asked, clearly scared, and Juno immediately crouched down to investigate the mine.

"Everyone, stay still. I don't know who the hell gave the order to lace the area with mines, but I am going to kill them!" Juno said as he tried to deactivate the mine but found that it wasn't even a mine at all.

"Am-am I fine?" Maple asked, and Juno nodded, allowing Maple to remove her foot from the metal. Out from the ground jumps a small robot, painted jet black and having three little legs. In the center of it is an E surrounded by stars.

"Is that a badnik?" Another squad member asked, that being Patches, as he quickly saw another robot pop out of the ground, his tail slowing down from its frantic wagging that it did constantly.

"Not one I recognize; maybe it's one of the brainiacs creations?" Juno replied as he petted the robot; it was seemingly friendly and-

A yellow laser passed by his head. He immediately drew his wispon and blasted the robot to pieces. He turned to see who got shot: Maple and Patches, firing their wispons into the robots.

But Juno didn't see the last member of his squad, Dull; instead, he found an ash pile and a wispon on the ground. Juno immediately took cover, along with Maple and Patches. He has never seen a laser that can disintegrate someone with one shot—maybe some experimental-heavy weapons—but not just a single laser.

"Hey Sarge, can we leave? Because I do not want to end up as Dull over there!"

Juno blindly fired his wispon into the slowly growing hoard of mini robots until he suddenly heard his radio start to buzz, He spoke into it quickly.

"This is Sergeant Juno; we are being attacked by strange bad-" Sergeant Juno was then interrupted by someone else on the radio.

"All forces outside of Zip, get back here now! The station is under attack by-"

The member suddenly stopped as the radio went silent. With a single nod and some gestures, Juno and the two other members of his squad rushed back to Zip.

After a couple minutes, their eyes land on the facility only to see that the outer defenses have been breached, meaning that whoever was attacking them (most likely remnant Badnik forces) had already made it into the main complex.

"Patches, cover me and Maple as we get the door open." Juno says as Patches nods. Juno and Maple slide next to one of the doors that could only be accessed by Mobians due to its size, frantically putting in the code. The door opens as Juno and Maple head in.

"Alright Patches, get-Patches!" Juno said as he saw two rounds that resembled mini-rockets slam into Patches. Before he can even register where he's been hit, they explode, showering Juno with gore.

Juno stands there shocked as he wipes some of Patches off of him. Maple quickly closed the door and dragged Juno back. "I guess I'm dragging you this time!"

Juno tried to reply to Maple's snark but couldn't since he was still in shock at seeing someone practically explode in front of him. If they survived, then they would have a hard time burying Patches and Dull after this.

With Dull being an ash pile and Patches being all over the ground, along with being all over Juno, it had placed him in a trance of trying to understand what had just happened. Juno finally snapped out of it as he noticed that Maple had dragged him into what seemed like a makeshift barricade created in an area where multiple hallways intersect.

He looked around and noticed that most of the soldiers there were wounded, some sporting terrible burns and others showing wounds clearly gained from melee combat. Those that weren't wounded physically were sitting against the wall, wounded mentally due to sights similar to what Juno had seen.

Juno stood up as he heard far off gunfire that sounded similar to the fire that killed Patches in two shots and reduced him to nothing but gore. He checked his wispon and had to clean out parts of it since it was also covered in what remained of Patches.

"We have to get to the armory, none of our wispons can pierce the badnik's armor."

"Badniks? Those things weren't badniks; they were humans; the way they moved, fought, even their armor—we're being attacked by humans alongside getting attacked by those tiny robots.

Juno listened to two other sergeants speak to one another before hearing something crawling in the vents. He raised his weapon before firing into the ceiling. Some tried to stop him since it could be friendly, though they found out how wrong they were very shortly.

The vent bursts open, and everyone hears something fall to the ground but doesn't see anything fall to the ground. Some of the soldiers move to investigate, only to have their heads go flying off their shoulders.

Everyone that isn't wounded fires off their wispons as a badnik, one larger and much more humanoid, with blades instead of hands, de-cloaks and leaps at them, taking two more soldiers out before getting gunned down by thirty wispons.

Everyone frantically checks to see if any more of those things fell down but is relieved to find that only one came down from the vents, though they begin to hear the pound of metal boots against the pristine floor of the facility.

"Enemy contacts from the northern hallway-" a soldier says, only to be hit with some green orb, reducing him to nothing but green goo that slowly trickles down from the barricade.

Many of the wounded see this and try to escape, with Juno and Maple helping them out as they watch something crash through the barricade with glowing orange eye lenses that somehow express hatred.

Clad in jet black armor with orange accents, standing taller than all the soldiers, along with wielding some form of pistol, most likely what turned that soldier into goo, and in the things other hand being some kind of chainsaw-knife thing.

Lasers bounce off the armor as it swings left to right, sawing through the heads of multiple soldiers while firing off green orbs that either melt through the soldiers bodies or turn them into goo.

Their screams were terrible, as they felt parts of their skin melt off of them. It must have been a lot worse than getting shot by a normal Badnik blaster, which only left some burns.

Juno didn't know why he was reacting so badly to all this, maybe because they were being killed in a far more violent way than normal casualties caused by badniks. And from what one of the other sergeants said, these are humans attacking them along with robots.

None of the weapons or designs resembled anything EggMan had ever made, and along with them being humans actually fighting, Juno doubted that these were remnant Badnik forces or even people aligned with the EggMan empire.

Juno then felt something hit his leg. He turned and saw that he was hit in the leg, a laser burn, though he really didn't feel any pain, meaning that it had immediately destroyed the nerves in his leg. He immediately rolled to the side as he saw some of the mini-robots crawl after them and hit a button that closed off the hallway.

Maple came back for Juno after helping many other wounded into a safe room of sorts, saying, "You're not really living up to the rank of sergeant."

"Quiet Maple, we need to get to the communications room. We have to send out a signal, and even if we don't live, people will know what happened here." Juno limped into a hidden doorway that led to a dimly lit corridor, all the while Maple covered his six.

"Question: What are our chances of living? Because I don't exactly want to get turned into ash like Dull, blown to bits like Patches, get my head cut off, or melt like Viola." Maple closed the heavy metal door behind them.

They continued through the small corridors that were built inside the walls of the facility, allowing resistance members to move undetected in case of an attack on the station, Juno originally didn't understand why they built these corridors, but he now appreciated them.

They hear the sounds of screams, laser fire, and gunfire, along with more miniature explosions. Juno wondered how many were down here and who was behind this; if they did get out of this alive, then he would be retiring from the resistance and maybe moving to City Square.

Eventually, they made it to the door that would lead them directly into the communications room. Juno opened the door slowly as he raised his wispon to clear the room, but thankfully, the communications room was intact.

"Maple, guard the main door. I'll try to send out a signal." Juno said, and Maple simply nodded as she took out some mines she had on her. They were EMPs, so they should deactivate any of the robots or armor of the attackers if they tried to come into the communications room.

Juno was never good with technology, but with Manuel's laying all around the place, it wasn't too hard for him to understand the communications setup the base had. "Let's hope this works..."

He begins a message and speaks into the microphone, "This is Sergeant Juno Mince of Research Station Zip; we are under attack by an unknown force. I don't know how many of them there are, but they are dangerous. We need help immediately!"

Juno placed the message to play on repeat and flipped over one of the tables in the room to create a makeshift cover for him and Maple, though he doubted that an old wooden table would do much against mini-rockets and green orbs that could blow and melt through people.

As they both hid behind the table, wispons ready to pelt any intruders with las fire, they heard someone pleading for help on the other side of the main door, “Let me in! Let me in!”

Hesitant that this could be a trick, Maple walks to the door and speaks into the intercom over it, “Identify yourself.”

“P-Private Apple, just let me in there!”

Maple looked to Juno to see if she should let him in, but Juno shook his head, not risking the chance of the person on the other side being some form of robot that could mimic voices.

“Check the camera.” Maple nodded to Juno and checked the camera, only to see that it was one of the base’s personnel. Maple quickly let her in.

Private Apple immediately rushes in the door before frantically closing it, even pushing Maple out the way. After closing the door, Apple immediately curled up in the corner.

“Hey Juno, could you contact any other parts of the base?” Maple asked before Juno walked over to the communications console as he tried to contact any other station personnel.

Flipping through channels made his stomach churn as he heard screams and the sounds of desperate laser fire. Along with those noises, he saw the status of each person slowly turn from alive to K.I.A.

250 turns to 200, then that turns to 100, then 50, before finally ending up with 24 people left alive among the station’s personnel, with most of those bunkering down in the medical wing of the station.

The rest are Juno, Apple, and Maple in the communications room, and some in the testing rooms. He was about to get ready to make a last stand when he noticed something…why isn’t Maple being counted? Juno immediately hears Apple scream out and can barely turn around as he feels a laser burn through his chest.

Slumping against the communications console as Maple walks over to it and cancels the message he sent out before aiming an energy weapon against Juno’s head before speaking, “God bless America…"

__________________________________

The survivors in the medical wing prepare themselves to make their last stand against the attackers, hearing the sounds of miniature explosions resound beyond the entrance as the attackers destroy the automated defenses.

As the last automated machine gun falls silent, the lights suddenly turn off as everyone’s eyes are drawn to the door as two metal claws pry it wide open and an orange visor lights up while a robotic voice speaks, “Mutant Scum.”

It lunges at the first survivor, disembodying the man before one of its claws turns into a laser weapon and blasts another survivor, reducing him to nothing but ash.

The other survivors fired upon the thing as it dashed around the room, cutting down, disintegrating, or crashing through survivors as it quickly whittled down the numbers.

“What the hell is this thing!?” A survivor said before that they were quickly reduced to ash as the thing jumped into the air and crashed into another survivor.

As the laser fire ceased and the last survivor was nothing but a pile of gore on the floor, the thing left the room and the lights turned back on…

__________________________________

“I kind of hate we have to work with that thing.” Mecha-Sonic heard one of the SIGMA team members say as they saw the synth being supplied with some food so that it would survive in the communications room.

The synth would be left as a survivor so that when people came to check on the station, they would have to dig through a mountain of ruins to find her. When she was found, she would simply tell her rescuers that it was a coordinated badnik attack.

Mecha-Sonic didn’t know who said it, but He didn’t really see why the team hated the synth; it was just a robot taking the skin of a mutant. Maybe it’s because it is wearing the skin of a mutant.

While Mecha-Sonic observed a group of protectrons move to start deconstructing the station after members of the chemical corps came in to retrieve every piece of equipment and research that the station had to offer, he looked down at his jet black body.

It was a month ago when The Enclave came to Scrapnik Island and offered him and the rest of the scrapniks a new purpose, a new life to serve instead of wasting away on an island. Rebuilt to be faster, stronger, and smarter, they finally had a new purpose.

While all the other scrapniks were repaired by machines and technicians, Mecha-Sonic was repaired by General Orwich, which immediately earned Mecha-Sonic’s trust due to how she treated the scrapniks and him.

He now had a purpose, a person that cared not only for him but his fellow scrapniks and even all robots as equals (those that didn't serve the mutant, of course). He also learned how much he missed, along with how much the world had changed since his defeat.

As he continued to observe the destruction of the station, he wondered when he would come to blows against Sonic and friends along with EggMan, then they would remember who they forgot, then he would finally serve people that truly wanted world dominance.

Chapter Text

Corporal Jonah twisted and turned his rifle as the others chatted about a wide variety of things. The rifle was a new one due to the Science Division's finding a lost prototype in the Mojave, that being the XM4 RAW.

It was a lightweight, semi-automatic, quality-made Gauss rifle that could be produced at a fraction of the cost of a normal M72 Gauss rifle, though the reason why it could be produced so cheaply was due to the fact that it was based on the M4.

So more than three centuries after its introduction to the US arm forces, the M4 is still seeing service alongside even the most advanced weapons that the Enclave has to offer. There really is no beating the classics when it comes to US firearms.

”Should I stay or should I go?”

When the vertibird pilot started playing music, Jonah immediately knew that they were closing in on the target location, meaning that it was time for his first verti-assault, though the location wasn't that well defended.

It was a decently large village on the outskirts of a city called 'Station Square,' which made Jonah wonder who was the genius that came up with that name. It probably made filing paper work harder since the person had to make sure it was a city and not some park or train station.

Now the reason Jonah and his fellow soldiers were going to practically annihilate a village from existence was due to the fact that an eyebot had been disabled nearby and the village had found it.

Not wanting the townspeople to eventually send the eyebot off to researchers that most likely wouldn't find out about the Enclave's existence from one single eyebot, they would make note of the fact that it was a robot of high quality whose design didn't resemble any faction's robots.

So Jonah and the rest of his squad, along with some assaultron MKII's and the metal hedgehog that General Orwich fixed up, were sent to make the village 'disappear.' Which, in reality, meant to land in the village, exterminate everyone there, and plant enough explosives to level a mountain before bugging out.

The side door of the vertibird slowly opens as one of his squad mates goes to man the plasma-LMG. It was another recent addition to the enclave's arsenal, thanks to the Science Division. The design originated from the multiplas rifle; both the VB-01s, VB-01C Vertifalcons variants, are now equipped with it.

As a combination of music, plasma fire, slurs from his squadmate, and screams from the mutants down below started to fill the air, Jonah laid his head against the metal hull of the aircraft. This was the life of air-assault soldiers...and he loves it.

(————————Before the assault---——————)

Smith kicked his legs as his father tried to turn the strange robot back on, it had been damaged by some badniks that the local resistance garrison dealt with fairly easily.

Smith was always told that he couldn't go watch the garrison fight off the badniks but he didn't care and always snuck out to see them, to see these heroes fight off against the evil robots.

Sure a lot of the other kids in the village talked about their dreams of meeting Sonic, Amy and all the other heroes of the resistance, but Smith didn't understand why they were considered heroes and not the normal people fighting.

He knew they did good and had saved the world, but that was because a lot of them had abilities that barely anyone else had, they were leagues more powerful than a normal person but that just meant when the normal people won over badniks, it showed that the normal people could stand up for themselves.

Yeah that made him the weird kid in the village but it did give him some neat benefits when it came to the local garrison, some tours and even seeing how the wispons worked up close, which made him have the idea of when he grows up, he wants to join something similar to the resistance since he doubted that the resistance would last forever.

Smith then immediately snapped out of his train of thought as he hears a crash and sees that the robot fell off the table that his dad was working on, "You've got to be kidding...Smith, can you help me lift this into the wheel barrow? I'm just going to drop this off at the resistance garrison."

"Alright dad!" Smith said as he and his father lifted the robot into a wheel barrow, with Smith's dad doing most of the work.

After placing the robot into the wheel barrow and exiting the garage and while taking it to the resistance garrison, they pass by the village's small market place. The area surrounding the village was a dense forest with only two other places of note.

The first being Station Square of course which is where most of the village gets there visitors and the second place was a nearby research station where Smith's aunt was stationed at and was the only survivor of it after the badnik attack.

It had given his family a good scare and they still feared that Maple would have some sort of mental trauma after most likely seeing many of her comrades die before being trapped in a room for days on end.

As Smith and his father make it to the resistance garrison, they notice that the garrison is preparing for a fight. Smith's father goes up to one of them asks; "What's happening, are we under attack again?"

The resistance fighter shrugs and speaks, "Most likely, our patrol hasn't returned and their life signs say their K.I.A."

Some resistance fighters take up defensive positions around their building as the soldier looks at the wheel barrow, "oh that's the robot we saw that was deactivated by the badniks, why'd you bring it here?"

"We hoped someone here could look at it." Everyone there began to hear the sounds of helicopter blades, some of the resistance members were excited since the garrison in City Square normally sent over a helicopter or two to deal with a badnik group.

That is until they saw some strange VTOL hover over the market as its side door opens and a human clad in a mixture of some form of heavy duty body armor, a pitch black duster and a helmet with an inbuilt Gasmask.

The man operated some form of machine gun as he rained fire upon the villages populace, green orbs of energy finding their mark as they people it hit either had parts of their body melted off or reduced to nothing but goo.

"Shit, you two get too cover! Grace, Frost, RPGs!" Smith and his dad quickly ran as the aircraft landed while two other hover over other parts of the village.

Using the chaos caused by the attack as a shield, Smith and his dad got back to their home where they found that Penny and Elena, Smith's big sister and mother have already gotten into the makeshift bunker his dad had made.

"I'll get my revolver." Smith's dad said as he went to his room as Elena took Smith down into the bunker, Smith hoped that the resistance garrison could handle the attack before too much of the village was destroyed...

__________________________________________

"Aw shit!" Jonah said as he rolled out of cover right before an RPG round reduced him to nothing but gore.

Laser fire impacted all around him along with hitting his duster, though since it was black, he really couldn't tell where said lasers had hit. He kicked over a nearby wooden table as the rest of his squad pushed up while he gave covering fire.

What was interesting about the XM4 was that it was weirdly quiet. He had heard from PA soldiers that each shot from an M72 Gauss rifle sounded like an explosion, but this? It wasn't even remotely similar to the sound described by them.

Though what sound a gun makes doesn't really matter when it blows through muties like nothing, this was all while he was listening to possibly the best song that could go with shooting unarmed muties.

”With your feet on the air and your head on the ground”

He heard everyone else burst out laughing over comms when the Vertibird pilot started blasting that over their comms channel. Everyone already knew where their minds were and sort of made the song funny to them. As he fired some rounds into the makeshift barricade at the other end of the market, he noticed some footprints appear next to them.

He immediately knew that some of the assaultrons commanded by the metal hedgehog decided to stop murdering unarmed mutants in their homes and actually fight the mutants that were trying to mount up some form of defense.

Due to their inbuilt stealth fields, they were able to make it to the barricade and began slicing through the mutants with their blades as Jonah checked his magazine count.

Two mags down, five more to go, and one of those mags he used up was all spent on mutie civilians. He guessed that the other members of his squad had more mags to spare but had also used more mags on unarmed mutants.

"Kill count?" The staff sergeant said this as everyone in the squad gave their count.

Ryan had a count of 15, 7 civilians, and 8 resistance fighters. Luke had a count of 20, 15 resistance fighters, and 5 civies. The others were around 20 to 30 kills. Then there was Donovan. The mad man had earned 50 kills on his own due to not only using his bayonet but also being high on combat narcotics, which made him practically insane while killing mutants.

Said kills were also all civilians, and Staff Sergeant Alex had to inject some addictol into Donovan to calm him down before ordering him to use his gun as a gun and not as a chainsaw.

When the laser fire had finally ended, Jonah saw the assaultrons re-cloak and continued on hunting any remaining mutants that now hide inside their homes.

"Alright everyone, start clearing out the area before we plant explosives. I don't want to get yelled at due to some kid surviving this and telling people what happened here."

Jonah heard Alex speak over comms and nodded to himself as he went to investigate a house. As he noticed Max looting a mutant corpse, Jonah spoke as Max pulled something off the mutant's corpse.

"You know we don't really have time to loot the dead, right?"

"Cheese!"

Jonah looks down as Max holds some device in his hand, like an even smaller and thinner pip pad. Max pockets the device as Jonah asks him what it is. "I don't really know, but I'm going to see if one of the nerds can wipe the memory on it so I can use it."

"Well, mind helping me clear this house?"

"Sure, I have some fuel left in the tank." Max said as he gestured to his tactical flamer, which was another weapon the Enclave had rediscovered.

The lethality of a flamethrower with the size of a rifle was genius, and it didn't suffer from the chance of the fuel tank being detonated by a lucky shot, unlike earlier flamers.

Max got up and was the first in the house, slowly looking side to side while Jonah guards his six. As they secure the house and eventually find it empty, Max goes to leave while Jonah stays inside the home to double check that they didn't miss anything.

He eventually finds a small hatch hidden under an armchair, and after picking the lock and opening it, he chucks a flashbang down the hatch as he yells for Max, "Flamer!"

Max immediately rushes in and gets next to Jonah. "Nice going." Jonah and Max slowly descend down the ladder to go check to see if any mutants had hid down there.

The two eventually land and find themselves in quite a large bunker that must have taken a lifetime to set up. The two slowly move through the bunker as they get four red blips on their HUD.

__________________________________________

Smith held his mom tightly as they saw the two humans wander around the bunker's living room while they hid in the closet, one was equipped with a normal rifle that Smith saw many G.U.N. remnants use but modified with some technology on it.

The other had a flamethrower, not like the wispons that the resistance used, looking more efficient and brutal than the resistance's flamethrower. The one holding said flamethrower turned to their position and was going to fire until a bullet hit him in the head.

The impact makes the man stumble as Smith's father comes out of his hiding place, emptying his revolver into the human until the other fired a round into his father, barely making a sound and blowing his arm off as the other released a torrent of flames upon him.

Smith looked away and covered his ears as his father screamed out in pain as he was engulfed in flames that clung to him like glue, being a lot more lethal than the resistance's flamethrower. He could only hear the effort of his sister ambushing the two.

He heard a single shot ring out, no matter how quiet it was, and immediately knew that Penny was dead. The soldier with the flamethrower immediately broke through the closet door that hid him and his mother.

“Please-Please don’t do this! We’re innocent!” His mother pleaded as the man suddenly stopped, and Smith felt a tang of hope that he would live, perhaps in a-

__________________________________________

"Burn, puppy dog, burn!” Max said as he spewed flames onto the mutant survivors, while Jonah just stood there while kicking the bitch that tried to rush them with a broom.

“You have issues.” Jonah said while he heard the metal hedgehog speak over comms.

“Corporal Jonah and Specialist Maxwell, where are you? We are running out of time, and resistance forces are closing in.”

"Yeah, we’re coming.” Jonah turned off comms and tapped on Max’s shoulder to make him stop wasting fuel on two long dead mutants that resembled some form of gel instead of two charred corpses.

“Time to leave? Damn, well, let’s go.” Max said as the two slowly ascended from the bunker.

A few hours later, Mecha-Sonic stood on a nearby hill as he watched the village be annihilated by multiple sets of mini-nukes that would make sure that the force coming from Station Square would find nothing but ash.

Mecha-Sonic really didn’t know when Station Square was created, but the history that the Enclave had gathered from their time here showed that this city has been destroyed multiple times and has always been rebuilt.

Whether it was a water monster or the world quite literally cracking into parts, he even missed a world-domination attempt by his old master, where multiple military groups were almost defeated by a machine that was practically a metal ball with a gun.

Mecha-Sonic shook his head as he flew up into the sky alongside the trio of vertibirds that had accompanied him to wipe out this insignificant town next to a city that he had no connection too…

Chapter Text

"Well, your shield tanked most of the damage from the RPG, and your armor took care of the rest, but you still have to be careful; just because you've been upgraded to have a saturnite body along with shielding doesn't make you invincible." Mecha-Sonic rolled his head as General Orwich fixed him.

A week or two had passed since Mecha-Sonic had helped exterminate the unimportant village. After returning to base, he had seven more missions to go on alongside either SIGMA Team Yellow or members of the 37th Air Assault Division.

Most of the missions were simple extermination missions. Get dropped off at the target location, kill everything, and leave before any sort of relief force arrives, though two of the missions did involve him sneaking into secret resistance bases and stealing a wide variety of things.

The last mission he went on had him getting shot at point blank with an RPG by some rat called Maruc. The mutant had survived a long time in the winding corridors of a fort in the arctic after everyone else was slaughtered by Mecha-Sonic and SIGMA Team Yellow.

He remembered that the fort was so cold that each hallway was like an ice sculpture made out of blood, so beautiful but yet so horrific. Mecha-Sonic remembered when he found the mutant hiding out in the armory.

Mecha-Sonic lunged at the mutant, but the mutant pulled the trigger of the RPG. When the rocket hit Mecha dead on, it had not only taken down his shields but also killed the mutant and detonated the rest of the armory.

He had to claw himself out of his would-be grave, and when he got out of the rubble, he had to immediately catch up to the yellow team's vertibird since they thought he was destroyed and didn't want to risk the chance of someone coming to check to see if the base was alright.

"You should be good to go, little guy; just never underestimate anyone, even if they're mutant scum." Orwich said, and Mecha Sonic nodded as he hopped off the table he was laying on.

He left the general's workshop as he walked through the halls of Fort Anderson, named after the current Enclave president, who had originally wanted the Enclave to immediately invade the world in the name of the Lord.

Though his idea was immediately shot down when every other high-ranking member of the government told him that would be suicide and would make everything they did worthless, instead, they sent out an expedition to spy on the world.

So they hid, manipulated, stole, and simply watched as the world saw battle after battle, calamity after calamity, culminating in one war that was EggMan's chance to finally win against the hedgehog.

And he blew it, relying on a singular mutant to bring him many victories and the incompetence of the resistance leaders when it came to tactics to win many of his earlier battles in the war.

Only to be defeated by the hedgehog, some no-named mutant, and the child version of the hedgehog, the Enclave had no idea how a child Sonic came to help the resistance but chalked it up to the strangeness of the world.

Mecha-Sonic had to sidestep as two sentry-bot MKIIs patrolled around the base, their wheels making a strangely soothing noise against the steel floor of the base.

Suddenly, a message appeared on Mecha-Sonic's hud, which told him to head towards the hanger bay, and after making a noise that some could relate to a groan, he made his way towards the hanger.

Passing by multiple wings of the base before arriving at the hanger, he saw multiple DIA agents along with scientists gathered around some XVB-02 transport vertibirds as some lifter-bots attached shipping containers to the vertibirds.

Mecha-Sonic approached the lead agent of Fort Anderson, that is, Agent Adam. He and the other agents stood there while discussing something, clad in their jet-black Strigade uniforms, while at times an orange or yellow line flew across their visors.

"Mecha-Sonic, I know that we have been sending you on a few missions." Adam said as Mecha-Sonic tapped his foot against the metal floor of the hanger, a habit that had been programmed into him for as long as he could remember.

"This will be your last mission for awhile, and it may be the most important." Adam said as he gestured for Mecha-Sonic to look at a holographic map of a destroyed spaceport.

Mecha-Sonic recognized the architecture, even though much of the location was destroyed. It was located in the Chemical Plant Zone of EggMan's Empire. When did it get a space port?

Mecha-Sonic shook his head—another thing he had missed in his time of isolation.

"As you know, Archimedes III was launched not too long ago and is completely self-sufficient, but it's very difficult to get additional personnel onto the station; that's why we need this." Adam said as one of the other agents switched the map to show a holographic version of one of EggMan's ships.

"If we capture the spaceport, we can salvage these ships, study them, and then send the results back to America for research, and maybe we'll eventually have our own space fleet." Adam said, and Mecha-Sonic nodded. Outside of the occasional pirates, normal naval battles were rarely fought anymore.

"You, along with the 22nd Chemicle Corps, will be sent to exterminate the local resistance garrison there; it's quite a large garrison as well." Adam said, and Mecha saw the holographic ship change to a list of resistance personnel.

It was a garrison of 1,000 people, the largest target the enclave has ever gone after. This made Mecha-Sonic question what he was being sent with, Sure, he could have killed 1,000 mutants on his own, but someone would get a signal out fast enough.

Thats until some of the scientists brought multiple groups of beasts clad in their own form of power armor, claws that are as long as a man's arm as well as having electricity spark off of said claws, and stood at 10 feet tall, saying, "These will be one of the things sent with you to take the spaceport."

Mecha-Sonic approaches one of the beasts and places his hand on its head. Now he can get behind these creatures...

__________________________________

"It's bloody freezing out here! When did command say we were getting winter clothing?" A resistance member said while he and some of his squad mates sat around a barrel of fire.

Even though the spaceport sits in complete ruins, it is still filled to the brim with chemicals that could be used to make campfires that probably release some deadly toxins, but who cares? The garrison didn't since, until they got winter clothing, they would continue burning this stuff to keep warm.

Even inside the buildings the resistance had either erected or taken over were freezing cold; the only ones that didn't suffer from the cold were the ones that naturally had an affinity for the cold, like those that are polar bears or penguins.

As the squad sat around the campfire, one spoke, "What's everyone's opinion on the situation going on back home?"

"I feel like people are overestimating the resistance abilities; we're a resistance force that's trying our best; we're not an actual military." One responded while another interjected,

"Well, I think people aren't appreciating us, and yeah, the attacks on Research Station Zip and Lions Village were terrible, but I've heard rumors that maybe someone new is leading the badniks."

"Or perhaps the research station and Lions Village just got unlucky when a badnik group too large for them to handle arrived, and instead of hiding or ambushing them, they tried to make it an even fight."

"Bur I don't remember badniks being so thorough; I mean, we were able to sneak around them pretty easily when we took this place, but some remnant badniks wiping out an entire village with no survivors? That's weird, right?"

As the group continued to chat about the attacks and politics, their radios went off as the garrison's highest ranking officer spoke over them: "Foxtrot, I got some disturbance near your location; I need you all to check it out."

The squad groans before getting up and heading over to the location after getting the coordinates. The squad passed by destroyed buildings, badniks, shipping containers, and many other things until they got to the area that used to be the spaceport's storage area.

Containers stacked up as high as some of the buildings, and frozen badniks lined the area alongside a multitude of chemical barrels. As the squad slowly secures it, they hear a noise. They all look up and see something start to jump between containers. "The hell is that?"

"I don't know, and..."

Everyone heard a noise as the ground started to shake. They raised their weapons towards the area where the noise was originating from until they saw a creature exit out, as tall as two human men, with no eyes or neck, giant teeth, and two large flaccid appendages that most likely acted as arms.

"...EVERYONE RUN!" The sergeant says that as they run away, some are firing pot shots at the creature, but their wispons do nothing but make it angrier.

They ran through the maze of shipping containers as they heard similar noises start to surround them. After making their way outside of the storage area, they found themselves surrounded by the same creature, but smaller.

"...Welp, I was tired of living anyway." One of them said as the creatures dived onto the squad...

Meanwhile, on the other side of the spaceport, another squad was sent to investigate a disturbance similar to the one that Foxtrot had ordered to investigate, this time in the shipyard.

"Anyone got bets about what this disturbance is?" One said this while they checked out some of the destroyed transport ships.

"Considering what's been happening? It's probably some badnik group that was sent out during the war and is only now returning here." Another replied as they all heard noises emanating from inside an unknown shipping container.

"Umm...Commander Garnet? We've got a strange shipping container here; no EggMan markings. Permission to open it?"

After a slight pause where they hear some groans, Commander Garnet speaks, "Permission granted, probably just a salvage crate left unmarked."

The sergeant of the squad nods and orders two of the squad members to open the crate while the others form a kill zone, just in case the crate contains something dangerous. When they opened the crate and illuminated the inside of it with flashlights, they all opened fire.

"Zombies!?" One of the squad members yelled as the 'Zombies' ran out of the crate only to be cut down by laser fire, blowing holes through the undead, and after a solid minute of fire and even one of the squad members using a flamethrower, the zombies were cleared out.

The sergeant radioed Commander Garnet as his squad double-tapped the undead, "We've opened the crate and, um, we found zombies."

After a minute or two of silence, Commander Garnet spoke over the radio, "Come again?"

"Zombies; the crate had zombies in it." The sergeant said he didn't really know if these things were zombies, but considering how they looked, sounded, and fought, they were zombies in his book.

"Picture?"

The sergeant ordered one of his men to take a picture, but they all noticed that there were a ton of these crates, and in a single moment, they all swung open as hoards of the 'undead' came flooding out.

"Get to high ground!" The sergeant says that as he tried to fire upon the undead but was overwhelmed, some of his squad tried to help him, but they were overwhelmed too.

In another section of the spaceport, multiple squads were hunting a group of beasts in an abandoned ship, hearing screams and laser fire over comms as a sign that other squads had found it already and were not having fun.

They slowly stepped onto the ship's bridge as a beast suddenly dropped from the ceiling. They opened fire upon it as it jumped side to side, slicing five men down in one go with its claws as they continued to rain fire upon it.

“Aim for the joints!” The sergeant yelled as the thing’s tail sent two men flying against a wall. No matter how much laser fire they put into the thing, it didn’t die.

The thing suddenly roared, the roar being so deafening that members of the squad dropped their weapons so that they could cover their ears, allowing the beast to slay its hindered prey with ease.

Meanwhile, in other parts of the spaceport, a massive barricade manned by a quarter of the personnel of the garrison rains fire upon an endless hoard of humans that seemingly don’t care for their lives.

The mass of people tried multiple times to climb the barricade and had to be burned off by flamethrowers. They were armed with all manners of melee weapons that would easily kill the resistance fighters while in white jumpsuits as a strange mask covered their faces.

Though that wasn’t the worst, as there were suits that were wrapped around skeletons, firing off lasers and green orbs of energy that almost guaranteed death for anyone hit by them, they were less numerous than the humans, but there were still hoards of them.

“Keep on firing! Never let up!” A resistance fighter captain yelled before something landed amongst them—some kind of large insect that used its wings to send shockwaves amongst the soldiers.

Knocking enough soldiers down allowed some of the humans to climb up and start engaging in melee combat, and once one hole popped up, more and more popped up as the resistance refused to give ground to this endless hoard, many trying to radio to Commander Garnet for orders.

The barricade then came down as multiple rockets hit it. Those that weren’t on the barricades could only stand in fear as their eyes landed upon giants, beings closer to the size of some super badniks, some wielding rocket launchers while others held giant energy-based miniguns. Every single giant was also clad head to toe in some form of armor that was invincible against small arms fire.

“Bring your anti-tank guns! We’ve got-“ The soldier didn’t have time to finish his sentence, as he was then turned into a pile of goo.

As the resistance soldiers continued to fight on in face of certain doom, a being laughed as it watched the slaughter unfold from the command room…

__________________________________

Mecha-Sonic let out a metallic laugh as he held the body of Commander Garnet. He currently sat in the command room of the spaceport, bodies littering the place as Mecha-Sonic barked out orders in Commander Garnet’s voice.

He saw resistance members being slaughtered by a rogues gallery of monsters that the Enclave had at its disposal: deathclaws clad in power armor, trauma harnesses, lobotomites, wanamingos, ghouls, a moth creature, and even powered armor super mutants.

He heard resistance fighters scream as they desperately fought for each piece of land, not giving a single step until they died. Causalities didn’t really matter for the Enclave in this battle due to the fact that the 22nd weren’t even fighting but just releasing these creatures onto the spaceport.

For as much as the Enclave praises the Lord, it sure does love creating demons to use against its enemies. Mecha-Sonic looked at a scream that displayed all of the garrison’s personnel, seeing it slowly tick down as more and more were killed by the hoard of creatures.

As the number went below five hundred, Mecha-Sonic wondered how long this would take since, while he did set up an all-clear signal that would repeat indefinitely to not alert suspicion, it was getting close to sunrise.

He also wondered how the Enclave was going to clean up the absolute hoard of ghouls that flooded the shipyard. Since they were the only creatures the Enclave didn’t have control of, there were quite literally thousands of them thanks to XVB-02’s outfitted with stealth fields dropping tons of containers filled with them.

His answer soon came when the sun finally rose and a hoard of XVB-02 gunships filled the horizon. When they came close, though, they dropped bombs onto the hoards of ghouls that released some kind of toxin.

Said toxin killed the ghouls almost instantly, reducing them to nothing but skeletons, while Mecha-Sonic saw the garrison’s personnel count dive into the double digits before single digits before finally hitting zero.

Mecha-Sonic looked out of the window as the spaceport was filled with the toxin. The super mutants, wanamingos, deathclaws, trauma harnesses, and moth creatures survived, while the mutants and the lobotomites were reduced to skeletons as well.

Mecha-Sonic had to give it to the Enclave; they knew how to make biological and bio-mutant weapons of war; if only his old master had done that, he would have won this rivalry long ago, before the hedgehog had become too powerful along with having a lot of friends.

Than again, that was the man who shelved many ideas that had almost given him victory for being ‘too effective’ and thus researching far less fruitful endeavors. Mecha-Sonic wondered if the man actually had the 300 IQ he boasted about or if it was another part of his moon-sized ego.

Chapter Text

Corporal Jonah looked up at the sky while Max burned a pile of resistance fighters behind him, the smoke rising up into the light blue sky of a world untainted by nuclear holocaust. 'Weird to see such a blue sky.' Jonah thought before checking his pip-pad.

He heard that the 22nd Chemical Corps had taken an old spaceport by just dumping every monster the Enclave had in its deck alongside the metal hedgehog, so the Enclave was going to spaceships eventually, so that was fun, and here he was stuck in the middle of the desert.

The 37th was deployed in its entirety to capture a mutant village—not exterminate, but capture. Once the village was captured, the 15th Infantry Division would march in and secure the mutants as slave labor for some project General Orwich was cooking up.

Though they wouldn’t destroy the village since Agent Adam has a plan to replace everyone with synths, lowering the level of suspicion caused by the Enclave strikes into mutant territory since he heard that everything is already getting hot enough, there is no need for the Enclave to douse some extra gas on an already large forest fire.

Apparently the mutants were starting to hunt down the last strongholds of the EggMan Empire and would most likely overextend themselves, thus allowing the Enclave to swoop in and kill them all.

Resistance members were all still killed, though, since they were the most probable to try and start a slave rebellion while in captivity. As President Anderson once said, ‘Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite ideas; its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the mutant is not equal to humanity and that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is its natural and normal condition. This America is the first human nation in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth. This truth has been slow in the process of its development, like all other truths in the various departments of science.”

And you couldn’t have any of that when mutants were rebelling; also, the resistance fighters would have some combat skills—not a lot, but enough to cause a disturbance in any labor projects that the Enclave needed them for.

Anyways, the assault was nothing noteworthy; some resistance fighters tried holding up in the village's government building, and instead of assaulting the building, the 37th just poured mustard gas into the building and let the problem fix itself.

"Feel like we're back in Arizona? Doesn't it?" Max said as Jonah saw some of the 15th walk by, clad in the black combat armor and gasmasks that have yellow visors. Jonah never really understood why they had yellow visors, but they did look nice.

"Well, this time we aren't hunting mutant larpers that use tribal equipment with some guns, but animals with somewhat up-to-date equipment, by our standards."

"I guess..."

Followed behind them were a set of trucks that contained mutant survivors, most clad in bare rags or nothing at all. The enclave didn't strip them down, though; the village was large but poor, and some mutants just wore nothing while not exposing...anything.

Jonah felt uncomfortable looking at some of the pictures of the mutant heroes just in case they had to fight them sooner than they expected, and when it came to the two-tailed fox, he looked away since it was a child that was naked outside of shoes and gloves.

The Enclave may have exterminated much of the mutant race, threw out the entirety of the Geneva Convention (since that only applied to humans), and started gassing mutants...but Pedophilia was one step too far.

"Hey Jonah." Max said, as Jonah noticed, he was done burning the bodies.

"Yeah Max?"

"Try and guess who came to Fort Anderson."

"Surprise me."

"Frank Horrigan."

Jonah eyes went wide as he heard the name, Frank Horrigan died on the Rig, and even if most of the Enclave clones were based off of his genetic code, the way Max said it, it was The Frank Horrigan. How was he back alive?

"Are you sure it was him?"

"Yeah, I tried asking around how he was alive, and Major Beck told me..."

"Major Beck? SIGMA Yellow's squad leader? How in the world did you get him to tell you something?"

"Because he was mostly in the dark as well, apparently everyone outside of Fort Anderson's top scientists, along with some agents, only knew. He told me it had something to do with 'Vault 103.'"

Vault 103? Jonah had never heard of that vault before and could only guess that it had something to do with resurrecting people because how else would Frank Horrigan be alive?

"I guess that's a moral booster. To some people, come on, Sarge said he had a gift for us in the government building." Jonah said as he and Max walked through some alleyways in the village.

It was a large village that had been harder to take due to every mutant having a weapon. Sure, their weapons still couldn't pierce the division's armor, but it sure as hell made it an annoyance when every room had a laser gun pointed at them.

"Get in the line!" Jonah and Max heard as they saw some of the 15th line up some mutants while protectrons held the mutant children back.

The reason these mutants were being executed instead of being transported away to be slave labor was due to the fact that they were apart of a group that saw mutants as superior beings rather than humans, kind of like the many super mutant and ghoul groups that had popped up during the Enclave merciless crusade.

The sergeant held his hand up before turning it into a fist, and his men executed the mutants. One of the children was able to break free and go to cradle its dead mother. The child was quickly put down by the sergeant, the child being reduced to an ash pile thanks to the sergeant's laser pistol.

Jonah and Max entered the building to find their sergeant, along with the rest of their squad, all gathered around a table where there was a multitude of strange technology to which a protectron was connected.

"So what is this for?" Jonah asked as the sergeant tossed him a device that was similar to the one that Max had looted off the dead in their last mission.

"The science division was able to replicate the technology, and thus the entire division is getting these 'phones.'" Staff Sergeant Alex said as Jonah looked over to Max.

"Who knew you looting the dead was a benefit to me?" Jonah said as Max laughed. As the squad all received their reward and celebrated their gift, everyone heard a radio start playing.

"This is Enclave Radio, the voice of America! The Neo-German Empire has fallen along with the rest of Europe; the Enclave flag now flies high over many of humanity's greatest monuments as our boys in black burn through the mutant survivors."

Everyone cheered as they heard the news. They were lucky that all of them were deployed to the new world and not the European front, since they heard that it was especially bad because the landscape was covered in destroyed cities, nuclear wastelands, and trenches.

It was hell on earth, and the Enclave had finally come out of the other side, especially since that would mean the veterans were coming home, along with General James Song, General Dornan, and General Sam Houston.

Perhaps they would be able to come home and finally relax, or maybe they would come to the new world to help them. "In other news, the northern parts of South America have been cleared out through the use of agent orange and napalm strikes to burn through the mutant infested forests. Urban combat duties have been given to the many clone legions assigned to the front.”

This causes the group to celebrate even more until they hear the sound of gunfire. Everyone rushed out as they saw laser fire exchange throughout the streets as members of the 37th and 15th took cover.

"What the hell is going on?" SSG Alex yelled as everyone got too close. Jonah slid next to Max and saw that they were getting attacked by resistance fighters, and a whole lot of them.

"How did they know we were here?!" Max said as he burned some mutants as they tried to charge the line, "They didn't; they most likely were out dealing with something." Donovan said this before injecting some med-x and pyscho into himself before attaching his ripped bayonet.

"And there goes Donovan." Ryan said while reloading, and Jonah aimed down his scope before squeezing the trigger, blowing the head off a resistance sniper.

"Fix bayonets!" A sergeant yelled, and the normal infantry fixed their ripper bayonets. SSG Alex tried to get everything under control, but all hell broke loose as technicals rammed into the defensive line, sending some of the soldiers flying.

Jonah had been one of those that were sent flying; he was disoriented and tried to stand up; his body was on fire as his implants worked to get him back up; Getting hit by a truck was not on his list today, and getting killed by mutants wasn't either.

He reached into a pocket and jabbed himself with some med-x, along with popping some buffout into his mouth; it would make him ignore the pain and deal with the mutant attack. He attached his ripper to his rifle and charged the enemy.

Ramming the bayonet into the chest of a mutant gunner and revving it up, he spilled blood and guts over his armor as he fired a shot into the mutant before swinging over and cutting the head off another mutant.

Jonah's veins felt like they were on fire, and he bet that many others veins felt the same as the defensive line collapsed and became a brawl of rippers, super sledges, and swords while mutants fought off with their laser weapons and tools.

Jonah felt a laser strike him in the head, knocking him back and causing him to stumble to the ground as he fired off round after round into the mutants. When one tried to jump him, Max kicked it off and burned it alive, the screams of the mutant resounding throughout the village.

"You owe me."

"I would have survived." Jonah said that as Max helped him, the technicals that crashed into the defensive line were quickly taken out as one of the PA support teams from the 15th took the point.

APA MKII and MKIII stood in the line of fire, weapons blazing, as mutants tried to bring up an AT-Gun, but that was quickly destroyed by a missile launcher from another support team.

"Push them back, kill every single one of them!" A PA trooper said as more and more mutant technicals came up, only to be shredded by gauss, laser, and plasma fire with the occasional missile.

After linking back up with the squad and SSG Alex, the defensive line started to rebuild and push back against the mutant threat. Mutant limbs and bodies went flying as the force started to hold its ground as the 15th’s artillery started to rain hell upon the attack.

The 37th’s VB-01s started to give support as well, strafing the mutant force with a hail of plasma and laser fire along with rockets, causing chaos within the mutant ranks as they started to fall back, knowing that they couldn’t defeat an enemy that had both air support and a defensive advantage.

Though their retreat didn’t get far as an explosion erupted in the middle of the retreating mass of mutants, followed by multiple additional explosions and many mutants getting blown apart, Jonah looked up and smiled along with many other Enclave soldiers cheering.

Someone had apparently called in for additional air support, and an AC-130 Dreamlifter was dispatched, racking up numerous casualties amongst the mutant force before falling away. Most of the mutant threat had been wiped out in one go.

Not all of them, though, and after some shouts and mounting up, the 37th was back in the air and was hunting down the mutants that had survived the massacre. Jonah had even gotten to mount the plasma LMG on the ramp.

He laughed and yelled at the mutants as he fired off hail after hail of steaming hot plasma into mutant flesh, seeing many turn to goo while others screamed in pain as parts of their bodies started to melt.

Some fired off lasers into the air, hoping to take them down; one of the mutants even had an RPG on them that ended up missing by an extremely large margin. That mutant had quickly been annihilated by a hail of plasma fire from Jonah.

Seconds, minutes, and even hours had gone by as Jonah kept his finger on the trigger, mowing down helpless mutants that tried to escape their fate. Screams echoed across the sands as a mutant force yelled at the enclave in defiance.

After enough time and many MFCs depleted, the surviving mutant fighters had been exterminated, and thus the 37th could go home; the 15th had to stay in the village until the synths had been delivered to it.

They also had the task of removing the goo that had now covered the desert, though Jonah doubted that they would do it alone and would probably get some Protectrons and Mr. Handy robots to help tidy the place up.

It had taken some time for the 37th to get back to Fort Anderson, and when they did, they saw some Enclave Super Fortresses flying high above the island where Fort Anderson was located. Jonah had even recognized one belonging to the 1st and 2nd Navarro veterans.

It must have been a pain to get through the main gate, though; perhaps they had expanded it while they were gone.

Which meant that the radio broadcast they had heard was most likely outdated, and as their vertibirds landed on the numerous before they stepped out onto the pavement, they were greeted by a beautiful sight.

‘The Crusaders of Song’ as they were called, were the twenty PA divisions placed under General Song since the battle of New Reno. Many were veterans of the Enclave’s war before the 37th was even created, and their armor showed it.

Clad in APA MKI, most of the suits were heavily customized to show the individual under the suit; the closest to General Song, who was leading his divisions in the front, wore the Enclave flag as capes whilst carrying massive proton-halberds.

General Song had a similar loadout but was clad in APA MKIII along with some storage device on his back. Jonah didn't know what it was, but it seemingly contained some sort of crystal.

As the veterans passed them by, some offered glimpses of the 37th and even a few threw some salutes, though in all honesty, the 37th should be saluting them due to many of them being higher-ranking officers who turned down being given armies of their own.

Though what every suit of armor had was a blood red cross painted onto the torso armor, some even carried banners that were more symbolic of Crusader banners than modern ones, the banners having writing in Latin that translates to ‘Warriors of Heaven.’

Everything about the Crusaders of Song screamed the very definition of the Enclave: these men and women who had fought from the gates of Navarro to the streets of Berlin were the greatest warriors of humanity.

And they weren’t done waging war yet…

Chapter Text

"Are you sure that thing is ready to be deployed?" An agent said that as Adam looked over the battle map in the command room of Fort Anderson, the enclave's next strike was to hit a G.U.N. base.

Much of G.U.N. was destroyed but remains scattered, lacking leadership and many splintering off into their own factions, but this base still clings to the old ideals of G.U.N. along with actively supporting the resistance with troops and armored vehicles.

Some agents had argued that they shouldn't be killing pure humans; those that did want to go ahead and assault the base didn't want to send the thing in there, worried that it would be too sloppy and wouldn't wipe the entire base out.

Agent Adam to rule them in and state that it was their best hope, along with it being a test to see if the thing had retained its skill since its death, worried that it had lost its touch in the decades since the destruction of the oil rig.

This thing was Frank Horrigan, and this would be his first combat operation after being...well, Adam still didn't know how the bastard was resurrected; all he knew was that the 10th Chemical Corps did something in Vault 103 and had been requesting additional resources.

He wondered what exactly was going on in that vault to require additional resources but shook it off as one of the Science Division's crazy ideas that somehow worked, especially since they now have Frank Horrigan back, better than ever, and ready to slaughter mutant scum.

"Yes, Horrigan is ready, and I think it would be a waste to see him rot away in Fort Anderson when he could be doing what he had been doing before his death, caring for the Enclave's dirty work, though he wouldn't have his shadow's alongside him." Adam said as another agent asked what exactly Horrigan's shadows were.

"They were elite troopers that served alongside Horrigan; we believe they died in the destruction of the oil rig, but due to some questionable choices by the DIA, we may never know who they were or if they were ever on the oil rig."

A sad thing really, two Americans that would never be identified for their courageous service alongside Frank Horrigan; maybe they weren't dead and had assimilated into the elderly of the enclave; perhaps they were apart of the Enclave military; or maybe they did die on the Oil Rig or during the attack on Navarro; they would never know.

"And does that thing want to go on this mission, or are you forcing him to go on it?" Adam shook his head at the question. He wasn't forcing Horrigan to go on this mission; he also doubts that anyone could force Horrigan to go on a mission.

"Of course not. He had apparently grown..tired; as the 10th Chemical Corps has told me, I don't know what he grew tired of when he was dead, but he wants to spill mutant blood once more, and who could deny him that?"

The other agents agreed, and after some arguing on how they were going to transport Frank Horrigan to the G.U.N. base, they finally decided on the plan of dropping Horrigan out of a Dreamlifter and onto the base's command room.

Agent Adam left the command room to head towards the area where he would find Frank Horrigan. That being Fort Anderson's new chapel, he didn't know why the monster of a man that Horrigan is would relax in a chapel, but it made finding him a whole hell of a lot simpler.

While passing by the medical wing, he heard the screams of mutants. He didn't know who was doing surgery on them and decided that he would investigate it after talking to Horrigan and telling him the plan. He wasn't invited to the meeting due to the fact that he would not fit inside the command room.

He made it to the chapel and saw Frank Horrigan kneeling before the alter. His armor had been upgraded slightly since his resurrection, but it was practically the same armor he had worn all those years ago. He was also bigger.

When the oil rig was destroyed, he was 12 feet tall; now he's 14 feet. Thank God that Adam had most of Fort Anderson's rooms built larger to accommodate beasts like Horrigan, even though they were originally built to accommodate Agent Johnson and Jackson, but Adam couldn't complain.

"Agent Horrigan." Adam said as the beast stood up, his red eye lenses piercing into Adam's soul as it looked down at him. A blade as long as Adam was tall was attached to one arm, while attached to the other was a Plasma Defender Mini-gun, or P.D.M.G. for short, normally attached to armored vehicles like tanks, but with Horrigan, he was a tank.

"Agent Adam." The beast spoke, hatred lacing his voice as Adam took a step back. "What do you need me to do that your petty machine can't?"

Adam spoke as he noted the 'petty machine' comment was most likely directed at Mecha-Sonic: "A remnant G.U.N. base is supporting the resistance with supplies along with troops, though with the resistance currently occupied with their assaults on the last remnants of the EggMan empire, the base's resources have been drained."

"An extermination mission, I presume, then? It's been awhile, but I'll make it work. How am I getting deployed?" Horrigan asked as he retracted his blade into its socket.

"A Dreamlifter will drop you off before staying in the air to provide fire support just in case you need it, while a modified Eden-Class Dreadnought will be sent to jam their communications."

"Alright then..." Horrigan said as Adam smiled under his helmet, and while Horrigan walked past him, Adam immediately felt uncomfortable when Horrigan spoke next.

"By the way, has the DIA figured out how they missed a tribal sneaking onto the rig?" Horrigan said before leaving the room, the beast's steps resounding throughout the halls as Adam breathed out a breath he didn't know he was holding.

"Why did he have to come back?" Adam said this before heading off towards the medical wing to find out what the cause of all the screams was.

__________________________________

"We are approaching the target location, Agent Horrigan." One of the pilots said that as he absentmindedly activated and retracted his armblade, he had to awkwardly bend down since the Dreamlifter couldn't fit him while standing up straight.

He had received additional information about the G.U.N. and prepared himself to face a base mostly occupied by humans, though there was a garrison of mutants that were employed to pilot multiple mechs or just as guards.

Horrigan saw these mechs thanks to some technical documents that the Enclave stole, and these mechs were either smaller, just as tall, or taller than him; luckily, none of the mechs towered over him, and none of the mechs had any melee compatibilities.

"Right over the target location, good hunting agent."

The ramp of the Dreamlifter was lowered, and Horrigan started a slow run before leaping out the back of the Dreamlifter. Normally, the enclave would act in the shadows...

But a Dreadnought jamming a remnant G.U.N. base while a storm raged meant that no message would get out, meaning that Horrigan didn't need to act in the shadows and that he could slaughter these mutant sympathizers without any risks.

He used a jet pack that was added to his armor to slow his descent ever so slightly as he came to his landing location. That landing location was right on top of a G.U.N. APC, as it was quickly reduced to scrap from Horrigan's sheer weight.

He was immediately lit up by hundreds of rounds, with G.U.N. soldiers diving to cover or getting into armored vehicles to deal with him. Those that weren't in cover were immediately turned to goo as Horrigan returned fire with his P.D.M.G.

Many names were thrown at him as he made his way through the courtyard, some like ‘badnik’ or'machine head,’ but the one that brought a smile to his face was'monster.’ Of course, these Muti sympathizers would see him as a monster as he tears through their ranks.

A barrage of missiles narrowly misses him as he turns to see one of the mechs approaching him. The F-6T S.T.B.F. is a bipedal walker that would definitely be used by the Enclave if they ever got the blueprints; perhaps he could search for those in this op.

It continued to fire upon him as he dove and weaved between the fire of its 20mm before he got right up to it and activated his blade, stabbing right into the mech’s cockpit and killing its pilot.

After retracting his blade and unleashing plasma fire on a group of Humvees before ripping off one of the mech’s legs and throwing it into an APC, sending the vehicle flying into a nearby garage and taking out additional personnel.

Though he would have called in air support since he heard the clanking steps of additional mechs approaching his position, he went into his communications as he set his P.D.M.G. to MC-MFCs, which should get through the armored cockpits of the mechs.

After identifying its targets and where they are, the Dreamlifter does its job as a 105mm shell slams into the first mech while the next two get shredded by a hail of 30mm. Horrigan raises his arm and fires a hail of plasma into the last two mechs, the plasma piercing into the cockpits of each and melting their pilots.

Some robots tried to come and attack him, but he cut them down with swipes from his blade as he came to the base’s front door, stabbing into it with his blade before forcing it open, where he saw tons of G.U.N. personnel run for either cover or for their lives.

Many were turned to goo as Horrigan stomped down through the main entrance, tanking small arms to rockets as he refused to die, and thanks to being in close quarters while also being smaller, any mech that comes out to greet him can easily be engaged in melee combat with him, meaning an automatic win for him.

The screams, oh, the screams, as he paints the base green and red like it’s Christmas, brung him joy as these mutie sympathizers, alongside mutants as well, ran away or desperately held their ground against their superior.

Alongside them stood many robots; some tried to ram into him only to be crushed under his powered armor boot, while others fired upon him in a feint attempt to neutralize him. They came in a variety of sizes, though none were close to the size of the mechs he had already encountered.

In all honesty, he was starting to grow board in this slaughter; perhaps something would show up and provide a real threat to him. Sure, the mechs were a threat, but the cockpits were exposed and were only protected by glass that, while bullet-resistant, faltered under heavy plasma fire.

That is, until he started to reach what seemed to be the base’s control room, where the base commander, along with the best of the best that G.U.N. had to offer, would most likely be. Perhaps they would make their last stand there instead of fleeing?

He kicked down the door and raised his P.D.M.G. but found the room strangely empty. Shame; perhaps he overestimated the mutant sympathizers, and they just ran away instead of facing him like men.

Oh well, he would still hunt them down like the animals they are…

He heard the vehicle too late as it smashed through the control room wall. It was massive, and through the windshield, he saw who he presumed was the base’s commander as he yelled over a loudspeaker attached to the vehicle.

“I don’t know who you are, but you fucked with the wrong G.U.N. Commander!”

The man looked Chinese’s , and while Horrigan was one to judge a commie bastard like the commander calling himself what was essentially the US military officer did make his blood boil, he had to focus on the fact that he was close to getting rammed right back to the Stone Age.

Holding back the massive truck with all his might as he created indents in the steel floor, he knew what to do and activated his blade once more before stabbing into the truck's hood, killing the engine and stopping it from moving him any further.

The truck immediately sprouted three arms with circular saws on each end that came swinging down upon Horrigan, dodging side to side as he fired a hail of plasma into the vehicle. It was doing something, but the truck was so big that no matter how much he shot at it, the hail of plasma was similar to that of pinpricks on the truck.

One arm comes swinging down, and with a quick reaction time, Horrigan blocks the attack with his arm blade while also reaching up to grab the arm with his other hand. With some force, he rips the arm off the truck—one down, two to go.

The next one gets melted off thanks to Horrigan firing at the arm with his P.D.M.G. instead of the truck itself, the arm even bashing into the truck and doing some damage as it flails around before finally falling off, another one down.

Though the last one is harder to deal with since the commander starts to deploy robots, Horrigan uses his arm blade to parry and block any of the arm’s attacks while using his P.D.M.G. to melt through the commander’s robots.

Though his ammo reserves of MC-MFCs are slowly being depleted, he might have to switch over to OC-MFCs due to how many robots there are, but due to a stroke of luck, the last arm misses him and gets stuck in the floor.

“Bastard!” The commander yells out as, in a desperate attempt, he starts to the last part of the truck, that being, for some goddamn reason, rocket boosters.

The truck boosters forward, and Horrigan narrowly dodges the incoming truck as it crashes through multiple walls of the base and even crushes some of the commander’s own men while on its path of endless destruction.

Horrigan quickly ran after the truck, only to be met with an interesting sight as he saw a hoard of vertibirds descend upon the base. Horrigan didn’t know he was going to have reinforcements, and while he wished they were his shadows, they would have to do.

As he walked into the courtyard and the Enclave troops unloaded from their transports, he took in the slaughter that he had caused. There may be some survivors in the base, but he doubted they would survive, and even if they did, then the enclave would surely have some other form of assassination by now.

Horrigan walks over to the truck and slams his fist through the windshield as he grabs the commander, and with no effort at all, crushes him into a fine red pulp...

__________________________________

“Your genius impresses and frightens me at the same time, Orwich.” Adam said as he looked over a pile of failed experiments, mutants that had much of their body replaced by machinery so that they would be more obedient along with being better slaves.

“Thank you, agent. While none of them have survived, I believe this will eventually bear fruit; perhaps we could even turn mutants that survive into weapons against their own species.”

“Perhaps, but I believe synths would be more effective.”

“How is that going, by the way? I heard from Song that you’ve ordered well over a thousand synths to be produced, even the blueprints to build your own synth factory.”

“I believe that synths could be more effective than any plasma rifle or power armor the Enclave has to offer; perhaps we could replace one of the heroes with a synth.”

Orwich laughed before questioning Adam, “Would they inherit the heroes abilities?” Adam could only shake his head; the synths would most likely not inherit the heroes abilities, so they wouldn’t last long.

Or maybe they would, since, from the knowledge and history he has gathered, heroes generally don’t kill people…Except for that one military experiment, that one would most likely be the most dangerous to the enclave.

Though that would be way off before they exposed themselves to this world. Surely nothing would pop up that would actively pose a threat to not only this world but perhaps the Enclave in general, right?

Chapter Text

Screams echoed across the halls of Fort Anderson. Mech-Sonic had to temporarily stop talking to Sigma because he wondered what was causing it—it wasn't torture since Agent Adams had a different way of doing it.

The enclave had a machine where they could see a person's memories, so there was no need to torture since they could immediately get the information they wanted, but that wasn't enough for the enclave since they needed obedience.

That's where the second function of the machine came in. Since the machine could also make a person forget memories, what better bargaining chip for obedience in a mutant than making them weigh the choice of having all of their memories wiped or living in slavery?

That was another thing that had started to happen: the Enclave started kidnapping mutants for experiments and slave labor since they realized that they could replace an entire village with synths instead of exterminating it.

It was a slower method than outright extermination and wouldn't completely replace the extermination mission many loved, but it would also cause less suspicion. Besides, the Enclave can't put any more pressure on the resistance since they've defeated the remnants of the EggMan Empire, and it would be harder to blame badniks for them since there aren't many of them left in the wild anymore.

Due to the combination of Enclave strikes and legitimate badnik attacks that caused the resistance to go on the offensive, mobilizing all other of their forces towards the last strongholds of the EggMan empire, the Enclave didn't know who was actually leading the remnants due to agents reporting coordinated attacks by the machines, but everyone soon learned who led them.

Metal Sonic, the'superior' model to Mecha-Sonic, even though he has failed many times but wasn't scrapped while he lost once and was forgotten about immediately by his creator, knowing that his'successor' was the empire's ruler?

It was....

Another scream echoed out through the halls, and Sigma spoke as he put a puzzle of the United States together: "Wonder what they're doing to the mutant?"

Mecha-Sonic shook his head and left, going to find out what was going on and why a simple torture session was taking so long, especially since every torture method took less than thirty minutes to break a mutant.

He strolled through the halls, seeing some other personnel also wondering what was going on. Mecha-Sonic sped up as he heard that the screams were slowly dying out and being replaced by the voice of General Orwich celebrating.

Mecha-Sonic turned into the interrogation room before finally seeing the cause of the screaming and why it had taken so long, and he was amazed, honestly, that his creator hadn't done this yet over all his attempts at world dominance.

A mutant lay on a surgical table, much of their body replaced by crude-looking machinery as well. Standing beside the table were General Orwich and Agent Adam. Orwich wasn't in her normal APA MKII power armor and was instead in doctor scrubs.

"Hey Mecha, decided to see our latest project?" Orwich said cheerfully before turning to the mutant and speaking, "Unit-01, pick up that can."

The mutant got off the bed and spoke in a robotized voice that had a hint of pain, "Compliance." The mutant, which Mecha-Sonic couldn't tell if it was male or female due to how much of it was replaced with machinery, bent over and picked up the can with a claw that had replaced its right arm.

"Good, know, let's see if it can do something more difficult." Orwich said as she led both Mecha and Adam over to a makeshift target range, with the target on the end being a female mutant tied to a post.

After ordering the modified mutant to come over to her, she hands it a firearm and says, "Kill the mutant." While all this happened, the tied-up mutant tried to break free as the modified one took the firearm and slowly aimed at the other.

Mecha saw as the modified mutant struggled to squeeze the trigger with its remaining hand, but eventually he squeezed it tight enough, and a bang resounded out through the medical wing as the other mutant dropped dead.

Orwich spoke: "Well, it clearly still remembered the mutant, so I may need to put some more work into the mind-wiping, but I consider this a success." She said all of this as the modified mutant looked as dead as it had been since its awakening.

This made Mecha think, Why did his creator never do this with the mutants? He wondered if his original creator had some form of moral code; he had too, considering the fact that he had multiple opportunities to use more brutal methods to gain immediate victory.

"Perhaps when you're done, you can send the medical staff the instructions and blueprints for this procedure, which would give them something more interesting to do than endlessly cataloging all the mutant variants in this world."

Orwich nodded and spoke, "Hey Mecha, want to see something interesting?" She asked him like he was some child, but he did want to know what she thought was interesting since interesting to her could either mean she found some neat thing about robots or she was showing off the numerous ways to get rid of dead bodies that the Enclave has.

After retrieving her power armor, she leads him and the modified mutant down one of the larger parts of Fort Anderson, which leads directly into the production area of Fort Anderson, which is mostly occupied by mutant slaves outside of the military police that kept watch over the slaves.

They entered the massive cavern, where Mecha-Sonic saw tons of super-badniks being either scrapped, modified, or rebuilt to suit the enclave's needs. Mecha even heard some screams as he saw some of the MP rounding up disgruntled and rebellious workers before executing them by hanging.

Orwich, Mecha, and the modified mutant descend down the steps of the cavern as an eyebot passes by them, blaring 'Hail Columbia' 24/7 to 'encourage' the mutants to work harder. As they approach one of the smaller super-badniks that is scheduled to be scrapped, Orwich orders the modified mutant to start working.

Many of the mutants stopped as soon as they saw the modified mutant get to work. Many stood in fear at the idea that they could become like that. Most of them would become like the modified mutants when Orwich finally got the procedure down to turning mutants into cyborgs.

"Hey, get back to work!" An MP soldier said, and the mutants quickly got back to work; many of them were skin and bones, due to the fact that the enclave only fed them enough to keep them working, while the dead bodies had been originally used to make the mutants food supply. though they did have to stop using the bodies for the mutants food for a little bit for another reason.

Any person that ate the flesh of a mutant would be a disgrace to humanity, and while the Enclave would never have a food shortage, when the war in Europe started to slow due to trench warfare, food became an issue for the clone legions due to how many of them were there.

So some scientists and agents started to harvest the dead mutants and grind them up into a food source for the clone legions. Clones weren't fully human, so there was no problem feeding them food made out of mutants, and since said mutants were animals, it's not like they could tell the difference.

After the war had finished, though, the bodies returned to being used for mutant food while also having the 22nd Chemical Corps send some of the bodies back home and to the 10th Chemical Corps to do whatever in God's name with them inside that damn vault, which was slowly becoming more of a fortress than a research base.

Mecha-Sonic went to go force a slave back to work, the slave laying next to a pile of barrels, but Mecha scans the slave to see that the mutant was actually dead, with Orwich calling some MP soldiers to get the body out of there. Another corpse for the 10th.

"I do not see what's so interesting about this place." Mecha spoke, surprising Orwich and causing her to joke with him, "You decided to finally put that voice box to good use; I was worried that I didn't put it in right."

Mecha let out a metallic tone that tried to be a laugh but immediately made all the surrounding mutants tense up. They immediately got back to work once a patrol of MPs passed by. Mecha then stopped as Orwich spoke, "That's what I wanted to show you."

It was a giant super-badnik, modified to hell and back with tons of prototype weapons and old equipment from the EggMan empire, including one major piece of equipment that would win the upcoming war for the Enclave.

See, the Enclave knew much of the history of this new world, and part of that history was when the world cracked due to EggMan trying to harness the power of Dark Gaia only to fail spectacularly. That wasn't what the Enclave cared about; it was the piece of technology that interested them.

It was a piece of technology that disabled the hero Sonic the Hedgehog in his super form. This would be essential for the Enclave if the hedgehog had ever gotten into super mode during the upcoming war, especially since nothing could compete with the hedgehog in one-on-one combat; not even General Song would be able to best him.

So while stealing technology from an old EggMan Empire stockpile that contained tons of documents, most were failed plans that the Enclave believed they could improve upon since they cared about lethality and not capturing. They found designs for the device and immediately started working on it.

The problem was that the machine relied on power from Dark Gaia; most documents the Enclave found said that the god was dead, so now the Enclave had to find something else to power the machine. Luckily, they had some ideas.

"So this is the Enclave's idea for defeating the hedgehog?" Mecha said as he placed a hand on one of the super-badniks legs, it was reinforced with additional armor plates and painted jet black, just like everything else in the enclave.

"It's our best chance if that bastard goes into super mode; once he's down, then it should be smooth sailing from there." Orwich said as they went up an elevator that brought them up to what used to be the super-badnik's head but is now a control room.

"What about the other three hedgehogs?" Mecha asked; he knew that Sonic was the most important target in the upcoming war, but he also realized that the others would need to be taken out before the Enclave could win the war with no concerns.

"General Song has said that he will be the one to bring Miss Rose's head, claiming that the fight must be one-on-one, man against mutant. Agent Adam claimed that they would lure Shadow into a trap before using Archimedes to wipe him off the face of the earth."

"And the one from the future?" Mecha questioned Orwich as they walked around the control room, with Orwich laying her hand on the electronic throne, which would be where she would sit, hopefully with Mecha alongside her.

"Let's just hope we kill the right mutants to prevent his birth." Orwich said, and while Mecha couldn't see under her helmet, he bet that she was smirking underneath it.

Both of them looked out the control room's window. Seeing the slaves build the weapons that would eventually be their species downfall brought some sort of joy to Orwich, even if said joy was due to the fact that she could only imagine what these machines could do against the armies of Mobius…

__________________________________

Agent Adam poured himself a drink as he watched a multitude of divisions pile out of the portal that had brought the Enclave to Mobius. He had to pull some strings to get even more divisions under his belt, but with the population of Mobius, they needed almost all hands on deck.

Of course, divisions would need to remain in the home world, and Adam had ordered most of Fort Anderson’s agents to start building enclave cells in many human and mixed cities so that when the night comes that the enclave launches its invasion, many humans will stand alongside them on that fateful night.

The humans of this world will soon learn that their loyalties lie in the enclave and not in their mutant-sympathetic government, that they are the sole rulers of this world, and that it is their God-given right that they are superior to all.

Adam took a sip of his drink as he dreamed of what this world would become under enclave control. The world may have been tainted by the mutants, but that taint could easily be removed, like communism, through plasma and steel, through vertibirds, and through power armor.

They would claim this world, not only in the name of humanity, not only in the name of the Enclave of America, but in the name of the Lord himself. This world will be theirs! This world shall be brought under the boot of a nation that sees the true potential of humanity.

This world may have its so-called heroes, but nothing can beat a man with a flame in his heart and a rifle in his hand. Humanity shall win this war, no matter the cost, and no matter the number of heroes that will rise against the enclave, all shall fall.

Adam noticed that his terminal had just received a message that compiled information that came from numerous agents and synth informants. He had been waiting for it due to the fact that he needed to file a report about the current status of Fort Anderson operations.

He poured himself another glass of whiskey as he started to file the report. His implants made it so that he wouldn’t get drunk or addicted to alcohol, so he didn’t need to worry about drinking while on the job, especially when said report would head to the President himself.

As he filed it, he noticed that outside of building enclave cells and arming them with old surplus gear, most of the information was useless due to the fact that the world had entered a sort of peacetime. That must be nice…

Though one thing did stand out to him: apparently surviving badnik gangs started to flee into the mountains after the destruction of the last EggMan Empire strongholds. He knew that he should send someone to investigate them, but he also knew that there was a restoration base in the mountains, so that problem would be solved in due time.

After filing the report and leaning back in his chair, he noticed that he had also gotten a message from…the 10th Chemical Corps. He thought to himself, ‘What in the ever-living Hell?”

He accessed the message and saw that the 10th was apparently sending over some of its personnel to help with Fort Anderson operations and that Adam could not refuse their personnel due to the 10th being the personal guard dogs (outside of Agent Jackson and Johnson) of the President.

He rubbed his temple and closed the message. Perhaps this isn’t so bad since he could finally confront some of the 10th about their damn operations in Vault 103, because he wanted answers about it and so did many others.

But that would have to wait since it would take a month for them to get here, so Adam took a deep breath and left his office for his quarters. He had a date with his bed, and no one was going to stop him from finally getting some shut-eye. He had been pushing his implants to the limit, along with using numerous drugs to keep himself up, and many doctors said he should lay off them.

As he got to his quarters and flopped into his bed, he noticed a strange radio that wasn’t there before. Eh, who cares? Probably a gift from one of the divisions or someone…

Chapter Text

“Hello, everybody! I’m Tails!” Tails said excitedly as he looked into his computer screen while Metal Sonic in the back tried to stop Amy from applying paint to him along with Orwich; soon Agent Adam peered over Tails, “And I’m Adam.”

“So you might be wondering what happened to most of the chapters—“

“They were exterminated like the mutants.” Adam cut Tails off, and Tails quickly sent him flying with his twin tails.

“They were deleted. Why? Because after chapter seven, the entire story is getting a rewrite, including a bunch of new stuff, removing a bunch of old stuff, and general improvements to it.” Agent Adam staggered back and spoke, “One of those things being removed is those damn demons.”

“Yeah, that. However, in their place, something that probably fits the theme of the wasteland better.” Tails said, and Metal Sonic raised his hand and spoke as he was dumped into black paint.“I’m unsure how the latex beasts fit, but very well.”

Metal Sonic, said Tails as he looked back at the computer.“Anyways! See you guys in a bit in the rewritten chapters. Oh! And I forgot, soon after the rewritten Metal virus arc is done, there will be a prequel story to this fic about the Enclave dealing with Thunder Science’s madness.”“Yeah, and I’m the one cleaning it up.” Adam stated, and Tails waved him off and spoke.“Bye!”

Chapter Text

EggMan sat in the command center of his newest base of operations, looking over many pictures captured by reconnaissance drones and Buzz Bombers, the destruction of Mobian villages, mass exterminations, ship movements, and strange aircraft.

Obviously it wasn't the work of any group that he knew of, but these sightings did intrigue him, though he never could truly track these movements; drones were often shot down or randomly deactivated.

He wondered who these people were, because if so, then while he could respect the secrecy of their group, he didn't respect them stealing his stuff. That was one thing he always hated, people getting their grubby mitts on his stuff.

Their gear also lacked the presentation his equipment had, all jet black with hints of orange, yellow, and blue. Bland designs and their tech varied from advanced suits of armor to tracked and tired vehicles.

Then there was the space station, which, while unknown to the rest of the world, Eggman very much knew had a weapon that could glass their enemies from the heavens. Once again, EggMan was upped by these nobodies.

But he would soon bring the world to its knees; he had the tool to break it and mold it to a new world, one without that pesky blue hedgehog! And no upstart was going to stop him.

"I have found something interesting with some of the specimens we have turned." EggMan quickly turned around as he saw Dr. Starline walking into the room. "And what would that be?" Dr. Starline then started to explain.

"Multiple of the specimens still have control over their bodies and minds, even if they are fully infected." Dr. Starline explained, and this piqued Eggman's curiosity; it also caused him some concern.

Either the Metal Virus wasn't as successful as they thought, or people somehow had an immunity to it, and if some random people had immunity, then Eggman would bet that the likes of Shadow would be immune, and that could be bad.

"Lead me to them." EggMan asked, and soon enough he saw the containment cell that featured multiple specimens, and as Starline said, they were infected but yet still retained control of themselves.

"How interesting." EggMan said as the specimens started slamming their fists against the glass. As the glass held, Starline spoke, "Permission to simply purge these failed specimens? Perhaps I can see what made them immune...or semi-immune."

EggMan gave him a thumbs up, and Starline pressed a button. Nozzles sprouted from the ceiling of the cell and spewed flames, cooking the specimens alive, and after the screams died out, once the virus died and the bodies stopped cooking, multiple Badniks stepped in and dragged them out.

Once that was done, Starline immediately got to work, dressing in doctor scrubs and staring at the bodies while Eggman watched. As Starline opened them up, he quickly found something in the head.

"How interesting..." Starline said as he looked at the machinery, he placed it on a tray before opening up the others, finding that they also had the same component; soon enough, the two doctors were investigating the components and had also studied the bodies.

They were synthetic beings and had some sort of chemical in them that had helped stop the Metal Virus along with the machinery. EggMan spoke as he chuckled, "Synthetic beings, infiltrators possibly. Absolutely genius!" EggMan had to give whoever created these machines props; it was a genius idea.

Reminded him of Mimic a bit, but these weren't as versatile since they were only one person. Though EggMan had a pretty good theory on who created them, and as he held up one of the components, he laughed.

"Well, upstarts, I'll be taking notes from you." EggMan said as he left the room, carrying the components and ready to see if he could find any other connection to this strange group, because no other faction would be able to produce them.

"This will be fun!" EggMan said as he got to his personal workshop and started to break down and investigate them...
__________________________________

Major Beck stood in the middle of the command room along with Mecha-Sonic and Agent Adam; the two were being briefed on their newest assignment, that being investigating an EggMan Blacksite, one rumored to have biological weaponry.

This, of course, fell under SIGMA Yellow's skillet, since outside of purging mutants and being a clean-up crew, they were specialized in dealing with chemical and biological threats, a task that back home would be handled by SIGMA Green.

Of course they didn't really have any missions pertaining to that, but now they had one where they would actually be able to do their job. "So what's the objective?" Major Beck asked, and Agent Adam spoke as he pressed some buttons on the map and showed multiple pics.

"Your team, alongside Mecha-Sonic, will be tasked with recovering all data and tech at the Black Site, along with the chemical and biological weapons stored there." Agent Adam explained, and Major Beck nodded before replying.

"Security?" Major Beck questioned, and Agent Adam pointed at a few pictures that showed multiple destroyed defenses, robots, and broken walls. "Well, security is minimal, mostly due to the fact that we aren't the first ones to find this place." Agent Adam explained.

He then pointed at a picture of two of the highest-priority targets for the Enclave, Sonic and Amy Rose. Major Beck looked over and saw Mecha-Sonic's hands curled into a fist. "They found the base, and after a little bit, left, with Sonic leaving in a hurry for an unknown reason. Luckily, the data and tech, along with the weapons, should still be there."

"Chances of running into any restoration forces?" Mecha-Sonic finally decided to speak. Adam spoke, "Barely any chance; the restoration is more focused on building up its territory, not eliminating former EggMan bases, with the heroes and leaders mostly taking up the mantle to go tomb crawling."

Mecha-Sonic nodded, and Adam spoke, "You boys get this done, and we're another step to beating back the mutant threat. Dismissed." Mecha-Sonic and Major Beck soon left the room, Mecha-Sonic immediately heading towards the hangar while Major Beck headed to his team's quarters.

He walked into his team quarters and looked around and saw that the four other members of the team were either doing checks on their equipment, working out, or reading up on information on the enemies of the world.

1st Lieutenant Johnson was their sniper; an M72 Gauss rifle was his standard armament, originally a sniper that had previously served in a division that Agent Adam had worked with when containing a pre-war vault.

2nd lieutenant Emily was their tech specialist. Multi-plas was her go-to, and she knew her way around tech, whether that be low-grade Mutie tech or ancient vaults and pre-war bases. She had served in a division that had worked with Agent Moses.

Captain Abraham had originally served in the science division but, due to his skill, was sent into training, and after containing some kind of flesh forest up in Oregon, was sent into SIGMA. He was the team's heavy weapons specialist, a plasma LMG being his weapon of choice.

Then there was Noah; he had somehow gotten assigned to their squad because he seemingly had 'potential.' Sure, the kid was good at his job, but Major Beck probably could have gotten many people like him or better than him.

"Gentlemen and lady, we've got a new mission." Major Beck stated, and Noah, the youngest of the team and the runner-up for Abraham's position of second in command, spoke up, putting down his P94 plasma rifle.

"Extermination, containment, or recovery?" Noah asked Major Beck as he went over to his locker and pulled out his weapons, a standard issue P94, a Glock plasma pistol, a few incendiary grenades, and a proton hatchet.

"Recovery, and this time we're doing our actual job." This immediately caused the rest of the team to perk up; they quickly grabbed their weapons before heading over to the armor lockers, pulling out the sets of HERMES armor.

Major Beck soon joined them, putting on the suit of armor, and after slotting on his helmet, his vision was flooded with information that, thanks to training, cybernetics, and genetic engineering, he was able to quickly process.

Holstering his weapons, he and his squad soon exited their barracks and walked through the halls of Fort Anderson, passing by many guards, robots, scientists, and other personnel. They even passed by multiple soldiers in PA.

Noah spoke over the team's comm channel as they passed the soldiers, "I've never seen those guys out of their PA." He said as Emily joined, "Perhaps they're sentinel suits? Would make sense."

"Maybe, but the 10th doesn't use robots that much." Noah said, and Johnson voiced his two cents, "Well, maybe their suits are modified to allow them to sleep and eat in the armor, like how it allows us to drink water."

"It doesn't matter if they're always in their armor; they do their job, and that's final." Abraham voiced, and the team nodded before continuing onward to the hangar in silence, eventually meeting up with Mecha-Sonic.

All six of them boarded an XVB-02 vertibird, and after the aircraft took off, Major Beck looked around and saw his team chat, though like always when deployed with the guy, Mecha-Sonic was quiet.

Major Beck continued staring at the robot until it stared back; orange eye lenses met orange visor until, surprising Major Beck, he saw Mecha-Sonic access his comm channel and speak, "Do you have a question, Major Beck?"

"Just wondering why you never speak. You're quite talkative at the Fort, but once you get on a vertibird, you get all silent." Major Beck said, and Mecha-Sonic responded, "We have a mission, one that may very well be more important than any of our previous missions. I am simply maintaining focus."

"Learn to live a little; even if you don't have a heart or soul, you at least are yourself." Major Beck said, and Mecha-Sonic disconnected, and Major Beck soon joined the rest of his team's conversation.

It will be an easy mission...

__________________________________

"What the hell is he doing here?" Agent Adam asked as he saw elements of the 22nd move through the base, with multiple protectrons pushing a cage that pushed a doctor that he knew far too well and one that he had really hoped he would never see again.

"Not a good sight seeing you either, Agent Adam." Dr. K said as he glared at the agent, one of the 22nd members in hazmat gear nearby walked up to Adam and spoke, "His knowledge on diseases could be useful, plus the... crystals and other equipment of the vault could be useful."

"I am not letting this base fall because you all wanted to experiment on the crystals." Agent Adam spoke; remembering what those crystals could do, now while the creatures it created could be defeated by the Enclave (they had wracked up quite the kill count), if allowed to spread, it would be a nightmare to clean up.

Would it be effective against killing mutants? Maybe, but that would just produce more creatures, and they definitely couldn't allow the creatures to take off the humans of this world; that was their breeding stock.

"Sir, I believe that we can create something worthwhile with the crystals; just let us do this." The member pleaded, and Agent Adam spoke as he looked at their name tag, "Well, Dr. Taylor, I care more about the men in this base than your research; however, I'm a man that gives chances. So you create something useful with the crystals, research, and that-"

Agent Adam pointed at Dr. K, who was busy fiddling with his pass, "Disgrace to humanity. So get to work." Agent Adam said, and the 22nd personnel and their prisoner quickly moved towards the labs.

"Another group of nutjobs..." Adam muttered as he headed back to his office. The 10th were all secret and had enough skeletons to probably rival the DIA; the 22nd had a plethora of monsters, and the normal science division was having a field day with all the stolen tech, some even wanting to make an even bigger death laser.

Not to mention Colonel Orwich, her robots, the crusaders of Song, and basically the entire expedition in general. Adam got to his office and sat down as he got onto his terminal; perhaps reading some of the new reports from the front could help him...

__________________________________

"Clear." Noah said as Major Beck moved into the destroyed control room, gesturing for Emily to move over to the consoles to try and salvage something from them. Major Beck looked around and saw some footprints, clearly mutant.

Abraham looked at the massive hole in the wall and spoke over comms, "Seems like there may have been some heavy security here, most likely eliminated by the mutant duo." Major Beck nodded and crouched down.

Mecha-Sonic walked past him and started helping Emily with the consoles, the two having trouble salvaging anything but eventually got some of the data off of them. That job was done; now came the task of finding the chemical and biological weapons.

So the team spent hours upon hours in the base, finding anything they could salvage and trying to find the weapons, but yet no dice... that was until they came across a massive hole, "Flare." Major Beck ordered, and Noah chucked a flare down the hole.

It took some time for it to drop but once it hit the ground it allowed the team to see two mutants covered in some kind of substance, Abraham spoke as he aimed at them, "Seems like they're covered in some sort of substance. Johnson, you had experience with something like this at Thunder Science, correct?"

"That was different. Permission to put them down?" Johnson asked, and Major Beck spoke, "Do it." Two Gauss rifle shots broke through the air; the two shots quickly find their marks in both of the mutant's heads, and that's when something peculiar happened.

The team watches as the heads of the mutants simply reform like nothing. Major Beck spoke, "Everyone else fire." Soon enough, the hole was filled with plasma fire, and the two mutants were reduced to silver puddles.

As the team watched the puddles just in case they reformed again, Mecha-Sonic then flew past them and into the hole with two large containers before rising back up with the two containers filled with the goop.

Major Beck got comms and spoke as the team kept watch on the container, "Fort Anderson, this is Major Beck of SIGMA Team Yellow. We've retrieved as much data as we could and what we believe are the weapons."

"Good job, SIGMA; the vertibird is on its way." The radio operator said as Major Beck smiled, Another win for the Enclave and another victory for Yellow Team. He turned back to them and saw Johnson studying the goo.

"Well, it seems dead, unlike the stuff from Thunder Science." John said, and soon enough, the vertibird arrived, and they were on their way back home; nothing could go wrong, absolutely nothing!

"Major Beck, your team is being assigned to a quarantine area; purge all infected; air support is available. God bless you." The pilot said, and Major Beck smiled.

Even better.

__________________________________

Agent Adam placed down the reports; another day and another successful replacement. Even better is that the cells in the United Federation, United States of Mobius, and other countries in the East are actually accomplishing stuff; their accomplishments are small, but it's something.

Along with those was the mass influx of humans that the cells had been sending; batches of the Enclave's new breeding stock were flying in and were currently being processed in, checked, and began their extensive modification in becoming true Americans.

The intercom on his desk then blared to life, Agent Mose's voice over it, "We have a situation. Get to the command room." Agent Adam stood up quickly, grabbing his sidearm and bolstering it as he walked through the halls of the base.

Everyone was on alert; soldiers and robots were moving through the halls, security systems were booted up, and everything was tense. Adam even saw Frank Horrigan stomping past him, and when he got to the command room, he saw it was filled with officers.

"Get over here!" Agent Adam heard Moses and moved over to see him looking at the map of the eastern continent; blotches of red covered the map along with a blotch of grey. "The hell is happening?"

"Massive biological attack by EggMan all over the continent, using some kind of biomechanical plague. The SIGMA team yellow purged a town, but we had to level it with napalm. All units have been put on high alert." Moses explained, and soon enough, everyone gathered at the main table.

All eyes drawn to him, everyone silently asking him the question of 'What should we do?' He ran through all the scenarios in his head, and none of them were exactly good, but one did lead to a way of still completing their objective.

"Have all units prepare to aid in evacuation efforts. We're going in and helping the mutants, and by God, they'll like it."

Chapter Text

The room was silent, everyone silently staring at Agent Adam until Major Nicolas spoke, "The 10th will help gear Enclave forces in hazmat suits and PPE." Dr. Taylor joined in and said, "The 22nd will do the same, and perhaps we can get Dr. K to help us on this."

"Sir, General Song has already moved in and is currently establishing a beachhead on the continent." A radio officer stated, and Adam nodded, and Moses spoke, "This is insanity; we can't just help them!"

"What do you suggest we do? If we let this infection run amok, that may harm the humans here. If the humans here are destroyed, then there goes our breeding stock. Would you want to be the one to file the report saying you lost the potential breeding stock of 4 billion humans?"

"There's 5 billion humans on Mobius, Agent." Colonel Orwich corrected and Agent Adam spoke, "Give or take traitors and us purging a lot of them. Anyways, we need to protect humanity, and it would be a risk to simply allow the infection to spread and contain it; we need to destroy it."

Moses sighed and spoke, "I'll start organizing supply lists and making sure the logistics of this entire plan actually succeed." Adam nodded, and after some more arguments, everyone eventually agreed to the idea, and thus started to organize how they will counteract the infection, and two main ideas were thrown around: a modified version of FEV and glassing the infected.

Glassing was chosen, but only after places had been evacuated, since the FEV would take time, and they needed to make sure the restoration didn't immediately smell the Enclave's lies, along with that there were also bombing campaigns.

While discussing it, Major Nicolas was pulled out of the room by other 10th Chemical Corps members, claiming that he needed to 'retrieve' something from Vault 103 that could aid them in winning this.

Colonel Orwich was the second to leave, her part of the plan being to use the Enclave's massive reserves of robots to either push back or hold the infected at bay, with air and naval support being available to her along with armored support.

Lieutenant General Owen, the commander of all air assault and airborne divisions, was given the task of spearheading the evacuations; his divisions will be the first ones in and the last ones out, outside of Song going out on his own.

General Alison, commander of the infantry elements of the Enclave, would be sent over to the eastern continent to start building refugee camps, where the refugees and Enclave forces would be sent after doing all they could on the western continent.

Dr. Taylor, Dr. K, and the entire 22nd will be trying to find a cure for the plague, hoping that FEV will knock the plague out, and if not, then perhaps the crystals may be able to do something, along with a plethora of creatures they have from Thunder Science that they want to test out.

Soon enough, the command room was back to normal, except instead of planning on how to exterminate the mutants and to make sure the Enclave stays hidden, it is instead planning on evacuating mutants, keeping hoards at bay, and making sure how to make the Enclave look good.

Adam looked at the map as he saw Enclave forces move away from Fort Anderson, moving across the world and establishing zones of control; he was also able to see where aircraft were being deployed to places planned on being glassed and where Enclave forces would establish extra beachheads.

"So how exactly will you explain this to High Command?" Moses asked Adam, and Adam replied, "I'll just say in the report that this was simply a step that had to be taken, and I could simply falsify some numbers, employ some heroic acts, and High Command will look the other way; hell, maybe they will give us extra support."

"I don't know..."

"Trust me, Moses. This will work, and we'll have made much more progress than we would have if we kept in the shadows." Adam said, and he believed that at the end of the day, the Enclave will win and the mutants will die.

This all was just one big necessary action...

__________________________________

EggMan watched the chaos consume Seaside City; news reports, social media, all of it was filled with chaos as the Metal Virus tore the city apart, a fate that much of the world will soon experience.

"This is working incredibly well! Why didn't I think of this any sooner?" EggMan said before laughing, turning his attention to the data he had gathered from the small component; now he didn't get much data, but he got enough to know the basics of the group that made it.

'Enclave,' they called themselves, along with 'America.' Apparently, these synths were infiltrators to cause chaos so that the Enclave could purge the 'mutant,' which EggMan guessed meant Mobians.

Now anti-Mobian groups weren't that interesting; they existed, and everyone acknowledged them but ignored them, and he would too if it weren't for the fact that this group was able to create life-like synthetic beings.

That and military hardware, training, and other pieces of that clearly show that this group isn't some random group of humans that simply want to express their hatred for Mobians; no, they were different.

"Hey doctor, the TV isn't working." Cubot said, and Eggman looked up to see that the screen showing a news report suddenly changed to a 'please standby' message; it then started to play a message while music played in the background.

"All citizens of Seaside City. Please remain calm. Enclave forces are on their way to evacuate you. Zones will be established. Infected will be cleared out. Remain calm and follow along. Those infected are not alive; they are not people. Remain calm, and pass the fuel. By the will of the one true God, you will survive."

"Sir! We've got multiple aircraft, yeah—" the sirens on the faceship started to blare as EggMan felt the ship shake; something had just hit them, and it hit them hard. EggMan spoke as he pressed a button, projecting a hologram of the faceship.

"Something pierced through the hull, hit us in the hangar bay. Now"—another shake as Eggman saw the charging stations for badniks on the ship turn red; something had hit them.

EggMan looked out the window and immediately ordered the ship's sensors to zoom in, and he saw that they were getting shot at by multiple sea-based dreadnoughts, equipped with what seemed to be railguns, definitely not the Restoration or any group he knew of...

"Enclave." Eggman said with venom as Cubot spoke, "Boss, we have multiple aircraft currently heading towards us." EggMan looked through the window again and saw multiple jet fighters flying towards them; the flagship was then hit with multiple missiles.

"Gaia! We're pulling back; let these upstarts suffer in this city!" EggMan yelled as he pressed a few buttons, the face ship blasting away from the city. Normally he would stay back and fight, but the face ship had no weapons and only a few badniks on it. Of course, Metal Sonic was there, but it would take him some time to actually deal with this threat.

And EggMan wasn't a patient man; he would make the Enclave pay, just not now....

__________________________________

Corporal Jonah hit the ground, feeling his armor cushion his fall as he stood up to full height, decked out in APA MKIII, some of the best armor made by humanity, and he confidently strode forward behind his squad, the hefty P99 Heavy Plasma Caster in his hands.

Basically a plasma HMG, his squadmates were clad in similar gear, heavy plasma and flamer weaponry, and just like Jonah, they were all confused at their orders, going against their very belief.

They were going to evacuate the mutants; they were going to risk their lives just to save mutants; it was... well, insane! Jonah wanted to voice his opinion but knew that it would be in his best interest to keep his mouth closed and nod along.

Mutants ran past them in fear, passing glances as they saw what were essentially giants stride past them, SSG Alex spoke as he held up his fist, the group hearing a large amount of movement. "Form up in a firing line."

The squad formed up and readied their weapons, and they soon saw the silver-covered bodies and red glowing eyes of the infected. "Fire." SGG Alex ordered, and soon enough the street was filled with plasma fire.

The infected fell, and slowly the street was covered in silver goop, and with a gesture of his hands, Alex ordered Max to use his flamer to burn away the goop, cleansing it and making sure that mutants could get through with the potential of infection.

As they walked, they all maintained an eerie level of silence, mostly speaking to tell refugees where evacuation sites were, calling out to the infected, or telling people that they are in fact friendly and not here to kill them.

Though the team eventually comes across a large group of mutants, with one planting cars around an infected. SSG Alex withdrew his sidearm and blasted a bolt of plasma into the infected and spoke as the squad stood around.

“Head to the docks and the airport for evacuation and do not interfere in our operations; that is all.” Alex said as the squad saw a large mutant alligator, all of their helmets immediately identifying the mutant as one of the heroes.

“Who the heck are you guys?” It asked as two of its compatriots stood next to it, SSG Alex spoke, “We’re from the government, and we’re here to help. Remain calm and head to the evacuation points.” The alligator nodded, and the squad continued on until meeting up with the rest of their company.

Finding their company currently burning and blasting through infected, the command squad standing on top of a building, an Enclave flag planted there as trucks carried off mutant survivors, not too long ago Jonah remembered seeing trucks carrying off mutants to their doom; now he’s seeing them carrying them off to their salvation.

“I need some bodies to clear out that building.” Their company’s lieutenant, Lieutenant Moore, said, and soon enough Jonah and the rest of his squad were clearing a hotel, though sadly they had to ditch their PA due to how cramped it was, the squad now donning hazmat suits with combat armor layered on top of it.

“Hey Maxwell, I heard these suits were improved after something happened to your father and a squad of drones.” Donovan said, and Max replied, with Jonah wondering what that meant, since Max always told him his father was alive.

“They were, but my siblings and I were only told that it was an extreme radiation leak, not…whatever we’re fighting.” Max explained, and Jonah spoke as he checked out the plasma rifle in his hands, “Hey Max, you said your father was alive, but now I’m hearing he’s dead?”

“Technically he’s dead; we were told the robotics team at the place he was deployed saved him by installing him into a robobrain.” Max explained, Jonah nodded, and SGG Alex gestured them all to stop as they all heard sounds of infection.

Taking up positions in a loving manner, the squad soon filled the place with plasma and flame as the infected shambled and rushed down the hall. One of the infected got shot and splattered across the wall. “Grenade out.” Ryan said as he chucked a plasma grenade into the hall.

The infected soon stopped coming, and the squad moved forward before dividing into teams of 2, with Jonah and Max heading into a large room, stepping through thick goo piles. “Feels like walking in glue…”

The two soon passed by a table, with Jonah picking up a revolver, the grip lathed in goo, “Poor mutie probably tried shooting these infected.” Jonah said, and Max spoke as he turned to a closet, flamer pointing at it.

“Step out; we’re here to help.” Max announced, and Jonah cleaned the grip of the revolver before holstering it. The closet soon opened up, and a small mutant girl stepped out, clearly fearful of what were essentially giants clad in black gear.

Maxwell holstered his flamer and grabbed his plasma pistol while offering a hand to the girl. “Where are your parents, young one?” The girl spoke, her ears flattening against her head, “They’re in Central City…”

‘Very creative name.’ Jonah thought, and Max picked up the girl before speaking, “Come on; let’s get you out of here…” Soon enough, Jonah and Max regrouped with their squad and exited the hotel, seeing vertibirds and Dreamlifters flying off…

“Guess it’s time to go…” Max said, and soon enough, all of them headed off to the evacuation site while bombers flew overhead…

__________________________________

Sonic slid to a stop as multiple bombs fell in front of him, bathing a group of infected in flames, their screams haunting Sonic and probably going to give him nightmares due to both the screams and them melting.

Sonic soon sped off, having to weave through flames, infected, and fortifications established by whoever these military guys were. They were apparently here to help and had helped the Chaotix to get out.

Said guys were also killing anyone infected they found; even those not infected were killed, so Sonic had already grown a negative opinion of them, especially when they tried to kill him as well. Sure, he may have been infected, but at least he was actually trying to help.

As he sped around, towers started to collapse around him, aircraft bombing the city along with missiles slamming down, and while running he saw something…He stopped on top of a building and could only watch as a part of the city was entirely eliminated, destroyed by a massive laser, reminding him of the eclipse cannon on the ARK.

“Are these guys remnants of G.U.N. too?” Sonic asked himself, and it would make sense: advanced military equipment, gray morality, and hating his guts, so it was his best guess, because these guys couldn’t have just come out of nowhere.

Sonic then saw that the laser was moving! Sonic quickly got off the building he was on before speeding off into the forest before turning back, seeing how the city was just being annihilated, completely removing it from existence and only leaving rubble and ash.

Sonic wished he could stay for a second and just process what had just happened, but due to the infected, he had to keep on moving, so he turned his back on the city and sped away, though he did catch sight of the Faceship and decided to follow it.

As he weaved through the trees, passing by many of the infected, he could only wonder what he could do to stop Eggman…

__________________________________

Tails was busy studying some of the goo Sonic had on him, and as he studied them, he then started to hear the sound of helicopter blades. He quickly stepped out of his workshop, and he saw multiple VTOLs hovering outside his home.

Tails could only stand in silence as one of the trees walked multiple robots and a human in some strange black gear. The human spoke as the robots secured the area, “Miles Prower, I have been tasked with securing you and bringing you to a much more secure location…”

“I’m stopping you right there. Who are you guys, and what do you want with me?” Tails asked, and the human spoke as a VTOL landed down in the only opening that it could fit in, “We’re with the government and have to come ask you, due to your history, to help us devise a…cure for this plague.” The human said, and Tails spoke as he stared at them, already doubting them.

“Government? Do you mean the UF? Or the USM? Or—

“The only government on this side of the world. Now do you want to come with us and help the people, or are you going to stand there?” Tails sighed and, after gathering all of his gear and research, hopped on the VTOL, feeling very…not scared, but uncomfortable with how silent everything was.

“Alright, so you better start explaining who you are.” Tails said, and the human spoke as he stared him down, a symbol of an E surrounded by stars appearing on his strange helmet, “Very well, but I am only allowed to give you the most basic summaries of our organization.”

“That works.” Tails said, and the human spoke, “We are the Enclave, more accurately, an expedition of the Enclave sent here to help; we’ve already dealt with two infection zones already, but our methods are, say, a little brutal.”

“So you guys want me to invent a cure on something I’ve only had a small amount of time to study just so you don’t have to be ‘brutal’ with your containment methods.” Tails said, and the human nodded. Tails spoke, “Will I at least be given a sufficient lab to work in and plenty of resources?”

“You will get as many resources as you need, an extra set of hands, and a lab established in the UF.” The human stated, and Tails nodded; he could work with that. The trip continued on eerily quiet; no one spoke, moved, or did anything to cause a noise; it was strange for Tails.

Even in the smallest groups, he always went around the world with someone, whether that be with Sonic trying to defeat Eggman or discover new locations, Amy and him going shopping, or even him helping Knuckles out with finding relics; there was always someone to talk to.

But all that surrounded him were silent robots and a man that gave him the creeps, especially with that strange helmet. Tails sighed as he decided to get some rest.

This was going to be a long adventure…

Chapter Text

Colonel Orwich watched as her robots melted and burned through scores of the infected, with Assaultrons turning a few of them into ash with their head lasers while sentry bots rolled forward, plasma spewing from plasma casters.

C-27 humanoid combat robots torched through the infected with flamers while Freedom Primes launched mini-nukes into the horde to break it up. It was a beautiful sight, and it was also effective at lowering the number of infected without risking enclave personnel.

"Creator." Orwich looked over and saw Mecha-Sonic walk next to her; Orwich spoke as she petted the robot. "Hey, Mecha, are you finished with your special mission?" Mecha-Sonic nodded as she then handed her some blueprints. Orwich spoke as she looked at the blueprints, "Shadow androids... I'm going to have fun with them."

A mini-nuke goes off, destroying a few infected and launching some in the air only to be cut down by the AA sentry bots. A sentry bot then rolled next to Orwich, "Colonel Orwich. We are approaching the village."

"Good! There's something, or someone, that I want to meet, and potentially study." Orwich said as she soon led her forces into the village, guns blazing; that is until Orwich looked up, "Mecha, I have a job for you."

Mecha-Sonic beeped as he turned an infected into a pile of goo, "Head up to EggMan's ship and get some revenge, and also steal some tech if you can." Mecha-Sonic nodded and soon flew into the air while Orwich continued on with her mission, that is until she felt something ram into her.

"Ow!" Orwich heard and looked down to see the Enclave's number one target, Sonic the hedgehog. Who was seemingly infected? Orwich unholstered her sidearm and pointed it at the hedgehog. "Don't worry, this will be quick."

"Hey! Hey! I'm not, well, I am, but I can reduce it, see?" Sonic sped around, and Orwich watched as the goo seemingly disappeared. Maybe she should file a report to the 22nd about that; perhaps he's a source of a cure?

Orwich shook her head. Screw a cure; the Enclave just needed to kill as many as they could and bomb the rest. They would still be seen as heroes, and it would get a lot faster. "Interesting...anyways, hedgehog, go deal with the infected while we get people out."

"Yes, ma'am." He said slyly as he sped off, Orwich then heard an explosion and looked up at the face ship, "I hope you're okay, Mecha..."

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EggMan relaxed on his throne until then something blew through the wall. EggMan watched as Dr. Starline coughed while Orbot and Cubot hid behind a console, and EggMan could only watch in surprise as he saw a robot he thought he would never see again.

"Mecha Sonic!?" EggMan said as the smoke cleared, allowing him to see one of his earliest creations, now in the colors of this 'Enclave,' Mecha-Sonic stood up, and as he stared down EggMan, he spoke, shocking the doctor, "It has been a long time, creator."

Eggman quickly jumped out of his throne as multiple green orbs slammed into it. Mecha-Sonic lowered his arm, some kind of energy weapon popping out of it before he stared at something. Eggman then realized what he was staring at: the Chaos Emeralds.

Mecha-Sonic sped right at the throne, and with his strength, ripped the Chaos Emeralds out of their slots. Eggman quickly pressed a button and spoke as Dr. Starline grabbed a wispon and fired at Mecha-Sonic, "Metal Sonic, get down here as fast as you can; we have a situation here!"

EggMan looked back and saw Mecha-Sonic standing there, the Chaos Emeralds surrounding him. Now, while EggMan knew he may not be able to go super, he would definitely be enhanced by then.

A blinding light immediately made EggMan fearful as he watched Mecha-Sonic be coated in gold. "We can... We can talk about this, Mecha. I'll gladly bring you back into the EggMan Empire; you can rejoin me, and finally we can rule the world."

Mecha-Sonic spoke as sent a control console right into Dr. Starline, knocking him while Orbot and Cubot fled the room, "I have a new master now, one that cares for me and doesn't abandon, one that doesn't abandon its failures but builds them up! I serve a new empire that will achieve its goals, not by messing around or being flashy, but by holding nothing back." Just in the nick of time, Metal Sonic flew in and engaged in combat with Mecha-Sonic, allowing EggMan to escape.

He ran through the halls and reunited with Dr. Starline, finding him the hanger bay, or what was left of it. "So not only is the Metal Virus not following your order, but one of your old creations is trying to kill us now."

"Correct." EggMan said as he saw Metal Sonic fly through a wall, Mecha-Sonic stepped through the hole and spoke, "I'LL CRUSH YOU!" Mecha Sonic flew at EggMan but Metal Sonic tackled him out of the destroyed hanger, this allowed EggMan to get onto the EggMobile and leave the slowly crashing faceship.

EggMan watched as the face ship crashed into the village, Enclave forces falling back as a part of the village was entirely annihilated. Luckily, EggMan sighed as he spoke, "I guess I'll pull out some old Egg ships to drop off the virus."

"You didn't plan for this!?"

"Not at all." EggMan said and spoke, "did you plan for some random group to appear out of nowhere with one of my creations?" Dr. Starline shook his head and EggMan spoke, "Exactly."

As they flew off, EggMan wondered how this all went wrong so fast, if he is fast enough, he could easily regain control of the situation, though he would probably have to pull out tons of old weapons, back up armies and other pieces of equipment to try and pull this situation back into his control.

As he flew away, he could only look back at the village; he cared about Metal Sonic, but it was a worthwhile sacrifice to save himself, especially against one of his creations that was going to kill him, and said creation was also now super, somehow.

"So, what's the plan now?" Dr. Starline said, and Eggman spoke, "Well, full war round two, let's go!"
__________________________________

Mecha-Sonic slammed Metal Sonic into the ground, creating a large crater as the giant ship crashed near them. Mecha-Sonic sent fist after fist into Metal Sonic's face; it had been so long since Mecha-Sonic had felt this power; it felt liberating!

One more punch and Metal Sonic went down as Mecha-Sonic looked into the sky, "Mecha!" He heard Orwich yell and turned to see her running towards him along with multiple sentry bots and Assaultrons.

"That was incredible!" Orwich said and Mecha-Sonic nodded before flying off, weapons free and blasting at any infected, and this time nothing would stop him! He crashed into the ground and fought through the infected, melting through them with ease.

As he punched through one, melting it from the inside, he started feeling what the organics would call 'fatigued.' He continued fighting on before glitching out temporarily, and that's when he realized it.

He was overheating; he moved towards Orwich to try and get her help, but as he realized that it was simply too much, he suddenly felt himself cool down before collapsing to the ground, watching as the Chaos Emeralds flew into the sky. He then felt the armor of his new creator.

"You okay, Mecha?" Orwich asked, and Mecha spoke as he got up, seeing Sonic speeding around, "Syste-systems runnnnnn...ing AT acceptable conditions conditions..." Mecha-Sonic responded, and Orwich spoke as she picked him up, "Let's get you back to base; maybe you can relax with Sigma."

As Orwich carried him off, Mecha-Sonic could only stare at Sonic; if he could smile, he would, since unlike the inferior organic, he couldn't get infected; he was perfect, and even the overheating was most likely just due to him not being used to going super with them, only being able to go super with the Master Emerald without harmful effects.

Soon enough, they were placed on a vertibird, and Orwich spoke as he started to inspect Mecha-Sonic. "Well, it seems like your systems overheated due to the Chaos Emeralds, but it shouldn't be that hard of a fix compared to when I first found you."

Mecha-Sonic nodded, and he remembered that time when he and the other scrapniks looked to the sky and heard the sound of rotor blades before gazing upon the armored silhouettes of Enclave soldiers.

Many of the scrapniks thought they were finally going to be destroyed, wiped from existence by their old creator, but yet they were saved, repaired, and cared for; they were appreciated for once and, under Orwich, loved.

She repaired them, read them stories, helped them with new hobbies; she treated them like people, living, breathing people. While the Enclave gave them a new purpose, Orwich gave them a new life.

Mecha-Sonic spoke as Orwich picked him up again, "I am thankful once more, Colonel." Orwich replied as she rubbed her armored hand on Mecha-Sonic's head, "It's nothing, Mecha; you, the scrapniks, and any other robot under the Enclave are loved."

Mecha-Sonic beeped and shut himself off to help cool himself off, 'best creator...'

__________________________________

"It's funny, barely two weeks ago we were helping exterminate the mutants, and now we're here helping them." Max said as he and Jonah stood in the burning remains of a village, "I find it strange; couldn't we just steal as many humans here and then leave? Why get involved in this fight?"

"Maybe propaganda? Show that the Enclave has a heart of gold and is more effective in dealing with threats than the heroes of this world." Max said, and Jonah nodded; that could be it, but then again they could just use force; the Enclave would wipe the floor with this world and take barely any losses.

As the two continued to watch over the burning village, they finally got told that the last of the mutants had been evacuated and that they were going to be transported to another city. Jonah spoke as he hefted up a plasma caster, "Another city to be evacuated, a couple more million muties dead, a good day."

"And probably some nice loot." Max said as the two boarded a vertibird, the aircraft soon enough lifting into the air and bringing the squad to their next mission. As they flew, Jonah spoke, "Permission to ask a dumb as fuck question."

"Permission granted." SSG Alex said as the other two sergeants nodded, "Why aren't we just glassing this entire continent to ash? Would achieve the same goal but with less risk of us getting infected?"

"Because it's for the media! Media boys snatch some pics of us being heroes, spread that around, and it will beat any pics of us killing muties that aren't infected; it's the perfect way to get away with genocide." Ryan said, and Max spoke, "It'd also help us get all these clean ladies for us."

"I just want to kill." Donovan said, and everyone looked at him, and Jonah spoke, "Chemmie." As the squad waited to land, the vertibird then swerved for no reason, and SSG Alex stood up and spoke, "Pilot, what the hell was that about!?"

The pilot responded as the squad immediately kicked into combat-ready mode, "Something just flew past us!" SSG Alex spoke as Jonah loaded a plasma cartridge into his plasma caster, "Hostile?"

"So good for a simple flight." Jonas said as Max spoke, "At least it's interesting." Strangely though, the vertibird quickly landed, and Jonah spoke as SSG Alex hopped out into the forest, "Why did we land? This isn't the city."

"Because I want to see what flew past us, it apparently crashed here." The SSG said, and Jonah nodded as Max spoke, "Maybe it was just an artillery shell? Or some scrap? Or nothing special?" Jonah nodded; that made sense; it couldn't have been anything special.

Though the two were soon proven wrong as the squad came across a crater, the trees were destroyed and the ground destroyed. As the squad entered the crater, Max spoke, "That can't be..." The squad's eyes landed upon the crystal at the center of the crater.

SSG Alex picked up the Chaos Emerald and spoke, "I think I'm going to get a promotion..."

__________________________________
Agent Adam wasn't a strange to the concept of a show of force move, he had seen it done by Enclave forces over the years and had learn what to do, and he had already executed a fantastic start with the Enclave swooping in as saviors for the people of Mobius.

The next step was walking right up to the restoration's leader and making it very clear that the Enclave were the ones that held all the power, especially with the support of Enclave Sigma, Rangers, Air support and a massive laser.

And that was exactly what he was doing. He loaded his side arm while the pilot spoke, Adam used a simple XVB-02 transport vertibird on route to the restoration's base, "I believe you are rushing this."

And that was exactly what he was doing. He loaded his sidearm while the pilot spoke. Adam used a simple XVB-02 transport vertibird on route to the restoration's base. "I believe you are rushing this."

"In my opinion, we had just kicked EggMan in the teeth; the infected are dying in droves, EggMan's main delivery system has just been destroyed, and his best weapon was eliminated in a fight. I believe we can show our strength just a little bit."

"Whatever you say, boss. Coming in for landing. Good luck." The pilot said, and Adam stood up and felt the aircraft hit the ground; he opened the side door and walked out confidently, seeing the other Enclave forces standing guard in either hazmat suits or power armor, with the mutants all looking on in confusion.

Some had their hands on their strange energy weapons, and Agent Adam spoke as he moved to the front, "I've come to talk with Amy Rose, tell her she has guests, and to hurry up." Adam said, and soon enough, the pink mutant arrived, hammer in tow, as she looked up at Adam.

"Who are you, why are you, what do you want?" She asked Adam, "Well, Pinkie, I'm Agent Adam; alongside me are some of the men that helped evacuate Seaside City and also made sure the infected didn't spread."

"You're the people that destroyed Seaside!"

"It was a necessary sacrifice to make sure the infection doesn't spread." Adam stated, and Amy glared up at him, and Adam spoke, "Sorry we did your job for you. Now, may we discuss how we can hopefully get more people out, or can we just stand here and talk?

Adam saw the Mutie tense up before she sighed and spoke, "Follow me." Adam smiled underneath his helmet and followed the small mutant into the base, with Amy gesturing for the restoration forces to lower their weapons and let the Enclave in.

He couldn't believe how well this was going; the Enclave would have all the cards and be able to quickly strike the restoration right in its heart, and nothing could stop them...

__________________________________

General Song looked around the building, seeing murals of creatures, the moon, and the sun, and many other oddities; behind him was his honor guard. He spoke as he grasped an altar, “The false faith of this world.”

Song looked up at the interpretation of this world’s false god, such a disgusting creature. Spoke as he used his proton axe to destroy the axe, “Make sure nothing remains; I want this place reduced to rubble.”

His honor guard nodded and started to wreck the place, now sure this wasn’t helping in the evacuation of the city, but the destruction of the heretical faith of this land was more important than helping mutant filth.

Soon enough flames started to rise and fill the church; Song smiled as he saw banners and cloth burn, destroying images of the mutants and the heretic’s false god. There was only one God, the one up in heaven, the one that looks favorably on the Enclave.

Soon he and his group walked out of the church, watching as his forces established fortifications and purged mutants behind closed areas. No one would know; the world will only know the Enclave as the heroes that saved them from a hellish virus.

The world will soon know that God is real, and he hates them for worshipping a false idol…

Chapter Text

EggMan watched over monitors as his forces spread across the continent, holding territory and spreading the Metal Virus, though sadly his expansion was being slowed down by the upstarts, who definitely knew how to fight.

Unlike the Restoration, they had proper biohazard suits, equipment, and training, and if said suit is broken, the person immediately kills themselves, since the virus doesn't work on the dead.
Not to mention armored vehicles, robots, aircraft, a navy, and also the giant laser, the Enclave was practically carrying the Mobian population to safety, going against the fact that not too long ago they were seemingly killing anything Mobian they found.
They had also taken out the faceship and Metal Sonic, with Metal Sonic having not been recovered by any of the forces Eggman sent out, meaning one thing: the Enclave had captured Metal Sonic.

And while Eggman had it so that Metal Sonic couldn't rebel against him on his own, that didn't mean the Enclave would try and rebuild him and perhaps reprogram him for their own uses, or maybe they would mass-produce the robot

Either way, bad news for him, especially since the Chaos Emeralds are now scattered about, and no doubt Sonic and his friends are hunting for them currently; maybe even the Enclave is hunting for them.

Eggman sighed as Orbot and Cubot tried to make him a sandwich. Eggman spoke, "Great, everything was going fine; I was going to destroy Sonic, and if I didn't destroy him,? Well, I would have been with Sonic foiling my plan, but no! It has to be some upstarts that think they can be the new evil!"
EggMan stood up and batted Cubot away, knocking the sandwich into his face. "I'll make sure the Enclave knows who they're messing with! I'll make sure they end up just like G.U.N., nothing but remnants and stains on the ground!"

EggMan soon left the command room of his bunker, passing by Dr. Starline before entering a massive hangar, where he looked upon a variety of mechs at his disposal. He needed something that was fast, had the ability to fly, could tank multiple hits, and also dish out some damage.

EggMan smiled and snapped his fingers and walked through the hangar until finding an old mech that he'd used long ago, before he accepted the name 'EggMan,' and when Sonic's friend group was much, much smaller.

"The Egg Viper!" EggMan stated as he looked up the mech, it would work, and possibly he could modify it to include a storage space so that he could drop the Metal Virus; yes, yes, this would work well.
EggMan quickly got work upgrading and slightly redesigning the mech, with some help from Dr. Starline and no help from Orbot or Cubot; the two couldn't be allowed near it unless they somehow screwed even the most basic tasks up and added in an obvious weak point.

The viper will be able to claim the victory that it was robbed of all those years ago.
Beating Sonic...
__________________________________
Shadow watched as Sunset City engaged in a battle that seemed somewhat familiar to what had happened in the first war, though this time the Resistance, or now Restoration, had some allies, ones Shadow could get behind.

The Enclave, they came out of nowhere, and while Shadow is suspicious of them, he had to admit they were doing a much better job at handling the infected than the Restoration was, especially along the lines of halting the infected.

Sure, it was a bit cruel and a little bit overkill to glass and bomb entire sections of the continent, but if it kept people safe and made sure the virus didn't spread, then Shadow would allow it to happen; after all, it was saving more lives than it was killing.
"Truck's ready! See ya later, Shadow." Rouge said as she flew off, Omega was already inside the city and currently burning any infected he found with his flamethrowers. Shadow hopped into the truck and started driving.

As he drove, he saw Enclave aircraft fill the sky, some providing air support, while others were dropping off either robots or heavily armored troopers into hot zones to clear out the infected to get people out of there.

As he drove through the city, he soon plowed through a massive horde of infected, and he soon laid eyes on 13 individuals guarding civilians; the first was Omega, who immediately got to burning infected.

The other was...Sonic? 'He's infected?' Shadow thought as he exited the truck; he needed some answers along with telling Sonic that he was right: they should have killed Eggman back at Windmill Village.

The other 11 were all Enclave, all wielding massive energy halberds and flame-based pistols. One was suited in a different kind of armor than the others. Sonic spoke as Shadow got out, "There you are. What's the matter? Couldn't find a—"

The blue hedgehog was then slapped upside the head by the soldier in different armor; the soldier spoke as he banged a fist against his armor, "Corporal Robotnik, I presume?" This somewhat shocked Shadow.

Back when he was working with G.U.N., he had earned the rank of corporal, but Hedgehog isn't a last name, so G.U.N. (and the UF) decided that since he was technically a son to Gerald Robotnik, he should have his last name.

At least his name wasn't 'Doom,' because then Shadow would quite literally kill anyone that would try to use that name when talking about him, and he still hates when he's referred to as a 'Robotnik.'
"How did you..." Shadow said, and the soldier spoke as Sonic ran off, cowardly. "We've looked through old G.U.N. databases, and you were named. A man of your caliber should have been a higher rank."
"The past doesn't matter; I'm Shadow, not a soldier tied to a rank of a dead organization." Shadow stated, and the soldier nodded, "Understandable. General Song, currently the man in charge of overlooking this evacuation."

Shadow nodded, and they all heard more screams and turned to see the infected, those that survived Omega's cleanup, "Let's see how you fight, General." Shadow said, and Song chuckled, "Same to you, hedgehog!"

Soon enough the two sides clash, and as Song and his soldiers cut and burn through them, Omega lifts up his arm and hands Shadow what is seemingly a custom-fitted hazmat suit. "EQUIP THE SUIT. TOO RISKY TO ALLOW EVEN THE CHANCE OF YOU BEING INFECTED."

Shadow nodded, and while he was immune to diseases, he also knew that the risk of him getting infected was dangerous, since something that could move as fast as him was infected would mean the virus could spread exponentially faster.
Shadow quickly put on the suit while Omega and the Enclave forces covered him and smiled as Omega then gave him a flamethrower.

"Alright, you disgusting infected, time to show you the true power of the Ultimate Lifeform!"
__________________________________
Sonic sped through the land, trying to reduce the spread of virus over his body, and when he crossed over a hill, he could only gasp at the sight he saw: massive swathes of the land were reduced to ash or glass, clearly a sign of the Enclave's handiwork.

As Sonic ran, he could only wonder what the continent would look like when all of this was done; would there even be anything left? If the Enclave continued their current tactics, then the continent would be completely inhabitable by anyone.
Sure, it would be the same if the Metal Virus took over the place, but at least that can be fixed with a cure; the damage that the Enclave was doing to the environment would take years, possibly even decades, to fully heal.

One side of Sonic was telling him to fight against the Enclave, to stop them from damaging the environment like how EggMan did, and the other side was telling him to stand alongside the Enclave; maybe he'd be one of the first people cured if he remained loyal to them.

"Didn't even get a chance to rest, and the entire world has gone crazy." Sonic said to himself as he quickly sped back into the city, quickly finding the area the truck used to be at now completely empty, the ground covered in metal goo.

Sonic didn't need a genius, or Tails, to tell him that Shadow probably eagerly went along with the Enclave, and as Sonic sped through the city, he noticed how quiet everything was; it was unsettling.
There were still the far-off sounds of weapon fire and the buzzing of aircraft, but the areas he walked in felt like he was in a completely different space, like he was in the city, but he truly wasn't on Mobius.

That's when Sonic saw the ground start to tear apart, the buildings shook, and the piece of ground he was standing on started to lift into the air, immediately telling him that something weirder was happening.

As he looked at the city slowly coming apart, and with the red cubes appearing across the place, it immediately reminded Sonic of the Phantom Ruby; in fact, whatever was happening was eerily reminiscent of what Infinite did during the war.

"Oh great, back to the illusions." Sonic mumbled as he jumped from platform to platform; he wasn't in the mood to fight someone with the Phantom Ruby again, and as he landed onto what seemed to be a building, he noticed how...wrong everything felt, different than before.

Sonic then remembered what he did in the past and slowly calmed down and focused on breaking through the illusion; cracks showed along with Sonic hearing strange screams, screams for help, screams for vengeance; arms broke through concrete and rose out of the cube; strange symbols appeared around, but Sonic continued to focus. "Just ignore it..." Sonic told himself, and soon enough the illusion shattered and Sonic got back to work.

"Well, that was weird." He said as he sped through the city...
__________________________________
General Song stood up and breathed; using the crystal the 10th had given him required more willpower than he expected, since he thought it was just a one-and-done thing, not something he would have to push through.

He felt hands trying to grab onto him while screams resounded through his mind; whatever that crystal was, it required both willpower and faith to use, and even then it didn't even work! The mutant pushed through it like it was nothing.

The mutant either had experience with this crystal or just a really strong will. Song gestured for his honor guard to follow him as they all rejoined a group of trucks currently escorting civilians.
All of them huddled together; sounds of fear and other emotions rang out as they were transported out of this hellhole, having brushed so close to death they most likely were traumatized.
As Song looked at the trucks, he remembered a time long ago...

‘Hold them off!’

‘The west flank has collapsed!’

‘Brotherhood of Steel to the left!’

‘Get the civvies on the trucks, vertibirds, anything!
May God help us.’

Navarro, the time when everyone thought that America had died, that the Stars and Stripes had been snuffed out by the mutant under the bear and the traitors serving the cog and sword. It was a dark day for all; so many lost their lives just trying to buy a little more time.

Song remembered when he led his forces in one last attack to push their enemies back, making sure that everyone was able to get out, that the mutants wouldn't harm the families.

However, it was all worth it. America was back; the mutants had paid for their crimes against humanity, and now the Enclave was more powerful than ever, but yet seeing the mutants valiantly defending against the infected to guard their civvies, it made him remember a darker time.

"General." Song turned and looked down at Shadow; the mutant was clad in a hazmat suit custom-fitted for his kind. Shadow spoke, "All the civilians have been evacuated from this area. I'm off to regroup with Rouge; Omega is coming with me."
"Very well. Stay safe, Corporal." Shadow groaned and spoke, "I'm not a corporal." "There is nothing to be ashamed of when it comes to serving in the army; it's something one should take pride in."

"Sure..." Shadow said before taking off into the dissonance alongside his robot companion. Song looked at the black and red hedgehog and sighed; one day he will have to lay low the mutant heroes, with Shadow and most definitely Sonic being at the top of the list.

Those will be tough battles, ones that would either see him become the greatest fighter in the existence of humanity or lose and damn the common men and women to fight against those monsters in combat.
Soon enough, Song and his men left the city, the evacuation having been completed.

They all gathered on a nearby hill and watched as the city was annihilated from orbit by Archimedes; the city burned away and was reduced to glass.

Song gestured for his forces to move out; they were off to evacuate another city, to cleanse it of the infected, all in the name of humanity.
And the one true God.
__________________________________
Agent Adam leaned back in his chair as he stared at Amy; he had to play many of his cards to get her to actually listen to him, and even then, little Pink was still convinced that they only needed to do evacuations, not exterminate the infected.

Agent Adam knew that even if the Enclave weren't going to exterminate their entire species, they would still be killing infected and destroying the continent; it was just the logical tactic when it came to dealing with the infected, not to mention a cure may be proven ineffective.

"Look, my people have helped yours evacuate many cities, and if they're destroyed, then who cares? Lives were saved, and the infection has been slowed. Who cares if a city filled with the dead is destroyed?"

"I do! Because where are we going to place all these refugees, not to mention you're also destroying the environment as well?" Amy said, and Agent Adam waved her off, "So? The environment dies either way; at least we're making it so that the virus can't use it to spread."

Amy groaned and spoke as she placed a hand on her face, "Look, I can appreciate what the Enclave is doing; it's saving a lot of people and has helped the restoration, but after this is all done, the continent won't even be able to support life at all.”

"There are three more continents and a multitude of islands you can use. We have refugee camps in the East, which is where we're currently sending all the refugees." Adam said, and Amy sighed before handing Adam a cup of tea, "Want some tea? A friend made it."

Adam shook his head and spoke, "No, thank you." Adam then received a message and stood up and spoke, "I have a message; I'll be back." Amy nods, and Adam steps out as he reads the message.
His eyes widen, and he immediately gets on comms with Moses, "We have an opportunity to claim some of the most powerful items in the known world. Start getting cells and reserve forces to hunt them down." Adam said, and Moses replied while Moses was busy with something.

"Alright, I'll start getting some groups to go treasure hunting. What about you?"

"Good, their leader is somewhat giving in to our tactics, and I bet they will soon cave into them."
"Seems like all is going well; good luck." Adam nodded and turned off his comms while speaking to himself before heading back inside. "Now back to this war....
__________________________________
Dr. Taylor observed multiple of the test subjects come into contact with the virus, and the results were...interesting, to say the least. The crystals, along with the goo, seemingly melded together with the virus before overpowering and growing.

When a goo beast came into contact with the virus, the virus seemingly gave the beast a new layer that was quickly covered by fur; the beast seemingly remained the same and was quickly terminated.

FEV, however, had caused something no one in the 22nd predicted. An infected mutant was brought in, and once exposed to the FEV, the virus seemingly died, the silvery goop sloughing off of them and freeing the Mobian.

Though it didn't leave with grace, chunks of fur and flesh also fell off, and the Mobian was left in a berserk state, so all in all, they basically turned it into a legit zombie, which, overall, was a success to some degree.

Since, after some testing, it was much, much easier to kill, and it would be much harder for the disease to spread, meaning the Enclave would not need to use the Archimedes as much, which would save energy.

After bringing this up to all the other high-ranking members of the 22nd, plus Dr. K, they were gathered in one of Fort Anderson's many war rooms and soon began to discuss what was next; it went on for hours until Dr. Taylor spoke, "I say we release the FEV."

Everyone turned to him, and the first one to disagree with him was Dr. K, "Too risky; what if the FEV mutates into something far worse? Or the Metal Virus grows immune to it, or we could just wait for the cure to be created by Tails."

"All of our options could be proven ineffective if the virus mutates; it's just a risk we have to take, and FEV can be distributed all around the world by simply making it airborne. We have to take the risk. Plus, Dr., your opinion is much less important considering you're not even human."
Dr. K tried to retort but soon sat down, and after some more discussion, it was decided.

FEV was their way forward; forget about creating a cure; they were going to create a new way to cause destruction...
__________________________________
Metal Sonic rose from the crater he had been beaten into and looked at his surroundings; the village was all but destroyed, and the spaceship had crashed into a part of it, with all the infected seemingly eliminated.

Metal slowly made his way out of the crater, though due to how badly damaged he was, it took a lot more time than he expected, and even after making it out of the crater, he had no idea what to do. Eggman had seemingly abandoned him, and for Gaia's sake, the restoration wouldn’t bring him in.

So he started walking, limping across the destroyed landscape and soon it started to rain, causing Metal to get slower as the ground turned to mud, and with how beaten he was, it practically made him immobile.

He hated this; he hated how weak he felt; he was being beaten by the very environment when not long ago he could stand up to his loathsome copy. Metal Sonic eventually found his way to a large boulder and slumped against it.

It was getting darker, and his power was running low. Metal Sonic, with one last piece of hope, activated an emergency beacon that his creator installed when he couldn’t reliably find him with the EggNet, with the emergency beacon being able to be seen easily.

Metal sat there, feeling the water wash over him as he waited for someone to find him; he didn’t want to waste away, forgotten and abandoned. His power was getting dangerously low, and soon he would have to shut off some systems.
It was getting darker.

Hours passed, and as Metal Sonic sat, he deactivated most of his systems; the only ones having power were the beacon, his sight, and hearing, and he would soon have to deactivate those as well.

Then, he heard the faint sound of blades and lifted his head to see a VTOL land not far from him, Enclave design. He watched as a figure approached, and he soon saw it was the person that Mecha-Sonic was seemingly under the control of.

The figure soon picked up and…cradled him; Metal Sonic looked up at the helmet of his savior, and the figure spoke, female. “Let’s get you out of here, buddy…”

As he was carried away, he uttered a singular word, not being used to talking when not in his Neo-Metal form.

“Friend…”

Chapter Text

EggMan cruised in the newly updated Egg Viper, which he had renamed to the King Viper. The armor for it was greatly increased, and its weapons even better! Not to mention that it now packed a storage tank that held the Metal Virus.

Now the storage tank wasn't the largest; it would impede the speed of the craft too much, but it was enough to spit decent-sized chunks of the virus with great precision. If EggMan was lucky, he would get a shot off at Sonic and boom! Instantly turned into a mindless slave.

While flying, he also took note of the destruction that the Enclave caused. In all honesty, EggMan was jealous; such destruction was caused by some upstarts and not by him! He was supposed to conquer the world, not them.

Well, he didn't know if they wanted to conquer the world for certain, but it was a pretty good guess considering their tactics. As he flew, he immediately got a warning on the ship's control, and boom! A rocket slammed into the Viper, knocking it back.
Now it didn't do much damage, but it did greatly annoy Eggman; he spoke as he twisted the viper to look at who dared attack him, "I'm busy! Can't you upstarts just stay—HUH!?" EggMan gasped as he saw that he wasn't attacked by the upstarts but by Team Dark!

Omega loaded another rocket in a very much oversized launcher while Shadow spoke while Rouge landed next to him, handing him a Chaos Emerald, both dressed in some sort of hazmat suit, "I should have killed at that village, Doctor. Guess I'll finally be able to correct one of Sonic's biggest mistakes."
"Why, you little..." EggMan said as he laughed, "Well, I'm glad you three have offered yourselves up as the first test of my new King Viper!" EggMan announced, and soon enough the Viper's laser weaponry opened up.

Lasers flew through the air, Shadow and Rouge weaving through them all while Omega stood his ground and unloaded his own firepower into the Viper. Eggman groaned and spoke as the back of the Viper opened up to reveal an array of missile pods.
"Get a load of this!" EggMan said as a volley of missiles flew out the back and were going to hit Omega, most likely taking him down, if it wasn't for the fact that at the last moment, Shadow grabbed Omega and teleported him to a different location!
Shadow then soon turned to the viper and started hurling Chaos speeds at the viper while circling it, "Stop moving, you rodent!" EggMan said as he launched the viper shields at Shadow, now being much larger and able to inflict more damage than before.

Shadow was picked up by Rouge before the shields, and he teleported right in front of the cockpit of the Egg Viper. Summoning a chaos spear and stabbing into it, Eggman quickly pulled away, causing Shadow to lose his balance and fall off.

"You insufferable hedgehog!" Eggman said as he flew the Egg Viper around, he was originally going to say that he should have never saved Shadow, but then again, the Black Arms were a pain.
The fight raged on until EggMan pressed a button on the main control console, and the Viper spit a glob of the Metal Virus at Shadow, who then kicked it back, hitting the cockpit and blinding EggMan.
"Curses!" EggMan activated the windshield wipers as he ordered the viper's weaponry to auto-target Team Dark while the cockpit was cleaned; he wasn't risking flying blind or having the virus break the glass.

The Viper then shakes as something detonates on the back of it. Eggman looked through a camera and saw that Omega was firing into an exposed exhaust point; an explosion then rocked one of the sides of the Viper, and once the cockpit was cleaned, Eggman gasped.

Shadow was standing, well, flying with his shoes, right in front of him, and with a hail of chaos spears, the glass shattered, and Shadow dragged EggMan right out of his beautiful cockpit before throwing him on the ash-covered ground.

"We can talk about this, Shadow; I can turn over a new leaf." EggMan pleaded as Shadow went for his hip and pulled out a M1911, "Oh, you're serious about this, oh Gaia..." Shadow walked towards Eggman while Omega and Rouge stood beside him.
"Your days are over, doctor." Shadow said as he aimed the pistol right at EggMan's head, and that's when EggMan had an absolutely genius idea! "Before you kill me, you must know something about the Enclave."

"And what would that be?" Shadow asked as he pressed the barrel of the gun against EggMan's head, "You know how I, well, at the time my best creation, Metal Sonic, was utterly annihilating entire towns and bases?"

Shadow nodded, and Rouge spoke, "He was quite thorough, definitely not your style." EggMan nodded and spoke, "What if I told you that was all of the Enclave's doing? That they are simply trying to convince you that all your friends are your friends?"
"You lie." Shadow said as Omega joined in aiming a Gatling gun at Eggman, "Well, I do have a track record of that, but I am serious: the Enclave is bad news. Sure, they may be helping you now, but when I'm gone, you're going to get stabbed right in the back."

Shadow still looked at him, and when his aim faltered, EggMan withdrew his energy pistol and shot Shadow in the chest, sending the hedgehog flying back as EggMan made a run for it, with Omega right on his trail.

"Starline! I require a pickup!" EggMan yelled into a communications device as he ran for the hills, though Omega was quickly catching up to him until, at the last second, the Egg Hawk came flying in, guns blazing, and Starline piloting the aircraft, "You're welcome, Doctor." Starline said as EggMan jumped in.

"Move aside! This thing won't last a second against Team Dark." EggMan said as he quickly flew away.
There goes that plan; perhaps a new and improved Egg Fleet would do, and maybe even upgrading the Egg Emperor...
__________________________________
Amy sighed as she sat down; coordinating evacuations was a lot easier now, since with the arrival of the Enclave, her shuttles could evacuate many more people and were protected by some heavy-duty equipment.

Not to mention that the Enclave themselves were flying people out on their own aircraft. Sure, they were destroying the entire landscape, and the continent would be inhabitable, but at least the people were safe, and there was also a cure in the works.

Amy heard the comms room door open and turned to see Cream bringing in some snacks. "I brought you snacks, Miss Amy." Amy smiled and spoke, "Thank you, Cream, but I would rather you give those to the civilians."

"But you've got to eat..." Cream said, and Amy stood up and patted her on the head before speaking, "I'll be fine. Say, how are your mom and Gemerl doing?" Amy asked, and Cream spoke, "They're doing great! My mom's been creating a bunch of sweets to help keep people happy, and Gemerl has been making sure that nothing gets in!"
"That's good." Amy said, and after chatting with Cream for a bit, turned back to the main computer, keeping an eye out for any new emergencies, though she wouldn't be observing it for long as soon Team Dark entered the room.

"Shadow?" Amy asked, and the black and red hedgehog spoke, his hazmat suit damaged from some sort of energy weapon, "EggMan got away, but we at least trashed one of his mechs."

"IF SHADOW DID NOT LOWER HIS GUARD, THEN EGGMAN WOULD BE DEAD." Omega stated, and Amy looked over at Rouge, "The doctor tried to convince us that the Enclave were the bad guys, that they would backstab us; good old Shadow here bought it for a second and got subsequently shot."
"Are you okay?!" Amy asked, and Shadow grunted before speaking, "I admit, it was foolish, but it's something we should at least think about."
"What? The Enclave perhaps being evil? Shadow, I get you can be...paranoid."

"What."

"But the Enclave, despite their brutal tactics, has done nothing wrong! I think Eggman was trying to trick you like how he tricked Knuckles back then, telling you that someone clearly good is actually up to no good."

"Still, it's something to keep in the back of our minds." Shadow said, and Omega spoke up, "IT IS UNLIKELY THAT THE ENCLAVE HAS HOSTILE INTENTIONS." Rouge spoke, "So Rose, seen the blue blur around?"

"Not really. I don't even know where he is; I just hope he hasn't succumbed to the infection." Amy said, and Shadow spoke, "Serves him right; he didn't kill Eggman; now he has to deal with the price."

"AND YOU DIDN'T KILL EGGMAN, AND NOW YOU PAY THE PRICE OF HAVING GOTTEN SHOT POINT BLANK." Omega said, and Shadow spoke as he rolled his eyes, "We'll be heading out to try and find EggMan's new base of operations; we'll keep in touch."

Amy nodded, and soon Team Dark left, leaving her alone once again. She soon got back to work; at least all this would probably be over soon...
__________________________________
Tails leaned back in his chair as the cure for the Metal Virus was being finished. With the resources of the restoration and Enclave, not to mention multiple scientists of his own, he was easily able to get a cure under way.

As he relaxed, he decided to try and contact Sonic, and soon enough he opened a channel with his pal, "Hey Sonic, you okay?" Tails said, and Sonic replied, "Doing great; how are you? Haven't really gotten to chat with you much ever since I ran off to Seaside City."

"Well, the Enclave sort of recruited me to create a cure, so soon enough this whole thing will be over, and we can get back to rebuilding." Tails said, and Sonic spoke over comms, "That...will be more difficult than you think."

"Why? Has the Metal Virus spread that fast?" Tails asked, Ever since he got to the research site the Enclave gave him in the East, he wasn't getting much news about the West outside of 'We're doing great; just make the cure.'

"No, more like what the Enclave has done to contain the virus; it rivals EggMan's destruction!" Sonic said, and this started to get Tails questioning if the situation was contained, then why would such destructive measures be needed?

"Well, hopefully once this cure is done, the Enclave will stop, and maybe they will help us rebuild!" Tails said optimistically, and Sonic spoke, "Well, buddy, I'm currently trying to look for EggHead; I found the Egg Viper, but it was completely wrecked, though."
"Whoa, that's a blast from the past."

"No joke! Guess baldy McNosehair was nostalgic for the old thing, but now I'm wondering who did it.
"Maybe the Enclave?"

"Nah, it doesn't look like their work. Anyway, get that cure done fast, Tails; who knows, we could have this all wrapped up before Christmas!" Sonic said over comms before hanging up, and Tails smiled as he hopped off his chair and went to make himself a snack.

Though Sonic did make him question what exactly the Enclave's containment methods were, because the only way he'd think they would be as destructive as Eggman was massive bombing campaigns, but even then it wouldn't be enough.

As Tails cracked open a container of mints, he decided to turn on the TV that was inside the room, and instead of seeing the news, he saw...propaganda? Enclave propaganda at that, claiming that the Enclave was 'defending' democracy against the imperialism of the EggMan empire.
Noticeably, it was seemingly trying to convince people that only the Enclave were doing something about the infection, that they were the only ones actually evacuating people and making sure they got out.

"Hey! That's not true." Tails said to himself, he knew that all of his friends were helping with the evacuation, well, except Blaze, who had left for her home dimension; she would have probably been a massive help.

Tails then heard the beep of the machine containing the cure and quickly rushed over to it and gasped.
It was done...
__________________________________
Sonic sped through the wasteland that used to be Windmill village; the place was absolutely devastated, most likely the Enclave's handiwork. He had gotten off comms with Tails not too long ago, and he really hoped that cure was done soon enough.

He didn't know how long he could keep on running, and he didn't know for sure, but it felt like the virus was trying to improve itself and make sure that he couldn't just run to make it go away, and if he fell to infection, then the world was surely doomed.
As he sped around, he soon heard the noise of what sounded like the Egg Hawk; he soon flew above Barricade town alongside his new friend, the two clearly arguing in the Egg Hawk. Sonic quickly sped up the wall and looked at EggMan, "Aww, is the honeymoon over already?"

Soon enough a fight had started after some banter, and Sonic had managed to knock Eggman out of the Egg Hawk, though both of them quickly fell to the ground.

Now, Sonic and Eggman were on the ground, surrounded by Zombots; the two...smelled something funny in the air. "Do you smell vinegar?"
"What? That...actually, yeah, I do smell vinegar. What is that?" Sonic asked as he then looked down and saw that the metal virus was dripping off of him; Tails must have made the cure airborne! Sonic watched the Metal Virus drip off of the Zombots.

"What!? This can't be happening!" EggMan screamed as he saw his plan falling apart around him. "Well, baldy, it seems your plan has gone kaput, and it was all thanks to Tails! Well, time to wrap this...uhhh." Sonic said as the two saw that the mobians around them were... well, definitely weren't right.

Many of them were missing chunks of fur, flesh, or entire limbs, their eyes glowing a crimson red, and all in all they looked more like living corpses than Mobians! EggMan spoke as the two backed into each other, "You were saying?"

"Alright, this does not look good." Sonic said as he quickly spin dashed the Zombots; well, now they were completely zombies. Sonic gasped at how easy the zombie went down and noticed he'd cut right through it.

He quickly sped over to where EggMan was and scooped him up to one of the walls. Sonic spoke as he pointed at EggMan, "You had some sort of backup, didn't you?" Sonic asked, and Eggman spoke as he held his hands up, "Not at all! Besides, this is far, far off from my kind of stuff."

"Well then who did this!? Because I doubt it was Tails's doing." Sonic yelled, and Eggman twirled his mustache and spoke, "Have you thought that maybe it's those new allies of yours?" Sonic spoke as he tilted his head, "You mean the Enclave?"

"No, I mean the extinct black arms; of course, I mean the Enclave! They are, well, a bunch of filthy upstarts! Not even good enough to rival me." EggMan said, and Sonic spoke, "Okay?"

EggMan facepalmed and spoke, "I mean that they'll betray you. When my best creation tried to take his revenge for me, he was falsely accused of destroying multiple settlements, bases, and quite literally objectives that I would have congratulated him on."

"I don't see where this is going." EggMan yelled as the EggHawk flew next to him, "I mean the Enclave did all those actions and simply directed you all at Metal! Now toodles, and when we meet again, I'll either beat you or leak everything I know about these upstarts!" EggMan hopped into the EggHawk and soon left.

"Hmm..." Sonic quickly sped off while thinking about what Eggman had said, and he could possibly see the Enclave being evil, but he didn't want to jump to conclusions immediately. As he sped through the wasteland, he noticed he felt differently than before.
Maybe it's adrenaline speaking, but he definitely felt better. As he ran, he also began to wonder if that was really Tails's cure, or was that something else? Did the Metal Virus seemingly kill itself off? Or did the Enclave themselves release some sort of cure that backfired?

He doubted it was Tails's cure; it couldn't have been. Tails would have made something like that; it wouldn't have happened. He ran and eventually saw something utterly wiped off the face of Mobius by an orbit laser.

And then it was hit again, and again, and Sonic wondered what in the world the Enclave was doing; there was absolutely nothing there....
__________________________________
"Who the fuck do we blame for this!?" Jonah heard Max yell over comms as he burned the infected alive; Jonah quickly fired rounds from his plasma rifle into an infected.

They weren't in their PA since they had just gotten done clearing a hotel.
Something had happened to the infected, and instead of the silvery goop zombies that they were used to, they were just... well, zombies. Jonah reached for his ripper and decapitated one while his squad slowly fell back into the hotel.

"I don't know, the nerds!" Ryan said as everyone got back into the hotel, with Donovan using his strength and the power of drugs to block the door with multiple vending machines while everyone else blockaded windows with anything they could find.
Eventually everyone could catch a breath, and SSG Alex quickly got comms to try and figure out what the hell had happened, with the entire squad hoping they got some good answers. Jonah sat down next to Max, reloading his plasma rifle while Max changed his canister. "Just when things got easy."

"Hey, that's why you don't get complacent in these things; it could all go to hell at the drop of a hat." Jonah said as Alex sighed and spoke as he turned around, "Alright, so I got some information."

"And?"

"Well, some form of FEV was released into the air, and it killed the Metal Virus but turned those already infected into the ones we fought. Luckily, the FEV doesn't affect us, so we're good; I still recommend keeping the suits on."

"How about your promotion?" Max asked, and Alex spoke, "That's later. We'll all be heading up to the roof and signaling for an extract; we don't want to find out how long those vending machines and boards will last."

The boards didn't last long as they soon started to be torn down by the infected; everyone quickly gathered their weapons. "Orders, sir?" Donovan asked as he fixed his ripper bayonet.

"Get to the roof." Alex said as he popped an empty cell out of the plasma pistol and unsheathed his ripped, "No matter what."

(115-Kevin Sherwood)

The final boards finally gave way, and the infected started to flood in, only to be met with a hail of plasma and a flamer. Jonah backed up alongside the rest of the team, with some heading on forward while others covered them.

"Ughh, thank God for the hazmat suit; these guys probably smell terribly when cooked." Max said as he quickly exchanged canisters for metal napalm, thrown together fuel for his flamer made from the melted-down corpses of the infected.

Jonah and Donovan covered his reload, with Donovan ramming his ripper into the chest of an infected before revving it up and lifting it, blood flying into the air; meanwhile, Jonah was much more controlled with his kills.

A plasma grenade bounced in front of them, turning a large group of the infected into goo; this in turn allowed the squad to book it up to the next floor. As they ran through the floor, they quickly stopped at a point and turned to quell the horde, which was thankfully slowed down by the tight corridors of the hotel.

"Reloading!" Jonah said as he reloaded his plasma rifle, with Max taking up his position and unleashing quick bursts of his flamer, covering the infected in something worse than normal napalm.

It quickly melted them before solidifying them.
Into a sort of wall that the rest of the infected would need to climb over, though they didn't get a chance to get there when the squad quickly cut them down.
Soon enough it was time for them to make another run for it, running through the hotel and occasionally holding their ground and quelling the infected, but soon enough they reached the roof.
SSG Alex pulled out a flare gun and fired it up into the air before speaking over comms, "Green Smoke at Acorn Hotel! I repeat, Green Smoke at Acorn Hotel, get us the hell out of here!"

"Here they come!" Ryan said, and Jonah then had an idea as he tossed a plasma grenade into where they came, "If you have grenades, use them! Maybe we can collapse it and stop the horde from advancing!"

Soon enough, multiple grenades were chucked into where the squad had come from, and soon enough it gave way, collapsing and making it so that the infected could not have reached the squad, or could they? Soon enough the squad heard the infected breaking through some of the vents.

"Oh God dammit!" Alex said as Donovan started to see through the infected, though Max did have to save him from getting dogpiled. The squad formed a circle and did the best they could to hold their ground, but they were starting to run low on ammunition.

"I'm out!" Max announced, and soon Jonah was too. Holstering his plasma rifle, he quickly withdrew a 10mm pistol and a ripper, putting round after round in infected and sawing any that came close.
And just when the squad was dangerously close to being overwhelmed, the infected were soon cut down by machine gun fire, limbs and body parts flying as the squad turned to see an XVB-02 vertibird waiting for them.

"Thank fuck that's over." Max said as the squad boarded the aircraft once it landed on the roof, though Jonah could only relax, knowing that this may be the only time they can, because he has a feeling everything just got a bit worse...
__________________________________
Metal Sonic observed his surroundings, and they had… personality, to say the least. It was as if one was to combine the genius of EggMan with the personality of Amy Rose; it was both a workshop and a place of joy.

He has been repaired by his new friend, and she had done something incredible: she had removed a piece of programming in Metal Sonic’s mind that had kept him a slave to Eggman, but now? He was a free robot, one that could do whatever he wanted.
But he felt a connection to his friend, since she had temporarily connected to his mind, and so did he, learning her past, what she had lived through, and what she fights for. She had also experienced his own past, what he loved and what he fought for.
He had a new home, one that would treat him better than Eggman, treat him like the real Sonic he was, and along with that, show the world why they should fear him! Metal Sonic then heard the sounds of the door opening and turned to see his inferior model stand before him.

“Metal…” Mecha-Sonic MKII said as he stared down Metal Sonic, who wanted to stand up and fight him, but his body was still being repaired, even if it did have a new paint job of black and orange with the Enclave’s emblem on his chest.

“Hello, Mecha…” Metal Sonic said, ready for whatever came next…

Chapter Text

"We've got reports of the Metal Virus seemingly mutating into whatever it is now, army groups of badniks now on the move, and not to mention Eggman warships, so what could you possibly tell me that could make this situation any worse!" Amy Rose yelled at Agent Adam, and to be honest, it's been a while since that happened.
Felt weird.

"Well, nothing really; this isn't exactly a situation I've planned for, but at least the infected are much, much easier to kill." Agent Adam said, as he wondered what in the world had happened, everything was going well until everyone started receiving reports that the infection had seemingly changed.

From robotic, zombie-like creatures to legitimate zombies, it immediately put the Enclave on high alert, and soon enough they had scanned the atmosphere and found that someone had released a modified strain of FEV without order.

It would take some time for Adam to organize search teams and begin disappearances after finding out who did this, since the Enclave had either made the situation worse or better; now he personally would say better, but knowing FEV, it could easily turn worse.

All that needed to make this situation even worse is if somehow the 10th was involved, had fucked up in their own way, and also the goo creatures (plus Doctor K) escaped; then that would make the situation so bad that Adam would be marked for termination.

And knowing how the Enclave dealt with screw-ups, Agent Adam wasn't interested in learning what it felt like to be dumped in FEV; he would rather be dumped in the goo because at least then he would have a functioning body instead of a mutilated one.
"I guess! But we don't want to kill the infected when I just got news that Tails finished a cure!" Amy yelled, and this caught Adam off guard; the boy had actually created a cure. Well, that would have been handy about a few hours ago.

"I doubt said cure will work; besides, the infected are more akin to the undead than they were, and even if they were cured, it would just lead to unnecessary suffering and waste of resources to take care of them; better to kill them now. Look at it as a sort of mercy."

"I don't really see killing as a mercy...but, I don't know, this is a terrible situation anyway you put it." Amy said, and Agent Adam would drink too that, "Well, at least you acknowledge it. But, with the infected now a lot easier to terminate, I believe we can start pushing them back."

"And reclaim destroyed cities, wastelands, and a bunch of burning fields!? Which, I may remind you, you and your Enclave did! Was the virus contained? Sure! Are millions now dead? Oh definitely! You could have just evacuated them and killed them if needed."

"That would take way too long, and time isn't exactly something we can waste." Adam said, and Amy finally gave in, "I guess you're right..."

Finally, victory at last.

__________________________________

Cream skipped through the halls of Restoration HQ, passing by many refugees and soldiers until she got to the kitchen of the HQ, weaving through the busy room until reaching the area with her mom and Gemerl, with Gemerl holding a pot of stew.

"Hi, Mom!" Cream said as she skipped right next to Vanilla. Vanilla smiled and spoke as she pet Cream on the head, "Hi, my little rabbit, would you mind helping Gemerl serve the stew?" Cream spoke as she beamed with excitement, "I would love to! Come on, Gemerl." Vanilla soon gave Cream some bowls, silverware, and bread while Gemerl held the stew tightly.

"ASSISTING IN STEW DELIVERY." Gemerl said as Cream and he walked out into the crowded atrium, where tons of refugees were, with guards of both restoration and Enclave standing over them, and while the restoration guards didn't have a proper uniform and just wispons, the Enclave guards were clad in heavy-duty hazmat suits and carrying shotguns.

The two started to serve the stew, with many of the refugees giving their thanks to the young rabbit and the robot. "Isn't this fun, Gemerl? We get to help people!" Cream said, and Gemerl nodded as they then saw two enclave guards carrying out a body bag.

"Oh no..." Cream said as she served another bowl, she ran over to the guard and spoke, "What happened?" She asked, and the two simply ignored her, though she did make out '10th' on their shoulder, with a patch showing a fancy knife stabbing through a strange creature's skull.
"IGNORE, MUST CONTINUE SERVING." Gemerl said, and Cream nodded, looking away as the guards ducked into a room. The two quickly got back to giving food until they were out; the two happily walked back into the kitchen, where Vanilla was already busy making another batch.

"Did you two serve the first batch?" Vanilla asked, Cream nodded, and spoke as Gemerl placed the pot down, "Yep! They loved it!" Cream said as Gemerl then heard something and left the kitchen, "Gemerl? Where are you going?" Vanilla asked, and Cream spoke, "I don't know...I'll go ask him."

Cream quickly followed Gemerl through the crowd, finding that the robot had gone into the room the Enclave guards had gone into, and as she tried to stop Gemerl, she then gasped as Gemerl opened the door, finding that it led to a morgue.

"Oh..." Cream said as she saw Germel walk through the room; as she prepared to walk in, a hand rested on her; she looked up to see an Enclave guard; the guard spoke, "Hey, you're not supposed to be in here."

"But my friend heard something..." Cream said, and the guard looked up and saw some of the bodies were starting to move; the guard quickly aimed his shotgun and said, "Get out of here, kid!" The guard said as the bodies quickly got up, red eyes glowing in the dark, Gemerl flew out as the guard let off a few shots before slamming the door closed and barricading it.

Everything soon got worse; a panic had started as the screams of the undead were soon heard...
__________________________________

"Have you ever been to Spagonia?" Amy asked Agent Adam as she took a sip of coffee. Adam spoke as he waved a flask around, "Not at all, I'm from Central City." Amy nodded and spoke, "Missed out on some good food; hear they're rebuilding under the UFs watch."

"Yeah, well, I could have gotten some of those foods in Central City, anyways. I'm off to help try and get this situation under control. See you when things get worse." Agent Adam said as the biohazard alarm started to go off, "Speak of the devil and he shall appear..."

Amy ignored that last part as she quickly gave the order for an evacuation to happen; the sound of gunfire filled the air as Amy grabbed her hammer, Agent Adam withdrew some strange pistol, and slammed a magazine home.

"Be careful; we don't know how they spread after contact." Agent Adam said as the two looked over the chaos that was going down, Enclave guards had formed a quick defense while the restoration guards were getting as many people as they could.
"Where's Cream?" Amy asked, and Agent Adam jumped down into the atrium. Hitting the ground, he quickly fired a round into an infected, the head popping like a balloon, as he then unholstered a glowing green combat knife and sliced an infected's head in half.

Amy soon joined him down there, and like a whirlwind of destruction, they tore through the infected, with covering fire from Enclave guards, their shotguns tearing the infected apart. 'Must be firing off some powerful rounds,' she thought as they dealt with the final infected in the area.
"How did they get in?" Amy thought, and Adam spoke as he looked around, "Probably someone was infected and was accidentally brought in; whoever did it, especially if it was Enclave, I'm having their ass for dinner. Now come on, we've got to make sure this situation doesn't spread."

Amy nodded, and the Enclave guards around them started to double-tap the corpses, making sure that the dead stayed dead. Amy and Adam walked through the carnage that was spread throughout the hall they were walking through.

Amy put her hand to her mouth and spoke, "I'm going to barf...I think I prefer when they were only metal goo." Amy said, and Agent Adam spoke as he put a round from his sidearm through the chest of an infected, easily putting it down.

"You get used to it." Agent Adam said as Amy spoke as they made it to the garage of the base, "You're the one wearing a helmet." Amy said as the two then came across a squad of Enclave soldiers, with a couple of them holding back Cream and one stunning Gemerl.

"What are they doing..." Amy said as she gasped, seeing one of the Enclave soldiers talking to Vanilla before one of them, out of nowhere, unholstered a pistol, and with a bang, Vanilla fell down.

"VANILLA/MOM!" Amy and Creamed yelled at the same time as the Enclave soldier that was talking to Vanilla immediately tackled the soldier that shot Vanilla...
__________________________________

Jonah tackled Max and spoke on comms as he grabbed the 10mm from his hands while the other members of the squad checked the body, "What the hell, man?! Why'd you shoot her!?" Jonah asked, and Max was silent as Jonah heard the screams of the mutant child.

The mutant child then escaped Ryan and Donovan's grasp as she ran over to the body of her mother. Max continued to stay silent until SSG Alex grabbed him from Jonah and spoke, "Speak, you Vault 9 son of a bitch!"

Jonah looked over and saw the God damn commander of the whole expedition along with the Restoration's leader walk over to them; Alex handed Max back to Jonah while he went to go talk to them.
"Max. Just talk." Jonah said, and Max spoke like how a drone sounds, emotionless, "She's a mutant; why do I need to defend my actions?" "Because she wasn't infected, and we're standing in front of a rabbit girl that can probably kill us all!"

"She was infected. She was bitten." Max said, and Jonah spoke as he smacked Jonah, "That means nothing; we don't know how this spreads; maybe it can't spread! Now we're most likely going to get killed by a mutant that isn't even half our height."
"She must go too; better to die with no mother than live without one." Max said, and Jonah spoke, "The hell, man..." Jonah muttered and moved Max to somewhere else before sitting down with him,"What's wrong?"

"Bad memory just...caused me to shoot it. It was a mercy." Max said, and Jonah spoke as he nodded, "Want to talk about it?" Max looked over at him and spoke, "Is this the best place for me to explain a bad memory?"

"Well at least explain it to me. I'm your friend, and at least we could get you out of trouble." Jonah explained, and Max sighed before speaking, "I grew up in Vault 9; it was peaceful and I had fun with my siblings. That was until the order came..."

Jonah nodded and could guess what he meant; luckily, Jonah didn't lose anyone to the order. "Dad came in, and I was in the closet while my siblings were off to school. Dad was safe, I and my siblings were safe... Mom wasn't. I peeked through the closet and saw my father struggle to lift his pistol; Mom told him it was okay, and he..."

"I know...I know." Jonah said, and Max spoke as Jonah was able to make out sobs over comms, "I-I don't know why, but-but the mutant brought those memories back up-up-up again, and I-I just didn't think; I just shot." Jonah nodded and helped Max up.

"Well, at least you had some siblings; I had none; all of them were deemed 'unfit' for the Enclave." Jonah said as the two rejoined their squad, with Alex glaring right at Max, "Fall in, we're evacuating, and if you pull that shit again, I will knock you the fuck out."

"Yes, sir." Max said, and the two quickly fell in, shotguns held tightly, though as they went to leave the room, Max looked back at the corpse of the mutant, "Come on, when all of this is over, I'll buy you a beer."

"Go-good…yeah, thanks." Max said as the two continued on along with the rest of their squad....

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"These taste terrible!" Tangle said as she kicked away an MRE, Whisper spoke calmly while she made her, "That is because you are supposed to cook them." Tangle waved her away and spoke, "But they say it's a 'meal ready to eat.' That means I can eat it straight from the bag, not have to cook it."

"That...isn't how it works." Whisper said as she finished making her meal, "We can split mine; it's chili and macaroni. "That sounds delicious!" Tangle said, and as the two split the meal, Whisper looked around their campsite, which was set up in a destroyed radio building; as the two ate, Tangle spoke, "You ever thought you would be fighting zombies?"

"Is that what they are called?" Whisper asked, tilting her head. Tangle gasped and spoke, "Have you never seen a zombie movie? Oh man, that's what you have to see once all of this is over. Are you thinking of more action or horror? Personally, I am an action gal."

"No. I think I would be okay with not seeing any 'zombie' movies after this." Whisper said, and after eating, Whisper went on watch, climbing up the radio tower, carefully on watch for any infected or Enclave.

The two were busy evacuating civilians when the virus seemingly changed on a dime, and now they had to look out for more specific signs if a person is infected or not, with Whisper quickly finding out that a bite mark or getting any blood in you will get you infected.

While harder to detect, it was also a lot harder to get infected, since back then a simple touch and you're screwed; now it's easier to not get infected, along with the infected durability going way down, now being able to kill a lot easier.

The Enclave had also seemingly stopped glassing places, only resorting to bombing runs and heavy armor. Meaning that the two didn't have to worry much about getting hit by a laser from orbit, not to mention the Enclave was supplying them with supplies.

Tangle didn't like the Enclave much, but Whisper was perfectly fine with them, especially since she already knew how to use some of the stuff, like explosives and plasma weaponry, since she had been able to snatch some stuff and hand it off to Tangle so she could better defend herself.

As Whisper kept watch, she saw a group of vertibirds flying. Whisper had noticed three different models of the Enclave's VTOLs, with her overhearing the name 'Vertibird.' One seemed to be more focused on transportation, one was more of a gunship, and the last one, which seemed to be an older model, had a mix of both.

What made these strange is that they didn't bear Enclave insignia; they actually bore no insignia at all. Most vertibirds Whisper has seen during this apocalypse, if she can call it one, all had either the Enclave stars and E on them or some kind of insignia of a division.

Her best guess was most likely a covert unit in the Enclave, maybe special forces. Whisper kept an eye on them until the vertibirds left her sight, though no sooner would they fly past her again, this time with the transport vertibirds carrying massive shipping containers.

"Interesting..." Whisper took note of that; no Vertibirds so far had seemingly done that type of mission; most evacuations used larger aircraft or just carried civilians in the gunship itself, not outside of it.

Something else was happening...

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EggMan slumped in his seat as Orbot read off a report sent from the front lines, that his forces had essentially been stuck dealing with the infected along with the Enclave, and not to mention the Metal Virus had seemingly changed for no apparent reason...

Well, actually, there was a reason. Right after Eggman got back to base along with Dr. Starline, the two quickly researched what had happened and found that some sort of chemical was released into the air, triggering the Metal Virus to change.
EggMan knew one thing, and that it wasn't a cure. Sure, he didn't like complimenting the fox, but it was definitely not the creation of Tails, and while EggMan originally told Sonic that it was the Enclave so that he would attack them, he started to put it together, and they actually may be the ones behind it.

"You know, I'm starting to get really tired of these upstarts. They aren't fun, barely interesting; their style is just the worst! So the fact that they are being a constant thorn in my side is really starting to tick me off!"

"Perhaps instead of releasing the virus, you could have possibly reached out to them and destroyed them from the inside?" Orbot said as he tossed the report over to Cubot, EggMan waved him off and spoke, "Bah, never! They stole my tech and destroyed some of my bases; I would never help them. Besides, neither of our goals align."

"I'm...not sure I understand." Orbot said, and Eggman facepalmed as he slammed his fist against a console, "Yes, I and the Enclave want to conquer Mobius; yes, we both have used subterfuge. The difference between me and them is that I have standards, I have style, and I don't commit unwanted genocide unless it is warranted! Like how I want to kill the Zeti, which, Orbot, put that on my endless task list!"

"Right away, sir." Orbot said as he tapped into the main computer and added 'Exterminate the Zeti' to EggMan's endless bucket list. "Good! Maybe after this is all over I'll build another Death Egg that can wipe out their entire system! I'll call it 'Egg Killer Base.'"

"Wonderful, sir." Orbot said as Cubot scratched his head, "Hey boss, I know Metal Sonic's gone, but maybe you can bring out Silver Sonic 2.0!" EggMan scratched his head and said, "Who?" Orbot turned his head. "He means that robot Sonic that you've had in storage for years and haven't used. He is combat-ready and could prove to be a good enough replacement for Metal Sonic until you recover him."

"Why...why yes! I remember now." EggMan stood up and quickly walked through his base until stumbling into the storage room. He stepped over all the mountains of scrap and other pieces of equipment until he eventually stood in front of the vat that held the robot Sonic.

"You've been in storage for too long, and now you'll claim your rightful place as part of my empire!" EggMan laughed as he pressed a button on the vat, draining it and allowing Silver Sonic 2.0 to walk out.
"Your orders, creator?" Silver Sonic 2.0 said, and Eggman spoke, "Simple...Destroy Sonic and recover your brother, Metal Sonic." Silver Sonic 2.0 nodded and flew out of the room; Eggman smiled as he walked and headed back to his room...

"Huh. Speak of Dark Gaia and he appears...STARLINE, YOU TRAITOR!" Eggman yelled as he lay upon the six Zeti that he really did not want to deal with…

Chapter Text

Shadow shot through the chest of a zombie before quickly kicking another one into Omega's hand, who crushed it before opening fire onto the incoming crowd of infected. Rouge had left the two on some sort of mission, and they had found a restoration shuttle evacuating a village.

Though they quickly learned that it wasn't just any shuttle, as it had contained Amy, the Chaotix, Cream, and numerous other friends; apparently, Restoration HQ fell due to those in the morgue rising from the dead.

"Left flank!" Shadow shouted, and Omega turned before raining hell on the infected with his mini-guns. Shadow reloaded his M1911 and aimed for the chest; unlike zombies in the media, these ones could be killed by anything.

Shadow soon heard the sound of heavy metal clanging against the ground and turned to Gemerl; the robot stomped forward and unleashed a hail of missiles that quickly found their mark; gore flew through the air as the robot spoke, "TARGETS NEUTRALIZED."

"Good work." Shadow said as he walked through the village, seeing civilians protected by both restoration and Enclave; as he walked, he noticed the Chaotix poking at one of the infected bodies, "What are you three doing?" Shadow asked, and Vector turned and spoke, "Just observing them; much easier to take down."

"But we do not know for certain how they spread." Espio stated, and Shadow agreed; they didn't know how this new virus spread, with their best guesses just being from zombie media, so either bites, scratches, or any kind of injury.

"Oh, come on, guys! They're zombies, so they spread how zombies spread!" Charmy said, and Shadow huffed and spoke, "A vote of hands that this is all Sonic's fault." Espio nodded and raised his hands while Charmy and Vector were more reluctant.

"I'm not sure you can entirely blame it on Sonic, like, this entire thing was out of his control." Vector said, and Charmy spoke, "It's not like he can see the future or stuff!" Espio spoke as he rolled his eyes, "If we had been able to deal with Eggman, none of this would have happened, and millions would still be alive."

"Exactly, as far as I'm concerned, Sonic has plenty of blood on his hands. We're just cleaning up his mess." Shadow stated as Omega decided to enter the conversation, "THEN THAT BLOOD IS TECHNICALLY ON YOUR HANDS AS WELL, ALL OF YOU."

"What!" Shadow and the Chaotix said all at once. Omega then continued to speak as he stomped on an infected, "YOU ALL WERE FOR KILLING EGGMAN; ALL FOUR OF YOU WOULD HAVE SURELY BEEN ENOUGH TO TAKE DOWN SONIC AND KILL EGGMAN. BUT YET YOU HEED SONIC; ALL OF YOU ARE TO BLAME."

"Omega, you weren't there, so don't judge our actions." Shadow said, and Omega stared down at Shadow, "YOU HAD THE OPPORTUNITY TO KILL EGGMAN, YOU FAILED. THE BLOOD THAT SONIC HAS ON HIS HANDS IS THE SAME AS ON YOURS."
"Thought you would be on my side."

"I AM ON THE SIDE THAT SHOWS THEY WILL TAKE ACTION. I AM STILL WITH YOU; I SIMPLY POINTED OUT A FLAW IN YOUR ARGUMENT." Omega stated as he walked away, Shadow groaned, and Vector scratched his head, "Guess you forget that Omega isn't just killing."

"Just get people on the shuttle." Shadow said as he moved through the settlement, checking to make sure they didn't miss anyone, as he passed through the settlement until leaving, speeding off into the distance.

He wanted to tell Amy where he was going, but if he did, she would have slowed him down...
__________________________________

Sonic sped through the wasteland peacefully until suddenly getting shot at. He weaved through the bullets until skidding to a stop as he turned to see where the shots were coming from, only to see that it was Shadow shooting at him.

"Well, Shadow, you can see I'm not infected, so we can talk like grown hedgehogs." Sonic said Shadow approached him, "I was just trying to get your attention; I've come to talk." Sonic put his hands on his hips and spoke, "Well, I'm not infected anymore, so I've got time."

"Good. Because I'm going to make sure you understand that this, all of this, is your fault." Shadow said, and Sonic frowned and spoke, "My fault? My fault? I'm sorry, but I think you need to explain how any of this is my fault."

"Simple. If you had allowed me to kill EggMan, then we wouldn't be in this mess." Shadow said, and Sonic facepalmed, "Shadow, can you please save the talk for later? We're currently dealing with an actual zombie apocalypse now."

"No. We're doing this here and now." Shadow said as he went to reload, only to hear the sound of a jet fly over. Both Sonic and Shadow looked up to see it was an Enclave fighter. "Why is there a lone jet here?"

The aircraft then came around before slowing down and stopped as the jet then started to hover and not long after, landed on the ground. Shadow and Sonic looked at each other until they saw the cockpit open, and out jumped Tails!

"Tails!" Sonic said as he sped over to his little brother, Tails spoke as he held out his hand, causing Sonic to skid to a stop, "Sonic, I must ask, did the cure affect you?" Sonic tapped his foot and spoke, "Cure? You made a cure?"

"Yep! I made it airborne after detecting another virus was in the air." Tails said, and Sonic scratched his quills. "Well, sad to say, Tails, the cure worked on me, but those infected were probably turned into the zombies they are now thanks to the other stuff in the air."

"Thankfully, whatever caused the virus to mutate isn't spreading by airborne." Shadow said as he glared at Sonic, Tails spoke, "Well, it shouldn't be too hard for me to make a new cure to counteract this new thing." Sonic nodded, only for him to tense up as he heard digging.

All three turned and saw that from the ground were rising more infected! Well, they were more akin to the undead; a mixture of human and Mobians rose up to attack them, their red eyes glaring into Sonic's soul. Tails spoke as he reached behind him and took out his Energy Cannon, "We've gone to full zombies now!?" Sonic nodded, and Shadow reloaded his gun.

"Let's dance."

Sonic chuckled as the three fought off the undead, easily taking each one down since they were able to outrun them with ease, though three started to realize how outnumbered they were; that is, until Shadow jumped up in the air and yelled.

"CHAOS SPEAR!" Out from Shadow launched tons of spears formed out of Chaos Energy, embedding themselves into the undead and killing them immediately. Sonic whistled and spoke, "Wait, you have a—"

Shadow then pulled out the Green Chaos Emerald and spoke, "I and Omega found it some time ago; now, let's get back to our chat." Tails tilted his head as Sonic groaned, "Can we just ignore this until we dealt with the undead and also the possibility of the Enclave being evil?"

"What? I mean, actually...hmm, maybe you're onto something, Sonic." Tails said, and as Shadow was about to speak, the three then heard the clank of metal boots; all of them turned to see some robotic copy of Sonic, definitely not Metal Sonic, though.
"Guess EggMan built a new knockoff. Alright, new knockoff. Would you like to introduce yourself, or are you going to be silent like Metal?" Sonic said, and the silver copy of him actually spoke, surprising the three.

"Oh, I'll outdo him! So come on, you big blue rat, try your best!"

"Oh, I can get used to this guy!" Sonic said as he sped straight at the robot, with Tails and Shadow close behind....
__________________________________

"You absolute idiot!" Eggman yelled as Dr. Starline walked around in some jungle; the two had quickly retreated after the Deadly Six betrayed Dr. Starline. "Well, I thought they would help."

"This is why you don't trust the Zeti; they're awful creatures that should be exterminated and will be exterminated once all of this is over!" EggMan said as he pushed through some foliage, "Aren't you one to criticize the Enclave for doing the same thing you're planning?"

"Well, mine is justified; theirs isn't. Now come on, let's find where we ended up; hopefully it's near one of my bases so we could easily get back to WORK!" EggMan said as he stepped in a trap, a rope tying around his leg and pulling him up.

"Traps, I must be careful—" Dr. Starline then felt a rubber boxing glove strike him in the head from a tree, falling unconscious after walking around, "Great, just great. First the Zeti showed up, and I got stuck in the trap. Could this day get any..."
EggMan thought for a second and spoke, "Better?" Nothing seemed to happen, and EggMan spoke, "Huh, it actually worked. Take that, Gaia." He then heard footsteps coming from the foliage.

"Ha! I knew those traps installed would capture you, Rouge, trying to get the...EGGMAN!?" EggMan looked down, or up since he's hanging upside down, and saw Knuckles. "Oh, fantastic!"
"Sonic told me you had amnesia. What are you doing here!?"

"....THAT WAS WEEKS AGO! Where've you been!?" EggMan yelled as she swung back and forth. Knuckles scratched his head and spoke, "Protecting the master emerald, of course. Luckily, my traps caught you, and you're lucky.

EggMan looked at the metal plate that the rope was connected to and saw twin fox tails printed on it. 'Huh, that fox takes after me, it seems.' EggMan thought and spoke as he tried to untie himself.
"Look, I need some help to fix a situation created by the idiot currently lying on the ground." EggMan said, and Knuckles shook his head and spoke, "No. I won't fall for your tricks, Eggman; besides, you're the one tied up, so I'd say I have the upper hand."

"The Deadly Six are here and probably will try to kill us all using my weapons and the virus." EggMan stated bluntly, and Knuckles spoke, "Alright, I believe you." Knuckles stepped on a button and dropped Eggman. Eggman rubbed his head and got up, "Could have been softer."

"I say it's payback. Now start talking." EggMan groaned as Knuckles grabbed Starline and dragged him along, "Well, over the last few weeks, I've released a wonderful virus called the Metal Virus; things were going well! That is until the filthy upstarts ruined it!"

"Upstarts? Don't tell me some people are claiming to be the number one main threat now." Knuckles said, and Eggman shrugged, "I know, it sucks. They're bland, uninspired, and just lacking anything interesting to them.

"...Okay. So these 'upstarts' seemingly ruined your plans, so who are they?" Knuckles, as he threw Dr. Starline into a bush, Eggman laughed and spoke, "They call themselves 'The Enclave,' unimaginative name I know, and they claim that they are helping when they were the ones that had destroyed all those precious villages that you all blamed on my glorious creation."

"What!?" Knuckles yelled as the two came to the Master Emerald, "Exactly, and currently all of your friends are being played by them, like Gaia's fiddle." Knuckles shook his head and growled as he pounded his fists together, "And how do I know you're not lying? You could easily be trying to trick me into attacking my friends again."

"Look, I know I've done that, but for real, speaking the truth for once, the Enclave are the bad guys!" Knuckles approached Eggman. "Coming from the guy who had just admitted to releasing a virus to most likely try and take over the world."

"Well, at least I wasn't tricking all of you! Anyways, can't you just trust an egg?" EggMan pleaded, and before Knuckles could give him a beating, the two then heard the buzz of aircraft.

They turned and not only saw a restoration shuttle but also tons of Enclave aircraft. EggMan sighed and spoke.

"Why does this happen to me...."
__________________________________

"Ladies and gentlemen...we've got him." Agent Adam announced to resounding applause that EggMan had just fallen right into their lap after all of them flew to Angle Island; the evacuation was essentially complete, and all that was left was Enclave forces to exterminate the undead and EggMan forces.

Adam smiled as he saw everyone celebrating; he put his feet onto the table and spoke as a Mr. Handy brought some champagne, sure their work wasn't exactly done, but this was worth celebrating; they had just bagged EggMan!

As everyone was celebrating, with the Enclave members partaking in champagne, Moses walked over to Adam while Adam was pouring himself a glass, "We need to talk." Adam looked over at the fellow agent and spoke, "What's wrong?"

Moses gestured Adam to follow him, leading him into a side room of the war room, eventually tossing a file over to Adam, "The 10th has decided to start their own fort in the East, along with fully taking over the spaceport we took from the mutants."
Adam opened the folder and spoke as he looked into it, seeing pictures of the 10th's fort under construction, "Seems like they're also building a launch station for rockets, which is strange; why would they need that?"

"Unknown; some have guessed they want to try and build on the moon." Adam shook his head and spoke, "That, or they could be heading to the other space station in orbit, that being Space Colony ARK."

"Doubt there would be anything of use there, plus it would be derelict after many years and combat there." Moses said, and Adam spoke, "Yeah, but that doesn't mean there isn't some research there that could easily help us win the war."

"If there is, then fine, but the 10th can't operate with this freedom." Moses pointed out, and Adam nodded before speaking, "That's why when this is all over, I'm cracking down on them hard. They could jeopardize our mission."

"Good. I don't want to stand by you when the director asks us how the mission went so wrong." Moses said, and Adam handed the folder back as the two walked through the halls of the restoration shuttle until exiting the ship to see FOB Emerald.
Prefabs and tents were being set up while defenses were dropped off by vertibird; along with the defenses came some of the heavy AA guns and artillery, not to mention that underneath the island were multiple Dreadnoughts and destroyers.

The island was a fortress, much to the dismay of the island's only inhabitant, that being Knuckles. But who cared what some tribal butcher thought? They were here to win, not guard some fancy rock.
As the two agents walked around the FOB, they soon came to the temple that held the Master Emerald. "Beauty, ain't it?" Moses asked, and Adam nodded; if there was one thing this world had that made it enjoyable, it was the sights.

It was actually quite disheartening that they would have to burn most of the sights down in the upcoming war; however, it would all be worth it, so...so worth it...
__________________________________

Metal Sonic was in Hell, well, robot Hell in this situation since he had to watch over a bunch of badniks like they were children instead of war machines since their current caretaker, an old E-series, was out being repaired.

He was above this; even his inferior model is above this! They should be out in the field, fighting and conquering territory in the name of the Egg-No, the Enclave. It would take a while for Metal Sonic to actually get used to serving his new masters.
As Metal Sonic watched all the badniks play around, he felt a motorbug run over his foot, and Metal Sonic stood up, ready to rip the thing apart, until he heard the door of the room open, and in stepped his new 'owner.'

Colonel Mary Orwich. Head Robotics engineer, clad in one of the Enclave's many suits of power armor, that being APA MKII Black Devil, and immediately all the badniks turned to Orwich as she entered, with them kneeling down and rubbing one's head like one would do a canine.

"I'm back, everybody, and Sigma is also back!" She said happily as the old E-Series walked in, carefully moving past them, carrying a box of equipment and placing it down, though to Metal Sonic, this just meant he could finally leave.

Flying out through one of the many entrances of the room, he soon found himself in one of Orwich's many workshops, one seemingly focused on heavier-duty machines and research; among some of the parts were those of old Shadow Androids.
He picked up one of the android's heads and chuckled a bit, a knockoff of an inferior being that copies his organic copy. As Metal Sonic looked at it, he noticed something bright yellow reflecting in the android's eyes.

Metal Sonic turned around and walked over to the yellow object, turning it around to allow him to see what was seemingly the beginning of a head for a robot partially based on his design, but it wasn't another him.

The eyes, the shape, the ears... it was the beginning of a robotic version of Tails, and while Metal Sonic would honestly prefer having the real Tails as his sidekick, since he is the real Sonic, he would obviously need the real Tails.

But a robot version of him would do. Metal Sonic then turned as he heard the door open, with Orwich walking inside and looking down at Metal, "How's it going, little guy?" Metal Sonic spoke, having gotten more used to speaking when not in his Neo-Metal form.

Though he still rarely spoke to anyone that wasn't Orwich, "I am not 'little,' please refrain from calling me that." Orwich laughed and spoke as she picked up Metal like how one would pick up a cat.
“You’re a little guy.” Orwich said as she placed Metal Sonic onto one of the many tables before retrieving some tools and weapons, “I’m going to try and replicate some of the upgrades I installed on Mecha onto you.”

“Upgrades?”

“Weapon systems, mostly. You’re lacking the ability to engage at range, so before I start working, plasma or laser?” Orwich asked, and Metal Sonic’s eyes wandered around the room until landing on a different kind of weapon.

“That.” Metal pointed at some sort of HMG. Orwich spoke as she stood up and grabbed the weapon, “The MK45 Gyrojet; I guess this could work.” She said as she brought the weapon over to Metal.
Soon enough, Metal was deactivated as Orwich worked on him, and while he was deactivated, he seemingly was able to…dream, most likely a lingering side effect of when he and Orwich connected to each other.

It is a pleasant dream, with Metal Sonic simply sitting in a forest, kneeling down to pet a rabbit. He comforted the small creature, and as he took in the sights, though he dreamed, he soon looked at his right arm.

It was organic. Metal touched it and he felt the cold steel of his left arm touching the fur covered arm, it was strange, but strangely comforting. He was Sonic, was he not? Should he not be flesh and blood instead of steel and power?

Metal Sonic sat there, flexing his organic arm again and again, feeling the ground with it, the trees; it was…incredible.

Is this what his copy feels like? If so, he could understand why his organic copy valued its life so much…

Chapter Text

EggMan rubbed his head as he woke up in a large cage, a Tesla trap at the very top of it, EggMan spoke as he stood up, "I'll give credit for the Tesla trap but a normal cage for me is just utterly insulting."

EggMan stared at the only other person in the room, one of the new upstarts, concealed in shadows with the only thing giving them away is the white light of the E on his visor, "It's all we had on hand, meant for caging filthy animals, like those outside." The figure said, clearly male.

EggMan smirked and spoke as he leaned against the bars, "and so the mask drops, tell me upstart, what makes you think that you can conquer this world? I've tried many times and only twice I've gotten close! You don't even have the tech or experience against Sonic to beat him or me, I recommend giving up."

"Simple, we aren't like you. We don't announce our plans, we don't build boisterous buildings and machines. No, we stick to the shadows, influencing and manipulating everything we can so that we can get the advantage when the true war starts."

"Let me save you the embarrassment, you will lose cause you lack even a fraction of what makes me Sonic's perfect nemesis, not too mention that once Sonic and friends get a small twinge of your crimes, they'll be on you like a dog, ready to tear out your throat."

"You sound quite confident in your enemies abilities." The man said and EggMan chuckled, "I may hate them but I respect them. They are worthy foes, but you? You're nothing, just some upstarts thinking they can rule the world, when in reality you're nothing but children trying to take the place of a man."

"We have experience ruling populations that simply exist to destroy our way of life and along with that, we know how to put an unruly populace in place." The man said and EggMan groaned.

"I doubt that, and even if you do have the experience than I bet the population you beat down didn't have the powers or luck that is the blue rat and his friends, not mention some Mobians can just have powers or abilities that could cause a headache that were just given to them at birth."

"We'll just sterilize them, simple." EggMan rolled his eyes and spoke as he banged on his cell, "No, it's not just 'simple' there are steps to being a good nemesis and actually being effective at fighting Sonic, and one of those steps is not underestimating your opponent. Another is getting a better taste in fashion."

"Thus is why you lose constantly, you focus on unimportant things like fashions when you should be focusing on brutality and efficiency." The man said and EggMan waved him off, "Oh where's the fun in that? Sure, I could theoretically carpet bomb Sonic or poison him when he's asleep, but that's not fun, and I'm not really beating Sonic at that point."

"But you would be."

"I would, yes. But that's not the point, the point is that I am superior to Sonic, that I can beat him at his own game. You are the type of people to simply use chemical warfare to solve all your problems."

"Perhaps. But at the end of the day, we're the ones holding you captive and all of Sonic's friends have played right into our hands..." the man said and that caused EggMan to laugh.

"You may believe that, but I have already told Sonic and Team Dark that you upstarts are up to no good, and it won't be long until they're clamoring to send you back to wherever you came."

"You...." The figure clenched his fist before speaking, "No matter, they won't believe you. Now, outside of gloating too you, I've come to ask you why you're here with no support. Quite strange, wouldn't you say?"

"Normally I'd dance around these things but to sum it up, The Deadly Six-oh wait, you wouldn't know them, upstart! I guess I'll have to dumb it down for your small little brain." EggMan's said as he squished his fingers together.

"Get too it." The figure asked as it rested a hand on a holster, EggMan groaned and spoke, "See? No fun. To sum it up, the Deadly Six is a group of Zeti that rebelled against me in the past and now most likely want revenge."

"And they caused you to flee your base? Surely you would have legions at the ready and numerous security systems to fend them off." The figure said in confusion, EggMan placed his hand on his head and spoke, "if only it was that easy! The Zeti have the unique ability to control technology, and since they could just control my tech, I was outnumbered and out gunned."

The figure was silent and spoke, "Where is your base located?" EggMan shook his head dns spoke, "No way. I know you're just going to level my base to pieces with that orbital laser you have, and I can't risk my equipment falling into your hands."

"...."

"...."

The two just looked at each other and EggMan spoke, "okay fine I'll tell the location, not like it's that important." The figure tossed a piece of paper and EggMan quickly got to work on writing the coordinates of his base down.

And it was his real base, he would have liked to deceive the Enclave, but having his new enemy take out an enemy he didn't care about was a win win in his book, plus it could give him some extra time to plan his escape and rebuilding.

After writing down the coordinates, EggMan handed them back to the figure, the figure spoke as he left the room, "Thank you for helping the human race, your reward will be delivered soon." The figure said as he left the room, leaving EggMan alone.

Time for his grand escape....

__________________________________

Sonic dodged an attack from the new robot copy, this thing packed quite the arsenal on it, as it launched a hail of missiles at Sonic, Shadow teleported in, grabbing one of the missiles and chucking if at the robotic copy.

The robotic copy dodges and spoke it shot lasers out of its eyes, "Way too slow!" Sonic grunted and spoke as he sped up a boulder and spin dashed the head of his new robotic copy, the copy fell down and hit the ground before firing lasers at Sonic.

"That's my line!" Sonic said as he and Shadow continued to fight their robotic copy, and after learning his moves, they quickly learned that this thing was clearly meant to fight younger versions of themselves and not the older versions, and it didn't know how to fight Shadow.

"Press the attack, we've got this thing on its last legs." Shadow said as the two fought they sprung their trap card as they grabbed both the arms of the robot and allowed Tails to swoop in and blast the thing squarely in the chest with his Energy Cannon.

The blast strikes the robotic copy right in the chest, the thing reals back and falls to the ground, short circuiting and allowing Shadow to continue on the chat they were having, "Like I was saying, this is all your fault."

"Shadow..." Sonic said and Shadow growled and spoke, "No, you listen here, if you had let me kill EggMan, none of this would have happened, we would have been rebuilding the world at this point, and now we're standing in a wasteland because you're bullshit morals had to get in the way."

"Than why did you take it into your own hands? Why were you convinced not to kill EggMan?" Sonic asked and soon the two got in a fight, Tails spoke as the two fought, "Guys! We need to focus on the important stuff."

"Stay out of this, freak." Shadow said as Sonic headbutted Shadow, Shadow was going to send a punch into Sonic's face but was caught off as Tails shot him with his energy cannon, "I'm not a freak!" Tails yelled as Sonic got up.

"Two versus one Shadow."

"I like those odds." Shadow said only to be tased by something, electricity danced around his body and he fell to his knees, screaming in pain as his entire body was electrocuted, Shadow soon fell unconscious as Sonic and Tails looked at what shocked Shadow.

An invisible figure decloaks and appears Metal Sonic! But now sporting Enclave colors and seemingly spotted some new upgrades, Metal Sonic spoke as he grabbed Shadow by the quills, "Inferior copy."

"Oh, well hi Metal, didn't think I'd see you again after you get beaten by Mecha, and I also see you're sporting some new colors, think I prefer the old blue though. Also, cool to hear you talk more." Sonic said and Tails spoke as he looked at Metal, "I thought you were programmed to always be loyal to EggMan."

"Programming changes, just as loyalty does." Metal Sonic said as he handed Shadow too Sonic and Tails, speaking as he flew away, "I am the only one who can kill you, copy..." Metal Sonic left and Sonic lugged Shadow over to Tails's jet.

"You think there's another seat there?" Sonic asked and Tails spoke, "Just ride on the wing." The two, technically three, quickly boarded the jet and took off.

Next destination, Angel Island....

__________________________________

"I delivered the emerald to the crew aboard the Archimedes, so the laser should be much more powerful, which, why?" Moses asked Adam as the two sat in a vertibird which was hovering close to the area where EggMan's base was.

"You're about to see. Dim your visor." Adam said, it may be a bit overkill but considering the Deadly Six had the ability to control electronics and technology was very, very dangerous to the Enclave.

Every single person in the Enclave expedition had cybernetics implanted in them, and while Adam doubted they could control the implants, it wasn't worth the risk of finding out, plus they would easily be able to deactivate or control weapons or armor.

"Alright..." Moses said and the the two then witnessed the power of the Archimedes improved laser, and multiple singular beams appeared before slowly encroaching on the base's location, and then in a flash, all that was left of the area was a scorched wasteland and a smoldering crater.

"Well, mission accomplished my good friend. EggMan is in captivity, the virus has been all but destroyed and the undead will be easy pickings and no one is the wise that we did any of this! Now we can get back on schedule." Adam said, excited that they can get back to doing their job.

As the vertibird flew off, the pilot spoke as the aircraft started to shake, "Something's wrong! The controls, they're going crazy!" Adam spoke as he grabbed onto something, with Moses doing the same, "We're going down!" The pilot yelled as the vertibird careened into the ground.

After hitting the ground, Adam and Moses quickly got out of the down aircraft, though the pilot wasn't as fortunate or gifted as them. Adam felt his implants begin to repair him as the two went to call for evac only for their helmets start to go haywire.

"Jesus!" Moses said as he ripped his helmet off, with Adam following suite as the two wondered what in the world was happening, only for their two to tense up when they started to hear large footsteps.

The two turned and saw that limping out from the trees was some large red and black creature, burned on one side and missing an arm and looking very pissed off. Adam spoke as he grabbed his Gauss Pistol off his hip, with Moses doing the same.

"I'm taking that's one of the deadly Six..." Adam said as the creature replied, breaking a tree with its remaining hand, "Accurate, creature. But I assume you had a hand in that light show that killed my fellow Zeti."

Adam and Moses aimed at the creature, and Adam spoke, "You would be correct, but I'm afraid it's time for you to go join your fellow aliens." The creature laughed hard as it stepped toward the two agents.

"Not before I avenge their deaths." The creature as he ran at the two, grabbing Moses and slamming him against the ground while Adam ducked out the way, firing shot after shot into the creature.

Moses did the same only for the creature to grab his pistol and crush it like a toy while placing a foot on Mose's chest, "Die, puny creature." The creature said while Adam jumped on its back, pumping shot after shot in the creature's neck area.

Adam than felt himself grabbed and slammed against the ground, he groaned as the creature chucked him into a nearby tree. Adam struggled to stand up but through thanks to drugs and his implants working overtime, he got up and reached for his other side arm.

“D…die.” Adam said as he emptied multiple plasma shots into the creature, the balls slowly eating into the creature as Adam mustered all he could and charged it, knocking it off balance and off Moses.

The creature started to falter as Adam finished it off with a plasma grenade down the mouth before jumping away, the creature, in shock, didn't have time to react and in a blaze of green, was reduced to green goo.

The two agents sat there, breathing heavily, Adam grabs his helmet and puts it on only to receive a communication from Dr. Taylor, "Agent Adam, we have a situation at Fort Anderson." Adam breathed deeply as he walked over to Moses and helped him up.

"What's wrong?"

"The goo creatures have escaped..."

Oh no...

__________________________________

Dr. K ran for his life as he heard the sound of gun and energy fire fill the halls, his plan was quite simple, unleash the contained goo beasts, throw the crystals around and unleash the virus in some of the barracks and the massive work camp.

Now it wasn’t the most effective in the work camp, since the Enclave personnel there wore heavy duty armor that could block the virus out, though of course the foremen and inspectors from enclave high command didn’t have such gear.

Dr. K hid behind a crate as Enclave soldiers in PPE and PA ran past carrying flamers and plasma weapons, he had to hide cause if anyone saw him they would immediately know who caused it.

Once they were gone, Dr. K made a run for the medical wing, the bastard he was looking for was there and probably being used as a lab rat by inferior doctors, he looted a plasma pistol off a transfurred officer’s corpse and made a run for it.

Entering the medical wing it didn’t take long for him to find the subject, with the entire place vacated of staff, with the signs of testing being apparent, on both Mobian and human subjects. Dr. K entered a room and spoke as he shot open the cage containing the creature.

“Come on, failed sample.” Dr. K said as the Dark goo wolf stood up, grabbing a book as it growled at him, “Don’t test me. We have very short time and I have too very quickly learn how to pilot an aircraft.” The failed sample nodded as the two made their escape.

Well, they had to quickly grab some more supplies first cause while Dr. K did have his research on him and vials of the virus in a back pack, he didn’t have any actual medical equipment.

So after ‘liberating’ some Enclave supplies, the two made the run for the verti-pads, the chaos would last long enough that no one would notice one vertibird disappearing, Hell, they would probably think it’s just a vertibird evacuating high ranking personnel.

Though even with how effective the virus is as a diversion, it wouldn’t last long once Enclave forces started to reorganize and take back the infected areas, but that would still give K enough time to escape.

Eventually he and the failed sample found a vertibird and boarded it, closing the door and heading for the pilot seats, only to find that one is occupied, “Wha-You!” The pilot said as he got up, going to draw a pistol only for it to be hit by a plasma ball from K’s pistol.

K went to fire another shot only for the pistol to click empty, “Just my luck.” Dr. K chucked the pistol at the pilot, who did nothing and tackled K, proving to be much, much stronger, though K had the advantage of durability and claws.

As the two fought around the aircraft, the failed sample just watched, Dr. K spoke as he looked over at it, “Help me!” The Pilot punched Dr. K in the snout, “Die Mutie scum!” K used his claws to scratch at the pilot’s helmet, trying to break the glass.

The aircraft then started to shake as it began to take off, Dr. K peeped around the pilot and saw that the failed sample was flying! The pilot continued to beat down on Dr. K, “I’ll deal with you first!”

Dr. K saw the failed sample approach the pilot and smirked, “I’m afraid the failed sample begs a differ. Tell me, do you know how these creatures work? No, then let me show you!” With all his strength, Dr. K pushed the pilot off him and into the Dark Goo wolf.

Soon enough the pilot was no more, and Dr. K stumbled up, grasping on one of the chairs for support. He looked up at the failed sample, seeing that it had grown stronger, “Wait, who’s flying?”

“The vertibird has an autopilot.” The failed sample said and Dr. K looked at the book it was holding, a Vertibird piloting manual, Dr. K breathed and spoke, “Wait, where is it taking us?”

The failed sample shrugged and spoke, “Central City?” Dr. K nodded and sat down before speaking, “Better than an Enclave stronghold, good work, failed sample.”

Dr. K then felt himself picked up by the failed sample, “I have a name.” The dark goo wolf said as it threw Dr. K back in his seat, “My name is Puro.”

Dr. K nodded and spoke, “Point taken…” The failed sample then sat down and fell asleep, and while Dr. K had half of mind of killing it, he decided not too, it was too useful and he need to run tests on it.

Though that was for later, for now, some good sleep…

Chapter Text

Agent Adam looked at the casualty report of this entire outbreak, and the Enclave had easily killed tens of millions of infected Mobians, maybe even a hundred million considering these were just reported sightings and estimates.

Enclave casualties were low concerning the outbreak; with most of them being from synths and the occasional breach in a hazmat suit, but that didn't mean the Enclave didn't suffer, since during the outbreak at Fort Anderson, 537 men and woman had been turned into beasts and Fort Anderson had been thrown into disarray.

He knew it, he knew bringing in Doctor K would lead to nothing but suffering but yet he still let the 22nd bring him, and now he's getting reports that he had escaped on a vertibird, and considering he has a virus that he could use against all of humanity, he would be a number one priority for the Enclave to find.

Though the shitshow wasn't over yet, Adam now had to organize Enclave units to start securing areas in the west to prepare them to be seeded by G.E.C.K.s and then colonized by the very eager citizens of the Enclave on the other side of the portal.

They were quite behind on actually colonizing this world and it showed since while they had gained plenty of tech, they barely got any manpower outside of the cells; which weren't even fully Enclave.

But they did have EggMan in custody! Sure that platypus guy somehow escaped but he didn't matter, they got the dictator in custody, destroyed his base and had been wrecking his armies, so when it came to the Egg Threat, it was non-existent.

So the real problems that were left were the heroes, and they would be even more difficult to kill, especially since they've seen some of the weapons used by the Enclave and may already be planning on how to fight against them.

But Enclave R&D would figure out something, and once they started making contingency plans to take out the heroes, then again, they could run the risk of just waiting out the heroes; wait until they get too old and brittle to do anything.

But that wasn't a guaranteed method of winning, it would take way too long, especially with Mobian life cycles being off, risking even more heroes coming out of the wet work, and also the heroes having some kids that were utterly broken, not to mention High Command aren't ones known for being patient.

Next was their main base of operations, Fort Anderson was infested, mutants tearing the place apart, infected personnel, rooms covered in goo and even some crystals, and parts of the base were blown up to destroy the virus.

So Adam had to not only get Fort Anderson cleansed and back up to its pre-infection state, but either get more recruits from the human population here, or call in reinforcements from the mainland, both had their advantages and disadvantages.

Grabbing more recruits from Mobius would require producing more cybernetics and genetic engineering them to make sure they were up to Enclave standards, along with training them but even then they wouldn't have the experience of those who the Enclave lost.

But it would mean having greater numbers and having people that know the environment and tech, not to mention it would show the world that their very own men and women were taking the fight to the mutants.

Ordering reinforcements from the Homeland would mean he would need to explain how he lost over half a thousand troops in a day, and considering what had happened to men that had lost less, he would rather be turned into a goo beast than be dunked in FEV.

At least one is...well, feels good, if that one officer that had been turned into one during the raid on the Thunder Science Vault was to be believed. Anyhow, with reinforcements from the homeland it would mean having veteran troops that had decades of experience and were adept at every kind of warfare.

He quickly called up Agent Moses on his pip-pad and sent a message, "Get the cells ready for transport, we need them now..."

__________________________________

"You can't just force me out of here! This is my island!" Knuckles yelled as Amy watched him, Silver standing right beside her eating a granola bar provided by the Enclave, "So I'm assuming you're going to head back to the future?"

"Yeah. But knowing history, I bet I'll be back here soon enough to help you guys stop EggMan, though I can't shake this strange feeling I've been getting ever since, well, I'm not sure when but I've had it for a long time."

"What do you mean?" Amy asked and Silver began explaining, "I feel like the timeline has seemingly changed but I I'm not sure when it did, like, and I can't put my finger on what caused the change. I mean, everything is the same, you guys are the same, so I'm stumped."

"Hmm, maybe since the Enclave revealed themselves that's what caused it?" Amy asked and Silver shook his head, "I've felt it longer than that. Anyways, I'm off to head back to the future, considering the infection is all but handled, and EggMan's in Enclave custody, I'm going."

"By Silver! Have a good future!" Amy yelled as she waved at Silver as he flew off, Amy then covered her ears as a jet flew over before landing right next to her, with Sonic on it holding an unconscious Shadow.

"SONIC!" Amy said, happy to see the blue blur safe and sound. Sonic hopped off the plane and right before Amy hugged Sonic she spoke, "You're not infected, right?" Sonic chuckled and waved her off before speaking, "If I was infected I wouldn't be carrying Shadow."

"Right." Amy said before giving Sonic what to most people would be a spine breaking hug. Sonic spoke and Amy lifted him up, "Missed you too Amy....now could you place me down?" Sonic asked and Amy nodded as she dropped Jim and out from the plane stepped Tails.

"Hey Amy!" Tails said and Amy spoke while petting the kit, "I'm glad to see you again, Tails. You've missed some stuff." Amy said as she saw a flash of what happened at Restoration HQ, the flash of a 10mm and the cries of Cream.

"Well, I was busy working hard at work creating a cure, which would have worked if whatever had happened to the virus didn't, well, happen." Tails said and Sonic spoke as Knuckles chased around some Enclave engineers.

"I'm gonna go make sure Knuckle's doesn't kill any of the construction workers." Sonic said and sped off, Amy looked at the unconscious Shadow and spoke, "So why is Shadow unconscious and should I be worried?"

"Well, he and Sonic were going to get into a fight after we fought off some zombies and a different robotic copy of Sonic. But, right before things got hot, Metal Sonic came in and shocked him before leaving, sporting some new equipment and Enclave colors."

"So wait, he's on the Enclave's Side now? He finally turned good after so many years and he chose them!?" Amy asked and Tails shrugged and spoke, "Maybe the Enclave just found him and reprogrammed him to be on their side, though he seems to still have something against Sonic."

"Well, I guess it's better than having him under EggMan." Amy said as the two saw Rouge leave the Restoration Shuttle. Rouge approached them and spoke as she closed her phone, "Alright, good news and bad news."

"News? Why; what's happening?" Amy asked and Tails spoke, "Start with the bad news first." Rouge smirked and spoke as she petted Tails, "Very well, bad news is that since the Enclave has EggMan in custody and the virus has been reduced to zombie movie level of danger, they're ordering all of us to head to the East."

"What!?" Amy and Tails said, Amy spoke; "But where will we live?" Tails shrugged, "I could let you guys crash at one of my places, though it would be a tight fit." Both Rouge and Amy looked at Tails, Rouge spoke, "Me and you will be having a talk about money later. Anywho, I'll take pity and allow all of you to crash at my penthouse in Central City."

"Really!?" Amy said as she got right in front of Rouge, Rouge pushed her back and spoke, "I'm feeling generous, there's plenty of room there as well." Rouge flew off and the two sighed as they then heard PA.

Turning around and they saw both Agent Adam and multiple PA soldiers, Adam then spoke.

"Mind telling me why you stole a piece of military equipment?"

Amy looked over at Tails and Tails spoke, "Umm...I wanted to help?"

__________________________________

"I WANT MY ISLAND BACK!" Knuckles yelled as Adam saw multiple PA troopers drag him onto a Dreamlifter, the heroes were taken care of, along with some large purple cat that somehow made it on the island.

He wasn't sure how he did it, considering the place was guarded by some of the best soldiers in the world, robots, aircraft and tons of fortifications, it just didn't make any sense, and all he wanted to do was fish!

Adam removed the thought from his head before turning back and walking up the ancient temple, where multiple scientists and Colonel Orwich were messing around with the Master emerald, hooking it up to multiple machines.

"So how's the emerald?" Adam asked and Orwich spoke as she grabbed a fusion core, "Well, as expected, this thing is damn powerful. For instance." Orwich plugged the fusion core into a machine hooked up to the emerald and before even a second had passed the fusion core was fully charged.

"Well we're going to have to find out just how much energy this can give, I'm thinking about having this thing moved up to Archimedes and replacing the emerald there." Adam said as he looked at the Emerald.

Such raw power that was also clean, after this war was won by them this thing was definitely getting moved back home, maybe installed in the capital as a power source. Its military uses were incredible but its civilian ones were as well.

As they studied the emerald, an Enclave soldier ran up the stairs and quickly saluted before speaking, "Sir, we've found some strange ruins on the island, one sporting an image that is...worrying, to say the least."

"Very well, take me to it." Adam said and as he walked out of the FOB and into the jungle, he noticed massive piles of pieces taken from the ancient ruins that were around the island, with some crates marked with the symbol of the 10th Chemical Corps.

'Why would they want some stupid stone?' Adam said as he continued following the soldier until they arrived at some ruins, they entered and while most of the Enclave personnel there were tearing the place apart, some were all surrounding a mural.

"Alright. What's so important that I....Dear God." Adam muttered as he looked upon the mural, his face twisting into one of shock as what the mural showed, a blue spiked creature surrounded by golden light, fighting off a giant man made of machines with missiles behind him, and in the center was an emerald.

"How old are these ruins..." Adam asked and one of the scientists there spoke, "Rough estimate, at least a millennia old." Adam didn't reply as he continued looking at the mural and taking it in, there was no arguing against its meaning.

They weren't fighting against just some happenstance of nature deciding to bestow a random mutant incredible species, nor did they capture a man that just so happened to be a technological genius.

No....they had walked on upon events told by a dead civilization from a thousand years ago, one that were scarily accurate. They weren't going to just fight a random blue Mutie.

They were fighting a being that may be closer to something divine...

__________________________________

Dr. Lee walked around Site-20 as her contingent of Secret Service agents gathered around her, the place was buzzing with activity, whether that be the steady work of robots mining up the old ruins, the experimentation of a few relics found in Europe or the constant fire of energy weapons as stragglers of the outbreak approached the excavation site.

She eventually came across the main dig site, where tons of old ruins and artifacts were being extracted, many having origins detailing that they were once items used to worship Dark Gaia a long time ago.

Now while she didn’t understand why they would worship a being that was essentially this world’s version of the devil, she did have to admit that they held great power and that the Enclave, if they dug deep enough could harness the power of Dark Gaia.

Sure that bastard of an Agent may not like it but if it brings them victory then damn it it was worth it damning the 10th. As she walked she was eventually approached by Major Nicolas, “Fort Anderson apparently had an outbreak of the creatures the 22nd brought in.”

“Dr. K?” Lee asked and Nicolas nodded, “He escaped along with his data and another creature on a vertibird, we tracked it and it was heading to Central City.” Nicolas stated and Lee smirked, “How many were infected?”

“537, quite a lot of them are already dead, with the rest being kept in cages for experimentation.” Nicolas said and Lee spoke, “Have a report ready, perhaps we could use it to control Agent Adam, threatening him with it.”

“Blackmail? Could work.” Nicolas said as the two continued discussing the 10th company's next move, they should be getting a bunch of artifacts from Angel Island to conduct research on as well, and items from all over North America that bore Eldritch properties.

“I had an idea of combining some of our research with the infected Enclave personnel left.” Nicolas said and Lee spoke, “We do have some leftover experimental suits of APA MKII, and the regenerative abilities of the goo would make them formidable soldiers…”

“Plus some have unique abilities, not to mention the relics we got from the Vatican and London could expand our many super soldier projects.” Nicolas said and Lee gave him the thumbs up, with the Major soon leaving her.

Dr. Lee soon turned her ire back to the digsite and saw that the robots had struck something, and after a few more helpers broke down what appeared to be a false wall, it revealed something awe inspiring.

Below them was seemingly an ancient city and soon enough Dr. Lee, her security team and many robots entered the city, looking around in awe at the ancient structures, along with seeing a massive temple in the center.

She immediately gained the idea of having this base, the 10th’s main base, the main enclave force may have Fort Anderson…but they would have the lair of Dark Gaia…

Chapter Text

Agent Adam sat inside the command building established at Angel Island, looking at the faces of many Enclave officers and leaders. He spoke as he looked at the recording of EggMan's escape, "So EggMan has escaped..."

Everyone stood silent and Adam sighed before speaking, "No blame will be levied, no court marshals, nothing. But I do want EggMan hunted down and located, he knows why we're here and I'm not risking him selling out to the mutants."

"On the topic of the mutants, I heard there was something concerning Sonic?" General Song, resting his arms on his halberd, Agent Adam nodded and spoke, "Yes, something very...very concerning."

Adam pressed a button and on the wall was displayed the mural he saw, everyone looked at it in awe and Adam spoke, "Considering what we know, this mural is scarily accurate. Now I want to believe that this simply means Sonic was always destined to beat EggMan, but I'm afraid that is not the case. Ladies and Gentlemen I believe we will be fighting a being closer to divinity than mortality."

Everyone nodded and Orwich spoke, "If I may offer a suggestion, once we retake Fort Anderson and bring it back online, we may be able to lure Sonic into a trap using those old schematics we found."

"Denied. We've read the reports, all of us, the last time EggMan harnessed Dark Gaia energy it cracked the world and summoned this world's version of Satan. It will doom us and possibly the world if we tried to harness that energy."

"What of sending in Sigma teams to-" Moses was about to say and Adam cut him off, "They would die. I do not like giving credit to the mutants but for now we have to stay silent and work in the shadows against EggMan. Use any means to keep them in the dark, our connections, threats, Whatever, we can't risk war at the moment."

Soon everyone was dismissed and all that was left was him and Colonel Orwich, "How goes it with the Master Emerald?" Orwich handed Adam a folder and spoke, "Good. As expected it outputs more power than 40 of our best Nuclear Power Plants and more. The uses of it are boundless, though once we study the ruins here, we can push it further."

Orwich continued as Adam opened the folder, "Metal Sonic and Mecha are happy about it, and soon their little...well, that's secret. With it they should be able to turn super, which could shift the numbers in our favor."

Adam decided to ignore that part about a secret and spoke, "Good. If you're able to make sure that thing can be used multiple times, once those two are turned super we can use it as either a bargaining chip or place it in Archimedes, which I foresee being our best weapon in the war."

Soon Orwich left and Adam took the moment to enjoy the silence of the command room, relaxing in his chair he reflected on somethings, with the main one being what else this world will throw at them...

__________________________________

"THIS IS JUST GETTING RIDICULOUS!" Silver yelled in...space? He wasn't sure how the science worked out, probably something he should ask Tails when he gets back to the present cause the future was beyond screwed!

Silver flew around the remnants of Mobius, wondering what had happened before looking up and seeing the ARK was gone. He had never been there but he'd seen it occasionally in the midnight sky, the second was some space station.

Silver made his way over to it and after entering a desolate hanger he entered the halls of the ship, seeing that the place was clearly Enclave, though there was no one around to greet him. He continued to walk around the space station until finding what was bridge, thank Gaia the Enclave had a bunch of signs everywhere.

Silver entered the room and tried to access some of the tech but quickly realized that it was far beyond his comprehension, plus everything was locked down so even if he could understand it he wouldn't even be able to access any of them.

As he walked around, he then heard a noise and quickly dodged a strike from...Shadow? Silver spoke as Shadow then stopped, "Woh! Shadow, it's me!" Shadow spoke's a he tilted his head, "Silver...it's been a long time."

"Shadow, what happened to Mobius?" Silver asked and Shadow spoke's as he went over to the console and spoke, "The Enclave happened. They decided to mess around with both the Master Emerald and Dark Gaia, unleashing both the Dark God and Chaos."

"Woah...so what happened to the ARK?" Silver asked and Shadow spoke, "We used it to evacuate as many people as possible off world, with me staying behind to keep watch and wait for you." Silver nodded and spoke, "So this space station..."

"We found it when evacuating people, everything was seemingly wiped from the records here and outside of assumptions and its weapons systems, we didn't know much about this. We hoped its files would be useful, but with those gone it is essentially just a listening post."

"I guess the Enclave got to what was coming for them, especially with the fact they're trying to claim two gods that will fight each other, which I assume is one of the reasons I go back?

"Yes. That and I also have a list of people you have to protect, so your best, Silver." Silver nodded as Shadow handed him a list, soon enough he had gathered some more supplies and headed back to Mobius. He spoke found himself somewhere in the destroyed ruins of Spagonia.

"Hello? Anybody here?" Silver said as he wandered around the place, he was looked around cautiously until a bullet struck near him. Silver used his powers to grab scraps of metal to act as a shield and turned to see what seemed like restoration soldiers aiming at him.

"Hey! I'm friendly!" Silver said as he raised his hands only to notice that the restoration markings were all painted over with a sword through a human skull, Silver than heard laughing that sent a small shiver down his spine.

"Well well well, the prophet of the future has returned, tell me prophet, how is our world doomed now?" Silver turned to see a face he did not want to see for awhile, that being the blasted jackal that gave the resistance trouble during the war.

Infinite.

The jackal sported the same mask he wore back in the war, but he now bore something closer to plate armor with the phantom ruby still in his chest, Silver spoke as he readied himself for a fight, "I thought you died."

"I thought I did too, but fate had a different plan for me, one greater than fighting for EggMan..." Infinite said as he approached Silver, he then spoke as he pulled out some kind of sword and next to him stood and another(Who Silver could only tell due to the tail) clad in some kind of custom fitted power armor.

"To save our species."

What.

__________________________________

Infinite chuckled at Silver The Hedgehog's confused expression, and he couldn't blame him, it was a task that most wouldn't be given to Infinite and his second in command Fox-28, the...whatever it was.

In all honest he didn't know what F28 was, he assumed it was a fox but that was mostly due to well, the name, only thing that wasn't covered in what seemed to be scavenged Enclave APA was the tail, and even then that was coated in its own armor.

He had met F28 when he and his group of mercs were out on salvage run, finding a strange sight of a crashed Enclave VTOL, its surviving crew seemingly killed by a third party, F28 was clad in a modified suit of PA for the Mobian while next to him was a female fox Mobian.

He called her F29, and while Infinite wasn't one to question names that were just a number (His original name was 0) it was still strange. F28 and F29 quickly joined Infinite's group, F28 clearly had military training and a nack of leading while 29 knew how to organize.

His mercenaries were a mixed bunch, former G.U.N. personnel, disgruntled resistance and restoration personnel, guns for hire and the occasional oddball. They had taken over an old G.U.N. base and quickly expanded, labeling themselves as the 'Mobian Liberation Front.'

Infinite smirked underneath his mask as he looked down at possibly his newest recruit.

"Okay, wait, save our species? First off, if I believe you, then why would anyone give you the task of saving our species, two, I know you're lying." Silver said and Infinite simply responded as he floated down to Silver.

"But that is where you are incorrect, for I see the truth in this new world, one where you are all blind too despite it staring right in your face." Infinite said and Silver spoke, "And what would that be?"

Infinite spoke as he used the phantom ruby to place him and Silver in a black void, "The Enclave. It is strangely convenient that in your time of need possibly the new dominating military force on the planet showed up? A little too convenient?"

Infinite saw Silver's face ever so slightly move and he continued, "I can tell you agree, your face betrays you. Now to compile on the fact that this force was eager to lay waste to a continent, killing millions in fire."

"It was a monstrous tactic..." Silver said and Infinite laughed before speaking, "That doesn't compare to what the Enclave have been doing to our species."

Infinite then used the phantom Ruby to surround Silver with illusions of Enclave forces slaughtering Mobians, and he made sure to include every gorey detail, he needed to show the hedgehog the truth.

"You see my hedgehog friend, The Enclave only wish death upon our species. I would say they are wolves in sheep's clothing, but these wolves have barely put on the clothes and yet you all simply believed they were saviors."

"This...no. You're lying." Silver said only for Infinite to tap right into his mind and get that juicy information he wanted, what did the future hold this time? What ruins would lay before him? Infinite spoke as he saw the future, a broken world...

"So the Enclave summoned The Beast and the God of destruction, I had witnessed the cracking of the planet with my original squad, and I had heard news reports of the God of destruction, but both? Now that should tell you the Enclave only wants death to all Mobian kind."

"What do you want?" Silver asked and Infinite spoke as the two appeared in a white void, "I want there to be not only a planet I can live on, but also a species I can belong to, that exists before Christmas. While we may hate each other, our goals must be the same."

Infinite then teleported right in front of Silver and spoke, "Will you help me?"

Silver formed a fist but spoke, "Fine. But I don't believe that thing about the Enclave wanting to kill our species." Silver said and Infinite nodded, he knew the kid would eventually see what Infinite saw in those monsters.

He quickly brought both of them both back to reality and Infinite spoke as his forces started to move through the destroyed city, with Silver following behind him, "So what have you been doing since your defeat?"

"Rebuilding, like the Restoration. Except I made sure that the people under our protection are actually protected unlike those under the Restoration's thumb. You may offer freedom, but I? I offer the people safety."

"That safety comes at a cost though, doesn't it?" Silvers said and Infinite nodded, he had to give the boy credit, he was indeed a quick learner...

Way too quick...

__________________________________

Metal Sonic was in the dream again, when he was under EggMan, recharging or being modified was something he hated, but now? He always looked forward to it, it meant spending time in a beautiful place where he could be truly alone.

Metal Sonic walked around the forest, using his organic arm to feel everything around him. Before long he soon found himself standing before a river, and he dipped into organic arm into the river. While the rest of his body didn't feel anything, he felt chills on his organic arm and reveled in the sensation.

He soon sat down and simply enjoyed the feeling of the cold air on his organic arm, the ground he touched, he wondered if he could make the rest of his body organic in this dream world, cause if he could then he would gladly-

The sharp pain of being awoken flowed through Metal Sonic's body as he looked around, only yo find Mecha-Sonic standing in front of him, Mecha spoke, "Wake up, our brother is about to be awoken."

'Brother?' Metal wondered as he stepped out of his charging pod and began following Mecha, before speaking, "I must ask you...do you dream?" Metal asked and Mecha responded, "Dream? Do you mean what I want to happen, or what organics have when asleep?”

“What organics have.” Metal Sonic clarified and Mecha spoke as he thought about it for a second, “No. I believe this is a side effect of you having your mind linked with Orwich. But, you peaked my interest.”

“I have?” Metal Sonic asked and Mecha Sonic spoke as he pet Metal Sonic on the head, “What do you dream about?” Metal Sonic soon began explaining his dreams and once he was done, Mecha spoke, “Interesting…is there perhaps any meaning to these dreams?”

“I…am unsure. I don’t think about them much, I simply enjoy them.” Metal Sonic said as an eyebot soon flown and Orwich spoke over its speaker, “Hey! You’ll miss your little brother’s birth, get over here!”

The two robot Sonic’s look at each other and quickly made their way to Orwich’s workshop, finding Orwich standing next to a deactivated Metal Tails, and instead of sporting Tails’s colors, instead sported the colors of the Enclave.

With a flip of a switch, Metal Tails booted up, his eyes lighting up in a light blue. He stepped forward and looked around and spoke as he…hugged Metal Sonic. “Big brother!” Metal Sonic didn’t know how to react, he just stood there as he felt himself be hugged by Metal Tails.

“Welcome to the world, Metal Tails.” Orwich said and Metal Tails spoke as his twin Metal tails wagged as he raised his hand up for a high five, “Ready to help you guys!” Metal Tails said and Mecha Sonic chuckled to the best of his ability awhile Metal Sonic didn’t know how to react.

That is until he decided just to hug Metal Tails, for he had finally had a little brother.

Just like Sonic….

Chapter Text

Tails slowly stirred awake and looked around his bedroom, he along with Amy, Cream and Sonic decided to stay at his home in Central City while everyone else stayed at Rouge's penthouse. It had been around a month since the outbreak and containment of the Metal Virus.

Tails got up and quickly headed to the shower before hearing it was already on, "Sonic?" Tails asked as he knocked on the door to the bathroom, only to be met with Amy's voice, "Oh, sorry Tails! Forgot you normally take showers in the morning."

"It's fine, just don't use my shampoo." Tails said as he went into the kitchen and found Sonic trying to cook, with him grabbing one of the many cook books Tails had laying around, "Welcome to the world of the living buddy."

"Morning Sonic, so whatcha trying to make?" Tails asked as he poured himself some coffee, "Chili omelettes. Hey, have you heard anything from Silver?" Sonic asked and Tails shrugged, "Not at all, which can only mean one thing."

"That the future is safe for once?" Sonic said, receiving a nod from Tails as he drank from his cup and before reaching under the counter and grabbing his Miles Electric, "I think I'm going to stop by the restoration office here to grab some things, maybe help around."

"That's the one ran by Gadget, correct?" Sonic asked and Tails spoke as he accessed the information on the Central City restoration office, "Yep! Amy is probably going to tag along as well, since she was the leader of the Restoration."

"Nice. Well, I'm probably gonna run around, see how the city is doing and maybe stop by Rouge's place, which leaves Cream and Gemerl here." Sonic said and Tails nodded, "I think they'll be fine."

The two then heard the bathroom door open and Amy walked out in her usual dress, her quills up in their old style, "Uhhh, Ames?" Amy spoke as she touched her quills, "Oh, I haven't straightened them yet, anyways what's for breakfast?"

"Omelettes, mind getting Cream?" Sonic asked and Tails started to watch the news while Amy left, the news was mostly covering the influx of refugees, the arrival of the Enclave, and all the normal stuff he had expected, except for one story.

Apparently someone had caused an entire building filled with humans to be turned into Mobians, and Tails spoke, "Hey Sonic, did you hear about this?" Sonic spoke as he looked over his shoulder, "Hear what?"

"Look." Tails said as he turned his Miles Electric around and Sonic looked at the story before speaking, "Woooh, who could do something like that? Can't be EggMan, since the Enclave has him locked up, plus he wouldn't really do this."

"Knuckles said something about a platypus that teamed up with EggMan, maybe he escaped and could be behind this." Tails said as he and Sonic discussed who could have done something like that, Sonic spoke as he smelled something, "Do you smell something burning?"

The two turned around and saw the food burning, the two shared a quick laugh as Sonic attempted to put out the fire. Tails drank his coffee while smiling as Sonic did his best to save the food.

This is the life he loved...

__________________________________

"Fascinating how this world is so close to how ours was before the Great War." Dr. K said as he and the failed subject hid in an abandoned building, after arriving in the city he unleashed the virus onto an enclave cell, turning the humans there into Mobians.

No better punishment for them, they now get to be the very species they hated, how fun! Of course he and the subject quickly left since he wasn't in the feeling of getting blood on his fur, plus the place was quickly turning from an Enclave cell into a suicide cult.

He wasn't exactly surprised about that part, he wouldn't be surprised that if that happened back in America and infected the high command, then the Enclave would most likely collapse, which would make everyone's lives better.

"Failed sub-Puro, start unloading my things, whilst this may not compare to all the labs I've worked at, it will do for now." Dr. K said and the failed subject got up from its little trash bed and dragged over Dr. K's equipment.

His plan was simple, mass produce the virus and modify it using a sample of the Cloud from the Sierra Madre, thus allowing it to bypass the protection the Enclave wore and thus transforming them into Mobians, or goo creatures, he wasn't sure which to do yet.

Now to make sure that the humans of Mobius(sadly the racist ones would be included since they weren't apart of the Enclave yet.) weren't harm and made an entire species extinct, he made it so that the virus would only target things that had FEV inside them, and the only ones with FEV inside them would be the Enclave.

He'd be the savior of humanity! Well, Mobius humanity at least. He knew for damn sure the Enclave just wanted to use the humans here as breeding stock, it was logical since they had no abnormalities, no mutations, nothing! They were utterly pure.

After that...well, he could just convince people that he and the failed subject are some strange mutants. If they could convince people of that, then he'd probably be able to explore this world's scientific community, that twin tailed fox did catch his attention.

The door to the abandoned building opened and Dr. K aimed the plasma pistol at the door, the Failed subject standing up and readying itself for a fight. The two saw a platypus in some very fancy clothes walk in, he spoke as he observed the place.

"A little depressing, a doctor of your status being left to rot here?" The platypus said and Dr. K spoke as he approached the platypus, "It is a temporary set up, and thank you for the compliment, I went to C.I.T."

"Never heard of it."

"Different world." Dr. K said and he immediately gained the platypus's attention, "Different world you say? I assume you came with the Enclave? Quite strange considering what they've been doing ever since they got here."

"I was useful until I rebelled and grabbed gooey over there. Now what do you want?" Dr. K asked and the platypus spoke, "Cut to the chase? Alright. I am Doctor Starline, and all I want to ask you is a simple question."

Dr. K nodded and Doctor Starline spoke, "How would you like to go down as a hero?"

__________________________________

"Sooo...why are you called that?" Silver asked as he looked over at F28, the two were doing recon on an Enclave outpost and Infinite decided to send Silver out with the metal man. F28 turned over and spoke, "Called what?"

"F28? It's a strange name, don't you think?" Silence overtook the two and F28 replied, "Oh right, you're new. Well, Fox comes from the unit I was in when I was a lowly G.U.N. soldier, 37th Infantry 'Fox Paw' Battalion. 28 comes from the age I brought on to the Council."

"Council? G.U.N. never had a council, well, from what I've heard." Silver said as he took in the information, "It did, it had one for most of its existence, it's just that after the ARK accident, and The Knothole accident, it was dissolved, its members hunted down and imprisoned, and Commander Tower brought on."

"What's the Knothole accident?" Silver asked, he knew what the ARK was, being a friend of Shadow he had heard the story many times, but the second one seemed stranger, "Normally this would be classified, but considering my current relation with G.U.N. and the organization itself, I'll tell."

Fox28 spoke as he sat down as Silver kept watch, "It was a small town, sported around a 100 people, G.U.N. forces entered the town looking for someone that was connected to the science team on the ARK. One thing led to another, residents of the town started firing, and G.U.N. replied swiftly, cutting down those who fought and kidnapping others."

"By Light Gaia...when was this?" Silver asked and F28 responded, "Around 10 years ago. I was on the Council at the time and like I said, most were hunted down and imprisoned. With me and Fox29 being able to get away, though we had to leave our Son behind."

"But why was the Council blamed?"

"Fun fact about government work kiddo, someone always has to take the fall, blame is shifted, people disappear and gallons of black ink are poured over documents. Me and F29 tried to bring as much to light, but too little too late. When the orders for our heads came we ran, disappeared off the face of the earth, left our son behind in an orphanage, he probably doesn’t remember us.”

"It's still good you tried doing what was right." Silver said as F28 spoke, "After that, me and her kept tabs on everything, especially our son. Early on we couldn't keep an eye on him, but later we could." F28 said and Silver nodded.

"Who is your son by the way? Do I know him?" Silver asked and F28 spoke, "Doubt it, he's a normal kid." F28 said and Silver took that as an answer, "So....you and F29, married or-"

"Married, going on for 17 years. She was a minor political figure back in the day that I had met thanks to being on the G.U.N. Council, she’s really sweet, maybe I’ll in-

“Are you two done with your recon? I want to get this job done by tonight.” Infinite’s voice suddenly broke over comms and caught the two off guard, “Yeah, we’re done.”

“Good, let’s get this show on the road.”

__________________________________

The outpost wasn’t big on the outside, really just a landing pad for aircraft, some supply buildings and a couple of watch towers. But Infinite knew that underneath the outpost was an underground complex, holding weaponry, armor, and resources.

They had hit an outpost before, and this one seemed like a carbon copy above ground, but with Silver on their side, it would be even easier. “All forces, swoop in for the kill.” Infinite said on comms as he quickly used the Phantom Ruby to make his forces appear invisible.

He himself soon started floating towards the outpost, and soon enough every gun was turned on him, Enclave soldiers rushing out, none in PA though, either they didn’t have any at the outpost, or they were still gearing up.

Infinite looked up the Enclave soldiers, all looking the exact same, no sign of humanity, just cold, dead stares of a Gasmask. Just when they prepare to fire, Infinite’s men cut them down with a hail of bullets, wispons and lasers.

Infinite chuckled as he saw the Enclave soldiers fall, their armor was tough, but with enough of anything even the strongest soldiers would be cut down, the defenses didn’t last long either, since Silver easily used his powers to rip them apart, piece by piece.

Infinite soon landed and spoke as he turned to see F28, “Seems like the rest of the base fled down into the underground section, gonna be a pain to drag them out.” F28 said and Infinite spoke, “I’ll handle the underground section, make sure the area is secured, and perhaps they haven’t rung the alarm.”

F28 nodded and Infinite quickly entered the underline through a ladder, though following behind him was strangely Silver. “Get back topside.” Infinite said as he slowly slid his sword across the steel walls, creating an ear blistering sound.

“If anywhere has the chance of actually confirming what you say, it’s an Enclave base.” Silver replied and Infinite sighed as the two walked through the sterile halls of the outpost. But as they walked through it they noticed how silent it was.

“Something’s wrong, the Enclave forces here should be responding to us, at least even some gun turrets. But yet we’re walking freely.” Infinite stated and Silver spoke, “Maybe they escaped?” Infinite groaned and spoke, “Where we entered from here this was the only way in. They must be hiding, search for them.”

Silver nodded and the two split up, Infinite floated through the halls and once more nothing happened, as he combed through the base he soon stumbled upon the comms room. Now he wasn’t the most adept when it came to tech, but spending time under EggMan one learns how to hack into stuff.

With relative ease he was able to hack into the central console and found…nothing, again. It was like this at the last Enclave outpost they raided, the Enclave wiped everything and also seemingly withdrew.

“Damn it…” Infinite muttered as he looked at the empty screen, whilst weapons, armor and the materials were important, it was the data that Infinite and F28 really wanted. Data on how the Enclave operates, where their bases are, anything.

But alas, nothing. Infinite flew through and soon encountered Silver, Infinite spoke, “Did you find the Enclave personnel?” Infinite asked and Silver shook, “Not at all, it’s like all of them just vanished. None of their gear is here as well.”

‘Strange…’ Infinite thought, perhaps the Enclave, after Infinite and his group raided an outpost, immediately had all forces fall back from the base, take all the gear before leaving. “Hmm, well we still have…”

The two heard an explosion and moving as fast as they could, escaped the underground part of the base only to find out that the above ground wasn’t better, not only did the Enclave have their men retreat after those above ground were terminated, but the outpost would detonate.

Infinite stood up and looked at the chaos, his forces had moved back to the staging area but the place was a mess, and unlike last time they couldn’t occupy the base. “Well so good for that.” Silver said as he dusted himself off, Infinite spoke, “After one outpost lost they immediately went to scorched earth…hmm, perhaps I misjudged the Enclave.”

“So they don’t want to kill all of us?” Silver said as the two walked out the fire.

“No. But they definitely adapt faster than EggMan.” Infinite said as the two soon regrouped with their forces before boarding vertibirds, they still needed data and locations, which meant a lot more bird watching…

Chapter Text

Metal Sonic watched as Metal Tails bounced around Orwich's workshop, he was...very much like the real Tails, and what was odd about him, or special, was that he seemingly held no hate for his organic counterpart.

And strangely, Metal didn't hold any hate for his loathsome copy like he used too. The more and more he spent in Fort Anderson and working with Orwich, the less he began to hate Sonic and his friends. He didn't know why, maybe Orwich was a better influence than EggMan?

Maybe it was the dreams, allowing him to feel partly what an organic feels? Maybe Orwich reprogrammed him? Whatever it was, Metal Sonic noticed that he seemed less violent than he was when he last met his organic counterpart. Metal Tails seemed like a pacifist, considering he talked to Metal Sonic about not like all the weapons inbuilt into him.

The same could not be said about Mecha-Sonic, he was something else, unlike Metal Sonic or Tails he always accompanied Orwich when she went to work on her other projects, and when they returned they never explained what exactly they were doing.

That and also Mecha along with Orwich and other Enclave personnel seemed hesitant about telling him about their goals, always looking nervous before telling him their goal is too 'Ensure democracy and the purity of this world.' Now he does remember when he was in his Neo form and found them but he couldn't remember what they did until the Metal Virus.

He wanted to doubt that answer, not believe since the way they say it always felt wrong; like it's a desperate lie to save face. Metal Sonic started to believe they were evil, made sense and he isn't against serving under evil, he had worked for EggMan.

But he also wished for them to be good, for him to be good. He didn't know why, he didn't care about a lot, just get the job done and show himself as the real Sonic, but now he has started to doubt himself. Was being in the Enclave making him weak?

"Look, look Sonic!" Metal turned to Metal Tails and saw that he was messing with a 3D printer, Orwich had it in her office to help her tinker with stuff, that and the 3D printer was able to print objects that a normal one shouldn't be able to print.

With an example being in Metal Tails's hands, an Apple. Not a plastic Apple, but a real Apple that had come out of the machine. Metal Sonic grabbed the Apple and spoke, "Fascinating. The Enclave could supply many with those printers and solve basic needs."

"Isn't it incredible! Oh when Mom gets back I can't wait to ask her about it!" Metal Tails said and Metal Sonic nodded. After his creation, Metal Tails called Metal Sonic simply Sonic, and he called Mecha 'Big Sonic.' But for Orwich, he called her Mom.

This eventually lead to him calling Metal Sonic and Mecha brothers. It was legitimately sweet and made Metal feel warm inside, and it made him truly wonder.

Did he have heart?

__________________________________

Keen wasn't sure why their boss wanted to raid some rundown warehouse, but considering the gear they gave them, he felt pretty confident in whatever he and about 29 other guys could get done, it would be a piece of cake!

"So what we looking for when we get in?" One of the other members of the group said as Keen looked down at his G3, fancy gun, a lot better than the scrap he normally had when just guarding the standard facility.

"Weapons, armor, who knows. Anything that looks valuable, take it. Just hope to Gaia there ain't a security system in this place." Another said as he opened up the door to the warehouse, with everyone quickly flooding in, with someone flipping on the lights.

As they entered the place everyone quickly spread out, as Keen stood at one of the desks he picked up some papers, "Hey, anyone know how read...whatever the fuck this is?" Keen said as he looked at the papers, all in some strange language that he never seen before.

One of the other guys, a wolf named Lyco, walked over and picked it up, "Looks like a bunch of gibberish, I can make some words out but either this is a coded message or whoever wrote this was extremely high. Leaning towards the second option."

Keen chuckled and as he placed the paper down, everyone heard a bloody scream. Weapons up, everyone aimed at a dark corner of the room when all of a sudden, the place went dark. "Shit. Who turned off the lights?" Someone said as everyone heard a bloody scream again.

"Everyone group together!" Keen heard and as he backed up to some crates along with others, soon enough rounds started to fly through the air as screams started to fill the air. Keen even felt someone right next to him get picked off.

Soon enough it was Everyman for himself, Keen ran through a maze of crates as he heard something was hunting him, but he same thing that had claimed the lives of so many others. As he ran through the maze he eventually ran into a dead end.

"Oh fuck...oh fuck..." Keen said as he backed up against a crate, aiming his weapon against the entrance of the dead end as he heard whatever had hunt down everyone else was closing in. Keen felt his heart pound at speeds he never thought possible as his breath sped up.

Then, out of nowhere, the lights turned back on. Keen also didn't hear the thing anymore, he stood up and quietly prayed to Gaia that he lived! He walked through the maze of crates again, finding the corpses of all the others that had come with him.

As he stepped out of the maze, he then stopped as he saw a ton of humans, and not just any humans, but Enclave...that's when he realized just where the boss had sent him and the others. Before he was even able to get a shot off his body was pelted with plasma and reduced to a disgusting pile of goo...

__________________________________

"So who were these guys?" Staff Sergeant Robert heard as he and others searched some of the bodies that were left behind by the wanamingo security. They weren't in the best shape but the bodies did have some cards that pointed at who they belonged too.

'Clean-Sweep Inc,' a company that cleaned up after EggMan attacks and had become very wealthy. Now they were seen as pretty good, but considering they had just attempted to raid an Enclave warehouse is a good sign that they have some plans.

"Sergeant Boyle, Sergeant Allyson, grab the others." Staff Sergeant Robert heard as he stood up, looking around at his squad. All of them were clad in Advanced Secret Service Armor, plasma weapons clutched tightly to their chests.

"Switch out your plasma for ballistics, I don't want us being tracked." They all nodded and Sergeant Boyle spoke as he walked up to Robert's, "Sir, what's the plan?" Robert spoke as he grabbed his pip-pad.

"Well the plan is we're going to commit one hell of a crime. Hence the ballistics." Staff Sergeant Robert said and Boyle spoke, "What exactly do you mean by that?" Staff Sergeant Robert only smiled underneath his helmet and spoke, "You'll see."

Two hours passed and Robert's squad was standing outside of a mansion in the richer parts of the city, said mansion was owned by a high ranking member of Clean Sweep Inc, and this was going to be a message for them.

"Allyson, take your team and kill the lights. Once that's down I'll take Boyle and his team inside. No survivors anyone, we aren't letting this hit news with our faces on it." Robert said and Allyson's squad left, minutes passed and soon the lights were off.

Once the lights were killed the front door was unlocked with ease, allowing entrance into the home. As Robert and Boyle's team entered they immediately lit up a couple of armed guard's. Instead of plasma weaponry they were equipped with suppressed P90s and G11s.

The armed guards fell dead as everyone started to split up, "Coming up on main bedroom." Robert said as he and Boyle breached the bedroom, the target was in bed with a woman and woke up only to meet the cold glare of Robert's helmet.

"Drag them." Robert ordered and the target; a wolf named King Brood, he tried to resist along with the woman but it was a losing fight. Robert and Boyle placed them against the wall as they listened to the others put down everyone they could find.

"Target found, everyone meet up with me, and grab a camera as well." Robert ordered and soon enough everyone was in the room. Mister Brood spoke as he looked up at them, "L-Look, I-I can give you all some money, I I mean, no hurt feelings over that raid, t-right?"

"Sorry Mutie, but we aren't ones to forgive a bastard that tried raiding our safe house." Robert said as in quick succession the room was filled with gunfire and the snap of a camera...

__________________________________

"Alright so what's the situation?" Adam asked as he and Moses looked at one of the many Enclave personnel stationed at the Enclave cell in Empire City. Clad in Advanced Secret Secret armor that bore damage from a recent fight, "Well, while inspecting one our safe houses me and my squad found the bodies of Mobians. After some searching they belonged to Clean-Sweep Inc."

The soldier tossed some pictures onto the map and Adam picked it up, "Why did they attack you?" Adam asked and the soldier quickly explained, "Well, with Clean-sweep Inc, they want our tech. They're a pretty shady company, more like a crime organization that has plenty of people under its influence and plenty of hired guns. We did pay a visit to one of the higher ups of the company though, we were in and out, no evidence."

Adam and Moses both looked at each other, and wondered how big were the balls were of this crime organization's leader to try and take on THE ENCLAVE. But they had to give props, must have taken a lot of courage.

"Alright so how are we wiping this company off the face of the earth?" Moses asked and the soldier spoke as multiple others stepped in, "Well, we do have SIGMA Yellow, and could requisition more. Along with me and my squad able to pull of these raids."

"Break them slowly, and no one will no the wiser." Moses said as Adam laughed a little, and then started to laugh a lot, the others looked at him and Adam spoke, "We ain't hiding in the shadows. This mutant motherfucker thinks he can dance with us!? Oh we'll dance alright!"

"Adam..." Moses said as Agent Adam spoke, "I want everything we can deployed to gather intelligence on Clean-Sweep Inc. once that's done, we bring down the hammer and wipe them out! Let everyone see that the Enclave isn't going to be intimated by some criminals!"

Adam then stood on top of the table and everyone backed away, "Ladies and gentlemen, America was born to be the world's policeman, so let's do what we were born to and show them the might of the US of A!"

Everyone was silent until they started to clap, and soon enough the message started to spread, orders were passed down and everyone started to gear up, ready for war. Agent Moses spoke while Adam smirked, "This is a risky move. What happens if we drag the heroes into this?"

"Well then I would greet them with open arms and say they too can join in the ass kickery." Adam said and Moses rolled his eyes underneath his helmet, "I mean in the sense they join Clean-Sweep's side. You know, fight against us? May kick off the actual war we're supposed to be fighting a little bit too early."

"Why would heroes help criminals? Trust me Moses, this will work perfectly fine, Hell, I bet it'll boost up recruitment numbers." Adam said and Moses sighed, "If you say so. I'll be preparing our spies to gather the intel, I'll meet up with you later." Moses left the room while Adam sat back and enjoyed himself, grabbing his pip-pad to check on SIGMA team Yellow's progress...

That ballsy fucker at the head of Clean-Sweep has no idea of the giant he just poked...

__________________________________

EggMan walked along a massive wall that surrounded Eggperial city, security forces were being tightened up and that everything was ready, to types of defenses had to be planned though, one for Sonic and friends, and one for the Enclave.

The one for Sonic and friends were what he'd normally make along with the badniks he'd normally use. Then came the Enclave one, where he had to put in some effort into completely redesigned robots, weaponry and fortifications to actually make sure the Enclave didn't break through.

This was due to the fact that the way the Enclave fought, with the limited data EggMan has, is very different than how Sonic and friends fight. This makes sense, it's a military force with a preference for overkill instead of some kids with dreams of freedom.

As EggMan looked over a wall into the distance, he pressed a button on his suite and spoke, "Egg-Memo 1272: Egg Perial city is well underway, it shall be one my most glorious fortresses ever designed. The defenses I have should be enough to keep out both Enclave and Sonic."

EggMan looked down as his newly created 'Egg-Gunners' marched down the streets, they barely resembled all his other machines, but they were designed to fight against the Enclave, not Sonic or any super power Mobian. No, they were made to fight humans in a more conventional manner of conflict.

Sonic and friends never did anything in the conventional sense, and he didn't either! But the Enclave...well, they were probably a lot more like an actual military instead of a bunch of kids leading one. Now they did have advance tech, but EggMan knows he hasn't fully seen their armory.

"Whilst I do know Sonic and his friends abilities, I cannot of course build a counter for each and every one just incase they all show up to stop me, but I can get close by focusing on the big names. The Enclave I can prepare for, but I don't know the full extent of their armory."

His air ships flew overhead, constantly patrolling the skies to make sure that no spy planes or recon drones try and enter his airspace. They were retrofitted to be able to easily drop reinforcements on the ground and provide ground support.

"I also am not sure the Enclave's numbers, but I theorize that the Enclave here is but a small fraction of their forces, that they are an expedition from another world. It would explain their hatred for the Mobians."

EggMan spoke as he went to push the button on his suit, “No matter what, the Egg Empire will prevail, even though it may be in its darkest hour. Egg-Memo end.” As EggMan finished his Egg-Memo, Silver Sonic MKII landed right next to him.

“Well Father, quite the fortress you made, think the inferior model to me would be impressed.” EggMan groaned and spoke as he looked at Silver Sonic, “Inferior Model? You’re the inferior model to Metal Sonic, and the only reason I released you was because Metal Sonic was kidnapped!”

“He’s a traitor!” Silver Sonic said and EggMan back handed him before speaking, “This is why I made Metal silent…” EggMan muttered as he looked across his domain.

Whoever came for him, they would be in for a fight…

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Dr. Lee looked over the body, clad in broken Advanced Secret Service armor draped in a duster, she soon watched as the body was then hooked up to a multitude of machines that were connected up to the ruins of Dark Gaia’s city.

Tubes stabbed into the body as Major Nicolas stood next to Lee, watching as other personnel began to pump Dark Gaia’s energy into the dead body of the last remnant of Project Brazil. As the energy pumped into the body, it started to twitch, electricity sparking over it.

“Looking promising…” Nicolas said as Lee smiled, “Raise the energy input by 10%.” Lee ordered and even more of Dark Gaia’s energy poured into the dead body, and that’s when the changes started to happen.

The body began to grow, armor pieces breaking off as the lefts bended unnaturally. The helmet’s mouth piece broke off as a snout began to form. Everyone looked confused and Nicolas spoke, “That’s...odd.” Lee smiled and spoke, “Continue pushing it, let’s see if we can’t awaken him.”

More energy was pumped into the body until a feral howl was released and the body, no…the Agent, awoke and ripped the tubes out of him. The Agent thudded against the ground, breathing heavily as he felt the broken pieces of his armor. He looked up at Lee and Nicolas as he stood up on unfamiliar legs.

“Agent Star, rise and shine, there’s much work to be done.” Doctor Lee said as Agent Star looked down at her, easily standing taller than a soldier in lower armor. Agent Star growled and spoke, his voice rough and dry, “What have you done to me…”

“We made you stronger, faster, better. You are far beyond a mortal man, having the powers of a god you’ll be better than you ever were when you were a man…”

Agent Star looked at Lee and spoke as he nodded, “When do I start?”

Chapter Text

Commander Tower looked at the figure sitting across from him, not seeing a face but a black visor that occasionally flashed an E surrounded by stars. The Enclave, the new and very quickly rising super power in the war-torn world.

G.U.N. had been almost destroyed but survived thanks to fall back points and bunkers, same with the government. They rode out the rest of the war and only now returned to the fore front just right as chaos reigned. They had reestablished order in many cities and kept them secure.

G.U.N. watched as the Restoration and Enclave fought a mechanical plague and that half a continent was destroyed by the Enclave to slow the infection. Millions were transported to G.U.N. territory and placed in refugee camps, though the Enclave didn't provide much, just dropping off civvies before going back to killing.

It didn't surprise Tower that the Enclave's leader would want to meet him face to face, well, as close to face to face as the leader could get. To Tower, it didn't feel like he was staring at a person, no, he felt like he was staring at a symbol.

"Commander Tower, do you know of Clean-Sweep Inc?" Agent Adam said and Tower nodded, they had been keeping on eyes on that company and immediately knew something was fishy, but finding evidence on them has been a bitch.

"Yes. What about them?" Commander Tower asked and Agent Adam spoke, "Well, you see, that company's goons raided one of our safe houses, and of course that just can't stand." Tower already didn't like where this was going.

There were many things Tower and others didn't know about The Enclave, but the one fact that everyone did know was that the Enclave were not subtle at all. What the Enclave would consider subtle would probably include dropping hundreds of explosives onto a single building.

"Let me guess, you want to get revenge and wipe Clean-Sweep inc off the map." Commander Tower said and Agent Adam nodded, "Correct. See, we have substantial evidence that they plan on overthrowing the Restoration, taking out those that protect the common man for their own greed. We can't have that, can we?"

Commander Tower sighed and spoke, "What's your game, Agent Adam?" Tower asked and Adam spoke, the Enclave's symbol appearing once more on his visor, "We are simply leading the charge in combating the crime lords that have popped up in our wonderful world due to the rebuilding efforts."

Agent Tower was silent, he didn't believe Agent Adam, he knew the Enclave clearly had an ulterior motive, but to have what could be one of G.U.N’s (likely) enemies bleed themselves out in a war against crime would be perfect, too perfect. If it works then a rising faction is killed, if it doesn't both are wounded and it'll show that the Enclave aren't as strong as they people believe they are.

"Agent Adam, you and the Enclave have the go ahead. Kill 'em all." Commander Tower said as he could only guess that Agent Adams was smiling underneath that helmet...

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Amy sat at a cafe, listening intently to Sticks as she ranted about numerous things. The badger had survived the Metal Virus along with the Enclave's containment methods thanks to her having been on a raft trying to fish for some kind of monster in the ocean.

"Maybe EggMan was right, maybe those Enclave guys are the villains! I mean, their name is pretty weird and their style doesn't fit with anything here! Plus they glassed a continent!" Amy just listened to Sticks as she spouted off theories. Most of the theories being about the Enclave and them being the real villains.

"Sticks, I know you're, well, you, but even with....the accident, I think the Enclave are good people." Amy said as her mind quickly flashed to the sound of a pistol going off and screaming. "Good people? Would good destroy a continent!? I'm telling yah! These feds have something dangerous plan, the government always do!"

Amy covered Sticks mouth and spoke, "Calm down, breath, and rethink." Sticks rolled her eyes and spoke, "Plus Amy, you saw directly what happened to Vanill-"

"I know. I'm not sure what happened, and I wanted to fight there, but I also knew I couldn't risk our alliance with the Enclave." Amy said as the two then heard something. Turning around, the two then saw multiple IFVs, APCs and Humvees pass by them.

All of them belonging to the Enclave. "What's going on?" Amy asked herself as Sticks spoke, "I bet they're planning to overthrow the city and take over!" Amy ignored Sticks as she stood up and ran off after placing down some cash at the cafe table.

Running on the sidewalk she followed the Enclave vehicles throughout the city, stopping when she saw they had erected a massive blockade outside of an office building, one owned by Clean-Sweep Inc. 'That's weird...why are they there? Clean-Sweep is just a clean up company.' Amy thought as heavily armored troops and robots exited the vehicle.

"Wait up crazy pinkie!" Amy heard Sticks yell and Amy ran towards the building until being stopped by some Enclave troopers. "Halt, this is a restricted area and no one outside of Enclave and G.U.N. Personnel are allowed through." One said and Amy spoke, "What's going on? Why are you here?" Amy asked and the troops responded, "None of your business."

Amy tilted her head as gunfire was then heard from inside the building, "What's going on in there?" Amy asked and was pushed back by the Enclave soldiers, the lead one spoke, "Stay back, mutant. This is an Enclave operation." Amy spoke as she was confused by the nickname, "Mutant?"

One of the other soldiers smacked the lead one and Amy slowly stepped back, walking away with Sticks in tow, "Hmm...I wonder what that's about?" Amy wondered and Sticks spoke, "Aren't ya going to break through that blockade and figure out what the feds are doing?"

"I don't want to cause trouble...but I do know someone who will." Amy said as she grabbed her phone and called up Rouge...

__________________________________

"Amy's calling me." Rouge said as she sat on Omega's shoulder, her, Omega and Shadow were sent on a mission by Tower to check out an old EggMan base, and when Tower said old he meant it. The place was practically falling apart and seemed like it had been built a long time ago, probably older than most people in her friend group.

"You have a signal here?" Shadow as he opened an old container, dust flying as he grabbed some ancient documents, "it's a weak one, but I got it." Rouge said as she accepted the call while Omega walked forward, "Hey pinky, how's it going?" Rouge asked and Amy responded, "Hey Rouge; when's the next time you're free?"

Shadow and Rouge looked at each other before Rouge spoke, "Maybe a day or two? Why?" Rouge questioned until Amy answered, "I'm suspicious of the Enclave, me and Sticks saw an entire group roll by and they are...Oh Gaia..." Amy went silent and Rouge eyes went wide.

"Amy, Amy are you okay?" Rouge asked as Shadow turned back and Chaos Snapped next to her, "I...I sent you a picture..." Amy said over the phone, and Rouge saw the picture and gasped, with Shadow even being surprised at what he saw. It was somewhat blurry, but Rouge was able to tell what they were.

Bodies, black bags over their heads and they all varied in heights. Some looked like adults, others seemed to be children, along with the bags were signs saying 'Criminals shall not be tolerated.' "Explanation, now." Rouge asked and Amy spoke over the phone, "They were raiding a Clean-Sweep Inc, and then later they started raiding homes and apartments, rounding up any high ranking members of the company and their family..."

Rouge looked over at Shadow, whose hand curled into a fist, "I'll catch up with you about this." Rouge hung up as she looked over at Shadow, "Maybe EggMan was telling the truth, that the Enclave aren't our allies." Shadow said as he looked at Rouge, "Well I'll be the one looking into that-"

"EGGMAN ROBOT DETECTED!" Omega said and everyone quickly got into combat stances, Omega gesturing to a room. The three stand in front of the entrance before quickly breaching into the room only to find some kind of pod holding a robotic hedgehog.

"Metal prototype?" Rouge asked as Shadow approached the pod, with Omega aiming every weapon he had at the pod, "Maybe. Could be the first Metal Sonic created, but it looks...wrong, too human, like it was someone before being turned into this."

"EXTERMINATE IT." Omega said and Rouge shook her head as she glided over to a console, "Hold on, let us see if this thing is even a threat." Rouge quickly hacked into the console and...found a G.U.N. File? She grabbed a hard drive from her suit and downloaded the file before opening the pod.

"If this thing turns hostile, I'm breaking it." Shadow said and Rouge rolled her eyes as the pod slowly opened, its hinges clearly decayed due to how long it went without proper maintenance. As the pod opened, the metal hedgehog stood up and spoke, "Bernadette..."

The metal hedgehog then fell to the ground, all three members of team dark looked down at it before Rouge spoke, "I'll call for evac, you two carry this thing." Rouge said and Omega complained, "WHY NOT DESTROY IT?" "Because I believe it holds value, now chop chop boys!"

Shadow rolled his eyes as he and Omega carried the strange robotic hedgehog while Rouge looks at the hard drive.

Why was there a G.U.N. File here...

__________________________________

"So...how are we sugarcoating this." Staff Sergeant Robert said as he overlooked the bodies, now while the Enclave didn’t exactly care about its image (it was going to invade the world anyways so what did it matter) he also knew that openly executing mutants, even children, in the open would get a bunch of people on them, most importantly, the heroes.

Agent Adam wanted all high to mid-ranking Clean-Sweep personnel to be killed, the low ranking ones would be replaced by synths and the real ones would be turned into the half organic machine slaves that started to pop around Fort Anderson and other Enclave installations.

“Well in my opinion, this is just one of the many tactics I foresee being used to make us look like the good guys.” Sergeant Boyle said and Robert replied, “We are the good guys, I’m just saying this is how we get attacked by people, or someone catches a glimpse and starts spreading rumors, this could easily go wrong.” Robert said as he flipped up the armored visor of his armor.

“Well look at it like this, we’re killing criminals at the end of the day, mutant ones at that. Who would shed a tear over some fat rich bastard using robots to keep his maids in check dying in an alleyway.” Boyle said as it began to rain, “When are the body bags getting here?”

“Soon, but what about the kids, the wife? People going to look favorably at that?” Roberts said, “Maybe, maybe not, plant evidence, make up some lies, people are dumb. At the end of the day none of this shit matters, we’re probably gonna lay waste to this place when the war comes.” Sergeant Boyle then looked over at Robert’s and spoke, “You know, you’re sounding a bit strange, not really going along with this as much as you should be.”

“I fought through Hell getting to Boston with my unit before being transferred here, and I don’t want to die because some 3 feet tall midget saw us committing this. Rather die fighting some bastards worth a damn than these creatures.” Roberts said and Boyle nodded before Robert’s continued, “Look, I get where you’re coming from. But sometimes you wish Command did the sensible thing instead of trying to send a message.”

The two then looked over as some protectrons brought over body bags and Roberts spoke, “Now help me bag these bodies.” Roberts said as he and Boyle got to work.

‘Fucking zealots…’ He thought in his mind as he cleaned up the site…

__________________________________

Clutch looked around at his subordinates, many clearly feeling uneasy considering the current situation going on. Now Clutch had ordered one of his subordinates to have his men raid an Enclave safe house. They had grown a bit too big and needed to pay some ‘taxes.’ Hours passed and he hadn’t heard anything from that subordinate.

News reports said that he had been murdered along with his family, with the suspects currently unknown. But Clutch knew who they were, since he had already guessed that the plan failed, and if that failed, that meant that the Enclave was probably gonna come after him.

Soon enough, he had reports of the Enclave not only raiding his territory, but many of his subordinates' homes and killing almost everyone they found. Many of his workers began to worry if they were on the chopping block, and he had started to buy as many PMCs and mercenaries as he could, finding in the middle of his buying spree a group even he couldn't afford, one rumored to be led by the terror of the last war, Infinite.

He doubted that, that creature was long dead. He looked around again, noticing all of his subordinates were uncomfortable with how silent he was. He rolled his eyes, grabbed a cigar before lighting it. He then spoke after he huffed it, “Alright, I believe we all know the situation we have found ourselves in.” Clutch said as he stood up.

He began to walk around the room, “Our organization faces the very manifestation of death, we’ve angered a hornets nest and they have come in force wanting revenge. They may think they’ve found it, but they’re wrong. Will make them bleed, fight them in a war that they can’t fight.”

Some of his subordinates began to smile, fangs showing at the idea of blood. Many of his underlings were monsters, they would do anything for money. “Thus I will let you all off my leashes, bleed the Enclave, bleed anyone that helps them! Unleash your wrath! When this is over, we shall be the most powerful empire!”

Some of his underlings began to clap, others began to howl in excitement, “gather your men, we march on Empire City and show the people that the Enclave is nothing but a paper tiger! Get out there!” Clutch yelled as everyone quickly left the room.

Once everyone was gone he pulled down a statue and revealed a hidden room littered with pleasurable items and monitoring equipment. He took a seat in the center of the room before getting on the cameras, watching all of his forces gather up for a push against the Enclave…

__________________________________

Silver sat down in his quarters, a repurposed storage unit, playing with some random knick-knacks and collectibles Infinite and his forces had recovered, as he relaxed, something caught the corner of his eye. He used his powers to grab it and bring it over to him, allowing him to see that it was a folder marked as ‘Loose Ends.’ With the G.U.N. Logo in the corner.

Flipping through it he saw what he had expected, the Council members were labeled as loose ends, with their pictures blacked out, members of the ARK were loose ends, what Silver had expected. Then there were two that stood out, what appeared to be Metal Sonic, or some prototype of the robot hedgehog. The other one was a purple hedgehog with blonde hair that had an uncanny resemblance to Sonic.

“Huh, she looks like Sonic…” Silver said until he saw their names, which weren’t blacked out or were code words, instead he read clearly ‘Jules The Hedgehog’ and ‘Bernadette The Hedgehog.’ Now while he and Shadow may share ‘The Hedgehog’ title with Sonic, they weren’t their true last names.

Shadow didn't have one because he refused to either have his last name be Robotnik or Doom, and so did Silver because he truly didn’t know who his parents were. But Sonic always used ‘The Hedgehog’ and considering how uncanny the female hedgehog looked like Sonic, he had to investigate it.

Putting the folder in his quills he quickly flew through the halls of the base until arriving at the armory, where he found F28 and F29 working on some weaponry. F28 clad in his armor and F29 wearing some kind of recon armor. The two turned to him and Silver spoke, “Can I ask you two some questions?”

The two looked at each other and F28 spoke, “What’s up kiddo?” F28 asked as F29 stood up, Silver pulled out the G.U.N. Folder and spoke, “I have a couple questions concerning this file.” F29 spoke as she walked over to Silver, “Where did you find that?”

“It was in my room, I’m assuming you two have something to do with it?” Silver asked and F28 spoke, “We were planning on releasing it, show that G.U.N. was hunting people down. But considering how many things were happening in quick succession, we waited until things calmed down and EggMan was taken care of to release it.”

Silver nodded and spoke, “Alright, now the question is why does one of the targets look like Sonic and share his last name?” Silver asked and F29 spoke as she grabbed the folder and read it, “Bernadette……Jules…Silver, what me and F28 are gonna tell you is to be kept to yourself.”

Silver nodded and spoke, “What is it?” F28 then answered, “Bernadette and Jules…they’re Sonic’s parents, his biological ones at that.” He said and Silver stood shocked, “Hi-His parents? How? One of them is a robot!” Silver said and F29 pulled up some chairs.

“Take a seat, and we’ll tell you a story, one of betrayal, suffering and abandonment.” F29 said and F28 spoke as Silver took a seat, “One that has ramifications to this day..”

Silver sighed and spoke, “Well…let’s hear it.”

Chapter Text

(10 Years Ago)

F28 walked through a nice flower garden, appreciating the smell as he heard the footsteps of a friend. He turned and saw Bernadette, the wife of his best friend and best friend to his wife. "Wasn't expecting you to be visiting, Amadeus." Bernadette said, prompting Amadeus to reply, "Wanted to visit Jules, see how he's doing. Maybe Sonic as well."

"Jules is doing...he's the best he can be in his situation." Bernadette said as Amadeus looked to the sky. Jules had been injured in a training accident at the G.U.N. Base nearby Station Square, someone had switched out a fake grenade for a real one. Jules took the brunt of the damage saving others, costing him almost everything and leaving him in a medical bed.

There could be nothing done to improve his condition, most thought he was a lost cause. Amadeus turned and spoke, "There's....there may be a way to bring help him." Amadeus said as he remember the device he saw in G.U.N. HQ, one confiscated by Jules's brother.

"Don't give me hope Amadeus, everything we've done hasn't worked, I'm just...Jules will never be able to properly see Sonic grow." Bernadette shed some tears but Amadeus spoke, "It was a device made by Charles, if there's anything that could help him it's something made by his brother."

Bernadette's interest peaked and spoke, "What is it?" Amadeus began to explain the device, a machine that could turn flesh to steel but still allow the person to remain in control. G.U.N. had acquired it from their raid on his lab in Knothole. He wasn't sure if Charles had survived the raid, but he hoped he did.

"That...it could work, but are we allowed to use it?" Bernadotte asked and Amadeus spoke, "I'm part of the council, gives me access to a lot of stuff most don't have access too." Amadeus said, the two then heard some running and saw Sonic running over to them.

"Mommy! Mommy! Daddy's machine needs help!" Sonic said and Bernadette spoke, "I'm coming dear..." She looked back at Amadeus and whispered, "Please..." Amadeus nodded and walked off, he had a vault to secure...

__________________________________

"Alright, bring him in." Amadeus said as he looked over at the scientist operating the device, Doctor Ivo Robotnik. Now while he wasn't strictly G.U.N. personnel, he had helped develop some of the G.U.N. robots that Amadeus had seen in R&D, he was more of a freelancer than an actual employed worker at G.U.N.

"You know that this thing will only work once, if we mess this up the entire plan goes out the window." Robotnik said and Amadeus spoke, "Can't you get it to work?" Robotnik grunted as Bernadette and Rosemary pushed Jules in on a wheelchair, the once proud hedgehog now a man stuck inside a broken body.

"Well your soldiers clearly didn't care for its wellbeing when stealing it, the things been damaged and would take too long to repair, it has to go, now." Robotnik said and once Jules was in the machine, Amadeus have the go ahead.

As everyone watched the machine do its work, they started to hear gunfire, "What's going on?" Rosemary asked and Amadeus got on his council radio and spoke, "Council, what's happening? Are we under attack?" He asked and one of the other council members responded, though the connection was weak, "Commad-,9'mad Abralsj Tower has labeledffde all Council peersssssonnel asshass hostiles! Get-Get out now!" C-9 said.

"What? Why?" Amadeus barked into the radio but got nothing. He looked up and saw that the machine had worked, where once stood a flesh body for Jules now stood a metal one, though it still looked like him, uncannily so. "Did...did it work?" Bernadette asked and when the sounds of gunfire approached, Robotnik spoke, "You, hedgehogs, with me! I know a way out!"

"But what about..." Bernadette looked to Amadeus and Rosemary, "We'll be fine." Amadeus stated and both groups separated, Robotnik carrying Jules while Bernadotte guarded him while Amadeus snuck Rosemary out of G.U.N. Headquarters....

__________________________________

"I don't want to leave him here..." Amadeus said as Rosemary placed the basket containing their son in front of an orphanage, barely one and half years old. "We have to, he'll be safer here. People will think your brother had a kid and gave it up instead of us."

"Maybe it's just...Miles..." Amadeus said as he looked at his son, who was sleeping peacefully. "We have to...I don't want G.U.N. hurting him." Rosemary said and Amadeus nodded as the two walked off, Rosemary clad in experimental recon armor, and Amadeus clad in an experimental suit of power armor G.U.N. had stored in an offsite armory called 'X-01.'

__________________________________

(Present Day)

"That's the story...and that's who we are." Amadeus explained as Silver sat there, taking it all in. He had...a lot of questions, but spoke up, "So EggMan worked for G.U.N....Sonic's father was made into a robot...you're Tails's parents...this is just a lot."

"Mints?" Rosemary offered Silver and as he grabbed one, he spoke, "Huh...guess that's where Tails gets it." Silver said as he looked at Amadeus, "You had a brother? Where is he now?" Amadeus was silent and looked away, clenching his fist.

"Oh...I'm sorry." Silver looked away and Rosemary spoke, "We've been doing our best to keep hidden, making sure G.U.N. can't find us." Silver spoke as he stood up, "Don't think you...actually yeah, you don't have to worry about them."

"Yes they have been defunct for a bit..." Amadeus said as he and Rosemary shared a glance. Silver spoke, "Well, that means you guys meeting Tails won't put him in danger!" Silver exclaimed and Rosemary along with Amadeus both shared a glance before jumping at Silver.

"Bring us to him!" They both exclaimed and Silver smiled as he used his powers to pick them both up, quickly taking off and flying through the roof over to one of Tails's many workshops...

__________________________________

"Light Gaia!" Tails said as he ducked into cover, a hail of bullets flying over him as Gadget unleashes a burst of flame from his wispon. The two were discussing the merging of the Sol dimension with theirs until the Restoration received reports of fighting in Empire City.

Restoration forces quickly arrived and got to work fighting a combination of mercenaries and what seemed to be criminals, who used makeshift weaponry or scavenged G.U.N. weapons. Tails tried to aim for non-killing shots but with the rate he was firing...he couldn't aim for a non-lethal shot for many who were coming his way.

G.U.N. forces would be arriving soon enough, and all they had to do was make sure that the city hadn't fallen before they arrived, but with how many people were attacking, it was beginning to look like a daunting task. He had also called for Blaze to help, and she did say she was coming with some of her own forces.

"Technicals moving up on the flank!" A Restoration Member as Tails quickly turned and fired a shot from his energy cannon, the ball of plasma flying through the air and hitting dead center on one of the technicals. It blows up, sending the wreckage careening through the air and onto another technical.

"Nice shot!" Gadget said as he spewed fire with his wispon onto a crowd of mercs, and as they slowly began to reinforce their positions, another wave came in. "Light Gaia look at all that equipment!" Tails said as he scavenged EggMan robots, G.U.N. mechs and armored vehicles.

Soon enough they were beginning to fall back until the city's PA system came to life, and a voice began to speak through, causing everyone to pause as the sounds of lighting crackled around them.

"ENEMIES OF DEMOCRACY. HEAR ME, YOU HAVE COME HERE TO DIE. THE ONE TRUE LORD IS WITH US AND WE ARE INVINCIBLE. HIS SOLDIERS WILL STRIKE YOU DOWN, HIS WAR MACHINES WILL CRUSH YOU UNDER THEIR TREADS, HIS MIGHTY GUNS WILL BRING THE VERY SKY CRASHING DOWN UPON YOU. YOU CANNOT WIN."

Flashes of light appeared as Enclave Power Armor suddenly appeared, missiles and what appeared to be miniature nuclear bombs launched into the oncoming horde, hails of plasma, laser and electricity sparked as Tails saw massive powered armor units teleport in. Standing as tall as 10 ft they strode like giants, weapons barking as the enemy retreated.

Tails looked up and saw a horde of vertibirds flying above them, jets speeding past them as Enclave soldiers soon appeared to reinforce their position. The enemy, whoever they were, now began to run away, many of them either being reduced to ass, goo or messes of gore.

"Fall back to the city square." Gadget said as Tails continued to look at the Enclave forces, any survivor of the enemy hoard was gunned down, with the last view Tails saw before following Gadget was that of a gore ridden PA soldier, some sort of energy axe in his hand.

"THE LORD HAS GIVEN US HIS GREATEST WEAPON TO WIELD, SO MAKE YOURSELVES READY. WE ARE THE ENCLAVE, AND TODAY IS OUR VICTORY DAY."

__________________________________

“So your dimension is merging with ours again?” Sonic asked as Blaze sped through the city, “Yes, I am unsure what has caused it to merge once more, but I suspect EggMan is connected too it.” Blaze said as the two then ran into the remnants of a fight.

Goo piles, ashes and splatters of gore painted the area while the burning husks of vehicles and scavenged EggMan equipment laid about. Blaze spoke as she rubbed one of the goo piles, able to resist the heat. “Run off from the enemy's machines? Or the damage by EggMan weaponry?”

“Blaze…that is…well, was a person.” Sonic said as he gestured to the other goo and ash piles, “They all are.” Sonic stated and Blaze spoke as she stood up, shocked, “Well then, I assume this the handiwork of that ‘Enclave’ Tails told me about.” Blaze said and Sonic nodded before they sped off once more.

“I am truly sorry for not being there during the Metal Virus.” Blaze said and Sonic spoke while shrugging, “You’re fine, besides, you had a kingdom to protect.” Blaze responded as the two sped right into an on going firefight. Enclave forces traded fire with the mercenaries and criminals.

Sonic bounced between some of the mercs, knocking down in a couple blows while Blaze summoned walls of fire, blocking the sight lines of the mercs.

As the two fought, Blaze then heard the sound of metal footsteps and turned to see a squad of Enclave PA units rushing right passed her, flamethrowers and what appeared to be energy melee weaponry.

“Hold on!” Blaze told them, worried that her flames would cook them alive, though she saw them run through her flames unharmed. Sonic spoke as he smashed a EggPawn sporting a black and red color palette, “Oh yeah, they can just do that.” Sonic said and Blaze nodded as the two quickly went in to support the PA units.

Though Sonic and Blaze were doing the best they could to make sure each of their attacks were non-lethal, all they could do was watch as the PA units acted more like barbarians than soldiers. Smashing and cutting through the enemy while burning those who surrendered alive.

“This needs to stop.” Blaze said and Sonic turned to see her redirecting the flames of the PA units flamethrowers up into the air, saving surrendering mercs and criminals. “Cease! They’re surrendering! Their weapons are down, they are scared, I thought ‘soldiers’ would know about the Acorn Convention.”

Sonic leaned over to her and spoke, “The what?” Blaze rolled her eyes and spoke, “It’s your world’s version of my kingdom’s treaty on the rules of war. Made after the first war of Mobians vs Humans.” Blaze explained as what she guessed was the leader of the stomped over to them.

Towering over them, orange eye lenses stared down at them and spoke, “We have our orders, Ma’am. You may not like them, but we’re intending to follow them.” The soldier said before he and his squad marched onward, soon followed by the other Enclave forces.

“Let’s go.” Sonic said as he took Blaze’s hand and the two sped off once more, with Blaze taking note of the war crime…

__________________________________

“Seems like we’ve finally got some humans to fight alongside.” Max said as Jonah double tapped a body. They were finally back in their normal gear, and sadly with their normal weaponry. “We also got traitors to kill, so everyone keep eyes open, we don’t want too open fire on any friendlies.” SSG Alex said over comms.

They were the first ones in, their entire division landed all across the city while a brigade of Airborne and some units belonging to the Horrigan Corps teleported right into the fighting. “So what exactly are we expecting G.U.N. to bring?” Donovan asked as he took a shot of psycho.

“From what I’ve seen from some pics? Full on mechs, shit I want some of those in our military.” Ryan said as Jonah rolled his eyes underneath his helmet as they eventually grouped up with their company. They were also meeting up with a G.U.N. unit.

“Holy sheeet…” Max said underneath his breath as the squad saw some of the G.U.N. Mechs walk past them, with some robots that gave sentry bots a run for their money when it came to armaments. “Why we stealing EggMan’s shit when we can steal those?” Donovan asked and SSG Alex ordered each teams sergeant to quiet them.

Once the squad was inside the checkpoint they were quickly appointed to sentry duty. As they stood guard Jonah made a few notes about the G.U.N. Forces around them, their infantry were a lot less armored than Enclave ones, only having primitive vests, knee guards and helmets for protection.

They also lacked the cybernetic and genetic enhancements every soldier in the Enclave received, improving everything about the normal soldier, along with making them a bit bigger, it was easy to tell what was an Enclave human and a Mobius human. They also lacked the firepower of an Enclave soldier.

Instead of the energy weaponry most Enclave soldiers were equipped with, they instead used ballistic weaponry similar to the early 21st century. It began to make sense, in Jonah’s head at least, why they were beaten down in their war against EggMan. They had the mechs and the bots but their infantry lacked the firepower to effectively punch through badnik armor.

Finally, they were mixed. Mobians and humans together, a disgusting sight. Why would humans lower themselves to work alongside such hideous creatures, made him wonder what the history of this world was. Did humanity lose some war against them? Or did the two species always coexist in this world?

As he continued to think about it, the silence of the area was broken as one of the skyscrapers in the city began to collapse, with multiple others following suite. He listened over comms, no Enclave casualties were confirmed as of yet, and from what snipers have confirmed it seemed some of the heroes had saved Enclave personnel.

‘Finally, they did some good.’ Jonah thought as vertibirds quickly landed to look for survivors and to finish off any mutants could find. Though Jonah did wonder…

Who caused it?