Even an outburst like that could not induce a reaction, for the Major neither smiled nor frowned at it, looking as immovable and impregnable as a fortress all his own. He had dealt with far too many swaggering thugs in his career to be frustrated into careless anger by a civilian who looked and behaved like he'd had trouble graduating from junior high. Ultimately, the only real repercussion Rock got from losing his temper was that he was again ignored.

Besides, for one thing the crow's question was more or less answered somewhere in the diatribe, and they had more important matters to deal with. "Sparky, call the shuttle back down here. 'Bride." He jerked his head to the incoming bad guys at nine o'clock, the same ones the yellow guy had just pointed out.

The alligator and his BFG, a big ol' honkin' minigun of some brand, were more than happy to oblige the implied order. McBride got this look on his face, and for some reason it seemed to unsettle a few of the others because they stepped away from him as he took up position, hoisted the giant, multi-barreled weapon at the baddies, aaand DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD-- "WOOHOOOOOOO SUCK BULLETS MUTHUFUGGAS YEEEAHAHAAA."

It was an interesting spectacle to behold, because the other troops were just sort of held in awe, either by the sight of the incendiary rounds raining fire down on the emerging zombiebots, by McBride's colorful and increasingly tasteless language, or by how the sheer noise may have scrambled their brains worse than anything Eggman could conjure up. Was it any wonder the alligator was reputedly half-deaf?

Incendiary rounds, as dispensed in the volume any conventional weapon would provide, would have probably been insufficient against the seemingly unstoppable machines. Conventional was not the name of the SSD's game. There were probably over a hundred rifle-caliber rounds per second burping, buzzing and farting out of McBride's weapon (with all the aforementioned pleasant, hog-like sounds a minigun comes with), and the sheer volume of fire completely slagged the front lines, and the lines behind them, and the lines behind them, for quite some time to come.

—Except not too long. So many rounds per second certainly meant a supply of ammo on the order of seconds long, and it seemed that, for the moment, there was yet no end visible in sight. The tail end of the parade was still well around the bend, and, refusing to be sheep to the slaughter, many of the machines, especially the more agile ones, were darting up ladders, making rocket-assisted leaps, or otherwise maneuvering their way up to higher ground, and zipping along through the cover it provided. In what seemed like no time flat, the catwalk was rocking and buckling under the force of multiple small squads of rusted, bedraggled-looking Egg Robos that landed all around with such force they nearly broke their own legs (not that it'd matter, since they'd pull right back together, anyway). From the looks of the streaking blue-white lights that followed, their beam pistols still worked fairly well. (At least one seemed to be shooting nothing but sparks, though.)

The humming of the tower meanwhile grew louder. It had long stopped at a mammoth height that looked to be about forty stories, but it wasn't done moving. Lights ignited all over it, while panels began to slide and flip open, platforms all along its sides stretched out, and machinery clicked, whirred, and unfurled. Defensive measures, or functional measures? Hard to be certain yet, because they weren't active—There were a lot of systems in place that needed to rearrange and move around, probably owing to the fact that the whole structure was submersible in magma.

The SSD's drop shuttle reappeared and navigated its way up to to the catwalk where the soldiers had taken position. The mean-looking main gun/cannon situated on its roof swiveled and began lending McBride a hand as he piled it away at the waves of robots by targeting the increasingly frequent stray. With that and a capable missile system at its disposal, the carrier was an added and well-appreciated boost of firepower. Mainly during its development the task force had wanted to lower the chances of it becoming a multi-million dollar coffin.

Its door flipped back open and the troops hopped back in as the catwalk began buckling with the added weight of several unwelcome baddies. Well, most of the troops hopped back in. "'Bride," Cross called.

DDDDDDDD-- "YOU LIKE THIS YEAH I DIDN'T THINK SO OOPS SORRY YOU DIDN'T NEED THAT FACE ANYWAY."

"McBride!" It may have taken a lot for a civilian to provoke the Major, but when it was one of his own troops, the fuse was not of great length. "McBRIDE!!"

DDDDDDDD-- "WHERE YOU GOIN' HUH WHERE YOU GOIN' YOU AIN'T GOIN' NOWHERE WITHOUT SUMMA THIS OH MY GOD DID YOU GUYS SEE THAT."

... The shuttle honked loudly.

DDDD--click "AAAHAHA huh oh crap." And the gator whirled around and lumbered into the shuttle after them.

The main gun continued booming until the door finally flipped shut again and the carrier whipped around to speed away. The monolith more or less appeared to be the chaos zone's epicenter--For the moment finding a way to access the interior was the goal, but judging by the noise the thing was making as well as the appearance changes it was undergoing, most of the men were thankful for their vessel's defensive capabilities.

As they hovered past the monkeys and their buddies, Elegant Joe leaned out the window and waved amiably at Jam.

Somewhere in the shadows, a grumble turned into a long growl; finally, there was a ragged, frustrated, but quiet roar of sorts.

"This is taking for-ev-errr," hissed Eggman from within his Egg Mobile, hovering between a pair of smokestacks on a nearby building. He was still wearing his costume makeup, with all his cobwebs, and his general ragged appearance, but it was as unconvincing as it was in Giant Floating Head form, it was just that much more fake-looking in person.

"I didn't want to reveal myself just yet," he continued, talking to himself (as was unhealthily par the course when he didn't have a Henchman of the Month), "but... Hnnnggggghhhhno. I won't wait. Agh!"

And with that, the rotund grey and black pod rushed forth from its hiding place with a spew of blue thruster wash. Speeding quickly, it made its way out over the battlefield, and stopped abruptly at about the midpoint of the tower, where a platform jutted out, and a door quickly opened. He didn't rush in, though, but instead paused there for a moment to yell things with his loudspeaker. Nevermind the gunfire and constant explosions; his grating voice had a certain ability to cut through it all. However, while he was out there, some of the chaos seemed to relent, and his forces laid back a little, as if to give him more stage presence. All the various, strange-looking weapons on the tower seemed to stand at the ready, panning and whirring, as if anticipating the need to defend their creator.

"You're aaall wasting your tiiime~!" he taunted in nyeah-nyeah-quality sing-song. "I already have all the emeralds—Again—But this time, we play hardball! And no, Sooonic isn't going to save you all today! Even if he did show up, it's already over. This time, you'll be happy to give control over to me, because you won't want me to take it the hard way, heh heh hehhh."

"So!" he shouted as he suddenly stood up in his seat, and thrust a giddy, jittering finger toward the transport ship. "You military mmmmorons!" (He seemed to have a hard time finding any particularly cutting alliteration for that one, but did not lose step despite the frailty of the insult he ultimately came up with.) "Stand at attention! I have a message for you to deliver."

Despite the door dropping shut, there was a sound coming from inside not entirely unlike that of a runaway express train blaring the horn at whatever was in its path. And this sound got louder and louder and louder until it finally couldn't possibly be any louder without its source having to do something about that door.

And if you don't think it did, your crystal ball's batteries need changing, because Silver Sonic smashed right through it Juggernaut-style without so much as slowing down. An explosion of door fragments rained everywhere around the group as the biggest, meanest linebacker any of them would ever see came careening right into their faces. Cue absolute chaos unraveling before them as its fist started swinging at every monkey, kangaroo rat, chao, and hedgehog in sight, while the left hand spat plasma toroids all over the place. Dust and debris still hung in the air, byproducts of its choice of entrance.