The command center looked like a warzone. A big section of floor was charred, warped and sagging, as if partially turned to slag. Smoke was billowing up through the glowing, yellow, cylinder-shaped isolation field, which flickered occasionally, but dutifully hummed along, doing its job for at least a little while longer.

Ugly as it was, living bodies rained off the tower-like command center platform, propelled out of the isolation field by the blast. They plummeted to the distant metal floor below. Seven's bomb in that comparatively small area was overkill, no question. The power was so much that even his own cover didn't protect him fully; the black-clad troublemaker lay under a bent, shredded, fully-blown-out computer terminal, which appeared to have been torn out of the floor and knocked over atop him, partially pinning him down.

Seven sat up tenderly, clutching at an arm, grimacing, and looking entirely worse for wear in every possible way. He nonetheless lifted the console enough to pull his leg out from under it, rolled over face-down, and pushed himself up onto his knees with considerable effort. He appeared to be experiencing some mix of pain and satisfaction, and coughed every time he started to laugh, and winced behind his grins.

"... Biometric analysis interface ready," said the computer's voice. The system was somehow still operable. A probe-like structure with a single, glassy-looking lens on the underside extended from the distant ceiling above, and began projecting a circle of blue, grid-lined light that encompassed the command chair and a space of twenty-five feet around it on all sides. "Please approach the center of the platform."

There was only one individual remaining besides Seven: a particular red bird, immune to the fiery effects of the blast, but shaken from her position by the shockwave, was deposited against another busted-up terminal very similar (and very near) to the one Seven had just wrestled off himself. What would happen when the two realized one another's presence remained to be seen.

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"N-nuh uh!" shouted Seven as he lunged to his feet, only to fall to one knee first, scramble, and then start limping after the bird. One hand clutched across his abdomen while the other drew the machinepistol hanging from his thigh holster and leveled it at Ember's back.

"Stop! I'll shoot, ImeanitIreallywillSTOP!"

It seemed that, for whatever reason, Seven actually hesitated to shoot a running girl in the back. In his desperation, he chased all the faster, willing away his limp and actually gaining on her; as it would turn out, unless Ember turned back or stopped, they'd reach the center ring at almost the same time. Needless to say, this would delay the analysis process.

Seven was alarmed by her sudden rush, and, with eyes wide, he staggered back and squeezed the trigger in a death grip. Shots rattled off like a buzz, muzzle strobing; in but a couple seconds, the weapon was dry, chamber locked open. Not a single round did a thing to the flaming orb surrounding Ember, and but a second later, the boy was knocked for a loop, sent sailing out of the circle and tumbling across the ground by her fiery rush. It was beginning to seem like some kind of a pattern that he didn't fare terribly well against girls with shield rings.

His empty weapon slid free and useless across the floor, and he laid there dazed, his hair singed, and his already-black jumpsuit just a little more sooty. He was still conscious, however, and given the opportunity, would pull himself back up by his bootstraps once again. He may have been a wimp, but he was a determined one.

Seven's hand rested on his knife's grip.

"You burn me and I'll cut you back," he threatened cockily, but seriously. "You know I'm fast enough. We don't have to do it this way, seriously."

His orange eyes glanced aside, toward the still-blocked-off stairway. He looked back to her seriously, and his tone changed and became more down-to-earth.

"Humor me for a second, instead, here, and just tell me something seriously. Those people you came with — are they your friends?"

"Well... why don't we be friends, then?" he asked with as much of a shrug as he could manage in the position, lowering his hand from his knife by a couple inches. "I've watched you some. You like burning things. I want to burn specific things — to make the world a better place. Things like Eggman's factories, my old GUN bosses' facilities..." He raised his eyebrows hopefully. "I'm a good planner, you've... got fire...? We could really make it work."

As soon as she went to throw that punch, he went for his knife.

Throwing fiery punches wasn't so much just about burning, though; the aura of chaos energy surrounding such a blow was repulsive (in the pushing sense, not the disgusting sense) and powerful; his attempt at a slash collided with her punch and was plainly, harmlessly overpowered, sending his weapon flying, and bathing him in a quick blast of fire from the gut outward that made him shout quite... shrilly.

Not a lot of dignity, there, but it was hard to preserve it when being burned.

Seven rolled over onto his side and smoldered. She could pretty easily take more shots at him if she wanted, but it looked like he wasn't going to move too soon. He could be removed from the ring.

It all seemed so simple. Just like that, it was done; Seven was ejected from the running, Ember waltzed into the central area, and...

"Biometric analysis complete."

... It was done. But now what?



"What is your command?"

The floor opened directly under Ember, dropping her haplessly into the seat of a waiting Egg Mobile, which rose up and out of the deck of its own accord, hovering silently. It was open-topped, but one could only assume that Eggman's escape vehicle of choice had the necessary equipment for spaceflight.

(Ember was utterly dwarfed by the big, leather seat.)

"Understood. Beginning full evacuation," the computer said. Except... it started moving robots around and out rather than her friends. It maaay have misunderstood.