Coop’s head emerged from the clambering swarm of intransigent robotic hijinks at the sound of Seven’s voice.

“You,” he said, and then, “HIM,” and then, “RrrrGGHGH,” and subsequently, "HRRRGHAHGG.”

He thrashed about angrily in the stygian abyss of flailing robotic extremities, heaving and lurching like an angry bull trying to lose itself from a tether as he fought to escape the remains of the dog-pile.

Between Coop and Big, suffice to say the Egg Pawns were sufficiently wrecked for this to be accomplished. The eagle was out of opposition quickly.

Coop hurtled out of the deleterious entranglement of a million androidal carcasses and rushed into the room like an angry, storm-coloured bullet. He skidded to a stop in the darkness of the room, staring around angrily at the shadows.

“Hrmph,” he grunted.

“We all knew it was going to come to this,” he muttered to the people around him.

“I guess we’re either going to wait him out or we’re going to die here.”

Then, he spoke aloud.

“So—we did what you said, and guess what, here you are, sitting in the control room, waiting for us to put you in charge."

"And your alternative?" Seven replied, still from the same position in the dark. "No—I'm really asking. Your alternative? You? The lunatic bomber terrorist with a political agenda? No? Maybe the bioweapon-run-amok space hedgehog? I read plenty of interesting comments on him in GUN's files. Oh — or perhaps you were considering Fishsticks over there."

“Well, maybe a wimp could rule a world better than an abandoned lab experiment with a messiah complex. Ever think of that, you insane little clown?"

The shot rang out uselessly. (As aforementioned, the room was dark to the point of being pitch black in most places, and Seven was not visible. Desmond was as likely to shoot Shadow as he was Seven.)

"I know you think you have me pegged, but really, do you even hear yourselves?" asked the boy, his voice still coming from somewhere off to the left. "Do you think about the things you say before you say them? If you give complete global domination to some thoughtless simpleton, they'll just lose it to someone cunning and wicked enough to take it. If you give power to a 'wimp,' all you're really doing is giving power to the next bully who comes along and takes it from him. It's sad, but true; the world is a playground run by a hierarchy of bullies. All we can do is put the most powerful, but least destructive one at the top."

"I'm only telling you the way it's going to be," Seven replied smugly to Mako. "It's not like any of you can change it. If you were able, then I wouldn't be the best option, now would I?"

An explosion came from the darkness somewhere just feet above Shadow's head. It wasn't a conventional detonation, though — rather than heat, shrapnel, or shockwave, there were bluish streaks of light, and a cold, numbing sensation. It was a stasis grenade, another relic of Nocturnus tech. Apparently, Seven had gotten his hands on some of the equipment Rock turned in to Dr. Eggman as well.

Just a split second later, another one fell toward the main gathering of the group near the chamber's entryway, though this one clattered on the floor before bursting. If anyone was caught in it, they may have found themselves well-immobilized.


"Orbital launch ignition in: 15 seconds," Eggman's computer meanwhile chattered in the background. The more human-sounding voice that seemed to come from Seven's program spoke up, too. "Biometric analysis interface calibration complete. Executing. ... Error: Biometric analysis interface unavailable during emergency-level system operations. Current emergency-level system operations include: 'emergency orbital launch'. Retry after the preceding processes have been completed or terminated."

The sudden burst of blue light illuminated the black outline of Shadow, and a moment before it faded, anyone paying attention would see his body slump to floor almost immediately.

Geoff, meanwhile, stood amongst the others, having remained mostly silent in the proceedings of accusations and explanations. To him, most of the babble seemed quite pointless; there wasn't any reason to argue with the kid. They already knew there goal, and the general opinion for Seven was at an all time low. Not like it didn't already hit rock bottom ages ago, though.

But now he watched wide eyed at the new point of light, watching their one-man-army fall just like that.

"Shi-!"

The curse was barely out before the green hedgehog had enough sense to leap out of the way once the tapping of grenade against floor began. Just in time, too, it seemed. He felt the chill of the explosion on his back, but he just kept moving now. Who said the kid didn't have more of those things?

Yet he was going in blind as he ran towards the area Seven had been boasting from. Unless they managed to find some proper lighting, this would only be a mess. It didn't stop his run, however, as he continued to sprint forward (perhaps foolishly).

Coop turned, he lurched away in shock, he lunged to escape the blast radius of the inbound grenade, and then he

just

sort

of

stopped

It was a good thing Geoff had his armor up, because, as with all things Seven-related, it was a trap. Seven's voice had merely been coming out of a console on the other side of the room. When Geoff arrived at it in the blinding darkness, he would find that console had another motion-activated mine stuck to it.

Thoom went the flash and flame as another supersonic shockwave rocked the chamber. It seemed the hedgehogs were getting the brunt of Seven's explosive mayhem thus far.

"You can't even find me, much less fight me," his voice called from another dim corner of the room. (They'd have to be equally dim to try pursuing it, though.)

It was as though someone had suddenly flipped a switch and turned on the lightning.

Noisily crackling, and radiant with lashing tendrils of electricity, Jam appeared abruptly before them all, with arms raised, stretching palms-out toward the sphere's surface, as though she were physically maintaining the barrier.

The room was bathed in the white, flickering light, everything unveiled at once — for anyone whose eyes could adjust to it quickly enough, anyway. It became clear enough that Seven wasn't anywhere to be found on the floor, but that's why the shots that soon came out of nowhere all went toward the ceiling.

Above, conduits, pipes, and lighting fixtures hung in great, gnarled masses. A flurry of gunshots, fired from a directed energy pistol of some sort, came from a previously (seemingly) unoccupied section of floor, up toward that tangled mess of infrastructure. With a shout and an inelegant tumble, Seven fell from his perch.

The shots had been fired from a blurry figure who then became visible as his cloak failed (presumably the result of firing a gun while using it). His white primate form fuzzed into view, semitransparent at first, then solid: Rock. Though he still wore his dark red Eggman Army uniform (or half-wore it, anyway, as he usually did), hidden beneath his waist-tied sleeves he had the inconspicuous addition of a jet-black, high-tech-looking Nocturnus warp belt around his waist, just like the specimens the others had been examining back at their camp.

Seven landed on his feet in a with a crisp clack of his boots against the metal floor and stumbled several steps as he ripped a pair of nightvision goggles off his face, revealing his watering, squinting eyes. The gunshots had all actually missed, and served only to rattle him down from his hiding place while he was still disoriented by the sudden light.

Wearing a tastefully understated smirk, and an overstatedly tasteless pullover atop her own red uniform, the searing simian stepped closer, no doubt exacerbating the boy's myodesopsia (she took special care to approach from Seven's front).

"Well, now we can all see each other. Problem solved."