Knuckles grunted forcefully as his fist barely missed its mark. Whatever these things were, they didn't seem to be your average robots-- maybe not even of Eggman's own creation. They were actually sensible enough to avoid him whenever he came barreling through. Even to Knuckles, something just seemed... off. There was really no other way to describe it. Briefly, he thought of using the word 'swirly', but concluded that it didn't make any sense, and wasn't important enough to worry about anyway. So instead, he continued chasing after his foe with renewed determination.

And he pursued alright. The storage tank Rock hid behind pushed aside with such ease, it might as well have been a curtain blocking a view to sunlight. His fist sunk deeply into the metal, and with a brutal heave, it was flung about the room (with one hand!) like a Frisbee, crashing into a wall on the other side of the area. With his prey exposed, one most fist reared back for an explosive straight, when quite abruptly, he recoiled violently. A sudden explosion of light in the otherwise dim-lit cave seared might have through his pupils if he didn't shield his eyes first.

And just as he opened them again and shook himself off, he... heard something. His curiosity piqued, he attempted to maintain some kind of a stance as he half-covered himself from the blaze, and shouted with no absence of aggression:

"...Who are you!?"

Where had Eggman been all that time? Normally, he liked to watch and oversee his battles, gloat in his victories, and all those good things, but for once, he'd kept busy—Not too busy to watch and gloat from afar, mind you, perhaps from a computer screen, but nonetheless busy, and it became very apparent as numerous antenna-like towers telescoped to point at the central Eggman structure standing over the portal. There was a whir and a whine, then a low rumble; an unbelievable, assaultive sound spanning what felt like the entire audible spectrum and beyond in both directions began to vibrate and shake the floor; gem dust fell from the ceiling, and the whole cavern, for a moment, seemed to thrum and vibrate, while a piercing whine felt like it might just cause the entire thing to shatter in an instant. The antennae shook, and electricity flickered and spat across them, while debris near their vicinity began to swirl around, and equipment fell over. It almost felt like the entire, mile-wide room was shifting under the force of the incredible energy being transferred...

It all stopped in a flash, and something shot straight down out of the bottom of the central structure, firing into the portal. Once, twice, three times, then more, until six individual blasts rocketed through, followed by one last, huge seventh beam. Then, silence.

Then followed more of that oh-ho-ho-so-lovable laugh. Sure enough, Eggman floated high above, resting in his Egg Mobile just a short distance from the front of his tower. Now, however, it was wildly equipped; what looked like a huge, convex lens was integrated with a round pod attached to the lower front of the vehicle. Additional silvery pods were bolted onto its sides, sporting strange looking equipment—Weaponry of some kind, for sure, but highly unconventional. The one in the left pod appeared somewhat like a classic scifi-TV ray gun, replete with rings surrounding a central rod, but it was pointed straight up for some reason, while the other weapon pod looked more like it housed an oddly-shaped missile pod.

"That was incredible!" exclaimed Eggman joyously, still jiggling with laughter. "Hohhh! Oh, I can't believe it, you- ahah, ahah, hooooh, you, you practically wiped yourselves out! I never expected for a second you'd be dumb enough to fill your pockets with the- the--"

He couldn't even finish the sentence. He was almost laughing himself to tears. Actually, he was; he was wiping the corners of his eyes as he struggled to collect himself and finish talking. Eventually, he pressed his chuckles and chortles down to a level where he could talk, but he still let loose a gritty little giggle once in a while.

"If I'd known you were all so incompetent, I would've just labeled a big pile of it 'free candy' and been finished with you all ages ago...! But! I digress, because now it's time to show you what I've done."

An evil scheme was nothing without Show & Tell Time.

"You'll never guess. Come on! Ask me!"

"... How will you stop my plans if you don't even know what they are?" Eggman asked Knuckles very placidly, as if speaking to a child. "You should be glad that I'm the monologuing type of genius, or else you'd never even have a chance to appreciate the things I do, much less stop them," he added as he leaned casually over the edge of the Egg Mobile, dangling an arm.

"Anyway, since I'm so sporting, I'll just go ahead and—Oooh, wait. That's right! You can't stop my plans this time because I've already finished them! But who am I to not brag on a job well done, right?!"

Eggman began fussing with something in front of his seat, in the Egg Mobile.

"Remember how I said I had the Chaos and Sol Emeralds? Well. They weren't good enough to support my future empire. They're too passé—So cliché, so overused. So, using the dimensional instability of this geode, and the power of the Master Emerald," he paused and looked at Knuckles with a big, jeering grin, "I made them into something better!"

He suddenly stood up in his seat and put a foot on the edge of the Egg Mobile, rocking the entire vehicle around in the process, and triumphantly thrust a glowing, sparkling, deep blue, pear-cut gem high above his head.

"Behold, the first Chaosol Emerald!" he declared with great glee. "The name is still tentative," the portly man added more quietly in disclaimer, but somehow did so without shifting his facial expression at all. "These new emeralds are so unstable that even I don't know the full extent of their power! But, I intend to find out," he said sinisterly, suddenly leering down at the group with a nasty face, "and I don't intend for some ragtag, back-alley riff-raff to get lucky, so I've already sent the other six to secure locations where no one will ever find them."

He plopped back down in his seat, jammed the emerald back into the console, and started hovering down toward the group. "So, enough explanation! Why don't we have a demonstration?!"

As always, Eggman thought what he said was incredibly amusing, and proceeded to laugh for everyone to hear. Obligatory villain thing, perhaps, or maybe he really was just that pleased with himself.

Knuckles merely released a brief, quiet growl of defeat when the doctor asked for his plans for counter-plans. When introduced to the 'Chaosol' emeralds, his expression immediately bore deep concern, followed by a rapidly twitching brow. This was probably the closest thing to echidna blasphemy the doctor had ever done, and more likely than not, one of the stupidest as well. Combining two sources of limitless power. Had the doctor learned nothing from his previous, oh-so-scarily-similar exploits? It was enough to make the emerald guardian lose a small degree of his composure, if only shown by his muttering of "Idiot...!"

"Why don't we have a demonstration?!"

"Why don't you shut up!?""

And then there came Ace, with other plans. He darted up in Eggman's direction, but he wasn't so suicidal as to hop in fists flying, and he wasn't about to dive down into the portal below, either. No, he was merely getting a two-step running start. And anyone standing near where he was a second ago, just might have heard the pin drop. As he flung his arm forward, so too did fly the hand grenade Rock handed him earlier, glowing intensely blue, soaring through the air at unreasonable speeds-- straight at Eggman's bulbous nose.

The resulting explosion was nothing short of massive.

As Eggman rushed in on the group, he couldn't really tell what Ace was trying to do, but he was confident and unconcerned about it. The odd, antenna-like weapon on the left side of the craft glowed, and a shimmering sphere of blue, protective energy appeared all around the Egg Mobile just as the grenade struck. The explosive force was tremendous, not just because of the grenade itself, but more because of how its explosives combined with Ace's charging ability created something highly volatile and energetic. Yet, it seemed to do nothing but bounce the Egg Mobile back, sending it into a teetering hover not far from the hole beneath the tower.

"Hah, it'll take more than" *Boom.*

The blue shield around Eggman had intensified suddenly, and then the shield-generating unit positioned right next to his seat burst, blackening that one hemisphere of the doctor's face, and pointing that half of his mustache straight skyward. He sat there for a second, stunned, with his head cocked sideways from the force, and ear presumably ringing like a bell.

He opened his mouth to speak, but before he could, the control panel in front of him began to spew sparks, and the container the emerald was held in glowed a little too vividly. Eggman had said the new emeralds were unstable, and he wasn't kidding; just using its power had apparently fried the Egg Mobile's electronics, because new shorts in its circuitry were forming, and more things were flashing, bursting into flame, and spewing smoke.

The Egg Mobile dropped the remaining thirty feet to the metal floor below, denting it, while Eggman hacked, and choked, and coughed. He wielded a little mini-fire-extinguisher as best he could, and stomped flickering flames that were starting in the upholstery. It sounded like he was trying to curse, but couldn't quite get the breath to, so he sufficed to growl loudly.

... But then something bad happened. There was a distinct *ka-CHUNK* noise from above. Dusty showers of crystal began to rain down.

*Chunk-chunk. Krrnnnnnnk. k'chunk.*

Cracks shot and weaved around and between the support staples on the ceiling. Loose chunks fell; Eggman looked on with horror. There was a moment when it seemed like the whole roof was just going to come down, and there'd be no escaping it for anyone, portal or not.

It stopped, though.

"... Hwwhhhooo..." he croaked in relief.

Then a small geyser of lava burst through a seam in the metal floor beneath him instead, ("HAAAAAGGHHHHHH!!"). Egg Mobile superheated to a rosy, blazing-ass-hot red in a matter of seconds. Eggman abandoned ship in about negative one second, leaping out and beyond the running edges of the growing lava puddle with agility the likes of which were not commonly seen from a man of his weight. As he flailed and stumbled away from it, the entire vehicle just plain exploded, and the glowing blue emerald twirled, tumbled, and clinked to rest not but a few yards from where the rest of the party stood.

Eggman looked both shaken and utterly enraged as he whirled to a stop, heaving heavy breaths and coughing.

"What a... what a load of... hackghhh..." *Wheeeeze.*