Inside the Relic Spire, Badniks and Swatbots were being deployed by the dozen, preparing their weapons and readying themselves for battle as the base was invaded. But no robot could prepare enough for what was coming. They were expecting one hedgehog. But instead, they got six Hexis.
The lights fizzled, leaving the robots in the dark. Metallic clangs echoed throughout the metal walls of the ruined ancient Zeti structure. "Thanks for the lights, Zor!" Zoga's voice exclaimed as she immobilized the robots. "Q: what gives these buckets of bolts the right to be on Robotnik's front lines? BZZT WRONG WRONG WRONG!" When the lights came back to life, the six Hexis had taken complete control of all the robots. "That's gonna be a point deduction." Zoga let out a sadistically-timed loud laugh track.
"I'm more concerned about why we didn't do this sooner," Zik stated, not even needing to use her magnetic manipulation to take control. She just had to strut through, simply intimidating the robots into obedience through her glare. "We could have taken back Relic Spire AGES ago if this is all the fight they've got."
Suddenly, a huge Gustav Turtle bot marched slowly into the room. The floor shook as it took aim with the giant cannon on its shell. Zeena tried to control it, but it didn't stop. "This Super Badnik must be EM-shielded," Zeena stated. "What are we even supposed to do against it?!" Suddenly, a large rocket was fired at the Gustav Turtle. It blew the protective shell into little bits. Zeena looked over to Zazz, who had a bazooka. Zazz looked on towards the computer carnage she had inflicted upon the once mighty Super Badnik. She remained blank for a few seconds, until a grin grew on her face and her irises shrunk.
"WOO-HA-HA!" Zazz cackled, jumping up and shooting countless rockets from her bazooka towards some Robo Hammer Super Badniks, blowing them up effortlessly. Zeena shanked a kebab of robot carcasses on her energy beams, and started to bash the Gustav Turtle with its own allies. "We're making fireworks tonight! HAPPY NEW YEAR'S, LET'S GET EFFED UP!" She laughed uncontrollably over the sound of explosions. When there were no Super Badniks left, she began to sweat at the sight of the mechanical massacre. She turned around, blushing profusely from the unbearable bloodlust in the very core of her heart. "Ahah… sorry…" She took a deep breath, and regained control of herself.
"You're all making it hard to keep up…" Zor sighed, surrounding herself with Glooms. "Luckily, I don't feel like doing anything today." The Glooms departed from her side and took control of all the robots in the room. "This'll do."
Zomom spun through elegantly, tagging all the Badniks with her hands and turning them to the side of the Hexis through a more effective and longer-lasting direct control. "Weee! This is fun!" She exclaimed through laughter. Eventually, all the Badniks in the room were under the Hexis' control.
"My Glooms are headed for the rest of the spire," Zor stated. "We have some time to kill while they take control of the other robots for us."
"The good ol' doctor taught us how to mass-produce Badniks," Zik ruminated, sitting down on top of a Motobug and crossing her legs. "There's plenty here, but… couldn't we make more for the invasion of Lava Mountain? This factory is still full of materials, and if we ever need extra parts…" Zik looked to the Motobug she sat upon. It averted its now purple eyes nervously.
Hours later, Zavok parked her Dragon Mech at the entrance of Relic Spire. She gave it a pat on the head, and jumped down onto the mossy stone walkway. She walked towards the moai-like doors with the unconscious Sonic on her shoulder. "C'mon, open up…" she whispered. The mouth of the moai opened, and Zavok saw Zomom on the other side. "Hello, Zomom!" Zavok exclaimed. Zomom looked uncharacteristically miffed. "What's… wrong?"
"Why would you turn back from the Dark Battery? Just to fight Sonic? You were so close to saving us all!" Zomom scolded, crossing her arms.
"I… wanted to make sure Robotnik didn't hurt you," Zavok answered, looking down in shame. "I'm sorry. I screwed everything up."
"Well, it's gonna be a lot harder to restore life to Erius now," Zomom sighed. "But… I guess I can't be too mad at you for being concerned. We have things under control in here. C'mon in." Zavok knew this feeling was going to sting for a while.
"Wait… 'restore' life to Erius?" Zavok asked. "How in the world are we gonna do that?"
"Well, that's the hard part. Tails has been captured, so we'll have to improvise. Sonic should know a little about how to reverse the Dark Battery since he worked under Robotnik for so long," Zomom stated. "Of course, there's no guarantee he'll be able to crack the code before… y'know."
They rounded a corner, and entered the factory room. "Zavok!!!" The rest of the Deadly Seven exclaimed, rushing in and hugging Zavok.
"Whoa, hey guys!" Zavok laughed. "Glad to see you're all okay!"
"We were… worried about you," Zeena murmured. She paused for a while. Zavok felt like Zeena was debating with herself on whether or not to say anything more. "How's Sonic?"
"He'll live," Zavok stated. "So… what's the plan? The Dark Battery will lock in two hours, giving us one hour to stand around doing nothing until it explodes."
"So… it'll render us unable to do anything except wait for death…" Zor sighed. "... Sounds nice."
"What did we just talk about?" Zomom asked. "That's a bad thing." She sighed tiredly. "Okay… our plan is to clear the way through to the Dark Battery's mainframe in Lava Mountain, no doubt it's highly guarded by Robotnik's forces. But it's the closest terminal that we can use to shut down the Dark Battery. There's no way we'll make it to the others in time. The doctor will probably try to kill us when we invade even though nobody wants Erius dead, so expect a fight. We can't let him revive it just to take it over."
"But there's too many Badniks for us to control, even all at once," Zavok stated. "It's pretty risky." She heard a loud motor revving, and tires screeching.
"VROOOM! That's what we're here for!" A robot girl who resembled one of Robotnik's Badniks exclaimed, doing donuts around Zavok. She had a tire where there probably should have been legs.
"What… are you?" Zavok asked, irked. She noticed the girl's eyes were purple. "Hey… did you all make a new kind of Badnik?" She turned to her friends.
"Not necessarily. I'm a Motobug I-I-I mean a Hexed Motobug. I like to go fast, kick ass and never finish last," the robot girl chattered. "I was transformed from a normal Motobug by these Hexis just a few minutes ago. I'm on your side!" The Hexed Motobug jumped up and down.
"You said 'we'... where are the others?" Zavok asked. Zomom chuckled. Multiple overhead lights powered on upon her snapping her fingers, revealing an entire army of Hexed Badniks. They all were similar to the Motobug in that they all resembled Hexis now. "Whoa… we've got quite the team now, don't we?" Zavok smirked.
"Yeah! They're all going to help with the attack on Lava Mountain," Zik exclaimed.
"Mhm! With me on the job, the life will be restored to Erius in no time at all!" Hexed Motobug bragged. "After all, I am the fastest."
"Haha… what?" Sonic asked. Zavok freaked out and instinctively went through the steps of suplexing him, but stopped midway through. Sonic jumped out of her arms and landed on her as she hit the floor. "Ever heard of me? I'm Sonic the Hedgehog and I'm the fastest thing alive!"
"SONIC!!" The other Hexis cried.
"If there's a way to save Amy and everyone else down on Erius, you better believe I'm in," Sonic stated. "You up for a race, Motobug girl?" Sonic asked.
"Yeah!" Motobug replied. "It would be well, an HONOR!"
"Then let's go! There's no time to waste," Sonic exclaimed. "That means all of us!" He rushed off, and Motobug followed not far behind.
"Ah! I wasn't expecting him to take off like that," Zomom laughed. "C'mon, Zavok! We need your Dragon Mech to even try to keep up, so let's go!" Everyone ran out of Relic Spire, into the forest. As the other Hexis left, Zik grabbed seven strange fruits from a tree. She smirked, and boarded the Dragon Mech with the others.
Later, in Lava Mountain Zone, the Badniks patrolling Robotnik Castle stopped and looked to the horizon, where there appeared to be a huge dragon-like silhouette taking form in the ash. They were so distracted by the Dragon Mech that they didn't know what hit them until the entirety of the front lines had been completely destroyed. "Heh… not bad, ladybug!" Sonic exclaimed, running side by side with Motobug while they crashed through Robotnik's army.
Hexed Buzz Bombers took to the skies to pierce the freshly deployed Robo Fleet with lasers, the small little bee robots ganging up on the larger ships and taking them down one by one. "Okay, there's a clear shot towards Robotnik Castle. Ivo's keeping Tails there," Zor muttered.
"Good, at least we know where to find him!" Zomom exclaimed. She held her communicator and called Sonic. "Sonic, get Tails out of Robotnik's castle while we cover you!"
"Got it!" Sonic replied, as Hexed Rollers spun all around and took out the normal Robo Pawns, clearing a path for them. "Well, let's call it a tie, Motobug." Sonic turned to Motobug, and waved. "See ya later!"
"Well bye!" Motobug replied, making a u-turn and joining the other Hexed Motobugs in slashing at and running over Robotnik's forces.
"Don't worry, Tails," Sonic thought to himself, his confidence falling from his face but not his heart and mind. "I'll do anything it takes to find you."
Meanwhile, inside Robotnik Castle, Tails had been breathing heavily and occasionally coughing. He was shackled to a metal slab, and couldn't control his thoughts or instinctive struggle to break away from the slab. His tails had been encased in some kind of material they couldn't slice through.
"Ah ah ah, Tails," Robotnik's voice echoed throughout the room on the intercom. "I suggest you don't tire yourself out trying to escape. I don't need you passing out before Sonic inevitably arrives to try and ruin my plans." Tails didn't say a word, and hissed with every breath. "After all, you do want to see your friend one more time before you are nothing more than a robotic slave, correct…?" Tails looked away from the camera, trying to hide his face. Ten seconds passed. "You can't even say? Funny. Did you have a disagreement? A falling out? Did your friendship finally break? Be thankful. You'll hurt less that way when I make you kill him as a mindless machine."
"Screw you!" Tails screamed at Robotnik, struggling to break away once more until his energy ran out. He could feel his heart beating out of his chest.
"When you replaced my AI chip on Angel Island, I didn't know if it would even be worth existing anymore," Robotnik muttered. "I was so scared. I was trapped in a state of limbo between two completely different personalities. I was in pain knowing that what I was doing wasn't what the real me would have wanted. It was Hell! And now, I'm going to put you through that very same suffering. I was planning on doing this later, but times have grown dire. And you're not making this any fun. You could be a good pawn for me to use in this little game against the Hexis, and I'm implementing a beta version of my new Fusion technology that lets my machines bond with others. This is so life can be returned to Erius. You will save the world below so I can conquer it. Your Roboticized form will be the beginning of a new world under my rule, the end of the prior world and all that came before. It will be the dark and the light. The alpha and the omega. The harbinger of the Robotnik Empire. Goodbye, you horrid fox. It's been a pleasure working with you for all these years. And it always will be."
"No, no! I don't want to be a robot!" Tails shouted, as the metal slab he was stuck to was encased in a shell. He could hear crashing sounds and metal grinding together. "SONIC! WHERE ARE—?!" A blood-curdling scream could be heard through the electric zaps from within the shell, as the Roboticization process began.