Retaking Angel Island?

As Neo Metal Sonic was taking his quarry back to Angel Island, the Restoration HQ was now filled with an assembled liberation group/rescue party: Gemerl, Shadow, Rouge, Charmy, Blaze, and a brave if foolhardy lemur called Tangle, whom Sonic had befriended when freeing a town from some criminals the day before Espio called him. The ninja chameleon and Vector weren't with them, having been forced by their friends to stay at the hospital after having their ribcages crushed by an Eggbot. They couldn't come with them, but at least they would know what happened.

They had expected Shadow to rant about, but he instead stood silent on a spot. As for Gemerl, he didn't say anything and simply waited for the mission, but something told them that he didn't believe Eggman would betray them, at least not if it would put Vanilla and Cream in danger.

Unfortunately, that didn't stop Knuckles from freaking out when they finally discovered what did Metal Sonic do to his home.

Turn it into a heavily defended base of operations... and a shrine to old Eggman, if the giant, smiling statue depicting the doctor when he was still evil was anything to go by.

"Metal Sonic has taken over my island!" Knuckles raged. "Turned it into a flying fortress covered in guns and everything, and that... that thing on top of the Emerald! Never should have left!"

"If you think you're angry, imagine how furious Eggman is." Tails pointed out. "The family that believed him and gave him a place to live being kidnapped by a doppelganger of him, getting the blame of the attack blame pinned on him if only for a few minutes..."

"Are you really sure that Eggman didn't do it?" Blaze asked. "He had pulled similar stunts in the past know."

"Yeah!" The peppy lemur that accompanied them, Tangle, chimed in. "It sounds a bit crazy. I mean, the long-life enemy of Sonic deciding to permanently switch sides and no one thinking that he could just be faking it?"

"We did at first... until he went into a coma for saving Cream and her mother. You just don't risk your life like that just to keep a charade up. And his reaction when we told him they were kidnapped." Amy replied, remembering how furious Eggman became when Knuckles accused him, and the short but loud scream of rage Eggman made before communication with the base was cut off, very possibly because of him. "Besides, he can't be in two places at the same place."

"Well, I suppose we could give him the benefit of doubt, at least until something else happens."

Eventually, the group decided to go to the island themselves rather than wait for Sonic, Silver and Eggman, using the battleship they had repurposed as shuttle. The only ones that wouldn't come with them were those that had not gone to HQ: Espio, Vector, and E-123 Omega. Well, in Omega's case, they decided to not call him in case they met with the others; the last thing they needed was war machine with a serious grudge against its creator and a superstrong genius that didn't even remember making him but would be more than willing to fight back trying to destroy each other.

"So, Eggman's taken Omega's rifle as his?" Rouge said with a smile as she, Shadow, Tangle and Charmy waited in one of the ship's many rooms. "I'd be surprised if the big guy, and I mean Omega, didn't rip him in half for that."

"After seeing Eggman kick plenty of butt, I pretty much doubt that Omega will even make him feel bad before he conks him in the head so badly that he ends up in another continent." Charmy replied.

Shadow said nothing, simply leaning against the metal wall and meditating about the future, naturally focusing on Eggman, while also trying to ignore the pain on his still broken hand. Despite having an accelerated healing factor, the injury Eggman gave him didn't heal any faster, which confused him to no end.

A few minutes later, Tails called everyone to the bridge. At first the group thought they were about to arrive to Angel Island. However, what really happened shocked them.

They were still too far away from the floating island, but even then they could see it in the horizon, or at least the parts that the storm clouds didn't get in front of. No, the fox had called them because there was something on their way, between their ship and the island. Sure, Tails could have just flied over or below it. Problem was, the UFO was not another aircraft.

Well, not exactly"

"Is that a... giant flying spider?" Amy said when Tails brought up a camera and zoomed on the thing.

"A giant, mechanical spider that flies because it has rotors on its sides, to be exact." Blaze pointed out.

"Tails, can we communicate with whoeve's piloting it?" Amy asked before Tangle shoved her face between them. However, before Tails could reply, Tangle gave a small cry and ran to the window.

"Wait, look, over there!" The lemur said, pointing at the flying arachnid-shaped mech, which hadn't stopped flying. Even at that distance, it was big enough to be discerned. "The spider's doing something! It's reacting!"

A bit obvious, but still, no one could blame her. After all, a spider walker that flied was a bit crazy, even for them.

Despite the distance between them and island, they could see one of the many ships hovering near Angel Island adopt an interception course as it approached the flying machine... only for it to be destroyed with stupid ease by Eggman's aircraft (at this point it was obvious he had built it, somehow), with some kind of laser weapon, creating a blue beam that not only annihilated the airship, but also struck the island behind it and broke a small but still noticeable piece of dirt and rock off it, all accompanied by a thunder-like roar that came from the gun when it fired, and so powerful that it overpowered whatever actual thunderclaps the storm made.

And then Knuckles roared too, only his roar was closer to the screech of a million scratched vinyl records. Well, a thousand, but the idea is the same.

"MY ISLAAAND!!!"

Didn't help at tall that he was in the bridge too.