16 Aim Low

Eggman was attacking. Again. It was basically no surprise since he usually did this every day. But today was another story....

The sound of Sonic slicing off a robotic arm was heard from a distance, and a second later, a robotic arm fell to the ground. Eggman stepped up to it. He glared at Team Sonic, however, Penny noticed it was a little less threatening than usual.

"You may have defeated my Scorpion Bot, but I've got one more trick up my sleeve!" He said. He pressed a button, and out popped a huge robot with some sort of radar dish. Eggman laughed as it fired up slowly. "Just give it a sec! Needs to warm up."

However, before the so-called trick even happened, Sonic destroyed it in seconds flat. Eggman stared at it dumbfounded as Sonic walked past him with a smirk. "Still waiting on that trick!"

Eggman grumbled, slumping as he walked over to his Egg mobile. Penny raised a brow at this. Usually, Eggman was all fired up and yelling threatening things at them.

But not today.

Sonic frowned at the gang. "Is it just me, or has Eggman not been bringing his a-game lately?"

"Maybe our a-game makes his a-game look like a z-game!" Knuckles said. He sighed. "That's much worse if you understand the alphabet!" He scratched his head. "Isn't it?"

"Really, Knuckles?" Penny giggled.

"It does kind of feel like Eggman's just going through the motions." Tails said, glancing at his friends.

Later...

"Wow, Amy!" Knuckles said. "You weren't kidding! That is one big ball of twine!"

Before Penny could reply, the ground started rumbling and a whole avalanche of rocks tumbled towards them. Thinking quick, Sonic zoomed up to the ball of twine and grabbed a piece of it, creating a fence of some sort. The rocks instantly stopped rolling as soon as they hit the twine fence.

"Eggman's been a lot more creative lately!" Penny hummed. She smiled at Knuckles. "Don't you think?"

"I try not to," Knuckles admitted to the human girl.

Penny slapped her forehead.

.............................................................................................

Later, Penny aided Sonic, Amy, and Knuckles as they built a sculpture of Tails and his plane.

"You know, we haven't seen Eggman in a while." Sonic pointed out, brushing off his hands.

"That's a good thing, right?" Knuckles asked.

"You know, you're right," Penny said to Sonic, adding another thing of sand to the plane. "I wonder what's keeping him."

Sonic walked up to Penny, Knuckles, and Amy. "I think he's up to something." Sonic frowned. He picked up Penny in his arms. "Penny and I'll check up on him."

Penny let out a surprised squeak, clinging to him as he sped off in a flash. The sudden turn of the wind caused the sand sculpture to drift away, revealing the real Tails sitting in the real plane. The fox coughed and lifted his goggles, blinking, and grinning sheepishly.

..........................................................................................

Soon, Sonic burst into Eggman's layer with Penny hiding behind him. "Ah HA!" Sonic growled at Eggman. "Caught you just as you were..."

Penny's mouth dropped open. Eggman was lounging around on his couch, wearing his hot pink onesies which were covered in gunk, and eating nachos. Empty pizza boxes littered the layer, and his eyes never left the screen TV.

"...Lounging in your pajamas." Sonic finished.

Penny gagged, placing a hand on her stomach. Sonic shared the same expression.

"Just leave me alone to wallow in my own filth and self-pity," Eggman muttered as he placed another nacho in his mouth.

Penny coughed in disgust at the sight, and Sonic cringed. "Ah, dude, gross!"

Orbot whispered to them, "I'm afraid he's been acting quite peculiar since firing that Soar fellow."

"So Soar's the one behind this? Sort of?" Penny asked the bot, and he nodded.

"So, he's not planning something huge and diabolical?" Sonic asked.

"Quite the contrary! The only thing he's planning is marathoning through season 4 of his Hedgehog Abby."

Penny raised her eyebrows. Kind of interesting how Eggman would choose a TV show about hedgehogs. Maybe he was trying to get some type of inspiration from the shows. She may never know.

"Oh no he didn't!" Eggman suddenly snapped at the TV. Penny giggled. She kind of liked seeing Eggman like this, even if it did gross her out.

Sonic shrugged at Orbot and Cubot.

.................................................................................

When they got back home, Sonic relaxed on his hammock while Penny went to get some lunch in the kitchen. "This is the life!" Sonic smiled. "No Eggman, no worries." He smiled as he stretched, but then his happy expression fell, and the blue hedgehog groaned in annoyance. "UGH. I'm so bored!"

"How about we go to Tails' house?" Penny smiled. "Maybe he will have time to do something!"

"Good idea." Sonic scooped Penny in his arms and zoomed over to Tails' workshop. When they made it, Sonic smiled at the fox. "Hey, Tails! Need any help?"

"Not really," Tails said, rolling up a blueprint. "Just cleaning up some sand out of the gasket."

"I can help with that!" Penny smiled.

"Are you sure?" Tails asked. "You don't know that much about engineering."

"You can teach me!"

"I think I can do that!"

Sonic stepped up, interrupting the conversation with a crazed look on his face. "Oh, so you want to race?!"

"Sonic?" Penny asked worriedly.

"Sorry, Sonic." Tails said. "I'm kind of busy here."

"Oh, come on!" Sonic pleaded, pointing at the door. "Race you to the end of the island! Ready? GO!" He zoomed off, causing Tails' papers to fly everywhere.

"MY PAPERS!!!" Tails yelled. He and Penny instantly started collecting them.

Sonic soon came back. "I WIN!" He frowned at the mess. "Whoa. Way to make a mess while I was gone!" He turned to face Tails, who growled at Sonic, his arms full of blueprints. Penny said nothing as she silently helped him pick them up.

With Knuckles...

"Steady...." Knuckles muttered as he tried to hang up a birdhouse. "Steady...."

"HEY KNUCKS!" Sonic smiled excitedly. Knuckles let out a startled yell, dropping the birdhouse. Knuckles whimpered, glancing at the now broken birdhouse that he had worked so hard on.

Sonic chuckled nervously. "I wonder what Amy's doing."

He zoomed off.

With Amy...

"Whatcha painting?" Sonic asked.

Amy smiled at him. "A picture to celebrate the anniversary of the first time I painted a picture." Amy pointed to the painting, which showed a portrait of herself painting a painting.

Something crashed. "Eggman!" He zoomed off, causing Amy to drop her paints. Sonic crazily looked out the window. "Ugh. It was just a tree branch."

"Sonic, please be careful!" Amy snapped, picking up a paint tube. "This is one hundred percent organic fair-trade paint. It's very expensive and very green!"

Sonic glanced at the painting. "It's more of a pink to me."

Another noise was heard from outside, and Sonic quickly sped towards the window. "What was that?! It must be Eggman, watching, lurking..." He sped towards the window again. "Watching some more! And lurking! And breaking for lunch! And lurking some more!"

He zoomed over to Amy, knocking her down.

Amy scowled in annoyance.

With Penny.....

"Penny?" Sonic asked, zooming up to his human friend. The young girl was snuggling in his hammock, reading a book. "You want to do something?"

"Maybe." Penny raised a brow at Sonic's sudden change of attitude. "I'm just finishing this chapter and then I'm planning to watch a movie." She placed the book down and turned on the TV. However, that was a mistake.

"IT'S EGGMAN!" Sonic growled, zooming around the house. "Don't worry, I won't let him near you!" He surprised the human girl by pulling her in a protective grasp in his arms, glaring around the room until his eyes rested on the TV. "Oh. It's just the TV. Never knew you liked Comedy Chip."

"He can be annoying, sure," Penny said, sounding annoyed. "But his puns can be hilarious at times, and I just needed something to crack me up."

Sonic nodded. But when Comedy Chip started laughing at his own joke, Sonic frantically dropped Penny by mistake. "It's Eggman!" He gasped. "Probably outside launching an attack!"

He zoomed off, and Penny scowled as she helped herself up and headed over to Sticks' house.

At Sticks' place...

"Ever since Eggman got depressed, Sonic has been making me nuts!" Tails complained.

"Me too!" Penny huffed. "He's usually never this crazy!"

"He hasn't cooked for me!" Knuckles complained. "He's just been driving me crazy!"

"If we want to get Sonic out of our hair, we need Eggman back in the game!" Amy said. "I never thought I'd say this, but, we need to remotivate Eggman!"

Soon...

Knuckles smashed through the door to Eggman's layer, followed by Sticks, Tails, Knuckles, and Penny. Eggman, however, didn't seem angry. He just laid there on the sofa, eyes never leaving the screen. "Doorbell works too, you know,"

"We're here to take you down!" Amy said.

"Move over, you're blocking the TV," Eggman said.

"This isn't going to work..." Penny sighed.

"It will, Penny," Amy promised.

Knuckles turned around, kicking the trash can. "Next time, it will be full," he vowed.

...........................................................................................

"Anybody wanna play board games?!" Sonic exclaimed, running into Sticks' shack holding a stack of board games.

Sonic's communicator blinked. Tails was calling. "Sonic! Big battle happening at Eggman's layer! Penny got captured! We've tried to pull a rescue mission, but we're outnumbered! You've got to hurry!"

"I'm on it!" Sonic zoomed off.

...................................................................................................

"Can you keep it down?!" Eggman snapped at Sticks and Tails, who were simply banging pots and pans. "I'm trying to watch my stories!"

Penny grumbled in annoyance as she eyed outside the laser cage she was in, bond with ropes. She glared at Amy. "And why was I the chosen damsel in distress?!" She snapped at the girl.

Before Amy could answer, Sonic zoomed through the door. "Hey, guys!"

Tails and Sticks instantly stopped fooling around and pretended to be seriously injured. Tails groaned. "Eggman's doing this to us!" The kitsune cried, clutching his neck.

"You've gotta fight him, Sonic!" Knuckles cried, faking out a groan as he fell to the ground. Sonic frowned, his eyes drifting to the cage Penny was trapped in. "Are you guys okay?"

"Stop Eggman and get Penny out of here!" Amy gasped, lying on the floor. "Before he destroys us!"

"He's not doing anything." Sonic frowned.

"SHH!" Eggman growled.

"Are you pretending he's attacking you?!" Sonic frowned at Amy. "And using Penny as the damsel?" He walked over to Penny's trap, freeing the human girl. Penny nodded a thank you to him.

"Amy, cut it out," Eggman grumbled, switching the channel.

Amy stood up. "Okay, everyone. Enough." She turned to Sonic. "We were trying to motivate Eggman so you'd have someone to battle!"

"I was thinking that it was all a fine idea before she did this to me!" Penny grumbled, glaring at Amy, who glared slightly back.

"What a dumb idea," Eggman said.

"Hey!" Sonic snapped. "Lay off her, Eggface!"

"Oh, yeah?!" Eggman growled, getting irritated. "What are you going to do?"

"Give you a stern look and say yeah, really!" Sonic growled.

"Oh, really?"

"Yeah, really!"

"ROBOTS, ATTACK!" Eggman yelled.

Sonic smirked, destroying Eggman's robots one by one.

Next chapter: Sole Power