Operation: Clean Sweep

Operation: Clean Sweep was a devastating plot of Dr. Eggman following his recovery from insanity, to counter-act the "chaos factor" of Sonic the Hedgehog. This entailed the altering of space-time with Chaos energy, to create a reset reality that would leave the entire planet of Mobius prone to complete Roboticization by the Death Egg Mark 2. The new reality was unstable though, and threatened to destroy the entire Prime Zone until it was returned to normal, whereupon Robotnik attemtped to Roboticize the planet regardless. This however resulted in the Death Egg suffering heavy damage, along with the roboticization of Princess Sally Acorn, making for a mixed success at best.

History

An Insane Idea While imprisoned in New Mobotropolis' detention facility, Dr. Eggman overcame his madness and theorized that due to Sonic's extensive exposure to Chaos energy, the hedgehog had become the embodiment of Chaos, a living unknown factor. No matter how ingenius Robotnik's plans were, or how far he calculated and planned, Sonic would stop him at the last minute in every single scenario. Essentially, as long as Robotnik was in Mobius Prime, Sonic would always win. Once Snively broke Eggman out as the Iron Dominion's occupation of the city fell apart, they retreated to the EggDome with the Dark Egg Legion, and he began to formulate Operation: Clean Sweep. (StH: #210, #211)

Modifying the EggDome

After this, Eggman had other Legion chapters across Mobius mobilize with projects of their own. The chapter of the Northern Tundra, established a "mind control totem" to hypnotize the population of Iceborough to work for them and build what appeared to be a gigantic fueling station. The totem was destroyed by Rotor Walrus and Silver the Hedgehog, while aiding Sonic and the Arctic Freedom Fighters, but it's true purpose remained a mystery to them. Outside of Sand Blast City, the local chapter of former Robians ran and protected the Oil Ocean Refinery from being taken over by the Sand-Blasters. The refinery was rendered useless from a battle that followed when Sonic and Bunnie went to investigate, but it was indicated the refinery had been meant to serve as a refueling station for some kind of large aricraft. (StH: #215, #216, #217, #218)

All the while, Eggman, Snively, and their Legionaires set to work at a feverish pace over the following weeks, making repairs and modifying the EggDome. Once the repairs were finished, Eggman and Snively obtained a Chaos Emerald from the Special Zone to provide power for his new base and weapon: the Death Egg Mark 2. Manned by the doctor and Snively with the Legionaires serving as the bridge crew, it was launched on the day of Ixis Naugus and Geoffrey St. John's arrival in New Mobotropolis. While Sonic and Naugus were engaged in combat at Castle Acorn, the new Death Egg blasted off and appeared over the city. (StH: #212, #223, #224, FCDS: #4, #5)

The Death Egg Mark II The Freedom Fighters, St. John, and Naugus then called a truce and traveled into the sky to waylay Dr. Eggman and stop whatever he intended to do with the Death Egg. While their friends were held back by its defense array, Sonic, Sally, and Nicole boarded the Death Egg through the hole they used to enter the EggDome during their invasion mission with the Chaotix. Once inside, they tried to locate Dr. Eggman before he could utilize the Death Egg, but were stopped by a new and improved Silver Sonic. Instead of ignoring the robot, Sonic thought it would be fun to defeat it, disregarding the mission at hand. Sally decided to go ahead and find Eggman alone while Sonic fought Silver Sonic as Eggman announced over a PA system that he was about to fire the weapon. However, Sally ran into a concealed turret, and supposedly shot dead with the gunfire catching Sonic's attention. With a press of the button from Eggman, a flash of white light emanated from the Death Egg, washing the entire planet in white. As everything faded away, a horrified Sonic noticed that Sally had fallen. (StH: #225)

Phase One Using the Death Egg's weapon, Dr. Eggman managed to alter reality, nullifying all of the Freedom Fighter's progress for more than the past decade. This resulted in a changed and defenseless Mobius that was easy to exploit. In this new reality, Eggman and Snively quickly took control of various untamed regions and territories by establishing bases and factories in them. They also started capturing large numbers of the different Mobini species everywhere they went, and placed them inside Eggman's Badnik robots as power sources. (StH: #226)

However, Eggman and Snively had both been affected by the weapon as well and lost their memories, unsure of what their plan had been or even the purpose behind the Death Egg. All they could remember was that whatever they did before had severely drained the battle station of its power reserves, and it would take time for it to be recharged, even with the Chaos Emeralds they somehow gathered. Eventually they began to remember the old reality they changed, which was the cause for the numerous dimensional disturbances they were experiencing, but Eggman remained confident his "robotizing" weapon woud secure both space-time and his victory once fired. (StH: #226, #228, #229)

As Sonic was running in the Green Hill Zone, he felt as though he had blanked out for a second, which was the sudden disruption in reality. He saved the captured animals of the zone from an enraged Snively, freeing Sally, Boomer, and Antoine, whom he had not met before.The four heroes joined forces and began to find the source of the animal kidnappings, as well as the weird tremors that were occuring. After encountering Robotnik in the Marble Zone, and the Scrap Brain Zone, the Freedom Fighters supposedly defeated Robotnik.Sonic introduced the Freedom Fighters to his sidekick Tails, who joined the group in taking down all of Robotnik's support, leaving him powerless. However, as the group slowly made progress in the Oil Ocean Zone, Sonic realized that their plan would take forever. He and Tails decided to leave the group to take on Robotnik head on while Sally, Boomer, and Antoine stayed to take down Robotnik's support.After encountering Robotnik in the Metropolis Zone, Sonic began to remember memories from another past. Robotnik stated that Sonic was beginning to remember the "other reality." With that, Robotnik escaped to his shuttle, which would take him to the Death Egg. Sonic escaped the Metropolis Zone as well, and Tails flew Sonic up to Robotnik's escape shuttle in his Tornado just in time for Sonic to travel to the Death Egg with Robotnik.On the Death Egg, Sonic notes the condition of the Earth, as it appears to be very stormy and disastrous. Robotnik, in his battle armor, explains that Mobius's true reality was fighting back to restore itself, and to get rid of the reality that Robotnik created. On the true Mobius Prime, Dr. Eggman realized that in that reality, Sonic would always stop him. If he changed reality, then the Chaos factor would be eliminated, and Sonic would not always stop him. However, Sonic did manage to confront Robotnik after the dimensional change, proving Robotnik's plan worthless. He planned to roboticize Mobius, solidifying the altered reality forever.Sonic, regaining the memories of the true Mobius, begins to fight Robotnik, but loses. However, because the Death Egg was powered by the seven Chaos Emeralds, Sonic grabbed a power wire, absorbed its power, and turned into Super Sonic. Super Sonic easily defeats Dr. Robotnik in his battle armor, absorbs as much Chaos Energy as possibly from the wire, and performs Chaos Control, restoring reality. The white washing effect occurred once again as the alternate Mobius diminished.

Phase Two With reality restored, the temporal transition allowed time on the true Mobius Prime to go back 10 seconds, allowing Sonic to rescue Sally before the gun could kill her. Sonic defeated Silver Sonic, and rushed to confront Dr. Eggman before he could fire the roboticizer.When Sonic and Sally find Eggman, he explains that the Death Egg II's weapon was a world roboticizer that would roboticize all life. All things that were machinery, including Overland forces and weapons, and his Dark Legionnaires would be destroyed. Sonic pointed out that because the alien race, the Bem, deroboticized everyone who ever was and made sure no one would get roboticized ever again, the roboticization of the world would not succeed. However, Eggman explained that because he reset reality, the spell the Bem placed on all Mobians was gone, and now, Eggman would successfully roboticize everything.As Sonic battles a heavily damaged Silver Sonic, and a new Metal Sonic, Sally sneaks off to disable the roboticizer. When Sally reaches the weapon's chamber, NICOLE reveals that the only way to prevent the world's roboticization in the little time they had would be to invert the beam, causing only Sally to be roboticized, in turn destroying the weapon. Sally agrees to do this, allowing NICOLE to corrupt and reprogram the weapon just in time. As Eggman fires the weapon, the roboticizer destroys itself.Sonic begins to laugh at Eggman, at how he failed to roboticize the world, even after he changed reality, but then, a metal hand arose from the wreckage. Mecha Sally emerged, and began to attack a distraught Sonic.As Sonic was released from the Death Egg Mark II by Mecha Sally, Eggman sent to Mobotropolis a gigantic Titan Metal Sonic, along with an unknown weapon he codenamed "Deadly Cuddles." After releasing the two distractions, the Death Egg II retreated in a somewhat victorious defeat.