Chapter Text
The ash-filled air blew through the now burnt hills, displaying a silent and heartwrenching picture. The dead grass split apart once what seemed to be a beam of light ran through it, making the trees around the way shake violently and for their leaves to fly away.
Their brown hood moved with the wind, protecting their face from the harsh sandstorms up ahead on their way to..
HILL TOP ZONE
A volcanic eruption had happened not too long ago, and as such, the mountains were all half-sunken into the flaming sea. Just jumping through them was dangerous enough since one wrong move would mean they would fall into the burning pits below and share the same fate as anyone unfortunate enough to have been there during the eruptuon. Those same people now were all but carbonized statues that sometimes popped up through the lava as if to demand their attention.
AQUATIC RUIN ZONE
Next, they found themselves in some sunken ancient ruins. All they could do was watch from above the water as they ran through it, not even daring to sink themselves in. Yet, they could spot a mossy sentinel attempting to reach them from the water, to no avail due to their increased weight. Still, it shot a few lasers through its eyes, trying to hit them to rather disappointing results.
"Get some better hardware, pebbles." They smugly remark, hitting a red pole and hopped right into the stars above to the automaton's dismay. The individual came out unscathed with a shiny object in hand and began to run one more while it was distracted.
SPRING YARD ZONE
The zone's lively scenery and vibrant lights were now tarnished. The neon sign's letters were scattered around and so were the remains of small robots from a different time. Spike balls and bumpers set themselves over pools of crimson fluids that by now, had dried up, as well as jolts of electricity that attempted to light the zone in vain. Their eyes don't stay focused on it for long, though, as they quickly diverted themselves to look at the sign post at the end of the road.
Just one boost off a ramp was enough to send them flying across the zone and right into the pole, jumping into the golden ring that appeared soon afterwards. They jumped outside a few moments later, shaking it within their hand.
"That makes these 5." They would say, seemingly happy with the progress. Afterward, they began running once more through the sea and into an entirely separate island.
???
What was now before them was a large burial ground. Several graves still had small bloodstains in their stones and even in the ground below, with them grabbing a shovel to hide away the few remaining bodies that hadn't been buried just yet. It took them 3 minutes to get all of them, but once they did, the figure sat down in front of a specific grave.
"HERE LIES: XXXXXX XXXXX XXXXXX"
With the other one.. Being a blur.... Their eyes swell, allowing for woeful teardrops to stain the ground below while their hands slowly reach up to cover their face. No, they had to remain strong for them, this wasn't the time-
"STAY WHERE YOU ARE, MAURICE." Their lament was then cut short by the voice of a young male resounding through his ears. His tone was firm and rather familiar, so they turned to see them. It was a black jackal with heterochromia, who had drawn his sword to aim at them.
"This is Commander Zero of the G.U.N's Jackal Squad, and you are to come with us for several violations of the Great War's accords. So comply with us or we will have to take you by force." Zero would say, hand steady on the weapon while his unit pulled out theirs to back him up.
"Oh, Pally.. We've done this song and dance for a while, and I think this relationship's not working ou-"
"FIRE." Before the figure could finish talking, the jackal ordered for his squad to fire at them. The cloak went flying out into the skies, where it was promptly shot down by the jackal squad. Though, it was a mere distraction, since Sonic the Hedgehog would now reveal himself to them by kicking one of the jackals in the stomach, sending them flying back while he smirked towards them. "Missed me, Jack-O-Dumbass? Let's dance." The hedgehog taunted, while the commandder could only
"Gh- Don't just stand there, take him down!" He would barely dodge a gunshot by sliding under the bullet to knock another one of them up with a spindash, standing on his hand and then hopping to slam them into the ground with an axe kick. While more of the jackals attempted to shoot at him, he bounced back down into the ground and then tackled one of them into a tree, kicking them to jump off for his legs to lock around one of the men's necks, spinning them around before nailing them down into the ground, hopping over a kick and landing one of his own against their face.
Upon landing, he grabbed one's hands to make them shoot at the ground and hit them with an elbow, throwing their body forward to kick it into another soldier and then finish them both off with a high speed hook that sent them into a mountain. He gripped his hands as he heard the sound of a vehicle coming close, going into a ball and spinning in place to stop a car dead on its tracks despite of it going at high velocities prior.
The two of them clashed for a little until Sonic tore through it, leaving the car split in half and also saving the driver by placing them back on the ground. A chopper began to shoot down on him, making the hedgehog speed up and dodge under a sword's slice from Zero as well as the various things within the terrain. He would flip out of the way from a car that tried to ram into him, drifting to the tear its side, making it spin midair. He used that opportunity for his quills to spike up and stab through the vehicle, using it as a shield from the bullets until blue lights came from his body and his eyes focused on the middle of the arena.
An onslaught of unwavering troopers was not enough to stop the speeding mobian, who went into a ball and began to generate a huge tornado that caught most of the jackals, throwing them into the air. The plane began to lose stability but all became worse for it once Sonic had spindashed through it to kick the pilot off and using a vine from the surrounding area, he caught the lower part of the propeller to begin dragging it across the ground in circles before he threw it up into the air and finished it off with a spindash across the engine.
While the aircraft fell behind him and blew up, his eyes locked with those of the one remaining jackal: Zero. "See? Bud, you're wastin' manpower trying to take me down." Said the hedgehog, with a smirk across his face. "So do us both a favor n' run off to mama wolf with your tail between your legs."
"I'll just have to take you myself, then." He said, with a determinated tone. All Sonic did was laugh a little at that, flickering his nose.
"In your dreams, buddy." He sped towards him and the jackal smiled while the ground began to shake beneath them, making Sonic stop. "Well, I would say this is about to be my dream come true, then... Meet your maker, RAT." A huge mech lunged from the water behind them and landed with a deafening screech. Zero laughed maniacly as he had jumped into the cabin using the machine's entrance as a distraction.
"Okay, I think you're a bit TOO obssessed with me- But fine, let's give this a test drive." Sonic argued while catching his cloak and putting it back on. "Oh, please.. This is merely what I live for." The canine replied as the machine shot a large blast from its burster arm to destroy hill behind him. He had started running after dodging said blast, moving in zig-zag motions to avoid the incoming bullets and even a giant sword slice he managed to spindash under it. Two rainbows were seen when he ran through two separate bodies of water, which where then blown up by explosives rigged underneath them and Sonic would continue moving until he got through a forest.
Within said forest, he would take a loop in a ramp three times to both build up speed and dodge another blast, hopping off midway through the final loop to boost himself across the trees. Missiles flew from all different angles and he kept jumping between them and the trees with ease, even kicking some of the missiles into one another along the way. Then, he got into a small cannyon to spindash through the ramp before the giant blade landed in the middle.
"Bingo." Sonic whispered, charging up another spindash to use his accumulated speed and tear a hole in the blade, spinning in the cannyon rapidly until he jumped out with a wheel made out of sharp air that he threw like a disc to weaken the robot's neck by trtying to slice it. "Now, lemme give y'all a quick visit.. It's gotta get lonely in there." He jokingly stated, spindashing into the weakened surface to break into the machine.
Sonic began to make his way inside, jumping off a wall to dropkick one of the guards and then using the momentum to jump off the roof and spindash another through the ground into a level below. "SIR, HE'S HEADING FOR THE CORE." One voice cried over the intercoms while Sonic sent sharp air projectiles by kicking the air rapidly into one of the soldiers, only to then slam them down into the ground by the leg and spindash them into the nearby door, breaking it apart. "CLOSE ALL THE SHUTTLES, KEEP HIM AWAY AT ALL COSTS." Zero ordered his men around, while Sonic could only smirk.
"Gee, geniuses. I can still hear y'all, so thanks for the directions~" Sonic teased, while Zero let out a sharp grunt. "How dare you... This piece of junk was meant to be as fast as you, how!" The hedgehog broke through the vents and quickly spindashed down into the hallway before the core, getting the drop on one guy and throwing the shovel he had used at another's face. "It's cuz I keep speeding up, you can't match these bad boys." He pointed at his legs, right before he took the shovel back from the jackal's face with a "thank you" and kicked him instead to charge his shovel with wind and SMACK the next soldier in the head with it, leaving them knocked out.
"Oh, chaos.. FUCK IT." The jackal yelled as the mech grabbed its sword and stabbed itself in the corridor right before Sonic, launching him back out into a nearby mountain. "GAH-" Sonic grunted once he had hit the cliff, but he quickly dropped down in a ball when the sword sliced the mountain in half. "I'm not having all my efforts go to waste because of YOU." The commander stated, while the blue blur only smiled. He spindashed into three different rocks before blasting right into the arm cannon, where he hit the blaster's processors with the shovel and left it there before running around the pipe and blackflipping it.
"Don't worry, it's gonna go to waste. But it's mostly because you're hella impulsive." Sonic knew that would bait him into trying to shoot with the cannon due to his position midair, which ended up causing the arm's explosion. "DAMN IT." The jackals were trying to repair the arm as they could, but Zero had other plans. What remained of the arm became a second sword and its face was cracked open to reveal a sharp set of teeth. "Infinity is without peer.. Crumble at last, you pathetic rodent!"
The robot screamed as it began running after Sonic. The swords slamemd into the ground as he zig-zagged once more, using said blades as walls to jump off until he landed on a small rock formation he hopped off to avoid being crushed by the blades from both sides. He did the same thing, but with actual stone walls before standing in his hands on a small rock spike. He held his hand in front of his face to take a closer look at the robot and he managed to jump up in time to parry one of the blades by going into a spindash. He managed to push it back into a small lake, running through the water and the stone walls to spindash at its legs twice. before hopping through stone pillars and finally kick it on the face.
"Look bud, you're on your last legs.. Got any other neat tricks before we call this quits or are you done with your tantrum?" The robot caught him with a clap, which made Sonic squeak and had him drop a few rings. "SHUT UP. GOD, PLEASE. JUST DIE!" It tried to shoot him with its laser eyes once more, which made Sonic close his eyes until.. His quills spiked up, breaking him free of the robot's hands. He fell down into the ground below, and Infinity looked at him with pure hatred before sending down a powerful slash.
"DIEEEEEEE!" Zero screamed as Sonic began to rapidly run in place, right before it impacted. When it did, sparks flew everywhere as Sonic was slammed into a crater due to the sword's weight, running nonstop as he tried to hold it back. "Hnnngh... HAAAAH!" Sonic screamed and built enough speed for it to translate into strength, overpowering the sword and sending it up into the dark skies above. "NO!" The jackal watched in horror how the hedgehog survived and how he made his way through the falling rock and rubble. He now stood over a rock pillar, baiting in Infinity for it to try and slice with its remaining blade.
"I had my fun.. But your lil' toys are getting PACKED." Sonic jumped up and saw it charging one final mouth blast. He closed his eyes and turned into a ball, focusing on the sword above for him to get launched in its direction. The blast went underneath him and the jackals all witnessed how he grabbed the sword midair and spindashed down until..
SCRAAAAAAAAASH.
He had cut the whole thing in half. Infinity began blowing up while an injured Zero cursed him. "You fool.. I'm not giving up, you will be brought to justice..
YOU WON'T RUN FOREVER, PEST." He held his bleeding eye and left using a strange, orange-ish gem, alongside the rest of his crew. Sonic fell down into the plains with a cheerful smile, giving the destroyed robot a thumbs up while he held his cloak.
"Great display there, guys, but seriously, my clothes didn't need a barber!" He snickered, before looking down. His smile vanished as he saw the shape of the scarf. It had two separate ends and it... Made something click.
His heart had sunken when he saw the ressamblance. It looked familiar, yet.. It didn't fully make sense for him, not yet. The tears threatened to come out once more but he hesitated and shook his head. "C'mon, tough guy.. This is just the start, keep goin'." He began running once more towards..
GREEN HILL ZONE.
.Home. Oh, the all too familiar green hills and checkboard brown walls. The cascades, the wooden bridges and totems.. it was all so familiar, but it was mostly gone by now. The hills were still green, but vines and various cracks in the floor had formed, it looked like the event had caused quakes to go around. The mountains across the hills and some of the walls seemed to have fallen down, with big holes in them and a lot more unstable ledges. The bridges had fallen and their remains laid underneath where they usually were, which made Sonic sigh.
(You've sure seen better days, big green. I'm sorry.)
He made his way to the very end of the first area, hitting the rusty post and entering the golden ring. He finally came out, with the very last of the emeralds. With all of them safe, the once "hero" made his way over to..
EMERALD HILL ZONE
Where he kept the an old, unpainted plane hidden, which surprisingly still had some fuel despite of its constant usage these last couple of months. So, to look for somewhere to hide, the engines turned on and he flew away into the skies. (.. I wonder, how the hell did those clowns make something so dangerous? It's almost like- It was HIS creation, not theirs. I just hope they never get drunk with power and start using those things for war, we'd be done for it if it all came down to that.) Sonic wondered, laying down on his seat for a second.
"Either way... I've gotta keep going, cuz' sleeping fish get dragged by the current! Or so they say." He laughed by himself for a second before his eyes narrowed, spotting an island in the sky.
"Huh, that looks new. But hey, no one's gonna be able to get in here without a plane, so I'll give it a look." The hedgehog was about to head there, but his head began to hurt a little.
The memories were coming back, and he had no choice but to see them once more.
Notes:
Hello! I'm back from my hiatus and I wanted to update episode 1. Mostly due to grammar issues and for a pacing that's similar to the current chapters. Chapter 2 will also be getting a revamp soon but it may happen after ACT 2 is finished (Which would be after Carnival Night and the new zone coming with it).
Thank you for keeping up with my inconsistent upload times and I hope you continue to enjoy my work.
Chapter 2: MACHINATIONS OF A FALSE HERO
Summary:
After travelling through his ruined world, the hedgehog was now flying through the clouds, feeling calmed for once in a while... Said calm, however, was short lived, as a past event came to haunt him.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
A haunting laughter, screams, loud explosions going off in the distance, water, tears..
All those things were fyling around his mind, and while it was practically nonsense at first, it all began to make some sense. It wasn't really clear what the full message was, but right as he started to feel that he was coming close to a realization, his mind simply went quiet.
"... What?" All of the sudden, he began having a strong headache, which made him grunt and hold his head with a single hand, having more flashes of events that had once ocurred, still as blurry as the assortment of random sounds that he had just heard. "Come on.. Come on!" He began giving his head some soft bumps with his hand, and then, It all came together. A singular image appeard before him.
...
Sonic was standing on a hill, looking into the horizon with a smile.
"Lookin' as great as always, Neverlake. Don't worry, I ain't here to mess ya up like that big, mean egghead did~ Just lemme take in a good view for once, 'kay?" He laid down on his back with booth his arms around the back of his neck. His eyes then opened wide as Little Planet appeared once more as a robotiziced husk. Holographic chains launched from within it and into the ground around the lake and he had to take in the grotesque sight for a moment.
"Little Planet?" The shock quickly wore off and was instead replaced with anger. Some he hadn't felt in quite a while, too. He also saw something in the sky, a robotic copy of himself that was carrying someone dear to him. "Wait, that.. Looks like Mecha Sonic, from the death Egg- HEY, GET BACK HERE!" He began to run after the robot, jumping off a ramp to try and catch the blurry person.
"Help!!" They yelled out in desperation, which only made him run faster. "---!" Without a second thought, the mobian ran down the hill, using a tree to swing on it rapidly until he flew towards Little Planet.
Sadly for the hedgehog, his memory ended there, as he was now nearing the island, parking down the plane and hoping off from it. "This should do... Who was her?... Did I... Agh... What even is Little Planet?" He sat down for a moment looking at the emeralds on his bag. At least... I get to keep these safe. If he gets his hands on these..." There was a brief pause, with his hand clutching into a fist. "No. I'm not gonna let him." Suddenly, the gems began to glow rapidly.
"Huh?" His attention was caught by them as he raised an eyebrow. And they let out a huge, blinding light, which made the hedgehog scream as he was blinded. "AH, MY EYES, MY EYES!" He jumped and ran around the place as golden light came off his body. From below, a punch came once the floor had broken apart. The hedgehog fell on his back with a loud grunt.
"AGH- What's that for!?" Sonic slowly recovered from his momentary blindness, staring at the figure, who turned to be a red echidna. "Hey, give those back, douche!" The hedgehog protested towards the man, who instead approached him rapidly to land a single punch that sent him flying into the wall. "I won't talk to those without honor. Leave at once, fiend." The echidna dug into the ground and Sonic slowly got up, looking to his sides to find out that: Uh oh, the emeralds had gone up into the sky and disappeared.
"... Dang it, dang it!" Not wasting a second, the hedgehog back to the tornado and looked around it, finding a book and a pen. His two most trust worthy allies in this adventure.
> So uh... Hey! I don't think anyone's gonna read this thing, but hey, guys back at the stone age didn't really think their drawings would be so
popular either, huh? Anyways.... I'm Sonic, Sonic the hedgehog! I've heard a journal is a good idea to cope with stuff, so I'll be writing my adventure here, enjoy the ride!
ANGEL ISLAND ZONE: ACT 1
The hedgehog left his book on his backpack, turning into a ball to launch himself forward and down a hill. A small monkey robot tried to throw a coconut at him, which made the hedgehog spin in circles before jumping through the coconut and using its remains as a platform to spin through the other robot. It dropped a small capsule and from said capsule, a small monkey hopped out of it to run off to safety. Sonic landed on the platform above and then used a vine to run through the nearby wall and dropkick a small rhino-like robot.
"Awh, I missed kicking these thing's asses.." He chuckled to himself, jumping off the now spinning rhino and focing it to send the spikes nearby into the air, where Sonic waited for the soft side of the spikes to face him to slam into them, impaling the robot and taking the capsule out of the way right in time before it was ALSO impaled. "You're off bud." He gave the critter a thumbs up, letting it go before he continued his journey.
He grabbed onto a vine to spin around a palmtree and then threw himself towards a rock to blow it to pieces and once he made his way through it, he found himself landing on a giant ring. After a few seconds, Sonic was launched back out, with the emerald in hand. "Huh, so they just went back here. It's got to be hell on earth to get all the band back together, but that's my job now!" He ran back out and headed towards a yellow spring on the hill above, hitting it and flying right into the vine he had used to break the rock.
He grabbed onto a vine to spin around a palmtree and then threw himself towards a rock to blow it to pieces and once he made his way through it, he found himself landing on a giant ring. After a few seconds, Sonic was launched back out, with the emerald in hand. "Huh, so they just went back here. It's got to be hell on earth to get all the band back together, but that's my job now!" He ran back out and headed towards a yellow spring on the hill above, hitting it and flying right into the vine he had used to break the rock.
Said vine spun around until it launched Sonic forward, where he used a rock to propell himself through a loop and up a ramp that lead to a small bridge he ended up breaking with the sheer momentum he had going. The pieces of the bridge made it for the perfect wall-jumps to lead him into the upper part of the area, A small plant-shaped badnik shot up a spikey bomb that Sonic then kicked back in the middle of a backflip to make it explode.
He jumped through the waterfall nearby to kick another robot monkey into the air, right at the point where he can slam it down into a rhino robot, with the hit breaking the floor below and leading to a loop that sent him through the ground and into a giant treetrunk that he got through by running through the walls. Once he arrived at the upper part of the level, he began to smell something: Smoke.
Upon turning his gaze to the side, he managed to spot a flying ship that nearly hit him. The ship barely even noticed the hedgehog until he hit it, sending the thing straight into a wall. In a panic, it began to launch missiles everywhere and, to Sonic's dismay, the green fields of the island had turned into a scorching inferno of his own making.
"..." He was quiet, but the voices began ringing through his mind once more. Sonic's eyes were dead set on the machine, running after it tried to escape through the cave ahead. He slid underneath a set of spikes and jumped through a ravinne nearby, with it noticing his presence and using its back missiles to try to keep him at bay. The cave blew up, with Sonic coming through the smoke to hit the automaton into the wall in front of them with a spindash, jumping off it to send it flying down with a potent stomp after it bounced off the wall.
While on the fall down, Sonic had to avoid constant combustions from the grass and trees all around him, and two pieces of the nearby terrain went flying due to said explosions. They were pretty useful, since he just jumped off them and into the walls to constantly dodge the robot's missiles until Sonic grabbed onto one of them just hard enough to rip off a stalactite. He stomped on the piece of ground for its bits to protect him from the blasts while he tied the stalactite to a vine and threw it straight at the robot's dome, stabbing them.
The robot attempted to flee, but Sonic held tightly onto the rope to surf about the water, with the pyromaniac bot blasting its propulsors to create a wave tunnel to keep Sonic at bay. His eyes closed when he saw the water around himself, His sharp teeth clenched together as he pulled on the vine with enough strength to rip it apart, succesfully pulling the robot back and making it hit itself with the mines it had placed to try and keep Sonic behind.
He forcefully slammed it into a wall, spindashing that robot upwards to knock it up into a wall with a kick. He then jumped back and went through a zipline to launch nonstop kicks until of of its very own missiles sent it flying through a set of rocks. Just as it was recovering, the bot couldn't see Sonic anywhere, because he was already behind it. Grabbing it once more, the hedgehog ruthlessly began to hit it into the spikes above, slowly impaling it in spite of its pleading screams.
"DIE, DIE, DIE!!" He screamed until the missiles created a large hole on the cielling to carry the machine back up. Once it reached the end, it suddenly fell on its side as its cannon had been torn out of its body and Sonic quickly kicked it s head up. The robot looked in horror as the hedgehog now landed on its head and began unloading the remaining projectiles. His wicked laughter echoed through Angel Island as the flames began to subside and the machine was left as a destroyed husk, laying motionless in the ground.
Ash began to cover the once lively forest, now grey and dim as a result of the flames. The boy took out his notebook and began writing again to try and calm himself down.
> I can't do this. If he's behind this, I'm done. I don't want to be here, I don't want to be here.. I DON'T WANT IT TO END NOW.
ANGEL ISLAND ZONE: ACT 2
Sonic put the book away once more, spinning his way through a few rocks and down a tunnel that eventually threw him out into a shaky platforms. The ground below collapsed while he ran through the walls and then through the water underneath. After that, a palmtree fell down on the bridge above that he then used as a wall to jump against to reach the upper platform. "Up up and away! Upon landing, he began to spin on the ground to send the rhino robot flying and to intercept it shortly afterwards with a sharp wind-disc that sliced a falling tree in half.
He jumped between both halves of the trunk, jumping off towards a zipline that then split apart as well due to falling rubble to send Sonic into a platform that he pressed his palms onto to send himself fyling into a ramp and through a fragile chunk of the ground above. Once he jumped across the hole and reached the other side, a rhino robot tried to tackle him, with Sonic hopping over it and riding the machine to jump above the spikes ahead and then, he hopped off it in time to wall-jump through a few walls with spikes in them.
He then caught a trail of rings to light-speed dash upwards and then do one last jump in the nearby wall to dash down a hill. Once he had gone through two back-to-back loops, he was lauinched upwards by a ramp, through a waterfall and towards a wall, with him going into a ball before crashing onto it. Six air-spheeres shot to destroy a huge part of the stone wall, with Sonic focusing on all of the rubble to create a path.
Then, he rapidly began to home into all of them one after the other, launching himself upwards to the other side of the area. He began running foward until both his feet and hands could grasp the waterfalls both in both sides that somehow worked as walls for him to jump off until he launched himself through a robot monkey and into another tunnel. (Damn... That second part wasn't as hard as the first, so that's a good thing, I guess.) He shot up through a hole in the ground and his eyes would look up to see the beautiful sight of the green leaves covering the sunset, with some smoke coming out of the now ashen jungle. Sonic landed on the grass and began to write once more.
> ... I can't go back now. S-So, if he's really here.. I'll take him down by myself. Right after he finished writing that, a rumble could be felt. An aircraft suddenly appeared in the horizon and was rapidly approaching, which made Sonic run as fast as he could, trying to outrun the machine. It, however, managed to arrive and it started dropping bombs down onto the ground.
(No no no, this is bad... It's got bombs!) Said bombs fell around Sonic, making him dodge left, right and center until he figured out the pattern. At one point, he began to push his hand into the grass, quickly doing a U-Turn to throw the machine off as he locked onto the incoming bombs to spin through them and eventually, the whole ship had been split in half due to the increasing velocity at which he was going. Sonic kept running through a narrow tree-way, which then lead to a small platform with wooden bridges coming from both sides.
His arms found themselves wrapped tightly around himself, with Sonic trying to control his breathing. "It's.. It's alright, it can't be.." He gently whispered, and while his entire body shook.
"Let us settle the score, friend."
An ominous voice took a harsh grip of the conversation, as the waterfall behind them broke to reveal an incoming fire blast that Sonic narrowly dodged by sliding under it. That wretched laughter played in his head like a broken record until the man finally revealed himself. Wearing a black suit with a golden cape, red gloves and bionic, red eyes that stared him deep in the soul.
".. I-I'm.. Stopping this.. Y-You're.. H-How?.." The doctor smirked, noticing his nemesis' unusual nervousness. "Sonic? Where did the bravato go? You're usually way more snappy than this.. Did something happen? Oh, we both know the answer, don't we? Hoho~ Well, it's not the first time you've tried to wipe your slate clean." His fist was clenched, eyes now set on the human, who once again wanted to take him down.
"Ngh..." Sonic put up a stance while the flames behind the doctor once again lit up, darkening his face so only those ominous red orbs could be seen. "Let me guess, you want a little scrap to save this island... Oh, old habits die hard." Sonic took a deep breath. Then, he ran in to land the first hit with a kick that sent the robot spinning, but only enough for it to start trying to hit Sonic as a flaming tornado. He managed to move out of the way to instead spindash into the back of the mech and send it into the waterfall to cool off the flamethrowers.
From the waterfall, though, two robotic craniums shot large laser beams that nearly hit Sonic, causing him to roll out of the way and to throw his cloak to the side to avoid it catching on fire. Robotnik propelled his mech out from his hiding spot and towards the hedgehog, who used his arm to block the hit and then ducked beneath the doctor's next blows. He repeated that same dodge tactic until he began shining light blue and threw a right hook that decked Robotnik's bot into the ground below, where he spindashed it nonstop until it flew into a wall.
The twin fire blasters began to shoot away to back up the doctor, but they didn't take into account that the hedgehog would now have the sharp-wind barrage that quickly began messing one of them up while the other one tried to catch him. Sonic even got to surf on its blast before he sliced it in half with a spindash that then hit the doctor's pod with an axe kick. "NGH! You've gotten better at being a resilient little mutt.. No matter, I can do this for the whole day and even then, you won't keep up." Sonic hated that he was right.
No matter how many times he broke these machines, the doctor was known for being just as determined as the hedgehog when it came to seeing his plans through, so if he won, he was 10 times more likely to be killed by the next of Ivo's machinations, and so on until he would die. "God... SHUT UP!" Sonic knocked him down into the ground once more and bounced as a ball on top of the machine until it broke the ground below and fell through into a small cavern that reflected the outside's fires through its gems.
"Well well... Are you ready to see how much of a mindless animal YOU can become? I am eager to see how far you go, hedgehog." The doctor admitted while accomodating his golden cape, intercepting the hedgehog's predictable approach with a hook of his own as the mech's flamethrowers dettached to punch Sonic from left to right until they landed him on the ground. Both weapons shot their flaming blast downwards, which Sonic dodged by rolling out of the way into a spinning kick that hit the mech multiple times until it caught Sonic's leg with its returned cannons, blasting him away into the waterfall.
He managed to bounce in the wall right above to get mack into the field, spindashing underneath a potent flamethrower blast to then kick the cannon upwards alongside the rest of the machine and to then throw a rising spin into a slam to the ground. Though, the doctor answered by propelling his robot hard enough for it to drag Sonic around the walls with its weight until he ended up going behind the cascade once more.
Though, the cave's growing echo began to give him an idea. The hedgehog first did a spindash, loud enough for Robotnik to tell where it was and for the doc to start shooting that specific spot. Meanwhile, he had jumped out of the spindash a while ago and did a rapid peel out to generate speed as he made it to the robot's blind spot: its back.
"Oh! Well played there, little rat... You have gained a few tricks as well? Good. They won't get you too far, though." The doctor kept launching blasts of scorching flames nonstop towards the waterfall, until the very last one destroyed the rocky formation entirely. From the waterfall, something came out and it used the rocks to make himself the perfect trap.
The pieces of rubble lined up perfectly for Sonic to quickly spindash through them like a speeding bullet that began TEARING the mech bit by bit, until the doctor was left defenseless and Sonic gave him a menacing look.
"HRAAAAAAAAAH!" He threw a wind-infused punch straight into the doctor's stomach, sending him flying out into his escape pod. "H-Hohoho.. Well! This is just the start, prick! Our brand new show has just begun~" Ivo laughed once more as he flew away. The pod that had kept the critters trapped was broken, allowing for all of them to escape the asen forest and fnd a better place. Once he had checked that they all made it out of the zone, he went back to writing but.
Click .
A button was pressed. The bridge underneath him collapsed and he screamed helplessly, as he now fell to unknown territory. Even then, his arms flapped as if to imitate a bird, until the hedgehog began to fall down a large tunnel and staright into a watery palace.
... Why was this so familiar?
Notes:
Honestly, writing this take on the hedgehog has been pretty fun, planning his development, writing his trauma, it's all been a blast.
I hope that I can flesh both him and his world out far more in future arcs and chapter. <3
Chapter 3: AQUAPHOBIA.
Summary:
When the dust settled after Sonic and Robotnik's fight, the bridge that the hedgehog stood in crumbled beneath his feet, falling down to an unknown territory.
Chapter Text
"AAAH!!"
Sonic was on freefall by now and his eyes widened when he saw what awaited him down there. A thing that not many would fear in the slighest, but one that had scarred him for life.
Water.
Face first, the blue blur sinked in it, closing his eyes forcefully to try and ignore the fact he was about to drown.
He had just descended into a familiar place from his past by this point...
LOST LABYRINTH ZONE.
One of several labyrinths that connected the four islands of the archipellago. He needed to reach South Island's Labyrinth, fast. As such, he began to move through the abandoned ruins, using the minecarts around to make his journey a lot easier. "Sheesh... People here need to learn some proper housecleaning. I could've sworn even Egghead kept his little dollhouses in a better condition than this. H-Hehe.... Agh, not the time." He slapped himself on the face to stay away from doing those nonsensical comments, rushing to the nexus of the labyrinths and eventually, making his way into the all too familiar..
LABYRINTH ZONE
Feeling a little more relaxed with a familiar location, Sonic took in the sight to relax, but his moment of calm was interrupted by a thud. Followed by another, and then... A strong rumble. The whole place began to shake, and he had to run. Fast.
Sonic began to run across Labyrinth Zone like he did in the past, but much faster. There being no badniks in the zone made it far simpler to navigate, but it didn't make it any easier to reach the end. He had to deal with the water level rising and lowering constantly, making the whole climb to the end a lot more anxiety inducing. At some point, the whole zone began collapsing, making him have to dodge several debris falling from the ceiling. He could already see it, the goal post was just there. Hititng it would cause a warp ring to appear, just what he needed. The only thing left was to do a leap.
"...Damn it, dude. Get your act together... Do it.. COME ON! THIS AIN'T GONNA BE THE END..." He ran at top speed, leaping through the gap and seeing a rock, which he destroyed with a spindash, landing on a corridor that was slowly being flodded by the water. During his run to the post, though...
"ACK!" He fell to the ground, noticing that debris had fallen on his leg, injuring it severely and making his crawling to the post a lot harder. The water had risen, and even though Sonic wanted to crawl away... He was taken by the wave. Sonic was now submerged, screaming for help. The air in his lungs was slowly running out, but he was as determined as ever to reach the post.
His body started to give in, his mind was fading and his lungs were filling with water. Each passing second down in that hell made things harder and harder. He finally hit the post, the golden ring appeared, making him crawl towards it. He was drowning rapidly and, with his last remaining strength...
He opened his eyes, screaming as he felt the water of this new territory entering his lungs, he swimmed all the way up and laid by the ledge, coughing violently in a panic, hugging himself while shaking uncontrollably."What... What was that?! A-Ah..." Sonic felt his leg for a bit, sighing when he realized that it was completely fine, making him take a deep sigh. His gaze then looked up register his surroundings, and... It was different from Labyrinth, but it did remind him of the afformentioned zone. Possibly connected to it.
HYDROCITY ZONE ACT 1
"... Fine, no time to start questioning things, I need to get in there, somewhow..." He sat down to think, scratching his chin while walking around. "Hold on." It was then when a lone monitor caught his attention, similar in shape to the ones he had found in his adventures through South Island. When walking up to it, he saw a waterdrop symbol. Something about it felt eerie. Mostly because he sneezed upon touching it.
"A-Ah! There it is, the sneeze! I missed it..." That hadn't been there since he first saw little planet arrive at earth, and it instantly helped him deactivate the monitor, fixing it's wires and testing it out. When he crossed the cables for the first time after drying himself up, the water level started rising.
"GOBACKGOBACKGOBACK-" And when doing the right adjustments, not only did it go down, but he was surrounded by a shield, with his breathing feeling slightly steadier. "Huh... I've got to try this out." He put one hand in the water, getting a good feel for it... His hand was seemingly dry.
"Jackpot. Now... I'll have to go through this whole place without being hit... Heh, bring it on, do your worst!" Getting into position, he smirked confidently.
"Your worst is when I'm at my best." And with that, he made a run for it, feeling like he could face the water with this newly found power. He was dragged by the current, holding onto a pole just in time to move out of the spike's way, breaking the pole out of the walls, holding it in his hands as a polearm. Breaking through the wall, he fell into a pool of several badniks.
"Come on, tough guys! There's plenty of these hands for all of you to get." The piranhas were the first to attack, which Sonic fended off quickly with his polearm. A shark badnik tried attacking from behind, but using the shield to bounce, the hedgehog went up and out of the way of it's attack, stabbing it through the back of the badnik and breaking it, using it's husk as the point to his newly made lance, which he stabbed to the ground to starts spinning with it, creating a water vortex that made the remaning badniks fly through the air.
When he was out of the water, he used the water shield to manipulate the water, making a huge spiral that helped him get to the upper platforms, running around the zone until he reached a set of spikes on the roof and floor, with several badniks. He hit them one after the other into the spikes while jumping between the belts until they were all dead, reaching yet another part with a pair of poles, which broke, unlike the original one. When he was blasted out through a ramp, he landed before two badniks with a drill on their back.
It was easy to take them down, however, Sonic attached one of the drills to the back of the lance, making it have two points. Afterwards, he would reach a post and sit by it's side to write down his journey.
> I... Fell into a different place. Don't ask why, all I'll say is that some guy who's got serious beef with me is why I'm all the way down here. To be fair, I'm pretty sure the dog guys from earlier and a whole lot more have beef with me, which I couldn't care less about. Keep the hate comin', losers! The hedgehog smirked to himself, but his expression turned into a frown shortly afterwards.
> Heh.. It's not easy to live with a target on your back. Having to run around nonstop to try and keep yourself safe, while knowing that they're probably right to hunt you down. God, I hate this.
Even though he tried to be his usual cocky self, he really couldn't. Putting the diary back on his backpack, he rushed out into a loop, ending up in a half-pipe like area where a pool of water was at the very bottom. Not long after, a huge robot appeared, having a spherical shape with four cillinders surrounding it, which soon revealed themselves to be rocket launchers.
"Egghead really put thought this time around... Gimme a good fight, bolt bucket." The robot went in for it's first hit, sliding down the half wall, which Sonic dodged in time by bouncing on the ground, blocking the missiles with the spear, spindashing into the machine and making a bump into the side of it. The robot then smacked into both sides of the arena, where Sonic could dodge the first one, doing the same with the second but by using the shield to make a water vortex appear from underneath, pushing the robot into the roof to make it hit the cielling. Sonic tried something out, running up the wall as the machine began shooting it's rockets toward him, doing a fingergun to the water, which began freezing.
He spinned down the wall into the cold floor, jumping in time to put his hands on the cold floor, generating small icycles in his fingers which threw at the bot, causing big damage to it. The robot broke the ice as it bounced on the ground once more, and he dodged by moving around, though, he didn't realize the pillar on the middle of the pool, which made him start spinning around it with the water, with small blades coming out of it, which managed to hit Sonic, breaking his shield.
(A-AHH!! Damn it, no.... A-Ah... I need to end this, fast... Hngh!) Sonic stabbed his spear into the machine, forcing it out of the pillar and building up enough speed to hit it from side to side of the wall until it was at the very top. Sonic jumped on top of it using the drill part of his spear to use all his might to slam it all the way into the ground, breaking into a lower floor and hopping off the destroyed bot as it blew up, taking deep breaths once it was all done, with the water leaking through the floor's vents.
And even though he could rest for a little, strong bumps could be heard on the wall behind him. "... The hell?.." He got into a fighting stance, with the wall soon breaking with a loud rocky sound. Finally, he could see just who was hunting him. A pair of purple eyes in the dark were the first hint, but the red fur was what he needed to know this was another mobian. And one that was strong.. VERY strong.
"I thought I told you to leave." The red echidna snarled. "Hey, please, wait up for a sec!" Sonic began running, hopping over various pieces of debree scattered across the hallway, all while the echidna behind him began to throw fiery punches through the hallway that he narrowly dodged by doing some quick parkour through said debree.
"All I ask of you is to leave my land alone, you've done enough as is." He sounded like every second that he had to deal with the hedgehog only built up rage within him. "Your people?! Pally, I'm hearin' gibberish, I don't know jack about that!" The echidna couldn't care less about what Sonic wanted to say, his pride was the only thing that mattered by that point. Sonic kept running through the hall, processing those words until he reached a ramp, jumping off a wall to repeat the process twice until he was met by a set of platforms, avoiding Knu'ur as best as he could, even after landing a few hits. He wasn't going down right now, even less so with how weak Sonic was at this point.
"If that is your strongest... You are but a disgrace to your kin." With a single hit, the crimson warrior managed to send Sonic through a wall, making him yell in pain as he hit the wall behind that one. "AH!" He ran as best as he could, pretty injured from the encounter, and he ended up smacking the point of his spear into a wall, and after he lost him, the hedgehog pulled his spear out of a wall, right after stabbing it into a wall to hide better.
HYDROCITY ZONE ACT 2
"His people? He did look tribal... Just where in the world does Robuttnik keep getting these clowns from, the dollar store!?" It took him some hard thinking but afterwards, he simply shrugged it off, running out to smack yet another monitor, since the network had updated to globally use all the monitors of the same type. With the shield recovered, he kept moving and docummented the things that were going on by this point
When he fell down a pit, he would fall down to another bridge. He pretty much knew what would happen next. "Make this quick." The bridge fell down like the last one, causing Sonic to be dragged by the current and into another room, where he began to write down his journal to cool off a little.
> Sooo... Remember that guy I just talked about? Oh god is he ruthless. He talked a lot about his people and he sounds like knows me- But this is the first I'm here, what's the deal with that? No matter what, I'll get to the bottom of this situation so I can understand just what the hell is going on." Sonic put away the book once more, rushing down the hall at mach speeds, reaching an empty room, with a bit of water that reached his head. He looked around, trying to find the doctor.
"Can you come out already or do I have to wait until mama Robotnik lets you come out to play?" Through the wall, Robotnik arrived in his new machine, hovering over the water with a smirk. "Kept you waiting, didn't I? Oh, I'm very sorry for wasting your precious time, enemy of mine.. I too got a little impatient of you reflecting so much. Come on, be more chatty so I can have fun tearing your spirits apart."
Sonic sighed and got ready, with the doctor turning on the machine. He lunged at the mad scientist, smacking the machine with his fist, the scientist retalliated by speading up the machine to dash through the room, leaving c4's on the ground that forced Sonic to run up the walls, raising the water to make himself a platform to launch at him. The mech dodged, shooting a barrage of lasers at the hedgehog, with the shield being damaged, but it hadn't broken just yet.
"D-Dang it.." Sonic scoffed while he stood up again, putting up his guard. "Get serious, rat... We need to put up a good show!" And he did, by running through the laser rain to smack the machine, using his speed to bounce off into a wall and with his control over the water, he lifted a pilar from underneath the machine, forcing it out of balance so it could fly towards him.
Robotnik activated the jet engine to try and hit Sonic with it, missing just by a little but giving the hedgehog a chance to strike once again. F rustrated, the mad doctor's machine shot grenades around the water, with Sonic grabbing one of them to send it back to the robot, following it but by sliding underneath it, launching a fast slice to tear the machine in half to reveal.. A second layer.
"See? You did well! Start running, little coward!" An explosion went off behind Sonic, causing a wave of water to break in, the machine fell from the husk and it's propeller began working, forcing Sonic to run away from the water. His breathing was getting heavy as memories from Labyrinth zone replayed constantly like a broken record. Unfortunately, all this scenery did nothing to help, since the falling debris and the sound of the furious waves behind him.
A part of the hedgehog wanted to confront this fear of his, that part of him that was still brave and capable, but the fear was strong, too strong. (N-No... In the state my shield's in, a single hit will cause it to break.. I-I'll drown if I go in there!) He thought to himself while he couldn't stop speeding ahead, Sonic was trying his best to avoid the water, he didn't want to face it, his anxiety was only growing stronger and... Blue sparks slowly appeared around his body.
"Bring it, hedgehog... I know you don't shower often, but do an effort this time!" Each time Sonic was dragged by the wave, he let out screams, not because it hurt, but rather, because of what it meant for him. Robotnik rejoiced on the sounds of the screams, and he did so even more when the blur was hit by another bomb, which sent him flying across the room, but Sonic was still capable of getting up quickly to run faster than before, since he almost got his head sliced by the propeller.
More bombs went off behind him, causing more debris to fall from the roof, which the doctor didn't really care for, as the wave merely consumed the rocks, but that would make it far harder for Sonic if he got caught by it, meaning that he would get smacked around by the rocks. "Focus, dang it.. Ehem! Hey 'stacho, what's up with all those explosions in the back? Mind keeping it quiet for a sec?
"Oh, nothing... This place is all too worthless in the end, so throwing it under the bus to crush you beneath it is fair game." The doctor kept his smug smirk, while dodging one of the rocks dragged by the current to kick it into the mech. "And your inventions are worth a damn then? Didn't knew we were in the bizarro dimension today for that to be true."
He mocked with a smug smirk, though the doctor could of course see past it. At some point, he turned on the engine of the machine, making it charge the lower half of the tunnel. Sonic bounced off the floor in time to avoid an incoming water blast, running down the wave to kick him back into it with force.
Sonic dodged a piece of concrete, being fast enough to kick it back at Robotnik, freezing the tip of his lance, running faster. More lasers and bombs were shot his way, and the hedgehog's head kept screaming at him. He smacked his face against a wall and was very close to the propeller, but sped up to avoid it, kicking more of the bits of concrete before spindashing into it a couple of times once the propeller had gotten stuck with some spikes. Even if he was gaining the advantage, those voices wouldn't leave.
In the end, this situation was far above his fear, it was a situation of life and death and he couldn't care less anymore. If he really wanted to stop him, he needed to leave his fear behind. Kicking a rock with spikes into the propeller, it caused it to get stuck, and even though Ivo was trying to hit him with the blast, Sonic's shield popped, and he appeared from the smoke. His spindash this time was charged up enough to break through every last bit of concrete and..
SHRRRIECK.
"Damn you!" Sonic had gone into the water, destroying the machine in one last slice from his spear, leaving a trail of smoke behind him as he rushed out of the corridor, with Robotnik being forced to flee. It took him a couple of seconds to realize just how far he had come if he could tackle that fear, that memory. It was one step on the right direction, at the very least.
"Leavin' so fast, Eggy?.... C'mon." His eyes went from their usually calmed, circular shape into a sharper one, while his voice grew raspier. "Get back here... I'm not done yet with you." He ran towards the doctor, trying to grab him, only to fail and fall down onto the ground.
"DON'T RUN, I'LL KILL YOU!" It may have been brief, but Sonic noticed it himself. He wasn't one to scream like this, just what was going on through his mind? There was no time now to think of those things, so he jumped into the capsule to free the critters and almost inmediately, a torrent of water emerged from the floor, shooting him through the ruins' roof.
Somewhere else in the island...
"...."
The echidna was silently standing on a platform, with badniks coming at him from all angles, which he could easily fend off. He didn't even need to dodge, things like the star's spikes simply bounced off him, while the crab's claw was stopped by his hand and ripped off. Red sparks came out from his body, causing a burst of energy to cover the area. All while he was chained, which only made it a more impessive feat. The doctor clapped as he arrived.
"Wonderful performance there, my friend!" The echidna would look back with a silent nod. "I thank you for your compliment. Still, this won't be enough." The doctor had a hand in his mustache as he began to chuckle at his words. "Precisely, it's a good start, but it can be better! Sonic is not to be underestimated. You may have won these first couple of times, but he's slowly losing it. It will only be a matter of time before he tries to actually murder you."
"For you, perhaps. Not for me." The mobian walked ahead confidently, pushing his fists together to create a small earthquake beneath them. "That bastard has done enough damage to my clan as is. Him and his kin have terrorized us for millenia now, and I do not think he deserves to continue trying to end the legacy of my kingdom."
"I understand, friend.. And I share the feeling. I've been trying to contain him for three years now, and I've been all but succesful. No matter what I did, he came back to destroy my beloved Robotnikland, again and again. I won't let him do it once more. " The echidna clutched his fist, nodding to Robotnik's words.
"I think you would like it more if I showed it to you.." Robotnik pulled a remote from under his sleeve, letting him see images of the world. The man had taken pictures of various places, and one in specific was a stand-out. An area being engulfed by a black hole. "What is this?..." He pointed towards the strange orb that now covered the entirity of a small planet and the land below it.
"It's a long story, Knu'ur. All you need to know is that HE caused this. And he wants to do the same to your island. He's a demon, a being of pure chaos that seeks no more than mindless destruction and I am attempting to rid our world of this menace. If he ever gets to the master emerald.. It will spell our demise." Knu'ur remained quiet, taking in those words "Just like their king back when our tribes first met. Yes, you have got my word, Robotnik. I swear to protect this island alongside you, until the hedgehog is neutralized."
The human turned to see the mobian, giving him a handshake. "We can stop history from repeating itself. We still have time, my friend. And I promise you that by the end of this.." Robotnik looked at a screen, with a glowing gem on it, different from the emeralds. The phantom ruby.
"We will change history." The echidna nodded and went back to training, while the mad doctor went to see the radar for the ruby, with a faint light nearby.
Chapter 4: RUINS FROM ANOTHER TIME
Summary:
After having a memory out of many from his past, Sonic had to use his witts and strengths to traverse thorugh Hydrocity, encountering a new foe and after fighting the old one, he ended up being launched to a new place.
Chapter Text
...
Upon opening his eyes, he was in an unknown place to him. A forest, that's for sure. He began to walk silently through it, trying to figure out just where he was. "Huh, this place ain't as bad as the last one. Maybe I'll set camp here, resting for a bit wouldn't be a bad idea after all that ruckus." Sonic thought out loud, since he thought he was alone. But he surely wasn't.
H̸̱̐ȇ̸͉l̴̜̈́l̸͉̓o̶̧͛.̶̢͝ ̴͘ͅA̴̩͋m̵̻̓ ̷̩̃I̸̹̒ ̴̫̚i̸̢͋n̵̨̈́t̶̩͐e̶̗̒r̶̨̔ȓ̵͈u̶͔̿p̶͚̋ẗ̸͈́ī̷̠n̴̙̂g̷̙̕ ̶͚́ẏ̷̦o̴̺̾u̶̖͘?̴̗͝ A voice from behind would ask, one that he could recognize faintly, although not quite fully. Something weird was that he wanted to say something of his own, but his voice was already talking. "Nope. You need help, bud? Ya' came to the right guy."
O̸̪̿h̷̤̀.̷̝͗ ̸͈̿Ì̸̢ ̵̢̆k̸̥̉i̸̬͌n̴̦͑d̵̢̑ ̶͈͊o̶̠͗ḟ̸ͅ ̵͚̍d̷̑ͅò̵͉,̵̳̏ ̴̥̑Ĩ̶̖ ̵͖̆n̶̜̎e̴̐ͅe̴̐ͅd̴͚̕ ̵̞̉ţ̸̄o̶̮͛ ̵̼̎h̶͎̄i̷͛ͅd̷͇̋ẽ̶̫ ̷͎͌f̵̡͘r̷̲͝o̶̹̓m̶̪̍ ̸̑͜s̵̩͑ö̵̤́m̸̖̅e̸̻̓o̶̻̎n̵̲͛e̷̡͘.̸͔͘.̷͔͛ He raised an eyebrow to that, tapping his shoe. "I see. So someone's picking on ya? Don't let those jerks get to you." His body gave the other a pat on the back, having a gentle smile on his face. "I'm Sonic The Hedgehog, adventurer and robuttnik plan buster, nice to meet ya." When he opened his eyes, he could see the face of the other person, a distorted mess. The voice became unrecognizable, and so did the forest. White noise invaded his ears and forced a grunt out of him. He was having a strong headache and onto his knees he fell, holding his own head.
"Stop, stop... Stop..." It was like various memories were playing all at once, and in that empty void, their echo was even stronger. He couldn't even get up, it felt like a whole building had fallen on him. All he could do was yell at the echo to stop, and right as he could feel himself sinking into the void..
"AH." He woke up, agitated and covered in sweat from head to toes. Thankfully, it was just another nightmare, but he wouldn't forget the question he had just made to himself:
Who was that? Getting up from the ground, he saw a sloap in front of him and a large forest as well, with some kind of ruins ahead of him. It reminded him a lot of how Marble Zone used to look in the past, but there was no time for him to live in the past. He got ready for it and launched himself into..
MARBLE GARDEN ZONE: ACT 1.
(As long as this place ain't another waterpark, I'll be good to go.) He thought to himself, launching into a ring box and bouncing off it to nearly hit a box with a bolt, which made him stop dead on his tracks. "WOAH-" Stopping himself right on time, his emerald hues located themselves on the box, taking a few steps towards it. "Okay bad boy, what's your trick?" Sonic got to changing the cables, and since he had a bit more experience, he didn't do half as bad. Even though he did mess up once, causing the box to send a shock through his body.
"ACK-" He lost a few rings thanks to that, sighing as he recovered them quickly."Well, it was a neat trick. I got a new quill-style thanks to it." Fixing his quills soon after, Sonic finished the re-programing of the monitor, smacking it propperly and gaining a shield around his body, similar to the other one. He would look around the room and shoot a small electric bullet at the wall from his fingers.
That made him smile, knowing that he had a new weapon against the tyrant. Grabbing his spear from his back, he would rush out of the room and back into the stage, coming across a drilling robot which he soon electrocuted, although, that same robot managed to escape, drilling into the surface to break it a bit.
"This is gonna be a long one... " He mentioned while using his spear to go up the wall, flipping off the lance and holding his hand out to try something out. Suddenly, the lance came back to his hand, attracted by the shield. "Ooh..." Fascinated by the new trick, Sonic traversed through Marble Garden, avoiding the spike rocks, to then use a platform that managed to move faster thanks to his shield attracting it, using that same platform to break through a wall and slide underneath a set of spikes.
He then tried throwing his lance into the wall and this time, doing the reverse, pulling himself towards it to have enough momentum to break through the wall with a spindash, jumping into a second platform which he would use to travel through the remaining parts of the area until he jumped down near a post.
"... Wait a sec." He checked his backpack and found the emeralds. Those memories had been keeping him away from what he truly needed to do: Recover the emeralds. Sonic would get determined, jumping on the platform once more to run all the way back to the start of the area, and he would eventually break through a wall behind a set of spikes, jumping into the ring. It took him a couple of minutes, but Sonic was out of there, with a second emerald.
"Easy! Now, time to get back there..." Rushing back towards the post, reaching it in a short amount of time and jumping off the platform to break the wall and meet his foe. "Drilly! Hey bud. Long time no see." The robot would tackle Sonic on sight, but Sonic hopped over it, sending a shock blast towards it and forcing it's drills onto the ground, charging up hiss hand to deliver an electirfied punch which blew it into a wall. The robot soon was back on the attacking front, sending it's drills like missiles that began to follow Sonic around the area. Since they would follow him, Sonic used his speed to run around the machinery, making it hit itself with it's drills.
"Aaaand... Presto!" Sonic used the opening to land a few hits on the robot before bouncing off it and grabbed his lance, shooting it upwards and breaking through the already weakened ceilling to break it, causing lots of debris to fall down, which made Sonic panic. He hadn't thought of that. (Nononono...) He had to dodge the debris constantly, looking at his leg and then back to the front in repeated ocassions. The robot didn't stop attacking, which forced Sonic to use the shield's magnetic attraction to bring the platform from before to his aid, which hit the robot, but also doubled as a shield to cover himsel from the debris.
His lance eventually reached the top and he managed to use the debris to trap the robot underneath it. Using the shield to go up to meet his lance, the sky darkened and a lightning bolt was called down, but it didn't hit the bot. Sonic began charging an aereal spindash, getting hit by the bolt but causing his body to be overcharged by electricity. The machine broke out of the rocks, only to see the sparking spindash coming his way. The room flashed white, with the robot ending up decimated by the move and with it's pieces scattered across the room, with only Sonic standing there, quills up once again.
"Sheesh, this one's just a strong as the one back at the last zone. Let's keep going." He put a hand down on the floor, running out of the room to grab a ring shaped handle, which retrieved up and allowed him to jump to another one, reaching a room where a certain someone was waiting for him.
MARBLE GARDEN ZONE: ACT 2.
"... You."
For a solid second, Sonic couldn't see him. It was a blur before Robotnik appeared once more before him. "Hello? Earth to Mr.Maurice? Wake u-" Suddenly, the hedgehog lunged towards him, trying to hit his machine with his lance, enraged by him. "Shut up, will you?! I'm sick of you!" He look unfazed by Sonic's actions. More than anything, he was amused. So amused in fact, that he started to laugh as his drills started to break the roof.
"Aaah... You are too fun to mess around with, rat. If I were you, I would want to see the landscape, it'll help you relax." The doctor taunted, to which the hedgehog answered with a scowl. "Now you're giving me adivce? Ha. You'd be a sorry ass psychologist, doc." The doctor quietly waved his finger, while his smile was wider than ever. "Sonic, Sonic... It wasn't advice."
The roof started to crumble, which made Sonic get on guard. "It's a fair warning." Sonic looked at him fly out of the room, and quickly began to run through the crumbling Marble Garden. Various doors shaped like faces shot arrows at him, making him dodged and shoot a shock blast at them to open them up, he then began to ride the platform up and at some points during the mad dash for the end of the are.
The falling rocks and rumbles made him feel triggered, all of it reminded him a bit too much of Labyrinth zone's demise. He was getting nervous and a little dizzy, running faster while spinning some wheels, riding the platform and every time he met Robotnik, the rumbles only got more and more intense.
Whenever rocks fell on him, he would cut them with his lance, using his speed to reach each one of the small bits of the rock that were left to use them as platforms, doing so a couple of times resulted in him reaching a wall, in which he would stick his lance, lauching himself upwards and using the shield to grab the lance back. Using the shield's magnetic attraction, he was even able to use some of the spikey rocks to guard himself from falling debris whenever he walked into a building.
Each time he passed through a new section of the zone, he could see the doctor drilling his way to the top, getting a hit or two in him before he had to continue running. "Okay, this is taking too long.. Let's try this!" Sonic lifted his lance into the air, with the sky darkening as a thunder fell right underneath him, sending him upwards from the impact and into the final part. The hedgehog arrived at his destination at the very top of the zone, where Robotnik waited for him with a smirk.
"There you go, see? My warning did work, you look a lot more pumped now. At least this way you'll be a little less of a partypoper." Sonic went in to attack, but the machine took in the blows, absorbing them to release a big energy wave that sent the blue blur flying back to the ground. The scientist broke the floor by drilling into it, causing Sonic to fall down.
(Crapcrapcrap!! Think fast..) He moved his hand down to reach for one of the moving platforms from before, standing upside down to have it drill through the rocks and keep him protected from them, rising up to meet Robotnik once more in his flying machine. "Hah. Hah. I'm laughing, doc."
"Fascinating.... So you DO have a working brain after all." Sonic shot an electric blast towards the doctor. A cheap shot, but it was worth it to make him shut up for a few seconds. "I don't care for what you have to say right now. I'm stopping you dead on your tracks."
"Oh, daring as always... Let's make this dance quick, I'm a busy man." The airship redied up it's drill, ramming into Sonic's platform. He jumped and hit the doctor with a homing attack, who then pressed a button to make the drill follow Sonic around, making him run in the platform. "Oho.." While Sonic was distacted, Robotnik pressed another button and a large laser sword came out from it, which hit the hedgehog, knocking him out of the platforom.
"D-DANG!" The slice left his shield near broken, but it was still functional. Sonic jumped around several falling pillars and lifted his lance to the air, making thunders rain around the doctor, which he could succesfully dodge, and he even used a holographic screen to return one of the shocks to the hedgehog, who pretended to be hurt. In reality, Sonic flew like a lightning bolt himself towards the machine, tackling it through several wall and when the doctor readied up the sword once more but as more of a laser cannon. Sonic would grab the platform and use it as a shield, boosting against it to overpower the blast and then slamming it against Robotnik's machine.
Even so, he wasn't ready to give it up, using the holographic shields to surround his machine and bump Sonic away. Now that he had no platform, Sonic had to use the pillars and falling pieces of land, dodging the huge blasts Robotnik launched, lauching electric blasts in return to keep him at bay. "Try agaiin, rat." The hedgehog ran at his machine and charged an electrified kick onto it, with the drawback being that he was launched several meters back, having to jump from a wall to hit it once again. The doctor pressed a button for the robot to gain a pair of drill-cannons on it's arms, shooting all three of them towards him at once.
Knowing of the laser, Sonic dodged it correctly, but the other two shot mines across the pillars, forcing Sonic to choose his moves more carefully. Though, the hedgehog came up with an idea. Charging up his lance, he cut one of the stone columns in half, grabbing one of the ends of it and making sure to stay away from the mine, he launched it back at Robotnik and it broke his shields, allowing Sonic to go summon another thunderbolt, which hit the machine head on.
"Hngh! Alright, you are pushing your luck now, let's end this." The mine cannons instead became grenade launchers, as they began shooting towards Sonic, who had to dodge several of them with a sense of dread in the deepest part of his soul. OF course, he wouldn't let Robotnik see it, but he was dreadful of how far he could come if it meant killing him.
Calling for another platform, he put it right in front of one of the grenades, using it to prepel himself towards the doctor in order to land a few slices, but he pushed him away once more, readying a laser blast that Sonic had to dodge by running through the falling walls in a narrow hall, spinning through an impossibly tight corridor to end up right in front of the doctor.
He launched his spear forward, but it seemed to have missed the doctor. "What a pitiful trick.. If you are trying to amuse me before your demise, you sure have put up a show!" The doctor laughed while Sonic fell down, smirking. "You're talking of good shows while you're always acting like the world's shittiest clown. Ironic." Sonic held his own arm while the doctor kept laughing. He wasn't putting much thought into the lance, but he would soon notice it coming back, impaling the machine and launching him back towards Sonic, who had grabbed his arm to prepare a charged blast.
KRREWOUCH!
A loud explosion went off as the machine had blown up into pieces from Sonic giving it a charged up punch, sending the doctor's pod out of the bot. "Well played, my dear rival. For now, I have business to attend to, farewell, rat!" As he flew away, Sonic only cared about freeing the animals from their flying cage, carrying them in his arms as he used the remaining energy of the electric shield to get them somewhere safe with the moving platform.
"Seriously, he's gettin' a lot more desperate to kill me these days, I could've sworn he was 50 times less murderous back when..." And there it was again, the headache from earlier.
He was falling. From somewhere tall, he was on a free-fall state, and while he panicked innerly, he turned around to see something that made him even more anxious. A circular space station falling right above him with the doctor's face plastered on it.
The mere sight of something Robotnik-related made him growl in anger, thinking that this is how it would end. Beneath his nemesis' magnum opus. (Huh?) But looking down at his feet, he could begin to see the blurry parts of the boy's face wear off.
Tails Miles Prower, that was him! The boy had come in the tornado to catch him, allowing Sonic to survive the fall and dodge the falling death egg so it would land straight in the sea. "That was close, Sonic! A-Ah, I had to think quickly about the tornado after it got shot down, seriously. 30 minutes isn't enough time for most to get this done, b-but I do guess I've got some brains to me!"
His prescence managed to calm him down, with him having a joyful smile on his face as he crouched down to ruffle Tails' head. "You're KIDDING? Buddy, you were incredible! I was for sure gonna die there if it wasn't for you, I'm so proud of you!" He managed to let out an embarrassed laughter, blushing a little at the compliments. "Sonic, you're just.. Exaggerating right now, haha! But I guess it's what I have to do for my hero, right?" The hedgehog smiled, getting up and giving the young fox a thumbs up.
"We've gotta cut it with that hero crap, I'm not your hero.. I'm now your best friend. And if I had to call someone a hero, it should be the fox that came in like my dashing knight in a shining armor to carry me out of this one." Tails laughed at the joke, looking up at him with a smile of his own.
"Okay, princess Hedgehog, but hey.. At least the death egg's no more!" Sonic laid down happily on the plane's wing with a proud smirk. "Yep, that's another thorn off our sides, y'know... There's a village I've been around since after -----, maybe we should go rest there?" The fox nodded to his words.
"Alright, but you've got to guide us, I haven't given the tornado a "GPS" just yet." A small pout was given by the young fox, while Sonic got up and posed as a nerd. "Well uhm, you're ACTUALLY so lucky to have me, I know these places like, the palm of my glove." He raised his hand up into a fist, which scared Tails at first, but he quickly calmed down with Sonic's next words. "Let's do a fist bump. That way, we're gonna mark the beggining of our friendship, and we won't be able to forget!"
"You had me for a second there.. Yeah, let's." Tails raised his own fist, giving Sonic's a bump and the plane got a bit shaky from Tails only using one hand to control it. "WOAH!-" They both yelled and after the fox got it working again, the two laughed at the moment, an eventually found a place to rest.
(... Well, that's one of the doubts answered.)
Sonic could only smile at such a memory, it reallly warmed his heart to know there was someone out there that could be there for him. But even though he wanted to stay in those fond memories of his, he looked down to see a temple.
".. Bingo:" Which would be his next location in his adventure.
MEANWHILE, ELSEWHERE.
Robotnik had reached his base once more, and considering that Sonic couldn't have gone far, he pressed a button on his keyboard, and in a dark cavern.
"Rise and shine, my creation." A pair of yellow eyes lit up, announcing the arrival of a new foe.
Chapter 5: ABANDONED HOPE
Summary:
After Sonic's duel with the tyrant atop of the crumbling Marble Garden, he and some of the animals he rescued from the capsule left the area and flew to safety, findng themselves in the ruins of what once was.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
The metallic platform lead the hedgehog and the critters into firm ground, where they all could finally roam for a bit. "Gee, standin' for all that time made my legs a bit stiff, hmm."
Taking a moment to stretch, he then took a big sigh out of relief. Though, upon doing so, his eyes caught a glimpse of various houses around the town.
"Woah, shacks.. It'd be rude to sneak into 'em but then again, these look abandoned so it shouldn't be much of an issue." He sped through, he gave most of them a quick check, finding broken spears and dry blood in the walls, alongside plenty of humidity and mold in the corners. "Humidity?.. This place's real high up, so now that makes me wonder.. How the hell did a flood get up here?"
Thinking a bit, Sonic decided to ignore it for now. Walking around until he found a smithy, with his head peeking inside of it and taking a look around. What looked like a broken bracelet laid down in the floor near a forging table, which he then picked up, putting it away in his bag. Alongside it, the hedgehog found some ingots of a strange, green ore.
"Someone forgot their jewlery. Huh, and what's this junk? It looks sorta similar to the Chaos Emeralds.." Suddenly, the green ingots reacted to his touch, his lance and the bracelet started to float up into the air as he looked up. Both of them then fell after a small flash of jade light, appearing right before Sonic. He picked up the lance and put it on his pack, sliding the bracelet onto his right arm.
"Well, that was a neat light show at least. I'll have to try looking up what that was." The hedgehog stepped back out and then ran into the middle building, a huge library. He wasn't a huge fan of reading but he'd pick up a few books here and there to start reading them quickly. A couple of details caught his interest.
"Chaonium's the name of the ingot's material, and if my theory's right.." Pulling out the Chaos Emerald he had and rubbing it with the crystal of the bracelet, there was a small green shock between them. "Yup, they're connected. Radiation from the emeralds probably caused their creation. Let's see.. Hedgehogs? Why would they have a book on 'em?"
He took a look at the cover, it displayed: "Quills: A guide to all that is known about Hedgehog kind". Opening the book and looking a bit further into it, it mentions a higharchy in terms of a hedgehog's fur color. Black and white fur are both considered as the most dangerous, being followed by Red, Pink and Yellow. At the very bottom, Brown and Orange hedgehogs were listed, but what was most interesting was that there was 0 mentions of Blue fur. Reading further, his questions about blue fur were answered when he read the page on someone. The King.
A sworn enemy of the Echidna tribe and rulr of the Hedgehog kingdom. It seemed they were the first to be part of a monarchy. Apparently, the books real purpose was to train Echidna troops on how to fight the Hedgehogs and they documented most of their pros and cons.
"Now.. That kinda explains why Chilli Peppers over there tried takin' me down. He's probably read these and think I'm like those bozos." After putting the books inside his backpack, Sonic noticed a small glow coming from behind a desk. When he walked over, he spotted a small wheel like mechanism and had the brilliant idea to spindash in front of it. This caused for a door to slowly open. He walked inside after curliing back up and moved through the narrow corridor until he reached one last room. A big mural was in front of him. Two golden figures, facing against a huge army of dark alien looking people. He remembered for a moment..
"The glow that I saw when I gathered the emeralds.. No, it can't be that. What's this?" "The miracle warriors" was the name of the book on the pedestal, and it detailed a tale. The story of the two kings and how they did a ritual together to be able to fend of an invasion done by an external force to them. The ritual consisted in the fact that, during their weddings, it would all go normally until the very end, where their wives would be sacrified in order to bring out their sheer will power out and grant them a new state. Supis is the name it received, caracterized by it's golden glow and unlimited power, which could be stronger or weaker depending on the user's emotions.
Sonic's gaze lowered as a strange feeling of dejá vu ran through his mind. Such a strange kind of thought to have, but why couldn't he make it click? He was about to move to the next page when the temple started to crumble. Putting the books back into his backpack, Sonic speeded out of the corridor, with his wrist reacting for the first time by making an energy rope which he used to launch himself out. He was on free fall now, since the whole town had started to crumble down.
"Hm?"
When he looked up...
SILENT SPEEDWAY ZONE ACT 3
"C'mon doc, buildin' Metal again? Did the last ass whoopin' I gave to the tin can at the death egg teach you this one should've been the one you used?" The hedgehog was speeding through a now desolate city underneath crimson skies, dodging Metal while Robotnik replied wtih a grunt. "Oh, rodent. It's quite bold of you to assume I built him."
Robotnik said, while a shadowy figure launched himself towards Sonic, who jumped atop of him, knocking him down into the paviment. It recovered fast, grasping Sonic by the leg and slamming him into a series of posts until Sonic grabbed onto one of them, a kick being thrown at the figure to send it back into the doctor's machine. Gianing the upper hand in the race, he still had to dodge a few more things coming his way, but he was growing agitated. What was going on?!
The road ahead was blown up by the arm cannon the figure had, shooting continuously at him while Sonic used the broken road to jump and move around the blasts. The final door was near and Sonic sped up as fast as he could, blocking it and with the figure smacking itself into the door. Sonic quickly broke Amy free of her prison, who hugged him inmediately. "S-Sonic! You're safe, oh gods... This place looks creepy, too creepy! I don't wanna leave your side now, it's too scary for me to go alone.."
The hedgehog sighed, patting her back and pulling her away from himself. "Rosy, don't ya worry. I promise that we're gonna get outta this hellhole and we're gonna ruin that fatso's plans like we always do. You can stay with me, I kinda figured you'd be fast too with how much ya chase after me~" He teased to calm the young girl down a bit, who pouted.
"It's because you keep running away fro me! But fine, if I have to chase you for a million miles to be with you, then be it!" She protested while Sonic could only sigh gently. "Heh, keep that up and maybe one day. For now, let's get outta here." Amy nodded and followed Sonic out, into..
IRON INSANITY ZONE ACT 1
Suddenly, Sonic's heart was filled with a yet to be experienced dread. He slowly turned to Amy, with a regretful look on his face. "Rosy, I need you to go back. Right now, you've gotta go warn the people from the village, they've gotta evacuate." She looked startled at his reaction to the place.
"B-But... " Sonic snapped at that very moment. "No but's. There's a chain nearby, I can help you ride it down if you need help." She shook her head while in tears, walking towards it with a somber expresison on her face. "No no, don't you worry.. I can do this by myself. Still, good luck, my hero." She gave him a hug, which Sonic returned before he escorted her to the chain, with Amy running down from it. While he went inside of the fortress, being attacked once more by the dark figure who dragged him through the ground, with Sonic kneeing it on the stomach to spin back, launching it into a wall.
"Just what the hell are you!?" He asked, and as the figure rose up.. It was his own eye.
Underneath him were what seemed to be more ruins, but at the same time, there were many trails of fresh blood. It couldn't be as old as it looked, despite the dust coating the buildings and the dead air that filled the streets underneath.
GENOCIDE CITY ZONE, FIRST CLIMAX.
"Huh, another ghost town?... Just what is this place." He walked along the path of the bodies, which started to make him anxious. Once he was half way through, though, he heard something from afar. An engine turning on. "I FOUND YOU." The ground behind Sonic was split open, with him adquiring a defensive stance right as he was tackled through several buildings, with a huge energy beam launching in his direction, which he narrowly managed to avoi by spindashing under, launching himself up to kick the bot on the face, revealing it's identiy.
"Metal? The hell happened to you?" The shadowy figure appeared once again for a split second, but back to reality, his robotic copy stood before him, however, it seemed like a rusty, frankenstein-like fusion of Metal Sonic and the Mecha Sonic he faced in the Death Egg. "Scrap Mecha". He did not reply, heading straight at him while curled into a ball, with those pointy spikes surrounding it's whole body as it moved at high speeds towards Sonic, who managed to move out of the way, grabbing Mecha with his energy whip to throw him out into a couple of buildings, running thought the rubble to continue beating the bot. A golden beam of energy was shot from the robot's chest, which Sonic was hit by.
Upon hitting the wall, he curled up into a ball and bounced off it, back into the building to axe kick Mecha in the head, who recovered by sending a kick up and then using his booster to kick him out into another building. Threatening with a chest laser once again, Sonic swept him off his feet and caused Mecha to open a hole in the roof, with rocks falling from the cieling of the cave above the city. The robot was kicked up by his meat counterpart, and Sonic soon started to chase him between the rocks, using his energy whip to swing off the falling rocks and connect a very strong spindash into the bot, jumping off to run through the abandond streets.
"Huh?"
However, the free spirited hedgehog was met by a huge courtain of water, with the dopplegänger controlling the wave for it to follow Sonic. Instinctively, he ran away from it, as the newly created Tsunami whiped strets worth of houses. Sonic reached a highway in which he began to run, with Mecha throwing waves at him from the sides that he could dodge by speeding up and down at the right timings.
(Ah, right... The shields are connected to Robuttnik's network since they were his traps. No wonder why this bot's trying to copy this too!) During one of those, he saw the chance and used the energy whip to hold onto the side of the bridge, swinging up. He then changed to the electric shield, becoming a bolt of energy that launched itself like a bullet onto his metallic counterpart, hitting him head on and spinnning around in the air to create the Spin Slash, which put Mecha in the exact position to be hit by an electric beam coming from the real Sonic.
However, Mecha appeared to be fine and empowered even by the blast, covered in an electric aura. Sonic went back to running through the highway until he reached a bridge, which the metallic one would start to cut with thunders that fell into the way of the hedgehog. Sonic was hit by one of them, forcing him into using the water shield to make small ice roofs with the water from the lake underneath to protect himself from the impacts. By pinpointing where Mecha was, he jumped into the water, running on it and aiming his hand below himself.
The robot launched energy clones of himself like bullets, which Sonic dodged by moving from side to side on the water. Sonic then pushed his hand down and a water geiser shot him up as Mecha electrified the water, going up in ball form to do an upwards spindash, kicking Mecha's face and using his lance to slash at him. Reacting on time, the robot's shield triggered and deflected the green blast at Sonic, sending him flying back in order to be caught by Mecha's hand, being thrown into the electrified water for heavy damage. The robotic pawn grabbed the hedgehog by the quills and ran him through the broken street until they reached an energy plant, which blew up when Sonic was launched onto it.
The hedgehog yelled out in pain after being both electrocuted and caught on the eye of the explosion, but he was still standing. With his scarf, gloves and boots torn and his face scarred, he was still gonna try to face Mecha. Just like with the doctor before, cyan sparks started to come out of Sonic's body as he panted hard. The double gave him no time to breathe and held him by the throat, choking him with force. Feeling his air being cut short, tears ran down the hedgehog's face.
"N-Not... Now... HRAAAGH!" An earth shattering scream filled the area while he bursted into a blue light. Mecha looked as Sonic now ran past him in a split second. He was launchd into the air by that motion, being attacked from various angles at once before Sonic knocked him back down. The android jumped back to avoid an incoming kick, going into a spindash to attack the hedgehog, who could stop him wih his bare hands. He then started to knee kick him fast, kicking Mecha into a wall, who recovered fast and slammed down by using his propulsor to gain a boost.
"That's it.. Let's face off like FUCKING animals, buck o' bolts!" Both of them were now at opposite sides of the arena while the flames grew more potent. Kicks and punches were traded between both parties until Sonic gained the upper hand, hitting Mecha hard enough to tear one of his arms off. Still, the double formed an electric chain from his missing arm and began to swing it at Sonic, landing a knee on his chin. Grabbing his spear once more, Sonic cut through his body, instinctively forming a symbol that looked like an infinity one, causing Mecha's body to be hit multiple times by the replicated motion of the spear's thrusts. He knocked him off his feet and since the thrusts were still being replayed, he had the perfect angle.
"BURN IN HELL!" Was what Sonic yelled, with Mecha being split in half by the sudden appearance of an energy blade on Sonic's hand. The two halves of the robot fell into the lake and Sonic let out an expansive wave from de-transforming, which managed to put out the fire.
"... Hah.... Sonic 5, Stupid Sonic bots 0. Not even when you're all combined into the same guy can you give me a good fight." The shadowy being stood before him as he laid down on the ground, but Sonic got up. "That's right, Shard. I'm way over this now.." Taking the face of it and removing the shadowy particles, he now saw it clearly. The distortions stopped and the other Metal Sonic was now present before him, opening it's mouth to talk what, to Sonic, was merely static.
".What? No no, hey... Talk slower, I can't understand what you're saying! I don't care for what you're saying!"
The static grew more intense as he grabbed onto his lance, swiping at the apparition "Just.. Leave already, bozo!.. I can't give this up now that I'm THIS close to ending him- I can't rest until he's DEAD." Taking deep breaths, the robotiziced hedgehog slowly faded into Sonic's mind, with him getting up and walking to Robotnik's base there. Since the energy plant had blown up when he was thrown into it, the survailance cameras and security protocols were all off and so, he could wander in. Right in the floor before a cell was the third chaos emerald, which seemed to be locked in here. He also found a strange red rock , which he grabbed.
The rock flashed several images and screams before him, giving Sonic a headache strong enough to make him throw the thing onto the lake, alongisde the remains of Mecha. "Yup, I'm stayin' away from any red n' black rocks for the rest of my life, never again." Sonic was about to leave but the electrical discharges around the area had made the screen nearby opperational. Something that caught his eye was a recording, the very last one. He played it.
There seemed to be a full town of people. People that looked exactly like Knu'ur who were all lving calmly. Some even spoke about how life had gotten better ever since "the doctor" had arrived to "protect them". He changed recordings and found a specific event, Robotnik unveiling the "Sentry". His eyes widened when he saw Mecha on display, and he feared the worst. Moving through the recordings, he found one that froze him in place.
Mecha suddenly started to move at 4:Am of that day, wandering until he started to massacre the town, one echidna after the other. He was beyond shocked and even more so when he saw another figure, Knuckles arriving to the scene.
"... What have you done, Ivo?"
Notes:
A bit of a shorter episode, but we're 1/3 into the first arc!
Chapter 6: THE HERESY OF THE WARRIOR.
Summary:
A battle with his carbon copy resulted in a near death experience the hedgehog narrowly avoided thanks to the built up energy within his body manifesting into a new power. After the fact, the hedgehog took shellter inside of Robotnik's base there and had a gruesome discovery.
Chapter Text
In the darkness of the cove, a bright light shone down on the water below. It was the only reliable light source in the whole place aside from the huge crater that had formed on the roof, which made the travesal of it harder than it would other wise. The doctor grunted in annoyance as he had to maneuver through broken buildings until he found Mecha's broken body.
"Oh, you've seen better days, old friend." The man said as he picked up the robot's broken down head from the ground, sliced in half. "That hedgehog... Ah, I'll have to set up the game if I want him to struggle once more. But either way, the world won't conquer itself, let's head out." After picking up the android's pieces, he did notice an arm missing, but took what remained and headed back to his base. Or he would have, if he didn't spot something in the water.
"... Oh?" He pulled back and grabbed the item, smirking. "Ah, of course you would throw it away.. Oh, you dense little rodent." The doctor cackled as his vehicle flied away through the crack. All of this would've been watched by that same hedgehog, from the shadows of the buildings around him. His gaze filled with uncaracteristic hatred. "Hah.... Doctor, doctor. I bet they would've loved being rescued up like that, wouldn't they?"
The hedgehog groaned, moving out from the shadows to see the light coming from the crack. "Anyways.. I think that a bit of tinkering should get you to work for me, bad boy." The maroon gaze of the mobian found itself on the ripped arm he held, using the whip on his free one to launch himself towards a tall building and then, swing off the hole he first came in from, entering what remained of the blacksmith from before.
...
SOME TIME LATER, IN EGGBASE N°20.
The doors of the lab were opened as the doctor made his entrance, being greeted by his badniks as he simply waved at them nonchalantly, taking in the view of the various capsules of animals set around the base, who's life force was being pulled away and poured into new badniks to be welcomed by their bretheran.
"Ah, the beautifully manufactured cycle of life, a sight to behold." A small chuckle came off him as he reached the main room, which housed the echidna's training room and his personal workshop. "Knuckles, old friend! I have returned and I think that I've got some interesting news you'll love to hear." The chained mobian had been fighting various kinds of badnik but he stopped and undid his own chains to walk over.
"You may speak of your findings. If they are related to the hedgehog, allow me to hear them loud and clear." Knuckles proclaimed, while the doctor took a piece of barely functioning hardware from the bot's skull. "Well, take a closer look and you'll see what I mean by yourself." Knuckles nodded, walking closely and spotting a strange projection of Robotnik arriving at the echidna's town.
"Oh, don't worry about that one." He quickly changed it to one of Mecha's first attack on Sonic and soon after, he was watching the entire battle unfold. "I think this has the key to beating him." Pause. "If you can match.." He moved the recording forward, and it displayed the hedgehog's sparks as the warrior wore a determined expression on his face. "This."
...
BACK TO SONIC.
Out from the workshop, a rusty steel arm threw a punch and Sonic came out afterward, checking the new "armor" he had managed to reverse-engineer. "Tough luck, Eggy. Finders keepers, losers weepers~" The hedgehog looked onto the arm and formed it into a fist, though he stopped for a moment. "..." Feeling the metal over his skin made him take a step back and take the metal arm off in a panic, turning it back into a small bracelet as he panted heavily, before calming down.
"What... What was that?" The hedgehog shook his head and silently put the bracelet back on to hop off into the destroyed city again, swinging through it with the whip until he reached a large metal door. Despite his initial hesitancy, Sonic took a hold of his bracelet and had it cover the entire arm, throwing a punch at the door.
KBLOWWW! A large hole was created in the center of the door, which he passed through to roll down a hill and into a grassy area, taking a sigh. "So that's what you do..." Sonic nodded his head with a small smile. "Well then, I'll name you... X-plosivo. How's that?" He gave himself a thumbs up. "Good boy. Let's rock!" The aquamarine toned grassfields lead the way down to..
AZURE LAKE ZONE: ACT 1.
The area itself was large, full of vegetation and with some strange structures scattered throughout. The hedgehog had started running through the hills and grinding through some surprisingly strong vines that allowed him to jump through a window and into some sort of castle-like ruin, though the hallways were all broken down and he had to jump through a few pieces of rubble to make his way to the other side, where a knight-like robot tried to jump at him, only for Sonic to parry its sword slice with his arm.
"Oh, sir steelbard.. Your stupidity is the pride of this kingdom." He tauned while punching through the sword to knock it up into the air, grabbing the robot's leg to slam it down into the ground and hopping on its body to poke its head with one of the arm's fingers, causing another loud explosion that sent the body flying through the hallway, tackling several other robots along the way until the hedgehog had reached a main hall of sorts, filled with robots and a single monitor sitting in the middle with a fire symbol on it.
His gut told him to punch it and he did, but the vines that had moved due to his speed caused the fire to gather around the sides of the area, consuming most of the robots and making the flamable ones blow up, which made him break through the window from the detonation and into a garden of various precious flowers. He wanted to take in the scenery, but a rumble through the flowers made him sneeze.
"Oh, more company? Cool!" From them, an android jumped up and threw a slice at the hedgehog, which he jumped over before a kick was thrown at his stomach, launching him into a nearby wall. "Ack-" He grunted in pain, looking up to see that the android had a much more.. Nun-like appearance, to an unnatural degree. The hedgehog got on his guard soon after realizing that and dodged a few slices from the nun's blade-like arms and legs, using his lance to parry another that was about to hit him to push her off him and then throw a spinning slice of his own.
"ALL MUST PRAISE THE LORD! THE HERECTIC'S BLOOD MAY PAINT THE PATH TO CHAOS!" The droid screamed, just as Sonic briefly triggered the sparks state to throw a punch into its stomach that sent it flying through the garden, and midflight, its head was held by Sonic to drag it through the ground.
"May the oil of this dumb maid-bot paint the way to you MEETING chaos!" Sonic let out a little comeback while throwing her into the wall, stabbing his lance into the ground for his legs to kick repeatedly into it until one final kick broke the wall and allowed him to go flying into the air, pulling the lance back with the electric shield to decapitate the bot along the way. Though, he realized where he was heading midflight and braced for impact, going underwater.
The water shield had been triggered to light his path through the underwater ruins of some what looked like training grounds. He spotted a little timer in the wall before going in and smirked throwing his lance into the button to open up the path through the labyrinth.
He prepeared himself and began moving inside the ruins, dodging metal piranhas and octopi that attemted to drag him down to keep the shield's energy, parkouring through the mossy walls of the underwater temple as if the water's physics didn't affect him until he reached the end, changing his shield to the electric one to shock all of the robots that were underwater AND for his lance to pull through the same pathway he came from, slicing the remaining bots until it reached Sonic's hand, tearing through the rock to come out of the lake and onto the shore, staring off into the distance to notice a few robots like the one in the garden were flying into some ruins at the mountainside.
"Heh, guess it's a holyday or something for them to come together here.." He placed a hand down on the ground and ran through the lake, feeling a brief, yet strange sensation that made him look to the side. There, he would see a large planetoid made out of metal, chained to the ground below, only for it to disappear as he kept running.
"Just what the hell does that thing mean? It keeps popping up and it's making zero sense." He thought to himself while jumping between broken down walls and a small stone pathway that lead to the gates to the temple, which Sonic busted open with his metal arm. Though, a quick look around the place quickly gave him the idea that it may have not been too bright of him to come in out of nowhere.
".. Uhh.." One nunbot stepped up. Then another, and they kept coming until they surronded the hedgehog. "Ladies, ladies... There's a bit of Sonic for all of you, don't worry." They backed away as he walked through them, but reunited behind him to keep him in a tight circle. And as he saw one of them raise their arms slightly, he threw a quick punch at the ground to launch him into the air, forcing the nuns to back down as some of them started to jump up towards him. He thew a kick at one of them and then pressed the button in X-Plosivo's thumb to shoot the other four fingers as harpoons to grab that robot and slam it into the one who tried to attack him next.
He saw a few of them charging up blasts of energy that got sent his way, which he dodged but one blast caught him off guard by being faster than the rest, hurting him a bit. Then, two of the nuns kicked him up and slammed him back down into the ground, lunging in to finish him. Sonic moved out of the way to spindash through both of their bodies in one go and spin around an incoming horde to launch them up into the air, creating a chain-reaction as he spun through their bodies as well.
"TAKE DOWN THE HERECTIC!" They all exclaimed, as Sonic punched one of them in the face and detonated it to blow both it and some other nearby bots and spin under a few of their attacks, jumping back up to slice some of their heads off to then quickly switch off to the electric shield and launch the heads back as extra projectiles. Though, a few of the robots began to chant together, while a lot of others started to overwhelm Sonic until..
SHRRRAK. A beam of light was shot down from the ceiling, which Sonic was barely able to avoid by triggering the burst mode, blasting through the nuns one by one as they all screamed for "THE HOLY ONE" or something, he didn't quite get it. Sonic tried launching one of them with his electric shield, but they didn't move. He took this into consideration as he created an electric blast of his own for it to bounce off the robot, charging him up so he could lunge towards them and fry their circuits with continuous electric bursts.
"The holy shit indeed, ma'am! You're all insane!" The beams all kept falling down, but he realized something. They were all above water right now. Using his water shield, he pulled out water tendrils that broke the ground around him, leaving him standing in a single pilar above it. The nuns kept chanting, all together now as they prepeared to blast Sonic from the sides and from above.. The beam was surely gonna be strong, but Sonic had them all read.
"SAY HI TO GOD, BUCKETHEADS!" He grabbed a hold of all of them with the electric shield and yoinked them above the platform, jumping onto the safe arms of the water tendrils, who all gave a middle finger each while the beam of light engulfed the dozens of nunbots, who all screamed "ENERJAAAAAK!!" in agony.
Sonic, meanwhile, was brought to the only other stable piece of ground by the watery familiars. "Thanks pals, y'all are the best." They went back to being just water, but Sonic closed his eyes and burst through the wall to destroy the capsule that.. Didn't release animals this time. ".. Huh? But- Ah... I'm sure it did something anyway." Sonic wouldn't let that slow him down at all, so he kept walking forther and entered what seemed to be a passage into another cave, lit up by torches. "I'm still wondering just what this thing is.. I haven't seen a single mobian use powers like those." The sparks still flowed through his body.
"Whatever it is though.. It's paying off big time, so I've gotta keep working on it." He closed his fist and saw a monitor nearby, which he went to investigate. "So it's you, huh... I remember you from the mansion just now." He tapped it and grabbed his trusty wrench from his backback to start fixing the cables, in the opposite order to how he did it with the water shield, and then he bursted it.
His body was coated in flames and eventually turned into a shield around his body, bright and hot enough to burn the floor beneath him. "Woah... Well, this is the third one. I do wonder how many others there are gonna be around here.."
AZURE LAKE ZONE: ACT 2
The hedgehog ran through the ruins until he slipped on some oil and got covered by it. "Ah, crap!" He yelled, but that was the least of his worries for now. He bumped into a wall full of thick vines, with some robot snakes in between. "Eugh!" He moved back a bit, but it did give him an idea.
He closed his hand to forge the water shield around himself, which caused the oil to glue onto it while he then spun in place, launching towards the vines as he switched into the fire shield to burn down the vines with an intense fiery explosion. He jumped off a wall and slid down the oil river to then notice a bottomless pit underneath. He looked up and saw more vines, which made him change into the fire shield to burn the upper vines, gluing his shoes onto the ceiling's fire to run upside down and jump onto some railings far from the river.
That lead him to a glass tunnel underneath the water, with the corals and other underwater plants shining through the glasses as he hopped onto some underwater ruins that looked different from the rest. "Huh.. For a robot infested churchhive, this looks.. Strangely beautiful." He remarked the church-like appearance of the building, as he then punched the ground with his glove, causing water to launch up in a geyser that he froze to jump from and into the window of the building.
Sonic landed inside of a hallway that he ran down form, only for the floor underneath to break and leave him down into some more mines underneath the church. When he set foot he felt it was.. Eerily lonely but he ran through the empty hallway and down to the first actual floor of this "dungeon" of sorts, where plenty of cacoons were planted on the floor and when he touched a single one by accident with his foot, a few spider-robots hatched. Though at first they didn't go after Sonic, they screeched and caused other cacoons to hatch more spider-bots that started to join together into a larger spider as they were massproduced.
It tried to tackle him by lunging forward, but he moved to the side and threw a series of three flaming uppercuts, each stronger than the last to knock it back. Half of it's legs were missing though, and he noticed when they launch like razor blades towards him until the spider itself spun in place to send the hedgehog flying back and to then launch a web from it's mouth onto the floor before him, slamming down to tear the floor into pieces.
"NGH!" Sonic yelled after being hit by a piece of rubble, with the spider trying to stab him into the wall during their fall until he spotted another large enemy down below, a very thin, yet large robot that had a vaccum for a face, who sucking in with weaker robots with his "mouth". So Sonic continued to dodge the onslaught of hits from the desperate spider as it screamed, catching the attention of the other android.
A smirk appeared on the hedgehog's face as he impaled the robot with his lance and dunked it down into the glutton's mouth with a strong fire slam. It was forced to inhale the spider when Sonic kicked it inside of it's mouth, throwing it back into some walls. Afterward, the hedgehog hid behind a few pillars to avoid being seen by the robot, but he took a quick look at his surroundings to know what to do.
He yelled in purpose to attract the blind giant's attention towards him, which made him turn on his vaccum. When he did, Sonic threw a piece of rubble into it for the robot to start choking on it, launching several blocks of concrete into it's mouth to then shoot himself in, blasting a hole through the robot's head as it fell on it's back and broke another floor down for Sonic to go through.
"... GRAAAH, I'm getting sick of this crap!" He punched the floor beneath him to break through several floors, incinerating the foes inside of each until he started to jump through the falling debris to make it down a grinding rail and safely into the true church that laid all the way down there, with it's bells ringing as Sonic looked towards it. "... This has gotta be the place, then.. What does Egghead have with this enerjak guy to make a whole religion outta him?" As he stepped closer to the door.. The bells brought a fleeting memory, of a pink hedgehog with a bell on her neck that slowly rang as she turned her head to see him.
FLEE.
WITH.
ME.
Sonic held his head as he shook it. "I-I... I can't. You're.." His words didn't come out, but the guilt was ever present. That something was a warning for him to retreat in a way, maybe his own psyche telling him to back down from the challenge ahead like it did before. But he couldn't care less.
The door was kicked down as Sonic looked before of him, spotting a sillouete playing the organ while nuns sat on church benches, staring right into his eyes as he walked down the hall, with the glass right in front of them to display the "HOLY WATERS" before them. "So, you're the head honcho of this place, no? Mind introducin' yourse-" Sonic was rudely interrupted by a scream from the figure, who quickly snapped it's neck to show an eyeless robot with a cotton beard and torn shepherd robes as it held it's arms open.
"SISTERS. I GATHER YOU HERE ONCE MORE, BUT TODAY IS A SPECIAL OCASSION.. THE HOLY ONE HAS GRANTED US THE SACRIFICE WE'VE NEEDED, HIS ARRIVAL MUST BE INMINENT! FINALLY, WE WILL BECOME ONE WITH THE CHAOS AND JOIN OUR FATHER IN CREATING THE NEW EDEN." Sonic was left speechless at first, but quickly recovered to shut the robot by palcing a hand over it's mouth. "Uh, doc... Don't tell me you've gone this mad." The robot slapped Sonic's hand away and then hit Sonic's stomach so hard that he flew out into a red cross that quickly held him captive by tying his arms and legs. "SILENCE, RENEGADE. WE FOLLOW NO OTHER THAN OUR LORD, ENERJAK! AND DARING TO SAY THE OPPOSITE PROVES YOUR HERESY! AS SUCH.. YOU MUST PAY FOR YOUR SINS, LIKE OUR FATHER ONCE DID!"
The crowd behind them screamed "PAY, PAY." as Sonic closed his eyes, panting heavily once more. "OH ENERJAK. YOU MUST HEAR OUR PRAYERS THIS ONCE, AS WE OFFER YOU THE ULTIMATE SACRIFICE. THE SINS OF THIS WHOLE WORLD ARE PACKED INTO THIS ONE INDIVIDUAL. A CHILD RAISED FROM IMPURITY, FROM ALL THE SINS YOU VANQUISHED. HAVE HIM AS OUR FINAL OFFERING FOR OUR ENTRANCE TO YOUR HOLY REALM, THE CHAOS FORCE! WE PLEAD TO YOU, FATHER, FREE US FROM OUR BODIES AND COME IN OUR PLACE TO JUDGE THIS ROTTEN WORLD!"
"Stop... Please, I can't..." The same pinkette from before emerged from the crowd and held his cheeks, screaming at him to pay.
"I said.... I SAID STOP IT, DAMN IT!" The hedgehog's sparks flowed again as he broke free of the energy rings around his wrists, shooting his metal hand's harpoons to drag the android and punch him aross the hallway. Said android twisted it's own body as it got up from the ground. "YOUR KIND... IT KNOWS NOTHING BUT DEVASTATION! AND IT'S WHAT SHALL BE BROUGHT DOWN ONTO IT, OUR LORD SAID SO.. THE PROPHECY OF THE MURAL SAID SO! EVERYTHING POINTS TOWARDS YOUR OWN DESTRUCTION AND YET YOU DARE OPPOSE THE WORD OF THE MIGHTY?" It questioned, raising it's finger towards him.
"I.. Don't care for what gods or prophecies say. What ya' see is what ya' get, there's no catch to it. And I'm going to get that across your thick, metal skull. No diety or ANYONE's gonna say how my story ends, but me. And it says right here, in page "Fuck" of chapter "You" that YOU'LL BE NOTHING BUT HOLY SCRAP!" The robot started cackling as green light emanated from it's hands. "TRULY... THE WORDS OF AN INSIGNIFICANT WORM, JUST AS IT DEPICTED. SO BE IT, MAMMAL. FEEL THE WRATH OF THE HOLY BLADE OF CHAOS: PROMETHEUS!"
After that exchange between the two lunged towards each other, clashing fists first to cause a shock wave that sent the nuns on the chairs behind them flying into the wall behind.
SONIC V.S PROMETHEUS.
The fight commenced by the holy one running towards Sonic, only to appear behind him and slam him across the room. The hedgehog stabbed his lance into the ground to stop himself from flying too far, creating two fire pillars to keep the bot distracted as he flung himself towards it's head, landing a clean hit followed by a series of kicks towards it's face before grabbing onto it's neck with the whip and spinning with it in the air before he slammed the robot face first into the ground.
An explosion of red energy took Sonic back as the android emerged with a blade of light, slicing towards Sonic, who managed to dodge a couple of the hits, while being hit by a few more. "THIS IS THE WILL OF OUR MAKER. THIS IS YOUR DESTINY TO EMBRACE, RAT!" said the droid until his slices were met by Sonic's own with his lance. "And which of the millions of voices in your head said that, sicko? Cuz' I'm sure half of those are bettin' you'll bite the dust in this one!" Sonic's lance eventually slammed into the robot's arm, which caused it to move veeery slowly as he threw an electrocharged punch into it's jaw, sending it up for a lightning bolt to strike him down into the ground.
"IMPOSSIBLE! THIS FILTHY ANIMAL.. HE CAN'T BE USING THE POWER OF CHAOS AGAINST US, HERESY, HERESY!!" It began to shoot a beam straight from it's usable hand towards the hedgehog, who blocked it with his lance, grunting. "Agh, it's way stronger than the nun's... Had to see that one coming, honestly." He cut through the beam and slid under the second one getting the perfect angle to punch the floor with his gauntlet, causing an erruption of flame to hit the robot head on, launching it up above for him to jump off the wall and grab him, giving the robot a piledriver that even buried it's head in the concrete.
Sonic remained high on his guard until he realized that the nuns had lifted the cross that once held him and were about to send it spiraling towards him. He dodged it and used his whip to grab onto it, slamming it down onto Prometheus. Though, a bit too late. He had gotten back up and held the cross as the nuns began to chant. "FOOLISH AS EVER, MISGUIDED ONE. YOUR EFFORTS WILL PROVE FUTILE ONCE MY SISTERS AND I TEAR YOU DOWN TO YOUR VERY ATOMS!" It screamed at him, with beams of energy flying from the crowd and towards Sonic himself, who stood in place and began to block all their blasts one after the other with incomprehensibly fast movements from his trusty lance.
"Father, I've got a confession to make... I've sinned, yes.. BUT THIS IS ALL BULLSHIT!" He ran towards the automata, who shot a small force field at him that stopped him in place for a couple of seconds, enough for it to barrage his body with quick punches before it threw him and launched two light constructs at him. "BULLSHIT, INGENUITY.. CALL IT WHATEVER YOU MAY, YOU FUCKING PRICK. CHAOS SPEAR!" It yelled, while a just recovered Sonic parried both blasts and countered with an electric discharge as he triggered the burst mode again.
The prayers had caused the energy sword to grow in size, with them all chanting for the hedgehog's downfall in unison as he ran towards him, clashing repeatedly, although Sonic landed a few cuts of his own before Prometheus grabbed him by the quills, slamming him into the ground before kicking him away and shooting a beam that hit him head on, causing Sonic to fly into a pillar, which he held onto to spin and launch himself around the room, forcing Prometheus to kill his own nuns, weakening the sword's size without the robot even realizing.
The angered shepherd grew energy wings and began to slam his sword into the ground, errupting pillars of light around the hedgehog to force him into close combat with the flying priest, who threw a rising kick and then sliced him down into the ground, where Sonic bounced back up to throw a rising spindash, butting his head against the robot'as he tore his wings off, forcing him to fall back onto the ground while he remained in the pillars.
Sonic made the perfect path amongst the nuns and took a deep breath as he shot like a rocket, bouncing off each of the nuns until he was heading straight for the robot, who paralyzed him in place with a chaos control. It laughed in hopes of winning, but it then realized.
He had begun moving again.
SHLLACK. Against all odds, Sonic broke through the chaos control AND the sword, stabbing the robot through the chest with his lance. It looked in horror and pleaded for him to stop, but Sonic didn't care much for it. He threw a series of punches straight at his stomach to blow a hole through it, only for him to grab him by the neck and launch him into the cross.
Soon after, all of the robot's nuns were sent straight into him, stabbing into it's limbs before he spoke again. "If you wanna go so bad... I'LL SEND YOU OFF. SAYONARA, WEIRDOS!" He screamed as he sent a combined blast of fire and electricity to blow them all up to smitherines, burning the church down alongside them. Seeing the church crumbling down, Sonic looked on through the crystal and changed to the water shield, breaking through to have his familiars carry him to the surface.
(.. Who?...) Sonic's memory started to freshen up once more like it did before, with him closing his eyes as he was carried up.
It was a calm evening for Sonic, but he had ran all the way through the plains of East Island to get to the Penny Village, where he found a particular hedgehog.
"Sonikku!" She yelled as she ran to hug him. "Haha, hey hey... Chill, I've just been away for a couple of hours, Rosy." He replied, ruffling her hairs.
"H-Hey, it's no fair... I stay here all day open for you and you DARE leave for a single hour, hmph!" She pouted playfully, while he grabbed her cheeks and toyed with them.
"Yeah yeah, I know. I'm Mr. Worst Friend ever for that, you get one free pass at kicking my butt." The pinkette would giggle at that, but she stopped to think.
"Um, Sonikku.. You called me here for something, right?" Sonic nodded, and picked something out of his pocket. A small bell necklace. "Uh.. Here, I bought this along the way and since you're gonna adventuring too, I thought it would be a nice touch. A bell means the start of something and the end of something else. It's the end of your days as the damsel in distress and your big jump to being a solo traveller!" A strong blush overcame her as she happily clapped.
"Yes yes yes! This is perfect, all so perfect! Thank you very much, I'll keep a good eye over it." Sonic smiled, nodding. "I'm glad you liked it then, but you'll have to bring me some souveniers from your own journeys from now on, mhm?" The rose gasped. "The nerve of asking a lady to spend money on gifts for you! I'll let it slide, just because it's my hero who says it.." Sonic chuckled. "It was a joke, but if you're sooo ready to do anything, then go for it~"
Amy giggled, holding his hand out. "Well, wanna come in? My house isn't too far from here." He nodded, taking her hand. Some time later, they were both looking at the sunset. "Umm... Sonniku?" He looked over at her. "I've been meaning to ask you something, just don't be mad at me, okay?" The hedgehog scratched his cheek, smiling awkwardly. "Why would I be? You haven't done much wrong up til now, what could be so bad?" He asked.
"This can sound crazy but.. I love you, Sonic." She pressed her head against his chest in embarrassment. "I've.. Loved you for a good while now. Ever since we first met in Little Planet. I was sure of it, when the cards told me about you. Then I just had to take a good look and my mind's been unable to think of anything else since. Now that I'm travelling on my own... I want to grow too so i can be on par with you, and then we can be together! So.. Flee with me!" Her enthusiam was remarkable, but he knew he couldn't return those feelings. A hand was placed on her shoulder.
"Well.. I'm not mad at you, but Rosy... You're 12, I'm 15.. We're kids. It's very early on in your life to choose if you are in love with someone or you're not, and you barely know me anyways. I'm not saying I could never love you back, but I'm saying that things like those need more than just feelings alone. You've gotta grow sure enough to the point where you won't regret it when you finally start something, and you've gotta be mature enough to accept the road that comes ahead. This ain't a no, mind ya. It's just your pal's way of saying "just be patient"." The girl was about to cry, but she held the tears in.
"I've... I understand! I don't mind if it doesn't happen now, but I'm sure that it will eventually.." She smiled at him, while he nodded with a friendly chuckle. "That's the spirt." The two stared onto the horizon as night began to fall.
As he got finished remembering those fond memories, he looked underneath his gloves to spot a red string in each wrist.
"Maybe we can't be together.. But damn, you make this hard for me, Rosy. You really are a woman of your word."
Chapter 7: OFF THE RAILS.
Summary:
An encounter with a rogue AI resulted in the hedgehog facing against an entire church-like robot cult hidden in the depths of Azure Lake. After the fact, he was carried off into the surface and the wounded renegade now had to continue his journey onward into the woods.
Notes:
TRIGGER WARNING FOR GRAPHIC IMPALEMENT- That's about it, really. Shit gets a bit gruesome.
Chapter Text
As Sonic finished thinking about the past, he was left on the shore and suddenly felt an excruciating amount of pain in his right arm, touching it to see bloodstains on his fingers.
"... Tch.. You got the last laugh, huh? Fuck you, Prometheus." He pressed his hand onto the cuts on his arm and used the other arm to have the liquid creatures look on his backpack for something, which they then left on his palm: Bandages.
"Thanks, guys." He began to apply them around the wound after cleaning it up with a bit of water, wrapping it tightly around his arm as he sighed. "This fight's just gonna go on forever. And whatever chaos-bullshit he was using almost killed me back there.." The hedgehog shook his head. "No time for being a downer though, Sonic.. Man up, and move on." Once the wound was patched up, Sonic took his lance and moved around the surrounding ruins, jumping through what seemed to be a highway.
"Hm... These guys are a real enigma. That first town I got to looked so old and then the second one, corpses aside, looked like it was even more advanced than any other city I've seen mobians build. Seeing this third one only makes the whiplash even worse." He held that hand up to his forehead as he looked up to see the sky darkening above him. That made him slice at some trees nearby with the lance, gathering some wood to make a log to sit in and a campfire. Afterward, he set up some charging stations with scrap he gathered from past robots to charge up the powers from his shields.
His gaze was focused on the flames before him, as his thoughts about what he has been seeing start flying around his mind. Just what were those memories? What did any of them mean? He didn't know, nor did he want to know for now, they seemed overwhelming. "... Who am I? Better yet, who was I?" He asked himself. Though, he wouldn't be able to ask for long as he was tired from the fihgting just now and fell asleep to the sound of the rain outside.
His eyes opened once more, as he ran through the ocean. The sky seemed full of dust and smoke while the waves seemed to be rougher than they usually were, forcing Sonic to run faster than usual to jump off the water and straight into the shore of..
SUNSET HEIGHTS.
"---------" He felt his own mouth moving, but the words that came out were an incoherent mess to him as he walked up towards the city's streets, looking through the rubble and falling buildings, to the point where he had to save a family from being crushed by one of said buildings.
"------!" He exclaimed, but the mother took her children and looked at him in a mixture of horror and.. Anger? "..." The mother's mouth opened and closed repeatedly, as if she was screaming at him, and it caused his eyes to go wide ven if he couldn't hear her words. The whole town started to come out from hiding to scream at him while a giant monitor showed a portrait of him with one word.
"THE PERPETRATOR."
Those words filled him with dread. And the sound of an approaching vehicle made things worse, as soldiers began to run into the plaza alongside armed vehicles to hunt him down. Sonic began running away from them, dodging the incoming bullets until he reached some woods, seeing his own body mature while his gloves and shoes began to grow worn out.
Though he couldn't stay still for long, as a sniper shot and nearly hit him, with Sonic looking back with a nervous smirk. "H-Heh, that's all you got? We've done this same shtick for decades now, what's gonna change this time!?" He mockingly spun around in circles at his usual fast speed, but..
BANG.
He screamed as his hands held onto his leg, crying from the pain while seeing the blood from the wound. "Y-You bastards... I did nothing, ahn..." Sonic had to spindash in place to avoid a second bullet, hiding in the shadows of the forest as the soldiers began to go around looking for him.
During that, though.. He managed to use the darkness of the night to his advantage, getting a good angle to launch himself through the forest, breaking their weapons one by one as he then stood before them, his leg still bleeding.
"Ain't so tough without your toys, h-huh?... I'm not the guy you're looking for, HOW MANY DAMN TIMES DO I HAVE TO TELL YOU THAT?" He yelled at them, but the men pulled out their own blades to try and threaten him. "There's no proof to back that up, kid. N' neither is there any to debunk the allegations against you, now surrender or there'll be far worse than one bullet wound."
Sonic grunted at their stubborness, going into a spindash once more to dodge their blades and smack one in the stomach, doing a handstand soon after to kick another guy's face with his working leg to push hismelf up and deliver a rising kick, standing on that same leg soon after. Sonic reacted in time to an attempt at a sneak attack and grabbed the man's hand to stop the knife he had in it, choosing to punch his face to send him up and then spindash into a tree to slam him down into the ground, grabbing his body to throw it at another soldier and causing the two to end up in the floor.
After that, he kicked the sword that the soldier had let go flying into the air into a nearby tree to avoid it harming either of them. A soldier tried to grab Sonic but he swiftly moved to the side, hitting him in the face with a shoulder hit and then kicking his leg to force him to go on the ground, landing a potent knee that knocked them out cold. From the shadows though, one last soldier came out with an armor and a necklace made out of Sonic's lost quills."Haha... How the mighty have fallen" The soldier mentioned, his voice being slightly modified by the helmet.
"The hell's your problem? Why are you so damn obsessed with killing me?!" The man cackled as he pulled out his shotgun, aiming at the hedgehog. "Ain't it obvious? IT'S CALLED KARMA, BITCH." He dodged the first set of bullets shot by him, going in for a punch only for his hand to be slightly hurt from it. "O-Ouch.. Shit shit, this ain't working." He slid in between his legs and got up at the other side to spindash into his back, which broke the armor a little. "Agh, YOU LITTLE!" The man kicked Sonic into a tree and slammed him into the ground to finish it off with a kick that sent him flying into another one.
"N-Ngh!" The man reloaded his shotgun and shot again, which Sonic dodged by going into a spindash to slam into his back once more, tearing into the armor's chest. But this time, he got a bit greedy and tried going in for a third hit, only to be slapped away through several trees and roundhouse kicked in the back of the head, with the man stepping on his back to keep Sonic pinned in the ground while he held the gun to his head.
"... Hehe... I won.." He then trapped his neck with his arm, holding the gun to Sonic's face so he could look straight into the barrel. "What now, you sick fuck? It's over. My sister, my family can finally rest in peace, knowing that your fun little rampage came to a end at MY HAND." He reloaded the weapon, as Sonic's mind began to be filled by voices that screamed the same words he read before, over and over and over until..
SHLACCK.
His quills had spiked up, and stabbed through the man's body from the weakened spots on his armor, which also stabbed his vital organs, causing him to fall into the ground. Sonic came back to reality to see something within his hand, a shotgun too.. But made out of energy, and a robotic wolf with a giant hole on its face that had fallen down at the same time. Sonic was speechless, with tears falling down his eyes. "... I didn't... I didn't kill that guy, did I?" Sonic was panting heavily but then, he looked back at the weapon. "And.. Did I make this?" While he had his questions, he remembered Prometheus' attacks from the day prior and nodded to himself.
"I see... I'll think on how it works later, for now.. Where did you come from, lil' guy?" He looked at the dead robot and then grabbed his backpack to put it on his back, running off into the woods ahead. He reached a cliff as the leaves from the trees turned from green to a vibrant purple and jumped down into ..
VIOLET RAILWAY ZONE ACT 1.
Descending through a grassy field from which he saw a railway that had a train coming in. One with doctor's symbol on it. "Oh, you cheeky bastard, Ivo." He thought to himself before jumping off the hill and down the cliff, shooting his whip for it to stab itself into the wall and allow Sonic to swing into the back of the train, breaking through the door. He began to run through the first car, a large room full of boxes. He ran through them and eventually started using them to wall jump up, since there was an energy field around the staircase.
From up there, he jumped up and spotted a box containing flamable parts, which made him smirk as he looked through them and once he found a small gas tank, he threw it through a small hole underneath the staircase and shot a small ember with his fire shield, blowing up the pannel from underneath and disabling the shield to continue moving forward, though the boxes started to move as he did.
"Heh, that was easy.. What next!" Sonic opened the door and quickly had to block with his lance, a huge beam of energy was shot from the inside that he barely blocked, while monkey robots with bombs started heading towards him. "O-Okay, it would be a good time for you to come out... CHAOS SHELLS!" He yelled, holding his hands out and surprisingly.. It worked. The two shotguns formed within his hands as he aimed them ata the incoming horde, jumping over one of the monkey's bombs to shoot its head off, He threw an uppercut with X-Plosivo at one and pulled it with the harpoons to swing it around the room, detonating the other monkey's bombs before throwing it into the chimps, shooting at them with electrical bullets to make them shortcircuit.
Sonic ran through the pile of robo-chimps to reach the next car, though the speed at which he was going meant that the sharp turn the train took would send Sonic flying through the wall of the car and into the air. "AAAAAH!" He screamed as he fell down, grabbing onto the rocky side of the mountain to swing off into the woods by the side of the train tracks, keeping up easily with the bullet train's speed as he saw a red light coming from one of the windows, speeding down once he saw the red laser shooting from it. Another laser was shot from the window right behind it, which forced him to run ahead again.
"God damn it, these are getting old.." He looked at wet spots from the rain last night and nodded, gathering their water and spraying it as he ran, raising a series of water spikes using the water shield to do so, which blocked the lasters and allowed him to run up it, using the strangely large trees to run through their branches and he jumped down, diving with his fist on fire to blow a hole through the next car, which was the "recharge station" of the train, with a few robots resting in their own, individual rooms.
Thankfully, the first room had a recharging robot that seemed pretty frail, so he went ahead and kicked it out of the charging station. "Wakey wakey, it's time to fly!" He triggered burst for a quick moment and began kicking it repeatedly before using his shotguns to blast it into the other room, where an already charged robot ran to try and tackle him, which made Sonic dodge to the side as his whip morphed into a chain-like appearance. It wrapped itself around the robot's legs for Sonic to drag it with him in a spin that ended with him crashing the robot into the floor. He spindashed through rooms 3 and 4, killing both of its inhabitants in a single blow.
"I think I saw two or three more cars ahead after this one, it's gonna be easy as hell!" He cheered himself up, though the final robot welcomed him by punching him in the face as soon as he entered its room, causing him to fall back on his rear. "Ouch, that's one way to say welcome home.." He blocked the next punch and punched it on the face, causing half of it to explode. The robot grunted as it began to spin in place, hitting Sonic multiple times with its arms before using the left arm as a whip, slamming the hedgehog into the ground a couple of times before its head grew in size, causing his teeth to almost eat Sonic alive.
He stopped said teeth open with arms and legs, using the oil the robot's blown up head had dropped to create a water blade that cut its head off, letting him break through it to continue on to the final car, but he was stopped dead in his tracks when he heard something from the latter cars throw the ones in front into the air, including his own. It made Sonic fly out into the air, where he went into a spindash to fall safely on top of the mountain, running through the trees until he saw a shadow in one he was grabbing onto.
".. OH CRAP-" That made him jump up from the tree and over the car that had flow into it, grabbing onto the tree with his whip to launch himself into the car, going through a wood-made loop and then a huge tree trunk, having to spindash up the tree's walls until he launched out the other side, hopping between the falling cars to set them in place as he then landed on the front car, taking a brief sigh of relief.
"Well.. That was a wild ride." Now that he had time to breathe, he couldn't help but think back to the man's words. ".. Just what did I do then? Why was he blaming me?" He touched his quills, which went from stiff to soft when he calmed down. "Most importantly.. Why did I kill him?" The guilt was ever-so present in the hedgehog as he looked down, but he was taken out of the moment when he heard rumbling from one of the remaining cars. It started moving rapidly towards Sonic and he got on guard, blocking an incoming fist just to see that in reality, it was a fire robot that had attached the Death Egg Robo's parts into itself, screaming at the hedgehog to show its large fiery skull.
"Tch... Alright then, flarebrains, LET'S TURN UP THE HEAT!" He dodged an incoming fist by the flaming giant to use the flame shield, grabbing its arm and forcing it to hit itself in the head while Sonic himself spindashed at him from behind, grabbing onto the robot's head to slam it down into the floor, creating a small crater. While Sonic did that, though, one of the robot's arms went missing and it came back to hit Sonic from behind, while the other hand hit him from underneath and the two stayed at opposite sides to create a fire rope between them that grabbed Sonic and launched him right back into the giant.
Sonic came back to his senses mid flight and aimed underneath the giant, gathering nearby water with his shield to lift up an ice spike that lifted the titan up and sent the pyromancer back down, stabbing its body through the ice spike and also weakening its flames due to the water from the melting ice putting them out right on time for Sonic to trigger the burst and start beating the hell out of it, with multiple punches to its face and torso before he was kicked up and when he was about to finish it off, the fire blew up again and dragged its arms through the ground for one of them to go flying right back into Sonic, hitting him head on and sending the hedgehog back.
"GRAH!" He was able to land on his feet in time to take the robotic hand within his own, strugglging at first before he triggered the burst and screamed as the arm was then used by Sonic to clash it against the robot, who had been diving down with their remaining arm. The two exchanged punches before Sonic changed to the fire shield once more, snatching the other arm away to hit it right back into the platform, sending the rest of the cars flying into the air.
The angered robot screamed as it left its legs behind to fly up into the skies, catching Sonic and dragging him through the flying cars, only for Sonic to break free and use the height to bring down a lightning bolt with the electric shield, hitting the beast head on and for Sonic to then slice away at its face with his lance. Then, he ran around the cars until he got an opening and threw his chain-like whip to catch the core, smacking the robot on the cars before launching it up for a large water geiser to hit it.
"Let's let you shower in the glory for a sec, big guy.. YOU GOTTA TASTE FOR THE LAST TIME!" While the robot's flames were being put out, Sonic grabbed them with the fire shield and charged himself while he too piled up the remaining cars on top of each other to crush the bot into the plaftorm, diving through all of them with a war cry as he descended in a burning spindash to keep overchariging his system and at the last second he hoped up to pull his shotguns and deliver the killing blow, two charged up shots that destroyed the robot and the train alongside it, sending Sonic flying further ahead as the robot's cry could be heard disappearing in the wind.
The hedgehog took a deep breath as the trainwreck fell around him, looking up into the sky. "Man... These bots are getting hella dangerous, who knows what waits ahead. I don't think the shields have got much energy for the rest of it but, it is what it is." He broke the zone's energy center and then he stretched a little before running once again, this time onto the train station that the train was supposed to arrive to.
VIOLET RAILWAY ZONE ACT 2.
Though, as he walked in, he did spot some red eyes staring at him from the shadows of the trees. He didn't pay much mind and walked through the station. It was covered by the strong sunlight of the sunset and it housed a few robots who looked at Sonic.
"..." They stared quietly and then, alarms went off. He sighed and began to run up the stairs, which suddenly changed to be in reverse. It was annoying but nothing major, so he just used his whip to go all the way up. Once he got there, though.. Small disk shaped drones started to fly towards him with murderous intent, and he quickly blocked a majority of them with lightning fast punches from X-plosivo, which ended with an explosive clap to send them all flying away while more sturdy looking guard bots readied their guns to shoot at him.
He chuckled and grabbed a hold of his spear to spin it quickly, cutting through the bullets and sending it like a disc to slice their heads off and for it to then go back to his hand for him to finish their bodies off with a dive into upper slash combo. He then ran out of the platform and robots began to shoot at him once more, which he avoided thanks to the distance. Though, things got worse when he heard a train incoming which made him roll to the side, narrowly avoiding a bullet train that was about to hit him, jumping over another one that was coming in his exact direction.
"Oh, so they're weaponizing trains now, greaat.. Good thing's that they can't send more than three at a time at least." From the woods, something jumped and hit Sonic from behind, sending him rolling down the train. When he lifted his gaze to see his attacker, it ended up being a wolf badnik, just like the one that first attacked him. It went in for a couple of slices, which Sonic managed to block with X-plosivo before countering with an uppercut into a point blank shot from one of the Chaos shells, which he then dunked into the train with his whip.
It freed itself from the whip and lunged at Sonic in their bike form to try and cut him with its blade, which did hit but Sonic triggered the burst in time to take reduced damage from it. It did leave a small cut near his lips but nothing else. He even licked off the blood before landing a barrage of stabs with the lance and a kick to send the robot flying back.
The android similarly to the one he fought at the end of his last train, bursted into flames and lunged to slice at the hedgehog with their saw-wheel, which left a small cut in one of his arms. He defended from that by stealing the electricity from the robot's arm and using it to throw an electric uppercut to throw it into the air, right in time for a thunderbolt to fall and destroy the robot.
"... Ugh, that's the second one. So there's another robot hive comin' to get my butt, What's it gonna be next time, actual bees?" He sighed, stabbing his blade into the train as he saw it take another sharp turn and right on time for it to arrive at the next terminal, though Sonic had the bright idea of pulling an ice ramp from under the train to derrail it and have it ram into this station. He could spindash through the rubble up ahead just fine, but in the ruins of the terminal, another one of the bike-bots knocked him down onto the ground, with a second coming from the shadows.
Both of them attacked him from opposing sides and luckily for him, the hedgehog had learned to trigger Burst in appropiate moments, so he tanked the damage from both of them and ripped their blades out, throwing punches in both directions before doing a quick spin with his lance to cut both of them. He threw both of their blades at their necks to dig into them, attaching his whip and a fire one to the two blades again.
"That'll show 'e- Huh?" The two robots got up without their heads and lunged to attack him, kicking the hedgehog up to then ram their bladeless wheel onto him, which made Sonic fly into a pillar to then jump down and grab one of the bots by the leg to launch him at the other one, throwing a quick slice pair of slices with the burst mode to dismember both of them, leaving them as limp torsos on the ground while he jumped out from the hole he made on the wall above. "... Jeez, I can swear one of them's still moving. These guys are gonna be tough to kill." He thought, while running ahead.
Though, Sonic could swear he saw something in the trees and ran towards it, bashing through the vines to reach a special zone ring. For a brief period of time, it was quiet.. And then, he came back with another of the chaos emeralds, spinning it on his finger." That's.. Gotta be like, the fourth. Wow, good going champ, we're almost there." He patted himself on the back before jumping onto the rails, using a broken down path to grind through the air with said rail, jumping off it to run alongside the trains, though for some reason.. He couldn't see more road ahead.
It was then that the trains suddenly went downwards on that plain cliff, heading underneath the ground itself and through a tunnel full of colorful mushrooms that let out light of their own to iluminate the scenery, where rocket bats were waiting for his arrival. They lunged off the top of the cave and began to launch themselves at Sonic, trying to hit him to no avail, since he just dodged a majority and hell, he even grabbed one of them with the whip to launch it back into the horde, shooting it in the process with the shotguns to make the cave fall on them. And so, he reached the final terminal of the area, which allowed him to jump out and look around it.
"Huh... Alright, this is the last stop for now. Let's see what it has in sto-" A long howl was heard from the inside, which only made his interest increase. He looked up to see there was a sign for another terminal that had been torn apart, but was easily readable. So he ran into the building, sliding down a series of stairs until he got to a grassy area, with broken trains and most importantly, the house of the biker wolves. Since their lights flashed on Sonic as a red one stood out from the crowd, being none other than the queen.
"So, you're the one who let the dogs out, you got a name, doggy? Are ya' lost?" He asked, before getting up and pointing his lance at them. "You don't have to say anything, I know what you want. Come n' get it then, Fido." The horde remaiend quiet, but they all let a loud howl as they lit up in flames, with the hedgehog running ahead before they could catch him.
SONIC V.S SERVIRUS.
While he was running, Sonic had to step to the side quickly, avoiding an incoming blast of fire that forced him to one side of the track, letting the canines sneak through the fire to jump at him at varying speeds. The first one got kicked on the stomach and sent to the side, but the second and third ones landed a hit each that sent Sonic back a decent distance, almost decent enough for the bikes behind to catch up
"SHIT!" Yet burst was enough to get him out of that pickle with its enhnaced speed, running over the bikers ahead of him and using the fire to create a platform for him to jump from, changing to the water shield to spindash into the queen, extinguishing her flames alongside the other dog's, which.. Oddly enough, seemed to be replicated through the entire pack as they all flinched.
Though, catching the elussive queen would become a problem once he saw the eyes on that canine turn the same cyan as the rest, with another one now having her red eyes. Sonic caught onto that detial but continued running ahead. From the cliff above though, a pair of robots fell down and onto him, causing him to slow down and for another dog to try slamming him into an incoming train. He almost grazed it but managed to jump so the robot turned itself to scrap by landing on the speeding train. The queen herself tried to send a flaring projection of her fangs towards the hedgehog, which he quickly countered by pulling those same flames and creating a version of his own canines sinking into her to nearly destroy the body she was in.
The angered royal sent her horde forward as she swapped bodies, going at the helm this time. They created a wolf-blade to stirke Sonic down the cliff ahead, where two of the canines spun into him in an attempt to crush him, just for him to grab the two and crush them into each other, grinding them into the wall as he began running on it, holding his hand behind himself. The queen launched several fire claws that comboed Sonic, but he had simply swapped places with an electric clone.
"HEY, FIDO! CATCH!" The real Sonic had brought his fist down as he swung off the cliffside, which caused a huge thunder to land on the queen, sending her down into ground with the momentum of such a high fall, seemingly killing her off for good.
Sonic kept running ahead as he heard something from far ahead. The wolves' bodies were all building up the sides of the train to create an enormous body for the queen, who held her hands up to recieve the sun's energy, taunting Sonic with her finger. The hedgehog ran towards her, dodging smaller blasts of solar energy before being hit by a tail swipe and then, a downwards stomp that almost buried him fifty feet under, if it wasn't for his hands grabbing the heavy foot of the beast, screaming as he sent an electric wave through it to destroy the leg, forcing the titan to fall down for him to spindash through it a couple of times using the burst, damaging the core.
He managed to guard from a couple of incoming wolves with X-plosivo, but he remembered the technique he used in the last fight. So, grabbing a hold of his lance, he triggered burst for a moment to slice off the robot's limbs and create a large fire sword with which he blocked the next hit from the queen, slicing off her arm and then the giant's head. Both parts held on with what seemed to be energy cables but still hit the ground to cause shock waves that set Sonic up to be hit by a kick and then, a blast from her chest.
At first, he seemed to recieve it, but burst triggered right in time for Sonic to spindash through the blast as he opened his hand. He hit the queen's head, sending her flying back but was caught by her hand, being clawed at repeatedly by her in maniacal laughter. Though, the hedgehog closed his eyes as his forehead started to bleed from the claws just as the electric shield broke. Not without leaving their final goodbye, however.
Clouds as dark as pitch black covered the sky and that caused her to lose connection with the sun. With a thunderbolt falling down on her head.The hedgehog just smiled as blood dripped down his face, grabbing X-plosivo and breaking through the hordes of desperate robot mutts that tried to save their queen with a single punch, grabbing her head and punching into her maw with the weapon until the queen exploded from the inside, killing off the remaining dogs she could transfer over to.
Sonic ended up flying up from the explosion and landing not too far ahead, cleaning off the blood and closing his fist as he silently walked into the final terminal, closing his eyes as he sighed. "...Whatever happened back then, it's never going to leave me. I know that much." His eyes looked around and he found a train, who's terminal he had to shortcircuit for it to work again.
"And if it doesn't? Did I let that slow me down up til' now? It's for those people.. Whoever they were to me, Tails.. Rosy... I've gotta keep moving ahead for them. Maybe then I'm gonna see them again, heh.. I can already tell how they're gonna react." Sonic turned on the train and got on the main car, looking out through the window after sitting down. "Whatever it is Ivo or any other baddie's got ahead for me...
This is still my world, and I'm not gonna leave it any time soon without knowing why I'm doing this and not without cleaning my name from what I did. Wait for me guys, I'll see you again soon."
His still bloody hand left two blood prints on that window as he stared on to the sunset, heading to his next destination:The newly opened Baloon Park Zone.
Chapter 8: RAIN DROPS AND BLOOD STAINS
Summary:
Though his mind kept drifting into thoughts of his still unknown past, the lone hedgehog continues his crusade against his nemesis while travelling off in the remaining train from Violet Railway after many detours. While he grew nervous from thinking about what could be awaiting him ahead, he remained somewhat optimistic and awaited for his arrival.
Notes:
FINALLY! I got some spare time in between my study sessions, so I will hopefully be more consistant now. Enjoy!
Chapter Text
While the train kept moving.. Something else happened, elsewhere.
The mossy walls crumbled one by one as a duo made their way deep into the caverns. A dim gleam lit up the way ahead for the echidna to tear through boulders until reaching a larger room. Within it, they would spot the jadeish glow that had made them come this far and while the mobian simply walked down from the hole, the human had to carefully land his mech down into the ground to avoid having the whole cave fall on them.
Sadly, the light was only emmitted through several cracks and none seemed to lead ot the actual emerald. "I can already tell you're one lucky fellow for having such a beauty with you~" The doctor smirked at the thought, tho he had to calm it down when Knu'ur raised his fist. "We aren't there yet."
Ivo would smile at Knu'ur's comment, placing a hand on his shoulder. "Well, what we're doing will be enough to guarantee that no one else will go through what your kind did, my friend. Once the master emerald is with us, that homicidal freak won't be able to lay a finger on you." The warrior scoffed, looking to his side.
"It's not only about my people, doctor." He paused and his hand boiled into a fist, hard enough to make himself bleed. "I have no intentions on him hurting anyone, at all. Be it Echidna, human or other mobians, I want to protect as many as I can despite of my inability to save those back in my city." Those words made the older man raise an eyebrow, sounding akin to those that the hedgehog would've said in better days.
"It.. Sounds noble, but you'd be no better than that fool if you were to risk your life and body for them, don't you think?" The echidna would shake his head with a drawn out sigh. "I couldn't care less. Us Echidnas have been taught to not fear death since our youth, so long as we die a worthy death in battle, we shouldn't fear what will come eventually to all of us." Yet, he narrowed his eyes with fury within his violet hues.
"And it's why I can't let him go on. The hedgehog took away that chance from my people. All of them died pitifully and in such a short span of time. He cannot decide how they die for them and for that, he must pay with his own life." The doctor smirked. "Now, that's more like it... In that case, I asumme you're aware of my plans for that, are you not?"
The doctor questioned as he pressed a button, and a hooded figure would fly in from afar to try and kick the echidna in the face. He would block the hit with his arm and small red sparkles covered his body. "All too familiar with it." The machine's crimson eyes stared down at Knu'ur, who punched its leg up to make it spin midair and then jumped to dunk it down.
KNU'UR V.S MECHA SONIC V2.
The android would go into a ball and bounce back up, kicking Knu'ur in the face and then giving him a knee to the stomach, followed up by a punch that sent the echidna flying far back, but just enough for him to Mecha's punch, a kick and an attempt at shooting his chest beam at the echidna, which he ducked under to deliver a clean uppercut that was then followed up by a roundhouse kick.
Mecha was sent back, a bit, but Knu'ur caught it midair with another diving punch that made it bounce on the ground just enough for him to pull out an aerial german suplex. "Ohhh, nice work! I've made Mecha much more durable, so it'll take every punch you throw at it." The robot rose back up, shooting a rocket from its arm. Knu'ur saw it coming and relaxed. Energy from the master emerald itself leaked out to form into a jade, glowing axe that shot an electric bolt of energy through the missile, making it blow up in the middle of the arena thanks to Mecha's electric shield tanking some of the incoming damage.
From underneath the android, Knu'ur would come out with by grabbing it by the neck. He threw Mecha up and then kicked him to throw a spinning slash with the axe. Afterward, the automata would end up against the stone wall of the cave and right before he could finish it up, the robot turned on the engine on its back to fall down not only to avoid the slash, but to throw a rising kick at the echidna, followed up by an icycle from the water shield slamming the warrior back into the ground.
It would begin walking at him through the mist from the now frozen icycle, but the only thing Mecha would see was a red pair of eyes showing through it. The machine got punched from both its sides, got thrown up and narrowly escaped due to its chest beam finally working on hitting Knu'ur and sending him back, but not enough.
The warrior contiunned his flurry of punches, dragging Mecha across the ground before throwing it into the wall and jumping off it to kick his foe into the perfect position for his axe to behead the android, though Robotnik put up a black shield around both of them. "ALRIGHT! That's good enough. Both of you, quiet down now." The echinda's weapon dissapeared as he sighed.
"Though I thank you for the sparring, telling me beforehand would be very much welcomed." He smiled and had Mecha wrap an arm around Knu'ur's neck playfully. "Oh come now, where's the fun in spoiling a surprise? You said you knew, so I assumed you'd be ready. But oh well, guess we have to sharpen your instincts a little more, my companion." The echidna quickly twisted Mecha's arm, though it got put back into position rather easily.
"Either way.. The commotion did its job, didn't it?" The echidna pointed down at the destroyed hole in the middle of the room that finally revealed the glowing jade treasure. "Oh, I can fully see it now.. Thank you, Knu'ur.
And hello to my brave new world."
BACK TO SONIC.
The hedgehog had gotten up to date with his logs, putting his little booklet back on the brown backpack he had beneath his torn cloak. "Poetry's been on my mind as of late... Would a quote about dying and trying be deep 'nough? Oh, I wonder what you two would say, guys.."
Both of his eyes stared into the window beside him to see the dark skies of night being illuminated by neon lights that came from below. "Heh, guess that's gotta be the place.. I can tell where the budget went into already." Though his vision quickly blurred, and rubbing his eyes sudddenly revealed that he was still within the train, but in a white space.
".. Huh? Doc, if this is another of your crappy schemes, I swear.." The lack of a reply was unsettling to say the least. His feet felt like they began to sink into the floor of the wagon, his entire body fell into the ground while he felt a horrible, burning pain in each of his limbs. Like they were slowly being torn by hands coming from underneath to drag him. "I'm sorry, I... I can't. I don't get what the hell you want!"
A row of lights appeared, leading to a stage where a purple haired figure began to sing. Static filled his ears in an unpleasant and haunting feeling as he began to spindash in place. Finally, the arms let him go as he bursted through the side of the train and into a steel container. He grunted softly while slowly getting back up.
"Ah... Crap, that's gonna sting for a while.. Huh?" He spotted a few labels on the side that warned anyone who dared come close about radiactive materials, making Sonic jump back.. Only to see that the container was empty inside. "Phew.. At least there's that. Huh?" Though, a voice would then speak from inside the container. "... My people must need me. Thus, I plead that my call will be answered and my shackles shattered. End your pitiful discourse and I shall reward you plentifully, child."
Sonic was left in a confused state by whatever just happened, but he ended up shrugging it off. "My surname ain't Scoorge and it ain't december yet, so hold your horses 'til then, christmas carol." The hedgehog walked out of the container and stared into the resort's bright, shining lights. "Welcome to Balloon Park, huh.. Don't mind me comin' in." Sonic's lance sliced the nearby sign out of the ground and he placed it on the ground. A loud explosion could be heard as the billboard could be spotted apparently flying out into the air.
BALLOON PARK, ACT 1.
Sonic was riding the sign until he had reached enough height. By then, he jumped off and began diving down into the resort, though he used his whip at the last second to swing from a building and into the balloon parade underneath . he bounced through a couple of said balloons with ease and a pair of security robots tried to shoot at him. This proved futile, since his lance broke the bullets by spinning until he threw himself forward with it to slice both of the bots and break through a building's window.
Once inside, he spotted a strange bit of silver liquid that turned into a bunch of smaller robots. These bots began to scatter around once they saw Sonic, who chased after them. He broke into one of the rooms nearby and saw a family of three, backing off the door.. "Woah, sorry ther-" One of them threw a dagger straight by the side of his head, and the child jumped to tackle him into the ground. Sonic panicked and curled into a ball to knock the child back, while the father threw a slash that he deflected with his lance to then throw an upwards slash that sliced his chest open.
Though, instead of organs, said little bots dropped out and the man's injury was instantly closed, while he got back up with manic cackling. The mother lunged forward and got a shotgun blast to the face as Sonic ran outside of the room. The doors down the hall began to burst open as the guests ran after him and the hedgehog began to run down the spiral staircase behind him to avoid having to fight or injure anyone else. He even heard the young girl cry upstairs. "Daddy, Mommy... My tummy hurts, what's happening?" Neither of them knew how to answer, but Sonic figured it out quickly.
(... You piece of shit, Ivo.) He ran a bit faster to avoid one guy that broke through the window, grabbing him with his whip to slam said man into a crowd underneath to run forward until he spotted a large security robot that was heading upstairs with its boosters. He narrowly dodged a series of missiles it began shooting down on him by grappling onto the roof and jumping off the walls to also avoid the infected civillians. One of the missiles was grabbed by his whip and thrown right back at the robot, who was then hit with a double knee into the chest and a charged punch from the fire shield after absorbing the explosion.
They both hit the ground thanks to said hit, creating a crater that lead to the sewers undernath that he surfed through using the dead robot's body. He spotted the small robots inside of the water stream and he pieced two and two together from there. His body would shine a cyan light as the water below froze, leaving the nanobots completely useless due to the low temperature messing their circuits and he jumped off the ice river soon after, into a main platform with a computer in it.
By using the electric shield to shortcircuit the machine and bypass the security, he spotted something interesting.. A program. Robotnik had used it to make the prior traps, so perhaps he could be ahead of the curve this time. He tapped the screen and made two files using Nitrogen and Hydrogen particles for one, while using silicate materials and carbonates. Once exported and applied to the arm he took from his doppleganger, his shields gained two new modes, one for rocks and one for air.
"Sweet.. Guess I'm not as rusty as I thought with computer science ~ Now, to get rid of the evidenc-" Just as Sonic broke the machine, he began hearing the static again and fell to his knees in between loud grunts. The singing figure was still on her stage, but now other, fully white versions of himself began to run towards him. The words "PAY" were emitted from the clones. He sliced one of the clones and then kicked another up to grab it with his metal arm's sharp, harpoon claws to dunk it into the ground. Once he landed, two more went down to his shotguns and a third who tried to get him from behind got the last shotgun shell before he had to reload.
The fakers began to overwhelm him inmediately after, increasing in speed and numbers as they hit him from all sides until he fell to his knees, with the purple haired one walking from amongst the crowd and holding him by the cheeks to speak directly to him.
[ I THOUGHT WE HAD LOVE. MY PETALS HAD BLOOMED.
SO WHY IS IT THEN? THAT YOU WANT ME TO WITHER AWAY?
NOW NOTHING IS LEFT, NOTHING IS THERE.
JUST THE CORPSE OF WHO'M I LOVED. ]
"STOP!" Sonic yelled, going into a spindash and breaking through the figure to run forward, even though the speakes on the streets blasted those very same words that drove him mad. Just what made him feel this way? No matter. The hedgehog broke through several pipes and tubes until he found his way through a very specific tunnel that sent him into a curled state. Next thing he knew, he had been sent out of an artificial river within a zoo. A few lions stared at him for a moment before the nanobots in their bodies began acting up. A few tried to get in Sonic's body but his shield prevented them from doing so, blasting them into the walls nearby.
One of the felines lunged at him, but Sonic managed to hold its maw open despite of how sharp it was, making him drop a few energy rings around the arena before spinning in his feet and launching the beast into one of its companions. One of them bit another tiger's head and threw it at Sonic, who blocked it but was then hit by a laser blast from the severed head's mouth. "Damn it, these ones aren't so infected.." He grabbed onto the head with his whip and threw it into another lion's body to push them both into the water. A quick shock from his electric shield fried their circuits and revealed that the animals were in fact Badniks.
Sonic managed to scoop one through the head with his sharp spear, pulling out the weapon to then bash a second one into the ground and raise two rock pillars by stabbing the ground, which then impaled the two beasts. The pillars fell by his sides to destroy two more of them and he picked them up effortlessly to use the sharp spikes as makeshift swords, slicing a couple more of them into pieces.
Afterwards, he spun in place and created a tornado that scooped a few of the last remaining lions, grabbing one out of the bunch and impaled it into the ground. His hand got swarmed by electricity as he managed to alter its programming through that alone, turning the savage lion into a surprisingly tame companion. "Alright, big kitty.. Welcome to freedom! Population, anyone but those guys, WRECK 'EM!"
Sonic dodged an incoming lion just in time for his partner to lunge and swipe at their neck, followed up by Sonic knocking it up into the air with an upwards slash for the bot to finish the job with a well timed shot that blew it up to pieces. He would spindash into the next one and punch it with his metal arm to have the explosion knock it into the ground, where the companion would too spindash with its claws until it launched an electric blast at Sonic's shield, charging him up for one last combined hit that blew up the remaing robots and lit the area with a yellow hue from how strong the impact was.
The duo escaped from the cell by hopping through the glass that contained them, though a red blarring light would make it so all the animals would escape and start chasing the two down the once crowded streets. He could see from a bit of broken glass that a few vultures were diving in like kamikazes to blow themselves up against the ground and try snipe both of them off the ground. Sonic sliced a couple off the air with his spear to thorw them aside, while he then jumped into the lion's back to shoot down the remaining kamikazes with his shotguns.
Sonic dodged the last, bigger vulture by handstanding on the lion's back and kicking the bird in the gut, sending it far into the air for a roaring thunder to come down and blow it up into pieces. While doing that, a vulture did manage to hit the ground behind them to send the duo through a building and into the tracks of a roller coaster. The machine quickly crept up on them from behind but the hedgehog held onto a nearby balconny with his whip to dodge the car and then land on the tracks to start railgrinding alongside Lio.
Gorillas began to grab onto the tracks from underneath to try and break them, but Sonic kept jumping constantly to avoid falling onto the void below, until one tried to lunge at him and ended up beheaded by a shotgun blast alongside two of its commarades that tried to do the same in unison soon after. From there, Sonic could see an infected man had grabbed the attraction's lever and broken it, which caused the car to get faster bit by bit.
"Oh, no... YOU'RE NOT GONNA GET AWAY WITH THAT, JERK!" Sonic looked at the lion, who nodded and jumped high up into the air while he turned on the burst, easily outspeeding the roller coaster itself until he jumped above it, aiming his charged shotguns at the man to then fire a pair of electrified pellets that shocked him. While it did, the lion had bursted into flames and launched itself down to destroy the pannel and send the man flying away, to which Sonic replied with a thumbs up and by throwing his whip to bring it back right in time.
The two landed back on the speeding carts and Sonic used his lance to cut the tracks, causing it to go flying up into the night skies and for them to witness the havoc being wrecked down in the streets to try and chase them. The balloons remained moving through the parade, though any time Sonic and Lio stepped on them, a sentry from below would blow it up. All until they got to the last one, where Sonic caught their electric shots and shot them back, destroying the turrets and falling down near a small crowd.
Just as he did that, his eyes shrunk. His usually soft quills grew stiff and he fell right beside the lion on his feet, who looked at him with worry. It was her. That purple hair and that soothing voice made him tear up and back away a little, though the girl in the stage would soon notice his presence. Her hands covered her mouth and the mic dropped into the ground, though sadly.. She too had been infected.
"Min?..:" He asked, in a shaky tone. "..." She didn't answer and instead, pointed at him. The ground beneath the two broke as she screamed into her mic, causing a huge serpant to come up and knock them across a few buildings. "Ngh... God, FUCKING damn it! Okay, Lio... Go ham, and I mean it. LET'S MESS THEIR SHIT UP!" With a cheerful roar, the large feline let him hop on its back to run through the walls of the buildings, since it could do so better than Sonic by himself due to its claws and they narrowly avoided the serpant lunging to get them.
Sonic used the chance to slice the snake's skin, making a bunch of a nanobots fall down into the street, breaking from the high fall. The snake screeched and coiled to rise up into the air and slam its tail down on the pair. It hit Sonic head on and knocked him into the ground, but the lion managed to tank the blow and bite onto said tail to hit it into the nearby building. Sonic recovered and threw a spindash into the reptile's face followed by him diving into its face with his spear to stab it into the wall.
"ROAMING CHAOS!" He sliced the beast repeatedly, causing several orbs of energy to appear around him before shooting all of them at once. The lion then rushed to his side, with Sonic jumping up to give it a boost and for the lion to smash into the serpant, draggging it through the ground and towards a ferris wheel. Sonic placed both his hands on the ground and ran ahead at just enough speed to catch up to the two of them, avoiding a large electric blast that the giant beast tried to shoot while the lion kept it busy.
He triggered the electric shield just in time to drag the blast and hold it within his hand, launching it right into the creature. With a loud screech, it grew a pair of wings to fly up and bite into Sonic, making a lot of his saved up energy rings fly out while he tried grabbing it by the maw. He managed to do so after causing a small electric shock, holding the mouth until he let it go, just to kick the upper lip and leave half of its head looking up at the sky, right at another thunder that smited it down into the ground.
It got up shortly after flying upwards to slam Sonic into another building and as it kept dragging him, he spotted the girl again. "MINA! Please... IT'S ME!" He yelled at her, but after seeing that she wasn't going to reply, he closed his eyes and the blue sparks began to fly. He cracked his neck while staring into the flying reptile, who got inmediately tackled through the air and then into the ground by a sharp spindash that opened a hole wide within its chest. Every punch and kick he threw into the beast reverbed through its whole body repeatedly, stunning it in place for the lion to drag its tail and slam it into a ferris wheel nearby.
There, Sonic would spindash in one of the wheel's cabins, where his memory would finally work for once..
"Hey.. Mina?" He asked the woman, while she looked at him. "What's up, blue? Ask away, I'm all ears." He looked down at his hand and then hers, smiling. "Y'know, I've been thinking.. And I can't stop looking like an idiot any time I see you." Mina seemed puzzled by the statement. "How so? You're one of the smartest dudes I know!" He scratched his cheek nervously.
"Well uh! Y'know, I'm a cool dude n' all.. But we can all have a heart." He looked at her eyes with a sincere smile.
"I love you." The creature's destroyed body was launched through the street, where both Sonic and Lio ran at high speeds to punch it simultaneously. Though, the lion would be boosted by him once more to spindash the snake into the air, where Sonic awaited with a dozen icycles formed from the rain around them. "I won't let you.. HURT HER ANYMORE!" While the lion hugged the snake in place, he jumped between before delivering the killing blow, slashing the robotic being in half and destroying the remaining nanobots with the small icycles that fell around him. Even though his companion had to sacrifice itself.
"..." Mina dropped to the floor on the stage, with Sonic running over to help her up, though she would do so on her own since the nanobots had left her body. "... Mh... Ah?" She would open her eyes to see him, looking dumbfounded. ".. So.. Nic? But you.." Sonic hugged her quietly, and though surprised, she hugged him back. They exchanged looks one last time and while she held his hand, he caressed it and then let go. She nodded in understanding right before he pointed towards the docks, aiming at a plane. "You've gotta-"
"EHEM!"
Another voice interrupted their moment, showing a robotic jester in red and orange right behind him.
"SIR, I THINK YOU KNOW WHY I'M HERE. YOU'RE IN THE BLACK LIST, SO YOU'RE NO GOOD FOR THIS PARK!" Sonic guarded Mina, who cowered a bit upon seeing its metalic features. "S-Sonic, uh.. I'm sorry, I can't do this.." She whispered, while he held his lance tight.
"I know. Min. Just.. Run, I'll take care of THIS!" He sliced at the robot right away to catch it off guard, beheading it in one blow while Mina in fact ran away using the time Sonic bought for her. The clown inmediately got up from the ground and picked its head back up, with the nanobots healing it particularly well.
"NO NO, MR. NO GOOD. I BELIEVE.. YOU SHOULD BE DEAD. LET ME HELP WITH THAT." Its limbs tore off and revealed that in a way, it was controlling the bots all along. "It's you who did all that crap, huh.. Okay, you can help me with that, if you're still kickin' by then, SCRAP." The two lunged at each other in the middle of the street while the rain got far more intense behind them and eventually, Sonic's lance and its claws clashed.
SONIC V.S PUNCHLINE / BALLOON PARK ZONE ACT 2.
Sonic began to run through the abandoned streets, dodging an incoming gorilla who he sliced in half just in time for the jester to jump in between both of its broken halves to smash Sonic into the pavement. He got back up and shot a compressed wave of wind that blew the clown up into the sky, where he began to throw bombs that made Sonic dodge by quickstepping out of the way. He grabbed onto one of the balloons that were still up from the interrupted parade and he would use them as platforms to snipe the robot from above with his shotgun shots.
The bot grew tired of it and an owl intercepted Sonic to kick him off the balloons and into the clown, who kicked the hedgehog away into a small arena. There, it used its stretchy arm to grab and throw a car at him. Sonic was smart and used a single stone spike to hold it in place, with another coming from underneath Punchline to impale its chest. The spike that held the car threw it onto the clown and Sonic with an X-Plosivo punch to its head off once more, though this time, when it grew back, it looked throughly a bit worse than last time. Several patches of synthetic skin were missing and one of its eyes was looking to the side.
"OW! THAT WASN'T SO NICE, MEAN MAN!" Sonic spindashed him and threw him down into the street while he began running once more. "Don't care, didn't ask tinman. Just what the hell are you guarding anyway?" The robot would launch itself towards him using its limbs again, but it began running in all fours this time. "NONE OF YOUR DAMN BUSINESSS, YOU FREAK!" Sonic smiled at that, slowing down just to punch it in the stomach and see it recoil.
"C'mon. It ain't fun if you don't spill your evil plans." The robot suddenly grabbed him by the neck, ramming him through the ground. "THE UNITED FEDERATION... BLOW UP! IT'S GONNA BE SO FUN, THEY'LL ALL DIE!" It screamed in a joyous laughter while knocking Sonic into a mirror house. (That... Damn it, I need to find where they have the bombs n' all that crap..) Sonic closed his eyes and smashed the floor, breaking the mirrors around him, scooping the robot's neck with his lance and slicing at him to throw the bot into a circus ring.
"There's nothing quite like home! It's a nice sight for your final moments." Fire began to consume the whole place, difficulting the arrival of any more nanobots due to the high heat. The robot's voice box had began to distort heavily. "ME.. KILL- LOVES FUN! BREAK... HATE... DIE!" Sonic rolled his eyes at that, slicing the robot's arm once it tried to grab him, spindashing him away right before kicking him into the flames behind them as a follow up. The robot screeched as parts of it began to burn away, but large tendrils came from its back, each holding a bomb that it threw at Sonic. He quickly used Burst to dodge the bombs.
"PEEK-A-BOO!" The robot's arm grabbed Sonic mid-dodges to punch him into the fire, from which he came from nearly unscathed, with a blast that was shot into the android. Its legs stretched up to dodge it while smacking him down into the floor with an elongated arm. Though it couldn't control any from the inside, the robot guided a few of its infected to make flaming cars run into the ring, which Sonic managed to dodge and he even picked one up with his hand to punch it into the other.
Punchline held its body right as spikes grew from it to pierce everything around itself, though Sonic burnt the tendrils that were about to hit him rushing to grab a hold of his lance tightly, piercing its chest. "CHAOS.. BLAST!" Sonic yelled out, with a large jade slash cutting the sky and shattering a screen off in the hills nearby that hid beneath a power plant. Fortunately, the bot went flying straight into it while Sonic ran through the streets. "REAAAAAGH!" The android screamed as electric beams shot everywhere while Sonic only sped up, opening his hands to drag the electricity onto himself to avoid having it the same girl from the hotel, who he smiled to in order to keep her calmed.
Sonic threw his lance at the plant, right as the android threw a large blast towards him. And in that moment, he switched places with it to land the charged up punch into its head, destroying it even further as the two of them began to fall down. The robot's spider-like legs managed to keep him standing on the wall, while Sonic ran down the opposite one, shooting at said legs to make it lose grip on the wall. It was then that Punchline would grab Sonic with its arms and try to launch him down into the toxic wastes below, stretching them far down while Sonic struggled to free himself.
Before he could hit the depths, he made a concrete pillar rise from the wall to cut the robot's hands and allow for him to run through its arms. The robot began to shoot its tendrils once more, but every hit missed Sonic now that he had triggered the burst once more. His hands grabbed onto the very end for him to swing off into the wall with a kick to the face, jump off it and pummel the robot's back downwards. "You're done for.. THIS IS FOR THEM!" finishing off with a blazing spindash that pierced the robot's core, destroying its lower half and sending it into the platform below with a loud KWRRRHUTT!
"NWHWOQOWOOOOO!" It screamed out as it fell down into the ground, limp. Sonic landed on his feet, right before a large machine with the data of a bomb. "... Oh crap. Nonono, I've got to turn this shit off.. COME ON!" He tried looking through every directory, bypassing any kind of security.. But it required a card to access.
"...." His breathing became erratic and the sparks began to fly out of his body once more, just as he turned around to see the clown waving at him and falling down into the pit.
BOOOOOOOM.
He began outrunning the nuclear blast, breathing heavily as everything around him became a blur. Trees, houses and various other objects flew high into the sky while a mushroom cloud was formed above them. He triggered the air shield to grab every civillian nearby and take them straight into the docks while his body began to strain itself. Memories flashed of him doing this very same thing, this very same dread and adrenaline from long ago. It made him even more anxious yet, also way faster than before.
The whip held onto the street lamps to keep him swinging downhill, to the point where he spindashed through a whole building just to reach the other side. And even while it crumbled down, Sonic used the same hole he had made to surf down the falling structure. The wind spheres containing the civillians flew beside him as the blue blur became a cyan arrow that flew away from the blast at mach speeds.
"HYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!" Sonic screamed at the top of his lungs as he felt his fur began to burn away from the burst taking a toll on him, but he kept running until he stopped right at the location where the civillians stood, placing both of his arms into the flaming inferno that was the blast to start holding it back from going any further with the fire shield.
"NNGH... NAGH.." His hands began burning a little as the explosion shrank more and more, though it was clear he alone wouldn't be enough. As such, Mina gently placed her hand on his and the little girl held the blast with both of her own. "You've.. Done plenty, Sonic. I'm here for you." The punk girl told him, while her own arm burnt slightly. The blast was succesfully nullified and Sonic quickly switched to the air shield to purify the air from the radiation and falling into the ground soon after.
"Hah...." He panted heavily, and the little girl went to help him. "Mister!!" A sigh left the hedgehog as he smiled up gently at her. "Well.. It's because of one thing, lil' gal. You don't die when your body stops breathing. You die when you stop trying.." And he fell down again, it looked like he was too exahusted to stay up.
Mina walked up to him and gently hugged the burnt hedgehog, taking him back to the helicopter that she had been with this whole time. "You haven't changed one bit, loverboy.. It's nice to see you again." He smiled up at the girl, holding her hand within his own. "Sure was.. Cough. Is everyone okay?.." She nodded. "Mhm.. You can rest for now, though. I've heard that the president saw what you did, he sounded impressed!" Sonic's eyes narrowed at that, but he shook his head. "Hah, I guess so.. Just, don't leave us alone, o-okay?" She nodded her head.
"Yes, yes... Now, good night sweet prince.. We'll take care of the rest." Sonic slowly closed his eyes, resting on Mina's arms as the helicopter took them away from the island.
Chapter 9: INSTINCT BEFORE REASON.
Summary:
After the incident within Balloon Park, Sonic met the woman that had stolen his heart and saved plenty of people from another of the doctor's ploys. Yet, his body had taken too much of a toll and he ended up having to rest within the comfort of that same girl's lap. An unexpected detour will happen as a result but the intensitiy won't go down at all, so he must stay on his toes regardless of what comes next.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
The bright blue skies were shining over the vibrant jade hills, where a man would arrive in his plane, looking panicked. He would open the door to his home and show his wife what he had found. His speech was incomprehensible, and so was the woman's, but they both took it in. Sonic was "it". Time went on and that same blurred out man offered him a pair of red sneakers perfect for "the ocassion", with those words being the only thing he could understand from all his nonsensical yapping.
The day came and Sonic went through a small tunnel and into the underground of Green Hill, where a local bar hosted the group "FORGET ME KNOT". He would arrive with a leather jacket and after a friendly wave, his bandmates would come by to start practicing before the show. The crocodile was unassuming and quiet, listening to the music in his headphones. The rabbit actually had a speech impediment, only talking through sign language that the monkey translated.
The rooster was off smoking outside, but he quickly called Sonic over for a chat. The hedgehog waved off the smoke and saw how he pointed towards the stage, and there she was. A young girl with a soothing, yet powerful voice expressed her feelings through motivating and moving tracks one after the other, giving it her all during a performance she shared only with her guitar. Upon finishing, Sonic went to meet her in the backstage, but .. The whole club began to shake violently. When Sonic could look back, the whole roof had been split open by a wrecking ball and all of his friends had been taken away, with one clear exception. From the rubble, he managed to help the girl from before, who was now injured. He asked her for her name and all she could say was.
"Mina."
"... !!"
Sonic woke up to an electric discharge, with him groggily looking to his sides. He had been tied to the cielling and currently had what seemed to be an inhibitor collar. "Shucks.. What's this junk? I shouldn't have fallen asleep- Wait, where is she? HEY, WHERE'S MINA?" Sonic kicked the air in an attempt to free himself, while someone chuckled from the dark corridor ahead. "Well. I didn't lie, rodent. You didn't run any longer." Sonic's eyes widen to spot Zero, with a scar over one of his eyes and a smug smirk. ".. .You." The hedgehog showed his sharpened teeth, trying to shoot his shotguns.. To no avail.
Another shock came his way, which he barely resisted. "Oh, be quiet. The only time you'll get to speak is when you scream. It's the only time I find you bearable, you wretched scum." Venom was felt in his voice, as the jackal approached and hit the glass. "One more of those, and you'll die off. Your little escapades will cease to exist alongside you, right here.. Maurice T. Hedgehog." The jackal then stopped as his intercom rang. His men were reporting a few of them suddenly feeling ill, requesting his assistance. ".. Sadly, I won't see you die. But believe me, when I say that I will be the one to laught the hardest at the end of this." He left while Sonic kindkly flipped him off while staying upside down.
"Okay, asshat. You just waste my time.." He kept squirming underneath the iron chain tied to his leg, grunting. (No- If I don't get out, it's courtains. GET OUT, GET OUT!) He was starting to panic, but it was then when a "Yahoo~!" was heard across the room. He stared into a set of chains hanging from the roof, and a woman with white hair and two wings attacked to her arms descended. It was a hooded bat with gothic-styled clothes and a facemask. "Oh crap. What, did the Yagyu clan finally decide to take me on the "Take two heads for the price of one" deal I tired breaking to 'em last time I visited?" The woman merely chuckled at his comment to then approach him tenderly.
"Oh, you poor thing.. Don't feel so scared I've been in this same situation at least 4 times this week~ I'm Rouge, the escape queen. And this is the G.U.N Cob-web! I've got a date with a very precious gem at the center and I need you to get me there~" Sonic raised an eyebrow. "Cowbe- Okay, hold on. Get me outta here first, bucko." He pounted at the chain, which was then split in half when a "King of Spades" card flew through it. "Ah, cards always make for such reliable assets.." She then threw another one at Sonic's neck, which only broke the collar.
"Okay big boy, show me your moves~" And within a second, the cell had been broken with a spindash. The area began to turn red as alarms started sounding, but oddly enough, said alarms were golden instead of red before a power outtage happened. ".. Shit, it's a Crimson Night." Rouge's smile remained unwavering, even widening a little at the mention of the event. "Do you think I chose this specific day just for the sake of it? I live for thrills like these~" Sonic took a moment to process the sheer luncay of the bat's words, but he shrugged. "Fine fine, guess I'll take a detour with ya.. Let's go." Rouge nodded, with the card in her hand shining pink as they blew out the door to..
CRIMSON WEB ZONE
Sonic began to run ahead with a spindash to tackle a few of the now demented guards into the air for Rouge to slice in half with a single card throw, only for her to glide downwards to dodge an incoming Vulture's attack, kicking him into the cielling shortly after. "Jeez, these guys look demented.." The bat chuckled while she shuffled her deck. "These? Oh, they just look threatning because we're in an enclosed area.. Wait for us to get to the dock and these will look like puppies~" That, admittedly, got a short laugh out of the hedgehog while he used his electric shield to shock an incoming group. "Gimme a boost!" He yelled at Rouge, who then held his hand and threw him as a burning ball towards the shocked group, who got thrown through a wall and then blasted by an electric blast into the dock outside.
SOME TIME AGO, IN THE INTERROGATION ROOM.
"Miss Mongoose. We believe through your record that you've been having a very close relationship with the culprit. We would like for you to give us some information if we are to believe you two merely share a bond and that you aren't his partner-in-crime, so to speak." Zero had his hand on the table, while the guitarist could only smirk. "Don't jump the shark so quickly, officer. I know you've got it against Mau, but just cool your jets for a second!" The commander was growing increasingly annoyed at her behavior, but Mina DID decide to talk. "We met a while ago. When we were both 15, at South Island. His band mates got captured by a man going by Doctor Robotnik, and I helped him get them and everyone else he had captured to safety."
The jackal's eyes widened at the information. ".. South Island. We only knew of what happened there after the incident, but your record does seem to agree with that fact. According to multiple witnesses, the resort you were last in was also his, were you aware of this fact?" Mina shook her head. "Dude, I didn't even agree to coming there. I was in my dressing room, my manager came to tell me about a show and then my vision faded away!"
"So... What you are saying is that Robotnik brought you here against your will? And that it could have been the same for others?" The girl rolled her eyes. "Congrats on finding out that water is, in fact, wet. We would've all died if it wasn't for Nicky being there to stop that blast- So focus on the ACTUAL threat at hand!" Zero sighed, shaking his head. "Calm yourself, Miss Mongoose. I understand your anger and I will consider your testimony alongside everyone else's. But we won't be taking off the charges on your boyfriend and will instead be going after both him and the doc-" Zero stoppped.
".. Huh?" Mina rose an eyebrow at that, looking up to see something through the roof's glass. Her breathing became erratic and and she attempted to hold her head, but when she could open her eyes again.. She saw red. Zero tried attacking her with his blade but she ducked underneath and decked him in the stomach. She began to run outside of the room now that the power outtage had happened to grab some things from a separate room. In between them, her guitar and Sonic's weaponery.
The door was sliced by the spear, letting her get the drop on a still sane guard. She sliced his armor's back to throw him away, ducking underneath a sword slice to sweep one of them off the ground with her claws and punch them in the face with X-plosivo. The metallic glove's hook fingers grabbed the soldier by his feet and threw him into a few others that Mina then slammed into with a spindash that was followed up by shredding a loud note with her electric guitar that blew up the roof. She used the whip to get out of the area while biting at a dove mobian's neck to use him as a vehicle through the air, causing two of his teammates to shoot him while trying to get her, while Mina dropped off the bird and grabbed onto a Falcon's leg with the whip to then pull on it to fly up and slice all three with her claws.
"HARGH!" She landed on the dock and began running forward, with Sonic and Rouge catching a glimpse of her as they went on their own rampage. ".. Wait, that's her!" Rouge took a look at the girl, smiling down at the hedgehog. "My, you've got a thing for feisty ones." He sighs while seeing how she managed to dodge the infighting between the ones controlled by their instincts and those who still had their mind intact. "Don't joke around at a time like this. She can get herself killed-" Sonic was speeding up, spindashing through a few of the robots and even using his shotguns to blast the ground below to get a boost forward. "MINA, IT'S ME! WE'RE NOT DOING THIS AGAIN-" The girl did manage to recognize him, approaching Sonic and giving a him a surprisingly tight hug.
"My.. Bones.." A gasp left the mongoose as she backed away, letting out as playful of a giggle as a rabbid animal could. ".. So you're still yourself- Okay, I'll back you up til' the hour ends."They gave each other a smile while Sonic threw a flaming uppercut into a guard that trid attacking Mina from behind. In response, she slid on the floor with her guitar to shoot an electric pillar into the sky that caught a few of the guards and he then used to slam it into the horde. "Nice going, babe!" He cheered on the girl, who giggled in response. The two of them went into spindashes and cut in an "X" to catch a few of them before Mina hooked the whip onto Rouge's leg to spin together as a sharp, slicing tornado.
"Aw, this is how it feels to be the missletoe~" Rouge chuckled, before throwing her cards in all directions and a "Joker" card as the last one to have them all blow up in a circle around the trio. Sonic and Mina then launched foward and down a ramp, throwing themselves off while Rouge waved goodybe. "Good luck with the rest of the ship, love birds~ I'll go get my reward for this." She began to fly towards the same place that Mina had come through, while they went into a free fall through multiple ships and into the rails beneath them to traverse the web. "Okay, so- Let's recover the chaos emeralds and we're outta here, they probably took 'em to the main ship after stealing them from my bag." Mina would gently nod as she held onto Sonic. Though of course, the instincts won and she began to nibble at his quills a little. "Just this once, because you're cute.." Mina let out a victory "YWAH!" while she still bit onto his quills.
The rail eventually sent them up a shaft coated in webs. He jumped through the walls, trying to avoid them while Mina used her claws to walk on the wall safely, even destroying some of the webs to allow him to move more freely. They arrived at the center of the ship, breaking the manhole that was covering the shaft before they spotted a giant spider-like robot messing with the power and trying to break the container that had the emeralds. ".. Oh neat, Ivo HAD to come here too." The girl grunted and began to run towards the robot, ducking underneath one of its legs to slice it up and then grab it to stab the spider on one of its eyes. It screeched in pain and threw her away, with the mongoose landing on her feet while she panted.
Sonic took his lance to parry the spider's stabs, which forced it to try to slam down its body in them. It gave him time to help her up and for the two to do a double spindash to kick it into the roof. They fell to opposite sides of the arena while the hedgehog froze its legs to have it haul its movements momentarily, which Mina used to trigger the scythe mode of her guitar and let out a loud scream that blasted away half of the robot. She dodged a few slices and Sonic was about to go help her, until he heard something. With a quick movement, he hugged Mina to have them both duck underneath a large, crimson slice that cut the beast into pieces.
"Oh, miss... I wouldn't let my crew down by going down so easily." They both turned their heads to see Zero, wearing a dark hood that he took down to reveal a grey and black armor with crimson eyes and a tri-colored device in his chest. "Huh.. Shouldn't you be tweaking like the rest?" Zero chuckled. "You remain as dim-witted as always, I see. Fret not, I'm not here to waste my time with you. Though, I do propose something to both of you." He took something out of his trench coat's pocket, and though Sonic got in front of Mina to make sure it was nothing dangerous, he quickly moved out of the way. Zero placed a bracelet in her hand that surpressed her instincts, which made her happily hug Sonic.
"Yaay! I get to bother you with my voice again." Sonic sighed. "God, have mercy.. So, I'm guessin' we've gotta do the dirty work for ya' to let us go."The jackal placed his hands on his pockets and nodded. "Indeed. Take this as a temporary truce and as a small sign of my gratitude for the intel your beloved gave me." Mina handed Sonic back the lance and the metalic arm, but she decided to keep the bracelet for now. "Sorry hunny, but the commander said I was useful and I'll have this as my treat." Sonic rolled his eyes and chuckled. "Okay, then... We just put these on your buddies and it'll be done." Zero nodded, but he ended up guarding the other two from an incoming stab.
"Yes, but... We also have something else to take care of." He pointed at the eggs that had been planted around the field, with small spiders rebuilding the bigger one, which escaped through the roof to wreck havoc across the web. "Yeep, Itsy Bitsy's gonna turn your guys into lil' bits. Let's rock." Sonic and Mina dashed out through the roof and Zero followed shortly after, with him having a cyan blue aura instead of the red from before to keep up at the same speed. The energy had returned to the ship, allowing for the anti-gravitational properties of the ship to trigger and letting the trio run upside down through the lower part of the ship to try and catch up to the spider.
Sonic kicked up one of its legs in the perfect angle for Zero to slice it with rapid slashes of his crimson blade, though he ended up shining yellow once he switched cores to fly around the incoming spider legs in the air. Sonic focused on helping the rabbid jackals, catching a few of them that missed him with his whip to slam them into the wall and stun them long enough for Mina to slap the band on their wrists. When one of the legs tried to stab Zero's core, Sonic used the wind shield to blow it out of the way and then landed a powerful punch with X-Plosivo to send it flying back. The jackal used his speed core to knock many of his comrades into the sky for the lovebirds to quickly cure while still being fast enough to skewer the spider with his strength core boosted blade.
The spider held onto the ship with its electric webbing, trying to use its own body as a wrecking ball that Sonic and Mina dodged until Sonic guarded from one of its leg stabs and it left him in the perfect position for Mina to jump into the lance and brace herself for what was to come. "CHAOS, BLAST!" Sonic screamed, which made the lance launched Mina at neck-breaking speeds towards the spider, succesfully landing her scythe on its head and dragging it through the ship's exterior until she hooked the whip onto said surface to launch it back up into the dock. The cured soldiers held it down with their weapons, but it launched missiles straight up into the trio, who had just launched themselves up for the finishing blow.
"Hedgehog, Mongoose. Overcharge them!" Zero ordered, to which the duo quickly had an idea. He hugged her closely, while Mina began to play her guitar. The two quickly went into an aerial spindash and a strong electric current flew through the air, catching the missiles to turn them into electrical energy that they shot into the ground to dismember the spider and send it flying.
SKRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRAH.
SO strong that several mountains from afar were sliced open, and their remains fell alongside the split spider that now descended into the ground below. Sonic and Mina landed safely, with them high-fiving each other. "Seriously, you're a freakin' BEAST when you use my guns. Maybe I'll let you take 'em on a date if I get to have fun with your guitar~" He teased, to which the girl simply bumped his shoulder. "Oh, please. Why take 'em when I can take you out, Mau?" The hedgehog blushed, scratching his cheek as he looked to the side. "Min... You dork."
Zero, who was basking in the glory of getting the killing blow. Quickly made his discomfort know. "Ehem. You may have healed my unit and kept those emeralds, but do no forget who I am. I will give you 30 seconds, and if you don't leave my ship, I will take you back in for the fate you should've ha-" Before he could finish that sentence, the two had disappeared and Sonic mockingly stuck out his tongue while running back into the vault with Mina. The jackal could only smile, cocky about the fact that he killed the robot and neither of them did. Sonic quickly picked up the emeralds and held Mina's hand, a bit worried.
My wind shield's got some charge, but.. You'd be stuck here with me-" Mina sighed, looking over at the hedgehog. "I'll be fine, let's just.. Go, okay?" The hedgehog would nod and then,the two hopped off the airship. The fall wasn't that much of a worry since he had the air shield but-
THUD.
They fell on something while on their way down. Rouge had stolen a jet from G.U.N and she was now waving as the cockpit was full of luxurious gems. "Hello there, dears!~ Oh, I couldn't leave you all alone there, now could I? Just forgive me for taking so long~" Mina chuckled at that, letting her head fall on Sonic's chest as they laid down on the jet. "Well.. This wasn't my exact idea of a reconcilliation date." Sonic shook his head. "I didn't even think that 'Get rescued by a goth ninja and have an action packed jailbreak date with your ex' would've been so fun either-" ... Ex. He realized he had just said that. Mina shook her head, patting his back.
"It's okay, Nicky... It's what we are formally. But I think we both know that won't stay that way for long." Sonic flushed, but his gaze softened as he hugged her closely. ".. Just... Okay, Rouge? Can we stop near Sunset Hills?" She nodded, with them heading over there. The jet had landed in the beach and Sonic got off while helping Mina get down. The city was oddly calm, even if the Crimson Night had been 10 minutes ago.
".... Mina, this is gonna be hard to swallow. But you've gotta listen to me." She noddeed, holding his hand for comfort. "I'm on a mission right now. Nobody ordered me, nobody paid me to do it. I'm doing this for no one but myself, and you've gotta get that this is for me to do. I'm not bringing you into this mess at all, not now that I'm sure you're safe. And it's not because I don't think you're strong enough, it's because- .. This is my demon to confront. My war to fight, and.. I want to make sure that by the end of that war, I can come back to you and stay by your side like I couldn't back when I was a stupid teenager who couldn't get how your feelings worked. Cuz'.." He held his hand before his face, grunting lowly.
"I don't know who I am. I don't know who I was and.. I only remembered you when I saw you in the park. Until then, you were nothing but a blur... What if I forget you again? " A distraught look appears on Mina's face as she listens to his words. "Nicky?.." He continued. "And if I can't remember what I was, but everyone says I was something.. Maybe I am that person." She quickly stepped in front of him, pushing her fist against his chest. "Knock that off! That's.. That's not who you are. Please, don't say that." He tried his best to hold himself back, trying to keep the tears from coming out. "I'm not stopping, Min. I'm not stopping until either the doctor bites the dust or I DIE."
Mina was dead silent for a few seconds, stunned by his words. She wasn't as good as him when it came to holding back her tears. ".. Listen to yourself. You're overwhelmed, but what they say about you shouldn't matter as much as you make it out to be." Sonic held his hand over his chest, letting his pain speak once more. "Then WHAT am I? TELL ME IF YOU KNOW SO MU-"
THWAK!
He was tackled down into the ground. There, Mina angrily pouted at him as the tears coated his face and her purple strands of hair tried to cover her eyes, to no avail. "My hero." Sonic was left speechless. He tried to dry her tears up but she stopped his hand and pushed it back into the sand below. "Even if you don't see yourself that way, even if the whole world chooses for you to be a criminal- I don't care.
I saw it with my very own eyes when you cheered me on to continue making music when no one else did back at the bar, how you kept telling me that we shouldn't give up on trying to take down the doctor when he took your friends.. All those things meant everything to me. So if you can't be a hero anymore.. Let me be your heroine so I can inspire you the same way you did me." At last, Sonic broke. He began sobbing while holding tightly onto Mina, who held him back and accompanied him in their shared lament.
"And even if the world's against you... My songs will forever be yours. My voice will only sing for you and they'll shine a light in your way... Forever." He slowly lifted his head up, smiling at the girl. She smiled back and leaned in, pressing her hand against his shoulder as they shared an emotionally charged, yet loving smooch that said everything that needed to be said. Their lips departed a bit later, but they kept hugging each other, as if they didn't want to let go at all.
But eventually, Mina loosens her grip and they get up. "So.. I'll be going soon, alright? I promise, I'm gonna make it back to you." Mina chuckled, cleaning off her tears with a small sniffle along the way. "Silly.. At least promise me something I know couldn't happen. I believe in you." After one last hug, they got back onto Rogue's jet. She was cleaning her eyes with her gems. "Good lord, you two.. I hadn't seen this much emotion since my sister married! Please, let me your godmother when you marry.." Sonic covered his face with his cloak, while Mina bursted into laughter. "HOLY GAIA- You sound like you've been seeing your favorite soap opera, granny.. But fine, I'll consider it~"
"MIN!-" An embarrased Sonic protested, while burying his face into his cloak. "Oh, please~ You'd love it if it did happen.." Rouge only chuckled as the two continued to bicker, and they began setting flight once more towards Angel island. Though, something was different about it. The island was slightly lower in the air.
Notes:
MAN, WHAT A CHAPTER.
i had this deleted like twice while I was working on it, but it's completed! Once again, check Chapter 1 for its update and stay tunned to see both Chapter 2's revamp and Chapter 10!
Chapter 10: MACHINA'S REQUIEM.
Summary:
The blood moon had just led the way to a hasty midnight full of trials and tribulations. The couple and their meddling third wheel were able to flee the G.U.N ship alongside the emeralds, just as the clock had struck 1:00 AM. The mobians turned back to normal in the midst of the bygone chaos and after a short break, the hedgehog and company decided to continue the quest. The trio now flies over the seas with their stolen jet while Sonic prepares to storm another of the doctor's bases.
Notes:
IT'S GOOD TO BE BACK!!
Sorry, time flew by way too quickly. Now that I've got a few days off, it's time to kick this back into overdrive.
Chapter Text
Sonic's eyes remained focused on the grand sea as his mind drifted once more. His thoughts flew around, lacking any sort of sense or coherence from his perspective, but still.. It felt harrowing. All those disjointed phrases and faces could possibly have a meaning he could not yet understand, and that secrecy haunted him. Eventually, Mina helped him snap out of it by shaking his shoulders. "Hey big blue. You good? We're getting closer to the island, so.. Oh god, I suck at saying goodbye when I know they're for real.." The hedgehog would pat her back and offer a comforting smile. "You don't gotta say bye. It's a see you later, doofus~"
"A-Ahh.. Nicky, I'm SO going to kick you out of the planee.." The guitarist let out a small laughter, placing Sonic's ring back around his wrist while smirking. "I left a small gift in there, just for you.. It's my pick! I think it'll enhance it at least." Sonic would nod to her words, tapping the glass for Rouge to open it. "Heh, thanks for that! I'll make a guitar outta sticks and string to play something for ya back home, kay? After all this crap, a nice concert for the two of us is all I'd want." The cabbin opened, and Rouge smiled at the lovers. "Seeing you two like this never gets old.. So, is it time, loverboy?~" With a confident smile, Sonic gave her a thumbs up.
"Ya' bet I am!.." The hedgehog seemed confident at first, but that demeanor soon crumbled when he realized they would be split apart again. "Waitwaitnolemmestayherejustase-" Mina chuckled and booped his nose, waving goodbye herself. "Oh please.. You said it yourself, I'll see you later! For now.. Kick their asses, babe!" Mina yelled out excitedly, while Sonic could only smile as he began falling down.
Midway through his descent into the water, he put on the ice shield to freeze it and start running at speeds so high that the wind around him let out shock waves. The afformentioned shock waves were enough to make the tides rise by his sides, allowing the hedgehog to make an iceberg that kept going upwards, only for it to descend rapidly and make a ramp that boosted him into the island.
Like an speeding arrow through the wind, Sonic flew through the now destroyed Balloon Park, and right through the same lab that had caused the explosion. Broken pieces of the same chaonium that had made his lance were scattered at the bottom of the room, which made his smile turn into a frown. Most importantly, though.. Breaking past one of the frail walls in the back lead to him finding a railway that continued the path that his train had been following.
He made his way back to it and turned the engine back on to start moving forth once more. During the trip ahead, Sonic caught a glimpse at something. A large white structure that floated right in front of the icy mountains. Then, a voice began to talk in his head once more like that last time he had been in the train. "Kin of mine. The clock is ticking, and the call has yet to be answered. Do what you must, but arrive before dawn. I will be awaiting at the top of the tower." The hedgehog silently stared towards the structure and smirked, recharging his shields in the meanwhile.
"Dang it, spam calls really are annoying.. Fine, fine! I'll go check your dumb tower or whatevs.. Gotta go beat up some assholes first, though! Callin' you later, weirdo." Sonic waved goodbye at the tower before jumping through the moving train's window. He held onto the side with his lance and aimed far ahead into a reflective "path" that seemed suspcious.
The reddish trees' leaves shook when he shot through the glass and a smile was drawn on his face. "Alright trainy, nothin' personal.." He began charging the rock shield and a giant pillar of stone punched the train into a different set of rails, crashing through the glass and a few guard badniks that went flying into the air. Sonic then umped off the train to take a good look at..
CARNIVAL NIGHT ZONE, ACT 1.
The hedgehog made his presence known by rushing through park's main entrance, Sonic felt some tension in the air. As if something or someONE was already aware of his arrival. This tension only became justifited after he was launched through the air by a toad-like blue badnik and... A figure nearly hit him in the air, only missing by a little and slamming down onto the bridge below to destroy it entirely. His now electrified whip caught itself onto a the cieling to help him swing into a wheel that he began running on, only to launch himself upwards. The momentum was just enough for him to turn into a purple energy mass that bounced off the walls and into the upper platform due to Mina's upgrade.
"Dang it.. It's gotta be rust bucket.. Well ,last time I left somethin' for him to rebuild. It's time to leave nothin' but dust." He began speeding up and turned around slightly to see that a red and white barrel had been launched at him from behind. "WOAH!" With a narrow jump over the incoming projectile, Sonic was now on top of the spinning barrel, using it to break through the walls in front of them and down into another corridor. "All that fancy hardware and the doc never put some aim assistance on you? Looks like someone's the neglected kid in this family." Just as he said that, a rain of buzzsaws fell on him, with Sonic dodging them and a capsule falling at the end of the corridor, revealing a jade-ish, bulky robot.
It lunged towards Sonic and grabbed him by the neck while the barrel crashed onto another wall. The hedgehog ended up using his fire shield to create a small explosion that would push it back. It began throwing a barrage of punches that Sonic's legs blocked until he formed up X-plosivo over his arm and intercepted one of the robot's punches, causing an explosion that blew up the robot's knuckle. It flew right into a bumper that bounced it back to Sonic for him to pierce its chest with an upwards, pick-charged dash that he followed up with another one to get back into his original position for an upwards kick.
Through the barrel encounter, he had recognized the sound of the approaching engine and thus, he jumped right over and grabbed the beat up bot to blow it up against the figure, burning away its cloth to reveal the burnt up body of Scrap Mecha. The robot was hunched forward and it attempted to speak, but its voicebox had been broken for a while now. "Oh come on.. Just cuz' you look like a sad puppy won't stop me from doing a factory reset on ya." The hegehog went for a spindash, though.. He went right through the hologram.
"FOOL!" Mecha dropped from above, hitting Sonic right on the spine with a dive kick that stomped him into the ground. The hedgehog's quills spiked up and caught the robot's legs, wit him getting up to throw him off into the distance. "Ugh.. Yeah, you're not nearly as beat up. Give me a breaaak.." The mobian used a nearby yellow spring to lauch himself forward, catching Mecha trying to dive into him again with a kick to the robot's face, only to grab its neck with the whip and drag him into an upwards spindash that made it break through the cielling.
The robot erected two pillars of fire around the hedgehog, to slow him down, which made Sonic switch to his fire shield. Thanks to it, he began to jump between the walls, even using some bat badniks as platforms. Though, Mecha threw a spinning wheel right into the broken elevator shaft, which Sonic burnt with the accumulated fire while flying towards Mecha as a flaming spindash that pinned him to the wall until the hedgehog did a backflip off him and into the platform behind.
"You ain't slowin' me down, trashcan.. Catch me if you can!" Sonic began running ahead while the robot recovered from the hit, flying back up in a fit of rage. The hedgehog was running down a giant slope, dodging Mecha's beams by dashing to the left, to the right.. In whichever direction, just to dodge them. Though, he did notice that those rays had began flying backwards and towards him from the front. They even strcuk the barrels and wheels above the downwards sloap to try and have them fall on Sonic, to no avail. "Jesus.. These things are relentle-" He was about to finish the sentance, but one of the rays struck through his chest.
Blood spewed from his mouth as he was forced to use his electric shield and a bit of rings to heal up the wound, with the shield absorbing the lasers. "O-Okay, that's one down.." He pulled out his lance and he intentionally began to dodge more of the lasers, causing a ton of them to pile up and chase after the hedgehog. Mecha had finally caught him by the throat, dragging Sonic's face through the hard, pavement floor until a ramp forced him to throw the hedgehog up into the air.
His face was bloodied, one of his eyes had to be closed for Mecha not to see its injuries and evne though it all, he could consume some more rings while grunting loudly. "Heh, ya got me... But not THIS TIME! CHAOS CONTROL!" Sonic held the lance up, stopping time around him with the lasers really close to him. The lance was aimed at Mecha and with that same hand, the pick in the energy whip began to shine, guiding it through the lasers until he stabbed it through Mecha, launching it back into a row of spikes.
"That'll keep em busy.." Sonic talked to himself while he began to spindash in order to fit through the ventillation system below. While doing so, Mecha continued sending spikes up through the tunnels, forcing Sonic to switch between them often until one NEARLY impaled him. It was only stopped because he punched it away with X-plosivo, and he repeated the process a few times until the vent shot him into a pair of spinning pillars.
Tornados began to form in between said pillars, which were manuvered around with the help of his whip. After swinging through a couple of these pillars, he shot one with his metal arm to go flying into a cascade of barrels from above, which were all cut by a giant wind disc he had formed from absorbing the tornados with the wind shield. He began riding said disc up into the upper section and after reaching the top, he jumped off and whipped the disc to cut a ramp in half, leaving a way for him to get to Mecha.
"LOATHSOME_COPY. I'VE_HAD_ENOUGH." The robot slammed its foot into the ground revving up his propulsors and showing his sharp knife-claws. "That makes us two in this town n' I think that's overpopulation." In direct response, Sonic flipped it off with his metal arm, showing the golden blade once more for a few seconds. "So, no more chitchat.. We both know what we want, 'nocchio." The taunting was enough to push the robot past the edge, and for it to spindash into Sonic, with him replying by doing the same and clashing in the center of the room.
"LET'S_"
"SETTLE."
"THIS."
SONIC V.S MECHA, ROUND 2.
After the clash sent them both back, Mecha went in to do a flaming dive punch into Sonic's head, which he blocked with X-plosivo. Though, in doing so, Mecha had enough time to shoot his fist off, punching Sonic in the face and turning it into a spinning blade due to the sharp claws flying out of it. Sonic recovered by doing a handstand and jumping over the homing projectile, erecting a rock pillar from beneath to hit Mecha up, followed up by another in the back of the head to spike it back down towards him.
Mecha used the momentum to shoot a potent laser from its visor down onto him, forcing him to use the electric shield to tank them while throwing an uppercut that clashed with the robot's dive kick, causing a small outage around them due to the electric energy concentrated in the clash. As the lights flickered back on, Mecha covered his fists in ice and threw his buzzsaws into the ground, with them turning into water for a brief second, only for them to turn back solid as Sonic ran towards him, catching his leg.
"ACK-" The hedgehog went barreling towards the faker, who hit a knee on his face only to grab it with its remaining hand. "HA_HA." The robot seemingly expressed joy, turning said hand into an energy cannon to blast off Sonic's face. Only half of it was blasted, with the rings being only enough to regenerate him, but NOT to solve all of his issues.. One of his eyes was still bleeding, and one of his arms was a bit unresponsive.
Mecha had prepared to shoot more saws towards him, but Sonic kicked up a wave that soon turned into a sharp iceberg that pierced its throat, throwing Mecha up for the hedgehog's lance to strike it through a nearby wall and into a bridge of gold and green blocks that began crashing down a large shaft once they stepped into it. Sonic had managed to collect enough rings on the way down to heal his arm, but his eye remained injured for the time being.
"Ngh.. You've done it now.." He whispered to himself, jumping off a wall to tackle Mecha into the other side of the shaft, dragging its face through it as he ran downwards. Mecha blasted a laser that broke a part of said wall and pushed Sonic off, giving it the chance to juggle him in the air a couple of times with its knives before the dettached fist came barreling down to spike Sonic downwards into the platform. Once he had landed, the hedgehog caught his rival's neck with the whip and began to smash the robot into the nearby walls repeatedly.
"QHRQUW$u!#." It omitted distorted noises similar to whines of pain, all while Sonic used the pike to pierce its body and shot its chest with his shotgun at point blank range, punching the bullet so it started drilling it into the ground. Once on top, Mecha could still see his bleeding eye, and how the red pigment was now all over his muzzle and chest. "You..." Sonic whispered, while his expression began to twist itself. The voices in his head echoed through his thoughts as he began to punch down on his adversary. "I'M DONE, I'M SO GOD DAMN DONE... STOP HUNTING ME, STOP FUCKING WITH ME!"
The robot's pitch black fuel coated his hands as he kept mauling its malfunctioning body, grabbing onto its face next. A screeching sound of metal creaking could be hard as the robot had its outer shell ripped off, leaving a dark robotic skeleton visible. Sonic was panting heavily, satisfied with the visceral act before he spotted a single red dot being emitted from the robot's now single eye. Another blast tore up the silence as it pierced Sonic through the chest, with Mecha now punching him into the walls, where Sonic parried another of its hits to dash through it with the guitar pike.
In doing so, he wasn't able to notice the dolphin kick that the robot had prepared, hitting him in the head with the back of its foot and into the platform below before using its thrusters to spindash right into the hedgehog's injury, breaking the bridge below them so he would start rapidly falling into the depths.
On his way down, the hedgehog could faintly see the figures of other mobians around him, trying to reach out towards him from above. None of their faces were recognizable but something about how they reacted made him feel unsettled. Suddenly, their golden bodies were slowly consumed by "the light" coming from his body, all while he could still hear their screams and.. His own laughter? All as that same structure from before could be barely seen through the light.
....
> GREAT JOB, MECHA! RETURN TO THE BASE AT ONCE, WE HAVE TO DELAY HIM AS MUCH AS WE CAN.
Vision began to return to the hedgehog, the blurry lights above shone down on the wasteyard below the park. HIs eyes narrowing as he heard what the doctor was mentioning. "Oh, so that's how it is.. I'm not lettin' ya go this time, sack of shit." The hedgehog gripped tightly onto the now removed face of the android, thinking for a bit.
"But, now that I think of it.. You've given me a nice lil' side gig to work on. Thanks, doc." The hedgehog held his whip and sliced a part of the energy beam with his lance, which he now tied to the back of the mask. Slowly, he put it on and the visor lit with two green eyes, letting him access its heat vision.
"WOAH- This feels a lil' too techy for my liking but damn.. I'll give this bad boy some good use." The hedgehog prepared himself once more, healing his remaining injuries and making a starting dash through the water ahead.
CARNIVAL NIGHT ZONE, ACT 2.
As he ran forth through the water, he saw small shark badniks that jumped out to try and catch him, but a spin of his lance was more than enough to swipe them away. Right on time too, since their bodies redirected a shot coming from the background. A bunch of pink and white badniks with golden pieces at the top of their heads began aiming their arm cannons as sniper rifles, following the speeding hedgehog.
The lasers were the same that Mecha shot earlier, but by now he had figured out their functionality. All four of the badniks shot at Sonic at the same time, while the bat badniks above were alerted and they formed a swarm to try and overwhelm the hedgehog. All the blue blur did was use the pick upgrade to dash through the horde, and leave a few of them up and ready on purpose to have them soak the electric blasts for him.
A smoke cloud had been created from the explosions, until the anti-hero launched himself up into the sky with a jade glimmer shining in the cave's dark ambiance. His shotguns had been charging that whole time and he had figured a new idea for a trick, by shooting them at full capacity and thhen unleashing the visor's piecing green laser. It connected with the bullet, carrying its drilling properties so by the time it hit one of the bots, they were all impaled by the same laser that then crashed into the wall above, opening a way up.
From there, another horde of bats flew down towards him, with Sonic triggering the burst for the first time sicne the ship incident to run through them, hopping on the badniks' heads in the blink of an eye before launching an electric blast through them as an extra boost to do an upwards kick straight through a ramp in the area above. The alarms had gone off, red lights covering his surroundings while two capsules dropped at two platforms nearby, both of them housing the same green robot that the hedgehog fought in the first act.
They jumped off and down into the ramp to hunt the hedgehog as he ran downwards, dodging the punch barrage from one of them by sliding past him while hopping over the other, right as a trio of lighter green bots with chest lasers began shooting them in the ramp to force Sonic to change paths. The larger bots seemed unaffected by said lasers, since they continued their assault by trying to sandwich the hedgehog by punching from the sides. A laser was just about to shoot in the center lane that he was running through, which made him grunt.
"Nice toy there.. But for once, the bootleg's BETTER!" He shot his own laser through the light green bot, stunning it while he made two rock gloves to stop the other bots dead in their tracks, lunging them up to then hit several spinning fire kicks that destroyed all three of them alongside a preassure plate that held the water level stable. So by the time Sonic had fallen back down into the sloap, the water beneath began to rise.
The blue blur sped up and jumped over a spinning wheel to launch himself through a tight corridor, dodging the lasers coming from the two remaining light green bots. He decided to shoot a charged shot with his shotgun that flew past the two, but ricochet off the cielling, then the floor and lastly into the giant wheel to launch it into the corridor, crushing the bots and leading to a room with more space where Sonic could use a strong tornado to launch it into the roof, breaking it apart.
The area above housed three small badniks, which all seemed harmless at first, but soon began shooting an electric current amongst them. He managed to snipe one of them with his lance, which let him grab it with his whip and slam it down on the other two to impale them. After the fact, he ran into an area that had two spinning barrels and a large colony of bats waiting at the top. The first half formed into a fist that slammed down onto the barrel trying to catch Sonic as he jumped between them, while the other half transformed into a boomerang-like shape to try and snipe him.
The boomerang barely missed, with Sonic crouching into the barrel to punch it down, jumping off right on time for it to go flying upwards and catch the boomerang, which had gotten stuck on the wall. On its way down, that same barrel caught the hand and destroyed it as well while Sonic wall jumped his way into the upper platform. Two small toad badniks launched their tongues towards him, with them being grabbed by his hands to pull them in blast their heads off with the shotguns. After, he got into an elevator nearby that made him levitate upwards.
"I gotta wonder... What could stop the doc at this point? I wanna think he can do something else and just leave everyone alone but- What if that's not an option?" He saw his oil-covered hand with a grunt, clutching his fist. ".. Then no one else can lose their freedom again, or their lives. I'll think of something when we get there." Sonic sighed, grabbing his diary to write down those thoughts, reaching the upper floor.
A sniper bot was waiting up there, aiming up its shot while Sonic quickly moved out of the way from a trio of bat badniks that turned into daggers and fell onto the plaform. The energy whip caught all three and threw them at the sniper, with one of them beheading it while the other two flew forward for him to dash through them using the pick , falling onto a series of wind pannels that boosted him into a small pit with bumpers that he then punched through a wall further ahead to move forward.
Upon reaching the area ahead, a familiar face was waiting. The echidna was quietly staring at him, while Sonic put his arms up and frowned. "Oh, it's you.. Now all that's left is for the doc himself to appear so the three stooges of my misery can ruin my day. What's bringing you here this time, dreads?" The warrior rapidly grabbed his axe and slammed it down onto the power for that specific region, causing the lights to start flickering. "See it for yourself, murderer." Knu'ur allowed himself to chuckle before doing a backflip.
During said flip, Mecha appeared once more and tackled Sonic into the wall, though the hedgehog was more than capable of using the fire shield to cause a small explosion that pushed the mech back. Once he did so, he sniped the robot's chest with a laser from his visor to throw it outside of the room, with him running after the android soon after. Knu'ur, meanwhile, had hid away to observe the battle and inform the doctor on the outcome.
"OVER_IS_TIME_YOUR." Sonic chuckled as he heard that, shooting it in the hole in its face with a smirk. "Aw, did your brain also go with your face? I've gotta say, I think I look a lot better with it than you ever di-" Mecha had grabbed him by the throat by the time he had finished that sentance, though it wouldn't last this time. The shotguns shot it in the chest for him to drop Sonic, and while throwing its hand as a disk once more, Sonic ducked underneath and landed a flaming uppercut into its jaw, only for its leg to be grabbed by a speeding Sonic's whip that then threw him down into a corridor with many of the tiny electric badniks.
The cielling and floor were electrified and Mecha began charging a chest beam since it was at the end of the hallway, with Sonic charging a super peelout at the other side. He recognized that the badniks turned on and off at certain intervals, so he used said intervals to run through the ground and then the walls once they turned off, all while the copy began shooting its beam through the corridor, trying to catch Sonic with it. Near the end, and right as it was about to hit him, Sonic used the electric shield to create a web with the badnik's current that would hold the laser in place.
After a bit of accumulating the energy, the web was destroyed and Sonic's shield absorbed the elctricity, super charging him to dash through Mecha, jump on a wall and then dive kick him with the strength of a furious thunder down into the platforms below. The robot got up from the floor and threw three spin kicks at Sonic, which he blocked and then grabbed the metal copy by one of said legs. The thrusters helped Mecha throw Sonic off his leg and then spinkick him through several barrels and through a series of platforms.
When he found his footing, Mecha used the rising water to freeze it and erect ice spikes that Sonic could dodge with well-timed hops and slices from his lance, all while he could hear the robot dashing towards him at mach speeds, even breaking a few barrels itself to try and reach him. Though, the hedgehog had the benefit of being behind one. "Oh boy.. The echidna scrolls said somethin' about this.. CHAOS, MERGE!" He slammed his lance's tip into a barrel behind him, and when Mecha got through the one in front, Sonic had an improvised hammer ready.
"DAMN_I-" Mecha was hit with it through the roof, with Sonic following suite to kick him into a wall on the upper platform. Though by then, the robot had enough of this. ".. ENOUGH OF THIS. THERE CAN ONLY BE ONE, AND IT SHALL BE ME. THE STRONGEST IN THE PLANET!" The robot held onto itself and released purple sparks that quickly overtook him. "WE ARE ON EVEN FIELD NOW." Sonic understood what that meant, and was shocked by the realization. "Fuck." Sonic dashed out of the way from Mecha's dive, spindashing to reach the platform above and start running down the sloap.
From there, Mecha began to launch a storm of claws that alongside fiery blasts that destroyed parts of the area that fell onto the hedgehog. His robot arm was capable of destroying them, but not of stopping the robotic copy's knee to the stomach, which sent Sonic flying back just enough for it to launch another charged blast from its chest that crushed the ground beneath to lead to a hallway full of boosting capsules. Sonic healed the injured parts of his body with the rings he had left, using a bit of his own burst to punch Mecha into the walls and then slice it multiple times with his lance.
The robot countered by deflecting the lance and going for an overhead punch that Sonic blocked with X-plosivo. He then used the arm's harpoon fingers to catch the doppleganger and slam it against the walls from both sides before throwing him forward. "NOTHING BUT A MEANINGLESS DELAY.." The robot grunted, while the eyes of Sonic's mask changed to gold and he tackled the robot at full force, turning into a spindash to then slice at him multiple times, finishing it off by aiming the lance right at its chest.
"CHAOS BLAST!" He yelled, causing it to blast Mecha out into the final part of the area. The angered robot began charging all of its shields at once, while pushing its burst to the limit. Once Sonic arrived at the top, he could see it. Mecha was creating a gigantic meteorite, almost the size of a continent that could be seen through the clouds. Its multicolored aura shining through the night sky as the robot laughed maniacly. "YOUR END IS NIGH, COPY. SAY YOUR PRAYERS TO YOUR METAL OVERLORDS!" Sonic's eyes shrunk when he saw the rapidly descending projectile, his breathing getting heavier.
"... A-Again... Not.. AGAIN!" Like his copy, he too cranked his burst up to eleven. His body emitting a blue, flaming aura around him that quickly began to turn purple as he ravaged the area nearby. The meteorite was falling at a speed akin to that of light, so quick that to everyone else on the planet, it was mere seconds from impact. Yet Sonic ran through the zone in less than that, screaming as he impacted with the gigantic formation. It rapidly began to crack more and more as he drilled through it without any hesitation.
Suddenly, the comet cracked in half and from within, Sonic came out to pierce Mecha's chest with his lance once more, making its core malfunction. He then jumped off the robot and held together the two pieces of the shooting star, pushing them together to squash Mecha inside and then, with a fierce roar, a fiery blast launched the destroyed droid and the comet into orbit, having them both explode in the horizon while the hedgehog fell into the area's energy container to break it in half. The lights went fully dark and the dawn's sun began to shine light onto the area.
"Hah... O-Oh, hey.. This is what was making it so strong, huh?" A tired Sonic took a few deep breaths while taking the sixth chaos emerald out of the container. "Found ya. They really slacked with these, and now that I got 'em.. There's little that they can do to stop me." He paused for a brief second, looking down.
"..." He took the guitar pick out of the bracelet and held it near his heart. "Thanks Min. Hope you keep looking over my shoulder til' I get this done." Sonic had a hopeful smile as he entered a new train station nearby the now destroyed zone, doing the same process he did before to start the engine. "Okay, now that this is going.. I've got one last detour before I get to the doc." The hedgehog took a look through the window to spot the floating structure with a frown.
"So, I hope you're hearing me. Once I'm done with your stupid errant, it'll be the last time you bother me, or anyone. You're going down."
Chapter 11: A FLEETING MEMORY.
Summary:
Through his fight against a double just as torn as him and the utter demolition of the doctor's base, the hedgehog had been having visions. Of a time he wasn't familiar with, people he wasn't familiar with and an ominous voice that kept bringing him back there. Fed up with its interruptions, he prepares to pay them a visit along his way forth into the island's center.
Notes:
TW: A LOT OF BODY HORROR
Chapter Text
...
The hedgehog woke up to a sunny field and the sound of the birds chirping from afar, with the wind dragging along leaves and dust. A larger figure stood there, with his red cape flowing in the air as he stared down the ocean below. Every step he took made the air feel heavier around them, with his hands feeling weighted down by what felt like other's holding them.
"Hey, just.. Who are you?" He asked, while the figure kept his gaze on the ocean in front of them. ".. You shall know it when you arrive, child." He mused for him to stand by his side, which Sonic slowly did. On his way there, he too realized that the older hedgehog had the same weight on his hands. "Were you callin' me this whole time?.." The youngling asked.
"And how could I not? I know what it is like to be in your shoes." He filnched a little, crossing his arms. "H-How, huh? You don't know.." Sonic scoffed, while the other hog took a deep breath. "That you are right. I cannot read your thoughts or understand your inner conflict. But be aware that I see the same chain that drove me here, tightly hugging your neck." The blue blur narrowed his eyes.
"See the sea below us. We're very high up and the wind blows in our faces. Think that there are peolpe drowing in that same sea, wishing they had our freedom. Without knowing that the same chain I just mentined is also dragging us down there." Sonic took a look at the "chain" and spotted it going down the cliff and into the water.
".. So, a part of our duty is to stay strong for those who can't. But what I fear something." Sonic began slowly walking towards the cliff, all without the chain tensing one bit. His eyes losing all light on them as the skies began to darken.
"What if you ca-"
SPLASH.
Sonic slowly woke up with pages scattered around him, since he had fallen asleep and was then roughly awakened by a crystal on the road. He got up from the floor and walked out to check around, finding a huge quartz crystal on the road. ".. That's quite a way of wakin' me up, old man. But fine.. I'M HERE!" He screamed at the giant formation, which seemingly laughed at his excitement. "A few minutes later than I anticipated.. But early nonetheless. Welcome, child of mine. I will be awaiting at the top, just beware of the creatures below. I'm afraid they aren't as civilized as I am. Good luck." The voice went quiet after that. Sonic put the pages back into his backpack and began walking out.
The dim light of the sunrise began looming over the fields of blooming pink flowers that soon began to become more and more scarse the further he walked ahead. The cold winds from the mountains made their presence known, forcing him to use his cloak to cover himself. And so, he began running ahead into the structure.
QUARTZ THUNDRA ZONE, SECOND CLIMAX.
He began running through the narrow pathways in between the icy formations left by the area's cold nature, shooting a jade laser from his visor when the road ran out to create an improvised rail that he could ride through a cave underneath. "Okay, if I'm right... Then-" He noticed a really odd spot in the cielling that seemed to be a bit different from the rest, so he hopped on a wall and charged his shotguns to blast him through the spot and into the tower.
Once inside, he took a look around the main room to see run down black walls that had been torn enough to see a dead, white coloration underneath. Golden lines could be spotted throughout them and matching golden windows gated the place from the outside world. A red carpet led the way up a set of stairs that Sonic began walking through until he decided to jump on the rail and boost his way up. In doing so, though. He saw something that shook his very core.
A grotesque, mangeled body of a long deceased purple hedgehog being stitched to the legs of a brown one, their dry black blood covering their blended bodies while holding the elongated arm of another as a make-shift mace with debris it found nearby. The eyes on the head in the shoulder burnt a bright gold and let out a hurling scream that quickly made the blind head turn towards him.
Their mace was thrown alongside their arm, which Sonic dodged by hopping to the side and detonating X-plosivo's punch into the seeing head when they were pulled towards him. The beast roared and purposely cut itself in half to kick the upper body into the hedgehog, tackling him into the ground, where they began to choke him out. "G-Get.. OFF!" Sonic's visor had recharged by that point, letting two slightly less strong beams come through the visor and piercing through the seeing head's eyes to leave it blind as well.
Siezing the opportunity, Sonic used the fire shield to light his fist up in flames and do a series of kicks upwards, hitting it mutiple times before punching it in the gut. "Rising.. FANG!" The hit blasted the roof open while the monster flew out of the window nearby. The next floor was the library, now full of cobwebs and dry blood in the walls that seemed to tell something through crude writing. ".. Well crap, I'm beat in this. Maybe the echidnas knew about their language?.." Sonic checked the texts in his backpack for a second, spotting a specific page that spoke of "codes" the hedgehogs used to communicate during warfare.
"Hmm... So, let's see." The hedgehog kept reading while there was light creaking on the shelf above. "Three lines that are all cut down at the middle with a stick.. Which means-" Just as he was about to finish that, a hellish screech came from above. Three skeletal remains of hedgehog women could be seen above, all connected to the overgrown bodies of tarantula. Their golden eyes all split into many while their many legs clicked on the wall.
"... They got killed by the same person." All three dived in to try and catch him, with Sonic spindashing out of the way to catch all three of them and slam them into the wall. He began running up a staircase that seemed to bend as soon as he got up, making him run on the wall while the arachnoids threw golden webs to try and slow him down. The hedgehog cut them down with his lance and then pierced one of them through the skull, launching her into one of her "siblings" to shoot through both of them with an electrified fingergun.
For the third, she bit her fellow tarantu-hogs to make them faster for just a moment, with the first one throwing itself like a sharp disc towards Sonic, who got hit by the sharp legs and then stabbed by her. "Make it.. End." She whispered, launching Sonic into another of the arachnid's web to slam him into the shelf below. Though, it did give him an idea. Right as the final one was going to bite him, Sonic formed a rock pillar by his side to pierce her head, grabbing the two halves of the shelf to squish the second and to throw her right into the third, who jumped over it but couldn't see the flying spear that beheaded her soon after.
The blood had tainted the floor beneath and the cloaked mobian was left shocked by the arachnid's words. "... What the fuck was the old man doing here? These people didn't deserve to be trapped here as his freakin' playthings." Sonic's head began to hurt a little as a message appeared.
"THERE WAS ONCE A VALIANT KING. A BELOVED AND BENEVOLENT REGENT THAT GAVE IT ALL FOR THE PEOPLE.
IN SPITE OF THE CONSTANT FIGHTS WITH THE OPPOSING EMPIRE, THE LORD REMAINED UNFAZED.
HIS PEOPLE WOULD DO IT ALL FOR HIM, NO MATTER THE COST.
TO SERVE THE GOLDEN KING, WAS THE GREATEST HONOR OF ALL."
"Cut it out with the high n' mighty crap. What have you done, old bastard?" Sonic wondered to himself, while he looked through the window nearby that had been broken during the encounter. He saw a sloap down the side of the tower, which made him smirk. "So, this has gotta go somewhere.. Let's see it." Once outside, Sonic took a leap of faith down while holding onto a nearby pillar with his whip. There, he would begin running through the destroyed bridge, hopping over large pits below that would send him to an assured death if he was to fall through, due ot the height.
From underneath, Sonic could hear the same scream as the first. That same double-headed hedgenog and many like him were throwing up their stretched out arm-hammers to try and tear down the bridge, making the hedgehog quickly dodge them while launching icycle storms crashing down on them to save time. Once he reached the upper part of the platform, Sonic used his lance to pierce through the large door ahead and found himself in.. A city.
One that would fit right in within a medieval fairtyale, adorned with frozen decorations and withered flora that covered every nook and cranny of it. He first swung through the main street, hopping between buildings to move faster through the desolate town before he began noticing how the spiders from earlier had left their mark with golden cobwebs he could use as rails to grind around the area for a more efficient traversal.
All until one of the roofs nearby was split open by yet another dispecable beast. This time, it seemed to be a very lanky echinda that used the hedgehog's quills as its cloak, with arms so stretched that its fingers became akin to a dragon's wing. Its dislocated jaw opened to launch an energy ball straight into the hedgehog below, who easily dodged out of the way of that projectile alongside the incoming barrage of them through skillful maneuvers through the houses nearby until he used his whip to fly up and spindash into the beast, damaging its left wing.
It crashed into a tower and gave Sonic the chance to throw a multitude of spinning slashes towards the fake drake's chest, throwing it up into the air before he hooked his whip around its neck, sending potent electro-shocks with the electric shield before giving it an electrified kick to the face that sent it flying into what seemed to be a town hall. It began puking out blobs of flesh contaminated by chaos energy that quickly began molding into Sonic's shape, all while the dragon recovered and roared at the blue blur.
The clones began chasing after Sonic while the dragon also flew away from him, launching potent energy beams that sliced apart anything in their way, including the ground below. It began to collapse below the hedgehog's feet, forcing him to hop between the falling debris, with one of the clones lunging to get them and falling into the void before it grabbed onto the rock with its tentacle-like arm while Sonic threw his lance upwards.
Fireballs kept raining down onto the falling city while Sonic got hit with an uppercut from one of the blobs, kicking him into the other before they went from a double-stab from both sides. The hedgehog triggered his burst to dodge the point-blank stabs and hold their arms, throwing them up to have a flurry of hits in the matter of a second that sent them both flying in the direction of the visor's laser.
They were both pierced by it and on top of that, the lance had swapped places with Sonic, letting him parry the energy beam right into the drake's skull to blast it open. It began falling down alongside the pair, but the hedgehog managed to create a rock platform below both of them, just to grab his lance with the whip and throw it up through their body so hard that it launched both of them up into the clouds. To finish the abomination off, he hopped off it and dived down with X-plosivo to crash through the royal palace's walls at the top of the city. Yet another message appeared on his mind as he did.
"THERE IS A TRAGIC KING. A STRESSED AND ANXIOUS LEADER WHO KEPT FACE FOR HIS PEOPLE.
THE CRACKS BEGAN TO SHOW. EACH WAR MADE HIM WEAKER AND ONE MORE WOULD MEAN THE END.
HIS PEOPLE STAND WITH HIM IN SPITE OF IT, READY TO SERVE.
TO FIGHT FOR THEIR LORD, WAS THE GREATEST HONOR OF ALL."
Once he had broken in, the dragon's body fell onto the depths while Sonic began speeding up ahead. A giant sloap welcomed him, letting him slide down through it before jumping off into one of the nearby walls to run through it. The room's gravity shifted as soon as he hit the wall, letting him stand while he dashed through it and hopped between some walls to get to the next platform, where he dodged a spear being thrown by a standing armor.
The spear tried to fly back into the spear, but Sonic caught it with the whip and threw himself forward to behead the statue with a pick dash, using the now flying head to dash upwards and through the cielling. There, he now had to dodge the incoming spear launches from the statues below, while the dragon began shooting a large energy beam from afar that broke the wall and began tearing through the floor Sonic was standing on, giving him the perfect opportunity to escape. He launched a water vortex straight into the ground below, launching the armors up with angry tidal waves. Meanwhile, he used the pick once more to dash through the lifted armors and into the opening in the wall.
Loud roars were heard from underneath, where the dragon kept shooting and sometimes spewing out more Sonic clones. This time, though, they had wings to start closing in on the swinging hedgehog, with one of them trying to dive him just for the boy to blast it in the face, grabbing another by the leg to pull himself through two of the clones before he spotted something from afar, shooting arrows that killed a few of the clones by itself.
A large, bulky hedgehog corpse with the skeletal legs of a horse and no head to speak of, with the golden energy irradiating through its beheaded neck. It was using another hedgehog's deformed ribcage and its arm as an improvised bow, with which it kept shooting at the hedgehog. Sonic created wind replicas of the spring to begin bouncing between them and then towards the beast in the form of a spindash that knocked it into the wall to change its gravity.
The beast began taking aim at the hedgehog while he threw a slice with his charged up lance. "CHAOS, CONTROL!" The bow did not fire, as much as the deformed monster attempted to shoot. Sonic, meanwhile, began firing towards it with parried blasts from his shotguns that drilled it into the now floor and then the hedgehog descended to start tearing apart its spine with a powerful dropdash that let him get away before its bulky arm tried going for a punch. Afterwards, it got up and from above, another of the tarantula came down to bite it in the neck.
It had regained its strength, and began to ram its body uncontrollably through the arena, forcing Sonic to dodge with precise timing a couple of times before the beast kicked him through a couple of walls, raining down arrows into the hedgehog before it launched a blast of energy similar to that of the dragon underneath. Sonic heard the drake's roar from afar and he dashed underneath the centaur's attack to hit its head upwards, redirecting the shot at the clocktower to make it drop some of its symbols down.
To avoid them, the beast rammed towards Sonic once more while the dragon began firing at full force, destroying a good chunk of the platform every time the burly beast ran at him, until Sonic delivered several fire kicks straight into its face, kicking it at just the right angle for the horrifying centaur to show its back. When it did, Sonic's visor launched a powerful jade blast that began charging the indestructible centaur off the platform and into the abyss, falling right on top of the dragon to cause an explosion of energy that killed them both.
With a sigh, Sonic began to climb up the clocktower after he dropped down on the floor, making sue to wait patiently until it struck 5:30 AM to hold onto the hand, though the method was too slow for his liking. ".. You know, I've been living my own thriller movie for the past 90 minutes or so, I'm done waiting." He shot a stream of fire downwards to go flying up into a dark room, where the golden lines that decorated the halls came back. Though, their color slowly began to change to pink and the air grew heavier.
The hedgehog eventually found his way up the tower and into the final room at the very top. The floor was split open to reveal a dusty red carpet that directed whoever came in to two thrones, one empty with a withered flower on it while the other held a skeleton with a golden armor. Sonic looked confused as to what it meant, but he just had to see his surroundings to figure it out. Writing on the walls done with now dry blood that seemed incoherent at first, but he could faintly see words akin to "FORGIVE ME" in the hedgehog's language according to the scrolls.
".." Even more so, his heart sank in when he saw a bloodied robe that vaguely ressambled a wedding dress, right in front of the right throne. But he had no time to recollect his thoughts on the matter, with a strange pulsation being heard from behind. ".. You've seen it with your very eyes." A gigantic, pulsating heart was found at the back of the room, with the pulsations lighting up the windows up in bright, pink lights as the shadow of the skeletal hedgehog began to rise.
"I brought you here to end them. Ever since I ennacted a disgraceful act, guided by my rage with reckless abadon, they've been kept alive through this. My heart and the energy me and Enerjak once used to fend off that threat." The king began stepping forth, holding the torn cloth in his golden glove before holding it close to his heart. His quills lighting up with golden energy and spiking up. All while Sonic clutched his hand into a fist.
"... Are you done with that sob story? Cuz' what you've been doing here is nothing short of inhumane. I couldn't care less about who you were if you're taking those people's freedom away by keeping them alive through nonstop pain." The king looked down at his hands, crashing its broken blade into the ground for it to grow an energy hilt. "I am well aware. You and I both know the wrong in my acting and I wish I had never doneth it. But I cannot take back anything at this point."
"And what? Sorry, but there's no world out there where I'm buying that SHIT. I'm not taking them down now. I'm not putting them through any more suffering. But you.." Sonic held his lance up with a frown on his face that turned into a cocky smirk. "You look like you could use some karma in your life. Someone's gotta make sure those poor souls rest well.. And yours doesn't." The king looked up, showing the younger man bright pink spirals on his eyes.
"Do as you must... A-As I cannot control it any further." The king fell onto one of his knees, grunting.
THERE WILL BE A DISGRACE OF A KING. SHACKLED TO AN ETERNAL PRISON.
"Aw.. The lil' sicko on you's leaking out, huh? I can talk sum' sense into them." He began circling the king, small blue sparks lighting up the dark room.
A SACRIFICE WENT THROUGH TO ATTAIN A POWER NEVER BEFORE SEEN.
"Child... One of us shall leave this place a corpse. Our burdens shall be lifted out of the loser's body, and may the victor be strong enough to carry our wills."
YET HE COULDN'T CONTROL IT, AND HIS PEOPLE WERE NO MORE.
"So.. In these final moments."
BROKEN HEART.
"Let's."
WANDERING SOUL.
"End"
MAY YOU FINALLY SEE.
"Our."
THAT BEING THE KING'S SERVANT.
"PAIN."
Is the greatest sacrifice of them all.
SONIC V.S KING ARTHUR.
Gold and Azure sparks flew as the two clashed in the middle of the room before they were blasted into opposites sides of the room. The older hedgehog had began swinging his sword and one of said cuts made a hole in the wall while Sonic used his lance to parry the hits and spit it into his face like a helicopter's fan to slice his face multiple times, throwing the royal into the air to then throw a fire blast through him that pushed the royal to the edge.
With a quick chaos control sequence, the older hedgehog threw punches from many directions before landing one on Sonic's gut to throw him up and then juggle him in the air with a nonstop barrage of kicks before a charged slice from his blade was thrown. He pushed himself out of the way with a windspring before he used Mina's pick to dash through him, matching the lord's speed to parry his constant blades through chaos control before he began dashing through him nonstop, until it stopped doing damage at all.
Once that happened, he dashed beneath a slice that came his way before his whip wrapped around the dead king's neck and pulled him into the ground, jumping up into the air to do a diving punch with X-plosivo that blew up the ground, leading to the two of them free falling down the dark tower. Sonic grabbed onto the walls and sliced through the king a couple of time with his lance, while he erected chaos spears from the walls to try and catch the hedgehog until he was forced to jump into the air.
When doing so, Arthur had charged an energy beam through his spiraling eyes, shooting it right at the hedgehog as he did the same with his visor to match each other's blast. They clashed briefly before Sonic turned on the electric shield, ligthing the whole area up once both beams impacted him. The electricity began shining a combined red and green right before he punched through the man jumping back up to grab him with the robot arm's hook fingers before he threw him down for a diving stab from his lance that pierced the king's armor on the torso's left side.
The clock had fallen off the tower and into the ground, which was now held by golden chains as their new arena. The king had gotten back up from the ground near instantly, clapping to send a shock wave towards the hedgehog. He interchaged between stomping and clapping to send different kinds of shock waves towards Sonic, who effortlessly dodged them by running around the collapsed clock until the king began speeding up, forcing him to use the burst to dodge a surprise attack that consisted of what seemed like a million slices in one move.
The hedgehog managed to move through them gracefully until he threw an ice-boosted punch upwards to knock the man into the air, where he begn blasting him with nonstop shots from his shotguns until they merged together to form a massive cannon-like weapon that made him fly back through the blizzard behind them. The now airborne king decided to summon clones of himself to start diving downwards into the platform,
Sonic got by one of the groups of clones, so they all juggled him through slices upwards until the king slashed downwards in a blazing spin that caused a large explosion around the area, leaving Sonic injured. To the point where he was forced to use a good chunk of the rings that he had been spending on burst and his chaos weapons down to half. Though he still had a bright idea. The older hedgehog had began launching smaller energy blades towards him while Sonic dodged and parried with his lance and while the other hedgehog had adapted to it..
"CHAOS, CONTROL!" It wasn't a full adaptation yet. Sonic froze his head in time, leading to the rest of the body falling limp due to the central nervous system not responding. This allowed him to land a flaming uppercut into a series of rapid kicks that sent him up at just the angle for an iceberg coming from beneath to stab him. "CHAOS, BLAST!" Upon contact, the iceberg exploded to amplify its damage and launch the man all the way into the clouds, where he recovered from the impact by feeling all the hits at once.
The elder shot his laser eyes through the platform to slice it in half, forcing Sonic to hop off it and start swinging through the falling towers of the city to dodge him. He even had to break a few falling rooftops with his spear that he then used as platforms to start jumping in between the sword projectiles that the king had began throwing. All while the now maddened royal projected a clone of himself far bigger than the tower, readying his sword until it cut down.
Sonic saved himself from the impact by just a bit, but the tower itself was now split, with its pieces falling around them and the sky lighting up to golden clouds. "RAHAHAHAHA!! C'MON KID, I'VE HAD ENOUGH OF THIS SACK O' BONES. I NEED POWER, AND YOU'LL GIVE IT TO ME!" The voice was completely different to the royal's, far closer to the hedgehog's own. "Oh, I get it.." Sonic began to hop through the falling debris while shooting at him.
"You're some random ghost that took over the pop's body and made 'em do all that.. Okay, I don't got time for that. You're going down TWICE as much because of that, dickhead!" The maniacal spirit laughed out loud, with the quills turning a aura of the ghostly quills turning a bright pink instead of gold. "BRING IT, BRING IT!! MAKE THIS HELLA FUN AND I'LL MAKE GOOD USE OF YOUR STUPID BODY, BRAT!!" The two got onto the collapsing side of the tower and began to clash blade with spear in a rapid back and forth, until a hit landed and the diety simply used the armor to parry it.
"PATHETIC!" It screamed, grabbing Sonic by the throat to impale him with energy spears and then shoot its lasers through its eyes as a finisher, slicing towarsd the hedgehog after the fact to get hit with a spindash to the gut that sent him into the air above. Sonic jumped up to quickly slice at him, with some hits being blocked and others hitting head on before he used the fire shield to propell himself up into the god's face, kicking it until heturned into a flaming tornado that rammed him into the wall they were both falling through.
So, both it and the wall behind broke into smaller debris that Sonic used to jump through in hopes of dodging the god's onslaught of blades and beams, until the diety managed to spin kick him into the face, pulling him back with an elongated arm before kneeing him on the chin and knocking him down with both hands held together. From the top of the tower, the diety began to throw slices while its pink aura grew stronger. "OH, MINIIONS! GET GOING, SHOOT THAT DAMN BRAT OFF THE SKY!" All of the defeated enemies stood back up by force, yelling and moaning in pain.
"Bastard.. TRY ME!" Sonic yelled from underneath, holding the pick close to his heart in order to use his remaning energy in the following sequence. His purple burst triggered and he began jumping through a barrage of pink lasers coming from underneath, alongside the undead husk's clones flying in to try cutting him, which he used to dash through them at an ever-increasing pace. In one last ditch effort, the diety split itself into two, becoming the spirit that charged a blade big enough to be seen through the atmosphere.
The king clashed with Sonic, matching each other's every move in punches, kicks and slices in rapid succession, to the point where he was even using the shock waves to block off Sonic's elemental attacks. But he knew what to do once he saw the falling room that contained the giant, beating heart. Sonic breathed in and for a brief second, the purple aura of the burst changed to a burning gold. He sped through the clones, the lases, the debris, to the point where he was even doing quick drifts on the falling pieces of the building to run up even faster.
The demon drove its blade down from above, with its pink light covering the area until it stopped. It no longer had the blade in its hands and by the time that the diety turned to see him, Sonic was holding the enormous sword as he began spinning down towards the room. "NOOOOOOOO!!!" The spirit flew rapidly towards the hedgehog in an attempt to stop him, but it was futile.
SHRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRAK!!
The visceral sound of the king being sliced in half alongside the heart and the mountains behind him. Both him and Sonic fell onto the room as it was now buried in the cold, white snow that had been tainted by the king's blood. "Nh... Well done, my.. Child." Sonic froze. ".. Your what?" While he was in his shocked state, the king held his hand.
"I recognize that gaze. That fur.. I too had it in my youth. Blue as the skies above.." The king coughed out a little bit of blood into his hands. "And.. You're telling me now?! Dude, don't-" Sonic tried to reason with the old man, but he shook his head. "You would have hesitated had you known. And worry not, we are but distant relatives.. It has been half a millenia already, after all. I did see your thoughts, however. You seem rather lost in the grief of a mistake akin to mine."
".. Yeah. What should I do?" The hedgehog asked, holding his hand tightly. "Thou musn't give into the grief. It is what hath given birth to this ghoul I carry, to my personal burden.. And if you areth to continue on thou's path ahead, I request that you continue moving. Be aware the weight of your burdens and light of head.. Only that way will you truly be free." The hedgehog used the remainders of his energy to show a smile ot his kin, slowly passing away underneath.
That is, until the ghost took over. "HAAAH.. LOOK AT THIS MESS, YOU INSIGNIFICANT FUCK! YOU KNOW WHAT'S GONNA HAPPEN NOW. IF YOU GET SOMETHIN' LIKE THIS, IF YOU SOMEHOW BECOME JUST LIKE THIS SENILE PIECE OF TRASH, I'LL COME WITH YOU.
I'LL KEEP EXISTING AS LONG AS THERE'S HEDGEHOGS THAT I CAN TAKE OVER, AND ONCE I DO IT'LL BE FAR WORSE THAN WHAT THIS GUY HAD. SO YOU'RE DEAD, SONIC. YOU'RE DEA-"
THRKKKK.
"Shush." The hedgehog had punched through the body's ribcage to grab the true heart, crushing it in his hand to cover his face and cloak in blood. "... Rest in peace, gramps. I'll take over from here." Sonic stared down the corpse as it faded to dust, leaving only the armor and the blade behind. To honor the fallen's legacy, Sonic put on the golden chestplate and used the remains of the red cape around his waist while he put the broken sword away in his bag. He began to walk through the cold, dead plains into his train, which now had the way open due to the broken crystal.
".. I've gotta get back to the doc now. Can't let that bastard get away any further." He turned the engine back on and sat on his seat, breaking into tears for once now that his hands had truly been covered in another's blood for the first time.
Chapter 12: WHEN HELL FREEZES OVER.
Summary:
To say something will never happen.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Sonic was resting on the train after the fight with the king had ended. His hands and face still coated in the fresh blood while he stared into the wall, lost in thought. The armor he wore began to feel tighter around his torso, and by the time he looked down..
Blood.
There was black blood coming off his limbs. That thing was slowly but surely tearing him apart and he tried to remove it in a desperate struggle, to no avail. All that Sonic could do by that point was let out drowned screams thanks to the blood forcing its way out through his mouth while his own heart was crushed from inside like some twisted karma was collecting its debt. His heartbeat was increasing to an unbearable rate and so did his breathing. Until.
He opened his eyes.
His limbs felt numb, and his mind was spiraling due to the intense cold. He had caught a bad case of hypothermia after being left looking at the king's remains for several hours. The hedgehog's eyes were bloodshot and his movements were clunky enough to make him fall over onto the snow. He had to stab his lance into the ground to help himself walk through the snowy field with a blurred vision.
It was clear that he wasn't going to make it on his own, but it was then that the same armor he had allucinated with began to lift him up from the ground. A golden glow surrounded him while his pupils turned a bright cyan, leading to him running at lightspeeds through the mountains, even though that also caused the last remaining bits of dust from the king to fade away, with cracks froming around the tower. Sonic began to squint spotting a train similar to his own into the distance, going up the mountain and into..
ICE CAP ZONE, ACT 1.
CRRRRRRASSSSH!!
The large machine had flown through the skies, torn to pieces by the hedgehog ramming through it in a spindash. "WOOOHOOO!" Sonic yelled out thanks to the sheer adrenaline of the moment, dodging a flying door that he then used as a snow board to skate downhill and between some trees. Though, that smile was quickly wiped off his face once he spotted something in the distance. "... You." He whispered in between angry groans once he spotted a circular pod with dark steam being shot behind itself and a reddish figure gliding beside it.
His anger was interrupted by a large amount of falling debris from the tower, using his lance to make sharp turns in case either the rubble fell before him or a tree got in the way. Sonic then spotted a wagon being lunged from behind by the rubble, sliding underneath with a slick drift before he jumped over a second one that he then sliced in half effortlessly with a combination of his spear and the fire shield, His whip managed to catch onto one of the halfs and a fire copy of it was used to create a make-shift slingshot that launched the hedgehog into a wall far away that he clung onto.
"Aaany second now.. Oh, there." The giant avalanche of rocks and train wagons slammed into the wall and fell onto a frail ice lake that got shattered and revealed the way into a cavern that the hedgehog hopped inside of. "Perfect landing, let's g-" Right before he could move, a thick coat of snow fell on top of him, making the boy grunt in frustration. "Gah, I almost had it. Okay! Time to work with this." The snow began to form into a big snowmade spindash that began to go downhill to plow through a couple of ice walls. The ball got on a platform that wanted to carry it up, but Sonic stuck out his shotgun to blast it midway and launch both of them deeper into the cold cavern.
He dashed out of it with the electric pike to dash through an ice pillar beneath the ball, letting it bounce off the pillar and through the corridor with enough force to open a way through for the hedgehog. Sonic swung upwards with the whip and descended in a spindash to dash through the hole that the snowball had created below. "Woah!-" The icy sloaps of the cavern began to make him surf them down until he used the pike again to bounce against the wall below for a perfect landing, using the burst to empower himself and boost his way through the hallway until he found an oddly similar sloap.
"Hold on a sec.. This is smellin' kinda fishy." He narrowed his gaze as he surfed down the couple of sloaps for a second time, then a third.. "Okay, this is some grade-A bullshit. What kinda junk did Robuttnik put down here to make me teleport all over?" He asked himself until he spotted a lone platform above one of the sloaps, using the water shield to bounce into the ground and get up on it. The platform fell down into the same sloap and broke through a wall to finally free him of the cycle.
"Okay, I was already gettin' dizzy from all that mumbo jumbo.. But, I didn't really see any of his bots." Sonic began to think for a moment, casually slicing a walrus badnik's crashing icicles with his lance before he switched to the king's broken sword, lighting it up with the electric shield to launch a two horizontal slashes before dashing through its body with the pike and finishing it up with a shotgun blast to the head.
Once he reached the platform above, Sonic slid underneath a concentrated blast of ice coming from three penguin badniks at the end of the hallway, using the water shield to cover his fist and legs in ice while he launched an optic blast from his visor to split them in half, following it up with a pair of frozen kicks that finished in a final one that sent an ice-made spike underneath them to destroy them fully.
He then took the spring that was unfrozen by the optic blast from ealier to reach upper ground, only to notice that there was a few more platforms before reaching the actual upper part. So, Sonic had a quick idea and he jumped up into the abyss, launching one of his shotguns down while charging a shot with the other. He then released the shot and a large explosion of chaos energy was caused, lanching Sonic straight up.
Then, a few more of the mechanical birds shot their ice blasts towards him, forcing the hedgehog to grapple onto the ground and dive them with an X-Plosivo punch that made them bounce on the ground, only to combo it with a charged up spindash that tackled the bots through a wall and into the air. He avoided falling stalacdites by dashing through the falling bots until he had made it to two twin pillars that descended at a certain pace. Though, he chose to punch one of them down with the rock shield and X-Plosivo to then dash under the other, grabbing it tight with his hands when it tried to crush him to launch it through the hallway and down the shaft.
Once he had surfed down the icy sloaps once more, yet another cycle happened but this time, something odd ocurred. The ice in rocks began to reflect different images as he went down, ones that he sort of recognized. A hint of yellow and blue, another of pink and jade.. And of course, red and blue. Sonic felt weirded out about them but it didn't fully click until the cave spit him out in a corridor deeper in, right onto a cave full of mirrory crystals.
".. The hell's this? I thought I'd stay there but I guess we all get bored after the 20th time 'round." Sonic got up from the cold ground and began to move through the dark inside of the cave, his hands going up to his head with a slight groan. The blue blur couldn't focus at all, due to the sudden apparition of a strong headache taking over. "What's.." He tried asking, only to be interrupted by a distorted whisper coming from one of the crystals.
"W̜͈̣̊̊̀̀s̊̊͋̈̐̎̔̀̎ɾ̖̇̈̓̈̕m̗̩̊̏́̋g̗̖̖̊̓́̐̈́́.͈͈̇̊̊́̇́̔̓̋.̇̊̇̇͒̐̓̋̀̒.̗̇̇̇̇̀̈́́̓̈̕" The hedgehog's body began to freeze again. Sluggish movements were made to keep away the faceless apparitions coming from the crystals, while he began catching his breath once more. The fire shield aided in heating him, but it was far too slow in doing so. "H-Hngh, alright.. Bring it on! This cold won't stop the incoming asswhoopin'."
SONIC V.S ???
With his quills going up, the phantasms backed off until a pink one made its way through the horde to dash towards him, with Sonic punching a hole through it before spinning around to kick a yellow one in the jaw. Said kick was the followed up by a couple more that formed a golden tornado to make his way through the horde before a giant hammer smacked him into one of the walls, where a red and blue phantasm tried to dive kick him.
It missed by a bit, since Sonic had time to go into a spindash and slice him in half on the way up, only to then grab onto the pink spirit's leg with his whip to smack her down. Two oranges tried ambushing him from opposite sides, and he jumped above them to throw a gigantic fire slash from his sword that tore them apart. He did notice something important from these apparations, they all had small tentacles pulling them around.
He turned on his purple burst in response, slashing through a few of them with his lance before kicking it towards a few of them to continuosly slash in a circle while he blasted the rest with his shotguns until he let one of said guns go to kick into it and create a drill that tore through multiple of the phantasms' tentacles. At last, he grabbed the lance with his whip and used the accumulated momentum from the burst to swing it in a tornado that cut all of the ghost's tentacles and caused an ear-shattering scream to be heard.
The ground from below began to crumble below the ice mountain, and the ground was split open with a devastating CRACK. Crystaline matter began to spill from below, creating large tentacles to pull its mass out of the hole. A squid-like robot that dragged itself out of the hole in a clunky fashion, showcasing its creepy red-blue eyes while Sonic only smirked at its arrival.
"And bingo.. So you're the calamoron that's been messin' with my head, huh?" The squid beast pulled itself up fully, revealing that it was indeed a robot, yet it had crystals stuck on its elongated eyes and deformed robot body to prove that its power wasn't its own. "Heh, let's make some nice Calamari outta ya. It'll be a meal the doc's gonna DIE FOR!" Gold sparks came out of Sonic as he lunged towards it.
SONIC V.S REFLECTION KRAKEN.
The possesed robot began its onslaught by slamming down its tentacles into the ground, shattering the glass below. Sonic hopped over one and tore through another with a rapid spindash to then dive down once a third tentacle tried to strike him out of the air, shooting behind himself with the shotguns to then land a clean shot on its forehead, flying back. The broken crystals formed into mirrors around the room and its crystal eye fell out to work as a "counductor" of sorts as it hid on the wall with its cammoflage.
It all made sense once the squid shot a beam of light straight into the ball, making it bounce off it and into the mirrors that then spread it around the room in an erractic pattern that hit Sonic and sent him flying into a wall, with rings coming out of him soon after. "GH-" The hedgehog managed to dash underneath another couple of light beams before he began to run around the room in circles, calculating rapidly.
"Okay, if light gets reflected.. GOT IT!" He held his hand close to the armor and clenched it, causing a golden aura to come off as he then activated the visor and shot at a very specific angle that made the concentrated beam of Chaos energy fly straight into the squid, knocking it down from its hiding spot. Right as it reached the ground, Sonic landed a burst charged kick on its body to crash it into the wall, pulling it back with the whip to grab it by its head and dragging it through the circular arena around the pit at mach speeds.
"UP UP AND AWAY!" He threw it straight into the air, where it used two of its tentacles to stick onto the cielling. Sonic had whipped out the sword and combined it with the electric shield to rapidly swing at the incoming onslaught of tentacles. "Ay, squiddo. Your eye's looking kinda itchy, you should totally get a matching pair next time!" The resurrected beast realized its mistake once the electric current began to build up and Sonic had reached its face, landing a potent kick to make it look up.
CRRRASH!
An avalanche of electric spears fell onto the red eye, causing an electric overcharge that did some serious damage to the bot. The crystal on the affected side had fallen off, leading to more erratic behavior. It threw a single tentacle out at Sonic before slamming it down mid-way to create a shock wave. Sonic dodged the first, but his armor would block a second one that came when another tentacle smacked against the wall.
Sonic jumped between the cavern's walls to reach the octopus, dashing through it with the pike before landing a flurry of kicks that sent it up only to slam it back down with a diving fist from X-Plosivo to send it back down through the hole that it came from. The seemingly endless tunnel had the squid falling down until its ice fuelled propulsors triggered again, roaring at the hedgehog while yellow apparitions began to fly up towards him. Their hollow eyes could easily throw him off, but Sonic defended using his spear to push them back, and he began to dash through them.
When he tried to reach towards the octopus, it simply boosted its way down and out of his reach, hitting him with a propulsor blast along the way. He had to do things differently if he wanted to get the hit. That's when he realized that the damage the ghosts recieved was seemingly "shared" upon death to those near them, so he had a plan. The hedgehog dragged his spear into the wall, with golden sparks flying out of him. He had began to dodge and attack the ghosts at such a fast pace that their bodies wouldn't "detonate" in time, leading to Sonic destroying them one by one and tying them to his whip.
The boy lunged once more towards the crystalized badnik, who used its blast again to no avail. Sonic had used the water shield to get through it and kick the huge ball of collected ghosts straight into him like a soccer ball. "TO HELL WITH YA!" He yelled at it while the ball impacted, destroying the blue eye this time and leading to the reveal of a third crystal, its now exposed brain thanks to the last explosion. In between ghoulish screams, the beast flung itself down and the "Loop" that the cavern had been on dispelled, letting Sonic dive downwards.
"Well, guess you DID get a matchin' pair this time, but you're still one ugly son of a gun.." The hedgehog smugly remarked, though he was almost pierced through by an erratic tentacle that flew from the wall and straight towards him. The damn thing had sent them like arrows to hunt him down on the way towards his prey, but they wouldn't do much since he would then dash downwards to gain more momentum and stay out of the way from the onslaught of obstacles that the desperate and blind automaton was trying to throw his way.
Ice pillars also came from the walls as a cyan glow took over the area, revealing the boiling hot blue magma that laid below them, with what seemed to be an industrial castle above it. "So this is where Egghead was makin' all his new shiny toys. Thanks, ink-diot!" The hedgehog used his wind shield to create springs that he could bounce from to cut the distance between them, spinning in circles and right onto the target before turning it into two wind discs that cut off the remaining tentacles.
The squid made one last move, launching its brain out to reflect the flames off it and create an array of light beams that began to chase the hedgehog. While the wind disks came back to work as platforms, he began to use the falling debris from the cielling being hit by the lasers to make himself more platforms to jump between until he switched to the water shield to freeze the enemy and gain time. By the time that the squid had thawed out, it would see a giant ice and rock formation that would be revealed to be a hammer, and it quickly went down to bash its head into the ground.
To make matters worse for itself, the electric blade fell from the sky and pierced its brain back into the head, stopping it from being removed and, at last, the cave turned a burning orange once Sonic descended in a ball of flames that punched the sword in.
KWROOOOOOOOOSHH!!
A chain reaction was created once the fire and electricity came into contact, and the squid had been vaporized alongside a good chunk of the factory. In doing so, the energy plant for the zone had been destroyed and all the badniks surrounding Sonic had all been deactivated, falling down into the pit of lava. However, the doctor's logo began to light up the remaining screens. "Long time no see, pesky rodent." Sonic instantly recognized the noise, spearing one of the screens with his lance before pulling it back.
"Oh, not even a 'Hello, my dear nemesis?' How cruel of you. But I will need you to listen to me. This is a bit of a truce until you get out, it wouldn't be fun if you got turned to a crisp before I could do so with my own two hands." The doctor grinned behind the screen, while the hedgehog's clenched his fists. "Spill the beans n' cut the bullshit." He cut off the doctor with a sharp tone on his voice.
"Alright, since you asked so nicely.. The factory is bound to detonate in around 6 minutes, if you stay still to listen to me any further." Sonic's eyes narrowed and he began to dash out with no hesitation at all and a blinding blue light took over the blarring red lights from the screens, while the ones around him flickered.
"The clock's ticking once more, and the result is the same. Like the rat you are, you choose to find a hiding spot from a disaster out of your control, you'd rather rot and die before facing it, facing YOURSELF. But I won't be picky, be it by my machines, my crimson companion, my own two hands or your own..You won't run any further, and that day, dead or alive, you WILL be MINE." The doctor's laughter was heard through the halls as Sonic began to build up speed and break into the factory.
ICE CAP ZONE, ACT 2.
A loud thud was heard from inside until the potent flames from the fire sword burnt away the door, letting the hedgehog run in and jump through the walls to start climbing the factory. The first level had a malfunctioning bucket of lava trying to spill it down to no avail, but it made for a good angle considering the fact that there were several pistons pumping up and down in front of him. So, he used the fire shield to bounce off the lava and right through one of them, even if it did leave him under the second piston. He stopped it dead on its tracks using X-Plosivo to then punch it upwards, making a hole in the cielling and leading to a treadmill.
He could hear loud buzzing sounds coming with a thud soon after, he looked to the side to realize it was the same piston he had launched up. So, he hopped through the hand-made shaft to hop right above a buzz saw that was connected to the treadmill and he saw that there were two more in front of him. As such, Sonic had to use the pike to do precise dashes between them before taking a vent that had him spinning all the way into the final tloors.
In one of them, an incomplete yet gigantic sniper rifle would randomly shoot at a certain interval seemingly on its own, with Sonic quickly running in between cover through small spindashes to turn on his electric shield and absorb the following blasts, which let him launch like a rocket into the final level, a large hallway that had saws going in the opposite direction. To get through, Sonic triggered his burst and seemingly hit the air while running, but he kept it on so at a very specific moment of the saw's rotation, they would all get hit repeatedly and sent his way, with Sonic narrowly dodging it with a well timed backflip as he got on one of the saws to ride it through a wall.
The wind shield managed to carry him and the buzzsaws straight up and into the cielling, where Sonic saw that the hole that he and the squid had made eariler was now impossible to go through due to the debris covering it, so he had to make another exit through a weakened part of it that he launched the saws into at such strenght that they began drilling up a hole until they got lost in the cave's walls. As such, he began to go up, realizing then that icicles were all falling from the roof and the wind shield wasn't fast enough in the air to move out of their way.
"'kay, rust bucket.. Don't fail me now!" He yelled, putting on the visor to launch a potent optic blast behind himself while holding the pike behind himself to dash through the patterns made by the icicles until he had to spindash through one last, far bigger chunk before he arrived up and back into the cave. though, the lava from below began to spill out through the walls. He ran rapidly through the cavern's wall, jumping through fire lashes coming from the walls until he grabbed onto one of them to swing right into a snow sloap like the ones from the beggining.
The sloap sent him right into a lava waterfall that he could run through using the fire shield, only to get on a rail from the broken factory that was meant to connect it to the surface, dodging the broken badnik pieces and the few blasters that it clunkly brought its way before Sonic was thrown through two back-to-back ice loops and up into a platform that he had to jump on twice before it launched him upwards.
Once he had gotten to the upper platform, the wall behind him had cracked to reveal a small lava tsunami heading his way, which made him use stalactites and the rubble falling from above to gain momentum forward before realizing something. He threw his lance down with the fire shield and got on top of it to surf through the crashing, fiery waves until he could wall jump his way out of the flaming corridor.
"Huff-" Sonic was suddenly hit with a freezing wind, proving that he was already far away from the depths. "This has gotta be the halfway point.. Time to keep up the momentum!" The complete opposite problem ocurred up there, with random ice spikes forming on the walls, cielling or floor in response to the heating of the mountain's lower parts and it made Sonic use his shotguns to blast the ice spikes into solid platforms, to the point where he even charged an electric blast and shot it from afar to create a way forward.
When they began to increase in quantity, Sonic's aura turned purple as he began to rapidly dash through the spikes to avoid any damage while still blitzing through the segment until a malfunctioning cooling machine hit him after getting across the final spikes. The now ice-cube began to slide down a hill, though the purple burst made it so trying to burst out of the ice made things from outside attach onto it, creating a large snowball that quickly began to barrel through multiple ice columns until it started losing height.
When that happened, Sonic broke through the ice only to shoot the surface with his whip, lunging the cold sphere into a wall like a wrecking ball to blow it up, leading into the cold seaside of the zone. As Sonic ran downhill and through the cold water, meteor-like projectiles were falling from the sky and right onto the solid ice floor, cracking it to reveal the lava boiling the water below. Sonic began to use the meteors to dash through them with his pike until he landed in a set of ancient Hedgehog architecture similar to the king's tower, but they were towers and walls for a destroyed town.
He used them to dash through the waterfalls from above and into various broken rails that used to carry minecarts, but just as he looked up, the hedgehog was met with a familiar sight. A red figure from afar lunged an object into the field below to cause green energy to come out of it and, in a matter of seconds, the ground was split open to cause a huge chaos energy explosion that flung a good part of the hedgehog infrastructure up in a potent whirlwind.
The echidna, though, could see the hedgehog's smile as, from inside the jade havoc, a golden light began to overpower it. Sonic hopped through broken hallways, walls, entire cities in the matter of seconds, only for something else to come out of the green tornado.
THRRRRK
.
Suddenly, he was tackled back by a spinning blade and its owner soon had dashed through every last bit of the thousands of rubble he had thrown up into the air to forcefully pulll it out of the Echidna. "Gee, I think you guys left me off the hook for a good while.. What's up, knucklehead?" The jade axe flew right past him, while the bulkier of the two dashed forward to try punching Sonic's face, which was blocked by a high kick.
"You sick bastard. I've only refined my body and mind since we last met. Do you think I will let you destroy what remains of my people, like your kin used to do? Don't try to fool me, the armor you wear was stained with far more blood than your own two hands, but I assume you're going to follow the same path." Sonic crossed his arms and narrowed his gaze towards the echidna, grunting a little.
"Again with that? I've only got this because I got to the old man and I realized what happened to 'em. But it was still by his hands and I didn't lay a finger on y'all at all, I got here the very same day you decked me on the face." Sonic used the chance to kick off Knu'ur's fist and sucker punch him on the gut with X-plosivo, making sure to dig the claws in. "So quit self-loathing and blaming the wrong dude. If you wanna get back at someone.." He put on the visor, forcing the echidna to stare into what used to be Mecha Sonic's face. "This is your guy."
"... !" The echidna's eyes widened as he grabbed the hedgehog by the neck, pulling him up into the air. "You.. Did you modify the machine to make it do your bidding? The doctor would never let that happen, not after I have done this muc-"
"HE WOULD."
Sonic snapped at him. The echidna flinched and dropped Sonic as he collected himself. "You don't know crap, buddy. You don't know ME as much as you think you do with all this nonsense about killin' me. What, do you think that's magically gonna bring your peeps back? Oh, pal.. It's only gonna leave you all alone here. What'cha think the doc's gonna do once I'm gone and your lil' island stops being a part of his plans? It's all being blown up to bits. The park, the ruins, I can go on all day about places he's already destroyed.
So, do you think he's gonna be your buddy, your friend? No. He's gonna be your executioner, ready to put the damn rope around your neck n' pull it once he's done. Do you get it now? Kill me as much as you want, you ain't fixing SHIT with that attitude." Knu'ur was quiet through that entire speech, holding his axe near his heart. He didn't know what to think, but his gaze went upwards to face the hedgehog.
"God, you've got a thick skull. Aight then, if you wanna be so stubborn 'bout the guy who ruined my life.. Join him in the grave." The echidna grabbed a hold of his axe, dragging it through the ground while he kept his eyes on the hedgehog. "I simply belive in what I was shown. The world outside believes it too, and I will make sure all of them are satisfied with the fall of the disgraced ravager." Sonic clenched his blade and dashed forward, while the echidna stood still and prepared for the clash.
SONIC V.S KNU'UR.
The two met their blades at the center of the arena, with Sonic dropping his blade to duck underneath the swings and rise up with a spindash that finished with dolphin slash from his blade to apply the cold status on Knu'ur. The echidna grunted at that, but managed to catch Sonic by the leg to slam him down onto the ground, attempting to stop his head in only for the hedgehog to roll out and shoot him in the face with one of his shotguns.
Though, to Sonic's dismay, the echidna had bitten the energy bullet and spat it back out as an energy blast coming from his mouth that hit Sonic head on. "GAH- You.." He turned on X-plosivo's black shield to absorb the remaining blast, dashing in a golden aura towards him to tackle the wall, where he jumped off the red warrior and triggered the purple burst. The hedgehog then landed two back to back kicks in the air before dragging him by the neck with his whip to spear the bulkier mobian with his lance, causing rings to spill out and inmediately disappear.
(Wha-) Sonic thought, only to be hit with an uppercut only to dive downwards like an energy drill to drag the hedgehog through the ground until he pulled him up, only to slash his throat with his chaos-powered axe. The "ravager" could only let out a pained scream in between muffled coughs, since it had damanged his vocal chords directly and his blood spewed from his mouth and into the ground. But far from stopping him, Sonic used that chance to dash through the echidna a couple of times with his pike before using the water shield to create daggers off his own blood that he threw at Knu'ur from behind to make him topple over and fall onto a row of spikes created of the warrior's gore.
"NGH. Cheap tricks, I see.. Even when I damanged such a vital point, you are as stubborn as ever." The echidna looked down into the ice to spot his long-gone ancestors, all staring right back at him. (.. I cannot let them down, not now.) Knu'ur looked down at the amulet on his neck before looking back up to grab Sonic's leg as he attempted to go for him while he was down. His stare was intense, and his movements displayed the intensity by twisting Sonic's leg and throwing him up before hitting a point-blank chaos blast that sent the hedgehog barreling towards the other side of the room.
He then hit Sonic with a dive punch to make him bounce off the ground before holding his face to slam him down with enough strength that the glass floor was shattered and they were sent downwards into the cave below. There, the echidna would begin falling down with his axe between his hands, with Sonic using the wind shield to create an air clone that would tank the first blow, before Knu'ur shot up from below for a second strike that he had to avoid using his shotguns.
"You're gonna need a bigger brain for that to work, buddy.." Knu'ur came down one last time, where Sonic used his burst and the pike to dash through him repeatedly before a dozen of shotgun shells were blasted onto the echidna's back to launch him down into the cold cavern's floor. The hedgehog kept falling down, but he saw that, in a split second, a barrage of chaos energy fists had been created and were all flying towards him.
"PERISH ALREADY!" The red one yelled while Sonic braced himself for the impact. "In your dreams, loser.. CHAOS, CONTROL!" He aimed the tip of his lance downwards, hitting the punches head on to stop them in their tracks. Since they were now solid, Sonic triggered the burst and began to blitz through them and down towards the echidna, who too had triggered his to meet Sonic's diving kick with a punch of his own.
They were both at opposite sides of the arena after the clash, with their respective sparks coming off their bodies and lighting the rising lava in red and blue. All until, Knu'ur's side began to grow an intense shade of green. His pupils vanished and his body began bulking up further than before, growing at least 3 times taller than Sonic as opposed to being only slightly bigger than him. The echidna's golden amulet broke as his transformation finished, rushing towards the hedgehog to tackle him into the wall while Sonic hopped over him to kick the back of his head and launch repeated wind projectiles that slowly did less and less.
"It's futile.. Enerjak won't back down NOW." Sonic's eyes widened as he remembered the words he heard before from the priest, clenching his fist. "Man, you're one hell of a hypocrite. If you've got an evil god stuck in ya, I'LL KICK HIM OUT MYSELF!" He began to light up in a strong shade of gold while he traded blows with the hulking beast, who tried to clap his head only to be punched in the gut and far away from him. Sonic grabbed the echidna's lance and threw it at him, only to rush past him and drag him through the leg to throw him into a wall, shattering it entirely.
Though, in a split second, the "ravager" was grabbed by a seemingly invisible force and large energy spikes came out of the ground, which he stopped with his own rock shield before he saw the bulky echidna flying towards him. He hit him head on with his chest, causing a large explosion that sent Sonic flying into a wall, only for the echidna to dunk him down and straight into his aucmented axe's slash to heavily damage the hedgehog.
He was now resting on the ground, picking himself back up before he got punted on the face like a football, only to realize that the axe was now flying towards him. The hedgehog wanted to close his eyes but something told him to keep them open, and a hand was placed on his shoulder. He knew what he had to do, so his armor perfectly blocked the hit and so, he fell down onto the platform. The vessel watched onward as a golden light exploded, revealing what seemed to be an energy wing on Sonic's shoulder, his quills standing up and a golden aura that surrounded his blue fur.
"At last.. The man behind the echidna's slaughter reveals himse-" Sonic thew an energy punch that made the large echidna flinch. "Dumbass, I'm still me. Guess that happens when you stlll got some gray matter and not a bunch of horse shit in your brain." He tauntingly said, while the echidna roared in anger, lunging towards the hedgehog. "No matter.. LET US END THIS!" He screamed, while his giant axe spun towards Sonic, who blocked it while the echidna went for a left to right hook.
Right as he was going to finish, the hedgehog's wing sliced his hand and pushed him back, only for him to be sliced nonstop by the hedgehog's spear until he commanded it. "CHAOS BREAK!" The lance shot the echidna right on the chest, causing him to back off a little. "What's wrong now, tough guy? I thought you still had more in ya." The ravager suddenly disappeared to strike with X-plosivo from underneath, launching Knu'ur straight upwards and back ino the original platform to then have an empowered thunder electrocute his body.
"You wanna see a real threat? Fine, knucklehead! LEMME MAKE YOU FEAR ME!" Sonic screamed as he charged towards Knu'ur, who began to rain down energy punches once more, alongside copies of himself to try and stop Sonic from reaching him. It was to no avail, since he just used chaos control on command to stop them and let out his own flurry of energy kicks that began to hit the echidna head on, with Sonic making several clones to hit him with the whole arsenal.
One did a dolphin kick upwards, for another to spear him through the head with the lance and a third to grab his neck with the whip and throw him down. His fall was stopped by a punch to the jaw that exploded on his face before two shotgun shells hammered him down and lastly, a clone with the pike dashed through him repeatedly until they all merged back with Sonic, who had remained down on the platform to charge up a sword so large that it was seen on the stratosphere.
"I'm sorry for what happened to your people. I know you're hurt deep down and that you do this for them, but I'm not letting you hurt yourself n' others anymore. If I'm a ravager, then I'll DESTROY YOUR DAMN PAIN!" Sonic yelled as he then made the sword descend right onto the echidna.
KRRRSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSH!!!
The fields were split in half and so were a couple of the mountains, with the fallen warrior laying in between them, reverted back to his usual self. Sonic pulled him up with the form's chaos manipulation to let him lay down in front of him as he too detransformed. ".. I'm so sick of this. Of you, the doc, everyone who's been on my tail. I dunno what even happened and you expect me to just- Accept death? One that I don't even deserve?!" Tears began to form on his eyes as he punched the echidna on the face.
"Your peeps are gone. A-And I dunno who else but it's in the past, it should stay that way! Please, just leave me alone. I only wanna stop the doc so he doesn't-" Sonic's head began to hurt an ungodly amount, and it wasn't from the injuries. Flashing images appeared once more, ones he hadn't seen since his arrival. "No, no... I didn't do anything, I just want this to be over." He whispered, holding his head as he formed the blade on the broken handle. "I didn't kill your people.. I only slain my own blood just to get through this stupid island, I want y'all to SHUT UP!" The blade was driven through his torso repeatedly as Sonic grunted and screamed at him. "STOP, STOP, STOP, JUST DI-"
SHRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRK.
It was then that Sonic's eyes shrunk. His skin went pale as he looked down to spot a giant hole on his stomach that had been caused by a bullet fired from a large figure afar. He stumbled back and eventually, fell off the edge with a loud scream. Though, in doing so, he also managed to tie Knu'ur's leg to the whip to pull him out of the now exploding mountain. The two landed down and Sonic let him rest on the grass while he began to crawl away into a forest, laying against a tree to try and heal his newfound wound, as tears kept coming down his face.
Why couldn't this end?
Why?
Notes:
"PMXXPI TPERIX AEW CSYV JEYPX. XEMPW ERH EQC EVI KSRI. CSY AMPP FI KSRI WSSR. MX'W XMQI M XEOI QC PMJI FEGO, JEOIV."
Chapter 13: MEMENTO MORI
Summary:
To remember that you must die.
Chapter Text
...
Somewhere, far away from the floating island, congress men are arguing about a pressing manner. Images are displayed on the screens of the destroyed resort, mentioning that it was a death trap bound to change the course of worldwide politics if none were to intervene. Yet, to their surprise, someone had.
The United Nation's president spoke up, calmly mentioning that he could somewhat understand the boy's mentality, and that word alone shook everyone to their core. That potentially world-ending criminal was but a mere child? The room went quiet after that reveal, even though several congress members voiced out their own grievances. "No child should have that much power." One said. "Him doing as he pleases will lead to our actual demise." Another yelled out. The conversation was rapidly getting heated, but the man spoke up once more.
"Our resources were spent chasing and attempting to murder a child who only attacked when cornered. Instead of solving the current crises, we spent so long shifting the blame onto this mobian that we forgot the real issue that this leads into. We only began this witch hunt after doctor Ivo Robotnik gave his testimony, and I am to distrust the same man who brought us to a peace festival only to attempt to mind control multiple civillians with nanotech and to try causing a nuclear reaction that would've likely caused an even bigger conflict.
So, I believe that it's for the best that we refrain from any further action against Maurice Hedgehog and we shift our concerns towards the doctor until we have certain, damming evidence that hethe boy was the one behind-"
SPAASL WSHULA.
Sonic' began to awaken in the same field he had been resting for about two hours. The injury hadn't fully healed due to the low amount of rings he had to begin with, but at least it wasn't as painful as before. He turned his gaze to the side to see where Knu'ur had been left and there was nothing but a blood stain. ".. 'T least you got some honor after all, knucklehead." The boy got up from the ground, using his lance to help himself walk forth and into the woods nearby.
"I think this the homestretch.. The doc's final base has gotta be past this if-" He held his stomach for a moment, coughing a little bit of blood thanks to the memory hitting him. "The shot comes from there. Geez, that thing's gotta be huge n' scary if it nailed me from that far.." The hedgehog said, while making his way inside of..
MONOCHROME FOREST ZONE
The colors of the forest began to slowly fade into black and white sillouettes as he got further into the path of trees that lead inside the garden, displaying a beautiful bed of flowers beneath the shining skies, all of which were roses. He stepped forth to grab one of them, closing his eyes to take in the scent before opening to see a familiar face.
"Sonikkuu.. It's not nice to look away from a lady, you know?" She softly giggled as his eyes opened fully. "Rosy?! I... I missed you so much- Your sis has gotta be worrying to death about ya'- Don't worry, I'll get us ba-" He felt a bit of a headache upon trying to finish that sentance. "Silly, it's alright.. Mina knows that I'm a tough cookie~ I wanted to say thanks to you in some way after you saved me from-"
LPAALL WLHULA
"... What'd you just say?" He began to feel uneasy about it, while the pink hedgehog simply turned her back to him and walked a bit away. "C'mon! I worked hard to make the bestest chilli dogs I could just for my hero~" Her pink glow began to rush ahead, wihch Sonic inmediately followed without a second of hesitation. All until the gravity of the area began to shift, causing Sonic to fall from the floor and into the air, grabbing onto the trees to swing from one to the other.
All while the rose left petals behind herself, helping Sonic dash through them with the pike that began to make those same petals lose color every time he dashed through them. It was then that Amy stopped in between the jumps, standing on the mountainside that Sonic soon fell into as well. "Sonikku.. I-I know that I told you that before but- Please ,forget it." Sonic stopped dead in his tracks, holding his hand to his chest. "I'm.. I'm just a kid after all. Mina's your age, you two have a lot of fun together and- I'm just not on her league." Her tears began to run down slowly, making her hold her hands to her face.
"Forget about me, please.. I don't have her charisma! I don't got no-- Cool abilities, I'm just a useless Rascal! And.... A-And I know that's not what you want. So-" He wanted to talk badly. But Amy slowly began to fall to her knees, crying into the ground as her color faded too. "I won't make you love me.. But please-"
"Don't forget me."
She had become one with the ground below. Sonic tried digging at it, to pull her out of it somehow- But it was then that something made him tear up himself. The mental image of a broken Metal Sonic armor and stands of pink fur poking through the holes, alongside-
"NO!" Sonic screamed, holding his head as he began to speed through the mountain until he was flung up. Only to meet what seemed to be a second earth up above that he fell into, with a pair of brown silluoetes to follow him until they cought him in their wings.
"Boy! Ya' had your old man losing a few more feathers than usual lookin' for ya.." Sonic's eyes widened as he saw them, holding onto the male owl, while the much taller and refined female patted his back. "No time for tears, Sonic.. How was your trip this time?" He wanted to speak once more, but he couldn't. "Ay, honey.. I'm sure our fella here had 'em beat, he only took two days to run off that weirdo from the island!" Though, speaking of.. Sonic spotted several machines swinging wrecking balls towards the pair. He jumped off their arms to slash through the spheres to let the two through.
"See, told ya'! He ain't no slouch." The shorter, chubbier owl laughed to himself while the woman rolled her eyes. "Hoot.. You have to focus. My child, I think that I have some intel you may want to hear. There's another island near ours, where a miracle happens every six months. We are a few days away from said six month, so I'd recommend that you visit."
LPAALE WLHUEA
That word's mere mention made the whole space shake a vibrant red while the male owl suddenly fell into the floor below, where Sonic had to parry several machines that were descending with a spike underneath them in an attempt to impale them. "Hoot? Dear, what's wrong?" The man looked confused. "Who.. Who are you?" The hedgehog began to tear up as he heard those words. "What are you-- No, don't tell me." She held her wing up to her mouth, tearing up herself while Sonic triggered the armor's golden aura around himself for the wing to wipe the machines off by itself.
"Pops! Hey, it's gonna be alright.. The emeralds should've fixed this-" He took one of them off his backpack, holding it near his head, only to have no effect on the elderly man. One question after the other came, about where he was, who he was, who they were.. Sonic was then hugged by the woman, who was also tearing up a little. "You... Don't you dare, Hoot. I won't be able to go on if you do this.."
"Don't forget US."
The ground they stood on began to shatter, with the older owl falling inside with a haunting screech while the woman tried to carry Sonic somewhere safe beofre she broke down mid-flight, letting Sonic fall as what seemed to be a rope yanked her off into the cielling, where she would now be hanging. Sonic silently screamed as he fell through the everchanging space, avoiding large masses of rock that lew towards him in an attempt to relocate themselves in time.
Screams are heard from afar, while a giant black mass appears on the distance. It starts falling rapildy into the ground below, creating orange sparks from which another familiar face manages to escape in the nick of time. "Sonic! We're not late yet, I've helped most of the people down there escape, we've got a 33.3% chance of saving-"
LPTTLE WLHUET
"STOP!" The hedgehog managed to break his silence this once, holding onto Tails' shoulders. "Buddy, you're.. You're not real. None of this is, lemme out!" Sonic began to run away from the fox, who began to give chase to him through the air. "W-Wait! What's wrong? Sonic, we can't turn our back here!" The younger of the two tried to reason with the hedgehog, who was running in between tears as the earth around them began to shake.
".. This ain't- Look, bud." He groaned loudly, seeing short glimpses of that strange Mecha Sonic alongside the doctor, and how the time stones had gone black. "It's all.. Going south, bro. Stayin' here anymore's just gonna lead to both of us getting-" Tails held Sonic in a comforting hug, resting his head on his shoulder while nodding. ".. I'm also scared. L-Like, a lot.. But you heard me just now. Our chances aren't a 0, and I'm willing to make 'em happen." He looked up at the hedgehog and nodded, though Sonic could spot blood coming off one of Tails' eyes.
"Don't forget our promise."
"I.." Sonic couldn't answer for a second, but he mustered a pain-ridden smile towards his younger brother. "I believe in ya, bud. Go out there n' kick their butts, okay?" The smaller one of the two nodded, fist bumping his older bro before he began to fly away. Though, at that same time, the whole space began to shake uncontrollably. "Tails... Tails, JUST RUN!" He told the fox, though.. It may have been a bit too late. A giant shockwave was sent through the area, pushing the two of them back. Sonic thankfully landed in solid ground, but he couldn't see the fox anywhere.
".. No. Bring him back, BRING HIM BACK!" Sonic looked back at his hands, finding out that glowing red parts were growing in his palms. He thought back to a second ago, where he tried to heal the man's injury with the emeralds. ".. I gotta use 'em, it's not too late." He told himself, running forward and through the floating islands amidst the black and white void. There, he pulled out the scrolls he had taken earlier from the echidna temple and found the final few pages.
Though they were once torn, the armor's glow allowed for him to see the full text. "There it is!" While agitated, he felt hopeful now that he was able to read it fully. The boy began to read the chant, while images began flashing through his mind.
LPTTLE PLHUET
"F'r one to unleash the pow'r did contain within these artifacts, those gents wilt embrace their bonds, through muscle, blood and heart. T is to seeth the brighest heights and dunnest depths without yielding to their fate." For a moment, he sees the old king's figure from afar, but proceeds.
as such, thee, who is't desires this pow'r, finish this chant with the following phrase:"
LPTTLE PLAUET
The ground below Sonic starts to crumble rapidly as he starts the second half of the chant.
"f'r those who is't art." Mina, Knu'ur, Zero and Rouge's sillouettes appear.
"f'r those who is't w're." Tails, Amy and both his parents' sillouettes appear.
" f'r those who is't shall beest." Countless shadows yet to be revealed appear as well, all while he starts to be surrounded by a much more intense golden glow and he starts to run towards a cliff.
"This soul wonneth't falt'r, mine own heart shalt remaineth untaint'd by anoth'r's gore and with this pow'r, i high-lone shall guideth thee to FREEDOM!" He yelled out while jumping off, but.. The glow disappeared. He fell right down onto the ground with a crushing thud, with the emeralds scattered around him. As he rose his gaze, Sonic managed to read the final part of the text.
LPTTLE PLANET
"Hath lost souls yond attempteth to missuse this pow'r art to endeth themselves lief aft'r, their fate hast already been seal'd." Reading those words made him understand. It was futile, all that he had done was for nothing and worst of all- He could feel something below him as the tears began to form and the thoughts bombarded his head. His legs stumbled into place, falling onto his knees while the ground behind kept quaking nonstop.
".. What?" His eyes darkened once he spotted it. Voices began screaming in his head as he met the gruesome image of his friends and family turned to corpses, with all of them standing where Sonic left them all to die. At-
LITTLE PLANET
"NOOOOOOOOOOOO!"
Notes:
PART 1 OUT OF 2.
Chapter 14: MEMENTO VITAE
Summary:
Remember, you must live.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
....
I'm not the kinda guy to spend too long on these. Hell, I wouldn't really make one if I hadn't had it up to here with everyone's attitude, but here we are. I'll be honest.. I can't keep this shtick goin' anymore, not when it fells like everywhere I go, there's someone new that wants my neck hanged up a noose or another skeleton to put in my closet.
I don't wanna keep going. I wanna be able to break one last time. Please, if you read this, don't worry 'bout it, just.. Let a guy like me catch a break.
LET. ME. DIE.
MINDBREAK ZONE.
Sonic awakens with a heavy head. Static covers the skies above as blurry green valleys and mountains are there, as far as the eye can see. He began to walk slowly through the area, stepping through a wooden bridge, through a pair of giant loops.. Until the area had a sudden change. It was very similar, but he was running through a riverside that had small waterfalls coming down from it. The running continued until the ground collapsed beneath itself after being struck by something.
GRRHRHHHHGH.
Once he turned to hear the screeching noise, he could see an orange fox on all fours on the ground. It was coughing and grunting loudly, while its back was getting bloated bit by bit. "Snnhnnnic.." It tried to speak, until.. CRKKKK. Its back was opened wide, revealing spider legs that ressambled multiple tails to come out and stab into the ground.
The beast began to hunt for Sonic, dashing behind it using its tails as propellers, with Sonic deflecting the legs using his lance until he found a waterfall that he could dash up into using the water shield. Soon after, the eight tailed beast climbed up the opposite side, splitting its face to lauch an extended arm that grappled onto the wall and threw it up to tackle the hedgehog into the air, where it used two of its tails to glide and the others to slice at him until they were blocked and sliced my by the flaming sword.
He managed to land safely in the ground, moving ahead through a loop only to get off before hitting the ground so he avoids the large arm coming from below that he then used to swing ahead. The hedgehog got through a mobius strip and just as he was about to dash through the second, the beast's body collapsed through it to break it from below. In doing so, it opened a route through the lower half of the area that Sonic took in a heartbeat.
As the boy reached the water below, he landed on the monster's legs, using them as grinding rails he kept swapping between to avoid the monster noticing until the lower leg realized and thrusted upwards, missing by a bit and stabbing the other leg while Sonic dashed through them using the pike. The upper leg sent him flying and through the ground, where he had to jump through the once grounded loops, which had been thrown into the air by the beast.
He hopped through one while using the whip to swing off the other and land right on the beast as it tried to dive towards him, punching it with X-plosivo and through the ground to shatter it. The two fell through the hole as the area began to change to a metallic shaft, with space being seen through the cracks and Sonic realized where they were heading. He held onto the wall to wait out the leg stabs until his leg was covered with rock and he threw out a petrified divekick straight into the face.
The kick sent it flying into the wall, where it began to crawl downwards and into Sonic by spitting out its "children" on the way down. The fox critters held Sonic's arms, but weren't strong enough to stop him from turning on the electric shield and dropping his sword to catch it with his leg and do a couple of vertical kicks that slashed at the beast's face before he shot it with one of his shotguns. The beast then attempted to slam itself repeatedly into the wall, with Sonic dashing down or clinging onto the steel surface to make it destroy the smaller critters before he went underneath and speared it.
Right as he did, Sonic pushed it off the wall and began to stab it with his lance while it hugged him closely, and when he realized what happened.
SHRKRKKKKK.
It was too late. A row of spikes underneath had impaled them both.
...
"To my best buddy.
You did your best, Miles. I saw every last bit of your heroism and honestly, I couldn't be prouder even if I tried. You're one of the best things to happen in my life and well.. I tried to keep going without you. But you gotta get this, buddy. This world ain't wanting me in it no more, and when they boot outta the house, you can't exactly waltz back in. I know you're not gonna be proud of me at all but this is the choice I've made, and don't worry.
I'll keep my promise. We'll be together again, bro."
...
His eyes opened wide in between heavy pants, realizing then that the spikes hadn't killed him. Yet, he could feel them still piercing through his guts, demonstrated by a series of black holes in his torso and near his neck. Though, his pain was interrupted by pink petals being scattered around the area, revealing familiar palmtrees and tall mountains from afar. He was right back at Palmtree Panic, and his mind was already joining the dots. It was the once vibrant Palmtree Panic, now turned into Deadwood Dread.
The hedgehog began to run forward again using a large ramp to launch himself upwards and into the air. There, he dashed through the mountains and several of the palm trees before being launched into a small tunnel that he began to spin into. During his journey as a ball through the duct, he saw that the pink light was still in front of him, and it made a turn to the right tunnel, splitting the paths off and leading him into a very different version of the zone.
The trees were rusty and metalic, with fire coming off the top to simulate what once were leaves. So, he used the "branches" of the steel trees as grinding rails, since he needed to check out the pink figure from above. Once he laid his eyes on her, he noticed it. "Rosy" had snapped her neck to see his face, letting him see that she only had a single pupil that connected the two eyes together.
"NNRHHHGHAAAA!" The second she spotted him, her hands mutated into two hammers that slammed into the ground while her legs split into countless smaller tendrils that ressambled a rose. She hopped into a wall and punched into it with her hammers to launch herself towards the boy for a hug, who jumped above her and sent a flurry of punches into her back to launch the lovesick beast into a cavern to make his way through it.
He dashed through the oil waterfall and reached an area underneath that the fake Amy managed to break into alongside him, using the bumpers on the side to launch herself towards him again. Only for him to use the opposite bumper to go into a vent and go flying underneath her, with the female monster trying to dive downwards to catch him, even growing black roses from underneath to work as platforms for herself, even if they were used by Sonic to walljump towards a small vent that would help him escape the beast.
Though, on his way down, he spotted a monstrous plant was covering the way out, so he used the bumper to stop his momentum and used his lance to force its maw to stay open before he kicked said lance to slash its head in half and dive kicked inside the duct to travel into a corridor beneath. Hammers broke through the surface to start bouncing on the bumpers that made him use the pike to dash between them until he spun right into a duct that sent him up to the decimated remains of Collission Chaos, or rather, Crashing Chaos.
He tried to hold back the tears once he saw dead critters on the ground, but even more so, when the monstrous version of she who he once wanted to love fell right on top of the corpses and dashed towards him. The hedgehog deflected her hammer swings with his spear before hitting her off with the back of the pole, holding her hand in an attempt to calm her down. For a moment, Sonic's words seemed to get to the apparition, who stood there with tears swelling in her eyes.
But that was but a bad sign. She swung her hammers even faster at him in a motion similar to what Amy did when she used to hit his chest, except way worse due to the heavy hammers nailing his ribcage. Sonic then put on the visor to shoot a beam straight into her single eye, which blinded the woman and gave him a window to strike at her repeatedly while in burst, causing massive damage that was only further amplified when his sword was slammed right into her back and he grabbed onto her neck with the whip to kick away plants that were approaching from all directions.
Amy's tears were turning to vines that created more flowers around them, and the artificial fauna ended up creating claustrophobic walls that began to cut off any light from the outside, all while Sonic's leg was caught by the beast's mouth and brought to her in a hug that ended up breaking his ribcage fully, before the two of them..
CRHRHHHSHSH.
Were squashed to death by the walls.
"To the love that never was.
Hey Amelia. I know we left off in a pretty sour note, I sent you away from the crash landing and.. You said we weren't meant to be. I always wanted to tell you otherwise but I couldn't. And I may as well say it here. You were dead wrong, we were just kids and it took a while for me to get it, but I did want you by my side. Every time you smiled, my heart warmed up a little more and seeing your motivation to eventually go in adventures with me just made me even more excited to see you bloom.
So, forgive me for letting you go. Mina is doing a great job as a big sister, making sure you aren't forgotten, and don't worry. She took care of me for the longest time, so if this letter didn't come any sooner, it's because she managed to help m-
...
No. I'll.. See you soon, Ames. Wait for me.
...
Again?
He woke up once more, with his heart beating right out of his chest. The black patterns had scattered through his chest to form his ribcage while his arms also had them, they were somehow spreading through his body. As he got off the ground and saw the broken street lamps of what once was Stardust Speedway, now turned into Silent Speedway.
He knew this song and dance by memory, so he just had to play his part. The hedgehog ran forward through the rusted highway as he heard distorted and glitched out sounds coming from behind him. Just a slight headtilt let him spot something gruesome, a half opened copy of Shard that had its exposed, rotting corpse hanging out of the armor and its guts spilling off into the ground below. The machine opened its chest to shoot out a concentrated blast of blood into the ground to slow Sonic down, dashing down with its claws out to try and behead him.
The hedgehog shot under himself with his shotgun to get out of the way, dropping in a spindash right onto its back to send it tumbling back while he ran ahead. LIke a bullet, the steelborn copycat lunged right back only for Sonic to jump over him again, but this time, he held onto the robot's neck with his whip to use its speed to his advantage and get further ahead, before pulling it to behead the robot. Though, obviously.. It didn't work.
The head fell onto the robot's arms and now worked independantly from the body, letting the blood fall into the tracks below while it flew over him to shoot lasers straight into the ground, making Sonic slow down or speed up to dodge them appropiately. All while the body dashed in certain intervals that also had him jumping or parrying mid-air to avoid being hit into the laser. All until he baited the body to dash right into the blast, dealing massive damage to it while he got on top of the head and speared it with his lance to then impale it alongside the body.
Sonic kept moving on ahead after he finished the two, but the apparition wasn't done. The road below was broken right before he could get to the ending, with Shard's copy attempting to catch him with its overdrive mode while he jumped in between the pieces of debris while also hitting the headless drone before he dashed downwards to slide underneath the closing gate, making the robot crash onto it and break itself apart for good.
Said door lead to a dark hallway with steam coming off the walls and the apparent screams of the damned being heard echoing through the area. While short, his stay in that hellhole seemed eternal at first, with the exit growing ever further from him, until he used the burst to run through the door, breaking into the ruins of Iron Insanity. Where he was once expecting to see the doctor, he saw something utterly incomprehensible.
A giant, spherical mass of meat and dead bodies, all mangled together into that rotting abomination, which sported the doctor's body at the center, like a slug coming out of its shell. Even Shard, Amy, Tails.. All the deceased formed part of that monster, which laughed at the hedgehog as it towered over him. He groaned in frustration and held his spear up to challenge it, with the hybrid monstrosity accepting the duel.
It shot out hands made out of fleshy remains towards the hedgehog, who jumped on them to reach the face and land a spindash straight into it before being sent into the sky, where he had to dash through countless missiles made out of fleshy remains, along with a large drill that bounced off the walls. The tarnished doctor siezed the chance to drench the floor in acid and two grotesque pillars of rock and bone that launched arrows straight towards him, which Sonic blocked and deflected with his spear before freezing them with the water shield and sending them down.
Even though the arrows had hit head on, the monstrocity roared and had the remains of the metal copies remove themselves from the mass to shoot a beam in an X pattern, changing up the pattern a couple of times to keep Sonic on his feet, until the hedgehog used the black shield from X-Plosivo to redirect the blast at the mass, lunging straight into it to punch it into the air, where he launched a flurry of upward slashes with his sword before sending the spear in a cartwheel and finishing it off by impaling the spear into its body by doing a dive punch with X-plosivo that sent it down.
The doctor punched the floor, causing large metal cilinders to come off the ground and slam into the floor and roof. He had to dash in between them at the right moment to avoid being crushed, but more importantly.. He looked out for the timing to get some cheap shots on the doctor by shooting his shotgun's drill bullets in to stun him briefly, which let him burst through the cilinders to start rushing it down with a flurry of punches and kicks before a charged electric cloud slammed the beast down.
After said shock, he tied the sword to his leg and began to swing it through a flurry of kicks that triggered a fire-electric reaction multiple times, causing its body to slowly bloat out until the beast exploded into countless bloody bits that covered the surrounding area. Though, Sonic didn't get to rest yet, as he began to listen to the cries of help and heartwrenching screams of the damned echoing through the room while a black mass with large teeth and a pair of small wings on its back had been born from the remains.
Its white, uncaring eyes stared right into the hedgehog, as it began to slowly approach. Sonic shot it in the face, tried to whip it away from him and used every last trick of chaos magic he had, yet none of them worked. The beast just continued to walk onwards, drooling into the floor as it spotted its prey, while the hedgehog began to break down and fell onto his knees in front of it. He knew what was coming, yet another death.. Yet, this one made him feel true dread.
As strong as he had gotten in this journey, he couldn't even dent this thing. He couldn't do anything to avenge the people he failed to begin with, could he? His breathing sped up as he saw his own face in the beast's teeth, spotting the black blood coming off his eyes instead of tears, with those images flashing to who he was before this disaster happened, to the great life he once had. A past that was now dead and buried alongside all those he loved. In one last ditch effort, he screamed at the beast as loud as he could, trying to scare it off, but nothing worked. So, he just closed his eyes and let fate do its thing one last time.
CHOMPPPPPPPPP.
"I can't bring myself to do it.
I can't tell my pops and ma what's coming for me, even if they're both already gone. Hell, I'm sure dad wouldn't even remember it if he tried, and ma.. Ma was too far gone by that point. I'm sorry for being a burden, for putting y'all in danger and for causing an even faster downfall for you two. All you did for me was kind and fair, you wanted to make sure I grew up into a good person that could help others the way you two did when you took a stranger's baby in and raised him as your own.
.. But I can't keep going. I can't keep sweeping everything under the rug and I can't hold myself back anymore. Pa, ma.. I'm sorry. I'm sorry to have failed you as a son and as a person, but this is the last time I fail y'all. One last failure for the road and for the end of my life. If you got this far into the letter, please do something else. Let a guy die in peace, y'know?
All I've got left to say is, Sayonara. Maybe I'll have better luck in my next lifetime."
The hedgehog's seemingly dead body lacked a face now. A giant black mark was covering it due to the bite and he now fell through a dark void that had been born from his broken mind. The vivid image of Tails' corpse at the bottom of the cannyon, Rosy's goey remains from inside the metal armor, his parents.. Oh god, his parents. Every passing moment inside that void felt like the weight of the world coming down on his heart, squashing it beneath its weight and tearing him apart in the process. Was it worth it, after it all? For a coward's life to become a million times more valuable than theirs? Perhaps they chould've fixed this in his stead if they lived, the doctor would not be tormenting mobian kind and.. Maybe it would be a better place without him after all.
Hands from below begin to creep up on his body, while the question still rings on his head: What makes him more valuable if all he has brought to the world was more problems? Even when he tried his best, the world still tried to turn its back on him, they tried to banish him again and if he was to die in this little war of his, no one would bat an eye, the world would just keep going without him. And maybe, that was all true, but if so.. He himself was turning his back on many things. Every single thing he had done up until now wasn't meant to save everyone, and it was never about that.
When he first put on those red sneakers, the only thing that ran through his mind was stopping the doc because he felt that was right. It has been that way ever since, and even after being broken to pieces, his very essence remained intact. Not even demigods or nightmarish machines would stray him from that path, from himself. He alone was the only person pushing himself out of it, the one that wished upon his own downfall to shut up every single one of those destructive thoughts that ran rampant through his head.
No one said this would be an easy journey, yet he took it head on with little to no hesitation. A true coward would choose to sink into those very thoughts, to let that dastard win and have things his way, not through humanity's destruction or anything.. But through his downfall alone. To give up, would mean the doctor's ultimate triumph.
And he wasn't going to let him get that last laugh.
WHAP.
Two winged figures made out of energy held him close, while they began to whisper in unison.
"We hear you, child of ours. You don't have to torment yourself anymore, as nothing of what happened was your fault. Like anyone else, you can make mistakes and learn from them, and we see that's precisely what you've been doing. While anyone else would just sulk away and cry forever about what happened, you stood back up. You protected your own life and other's for months on end, you never stopped fighting even when the whole world turned on you. So, let us ask you this... Why would you stop fighting now? When we've seen how strong you've become?" They began to lift up the boy, helping him rise through the falling debris until a red light caught him by the neck.
"Why would you take the coward's way out? If you are right about what you told of the doctor, then prove it. Because I truly ended up respecting the warrior you became, sparing a mortal threat's life for no gain of your own is to have honor in spite of it all. And as such, you should preserve that honor so one day, I can personally thank you for our duel. Keep your head up now and fight on to make sure you don't fail both myself and your spirit, hedgehog." The echidna threw him up once more into a purple figure would hold him close and then ub his cheeks with her hands.
"Why will you give up on the people who are still left to help you? We're here for you, me and a bunch of other people I'm sure you don't think about that often.. But it's not about how many, it's about how much they want you to be here. And god knows that the only thing I want the most is to see a world where you're yourself again. So, I want the same boy that stole my heart to take back his life." She held his forehead close to hers and then lifted him up, right in time for the hedgehog to raise his head and blast through the light.
CRRRKKK.
He had reached a circular arena, one that had many monitors in it. Those monitors were actively showing the memories from the catastrophe, be it the fall, the corpses or his own intrusive thoughts. ".. What?" He asked, speaking for the first time since the first fight with Tails' beast. Each step he took revealed that the floor was water-like, in the sense that it reflected what was above it and once his foot landed on it, a small splash was made. But it was then when he realized something.
The "him" in the reflection was intact. None of the missing feautres he had now, none of his new clothes- It was a carbon copy of his old self. But then, the reflection ceased and so did the monitors around him, leaving only a single light shining on the hedgehog before it aimed at one of the monitors. It began to shatter bit by bit, with a voice coming from behind.
"Long time no see! Sorry to keep you waiting.." His eyes widened upon hearing that. "Who are you?" He asked, while the screens only began to shatter further. "That's a silly question, y'know. ho doesn't know the fastest thing alive?" The voice asked, while the TV's began to play a familiar melody. "Heh, guess I'll have to introduce myself. The name's Sonic,"
V.S SONIC THE HEDGEHOG.
The blue blur broke through the screen, graciously falling in front of the other. "Now, faker! I've heard you've been messin' around and it bit you in the bum. But don't worry, that's what I'm here for." The hedgehog ran behind him and kicked the back of his head, making him fall flat on his face before grabbing him by the quills to stare at his faceless self. "Gee, you can't even talk fully, right? That's gotta suck real bad." The hedgehog chuckled before kicking him away, with the "fake" getting up on his feet.
"Oh? You're not just gonna disappear n' leave me be? Heh, let's see what you're made of." In a second, the blur was blitzed by the faker, who spindashed upwards and punched his face into the ground below. "Ooh, a sucker punch!" The smaller hedgehog replied by doing an upwards spindash that was blocked, but it bounced him into a couple of springs that let Sonic spindash right into his back, sending him back.
The nameless boy saw the hedgehog run towards him, hopping to the side to slice his back with the spear before the blue blur took a "PAST" goalpost to run towards him in a different direction, punching him in the face. The faceless hog took a glance at the posts and had an idea. He kicked one of them right onto Sonic's face as it flipped to "FUTURE", which made the blue blur back off it and opened him for a kick to the chin, followed up by a shotgun blast and a whip around the neck to drag him around the ground.
"Nice toys ya' got there! Not even Robuttnik had this many lil' gadgets~" The younger of the two predicted an attack from the faceless at the right moment, ducking underneath and kicking him off balance before spindashing into his stomach and sending him into a spring. Said spring bounced him back into Sonic, but the other shot at the air right in time to go in between his legs and hold him with the whip to pull him towards the faceless hedgehog.
"Hah, no one's faster than me, idiot. This hill ain't big enough for two Sonics!" He yelled while being pulled, throwing a dive kick that the older hog ducked under. "Right. So-"
SHRRKK!
"Let's stand on equal footing." The hedgehog's face was forcefully ripped, even though he still looked normal. Sonic put it on while staring at his other self with a smile. "What, are you just gonna keep me quiet now? Hell no." The younger hedgehog began to chuckle to himself, holding his body together with his arms. "H-Hah, ain't no way.. You really think I'm gonna let you ruin me further. Well come on, faker! LET'S DO THIS."
".. I'm the one ruining things? You want to turn a blind eye to the world outside, to what we are. You want us to DIE here, and I'm not gonna follow your damn lead any further." The younger hedgehog went in for an overhead kick that Sonic grabbed, groaning at him. "Tch tch.. Then, I'll just have to do things my way, n' kick you outta the equation. I'll be FREE at LAST!" The clearer Sonic pushed him back, removing his own face to put on a strange blue mask with a mustache on it. "Hoho.. C'MON, STEP IT UP!" He yelled, and without any further words for now, they dove into the center of the arena.
SONIC V.S FIGMENT.
The masked hedgehog went in for a kick while the older one grabbed it to throw him into one of the walls and then have a large stone edge from the ground impale him. Though, it didn't matter, as a second masked Sonic appeared beside him to grab a fake emerald up into the air, making vegetation grow around them that forced Sonic to jump through the palmtrees and mountains of a familiar set of hills. From those trees, the fake Sonic would drop in a ball to cause massive shockwaves that made the trees slowly break apart.
"The mask tells me you're already throwin' away what we are.. Why's that? Are you that scared of the truth?" Sonic asked his counterpart, just as he saw one of the falling clones flicker for a moment. He used the pike to dash towards him and tackle him into a tree, only to throw two air discs straight at him that carried the smaller hedgehog into a fiery dive punch that nailed him into the ground. "I ask you that then, bozo. Do you really wanna go out there and die? I could be a hero again, the people would LOVE ME." The larger hedgehog punched him a few times and threw him up to laser the smaller hedgehog into a wall.
"It's not about that! It never was about bein' loved, we wanted them to be free- Or do you think Tails admired us for being a perfect hero with no flaws?" The figure groaned and held his hands up to his head. "Shut up, SHUT UP. MY BUDDY'S WAITING FOR ME, YOU'RE DRINVIN' ME CRAZY HERE, BUDDY!" The smaller hedgehog threw a ring into the ground, which opened into a portal that sucked both of them in. The two were now running in a half cilinder special zone, with Figment spindashing towards his older self while he had to avoid bombs on the way.
"Remember, the world hates you. It hates the failure, but it ADORES the legend, and that's what I am." He laughed while holding his head, showing a bit of the same black fluids Sonic had in his face earlier leaking out. "What, are you gonna throw a tantrum cuz' I ain't buying your act?" Sonic ducked under the spindash and jumped above another one ot make the faker dash into one of his own bombs, causing some serious damage even though he recovered near instantly due to the rings flying in from afar.
Sonic caught the bombs using a wind hand, dodging out of the way of his other self continuously until he made a ramp jump and dunked the bombs straight into his head, forcing him into the ground. There, he dragged his face through the surface before pulling him up to stab through him with the spear. "CHAOS, BREAK!" He yelled, right as the entire dimension collapsed on itself and the two were thrown back into the arena, with Figment already having lost most of his mask to reveal an empty void of a face. "Nooo... Nono, THIS IS BULLSHIT!" The classic wannabe said.
"You're a miserable wimp. A loser that keeps on dragging himself towards a world that wants him dead, you'd be better off fifty foot under, so GO TO HELL ALREADY!" The hedgehog began to be covered by that same black substance, growing an extra set of legs while its broken mask only showed one white eye behind. "If this is what we are, then I don't wanna be SONI-"
"SHUT UP!"
The hedgehog launched a fire blast straight into its face, looking down at the ground in tears. ".. This is not what they would've wanted, Sonic. Amy wanted you to love, Tails wanted you to be as great as you and your parents wanted you to keep moving in spite of it all. What you're doing now is taking a dump on all their wishes to give yourself a placebo. Cuz' that's what this whole thing is, a way to push this memory to the back of your brain and think it doesn't exist." The other hedgehog began to chuckle as it launched towards Sonic, who dodged the first hit but was hit by a slash from one of its tentacles.
"CUT THE CRAP. IT'S OVER! EVERYTHING'S GONE AND SO AM I, I DIED THAT DAY." The boy screamed at him, creating a lance of its own to launch at the hedgehog, who kicked it midflight and slashed his tentacles with it before slamming it onto its head. "Lies. You're stadin' still today, we are. As much as you wanna turn from it, I won't. We're the same, and the failure you loathe so much is as Sonic as you are." The smaller hedgehog's spikes began to turn sharper as he walked around the older one, who kept talking.
"This is the kinda stuff people would hate us for. Avoiding accountability, puttin' our selfish desires above others, choosing how they live or die.." The smaller one rose his voice soon after. "FUCK THA-"
"MINA IS OUT THERE." That inmediatelly shut him up. Making him remember bit by bit. "Min.. A... B-But, Rosy.." He held his shoulders, shaking him. "AMELIA. Amelia had a point after it all. We never liked her and that's alright, because she told us that she wanted to see us happy, no matter with who. If there's anyone left in this world that CAN help us, it's Mina. She loves you to death, even if you're a selfdestructive mess, and you should move on already." The TVs began to light up, showing their journey up until that point.
"No.. YOU'RE WRONG, I NEED TO DIE!" The dark hedgehog screamed in agony, pushing his counterpart to the other side as it began to form a sword of its own in its hand. "I'll kill you then.. I'LL END MY PAIN, AND I'LL BE REMEMBERED AS A HERO." Sonic didn't feel anger anymore. More so, he felt pitiful for his counterpart, so he didn't block any of the incoming attacks. A barrage of spindashes and sword slashes were thrown his way, creating several chains in the hedgehog that forced him to bow down into the ground.
Right as he's charging another hit, he could see it. The pink, yellow and brown spirits all shielding Sonic from the impact. "... Maybe you're right. I died that day, you did too. So what if we don't die again?" Sonic held onto his chest.
"What do we gain from hiding from the truth in a fantasy of our own making?" A golden chain broke.
"What's gonna be left of us but sorrow and regret if we don't try again?" A pink chain broke next.
"What are we but COWARDS if we choose to turn our heads from a world that doesn't want to see Sonic, but they NEED us." A pair of brown chains were torn to shreds.
"And.. What's Sonic's fate gonna be if he doesn't get his shit together?" He closed his eyes, and..
"RAAGH!"
He forcefully ripping a bright blue emerald off his chest that was covered in blue chains. It flew around him with the others while the wound in his chest healed and a smirk appeared on his face. His eyes began glowing an intense green. "So what if I don't want to die? Then, today is the day that Sonic The Hedgehog lived and became FREE AT LAST!"
CRHHHHSHH.
Sonic's body was engulfed with a golden glow that overtook his quills, muzzle.. Everything but the eyes. "Heh, heh... Buddy, the lightshow ain't gonna make me back down." Suddenly, Sonic was right behind Figment, scoffing. "No, but I know what will." He knocked his counterpart into the air with an energy hand to then start pummeling him nonsotp, all until he punched him down into the floor, where the other hedgehog would pull out a sword with purple lightning around it.
"ENOUUUGH!" The two began to trade blades at the middle of the area, even clashing in spindashes before they clashed in a double boost from opposite sides. "I hate you.. Everything you are, JUST DIE DIE DIE DIE!" The darker hedgehog yelled, while the blue blur remained quiet, observing him. ".. You've lost it. Keep coping then, suckah'.. I'll knock the sense right into you." Even though he lost the initial clash, Sonic jumped in between lance slices and X-plosivo punches to kick him in the face and stare him in the eye.
The angered counterpart used his tentacles to wield multiple weapons at once, aiming them right at his other self before he began to unload blast after blast, tearing the floor with his blade in a pitiful attempt to reach the hedgehog. "C'mon.. Did you forget we're more than just that?" Sonic went for an upwards spindash before launching consecutive wind waves into his face, pulling his hand up afterwards to taunt him into attacking.
The hedgehog instinctively dodged out of the way of his slices and a dozen punches were launched in a milisecond, stunning the darker hedgehog before Sonic punched him through each and every one of the locations he made him go through, forming a spindash midair. The damaged hedgehog saw his chance and began to shotgun blast the spinning hog without realizing that above the large final blast he had done, Sonic was surfing the beam with the spindash in his hands before shoooting a large energy blast that sank him into the ground.
He tried to speed up into the air where the hedgehog was, but he would be impaled by a golden spear that came from below alongside many like it, trapping the stubborn counterpart in the air as dozens of copies held out their shotguns and aimed them right at him. "Today, we're both gonna be doneso. Cuz' the real us ain't either you or me, but someone new. So, let's pave the way for the real deal, FAKER!" The projectiles created a gorgeous rain of golden projectiles that began to impale both of their bodies, while Sonic jumped between them to charge one last spindash that split into two and went in an "X" to destroy the hedgehog's dark exterior.
THRKKKKKKKKKK.
Wtih that, the smaller Sonic falls into the ground, with his dark aura torn and heavily injured. ".. You won, buddy. I'm done, everything I could've done, was done. And yet here you are.. Killin' both of us like this is gonna solve everything. IT'S NOT." He hit the ground while tearing up, seeing his own blood in the floor below. The older hedgehog stepped forth, holding his injured stomach. "There wasn't an 'us' before this whole thing happened. And we were never different, so it'll still be you, it'll still be me. This is just gonna be what we always should've been." Sonic got on one of his knees, staring down at him.
"I tried to run from my past. Turn a blind eye to how brave n' inspiring I was, thinkin' that was the reason behind all my problems. While you run from the future, choosin' to stick to a glorified past while missing what you've become. Man, I guess we're both kinda messed up in the end, huh?" He hugged the crying hedgehog while sighing. ".. And we both know what we gotta do. Live the present, make it worth it for those that can't live in it anymore, like we've always done before this."
"But.. I-I don't wanna go.." He whispered, while the seasoned Sonic could only smile and look at his eyes. "What happened in Little Planet was painful. We wouldn't be here if it wasn't, but if we really wanna make sure all those peeps we let down rest in peace, if we wanna show the world how much they fucked up and to be ourselves- The first step is to accept who we are, to love every last bit of ourselves before we learn how to love others.
There's many peeps out there still looking out for us, that want to protect us. Don't you want them to see Sonic and think of a hero? This is the time to do it. By rising from this hellhole we're in, we can let our actions speak for ourselves and everyone's gonna shit bricks by how wrong they'll feel, only THEN are they gonna see what we're really made of!" Sonic, in great pain, held his hand out to his smaller self. "So, let's make things right this once."
"... Yeah."
Let's fight until the bitter end, Sonic The Hedgehog.
Notes:
PART 2 OF 2.
White t (Guest) on Chapter 7 Fri 12 Jul 2024 02:50AM UTC
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Z0nsOfChaos on Chapter 7 Sat 13 Jul 2024 05:58AM UTC
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Elenor Henry (Guest) on Chapter 12 Mon 21 Jul 2025 09:11PM UTC
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