Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Sonic looks around for an opening and all he sees is the Chrome Sonic speeding for him again. With a corkscrew kick, the hedgehog blows the mandroid into thousands of tiny sprinkles. As the chrome Sonic rains down, the real Sonic readies himself for what he knows will be round two.

Just as he expects, all the droplets of the liquid metal robot begins scurrying for each other, coalescing into one formless being. Sonic scans the ground and finds what he's looking for.

Some drops are still on the ground, he thinks to himself. So at least its falling apart…

Sonic is struck in the head by a clod of liquid chrome, shot from the shapeless monstrosity. The metal sticks to his fur like gum in one's hair. He's hit by another glob, then another. Each round pushes him further and further down to the ground.

After seven more hits, Sonic is entirely covered by the body of the Chrome Sonic, appearing to be a pile of silverish-grey goo. A glowing white outline surrounds the shape. As it grows, it takes the form less of Metal Sonic and more of the actual Sonic the Hedgehog. He remembers this. It's an Arrester Bind, perhaps the most annoying attack in the world.

Sonic screams out as the stinging liquid opens a gap for his face. In a minute long wince, he tries to move any limb he can, failing. Instead, the mandroid is what moves Sonic, forcing one leg in front of the other at an increasing rate of speed.

Without a Chaos Emerald, the azure 'hog knows that this battle is going to be a bogging one. As he's forced towards who knows where, he reminisces the last time he was forced to fight one of these things. He knows Eggman can't send out chrome mandroids willy-nilly like he does his Egg Pawns, but when he does, Sonic assures himself that Robotnik must derive a massive amount of pleasure knowing how irritatingly persistent they are. Sonic has never defeated one is less than an hour. They are semi-immortal. 'Semi' signifying that they do have one mortal weakness, but in order for that weakness to be exploited, it will take that hour to work, save one has a tremendous amount of energy behind their attacks.

Sonic is forced outside of the fortress, then into a field, then towards a cliff. He gets it.

"Think again, Eggbuttnik!" he screams. When the mandroid brings Sonic to a run, the hedgehog is somehow able to bind himself into a spin dash. Rotating at rapid speed the mandroid flies off of Sonic in a spiral of debris shooting high into the sky, nearly touching even the clouds.

Sonic somersaults out of the spin dash. One hand keeping him off the ground, he looks on as the scattered chrome Sonic is still able to reform. As if in slow motion rewind, the spiral of material returns to the bare ground spot Sonic had spin dashed in, clumping together with splashes.

Now's his chance! Sonic makes a ballistic leap towards the fort's half busted walls, maneuvering through a millennium old collapsed section.

A semi-liquid, semi-formed arm grabs his leg. Sonic's face smacks into the ground. He swallows dirt as he's dragged back to the battlefield. His fingers dig into the wet earth, but are not enough to anchor the hedgehog. He makes another jab into the ground. It's still not enough.

Finally, he stops. As he realizes he has stopped, pain rips throughout his back as the chrome Sonic issues a series of punches using its half-formed liquid metal arms. After over ten impacts, Sonic rolls to the right, grabs the rubbery arm, and tosses it back Chrome Sonic's direction. By rapidly revving his legs, he escapes the mandroid's grip.

Oh great… it's getting back up. Now what? Now what? Sonic tries to find a better way to deal with the mandroid. Nothing comes to mind except the usual. The hero sighs. His breath is just barely visible- but it is visible. He doesn't believe he'll lose. He's just frustrated.

Around Sonic flows six cerulean strands of energy. Each other one flows in a clockwise direction, with the ones in between rotating clockwise. The grass beneath him is disturbed by a growing wind. In between the lines of energy, a turquoise blue smoke-like aura twirls up and about. He slowly raises his right hand, open for most of the rise, then clenches it shut when it's at eye level. The entire aura of orderless energy reacts swiftly, spiraling and compressing in that fist, becoming a deeper and deeper indigo as it does. After a moment, there's no more vortex. An orb of black-blue conceals his fist. It's shineless. There's no more gusts of wind except for the ones that occur naturally.

The mandroid, in its thoughtless being, darts for Sonic. It doesn't think of consequences.

[Mystic Ruins]

"This is too weird..." Tails frantically checks a handheld, half-dismantled radar. On its green screen, contained energy repeatedly blips to full back to empty back to full and back to empty in irregular intervals. "Maybe everything needs an upgrade."

Koset is visibly concerned. Stray beads of sweat patrol his face for assuredness. His mind is a frenzy of possible explanations for what he's seeing, but his rebellious mouth refuses to take a stand.

"If only I could peer into Wikke's mind... just for a moment." He grabs and weakly pulls the fur on his head. "Augh! This doesn't make any sense!"

"Is something troubling you, Koset?" Amy bluely asks. "Ever since I met you, you always look like you're stuck in a trance or something."

Rain patters on the roof of the workshop. The anthros can hear that it's coming down in sheets. What they can't hear, what's being woefully drowned out by the pounding rains and violent tempered thunder, is the demonic roar of distant engines.

As he woefully shakes his head, throwing his hands up in a shrug, he says, "We just need to keep our guar- Huh?!" Koset's eyes shoot for the window. His brow slants. His vision sharpens.

"What's wrong, K?" Tails asks as he walks for the Hurricane. He looks at the window himself, stumped.

"There's…there's something out there!" The hedgehog stumbles to the window, rubbing his hand on the pane to remove the chilled condensation. "I can sense them from here." Tails and Amy both give him interested looks.

"Who'd be out there in this weather?" Koset vigorously walks to the door, then swings it open. The handle hitting the wall sounds like a gunshot from a shotgun. Tails and Amy now feel as if their new friend is telling the truth. That, or he's gone mad.

"Look!" Koset shouts. He points to the black sky. Just barely concealed by the sea of rolling storm clouds is the iconic red, grey, and gold color scheme forever linked to one infamous man- Dr. Robotnik.

"Whoa! Good call, Ko!" Tails comments, fur nearly standing on end in awe as he, Amy, and Koset view the sight of a series of Egg Carriers. From over a loudspeaker, the booming voice of Robotnik even drowns out the roars of thunder.

"Mwaahahahahahahahaaaaa- ack!" Quite audibly, the three- all with pity-filled sweat drops on the back of the heads- can hear Eggman's lack of health. Cough! Cough! Cough! Wheeze! Heavy wheeze! Cough! He clears his throat after that embarrassing performance and goes on to say, "My dear furry friends! I'm going to make this as brief as possible- surrender your Chaos Emerald, or face the consequences."

"'Surrender the Chaos Emerald or blah blah blah'! Shut - up, Eggman!" Amy retorts. "Can't you think of any better lines?" is another scoldingly cold throw.

"How dareyou insult my dialogue mannerisms!" The primary Egg Carrrier, a huge structure with six wings, three on each side of the craft, begins transforming. All six wings are mechanically sent to the front to the Carrier, forming a 'V' on its half-kilometer-wide nose. "And for the record, you were going to face the consequences regardless!"

As lightning shoots across the sky, blinding everyone for mere moments, Tails is the first to see the pure white orb on energy gathering in the center of the V.

"Back to the workshop, back to the workshop!" he hysterically commands. The genius boy bolts inside. Once in, a button with his Double Tails insignia on it is pressed. Amy and Koset just make it inside when they hear a pulsating hum, one loud enough to rattle the windows and floor of the workshop. Outside, a semi circle appears. It's red- the general barrier is an almost pink color, while waves of energy flowing upwards are a much brighter scarlet.

"What the …" Koset nearly curses out loud. "This barrier is glowing with Chaos energy. You know how to utilize this emerald's power?" He asks as if Tails shouldn't know what he's doing.

The fox can't even steal a second to respond. With an earth quaking SLAM!, a hydrogen bomb's worth of energy plows into the workshop in the form of a laser. The entire shop is illuminated white, the brightest white possible. That's what it looks like to the blinded anthros at least. In their minds, there is a hint of doubt that the mass Chaos Shield will even hold up. Eggman just may have got them, and they know it, and because of a folly they took too long to realize, their hero is thousands of miles away, utterly incapable of helping them.