Chapter Text
A soft wind was blowing over the mountains towards the city of Green Hills following the rising sun's path, light bouncing off leaves and bustling branches trailing the breeze. In a split second, a zephyr cut way with incredible force speeding past. The tall pines creaked and twisted as a blue blur sped past, uprooting small shrubs and sending dirt and twigs flying behind. Left behind in the beings wake was an azure mirage, any footprints and markings quickly buried by the detritus of the forest left behind.
Reaching his destination, heels dig into the springs softening earth, momentum carrying him forwards another dozen feet. Landing on his soles with a soft thump, the now stationary hero brushed off the loose cargo pants and his bare tan arms. Getting some stretching in, the blue haired speedy wonder looked over to the two companions sitting on a log waiting for his arrival. Even after a decade of knowing each other, they looked with faces of amazement as he managed to run from his cabin in the sticks to their location in under a minute.
Arm extended over head being pulled by the other, Sonic decided to strike up conversation with his other colorful friends. “What’s so important that you gotta get me up before the sun's awake?” Moving from his stretch to take place a hand over a large yawn for exaggeration, “Unless Egghead’s back in town I’m goin’ back to bed.”
The two tailed tangerine teammate to his side jumped off of his makeshift seat and piped up, voice squeaky from the ongoing puberty. “Robotnik's back in town!” Sonic rubbed the back of his neck and apologized for his snide comment, and Miles continued, “Came up on the scanners as approaching from the other direction of Green Hills, figured we’d try to get the jump on him before he even made it there.”
“Better get goin’ then, what’s his ETA and our speed gettin’ there?” Sonic inquired finishing his stretches, proceeding to stim while doing his best to still pay attention to the conversation.
Amy piped up this time, standing and dusting off the back of her plaid green skirt and black tights as she spoke, “He’s an hour away from the city, so about a fifteen minute run for all of us or a casual two minute jog for you.”
“I’ll cut down that travel time for the three of us and get Knux in half that.” Straightening the cerulean vest over his tight running top, he gave a wink after finally finishing his preparations, “Better get ready! You’re up first Ames.”
“Ready for wha—” Amy’s words were disrupted as she was swept off her feet and Sonic shot off, being carried into the distance before she could even finish the sentence. Tails groaned and took some steadying breaths, preparing for the very short, very quick, very dizzying trip that was about to take place.
With a soft gale hitting his senses and a heave from big blue, they were off.
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The Egg Carrier was truly astonishing in scale. Its shadow alone could dwarf two dozen city blocks and that spoke nothing of its height or contents. What was unusual however, was how little of a swarm of Badniks were surrounding it. What normally was seemingly covered top to bottom in swarms of the mechanical menaces was reduced to just the deck of the floating ship.
The speedster cracks his fingers to prepare to enact their plan to take it down. Sending off a salute, Tails begins lifting Rose up to the carrier, and he shoots a glance to Knuckles. They nod at each other and prepare to get aboard the aircraft. Their hands grip together, and Sonic begins to spin quickly. His form starts to blur as he begins a miniature whirlwind, and as he reaches his cap speed he lets go.
Knuckles whizzes through the air, and begins gliding to carry his momentum. Crimson shoots up like a flaming asteroid returning to the heavens through the sky. Setting his hand on his brow, Sonic watches and whistles as the brawler shoots straight through the hull into the lower parts of the ship. With a smirk he vanishes off to a nearby cliff facing away from the liner. Building up speed he launches off, and plants his feet onto the top of the tallest tree he can reach. The tension grew as it was impacted and rights itself as it flings Sonic off, and the trail that follows fades into the cobalt sky.
In mere moments he’s above the Egg Carrier and has a good top down view of the fight below. Pink and Orange dash around, smashing Egg Bots and moving their way towards the cabin. Amy smashes her way through her foes with a hammer twice her size with ease, and Tails continues to cause diversions and plant traps. Electric mines, ring bombs, and sentries get thrown around in every direction taking out entire squads. Sonic gives a small fond smile in seeing his teammates and friends fighting so in sync. Finally, he reaches his movement stalls in the air and he begins to fall.
Tucking knees into his chest and wrapping his arms around them, Sonic begins to fall to the ship as a ball. Spinning rapidly he makes contact with the deck of the ship in the middle of an army of robots and the inertia is released all at once. Metal warps and dents under his body, robots break apart, and it feels like the entire ship drops twenty feet. With a few dozen androids obliterated in his wake, the azure speedster zooms off. Time completely halts in place as he begins to work his way through the chaos.
He flips forwards onto one of the Pawns, quickly removing an arm from its socket and jamming it into its neck. Pushing off the back and doing a split kick into two more faces, and landing in one smooth movement into a slide. Going under the legs of another and grabbing their legs as he goes to trip it. Using his lower positioning on them he curls up and begins to saw his way through more of them. He continues bobbing and weaving, jumping across their tops and twisting heads and breaking control panels.
From their spot further back Sonic's friends see the impact and subsequent destruction of fifty total in under ten seconds. “Nice of him to show up,” Amy yelled jokingly, “Was starting to think he wasn’t even coming. Late by what, 3 milliseconds? Getting slow old man.”
Sonic shot back a grin as he made a peace sign mid jump, contrasting against him just ripping through three more machines exploding behind him. “I think your watch is running late! I’d call this early, let me go wake the Eggster up.”
Dismantling more Badniks along the way was hardly a challenge, treating it more like an exercise than any real threat. By the end of the next minute, Sonic had already fought through another 3 flights, dodging bullets and lasers with ease, and had made it to the bridge. At least he would be, if there weren’t large reinforced doors blocking the way in.
Sonic sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, pressing on his wrist communicator to pull up a call. “Hey Knucklehead, I’m gonna need ya up here. Doc Omelette decided to lock up shop, pretty rude if you ask me.” A grunt came from the watch in acknowledgement, “Thanks bud, I’ll come pick you up!”
“Don’t you dare you over glorified pin cushion. Once in a day is enough.” Huffed Knuckles, “I can make it myself. I’ll wallop you if you carry me again.”
Knuckles looked up from his wrist from the sound of rubber on metal, seeing Sonic standing in front of him with a smirk, hand on hip. “You sure you don’t want a ride? I’ll make it quick.” Sonic winked and reached his hand out to take.
Giving a resigned sigh Knuckles grabbed the outstretched limb, engulfing the hand with his massive grippers. “Fine Blue, but if you princess carry me again I'll drop kick you. You’re faster than me, but I’ll find a way, I swear to the emeralds.”
“Will do!” Sonic pulled his large friend in, rolling his shoulder as he set his crimson compatriot over it. Knucks face and torso hung over his joint, looking over behind them. “I’ll make sure to do this which is infinitely less embarrassing! Have a fun ride!”
Knuckle’s eyes twitched and his voice tensed. “You know I hate you sometimes.”
“All the time!”
-----
By the time Red and Blue were up at the cabin, Orange and Pink had made their way there too. Everyone got into place, Knuckles and Amy planted their feet firmly by both halves of the door, Sonic curled up and started spinning in place to charge up, and Miles was working on prepping two gadgets for their trip inside. Once the doors were down they had to be prepared for Eggman to already have traps and plans laid out. They were going in blind and he had a full view of the ship.
Thud.
Ivo Robotnik sat in a mech powered by one of the Chaos Emeralds, surrounded by his creations, guns pointing directly at the door as a bead of sweat dropped down his wrinkled bald head. It fell past his scowl and mustache with greying streaks and landed against his lap. Gloves clenching the control sticks intensely, leather creaking as they tensed and tightened and thumbs hovered over their buttons. He sucked and bit on the inside of his lip, and prepared for their entrance.
THUD.
Knux and Ames pulled back their arms and hammer respectively in sync, preparing to follow through in their impressions already made against the door. Sonic left an indent with metal chips piling around him as he nestled into a small hole left around him as he prepared to shoot forward. Tails steeled his nerves and straightened the cuffs of his gloves and tucked his oversized hoodie sleeves into them.
THWAM!
The doors flew down and hell broke loose. The orb flew forward at impossible speeds into the room and began to bounce off of the mechanoids, mech, and every possible surface. Tails threw one of the inventions down, a wall of light blue force projected itself to the ceiling in an instant and stretched ten feet across. It protected the three of them standing there from the barrage of projectiles flying at them from the turrets and remaining Badniks.
Sonic steered his bounces to hit the turrets, giving his squad a chance to enter the room as he went back to dealing with Robotnik. Tails ran to the control module and plugged in his other invention, shaped like one of his tails into a USB slot and began typing away. Amy put herself between him and the onslaught of Egg Bots slamming them away whenever they started approaching. Knuckles ran forward and began punching his way through anything that came into his path.
Finally unfurling, the smug teen began running along the suit's exterior looking for any weaknesses or openings. Eggman attempted swatting him away, but couldn’t begin to remotely catch up. Sonic paused for a moment to crouch on the glass dome protecting Ivo, giving a wide smile and waving before knocking on it.
“Cocky brat! You’ll pay for that! Oh ho ho.” Eggman cackled as he clicked on both the buttons down and the dome electrified. Sparks and heat pulsed over the Doctor's head but he didn’t skip a beat as he watched the speedster go flying off the mech. “Gotcha! Next time, watch where you step.”
Sonic hit the wall with a thud, slumping over as consciousness fought to stay in his eyes. Amy and Tails looked over with concern, but had to focus on finishing their task. Knux had to take up the job as he ran over to his cocky friend and hid his worry behind a mocking smile. “Time for you to get a taste of your own medicine captain carry.” Picking Sonic up bridal style and quickly running him over to his friends to have a safer place to get the wind back in his sails. “Alright guys, how long 'til you’re done? Blue’s not doing so hot.”
“Ten more seconds and the emerald then we can get out of here.” Tails answered, giving a glance to his big bro, “You sure he’s going to be okay?”
“J-Just a l-little shock to the system. Don’t worry bud.” Sonic gave a little thumbs up and a weak smile before going back to focusing on getting back up. After failing to get up by the time Miles was done hacking, he sighed and resigned himself. “Knux can I have the crystal please? Gonna get this over with so I can deal with the killer headache he left me with.”
Knuckles fished from his baggy pants the green gem and Sonic caught it. Energy rippled over his form, healing the bruises and shock marks, and he shot up onto his feet, energy flowing through him once again. He handed the emerald back with a smirk, “Thanks man, appreciate the pep up. Buddy how long 'til this place leaves?”
Tails glanced at his watch, “Four minutes thirty nine seconds, I set it to leave and then self-destruct over the ocean. Me and Amy are going to get going, I’m assuming you guys have got this.” He nodded to Amy as the two of them went to make their leave.
“You got it bro, safe travels! See you two later. Go ahead and hurry along to school, we’ll see you there.” Sonic smiled at his young companion.
“Yeah right, like you’re gonna go when you could go back to sleep. See you though dudes.” Amy joked and the two of them started running their way out.
Sonic gave a chuckle. “Hey I resent that comment! Now Knucks, how ‘bout we deal with baldy now.” Giving a bump to Knuckle's hand and taking up his running pose, before making a change of plans. “Boarding the carrier?”
He got a grunt back and took his larger friend's hand and began to spin. Eggman yelled out “What do you two imbeciles think you’re doing! Stop right this second!” He raised one of the mechs hands, and shot it off at the two heroes with a heavy cable towing behind it.
“Tooooo Slowwww Agaiinnnnnn Eggggheaaadddd!” Sonic released his grip, sending crimson flying and trailing once again. The brawler's body flew at incredible speed and force, piercing the hand and splitting the cable and he went and delivered a punch to the shell of Eggman's robot with a resounding BOOOOOM . The glass on it and in the room shattered, he punctured through one side and went out the other. Overshooting and flying straight out the now shattered window and began gliding back to the earth.
The blue blur ran to the control area with the Doctor and grabbed the Emerald from in front of him, depowering the mech and ran to the edge of the window. “Smell ya later loser!” Which he followed by curling into a ball, and shooting himself off the ledge like a bullet. He flew through the air, caught up to knuckles, and with a slap grabbed ahold of his hands. As they approached the ground he waved Knuckles off and began to run after their victory over Ivo Robotnik again.
Deciding he was too tired to go to school and needing already after this exhaustion to unbind, went straight back home and began to change. He spun in place, transforming back to his normal form. His quills that had taken the place of hair shrunk back to their normal length, the animalistic ears and tail vanished, and his normal hoodie and shorts instead of his heroics outfit. Successfully tired out before eight in the morning, he plops onto bed and decides to get some rest.
Finally, after deciding he was too lazy to get under the covers, darkness came.
-----
Ivo Robotnik was wiser than people gave him credit for. Yes they recognized his intellect and his futuristic technology capable of hovering and space travel; However if a child could figure out the same he couldn’t give that much credit to himself. No, what everyone didn’t realize is how calculated he had every endeavor. He’d drained entire regions of their resources without struggle, gotten the leg up over team Sonic more times than he could count, and finally he was rewarded for it.
His ship was gone and all he had left for the time being was his pod, but it was enough. Hovering over an island he got to work on his terminal. It was an expensive gambit all things considered, using the mech design with thousands of Badniks and an Egg Carrier was pricey work. A chaos emerald is especially a sharp cost, but his plan went exactly as predicted. He flipped open some glass and pressed the activate button. That damn rat and his blasted friends never suspected a thing.
Pulling out a tablet gave what it was seeing, he giggled with pride and glee. All it would take was a few days and his greatest foe's reputation would be tarnished. His plan in the making was finally ready to happen. Putting the tablet down, he had to go back to his base to continue working on his follow up to the project. For now though he took solace in the fact he did it.
Metal Sonic was online.