Summary: Sonic has gone up against quite a few enemies, so much so, it seems like he's seen them all, and that there's nothing he can't handle. Even stopping Eggman for the odd evil scheme seems ho-hum. But Sonic's about to go up against what could be his greatest enemy yet. Himself.
Rated: T (just to play it safe)
Well, after several months of debating whether or not I would do it, I'm finally breaking down and writing a Sonic fanfic. Please note that this is my first Sonic fan-fic, and that I'm not as fluent in this genre as some of you readers no doubt will be. So if I get any details about the Sonic universe wrong, don't hesitate to correct me (I just ask you be polite about it) and I'll do my best to fix it. However, I feel confident that I can limit all of that to a minimum, as I've done alot of research on the games lately (catch up really, the last Sonic game I sat down to play was Sonic 2), confident enough to begin.
Anyway, here's hoping... :)
S O N I C
U N I V E R S E
P r o l o g u e
Night had fallen. Normally, by this time, everyone was working on going to sleep. Cities were winding down for the night. Nature was calming down for the day. A kind of silent lull fell over the countryside.
Everywhere, that is, except for one spot.
"EGGMAN!"
With a roar, Sonic the Hedgehog zipped through the woodlands at his usual insane speeds, his eyes focused on one thing. Cruising over the tops of the trees was the all-too-familiar rounded shape of the Eggmobile, and within it was the all-too-familiar figure Sonic always seemed to be battling. In one of Eggman's hands was the telltale glow of the Chaos Emerald Eggman had just succeeded in stealing.
Of course, this was naturally why Sonic was here, chasing after him. Just like all the times past, there was no way he was going to let Eggman hang on to that emerald for long. He knew it, Eggman knew it, they all knew it. Why in the world the looney kept trying to steal them, though, was beyond Sonic.
"Eggman!" Sonic exclaimed, putting on a surge of speed to keep up with the accelerating Eggmobile. "Give it up! Chaos Emeralds are off-limits to you, ya know!"
"Why do you think I'm stealing it then?" the mad scientist called back.
Then, with a laugh, urged the Eggmobile to go even faster. It was fruitless, because Sonic could easily keep up with the fleeing craft, no matter how fast Eggman got it to go. There was no reason Eggman could escape without a fight, and even if he did, Sonic would always track him down again. It seemed to happen so frequently now that it was almost dull. To Sonic, it was almost like watching the same movie over and over again, which he just didn't have the attention span for. Too slow.
For once, he wished, that Eggman would just call it quits, even if it didn't last forever. Just something so Sonic could perhaps find something better to do than to be constantly chasing Eggman.
"You'll never catch me, hedgehog!" Eggman randomly challenged. As usual, he seemed overly confident. "You may run fast, but there is no way you can reach me from down there!"
"Oh, really..." Sonic said to himself, getting a sly look, and saw he was approaching a large boulder. One side was fairly smooth, and was at a slant. "That'll do." Sonic said, and zipped up the boulder and jumped off the end, using the boulder like a ramp.
Suddenly airborne, he sailed upward for a few feet, then landed on both feet on one of the back portion of the fleeing Eggmobile. Hearing the thump this created, Eggman turned and jumped when he saw Sonic standing there. Sonic couldn't help but grin. Repetitious or not, it was always fun to get the jump on Eggman like this.
"How'd you get there?" Eggman asked dumbly.
Sonic shrugged. "Jumped." he answered simply, and quickly snatched the Chaos Emerald from Eggman's hand before Eggman recovered from his shock. "Bye!"
Then he jumped, landing back on solid ground and started running again, this time in the other direction. As predicted, Eggman wasn't going to give up so easily, and quickly turned the Eggmobile to give chase to his blue and speedy nemesis.
"You give that back!" Eggman exclaimed angrily.
"Gotta catch me first!" Sonic replied tauntingly.
Without warning, he came to an abrupt halt and suddenly changed directions, going under the Eggmobile as it zoomed by overhead. Eggman hurried to compensate, in order to have it happen again as Sonic yet again pulled off the same maneuver.
"You stop that, now!" Eggman yelled angrily, the Eggmobile starting to travel in a constant circle now as Sonic zipped back and forth under it.
Then, without warning, Sonic started forward again, leaving Eggman in his dust, who failed to notice Sonic had left for a moment. By the time he did, Sonic was already a good distance away.
"Ha!" Sonic said as he ran, nimbly tossing the Chaos Emerald into the air and catching it again. "Fooled dumb ol' Eggman. Again."
He sped on for a few moments, then suddenly came to a skidding halt and turned around as the Eggmobile suddenly came crashing down through the forest canopy to hover above the ground, cutting off Sonic's path. The evil scientist hooted with laughter as he gave chase once again.
"Who's the fool now, hedgehog?" he asked victoriously, as he flipped a switch on his control panel.
Two machine gun barrels poked out of the front of the Eggmobile and opened fire upon Sonic. Thanks to his super speed, Sonic was able to dodge the bullets, but saw that a change was in order. Picking up speed, he leapt into the air, jumped off of one tree, then another, constantly gaining altitude. Then he landed on the nose of the Eggmobile and jumped again, somersaulting over the stunned doctor and landing on the ground behind the Eggmobile.
He ran forward again for a little ways, then suddenly veered off of the narrow path he had been running upon and into the thicker parts of the surrounding woods, weaving in and around the trees, making it much harder for Eggman to follow. Eggman tried anyway, rising up above the canopy of trees in the Eggmobile, and tailing after Sonic.
Theoretically, seeing that Sonic had the Chaos Emerald, he could try doing Chaos Control like Shadow would, and simply warp out of harm's way, and away from Eggman. Granted, he didn't do it often, but he knew he could.
But where was the fun in that?
Grinning, Sonic raced faster, enjoying this game of "chase the hedgehog" Eggman was apparently so keen to do. Eggman was feeling the opposite by this point however, and was getting slightly desperate. Sporadically firing his machine guns whenever he thought he had a clear shot at Sonic (and usually didn't) Eggman was trying to get his Eggmobile to squeeze under the canopy of tree branches that cut him off from Sonic and try to get back the Chaos Emerald.
But Sonic knew there was no way the bulky Eggmobile could fit here. So long as he stayed in the woods, he was pretty much safe from Eggman. Immediately after he thought this, the woods abruptly stopped, and Sonic was suddenly running through the outskirts of a city; he could see the many lights the skyscrapers cast from here.
"Spoke too soon." Sonic thought, and quickly turned to head into the thicker parts of the city, where there was more shelter. He looked around, figuring out where he was.
"Station Square." Sonic murmured, seeing the surprised people walking on the busy sidewalks and driving in passing vehicles as he sped past them all. "Guess I was pretty close to here, wasn't I?"
At that moment, a stream of bullets from the Eggmobile's machine guns struck the pavement near Sonic's feet. Sonic turned and saw that Eggman was still chasing him.
"Doesn't know when to quit, does he?" Sonic muttered, and turned at the next corner.
Deeper within Station Square's city limits, the two came closer to the towering skyscrapers of the city. This worked in Sonic's advantage, because this forced Eggman to have to weave in and around the towering buildings unless he went up to a higher altitude, which was the very last thing the evil scientist was going to do with his prey being on the ground.
Yet Sonic still couldn't seem to shake Eggman, not at these speeds, anyway. He could go faster, hit the speed of sound, which he was already borderlining by his estimates. But going that fast required at lot of concentration, concentration that was being somewhat broken by the fact he was being chased by Eggman. So he was hesitant to do that here, within city limits, where he ran the risk of running into something.
More machine gun struck the pavement near Sonic, closer this time, causing the hedgehog to veer into the opposite lane of car traffic and forced him to jump over a car that was heading towards him. "Aw, doesn't look like I'm going to have a choice." Sonic grudgingly admitted, and sped up even more.
Soon there after, an echoing bang rang out as Sonic broke the sound barrier and became nothing more than a blue blur to those watching. Sonic panted as he wove his way through the crowded and seemingly narrow city streets, trying to come up with another plan. Eggman didn't help matters any, by shooting at and destroying a nearby parked car. It exploded under the fire Eggman shot at it, and Sonic did a quick u-turn to avoid the fiery inferno, going back the way he had came.
Eggman used this chance to drop the Eggmobile down to cut off Sonic's path. The hedgehog came screeching to a halt to avoid running into the Eggmobile.
Eggman fingered the trigger for his craft's machine guns menacingly. "Hand over the Chaos Emerald, now!" he ordered. "Or I'll turn you into more of a pincushion than you are now!"
"All right." Sonic said, feigning defeat. "You want it? Then here. Catch!"
And with that, he hurled the Chaos Emerald over Eggman's head.
"No!" Eggman exclaimed, and tried to grab the glowing crystal as it whizzed past, and missed completely.
While Eggman was distracted, Sonic zipped forward again, going around the hovering Eggmobile, and went to catch the still flying emerald like he would a football.
Eggman shook his fist angrily. "Oh, no you don't!" he exclaimed, and pushed another button on the Eggmobile's control panel.
It fired a net at Sonic. Sonic saw it out of the corner of his eye, and moved to avoid it, but reacted too late. The net slammed into his feet, entangling them, and sent him rolling off the road and into a crowded sidewalk, making a few pedestrians yelp in surprise. Eggman laughed victoriously, and moved the Eggmobile past the emerald as it hit the ground unharmed a few feet away, leaning over to scoop it up.
"So long hedgehog!" Eggman said happily, waving at Sonic has he hurried to free himself from the ensnaring net.
"Argh..." Sonic yelled, frustrated, finally pulling the net off of him and getting back to his feet. "Excuse me!" he yelled as he pushed past the group of pedestrians that had gathered, and raced after the fleeing Eggmobile once again.
Quickly regaining the speed he had lost, he jumped and tried to latch onto the fleeing Eggmobile, but it had already risen high enough that it was beyond his reach. Eggman simply laughed at this seemingly feeble attempt, and ignored Sonic. Not one to be beaten, though, Sonic quickly gathered more speed and zipped up the side of a nearby skyscraper. Estimating to be at the same height as the Eggmobile, Sonic pushed off of the building, and again tried to grab the Eggmobile, nearly grabbing onto one of it's fins.
But Eggman, almost tauntingly, tilted the Eggmobile and moved the fin out of Sonic's reach, causing Sonic to tumble downward towards the ground.
"Whoops!" Eggman said tauntingly. "Missed me!"
Sonic stopped his fall by grabbing a streetlight. Flipping over it once, he landed safely on the ground, and pursued Eggman still. But by this point, the Eggmobile had already risen far out reach, flying high over the tops of all the nearby skyscrapers, and going higher still. Out of Sonic's hearing range, Eggman's only indication of gloating over his victory was waving the stolen emerald gleefully at Sonic as the hedgehog ground to a halt to watch.
The Eggmobile finally stopped rising, and hovered in the air for a moment. Then it finally pivoted to face west, and headed off in that direction. Sonic took note of this, knowing that this would be the direction he would need to go in, but stomped his foot angrily at the fact that Eggman had slipped out of his grasp.
"Darn it." Sonic muttered. "I hate it when this happens."
Sighing, he knew that he was going need help to go on from this point. Fortunately, he knew right where to find it. Turning around, he raced off for Tail's workshop, knowing that the two-tailed fox would have exactly what Sonic would need...