Chapter 2-Metal Sonic
A few minutes later Sonic, Shadow and Tails were chasing down the Egg Carrier 3. "There it is!" Tails shouted as the trio ran across an immense grassy plane, "Shadow, do your thing." Sonic said, Shadow nodded and held up a green Chaos Emerald, "Chaos Control!" the three disappeared in a flash of white light and reappeared on the Egg Carrier, "Okay, Eggman's gotta be around here somewhere." Sonic said as he looked around, "Maybe we should split up to cover more ground." Shadow suggested
"No, it's too dangerous for us to be walking round here alone." Sonic said
"Well then you two look together, I can take care of myself." Shadow said
"It's still too risky for you to be on your own here." Sonic insisted
"Well then how 'bout I go with him?" a voice called, the three friends looked up to see a white bat standing on a platform looking down at them, "Rouge? What're you doing here?" Shadow asked, Rouge leapt down from the platform and landed gracefully in front of the three boys, "What I do best, seems the ol' doc's got his hands on a Chaos Emerald or two, so I've come here to, borrow them." Rouge explained, "You mean steal them." Tails said
"Do you know where the emeralds are?" Shadow asked as he folded his arms, "No, I've been looking around this place for at least twenty minutes but I can't find them, or feel them." Rouge replied
"They must be under an anti chaos shield." Tails said, "The shield prevents the chaos energy from the Chaos Emeralds escaping so nothing can detect them, but it's really dangerous, all that energy's just building up, eventually, boom."
"Then we have to find those emeralds before this whole ship goes up with us on it." Sonic said, "Okay, Tails and I'll check the left side of the ship while Shadow and Rouge search the right side." and with that the four separated. Sonic and Tails searched through several rooms but couldn't't find anything, eventually Tails said "We've checked all the rooms except that one so the emerald's gotta be in there." the young fox pointed to a door at the end of the corridor the two friends were in. Sonic slid the door open and peered inside, it was very dark in the room, all Sonic could see was a glass tube in the middle, inside the tube was a pedestal with a red Chaos Emerald on it, "There it is." said Sonic as he stepped into the room, the pair walked over to the tube, "This must be the anti chaos shield, I don't know if you can break it." Tails said, meanwhile Sonic had frozen, his eyes fixed on a pair of red lights burning in the dark on the other side of the tube, Tails noticed the lights too, then the room echoed the sound of metallic clanking as a figure stepped out of the dark, the owner of the red eyes was a royal blue robot; "Metal Sonic." Sonic said as the robot stepped into the light.
Meanwhile Shadow and Rouge were in the control room for the Egg Carrier, Shadow eyed the main computer terminal, "Rouge, d'you think you could cut the power to the ship?" he asked, Rouge was studying a map of the ship, "I think so, but why." she replied, "Because if the power's off then so will those anti chaos shields which're keeping us from finding the Chaos Emeralds." Shadow answered, Rouge walked over to the terminal and began typing, "If the power's completely cut then this thing'll drop like a stone, but if I can target the main engine power and shut down all systems other then the engines then the ship'll completely shut down but it'll still be in the air." After a minute all the lights went out and Shadow heard all the machinery stop, all that remained was the gentle hum of the engines. Rouge closed her eyes and focused for a second, "I got it." she said triumphantly, the pair then made their way out of the control room and followed the signal from the emerald.
Tails watched helplessly as Metal threw Sonic into the glass tube, shattering it, Sonic slumped onto the ground as Metal marched toward him, then Tails saw a metal pole lying on the floor near him, he grabbed it and swung the pole at Metal, hitting him hard in the side of the head. Metal stumbled and Sonic took this opportunity to spin into his robotic counterpart at full speed, Metal crashed through the wall and fell into the engine room. Metal quickly activated his turbine engine and flew around the room while Sonic jumped through the hole in the wall Metal made, Metal landed a few metres away from Sonic and the two raced towards each other and began fighting again. Meanwhile Tails ran over to the pedestal and grabbed the Chaos Emerald, as he did a second glass tube lowered around him, he was trapped, suddenly Tails felt a blinding pain as electricity streamed around the inside of the tube. Elsewhere on the ship a steel door was blasted apart by a Chaos Spear, Shadow and Rouge walked into a large, dark room with two white circles in the centre. Because the room was so dark neither saw the circles and Rouge walked over one, as she did a glass tube suddenly came up from around the edge of the circle, trapping the bat. Shadow rushed over to Rouge and tried to break the glass but failed, then Rouge was electrocuted just as Tails was, Shadow pounded on the glass as hard as he could, it seemed unbreakable, but Shadow wasn't one to give up, he leapt into the air and threw several Chaos Spears at the upper half of the tube, well away from Rouge so she wouldn't be harmed, the spears barely scratched the glass. Shadow then heard footsteps behind him, he turned sharply to see several black and red hedgehogs walking towards him, "Shadow Androids." he said, suddenly the tube Rouge was in lowered and the bat collapsed, Shadow ran over to her and knelt beside her, he felt her pulse, "She's alive, just unconscious." he said with relief, then the dark hedgehog turned to the androids baring down on him, "You fakers obviously don't know who you're up against; I'm the Ultimate Life Form, Shadow the Hedgehog!" Shadow shouted as he charged at the machines before him.
Finally the tube Tails was in raised itself and the young fox fell to the floor, Sonic, meanwhile, kicked Metal in the head and spun into the robot, sending him backwards. Metal hit a wall hard, he then charged at Sonic and slashed at him with his razor sharp claws, Sonic dodged the attacks but was unprepared for a kick Metal delivered to his chest, Sonic was propelled backwards and back through the hole in the wall. The blue hedgehog landed next to Tails, who lay unconscious on the floor, clutching the Chaos Emerald in his hand, when Sonic saw his friend hurt he exploded, he grabbed the emerald and began to absorb it's energy, meanwhile Metal flew over to the hole in the wall and now stood perfectly still, glaring at Sonic.