Metal Sonic surveyed his surroundings carefully, checking the base below him for any concealed defences. The huge complex of steel grey buildings at the foot of the snowy mountain he stood atop was a blot on an otherwise beautiful landscape. Not that Metal Sonic was capable of appreciating beauty. But nonetheless, the base still needed to be wiped off the face of the Earth, and he was just the revenge-driven, emerald fuelled robot to get it done.

Satisfied that there weren't any hidden defences he didn't know about, Metal Sonic activated the powerful jet engine on his back and shot down the side of the mountain at an alarming velocity. He reached the steel wall of the northern edge of Eggman's base within seconds, and carried on straight through it with a mighty crash. The wall exploded into the base and destroyed more than a few security robots, clearing a path for Metal Sonic to burst across the snowy field beyond the wall and straight into a building. Several mounted vulcan cannons automatically targeted him as soon as he entered the small building, but he was too swift for any of them to even hope to hit. Nonetheless, he stopped and took aim at the cannons, destroying them with powerful lightning strikes from his fingertips.

This lightning attack was not one of his default manoeuvres, nor was it copied, but it was an original attack he had created last time he used his Overlord form. Of course, back then he had used it destroy part of Eggman's flagship and transform into what the heroes had dubbed 'Metal Madness'. Metal Sonic didn't approve of the term.

It didn't take long for Metal Sonic to crash through the other side of the building, which had appeared to be some kind of storage complex, and continue on into another snowfield. He was met by a dozen or so security drones as he crossed this next field, and they wasted no time in opening fire on him. The drones were tiny spherical things, and were of no danger to Metal Sonic. Their lasers bounced harmlessly off of his near-impenetrable blue armour, almost amusing the Sonic replica. However Metal Sonic didn't feel amusement, and so he unleashed another lightning blast which forked outwards from his palm and struck all the drones simultaneously, overloading and destroying them. He ignited his jet engine and started moving again, leaving the charred remains of his enemies behind.

Still flying headlong through the complex, Metal found himself crashing through the wall to a large hangar-like building. The hangar was huge; it would take a normal person at least 20 minutes to walk across it, and the roof above him was shrouded in darkness. However, there were no aircraft in sight. There were, however, at least three dozen white and black robots armed with personal vulcan cannons taking up positions to rip the intruder apart. Metal Sonic almost felt sorry for them.

Almost.

They fired on him immediately, but not before he managed to activate his near-impenetrable Black Shield, one of his oldest defensive manoeuvres. The bullets bounced harmlessly off the ebon barrier, giving Metal Sonic enough time to target each individual robot and decide how to destroy it. He rocketed towards one and ploughed straight through it, his Black Shield tearing it apart. He destroyed several more in this way until his shield shut down thanks to the seemingly endless hail of bullets. Activating his jets once more, Metal Sonic darted up into the rafters of the warehouse, drawing his assailants' fire, and then shot back down, too fast for them to hit. He grabbed one of the robots and ripped it half as he flew past, put his fist through another's head on a return flight, and overloaded several more with his lighting attack.

Soon, he had whittled down the robots to only one, and he dispatched it with a raking slash through its internal circuitry with his razor-sharp claws. He exited the hangar and carried on with his search, attempting to locate the control room of the compound where Eggman would presumably be hiding. By now the base's alarms had been activated and the reflective white of the snow was bathed in an eerie red. It didn't take long for Metal Sonic to locate the control room; typical Eggman design dictated it was directly in the centre of the base, and so it was.

The vengeful robot hovered over the small circular building, stopped for a second to gather power, and then descended so quickly that the wind didn't even have time to whistle. He crashed through the roof of the control room foot first and crushed the steel floor as he landed, with the shockwaves of his impact sending tables, chairs, computers and guard robots into the circular wall of the room. Once he had composed himself, Metal Sonic surveyed his surroundings. How peculiar. His creator was nowhere to be found.

Wasting no time, Metal Sonic strode over to the base's mainframe, which was a large pillar of processors in the centre of the circular room, and placed a hand against its surface. He sent thousands of tiny nanobots cascading into the machine with his touch, all of which had the task of discovering where Eggman had gone. The nanobots were an interesting addition by Eggman; he had added them during Metal's capture, presumably for use once he had been reprogrammed. The fool had never anticipated that they would be used against him. The nanobots swiftly returned through Metal's waiting hand, reporting their collective findings.

It would seem that Eggman had learned of the events on Angel Island via a satellite, and realised that Knuckles would quickly warn Sonic and the others that Metal Sonic had returned and was heading for White Acropolis. He knew Sonic would head there immediately, and only his friends and a weakened Knuckles would be left to guard the Master Emerald. Thus, he had taken off in his Egg Carrier III for Angel Island in order to take the Master Emerald for himself.

Metal Sonic's face showed no emotion, it was incapable of doing so, but he inwardly seethed. He should have anticipated this. However, it was of no consequence. The nanobots reported that Eggman had only left an hour or so ago, meaning Metal could easily catch up to him. His new target designated, he once again activated his jets and burst through the hole he had made in the ceiling of the control room into the cold sky.

He was about to begin his pursuit when his proximity warning sensors went haywire. Turning to see the source of their distress, he found himself facing what appeared to be a large black cloud. As this cloud got closer, he realised it was not a cloud, but perhaps the largest barrage of missiles he'd ever seen. He raised his palm and unleashed his lightning blast once again, annihilating most of the incoming missiles, but a few were left intact and continued on their deadly path. Just as he was about to repeat his attack and finish them off, something slammed into his back and exploded. It would seem the frontal missiles were merely a diversion, and the real attack had come from behind. Before he had a chance to turn and destroy these new missiles, at least three more crashed into him, damaging his jet engine and sending him plummeting back to the base below.

He landed heavily in a large field of light snow surrounded by a circular steel wall, which almost seemed like some kind of medieval arena. He picked himself up and his diagnostic systems told him he wasn't badly damaged, and that luckily the nanobots would have his jet engine repaired within 15 minutes or less. He looked up to see what his assailant was, and found himself staring at what appeared to be a small battleship. It had a large circular main body and four protruding arms all stocked with a ridiculous amount of missile salvos and vulcan cannons.

If Metal Sonic could, he would have snarled. This machine was merely a distraction, an inconvenience placed before him to give Eggman a greater head start. He had to take it down quickly, even if his jet engine was damaged. The machine's salvos opened and what could be mistaken for another cloud of missiles emerged, all trained on Metal Sonic. His crimson eyes flashed dangerously, and he jumped backwards, a full twenty feet, and landed on the wall of the snowy arena. Completely disregarding the missiles, he began walking around the wall while raising his right arm to the machine. Focusing his chaos energy into his palm, Metal Sonic unleashed a devastating lighting strike directly into the underside of the floating craft. While the missiles impacted harmlessly around him, Metal unleashed another strike, and another, and another, until the craft's anti-gravity engine exploded and it began its agonising descent to the snowy arena.

Hopping back down to the arena to dodge the last of the missiles, Metal Sonic didn't flinch as the huge machine crashed into the snow with an Earth-shattering thoom. The shockwaves its impact caused flung snow everywhere, including over Metal Sonic's eyes, blocking his vision. He casually lifted a hand and wiped away the snow, only to find a huge robotic wolf bearing down on him. Fantastic. Yet another distraction.

The wolf seemed to have come from nowhere and ploughed into the much smaller blue robot with enough force to send him across the arena and into the remains of the huge, fallen craft. Metal Sonic calmly picked himself up and stared across at his large foe. Why would Eggman build such a creature? It was black and red in colour, heavily armoured and capable of attacking even him with great force, but it seemed to be acting like a normal wolf. It was pacing the opposite side of the snowy arena as though sizing up its prey, which Metal Sonic found impressive. Perhaps Eggman had improved his AI skills after learning his mistake with Metal. Although it was more likely that it was just a fluke.

A quick scan revealed the obvious weakness to be the beast's control antenna, located on the back of its neck. He could use the antenna to control the wolf and make it ram itself into the walls of the arena until it was incapacitated. However, that method of destroying it could take time, which was something Metal Sonic didn't have. A tiny bleeping noise told him his jet engine was now repaired, which would shorten this fight dramatically. The beast across from him almost seemed to be challenging him; like it wanted to test its strength against his own.

"As you wish," Metal Sonic said in answer to the unspoken challenge. He activated his jets and rose slightly from the wreckage of the craft, while the wolf began treading the snow, readying itself to charge. Both combatants eyed each other carefully, and then, on some non-existent signal, charged at each other simultaneously. The beast thundered towards its much smaller rival who met it head on and grabbed its huge armoured face with his clawed hands, and despite the size difference, matched the huge robot in strength. To the observer, it would appear to be a stalemate, but Metal Sonic knew differently.

Charging his jets to maximum, he easily overpowered the metallic beast and brought it to its knees. He then reared back and brought his fist crashing down on the beast's head with a thunderous clang. He had put a mighty dent in his opponent's armour, and while it was dazed he darted over its thrashing head and grabbed the end of its tail. With a tremendous amount of strength, he heaved the creature off the ground and spun in a complete circle before launching it into the remains of the downed craft. It crashed into its fallen comrade with a devastating crunch, and as it flailed helplessly in its attempt to get back up, Metal Sonic raised his palm once more.

He launched his most powerful lightning strike yet at the exposed belly of the beast, striking its marginally weaker armour and penetrating to the circuits inside. The circuitry ignited and exploded with an almighty boom, blowing up the craft it rested on with it and adding to the already huge explosion. Metal Sonic would have sneered if he could. As it was, he did nothing but blast through the rising plume of smoke into the skies beyond.

Eggman's distractions had proven useless against his might. No matter what the rotund Doctor threw at him, nothing would stop him from plunging his clawed hand into his creator's chest and ripping the still-beating life force from within him.

Nothing.


Sonic the Hedgehog was bearing down on his robotic doppelganger. He could feel it.

It hadn't taken him as long as he thought it would to cross the ocean; he had reached the Kingdom of Soleanna within an hour of leaving South Island. From there, it had only taken him a few minutes to reach the mountain pass Eggman's base was situated in. It had been in better shape than he'd expected. He knew Metal Sonic had to be there, but strangely the base was still mostly intact, with only a few buildings showing any damage. He was about to sprint down the side of the hill he stood upon and enter the base when a huge explosion erupted up from a field-like area near the edge of the complex.

Mere seconds after this blast, Sonic had glimpsed a blue streak blast through the growing plume of smoke. It was Metal Sonic. His gut had tightened momentarily, but he quickly reverted back into his usual cocky self and sprinted down the hill and through the base, aiming to catch up to Metal Sonic before he went out of reach. Within seconds of passing the base, Sonic found himself at the foot of a huge, white mountain.

He sprinted up the side of this mountain, almost running vertically at one point, and blasted onto the peak in a shower of snow. He stopped on the flat plateau to have a look at the snowy landscape before him, using his powerful eyes to search for any trace of Metal Sonic. There was nothing. He was about to continue over the other side of the mountain to continue his search when he felt a huge energy surge approaching him at speed. The ground he had been standing on mere nanoseconds ago was blasted into oblivion as Sonic leapt into the air and twirled elegantly to face his attacker. He wasn't surprised by who it was.

"Metal Sonic!" he exclaimed confidently. "Come to take me up on my offer, eh?"

"Your rematch means nothing to me," the robotic doppelganger replied, his deep voice resounding in Sonic's ears. "If I wanted to kill you, I would have done so while you ascended this mountain."

"Yeah? Think you can take me?"

"Hedgehog, you are nothing to me. For now, at least. I suggest you do nothing to change that."

"Come on you metal faker," Sonic chuckled, "You think just 'cos you've got that little cape and your fancy armour you can take me? Show me what you've got."

Metal Sonic looked at him, then out into the distance as though considering something, then back at Sonic again. The robot's chilling red eyes burned a hole in Sonic's skull, and despite being programmed to feel no emotion, the hedgehog could feel the hatred in them. Metal Sonic wanted to rip him limb from limb, but something seemed to be distracting him. Sonic put two and two together and figured out that Eggman must be escaping, and that Metal was worried he'd lose him. He had to make sure that happened. Eggman was definitely not a good person, but he wasn't bad enough that he deserved to die.

"Come on Metal," Sonic goaded, "Don't tell me the unstoppable killer robot is scared of little old me?"

Metal fixed him with a glare that could have driven some people to suicide, but he didn't answer.

"Aww... I'm flattered," Sonic teased, fluttering his eyelids and clasping his hands together. It always seemed to be his cockiness that led to him getting hurt. For little less than a second Sonic heard a jet engine activate before Metal Sonic slammed his fist into the hedgehog's ribs. Sonic was lifted off the ground by the blow and flew backwards before skidding along the snow and almost slipping over the edge of the plateau. He glanced over the edge briefly and saw the huge drop below him, which was all but obscured by low-lying clouds. He swiftly flipped up to his feet and faced Metal Sonic, who was walking ever so slowly towards him.

"So, got time for me after all?" Sonic said, grinning and rubbing a finger against his nose.

"For you, my loathsome rival, I can make time," Metal Sonic replied. Sonic barely had time to tense himself before Metal blasted forward and tried to drive a fist through his skull. Sonic, however, had moved to the side and shot around to the other edge of the plateau and was preparing his spin attack. Metal Sonic recovered quickly and turned to face him, just as he launched forward in a buzzsaw-like ball.

The Black Shield came up at the last possible second, and Sonic impacted it with enough force to blast back all the snow from the mountaintop. He bounced off into the air, dazed by the thunderous impact, and was unable to defend himself as Metal Sonic warped up to him and wrapped his claws around his neck. The robot slammed him downwards into the hard ground below, creating a small crater and sending cracks cascading across the rocky plateau.

Sonic groggily reached up a hand to pull himself out of the crater but was caught unexpectedly around the neck again and lifted high into the air. Metal Sonic, his rival in hand, ignited his engine once again and blasted over the edge of the mountain until his captive dangled over the massive drop to the valley floor.

This was it.


Oooh... suspense...

But anyway, I have a very vague idea for a plotline now, so we'll see how it goes from here.

Everything belonging to SEGA (i.e locations, characters, items etc) belong, obviously, to SEGA.

All other characters and locations belong to me, so please don't steal.