Pristine Hill Zone

On the outskirts of a sprawling metropolis, there lay an untouched field of green majesty that had yet to be filled in by the massive concrete and urban sprawl that had become the fate of so many other natural wonders. It was in this last bastion of nature's bliss that a blur of living motion cut across the animals both frolicking and busying themselves with their survivalist tasks per their current persuasion.

That living blur had a name. That name, of course, being the one and only Sonic the Hedgehog.

Whew! Takes forever for a guy to find someplace that's not either paved over or under construction, nowadays. It's a shame, really.

At least he could take solace in one fact: if he was alive, a certain someone, being his longtime nemesis Dr. Eggman, would never be getting his hands on something this beautiful and warping it into some monstrosity with his face on it. As far as Sonic was concerned, far too many things in this world high that creep's ugly mug all over them. Funnily enough, he didn't hate the Doctor as much as he should, really. For one thing, the closest he ever came to winning was stealing a carpet from him and his friends during their first Extreme Gear romp. Still, there were a few times we could be legitimately threatening, like the time when he unleashed Dark Gaia onto the world, turning them into that gravelly voiced wolf thing by blowing up the planet and later outright screaming murders at him while falling toward the center of the earth in a giant gun toting death weapon…

No one could ever say that Sonic or his friends lived a boring life. Except maybe Knuckles, for the most part. He never understood how his red enemy-turned-friend was cool with sitting on his island, staring at a growing green rock for the rest of eternity. As for Tails, where would he even begin…

His scattered thoughts were interrupted by a shaking of the ground and great plumes of smoke rising out from the expanse in the distance.

"Gee whiz, I wonder what that could be?" Sonic questioned, a hybrid of gratitude and sarcasm dripping from his voice. "Well, better go investigate." And off into the action he went.

Angel Island, Holy Summit

Knuckles the Echidna was never really a "people person". Unfortunately, he often was forced to deal with people. He had a certain scientist—and a certain hedgehog—to thank for that. Most of the time, when Eggman attacked, he stayed far away from it if he could help it. Of course, there were times where he had to act (aliens taking over the world wouldn't exactly be conducive to his guardian duties, for example), but he would be content if he was alone guarding the Master Emerald for the rest of his days.

…at least, that's what he used to think.

He headed out from behind the Master Emerald's pedestal, he looked down from his relatively high vantage point (he semi-frequently moved the large gem to throw off certain pinkish-clad winged seductive female interlopers), figuring he would check on a certain two-tailed friend of his.

As much as he wouldn't easily admit such aloud, he had grown a sort of fondness for him ever since he set up shop on the islands. Not that he was okay with it from the get-go, as he needed constant nagging from Sonic and a promise from Tails to keep his distance from the M.E. (as he was more prone to calling it now), which meant that the fox couldn't experiment on it either.

Basically, as long Tails respected his boundaries, Knuckles was happy.

"Tails!" He waved once he was in earshot. The fox didn't seem to hear him. He was outside his lab, staring at one of his gadgets, dubbed the "Miles Electric". He acknowledged him with a glance and a distracted "Hey".

"What's up?" Knuckles questioned, now slightly worried. He wasn't usually this squirrely… at least from what he knew.

Tails looked up again, this time recognizing the echidna. He seemed to debate his next words before speaking. "Come here. You need to see this."

The image showed an army of Eggman's robots headed for…

"…Angel Island!" Knuckles exclaimed. He didn't have to guess when they were coming either. Explosions started to rain down the island as Eggman's typical Egg Pawns started raining down on the island, wreaking havoc. With an exchange of looks, the two headed off to battle. While Knuckles himself got to work scrapping the invaders with his fists, Tails, after spin dashing, tail-whipping, and generally fighting his way to the plane, used its combat mode to add additional support (making sure not to hit his friend, of course). What they both noticed after a while was that while there were a ton of robots here, there was no Eggman to speak of. The mustached scientist hadn't shown his face.

"Knuckles!" Tails called amidst the frenzy.

"What?!" A quick backhand to a nearby robot silenced it while the older of the two was speaking.

"Have you seen a certain 'Baldy McNosehair?'"

"Who?"

"Eggman! He would have usually been here to gloat by now. He'd never be able to resist the opportunity."

"Good point," the 16-year-old looked around for any stragglers. Unfortunately for him, one was looming right above the very jewel was responsible to guard. Sensing the M.E. being stolen from right underneath him, he rushed over to see a long-forgotten face as the thief.

A blue, mechanical hedgehog glared back at them through its optical sensor that lacked any eyelike physical traits, hoisting up the Master Emerald as a trophy of sorts. Tails soon caught sight of what Knuckles had been looking at. It took him a few seconds to remember who this was.

"Mecha… Sonic?"

...

Sorry for being late to the party on this one, but welcome to "Sonic's Metal Madness"! I had originally intended for this one to be a Wattpad exclusive, but eventually decided against it. The summary pretty much says the rest. Enjoy!