Chapter 3: Robotic whoopass and cold leftovers.

"20 rings should be enough for today." Sonic pondered to himself and picked the ring out of the chest and slipped each of them onto his arms. Sonic placed the ring chest back in the small hole he had dug for it, and poured dirt over the chest. "There we go." Sonic smiled as he looked down over his arms and noticed that the rings had disappeared as he expected. "Time to go then." Sonic smiled as he crawled out of the small cave and out onto the green hill again. "A fine day for running." He sighed happily as he took off at blazing speeds.

It was his passion, his love, his life. Flying across the ground at a speed no other being could hope to reach. It was what he did, what made him unique, what kept him from being just another cog in the machine. Sonic laughed and yelled loudly in glee as he raced across the lands, he liked these green hills they were relatively peaceful and reminded him a bit of back home, but he would soon have to leave, the kings men were coming to get him and if the shoe seller had been just half true in his description then this red knight was not someone Sonic had any interest in meeting face to face.

Sonic looked down while he ran, observing his new shoes absorbing much of the impacts from his quick steps. "Rings well spent." He chuckled and looked up just in time to see the tree. Sonic didn't even have time to slow down before he slammed straight into the at such a high speed that the tree almost tipped over by the force of the impact. Sonic himself was sent flying by the impact and slamming into the ground so hard that it created a small crater. "I should have brought more rings." He murmured as he slowly got to his feet. "That is one stubborn tree." He mumbled as he went over to the tree again taking a moment to look at the dent he had managed to make in it. "Wonder how fast I was going." Sonic had barely muttered the words before the wind turned and carried the unmistakable noise of a roaring engine behind the nearby hill.

Sonic's mind raced, an engine meant that this had something to do with Eggman, he was the only one who had those driving car things. It could be a ring transport, Eggman had more rings than even the king and he would hardly notice if he lost a few hundred, besides, Sonic really needed some new rings if he didn't want to go back to his small hideout, and the less he ran in and out of there the better. "I'll just check it out." Sonic agreed with himself and ran up the hill at a nice gentle pace, barely 30 miles per hour. "Jackpot." Sonic smiled deviously as he stopped the car. It was a small car with no roof and it was carrying a large chest with a heavy padlock on, definitely a ring transport, and what was even better was the fact that there were only 2 guard robots, one of them steering the thing and another limping behind the car, they had clearly seen some combat and now Sonic could finish things off easy. Sonic waited as the car rolled past his hiding spot on the hill, waiting for the limping guard to be in the right angle. Sonic waited patiently and then out of a bush the blue blur flashed towards the limping robot, launching himself into the air Sonic slammed feet first against the robot throwing it off its feet and smashing it into the hard dirt road. Sonic planted a foot through the power generator on the back of the robot to put it permanently out of commission.

"What the hell!" A mechanical voice roared as the robot driving the car leapt out of it and stormed towards Sonic. The robot towered over Sonic as its heavy steps shook the pebbles on the dusty road, Sonic bend his knees as the robot towered over him, and just as it brought its arms together to crush the hedgehog he leapt. A leap with the force of his super developed legs could normally carry him over 10 meters into the air, but Sonic wasn't looking for a quick escape, with a twist of his feet in the last second he sent his body into a violent forward spin. The spin was so violent and fast that in just half a meter of lift Sonic had spun half a round and his razor sharp spikes cut into the metal robot with ease. With a terrible screeching sound Sonics spikes carved their way up the robot and the great friction even kept him cutting through the robots head and he didn't stop till the spikes hit the fuel cells that exploded as they were ruptured. The explosion sent Sonic flying 10 feet along the road and made a perfect landing on his feet.

"Now that is how we do things where I come from." Sonic laughed as he looked back at the remains of his slain enemies. "Now for the spoils of war." Sonic chuckled and climbed onto the truck and with a mighty kick knocked off the padlock. "Now let's see what we have here." Sonic smiled as he pushed open the chest.

---

The red Echidna was walking along the dusty road, the tire tracks he was following were fresh here, it couldn't have been more than 2 hours since he had run into the transport, 20 robots had put up a fight against the red knight and only 2 had escaped alive, and they had taken the truck with them. He was pretty sure he had given one of the robots a limp by smashing the hydraulics system, but he couldn't be sure, all he knew was that getting a hold of an Eggman ring transport would not only give new funding to the local war effort, it would also be a great way to lure in the elusive 'blue blur'. Knuckles walked along the road and as he rounded a hill the truck finally came into view, the echidna quickly raised his fists and stormed towards the truck, only to realize that it lay abandoned.

Knuckles slowly moved closer, keeping an eye out for potential ambushes as he approached the truck. Behind the truck he spotted the immobile shapes of broken robots, one of them still seemed fairly intact, but the other was shredded like a tin can on a chopping block.

"What on earth could do this?" Knuckles mumbled to himself as he felt along the rough edges of the cut. A quick check of the robots revealed that both pilots were dead, one had been cut to pieces and the other had apparently smashed his head into the controls when the robot was knocked to the ground. Knuckles checked the radio's of the robot suits, the radio chatter had revealed important details about troop positioning before, but he got nothing but static off these two.

Confident that no ambush was lying in wait Knuckles climbed onto the truck and inspected the chest. It had clearly been opened by someone and the heavy padlock had been kicked off, knuckles opened the chest and looked inside, multiple straps and chains were decorating the inside of the chest, but they all seemed to have been ripped or bashed open.

"I don't think there were rings in this chest." Knuckles muttered to himself.