The Dance Of Blood

He had attacked them. And brought them all to the brink of oblivion. Amy could still remember Tails struggling for breath in her arms, his head a network of bruises and cuts. Knuckles was in her sight, his chest awash with blood, ribs cracked, bleeding his life away into the cold floor underneath him. And Sonic…. She couldn't even see him. She needn't though. The monster responsible for hurting all her friends was stood quite plainly in front of her, sensors and systems whirring into action under that dull shell, waiting for her to make a move. Amy could feel the raw rage, the primal urge to fight, to protect and to avenge, coursing into her limbs and muscles, contorting her sweat-lined brow into a grimace of ugly hatred. She fought to keep her calm and set her body into combat stance, knees bent, elbows folded and fists clenched. All of this angry energy would be the power she needed for another round of Ko-Bah. Her madness, harnessed and controlled, would fuel the Dance of Blood.

"Your move."

Silver had been waiting. One enormous fist buzzed through the air close to Amy's head, which she dodged with a dip of the shoulder. A follow-up forward roll took her underneath a second sweeping punch, and allowed her to deliver a slashing kick to the machine's calves. It rocked, but otherwise stood still as Amy, carried by her own momentum, righted herself and sent a roundhouse kick carving into Silver's skull. That was enough, at last, to give the titan some semblance of pain. Its right knee buckled under the weight of the blow, its balance servos gave an angry squawk, then finally howled in rage as Amy's other foot connected with the base of its neck, finally sending it off balance and spinning heavily into the dust. Amy allowed herself a moment to relax, cooling the venom that was rising through her body. She couldn't afford to tire too easily against something like this. That much became clear as Silver struggled patiently back to its feet, and stiffened both arms, ready to launch another onslaught.

The robot moved with a speed that even surprised Amy, sending one extendable arm rocketing out from the socket of its wrist and whistling over her shoulder. Behind her, she heard Porker's precious computer terminals and lab equipment break and shatter under the machine's punch. She needed to stay on her toes, or her bones would be doing the same thing. She lunged forward with another scissor-kick that Silver caught on the upper part of his arm, his reflexes kicking into a higher gear than she had expected. The duel blasted swiftly into a stalemate, with Amy having to put in just as much work dodging Silver's own blows as delivering them. And even when he didn't block them, he took a pounding well. His metallic shell withstood her assaults better than Sonic's organic tissue could. Silver swatted another strike aside and threw his fist at Amy's shoulder, finally burying a blow that sent her staggering backwards, her upper arm already numbing, into a nearby table. This fight mustn't get on top of her….

From somewhere amidst the carnage, a gloved pair of hands claws past the wreckage around them, bleary eyes adjusting to take in the hazy, tumbled vision of destruction around them. He can feel his energy drained to the point of non-existence. He can smell the nostril-burning odour of flaming metal and frying wires, mingling with a soft hint of flesh. To one side, a broken and bleeding heap signals the presence of Knuckles, fading into unconsciousness, one hand still clasped over a freshly-torn wound on his chest. And in front of him….

Another driving fist to the face still didn't seem to be fazing Silver. He staggered briefly, then shook his sensors angrily back into form and retaliated with a sweeping blow that Amy ducked clumsily. Trying to make a dent in this giant's armour was tiring her, but she had yet to pull out her best tricks. More kicks bounced against Silver's toughened hide, more strikes smashed against his head and chest. Amy could feel the sweat beading over her eyes, her anger rising, the poisonous glare in her face growing brighter as she pounded her rival. How dare he, how dare he…

These were the thoughts that informed her, moments later, that she had made a mistake. Silver blocked a sloppy elbow strike, then wound both enormous hands around her collar, the cold steel crushingly strong against Amy's shoulders. Then, in a move that even she hadn't expected from the robot, Silver brought his enormous skull forward in a sharp thrust, his forehead catching Amy in a blistering shockwave across her face. The suddenness, the roughness of the strike was enough by itself, along with its almighty force, to put Amy out of action. Her muscles relaxed, her body went limp, her head, bleeding from the nose, lolled uselessly in Silver's hands. Her vital signs flared for a moment on Silver's readouts, and then dulled into inactivity. Far from fatal, but enough to put her out of the fight. Three down.

Seconds later, an attempted revision at two down failed miserably as a furious ball of spinning azure adrenalin cannoned into his sculpted face. The force of a head on, anger-charged Super Spin Attack was enough to catch Silver by the neck and hoist him off his feet, plunging like an anvil through the sheet of window glass behind him and plummeting over the drop. Amid the showering fragments of glass, Sonic landed at a crouch, re-composing himself, his bruised face twisted into a savage snarl. The fighter in him had finally surged back to then surface. If anything, getting briefly knocked out had been nothing more than a good opportunity to lie down. He spun nimbly on the spot to see Amy, staring dazedly through a fresh curtain of blood streaming down her face, and helped her to her knees. She swayed slightly under his grip, and focussed her eyes on him.

"Sss… Sonic… ooh…"

"Ease up Amy. I'll take care of Silver, that Spin Attack won't have been enough to floor him just yet. You see to Knuckles and Tails, I think that creep knocked the stuffing out of them in a big way. I'll be done in two seconds, just leave it to me…."

Sonic was at the window the following instant, scoping into the Emerald Hill Zone spread out underneath him for signs of his enemy. Amy struggled to her knees, still mopping blood from her muzzle, and tried to cough out a protest. However, she was jolted mid-sentence by a shrill yell from the other side of the room. Tails was bent over Knuckles' body, an open first-aid kit spilling its contents onto the floor beside him, anti-burn pads in both his hands.

"Amy, come quick! He's in bad shape, we need to get him into recovery."

Amy could only nod before stumbling dazedly towards her new task. She would have to deal with Sonic and Silver once her double-vision subsided.

Silver had picked himself to his feet quicker than Sonic had anticipated. Hauling his gigantic body into an upright position amid the stunned, horrified gazes of the zone's residents. Mothers clutched small children to their chests, grown men quaked from the soles of their feet, as Silver clunked unsteadily back into a standing posture, shaking its massive shoulder free of debris and sprinkling the grass around it with broken glass. Mobius wilted under the machine's calculating, indomitable emerald stare. It wasn't down yet, and as long as there was power running to its massive engines, it was going to keep up its mission. Which meant that whoever had knocked it out of the window must be the next one to die. Silver's tender sensors picked out the buzz of tearing air, the rush of gathering wind somewhere overhead, and consciously inclined its neck.

Looming nearly 20 feet overhead, gaining height from a spectacular launch out of the shattered window frame, Sonic was now visible only as a shrieking ball of blue quills and rage, gathering momentum as it plunged through the yielding air. A Super Spin Attack, aimed specifically to cleave like a thunderbolt through Silver's skull, bring it down at last in one almighty swoop. A blaze of energy, a response to Silver's own alarmed signal, rushed from one shoulder, spread like molten iron down an upper arm, down to fingertips…. In a heartbeat, Silver's palm was raised over its head, turned to a sky that was now filled with the screaming blue fury of Sonic as he writhed, halted in his tracks and still spinning, against the robot's impossible block. Sparks showered from the point of impact as Sonic drove relentlessly against the unbreaking surface, willing Silver's arm to give, for him to plummet onwards towards that exposed face and smash through it….

The last thing Sonic realized was that the surface of Silver's hand was getting unusually hot. Then, without warning, his vision, his whole body, was engulfed. Dirty golden fire roared out from the energy blasters in the creature's hands, flared over Sonic's skin, shot through to his bones, sent waves of burning wind cascading like a dragon's vomit over his body. For the briefest of moments, he tossed like a doll in that agonising blast, buffeted into somersaults by the angry wind. And then the ground was hard, pounding against his back, forcing his limbs into paralysis, his body into shutdown. All he could still do was roll his eyes, fighting off the noiseless advance of awful light, as Silver clunked into view and levelled one open palm at his face, eyes cold as stone, set to finish his mission at last.

Something tiny, something like the sting of a phantom bee, exploded somewhere in the piles upon piles of data and memory files that made up the inside of Silver's head. Like a smouldering trail of gunpowder leading to a barrel of dynamite, randomized images, freshly triggered, recently implanted, flashed across its vision. New, non-existent, hitherto unexplored memories, memories that shouldn't even be in its head….

The reality before him wavered briefly. There was Sonic, teetering on unconsciousness, nursing burns, fighting for breath, one second. And the next, there was Sonic, again. Or Silver itself. The creature was a hybrid, some way between the two. It was metallic, it shared the cold, furious glare of Silver's eyes, the calculated malevolence of his tread. But it had Sonic's physique, his sleek build, his elegantly sculpted, streamlined body that looked like it had been built from the ground up to provide speed. The two beings flashed in and out of sight, with Silver stuck, its mind straining to keep track, somewhere in the middle. This other monster, this other metal creature created in its shape, intrigued it, as much as one can be intrigued with no obvious emotions. What exactly was it seeing here?

Sonic allowed one bleary eye to focus on his scene, desperately trying to asses his situation. Silver had halted where it stood, arm still frozen in front of its body, palm open and ready to fire, but its shining eyes were growing somehow duller, as if preoccupied with some other task. Perhaps some minor mechanical failure, a cut wire or a broken motor, had stalled the giant for the time being. His limbs felt numb, his body crashed, unable to drive enough energy from his muscles to even incline his head. But if he could only recover, if he could only will his own incredible stamina back into action, he might still be able to turn this fight….

Blasphemous, enraging names, specifications, crawled up out of the dark residue festering at the floor of Silver's constructed mind. New thoughts, new links, new commands and new information, fresh and yet somehow familiar, as if shaken back to life by some guiding hand. Now new words were joining that flashing picture before it. Specifications flashed past of steel plating, specially lightened for aerodynamic purpose and weight reduction, a compact thermal energy motor that also drove a 500 degree Celsius adjustable laser cannon and gave nearly enough thrust from the rear-mounted turbine engine to accelerate to nearly 200mph in under a second from a standing start, and on to a top speed of nearly 750mph. And a name for it all, the jewel in this usurping upstart's crown… Silver idly clenched one remaining fist as a new purpose, born from out of the caverns of his repaired thoughts, engulfed it. Engulfed him.

No other must be allowed to intrude, to foul this blessedly murderous purpose. This new being, this other demon that had stolen Silver's glory, must pay. Must be destroyed.

Even Sonic had not expected Silver to run. But run it apparently did. Or at least, through his one useable eye, Silver appeared to curl readily into that savage, spike-coated wheel formation that he vaguely remembered from the Death Egg, and then tear off through the rows of suburban houses and into the distance, flinging a wake of dust and mud onto Sonic's prone body as it surged onwards. Sonic lay where the beast had left him, broken, winded, staring through one eye at the blinding blue sky all around him and wondering how long it would be before he could move again. A while, if the ache in his legs was anything to go by. As the grass brushed against the underside of his head, he turned to follow the sound of anxious, inching footsteps. A pair of unlaced trainers inched into view, and the hem of a scuffed and torn trouser leg.

"Think you can move Sonic?"

Even as he tried, all Sonic seemed able to move, with considerable effort, was his left arm. And even then, it was only to feel the growing, painful bruise growing up over one tightly clenched eye. He forced out a groan that Amy correctly took to be a 'no.'

"Well, I can carry you as far as the medical bay anyway. Tails and Porker should be able to look after you there. Then when you're on your feet," she added, hoisting Sonic bodily into her chest, "then we'd better start looking for that oversized coke can, and fast. I have a feeling that he's suddenly got more on his agenda than Tails bargained for…"