A/N Ok next chapter hope that last one was a nice character chapter. I was hoping a lot of talking would help things out. For stuff later. I'm pretty sure you can tell what I'm doing with Scourge and Nicole by now and I hope nobody thinks it's dumb or anything I just needed to give Scourge someone to interact with work with and bond with. Anyway here's the next chapter, that hard week of work I mentioned last chapter I got through the last odd shift before getting back to normal times and my whole body is sore. I hate that spot of the plant, so bad for my back. Also sorry about that kinda tease of Tails about to sing, I wanted to have Silver and Blaze sing but I just couldn't find a song and felt that you guys might not appreciate songs anyway. So I got over it and get with what I wanted to do, sorry if someone didn't like that. Enough whining, let's see what happens!
Like Rosemary had predicted she was done in the middle of the night and let everyone sleep. Instead of heading over immediately Tails decided to hold back a few days to allow Scourge to heal. He must have been hurt a lot in the past or was naturally able to heal quickly was pretty much back to one hundred percent in a couple days.
Everyone noticed Scourge was much happier with Nicole around, or atleast just decided to accept she wanted to be by his side and help him. After the back rub he was generally fine though and was self-sufficient.
Besides that Tails decided to use the waiting time to help with their issue of constantly being surrounded. It wasn't as bad as before but there were blips all over his radar, he feared that wasn't all of them. Ever since they encountered the stealth bots he'd been worried of other eggbots with enhanced abilities, like anti radar.
To combat this Tails had everyone go out and either destroy the eggbots or lure them away and make them think the base was a mile or two away. By the time Scourge had healed the radar screen was nearly completely empty. He was happy for that. They now had a lot of breathing for for now.
With Scourge healed that also meant it was time to investigate the coordinates.
Everyone suited up with their equipment and headed out.
The coordinates were about half a day away to the south east.
What they found was, nothing, just flat ground in all directions.
"This can't be right" Silver looked confused.
"It has to be, why would these numbers send us to the middle of nowhere" Tails mumbled to himself. He went to the exact spot the coordinates were in the flat expanse and kicked around the dirt and ash thinking maybe it was an entrance under ground.
Around him everyone took the cue and dug around as well but so far found nothing.
Scourge began to complain "Hey listen I could be resting instead of kicking dirt"
Silver kicked at the dirt sighing totally bored "I hate to admit it but this seems pointle-" his foot hit something solid made of metal causing a higher pitch 'ping' noise fill the air.
The noise made everyone turn to face the white hedgehog and where his foot was.
"Good job Sil-" before Tails could congratulate him the ground under Silver erupted up.
It caused Silver to be launched into the air several feet and land on his back with a loud "oof" He landed near Blaze who kneeled down to help him up. As he was midway sitting up everyone looked to what caused it.
To their horror it was a large eggbot that he erupted from the ground. It looked at all the Mobins around it and made a small beep.
The ground rumbled making them all stumbled around trying to catch their balance. All around them more eggbots of different sizes all crawled from the earth.
It was then they all realized what was happening, it was a trap, they had walked right into it. It was now time to fight for their lives.
Silver got to his feet and everyone got ready but the first eggbot to erupt from the ground suddenly spoke, with Eggmans voice.
"Hello rat pack. It seems you took the bait, but lucky for you I my offer still stand. Hand over the emerald and you will escape with your lives" he laughed knowing he by the metaphorical throat.
"Never!" Shadow yelled.
"What? He's got us surrounded!" Scourge argued. No one surprised by him.
Tails looked to the green hedgehog "We can't let him have it, with it he'll be unstoppable"
"Ya, but we'll still be alive!" He growled feeling it was obvious.
"The answer will always be no" Shadow growled.
Scourge was about to say something but Nicoles eyes caught his own. He sighed and knew he had no choice but to follow them and got ready to fight.
Eggmans voice sounded annoyed but at the same time happy at the same time "Very well then, destroy them my minions!"
All guns trained on them and prepared to fire and kill them all.
Wise eyed they stared into their demise and the first shot fired…. Then the rest.
All flinched at the sound but nothing came. Tails opened his eyes to see a green glow. He looked up and saw a green bubble around them.
"Silver!" he turned to see the white hedgehogs hands outstretched to the left and right, hands glowing intensely.
"Alright Blaze, do it" he grunted to the cat who nodded.
"I really hope I can keep control" she mumbled hands igniting with fire "Get close to us" she ordered.
Her teammates took her advice and walked to her as she raised both hands straight up and fire began to shoot to the top of the psychic dome. Once it reach the top it spread outwards travelling along the walls slowly shaping into the domes shape.
Her friends all stood in silence and awe, the display was beautiful and powerful at the same time.
Once the flame reached the floor Blaze grunted trying to keep control. The fire began to swirl around the dome somewhat like a tornado and gaining speed. The heat was rising inside, but whatever she had planned wouldn't take too long.
The fire sped up to extreme level and Blaze grunted out "Now Silver!"
Silver stopped channeling the dome as Blaze outstretched her hands swiftly to the left and right causing the fire to explode outwards. The fire exploded in all directions blasting away the eggbots near them either frying them or heavily damaging them.
As soon as the fire blasted outwards everyone get to work and ran to fight.
Scourge dashed to Nicole grabbing her PDA to keep her safe then rocketed off.
Killing off those first few eggbots only caused more to erupt from the ground. With every bot destroyed two seemed to arise.
With his stealth Tails avoided most of the eggbots optics and quickly went to work spending the two charges of his electro gauntlets and kept moving to charge them. During the charge times he helped anyone he could either by being a distraction or taking out any robot that had a chance to hurt his friends.
Fiona kept on the movie her agility was her best ally in this fight. Being constantly on the move ruined her accuracy so she was able to make precision shots like normal. She still managed to be effective and put in work. While running an eggbot erupted from the ground in her path so she jumped and vaulted off the head. Flipping upside down she shot a clean shot through the back of the head and landed gracefully and kept on the move.
Shadows speed kept him pretty much safe, of everyone he was doing the most work. Not that he was paying attention to the body count. All he needed to know was his friends were still alive and if they got in trouble he was enough to respond. His chaos powers kept him safe and made him twice as deadly. Sending chaos spears into enemies was easy and effective, but they just kept coming.
Scourge, like Shadow kept fast and aggressive, smashing whatever he could with his natural abilities and using his shotgun when needed. He may not have noticed but once or twice an eggbot had him trained in their sight and the small laser on Nicoles PDA would fire and knock out an optic and save him.
Blaze stayed close to Silver, the hit he took before the fight even began concerned her. Together with their combined powers they easily handled any enemy that came. Silver saw Blaze fail to use her powers and would always be there to help her with either a shield or taking out her target for her. They worked together so well when Blaze failed to use her powers as intended she didn't even stop knowing Silver had her back.
The team actually began to weaken down their numbers as it finally looked like they'd finally revealed all the eggbots that were hidden.
Silver cheered noticing this and sent two eggbots together smashing them together.
Tails finished off the last eggbot with a electro gauntlet and panted. He looked around seeing everyone had made it, in fact nobody had been hurt, besides Silvers minor injuries.
"Good job guys…. I'm sorry I-"
The sounds of jets filled their air. A loud swoosh and finally a tons of dust exploding in all directions blinding the team while it settled.
"What the hell was that?" Scourge yelled.
Nicole materialized in response next to him, her form unaffected by dust in her eyes so she looked out trying to figure out what did it.
Before she could learn what happened the sound of a grunt was heard and a yelp followed by the sound of someone sliding along the ground.
"Silver!" it sounded like Blaze.
The dust finally cleared enough to see and everyone finally saw what kicked up the dust storm.
"It's a metal Sonic!" Tails yelled instantly recognizing it. Seems it had some upgrades since last time he saw it.
Instead of the small frail arms and legs and head that resembled Sonic when he was younger it matches the older Sonic much better. It had further swepted back quills, and taller more mature physique. It also still kept those large claws. It still had that engine in the back and turbine in the front, the shoes looked like Sonics actual shoes but the heel had extra components, he guessed more jets.
More importantly was what the Metal Sonic was doing. He held Silver by the throat easily holding him up off his feet. The white hedgehog was choking trying to use his powers but somehow it wasn't affecting the robot. In fact he when he tried he would scream in pain.
"Get the hell away from him!" Growled Shadow taking a threatening step forward and readying a chaos spear.
The metal Sonic looked to him and only chuckled squeezing tighter on the young males neck.
"No stop!" Blaze's hands lit up with flame ready to torch it.
It's response was to squeeze more.
Blaze was about to fire in retaliation but the robot put Silver in between it and Blaze forcing her to stop.
The sound of laughter filled their ears, it came from the Metal Sonic who loosened his grip on Silvers throat but then pushed it's other hands claws into the hedgehogs chest, non were fatal or too deep but it caused Silver to cry out in pain.
Shadow dashed forward but the robot was to fast and using Silver smashed Shadow away, the dark hedgehog slid to a stop as the metal sonic threw Silver to the ground and stomped on his chest further angering everyone.
It just laughed at them all further taunting them all.
Tails appeared behind it from his cloak and grabbed its back shock gauntlet active. It discharged but nothing happened.
"What?" It seemed it was immune to being overloaded.
It's head slowly turned to face Tails before back handing him away and burst after him. Before he could even hit the ground the robot caught him by the collar and prepared to further its assault had it not been for a bullet hitting it in the back. It left a small dent but no real damage.
"Let him go!' Fiona yelled.
When it didn't and Tails' struggles were in vain Fiona fired a few more shots.
The robot threw Tails forward turned raised its palm creating a green disc shield that stopped the bullets.
Tails got to his feet and was about to pounce at the turned sonic but it burst forward and the force of its engines sent Tails flying back to the ground.
The Metal Sonic nearly reached Fiona who flinched, but Blaze was quick enough to send a large fireball in it's way. They collided sending the metal sonic off track and barely missing the fox as it flew by.
It looked unhurt by her attack; it's armor looking undamaged.
It was about then they all heard another larger engine in the distance approaching. As Tails got up again he looked to the horizon and saw a massive airship approaching, the doors slowly opening revealing hundreds of eggbots ready to drop.
"We need to get out of this fast" Tails warned.
The Metal Sonic recovered flying towards Tails planning to shut him up. Sadly for the metal sonic Shadow was just as fast and teleported in front of him and kicked him away sending the robot careening off to the side again.
"Silver!? Are you able enough to make a shield again?" the dark hedgehog looked to his younger friend who was just starting to get up. How he managed to even stay conscious after that beating was a mystery. His hardheaded thinking and inexperience seemed to help them today.
"I…. I…. maybe?" he groaned trying to stand Blaze helping him to his feet.
"It's the best I can think of, we-" he was interrupted again by the metal sonic which successfully caught him off guard flying in and head butting him right in the gut.
The dark hedgehog grunted in pain as the robot sent him along.
"You're gonna regret that" Shadow coughed.
Charging up a chaos empowered punch to smash through it's head he swung down likea hammer. But the sonic stopped, but Shadow kept going. He skid along the ground kicking up dirt and ripping out some of his fur from the extreme speed.
"Dammit" he hissed getting up once he came to a stop.
His reflexes were fast enough to dodge the incoming robot, he spun around and threw a chaos bolt then ran back to his companions feeling fire in his chest, a feeling he hadn't used in a long time.
He could already hear the engine of the metal sonic on his tail so used his ear bud to warn his friends.
"Get all together and Silver get that shield ready, if not then I will kill you all" it was desperate but they had no more time left. With Silver there was no guarantee he could hold up his powers for much longer, meaning if they ran they'd leave him and Fiona in the dust. He wasn't ready to make that hard descision for the group and he doubted Tails was any more qualified than him.
Before anyone could object to his seemingly dangerous suggestion he cut the radio and hoped to chaos that Silver had the strength to make the shield.
He saw the ship in the distance now dropping tons of eggbots, and his friends fighting them off. He was sure they'd be overrun, especially with this new and improved metal Sonic in the fray. They had no chance in a straight up fight with Silver down.
He was glad to see they were grouping up but now were the precious seconds where either he'd make it in time or an eggbot would score a hit. No time to think about such disastrous outcomes, only think about your anger. He let his blood boil with rage he'd not felt in a long time and his body shimmered with red power. The chaos emerald in his pocket glowed and intensified, he could almost feel the raw chaos energy inside.
"SILVER NOW!"
Sliding to a stop Shadow floated in the air pulsing with negative chaos energy. All the energy attracted the attention of the eggbots which shot at him. Their bullets either bounced off or disintegrated against his chaos shield.
Tails gasped knowing exactly what he was doing "Got to do it now Silver!"
The white hedgehog groaned, his body protesting every movement, but he knew whatever was happening he had to be able to save them. His hands glowed and flickered until as Shadow started breathing out the words he managed to open up a shield to save them, it was barely big enough to hold them.
The metal Sonic closed in but saw what was happening too and suddenly turned around entirely to try and escape, it more than likely would with its speed.
"CHAOS BLAST!"
Shadow erupted with his overflowing energy, the wave spreading and safely passing over Silvers shield, it flickered an ended Justas it passed and Silver passed out. The wave continued to the eggbots disintegrating them with ease. Continuing even further it rammed into the side of the drop ship and slowly but surely sent what hadn't been fully disintegrated to the ground and crashed.
It kicked up so much dust but luckily had been far enough away to not kick it up near the group.
Shadow panted heavily and looked to where his friends had been, he was thankful to see them still alive, but frowned seeing the unconscious Silver.
Tails quickly took charge while everyone still looked in shock. Shadow held so much power at his finger tips, the only thing holding him back from being a unstoppable mobile mini nuke was that he got tired so quickly from it.
"Scourge help me lifted Silver we need to get out of here now" Tails commanded, Scourge normally would have argued or atleast made a comment but the show of power and situation kept him quiet as he helped the fox.
"Now come on, before that Metal Sonic returns" he flicked his head in the general direction of the base and the group headed off. In the distance Shadows chaos wave was finally dissipating meaning they didn't have much time to get away from this place.
The team started to run as fast as they could with the unconscious Silver. Blaze kept a careful eye out for the Metal Sonic, her keen cat eyes giving her the best vision. Although it was clearly obvious she wished to watch over Silver.
Fiona on the other hand kept looking to Tails for any sign of pain, the robot had attacked him after Silver. Even if it was just a backhand. She could see his cheek hand opened up with some blood in his fur but it already closed. She also noticed the backdraft from its engines had singed his armor a little.
Shadow was trying not to look tired but he was failing. His normal stride was now ever so slightly hindered and his feet dragged once in awhile. He was also trying to hide some heavy breathing.
So far the sonic hadn't come back. They'd all agreed that it must be a massive stroke of luck. So their guards slowly dropped the closer they got back home.
"I am sorry for using such extreme measures" Shadow said making sure to breath before and after ending to better hide his panting.
"No, it was the only option left I can see in retrospect" the two tailed fox was just happy they were all out of there and able to fight another day, well atleast everyone but Silver.
"I could have killed you all"
Blaze spoke up "No, you trusted Silver to pull through and he did, now we need to pull through for him" concern for the hedgehog heavily apparent.
"If we get him back, Mom can patch him up, none of those stab wounds are fatal" Tails took a quick moment to observe the damage. But saying he was stabbed made Blaze gulp.
The rest of the run back home was fairly quiet besides the occasional grunt. Like they hoped the metal sonic had seemed to retreat.
They got back inside and blood from Silvers wounds now covered his chest. They'd been slow bleeds but the time it took to get back soaked his fur.
"Mom, Silver is in bad shape, got to help him out" Tails called, he and Scourge brought Silver into the infirmary and placed him on the medical table while the arms powered up and began work.
Outside Fiona looked to Blaze who was trying hard not to look worried. But her swishing tail ruined tail.
"He's gonna be ok, I'm sure Rosemary will get him back on his feet" Fiona smiled comfortingly.
"Thank you, I'm glad we all made it out alive" Blaze seemingly forced a smile.
"I'm sure Shadow is just as glad for that too" she looked to the dark hedgehog who was a little bit away. He hid it much better but he was worried for his younger friend.
Blaze just nodded getting her composure back as Scourge and Tails came out.
"Alright Mom says he'll be fine, just needs to patch him up and give him time" Tails let a relieved smile spread across his face.
Whatever composure Blaze had regained disappeared as she sighed in relief.
Tails and Fiona smiled as she did this and Shadow finally walked away hearing that news confident in Rosemary's abilities.
Scourge made his way to the control room to plug Nicole back in. As he lifted the small device her head materialized "Are you alright?" she asked.
"Ya I didn't get hurt this time" he plugged in the device and walked outside finding Nicole already waiting.
"We need to be ready next time we meet that thing"
"Ya" Scourge grunted out.
"I know you'll be able to fight him, you can match his speed" she smiled encouragingly.
"Even though I like what you're saying I have to admit I can't fly"
The lynx had to agree with that obvious observation "Then we'll have to force him down"
"Bet pipsqueak will figure something out for that problem" Scourge huffed.
"I'm sure he will" she smiled back.
Taill took a moment to speak with Shadow, he noticed a few things about the metal sonic and he was sure Shadow noticed them too.
"So that robot, notice anything special about it?"
The dark hedgehog nodded "I did"
He began listing "Bullet proof from atleast small arms fire, shield palms and selective targeting meaning it has a portion of free will"
The fox nodded "I also noticed self preservation, it quickly left once you started charging chaos blast" just another showing of it's potential free will, usually Metal Sonics in the past didn't care about survival, there was always another to replace them.
"lastly" Shadow put special emphasis "Did you notice when Silver tried to use his powers on it he got hurt somehow?"
"It must have a counter measure to his powers, that's a huge advantage, especially if it hurts Silver" Tails was already trying to think of solutions.
"For now rest, it was a hard fight, we'll see him later"
Tails nodded, on that they could both agree, they'd undoubtedly not seen the last of this new unpredictable enemy.
The yellow fox found Fiona already had the same idea and was taking a nap. His were distracted from her to Blaze who still looked worried trying to read.
"Blaze you alright?"
"I am fine, you should rest" usually she was well composed but her demeanor wasn't very well kept hidden.
"Worried about Silver? Mom said he'd be fine, he just needs time to recover, in fact she said Silver could be up by tomorrow if he wants to" Tails explained his moms words more specifically.
"Truly?" she asked surprised "He was hurt bad, he would need a few days of rest?"
The fox shrugged "What can I say, this place has the best the government could offer before everything went down. That includes our medical supplies"
Blaze smiled a little "Well, good. It will be good to see him back on his feet so soon"
"I'm sure he'll enjoy seeing you are fine as well" he gave a quick wink before heading off to go sleep as well.
Behind him Blaze continued to smile and was able to actually concentrate and read until she went to sleep as well.
Ah so that's this chapter down, honestly this was hard to write besides the fight scene. Work has not been kind to me lately and it's making me exhausted, any free time I have is either trying to stay awake to reset to a new sleeping time for my constantly changing start times or playing new games like Doom, Battleborn, Overwatch beta, and revisiting DA Inqusition.
Oh and don't forget to check out my other stuff, besides this I recently added a new Shadamy short to my Shadamy shorts collection so give that a whirl if that's your thing.
Live long and prosper
Admiralkirk