Everything felt so silent and peaceful. Sonic's mind was steadily drifting along the coastline of darkness. Waves of black kept him steady within waters, but their success started diminishing. Light peered through the thin veil of his unconsciousness, giving way to distorted images and odd sounds.
Pretty white dots appeared in random locations in his field of vision. Someone's heartbeat bothered his eardrums, but it took a mournful intercom to really awaken him. It was Tails, crying over something again.
"What's wrong, buddy?" he asked, more silently than intended.
"Sonic? Sonic! You're alive!" the fox's noisy exclamations reached his earpiece.
"Of course I am! I always have been, too. What's up?"
The little genius didn't respond. When Sonic had fully regained his sight, the image turned out self-explanatory: Eggman's robotic self, Signature Omega, was in space, and Sonic was heading straight for him. Hah! So he was winning, after all! Even asleep, he kept on fighting.
Something seemed off even then. He couldn't move. His body refused to listen and the hedgehog couldn't unravel. Realisation came to him as a whole at that moment: Eggman had knocked him out to activate Metal in the hero's robotically augmented body. Apparently, something went wrong and Sonic's copy deceived the dumb maniac.
But Eggman still had an emerald lodged in his secret gun, which was aimed at Metal and Sonic as one. An evident threat, judging by how quickly his heart was contracting. The weapon could easily make it pop.
"Tails! I can't move! Metal took over my exosuit!"
That message, obviously, had not reached anyone. Text appeared in front of his eyes: "Irrelevant communication disabled, hedgehog. Metal Sonic MK II will find an effective method of destroying you after unit Signature Omega is disabled."
"As if I'm gonna read all that…" Sonic retorted, feeling a familiar energy's presence. Chaos! Yes, that was it! Metal had not released the gem the hero took out of Eggman's eye. Maybe he couldn't move, but Blue Blur could still speak. The hedgehog grinned inside his metal prison. "Chaos Control!"
"No, idiotic life form! I was so close!" Metal Sonic grunted before being teleported to the ground in a flash.
The move must have taken more out of the hero than he first thought; Sonic felt groggy and disoriented back on the Death Egg. The blinding, dark waves reached up for his mind again. He had to fight them! If Metal was given full control of his body, he'd bring the end to both!
"Let me fight him, rusted dumbass!" Sonic called out.
"Negative. Organic Sonic's abilities are inferior."
"No wonder he had dismantled you before…"
Metal took that one hard: "This unit will not be interrupted. Ready to apply local anaesthetic."
Something fidgeted inside, making the hedgehog shudder in his armour. "Put me to sleep? Very brave! Eggman never got my personality right in you."
The Chaos Emerald suddenly dropped down from the robotic arm. Neither Metal nor Sonic intended to do it. During their argument, both forgot about the only real threat in the arena: the man, who started it all.
A red warning light flashed in Sonic's sight. He was struck with the side of Eggman's lance.
Sonic's augmented form rolled into a ball, setting quills into a loud rush. The scientist would pay. Laser-powered diamond needles brushed against Signature Omega, melting through the armour and setting a small explosion to part the fighters again.
Both were chucked in the opposite directions, Eggman finding himself near the long lost jewel. Perfect. He quickly inserted it back into his empty eye socket to use two emeralds at once. While the improved Sonic was getting up, Signature Omega finished charging his main cannon.
"My dream will come true! I'll kill two hedgehogs with one hit! Goodnight, infidels!"
A ray of black pierced through airless space, entering the hedgehog's turbine, and making it enter hyper mode. The energy created an electricity overload that sent the robotic mammal flying further away.
Sonic's senses were in an even bigger daze. Slightest light forced him to shut his eyelids, as the weapon made the sense of vision utterly sensitive. Ears bled from the crash, the sound still resonating. Eyes watered from subtlest smells and being inside a metal frame appeared to be a bone-chilling experience. The hero couldn't concentrate on anything but pain, unlike Metal.
The real controller of the body found most systems online and fended off Eggman with a series of bullets from his machinegun arm.
A dream-like voice disturbed Sonic's consciousness…Tails: "Get ready, Sonic! This might sting!"
Eggman's one human eye turned wide and he stood perfectly still, his shield maxed out. Something big was about to happen if the villain took such precautions.
Metal saw it as another exploit, rocketing towards the doctor for a good strike.
It never happened. Iron vibrations were drawn away from the arena, making the area perfectly still for the first time during the battle. Space shook the hedge into paralysis and even the space station's materials curved in a crazy wave. Static ran after the powerful distortion. Bright sparks jumped over Robotnik's force field, eventually turning it off.
As soon as it reached the perfected Sonic, though, his metal host came to a halt. So did everything else in his world. Tails set off an EMP bomb and erased Metal's programming from existence. Unfortunately, it also did tremendous damage to True Blue inside the steel armour, shocking him and short-circuiting the wires attached to his bones and muscles. Contractions were painful, but necessary. Anything to be rid of the parasitic copy and control his actions once more.
Once the perturbation ceased, Sonic found little change. He still couldn't move, and Eggman reigned supreme in the arena.
The man brought a huge support beam, cannibalised from his own Death Egg, and wrapped it around Sonic to weld him to the ground. Sonic would need time to get out even if full functionality returned to the armour. Huffing, the scientist had to live with the realisation that murdering a rat would have to wait. A filthy twin-tailed dog was far more dangerous to his disgust. Robotnik tried hard not to wince with indignation at the current plan.
He glared at Sonic one last time, wanting to charge right through the pest's gut, but a warning light forced him to postpone...everything. "Stay. Your little friend insists to take your solitary place in death. Chaos Control!"
More waves appeared in the hero's head. Everything was a blur. The world spun around a bottomless funnel while the hedge struggled to keep his life out of oblivion's gutter. In reality, nothing moved, nothing changed. It was the same Sonic the Hedgehog, even though he lacked most organs and would never again shake a friendly hand. That thought let him find peace.
Sensors turned back on, enabling interaction with the environment. He groaned, seeing the large piece of steel obstructing movement. Annoyance melted into worry, then hatred; Tails' voice awoke the hero in him.
"I love you, Sonic! Please, don't hate me today…" the fox whispered into the communicator. Death spread its wings to embrace the little one; Eggman's footfalls disturbed the silence.