Chapter Twenty-Four: True Heroes Don't Come Home
When Metal Sonic had been warped into Sonic's mind, he found himself alone.
The device wasn't able to control exactly where you were dropped when you got hit, so for all he knew, he could have been fifty miles away at the time. Not that fifty miles was a problem for him, but it wasn't exactly convenient to already have wasted a lot of energy just getting to the fight.
The "impossible to miss" label that Tails had applied to where he was supposed to go was an accurate one, though. Not too far away, a brightly glowing, shapeless structure lit up the surrounding landscape, occasionally pulsing and sending streaks of luminous substance into the not-quite-sky. Metal's face wasn't capable of displaying emotions, but if it were, he'd be smiling.
Metal turned on his thrusters, preparing to get himself there as fast as his energy would allow.
Less than a second later, the area had one robot fewer to its name.
Rouge lucked out- her landing spot had been only a short distance away from the structure Tails had mentioned. However, a feeling of dread washed over her when she realized her taser was gone.
It wasn't like she was scared of hand-to-hand combat, but getting up close and personal to something that could melt your hands off with no warning wasn't her idea of a standard combat scenario. That probably applied to the others as well- they wouldn't have any weapons to make the fight easier.
"Well, Metal Sonic, Knuckles, and Shadow probably won't be too bothered," she thought, "but I'm pretty confident Eggman might have a heart attack once he realizes he doesn't have any machines to work with him."
The image was hysterical for about half a second. After that, she remembered there just wasn't time for anything except getting to her destination, and fast.
Taking off, she flew for the glowing mass, knowing that every second counted.
Sonic was an optimist by nature, but even he had to admit that if things could be going worse, he didn't see how.
Tails had managed to drag the attention of the viruses away from him for long enough so that he could semi-recover. That was fine. If what he'd just heard was correct, he'd even managed to get the others inside his head like they wanted. That was also fine. Unfortunately, all that came at a cost.
And that cost was almost certainly going to be all of their lives. Which was anything but fine.
Shortly after Tails finished delivering his final message, the viruses had managed to retake the controls, leading Sonic to take Tails and escape to right outside the room. With one of them running the controls, they had a slight advantage now of it being a one-on-one fight. However, even if they won the fight, if the viruses had their way, they were unsure if they'd even have bodies to return to. Even worse, they could decide "screw it," and incinerate Sonic as a last-ditch effort, killing them all in the process, although it did mean the threat would ultimately be defeated.
Tails' virus having all the cunning of his real-life counterpart didn't help. Everyone knew what his goal was, and despite their best efforts, he was doing an excellent job keeping Sonic and Tails from getting past him. He rationed his energy, only using lasers when he absolutely had to. Sonic's attacks got more and more desperate and crazy, but nothing appeared to be working.
Sonic's virus called out the door, "Almost there! I just need, like, fifteen more seconds!"
Tails' virus turned to respond, but in those few seconds, something rammed into him from behind, nearly knocking him out of the sky. To his attacker's displeasure, he managed to regain composure about six feet off the floor. However, it bought Sonic time to get past.
As Sonic Spin Dashed into his corrupted clone, sending him away from the controls, Tails looked up to see Rouge floating above both him and his virus. She blew a kiss downward, saying, "Two can play that game, sweetheart!"
Rouge almost instantly regretted saying that. Less than two seconds later, the lasers sent her way nearly seared her wings off. As it was, she managed to dive low and get behind both of the others once more.
Once the lasers got close, Tails desperately tried to take off, even though spinning his tails that fast caused his muscles to clench in agony, just like before. Somehow, he got off the ground and cleared the sizzling beams of death, but nothing more. He touched down within seconds, feeling like every muscle in his back had been tied in a knot.
Then, the area got loud. As Sonic and his impostor continued to duke it out inside, his other impostor appeared out of seemingly nowhere. And he'd brought company. Knuckles and Sticks leapt into action right away, screaming nonsense, while Eggman appeared to be taking his time, unsure what to do without all his faithful mechs at his command.
After hitting Tails' virus with a homing attack, Metal Sonic stated, "I found them on my way here, so I brought them to the point of interest."
Amidst the chaos, Rouge managed to yell back, "Well, then where's Shadow?"
A second later, another form hit Tails' virus from behind, sending him hurtling towards Rouge. The crash that followed nearly caused them both to fall out of the sky, but that answered Rouge's question in a hurry. Before Tails' clone could grab her, she managed to push off and put some distance between the two of them.
Just when it looked like things couldn't get any more insane, Sonic's virus retreated outside the room, with the real Sonic hot on his heels. Shadow tried to intercept, but he missed by about a full second, enough for both Sonic's clone and Sonic himself to whip past.
That scene turned heads. And Tails' doppelganger knew an opening when he saw one.
In the split second everyone's eyes were on the new arrivals, he flew up to ensure that he was out of range from attacks by anyone except possibly Rouge, and charged up his lasers. Not wanting to squander his chance, he didn't waste time on the more agile targets- those being Sonic, Metal Sonic, Shadow, and Rouge. Instead, he went for the easy meat, who was both large and relatively close.
That would be Knuckles.
Sticks saw it coming about a split second before it happened. "Knuckles! Watch out!"
Ultimately, it did nothing but startle him. But being startled probably saved his life.
For as soon as he took a half-step towards Sticks and said, "What?" Tails' virus fired. Knuckles yelped and jumped backwards, but he just wasn't fast enough. The laser hit his left arm at the bicep, and to everyone's horror (and the viruses' delight), cut cleanly through it, sending it falling to the ground, limp and useless, before it somehow disappeared from sight.
Because they weren't in their physical bodies, they were spared from the sight of blood spurting everywhere from the stump. But there was plenty of pain involved, which Knuckles found out as soon as he hit the ground. He started screeching like a banshee, clutching the stump before realizing that made the pain even worse, and finally just curling up in a ball.
Both viruses had nasty grins light up their faces. With the lasers now able to cut instead of merely burn, people taking hits for others was simply not possible. And with the lack of outside help, there were no second chances anymore, You got hit, you were dead (or at least disfigured), and that's all there was to it.
"Hey! Eggman! You've done squat this whole time, can you make sure Knuckles doesn't die?" Sticks had to shout as loud as possible to be heard over the brawl, and even then, Eggman still had to strain to hear it. "Everyone else, keep doing what you're doing! Let's send these monsters back to meet their ancestors!"
That statement made no sense, but that didn't stop Eggman from complying (anything that kept him away from the battlefield was a positive when he couldn't fight) and the other five from attempting to rally. Even in a five-on-two matchup, with each of the five being pretty respectable fighters in their own right, it was going to take a lot more than just time to win out.
Shadow rushed in, crashing into Tails' doppelganger and knocking him back. This created an opening for Sticks to perform some freaky gymnastics, culminating with a move that caused her to springboard off his head, almost sending the two viruses crashing into each other. Rouge ran in while Tails' copy was still stunned, landing several solid hits in his gut and stomach before he flew out of range.
He somehow remained unscathed from those blows. Frankly, it seemed like none of their attacks were doing anything to drain them- no matter how many times they were knocked down, they'd just pop back up like nothing happened. And the five of them were starting to lose the ability to do the same.
Then came the counterattack. First, both viruses powered on their lasers at the same time, moving their hands in seemingly random patterns around the room. Tails, Eggman, and Knuckles, who were various degrees of immobile (two from injuries, one from fear), couldn't do much to dodge, but as for the others, they were back to playing the most important game of laser tag of their lives. As they darted around, desperately avoiding the killer beams, Tails' virus slowly flew closer and closer to a terrified Eggman. Rouge had an idea of what was coming next and tried to fly in close and stop him. Unfortunately for her, she was just a hair too slow. Tails' clone aimed the searing lasers in her direction, and while she avoided the brunt of them, it still managed to clip her wing. In seconds, a large chunk of the thing had been ripped free from the rest, and it floated towards the ground, fluttering on a nonexistent breeze, before vanishing altogether.
With her wings no longer matching, Rouge suddenly lost control of her flight path, zigzagging on an erratic course for a few unsteady seconds before slamming head-first into the ground and skidding to a painful stop. Sonic's clone sensed an opportunity and Spin Dashed towards her, but less than five feet away, he was suddenly blocked by what felt like a wall.
"You're not taking Rouge, you freak," Shadow hissed through clenched teeth, the Spin Dash he'd dropped into causing every muscle he had to scream in agony. Sonic tried to help, but Tails' virus dive-bombed him and succeeded this time. Sonic's hands went to his head as he toppled, looking like he was down for the count.
As Shadow and Sonic's clone battled for the upper hand, Tails' clone attacked the last two fighters left in commission, those being Sticks and Metal Sonic. With more lasers, they split, each trying to flank him. However, neither reached their target. One of their foe's hands forced Sticks to drop to the floor and roll for all she was worth, and the other managed to score a hit on Metal Sonic's right leg. Strangely, though, the leg didn't come off- it was smoking a little and hanging by nothing more than a twisted hunk of metal and some wires, but, by the dictionary definition, it was still an intact limb.
Intact or not, however, it didn't matter- it still sparked something fierce, sending bolts of blue-white electricity dancing across Metal Sonic's surface, and it had been mangled so badly that running on it was no longer an option.
Sticks got up and charged him again. He laughed, merely flying out of range. Sticks reached for the boomerangs she wore at all times before remembering that in this realm, they didn't exist. And one well-aimed laser later, he'd forced Sticks to leap backward to dodge it. The move she attempted probably would have looked very acrobatic if she'd pulled it off, but her weariness had slowed her reflexes considerably. Instead of landing in a perfect running position, as she'd intended, all she did was crash in a heap, looking thoroughly, utterly beaten.
Rouge had managed to crawl out of the warpath of Shadow and Sonic's virus, but Shadow was clearly losing ground. And when Tails' virus focused his lasers on him, he could only keep up the Spin Dash for a split second longer before he was sent flying backward, nearly crashing into a prone Tails.
Shadow struggled to get to his feet again, but it looked like the fight was over either way. Tails was in too much pain to fly, Knuckles in too much pain to move. Sonic was unconscious, Sticks could barely stand and wasn't the best at hand-to-hand combat anyway, Rouge had been grounded, Metal Sonic had been reduced to hopping around like a pirate missing his peg leg, strange flares of light bursting from his back, and Eggman was too terrified to even take a step forward.
"You take the controls again," Tails' clone told his partner. "We got this far, I think it's safe to say we won."
"Like it was even hard," Sonic's clone replied before disappearing into the control room again.
"Now," Tails' virus said as he advanced on the others, "Which of you should I torture first?"
Shadow managed to stand, but a wave of pain forced him to his knees again. He clawed at the air like he was trying not to drown in his own misery, but it didn't make him any more capable of fighting these monsters.
Before Shadow could prepare, the Tails doppelganger had picked his first target: the cowering, pathetic form of Doctor Eggman. As his lasers charged, he smirked, saying, "Why don't I start by frying up some eggs?"
What came next happened so fast that no one could have predicted it.
One second, Eggman was cringing, eyes closed, as he prepared for his death and Tails' virus cackled like a madman.
The next, his lasers fired.
But something got between them.
A blue, metallic something.
The others could only watch, mouths agape, as Metal Sonic used the emergency thrusters he'd been powering up while he'd been hopping around to intercept the laser, taking the punishment meant for Eggman. It only took a second for the laser to split his body cleanly in half, with his bottom half clattering to the ground, nothing more than scrap metal.
But the top half kept going. And it took Tails' virus by complete surprise. He barely took flight fast enough to avoid a crash landing, and the impact was jarring enough to shut off the lasers. And even after it hit the ground, the parts of him that Metal Sonic could still control were sparking with electricity from all his severed wires, causing him to be wreathed in a brilliant blue glow.
"Bad… idea," Metal Sonic sputtered, every system he had struggling not to fail. Before anyone could say anything more, what appeared to be a bolt of lightning erupted from Metal Sonic, striking Tails' clone directly in the head and sending him crashing to the ground. But it didn't stop, all of Metal Sonic's energy flowing through it as Tails' virus screeched and writhed, trying desperately to escape-
Before, in an instant, he disintegrated.
It wasn't a slow or graceful process, either- it was quick and without fanfare. One second, the thing was there, shrieking in pain. The next, it had exploded into nothing more than the red mist it spawned from, and in seconds, the others couldn't even recognize that anymore.
Unfortunately, Metal Sonic seemed like he was about to go the same way. While no one except Eggman and maybe Tails could understand exactly how he worked, it was pretty common knowledge that most electronics sliced in half didn't just keep working like nothing had happened.
He attempted to lift his head, but failed. However, he managed to choke out two more words. "It's… done-"
Then, he followed in the footsteps of Tails' virus and exploded into mist. But unlike the red stuff they'd seen before, Metal Sonic's was pure white. That didn't change the time it took to disappear by much, though- in less than fifteen seconds, there were no signs that Metal Sonic had ever existed.
Eggman, already a picture of a broken man, began to weep over the sacrifice of his most prized creation. As for the other six, while they were in too much pain to mourn him properly, acknowledged the sacrifice Metal Sonic had made, knowing that without it, they'd likely all be dead. Even if he hadn't always been on the right side of morality, he'd done the noble thing when it counted most.
And sometimes, one moment is all someone needs to be redeemed.
Suddenly, Shadow's head jolted up, and he remembered they weren't out of the woods yet. "Sonic's clone is still in the control room! We need to stop him!"
The six of them that remained ran- or hobbled and crawled, in most cases- into the control room, only to find it empty. Sonic's virus had disappeared without a trace.
Naturally, Knuckles managed to choke out the obvious question, even between surges of pain. "Where did he go?"
Suddenly, Eggman was hit with an awful theory. He knew the creature craved power, and he knew that Metal Sonic (if he was even present in the real world) was now ripe for the taking. It only took a few seconds for him to fit the pieces together.
"Oh, no…"
Author's Notes:
-I would like to thank veryspecialagentriley here, as they inspired the title of this chapter with their Hunger Games fic of the same name. Once again, thank you for inspiring this chapter's title.
-Also, thanks to everyone who's gotten to this point and helped me pass 5,000 overall hits on this story! (For reference, the original's hits capped at less than 2,000, although some of that was because I updated less often back then.)
Review Zone, Act XXIII:
-Saul'keth: Thanks, once more, for taking the time to leave a review! I'm not sure if this is how you expected everything to play out, but I hope you enjoyed this scene nonetheless.
-Linz2: Thanks, once more, for taking the time to leave a review! In my humble opinion, things somehow turned for the better and the worse here at the same time. With luck, the trajectory will tip upwards once more.
-Darkness-InA-Ninja: Thanks, once more, for taking the time to leave a review! I agree, everyone's probably going to need a lot of therapy (and even more rest) once this all is over. You know, if they're still alive.
