Saga #2
The Metal Virus
Chapter 13
Calling Card
"Hey there," Sonic said, as a Flicky came to rest on one of his shoes. "Taking a rest? Pretty much what I am doing. It's been wild these past few days. As much as I like adventure, I like kicking back afterwards, too. Everyone else? Not so much." He sighed. "Amy's now gone back to helping others. She's part of something that they're calling the Restoration. Knuckles is back on Angel Island guarding the Master Emerald. Silver is out searching for some looming doom threatening the future. And Tails is keeping busy with one of his bajillion pet projects." He chuckled. "I told them they could relax. Eggman has 'retired,' Metal Sonic is deweaponized, and everything is cool. When I'm telling people to slow down, you know something is wrong!" Just then, Tails suddenly appeared out of nowhere. His sudden appearance didn't startle Sonic, but it was enough that it scared the Flicky off.
"Sonic!" he called. "I think something is wrong!"
"Jinxed it," cursed Sonic under his breath.
"Take a look at this!" Tails said, handing him a piece of paper.
"'You're cordially invited to a welcome back party at Windmill Village to celebrate the return of the world's most brilliant doctor,'" he read. He turned to Tails who had set himself down next to him. "Where did this come from?" he asked.
"It just appeared in my workshop," Tails said. "It's pretty spooky, honestly."
"The wording doesn't sit well with me, either," Sonic said, reading it over again. "This really sounds like Eggman…"
"But, he's gone, sort of-right?" Tails asked, looking at him nervously. "You and the Chaotix confirmed that he'd lost his memory and he became a kindly mechanic."
"Yup," Sonic said. "'Mr. Tinker.'" He then pondered a thought that had formed in his head. "So he did recover? Or maybe he managed to fool all of us? Maybe there's another angle…And worst of all, will Shadow get to say 'I told you so?'"
"This could be serious!" Tails said, looking Sonic in the eye. "Let's look into it right away! You left Doctor-I mean, Mr. Tinker in Windmill Village, right?"
"Right," Sonic said, throwing the paper away. "C'mon buddy! Race ya there!" With that, he took off at his famous top speed, Tails following right behind him, tails spinning rapidly.
X
Meanwhile, in a secret laboratory…
Eggman was humming to himself as he was readying a test subject for his new Metal Virus: A sunflower sealed inside a test chamber with an eerie red light cast upon it. The door to the lab opened and Starline waked in, smiling at something. "Sonic has been baited per your instructions, sir," he said.
"Ha! Excellent!" Eggman said, overlooking several vats of the silver substance.
"Did we have to be so…overt?" Starline said, adjusting his glasses. "An ambush would've been sufficient."
"You said that we should mess with his head," Eggman said, grabbing a remote control from its stand. "Know that I am back and up to something will do just that." He put a hand on Starline's shoulder. "I wanted a global proclamation. This is subtle. For me."
"Of course, sir," Starline said, adjusting his glasses. "I didn't mean to second guess you." He pointed at the sunflower in the box. "Is that…?"
"Yes!" Eggman said. "Test one!" He pushed the button, and the silver goo poured onto the sunflower. When it cleared, the sunflower now resembled a metallic form of its former self, with all of its foliage now a metal husk. But the dirt and the wood pot it stood in was unaffected.
"Marvelous!" Starline cried. "Total and instantaneous transformation!"
"Hmm, the active plant tissue, yes," Eggman said, scratching his mustache, "but not the processed wood. I need more data." He got a malicious look in his eyes. "Bring me the animals."
X
Windmill Village
Meanwhile, Sonic and Tails had arrived at the outskirts of Windmill Village. "Nothing is on fire or in a robot," Sonic said, observing the scene. "That's a good sign." They progressed into the village square. "In fact, there isn't a sign of…anyone. Which is…y'know…a bad sign."
"Did Eggman kidnap everyone in town?" Tails asked.
"Without causing property damage?" Sonic said. "Nah, not his style."
"Hello?" a voice called. "Is someone there? Please help!" They turned and saw the village elder tied up and dangling from a tree. He also had a sign on his chest that read "Pinata." Supposedly whoever did this wanted to have a little "fun" before they left.
"Elder Scruffy!" Sonic called. "Are you okay?"
"Thank goodness you boys showed up!" he said. "Please help us!"
"Of course!" Tails said, taking to the air and lowering the rope holding Elder Scruffy. "What happened to you?"
"I'll be fine!" Elder Scruffy said. "It's the rest of the town! First, those thugs kidnapped Mr. Tinker, and then they returned and locked everyone in the community center!"
"Yes! It wasn't a ruse!" Sonic said, untying the elder. "Wait-backup. How long ago did Mr. Tinker get grabbed?"
"At least a week ago," Elder Scruffy said, smoothing out his clothes. "Nobody could find you to tell you."
"I've been busy lately," Sonic said.
"You said that the same guys who attacked the village also kidnapped Mr. TInker?" Tails asked Scruffy.
"Yes," Scruffy said, confirming Tails' thoughts. "I've never seen them before recently. I'm sure they're lurking around here still."
"Did you get a good look at them?" Tails asked. "Maybe hear their names?"
"Oh, we'll tell you!" a familiar voice cut in.
"Oh what…?" sonic said, turning around. There before them stood Rough and Tumble, but now with some major changes: Rough now had some sort of launcher on his back with a tube that was pointing right at them. Tumble now had an extra tail joint with some sort of hammer at the tip.
"Prepare to get wrecked!" Tumble called.
"Prepared to get pummeled!" Rough called.
"It's payback time for Rough and Tumble!" they both said.
"Did they just try to rhyme 'pummel' with 'tumble?'" Tails asked Sonic.
"It's a thing that they do," Sonic said. "These are the mooks Knux and I tangled with in Barricade Town."
"I don't remember you saying they had those weird weapons," Tails said, as Sonic walked up to them.
"Nah, but it doesn't make a difference," Sonic said. "You help the elder save the villagers. I've got this."
"Are you sure?"
"Positive."
"Don't act like we're nothing!" Rough snarled at Sonic as he drew nearer to them. "You only won cause you mobbed us of Wisps!"
"Where's the other guy?" Tumble demanded. "I wanna tie his dreadlocks into a knot."
"Knuckles has better things to do than tutor you," Sonic said, cracking his fingers. "Now, I've got some questions for you!" He rushed at Tumble, attempting to knock him down with a Spin Dash, but the skunk brother blocked it with his new tail joint. "Where is Eggman?!" Tumble attempted to swing back at him, but Sonic casually dodged it while doing a backflip. "Was he the one to bust you out of jail?" Sonic asked again.
"Naw-not that we needed the help!" Rough said, aiming his tube at Sonic.
"Then who-" Sonic began, before Rough fired a jar filled with some purple goo in it. "Yow!" Sonic cried, dodging the projectile, which shattered on the ground. "This isn't adding up!" Sonic said, facing the two. "You two aren't smart enough combined to build gear like that. And you aren;t subtle enough to drop off a cryptic letter." He looked at the remains of the jar, and the bubbling purple goo. "I'll leave this mystery business to the Chaotix," he said. "Why don't you save me a trip and just tell me what I want to know?"
"If you beat us, maybe we'll tattle," Rough said, as Tumble charged at Sonic.
"Don't barter with him! Crush him!" he snarled, swinging his tail at Sonic, who dodged the blow, but it still struck up some pavement.
Meanwhile, Tails used his appadenges to slice through the lock holding the residents inside of the town center. Elder Scruffy opened the door to the relief of the town. "It's alright, everyone," he said. "Sonic and Tails have come to save us!" Tails then heard the cheerful cries of Sonic ("Swing and a miss!") and decided that he needed to get involved.
"You're better off in here until the fight is done," he said. "Take cover and keep your heads down!"
"O…oh…" Elder Scruffy said, hand on the door. "Alright then."
X
Unknown Location
"Test two!" Eggman said, hovering near the subjects. "Commencing with vertebrate specimens!" The capsules were now containing a Woodland animal: A Pocky, a Ricky, and a Picky. He then activated the dispenser system, which caused a stream of the Metal Virus goo to coat the Pocky, completely transforming it into a metal husk, its eyes now red instead of its normal color.
"Just like before!" Straline said. "Full saturation leads to immediate transformation! Initiating test three!" He removed the wall separating the Pocky from the Picky.
"Pocky! Grab the Picky!" Eggman ordered. The Pocky used its hands to grab onto the Pocky's ears and held it tightly while it shrieked in desperation. "Good!" Eggman said. "Now back off!" When it let go, there were traces of the Metal Virus on the Picky, but unlike the Pocky, it was spreading at a slower rate. "It worked!" Eggman said. "The infection transferred immediately!"
"Mmm…but the rate that it's spreading is considerably slower," Starline noted. Unhindered to them, the Pocky was now scraping away at the barrier that separated it from the Ricky.
"Oh-ho?" Eggman said, noting the change. "The subject shows aggressive tendencies without direction? That's a bonus!" He turned to Starline, who was moving another box with test samples. "Let's keep up the pace!" he said. "Moving on to test four!"
"Moving samples into position," Starline said. Eggman then proceeded to make the Ricky cower under his immense height.
"Now, my little woodland varmint, I want you to pick up this flower, and…Come on now! You can do it!" When the Ricky refused to do it, he decided to intimidate it further. "GRAB IT OR I'LL LET THE POCKY GRAB YOU!" he shouted. Frightened, the Ricky grabbed the infected sunflower and held it in his hands. "There we go!" Eggman said. "Now, touch the flower to each of the samples." The Ricky went over to the samples (A rock, a sub sandwich, and the shell of a Motobug head) and touched the flower to each of them.
"I don't see any signs of infection sir," Starline said, looking closely at each sample. The Ricky tossed the flower away, but that was pointless since it was also infected.
"No, but it did pass from flora to fauna. That's test five complete! My Metal Virus is a complete success!" Eggman gloated. "Even the slightest exposure, my synthetic concoction spreads across organic tissue, converting it into my robotic slave! It's an army that builds itself! Inorganic or processed material remains inert, meaning my infrastructure is safe from infection or corruption! I'm a genius!"
"I'm so happy to be a part of this," Starline said, cleaning his glasses. "I'd never dreamed I'd be so honored when I was searching for you!"
"How did you find me?" Eggman asked, confused. "Metal Sonic had half my empire scouring across the globe."
"He sent search parties of Badniks," Starline explained. "That's a finite number of sensors over a limited range, all of which takes time. I had the Warp Topaz." As if to demonstrate its power, he opened up a portal to Windmill Village in an instant. "With a modest change, I could open 'windows' to the world in an instant. I looked farther and further than his Badniks could do in a day."
"When did you sleep?" Eggman asked.
"Sleep is for the weak," Starline said. "I made myself quite ill, but it was worth it to find you."
"I'm…so glad you think so," Eggman said, watching Sonic and Tails square off against the two skunk brothers. "Can you zoom in? I want to see Sonic getting his teeth kicked in."
"By you command, doctor," Starline said.
X
Windmill Village
Meanwhile, Sonic hadn't been faring much against Rough and Tumble. He had taken a projectile to the chest that knocked him back a few meters.
"Haha! I can't miss!" Rough said. He then got a kick to the head as Tails intervened.
"The villagers are safe!" he said, helping Sonic to his feet. "How are you doing?"
"I've had chilidogs hit my guts harder," Sonic said, smiling. He then barely dodged a powerful blow from Tumble. "Okay," he said. "So it was a big chilidog…"
"Who asked you to butt in, kid?" snarled Rough. "Why are you even here?"
"Cause when the day needs saving…" Sonic said.
"One team never fails!" Tails continued.
"You're about to get busted by Sonic and Tails!" they both said.
"That's our thing!" Rough screamed. "STOP STEALING OUR THING!"
"Dibs on the runt!" Tumble said. He then looked at Tails and yelled, "I LOSE MY TAIL, BUT YOU GET TWO?!"
"Um…" Tails began, but Tumble whipped his tails around and caused a disturbance zone that kept both Sonic and Tails out of it. Tails took flight while Sonic raced around Tumble with his Spin Dash technique, also dodging a jar from Rough.
"Wanna split up?" Sonic asked. "You want Rough or-?"
"Yes!" Tails said.
"M'kay," Sonic said. He then turned to Tumble, and began to run backwards while taunting the skunk. "Such witty banter!" he said. "C'mon move those stubby legs!"
Meanwhile, Tails dodged a jar from Rough by letting it pass between his tails. "You're not out of the woods yet, junior!" Rough taunted, lining up another shot. "I've got a present for you! Straight from me to you!" He laughed maniacally as he launched another jar. But Tails wasn't afraid. He calculated how to direct the attack back to Rough in an instant, and when the jar was about to hit, he caught it with one of his tails and then lobbed it back to Rough. The jar shattered and coated the skunk in the purple stinky goo. "Ahh! Ahh! Ahh! No fair! NO FAIR!" he screamed. Tails then removed his pack and delivered a solid kick that broke it in two.
X
"Such a good waste of a perfectly good vapor condenser," Eggman said, wiping his brow.
"Shall we move on to test six?" Starline said.
"There is no test six," Eggman admitted.
"Surely you jest?" Starline said. "Our sample data is miniscule."
"The Metal Virus works, Starline," Eggman said, rubbing his hands together. "It's time to move on to the next phase of my master plan!"
"But what if-?"
"Ah-ah-ah! Who's the evil mastermind here?"
"You are, sir."
"You're darn skippy! Now, keep an eye on the cannon fodder, while I work on the next step!"
X
"One-two! One-two! Hustle, buddy!" Sonic said, climbing up the side of the windmill.
"Do *Huff* you *Puff* ever *Wheeze* shut up?!" Tumble cried, punching the side of the windmill as he swung his tail into the concrete structure.
"Nah. It's part of my charm," Sonic said, backflipping as he saw an advantage to use. He Spin Dashed through the blades of the windmill, which fell and spun at an incredible rate, that chopped off a segment of Tumble's tail.
"And now-!" Sonic cried, ready to pummel Tumble to the ground, but he stopped when he saw him cradling the segment that he just sawed off.
"That's not fair," Tumble said, his voice suddenly quiet. "I had a tail again. The length. The heft. I had it all back…" He then sobbed heavily as he hugged the segment close to his chest.
"Okay, man," Sonic said. "It's over. Let's go."
"Heatless. You're just heartless. All I ever wanted to do was to cave your head in…"
"And just like that, my sympathy is spent."
He then met up with Tails, as he led a stinking Rough over to them, still hacking up the last of the goo. "All good, Tails?" Sonic asked.
"Yep," Tails said. "Gave him a taste of his own medicine and smashed his launcher."
"Deal's a deal, remember?" Sonic reminded them. "You're beat, so tell me what you know what you did with Dr. Eggman."
"Dontcha mean Mr. Tinker?" Rough said, playing dumb.
"Don't get smart with me," Sonic said. "You're no good at it."
"Fine," Rough said, plugging his nose over the stench of the fumes. "You wanna know so bad? We-" Before he could disclose any more information, there was a blinding flash of light, and the ground opened up in a portal that warped away the two skunk brothers. The portal then closed up, disappearing just as quickly as it came.
"What the heck was that?!" Sonic cried.
"Some kind of localized wormhole?" Tails said, still confused about what just happened. "So…he's abc, isn't he? I mean, those guys kidnap Mr. Tinker, and then show up with that tech…"
"Yeah, but who sprung them out of jail?" Sonic asked. "Who told them where Mr. Tinker was? We're missing half the puzzle pieces. Like…what if somebody else is involved? Maybe somebody is using the old man making him think he's building…I dunno, toys or something?"
"C'mon, Sonic…" Tails said.
"I know, I know. Just…I really hope it's not the obvious. I'll go see if Silver found something. You coming?"
"You go," Tails said. "The village sustained some nasty damage. I'll clean up, then come find you."
"Okay," Sonic said, giving Tails a fist bump. "See you later!" As he ran off, he considered his thoughts. A weird random attack. Tails and I get separated. This is feeling a lot like how things started with Neo Metal Sonic… He shook himself from it. I'm not going to second guess Tails this time, though! I'm going to get this figured out-fast! Tinker-Eggman-whoever you are now-I'm going to find you! Your plan isn't going to get off the ground!
X
Unknown Location
"You gotta give us another shot, doc!" Rough shouted, pleading with Eggman.
"New tail! New tail!" Tumble said, still looking upon the remains of his tails. They were about to catch up with Eggman when Metal Sonic blocked them from reaching him.
"Oh-ho-ho! What's the matter, Metal Sonic?" Eggman asked. "Feel like you've been overlooked?"
"You had your turn!" shouted Rough, glaring at the robotic duplicate. They both tensed up for a fight, but it was Metal who blocked Rough from throwing him to the ground and smashing him to pieces.
"Hahaha! Delightful!" Eggman said.
"If I may be so bold, sir," Starline said, "I share Metal Sonic's enthusiasm."
"Oh-ho?" Eggman asked.
"Please let me take the next shot at him, sir," Starline said, smiling widely. "I know exactly how to strike at him."
Next time: Sonic vs Dr. Starline!