Rouge checked her watch: T minus sixty three hours.
If things were going according to plan, then Tails would already be engaging the First Legion in the eastern theater. It was critical that the moderate leadership in the New Navy not only survive, but emerge victorious. This was Rouge's condition for her cooperation.
At the moment, the GUN Remnant was sharply split between the moderates and the extremists. Normally, the former held power, but with the fall of Station Square and the alliance with Mastermind, the pendulum has swung in the other direction. Moderates were being pushed out of positions of authority and replaced by dangerous extremists and political lapdogs. If the situation were allowed to continue, not only would GUN turn into a terrible an enemy as the Eggman (worse, since they were much more practical and cunning), but Rouge's friends there would be "retired."
In exchange for going along with his plans, Rouge had demanded Tails do something about the situation. Her latest intelligence indicated that most of the moderate fringe in the Navy were being sent to the frontlines with the Eggman. Even if they survived, they would be decimated as a movement. Rouge couldn't allow that to happen.
Central to bringing GUN back into the light was Aya Florentine. She was the public face of the moderate wing, and one of the most highly respected officers in the New Navy. GUN and her friends had rallied around Aya as a counterpoint to Mastermind's genocidal policies. Aya had to survive for there to be any sort of peace between humans and Mobians in the future.
So far, there was nothing on the news.
That was a good sign. It meant that Tails had knocked out communications in the area. Rouge just hoped he could pull off the rest of the plan. He had once scoffed at her implication of one man taking on an army, but it was true. She could hardly imagine how anyone could manage that without a Super form of some type.
Her part of the plan had her landing in Marble Garden: gateway to Angel Island. Pulling a traveling cloak taunt over her shoulders, she turned and waved to a small shuttle as it took off behind her. As expected, the smuggler had gotten her past Echidnapolis Security easily enough. She was on the island, and well on her way to Mushroom Hill.
Warming up a speeder, Rouge straddled the hoverbike and took off. The zones on Angel Island always seemed to start and end abruptly, and before she knew it, the checkered territory of Marble Garden gave way to the lush hills of the Mushroom Forest. While the former had been transformed by the echidna into a hub of commerce and activity, Mushroom Hill was just like Rouge remembered it: wild and untamed.
She knew from experience that much of it had been damaged during Robotnick's takeover back in the day. The madman had used incendiaries and defoliants to try and flush out Sonic and Tails, and turned most of the fantastic forest into a charred wasteland in the process. Thankfully, nature was well on her way to reclaiming what had been lost.
Redwood sized mushrooms, all a vibrant red and green, rose around her to form a canopy and jungle ecosystem like none in the world. Only the strange climactic conditions on Angel Island, and perhaps the Chaos Energy that kept it in the sky, could allow such a place to survive. Rouge raced along the convex caps of building sized toadstools, using one as a makeshift ramp to catapult over a gorge and across the surface of a bioluminescent polypore embedded in a cliffside.
Keeping one eye on the compass and another on the wilderness ahead of her, Rouge wondered how much untapped wealth lay in the Mushroom Hill Zone. She knew that the echidna were already hard at work exploring the mysterious forest for medicinal herbs and fungi, and she had heard many rumors about lucrative trades in psychoactive substances which were not yet well regulated or controlled on Angel Island. There was a lot of opportunity here, though for her part, Rouge far preferred the perfect sheen of a jewel to the spongy colors of a morel.
Eventually nearing her target location, Rouge stashed the hoverbike and continued on foot and by wing. Soon she entered the first security cordon around the Angel Island Peace Conference. For most intruders or potential troublemakers, security was tight. Even for her, it would have been a bit tricky to slip through. However, the crowds and media buzz the conference attracted had diverted and distracted more than enough security resources to leave openings she could exploit.
The ranch they were using to host the conference was sizeable: at least four large buildings, formerly homes built in the provincial echidna style, held the major parties. The actual specifics were supposed to be a secret, but Tails had provided her with his own classified information on the subject. She knew just where her target could be found.
"Is something wrong, Princess?"
Sally glanced across the table at Snively, feeling a bit disoriented. What had happened? Had she zoned out for a moment there?
The tiny human shuffled a number of documents together. "Perhaps we should continue this later? You seem fatigued, my dear."
"No, I..."
"Princess," she heard Geoffrey gently whisper from his ever vigilant post behind her. "You don't look well. These last few days have been very hard on you..."
"Perhaps... we should take a short recess?" Sally asked, the throbbing in her head getting worse.
"Of course," Snively replied for his ever silent retinue of robotic servants and bodyguards. "We can discuss the last of the Robian resettlement issues later." He smiled knowingly. "We want to set things right the first time, don't we?"
"Sally?" Prince Elias asked, from his seat at the head of the table. Opposite him, the Echidnapolis mediator also started to look worried.
"Princess?" he asked, concerned.
"I'm ok," she assured them, standing up trying to wave off their apprehension and reassure them. "I'm..."
The world began to darken, and Sally fell forward.
"Princess!"
"Sally!"
"Someone call a doctor!"
Metal found him standing atop a hill of broken and bisected mechs. It seemed as if he had simply been letting them come to him. The cobalt blue robot watched as a quartet of praying mantis type badnicks attacked from all sides. They were fast, and among the most deadly of all Eggman's badniks in close quarters. As one unit, the four of them threw their arm blades: eight deadly projectiles scythes towards their target, even as replacement arms flipped out and reattached to take the place of the ones that had been lost.
Tails spun in place, arms spread wide, the white tips of his tails flashing and catching the light. He slipped between four of the blades, and behind him, four more split in half. In moments, the mantid badniks were on him, bladed arms a blur. Metal knew from experience how Sonic would have fought: spin dashing and bouncing from one to another, or, if there was no room in close quarters, he would have jumped up to force the distance. Tails, however, weaved between the strikes, constantly spinning.
"That spinning motion..." Metal watched carefully. He was a learning robot, a constantly evolving AI. He was curious and inflective. It was what made him the most powerful and deadly of all the Doctor's creations.
With electronic eyes, he slowed down what he saw. It was all in that spinning motion. Metal saw, in that slow motion, how Tails used his namesakes to either wrap around his body or strike a target or both. The complex spinning movements allowed his tails to shield and attack from unexpected angles and directions. Metal saw how, as the boy turned, he used one tail to turn aside a strike and another to disarm a mantid badnik he had his back to. The boy then flipped the arms over his shoulder and used them to impale the robots to his left and right.
In moments, one enemy was disarmed, two were destroyed, and another was sliced in half at the waist. A final sweeping motion bisected the last remaining badnik. It fell, sparking, into a crumpled heap along with an unknown number of its comrades. A tiny Flicky bird managed to work its way out of the robot's remains, still sticky with stasis gel. It hopped for a few paces and then took flight.
Metal's burning red eyes betrayed no emotion.
'Strong. The boy is strong.'
Metal Sonic walked, now, slowly. Sunlight streaked across his polished surface and scattered off sharp edges that mocked the quills of the real Sonic Hedgehog. Yes: this little fox had become quite strong. The hundred or so slashed and ruined remains of Combots and other robots at his feet were proof enough of that.
"It's been a while, Metal," Tails said, also walking towards his opponent slowly, finally descending down the hill of broken badniks. "I've read a little about your new power plant. Is it true Doctor Eggman switched you to a 3:50 input from a 4:40? I must admit, I'm eager to see it in action."
"Mr. Prower," Metal spoke, voice dry and artificial. "I could say the same for you and your recent improvements. I regret we weren't able to meet in Westopolis last year. I would have liked to be the one who killed you friends in front of you."
"Yes, well Shadow beat you to it." Tails shrugged. "But I know you're disappointed that I'm here, and not Sonic."
"Robots do not lie," Metal admitted. "I would prefer a showdown with him. My goal is to see him broken before me. It is why I exist. In a way, it is a shame we do not have a Metal Tails. Then you would have a more appropriate opponent."
Tails just smirked.
"Did I say something amusing?" Metal asked, curious.
"You don't understand," the kitsune replied. "You're a more appropriate opponent than you realize. You've always been a good match for Sonic in the past, and your upgrades have kept you competitive. In fact, I'd say Sonic usually beats you due to luck and his friends more than anything else."
Metal Sonic stopped advancing, and Miles did likewise. Around them both, the tattered remains of the Combot Legion began to back away. Neither Miles nor Metal, however, gave them any heed. Both were focused entirely on each other. Finally, after a few seconds, Metal Sonic nodded, once.
"I see. To you, I am also a test as to how you would perform against the organic, original Sonic." Metal's eyes glowed and simmered. "Organics are often very complicated in their motivations. I did not predict that competition had led to animosity between the two of you."
"Let me clarify that, then… so that you will understand my organic motivations better." Miles pointed and twirled his finger. "It is not animosity that drives me to want to be test myself against him or to use you as a proxy for that. I'm not trying to surpass Sonic, and I have no interest in beating him or even competing with him. I want to push my limits and see what I'm capable of. My only real measuring stick is myself!"
"No matter how powerful you become, or how experienced you are," Metal replied. "But you are still just a bag of meat and bones."
The cobalt robot's chest intake began to warm up, humming softly.
"You still bleed. You still die." Metal's body began to glow with power and crackle with electricity as his internal generator cycled up. The large turbine engine in the center of his body slowly began to turn, and titanium interlocks spread in front of the intake to keep it clear of large debris. Spreading his arms, Metal Sonic's feet began to lift off the ground.
"Quite right." Miles' tails began to spin, and a blast of wind flew out from under him. "I am still mortal. I can still die. But I won't. Not today."
They shot forward in the same instant, passing in a quarter heartbeat, before turning and circling each other. In turn, each leaned his body forward, becoming more aerodynamic and increasing in speed. The rest of the world became a senseless blur of speed lines and uneven forms, coming and going in the time it takes to bat an eye. The rain of dirt and dust, kicked up by their passing, fell all around them in slow motion, but this strange state was like a second home to both individuals and neither hesitated.
Without warning or signal, both suddenly turned into sharp left turns, gaining distance from each other. One second, and well over a hundred paces later, two clouds of dust kicked up as Miles and Metal abruptly kicked into the ground, spun, and accelerated into a collision course. Watching his opponent, Tails couldn't help but smirk. This Metal Sonic… he had run from him many times before, leaving it to Sonic to handle the robot duplicate. Now it was his turn! His time to prove his worth! Here was an enemy Sonic had defeated before, albeit with difficulty. Destroying him was just the first step…
Racing towards Miles, Metal calculated his approach and that of his opponent. After a second, the two passed the point of no return – the mathematical limit where neither could avoid the other. Collision was, indeed, imminent. His memory banks brought up a correlation with the past, and compared this target with his primary one: Sonic the Hedgehog. Tails had always been fast, but never as aggressive as his mentor. This was certainly no longer the case. The not-so-little fox was also fast… faster than his record indicated, but still within projected speeds as a result of his growth. Metal felt confident that, if need be, he could speed-blitz the young kitsune.
The two hit with the roar of a derailed train.
From the area, a shockwave danced along the ground, uprooting sparse grasses and bits of soil. Sparks flew from Metal's shield as it locked forces with one of Miles' tails, ripples of strain flowing across the normally translucent energy field. The two seemed locked in position, before the kitsune's attack cut along the shield and the fighters passed each other again. Completing the pass, Metal double-checked what his sensors had dutifully reported.
That collision had been…
Metal's face couldn't frown, but if he were organic, then he knew he would be. The collision had damaged his shield. Its reserves were able to quickly repair the damage, but the fact that it had nearly been breached… how had so much energy been applied to it? Racing across the ground, passing through a staggered line of Combos, Metal scattered them like leaves. He didn't even have to see with his optics to know that Tails was right behind him.
Sonic wouldn't have been able to damage his shield in just one blow like that.
Not his new, improved shield.
One tail... did just one tail have a piercing power exceeding that of even a standard homing attack? It was true that the speed of the boy's tails, in terms of rotation or even striking, did exceed that of a typical spin attack. The boy could use his tails like that constantly. No wonder the force involved was able to crack his new shield! Luckily, the brat wasn't able to easily strike with both of the appendages and they had a limited range.
Cutting and reversing his engines, Metal skidded for only a few feet before heading in the opposite direction. Turning to his side and pivoting his body, he slammed into Tails, surprising the fox with the sudden move. Unprepared, Metal's shield slammed into the kitsune's body, and coupled with the boy's already high speed, knocked the wind out of him. Or so it seemed. The fox quickly recovered from being plastered against the solid energy shield to smirking.
Rearing back one hand, Miles flattened his palm. A golden nimbus of energy coalesced between his fingers, resolving into a ring. For a half second, it appeared to be a power ring... but then a second smaller ring came into being within the first one. Metal's optics recorded it with surprise.
'A ring within a ring?'
And then Tails thrust it into the shield.
At first, it seemed repulsed, but then a distinct golden glow began to interface with the shield, and one after another, the kitsune's fingers began to break through. Metal felt his body begin to vibrate. It took only a moment for him to process what was occurring.
'High frequency vibration!' Metal realized.
The boy was channeling energy into the shield, causing it to resonate at over 200,000 hertz. That alone would be within the shield tolerances, except that the energy wasn't dissipating. It was flowing around the shield and back to its point of origin and then doubling every half second. It was also causing a reciprocal vibration within his shield capacitors. If it reached more than a million hertz, Metal knew his more sensitive hardware - his shields, his optics, and his processors - would start to shear apart.
Desperate, Metal focused reserve power into the shield while powering down the capacitors, and golden crackles played with blue as the two forces pushed against each other. Then Metal's internal sensors told him that the inevitable had happened: he had exhausted his reserve supply of shield energy. Cutting through the remaining energy shield, the fox's flattened palm curled into a fist. Reacting as fast as his processors could, Metal cut his engines, spread his arms, and slowed his momentum just enough to miss the blow. He spun out of the exchange, but managed to land on his feet, cutting long furrows in the Mobian soil.
He turned, and saw Tails pulling his fist out of a small crater in the ground.
"Quick thinking…!" The fox looked over his shoulder. "You deduced that I was using a sympathetic oscillation to overload your internal systems, so you shut them down and switched to an isolated power supply, breaking the feedback loop. I guess I'm not surprised."
Metal didn't respond.
He simply raised his hands and pointed them at the kitsune. Small cylinders popped out of their slots and fired, twin laser beams raking the ground where Tails had been. Metal tracked the fox's movement as he ran, cutting burning streaks in the ground just behind him. The robot kept firing, even as Tails rolled behind the cover of a fallen Caterkiller assault mech, which promptly got cut in half a second before the unused ordinance inside the vehicle exploded, spraying fire everywhere. Still, Metal Sonic fired, following the boy's erratic movements as he jumped and cart wheeled over a parked Mobian air-truck, and then back flipped high into the air. Hissing in programmed anger, Metal kept firing wildly, destroying anything that passed behind the dodging kitsune.
"You can not avoid my blasts forever," Metal said, calmly, as Miles rolled behind another upturned assault badnik. Metal's lasers sliced into this one, as it had the once before, but instead of an explosion, and instead of Miles running out past the other end, it suddenly surged forward and flipped into the air. Calculating its trajectory, Metal instantly knew it was headed right for him. Attacking it with his beams, the tortured robot broke apart, but in the second and a half the distraction had brought…
The boy had disappeared.
Metal turned his head just fast enough to see a tawny orange blur slam into him. For a second time, Metal's protective shield flared under the brunt of a chaos energy powered vibration attack. This time, Metal lashed out instantly, abruptly shutting off his shield and attacking: clawed hands slashing at where the boy had been. Tails flipped overhead, fingers no longer having purchase on a shield. Instead, he twirled, and Metal juked and dodged to avoid a pair of slashing tails.
He skidded to a stop and lined up his lasers to take another shot with the ground below his feet erupted. With his shield still down, Metal took the brunt of the explosion and tumbled through the air. Damage reports flooded his processors as another explosion, and then another, went off nearby, deforming titanium and steel. Finally, his shield winked back on and he hit the ground, feet punching deeply into the scorched and blasted soil.
"What had...?" Metal looked up and saw a pair of silver objects curving through the air. Both promptly exploded in light and fury.
Bombs!
For a third time, Metal's shield came under attack, and for a second time, he was forced to drop his most potent defense or face the risk of tearing his insides apart. Tails was behind him this time; Metal turned and deflected a razor edged tail with the diamond hard blades on his fingers. A spray of sparks filled the air as he blocked another bladed strike and then another. Metal's right foot dug deep into the ground as both hands blocked a powerful downward stroke.
Grooves sliced open along the robot's forearms.
'I need to get some distance,' Metal calculated. 'With my shield more a liability than a strength, I need to keep outside the range of his tails...'
Then, the attacking Mobian gabbed hold of Metal's left arm, pulled it up and ducked low, and jerked it back. With a hiss of broken hydraulics, and popped metal bearings, Metal heard his arm break at the shoulder socket, and then at the elbow, and then deform at the shoulder itself, causing internal damage to his core body. Quickly activating his electro-shock systems, Metal desperately pumped as much energy as he could spare into his outer armor.
Tails opened his mouth in silent agony as his entire body convulsed. His iron grip on Metal's arm broke as the muscles in his arms and hands spasmed, just a second before Metal's external systems overloaded and exploded. The two were blown away from each other, and engulfed in a cloud of smoke and ash. For all of a few seconds, Metal experienced the organic sensation called 'blacking out.' One second, his sensors recorded him overloading his systems, and the next… he was imbedded in the ground, body smoking.
Trying to get back up, he accidentally tried to brace himself with his broken arm, and miscalculating the damage, heard it snap entirely at the elbow. Looking at the damage, and not just relying on his internal sensors, Metal saw that what was left of his arm was a twisted and useless mess. Reaching up with his good arm, he dug his steel claws into the shoulder and twisted, severing the broken husk.
It would only slow him down.
It was time to unlock that.
Sending an emergency burst communication to a pair of nearby E-1002 assault bots, Metal jumped back and away. He landed a good distance from the recovering kitsune, and a moment later the two E-series made a rocket assisted landed next to him. A hundred feet away, Tails got back on his feet, body still smoking from the electrical discharge. Burned fur and singed flesh ran up his right arm.
"Emergency Protocols active. Metal Sonic Phase Two unlocked," Metal announced, burying his one good hand into the E-1002 at his right side. "This is unfortunate. I had hoped to save this for Sonic..."
Within moments, the E-1002 began to fall apart, torn apart by silvery tendrils erupting out of Metal Sonic's arm. Pieces of the robot migrated from the sacrificial E-series mech into the cobalt monstrosity. Before Tails' eyes, the arm he had torn off began to rapidly regenerate and repair. Metal used his new left arm, before it was even fully recreated, to impale the other E-1002 and begin absorbing it as well.
"Oh. Oh! Oh!" Tails eyes lit up, a wide grin parting his face. "Active mimetic assimilation! I knew Eggman had been researching new methods of dynamic molecular bonding, but I never imagined! How wonderful!"
The fox laughed wildly, hands upraised in glee.
"Metal!" he pointed at the now larger robot. "Don't tell me your body has a Berserker Module?"
"Curious," Metal Sonic Phase Two remarked. Its arms were now layered in white and black armor, and two adapted power plants and engines had been grafted onto its back. "So you know what it is, then?"
"A berserker? Of course I know!" Tails was still laughing happily. "You have to understand, I don't have one yet! I was never able to get enough functional nanites to make working berserker cells of my own! And now I see there's been one in front of me all this time! Eggman is a true genius!"
"How strange." Metal intoned. "A normal Mobian would not be excited seeing this new form. Additionally, if you know what berserker cells are, then you also must know that I possess Infinite Regeneration. I can not be defeated when they are unlocked."
Tails chuckled and bashfully craned his neck to the right.
"I suppose that's mostly true, but it can't help it," he explained, glancing over at Metal with dark blue eyes. "This is just very exciting for me. I'm so excited my body is tingling...! My hair is standing on end!"
Metal Sonic's triad of engines flared up.
"Then enjoy the sensation." Holding out his hands, a flare of light began to form in front of Metal's chest. "As you die."
Shadow felt her approach some time before she actually appeared.
Staring out past the balcony railing, the black hedgehog took a deep breath of the natural jungle air. It was invigorating. Enough so that it almost made this trip worthwhile. Sadly, he could not lose himself in the natural splendor that concealed the horizon. Instead his time was wasted drumming up support for this joke of a peace conference. The last two weeks had bought enough time to get almost all of Helios' systems online, and estimates from Robotropolis had indicated maybe another week at the most. Then they could finally power up Eclipse, and Shadow could finally bring justice to the world.
Rouge dropped to the floor next to him.
Shadow's eyes wandered lazily over to her. She was wearing the same catsuit he remembered from before: an eccentric and frankly impractical mix of black and pink. The sight bring back memories of their last run in. Together, they had managed to steal one of the Chaos Emeralds that even now rested within the Eclipse Chamber. For that reason, and no other, Shadow still felt some lingering fondness for the bat girl. Of course, in the end, she would die like all life on his world... but he would make it quick and painless if it was possible.
"Shadow," she said, her tone seductive. "Surprised to see me?"
"Only a little," he drawled, not moving from his spot by the balcony. "Why are you here?"
"I missed you?"
He raised an inquisitive eyebrow at that.
"Didn't you miss me?" she asked, helping herself to a plate of grapes and sitting down nearby. "You could really be nicer to me... I have something you want, after all."
"You?" Shadow asked, as if to imply there was very little she had that could interest him. But then he realized: maybe she did. Slowly, he turned to face her.
"Chaos Emeralds. You boys sure do have a one track mind... and that's coming from a compulsive jewel thief, so you know its not a good thing," Rouge remarked, plucking a grape off its stem with pink lips. Licking a few droplets of juice off her lower lip with her tongue, she smiled seductively.
"There's that look on your face that I remember," she added. "That's what I missed about you. That looks means opportunity."
Shadow 'hmfed.'
"A look that means opportunity?" he asked. "That depends."
"On what?" Rouge asked, a bit thrown by the question.
"On whether or not I can trust you," Shadow explained, taking a few steps towards her. Rouge's confidence flagged a fraction at his approach; she hastily swallowed the seedless grape she had been sucking the juice from. With a few more steps, he placed himself behind where she sat. Turning so slowly, it was almost glacial, he gently placed a hand on her shoulder.
"You can trust me," she said, not flinching at the contact. "Just like before. Remember?"
"I do..." his voice was rough and menacing.
Rouge gulped.
She had assumed he would remember that outing fondly. After all, they had helped each other... he had even saved her life from a particularly cunning trap. In the end, they had won the Chaos Emerald and he had returned to his master completely contented. He didn't know she had done it on the orders of GUN, and taken the opportunity to conduct critical espionage from within. The information she had pulled together from that mission had been critical in the ongoing war, but of course no one knew about that.
No one could ever know.
Not even the Mobians in the Kingdom of Acorn who has benefited from the intelligence passed onto them by sympathetic GUN members. It was the nature of her profession. She was spy. No one really trusted her except her handlers and her friends, and those were few and far between.
"Hmm." Shadow's hand left her shoulder, and she let out the breath she'd been unconsciously holding. "First, tell me what you want."
"I want... to be one of the Underbosses..."
"Really?" he asked, walking back around and taking a seat in front of her. "You never seemed the type to crave power over others, Rouge. At least not that kind of power."
Underbosses, or "minibosses," were regional commanders for the Eggman Empire. Previously, they had each been unique in some way. Crocbot had run operations in Downunda, for example, whole the roboticized General D'coolette had run operations in occupied Mercia. Some Underbosses were more independent than others, and at the height of the Empire some had even been almost wholly independent entities who merely paid tribute to the Empire and played by its rules. More recently, the Underboss system had been replaced by networked communes of more reliable Tails Doll AIs.
"It isn't that I want to rule over anyone," Rouge explained, relaxing a bit. "I just want to be as free to live my life as possible. If I were an Underboss, I'd have that freedom. Relatively speaking."
"Really?"
She nodded. "Look at Snively. He's mostly free to do what he wants, isn't he? Or you. Or even the Iron Queen back when she aligned with the Empire. That's what I want. I don't have anywhere else to go... I've made too many enemies among the humans and Mobians."
Shadow considered that for a moment.
"I see," he finally decided. "And what do you know?"
"I have the exact location of Knothole's Chaos Emerald," she said. "Down to an area of three meters."
Shadow's eyes narrowed. That was valuable information and they both knew it. Knothole was less a true "Hidden City" than it was a "Stealth City." Its general location was not hard to pin down. The problem was that it had a combination city shield and cloak which made actually targeting anything within the city nearly impossible. However, if one had the location of the shield generator and the Chaos Emerald powering it... ah, but that was something else entirely!
A Chaos Emerald would also be enough to jump start Helios and the Eclipse chamber, after which the actual status of Knothole would be moot. It could be destroyed at any time once Helios was in the air. In fact, it was doubly beneficial: he knew that the Kingdom had two Chaos Emeralds. If he was able to take one from their precious city shield, then it was likely they would replace it with the other. That Emerald could then be seized as well, no matter what puny security measures they put in place to protect it.
"Interesting," Shadow replied. "How did you learn this?"
Rouge took a deep breath: this was it.
"I slept with Sonic's sidekick."
"Tails." Shadow didn't phrase it as a question, just a bland statement. Her method of information gathering didn't seem to illicit much of a response at all in the black hedgehog.
"Yes," he mused. "I suppose that makes sense. He would know where it was."
"You don't sound surprised?"
"That brat... I've run into him a few times." Shadow glanced up at the ceiling, as if in memory. "I'm well aware of his technical abilities. We believe he's the one who built that shield in the first place."
Not so much as a peep about how she got the information at all. Rouge was a bit stunned. She had expected that to be the hardest sell of the night.
"Well, it wasn't hard to hack into his files once I had the chance," she explained, though it didn't even really seem necessary. Reaching into her catsuit's chest piece, she retrieved a small data crystal containing the relevant information.
"Well, this is valuable information," Shadow held out his hand. "Encrypted I assume?"
"You know me," she slyly replied, letting him have the crystal. "I left some unencrypted tidbits in there, just to prove my point. You'll get the rest when I get my Underboss status and a nice little robot army to keep me safe."
"More?" Shadow asked, and actually smiled. "Don't tell me... you know where the last Emerald is as well?"
Rouge winked.
"A girl's gotta hold onto some secrets, right?"
Shadow's crimson eyes seemed to peer right through her.
"I'll look into this right away," he said, heading inside.
"You have any food in this place?" she called after him. "Its been a long trip, you know!"
What an interesting day it had been.
Wiping the blood off his forehead, Tails could see the jagged tear that now graced his face, right below the hairline. Pressing the back of his thumb to the wound, he sealed it shut with a quick blast of chaos energy. Today, he'd not only gotten the chance to set off some of the most impressive explosives he had ever built (oh, but Bean would've gotten all misty eyed at the sight), but he got to see a Berserker body in action, too!
Today was a very interesting day!
Metal Sonic hovered in the distance, partly obscured by howling clouds of dust. A glowing orb pulsed in front of his chest; a flash of light and a second later, a magnificent blue beam lanced out, blowing apart the ground where Tails had stood just a moment before. The beam then swung, burning and kicking up debris as it followed the kitsune's movements.
"Charged particle beam; output between eight and nine gigajoules. It seems to be using a warped electromagnetic bubble as the projection point... Ok! Got it!"
Holding out his hands, Tails cupped them together and concentrated. Like his peers, he was capable of absorbing and internalizing large amount of chaos energy, via rings or other sources, like Chaos Emeralds. Unlike his peers, he had developed the control to exude chaos energy as well. The technology built into his gloves allowed a measure of control and refinement, making it easier to shape and control the Chaos Effect. In effect, each one of his gloves was a micro-manufacturing facility.
By releasing chaos energy into the circuitry, he was able to create new "power rings" with unique effects. At first, he had simply learned to use this process to manufacture his own Energy Shielding: bubble shields, fire shields, lightning shields. Then had had worked out the secrets to making "pure" bubble shields and invincibility shields. In that respect, he was simply catching up to the Eggman and his grandfather, Gerald, who had already done research into this field.
Yes: that was it.
About one hundred rings would do.
Jumping up and presenting an easy target, Tails held out his hands. Predictably, Metal zeroed in on him, and fired. This time, Miles made no attempt to dodge. Instead, the beam of light hit him head on, but rather than punching through his body and tearing him apart, it hit a concave shield several inches from the fox's hands. The shield bubble glowed white hot, but before it could be overwhelmed, Metal staggered, engulfed in a blast of white and blue fire.
The kitsune landed on his feet, tails spinning lazily to slow his descent and keep him stable. Starting to run towards where Metal fell, Tails saw the robot getting back on its feet. Wisely, it didn't try and power up another blast.
The problem with a charged particle beam was that the ionization stream could work both ways. It was like a tether between two masses. All that was required was to send an electrical discharge down the stream of ionized particles and back into the columniation chamber. In this case there was no reinforced chamber, only an easily overloaded magnetic field. Tails' shield had blocked half the beam, and let the other half explode right in Metal's face.
Metal Sonic's engines roared, and he took off.
Tails leaned forward, his tails spinning behind him. Crackles of chaos energy rippled along their length, creating a spinning vortex behind him as he accelerated. Jumping and picking up speed, he slammed into Metal Sonic in midair. The latter's engines howled, pushing them in one direction even as the kitsune's tails pushed them in another. The two corkscrewed wildly through the air, blasting from one place to the next at over two hundred miles per hour before abruptly changing vector.
Finally, inevitably, they slammed back to earth and right into a recovering formation of Combots. Spinning even as they fought, twin tails and burning exhaust mauled nearby robots and tore them to pieces. None dared to fire their weapons, not with both Metal Sonic and his target so closely entwined. The two finally crashed, at top speed, into the body of a half damaged artillery-type Caterkiller. The mech all but ripped in half from the impact; the tail section launched right up into the air and the multi-ton artillery barrel apparatus on the top crashed fifty feet away, flattening two E-series snipers.
A second later, an explosion gutted what was left of the mech entirely.
Tails landed on top of a barely functional Combot, one damaged by the initial semi-nuclear blasts, crushing its head beneath his feet. Spitting a wad of blood, and sparing a look at the burn that now ran down his left arm, he cocked his head. A silver ring shaped disk collected in the palm of his right hand, and almost casually he tossed it at the still burning Caterkiller wreckage. A moment later, another thunderous explosion leveled the area.
"Awesome!" he said, eyes wide and alight with excitement. "You had time to assimilate that, even before the explosion went off?"
Metal stepped out of the smoke, sporting one of the Caterkiller's secondary artillery armaments: a twenty millimeter autocannon. The thing had to be almost twice Metal's already increased mass. The mimetic mecha took a few more steps, planting his feet firmly in place, even as his left arm began to morph into a new weapons system. Tails' grin grew even wider as he watched the berserker cells at work.
It was just so damn fascinating!
Braces emerged around Metal's legs, rooting him in position. Silvery threads assembled twin tesla coils behind his shoulders, and a new shield blinked into place in front of the cobalt robot. Within seconds, he was ready. Missiles erupted from what had once been his left arm, while explosive anti-personnel and incendiary autocannon fire saturated the battlefield.
Tails backflipped back behind a pile of rubble, sped behind a line of Combots (that promptly got shredded in the crossfire), and then disappeared behind a trail of burning oil. Metal wasn't fooled. Looking straight up, he saw the fox descending from above, hands a blur as they released one silvery ring after another. Metal turned his weapons up, and opened fire.
A long fiery trail of explosions formed a pillar a hundred feet high.
When the smoke cleared, a bloody and bruised kitsune stood over Metal, pinning him to the ground with his feet. The shredded remains of his adapted missile launcher arm and autocannon attachment lay beneath Miles' tails. The fox was grinning. Metal's eyes flared in amusement.
Two half complete arms erupted out of the sides of Metal's torso.
Tails held out his hands, chaos energy congealing to form another device. In his right hand, golden rings formed around the base of his fingers, followed by another golden ring in the palm. Silvery circuitry melded into the seamless gold, and two cylindrical nubs manufactured themselves in the back of his palm.
"You can thank that bastard for this idea," Tails said, pointing his palm down. "Chaos Spear; One Hundred Rings!"
Metal Sonic's optics were blinded by light.
"Yes, sir. As you wish."
Rouge tried not to listen in on the conversation. The entire plan merely rested on Shadow going after Knothole's Chaos Emerald. No big, right?
Instead, she tried to distract herself by watching Shadow's unused television. The echidna were lucky enough to have a variety of commercial stations running actual content. All she every got in Knothole was the usual propaganda broadcasts over the radio. If she had to hear "For Source and Country" one more time, she'd seriously have to puke. As far as she was concerned, the Source was just a mudhole that had gotten blown up a few years back, and the less said about the King and his illustrious royal family the better.
Eventually she found a suitably amusing "talking heads" show discussing the peace conference. On one side was the merciless warmonger and on the other the spineless pacifist. Definitely good television! She checked the menu, while watching, to see what else was on.
"Oh! A special on the Robotnik family. And a 'Making of' show about Tami-La's new movie 'Broken Battery!'"
Shadow's usually gloomy self quickly intruded on the potential amusement. At least there wasn't any "breaking news" about a half dozen nuclear explosions going off anywhere earlier in the day. No news at all about the Eggman/Overlander front, in fact.
"Well?" she asked, pointedly not taking her eyes off the TV.
"I am going to check out this Emerald..."
"Good, good! Good luck and have fun...!" Rouge waved him away.
He frowned at her childish behavior, put somewhat at ease.
"You." He pointed at her. "Are coming with me. The Doctor wants to be sure we retrieve it, and that you aren't trying to... 'pull a fast one' as he says. If you are, I'm to kill you on the spot."
...
"Wow. Really? On the spot?" she asked, flipping through channels. "Even if I'm holding you over a pit of spikes... spikes that are coming out a pool of acid? Also the acid is on fire?"
"I'd probably wait a minute in that case," Shadow deadpanned. "Now come along."
Inwardly, Rouge winced. She wasn't really supposed to go with him!
She slowly got up and saw him standing in the center of the room. He had his arms crossed and a look of profound impatience written all over his face and posture. There was no doubt he was anxious to get going and collect the Emerald. No surprise there.
"Just can't wait to head out, huh?"
Shadow nodded. "I've been waiting a long time to get back that damn fourth Chaos Emerald!"
"Bitter much?" she asked, standing next to him. "Hey, don't you need a Chaos Emerald to teleport?"
He held out his hand, and the topaz colored Chaos Emeralds appeared in a wink of light. Rouge was genuinely amazed. Has he learned some form of remote chaos control? She had been expecting him to be carrying one of the emeralds with him. Or maybe it was just some trick?
"Remote chaos control?" she guessed.
"Very astute," he confirmed, comfortable enough with her that he even elaborated: "This way, I can keep the Emeralds in Robotropolis, where they're safest. I call this ability 'Chaos Recall.' Once I have synchronized my Chaos Energy with that of an Emerald, I can recall it to myself at any time."
Shadow wouldn't waste any further time explaining, Rouge knew. They would head out as soon as possible.
"I gotta say," she felt the need to voice a legitimate concern. "I'm not keen on going back to Knothole and getting shot at."
"I won't let you die," he said in what was probably supposed to be a comforting gesture. It might actually have been just that... if he hasn't said he planned to kill her if she had betrayed his trust (which she had) just a minute earlier. Still, there was no going back now.
"Spread your wings," he warned her, holding out the Emerald. "I'm going to be Chaos Controlling roughly two thousand feet above sea level to make sure we don't teleport into any obstacles."
Metal didn't understand.
It shouldn't have been this difficult to defeat Sonic's sidekick. Estimates as to the boy's abilities were highly inaccurate. The only intelligence failure this great that Metal could remember was how Amy Rose's hammer had been misclassified as "primarily iron composition" rather than "big god damn magical hammer of smiting." Everything about this brat had been off.
His baseline speed was above what records indicated from the Westopolis confrontation, and his tail-speed (foolishly undocumented at all) was far worse. His strength was also higher than estimates had placed it. Those factors by themselves would have been troublesome but not dangerous. However, Metal had absolutely no data on these new inventions and chaos energy abilities.
Metal's sensors narrowed in on the boy's gloves. At first, the robot had thought the technology to be similar to either Overlander or Dark Legion "technomagic." that assessment may have been premature. In the former case, there was no actual chaos energy manipulation involved. In the latter, there was actually very little technology involved. This... this seemed more like fighting another chaos energy using robot, except one with a seemingly inexhaustible organic battery.
The boy used Chaos energy to power a device that had an effect, but the chaos energy itself was rarely a factor in that effect. Metal had seen a variety of shields being formed, numerous high explosives, decoys, and some sort of ring-powered energy beam. A form of 'Chaos Spear' - Metal had records and recordings of Shadow's move, but the boy's wasn't quite the same. Shadow's Chaos Spear used raw chaos energy. Tails' copy used processed energy, collected and fired with a cybernetic apparatus. Practically, this meant Shadow's attack was more powerful and easy to use, while the brat's was more versatile and easy to control, like a shotgun versus a sniper rifle.
Metal felt his newest body begin to fall apart.
It was too damaged to continue. Shedding the broken bits and repairing his core systems, the ultramarine robot fell forward onto his knees. Bits and pieces of other assimilated robots fell from his body, like flaking chips of paint. A couple feet away, Tails stumbled forward, clutching his wounded side. A stream of red ran down his waist and along his left leg.
The kitsune was breathing in gasps, but still standing.
"Damn," Metal cursed, electronic anger beginning to get the best of him. "Damnit! To have pushed me this far... a mere foxboy like you!"
"Hey! Foxboy?" Tails grumbled. "That's insulting!"
Metal glared at the aggravating organic.
Standing back up, the cobalt robot's body began to shake. With as hiss, chunks of blue armor fell from the arms, the legs, and finally the torso. Beneath that, roiling tendrils of silvers twisted like snakes over a metal skeleton. Metal's face twisted, and a ragged mouth ripped open on a previously featureless metallic surface.
"Survival Protocol Omega is now in effect. Berserker Limit Permissions expired." Metal's body began to grow as the tendrils whipped around in a frenzy, latching onto anything in range. "Metal Sonic... Phase Three... unlocked!"
"Die!" Joined metal plates rose up around the one time hedgehog facsimile. "Die!" In moments, he was encased completely in a shell of solid steel. "DIE!" Only to erupt a moment later as a mass of blue and silver tentacles.
"DIE!"
In seconds, the every expanding mass of tentacles and metal had swept up tons of debris from all around the battlefield. Bits and pieces of Combot, arms and legs and torsos from E-series bots, chunks of badniks and the frozen faces of Robians, all began to merge into a single nightmarish amalgamation.
A hideous dragon-like mouth with teeth of jagged armor torn from a dozen enemies roared, howling as more and more matter joined the maelstrom. Crackles of lightning and static electricity ran across the ever expanding form. Bladed wings and a dozen waving tentacles formed out of a mass of discolored blue and gray.
Tails whistled appreciatively.
"So, Eggman did program a few restrictions into your berserker cells...!" he speculated, looking up at the still expanding Metal Monstrosity. "Is this supposed to be your new equivalent of a 'Super Form?'"
The now forty foot long face of Metal Sonic glared down at him, bits of debris falling from its freshly formed rows of teeth.
"None can match me in this body!" The creature rumbled, with a voice like a dozen jet engines. "I am beyond Sonic. Beyond you. Beyond flesh and blood! Now. DIE!"
A bus sized hand descended, studded in spiraling drills and razor edged steel. It slammed into Tails like a meteor, but met no resistance as it crushed him into the dirt. There was no spray of blood; no satisfying crunch; no scream of pain. Metal swung his head around, looking for the real brat. This wasn't the first decoy the boy had used.
A flash of orange moved, trying to get behind Metal's back. His wings flexed, and two dozen bladed missiles rained down, shattering the ground and burning a trail a half mile long. Metal then swept his tail through the fires for good measure, but hit nothing of substance. Shifting his bulk, he scanned the area. Radar and Sonar were both useless: the damned kitsune seemed to be scrambling both with one of his accursed shields. That left only his Mark One Optics.
Again, the boy appeared, speeding along just outside striking range.
This time, Metal opened his mouth and unleashed something new. A focused sonic burst with a wide cone shaped area of effect. This time he got the satisfaction of a solid hit. Tails took the blast and careened along the ground, rolling before coming to a crashing halt against the rim of a crater. Metal unleashed a second blast, but Tails slipped over the edge of the crater and out of sight.
"Damn," the Metal behemoth rumbled, craning its long neck to try and get a better look. A moment later, and the cursed brat was gone.
"Where are you, boy?" Metal roared. "Don't tell me you're running from me?"
"Running is as legitimate a tactic as any."
Metal turned, and found the boy standing atop some sort of flying board. Metal's memory banks quickly provided the relevant information. It was a GEAR: a form of hoverboard used in extreme sports. What was it doing here? There were no workable roads in the area. A closer look confirmed unusual additions to the board. Metal's smart AI quickly calculated the probability was high that it was some sort of flight pack, though he wasn't equipped to determine out how it worked.
"But in this case, no, I'm not running," Tails explained. "I just needed to finish scanning you."
"Scanning me?" Metal bellowed. "Was that what you were doing, zipping around like a bug?"
"I'm well aware of what berserker cells are and what they are capable of," the fox continued, seemingly unperturbed. "What was most surprising was that Eggman placed nominal limitations on your assimilation ability before this. Tell me: are you aware of all the material you've absorbed into yourself?"
Metal stared down at the tiny little creature.
"Probably not," Tails guessed, not needing to hear a reply. A single golden ring appeared in the palm of his hand. "I mean, you just went around grabbing anything in sight like Sonic at a chilidog cook off. You should have been more careful. "
Metal finally began to realize just what the boy was implying.
"You...!"
And why the brat was carefully flying a safe distance off the ground.
Tails pointed downward.
"One Ring."
The golden ring sunk into the ground, and instantly a massive lightning shield sprung into being. Its activation triggered another, and another, and another, and another, all around Metal's Phase Three form. It then began to trigger lightning traps within his body, shielded and inadvertently absorbed in his haste to transform. Metal screamed soundlessly, even his audio functions burning out. Only the creaking and warping of metal and the burning stink of fried circuitry filled the air.
"It took me roughly six minutes to determine the composition and operation of your berserker cells, and the nature of your 'infinite regeneration.' It took me less than five minutes to devise a countermeasure to those abilities," Tails explained, cocking his head to the side as he watched Metal unravel. "The fact is, that I'm not a good match up for someone like you. Any machine I understand, I can take apart. Anything I can take apart, I can copy. You are no exception."
Metal's jaw corroded and fell off, followed by blue plates of armor.
"While you were busy eating your surroundings, I was busy pirating your technology," Tails concluded. "My bootleg nanites aren't very original, but then again, they don't need to be. Sorry. But this is the end."
Metal Sonic's monstrous form fell apart, bit by bit. His berserker cells were hit simultaneously, individually unable to cope with the damage to their area around them, and ultimately, the damage to themselves. When they died, Metal's vital systems shut down, and his assimilated components broke off, rejected. The vast mass of machinery ultimately collapsed: one arm fell off as a whole piece, another broke apart piecemeal. The great bladed wings fell to the ground, cutting deeply enough into the blast caked soil to remain upright, like a two story tall wall.
Finally, Tails hopped off his GEAR and began walking towards the still smoking remains. Stepping carefully over a burning piece of engine, and a half assimilated, half whole Robian, he kneeled and reached down, finding something worth salvaging. He came back up holding Metal's severed head, now back to its original size. Brushing off bits and pieces of blasted steel, the kitsune fox stared into the now dull red eyes.
"I can understand your need to beat Sonic, you know," he told the inactive and unresponsive head. Miles knew his words were wasted, but said them anyway.
It felt right.
"Believe me, I really do understand. But neither of us can ever replace Sonic no matter how hard we try and no matter what we do to ourselves." Tails closed his eyes, letting that statement sink in. It had been one of the hardest lessons he had ever learned. "If you had realized that and accepted what you actually were, rather than mimicking someone else, you could have defeated Sonic years ago. But don't worry... I'm going to give you another chance to make a difference with your life. Including another shot at a certain someone."
Tails smiled at the decapitated head.
"You may even thank me later."