He began to get nervous but he stayed on his feet and just kept on running into the jungle of the floating island, trying to lead his enemy into a clear area. He had been fighting for over an hour since he had entered the remains of the island since he tracked down whatever he's looking for to the secluded ruins of his home, Angel Island.
Knuckles can barely hold it together, but he wasn't giving up that easily. He knew that if he loses, that... Robot will steal whatever it came for, he presumed it might be after something valuable that it had to come to Angel Island to retrieve whatever it's after. He already contacted Tails and he really needs a set of helping hands to help him out in his sticky situation.
Grunting, he jumped off from atop a medium-sized hill and perfectly landed on the ground, skidding his green and red shoes against the dirt and began a fighting stance, ready to face whatever was chasing him.
The bushes and jungle leaves rustled and out came a robotic hedgehog, completely made out of metal, Knuckles growled lowly and stared at the robot red eyes, a robot mind you, who is a robotic duplicate of the hero of Mobius. The red echidna continued to stare at Metal Sonic while he walked around slowly towards it, Metal's claws sharpened as Knuckles began to drift closer towards the robot.
And then instantly, Metal ran at full speed towards Knuckles, ready to plunge its sharpened claws into the echidna's body, but Knuckles acted fast and jumped out of way, avoiding Metal's attack.
As he was up in the air, he began to descend down with his fist aiming at Metal, the metal robot looked as if it's scowling at Knuckles but of course, it wasn't running away from a fight. Metal focused his robotic eyes onto the Knuckles, trying to copy the echidna's strength and replicate it.
Knuckles noticed Metal's reaction and reacted to it by gliding away to another clear area nearby, unable to let Metal copy his strength, leading for Metal to run off fast to where Knuckled glided to.
When he was there, he turned his head around every corner, trying to find Knuckles. About to give up, he decided to return to his original agenda and steal the Master Emerald. But in surprise, Knuckles punched Metal's back and drove the robot onto the ground.
The red echidna gave it all in and continuously punched Metal, in hopes that the robot would be too damaged to proceed. But it wasn't enough as Metal shifted his eyes at Knuckles and managed to turn the tables and throw Knuckles off of him by kicking the echidna off. It retaliated by using his claws and cut Knuckles in an instant, making Knuckles to grunt in pain and immediately gave Metal a death glare.
As Metal was about to claw at him again, this time making his sharp metal claws bigger, a blast of chaos energy swept him away across the area. Knuckles was dumbfounded but as soon as he turned his head from where the blast came from, his eyes see Shadow and Rouge just from the distance.
"Hey there Knuxie, long time no see. " Rouge said, clearly starting to flirt with the red echidna, annoying Knuckles and making him relieved at the same time. He jumped up from where he is and crash-landed near where the two G.U.N. agents are.
"Thanks. Although I was hoping for a hammer and a giant plane to help me out, this works too. " He said, he really thought that Tails and Amy were going to help him out but he guessed that they'd be too tired to even receive his message if Shadow and Rouge didn't show up.
But they were cut short when Metal arose from the ground, covered in dirt and grass, its eyes started to glow brighter and in a blink of an eye, running full speed towards them, "Move out!" Shadow yelled aggressively, Rouge and Knuckles followed him as they both got out of the way before Metal can even slice through them.
"Chaos Spear! " As Shadow yelled these words, in the palm of his hand appeared a glowing yellow spear made entirely out of chaos energy, and threw it directly at the robot enemy, which detected the imminent threat approaching it and ran out as the spear flew through the ground and in a matter of seconds exploded upon contact.
Metal acted immediately after this and attempted to make a move on Rouge, who then saw Metal coming out on her and used a homing attack on her, but the white bat thought fast and moved out of the way, while also using her powerful kick, sending the robot onto a tree.
But Metal reacted quickly and used his ability of flight to slow down from hitting on the tree, knowing it may finally knock him out for good. He turned his head towards Shadow one more time and ran fast and readied his claws to rip the black hedgehog to shreds.
He was this close until Knuckles came in afterward and smashed his head and drove it, along with his body into the ground, Shadow walked up to the metal robot and dusted if the dirt that is covering it's face, he then proceeded to open a hatch and rip Metal's wires, finally deactivating it.
Rouge flew down and dusted herself, "Did you get him? " She asked Shadow, who looked down at Metal and crouched down and looked inside the robot's wires. Knuckles ran up to them and upon seeing Shadow tampering with Metal, looked at Rouge, giving her a confused look, Rouge's only reply to him that she doesn't know what Shadow was doing either.
Shadow kept on digging in the robot's mechanics and hidden inside was a small chip attached to some sort of motherboard and swiped it off, he narrowed his eyes and stood up, showing the device to Rouge and Knuckles.
Rouge raised a brow, "What is that? " She asked, pointing at the small chip.
"It's a memory chip, knowing Eggman, he probably built Metal Sonic with a memory drive or at least a device that carries Metal's memories, " Shadow explained and tucked it into his quills, he turned towards Knuckles and walked up to him, "Do you mind telling us why Metal was here? " He asked the Knuckles, needing why the metal duplicate made its way to Angel Island.
"No idea, I spotted him with... Whatever was causing mayhem and followed him here. Other than that, that's about it. " Knuckles said, not getting too much info as it is, making Shadow and Rouge hit a dead end to whoever the threat is. But what they both know, that Eggman may be beyond it pulling the strings.
Shadow lifted his arm up and contacted Tails, "You got all that? " He asked the kitsune.
Tails appeared as a hologram from the communicator and nodded his head, "Yup, heard you've got a memory chip from Metal Sonic, mind bringing it to me so I can take a look? " He requested for the memory chip, Shadow looked at the chip and sighed.
He clutched the item in his hand took a full minute to think, "No," Before Tails can anything, Shadow threw the chip to Knuckles as the echidna grabbed it mid-air, "Knuckles will be bringing the chip to you. Me and Rouge have to find Sonic and that... Chaotic being of destruction. " Tails nods his head and logged off.
"So, where did you first found Metal?" Rouge asked Knuckles, he then said that he saw Metal taking orders from someone in one of Dr. Eggman's old hidden bases. One of the bases Shadow and Rouge were familiar with, but not Knuckles or any of the others, until now.
Knuckles ran off to go to Tails' lab, while Shadow and Rouge stayed behind to get ready to go to the ocean, while Shadow is gonna get his bike ready, he asked Rouge to bring Metal with them, he thinks that maybe one of the badniks may come for Metal and he wants to make sure Eggman won't have one of his top enforcers.
Rouge said obliged and was able to dig out Metal from the ground and carried him on her back, but inside Metal's head, was another memory chip and reactivated him. Metal's eyes awakened and saw Rouge carrying him and, like a monster the robot is, dug his claws into Rouge's back and pumped in some sort of sedative into her, affecting her nervous system paralyzed as well.
Rouge screamed in pain as Metal had rendered her motionless, Rouge's body felt heavy and came tumbling down to her feet and laid down. Metal lowered his head and took out his claws from the white bat's back and watched Rouge fall into slumber and sharpened his claws and was about to claw the ivory bat.
But then, a spear of pure chaos energy struck Metal into his chest and finally exploded Metal Sonic into smithereens. Shadow gasped and ran up towards Rouge and held her in his arms, he then noticed the marks on her back and noticed the sedative leaking out. He growled and watched as pieces of metal scrap fell from the sky and, by the distance, fell Metal's head as it stuck onto a rock.
Shadow was disgusted and had enough of the robot and walked away to his motorbike with Rouge in his arms, still asleep and paralyzed from her head to her feet. He brought Rouge to Tails' lab and there, Tails assured Shadow that Rouge will be fine, Tails did say that the sedative that Metal injected into her, if overdosed, would kill her.
Upon hearing this, Shadow in the inside had already feared that if he may bring Rouge again she may fall down again, he never should've let her carry Metal, he should've been the one to bring Metal, not her. Her well-being is important to him, but this mission is already delayed enough and he had to leave without her.
He doesn't wanna risk her getting hurt or almost dying again, he cared for Rouge, maybe even more so. Amy had also awoken and decided to care for Rouge while Knuckles decided to keep on looking and Shadow to go to an old Eggman base. Tails continued to stay in contact with Shadow and Knuckles, but he has been thinking about what really happened to Sonic.
Is Sonic really gone, is he missing, or is he...?
Somewhere, a man with a stylized mustache turned off the monitor after Metal had exploded and walked over to another person, "He'sdone his part, now do yours. " He said, the person nodded and in their hand, is a chaos emerald and wasted no more time and teleported away.