Mushroom City, Mushroom Kingdom, July 6th, 2018, 2:53 PM…
"No way…"
His heartbeat felt like it had sped up to an unnatural velocity. His hands...No, his entire body was shaking. His mouth was agape and his eyes were wide out of terror. The only noises coming out of his mouth were confused whimpers and gasps. His stomach felt like it was being twisted and spun around.
It felt like he was about to throw up. But something in him kept him from regurgitating his lunch. Was it fear? Was it shock? He didn't know.
His mind raced as he struggled to process what he was seeing right in front of him. Memories flashed through his eyes so fast, it was like a VHS tape on fast forward. While his eyes were wide, his vision began failing as the background and foreground became blurry.
A few feet behind Sonic, Mario was sitting on the floor, still recovering. He noticed how terrified Sonic was. That gave Mario a sharp feeling of worry. Sonic was tough. But if there was something that scared him, it was sure to be very bad news.
Mario was used to seeing Sonic always smiling and his eyes always being full of such life. But for the first time ever, he saw the same hedgehog standing still, with his mouth agape and his eyes wide open in fear. It almost looked like he was in a trance.
"Luigi, I don't have a good feeling about this guy. Not at all." Mario spoke to his brother.
Sarcastically, Luigi responded with "What? You thought I didn't already? I'm one explosion away from soiling my overalls!"
The figure floating above the giant crater in the street was very familiar, familiar to Sonic himself. He had carefully observed every feature that he could see, now that his vision was now formerly blurry.
The creature had a yellow circular depression in his chest with a black center. His head had metal fins and a pair of triangular "ears." He also had a muzzle, shoulder plates, upper arms, legs, and fingers made out of silvery metal.
His palms were black, while the backs of his hands were square yellow plates. His forearms and lower legs were blue metal like his head and torso, and he had red feet with white stripes. His eyes looked like optic sensors with black sclera and red irises.
Sonic stared at the creature floating above him. It looked so much like him that there was no doubt he knew who it was. A creature who had haunted him for years. An artificial projection of himself in the shape of a robot.
He never thought he'd see him again after what had occurred last year. The full-scale invasion of the world by his arch-nemesis. As well as the spread of a very dangerous virus, committed by his own robotic hand.
Sonic also had doubts he'd see him again in the Mushroom Kingdom, no less.
Managing to break through the fear, Sonic silently uttered the familiar creature's name. A name that he had heard and said since the early days of being a hero.
"M-Metal...S-Sonic…"
Sonic The Hedgehog: Beyond Worlds
Hero Story
Chapter 8: A Metallic Maelstrom
Metal Sonic remained quiet as he kept floating by using the rocket propulsor on his back. He used his body weight to begin spinning around slowly to observe his environment. His eyes scanned every nook and cranny of the street he was in.
Each object or creature his eyes saw, a built-in scanner ran through any records available to Metal's database.
He detected the pedestrians and police officers observing him. Many of them were Koopas, Goombas, Toads, and other species. The badges of the cops were scanned as Metal Sonic pulled up a list of names of currently serving police officers of the Mushroom Kingdom.
Using his enhanced hearing modules, he could hear what some officers among the crowd were saying into their radios.
"All units, an unidentified mechanical being has suddenly appeared at the location of a fight between Mario and that Sonic guy. I advise to bring in backup but keep them hidden. Target could be very dangerous."
From those very words, Metal Sonic expected more police officers to arrive. This was worrying but nothing that required his RAM usage to increase.
He noticed an injured Mario and Luigi giving him strange looks. As soon as he scanned them, a simulated feeling of concern began growing in Metal Sonic's CPU. His records show that even with Metal, the Mario Bros had quite a reputation. He also knew what they were capable of.
Even so, Metal Sonic paid no mind to them as he thought they were weak, weaker than him to be exact.
He continued scanning pedestrians in the area. Until he got to a certain blue hedgehog.
Metal was startled by the presence of his organic "doppelganger." No scanning was even necessary for the blue robot to notice it was Sonic The Hedgehog, in the flesh and quills. Even though Metal Sonic never thought he would come across the blue blur, he somehow expected to find him sometime in the future.
Guess the future happened to be now.
Sonic was still processing the chances of coming across Metal Sonic when he heard a deep, robotic voice begin to speak to him directly.
"Long time no see, Sonic The Hedgehog. I had hoped that we would come across each other someday. Never expected it to happen so soon."
The blue hedgehog regained his concentration and said "Never thought I'd see you again, Metal. What the hell are you doing here? I don't even remember how I got here! Wait, let me ask you something: Do YOU remember how you ended up here?"
Metal Sonic arrogantly scoffed as he avoided the question "Nevermind how I got here! It would've been preferable for us to come across each other at a later date! But no matter! All that matters is that I now have my chance to finally end you, Sonic The Hedgehog!"
"Is that seriously all you've thought about for all this time? Man, it sure does feel good to live in your motherboard rent-free." Sonic joked as he pointed to his own head.
With a robotic growl, Metal Sonic yelled "Silence! Today, I will prove that I am indeed the real Sonic The Hedgehog! And that all you are is a shameless organic copy of me!"
The blue robot's fingers suddenly became sharper, as they resembled claws more than regular fingers. It was like Metal Sonic had knives for fingers. The repulsor engine in his chest roared to life as it began glowing, a bit less brighter than the propulsion engine in his back. The glow of his red eyes intensified, making a more intimidating glare than ever.
Sonic was terrified by Metal Sonic, now ready to fight if the robot needed to. But once he lost his fear, Sonic got into a starting position. Wind coursed through his body, adrenaline pumping his heartrate up. His emerald green eyes began to glow a bright cyan-blue.
The blue hedgehog began to chuckle. Once he was finished, he yelled out to Metal Sonic "Alright! There's only room for one Sonic around here! And I'm certain that Sonic is ME!"
Metal Sonic growled and began to charge up his propulsion engine. Sonic started sending adrenaline throughout his entire body. He had a big grin on his face while Metal was emotionless, as he always was.
Suddenly, Sonic bolted at full speed towards Metal. Using the propulsion rocket, the blue robot began soaring down towards Sonic. Since the blue blur was on the ground, the strength of his steps were able to tear through the concrete on the ground like mud.
Once they got close enough, the two hedgehogs aimed their right fists at each other, intending to hit each other in the face.
But when their arms unfolded, their fists connected in a powerful clash. The sheer magnitude of the clash caused yet another shockwave but this time, it was powerful enough to destroy windows, flip over cars, and yank light poles and fire hydrants out of the ground within a half mile radius.
Pedestrians were knocked to the ground and the Mario Bros were sent flying. Screams, yells, and yelps were heard throughout the streets as witnesses and unsuspecting pedestrians wondered what had happened. The shockwave threw police officers into the ground and destroyed any radios or weapons they may have had.
Even with the immense force of the shockwave, Sonic and Metal Sonic remained still, with the front of their fists connected. The asphalt beneath them was stripped off and blown away from the ground. Gusts of blue colored wind were blown out from Sonic's skin and made contact with the ground.
The two hedgehogs kept glaring at each other in the short time their fists lasted connected. One flesh and one metal. Sonic's emerald green eyes scowled at Metal Sonic's glowing red but cold and dead visual optics.
The world felt like it was moving in slow motion. Mere milliseconds felt like regular seconds. Any movement done took an eternity to realize.
Suddenly, before Metal Sonic could even react, his organic counterpart's right fist began blowing out more blue wind than the rest of his body combined.
Then, the wind blew and flurried through Metal Sonic's fist and began to run up his arm. A majority of the blue air continued coursing through the robotic hedgehog's exoskeleton, while some of it managed to pass through and start to connect with his circuits.
Once the wind reached Metal Sonic's head, the blue robot was tossed backwards by the immense air flow of his organic "doppelganger." An audible, digitized grunt was heard before Metal Sonic managed to land on his feet with a loud clunk. The ground beneath him cracked from the immense weight of the heavy robot.
Mysteriously, while Metal Sonic was still in mid-air, a seemingly dense sphere of water engulfed the blue robot.
The robotic hedgehog's body was twitching and twisting as the water started to make him short-circuit and his motherboard was quickly being fried. The constant crackle of electricity was drowned out by Metal Sonic's groans and grunts of pain. The constant twitching made the robot have an unsteady balance, making him stumble around.
The blue organic hedgehog, however, smiled as he looked to the right as saw a recently opened fire hydrant on the sidewalk. He began chuckling as he remembered how he sped up the flow of his atoms and quickly used the water from the hydrant to engulf Metal Sonic with it.
But Metal Sonic still had some control over his body. In a fit of panic, the blue robot's forearms had panels begin to move around. Inside the panels were many wires and metallic frames. But suddenly, his forearms had small tubes with fins holstered to a metal frame. They were platinum with a few red accents, near the point on one end and a hole at the other end.
"Uh oh..." Sonic stopped chuckling and let out once he quickly realized what was on his robotic doppelganger's forearms.
Metal Sonic raised his jittery arms and pointed them towards Sonic. The blue hedgehog stepped back as he anticipated an incoming attack. The crowd surrounding the two hedgehogs was tense as they waited for something to go wrong. And it did.
"D-D-D-D-Die!" Exclaimed the robotic doppelganger at Sonic.
The exhausts on the missiles began spewing out a small cone of fire. When that happened, the missiles slid out of the metallic frame they were holstered to. At high speed, the small rockets wasted no time in zooming towards Sonic.
The blue hedgehog yelped in fear and managed to jump out of the way, as the missiles hit the ground and detonated. The explosion kicked up many chunks of concrete, varying in sizes. Smoke began rising and spreading as a small fire was left behind at ground zero.
The crowd surrounding the explosion was knocked off balance while others were straight up shoved to the ground. The Mario Bros maintained their balance but like everyone else, the loud noise had begun to make their ears ring.
The constant ringing was a repeated cacophony that disoriented every surrounding citizen of the Mushroom Kingdom.
Even if he had managed to dodge the missiles, Sonic was still close enough to the explosion to be blown away and thrown onto the ground. The hedgehog landed on his side and exhaled breathlessly and painfully.
He felt a sharp pain in his left arm. From the way he crashed onto the sidewalk, he must've landed on it. Sonic let out quiet and painful groans as he slowly used his only working arm to pull himself up. Applying pressure to his left arm, he found out that he was unable to do anything with it. He couldn't lift or lower it. Not even open or close his hand.
It wasn't just an injury, it was a dislocation.
"M-Mario...L-Luigi...I know we aren't on g-good terms but...You think you could help me out with this?" Sonic struggled to say as he started coughing repeatedly.
When he looked to where he thought the Mario Bros were, his eyes widened in horror as he witnessed them running away with the crowd.
Sonic punched the ground with his right arm and cursed "Oh come on! Damn it!"
Before Sonic could put his arm back into place, he was tackled away unexpectedly by Metal Sonic. The blue blur landed on his back as Metal Sonic slowly walked up to him and kept him down using his right foot.
Sonic struggled to move away from his robotic doppelganger when he began hearing a glitchy and jittery voice.
"Say your p-p-p-p-prayers, faker! D-D-D-Die!"
Suddenly, Metal Sonic's right hand was mechanically disassembled and then reassembled into a small but intimidating gatling gun. As it began to rev up, Sonic let out a scared yelp as he began struggling harder. Eventually, he unexpectedly sat up and used his right hand to grab the gatling gun, then pointed it another way.
As soon as Sonic pointed it to the right, the gatling gun began firing off hundreds of 7.62×51mm NATO rounds into the sky and beginning to chip off the edge of a roof of a nearby building.
The loud sounds from the gun and his small proximity from it made Sonic have the intense urge to cover his ears but unfortunately, both of his hands were unavailable.
The crowd nearby was alarmed by the loud gunshots as they began running for safety while screaming their lungs out. Police officers activated their radios to give the signal for other nearby officers to come into the scene.
Sonic's grip on Metal Sonic's gatling gun arm was tough enough that the robotic hedgehog couldn't get him to let go. He quickly stopped firing bullets and used his left arm to deliver a jab to Sonic's eye, making his upper body crash back down onto the ground.
Metal Sonic transformed his gun hand into a regular hand then balled it into a fist. He aimed his fist and threw another punch at Sonic. But the blue blur quickly caught it, much to Metal Sonic's dismay.
"Not so fast, you can of bolts!" He said tauntingly.
Sonic quickly took out an Enerbeam out of his communicator watch and used it to pull open the fire hydrant once more, making Metal Sonic's body be submerged and start to get pushed away by the sheer pressure of the water flow. The blue hedgehog quickly sweep kicked Metal Sonic off his feet, then he used an axe kick to slam him into the ground. The floor cracked beneath the evil robot.
Once Metal was on the asphalt, Sonic held him down with his foot above his repulsor engine. With a seemingly evil chuckle, the blue hedgehog asked his robot counterpart, "So, how do you like it when people hold you down on the ground with their foot? It ain't nice, right?"
"G-G-G-G-Get off of me!" Screamed the blue robot as he activated his propulsion engine and soared into the sky, making Sonic spin around backwards until landing on his stomach. His gut tensed up as the blue blur forcibly exhaled.
He laid there for a few seconds before hearing the jet engine of Metal Sonic approaching him. Without hesitation, Sonic rolled away from his spot just before the robotic hedgehog crash-landed on the same spot on one foot. The ground was once again broken beneath the immense momentum of Metal Sonic. From the impact, dust was kicked up and formed a small cloud.
Sonic knew he was at a slight disadvantage, since his left arm was dislocated and flopping around like a fish. He needed to pop it back into place.
"Hey, you bucket of bolts! Why are you even attacking me? It's not like I'm trying to stop whatever plans you've got! I don't even have any idea if you're even planning something!" Joked the blue hedgehog, doing a very good job hiding how much pain his floppy left arm was in.
With a scoff, Metal Sonic flew towards Sonic and landed a powerful jab to his stomach, causing him to spit out blood. The blue hedgehog flew back far enough to crash into the side of a building. After falling back down to the floor, the blue robot began cackling.
"You shouldn't c-c-c-c-concern yourself in such unimportant m-m-m-matters! The only t-t-t-t-thing you should be w-w-w-w-waiting for is your death!"
Sonic thought his plan had failed because Metal Sonic had begun charging up his jet engine. The whirring sounds it produced got louder and louder. The blue hero closed his eyes and braced for a devastating attack.
Unexpectedly, Metal Sonic's entire body began short-circuiting, causing his jet engine to fail. As the robotic rival began stumbling, sparks began coming out of every limb.
"Huh?" was the only thing Sonic said when he saw that Metal Sonic was having trouble. That confusion rapidly turned into joy.
"So, how do short circuits feel, huh? I saw that that fire hydrant really moistened them good! Does it feel good?! Well, I have plenty to spare! How about I give you some more?!" The blue hedgehog taunted as he used his right arm to grab yet another long strip of Enerbeams and opened another nearby fire hydrant, blasting another pressurized cylinder of water at his opponent.
His circuits' condition began to worsen as more water began seeping in through the cracks.
The surplus of energy began worsening Metal Sonic's own condition. Sparks jolted out of him like a fountain, his distorted grunts signifying his suffering.
While the robot doppelganger struggled handling the overload of electricity, Sonic sat down and examined his dislocated left arm. He had never had to worry about such an injury happening but luckily, he was still trained for it.
He grabbed his left shoulder and gave it a soft tug out. He quickly inhaled and clenched his teeth before shoving his arm back into place with sufficient force.
The pain was unbearable. The constant aching climaxed as Sonic let out a painful yell. His right arm's natural reaction was to start applying pressure to his left arm to nullify the pain.
But suddenly, the pain ceased. Sonic began looking at his left arm and saw that he could move it around flawlessly. A cheeky smile ran across his face.
As soon as Sonic stood up and got into a fighting stance, Metal Sonic gained some control and dashed towards him then aimed a fist right at his face. Sonic moved his head aside then delivered his own punch towards Metal Sonic's face. The punch connected and the force from the hit caused Metal to stumble backwards.
Sonic took this as an opportunity to continue attacking Metal Sonic. He ran up to him and delivered two more punches to the face with both hands.
After Metal stumbled back some more, Sonic sent an uppercut to his artificial doppelganger's chin, sending him a few inches off the ground.
In a smooth and quick manner, Sonic jumped and spun around once. The blue hedgehog then delivered a spin kick that sent Metal Sonic flying to the left.
Metal crashed into a wall, with the force of his momentum cracking the wall. Metal Sonic fell onto the floor with many bricks falling on his face with a painful clank. Even after that, the blue robot continued to twitch uncontrollably.
As the robot struggled to stand up, his shoulders were grabbed by Sonic and the robot was shoved back onto the wall. The wall's cracks grew bigger and hundreds of dust particles flew off of the surface.
Metal Sonic thought Sonic was gonna begin asking another round of questions. But instead, Sonic continued holding Metal Sonic by the neck using his left hand and used his right hand to begin jabbing at Metal's face.
A significantly sized dent began appearing on Metal Sonic's face. Each punch made the dent deeper and deeper.
As hard as he tried, Metal Sonic couldn't move his arms from the electric overload happening in every circuit inside him. All he could do was remain still while Sonic kept throwing punches.
As he was being punched mercilessly, Metal Sonic struggled to blurt out "D-D-Damn it! T-T-T-This isn't h-h-happening!" in a jittery and glitchy voice.
Eventually, Metal Sonic tried to redirect power to his propulsion engine. The jet engine lit up and when a cone of fire came out of the exhaust, Metal Sonic slammed into Sonic as the two were lifted off their feet. Sonic was sent flying backwards into a light post, his weight shattering the light post in two, and then crashing onto the ground.
After Metal Sonic was free from his organic counterpart's grip, the propulsion engine shut off unexpectedly, making the robotic hedgehog begin to falter in mid-air, his arms and legs kicking around in panic, before landing on his face. His impact made sparks shoot off from his metallic skin.
Once his momentum ceased, Metal Sonic lifted his face off the ground. From the looks of it, the impact had scraped off some of the blue paint.
As the blue robot used all of his available strength to get back on his feet, he saw that Sonic was still on the ground, writhing in pain. This gave Metal Sonic an idea and a chance. He began looking around his surroundings until he saw a decently sized van.
When he activated his propulsion engine, his repulsor engine was activated instead. The repulsor engine made Metal Sonic begin to fly backwards. The robot struggled in mid air as he tried to control his directional movement.
Eventually, he crashed into something as his repulsor engine finally shut off. The metallic hedgehog groaned as he used his hand to help himself up before he realized what he was leaning his hand against.
It was another car, surprisingly. But it was a regular car, not as big as the van that Metal Sonic intended to use. But it was gonna work either way.
"P-P-Perfect…" Metal Sonic said in a glitched manner, sounding like his teeth were gritted. The immense power of Sonic's energy was close to overloading the circuits of his metallic rival. But he had a plan.
He already had his right hand on the car so he wasted no time laying his left hand on the vehicle. When both of his limbs were touching the car, he yelled out loud a command.
"Initiate e-e-e-excess power d-d-d-discharge!"
Suddenly, an immense discharge of electricity surged from Metal Sonic's body and onto the exoskeleton of the car. Yellow lightning spread through the skin of the car, slithering around like snakes that move at the speed of light. They bounced off of windows and were slightly absorbed by the metal exterior. The sheer release of excess power also blew away any traces of water from within or on him.
Once the lightning spread to the front of the car, the sheer voltage of the electricity slid through the hood and arrived at the engine. From inside the hood, the engine and all of its components began sparking. Smoke began emitting from the front of the car.
Sonic raised an eyebrow as he failed to understand what Metal was doing. But once he saw the smoking car being picked up by his rival, he quickly understood.
"Take this!" Metal screamed as he flew a few feet in the air and threw the car at Sonic.
The blue blur let out a yelp and managed to sidestep out of the way before the smoking car hit the ground and set off a fiery explosion.
Sonic used his shoulders to shield his eyes from the smoke and heat. Suddenly, a tire frame with burning rubber slammed into Sonic's head, knocking the bright blue hero down.
"Agh...Damn it…" Cursed the blue hedgehog as he managed to get on his feet and began rubbing his forehead, the same place that the burning tire had smacked into him at.
The robotic hedgehog angrily growled, seeing that Sonic was still alive. He started to run towards Sonic then sent a punch to the blue blur's nose, causing him to wince and grab his nose. Metal Sonic then quickly hopped, spun around twice, and delivered a kick to Sonic's head.
Sonic landed on his back but rolled backwards so he could stand up. Metal Sonic growled once more and transformed both hands into machine guns and aimed them towards Sonic.
With a simple "Uh oh", Sonic began running around Metal Sonic as the blue robot began firing the machine guns, spreading gunfire throughout the street.
The bullets flew at incredibly high speed but they were always soaring behind Sonic. All they could hit were walls, windows, and clouds. Sonic clearly wasn't getting tired of running circles around Metal Sonic.
As Metal Sonic leaned his aim closer toward Sonic, the blue blur began climbing walls, his incredible speed making the walls start to crumble, and ran on the rooftops as the bullets went into the sky. As the blue robot was firing hundreds of pieces of lead, numerous police cruisers showed up at the scene and closed off the street with the cars.
All of the officers inside quickly got out of their vehicles and got their laser guns out. All of them charged with either fiery hot Fire Flower energy, or frigid cold Ice Flower energy.
While both Sonics were trying to out maneuver each other, like a game of robot cat and supersonic mouse, they both had their attention caught by a nearby megaphone.
"FREEZE!"
The blue hedgehog halted his movement and began looking from above a rooftop. Metal Sonic stopped firing his guns and turned to face where the sound had come from.
Both hedgehogs were observing a police barricade, with numerous sour-faced police officers with guns out, and what must've been the chief standing in front of the barricade while holding a megaphone.
The chief of police continued yelling into his handy red megaphone "This is the police! Get on the ground and put your hands behind your heads! That is an order!"
"(Who does this guy think he's trying to apprehend? He's gonna get himself and his entire team annihilated! I can't let Metal Sonic get to them!)" The blue hedgehog repeated in his mind. Sonic may allow himself to be arrested, only to prevent any further trouble from arising for him. But Metal Sonic is different.
Surrendering to the enemy is not in his programming.
Metal Sonic scoffed. "Hmph! As if I would ever surrender to organic garbage like yourselves! I'll show you what animals get when they try to mess with me!"
With the sounds of whirring and ratcheting, Metal Sonic's guns became hands once more. The panels of his forearms began moving around until metal frames rose out. Both metal frames had three missiles each, making a total of six missiles.
The robotic hedgehog pointed his arms towards the police barricade. The Koopa chief stared at Metal Sonic with sheer confusion. He lowered his megaphone and whispered to himself "What the fuck?"
Before anyone could figure what was about to happen, the six missiles' rocket propulsors activated. Cones of fire were spewed out as the missiles slid out of their metallic frames and soared towards the blockade.
Sonic's eyes widened in horror as he saw the explosive rockets head towards the defenseless officers.
The blue hedgehog jumped off the roof and ran towards the barricade as fast as he could while yelling "No!"
As Sonic channeled energy into his sense of perception, he began experiencing the world in slow motion. The missiles moved as fast as simple seagulls. The multiple officers, including the chief, started to panic as some tried to run away while others closed their eyes and waited for the end.
His heroic attitude made the blue hedgehog's heart start to ache as he saw the defenseless officers being unable to do anything. He continued moving towards the blockade with haste, trying to outrun the missiles.
With one quick hop, the road beneath him cracked by the sheer force used on it. His momentum propelled him towards the chief of police, intending to grab him and drag him somewhere far away from the missiles.
But as soon as Sonic was within arm's length away from the chief, he was tackled away by Metal Sonic. The two hedgehogs broke through two buildings before Metal Sonic delivered a powerful uppercut. Sonic broke through the roof of a building and continued rising into the air.
He was disoriented for a few seconds but regained complete consciousness, just in time to witness a nightmare happen before him.
As the police officers tried to escape, the missiles hit either the ground or a police car then lit up in a powerful explosion. The detonation began spreading a large cloud of superheated smoke throughout the barricade, the sheer heat and pressure making the cars explode as well.
The added power of the explosion consumed all of the officers in sight. Their screams were drowned out by the earth-shattering sound of the detonation. The cloud of smoke grew in size, covering the street in darkness. Debris from the cars and the asphalt crashed back onto the ground, some of it landed on escaping pedestrians and crushing them in the process.
While Sonic was still in midair, the smoke wasted no time in clearing up to reveal the carnage left behind. Giant pieces of debris laid on the ground, with a few limbs sticking out of the bottom. The burnt skeletons of the police cars could be seen, as well as dismembered limbs and many puddles and blotches of bright red blood.
Most of those limbs were from the unfortunate officers of the law.
Some civilians were still seen running but it was a rare sight. Most of the ones still alive struggled to even stand up. Many were missing limbs, others only had simple skin injuries.
The blue blur's mouth was agape as his widened eyes stared at the horror going on.
All because of Metal Sonic.
To stop his momentum in midair, Sonic rolled into a ball and began spinning around. Then, he zoomed towards the ground and landed on his feet. He was on a rooftop so he jumped down onto a nearby street.
After he landed, Sonic began looking around for his robotic doppelganger.
Before he had any chance to react, Metal Sonic tackled him from behind and began flying through the city. Sonic struggled to get out of Metal's grasp, trying to punch and kick the robot.
"Enough!" yelled Metal Sonic as he flew right next to a building and began dragging Sonic along it, barraging the hedgehog with bricks and shards of glass. The azure hedgehog felt his head being bombarded with bricks and feeling his skin being cut open a bit by flying shards of glass.
Eventually, Metal Sonic threw his organic counterpart away towards another nearby building. Sonic crashed into the side of the skyscraper, the wall crumbling from the sheer force of the impact. He was disoriented by the crash but quickly recovered before Metal Sonic tried slamming into him.
The blue hedgehog secured his feet on the wall and sidestepped away, causing his robotic doppelganger to smack into the wall. The side of the building crumbled further and left a decently sized hole into someone's apartment. The one inside screamed like a banshee and quickly opened his door then ran away.
"Quit moving around!" Screamed the blue mechanical animal before trying to slam into Sonic again. The young adult animal used both hands to nullify the force, dragging his feet along the wall.
Once both fighters' movement stopped, Sonic raised his leg and push kicked Metal Sonic as hard as he could.
The force of the kick sent the robot flying back to another nearby building, but he managed to halt his momentum by reactivating his jet engine. Metal Sonic wasted no time tackling Sonic once more and began dragging him along the rest of the city again.
But the blue hedgehog didn't want to be dragged around buildings any more than he wanted to. So very quickly, he cocked his head back and then sent a strong headbutt to his opponent's face. The already apparent dent on Metal Sonic's forehead was deepened.
The attack disoriented the robotic hedgehog and made him lose his grasp of Sonic, who began falling straight down in a skydiving arch position. Once he got close enough to the ground, Sonic pointed his left hand towards a nearby building. In an instant, his communicator watch was activated and from the top, a long strip of blue, glowing Enerbeam was shot out.
But at the end was a 4-point hook, made of a silver chrome metal. The hook attached itself to the nearby building. Once it was secured, the Enerbeam retracted, pulling the blue hedgehog towards the edifice.
Sonic connected his feet to the building and began dashing to the top. Once he reached the roof, he started jumping from building to building. The pressurized wind coming off of his body left behind a faint blue trail behind him.
Metal Sonic recalibrated his visual optic systems and noticed that Sonic was gone. But one quick head turn to the right was enough for Metal to see that his organic doppelganger was trying to get away.
The metallic hedgehog angrily growled and quickly charged up the propulsion engine on his back. Once it was fully charged up, Metal Sonic zoomed away at high speed, towards his organic counterpart.
As Metal Sonic rapidly approached him, Sonic tried veering to the left, where more buildings were for him to jump from. But the blue robot reached out with his right hand and caught him by the back quills, making Sonic's arms, legs, and head quills whiplash from the sudden change in momentum.
The blue hedgehog didn't even have a chance to let out an almost breathless grunt before he was thrown towards a nearby skyscraper with full force. Since the skyscraper's exterior was mostly made of glass, Sonic's impact shattered it. Hundreds of shards went flying in and flying out. Some shard grazed or were impaled onto Sonic's back.
Before he even had a chance to wince from the pain, he was tackled by Metal Sonic and pushed through the entirety of the building. On the way, the two hedgehogs broke through walls, elevators, sewage pipes, and wires. Since the skyscraper was also an office building, the hedgehogs broke through rooms of cubicles and obliterated everything, including some unfortunate office workers.
Metal Sonic continued tackling his organic opponent through multiple buildings, entering from one side and coming out the other. People walking through the streets and people in their cars began noticing the chaos that was happening.
Eventually, the two hedgehogs broke through one final building before Metal Sonic threw Sonic into another building. This time, Sonic burst through the office building and destroyed a few cubicles near the window.
Several office workers began running away and screaming in horror. Meanwhile, Sonic had slowly started to stand up but had a lot of difficulty. His legs felt like jelly while his arms felt extremely weak. Suddenly, the blue blur's throat felt strange. Before he had a chance to do anything, Sonic began coughing up blood on his hand.
The amount of times he coughed was more than the amount of blood he even coughed up.
His eyes widened dreadfully once he saw the fresh blood stains on his gloves, which already had dried, brown blood stains.
But his attention was quickly grabbed once he saw a blurry glimpse of Metal Sonic floating outside the building he was in.
The blue robot stared at Sonic for a short while before he clenched his hands and his repulsor blaster on his chest began glowing.
The glow of the blaster was very intense to the point of making Sonic's eyes hurt from the light. But eventually, the glow of the blaster lessened but it revealed a slowly growing sphere of energy on Metal Sonic's chest.
It may have been growing slowly but it was spinning quite rapidly. Sparks of glowing white lightning came off of the sphere.
Sonic's eyes remained wide in terror until he suddenly began glaring at his metallic opponent, with his eyebrows quickly lowering to show it.
He gritted his teeth while his body was intimidatingly enveloped in blue lightning.
With one quick yell, "No, you won't!", the blue hero jumped towards Metal Sonic with all of his strength, enough of it to shatter the very floor he used to stand on.
Metal Sonic kept floating but he spun around slowly but uncontrollably from the impact. Sonic's momentum took him to another building but he successfully landed on it then jumped off it.
He tackled Metal Sonic once more, landed on the side of another building, then tackled him again.
Sonic's constant adrenaline sped up his attacks to the point where Metal Sonic was being hit multiple times every 10 seconds. The long and powerful gusts of blue air coming off of his skin formed a long, faint, blue trail behind.
When Sonic was about to tackle the robotic hedgehog one last time, while letting out a battle cry, he was caught by the forearm.
"You insolent imposter! I've had enough of your antics! It's time you're disposed of, like the organic garbage you are!" Metal Sonic angrily screamed then delivered a powerful jab onto Sonic's face, strong enough to break his nose and pull some of his teeth out.
Sonic was thrown backwards into the first building he was thrown into, shattering more cubicles and windows. Once his momentum ceased, the blue hedgehog continued laying on the ground. He was barely conscious, his vision becoming blurred every once in a while.
Once again, Metal Sonic channeled his energy source into powering his repulsor engine. Another sphere of energy began growing at a steady pace. When the sphere grew to the size of a beach ball, it broke then blasted off as a continually growing and dense cylinder of energy. It didn't take long for it to reach the building.
Once it connected with the glass and concrete, a humongous explosion was summoned. The detonation consumed the entire top half of the skyscraper. Everything and everyone in the top half of the edifice was vaporized in the blast.
Pieces of debris fell at high speeds and crashed into the streets. Some of it landed on cars while some landed on actual pedestrians, reducing them to simple blood stains on the floor or turning some of their insides into outsides.
A huge cloud of smoke emerged from the explosion, cloaking entire streets and avenues in almost absolute darkness.
The eerily quiet robot hovered above ground zero and used his high tech visual optics to carefully observe the chaotic landscape.
That large section of Mushroom City was almost completely destroyed. There were almost no pedestrians in sight. The scarce amount of life signals that were detected eventually fizzled out over time.
It didn't take very long for Metal Sonic to find his organic counterpart, Sonic, laying on the ground amongst the rubble.
Surprisingly, he survived through the explosion and seemed to have also survived the long fall down. But even an infant could see that Sonic had seen better days.
He was barely conscious, his heavy breathing and lack of body movement signifying his weak and fragile state. His body had dark smudges of dirt and ash. Blood dripped from dozens of cuts on his limbs.
Sonic was too busy trying to cling to the last threads of his life to notice his metallic doppelganger start to laugh maniacally.
"Ha ha ha ha ha! Impressive, I was sure my attack would obliterate you like this dumpster of a city was! No matter, I'll keep my word and make your death slow and painful. If you simply gave in to me, the superior Sonic, I would've at least provided you with the privilege of a quick and painless death. Well, too bad, my friend." Taunted the robotic hedgehog in an insulting tone, mimicking the real Sonic.
Metal Sonic walked towards Sonic and swiftly grabbed his left knee, his metal hand securing a firm, almost perfect, grasp on it.
Effortlessly, the robotic villain began whacking the ground with Sonic, the injured hedgehog being used as a makeshift hammer. Every whack had him faceplant the asphalt and the rubble, slightly disfiguring his face. The ground beneath each whack had a small stain of blood starting to dry and darken.
After about 6 whacks, Metal Sonic let Sonic rest a little. His face was now more of a mess than it already was. His mouth was leaking the same red blood because some of his teeth were missing. His nose was disfigured and also bleeding from both nostrils. His left eye was fine but his right eye was swollen and purple.
Metal Sonic, despite being an emotionless machine, chuckled as he observed his opponent's terrible condition.
The robotic hedgehog taunted Sonic one more time by saying, "Heh, puny faker."
In his solid state drive, he had many, many recorded mp4 files of his embarrassing defeats against Sonic. Every time for many years, he's always been destroyed and obliterated.
But now, he has the upper hand. He's still in one piece. He's still in good condition. He's the only one still able to fight. He's the only Sonic to be left standing.
He's the winner.
5 minutes earlier…
Meanwhile atop a twelve story building, there was a mysterious figure standing on the roof.
He was wearing a black leather jacket, similar to those worn by bikers. He wore dark navy jeans and dark burgundy leather boots, which looked almost identical to boots worn by soldiers. He also donned a black winter scarf on his neck.
On his head, he wore a black motorcycle helmet. The visor on the helmet was down and was colored a dark honey, similar to sunglasses.
The figure standing on the roof was somewhat of short stature. He was about five foot one inches tall, seemingly below the average height of a fully grown man.
The color made the visor barely translucent, making the figure's true face unable to be seen with the naked eye. It almost seemed like it was a completely opaque visor.
But even if it couldn't be seen, the mysterious figure's eyes were attentively observing strange events happening a mile or so away. From what he could see, smoke seemed to be rising out of a street in the distance. Distant screams and police sirens could be heard from the same place.
Eventually, explosions could be heard, even from far away. Those same explosions seemed to reduce the amount of screaming of pedestrians and the sirens of police cars.
Whatever was going on, it wasn't good. Not good at all.
As time went on, he continued hearing explosions and seeing smoke rise out from the urban landscape. The smoke was of many different colors: Black from fire, brown from concrete buildings.
Incoming sounds of more sirens temporarily grabbed the helmeted guy's attention. He looked down from the roof he was standing on and saw a squad of police cars driving past.
They seemed to be heading towards the site of the explosions. Possibly a horrible choice.
Suddenly, he began seeing glimpses of two small figures moving through the city at high speed. From what he could observe, the two figures were very agile, jumping through and from buildings without much difficulty.
They also seemed quite strong, being able to obliterate the outside shells of skyscrapers with ease. Most likely the explosions were as a result of one of the figures' attacks.
When the helmeted man leaned his head in to improve his vision, he saw that the two figures had few distinctive features that differentiated them.
One figure had what looked to be gusts of wind, colored a rich blue, coming off his skin. The numerous blasts of weirdly colored air formed a faint blue trail that was left behind wherever the figure went. From the direction of the trails, the figure seemed to be an agile jumper and runner.
There was something very familiar about the figure with the blue gusts of wind. It reminded him of someone who he hadn't seen in almost a year. Most likely it was the other way around as well.
Whoever that figure was, it peaked his interest significantly.
The other figure had a bright glow on its back. Behind the glow, a trail of smoke was left whenever the figure moved somewhere. From the consistent scribble pattern of the smoke trail, the figure was able to fly, the glow possibly originating from a jet engine.
The possible jet engine theory worried the helmeted figure. Just like the lightning bolt figure, he also knew a certain someone who used a jet engine on his back for transportation.
That certain someone was someone the helmeted man wished to never meet again.
But suddenly, a giant explosion consumed the top half of a skyscraper off into the distance. A blinding flash of light consumed the figure on the roof's vision, making him cover his eyes with his right forearm.
The moment the helmeted man lowered his arms to examine the explosion site, a powerful whirlwind pushed him back a little. It was the shockwave of the explosion, hinting at the unimaginable force of the detonation.
When the glow of the explosion died off, the unknown man was astonished as to how much damage had been done.
The cloud of smoke coming off of ground zero rose up very high, it was most likely visible from much further away.
Nearby buildings were also obliterated in the blast, everyone inside and outside the surrounding skyscrapers probably having been vaporized.
This was enough for the man on the roof.
Without much of a sense of hurry, the helmeted biker walked towards the edge of the building and confidently jumped off.
After falling a long way down, he landed in an alleyway, filled with garbage cans and bags. There were also strange looking rats that were startled by the sudden entrance of the helmeted man and scurried off.
From a brief glimpse of the rats, there were many different kinds.
Some had glowing eyes with their heads having the same shape as their skulls, some were plump and walked on their hind legs while wearing red shoes, and the rest also walked on their hind legs but wore black bandit masks and were a bit skinnier.
But in that same alley, there was a dark gray motorcycle leaning on the wall of a building to the right.
It was a Modern Classic style motorcycle that looked quite similar to a Ducati 750 SS. The bike looked like it had been used quite a bit but it was in good condition, most likely it was regularly cleaned and maintained.
The helmeted man walked towards the bike and grabbed it by the handlebars. The bike was placed fully on its wheels before the man slowly mounted it. He secured his hands on the handlebars, with some of his fingers grazing the brake handles, while his left foot slid into the footpeg on the same side of the bike. His right foot remained on the ground to keep the bike balanced.
He cracked his neck, by tilting his head to the left and right, to prepare himself for whatever was at ground zero of the explosion.
Yet another squad of police cars passed by the alleyway, towards the site of the blast.
Once they were gone, the helmeted man took out a set of keys out of his jean pockets and stuck them in the ignition keyhole of the bike. One quick turn to the right was enough for the motorcycle to roar to life. The exhaust pipe shook as smoke and concentrated heat were puffed out from the hole.
The mysterious biker revved the bike multiple times, making it emit powerful roars, before letting it cruise out of the alleyway freely. Since there were puddles on the floor, the bike ran them over and kicked up water from the ground.
Once the bike was out of the alleyway, the helmeted biker wasted no time swinging to the right and heading straight towards ground zero.
Many pedestrians were bustling along the two sidewalks on each street. Most seemed to be speed walking away from the part of the city where the explosions had gone off. Others were curiously walking towards ground zero, possibly eager to find out what was going on.
Traffic had gone on as usual. But a few drivers were startled as a man on a motorcycle sped past them, keeping between each lane of cars to avoid being stuck in a traffic jam.
Luckily, the motorbike was skinnier than the cars and the space between each lane.
Drivers in their cars crossing the intersections were forced to push on the brakes once the motorcycle drove past them. The biker ignored the angry honks and rude comments from those drivers at the intersections.
He continued onwards, his bike keeping a steady pace while also going past the speed limit. But his concerns were on the random explosion rather than a measly speeding ticket.
Once he got close enough, he noticed that off in the distance, there was a police barricade. The barricade was made up of dozens of police cruisers while there were half as many police trucks and vans.
In front of the vehicles, there was a plastic fence separating the rest of the city from the cops.
The barricade blocked off the entire street, prohibiting the biker from entering ground zero of the explosions.
But the helmeted man had a plan.
Amongst the crowd of cops surveying the explosion site from the barricade, one of them turned their heads back and saw an incoming vehicle approaching.
"Huh?" The police officer murmured in confusion. What was a pedestrian doing here? And why does it look like he or she is heading towards ground zero.
That same police officer grabbed a megaphone strapped to his belt and once he turned it on, he put it in front of his face and began yelling.
"Attention incoming vehicle, this area is restricted! Turn your vehicle back now!"
But the loud warning didn't affect the biker, he was still determined to head over to the restricted area on his motorcycle.
The officers overheard the warning yelled out by their teammate. One of them, a Hammer Bro with a band-aid on his cheek, walked up to him and asked "Hey, what the hell are you doing?"
"There's some idiot driving towards here." Explained the fellow police officer. "I yelled at him to reverse his course. But from the looks of it...he's not stopping."
"Either he's deaf and stupid or...the guy knows where he's going." The Hammer Bro officer tried to say to himself but he spoke loud enough for his teammate to hear him.
The officer with the megaphone, who was a simple Koopa Troopa, bit his lip nervously and responded with "I sure hope it's not the latter."
As the motorcycle approached the barricade at high speed, the Koopa officer yelled into the megaphone once more. This time, his scream had more emotion put into it. That emotion being fear.
"I'm serious, unidentified motorcycle! This area is dangerous! Turn your vehicle back now! That's an order!"
However, the helmeted biker continued riding towards the danger zone.
All the officers began to worry about the biker until they saw a strange golden yellow glow emit from the helmeted man.
The man with the biker clothes was abruptly surrounded by a strange force field that surrounded him and his motorcycle. The force field was indeed colored a golden yellow and left behind a faint trail of energy, also colored a rich golden yellow.
"What the hell…" The Koopa murmured under his breath.
Before any of the cops could react, the barricade was almost completely blown apart once the biker drove his two wheeled vehicle through the barrier. All vehicles impacted were blown away and obliterated while the fences broke into dozens of pieces.
The police officers were knocked off their feet and landed either on their stomachs or their backs on the hard asphalt.
The helmeted biker silently scoffed and continued riding into ground zero. His forcefield quickly dissipated and vanished. The Koopa and the Hammer Bro managed to recover before everybody else and sat up to see the unknown vehicle drive away into the danger zone.
The Koopa Troopa officer started coughing, covering his mouth with his hand, and struggled to say "Man...This day...keeps getting weirder and weirder…"
After a few seconds of heading straight, the biker could barely see the destroyed police barricade now. But when he turned his head back forward, he noticed that the cloud of smoke hovering above that part of the city was still present.
But he didn't stop. He continued going forward until he reached the smoke. Once he entered the cloud, the brightness of the day almost disappeared completely. The only sources of light were the glow of distant flames. Thanks to the glow, the rubble of buildings and numerous disfigured corpses lining the streets could somewhat be seen.
He ignored all the carnage surrounding him and continued moving forward.
Eventually, he suddenly felt a strange sensation in his mind. It was like a sort of danger detector. The sensation made the biker feel very tense, possibly of incredible worry.
Something or someone was nearby. Someone who was most likely dangerous.
Before he arrived at whatever signal he was sensing, he lessened his strength put into the handlebar accelerators and slowed the motorcycle down. Once the bike slowed down enough, the man with the helmet began digging into his pockets. After some quick searching, he pulled out two hammer-shaped weapons.
They were MAC-11 dual submachine guns, their opaque black finish with small gray scratches signifying prior usage.
While the motorcycle was still going at a passive pace, the biker took it as an opportunity to begin searching through his pockets once more. His search ended quicker as he pulled out two thin but long rectangles with golden cylinders inside. They were magazines, each filled to capacity with thirty .380 ACP caliber rounds.
The bike remained steady as the man inserted the magazines into the bottom parts of the guns. Then he slid back the receivers and cocked the guns. They were ready to be used at a moment's notice.
Once the submachine guns were prepared, the helmeted biker sped the motorcycle back up and continued moving forward at high speed.
For some reason, the smoke began clearing up as he started seeing the rapidly developing silhouette of a hedgehog. But once the air was cleared of smoke, the motorcycle man noticed that it wasn't a regular hedgehog, his limbs were connected via nuts and bolts. The skin of the "hedgehog" was as shiny as metal, as it probably was metal.
The biker turned his bike to the left slightly and let one hand off of the handlebars to point one of the MAC-11's to the metallic hedgehog's direction.
The loud roar of the motorcycle was loud enough to catch the attention of Metal Sonic, who turned his head away from his injured opponent.
Before the blue robot could react, the man on the bike began firing the submachine gun at Metal Sonic, the bullets flew at supersonic speeds and ricocheted off of his metallic skin. The loud gunshots went off for a few seconds before the bullets stopped flying.
Metal Sonic furiously growled and asked himself "Wha- What the hell was that?!"
The helmeted man began circling his bike around Metal Sonic as he used his other hand to fire the second gun at Metal Sonic, who unfortunately wasn't affected by the rapidly moving cylinders of lead. His skin emitted clanking sound as the bullets were deflected from his body, the rapid force of the bullets leaving behind very tiny dents however.
"Enough! Take this!" Yelled the angry robot as he pointed his arms at the biker and fired a total of 3 missiles at the motorcycle.
But they were dodged by the biker once he put both hands on the handlebars and revved the bike, speeding it up and outrunning the explosions on the ground.
The metallic hedgehog was seething with digital anger as he growled while keeping his ocular optics on the unknown motorcycle, in case it continued circling him and firing the guns at him again.
However, the bike didn't circle him. Once it completed its full circle, the motorbike took a sharp turn and began rapidly driving toward Metal Sonic.
Metal Sonic was perplexed by the bold move but he remained confident. He clenched his fists and beat them against each other as a show of force.
As a taunt, he began yelling "Alright then, fool! Come at me! I dare you!" Then squatted to get into a fighting position.
The mysterious biker gunned the motorcycle, letting it emit a powerful roar of the engine. Metal Sonic remained in the same fighting pose, eager to rip this daring organic being a new one.
But suddenly, the biker with the leather jacket slowly stood up on his motorcycle and jumped into the air. Metal Sonic was surprised by his new opponent's unexpected move.
He was distracted by the helmeted man, who was still in the air, enough to the point where he didn't notice the two-wheeled machine still driving at high speed towards him.
With no time to react, the motorcycle tackled Metal Sonic into the air, where the robot reached its peak and fell back onto the rubble within seconds, and lost balance. After losing its balance, the motorcycle fell on its side and began sliding on the ground, letting sparks fly out from the bottom, before crashing into yet another pile of rubble. The crash stopped the bike's momentum and had the engine quiet down, but remained running.
Metal Sonic laid on the ground for a short while before using his arms to slowly start to stand up. The robot groaned as the attack disoriented him and caused a bit of damage to his repulsor engine in his chest.
But once he was fully on his feet, he turned his head back and his eyes instantly widened by what he was seeing.
The man formerly on the motorcycle was falling back to the ground while upside down. But he was holding a long and green metal tube. It had a few black accents and buttons on the side and on each end. It had a handle and a trigger on the bottom. The tube was being pointed straight at the blue robot.
Metal had no time to react before the rocket launcher was fired off and a big missile came flying at him. The rocket was bigger than Metal Sonic's missiles but the rocket engine powering it was just as fast.
Since the metallic doppelganger had been knocked down by the motorcycle, he had no chance to move out of the way. In the split second before the rocket hit, Metal Sonic covered his face with his forearms to try and nullify the explosion. He was also starting to scream with a visible tone of panic to his voice.
Once the rocket collided with Metal Sonic, an explosion consumed the blue machine. The loud sound of the blast and the shockwave starting to spread, most of the surrounding smoke was blown away.
The cloud of dust that appeared from the explosion cleared up, revealing a still standing Metal Sonic with his face and forearms having been blackened with ash and smoke.
The blue mechanical hedgehog was furious, furious at the helmeted man who dared to defy him in such a way. The detonation left his face, including his visual optics, covered in ash. Because the ash was obstructing Metal Sonic's vision, he used his right hand to rub his eyes and swipe away the burnt material.
Once his vision was back in order, he noticed that the mysterious biker was standing tall in front of him, the helmet on his head hiding the intimidating glare he was giving to the battle robot. He wasn't holding either the dual SMG's or the rocket launcher, his fists were confidently clenched tightly.
Metal Sonic was seething with anger. All he had to say was "Who...Who the fuck do you think you are?! You dare to challenge me?! The champion of the Eggman Empire?! You've got a lot of guts for organic trash! If you're such a brave soul, how about you reveal yourself to me?!"
He expected the new challenger to be intimidated by the blue robot's request. But he was confused when he began hearing laughter coming from the helmeted man. The chuckles started to increase in decibels little by little.
But then the laughter abruptly stopped. That tense silence allowed the biker to finally say something for himself.
"With pleasure…" Metal Sonic was surprised by the rough and deep voice of the helmeted biker.
All of the sudden, the metallic hedgehog was tackled by the biker, who for some reason was able to rush towards Metal Sonic and attack him faster than the blink of an eye. He was knocked down but quickly stood up in sheer confusion.
But before he could express his perplexion vocally, he was tackled onto the ground once more. The same thing happened again and again, none of which allowed Metal Sonic to recover and counterattack.
Eventually, Metal was allowed to his feet so he could finally say "That's not possible! How'd you get ahold of such p-power?!"
The biker dashed towards him just as fast but instead of tackling him to the ground, he released a barrage of strong jabs and kicks, making the robot stumble around backwards. After that, the biker rapidly slammed his left fist into the top of Metal Sonic's head. He landed on his face and the ground beneath him cracked as the robot was forced into a scorpion position.
After Metal Sonic was slammed into the ground with plenty of strength, he stopped moving. The biker kneeled down and examined the robot. He indeed wasn't moving but the hum of active electricity could still be heard in his circuits. He wasn't dead, he was just unconscious.
The period of tension ceased as the helmeted biker turned around and saw someone lying on the ground. He ran up to them and kneeled down to examine the body further.
It was another blue hedgehog, but he looked different than Metal Sonic.
He actually looked like an organic hedgehog, his limbs and skin were of real meat and definitely had real muscles and bones. On his hand were bright white gloves and on his feet were red sneakers with white straps and gray soles. The white straps were connected by seemingly gold locks.
Those features seemed all too familiar to the helmeted man, for some reason. He was in complete disbelief at the blue hedgehog on the ground. He knew who he was.
Unfortunately, the blue hedgehog was unconscious. And it was very clear to see why.
He was incredibly injured: His limbs all had many cuts with small drops of oozing blood dripping down, his skin was mostly blackened; most likely because of the explosions; his face was severely disfigured; his nose was broken and bent, his mouth was bleeding from his lip and his jaws from where teeth should've been, and one of his eyes was severely swollen and purple.
Most likely Metal Sonic was behind the blue hedgehog's incredibly poor condition. The helmeted biker felt pity for the blue creature, he wanted to help him. But he couldn't.
Not right now anyways.
One lingering question on his mind was: How and why the hell was he here?
But he was startled by the rough whirring sounds of Metal Sonic beginning to slowly get on his feet.
"C-Come on...I'm waiting...Who are you? Reveal yourself...Challenger…" He struggled to say. He had requested proper identification just a minute ago but he still hasn't been answered.
The biker sighed, stood up, then turned his back on the unconscious hedgehog on the floor. His fists remained loose as he began thinking of what to say.
Eventually, he began saying in his rough and deep voice but the way he talked seemed a lot gentler than before.
"Oh, right. I forgot. Well, since I have no choice...I might as well heed to your request...Metal Sonic."
Metal Sonic let out a weak gasp.
"What? How...How do you know my name? Do you know me?" He asked as a worsening sense of panic begin to build up in his motherboard.
The biker began to chuckle, leaving the blue robot perplexed. But the chuckles didn't last very long.
Eventually, the helmeted man began to say "I know a lot more about you than you might think. Let's just say that uh...you know a lot about me, as well."
Metal Sonic remained quiet. He struggled to process what his new opponent was saying. How did the helmeted man know about him? Did Metal Sonic know about the biker? All the robot had was unanswered questions.
A scoff came out of the biker's mouth.
"So, you still have no clue, huh? Hmm...Maybe this'll give you an answer or two."
After he finished speaking, the biker rolled up his left sleeve and revealed a shiny, golden watch. The watch looked very similar to fancy and expensive Rolexes. The hands on the watch matched the current time of day: 3:16 PM.
But the biker grabbed the case of the watch and spun it 90 degrees clockwise, making it emit an electronic buzz for some reason. The rotation of the watch also made a few LED strips on it come to life with a bright cyan glow.
The golden Rolex-like watch split into dozens of separate cubes and began rearranging itself into a different shape. The color of the watch changed from a golden color to a light navy blue with a few white accents. The cyan LED strips illuminated the accents of the watch and made it have a very futuristic aesthetic.
But that wasn't all.
Metal Sonic's eyes widened as he saw the helmeted biker begin to glitch out, his body flickered as multiple scan lines traveled from his feet to his head.
Eventually, a cyan colored pixelated line began to slowly make its way to the biker's head. But on the way, the biker's appearance began to change.
His shoes transformed from black leather boots to strange footwear that still looked similar to boots.
The shoes were mainly white and smooth with black heel regions. Above the topline, each shoe had a red tongue and black collar encircled by a single gold ring on the ankles. Around the rim of the soles, the shoes had red strips of metal on the rear and front of the bottom, broken below the in-steps. The strips of metal had shiny gray scratches on the bottom, where the red paint was most likely scraped off.
The pixelated line went up higher up on the biker's body and changed his appearance very drastically. Going from a human biker to a strange red and black creature who looked very similar to Sonic.
Once the transformation was complete, Metal Sonic took a step back and gasped panickedly. He couldn't believe his ocular optics about what he was seeing.
The unknown creature had red eyes, a patch of white fur on his chest, a tan muzzle, and tan ear canals. He also had six quills on his head, four of which curve upwards while the other two curve downwards, two spines on his back, and a small tail. He had red stripes on each of his head quills, around the edges of his eyes, and on his arms and legs.
For attire, the unidentified hedgehog-like being wore white gloves with black cuffs and red tongues. His wrists also wore the same gold rings like his ankles did.
The blue metallic hedgehog was unable to speak. His motherboard had over a thousand word processes happening at the same time and yet, Metal Sonic remained quiet in disbelief.
Eventually, he managed to finally stutter something out.
"I-I-Impossible...This can't be...are you..?"
The black and red hedgehog yet again began chuckling, his laughter having an obvious tone of mockery.
After he quieted down, the hedgehog crossed his arms and said calmly, "Hmph, how pathetic. You're an advanced disgrace of a machine yet you can't even remember my name? Guess it must've felt like I've been away from home much longer than I thought…
"I'm Shadow...Shadow The Hedgehog...And I would probably say that it's been too long but it really hasn't…
"I could've waited much...much longer to be forced to see you...Metal Sonic."
To be continued on the next chapter of Sonic The Hedgehog: Beyond Worlds...