Okay, for those of you who wanted so badly to send me anime art for the story (all three of you), you may have to wait. My e-mail account is currently not accepting e-mails with embedded or attached files. I will inform you when I will be accepting them again. And after that, if I get at least three examples I (probably) won't bug you guys about it again.
Chapter 38
Sonic vs. the World
This might cause a problem.
She watched the three groups of…animals, she guessed…swarm down the mountain to the base through one of the monitors in the dark red room. She could have handled the hedgehog by herself, even if she didn't have a host. Well, maybe that was an exaggeration-she could do nothing without one. But these guys…she had to deal with them.
"Release guard robots," she announced to the rest of the main base through the P.A. system. "Arm the snipers and send in the commando bots. Kill all but the echidna, should he still be alive." She grinned. Her new robotic host could smile, for some reason. It was a nice, big robot. She liked that. "I have a score to settle with him."
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Okay, in three seconds…two…one…
He buzzed RaGiff on his headset.
"What?"
"You really expect me to trust that guy after he went way out of his way to try and kill me?"
"First, he never tried to snuff ya, just catch you."
"Oh, sorry. I couldn't tell the difference because he was holding that damn sword all the time."
RaGiff pretended not to hear.
"Second, I already explained everything. It's all a huge misunderstanding. He isn't a bad guy, he just wants to get his girl back."
"Sure," responded Sonic, not convinced.
RaGiff finally exploded.
"Alright, you stupid little rodent, listen up!" he yelled. Sonic started at his sudden harshness and decided to pay attention."That poor guy has been to two different wars fighting some Dr. Robotnik guy on Mobius. He lost his friends, his family, almost everything to those wars. After the first one, though, he was so happy to be done fighting because he knew that, when he got home he'd be able to see his sweetheart, his one little shred of happiness!" RaGiff placed a lot of emphasis on the word "shred."
"But guess what? The man upstairs decided to throw another curveball his way. That curveball was some loser who decided it'd be a helluva lot of fun to take someone away and make the people who cared for them pay for them. And it happened to Leo! They took Cassie from him, and before he could do anything about it, they made him go fighting again on Mobius, suffer more loss, more injury…more sorrow. And when he got back, he found the letter that told of her ransom. His family couldn't pay for it, so he decided to risk life and limb to get her back.
"He became a bounty hunter. He wanted to find the criminal and pay him his just reward-the sharp end of his family's sword. But it's a big 'ol universe out there. He couldn't search every planet for the ugly little sap! So he did job after job, hoping to get enough money to pay off the ransom. And he has come so, so close to getting it, just one job away! YOUR job.
"He called me for help to try and bend the law for one reason and one reason alone. So he could get the rest of the ransom, go home, and be happy. Think about it. If someone held that Amy girl hostage, you'd do anything to get her back, wouldn't you? Even if it meant running in blindly, without any facts to back up why you're doing it?"
No more noise came from the headset. Sonic couldn't speak for a while, either. He was thinking of a couple things. He knew he would do anything to keep Amy safe now. But that wasn't the real case. He was thinking of a few things. Blade…or Leo, apparently…he had fought on Mobius, too? And didn't RaGiff know who Robotnik was?
"Figured," spoke the voice again. "Even someone like you knows when to be serious."
"Hold on RaGiff…You said something about him being on Mobius…And "Robotnik…"
"So?"
"Do you know the nickname they gave Robotnik amongst some of the soldiers?"
"What? You're makin' no sense, hedgehog."
"Do you know his nickname?"
"No, why? What is it?"
Sonic paused, partly because he didn't know whether or not to tell him, partly to provide dramatic tension.
"He's known as the Eggman," he explained.
"Wait, wait, wait…" held up RaGiff. "You mean that Egghead guy we're going after is the same guy we tried to kill on Mobius?"
"Yeah, unless what you say falls through and he really is dead."
"Oh yeah…right…"
"And he fought on Mobius too?"
"Yeah."
"Does he know the old military saying?"
"Which one? Oh yeah, I remember. Something like "Blue and red make victories and violet?""
"Yep. Guess who…"
"My boy Leo was the red. Best warrior in the Mobius Army. But sorry, you was saying something?"
"He was?"
"Heck ya!"
"Well then, this should interest you even more."
After hearing the tone of his voice, RaGiff knew exactly what this interesting news was.
"Oh my freakin' god…"
But before Sonic could officially explain what this news was, a loud siren nearly deafened him.
"God!" he shouted as he covered his ears.
RaGiff grinned back in his Morphos lab.
"Explanations will hafta wait. Right now, IT'S SHOW TIME!" he cheered.
Sonic watched the hatches of all the buildings around him fly open and observed millions of robot soldiers flood out of them. He smiled a huge smile.
"This should be fun," he chuckled, cracking his knuckles. He turned off the com link to concentrate, then spun his feet in place, put his arms back, and faced forward, getting ready to launch the Peel-Out move. He would wait until one of the robots noticed, then blast into the crowd and take them all out. Almost ready…
BAM!
"Whoa!"
Sonic sped into the crowd before they noticed. Unfortunately, they had noticed. Eggman had put snipers along the buildings of his base area to take him out while the robots handled the incoming fighters, whom RaGiff had told him about. (Afterwards, he'd have a score to settle with Tails, but for now, it was about the fighting) So, essentially, Sonic's plan would not work. It was either jump into the melee or get shot without doing any good. In a way, he preferred getting into a wild fight, but he wanted to see where the others were first.
It didn't take much longer to see them.
Roaring down the mountain were the rest of the guys, divided into what appeared to be three groups. Sonic couldn't tell exactly who, but he figured everyone RaGiff had mentioned was there.
That image was quickly clouded as Sonic entered the swarm of robots. He jumped high into the air and curled into a small, spinning ball of destruction and came down on all of the robots, slamming into as many as possible. Those he didn't hit initially he took off after in mid air, still in a ball, and shot a hole right through them. He must have pounded his way through six or seven robots before he lost his velocity and dropped to the ground. Sometimes, when he did this kind of move and landed, he would end up hitting his head or his back because he was unsure of exactly when he would land, but luckily, he planted feet first this time. That was good, because had he landed any other way, one of the robots would have shot him dead before he could react. But since he landed on his feet, he was able to jump away from the machine gun bullets that pounded the ground where he formally was.
Panting, he landed on one of the few unpaved areas, one hand helping to plant his landing. He didn't have much time to rest, because another round of machine gun fire emitted from one of the orange security robot's guns. Sonic kept on running from the horde of machines until he was almost halfway to the mountain again. He turned and watched as more guns fired from the masses of robots and snipers from the buildings. The situation wasn't getting much better as he saw more metal soldiers pouring out of the various doors.
Wait, that's it!
He cut into the crowd again, then jumped out. He looked and felt like Superman, jumping high over the millions of robots. At the peak of the jump, he curled into a ball and pounded his way into the crowd. He blasted through numerous enemies, then finally hit the ground.
But he didn't land on his feet this time. He landed on the pavement hands first.
"ARGH!"
Sonic was sure he had bruised his wrists or hands badly, maybe even broken. Still, he had to keep running, or he'd be another mark on the road.
"Damn…" He flipped himself up purely by abdominal strength and began to run again. His wrists hurt like crazy, pain surging up and down his arms. But he could still do some nice acrobatics. He jumped high again to avoid being easily shot. Not to say he wasn't in danger here, but he was a bit safer until he landed.
ZING!
A bullet nipped his left foot.
"Ep!" Sonic lost his aerial balance. Now what? He couldn't land on his hands. He needed to try another spin attack. He turned into a spinning drill, hit the pavement, and carved a long streak in the ground. Finally, he flipped onto his feet and ran to one of the open doors, running away from the charging robots and laser guns from the sentry towers surrounding the massive stronghold of steel.
At last, he reached the door. All the robots turned their attention to him. He needed to try one last Spin Attack. Tired, he spun in place one last time and blasted through. He bulldozed through the crowd again and was just about to pass through the door and infiltrate the metal fortress when…
"OW!!!"
He finally hit something he couldn't break and bounced off it, head throbbing. He looked and saw a new line of robots marching out of the door. These were golden and held jagged shields.
"Diamond," he muttered to himself. The hardest substance on Earth. He could pierce through Eggman's pathetic steel, but the sharp diamond was a little too much. Smart on the doc's part, but a bit unorthodox, even for him. He was so proud of his inventions, but now he was getting natural substances for help? Odd. What was he supposed to do now?
He jumped over the one robot and began to spin rapidly around it, hoping to fling the shield into the air with his Blue Tornado. But when he landed, he saw it had done nothing. The robot had kept a vice grip on the shield and now held a gun to Sonic's head. Could he get out of there in time?
Of course he could.
Sonic was a good few feet away from the robot when the beam fired. He heard a small explosion as the beam accidentally hit one of Eggman's orange security bots. The hedgehog laughed a bit at the robots' incompetence, but stopped instantly as he crashed into another diamond shield held by another gold robot. Down went Sonic again. He shook his head and rolled away from the beam, then pushed his body…
"OWW!"
Pain shot through Sonic's entire body now for trying to use his injured wrists to get up. The robot held his gun at Sonic again. The hedgehog rolled away just in time and tried to get up again, but his chest was simply too sore. Two other shield robots helped surround Sonic to keep him from rolling away again. The first gold one, along with the other two, held their guns at Sonic's chest, ready to fire.
There were too many of them!
Suddenly, a loud bang drew the attention of all the robots, and Sonic. A giant flame puffed into the air like a mushroom cloud. Somewhere off in the distance, someone shouted "YE-HAAA!!!!"
Sonic knew it was one of the guys from the mountain-finally!-but was not sure who. Maybe it was the bounty hunter, or Tails…or one of those guys from Carnival Island, like Mighty or Vector. Anyway, he needed to take advantage of this moment.
He used his elbows to shove his body upward and had his feet plant to the ground to get himself up. At top speed, he ran through the crowd of robots and into the door of robots, and shot through the crowd with yet another Spin Attack. He was getting dizzy with all this spinning, but it was effective. He cut through six more robots and dashed through a closing steel door. No more robots came his way. Eggman must have finally run out, Sonic thought. About friggin' time.
Bzzt…
"Hold on, man! Blade's sayin' you're goin' in the base…what're you doing? You're supposed-"
"No offense," Sonic growled back into the microphone, "but I ain't listening to you anymore. This is personal." And with that, he took off the headset and threw it against a steel wall, wrecking the communication link.
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"This ain't good," RaGiff murmured.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The steel doors slammed shut behind Sonic. He stared down a long, winding, cylinder tunnel, filled with purple tubes running along the upper left and right portions of the tunnel, a gray path on the bottom, and glass walls. There didn't appear to be any traps here. Of course, you never knew Eggman, but still…this simply looked like a long transport path.
Sonic would crack his knuckles again, but he wanted to avoid aggravating the injury to his wrists again. Instead, he simply stretched out his gloves and pulled up his socks. After quickly wiping off his hi-tops, he knew there could be no more delay.
"I'm not letting you off easy anymore, Eggman," Sonic muttered. "You've made my life a living hell. But now I've got nothing to lose, so I can end yours. Hope you didn't expect to win that election for mayor of Capital City, 'cause you're going to have an early dropout." His slight smirk vanished, replaced with a determined stone face. He began moving his feet in place for another peel-out move.
"This will be our last showdown. May the best battler win."
And with that, he sped down the hall.
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As Blade ran with the team of Vector and Big, he got a quick buzz from RaGiff in his radio. He clicked a button and shouted into it.
"Where's the damn hedgehog?!?!?" he yelled.
"Taking care of business while you guys act as a distraction," RaGiff made up. "New plan. But he's got some very interesting news that you'd take particular interest in."
"Like what, RaGiff? It better not be anything short of the Resurrection we're talking about here, I'm kinda busy."
"Heck man, the Lord ain't got nothin' on this."
"Then spill it, goddammit!"
"Alright. You remember that old army saying? You know, how red and blue make violet and victories?..."
Chapter 38
Sonic vs. the World
This might cause a problem.
She watched the three groups of…animals, she guessed…swarm down the mountain to the base through one of the monitors in the dark red room. She could have handled the hedgehog by herself, even if she didn't have a host. Well, maybe that was an exaggeration-she could do nothing without one. But these guys…she had to deal with them.
"Release guard robots," she announced to the rest of the main base through the P.A. system. "Arm the snipers and send in the commando bots. Kill all but the echidna, should he still be alive." She grinned. Her new robotic host could smile, for some reason. It was a nice, big robot. She liked that. "I have a score to settle with him."
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Okay, in three seconds…two…one…
He buzzed RaGiff on his headset.
"What?"
"You really expect me to trust that guy after he went way out of his way to try and kill me?"
"First, he never tried to snuff ya, just catch you."
"Oh, sorry. I couldn't tell the difference because he was holding that damn sword all the time."
RaGiff pretended not to hear.
"Second, I already explained everything. It's all a huge misunderstanding. He isn't a bad guy, he just wants to get his girl back."
"Sure," responded Sonic, not convinced.
RaGiff finally exploded.
"Alright, you stupid little rodent, listen up!" he yelled. Sonic started at his sudden harshness and decided to pay attention."That poor guy has been to two different wars fighting some Dr. Robotnik guy on Mobius. He lost his friends, his family, almost everything to those wars. After the first one, though, he was so happy to be done fighting because he knew that, when he got home he'd be able to see his sweetheart, his one little shred of happiness!" RaGiff placed a lot of emphasis on the word "shred."
"But guess what? The man upstairs decided to throw another curveball his way. That curveball was some loser who decided it'd be a helluva lot of fun to take someone away and make the people who cared for them pay for them. And it happened to Leo! They took Cassie from him, and before he could do anything about it, they made him go fighting again on Mobius, suffer more loss, more injury…more sorrow. And when he got back, he found the letter that told of her ransom. His family couldn't pay for it, so he decided to risk life and limb to get her back.
"He became a bounty hunter. He wanted to find the criminal and pay him his just reward-the sharp end of his family's sword. But it's a big 'ol universe out there. He couldn't search every planet for the ugly little sap! So he did job after job, hoping to get enough money to pay off the ransom. And he has come so, so close to getting it, just one job away! YOUR job.
"He called me for help to try and bend the law for one reason and one reason alone. So he could get the rest of the ransom, go home, and be happy. Think about it. If someone held that Amy girl hostage, you'd do anything to get her back, wouldn't you? Even if it meant running in blindly, without any facts to back up why you're doing it?"
No more noise came from the headset. Sonic couldn't speak for a while, either. He was thinking of a couple things. He knew he would do anything to keep Amy safe now. But that wasn't the real case. He was thinking of a few things. Blade…or Leo, apparently…he had fought on Mobius, too? And didn't RaGiff know who Robotnik was?
"Figured," spoke the voice again. "Even someone like you knows when to be serious."
"Hold on RaGiff…You said something about him being on Mobius…And "Robotnik…"
"So?"
"Do you know the nickname they gave Robotnik amongst some of the soldiers?"
"What? You're makin' no sense, hedgehog."
"Do you know his nickname?"
"No, why? What is it?"
Sonic paused, partly because he didn't know whether or not to tell him, partly to provide dramatic tension.
"He's known as the Eggman," he explained.
"Wait, wait, wait…" held up RaGiff. "You mean that Egghead guy we're going after is the same guy we tried to kill on Mobius?"
"Yeah, unless what you say falls through and he really is dead."
"Oh yeah…right…"
"And he fought on Mobius too?"
"Yeah."
"Does he know the old military saying?"
"Which one? Oh yeah, I remember. Something like "Blue and red make victories and violet?""
"Yep. Guess who…"
"My boy Leo was the red. Best warrior in the Mobius Army. But sorry, you was saying something?"
"He was?"
"Heck ya!"
"Well then, this should interest you even more."
After hearing the tone of his voice, RaGiff knew exactly what this interesting news was.
"Oh my freakin' god…"
But before Sonic could officially explain what this news was, a loud siren nearly deafened him.
"God!" he shouted as he covered his ears.
RaGiff grinned back in his Morphos lab.
"Explanations will hafta wait. Right now, IT'S SHOW TIME!" he cheered.
Sonic watched the hatches of all the buildings around him fly open and observed millions of robot soldiers flood out of them. He smiled a huge smile.
"This should be fun," he chuckled, cracking his knuckles. He turned off the com link to concentrate, then spun his feet in place, put his arms back, and faced forward, getting ready to launch the Peel-Out move. He would wait until one of the robots noticed, then blast into the crowd and take them all out. Almost ready…
BAM!
"Whoa!"
Sonic sped into the crowd before they noticed. Unfortunately, they had noticed. Eggman had put snipers along the buildings of his base area to take him out while the robots handled the incoming fighters, whom RaGiff had told him about. (Afterwards, he'd have a score to settle with Tails, but for now, it was about the fighting) So, essentially, Sonic's plan would not work. It was either jump into the melee or get shot without doing any good. In a way, he preferred getting into a wild fight, but he wanted to see where the others were first.
It didn't take much longer to see them.
Roaring down the mountain were the rest of the guys, divided into what appeared to be three groups. Sonic couldn't tell exactly who, but he figured everyone RaGiff had mentioned was there.
That image was quickly clouded as Sonic entered the swarm of robots. He jumped high into the air and curled into a small, spinning ball of destruction and came down on all of the robots, slamming into as many as possible. Those he didn't hit initially he took off after in mid air, still in a ball, and shot a hole right through them. He must have pounded his way through six or seven robots before he lost his velocity and dropped to the ground. Sometimes, when he did this kind of move and landed, he would end up hitting his head or his back because he was unsure of exactly when he would land, but luckily, he planted feet first this time. That was good, because had he landed any other way, one of the robots would have shot him dead before he could react. But since he landed on his feet, he was able to jump away from the machine gun bullets that pounded the ground where he formally was.
Panting, he landed on one of the few unpaved areas, one hand helping to plant his landing. He didn't have much time to rest, because another round of machine gun fire emitted from one of the orange security robot's guns. Sonic kept on running from the horde of machines until he was almost halfway to the mountain again. He turned and watched as more guns fired from the masses of robots and snipers from the buildings. The situation wasn't getting much better as he saw more metal soldiers pouring out of the various doors.
Wait, that's it!
He cut into the crowd again, then jumped out. He looked and felt like Superman, jumping high over the millions of robots. At the peak of the jump, he curled into a ball and pounded his way into the crowd. He blasted through numerous enemies, then finally hit the ground.
But he didn't land on his feet this time. He landed on the pavement hands first.
"ARGH!"
Sonic was sure he had bruised his wrists or hands badly, maybe even broken. Still, he had to keep running, or he'd be another mark on the road.
"Damn…" He flipped himself up purely by abdominal strength and began to run again. His wrists hurt like crazy, pain surging up and down his arms. But he could still do some nice acrobatics. He jumped high again to avoid being easily shot. Not to say he wasn't in danger here, but he was a bit safer until he landed.
ZING!
A bullet nipped his left foot.
"Ep!" Sonic lost his aerial balance. Now what? He couldn't land on his hands. He needed to try another spin attack. He turned into a spinning drill, hit the pavement, and carved a long streak in the ground. Finally, he flipped onto his feet and ran to one of the open doors, running away from the charging robots and laser guns from the sentry towers surrounding the massive stronghold of steel.
At last, he reached the door. All the robots turned their attention to him. He needed to try one last Spin Attack. Tired, he spun in place one last time and blasted through. He bulldozed through the crowd again and was just about to pass through the door and infiltrate the metal fortress when…
"OW!!!"
He finally hit something he couldn't break and bounced off it, head throbbing. He looked and saw a new line of robots marching out of the door. These were golden and held jagged shields.
"Diamond," he muttered to himself. The hardest substance on Earth. He could pierce through Eggman's pathetic steel, but the sharp diamond was a little too much. Smart on the doc's part, but a bit unorthodox, even for him. He was so proud of his inventions, but now he was getting natural substances for help? Odd. What was he supposed to do now?
He jumped over the one robot and began to spin rapidly around it, hoping to fling the shield into the air with his Blue Tornado. But when he landed, he saw it had done nothing. The robot had kept a vice grip on the shield and now held a gun to Sonic's head. Could he get out of there in time?
Of course he could.
Sonic was a good few feet away from the robot when the beam fired. He heard a small explosion as the beam accidentally hit one of Eggman's orange security bots. The hedgehog laughed a bit at the robots' incompetence, but stopped instantly as he crashed into another diamond shield held by another gold robot. Down went Sonic again. He shook his head and rolled away from the beam, then pushed his body…
"OWW!"
Pain shot through Sonic's entire body now for trying to use his injured wrists to get up. The robot held his gun at Sonic again. The hedgehog rolled away just in time and tried to get up again, but his chest was simply too sore. Two other shield robots helped surround Sonic to keep him from rolling away again. The first gold one, along with the other two, held their guns at Sonic's chest, ready to fire.
There were too many of them!
Suddenly, a loud bang drew the attention of all the robots, and Sonic. A giant flame puffed into the air like a mushroom cloud. Somewhere off in the distance, someone shouted "YE-HAAA!!!!"
Sonic knew it was one of the guys from the mountain-finally!-but was not sure who. Maybe it was the bounty hunter, or Tails…or one of those guys from Carnival Island, like Mighty or Vector. Anyway, he needed to take advantage of this moment.
He used his elbows to shove his body upward and had his feet plant to the ground to get himself up. At top speed, he ran through the crowd of robots and into the door of robots, and shot through the crowd with yet another Spin Attack. He was getting dizzy with all this spinning, but it was effective. He cut through six more robots and dashed through a closing steel door. No more robots came his way. Eggman must have finally run out, Sonic thought. About friggin' time.
Bzzt…
"Hold on, man! Blade's sayin' you're goin' in the base…what're you doing? You're supposed-"
"No offense," Sonic growled back into the microphone, "but I ain't listening to you anymore. This is personal." And with that, he took off the headset and threw it against a steel wall, wrecking the communication link.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"This ain't good," RaGiff murmured.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The steel doors slammed shut behind Sonic. He stared down a long, winding, cylinder tunnel, filled with purple tubes running along the upper left and right portions of the tunnel, a gray path on the bottom, and glass walls. There didn't appear to be any traps here. Of course, you never knew Eggman, but still…this simply looked like a long transport path.
Sonic would crack his knuckles again, but he wanted to avoid aggravating the injury to his wrists again. Instead, he simply stretched out his gloves and pulled up his socks. After quickly wiping off his hi-tops, he knew there could be no more delay.
"I'm not letting you off easy anymore, Eggman," Sonic muttered. "You've made my life a living hell. But now I've got nothing to lose, so I can end yours. Hope you didn't expect to win that election for mayor of Capital City, 'cause you're going to have an early dropout." His slight smirk vanished, replaced with a determined stone face. He began moving his feet in place for another peel-out move.
"This will be our last showdown. May the best battler win."
And with that, he sped down the hall.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As Blade ran with the team of Vector and Big, he got a quick buzz from RaGiff in his radio. He clicked a button and shouted into it.
"Where's the damn hedgehog?!?!?" he yelled.
"Taking care of business while you guys act as a distraction," RaGiff made up. "New plan. But he's got some very interesting news that you'd take particular interest in."
"Like what, RaGiff? It better not be anything short of the Resurrection we're talking about here, I'm kinda busy."
"Heck man, the Lord ain't got nothin' on this."
"Then spill it, goddammit!"
"Alright. You remember that old army saying? You know, how red and blue make violet and victories?..."