I do not own Sonic...etc

Flip Card 2:

Name: Charles (Chuck) Thorndyke

Sex; male

Age: 65

Species: human

Job description: Inventor, Chris' grandfather.

"Er…hi." Sonic eventually began, forgetting all other words in the English language. Metal Sonic didn't reply, he simply stood there with the flames behind him with dancing reflections on his metal armour. Silently, he raised his right arm, directly his open palm toward them, his steal talons tensed in an arch. A ball of chaos energy flipped into life between the digits, buzzing with a green glow. Before any of them could move, Metal Sonic fired a blast right in their face. The force was so strong that it threw both hedgehogs off of their feet, hurling them across the ground several feet before impacting the ground.

"You had him repaired?" Shadow asked as the two of them pulled themselves up, both with a splitting headache. Sonic had barely begun to pick himself up when Metal Sonic flew at him, pinning the hedgehog to the ground with precise, calculated movements, keeping his arms pinned by his side, the talons on each hand keeping each one in a tight grip.

Shadow, now back on his feet came charging over. Metal Sonic's head swerved around as the black hedgehog reached him, and so did both his legs, dealing two super fast kicks into the ultimate life form. The first winded him in the stomach and the second smashed itself across his face, flooring him in an instant. Shadow fell to the ground with a loud thud and did not get up again, knocked unconscious. Turning his attention back to Sonic, the glow from the metallic hedgehog's eyes seemed to increase ten fold as Sonic struggled underneath him. Pushing one foot against Metal's torso, Sonic kicked the android of him, throwing the machine into the air while he back-flipped off the road.

The two rocket engines Chuck had installed on the back of each of Metal Sonic's legs kicked in action and using their thrusters Metal Sonic hovered in the air to maintain his balance, before sopping down, trying to slash the Hedgehog across the side with his talons. Sonic sidestepped twice to avoid the swings, hoverer he didn't move fast enough on the last one and the tips of those razor sharp claws managed to catch his right shoulder, leaving four , shallow, but stinging cuts. Sonic hissed from between his teeth, ignoring the pain as Metal Sonic turned about in mid air and came charging forward again, still distracted by the pain Sonic let the robot smash a kick into his face, knocking him to the ground again.

Sonic strained to get up, only to come face to face with Metal, who was standing over him with his hands on his hips, staring down at him with his glowing red eye intensifying each second.

And the without any warning whatsoever, the last thing Sonic expected happened. The glow from Metal's eyes died away and the robot stepped back a couple of spaces, letting Sonic scrapple frantically out from under him, and then he started laughing. He put his hands on his hips and started laughing. Sonic stared up at him in bewilderment.

"The look on your face." Metal Sonic between laughs. "I wish you could have seen it." Sonic paused to catch his breath and stared up.

"Metal?" He began, questioningly. The robot offered a hand toward him, and after a second of intense hesitation Sonic took it and Metal Sonic pulled him up to his feet.

"Sort of." The robotic hedgehog replied. "Although as you see I've had something of a personality change since we last met."

"You're telling me." The hedgehog said, almost stuttering. "What happened to all that, I will destroy you all talk?" Metal Sonic actually seemed to hesitate, then looked up at the star lit sky.

"Something, I'm not sure what, must happened to my central processing motherboard while I was offline." He said, putting his arms behind his head in a very human like gesture. "Perhaps it was damaged during the final battle, or perhaps it's core memory was altered while I was being repaired. I like to think that some part of your personality rubbed of on me when you dealt that last Chaos Control blow as Nazo. That's not really important." The turned to give Sonic a friendly glance, which in itself was quite remarkable given his metallic face and piercing red eyes. "What is, is that we finish our duel." Sonic narrowed an eyes questioningly. "Don't you remember? While I lay broken and battered, you offered me a re-match." The robotic hedgehog smashed a fist into his palm. "Well I'm fired up and ready to go when you are." Sonic was silent, still trying to take it all in. The situation seemed so alien there was a moment when the blue hedgehog actually convinced himself that he was dreaming. "Oh er, Sorry about that cut there." He added, pointing to that graces on Sonic's shoulder. Sonic managed a crude smile.

"It's nothing, but did you have to floor Shadow over there?" The robot cast a momentary glance to the black hedgehog lying on the road face down.

"I didn't want him interfering in our fight, so I put him to sleep for a bit. He'll be up in around an hour or two. So, you ready to go?" Sonic snapped his head from side to side.

"What you think I had you repaired for?" He asked, assuming a fighting stance, only hesitated when he heard sirens blare off in the distance. "Only, I don't think here's a good place for it." Metal looked past him up the road towards the city and the blaring lights of squad cars approaching up the highway.

"Ok, then where do you suggest." Sonic smirked and tapped the side of his nose.

"I know a place."

Shadow rubbed the back of his head slowly and began to pull himself up of the ground, his body almost groaning in reluctance. Short term memory returning, the black hedgehog opened his eyes. To his surprise, he found himself no longer lying on the highway road, but instead on the roof of the Thorndyke mansion, Amy and the others staring up at him from the ground. Tanaka had just put a ladder up against the wall and was halfway up it by the time Shadow stirred. The black Hedgehog sat up and stared out the early morning sky, blinking in surprise and confusion.

"How the hell did I get here?"

A high plateau of rock, carved the side of a mountain was hidden in the barren wasteland of the desert. Sonic stood on one side, Metal of the other, the two facing each other. Sonic with a wide smile on his face, Metal simply staring. Sonic had been waiting a long time for this. His long anticipated re-match with his metallic rival, the blue hedgehog was burning with anticipation to get this started.

Metal Sonic moved first, throwing a fist forward, which Sonic easily dodged before trying to swing back with a kick. Metal caught his leg as it swung, then turned around and tossed the blue hedgehog over his shoulder into the air. Without a single moments hesitation, he aimed his left hand palms directly at Sonic, firing a beam of chaos energy directly toward him. Sonic recovered in time and twisting around in mid air narrowly avoiding the blast.

The blue hedgehog landed firmly on both feet, the raced toward with a fist drawn back, but this was simply for show, to fool Metal Sonic into the wrong contour attack. It worked perfectly, Metal raised his bracers up to his face in fighting stance leaving his legs unprotected. At the last second, Sonic swung around, knocking the androids legs out from under him. Sonic simply kept on running as Metal hit the ground with a loud thud, crossing the desert floor in no time. Metal Sonic watched him for a moment, before righting himself with a simple acrobatic flip of his body and charging after him. As the two of them became Blue and red glowing blurs, they spun across the desert. A man, whose truck had broken down near an oasis watched the strange phenomenon from the drivers seat. To him, it looked like two distant fireflies flying desperately at each other, clashing, separating then clashing again. He was too far away to notice that each time they charged, they exchanged a multitude of lightning fast kicks and punches. This stalemate went on for several minutes before Metal finally broke away, re-directing his path towards the edges of the desert and the mountains region on the horizon. Sonic sneered and charged after him.

Entering the Red Mountain region, Metal Sonic had the advantage here. He was perfectly sure Sonic had selected the arena so suit himself, so Metal Sonic though turnabout was fair play. Eggman had once used this place as a base, details maps of the region were still on record inside his database. Making a sharp left turn, the robot skimmed through a narrow opening between two columns of rock.

Sonic didn't follow.

According to his data, there was another opening just up ahead that lead back into open space. He could use that to come up behind Sonic, launching a perfect attack. As soon he reached the opening, Sonic dodged in front of him and landed a kick directly to his face, knocking him sideways and into the side of the cliff wall.

"You'll have to do better than that Metal." Sonic jeered, before racing away as Metal pried himself off the wall, bits of rock crumbling away with him.

The two of them shot up a tall pillar of rock that lanced out of a ravine between two cliff faces, each re-bounding off a ledge to come flying at each other in mid air, exchanging kicks and punches as they fell to the ground again. Sonic barred his teeth as he felt something within his body crunch as Metal dealt him a super hard kick to the chest, and yet despite the nagging twitch of pain he was receiving he kept going, twisting his mid section around fact enough to get a kick, followed by a super fast punch in.

Sonic lead Metal out of the mountains and best toward the desert, the robot now sufficiently annoyed after gaining a face full of rock. On the sandy roads neither one of them had the advantage, so here the fight could go either way. Just the kind of odds Sonic enjoyed, turned about on one foot, Sonic charged back toward a surprised Metal, who had just enough to time to put his guard up before Sonic bombarded him with a barrage of kicks.

Again Metal took hold of Sonic's foot, spun around several times but this time instead of tossing him into the air, he turned about-face and slammed the hedgehog into the ground. The moments Sonic's nose tossed the sand he rolled to the side before Metal could launch another attack. Metal lead the assault again with two punches to either side of Sonic's face, before a knee directly into his stomach, knocking the wind out of the Hedgehog.

Sonic staggered back for a few paces, waiting for a few moments to catch his breath.

"If…I didn't…know any better…I'd say you've improved." He said between drawn out breaths as he recovered. "But that's impossible, you've been lying on Chuck's table for two months."

"Oh I have improved Sonic." Metal Replied, reassuming a fighting stance. "In ways not even I dare to fathom." Now fully recovered, Sonic leapt forward, trying to catch Metal Sonic off guard with another barrage of kicks. Metal slid to the side, bringing his claws forward, narrowly scraping Sonic across the arm. The fight resumed, going on a stalemate of blow after blow for hour after hour and as the sun began to rise over the mountains, neither one of them seemed to be making any head way against the other.

The two broke apart to catch their breath. Metal Sonic's armour was covered in dents from the multiple blows he had sustained, although Sonic was hardly any better of. Cuts and bruises had been forced on nearly every limb. Sonic began to wonder exactly what he could now to win this. He'd been fighting all night and was nearly worn out, the only comfort being that Metal didn't seem to have anything left in him either. Of course that didn't mean either one of them as going to give up until the other conceded. "My sensors tell me you have two cracked ribs and a fractured arm." Metal Sonic said as the two of them began circling each other. Mentioning his injuries seemed to make them sting more.

"Well I don't need sensors to tell me that metal chest plate of ours is near falling off." Sonic replied and as if on cue whatever was holding Metal's chest plate on gave way and fell to the ground with a soft clank. A proud smirk crossed the blue hedgehog's face. Metal looked down or a moment before looking back.

"Don't suppose either case makes any difference."

"Nope."

Metal slammed a flying kick into Sonic, sending him flying across the sand, recovering from the blow just in time to force and arm down, two fingers trailing in the sand, putting himself the right way up. The moment his foot touched the sand again he soured forward at super fast speed, using the advantage to land two blows into Metal Sonic's head. Swinging his entire body around, Sonic was able to find enough time to land another several kicks directly into his chest, knocking him sideways across a sand dune, denting the metal skin of his left arm. Metal's reflexes had been slowed and his contour attack was sluggish, but fast enough however to hit Sonic across the face, forcing him backwards.

As the sun's ray touched Sonic's leg he glanced up, realizing exactly what time of day it was. "Dawn already? Man I should probably be getting back." He added, rubbing the back of the neck, stretching his muscles. Metal was still for several seconds, before dropping out of a fighting stance. Sonic looked up toward Metal, who, despite his unmoveable features looking disappointed. "Yeah I suppose the fight isn't finished yet." The blue hedgehog added. "How about we continue later on huh? It's not much fun when we're run down. A fight to the finish is kinda of a reserved privilege for the bad guys, and you Metal ain't a bad guy. Well, not any more." He clicked his fingers. "Say, wanna come over to our place?" Metal looked sort of stunned by the question, his red eyes disappearing and re-appearing in a blink like action. Sonic forged a cruel looking smile. "Like you've got somewhere else to go."

The familiar feeling of air around him came flooding in and Fang forced himself to breath, spluttering desperate, collapsed to his knees and hands, breathing hard. Whatever had taken him receded and Fang was almost literally thrown back into the real world. He flung himself up to a sitting position, finding that every cut and bruise Espio had dealt him had somehow healed.

"Ah, Mr. Sniper, so good of you to drop in." Stated a voice as the Weasel looked around in utter astonishment at his new surroundings. He was in some sort of large chamber like room with a high arched ceiling, He'd been dumped on top of a long, vanished wooden table that spanned the room. Empty leather seats placed around it. At the far end, near a large window with the large red curtains pulled shut, a half filled with water had been placed. Someone was sitting in the chair there, staring directly at him. The rest of the room seemed hidden in the darkness produced by the curtains. Fang made his way to his feet rather unsteadily and he kept looking around for whatever had grabbed him and put him here.

"What the hell is this?" He demanded. "Where am I?" Whoever was sitting in the chair did not reply for a moment, instead he let the weasel stare around on confusion for a while.

"You know, despite your recent, humiliating defeat. You're still the best bounty hunter and assassin this planet had to offer." Fang looked his way, confusion plain in his eyes. He tried to edge closer to see who was speaking to him, but only managed a few inches for his shaken nerves stopped him.

"Who the hell are you?" He asked, his voice more unstable.

"That is irrelevant." It replied. "What is however is the offer I'm proposing for you." The Weasel tried to tell himself that was all a dream, some bizarre fantasy. He was still in bed, suffering a nightmare. Suddenly some sort of subliminal idea kicked in and what the speaker had actually said registered.

"Offer?" He asked without shaking at all. The man chuckled slightly and placed his arms on the end of the table.

"I thought that might grab your attention." Talking business seemed to unlock Fang's sadistic side, so to him at that point it didn't matter exactly who or what he was talking to. "I am offering a very simple arrangement, one I know you can live by. You serve me and my cause now." Fang waited for several seconds before asking…

"And?"

"That is all. You will now serve me." The man replied, folding his arms. Fang stared at him, blinked once before asking again…

"What about payment?" The man was silent for a hostile moment, his eyes narrowing.

"You shall receive nothing of the sort." He snapped, almost angrily.

"No money? No deal, I bid you good day sir." Fang said with venom in reply. The gentlemen leaned forward in the chair, revealing his face. He was human, with short brown hair, dark tanned skin and strangely radiant green eyes.

"My dear Mr. Sniper. I believe you misunderstand the situation you are in. You see…" He began as the weasel turned to give him a look back over his shoulder. "You don't have any choice!" Without warning a green flare erupted from his eyes and Fang, former Chaotix member Nack the Weasel could only scream as his world vanished in a green haze.

(In Chris' voice.)

Metal Sonic on our side? This is nuts! But things are about to get a whole lot weirder. See what happens, next time at the Start of the Echidna Saga…Into the past we go! don't miss it!