Only Gods can control Chaos,
Us mere mortals can only wield it
'Talons' flew across the ocean, headed for the floating Angel Island, when he spied something strange; he informed Claws and the others via a sub-telepathic link the Masters installed within their experiments.
'01149, self has discovered strange construction in ocean, created of many structures. Few life forms but much movement, Masters signal detected within, should self investigate?' he told Claws
Claws thought for a moment, 'Negative 00319, proceed with mission, self will send other to investigate'
As 01149 sent this he turned to the others around the tomb, "00666, you are to investigate construction discovered by 00319, rescue Masters signal if possible" came Claws' raspy voice in the gloom, the jewel on his forehead glowing faintly
00666, 'Dragon' rose to his feet, "Self will comply" came a hissing, serpentine voice as the experiment in question turned and left the tomb.
---
The problem with the link was that it was only rudimentary, and everyone connected to the network got the message, so even the non-physically mutated experiments received 00319's message, and 01149's answer.
Kir was asleep at the time and the message found its way into his dream, along with visions of who was speaking. He saw 'Talons' as he spoke and when 'Claws' replied got a quick flash of a creature with bulging muscles, tendons and blood vessels standing out like ropes on its flesh, he saw the glimmer above its black eyes and saw the dreadlocks that now permanently stood up in the air, so charged with chaos energy was this creature.
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Flare, trudging across the desert of Sandopolis received the message as a voice in his head, the emerald in his hand glowed and, had he looked down, displayed who was speaking, but Flare didn't see this, he just gleamed 00319's intentions, a quick flash of Angel Island, and of Kir's mistform wearing armour.
Fearing that Kir was in danger, Flare began to pick up the pace and found himself at the old emerald shrine, a local landmark, he was almost home.
Turning towards the path that led away from the shrine he began to skate, speeding off down the ancient path towards the marble garden ruins
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00666, 'Dragon' began to slowly winging his way towards the Masters signal that 00319 had discovered, he could see the construction, it looked like a mass of different machines and walkways cobbled together, either floating on the water or embedded in the seafloor.
Looking for some way in Dragon felt the energy output of a powerplant, the tactical planning in his past life coming back to him as he prepared his diversion.
---
Dr Robotnik was standing in the part of the complex known as the Mecha lab, he stood in front of a new creation and began it's boot up.
He had created this place, Wreck Base by salvaging old bases and huge machines from different areas, the main part of the base that stood above the waterline was constructed out of the ruins of both Egg Carriers and as much of Final Egg base as could be salvaged, including his two display pods, one of which now stood broken and empty.
He had retrieved the remains of The Death Egg and Wing Fortress for the main undersea supports, along with dismantling Scrap Brain Zone and retrieving the remains of Flying Battery from Angel Island.
Robotnik looked around the Mecha lab, there were five main stations and he was standing at the sixth.
Station 1 held a tube that contained Mecha Bot 1, 'Silver Sonic', Robotnik's first attempt at an imitation Sonic, it was manoeuvrable, could do a few of Sonic's moves but it was built more for power, not speed, and couldn't keep up with its flesh and blood counterpart.
Mecha Bot 2, 'Metal Sonic MKI' was empty, only a few pieces had been found when the egg-shaped scientist had sneaked onto the island, not enough to rebuild the destroyed robot. It had been a bulkier, slower robot, with greater AI than that of Silver Sonic, and had been lent one of Robotnik's old Eggmobiles with a few attachments. It had even been able to absorb energy from the Master Emerald but Knuckles had defeated it.
Mecha Bot 3, 'Metal Sonic MKII' had been built as a speed rival to Sonic, smaller, sleeker and faster than the previous Mecha Bots it had almost beaten Sonic in a race to the death on the Stardust Speedway during Robotnik's time takeover of Little Planet, but an accident destroyed it, Robotnik rebuilt MKII to help during his Chaos Ring Experiment, he had installed a battle mode this time around that allowed MKII to morph into a giant, red version of himself, but he was destroyed by Knuckle's Chaotix.
The MKII design was to good to let rest and the doc rebuilt MKII, giving it an amazingly advanced AI and upgraded the 'Metal Overlord function' as the battle mode became named; he was tested during the World Grand Prix along with Mecha Bots 4 & 5, but was beaten by Super Sonic in the final race. This MKIII had been stored in Final Egg along with Silver Sonic but broke out, locked up Robotnik, took over a city and almost unleashed the Egg Fleet on the world before he was defeated by Team Super, MKIII's whereabouts are unknown.
Mecha Bot 4, 'Metal Knuckles' was build to combat its organic counterpart in the same way Metal Sonic MKII was, by attacking him with his own strength. It was tested in the World Grand Prix and Metal Knuckles turned out to be faster that even MKIII due to the four thrusters in its dreadlocks but was beaten in the final race by Super Sonic. Metal Knuckles' whereabouts are unknown.
Mecha Bot 5, 'Tails Doll' was Dr Robotnik's first foray into the occult, a robotic skeleton structure with basic AI had a fake fur hull stretched over the skeletal chassis, powered and driven by supernatural forces, channelled by the crystal on its head, its blank expression and eerie floating stance creeped even Robotnik out. It was tested in the World Grand Prix and was faster that its organic counterpart but was beaten in the final race by Super Sonic.
The supernatural forces that powered the Tails Doll teleported it away after the race for their own purposes and it hasn't been seen since.
Halfway into the Boot Up all the power shorted out, including Mecha Bot 6 who was being run off of the base's central power system & when the backup turned on a large chunk of the boot up had been skipped, the software corrupted.
The robot the egg-shaped genius stood before was about 6 or 7 inches shorter than the average human, painted silver and red with a gold trim. Its red head was curved in front and swept back to a silver point, the base of which was lined with gold paint, the point was, at this moment, open to allow access for the modem cable that was feeding software into the Robot's Learning Matrix MKII AI, an upgrade of the version used in Metal Sonic MKIII. On either side of the head sat two raised parts, like rectangles angled 45 degrees downwards, these sloped up from the front and curved back into the head after a flat part, these were the machine's eyes. The two rectangles were connected by a wide strip of silver that ran under the front of the head.
The head sat on a small, silver torso that was roughly T shaped, with smooth, red, curved armour sloping down from the neck to about 1/3 of the way down the torso, it stopped just above an empty spherical socket, curved halfway round on both sides and connected back to the torso with two curving armour plates.
Two domed, red shoulder pads, edged with gold, sat atop two thick arms, the silver upper arms short and almost round, the lower arm a wide, red cylinder just after the elbow, edged at either end with gold paint, which then became a fat spike. A tube sprouted from under the right shoulder pad and fed into the right cylinder. There was some red, skirt-like armour below the torso that was edged with gold and defended the silver upper part of the legs, the lower part defended by red greave-like armour plating, knee pads attached to the top of these greaves and the spike on the end of the arm fell to the point where the red, gold edged kneepad joins the greave.
The silver feet tapered down into two, flattened spike, toes on each foot and in the heel was a black wheel, similar to Silver Sonic's.
On its back was a wide, flat space with connectors for something to attach and plugged into the spherical port on the front was a cable that connected to the main power supply. The boot up completed, Dr Robotnik changed the 'Mains' cable for Mecha Bot 6's power supply, an alien power source that Robotnik found in the ruins of an ancient tomb.
He inserted the yellow orb and four claw fixtures slid out and locked it in place like a gemstone in a ring.
Yellow circles appeared on the rectangular panels on the sides of its head and the machine began to see.
Mecha Bot 6 looked around at his surroundings, the Learning Matrix recording and analyzing everything, it heard a voice and turned to look at the round, vaguely egg-shaped body of its creator, it looked up and saw its creator's moustached face, shaded eyes and bald, goggled head.
"I am Dr Robotnik, your brilliant creator and your Master, you are to obey only me, you are Mecha Bot 6, codenamed 'Final Mecha', or just 'Mecha' for short" Said Robotnik, initiating the robot's protocol
"Self unit…I. I am Mecha Bot 6 'Mecha'" Replied Mecha, figuring out that one described Self Unit as I. He ran a search on the other 5 Mecha Bots, downloading and storing the data to view later. Master registration, however, failed. During the power-out the system was installing the master registration failsafe, but the system crashed and Master registration and Obedience circuits were corrupted beyond all repair, so Robotnik registered as creator, but not master. Mecha had Free Will, if only partially and not realised.
Robotnik rubbed his hands together in glee, this robot learnt fast. "OK Mecha, these cylinders, apart from being your arms, are canisters of Nanites, you can access data on them via System Core. They can form into pre-programmed patterns, creating different mechanisms. Try it, open Nano-guard plates, retract spike, disassemble, activate 'hand' program, deploy hand mechanism" said Robotnik, eager to test this robot's systems.
Mecha did this, the spike splitting into 8 sections that slid back along the side of the cylinder, leaving a thin pole with a small spike, the tip of the other, on the end. This retracted into the cylinder and the Nanites that made up the structure disengaged, returning to the collective. The Nanites then followed the 'Hand' program, forming a dexterous hand and deploying it out of the cylinder.
Mecha stared at the hand, his Matrix noting how to use it, curious he deployed his left hand without prompting from the creator, noting the differences, intrigued.
Robotnik chuckled, this was one smart robot, it had already shown curiosity, and it had anticipated his next command. Phase 2, "Mecha, retract right hand and activate 'Plasma rifle' program, then…" he began
"Deploy" Finished Mecha, his right hand already returning to the nanite collective in his arm, he initiated 'plasma rifle' program and deployed the gun, his right 'eye' circle becoming a crosshair, Mecha's HUD gained an Ammo counter for the rifle and a targeting display. Intrigued he began locking on to things, his arm automatically raising and pointing the rifle at the targeted item, he targeted everything in the immediate vicinity, except the creator, and then lowered his weapon, waiting for the next command.
Robotnik was about to explain the rifle when a comm-unit activated and a sentry drone reported an unidentified attacker on the launch deck. Robotnik considered sending out one of the E.G.G.s, but the only finished ones were already deployed, and unit 01 had been destroyed. He grinned and turned to Mecha, "Mecha, I have a mission for you, Equip your jump-pack, it's over there, then get to the launch deck, we have an uninvited guest, destroy it" he commanded
"Aye, aye sir" replied Mecha, disengaging the modem in his head, closing the spike and cutting himself off from System Core. He attached the jump pack, it looked like a mirror of his torso armour but it had two shield-like wings, the length of his leg, mounted vertically equipped with thrusters, the pack was red and the red 'wings' were edged with gold paint.
Mecha activated the jump-pack, hovering on his toes. He slid his flattened spike toes to the sides, locking them into place on either side of his foot, and jetted out of the lab, consulted the map in his mainframe, and headed off to the launch deck.