Scorched Skies
Summary:
Robotnik is closing in. Every day his reach and power grows. Sonic and his allies are pushed to the far bounderies where very little is left. Then one night, a ship crash lands. The pilot is alien, and has close ties with machinery, just like their tyrannical enemy, and they have no idea if this creature is friend or foe. (Slight Invader Zim included)
Disclaimer:
I do not own the characters. However this story and this idea is mine.
Warnings:
Dark themes, psychological issues and angst throughout.
Dib07: This story is drastically different for me, and rather experimental. It's one of those ideas that I had to get out of my system, and well, here it is! I have no idea if there is even an audience for this sort of thing, so if you'd like more, please review, comment, message me at your leisure. I initally put it as a Invader Zim/Sonic crossover, but then I realized this is going to be 90% Sonic, so long as you don't mind the 10% alien involved.
Notes: Eggman is also known as Robotnik.
Chapter 1:
"Where did you say this chaos emerald was, Tails?" He opened his map for about the hundredth time, trying to decipher the location through the stains and paper tears. It didn't help that the map had been stuffed in his leg strap for the better part of a month after getting it as payment for saving a youngling. The scrawls were barely decipherable as he turned it around in his hands to better understand it.
"Hang on just a second!" Tails was frustratingly tapping away at his dying data screen. The crack down the centre had only got bigger.
"You still use that thing?"
"It's better than what you're using."
"Oh really?" Sonic rolled his eyes and looked dead ahead, towards the caves where elves and fairies used to reside. Now, like pretty much everything else, the flowers had curled and died, and the trees stood like greying, receding skeletons. The sulphur was in the air, having been carried across by the northern winds. Getting this far, and nearly at the border, Sonic was increasingly on the alert. They had travelled light, travelling cautiously near the wastelands where Robotnik had cultivated the land nearly a decade ago. Factories, grim and grey, bordered the distant peaks. Great black fumes would dissipate across the far horizon like storm clouds.
"It should be…. right about here…" The young kitson stepped around the dark, grimy foliage, face lit up in ashen hues against the light of the screen, but just before he could locate it, the datapad finally died. "No, no no!"
"Tails!"
"I got it!" He said, working his thumb on the power button.
"No, the sky!" He spun the kitson round at the pink flash racing like a hellish comet across the dark and thundery heavens.
Tails lifted the mop of fur out of his eyes. "What is that?"
"I dunno. Could be one of Eggman's surveyors." He shielded his eyes against the sudden light as pink irradiated the sky. Whatever it was was coming down fast, the bullet homing in on distant badlands. He recognized the boom as waves rippled outwards, snaring them as the wind whipped around their forms. The comet disappeared behind the hills, its tail a bright sword lacerating the sky, and then Tails and Sonic were thrown off their feet by a following explosion. Sonic rocked on his haunches, his ears angrily ringing. Tails was grabbing frantically at his arm, mouthing something with urgency. Sonic blinked at him as winds rushed over them.
"We gotta see! We gotta see what fell!"
"What? Are you crazy, Tails?" He rubbed the grit from his eyes. "It's too dangerous! Even if it wasn't a surveyor, it'll attract every badnik and patroller this side of the world! We gotta go back!"
"Please, Sonic! We won't get too close! We gotta know what it is!"
He could see that Tails' mind was already made up. If he was on his own, he wouldn't have hesitated, and gone straight to see what had come down, but his first priority was keeping his foster brother safe, "Okay. Just a peek. From about three miles. Then we're getting out of here."
-x-
He scouted out ahead, his cloak billowing out behind him, listening for danger. He stopped every so often, listening for the whir of gears and the foul stink of oil. The dying forest, what was left, had gone eerily quiet, as if every bird and every insect had just fled. Sonic didn't trust it. When he heard Tails approach, he was tempted once again to lure him away, and take him back home. It was hard being the responsible elder and reliable brother, when he didn't want Tails to ever see him as a coward.
"Stay alert for traps, little guy." He said when the kitson was by his side. "Remember what I told you?"
"Yes." But Tails sounded impatient, his eyes only focused on where the pink 'ball' of whatever had descended. It was his eagerness and childish naivety that worried the hedgehog.
Ahead, past the twisted rocks and old debris was a definite pink, pulsing light that seemed to glow over everything. There were no other sounds save the sly, mechanical beep beep coming from the source.
Tails propelled forwards, when Sonic swung his arm out. "No. Stay here."
Tails moaned.
He stepped lightly, jolting like a feather over loose shale and crumbling stone. He could smell the porous stink of fumes, and the sickly heat radiating off the earth. Darkness was falling, chasing the overgrowth into hiding, where badniks and patrollers would be harder to spot. His night vision was dubious at best, and the pink light engulfing the area made him blind to his surroundings.
Blasted rock and molten ash bubbled and boiled around the freshly imploded hole, and as he crept over the rim, he looked down to see what looked like a purple ship. Smoke, as dark as ink, billowed upwards. Even as night gathered, the 'pink' seemed to brighten, and the rising the smoke was going to attract anything for miles.
Tails scrambled up the rocks to stand beside him despite Sonic's warnings, and his jaw dropped. "Whoah!"
"We gotta go." The hedgehog pushed him back just as a fiery gust of pink belched upwards. He looked out across the darkening plains that offered no answers. Even if Eggman was not looking at the sky at that precise moment, the resulting crash would have been heard on a seismic scale.
Nothing gets past Robotnik.
"It's a space ship!" Tails chimed excitably.
He honestly didn't know what it was. To him it was a machine, and all machines were bad. "I really wouldn't jump to that kind of conclusion, Tails, not if you want to keep your tails! Let's go!" The foul air was hot against his fur, and the fumes or whatever it was producing was making his eyes water. For all he knew, this 'ship' was about to explode. But Tails pushed past him and glided down towards the purple craft. "Tails!" He cut forwards in an instant, trying to impede the kitson before he reached it.
"Look!" And Tails pointed.
Sonic looked to see something lying there behind the fractured window of the cockpit. It was hard to make out, the smoke kept billowing into his face, the heat making things waver and dance as he tried to peer through a glass mosaic full of cracks.
They both stared, awed and afraid. What lay in there was something they had never seen before. It was bug-like, small, green skinned, and wore what looked like a uniform of sorts. Something else sat in a seat beside it, something that made Sonic's ears curl. It was a robot. And neither of them showed any signs of life.
Tails was hurrying forwards, reaching the cockpit in seconds, only to cry out when his gloved paws touched the sides of the cockpit. The metal was so hot it had turned white. "Sonic, help me get them out!"
Are you kidding me?
Sonic stared, knowing that the ship could explode in seconds, or minutes, with every badnik in the vicinity already on their way. There was no time to sit and decide.
He spun in a circle, back of his heel hitting the side of a cockpit that wasn't that much larger to the bed he slept in. Then he heard a whirring of gears, a sound he hated, and watched the ship's cockpit crank open.
Feeling more stupid than brave, he held his breath against the smoke and noxious fumes and grabbed the robot first, slinging its surprisingly heavy body out of the seat before the burning metal could singe his gloves. It dropped to the floor with a heavy thunk and clatter before he went back in for the 'pilot.' He hesitated, expecting its eyes to open with every passing moment as his fur baked and more ribbons of tinged smog confiscated his senses. He poked the thing's bony shoulder, feeling the flesh give underneath the padding of clothes just before he drew back, ears flattening. But there was no movement. He wasn't even sure if it was breathing, if such things such as these even breathed oxygen like they did.
"Sonic!" Tails was already dragging the little robot across the boiling mud and shale, "What are you doing?"
The alien was harder to wrestle free. It was still buckled in, and it took Sonic a second to two to find how to unclip it. Once the alien was free, he pulled it out, taking its weight as fires began to belch and roar behind him.
Shadow's gonna rip me a new one for sure. What a day this turned out to be.
The creature's skin felt overly shiny, like oil, and just as he was dragging him out, he almost dropped the alien back into the cockpit when he saw the machine strapped to its back.
This is bad.
"Sonic, hurry up!" Cried the kitson from behind him. His poor choice of words wasn't exactly his fault in this situation, and Sonic decided not to bring it up later.
Hauling the creature over his shoulder, knees shaking from the weight, he watched Tails continue to drag the robot by the arm. The robot's eyes were conical shaped, and dark, as if whatever once powered it had died.
"Keep heading south, Tails! Don't stop! The sooner we're outta here, the better!"
Tails didn't need telling twice, and he hurried ahead, sometimes hopping or gliding over obstacles in the near darkness with the robot in tow. Sonic followed, his lightness and speed weighted down by the burden he carried.
You're such a risk taker. Shadow had once bragged as he sipped from his glass of chardonnay. I get it. You're fast. Robotnik can't catch you, though I'm sure he dreams of it every night. But take that speed away, and you're nothing but a sitting duck.
He tried to fight the temptation to simply shrug the creature off him and leave it there. Not only were pursing badniks on his mind, but thoughts of contagious alien diseases and parasites. He was also beginning to fear if it might wake up, and then what?
Where has it come from? Why is it here?
It wore clothes like a forerunner. It did not smell like them, his nose was so full of fumes and the stink of metal that he couldn't smell anything else.
There was a dim shade of light ahead as the sun winked her last behind the foothills of Monogith, and the trees, shrouded in age and shadows, barred his way forwards. He came to the old riverbed they had traversed earlier, and sunk down into it to take a break. He dumped the creature by his side, but he couldn't get a good view of it in the dark, only that nefarious thing glowing on its back. As the sky darkened, the pinks on its back doubly brightened. He ripped off his cloak and threw it over the machine, hoping to disguise the light.
Minutes passed. He could only hear the wind sighing through the bending trees, and the shy whisper of a night bird. Gathering up his strength, he rallied himself again, and pulled the creature back onto his shoulders.
-x-
He didn't know how long he had been rubbing at his arm as he watched them pace and shout and argue in his living room. They had gathered quicker than he had anticipated when they had already seen or heard of the 'comet.'
Its virulent green blood had got on almost everything, including his cloak and fur, and hallway floor. Not knowing what else do to, he had placed it on his bed before they arrived, wrapped it in a blanket and stepped back to reconsider his choices. Under the light of the lantern, the creature's skin remained that pale, septic green, and he discerned its exceptionally long and slender antennae. Its head was large and conical shaped, and when he drew forwards, poking a finger under its eyelid, he saw the vibrant, dangerous red underneath.
"We should call the doctor." Tails had softly suggested. The robot, now a cold heavy artefact of interesting metal, was placed on the middle of the table once all the cutlery had been cleared to make room for it.
Sonic was about to suggest something when there were furious knocks on the door. Knuckles then burst in, and instantly caught the strong whiff of oil and its alien blood. "What in Dowa is going on?"
"Look, can we keep this quiet?"
"Keep what quiet?" Knuckles roared, only for Amy and Shadow to sullenly appear behind him.
As the twilight deepened, with Sonic lighting a new candle in the lantern, the echidna paced left and right. His anger was palpable. When he got to one end of the room, he swung round and marched back the other way. It was a wonder that he had not gone into the bedroom to pound the thing into oblivion.
"It's a monster!" Knuckles made a show of teeth as he spoke. Shadow leaned against the doorway, looking suitably bored. "It shouldn't be here! We have to take it back!"
"Doesn't look much of a monster to me." And Shadow looked carefully down at his manicured claws.
"Back to what? A crater?" Tails asked.
"That crater and that ship will be surrounded by hundreds of enemies by now anyway." Shadow looked on dryly, looking no more engaged on the topic.
"But why is it here? Where has it come from?" Amy dubiously looked from Tails to Sonic.
"It's a product of Eggman's!" Knuckles roared, spittle flying from his lips, "The machine on its back is all the evidence you need!"
"Then why did it drop down from the sky?" Sonic folded his arms.
"It's a ruse, you pointy blue hog! Are you really that thick? That device on its body is clearly an implant! Anything machine orientated has an affiliation with Eggman! The robot is a clear sign of this!"
"We shouldn't jump to conclusions." Sonic would feel the electricity in the air.
"But what if it really has come from space?" Amy fearfully looked towards the room where it lay.
There was sudden quiet, and the echidna lurched to a stop, looking even more furious. "That's just fancy talk. Of course it hasn't! We've seen surveyors fly back and forth, and that mechanized thing – out there – has proven time and time again that Eggman is constantly developing more evil! He's used animals before! Mutating them! Impregnating them with bits and parts!"
Sonic turned away, not needing to be reminded of what he'd seen.
"And you!" Knuckles rushed straight up to him and jabbed a finger into his chest. "What were you doing there?"
"We were looking for a chaos emerald." Sonic replied calmly, emerald eyes flashing dangerously. "It was no secret that half the region saw it. We happened to be the first ones there."
Tails guiltily looked down at the floor.
"Well? Then maybe it too was lured by the chaos emerald!" Knuckles continued, "Which means it has the technology to detect their power signature!"
"But it crashed." Sonic locked eyes with his. "I mean, if it is a soldier of Eggman's, it seems strange to me."
"He's always experimenting! Maybe this one went wrong!" Knuckles turned to the others. "What if there's a chaos emerald inside it? That thing on its back is glowing! What's that mean? Is it radioactive? Is it a power source?"
"What do you suggest we do?" Shadow coolly asked, lifting his crimson eyes at the echidna.
"Isn't it simple? We take whatever's on its back! And we let it die!"
"We're not killers, Knux." Sonic softly added.
"Oh? And what if this thing is? For all we know it could be an assassin!"
Shadow looked speculatively at Sonic from across the room, his expression muted, and indecipherable. But the message rang clear. What do you suggest we do, risk taker? This thing you've brought in is bad news.
"I say we have a vote!" Knuckles looked around at them.
"We're not voting on anything, Knux." Sonic rubbed at his brow with a dirty glove. "I brought it here. It's my responsibility."
"You're all standing here, arguing!" Amy snapped, "But do any of you even know if it's even alive?"
They looked guilty at one another.
"You're all idiots!" And she went into the bedroom.
"Amy, no!" Sonic went to stop her, only to stagger to a stop as she marched to stand by the bedside. The rest of them gathered in the doorway, peering in, with Knuckles looking torn between mortal terror and absolute rage.
Amy pulled up a little wooden stool and sat down on it. The thing's alien appearance and the stink of its blood didn't seem to frighten or disgust her. The alien in question remained motionless. The pillow and blankets were stained from its blood and grubby clothing. Sonic caught the scent of it, reminding him of rotting compost and burnt metal.
"She's crazy." Knuckles whispered under his breath.
Sonic stepped away, conflicted on what to do.
"Was there anything else at the crash site?" Shadow asked softly. "What did its ship look like?"
"I dunno. It was getting dark. The site was a mess. Whatever it used as fuel was leaking all over the place."
Shadow folded his arms, looking thoughtful. "You and I." He said. "We could go back there."
"Why?"
"It'll answer one very important question. If it isn't Robotnik's, he'll be at the scene, trying to figure out what happened. He'll want to retrieve any and all information that hasn't been already damaged from the crash."
"What if he just wants to reclaim his assets?"
"True." Shadow smiled, when both of them knew that Eggman wasn't a fan of recycling his resources when there was so much more to squander. "When he can't find the pilot, he'll get mad either way. It won't take much for us to snoop around a little, and see where he is on the playing field."