(I do not Own Sonic X etc)

Flip card 2:

Name; Bean

Age; 17

Sex; Male

Species; Duck

"This is not going to end well." Hare said for the tenth time as their eyed their target, one of those new robots Eggman had used to take control of the city. Overhearing conversations made between the willing supporters of the Empire that had taken up control of Bristol, these humanoid robots were called Badniks.

Their target was standing guard outside a roadblock that had been placed directly across one of the main roads. A large collection of stand bags and bared wire clocked the road and it had been announced that anyone attempting to so much as go near them would be shot. The badnik seemed to be alone, although from somewhere nearby they could hear the ominous loud foot steps of one of the larger Dreadnaughts.

Bark was still resolute in his intention to bring that robot back to G.U.N for study. They were more advanced than anything in the militaries arsenal and send at least one away for the technicians to get their hands on would help them even the odds.

"We still have our duty to G.U.N." Bark had remarked sadly when he began to explain his plan. "Those smaller robotic soldiers up there surpass anything currently being developed by the Mech program." He folded his arms. "If we ever expect to even the playing field, we have to capture one of those robots intact and bring it back for study." There was a sudden silence.

"Are you insane?" Hare asked flatly. "We saw those things cut through Flying Dog with ease. They'll rip us into pieces smaller than confetti."

"For once, I agree with bunny boy." Bean remarked. Someone however, Bark had managed to get both of them to agree to his scheme. Exactly who he had managed it, neither of them could seem to remember. One minute they had been dead set against his plan and the next he said something and they were drawing battle plans.

"We'll have to sneak up on it." Bark muttered watching it scan the empty street in front of it for any sign of movement.

"And how do you suggest we do that?" Bean asked flatly, looking out from their hiding place momentarily. They had chosen to set themselves up behind a dumpster that, during the confusion of the take over, had been knocked over, garbage spilling out onto the street.

"From now on total and utter quiet." Bark replied sharply.

"I don't think it can hear me from over there."

"But I can." The polar bear rubbed his chin, several different ways to pull this little stunt off running through his mind. Subduing it with force was right out. Just one of these things was a match for all three of them.

A loud buzzing caught his attention and he looked up. Overhanging the street were a few telephone wires. A telephone pole had been dented a few feet away and the wires were low enough to reach now. One of them was sparking with loose electricity. A wide grin crossed Bark's face.

"I have an idea." He stated. "But it'll have to be spilt second timing to pull it off."

"We don't get a say in this do we?" Hare asked, his ears flat against his head.

"Nope."

The badnik's head swerved to the side as Hare darted out into the middle of the road, made an indecent insult with his middle finger before vanishing again into an alley on the right hand side of the street. The robot's visor blared bright red before it left its post to chase after him.

As soon as it reached a certain position, Bean advanced from the other side of the street and tossed one of the old style bombs straight at it. The Badnik barley even had time to look down before it exploded, sending it crashing down to the ground.

Now on its front it was vulnerable. Before it could rise, Bark came cascading down from a fire escape with the wire he had seen a minute ago in his glove. Using his weight to pin the robot, he jammed it directly into the one chink he could see in its armour, a small hole on the back of its neck.

The effect was amazing. The robot shuddered violently like it was having a seizure, its visor blowing out in a spray of glass. Bark rolled off it as it rose, watching in amazement as it staggered around, crashed into the side of a vacant car before stumbling backwards and crashing down to the ground again, smoke rising from it's smashed visor.

"Is it…." Bean began, picking up a stone and tossing it at the robot. It just rebounded of its smoking metallic shell. It seemed inoperable now at least.

Hare edged close and gave it a nudge and as it did so the sheets of metal that formed it's chest plate began pulling themselves backwards, revealing a hollow chamber inside its torso.

"Good god." Bark breathed, seeing a mobian encased in wires inside the belly of the machine, seemingly unconscious. It was a mobian bird, its green feathers battered and torched. The dark remains of tears lanced down its checks.

Reaching down, Bark lifted its limp body out of the metal prison, tearing off the wires and electrodes attached to the arms and legs.

"People inside robots?" Bean began confused. "What for?"

"A power source by the look of it." Hare replied, examining the now vacant remains of the Badnik; noting the sufficient lack of anything that looked remotely like a power cell. There was a sudden succession of loud thudding sounds and the halo of a search light began tracing its way up the street towards them, the faint outline of a Dreadnaught visible

"Hold him for me." Bark said, hanging the bird over the Bean. The polar bear then went over the smoking remains of the badnik and took of its arms, dragging it as quick as he could into an alleyway, followed quickly by the others. The Dreadnaught came marching up the street, striding forcefully over the roadblock; apparently indifferent to the lack of a guard there.

Bean looked out to see it go, until Bark forced him back in again as he saw a pair of military style trucks come up the road after it; the Eggman Empire symbol painted on their sides and a lorry load of nasty looking soldiers armed with the most up to date weaponry available for the common foot solider in the back.

"Let's go…" Hare muttered from between clenched teeth as more of the Empire's supporters clambered out and they were apparently concerned by the lack of a guard at the roadblock. The empty badnik shell was not as heavy as Bark imagined and he was able to place it over his shoulders as the three of them vanished quickly into the back alleys.

It was hounding him, dogging his shadows no matter where he ran. In this arena, Sonic's agility was useless. No matter what speed he accelerated so, the darkness matched it mile for mile. It was a relentless chaser and nothing the blue hedgehog could do impeded its progress. The hideous laughter loomed after him, mocking his efforts at escape. From deep in the darkness, green fire burned with furious hatred and a pair of glowing red eyes never seizing in their malicious glare.

"Run little Hedgehog, run." It laughed after him and suddenly the darkness was everywhere, clouding the sky and ground, creeping in on him. Not just physically either, Sonic could feel an unwavering tsunami of despair and pain preparing to wash over him. His mind was going numb and he felt the inevitability of it all seize him in an iron clad grip.

Looking up, he saw a tall figure silhouetted against the sky. Those glowing red eyes set directly in its head, the green fire burning along its shoulders. Slowly, a large cloven hand with talons reached down towards the blue hedgehog preparing to snatch him up and in that moment the despair and utter fear seemed to intensify ten fold and Sonic collapsed to his knees. Struggling for breath under its influence, thoughts began running unbidden through his mind. Intense memories of the most traumatic events of his life.

He was there again, amidst the wreckage of a ship, struggling for air as the water seemed to pull at him from below. Thunder bellow above and the waves whipping him without mercy; once again Sonic was five years old, alone in the darkness. Reminded bitterly of why he hated water.

There was a sudden unbidden screech and Sonic looked up again. Lancing through the tall figure above him was a single beam of white light. A beam that radiated from the sky, sank through the demonic figure's chest before gently falling onto the blue hedgehog himself, dissipating all the negative emotions forced onto him leaving his mind free of an outside influence.

"Come, before it regains its strength." A familiar voice told him from the light and Sonic heaved himself to his feet, seeing that despite the blow that darkness beginning to stir again. Looking up at the light, the blue hedgehog saw a hand extended to him in offering. Without hesitation he seized it and was lifted from the pit of despair and up into the sky.

"You can't escape me forever!" The scream echoed around as the darkness was deprived of its victim and a geyser of green flames shot forth in a desperate bid to snatch the blue hedgehog back down. It never reached him and Sonic was lifted to safety.

The environment drastically changed around him. Everything faded to be replaced by a complete white void. The blue hedgehog opened his eyes, finding a familiar face in front of him. A female Echidna with orange fur and sea blue eyes. A tiara made of solid gold and painstaking engraved crossed between her front dreadlocks across her forehead. She was dressed in simple clothing made from dried grass and silk. Wrapped around her dreadlocks were white bandages. Sonic blinked, recognising her at once.

"Tikal?" He asked in surprise. The female Echidna nodded with a smile. The last time Sonic remembered seeing her had been when he, Shadow and a few others journeyed into the past. There they witnessed the death of the Echidna civilisation and the rise of Perfect Chaos. It had been extreme difficult for Knuckles to watch or accept. Before that they had all seen her take Chaos 0 away with her to some place unknown, ending Perfect Chaos' seize on Station Square.

"Another few moments in the presence of Krish and he would have destroyed your mind completely." She stated. The ancient Echidna's, most of them at least, had worshipped a god of war. His name is Krish Kra Pal.

Sonic and Shadow had had the misfortune to encounter him in person when he possessed the black hedgehog's body and tried to use to destroy everything in sight. He was pure evil; even Eggman paled in comparison to him.

"Krish is really like that?" Sonic asked, remembering the horrible bleakness of the figure that had loomed over him. Tikal nodded.

"What you saw was his true form. How his body looked before he was first defeated by the God of the Shield and the God of the Sword and sent into exile in Nexus." Sonic looked confused for a moment, this being the first time anyone had ever told him anything about a Shield and Sword god. "It's a long story." Tikal began. "And we don't have time for it now. Your world is in dire peril right now and you have to wake up."

"Wake up? I'm not even asleep." He asked in surprise. Tikal giggled briefly.

"Oh but you are. You've been lying in a coma for over six months now." Sonic looked completely stunned. He liked to sleep in as much as the next hedgehog but six months seemed a little extreme. Did that mean Krish had been torturing him for half a year?

"So…" he began slowly. "I'm dreaming all this?" Tikal hesitated briefly.

"In a manner." She replied. "As Nazo, you and Shadow let your actions be controlled by your rage and you fired an unstable Chaos control warp directly at the Biolizard. It destroyed your foe, but greatly injured your body and mind in the process." Sonic put a hand to his head, struggling to remember all that. There was a brief flash of memory as he saw the cybernetic revived Biolizard come lunged forward.

"Oh." He remarked, finally recalling it all. His eyes widened. "And Shadow?"

"Being far more chaotic in nature than you, he was absorbed by the Chaos control warp and cast out of your world into a separate realm of reality." Another voice stated and the two of them looked up to see a young human girl come gently floating down from the sky. She looked strangely familiar but Sonic could not put his finger on it. She had golden blond hair and blue eyes, a royal blue holding her hair in a middle parting. The faint illusion of light across her body portrayed the image of a pair of large dove like wings sprouting out of her back.

"I've seen you before somewhere haven't I?" The blue hedgehog asked, giving her a sceptical glare as he scratched at his memory. The girl did not reply.

"I will search for Shadow." Tikal stated. "It is probably best he not see you again Maria, at least not yet." Sonic's eyes widened as that well known name rang in his ears.

"MARIA!" He gagged. "You're…THE…Maria?" Shadow had never talked about the way she looked, but from what he could gather from various sources; this girl fitted the description perfectly. "But…you're dead…"

"Am I?" She asked sarcastically. "Oh so I am." Tikal giggled finding some pleasure in the startled look on Sonic's face.

"Why don't you take Sonic's back?" She asked. "I have a pretty good Idea where to start looking for your old friend. As soon as I find him, I'll let you know." She put a hand on Sonic's shoulder. "Don't worry about your friend. We'll find him. Just concentrate on defeating the present enemy at hand."

"And that would be…" Sonic began, only to realize the obvious as he slapped his forehead. "Eggman." The blue hedgehog could only image what glee the fat scientist would find in the knowledge that his greatest enemy had overslept by half a year. In those six months, anything could have happened. Tikal and Maria both nodded and Sonic sighed. "Alright fine. I'm probably going to think this is all a dream when I wake up, in fact I think this is all a dream right now but if you find Shadow for me then I'll take care of Eggman."

"Very well." Maria began, stretching out a hand towards him. "Time to wake up then." Tikal only had enough time to wave goodbye before Sonic took Maria's hand and there was a sudden bright flash of green and the hedgehog was hurled down through darkness and past it, emerging into a world of colour once more.

Laser fire flew through the air as Bean, Bark and Hare made a bee line straight for the harbour, a swarm of badniks on their tail. They'd made good time across the city, but it seemed inevitable that they'd be discovered. And eventually a Dreadnaught had caught them in its search light and at once they had half the Badnik patrols in the area following them.

Bark still had the empty badnik over his shoulders. As far as he was concerned, getting this piece of advanced technology back for study was crucial. To their dismay, during the attack on the city all the boats had been sunken. The shattered remains of boats lay floating across the bay, leaving no means of escape.

"You guys got me into this! I'll sue you for every penny!" Hare told them sharply as they dodged behind the side of a building, narrowly missing a barrage of laser fire.

"Oh shut up!" Bean shouted at him, dragging them across the street as the spot light from a dreadnaught came lancing up towards them.

"Over there!" Bark shouted, gesturing off towards the bay as a bright light began to blare on the horizon, becoming brighter and brighter. G.U.N's latest experimental military vehicle came flying up the river towards the harbour. It was codenamed, ICARUS. A plane designed by Prof. Charles Thorndyke to deploy troops in record speed, capable to taking off and landing like a chopper and carrying several turrets on the rear to cover it's fast retreat. The plane heading towards them was a prototype and Sam Speed was finding it hard to pilot it. It was going extremely fast, even for him and at these speeds it was extremely difficult; never mind trying to break.

Eventually he managed to push the Icarus into a halt directly across the length of the dock and Tails let the ramp at the back decend.

"Let's go let's go let's go!" Tails shouted at Bark and the others as the laser fire began to fill the air. Seeing their one change at escape, Bean and Hare made a dash for it as Bark hurried behind them, keeping the empty Badnik on his shoulders. Once they had all crossed the ramp, it came up sharply, defending all those inside from attack as the Dreadnaughts marched out of streets, missiles joining the Badnik's artillery as the prototype ship made a swift retreat out of the harbour, screeching across the water as the Badnik's flew after it. Inside the plane, Bean and Bark found Chuck and Artimus waiting for them. The Icarus had already swung by the country estate and picked them up.

"Now would be a good time to warp!" Chuck stated, watching out the back as the humanoid robots go closer and closer. Sam said nothing, keeping his eyes locked on the Nitro gauge as it edged closer and closer towards one hundred percent. The two turrets on the back of the ship rotated around and provided some cover fire, helping to keep the badnik swarm off them as the ship shot down the river and towards the open ocean.

"I really hope this crate you designed works." Artimus commented, watching the badniks raise their laser rifles ready to fire.

"Not as much as I do." Chuck added.

There was a sudden loud beep and finally the recharge was complete. A wide smile spread over Sam's face and he grabbed the controls, pulling them backwards to engage the Nitro drive, the lights on the control panel blaring bright green.

"Super Nitro ON!" Slamming the controls forward, the experimental rocket fuel flying through the fuel lines into the engine, a huge blast of exhaust flying out the rockets at the back. There was an enormous sonic boom and the ship went flying forward as an unthinkable speed, the shockwaves sending the pursuing Badniks spiralling straight back to the dock, crashing into the Dreadnaughts knocking them over.

In an instant, the plane was gone, flying down the river to the open waters beyond the reach of the Eggman Empire.

(In Chris voice)

Will Eggman conquer the world, or can Sonic and Amy put a stop to his new Badniks? Find out next time on Sonic X, Awakening. Don't miss it!

Last two chapters redone to remove repeating paragraths...