(I do not own Sonic X, etc.)

S.O.N.I.C GO!

S.O.N.I.C GO!

GO, GO, GO, GO: LET'S GO!

The Metal X Saga

Episode 10: The Spider's Web

Sonic hadn't said a word all day. Even now he sat slightly at the table, gently poking his food with a plastic fork; a miserable look on his face. It hadn't been the beating he'd suffered that had left him so empty but rather the fact that one of his greatest foes had returned from the death of one of his closest friends.

Okida had had to confirm it but Metal Sonic's remains had been stolen from the base they were kept at. The base itself came under attack from within at the same time and the intruder made off with the robotic hedgehog's body after demolishing the armoury.

What happened to Metal Sonic after all became pretty obvious. His space ship attacked the Icarus, ransacking their ride and stealing the Chaos Emerald that Void had given them. The sense of loss Sonic felt was not a direct result of the theft, nor the near demolition of the Icarus, but rather the loss of the Metal Sonic he called a friend.

The blue hedgehog; along with Amy, Tails, Rouge and Knuckles all sat in a Fish and Chip shop somewhere on the outside edges of Station Square. Most of the city was abandoned, crumbling into ruins after the assaults made by the Egg Fleet and later the revived Biolizard; but on the outer edges, a few had returned to try and return life to the ghost town. There had been Government funded plans to rebuild the city, but after constant attacks people were apprehensive about living there. So most of the buildings had been abandoned to an encroaching forest.

"Come on Sonic, it wasn't your fault." Amy began, growing tired on his uncharacteristic silence. "Whoever took Metal Sonic did something with his head, made him bad again." Sonic didn't reply, in fact he just remain slumped on the table with his eyes wandering slowly across the room. He knew deep down that he would have to face Metal again soon and that fight would be to the death.

"What I don't understand is why he took the Chaos Emerald." Rouge mused looking thoughtful, placing her fore finger and thumb on her chin. "The Emeralds are sources of power so he has to be up to something with them. Question is, did he just settle for the one he took from us or is he going after the other six?"

Tails, who was stuffing his face with a large portion offries tried to say something but with his mouth full it came out as a garbled mess.

"Stop, swallow, start again." Knuckles muttered, leaning on the table with a flat expression on his face. Tails paused and finished his mouthful before repeating what he had tried to say.

"I said, 'if he is after the rest, then he'll be coming for that one we won at the Emerald Grand prix." Amy looked up.

"I'd forgotten about that." She admitted, scratching the back of her head. The purple Chaos Emerald had been her prize for racing against Egg Robo in the finals and winning. Sonic would have gone head to head again Metal Knuckles, had Void not sucked them into Radiant Emerald to play a part in his escape. The Emerald itself was stashed safely back at Tails workshop in the Mystic Ruins, locked inside his underground laboratory in a sealed vault. But to be truthful, if Metal Sonic was after the Emeralds and he knew where that one was, he'd tear the entire place apart himself to get it.

Knuckles gave Sonic a side glance. The blue hedgehog was still moping around looking depressed. Having taken as much of this as he could stand, he growled angrily.

"Alright, that's it." The red Echidna muttered standing up and grabbing Sonic by the shoulders. Before anyone could stop him, he drew his large hand back and slapped him across the face. The painfully strong slap seemed to wake the blue hedgehog up as he blinked, forged an angry frown before rebounding off the table and smashing a kick directly into Knuckles' stomach.

The blow didn't hurt Knuckles that much, but he staggered back well out of range anyway.

"You bastard!" Sonic muttered, rubbing the side of his face with one hand. "What the hell was that for?"

"Pull yourself together Sonic," The red Echidna replied, dusting himself off. "Stop feeling sorry and get back to the real world." Sonic faltered. "Metal Sonic's bad guy, fine we've established that. No about of moping is going to change the fact."

"I know." Sonic sighed, sitting back down. "But I don't have to like it."

"Knuckles seems on edge." Amy commented. Rouge just shrugged.

"He's just upset because he returned to the Master Emerald yesterday and it told him to go right back here to help us." She laughed. The echidna balled his fist and sat down, grumbling quietly to himself; one of his eyes twitching in implied aggressive insanity.

"Well if he is after the Chaos Emeralds, he'll want this one." Tails remarked trying to change the subject back, holding up the newspaper his chips had been wrapped in. On the front page was a picture of a museum in San Francisco. According to the report, a Chaos Emerald had been retrieved by one of their expeditions to South Africa and placed on display inn their rare artefacts section. Since it was a colour newspaper they could see that it was the green Chaos Emerald they had retrieved. It sat inside a glass case surrounded by security cameras, intra-red sensors and with two armed guards standing on either side.

"That won't stop Metal Sonic if he goes after it." Sonic commented after Tails handed him the greasy paper. Metal Sonic was now stronger than any of them. He'd tear those security measures to pieces killing anyone who got in his way to get that Emerald if he wanted it.

"Come on guys, this is all speculation." Rouge stated, resting her elbows on the table with a weary sigh. "Until he makes another move we have no way of knowing what he wants and how he intends to do it." Sonic growled under his breath. Waiting was not his style.

"Once I get back to my workshop I'll try to get the Icarus up and running. With the ship we should be able to head after his Behemoth." Tails added, before stuffing his mouth with the rest of the fries. The ship had been toyed off the Island it crashed on and transported to his workshop. Chuck, who had just returned from Italy nearly had a fit when he saw the condition his precious prototype had been brought back in.

"Ever heard of something called a fork?" Amy asked giving him a side glance. Tails just ignored her and kept eating with his hands. The smell of good food finally luring him, Sonic munched on a few things; but found that he wasn't as hungry as he should be. He had far too much on his mind to concentrate on eating.

Someone had done something to make Metal Sonic this way and there had to be a reason why. Whoever it, it couldn't have been Eggman. He was too busy up near the ARK. So, if it hadn't been him; then who else possessed the know how to reprogram the robotic hedgehog?

"Well, ask and you shall receive." A voice stated as the front door opened and Okida, Major of Freelance Division strode it with a proud look on his face. Under one arm he was carrying a bunch of paper clipped together. Since the bat had been able to verify that Metal Sonic had been stolen from one of their bases Sonic asked if he try his best to find out who it was who did the stealing.

"Got something?" Rouge asked as her superior officer took up one of the vacant seats beside them. "Or are you smiling smugly for no reason?" Okida's smile simply widened at the remark.

"It seems whoever broke into our base was a professional." He stated folding his arms. "Was able to tip toe around even our most advanced security features, then he hit our armoury with everything he had before we knew what was even going on. Luckily for us, he slipped up."

"Slipped?" Sonic repeated with a raised eyebrow. Okida handed the blue hedgehog the papers he had brought with him. They included some documents, read outs that Sonic did not understand and a single printed out picture.

"One of our security camera's managed to get a shot of his face, and I've been able to ID the guy." Sonic didn't need him to continue. The face on the picture was more than familiar. "He's a fired thug known in the criminal underworld as..."

"Fang." Sonic stated in contempt completing Okida's statement for him. Tails' looked up in alarm. His own encounter with the ruthless mercenary had not been pleasant. Fang the Sniper, while hired by Eggman to assassinate Sonic, captured Tails in an attempt to use him as bait to lure Sonic out into the open.

"You know him?" The Major asked in surprise.

"We know him alright." Amy began, proceeding to launch into an account of their misadventure with him. Okida put a fore finger and thumb to his chin, looking thoughtful.

"Sounds like the kind of guy I wouldn't want to meet." He began leaning back in his chair. "I tried to find out more about this guy but it seems there's little to go on. He values his privacy a lot I think, I can't find a single record of him anywhere in our national records. No address, no medical insurance. Not even a pet registration. The guy lives of the grid completely."

"Try searching under his real name." Sonic began.

"And that would be…"

"Nack the Weasel." Another voice stated. Espio the Chameleon, a member of the Chaotix detective agency became visible again, standing beside Knuckles, who was so startled he nearly leapt out of his seat with his fists raised. "He used to be a member of our group, until he betrayed us to a crime lord and killed one of our number." Fang the Sniper had belonged to Chaotix back when Mobius and Earth were two separate worlds. Years ago however he betrayed them, leading them into a trap by their enemies. Then he killed Mighty, one of their youngest members in cold blood.

"We'll find him." Espio stated before any of them could actually say anything. "Chaotix and Nack have a long out standing debt to settle."

"We'll be needing him alive." Sonic began quickly, seeing the blood lust quietly veiled behind the chameleons eyes. "Fang wouldn't take Metal Sonic's remains for his own sake, someone paid him to do it and I want to know who. So bring him back breathing." A brief flash of disappointment crossed Espio's face. Everyone looked at Okida, expecting him to argue. Fang had been involved in a theft of G.U.N property so they expected him to tell them it was a Government investigation.

"Go on, fine." He told them when he noticed some sideways glances his way. "It would save me the trouble and I've got enough as it is trying to get relief aid into liberated Britain."

"How's that going?" Tails asked. Okida groaned.

"Badly. Eggman left the country in a terrible state and any technology we could salvage was destroyed in the fighting. It'll take decades to get the place back to normal, if it ever does. Most of the cities are ghost towns." That had been putting it mildly. Once the borders were open again, refugees began flooding back across the channel into France, far many than the country could actually cope with. Authorities were being forced to find accommodation for all of them. The entire situation was a mess, but at least it wasn't an Eggman controlled place anymore and Okida supposed that was something to be thankful for. He had been reliably informed people would prefer to wait in refuge camps as free men and women instead as slaves in a mind staggering corrupt regime.

"I heard you captured some of Eggman's supporters." Rouge asked with a side glance. Okida's melancholy look melted away, replaced by a wide grin.

"Not some of them, all of them! I caught them trying to run away as the boys were knocking on their front door." Rouge clapped mockingly. "They're all still confident that their bribed lackeys and weasly lawyers will bail them out or look the other way; but not this time. I've got enough evidence to sink a battleship; not to mention a few signed confessions. Even all the lawyers in the world can't save out now. Every one of them is going down for a very long time."

"How long?" Tails asked.

"How does forever sound?"

-

How she managed to keep up with him was a mystery that puzzled Shadow to no end. Out in the middle of the wilderness, miles from civilisation the black and red Hedgehog found himself wandering across a cold mountain top towards the faint green of a jungle in the distance. He had to general direction in mind; he was just seeing how long the female Echidna could keep up with him before he lost her altogether. Her ability to follow him even over the more rugged terrain was admittedly impressive.

Finally he stopped skating across the snow and began waiting on top of a large rock jutted out into the air. A few moments later she arrived, walking through the thick banks of snow like they were nothing. She was small and appeared near helpless and yet the powerful elements around them did little to hinder her progress. She looked up towards realizing that he was waiting for her.

At the base of the mountain was a small ski-resort with a set of cable cars going up and down the mountain not too far from their position. It was their grand opening day and a good dozen hot air balloons were hovering above.

"Impressive." He stated with crossed arms as his breath came out a white mist in the cold air. "And now why are you following me?" Tikal simply shrugged.

"Because I want to." Was her simple reply, her own breath coming out as white fog. Shadow narrowed an eye at her sceptically.

"You won't be able to keep up with me for much longer." He told her, more sure of that fact than anything else. If she annoyed him enough he could disappear through Chaos Control and be on the other side of the world in an instant.

"I think I can try." She replied with a short smile. Shadow forged a sadistic sneer, an impish idea coming to mind. Shadow prided himself on being logical and not prone to childish out bursts like Sonic was. Unfortunately he loved challenges and that could easily override his sense of dignity.

Somersaulting off the rock, he landed on a slope heading down the mountain. The momentum carried with his land and the slope itself carried him forward and in an instantly he was sliding down the mountainside. The constant energy discharge from the underside of his sneakers keeping him from falling over. More people could need a board for this but not Shadow. He saw using tools for something you could do yourself as a sign of weakness.

The snow flying out behind him, Shadow went through a grove of trees and then over a snow bank. While in mid air he looked back expecting to see Tikal still on the top of the mountain. To his surprise he found that she was not far behind him, sliding down the mountain on a board that looked like it was made of ice.

Coming down on a patch of icy ground, Shadow forced his body weight forward so he slid gently through a tunnel made completely out of ice that drove it's way through the mountainside, dodging around giant icicles that lanced from the ceiling to the ground before blasting out the outside, back flipping over a cable car behind landing back on the slopes again.

Tikal wasn't able to copy that exact trick but she managed to pull one of her own, spinning her body through the air as she exited the ice tunnel, slid down the cable car wire before spiralling down towards the ground.

Shadow hovered long enough in one place to clap before skating off with the female Echidna in hot purist. The question of exactly how she was doing all this had completely left his mind. The black and red hedgehog was having fun and he wasn't about to let a little word like 'impossible' ruin it for him.

"Not bad." He commented, pulling up along side her. She smirked at him. "But can you do this?" Throwing his weight to one side, he skated in circles around the female Echidna, throwing up great clouds of snow before reaching a ledge that jutted out from the ground and going several three hundred and sixty degree slips in the air. He wasn't even finished there either, nearing the ground he flipped over himself three times before landing on the snow, forcing himself to a stop.

Looking back he saw Tikal throw herself into the air and do several flips of her own, sliding nearly effortlessly over the tree tops before sliding down a large snow ramp. Unfortunately at the last moment she lost her footing and she and her ice board went flying into the snow by Shadow's feet.

"Hey, I'm not the ultimate life form here." She argued as Shadow stared down at her. The black and red hedgehog chuckled, before reaching down and pulling her to her feet. He paused as he watched the ice board melt and the liquid fade into her shadow. Clearly there was more to this girl then what met the eye, but he could just sense that she was no threat.

"Ah, there it is." He remarked, his sense tuning to what he had travelled here to find. Ploughing through the snow, he dug his way through a large pile of the white stuff near the side of a large pine tree. Digging his hand in, he searched around inside until he withdrew holding the yellow Chaos Emerald. The jewel was emitting a delicate and almost Luke-warm glow, the faint melody emitted by it's radiating power soft on the wind.

"I was wondering what you were doing heading this far north." Tikal began, joining him by his side. Shadow nimbly tossed the Emerald from one hand to the other.

"Since Metal Sonic took the Emerald Void gave us, I thought it might be wize to keep an eye on the other six." He forged a grin. "I just hope Sonic had the same idea."

-

San Francisco was like an unblemished Station Square. While the city Sonic was familiar with was now in ruins, this place reminded him off it before all of the destruction that beset it many times. The last time had had been however had not been under pleasant circumstances. Mistaken for Shadow, he had been arrested and was en-route to Prison Island before he bailed out of the chopper directly over the city. Here he was chased all day by G.U.N assault forces before confronting Shadow himself.

It was nearing the start of summer and already he could see that people were preparing for it. San Francisco was quite a tourist attraction with long beech's, cable cars and a pleasant view of the ocean. The sight of water Sonic could stomach, going near it bothered him.

Anyway, he wasn't here for the view. Right now his priority was to check up on that Chaos Emerald Tails said were here in a Museum. Locating the museum itself hadn't been overly difficult. It was the Natural History, on it helped to.

However it was closed for renovations. According to the security guard standing outside the locked front door, some idiot had taken a pin from a Dinosaur skeleton and the whole thing had fallen apart.

So Sonic had had to contend with waiting outside, sitting at a hot dog stand chewing over one thoughtfully. He was well aware of a few people taking snap shots of him but he guessed that was the price for being famous.

He still wasn't happy with the idea of Metal Sonic as an enemy, but as Knuckles had said he didn't have any choice in the matter. If the robotic Hedgehog wanted all seven Chaos emeralds then he would have to come here to get one.

Without warning there was a aloud succession of thuds and the ground shook, several parked cars jumping into the air with their alarms going off. Everyone around looked up in surprise. That hadn't been a earth quake. Generally Earthquakes lasted longer.

Finishing his hot dog, Sonic sped up to the top of a nearby building to get an eagles eye view of the place. From here he couldn't tell if anything was wrong, but the suddenly from nearby he heard screams and turned just in time to duck as a car was thrown through the air, narrowly missing him.

"Woah that can't be good." He muttered to himself, darting down back to the ground and the through the streets, dodging through fleeing cars and civilians. Coming into an empty high street, Sonic felt another thud that broke some of the windows, followed by another and another.

Scuttling out of the nearby street came one of the largest mechs Sonic had ever seen.

This new robot was unlike anything he was used to. It was shaped like a spider, with eight long articulated legs and a two sectioned armoured body in the middle. A pair of serrated pincers jutted out where the mouth should be, occasionally snapping at the fleeing swat police. Its eight legs were made up of three parts, a large coating of blue armour covering each one. Its overall size was gigantic, trampling cars and other vehicles, crushing them underfoot, tearing up the road, carving large holes out of the buildings as it crawled by.

It stopped directly in front of the blue hedgehog, a set of six large red eyes on the top side of its body studying him carefully, before lifting one of its front legs into the air. Sonic gulped and shot backwards as the spider brought the limb down, sinking it into the road, breaking the tarmac.

As it missed, it turned its head towards him opening its mouth and without any warning; a beam of energy came rocketing forward, narrowly missing the blue hedgehog, it carried on past him; gorging a long ditch in the sidewalk.

Spinning his entire body around in a spin, he rocketed forward, impacting off first one leg, then the other. To his dismay, his blows didn't seem to do any damage. The metallic plating of the armour didn't even seem to have a dent on it. Growling, he charged again, trying to hit the exact same spots.

Acting faster than he'd anticipated, the spider tore another of its legs around and batted him away like he was a fly. Landing uncomfortably against a street lamp, Sonic paused long enough to rub his aching head before summer salting back to his feet. Ok, so this thing was a little tougher than he originally thought. It was no big deal.

The robotic spider reared its head back and fired another blast. Sonic ducked under it before rocketing forward, somersaulting over a swing from its long legs and landing on the top of its body. Sensing the hedgehog's presence, the robot shook itself widely, trying to shake the intruder off.

Holding one hand back, Sonic gathered all the energy he would need and swung it forward again, a Sonic Wind attack already swirling downwards. The vortex tore the metal open, leaving a clear path down towards the insides of the machine. The spider shook as if gripped in the seizure, before its legs lost their strength and it collapsed to the ground.

Back flipped back to the ground as it fell, Sonic landed in one of his infamous poses. There was little point, he thought, in saving the world if you didn't look good doing it.

"Hey, when you're good you're good." He began to the cheering crowd behind him, a smug smile on his face.

Without warning, another shriek from behind made him turn. Looking back, he saw another robotic spider come scuttling out of another road, chasing some civilians out of their cars as it continued its steady march. And then another, following closely behind it, kicking a coach side with its long legs. Chaos was instantly back in control of the streets again.

As if that wasn't good enough, the spider he had just taken down shuddered violently before some secondary systems kicked in as it rose back to its feet. Perhaps in anger it lifted both front legs before swinging them down. It was Sonic's instinctive fast reflexes that save from becoming the one thing all Hedgehog's avoid trying to become; road kill.

His reflexes weren't fast enough to avoid it again however as another leg swung around and batted him away. Flying through the air, Sonic collided with the side of a car, slamming through one of the doors.

The spider charged after him, before a red blur came charging out from a side alley, a large spurred fist sinking itself into it's face, making it stagger back into the side of a building. As Sonic pried himself out of the smashed car, he watched Knuckles grab the spider by its fangs, drew his free fist back before slamming an insanely strong punch forward.

The spider staggered backwards before colliding into the side of a building.

"It's there any day when I don't save your butt?" The Echidna asked.

Flip card 1:

Name: Arachnid Badnik

Description: Machine Federation class Combat Mech.