(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!

Episode 12: The Third General

Sonic spun about in mid air and smashed a fist directly in Leviathan's large face, but the armoured skin proved to strong to even dent.

Leviathan turned as the blue hedgehog shot overhead. The large machine gun turrets on each of the shoulders rotated around and shot a volley straight through the air, nearly grazing Sonic on the leg. Sliding through the streams of deadly fire, Sonic sent the giant Metal X general stumbling back into the shallows, crushing one of his clan robots underneath his giant fin-like foot.

The others, undeterred by the destruction of their comrade formed ranks in front of their master; a protective blockade keeping Sonic away from him as Leviathan raised it's arms; two secret compartments opening on it's limbs and missiles flying through the air.

Sonic spun his legs around in a whirlwind, kicking the missiles out of the way before souring over each robot and smashing a flying kick directly into Leviathan's chest plate. Forging a dent in the armour, Sonic rebounded off the giant robot before spinning in mid air and smashing a kick into the back of Leviathan's head. Holding out one hand to steady himself, the giant came back across with a punch; sending Sonic flying back across the beach rolling through the sand.

Instantly missiles were flying through the air as the blue hedgehog struggled to pull himself up. Flying in to his defence, Rouge deflected the missiles with her own spinning kick technique; the ensuring vortex throwing the projectiles off course so they sent harmlessly into the side of the sand bank, several more sent flying back straight towards Leviathan.

Ducking into the water, the Metal X general managed to avoid the brunt of his own attack as it rocketed over him into sea.

"Better late than never." Sonic commented with a smirk before racing across the sands.

Amy swung her hammer around sharply in an arch, batting a robot away and into the air; defending Cream from an attack. But just as that one robot fell, another three seemed to take its place and even more Metal X reserves were marching out of the ocean. It was as if Leviathan had an entire army down there.

Cosmo watched from afar with wide eyes. Everything in her vision was coming true, it was all true. If she had been honest with herself, she would admit that she had doubted it all. But now there could be no question. The authenticity of it all was lying before her eyes and if this part of it was correct, then; to her great horror the final part must also come true.

Memories of that single horrifying image refused to leave. Never before in her entire life had she seen such darkness. Evil of a scale inconceivable, an ancient hatred so powerful it hurt like the strongest poison even from a single glance of it.

"COSMO!" Someone screamed and the young seer blinked, coming back into the present; seeing the image of a Metal X Navy clan robot standing over her; it's talons held high ready to strike. A second before it could, the curved blade like edge of Amy's hammer impale it's way through it's head; jagged piece of curved metal go flying into the air before it collapsed to the ground.

Cosmo staggered backwards, collapsing to the sand as Amy pulled her hammer free. "Go on, run!" The pink hedgehog told her, jabbing a finger after Cream and her mom, before turning back to the battle and the steady stream of robots emerging from the deep.

Rouge swung a kick into a robot, shattering it into piece before spinning around in mid air, head butting another before using her wings to blow it over. As it lay on the sand, he stamped down with both feet punch a hole straight through its torso. The number of enemies around her steadily increasing, the female bat swung her leg up and smashed an upper kick directly into one of their heads, before bringing her other leg around and tearing it's legs clean off.

A third swiped her across the back with it's talons as she staggered forward, hissing in pain, before spinning around and impaling the steal tip of her boot straight through it's head.

Sonic never touched the water; he leapt off the beech, struck a blow against Leviathan's body, defending himself against contour attack before returning to the beach again to repeat the whole process. A technique that showed his more than infamous fear of water, but it was proving rather effective. Combing the routine with his speed was enabling him to do a sufficient amount of damage.

Unfortunately that left him open to attack. Once Leviathan had anticipated his moves, he countered Sonic's fifth attempt at a spin attack before grabbing one of his legs and pinning him in the shallows.

Forced under the water, Sonic struggled in vain to pull himself to the surface; clawing desperately at it. Leviathan's large metal hand keeping both legs pinned to the bottom. The giant robot kept his victim submerged, trying to drown him, heedless that his master had ordered him to stay clear.

Then with a loud clank, Amy's hammer collided with Leviathan's shoulder; demolishing one of his turrets with a ball of flames; forcing the giants body backwards with an explosion that nearly blew apart his entire arm. Once freed of he grip, Sonic spun to the surface, shattering the entire metal hand. With that destroyed, Leviathan was forced back into the deeper waters; only his bust appearing above the waves.

As Sonic coughed up a great deal of salty water, Amy joined him by his side.

"Hey, are you ok?" She asked Sonic pulled himself unsteadily to his feet, wiping a great deal of seawater from his lips.

"Yeah fine." He lied. That experience had done him a lot more psychological damage than physical. The water had always scared him, that was no secret; but being forced underneath it, struggling for air that brought back to him in a sudden rush one of his very first memories; the raging storm tossing him around in a maelstrom, the current pulling him under. –Come on, keep it together- he kept telling himself before forcing himself into a fighting stance.

-

While the best way of getting information was to go direct to go direct to the source, sometimes it proved profitable to take a side road. That was one of the many lessons a successful detective had to learn. Vector had learned those lessons himself the hard way, and now he was passing them on to the younger members of the agency. In this job, a detective needed every advantage they could.

Of course, Rei had his own advantages. It was an ability he had never questioned as it had always been there. Truth just seemed to leap out at him, even while others were doing their best to conceal it. Anything important or dangerous alerted him to its presence even before it arrived. Espio had called this precognition but to Rei, it's name meant very little. It was just something he had had since he had been born, as natural to him as breathing.

"New deals are always going down." Their contact explained, a homeless man, who like most of the people they did business with was more than he appeared. "Sometimes of course, some are bigger than others; so big in fact they involve some of the big business."

"Such as?" Beck, another of Chaotix's new recruits asked. Their contact just shrugged his shoulders.

"Well, for a number of reasons, as example; I heard that G.U.N is looking for an arms or new technologies company to take up the job of the national defence grid." Beck as Rei cast each other a quizzical glance.

"National what?" They asked in unison. The old man folded his arms.

"All I know are rumours. After that whole business in Britain, the Government's been lookin' for more effective ways to defend against the Eggman Empire and that supposed Machine Federation. What they're looking for is a company to produce new weapons for use by the defenders, and that starts a lot of competition among hopefuls. Some of them even resort to hiring criminals to steal their rivals' plans or sabotage their efforts."

"How do you know so much about this?" Beck asked looking suspicious.

"I used to be the President of an arms company until the cold war ended and was done for selling arms to the Russians."

Now finally with a lead, they began poking around. According to various sources, the big business poised to claim the government contract was Hexagon; a large new technologies company already providing the mass majority of funds and scientific research for G.U.N. Their company grew so large because they took the place of the Foundation Organisation after it was revealed to be facade for a dark Cult.

Apparently, Hexagon had a reputation for illegal activities in the Underground but never left enough proof for a substantial finger of the law to be pointed at them. As the big cheese in the economy, Hexagon was coming under near constant competition by the smaller companies.

Travelling back to the agency with their information, Rei went over the details in his mind. If Fang the Sniper had been employed by some company trying to sabotage their competitors it would explain his theft and arson at the G.U.N base. But something didn't fit with that theory. According to Espio's sources, the stolen equipment was classified as seized Eggman Empire technology. Hardly created by rivalling companies.

Still, there might be something there worth keeping an eye on.

"Ok, this is what we got." Vector began as the four of them met back at the office, Charmee asleep at the crocodile's desk. Everyone else had gone home by now. "We've been able to trace that stolen equipment to an underground auction on the East Side of town, tomorrow night. It's a fair chance we'll find a lead there. How'd yo guys do?" Beck told them all about the supposed competition between the big arms companies for a government contract and their theory that Fang could be working for one of those. "Right, good work; work that angle for a while and see what you can dig up. I'll go to this auction alone, less conspicuous that way." Espio rolled his eyes, imagining letting the crocodile loose in a group of criminals. Given Vector's impulsive nature, he'd probably attack every one of them there. "Esp, see what you can dig up on Hexagon. If my intuition's right, there may be a connection."

"I think I might be able to get something out of them." Espio began, folding his arms. "But I'll need Rei to come with me." The flying squirrel looked up in surprise.

"Why me?" Rei asked looking surprised.

"Yeah why him?" Vector added.

"This guy wants us to catch Nack, but they're suits; and those guys aren't exactly renowned for sharing information." The chameleon explained, but Rei caught the distinct feeling that he was concealing something. Vector looked at his comrade sceptically.

"You think they'll try to lead you on?"

"Probably for a while, so I'd like to chase to the chase instead of letting them toy with me." Vector crossed his arms and began muttering to himself.

"Alright fine, you two see what you can get out of those guys; I'll work the underground scene, while Beck continued to follow up on that lead." He paused for a moment. "But be careful, Espio and I had a little visit from a few of the Weasel's cronies earlier so he knows we're after him." With little else to do until the morning, Vector bid the rest of them goodnight and went into his rooms.

"Do you really need me?" Rei asked the chameleon once Beck had carried Charmee back to his own bed.

"I just wanted to get you away from Vector's suicidal idea." Espio explained with a sigh. He caught the flying squirrels startled look. "Don't worry about him, he'll be fine; so long as he doesn't bring anyone into the line of fire."

-

As of yet, Chuck had failed to come up with a single plausible theory to explain the advanced technology they had seen crushed by a cave in.

"Come on guys, I mean, just how likely is it that…Aliens…made all that?" Knuckles asked sceptically, crossing his arms.

"What other explanation can you think of?" Chuck asked, shaking his coat so the excess snow fell off. On the way back to the Mystic Ruins, their group had stopped to put together their ideas. Half buried in snow was an abandoned log cabin. Becoe and Decoe had set up a portable electric fire and Eggman and Tails gathered around it. Despite his fur, Tails could feel the cold just as badly as Eggman. "That computer had been set in a language no one here on Earth speaks and to top it off, that single piece of hardware was one of the most advanced pieces of technology I've ever seen."

"But Aliens?" Knuckles asked, closing the door on the two Dreadnaughts Eggman had left outside to guard their position along with his Egg Walker that couldn't fit through the front door. Ever since his Egg Carrier's crash sight had come under attack by Metal X he wasn't taking any chances.

"You're living proof." Chuck added, looking up coyly. The Cabin they'd found was completely empty apart from a blackened fireplace and a few chairs. Probably an old ranger station the locals had forgotten about in the last few years.

"Mobians are from a different reality, technically humans and mobians are from the same planet; just a different dimension."

"Mobians are not from Earth, and so by a dictionary definition that makes you an alien."

"Ah, but Mobius and Earth are now the same planet; that makes a human as much an alien as a mobian."

"Are we going to be arguing this all day?" Eggman asked, looking irritated. "Who cares who or what made it? Whatever the answer, that still doesn't change the fact that Metal Sonic plans to use it against us." He rubbed his hands together and blew on them to warm them up. Becoe passed him a scarf and his creator wrapped it around his shoulders.

"What I'd like to know is why it runs on Chaos Energy." Tails began looking thoughtful. "Did it all run on Chaos?" Eggman, who was busy roasting the contents of a tin of Spam on the electric fire, just nodded. "That means whoever made it had a source of energy of their own, other than an Emerald."

"Makes sense." Chuck said scratching the back of his head.

"I always thought Chaos energy was unique to the Emeralds." Knuckles admitted.

"I had a chance to experiment on Chaos Emeralds when Sonic first arrived." Chuck told him. "I discovered that the energy contained within each one had the potential to be unlimited, but that potential could only be unlocked by reuniting all seven. That kind of unstable power is very rare; the kind of instability you're likely to find right before a sun explodes."

"I once tried to duplicate a Chaos Emerald, with explosive results." Eggman added with a chuckle, finishing off his meal. "None of us could ever hope to control Chaos Energy effectively; only my Grandfather knew how to manipulate it and whatever he made on the process he ever made have been destroyed. With the exception of Shadow." He forged a smile. "What I wouldn't give to compare notes."

"Yeah, what's sharing a little research one madman to another?" Knuckles asked with a smirk. Eggman shot him a glare over his shoulder.

"Ok, let's just recap what we know." Chuck began quickly before a fight could break out. "This technology runs on Chaos energy, is extremely advanced and both Metal Sonic and Hexagon have a good lot of it."

"Correct." Eggman replied.

"We know what Metal Sonic wants it for; to take over the world and we can guess Hexagon wants it to stay ahead in the new technologies market." Tails looked back at him.

"So far we've not learnt anything we didn't already know." Chuck just smiled.

"Actually, we learnt something very important." Everyone looked at him with quizzical looks on their faces. "While we knew there was more technology out there to find, we thought there was only one set which Metal Sonic planned to use. Before it got crushed, the computer told us there was more than one sight of technology on this planet. Maybe dozens if my theory is correct."

"Can you get to the point?" Eggman barked. Knuckles growled at him.

"My point is…" Chuck began sourly. "If Metal Sonic can use this technology, why cant we? All we have to do is get hold of a piece intact and study it. That should even the playing field."

"Oh brilliant deduction sherlock." Eggman muttered sarcastically. "And how do you suggest we go about doing this?" Chuck hesitated.

"I don't know." He admitted with a short grin. "But give me enough time and I'm sure I'll think of something."

-

Seeing their General's amputation, Leviathan's clan robots doubled back from their fighting and waded out into the sea to form the best protective barrier they could. Lose strands of energy sparked around the jagged stump where his arm had been, wires hanging freely in the air from the gapping wound.

Two clan robots swung at Sonic, two twisted in the air and smashed a kick into each of them at the same time. Another came at him from behind, ducking under the swing Sonic landed several punches against its large chest plate before adding on final blow to the head.

Amy's hammer swung through the air again and again, sending robot after robot souring across the beach and into the water, fragments scattering across the sand. It seemed the more she struck down, the more than came marching out of the waves. They were coming at her in ranks, a never-ending march of metallic enemies.

Leviathan tested the stump where his arm had been. All systems for the weapons on that side of his body had shut down, leaving him with only half his arsenal.

A loud blaring of sirens began to pulse through the air and the Spanish police in their squad cars began souring across the road leading down to the beach. Hardly the local G.U.N garrison troops Sonic had been hoping for. Seeing their arrival, three clan robots blocked the road and as soon as their drivers were forced to stop, swung their claws down, breaking open the bonnet; steam belching up from the dented engine.

Searching, the cops bailed out the side door and made a break for it.

The robots started after them, but suddenly flying in their way was Rouge, landing a succession of kicks directly into their metal bodies knocking them over.

"LEVIATHAN!" The Master of Metal X nearly screamed down the com-system, making the General shudder involuntarily. "Just what do you think you are doing?" Metal Sonic had been watching most of the battle from the Behemoth's own sensors and while it amused him that Sonic had nearly drowned, he could not allow anyone else to take the pleasure of killing him. That honour was his and his alone.

"Looking for the Chaos Emerald as you ordered my Lord." Was his General's defence, one that did not impress his master too much.

"There is no Chaos Emerald there, only residual energy left by a dimensional warp." Now that Metal Sonic had had time to make a proper sweep of the area with his battleships sensors he found that the Chaos energy spikes had already begun to dissipate with only one explanation for it. "I was watching the fight General; you tried to disobey my direct orders! Return to the Behemoth at once!" Letting an enemy go and a fight half finished went against nearly every computer program in Leviathan's body. Sonic was listed as enemy number one and the Machine Federation never let any enemy escape alive. The compartments on the metal giant's remaining arm opened up, more missiles preparing to launch.

"Sonic look out!" Cosmo cried and the blue hedgehog turned just in time to see the missiles come flying through the air towards him. Cupping his hands, he paused only long enough to gather the energy required before firing a Sonic Wind Vortex straight at them. The swirling blue energy tore through the missiles, imploding them harmlessly; decimating what remained of Leviathan's clan robots before smashing with tremendous force into the General himself.

Armour plating was ripped from his body, before the ruined body and cast directly into the sea.

"General, I gave you an order!" Metal Sonic reminded the giant as Leviathan heaved itself just above the surface; now terribly weakened. "This is your last chance." Authority overriding the seek and destroy program, Leviathan obeyed and his form vanished, teleporting back to the ship in orbit. Whatever remained of his clan robots vanishing with him.

Metal Sonic reminded the giant as Leviathan heaved itself just above the surface; now terribly weakened. Authority overriding the seek and destroy program, Leviathan obeyed and his form vanished, teleporting back to the ship in orbit. Whatever remained of his clan robots vanishing with him.

Sonic breathed out a sigh, wiping his forehead.

"Thanks for the heads up." He told Cosmo with a smile, giving her a thumbs up.

"It was nothing." She began, suddenly looking embarrassed. "I only did what my visions showed me to do."

"I don't go in for all that 'seeing the future' stuff." Sonic admitted with levelled eyes. Cosmo suddenly looked confused.

"Don't you have seer's on your world?" She asked, apparently genuinely surprised if they hadn't.

"What, you mean crystal ball reading, tarrot cards; that sort of thing?" Cosmo shook her head.

"A seer, a real seer, doesn't need those things. Visions come through the night in dreams, it is up to fate to decide if the preceptor is able to read them correctly or if they just taken as a jumbled collection of thoughts."

"Dreams?" Sonic asked again sceptically. "You mean you crossed dimensions because of what you saw in a dream?" Cosmo nodded as if it was the most ordinary thing in the world. "Wouldn't it have made more sense to talk to someone about it?" At that point, the green haired girl lowered her eyes.

"They would not believe me. They told me the darkness I saw in my vision could not possibly exist and then dismissed it entirely. But I knew I had to come here, to help; why else was I shown it?"

"The future's not set in stone." Sonic replied stubbornly, uncomfortable with the idea of predestined futures.

"The future is written." Cosmo continued. Just as stubborn as the blue hedgehog. "But can be that writing can be changed by out decisions." Sonic just looked dumbfounded for an instant.

"That makes no sense at all!"

"Deviation doesn't, that's the whole point to it all."

"Say what?"

"Being a Seer, one has to make sense out of chaos; that's the job."

"Amy, talk to this girl!" The blue hedgehog began in exasperation, throwing his arms up.

Flip card 1:

Name: Rouge

Sex: Female

Species: Bat

Description: Agent of Freelance Devision.