Jazzerman here, I do not own any of these characters, they are owned by their respected companies, blah, blah, blah. You've heard this sht before.

But I do own this story.

A Wily tale, 6 Years later.

Part 14

"You guys okay?" Jonny asked, running over to Sonic and Knuckles, thinking them hurt because they where both sitting down on the ground with tired looks on their faces.

Knuckles nodded, he was rubbing his fist trying to get the feeling back in it. Hitting a titanium alloy robot with your fist would hurt no matter who you are. "I'm fine. That little jerk on the pogo stick just took a lot of swinging to hit."

"I'm just dandy, it's just been a while since I've had a work out like this." Sonic said as he stood up and stretched his legs, trying to get some feeling in them. "I swear if we live through this, I'm going to start working out..."

Jonny nodded. "Good. Did King get ya with that axe Mega?"

Mega man shook his fist. Mega wasn't one to cry over an enemy but even King deserved better than to be slain in cold blood like that. "He never really got to. Wily destroyed him before he could really put up a fight."

Jonny shook his head. He felt that whatever god controlled his fate was one with a twisted sense of humor to condone such irony. His grandfather had caused all his strive, had later taken care of him and taught him, and was now working to destroy all that he had accomplished here on Mobius...

'I'll stop you this time old man... I won't let you hurt anyone else.' Jonny thought as he readied his new Proto cannon. "Let's go guys. I want to get this over with as fast as possible."

The others agreed and began their attack by surrounding the proto-reploid.

Knuckles's fist was still aching from breaking Quint's buster cannon, but he knew that he had to try to take this thing down for the good of the Island. Knuckles leapt from behind and latched his legs around Zero's body and hit the red robot as hard as he could in the back of the head. Knuckles grinned as he saw cracks in Zero's helmet, but cringed in agony as he felt his bones shift as he unclenched his fist.

Zero growled in pain from the injury Knuckles had caused. Zero reached around and grabbed the Guardian by the head and flung him away like a piece of trash. Knuckles would've hit the metal lamp post full force if Sonic hadn't caught him before he connected.

Sonic set his friend down. "You okay?"

Knuckles shook his head as he cradled his left hand. "I think I broke my hand."

Sonic was worried, "You want me to get you back to the hotel?"

"No. I've got another fist!" Knuckles said, warning the hedgehog with a glare.

Sonic sighed, Knuckles was a great asset in combat but if he was unable to use his hands he wasn't going to be much help. But Sonic knew Knuckles would still stay and fight regardless. Even if every bone in the Guardian's body was broken he'd never leave this sort of situation.

"Okay Knuckle-head, just try to take it easy with that arm. No sense making it worse." Sonic said, knowing full well Knuckles wouldn't 'take it easy' with the island's safety at stake. "Hey, my blue bro, you up for some tag team?"

Mega man nodded and began to fire his cannon at Zero, who responded in kind with his own buster cannon.

A blast from Zero's Z-buster came a little too close and the ensuing explosion cause Mega man to be knocked backwards to the ground.

Mega shook his head and grumbled; "This is going to be a lot to be a lot harder than I thought..."

Before Mega man could even get up Zero grabbed hold of Mega man's throat, much to Mega man's despair Zero began smiled wickedly and to charge his Z-buster.

Sonic leapt into the air and used his classic old technique, the Sonic spin. Spinning his body as fast as it could go Sonic launched himself at Zero. The hedgehog hit Zero's arm, freeing the blue bomber from Zero's death grip. And as an added bonus Zero lost the charge in his Z-buster when it misfired, sending a powerful burst of energy into the air.

Sonic then unfurled from his Sonic spin and stumbled away from the robot, a hand on his aching head. "What's this guy made of? My Sonic spin can't cut through his armor! ... Egh, I'm going to pay for that tomorrow..."

Knuckles threw another punch at the red robot. But after easily evading the Guardian's attack Zero countered by kicking him in the chest. Knuckles fell to his knees gasping for breath all the while coughing up a mixture of blood and spit. Few people other than Mecha-Sonic and Enerjak had ever hit him hard enough to actually blur his vision, but none of those instances had such a blow been to the chest.

Sonic grabbed his long time rival and got him out of range off Zero's attacks, leaving Mega man and Jonny to deal with Zero.

"You okay Knux?" Sonic asked.

"Yeah. Other than my hand I'm fine..." Knuckles shook his head to steady his mind, his dreadlocks swaying as he did so.

"Good, Julie-Su would kill me if anything happened to you." Sonic shuddered at the violent images that ran through his mind.

Knuckles laughed briefly. "Yeah, she can be pretty... Forceful at times."

Sonic agreed. In truth Sonic was more scared of Sally and Julie-Su than Zero but at the present time, he knew that this wasn't the time to think of the girls.

Tails had been in Albion for the last four months now, studying in the libraries being one of the young fox's frequent activities. He had been in this small island city learning all sorts of things, he was glad he had the chance to be here among all these great minds. However, since he had only few more months to take in all this knowledge he had to cram as much as possible. Especially since he wasn't allowed to take any written copies of the literary works there with him when he left whether they be short hand written notes or photo copies of the books due to the strict desire of all the people of Albion to remain apart from everyone else on Mobius. And as usual he was in the library with a book in front of him.

"Hello Tails, how have you been today?"

Tails looked up from his book to see a light purple female echidna with long flowing purple hair. She was wearing a rather elegant orange dress with yellow trimming along the front and at the ends of the sleeves, pink sandals, and a semi transparent pink scarf around her neck.

Tails smiled upon seeing her. She had been a frequent visitor of his while he studied and more over Tails enjoyed the occasional break from his books. "Hi Gala-Na, can I help you something?"

Gala-Na sighed. "I just received word from the outside world... Your friends are fighting against some unusual characters. I don't know if they will survive against this threat."

Tails gave the echidna a confused look. "What do you mean? Who's involved? Who are they fighting?"

"The Guardian known as Knuckles, Sonic the king of the Acorn kingdom, Jonathan Wily the proprietor of Down town and a number of those robots he created. Their opponents are another group of robot warriors and an old man. I've heard that this old man is a relation to Mr. Wily." Gala-Na's face was one of sorrow, as if they had already lost. "But one robot this old man has under his control is unlike anything we have ever seen, it's almost impossibly strong and dangerously fast. But its lack of compassion and reason is its worst quality. It's almost mindless, but its cruelty is as clearly evident as its destructive power."

"Sonic and Jonny's in trouble?" Tails cried, shutting his book and standing up. "Gala-Na, would you mind-"

"If I let you go help your friends... Right?" The purple echidna asked, a gentle smile on her face.

Tails nodded. He felt like he was asking to skip out of a chore Sally had asked him to do back when he lived in Knothole. "It's just that if I leave Albion I won't be allowed to come back."

Gala-Na's warm smile didn't fade a bit. "I think we can make an exception in this case."

"Thank you Gala-Na. I won't forget this!" Tails said as he began to quickly put away his books.

Gala-Na smiled at the double tail's enthusiasm, his loyalty with his friends was perhaps Tails's greatest virtue. "It's okay Tails, go and help your friends."

Tails finished putting his books away and raced out the door, heading in the direction of the hanger bay. Tails still had the Tornado, but he had since made many, many modifications. One of them being the addition of specially designed jet thrusters that would carry the Tornado at great speeds. Yet not at the same time destroy the little biplane in the process.

Tails started up the biplane, then grabbed his goggles out of the glove box and snapped them over his head. "Getting kinda tight... I'll have to get a new pair." Tails started up the plane and in no time he was in the air. "I'm coming guys!"

Jonny meanwhile had studied the last two attacks and had come up with a quick and simple tactic. And after a quick explanation they sprang into action.

Mega man began to charge up a powerful blast as Sonic attempted his figure eight maneuver against Zero with help from Jonny who was using Guts man's weapon, Super arm. Jonny charged Zero from the side while Sonic attacked head on, much to both of their surprise Zero just stood there.

'This is it!' Jonny thought, thinking this next series of attacks would certainly take this robot down. But he was dead wrong.

With blazing speed Zero swatted Jonny's over sized fist away and shoved him into Sonic, canceling out his velocity as both human and hedgehog fell to the ground in obvious pain.

"Sonic! Jonny!" Knuckles cried out as he saw his friends take a beating.

"Don't worry! I'm not going to miss!" Mega man said as he unleashed his charged shot at Zero.

Zero smirked as he drew out his Z-buster and fired, his own blast easily overtook Mega man's and exploded on the ground in front of the warrior robot knocking both Knuckles and Mega man back about fifteen feet.

Jonny shook his head. But his face went pale as he saw Zero standing over him. Zero's face was plastered with a demented smile that hung below his soulless, hate filled eyes. Jonny knew that whatever he had planned it wasn't good, and he was right. Zero didn't take his eyes off the human as he drove his hand into the nearby building. There was a loud creaking sound as the robot yanked a large metal sliver out of the foundation. Jonny could tell from the way Zero brandished this razor sharp piece of steel that this was not boding well for him... Zero grabbed Jonny by the throat, lifted him into the air, and held up the metal sliver like a sword.

Jonny knew that at this range there was no way Zero could miss. Every weapon in his arm was useless in this sort of situation. But the thing that caused Jonny to lose hope was that look in Zero's eyes... That cold, merciless look in Zero's eyes caused flashbacks of the men who killed his parents, beat him, and left him for dead in the streets... Jonny clenched his eyes shut as Zero moved the sliver back as he prepared to bring it down with all his might.

But before the sliver could connect with the human's skull a blue metal hand grabbed the other edge of the sharp metal weapon.

"Eh?" Zero cried as he whipped his head around to see that Knight man had somehow managed to stand up, rush over to the proto-reploid, and save his creator from a surely fatal attack. All without his balance stabilizers.

Zero's attempts to wrench the sliver away from Knight man's grip proved futile as the blue robot held tight, determined to keep his creator in one piece even if it cost him his life.

Zero, finally unable to take anymore interference from this inferior model, let go of the sliver of metal and grasped hold of Knight man's helmet. There was a quick and loud 'crack' as Zero shattered the contents of Knight man's head Jonny couldn't help but cringe at what that hand could do to his own body of living tissue, if it could do that to metal. Much to everyone's horror, Knight man's armored body went limp in Zero's grip. Zero gave no sign of remorse or respect for his enemy as with one quick motion he sent Knight man's body skidding across the pavement, sending sparks flying as his metal frame ran against the rough black top.

"Hey Zero!"

Zero turned around as another piece of his shattered helmet fell to the ground due to the sharp movement he made throwing Knight man, and for the first time his face held a look of fear. Jonny had used the distraction Knight man created to charge his own buster cannon and now held it point blank in Zero's face.

"Good bye you monster!" Jonny said, tears coming from under his sunglasses as he fired the cannon Dr. Light attached to his shoulder. Exploded not the word one would describe what exactly happened to Zero. To those who saw what happened it appeared as if Zero's head simplify vanished in the light that emanated from Jonny's buster cannon. Zero's limp body slouched over towards Jonny for a short moment before toppling backwards onto the scorched remains of the long pony tail that not longer attached to anything.

Jonny rushed over to the fallen Robot master, fearing his CPU was damaged beyond repair. "Knight man! Knight man! Are you okay?"

Knight man lethargically moved his head so that he could see his creator through his cracked optics. "It... has been a -berzzk- pleasure to serve thee -Krzz- master Wily... -Keerrrrr...- ..."

Jonny shook Knight man and cried out his name, but got no response. Jonny had never lost one of his Robot masters before. They would leave for a short time but come back once in awhile. But Knight man had been one of the few who always stayed by his side. At first as his bodyguard, then as his family's personal protector, then as the head of security of Down Town. Knight man would most certainly be missed by all the people who knew him. But most of all he would be missed by Jonny, the one who built him.

Above the battlefield Dr. Wily sat absolutely dumb founded in his one seater Skull ship. Never in his wildest dreams had he expected this. His grandson, his own flesh and blood, had teamed up this his worst enemy and was fighting against him on the side of these wretched creatures. But the most unexpected of all was that he was able to destroy Zero, even if it WAS with the help from Mega man, that old model Robot master, and these two creatures...

"Zero... You where supposed to be invincible..." Dr. Albert Wily said to himself as he scowled down at the grizzly scene below him. "You defeated Bass so easily, and yet you fail against my grandson and he's just a human with a robot arm... I obviously need to rethink his design, perhaps some sort of new program... An aggressive one. Yes, a virus, one that can turn machines against my enemies... But it will have to be much more powerful than the one I used to disrupt the internet."

To be continued...