" Your up. Good" said Jarula from his stooping desk. He sounded like he didn't really care if I woke up or not, but at that point it didn't matter to me that my freinds son didn't give a crap about me, or if I was some fack robot copy of a long dead hero. Becuase I wasn't broken anymore, I wasn't parilised! " Check to see if they are workin' ok. I'm ain't sure if I graphted the sinthetic skin to your joints properly, so check if you can-". But by this point I was doing to can-can in the middle of the room. " Oh. I guess it's workin' fine then" the crocodile mumbled. His eyes showed the first sign of a good emotion since I had met him and he said half to himself " That's the first time i've done anything like that". This time he directly adressed me, " Are you impressed with how I fixed you? Huh?" He urged me. I grinned and said in my old cheerful accent.
" You bet Jarula!" I said, giving him a thumbs up. A small slip of a grin appeared on his face and he tried to hide it, seemingly determined to maintain his air of arrogance.
" I bet you didn't expect the skin back too, huh?" He continued, trying to prize more compliments from me, and I wasn't in the mood to refuse.
" Yeah. You did an amazing job! Although I didn't used to be this tall..." I added. This killed the crocodiles fledgling confidence and he pouted the best a crocodile can. " But I don't mind. Im taller than Shadow now" I added onto the end, resulting in the crocodile to grin again. I guess he never expected compliments from me since he had basicically treated me like dirt ever since I had got here. " Speaking of him, Where is Shadow?" I asked when the thought crossed my mind that he was no longer in the room. Jarula dropped the smug look, exchanging it for the typical, expresionless, teenager mask.
" Tellin' war stories" he gave a gruff chuckle and grinned. " Old git spends 8 months sitting on his ass in some cell and still gets all the glory, typical". I smiled back, glad that for once, Jarula was actually on MY side.
Our next stop was the pub, out through the room we had entered through. True enough, here was Shadow, sitting in the middle of a group of admirers, and looking as if he was hating every minete of it. I smiled at my... Sonic's old freind's sombre personality, one which still hadn't changed over all these years.
As I entered the fray, the creatures diverted their attention away from Shadow, to me. They all held wary gazes, even though I hadn't given them any reason not to trust me. Shadow on the other hand, looked relived that the attention was away from him. The moment of uncomfertable staring didn't last long however, as a huge, ear splitting alarm rang out through the whole building, causing us all the cover our ears. The others looked around in panic, some of them rushing out of the other room while others took out their weapons and started loading them, ready for use.
" What's happening!" I yelled in the confusion. Jarula stopped halfway through strapping grenades to his belt and said
" The attack alarm. We got company". I gulped. I wasn't ready to take on more robots, espicially since I had just escaped and been repaired. This time, it may not be my legs that get blown off, and i'm pretty sure my luck wasn't going to hold any longer.
" How many?" I asked. Jarual pulled down a rusting peroscope from a trap door in the ceiling and pulling it round so I could look. I really wished I hadn't, or that I was hullutionating or something stupid like that. The sheer mass of the robots made the whole thing almost seem fluid, like a huge wave of death. Many of them seemed to be ordinary, shock tropper robots, with plain armour and one rist mounted gun. But at the back, towering over the rest, stood a long line of enemy mechs, almost four times the height of the robots that stood infront of them, all carrying guns that looked like they could have blown the other half of the moon away, and all aimed at us. But what shocked me most of all, was the robot that led them. Tiny in comparison to the rest, it's animal like features provided more graceful movements while its red eyes somehow created a look of evil and hatred.
My breath caught in my throat, I shouted in a wavering voice to Jarula
" Tails is here! And it looks like he bought the whole of the robot army with him!". Apparently not beliving me, Jarula shoved me aside to veiw the scope. I would have been angered my this, but right now we had bigger things to worry about.
" Shit!" Exclaimed Jarula. I grimmanced at his language. He turned to the creatures in the room, who were loading their guns in silence panic. There were only about 20 of us in the room, one who couldn't fight becuase he couldn't see and one who was currently suffering from a severe cause of depression. " Ok guys. I need Mat, Prowler, Silver storm and Master chief to opperate the mini guns. Grunt , you set up the reflectory plasma sheild. And Shadow, you get out of here" ordered Jarula in a voice of authority I didn't think he could muster. The others didn't argue, even if their orders were from a 11 year old crack addict , they must have had some faith to obay like that. Or maybe they were just plain scared. I wanted to think it was the first option. As the creatures who's names had called filed away, Jarula turned to the rest of them. " Do you think that our defence system is ready to go Scurvey?" He asked a greying alley cat. The feline narrowed his wild eyebrows in thought and finnaly answered with
" I'm guessing it will have to be". Jarula gave a grim nod and said
" Fire it up, all of you" he said, causing the remaining creatures to leave the room, leaving me and him standing in the middle of an empty pub. The young crocodile gave a heavy sigh, his shoulders sagging, seeming not to notice me for a while. The dark circles under his eyes made me realise just how much the war must have aged him and why he must have been so jealous of me, I used to have the perfect life that he never got.
" What about me?" I asked innoscently. The crocodile jumped a little at my comment, and answered with an uncertain
" Go outside and help with the front line fighters. They'll follow your orders hopefully. When over half of them are dead, make a sensible retreat and... And..." He didn't finish his sentance.
" Report to you?" I offered in help. Jarula actually laughed at my comment, saying
" This ain't the army. But yeah, come and find me and I should have something else for you to do". I saluted and said
" Yes sir" and the crocodile grinned at my silly behavior. He wondered into the back room of the dindgy bar, ducking to avoid the low ceiling. " What are you doing?" I called into the darkness. Jarulas muffled reply came as
" To get my guardian angels". I had a breif thought of Jarula coming out accompanied by two glowing crocodiles with halos and velvet wings, but instead the crocodile emerged with with a small collection of objects bundled into his arms. He unhooked a packet of cigars and loaded them into a specially placed pocket in the upper section of him left arm, along with a lighter. Next his placed a specially designed helmet with earphones built in and slid a small chip into the side of it. " Track 7, don't fail me now" he said, and kissed his disk before pressing play. The music was so load even I could hear it, but I suspose in a battle feild the music had to be ear bleedingly load, or Jarula just like to be temporarlilly death.
Suddenly, the whole place came alive. The force knocked me off my feat as the walls rumbled. I looked to Jarula as if to ask him what was going on, but he just ave me a sly grin as if to say ' it's a surprise'. Suddenly, from beneath a panel in the middle of the floor which I had always over looked, rose a huge platform, equip with a seat almost lost in the mess of a tangle of a huge guns wrapped in their own ammo and facing the seat was a control pannel that looked like several weird keyboard badly welded together. On it's way up Jarula scrambled over the guns, ammo and pipes that made up the whole contraption, seating himself comfertably , or not so, in the seat. I gave him a thumbs up, but he seemed to have his game face on, and told me to go outside.
I figured his good mood wouldn't last long.
Outside , around 30 of us were gathered, mouting turrets in the mud. The rain beat down and even made the task of standing up hard. I didn't know how I was going run in this hell hole either, but I suposed I would have to. I still couldn't use a gun. Is sighed, thinking how it didn't feel good to be useless.
As I walked amoung the other animals, they cast unsure looks at me. They knew what I was, and i'm sure some of them had as much hatred for me as they did for the robots that were heading for our base. But now wasn't the time to argue about my trust. Right now the hundreds of robots that were marching towwards us with the sheer purpose of our extermination seemed to be more of a concern than just one who had somehow gotten a little taller. A young cat rushed up to me in a frightened scurry.
" Jaruala told us to do what you tell us" he said, seeming to avert his eyes as if he were afraid of me. His frindge falling wet in his eyes. I nodded. Although I wasn't exactly sure what to do. I had no experiance ordering anyone around. But the animals around me seemed to know exactly what they were doing.
" Just carry on doing that" I said, pointing to animals installing the guns. The cat hesitated for a second before replying uncertainly
" We, we've finished". I looked around clueless. I was making a fool of myself infront of diehard guarilla fighters who would shot me without second thought if they thought I was too much bother to be kept around. I didn't have time to say something else stupid as a load horn echoed through the rainy air and reflected off the weathered buildings that were clinging to life.
" What does that mean!" I yelled in panic, completly forgetting to try and keep up an image infront of my ' soldiers'. The teenage cat was staring, with eyes full of fear, into the distance, from the place the rour of the horn had origenated from.
" There here" he simply said. I looked and sure enough, rising over the mud built hill sprinkled with broken buildings and wreckage, came the opponent. First , the robotic form of tails emerged from the peak, creating the illusion of a singular army. But next, hundreds of robots spilled over the top, rampaging like rats towards us. Dozens and dozens of guns emerged from panels, too many robotic legs stomped forward, the soft squealsh of the mud providing no problem for them, and I doubted we would either. Finnaly, the collasal giant-like mechs emerged over the hill, the giant , 10-metre guns rested atop their backs, menasingly shinning in the low light. I had no doubt we would lose, unless this new defence system was something close to a miricle, we were dead.
Tails raised his arm, stopping the whole sea of robots almost immidiatly in their tracks. There was now around half a mile between us and the thousands of enemy bullets. The animals around me mounted their turrets, readed their grenades, a couple climbed onto the roof to provide snipers. But it was not nearly enough, we all knew that. We were all placing our faith in this new defence system.
Suddenly , our near by radio cracked to life, and the voice which poored out of it made me freeze with terror.
" Hello clone". I gulped and didn't respond, instead waiting for Tails to say more. He did. " Didn't think you could get away from me that easily did you? Shame on you. Your destiny lies with us. We created you, you are one of us, and I was willing to give you a second chance. But since you destroyed our city and stole our emerald, i've had a bit of a change of heart".
" Tails you peice of crap" said Jarualas voice as it came from the radio, who had obviosly been listening and had now desided to respond through his own radio. I even faintly heard music, he still had his ear phones on. Just like his father.
" Language young reptile" said Tails, obviosly enjoying toying with Jarula's and my emotions. Here was a huge army of deadly robots. Ready when ordered to come and tear us apart, peice by peice and we were having a casual conversation about minding our language. The strain was almost unbearable.
" Fuck you" he replied. I gritted my teeth in panic. Any moment now Tails would set his army on us, and Jarula's 'negosiating' wasn't helping. There was silence for a while. Probably only about 3 minetes, but to us, standing in the doorway of hell with the murky, spiked robots hovering in the distance, their hard faces trained straight on us, it seemed like a horrible, heart- hammering life time.
" Hmm. I honestly thought Vector would raise you better. I guess i'll have to teach you a lesson" Replied the radio, and in a terrifying instant the whole group of machines started up again. The wave was in motion, and we were going to get hit full force with a sea of carniviorus bullets.
" Watch this everyone" said Jarula's voice once again. I looked around just in time to see huge poles with narled spikes forcing their way out of our hideouts roof. Next , turrents emerged from trap doors, two for each side of the building. These too were loaded with a creature controller and mismatched guns stuck to there sides, while shelds covered the fronts. Next, through the center of the base rose Jarula himself, rising out of the building like some kind of machanical angel, sitting in his turret. One final spine thrust it's way out of the building and hundreds of defenfive guns revealed themselves from hidden panels in the walls. A rumble shock the ground as a bright light blinded our eyes temporarilly. When the glare had died I realised that the spines that emerged from the buildings were in fact conductors, providing a framework for a shimmering, wavering electric blue sheild that now covered not only the whole, fortified base, but also the group of no longer vunerable group of creatures that I had been placed in command of. Words cannot describe how relived I felt at that point.
Then , the wave hit us. Just a few seconds after the sheild had powered up, the first row of enemy humanoid robots hit us, there guns blazing as they sent their metal shells spiralling towards us. But they never did. The fantastic looking sheild turned out also to be a magnificent defence, sending the bullet straight back at almost the same angel from the barrels which they arrived from.
" Fire!" I yelled unnessarilly, and the turrets around me began to spill out their readilly waiting ammo into the enemy. But the first row of robots also had sheilds, and I knew from experiance that those were hard to crack. Our own bullets copied the act of the enemies and jumped off the sheild of metel devils. A few of the creatures piled grendades into the further away lines and managed to do some damage, while the mechs shot their thunder like blasts at our sheild from the back. I saw Tails flitting in and out of the robots, commanding them and doing whatever he was supposed to do. I wasn't sure what to do myself, the creatures around me seemed to have a good idea as to what to do without my help , and the thunder of bullets and grenade blast made it almost immpossible to be heard more than a few meters away. I took a glace at Jarula, finding him firing his many guns into the enemy ranks, and singing along to his songs while he did it. I smiled at this. He sure did like his music.
But there situation caused a stale mate, and I was beggining to think that if we kept wasting bullets, we would run out, leaving us incredably vunerable if our sheild went out too. I sucked in breath and bellowed for everyone who wasn't throwing grenades to stop firing. It took a while for the message to spead and the turrets slowly ratteled to a halt, their turrets spining to a stop.
" What's the plan...Sonic" said the same teenage cat who had adressed me earlier. I had a feeling that he was going to call me ' clone' but decided not to. Good thing he did to, all I needed was a reminder that, in someways, I was a traitor. I activated my outdated radio and said
" Jaruala, we got a situation here".
" I know, my batteries have run out" he replied, sounding stressed. It took me a couple of minetes to figure out what he was talking about. But then I realised his music player had no power left.
" No, I mean, we can't get to their robots". The sea of firing had stopped on the enemies side too, obviosly having the sames concerns about ammo that we did. I heard Jarula curse loudly and he said
" Oh! Right, yeah...um. Any suggestions?". Great , after making out himself to be a confident, war general, our savour and hero, he was asking me, a cloned hegdehog who couldn't even spell the word bazooca, what to do next. Luckly, or probably more unluckly, Tails decided to make the decition for me, and a chill ran down my metalic spine when he yelled the word
" Advance!". I looked at the emerald statched saftly in my hand, as the mountain of metalic death sprawled towards us. For all the effort I put in too steal it, it hadn't done us any good. In fact, if it wasn't for the emerald, these robots may not be storming towards us, ready to rip us apart. But then, if I hadn't used it, would have ever escaped the city?
By now the robots had swarmed around our sheild, creating an terrifying cage, trapping us like animals ready for the slaughter, which, in reality, we were. Well, most of us anyway...
Jarula and the other two mega gunners still burried their ammo into the robots that were unlucky enough to be in range, firing over the protetive sheilds the frontal shoulders possessed. But our inpact was insignificant, and if I knew Tails, which I used to, he would be able to find some way around our sheild, and then...i didn't want to think about what would happen after that.
Tails stood, almost like a ghost, his blank eyes staring right into me through the liquid skinned sheild. His body wavered like that of a phantom through the sheilds guarding wall, but I was unnerved by his presence all the same. He gave his own equivalent of a grin on what was left of his face and raised his left arm, once again letting it shift into a small cannon and tank, the same one that he had used to show me the truth about my origen. That memory didn't help my confidence.
But instead of filling up with an exotic liquid compound which I had never even heard of, it flowed with a bluish kind of water, sparks radiating of the liquid itself it seemed. Nothing I had ever seen in my life compared the tiny, electron charged substance swimming around in Tails mutilated arm. Miniture lightening jumped out of the container and swarmed around the fox robots arm. I knew exactly what he was going to do with it, and I felt my heart stop.
" What's he doing Sonic?" I heard Jarula yell through the radio over the rumble of gunfire. I couldn't reply, frozen in pure helplessness. The others around me fired their turrets, their grenades, anything they could send in the direction of Tails. But the sparks from this radioactive paradox seemed even to deflected their bullets. That mean it was powerful, very powerful.
The robots he led stood, silent, as gunfire continued to pick of their numbers. They didn't even bother to move, they knew that once our sheild was down, they would forfil their absent desire for revenge, and Jarula, raised aboth everyone else, the bullets he fired relentlessly guiding enemy attention to him. Like an angel he was surrounded by their sparking light, and he would be the first to fall. Toasted by the mechs that lurked at the back of the enemy, towered over the others. I couldn't face that thought, he had helped me, and I knew I had to repay him. Somehow.
Tails squirted the substance at the patch of sheild he was nearest to, the bullets my allies firing not bothered him in the slightest. The nearest robots swarmed around him, eagally trying to get in line for the first shots at our rain soaked fur, and the flesh beneath it. I felt utterly useless, I couldn't even waste the ammo of a gun trying to kill him of.
The sheild almost immidiatly began to flicker and waver in unstable protection. The sparks from Tails mystery liquid traveled up and down it's lenght and bit into it's skin, invading and consuming whatever energy our sheild had left. The liquid was emptied from Tails tank, and buisy killing our sheild, harvesting it's energy, like a plague of locusts wasting away our life line. The robots eyes flashed and he punched through the weakest point of the sheild, and , to my alarm, it's liquid form shattered. With crazed bloodthirstyness Tails tried to squirm his way through the gap, thrasing and twisting as he broke his way through. Some of the bullets hit him now, but the little damage they did, didn't stop his quest for our defeat. All the time his evil red eyes were fixed onto me, burning into my soul and freezing my core with fear.
As soon as he was through he lept into the air, gracefully dogding the panicing bullets that followed him, prancing around and twisting around our pittiful defences. The other robots were not yet able to gte through yet, but it was only a matter of time. I knew I had to do something, so out of sheer instint I spun into a spin dash, racing towards the dancing fox and smashing into him with force that would have normally demolished an ordinary robot. But Tails was no ordinary robot, and he simply requoiled my attack, sending me sprawling face down into thr mud, it's heavy sludge creating a powerful suction and holding me down. I managed to turn over to veiw the scene, but I wished I hadn't, nothing I had seen so far could prepare me for what I saw take place infront of me.
Slaughter.
He was but one robot, the others still not through, although our sheild weakened every second. But his destruction was unbearable. Corpses from the already dead lines the floor, their necks mutilated in every angle I thought possible, blood mixing with mud to create a foul paint. A frenzy of misfired bullets flew through the air, chasing the fox that still torchured us with deliberate delay in murder.
He set himself down, his claws forcing their way through the gut of the young cat who had called me by my true name. I felt a tear come to my eye, I felt sick, I felt dead inside and I felt as if I had slipped into hell. Tails smashed the skull of another creature, it's insides splattering on Tails dead plating. I started shuddering, my vision went wild. His newly emerged cannon arm sent insides spraying in every direction, a new kill every moment. I couldn't take it anymore. The body's, lying unholy on the ground, wasted lives, murdered by my best freind. He had to pay, he had to be punished.
He had to die.
I screamed. A scream like no other I had ever realised in my life. That scream scared even myself, but I was slowly retreating inside my own mind, my fury creating a new be, a demonic me. Only one thought ran through my brain. Kill him.
I stood, slowly. My cheast heaving. Beast-like snarls immitiing from me. My eyes locked, like those of a cobra ready to strike. I clenched my fists, grinded my teeth. Fury flowing through me, and charged, my fist smashing into Tails face, knocking him of balence. He looked shocked at my sudden uprise, but I wasn't about to stop any time soon, I began tearing at his panels, long lines of wire snaking round my shaking hands, Tails grimmancing in shock, and perhaps in pain. But at that point, the robots broke through the remaining sheild, their guns ripping through me and the remaining animals that lay, cowering in the mud. The further mass of shed blood only intensified my desire for destruction, and another scream of rage was let out by my mouth. I saw the mechs readying themselves to fire at Jarulas turret, and whatever was left of my logical mind screamed for me to help him, and so, I lept off of Tails, smashing through the robots that had began to tumble through the whole in the sheild, their bullets fired at me and missed, ripping up their own kind as I sped through their mass of bodies. As I ran, I felt something shift within me, and even my rage seemed to slip away, leaving behind a void of emotionless drive to kill. Then, something cracked, and as I ran I saw my hands shifting, changing, the skin and ripping away as my mettalic finger rearranged themselves into a arm mounted gun. If I wasn't so pumped up on my desire to destroy, I would have fainted from shock. But that wasn't all that happened, next, my chest split open and a barrel burst out, heavy and hellmade. Finnaly , my back burst open, and my rips shifted themselves into deadly arms, fingers and hands replaced with a sythe like blade.
My transformation only fueled my efforts, and soon, I let loose the bolts of lightening generated by my arm cannons, disintigrating every robot within a 5 meter radios of me. I sped along, almost feeling as if I were gliding, slicing the robots around me with my snaking claws that had sprouted from my back, my guns blasting any robots that got in my way.
Finnaly, I was in range of the mechs. They had each noticed me by now, but I didn't care. It was time for my chest cannon to come into play. It loaded missle made of compacted air, so heavily squeezed It would peirce anything. With gritted teeth I let loose the blast at the nearest mech, and it burst out of me with so much force I was slipped over backwards. But I quickly righted myself, and , like an expert, I loaded the cannon again, while the first mech burned in flames, I shot the second, just before It could fire it's own cannon. Again and again I fire, dodging their own slow blasted like Tails had done with our bullets. I was so sure of victory, that was, until, I felt my arms go heavy, and I could no longer support my large new adaptions. I slumped on the floor, just as my vison went blank. My power was gone, and one mech still had it's cannon trained on Jarula's turret, ready to fire.