This story arc starts with "Chapter 20: Lack of Strength".
Chapter 21: Robot Ambush
"I won't lose to you!" Sapphire shouted at the top of her lungs, with her new bow ready, taking aim at the robots.
Knuckles grinned at this. He didn't mean for Sapphire to take his advice so literally, but he was glad to see it taking root. "Now, let's crush them!"
Sapphire let loose her arrow, which managed to hit one of the black-and-red Egg Pawns in the shoulder, staggering it. And Knuckles immediately rushed in, taking advantage of the robot's trip-up, and tearing through it, before lunging at another bot.
Big swung out his fishing rod and got it stuck in the plating of another Egg Pawn, then using all of his strength, which was a lot, easily pulled it off the ground with his surprisingly strong fishing rod and line, and began using it as a makeshift wrecking ball to smash more robots.
Sapphire took sight of all this, trying to form her own plan of attack. And that's when one of the robots approached her from behind.
...But it wasn't very good at being sneaky. Even over the rings of battle, Sapphire could hear. She spun around, and fired an arrow straight into its face.
As the robot fell to the ground, Sapphire took a deep breath. "I can do this... I can do this!" And she pulled her bow apart in its dual blades, and charged another robot.
These things weren't very fast, so even the rookie Sapphire could cut them down. But they were strong, and surprisingly tough. Though they weren't much harder than normal, even the two powerhouses of the group were struggling a bit.
"What are these things made of?" Knuckles called.
"I don't know!" Sapphire replied. "But they don't seem resistant to the cutting energy of my weapon.
Knuckles thought for a moment. "Okay, did you ever see those arrow rain things?"
"Th-that's usually just fiction. I mean, I might be able to make my bow do that... but I'd need to modify the magnetic fields, and the needed energy might overheat my bow."
"But can you do it?"
Sapphire closed her eyes, then nodded. "Yeah, give me a moment."
"Okay, Big! Let's cover her!"
Big nodded, smacked a robot aside, and began to, almost literally, cover Sapphire's back, while Knuckles ran up to cover her front.
As her friends beat back the robots, Sapphire pulled out her new Miles Gear, a smaller version of the Miles Electronic that she and Tails worked on, so it was... less awkward to carry and use.
She connected to her mech-bow's private network, and saved a new setting for her arrows, before editing its magnetic fields and power output.
"Okay, scattershot, scattershot... I think that might... okay, I think I got it!" Sapphire called out.
"Okay, ready?" Knuckles replied, waiting for the signal.
Sapphire aimed upwards, and readied her arrow. Her hand began to feel warm as she could feel her bow heating up. "Drop!"
Releasing her arrow, it shot up with so much force, it pushed Sapphire onto the ground. The sky lit up blindly as the projectile split into numerous bolts, barely even holding their forms.
Knuckles and Big looked up at the sky, the former realizing only now how dangerous the plan was, and the latter, only half-knowing what was going on, stared in wonder at the pretty lights.
"Big, cover Sapphire!" Knuckles called out, as he put on his Shovel Claws. Without question (or more so even thinking about why), the large purple cat covered up the hedgehog girl, while Knuckles used his digging blades to tear out a large piece of earth, flipped the robots off of it, and raised above the three as a shield.
...And just in time, as countless bolts of bright light showered down, tearing the remaining Egg Pawns apart from the blinding rain.
It didn't last long, but Knuckles rock shield almost broke from the force of the raining bolts.
With the assault ended, Knuckles tossed his boulder aside. Looking around, the robots were all defeated, but the ground was scorched.
"...Wow, do you think your bow's shield could block that?" Knuckles asked.
"Not when it's overheated," Sapphire responded. Getting up, and picking up her weapon, she looked around. "That's... that's a lot of damage..."
Even Big looked troubled by this. "Scary..."
"It'll... it'll be fine," Knuckles said, trying to be reassuring. "All I'm going to say is... I think Eggman is up to something. This looks bad, but he'll do much worse if we don't-"
Suddenly, there was some heavy slamming heard behind them. Looking back...
There were three more robots, having just arrived. They looked like the same black-and-red Egg Pawns, but they were much larger, had much heavier armor plating, and were each holding a large hammer.
"Hammer Pawns," Knuckles growled. "Of course there's more..."
Sapphire stepped back. "My bow's still cooling down. I-I can't help right now..."
And then the lead Hammer Pawn's back-shoulder opened up, as a new mechanism rose up, a ring of a dozen pointed objects, aiming at the group.
"...And now, they have missile launchers," Knuckles responded. He raised his Shovel Claw armored hands, while Big readied his fishing rod. Both prepared to fight. "We'll protect you. Big, you grab Saph, jump back. I'll dig into the ground, get them from underneath."
The missiles began to whir up, ready to launch.
Sapphire hid behind Big, as he spun around, and picked up the smaller hedgehog girl.
But then the missiles fired.
Big quickly lept away, but the missiles tracked them.
Knuckles began to dig, only to see the missiles tracking his friends.
And before he could do anything...
...They froze in the air.
Sapphire waiting to hear explosions, looked up, and was surprised by what she saw...
The missiles were stuck in midair, glowing a cyan color. "...What?" she sounded.
But Knuckles... knew what this was. "Well, what do you know. Cutting it a little close, there, buddy."
Suddenly, a new figure dropped in from the air, right next to Knuckles. He was a hedgehog, with silver fur, his quills styled into two large spikes on the back of his head, two small spikes on his back, and five spikes in a fan shape on his forehead. He had yellow eyes, and thick white fur on his chest, going around the back of his neck. He had white gloves with cyan circles on them, golden brace-bands with cyan lining on his wrists, and black boots with cyan tips, having vertical white stripes on the front and golden tops the same as his gold bands.
"As they say, long time, no see, Knuckles," the silver hedgehog told the echidna.
Then he waved his hands, which caused the missiles to spin around, aiming back towards the robots that fired them. And with a flick of the wrist, he sent them back at them, blasting them with their own firepower!
"No way..." Sapphire sounded. She had never seen anything like that before!
As the dust and debris cleared, the giant robots were still standing, but they took clear damage.
With that, the silver hedgehog started glowing cyan, and flew at the robots. He literally levitated off the ground and flew forward at great speeds. Not as fast as Sonic, but fast enough to be a blur.
The lead Hammer Pawn raised its hammer, and swung down at the new hedgehog, but he raised his hand, and the massive hammer stopped with a cyan glow. Then made a forward palm motion, which blasted the massive robot back.
Sapphire could only watch in amazement...
...At least until Knuckles said, as he got out of his partially-dug hole, "let's not leave him hanging!"
That knocked Sapphire back into reality, and she checked her bow. It took a moment, but it flickered back to life.
Big and Knuckles charged robots. The purple cat leapt onto the robot the silver hedgehog knocked over, using his weight to collapse and crush the robot's already-damaged mechanisms into itself, getting a nod from the silver hedgehog. Knuckles, on the other hand, challenged a different robot, and started pounding away at it. The massive robot tried swinging its hammer at him, but Knuckles kept dodging and then going in for more attacks.
Eventually, it revealed its missile ring, and that's where Sapphire saw her chance.
"Knuckles, get down!" she shouted. Knuckles looked back, seeing her pull back her bow, and take aim. Knuckles ducked into a guarded stance as she fired.
And it was a really good shot...
...If she meant to shoot right through the ring.
"Eh heh... uh..."
But then the arrow stopped, turning cyan, then spun back around, and shot into the intended targets: the missiles.
The Hammer Pawn's entire shoulder blew apart, allowing Knuckles to leap up from his guard, a dig into the shattered shoulder.
But Sapphire looked around to see how her arrow flew back like that, and took notice of the silver hedgehog, who was looking back.
"...What are those arrows made of? I could grasp their solidness with my psychokinesis, but it was... weird," he said.
"It's hardlight," Knuckles called back in place of Sapphire. "It's weird science stuff, don't ask!"
"Psychokinesis?" Sapphire asked. "So you have psychic powers? You can lift stuff with your mind?"
"Yeah," silver hedgehog replied. But then the last robot started to move in to attack. "Okay, let's talk about this later. How good of a shot are you?"
"Not very good..."
"That's okay, your fire, I'll catch 'em and send them where they need to go," the silver hedgehog said. "Knuckles! Big! Get ready for the finisher!"
"Got it!" Knuckles called back, while Big nodded in response.
Sapphire didn't know who this other hedgehog was, but she admired his optimism. "Okay, I'm ready."
The silver hedgehog held out his hands, which started glowing. Sapphire, started firing arrows rapidly, which were grabbed by the psychokinetic field. Once the silver hedgehog had a little over a dozen arrows grabbed, he refocused their aim.
And with a quick motion, he sent them shooting at the last Hammer Pawn, striking numerous vulnerable points, joints and other kinks in its armor, and causing its armor to start to fall apart.
Then it was Big and Knuckles' turn. Big started, dashing up, and knocking it over with his belly. This caused its armor to break apart to the point...
...where Knuckles could finish it off, by lunging at its chest, and tearing down on it, breaking it open, and with a second punch, breaking its internals apart.
Leaping back, everyone watched as the last Hammer Pawn finally blew up.
"And I hope this is the last it!" Knuckles exclaimed.
"Yeah... I'm pooped," Sapphire agreed.
"I'm hungry," Big inputted.
"I don't sense anything else," the silver hedgehog told them.
"Oh, thank you, Mr... uh, silver hedgehog... um?" Sapphire tried to say. "Sorry, that's not like me to not ask your name! I-"
"Please, Silver is fine," he interjected.
"Your name is Silver?"
"Yeah."
"Oh... uh, cool. M-my name's Sapphire! I'm Sonic's sister... Adoptive sister!"
"...I see."
"What are you doing here, Silver?" Knuckles asked. "What did Eggman do?"
Silver looked at Knuckles with confusion, before realizing what he was saying. "Oh, right. This isn't Eggman, at least not the Eggman you think. This is Eggman Nega."
"Eggman... 'Nega'?" Sapphire asked. "There's a Nega now?"
"Uh oh..." Big sounded.
"Him!? Okay then, where is Blaze?" Knuckles continued to ask, ignoring his friends.
Silver raised an eyebrow. "...As much as I'd like Blaze to be here, too... What does Blaze have to do with Eggman Nega?"
"Well, isn't Eggman Nega from Blaze's dimension?"
"What!? No. Eggman Nega is Eggman's descendent from my time."
"EXCUSE ME!" Sapphire shouted, trying to get everyone's attention, to which she got. "Can someone tell me what's going on here?"
Sapphire's surge of annoyance quickly dissipated, but Silver was happy to give her an answer. "I'm sorry. I'm guessing you're new here, and no one's had the time to tell you about me. I come from the future. 200 years in the future. Your present is the past to me."
"Wait, so you're a time traveler. Like, for real?" Sapphire asked for confirmation.
"Yes. I travel back to the past to prevent events in this time that may threaten my future," Silver explained. "Or when something from my future came here to ruin your present. Which is the case now."
"Eggman Nega?"
"Yes. You see, Eggman Nega has... kidnapped someone very important from my time. And I have to he- them back."
Sapphire cocked her head. It seemed like Silver wasn't telling them everything... but she decided to ignore it. If he was from the future, he probably had a VERY good reason for it. Something that if they just knew it, even that could ruin the timeline.
Knuckles crossed his arms. "I still don't get it. Not the whole 'he kidnapped someone' thing, but the fact he is from the future."
"You know that Eggman Nega was the one who caused the Onyx Island incident AND the Ifrit incident."
"Wait, it was HIM!?"
"Yes, he was pretending to be Eggman himself."
Knuckles gripped his fist in anger, but he still had to ask. "Okay, so he's from your future! Then how did he come from Blaze's world?"
Silver was just silent. He genuinely didn't know.
"I'm confused," Big spoke up, pretty much summing up how everyone felt.
"...So, this... Eggman Nega. Nega kidnapped someone from your time," Sapphire repeated, before getting to her own point. "So, why did he attack us? Does... he want me?"
"Why would... 'Nega'... why would he want you?" Silver asked in return. "Is there something special about you?"
"Not really," Knuckles responded. "She's smart like Tails, I suppose. And Eggman did kidnap her recently. He's also crossed Big before, kidnapping his frog friend. Twice even. Something to do with Chaos?"
"The Chaos Emeralds?"
"No, Chaos. God of Destruction? The first guardian of the emeralds?"
Silver shook his head, confused.
"It's a long story," Knuckles quickly finished.
Sapphire certainly felt... distant here. These guys have been through so much. Fighting gods of destruction and ifrits. Going to onyx islands. Time travel, alternate worlds. Multiple Eggmans. It was all so much.
But one thing was true...
"Well, Nega attacked us for a reason," she noted one more. "Maybe... he wanted to distract you, Silver? Keep you from finding him by making you save us instead?"
"A distraction?" Silver repeated. "...Maybe? But I ran into you by chance. I don't know where he is, so I've been tracking his robots. So, why would he need to distract me, if I already don't know where to find him?"
"Then... I... I'm not sure-"
Then there was a loud, crackling sound, echoing through the air. It was like thunder, but... not.
"Is... that an earthquake!?" Sapphire exclaimed.
"No, the grounds not shaking," Knuckles exclaimed. "And that sound is coming from the sky..."
"But it certainly wasn't thunder..." Silver noted, before looking up, and appearing shocked. As Sapphire saw this, she looked up...
...And saw the shadow of something falling from the sky. Something MASSIVE!
"Is... is that a meteor?" She asked.
"If it came from space, wouldn't it be on fire?" Silver replied.
But Knuckles... he knew what this was...
"Angel Island..." he said.
It took Sapphire a moment to understand what that meant, until she remembered what Tails told her about the island and the Master Emerald, after her first visit to the floating landmass.
It is the controller of the Chaos Emeralds, Sapphire remembered him saying. And its power is the reason Angel Island floats in the air. Without it, the whole island will fall into the ocean.
They watch as the massive rock slammed into the ocean, causing a large tidal wave away from the mainland, as it settled into the water.
"He... he STOLE THE MASTER EMERALD!" Knuckles shouted in anger. And without a second thought, he started running towards the island.
"Knuckles!" Sapphire shouted at him.
"I going to get the bastard!" he continued to shout.
"I need to help him," Silver said.
Sapphire turned to Silver. "Wh-why?"
"I don't think he's going to let this go. Besides, I... could use some help here," he admitted.
But... Sapphire could tell that he didn't want the help, at least not in this situation. Perhaps he wanted to keep the secret of who this person was, and people of this era helping him would make that difficult. But he didn't see a choice.
And Sapphire... knew that she had to help. "Then I'll come to."
"What?" Silver replied in surprise, turning to her.
"I want to help. Knuckles is my friend. A-and a friend of a friend is a friend, right?"
Silver smiled. "You said you were Sonic's sister, right?"
"Yeah...?"
"Well, I know him. And I trust him, and his friends... And I..." he sighed. "I can't say. But I think you need this. A chance to grow strong."
"Thank... thank you, Silver," Sapphire replied, smiling softly.
"Me and Froggy will help, too!" Big exclaimed. "I don't like people being mean to my friends."
Silver laughed. "Then it looks like I have a team. So, what do we do now?"
"Let's catch up to Knuckles, and then... I've... heard Tails talk about Emerald radars," Sapphire said. "Maybe we could go see him about it, and see if he can help."
Silver smiled. "Okay, sounds like a plan. It's going to take some effort to calm Knuckles down, though. Let's go!"
Sapphire nodded, a look of determination in her eyes. This was her chance to prove herself, and she was going to do everything to do so.
As she, Silver, and Big, Froggy atop his head, all chased after Knuckles, she gripped her bow, wondering... what did Nega want?
Author's Note:Now Silver's part of the story! And we have our team!
So, let's go through them. Sapphire, obvious. She's the main character. And I explained Knuckles' inclusion in the author's note of the last chapter, but as a quick reminder, he was a last-minute addition to this story arc. That also means having the Master be part of this was last-minute, too, but I know how to make it work. Hopefully...
Big, he's been around since last chapter. I just like him, I have a better opinion of him than most people, though I agree that his fishing gameplay should've been optional, at least. But honestly, when I was originally planning this arc out, eventually, I was like "you know what, why not?". And I figured he could be a good extra character to help build Sapphire's confidence.
Silver, he is a favorite character of mine in the series, but his part in this story is more about the OC I plan to introduce. The one he's looking for. Anyone who's been around my Devi might know who I'm talking about. (So, I guess that's revealing too much... Eh, I've been REALLY wanting to write this arc for the longest time, I don't care.)
Now I want to address a few things about the fight really quick, cause there are things in this fight that I wasn't planning on until I was writing it, and came up with on the spot. For one, Sapphire making new types of arrows to fire on the fly, in the middle battle... I was just thinking of something she could do, and cool stuff for the fight, and arrow rains came to mind. So I quickly developed that in her ability set. I don't think it's out of place, since Saph is pretty smart and clever, that's her strength, after all.
As for the robots being extra tough, but Sapphire's weapon being extra effective against. I was always planning on that, but I also didn't want to make things hard for Sapphire's first actual fight (I saw this like it's a video game, but it's just a story). But when I thought of this, I also came up with a good reason for it. I'll have it explained in-story during the next chapter, but I say it now, because it's not that big of a deal.
The robot's armor is extra tough, because they are made to deal with Silver. Silver, using his psychokinesis, through stuff to attack enemies. Likely some big or dangerous stuff, with a lot of power behind them. So their armor is built to handle great forces of impact because of this. This, unfortunately, also affects our stronger characters like Knuckles and Big, who just hit hard.
But Sapphire, her weapon is built for piercing and slicing. They're not built for that. I guess this should extend to Knuckles' Shovel Claws, but based on the fact that Knuckles can't use them to dig into metal... they're probably, just in general, not good against metal.
Now, I'm going to finish with the whole... Eggman Nega debacle. Because, yeah, it's weird, in Sonic Rush, Nega was Eggman's counterpart from a parallel world, but just a year or two later, in Sonic Rivals, they made Nega Eggman's descendent from the future. This applies to Blaze, too, in Sonic 06.
I always just thought that maybe, there are just two of each. Like, a Nega from the future, and a Nega from the Sol Dimension. This is a common thing, I guess the only difference, in this case, is that the two worlds are 200 years apart. But, recently, as of writing this, I ended up looking more into it, and I now thinking more along the lines of many other people, where somehow, Blaze (from Sonic 06) and Nega ended up 200 years in the past and in another world. But I think very deeply about this stuff, so I've got some more details for this theory.
...But I decided to incorporate this into the story. This won't apply to Blaze, since this story arc is about Silver and Eggman Nega. But I'll explain what I think about Blaze's part in this during that later author's note.
But think about this, as I addressed it in the chapter. In the Sonic Rivals games, only Shadow, Silver, and their partners in Rivals 2, Metal Sonic and Espio, find out that Eggman in that game was actually Eggman Nega. Silver already knew, Espio found out through Silver, and Shadow (and Metal Sonic) find out thanks to Eggman himself. But Sonic, Knuckles, and their Rivals 2 partners, Tails and Rouge, never find out that Eggman was someone else.
But Shadow, Silver, Metal Sonic, and Espio (as well as Rouge) are not involved in Sonic Rush (and Rush Adventure), while Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles are. So literally, half of this group thinks Nega is from another world, and the other half thinks he's from the future. We, the players and fans, are confused by all this, but the characters in the game are officially none the wiser.
Well, hope you enjoyed this. While I got a basis for the rest of the arc, I need to really think about what's going to happen. I'm good at coming up with this stuff on while writing, but that will only get me so far. Anyways, see ya!