Cryax
Sonic, as a rule, didn't like pre-fight banter. Which didn't mean to say that banter wasn't fine, as long as your opponent was buried under a hail of punches and spin-attacks first. Then it was more gratifying, and less dangerous.
The fight began almost immediately. With a high-powered spring Sonic had vaulted head-on at his opponent, but the opening move had been what the robot was waiting for. It threw an immediate straight-arm punch which Sonic barely avoided with a last-second roll, barrelling fist-first into his rival's shoulder. The impact shook the machine like a bullet and it lashed out again, nearly driving Sonic into the stone. A swift-under-arm flip later and Sonic had buried an onslaught of whirling kicks into the back of the robot's neck and lower skull, dodged a violent shoulder barge and kicked off like an acrobat, recovering gracefully to land on both feet, grinning madly at his seething foe. The robot quaked with rising temper; it needed to remember that Sonic was a lot better at dodging than Knuckles.
"I'm still not registering," it snorted, bulking up its shield of bravado, "were those meant to hurt?"
The leering set of teeth in the dark became suddenly more visible as Sonic's grin widened. He attacked again, curling into a Spin Attack and charging for the robot's chest. A swift-side-step from the android was followed by a deceptively quick swat from the massive left arm. This time it did connect, throwing Sonic upside-down against the wall with a satisfying crunch. The machine allowed a red glimmer to creep back into its eyes. Clearly for all his speed Sonic was still frail. If his punches hit home, the hedgehog would go down twice as fast as Knuckles. Sonic picked himself to his feet, still reeling from his ungracious dispatch, and readied both fists. If his ego was at stake now, then this fight was going to get serious.
While Sonic had begun his frantic bout with the robot, Tails had taken the time to see to Porker, whose nerves were nearing collapse amid the sudden explosion of fists and feet, and Knuckles, who was still lacking the energy to walk and was instead fumbling to stem the blood that was pouring from the slashes in his chest and upper-body. The echidna prised one livid purple eye open as Tails stole into being next to him.
"Knuckles! Are you…"
"M'okay…" Knuckles grunted, hauling himself awkwardly onto his knees with all the effort that his torn arms could muster. Tails stared in stark fascination as a thin line of blood wound along his face and trickled to the floor.
"Wow… looks like that robot put up one hell of a fight…"
"You talk as if it's over…" Knuckles snarled, turning one eye towards the random collection of blue and gold blurs that was now Sonic's battle. He clenched one fist, cringing with the pain, and tried to inch forward.
"That thing is in for some serious head-splitting as soon as I…."
"Hold it!"
Tails moved in time to stop Knuckles from flinging himself back into the fray, catching him on the chest. The fact that he was then able to restrain the battered echidna was a clear indication of how thorough a beating the robot had given him. He rested Knuckles against the crags of the cave wall and surveyed the damage. Strange to think that in all his years with Freedom Fighters he had never seen gore like this. A trace of his old youthful anxiety flashed across the sky-blue of his eyes.
"You're going nowhere near that thing, not yet, or you'll get torn to shreds! We need to get you patched up…"
"I suppose you think Sonic stands a better chance?" Knuckles snarled, anticipating the usual stream of reassurances that the hero of Mobius would contain the situation, "Be realistic Tails. I went down after just three hits from that thing, and Sonic's only alive now because he can dodge faster than me. As soon as it lands a few strong punches…"
As if to answer this grim prophecy, Tails was suddenly aware of the hideous symphony of flesh colliding with rock, and a sharp gasp from somewhere opposite informed him that Sonic had been dealt his first hit. Sure enough, when he turned to survey the carnage, both fighters were now still, poised after the first intense round. Sonic was struggling to his feet out of the dust and mortar of his impact, an ugly bruise already forming somewhere on the side of his head. Tails felt his heartbeat skip up by several notches; this was getting dangerous. But he forced his mind back into its calm shell to deal with one problem at a time. He turned to a trembling Porker and tried his best to give his older friend a reassuring look.
"Porker, do you still have a communicator with you?"
A series of brief mumblings followed while Porker wiped the sweat from his brow.
"Porker?"
"Sorry, I needed to… gather myself…. Here…"
He produced a small flip-top computer, about the size of a CD, from one trouser pocket and handed it to Tails, who immediately began tuning it to a familiar, nearby frequency.
"You tend to Knuckles, I'm going to get us some help…."
Not to be outdone by his grinning opponent, Sonic leapt back into combat, this time delivering hurricane of swift punches and kicks. The android couldn't counter the blows, but they didn't seem to be doing much damage either. Sonic felt himself tiring as his fists pounded against the golden shell. It was time for another heavy-hitter. He sprang backwards away from the robot's retaliating strike and poised himself on the cavern wall, gathered for a spring. Using the environment like this could mix up his assault and make him more difficult to anticipate. Not giving his foe tome to react in the dark, Sonic curled into another raging Spin Attack and tore at his opponent, catching him right on his barrel chest with an impact that had had cleft most badniks neatly in two during his career. Amid the whirl of motion that the world had become, Sonic ground his teeth in frustration as he realized that he wasn't breaking through. This enemy was holding strongly! The next sensation was one of tooth-shaking pain as the robot drove his fist sharply into Sonic's jaw from the side, casting him off and sending him sprawling to the dust. Sonic recovered with his usual haste, but his movements were becoming sluggish and disoriented. He massaged his stricken jaw; that last attack had been brutal! It was only the rush of a fight and the determination to win that had kept him conscious! He shook the dregs of weariness from his and glared once more at his rival. The poisonous red sheen in his eyes had grown deeper, more lustful, as somewhere within that sculpted framework of wires and microchips, it tasted blood.
"Huh… you take a Spin Attack pretty well Goldilocks…" he snarled, managing to slot his lower jaw back into an articulable position , "but you can't hold forever. It's only a matter of time before something gives…."
Another eerie wisp of steam signalled that the machine was speaking again, on the verge of a whisper.
"I agree. You, perhaps?"
Sonic spat a clod of saliva and shuddered with motion again. He wasn't going to take this kind of smack-talk from one of Robotnik's old rejects! This time, he wouldn't attack directly. Darting to one side in a shimmering streak of darkness, he swept in with a swift sliding tackle that clipped the robot's thigh, upsetting its balance, sending it stumbling to one knee. Perfect. With another rebound from the walls he had powered into the machine's upper arm, burying a furious Spin Attack like a meteor into its shoulder joints. He felt something snap, a hiss and crackle of disintegrating metal, the shriek of protesting mechanical parts! Yes, at last something was happening! Happening yes. Danger! A spurt of awareness warned Sonic, with micro-seconds to spare, of the arm flashing over his head, aiming for his temple. He ducked the blow and kicked off, just in time to dodge an energetic shoulder barge. As he landed, he felt that rare, horrifying flush of fatigue oozing through his muscles, the burning of tiredness. And he was suddenly terrifyingly aware that the robot seemed unaffected by the jagged wound in its right shoulder. It was leering at him with just as much hideously crafted malice as ever, casually clenching and unclenching one fist, giving the overall impression of a hunter facing a cornered prize.
I can feel you slipping hedgehog…" it hissed, advancing with a surprisingly soft stride. Sonic began to panic, sweat creeping over a brow that was furrowed by outside toughness. His vision was blurring. The fight was becoming harder and harder to keep track of. And this psychotic machine seemed on top form! He made out the flicker of the android's gleaming teeth, lamp-light of his blazing eyes glinting off the metal.
"Aah yes, I knew this would happen sooner or later. Hedgehogs, I take it, aren't famed for their ability to see in the dark. I, on the other hand…"
Sonic couldn't see much. But he did make out the rising of a single iron-clad hand out of the gloom to rap gently against the grinning metal skull. A dim green after-glow had mingled with the throbbing blood-red, a slow hum had become audible from somewhere inside that twisted cranium. Sonic felt his waning strength shake inside him. It could have been thought of as the nail in the coffin, the crowning insult for this monster to throw into the brawl. Night-vision! The robot nodded, the deliberate motion sickening Sonic to the core.
"Oh my, yes…"
One last burst. He had to give at least that much. With a roar that could have sent him spiralling to the sky in one blast of primal rage, Sonic drove past a straight-arm strike that dug a neat crater in the wall and, almost breaking apart under the strain of a lightning-quick about-turn, aimed another deft attack, hoping to shatter the robot's lower body, bring it off its feet, give him a chance to lay into it properly. The darkness and scattered prongs of light melted into a single smear as he dived back on his opponent, the space between them vanishing in a heartbeat, ready for a strike that would hit like a tidal wave….
Bright lights spinning in his field of vision. A screech of the air being rent apart. White-hot pain and the feeling that his lungs had been jettisoned from his ribcage. With acute embarrassment against a growing tide of despair, Sonic realised that he had impaled his chest on the sole of the android's gigantic boot, got caught by a last-minute roundhouse kick that could knock him straight to the grave. He crashed to the floor, the world moving at half-speed, felt the will to fight drain out of him with the last of his blood. But the callous grip of the detritus underneath him could have been heaven compared to the vomit-inducing spectacle of the robot, snarling in victory, somewhere miles overhead.
From where they sat Tails, Knuckles and Porker watched the crushing defeat with rising panic. Tails' jaw had fallen open, the sheer power of this prehistoric creation bowling him over even though he hadn't felt a single punch or kick. It still made no sense; this creature had been left unattended for years, it was composed of backward, out-of-date technology. Logically it shouldn't even have a brain left to guide it! It should have rotted and collapsed with the other assorted spent nightmares lurking in the cave. But the scene spoke for itself. There was Sonic, blood leaking in a choking globule of bile and spit from his mouth, stomach heaving with laboured breathing, eyes bleary with the beckoning hand of death.
"This isn't over…" he heard Knuckles growl, trying to rise shakily back to his feet, readying both fists, "I'm alive and that means he hasn't won…"
"Knuckles, you aren't ready!" Tails reminded him, prompting a spasm of pain as the echidna sank back to one bleeding knee and grimaced , "We need to be careful! It's obvious that we can't trade punches with this creep, or he'll wipe us out!"
"Better than hiding… wouldn't you agree Porker?" he added with a note a biting derision. Porker himself was too terror-struck to respond, cowering against the cavern wall, his nerves gathering like vomit in his throat. Tails gave the quivering pig a reassuring pat on the shoulder, trying to keep his mind set to the task.
"Porker relax, we aren't done here. You're right about that Knuckles. But this doesn't call for an all-fists-blazing approach. We're going to have to play this fight differently."
"I'm all ears…."
Tails brushed an unruly lock of hair from his eyes, focussing on the monstrous scene in front of him. The android had recovered his poise, levelling one open palm in Sonic's direction. Tails had already identified the energy launchers feeding into the machine's fists. The strategy was clear. Then he began to tremble as an idea came to him. A hatefully risky idea, an idea that could backfire horribly. But anything was better than bowing to this demon. It was time for him to make his mark.
The robot gazed serenely down at his victim, levelling one hand over Sonic's face, twisted with hatred and on fire with a will to fight on that his muscles simply wouldn't obey. Sonic's indomitable spirit was now a prisoner in a broken body. And as long as it stayed there, the machine could strike one more name off his creator's hit-list. With a slight alteration of internal energy flow, the robot send glowing rivulets of power, plasma hot enough to dissolve granite, seep into the specially protected chambers of his hands and knuckles. A faint glow began to gather within, sending up a haze that distorted Sonic's mutilated visage. The damage now seemed all the more permanent.
"Yet another oversight on the part of my creator," the machine mused, emerald light seeping through its eyes as it slowed to its killing pace, "Sonic the Hedgehog is only a threat to those who cannot face him head-on. I am disappointed in you, Sonic…"
The mocking whine in the robot's synthesised voice sent hatred like molten lead running in Sonic's blood. He wanted to rise, to rip this titan to shred where it stood, but his body wouldn't take it. He must be content to lie here and wait for death.
"Though I must thank you for one thing. You have indeed been an accurate test of the power I posess. Considering how slight an opposition you were, I think I can safely assume that my eventual conquest of this planet, the advance of the new world order, will be no less strenuous. Cryax…. Yes, Mobious will quake to hear that name before long…"
Cryax… a name at last to pin that loathsome voice upon…. For all the good it would do a fallen hero, Sonic thought. At least Mobius will be able to recognize their next hated despot when they heard him. Cryax himself continued, faint tinkles of hysteria sliding gracefully into his mechanised voice.
"It's all running so smoothly. The Freedom Fighters, legendary warriors that brought about the destruction of Robitnik's empire, demolished with barely an effort by the natural successor to their great nemesis. Such artistry belongs in a book, or a painting! Oh yes,
Now Cryax wakes,
Let Mobius quake.
The tides will turn,
Every city will burn.
The sea will turn black,
We machines, we are back!"
Cryax finished his maddening symphony with a swift, crackling series of bleeps somewhere from within his skull. Sonic vaguely guessed, with a deepening stab of hatred, that it could be a shrill discord of laughter. A strange trait for a machine, even alongside its apparent skill with poetry. Cryax shook his head, returning to the real world from his mechanical dreams.
"Poetry? A rare skill for a robot, wouldn't you say Sonic? Oh yes, these next few centuries are going to be wild…."
Sonic felt the heat, cringed against the rising glare of the energy launchers.
"Just let the world remember who died first, Sonic the Hedgehog."
A final piercing crackle of dull artificial laughter, and Cryax fired. Fire and fury engulfed the spot where Sonic was lying, the dying light filling all of his vision, driving home the terrifying notion we all recognise as the end of the world….
