Late at night, Luna, Kit, and Teddy were sleeping in the basement, resting after all of the training they had done earlier in the day. However, they were all suddenly awoken by the sound of the basement door whirring open. Luna groggily looked to the doorframe in anger, presuming it was Eggman giving them another task to do, but upon actually looking at the door she realized that wasn't the case
"What... is that?" Luna tiredly thought to herself as she peered through the now fully opened basement door
Just outside of the doorframe stood a figure obscured in shadow, it wasn't clear who it was, but going by the silhouette it definitely was not Eggman. While Luna was trying to identify the figure, it suddenly shot forward, and it was abundantly clear who it was: Metal Sonic
"Great," Luna sarcastically thought as she quickly moved out of Metal's path
Due to the angle of Metal's attack, after Luna dodged out of his way, he began scraping against the ground, creating a very loud and unpleasent noise that echoed all throughout the room. Kit and Teddy, who had still been asleep even after Metal entered the room, were quickly started awake from the screeching
"Huh? What's going on?" Teddy quickly asked in a panic. He had jumped up from the ground he was sleeping on from the noise, which led to him spotting Metal Sonic laying on the ground only a few feet away from him
"Whoa, why is that thing here?" Kit exclaimed after also seeing Metal, who had begun getting up at this point
"I have no clue, but you better be fully awake right now, because I have a feeling this thing is going to put up a fight," Luna remarked
After collecting themselves a bit, Kit and Teddy both ran over to Luna while Metal Sonic was preparing to attack after getting himself off of the ground. As soon everyone was together in one group, Metal began charging once again, only to be stopped by Luna this time
"This things is really starting to bother me," Luna said after getting shoved back by Metal's attack. While she had been moved by the attack, she hadn't actually been injured that much due to crossing her arms to block the blow
Luna was going to begin moving away from Metal now that she had blocked his attack, but she noticed that Metal was still right in front of her, attempting to push her over with his arms crossed in the same way she had used to block his attack
Starting to get annoyed by his persistence in attacking her, Luna began shoving back against Metal Sonic, which resulted in the two being stuck pushing against each other. Eventually, Luna was able to shove Metal away, knocking him to the ground. Immediately after seeing Metal in a vulnerable state, Kit ran over to him and slashed her sword into his head, further damaging him
"Wow, this is already going a lot better than last time. I guess if this thing wants to be aggressive, then we should be too!" Kit stated, having quickly ran back to the group after attacking Metal
"Yeah, this is way better than just waiting for it to attack, but this thing is still dangerous, so don't get careless," Luna reminded
Since the others had already attacked Metal Sonic, Teddy decided that he would be the next one to do something, and hurled an orb of energy towards the prone robot. However, before it could hit him, Metal Sonic rolled out of the way of the electricity and then started flying towards Teddy
Due to Metal flying so fast, and Teddy being caught off guard, he wasn't able to fully dodge out of the way in time. As a result, Metal ended up ramming his head into Teddy's mechanical arm. Luckily, because the arm was made of metal of similar strength to Metal Sonic's body, Teddy wasn't injured at all, just scared by how close Metal was to him
After Teddy ran back to the rest of the trio, Metal began charging towards them again, but this time he missed by a small margin. The trio were confused by this, as it didn't seem likely that he would miss so easily, but a few moments later Metal Sonic turned around and began swiping wildly at the trio with his claws
Metal Sonic was closest to Kit when he started his swinging, so he decided to focus all of the attacks on her. Kit held her sword out diagonally in an attempt to guard herself, but as Metal continued to strike the blade over and over again with rapid speed, Kit could feel the sword beginning to get pushed back towards her
Luna and Teddy were standing nearby while this happened, but neither of them could get close to Metal Sonic, as they didn't have anything to guard themselves from getting slashed with. However, this situation was the perfect opportunity for Teddy, who decided to toss another electric orb at Metal Sonic. As Metal continued to strike Kit's sword, the orb soared across the room and collided with him, allowing Kit to shove him to the ground
"Alright! Thanks for that, Teddy!" Kit said
"No problem!" Teddy replied
"Now, time to end this!" Kit said as she stood above Metal Sonic with her sword. She began stabbing her blade down towards Metal's turbine, as she knew it was how Metal was able to fly around. However, before the blade could actually reach the turbine, a strange force stopped it
Enveloping Metal Sonic's entire body, there was a black, shimmering polygon, which Kit's sword had bounced off of. The shape began to spin in an almost mesmerizing pattern, and upon closer inspection, there was another shield clipping in and out of the first. It was a strangely beautiful sight, but as soon as it had appeared, it faded back into nothingness, reminding Kit and Teddy that they were still in battle
The distraction of the shield allowed Metal to get the jump on Kit, who he quickly knocked down by sweeping his arm across the ground. Not losing any momentum, Metal also swung one of his claws at Kit while she was on the ground, which she barely managed to intercept with her sword. However, with a second swipe of his hand, the sword got knocked out of Kit's hand. Now that she was defenseless, Metal swiftly slammed his foot down onto Kit, before attempting to finish her off with yet another slash
Before Metal was able to attack Kit, Luna quickly ran over to the two and grappled Metal Sonic, taking him off of Kit before slamming him into the wall of the basement. She continued to hold him against the wall so she would be able to attack him, but Metal retaliated by swinging his claws. Luckily, Luna was holding him too far away for his attacks to hit, so she was safe from being clawed for the moment
Frustrated that he couldn't hit Luna with his claws, Metal took advantage of being grappled by beginning to fly across the room, eventually smashing into some of the crates, knocking Luna off of him and allowing him to swing his arm across her head
"Ngh… No!" Luna said as she watched Metal head towards Kit and Teddy while slumped against one of the crates
Kit had only been standing for a few seconds, having gotten up while Luna had Metal pinned against the wall, but that didn't stop Metal from attacking her. His arm extended towards Kit, Metal Sonic began flying forward, clotheslining Kit and knocking her back onto the ground. With two of the members of the trio taken care of for the moment being, Metal continued flying towards Teddy, who was quite shaken up from seeing Metal attack both of his friends so eficiently
Like he had done earlier, Metal charged towards Teddy, but at the last moment adjusted his path so that he didn't hit him. Teddy knew what was going on this time, but he still wasn't able to react quick enough to prevent Metal from grabbing his arm and holding it behind his back, meaning that his main method of fighting had been taken away from him
"Hey! Let go of my arm!" Teddy demanded, his voice trembling
Despite his arm being restrained, Teddy still attempted to charge up another orb to throw at Metal Sonic. However, Metal noticed this, and even though there was almost no chance Teddy would be able to even throw the orb, he still quickly yanked Teddy's arm to stop him. As a result of his arm being jerked to one direction, Teddy was thrown to the side, which disoriented him quite a bit
After noticing how effective pulling Teddy around by his arm was, Metal immediately pulled Teddy again to the other side, this time releasing him after the throw. Teddy ended up being thrown to the ground roughly, and with that, Metal had been able to knock down the entire trio
With everyone incapacitated, Metal Sonic began hovering around the room observing his work. His original plan was to kill the trio for replacing him, but it was so easy to defeat them, it wouldn't even be worth it to kill them. Instead, Metal could show Eggman how easily he had beaten the trio, and then he would realize that they were all worthless compared to him
With nobody to stop him, Metal gently flew over to the basement door, planning to open it back up so he could notify Eggman of him defeating the trio. However, after standing in front of the door for a few seconds, Metal realized a critical flaw entirely too late into his plan: The basement door didn't open from the inside. Eggman had removed the keypad from the basement interior the day after Luna was brought into there to prevent an escape from happening, so Metal was trapped inside of the basement with the rest of the trio
As Metal began scratching at the door in anger and in attempt to get out, Teddy began getting up, as he was merely thrown onto the ground instead of being knocked down by an attack like the others. Teddy didn't know what to do after getting off of the ground, but he knew he had to do something, especially with Metal being distracted
Teddy continued to watch Metal scratch the door for a little bit, realizing that escaping would be quite hard, so the best thing to do was to defeat Metal Sonic and then try to escape after that. Upon coming to this conclusion, Teddy prepared to attack Metal the only way he could: by tossing another orb at him
"Well, here we go, I suppose," Teddy thought to himself as electricity began crackling and building up in his palm. As the electricity slowly grew, Teddy looked over at Metal to see that he was still trying to open the door, making him an easy target. A few seconds later, Teddy looked back down at his palm to see the orb had fully formed. Despite how much he feared Metal, Teddy knew that this was the best thing he could do for everyone, so he quickly hurled it as hard as he could across towards Metal
Just as Teddy had planned, the ball of electricity flew across the room, eventually connecting with Metal Sonic's head. His head was jerked forward into the door from the force, but after that, he began crumpling to the ground, his entire body disabled by the attack. Unable to move his body at all, Metal fell backwards and slid down the stairs, landing at the bottom with a small clank
Kit, who had gotten up shortly before this, had witnessed Metal's tumble down the staircase and was quite amused by it. She began snickering at Metal's prone body, sounding slightly strained from being attacked earlier, before she eventually walked over to Teddy to regroup
Frustrated by being attacked in such a humiliating way, Metal Sonic decided to change his plans a bit. Instead of showing Eggman how easily he was able to beat the trio, he would bring him their corpses
Metal suddenly shot up from the floor, filled with rage, and began charging towards Teddy for causing him to fall down. Teddy was standing behind the crates, but that wasn't an issue for Metal, he could easily fly over them. However, Metal was especially mad right now, so he decided to do things a little differently. Despite the crates in his way, Metal flew directly towards Teddy, smashing the wooden containers along the way
"It's going through the crates?!" Teddy shouted in shock as Metal Sonic broke through crates as he charged towards him. After shattering through an entire row of crates, Metal grabbed Teddy by his arm again, which jerked him forward before he was thrown back in the opposite direction, into where the crates where moments ago
Upon landing on the ground, what felt like a hundred wooden pieces all jabbed into Teddy at once, which added quite a bit to the injuries he had already sustained in the battle. Despite most of the remains of the crates being stuck inside of him, Teddy managed to sit up, only to see Metal Sonic heading directly towards him
Right as Metal set foot in the scattered woodchips he created, Kit jumped next to him and blocked his path with her sword. This stopped him from advancing for a second, but he was quickly able to get around this obstacle by flying to the side. However, this did give Teddy a split second to compose himself, which was Kit's intention
Teddy looked around his surroundings with the little time he was given by Kit's distraction, and realized that the contents of the crates that had been broken were also scattered around him. Immediately after this, Metal showed up and prepared to slash at him, but Teddy had a plan to protect himself. As soon as he saw Metal Sonic approaching again, Teddy quickly grabbed a broken robot robot from the ground before turning around and using it as a shield against Metal's attack
The badnik was able to block Metals attack from hitting Teddy, but just like earlier, Metal continued pushing against the makeshift shield even after his attack was blocked. Teddy began pushing back, but at the rate things were going, Metal Sonic would end up crushing the robot. As Teddy continued to grip the badnik tighter, a small spark of electricity eventually erupted from his palm, traveling into the decrepit machine and bringing it to life once again
The robot that Teddy was holding resembled a bat somewhat, but it was mostly just a metal orb with two guillotine-like blades attached to it. The surge of power accidentally sent through the machine by Teddy caused these blades to suddenly begin spinning, slicing Metal's claw and repelling him for a brief second
"Whoa, I can use my electricity to power things!" Teddy exclaimed in surprise. "I don't know how I didn't think of that before"
Kit had just arrived next to Teddy by the time Metal was knocked away, so she quickly swung her sword at him in an attempt to damage him further. However, this time Metal reacted faster and grabbed the sword in one of his claws, effectively freezing Kit in place
"Ah shoot," Kit said upon realizing that her only real attack had just been used against her
"Don't worry, I have it this time!" Teddy stated as he got up from the ground wielding the same spinning blade robot he had just used as a shield
Metal was able to grab the robot as well, nearly puncturing it with his claws, but this didn't stop the blades at all. The repeated strikes of the blades on Metal Sonic's arm began creating a shower of sparks, briefly illuminating the dark room in a flickering orange glow. However, this glow ended once Metal Sonic twisted the badnik away from Teddy's arm and hurled it away, resulting in a loud crack echoing from the other side of the room
"No, the robot!" Teddy shouted in shock right before Metal grabbed onto his arm once again
Now that Metal had a grip on both Teddy and Kit, he prepared to toss them to the ground, but he was stopped by the other member of the trio. Having just recovered and gotten over to where Metal was, Luna had spin around and kicked Metal in the head while his back was turned, knocking him over and causing him to release his grip on Kit and Teddy
"Hey, did you two forget about me? I was just lying there for forever, and you didn't do anything," Luna angrily told the trio
"Sorry, we were being attached by that robot, we didn't have the time to help you," Teddy apologized
"Anyways," Kit started while drawing her sword. "I don't think we're going to be able to defeat this thing. Teddy, get that robot thing and use it to cut open the door so we can get out of here. Me and Luna will take care of that robot"
Luna didn't say anything about Kit's inclusion of her in the plan, but her stare of contempt towards Metal was a good enough indicator that she was onboard
"Ok, got it," Teddy responded
With Luna and Kit preparing to attack Metal Sonic the second he got up, Teddy began running across the basement to get to the bladed badnik. It took a little bit of walking around to find where it had landed, as it was rather small, but Teddy eventually spotted it and grabbed it from off of the ground
"I really hope this thing works," Teddy thought to himself as he held the badnik in his hands. Now that it was close to him, he saw that the hull of the machine was quite cracked, and there were small shards on the ground, but the blades themselves seemed to be relatively okay minus a few scratches. While holding his breath, Teddy began charging up electricity inside of his palm, silently praying that the machine would still function
After the electricity got to the size where it could leap out of Teddy's hand and into the body of the robot, it began getting power once again. Just as it had before, the blades began spinning around faster and faster until it was a mere blur. Some small bolts of electricity intermintently shot out from the cracks, and the blades occasionally halted for a split second, but Teddy was just relieved the machine still worked at all
While Teddy was activating the bladed badnik, Metal had begun getting up from the ground, preparing to stop Teddy after overhearing Kit's plan. However, as soon as he began getting up, Kit sliced her sword down against his head, and Luna kicked his torso, knocking him away. Metal Sonic planned on attacking from the ground to get the upper hand like he had before, but Luna and Kit weren't falling for that again, so they ran over and continued to attack the prone Metal Sonic both to buy Teddy time and as revenge for trying to kill them
As Luna and Kit continued to wail on Metal, Teddy sprinted up the stairs to the basement door, the blades still spinning like a whirlwind. He pushed the spinning saw against the door, creating a loud screeching noise and sparks, just like the saw against Metal's arm. The spinning blades slowly etched a slice into the door until it had been cut all the way through, at which point Teddy began moving the badnik up the door
The more of the door that Teddy cut through, the more desperately that Metal tried to escape from Luna and Kit. He kept trying over and over to take down the two by swiping at them from the ground, but every time he was countered before his hits could connect. By the time the door was cut halfway through, Metal had enough of being beaten while he was down, and decided to activate his shield again
Upon seeing the shimmering black shape enveloping Metal once again, Kit quickly backed away, followed by Luna. While the two were able to continuously attack Metal to prevent him from fighting back, it was impossible to tell when exactly he would decide to drop his shield, meaning that Metal would be able to get a surprise attack in on them if they stayed close to him
Teddy was still focused on sawing the door open when Luna and Kit began backing away from Metal Sonic, but he heard their footsteps as they headed towards the staircase, which confused him quite a bit
"Hey, I thought you were keeping the robot away while I opened the door," Teddy said, still slicing into the door
Kit began speaking to explain what was going on, but she was quickly interrupted by Metal Sonic flying up the stairs, heading towards Teddy
"Look out!" Kit shouted
Knowing that Metal was flying towards him once again, Teddy turned around as fast as he could, still holding the spinning blades robot in his hand. Due to the sudden force of the swirling saw, and the fact that Metal was flying in the air, he ended up getting launched a short distance away. Luna and Kit quickly took the opportunity this opportunity to attack him and try to knock him down the stairs, but Metal kept his balance despite the attack's, meaning he was still rather close to Teddy
"Keep cutting the door!" Kit quickly instructed as she tried to keep Metal away from Teddy
Following Kit's instructions, Teddy once again began cutting into the door, which has nearly been opened at this point. Meanwhile, Metal Sonic was being restrained by the other two members of the trio, although his fierce attack's were causing their grips to slip. Just as Teddy felt the blades slicing through the last bit of metal still connected the basement door to the frame, Metal Sonic activated his jet and flew free of Luna and Kit's grasps, heading for the now entirely cut through door
This time, Teddy noticed Metal heading his way, and ducked down out of his way. As a result, Metal ended up slamming directly into the cut through door, toppling it to the ground and causing it to fall to the ground with an echoing thud
"Yes, the door is open, let's go!" Kit excitedly said as she sprinted up the staircase
"Yeah, but isn't the robot out there now?" Teddy asked nervously
"Well, yes, but it's safer to fight it out there than in here since there's way more space to run," Kit pointed out
"Stop worrying and just leave the room before it traps us in here again!" Luna angrily commanded
Following Luna's rather forceful suggestion, everyone ran out from the partially destroyed basement and into the dark and empty halls. They had all been here before, but this time was different. Even during the most tense situations that occured here, there was never any real danger. This time, they were all by themselves, with Metal Sonic hunting them down. Regardless, the trio continued marching down the halls searching for a way to escape what felt like an inevitable death. There was no conversation, no sounds at all, except for the faint clanging of metal that nobody could find the source of. However, through the darkness Kit was able to spot another door, the first source of hope since the last door that they cut down
"It's another door!" Kit whispered in excitement, trying not to give her position away to Metal Sonic
Everyone ran over to the door after Kit pointed it out, but getting close to it there was a small keypad visible, one that nobody knew the code to. Even though Luna and Kit had already begun to walk away from the door, Teddy still believed that it could be useful somehow, and stayed near it
"Teddy, come on, we should probably keep going," Kit reminded Teddy
"Wait, I can try to open my door using this," Teddy said, holding up the bladed badnik from earlier
"That's going to bring that robot right to us," Luna pointed out. "Plus, what are you going to do after the door is cut down, fix it back up? It'll be able to get in the room easily"
"Oh... I guess you're right," Teddy said dejectedly
Still not having any idea where to go or what to do, the trio continued to walk through the seemingly endless halls, while the metallic sounds they had been hearing the whole time slowly grew louder. As the sounds grew, everyone began moving gradually faster, until they were practically sprinting away from the sounds drawing closer and closer to them. Eventually, Kit stopped running and stood in place for a few moments, clearly exhausted
"What are you doing?" Luna asked angrily as she stopped running. "Are you trying to get killed?"
"I can't... run anymore," Kit said in between breaths. "I just need to stop for a second"
"You've had your break, now start running again or I'm leaving you behind!" Luna threatened
"I'm going," Kit replied as she began walking again
"Hey, look out!" Teddy shouted
Almost immediately after Teddy gave his warning, Metal Sonic finally showed up after stalking the trio for the entire time they were in the hallways, heading directly towards Kit. Still quite out of breath, she dived to the ground instead of running to avoid Metal, which led to him slamming directly into a wall. He quickly ended up bouncing against the wall and falling to the ground, creating a massive clanging noise that could seemingly be heard on both sides of the wall, before falling to the floor. However, Metal had gotten rather used to falling on the floor at this point, and got up very quickly prepared to fight again
"Great, now look what you've done," Luna muttered to Kit
"Not really the time," Kit replied matter of factly as she pulled out her sword
With Luna and Kit already prepared to attack, Teddy quickly powered up the bladed badnik again and held it in front of him. With everyone ready for another fight, Metal and the trio stood still for a few seconds, waiting for the first attack to be launched. However, during this period of waiting, everyone suddenly heard talking and footsteps coming from the other side of the wall they were at. This breifly distracted everyone, which Metal used to his advantage to get the first attack in
"I swear, this robot gets more cheap every time we fight it!" Kit remarked while guarding herself with her sword
Metal Sonic's attacks against everyone were mostly the same as before, swiping his claws and charging forward, but the trio's focus was still somewhat on the voice coming from the room, which was getting louder as time progressed. Eventually, while Metal was trying to slash at the trio, the nearby door opened up to reveal a very angry looking Eggman
"WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?!" Eggman bellowed after stepping out from his room
The current situation that Eggman had caught everyone in was quite incriminating for everyone involved, Metal was mid-way through swiping his claws, while Teddy was holding up the bladed badnik, which was slowly powering down. Eggman looked angrily at Metal and the trio, trying to figure out just how many problems they had caused. After everyone stood frozen again, Eggman slowly walked towards the group, deciding to ask questions to the trio first
"Explain what is happening, now," Eggman demanded
"Your robot here tried to kill us!" Luna explained, glancing angrily at Metal nearby
This was confusing to Eggman, as he knew Metal was inside of the room with him when he fell alseep, but he would talk to Metal later after thoroughly interrogating the trio
"He wouldn't attack you if you didn't provoke him first," Eggman stated confidently. "Anyways, what are you all doing out of your room?"
"We had to escape from the basement because we were trapped in there with your killer robot," Luna said, sounding irritated by having to continue explaning herself to him
Eggman was starting to get tired of talking to Luna, as the only thing she brought up was the fact that Metal had tried to kill her, so he decided to talk to a different member of the trio. He began walking over to Teddy, however, he suddenly stopped when he noticed Teddy holding the bladed badnik
"What are you doing with that?" Eggman asked, sounding somewhat confused
Instead of responding to Eggman's question, Teddy quickly hid the robot behind his back, which didn't work out very well as the blades were still clearly visible. Eggman tried leaning around to see the badnik better, but Teddy leaned the same way to stop him from spotting the bladed machine
"Quit hiding... whatever that is," Eggman told Teddy
While Eggman was trying to get a hold of the bladed machine, Luna noticed what was going on, and remembered that Eggman would be quite mad to find out that they cut a hole through the door of the basement. Because of this (and because she wanted to get Eggman to stop bothering Teddy), she told Eggman about this fact
"Oh, you mean that saw robot thing? We used it to cut a hole through the door," Luna explained, sounding much more cheerful than before
"You WHAT?!" Eggman exclaimed
"We cut a hole in the basement door so we could escape from the robot that walked into the room and tried to kill us for no reason," Luna explained. "I thought I made it pretty clear the first time"
Eggman was extremely mad, but also somewhat confused. It wouldn't have made sense for Metal to attack the trio without any reason, especially by coming into the basement. Luna definitely could be lying, but Eggman couldn't shake the thought from his mind. To settle things, Eggman decided to go back up to his room and ask questions to Metal as well, since talking to the trio had already made him mad enough
"Metal, come with me," Eggman requested
Metal Sonic followed Eggman as he asked, but the entire time he was glaring back at the trio, who were relieved to have Eggman and Metal not be near them anymore. After climbing up the stairs into the main room where the two had been earlier, Eggman sat down in his chair and began talking to Metal
"According to one of the members of my team, you walked into the basement and attacked them," Eggman exlpained to Metal. "But that's obviously not true, is it?"
There was no response given by Metal, he merely stood by Eggman, who was worried by Metal's silence
"So, you really did go into the basement and attack them... Why?" Eggman asked Metal, almost sounding dissapointed
Metal continued to stand in place for a while, allowing Eggman to think for a while. Eggman was mostly trying to justify to himself why Metal would have done what he did, but while he was sitting down. However, another thought suddenly popped into Eggman's head during this, one that hit him like a truck. Due to just being woken up, and being quite angry, Eggman had completely forgotten about his travelling doctor persona while talking to the trio. Of course, Teddy knew that it was all an act, but Eggman didn't know about this
"Oh, no, no... How am I going to save this one?" Eggman muttered to himself
While Eggman was up in his room, trying to find a way to salvage his fake doctor persona, the trio were still standing downstairs, waiting for him to come back
"He's been up there for a little while now," Luna remarked, wondering what was going on
"He didn't spend this much time talking to us," Kit joked
"And thank goodness for that. Really though, what is happening up there?"
Teddy was also curious as to why Eggman was up in his room for so long, but he didn't participate in the conversation, as he was too busy pulling the splinter he had gotten in the basement out of himself
"I hate that guy, but I'm tired of being left here in favor of that dumb robot," Luna stated
"Yeah, but at least we can talk with each other while he's gone," Kit replied
Luna wasn't listening to what Kit was saying, as soon as she finished her sentence she began staring down the hall, seeming very focused on it
"There's nobody here to stop me. I could just run through here and finally get back," Luna thought to herself as she looked across the corridor, who's ending was obscured in darkness
"Do you really think that you're going to get out that easily? He's going to notice one way or another," Luna doubted herself
"But there's still a chance you can escape. Are you really not going to take that chance just because he might get a little mad at you?" Luna added on
This internal arguement continued on for a while, with Luna staring focused at the hallway the entire time, until the door to the room finally opened up again. Upon noticing this, Luna turned around to see Eggman walk out of the room, with Metal Sonic trailing behind him
"Sorry for the outburst, I was tired from staying up all night... organzing medical supplies," Eggman lied
Everyone was confused at first when Eggman began talking, but when he mentioned medical supplies, everyone realized that he was still trying to use his travelling doctor persona. Luna and Kit almost burst out laughing, while Teddy was just uncomfortable. As he waited for a response from Teddy, Eggman also grew somewhat uncomfortable, until Luna decided to just end the whole thing on the spot
"He knows that you're not a travelling doctor," Luna stated deadpan
"Y-yeah, I've known since yesterday," Teddy confirmed nervously
"You should really plan these things out better next time," Kit added on
Eggman's initial response wasn't even intelligible, it was basically just a collection of angry noises, but he eventually calmed himself down and gave an actual response to the trio
"Okay, you know what? I created that personality because I thought you'd be too afraid to work for me otherwise," Eggman stated while pointing at Teddy. "But you're going to work for me anyways, because you don't have any other choice"
Teddy was somewhat upset by how rude Eggman was being, but he already knew that he was going to have to work under him for, so it didn't get to him that much
"Anyways, as you might have also figured out by now, I gathered all of you here for a specific reason, and that is defeating my arch-enemy," Eggman told the three. "Along with all of my other forces, you are going to go into battle against him, and help me defeat him once and for all"
"Who are we going to be fighting?" Luna asked
"Sonic the Hedgehog," Eggman said, sounding slightly annoyed
"Who?" Luna asked
Even though he was his enemy, and he hated that he was such a famous figure, Eggman was still surprised that the trio did not know who Sonic was
"He's... he's a blue hedgehog. He goes fast," Eggman said awkwardly
"Uhh, I don't know who that is," Teddy replied
"Wait, I think I remember him!" Kit excitedly said
"Well, at least one of them knows," Eggman muttered under his breath
Despite the fact that Luna and Teddy apparently didn't even know who they were going to be fighting, Eggman decided that he was still going to begin his plan now, since everyone was already present and prepared enough
"I planned on doing this a bit later, but since you woke me up so early, we're beginning my plan now," Eggman said, clearly irritated. "Now, follow me"
Eggman began walking down the dark hallway that Luna had been staring at earlier, with the trio and Metal Sonic following him. The trio stayed relatively far behind while following Eggman, as they wanted to be as far away from Metal (and Eggman) as possible. After a while of following Eggman around in the dark, he stopped and arrived in front of a door, punching in a code on the keypad
The formerly locked door opened up just like any other door in the base, and after walking through himself Eggman beckoned the trio to come inside as well. After walking inside, everyone was shocked by the appearance of the room. Like all of the other rooms, it was pretty dark, but this one didn't even seem like a room at all. The shadows made it hard to tell the sheer scale of the room, but it seemingly stretched on for forever. Despite this, Eggman continued to traverse it like any other room, the trio reluctantly trailing him
"I can't see anything... where do you think we're going?" Teddy whispered to Luna and Kit
"How am I supposed to know? I can't see anything either," Luna answered
Luna, Kit, and Teddy continued to follow Eggman through the nearly pitch-black room, but they got even more confused about the place they were in once Eggman seemingly started descended, which made the trio stop following him entirely. Eggman eventually noticed this, and turned around to get everyone to continue going through the room
"Why are you stopped? Keep going, now," Eggman demanded
"Why are you moving down?" Kit asked
"I'm going down stairs!" Eggman shouted in response
"Oh," Kit awkwardly replied
Even after the trio knew that Eggman was going down because he was walking down the stairs, they were still hesitant to continue walking, especially Luna. However, they still did end up descending the stairs anyways, albeit very carefully and slowly. After many steps, and Eggman getting more and more impatient with the trio, Luna, Kit, and Teddy eventually reached the bottom of the staircase, which was a great relief to all of them
"Took you long enough," Eggman said, sounding both annoyed and relieved that the trio had finally gotten down the staircase after so long
Continuing to walk through the room, now seemingly at the bottom of it, Eggman eventually reached a somewhat large shape in the darkness. From the distance that the trio were at, they could see him press a single button, creating a small mechanical whir before something gently collided with the ground
"Alright, get in," Eggman instructed the trio
"How are we going to get in? And what is that thing anyways?" Luna asked
"It's how you're going to be transported into battle. You can enter it through the small staircase I'm standing next to," Eggman answered
Nobody was looking forward to climbing up another set of stairs, but they knew they had no other choice, plus this one seemed much smaller than the previous one. Luna, Kit, and Teddy all walked up the miniscule set of stairs one at a time, ending up inside of what seemed like a metal interior, definitely that of a vehicle. After everyone was inside, they could faintly hear Eggman pressing a button once again, closing the door befpre bathing the entire room in a bright light
"Ah, that's bright!" Teddy exclaimed, shielding his eyes from the sudden light as his eyes slowly adjusted
Once Teddy could finally see again, he looked around where he was, and saw that it was indeed a small metal room. The two most interesting things in it were two long seats that stretched across the walls, and a door at the front end of the room
"Hmm. This kind of looks like a vehicle. Not sure which one, though," Kit stated after observing the room
"He said it was our transport into battle, so obviously," Luna added. "Who's going to be piloting this thing, though?"
"I think there's a door over here, it probably leads into the cockpit," Teddy said, walking closer to the door to peer through the small window in it
It was a bit hard to see through the window due to the tint on it, but Teddy was able to see two seats through the window, and what seemed to be some sort of robot sitting in the left one
"Huh? Is that a robot?" Teddy asked, sounding somewhat confused
"It's the pilot, obviously," Kit pointed out
"Oh, right, that makes sense," Teddy replied
After standing around for a bit and waiting for something to happen, a voice began speaking throughout the small room inside of the airship, presumably over a speaker on the celing
"Attention passengers, the airship will be taking off now, please sit down and buckle your seatbelts," Eggman's voice requested. "Or don't, I'm not all that concerned with your safety"
"Wow, even in pre-recorded form, he's still really rude," Luna remarked
"We probably should sit down though, I don't want to get tossed around here," Teddy suggested
"Yeah, Teddy's right," Kit said as she began sitting down in one of the long chairs
Following Kit, Luna and Teddy sat down on the long seat as well, all sitting next to each other. Almost immediately after everyone had managed to connect the seatbelts and buckle themselves into the long seat, the airship began taking off, which was somewhat off putting, as Luna, Kit, and Teddy had all never flown before
As the airship flew out of the armory and began rising into the sky, Teddy was trying to calm himself down a bit from the anxiousness of flying for the first ever time when he noticed Luna's expression. She was clearly just as nervous as Teddy was, which was a contrast to how collected she usually was
"It's ok Luna, I've never flown before either. It's kind of scary, but I'm sure we'll land safely," Teddy reassured
"What are you talking about?" Luna asked, sounding somewhat offended
"You looked nervous, I thought it was because you didn't like flying," Teddy explained
"Well, I'm not nervous about anything, so how about you mind your own business?" Luna said angrily
Teddy felt somewhat bad for Luna, but he didn't want to force her to open up about anything, though, so he decided to move past Luna and focus on Kit instead. She didn't seem quite as distressed, but she was rather fidgety
"Are you nervous about anything, Kit?" Teddy asked
"Eh, I'm not that worried about flying, it's pretty cool actually," Kit said chipperly. "I'm worried because we're going into battle right now"
"Oh... that's right," Teddy said awkwardly
Everyone sat in uncomfortable silence for a while as it set in that they were currently flying into battle for Eggman, and two of them had no clue who they were even fighting. The airship continued to glide through the sky for what seemed like an eternity, until Teddy finally said something
"Kit, you said earlier that you knew who we're going to be fighting against, right?" Teddy quesitoned. "What are they like?"
"Oh, Sonic? He's a really popular hero, he can run super fast," Kit explained. "He seems nice, so I don't think we'll have to worry about him hurting us if we just explain our situation to him"
"Really? That's good," Teddy responded, already much less stressed than before
After hearing Kit finished talking about Sonic, everything was silent inside of the ship once again, but everyone (mostly Teddy) felt a lot more hopeful. The ship continued to fly through the sky, soaring smoothly, until eventually it began descending towards the ground, eventually landing and opening a giant hatch on the back of the airship
"I think we're here," Teddy said as he began unbuckling his seatbelt
"Yep," Kit agreed. "Hey, what do you think is going to happen after this?"
"Huh?" Teddy responded
"He said that this is why he brought all of us here. If we do really manage to beat Sonic, we might be able to go free," Kit explained. "If we don't, then... Well, who knows?"
Teddy began thinking about the choice that he had been presented with. He didn't want to hurt anyone, especially someone who was apparently a famous hero, but he didn't want to continue working under Eggman, either. He had no clue what he was even going to do, and he was being forced into making that choice right now
"What am I going to do?" Teddy muttered to himself
"None of us know what we're going to do," Kit responded to Teddy. "I guess we'll just have to figure something out"
"Yeah, Kit's actually right for once," Luna added on. "I don't know what exactly is going to happen once we go out there, but whatever it is, I hope it makes that jerk who put us in this situation in the first place really mad"
"Heh, yeah," Kit agreed
Luna, Kit, and Teddy began walking over to the opening in the end of the ship and walked towards a cliff near them. From there, they could look down on what would soon be a battlefield they would join, and it actually looked nice
On the ground below, the moon shone down onto the grassy plains, bathing everything in a dim light. A few eggpawns, which had been sent out alongside the trio, had already reached the bottom of the hills, the pale glow bouncing off their metal hulls as they marched across the area in search of Sonic. It was a beautiful sight, even considering the cirumstances it was occuring under
"So... I know we're probably not going to die, but in case we do, I want to tell you two something," Teddy began speaking. "Even though I've only known both of you for a couple of days, you've been really good friends. So, thanks for that"
"Thanks, you too," Kit responded
"I suppose you have been pretty good company," Luna told the others. "Anyways, enough sappy stuff. Let's finally get this over with"
Now that they had admired the view of Green Hills, Luna, Kit, and Teddy began walking down the winding path carved down the cliff face they had landed on. Descending the narrow path, everyone began thinking of what was going to happen once the battle truly begun, and what would happen after it ended. While they were still contemplating, the trio realized that they had already arrived at the bottom of the path
"Oh, we're here," Teddy said, sounding surprised by how quickly he seemed to walk down the cliff path
In the time it took for Luna, Kit, and Teddy to reach the main area of Green Hills, many more robots had also made their way down, thousands of them were roaming around the hills in search of Sonic. The Eggpawns weren't an obstacle in the plan they still didn't have, so the trio began walking through the massive crowd of robots trying to find the blue hedgehog for themselves
"Wow, there sure are a lot of robots here," Teddy said as he looked at all of the Eggpawns surrounding him. "Does he really need this many?"
"I mean, he's probably sent out this many at least once before," Kit replied. "We were the main point of his plan, not the amount of robots he sent out"
"So... That means that Sonic has fought this many robots before... and won?" Teddy asked
"I guess so. But, I promise, he's not going to hurt us, even if we're working for his arch-enemy," Kit reassured. "He's a hero, he uses his power for good"
"Yeah, you're right, I should stop worrying," Teddy replied
The army of Eggpawns walking around everywhere made it rather hard to traverse Green Hills, as they were all packed together and hard to move, but the trio managed to slowly make their way across the plains anyways. After a little while of walking around, the trio were starting to get tired of walking, and we're wondering whether Sonic was even actually there or not
"Do you think we might have gone to the wrong place?" Teddy asked Luna and Kit
"I mean, he's probably sleeping right now, or at least he should be," Kit brought up. "This guy really does suck at planning"
The trio continued to walk for a bit, but they weren't actively searching at this point, they were just wandering because they had nothing else to do. However, all of a sudden a gust of wind began blowing all around the trio, and Eggpawns began shattering into metal bits
"Whoa, what the heck is happening?" Teddy asked in a panic
"I think that Sonic is finally here," Kit said
As the crowd of robots surrounding the trio continued to break into pieces and the wind howled all around them, Luna, Kit, and Teddy prepared themselves to finally come face to face with the famous hero. After a few moments, everything calmed down, and a snarky voice rung throughout the silence
"Looks like egghead got some new minions. It's nice to see that he finally has some friends aside from those robots of his," The voice quipped
As everyone expected, standing in front of Luna, Kit, and Teddy, there was Sonic. Everyone, including Kit, was a bit shaken up by just how fast he truly was, but this didn't stop Luna from trying to clear up Sonic's assumptions about her
"Trust me, none of us want to be here, I hate that guy even more than you do," Luna corrected
"Huh, really? Then why are you here?" Sonic asked, sounding genuinely surprised
"Why do you think? I got taken to here and forced to do this, not that hard to figure out," Luna said, sounding exasperated
Sonic was still a bit suspicious of the trio, but it was definitely possible that Eggman would kidnap Mobians and force them to work for him, so he believed Luna for the time being. However, he still didn't know anything about the other two members of the trio, so he asked the same question to Kit and Teddy
"Did Eggman also force you two to work for him as well?" Sonic questioned
"Yes," Teddy responded, omitting the part where his village was destroyed
"He replaced your arm with a robotic one too," Sonic noticed, "I guess I shouldn't be surprised, but that's messed up"
Everyone, Luna and Teddy included, were waiting for Kit to explain how she ended up working for Eggman after Teddy gave his answer, but she didn't say anything, which created a lot of tension between everyone
"Kit, how did you end up here?" Teddy asked, sounding nervous from the pressure of the situation and the potential implications of Kit's reluctance to answer. "You said you saw a poster and decided to apply right? W-why did you apply after you saw the poster?"
"Um, I, can't really remember," Kit answered
"It's only been two days... did you really forget?" Teddy said, sounding more upset
"Yes, I just have a really bad memory!" Kit replied quickly. "Trust me, I would never want to work for someone evil!"
While Kit and Teddy were discussing how and why Kit was working for Eggman, Sonic was listening incredulously, and eventually decided to interrupt the two after they had heard enough
"I believe that you two were forced to work here," Sonic began, talking about Luna and Teddy. "But it is suspicious that your friend came here willingly"
"I'm sure she had a good reason for choosing to work here," Teddy said, trying to de-escalate the situation
"Yeah, I just... wanted to..." Kit attempted to explain
"You know what? Let's just fight," Kit decided, quickly pulling out her sword
"Kit, what are you doing?" Teddy panickedly whispered. "You said that he was a hero, so I thought that we wouldn't have to fight him"
"Yeah, but that's part of the reason I'm going to fight," Kit explained. "If we don't fight him, we're never going to get out of here. It's not like he's going to actually hurt us, so I figured it would be the best way to finally leave"
"I... I guess that's a good idea," Teddy answered
"Hey, if we're going to fight, let's get it started already, please," Sonic said, sounding slightly irritated
With everyone prepared to fight, the two groups, excluding Teddy, stared each other down for a second. During this, a whooshing noise could be heard, but Sonic wasn't running yet. The trio quickly recognized the sound from earlier, and before Sonic could even see it, they realized that Metal Sonic was coming for them yet again
Luna, Kit, and Teddy ran to the side as fast as they could, and a few moments later Metal shot past them, and instead flying towards Sonic himself. This was still a good outcome for Metal, as he hated Sonic just as much as the trio, so he made the most of the situation and began trying to attack Sonic
"Hey, Metal, long time no see!" Sonic greeted Metal as he dodged out of the way. Metal tried attacking Sonic the same way he had fought against the trio, but Sonic kept using his speed to dodge each slash
It was an odd sight to Teddy, seeing Sonic interact so casually with Metal Sonic, who he had just barely escaped from less than an hour ago. Was Sonic always like that no matter how much danger he was in? Or was Metal Sonic so little of a threat to him that he didn't have to be serious when fighting him? He pondered this for a short while, but quickly focused back onto what was actually happening when he realized Metal was still trying to fight him as well, his charges only being delayed by Sonic getting in his way
"Oh come on! Why does this thing have to keep following us?" Kit complained as she noticed the same thing
Sonic continued attacking Metal as he tried to dash his way through to the trio, who were discussing their plans as they had no clue what they were going to do
"What are we going to do now?" Teddy asked Luna and Kit, who were standing around and watching the fight. "I mean, that robot is here, but Sonic is fighting it. Do we just... wait for him to finish?"
"Well, I'm not-" Kit began answering, only to be cut off
"Let's run!" Luna spoke over Kit, talking with more life in her voice than Kit and Teddy had ever heard before. "Both of them are occupied, so we're free to finally get out of here"
"I guess that's a pretty good idea," Teddy replied, sounding happy
"If you really think so, then stop standing around and start running!" Luna demanded, already preparing to sprint away from the battle
Kit didn't appreciate being cut off by Luna, but she was still onboard with the idea of getting away from Eggman, so when Luna began running from the battle between Sonic and Metal, Kit joined her along with Teddy
The hills were still crowded with the Eggpawns that had been deployed earlier, but all of them were still rushing towards Sonic and his friends to defeat him, they weren't self-aware enough to realize what exactly the trio they were doing. However, the sheer amount of them made it extremely difficult to walk through them
"Ugh, get out of my way, you stupid robots!" Luna frustratedly shouted as she shoved Eggpawns to the side. It seemed like there was a never ending stream of the robots walking against the trio, but Luna continued moving them out of the way while Kit and Teddy followed the path she made
After a long time, it seemed like the trio had finally made it through the wave of robots, and they were free to run through Green Hills now. It seemed likely that Luna would run a bit slower now that she was a good distance away from any threat, but she almost began running faster through the empty hills
"Luna, I think we got away from that robot now. Can we take a rest for a second?" Teddy asked, sounding exhausted
"No! We can stop once we actually get away," Luna answered as she continued to march on
While Teddy was tired from walking for so long, he also felt excited. If he could actually walk out of this place, he would finally be free from Eggman, and he could find out whether Barnaby and his family were alright. However, even that motivation wasn't enough to keep him from eventually sitting down and taking a rest for a second, remembering Kit's statement earlier while they were in a similar situation
"We're getting close to escaping here, and you're just sitting down and taking a rest?" Luna asked, sounding quite upset. "It's not going to take much longer to escape! Don't you want to be free?"
"I'm sorry, but I literally cannot run any further," Kit apologized. "You have to pace yourself when you're running, or else you'll just collapse on the ground"
"Fine, but you better get up soon," Luna replied reluctantly
Taking a rest on the ground felt good, all of the energy that had been drained from Teddy slowly came back to him, almost like he was drawing power from the ground. However, all of a sudden that relaxing feeling was replaced with a sudden sharp impact on his back, knocking him over. Teddy's face got slammed into the ground, adding onto his already immense pain, and making it so that he couldn't see anything
"Dang it, I knew this would happen!" Luna exclaimed in frustration
Teddy tried to get up from the ground as fast as he could, but he got hit so hard it felt like he couldn't even move his body. He tried to lift himself up with his metal arm, which wasn't affected by being hit, but a sharp pain radiated through his back after only lifting himself a few inches off the ground, causing him to fall back to the ground
The impact that Teddy got hit by was obviously Metal Sonic, who had managed to catch up from the trio, and was trying his absolute hardest to beat the trio. Now that he had already knocked down Teddy, Metal Sonic began flying around and slammed into Kit, who quickly pulled out her sword prior to the impact in an attempt to defend herself
Despite Kit's attempts, the sword didn't do much to block Metal's attack, and she was still flung backwards, the sword nearly cutting her from it being knocked back. Kit landed on the ground on her back, and just like Teddy, she was pretty much unable to move. The only thing she was able to do was continue to cling onto the sword and watch as Luna fought against Metal Sonic
"You really do hate us, don't you?" Luna asked as her and Metal circled around, preparing to strike. "Are you that mad from us beating you yesterday?"
In response to Luna's question, Metal Sonic immediately shot towards her, no weaving around at all. Luna had barely been able to dodge Metal's attack's before, but he seemed to be going even faster now, so her attempt to move out of the way resulted in her hand being smashed into Metal's body at an incredible speed
Luna stood in place for what felt like an eternity, barely able to move. Her right hand was in agony from nearly being torn off, even the slightest movement sent a pulse of pain all throughout her arm. It would be nearly impossible to fight in this state, but Luna wasn't going to give up after getting so close to escaping. Even with her hand injury nearly debilitating her entirely, Luna was still going to keep fighting
"No... I've gotten so close... I'm still going to defeat you!" Luna stated while clenching her injured hand
Determined more than ever, Luna sprinted towards Metal Sonic, preparing to use the limited energy she had to hit him as hard as she could. However, before she could actually reach him, Metal Sonic flew forwards just as he had before, his arm extended into Luna's path. As a result, Luna was stopped in her tracks, the wind knocked out of her, and vulnerable to another attack from Metal
Before Luna could even try to react, Metal Sonic attacked once again, slamming his whole arm into her back and knocking her to the ground. Metal had now finally taken down all the members of the trio, all that was left to do now was to finish them off
While Metal was preparing to execute everyone, Luna was prone on the ground like the others, but instead of being afraid, she was furious. She felt so weak just laying there, and despite the burning determination inside of her, she couldn't get up off the grass. Was this really how she was going to die, killed after being beaten in combat so easily?
Metal Sonic stood above Luna, planning to kill her first as she had fought him directly the most. He raised his arm preparing to slash her head with it, but before he could do that, he was interrupted by none other than Sonic crashing into him, just as he had done to the trio moments earlier
"I'm not entirely sure what's going on between you and those guys, but I'm not letting anyone get killed while I'm here!" Sonic said after knocking Metal Sonic a good distance away from the incapacitated trio. Sonic dashed towards Metal once again, while Tails and Knuckles caught up. Soon, Team Sonic was fighting against Metal Sonic once again, all while the trio were still on the ground
With Metal Sonic occupied once again, the trio collectively relaxed, their strength beginning to trickle back to them, and the pain of their wounds starting to fade ever so slightly. It would take a while to get up off the ground, let alone recover, but hopefully Sonic and his friends would buy them the time they needed
As Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles continued fighting Metal Sonic, beginning to get the better of the robotic copy, the crowd of Eggpawns that Luna had shoved her way through earlier began walking in the direction of the battle. Obviously, they were there to help out Metal, and they had only arrived just now due to not being able to keep up with the rapid pace that he was moving at
The Eggpawns began making their way through the immediate area that Luna, Kit, and Teddy were in, with most of them walking around the trio and attempting to attack Sonic and the others. However, three of them didn't move, they merely stood near where the trio were laying
"Why are some of them not moving?" Teddy thought to himself. With nothing else to do, he continued watching one of the stationary Eggpawns as the other ones walked in droves around them. Eventually, all of the other robots had walked out of view, and the ones standing still were the only ones remaining. Suddenly, the formerly idle Eggpawns all sprung to life once again, walking towards the trio and beginning to pull them away
Teddy immediately began panicking from the Badnik carrying him away, this had to mean that Eggman knew that he was trying to escape along with his friends. Who knew what he was going to do with everyone for not only failing at the singular mission they were brought there for in the first place, as well as trying to run from him? In a desperate attempt to get free, Teddy tried turning around so he could throw an orb and destroy the robot carrying him, but he couldn't even see behind him, so the electricity merely flew into the sky before dissipating into nothingness
After realizing that he was unable to use his arm against his robot captor, the only thing left for Teddy to do was to struggle. He tried to get free with what little energy he had left, but no matter how hard he tried, the robot kept on marching. As he continued to squirm, Teddy eventually began tiring out, the grass he was being dragged across began feeling softer and consciousness became harder and harder to hold on to. Eventually, once he had been dragged all the way back onto the airship, Teddy finally closed his eyes and fell asleep