Hello, everyone. So... as of the initial release date of this chapter, it's 2021. Huh.
Anyway, brace yourselves for Iron Man and Sonic versus Neo Metal Sonic! A brief warning, however, someone gets bruises in this chapter, but nothing graphic.
gwb620: Thank you!
Guest (Tolazytologin): Thanks! I'll do my best to deliver on that potential!
Chapter Five
Iron Man sharply inhaled a breath of air as he charged at Metal, aiming to use himself as a battering ram to knock around the Sonic knockoff. The robot, however, quickly dodged by moving to the side and whirled around for yet another kick to the side of the armored man, sending him into the wall of a building.
A mere split second later Metal was struck in the back by the crazy ball of spines that was Sonic, a loud clang ringing out as the robotic hedgehog was sent for a ride into yet another wall. However, Metal rebounded much quicker this time and soon the two azure combatants were a pair of blurs clashing in all different directions.
"Alright," Tony thought, getting to his feet, "It's safe to say that he really copied Sonic's speed."
It was time to pull out the big guns.
"FRI, deploy the missiles." commanded Stark, "I want a lock on señore starfish-head."
FRIDAY responded in affirmation and a second later dozens of miniature missiles erupted out of the back of the suit just as Metal punched Sonic in the gut.
The resulting explosions that occurred when they collided with the bot were rather satisfying.
Needlemouse hopped to his feet and whistled lowly, hopping away to put some extra distance between himself and the conflagration taking place.
"He called you his copy." asked the human, training his repulsors on the dust cloud that eventually formed. "Do I even have to ask?"
"It's a long story." replied the hedgehog, letting out a cough as the dust cloud eventually settled to reveal a sparking Metal. The robot's cape was pretty much unsalvageable now, but the robot itself still looked pretty intact.
While Robotnik was by all means a deranged megalomaniac, Stark had to admit that he made some impressive machines.
"Well, Chrome Dome? Are we gonna call this a day or what?" asked Needlemouse, his tensed stance belying his cocky smirk.
"Your intelligence must have decreased further if you think I will cease the completion of my mission objective." shot back Metal, blood-red irises contained within a sea of black staring down the two with some sort of disproportionate robotic hatred that Tony hadn't been on the recieving end of since Ultron.
Sonic rolled his eyes, but before Mr. Needlemouse could respond, the robotic creature switched targets and proceeded to fire a white-hot laser at Iron Man.
Eyes widening marginally behind the suit's faceplate, Stark positioned his right arm in front of him in a guarding position and the portion of the red-and-gold suit covering the limb quickly spread out to became a protective shield. The bright yet lethal energy connected with it right after, pushing the human backwards ever so slightly as the heat threatened to melt his makeshift defence right off.
To the credit of the other speedster on the scene, however, Sonic came slamming into his metal double a moment later, cutting off the laser. Tony lowered his hand and his shield dissipated as the hedgehog unfurled and launched his doppelganger away with a kick to the side.
"My turn." the human spoke up, lurching towards the robot and delivering a punch to the jaw area, the smack of metal on metal reverberating as Sonic's double was sent straight into yet another wall, creating an indent.
Not wasting time, the Mark 48's chest plate lit up and a chest beam of his own barreled into the robot, sending it right through the concrete wall and into the store that the wall belonged to, scaring the customers who were just doing their day-to-day activities.
Tony and Sonic entered through the unusual opening to see a slight more decrepit-looking Metal, a portion of the 'bot looking slightly warped from being hit square in the front by the Unibeam.
"I apologize for that," quipped Tony to the frightened people, "Stark Industries'll pay for the damages."
Metal didn't speak this time, grabbing a table and hurling it at Iron Man. Tony promptly lasered the object in half before it could hit him -one of the advantages of using an incredibly intuitive weaponized suit of armor-, only to notice that it had been a distraction for the Sonic robot to lurch itself at his organic counterpart and attempt to grab him by the throat.
Shellhead made to fire a repulsor, but fortunately Needlemouse was quicker on the draw, sidestepping and ramming the bot with his spinning move.
The next few minutes of the battle once again consisted of two blue blurs fighting admist the evacuating civilians and the man in the suit of armor firing repulsor blasts at Metal Sonic to no avail, seeing as the robot either dodged them all or deflected them with a strange diamond-shaped energy shield.
It all came to a head when Metal got a little too close to Iron Man, who capitalized with a thruster-powered kick to the behind. Thankfully, the move connected, and the hedgebot was sent flying through the air...
And into a damaging axe-kick from Needlemouse, who had used a nearby table as a springboard to leap high enough to deliver the devastating move.
The robot crashed into the ground with a loud sound, and Sonic and Stark kept their battle stances, prepping themselves for another attack as Metal recovered once more, a small crack in the layer of glass protecting its artificial eyes.
What they didn't expect was for the space around the mechanical creature to unaturally warp and distort.
Repulsors still aimed at the machine, Tony made quick glances from the standing yet unmoving robot to Sonic, who strangely seemed to recognize- and dread- the abrupt spatial distortion.
Abruptly, there was a flash of light, and Metal Sonic had disappeared, the only sign it was ever there being the partially destroyed store they were in.
Iron Man stared at the space Metal had vanished from and lowered his hand, his suit's UI exiting offensive mode. They'd deal with that later, but now it was time to tend to the more pressing issues.
"FRIDAY, damage report."
"The suit has gained damage to its side plate."
"And Sonic?" asked Tony to his AI, looking down at the disheveled blue hedgehog who decided to sit down by a nearby table that hadn't been destroyed or toppled over. The suit scanned the azure alien for a while until...
"Sonic seems to have suffered moderate bruising to his ribs and abdomen." came the response from FRIDAY.
The inventor nodded, walking towards the hedgehog.
"Let's get you back to the tower and patch up those bruises, shall we?"
After doing a quick head check to make sure there were no people stuck in the shock after the battle occured, the human-hedgehog duo re-entered the Avengers Tower- Or more accurately, Stark had flown to the tower and carried Sonic along to avoid aggravating his injuries-, and the human had gotten to work with admistering medical aid to the blue creature, with the next twelve minutes or so being spent on treating the various bruises Needlemouse had got from their scrap with Metal.
"So, mind explaining to me what happened?" Asked Stark, having gotten out of his suit- which he'd repair later.
"What?" came the perplexed response of the hedgehog, who was holding an ice pack on a bruise that was on his abdomen.
"You seemed to recognize tall, blue and pointy's disappearing act back there."
The hedgehog snorted, ending in a wince after he accidentally rubbed a bruise the wrong way.
"I'm guessing it was because of the Phantom Ruby."
Tony just kept an eyebrow raised at his alien roommate. Now that he thought of it, Sonic had mentioned this "Phantom Ruby" once or twice while they discussed, but never in great detail.
"Ah," stated the alien as though he too realized that as well. "It's a bit like the Emeralds back at home, but it's.. weird. Manipulates reality somehow."
The hedgehog did a one-armed shrug. "I'm not very sure how it works, I only picked up a few tidbits of it while I was imprisoned."
"Fair enough. I'm assuming this means that Eggman," Tony mentally shook his head because that nickname was ridiculous, "must have sent Pointy here to take you out."
Sonic nodded, subtly shifting his ice pack. "Yeah, I suppose so. He probably figured I'd be too injured to fight as well."
The conversation fell into peaceful silence as Stark absorbed himself in his thoughts, occasionally walking over to further help treat the bruising. So, to recap, he was dealing with an extraterrestrial hedgehog with super speed whose arch-nemesis was a WMD-creating roboticist who was in the midst of taking over said hedgehog's world, and had sent out a robot duplicate of the alien to kill him on this one.
And, while Tony was a lot of things, naive was not one of them. Stark knew that the roboticist would try again to assassinate the blue creature, possibly with more than just a hedgehog robot. The hedgehog had somewhat grown on him during his short stay in the tower, and Tony wouldn't let an innocent person- human or otherwise- die on his watch. Besides, it was a possibility that Robotnik could set his supervillain-sights on this planet too, and well, Iron Man couldn't have that happening, could he?
The genius inventor's mind flashed to his thoughts of a nanotech suit, and the man decided to give that idea a look somewhere down the line. Maybe he'd even give a little something to Sonic as well.
A threat might be imminent, but Tony Stark was going to make sure that they were ready for it.
And that was chapter five! Please leave a review, as those are much-appreciated. Stay safe, and have a nice day!