Sonic the Hedgehog: The Chaos Project

Premiere Event

Crisis of Chaos Part 3

Written by ChaosProjectAuthor

December 31st, 11:00 AM, 0 years B.E.

Westopolis City

E-4X: BLACKDEVIL

"I'm busy as well. How much time do we have?" While speaking through his radio, Shadow the Hedgehog walks slowly forward through the once-more ruined city of Westopolis. "After all the time I spent…after all the work I did. And Eggman ruins it in a day. I should have killed him when I had the chance. But of all the tools he could have done it with…it had to be this, didn't it?" He looks up towards a massive pile rubble, made mostly of destroyed buildings. On the top sits a two-headed mechanical monstrosity, with long, clawed arms, and even longer wings, black and red in color. A robot form of Devil Doom. Its singular eye glares at Shadow with ferocity.

Chaos responds to Shadow's question, "Take as much time as you think you need. Just get here immediately afterward. It's important."

Shadow confirms, "Understood." Ignoring the horrific robot, Shadow begins looking around at the streets. "Looks like all the people have been evacuated…all the people who were left. Good to see that G.U.N. isn't being completely incompetent this time. That just means that I don't have to worry about collateral damage." He looks back up to the Blackdevil. "Did they expect me to be scared of you? Tch. Shows how much attention they've been paying. I'm stronger now than I ever have been, more than enough to beat a cheap copy like you. Even with only one Emerald."

It lets out a mechanical roar. Shadow shakes his head. "Let's get this over with!" He pulls out the yellow Emerald. He begins charging an orb of yellow light in his hand. "Chaos…" The robot roars once more, and releases a swarm of mechanical orbs which begin to rotate around it. "…Spear!" Shadow unleashes his attack, and it shoots towards Blackdevil, trailing light behind it. Some of the orbs move to intercept it, but Shadow waves his hand around dramatically, causing the attack to change its direction suddenly, several times. As it passes the last of the orbs, Blackdevil brings in one of its massive mechanical wings to shield itself. Shadow does nothing but smirk. The Spear impacts the wing, and simply stays there for a moment. Then it explodes, shredding the wing and knocking back the robot.

It looks at Shadow for another moment, then the eye rolls back into the head. "Well, Eggman certainly pays attention to detail…" He skates off in order to circle around to the other head, where the eye now lies. As he does, the orbs begin to shoot a hailstorm of thin lasers at him, which he easily evades as he moves. One of the orbs flies straight towards him, but he hops onto it, and from there onto another. He skillfully hops from orb to orb finally getting close enough to deliver an attack straight to the eye. He lands in a crouch on top of a mostly-intact building, at about the level of the eye. For a moment, all attacks cease.

Shadow and the Blackdevil stare eachother down. And then the Blackdevil's wing begins to regenerate. "What!?" Within moments, the wing is whole once more. Before Shadow even has a chance to react, it releases a stream of fire from its mouth, directed straight at him. He leaps to another building to avoid it, and the fire completely destroys the building he had just been standing on. "This is getting rough. I've got to finish this up now." He begins to unclasp the rings around his wrists. They clatter to the ground. Blackdevil begins charging for another burst of fire. Shadow pulls out the Emerald again. He takes a deep breath. "I just have to…feel the power of the Emerald… Feel what makes it different from the other six… Embrace that difference… Search for it in the world around me…" He begins glow with a faint yellow energy. "…and unleash it!" "Chaos…" Simultaneously, the Blackdevil unleashes its fire, and Shadow forms an orb of blinding white light in his hand, which he holds out straight in front of him. The fire impacts the orb, nearly knocking Shadow back, but he struggles against it. The orb grows larger as it absorbs more and more of the fire, and Shadow is forced to hold it back with both hands. By the time the fire stops, the orb is nearly as tall as Shadow himself. Both hands still outstretched, he finishes, "…Shine!" The orb launches forward into a massive energy beam of the same radius, which passes straight through nearly all of the orbs, and hits the robot head-on.

As the smoke clears, it's revealed that the Blackdevil is heavily damaged, missing large chunks of metal, including an entire wing, and appears heavily burnt in the places still intact. But it is still functioning. Its regeneration begins as its eye rolls backwards into its head once more. "Now you're just wasting my time! Chaos Control!" He instantly reappears on the other side. "Chaos Spear!" The eye has only just come out as it is impacted with the explosive attack. The head is completely destroyed. Shadow snaps his fingers again, and reappears just above and behind the now almost completely regenerated neck on the back side. "Chaos Spear!" The second head is blown off, leaving the eye nowhere to go. But the robot still stands. He snaps again, appearing on the robot's side. "Chaos Spear!" The other wing is destroyed. "Chaos Spear!" A sizable chunk of its shoulder is taken out. "Chaos Spear!" Its back. "Chaos Spear!" Most of its undamaged side. With one last Chaos Control, he appears directly underneath it, aiming his arm straight upwards. "Chaos Spear!" The attack wedges itself deep into the Blackdevil's core, and detonates, spraying metal shrapnel around the area where Shadow stands. The mangled wreck of metal that remains topples over to the side.

Shadow slowly puts his arm down. "My name is Shadow the Hedgehog. I have sworn to protect this world, and now I am strong enough to do just that. I will not allow the likes of Eggman and Blacklight to terrorize these people. This is who I am!" He stands there for a moment, and then lets out a brief chuckle. Then he collapses to the ground.

—–—

Grand Metropolis City

E-25X: METALUMIS

Chaos the Hedgehog stands atop a building hundreds of stories in the air, the wind blowing around his spikes. "You are clearly here for me. But you will not be the one to defeat me. It has been foreseen. And how could you? You are but a cheap copy of a traitor." Floating before him is yet another massive robot. It appears very generally humanoid in shape, with long, think arms, and lacking any recognizable head. Its exterior is coated in a bright yellow armor, covered in many sharp corners in a way that makes the armor appear like a processed gem. It has long, sharp claws.

"And yet…" Chaos continues. "…the amount of Chaos Energy you contain…it's incredible… It's impossible…" He thinks for another moment. "This is the Darkness that will consume the world. Not you, but your power source. Doctor Robotnik has taken Energy that the universe cannot give. The universe will demand repayment. In a short amount of time, you will no longer function. But I don't have that sort of time. You must not be here by the time the Controller arrives. So I will destroy you once more!" His fur turns a sharp yellow. Metalumis lets out a mechanical screech. Its claws begin to glow brilliantly as it swipes at Chaos.

Chaos leaps to the side, right off of the building. He only falls for a moment before nimbly landing on a glowing blue elevated road. It immediately begins carrying him forward at extremely high speed. The robot takes off in pursuit. Chaos poses and waggles his finger in his best imitation of Sonic, facing his pursuer and allowing the road to take him backwards. "Is that the best you got?" The robot begins charging an orb of light between its hands, which it releases as a beam. Chaos turns and runs along with the road, taking him forward faster than ever, far out of reach of the attack. "Come and get me, you phony god! You can't beat the real the thing!"

Metalumis picks up enough speed to catch up with him. Its claws begin to glow as it attempts to impale him with them. Chaos does a backflip, which lands him on the robot's hand. From there, he leaps onto its back and aims a hand at the base of its stub of a neck. "Chaos Spear!" As he charges the yellow energy attack in his hand, his chest begins to glow with the outline of a rainbow-colored gem. He unleashes the attack, which explodes in a similar way to Shadow's, though weaker, knocking him back on to the road.

Chaos gets up as the road continues to push him forwards. "Last time I fought Lumis, the combined power of Sonic and I were scarcely able to defeat him. And now I have no Chaos Emeralds. If I am to win this fight, I must take any advantage I can get." He shouts, "What's wrong, copycat? Aren't you supposed to crush me or something?" The robot, relatively undamaged, screeches again as it brings its glowing claws straight down on Chaos. Left with too little time to dodge, he snaps his fingers and lets out a rushed "Chaos Control!" He warps just a short distance forwards, as the robot's claws shatter a large section of the road. Chaos is sent plummeting. But Metalumis is showered with the glowing orange plasma that powered the now-destroyed road.

Meanwhile, Chaos leaps between pieces of falling debris, and lands on another road which runs perpendicular to the previous one. "If I keep using Chaos Energy at this rate, I won't be able to keep this up for much longer. But the plasma clearly damaged it." Metalumis has resumed its pursuit, but it is now heavily burnt and trailing smoke. "It won't fall for that trick twice. I have to find the source of the plasma, that's how I will defeat it!" Ahead of him on the road is a large dome structure, with several other roads leading into it. He picks up speed and runs into it.

Metalumis crashes into the dome just after Chaos makes it in. As Chaos runs up onto the wall of the dome, he skids to a stop and forcefully leaps off of the wall, straight towards the robot. He curls into a ball for a Spin Attack, and strikes the robot in one of its more heavily burned areas, bouncing off and landing back on the wall. He leaps again for another strike at a different place. Continuing like this, he lands hit after hit on Metalumis, beginning to dent and crack its armor. Until it simply catches him on one clawed hand. He struggles to free himself, but its grasp is too tight. Finally, it throws him out of the dome structure with massive force, sending him flying towards a nearby skyscraper. Just after he crashes through its large window, the robot catches up with him, and slams him downwards into the floor. The force of his landing causes a large section of what appeared to be the wall to fall away, revealing a pathway deeper into the building.

Chaos struggles to get up from the crater that has been left in the floor. He seems badly bruised, and is panting heavily. "Is that… …the hardest you… …can hit? I… …was expecting worse!" Despite his injuries, he runs off into the newly-revealed portion of the building. The robot follows. They arrive in a long, tall hallway, twisting slightly off towards the right. Square portions of the wall on either side slam outwards into the opposite wall, seemingly at random, forming large platforms and obstacles. Chaos begins leaping from one to the next, ever closer to the core of the building. The robot simply swats them out of its way. Chaos doesn't seem willing to stick around for a fight any longer.

Having gained a bit of a lead, Chaos arrives in yet another room. This one is cylindrical, extending upwards a dizzying height. More importantly, just below the level of the floor lies a bubbling pool of the same glowing orange plasma from before. Chaos looks over his shoulder as he hears Metalumis approaching at high speed. He pauses for a moment as he carefully times its approach. Then he slams a button on the wall and immediately begins scaling the shaft. Warning sirens wail as the entrance to the shaft begins to close. The robot slips through just as the opening closes. And then the pool of plasma begins to rapidly rise. As Metalumis gets closer to Chaos it begins shooting rapid-fire light beams at him, each one just barely missing. A light shines in from up above. Dodging one last beam, Chaos grabs on to a pulley, which quickly pulls him the rest of the way to the exit. He leaps out into the light, and turns back to face the shaft and the robot. Then his chest begins to glow with the emerald shape once more. "Chaos Shield!"

He throws up his hands, and a translucent glowing yellow barrier appears, blocking the exit. Metalumis appears on the other side. It begins charging one of its larger light beams, and fires straight at the barrier. Chaos clearly struggles to keep the wall up. Giving up the beam, the robot begins repeatedly slashing its glowing claws, seemingly beginning to dent the barrier. But the rising plasma has reached its feet. Its legs grow red hot, but it continues the attack. Chaos shuts his eyes, bracing himself for the shattering of the barrier, feeling the continuing onslaught.

But the barrier doesn't shatter. He cautiously opens an eye to see Metalumis floundering shoulder-deep in the plasma, desperately flailing its claws in an attempt to escape. The plasma flows into the cracks in its armor that Chaos made earlier. It sinks entirely just as the level of the plasma begins to lower once more. The barrier fades out of existence, revealing that Chaos already lies on the floor, unconscious.

—–—

The skies above Station Square

E-1X: MECHAOS 7.0

Sonic plummets through the sky at top speed, after the strange falling machine. Above him, Tails falls as well, spinning his tails to propel himself downwards even faster. Once he catches up with Sonic, he grabs onto his arm and pulls up, slowing their descent.

"Tails! What're you doing!?" Sonic rips away his arm and begins falling again.

"Sonic!" Below them, the machine crashes into the harbor. Sonic seems to hang his head in defeat. This time, he doesn't resist as Tails takes him and lands them both on a tall shoreside building. "Sonic, what was that all about? What did you expect to do?"

"No, you're right. There's nothing I could have done. But I at least could have tried."

"Tried what? That thing just landed in an ocean of highly conductive saltwater. It has to have short circuited by now. Eggman missed!"

"That's where you're wrong. You didn't recognize what that was, did you? He was aiming for the water." Sonic extends his arm, indicating for Tails to look towards the area where the machine landed. The nearby water seems to be coalescing into a growing hill, with the machine at the center. The water level at the shore begins to rise rapidly, submerging the road below within seconds. As the water hill rises, the cables in the back of the machine form into long tentacles, and the whole form begins to take shape. It appears reptilian in nature, with a long snout. A current swirls around and upwards in its core. It can only be an Artificial Perfect Chaos.

Sonic and Tails stare at it with equal awe and horror as it approaches the city. Finally, Sonic breaks the relative silence. "Tails…Eggman said that he…that robots were invading major cities. I need you to contact…everyone. Everyone you can get a hold of. Tell them to drop what they're doing, get to the nearest city, and fight. If we can keep Eggman's forces out of the major cities for long enough…we might be able to at least keep Eggman out of the continent, have a place to strike back from. But if he gets a strong enough foothold here…" He trails off.

"This is what you were hiding, isn't it? You knew it would be this bad. Why didn't you just tell me? We might have been able to get a defense going sooner." Sonic doesn't answer. "Sonic, you can tell me anything, you know that. You don't have to protect me. I'm not just some kid."

"…When you're done sending out the word…I need you to go back to the lab. Grab as many essentials as you can carry. Be prepared to destroy the rest."

"Destroy it!? But Sonic, that's my home! All of my research!"

"Next I need you to find a place. Somewhere…well-concealed…with enough space to comfortably fit a lot of people for a long time. Somewhere we can set up a base. Can you do all that for me?" Behind them, Mechaos has sent water spewing out of every pipe in the city, spurting up from the ground and out of every last window. It continues to crash through building and roadways.

"I–…I'll do it. You can count on me. But…what about him?" He points to the artificial monstrosity.

"I'll handle big-ugly over there. But I'm counting on you. You're my secret weapon. Our ticket to winning this fight. If you think you can handle that, then get to it! Time to rock and roll!" Tails nods and flies off, back towards the Mystic Ruins, fiddling with his communicator as he does.

Sonic turns back to Mechaos. It has stopped in the core of the city. It stares directly at Sonic, and roars. Sonic thinks, "It's like my Birthday party all over again. And I'm even stronger now than I was then. Taking this robot down will be no problem!" Immediately, it fires a massive blue energy beam straight at him. He dives off of the building just in time, the beam sending it crashing down. He lands in a crouch on a floating chunk of road below. It's a straight shot between him and Mechaos. It stays there, waiting for him to make the next move.

Sonic looks around at his position, surrounded by water on all sides. He takes a deep breath and closes his eyes. He slowly takes a step forwards, then another. He speaks softly as he walks, "I am the Controller. I am the one who serves to unify the Chaos. I don't need a Chaos Emerald to draw upon the power of Chaos. And I can use it however I will it…for as long as I need it. I just have to concentrate…" He reaches the far edge of the road, and falters for just a moment. Then he takes off at blinding speed.

He opens his eyes to confirm the fact that he is, indeed, running across the water. The robot roars again, and unleashes a flurry of homing energy bolts. Sonic avoids them with a series of quick sidesteps, still keeping up his incredible speed. The attacks explode with a splash into the water around him. Drawing close to it, Sonic draws in a deep breath as he penetrates straight into the belly of the beast. As its internal current carries him upwards, he curls into a spin attack, and strikes the machinery directly.

Mechaos cries out as Sonic falls out onto another small road section. Its form dissolves as its damaged machinery sinks into the water. Then it rises back out some distance away, the water reforming around it. Sonic merely looks on with a chuckle. "Now to do that five or six more times. I can keep this up all day. How about you?"

To be Continued…