274 was carefully making his way back to the clearing where everyone else was – a choice few thoughts running through his mind.
He honestly hoped the little idea he planted in the woman's head would eventually lead up to a smear campaign against Sonic therefore hindering him wherever he went; a fitting thing for him to be on the run for the rest of his life.
But on the other hand, Rebecca Hall could also choose to out 274 as being built by "Dr. Eggman". 274 made a garbled noise – Eggman? EGGman? What an absolute stupid, no-good, awful name.
At least it made sense; an EGG turned Dr. Kintobor into Dr. Robotnik so it's a logical conclusion that the transformed Kintobor here might have named himself after the egg incident rather than his name spelled backwards.
That didn't change the fact that it was such a downgrade to Robotnik; Eggman didn't sound threatening at all!
274 shook his head gently and changed the subject back to the real problem; getting to the Master Emerald. He was close to the clearing now and could hear voices filtering in. 274 slowed to a crawl – by his calculations, he should appear behind the shrine out of view from everyone.
He dimmed his eyes, no need for the red glow to give him away, and cautiously peered through the bushes.
Perfect, the shrine was right in front of him and nobody was currently looking his way.
As quietly as he could, he made a break for it towards the Master Emerald. At the bottom steps, he waited a moment or two – in case someone had turned their head as he ran through the open field – but not one person seemed to have noticed.
If he had a mouth he would've smirked.
But he also couldn't let overconfidence take over and he quickly became serious again.
Step by step, 274 inched closer to the Master Emerald moving as fast as he dared to, and at the top step he reached out. A circular panel in the palm of his hand slid open. The sensors in it lit up and special hollow wires activated to begin drawing in the Master Emerald's energy.
A misty green fog started to peel away from the gigantic gem towards 274's palm, a glint of victory shining in his eyes.
The next step after this would be to find a chaos emerald – the grey one preferably – so he and 10-961 wouldn't be held captive anymore.
[FUEL LEVEL: 8%]…[FUEL LEVEL 15%]…[FUEL LEVEL: 25%]
274 felt something in his systems hiccup but ignored it; the golden rings' energy was there to stabilize the chaos energy and if that failed he always had his coolant systems to help.
[FUEL LEVEL: 35%]…[FUEL LEVEL: 45%]…[FUEL LEVEL: 55%]
274 suddenly spat static and only his quick thinking of switching off his vocal chip saved him from being discovered. He slowed down his intake and went to activate his coolant systems to compensate for the golden rings lagging behind on stabilizing the energy.
[FUEL LEVEL: 60%]…[ERROR: COOLANT LEVEL LOW]…[FUEL LEVEL: 62%]
274 slowed even further down. What happened to his stores of coolant fluid? It had been relatively full before all this.
[FUEL LEVEL: 64%]…[FUEL LEVEL: 66%]…[FUEL LEVEL 67%]…[EMERGANCY SHUT OFF ENGAGED.]
Oh… that wasn't good at all.
The panel on his hand snapped shut and 274 knew had he just a scarce few seconds to find a hiding spot to ride out the storm he was about to face; the same storm that had affected Sonic's friends just hours prior.
He knew that Chaos energy was almost purely made up of negative energy and braced himself for a bombardment of equally negative emotions, locking his form on a 15-minute cool-down as to not cause a scene.
What he wasn't prepared for was the equal bombardment of positive emotions that tore through him.
He was very glad that he had switched off his vocal chip as he felt a giggle try to bubble up. He couldn't understand why this was happening at first– the intense negative emotions he had been expecting and was, therefore, was prepared for them but the positive ones had caught him off guard and he struggled to keep them from overtaking his mind. The extreme overwhelming feelings of happiness, warmth, excitement, compassion, and pure joy racked through his frame one after the other as he fought to get his emotions under control; all of them too intense to actually be enjoyed and only further piled on stress for the metallix.
He barely had any time to get ahold of himself just to come to the obvious conclusion that chaos energy was different here before one of the worst possible things that could have happened, happened.
Knuckles had found him, a little better than if Sonic had found him but not by much as 274 was still unable to move for another 10 minutes.
"There you are!" Knuckles exclaimed with triumph, but the mood quickly turned sour. "What are you doing behind the Master Emerald?!"
274's voice chip was still deactivated and he feared to turn it back on. However, the blazing fury that was written all over Knuckles' face needed to address least the blazing fury go his fists and start wailing on the immobilized bot. So, with an inward plead to his systems to behave for just a couple of seconds, 274 reactivated his chip and spoke.
"Chillin'~." He said with a flirtatious tone. The moment the word came out as it had, 274 instantaneously wished to be shot dead –thankfully he couldn't do that weird face thing that organics do when they were deeply embarrassed. Hardly stopped the feeling though.
"Uhhhh..?" Knuckles scrunched up his face in confusion and discomfort, looking over his shoulder for another person before flicking his eyes back towards the metallix at a total loss of words.
"I'm… Actually… Overheating… Get… Someone." 274 sounded out slowly and deliberately as he fought to keep his voice from betraying the couple dozen emotions that tried to push to the surface. Knuckles' snapped to attention and with a face set in determined stone, leapt out of view. All 274 got in confirmation that he was indeed fetching someone was a shout for Tails as well as the undignified shouts of others being shoved out of the way.
An all too familiar face soon popped into view but it wasn't Tails.
"Ah-Ha!" Sonic exclaimed as he caught sight of the sprawled out metallix. 274's frozen systems tensed up even further – he wouldn't be able to defend himself physically or vocally for another 7 minutes and was now at the total mercy of Sonic. But tensing up wasn't making the situation any better, in fact, it was making it worse as his vents struggled to open up and the heat was building and the chaos energy was getting too unstable and-
"How you holding up?" Sonic asked with concern and 274 remembered that this wasn't the same Sonic as his and that this one wasn't quite so quick to attack.
A plume of steam erupted from his engine as he forced his vents to relax and push the built-up heat out and away.
"Yeez.. Looks like you could cook an egg there!" Sonic quipped playfully but 274 noted the smile pulled too taut and knew Sonic was covering up another emotion. What it was he wasn't really sure.
"Is MS-1 over there Sonic?" Tails yelled from just out of view.
"Yeah!" Sonic confirmed just as Tails jogged up next to him with a hefty toolbox in tow.
"Knuckles told me you're overheating? Can you tell me exactly what happened?" Tails said as he knelt down next to 274 with no hesitation.
"Coolant..Tanks.. Empty." 274 forced the words out but it was getting easier as the energy settled.
"hmm…Right! I did note a coolant leak earlier, but it had cut itself off pretty quickly." Tails lit up as he recalled the previous event when 274 had woken up the first time.
"And… You.. Didn't THINK.. TO TELL ME?" 274 grounded out as his glare became laser-focused on the young fox.
"WELL, you DID immediately go to attack me before I had the chance to do anything about it!" Tails glared right back – not as hard as himself but it still threw 274 into yet another loop. "Now tell ME where I put the coolant."
274 didn't say a word but something audible shifted within his chest and when Tails squinted within the black center he could see mechanisms moving around. It was short-lived and soon all sound and motion stopped.
"I'm gonna go out on a limb and say I just poured into your chest then?" Tails said already starting the action of dumping the coolant in.
"Wow.. such.. a genius!" 274 said – he tried to sound sarcastic but the tone was off and only earned him a flick from Tails' ear and a puzzled look.
"Aaaaand Done!" Tails piped as the last drop disappeared and 274's inner workings rearranged themselves once again.
"…Do you need a hand getting up?" Sonic asked as the metallic made no move to stand.
"Waiting for… coolant to take affect.." 274 lied. The coolant had begun working right away and the chaos energy almost instantly cooled down and stabilized. He couldn't get up yet though as he was still had 3 minutes left on lockdown mode.
"Okay, but just so you know I'll be waiting right here just in case," Sonic said as he sat on one of the steps leading up to the Master Emerald.
274 resigned to the fact that he probably wasn't going to be able to get to 100% without anyone noticing now and started to plan what he should do next. But the plan was halted when a new variable came into play. A helicopter – one different than the handful of news copters already on the island – had just come into view and was trying to find a spot to land.
274 noted that Knuckles' fury had skyrocketed into space.
"WHAT THE HELL ARE THEY DOING HERE!" Knuckles shouted at the top of his lungs as the helicopter landed and military personnel poured out. Considering their guns weren't raised just yet was a plus in 274's eyes.
Immediately Knuckles ran over with a panicked Tails' chasing after hoping to hold the echidna back from doing anything too rash. Sonic made to follow too, but stopped and looked back at 274.
"I'll be right back," Sonic gave a thumbs up but held a somewhat-serious face. "No funny business 'til we find out what's going on."
274 didn't say anything and Sonic supposed that was good enough before darting out of view.
3 minutes was quick to pass and soon 274 was testing himself slowly to make sure his systems were definitely under control. He flexed his jointless fingers first, then went up and rotated his shoulders before going up even further and turning his head back and forth. He gave a few test spins to his chest engine before finally moving down to his legs and turning his whole body over until he was on his knees.
He cautiously stood up, triple-checking himself for any abnormalities and to not alert the others that he had gotten up, before peering over the edge of the shrine to get a look at what was going on.
Somehow, someway, Knuckles had been tied a tree and was currently fuming but not struggling as Sonic and Tails tried to talk to the commander in charge of the troops.
Keyword in tried.
The commander simply didn't seem to want to listen to the two of them and was adamant that the military absolutely needed to check every nook and cranny of the island for anything 'suspicious'. A little vague in 274's opinion and it only served to aroused suspicion of his own towards the group.
But they were all distracted and that was all 274 needed in order to siphon off the last bit of energy he needed to get to 100%
So he reached out again, the panel on his hand sliding open again, systems ready and beginning to pull energy in…
..Only to abruptly stop.
Something wasn't right.
Not his systems though, which were all pinging back normal readings now, but something was wrong somewhere near him.
It took a second or two before 274 could locate the source but once he did he only got more confused.
He could sense loose chaos energy-charged and clinging in the air like right before rings blinked into existence – but it wasn't the chaos energy of THIS universe but from HIS. Worried, 274 peered back over the shrine towards his only other brother thinking he was leaking again but the readings off of 10-961 were unchanged. Where was it coming from? It seemed to have arrived in time with the military but 274 couldn't find a correlation between the two and Sonic didn't look like he was losing it to Super Sonic.
He scrolled through his files quickly and scanned himself 20 times over as well. It was slowly but surely starting to get more intense – more intense than it should with the creation of rings- when 274 finally found data that matched the current phenomenon.
[FILE: TEST 4 of 35 ON SUBJECT 5445 – 7721 – 9080]
[AFTER SEVERAL ATTEMPTS AT REWIRING AND DIAGNOSTIC RUNS WE DISCOVERED THE ISSUE IS IN THE OUTPUT OF BROTHER MT-1'S SYSTEMS]
[HIS SYSTEMS HAD LATCHED ONTO DIFFERENT PROPERTY OF CHAOS ENERGY THEN WHAT WE WANTED: HIS SPEED AND STRENGTH HAD NOT INCREASED BUT INSTEAD HE CAN TELEPORT AT WILL.]
[IT IS A SLOW TELEPORTATION HOWEVER AND A FIELD OF CHAOS ENERGY FORMS FIRST BEFORE MT-1 ACTUALLY WARPS –USEFULNESS DECREASED DUE TO HOW LONG IT TAKES]
274 instinctively perked up. Could this mean that MT-1 had survived the self-destruct too? Hope surged through him. He checked the next few files for more info. It was the 7th entry that caught his eye though.
[FILE: TEST 7 of 35 ON SUBJECT 5445-7721-9080]
[TELEPORTATION IS UNSTABLE – AN OBJECT HAD MOVED AMIDST THE TEST AND THE SLIGHT CHANGE HAD DISRUPTED THE TELEPORTATION SUSQUENCE AND IT WREAKED HAVOC ON TEST ROOM THETA – SURVIVING RECORDINGS SHOW A TEMPORARY BLACK HOLE HAD FORMED – LOST BROTHER 99 DURING THE EVENT, TEAM WAS UNABLE TO FIND HIM, MT-1 INCONSABLE FOR DAYS]
Oh.. oh no.
274 took one simple glance and a quick calculation to know that everything here in the immediate vicinity was going to be absolutely destroyed at a 99.8% probability just for the sheer number of people moving about.
274 leaped out from behind the shrine and dashed towards the Tornado recklessly – he had no time to think, no time to plan – he could only take action.
"EVERYONE STOP MOVING!" 274 shouted as he ran through the crowd "OR GET OUT OF THE AREA NOW!" he checked and checked the files over and over and found the size of what was about to happen to be at around an 1500 foot radius.
"Wait wait wait.. What are you doing 2 – I mean MS-1?" Sonic started to trot towards 274 as he grabbed 10-961 out of the plane.
"I SAID RUN OR STOP! PERSONALLY I'M RUNNING AWAY FROM HERE!" 274 shrieked as he hauled 274 onto his back and started to book it only for the commander to step in front of him with crossed arms and a stern look.
"Now where are you running off to you glitching robot?" the commander said with a hint of venom behind his words.
"Maybe you should check your obviously failing hearing I SAID away from HERE." 274 spat as he made to dart around the commander only to be blocked again.
"We aren't leaving here on orders to search this place top to bottom starting right here right now!" the commander barked at 274, leaning down low to get in his face. 274 eyes narrowed and without another word stomped as hard as he could down on the commander's foot.
He was sure he had heard a couple of bones break.
With the commander now yowling and grabbing his foot in pain, 274 slipped around him and started for the trees again.
A soldier – one fresh out of highschool – lifted his gun up from where he was standing on the other side of the field and shouted at the retreating form of the metallix before firing off a single warning shot.
But the bullet stopped halfway –suspended in the air like it was frozen in time. Everyone stopped and stared at the puzzling display.
And then it began spazzing and jerking around in place – a golden field had suddenly become visible, engulfing the area and everyone in it.
"STOP GAUKING AND RUN YOU IDIOTS!" 274 all but screamed as he shifted 10-961 out of the way so he could activate his propeller and fly out as fast as possible.
As soon as he said that the bullet crumpled and collapsed under pressure and a pinprick sized black hole blinked into existence.
It was too late to get away.
But 274 hated to give up like that and tried anyway.
The ground nearest gave way first, huge chunks the size of boulders torn out from the island. The only upside to a minuscule black hole was that it liked to take its sweet time in devouring whatever got caught in its field. But the gravitational pull still drew in everything near it with the same strength.
People had grabbed whatever was nearest to them – trees, rocks, even digging their hands into the ground. 274, on the other hand, set his engine to maximum and put everything he got into trying to escape the black hole's grip.
And it was draining his energy FAST.
274 watched his gauge drop little by little with despair, but he couldn't let up for even a second. He took a glance around and noted several people had gotten dangerously close to the center and were starting to lose their grips on their lifelines.
But then he saw a flash of blue and locked in on it. Obviously it was Sonic and 274 watched as the hedgehog ran around the center trying to get as many people as he could and handing them to Tails and a now freed Knuckles.
"I can't hold on!" There were many panicking people shouting and yelling, but this one caught 274's attention and immediately he snapped his gaze to a human to the side of him.
It was reporter Hall clinging onto a flimsy dead sapling and her anchor was giving way. 274 huffed; he wasn't going to lose a valuable pawn so quickly!
274 only had a split second to adjust himself before the reporter was ripped from the ground and sailing towards him. It was a bit difficult to catch her simply for the fact he was more than half her height shorter and already having to hold on to 10-961, but he succeeded in getting a grip on her. He focused back to where Sonic was dropping off the other humans and started to sideways fly towards them.
Knuckles had dug a deep trench to stick everyone into and so far almost everyone had been dropped off there.
"MS-1!" Sonic shouted as 274 dumped Ms. Hall and 10-961 in with everyone else. "You noticed this before anyone else, so what's going on?"
"MT-1 is trying to warp!" 274 shouted back over the noise. Sonic didn't have a chance to voice his questions as he spotted someone else lose their grip and dashed just in time to grabbed them.
"MS-1! To your left!" Ms. Hall interrupted as she pointed over to a cameraman on the exact opposite side of where Sonic was. Sonic wouldn't be able to get there in time and so the responsibility came down to 274. He honestly didn't want to and would rather watch the human get crushed by flying rocks and debris. However, if he wanted future plans to go his way he'd have to pretend he cared.
With great disdain, 274 flew as fast as he could towards the man and barely made it time – only saving him by snatching the very edge of his sleeve before getting a grip on his wrist.
As he circled back towards the group he had to catch two other people and was very happy to get the load off of him. The people in the trench, however, were still very much terrified out of their wits. The danger was still obviously not over and the black hole continued to swallow up the area.
"Yo, what do we do now?!" Knuckles shouted.
"We have to wait it out!" 274 answered as he got into the ditch with everyone else.
"What?! But it's a black hole! We can't wait out a black hole!" Tails cried with disbelief.
"It's temporary! We just need to wait another 20 seconds until MT-1 warps in!" 274 answered – mentally counting down.
"What?!" Knuckles asked simply.
"Remember one of the reasons we came back to the island? We didn't know where MT-1 was and we wanted to search for him?" 274 lied on the spot, hoping the others would catch on.
"Right! He must've not been on the island when it warped to Earth!" Tails caught on to the lie but was really uneasy at the thought of another metallix showing up.
"But why is it going CRAZY?!" Knuckles panic was starting to seep into his voice – yelping as a stray bolt of energy tried to lash at his head.
"Any change to the area he's trying to warp to ends up like this!" 274 replied. "Tails hadn't fixed the problem before he went missing."
274 was starting to panic himself; 20 seconds were up already and the black hole hadn't shown any signs of stopping anytime soon- and the destruction was starting to get a wee bit too close for his liking.
"Something's wrong! It should've stopped by now" 274 voiced his thoughts. He wasn't sure what he could do, he had no plans or ideas on how to survive this at all.
"Hey isn't this stuff made up of chaos energy MS-1?" Sonic inquired.
"Yes, why?" 274 asked, puzzled but listening. Was he planning on absorbing the chaos energy himself? Saving them momentarily only to turn into Super Sonic and try to kill them afterward? Dear Emperor, he hoped that wasn't the plan.
"Can't you absorb some of it? Give us some time?" Sonic shouted out his idea.
Oh… that was worse.
But also could this mean Sonic didn't have access to his 'Super' form then?
"It's unstable!" 274 argued.
"We don't have much of a choice!" Tails pointed out.
274 huffed and puffed out his vents at the idea but the sound of the ground giving way closer and closer to them was all the convincing he needed.
"Fine! But if I get scrambled in the process you owe me BIG TIME!" 274 spat as he climbed to the top of the trench and stuck both his hands out towards the black hole. Warning systems in him blared but he overrode them and forced the panels in his palms to snap open.
Later on, 274 would describe this particular instance as the worst in his entire life.
The split second he started the process of absorbing the raging energy was the second he felt his inner working feel like they had been set on fire in a grand blaze of a thousand suns. He couldn't have stopped himself from screaming even if he had switched his voice chip off. He wanted to stop – he was going to get himself killed – but his body was now locked into the action and he couldn't. His efforts were working, however, and storm stalled.
[FUEL LEVEL: 34%]…[FUEL LEVEL: 68%]…[FUEL LEVEL: 4! $)!]... [FUEL L (4178:12718negineaify8259%]
[ER0OR!] [Err0R!][EroR!][E21907R!][E34R0R!]
His alarms blared frantically, no longer able to pinpoint what was failing at this point.
[aa7801!%! %][! *$)fhdioy1-][1!$(!R !NGW][ !(EFJiAR( !)$*)]
Distantly he was aware he was absolutely losing himself.
And then he could sense nothing.
He couldn't hear how the others shouted in alarm for him, how Knuckles was yanking him away, how Tails desperately tried to manually close the panels which were still taking in energy, how the black hole was now collapsing in on itself, or how Sonic shielded him with his body when a bolt shot out towards him. Nor did he hear the explosion that threw everything outwards from the center of it all or the blinding white light that engulfed them all. He didn't get to see the figure emerge from the center of the disaster – who had promptly collapsed onto the ground but still mustered the strength to crawl towards the group.
One last thing he could sense was the overwhelming emotion of guilt – not his own – repeating over and over a message he couldn't quite hear.
But everyone else could.
The new metallix, weak and exhausted yet trying so hard to move forwards, was forcing words out through a static-laced voice.
"I'm sorry, stay here, I'm sorry, stay here, I'm sorry, stay here"
A/N: I wonder if anyone remembers who the new metallix is considering he was only in a couple of sentences ~unnamed at the time~ within the first chapter - but surprise surprise! he lived!