Sonic bounced between the many missiles that were launched at him and directed their trajectory towards the air. Each missile hit another and exploded on impact. Sonic meanwhile landed safely in the open field and picked a flower. It smelled sweet, only interrupted by the scent of steel and diesel fuel. Eggman's mech hovered close by. The Doctor slammed his console in frustration and had numerous lasers aimed directly at the blue hedgehog.
"Stay still you blue devil!" Eggman shouted.
Sonic chuckled and shrugged.
"I gave you a solid head start," Sonic said, "Not even remotely close this time. You must be slipping in your old age, Egghead."
Eggman smashed a button and from the underside of his mech a large barrel that began to glow with a red light appeared. Sonic folded his arms and tapped his foot as he waited for the weapon to charge up. He looked at his wrist as if he had a watch and sighed.
"Is this going to fire any time this millenium?" Sonic mockingly asked.
Eggman grinned and said, "Just watch you little blue menace. FIRE!"
The beam glowed bright and right as it launched Sonic sped backwards. He spun around and ran for a bit longer before making a quick left. He was smirking until he turned around and was surprised to see that the beam had followed him.
"What the!?" he exclaimed.
Eggman laughed triumphantly. "This beam tracks you based on the DNA of one of the quills that fell off of your little spiky head. There's no getting away Sonic and not even you can run forever! It will follow you to the ends of the earth!"
Sonic picked up speed. He ran into a nearby tree line and hopped between the trees. No matter how quick or sudden the movements the beam homed on him like a missile. He circled around and quickstepped out of the way of any other trees. Once clear he boosted forward and made the leap onto Eggman's mech. He knocked on the glass dome.
"Hey Eggman, I hear blue light's pretty bad for you. Something about keeping you up all night."
"Get off my robot you rodent!" Eggman shouted.
Sonic shrugged. "Okay, I tried to warn you."
The blue hedgehog snickered and leaped off of the dome. Eggman watched and then realized exactly what Sonic had planned. The beam was designed to make movements with Sonic, and it was capable of sudden movements, however the reaction time wasn't quite the same as Sonic's. It was off by a few microseconds. Enough time for Eggman to realize it was time to eject. He slammed the eject button and the console vehicle quickly hovered out of the way of danger. No sooner had he did that did the beam collide with the mech. The impact with the engine caused the machine to explode and the lack of a direct power source stopped the beam upon impact.
The shockwave made Eggman veer off course and crash into the ground with the purple Chaos Emerald falling from his grasp. As Eggman grumbled and gained his composure Sonic had snatched the Emerald.
Sonic whistled in mock amazement. "So close this time. Really it was a good plan, Eggman."
Eggman looked up towards his nemesis and hit the ground with his fist. "How did you know!?"
"When you move as fast as I do you have to observe as fast as I do." He spun the Emerald like a basketball. "When are you going to give up this whole Eggmanland plan, Doc? You get close but never really hit a homerun."
Sonic grabbed the Emerald that had fallen from Eggman's console and landed at his feet, then turned to run off. As he began to move though something had blew past him. He looked in the direction it ran off and saw an odd black creature that vaguely resembled a human-sized lizard. It had yellow energy that outlined its body and gecko-like eyes that seemed to move every which way. The Emerald was held by it protectively. Sonic prepared to get it back when he was surrounded by five more of the same creature, all of which appeared out of nowhere.
"Friends of yours?" Sonic asked.
Eggman grinned and jumped into his pod. He laughed as he flew away.
"Afraid not but I'll gladly take the opportunity. Toodle-loo and good luck with your new playmates Sonic!"
Eggman didn't get far. A sort of red ring appeared around his pod and it froze him in place. The Doctor banged on his console in annoyance.
"What is this?" he asked.
A coy laugh came out of nowhere and the voice said, "So sorry Dr. Robotnik but I'm afraid I just can't let you go. My partner and I need that insanely high IQ of yours put to work."
Hovering not too far from Eggman was a relatively tall blonde man. He remained there casually like he was watching some kind of show. He looked over to Sonic and waved with a kind smile.
"You must be Sonic the Hedgehog," he greeted. "Name's Ignatius. Glad to finally meet ya. Sorry but I'm going to need that rock."
Ignatius snapped his fingers and the Chaos Emerald disappeared in a black cloud, then reappeared in his hands. At the same time a black cloud surrounded Eggman.
"What!?" Eggman exclaimed. "Wait hold on! You can't do this to me! I'm the great Dr. Eggman! Sonic!"
Sonic snickered and boosted his way through all five Slizards with ease. He leaped into the air aiming a boost straight for Ignatius. The man in the button-down shirt brushed a hand through his hair and disappeared. Sonic landed lightly and realized Ignatius had teleported next to Eggman. At least that's what he thought had happened. Sonic boosted upwards again, this time to try to kick Eggman's pod out of the cloud. Right as he was about to land the blow he was frozen in midair by the same ring that had held Eggman in place.
Ignatius whistled quite impressed with what he just witnessed. "I'll be honest, those recordings I watched of you definitely don't do your speed any justice. I don't quite get why you'd want to help the guy that just tried to kill you, but whatever the reason is doesn't matter now because-" he smirked "you're too slow."
Ignatius snapped his fingers and Sonic was thrown straight down. Sonic yelled out as he fell and hit the ground hard enough to lose his breath. Eggman disappeared with the cloud and Ignatius touched down on the ground with his hands in his pockets.
"Surely you bring more to the table," Ignatius taunted. "Everything I've heard about you in this universe seems to boost you up as this great hero or whatever. Supposedly you've beaten everything from deranged robots to gods."
Sonic shook the cobwebs out and stood up as he caught his breath. "Just who are you?"
"It's a long story. For now let's just say I'm a guy who needs results." Ignatius hovered a few feet above the ground. "Part of that requires the big mustached man for that."
Sonic brushed some dirt off of himself. "Sorry to break the news to you pal but as much as I'd like to see that creep gone I can't help but feel like you have nothing good planned for him, and I can't exactly let you keep him or the Chaos Emerald. Spooky black clouds have never been anything good in my experience."
Ignatius tapped his chin in thought. "True, I'll admit that ability is a bit creepy, but for what it's worth I can tell you Eggman won't be hurt. At least not not much."
Sonic dashed around Ignatius and went for a Homing Attack. Ignatius nonchalantly held his hand up and when Sonic was only inches away he held a red glow. Ignatius made a backhanded motion and Sonic was thrown into the treeline so hard that he crashed straight through several of them.
The hedgehog had been crumpled up like a used spitball. He groaned and winced as he sat up.
"Geez, just what is this guy?" Sonic asked quietly
Ignatius teleported several feet up and clapped. "That was a neat little trick right there. Like I said though, you're too slow to have a chance at me. At least as you are. Of course from what I've heard you're the type of person that refuses to stay down and you have a knack for showing up when you're least wanted. Sorry to say this but that would make my job a little more troublesome if I had to deal with you like this everytime I had to get something done."
Ignatius held out his hand towards Sonic and an odd red sigil formed in front of it. Many of the same sigil appeared around Sonic and surrounded him. They all glowed bright and appeared to be charging up with a strong energy.
"I can't kill you," Ignatius admitted, "but there wasn't any kind of hard rule about putting you out of commission for a little while."
Sonic slowly got to his feet and as he moved a sharp pain ran through his ribs. He grit his teeth and held his side. He jumped and attempted to crash through one of the sigils only to be blocked and thrown back at the ground. Despite the failure though he caught himself and rubbed a finger under his nose.
"Pretty neat," Sonic chuckled. "Those things are solid right? That's good to know."
Sonic took off into a dash and began to go all over the dome of sigils that surrounded him. As he gained speed a blue trail followed.
Ignatius' arm began to form a red electricity around it as he watched in confusion. Just what was this hedgehog planning to do? The spell had been cast in such a way that the sigils were both a barrier spell and his current attack charging up. The end result was that it would take longer to charge up, but the barriers should have been able to prevent escape.
Then he remembered something that Arkin had warned him about. Of course he remembered it too late.
The sonic boom blasted through the sigils as if they were little more than cheap glass windows. Right as the sigils were shattered Sonic had used the one he was on and leaped towards Ignatius at full speed. Ignatius had no time to react and was tackled out of the air at such speed that he nearly got whiplash from the impact. Sonic landed and continued the speedy assault, making sure not to let his attacker breath for even a moment.
After the final dash Sonic rolled at full speed and used Blue Tornado around Ignatius throwing the man back into the air. Sonic took advantage of Ignatius' stunned state and shot down at him with a stomp. Ignatius fell flat and Sonic used him as a foothold to leap off and land safely. Upon Ignatius hitting the ground the Emerald had fallen from the spot he had been hovering only seconds before. Sonic caught it and brushed it off as if it had dirt on it.
Sonic let out a relieved breath and stepped towards Ignatius carefully.
"Okay," Sonic said, "one more time. Where did you take Eggman, and what do you have planned for the Emeralds?"
Ignatius grunted and placed his hand over his eyes as the spinning of the world just didn't seem to stop.
"Sorry," he answered cooly, "like I said it's a long story. Geez, completely forgot about that nifty trick you've got."
"You've been saying things like that this whole time pal. Who are you?"
Ignatius smirked and said, "Even if I told you that you wouldn't understand and I don't exactly have time to lay here and tell you."
He peeked between his fingers and used his other hand to snap. Sonic was caught in the ring again.
"Darn!" Sonic exclaimed.
Ignatius stood up slowly and held a hand to his head. He held his hand out and the Emerald slowly hovered over.
"This has been fun," he said with a wince. "Though unfortunately I don't exactly have any more time to waste here. Unfortunately you still being conscious sort of puts a damper on my own plans, but I guess with your reputation it couldn't be helped."
"Wait!"
Ignatius gave a friendly smile and a two finger salute.
"It's been fun," he said, "I mean it. It's time to go though. I'm sure we'll be seeing each other soon though."
Ignatius disappeared in a dark cloud and once the cloud vanished Sonic was released from the odd binding ring. He frowned and looked on, a hand at his aching side. Whatever was happening, and whoever Ignatius was, definitely wasn't anything good.
He smirked and sped off. Things were about to get interesting again.