I'm still alive! I am so so sorry this is late everybody. First, finals got in the way, then my laptop broke (and it's still broken) and I put a lot of focus in the last month to work on a personal project so I've just been super busy and I am so sorry. This story is still going strong and I wanna see it to the end. It's not an excuse and I'm sorry, but yeah. That's why I was away. Hopefully now, we'll return to our regularly scheduled monthly updates.

Now let's answer some questions.

SpiderDom321: Thank you as always, my man. The decision to include Studiopolis was fun and I figured it would give more of a connection between Mania and Forces so I went for it. Plus, had to have a little Hard Boiled Action in Studiopolis. And there are other reasons that Studiopolis is here that you'll see soon.

Alexandria Prime: Yep! Went for TV because I figured in a world dominated by Eggman he would exploit the heck out of the airwaves and with that, I needed a way to broadcast that Eggman was back and got the idea of Studiopolis. There's more to this inclusion though.

CryInDollHouse: Haha, thank you. As for our boy Shads? Gonna have to wait a while for that. But needless to say, I have a plan.

Infinite's Ruby, bajy and stardust1470: Thanks so much for the continued support.

At any rate, we finally got to the chapter that convinced me to actually start writing this story. I love what goes on in this one and I really hope you guys do too.

Sonic Forces
Chapter 8:
Reviving Hope Part 2- A Hero's Return

Sunset Heights was as it always was, an absolutely breathtaking city bathed in the sunset. Unfortunately, the view was largely ignorable due to the robots of all kinds of shapes and sizes parading the streets. But the greatest threats had to be the Death Egg Robots, towering high above even the tallest of buildings. People kept indoors as they hoped that the buildings they were in were neither stomped on or fired at by the deadly lasers.

Silver, Vector and Espio were crouched on the roof of one of these buildings, with Espio having to keep a hand on both of his friends in order to keep them camouflaged.

The resistance had already hacked the cameras in Sunset long ago. They were just waiting for the right time to strike.

Soon, a Death Egg Robot marched in their direction and knew what to do. Espio stopped cloaking them.

The Death Egg Robot was immediately alarmed at the sight of three well known resistance members in its sights.

Anybody wielding a wispon was a low priority threat. C-Ranked. They were still careful to take care of them, but definitely not worth the time unless they had caused destruction to Eggman Empire robots. But if you were one of Sonic's friends? That was an S-Rank threat whether it were Sonic himself or Cream the Rabbit, they all had a huge bounty on their heads.

So it was no wonder that the Death Egg Robot began charging its laser at the mere sight of the three of them.

"Let's go!" Silver shouted as he thrust his hand out to deliver a psychic knife towards the Death Egg Robot. It managed to shatter the glass but no much otherwise.

"Vector, now!" Espio called out.

He nodded.

Espio jumped up into the air and landed on top of the Crocodile's open Palm, he then threw him up into the air.

With that done, Vector quickly dove off of that building and tucked and rolled on another. It hurt and he got a few scrapes, but otherwise he was okay. Nothing that couldn't be cleaned up from a quick visit to Cream and Vanilla.

Espio was in the sky with his hands up to his shoulders before he lashed out, firing a barrage of kunai down on the Death Egg Robot which caused some of the exposed wires to crackle and spark.

Silver raced up to where Espio was and surrounded him in his energy, giving the Chameleon a Psychic push that plunged him into the Death Egg Robot.

Like a hot knife through melted butter, he sliced clean though and landed on the ground in a crouch as the thing began to malfunction.

People who were in houses already started looking and cheered at the falling Death Egg Robot only to cry out in fear when the robot started falling towards the buildings.

"NO!" Espio shouted.

But Silver was on the case, grabbing the behemoth with in his psychic grip causing it to glow with his aura and stay in place. He struggled and things only got worse when a swarm of Buzzer Bombers came towards him.

Espio didn't waste a single second and fired off more of his projectile weapons making sure to destroy as many as he could but a few got through.

Just as they were about to fire on him, Vector jumped out and fired a bunch of music notes at the remaining ones and landed safely next to Espio.

"EVERYBODY CLEAR!" Silver shouted.

Vector and the others nodded and quickly ran to another street.

Silver released the Death Egg Robot and threw up psychic barriers on the buildings that kept them safe from harm and left the robot to crumble in the streets.

People cheered for them while he flew to rendezvous with the others.

"SILVER! SILVER! ESPIO! ESPIO! SILVER! ESPIO!"

Silver grinned at them while Espio gave them curt waves.

"HEY WHAT ABOUT ME?!" Vector shouted.

There was silence.

A cough.

Awkwardly someone offered, "Thanks… crocodile… guy."

Vector groaned to which Espio put a hand on his shoulder for support.

Silver took initiative though. "We're doing great. But we need to make more trouble to get the attention of Eggman's forces."

"First let us focus on some of the troops on the ground." Espio said "Once we have this sector is secure, we can go after more of the Death Egg Robots."

"Sounds like a plan." Vector nodded.

They turned down the street to see some Eggpongs and Motobugs approaching.

"FOR SUNSET!" Silver shouted as he burst down the streets.

~Sonic Forces~

Knuckles the Echidna had faced a lot of things in his life. He was the emerald guardian and the brave leader of the resistance. He could take on anything the world threw at him and beat it down with his faithful namesakes. But there was one thing that even the strongest of Echidna couldn't face alone and that was a six year old with a makeup brush.

Cream grinned as she continued to apply more makeup to Knuckles' face.

"Oh just wait, Mr. Knuckles! You'll pop right on the screen when we're done with you!"

"Is this absolutely necessary?!" He asked.

"Yes!" Cream chirped as she continued to brush away.

From the side, Amy was applying her own makeup, much less than Cream was to Knuckles.

Other members of the resistance were around and snickered at the sight of Knuckles with so much of the stuff on him. His face was kind of a mess.

To that, he shot them a death glare to which they instantly scurried off.

Knuckles then looked to the smiling 6 year old and sighed. She was having fun at least. Amy looked over at them and finally took control of the situation.

"Cream, you've done a great job." She smiled. "But that's a little too much. We just want Knuckles to pop on the screen is all."

She took a cloth to his face and wiped out most of the stuff. She regretted not taking a picture of him. But at least she'd always have the memory.

She picked up one of the brushes and applied a bit of blush to his face. "Like this, Cream? Very little."

Cream nodded and followed her lead being able to get a bit of it onto Knuckles so that he didn't look like a clown.

But at that moment, a purple gopher ran into the room. He huffed and panted, out of breath but looked up at them. "They did it! They did it! We have a connection to Eggman's airwaves! We go live in one minute!"

Knuckles and Amy looked at each other in disbelief for a moment and raced out of the room, Knuckles with half his makeup done which he quickly rubbed off of his face so that he was clean again by the time he got to the little studio they set up within the base.

It was a simple room with a green screen hanging against the wall and a bunch of TV equipment off of the side. A small team were sitting around the equipment, humans and mobians alike. One of them was working the soundboard, a few were on the computers, some were holding up mics and lights and stuff.

Amy and Knuckles saw all of them and couldn't help but think of Tails who should've been among them, directing everyone and making sure that everything was perfect in only the way he knew how. Of course, he wasn't here and they couldn't look sad on the air, they had a job to do.

One of them, a short green mouse named Sqeauk, held up a hand to them as they were wrapping up. Knuckles and Amy quickly got into position.

"In 5… 4… 3… 2..."

And they were live.

~Sonic Forces~

The thriving city of Metropolis was a beautiful place. It was the future of the world with great sprawling buildings of a mostly light blue color. There were walkways suspended in the air where floating vehicles rushed on top of them. But Eggman also left his mark on the city with all sorts of buildings and things in his likeness. The Eggman Empire logo was also everywhere, being strewn across banners and shown on screens.

People milled about living a life of leisure in Metropolis, despite the world being occupied by Eggman. But when you were in the comfiest place in the empire, that was to be expected.

Gigantic screens were all over. Some were advertising products, some were showing the news, others Sonic's defeat, and some those strange ads depicting Eggman eating cereal again.

Deep within one of the tallest buildings in Metropolis stood a red jaguar in a nice dress shirt, shoes and a snazzy looking tuxedo jacket. But no pants. He hated those. But he smiled to himself as he took in the massive city from his luxorious office.

For a strapping business tycoon like Pounce the Jaguar, he didn't mind life in Metropolis at all. He'd grown up in the city and was heir to a business that lead him to extraordinary wealth. When Eggman had invaded nothing much had changed other than having to give Eggman a share of the business and having his logo on a few of their products. His life was fine and that was good enough for him.

He turned back to his desk and looked to one of the television sets showing the stocks. Things were looking up for his business and that was good.

But that's when things changed. Everything went out to static to which the jaguar's eyes widened in surprise.

"Hey, what's the big idea?" He asked.

He pulled out the remote and clicked a few buttons only for the static to still be there. Frustrated, he reached for a button on his desk, about to page in his assistant, a human named Rose.

But then… the static stopped and sad violin music started playing. [1] Taking its place was a red star with a smaller red star next to it.

Pounce's eyes widened in fear as he knew exactly who it was. Those terrorists that Eggman kept going on and on about, the resistance.

And it wasn't just in his office. It was all over the city and all over the world.

People were walking only to stop at the sight of that familiar star logo on their screens up in the cities, their television sets, on their phones, tablets and more.

The violin gave one final flourish and with that, Knuckles and Amy faded onto the screen.

"Our world…" Knuckles started. He paused for dramatic effect. "Has been conquered, destroyed and left to ruin by Doctor Eggman."

With that, images of the world were shown behind them, they showed the deserted wasteland that was green hill, the fires of the mystic jungle, the shattered and broken homes of station square and finally ended on the Death Egg Robots in Sunset Heights.

Amy then spoke up. "We've faced many great losses over the past few months."

"Old foes rose up." Knuckles stated as footage of Metal Sonic, Chaos and Zavok appeared.

"We've had traitors…" Shadow using chaos blast on the former resistance base was shown.

Together, Amy and Knuckles looked at each other and added, "We've lost hope." The footage of Sonic's defeat in Sunset was shown.

They allowed that to sink in for a bit before they smiled. "But we haven't lost."

Amy continued. "The resistance was formed to not only protect the world from the Eggman Empire, but to give a helping hand to all those in the world that need it."

"And we've won some battles." Knuckles smiled. At that, some of the better areas were shown. Spagonia for the most part was okay, although the clock tower and Spagonia University had seen better days, Seaside Hill was looking postcard material as always and a city in Soumerica looked happy and thriving.

"But we can't do it alone…" Amy admitted.

"Eggman's Forces greatly outnumber us."

"We need people like you out there to join the resistance and help save this world."

"But that doesn't mean that we are completely outclassed." Knuckles smirked.

The footage then changed to show Vector, Espio and Silver fighting in Sunset Heights.

"The footage you see before you is live." Amy explained, being sure to put extra emphasis on the live. "And it shows the real power that we have as the resistance."

"And with all that power, we have something even greater. Something that this world has been missing for so long."

"We return to you our shining light of hope."

~Sonic Forces~

Sonic the Hedgehog hated waiting. Especially when his friends were roughing it up with Eggman's robots without him.

He could see Silver, Espio and Vector make their three man charge on the screen while Amy and Knuckles were talking. It was pretty deep stuff and he didn't really know either of them had it in them.

With that, Amy said that "We return to you our shining light of hope."

They paused and moved aside to give full view of the action on the screen.

"Well, looks like that's my cue." Sonic grinned.

He looked over at Charmy and said, "Hey, make sure to get my good side."

Charmy chuckled and lifted up the camera and with that, Sonic stepped onto the streets of Sunset Heights.

Immediately, he took notice of the massive balls of fire falling from the sky. One crashed into a building next to him making him slightly jump. But otherwise he was fine. Everything was a wreck. Buildings were in ruins, litter was strewn around the ground, hydrants were busted and spewing water all over the place and even some of the gigantic arches of the Red Gate Bridge were broken. If it weren't for the gigantic robots charging around all over the place, he'd wonder how in the heck, Eggman's forces managed that.

His quick survey of the town saddened him. The last time he was in Sunset, it was still standing somewhat tall and didn't have Death Egg Robots storming around all over the town. But thanks to his loss it was all now in ruins.

But that's what he was here for today, to bring back hope and save the town.

And that's what gave him the confidence to get into starting position, this needed to be big.

"And we're live, Sonic!" Charmy announced.

With that, Sonic said nothing and was quick to start off through the war torn streets of Sunset, with the bee was quick to start after him.

Sirens blared all over the town at that moment, he wasn't sure if that was because of Silver and co. or if Eggman had already caught onto his presence in the city. But whatever it was, he just continued down the bricked roads, ready for a fight if the city was on high alert.

With that, he started boosting down the street as the road turned to another section of town where he could see more of the broken Red Gate Bridge overhead. It was even worse than before with crooked, twisted pieces of metal made out of what used to be a prized landmark of the town bathed in twilight. But now it was nothing more than a dilapidated ruin.

He felt another pang at his heart at that but had to focus. He found it strange that there were no enemies yet.

But he boosted up and down a hill only to go under an archway and make a turn into a stretch of road that gave him a good view of more of the waterfront. There, he could spot not just one, but two Death Egg Robots storming about and terrorizing the southern edge of the city, some of the random miniature islands reminiscent of Green Hill and the Red Gate Bridge. And more of those cannons coming down on random parts of the city, it was like a meteor shower.

Sonic didn't like the looks of that, but had his own problems since the turn ran him straight into a pack of Eggpongs.

He grinned, finally something interesting!

He stopped boosting and jumped into the air, just barely avoiding the shots that hit the ground where he stood.

He homed in on the head of the group and was quick to take on two others that were flanking it; making sure to pull off some ridiculous trick between each bot.

A row of four more were next and he homed into the last before stomping on the ground and boosting into the final trio, blowing them into walls and turning them to scrap metal.

With a cheer he boosted down the street and past a barricade where he made his way onto a stairwell and up into a neighborhood.

Things were in just as much in disarray as they were in other places, but at that point, people had started coming out of their houses to see what was causing all the commotion.

Imagine their surprise when they a familiar rush of blue passed by them as it homed into more of the robots while whooping, cheering and all at supersonic speeds. But the only person that could've done that was dead unless…

"HE'S ALIVE!" One of the mobians pointed at him. "IT'S SONIC! SONIC THE HEDGEHOG! HE'S ALIVE!

More and more people came to the realization that he was there and Sonic decided to slow down a bit so they could see his face. They cheered as he grinned at them and gave them a peace sign before boosting off towards more trouble.

He homed into more robots and boosted up an incline only to find himself propelled up into the open air.

For a few short moments, he closed his eyes and allowed himself to feel the wind running through his quills. The rush, the adrenaline and all just coming back to him and it felt incredible. In that moment, he truly realized that he was free and that he was back in the world he loved.

But the world he loved needed saving, so he opened his eyes only to come face to face with one of the massive robots. It began to charge up its laser to which the hedgehog gulped knowing that he was going to fly directly into the line of fire.

Of course, at that moment, Silver raced up so that he was floating both above Sonic and the Robot. He then thrust his hand out so that Sonic was covered in his energy and brought him close by.

"Thanks for the save, Silver!" Sonic grinned at him.

"Sure thing, Sonic!" Silver smirked. He then gestured to the robot. "Wanna take this tincan down?"

"Do you even have to ask?"

Silver grinned and thrust both hands into the air to which more energy gathered around them both. He thrust his hand out towards the robot and like a bullet, Sonic homed into the thing, blasting right through the eye.

Explosions rang out through the robot's very core as Sonic went through.

The gargantuan robot collapsed into a pile of scrap; while Sonic made his way onto the other side of the chasm.

He ended up homing into this purple, ostrich shaped robot. It fell apart as Sonic came out on the other side. He fumbled down the street for a moment to which he frowned. Before, he would've landed that okay. But since he hadn't had a good run in months…

That's when he took notice of the camera again that he forgot was there. In the tiny reflection of the lense he saw that he had his brow furrowed and was looking a tad confused. Not what the people would want to see.

He threw on another smile and continued powering down the street. More of those ostrich robots were there as well. But unlike most of Eggman's robots they ran away from him.

That won't do at all. Sonic thought as the blue aura surrounded him again.

With a boost, he slammed into one robot after the other with ease before he reached the end of the slope and dashed right off the end of the broken road.

Sonic went back into ball form and homed in on the ground below.

Making sure to put a little flair int it, he did a little breakdance to get himself onto his feet to which he found himself in the town square. Only problem was, that he was surrounded by a whole pack of Eggpongs.

But he wasn't defenseless.

They fired on him all at once and jumped up into the air, blue streak trailing in his wake. He made a face and pointed at the Eggpong in front of him before going back into ball form and homing in on him.

The robot broke apart in a heap of scrap and Sonic grinned. Calling upon the boost, mowed into a trio of the bots across from him.

One of the Eggpongs were close to him and attempted to take a swing at Sonic to which he dropped to the floor and swept the bots feet right out from under it. With that, he ducked into a spindash that he quickly found his footing in to dash it out with a boost, which took out another few of them.

Only three remained on opposite ends of the town square. Once again, they fired on him, but Sonic was far too quick. He jumped into the air and did a chained homing attack on the first. Quick on his heel, he turned around and boosted into the second and turned around again and approached the third. This one tried to fire onto him and he jumped into the air and homed into the thing. Breaking it to bits.

Some of the people in the town square started cheering at the sight that their hero was back to which he smiled and waved at them.

STHEW!

Sonic's head immediately snapped in the direction of the sound and immediately his face fell at what he saw. Twin red hot beams of light shot out at a balcony a trio of pedestrians were cheering under.

They cried out in fear at the sight only to be lifted off their feet and brought to safety at what felt like the same time to them. By the time they realized what had happened, Sonic had already homed into the silver Egg Pong and was making a mad dash into the next part of the city.

Sonic was now in an entirely different neighbourhood which he quickly dashed through. He took out most of the robots in his path before he finally made his way onto the rooftops. From there, he found one of the bent and broken pieces of the red gate bridge that he was able to use as a makeshift grind rail and make his way to the next part of the city.

When he made it down to the ground, he was finally making his way towards the sea and to the Red Gate Bridge.

With all the people whooping and cheering all around him, just so elated in the fact that there hero had returned, the hedgehog couldn't help but beam as he continued his trek out of the city. Things were going great.

~Sonic Forces~

"Things are going great!" One of the members of the resistance confirmed to Amy and Knuckles.

They had stopped speaking and had taken to watching most of the footage of the city. Charmy surprisingly seemed to be doing a good job at keeping track of Sonic despite everything. From there, they were able to catch it all in detail.

Most of the resistance that hadn't gone out to battle in Sunset had taken to watch things on the big screen in the main mission room; while those directly involved were huddled around the small screens being used by the team in the operating room.

Most of them were in dead silence watching Sonic, but Knuckles would either whoop and cheer along with the city folk or make note of Sonic's arrogance, sloppiness or both in some cases.

Amy on the other hand couldn't help but get both excited and scared. Seeing Sonic run again was something that Amy didn't know how much she needed. Just the very sight of his legs blurring on the screen was both enough to reassure her and bring a slight flutter to her heart all at once. But then there were the times he would slip up and get into trouble and that sent her right into panic again. Sure, she knew Sonic was one to get into the thick of it, but to see him in the middle of a warzone so soon and after the last time he was in one all those months ago worried her. She continued to watch far more worried than those around her.

But the one that had started earlier continued. "This is going great. Sonic's return has caused riots to start out all over the world! People are resisting the empire!"

The people in the room couldn't help but cheer, even Amy's spirits were lifted.

"Alright!" Knuckles pumped his fist. "This is working even better than I'd hoped."

"United Federations, Efrika, Soumerica, South Island, you name it. All of them are beginning to resist the empire just from seeing Sonic on TV!"

More cheers.

"If we keep this up, we could have an even greater uprising on our hands than we anticipated. I don't think anything could mess this up!"

Oh Knuckles…

~Sonic Forces~

The Eggmobile sputtered and clanked as it clumsily made its way into the pyramid base. Its lone occupant stumbled out of it, his body covered in soot after one could assume a defeated battle.

"Well that was a disaster!" Eggman groaned. "Not only do I have to deal with that troublesome resistance freeing that blue buffoon! But seems that even littler blue buffoon is going to make things even more complicated! I don't suppose this could get any worse!"

At that moment, doors slid open and in ran in Eggman's two panicked henchman, Orbot and Cubot.

"BOSS! BOSS!" They shouted.

"Wonderful…" Eggman sighed to himself before he addressed the two robots. "What do you two want?!"

"Boss!" Cubot cried. "Sonic he- he- he-"

"Out with it you two bit bucket of bolts!"

Orbot flew over and took his place. "Boss! Sonic's back!"

"I know that!" Eggman roared. "The resistance narrowly avoided my clutches just last night! When I get my hands on them, they will be crushed like the pitiful insects they are."

"Well you better do some crushing now, Doc."

Eggman glared at the cube shaped bot. "And why is that?"

Orbot spoke up. "If I wasn't so eloquently interrupted, I would've been able to tell you that the resistance has made Sonic's escape known to the world. They are broadcasting it live in front of the entire world and as such, retaking Sunset Heights as we speak."

"WHAT?! NO!"

"Oh yes."

"HOW WERE THEY ABLE TO SECURE A BROADCAST?! THE ONLY WAY THEY COULD'VE POSSIBLY DONE THAT IS IF STUDIOPOLIS ZONE WERE COMPROMISED!"

And then he thought back. Studiopolis Zone had in fact been compromised. He'd sent Infinite out to take care of it before he had run into his little problem.

"Indeed." Orbot confirmed. "Security footage shows a team of resistance fighters within our broadcasting facility. They made quite the mess of the place."

Orbot pulled out an electronic screen and it did in fact show the mess that was made in Studiopolis Zone.

"Who was on the op?" Eggman asked.

"Six individuals. All Mobians. Fierro the Cat, Gadget the Wolf, Corvin the Bird, Rhythm the Rabbit, Celeste the Dog and Rouge the Bat."

Images of each of them were shown.

"A bunch of rejects!" Eggman shouted. "Rouge though. I should've known if anyone would make their way into the facility, it would be her. This isn't good."

"Indeed. But unfortunately that isn't all."

"Great… what else?"

"Sonic's return has inspired hope within the masses. People have started rioting all over the world. This could effectively loosen our grip on the empire."

Eggman grit his teeth in frustration. This wasn't going well at all. Within twenty-four hours of Sonic's escape, he had an entire mess of problems on his hands. No… no… this wasn't good at all.

But like any good doctor, Eggman had a way to remedy said problems in his empire.

Orbot and Cubot had looked worriedly at their creator only to snap to attention.

"We'll have to organize our forces to show the people that this world is property of the Eggman Empire!" Eggman shouted. "I want my generals sent to some of the world's major cities as soon as possible!"

"Understood boss!" Orbot saluted as the two made their way out of the room.

But Cubot stopped and turned back to him. "But boss. What about Sonic? If he's perspiring people like that on TV then they'll still have their hope."

Eggman smirked. "You don't have to worry about that, my dim-witted friend. I will show the world that their hope is dead!"

"How?!"

Eggman's smirk turned to that of a wide, devilish grin. "DEPLOY METAL SONIC!"

Orbot's visual receptors widened at that, but he nodded. "Right away, sir!"

~Sonic Forces~

The air in Sunset Heights was ecstatic. People had all come outside their homes to see that their hero had in fact returned. Sonic the Hedgehog was back!

Cheers rang out all over the city as the resistance did their job to save it as the empire's numbers declined all over. This was fantastic! Not only was the population of Badniks all over the city going down, but they were doing a number on the Death Egg Robots too.

Sonic couldn't help but break out into his own grin as his feet tiptapped to the rhythm of their cheers. He was out, he was saving the town and soon, it would be the world. The people cheering him on brought such a euphoric feeling for him, nothing could go wrong.

And that moment, cheers turned to shouts and cries for help. Sonic's face fell at that and he wondered what was going on. The panic around him ended up shaking him to his very core as he whipped his head in every direction to see what was causing trouble.

And he found it.

Flying alongside him was Metal Sonic.

Sonic's face fell at the sight of him as he remembered everything.

~Sonic Forces~

Sonic the Hedgehog looked out at the great planet Mobius above. He missed it. The fresh air, the grass, the trees and the entire world to run on. They were far better than this cold cramped space that he had called home for the past few months.

But this was his life now. Eggman had told him long ago that the world was convinced that he was dead so he doubted that anyone would come up to free him at this point.

When he had tried to make his escape, the only thing he got were further restraints with the cuffs glowing around his wrists and ankles.

He was at least grateful that he had the company of the other prisoners, otherwise he thought he might've gone crazy in there.

"Nuts and bolts!" Someone called out.

Soon that echoed around the prison in a sort of odd chant as people repeated it.

Sonic knew exactly what that meant though. Metal was here and the only person that Metal ever visited was Sonic.

The hedgehog sighed as his doppleganger approached the cell.

It always went the same, Metal would just stare at him for some undefinable amount of time. Sometimes it was only a few moments, sometimes he could just sit there for hours upon hours on end. Nothing would change for a moment.

And then, his chest would glow and then… it would start.

Usually, it began with the sounds of destruction and lead into people screaming, yelling and all. Chatter from the resistance would play as they scrambled in attempts to try and stop Metal, but one by one they would all fail and he'd hear absolutely every agonizing minute of it.

And it was because of his failure. Those people were left to fend off Metal, left to fail to do that because he failed. He had to listen to this because he failed.

Sonic wanted nothing more than for it to stop, he wanted to cover his ears and make all of it stop. He wanted to break out of his restraints, cross through the barrier and send Metal back to the scrap heap he crawled out of but there was nothing he could do.

All he could do is listen to the horror of it all until Metal eventually got bored and left him alone to mull over it.

Sometimes he would yell, sometimes he would cry. But in the end, there was nothing he could do about it.

In this particular flashback, he could hear his friends voices, Knuckles and Amy, they had failed to fight Metal but had made a retreat. But they sounded like they were in a lot of pain when they did and there was nothing Sonic could do.

When Metal would finally leave him alone, he would note through all of that, he had never once heard Tails' voice on the recordings. It left him more fearful, as that meant that there was still no sign of him since his capture.

When Metal was finally gone, he was left alone allowing the screams to ring in his ears over and over and over again.

~Sonic Forces~

Sonic was brought out of his stupor and looked around. He was still in Sunset Heights, he was still running and he was still safe. But two things concerned him; The first was his chromium duplicate, flying alongside him and keeping pace with his second was Charmy Bee giving him a very concerned look and still pointing the camera in his face, within the lens, he could see the concern on his face and realized that he had lost his cool for a moment in front of the entire world. Definitely not the best way to show off his return in front of the world.

So with that, he quickly shook himself off and gave a confident grin. He pointed a defiant thumb at himself and boasted, "What? You think you can scare me with the tincan, Eggman?"

Metal's eye shifted towards him at that, to which the hedgehog's grin got wider.

"Be sure to keep up, Charmy. The world is gonna wanna see this!"

And with that, the Hedgehog boosted down the bridge throwing off the bee's flight path a bit to which Metal quickly amped up his thrust to trail after his adversary and further throw the bee off. But he found his wings and quickly followed after them.

The two Sonics were now side by side, running along at a breakneck pace as blue and purple auras surrounded them. The original continued to grin at the duplicate to which it continued to look at him in its icy glare.

Finally getting irritated, it was Metal who made the first move.

He attempted to ram the hedgehog, only for a loud piercing sound to ring out all around them as soon as their energies collided.

Metal didn't exactly like that and continued to try and ram against him, but Sonic wouldn't let his guard down. Metal Sonic continued to try to clash against his boost aura with his own. The two continued to clash and clash as they made their way along the bridge.

With this stalemate in mind, Sonic decided to surprise Metal.

Sonic immediately put on the breaks, allowing Metal to race ahead of him.

When the robot didn't respond in time, and stopped a little ways ahead of Sonic and looked back only to find the hedgehog boost head first in front of him.

Sonic definitely knocked something out of place. The robot's pupils fizzled as his sparkled and crackled in the air. For a split second, his systems were down.

It stopped and he came back online again. He brought a hand to his head as if he had a headache, but very quickly shook it off.

Metal raced off again and this time floated above and ahead of Sonic.

Sonic looked up at him curiously as his core began to pulsate with violent purple energy. He crossed his arms over his chest for a moment as he radiated with power before finally letting loose.

Orbs of the radiant energy appeared all around metal, glowing menacingly before they fired out at the hedgehog.

Sonic yelped and did his best to dodge them. The first beam of death would've hit him straight in the chest had he not stopped on the dime again. It vaporized the ground before him and created yet another crater in the red gate bridge.

He hopped over it as yet another one of the shots fired down at him again and would've hit where he stood again.

Another came to which he swerved to the side.

He hopped up and over the next and very quickly had to sidestep another. Metal wasn't definitely playing around as the beams continued to come from the glowing orbs around him and he charged up another blast.

But soon, the energy faded, and just before he was able to bring out another, Sonic homed in on the metal menace, hitting home and causing the robot to crackle and spark again as the energy crackled through his body.

Metal took a few more seconds to recharge than he did before, but was able to get back to it.

This time, Metal Sonic came swooping down on him, glowing with the same volatile energy to which he jumped up and over him.

Stopping on a dime, he swerved around and immediately called upon the power of the boost, only to see that the robot had done the same.

They clashed in the center and grappled with each other, fighting for dominance. At this rate, it would be whoever got tired first. Of course, unluckily for Metal is that after six months the hedgehog had a ton of energy to use up and wouldn't get tired.

True to his word, Metal Sonic's processor couldn't keep up and broke the boost to which, Sonic was free to ram into the robot headfirst.

Sparkling and cracking, Metal Sonic was able to shake it off again.

Too bad Sonic didn't give him the chance to fight again, he jumped up into the air and homed into him one final time as he began to charge energy up within his core.

The sheer amount of electricity coursing through him was enough to fry his circuits and left him inoperational. He fell to the ground and as the hedgehog dusted himself off and gave a confident smirk, the robot hit the pavement and exploded into a fiery ball of electricity.

"And that's how it's done!" He boasted.

Sonic had won.

Charmy caught up to him and looked at him, his mouth hanging wide open at the sight that Sonic had taken out one of Eggman's Generals.

"I- I- Wow!"

Sonic took a bow to which that brought on cheers all over the city and all over the world. Sonic smiled at the thunderous applause that erupted from the city before him.

With that, he got up and waved for the camera, but couldn't help but notice Charmy putting a finger to one his antennae before he nodded and approached the blue blur with a microphone.

"Sonic! That was incredible! You defeated Metal Sonic and the resistance just liberated Sunset Heights! How did you come back to us?"

Sonic breathed, this was it. He had to have his moment and make sure he could get the message across. He could do this, talking was easy.

"Well after Eggman did what he did all those months ago, he locked me up in space. But I got out thanks to the awesome people at the resistance. Now I can help clean up the mess he made while I was gone."

Sonic continued. "But just because I'm here doesn't mean that Eggman will back down or go easy on us. It's gonna take a lot of hard work and we're definitely gonna need the help. Join the resistance today and help us take back the world!"

With that, the broadcast changed to Silver flying up to the top of the town's city hall. With a quick wave of the hand, a Psychic Knife was produced that promptly chopped off a large flag displaying the Eggman Empire logo.

Espio then appeared with a flag bearing the Resistance star and promptly put it in its place, to which it waved it proudly waved in the wind. It then faded out to the logo with the resistance star saying "Join the Resistance" in metallic text.

Deep down in Studiopolis Zone, a group of fighters that had made this possible were watching with warm hearts. One of them, a young girl named Celeste looked up at the screen with tears in her eyes and said…

"Thank you."

[1] Theme of the Resistance

And we're done. I hope you all enjoyed this chapter. It's been a long time coming and needless to say, the Metal Sonic scene was incredibly satisfying to write, especially to write to his Forces theme. Which is a pretty great remix might I add?
But let's talk about Metal Sonic for a bit. Metal Sonic is out of the count and officially out of this story. I know what you're thinking, why didn't I do that to big Z? Well… I have plans for him. Metal Sonic though, I knew from the beginning, I wanted him to be the first out not because I dislike him or anything. Oh no, I knew Metal Sonic would be the first to go because of this scene. The goal for Eggman here was to fight fire with fire. I mean, as I had stated, Metal Sonic had been a great threat on the world and didn't take prisoners. Metal Sonic is canon fodder in this fic for the resistance to really have our first victory against the Eggman Empire and as such, taking out one of Eggman's generals along with Sunset Heights is huge and will have very big effects on the rest of the story that you'll be seeing as we continue along. But Metal's time had to come early. As for the others, they'll be playing their parts for a bit longer and I can't wait for you guys to see what I've got planned for them.

But that'll do for this chapter. Also, my document for this story officially hit over a hundred pages for this chapter! Woo! Next time we'll be heading to Green Hill that's lookin' a whole lot more like SAND HILL with the Classic trio. We haven't seen them in about five chapters, so that'll be fun. But until then,

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