Chapter 7: Heavy Metal
Metal Sonic's and Metal Shadow's eyes lit up as they dashed towards their respective targets. Before the robots could reach them, Nikki and Nights split off in two opposite directions down the street at sonic speed, allowing for the robots to give chase.
Little did the two robots or Eggman know, before Nikki and Nights went to face them off, they had both briefly discussed a battle plan that would at least make their fights easier.
'Crap,' Nikki had said. 'Only 5% damage. How do we even fight those things?'
Nights observed the situation that had unfolded in front of them. Trying to calm herself down as quickly as possible, she offered her two cents over what little she had observed. 'We need to split them up. It's obvious that they were built to fight as a team, likely to imitate how we've fought together recently. If we can split them up, we reduce the immediate threat and thus have a better chance at fighting them.'
Nikki took in all this information and nodded in agreement. Though no previous Metal Sonic was really a pushover, she still agreed that it would probably be best to fight it alone. Nights was just as capable of protecting herself and if these things were built to imitate their strongest skills, then there was still a chance of coming out on top. Besides, they couldn't just leave Amy and Nebula there. Things would only get worse if they didn't act any sooner. With that in mind, they both walked off to face Eggman. Nikki heard Eggman say something about how perfect his robots were and she quickly came up with a retort that would catch his attention. 'I wouldn't go so far as to call those robot knockoffs perfection egghead.'
Now here they were, being chased by metal coated versions of themselves.
'Stupid robots,' Nights thought as her opponent gave a steady chase. She then made a sudden turn around one of the numerous corners ahead of her, but as she did this, she heard a loud bang and felt something graze the back of her leg. She could now feel blood begin to drip from where the bullet had grazed as she rounded the corner.
"Damn!" she cursed to herself. From behind her, Metal Shadow was still shooting from an opening on the upper part of his wrist on his right hand.
Now that they were on a straightaway, Nights could make a better attempt to more easily dodge the bullets. She rotated on her rocket skating heels and looked behind her to see what angles Metal Shadow was shooting at. Each time another bang was heard, Nights ducked below, flipped over, and slid away from oncoming bullets, all while instinctively jumping over any cars that were in her way as she skated backwards. There were many instances where a bullet would still graze her as she dodged, leaving small traces of blood around her cheeks, legs, and arms. 'Good aim,' she thought as a compliment to her robotic counterpart.
The next thing she knew, there was yet another bullet that seemed to be aimed at ramming into her knee cap. As if seeing the whole scene in slow motion, Nights jumped up and used her momentum from skating backwards to do a backflip over the bullet. While the bullet had completely missed, she began to quickly pull out her chaos emerald from her purse mid-flip and landed on a car that she was about to skate backwards into.
She landed on the car and pulled her hand outward as she held a glowing chaos emerald. "Now let's see who has the better fire power!" She yelled as she let out a chaos spear from the emerald towards Metal Shadow. Thanks to her conservation of the chaos energy, the explosion that appeared before her was fairly large and sent out a blinding amount of dust and rubble as she hit her target.
The dust soon cleared, but even though her aim was dead center, Nights still felt an oncoming sense of danger. This didn't feel right. Metal Shadow was boosting full speed toward her chaos spear. There was no way he could have dodged it quick enough without adjusting his speed or having Metal Sonic's superior speed maneuverability. Yet as the dust cleared, there was no sign of Metal Shadow anywhere; not even any scraps of metal that indicated damage.
She looked all around herself and quickly noticed that there was large shadow looming over her. Not even having to look up, she jumped off of the car at a safe distance right before Metal Shadow crashed onto it. The car was nothing more than a metal heap after Metal Shadow had crashed onto it, window glass and car parts flying all over the place.
'How the hell did he so that?' Nights thought to herself. 'There's no way he could have jumped that high without me noticing it. Last I checked, Eggman didn't have any chaos emeralds, so it couldn't be chaos control could it?'
Little did Nights know was that Metal Shadow didn't really need to be in direct contact with an emerald in order to use chaos powers. Chaos emeralds normally gave off some sort of residual energy that radiated into the surrounding area. Though this residual energy is relatively weak compared to the full scale power of an actual chaos emerald, Metal Shadow had the ability to absorb and store residual chaos energy in order to build up for his own chaos attacks. This meant that all he had to do was stay close to Nights while she held on to the chaos emerald and he could replicate her chaos attacks if it was necessary.
"Damn! Damn it all to hell!" Nights swore as she realized just what kind of level of enemy she was up against.
(Meanwhile)
After having split up, Nikki was experiencing one of the most intense chases of her life. She had to outrun tons of robots before this, but not only was Metal Sonic keeping up with her, he was catching up as well. Nikki continued to pick up her pace, which was rather difficult because her stylish boots and robust figure added some complications to her running.
'Crap!' She thought. 'Things only seem to keep getting worse.'
With Metal Sonic still hot on her tail, she ran up a building while Metal Sonic hovered up after her. Seeing that he had chased her up the building, Nikki jumped from the wall she was running on and went straight for the building that was across from them. Metal Sonic mimicked her actions and jumped in her direction, which was what Nikki was counting on.
She had reached the opposite skyscraper while Metal Sonic was less than halfway between the two buildings. She then used the new wall as a springboard and jumped back towards Metal Sonic's direction while she curled into a ball. They were both halfway between the distance of the skyscrapers as Nikki collided into Metal Sonic's chest using her signature homing attack. The homing attack had enough force to knock Metal Sonic back in the direction of the original building, but, in true knock-off fashion, he simply copied Nikki's attack.
He had reached the original skyscraper, used it as a springboard, jumped back into Nikki's direction, and homing attacked her with much greater force than Nikki had. The force was enough to send her flying back into the opposite direction and crash through the large windows.
Nikki tumbled through the floor of the building before finally looking back up. There she found Metal Sonic standing at the large hole in the window, casting his shadow over her as as sunlight illuminated the dark, empty room.
It was at around this time that Nikki recalled an old quote that seemed to apply to her everyday life. 'Anything you can do, I can do better.' Nikki smirked to herself as she thought back to Shadow and stared straight at Metal Sonic.
"You fakers always give me some kind of reason to step up my game," she said out loud. "But I guess I can't complain. After all, I do like a good reason to put up a fight." She then lunged at Metal Sonic, reeling back her slender legs to give a powerful kick.
(Meanwhile)
Metal Shadow was still on top of the crushed car, shooting bullets at Nights through his fingers using automatic fire. Since he was still stationary on top of the car, it was easier for Nights to dodge his long trail of lethal shots, but there was still no opening for her to lash out her own attacks.
'I guess now is the best time to use chaos control. The emerald should be more than charged enough for this fight,' she thought as she went over her last resort strategy.
She held the now glowing emerald in her hand as she jumped and spun around in the air, all the while dodging bullets. With her back turned to the robot, she figured that Metal Shadow would be unable to see the emerald's faint glow as she charged for her maneuver. She used chaos control to teleport right behind Metal Shadow as he still shot in the direction that she previously was at. With her back still turned to the robot, she spun back around and turned on her metal rocket heels to deliver a rocket powered kick straight to the robot's head.
Before her heel could connect to metal however, Metal Shadow teleported in a yellow glow right before her eyes. She then noticed that there seemed to be another yellow glow that flashed behind her. There was no time to react as a metal fist struck her hard against her back and sent her flying across the road. Nights tumbled across the concrete with troubling speed, finally landing on her front at least ten feet away from Metal Shadow.
She picked up her body with her arms outstretched, slowly moved her face and eyes towards her opponent, and coughed up a loud swear. "Damn it!" She swore and pounded her fist against the concrete ground in unfathomable rage. "So that thing CAN use chaos control, but he could only possibly do it because of all the residual chaos energy I must be giving off. It's just like Eggman to leach his machines off of the power of a superior being!" She was now ranting her thoughts out in front of Metal Shadow, finding it pointless to conceal her thought process from a robot that would simply just copy whatever she was doing.
"I don't care what piece of crap technology Eggman could have slapped together to make you. If it all comes down to a simple test of determination, then I'll try my damned hardest to make sure that you end up as the pile of trash that you are. Maybe then he'll learn not even try to outclass the ultimate lifeform!" With that, she rocketed herself towards her metal counterpart as he barraged her with a new string of bullets.
(Back with Nikki)
Nikki and Metal Sonic were now dodging and throwing kicks and punches in an attempt to hopefully land a hard attack on the other. Even before her transformation into a girl, Nikki had been speeding and breaking through metal her whole life. Since she could run at sonic speeds, it was also fair to say that her kicks in particular could be very devastating.
With that being said, this new Metal Sonic made for a very unforgiving sparring opponent. Though she can boost though most kinds of metal, the exterior of this robot was incredibly tough, even be the standards of some of Eggman's greatest robot. This also meant that his kicks and punches could be incredibly hard to recover from. It didn't help that his speed was equally as impressive as Nikki's. While he didn't quite outclass her in this aspect, he was constantly keeping her on her toes. This could be problematic since it doesn't seem likely that this robot could tire out.
Nikki continued to dodge her opponent's attacks as a steady stream of sweat formed on her forehead. Now that she thought about it, she had never been on the defensive for this long before. No matter what opponent she had faced, she would always bounce back to the offensive thanks to her speed, but this robot was simply unrelenting. If she slowed down for even a second she was done for.
Realizing these circumstances, Nikki somersaulted below one of Metal Sonic's higher punches and did a low sweep kick at him. Metal Sonic jumped backwards to dodge this kick which gave Nikki the distance she needed to perform a new plan of attack. She ran out of the room they were in and crashed through one of the buildings large windows. Running at just the right amount of speed, she was able to land on the roof of one of the smaller buildings.
Metal Sonic followed suit with a speed intent on catching her. However, as the two jumped from building to building, Nikki found that she could keep the lead so long as she was in the air. Seeing that Metal Sonic was still behind her, preferring to hover rather than jump from building to building, she began to jump to buildings closer to her side, zigzagging from building to building.
Confusing him for a bit, Nikki finally jumped from a building directly in front of Metal Sonic and directed yet another homing attack at him. Metal Sonic was prepared enough to cross his arms out in front of him to defend himself at the last second. Though Nikki harmlessly bounced off of his well armored arms, she had unexpectedly grabbed his head as she bounced upwards. Using her momentum to her advantage, Nikki swung her back and arms, causing the two to spin as they fell down. With their constant spinning, all Metal Sonic could properly process were images of the buildings, sky, and the concrete that they were falling towards.
Nikki, being more used to spinning at high speeds, timed herself as accurately as possible each time she saw the ground get closer. By the time that they were approximately 100 feet above the ground, Nikki threw Metal Sonic directly below her, sending him crashing to the ground in a huge crater.
Nikki then curled back into a ball a zoomed down straight for Metal Sonic. She landed in the crater in a huge cloud of dust, but Metal Sonic was able to dash out of there at the last second. As the dust cleared, he saw that Nikki was still in her ball form, charging up a spin dash that was aimed directly at him.
Right as Nikki released herself from her spin dash, Metal Sonic had already propelled himself forward in order to overpower her speed.
(Back with Nights)
Nights had sidestepped most of the new bullet barrage, but now she was acting more reckless due to her anger. Many bullets had grazed her right arm as she charged forward. Right as she was about to collide with Metal Shadow, she curled up into a ball and tried to homing attack him in the chest. Metal Shadow simply knocked her homing attack away with one of his massive arms, but as she flew back, she uncurled from her ball form, aimed her chaos emerald right at him, and then launched a regular sized chaos spear at him. Having less than half a second to react, Metal Shadow launched an energy beam from his chest to the chaos spear that was heading for fim. Since the two attacks had collided so close to Metal Shadow, a huge cloud of dust completely enveloped him.
Now that his normal field of vision was out, he turned on his heat vision and searched around for Nights to no avail. This tense moment dragged for what seemed like quite a while before he noticed that there was a very large heat source coming from directly above him. Realizing that this wasn't his opponent, he quickly sidestepped the chaos spear right before it crashed onto the ground.
However, what he didn't notice was that this particular chaos spear was rather weak and the explosion that resulted from it's collision was just barely able to light up the dust cloud, revealing his location. Nights was still in the air when her decoy chaos spear lit up her enemy's location. Seeing where Metal Shadow had sidestepped, she used chaos control to teleport to his location and immediately homing attacked him on his side. This attack was successful as Metal Shadow slid to the side with a slight dent.
Metal Shadow slid back as far as he possibly could in order to gain some distance between him and Nights. As soon as he had gained enough distance, his whole left forearm began to customize itself to look like a large gun barrel. He then aimed his gun barrel arm at Nights and fired what seemed to be a rather large explosive grenade.
It was then that Nights pulled out a trusty semi-automatic pistol from her purse. Though a gun like this was capable of scaring off most weaker mobians and could even be properly used in a lower level fight, this gun would be practically useless against a robot whose armor was as thick as Metal Shadow's. However, if there was anything Nights was good at, it was finding a good use for her wonderful weapons.
Nights aimed her pistol at the oncoming, airborne grenade and shot it with perfect precision, effectively blowing up the grenade in mid-air before it could even reach it's target. The explosion was both blinding and deafening, but that didn't stop either Metal Shadow or Nights from continuing this pattern, Metal Shadow trying to land an explosion next to her while Nights shot at whatever projectiles that were thrown at her.
After about 8 more rounds of this, Nights figured she'd be running low on ammo pretty soon. Considering how big this machine was, it seemed likely that Metal Shadow wouldn't be running out of ammo so soon. Nights racked through her brain for a new strategy and finally came up with a rather dangerous plan. Figuring that she had no better ideas at the moment, she quickly braced herself for what was about to happen next.
When Nights and Metal Shadow had initially started their fight on these streets, many mobians and humans had abandoned their cars or vehicles in order to escape the war zone that the streets had become. This was partially essential for Nights' plan to work.
She continued to fire her pistol at the robot, who continued to back into the surrounding vehicles each time Nights shot or moved forward. Once she figured that he was close enough to the vehicles, she stopped firing for a second to allow Metal Shadow to perform his attack. Wasting no time at all, Metal Shadow immediately launched another grenade into the air.
Nights then unexpectedly jumped into the air and grabbed the grenade while still high up into the air. Metal Shadow tried to take advantage of the situation and pointed one of his fingers at the grenade, thinking to shoot it while Nights still held it. Nights saw this and used her pistol to shoot at his finger, thereby throwing off his aim.
Now that she was in the clear, Nights threw the grenade back at Metal Shadow, who caught it in his right hand with surprising reflexes. She saw this and immediately shot her pistol at Metal Shadow's right hand, setting off the grenade, as well as the many car engines that had surrounded them. In a mere instant Metal Shadow was engulfed in deafeningly powerful explosions from just about every angle.
Nights landed in front of the fiery mess, putting her gun back in her purse and bringing out her chaos emerald. From the fire and flames emerged Metal Shadow, his right arm entirely blown off with the rest of his body showing dents, scars, and wires while his eyes were filled with static.
"Now we're getting somewhere," Nights said as she started glowing red from her anger infused chaos energy. Her fist started to glow brighter while the red glow around the rest of her body began to slowly fade. She was focusing all of her energy into her fist for one final devastating attack, similar to what Nebula did beforehand. Metal Shadow recognized this strategy and tried to build up as much energy in his chest as he possibly could, preparing to collide with another energy beam attack. However, rather than launch another chaos spear like Metal Shadow had predicted, Nights reeled her fist back and boosted towards him at blazing speed.
AN: Here's that huge action scene I promised has to be the longest chapter I've written so far. I wrote it so that certain actions and pieces of dialogue would parallel each other. I hope it wasn't to heavy handed. Stick around for the epic conclusion.
