Knuckles and Julie-Su sped into the Chaos Emerald shrine, nearly sliding on the smooth paved stone as they came to a halt. They hadn't encountered any robots yet, but that didn't mean that there wouldn't be some coming soon. Their eyes darting back and forth as the two echidnas waited and watched for any sign of attack. The silence stretched on, until Knuckles almost wanted to see some robots.
Suddenly, Knuckles unspoken wish was granted. A horde of robots pressed in from all sides. Most of them were simple grunts, although they were all more deadly looking than the egg pawns that Robotnik had been building before. Knuckles noticed most easily that they were a good head taller than he was, their weapons were a part of them and not separate and easily droppable, and they displayed absolutely no emotion. Oh, and there were a lot of them.
Knuckles leaned over to Julie-Su, gave her a quick kiss, and charged the oncoming robots. His first brutal right hook flung one bot backwards, knocking down four of its fellows. And a swing of his left crumpled the torso of another. Knuckles was more than just his fists though. He was the next one in a long line of Guardians of Angel Island and the Master Emerald. He could tap into its power to devastating results.
He charged energy within himself and released it in a frightening burst by slamming his fists into the ground in front of him. The earth cracked under his blow and somewhere between fifteen and twenty robots were destroyed in one fell swoop. Sonic's not the only one who's been practicing.
Julie-Su fired rapidly with twin hand blasters, turning this way and that in order to hit as many robots as she could. Occasionally, one would get too close, and she would be forced to kick it aside, but mostly she shot them before they could get to her. Though they were doing a fairly admirable job of holding their own, Knuckles and Julie-Su both were starting to tire. Between the two of them they had already amassed a fairly healthy supply of bruises and laser burns.
Knuckles launched a Chaos enhanced punch with his right that carried him forward, tearing through three bots and knocking aside five or six more. He continued, using his fists and his feet to tear apart as many foes as he could, silently cursing the Chaotix for taking so damn long.
"Uh oh…" In the heat of battle he hadn't realized that tearing into the robot's ranks had allowed them to surround him. He was about to slam the ground again and send a shockwave in all directions, until a tree collapsed right into the midst of the robot army. At the trunk stood Mighty the Armadillo and the rest of the Chaotix.
"Need some help?" Vector the Crocodile asked slyly. At that Vector, Espio the Chameleon and Charmy Bee all charged at the robots, while Mighty hefted the tree for use as a gargantuan club. Espio turned invisible as he launched an array of shuriken at a contingent of bots, leaping into the air to pounce on another. Vector charged headlong into the fray, bowling over his foes as he went. Charmy used his great airborne speed to trick robots into shooting each other and drawing attention away from his friends.
Knuckles took advantage of the confusion to prep the Chaos Quake (that's what he called it at least) that he had considered using before and shattered a ring of bots around him. Now that the fight was a little more even; things were heating up.
Mighty continued to swing his tree this way and that, bowling robots over with his ferocious strength, and raising it above it his head and crushing groups of them at a time. The robots starting wizening up, however and began to attack the tree itself, slowly breaking it down, until Mighty was left with just a stump, which he raised above his head to crush one more bot. Then he kicked it and bowled over another cluster of them.
Knuckles punched a hole through a bot as he saw another cleaved in two by an invisible blade. Espio continued his impressive assault, skillfully dismembering foes left and right. Mighty crumpled one bot into a super dense ball and used to crush three more with one prodigious throw.
Julie-Su continued picking off targets with her blasters until their power packs ran out. Then she pulled out a weapon that she had recently acquired: a hand-axe that featured an electric current along its blade. This made it sharp enough to cut these bots to shrapnel and, Knuckles had to admit, really cool.
Robotnik had obviously anticipated a high level of resistance, as other types of robots began flooding in. Black flying ones with arm mounted lasers and larger ground based ones (Knuckles spotted one or two E-2000s) came pouring in. They wouldn't be able to last much longer, at least without Knuckles turning on the heat.
He gathered energy, drawing from the Master Emerald itself. He then channeled this energy rapidly out of his body, and small green beams erupted from him flying into the robots in front of him. Twenty, thirty or more had been destroyed. Knuckles turned and repeated the same process, taking out a few dozen more. However, his training had not progressed to the point that he could keep doing this repeatedly. And the robots were still coming.
Suddenly a flash of blue sped past Knuckles' eyes and robots began exploding, crumpling or otherwise failing before him. It was about time.
"Took you long enough, True Blue!" Knuckles yelled to his old friend and rival. "We just about beat Robotnik already, but you can have the scraps."
"Fat chance, Knux!" Sonic jibed back as he destroyed another robot. "You wouldn't even know how to scrap a buzzbomber if it wasn't for me. Isn't that right Mighty?"
"Taught me everything I know!" Mighty joked while literally tearing a robot in two, remembering his and Sonic's time with Ray the Squirrel years ago. "Hey Sonic, how about a fastball?" Sonic ran to the armadillo and jumped in the air.
Mighty caught him and launched at the robots with a loud "Geronimo!!" Sonic flew forward through two bots and deftly homed in one five more before coming to a stop in front of an E-2000. He was just about to attack it when Knuckles tore through its shield, and its body, with one massive blow.
"Wow," Sonic said, genuinely impressed. "That was cool. Real cool!" He gave a thumbs up, and Knuckles smiled.
"We'll trade compliments later," he said. "Right now we've got some bots to crush!" With that he leapt into the air and flew over the field of battle, coming down next to Julie-Su on two such robots with his fists, crushing them.
"Heard anything thing from HQ?" he asked. Julie-Su had cybernetic implants, one of which patched her into the defense force radio. It was a perk of having come from the more technologically oriented sect of Echidna society.
"Yeah," she said, hacking off a bot's head, "they're going to use the Projector and move the city." Knuckles' eyes widened.
"Wait, seriously?" he asked. "After last time?" He was so distracted a bot hit him in the stomach, winding him just a little. Julie-Su repaid the affront by hacking off another head.
"Yep," she replied, "Tails is helping them use it and…." She trailed off for a second, still fighting, but also clearly listening to something else entirely. "They're using it now."
"Um, Red?" Sonic said, appearing at their side. "This, uh, guy who's helping us out mentioned something about using the Master Emerald to shut down the Chaos Drive cores in these robots. He said that you'd know what to do." He gave a quick thumbs up, winked and proceeded to smash more bots. Yeah, Knuckles knew what he was talking about.
"Everybody!" Knuckles said. "I need you to buy me some time! Keep them away from me and the Emerald!" Knuckles climbed atop the altar as his friends gave him the affirmative.
Mighty had taken to brawling with the bots. He was ripping their arms off and clubbing others into spare parts with them and generally just tearing through their ranks.
Espio was deftly eliminating the more troublesome robots such as the airborne ones that had entered partway through the battle. His movements were as nimble as ever, his blade slicing through one bot as a shuriken slit a vital fluid line of another as a foot knocked the head off a third.
Charmy and Vector were working hand in hand. As Vector tore through bot after bot, Charmy would zig and zag around them, confusing their sensors and giving Vector windows of opportunity.
Julie-Su continued to slash and hack her way through waves of robots. As she disabled one with an upward swing she knocked the legs out from under another and hewed a third's head in two.
Sonic, well, he continued to be the fastest thing alive. After spin dashing through a line of four bots he leapt into the air onto a flying one, causing it to fall on another two. He leapt off again and launched a homing attack against two bots before finding himself at the business end of a large, stocky, reddish rust-colored bot with a cannon on its right arm. It reminded him a little of a mix of the large hammer bots that Metal Sonic had employed when he was impersonating Robotnik, only a lot better at what it was meant to do, and a toned down version of the bot that he and Tails had destroyed just a little while ago.
"No plane to crash now rodent!" the bot said with Robtonik's voice. Sonic figured that it was probably another fake, but he was still excited for this fight.
Amid the fighting, the chaos and disorder, Knuckles began to recite an ancient invocation of the power that resides within the Master Emerald. "The Servers are the Seven Chaos…." He needed to concentrate hard to pull this off, or they would be overwhelmed soon.
Sonic dodged a blast from the cannon by juking to the right and nearly got in a solid attack but was rebuffed by an energy shield similar to the one from before. Sonic leapt into the air as another energy blast hit the ground where had stood just a few milliseconds before. He came down on the bot's head with a kick, causing it to stagger a bit. Sonic pressed his advantage and hit it once more with a homing attack. This time, when the bot tried to fire at him, Sonic hit the cannon, damaging it, causing a misfire.
The robot's entire right arm exploded, taking a chunk of its body as well. Sonic was about to press the attack when an indescribable noise erupted from the direction of Echidnapolis and the city disappeared. The ships continued to fire for a split second before they realized that their target was gone. Just then, Knuckles finished his task.
With a cry a wave of green energy erupted outward from the Master Emerald and past the hordes of robots. It then collapsed upon itself back into the giant stone, and the robots were still.