Chapter 9: A Sonic Adventure (Part Three)

The fragment of Chaos flowed across the floor at unnatural speed, heading in a specific direction as its instincts directed it towards the nearest usable host body.

Dr. Pretorious could barely keep up. You'd expect an animate blob of blue gel to leave a wet track behind, but the water that formed Chaos was so naturally drawn to itself that not even a speck of liquid remained as it in its wake. Pretorious made more than one wrong turn along the way, as he chased after the blob. At least all of Eggman's robots ignored him, as the few ones that hadn't followed the real Sonic were busy rushing after the fake Sonic that Pia had now become.

When Pretorious finally found the last room that the piece of Chaos had entered, he hesitated with his hand inches from the door handle. The sign on the door had an ominous ring to it. It read: "Rejected Omochao model storage area." Pretorious wasn't quite sure why he felt such a foreboding, as the name "Omochao" meant absolutely nothing to him, but he nevertheless positioned himself away from the door and carefully pushed it open with the tip of his cane.

-

Sonic the Hedgehog needed a minute to catch his breath after that last one.

In front of him lay the broken remains of a gigantic mech covered from head to toe with everything and anything that could throw a projectile at lethal speed. The laser cannons in the arms and the mortar blasters in the kneecaps had been a little over the top, really.

"I've gotta hand it to ya, Eggman," said Sonic to the defeated scientist sitting where he'd fallen when his Eggmobile broke apart. "That one wasn't half-bad. Now are you gonna leave the people of this island alone, or do I have to kick your butt a third time today?"

"Grrr! It's not over yet, hedgehog! I still have the three Chaos Emeralds I located on this island stored safely onboard my brand new Egg Carrier. You'll never- what?"

That last false chord was due to the sudden appearance of a very strange intruder. It was a Devil Chao...robot? Supported by its oversized metal wings, the demonic omochao flew towards Sonic, who couldn't help smile at the whimsical sight before him. Sonic had seen more than enough omochaos for any lifetime, and he just wasn't ready to take one seriously today, no matter how devilishly its modifications were.

"Trying to move into the toy industry, Eggman?" said Sonic jokingly.

The joke didn't last, as the Devil Omochao unleased a violent spark from its glowing green eyes, sending Sonic flying across the room and into the wall hard. The grin thoroughly wiped off his face, Sonic got back up and jumped at the robot, intending to smack it down with a homing attack. How those stubby metal hands managed to grab Sonic's foot out of his speed-blurred spin and throw him to the ground was impossible to tell.

Watching it all from the doorway, Dr. Pretorious couldn't help but chuckle. He knew he ought to intervene and prevent this little change from escalating into a full-scale temporal distortion wave, but he just couldn't resist the wonderful show presented before him. As long as the hedgehog survived at the end, there was no reason to prevent him from getting a few bruises, especially if it meant a blow to his irritating ego. Sonic the Hedgehog had quite a few more appointments with a planet in need of salvation before his eventual retirement. If it wasn't for that fact, Pretorious would've been happy to see the hedgehog die. This would do, for now.

"O-Omochao?" said Dr. Eggman, getting to his feet slowly.

The robot tossed Sonic aside and flew over to its original creator obediently. The constant claim to an IQ of 300 was no exagerration. Eggman focused his attention on the spiked ball floating above the robot's head. The blue gelatinous substance was familiar enough. "Well, well, if it isn't my little Chaos," said the doctor. "So the seperation of the tail happened before the creature was fully neutralised by the positive energy of the Emeralds. If not, you would've assumed an Angel Chao form, wouldn't you? In that case, you still remember your loyalty to me, don't you, Chaos? I can give you the Emeralds you so desire. All you have to do is defeat Sonic for me."

Pretorious the eavesdropper was impressed, despite himself. He couldn't have put it better himself. Now if only the hedgehog would live up to his reputation and destroy the robot containing the tail of Chaos, so that Pretorious could collect what he came for and move on. If not for the comedy of Sonic's losing streak, this embarrasing charade would be almost too much to handle. What more could possibly go wrong at this point?

-

"You two really don't need to come along," Silver said, trying once again to reason with Amy.

"Maybe he's right," said Tails, igniting a tiny spark of hope.

"No way! Sonic needs our help! I can feel it," Amy countered, applying a firehose to the metaphorical candle.

Maybe we can find Sonic and Dr. Pretorious before Pia catches on, thought Silver. Maybe I can tie up Pretorious and get away from the others before she even spots me, so she'll never know I wound up interacting with so many people from the past after all. Maybe... Geeze, Blaze is right. I really am naive.

The trio quickly found themselves faced with the first death trap set up for Sonic.

"Whoops, looks like we're not getting through here," said Silver. "Why don't you guys head back and wait for-"

"Hey look, there's some kind of maintenance duct," Tails interrupted, poking his head through the open panel. "We can get in through here."

"Oh. Great. That's...really great."

-

Pia grimaced as she struggled to keep her concentration. She couldn't catch bullets like her father, or fly through the air like a fireball like her mother. Instead, she focused her pyrokinesis through the air between her and the throng of guard robots, causing the bullets fired to explode into fragments before they could reach her. If her Jumpsuit had been built to stop plain old metal bullets, it would've been too heavy to wear while still moving at a comfortable speed. The circuitry of the Jumpsuit alone took up so much space she'd look like she was wearing three layers of medieval armour if the suit had been made to deflect these kind of projectiles. It made sense. Hardly anyone used primitive lead-flinging guns in the present, and the whole point was to stay completely unnoticed when travelling in the past, especially to people with weapons.

No point in trying to cloak again. That damn blue spot called out to everything regardless. Pia had tried to remove it, but had given up quickly. She'd be more likely to tear her own flesh off beforehand.

-

Sonic the Hedgehog, Silver the Hedgehog and Pia the Hedgehog were all sweating in the face of dire peril. Silver was being silly, but the other two were dealing with serious life-threatening danger.

Surely it couldn't get any worse now?

-

In the next chapter:
- Our heroes battle the horrific menace of Omochao.
- Dr. Pretorious really gets a kick out the whole thing.
- Eggman gets his comeuppance, one way or the other.