To anyone actually reading this, I appologize for the delay.
I also appologize for the bit of potty mouthing that may be in here.
Also, really bad fight sequences. In my opinion, at least.
You've been warned.
Tails was not a happy camper.
He and Sonic had been hanging out with Knuckles at the Master Emerald shrine when Eggman's carrier ship appeared overhead and his newest creations descended upon the floating island.
At first glance, they seemed to be nothing more than smaller variants of the doctor's 'egg gunner' production line. They had the same hover units attached to their backs, a blue light attached to the chest where the heart would be on a person, jointed limbs and a flat domed head with a visor shaped optical emitting a soft blue light as well.
This is where the similarities ended.
Their feet were two-toed rather than three pronged, having wheels attached to the bottom of each 'toe' and a larger wheel protruding from the heel, a tube connected to the 'ankle' of each foot - currently folded against their legs - engaged as they landed, the large wheels at the ends landing on the ground with heavy thuds.
Interestingly enough, the robots had very well defined hands. Five shiny metallic silver fingers on each hand, chrome knuckles glinting as they flexed around a simple baton. Sparks danced from the silver implements every so often. The robots were only armed with a pair of stun rods - one in each hand - it would seem.
Tails had time to count the thirty six bots that arrived - as Knuckles and Sonic cursed - before the six-foot tall machines shot off at astonishing speeds all over the island.
"They're not going for the Master Emerald?" Tails wondered.
"They're headed for the villages!" Knuckles spat, growling as half a dozen of the robots sped towards their location as the rest fanned into the surrounding forest, towards the unsuspecting Echidna communities beyond them. "Sonic, stop those badniks and warn the other towns" Knuckles commanded, preparing for the fight.
"Will you and Tails be alright?" Sonic asked.
"Don't insult me" Knuckles huffed while the yellow fox nodded. "Now go!" he demanded as the first automaton reached them, catching the baton it swung at him, then frying the weapon and the machine holding it with a chant of "Thunder Arrow" and effortlessly tossed the hunk of now useless parts away. "That's one down already" he murmured.
Sonic raced into the forest, easily catching up to a group of the machines, five in total. Two of them moved to intercept the hedgehog, closing in on both of his sides, they swung at the speed demon's head.
Sonic somersaulted into the air to avoid the attacks, smashing a heel into both robot's faces, effectively destroying their heads and taking them out of the fight as they collapsed to the ground, unresponsive.
The other three changed formation and charged towards the blue hedgehog. Only to have their legs cleanly removed from the rest of their bodies with a wave of his hand and the utterance of "Sonic Wind", rendering them relatively useless until he stomped each of the downed bots' faces in, destroying them.
"Heh, didn't stand a chance" Sonic chuckled, racing off to stop the remainder of Eggman's invading robots. 'If the Echidna tribes don't mess em up before I can' he mused.
Knuckles sidestepped another swing from the fifth robot then lunged out with a swift jab that it nimbly avoided. Apparently the robots were of the 'learning' variety, seeing as how they wouldn't let him get his hands on one of their batons. Another swing from the robot, he sidestepped again and ducked under a sudden swing from the other baton. They were learning very quickly.
Tails had managed to blast both arms off of the fourth robot with a few well timed fire bolts, but this made it even harder to hit when it suddenly decided to start pulling off acrobatic spins and kicks. Needless to say, Tails had his own problem to deal with for the moment.
Seeing how things were going, the echidna changed tactics. Muttering "Lightning Arrow" he hurled the bolt of energy towards the robot confronting him, it dodged. A satisfying explosion was heard as the attack destroyed the armless machine hindering Tails, who repaid the favor by taking the head off of the bot facing off with Knuckles.
"That's over and done with" Tails sighed, sitting down to catch his breath.
"I wouldn't be so sure about that" Knuckles grunted, looking up towards the floating carrier still hovering over the island.
As if to prove the guardian right, a hatch opened up at the bottom of the craft, dropping twenty more of the machines towards the island.
Capitalizing on their limited vulnerability, Tails stood and began firing more bolts at the descending robots while Knuckles drew from the Mater Emerald nearby and did the same with his Thunder Arrows.
Twenty was decreased to twelve by the time the invaders landed, then nine when they came into striking distance.
"This is a bit more of a challenge" Knuckles groaned, dancing around the robots and frustrated at only being able to safely get a glancing blow off of one every so often.
"We need backup!" Tails cried, frantically dodging the attacks being rained down.
Sonic came upon the second group of five speeding robots approximately three minutes after disposing of the first group.
Predictably, two of the five broke off from the group in an attempt to stop him, swinging for his face with their batons.
Unpredictably, as Sonic somersaulted into the air, the robot to his left avoided his incoming heel while the one on his right was still too slow to escape destruction and spun In a semi-circle to try and catch his legs with the other baton as he landed.
In an attempt to parry the attack, Sonic kicked it, shattering the baton and destroying the robots hand as well as part of its arm. Sonic received a nasty shock for his efforts though, as he felt the voltage course through his leg and travel through the rest of his body, sending him skidding a few feet along the grass, body tingling and leg numbed as curls of smoke rolled off of his body while he tried to get up.
The remaining three robots turned around to engage the injured hedgehog as the one-armed bot circled to flank him. "Sonic Wind!" the blue hedgehog called, sending a gust of sharpened energy towards the advancing group. Nimbly, they leapt over the attack to converge upon him. Quick reflexes, two "Sonic Hammer!"s and a lucky collision left a weary Sonic alone with four more heaps of destroyed robot.
"That, didn't go quite so well" Sonic grunted, ignoring his body's protests as he tried to get his leg to respond.
No such luck.
Checking his communicator to try and reach Tails or Knuckles, he came to an unpleasant conclusion. "It broke?" the azure hero wailed.
"I can't reach Sonic!" Tails yelled to his companion, vaulting over a robot at the same time.
"Deep! Impact!" Knuckles shouted, reeling back and punching the air directly in front of him with all of his might, forcing an explosion and sending the six robots in front of him flying a few meters away. Breathing a little heavily, he replies "Then call the others! I can hold these bots off for a bit!" punching his fists in preparation as five of the machines he sent soaring speed back towards him, the sixth one had sustained too much damage and collapsed during the explosive echidna-manufactured flight. Eight robots remaining.
"Already on it!" Tails called, connecting to Shadow's communicator. Taking flight, the ebony hedgehog answered his communicator just as Knuckles dove at one of the bots making a grab for the yellow fox, bellowing mightily. The machine struggled valiantly, but one of the other machines took a swing at the crimson furred guardian while his back was turned, avoiding the sneak attack, the robot was struck instead, receiving the business end of its stun rod, to the face - and exploding magnificently, for some odd reason - taking it out of the fight as Knuckles soared back into the fray. Seven to go.
"Tails, what's going on!" Shadow asked.
"Shadow, Eggman's attacking Angel Island!" he replied, trying to shoot a few firebolts to support his fighting friend, fly and have a conversation at the same time. "The Echidnas can't fend off all of these new badniks and Sonic hasn't come back!"
"Tails! Slow Down!" shadow commanded, concern evident in his voice. "Where do I have to be?" he asked, promising to help however he could.
"Come to the Master Emerald Shrine!" Tails cried, noticing Knuckles faltering under the robot onslaught, he dove towards the echidna, accidentally canceling the call as he shrieked "Knuckles watch out!" surprising one of the robots long enough to club it over the head with both of his namesakes, thoroughly disorienting it until one of the echidna's spiked fists detached the head from it's body. Six robots left.
"Feeling tired?" Knuckles chuckled, sporting a few bruises from too many close calls with the stun batons.
"Who, me?" Tails chuckled weakly, hurting all over from the physical strain, and fighting off a mild headache due to firebolt overuse.
The remaining six robots circled the duo, closing off any possible escape routes. Knuckles grinned, a feral, anticipatory gleam in his eyes. "Prepare yourse-" a spike in chaos energy from above them.
"Chaos Spear!" twelve lances of pale yellow energy descended, two smashing into each robot. Four were destroyed instantly, while one lost a leg just under the knee and stunned when the shot chipped part of it's face off. The other surviving robot no longer had any legs to speak of, but was intent to try and drag itself towards the fox and echidna, using its batons to steadily make its way closer.
It never registered the growing shadow overhead until the ebony hedgehog was upon it, plunging his blade into its head, the obsidian blade pulsating for a moment as it drained whatever powered the automaton. Silently, he sheathed the blade, looking at the stunned one-legged robot, eyed the two bruised and battered fighters, back to the robot and then his friends once more.
Shadow raised an eyebrow, skeptical. "You needed help with these things?"
"Shut up, Shadow" Knuckles grumbled. "They haven't had time to analyze your techniques yet."
"Excuses" Shadow hummed. "What was wrong with the idiot?" he asked Tails.
"He isn't answering the communicator, I'm a bit worried that he may have taken a direct hit from one of these nasty batons" he explained, pointing at one.
"What do they do?"
"I'm gonna say they stun" Knuckles offered. "Just being close to one of the things had my fur standing on end."
"The discharge may have been too much for the communicator to handle" the adolescent fox reasoned. "And, if he got hit, the surge that'll course through his body-"
"Will probably have him crawling for a while" Knuckles finished.
"Do you know where he went?"
"About thirty of the things split up and went into the surrounding area in groups of five, I think. Sonic went to stop them from reaching the Echidna villages" Tails explained.
"But if they're this tough, I don't know how many he'll be able to take down on his own."
"So, you want me to-" Shadow was interrupted when the three of them looked up to see the hatch in the carrier open once more, dispensing fifteen more of the wheeled robots and soaring off in a burst of air, leaving the others to cover their ears in pain as the shockwave produced by the departing ship reached them.
This bought the descending bots enough time to reach the ground and speed their way towards the recovered heroes.
"Well, they sure are faster than the doctor's usual creations" Shadow mused. "Now let's see what's so special about them!" he grinned, drawing Oblivion and rushing into the throng.
"He's crazy" Tails huffed, tiredly firing one or two - easily dodged - firebolts and feeling queasy for his efforts.
"Tails, you should get out of here while you can. Go find Sonic" Knuckles said, noticing the child's fatigue. "If you fly, you'll probably have a better chance at figuring out where Sonic is. And, if he didn't get all of the robots from earlier, you'll be able to spot where they are."
"But, what about this group?" Tails panted. "I don't even think Shadow can take all of them on his own. Plus, you're not looking too good yourself" he observed.
The echidna chuckled. "Don't underestimate us" he smiled, the feral glint returning to his violet eyes. "Now, go find that blue bastard and make sure he's alright?" Knuckles suggested, dashing into the fray alongside Shadow.
As Shadow made it to the first robot, one swift stroke was all it took to sever the arm it raised in preparation to strike, another stroke removed its head from the rest of the body. Sidestepping a charging robot, he neatly separated its legs from the torso - waist down - and carved the rest of it in half from top to bottom, all in two slashes.
"This is too easy!" Shadow laughed, blocking a baton with his sword and severing the robot's arm with a chaos infused chop with his hand, then spinning around to cut the robot - from hip to shoulder - in two. A flick of the wrist sent two chaos spears hurtling into the chest of an approaching bot, one lodging itself into its chest and destroying it in a magnificent explosion while the second erupted from its back before the explosion occurred, mangling the leg of a robot behind it before dissipating. Shadow ran up and beheaded the poor machine before it could crawl too far.
As if a switch had been flipped, the bots suddenly changed tactics, raining light, probing attacks from every direction and retreating before the hedgehog could mount a counterattack. Unprepared for the abrupt change in the battle flow, Shadow was forced to take the defensive, avoiding and parrying blows from all over. Beginning to glow a faint red, the ebony hedgehog began to growl "Chaos. Bla-!"
"Graagh!" Knuckles roared, completely blindsiding one of the robots as he buried a fist into the back of its head. Tearing a limb off of the motionless robot to use as an impromptu club of his own, the echidna flailed the metal leg around, keeping the remaining bots at bay to allow himself and Shadow a short reprieve.
"Having fun yet?" the echidna remarked.
"Just a bit. I had them right where I wanted them, too. Before you and your trusty" he gave the leg in Knuckles' hand a pointed look "….whatever that is. Jumped in and ruined my plans."
"Yeah, I don't know about you, but turning everything within a certain radius of you into a big mess of molten metal and a frikkin crater! Is not something I'd enjoy having on my island." Noticing Shadow still practically glaring at the leg in his hand, he growled "What! Not all of us can have a fancy sword to swing around. Besides" he grumbled "I prefer my fists anyway."
"Stand still for a moment" Shadow commanded, popping the knuckles in his free hand as he walked towards the echidna. "I want to see if this makes things easier" he commented, touching the leg with a finger.
'What do you expect me to do with this?' Oblivion asked.
'I dunno, make a spear or something' Shadow mentally shrugged.' So long as it can cut, I don't care.'
'Your lack of appreciation for the art of weapon making saddens me. Regardless, you have provided me with a challenge that you are too lazy to solve on your own.'
'Whatever, make with the shaping & whatnot' the hedgehog snapped.
'I'll see what I can do with such a poor supply of material' Oblivion relented.
'Thank you.' Shadow hesitated a second 'One last thing.'
'What else do you need?'
'Never mind.' The conversation ended.
Moments after Shadow's finger made contact with the metal in Knuckles' grasp, the echidna felt a strange jolt in his arm and instinctively let go of the limb with a cry of "What the-". Instead of dropping to the ground, the leg merely dangled in midair as parts of it separated, allowing the circuits and wires within to fall into the grass, discarded. After rejecting any unusable parts, the remaining pieces of metal quickly melded together, shaping "a…. spear? That's a neat trick, though a bigger blade would've been nice" the guardian replied, snatching the weapon out of the air and testing the sharpness of the six inch blade protruding from the five foot pole. "Pretty thin too" he commented, shrugging. After a few test twirls, he smirked "surprisingly sturdy though. I can work with this."
"Whenever you're done criticizing the thing" Shadow dryly inserted, "we can get around to finishing these things off" he added, indicating the warily advancing machines.
"Yeah yeah, let's do this!" Knuckles roared, spinning the spear above his head and smashing the butt of it to the ground, generating a tremor that disoriented the robots and Shadow. "Watch your step!" the Echidna mocked, pouncing upon the first bot and caving its face in before it could even attempt to right itself, then setting upon the next, running it through with the business end of his spear before forcefully ripping it out from the machines's side, in a spray of metal particles and wires.
"Ingrate" Shadow muttered, flipping to his feet and working on the robots towards the opposite end of the circle, lopping the head off of one and spinning around to catch a baton in his hand - chaos energy crackling around it, nullifying the baton's stun function - crushing the weapon to pieces as he swung the sword around as well, rending the attacking robot in half.
With their numbers dwindling quickly, the six remaining machines backtracked, attempting to regroup. However fast they were, Shadow was still faster as he caught up to one and struck out, only to be blocked. Frustrated, the Hedgehog placed both hands on the blade, pushing the robot back until it used both batons to push back, leaving the two in a stalemate as the other machines grouped together. With a final roar, a surge of chaos energy enveloped the sword for a moment, cleaving through the batons and the robot behind them like warm butter, triggering an impressive explosion in the process, which caused a plume of dirt and dusty smoke to cover a portion of the battlefield.
Seeing as their optics couldn't be hindered by such paltry conditions like smokescreen - wonderful things, those thermal scanners & such -, the robots raced into the cloud of smoke as Shadow coughed, unable to see more than five feet ahead of him. Suddenly, a pair of hands wrapped around his ankles and pulled him underground, the advancing machines skid to stop, unsure of where their target had disappeared.
Underground.
"Now, why didn't you do something like this earlier on?" Shadow asked, following the echidna as he burrowed a tunnel - in a direction that he assumed was left, or maybe right. Diagonally up, perhaps? - to wherever.
"I can't dig too fast with another person in the burrow, or it'll probably collapse and bury you. So I can only get us a few yards before the tunnel caves in" Knuckles answered. Adding "plus, if I used it in battle, they'd remember and I'd never be able to use it against these things."
"Saving this particular trick for a rainy day?"
"In a nutshell" he agreed. "Now where did I leave tha-" the guardian muttered. "Here it is!" he exclaimed, coming across the butt of the spear Shadow had made.
"Would you like share what you're planning?" Shadow drawled.
"…. Planning?" the echidna echoed. "This is just a chance for us to get some space and take a breather after that little assault" he replied, pulling himself and Shadow aboveground, a fair distance away from the dissipating smokescreen.
"Let's just get rid of these nuisances and be on our way" Shadow muttered. Scowling as the remaining machines located them and charged.
"With pleasure" Knuckles agreed, jogging alongside the black hedgehog to meet the onrushing robots.
"Son of a mother!" Sonic exclaimed, forcing his body to move as he ran - limped, really - through the forest of Angel Island. Seeing the trees around him growing more spread apart, the azure hedgehog sped up - to great protests from his aching body - and out of the forest.
"Where could the rest of those robots be?" he muttered, scanning the horizon for some sort of tell-tale sign.
There, in the distance, he saw smoke curling upwards.
'Shit! They've already reached a village!' the hero inwardly cursed, pouring more speed into his run as he headed toward the sight. Nearing the village, he could hear angry shouts and terrified screams, which only served to goad Sonic into going even faster, his body screaming in agony.
As he reached the small village, the situation became apparent. The echidnas were losing.
Red, Brown, Purple and Gray furred bodies lay scattered throughout the village, groaning - to Sonic's relief, they were alive - in pain if they hadn't passed out. Countless huts had been reduced to rubble by the fighting. The sounds of battle drew Sonic towards the center of the small village.
Two of the robots had been destroyed, while a good portion of the residents had been defeated, the remaining eight villagers doing all in their power just to avoid the three machines and their swift attacks.
One purple furred echidna wasn't fast enough, and met the steel foot of one of the machines, skidding across the ground and moaning in a decidedly female voice, unable to get up.
Enraged, another echidna lunged towards the offending robot, swinging blindly and falling victim to a baton to the face, shuddering for a moment as the electric current coursed through his body before slumping to the ground.
Before it could claim another, Sonic was upon it, spinning in the air to land a drop kick onto the center of its head, sending the robot crashing into the ground, destroyed.
The remaining two robots, alarmed at the destruction of their own and the appearance of Sonic, immediately sped towards the blue hedgehog, forgetting about their previous opponents.
An echidna soared - fists first -straight into the back of one of the machines, sending it to the floor as another pounced on it's head, crushing it with a flurry of punches.
Fatigued from the earlier battles and the run to this village, Sonic struggled to avoid the robot as it struck at him, seeming to know where his next move would be.
Suddenly, a spiked fist erupted from the machine's chest, halting it as another echidna appeared from above and smashed both of it's fists atop the robot's head, shattering it in a spray of metal before the robot itself collapsed.
"That takes care of that" a gray echidna stated.
"Thanks for the save" Sonic chuckled, addressing the two echidnas in front of him.
"Thank you for aiding us in defending our home" a red echidna replied, bowing his head.
"Yeah!" a female echidna chirped, brown dreadlocks fluttering as she bowed as well. "We probably would've bit the dust if you hadn't shown up."
"I only did what I could, there's no need to bow" the hedgehog laughed.
"What they say is correct, though" the graying echidna from before offered, striding towards Sonic. "I wish to thank you on behalf of our humble little village" he announced, bowing as well.
The remaining echidna followed suit.
"Like I said, there's no need for this" Sonic declared. "There are more of these things - he indicated the still smoking robots - on the island somewhere." At this, the echidna all straightened up, worried.
"How many?" the gray echidna asked.
"I think it was another group of the things, so five left" Sonic surmised. "They're probably off attacking another village. So I have to get going" he answered, grunting as he stretched his legs.
"No offense" the female echidna from before chimed in. "But the closest village is five hours away, if you run for the entire trip. I don't think you'll be able to help anyone else, let alone find out where the rest of these monsters - she kicked at one of the robots - are."
At this, Sonic smirked. "Don't underestimate, Sonic the Hedgehog!" he declared, running out of the village in a streak of blue, leaving a powerful gust of wind behind, disorienting the echidnas.
"That's…. unreal" an echidna breathed, awed.
High above, Tails flew in the sky, on the lookout for Sonic.
"Where could he be?" Tails mumbled to himself, eyes squinted as he peered down at the vast expanse of land below him. Past the forest, he could see two villages where curls of thick smoke billowed upwards. 'The robots must've gotten to those two villages' Tails deduced. 'But, did Sonic already stop them, or has he not even reached the end of the forest yet?'
His musings were interrupted when he spotted a blue streak leaving the closer village at a relatively high speed. "That's way too fast for any echidna I've ever seen, but not really Sonic's normal pace" Tails contemplated aloud. "Plus, whoever that is, they're going the wrong way…. It's definitely Sonic, knowing how he is with directions" the flying fox decided, angling himself towards the blue blur and diving, hoping to catch up before the robots could do any more damage to that village in the distance.