Doctor Robotnik hadn't been this proud since outdoing himself on recreating Metal Sonic's entire internal circuitry subsystems.
But that's a story for another time.
The good doctor had spent the first two months after the fiasco with oblivion - and escaping from his would be captors - figuring out exactly what he had accidently gained from the strange entity.
One of his discoveries happened to be the ability to condense and partially solidify a small portion of the strange electrical energy he was able to manifest. Toying around with one of these odd creations, he found them to be completely harmless, unfortunately. Hit with one of his many fits of inspiration, the man wondered if it could possibly function as an alternative power source, rather than being forced to continuously pilfer chaos drives from GUN.
As luck would have it, they could not.
Seized by one of his - just as frequent - fits of rage, he thrust it into an unfortunate worker drone passing by. Expecting a semi satisfying explosion - or at least some sort of malfunction - of one kind or another, he bore witness to something most unexpected.
The crackling blob of energy began to merge with the machine's circuitry, travelling throughout the machine until it reached it's core, the chaos drive powering it. For a few moments, the robot glowed a strange green - the color of the drive within it - before fading away to leave it looking as if nothing had ever happened.
But the doctor knew better.
Snapping his fingers, another worker drone trotted towards it's master. "How may I assist you, sire?" it queried.
"You" he called, pointing towards the altered drone, "and you" he looked down at the new arrival. "Fight. Now" he commanded.
Since they hadn't been made with combat in mind, the doctor didn't expect much of a fight. However, the altered bot sprung towards the normal one, completely surprising Robotnik as well as it's opponent.
Although the other drone fought valiantly, it was unable to land a single blow upon the other machine, mangling it with each attack as it dodged and weaved through the normal bot's efforts.
The battle ended after forty seven seconds of decidedly one-sided brawling.
And our dear professor was struck with another fit of inspiration.
All of this lead to where the doctor sat now, reading through reports and video feeds of the raid on Angel Island. "Impressive" he chuckled, reviewing one of the videos. "The prototypes fared even better than anticipated" he remarked. "Although the armor could use a few improvements…. If I could bring their reaction time up even farther…." the man considered, chuckling to himself once more.
"This is absolutely incredible!" he cheered, throwing his arms wide as he guffawed. "Metal Sonic, when I rebuild…. You will be flawless!"
"Sonic!" Tails called, after getting close enough to the blue hedgehog to be heard.
"Huh, Tails? What's up?" Sonic asked, wincing as he skid to a stop.
Noticing his friend's grimace of pain, the fox asked "are you alright?"
"I'll be fine" the hedgehog reassured his friend, "I just got a little surprise from a few of those bots."
"Little, you look like you're going to drop at any moment!" Tails fussed.
"We can worry about me later, little buddy" Sonic sighed. "But first, I've gotta take out the last five of these things…." he trailed off. "Did you and Knuckles take care of the ones by the shrine?"
"Oh, yeah" Tails remembered. "I couldn't reach your communicator-"
"Yeah, it kind of broke" Sonic informed him.
"I figured as much" Tails sighed. "So I called Shadow, then he chaos controlled to the shrine in order to help. He and Knuckles stayed behind to fight off another wave of the things, while I was sent to help you" the boy summarized.
"Well, that makes things easier. And I know that those two can handle themselves" Sonic nodded.
"Yep, and I think you're going the wrong way" Tails mentioned. "While you left that town, I saw another village under attack, I think. We should check it out, unless you were already there…."
"They already got to a second village!" Sonic exclaimed. "Lead the way, Tails!"
"Right!" Tails saluted. "Let's go!"
Given how much the five remaining robots had learned of Knuckles & Shadow's fighting styles, the fight dragged on longer than the two would have liked. But in the end, they still emerged victorious - as well as bruised and tired - from among the wreckage of the fallen machines.
"That was not fun" Knuckles stated, summing up the end of their altercation while tossing his now useless pieces of broken spear behind him.
"You're telling me" Shadow huffed. "Do you think Tails found that idiot, yet?"
"Let's check" Knuckles shrugged, connecting to Tails' communicator.
"Knuckles? Are you and Shadow alright?" Tails' voice asked over the connection.
"Yeah, we took care of things on our end" Knuckles confirmed. "Did you find Sonic?"
"Yeah, I found him. We stopped the rest of the bots, too."
"Good, are the two of you alright?"
"Well, Sonic got a little beat up…. And they got to two of the villages" Tails sighed. "So we're helping with a bit of the rebuilding until a medic can look at him" the young fox informed him.
"Ok, we'll meet you over there."
Shadow chuckled.
"What's so funny?" the echidna asked.
"That idiot managed to get himself injured…. again" Shadow chuckled again. "He's accident prone, it seems."
"That's not…." Knuckles trailed off, lost in thought for a moment. "Actually, giving it some thought. He might be" he agreed.
"Exactly" the hedgehog replied, smug.
"Well, let's get to walking" Knuckles prompted, turning around and striding towards the forest.
"Meh, I'm all for destroying a few of The Doctor's more well-crafted robots…." Shadow sighed. "But helping people rebuild their homes and the like…. I'd rather opt out."
"Oh quit complaining" Knuckles scolded. "People need help, so we're going to help them."
"Yeah, yeah" Shadow waved him off, heading into the forest as well. "It just sucks that this had to happen on my day off from work."
Knuckles and Shadow arrived at the village a few hours later, unsurprised at the various echidna moving about and repairing what property damage they could.
"Hey guys!" a blue hedgehog haphazardly covered in bandages called, waving a hand to get their attention. "What took you?" he asked, limping towards them with the use of a crutch, since his leg was encased in an off-white cast.
"Sonic?" Knuckles asked, looking the teen up and down. "What happened to you?"
"I was a little surprised, is all" Sonic chuckled weakly, scratching the back of his head.
"It's nice to see that you still have little to no sense of self-preservation" Shadow remarked.
"Good to see you too, shads" Sonic replied. "Now, if you would be so kind, take us home!" he commanded with a flourish, pointing off into the distance. "After we get tails."
"Get me for what?" the small fox asked, walking up to the group.
"Nice, the gang's all here" Sonic observed. "Now, Shadow?"
"I hope you don't expect me to chaos control the three of you all the way to your home…. Just so you can accelerate your healing with the two chaos emeralds you have?"
"…. Is that a maybe?" the azure hero offered.
"How many times do I have to tell you, that healing yourself with the chaos emeralds too many times might ruin your body's natural recovery rate?" Shadow growled, crossing his arms.
"I haven't used the emeralds in-"
"Since yesterday" Tails tattled, not looking at his surrogate older brother.
"Tails, you traitor" Sonic grumbled.
"I do believe my point has been made" the swordsman in training smirked. "So, I think you should let your body repair itself naturally, while you help these villagers rebuild their homes" he decided. "See you later" he waved, before whispering "Chaos Cont-"
"Shadow, you can't be serious!" Sonic shrieked, diving and clinging onto his black furred counterpart's leg. "You can't leave me here with a bum leg and no chili-dogs" he wailed.
"Get off me, you nuisance!" the black hedgehog growled, flailing his leg in an attempt to remove the frantic hedgehog.
"Only if you take me-"
"Us" Tail corrected, irritated at the spectacle and the fact that people were stopping to stare.
"-take us, with you!"
"….Fine" Shadow sighed, motioning for the guardian and fox to get closer, seeing as Sonic hadn't let go of his leg.
"I think I'll stay here" Knuckles announced. "The villagers look like they still need help rebuilding, plus I think it would be a good idea to go over a few ways to make this and the other villages a little more…. Defensible" he explained.
"Suit yourself" Shadow shrugged, "less of a strain on my own remaining chaos reserves."
"Later Knuckles, we'll be back on Thursday" Sonic called, still clutching his friend's limb.
"Bye Knuckles!" Tails cheerfully waved, grabbing hold of Shadows arm.
At once, the trio vanished in a soft flash of green.
To those of you reading this, I'm sorry to say that I jumped into writing this story without much forethought put into an actual plot.
As such, this fic will be retired & rethought, to be presented at a later date.
My apologies, folks.