Ark Fox Chapter 4
Thanks to prowerboy, jakeroo123, Dark Fox Tailz, and Sierra Zanimalini14 for reviewing the last chapter (or in the case of , the first.)
Don't own any characters, if I did, Knuckles would still wear his cowboy hat-thingy.
It was a quiet peaceful night in the Mystic Ruins, Shadow had just woken up as the ultimate lifeform didn't need much sleep. He looked around he smiled when he remembered where he was, in Sonic and Tails living room. They had all bunked down in the living room for the night in order to make him fell more welcome.
He saw Sonic snoozing quietly without a care in the world, And his mission target Tails, no his friend Tails, shake about and flinch in his sleep.
For some reason Shadow wanted desperately to wake him and tell him it was all right. But before they had all gone to bed... Sonic had pulled Shadow to the side and told him about this.
Apparently the fox had nightmares at least once a week ever since Sonic had known the poor kitsune and this was normal behaviour for him, "Do NOT wake him no matter how bad his dream may look! I know it sounds bad but it doesn't affect him that much apart from some sleep loss, and he'll hate you for it if you do, I've learnt to only wake him on special conditions..."
Shadow zoned out of the speech around then, being able to briefly recall something about taser's, oak trees and I won't help you out if it if you do wake him.
He got the jist however... and hate to admit it, he truly felt sorry for him, and couldn't see him like this.
Shadow slowly and quietly got up and walked out the front door, to explore a bit and try to wait the night over.
As he headed off into the nearby woods however, he bumped into a very loud and very whiney Bokkun. "ARGGHH, LOOK WHERE YOUR GOING YOU STUPID GIT WHA..." Bokkun yelled this at the top of his mechanical lungs before being pounced on by Shadow. "Shutup shutup shutup!"
After a minute or two of Shadow holding him down and bolting Bokkun's mouth shut to the best of his ability, he agreed to keep his voice down by means of showing a thumbs up.
"I guess you're here to talk about my mission."
"Why yes I am, Eggman is getting quite impatient at your progress, it's been a entire day since you were sent to 'acquire' Tails you know." Stating what Shadow already knew, why Eggman chose to send his messages with this... this... whatever the hell he was, was quite beyond Shadow. He just hoped Bokkun didn't have an exploding TV on him, he wasn't sure on his ability to dampen that kind of noise without the use of his Chaos Emerald... which he so conveniently left back in his sleeping bag. "Damn it!"
"So what's taking so long Shadow? It shouldn't be that hard a task." Bokkun said, ruining Shadows vulgarity filled train of thought.
"I've found the fox, but I also found Sonic and they haven't left each other's sight since then, it looks like that's not going to change until at least sometime tomorrow. They foolishly challenged me to a race, and probably won't give me an opportunity to complete the mission until it's done."
"Wait, a race... Eggman's going to flip when he finds out about this you know! " Bokkun angrily stated.
"Well anyway..." Shadow started, not really caring what Eggman could or would do about it "... Could you ask Eggman if he could perhaps cause a distraction at around twelve o clock tomorrow?, that's when the race will probably wrap up and would be the best time for it."
"Sigh yeah sure... see ya Shadow. But if Eggman crashes the race that's your fault for telling me." And with that, Bokkun activated his jets and blasted off loudly, with Shadow cursing behind him.
Shadow went to sit up against a nearby tree, collecting his thoughts and waiting for the sun to come up, and hoping the others heard none of this and were still asleep.
The next day, (well ... that day since it was one o'clock when that conversation occurred, just at a time that could be called 'day'.) The trio had breakfast, and Sonic asked Shadow to Chaos Control them to the starting line, which he did... but not without Shadow wondering what would happen if he transported both Tails and Sonic to Eggman's lab.
When they arrived at Greenhill Zone however, their eyes were laid upon something none expected to see.
Metal Sonic.
Sonic and Tails thought he was finished when he fell into a pool of magma, while Shadow wondered why the hell he existed at all.
Metal simply stood there, arms crossed and red eyes staring straight at Sonic menacingly. Sonic knew instantly what Metal wanted, no words had to be shared.
"You think you have a chance racing me Metal? Think again!"
"You are inferior hedgehog, my variables and operating methods exceed your own, proceed to prepare to 'eat my dust' Blue Hedgehog!"
"Challenge accepted Metal! Bring it on!" Sonic said, which would have probably been extended with several insults and a fistfight had Tails not butted in
"Wait wait wait, how did Eggman find out about this race Metal? And how did you know to come here? How are you still alive?" he questioned.
"The doctor has his ways fox, Shadows Chaos Controlling to this area the past few days was picked up by the Doctors sensors and was a good hint as to the starting line was and I'm not alive! You insignificant fox!" Metal simply stated.
"How do you still exist, after falling into that lava pit?" Tails reiterated
"I am not the same, I am rebuilt, remade, evolved." Metal said red orbs of eyes focusing on the fox if it was the simplest fact in the world, While Tails IQ kicked in and he decided to drop it "he is a robot after all."
After explaining the route to Metal and making sure he understood, then asking what he wanted for his victory they were surprised when he responded with "Victory over the blue hedgehog, nothing else." They all positioned themselves by the palm tree and made some rules.
1. No Chaos Control or Ring charging.
2. You must go through each and every start point of the zones (they can divert from the path but go to the start of the next zone before continuing.)
3. And no killing each other (Shadow and Metal looked rather upset at this.)
Tails initiated the countdown.
"3...2...1...Go!"
And just like that the race had begun.
Sonic, Shadow and Metal all blasted off from the starting line at incredible speeds, while Tails had to wait for acceleration to start bringing him up to speed. Unfortunately, he could see he wasn't as fast as the hedgehogs in front of him, if Metal could be called one, but he took comfort in the fact he could fly over obstacles and knew a few secret routes underneath Angel Island.
Sonic, Shadow and Metal were all head to head, going through giant loop-de-loops with Tails following them, slowly but surely falling behind.
Sonic felt bad for being forced to beat his little bro like this and Shadow wondered what the hell could of caused these loop-de-loops to form, being somewhat disappointed with the explanation yesterday "They just appear out of nowhere." more annoyingly Tails being the genius he was, seemed unphased by this fact.
Soon they all came up to a few small pits of lava, signifying the end of Greenhill Zone, Greenhill wasn't the largest of areas. The hedgehogs were forced to jump over the pits, while Tails simply hopped and floated to the other side while retaining his incredible velocity, which brought him ahead of the others who just got to the other side.
"Huh?" Sonic and Shadow simultaneously said after seeing the advantage the fox had while Metal just stayed silent and cool, considering the facts...
All of them took him a bit more seriously now that Tails was the first one to officially take 'first place.'
Sonic and Shadow were surprised however when Metal started firing lasers out of his eyes at Tails, before both jumped on him and kicked him down. "What the hell do you think you're doing Metal?" Sonic yelled pointing threateningly at him, Shadow had a Chaos Spear ready. "Race parameters allow for the slowing down of adversaries, so long as no harm befalls them."
Shadow looked behind him, there was no sign of Tails. "Crap he must have known what Metal was thinking." Sonic and Metal looked at Shadow when he said this "Huh!" "Buzz?" but before they could figure it out, Shadow threw his Chaos Spear in the ground, kicking up dust and dirt and causing Sonic to cover his eyes. Metal was out of the dirt cloud instantly chasing after Shadow." A few seconds later when the cloud dissipated and Sonic stopped coughing, he was off as well.
Tails was well and truly in the Mystic Ruins now as ancient stone buildings and beautiful green trees flew past his vision in a blur, flying as fast as he could knowing full well his head start on the group would only last a few minutes, if he was lucky and they all got into a fight that was, his hopes were dismissed when he turned and saw Shadow with Metal close behind him, with Sonic zooming up to the group fast.
Tails thought about the Race ahead of him, and knew if he wanted to keep his lead he would have to play dirty, and seeing Metal behind him he understood the others would do so without question. There was still the rest of Mystic Ruins, an unknown forest, Hill top, Angel Island (which Tails mentally face palmed himself for not studying what way it was facing, He could fly onto Angel Island and land in any of its many zones.) then down the other side of hill top and eventually going onto Castle Acorn.
Considering this he could have a serious advantage on the others in all the zones apart from the forest, with his unique abilities it all depended on what side Angel Island was facing however.
If he wanted to play dirty it was either now or before the end of the upcoming forest. With that he kicked off the ground, and started to fly, then pushed a button on his glove...
Sonic saw all this however, and knew what Tails was up to; after all he lived in fear until a couple of days ago. Sonic burst off to the side and entered an adjacent ruin to avoid Tails and try to get a significant lead on the fox.
Shadow and Metal were utterly confused however, until great arcs of energy hit them, stunning Shadow and overloading Metals circuits. Laughing hysterically, Tails landed and flew off, before noticing Sonic was now in front of him and kicking up dirt in his face. Blinded Tails crashed into a nearby tree, and accidently zapped himself with his gloves. Sonic stayed around long enough to humorously ask "How does your own medicine taste Lil Bro?" before blasting off ahead, purposely leaving more dust on him.
Shadow was the first to recover from the tasering, and after seeing the dazed kitsune lying in front of the tree, he threw a Chaos Spear in front of Tails, kicking up more dust and dirt, just as the dust cleared, Metal Sonic ran past and lasered a nearby tree in half causing it to crash over in front of tails and kick up even more dust and dirt on the unfortunate kit.
Comically sneezing, a small mountain suddenly turned into a very dirty two tailed fox. Deactivating his gloves, He got up and flew after them.
Sonic was running ahead, he had to keep his pace and lead however as all the others had methods of keeping or gaining the lead, he only had the ability of kicking dirt backwards and that method won't work twice on Tails, Shadow would throw a Chaos Spear at him before he was in range of the cloud and dirt wouldn't affect Metal at all as would be able to see through it with mechanical eyes.
But as long as he kept the lead he was safe. And by the looks of it the unnamed forest was coming up, as less ruins and more trees appeared before him. Taking a quick glance behind him he saw Shadow, followed closely by Metal and off in the distance was Tails.
Looking forward again, he started swerving in and out of the trees, hoping the others weren't any more agile then he was. If they could move between the trees faster than he could there was little he could do about it.
Glancing forward, Shadow wondered how he could destroy the fakers lead, he knew Metal wouldn't fire at him until his gigantic lead was gone and understood he should do the same. Nodding to each other, they silently called a truce until Sonic was behind them. Just before they entered the forest, swerving in and out of the trees...
Tails was way behind the duo, but due to his excellent vision he saw their nod, and decided to use this his advantage "let those three fight each other, then you sneak up and finish them up when they're not looking!" when he finally reached the forest he flew up to the canopy and hopped between the tree tops, allowing him to keep his velocity and catch up with the others.
Sonic was running as fast as he could through the forest, but the tree branches hitting him had caused his face to bleed profusely. Temporally blinded, he tripped up on a tree root and fell on his face.
Metal saw this with his advanced optics, and struck Shadow into a nearby tree, before blasting off as fast as he could without threat of smashing into any trees. Fortunately his advanced sensors allowed him to determine the best way through. Unfortunately they also picked up that Tails was directly behind him and was about to pass him from above, and if he was to try and stop him there was a 98.99% chance he would break race parameters. "Number one priory, Tails the fox!"
truely sorry i couldn't finish the race in one chapter, but how do you think it's going so far.
AND i'm also very sorry that the chapter seem's kinda monologish, but it's kinda hard to get characters to speak at incredible speeds like this.
But how fun is the inclusion of Metal Sonic, and how does this fare when Knuckles see's him and Shadow on Angel island? and what will Eggman get up to?
also the two race chapters should be considered one, so the other characters will be seen either one or two chapters after the race finishes.
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