I'm Astro Boy

Zoran didn't even have time to answer. The creature sped out of the house, with Astro hot on its heels. "Wait, stop! I just want to talk!" The creature didn't hear him, though. They were already traveling at the speed of sound, it wouldn't have even heard Zoran's sonic scream. It ran into a crater, and stopped. Astro, thinking the excitement was over, flew down to get a better look of who he was dealing with.

As soon as he came within four feet of him, though, the creature ran around him, making a blue tornado that pelted Astro with debris of every shape and size. One particular chunk of rock about the size of a car hit Astro straight in the face. The impact sent warning signs to his vision, telling him to apprehend the cause of the injury immediately, or he risked an automatic power-down. He fired his digi-beam straight ahead at about the creature's head level. It made contact, splitting open its chest. Blood spayed out of the huge wound, and it screamed in agony. It already seemed the battle was over.

Astro soon found himself wondering if he was dreaming, though. Ten golden rings flew out of the wound, and it healed up instantly, the rings remained untouched by the blood. Astro picked one up out of curiosity as the creature recovered. Instantly, the ring was outlined in blue and a message appeared in his vision. It read 'scanning', in two seconds it was done. Then his system surprised him by giving him another message 'updating'. Once the word disappeared, the ring did as well.

In the top left corner of his vision, a small image of a ring displayed itself along with a number: 1. Curious, Astro picked up another ring, but as soon as he touched it, it disappeared and the number increased by one, making it two. The creature caught on to what Astro was doing, ran toward him, and slammed itself into him. Astro knew on the point of impact that it was running faster than sound, and also knew he wouldn't survive the sonic boom and crash he was about to have. 'Sorry Cora' Astro thought as his body made impact with the ground, the sheer force crumpling his metallic insides, and the sonic boom frying his circuits.

He entered a cold, dark feeling as the enormous pain he was in faded away. His vision started to blur, and already the cold world that took over his nerves attacked his vision, shading the world in darker and darker colors. Then, the rings he had flew out of him, the number of his rings reaching zero. Metal bended on its own, fixing itself to its original position. Circuits literally fixed themselves, and Astro was suddenly alive again. In massive, sharp pain, yes, but alive. The whole process took only two seconds.

He immediately made the connection. The hedgehog was healed at the expense of rings, and because of his ability to adapt and evolve, Astro was too. He had evolved, using the rings the same way the hedgehog was using them. Astro looked up, seeing it running toward him for the finishing blow. 'Not if I can help it' Astro powered up his arm cannon and fired, the blast engulfing the hedgehog entirely. He heard it scream in pain and agony, ring after ring leaving its body.

Warning signs appeared in his vision telling him he was pushing his body beyond its limit. Astro stopped firing at it, and it slumped to the floor. The hedgehog was unconscious. He took the time to scan it. Words appeared in his vision again after close to five seconds. They read 'Sonic the Hedgehog, ring count: 27' Astro prepared himself, managing to gather 20 rings. He wasn't planning on fighting him again, but Astro learned already not to trust anything you barely met. Or fought with for that matter.

He called Detective Tawashi, "detective, Sonic has been taken down, but hurry. I don't know how much more I can take, and it looks like he's getting up already." Tawashi answered immediately, anxiety clear in his voice, "I'll be there as fast as I can, hang in there Astro." Sonic moaned in pain, struggling to get up. The pain kept him down, but his persistence soon paid off as he slowly rose to his feet, and Astro could feel his power levels rising. Wait, that wasn't right, Astro could only scan the power levels of other robots and inanimate objects, such as batteries. He could not sense the energy from living beings. Astro did a complete scan.

The hedgehog had a power source inside of his body, and had several more outside his body scattered all over the world. This hedgehog was somehow being given energy from these power sources. Sonic disappeared, only to reappear behind Astro. His sensors alerted him, and his recent update allowed him to move with incredible speed, stopping a punch that would have caved his head into itself. Astro threw the second punch, Sonic easily catching it in his hand. They tried to push each other back, caught in a temporary power struggle.

Astro was first to speak, "what are you, exactly?" Sonic pushed harder, sending Astro sliding back two inches. He was clearly annoyed, "I'm a hedgehog, nothing else." It was an obvious lie, Astro saw Sonic make a make-shift tornado with his speed, "You're lying." Sonic realized he had shown the unbelievably strong human a reasonably large look into his true speed when he tried to run away, and made the cyclone. Realizing he had finally been discovered, and that he had no chance of getting away this time, since the human had obviously called for reinforcements by now, gave up and used all his strength to knock the boy on his behind with his frustration.

"Why are you following me?" Sonic screamed with agitation, he was running out of time. "Why did you run away from me?" the boy shot back confused, and flustered by the unnecessary fight. Sonic thought otherwise, "you're after something I have, why else would you have chased me so far. You flew to keep up with me." Sonic's eyes widened in disbelief as he noticed something very peculiar about the 'boy' he had fought. "I saw blue and metallic gray colors where organs should have been, and you can use rings. Those rings aren't even from your dimension, what's with those strange features of yours?" The boy grew uncomfortable, evidently hiding something.

"Let's just say I have my ways." Then Sonic asked a very peculiar question, "Are you an Eggman Robot?" the boy looked confused, so Sonic ruled that out, "What's that?" The boy did seem alarmed, though, and put his hands behind his back as an evident sign of nervousness. Although suspicion clawed at him, Sonic sighed, and kindly said, "You know what, just forget I said that." He then apologized, realizing he could just have gotten exactly what he wanted from this bizarre future Earth. He then asked, "You have powers, though don't you? What's your name?"

The human skipped the first question completely, and instead answered the first question, "I'm Astro Boy, but you can just call me Astro." At that moment, Zoran appeared at the edge of the crater. Both Dr. Tenma and Dr. O'shay right behind her, carrying worried looks upon their faces. "Big brother, you know better than to go around chasing people just because they look weird!" Zoran angrily screamed, "And Sonic, if my brother has so much as a crossed wire, I'm gonna scream your ears off!" Both Sonic and Astro exchanged glances, and then started laughing. This only agitated Zoran more, "what are you two laughing at? It's not funny!"

The scientists also relaxed, Dr. O'shay even going so far as to start chuckling. No one was badly, hurt. Maybe the matter of the blue flashes could be solved peacefully, as he preferred. Then the sirens were heard. The police cars stopped at the edge of the crater about six meters away from the scientists, Detective Tawashi jumping out of the one that parked first. At least ten had shown up. After taking a quick look around, the detective noticed he had probably missed out on some important information. The fight stopped. "Alright, somebody better tell me what just happened here, before I start pointing fingers."