Invasion of the Metal Bellies

Sonic's POV:

We ran through the streets, looking at the chaos and destruction the machine caused. I swear my heartbeat doubled, just seeing the wreckage. This was what I lived for, not constantly sucked into other worlds and dimensions, but kicking that Egghead's puny backside around before tossing him home. Or at least another villain. They all go down sooner or later, just some longer than others. As we turned a corner, I thought about Chris.

I hope he was alright, after so much time had passed. I wondered how much of this new technology was invented by him. After all, the entire city looked like something out of a kid's mind. It was a perfect utopia. The only thing that made it different was the people that lived in it. I shook the thoughts away. Not now, now was a time of action.

This was no place for thinkers, unless the thinkers just happened to have a robotic army at their disposal. Since I was still thinking, a chunk of building decided it was time to snap me out of it. I didn't notice until it was almost two feet above me. I quick stepped to the right only to almost get pasted by a lamp post that just happened to be there. After that, I kept focused on Astro and the road. It took us maybe another minute to reach them.

As expected, it was a setup. The voice was just an Egg Robo in the Egg Emperor, surrounded by eighty-something Eggman Robots, Badniks, and Egg fighters. Figures, he'd try intimidation first. If everyone's afraid of you and you're an evil genius, it's easier to get what you want. I bet he didn't really count on me being here, though. I looked over the army and saw nothing but disappointment.

No upgrades or visible updates, a job I would usually leave to Tails. Seriously, sometimes I don't know who he's trying to fool. I could take them all down in three minutes, tops. Two more for the big one. Then, things began to get interesting.

Astro's POV:

That was an enormous robot army, but one that would last only a few minutes. It was almost too easy. Then I got an idea, I scanned the whole army for hidden weapons. What I saw would have given me nightmares, if I could dream. Every robot had a Curer Ring installed, along with several kinds of explosives and a machine gun on each hand. Needless to say they were built for destruction and annihilation.

Sonic scared me the most, though. He looked completely unimpressed. That is, until the robots fired a Curing Beam at a nearby house-bot and it fell to the floor, lifeless. That, and the robots revealing their entire arsenal brought an actual smile to his face. Seriously, that animal can be scary when it's smiling at certain death right in the face. There was a single tense moment where all was still; I took the time to note that everyone had evacuated the city.

Even the people knew this was going to get ugly. The robots charged up laser cannons and rocket launchers, Sonic prepared himself as if to run directly into them, and I made sure all my weapons were online. All it took was for one of the robots to take one step forward. The robots opened fire, obliterating their foolish comrade. Sonic was nowhere to be seen. The robots kept firing in circles, so I figured I could pick them off at a safe distance.

The thought immediately disappeared as a sharp object cut right through the back of my shirt, tearing it to shreds. I took it off and barrel rolled to the left just as a flurry of laser blasts burned up the space where I had been. I turned to face a swarm of wasp-like robots, with propellers for wings. I shot down close to ten with my digi-beam, but they shot back and missed me by a hair. The shots hit the building behind me, sending up a cloud of dust around me. I scanned the entire area for their shape, but I barely caught site of one before I realized that I was surrounded.

I felt a crawling sense of anxiety that was threatening to form into panic. My sensors were overloaded with useless information, and I was forced to turn on my eye lamps. I really regret doing that, because as soon as the lights came on, they attacked. Their stingers burned and stung when they touched, and it immediately turned to blinding pain. The pants that I had on were ripped like paper, and the wasps clung to me. Their sheer weight and repeated stinging slowly brought me down.

The pain was so agonizing, I could barely think of anything else. Then I felt the air run thin. I quickly sealed off my ears and dug my fingers into the crumpled asphalt below me as Zoran's Sonic Scream tore through the wasps. Half of them exploded within seconds, and the rest I brought down with a quick sweep from my digi-beam. I forced myself up with a wince and thanked her. She nodded back and giggled, then ran toward another group of robots.

I looked up, fearing another attack from the sky, but they were all gone. A group of robots charged at me with chain-saw swords and rocket launchers, and I blew them all up with a shot from my arm cannon. I looked around for Sonic, and received a big surprise when I found two of him. Sonic was cautiously staring at his robotic copy, waiting for him to move. My sensors picked up an aggressive robot a few feet behind me, closing fast. I took to the air, dodging its fatal charge by nanometers as it crashed into a wall, bringing it crumbling down.

It seemed as though we were winning, so I scanned the city for the last remaining robots. They were all retreating. The only one left was the one Sonic was fighting. Then my sensors caught an abnormality in the atmosphere just above Metro City. I looked up, my eyesight piercing through whatever shields were keeping it invisible. The ship was fast, and it disappeared as quickly as my sensors had detected it, but I caught a reasonably good image of it. Plus, I saw a symbol on its hull; the same symbol worn by the robot army.

Sonic's POV:

That tin can was starting to get on my nerves. This was no Metal Sonic. That was for sure. Probably a prototype, because I kicked it around the park. The fake Metal refused to give up, though. It fixed itself every time, and got up for more. I was tired, and was just about ready to blow it to the moon if that was what it took to destroy this thing.

At the moment, it was on the ground fixing the eye that I had just cracked open. I wasn't about to let it fix itself again, so I kicked its head like a soccer ball, sending it flailing into a lamp post. The post then crumpled, and fell on top of it, crushing the rocket engine it had as a stomach. I charged up a spin dash to finish it off, but just then, it saw Astro and said, "Target identified. Commencing mission objective two: retrieve blue core energy source." It started fixing its engine rapidly; never had I picked a better time to completely trash a robotic copy of myself. The only thing left after I was done with it, was a few scraps of its head and arms.

I didn't know much about robots, but I knew enough to know that he wouldn't have had a mission made for Astro unless whoever programmed it knew who he was. Right after I was done inspecting the robot corpse, I decided to ask Astro about the 'blue core energy source' the Metal was talking about. I looked around, quickly finding out that the cowards were retreating. For killer robots, they could be pretty big babies sometimes. More than ever now that Egghead was giving his robots emotions. Not real ones yet, but close enough.

I shook my head, clearing it of thoughts. This was obviously not a time to visit dreamland, solving this riddle was much more important than Eggman's taste in henchmen. I looked around for Astro, whom I spotted standing on what was left of a once magnificent skyscraper. Rolling up into a ball, I spindashed up the building; flying up an extra two feet once I reached the top to help ensure a safe landing. To be honest, though, landing on the roof of this particular building didn't really ensure anything. Not even the nasty fall I would have had if I had taken one more step.

I looked into the meter-long hole in the roof, which just happened to be the floor, to find many places you could impale yourself in, should you be unlucky enough to fall. The hole looked like a big, toothy mouth ready to swallow anyone above it. For a short while, I wondered when it was made. Making sure they were careful steps, I walked around the hole toward Astro. He seemed to have dazed off, so I tapped his shoulder. "Hey Astro, you okay? You seem a little out of it." He turned around to face me.

For the first time ever, I thought I saw a flicker of pure fear in his face. It was gone in an instant, the previous emotion replaced by a look of pure disgust. "Sonic, who sent this robot army? What do they want with my blue core?" I sighed; this was going to be a long conversation. "Let's get back to your house first, 'cause I also have a few questions for you. Some of them might even answer your questions." "Alright, let's go" he said. Before he could rocket into the sky, I caught his arm.

It felt warm, and full of life. Just like a real person, with just one exception. "Wait; let's leave the discussion 'till tomorrow morning. I have a feeling were going to need the rest." He nodded and flew off. I took out the chaos emerald and tapped into its power. When I felt enough I used chaos control to get to ground level, then I ran the rest of the way. I briefly wondered where Zoran was, and then remembered the creepy thing about Astro's 'skin'. Although it felt real, it was stone hard.

DR. TENMA'S HOUSE

I arrived at Astro's house a full minute before him, but I needed that minute. I thought about all the friends I made on my last trip to earth. I wondered how many years had passed on earth since I last met Chris. I feared the worst. Astro arrived right after. "Hey, Astro!" I called out. He flew right up to me and asked, "How did you get to be so fast? I haven't met anything, robotic or organic, that could match your speed." I just shrugged, preferring not to mention Uncle Chuck and his unfortunate fate.

I missed him a lot, but hanging around in the past was a pretty big waste of time. What happened, happened. I only wish I could have tried harder. He was roboticized. He unlocked the door and swung it open. It took me a while to notice that he was holding it open for me. I walked inside, a bit embarrassed for leaving him hanging for a full minute.

When he got inside, I thanked him. He was so polite, he reminded me of Cream. I took a good look around. Whoever Astro's creator was, he sure had a taste for the insanely rich. Many of the small tables with ornately decorated pottery were lined with pure gold. The pottery in the shape of delicate vases with many species of flowers in them.

Those small tables captured my attention, until I noticed we were in a moderate-length, spacious hallway. The walls and roof were made of dark oak with a patterned design of gold leaves and birds, while the carpet was a nice hue of light brown. A few feet away, and to our left, there was an open door, and to our right were two more doors, leaving plenty of space for the gold pattern to catch the light and reflect it. It was almost as if they were glowing. At the end of the hallway was the staircase, the handrail being made of pure gold, and the stairs covered in the same carpet as the floor. The only thing different being a wide middle section of the stairs was covered in a rug with a similar pattern as the stairs.

I had already traveled through this part of the house four times, but had never taken a good, long look at my surroundings. "Astro, is that you?" ,I heard someone call. His voice was very deep, almost like Knuckles. "Yeah, dad. We've got company." ,Astro responded. There were hurried muffling sounds, as if someone was running with a jacket on. Suddenly, a figure stepped out of the open room.

His big hooked nose was the first thing I noticed, like a hawk's beak. He was wearing a black lab coat, which looked like he had been using it as an apron guessing by the huge stain on the stomach area. His pants and shoes were also black. His face didn't give anything away. "Well, what a pleasure, we have not been having guests in quite a while. What is your name?" ,his tone was even. The voice did not betray anything either.

"I'm Sonic, Sonic the Hedgehog. What's yours?" For a moment, he looked slightly irritated. It only lasted a moment, before his passive facade replaced it. "My name is Dr. Tenma, and I am Astro's creator. Though, I much rather prefer being referred to as his father. Please, follow me into the kitchen. Reno awaits you both, and you must be famished after helping Astro deal with the sudden attack on Metro City." Boy, was he right. At just the mention of food, my stomach growled painfully loudly, "oh, I'm hungry alright. Let's go."

Soon we were all seated at the table, eating some type of square pasta(sorry for the lack of detail, but I don't pay too much attention to food), salad, and water. The food was great. Reno wanted to know about the whole fight, so me and Astro took turns telling him our account of it. It was Astro's turn, and only Reno was not finished eating, "...and then I scanned the sky. I found a huge ship with the same logo as the robots." "Do you know who's logo it as, Astro?" ,after Reno asked that question, I knew that the discussion I was going to have with Astro couldn't wait until morning. I hate waiting anyways. "No, I'm sorry Reno. This is someone new."

"Actually, I happen to know both the logo and the person that was probably in the ship. The logo, that was the Eggmanland Insignia. The guy you're after is called Dr. Ivo Robotnik, but he is better known as Dr. Eggman." ,I said. Dr. Tenma immediately spoke up, "How much do you know about this Dr. Eggman?" I knew it was rude, but I couldn't help myself. I started laughing. Dr. Tenma blinked in surprise, and Astro raised an eyebrow.

I quickly stifled my giggles and said, "Do I know him? I'm driving the poor guy insane. He originally started to try to take over a small island I lived on to turn it into some manufacturing factory, but I foiled him. Soon, he had bigger plans. He founded the Eggman Empire and planned to spread it over the entire world, and I foiled him every time after." I forced myself to at least sound serious this time, "I do suggest, though, for you to take him seriously, Astro. One of his robots said he was after your blue core. By the way, what exactly is the 'blue core'?"

ASTRO'S POV:

All of my sensors overloaded with surprise. One of his robots was after me! What did he want with my blue core? It was the only thing keeping me alive. Immediately, the moments before I was deactivated came back to me, except they were different. This time, Dr. Tenma tied me down onto the table.

I tried to pull free, but for some reason the rope was too strong. I cried for help, I tried to call for Dr. Elefun, but he was on the ground. He was lying on his side, stone still. "Help, someone please help me!" ,I sounded pathetic, even to myself in this situation. I was tied down by rope that I should have been able to break, but suddenly turned to ice cold steel. Dr. Tenma reached under his chin and started to pull. To my utter horror, his face crinkled and split as he pulled it off, thick green tendrils of slime hanging between the back of it and whatever lay within the 'skin'.

He pulled it off, the face splitting in half as slime poured out of what I thought was a wound. It was much worse. The symbol of the ship appeared as its face, the twisted smile and big, pink nose. But what were worse were his eyes. They were bloodshot, cruel, and merciless. He raised his hand above his heart before plunging it into my open chest panel. I could feel his fingers on the blue core.

He pulled, but for some reason, it didn't come out. He tugged again with all his strength, the strain clear on his eyes. The blue core popped out of its socket, but what scared me was that it wasn't the blue core; it was a human heart. Then it hit me, both the realization that I was Tobio in this nightmare and the blinding pain that comes after someone just ripped your heart out of your body. My chest was burning, and all the monster did was give a maniacal laugh that I would never forget. All I could do while I waited for my life to drain away was scream in agony until my vocal chords broke.

Soon, I was choking on the iron taste of blood. All I could do then was to stare at my heart, still in his hand, and watch it continue to uselessly pump blood onto the man's shirt until I lost the gift of sight. Then I woke up, panting hard. I was on my bed. Dad was sitting at the foot of the bed, watching me with worry in his eyes. "Wha-wh-what happened?" I had a huge headache, and I somehow managed to feel sick. "Your eye-lamps turned on and you started panicking. You blacked out shortly after. Are you all right Astro, what happened?"

Since most of whatever-that-was included very hurtful images of my dad, I said, "I don't want to talk about it right now, I think all that laying around must have made me jumpy when I went to stop all those other robots." Dad sighed, "I knew this was a bad idea from the start. Someone your age shouldn't have to see that carnage you live with. It's almost like I sent Toby with a gun to go kill all the robbers he could find. It's good, but not for you, or someone your age. I'm sorry you had to put up with any of it at all. I'll leave now, but tomorrow I at least want you to talk to Dr. O'shay about it, all right?"

I nodded my head, utterly shocked by what I had just heard. "Good night, Astro." "Good night, dad." He was right, all of those broken robots. I'm a murderer. Then I realized that I just had a nightmare, which meant that I could dream when I slept. I didn't sleep for the rest of the night.