Metal Madness

Holding his hand over his aching shoulder and still more lying under the splinters of the table than close to any position that would allow him to escape, Sonic could only stare up at Metal. There was something like triumph in the robot's eyes, something that, should he even survive this day, would surely haunt his nightmares for the next months. It felt weird to consider he could lose, so quickly, so easily, without an actual fight, after all those fights he'd won against that robot.

"Hey, Metal Sonic!" Tails' sudden call came as a surprise to both real and robotic hedgehog. Metal Sonic turned his head, searching the fox. Trashing his namesakes as bushy rotor blades, Tails was hovering next to the strange machine aside of the Emerald containing field. "Didn't you say you'd destroy us together?! That's the only way to prove you're better than us," he shouted.

Metal Sonic actually seemed to consider this. "Come here, fox unit, so I can terminate both of you then."

Tails waved his arms. "Come and get me," he shouted.

Still half stuck under the wreckage, Sonic struggled to stop Metal when he started towards Tails. He wanted to shout for Tails to fly away as fast as he could, but something latched onto his ankle and the yell got caught in the hedgehog's throat as he was yanked out of the rubbish and pulled behind another big piece of bizarre machinery.

"Are you okay? Sonic!"

Sonic just stared at the red echidna kneeling next to him. "Knux? But I thought you were –"

"Playing possum," Knuckles interrupted, peeking around the corner of the machine.

"What?" Sonic didn't quite manage to get his gaping jaw closed again.

"I was playing possum," the guardian repeated, almost seeming amused, even if his face was definitely on the pale side right now. "You know, like in pretending I was dead? That's a very old strategy when you're screwed and it worked well enough, didn't it?"

Sonic shook his head, trying to catch up. "But he hit you full tilt with that massive beam of death!"

Knuckles flinched and nodded seriously. "It's Master Emerald energy. Well, at least it's something very close to it. It hurt a lot, but it can't really harm me, at least not fatally so, not in one blow. I have almost the same energy around me every day, Sonic. Luckily Metal didn't know that. I took a moment to recover and snuck up behind him. Someone has to save your spiky ass, right?"

Finally Sonic grinned. "Yeah, thanks. You're making a habit out of it lately. But now we have to save Tails."

"I guess Tails will be fine," Knuckles noticed. "Metal Sonic apparently doesn't want to risk shooting at this thing Tails is hiding behind. From the way it's glowing like that, I think it's what transfers the fake Emerald energy to his battery or whatever he runs on."

Sonic crawled to look out of their shelter along with the echidna. "Do you think Tails can do something about it?"

"I figured he could, after all he built that thing," Knuckles remarked neutrally, one hand absentmindedly brushing over his chest as he spoke. You couldn't see any actual, physical injury, and Sonic wondered if and how much it would still hurt if there wasn't any damage to see.

Shaking himself out of the thought, the hedgehog looked over to Tails and his machine again. "We have to distract Metal," he realized. If Tails was going to be able to do something to stop Metal, he would work better undisturbed.

Knuckles nodded. "Yes. Can you run?"

Sonic raised a brow at him. What kind of question was that? "You bet."

The echidna smirked. "Good. I run to the left, you run to right. Make noise and get his attention."

Sonic grinned. "I'm good at that."

Knuckles grimaced. "Don't be too good."

Sonic winced at the memory of how catching Metal's attention had gone so far. Don't think about it now. "Ready?"

"Ready." They exchanged another nod, then Sonic turned and bolted to the right, hopping out behind the machine, waving his arms and shouting.

It worked instantly. Metal Sonic's head whirled around from where he stood, probably trying to work out how to get a shot at Tails while avoiding the machine, and his glowing optics locked on the blue hedgehog bouncing up and down crazily.

"Hey, tin can! You think I'm done with you already? Wrong! Come and get your shiny butt kicked!" Sonic managed to grin in spite of the lethal stare he received out of the robot's eyes. Adrenaline was pumping rapidly through Sonic's body and it made it seem easy tempting his robotic counterpart to attack him. Sonic wasn't even scared.

When Metal Sonic fully turned to him and out of a standstill accelerated to rush across the room and get him, it briefly occurred to the hedgehog that he maybe should have been at least a little scared. Then all he saw was a bright green glow and Metal Sonic's powered up form slammed into him with the force of a meteor impact. At least, that was what it felt like to Sonic.

He didn't know if he'd been punched or kicked or merely rammed; all that registered in his brain was the pain of the blow and that he was suddenly flying backwards. Rainbow stars exploded before his eyes and he didn't know if Metal Sonic followed, or where he was if he didn't. Then Sonic smashed into a wall.

The hedgehog was only distantly aware of dropping down to the floor. His shoulder pounded and stung sharply, his entire front hurt and for a moment he was sure he'd cracked something. He didn't move, but he forced his eyes open again. Metal Sonic had turned away from him and was currently hovering in the middle of the room, not too far from where he'd hit Sonic. But for the moment he'd seemed to have lost interest in him and it gave the hedgehog a few precious seconds to recover.

Carefully Sonic rolled over into a somewhat relaxed and comfortable position, trying to catch his breath and figuring out what was hurt. After a few seconds he found to his relief that his bones seemed intact. He had sustained a couple very nasty bruises and they'd surely bother him the next days… if they all lived long enough to see the next few days.

The pain receding to a tolerable level, Sonic crawled to his feet, again scanning the room. Tails was ducked behind a big machine with a lot of manically blinking buttons and lights. He'd opened a cover at the side of the apparatus and was probably trying to manipulate the machine from there. Luckily he either sat out of Metal Sonic's sight or the robot didn't care about him at the moment.

Probably the latter, Sonic thought. Had he hovered silently in place until then, now Metal Sonic suddenly shot forwards, but not aiming at Sonic or Tails. He'd locked on Knuckles, who jumped up and down in front of a large coil of sorts. Sonic wanted to yell a warning to his friend, but a second before Metal Sonic reached him, the red echidna flung himself full length to the floor, what for some reason seemed to surprise Metal Sonic, sliding past under the flying robot, then scrambling back to his feet hurriedly and diving for cover behind another random machine.

Metal Sonic stopped in mid-air and Sonic realized that if Knuckles' plan had been letting the robot smash the coil thing, it had totally not worked out. Instead, it had brought Knuckles into Metal's reach and a green chaos laser shot just barely missed his feet as the echidna hurried out of the way. He wasn't moving all too steadily, his dash to the side more like a dizzy scramble, and even if they didn't kill him, the chaos-y laser shots had proven to immobilize him, and if he was down, Metal Sonic wouldn't need the laser to kill Knuckles.

"Hey, Metal! I'm still here!", Sonic bellowed. He was right thinking his call would get Metal Sonic's immediate attention. After all, it was Sonic he hated more than anything, it was Sonic who was defined in his programming as Enemy Number One. That made Sonic his primary target and the hedgehog was sure he'd give up on any other objectives if it meant he could get him instead. As long as Sonic was a target, his friends were somewhat safe, and Sonic was determined to make sure they were safe as long as he could.

"You still want to fight me, pathetic biological hedgehog copy?" Metal Sonic turned around to him, with a metallic snarl that was maybe supposed to be a laugh. "Surrender yourself, admit that I am the superior Sonic… and I will make your death quick and easy…"

Sonic shook his head. "No thanks. I don't really plan to die anytime soon, and certainly I won't die by a fake hedgehog like you."

That he'd said the right thing immediately became clear to Sonic as Metal's eyes turned a deeper and brighter red that pulsed threateningly at him. "I am going to destroy you, Sonic! And I will make sure you suffer."

A brief flicker in the robot eyes told Sonic he'd attack. He didn't see anything but a blur of glowing green rush towards him, but this time reflex had already reacted and Sonic dived aside, rolled over the floor, came up running. The yell of anger behind told him Metal Sonic had already realized he'd missed, again, and instinctively Sonic took on a zigzag course through the room, randomly changing directions to make it harder to hit him. He looked over his shoulder as he ran, spotting Metal a few meters to the left behind him – and the robot suddenly disappeared.

Sonic's head whirled around, trying to see where he'd gone, and out of nowhere a fist slammed into his side, sending him flying across the room again. Instinctively he curled up even before he hit the floor and ended up rolling over it until he had shred his momentum, then managed to get up on all fours.

He quickly looked across the room to locate the robot, but first he didn't see him and when he suddenly appeared before him Sonic had no idea where he'd come from and how. He only knew that he received a hard kick in the side and crashed into a steel pillar. Gasping sharply and clutching his side, he stared up at Metal Sonic, suspended weightlessly in the air before him. He wanted to get up and run, but for the moment he could only try to catch his breath and give his body a chance to deal with the pain. Stall for time.

"I didn't know you could turn invisible," he pressed out through his teeth, warily watching the glowing robot.

Metal Sonic waved his arms, smugly raising them over his head. "I can do anything! With the powers of chaos, I can become invisible, invincible… I can do whatever I want, wherever I want, whenever I want! I am perfect!"

"Yeah, sure…", Sonic mumbled quietly to himself. He refused to believe that. Nothing was perfect. And nothing and nobody was truly invincible. "I tell you, I'll find a way to take you apart like the tin can you are. Just you wait…"

The robot cocked his head. "Your lack of understanding for your situation is pathetic. You cannot beat me, you cannot win, you cannot save yourself or your tiny friends. I will end it all, and I will end you."

"Can't wait to see you try…" While Metal Sonic spoke, Sonic had pushed his hands under himself and now he shot upright from where he'd knelt on the ground, curling up mid-jump and launching himself at the robot spines first.

There just had to be a way to beat him…

But apparently this one he'd chosen wasn't it. Smashing into Metal Sonic was like smashing into concrete. The second Sonic's quills made contact with his armor, the chaos energy inside and around the robot sizzled against Sonic's skin and he felt like he'd grabbed a life wire. The scream that came up with the feeling was cut off in a choked gasp and Metal swatted him away with a single blow of his hand. Like one chases off a fly.

Twitching with the aftereffect of the hurtful energy and out of breath, Sonic banged into the force field around the seven fake Master Emeralds and it wasn't a single bit better than hitting the wall.

Metal Sonic turned around to him. "You shouldn't have done that, hedgehog. Prepare to die." The laser pole was glowing again and even if it had not killed Knuckles Sonic wasn't sure about himself. He fought to get up again, cursed, looked at Metal Sonic again only to find the laser fire.

The fear of getting toasted helped a little, in so far that he managed to stand and tumble aside. It wouldn't be enough to escape the beam though and Sonic braced himself for what would surely hurt a lot. But it never hit.

Disbelievingly the hedgehog watched in adrenaline fuelled slow motion how from the right a red echidna jumped out from behind a machine, hands held out flat before him and something green flashed up in thin air, catching the laser beam and directing it up harmlessly towards the ceiling. For a second something like triumph was on Knuckles' face, then the green half sphere he'd drawn up bulged backwards and dissipated with a bang, the force of something akin to a shockwave that followed blowing both Knuckles and Sonic backwards and rolling over the floor.

Metal Sonic was staring up at the burn mark his laser had left on the ceiling, apparently struggling to understand what had happened, and it gave Sonic and Knuckles some important seconds to get back up.

Holding his hand pressed against his side, Sonic hurried to follow a slightly limping, tumbling Knuckles to find cover behind a machine block that looked relevant enough to raise hopes Metal Sonic wouldn't directly shoot at it.

"What was that?!", Sonic asked although he thought he might know, peering out from behind the machine to check what the robot would do.

"Chaos barrier. A shield, of sorts," Knuckles gasped, rubbing his forehead. "Or, at least that's what I tried with it. I can get one up using the Master Emerald, even on a bigger distance, but I can't reach it from here. Too much energy around, too much weird energy and disturbances and… stuff." He grimaced. "I had to use the energy from these things and it's unstable as heck."

Sonic pulled a face. "I've seen that… But you know, I think your unstable barrier thingy saved my tail. Thanks."

Knuckles smiled weakly. "Welcome. But we have to find a better way. We can't even attack him without getting hurt. If we keep up like that, we're gonna be dead before we know it."

"Tell me something new." Sonic groaned. "There's just gotta be something we can do to beat him! We can't just dodge all the time!"

"Ask Tails. He knows more about robots than anyone of us. I think he's trying to cut off his energy supply." Knuckles nodded his head at where Tails had by now crawled halfway into the big machine next to the force field. "See if he has any ideas, I'll try to distract that crazy robot."

Sonic shook his head. "No. It's me who he's after and –"

"– and you are on a great way to get seriously injured. You already started in not great shape." Knuckles' amethyst eyes were serious, gaze catching pointedly on all the cuts and bruises.

"But –"

"Sonic. Go ask Tails for ideas. That way, you get a short break. And besides…" A crooked grin appeared on the echidna's face. "I don't understand what Tails says anyway."

Sonic chuckled. "Heh. Neither do I."

Knuckles shrugged. "I still think you got better chances to get anything out of what he says than I do."

Sonic looked at him seriously. Contrary to his words, Knuckles looked off, shaken, out of it in a way, and it wasn't the kind of condition you needed to be in to take on a superpowered robot manic. Then again, Knuckles was right, too, both of them were no longer anything like unscathed. "Okay." He'd just have to be quick, Knuckles could probably dodge Metal a couple times more, and even if he didn't, the guardian could take a serious punch. He should probably trust it to Knuckles that he wouldn't get himself killed in a minute or two. "Don't get yourself toasted."

"I'll try my best." The echidna flinched. "Now move."

Sonic quickly made sure Metal Sonic was still puzzledly inspecting the ceiling – things like that took a long time, maybe, hopefully, all that chaos energy was frying his processors or whatever a robot had for a brain - then darted across the room and squeezed himself into the tight space behind the energy transferring machine next to Tails. He carefully tapped his shoulder.

"Hey buddy."

The little fox span around. "Sonic! Are you okay?!"

Sonic grimaced. "I'll survive. Tell me you're making progress."

Tails sighed. "I wish I could! I've done everything I could think of, but I can't shut down the energy transfer. I think it became independent and works no matter what I do. The energy is there and it's unstable and too much in one place and it has to go somewhere… and it found it can go to Metal Sonic. I can't stop it anymore, I'm sorry, Sonic…"

"Okay, okay, take it easy, bro." Sonic patted Tails' shoulder, chewing his lip. If they couldn't cut off Metal Sonic's energy supply, he didn't know how they could stop the overpowered robot.

Overpowered

Overload. He'd seen that, on the mysterious walls in the Master Emerald. The bright glow of these fake gems, the machinery in this room, and flashing warning letters across computer screens. Overload.

"That's it," Sonic mumbled. "Tails, do you think you can make more energy going from the fake Emeralds to Metal Sonic's power core?"

"More?" Tails stared at him as if he thought he was totally nuts now.

Sonic nodded sharply. "I was just wondering… Is it possible to overcharge him? I've seen Eggman creations overcharge with too much energy and they usually break or explode or something when that happens."

"That's… I don't know… It seems really… counterintuitive, but maybe… Maybe it could work." Tails suddenly smiled. "You're a clever hedgehog, Sonic, don't let anyone tell you you aren't."

Sonic grinned. "Must be your good influence."

Tails was still smiling and with all the terror he'd been through the past week in mind Sonic was incredibly glad to see his little brother smile. "I'm gonna try it now, Sonic. But before he really overcharges and gets damaged by that, if it even works, after all, this is chaos energy, not just electricity or something… Even if it works, Sonic, I think he's gonna get stronger first."

Sonic nodded. Figures… "I get it. Listen, you start overcharging him right away. I'll get back out there and help Knuckles distract him. We'll try our best keeping him away from you so you can do your thing, alright?"

"Okay. Be careful, Sonic. I don't want to lose you again." Tails' blue eyes bore painfully into Sonic's heart.

"You won't lose me, Tails. Not ever. I promise. And now we'll toast robot butt, okay?"

Tails nodded, a shy but decisive smile growing on his face again. "Okay!"

Sonic gave him a smile and slipped back outside. He oriented himself with a quick look around, tracking down Metal Sonic and Knuckles just in time to witness the echidna being barely missed by another blow. He had tripped over the broken remains of some sort of machine and now struggled to get back up in time to dodge Metal Sonic's next attack, and it didn't look like he had any chance to escape the hit in time.

Without a thought Sonic was running. He shot past Metal Sonic floating in place and preparing his next blow, bounded over a couple pieces of debris and landed at Knuckles' side. He didn't waste the time to stop, he just reached down a hand towards the echidna and snatched hold of his arm. The next instant Sonic was accelerating again, halfway around the force field, then he stopped and let Knuckles dizzily regain his feet.

"The reinforcements are back." He grinned.

Knuckles just nodded, struggling to catch his breath and balance, but spare a few new cuts and bruises and utterly disheveled spines he didn't look that much worse than he did a minute ago. "How's Tails?"

"Fine. Cutting off Metal's power doesn't work, he's now trying to overload him," Sonic summarized quickly. "How are you holding up?"

Knuckles shrugged. "Not too bad I guess. Maybe I can call it good luck a certain someone gave me so much free training at dodging attacks by someone insanely faster than me."

Sonic chuckled a little at that. "You can thank me later."

The red echidna shot him a stern look and ignored the comment. "Do we have a plan?"

"None different than before. We distract Metal as good as we can and don't get killed in the progress."

Knuckles frowned. "Ah yeah. Did I mention my dislike for your plans?"

Sonic scratched behind his ear. "Wasn't that your plan?"

The guardian blinked. "Uh… I… don't remember?" The frown was still there, cut deeply into his brow like an injury of its own.

Sonic shrugged. "Whatever." It wasn't important. "Let's split up and keep Metal busy."

Knuckles nodded, and the two turned in opposite directions again.

Sonic easily managed to get Metal Sonic's attention, the robot even seemed somewhat glad Sonic was back on the picture and not yet terminated, as the robot put it. Sonic himself was glad he wasn't yet terminated as well, and in order to keep it that way he tried to keep a healthy distance to Metal Sonic now. Provoke him, dodge, run for cover, let Knuckles take over.

They managed to go like that for a couple of minutes and during the short periods Sonic got to take a break because Metal Sonic was chasing after Knuckles the hedgehog noticed the anyway bright green glow surrounding the robot getting ever brighter and brighter. He was becoming faster too, and Sonic and Knuckles were having more and more trouble dodging his attacks. Not that they'd been all too successful at that earlier.

In spite of this, Metal Sonic, apparently having tired of chasing his adversaries directly, had taken to standing close to the center of the room, back to the forcefield and fake Emeralds, and was using his laser and its green blast of chaos power to either shoot at Sonic and Knuckles or to blow up parts of the things that stood around the room.

Sonic noticed there were a few of the machines he avoided, probably something important, and resorted to using the spots behind them whenever he needed a quick cover.

He needed cover often.

Dodging under another beam of green zigzag light and barely avoiding the loss of a quill or two, the hedgehog skidded behind a towering machine that resembled a weird cross between fridge and seasonal lighting display with its countless blinking lights. From behind it, he took a careful look at Metal Sonic, then he went on to search for Knuckles.

He spotted the echidna crouched behind the large coil, one hand braced against it, the other rubbing his forehead. Not for the first time Sonic wondered if the chaos laser hit had done as little damage indeed as Knuckles had claimed, but he'd seemed out of sorts even before that. Sonic too could feel the random bursts of energy from the fake Emeralds bristle against his fur, raising his spines and making it hard to concentrate, but Knuckles seemed to do worse than that.

A sudden bang pulled Sonic's attention back to Metal Sonic, who was now shooting at a thing between his and Knuckles' position. The machine had obviously had enough already; flames were darting out of its top, the shockwave of a second explosion helped the fire jump over to the neighbouring automatons and proceeded rapidly from there in a flashing blaze.

"Knuckles, look out! Dammit..."

Sonic was running already by the time he ground out the last part, the wind pulling the curse from his lips unheard. He bounded over the wreckage of a fallen device, tucked into a spin to pass under the flickering flames, came up running.

Before him, the last machine in the block blew up almost as soon as the fire reached it, parts of its hull shot outwards in a flurry of metal and flame. Sonic ducked his head deeper into his wind, turning his face away from the blast, ran faster, curled up again. A stream of hot air and flying metal pieces struck the tips of his spines, but the speed and momentum were enough to fling them away again.

He jumped out of the spin, regained his feet just in time to avoid crashing right into a startled looking Knuckles. He stepped around him instead, catching his arm around his friends' shoulders and tearing him along, stumbling for a few more fast steps, then falling.

Sonic twisted into the fall on instinct, pulled Knuckles along. Inertia carried them on even as the blue hedgehog dropped onto his back, stiffened spines grating along the metal floor with an ear-piercing screech. Knuckles fell on top of him a heartbeat later. Sonic gasped at the weight, struggled to pull in a proper breath past it, but the additional drag of the rather heavy echidna was slowing him down, too.

Knuckles had finally caught up with what was happening, he was scrambling off Sonic even as they were still sliding along the floor with the excess speed. The shift of weight tipped Sonic over onto his side too, Knuckles reached out for the edge of a big, cubic machine as it rushed past, and because Sonic was still holding on to him he was pulled along and to a sudden stop behind the thing.

He gasped in a few quick breaths and pulled himself upright, shaking his flattened quills into a semblance of normal position as he went, threw a look back at the fire and smoke behind, then turned back to Knuckles. "Not quite the right time for a nap, don't you think?" He tried a grin along with it to make it sound like more of a joke than it was.

Knuckles nodded. He looked startled and dazed, but a fair amount of familiar anger and annoyance was there, too.

For once it was not directed at Sonic, though. "I hate that robot," the echidna spat out, crawling back to his feet with the machine in his back. "And those Emerald - things!"

"I'm with you there."

Knuckles threw a look of his own back at the explosion debris and huffed out a quick "Phew". He shook his head. "Didn't see that one coming..."

"Yeah…" To be fair, there were a lot of things today Sonic had not seen coming, either. "Be careful." He nodded at Knuckles, waited just the second until it was returned, then he darted away again to catch the mad robot's attention and divert it from his friends.

A few more minutes passed with running and jumping and dodging barely in time when Metal Sonic went back to chasing after him and Knuckles, and the blue hedgehog was beginning to gradually worry they wouldn't be able to keep this up for much longer.

However, the next time Sonic had the chance to observe for a short moment, he spotted sparks playing on Metal Sonic's joints. It was working. Sonic slipped out of his cover and called out for the robot just in time to distract him from the fact Knuckles wouldn't have been anywhere near fast enough to run from him this time.

With the unwavering hatred for Sonic burning in his red eyes, the robot charged at the hedgehog. Sonic stood, ready to jump, and waited for the exact right moment. He'd realized that while Metal Sonic's movements got faster as Tails overcharged his power core, his reactions were beginning to get slower. Maybe his processors were taking damage already?

The second Metal Sonic was just a meter away, Sonic ducked and jumped aside. The overpowered robot didn't manage to stop quickly enough this time. He slammed full speed into the force field and fell to the ground next to the energy transferring machine. "What is happening … to… me…?!", the robot yelled.

Several things happened at the same time then. Tails screamed out and darted away, seeking shelter with Knuckles on the other side of the room. The big machine let out a screeching noise, seemed to glow out of itself for just a second, then the blinking lights went out and a flame shot out of the control panel. The force field flickered once, twice, thrice before collapsing with a bang and flash of white light. Metal Sonic was glowing so brightly green now that it washed out to white and Sonic couldn't look at him without being blinded. Hundreds of small lightening bolts sparked and darted all over the robot's body and jumped over to the burning machine and the no longer concealed fake Emeralds. For several seconds the air sizzled and crackled loudly with energy discharges, then with a loud cracking noise Metal Sonic's energy shot back at the nearest fake Emerald and the robot lay still.

Sonic stood, still braced and ready to jump, and stared at the dead form of his robotic nemesis. The eyes were out and black, the glow gone to leave just a broken and dented blue hull behind. Without the force field, the fake Master Emeralds seemed to shine an even brighter light, bathing the room in an unreal shine, the energy hot and prickling on his skin. Suddenly it was quiet aside of the cracks of the fire dancing on the broken machines.

For just a moment the situation seemed surreal to the blue hedgehog and he couldn't quite wrap his mind around having won. It wasn't like they normally won, not quite. It hadn't even been a fight like they were used to have, like he was used to have.

But then a grin slipped over Sonic's sweaty face. It didn't matter, right? Victory was victory. He slowly, still warily, walked over to the dead shape of Metal Sonic and knocked the tip of his left shoe against the robot's torso. A dull noise and then silence. Metal was nothing much more than a pile of junk. "And this is why the real Sonic has always needed his sidekicks." Sonic turned around. Tails had come back out. He still looked a little winded, but his eyes were shining.

Even Knuckles was smiling, but the echidna's positivity was short-lived. "Sonic, something's wrong!"

The hedgehog crossed the room to join his friends. "What do you mean?"

"I'm not sure, it's the energy…"

"What about it?" Tails looked worried again now, too, automatically scanning the screens on the panels, well, those that were not charred and smoking. "Overload!" still flickered across them in bright, warning neon letters.

"Critical energy level. Danger. Critical energy level. Failure inevitable. Repeat. Failure inevitable."

Sonic jumped at the sudden computer voice from all around. "What was that?!"

"The base's computer system," Tails explained. "It supervises all systems and machines in the base. To properly observe the fake Master Emeralds, I connected the system to the computers."

"Great. I meant, what does it mean by 'failure inevitable', Tails?"

"They're unstable," Knuckles answered instead, nodding at the artificial gems, eyes wide and eerily reflecting the green glow. "They're gonna explode. With Metal Sonic using their energy, there was somewhat of an outlet. Now, the energy has nowhere to go."

Tails nodded. "It's just building and building until it's too much and the crystal form can't stay intact anymore." He shook his head, desperately looking at Knuckles. "I'm so sorry, Knuckles! I would have never wanted to make a fake Master Emerald, let alone seven of them! You have to believe me! I knew it was bad, but I couldn't refuse. Metal Sonic would have –"

"I know, kid, I know." Knuckles sadly shook his head. "I'm not blaming you. I know you would never do something like that. It's not your fault."

"Critical energy level. Danger. Critical energy level. Failure inevitable. Repeat. Failure inevitable."

"Guys? It's really nice you're not blaming each other for the big crap we're stuck in, but can we please think of a way to get out of it?" Sonic nervously tapped a foot.

Tails' voice carried a hysteric pitch in it as he answered. "I don't know anything we could do, Sonic! I've really been thinking about it hard, but I just have no idea what we can do to stop it!"

"There is nothing we can do to stop it," Knuckles said darkly. "I knew it the second I saw those things." He glared at the big green stones as if that would do anything. "They're unstable and they get more unstable the longer they exist. They aren't actually Master Emeralds, but they aren't anything else either. They can't exist in a world that's based on having seven Chaos Emeralds and one Master Emeralds as the core objects of its chaos system. If they keep existing, these things will unbalance and ultimately destroy the universe."

Tails' ears lay flat on his head. "I really, really didn't want anything like that to happen…"

"We know, Tails, we know. It's okay." Sonic put an arm around him and looked back at Knuckles. "What do you think we should do?"

"Nothing. When I saw them I knew I had to destroy them to save the real Master Emerald, the Chaos Emeralds, the world. Now I don't need to worry about how to destroy them, they're on and about to destroy themselves." Knuckles shook his head, his long dreads swinging around drooping shoulders and everything about him looked helpless. "All we can do is run for it and hope we're fast enough to make it out alive before they blow up the whole place."

Sonic sucked in a breath sharply. "Okay. Then we better run and hope we find a way out of here quickly."

Tails shook his head. "I don't think that's a problem. There are hardly any robots left, we, well, you, really, destroyed most of them when we got back the Master Emerald that first time from here, and the few that remain won't know what's happening. I was planning to try to escape again today and disabled the security feeds, cameras and robots after Metal Sonic caught me in my first attempt." He pointed to the far end of the room. "I know how Metal Sonic brought me in here. The way ends at a rocky coast and I think it's shorter from here than the way we used to come in through."

"Good. Lead the way then. The path we took to get here is impassable anyway 'cause parts of it got flooded…." Knuckles grimaced.

"Sonic told me, but… What happened?!"

"Later, Tails." Sonic was sure his facial expression almost matched Knuckles', and that wasn't the case often.

"We have to hurry." Knuckles pointed unmistakably at the fake Master Emeralds. "These things are already making my head spin. We gotta move it."

Sonic nodded. "Right. Tails?"

The young fox pointed. "This way."

"Critical energy level. Danger. Critical energy level. Failure inevitable. Repeat. Failure inevitable."

"We heard you," Sonic grumbled, and the three friends started to run.