Chapter 43: Freeway Capers - Part 2:
I'm Sonic! Sonic the Hedgehog!
Holy fuck, could this night get any crazier?!
First, something possesses Silver, creating
a rift between himself, Blaze, AND Amy, but
NOW it seems that Eggman Nega has
returned and is wreaking havoc again! Ah well,
at least I finally get to take down a major threat
again, instead of just the petty crimes that have
occurred since Eggman died! So I'm actually
pretty damn pumped!
"Hahahaha! Tremble in fear before the Egg Swiss-Army Knife!" Nega chuckled from behind the protective dome of his cockpit.
Only now could everyone get a good look at the whole robot. It consisted of a large abdominal region with the cockpit on top, complete with eight appendages sticking off of it. The torso had a band around it that could rotate, enabling all the appendages to be extended in all directions. Each appendage was also tipped with a different weapon. One had a large claw; one had a large chainsaw; one had a nozzle like the one on a gas pump; one had a tip that resembled a giant phillips-head screw; one had a large magnifying glass; one had a flame-thrower surrounded by eight smaller guns that could fire missiles; one had a mirror; and one had an inactive ray-gun that had seven holes in it, each one shaped like a sol emerald. The entire mech was held up by a single jet, enabling it to hover off the ground.
"Quite nice, isn't it? And the best part is, it runs on artificial sol emerald energy!" Eggman Nega continued, only to realize that Amy's car and everyone within it had driven off during his rambling.
"Wha? Where'd they go?" He asked.
"They probably left out of boredom from how your robot looks!" Sonic said, "I mean let's face it, the whole spider-like design is so almost two years ago!"
"Rrgh, who asked you!?" He said, briefly eyeing the cloud-line.
As morning was creeping over Mobius, a ray of sun started to show through the purple sky. Grinning, Nega activated the magnifying glass on his mech and positioned it so that it crossed the sunlight's path. Almost immediately, the single ray of sunlight was concentrated into deadly energy and a blinding beam was headed straight for the approaching bi-plane.
"Augh! Incomiiiiiing!" Tails yelled.
"DO A BARREL ROLL!" Sonic shouted, tightly gripping the wing he was standing on.
"You traitor!" Tails commented as the two spun around sideways.
"Shut up, Tails! AAGGHH!" Sonic replied, before accidentally flying off the plane and high into the air.
"SONIC!" Tails gasped.
Sonic quickly regained control by backflipping a few times, and started to free-fall back down to the road. Just as he landed, he curled tightly into a ball and rolled forward a short distance to break his fall and started boosting along the road.
"D'oh! I missed!" Eggman Nega groaned, pounding his control panel.
"I'm surrounded by traitors!" Tails moaned, proceeding to follow Sonic down the freeway.
Not giving up after his misfire, the doctor proceeded to fire missiles at the two. Sonic proceeded to homing attack them, chaining them together until he reached the Egg Swiss-Army Knife, but did no damage to the mech itself.
"Huh?" He wondered, running backwards as he was searching the mech for a vulnerable area.
From the same appendage that had just shot the missiles, Eggman Nega used the flame-thrower on Sonic, with the blue speed-demon narrowly avoiding it with a backflip. Sonic landed by the downed Knuckles, who was slowly getting up. The mech was still coming after them. Not wanting to let either himself or Knuckles easily fall victim to the approaching mech, Sonic summoned all his strength and tossed the not-completely-standing-up Knuckles into the approaching Tornado before taking off again, narrowly avoiding another blast from the flame-thrower.
Soon, the four caught up with the others, the Egg Swiss-Army Knife still constantly using its attacks on the heroes. The noises from behind the car grew louder and louder as the fight continued. A second barrage of missiles was fired and streams of them were heading in different directions. Some were headed for the fleeing car, some were headed for Sonic, and some were headed for the Tornado. The ones that were about to hit the car were caught thanks to Silver's telekineses, (and the one that had swerved around him was knocked back by Amy's hammer), while the ones that were headed for the bi-plane were dodged with a barrel roll, causing them to crash into the woods off the side of the road and cause a brush fire.
Now double the missiles were headed for Sonic. Realizing this, he quickly turned back, all of the missiles giving chase. Jumping high into the air, he kicked one of the homing missiles and rode it like a surfboard, attempting to guide them back to the mech. However, Eggman Nega was quick to see through this strategy, and gave a swing of the chainsaw. Sonic was intercepted as he was slashed in the side, falling back to the ground.
"Aggh!" He groaned, holding his side after just barely landing on his feet.
Luckily, the missiles (including the one that had been surfed on) still hit their new target, sending the Egg Swiss-Army Knife hurtling backwards and landing on its backside, only to quickly get up and start charging towards the weakened Sonic.
As it was readying another solar blast from the magnifying glass, the mech stumbled and its lower half started to buzz.
"What? Foreign Contaminant?" The doctor pondered, reading the notice that had popped up on the screen of his control panel, unaware that the popcorn butter had already started to disrupt the circuits.
Suddenly, the single jet that held the mech up started to short out, and the mech briefly stumbled in midair.
"Rrgh! I don't have time for this!" Nega groaned, quickly noticing that Sonic had left.
He saw him running along the highway, not as fast as usual due to the pain in his injured side. The Egg Swiss-Army Knife gave chase, preparing to shoot the flame-thrower at Sonic again. Sonic narrowly avoided it again as he jumped onto the metal rail that lined the outer edge of the freeway, no longer holding his side since he had to maintain his balance as he proceeded to grind, droplets of blood flying backwards off of him.
"Heh heh heh heh, nice move hedgehog! But unfortunately, your strategy is horribly flawed!" Nega gloated, pressing a button and activating the screw-like appendage.
He touched the tip of the screw to the very rail that Sonic was grinding on, as an electric charge started to flow into it. Sonic quickly jumped off the rail as he watched the charge moving through the rail. Now he knew what the screw did: emitting electricity to travel through metal. In mid-air, Sonic summoned the chaos emeralds, which rotated around him immediately. But Sonic noticed that something wasn't right: the green emerald was gone.
"Hmm? Where's the seventh one?" He pondered, still hovering in the air due to the power of the other six.
Suddenly, he and the emeralds fell to the ground due to lack of power from the seventh one. As this happened, Dr. Eggman Nega was giving chase, and quickly extended his claw.
"Ooh! What's this I see? An extra power source? You shouldn't have!" He said.
Sonic managed to grab all six emeralds, but was soon pinned down by the claw as Nega raised the phillips-head screw again.
Seriously, where could the seventh emerald have gone? None of us could've taken it without taking all seven! ...Unless...! Sonic thought before noticing the screw being raised upwards.
The electric bolt emitted from it shot upwards and broke the cloud layer, leaving a large round hole in it and letting lots of sunlight shine through.
"Heh heh heh, time for the big finish!" Nega cackled as he raised the magnifying glass in an attempt to fire a solar blast much more powerful than the ones he had fired previously.
Meanwhile, back in the car, Sonic Jr. (who had slept through the whole commotion until now) woke up to see everyone parked on the side, noticing Sonic pinned to the asphalt.
"Alright, I'm going in!" Blaze said, jumping out of her side of the car without opening the door.
Sonic Jr. watched her do this and soon saw the condition his father was in. He jumped out the back of the car.
"Junior! Get back here!" Amy gasped, "JUNIOR!"
Having already inherited his father's speed, Junior made it to the scene in no time, even managing to beat Blaze to it, (though instead of helping Sonic, Blaze made a beeline for the robot).
"No, Junior. Go back to Mommy." Sonic weakly said, trying to wriggle out of the claw's grip.
"Dada?" Junior asked, before noticing the magnifying glass charging up with deadly radiation.
Looking up, the young hedgehog noticed the single jet, glowing a purplish light as it held the entire mech up, flickering occasionally due to the butter that had disrupted the inner mechanisms.
"D'aww, how adorable!" Nega said, eyeing Sonic Jr., "...And you'll be even more adorable when I make you into hedgehog meatballs and serve you over a plate of spaghetti!"
"Getta woada this!" Junior said back, even though he could not understand a single word of the doctor's death threat.
He proceeded to charge up a spin-dash just as the Egg Swiss-Army Knife lowered the powered-up magnifying glass down towards the two hedgehogs. Then Junior launched himself at the mech and homing attacked the already weakened jet, rendering it useless and knocking the mech over. The impact left the mech sitting on the ground, now immobilized and unable to hover. Since the mech had fallen over sideways, the claw that was holding Sonic lifted upwards, freeing him from its grip, while the solar blast that had been charged up was shot upwards instead, increasing the size of the hole in the cloud-layer.
"I cannot believe it!" Sonic exclaimed, not acknowledging the fact that Amy had come and helped him to his feet.
Right after Junior landed right by them, the supposedly defeated doctor charged up another solar blast. Amy realized this.
"Sonic! Look out!" She said.
"...My son performed his first homing attack!" Sonic exclaimed.
"Let's go!" Amy groaned, rolling her eyes.
The three hedgehogs managed to get off the highway before the blast was fired, completely missing everyone who was participating in the fight.
"Rrgh!" Nega groaned, pounding his dashboard and shaking the entire robot in the process.
Without warning, a large missile knocked the mech onto the other side of the highway. It was from the Tornado. Having landed upright, Eggman Nega still didn't give up and activated the rest of his weapons except for the sol emerald-powered ray gun. He used the mirror to deflect the next missile fired at him, which hit the nose of the plane. Tails barely managed to land the plane on its wheels and resorted to driving along the road, the propeller badly beaten up as it slowly rotated. The doctor then activated the nozzle-like appendage and fired a black substance from it. The substance caused the plane to slip on the ground, spinning around uncontrollably. Suddenly, with the press of a button, the nozzle switched substances, and a thick gray goop was released, abruptly stopping the plane in its tracks. Thinking that he had won now, the chuckling doctor was suddenly knocked around again as Blaze boosted right through him, fire bursting out of her. As a result of the impact, some of the appendages fell off. Sonic, who had been thinking for a moment dashed over to one of the fallen weapons and picked it up, immediately recognizing it as the flame-thrower.
"Here, pal!" He yelled, running over to the stuck plane and using the flames to melt the goo that had trapped its wheels in place.
"Thanks Sonic!" Tails praised, slapping Sonic on the back only to cause him to recoil.
"Ugh!" Sonic groaned, suddenly feeling pain in his side once more.
Blood started to stream down his legs again, and had already left a large stain on his white gloves.
"Aagh! I'm sorry! Just hold on!" Tails gasped, quickly searching through the storage unit on his plane for some first aid.