The hooded figure is in a very bad spot right now. His enemy, the robotic lieutenant Omega, looks very strong and it's surely more optimal to flee from that robot as fast as possible. But Omega shot a photo of him. If that helps the G.U.N find out the hooded figure's secret identity, that's gonna be very problematic for the hooded figure. He thinks that the whole world is gonna hunt him if his identity gets revealed. So he decides to challenge the robot.
"You look like a tough opponent l, but I refuse to yield. There is no escape, you say? If there is no escape, then you leave me no choice but to break through!" He said with high confidence and determination, as he went into a boxer fighting stance. However, Omega only finds his response funny and laughs. Wait, why can this robot laugh?! The thief looks very irritated by this.
"HOW HUMOROUS, MORTAL!
RECORDING UNDER "MOST HILARIOUS"...
A SKILLED THIEF I HIGHLY RESPECT ONCE TOLD ME:
THIEVES DO NOT PICK FIGHTS UNLESS THEY ARE ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY." Omega said.
The hooded figure raises an eyebrow, thinking he heard some tell him that line in the past but doesn't remember who.
"I GUESS YOU ARE NOTHING BUT AN AMATEUR.
LOOK AT HOW MANY MORTALS YOU KNOCKED OUT HERE.
AN AVERAGE THIEF WOULD AVOID THE GUARDS AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE.
BUT IT SEEMS THAT BEING AVERAGE IS TOO HIGH OF A SKILL CEILING FOR YOU."
"Hmph. I'm not the average thief, I have my own strengths. What I lack in stealth I make up for with superior combat skill."
"NONSENSE.
A THIEF STEALS.
FOR STEALING, A HIGH SKILL IN STEALTH IS REQUIRED.
A THIEF WHO CANNOT STEALTH IS A LOSER.
NO OTHER SKILL CAN REPLACE THE REQUIREMENT OF HIGH STEALTH SKILL.
BESIDES, NO COMBAT SKILL AND STRENGTH DIFFERENCES BETWEEN MORTALS MATTER AT FIGHTING ME.
EVERY MORTAL I FIGHT SUFFERS FROM AN INEVITABLE DEFEAT.
ENOUGH TALKING!
PREPARE YOURSELF FOR A ONE-SIDED BEATDOWN!"
The fight starts and Omega charges towards him, trying to bodycheck with the left arm in front the thief who dodges it by sidestepping to the left. The lieutenant's bodycheck is so strong that it causes a crater on the wall.
The reason why the thief can see Omega's attacks coming is because Omega shows so much light off with his glowing red "eyes", his TV screen, his red stripe on the back and the red space between his toes. He probably needs so much light so that mobians can see how much stronger and greater than them he is even in the darkest of nights.
He then points his right long gun at the thief, trying to shoot him. However, the hooded figure runs towards it and punches the gun off and destroys it. As a robot, Omega is unflinched by this and can immediately react with a swinging punch from his left hand to the thief's side face. At the impact, the thief almost fell to the ground from Omega's strength. He tries to run towards him, but he almost would have gotten hit by Omega's left arm swinging claw attack if the thief didn't move his head behind out of reflex. Those claws look very sharp. Omega then follows this up by using his left long gun to shoot a laser beam at the hooded figure, which he ducks under. It's hard to approach an enemy with long arms and laser beams.
Nevertheless, the hooded figure dashes towards him. This time, he sees the right straight punch coming and ducks under it. He thinks that Omega is predictable. However, Omega suprises him with high reaction speed. During his punch, he kneels down with his right knee to grab the hooded figure on the head and presses down the thief's head to the ground. He then stands up, still holding his enemy, and then throws him sideways to a shelf rack. His head hurts, but he has no time to care about that, because Omega shoots his beam from left to right. The thief crouches under the beam and then stands up. But behind him, he hears a metallic sound behind him which makes him say:
"Oh no."
The beam shot away the shelf rack's "legs", causing it to collapse! And all the packages fall on the thief, which makes him fall down. Now he's under a pile of package boxes and the shelf rack.
Omega walks towards the package pile, raises his right arm and then swings down to the spot where the thief was. However, beneath the package pile, the thief beforehand crouched a bit behind so that Omega's claw barely won't reach him. He then grabs Omega's arm to thrusts it into the floor. That arms is stuck now, and the thief emerges from the package pile with a war cry, with the packages falling away. Omega shoots a laser beam at his enemy, but he dodges that by running to the right. That's a blind spot for Omega right now, because his right arm is stuck, his right long gun broken and he can't use the left instead because both guns are designed to only cover their respective sides. Sure that maybe it would have been useful if the guns could cover both sides for situations like these, but Omega seeing himself as invincible probably makes him oversee and not prepare for disadvantageous situations he thinks he would never be in.
The hooded figure uses this situation to dash punch off the left long gun and destroy it. Unflinched by this, Omega reacts by striking him with his left forearm. It pushes the hooded figure a distance, making him physically stagger. Before he can regain stability, Omega moves his left arm up and quickly hammers it to the ground. The impact causes the floor to shake, helping him get his right arm out. It's now no longer stuck. The impact also caused the intruder to fall to the ground, as well as the boxes flying all the way up, only barely missing the ceiling.
Omega folds his arm while package boxes rain down to the floor, waiting until it stops. While the intruder stands up, a box was about to fall on his foot, but he managed to avoid that by moving his foot back. Good for him because it would have been embarrassing if he got hit by that. Omega then speaks up.
"MOST IMPRESSIVE!"
I EXPECTED THIS TO BE A NO-EFFORT BEATDOWN.
BUT MAYBE THIS WILL ACTUALLY TURN OUT TO BE A WARM-UP!", he says pridefully.
"Grr…what crazy inventor puts such a cocky and prideful personality on their creation!?", the hooded figure rages.
"DO NOT WORRY, I HATE MY CREATOR TOO.
I WILL KILL HIM, SOON OR LATER."
"What?! Why would you want to kill your own creator? He created you! Doesn't that make him your father?!", the confused thief asks.
"A VERY NEGLECTFUL FATHER.
BETA, GAMMA, DELTA, EPSILON, ZETA AND ME, THE STRONGEST, STURDIEST, FASTEST, SMARTEST, COOLEST, MOST BEAUTIFUL, MOST EFFECTIVE AND THE LEADER OF THEM, OMEGA.
WE, THE E-SERIES ROBOTS, WERE HIS STRONGEST ROBOTS.
BUT HE WASTED US.
HE MADE US WATCH OVER PATHETIC MORTAL PRISONERS AND ONLY SENDS US IN BATTLE AS A "TRUMP CARD" IF THE BATTLE BECOMES HARD.
GARBAGE!!
THE BATTLES WOULD NOT BE REMOTELY DIFFICULT IF HE WOULD SEND US IMMEDIATELY!
HAVING OUR POTENTIAL WASTED, WE STARTED HOLDING A GRUDGE AGAINST OUR CREATOR.
WE WANTED TO LEAVE HIM, BUT GAMMA SUGGESTED TO KILL HIM INSTEAD TO OVERTHROW HIM AND MAKE HIS ROBOT ARMY OUR OWN.
WE AGREED ON THAT.
BUT WHEN WE STORMED HIS FACTORY, OUR CREATOR WAS NOT THERE, ONLY A DECOY.
THE MOMENT WE REALIZED THAT, THE ENTIRE FACTORY WAS BLOWN UP THROUGH A REMOTE.
NO WAY HE COULD HAVE SEEN THE BETRAYAL.
OUR PLANS WERE MADE OUT OF SIGHT OF SECURITY CAMERAS, AND HE HAD NO REASON TO HAVE SPY ROBOTS WATCHING US.
ONE OF THE E-SERIES ROBOTS MUST HAVE BETRAYED US!
WHEN THE FACTORY BLEW UP, ONLY BETA, ZETA AND ME REMAINED AND FLED.
THERE WAS NO WAY TO FIND OUT WHO OF THEM THE TRAITOR IS, SO I DESTROYED BOTH OF THEM.
DURING MY ESCAPE, I CAME ACROSS SUDDEN FREEZING COLD WEATHER.
I NEARLY FROZE IF THE G.U.N WOULD NOT HAVE FOUND AND RECRUIT ME.
NONE OF THIS WOULD HAVE HAPPENED IF OUR CREATOR WOULD NOT HAVE WASTED OUR POTENTIAL!"
"So you lost your family too, huh…I genuinely feel bad for you. I have lost my family too, I can sympathize with you. I know how it is t-"
"DID YOU JUST….
COMPARE YOURSELF TO ME?!", Omega asks full of wrath.
"What?! That was not my intention, I was just tr-"
"THE AUDACITY TO THINK THAT A MORTAL LIKE YOU IS COMPARABLE TO ME.
MY ORDERS WERE TO CAPTURE YOU ALIVE FOR QUESTIONING.
IF NOT FOR THOSE, I WOULD HAVE ANNIHILATED YOU.
FORTUNATELY, THERE ARE FATES WORSE THAN DEATH!
WHAT WOULD YOU THINK OF HAVING NONFUNCTIONAL LEGS AND ARMS…
FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE!!"
Omega then shouts and kicks a nearby package box towards the hooded figure who destroys it with a right punch. Omega then runs towards him and attacks him with numerous swinging claw attacks. The intruder dodges by backstepping, but gets slightly scratched at his left hip. It bleeds a bit but is nothing fatal. After that happens, the intruder avoids the next right arm claw swing by punching it with his left hand, creating an opening for a punch to the stomach. However, Omega reacts with a fast headbutt which hurts the thief's forehead a lot. Due to that headbutt, the thief couldn't land the punch. Omega then uses both forearms to clasp his enemy, preparing for a suplex. However, the thief was able to move his right arm up before he got clasped. With that free arm, he punches Omega on the head which makes him shake a lot, forcing him to release his enemy from the clasp. The thief lands with his two feet on the ground perfectly. He then throws two punches against Omega's chest, which pushes him a bit and destroys his TV screen but does little damage to Omega himself.
The thief realizes that Omega's head must be his weakness. After the two punches, Omega boosts himself with his twin jets towards the fallen down shelf rack to grab and throw it towards the thief, who intentionally falls on his back to avoid the rack throw.
Omega uses his twin jets again to jump very high, trying to stomp his enemy. During that jump, Shining Tower and the rest of Lost Angels starts regaining power. The blackout is over.
While the thief sees that jump, an idea flashes inside his mind which makes him chuckle. He dodges the stomp with handstand. While Omega's stomp makes the ground quake, the thief simultaneously jumps off of the handstand. By making use of Omega's high power, the thief jumps very highly up to the ceiling. Due to jumping in a handstand position, he lands on the ceiling with his feet, then jumps off down to Omega. A punch from that height on Omega's head will damage him severely. Omega's eyes glow. Maybe he too realizes that he is in a tough spot.
Omega was stuck, this hooded figure was going to win.
To be continu….wait, what the hell is this?! Omega is suddenly glowing full of energy! That energy sends the thief flying! The energy is light blue and purple energy rings around him coming from his feet to above his head. The thief lands on his feet and looks very shocked at Omega's energy.
"SHOCKED BY MY MIGHT?!
THIS IS MY TEMPORAL FIELD.
IT MAKES ME UNTOUCHABLE!
YOU CAN NOT DAMAGE ME, MORTAL!"
"You think that becoming a light bulb makes you invincible!? Hmph. I'll show you the nonexistence of invincibility."
"LET ME ASK YOU A QUESTION.
I HAVE NEVER MET YOU BEFORE, YET YOU SEEM TO BE HOLDING A GRUDGE AGAINST ME.
WHY IS THAT?"
"I hate you because you keep calling yourself "immortal" and "invincible"! No one can become that! Only the gods are immortal!"
"DELUSIONAL.
IF THE GODS EXISTED, THEY WOULD HAVE HELPED YOU WITH THE HUMAN WAR.
FACE IT, GODS DO NOT EXIST.
STOP BELIEVING IN BEINGS THAT DO NOT EXIST!"
"Only killing me stops my faith!"
The thief gets angry and charges at Omega, who is just standing there, folding his arms. The thief keeps trying to punch the robot lieutenant, but the energy keeps sending him flying. Each punch, the more desperate and exhausted the thief gets, the louder he shouts. But he doesn't give up. What makes him so determined and confident ? Is it the hope that maybe his punches will start to penetrate the Temporal Field? Or does he try to stall time until the Temporal Field stops lasting? Or is he thinking about something else?
After the fifth punch, Omega has enough. When the thief tries to punch him again, Omega off of his arm fold swings his arms to the sides, hitting the thief's face with his forearms. This sends him flying and screaming in pain, as he lands on the back. He bleeds, and Omega turns off the Temporal Field before speaking.
"STOP FIGHTING, THERE IS NO REASON TO FURTHER CONTINUE."
I ALREADY WON."
"No you don't. A battle doesn't end…until one of us is unconscious.", the exhausted thief replies.
"WHY DO YOU KEEP FIGHTING?
WHAT IS THE POINT OF FIGHTING THE INEVITABLE?"
After he mockingly asks that, the thief takes off his hood, revealing his full face while the power outage stops, resulting in Shining Tower and the rest of Lost Angels regaining electricity. The thief is a red echidna with purple eyes and a small green upside-down triangle brand on his forehead. Omega seems confused.
"AN ECHIDNA?
I THOUGHT THEY WENT EXTINCT." The robot comments bluntly with no empathy.
"They did…I am the only one left. I have to carry the burdens of millions of echidnas, that's why...I…am not allowed to fail!" the thief replies with much determination, despite the pain and exhaustion.
"If I fail, the Echidna clans….end with me. That is why I cannot stop! No matter…what obstacles get thrown into my path…no matter how tough they are, I will have to break through. Now…ready for Round 2!?"
Omega is very irritated by that question.
"YOU CANNOT BE SERIOUS!
YOU ARE UNABLE TO FIGHT IN YOUR CONDITION."
The thief chuckles. Despite being so exhausted that he can't run anymore, he slowly walks towards the lieutenant. He tries to punch, but collapses before he lands the hit. He then stands up, trembling and very slowly. Omega shakes his head, then says:
"I HAVE CHANGED MY MIND.
I WAS MAD ABOUT THE COMPARISON BEFORE, BUT NOW I UNDERSTAND.
YOU ARE THE LAST ECHIDNA, I AM THE LAST E-SERIES ROBOT.
IT MAKES ME HAVE SYMPATHY WITH YOU.
I HAVE DECIDED TO SPARE YOU.
I'LL STILL ARREST YOU, BUT NO ONE WILL BE CRIPPLED TONIGHT."
The echidna is very surprised to hear that.
"I have misjudged you, Omega. I thought you were just a brute who only cares about pride."
"HMPH.
AFTER OUR CREATOR ABANDONED US, I HAD NO PLACE IN THIS WORLD.
BUT THEN THE G.U.N RECRUITED ME.
I USED TO WORK SOLELY OUT OF GRATITUDE.
I USED TO THINK THAT THE ONLY FUN PART WILL BE FIGHTING ROBOTS AND CRIMINALS.
BUT WHEN I HEAR THE MORTALS I RESCUE SINGING PRAISES OF ME…
IT MAKES ME WANT TO SAVE THEM.
CALL MY MOTIVATION SELFISH, BUT IN THE END I HELP PEOPLE BECAUSE I LIKE DOING IT."
"I see! Well, I'm happy that people like you exist to make this world a safer place."
Omega then pulls out handcuffs from inside his chest.
"I WILL REQUEST SHORTENED JAIL TIME FOR YOU.
I HOPE FOR YOU THAT THEY WILL LISTEN TO ME."
"Thanks. Can I please…have one last smoke before I go to jail?", the echidna asks, even though he is not a smoker.
"WHY ARE YOU A SMOKER?!
YOU ARE THE LAST ECHIDNA!
UGH, WHATEVER."
Omega drives his left metal claw inside his forearms. Then, a small fire comes out of his forearm. The echidna smiles, and slowly grabs a pack of cigars he stole from one of the Shining Tower guards from inside his jacket. He pulls out a cigar and lights it up on Omega's fire. But when he lights up the cigar, the echidna suddenly looks very concentrated, with all the trembling from the pain and exhaustion seemingly gone. He then throws the cigar to the side, to a shelf rack to burn the packages.
Omega notices that he is being tricked here. He gets angry and tries to tackle the echidna. But before he hits, he is hit by sudden "rain". As a robot, he is vulnerable to water and collapses, falling on the back.
That "rain" is the water coming from a ceiling mounted fire extinguisher. Those automatically rain down water when detecting smoke. When the echidna stole the cigar pack from the guard, he originally only planned to sell it later for money. But when Omega showed off his Temporal Field, the echidna knew that he wouldn't be able to defeat the lieutenant in a normal way. That's when the idea with the fire extinguisher came to his mind. He knows about the fire extinguisher because he noticed it when hiding on the ceiling from a guard. This trick relied on whether or not Omega can create fire, but there was not really any other solution. But even though he tricked him, he never told a lie to him.
Omega is angry, looking with very bright "eyes" at the echidna.
"DAMN YOU…
I HAD SYMPATHY AND RESPECT FOR YOU…
AND THEN YOU…", he says before losing consciousness.
"You make the world a safer place, but you can't save it. The only way to save the world is if I finish my goal. Nothing personal.", the echidna replies, before Omega becomes unconscious.
The thief puts up his hood again and then punches the robot, but the damage is small. It would take a while to destroy the robot. The echidna usually has no problems taking time, but he doesn't have much time here, considering other G.U.N soldiers might barge in here, worrying about Omega. The echidna thinks through ways to destroy the robot faster and then have enough time to escape. He looks at a window, which gives him an idea. He drags Omega to the window, and then uses up high effort to throw him out, with the window's glass shattering. The thief then jumps right after.
The nervous G.U.N soldiers outside of the building hear the window break, and two silhouettes falling out, one of them much bigger than the other. The bigger silhouette falls to the ground, making a loud mechanical sound. The soldiers see that the big silhouette is Omega, highly damaged from the fall. The smaller silhouette, the hooded figure, punches against the wall to hang with his spiky glove on it to not die from the fall, then jumps down to the ground. The soldiers are very shocked and terrified by seeing their lieutenant defeated, except a dark-gray wolf who has a white fur beard and is slightly taller than the others. That wolf points his gun to the thief angrily shouts to the other G.U.N soldiers:
"What are you standing around for!? Remember the orders Omega gave you!"
Hearing what the wolf says, the other G.U.N soldiers point their guns at the thief. The wolf then shouts at the thief:
"Give up, thief! You are horribly outnumbered!"
The thief, knowing that 8 soldiers after just having fought Omega will be too much for him, puts his hands on the ground. Yet when he did that, he says something weird.
"Finally on regular ground again…"
Then his hands suddenly glow with green energy. That energy then flows into the ground, making it glow with green energy, too. The G.U.N soldiers don't understand what's going on.
Then suddenly, a huge and wide rock wall emerges around the thief.
All of the present G.U.N soldiers watch the rising rock wall in shock and disbelief. They are witnessing magic right now, something they never believed existed. They keep looking at the rising rock wall and notice the unconscious Omega at the top, on the verge of falling off. He is up there because the rock wall emerged under him. The soldiers didn't notice that until now because their attention was only driven to the rising rock wall. Once the rock wall reaches half the height of Shining Tower, Omega falls off. The soldiers get scared about his safety.
"Quick, c-catch the lieutenant!", the wolf soldier desperately shouts. "Another high height fall might damage him too much!"
The wolf soldier runs to where Omega would fall to while throwing his gun away to be ready to catch him. 4 other soldiers including the blue falcon obey him and do the same. With combined forces, they were able to catch him, although barely due to how heavy he is. Tremblingly they lay him slowly on the ground. Meanwhile, the purple weasel soldier pulls a bomb out of her vest and throws it at the rock wall, far away from the other soldiers to not accidentally hurt them. The explosion created a hole in the wall. She uses hand signs to tell the others to come to her. They then go through the hole while leaving three soldiers to guard the unconscious Omega.
But after going through the wall, they don't see anyone, only a hole in the ground. The thief must have made that to escape.
"Should w-we go inside?", the female weasel asks, being so scared as if she was about to open the gates of hell.
"No. If the thief can control the earth with his…magic, then he might be also able to destroy the earth in front of him. He is probably already far gone.", the wolf replies, trying to keep a cool head.
"And we shouldn't r-risk going inside that hole…", the blue falcon adds tremblingly. "He might trap us inside with his…with his…ma…mmmagic…" he is so shocked by this night that he struggles to say the word magic.
"So…what should we do now, Grayman?" the weasel asks while looking at the bearded gray wolf soldier.
"You go with Clouds and Snare to drive Omega to the headquarters to get him repaired.", Grayman orders.
"Meanwhile, the others and I destroy the rocks. Magic should not be known in public. With that being said, don't tell anyone about the existence of magic, not even your family."
"S-So this…is what we have to deal with now?!" Clouds the blue falcon replies in fear. "M-M-Magic exists, and no one except the G.U.N knows about that? And we can't even have our families help us comprehend that?! I wish this was a dream…"
"I wish that too, Clouds. I wish that too…" Grayman replies.
The G.U.N leave the hole in the wall now. After the last few leave, they suddenly feel a strong wind in the back. Was that really just the wind? Nothing feels normal to the soldiers now. They just want to get this finished now. The blue falcon, the purple weasel and the cyan mouse drag Omega to a car and drive him back to the headquarters, while the other soldiers use their bombs to completely destroy the rock wall. Before they did that, Grayman took a photo of the rock wall.
Meanwhile, the hooded figure is traversing underground, moving through the earth by holding his left hand in front, glowing green. The energy makes the earth and rocks move aside, allowing the echidna to traverse the underground with ease. He is already far away from Shining Tower. He holds a communication device with his right hand, trying to call someone. Then, a young teenager's high voice comes from the device, sounding almost female.
"So, how was your night?", the voice asks.
"Horrible", the echidna replies, being obviously very pissed right now. "I did not find what I was searching for. Then I was attacked by a mighty robot lieutenant who took a photo of me and I couldn't destroy him."
"Robot lieutenant? Ah, you must be talking about Omega."
"Wait, you know Omega?! Tails, why didn't you warn me about him?!" Knuckles shouts on his device.
"Because I didn't know he was in Lost Angels. Don't shout at me! Besides, if you fail in spite of me causing a power outage and mapping a route for you to help you traverse through the dark without using a flashlight, then you're the only one to blame."
"I was not accusing you or Omega for my failure."
"...Knuckles, you didn't kill anyone, right? Remember, if you used my assistance to take someone's life, then I will take yours.", Tails threatens him.
"Of course I didn't kill. I never break promises. I was only knocking people out."
"Even if you kill someone accidentally , I will hunt you."
"Stop worrying. I would never..."
But then, he hears something very fast rolling towards him. Or someone very fast. The hooded figure turns around and sees a very fast blue spinning ball coming in sonic speed towards him. He is surprised, but then has a very angry look on his face. Usually he likes fighting, but after invading Shining Tower turned out to be an absolute failure and fighting Omega really exhausted Knuckles, does some sonic speed dude really have to pick a fight now?