Oops, I've probably lost all my readers with my unannounced hiatus, That's on me.

that said: I don't own Fate nor Sonic, and they are both owned by their respective companies, fate is owned by Type: Moon and Sonic is owned by Sega. I'm sure you already know that, but y'know standard disclaimer stuff.

Now on to the story.

Sonic was standing atop Fuyuki's bridge and the scenery would have been nice, but he was busy keeping tabs for strange happenings while Rin and Saber rushed to the Temple after they found out whoever was there was behind the disappearances of people. "I can leave the nitty gritty details to them, I'm sure they can take down the person behind this." He sighed and sat down scratching his head "let's take this time to review the happenings so far... first I was summoned here and got into a couple scuffles, but nothing much other than that to start with. I discovered that Sakura is in possession of a Chaos Emerald, leading me to the conclusion that she is a master in this war, not to mention the evil goo using her as a host. Sparred with a wannabe king, and convinced him to participate in the battle against my double. I also wound up accepting the burden of looking for someone who is likely dead, and to attempt to use the chaos emeralds to preform a miracle." With a sigh he looked at his hands "I'm going to fail again aren't I?" He looked toward the temple, unaware that his most recent string of failures had already begun.

Upon returning to the Emiya residence Sonic heard the report from Rin about how Caster's master had died and Caster had gone insane and had to be put down, causing him to immediately rush to the Ryuudou temple, only to find the bodies missing. Despite the lack of evidence of their death, there was no optimism in sonic here. There was the lingering feeling of the miasma of pure evil, and the only words sonic could force out were "It's happening again" as he punched the ground, after a few moments of hanging his head he slapped his cheeks to renew his determination. "I won't let it end like last time, I need a way to resolve this." He thought, but decided to run, search high and low, look for something... anything that could change the tides of these events, but after running everywhere he could think of, he returned to the Emiya residence and said what was on his mind, "it's begun, The master and servant were nowhere to be seen, and the sticky feeling of pure evil is where you said they'd be." The firm look on Sonic's face told Shirou, Rin, and Saber that this was very serious, and Sonic knew that the time where the poison of the chaos emeralds could kill it had passed. "The remedy I had prepared is no longer able to be applied if it can eat servants now." This time Shirou jumped in "then we can just stop it at its source!" Sonic inwardly flinched but didn't say anything.

another problem rose when Shirou added "the two emeralds we were keeping here are gone." Which Sonic sighed to, he already knew this, the resonance between matching emeralds was gone, and it meant there was no matching emerald at the location. "Well, good a time as any to discuss this I guess..." Sonic began "I think Sakura might be an enemy, or at least the thing corrupting her is." Everyone flinched as they looked at Sonic, less because of the contents, but more because he withheld information of this gravity. "And you never thought to tell us?!" Rin shouted at him and Sonic calmly replied "would you have been able to fight my doppelgänger with such determination if that knowledge was continuously nagging at you in the back of your head?" Sonic knew well the demerits of being distracted in battle, and if someone who had been in so many battles as him had a hard time fighting with that thought nagging at him, what about someone inexperienced in battle? No way that would be possible "that said, if you see Sakura, do not engage. I don't know how deeply the evil implanted into her has taken root, but if she left of her own accord..." he trailed off but continued "in any case, the first priority is the chaos emeralds, if either of Metal or the evil being that's a parasite inside Sakura get their hands on seven, it's game over." Sonic's face was serious enough to quell any objections, he wasn't his usual upbeat self. The discussion continued, and ended on the statement "we have to get our allies on board, there's more at stake in this war than wish granting now." Sonic turned to Shirou and gave him an ultimatum "Shirou." His voice was firm "if you don't think you're ready to fight against Sakura, then this is as far as I can let your participation go." Sonic's eyes were firm, but kind this was for Shirou's sake, and allowing Shirou to make his resolution. Shirou looked toward Sonic with determination and began "I-"

In a park another person began to make her own resolution, and a frightened Shinji was desperately trying to resist "R-Rider, take her down, go all out!" Shinji was in a frenzied panic as Sakura approached him, Rider not moving an inch "Y-you damn servant, move! Y-you're just a failure, w-why won't you listen to me?! I'm your master you have to obey me!" Sakura was now mere feet from the terrified Shinji who had fallen on his butt much earlier and was desperately trying to back away. Sakura brought out the shadow tar and Shinji's frantic and panicked voice was cut off as the shadowy tar consumed him. "Yes, let that hatred free, it was easy wasn't it?" It was Zouken, Sakura glared at him but walked away, deeming him a waste of time to deal with. A metallic puddle was observing though, and continued to attempt to analyze the garbage data from the Tar like shadow, and finally found a piece of usable data. "Calculation complete. Unable to replicate data, analysis: need to bond to target subject in order to acquire its abilities akin to chaos emeralds and their abilities. Termination of host non-applicable, alternative solution required. Proceeding with alternate plan."

Zouken looked toward the source of the sound, but couldn't sense any living presence, nor magecraft, and decided to leave. Neo-Metal Sonic reformed into his solid form, and followed Sakura the host of such a tremendous power. Sakura who was killing innocents with the black sludge continued to be observed by Metal, who kept taking in the 'garbage data' produced by analyzing said black sludge, in an attempt to get closer and closer to a suitable vessel for the sludge's power. "Adapting at 20% need combat data to get more data. Standby for isolated location before engaging, estimated wait approximately 45 minutes, with a deviation range of 15 minutes, resuming pursuit." Neo did just that Pursue and wait, until finally they reached somewhere isolated, the robot stepped out while mimicking his organic counterpart's form and voice quipped "so there you are, everyone's been worried... wait a second, is that blood?" His eyes were fixed on Sakura's hands, as Sakura turned to 'Sonic' with panic in her eyes 'Sonic' got into a fighting stance and stated "I gave you a chance to let me help you, and you tossed it into the trash! I'm going to have to take you down right here, right now!" 'Sonic' blasted forward with a charged spin attack, but Rider manifested to block him. However 'Sonic' jumped over Rider and Shot a homing attack at Sakura who ended up using the black tar to block using a shadowy form of Caster who used rule breaker to deflect his trajectory while Rider came in for a counter-attack, but 'Sonic' jumped upward as he began to analyze the data he obtained from the Servant being summoned in mere seconds.

analyzing data

alert! large content of corrupted data!

continue

analysis: manifesting data from an external storage, similar to an inverse of older Eggman Tech, and tech from the Ancients on the Starfall Islands.

cross-referencing corrupted data with previous examples of data

33% match from data examples, remaining 67% seems to be detached from the individual. Requires further investigation.

resume simulating combat data collection

This all occurred within the time of the jump, and 'Sonic' proceeded to kick Rider away as she approached "I don't have time for you!" He stated impatiently, if there's one advantage to being defeated by his organic counterpart as many times as he has, it's that he has a pretty precise grasp on Sonic's personality. He then returned his attention to Sakura and re-engaged, and avoiding Caster attempted to land a hit, but was blocked by some of the black ooze. "?!" Both parties hastily retreated to a manageable distance from one another, 'Sonic' because the sudden information flooded his system and would take time to process. Sakura because She noticed something off when the black ooze made contact with 'Sonic' "You, what are you? You look like the blue one but you're not a living thing, you can't be him." That statement got 'Sonic' to stare intensely at her, but pause before responding.

Warning! Extreme quantities of corrupted data acquired, recovering usable data from this data will take approximately 45 Seconds.

Continue

processing data...

Neo deciding that the facade is over transformed, but not back to himself, but rather changed into the form of Sakura herself and in her voice, with her appearance replied with a short, simple "I am a superior version" his form changed again, this time back to sonic, but this sonic seemed younger, cockier, and had no golden quills. "I am faster" in the blink of an eye the robot was behind Sakura and threw a swift kick knocking her back slightly while she was forced to block with her arm rather than the shadowy tar before Neo transformed again "Stronger" this time his appearance was Knuckles and he threw a punch that ignited the air around it toward Sakura, rider intervened, but was sent flying after being unable to block the full power of the hit. Once again transformed this time into Tails "Smarter", and threw Dummy rings all over completely blocking any safe place to move as he produced a red hand cannon on his hand and shot an electrified orb at Sakura. And after Sakura Blocked it with the black tar when she looked toward him again, there was a Black hedgehog standing there holding an emerald of different color to the four she had "and superior" Sakura began to run toward her, but as she got close the black and red hedgehog said "Chaos... Control!" And suddenly she was falling forward a pain on the back of her head as if she had received a strong kick she began to lose consciousness she heard "I am the real Sonic." She was caught by a metal hand "I am Metal Sonic!" With those final words Sakura could no longer keep awake.

Shirou was packing his things, and Rin was getting upset with him "So, that's it? You're calling it quits after coming this far?" Shirou paused for a moment while he talked "I've learned something from Sonic these last few days." He looked at Rin with a fire in his eyes "if I want to be a hero, if I want to chase my ideals, I need the power to back it up. I don't have that, but it doesn't mean I'm going to give up. It may not be today, or tomorrow, or even in a year, but until I have the strength to protect everything I know I can leave it to someone who can." He looked at Sonic, who was looking down in thought, a serious look plastered on his face, and then clasped his suitcase shut. Shirou went to pick up the suitcase, Rin, who was about to act was beaten to the punch by Saber who Sonic quickly snapped his head toward the loud smack he heard as Saber, who still had her hand in the end position of a slap was glaring Daggers at Shirou who now had a bright red hand mark on his face, then Saber who was still greatly upset responded to Shirou's decision "I thought you were better than this." Next was Rin who spoke "you finally have an environment with not only people who can help, but are even willing to help you become what you want to be, and you give up because you're about to lose what you care about. I almost thought you were worthy of being taught, but you've betrayed not just mine, but all of our expectations. Saber, let's go."

Rin and Saber left leaving Shirou sitting there still stunned by what just happened. The stagnant atmosphere was cut through by a sigh from Sonic as he pinched the bridge of his nose and seemed to make up his mind on something "I'll give you one last lesson, for the road..." he paused before continuing "the core of a team has to stay strong, otherwise the team crumbles, trust is lost, and relationships are broken." Sonic pat Shirou's shoulder as he walked past he stopped just before the front door "it's not too late to change your mind, but the damage to the team can never be undone. If you change your mind, be ready to walk a lonely road." Sonic walked out as Shirou just sat there in front of his suitcase stunned "did I... make the wrong decision?" He asked to no one, he was now alone. Shirou was only broken out of his daze when the wounded Rider showed up "Sakura... Help her... the Doppelgänger has..." before she could finish she went unconscious to preserve the little mana she had.

When Sakura awoke she first noticed that she ,was inside some sort of mechanical and glass tube, the second thing she noticed was that she was restrained with some kind of mechanical restraints and when she tried to use the black tar it didn't appear, or to be more precise, it felt like it appeared, but never came out. Before she had any time to think about the circumstances a robot that looked a little like Sonic, but also very different from him walked in, stared at her, and stated "Subject is awake, and has already attempted to use it's ability, beginning test." The robot then typed something out on a console while standing on some kind of platform and vanished, after a few moments Metal reappeared and typed on the console again while stating "results inconclusive, vital data is missing..." before it could finish its statement it seemed to notice something while looking at the screen and then looked directly at Sakura, specifically where a certain Man's main body is. "So there was a bug." The robot said very flatly while approaching the tube "it seems there was more than one parasite hiding inside of you." Sakura was confused for a moment while Metal began looking at something on the tube, it seemed like circuitry.

if robots could frown, Neo would be doing so, Neo had upgraded and reprogrammed this particular containment tube to be able to visually represent the magic circuits of an individual ever since he acquired the data on magecraft. "How clever, hiding your last resort inside." Metal held a chaos emerald and preformed "chaos control" a worm was now being held in metal's other hand, and Metal looked at it, "you are unfortunate that I have taken an interest in Angra Mainyu who had once killed my nemesis, else you would never had to meet your end by my hand." Metal then crushed Zouken's hidden core worm, an unfortunate match against something inorganic like Neo. "You never had a chance." Metal dropped the worm on the ground and incinerated his remains. "There is only one fit to be called my rival." Metal stated as he returned to the console and after he typed something he looked at her and she was told by the robot "don't struggle too much, you must survive until I can figure out how to remove Angra Mainyu and make it my own." After that the robot hit enter and vanished again.

After sleeping Shirou followed Rider who lead him to the coast, and upon doing such Shirou asked Rider how they were going to get to where Sakura was, but a voice he wasn't expecting to hear answered. "You leave that to me." It was Sonic, who had a none too pleased look on his face as he continued "this is the only time I'm saying this, you do as I say, and I won't tell anyone about this reckless action of yours." Sonic pinched the bridge of his nose as he continued "you realize that Sakura is not going to be thankful to us for saving her, right? The evil in her heart is being amplified by that evil blob that is possessing her." He turned to Rider "and you owe me one." Sonic let a deep breath out. "I am going alone, I can only carry one person, and I have to carry Sakura on the way back, and Shirou? Go talk to the two you royally betrayed the trust of, tell em I said to give you one last chance, it's not often you get a knight as a sword instructor, and a bonafide magus as an instructor in magic stuff, don't squander it." That closing statement was the last thing he left Shirou with before blasting off to rescue Sakura.

it wasn't too long until sonic made it to the island in question, looks like a military base. Or was a military base, some of eggman's robots stood guard at the entrance. "It's almost like that bucket of bolts is trying to announce that he took the place over. Anyways, here goes." He stretched and got into a running stance and shouted "Time Stop!" Accelerating to absurd speeds again and passed the bots undetected and hid in a camera's blind spot after he entered and slowed his acceleration back to normal speeds. "Still takes a lot out of me, huh? But it's not nearly as bad now that I'm whole again." He kept looking for camera blind spots as he made his way in, it wasn't difficult to know he was getting closer, as the suffocating evil feel was getting denser the closer he got. The fact that he had to take this stealthily gave him some free time to think, realizing just how bad things are getting. "Man, I can't shake this horrible feeling that things aren't going to end well." Sonic kept progressing without raising any alarms and after he went down a few floors he got to the bottom.

what he found wasn't what he expected, he reached the door, but everything inside him was screaming that whatever was on the other side of the door was bad news, nevertheless he had a promise to keep so he walked toward the door, which automatically opened. And his hunch was correct, Sakura was on the ground next to a zigzagged dagger with an eerie sheen and a tar black metal sonic radiating with evil, and the only thing sonic could think to say was "things have taken a drastic turn." Luckily it seemed Metal was still offline at the moment, but something told Sonic that taking a potshot wasn't an option "trust your instincts, instincts tell me that my best bet here is to rescue the girl, grab the dagger and scramble on outta here before he wakes up." Doing just that Sonic zipped over picked up Sakura, then the strange dagger and began to book it, alarms be damned he had to book it.

his hunch proved correct as he felt doom looming closely behind him, taking a glance backward he noticed his double approaching rapidly while dripping the devilish black goo, despite the cold sweat that he felt he quipped "I think that pudding might've gone bad, no wonder it's going everywhere after you tried to eat it!" He picked up the pace, but there was only so fast he could go while carrying a person, "c'mon, almost there!" He had returned to the base floor and saw the exit, and beyond the exit he saw rider on top of a Pegasus, And in the spur of the moment he began throwing his chaos emeralds toward Rider, followed by the dagger while shouting "Catch!" Rider followed the command without a word, rider understood, rider saw it, Sonic felt it even without looking back, and both of them felt the sheer dread of it. Just as sonic was about to cross the door he shouted "get going!" As he tossed Sakura toward rider who caught her, as he felt his foot grabbed by the puddle of black goo leaking out from Metal "Flee! He doesn't have control yet!" Sonic shouted as the black puddle attempted to engulf him, not missing a beat Rider escaped with Sakura, the dagger, and the emeralds in tow, the black puddle unable to escape the island and Metal staring at them as they left.

Oh my god, I can't believe sonic is effing dead!

okay, but seriously, I didn't know it was gonna turn into this as I was writing it, but one thing lead to another and this was the result. The pacing is a bit weird in my opinion, but ehhhhhhhh, I need to finish this at some point anyways, (no, the story isn't over yet, patience.) still, what a crazy turn of events, huh?

Anyways, sorry for taking more than a year to get motivation for this, hopefully I'll publish the last few chapters in a reasonable timeframe. In the future.

have a nice day everyone!