Author's notes: Nothing new for ownership notes, ownership is same as previous chapters unless otherwise specified.

Chapter 32

Hidden Freedom Fighter Base in Mountains...

Sonic is helped into the village by Chuck, his wound having been bandaged since their escape from the city. Behind them, the newcomer that saved Sonic from the cyborg Jackal and Chuck from Mecha-Sally and the capture teams, hops along humming a song before pulling out a large motorized axe, with a chainsaw-like edge and the words "Razor Jr." written in blood on the axe-head, and smashing himself on the head with the flat of the axe head before laughing insanely and doing 360 spins as he hops along before going back to humming.

When they get to the command center, Sonic is helped to the makeshift Infirmary by Bunnie and Antoine while Antoine discusses what he knows of Robotnik's plans with the others.

Two hours later, in low orbit...

A massive ship suddenly appears from a sphere of green energy. The ship having several turrets lining the upper part of its hull and bearing the Eggman Empire Insignia but painted green and orange. On the command deck, Eggman is seen working on Metal Sonic as Tails, minus his synthetic skin and fur, sitting nearby, holding his chest. TD, in doll form, is sitting near Tails. His gem being a white color.

"TD!" barked Eggman causing the doll to jump up and float over, his gem turning orange.

"Yes?" said TD, his doll form bearing some scars from his fight with Mecha-Sally but are overly not noticeable.

"I need you to head to the cave where I got your gem from."

"You mean the one where you made my gem after failing to make fake Chaos Emeralds, right?"

"Yes, that cave. Don't touch ANYTHING else in there though."

"You sure? I mean, just me?"

"You're not scared are you?"

"No! I'm just...you disobeyed Sonic about time traveling."

"Don't remind me. Look, I have a plan on how we ensure we can help the others but we need Metal back online and this idea should work. Now, I need a crystal. Go get one."

"Alright."

The two-tailed fox doll disappears from the ship before reappearing at a hidden cave deep within a swamp. He heads inside, his gem lighting the way as he looks around. After a few minutes of exploring the cave, he finds the section of the cave covered in red rhomboid shaped gems in various sizes all covering the walls and ceiling along with some clusters jutting out of the ground. He looks around.

"Metal is bigger than me so...a good sized crystal would be smart, right?" muttered the doll to himself before his eyes got sight of a pedestal in the middle of the cave. He hovered over to it, curious as to why there would be a pedestal in the middle of a cave in the middle of nowhere. On the pedestal, is what looks like a wand made from granite and blue-purple crystals with a two-headed axe-like head. He keeps his distance as he looks it over, the object giving him a eerie feeling before the ground shakes and he spins back towards the entrance after hearing a explosion, his hand knocking the object off the pedestal and onto the ground. Upon hearing it shatter, he turns back and looks at it on the ground and his gem turns blue.

"Crap."

He goes to pick it up before a crystal grabs his attention and he goes and grabs the crystal and works on pulling it out of the hold formation holding the crystal before finally prying it loose. One he has it, he heads back for the entrance to the cave, unware of a black-purple substance leaking from the shattered crystal wand before two yellow-red(1) demonic slit eyes open within the black-purple substance as it begins to take the shape of a hedgehog.

Back on the Egg Carrier, 10 minutes later...

TD reappears and hovers over to Eggman before giving the reformed doctor the crystal. The reformed mad scientist takes it and begins to work on getting it to work on Metal Sonic. After several minutes, Eggman gets the crystal set up just right as a robotic monkey finishes up the repainting on Metal Sonic. Eggman backs up and walks over to a control panel before switching some levers and electricity arcs into Metal Sonic. Metal Sonic's optics flash on and he looks himself over, his optics looking over the fact that one of his arms has been replaced with an arm cannon before noticing his new color scheme on his stomach.

"Eggman, what did you do?" said Metal Sonic as he looked at his metallic claws before noticing the crystal within his stomach.

"Gave you an upgrade Metal." replied Eggman as he shut down the portable power plant he had used to charge up Metal.

"This is...unexpected."

"Also, I think "Metal Sonic V1" is a bit long to say don't you? So, how about a name change?" said Eggman as he went over to check on Tails who had begun to regrow his skin and fur. Metal Sonic looks himself over before the robotic monkey, known as Coconuts, brings over a mirror. Aside from the new arm cannon, the new black and yellow color scheme, and the crystal shard within his stomach giving him power, he looked roughly the same.

"Shard."

"Good name." said Eggman quietly as he finished up checking on Tails' healed injuries from Mecha-Sally's attack.

"Sir! We've got a problem!" yelled Decoe running into the room.

"What now?" grumbled Eggman semi-angrily.

"The Freedom Fighters are under attack!"

"What?! Why didn't you say so sooner?!"

"You were busy fixing up all the other robots, I didn't want to intrude."

Eggman goes to say something but stops and face-palms, pulling his face down in frustration before letting it go back to normal.

"Decoe, when did I say it was alright to interrupt me?" said Eggman calmly.

"During or when there's a emergency."

"And, with your new programming, what would be considered an emergency?"

"When the ship is under attack, when there's a attack inbound or when the Freedom Fighters are under attack. Oh."

"See what I'm saying?"

Decoe nods slowly before Eggman stomps his foot on the ground and points back to the bridge.

"THEN SET A COURSE FOR THEIR BASE BOLTS FOR BRAINS!" yelled Eggman and Decoe takes off running back into the bridge. Once he's gone Eggman puts his head in his hand and sighs, "Why did I bring some of the dumber bots back?"

"Because we need all the help we can get." said Tails as he got off the medical table.

"So, we're ready to face whatever we'll be facing?" said TD as he shifted into his Mobian form.

"I believe we are." said Eggman as he walked for the hangar on the massive ship.

END CHAPTER

NOT DEAD AND NOT CANCELED! Working on one story at a time now, this one being priority now.

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(1) For those of you who know who this is, I am color blind and go by what I see to the best of my ability.