It's a long one today, enjoy!

Ch. 8 Mission Yellow

It had been a day since Mecha Knuckles had been sent out on his mission. Despite not caring for the robot at all, Metal Sonic was pacing back and forth. He was technically the leader of this security team, and he missed having an extra robot to glare at. Metal Sonic takes great solace in blaming everyone for all of his problems individually. Metal Sonic is preparing for his patrol of the Command deck when suddenly, Dr. Robotnik's voice booms over the intercom.

"Metal Sonic!" The Doctor's voice booms into the room louder than necessary. "Report to my office for a special mission IMMEDIATELY!".

Metal Sonic's head shoots up, his red irises widening. He shoves himself away from the console he was leaning on. His steps lengthen as he rushes across the room. His engine pulsing to life in excitement. Could he be going after Sonic?

"Metal Sonic". Mecha Sonic says flatly.

Metal Sonic stops in his tracks, turning to face his lanky teammate. "What?" Metal Sonic demands, annoyed.

"Good luck," Mecha Sonic says, raising one clamp hand, closed as if to offer a fist bump.

"I didn't know you cared," Metal Sonic says, his engine spinning quickly as he walks out the door.

As soon as the door closes behind him, Metal Sonic lifts off his feet and begins flying down the hall. He streaks down the hallway, curving around the corners. He's making good time compared to his last trip to Dr. Robotnik's office. Two Egg Pawns are making their way down the hallway, Metal Sonic blows past them so fast, that they are blown over. He zooms down the hallway to Eggman's office. The door just barely opens in time to allow Metal Sonic and the blast of air coming in behind him to enter the room.

Metal Sonic stops on a dime "Do you need me to fight Sonic?" He half asks, half demands.

Dr. Robotnik is standing in the middle of the room, right in front of Mecha Knuckles. The Doctor's mustache blowing in the breeze brought in by Metal Sonic's immense speed. Dr. Robotnik just smiles at Metal Sonic.

"No," The Doctor says, shaking his head at Metal Sonic's antics.

Metal Sonic lands, immediately looking at Mecha Knuckles in extreme annoyance. Mecha Knuckles does not react, instead, they just lift several small vials to Eggman.

The Doctor takes them graciously. "Thank you, Mecha Knuckles, you're dismissed," He says, patting Mecha Knuckles on the head.

Mecha Knuckles walks out, right past Metal Sonic who is still giving them a death stare. Dr. Robotnik examines the vials, in each one, there are small samples of different colored fur. The Doctor tucks the vials into an inner pocket in his coat. He turns out to look at Metal Sonic, who is currently looking down at the floor, radiating anger.

"Oh, c'mon Metal" The Doctor smiles. "I've got a special mission for you".

Metal Sonic looks up silently, glaring and waiting for his orders.

"We have found the location of some of the rabble who stole some of my tech" Eggman presses his watch, a flat hologram coming up in front of him.

On the hologram are the mugshots of six Mobians. One is A female rat Mobian with black fur and a scar on her cheek under her right eye, labeled "Penny the Rat". A large male, grey-skinned hippo Mobian, labeled "Clemmy the Hippo". A muscular female sheep Mobian with white wool and short horns, labeled "Razor the Ewe". A lithe lion Mobian with shaved yellow fur, labeled "Andi the Lion". A light green, bioluminescent octopus mobian, labeled "Allea the Octopus". And finally, a yellow-furred raccoon Mobian with thick-framed glasses, labeled "Zack the Raccoon". Metal Sonic scans the photos, downloading their descriptions into his memory, recognizing the raccoon from the broadcast.

"What shall I do with them?" Metal Sonic says, looking up at Eggman.

"Bring back the Racoon alive," The Doctor says. "Do what you may with the rest".

Metal Sonic actually gets a bit excited at that last qualifier. "Understood," he downloads the GPS coordinates remotely for his mission.

"Get to it Metal," Dr. Robotnik says loudly, gesturing towards the door.

Metal Sonic lifts off his feet, and flies through the door.

Metal Sonic exits the elevator, taking two steps out into the sunlight. He looks up, shielding his mechanical eyes from the sun while he adjusts. He takes a moment to look out at the open desert, before opening his GPS. He looks over the map, taking a moment to examine the coordinates, before he turns sharply, pointing straight at his target. His eyes focus on a city in the distance, but his target is on the very edge of that city. He lifts into the air, taking a moment to enjoy the sky above him, before leaning forward and activating his engine.

Yellow Bellies hideout

Somewhere on the outskirts of the city, in a half-demolished, run-down, abandoned building, six individuals are scattered about the room. Sitting on a bent and broken piece of scaffolding is the sheep mobian Razor, she leans back against the twisted metal, her arms wrapped around the stomach of Andi, the skinny lion mobian who is sitting next to them. Andi is leaning back onto Razor's chest, holding up a small, dinky cellphone which they are both watching a video on. Across the room, a large hippo mobian, Clemmy, is sitting on a stack of rotten planks, holding his sleeve up on his shoulder while the small rat mobian, Penny, applies bandages to a gash on his arm. In the most structurally stable corner of the room is a little workshop, and standing over a workbench is a light green, bioluminescent octopus, Allea, who is working on a small, blaster-like device with a sparking tool, her glassy goggles pulled over her eyes. Slumped on a chair in the back of the room is Zack the raccoon, he has an elbow on his knee and is resting his chin in his hand.

"Listen, ya big sweaty dundahead!" Penny says, swatting away Clemmy's hand as he reaches for the bandage.

"I'm not the one who's making it..." Clemmy pauses, searching for the most syntactically advanced way he can put it. "... Making it go owie!" he looks over at Penny with large, pleading eyes.

"You two shut up over there!" Razor yells, trying to hear the video playing on Andi's phone.

Allea puts down her sparking tool, lifting the device she was working on up to eye level, as one of her tentacles comes up to move her goggles up to her forehead. She ignores the squabbling of her teammates as she ambles her way over to where Zack is sitting, wet drywall crunching under her shoes.

"This is a little reward for breaking us out of jail," Allea says, handing him the bulky red blaster.

"Thanks…" Zack says quietly, turning the blaster over in his hands, and examining its cherry red, roughly welded surface.

Zack sets the blaster in his lap, sighing as he looks around at his rag-tag team. Allea notices his sorrow.

"Hey," Allea says softly, crossing her arms. "So, we were beat, big deal," she lays a tentacle on his shoulder. "At least we're together"

"I guess…" Zack pushes up his glasses, sounding defeated.

"Zack," Allea says sternly, gesturing to the whole group. "You're our leader, you can't just stop leading because we lost once!"

"But-" Zack gets cut off.

"No buts" Allea insists. "Speech time," she says, hoisting Zack onto his feet and shoving him into the middle of the room.

As soon as Zack stumbles into the center of the room. When he does, Clemmy stops his complaining, and Andi puts their phone down, soliciting an unpleasant groan from Razor.

"Ahem," Zack clears his throat, gathering his thoughts. He looks round at his group, and takes a deep breath, "Listen, guys, I um…". "We got beat, I'll tell you that." he looks down. "But that's no reason to up and stop!". "We are The Yellow Bellies, we can't let a one little loss get us down". He raises two fists into the air "It's the big leagues for us! Nothing less!"

"And I swear to the lot a ya, as your leader, I will-" Zach gets cut off as the wall next to Allea's workbench explodes inward.

CLANK, CLANK. Walking through the hole in the wall, shaking off the drywall dust, is Metal Sonic.

Zack turns quickly "Oh, for the love of-"

"Organic trash" Metal Sonic booms. "Bow down and suffer the pain of death"

"Um…" Penny speaks up. "Don't you mean 'or'?" She says nervously.

"No," Metal Sonic says, with the type of annoyed, flat tone one would use when they clarify why a joke is funny.

Every member of the gang jumps up, drawing weapons of various make and improvisation.

"How I sees it, there's one of you and six of us" Zack looks left and right at his team, taunting Metal Sonic.

If Metal Sonic could grin, he would. As he rises into the air, palms up to display his claws, he bears down on the group with foreboding intensity.

But Zack stands his ground, "ATTACK!" he yells out, and the entire team charges Metal Sonic.

"Cute," Metal Sonic growls as his engine roars to life. "But you're too slow," he rockets forward, nose first.

Leading the gang speed-wise, Razor charges up to Metal Sonic first, she brandishes brass knuckles reminiscent of hooves. She is about to take a swing at Metal Sonic but quickly has to change up her strategy as Metal Sonic curls into a spinning ball of death. Razor has to quickly pull her hand inward to defend herself. She does so just in time, as Metal Sonic homing attacks right into her, mostly connecting with the brass knuckles, but the blow sends Razor spiraling backward. The next to attack is Andi, growling in anger as they swing a spiked chain at Metal Sonic. The spiked chain wraps around Metal Sonic's right arm, the spikes catching in every nook and cranny of the metal. Taking advantage of this distraction, Penny leaps off of Clemmy's shoulder and lands on Metal Sonic's back. Andi tugs on the chain, pulling Metal Sonic off balance, while Penny draws a small blade and strikes Metal Sonic repeatedly in the forehead, causing sparks to fly. Metal Sonic seems mildly annoyed at best, he wraps the spiked chain once around his wrist, and then tugs, and with a suddenly added pull from his engine, jumps backward, carrying Andi and Penny with him. Metal Sonic skids to a halt, but Andi's momentum carries them forward. Metal Sonic throws a calculated punch, right to Andi's jaw as they fly towards them, causing Andi to drop the chain, and get sent flying in the other direction. Metal Sonic shakes off the spiked chain, and reaches up to his head, effortlessly plucking Penny off. He holds Penny out in front of him, the other hand on his hip, tapping his foot angrily.

"Heh…" Penny looks up at him, legs dangling in the air, and shrugs. "Sorry?" She says sheepishly.

Metal Sonic winds back and hurls her into the nearest wall. Though, he notices too late that the massive hippo mobian is already upon him. Metal Sonic turns around, just as Clemmy grabs both of Metal Sonic's arms.

"You don't hurt Penny!" Clemmy roars, pulling both ways, with the intent to rip Metal Sonic's arms off.

"You can't stop me if I wanted to," Metal Sonic says back, more with annoyance than pain.

A ball of light forms in Metal Sonic's engine. Clemmy's eyes widen as a beam of energy shoots from Metal Sonic's chest, hitting Clemmy dead on and carrying him back to the wall. Metal Sonic drops to the ground gracefully, brushing off one of his metal arms. He turns to the two remaining members of the gang, Allea, and Zack. Zack raises his fists.

"You don't mess with the Yellow Bellies and get away with it!" Zack yells, very intimidated by Metal Sonic's display.

"Zack, buy me some time," Allea says quietly, rooting around in her bag of tricks.

Zack nods to her, turning back to Metal Sonic. Zack raises his fists defensively, "Come at me metal face!".

Metal Sonic obliges, lifting off the ground and rocketing towards Zack at a breakneck speed. Zack dives out of the way, and Metal Sonic smashes through a wooden beam. Metal Sonic turns, brushing the splinters out of his eyes, but Zack is already there. Zack throws a punch, striking Metal Sonic across the chin, and then a second punch to Metal Sonic's left cheek. Zack goes for a third blow, But Metal Sonic deftly swats it aside with his clawed hand, and then Metal Sonic swings his own punch.

"Pest," Metal Sonic

The punch is swift, completely blurry to the average onlooker, but it sends Zach flying back. Zack is forced back, and he manages to land on his feet, but he's off balance.

"Allea, now!" Zack yells, throwing up his arms to shield his face.

As Metal Sonic steps forward, a molten metal projectile hits him right in the shoulder. Metal Sonic turns his head sharply, his red eyes narrowing on Allea, who is holding a clunky, cobbled-together blaster that's red hot at the end from the projectile it just fired. Metal Sonic rolls his shoulder, the molten slag dripping to the ground.

"look out!" Zack yells as he dives for Metal Sonic, but he's already gone, blasting towards Allea.

Allea lowers her weapon, her features tightening in concentration. She does a little hop, pulling her knees up. Small domes form on the soles of her shoes, both small domes have a star painted on the bottom. As soon as the round devices on her feet make contact with the floor, springs shoot out from her feet, and with a satisfying "DING" Allea is propelled right over Metal Sonic's attack. Allea's tentacles fan out behind her, wrapping around a rafter. She points her blaster down at him and fires another bolt of slag at him. Metal Sonic zooms underneath her, and the bolt strikes him directly in one of his quills. His metal quill blows right off in a spray of molten metal. Metal Sonic skids to a halt, turning to look at the pile of bubbling red hot goop that used to be attached to him. Metal Sonic glares up at Allea, his red eyes filled with vengeful intent. But as Metal Sonic lifts just a few feet off the ground, he is struck with a ball of electricity, and Metal Sonic crashes to the ground, eyes blank. Zack, down on the floor, is holding his brand-new red blaster.

"Wow… I didn't think dat would work," Zack lowers the blaster, pushing himself up.

All of the members of the gang pick themselves up, some extracting themselves from the rubble, and Allea drops back to the ground. The group drags themselves along, coming to circle around the shorted-out Metal Sonic. Metal Sonic's eyes blink back on, narrowing as he looks at the group around him.

Clemmy glances down at the large burn on his leathery chest "I was just healin' my arm up, and you made bigger owie on my chest!". Clemmy raises a metal pole "I get first wack".

Clemmy brings down the metal pole, but with a sharp creak, the pole is now bent at a 90-degree angle, stopped by Metal Sonic's octahedral black shield. Clemmy groans in frustration as the rest of the gang starts in on the shield, punching it, stabbing it, thrashing it, and blasting it with electricity and molten goop. But Metal Sonic just hovers inside of his shield, watching the sparks of electricity from the earlier blast dance between his conductive fingertips. Metal Sonic clenches his fist, drawing more power from his core, the blue electricity in his hand begins to mingle with yellow electricity from his core. The black shield vanishes as a field of electricity expands out of Metal Sonic. The field throws all of the members of the gang spiraling backward, they all cry out in pain, with Allea's bioluminescent marks lighting up as well. Metal Sonic moves quickly, focusing on maintaining his electrical field, he blasts toward Zack. Before he even hits the ground, Zack is caught at the edge of the field, and the electrical field carries him all the way to the wall. As Zack smashes into the wall, Metal Sonic dispurses the electrical field. Zack slides down the wall, the fur on the front of his body singed and smoking. Metal Sonic stands up straight, reabsorbing the excess power back into his systems. Before Metal Sonic has the chance to plan his next action, he hears the wailing of sirens closing in on the building. Metal Sonic glances around the building, spotting the damage and new holes in the wall. Metal Sonic would love to stay and fight, but he can already feel his obedience programming pulling him to complete the mission. With a grumble, Metal Sonic grabs Zack by the scruff of his neck. Metal Sonic exits out of the hole he came in from, dragging Zack behind him. Allea gets up on her elbows and crawls across the floor.

"Zack!" Allea calls in desperation, her hand outstretched, uselessly reaching for Zack.

Metal Sonic turns halfway for one last look at his handy work, before jetting off, dragging Zack's limp form behind him.

Eggman's office

"Thank you for delivering the new prisoner to his cell, Metal," Dr. Eggman says with a big grin, standing up behind his desk, arms folded behind his back.

Metal Sonic clutches the back of his head where his metal quill is blown off. He didn't deliver the prisoner out of the goodness of his heart, he just wanted to avoid Eggman for longer.

Dr. Robotnik leans over his desk, placing his hands on the surface and putting his weight on it "Now Metal, go fix yourself up". "I don't think either of us can bear seeing you like this" he stands up, putting both hands on his chest, below his lapel, and letting out a hearty laugh.

Metal Sonic just stays silent, he's fuming but has no idea what he should say.

"You're dismissed," Eggman says, turning away to face the computer monitor behind him.

Metal Sonic slinks off, looking down, shoulders slumped. The walk back to the security office is uneventful, Metal Sonic wants as little to do with his teammates as possible. He walks past any glances from Mecha Sonic, shoulders his way past Silver Sonic, and quite literally picks up Mecha Knuckles and sets him out of the way. Metal Sonic walks right up to the repair machine and presses himself into it. Metal Sonic sits for a moment… but the machine doesn't switch on. Metal Sonic pulls himself from the machine and looks impatiently at the screen on the side.

The computer displays: "3 MORE DAY(S) UNTIL USE".

Metal Sonic recognizes this feature, it was put in by Dr. Eggman to conserve resources after Metal Sonic was using it every day. What can he say, he likes to be in top condition. But why was the timer on now? He hadn't used it yesterday, unless…

"That egg-shaped buffoon" Metal Sonic growls under his breath.

Yesterday, he ripped open the machine to access the blue paint, but that shouldn't have been logged, though it seems it was anyway.

"Gah!" Metal Sonic releases a loud sound to express his immense frustration. Eggman knew, didn't he? He knew this whole time, just mocking Metal Sonic. Metal Sonic pulls back his fist, ready to absolutely obliterate whatever was closest. He swings his fist right at Mecha Sonic's face, who has come over to check on Metal Sonic and the repair machine. Metal Sonic's fist locks up about a quarter inch from Mecha Sonic's face, frozen by the obedience programming. Mecha Sonic lifts his hand, grabs Metal Sonic's wrist, and lowers his hand slowly.

"How was the-" Mecha Sonic begins.

Metal Sonic just turns away in fury, completely ignoring Mecha Sonic's query. Metal Sonic marches to the corner, looking away from all of his teammates. His fingers scratch at the portion of his head where his quill was blown off. He emits a low, droning sound of defeat.

But robots can't cry