Part 1

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Silver's motorcycle floated away faster than he could grab it. He fell to his knees, throwing his arms up. "Why!?"

Blaze rolled her eyes. "It's a motorcycle, you can make a new one." She whispered the next part to herself. "Or you could just use your powers to get it back, but I want to see how it takes you to remember that."

"Do you even remember how long it took me to build that thing?" Silver sighed, looking back at the path he and Blaze had taken. Tikal had been right about being drawn to this place, but he'd never expected to follow a line of green light.

Blaze looked at a set of rocks floating above the entrance to a cave made entirely of marble. Silver's motorcycle was floating between the rocks. So was a cluster of what looked like cans of beer, and a skeleton. The skeleton had almost no degradation or damage, in fact nothing floating within the rocks seemed to have any damage at all.

Blaze made a call on her watch. "Hey Tikal? Did your people ever turn gravity off?"

"Not that I can recall. Although we had some very impressive technology. It wouldn't be that surprising." Tikal was silent for a few moments. "I do remember a device capable of causing objects to float be applying a charge to them near a magnetic field that would suck them up. But it only affected objects made of nonpolar molecules and alloys. It didn't affect stuff with water, glucose, salts, etc… In other words, no affect on anything living. Actually that design was on purpose so as not to kill anyone. Are you and Silver floating?"

Blaze shook her head trying to process what Tikal had said. "No…"

"Well, that's a good sign. If I'm right, Silver should be able to enter the cave."

"Still not sure why only he can enter it. And if he can't, what then? For that matter why exactly did you not come with us?"

"I have a few other ideas I wanted to try out. Also, I'm not sure you would've found this place if I were with you. If we can't use the cave, I'll just use plan A."

Silver shrugged, walking toward the marble covered hole. He didn't seem to have any problems. Blaze tried following him, but almost broke her nose, face planting into air. She didn't fall or anything, it was more like running into a wall. But there was nothing there.

Silver looked back at her. "You ok?"

"Yeah." Blaze just waved him on. "Just forget about me for now. This is more important."

Silver nodded, heading into not very dark the cave. The walls around him, not as bright as daylight, but not that different from indoor lighting. As he kept going he noticed marking on the walls, images and what looked like math equations. There were also what looked like symbols, but Silver didn't recognize any of them. The were also arabic numerals for some reason, why an ancient civilization would write using modern numbers, Silver had no idea. He still had no idea what half the equations meant, but at least he had some form of reference.

He kept going until he came across wires. Just like the object floating around outside, they didn't seem to have any wear and tear. Silver followed the wire, and a heard a faint wooshing in the distance. As it got louder he realized it was the rush of water. Silver got ready to run, but the cave was completely dry. As the sound got louder, a circular metal platform came into view. The floor turned to glass, and underneath was a massive spinning metal turbine. Water rushed through it, but turbine didn't seem to be making any sound of its own. The water was the only thing giving off any noise.

Silver walked up to the platform, wishin he hadn't lost his watch's signal. The device wasn't even able to turn on, let alone send a call or video to Blaze. Silver took a closer look at the metal platform. It's edges were lined with tiny holes, a similar metal disk hung from the ceiling, directly above the platform. Silver floated up to it, noticing the same ring of small holes line the edges of the disk. At the center was a glass circle that had a shape obscured from Silver vision.

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Part 2

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Chaos containment's lab was completely empty of people aside from James and Chief Oran. They stood next to Metal Sonic's containment cell.

"You think this thing can bring Sonic in?" Chief Oran looked at metal Sonic. He didn't notice any changes in its design.

"With the code you gave me, I don't know if anything could stop it." James patted the robot. "Independent processing and capability of actual learning. I don't know where you got this. Not even Ivo could pull this off." He laughed. "He's gonna be so mad when he learns someone beat us to it."

"Yes, well. This technology is on a need to know basis." Oran said.

"Yeah, yeah. Classified tech. We know not to tell anyone."

"Actually, you'll be the only one that knows about this."

James did a double take. "Wait, what?" When Oran repeated himself, James raised an eyebrow. "Uh…wouldn't the head of production for Metal Sonic need to know this?"

Oran shook his head. "You're forgetting. Dr. Robotnick may be the head of the project, but you're its main designer. Besides, last I checked he isn't responsible for Metal Sonic's source code."

James still had trouble wrapping his head around what the chief was saying. "I mean yeah. The doc doesn't really know python all that well. But…are you sure?" Oran nodded, and James shrugged. "All right. If you say so."

James booted up Metal Sonic's systems. A giddy smile crossed his face as Metal Sonic's eyes began to glow. "I can't believe I'm using real artificial intelligence."

Metal Sonic stepped out of its containment cell. "Metal Sonic online. Directive: arrest Sonic the Hedgehog and allies. Awaiting confirmation of assignment."

"Confirmed." James said.

"Assignment confirmed. What level of legal leeway is allowed in pursuit of capture?"

"Non lethal, minimum force necessary, do not apprehend children." James said.

"Confirmed." Metal's Sonic's voice changed to that a professional wrestler. "The blue blur is going down!" Metal Sonic rushed off as James and Oran looked at each other.

Oran blinked. "Uh…What just happened?"

James' face turned white. "Oops."

Oran grabbed his shoulders. "What did you just do!?"

"Uh…well…before installing your new program into Metal Sonic. I did watch wrestle mania. Guess I must've been thinking about that when working." James laughed nervously.

Oran facepalmed. "Oh for crying out loud."

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Part 3

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Knuckles held the chaos emerald in his hand. Then he faced Sonic. "I need you to check on something."

Sonic raised an eyebrow. "Why does it sound like I'm going off alone?"

"Because you are. You're the only one who can get there fast enough." Knuckles facepalmed. "Can't believe I'm trusting you with something like this." His eyes turned deadly serious. "There's a mountain range about 100 miles south of here. A peak in the shape of a shark fin has a cave that sounds like a musical instrument when wind blows through it."

"Sirens Cave? Isn't that place filled with poisonous gas?"

Knuckles nodded. "You'll need this with you." He handed Sonic a back pack filled with some sort of rubbery substance. "It won't keep the poison out completely, but it will react with the gas and neutralize it. You'll still be affected a little, but it shouldn't be anywhere near a lethal dose."

Sonic took a whiff and almost puked. "What is this stuff?"

"You don't want to know. Anyway, there should still be a chaos emerald in that cave. Get in, and get out before you fall unconscious. You'll also want to avoid the magma flow."

Sonic held the backpack. "Amy just threatened to kill Shadow over a chaos emerald. Why on Mobius would you trust me with one?"

"I don't."

Sonic and Tails looked at each other. "Uh…"

"Just go."

"Right." Sonic put the backpack on and ran toward Siren's Cave. The meadow gave way to brush land, followed by a sprinkling of trees. Soon, the ground turned hard as he came to a range of mountains.

A few tourists were taking pictures in front of the kraken's maw. How someone had managed to get the tentacles to stay in place Sonic had no idea. Stone didn't normally hold up that way.

Sonic even remembered seeing guidebooks talking about how fun running up and down the tentacles could be. Shadow had done it a few times, but Sonic suspected he was too heavy for the structure. Metal arms and legs weren't exactly light. In his thoughts hadn't noticed he'd stopped running and several people gawked at the now very visible celebrity. "Hey! It's Sonic!"

A little kid cried out. "Can I have your autograph?"

Sonic thought as quickly as he could. If he was around too long there was no telling how much law enforcement would get called. He was sure they wouldn't risk hurting civilians, but mistakes could always happen anyway. Sonic sped up again. He took a moment to sign a few kids' Sonic wigs and books. Then he was off again.

Or he would be if he hadn't been slammed into a rock wall. Sonic winced, holding his shoulder. A blue robot in the shape of a hedgehog pointed at Sonic.

A booming voice came from the very familiar robot. "Sonic! I'm calling you out! You think you're bad. You think you're fast! But you've never faced the machine!" The robot flexed, or at least made a flexing pose.

Sonic blinked trying to figure out what was going on. Several onlookers cheered and Metal Sonic put a hand where an ear should've been. "I can't hear you!" He waved his hands up for more noise.

The cheering got louder until someone. "Wait. Isn't he the bad guy?"

A few moments of silence and murmurs were followed by booing. Sonic looked between Metal Sonic and the crowd. Did they think this was a publicity stunt? His question was answered when the crowd started chanting. "Sonic! Sonic! Sonic!"

A man wearing a white and black striped shirt, black shorts, and a whistle walked between Sonic and Metal Sonic. "All right fellas, I'll be your ref tonight. I want a clean fight. No funny business. No outside objects or help. This is a one on one match."

Metal Sonic slammed Sonic with a chair, sending him flying. The ref blew his whistle. "Foul! Point Sonic!"

Metal Sonic ran over to the ref. "Oh come on ref! How is that a foul!?"

"No outside objects. Keep that attitude up and I'll have you thrown out." Several people threw cans and cups at Metal Sonic and booed.

Sonic shook trying to figure out what kind of fever dream he was having.

-

A/N

Yes, Metal Sonic went out of his way to hire a ref for the fight.

comment responses

@momojifan: Thanks. Haven't seen Sonic 2 yet, but considering how good the first movie was, I have high hopes.