SONIC THE HEDGEHOG: VELOCITY'S END

A fanfiction by Mythick Voices

Chapter 9

"Hope you don't mind me crashing the party and clashing with armies, 'cause this is way past cool!" Sonic yelled into the communicator as he motored across town to find the Organ Grinder already chewing through the outer wall of Acorn Castle. The gigantic organ pipes reached a powerful crescendo of howling brass sounding like a requiem mass. At the very moment he arrived, he found Amy tangled up in a mess of Iron Monks, desperately trying to hold ground with the small remaining contingent of Acorn soldiers. With an angry look on his face, the Blue Blur crouched, then dashed forward, feet first.

Those among the Acorn militia who'd never before witnessed the unobtainium sole of a running shoe collide with roboticized metal at the speed of sound had no idea what happened, only that an intensely powerful blast of wind sent all but the two Amy Rose grabbed hold of back into the castle wall behind them. The monks at the fore of the group ate the impact of Sonic's flying kick and were vaporized into glittering scrap metal. Those who survived only had time to turn to face the new threat before they were enveloped by a cyclone of blue energy that lifted them off their feet, flinging them high up into the air before smashing them back down to the ground in a crackle of smoke and fire. The exposed energy cores of the destroyed monks allowed for further weak-point analysis by Nicole.

"Sonic!" Amy cried with relief.

"The energy *krrrrrrrrrrzzztttt* c-cores powering the monks has the same chaotic signature as the Organ Grinder, Sonic!" the Holo-lynx reported. "Depower the Grinder, and the monks should follow suit!"

The Blue Blur looked at the datapad. "Nicole, show me the Grinder's schematic!"

This reminded the glitching AI that it had been Tails who ordered the schematic's creation. "Sonic! You've got to help Tails!"

"Why? What's happened to Miles?"

The pink hedgehog ran over to Sonic while he examined the diagram. "He went after Mighty and Ray, but got into trouble and—" Amy blurted out.

"Mighty and Ray?" Sonic wondered, completely puzzled. "What were they doing here?"

"That's not important right now! They tried to help us fight Eggnatius, but then the Sand Blasters stepped in and—"

Sonic shook his head, confused and in disbelief. "Wait, what?! The Sand Blasters?! Here?! In New Mobotropolis?"

Amy nodded quickly. "Please help him! I think something terrible might have happened! They were fighting over by the Library before—"

Sonic didn't wait for the pink hedgehog to finish her sentence. In situations such as these, a difference in seconds could mean life and death. And to a speedster like Sonic, each and every second was infinitely more important than to others. He could afford to waste no time. Not even a fraction of it.

The Blue Blur appeared just in time to watch Avery the Bear pass through the shimmering portal between two globe posts with Mighty on his back, Jack Rabbit with Ray over his shoulder behind him, and Tails lying motionless some thirty feet from the interdimensional gate.

"Hey!" Sonic shouted with enough fury to cause the rabbit's fur to stand on end.

Jack's pistol snapped upward, immediately sighting itself on Sonic's head. "Don't even think of following us," Rabbit crooned. "Your friend ain't dead, but he needs help. Stun revolver ain't lethal, but Heavens to Betsy, does it sure pack a wallop! Be seein' ya soon, Blue."

Carefully, his gunsight never leaving its intended target, the hare backed through the portal. A moment later, the dimension gate fizzled shut, and the globe posts toppled inward as the invisible force keeping them aloft dissipated. Sonic rushed forward, kneeling by Tails' side, shaking him by his shoulders.

"Come on, Tails! I need you now, buddy! We got work to do, you and I! C'mon Tails! I know you can hear me!"

The orange mobian fox didn't respond. "Nicole, what's Tails' condition? Analyze!"

"Blunt force trauma to the head. Comatose. Recommend 1mg re-catalyzed epinephrine, administered directly to the heart. Alternative: defibrillation."

In that moment, the Fastest Thing Alive became the Fastest Field Medic Alive, placing his hands upon Tails' chest before channeling 250 volts of electricity directly into the fox. This reset the sinoatrial node in the mobian's heart, jumpstarting its rhythm anew. Tails' eyes snapped open as he lurched forward, gasping for breath. Dizziness, nausea, and confusion overwhelmed him, and he turned to the side and vomited on the roof tile. Wiping the fluid from his mouth and the tears from his eyes, he looked at Sonic, agape.

"S…Sonic? B-but… how did you…?"

"Questions later; butt-kicking now, OK?" the blue hedgehog smiled. "Let's get you back on your feet."

As Sonic welcomed his oldest and closest friend back to the realm of the living, he radioed through the communicator. "Amy, I've got Tails. But the Sand Blasters escaped with Mighty and Ray. We'll have to go after them after we deal with this lunatic."

"I must look terrible," the fox said, somewhat bashfully, wiping the dirt, sweat and bile from his fur.

"You've had better days, looks like," Sonic admitted. "That's partially my fault, and I'm sorry for that. We've been a team for so long, neither of us is at our best without the other."

Tails smiled warmly, wiping the remaining tears from his eyes. "I missed you, Sonic…"

"And I you! But I haven't ever forgotten any of our adventures together. Even with all this brain fog I've been feeling lately. Remember when Eggman built the Death Egg around the Little Planet?"

The fox nodded grimly.

"When we visited the Sylvania Castle Zone, we learned how to combine our dash power together to survive the Moonlit Realm?"

"Yeah, I do! We figured out how to do that rolling combo to generate more power and speed!"

"Lots more power," Sonic observed. "Lots more speed. Enough to trick Eggnatius' shield into thinking we're an energy blast."

Tails was beginning to follow the hedgehog's plan. "Which'll force the Grinder to route all its power to its shield!"

"Giving Amy just enough time to get to the cockpit without those missiles firing or the pipes blasting her out of the sky."

"I like it!" the fox said enthusiastically. "Let's do it!"

"Amy?" Sonic asked, looking down at the communicator.

"I'm with you guys," the pink hedgehog yelled over the intercom, "but my hammer's broken!"

"Oh, you won't even need that. Did you notice the glaring design flaw in the cockpit like I did?" the Blue Blur replied.

Having broken through Castle Acorn's outer wall, the Organ Grinder slow-rolled into the lower bailey, the Iron Monks flooding into the courtyard like black oil. Amy and the remaining Acorn soldiers had assembled around the barricades outside the castle keep. The air was thick with the rank smells of soot, tar, burning fur and superheated metal. Distant screams could be heard as remnant Eggnatius acolytes began to maraud through the food storage and theater districts to the south.

"Behold!" Capuchini shrieked above the horrendous racket. "A perfect harmony of metal, monster, cog and claw! No flaws! No mercy! No suffering! Only absolution! Have you ever seen something so divine?! Submit! Submit to the Faith of Iron! It is the only way to save yourselves from the prophesized Collapse of Worlds!"

"Oh, he's got a flaw alright," Sonic snickered, speeding to a stop just beside Amy, Tails in tow. He tapped a few times at the datapad, then handed it to the pink hedgehog. "There. Right there. Do you see it?"

Rose squinted. "Wait, is that—?"

"Yup! Absolutely no idea why you'd build one of those into a machine like that, but does anything these crazy inventor freaks do have to make sense?"

"You've got a point," Amy nodded. "Ok, so when the power redirects to the shield, that's my cue to send Eggnatius to the upper room, yeah?"

Sonic the Hedgehog nodded affirmatively, a broad smirk spreading across his face. "You gotta admit… feels a little good, doesn't it?"

"What does?" Tails wondered nervously as the Organ Grinder chewed rock and nanite behind the hero.

"The three of us… together… fighting for freedom again. Feels like…"

"Your job?" Amy said crossly.

"Your responsibility?" Tails guessed.

"Nah. I mean, yeah, all of that. But more than anything, it feels like home."

"Home," the orange fox repeated the word like a mantra as he reflected on what that meant personally to him.

"Now let's motor, before this maniac tears down anything else Nicole worked so hard to build for us."

The behemoth arms of Eggnatius' war machine picked up a gigantic section of the ruined wall and hurled it through the air directly at the allies as they approached. It landed directly in front of them, and they scattered in with surprise.

"Ah, the Blue Rat shows himself at long last, now that all his nooks and crannies have been smoked out! Hah! A pity you'd not scuttled from your little rat cave earlier in time to see me deal with your other friends, in time to watch my monks break upon your measly barricades like holy water upon infernal rock!" the evil inventor bloviated.

"You know, it's funny, you actually haven't destroyed the prison yet," Sonic rebuttalled, "so I think after we handle your machine, we're going to throw you naked into the rustiest tin can of a cell we can find! See how much you appreciate metal then!"

This statement struck a nerve with the Great Inventor, who pulled back gently on the throttle, stopping the Grinder's advance momentarily. "You'll handle my machine?! You'll HANDLE it?!" The mad scientist gestured about himself. "Only the mind of a genius and a truly faithful heart could even dream to build something so unstoppable! So impenetrable!"

"Yeah, uh huh, well I bet if we pushed that monstrosity into the lake you drove past, it'd rust just as easily as a common latch lock in the rain!" Sonic mocked Eggnatius openly, shouting smugly upward at Capuchini as he raged from the hatched door to his cockpit. "You're not holy! You're not chosen! You're just an educated thug tricking scared people into surrendering their free will with a compelling story!"

"It's not even that compelling," Amy grumbled from beside her teammate.

"How dare you!" the inventor screeched back in shrill falsetto. "I'm sure even a being as lowly as you has become keenly aware by now that the realms have become unstable! It's only a matter of time before the powers of chaos subsume this dimension—and all others! Only those who embrace the divinity of chaos will survive this collapse! This isn't a farce, or a ruse, you heretic! This is the path to the new world order!"

"How 'bout new world ordering a knuckle sandwich then, because me and the Knothole Crew are open for delivery, 24/7!" the hedgehog shot back.

"Gladly!" Eggnatius seethed. "You are but ants! Blue, pink and orange ants! Scavenging intellectual crumbs and scraps from the laboratory floor of a genius savant who steps on dozens of your kind walking from one side of the room to the other! Your extermination won't even be a footnote in the history of my designs!"

"Tails!" Sonic shouted, the mobian fox reaching out and taking the hedgehog's hand in his own. A brilliant, retina-searing flash of light burst out in a coronal band of energy as both Sonic and Tails spin-dashed in unison. The two of them launched into the air at breakneck speed, a ying-yang-shaped blur of gold and blue barreling straight toward the Organ Grinder. As they did so, Sonic's accumulated ring energy was released in a blazing crackle of photonic force. Exactly as the Freedom Fighters had hoped, this triggered the Grinder's censor systems to register an incoming energy weapon. The forcefield of red hexagons shimmered into existence just as the blue-orange meteor made contact with it. While the shield immediately dampened their forward momentum to zero, it did nothing to affect either their torque or rotational spin. As Sonic and Tails continued to spin at blinding speed in place, an incredible amount of friction and heat began to build up at the point of impact.

Inside the cockpit of the Organ Grinder, the HUD and dashboard monitors flickered, as power was momentarily rerouted from specific core systems to the craft's defensive panoply. Eggnatius shambled quickly back inside the cockpit and into the pilot's chair, grumbling curses as he attempted to power up the missile system anew. In his haste, he'd forgotten to close the entry hatch door, which he was about to learn was the gravest of errors.

A blur of candy pink and tiny hearts flashed before his eyes, and Eggnatius blinked twice to find himself staring face-to-face with the pink hedgehog, green flames of fury burning in her eyes.

"Y-you!" Eggnatius panicked, looking around the cockpit desperately. "How'd you—"

"Boys and their goddamn toys!" Amy roared.

"This is no toy!" squirmed the inventor.

Amy grabbed Eggnatius by his coat collar and leaned forward, snarling in his face. "YOU BROKE MY HAMMER! GET OUTTA MY CITY!"

"That's not the only thing I'm gonna break!" Capuchini screamed defiantly, a metal gauntlet assembling around his right wrist and hand. He reached forward with it, wrapping his cybernetic fingers around the young hedgehog's neck. "You know… back in my dimension… I already turned you and your blue boyfriend there into metal servants… I'm not sure I have any room for inferior copies in my ranks!"

Sonic and Tails' rolling combo had become like a miniature sun, a brilliant and blinding orb of light continuously pounding against the hex shield like a perpetually-firing railgun. The pink hedgehog struggled and squirmed inside the Organ Grinder cockpit, unable to breathe, grasping for purchase.

"Don't feel bad," Eggnatius beamed. "This was inevitable! There was nothing beings of flesh and bone could do to stop the advance of cold, hard steel. Take solace in the fact that your heathen bones will fertilize the soil of the new order of Iron that will rise from the ashes of your primitive world! Die, now!"

Just as Capuchini prepared to snap Amy's spine, the hedgehog managed to grab hold of the emergency yellow lever just beside the pilot's chair that Sonic had pointed out to her in the schematic earlier.

"I…gaaah… really d-don't… gnnaaahh… know why y-you'd… install one of these…"

Eggnatius followed her gaze down her arm's length to her hand grasping the edge of the lever beside his chair. His eyes bulged with absolute horror. "NO WAIT THAT'S—"

With a swift tug, Amy Rose pulled back on the lever with the last of her remaining strength, activating the ejection seat mechanism Nicole had identified in the machine's schematic earlier. In only a second or two, the hatch door to the cockpit blew off with a loud, hydraulic hiss, several small incendiary coils firing directly beneath Capuchini's seat. Eggnatius released his grip on Amy as straps automatically engaged and secured him to the chair before propelling it with a furious blast of steam high into the sky, the great inventor's scream fading along with him up into the clouds.

To the upper room, Amy thought to herself with impish satisfaction.

Catching her breath, Amy rubbed the soreness out of her neck for a moment before turning and sabotaging both cockpit control systems with an angry, balled-up fist. A loud creak, crackle and groan echoed throughout the bailey as the Organ Grinder slowly came to a complete and defenseless stop, the hex shield flickering for several moments before evaporating into a flurry of incendiary pixels. Where Eggnatius' chair had been was now a large, circular, secondary hatch, like one might find on a submarine. With the adrenaline of the fight still surging through her, the pink hedgehog wrapped her fingers around the metal disc and ripped it clean off with a sparkle of electricity. Beneath it, she found the protective chassis for what Nicole had predicted would be the Grinder's energy source. An otherworldly crimson light greeted Amy. Gasping, she recoiled immediately, quills standing on end.

"Holy smokes!" gasped Amy Rose. "Sonic! Tails! Come quickly! You both need to see this right away!"

End of chapter 9…