Author's note.
Boss Music: Sonic Unleashed - Egg Dragoon Silent Dream's 2023 Remix On YouTube
Restoration Battlefield
Blaze flew in using fire as propulsion, smashing into the Chaos King like a comet. Surprisingly, it seemed to knock the Chaos King down onto its feet, touching the ground for the very first time. However, any satisfaction Blaze might have felt was immediately squashed when she heard laughing from Tangle inside the mech.
Blaze snarled, before once again coming down onto the mech like a comet. Unlike before though, this time the mech swiftly brought its hand up and caught her with surprising speed. It not only moved like a regular islander, it also moved faster than a regular islander.
Blaze was brought down to be in front of Tangle in her glass dome. Tangle was smiling at her smugly, but there was also a darker glint in her eyes. While Blaze was struggling, she also seemed to notice that Tangle's fur was glowing a bright sheen of gold, although it was more of a covering than an actual color change.
Tangle is in a super state. Blaze thought angrily. Before she had a chance to try to figure anything else out, Blaze was brutally thrown into the ground, making a small crater where she landed.
She got back up, fire pouring out of her in waves. Suddenly, she felt a gust of wind next to her, and turned to see that Sonic had just arrived. Blaze was slightly satisfied when she saw that Sonic's usual confidence was obviously shaken.
Blaze saw Sonic's eyes widen in panic, and she looked back just in time to dodge a stream of gold lightning. There wasn't just one stream however, but five alternate streams of golden electrical death trying to vaporize both her and Sonic. Luckily, it didn't seem as if the Chaos King was extremely accurate, but the dangers posed by the lasers were very real.
They were both able to sufficiently dodge out of the way, but now the battlefield was treacherous to fight on, as the golden beams furrowed the ground making outright trenches into the ground. Tangle once again laughed inside her glass dome.
Tangle made a motion with her hands, clasping them together. The Chaos king did the same thing, its hands coming together, until they were only inches apart. Suddenly, lightning started sparking in between the two hands, slowly condensing into a giant ball of electricity. Tangle slowly pointed both her hands at Sonic and Blaze, who were watching in fascinated horror, before launching the ball of pure energy right at them.
Tangle smiled giddily. "GET A LOAD OF THIS!"
Both of their eyes widened, before booking it backwards, away from the encroaching electrical ball of death. It slowly approached, seeming to get bigger behind the two every second, slowly gaining. Everywhere the ball even got close to was immediately blackened, scorched to ash and stone.
Sonic and Blaze were both running as fast as they could go, trying their very best to not get hit with the thing behind them. Blaze was able to get close to Sonic, before shouting in his ears, trying to make herself heard over the deafeningly loud crackling of the lightning behind them.
"-eralds!" Blaze kept shouting. "WHAT!?" Sonic yelled, not able to properly hear her. After a few more moments of shouting back and forth, and the giant ball of energy encroaching ever closer, Blaze was finally able to yell out something that Sonic was able to understand..
"USE THE SOL EMERALDS YOU-" She was yelling, her voice still fluctuating out of hearing. Sonic's eyes widened in shock.
He could use the Sol Emeralds now!
Sonic tried to sense the Sol Emeralds, trying to call them to his side with his mind. For a couple of excruciatingly long seconds, nothing happened. But then, a warmth started to spread out from inside Sonic, and all the Sol Emeralds appeared around him and Blaze, encircling them in a cyclone of fire.
Sonic eyes turned from green to a burning orange, his fur changing from blue to a combination of red, orange, and gold. The tips of his quills went alight, burning with a permanent golden fire. Even his gloves changed, from normal white to a darker red with fire ringed over the cuffs.
Sonic grinned, turning over to Blaze to watch her transform into burning Blaze. Something was wrong though. Blaze's fur, instead of turning the normal reddish-pink it normally did, started darkening to a very deep red. Her new silver eyes turned black with specks of red and gold in them, like burning charcoal instead of the usual gold eyes. The fire that surrounded Blaze was unlike her ordinary fire, instead of orange and gold the colors shifted to red and blue.
Blaze was stunned at her Burning Blaze appearance for about a millisecond, but got over it to quickly blast into the sky at full speed. Sonic followed suit, using his newly gotten fire powers to blast into the sky along with Blaze.
The two barely missed the very top of the energy ball. The large ball of pure electricity seemed to travel another couple hundred feet, before rapidly shrinking and seemingly dissipating.
The two newly transformed islanders turned towards Tangle, who for the very first time was staring at the two in disbelief. Apparently, she wasn't prepared for the Burning transformations. Especially from Sonic.
"Well, ain't this a snazzy performance?" Sonic said with a smirk, looking back at Blaze. Blaze ignored him completely. Sonic's smirk filtered away when he noticed just how intense the glare from Blaze was while it was directed at the Chaos King. The literally smoldering anger in her eyes actually made Sonic flinch a bit.
"Um, anyway. We should come up with a plan. I mean, that mech has got to be one of the strongest-" Sonic started.
Ignoring him completely, Blaze immediately blasted back to the Chaos King, once again aiming to hit it like a rocket. Sonic paused for a second, before following after her, cursing at her rage filled stupidity.
Tangle's dumbfounded look was quickly replaced with a manic smile. She lifted the Chaos King's hands up, both palms facing outward. Blaze ignored the threat, merely assuming that whatever Tangle was about to blast could be easily avoided on her collision course. Sonic also didn't stop, although he became a bit more cautious.
For a quick minute, nothing happened. Long enough that Blaze was able to reach the hands. She smirked, before lighting up and preparing a large blast of concentrated fire at Tangle. Sonic stopped, his eyes widening in realization.
Suddenly, a large electric force field sprung up from the hands, its golden glow nearly blinding. Blaze was already firing the blast when it appeared, and her eyes widened in shock. Blaze's fire hit the forcefield, to obviously no damage. Then, the forcefield dispersed into thousands of bolts of electricity, heading straight for Blaze and Sonic. Sonic was luckily far enough that he was able to put up a sort of shield of fire to block out the worst of the lightning.
Blaze, being far closer, was not nearly as lucky.
Blaze was struck with hundreds of volts of electric chaos energy, being far too close to either dodge or block in time. While in her Burning state, she was immune to all permanent damage. However, it did not mean she was entirely immune to pain. The sudden electrical storm in her systems, combined with the chaos energy reacting to her internal Sol energy, caused her to fall crashing into the ground, smoking. Strangely enough, her Burning form didn't leave her, despite her being nearly unconscious.
Sonic glanced at Blaze in dismay, but knew that it was either take out the Chaos King or neither of them would be able to be helped. He reluctantly turned back to Tangle, who was laughing crazily.
Sonic dismay was suddenly turned to fiery hot rage. The Sol Emeralds seemed to be messing with his emotions, but he either didn't notice or care. He was just mad. The forcefield was down by this point, and he sped in, deciding to take a page from Blaze's book and went into ball form, crashing into the Chaos King like a meteorite. The Chaos King was brutally shoved back, the Burning form doing far more damage than Blaze's original attack. The mech seemed to actually sustain real damage, a noticeable dent on the machine's chest.
Tangle's laughter immediately cut out, and her expression changed from insane joy to a stunned look.
"Alright then." She muttered, just loud enough for Sonic to hear. Her stunned look was replaced by an actual snarl.
"IT'S TIME FOR A CHANGE OF PACE!"
Suddenly, the entire mech lit up with electric chaos energy, as if wearing armor made out of pure lightning. One of the Chaos King's hands lifted up and stretched out. An actual golden spear of electricity appeared in the hand, being held up grandly by the Chaos King.
Sonic actually flew backwards in surprise, the entire mech nearly blinding him. He looked back at the machine in total disbelief.
Guess you really stepped it up, huh Eggman?
Sonic's momentary disbelief was soon replaced with irritation. He was getting really tired of this machine.
Sonic grit his teeth. "You're getting on my nerves." He started, his form lighting up with bright golden fire.
"Time to get you off my back!"
He blasted straight to the Chaos King, his form wreathed in golden flames. Tangle only had time to widen her eyes before Sonic brutally smashed into the mech, a devastating kick that caved in its chest entirely. The electric armor tried to shock Sonic through his Burning form, but the fire now completely surrounding Sonic mitigated the electricity, acting as his own set of armor. Tangle growled, before making a gesture with the hand not currently holding the electric spear.
The mech's hand was brought up, before firing five shots of pure energy like last time, all accurately aiming for Sonic. Most of the lasers missed him, his natural speed being heavily augmented by the Sol Emeralds. But one of the lasers hit him.
Except, it didn't truly. Sonic brought up his hand and blocked the laser, using the chance to counter. The laser redirected itself into the Chaos King's cockpit, smashing into it and creating several large cracks in the glass dome. Tangle looked shocked.
Before she had a chance to do anything, another blast of flame came from above, obliterating the arm that had fired the lasers in a concentrated stream of fire so dense it became plasma. Both Sonic and Tangle looked up in shock, only to see a very angry Blaze staring at the stump of an arm with mild satisfaction.
Blaze then went to deliver her own devastating kick. This time however, Tangle had wised up and used the electric spear to block the attack. Blaze was momentarily stunned, and that let Tangle spin the spear far faster than should've been possible, nailing Blaze with the tip of the spear and brutally knocking her to the ground.
After getting hit with more electricity from the spear, another thousand bolts entered her body. This time, the sudden pain and damage was too much, and Blaze went flying into the ground, completely unconscious. Her Burning form flickered out, not leaving so much as a bit of fire behind.
Tangle cackled. But because of her distraction at seeing a basically defeated Blaze, she was unprepared for when Sonic came rushing and smashed into her mech's head this time, crumpling the face in with a shower of sparks and fire.
"NOW I'LL SHOW YOU!" Sonic yelled, attacking the mech so fast that he was creating afterimages. Tangle, despite being in a super form of her own, couldn't dream of keeping up. She just activated the electrical force field around her again, hoping to stall, for once her face starting to show true panic.
Sonic was brutally smashing into the shield, watching as fractures in the forcefield started to appear. The forcefield was only at half power, due to one of the mech's arms being out of commission.
Sonic smashed through the field with one last devastating kick. The field shattered like glass, whilst also making a sound similar to glass shattering. The forcefield's particles slowly dissipated, an angry looking Sonic staring at Tangle.
Tangle blinked numbly.
Sonic started to rev up one last homing attack in the air, entirely planning to smash into the cockpit and grab Tangle.
Suddenly, the fire around Sonic started to dissipate. He stopped revving up, and looked at himself in confusion. The fur on his body was quickly turning back to blue, and Sonic's eyes widened in realization and panic.
Tangle shook away her numbness just in time to see the Burning from disappearing. Tangle blinked at her total dumb luck, before smiling devilishly. The electric spear in the Chaos King's one remaining arm disappeared.
Sonic's transformation wore off, and he started falling. He was looking around wildly, trying to figure out a solution to him ending up a smear on the grass. A solution came to him alright, but not one he wanted.
Tangle quickly grabbed the falling form of Sonic in the Chaos King's one good hand, smiling cruelly.
Outside Restoration HQ
Shadow very slowly woke up with a pounding headache. It took him a moment, but he suddenly remembered that he was ambushed. He jumped up, holding his hands out defensively. Instead of the attack he was expecting, all he was met with was despair.
He looked around and saw that Restoration HQ had fallen, and that many of the islanders were in serious critical condition.
He shook those thoughts away, when he noticed that almost every islander who could were staring at something in the distance. He glanced over to see what was so important, and immediately after he wished he didn't.
Around a mile away was the mech that Team Dark had found the plans for, albeit one far less grand and clearly banged up. The mech looked like it honestly on its last legs. None of that mattered to him though, as all he was able to focus on was the fact that Sonic was falling through the sky, before being caught in the machine's only remaining good arm.
Shadow cursed, looking around for his Chaos Emerald. Then he realized he didn't have it. He cursed again. The bot who ambushed him must have stolen it.
Sonic was caught in the mech's grip, being brought closer to what looked like a cracked glass dome.
Shadow made his decision.
He needed this idiot alive.
Shadow quickly uncuffed his inhibitor rings, before being flooded with usually locked power.
"CHAOS, CONTROL!"
Restoration Battlefield
Sonic was brought up to Tangle, who was smiling with pure triumph.
"Well, it looks like we win, Sonic." Tangle said, nearly nonchalantly. Sonic gave her a smirk.
"Oh yeah? You think just me being out of commission is winning Tangle? You should know better. After all, that rookie from the war proved it, didn't he?" He said boldly.
It backfired on him though when Tangle just smiled wider. "Oh I dearly hope so." she said quietly.
Suddenly, the hand holding Sonic started to squeeze. Sonic tried struggling out of its grip, but to know avail.
Out of nowhere, Shadow appeared on the arm, looking at Tangle with contempt. The hand loosened its grip, as Tangle backpedaled in surprise.
Shadow then skated over Sonic, grabbing him and teleporting away. Tangle's momentary confusion was replaced by rage.
"WHAT!?"
Sonic appeared back on the ground, next to Blaze. He looked up at Shadow, who was giving him a glare.
"Couldn't even stop one mech. Tch, pathetic. On your feet, Sonic." He said, before teleporting once again.
Sonic looked around wildly to see where Shadow had gone. Then he looked up.
Tangle also looked up, her rage replaced by fear.
Shadow was in the air, glowing red, chaos energy crackling around him.
"CHAOS… BLAST!"
An explosion of pure chaos energy violently blasted outward, shearing away the Chaos King's one good arm, the head, and utterly shattering the glass dome. The attack blinded Sonic at that point.
When the light cleared, Sonic looked back up, only to see Shadow limply falling to the ground at high speed.