Adventures of the Orange Flash

Chapter 62: Steel Thyself

The next day, Naruto, Sonic and Knuckles were at the council room to speak of what had happened yesterday concerning the attack of Scourge and his Suppression Squad on the Freedom Fighters HQ which they were able to drive them back to their own dimension.

"Just what is there to debate? We need to head over there and make them think twice before trying to invade our home again," said Sonic in mild annoyance.

Rosemary Prower coughed lightly to gain everyone's attention before speaking "Scourge may have conquered Anti-Mobius…,"

"Actually, it's Moebius now," Sonic corrected.

"…regardless, our world is different. He won't make his gains so easily as you would think,"

"And besides that, we have other matters to concern ourselves with. We're gaining the edge over Eggman with our successful assault on his city…a mission which you both abandoned in the middle to waste time elsewhere," Hamlin Pig scowled at the duo.

"Well excuse us for responding to an SOS," Sonic snarked in response.

Naruto frowned in agreement "Not to mention that I left backup in the form of my Shadow Clones before we left. Had we not gone to help the others, they would have been badly injured or worse,"

"I'm sure they could have handled themselves, you needn't have bothered," Hamlin Pig retorted.

The blonde kitsune was now glaring with his tails whipping about angrily "Are you trying to tell me that I should have ignored their call for help?"

"Please calm down, we're not insinuating such a thing," said Penelope Platypus, trying to placate the kitsune before anything would escalate.

"He'd better not, I follow a code taught to me by my sensei; 'Those who break the rules are trash, but those who don't care about their comrades are even worse than trash' that code is what led to what I am today and I will not prefer otherwise!"

"Please excuse Hamlin's words, he doesn't truly speak for all of us," said Rosemary Prower with the other members of the council frowning at Hamlin who looked away.

"Hmph," Naruto crossed his arms and continued to frown.

"Regardless, we shall settle this by putting it into vote; all for leaving Scourge alone for the meantime?"

Hamlin Pig was quick to raise his hand "Yea,"

Dylan Porcupine raised his unsurely "Yea?"

Charles Hedgehog tapped a fist on the table "Nay,"

Rosemary Prower raised a hand "Yea,"

Rotor Walrus slammed a fist in disagreement "Nay!"

Penelope Platypus raised a hand "Yea,"

"I'm sorry, but the council votes against…," Elias spoke.

Sonic began walking away with a scowl on his face "Yeah yeah, no need for the dramatics,"

"…," Knuckles simply bowed and left the council room.

"*Sigh* Some things never change," Naruto muttered before following after the others.

"A council with some members that act like they know everything and yet haven't been getting their butts off the seats to experience life in the recent years? Yeah, you're right about that," said Kurama sarcastically.

Naruto shrugged his shoulders in response and walked out of the council room and found Sonic having a conversation with Knuckles on the staircase, walking closer to learn what they're talking about.

"Can you believe those guys? They have no idea what Scourge can do, he's an evil me for goodness's sake!" Sonic grumbled whilst making sure that his shoes are strapped on properly.

"I don't know, maybe they're right and that we need to focus on more important matters," said Knuckles thoughtfully.

Sonic looked at the echidna in disbelief "You can't be serious, Knux! It doesn't always matter what they say, sometimes you gotta do what you believe is right!"

Knuckles turned towards the hedgehog with anger in his eyes "I did just that and now my dad is…!" he turned away and began walking down the stairs with gritted teeth "…do whatever you want…I don't care," the echidna walked away without another word.

"Knux…," Sonic didn't know what else to say about all this, it's like nothing seems to be going right for anyone in the least bit.

"…Sonic, you head on over to HQ to tell everyone of what the council had decided," said Naruto.

"What about you?" asked Sonic confusedly.

"It's time for a talk with Knuckles that is long overdue, I'm gonna get him out of that funk,"

"Alright then, we'll be waiting on ya," Sonic took off at highspeed to exit from the city and towards the Freedom Fighters HQ.

Naruto used his senses to locate Knuckles' energy signature and followed after it, soon he sensed Julie-Su with him and upon arriving at a park, saw that they were having a rather heated argument with each other and he could hear it from where he was standing.

"So what do you want me to do? I listen to my dad, and I'm alone forever! I listen to everyone else, and Angel Island gets torn apart! I listen to myself, and I make everything worse! Don't even try to tell me that everything will work out! My dad is gone, my people are almost wiped out, and I can't even bring myself to face my own mother!" said Knuckles in frustration.

Julie-Su apparently felt the same way as she grabbed Knuckles' arm to get him to face her "Don't you dare think this affects only you Knuckles! They were my people, my home and my family too! And what's left of them is working for Robotnik!"

"Which is my fault!" Knuckles insisted.

"It's not all your fault! Shouting about it every time isn't dealing with the problem but running away from it!" Julie-Su retorted.

"You're not helping anything, I'm getting out of here!" Knuckles brought out his Warp Ring and got ready to use it.

Naruto soon reached them and stood in between to calm them down "Alright everyone, let's just chill okay? No need to take out your frustrations out on each other,"

"Naruto, I thought you were with Sonic," said Julie-Su.

"I was but then I decided to hang back to talk to Knuckles," said Naruto.

Knuckles quirked an eyebrow in response "What is it you want to talk about?"

"Oh it's nothing much, just this…,"

"Just wh-,"

*WHAM*

Knuckles was knocked down to the ground with stinging pain on his right cheek as he looked up to see Naruto with an apathetic expression on his face.

"Naruto, what are you doing!?" asked Julie-Su in disbelief of what just happened.

"Some people don't want to listen, those kinds of people require that you knock it into their heads," Naruto cracked his knuckles as he approached the red echidna.

Knuckles got to his feet with a frown "I'm not gonna fight you," he instinctively raised an arm to block a kick.

"Like you have a choice in the matter," Naruto retorted before unleashing a barrage of punches and kicks with several getting past Knuckles' guard and striking him repeatedly.

"That's it! You wanna fight, then let's fight!" Knuckles now began attacking Naruto with every intention of knocking his teeth out.

Naruto was calmly deflecting Knuckles attacks without much effort and wasn't really bothering himself to even attack much to the echidna's growing anger.

"Why aren't you fighting seriously!?" Knuckles demanded.

"Cause I'm beginning to question why I even hit you in the first place, given your current emotional state is annoying me a lot now," Naruto crossed his arms and was now using his tails to block Knuckles' attacks.

"You don't know what I'm going through, none of you do!"

*WHAM*

Knuckles stumbled back from the sudden punch to the face with Naruto holding up a fist which is the evidence of him having attacked earlier.

"There's the reason; acting like you're the only one who is suffering and being ignorant of those who are suffering just as much!" Naruto retorted.

"That's all because of me, all this wouldn't had happened if I knew better!" Knuckles persisted.

Naruto punched Knuckles again and this time enshrouded his fist to knock Knuckles down to the ground "That's just it, you're trying to bear the burden all on your own. Your friends want to help but you won't let them, have you ever thought of how it makes them feel!?"

Knuckles glanced to the side and saw the look of worry from Julie-Su, he couldn't help but flinch with Naruto's words repeatedly echoing in his mind. He kept blocking out everyone that tried to help him.

"I was just like you, thinking that it was my burden to bear alone and I didn't need anyone's help. I soon learnt that doing so doesn't make me strong, but it rather makes me the weakest out of everyone. Your friends understand what you're going through, they don't hate you but wish to help…but how can they do that when you won't let them!"

The echidna lowered his head but was grabbed by the scruff of his neck and lifted to his feet to stare straight into Naruto's ocean blue eyes "You have friends and family that would give the clothes off their backs if you needed them without hesitation, don't shut them out but let them in your heart,"

"But I…I…,"

"Your mom knows what happened," Knuckles turned towards Julie-Su with alarm "She was shocked and saddened that you had to go through all that and lose Locke in the process, she personally requested that we bring you home so she could be there for you. Your mom doesn't hate you for what you were forced to do,"

Knuckles couldn't take anymore as he collapsed to his knees and began to cry, Julie-Su went over to hug him in comfort and he hugged her back as he continued to sob with Naruto looking on in sympathy.

"…you go on ahead, Naruto. I'll stay here with him. We'll call you when it's time to go to Albion," said Julie-Su.

"Okay, and for what it's worth. I know you'll bounce back from this stronger than before Knuckles. I went through something like this since I was a kid and almost fell into darkness, but it took the ones that truly cared for who I really am to pull me out of it. They can do the same for you Knux, if you let them," said Naruto before taking off at highspeed.

"How do you suppose the others have taken the news of a council with an annoying pig as a member?" asked Kurama.

"Obviously annoyed about it, the council seriously downplayed everything they went through with a grain of salt," thought Naruto as he exited the city and was heading towards the HQ. he was halfway there when his ECG-X gloves began beeping to signal a call which he answered.

[Naruto, we're being attacked!] said Nico in a panic.

"Again? Is it Scourge?" asked Naruto urgently, increasing his speed till he had the HQ in view and- "…nevermind, I just arrived and I'm already getting the gist of things,"

Sonic was out in front of the HQ battling what could be best described as a hi-tech robotic version of himself which Naruto recognizes as Metal Sonic. But that wasn't the end of it, Metal Sonic was teamed up with a robot version of Scourge! Guess it would be Metal Scourge.

Sonic was locked in a grapple with Metal Sonic and Metal Scourge was rapidly closing in from behind for an attack when it was blindsided by an orange blur and skidded to a stop to see that it was Naruto standing there with a smirk on his face.

"It's never a dull moment around here," said Naruto playfully, glancing over his shoulder "Hope you don't mind if I even things up a bit,"

"Not at all, could use the help," Sonic pulled to roll on his back and fling Metal Sonic behind him before getting back to his feet.

"Well then," Naruto punched his fists together, igniting them in foxfire "Let's have some fun!" his headphones activated on voice command and started playing a song in speaker mode.

Music Start: Neffex; Fight Back

Metal Scourge charged with metallic claws bared to slice at Naruto with the orange kitsune responding in kind then going into a slide at the last moment to go underneath the attacking robot "Meteor Blow!" Naruto brought his knees up to his chest then lashed out with a double kick to launch Metal Scourge into the air before performing a Shadow Step to reappear behind the airborne robot and slam it down hard to the ground with a foxfire empowered axe kick.

Naruto was descending towards the ground when Metal Scourge shot back to its feet and fired a yellow beam of energy from its open chest at him. Naruto quickly fired jets of foxfire from his right hand and leg to propel himself sideways and avoid the beam but had to be on the move as the beam continues to be fired at him.

"I'm wondering when Eggman got the time to create this robot version of Scourge, considering that we gave him the boot just yesterday," thought Naruto.

"Must have been during earlier times, remember that Sonic mentioned that Scourge had been bothering them for quite a while,"

"Point taken, now to get back to trashing this bot!"

Naruto used one of his tails to reached into his ninja pouch to take out a Hirashin kunai which he flung at the Metal Scourge then disappeared in a flash and reappeared in a handstand as he lashed out with consecutive kicks to propel himself and Metal Scourge before using his ECG-X gloves to create energy chains to wrap them around the robot to constrict it.

"Hope you don't if I borrow this move, Bushy-Brows!" Naruto positioned himself and Metal Scourge upside down as they proceeded to spiral down towards the ground with increasing speed then he enshrouded them both in foxfire "Here's a remix; Primary Azure Lotus!" they slammed into the ground and creating a large crater as well as a cloud of dust. Naruto leapt out of the crater and landed nearby albeit wincing a bit in pain, recalling that this particular Taijutsu technique places a strain on the user's body but luckily his Uzumaki traits reduces such strains to a minimum.

Naruto looked into the crater to see that Metal Scourge's body was sticking out like a wooden stake and the head…let's just say that the robot is no longer operational and leave it at that.

"Alright then, just need to wait for Sonic to finish up with his robotic evil twin and we can get on with-,"

[Naruto, we have another one incoming!] Nico called out urgently.

Naruto let out a groan "Who is it this time; Metal Tails, Metal Knuckles, Metal Amy, or a Metal Shadow?"

What landed before him and Sonic was something they most definitely weren't expecting. The inbuilt speaker came online and Eggman's voice could be heard from it.

[Actually I have drafts for the first three, though the fourth sounds like a rather interesting concept for me to delve into. But I'm certainly curious about your opinion about my newest creation; Metal Naruto!]

Like the doctor said, Naruto was staring at the robotic version of himself, taking note that its body was built to be aerodynamic but closely resembling his body structure as well as the matching color palette.

"A pale imitation is what I would say," said Naruto with a small frown and a quirked eyebrow.

[Then let's put it to the test, shall we?]

Metal Naruto activated the thrusters installed in its back and rear legs to launch itself towards Naruto at blurring speeds, the blonde kitsune prepared to parry the incoming attacks when he quickly noted that its claws were glowing faintly and jumped out of the way to see that they left gashes on the ground all too easily.

"Something tells me that I shouldn't let those claws make any contact with me," Naruto muttered to himself, he used the ECG-X gloves to create a pair of energy gauntlets over his forearms before engaging his metallic doppelganger in close combat with heated sparks flying from the constant clashes of fists against claws. Suddenly, several nozzles opened up from the Metal Naruto's wrists before launching twin flamethrowers to burn him.

"Swift Release: Shadow Dance!" Naruto rapidly took evasive action at highspeed with trailing afterimages depicting his actions, the Metal Naruto wasn't planning on letting him by opening up its back and deploying a cluster of homing missiles with him as the target "Will-o-wisp!" small balls of foxfire conjured around Naruto before he launched them at the homing missiles and destroying them in midair before they could get any closer to him.

"Yo Naruto, ya doing okay over there?" asked Sonic as he knocked Metal Sonic with a Spin Dash before jumping away when the robot fired an energy beam in retaliation.

"Just peachy and at the same time a bit disappointed," said Naruto with a shrug.

[And why pray tell?] asked Eggman.

"This dude is supposed to be a copy of me, but it doesn't use some of my signature moves. No different from a regular badnik,"

[Regular you say? Let me you just how 'regular' my creation truly is! Metal Naruto, attack at full power!]

Upon Eggman's command, the robot's eyes glowed red as the claws were now vibrating rapidly with a low humming sound before lunging to attack with them.

Hazy-Moon and Masamune immediately detached themselves from Naruto's back and hovered at positions for him to quickly draw out of their sheathes as he accessed his Celestial Aspect with the white halo hovering above his head and starlight sparkling around him "Twin Luminescent Blades!" he channeled Celestial energy into the blades, making them glow with white light.

The blonde kitsune clashed blades with the Metal Naruto with sparks flying once more with Naruto's empowered blades more than capable of matching the power of the robot's vibrating claws, Naruto sharply ducked under a claw swipe and countered with a roundhouse kick to knock it back.

"Time to wrap this up," Naruto sheathed both Hazy-Moon and Masamune for them to latch both sides of his waist as he took an Iai-like stance and his eyes narrowed in concentration "…Blades of the Radiant Sky!" he hardly lifted a foot when he disappeared then reappeared while holding Masamune in a frontal grip and Hazy-Moon in a reverse grip. Naruto sheathed the swords to reattach themselves to his back and proceeded to walk away but not before snapping his fingers to make the robot literally fall apart into pieces, signaling the end of the fight.

"Like I said before Eggman, regular at most," said Naruto before continuing to walk away.

Music End

"I see you've had fun," Sonic spoke up whilst juggling Metal Sonic's head like a football with the rest of the body in pieces nearby.

"Back at ya, kinda disappointed though. Was expecting the robo copy of mine to exhibit some of my signature moves, maybe I didn't give it the chance to do so," said Naruto with a shrug of his shoulders.

"Well, you haven't been here for that long so maybe Eggman hasn't gotten enough time to come up with something solid. Pretty sure that Tails would view this one as a prototype,"

"You got a point there, let's head inside and meet up with the others,"

The duo jogged back into the Freedom HQ where Sally and the others were waiting for them, the Chao happily flew over to perch on Naruto's shoulders since he had left them with Nico when he was called to the council with Sonic and Knuckles. The blonde kitsune didn't have to guess that they don't like them and didn't want to risk Yoru trying to take a bite out of one of them…particularly Hamlin Pig.

"Glad to see that you two are doing okay," said Sally.

Sonic smirked in response "Like there was any doubt that we would come out on top,"

"Anyways, I just finished talking with my brother,"

"Let me guess, he wanted to make that we weren't gonna run off without his royal permission?" Sonic groaned out with a roll of his eyes.

"Nothing like that, but he has a task in store for both you and Naruto," said Sally.

Naruto quirked an eyebrow at that "What kind of task is it that needs both of us?"

"We could show you which would more sense than long explanations," Nico spoke up.

"Okay then, hopefully things would make sense there," said Naruto

They headed over to the laboratory where they found Rotor along with Tails and Nicole making adjustments to a machine which was a bit unknown to Naruto but Sonic was quick to recognize it with surprise.

"What's up with the Star Posts?" said Sonic.

"Star Posts, what are those?" asked Naruto curiously, recalling Scourge and the others coming through it before forcing them back the same way.

Nico proceeded to explain "According to the database; Star Posts are capable of opening up portals similar to the Warp Ring with the being that the latter can be carried everywhere whilst the former opens portals into the Special Zone where the Chaos Emeralds are located,"

"I see, so what does this have to do with this task Sally was talking about?" asked Naruto.

"The council may have voted to not bother about Scourge, but they didn't specifically say that the Freedom Fighters shouldn't do anything about it," said Sally with a sly smile.

"So you mean…," Sonic looked at Sally with a growing smile on his face.

"Tails and I are modifying the Star Posts to open a portal into Moebius, if they were able to open one into our dimension then we can do the same," Rotor explained.

"Scourge and his team invaded our home to try and took over, it's only polite to respond in kind," said Sally.

"Aw yeah, time to take the fight to those bozos!" Sonic practically vibrated in excitement.

Naruto smirked in agreement with foxfire radiating from his eyes "Like I said before, never a dull moment around here,"

"Indeed, it isn't," said Kurama, grinning in anticipation of what will be happening in the near future.

This is Hussbek online with the latest chapter, Naruto along with Sonic and Knuckles were called to the council concerning the recent events but chose to prioritize their assault on Eggman over the potential danger of Scourge much to their displeasure sans Knuckles. Later Naruto finally had enough of Knuckles still blaming himself for everything, so he talked and knocked some sense into the stubborn red echidna. That should have been it for the day, until there was an alert of an attack over at HQ which he wasted no time in going to help and ended up getting in a brawl with Sonic against Metal Sonic and Metal Scourge as well as a surprise addition in the form of a newly Metal Naruto…but all three became nothing more than scrap metal against the speeding duo.

Naruto and Sonic met up with Sally who revealed that Prince Elias had sanctioned a mission via a partial loophole which is to launch an assault on Moebius and ensure that Scourge and his forces wouldn't be able to launch any kind of offence whatsoever on the Comicverse. Be sure to read and review like always.

This is Hussbek from Ghana.

Signing out and staying alive.