It was now nighttime on Little Planet, and after a few minutes of running, Sonic arrived in a beautiful new location. This location was a golden highway that sat above an enormous city below that wawa lit up by purple light. In addition, the highway was also adorned by brass instruments. Sonic looked around in awe of the beauty of the area before saying to himself,

"Whoa…this place….it's beautiful…."

As he looked down at the highway he was standing on, the hedgehog then muttered,

"If I was a betting hog, I'd bet that this was the Stardust Speedway Eggman mentioned."

Tapping his foot on the ground, Sonic smirked and said to himself,

"Robuttnik can't be too far from here, and this place looks way more my speed than a lot of the last ones! Alright, let's juice!"

Sonic then burst off across the highway, his speed leaving behind sparks in his wake. The hedgehog whooped happily as he felt the wind through his quills, relishing the chance to go all out with his speed. In fact he was moving so fast that he wasn't paying attention when he dashed past a past sign, and before he knew it he was flung to the past.

The blue hedgehog hurriedly examined his new surroundings, and saw that Stardust Speedway was now surrounded by an ancient looking city and was covered in vines. The hedgehog briefly wondered who had built all of this before, but shrugged and began running off into the distance.

Soon he reached the last robot generator and destroyed it with a mighty homing attack. Once that was done with, Sonic made his way to a future sign and used it to return to the present, where the highway he stood upon was now purple with pink highlights all over it and looked over a vast bay with bright cities and boats in the distance. Sonic smirked at his handy work and then said to himself,

"Alright, all that's left to do is find and save Amy, then I can kick Robotnik and his future buddy all the way back to where they came from!"

Sonic then shot off across the speedway, running around the natural loop-de-loops before coming to a stop in front of a large gate. Standing in front of that gate was Metal Sonic, who stared at Sonic wordlessly. The hedgehog, not wanting to play games, yelled at his metal doppelganger,

"You! Robo-Faker! Where's Amy?!"

As if to answer his question, both Robotnik's suddenly flew in their own versions of the same vehicle that Future Robotnik had been during the assault on Angel Island. The present Robotnik smirked and proclaimed,

"Ah, Sonic. I see you've met Metal Sonic."

Sonic replied to this by saying,

"Metal me, huh? Simple and to the point. I like it. But where'd it take Amy?"

Future Robotnik was quick to reply by telling the heroic hedgehog,

"That pink hedgehog is at the end of the zone. But if you want her back, you'll have to do one simple thing…"

"Oh yeah? And what's that?"

"Just win a race against Metal Sonic. But don't fall behind, or the zap cannon attached to our vehicles will reduce you to molecules!"

To punctuate their point, the Robotniks fired lasers from the bottom of their flying machines which destroyed the ground underneath them. After letting the display sink in, Future Robotnik asked Sonic,

"So?"

The hedgehog hero smirked and told the slightly older version of his foe,

"I'd say you picked the wrong challenge!"

Sonic then turned around and began charging up his super peel out, causing Future Robotnik to chuckle and tell him,

"Very well. But let's spice up the scenery first…"

He then pulled out a time stone and raised it into the air, with it beginning to emit huge amounts of electricity. Sonic's concentration was broken by this and he stopped his super peel out as he looked up to see what Future Robotnik was doing. All of a sudden, the area around them changed in a split second.

The sky had turned red and stormy, the city below had taken a harsh neon-p9ink hue, and the roads and instruments had become corroded, broken down, and were an unsightly shade of oxidized pale green. Sonic was horrified at the state of the area, and future Robotnik laughed hysterically, telling the hedgehog hero,

"This is the future I created! A much more appropriate backdrop, don't you think?!"

Sonic gritted his teeth and yelled at the overweight future overlord,

"Oh, you're gonna get it now you tub of lard!"

The young hedgehog then turned back and around and began charging his super peel out again, and in response Metal Sonic then began charging up the jet engine on its back, getting beside Sonic as the two prepared to blast off at any moment. Present Robotnik smiled and raised his hand, saying,

"On your marks….get set….."

As the two hedgehogs shared a passing glance with each other and the gate in front of them opened, the evil doctor threw down his hand and yelled,

"GO!"

Before even a millisecond had passed after he said that, Sonic and his metal doppelganger were off, disappearing in a burst of speed. The two Robotnik's quickly followed after them in their mobile vehicles, their zap cannons disintegrating the floor as they passed over it. Sonic looked at Metal in shock as the 2 were moving at the exact same speed, remarking,

"Looks like you're not as slow as I thought you were. This should be fun."

The two continued to race across the speedway, passing a giant golden Robotnik statue on the way. However, neither were able to get ahead of the other. They were exactly equal in speed. There were also spikes in the way that Sonic had to jump over, but Metal simply rammed through them by surrounding himself in a yellow barrier.

All the while, Sonic heard the hum of the zap cannons in the distance behind them. Luckily they weren't nearly as fast as the organic and metallic hedgehogs, so they didn't really have to worry about them. However, as they reached the halfway mark, Sonic noticed what looked like metal debris on the track. He paid it no heed and simply jumped over it, thinking it had been put there by the Robotniks in order to slow it down.

Eventually, he and Metal neared the finish line. Looking at his metal duplicate, Sonic smirked and asked him,

"Well, what do you say? One final rush for the goal?"

Metal said nothing, but Sonic could tell that he was thinking the same thing. Grinning widely, Sonic let out his absolute full speed, Metal doing the same. The two got closer and closer to the gate until finally, the two passed it…at the exact same time. The gate then shut behind them as the Robotniks reached it. Upon looking behind the gate and seeing the two hedgehogs skid to a halt across from each other, the future Robotnik yelled,

"Blast!"

He then turned to his future self and angrily yelled,

"You fool! You made them too even! Now what do we do?!"

Future Robotnik simply stared at his younger self ominously and told him,

"There is no need to worry. This is a setback, but I can assure you: That hedgehog will die."

Meanwhile, Sonic and Metal stared each other down. Sonic looked briefly at the closed gate before turning back around, smirking and rubbing his nose. He told his robotic doppelganger,

"So now we can get down to the real fight. The last Sonic standing will be the winner."

Metal Sonic crossed his arms and nodded in response, emitting bleeps and bloops that Sonic could somehow understand. The hedgehog didn't question this though, as he replied,

"What? This world isn't big enough for both of us and one of us has to go?"

Metal Sonic nodded again, and Sonic replied,

"Well, I agree!"

Sonic then revved up his super peel out, and Metal did the same with his jets. The two then shot forward so fast they appeared to have vanished from sight. Streaks of blue collided over and over across the speedway until eventually the two hedgehogs were directly facing each other and ran at the other, going so fast that they were popping in and out of existence.

Once the two finally collided in a head-on collision, the impact unleashed a massive shockwave that could be seen from the city below and briefly blew back the Robotniks, who were making their way towards one of Future Robotnik's bases. As Sonic and Metal Sonic struggled again each other, Sonic told his doppelganger,

"You might know everything I'm going to do, but that's not going to help you since I know everything you're going to do! STRANGE, ISN'T IT?!"

After a few more seconds of struggle, both hedgehogs then leaped into the air, only for Sonic to send Metal flying back to the ground with a double axe handle. The robotic sonic doppelganger landed on the ground with a massive thud before Sonic came down on him like a blue rocket. Metal leaped out of the way of this attack before dashing at Sonic, sending him spiraling across the speedway.

The two hedgehogs began trading blows with each other while running across the speedway, and as the Robotniks followed after them, they neared a large Robotnik base…..


Author's note: Hey, you know I had to add the lines! But to whoever's reading, this story's hitting its final stages! This is where things get really big! Stay tuned!