Over 3,000 miles away from Green Hills, a red biplane was flying over the Pacific Ocean. While Tails was piloting it, on its port side was Sonic, standing atop the wing and holding onto the struts for support. Similarly, on the starboard side was Knuckles.
Having gotten on the plane only moments ago, Sonic had caught Tails up in their current predicament. After that the conversation had turned to Knuckles whom they believed might know something about Robotnik's plans. And as it would turn out, it gave them a very likely lead, that being that the doctor had an accomplice back in Green Hills. Now, the three were heading towards the town, but with thousands miles between them, time wasn't on their side.
"We'll never get there in time!" said Tails.
"Why'd I have to go and lose all my rings?" Sonic grumbled under his breath.
"Would this be of help?" asked Knuckles. Both Tails and Sonic turned to him, and the latter's gaze lit up.
"Yes! That would help tremendously!" shouted Sonic as he saw the necklace in Knuckles' grasp.
Knuckles threw the necklace over to Sonic who barely caught it from the air. He glanced the echidna's way, slightly surprised, and opened the lock. He slid the ring off the chain, and threw the necklace to Tails for safekeeping. For a moment, he stared at the ring between his fingers and muttered. "I'm sorry, Y/N, but if I won't save you we'll never get to travel anywhere." With that, he threw the ring before the airplane.
The golden portal opened to be just large enough for the plane to pass through. Crossing from Hawaii and over to Montana, the group found themselves flying above the forestry mountains of Green Hills. Waiting them in the middle of the town was a sight none of them had expected.
Nearly the entire town was covered in a massive, dark, swirling cloud. Around it, green energy bolts kept flashing. At the center of the smoke was a monstrous tornado-like cloud that strangely behaved like one, only it was much slower. Pieces of the town were floating in the air and being pulled inside the cloud. Strangely, the tornado only captured anything made out of metal, but left everything other than that alone.
The trio in the airplane looked at one another, the thought on everyone's minds the same. At the center of it all would be the Emerald.
Sonic thought of everything he had come to learn of the Emerald. Robotnik now had a power unlike anything, and they knew nothing of how to stop it. "If that thing really turns thoughts into power, we are in big trouble. Robotnik has a lot of bad thoughts," he said.
Tails leaned closer to him. With a quieter voice he said, "Hey, Sonic, are you sure it was a good idea bringing you-know-who aboard?" Both Sonic and Tails looked at Knuckles, before turning to one another again.
"Knuckles isn't really a bad guy. He's just a little mixed up," Sonic told Tails.
"I am not mixed up!" the echidna said, glaring at the two. He returned his attention to the storm they were heading toward and continued, "I have steely focus. And I'm complex. And that's a lot for some people."
Tails nervously laughed, "Hope you're not still mad I hit you with that car."
"Pfft," the echidna scoffed. "I was completely uninjured. And my revenge will come when you least expect it, fox." Sonic and Tails glanced at one another, with the latter gulping nervously.
Above the town, the storm was growing more aggressive. Lightning bolts flashed here and there, until suddenly, the smoke began to clear. It was then that Sonic noticed that the storm had stopped pulling in items from around the town.
"It's slowing down," he said.
As more and more of the black smoke vanished, Sonic's eyes widened. He could now see what the storm had been for and why it had pulled items closer to it. It was right in the heart of the storm and it was huge. Standing right on the edge of Green Hills was a robot, larger than any of the buildings in the town.
Its body and head formed a round shape, best described as an ellipsoid. While three fourths of that ellipsoid made the main body, the quarter at the top represented the head. Two round eyes, and a wide grinning mouth were positioned there. Above its mouth and under its long, cone-shaped nose was a long mustache that —like on its creator— went way past the sides of the mouth. The arms of the creation were massive, and if he wanted to, Robotnik could surely use them to pick up several buildings at once. Similarly, the legs and feet were purposefully huge, and clearly meant to destroy anything that might be on his path.
Sonic observed the machine with gleaming worry. The sight alone was terrifying, but the thought it gave him, the thought that he well knew to be correct, was even worse.
"She's there," he said.
And with that, he was right, as within the robot, Y/N was shivering. Her fly had ended moments ago, her deviant desires to fall unfulfilled. She was as still as she could be, refusing to open her eyes in case she would find herself somewhere high above the earth. All she knew was that right now she was sitting on something. Or possibly lying. Her posture was strange, reminding her of how she would sit at the dentist. Naturally, that connection only made her worries grow.
With her eyes shut, she couldn't see at all where she was, nor did she see as Robotnik made his most flamboyant appearance yet. He dramatically lowered himself into the massive cockpit situated within the head of the robot —the very room Y/N was in. His descent stopped in the very center of the room, and with a swish of his arms, tentacle-like energy beams appeared around him. The cabin lit up as mechanical whirring began to sound from below. A hatch opened right between the eyesockets, revealing a much smaller cockpit housed within the space of the robot's nose. Sitting behind the controls was Stone who upon seeing the enhanced doctor gasped in marvel.
"Sir, you're magnificent!" Stone told Robotnik.
"Thank you, sycophant," Robotnik grinned. "Your admiration is inevitable."
Y/N heard both their voices just above him, and warily opted to take a peek. Robotnik was floating at the center of the dome-shaped space, his back toward her. His tentacle-like energy beams were flashing from one part of the room to another. Just below the doctor were a set of circular platforms. The largest one was right below Robotnik, and the three others — including the one she was on — were surrounding the larger one in the formation of a triangle. Opposite of her was the grinning outline of a face, its eyesockets and mouth windows that brought in just a little sunlight.
She tried pushing herself up, but her arms wouldn't move, causing her to look down at her body. Her wrists were bound to the armrests and ankles to the legrest. Her heart began to drum louder and faster as her situation dawned on her.
"And how's our guest doing?" asked Robotnik, turning to face the girl, and she looked up. He smiled, "I hope the accommodations are to your liking."
Restrained and with no one around to help, Y/N found her bravado was near nonexistent. With what little she had left, she threw a smirk the doctor's way. "Kidnapping the girl? Isn't that a bit cliche?"
"I'm counting on it," Robotnik replied, a certain malice in his voice that made Y/N's worries grow. "You wouldn't happen to have any cheesy words of love left?"
"My words must've really struck a nerve for you to still remember them."
"Oh they did!" Robotnik said, his laugh booming. "And as they bounced around my hippocampus they helped me tremendously with my plan for requital."
"What are you going to do?" she asked, trying to keep her cool, but the shake in her voice was obvious, causing Robotnik's grin to widen.
"Exactly what I said I was going to," he said as he came closer to her. Something began whirring right beside her, prompting her to look to the side. From the floor rose a robotic arm, but in place of its hand was a circular blade. Y/N's eyes widened as her heart began to pound even faster —something she had thought impossible. From the opposite side she heard a similar noise, and she turned to see another arm, only this one was holding a particularly unnerving needle.
The robotic arms leaned closer to her, as did Robotnik. She looked him in the eye, his viscous grin making her want to look away immediately. His voice in an uncomfortable whisper and his words way too slow, he said, "Break... you... up."
Y/N stared at him, her lips quivering. She could hardly blink, hardly breathe. What was before her, it was pure evil. Nothing else.
Robotnik began laughing as he saw her tears. "Oh we don't have to worry about that," he said as if to reassure her. The arm holding the syringe set it down, and its clawed hand moved to the girl's face. She gasped as its metallic finger wiped a tear from her cheek and moved back. Robotnik shook his head. "No, not just yet. First, there's an audience to catch." He rose back to the center of the room, turning his back to the girl and the arms beside her powered off. "World Domination Playlist," he ordered.
A guitar riff played through the speakers and was soon joined by drumming as the opening notes to Walk echoed throughout the cockpit. Robotnik joined in on the guitar, playing one made of a construct over his leg, rocking along to the song, as in the smaller cockpit Stone headbanged along. After a good few seconds of playing around, Robotnik stopped and began walking in his place, swinging his arms from side to side.
The robot mimicked its creator's movements, and began stomping along the streets of the small town. Its massive arms swung from side to side as its feet smashed against the ground beneath it. With only a few steps, it managed to wreak havoc in the forest as well as the Main Street of the town.
Above in the skies, the biplane had gotten closer, and the three creatures within it were observing their foe.
Tails shook his head. "How are we supposed to beat this thing?"
"We need a plan. Knuckles, use your strength to..." Sonic started but stopped as he saw what the echidna was doing. He had let go of the plane and crossed his arms on his chest. With his eyes closed, Knuckles allowed himself to fall back. Sonic looked after him astonished, "Jump off the plane. Wow." Sonic stared at where the echidna had just vanished. However, he deemed it not important enough to explain and turned back to the matter at hand. "Okay, this is what we're gonna do. Step one: Light taunting," he explained. As he did so, he climbed on top of the plane's wings. "Step two: I have no idea."
Tails took the plane over the town and toward the metallic monster. The plane passed behind the mech and around its shoulder.
"Nice action figure, Eggman," Sonic shouted as they flew before it.
In the mech, Y/N raised her gaze immediately, and as the mech's head turned, she could see a glimpse of the biplane outside. Despite all the red in that small flash, she had seen the faintest of blues in the mix, and that sight immediately brought some comfort to her, and raised her hopes of getting out.
"Does it do anything or just stand there looking ugly?" Sonic continued taunting.
"Like a blister, he keeps coming back!" Robotnik grumbled. "He's on the okay-to-kill list. Shoot the missiles. Make a decision."
"I need a moment, sir," replied Stone, looking around the set of controls. "I'm trying to figure out how to do this."
"Did you even glance at a manual?" the doctor asked, but gave Stone no time to answer. "I'll do it." In a flash he appeared in the small control station, pushing Stone aside and working the controls himself. "Pardon my lightning," he said to his accomplice who was getting electrocuted behind him. "You might want to ground yourself!"
Back in the biplane, Tails' smile vanished as he saw the chest plates of the mech opening, and a set of missiles flying their way. "Uh oh."
Sonic had his gaze turned to the fox as he laughed, "I'm gonna pop that thing open like a can of chili—" He stopped as he turned to see the missiles.
"Hang on!" Tails shouted. To dodge the missiles, he turned the controls. The sudden change caused Sonic to fall, and he quickly grabbed onto the plane's wing to keep himself in place. In a quick motion, the airplane turned sideways and wasn't about to stop. Steering the plane higher, Tails turned the whole craft upside down.
Sonic gripped onto the wing as his feet dangled below the plane. Around them, missiles were flying past them and into the distance. Tails kept the controls in the same position, causing the plane to flip back, only for it to go over again, and again. Once most of the missiles had passed them, Tails returned everything to neutral, flipping the plane one last time. As it stopped spinning around, both him and Sonic glanced behind them.
"Yeah!" Tails cheered.
Sonic sighed in relief as he looked at the fox, "Close one."
Then, a lone missile they had yet to dodge flew at them, and just like that, Sonic was thrown off the plane.
Tails looked behind him surprised, only to see the blue hedgehog holding onto the missile for his dear life. "Sonic!" he shouted.
Down on the ground, Knuckles was running through the ravaged streets. "Robotnik!" he shouted, gaining the doctor's attention. "Deceiver!"
"Die mosquito!" said Robotnik. The mech leaned closer to the ground and two of its fingers on the ground. As it began to pretend its hand was running along the ground, Knuckles leaped into the air. Aiming straight for the mech's knuckle, he landed a powerful punch on it. The hand raised up from the ground, but clearly it was Robotnik's own doing. "Ooh! I felt that," he remarked.
Tails, having already taken precautions when taking the plane, activated a weapons system he had created. Two cannons appeared on each side of the plane, and as Tails dove for the mech, they began rapidly shooting at it. As the blasts hit the metal, they created small explosions around it, painting portions of the mech in flames. Nearing it, he steered to the side and around its head.
As the plane was passing by the mech's face, it did something it hadn't before. The two metallic pieces that formed the mech's mustache flipped at one another. With the plane having just been in front of it, the flaps smashed right against its wing, immediately destroying its left side. Tails shrieked as he realized the plane was going down and tried to steer the craft up. But with the ground being only seconds away, he jumped from his seat and began spinning around his tails, taking himself to the air. The planes crashed into the ground, rubble propelling around the flames.
"What just happened?" asked Robotnik, confused as to what had caused the attack.
"It's the stache-masher," said Stone with a smile and lifted up a booklet. "Right here in the manual."
Y/N looked between the doctor and his helper. She was still very much terrified of what could happen even if she were to say anything, but Sonic and Tails clearly needed help, and she only had one way to give them that.
"Hey, Eggman!" she shouted, having gained enough courage. The doctor immediately whipped around, his face contorted in a scowl. "You do realize there's no version of this where you come out on top, right?" she asked, trying her hardest to provoke him. "You just aren't the type to win."
"Oh it will work. And I'll show you just how much of a winner I am!" Robotnik boasted.
Y/N scoffed. "For a guy with so many PhDs you sure are dumb."
The doctor's boasting smile became a frown and he lowered down to her. "I was planning for us to catch an audience but you seem eager to get the show started," he said. The robotic arms came alive again. "You know," Robotnik laughed, "when I first thought of this it was just simple revenge, because what more should it be?" What little joy there might have been was gone from his tone in an instant, his voice filled with nothing but pure malice. "But then you went and did that at the temple and I'm just dying to find out what made you special enough to touch that green stone!"
Y/N's breath trembled, as did her whole body. That hint of courage she had gathered had left her body as soon as the doctor had come closer to her, and now even the thought of talking back to him seemed scant.
Then Robotnik's scowl turned into that vile grin again.
There was a stab to Y/N's arm and a shrill scream left her mouth. Her head turned to her left where the needle had cut into her. The vial attached to it was filling with red as Robotnik drew blood from her.
"I'll leave you in the claws of my lovely assistants," Robotnik said, and left back to his position. "Robo-Arms, deal with her as you please."
The arm with the circular saw leaned toward Y/N and its blade began spinning. It made a shrilling sound that sent the girl into full blown panic.
"Wait! Wait!" she screamed as she tried to squirm from her restraints. "WAIT!" But her screams went to deaf ears.
Or so she thought.
Up in the sky, Sonic was still clinging onto the missile that had hit him. In his time aboard it, he had figured out a way to steer it using his own weight. Right now, he was working on turning the missile at the mech. "Return to sender!" he laughed as he aimed the missile at the massive leg. He leaped down from the missile and down to the street. Skidding along the road, he watched as the explosive flew at the mech. The explosion covered a small portion of the leg, and as the smoke cleared, Sonic felt his stomach dropping. It had done nothing. The mech was still standing just as well and no damage whatsoever appeared on its shell.
However, inside the cockpit everything shook. Robotnik nearly fell to the floor while Stone quite literally did fall on the floor, hitting his head as he went down. Y/N on the other hand was restrained so tightly that to her it almost seemed like sitting in a roller coaster. Or it would have had there not been a spinning blade before her. As the cockpit shook around, Y/N was certain the blade would fall and cut right into her. She screamed, unable to do anything but watch as the saw fell forwards and at her stomach. She shut her eyes, ready for the pain. There was a clang. The shrill of the blade intensified. No pain. Through her shut eyes Y/N could see flashes, and as she gathered the courage to take a peek, she came to see the blade cutting into the second robotic arm which was now leaning over her. It almost looked as if it were protecting her. The spinning blade began to slow down, the shrill dying out. Y/N shut her eyes and sighed, laying her head against the chair.
"Stone?" Robotnik asked once he saw his accomplice limp on the floor. As there was no response he groaned, "Great. Next thing you know, there'll be a report about a hostile work environment."
"Serves you," muttered Y/N, earning a glare from the doctor. In an instant, something clamped over her mouth, blocking her from speaking.
"Seems you'll have to be dealt with manually," he stated.
On the street Sonic and Tails regrouped behind a pile of debris. Nearby, Knuckles was running along the street and took notice of the two. He made his way over to them, immediately stating, "Those were our best attacks, and they did nothing!"
"We can't beat Robotnik as long as he's got that Emerald. He's too powerful," said Tails.
Sonic looked between the two. Gleaming from them was uncertainty, but he knew that there still had to be a way. All he needed was to build up more confidence. "Look, we aren't strong enough to beat Robotnik on our own. But there's three of us," he said. He looked over to Knuckles, "Your strength..." then at Tails, "...your smarts and my speed. Together. That's how we win."
"So we make our stand here on the field of battle," Knuckles declared.
"As a team," Tails continued.
Sonic smiled hearing the two. "This is it," he said. Climbing on the rubble created by the broken asphalt, the trio looked at the enemy they were facing. "This is our moment."
The mech brough its hands to one another. Its fingertips touched one another as it used its thumbs and index fingers to generate the shape of a diamond —or in this case an emerald— in the air. Robotnik's robotic voice then boomed around the town as he said, "Time to fight." The mech's shoulderplates opened. Like a swarm of bees when their nest is disturbed, drones were flying out of them. While they were familiar in shape, those being the egg-shaped and wasp-like ones, they were entirely different in color, as these were black, and instead of their lights being red, they now were green.
The drones were quickly buzzing around the trio. Tails used a blaster to destroy those further, while Knuckles punched those too close. Sonic ran around, spindashing into the drones and blasting them into oblivion.
"Bad time to say this, but I don't actually have a plan," said Sonic. "Tails, any ideas?"
The fox grabbed a small explosive and threw it among the drones. "We have to find his weak spot."
Knuckles punched a drone behind Tails and shouted, "I suggest the groin."
"What?" asked Sonic between fighting. "No. No!"
"Traditionally, yes, the groin is the weakest spot," said Knuckles.
"Stop saying 'groin'," Sonic complained.
The booming voice of Robotnik made everyone turn to the mech, "Hedgehog!" What they saw was its two hands pointed at the group. Green light was glowing from the cannons situated at the top of its knuckles, and before long, large blasts were flying at the group.
"Look out!" Sonic shouted.
The trio dashed away from the mountain of rubble and along the street. Behind them, the ground exploded just around the spot where they had just stood. Now running along the street, Sonic, Tails and Knuckles were advancing toward Robotnik. The doctor had also grown a new liking to the blasters he had just used and was using them to shoot at them. Luckily, our group of heroes was faster and managed to avoid getting obliterated.
Suddenly something made sense in Sonic's head. "I know what his weak spot is," he said. "It's me. I'm the groin!"
Before them, a new wave of drones was advancing. Soic rolled up into a ball and Knuckles snatched him from the air. He threw the hedgehog at one of the drones, destroying it instantly. Tails flew over to the hedgehog as he rolled open. The fox grabbed his hand and bega flying with him over the street.
"Think about it. I live rent-free in this dude's head," Sonic explained. While he did so, Tails flung him around at the nearby drones, wrecking them in the process. "So if I go out there and rile him up..."
"He'll focus on only you, leaving himself open to a flanking maneuver from me and the fox!" Knuckles understood. "Hedgehog, you are a brave and noble warrior. Go to your certain death with honor."
Sonic glanced at the echidna. "We're gonna have to work on your pep talks, pal," he said.
Tails chuckled, agreeing with the hedgehog, "Yeah."
"Let's go," Sonic said.
The trio split up along the streets, With Knuckles and Tails finishing off the remaining off the drones, Sonic ran over to the mech.
He stopped right before it, looking up at the menacing machine. "All right, mustache. You want me? Come and get me!" he shouted.
The mech leaned, looking down at the hedgehog. It pointed at itself and once again Robotnik's voice boomed, "You don't tell me about coming and getting. I am on the cutting edge of coming and getting!"
Below, Sonic smirked. The plan would work. He dashed away from the mech and headed for the woods. This way, damage to the town would be minimal, and hopefully casualties zero.
Just like he had predicted, Robotnik began following him. The ground shook as the ginormous robot walked and if that wasn't enough, Robotnik was still speaking, "Coming, getting. Coming, getting. Coming, getting. Coming, getting."
What the doctor failed to notice were the fox and the echidna that had climbed on top of a nearby building. As the mech was passing it, Tails jumped up and began flying. Knuckles leaped from the building and began falling, but Tails dove down to him. Grabbing the echidna's arm, he lifted him up.
"You're really heavy," he complained as he flew higher.
"That's because I am one million percent muscle," said Knuckles. "Faster, fox!"
Notes:
Well would you look at that I'm actually keeping to my plans and releasing when I said I would!
Hello once again everyone for the 2nd time this month! Been a while since that has happened and I'm so glad it finally has.
Because this chapter features a lot of important details, these notes are gonna be quite long, so I'm gonna start by thanking you for reading.
Thank you so much and I really hope you enjoyed!
Now, firstly, I hope I edited everything I was supposed to because there was quite a lot of editing to do. Then, as I stated two weeks ago, this chapter is one of my favorites. My absolute favorite scenes are the ones with Y/N and Robotnik which you might have already guessed. I loved writing an absolutely unhinged version of Robotnik, and I was worried at one point that I might go too far, but the final version, at least in my opinion, is just perfect. I really think that in this universe, Robotnik for his whole stay at the mushroom planet was just obsessed with thinking about revenge and I came up with what I thought would be, pardon my language here, the most fucked up possible revenge ever, and that would be to capture Sonic's loved ones, kill them extremely painfully and force him to watch, and when he's finally utterly destroyed have him go through the same slow death. It's pretty dark, and twisted, and sick, and I think it might be a little over the top, but at the same time, it's my take on the character so I'mma just go with it.
Fight scenes, again, are something I'm not the best at writing, and I hope whatever I've written here is acceptable. Also, I wanna mention the switching between characters, because we switch focus from Sonic to Y/N and the other way a lot and I hope it's not too messy.
There were a few different versions I wrote of these last few chapters. This version is obviously the "Y/N gets captured by Robotnik" version which was the first idea I had come up with, but it was the second draft I wrote. The first draft had Y/N as a part of the fight and Tails gave her one of his devices to use, but there was only so much I could do with that, so I ended up going to my original idea and wrote this version, which at least in my opinion was the way to go. The only part I miss about the fight draft is when Knuckles says they need to attack the groin, and Y/N replies, "The dude's made out of metal. Groin won't work!"
We also see the necklace ring get used, and I'm gonna be honest here, I had originally written it for Y/N to use in the very beginning when she comes from Hawaii when Robotnik attacks. Then, when I wrote Everything Else That Happened in Between where she gets the ring, I felt as though the ring now had too much value for her to just use it so early, so I came up with the idea that Sonic gives her a second ring. I had some trouble trying to decide where the ring should get used, and at one point it was the ring that's used at the wedding, and at another Y/N used it to get to the temple and there were a couple other uses too. At some point I realized that in theory at least, it would make sense for that ring to be the last one there is. Sonic lost his rings, Tails, in the comic, said he used his final one to travel to Earth, and we don't know about Knuckles, but I just thought it would make sense if he ran out of rings too. By the way, if they have more rings in the third movie, I already have an explanation for that but I'm kinda hoping I don't have to use it. But back to the necklace ring, I do like how it ends up being used in the end, but I'm certain it could have been better.
And now again, I want to thank you all for being here. Thank you for your comments, thank you for the votes, but most of all, thank you for reading!
We'll be back with chapter 15 next month!
love y'all
~ıso⅄