Sonic: Metal Nightmare

The door opened, the old man thrown inside. Amy watched the crumpled
body shake. Metal Sonic closed the room off, leaving its two prisoners
alone. "Eggman?"

The old man turned upright. "Amy... it captured you as well?"

She shied away. "What does it want with us?"

"I don't know," he replied. "It didn't say a word."


------------------------------------------------

Sonic entered the GUN headquarters. His two sons followed behind.
Entering the commander's office, he was greeted by the sight of a
middle-aged man in glasses. "Sonic. We have no word on the location
of Metal Sonic," the Commander stated. "Seems the machine has a built-in
radar blocking field. Rising from his desk, he said, "please, follow
me."

Leading Sonic into the conference room, he found Shadow waiting for him.
E-123 Omega stood near the back of the room with Knuckles and Karen
both waiting. Their older son, Striker, was with them. "Zoom. Boost,"
Striker greeted Sonic's kids.

"Yo, where's Slate?" Zoom inquired.

"Him? He's at the lab helping GUN soldiers clean up the mess."

"We still have no idea as to why Metal Sonic captured Ivo Robotnik,"
the Commander pointed out, "only possibilities. The fact the doctor was
injured seems to indicate that Robotnik wasn't willing to go. My initial
reports show that there was only half a pint of blood loss at the scene,
no doubt a small puncture wound... however, Robotnik is an old man.
Same age my father was during the Black Arms invasion..."

"It took Amy to get to me," Sonic said. "Eggman? That, I don't know..."

"What's this about Little Planet showing up soon?" Knuckles begged.

Sonic explained, "Metal Sonic... one of them, anyway, kidnapped
Amy on Little Planet when she was only eight."

Shadow elaborated, "the planet only shows in the sky a few days out of
the year. But what could be on that planet that it would want?"

Knuckles sighed. "Standing around here won't get us anything. Better
go out and start looking. Nice to see we're ALL here to help," he said
sarcastically.

"DROP IT!" Karen threatened.

"What?" Knuckles looked angry. "One of my boys ran off to clean up
garbage and that arrogant bat can't peel herself away from jewels to
come and help up- OWW!" He went silent as Karen grabbed his tail and
gave it a sharp yank.

"Enough about her! One more word and you die alone!" Karen wasn't willing
to argue about Rouge. She was almost certain that Knuckles wasn't totally
innocent of anything when she flipped out on them.

"That's enough of that," the Commander said. "I've hired the Chaotix
Detective Agency to assist in the search and you have GUN's full support,
Sonic. I don't want to even RISK this machine attempting military
action against this planet."


------------------------------------------------

Teal kicked the chunk of metal in anger. "Great! We have an actual
situation here, and thanks to my mother, I get to clean instead of
actually helping!"

"Your mother's just worried about you," Slate assured.

She shrugged. "I had to argue with her for to hours to even get her
to agree to this! Joining GUN and following in her footsteps was a
big deal for me... and I don't get to do anything! I might as well
quit..." She continued collecting debris and tossing it into
the garbage containers. "Mom was a top agent... and I have enough
rank to be boss of this garbage can!"

At his work terminal, Miles Prower typed furiously. "Find anything?"
Teal asked.

"Not much... seems Metal Sonic accessed some of the doc's old files,
though. Impressive little...."

"Old files?" Slate asked.

Miles replied, "yes. Old stuff from before Robotnik gave up the
evil stuff. We had them specially password locked with a program that
changes the password every hour. The only way to even find out the
current password was to input my own."

"A password to get the password?" Teal was impressed.

Miles continued, "I can't tell what it accessed without opening the
file. Unfortunately, cracking my password wouldn't take too long for an
advanced AI like that..." Typing in his password, followed by the
second, he opened the old files. Typing away furiously, he found what
had been accessed. "Uh oh... probably scanned everything in quick
succession but stopped at this one..." The file detailed a space station
Robotnik had nearly finished before the Cthulhu incident. The station
still remained in space, untouched.


------------------------------------------------

"You needed all seven Chaos Emeralds to defeat this thing before..."
The Commander led them to the vault. "I'm authorizing all seven to
be unlocked and handed into your care, Sonic, so that you can stop this
thing. We KNOW that bullets aren't working and I want a quick and
clean end to this incident."

They stopped at the large metal door. As the Commander prepared to
enter the unlock code, they heard yelling. Teal flew towards them.
"Don't do that! You can't release the Chaos Emeralds!"

"Agent Teal, I don't care who your mother is, this is my final decision!
Now stand down!"

"But you don't-"

"It's what Metal Sonic wants you to do!" Miles shouted. They turned to
face him. He explained, "Robotnik built a device on his space station
that can suck the Chaos Energy out of your body, Sonic. If you go super
and he gets you inside of it... at least I know where it might be right
now."

"So I go up there and deal with it on my own terms!" Sonic's fists shook.

"And go into its own turf, alone... that's also what it wants, Sonic."
Tails shook his head. "You'd have no backup. Metal Sonic could disable
the teleporters to the station and transport ships would take too long
to get anyone else up there to help you."

"I can't go fight him then..." Sonic's face turned, anger to sadness.

"No, you can't go. It's why we have to get him to come here."


------------------------------------------------

Metal Sonic slammed its fists into the console. The press conference
had ruined its plans, GUN stating that the Chaos Emeralds were to remain
locked away. Opening the cell door, it entered, grabbing Robotnik.
"You had a great plan, to drain Sonic the Hedgehog of the Chaos Energy.
I know why, for I found your plans on this very space colony!"

"Leave him alone!" Amy shouted.

"SILENCE!" Metal Sonic wasn't concerned with the woman. "As I was saying,
Doctor, the Dark Gaia sleeps within the Earth's core, but you abandoned
your plan to release it!"

Robotnik was quick to defend himself. "I learned that trying to deal
with such dark gods was foolish..."

"The power it holds is worth the risk but now I must find a way to
force Sonic the Hedgehog into delivering such power to me. And it must
be soon. For I have calculated a two percent chance of disaster.
Splitting the planet open holds risks of total destruction. I must be
able to relocate to Little Planet if that happens. Not even this
space station would survive in the event of failure."

Closing the door, it entered the teleporter, headed for Earth below.


------------------------------------------------

Central City was rocked with explosions. Metal Sonic was going to force
Sonic into the open and it had little time. At the lab, Tails watched
the news. "Okay, kids, Metal Sonic is down here. Time to teleport up
there and save your mother." He led Zoom and Boost to the teleporter room.
"Remember, get up there and patch me in to the computers. I may need to
crack the codes to the prisoner cell doors to get them out. Make it
quick, I want to get them out of there while that thing's down here!"

They entered the teleporter, Miles activating the beam to send them above.


------------------------------------------------

Metal Sonic was disinterested in Shadow's challenge. "You are of no
concern to me, black hedgehog. You are not my target. Begone!" A flying
kick sent the machine flying.

Standing, it felt bullets tapping its hull as Omega fired upon it.
"Current weaponry is ineffective," Omega reported.

Picking up a large chunk of debris, Knuckles threw it, the concrete
fragmenting against the robot. "What's this thing made of?" Knuckles
asked, watching it stand free.

Uninterested in the attack, Metal Sonic fled. It was going to find its
intended target. From above, Teal watched. Pulling back the slide
on her pistol, she flew down. "Hold it!"

"I have no interest in you." it said. She fired.

Suddenly angry, Metal Sonic approached. "Very well, if you life forms
insist on standing in my way, then I shall eliminate you, one by one.
I have no time for interference!"

A rock hit it. More followed. Turning, the robot saw Rouge, an angry
mother. "Teal! RUN!" The child did so as Rouge raised a shotgun,
firing. "How dare you try and hurt my daughter!" Emptying the chamber,
she tossed the gun aside and flew towards it, feet planting a solid
kick. The force knocked it back into the open road. Rising, it had no
time to react as a car ran into it, impact sending Metal Sonic flying.
Within the vehicle, Tom Adriani popped the doors. "Get in!" His wife
and daughter secured, Tom hit the gas. Turning a corner, he stopped as
Rouge exited.

The trunk popped as she pulled out three large bat-shaped objects.
Standing beside her, he helped activate them. "And to think, I didn't
want you to keep high explosives stored away..." The bombs floated,
hovering away as they got in the car and drove off.

Metal Sonic watched three objects approach slowly. By the time its
internal sensors realized what they were, the bombs exploded, one
by one, sending fire and shrapnel at point blank range. As the cloud
dissipated, it rose from the ground. Internal diagnostics ran. Self
repairs would take some time.


------------------------------------------------

Regrouping, the team was working on a plan. "We need high explosives
and anti-tank rounds, neither of which is very safe to use in the city,"
the Commander said over the radio.

"Then we must draw it away," Shadow said. "

We have it on satellite cameras, it's moving. You should follow." The
Commander was busy working on a military course of action, mobilizing
troops and weaponry in the event the situation worsened. Several city
blocks had already been destroyed.

The car stopped nearby, Rouge looking at everyone. "Teal was almost
killed!" She send Shadow her angry stare. "I blame you. You didn't keep
her out of this like you promised!" She grabbed the radio. "Do you hear
me, Commander? My daughter doesn't work for you anymore! And you!"
Her gaze was aimed at Knuckles. "One word and you'll be eating through
a straw!" The bat walked off. She would have none of their adventure.


------------------------------------------------

On board the space station, the kids waited as Miles hacked his way
into the systems. "There... I'm locking out all teleporter access
until you're ready to leave! That way, if Metal Sonic tries to come back,
he'll be stuck here."

"I found them!" Zoom shouted, spotting the monitor. "But I don't know
where that is..." The monitor was unmarked.

"You two get to the cell block. I'll work on hacking access to all
cell doors. Be ready to get them out of there!" Tails punched away at
the keys, slowly working through the complex computer network.


------------------------------------------------

Metal Sonic found the teleportation pod. Inputting the destination,
the message sent it into a fury. Locked out. "They have ruined my plan...
then I shall create another plan."