Shadow's got good observational skills! He's also adopted, which means he didn't inherit the "prone to going insane" genes from Professor Gerald that would later make Gerald go mad with grief and Ivo Robotnik become himself.
Then again, Shadow's genetics appear to have a predisposition towards galactic conquest. For better or for ill, this Maria might be trying to jump ship over to his side of the family.
Maria has probably met that side of the family in passing/video calls. Or she was really young when they visited. I was going to point out that Ivo Robotnik's father was called Ivo Kintobor, but I was afraid that'd get confusing.
Julian Kintobor, future Ivo Robotnik, might not be born yet. At least, I don't think so. I didn't want to distract the chapter by bringing it up.
The Dom is an enemy type in SEGA's Space Harrier game, which I reimagined as an outdated Overland mecha from before G.U.N. started making the robots we see from SA2 onwards. As you can see, it may be "inspired" by the Rick Dom from the Gundam series. Other games called them Barrel/Varrel.
So now you might understand why Gerald nearly lost his mustache when he saw Maria installing his prototype life support projector into the backseat and climbing inside one to help Shadow shoot down the rogue Artificial Chaos.
Shadow's got good observational skills! He's also adopted, which means he didn't inherit the "prone to going insane" genes from Professor Gerald that would later make Gerald go mad with grief and Ivo Robotnik become himself.
Then again, Shadow's genetics appear to have a predisposition towards galactic conquest. For better or for ill, this Maria might be trying to jump ship over to his side of the family.
Black Doom: "Shadow, your creator Gerald was a brilliant partner, an intellect almost peer to mine. But it was your sister who taught me what truly makes power in this universe."
Shadow: "What power? What can go beyond the Ultimate Life Form?"
Black Doom: "The unholy union of the two greatest forces of will to ever exist: Magical Girls and Mech Pilots!"
Sonic: "I was wondering why all of The Black Arms were wearing skirts and tiaras."
Shadow: "Shut up faker, you're just jealous I looked better in them than you."
Pft. Of course. Why wouldn't that be the case? A blonde, unnaturally intelligent, likley insane mech pilot with a grudge against the human species for crimes committed against their family in space?
Pft. Of course. Why wouldn't that be the case? A blonde, unnaturally intelligent, likley insane mech pilot with a grudge against the human species for crimes committed against their family in space?
Well, when the concept of a Maria SI comes to mind, I was expecting something melancholy, where Maria agonises about her incoming death but is unable to do something about it.
Colour me positively surprised, then, when I got a determined Maria, who decides to take fate into her own hands and save themself.
Really liked this one, and I honestly want to see more!
Well, when the concept of a Maria SI comes to mind, I was expecting something melancholy, where Maria agonises about her incoming death but is unable to do something about it.
Colour me positively surprised, then, when I got a determined Maria, who decides to take fate into her own hands and save themself.
Really liked this one, and I honestly want to see more!
I initally concieved of this as a more bleak, melancholic, or introspective chapter (or at least doubled down on the black comedy), when it occurred to me that I don't think "I" would be able to come to terms with dying as a part of someone else's dramatic backstory. I'd go full cornered rat mode and try everything to prevent it, which is possible because we know Maria has the Robotnik family brains in her corner.
This Maria's Plan A was to construct a Dreadnought for herself, aping off the Gizoid's copycat coding to synchronize the mech to her nerves. The armored mech would also have Gerald's heal pod emitting a field that would slow her rate of tissue damage, with the caveat that it'd be her only way of interacting with the world once the NIDS progressed into its final stage. We know from Buns Rabbot (AKA Anti-Bunnie) that NIDS can go from undetected to debilitating fast. After less than a year, I figured that Maria leaving her bubble to have a normal life on Mobius would no longer have been an option.
With the added scrutiny on the ARK, her attempts to build the Dreadnought were foiled. As such, she's moved on to riskier alternatives to achieve the goals of Project Shadow's mission statement.
The Maria SI was good though, Honestly when the point comes, with his foreknowledge Jeremy Garnet might be able to actually embarrass Shadow the Edgehog.
While I might need a few more days to fully recover from my annual throat infection (tis the season), Chapter 25: Chaos Coming Out of a Pumpkin's Head is back on track! I've switched to a daily writing log system, and that should help me keep focused on my projects.
This Angel Island arc has been a good change of pace for me, as the time scale between chapters has been much tighter. I don't expect to do this very often, but its good to shake things up to avoid the story getting stale.
Ruby Haze Chapter 25: Chaos Coming Out (of a Pumpkin's Head)
I am a dragon now.
It was one of the more coherent thoughts I'd been able to string together since I started chasing that Metal Sonic to whatever topological fixture was spewing green lights and smoke on the far side of Angel Island. My mind was racing furiously. I was determined to stop that thing before it could cause any more damage, but Metal Sonic had a head start and a rocket attached to his back. The island was large enough that, even going at a fair clip, I had to travel for a while without any more sightings of the badnik that struck my ire. Or any other signs or life, not counting all the birds headed in the opposite direction. It gave me a moment of respite, with which I didn't know where to start.
"I'm a dragon now," I slowly repeated to myself. Just to make sure it fully sank in.
This wasn't a disguise or illusion. Nor a parlor trick from the Ars Ixia book, which only hinted at dragons in the margins. My human form was gone, replaced by the Phantom Ruby with the shape of a monster. Rather than human skin, I was draped in neon scales. Not only flying with a pair of wings on my back, I could feel the wind resistance from a smaller pair of wings stuck to my feet. Those two winglets worked as rudders, complementing the heavy counterweight on my tail so I could navigate. Riding the wind currents felt all too natural, once I had gotten into a rhythm. Like riding a bicycle, only in three dimensions.
I soared through a noxious cloud of ash and dust, which was shot up into the sky by a rush of volcanic activity across the island's Red Mountain range. A fresh outflow of lava bled from the exposed veins and pores atop the rocks, threatening to burn down the rough grasslands and vaguely Grecian ruins of the Marble Gardens further down the hills.
I've been having a bad feeling about the island all day, and now this?
Nothing was adding up here in regards to what I would've planned to deal with on Angel Island. I couldn't pin this on one of the traps Eggman left behind; Metal Sonic seemed unaware of what caused the explosion, and only used the distraction to escape. Did it have something to do with my sixth sense being on the fritz? Or the Phantom Ruby messing with my head again? All I had been receiving from it now was a grave sense of forbearance, which only got worse since I began flying in the direction of the disturbance.
At the bare minimum, I knew the Master Emerald had to be in its normal place. Which also meant Chaos had to remain sealed within it. If it broke, or was stolen, then the island would've begun falling out of the sky.
Could it be something I'd never seen before? Another blind spot I couldn't see coming?
My only other major 'blind spot', besides the specific details of Mobius and the countries therein, had been whoever was behind the Fearsome Foursome. The name and face of the entity guiding that powered goon squad, watching their progress through those green diamond sigils marking their heads, remained an open question.
Why is everyone trying to test me? Test my patience?
A spurt of lava erupted out of a fresh outcropping, forcing me to kick up my legs and use the winglets as emergency brakes for a sharp turn away from the air hazard!
"STOP! STOP!"
It wasn't enough. For a terrifying second, I was splashed by what felt like warm soda left out of the fridge for too long… until the molten rock slicked harmlessly off my body. I examined my scales further, as they repulsed the lava away with no lingering damage.
"I-I'm fireproof?"
Upon further reflection, the bike metaphor didn't hold any more water than a t-shirt would stop a bullet. I needed to figure out how this new transformation worked before anyone else did. I took a deep breath, feeling my lungs expand and well up with a nebulous pressure that swirled between hot, cold, wet, and dry. Aiming at a dead tree, I exhaled a magenta fireball that burned it to a crisp.
Dragons breathe fire. That tracks. Sensing a theme here.
Not willing to take the plunge into the Lava Reef in the hopes that I might find the Hidden Palace, I kept going towards the green glow. Eventually, the scorching mounds gave way to a bone-dry valley littered with perilous spires and canyons. These barren wastes were eerily derelict, with the skeletons of abandoned settlements dotting the terrain.
There was something implacably wrong about this place. My sense of woe reached its zenith. Surrounded by a suffocating aura of dark emanations, part of me wanted to turn and run back the way I came.
I squashed that impulse. Metal Sonic was still on the loose, and now there was a new threat. Knuckles was sleeping on the job, so his problem became my problem.
I landed down on a solid cliff that looked like it would support my increased weight, from which I could take a better stock of the badlands. My center of balance in this new body felt off-kilter, a sensation I hoped I could shake before it became a life-threatening concern. The haunted hoodoos of this new region looked as inviting as the rest, with capstones carved like jack-o'-lanterns grinning at me in every direction.
"Pumpkin Hill, too?"
Now that I was seeing more places that resonated with my memories, I could safely say that it was phenomenally grating. Like this was another joke at my expense. This whole world was a sick joke being played on me. Presenting me with all of these familiar things so they could twist the damn knife. Making me get my hopes up, and then turning those hopes into more problems for me to solve!
"What's so funny?" I called out to the mocking pumpkins. "You got something to say?"
I looked around at the faces, their smiles betraying that they knew something I didn't. I could see it in their glowing eyes.
"Answer me!"
They gave no answer but the laughter carrying on the graveyard wind.
Stop laughing at me!
I dove down and jabbed one of the pumpkin pillars with my reptilian arm, smashing it. I then moved on to the next one, thrashing it with my tail. My limbs, both old and new, retailed their prior elasticity. Strikes with my extremities were now punctuated by punctures from ebony, shear-like claws.
Only when I broke a couple of them did all of their eyes stop glowing. The mocking laughter was replaced with a dead silence, because, from what I could tell, there was no one else out here in the first place.
"Why did I…?"
I stopped, and looked down to my shaking hands. My final ring, which was the remaining piece of Heavy's broken tether, was gone.
There was no one there.
"No."
There was no one there. Lacking a threat to lash out against, I'd hallucinated one.
"That couldn't've…"
Was it a ghost?
Was I seeing things?
Was I finally well and truly losing it? I was trying very hard to stay calm, because even with the scattershot amount of information I had to work with, I couldn't imagine a delusional weredragon would make things better.
I had to survive until morning. Then I might become human again at daybreak. If I couldn't find another ring around here, then waiting out the dusk hours was my only option.
More cautiously analyzing my environment for peculiarities, at least in regards to how I thought this zone should look, it wasn't long until I located the odd landmark out. One of the largest hills had been shattered open with tremendous force, rocky debris spilling out from the center onto the surrounding ravines and gullies. Out of the pit was a fading emanation of sheer, caustic malevolence, thick enough that it could be seen as an emerald smog. The Phantom Ruby gave me a peculiar range of emotional awareness, and the half-life of this decaying hatred was so strong that I could practically taste it.
It was almost like what I'd expect out of Dark Gaia, which was supposed to be beneath the surface of the planet. The kind of energies that would turn me into this. Worst of all, I was drawing a blank on what else could've caused it.
Was it a meteor strike? An alien invader like the Black Arms?
No, that wouldn't add up. For the blast pattern to look the way it did, the source of the impact had to be from inside the smoking crater where a mountain once stood.
So something came out?
I raised one of my clawed hands to summon my communicator from my pocket zone. In my haste, I didn't stop to tell Fiona Fox where I'd been going. I also could have stopped to free Heavy and Bomb from the crystal beam I stuck them in, but I didn't.
At this point, I couldn't tell how much of my short-sightedness was the Phantom Ruby driving me mad versus me authentically being an idiot. When I got my communicator, I had half a mind to warn them to stay away from me until I was back to normal.
I continued to hold out my hand, waiting for my comm to appear sooner or later. It didn't. Attempts to make portals or other Phantom Ruby-based spells were also fruitless. I then realized that, in the same way Sonic the Werehog exchanged his speed for strength, my change must've caused my magic to get bent out of shape.
"Oh, come on!" I roared in frustration.
The wind changed again, whipping up a dust devil that wouldn't be out of place in the nearby Egyptian desert. I raised my defense, well aware that a sudden whirlwind would be the most suitably dramatic way for this snide version of Metal Sonic to make himself known again. However, instead of one blurry figure in the storm, I saw four. Two normal-sized mobians, a taller one, and a more slight figure hovering midair.
There was a touch of green to their auras, confirming what I already knew on sight.
They've come all the way up here to screw with me?
I'm gonna make them regret this.
"You again?" I snarled at the Fearsome Foursome. "Back off! Final warning!"
Sergeant Simian stepped up to me with a braggadocious swagger.
"Back off? You're on the Big Man's turf, man! So step off or get stepped on!"
That was an odd turn of phrase to hear out of him, from what scant interactions we've had, but he said the man behind the green diamond was here, on the island!
"Take me to him. Now."
Simian chuckled. He didn't look nearly as formidable now that I was roughly a foot taller than him.
"Don't be a drag, dragon! You're hardly worth our master's--!"
I slugged him in the chest with all of my strength, launching the ape into the air and through the doors of an old church. If the Foursome were so eager to jump the queue, then Metal Sonic could wait until I was done pounding them into the dirt!
"I'm not asking for permission!"
The other three circled around me. I forced them to keep their distance with a broad tail swipe, which took Flying Frog off his feet. Predator Hawk came at me from above, attempting a dive kick, and I nearly singed his feathers off with a stream of fire breath.
"Yipe!" Hawk cried. "Anyone remember what we did to tick this guy off?"
"Flying, grab his tail!" Lightning Lynx exclaimed, performing a ukemi to recover after I pulverized the hollow tree where he once stood.
"Don't act like you don't remember!" I shouted back.
As I approached, the Lynx batted me in the eye with his elongated tongue!
I stumbled back, taken by surprise. That was Flying Frog's move!
Wait, how'd he--?!
I felt a tug on my tail, and my whole body being lifted into the air by Flying Frog!
"You're a big one, ain't ya?" he said coarsely. "Well, the bigger they are…!"
I didn't hear the second half of that, as he tossed me into the direction of the church. Whereas Simian went through the door, I was sent headfirst through the stone wall. I shook off the old cobwebs and masonry, all too raring to get back into the fray.
"I'm not done with you yet!" I growled, getting back to my feet.
That was when I heard faint, tinny rock music, coming out of a broken cassette player that didn't look too far off from an old Walkman.
"What is that doing… here?"
Looking around, growing increasingly wary, I followed the personal stereo to a large pair of headphones that were illuminated by the cracks in the roof. The headphones were being worn by a long and thin green reptile with a broad chest and narrow arms.
I recognized him right away, and my boiling blood felt as though it turned to ice.
No, no, no!
"Anybody get the number of that ute?" Vector the Crocodile slurred, a large goose egg on his head and more severe bruising on his torso where I struck him.
That wasn't Sergeant Simian. Which meant the others weren't the Fearsome Foursome.
I was trying to kill the Chaotix!
Aghast, I scrambled to get Vector back on his feet, ramming down the blinding rage that'd nearly caused me to end the life of an innocent man.
"I-I'm sorry! I-I thought you were someone else!"
It was easily the dumbest thing I could've blurted out, but I didn't care.
"Brother, right now I feel like a sack of potatoes," Vector said numbly. "But whatever you did, you snapped me out of that bad mamma jamma's mojo!"
I could barely understand what he was saying. I was worried that my attack gave him brain damage, until I tumbled the words over in my head to uncover what he meant.
"You mean you were under a spell?" I asked.
Vector shook himself off, picking up what remained of his headphones.
"Got it in one, daddy-o!" It was too early to call if he sustained a concussion. "I'd say thanks for knocking some sense into me, but the job ain't done yet!"
The rest of the Chaotix poured into the opening. The purple, horned chameleon with green shoes had to be Espio. The small bee in all black and yellow was Charmy. That left the red-shelled, blue-eyed armadillo lugging around a huge cudgel of rusty rebar as Mighty.
Oh my god, I almost incinerated Charmy!
"Look, I don't want to fight anymore!" I shouted to the three.
"That's not gonna work!" Vector said. "That whacked-out warlock's got them in a trance!"
Mighty slammed his bludgeon of scrap metal down on the ground.
"Too late for saying sorry, Hot Breath! You've made an enemy of Lord Enerjak by stomping around his island without giving him tribute!"
"I don't even know what an Enerjak is!"
I tried to focus my own mesmerism effect, to try and break up the spell that has them under its sway, but it wasn't working! I was out of magic, and out of luck.
"Then allow us to hand-deliver you to him!" Espio said.
I took another deep breath, this time trying to emanate an effect that was less intense than a fireball through my nostrils. The internal energies got jumbled up in my throat, and while I was predicting smoke, what came out of my nose were two chilling rays of frost!
"Look out!" shouted Charmy, as the trio were surrounded in a thick cage of ice!
"If you aren't gonna fight, then we've gotta jet!" Vector shouted.
I nodded, running out of there with Vector in tow. I slid down one of the less steep hills, while Vector rolled down it as a living wheel. It wasn't exactly advisable with a head injury.
"Where are we going?" I said to Vector.
"We've gotta search for Knuckles and that Archy guy! Enerjak sent them away to who knows where and had the rest of us homies acting as his cronies!"
I didn't know who Archie was, either.
Another blind spot?
We kept running, passing the pumpkin-shaped part of the island entirely. Soon, we stopped at a region with more sedate peaks and plateaus, broken up by the occasional windmill.
"Do the Chaotix have a fallback place where you meet up?" I asked.
"Knuckles' lookout is crawling with Enerjak's 'bots right now, but we ain't too far from Rock Hill. That's where Mighty shares a place with Heavy and Bomb."
"Then let's head there and see if we can regroup."
Awkwardly, I picked up Vector and flew us towards where he was directing. After a few minutes of silence, Vector stared at me curiously, a glint coming over his yellow eyes.
"What's wrong?"
"You know, in all of that ruckus, I didn't stop to ask what a dragon was doin' all the way out here on the Floating Island. A long way from home, huh?"
I frowned. It seemed like, retro look or not, this Vector remained a detective at heart.
"You could say that," I replied warily. "Sorry again for going overboard."
"It's all water under the bridge. Enerjak's magic was messing with all of us, right?"
"Right," I answered slightly too fast.
The crocodile didn't comment for another minute.
"By the way, the name's Vector."
"John Scarlet. I'm with the freedom fighters in Mercia."
"No kidding," Vector said as he rubbed his jaw. "You've got a real mean southpaw, you know that? Could've given Rad Red a run for his money with that one."
"Thanks?"
I landed down atop a rugged hill with a tunnel sticking out of it.
"This the place?"
Vector nodded.
We cautiously entered the spacious abode that'd been carved into the rock, which already had lights on before Vector could flip the switch. The place had two major rooms that I could see past the common area, with the first being a studio/gym hybrid and the second looking like a sci-fi auto shop. I was surprised to see Fiona Fox had gotten there before us, alongside a Heavy and Bomb that were covered in pink crystal flakes.
"Our friends have returned!" Heavy said in joy.
"Ping!" added Bomb.
"What the--!" Fiona started, when she turned around and locked eyes with me. "Where'd you fly off to, you numbskull?"
"I was trying to find the Metal Sonic," I said apologetically. "Lost track of myself. It's hard to… control my impulses like this. Trying to stay level."
Vector crossed his skinny arms. It was surreal to remember how thin he was in his 'Classic' incarnation versus his later one.
"Hey, who let a chick inside Mighty's crash pad?"
Fiona shot a withering glare at Vector that made him wince.
"Shut up, croc! Mighty owes me big time!"
She already knew Mighty?
"And that would have been us who invited them in," Heavy interjected. "The situation out there has been deteriorating rapidly since the entity was unleashed from Mt. Fate."
The entity? Wait, who's 'them'?
"What exactly is going on?" I asked.
"Haven't you heard there's a crazy chaos god out there?" Fiona said.
"There's a what?"
"Oh, he hasn't heard!" drawled a half-disassembled and vulnerable Metal Sonic, partway through a rushed repair job on one of the workshop tables. "After I left your fat tail eating my dust, I doubled back and--"
I walked over to the table and prepared to finish what I started.
"PARLAY!" Metal Sonic squeaked out. "PARLAY!"
Fortunately -- or unfortunately, depending on how you looked at it -- the others were able to force me stay my hand and listen to what he had to say. At the least, his story was able to help me wait out the clock until sunrise.
It turned out that, as of that night, the Floating Island was under new management.
- - -
With Bonus Chapter 2 out of the way, we're back on track with the Angel Island Tour!
Angel Island's size is never given hard numbers within the story. At least, we aren't given real numbers. We're presented with made up units with no real-world comparisons, which are worthless. Toss 'em in the trash. I've been using the maps of Angel Island from both the Complete Sonic Encyclopedia and Super Sonic Digest #2 as points of reference for where the different locations lie, with the latter serving as an effective update of the former. I'll use the names of places used on either map as I deem appropriate.
The Chaotix here, like their introduction in the comics, are modeled on their appearances in Knuckles' Chaotix. Vector has yet to work out, Espio wasn't officially a ninja, Mighty was there, and Charmy is about the same age as the rest of them. Strange, isn't it?
Who is Enerjak? For those of you who don't already know, you'll soon find out.
That (and other things the SI missed when he flew off) will be addressed in the next chapter, but the short answer is that Fiona was present for it and relayed the information to Heavy & Bomb.
"Oh, he hasn't heard!" drawled a half-disassembled and vulnerable Metal Sonic, partway through a rushed repair job on one of the workshop tables. "After I left your fat tail eating my dust, I doubled back and--"
I walked over to the table and prepared to finish what I started.
Enerjack using mind-control. Normal. Within the purview of the broader powerset.
Enerjack with Robots? That narrows the options down a bit.
But what stuck out to me a bit more with the chapter is that John finally figures out Phantom Ruby's messing with his mind. At least, when he's transformed. It's not quite CRYSIS level manipulation, but it's getting there.
I need you guys to understand I have been downplaying how Vector talked for years. It's legitimately stunning how awful some of his lines are. He'd also rhyme without provacation.
But what stuck out to me a bit more with the chapter is that John finally figures out Phantom Ruby's messing with his mind. At least, when he's transformed. It's not quite CRYSIS level manipulation, but it's getting there.
Now, do we actually know that this is going to wear off at sunrise? I'm very curious as to how the dragon thing works. Having him be stuck like this for a while sounds pretty fun.
I need you guys to understand I have been downplaying how Vector talked for years. It's legitimately stunning how awful some of his lines are. He'd also rhyme without provacation.
My recent spat on the Pokemon releases has somewhat inured me to low-key rhymes, on top of the fact you couldn't make me rhyme if you put a gun to my head. I am just that incapable of it.
I need you guys to understand I have been downplaying how Vector talked for years. It's legitimately stunning how awful some of his lines are. He'd also rhyme without provacation.
ok, this was fun, i hope he recovers his human form soon enough, this is one ofbthe most enjoyaaboe 'human in sonic's world' that i have read in a while, I'm amazed that you didn't share any human songs in the victory parties, like 'Can your hear the people sing' from Les Miseraables, of ''The Sound of Silence.'
I'm amazed that you didn't share any human songs in the victory parties, like 'Can your hear the people sing' from Les Miseraables, of ''The Sound of Silence.'
He felt isolated at the party, and was worried someone would verbally object to metaphorically passing him the mic. Whether or not that would have actually happened isn't important.
I haven't actually watched Les Miserables, though its on my list. Any songs the SI could sing (using the Phantom Ruby to help him not sound horrible and remember the lines right) would be classified as "major downers" for what's supposed to be an uplifting event. So he opted to keep the songs to himself.
Fiona Fox thought of herself as a schemer at heart. Someone to whom deception and trickery came to her as naturally as breathing. It was not an instinct that Fiona thought she had in her when she was just a dumb kid. Before she realized that the only person you could rely on in this messed up world to have your back was yourself. Now that she was grown up, Fiona knew that her clever mind was the sharpest weapon in her arsenal. With her two go-to goons being a close second.
Whatever Bean and Bark were doing before she found them wasn't important. They needed someone with brains to direct them, and get them gigs. Be the shot caller. Bark wasn't going to speak up for himself, and Bean wasn't going to let the clients get a word in. She was the brains of her gang, with Bean and Bark providing the muscle needed to make her tactics stick. Not as strong as Bark, or as explosively deranged as Bean (the latter of which she was grateful not to worry about), Fiona was the one who laid out the game plan.
However, with her mark having changed into a dragon and gone flying after a smart aleck super badnik, her plot to steal Scarlet's magic ruby had gone completely off the rails.
"This was supposed to be easy!" she shouted as she climbed out of the rubble.
Fiona heard a pop, causing her ears to perk up in alarm. Examining her immediate surroundings, Fiona saw that the ground was covered in crystal dust from one of Scarlet's magic bubbles. The debris around the hole she was hiding in gave way and collapsed. He must've put a shield around her, and if it wasn't for that holding up the rubble…
Fiona Fox dismissed the thought. She couldn't afford to get distracted.
She looked around, taking in the absolute state of desolation that Scarlet and Metal Sonic left the Happyland park in after their fight. The rollercoaster was spent, having broken down into heaps of splintered wood. The merry-go-round had made its last rotation, the ferris wheel had lost a couple of spokes, and the carnival games were totally spent. Fiona hated Renfield, so she wasn't going to be shedding a tear for his dream going down in flames. Her only regret was that she didn't bring a camera.
With her ride having taken off, and this mission turning out to be far riskier than she initially bargained for, Fiona's next idea was to make her leave with that spare hover pod. Then a glimmer in the scrap pile caught her eye. Getting closer, she identified the shining object as the Mechanix. Scarlet hit them with one of those spells he cast by mistake, trapping Heavy and Bomb in a big, pink crystal.
After spending a period of weeks getting to know what he was capable of, Fiona could admit, if only to herself, that what Scarlet did was real magic. Technology that could open portals like he could wasn't portable enough to do the job. It wouldn't be something that just anybody could get their hands on, and Scarlet definitely wasn't smart enough to build it himself. The same went for the force fields, flight, and other powers.
Then there was the fact that technology didn't show you your greatest desire when you touched it. While everyone else was stunned by what Bean conjured up by touching the ruby during their ambush mission in Mercia, they weren't watching her trying to pull him off of it. The wizard completely missed that she'd accidentally touched the stone herself. What she saw while everyone else was distracted left her stunned.
Fiona saw herself, a few years older. Stronger. Sharper. More experienced. She wasn't the ruler of Mobius, because she knew what she wanted was well within the means of being a crime lord. For those who she let know her name, 'Fiona Fox' was a name associated with wealth and power. Feared and respected in equal measures, she'd spend her days surrounded by more money, opulence, and security than anyone else could ever ask for.
Robotnik's machines couldn't catch her. The Freedom Fighters would go to her to beg for scraps, and she'd only give them when their so-called 'hero' was the one they paraded out to do the begging. The power of the ruby made her completely untouchable. With but a wave of her hand, anything she wanted was within her grasp.
Never again to want. Never again to need. Never again to feel pain, or fear, or spend her nights being afraid of getting hurt again.
Never again to be powerless. Forgotten. Left behind.
All she had to do to make that happen was separate the magic gem from its current owner.
Did that overlander know how much power he was sitting on? How could he not?
Fiona got close to the badniks and started hammering at the crystal, using her spent missile launcher as a blunt instrument. She knew from asking around the Mercian rebel camps that those crystals weren't impossible to shatter. Scarlet's crystals broke apart over time, and got weaker when he wasn't focusing on keeping them there. After the repeated impacts caused cracks to form along the surface, she performed one last strike along the largest crack to wedge the crystal containing Bomb free from the rest.
"Ping ping," Bomb uttered weakly, half of his body sticking out of the crystal mass.
"Hold still," Fiona said, before lighting Bomb's fuse with a match.
"PING?!"
Fiona crouched down behind the sturdiest thing she could use as cover for miles, which was Heavy. Bomb detonated, damaging the pink crystal surrounding the larger badnik. With Bomb's body destroyed, Fiona could hear what sounded like a jammed crank or other mechanism building tension from inside the crystal, until Heavy's head spring broke out of the top and a fresh Bomb was released.
"Ping!" Bomb accused, pointing at her.
"Of course I knew that would work!" Fiona shouted back. "Now do it again!"
"Ping," Bomb grumbled, exploding a second time so he could get his partner out of there.
Heavy stumbled out of the crystal trap, magenta flakes sticking to both badniks' hulls.
"Gadzooks!" Heavy exclaimed. "What'd I miss?"
"Ping ping!" Bomb whined.
"Scarlet went after Metal Sonic, but there's something wrong with the island," Fiona answered, paraphrasing everything they missed. "Now a volcano's gone off!"
"This is most disturbing," Heavy said solemnly. "Do you have John's communicator code?"
She tried the number, but the line was filled with static.
"He's not picking up."
Heavy's lid rose again, a collapsible radio antenna sticking out of it.
"There appears to be a high amount of background radiation affecting my radar. Let's take you back to our workshop in Rock Hill so we can regain our bearings."
Resigned, she joined the Mechanix in the hover unit to their other base. She stared out from the forward window, taking in the darkened landscape of the Floating Island.
This was supposed to be simple. Tricking him into carrying all of their salvage from Robotnik's bases was only one part of it. Bean and Bark were going to take Scarlet out when she gave the signal, after he'd burned out his energy reserves, but then they had to escape the ambush from the Egg Robos. Her Plan B was to convince the Guardian and the Chaotix to do the heavy lifting for them, using the emotional blackmail she had on Mighty to sway him into taking the wizard down. Then Metal Sonic happened, and Scarlet went out of his way to make sure she wasn't hurt.
Why?
She didn't get it. Was he playing her? What was his angle? Did he already know what she was doing, and was giving her a window to back out before either of them lost face?
Was he really just being… nice?
Fiona had no idea, and the uncertainty was what was getting to her.
A green flash of light blinded the drivers, causing them to slow down until it passed.
"What was that?" Fiona asked.
"Ping!"
"I haven't the foggiest, either, but I believe that eerie light originated from the direction of the echidna ruins at the island's center!"
Heavy tilted the yoke up, setting the vehicle gently onto the outskirts of where the glowing flashes were focused, near the long river that wound around the island. Past the green lights, they could see massive rocks rising out of the ground, suspended by green auras. The loose stones arranged themselves into new forms, the jagged cliffs and spires forming into the rough shapes of walls and towers. Before their eyes, the constructions became increasingly defined, turning into finely-masoned bricks and architectural marvels.
"What on Mobius…?" Fiona gasped. "Is that a city?"
"No city we've seen on the Floating Island before," Heavy said.
The edges of this strange place were patrolled by tall, gray robots that Fiona hadn't seen before. They were as tall as SWATbots, yet their designs were subtly off in a way she couldn't place. Though, after years of dealing with Robotnik's machines, she could tell on instinct that these weren't made by him.
"Ping!" Bomb called out, pointing at the glowing figure at the center of the city.
The glowing being was the average size of a mobian, covered in immaculate gold and blue armor. His jagged, golden mask covered only the top of his white-eyed face, leaving a twisted rictus grin that was clear to see. Out of the back of the entity's head, she could see striped rows of red echidna dreadlocks. In one hand, he possessed a serpentine scepter of emerald green, which he waved to and fro like a conductor's baton.
Where the glowing man moved the staff, the masses of earth fit into place. He swung the rod forward, building a cyclopean, black citadel that stood tall above the rest.
"RISE, MY NEKRONOPOLIS! MAY YOUR DARK MAGNIFICENCE BLIND THE DENIZENS OF THE SURFACE WITH THIS MONUMENT TO MY GLORY!"
The warlock's insane cackles of delight spread far and wide, until they were cut off by a bolt of energy to the face.
"Who dares strike the almighty Enerjak?!" the being howled, superheated plasma dripping off his mask.
Enerjak turned to where the shot came from at the same time Fiona and the others did, where they all saw the red-eyed, sneering Metal Sonic.
"What, do you live under a rock or something?" Metal Sonic quipped. "Now that I lost that purple lizard and had a little pick-me-up from your energy turbines, I regret to inform you that you're squatting on Doctor Robotnik's property! So kindly vacate the premises and--"
The snarling Enerjak waved his hand, releasing a broad wave of destructive power!
"NO! The Floating Island is MINE TO CONQUER!"
Metal Sonic fired up his rockets and juked out of the way of the attack, which carved a deep groove into one of the distant mountains. Fiona didn't even need to put on her binoculars to see the devastating damage Enerjak was capable of.
While Enerjak was reveling in his power, Metal Sonic flew in a corkscrew and delivered an uppercut to the echidna's jaw with a sledgehammer attachment over his fist.
"Yours to conquer? Take a number, Enerjoke!"
With that, it was on. Enerjak projected his green blasts of energy at the evasive Metal Sonic, in what almost felt like a repetition of Scarlet's fight with the super badnik.
"You have made a fatal error, robot! Now perish for it!"
The key difference was Enerjak clearly reveled in his power. Scarlet fought with a lot more care and precision, being seriously rattled after his foray into friendly fire. This chaos sorcerer, on the other hand, threw his weight around with an almost childlike glee. His beams of force, bolts of lightning, and explosions of green energy went wide, bombarding his own city and robots. Enerjak was far more concerned with hitting Metal Sonic than the damage he was doing to his 'previous' city and the robots he put around it. Should this battle continue, he'd have to start over from the ground up.
As the two of them battled in the sky, Fiona began ripping foliage out of the nearby trees and putting them on top of the hover pod.
"What are you doing?" Heavy inquired.
She tilted her face towards Heavy and Bomb, not slowing down from her task.
"Camouflage! Now help me keep us out of their sight!"
The Mechanix got to work, helping her disguise their hovercraft until it was as concealed as they could on such a tight time budget. Meanwhile, Metal Sonic swiftly darted towards Enerjak for another attack. One that would turn out to be a tactical miscalculation. Two beams of light poured out of Enerjak's eyes, trapping Metal Sonic in a green energy field.
"C-Cheater!" Metal Sonic shouted, now totally paralyzed.
"For over four centuries, I have been denied my righteous destiny! I will not be defied by an arrogant machine for a second more!"
Enerjak spread his arms out wide. Fiona had a bad feeling about what he was planning, and screwed her eyes shut. Everything went white, and when Fiona opened her eyes again, Metal Sonic was gone.
Enerjak is untouchable.
"Let that be a lesson to all who would stand against the new god-king of Mobius!" Enerjak proclaimed, to seemingly no one.
Unless, of course, he knew they were hiding, and that was an open invitation for them to come out before he made them come out. Fiona froze, waiting to see when Enerjak would call them out, only for the divine being to fly away.
"That was a frightening display of force," observed Heavy. "Is everyone alright?"
"Yeah. Fine."
Fiona realized that Enerjak, for all of the blatant power at his disposal, hadn't noticed them at all. For a so-called god, his awareness left a lot to be desired.
That begged the question: Did he have other weaknesses she could exploit?
"Y-Yo! Mind lending me a waldo?"
Fiona and the Mechanix spun around. Behind them, they saw the smoking crater where Metal Sonic crash landed. The super badnik was in a sorry state, one leg and both arms twisted at right angles. His head was half buried in the dirt, one green eye indicating that he was critically low on power.
"Metal Sonic!" Heavy shouted, his arms raised into a boxing pose to go with his mitts.
"Ping, ping!" Bomb declared.
"Not too loud!" Metal Sonic said. "Think that chaos dynamo's gonna go easier on you three if he comes sniffing this way?"
"Give us one good reason why we shouldn't have you stripped down for spare parts while we have the chance to make it stick!"
"Maybe Robotnik will take you back?" he offered. "I'll put in a good word--"
"Don't," Fiona interjected. Not to silence Metal Sonic, but to stop Heavy or Bomb before they could permanently shut him up. "We need him alive."
"We do?" asked Heavy.
"Ping?" asked Bomb.
"You do?" asked Metal Sonic.
"We do. For all of the worthless words that came out of your motor mouth, you got one thing right. None of us stand a chance against Enerjak. Not if we're doing it alone."
"You aren't suggesting that we work with this thug, do you?" Heavy asked, incredulously.
Metal Sonic laughed.
"Look, fox! I don't think you know how this whole 'super badnik' shtick works. You help me, and I don't have the big man with the XXXL Egg-O-Matic send you to the roboti--" Fiona placed an orange and yellow boot on Metal Sonic's back. "H-Hey!"
She flicked the multitool she palmed off the Mechanix's hover pod to the flathead screwdriver, the end aimed at Metal Sonic's remaining good eye.
"You want to get fixed, you cooperate. You don't cooperate, I let those two break you down and turn you into Mister Scarlet's new punching bag. Capisce?"
"Alright, alright!" Metal Sonic said in surrender. "You've got my help for this, but after that, I'm jetting back to Robotropolis. Deal?"
As cathartic as it was to threaten to take a screwdriver to a Sonic's eye, Fiona had work to do. She took her boot off the badnik and gestured for Heavy to load him into the pod.
"Deal."
That was how Fiona Fox played the game. She used her head. She balanced personalities. She made arrangements. Now, she was going leverage what she had to pick off that wannabe god getting in the way of her ruby.
- - -
There goes our second POV switch up chapter. I wanted to do another one since the one with Rob O' the Hedge in Chapter 13, and now felt as good a time as any to do another!
Alas, I don't have a lot to say in the notes this time, except to say that I've considered writing my own datafiles for various countries and such in regards to Ruby Haze. Expansions of the material presented in the Complete Sonic Encyclopedia, with my own additions based on what's needed for this fic. If the people reading this have suggestions for where I might want to focus these hypothetical datafiles, then let me know.
Honestly, I've never been a fan of Fiona Fox, and my opinion of her has always been mixed at best and this is why. I mean I can understand some of her reasoning, but I don't think I'll ever be able to like her considering everything really. Nice chapter though.
