Chapter 38- Return of the Eggman

The three have been following a long dirt trail trough what was for the most part, rolling green hills of grass. The three hadn’t had many problems with food as each of the three had their own set of rations. As for water, they had to stop at a lake and resupply there. Sotsu luckily had a purifier that Gray had to show them how to use. 

The sky was unbelievably blue. Small white clouds puffed about here and there. The grass was uncorrupted by pollution of any kind. The three took their time as they walked down the simple dirt path. It seemed as if all their worries of their troubled world had disappeared and been long forgotten. Though this did remind the black echidna of Knothole, that is before he created a Dead Zone about it. No doubt anyone still inside the area of the draining shadow energy would be suffering relentlessly. 

Sotsu shook the images of his once-friends suffering from his own attack. He looked up as a flock of white birds flew overhead. Their wings graced the sky, it was beauty the three had only been able to witness in paintings. Then almost upon thinking that Sotsu’s mind drifted to the lavender echidna who was most likely thousands of miles away. It seemed no matter how hard he’d search, she would remain a forever-lost goal. 

"Let’s camp here for the day. Enjoy the serenity," Carmen suggested with a joyous tone. 

"Sounds like a good plan to me," Sotsu replied with a rare smile of happiness.

"That okay with you Gray?" Sotsu asked the body guard who was silently strolling on his other side.

"Sure," the red echidna simply replied unenthusiastically.


Almost on cue, a maniacal laughter, all to familiar sounding, echoed throughout the dreaming plains. The three looked about in panic. Gray took up Spitfire and Sotsu took up his pistols and hit the LED on his glasses.

"Picking up anything?" Gray asked as the insane laughter subsided setting the place into an uneasy silence that lit tension in the air.

"Not yet," Sotsu replied, only loud enough for the two to hear him. 

Then rippling waves appeared on the blue lenses, indicating motion detection. 

"Wait… eastward I’m getting something!" Sotsu exclaimed. The three turned east with their guard up. All their gazes set and locked… waiting.

"I finally found you black echidna! Revenge shall be mine for what you did!" Robotnik’s voice bellowed dripping with pure hate that usually was only directed toward Sonic.

"Show yourself Dr. Robotnik!" Sotsu shouted out casting nervous glances about.


There was a sudden gust of air about the three, then the loud slamming of metal as a great red and silver robot landed hard in front of them. Circular feet gripped at the ground with three silver talons that extended out. The leg’s shins were tree trunks of red armor. It’s thin silver thighs seemed too small to support the heavy legs, but still did. The bulking egg-shaped torso that made up it’s chest and head altogether gleamed deep red in the pure sunlight. A thin black strip made it’s optical outlet, and jutting from the torso sides were thin arms that extended to bulking red metal forearms that ended in three more talons on each hand. The talons reminded Sotsu all too much of Kragok’s robotic appendage. 

"Get back!" Sotsu shouted as the robot made a swift dash toward the black echidna.

It reached forth with it’s right hand attempting a slash at Sotsu’s ribs. The echidna edged back just getting out of the machine’s reach. Gray hefted up Spitfire and the gun whined to life spitting fourth several rounds that imbedded themselves into the metallic hide of the machine. The robot made several sharp jerks and sparked before falling to the ground smoking out the bullet holes. 


Sotsu quickly hoisteled his akimbo and produced a single long shadow blade. The three remained on guard still, they knew it wasn’t over.

"What’s next?" Gray grumbled under his breath in a sinister tone, black gun smoke rising from Spitfire's barrels. 

There was the sound of distant jet engines, no sooner then the sounds were heard a dozen more of the machines blasted in from above. Four of the deadly machines took on each of the group. Carmen kicked, punched and slammed the robots with vicious hand-to-hand attacks. Sotsu slashed left and right, jumping , ducking and evading. Gray, slow and methodical, took hard hits to the robots and managed to fight without having to move much.

Sotsu jumped over a low swipe then rolled right under a high swipe. As he quickly stationed himself back on his feet he brought about his shadow blade in a wide arc that split one of the machines right in two. Gray blasted down one without any trouble. As one flanking robot brought down a talon-armed hand, Gray shoved Spitfire in the way and blocked the attack then he lifted one heavy armored foot and booted the machine in the body. Carmen flipped to her side as one of the machine’s trust it’s claws at her. Then she sent two swift roundhouse kicks to the body that stunned it, which gave her enough time to step forward and slam one final kick into it’s body causing it to break into several pieces.

After a furious few minutes the robots were downed. Several piles of sparking and junked scrap lay about the three sweating fighters. All three still held their guard up, breathing hard and not taking their eyes off the directions they were facing; each back-to-back like an unbreakable fighting trio. 

"Well done Sotsu! You haven’t lost your touch!" Robotnik’s voice boomed, his whereabouts still unknown to the three. 

"Come on Robotnik show yourself! I want a real fight here!" Sotsu dared, feeling a little disappointed that he didn’t get to see Robotnik and the look on his round face.


"Fine!" Eggman shouted back, "I’ll come out! And I won’t go down without a fight!"

The ground began to rumble slightly. The three looked about in panic, then a large version of one of the robot’s hands burst from the ground not more then a few dozen feet away. All three turned their attention toward the giant machine that was raising from the ground. As it surfaced the three saw a large Robotnik emblem on the body of the machine. Overall it was a good fifteen or so feet tall, Eggman was piloting the thing from the inside. 

"A mobile combat suit," Gray stated quietly, tightening his grip on Spitfire.

"Very good! Now let’s see this thing in action!" Robotnik shot as the agile suit blasted it’s rocket pack and flew toward the group with blazing speed.


With a bright flash of green energy Sotsu meet Robotnik’s charge. A loud metallic clang sounded, Sotsu was even with the machine, in mid air the black echidna had met one of the machine’s talon with his Chaos Blade that was fully charged.

"This should be fun," Robotnik gloated, a menacing sound of joy in his voice.


The two warriors hung their stance a little longer before the machine’s other arm thrust forward toward the echidna. A blur of red and silver meet the black fur of Sotsu’s stomach. Sotsu drew back and landed, managing to only get a red slash mark across his front. 

Sotsu pushed off the ground hard drawing the Chaos Blade in a wide arc, the crackling energy erupted about as it was meet by a swift block from the machine’s left forearm. 

"He needs our help! Let’s go!" Gray quickly exclaimed before taking off.

"Gray! It’s too dangerous let Sotsu handle it!" Carmen shouted at the charging bodyguard. "Dammit," she said under her breath as he dashed after him. 

Robotnik pulled hard and quick on the controls, causing the machine to throw a rapid flurry of strikes toward the black echidna. Sotsu twirled the blade down and right, blocking a thrust from the left side. Then he leaned back as the right arm zipped by and went back. Sotsu spun left as the left arm of the machine shot by and Sotsu rose the blade as the right arm came down hard on his sword. 

Gray flanked the machine and hefted Spitfire even with the machine’s egg-shaped torso. Just as the red echidna was about to pull the trigger the machine spun quickly, striking Gray with it’s right arm and Sotsu with it’s left. 

The two echidnas fell backwards. Gray hit the ground but Sotsu quickly sprung back up using his tail. Carmen stood off a few good yards away, she didn’t wish to fight the machine, she knew her hand-to-hand attacks were too weak. 

As soon as Sotsu got to his feet he pulled the Chaos Blade up aiming for the machine’s legs. The machine jumped back and out of reach, then it hit the thrusters again and blasted forward. Bringing one arm up and the other back. Sotsu hefted the Chaos Blade into a defensive position and recharged it with Chaos Energy, the ruins of the blade glowing brightly. Gray got upright and steadied his aim, but didn’t get any rounds off as the machine swooshed by, causing Gray to reactively jump back.

As Robotnik came down about Sotsu it’s lifted arm came down attempting to smash the echidna. The ground burst as the talon-armed appendage dug deep, Sotsu had leapt back. Now the echidna was high above the machine’s torso, Chaos Blade chambered far back over his long black dreads that flapped about like his trench coat. 

Sotsu came down as did the blade. The sword bit into the metal hide of the machine. Bright green sparks filled the air and the torso of the machine split open. The blade stopped just as Robotnik yelled out in surprise; the blade stopping mere millimeters from the man’s bald head.

"You’ll pay! You’ll pay!" Robotnik obsessed as he sat upright after moving the blade aside. His face held such deep anger that he seemed as red as his attire.

Sotsu moved the Chaos Blade to his right shoulder, his eyes rested cold on the round man. 

"Snivley now!" Robotnik shouted out causing Gray, Carmen and Sotsu to tense again.

A relatively small metal jet swooped from nowhere and lowered enough for Robotnik to simply raise one arm and grab hold of a lowered handle. Before anyone in the group could react all that was left was a small trail of white smoke.

"Have fun!" Robotnik’s voice boomed as he went out of sight. 

"What’s that mean?" Sotsu asked casting a glance toward his two companions.

"It means we’ve still got company," Gray replied sternly as he took Spitfire in front of him.

The three looked about for a few moments before hearing soft footfalls through the grass. The three looked over and there stood, clad in a black metal suit with a clad metal bowler’s hat; staring from behind blue sunglasses bolted to the side of his black and silver head, Metal Sotsu.

There was a split second before the metal’s recognition and it’s reaction of pulling up a large black pistol in it’s silver clawed hand and aiming forward. The three dived to the side as it opened fire, the automatic pistol sounding loudly with each shot. As Sotsu came up he replaced the Chaos Blade for his akimbo. 

The black echidna got upright and unleashed a hell’s fury on his metal counterpart. The blue energy zipped forward, the metal counter-part looked toward the shots and simply didn’t move as the shots meet a shadow field.

"He can maintain psychic energy!" Gray shouted from a distance.

"Thanks for the info," Sotsu grumbled.


Metal Sotsu pulled up a second pistol and began to open fire. Unleashing red shots that danced about the place like a blazing light show. It only looked toward Sotsu but it’s accuracy for all it’s shots were no different. One pistol blasted toward Gray and Carmen and the other toward Sotsu. 

Gray and Carmen began to try and charge forward, but Carmen resorted to taking cover in a slight incline as Gray continued onward. Sotsu changed his pistols for a set of shadow blades, he wouldn’t be able to be slow on this opponent, the Chaos blade would take away from his attack rate, consistency is something Sotsu couldn’t take easy on.


"I can not stress enough how much I hate being with you Sotsu!" Gray shouted as he strafed another burst of shots.

"Ah… be quiet you," Sotsu growled, not quit intended to sound vicious but not being the best of moods.


Sotsu closed ground first. Metal Sotsu twirled about his pistols, now in his hands were two silver stubs, handles actually. As Sotsu brought down his right blade Metal Sotsu’s shadow-saber blade blocked it. Black shadow energy crackled widely as the blade pushed on.

Gray stopped in his tracks and quickly brought up Spitfire, he then stopped as he realized Sotsu was too close to Metal Sotsu. The red echidna cursed under his breath then began charging forward again.

Metal Sotsu slashed his left saber toward his organic counter-part’s side. Sotsu slashed both blades across his chest, enabling him to block Metal Sotsu’s attack and send a blade toward the machine’s face. Metal Sotsu brought up his other saber and blocked the attack. The two stood there pressing on each other. Gray was almost here, Sotsu knew the two might be able to defeat the robot.

Metal Sotsu backed up and twirled his left blade in front of him, it seemed to become one black circle. Sotsu backed up as shadow energy crackled dangerously about. Gray swung Spitfire down toward Metal Sotsu’s head, the machine simply lifted a shadow saber up and blocked the attack without so much giving an inch. 

A black ball of shadow energy built in front of the twirling blade and quickly developed into a full sized beam. Sotsu blocked his face and formed a shadow-field that fought against the powerful blast. The grass under the attack burned up from the intensity of the attack. The air about the blast sizzled. Though shadow energy was normally cold, for some reason this version of artificially created shadow-energy was simply light with diverted ions. As this quickly passed through Sotsu’s mind he wondered if this knowledge might come to use. Though perhaps Robotnik did this so Sotsu wouldn’t draw off it to energize himself. 

Gray slammed his gattling back and fourth and Metal Sotsu kept blocking the attacks without a problem, soon Gray began to shout profanities in frustration. Then Metal Sotsu swept his blade in a wide arc that disarmed Gray, sending Spitfire flying off to the side some ways. Gray stood shocked for a few seconds, which gave Metal Sotsu just enough time to attack and down the echidna. Metal Sotsu shot a shadow arc toward the hesitant bodyguard, the echidna took it straight to the chest and fell into unconsciousness as he flew a few inches backwards and fell hard to the ground.

Sotsu strained a little, he felt his shadow-field waver. Even with the combined strength of his Chaos Energy, he had grown too weak from the fighting to push on. To make matters worse, Metal Sotsu doubled-up on the attack with his now free arm. Sotsu gritted his teeth as the beam grew blacker, and larger. 

Sotsu closed his eyes straining to focus. He wouldn’t let it end here, not now, not when he still had to meet up with Skara. He still had much to do ahead, so many unfinished things. So many unanswered things. He wouldn’t let this be it. Then there was a loud shout heard. The loud sound of a metal clang, the beams quickly dissipated. 

Sotsu hesitating for a moment, wondering if that was it. Wondering if he was dead. He looked up to see Carmen’s foot over where Metal Sotsu’s head used to be. The body dropped down, smoking from the neck. Metal Sotsu’s head lay a few feet from the body. Carmen relaxed and let out a sigh of relief.

"Thanks," Sotsu said wearily, giving a weak smile before collapsing into blackness.

The sound of rain hitting hard against pavement echoed throughout the city. Thoughts not of Sotsu’s echoed about in the echidna’s mind.

"Tonight shall be a dark night," a sickly voice stated before letting out a wheezing laughter.

-Nicholas D. Wolfwood-