Sonic Runaways

"That's the snake deity from the stone tablet!" Tails squeaked, petrified by the sight of the behemoth made of water encased in blue scales. "But… it was supposed to emerge TOMORROW!" The bat girl stared at the beast, and then quickly flew off.

"I wasn't expecting that! Who would have thought an echidna would destroy the Master Emerald? And what exactly is that thing that just… came out of it?" The bat girl thought to herself as she made her escape. "Oh well… I should return to HQ."

Knuckles growled, and turned to Pachacamac as they both tried to get up. "What did you do?!" Knuckles shouted at Pachacamac, looking at the shards of the Master Emerald lying on the ground. Pachacamac got to his feet and took a swing at Knuckles. His fist landed in Knuckles' face, sending Knuckles sprawled out on the ground again. Knuckles looked terrified and distraught as Pachacamac shambled his way.

"You insolent little hatchling…" Pachacamac growled. "You dare get in the way of your lord's plan?" Pachacamac asked, standing over Knuckles and popping his own arm back into place.

"You're not my lord…" Knuckles wheezed. "You… betrayed the clan." Knuckles' breath crackled. The deity in the distance screeched, as it wreaked havoc on the surrounding landscape.

"The clan all agreed that I should shatter the emerald, and unleash the chaos within. I ordered nobody to tell you, because I knew YOU would betray the clan and our goals," Pachacamac replied. "This island you hold so dear has restrained us for too long. The watery beast you see before you, Chaos, shall spread across the ocean and conquer new lands for us, and there is nothing you can do to stop it." Pachacamac grabbed Knuckles by the dreadlocks and held him up in the air. "This island is a prison! You were my greatest student, you learned so much from me. You should understand why I'm doing this. Why love this island so much when you could have the world?!"

"I love this island because you taught me to," Knuckles gasped. Pachacamac tightened his grip.

"Stop! You're hurting him!" Amy cried, moving to the front of the group. Sonic, Tails and Ata looked at her in awe. Pachacamac looked to her.

"What would you know, witch?!" Pachacamac shouted, throwing Knuckles to the ground and letting him splash in the mud. Knuckles took one last sorrowful look at Pachacamac, before scampering away. Pachacamac paid him no mind as he approached Amy. "I'm a master of gods! A force so beyond your foolish mind. I will slay you were you stand!" Amy stood her ground. Because behind Pachacamac, she saw something much larger approaching. Pachacamac didn't.

"Master of gods?" Mecha Sonic asked from behind Pachacamac. Pachacamac turned around, and froze. "What a conceited choice of last words."

"Aaaahhh! A monster!" Pachacamac cried. Mecha Sonic chuckled, before kicking him in the stomach. Pachacamac went flying back, sliding to a stop at Amy's feet.

"Don't," Mecha Sonic ordered.

"Wha-ha-hat?! Mecha Sonic's on our side now?!" Sonic hollered, excitedly.

"Sonic!" Tails scolded.

"No. I just hate organics who see themselves as anything more than animals," Mecha Sonic replied, stomping his foot down onto the back of Pachacamac's hand. Pachacamac screamed in pain as his knuckles were crushed. "I will kill him. And then you. Run."

"You! Help me!" Pachacamac cried, reaching out to Amy with his unbroken hand. Amy quickly tried to reach out too, but...

"Amy, time to go!" Sonic shouted. He picked Amy up and ran, as Tails flew Ata away from Mecha Sonic.

"But… we can save him!" Amy replied.

"I'm not going to let you throw your life away for someone who'll end up killing us anyways!" Sonic replied. Amy heard multiple gunshots and a loud splash. She clutched on tighter to Sonic, holding in a shriek. Sonic sped up.

After a few minutes and a few miles, the four reached the end of the Launch Base. Sonic skidded to a stop in front of a dropoff into the lake. The water splashed and flowed unnaturally, almost sentiently like a Little Planet plant. It was still rising little by little. It looked like this "Chaos" deity from the Master Emerald had added the lake to its own mass and had full control of it.

"What do we do now?" Sonic asked, panicked, as he stood atop the red platform overlooking the edge of the fortress. He heard Mecha Sonic tearing the fortress apart behind them as he searched for them. Then, he recognized that the flooring was different from the rest of the fortress. Last time he stood on a suspiciously discolored patch of ground in a Robotnik fortress… it didn't go well.

Suddenly, the ground under them began to lift off from the surface. Everyone screamed as they tried to keep their balance. They were already too high up to jump off. They looked below, and it seemed ground far below them was already being flooded.

"Ohohohoho!" Robotnik laughed.

"Robotnik?!" Sonic shouted. A large flying machine with the Rob-O-Matic docked into it flew up to the flying platform as it reached a steady altitude. The machine had spikes on its head and two large metal arms. Sonic could hardly see the silhouette of Robotnik inside. He was still in the form of a Robo-Robo. "You're alive!" Sonic cried.

"No, not quite… but I'm feeling much more like myself now," Robotnik replied. Lightning struck in the distance as the Big Arm machine grabbed Sonic. Sonic struggled to get out of its grip.

"Sonic!" Tails, Amy and Ata cried. The Big Arm tightened its grip.

"What are you doing?!" Sonic rasped. The Big Arm threw him to the floor. "Gah!"

"You should have known that Tails' AI chip couldn't keep me restrained forever," Robotnik replied, punching Sonic with the Big Arm. "Its faulty code could only inhibit me. But I still found ways to speak through it all." Robotnik flew through and knocked Tails over. "It's why I was able to lead you here in the first place. It's why Mecha Sonic even knew where this island was! It's the only reason he crushed and replaced that horrid chip with one that would restore me to my true self!"

The Big Arm knocked Sonic away with a punch. He grabbed onto one of the poles on the edges of the flying platform to keep himself from falling. "But… what about all that talk about trying to make up for what you did to me?!" Sonic asked, spinning back up to the platform. "You just lied about all that?!"

"It wasn't a lie on my part," Robotnik replied. "You can blame that on Tails." Sonic looked to Tails, and Tails looked back. He almost seemed guilty. "I brainstormed the plans for the cybernetic arm WITH that traitor years ago! He KNEW it would unfold into a Robo-Robo, but I cannot fathom why he would introduce those forced behaviors into the AI chip."

"I thought you did that of your own free will," Amy replied, dodging a mighty shove from the Big Arm that would have sent her flying off the platform. "Why would you not want to make up for what you did to Sonikku? Why would you come back to hurt him more?"

"Sonic has been a pain in my neck for too long," Robotnik stated. "He destroyed my machines, ruined my plans, and sent my empire into turmoil! I will kill him by any means necessary! The only reason I didn't back when he first found me was because I hoped I could have made his power even stronger. I never would have imagined it was just an eighth Chaos Emerald, and that he just couldn't use its power properly. If I had excavated it from his chest, I would have had infinite power at my fingertips! I could have won with the Robodoom!"

"You will never win. People before you have tried, and failed, to make the world theirs," Ata growled. "Isn't having your own country enough for you?"

"NO! I must have it all!" Robotnik shouted, scooping all four of them up in his Big Arm's hands and preparing to crush them. "You certainly wouldn't understand. Especially not Sonic. I gave Sonic everything he could ever ask for, and he threw it away for a pathetic and miserable life where he has nothing."

"You never… gave me… freedom…" Sonic choked. "Now that I have it, you just want to take it away from me." He stared Robotnik in the eye, but then looked down, emotionally defeated. "So… just get it over with. Take my emerald, but leave my friends alone. Please. I can't do this forever. I don't want to fight you, doc."

Ata looked over to Sonic. "Sonic, you can't say that!" Ata exclaimed. "Think about everything Robotnik's done to you. How could you give up after all that?" Sonic thought on it. Not the good times he had been obsessing over since he left the empire, not the happy memories with Robotnik. But the bad ones. The constant abuse, the lying, the times Robotnik tried to kill him. He didn't like it, but it helped him recognize what he had to do. What he wanted to do.

Sonic began to sparkle with electricity. The current spread from his fur, to the hands of the Big Arm, all the way to the cockpit. The controls began to scramble, which caused the hands to open up and drop Sonic and the others. Sonic watched intently as he threw his arms into the air, causing a large burst of electricity. The Big Arm began to fall apart, leaving only the Rob-O-Matic.

"Grah! I see now that I can't beat you like this," Robotnik growled. "I'll be back, Sonic!" Robotnik flew off in the Rob-O-Matic. Sonic watched as he escaped, regretfully.

"Sonic, I'm so sorry," Tails apologized, walking up to Sonic. "If I never helped him build that arm, if I never reactivated him, this wouldn't be happening." Sonic groaned.

"It's… fine," Sonic sighed. "It wasn't your fault."

"Yes it is," Tails replied. "I knew about him becoming aware, I knew ever since you ran off in that valley." Sonic glanced at Tails, and then back to staring at nothing.

"Well, I guess it's over," Amy stated. "What do we do now?"

"This thing's flying out of the Launch Base," Tails stated. "I guess we'll just see where we end up."

"Maybe, but… does anyone else get the feeling this isn't quite over?" Ata asked. "Maybe it's just a stupid thought, I don't know."

"No way… there's definitely more for us to do here," Sonic replied. "The Doomsday, Chaos... We still have to figure out how to stop them." The sky ahead was blue, with almost no clouds. But the storm clouds behind them were rolling in quickly. They were all approaching a forest full of large mushrooms. "After all, today's only just beginning."