Stage 2 - Crossfire
Sunlight Plaza, Castle Town, Soleanna - September 19, X014, 7:34 PM UTC
The two arch-enemies stood face-to-face from one another as the plaza remained ablaze from the destruction caused by the mad scientist. Behind the blue hedgehog, the princess continued to look in awe when she felt Bianca’s hand on her shoulder.
“We best keep moving, milady,” the female sheep spoke softly as Elise turned to her. “The plaza has become far too dangerous.”
The redheaded princess quickly nodded and began to follow Bianca away from the chaos when she heard the mad doctor suddenly yelled out, “Oh no, you don’t!”
A mechanical arm then launched itself out of the Egg Mobile and attempted to grab Elise! Reacting quickly, Sonic turned to stop the arm from reaching the princess, only to find that Bianca had beaten him to the punch by drawing her blade at lightning speed, forcing it to flinch from the sudden strike. The blue hedgehog, still letting his body do the thinking, quickly homes in on the mechanical arm and saws right through it with a Spin Attack!
“Augh! You’ll both pay for that, damn you!” the mad doctor growled in anger, tightly gritting his teeth. “Badniks! Crush those two pests and capture the princess!”
On command, another swarm of Eggman’s Badniks - and a particularly massive one, at that - began charging towards the three of them with no sign of slowing down. Sonic quickly turned to the other two and cried out to them, “You two get outta here! I can handle these guys, no problem!”
“What!? Are you insane?!” Bianca quickly questioned the blue hedgehog. “Look at the size of that swarm! You’ll only get yourself killed!”
“T-that’s right!” Elise suddenly spoke in agreement with the female sheep. “I don’t want anyone else to get hurt because of me!”
“You worry about yourselves! I don’t want you two getting hurt either!” Sonic quickly responded before curling into a ball and rapidly spinning in place, gathering energy all the while. The two stood there for another moment when the blue hedgehog cried out, “Go, dammit! I’ve got this!”
“A-Alright. If you’re sure…” Bianca replied quietly as she continued leading the princess away, leaving the blue hedgehog to his own devices. They had left just in time too, as the swarm of Badniks were now right up on Sonic’s position.
The blue hedgehog then uncurled himself out of his ball form, surrounded in a bright blue light. Mere moments before one of the Badniks was about to make contact with him, Sonic quickly blasts through it before repeatedly homing in on as may Badniks as he possibly could at breakneck speeds!
Bianca and Elise continued fleeing, trying to get as far away from the chaos as possible. However, either even the blue hedgehog wasn’t able to destroy all the Badniks heading towards him on time or there really were just that many of them, as almost every corner they turned to had at least one Badnik hiding somewhere. Thankfully, they were nothing that the sheep couldn’t handle.
“Damn things just keep popping out left and right!” Bianca cursed as she cut down another of the mad doctor’s robots before turning to the princess. “Can you keep going, milady?”
“I... I’m not entirely sure, Bianca,” Elise answered the female sheep. “...but I’m more worried about that blue hedgehog. I know what he said, but...”
“I know... but like I said, getting you to safety is top priority,” Bianca replied back. “I don’t know him, but he seems genuine enough and knows what he’s doing.”
The redheaded princess remained silent, not sure what to make of everything that’s been going on, before the female sheep continued, “He’ll be fine.”
The two continued to make their way to the nearest evacuation site they could reach without running into too much danger. On the way, they ran into Prince Friedrich, who was simply standing around and surveying his surroundings - possibly on the lookout for more of the mad doctor’s minions.
“Helios, Elise. You’re still here,” the monarch spoke in a surprised manner upon seeing the two.
“You’ll have to forgive me, milord. That doctor’s robots intercepted us at every turn,” Helios replied to her liege. “He is being kept at bay by a blue hedgehog that came to our rescue, however.”
“Blue hedge-...” Friedrich cut himself off as he briefly clenched the scabbard of his blade before turning back to the two. “Where is he?”
“We came roughly a kilometer that way,” Elise hastily answered her uncle, pointing at the direction they had come from. “Both of them should still be around that general area!”
Having seen the direction the princess had been pointing, Friedrich immediately began to make his way there. “What do you intend to do, milord?” Bianca asked the prince.
“Lend a hand,” Friedrich answered bluntly as he continued to walk. “You two keep moving.”
Bianca and Elise looked on the still-current monarch of Soleanna for a brief moment before the female sheep turned to the princess and remarked, “Well, you heard him. Let’s go.”
With a curt nod, Elise continued to follow the guardswoman through the devastated town and regroup with the rest of the citizens as she prayed for the safety of both her uncle and the blue hedgehog that had come to their rescue.
Sonic VS Egg Virtuaroid - The New Death Machine
Sonic continued to fight off as many of Badniks as Eggman kept throwing at him with little difficulty. “Come on, Egghead! Don’t you have any new tricks up your sleeve?” the blue hedgehog taunted as he continued to wreck more of the doctor’s robots.
“Why I’m quite glad you asked,” the mad doctor responded with glee as he entered a command onto the console of his Egg Mobile. “I’ve been saving this new toy I made as a last resort!”
Just as Eggman had said that, Sonic could see a large module of sorts quickly approaching their position from high above before quickly splitting into separate components and attaching themselves onto the Egg Mobile one-by-one. Soon enough, the egg-shaped hovercraft was transformed into a heavily-armed bipedal mech suit.
“Before the Black Arms so rudely came to Earth, I had been making some upgrades to my Egg Walker module,” the mad doctor began, still maintaining his trademark grin. “With that matter out of the way, I finally had enough time to have it completed! Feast your eyes on the Egg Virtuaroid!”
Sonic Rivals 2 ‒ "Boss" 1080P60
VS Egg Virtuaroid
“So what, it’s got a couple of new tricks the older ones don’t have?” the blue hedgehog taunted the doctor.
“Ohohoho, you’re about to find out!” Eggman responded just as he had a massive blade sprouted itself from the mech suit’s right arm before swinging it right at the blue hedgehog. His reflexes kicking in not a moment too soon, Sonic managed to evade the sudden attack before seeing that the mad doctor immediately primed for the missile launcher equipped on its left arm to fire right at him!
Sonic quickly began to sprint around Eggman as he unleashed a barrage of homing missiles upon him, barely managing to avoid them as he continued running! He soon made his way behind the mad doctor and, after leaping into the air, swiftly chased after him with a Homing Attack, only to be knocked straight into the building behind him by the mech suit’s blade.
“I’m afraid you’ll have to be faster than that, hedgehog!” the mad doctor taunted as he began charging towards Sonic with another wide swing of the giant blade. Thinking quickly, Sonic immediately began running directly towards the mech and, just as the blade was about to make contact, slid himself barely beneath its surface and between its legs, ending up right behind it.
“Not a huge issue from where I’m standing, Eggman!” the blue hedgehog taunted back while immediately curling himself into a ball and, after rapidly spinning in place for a brief moment, charged directly onto the mech’s back as the rifle-shaped turrets on the back of the cockpit promptly aimed and fired at him with little success. The resulting impact caused the mech to briefly buckle forward, its balance having been disrupted.
“Argh! You’ll regret that, you insolent rodent!” Eggman yelled as he input commands for both the turrets and the missile launcher to rain hellfire upon Sonic, who easily avoided most of the bullets and missiles fired towards him before launching himself right through the joint of the mech suit’s left arm, tearing it off in the process.
“So, who’s the one who needs to be faster again, Egghead?” Sonic taunted his archnemesis one more time, his signature cocky grin plastered on his face.
“Why, you...! Forget it! I’ll end this right here, right now!” Eggman, now blisteringly furious at having been outsmarted by the blue nuisance, input one last command, beginning to divert as much of the mech suit’s power as possible into the giant blade for a last-ditch move. “All restrictions offline! Engaging maximum output!”
As the mad doctor continued focusing the mech’s power onto the blade for one final blow, Sonic simply began spinning in place and began to channel energy into himself once more. A few moments pass before the two begin charging right towards one another! Just as they were about to collide, however, Eggman quickly swerved right past the hedgehog and aimed the tip of the blade at him, all in one swift motion. The blade’s edges then open, revealing a powerful cannon equipped at the center, before firing off a devastating beam of energy directly at the hedgehog, completely interrupting his attack and severely-wounding him as he crashed onto the floor.
Sonic struggled to get himself back on his feet, but the sudden blast proved to have done an incredible amount of damage to him as he felt his body wince with every other movement he made. As he laid down on the ground, he suddenly felt a cold, metallic hand lift him off the ground before finding that it was the now-disengaged arm of Eggman’s mech suit that had done so as the mad doctor chillingly declared, “Now, I put an end to our rivalry for good. I’d say it’s been fun, old friend, but it hasn’t.”
Eggman then primed for the turrets on the mech suit’s back to fire. Barely able to move, Sonic remained silent and braced himself. Just as the mad doctor was about to do the deed, however, another voice suddenly called out, “Doctor! You will cease your attack at once!”
Both the hedgehog and the doctor then turned their attention to the one who had called the latter out, who happened to be none other than Prince Friedrich. “As the nation’s sovereign, I command you to leave Soleanna at once! Fail to comply, and I will not hesitate to deal with you myself.”
The two men stared each other down for a few moments in a deafening silence before the mad doctor sighed, “Very well. I’ve exhausted much of my resources tonight anyway, and will need time to re-strategize.” Eggman then dropped Sonic onto the floor rather unceremoniously as he continued, “You were lucky this time, Sonic, but when next I strike... I won’t be so cooperative.”
“And we will be waiting, Eggman,” the prince retorted immediately as the blue hedgehog slowly got back up on his feet. “That much I promise you.”
Eggman then made his leave as he flew off onto the night sky. As soon as he was sure he was gone, Friedrich then turned to Sonic and asked, “How are you holding up, blue one?”
“I-I’ve been better, thanks,” the blue hedgehog answered through heavy breaths, still feeling the immense pain brought upon by Eggman’s last attack, before beginning to walk after him. “Now, if you don’t mind, I’ve got an Egghead to catch.”
“In your current condition? Absolutely not!” the prince replied back firmly. “The matter will be dealt with another time.”
Sonic then stopped for a long moment and, while deep in thought, took a deep breath before turning back to the prince, trying to ignore the pain all the while. “Yeah, fine, alright,” the blue hedgehog reluctantly agreed, visibly not pleased about having to let Eggman get away again. “The folks’ll probably need quite a bit of tending to after all that’s gone down tonight.”
With that, Sonic and Friedrich then began to make their way back to where everyone else in town had been evacuated to. Unbeknownst to either of them, however, a grey-furred hedgehog stood atop one of the many buildings in town, likely having watched the whole scene unfold from the shadows.
The hedgehog then clenched his fists as he spoke, “I’ve finally found him... the Iblis Trigger.”
-Sonic: Stage 2 - End-
Previous Chapter: Stage 1 - (Un)Ceremonious Arrival
Next Chapter: Stage 3 - Wave Pursuit
