"No way in hell!"
Sonic and Amy had arrived back at the cave, only to get an unexpected demand of what had happnened. Asking the others to say nothing until he finished, he explained what had gone on, leaving out the thing about the Hazard Vaultt, and waited for reactions.
Shadow's statement above was not what he expected.
"So let me get this straight," Silver asked. "You went to Tails' workshop."
"Yeah," Sonic replied."
"You found out that the place has been programmed to recognize your voice."
"Yep."
Blaze stepped forward, finishing, "And you got a message from Eggman saying that everything he's made apart from Metal Sonic and his Hazard Vault bots are made to obey you seeing as he's dead?"
"Pretty much."
Everyone stared until Infera spoke. "He must trust you a lot more than he wants you dead."
"Whatever," Sonic replied. "I'm going to head to Metropolis to gather that army. Who's coming with me?"
Everyone held silent. Sonic nodded and turned, leaping onto his bike. He rubbed his ring as Shahra appeared, holding Caliburn. "Thanks for cooperating, you two," Sonic said as he accepted Caliburn. "Hey, Shahra!" Shahra turned as he sped forward. "You still got my crystal?"
"Yes, why?"
"I think I'm going to need it when we get to Metropolis!"
Sonic kicked off a canyon wall, and immediately, Metropolis came into view. Suddenly, he was frozen in place by Shahra's magic as she stated, "More advancement?"
"Yep."
Caliburn flew back into Shahra's hands, saying, "I'm going to stay with Shahra for now." Sonic's crystal materialized on his neck as the two of them melted back into the ring, and Sonic flew back into momentum, shooting towards the city and withdrawing his wings as he shot forward. When he neared it, a few instable badniks shot towards him, but after he was recognizable - their programming didn't work for long distances - they froze and stepped away.
It works. Now to attract the other nine thousand.
He skidded to a stop at the entrance to the base lab, then leapt off the bike and stepped into the building. Lying on one of his desks was the remote that Eggman had talked about. He pressed the button, then leapt out of the window and climbed to the top of the base. He clung to the spire at the peak and turned out to the distance.
"Wait for it."
Time passed. Wind blew. Sonic stretched his wings for a second before withdrawing them again. He kept watching.
Finally, in the distance, a long cloud of dust started to become visible on the horizon. Using what little of his Dracon power he could without revealing his wings, Sonic zoomed in to see a long, wide variety of badniks flying after him. From Egg Pawns to Sonic robots to E-121s - everything the doctor had built was coming towards him.
It took a few hours for everything to gather. During that time, Sonic sent a Chaos Signal to Shadow, telling him to get everyone to Metropolis. After nothing more came, Sonic spoke up.
"Ivo Robotnik is dead," he called. "He was killed by Zyx the Hedgehog, the Reaper of Mobius. He told me that he had programmed you - all of you - to follow my order after he died. Is this true?"
He expected a large call of nonchalant 'yes'. But what he didn't expect was everything to raise extensions and shout, "YEAH!" like a revolutionary crowd. Sonic kept a firm grip on the spire.
"I want you to recognize a few figures." At that moment, there was a large flash of blue as Shadow, Infera, Silver, and Blaze appeared on the roof of a nearby building. Sonic pointed to them. Every time he said a name, one of them raised their hands. "Shadow the Hedgehog. Infera Vol. Silver the Hedgehog. Blaze the Cat." Turning back to the robots, he called, "You were told to obey my command, and none others, after Ivo had died. That holds true, but you are not to attack these four, and you are to answer questions from them." He turned back to Shadow. His eyes flashed black as he asked, "Where is Amy?"
As though on cue, Amy leapt up onto the same roof Sonic was on. Sonic was somewhat shocked, but held a hand out to her. She took it, and Sonic raised it into the air, pulling Amy into view of the robots. "This is Amy Rose," he called. "You were told to follow my command. So this is my first command. You do not attack those four. But you obey the commands of myself," and at that he paused to turn to Amy as he called, "and the commands of Amy. Are we clear?"
"YEAH!" Another crowd call, which shocked everyone but Sonic.
"Finally, I have had a change that only Ivo has known before Zyx emerged. Yet none of you know this as of yet. And so I reveal it to you." He turned to Amy and said, "Hold onto this for me, will you?" He pulled the crystal from his neck, and in white energy his wings emerged from his back. He leapt from the building and turned to the badniks, keeping in the air with his wings. "I have ventured to Darcain. I have been transformed by the Dracon. But do not let it decieve you. I am still Sonic the Hedgehog. And you will still obey my command. Are we clear!?"
"YEAH!"
"That is all. Now I want all of you to guard Metropolis while I go get something from Ivo's Hazard Vault." Sonic descended, then turned to the others, who leapt from the building they were on. Amy slid down the wall of the base lab, and everyone turned to Sonic.
Infera was the first to speak, saying, "How did you know my last name? Shadow doesn't even know my lat name, and he..." She cut herself off and turned a bright red. Sonic just flexed his wings, then turned to Shadow and Silver.
"You two, I want you to look over the robots. I want a long list of every model here." Turning to Blaze and Infera, who was still blushing, he stated, "Except for the Sonic models. You two, I want you to look over those ones." Turning to Amy, he finished, "You can come with me to the Hazard Vault."
"Alright."
Eggman was wrong about the Hazard Vault.
Almost everything that was still in the Hazard Vault - which was a lot - was trying to attack Sonic and Amy. They were trapped within five feet of the door, and Sonic didn't have a chance to draw Caliburn before being locked in combat. Sonic was working fists, legs, and wings, all striking Hazard Badniks when there were more to take their place. Amy was the same, although in place of wings was her Piko-Piko Hammer. Both were hardly making progress, and were seperated three times.
Eventually, Sonic managed to get into the air and grab Amy. "This isn't working!" he shotued. "Hold onto me! Quickly!" Amy grabbed Sonic tightly, and Sonic drew upon power that he hadn't had to draw upon for a long time. He landed near the entrance to the Vault and gave an angry Draconian roar. "Draconian... FURY!"
There was a huge fluxuation of Draconian enery that froze everything in the area; then Sonic shot forward, coated in the orange energy. As he dashed, he spread his wings, which tore the foes apart. Eventually, he came to an sudden stop at the pit of the vault, then fell forward suddenly. Amy was still holding onto him, and she looked towards his face. "Are you alright?"
"I'm fine," Sonic replied, panting. "Never, had to, carry, any, others, with a, Fury, before." He was exhausted. "Didn't, know how, else to, get you, through here."
Amy smiled. "You're good," she said. "Now let's look for those Synthetic Emeralds. We've got to get those Bands of Chaos." The two of them rose weakly, looking for the stash of Emeralds. Sonic found them easily, then looked for the indentations. "Any holes?"
"Found them!" Sonic turned to see the indents in a wall that had seemingly nothing else in there. Sonic picked up the Emeralds and placed them carefully into place. They shone brightly, then locked in place. Sonic pulled out the audio recorder and hit playback. Eggman's voice stated, "enter the code 4795452," then cut off. Sonic turned to the keypad of Synthetic Emeralds and carefully pushed the corresponding gems as though it was a computer keypad.
A hidden door suddenly made an appearance, then slid up. There was a small, safelike structure that Sonic stepped over to. Looking inside, he saw what he was looking for, reached in, and pulled something out. There were two golden armbands in his hand. Over a wearer's shoulder, there was a topaz on each band.
The Bands of Chaos.
And just in the nick of time, because another flurry of Badniks charged forward, ready to take action. Sonic and Amy spun to the sight, Sonic exhausted. "I don't, have, enought, power, for a, Fury, again." Desperately, he gave a deadly Dracon roar that paralyzed the bots in their tracks, then pulled out his blue Chaos Emerald and raised it, grabbing Amy's hand.
"Chaos... Control!"
There was a flash of blue, and both hedgehogs vanished.
"Excuse me? Excuse me, could... I'm sorry, but would you..."
Shadow and Silver had a problem. They were trying to list the robotics as Sonic had requested, but there were so many, and none of them were listening. Silver gave up trying to mentally catch the lists, but none of them would respond to his questions. Shadow was just trying to catch some eyes.
Finally, a robotic voice asked, "Looking? Were you looking? Were you looking for someone?" Silver turned to see one of the E-121 Phi robots talking to him. A large array were behind the one who was talking, but only the one was turned towards Silver.
Silver looked up, held his hands up, and made a strange choir call. "Thank you!"
Shadow delivered an easy punch to the psychokinetic's head. "Never do that again."
"Sorry." He turned to the Phi who had spoken. "Hey, I'm not looking for someone, but I was told by Sonic to make a list of all the robots here. Do you know if there's a machine, or a scanner, or something that could record all of them quickly?"
The Phi nodded. "Come. I will show you. I will show you Dr. Eggman's machine." The Phi dashed off, with Silver and Shadow speeding after it. They passed by Infera on their way. She turned to them and shouted, "Hey! Where're you guys going?"
"To list these bots!" Silver shouted back.
The Phi entered the main lab and approached a large computer monitor. One of his fingers transitioned into what looked like a memory card and plugged into the computer. A small, portable scanner device was revealed at a table on the other side of the room. Phi unplugged his finger and pointed to the scanner.
"Machine. That is Dr. Eggman's machine. Dr. Eggman's machine will scan a large area. Will scan a large area and list all. List all figures in area." The Phi dashed out, and Silver picked up the scanner.
"This makes our job a lot easier." He leapt outside, hovered to the top of the lab, and hung from the spire before pointing the scanner towards the crowd of robots. He hit the button, and instantly a large beam emitted, then scanned the entire area.
Then it withdrew, and Silver looked over the list. "Let's see. Three hundred Egg Pawns, thirty E-121s, two hundred Egg Flappers... delete pyrokinetic hedgehog... delete pyrokinetic cat... huh." He leapt back into the building as Shadow was about to leave. Shadow turned around. "Hey Shadow. The scanner's got a report of 'Artificially processed transgenic Black Arms hedgehog'. You got any idea what that could be?"
Sonic and Amy appeared outside in a flash of blue. Sonic sighed and stashed the blue Chaos Emerald, then turned to Blaze, who was attempting to dash by. "Hey, Blaze, how are those Sonic robots coming along?"
Blaze spoke calmly. "Not yet. Silver's scanned the entire perimiter with some sort of machine. He'll have a list of everything, including the copies of you."
At that moment, Silver's voice shouted, "Grab the scanner!" Sonic, Amy, and Blaze looked up to see Silver falling towards the ground out of a window. A scanner device was flying after them, and Sonic grabbed the device easily, then looked down at it.
"Delete artificially processed transgenic Black Arms hedgehog..."