6 The Fight

<div id="i4c-draggable-container" style="position: fixed; z-index: 1499; width: 0px; height: 0px;"><div data-reactroot="" class="resolved" style="all: initial;"></div></div>Shadow, dazzled but still conscious, walked out of the house he landed in, the door left open by its panicked owners when a black and red furred hedgehog crashed in their home.

Shadow glared at me, I glared at Shadow, both standing and glaring at each other like in your typical anime/manga duel where two guys are about to duke it out.

Which we officially did five seconds later when the bastard grabbed a conveniently nearby hovercar, whose cat driver still had her seatbelt on, and threw it, THREW IT, at me at high speed! Yes, he was an ANTI-hero, but still, that's not just collateral damage! Good thing I and Sonic were there at the moment (didn't trust the Chaotix to grab it), else the cat would would had been severely injured, at best.

"SHADOW!!!" Everyone sans me shouted. At least they had their priorities straight.

"Go, get out of here!" I yelled at the terrified cat, who ran away as I threw back the remains of her car at a speeding Shadow, who simply slapped them away.

Motherfucker!

"Stop!" Screamed Sonic as he put himself on Shadow's way. If he had done that ten seconds before, I would had stopped. Too bad Shadow simply shoved him away, and even then I already had my blood pumping and my temper flared.

One thing that I was unashamedly proud of was my height. I mean, sure, I had to duck or even crawl through most doors, and the furniture was made for people nearly half my height, but on the other hand, being so tall gave me a few advantages that most Mobians could only dream of: not having to use a ladder to get ingredients for vanilla, having something to genuinely tease Gemerl of, actually look heroic after getting muscular...

And being able to grab a charging hedgehog by the head before he could even touch me.

Before Shadow could realize he had been grabbed, and chucked him with all my strength towards the faraway mountain at the distance, kinda like a demented pitcher throwing a spikey cat, except the pitcher was defending himself, and the cat able to destroy cities if pissed off.

Before the others could stop me, and ignoring the little voice that screamed at me to not push it further, I ran, RAN, after the spiny missile at full speed. I didn't care how fast I ran, but later I was told by Sonic, the speed expert himself, that I managed to reach... 500 kilometers per hour. Compared to bullets, rockets and other supersonic objects, it wasn't that much. Sonic and Shadow, even less. Hell, even by the standards of some World War 2 piston-powered fighters, I wasn't that fast.

But didn't change the fact that I was perfectly capable of surpassing any non-rocket powered car back on speed alone! And yet, as I would discover later, that wasn't my MAXIMUM speed... I'll tell more later.

Finally seeing Shadow, shakily getting up after landing on a now-shattered boulder, I leaped into the air and raised my fists

However, just as my reverse-double fisted uppercut was about to hit him in the head...

He teleported away.

No, seriously, a green flash and POM!, my fists strike the ground he had been standing on a millisecond before, only to reappear behind me and kick me in the kneecap.

He could teleport. Let me repeat that: the guy who wanted and had the capacity to kill me dead could TELEPORT!

Then again, I was still quite a deal smarter than him. And bigger, and not that much slower.

We fought like that for a few minutes, with him kicking and punching me after teleporting, and me trying to cave his head in with my fists or feet while dodging his attacks, (barely) shrugging the pain they inflicted if they hit home.

"Stop fighting already! Let me destroy you for good!" He grunted as I backhanded him away. Honest much, Ow the Edge?

"Why don't YOU stop fighting and let ME kill you! You're the threat here, destroying my home and wrecking my work!" I screamed at him.

"Your machines were brainwashing the villagers to accept you!"

"THEY'RE JUST WIND TURBINES YOUR NUMBNUT, THEY PROVIDE ELECTRICITY!" I practically roared at him. What the hell was he, a luddite!?

"EVERYTHING YOU MAKE IS EVIL, ONE WAY OR ANOTHER!" He screamed back as he punched me in the gut, wincing a bit when he realized that what he thought was soft fat was actually undefined, rock-hard muscle covered in a tissue of equally strong fat.

Yeah, my musclegut's fat is tough enough to stop a punch from Shadow. Don't ask me how I managed to make it like that.

"I don't care what is your problem with me! I told Sonic already, I left that life behind!"

"Do you really think I will fall for that!? A monster like you simply doesn't become good after five months of ruling the world with an ironfist, not after a lifetime of ruining lives and terrorizing Mobius!"

I was sorely, sorely tempted to scream back at him that at least I wasn't born a living weapon with mental problems, but decided against it because I was supposed to have amnesia. That, and didn't want to be petty, at least for the moment.

"... brainwashing the poor Rabbit family, waiting for-OOF!" He was interrupted by my foot entering his mouth and propelling him backwards into another tree.

"Alright, that's it!" I shouted at him as he stood up, both of us glaring at the other. "You don't believe me!? Fine! But don't accuse me of something I haven't done!"

Again, we ran at each other and, screaming at the top of our lungs like in some cheesy yet badass scene from a film/videogame/animation/comic, threw our punches and made our fists collide with enough strength to make an explosion of pure force.

The shockwave our fists clashing created sent us flying back, destroyed the trees closest to us, ripped the next closest from the ground, and ripped away the leaves of those that were still on its radius.

It also broke my left arm completely, shoulder included. I knew he was the Ultimate Lifeform, and that he was strong, but damn if that didn't hurt like a bitch! Well, half a bitch. Being beaten up by year after year a blue supersonic hedgehog that can wreck steel machines by jumping on them made me resistant to pain to some degree.

Of course, the inverse was true. Shadow didn't have it as bad as me, but judging by seeing him grunting in pain as he clutched his punching hand, it was clear that, apparently he had never parried a punch with another being in his life. As a matter of fact, I thought I could heard the broken phalanges crunching as he stood up, groaning in pain. Turns out that being so powerful and strong also means that you're not accustomed to pain.

"'Ultimate Lifeform'?" I said between pant and pant. "More like 'Ultimate Punching Bag'!"

He didn't say anything, just growled, and began to step forward. Angry, tired, and wishing I had made myself a Winchester, a shotgun, a gauss rifle, a laser cannon, a plasma beam, anything, ANYTHING to blow his goddamn head off, I ignored and stomped to him when suddenly, Sonic came out of nowhere and put himself between us.

"STOP IT!" He screamed. "Both of you!"

Rather than ask screaming why didn't he come sooner, I simply stated what I thought. "Sonic, this SOB tried to kill me, destroyed two hard-to-make vertical turbines I had to build by hand, and threw a hovercar at me. A hovercar with SOMEONE DRIVING IT!" I screamed the last part, putting emphasis on 'someone inside'. "Who knows what the hell would had he done hadn't I thrown him away!"

"I know, I know, he's not exactly the epitome of a hero!" He said. "But see it from his point of view. Eggman, who after conquering Mobius with the help of a monster and a team of villains, not only returns after missing for two months and seems to have taken over an innocent village with weird contraptions, but also has grown strong enough to punch him, the strongest guy out there, to the moon and back! Wouldn't you do anything to make sure he can't harm anyone else?"

I wanted to say no, but decided against it. I was reaching my fighting limit and wanted to stop, and it seemed that Sonic could make Shadow leave me alone.

"And Shadow!" He said, turning to his more ruthless counterpart. "I get it, Eggman has been a grade-A jerk for years, but he has done some good stuff too, like the business with the Ark!"

Shadow glared at him.

"Oookay, he started that one." Sonic admitted sheepishly. "But what about when the Black Arms invaded? He fought the invasion with us! Without him, we may have not lasted enough to save the day!"

Shadow's glare softened for a second, obviously remembering what happened during the game that made him infamous, before it hardened again.

"Have you forgotten that he made you suffer? That he tried to destroy you, multiple times!?" Again with destroy and not kill. "How can you even suggest leniency for him after-"

"It's called 'let someone who's genuinely trying to make amends do it', you idiot!" I interrupted him. "And if you don't leave us alone, I'll kill YOU, no matter how much Sonic says it's a bad idea, with nothing but the strength in my arms if I have to!"

"Your arm is broken!" Shadow said, still clutching his broken hand.

"And so is your hand, and unlike you, I'm used to pain!" I retorted. "And I still got my other arm and my thick, muscular legs to kick your ass back to..." I said before a sound, one that despite having never heard it before I was able to recognize, took my attention.

"Kick his ass to...?" Sonic said in a puzzled tone, but I wasn't paying attention to him, looking at the general direction of Floral Forest with wide eyes. Both hedgehogs, after what seemed like an eternity, followed my gaze and stared in shock/anger at what I saw

Badniks. Cream told me what they were: stupid-looking robots powered by animals that acted as their batteries, for no real reason that make Eggman/Robotnik do evil things (and being stupid. I mean, hamster wheel-powered machines? This wasn't Spelljammer, batteries were a thing), with many of them looking frankly stupid, like motorcycle-ladybugs and crabs, or even bottles with helicopter blades, and who Sonic always liberated from their mechanical prison.

Didn't stop me from panicking when I could see a veritable army of those things , with not-so goofy humanoid robots that didn't look like they had bunnies running inside them at all, at the head of the army.

"The village is under attack!"

"We have to go to Floral Forest!" Sonic said, agreeing with me.

"I knew it!" Shadow managed to shout before I punted him away.

"Shut it!" I screamed at them. "We gotta help them!" Then I ran towards the village, leaving a shocked Sonic and a knocked out Shadow behind.

I knew that Gemerl, Espio and Vector could take on the robot army by themselves and win, but I didn't care about that, nor the fact that the Badniks were my creation. You attack my home, you're signing a death warrant!

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