Red Guardians

by MetalJrock

Sonic 3: The Trap

Sonic and Tails arrived deeper in the burning jungles of Angel Island, having survived their bout with Mecha Sonic and gaining another emerald soon after. Obviously, the hedgehog was more than confused, "Alright. So it looks like the blue metal copycat made a comeback. And from the looks of it, that won't be the last we'll see of him."

"You fought him when you went to Little Planet, right?" asked Tails, flying above his best friend.

The hedgehog nodded, "Yeah. But it seems somehow the doc managed to pile him back together for revenge. If Metal's back, then I hope that fangirl didn't follow me here." he added with a slight shudder, making Tails chuckle.

"Heh. Maybe not." the fox responded, turning his gaze around, "I think we need to bust through those rocks. There's no other way around." he observed, seeing the giant rock wall that towered over them massively in height.

Sonic kicked the dirt, "You might be right, little bro." he smirked, "Let me take care of this."

And so, Sonic curled himself into a ball, revving his Spin-Dash so that it was powerful enough to break through the boulders. Within a few seconds, and with some assistance from Tails, they bursted through the boulders into a secret small tunnel.

In their ball forms, Sonic and Tails sped through the snake-like tunnel until reaching the other end. Once they were back in the wilderness, the uncurled, running at full speed. "Woo!" cheered the blue blur, "Didn't expect that at all." he admitted.

"Neither did I. At least we're getting further in the island." Tails noticed.

Then, a loud humming got their attention. "Huh?" muttered Sonic. A shadow covered the duo as something came over them. The hedgehog raised his head to see what was happening. "Wha--?" he couldn't finish his surprised gasp, grabbing Tails' wrist and he moved his legs faster to outrun what was above them.

It was an airship with holes underneath it, directly on top of Sonic and Tails. The hedgehog saw something pop out of one of the pipes and sped up, narrowly dodging a missile that exploded. "Holy--!" screamed the blue hedgehog in shock. "Robuttnik's not kiddin' around!"

"C'mon, we gotta hurry!" Tails declared.

"Hold on tight, buddy!"

More missiles were launched from underneath the airship as Sonic ran, with Tails doing his best to speed his friend up by propelling his tails as fast as he could. The two barely avoided the barrage of explosive projectiles tossed right behind them. The two could feel the heat of the miniature explosions behind them and were glad that they weren't hit at all.

Luckily for them, the ship seemingly ran out of explosives and decided to retreat to the sky. "Yeah! You better run!" Sonic screamed at it, deciding to slow his pace to allow Tails and him a moment to breathe.

---

Knuckles shook, "And now he plans to nuke the stinkin' island?!" he shouted in anger at Robotnik. "This stupid hedgehog better be worth the effort."

"Um... Mister Knuckles?" Big Mac called out, "A-Are we sure they're the bad guys in this?"

The echidna folded his arms, "Robotnik has given us no reason to doubt us yet, Mac. So far, Sonic and Tails have gotten their hands on more emeralds than I hoped. If this keeps up, they can destroy the Death Egg, and that's the only thing that could possibly stop those two. Although, we should question him on the name of the station at some point." he muttered the last part to himself.

Big Mac blinked, "Okay, then. I trust you."

Knuckles smiled softly, "Alright. Should Robotnik's robot fail to stop the duo, I need you at the ledge on the bridge. There should be a warp ready. It's about time they know that I'm not alone." he put his hand on the stallion's shoulder, "This is the kind of stuff I trained you for. And don't worry, they'll land in the Hydrocity once the button's pressed." he revealed. "Are you ready?"

Big Mac grinned and ran into the Warp Point, "Eeyup!" after that, he vanished in a red beam.

---

Sonic and Tails ran past a bridge in front of a waterfall. Suddenly, something popped from behind it, revealing a robot mech and the pilot sitting in the cockpit. "Robotnik!" Sonic growled, "It's about time you showed your chrome dome!"

Robotnik slammed his fists on the rim of his ship, "Enough of the quips, Sonic! It's about time I ended our game!"

"They always say three (or four) times the charm, doc. But I don't think this is yours." Sonic quipped.

Instead of talking, Robotnik used his machine to burn down the bridge to escape. His machine had two guns that shot fireballs from them. Once he burned the bridge he hid behind the falling water, waiting to strike his hated nemesis. Sonic looked around, hoping to gain the upperhand against his scientist enemy. He turned his body, barely able to see a shadow behind the water, unable to fully see where he's going to strike.

"Look out, Sonic!" Tails yelled, spinning his namesakes to grab Sonic once Robotnik appeared, shooting a series of flames at the blue blur. Once high in the air, Sonic fell and dropped down in his ball form, hitting the robot with a Spin-Jump, bouncing off the glass to land a perfect second hit in.

Sonic gave his pal a thumbs up, "Thanks for the save, bro!"

Robotnik reappeared, "Take this!" he yelled. More fireballs were shot out of his machine, the duo hopping over them with ease. This time, Tails landed a hit before Sonic, the both of them bouncing back onto the grassy platform.

"Heh heh." chuckled the hedgehog.

"You'll pay for that!" Robotnik snarled, aiming his gun diagonally, trying to catch the duo off guard.

Sonic and Tails jumped over the flaming projectiles with ease. "Would that be with credit or rings?" he joked, diving down and curling into a ball to hit the scientist, having Tails do the same before hanging onto his flying buddy.

"Ha!" laughed Tails, "Good one."

Robotnik knew his systems were failing and gave one last effort, combining the spheres into one single blast. The duo landed, seeing the guns turn red. Their eyes widened as Tails mustered the energy to fly one last time. "Just give up!" the doctor yelled.

"Hm... Nah." Sonic decided, performing one last Spin-Dash down on the pilot's seat, cracking the glass and the wiring with his spines. Once he landed, Sonic tore through the metal with ease. Tails cheered his actions on, seeing the machine fall apart in seconds.

Once the hedgehog was done and landed, Robotnik was covered in ash, ejecting his Egg-Mobile from the remains of the machine, coughing in the smoke and yelled, "I'll be back, Sonic and Tails!"

"Heh. Please forget to write then!" Sonic joked, high-fiving his pal for another win in their count.

The two saw a capsule descend and jumped, pushing the button, freeing the captured animals onto the platform, allowing them to roam free. "We did it, Sonic! The animals here are safe!" Tails cheered.

"Yep! Now we gotta see what's ahead!"

Sonic and Tails ran forward, finding themselves at a dead end. "Hey, buddy. Think you can fly us up to that platform up there?" he wondered to his friend.

"I-I can try."

But they saw something step forward. It wasn't the echidna guardian like Sonic initially thought, but a red horse. "A horse? Didn't see that coming." he admitted.

"I've never heard of you!" Tails shouted. "Are you new?"

Big Mac didn't respond, and put a hoof to the silver button on the floor in front of him. "Are you with that singing guardian jerk I met earlier?" asked Sonic.

Silence again. Sonic put his hands to his hips and asked, "You're not a horse of many words are ya?"

The stallion smirked, "Eeyup." was all he said, pressing the button at last as hard as he could.

The bridge underneath the hedgehog and fox suddenly disappeared, surprising the duo. They stood in midair for a second, looked down and then plummeted seemingly to their doom. Their screams were heard, but Big Mac knew that their heading to their next stop.

Comments

[badninja]

Interesting chapter but I feel Knuckles will be to pig headed to listen until it is to late. Also that last sentence is a little odd after the comma. What exactly is being conveyed in it?

[ShogunWriter106]

This is really interesting! :)

[Texus]

I'm thinking about a possible sequel where you could do something with a timeline and have Big Mac regain memories of a life he had in ponyville. I saw something similar already and I'm pretty much curious to see how AJ would maybe react at the possibility to have a father in Knuckels.

I should probably explain it better.
I think that maybe the time in their world goes faster than in Equestria and Big Mac was somehow transformed back into a child. Not sure if you let his background open enough for something like that to happen. I had a different idea with this, but that would mean that Knuckles would maybe grow old, so we would need a magical rason I guess.

I'm just in the mood for that right now. It is just a suggestion and no matter if it is good or not, you could still have your own ideas because of this comment.