Sonic Forces: Standing United

by Loveshock

Stage 3: Chemical Plant - Shuttle Showdown

“We’re almost there,” Espio said. “Just to run through it again, you and Silver will find the shuttle. Vector and I will create a distraction to buy you as much time as possible.”
As the team walked on, they felt the chilled winds of the Space Port blowing through them.
“This is where we split up. Good luck team.” The chameleon and his crocodile companion took their own path, leaving Dash and Silver.

While Silver was nervous, Rainbow Dash was even more so. Not only was she in a strange new world with an all new body, but she was unaware of her own abilities AND she was tasked with saving a big-time hero for the fate of the world. Even her own confident ego couldn’t withstand the amount of pressure.

“Let’s go, we’ve got no time to lose!” Silver said.
“Right. Where should we start?”
“From what we’ve gathered, we should be able to get to a shuttle a little past the train.” He pointed to a train track, far in the distance.
“Got it! Let’s blast aw—“
Silver used his psychokinesis to hold Dash in place. “Shhh! Do you hear that?”
The girl listened, and Silver confirmed what she thought.
“Robots! Egg Pawns, to be exact. We’ll have to fend em off.”
Silver put Rainbow Dash down, and looked around. Soon, an army of Egg Pawns landed right from the sky, like they had been dropped off.

“What the…? Where’d those come from?!” Surprised and startled, Rainbow Dash bolted towards the robots, only to realize she had no idea what she was doing. She hadn’t any methods of attack, other than her fists and speed, but that wasn’t much. She got closer and closer to the enemy, before letting her instincts take over.
Out of pure instinct, she curled up into a ball and started spinning rapidly, slamming herself into a robot, and shattering it to bits. When she uncurled, she stood up and stood there in a daze.
“Nice one!” Silver cried. He was busy taking out Egg Pawns of his own, throwing them back and forth and into each other. Rainbow Dash took a second to regain her balance, and then charged up yet another Spin Attack, launching herself right into the enemies and destroying six bots in a single blow.

After some back and forth fighting, the two hedgehogs had finished off the last of Eggman’s ambush.
“We need to head on, we haven’t gotten anywhere,” Dash said.
“Yeah, agreed. Let’s head towards a shuttle.”
The team sped through the Space Port, before arriving right at the train tracks described. However, between their current location and their destination, was a huge jump - not one that Dash thought she could make and Silver couldn’t float both of them over.
“I’ve got an idea. It’s really risky, but it may work. I’m still not used to these new abilities, but I think I’m learning them on my own,” Rainbow piped up.
“If we don’t have any other ideas, then I guess we can try,” Silver replied.
“Hop on!” Rainbow commanded, getting down to get Silver on her back.
“What are you doing? We don’t have time to play around, you know!”
“Just trust me, this is all a part of my plan!”
Reluctantly, he hopped on the girl’s back.
“Hold on tight!”
Rainbow Dash started running in place, kicking up clouds and clouds of dust and frost behind her. She waited about three seconds, before launching herself towards the train track and jumping as far as she could.
“We’re not gonna make it!” Silver panicked.
“Hold on! This is my first time trying this, be patient!”

Suddenly, the silver hedgehog felt the two being launched higher and farther than initially. Around him, a bright rainbow-colored wave emerged, and he felt and heard the sound of a sonic boom - a few seconds late, of course. He looked in front of him. Rainbow Dash had successfully pulled off an Air Boost - something that the Resistance had thought only Sonic could do.

He realized at that exact moment that the abilities of the new recruits were something that no one in the Resistance had seen before, and that if they used them properly, they may just save the world.

Rainbow Dash, however, was shocked that she had managed to pull it off, especially after her first try, but she was relieved that she did. She landed safely on the ground, and looked behind her - leaving in her wake a Sonic Rainboom. Perfect! And just in time - the train had started speeding by right as they had landed.
“We made it!” She celebrated. “That actually worked!”
Silver was speechless. He took a second to regather himself. He could not believe what he had just experienced.
After a few minutes of relaxing and celebrating, the pair looked ahead. They were very close to the shuttle launch bay, and there was a shuttle right where they wanted one.

“Here, take this,” Silver said, handing RD a key. “It’s for the shuttle. Put it in, and we can control the shuttle from HQ, getting you to Sonic. After what I just saw, I think we’d be better off if you went up there.” Rainbow took the key and put it away.
<Espio to Silver, can you read me?> Silver’s radio buzzed.
“Yes we can,” he replied. “We’re right near the shuttle bay. I gave Rainbow the shuttle key. I think it’s better if we leave the rescue to her.”
<While I would usually disagree with you on that…I think that’s the right call. Anyways, we’ve exhausted our options. We’ve created as much a diversion as possible. It’s up to you guys now!>
“Understood!” Silver replied. “Get on over to the shuttle and put that key in. You head out. As soon as you put that key in it will connect it to HQ, so don’t worry about communication. I’m going to head back now. It’s all up to you!”
Rainbow Dash nodded.

“Good luck out there. You’ve got this!”
“Yeah I do!” and with that, the girl quickly ran towards the shuttle, her rainbow trailing her as usual. She quickly opened the pod, and put in the key. In just a few seconds, she heard the shuttle radio buzz.

<HQ to Rainbow Dash! Do you come in?> Knuckles asked.
“I hear ya!” Rainbow replied.
<Perfect! You just sit back. We’ll control the shuttle from here!>
And with that, the vehicle launched off towards space at blistering speed. Rainbow sat back and took a breath.
Silver had started making his way back, before encountering the train track once again. He sat and thought about how to cross. He decided to try what Rainbow did - he charged up a Spin Dash of his own, and threw himself across. As he noticed that he was about to fall, he held himself up with his own abilities, and floated back to safety. He had crossed - but the hard part wasn’t getting past the train - it was what waited for him on the other side.

“Metal Sonic…!” Silver looked up. Sure enough, Eggman’s old robot had come back for another round. He wasn’t about to lose the fight.
“Silver to HQ! Requesting backup! Metal Sonic is here!”
<Sending backup immediately!>
Back in Resistance, they contemplated who to send into combat. Discussion amongst the Resistance members was heavy until an interjection.
“I’ll go,” Sunset Shimmer piped up.
Knuckles was taken aback. “Are you sure?” He asked. “You don’t know what you’re up against.”
“Trust me, I’ve dealt with…quite the foes,” she replied, reminiscing about the Dazzlings, Gloriosa, and Midnight Sparkle (of which she hoped to never encounter again).
“Alright, then…” Knuckles loaded some commands through HQ’s terminal, and directed Sunset to the transport pad that Tails had invented. “Silver, we’re pinging your location; backup will be there in just a second! Brace yourself, soldier,” the echidna said. Sunset closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and Knuckles launched the teleporter as it whisked her away to the Chemical Plant.

<Backup teleporting to your location now, Silver!>
Sunset opened her eyes. It was cold here. She looked around. Tubes and iron grates all over, blue and purple liquids in giant containers galore. And, right in front of her, was a giant blue robot, with glowing red eyes and yellow accents.
“That’s…a big robot,” she commented.
“Bigger than usual, even for Metal Sonic!” Silver cried back. “Sunset, was it? We need to take care of this one, quick!”
All of a sudden, Metal lunged towards Sunset.
“Look out!”

Sunset stood there, petrified as Eggman’s machine flung itself towards her. As the metal monster was about to make contact, time froze.
Inside her head, she felt one thing - fear. But an intense sense of fear. She had experience with identifying emotions, and she knew that this was more fear than any one person could handle. So she came to the conclusion that she could sense the emotions and feelings in the air. Twilight and Rainbow had their own set of powers from fusing with their gemstones, so it made sense to her that she could identify those feelings as her own power.
She then channeled all of that fear, to create a protective bubble around herself. Time instantly resumed, and the robot bounced off, leaving Sunset unharmed. The bubble itself disappeared, and Sunset felt a new set of emotions appear - confidence, surprise, amazement.

Silver wasn’t even surprised at this point, but nevertheless, was still in relative awe. These new faces had magically appeared, and they had some special powers to boot. Who were these rookies?

Sunset, with her new powers, decided to experiment with them. She thought that if she could defend herself with fear, so maybe she could attack with her more positive emotions. She channeled her confidence into a bright, glowing energy ball, and aimed for the metal menace. She sent a mental signal to fire her projectile, and it launched shards of energy and power towards the Sonic clone.

Clangs and pings filled the air, as Metal Sonic started denting and breaking. Sunset and Silver watched as the robot started glowing red, and then he simply turned into a stack of cubes and disappeared.
“Did we…did we beat him?” Sunset asked.
“Can’t say for sure,” Silver replied. “Let’s head back to base, but keep your guard up.” The two embarked on their journey back to Resistance HQ.

“An interesting spectacle, to be sure. Whoever these new foes are, it will be fun to wipe their miserable faces off this planet,” commented a masked figure, hidden from viewpoint.

Author's Note:

After not being able to find a lot of motivation to work on this, I finally brought it in me to get something done. Not as big or as grand as I had hoped, but I'm still happy with how it turned out, and I hope you are too! So sorry for the very long wait!

Comments

[SuperBronyBlue]

Oh boy anthro edgelords and anthro ponies this is gonna be fun (starts reading)

[RainbowRaptorDash1]

Keep going. I LOVE IT!!!