Chapter 6

“Oh, how could this be being any worse,” Antoine muttered to himself as he paced back and forth
next to the haystack, “Az if one was being bad enough, now there is being two of him and his bad eating habits, atrocious housecleaning, and outrageous manners!”  He sighed, “I hope Dulcy is being more careful with her landings this winter.”

Antoine was brought out of his thoughts by three people shooting out of the entrance slide and into
the haystack with squeals of laughter.

“Hey that was fun!”

“Yeah, let’s do it again!”

SatAM-Tails was the first out of the haystack.  He spotted Antoine and quickly ran over to him.  

“Hey Antoine, do you know where Aunt Sally is?  I’ve got something really important to show her!”

“Tailz, the preencess is busy dealing with a rather…difeecult situation right now. I’m sure you can-“

At that moment, the other Tails, and Cream extracted themselves from the haystack.  Antoine froze, and his eye started twitching.  “Oh, this eez not happening again,” he moaned, before his eyes rolled back and he fainted again.

All three just stared at him for a moment.  “Um, is he gonna be okay?” SEGA-Tails asked.

“Yeah, he does that all the time.”

“Ok.  You sure the Cyclone will be safe where we hid it?”

“Yup, it should be fine.”

“Ok then.”

The three of them quickly ran off to find Sally.  They had just passed out of sight behind one of the
Huts, when Sally, Rotor, and SatAM-Sonic walked on from the other side on their way to the hut they were holding Amy and the other Sonic in.

“Are you sure you want to be in on this Sonic?  I mean, Rotor and I can handle this on our own,”
Sally asked.

“It’s cool, Sal, I’m not going to pass out like the other guy did, so stop worryin aleady.

Sally’s response was cut short by a loud, “YEHAW!” from Bunnie as she shot out of the chute,
causing another explosion of hay.

“Welcome back Bunnie,” Sally greeted, helping her friend from they haystack, “I’m almost afraid to
ask, but did you find anything?”

“Sure did, Sally girl,” she turned back to the haystack, “Where are they anyways?”

“Who?”

Sally was answered by a voice echoing down the chute, “Uh uh, no way am I going down that thing!  Wait, Gamma, what the heck are you doing!?  Stop it!  WHOOOOAAA!” a red blur shot from the chute and into the haystack..  “Well, I guess it wasn’t that bad,” Knuckles muttered.

“Everyone, meet Knuckles,” Bunnie said as the echidna crawled from the haystack, “Where’s your
friend?”

“I dunno, I wanted him to go first but he said something about the entrance being too small.”

There was the sound of a jet engine and everyone looked up as Gamma slowly hovered down to the ground using his jet booster.

Sonic, thinking that Robotnik had somehow found knothole, immediately rushed at Gamma, but was tackled by Bunnie.  “Easy there Sugah-Hog, he’s on our side!”

“Say what?” asked Sonic.

“Sonic, did Metal hit you too hard or something?” Knuckles asked him while giving him a funny
look.

“Huh?  Who’s Metal?  And have we met?”

“Oh, yeah you’ve defiantly hit your head or something.”

“Bio sensors do not indicate any signs of head trauma,” Gamma said.

Sally and Rotor looked at each other before Sally asked, “Knuckles, right?  You wouldn’t happen to
know a pink hedgehog by the name of Amy Rose, would you?”

“Affirmative!”

“Yeah. She here?”

“I…think you’d better follow us,” Sally said.

They turned to go, when a small robot bird swooped down and landed at Sally’s feet.  She picked it
up and opened a small compartment, taking out a note.


Princess,

Something terrible has just shown up in Robotropolis.  I need to speak with you right away!

“Uncle Chuck”


Sonic, who was reading the note from over her shoulder said, “I’ll go Sal, you stay here and take care of our ‘guests.’

“All right, but be careful.”

“Sal, have you ever known me not to be?” he said with a mock-innocent look.

“Where do I even begin?”

Sonic just laughed and ran off, almost knocking Sally off her feet.

“Um, how do you two know each other?” a very confused Knuckles asked.

Sally blinked.  With the arrival of Uncle Chuck’s message, she had completely forgotten that the
robot and echidna were there.

“Ah, wouldn’t mind knowin what the hoo-hah’s going on myself,” added Bunnie.

“It’s difficult to explain, but maybe it’d be easier to just show you,” Sally said, motioning for them to follow her.

***

Sonic and Amy looked up when they heard the door to the hut they were in being unlocked.  The
door opened and Sally walked in.

“I can tell you right now we’re not robot spies, if that’s what you think,” Sonic said.

Sally just smiled, “Yes, we’ve figured that out on our own.  We have some friends who would like to
see you.”  She stepped aside to allow Knuckles in.

“Knux!”

“Knuckles!” shouted Amy.

Now Knuckles was utterly confused, “Sonic?  But didn’t you just…I mean I saw…but how?”

Sonic looked to Sally, “He saw the ‘other me’ didn’t he?”

“Yes.  We’ve come to the conclusion that you and your friends are from a different reality.”

“I’ll say,” Sonic responded, “From what Amy’s told me, Egg butt’s in charge here.  Back home he’s
only come close to winning once, and even then he needed help.  Well now that we’ve got that out of the way I guess we should introduce ourselves.  I’m Sonic the-”

“Fastest thing alive,” Sally finished, “I know, there’s a Sonic here too remember?”

“Oh, right.”

“My name’s Sally.  The coyote you saw earlier was Antoine.  We’ve already met Amy, Knuckles and
Gamma.  Anyone else we should expect?”

“Yeah, you wouldn’t happen to have seen a rabbit girl and a two-tailed fox boy would you?”

“Two tailed?”

“Yeah, his name’s Miles, but he goes by the nickname Tails.”

At that moment SatAM-Tails came running up to the hut, SEGA-Tails and Cream right behind him  

“Aunt Sally!  You’re never going to believe what I found at that place you sent me to check out!”

“Oh, mah stars!” they heard Bunnie gasp.

“I think we just found them,” Sally said.

***

SatAM-Sonic sped into Robotropolis on his way to Uncle Chuck’s hideout.  Unfortunately he didn’t
see a stealth orb floating in a dark alley as he sped past, but it saw him.  It lost him after a few seconds but it had already reported it’s sighting.

In Robotropolis HQ, Snively was giving Eggman a tour of the roboticizer lab.

“And this is the primary roboticizer,” concluded Snively in a bored manner.

“Interesting, and this device can actually turn living creatures into obedient robots?” Eggman asked, examining the roboticizer.

“Yes, sir,” Snively answered, “Now if you’ll excuse me, I must return to overseeing repairs to your
Egg Carrier.”

“Yes yes, carry on,” Eggman said distractedly as Snively quickly left.  *This device is simply
marvelous!  When I think of all the times I’ve had that hedgehog or one of his friends in my grasp…  One of these would have come in really handy.*

At that moment the large monitor above the roboticizer controls switched on, showing a headshot of Dr. Robotnik, “Snively- oh, forgive me doctor, I thought Snively was there.”

“He said something about repairing the Egg Carrier,”

“Good, at least he’s not slacking off.  The hedgehog has been spotted entering the city.  My cameras have lost track of him but he’s still here, I know it!”

“Hmm, already?  I haven’t even had a chance to review and prepare.  But,” Eggman looked over at
Metal Sonic, who was leaning against the wall and looked almost asleep, “Maybe we could give your rodent a two for one demonstration of Metal Sonic.”  He smiled evily.

***

Sonic arrived at one of Robotroplolis’ many junkyards.  He zoomed around, looking for a specific
pile of garbage.  After he found the one he was looking for, he tapped on a pipe in a special pattern.  After a moment, a whole section of the pile lifted up and out stepped the robotisized form of Uncle Chuck.

Ah, Sonny, you’re here,” he looked around, “Where’s Sally?”

“She had some…problems to deal with back in Knothole so I came by myself.  What’s up unc?”

“The camera I placed in Robotnik’s control room recorded a very frightening situation.  Come inside and I’ll play it back for you.”

***

Metal entered the small lab where his counterpart was stored.  Eggman was too busy drooling over  the roboticizer to do it himself, so he had sent Metal to fetch Robotnik’s version of himself.  The lab wasn’t all that big, just a small room with a large metal tube in the center and some control panels along one wall.  

There was also a deactivated workerbot.  In one corner but he didn’t pay attention to it.  Metal walked over to the control panels and pulled a large lever that lifted the cover off the tube.

Inside was an exact duplicate of Metal, at least on the outside.  Metal walked around his counterpart, giving him a look over.  After that he flipped the activation switch.  The lab came to life with a roar as the cables hooked up to the other Metal Sonic began charging the robot’s power cells.  After a few minutes the machines switched off and the cables retracted into the ceiling.  It was quiet for a second before SatAM-Metal’s eyes lit up.

***

“This is bad, mondo bad,” SatAM-Sonic said, he had just finished watching the tape of the two
Robotniks’ conversation, “As if one Buttnik was bad enough!  And what’s this Metal Sonic they were
talking about?”

“I’m not entirely sure,” Uncle Chuck told him, “Robotnik’s been keeping tight security on it but from
what I’ve gathered, it seems to be a robotic version of you.”

“What’s the matter, ‘ol Buttnik can’t even come up with an original idea anymore so he has to try and copy one?  No robot can compete with me!”

“I hope you’re right about that Sonny.  You’d better get this news back to knothole.”

“Right, catch ya later Unc!”

Seconds later Sonic was running back through Robotropolis.  He turned to go down a small alley and stopped cold, blocking his path was none other than Metal Sonic.

“Hedgehog, priority one!  Capture by order of Robotnik!” Metal droned.

Sonic stared for a second before flashing one of his trademark grins, “Sorry, I’ve already got plans, and with someone a lot better looking than Robuttnik!”

He turned around to run, but found himself face to face with the other Metal!

“Sorry hedgehog, but I’m afraid we have to insist.”

Sonic looked back at the other Metal, which was now charging towards him, with both ways out of
the alley blocked, he did the only other thing he could do, he ran straight up one of the walls.  He spared a glance over his shoulder, expecting to see both robots collide with each other.  To his surprise he saw that while the first was braking hard to turn around, the second one was already zooming up the wall behind him!

*Ok, so they’re smarter than SWATbots, but they still can’t measure up to this hedgehog!* he  thought to himself.  They raced across the building’s roof and down the other side.  He then began zippingin and out of alleyways, trying to throw the two robots off his tail.  After a few minutes he looked back to see only one of the two following him.  “Just as I thought, those copy-bots are nothing but cheap rip-offs!”  He raced back towards the junkyard and spotted a large hook hanging from a crane near the top of a pile of trash.  Getting an idea, he pulled out a power ring, and using it’s power charged straight at the hook.  As he passed it he shoved it as hard as he could.  The shove, combined with his speed swung the hook far out.  

Sonic sped onward and looked back.  Metal reached the top of the hill just as the hook swung back.  

CLANG!  Metal went flying backwards headfirst into a pile of trash.  “Serves ya right metal head!” he yelled back.  He looked ahead of him again only to see a metallic blue arm shoot across his path!  Unable to stop, Sonic was clothes lined and went flipping end over end to land in a heap nearby.

“I’ve been wanting to try that for years,” SEGA-Metal said to himself.  He walked over to the
unconscious Sonic and picked up the power ring.   He rotated it in his hands as he examined it.  “Hmm, seems the rings of this universe are different than the rings back home.”  Just then he heard the whine of a jet engine as SatAM-Metal ran up.  “Where’ve you been?” SEGA-Metal asked.

“I was…delayed,” his counterpart answered.

“I’ll bet,” Metal muttered as he noticed a metal spring still tangled around the other Metal Sonic’s
upper spike,  “Would you inform the Doctors that we’ll be bringing a very special guest home with us?”

He looked over at Sonic’s fallen form and laughed, it felt good to finally beat that hedgehog, even if it was one from another universe!