Metallic Madness: City of Metal

[Leda]

In the atmosphere over the area known as Metallic Madness, a hover unit slowly descended as its pilot searched for a safe place to land. The ground squirrel at the controls bit her lip; she'd been attracted to this place with the hopes of fixing her computer, but the closer she brought the ship to the ground, the more and more dangerous she realized the area really was.

"I think I can land over there," Sally observed quietly. "I'll try to fix Nicole as quickly as I can so we can get right onto finding Tails and that other person." Coming to a wide, relatively flat space, the princess slowly descended the hover ship and eased it into a landing. Though she got to her feet quickly, internally she wasn't all that anxious to find out what surprises this city of steel had in store. "Alright, let's go."


"Sorry Sal," Sonic said from the back of the hoverunit, doing a few warm-up stretches, "But I've got a tin plated faker to trash first." he said determinedly.


Sally smiled awkwardly. Yes, Sonic was being reckless, but... Oh well. She knew that when he was in this kind of mood, there was no stopping him. "Alright," she agreed, "go on ahead. I'll be able to take my time and fix Nicole more accurately if I'm not rushing so I don't keep you waiting. When I'm all set I'll start working on finding Tails." The princess approached the hedgehog and gave him a hug. "Please be careful, Sonic. We don't know this place; it'll be a lot more dangerous this time." She paused for a moment, then smiled. "When we were flying in, I saw a place that didn't look like Robotnik had influenced it very much yet; there were a lot of palmtrees. We'll meet up there later, okay?"


"Don't worry Sal, the hedgehog's still got the juice!" He then opened the Hoverunit's hatch. "Cruisin warp 7!" he cried, revving up his legs, then vanishing in a gust of wind and sonic boom.

[DB]

Robotnik’s airship slowly descended onto the metallic city of the little planet, thick clouds of exhaust spewing into the air as it searched for just the right spot to land. This took awhile, as most of the city was covered in tall skyscrapers every few feet, but a manageable spot was found, though it took a bit of work to get the airship into the spot. It was a very snug fit, as a few the skyscrapers scraped against the airship as it landed.

And although the ship was sturdily built, the scratches reverberated inside the ship causing an awful racket, waking up one fat evil dictator who had at the moment been having a very, very pleasant dream involving hedgehogs being crushed between industrial gears. Oh yes. Very pleasant. Regardless, he was not upset when he awoke- the sound of screeching metal wasn’t a foreign one and he felt rested enough to continue on with his so far fabulous day. So he was in good spirits.

Was, that is, until he checked the minute reports of what had occurred while he had been oh so happily napping.

A few moments later, another sound echoed through the airship.

“SNIVALAY.”

[Sipp]

And immediatly the little human came scuttling.

"Y-yes sir, Doctor Robotnik...?"

He mentally steeled himself.

[DB]

Robotnik's fury was not well hidden, infact, the right side of his mustache was twitching. With startling speed for a fat man, he lunged at Snively, yanking him up off the ground by the collar of his uniform.

"The hedgehog... excaped, Snivaly."

He took a deep breath, trying to contain a little of his rage.

But he couldn't, and instead started shaking Snively the way one would a rag doll.

A rag doll they particularily disliked.

"WHY. (shake) DID YOU. (shake) NOT. (shake) WAKE ME? [/b](shake shake shake)"

[Jamie Lee]

And it was about that time a transmission was received.

"Unit Metal Sonic requesting airship coordinates. Target successfully captured."

[Sipp]

Snively went very, very pale. He waited until he could get a word in, and then squeaked:

"S-sir.. I-I o-only j-just found out... I.. I-I.. was on my way to t-tell y-you.. sir..."

[DB]

It was lucky for Snively that Metal was calling at this particular moment, as otherwise he'd be flying out a window and possibly at some sharp things. Instead, Robotnik simply unceremoniously dropped his lackey and headed toward a panel of controls, checking the map and typing out the coordinates to Metal Sonic.

"We'll deal with your incompetence later, Snivaly.... though the day is not over, you still have some time to redeem yourself."

Yes, the day was not over... Sonic might of escaped but there was still a chance. Life was full of surprises, after all.

[Jamie Lee]

"Coordinates received, estimated arrival in ten minutes. Awaiting instructions for captive upon arrival."

[Sipp]

"Y-yes s-sir.." He scrambled away from Robotnik and resumed doing his duties at a quick pace.

[DB]

Robotnik rubbed a temple and thought. He'd just woken up, and he wasn't thinking clearly.

"Just tie the little brat with the other one, it'll do for now."

[Jamie Lee]

"Affirmative." and the transmission cut abruptly.

[Leda]

The princess darted back into her hijacked hover unit and let out a sigh of relief, wiping a bit of sweat from her brow. This place seemed to somehow be even worse than Robotropolis as far as the robot population went. Sally found it much more difficult than she'd ever anticipated to retreive the parts she needed to repair her computer.

She crossed to the pilot seat, where Nicole's scattered parts waited for her. Hopefully this will be the last supply run I have to make, the ground squirrel thought grimly as she set back to work. I don't want to go back out there again if I can avoid it. Sally grabbed the soldering iron she'd found in a maintenance kit in the back of the hover unit and carefully went about adding chips to the damaged control boards.

Meanwhile, Sally'd had the presence of mind to keep the communication lines open, just in case there were any significant transmissions about Tails to be intercepted. For the most part the only messages broadcast had been mundane updates about shipment arrivals and waste disposals... but a handful of them involved a 'Metal Sonic' and a 'captive'. Sally clenched her jaw and pushed herself to work faster.

After what felt like a lifetime, the princess's patience and nerves of steel paid off: Nicole had been restored to full function, albeit short a lot of her data. Letting out a sigh of relief, Sally booted up her palm pilot and said in an elated voice, "Nicole, am I ever glad to see you!!"

"Hello, Sally. Running diagnostic..." The little computer emitted a series of beeps as she scanned through her systems. "All systems operational. Extensive memory damage; 47% of available files corrupted."

The princess's face scrunched. That was a big hit to the databanks, but, hopefully it was all information that was either backed-up or could be re-downloaded. "Well, let's get to work. We don't have time to fool around." Sally plugged Nicole into the flight deck. "Run a scan of Robotnik's intranet for any messages regarding Sonic or Tails."

"Searching... No transmissions regarding Tails within the last hour. One spybot, however, is currently in the process of recording a fight between Sonic and a Little Planet native."

Sally facepalmed. Taking her seat at the pilot's controls, she carefully ascended from her narrow landing space and said, "Please find the co-ordinates of that spybot, Nicole. I'm going to go get Sonic."

[DB]

The dictator sneered and gave an aggravated sigh, then flopped back into his seat. One little problem and everything will fall apart. That's what usually happened. Can't let that happen now, no. Things were going so well, so very well.

Regardless, now was not time to dwell on these things. There was work to be done. Such as converting this Little Planet into another one of his domains.

The idea pleased him. Much of Mobius was already beneath his fist, and now this would be added to what was 'his'. Strange. New. He knew nothing about it but didn't much care. He knew that it was pure, new, undiscovered, and ripe for the taking. And so he'd take it.

Starting with this city of Metal, the easiest target.

Tapping a few times at the buttons on the console of his chair, a batch of code appeared on the screens. This was from the computers that ran this city.

Robotnik rubbed his chin a bit, pondering over what he saw. It was different then what he was used to, but once he understood the basics of it it would be easy enough to alter.

He smirked. Yes, this shouldn't take much work at all.

[Sipp]

Snively paused momentarily in his work to look at Robotnik. He relaxed very slightly when he saw Robotnik smirk - he took that to mean he wasn't in a state of rage anymore.

For now.

Slightly more at ease, Snively returned to what he was doing before.

[DB]

Of course, Robotnik's pet was ALWAYS angry with Snively. "PIK PIK!"

DIVEBOMB.

[Sipp]

AND THUS THERE WAS SQUEALING AND ALSO BATTING AT ROBOTIC CHICKENS.