Sonic & Shadow

Challenger

.

"If this goes south – and it will, since you're here – then there's still one positive thing about this," says Shadow with a look which would've spelled his mood out clearly to Sonic, had they not been standing back to back. ": Anything here could kill you, but I'm sure I could do it the fastest."

"Oh, thanks for the offer, but I have to decline for now. I mean-" Sonic leapt, darting to the side to avoid the searing blades of the robots, stopping only momentarily to send them flying with a spinning kick- "-I mean, what would the world do without me? Mobius' own living legend?" He grinned, but didn't have the time to find Shadow before another challenger appeared, artificial claws slashing at him.

He whistled and leant backwards, the claws whizzing past just above him. The robot lunged at him, and Sonic dashed to the side, sticking out a leg and tripping it, the whole thing crashing down like a stack of canned beans-

And another robot took its place, and after that one, yet another. Destroying three of them, and suddenly Sonic was fighting three new ones at the same time, all claws and flashy swords, ugly logos sprinkled over them. He ducked for one slash, side-stepped for another, and got cut by the third, the blade slicing a line over his arm as he flinched away with a hiss-

-And went right back in with a merciless kick, slamming the first robot into the second, taking the third down with them in a heap of screeching, clawing and metal. A grin, Sonic spinning around to take down the next, dancing through the battlefield; an old factory where dust moved up in swirls with their every move…

He kicked a robot so that it lost an arm, stole a sword from another, and buried it to the hilt in a third. Something – a swipe of a claw, a slice of a sword – had blood dribbling from his hip, and Sonic spun around, energy coiling around his hand and exploding outwards into a wind, a cascade of blue, a hit of chaos energy blowing through-

Fatigue hit, and he gasped, panted, surveying his surroundings in a stance of attack, of defense… Metallic corpses, splinters, bolts, dropped weapons, oil leaking from that one, fallen robots, some still moving haphazardly… blood, but that was his own, and,

"Oi! Faker!" Sonic called, lips pulling into a grin as the other hedgehog turned around, quirking an eyebrow as if to say 'well what are you standing around for?'

Sonic's eyes twinkled with mischief, and he made his way around the heaps of metal, pressing a hand to the gash on his hip more like an after-thought, like it didn't matter – which it didn't. What mattered was the robots, the fight, the adventure… The challenge. To destroy the robots before they destroyed his home, before they defiled the lands…

And of course – to make the good ol' Doctor absolutely pissed.

A stillness mixed with a feeling of 'there's more to come' had seeped out throughout the battle, and Shadow – sporting a gash next to his eye, a smirk and another look in his eyes – said to Sonic, tauntingly, over the carcass of a robot, wires spilling out of a destroyed chest, "Still able to continue?"

And Sonic smirked, wiping a bloodied glove on his leg, and replied, "Oh, you're on, old man."

A dash, a leap, two kicks to the pair of doors-

CRASH

-and the factory didn't stand a chance.