Metal city havoc

-As quickly as it started the chaos of battle turned into nothing but the eery hum of the facility, the tight corridors and flickering lights had a uneasy feeling in the armored figure.

By this stage his weapon was cool enough that he would not melt the barrel clear off, he gathered his wits and began to examine some of the down machines, trying to figure out just exactly what was going on.

He wasted only a few seconds before new intel came in from Arc "Research and development" Of course, all the creepy, horrific and disasters come from that area, the name it self was bad enough. 

What was the point was this being trying to completely control the city or was it something far more sinister, whether he and the rest liked it or not they were going to find him. 

Shrikes endurance was well depleted by now, his hyper reflexes state had almost completely drained him of stamina, this was evidence by his muddled walking and clinging to the sides of the corridor's wall.

He was going to use this quiet time to regain his strength and keep what ever ammo was left for the main guy in charge.-

"God I hate these type of narrows corridor facilities...brings back bad memories...Who ever this guy is..we need to dispense of him as soon as possible before he has time to produce even more more machines to throw out there." 

As the group made there way towards the the R&D entrance the bots that been ahead suddenly stop coming towards them, proceeding to then turn around and walk away from them, "What are they doing?" Arc gave a questioning look at the others "one moment there at our throat, next they just walked away and ignore us?" As the group entered the department there was another figure just ahead of them, dressed in a black coat and carrying two swords, "hey you there,are you here to help?" Arc called out to the figure as he stopped to help the marine "because we could sure use the hel-" Arc stopped mid-sentence as the figure turned around, reveling it to be another bot, but this one was different, it looked exactly like caen inside and out, suddenly the voice of the red robot came over the sound system "Meet my little pet project "Caen inferno" programed with everything on caen flare, you and only you are going to fight him, the marine and echidna better stay out of it or else there will be...crushing consequences" as he finished talked two large black echidna robots landed cutting Caen off from Arc and the marine, both having large construction claws, neither of them attacked but were simply standing there staring at the two. "Target found, calculating success chance....95%" the red robot drew its swords "Comincing battle, your move inferior hedgehog"

Metallic footsteps signalled the next wave of robotic creatures, all just as dangerous, if not more so, than the last.

"Damn, there's more," Caen said in response, his eyes scanning across each one, deciding who to attack first. However, when he was just about close enough to attack, they all began to fall back, retreating into the dark corridor.

"What do they have planned...?" Caen spoke, looking over at Arc. The echidna noticed a figure down the hallway, and greeted it, asking if they were here to help. As Caen got closer, he shook his head "Arc, I don't think that's an ally..."

The hedgehog's suspicions were proven true when the figure turned around, revealing an almost perfect metallic copy of Caen, save for a few cosmetic aspects, such as the much shorter quills and the choice of coat being black, rather than blue.

Caen now had a genuine look of concern on his face, as he stepped backwards slightly "who is this man?" He said, just as the robotic Caen had sprung to life again, calculating its success chance, and antagonising the hedgehog. 

Caen wanted to run, simple as, but as he turned away, two robots landed in front of him. He gritted his teeth, narrowing his eyes, as he turned to face his foe. "Shrike, Arc, if something happens to me... Run. Run as far and as fast as you can." 

He stepped forwards, breathing slowly and deeply. "Inferior... Yet you're supposed to be me?"
He held his blades in position, ready to strike. "A duel, then, man against machine."

With those words, Caen jumped up, beginning to float as he called out the words "heat arrow!" 

Several glowing arrows appeared around Caen, all making a bee-line straight towards 'Caen inferno'.

-Shrike moved slowly down the hall way, using the side as a means of support. What little quite time had passed was not about to be around much longer, as soon as ARC caught sight of some one Shrike lifted his head to see who you was pointing to.

The figure was some distance off, hard to tell who exactly it was, however the helmet did not read any thermal sources coming off of it.

Caen was already warning Arc that the figure before them could be dangerous and that is exactly what it was, another machine but this one was unlike any thing before they had currently taken on.

The figure exposed it self to be nothing short of a mechanical replica of Caen, well pretty darn close at least, it even had the twin bladed swords he was known for, the situation had gone from bad to worse.

This..guy had been watching, and harnessing data on Caen, Shrike thought this machine must no doubt know a lot of Caen's moves and attacks. 

"You gotta be kidding me...It's a metal Caen...this is not gonna be easy."

-Shrike had every reason to be careful he knew of other metal variants mimicking other characters in the world and they no doubt proved to be a powerful force to be reckon with. However over a sound system the voice of the figure they were hunting exposes it to be the truth. 

He had created a metal version intended to confront and probably destroy Caen, two other machines were in the vicinity, his message was that it would fight Caen and Caen alone Shrike nor Arc could interfere. 

Under any other circumstance Shrike would of ignored the warning and assisted the red hedgehog in his battle but Shrike was depleted of stamina and low on ammo. 

"Caen..be careful you have no idea yet what you are up against...but...make sure you kick his metal ass good." 

-Shrike hanged back with Arc and now began to watch the opening stages of the duel between Red and machine replica take place.-

As caen fired his arrows "inferno" jumped back easily dodging and deflecting the attack, he raised his blades, touching the sparking plasma blades together  "Hells blade" it called out as a there was a burst of fire from the blades, it let the now flame/plasma coated blades hang down, touching the metal floor, the floor melted into slag turning white hot, Caen Inferno shot fowards "Fire raid" it called out as it ran fowards letting itself spin in a flurry of swipes and slashes, it had no expression except intent to kill. 

*I can't just stand here and watch* Arc thought as he watched the fight "hey, shrike was it?" Arc said in a low whisper "Do you have an EMP device?, we could use it to take down one of these guys, I got just enough strength to bust the other one but im gonna be pretty much useless after that".

Caen watched in horror as each arrow was either easily dodged, or just as easily deflected. He landed gracefully, before opening his legs slightly more and crouching slightly. Just as he was ready for the next attack, Inferno had utilised a technique to turn most of the floor of the arena into molten slag. 

Caen backed up, his eyes widening as more and more of the floor turned too hot to walk on. "What in the world?" He said, backed up right next to the robots blocking his exit. Without warning, Inferno utilised his own idea of Caen's Fire Raid. The only thing the hedgehog was able to do was to hold his blades upwards, attempting to block the flurry of swipes. "Have at you!" He shouted, bracing himself.

-Shrike watch the battle unfold and as he predicted the machine replica knew how to counter Caen's attack, it must of been programmed with his fighting style and abilities, which was going to keep on going till one eventually gave out.

Shrike heard a whisper from his right he glances over and a simple question was sent to him. Asking if he had a EMP type grenade, Unfortunately he did not, he carried no type of emp weapons as they would short out his own gear in the process, he did however have on hand a bright lance flash grenade, these things could emit a extremely deafening sound along with blinding the target for several seconds.

"Outta luck on the EMP device Arc, however I do have a Flash grenade, if you really wanna go through with it, it will give us a couple of seconds head start of those tin cans before there optical eyes adjust, should be enough to destroy them tho....I had a bad feeling that the one who is eventually going to win this stale mate will be the machine...take it."

-Shrike quietly shifted the grenade from his hand too Arcs, he had no idea exactly what he was going to do but something was better then nothing.-

Inferno slashed left, right, up and down, relentlessly attacking caen, trying to break his guard and get an opening, "Blazing arrows" it called as it jumped back firing dozens of flaming projectiles at caen, attempting to force him into opening up by having to dodge or deflect the attack.

Meanwhile Arc was formulating a plan, "Ok, without a good solid way to take out both of them im gonna have to expend every ounce of strength I have" Arc gave the grenade back to shrike "here's the plan, im gonna smash these two into next century, you toss the flash bang to stun that "inferno" robot, that should give caen the opening he needs" with that Arc took a deep breath, the fatigue and tiredness he felt melted away, leaving only pure adrenalin, he shot forwards "TOPAZ RUSH" smashing right into one of the bots and completely tearing away its right arm which Arc used to beat it with, already starting to feel the adrenalin wear off Arc quickly turned "CONCUSSION BLAST" he shout as grabbed the sparky body of the beat up one, punching it straight into the other one destroying them both, Arc felt the last of the adrenalin fading away,"quickly, help caen!" He shouted as he fell to his knees completely exhausted.

Caen gritted his teeth, mustering every ounce of strength to fend off each blow, as they landed. Metal clashed against metal, sending sparks flying everywhere. Inferno was ruthless, but every bit of ruthlessness was matched by the hedgehog's persistence.

Eventually, the metal hedgehog gave up on breaking through Caen's defenses, opting to jump back and issue forth several arrows. Seeing an opportunity, Caen raised his arms, and a large wall of searing fire burst forth in front of him. "Heat wall!" He called out, as each arrow was absorbed by the  wall. 

He leaped straight through the flames, attempting to catch Inferno with one thrusting blow with one of his blades.

Just as he jumped, he heard a crash behind him, as bits of machinery hit the wall, however, his sights stayed set on the robotic imposter, as he threw his arm forwards.

-Risky but worth it, Shrike couldn't stand aside and let the possibility of Caen being waxed for his robo twin, thus he agreed to Arc's idea of jumping in and adding some extra power. 

Slowly unhooking the grenade from the web upon which it hung, he would also load his last and final clip of ammo  ammo into his rifle, his last 35 shots, better make them count. 

Taking a few steps back he would wait for Arc to initiate the attack.

Then in a instant Arc went full on at the two defending robots, smashing them to pieces in rapid succession, quickly depleting his final reserves of energy. 

He held back and waiting for the signal, finally it came to him, Shrike popped the pin and rolled the flash grenade on the ground towards the robot counterpart. 

It grew to a halt, seconds later it exploded with a violent outburst of deafening sound and blinding white light which would disrupt just about any thing for a good period of time. 

Shrike finally takes action, slowly taking aim, he would discharge single shot volley's of bullets at Inferno, with the hopes of at least damaging him or knocking him around a bit to give Caen a opening.- 

" GET HIM CAEN WAX THAT TIN CAN!" 

Infero had expected the attack,he started to sidestep Caen, intending to cut him down as he passed, that is until a small cylinder rolled into veiw.

"Unknown variable in play, calculatin-"

The flash bang exploded before he could react in time, scrambling his sensors, before he could recover a volly of bullets hit him, pericing his chest area.

"Incomprehensible! Incompre*BIZZT*sible!"

his body was critically damaged, "Success chance ~ 15%" he turned ready to take on caen, only to find him unable to defend, completely open to Caen's incoming attack.

Arc smiled as he watched the bot in its completely helpless state calling out to the red hedgehog, "Caen, take it out before it repairs and recovers!"

As Caen continued forwards, he noticed that Inferno was prepared to sidestep. He was too late, though, he couldn't change his path.

BANG!

A white flash took over Caen's vision for a split second, before Inferno stumbled back, his scanners going haywire. Bullet after bullet file Inferno, causing it to malfunction entirely, recalculating it's success rather... Inaccurately.

Caen nodded as he skidded to a halt, jumping towards his impostor. He reeled his arms back, as his blades caught fire. "Burning...." He sliced forwards across his chest "Horizon!" Flames burned straight through the chassis of Inferno as Caen sheathed his blades. 

"Inferno... Extinguished..." Caen said through heavy breaths, before dropping to his knees in exhaustion

-Shrike made sure to discharge every last round he had to keep that mechanical nightmare down and out, buying what ever time he could to Caen, however one clip would only go so far.

The weapon stopped firing, several clicks of the trigger was met with nothing but empty clicks, quickly yanking the mag out of his rifle, he discovers he has finally run out of ammo, quickly holstering his rifle onto his back he now hopes the two of them,s intervention was enough to finally blast the machine to kingdom come.

So it seemed it was enough, Caens final attack seemed to totally obliterate inferno, although hard to tell from the smoke and fire but it seemed like a pretty successful kill. 

Shrike drew out his side arm, his pistol was secondary defense and only 2 clips for this weapon, he slowly approached Caen laying his hand on his shoulder. 

"Good job buddy, I would say Inferno is no more, we can now focus on the guy in charge of this entire thing, we running pretty low on energy right now it seems...fights taken a lot out of us."

As Inferno fell, a burning hole in its chest, the group could hear....laughter?

"Ha Ha Ha... you gave me more data you fools, now I have the data needed to craft more powerful versions of my kind" the red robots voice came over the speakers, mocking the three "And a very nice performance from you Caen Flare, unfortunately our time together has come to an end", Arc's face was red with anger "Oh no you don't you monster, you aren't getting away" Arc said as he helped Caen to his feet "You have caused to much destruction and pain today to get away with it" again they heard laughter "I have been getting away with it a thousand ago, and I must thank you Aaron for releasing me, its all thanks to you that I'm once again free" Arc turned to the others with a puzzled look "I have never seen you before in my life" the red robot chuckled "Think back to when you freed that little green robot, It was then that you unknowingly released me from my prison that green defect put me In" Deep hatred and anger fill his voice "Its because of that little green pest that our kind is no more, Its his fault that my rule crumbled and I will have my kingdom once again" his voice had taken a dark demented tone, a deep contrast to his almost joking cruelty "Even if it has to be built upon the smoldering ashes of this world".
Arc's mind raced *I released this monster?* he thought as he looked around at all the destruction *what have I done?* he was snap out of his thoughts by the red robot "Alas, our time has come to an end, so I'll give you a choice: come after me in your weakened state, or rescue the humans still inside the assembly from Inferno" Arc laughed "Inferno? We busted him up, he can't do anythi-" Arc turned... only to find the badly damaged duplicate standing, surrounded in a flame barrier, the bot said nothing as it hovered in the air, then shot down the hallway at blazing speeds "He is going to the reactor core in the Laboratory that's next the assembly room where all the remaining humans are" the red tyrant laugh "Once there he will use Caen's last resort move, starting a chain reaction that will blow this entire complex up in flames" he had pure joy in his voice as he taunted them "I am on level 0, the deepest part of this building, me and my new army will be teleporting out before this place is destroyed, tick tock goes the clock" the speakers then cut out, leaving the group alone, Arc looked to the others "I hate to say It but I don't think we can make It to him in time, we gotta help those people still in here" Arc turned to Caen "And what did he mean by last resort move?"

Caen was still breathing heavily as a loud, almost maniacal laugh rang out. He felt Arc's hand help Caen to his feet. Caen's eyes scanned around, looking for the source of the noise. 

The hedgehog listened to the voice of this robotic menace, clenching his fist with every word. Suddenly, however, Inferno sprang to life, zooming past the three. As the red robot explained what it was about to do, Caen gritted his teeth, his eyes wide. "Final pyre... No..." He whispered to himself. 

"If he uses that move near a reactor, then not only will it kill us, and everyone inside, it could cause untold damage to the entire city!" Caen said, before shaking his head and bolting down the hallway, after Inferno.

-When all seemed to be a swift victory for the taking a evil distinct voice seemed to sweep over the area they were in, Shrike looked around frantically, the voice was coming from the being who introduced himself when Inferno was deployed.

This battle was nothing more then a test to gather intel to only further create a more powerful machine and probably replicate that to many more beyond.

The being went into more detail about his apparent release at the hands of Arc ? The story seem to unfold right here before him. Seemed like he had a huge role to play to what turned out to be the destruction of this beings kind and home.

Now he planned to build a new world upon the ashes of the old. He was crazy enough that he was willing to send Inferno to overload the facilities reactor, which would cause the chain reaction and cause a very big boom, which would not doubt decimate at least 2/3 of the city if the reactor was powerful enough, but the use of Caen's final ability. 

Civilians would be wiped out in the hundreds if not thousands, time was against them. His ultimatum was go after him or save the civilians, Shrike made his mind up to go and save the civilians and stop the explosion if possible. 

"Come on ARC! We gotta move! If that reactor goes up 2/3 of the city will look like a crater on the moon, we have to haul ass and stop Inferno...forget about the other guy we will find him again...now let's go! It's a race against time!"

-Shrike took after in a run right behind Caen, drawing a strange weapon from folded up sheath on his left torso, it extended into a bladed weapon, strange for him to carry a close quarter weapon.-

Arc ran down the hall with the others after the red robot. Arc was completely spent, no energy, no nothing, he continued to run, holding out the holo tablet tracking the reactors location "Its just in there guys" Arc called out just as they reached the doorway, there was a sudden blast as heat and flames began to pour from the room, Arc was just able to see the damaged robot, apparently charging the attack as several heavy power cables were connected to it, Arc ran over over to the controls "It's Overloading!, take him out and I'll try to keep this from melting down!" Arc frantically began closing all the power lines and opening all the cooling countermeasures, try to keep it from turning into a city busting bomb.

The red hedgehog was way ahead of Arc, just barely keeping Inferno in his sights. He saw the metallic impostor turn a corner, and skidded across the metal grating before following it inside the reactor room. The heat coming from it was immense, as Inferno stood, its arms crossed in front of it,  fingers splayed outwards. It had attached itself to power cables.

Sparks and flames reached out to Caen with every step. He knew they had mere seconds before utter doom, just as Arc and Shrike had arrived. He had to think quickly. Caen shook his head, before attempting to run straight for Inferno, attacking it with two vertical slashes to knock it out of its current last resort state.

-Shrike makes it into the room seeing what the rest of them saw, the machine incarnation hooking it self to the power couplings feeding directly into the reactor core. If this was not bad enough the massive spike in heat sure just made it far worse. 

The heat was immense and rising with each passing moment, just standing still the sweat already appeared, the closer you got the worse it would get. 

Shrike scanned for any thing that could at least disable or shut down the reactor, if it could be disabled Infernos motives would be denied. 

Severing the power couplings from the machine was a idea but also highly risky, if it back fires the feed back could cause the reactor to explode violently. 

Try or let untold amounts perish in the blast, Shrike had made his choice as did Caen, he raised his new looking weapon as smaller teeth seem to spike across its top and bottom, they began to rotating in a fashion of a chainsaw. 

"This heat is getting worse, we gotta take him out now or at least detach him from those power couplings. Caen, ARC I say we only got a few mins before it goes boom, Arc, severe his connection with the reactor if you can Caen and I will keep him distracted." 

-Shrike didn't even know if it would work he just hoped it would, with a few short revs he charged in along side Caen with his weapon raised ready to bring down some serious force with his strike.-

caen slashed at the field around the robot disrupting the charge long enough for Arc to work on disengaging the robot from its intended objective "If i can just..." there were more sparks as he continued to try stopping the overload, "Its no use, he is in the system itself and wont let it close the power supply" Arc began to panic "Darn you... If I could just keep him from taking the power" he looked up seeing both Caen and Shrike trying to get close "Wait... If you want the power then take it all" Arc shouted as he suddenly open the powerlines, releasing all the power into the cables shorting the shield around Inferno and interrupting his circuits "Guys take him out once and for all!" Arc yelled as he smashed the control module "I bought you time now finish the fight!"

Caen swords bounced off of what seemed to be some kind of field around the robotic monstrosity. Luckily, Inferno had now been knocked out of his Final Pyre state. Now the mere seconds had been increased to minutes. 

Suddenly, power shot through the cables, disabling Inferno almost instantly. They only had one shot. As Shrike stopped alongside Caen, the hedgehog threw his arm back, before summoning two arrows, firing them straight at Inferno "just die!" Caen shouted.

-Shrike had all the intention to finish the fight, he would charge ahead of Caen, after he had launched his arrows at the machine being himself, Shrike charged in, his weapon raised as its razor sharp blades circled around the center shaft. 

He could come in hard and fast striking multiple times against Inferno in hand to hand combat, now hand to hand was something he was not skilled in very much, however smashing a machine with a metal object at considerable speed is going to cause some hefty damage regardless of skill.

Time was running out, Arc managed to buy them just minutes at best, Shrike could continue to batter into Inferno with all the force he could with the soul intention to break him down till nothing.-

Inferno took every bit of damage from both Caen and Shriek. Blow after blow, slash after slash until it's battered body fell seemingly in slow motion, falling apart until its head clattered to floor. It's eyes glowed as it's eyes locked with Caen's, saying one last line "Caen superior, Inferno... inferior" its eyes dimmed and winked out leave a sense of calm and peace. It was over... the battle was won and the people saved.

Some time later the police as well as the rescue teams made it into the building, fire fighters and medical teams begin helping other people around the site. Arc stood off to the side, leaning on one of the entrance gates. watching the aftermath of the events that had transpired *I wish I could've gotten him, and I'm afraid that I've only released too strong an opponent to beat* Arc thought with a troubled look on his face *I can only hope that someone has the power to beat him". He looked on as reporters were talking to both Caen and Shrike "heh, those two were pretty tough... I hope I can battle them someday". He said to himself as he walked over to the two comrades "They did a good job"