Sonic The Hedgehog Fanfiction Entry
by Dustin Lawson (dustinman77@hotmail.com)

Sonic, Tails, etc.  are İSega.  Princess Sally and others İDic, Archie, 
and whatever.  Gawain, Dimiter and Jakob are İMe!
Several story elements are İK.M. Hollar, whom also wrote the beginning.
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			  Honor Among Hedgehogs
			        Part III
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"Mecha!" Sonic shouted.

The blue, spiny robot's head snapped to look at him.  "Sssonic!" he 
hissed, glaring.  The young knight nearer him was forgotten for the moment
as Metal Sonic addressed his rival.  "You have eluded your destruction for 
long enough.  It is now time for you to die, cursed original!"

"Sure, chrome copy," Sonic taunted.  "Don't make me send you back to ol' 
'Buttnik in an envelope again."

"Feh," Mecha scoffed.  "You speak as if I were the same old robot I once 
was.  Can you not sense the power I now wield?"

Sonic looked at him hard, and noticed his red eyes were glowing even 
brighter than normally.  Other than that, he really couldn't see much of 
a difference.  "So you've been eating your carrots.  So what?"

Mecha laughed the disgusting, metallic laugh Sonic hated.  "You can't, can 
you?  Of course not.  Allow me to display something quite unique for you."

Mecha tapped the back of his head.  There came a depressurizing sound, and 
his face detached and swung upward.  Inside was a glowing dark red crystal.

"A Chaos Emerald!"  Sonic shouted.

"Not quite," Mecha said.  It was eerie hearing him speak when his head was 
open like that.  "It's another stone created by the spiny anteater race.  
It's known as the Pietra Morte-- the Death Stone."  His head slowly came 
back together.  "It's as powerful as the Chaos, I'm told.  Doctor Robotnik 
found it in the hands of a race of weak raccoon people."  He chuckled 
again before continuing.  "They used it to run their town's electricity.  
He installed it in my chassis to boost my attack system.  It's power is a 
bit different that the Chaos, but it does offer enormous energy as they 
do.  You will find I am not so easy to destroy repeatedly now."  His eyes 
dimmed a bit as he said coldly, "You may now refer to me as Death Mecha."

His red crescent pupils slowly spread, until his entire eyes were glowing 
a brilliant crimson.  Then, without warning, they erupted into a searing 
beam of deadly light.  It ripped across the ground toward Sonic quickly, 
and the blue speedster was rooted to the spot in fear.  He threw up his 
arms and waited for the impact.

It never came.

He looked up to see Gawain standing in front of him, his sword deflecting 
the beam.  Then Sonic realized it wasn't deflecting it- it was _absorbing_ 
it.  The sword glowed a brilliant red as the beam entered the blade.

Mecha halted his attack.  "What?!  It doesn't compute!  They should both 
be smouldering piles of ashes!"

Gawain hefted his sword and pointed it at Mecha.  "I'm sorry to tell you 
this, buckethead," he sneered, "but this battle won't be quite as easy as 
you thought."  Then the sword fired, sending an almost identical beam 
screaming back toward the robot.

Mecha leapt into the air, avoiding the beam, and hovered there.  "I see," 
he said simply.  "If it's a fight you want, it's a fight you'll get!"  He 
raised an arm and flew toward Gawain, intending to claw him to shreds.  
The hedgehog jumped out of the way, then whirled and struck him with his 
sword.  There was a small burst of energy, and the sword bounced off him.

"Hah!" Metal Sonic taunted.  "This gem protects me, as well as..." he 
finished his sentence with another red beam.  Gawain raised his shield and 
deflected it.

Then his sword began to shine with a bluish tint.  He ran toward Mecha, 
whom kept firing smaller beams at him, narrowly missing.  Just as Gawain 
looked like he would run into him, he leapt to the right, and pointed his 
sword at the metal hedgehog.

He froze into a statue of ice and steel.

"Way to go, G!" Sonic shouted from the sidelines.

"It's not over yet," he responded, already building more energy.  It was a 
deeper blue this time.

The ice around Mecha began to crack and shatter, and then it erupted in a 
sphere of red light.  When the light subsided, they saw Mecha was through 
playing games.  He immediately began powering up a huge blast.

Gawain let loose with a tsunami, blasting the metallic hedgehog back and 
into a rocky wall.  As the dripping Mecha stood up, Gawain used the butt 
of his sword to bash the robot in the head.  Electricity surged around the 
robot's face, then his red eyes winked out.

Sonic ran over to his cousin.  "That... that was amazing, man!"

Gawain bent over and panted, his hands on his knees.  "Thanks."

"Wait," Sally said.  "Why didn't Mecha's shield protect him when you hit 
him again?"

"Well, the first time I hit him, I could feel the sheer electricity pour 
into the sword.  I knew it was an electronic shield, and it wasn't created 
by the Death Stone.  It was just powered by it."  He showed them the stone 
in the end, currently glowing yellow.  "I just polarized the sword to the 
element of Lightning, and it went through."  It faded back to white.  "I 
must say I'm disappointed.  I would've thought-"

He was suddenly lying flat on his face, Mecha standing over him.  He had a 
nasty dent in the right side of his head, and that eye was cracked a bit.  
He raised his arm to hit him again.

Gawain rolled over and blocked with his shield, barely in time.  He set 
his teeth and threw the robot back.

"You really thought it would be over this soon, fool?" he hissed, his eyes 
flickering eerily.  "This is just the begin-"

He was hit full force with a barrage of ice shards.  Mecha crossed his 
arms in front of him and deflected the remaining icicles with a blue 
energy shield, but the damage had been done; they could hear his chest air 
intake sputter.

Gawain halted his attack, seeing that the shield prevented any more ice 
from moving through.  He lunged forward and brought his sword down on the 
robot's head.  Deflected again.  He stood to attack again, and was caught 
by a savage uppercut.

Sonic watched from the sidelines, anxious and impatient.  He felt useless, 
and wished desperately that he could help.  He knew nothing about Mecha's 
new powers, and he didn't know that he could do any good against them.  
Gawain, with the magic of the Masamune and his ancestry, was the only one 
who stood a chance.

Gawain kicked Mecha off of him, scrambling for his sword.  Mecha grabbed 
his arm, but he released a surge of electricity into the robot's hull, 
forcing him to draw back and repair the shorts in his system.  The young 
knight dove on the blade, and brought it up to point at the recovering 
Mecha.

As Mecha looked on, helpless, Gawain charged it up to a new color; green.  
He leveled the sword and smiled.

"Pretty good for a fool, huh?"

A strange green beem, roughly a foot long, flew toward Mecha.  All the air 
around it seemed to follow it along.  It hit the robotic abomination with 
the force of a freight train, ripping through his skull.  As it struck the 
Death Stone, it disappeared.

Unfortunately, the Stone's protective properties were only extended to 
itself at the moment.  Mecha, with electricity rippling all over him, 
seizured, then lay still, the hole between his eyes pouring oily black 
smoke.  His eyes looked unnervingly dead, completely dark.  He was beaten.

Gawain promptly passed out.

				  ¤¤§¤¤
				 epilogue


"Hey, you okay, baby?"

Gawain's eyes opened slowly.  He looked around at the blobs forming into 
the shapes of Dimiter, Jakob, Sonic, Tails and Sally.

"Mhmgg," he muttered, then coughed.  "Thirsty..."

Dimiter was holding a water bottle, and quickly handed it to him.  Gawain 
fumbled with the cap a moment, then drank deeply of the refreshing fluid.

"Ahh," he said, still a bit groggy, but awake.  "Ooh... how long have I 
been out?"

"About a day," Jakob said.  "We were starting to worry."

"Don't pay it no mind," he said, sitting up a bit.  He was in bed, in his 
own hut.  "I used a lot of power fighting that souped-up salad shooter.  I 
had to recharge."

"Well, when you feel better, Rockcleft would like to honor you with a 
ceremony," Jakob said, smiling broadly.

"Another one?  Geez, you guys spend a lot on medals."  He looked toward 
his dresser, and there was a sizable pile of awards.  "But thanks."

"What was that thing you did at the end?" Tails asked.  "The green beam?"

"Oh, that was a Wind Spike," he replied.  "I figured the last element he 
thought I'd use would be Wind.  I'm glad I was right."  He looked around 
at them.  "So, what'd you do with him?"

"Robuttnik took him," Sonic said.  "We were too busy taking care of you 
that we didn't see him in time to catch him."  He smiled.  "It really 
doesn't matter, though.  If he patches him up and tries again, we can just 
have you smack him around some more and send him packing."

"I won't be smacking much for the next day or so," he said, groaning.  "I 
still have to get my power back up."

"We'll stick around 'till you're back on your feet," Sally said, leaning 
on the foot of his bed.  "I'll send word back to Knothole that we'll be a 
bit late returning home."

"Thanks," he said, as Dimiter squeezed his hand.  "It's good to know that
you've got friends."

Sonic patted him on the back.  "And family."

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			         the end