Got a bit more help from RaDaR125 on this one. An idea I had was worked through until the end and he gave me an idea on how to draw it to a close.

Yep, I still like giving credit.
===============
As the party continues, a few of the attendees are showing Maria how to use her new gadgets. When Amy takes a few more pictures with the digital camera, she shows Maria how to use it. Now getting brave and wanting to try for herself, Maria takes the camera and prepares herself to take a photo.

Off to the side, Mighty, Espio and Vector are conversing with each other with Shadow slowly approaching them. Anyone near the group can hear Mighty sounding positive with his inquiry,"So Charmy will be back soon?"

Vector, however, doesn`t sound so thrilled,"Ugh, yeah..."

"So it didn`t work out so well in boarding school for him?"

"Heck no! The kid is so wild and hyperactive, they can`t get him to sit still for two seconds to teach him anything!"

Espio, with his arms folded in a similar fashion to Shadow, speaks up,"Calm down, Vector."

Vector turns to Espio,"Easy for you to say, you aren`t the one who has to take care of that kid!"

Mighty gives an uneasy smile and tries to calm Vector down,"He`s right, Vec, you should chill out. Maybe it won`t be so bad. I`m sure the boarding school has made SOME improvement on Charmy."

"I doubt it."

While Vector and Mighty go back and forth, Shadow catches Espio`s attention. Being a spy, surely Espio would have some information. When Espio gives Shadow his attention, Shadow folds his arms in his infamous fashion. As usual, his tone is deep, dark, and most of all serious,"Do you have any idea on how everyone has found out about...Maria`s interests?"

Without really thinking about it or a second thought, Espio honestly answers,"Rouge had the information."

Shadow seems a little in disbelief of this,"Rouge?"

"She read over Professor Gerald`s journal and told us the information."

Shadow`s tone grows a little darker at this revelation,"And what information did she reveal to everyone?"

Espio tilts his head back as he is in thought to try to remember everything,"Let`s see...The reasons behind your creation...The training you underwent...Maria`s interests-"

That was as far as Espio would have to go. Shadow interrupts him to indicate that this was enough to know of what information Rouge opened her mouth about. Now his anger is flaring up. In one way it is surprising that it was Rouge in another way it`s not surprising. She stuck that nosy nose of hers into his business once again. Even worse, she blabbed to everyone else what was meant to be private. Shadow had hoped he could keep their lives private but in less than a full week, that barrier has been broken. He is certainly going to confront her about this.

Without warning, Shadow hears a click noise behind him, the sound of a camera going off. This is quickly followed by the giggling sound of Amy and Rouge. Shadow turns around with heavy suspicion on his mind. Maria is still sitting in her chair. She is covering her smile with her hand while her other hand is holding the camera. Rouge has her hands on her hips with her laughter obvious. Amy`s laughing is obvious as well though her posture is more girlish, both hands over her mouth with her knees together. What...did they just take a picture of? Shadow has an idea of what it might`ve been but he hopes he`s wrong. Somehow, he suspects that the whole thing was Rouge`s idea.

Sonic excuses himself from the crowd and goes to the men`s bathroom. With Sonic being occupied there for a bit, Tails comes back over to Maria, eager to show her how to use her laptop. Disappointing for him, though, that Maria isn`t ready for the laptop; she is still experimenting with the digital camera. But he decides to hang around her anyway to see if he can help in some way with teaching Maria how to use her camera.

Sonic exits the stall in the bathroom and approaches one of the sinks to wash his hands. He turns on the faucet and begins the ritual. As he does so, he sings a little tune to himself,"Blue streak...Speeds by...That is me! Too fast...for the naked eye...That is still me-ee! Oh yeah! Sonic! Which is me! Sonic-!"

It happens within the blink of an eye. Sonic doesn`t get a chance to see who it is. Interrupting his little song, Sonic is suddenly slammed into the mirror over top of the sink he is washing his hands at. The tremendous force of the shove causes the mirror to crack and several pieces of it fall into the sink. Miraculously, Sonic isn`t impaled by any of the mirror glass.

Starting to recover from the shove, Sonic uses his hands to push himself away from the mirror. However, the second he begins to do this, he is shoved back into the mirror, cracking it more. Getting shoved the second time, Sonic can now begin to decipher information on his attacker. It`s definitely a robot. More than likely an Eggman robot.

He isn`t willing to allow himself to just be shoved around like that. After this second shove, Sonic moves himself faster now that he`s in battle mode. He whips himself around to face his attacker.

Lo and behold, Sonic comes face to face with Metal Sonic.

The metallic being is, as his name suggests, quite similar in appearance to Sonic. Naturally, being a robot there are still many differences. He uses a robot booster on his back to travel as fast as Sonic runs. He`s the only robot that Eggman made that not only looks similar to Sonic, but can also travel just as fast. Other robots Eggman manufactured don`t match up in speed. It is believed that he made the robot look like Sonic in belief that it would maximize the chances of the robot traveling at high speeds. Metal Sonic had been inactive for quite some time. He had defied his creator last anyone had seen of him. But now here he stands, active. Yet, he is different in some way that Sonic can`t put his finger on.

There is no time to stop and ponder this. Perceiving this fight on his end as more self-defense than anything else, Sonic comes at Metal Sonic to fight back. However, the bathroom certainly doesn`t leave much room open for him to use his famous abilities. So, Sonic remedies this by quickly grabbing a hold of Metal Sonic and throwing him clear out of the bathroom through the door.

With the main party, much of the attention is still on Maria. Tails is eager to show Maria how to use her new laptop still and becomes thrilled when she is done messing with her digital camera. Maria passes the camera on to Rouge, who is curious to see what photos were taken. As Rouge browses through the photos on the camera, Tails dashes off to the table that holds Maria`s gifts to get her laptop. Blaze comes over, curious to the photos as well. She leans over beside Rouge to look at the screen. Mighty, too, becomes curious of the photos. On the opposite side of Rouge from Blaze, he points to one photo that appears and gives laughter, suggesting the comical level of the photo. Rouge laughs as well with Mighty and Blaze tries to hide her smile with her hand.

As usual, Vector is stuffing his face with the food. He comes over to the growing group with a very full plate of food. He bends over a little to get closer to Maria`s level, and with his mouth full of food, asks her,"Hey, are you hungry, Maria? There`s lots of great food. You might wanna get some before I eat it all."

Rouge bumps in the conversation, not able to resist the "door" Vector has left open,"As per usual, Vec? It`s amazing that none of us have starved to death."

Vector stands back up straight and looks annoyed at Rouge`s comment. He shovels another fork load of food into his mouth and grumbles,"Stupid broad..."

Amy clasps her hands together,"What about a drink? Are you thirsty, Maria?"

Maria turns her attention from Vector to Amy, giving a smile as she normally does,"Oh yes, I am, actually. Thank you."

"What would you like?"

"Milk, if we have it."

"Certainly! I`ll get it for you."

Amy turns to walk away to go to the beverage table to retrieve the drink for Maria. Tails trots back up to Maria carrying her laptop in both of his hands. He is quickly running through his mind what things he could show Maria to do on her laptop and the whole thought excites him.

It is at this time that Metal Sonic bursts into the scene. He lands on his back on the floor and skids up to the group, stopping right in front of Amy. All within a couple of seconds, everyone executes their reaction to Metal Sonic`s abrupt appearance (as his short battle with Sonic in the bathroom is unknown at this time). While most of everyone`s reaction is to jump back a little at Metal Sonic`s unannounced appearance, a few react differently. Tails quickly stops his trotting to Maria (though he stops close to beside her) and hugs the laptop into himself as an instinctive move to protect it from any possible damage. Vector nearly drops his food and since Mighty is holding the camera at this time, the camera goes flying out of his hand off to who knows where. But poor Amy...With Metal Sonic`s face directed right up her, Amy throws her hands down over her dress to cover herself up and jumps back with a shriek. Being so close to Amy, Maria throws down her hands over her own dress and turns away to the side in her chair for fear of being peeked at as well. But instead of a shriek like Amy, Maria`s sound is more of a squeak. Amy quickly recomposes herself within a second and begins to kick Metal Sonic`s head repeated with her boot while she continues to hold her dress down over herself with her hands. She angrily screams at him,"Metal, you pervert!!"

Each time he receives a kick, the glow in Metal Sonic`s eyes disappears for a moment and he makes some kind of robotic clicking sound. His vision turns to static for a split moment at each kick he receives though he`s well aware of what is going on. He does nothing in retaliation to Amy kicking him as he lies there on the floor on his back.

Within seconds Shadow is on the scene. He grabs a hold of Metal Sonic`s ankles and yanks him away from the girls and throws him aside. Metal Sonic sails over one table and lands onto another table. He skids across the table and lands on the booth seat then rolls over to the side and off the seat, landing on the floor between the seat and table. He makes plenty of clanging noises during his course.

Sonic dashes out of the bathroom to continue his fight with Metal Sonic. From the looks of things, he will have Shadow helping out with the matter. It seems as though only Sonic and Shadow can fight Metal Sonic as they are the only ones who can keep up with him and take the punishment he deals out. Everyone else stays back to allow the two speedsters to handle this one.

Metal Sonic is quickly back on his feet and grabs the table with his claws. He throws the table aside with the main objective to get it out of his way. He fires up the rocket on his back and takes off in a burst of speed just as Sonic and Shadow begin to run. The three of them are nothing more than blue, black and red streaks zipping around Rouge`s Club. Being focused on the fight, neither of the combatants can give much focus on anyone else around them. Often times the others of the Sonic Gang have to dive out of the way to avoid being caught up in the fight.

Metal Sonic kicks Sonic in the face with one of his heavy metallic feet. Right behind him Shadow is coming. But Metal Sonic quickly turns around and swings one of his clawed hands at Shadow. With quick reflexes, Shadow suddenly stops his advance and curves his torso, narrowly missing the attack intended to shred his gut open. However, one of Metal Sonic`s claws manages to snag a section of Shadow`s shirt and rips off one of the buttons during the swipe.

Out of the blue (no pun intended), Sonic spin dashes into Metal Sonic which sends the metal menace flying off to the side. Both Sonic and Shadow then dash towards him with intentions to continue the fight. Stopping by the main counter, Metal Sonic turns himself sideways and rockets backwards out of the path of Sonic and Shadow. Soon as he moves from the counter, Sonic and Shadow come in contact with the counter. Sonic puts a hand on the counter and does a fancy hand-stand on it to bounce over the counter before colliding with it. Landing behind the counter on his feet, Sonic darts off again to go after Metal Sonic. Shadow merely leaps over the counter to avoid running into it himself, though not executing any show-off moves that Sonic is known for doing. At the projectile rate he`s going, Shadow isn`t able to land on the floor behind the counter. So, he does the next best thing. Shadow rotates his body so that his feet will touch the wall behind the counter and he uses that to leap off, changing direction, heading off after Metal Sonic.

As the three fighters are quickly approaching the tables again, everyone scrambles to get out of the way. Though luckily, they wouldn`t have to. Metal Sonic suddenly changes course from rocketing backwards to rocketing forwards. With his clawed hand thrusted forward, he charges at Sonic. His claws grasp Sonic around his neck and in effect, slams Sonic back into Shadow. Using the powerful force of his very special rocket, Metal Sonic throws back both Sonic and Shadow into a wall, with Shadow sandwiched between Sonic and the wall.

Metal Sonic continues to push Sonic into Shadow and the wall while working on strangling Sonic. Sonic does his best to try and work the metal claws from his neck but isn`t succeeding too well. Shadow, on the other hand, growls a little getting annoyed with the situation. Despite being squished, Shadow manages to move himself around and gets an arm free. He throws a chaos spear at Metal Sonic. The chaos spear impacts on Metal Sonic`s side and creates an explosion that projects Metal Sonic off to the side with Sonic and Shadow projected to the other side.

Sonic is about to question Shadow who`s side he`s on when Shadow suddenly bursts past him back to Metal Sonic.

Metal Sonic lands nearby where the group is. They have moved themselves to the corner of the room, hoping to be safe. But now with Metal Sonic up close to them again, they hesitantly begin to work themselves into battle mode. This robot is known for his aggression and near constant desire to be in fights (then again the only time they have seen Metal Sonic was when he was fighting Sonic). They know they don`t hold much hope for taking on this mad-creation even if they gathered together as a team, but it looks like they have no choice.

It is Maria that Metal Sonic lands near by the closest. She is still seated in her chair. With the dangerousness of this robot quite obvious, Maria jumps a little in her chair when Metal Sonic lands by her and becomes instantly frightened. Metal Sonic rolls over onto his front and begins to pick himself up. As his head lifts, Maria comes into his view. He pauses and his red eyes flash. Maria jumps a little again at seeing the flash. With another pause, Metal Sonic finally gets himself to his feet. Standing tall over the seated Maria, Metal Sonic looks down at her and begins to reach a clawed hand towards her. Maria sinks in her chair, looking up to the danger staring right back down at her. This gentle girl stands no chance against this living weapon.

Suddenly, Shadow rams himself into Metal Sonic from the side with full force. Metal Sonic falls back down on the floor, knocked away from Maria. He`s facing the floor with Shadow over top of him. Immediately, Shadow lets his fists fly on Metal Sonic, striking him repeatedly in the back of the head for his punishment for endangering Maria. In the way only robots can, Metal Sonic rotates his arm back to Shadow. He grabs a hold of Shadow`s leg. His grasp is pretty tight and catches Shadow`s attention real quick. It`s painful. If Metal Sonic had grabbed Maria with this kind of strength, he probably could break a bone or two. Easily. Luckily for Shadow, he doesn`t suffer any broken bones as he is much stronger from being "built" for battle. Now with Shadow`s leg in his grasp, Metal Sonic throws Shadow off of him. Shadow goes sailing into one of the booth tables and actually causes the table to become unbolted from the floor.

Metal Sonic once again finds himself working himself to his feet from the floor.

Sonic jumps back into the game and sends a flying kick to Metal Sonic`s head with precision soon as the robot is standing again. Metal Sonic`s head is sent into a spin. Taking advantage of the temporary distraction, Sonic sends himself another spin at Metal Sonic. This time, Metal Sonic rolls over a few times during the duration of him being sent flying back across the floor. He slaps back against the counter with his back to it and in a sitting position on the floor. For a moment, Metal Sonic flashes his eyes.

He isn`t going to go down that easily. Shadow comes at Metal Sonic with intentions to continue his attack. Unexpectedly, Metal Sonic springs back to life and grabs both of Shadow`s fists with his claws. This stops Shadow from his advance. Shadow`s knuckles on both hands crack under Metal Sonic`s grip and he begins to grit his teeth. Face fixated on Shadow, Metal Sonic begins to slowly rise up to his feet. His grip only seems to tighten as he does so. The metal claws are beginning to dig into Shadow`s hands through his gloves. Shadow pulls up all his physical strength to try and gets his hands free. Both his and Metal Sonic`s arms tremble as the struggle of their strengths are ensued.

Rescue is on the way. Sonic skids up to the two of them and flips himself into an angled hand-stand. He swings both feet up and kicks Metal Sonic`s arms at an upward angle. The kick forces Metal Sonic to release Shadow and also causes the arms to hit Metal Sonic`s head with a loud clang noise. Upon release, Shadow stumbles back a couple of steps, tucking both hands into himself for a split moment. Then Shadow pulls his hands back out to evaluate the damage. They are slashed from Metal Sonic`s claws raking across them during the release along with a few punctures from when the claws were digging into him.

Shadow looks back up to Metal Sonic in time to see him grab Sonic by his vest with both claws and throw him up in the air. Shadow flicks both of his hands as if to fling off the pain. A few droplets of blood fly off his hands. In mid-air, Sonic flips himself over in hopes to be able to land on his feet instead of his back. Metal Sonic fires up his rocket once again and goes to ram Sonic while he`s still up in the air. He doesn`t get very far as Shadow flings a chaos spear into the robot`s shoulder. It knocks off the balance and gives Sonic the chance to land on his feet on the floor without being harmed by Metal Sonic. Stumbling to a stop, Metal Sonic turns back to Shadow and begins to head for him.

The moment he lands on his feet, Sonic takes off in a burst of speed. Sonic launches another flying kick at Metal Sonic using the speed he created for himself. This kick sends Metal Sonic sailing past Shadow and to the stage. The stage has a few microphones, a large screen on the back, a small screen on the front and the main karaoke machine on the side. It`s the karaoke machine that Metal Sonic smacks into.

The machine`s shell is busted open from the impact, leaving it`s wires and such out in the open. The electricity from the karaoke machine fires out and electrocutes Metal Sonic intensely. Stuck against the hole in the machine he created, it looks like Metal Sonic is experiencing a robotic seizure. Sparks are flying every which way coupled with dozens of electrical sounds. The karaoke machine is one of high quality so it`s not like the usual machines other places have. Because of this, it affects the other electric things in Club Rouge. Lights flicker erratically. In fact, one of the bulbs in the ceiling that provides light to the room bursts into pieces. It`s obvious that if this goes on too long, everything electrical will be destroyed.

Tails leaps into action to prevent this from happening. He dashes to the counter and circles behind it. Tails pulls open a metal door that`s on the wall, unveiling the breaker box. He takes just a second to scan over all the switches and then he flips all of them. Quickly, all of the electricity to Club Rouge is shut off.

Being that by this point it is evening, the whole club goes dark, making it difficult for anyone to really see. With no more electricity flowing through the karaoke machine, what follows is the unmistakable sound of Metal Sonic collapsing on the floor. Everyone waits in silence for a few moments but nothing else sounds. Did Metal Sonic short out? Sonic feels relieved at this,"Whoo! Glad that`s over."

Shadow speaks up,"That was too easy..."

"Soniiiic!!"

"GYAH!"

Amy is putting quite the squeeze on Sonic, giving him a lot of affection for coming out of the fight in one piece and for being "so brave" to fight Metal Sonic. Sonic hadn`t expected the clingy attachment from Amy so he stumbles a little when she comes out of nowhere and leaps on him. He sighs a little.

Shadow walks past the two of them to go check up on Maria to be sure that she is all right. Now that his leg is finally feeling pain from when Metal Sonic grabbed him, Shadow is sure he has a large bruise. He shifts how he stands a little in effort to try to hide that his leg is hurting. He stops in surprise seeing that Maria has gotten out of her chair and is standing in front of him. Contrary to Amy, Maria is much more calm and in control with her reaction to Shadow. She shows concern for his well-being and takes one of his hands with both of hers to examine how bad the damage is. She can see the blood covering his hand and can also see how tore up the glove is from Metal Sonic`s claws. Maria begins to get worried,"Oh Shadow..."

Shadow doesn`t protest or try to pull his hand away from Maria. His voice sounds just the same as it always had,"I`ll be fine, Maria."

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