| “ | The time has come to finish what we started one thousand years ago. Now, go forth, and destroy every plant, every animal -- everything that lives and breathes. Then, together, we will build a glorious world of metal. Rise, my warriors! | „ |
| ~ Lyric addressing his troops. |
Lyric the Last Ancient is the titular main antagonist of both Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric and Sonic Boom: Shattered Crystal. He is a giant, monstrous cybernetic snake from an ancient race whose main goal is to create and strengthen a robot army in order to carry out his nefarious deeds to destroy the world. Before he could carry out his nefarious deed, however, he was imprisoned. Over a millennium later, Lyric was freed and resumed his mission, but met opposition from Sonic the Hedgehog and his friends.
Appearance
Lyric is a monstrous sized snake with green scales and brown spots around. He wears a sophisticated red robotic chest armor with a pair of three-fingered arms. He has a gray-claw on the tip of his tail that resembles a rattler.
Personality
Described as darker, more foreboding and more power-hungry than Dr. Eggman. Having been driven mad by power, Lyric is an extremely cruel, ruthless, manipulative, and pitiless monster, and tech-savvy mastermind. He is also rather vengeful and treacherous, spending his time in his prison to plan his revenge.
History
Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric
Lyric was a member of the race of Ancients, a scientific genius. However, in his work to study the Chaos Crystals he became incredibly ill, as the medicine of the Ancients was helpless, Lyric made himself robot armor to survive and was driven mad, thinking that only machines are what he can depend on. With the help of Chaos Crystals he nearly completed his plan, until he was struck by mysterious hedgehog (actually, Sonic), who said that they had unfinished business. Confused Lyric was attacked by Sonic's spin dash and then trapped by rebellious MAYA unit, which allowed the Ancients to imprison Lyric in his tomb for next millenia, as he turned to statue.
One thousand years later, Lyric was accidentally released from his stone prison by Sonic the Hedgehog and his friends, who were fleeing from Dr. Eggman. Recognizing Sonic as the one who ruined his plans, Lyric said they had unfinished business. However, this time Sonic was the one confused, as his intervention in Lyric's plan was a result of him time-travelling. Lyric was able to counter Sonic's spin dash and trap the team, and to escape from his prison and return to his original plan.
Lyric was encountered by Dr. Eggman with Lyric's reprogrammed robots, as Eggman started to threaten him, only for Lyric to use his belt-device to take control of the robots and nearly killing Eggman, as he stated that he could be helpful when it comes to disposing of Sonic. Lyric then made doctor his henchman, ordering him to dispose of Sonic and retrieve the Chaos Crystals' Map. As Sonic presumably fell from the waterfall alongside with the map, Eggman told about it to Lyric, who was still satisfied as his worm robots were searching for the crystals anyway.
However, it appeared that Sonic survived the waterfall and both Lyric and Eggman started to chase him and his friends, only to end up losing them, as Lyric prepared to dispose of his companion, whom he stated to be even more annoying than the hedgehog. However, Eggman was planning to betray too, so he charged Metal Sonic against Lyric, thinking that more powerful AI will make him invulnerable to Lyric's machine control. However, Lyric was still able to manipulate Metal Sonic with his belt-device and blasting Eggman away.
Sometime later, Lyric was encountered by Eggman again, this time in his heavy weapon robot. As Lyric tried to control it too, he was shocked to learn that this robot cannot be controlled by him, as Dr. Eggman controlled it manually. However, Lyric was lucky to survive the attack, as Eggman had a problem with the rocket navigating system.
As Sonic and the others collected all the Chaos Crystals, Lyric ambushed them and trapped Sonic in the circle of his overpowered robots, threatening his friends to kill him if they won't hand the crystals over to him. Still, as they did it, Lyric ordered to shoot Sonic down, burning him under the rubbish. He still managed to survive, however, as Lyric thought Sonic to be dead, he started to accomplish his plan by reviving his giant Sentinel-robots army to eradicate all the organic life on the planet. Lyric then was encountered by Team Sonic in final showdown, only for the heroes to shred Sentinels off the Chaos Crystals and Lyric was depowered, but still not defeated, as he was able to trap Team Sonic with their own Enerbeams, as they were made out of the trap he used when was only released. When Lyric prepared to strike and finish them, however, Dr. Eggman unleashed his final rocket to Lyric, distracting him long enough for heroes to escape and tie Lyric. As Sonic disposed of his machine-control device, Lyric lost the last of his power only for Dr. Eggman to find this device and install it for himself.
Lyric's fate after this was unknown.
Sonic Boom: Shattered Crystals
Similar to Rise of Lyric, he was imprisoned by the Ancients, but this time for trying to seize the power of the crystal. He had awoken a thousand years later. He meets Shadow and puts a mind control helmet on him.
In the game's intro, he is seen battling Amy and had managed to captured her by placing a mind control helmet on her head, hoping to use her archaeological knowledge to help him locate the crystal fragment. In Shadow Canyon, Lyric appears as a hologram telling Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Sticks, and Shadow that he is close to achieving his goal before the hologram disappears. In Cloud Sanctuary, the heroes catches up to Lyric and he imprison everyone but Sonic in a capture sphere, he fought and was defeated by the latter.
Lyric is seen crawling away and reveals his robot trump card, but was thwarted by Shadow, who kicks him and Sonic opens the hatch, causing the evil snake to fall out the airship to his death.
Powers and Abilities
Lyric is one of the strongest enemies Sonic and his friends have ever faced. He is described as a formidable enemy and a force to be reckoned with, suggesting he is very powerful. As another testament to his power, he is the first person to dodge Sonic's spin attack, though he was already familiar to it when Sonic used it on him for the first time.
Lyric has proven himself to be a technological genius, having created an army of giant robots capable of wiping out all life on a planet. He has also been shown to have good deduction skills, able to quickly figure out that it was Sonic who stole his map. Also, as a reptile, he has a natural ability to regrow his parts.
Lyric's body is merged with a robot armor of steel, giving him a sophisticated robotic body which he uses to carry out his own nefarious deeds. This armor also drastically increases his lifespan, allowing him to survive for over a millennium.
Lyric's armor contains a computer-like device that grants him limited technopathy, with but a press on the button on his torso, he is able to take control of virtually anything electronic around him and operate it with his mind alone, as long as it is not manually controlled. He lost this ability after Sonic discarded the device behind it.
Lyric has demonstrated the ability to levitate in the air and is also capable of shooting harmful energy beams from the hand-like tip of his tail. He can also use an ability similar to telekinesis by charging his hands with a green energy to lift things into the air without touching them.
Quotes
| “ | Lyric: The Ancients will rue the day they dared to hide my Crystals from me. Now that I've found their map, those Crystals will be mine once again. And then I will annihilate them and everything they hold dear. Q-N-C: Just spit-ballin' here, boss, but can we just let 'em off with a warning this time? Lyric: Did they warn me that working to unlock the power of the Crystals would make me sick? Did they warn me that their feeble organic medicines would never be able to heal me? No, they didn't! I had to make this to keep myself alive. Technology is the only thing you can trust. Which is why I'm going to rid this world of all organic life forms -- and rebuild it, piece by robotic piece. |
„ |
| ~ Lyric's motivation for his evil goal |
| “ | I'll gather the crystal fragments and build my empire. | „ |
| ~ Lyric, Sonic Boom: Shattered Crystal |
| “ | You! You and I have unfinished business. | „ |
| ~ Lyric when he spots Sonic after being freed from his imprisonment. |
Gallery
Trivia
- His personality and goal are similar to the incarnation of Robotnik from the 1993 Sonic SaTAM cartoon.
- His status as ancient, and his gigantism suggests he belongs to the Titanoboa species, a 40 foot long boa that lived 60-58 million years ago.
- He has a very dark backstory, as a statue, who cannot move and presumably cannot see or hear, but is still conscious, would make it understandable that he developed psychopathy.
- Lyric is the darkest villain in the Sonic Boom continuity (considering the show's demographic), due to his goals in wiping all organic life on the planet and for having no problem in outright murdering his targets, by ordering his robots to kill Sonic.
- Lyric was listed as #4 in British Youtube gamer, RabbidLuigi,'s "Top 5 Worst Video Game Villains", list. Rabbid heavily criticized how the game spent so much time explaining his, surprisingly interesting, backstory that we never actually got to see him do anything evil to give us a reason to fear him, and the one evil thing he actually did, shooting down Sonic, he still completely failed at because Sonic somehow survived, making Lyric completely useless and unmemorable.
- Lyric was never seen or mentioned again after the events of either Rise of Lyric or Shattered Crystals.
