Lyric the Last Ancient

"Technology is the only thing you can trust. Which is why I'm going to rid this world of all organic life forms&mdash;and rebuild it, piece by robotic piece."

- Lyric the Last Ancient, Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric

Lyric the Last Ancient is the main antagonist and final boss of both Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric and Sonic Boom: Shattered Crystal. He is the last of a benevolent race called the Ancients, but went mad with power and turned on his peers so he could create a world of twisted metal and robots using the power of his people's crystals. Before he could carry out his nefarious deed, however, he was imprisoned. Over a thousand later, Lyric was freed and resumed his plans, but was defeated by Sonic the Hedgehog and his crew.

Concept and creation
Lyric is supposed to be an extreme embodiment of everything the Sonic franchise has come to stand for surrounding its central conflict of nature versus technology, with Lyric representing the love of technology. According to Bob Rafei, the CEO of Big Red Button Entertainment, the concept of the main villain involved many creatures, including an owl and mechanized owl, until he decided that "the snake design really fit" and was compelling for Big Red Button Entertainment. Lyric parallels the role of the snake in the Biblical Garden of Eden, and it was then decided to make the villain of the Sonic Boom continuity a snake; it represented dark sides and evil things, the opposite of Sonic's can-do heroic attitude.

Appearance
Lyric is a giant and monstrous snake with green scales and brown spots in places. He wears a sophisticated brown robotic chest armor with a pair of three-fingered arms. He has a rattle-like object on the tip of his tail that is a gray claw, essentially resembling a hand.

Early life
Lyric was originally a member of a race called the Ancients, who was devoted to peacefully controlling the world’s resources. At the time, Lyric was working to unlock the true power of the Chaos Crystals. However, a failed experiment led to Lyric being crippled, and thus built a robotic suit to survive. Soon after, the snake descended into insanity, and became convinced that nothing but technology could be trusted. Building an army of robots programmed to obey his every command, Lyric set out to destroy everything organic and create a world of twisted metal and robots. However, just before he could successfully take over, he was confronted by Sonic the Hedgehog (who had traveled to the past) who trapped him in his own base, allowing the last surviving Ancients to imprison him in a tomb where he was supposed to remain forever. With his army shut down and his plans ruined, Lyric waited in prison plotting his revenge, though as the years passed, he began to give up hope.

Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric
In Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric, Sonic had accidentally released Lyric from his tomb. Once he escaped the prison of his tomb, he began searching for a map which contained the locations of the Chaos Crystals he had lost so many years ago but when his search was fruitless, Dr. Eggman confronted Lyric and told him that he had to listen to Eggman. Lyric then went ahead and overrid his robots and told Eggman that he was in charge. He then told Eggman to look for Sonic because he probably had the map.

Later, when Eggman had told Lyric that Sonic and his friends had died falling over the end of a waterfall, Lyric insulted Eggman and said he had sent Driller Worms to excavate the remaining Crystals. When Lyric discovered one of the Driller Worms were destroyed, Lyric grew angry and decided to look for Sonic instead, knowing if he had the map, all he had to do was follow Sonic and wait for him to collect all the Crystals. During one of Lyric and Eggman's search, they met up with Sonic and chased them down for the Chaos Crystal. When they lost, Lyric and Eggman betrayed each other and Eggman called Metal Sonic but Lyric took control of him and ordered the metal hedgehog to attack Eggman. Lyric was then confronted by Eggman in his mech and Lyric tried to take control of the robot but was unable to. Eggman then attacked Lyric but he escaped. Later, Lyric was confronted by Sonic and his friends and was defeated and tied up by an Enerbeam.

Sonic Boom: Shattered Crystal
In Sonic Boom: Shattered Crystal, Lyric had escaped from his prison and had begun searching for the scattered shards of the Lost Crystal which would give him omnipotence, where he was later met by Shadow. Lyric took a liking to Shadow's style and turned him into his slave by sneaking a device on him when the hedgehog refused his service. Days later, Lyric found Amy at some ruins and planned to use her archeological knowledge to find the crystal he coveted. Ambushing her, Lyric tried to fight and force Amy into helping him but when she refused, he resorted to knock her out by placing another device on her.

Personality
Lyric is described as darker, more foreboding and more power-hungry than Dr. Eggman. Having been driven mad by power, Lyric is an evil, ruthless, dangerous, pitiless and remorseless monster, and an extremely tech-savvy mastermind. He is also rather vengeful, spending his time in his prison to plan his revenge.

Powers and abilities
Lyric is the strongest enemy Sonic and his friends have faced yet. 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 Lyric's 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, Lyric 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 unleashes powerful shock waves when he hits a ground. 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.

Sonic the Hedgehog
Lyric seems to have an unspecified relationship with Sonic the Hedgehog. He recognized Sonic upon his release, claiming that they both had unfinished business, even though Sonic had no idea of what he meant. When Sonic then tried to attack him, Lyric was able to stop the hedgehog's attack, mocking that he was still predictable after a thousand years. It would be revealed that it had been a time-travelling Sonic and Tails who had originally helped seal Lyric in his prison. Soon though, Lyric starts to see Sonic and his team as a threat to his plans of world domination.

Dr. Eggman
In the present day, Lyric formed an uneasy partnership with Dr. Eggman, even though the doctor is less powerful than him.

Shadow the Hedgehog
In Sonic Boom: Shattered Crystal, Lyric took a liking to Shadow's style when he first met him, which made him decide to make Shadow his slave.

Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric
Lyric will periodically fly into the air and summon minions to attack the player. When on the ground, he will slam the ground with his tail and attacks with his robotic claws. After hitting him enough times, the player will be able to hit him with the Enerbeams. A gateway then opens for a character to retrieve the Crystals. There are four of these in the battle, and each one employs the skills of a specific character. As the battle progresses, Lyric's attacks become much stronger, ranging from a laser assault to throwing a bomb at the player. After getting all the Crystals, Lyric will then remain grounded, allowing the player to attack him but he will still attack the player. After repeating the above procedure for the final time, the battle will end.

Sonic Boom: Shattered Crystal
Shattered Crystal's boss fight restricts the player to only controlling Sonic, as his friends have all been recaptured by Lyric. The fight has three phases, separated by chase sequences similar to the Rival Races from elsewhere in the game, (though losing the races here does not penalize the player). After the first chase, the pod containing Sonic's friends will roll to a stop, but before Sonic can jump to it, Lyric appears and the fight begins, taking place on a 2D plane with a bottomless pit on either side. Lyric's attacks include hovering out of reach and firing wide lasers downwards at different spots on the field, firing rockets that semi-home-in on Sonic, hovering to the end of the arena and firing a long laser all the way across, and extending his robotic arms outwards. Sonic must attack Lyric by either homing attacking him just after he finishes firing his horizontal laser, or homing attacking his hands as they extend towards him, destroying the barrier protecting his face so he can land a blow. Deal three hits, and the next chase will begin. The only differences between phases are the layouts of the chase sequences being different, and the arena having more and more gaps covered by platforms that fall in stood on for too long.

Trivia

 * During the boss fight against Lyric in Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric, by using Knuckles' "infinite jump" glitch, it is possible to jump over the force field of the arena and travel all the way to collect the Crystals and immediately skip to the final phase of the boss fight with Lyric.
 * This is no longer possible since the glitch was fixed in the 2015 January patch.