Fireworks
Part One
"This is insane!" Knuckles' arms were folded across his chest in spite of the depth that gaped beneath the small solid piece of metal he stood on.
"You repeat yourself." Sonic tapped one foot, posture even more casual than Knuckles', both of them blindly trusting in Tails' flying skills, knowing he wouldn't shake them off the wings of the biplane.
Knuckles growled. "I repeat myself, alright. I repeat myself simply because one certain spiked idiot around here isn't listening to me!"
"I am very well listening! But I don't see you coming up with anything less – how did you call it? – insane." Sonic looked away from Knuckles and scanned the ocean below. "So, well, let me explain it again." The hedgehog sighed. "Eggman built a complex on top of that mesa-island to get all the missiles he placed there launched simultaneously at the most important cities on Mobius. And as Tails figured out, this is the only place from where that plan is going to work. So if we destroy that base of his, Eggman's scheme is useless junk. And we got the chance to blast a great deal of his doomsday devices from existence. All at once. He'll need long to recover from that bang!" Sonic snapped his fingers in front of Knuckles' face.
"Yeah, right! As you said: if!" Knuckles retort was sharp, eyes blazing. "This place is going to be overpopulated with robots and weaponry! All of them just waiting for the silly, reckless hedgehog to come in and get himself killed. This plan we are about to put into action is suicide!"
"If this is too risky for you, why did you come along?", Sonic hissed.
"I came along because Tails asked me!" Behind their backs, Tails ducked deeper into the pilot seat. Knuckles continued without noticing. "I didn't come because that neck-break-plan of yours is anything like great; I came because I couldn't let you run into an explosive disaster. Tails is right when he says you need air support!"
Sonic firmly crossed his arms on his chest and rolled his eyes. "Okay then, if my plan isn't your taste, what else should we do?"
Knuckles opened his mouth to answer, then stiffed, and shut it again. The truth was, there was no other plan. Knuckles knew. Sonic knew. But that didn't change that the echidna didn't like it at all. "This is still crazy," Knuckles muttered.
Sonic sighed and turned away again, looking out ahead, waiting for their goal to come into view. He didn't want to go through that discussion with Knuckles again. It would be the ninth time since they had started. And it didn't lead to anything useful. If at all, it distracted them, it was a little outlet for the stress they all felt.
Tails did too, but the fox tried to concentrate on his flying to block out the ever repeating arguments of his two friends. Secretly Tails fully agreed with Sonic, this was the ultimate chance to spoil Robotnik's plans and do significant harm to his arsenal. If the plan worked, it would be a punch in the face for the mad scientist, a strike he would need long to recover from.
But as much as this mission would bring them advantage, it was also quite risky.
It was silent now, silent apart from the monotonous whir of the Tornado's engines. Sonic and Knuckles had finally stilled, neither of them having any more arguments or insults to shout or yell or growl at each other.
But the silence was even more unsettling than their pointless arguing; Tails was so used to these only half serious confrontations that he almost needed them. And now their unfamiliar quiet was unnerving the two tailed fox.
"There it is," Sonic's words broke the silence long minutes later. The hedgehog pointed forwards.
Ahead, hundreds of meters high, the mesa rose out of the sea, waves crashing against the rocks on its socket and sparkling into white clouds of droplets falling back down. The rock climbed vertically into the sky, already turning slightly red where it was touched by the light of the nearing sunset.
What lay on top of this huge natural pedestal was a sharp contrast to the nature around. The flat summit was crammed full of machinery and fuel tanks, metal twinkling in the dimming sunlight, smoke rising from long chimneys, but what stood out the most were the nine tower-like missiles, standing upright between the machine blocks, their pointed tips stabbing into the sky.
If Robotnik managed to launch these huge things into cities… None of the three friends on the small biplane wanted to think too hard about that.
Knuckles drew a deep breath. "Alright. Here we are."
Sonic turned to him, for a moment meeting his eyes. "Ready?"
Knuckles nodded back. Suddenly both of them were calm, no arguments, no discussions, no different opinions. They just looked at each other, suddenly finding reassurance in the other's presence, knowing that they could rely on each other after all.
Sonic smiled at Knuckles and turned around to Tails. "Okay little bro. You know the plan aright?"
Tails nodded, his blue eyes narrowed with determination. "I'm ready. Knuckles and I will be your air support."
Sonic inclined his head briefly, his pointy ears twitching slightly with a rarely reached grade of concentration. "Good. Let's blow that stupid hunk of junk over there to pieces!"
Tails nodded again and forced the plane into a dive, Sonic and Knuckles crouching on the wings now. "Alright Sonic! We're coming in. Be careful."
"Good luck," Knuckles said quietöy as Sonic tensed to jump.
The hedgehog turned to his friends, for the blink of an eye flashing the typical, confident Sonic-grin at them. "See ya!" Then he was gone, somersaulting off the wings and landing on top of a small roof.
Tails pulled the plane back up and to the right, flying a circle around the mesa's top. "Okay Knuckles. We have to distract the flying bots around here. Sonic is on his own and an easy target down there."
The red echidna turned over his shoulder. He nodded. "I'm ready. Let's bust some robots, Tails."
Sonic landed in a crouch, shot a brief glance after the turning plane, then straightened up and stepped to the edge of the roof, taking a careful look downwards. The small road, certainly used by the robots to transport things around here, was deserted. Sonic leaped down and followed the way in a jog, his footsteps soft enough to be almost soundless.
He stopped abruptly when he reached the next corner, his sharp ears noticing the robots long before they noticed him. Sonic leaned against the wall, daring a glance around the corner. He needed to watch them only for a moment, then he turned back, crouched down and waited, counting the seconds it would take them to reach the corner.
Three, two, one, almost there.
Sonic's muscles braced and he was up like shot from a catapult, a blue streak rushing into the bundle of robot guards that totally didn't expect him to suddenly appear between them. Sonic dived around the nearest machine, curled into a spin and smashed two or three at almost the same time. Uncurling and spinning on his heels, Sonic leaped forwards, narrowly avoiding a laser beam, and rammed his shoulder into the nearest bot. It tumbled backwards, crashing into a second one that blew both of them up with a laser shot that had been meant to hit Sonic.
Only ten seconds later, Sonic knelt on a heap of smoking metal and plastic, the former badniks no longer usable for anything but recycling their parts, hopefully into something useful. Toasters or something. Sonic smirked as he stood upright, dusting himself off while he caught his breath.A small grin crept onto his face again as he looked around. "Well, that was easy. If this keeps up, this will be a piece of cake."
The blue hedgehog looked around, orienting himself, then he ran off to the left, following the direction the robots had apparently come from.
He had not gotten far when the grip of his sneakers on the floor was suddenly gone. "Whooaa!" Sliding helplessly, Sonic looked down.
Oil.
Great.
But the oil film shouldn't stay the only problem. The small road led to a stairway downwards. Sonic was tripped over the first tread and tumbled forwards, reflexively curling into a ball. He bounced over the stairs, then finally rolled to a stop and hunkered on his knees, carefully rubbing his sore head.
He stiffened at clicking sounds all around and looked up. "Oh oh…"
He was crouched on the metallic floor of a big square. A square filled with robots. Multiple laser guns glowed threateningly in his direction. Sonic cautiously climbed to his feet. "Eh... hi guys. How's it going?"
The first laser fired.
BANG!
Knuckles ducked and dodged the sharp pieces of metal wreckage zooming over his head when the nearest robot exploded under Tails' fire. "Good shot, Tails!"
"Knuckles! Watch out over there," Tails shouted, pointing to the right. Slightly below them and slowly descending was another bundle of flying killer machines.
"Got them!", Knuckles shouted back. "I'm on it!" He jumped off the wing, flaring his dreadlock-like spikes a second later and catching himself in a glide.
The echidna neared the robots from above and his spiked fist made hard contact with the closest robot's metallic skull. Dropping out of the sky together with the machine, Knuckles hurtled it at two of its companions. The shockwave of the explosion following the crash pushed the echidna upwards again. Another killer machine bit the dust through another stone-hard punch.
Knuckles caught himself, looked around to regain his orientation and glided over in the direction of the Tornado. Tails was coming back towards him, and crossing the Tornado's wings, Knuckles let himself drop down.
The weight of the landing echidna shook the small plane briefly. Tails counter steered, and as soon as he was sure Knuckles was safely standing on the wing, he leaned his plane into a sharp turn. His hand fisted around the control stick and through narrowed eyes the fox watched the next group of bots coming into his line of fire. His thumb pressed down hard on the button for the Tornado's machine guns and a new wave a fire smashed into the approaching badniks.
But more kept coming.
Reacting more through instinct than design, Sonic half leaped, half ducked forwards, the movement reflexively ending in a spin. His sharp quills ground against the nearest robot's legs, knocking the machine out of balance. Without stopping the spin dash, Sonic turned and went faster, bouncing against whatever pieces of robotic bodies would just appear in his way, hoping that they wouldn't hit him by chance.
He got out of his spin when the amount of contacts decreased. Now running instead of rolling, he noticed with relief that only a handful of badniks remained. The square was plastered with remains of damaged robots, charred by their own laser fire when they had shot after the hedgehog or torn apart by Sonic's spin attacks.
A minute later, Sonic was standing alone on a junkyard for broken robot guards. For a moment the hedgehog leaned on his knees to calm his breathing, then he continued his way, crossed the square and followed a stairway that led upwards on the other side of it.
Sonic climbed up onto a big humming machine, trying to get an overview of his surroundings. He was searching for a way to the missiles. From up on the Tornado it had been easy to see them, standing grouped on three spots on the big natural platform. But down here, Sonic's sight was filled with machine blocks and buildings. He couldn't look farther than a few meters.
But he needed to find the rockets. The plan involved that Sonic activated all three groups to explode and destroy the base, so that Eggman couldn't send them to a city and probably kill someone.
Clinging to a ladder-like thing on a tower's wall, Sonic finally glimpsed the tips of the nearest missiles. "Okay, wait for me, guys," he muttered and jumped back down, taking off again.
"Tails! We got company!" Knuckles pointed backwards.
Tails turned over his shoulder, shooting a hasty glance back, then yelped when the group of six or seven flybots closely behind him opened fire. Knuckles flung himself down on the wing to avoid getting hit.
Tails scanned the surroundings. The high chimneys, the buildings… Could work. "Hold on tight!"
"What are you going to – whaaaa!" Knuckles' question ended in a yelp when Tails gave the control stick a hard push to the right. The Tornado responded immediately, its right wing diving down and the plane did a twist through the fire of pursuing robots.
While Tails slalomed crazily through the shots, Knuckles carefully pushed himself to his knees on the side of the wing, not daring to let go of it with both hands. But he didn't need to. The nearest robots were in reach nonetheless. Knuckles leaned forwards a bit and gave the closest machine a hard punch, sending it in a spiraling motion first down and then crashing against one of the chimneys.
"Knuckles, get to the middle! I need a stable position!", Tails shouted over the engine's noise and the sounds of a mid-air battle.
Knuckles climbed to crouch behind the propeller. He was about to ask what Tails needed the extra stability for all of a sudden, when the question was answered already.
As soon as the echidna was were he'd ordered him, Tails pulled the Tornado upwards, then the small biplane and its two passengers were turned upside-down when the young pilot forced his aircraft into a loop. The wheels of the plane almost scraped along the wall in front of them, but the sounds of exploding badniks showed the maneuver had been successful.
Tails turned over his shoulder as soon as he had settled the Tornado into stable horizontal flight again. Three remaining, and he needed a way to shake them off his tail… Tails chewed his lip in concentration as he spotted a way to get rid of his pursuers. Could work... But it was risky. "Knuckles? Now you hold on tighter than tight!"
Knuckles looked ahead. They were flying directly into a group of long chimneys, smoke rising from their tops. And there was no place to get through, they were standing so close… It was almost a wall... "Tails? You won't…?"
Tails' eyes were focused on the small gap between the closest towers. "Trust me."
Knuckles groaned as he grabbed the wing so firmly he feared he might squeeze it under his fists. "Oh no." What am I doing here? I could sit safely on Angel Island and enjoy guarding the Master Emerald…
With a quick movement of his right hand, Tails pushed the left wing down again as if starting another twist, but the spinning was stopped abruptly, now the wings standing vertically.
"Please, be big enough for us to squeeze through…", Tails mumbled as he ducked in his seat. Of course he didn't need to, but it was an unconscious reaction.
Knuckles pressed himself tightly to the cool metal of the wing, squinting ahead through the wind and propeller wash. "Not enough, not enough…", he whispered to himself, unaware of verbalizing his thoughts.
The high chimneys closed in around the tiny plane, coming ever nearer and nearer and nearer. Threatening to crush the little Tornado...
Knuckles squeezed his eyes shut.
Sonic raced around the corner of a skyscraper-high machine, giving a tiny grin as the small boom behind him told that the robots couldn't handle the sharp turn as fast as he. No big surprise here.
He had gotten near enough to the first group of missiles to see them without climbing onto things. As long as the view wasn't blocked by one of Robotnik's pieces of machinery.
But the amount of humming blocks in his line of sight wouldn't have been a problem.
The problem was much more annoying. And much more clingy, tpo. It appeared in form of about twenty robotic guards that were currently chasing Sonic around in a labyrinth of machines. Sonic couldn't get to schedule with activating the missiles until he got rid of his new fans,;it was likely he would need at least a few calm seconds there to set the countdown and so on.
The blue hedgehog ran up a kind of stairway and found himself on top of a big sort of tub, filled with stuff Sonic hated even more than the robots. Water. Apparently used for the base's cooling systems.
Sonic dodge a metallic pillar, grabbing the banisters around the pool for support as his change of direction resulted in an involuntary slide on the slippery ground. A quick glance back showed that the bots were still behind him. Sonic rushed around the pool, then hopped out of a sudden idea onto the banisters, grinding along on the metal.
Some of the robots tried to follow and ended up tripping themselves into the water. Sonic cheered and kicked at one of their companions as he grinded past it. The force of the hedgehog's kick threw the machine off balance and it fell to the wet ground, sliding to join the other robots in the pool.
Sonic hopped off the rail and launched himself at the remaining enemies, taking advantage of the problems their metallic feet obviously had with the lack of friction on the wet ground.
The hedgehog's face was wearing a broad cocky grin as he watched the damaged machines bopping up and down in the water. "You guys have a nice pool party here and I'll start preparing the barbeque for later!" Sonic waved and sped off, turning back to the missiles.
He reached them only a minute later. A big control panel on a wall drew his attention, and stepping closer Sonic found that he was lucky and had discovered the countdown timer without a long search. "How nice of you Eggman, putting the clock just were I can find it," he mumbled as he stood in front of it, running a hand through his quills, green eyes trying to figure out how to work the machine.
Then he reached and turned a switch, a small screen flashing and showing a growing number. Twenty minutes… Should be enough. If they set the timer on a too long countdown, Eggman would possibly find a way to reverse it.
Sonic retracted his hand and watched as the timer started counting backwards. 20:00. 19:59. 19:58. 19:57…
The hedgehog turned. Now he only needed to check that the timers of the other rockets were also activated and then he had to get outta here.
Only a few minutes later, Sonic entered a big hall. Naturally he had planned to simply get in on one side and out on the other, but it shouldn't be that simple.
Sonic skid to a stop when the door behind him slammed close and the formerly only dimly lit room suddenly flashed into brightness. The hedgehog shielded his eyes from the slightly bluish neon light and blinked rapidly to adjust his vision. It needed a moment until the stinging pain in his eyes faded and he could see clearly again.
In the middle of the big room stood a kind of vehicle, its form remotely resembling a spider or an octopus, it had several long – arms, Sonic supposed. The body in the middle was wearing a glassy top and from inside the capsule, the broadly grinning face of Dr. Eggman was looking at the hedgehog.
"Welcome to my base, hedgehog. I hope you like it here. 'Cause you won't leave it again!"
Robotnik's fingers hit on a panel on his dashboard and the arms of his robot were launched at Sonic. The hedgehog slit aside, escaping two of them, then a third one smashed into his rips and Sonic was thrown through half of the room. He coughed, struggling to recover the breath the impact had knocked out of him, and the machine prepared another attack.