Sonic and Co. © Sega
OCs © Respective Authors
Chapter 2: Nega's Army Arises
It had been only ten minutes since the first ever Aquaball game ended. The game had ended in a tie between the Station Square Aeronites and the Central City Aquatic Stars, and the sport itself had become popular with just one game. A league would be started, including teams from other cities, and more people would participate. As for which teams would come to be, there was no knowledge. However, it was a peaceful day, so after the game was over, people would return to their normal lives.
Basil was standing near the street, just outside the locker rooms, talking with Armand, Tails, and Axel, the latter near his bright red car. He had gotten his driver's license three weeks back, and managed to rebuild a nearly-scrapped car to the point where it looked brand new.
"That was an exciting game, Basil." Armand complimented.
"Who knew that a game played underwater would be so popular, considering what all has happened during these years?" Tails asked.
"I guess it's a new form of entertainment." Basil said. "I mean, with all of Nega's attacks at times, plus the things that are always going on, people need something that they can use to forget it all, if only temporarily. And with how today's game went, I think we've found that something."
Before he knew it, though, he was tackled by a certain gray rabbit, who immediately gave him a hug.
"Basil, you were great in that game!" The rabbit said.
"Th-Thanks, Velocity." Basil replied while blushing a bit. "Glad you enjoyed the game."
Over the month-and-a-half that passed between Nega's last defeat and now, Basil and Velocity had grown close, with Velocity pecking him on the cheek at least three times a week. It was no surprise that Velocity liked Basil and had a crush on him, and it was known among some of the heroes. However, they didn't know, but rather suspected, that Basil had a crush on Velocity. Tails smiled at the thought of Basil and Velocity being in love. But his smile was soon crushed when he heard an explosion in the city. Armand, Axel, and Velocity heard it as well.
"What the hell...?" Armand asked.
People were running around, and screaming as well, trying to stay out of harm's way. Just then, a large twenty-foot tall robot came stomping around the corner. It was a large black-and-yellow humanoid robot, with a familiar logo on the chest, a cockpit shaped in a familiar face, and its arms had a cannon on the right and a machine gun on the other. There was nobody who wouldn't know who this was.
"Tee hee hee hee!" A familiar voice laughed. "I'm back to destroy the world, and this time, I WILL succeeed!"
"Damn it, Nega! Won't you ever GIVE IT A REST!?" Axel asked as he charged at the robot. "You'll never succeed against us! Especially not alone!"
"Ah, but who said I was alone?" Nega asked. "Other areas of the city are being attacked right now!"
In downtown Station Square, Teams Dark and Legendary were taking cover from an AK-47 being shot at them. The weapon handler was a gray wolf with a white shirt bearing Nega's symbol, blue pants, white gloves, and gray boots. From a distance, he was holding the AK, and he had some grenades that looked like baseballs hooked onto his shirt. In his pockets were several AK magazines, and he was quick at reloading that nobody dared try to move in during a break in the fire. Whoever this guy was, he was good. The wolf then plucked a grenade off of his shirt, pulled the pin, and threw it at the heroes. The grenade landed right in the middle of Team Dark. The trio backed away, with Rouge taking to the air and Shadow and Omega backing away, and allowed the grenade to explode harmlessly.
"Damn! Just who is this guy?" Shadow asked.
"I don't know, but he's good!" Hurricane replied before ducking another volley of gunfire. "Real good!"
"Do you think anyone can even try to get to him?" Zeus asked.
"A direct attack is not recommended!" Omega stated. "Even with Shadow's speed, he would not make it due to the wolf's reload speed!"
"Nobody's that good." Mintra muttered.
"Perhaps he has had many years of training." Rouge suggested.
"That's insane! He doesn't look much older than 16!" Zeus replied. "If he has had many years of training, and if he is working for Nega, then he would have to have been a child soldier! And that's cruelty right there!"
At that point, Shadow started sneaking around the building Team Dark was near. If he could get to the wolf, he could interrogate him and find out just what was going on. Meanwhile, Omega started firing back, trying to keep the wolf busy so he wouldn't suspect anything. The wolf had to keep ducking in order to avoid Omega's fire. However, to get around this, he decided to do blind-fire. He stuck his gun out the side and fired at his enemies, hoping to get one of them with a lucky shot. This caused Omega to back down. If one of those wild bullets hit him correctly, he'd short-circuit and shut down.
"What's the matter?" The wolf taunted. "Afraid to fight back?"
"No, we're just using tactics." A voice said from the side. The wolf turned and looked to his right side, only to see Shadow preparing a Chaos Spear. The wolf rolled to the side to dodge, but the dark hedgehog moved in for a kick. However, he was not prepared for what the wolf was doing, and that earned him a smack to the face by the butt of his AK. Shadow fell to the ground, but immediately got back up...just in time to backflip and avoid a grenade blast.
"I'll admit, you're pretty good." Shadow said with a smirk on his face.
"What's it to you?" The wolf asked.
"What is your name?" Shadow asked. "I haven't had anyone do that to me yet."
"The name's Daniel the Wolf." The wolf replied. "I don't want to have to kill you, so I suggest you back down."
"Don't want to kill me?" Shadow asked. "Impossible! Anyone working for Nega would kill an enemy on sight."
"I don't feel like explaining the story!" Daniel said as he fired off another clip from his gun. Shadow ducked behind the building in order to avoid it. However, another grenade came at him, and he jumped out of the way, barely avoiding the explosion. Unfortunately, this left him open to a shot, and the bullet hit his stomach, causing him to drop to his knees while clutching his wound. As Daniel was moving in for a kill, he was knocked back to his original position by an explosion. Omega had fired a shell from a cannon in his arm to stop the wolf's advance.
"That's it! I'll find some other place to destroy!" The wolf said before retreating.
During all of this, Axel had gone to recon the city to find out which areas were under attack and who was leading the charges. He had overheard the talk about the "child soldier for Nega" thing, which made him wonder.
"Could that be a true story?" Axel thought to himself. "Could that wolf really have been a child soldier trained to work for Nega? I'll have to find out at some point."
In the north area of the city, Sonic, Gerald, Amy, and Team Virtex were behind buildings, hiding from a sniper in the rooftops. A soldier who was in the area had already died from a bullet being put in his head, and this sniper was spot-on accurate. Nobody could get a visual on him, but the sniper had a direct view of almost the whole area. The sniper was a pale green alligator with a black-and-yellow striped shirt with Nega's symbol. The gator was wearing black pants with yellow lining, black shoes, and yellow leather gloves. On his head was a helmet that had a small targeting device, probably for calling in laser strikes.
"Alright, fools, you can't hide forever." The alligator said. "Come out so I can kill you!"
The four heroes didn't dare move. This led the alligator to lock onto them using his targeting device. Suddenly, the four heroes heard a roar above them as they saw a black-and-yellow bomber plane fly past them. As it passed overhead, a door opened below it, and several small torpedo-like bombs dropped from it. The six heroes scattered quickly, and the bombs exploded below them. The pilot of the bomber put the plane on auto-pilot and looked over the side, revealing a brown lion with a yellow mane, a blue pilot uniform with black and yellow stripes. If one were to be able to look inside, they would see black pants, boots and gloves. On his head were yellow-tinted goggles.
"Hah! That oughta bring them into Kenji's view!" The lion said. He then got a call on his radio.
"Great job, Norman! I've got a clear view." The alligator, now known as Kenji, said.
"No problem, Kenji." Norman replied.
Kenji then picked out a target. His first one happened to be Raine the Butterfly. He trained the crosshairs on her, then pulled the trigger. Luckily, a last-minute warning from Rector prevented the bullet from hitting its target. Kenji then threw the bolt, because he was using a bolt-action sniper rifle, and chose a new target, this one happening to be Gerald, Sonic's brother. However, Gerald caught a glimpse of the rifle thanks to the glint, and he managed to dash out of the way. While behind cover, he pointed out the location of the sniper.
"Sonic! He's on that rooftop!" Gerald called, pointing to the rooftop that Kenji was on.
"Leave it to me!" Sonic replied before dashing off. The blue hedgehog sped around the buildings, making sure that the sniper didn't see him, and started dashing up the one Gerald pointed out. The building was about 10 stories high, and was blue in color. Sonic shot over the edge of the building and landed on the roof. The alligator was caught by surprise and dropped his rifle over the edge, where he couldn't get it. Luckily for him, a fighter jet with a robot pilot inside flew by. Kenji jumped onto the plane in order to make his escape.
"See you pathetic losers some other time, heroes!" Kenji taunted as the pilot flew him away.
"HEY! GET BACK HERE!" Rector yelled.
"Stand down, Rector." Sonic told him
"Are you telling me what to do?" Rector asked. "I don't take orders from anybody, least of all you!"
"I'm saying that there's nothing we can do at the moment." Sonic said as he watched the fighter jet disappear from view.
"You better be right, Sonic." Rector muttered.
In the eastern area of the city, Knuckles and Shade, who had become great friends in the past month after learning a bit about each other, were taking on a white male wearing a red shirt and black pants, white shoes, and black gloves. A military cap was also on his head, a semi-automatic rifle was on his back, and a pistol was in his hand, firing at the two echidnas while behind cover, which happened to be a small building. The two echidnas were taking cover behind two different buildings. Knuckles already had an injury thanks to a bullet that grazed his left arm, but didn't do any serious damage. The duo dared not emerge from their cover, nor could they try a sneak attack because there were robots covering the rear of the gunner. Shade could make an attempt, but the robots' destruction would be noticed and she would be dead.
"Give it up, fools!" The human yelled. "You cannot outsmart Anton Morrison!"
"Maybe not." Knuckles said to Shade, loud enough for her to hear him. "But we can wait it out. GUN should be in the area, so they'll provide the distraction."
No sooner had he finished the sentence did it happen. Four GUN soldiers started firing submachine guns at the robots. Anton, as he was now known to be, kept his eyes on the two echidnas, however. He wasn't going to turn his attention to the GUN soldiers, as he knew they would have a hard time destroying the robots that accompanied him, because they had triple-layer armor and heavy-duty shields, which slowed them down greatly, but otherwise made them portable robotic tanks thanks to their weaponry. Three of the robots had machine guns while the other one had a cannon.
"Damn that guy!" Knuckles cursed. "He isn't taking the distraction. We'll need another way to get to him."
"Wait a minute!" Shade said as she pulled something out. "I can use one of my smoke bombs to create a cover for us."
"Why didn't you think of that before?" Knuckles asked, annoyed.
"Hey, I didn't see YOU coming up with anything." Shade retaliated.
Shade tossed the smoke bomb right into the space between Anton and the robots, causing the human to go blind and the robots to lose all sense of perception, effectively making them useless. Knuckles then took advantage of the situation and made a beeline for Anton's last position. The human hadn't dared move due to being blinded, and Knuckles hit his mark dead-on, causing Anton to be thrown back into the robots, and then into the GUN soldiers. Anton was stunned by the immense power of the echidna, and knew that he could not win this round. The GUN soldiers who were nearby tried to get up so they could fire at Anton or take him in, but the human had already gotten up and fled the scene, being picked up by a robot bomber and flown out of the combat area. Knuckles looked on as the bomber, along with Anton, disappeared from view.
"That was too easy." Knuckles said. "Nega's up to something. But what is he up to?"
"I don't know, but we don't have time to ponder right now." Shade said. "We have to go around the city and help anyone else in trouble."
"Right. Let's go!"
Knuckles and Shade then dashed off, taking recon duty in order to stop any robots trying to terrorize others.
During all of this, Team Babylon was taking on a tall gray raccoon with a brown wool cap, black mechanic's vest and pants, red work gloves, and a tool belt hooked to his waist, filled with various devices for creating, dismantling, and fighting enemies. His boots were black as well, and he had two battle gauntlets on his arms. Right now, his spiked gauntlets were his weapons, but he also had a customized air wrench that could fire bullets of any caliber in his right hand, and he was dead-on accurate with it. He had already taken out 15 GUN soldiers using it, and 10 more with his spiked gauntlets. On top of that, his EMP bombs had disabled the Babylon Rogues' gears somehow, which limited the birds' combat abilities.
"What's the matter, birdies?" The raccoon taunted. "Can't fight without your hoverboards?"
"Shut up!" Jet yelled as he dashed towards the enemy with his fans outstretched, ready to deliver a painstaking blow to the raccoon's body. However, the hawk missed his mark by an inch, and was immediately hit by an electromagnetic wrench, which sent him sprawling to the pavement. The bird got back up without any injury, though.
"Hmph. You're tough, birds!" The raccoon commented. "Very tough. It's not often that an opponent lasts this long against me."
"We're no ordinary birds, raccoon!" Jet said. "We're the Babylon Rogues, the greatest band of thieves ever to..."
"Yeah yeah yeah, whatever." The raccoon interrupted. "Hey, go back to your nest! A cocky-ass wanna-be leader, a geeky mechanic-freak, and a fat albatross who doesn't know when to finally stop eating don't belong ANYWHERE on the battlefield!"
"Don't you DARE insult my leadership!" Jet yelled, readying his fans.
"I'M NOT FAT! I'M BIG BONED!" Storm yelled, bashing his fists together.
"I know you did not just say what I thought you said!" Wave yelled, pulling out her wrench.
"Uh....oh. Damon, you are so dead." The raccoon told himself.
Jet was the first to make his move. He dashed behind Damon and slammed both of his fans into his back, causing him to reel forward...right into Storm's body. The powerful albatross grabbed Damon and tossed him into the air, where Jet jumped up and sent him careening to the ground. Unfortunately, Wave was ready for his arrival, and she had her wrench ready like a baseball bat. She wound up, swung the wrench, and nearly crushed Damon's spine from the blow. The raccoon was sent flying over the buildings as he disappeared from sight. The Rogues then regrouped and looked in the direction Damon had disappeared in.
"I'm sure he learned not to mess with us." Jet said. "I wonder where he's going to land."
Near the Aquaball stadium, Armand, Basil, and Velocity were taking on Eggman Nega. Velocity had been injured in her legs, which meant she could no longer battle, and Basil was intent on making sure she was okay as Armand took on Nega himself, with the fox providing side assistance. The battle had been a draw to this point, but it seemed like Nega was holding back.
"Nega, I know you're not using your robot to its full potential!" Armand said. "What's going on?"
"I see no reason to tell you, tiger!" Nega replied. "All you need to care about is how your allies in this city are doing."
He would get his answer soon enough, as Damon came from out of nowhere and slammed into Nega's cockpit. The glass busted, as Nega had seen many times, and Damon landed inside the cockpit, bruised up and with nearly a broken spine.
"Damon, what are you doing here?" Nega asked. "You're supposed to be taking care of the area I assigned you."
"Tell that to the birds known as the Babylon Rogues. They thrashed me!" Damon replied.
"Damn it!" Nega cursed. "I've gotten reports from the others that say they've retreated as well. This attack is a bust. We're retreating right now!"
"Where do you think you're going, Nega?" Armand asked.
"Enjoy this day, fool! You won't be seeing many more!" Nega said as he blasted off, with Damon in the cockpit. Armand didn't dare follow him, as he would probably be in deep trouble. Instead, he turned to Basil, who was using a special water to help Velocity heal.
"How is she?" Armand asked.
"She's going to live, but her leg bones are broken." Basil reported. "It'll take weeks for them to..."
"No, it won't." Velocity said, as she was still awake. "My leg bones have an incredible recovery rate. At the rate they usually go, I'll be back walking by tomorrow."
"Are you sure?" Basil asked. "How is that?"
"I'll tell you when I feel that I should." Velocity said with a smile. "For the time being, do you think you could carry me to your house? I'd like to stay with you for a while."
Basil immediately blushed at this. "Uh...s-sure, Velocity."
During this time, casualty reports were coming in from nearly everywhere. The northern area had 0 dead, about 16 wounded, and nobody missing. In the south district, 3 troops and 1 civilian were dead, 4 others were wounded, and everyone was accounted for. There were no casualties in the east and west areas, and the central area had 5 troops dead, 27 wounded, and none missing, and no civilian casualties. Damage to the city was small, as a few buildings had been slightly damaged, but they could be repaired. Overall, everyone was suspicious, as Nega should have been able to do a lot more.
Something was up, and nobody knew what it was...except Nega himself.
Speaking of the not-so-good scientist, he had returned to the base, where his henchmen were NOT too happy.
"Okay, what was up with our attack?" Anton asked. "We didn't even do any real damage, and you call our attack a success? What the hell?"
"I was beaten by birds! STUPID BIRDS!" Damon complained. He was now in a wheelchair, accompanied by a healing machine, and he was pissed. "And you call my "sacrifice" a good deed?"
"Simply put, the attack was supposedly a screw-up, Master Nega." A dog said. This dog wore a black jacket with yellow lining around the neck and shirt-tail. He wore yellow gloves, blue work pants, and yellow shoes. In his left hand was a clipboard for what looked like weapon designs.
"Oh, but this attack was how I expected it to go." Nega said, earning some complaining from his henchmen. "OH, BE QUIET! Now, the reason I expected it to go this way...was because I wanted to get an idea of how things were going to be for this ultimate final war."
"And what do you mean by that?" Norman asked.
"I learned something from that blasted pink hedgehog during my battle with her super form." Nega said.
"You'll never win, Nega!" Amy declared. "And do you know why? Because you're so sure of your plans that you don't factor in other potential heroes! THAT'S been the cause of your downfalls!"
"During this time that I took off, I thought about those words, and I knew that I would be up against many more heroes this time around." Nega continued. "So I staged a small assault. I sent spy robots to pick up combat data, to see how I would fare against others. I am going through them now, and I will learn from them, and create plans that they cannot stop! And I will need all of your help, if we are going to accomplish our ultimate goal: Universal destruction, and rebirth of the universe in the name of Nega!"
The henchmen cheered at that, as a few robots shot out confetti. Nega wouldn't let them fall. He would let them see his plans through to the end.
"Now, the time has come to unleash one of our main attackers." Nega said as a silhouette of a tiger appeared next to him. "Strike the Tiger, I want you to find a fox named Basil Giles. I want to weaken Armand Novak, and to do so, I want his best friend to die! In doing so, he'll lose the will to fight. Now go!"
The tiger disappeared, but they knew he was headed towards his destination. It would take a few days to find out where he'd be spending a lot of time at, but this tiger seemed cunning, and he would use it well in order to find a good place to attack.
Nega's plan of war...had begun.
End of Chapter 2.
Nega has dispatched one of his assumed elites to dispose of Basil and weaken Armand's will to fight. Where will it find Basil? And will it succeed? Find out in the next chapter of War of Vengeance.
Hope you all enjoy the chapter, because I certainly didn't. *slams head on desk*
