FLIGHT OF THE HALBERD: PART 8
The Secret of the Reactor
When we last left off in our story, Razorbeard was running out of time and options. As the Sonic Heroes trashed the Halberd left and right, his only plan (a desperate one at that) was to unleash the Heavy Lobster on a weakened portside wing. Despite Meowth's constant warnings, Razorbeard went through with the plan anyway…and as it turned out, our heroes trashed the Lobster and managed to escape the wreckage of the Halberd's clipped wings. We now rejoin Kyle and the gang as they make their way towards the center of the ship…
The dark and dank hallways of the battleship reeked with the smell of decaying, rusted robot parts. As we inched our way through the endless maze of corridors, many signs indicated that we were nearing the ship's reactor, the heart of the Halberd. The Black Hole Army's waves of troops tried to flush us out, but we disposed of them hastily. After a few more narrow twists and turns, we stumbled out of the tunnels only to come upon a large door.
"I got this one," Knuckles chuckled. He began pummeling the metal plates with massive force, but after a few minutes of hard punches, there wasn't even a scratch on the door. Knux stepped back, scratched his head, and said, "Ok…I thought that would work…" Tails gladly stepped in and commented, "Say Knux, did you ever think of pushing this button?" He reached over and pressed a big red button on the side of the wall where we were standing. The doors released their latches and slowly began to open. "Tails, you know how much I hate when you do that…" Knux grumbled. But all things aside, the door was open, so in we went.
Upon entering the large area, there was nothing to be seen; all of the lights were off and every part of the room was completely dark. "Jeez! Can anyone find a light switch?" I barked out. We fumbled around for about 5 minutes trying to figure out where we were until Silver managed to find a lever near the door. He quickly pulled it in his direction to switch on all the lights, but when they turned on, we looked around to see a bunch of machinery start to activate. Each machine linked up to another one next to it, creating a chain of power leading all the way towards our main target: the Halberd's reactor.
"All right boys," I began to say. "We're finally here! I'll let y'all pick your own method in order to waste this contraption. Just make sure to leave nothing standing so we can bring down Razor-butt and his crew for good!" We assumed battle positions and began a charge towards the reactor. All of a sudden, just as quickly as we had neared it, we got thrown backwards flat onto the wall.
"Erm…Kyle? What just happened?" Sonic asked me. "Uh, you're asking me?" I confusedly replied. After prying myself off the wall, I charged at the reactor again, only to find myself thrown back once again. "What the…! What is UP with this thing?!" I shouted. Giving a frontal assault one last try, I rushed up towards it, but before I got there, alarms began blaring. Before I knew it, I was surrounded by defense turrets and giant laser cannons. "Umm…that's my cue to run away…isn't it?…" I meekly whispered.
The guns fired every which way as I bolted back towards my team. When I got back, Ty declared, "Well mate, in case you haven't noticed, something's definitely up with this thing! Like the reactor is shielded…or something of that nature." Great…like we didn't have enough problems. But just to add insult to injury, a large monitor appeared from the ceiling, lowering itself to our position. Static crackled across the screen before finally showing that metal menace, the one and only Razorbeard.
"Greetings Sonic Zeroes!" he began to announce. "I trust that you're having fun with my reactor? Oh…of course you are! Because you're now finding out that the entire perimeter is completely shielded thanks to the power of Raritanium crystals I mined out from the planet Veldin a few months ago!" At that moment we knew we had a situation on our hands. There isn't a single weapon, laser, force, ANYTHING that can penetrate a Raritanium crystal.
"Basically, with this shield around the reactor, there's no way that any of your attacks are getting through! You might as well surrender yourselves now…if you do I just might make your deaths quick and painless!! But until then, go ahead and play with my toys a bit longer. Knowing the firepower they have, I'm sure all those guns, lasers, and blades will make quite handsome Swiss cheese out of your bodies!! Muahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!" The screen then shut off and shot back up through the hole in the ceiling. Immediately following Razorbeard's message, the barrage of bullets continued.
"Ahh!! Kyle what do we do?!" Tails cried. "For now…RUN!!!" I quickly replied. We all split up and sprinted around the room, dodging bullets and lasers like trying to dodge rain in a thunderstorm…it was pretty dang tough.
The mechanical onslaught seemed to last for hours, until suddenly one of the laser cannons locked onto my position. Upon the cannon firing, I quickly dodged the shot, but soon noticed the laser beam ricochet off the ceiling, walls and floors before finally somehow penetrating the Raritanium shield and dealing a critical blow to the reactor. The entire ship quaked with tremendous force as the reactor took damage.
Back on the bridge, Razorbeard and his flunkies fell to the floor as the Halberd shook. Getting back to their feet, Meowth quickly asked, "What the heck was that Boss?!" "I'm not quite sure…but I have a bad feeling about it," Razorbeard muttered. He ran over to the security feed from the reactor's core to find that his equipment had become damaged. "What the! How could this have happened?!" he angrily barked out. "I thought you said that reactor was practically invincible!!!" Evil Bomber and Meowth could only shrug their shoulders in confusion as Razorbeard looked on in frustration.
After everything stopped shaking, we all regained our footing and took a look at the reactor. "Wow! How did it get damaged?" Knux pondered. I answered, "Well from what I saw, a laser fired at me, ricocheted off these walls and stuff, then the laser actually went THROUGH the shield!" Tails then took a look at the point where the laser went through and finally understood what happened.
"Guys check this out! The energetic properties of these lasers are just powerful enough to break through this Raritanium! Usually a normal laser couldn't penetrate this stuff, but this laser seems different…" He continued to point out the details of the laser's energetic structure and etc. for a good 10 minutes. "Obviously this is a whole new type of energy. What type it is I can't say as of right now, but if it can break through something like Raritanium, then that's some hardcore stuff!"
"Wow Tails, that's amazing! How do you know all of this?!" I exclaimed. "Oh well ya know…I didn't get this smart overnight…hehe." After scoping out the area, I huddled my teammates together and came up with a plan. "Okay guys, so here's our new strategy. There's a total of 7 laser cannons around this room, and 7 of us. Each one of us on a cannon, we keep dodging the other stuff, then when a laser gets ready to fire, jump in front of the shield and lure the cannon towards you. That should send the laser in the general vicinity of the reactor, and hopefully it nails a hit on the hardware. A few good rounds on this thing and we'll take this entire ship down, and the Black Hole Army with it! Now who's with me?!" We all put our hands in and gave out a strong battle cry. "Gooooo SONIC HEROES!!!"
We went back into the action and started putting the lasers to better use. Managing to keep the cannons distracted, we got the lasers to bounce around every which way and back towards the reactor, destroying the defense turrets in the process. Each laser, as Tails expected, broke right through the shield and dealt a serious blow to the reactor's machinery. With every hit to the core, the Halberd's systems and defenses gradually became weaker and weaker. It was obvious that the ship couldn't take much more of this severe damage.
"Noooo!!! This can't be happening!! All my hard work is going down the drain!!!!" Razorbeard cried out in anguish. He snatched his intercom and blared out on the speakers, "Attention all troops aboard the ship, a plentiful bounty for the squad that brings me the heads of those insolent twerps!!! GET DOWN THERE NOW!!!!!!!!!!" Within mere seconds, the hallways outside of the core were flooded with Black Hole Army soldiers waiting to take us out.
"Yo mates, we've got company!" Ty hollered out. "Well then," I quickly replied back, "I say we wrap up this little tea party ASAP!" Taking matters into my own hands, I snagged one of the laser cannons at its base and opened fire on everything in sight. "You guys are welcome to join in at anytime by the way!" Following suit, Sonic and the crew took control of the rest of the cannons. Wave after wave of troops fell before the never-ending onslaught of laser fire. After catching a break in between hostiles, I warned the guys, "Stand back boys…we're about to see some FIREWORKS!!!" I aimed my cannon towards the reactor and let the lasers fly.
The shield finally gave out from the constant damage, and we all let loose on the remaining parts of the reactor. After a valiant effort, the core finally shattered into pieces and was destroyed. It wasn't long before the room was lit up with explosions and flying debris. "All right fellas, I think that's our cue to bail!" I shouted out. "Tails, what's our quickest exit?!" Before he could get a word out, part of the ceiling gave way to an opening back up towards the main deck. "Umm…I think that way will do just fine," he replied jokingly. Without missing a beat, we sped our way up the makeshift ramps and ledges created by the charred shrapnel.
"USELESS FLEABAGS!!!!" Razorbeard screamed at the top of his lungs as he cursed out Meowth and Evil Bomber. "You insolent whelps have failed me for the last time!! Thanks to your crappy work, all we're left with is a fiery ball of junk that's plummeting towards the ocean! Now you are left with no other option…you two will have to go downstairs and finish them off yourselves!" Meowth's mouth dropped to the floor and cried out, "Are you INSANE, Boss?! They'll tear us apart! We don't have any way of beating them!" Razorbeard violently groped Meowth's throat and growled to him, "Well then you'd better find a way…or consider your sorry hides SHARK BAIT!!!!!!!"
Back on the main deck, we escaped the inner sanctum of the Halberd only to make a shocking discovery… "AHHHH!! WE'RE GOING DOWN!!!!" everyone cried. I calmed the guys down and said, "Easy fellas, easy! Now listen…our mission is nearly complete. We might not have salvaged the Halberd but we did what we had to. Now the only thing left to do is show those Black Hole Army pricks that we mean business."
I pointed towards the bridge and continued, "We're headed up towards the top of that tower and taking them down once and for all. You guys with me?!" They looked at each other, then turned back to me and replied, "Kyle…what else do you expect us to say?" "Hehe…that's the spirit boys," I chuckled. We prepared ourselves, then ran towards Razorbeard's tower in the hopes of finally finishing off the Black Hole Army for good.
Meowth rushed up to Razorbeard's side and yelled out, "Boss! Boss! I found something that might help us out in our upcoming fight!" Razorbeard only glared down at him and kept working on an escape plan. Meowth frowned and decided to tell Evil Bomber about his surprise. "Hey Evil Bomber! Check out what I dug up!" "Hmm? What's up furball?" he said. "Look at this battle armor I found in my room. It comes equipped with these cool clothes manufactured for speed and dexterity, steel throwing knives, double claws for faster throwing, and a couple badass daggers! What do you think?"
Evil Bomber scoped out the equipment, thought for a minute, and finally asked Meowth, "……think you might be able to get one more of these for me? Hehe." Somehow Razorbeard overheard their conversation and hollered out, "Whatever you're planning in there, I hope it'll get rid of those annoying pricks!!!" They stared at each other with a worried expression, but they regained their confidence before Meowth said, "Don't worry dude, I'll see what I can do." They then searched the rooms for more weapons. With the Halberd descending rapidly and the guys and I racing up the wrecked tower, Meowth and Evil Bomber knew they had to make one last stand…and they needed to make it count. Too bad for them though; they have NO idea what's gonna be in store for them. This is gonna be fun…haha.
Our heroes have proved themselves victorious! They fended off the Black Hole Army's forces and found a way to destroy the once-indestructible reactor! With the ship in shambles and Razorbeard & Co. on the brink of defeat, the Sonic Heroes are on their way to settle the score once and for all! How ugly are things gonna get? You'll have to wait and see in the next thrilling chapter! Don't miss it!!!
TO BE CONTINUED...
