Hello again dear readers. I took a two week break from my one-a-week comitment because I posted two last week. But any way, I understand I've been asked to continue, so here I am with:

The Cannon's Fire: Part Two

"Is every thing ready?" Tails asked from his captain's chair on the bridge of the Blue Typhoon.

"Yes" they all replied.

Tails pulled a lever and the whole ship began shaking. From the out side, a camper watched as the ground a few meters from Tails' workshop opened up and the large space craft moved to a vertical position.

A few seconds later, smoke and fire rose into the air as the Blue Typhoon was propelled off the ground.

"all systems go!" Tails said.

Shadow pressed a button on a panel transferring Chaos Energy to the engine. After a long while, the Typhoon broke through the atmosphere at the speed of sound.

Tails pulled both control levers in opposite directions to point the ship toward the Space Colony ark and beyond that, Ghost Space. Another flip of a lever sped the ship up, offering to get them to their destination in minutes.

Tails looked at his dedicated crew.
"This is it guys, the final battle, if you will" he said. He first looked to his left where Rouge was positioned as navigator. Below them on the ground were Amy and Cream at the threat stations, while Espio, Charmy and Vector were preparing to go down-deck and man three separate space fighters.

All the while, Sonic, Shadow and Omega prepared to head out to fight. Tails found himself thinking of how little the odds were in their favor. Eggman no doubt had a fleet and not to mention, Black Ray, The hedgehog that had gotten very close to eliminating Sonic on multiple occasions. But it didn't do good thinking about it, they would do what they always had done: fight to the best of their ability. Another thing to think about, was how Black Ray was unable to take on more then three opponents at a time, now they were throwing him ten. If the fleet went down easy, Black Ray might not be too big a problem.

"We're heading toward the location" Rouge said "and Doctor Robotic is here with a fleet, just as we expected"

Tails gestured for Rouge to bring it up on the screen. At her touch, it flickered to life. There were easily thirty large well armed ships at his disposal, and Black Ray was standing on the flag ship in the front. "Time to get this started" Sonic said with a smirk. Tails nodded.
"right. Sonic, Shadow, You two get to the cannon bay , I'm going to transform it to launch you."
Sonic and Shadow ran out of the room while Tails looked at Omega and Chaotix. "Omega, get to the outer hull and load your guns. Espio, Charmy, Vector, get into the ships and contact me when you do"
The four obeyed the command and left the room.

"Amy, Cream" he said, pulling a switch and activating the cannon for Sonic and Shadow. "you two get ready to fire at the ships. Focus on one at a time until said ship is disabled, understand?"
"yes sir!" Cream replied.
Amy sat silent for a second as if thinking of a sarcastic remark, but gave up and moved to focus all her attention on her aiming panel.

"Tails, we're in" came Vectors voice over the com.
"good, I'm going to launch you when we get closer. Flying is easy: simply move the wheel, and press the red button to fire, got it?"

"sure"
"understood"
Um... Yeah"
Came their voices.

"I hate to be like this, but failure is not an option. Eggman has something big planned and we need to prevent them"

Every one nodded.
"Sonic, are you guys in the cannon?"
"Roger buddy" Sonic replied.
Tails pulled yet another switch and the cannon began charging.

"we're getting close" Tails said, watching how close they were getting to Eggman's fleet
"3" he said
"2" he aimed the cannon for the back most ship.

I'm that instant, Black Ray snapped his head back to see the Typhoon approaching. With a wave of his hand, five ships turned around and dived for Tails.
"one" he finished. He pressed a button and a switch at the same time, sending the Chaotix out, and Sonic and Shadow flying.

The Chaotix began circling and shooting one ship, while Sonic and Shadow shot right through the engine of another, disabling it.
With that one out and the other occupied, only three made it through and began firing at the Typhoon.

Amy and Cream focused on the left one while Tails Shot a cannon blast at the middle ship, but only doing half the damage of Sonic and Shadow.

The Left ship took heavy damage damage and was forced to circle back while the center one's shooting was halted if only for a few seconds. Meanwhile, the right ship was unscratched and completed it's run over the Typhoon, damaging the now straining shield.

"Not good" Tails muttered to himself. In that moment, the middle ship's cannons came back on line and began pounding the typhoon again.
It took only a moment for Cream and Amy to disable the ship. Tails smiled, but only briefly as he realized the disabled ship was about to collide with his Typhoon. Thinking quickly, he yanked his controls sending the ship in a barrel roll like maneuver in an attempt to dodge Eggman's ship. But it failed, as the ship hit a wing and sent a shock wave through the shield, fusing several circuits.

When he looked up, the other two fighters took advantage of the distraction and swooped down, firing lasers at the bridge, rattling the occupants.

"left one!" Tails called to Amy and Cream, realizing his cannon was out of range. The torrents spun around and destroyed the left ship.

"no!" Tails looked down at the pressure gauge. The lasers had formed minuscule cracks in the screen and oxygen was slowly leaking out. Meanwhile, the last fighter was circling again, further damaging the hull through what little was left of the shield.
"Take him down" Tails ordered,
But without the other ships hindering it, it evaded most of the torrents with ease.

Just as Tails was ready to quit, Sonic and Shadow spindashed through the Ship's engine. .

As it was descending and about to crash into the typhoon, Omega jumped out and shot it away.

As this finished, Chaotix finished destroying their target and returned to formation. A smile returned to Tails' face.
"Okay guys, we can do this!" he cheered.

Meanwhile, a similar smile spread on Black Ray's lips. He swung his arms and another group of five fighter took a U-turn and engaged Tails and his crew.

Sonic and Shadow flew at the first ship and began working their methods on it's destruction. Chaotix took out one and moved on to the next by the time Sonic and Shadow had disabled two and Cream and Amy easily destroyed the last one while Tails assisted Chaotix.

"Perfect every one!" Tails congratulated. It had taken a bit of warming up, but they were on fire now.

Black Ray looked back and frowned. "Suit your self, Sonic the Hedgehog" he swung his hand sending ten ships toward the Typhoon. "Chaos control" he muttered. In an instant, he was next to Omega on the Typhoon. In another instant he had released a bolt of energy, damaging the red robot, and sending his spiraling off the ship. Sonic and Shadow looked back at their adversary.

"Came back to press your luck?" Sonic called, stepping forward. Shadow followed, watching Black Ray carefully.
"Chaos Spear" Black Ray said, making the first move.
Sonic and Shadow quickly dodged a most unexpected spread of Spears.

As their battle began, the ten ships charged at the Typhoon. "Espio, Charmy, Vector; split up!" On his order, Chaotix split and each took a separate Ship. Espio pulled up to the fighter on the far left and began circling it, dropping lasers on it's hull, meanwhile dodging it's projectiles. An easy task given his training in martial arts. After all, this was about quick precise movement and unmarred hand-eye coordination. Not to mention, he had to be looking for a weak spot. What wasn't easy, was taking a large ship out with one this small. But if he didn't he wouldn't get paid.

Espio's eyes examined the ship and his gun's effect on it. Searching for some sort of vulnerable spot while making sure the enemy never found his. He was doing considerably well until he glanced to the left.

As Chaotix engaged The first three ships, Tails watched the other seven surge toward them.
"full spread" he ordered.
Cream and Amy sent a spread of lasers, holding the seven ships back as they broke formation to avoid getting hit. "perfect" he said. Watching a ship that had moved to an unthoughtful position. He quickly hit a trigger, sending a blast from his cannon hurling toward the unfortunate ship, who's central controls and engines were vaporized on impact. Tails pulled his controls to the left to avoid the other six ships heading toward him.

With their target out of range, the fighters took another U-turn and circled around to drop their load on the typhoon.

"their coming back around, get ready" Tails said. Amy and Cream took aim and shot down one ship, but the other five pushed through and completely deactivated the Typhoon's shield.

Amy and Cream tried desperately to shoot the passing ships, but every time they took one down, another took it's place. the Typhoon was being battered. Tails thought hard about just what to do. then it hit him: There was nothing he could do.

Meanwhile, Sonic and Shadow weren't doing much better and Black Ray had moved the fight through the hull of the ship and slowly down a hall to the engine room where the Chaos emeralds were.

"Chaos blast" Blac k Ray said, but before the blast could be released, Sonic and Shadow took his standing still as an opportunity to attack, knocking his concentration off.

Once he was down to the ground, Black Ray knocked them off by swinging his arms, once done, he threw spears to get them away and continued to get back on his feet.

But his problem was stuill standing in front of him: Shadow and Sonic were blocking his way to the chaos emeralds. He had tried teleporting in there, but some machine prevented it.

An idea Black Ray thought. He took a deep breath in preparation and lunged forward toward Shadow, eyes on the golden rings latched on his wrist. He would have no chance charging through them, but charging at them he might could pull off.

When he hit Shadow, he grabbed on to his wrist as the black-red hedgehog pushed him to the ground, trying to get him off, but no simple tactics would work on Black Ray. He held his own, determined to get the ring, even Sonic's persistent poundings proved insufficient to Black Ray's will.

At last, Black Ray managed to rip the ring from his left wrist and kick him self off. But much to his dismay, Shadow had gained an edge and managed to Knock him into the wall and hit multiple times with his fist. Black Ray felt his conciseness drifting. He knew he couldn't die. He learned this from the weeks of torture he had suffered in return for failing to kill Sonic on two occasions.

"I need you Black Ray, come here" It was the female voice again. It was soft and pleasant. Was that death? Did he want to die, his body just wouldn't let him?

No he couldn't. He had a job to do. He vision slowly returned to him. Shadow threw Black Ray to Sonic who flipped him and slid him into a wall down the hall.

Black Ray smiled. what a mistake it was, putting distance between them. He grabbed the golden ring and absorbed it into his body. "Chaos control" Black Ray said.

Shadow's eyes widened as he realizd what Black Ray was doing. But it was too late. Black Ray's body illuminated with Chaos energy as he charged forward, knocking Sonic and Shadow out of his path and bursting into the engine room.

"Sonic" Shadow shouted. Sonic nodded knowing what he had to do. While Black Ray ran to the Chaos Emerald on one side of the room, Sonic dashed to the other and grabbed the other.

As Sonic grabbed one emerald he looked up to see Black Ray just feet away. He didn't know what to do, he just knew he had to do something. Acting entirely on instinct, he raised the Chaos Emerald. "Chaos Control" He shouted. Before Black Ray could hit him, he froze in midair.

For a moment, Sonic thought he had frozen time but Black Ray weakly backed away. He lunged again only to be stopped be what ever Sonic did.

Reluctantly, Black Ray said: "Chaos control" and vanished.

Sonic put the emerald back on the energy receiver and passed out, exhausted after what ever he had just done.

Chaotix limped back onto the bridge after their ships werre disabled.

"What do we do now Tails?" Vector asked

"I don't know" He replied

"Tails" Rouge said, returning after destroying a few ships from the inside.

"Eggman has something else up his sleeve"

"Put it on screen" Tails ordered. In a moment, Tails saw a large cannon come out of Eggman's flag ship and aim at the Typhoon, followed by it charging.

"I'm reading that it's very vulnerable. hit it with our cannon and it will back fire and disable it's energy source as well as the whole ship's. not to mention we would knock out it's main computer and all these little ships might deactivate and we would win this"

Tails nodded "Prepare the cannon"

In a few seconds the cannon was ready to fire and Tails put his thumb over the trigger.

"Just one moment" Tails said,

"Tails, you have to do this now"

A flood of memories washed over Tails.

He couldn't shoot her. Shoot who? Was any one over there?

Someone was. Was it Cosmo? If he didn't shoot she would live.

"I can't do it, she's over there!" Tails said shaking his head

"Who's over there?" Amy asked,

"She is! She'll die! I can't do it. No one do any thing!" He said

"Tails, fire, fire now!"

"I can't"

Realizing what had to be done, Rouge flew up so she could fire the cannon, but it was too late.

Eggman's cannon fired, and hit the Blue Typhoon, destroying a large chunk of it and sending it toward earth. in a matter of minutes, The ship was in the atmosphere.

"Tails! Amy called, working her way next to him. "You know flying better then any of us, you need to land this ship!"

"I can't she'll die, she'll die. you can't ask me to shoot her!"

"If this ship crashes we'll all die" Amy said "If we crash she will die"

"She's dead, isn't she?"

"Not yet" Amy said, trying to work with Tails "But she will if you don't land this ship!"

"Okay" Tails said, grabbing the controls.

He lifted the nose of the ship so they crash landed in a large valley area.

every one was a little shaken but no one was dead. after landing, the shock wave knocked Tails out and he had to be carried by Amy and Cream.

Once they were all out (Including Sonic and Shadow limping out worse then Chaotix) they looked at the damage done to the ship. it was amazing they all weren't dead. but odds are the Typhoon would never fly again.

"The ruins and Tails' work shop not that far" Any said, "We'll regroup there"

Every one nodded and began the trek there.

"Shadow" Sonic said. "Did you see what I did with Chaos Control?" Shadow nodded

"I think that might be our advantage over him" Shadow replied

"If only I was a little better with my Chaos control"

"Well," Shadow said "I could train you. given you had the ability to drop the airy attitude and take some instruction."

Sonic smirked "One thing at a time Shadow." He said winking

"But yes"

Eggman looked up and down at the capsule in front of him. It had a blob similar to what Black Ray use to be inside of it.

"Black Ray" Eggman said "The offering"

Black Ray stepped forward with his four Chaos Emeralds. "Chaos control"

He said, opening the capsule.

The blob floated out and examined Black Ray. in a few moments it had transformed into a Blood Red hedgehog with wild spike and blood shot eyes. it wore no gloves or shoes, but quickly formed some from the meteorite around him.

"Black Ray my brother" The hedgehog said

"I am Blood Ray"

And thus, another OC. I know some of you are rolling your eyes, maybe you dont't like Ocs, or maybe you don't like how I named them, but fear not, the point of Ocs in this story is to assist in Character development because as the titals says, this is only Act One of an arch I am working on. (But again, fear not nnone of these acts end on a cliff hanger, and they will be written so they can be read independantly. ) But that's quite enough of my ramblings. I will be back next week with Chapter Ten.