I own no Sonic characters, any familiar dialogue or the main plot. Credits to Sega.
Before I begin, I would like to say a big thank you to 'Darkspartan487' for adding this story to their alerts and favorites.
Reply to likliklik's review of Chapter 3: One thing I never understood about the game was why no one found out about that bomb...
Reply to ABCSonicKirbyWarriors' review of Chapter 8: You seemed quite down in that review. Was something wrong?
Reply to Sonic 2's review of Chapter 8: Glad you enjoyed that chapter!
Yes, the Babylon Rogues are quite the cheaters...
-Chapter 9: Race For The Treasure-
Suddenly, a metal grabber reached out and swiped Jet's crystal box from his hand!
"Hohohohohoho! Now I'll get the treasure of Babylon!"
Jet turned behind him to see a rather round evil scientist on his pod. Eggman was up to no good all along!
"Oh no!" Amy screamed as she rushed up the stairs. She took a huge leap and grabbed onto the Eggmobile, hoping to knock Babylon Garden's key away from the hovercraft's grabber. Alas, the pink hedgehog found herself whisked away as the Eggmobile took off.
"Eggman!" Jet growled. "Steal my treasure, will you?" He ran down the alter's steps and out of the Egg Colosseum to find his teammates. He figured that they would need to board the airship to catch up.
Meanwhile, Sonic, Tails and Knuckles regrouped, as they, too, drew up a plan to get Eggman.
"We'll need to ride the Tornado to get him at this rate!" Tails said.
"But we didn't exactly bring it with us, did we?" Knuckles groaned. "How are we gonna-"
"No problem," Tails smiled, as he took out a small blue remote and pressed the button. "I made this 'Tornado Remote' to bring said plane to where we are whenever we want!"
"Thinking ahead, are we?" Sonic grinned. "You always know what to do! But, uh... How long will it take, Tails?"
"From Future City to this colosseum, it shouldn't take too long," the two tailed fox responded. Turning around, he saw that the people were in panic. "For now, we should assure everyone that we'll take care of things."
The assurance received mixed responses, from cries of impatience to praise for the heroes. As the three did so, a blue biplane came into view. But there was no pilot!
"Ah, there it is!" Tails called out, pointing to the Tornado. The Tornado 2, to be specific. Unfortunately, the original was destroyed in a previous adventure... "Sonic! Knuckles! Let's go!"
"Right!" the two responded, following their fox friend to the biplane. Tails took the pilot seat, while Knuckles took the passenger seat behind and Sonic took his place on one of the upper wings. The engine whirred, once everyone was in position, the biplane moved forward and gained speed, until eventually being lifted from the ground, as the wheels retracted, and into the air.
"Let's do this!" Sonic cheered, as the Tornado 2 boosted ahead in the darkening sky.
Around Babylon Garden..
For some reason, Babylon Garden rose higher and higher. From the ground, no one noticed at first, but it became apparent eventually. Regardless of what the public thought, Tails continued to pilot his biplane over to the magnificent Babylon Garden. On the way, he, Sonic and Knuckles noticed a giant red airship, which was also headed for Babylon Garden. As the Tornado boosted forward and next to one of the windows, Sonic glanced over to it. In the airship, he noticed Jet steering it!
"You're after Eggman, too?" the hedgehog asked loudly.
"Don't get the wrong idea! I'm not on your side! I'm after the treasure Eggman's trying to steal from me!"
"Speaking of that guy..." Sonic glanced back to Babylon Garden, where Tails was ready to land his biplane. There, he could see Eggman riding along a brown path, as the Eggmobile suddenly transformed into what looked like a moped. Sonic, imagining the mustached scientist grinning to himself, got ready to jump out of the Tornado and take him down once again, but was interrupted.
"Wait, Sonic!" Tails called out to him. "Use this!" The fox reached out for a board that was stashed inside the Tornado, then passed it onto his blue friend. It had a sleeker design than the Blue Star, but functioned similarly. However, Tails predicted that it would perform better.
"Wait, you mean to tell me..." Knuckles started to say.
"Yep, that's right," Tails responded. Turning to Sonic, he said to him, "It's a new Gear I prepped up for you, just in case your old one somehow got destroyed."
"Convenient, isn't it?" Knuckles mumbled to himself.
"It is..." Tails sighed, remembering what happened to Sonic's Blue Star.
"Man, the list of things I couldn't do without you goes on, Tails!" Sonic spoke up. "Thanks!"
"We'll try to get Eggman from in front of him!" Knuckles told him. "You take him from behind and trap him between us!"
"Alright, I'm heading out now!" Sonic grinned. With the Blue Star 'Model II' in hand, he made his jump from the Tornado.
"Good luck, Sonic!" Tails shouted from above him.
Turning his attention to the Tornado, the fox continued to fly around Babylon Garden for a place to land it, while Knuckles kept his eye on Eggman, warning Tails as to where the doctor was headed next.
"Hmm... Over there!" Knuckles said, pointing to a large patch of grass near some ruins. "Land the plane there!"
"I'm on it!"
Tails switched the Tornado to landing gear. With the command set, the wheels of the biplane returned and the biplane began its slow descent. With careful positioning and angling, Tails and Knuckles were in for a smooth landing. After the two got off and retrieved their Gears, they were treated with a sight of several ancient relics, scattered across the grass.
"Wow, this place looks just as old as Angel Island," Knuckles commented.
"Could they have coexisted?" Tails wondered aloud. "Maybe I should find out someday!" But there wasn't any time to ponder at this moment in time. "Knuckles, let's go."
Before Knuckles could hop on the Red Rock, however, he and Tails looked upwards to see another aircraft begin to land. As it neared the ground and as the propellers' whirs grew louder, the two realized that it was the same red airship from earlier. They felt the air pushed against them, thanks to the propellers blowing it in that direction, but it died down after a few seconds. The doors opened.
Then, out came two familiar looking birds!
"Oh man. We have company," Wave sighed, turning her attention to Tails. At the same time, Storm pumped his fists at the sight of Knuckles and slowly walked up to him.
"So, you wanna rumble, huh?" Knuckles said.
"I may have lost that race to you, but I'm gonna get back at you. Right here, right now!"
As the two powerhouses glared at each other and Tails backed away in fear, he couldn't help but hear rustling from a large bush nearby. Suddenly, a whole slew of mysterious figures jumped out and circled around their four targets!
"Robots!" Tails gasped. "But how!?"
"TARGETING. TARGETING," the red robot, who looked like the leader of the group droned. Then, pointing to Tails, Knuckles, Wave and Storm, it gave the command to the rest of his unit. "ATTACK! ATTACK!"
As the swarm of robots made their move and charged towards their enemies, Knuckles stepped forward and said to Storm, "We'll have to set our fight aside for now! These guys are getting in our way!"
"I never thought I'd agree with you!" Storm replied, rushing ahead and smashing one robot to pieces.
Tails and Wave knew what to do, in order to fight the machines and went ahead to help out their teammates to fight.
Meanwhile, On The Other Side...
As Sonic fell from the sky, he placed his feet on the board to get an initial feel for the updated Blue Star. To him, it felt slightly lighter, for he was able to perform a backflip faster than he could with the original model. In his mind, the lighter weight translated to faster movement speed!
Sonic eyed Babylon Garden, but turned to his right when he heard the sound of someone else jump out and hop on his board.
"Jet..." Sonic said to himself.
The two landed on a path with brown railings, where the road itself was made of a gray concrete. Jet kick dashed ahead, but Sonic caught up in time.
"You can't catch up with him!" Jet told him. "Get out of my way!"
"And why should I?" the hedgehog smirked.
"I told you! When it comes to Extreme Gear, I blow you out of the water!"
"Is that so?" Sonic kept his cool, which confused and angered the bird at the same time.
"How can you be so confident, when you lost the World Grand Prix!?"
"Heh heh..."
"What now!?"
Jet turned to where Sonic was facing, straight ahead. For some reason, there was a dull brown ramp at the end of the road. Jet knew exactly what he had to do.
"Take a look at this," Sonic said. "I'll show you what true speed really is!"
That end quote is probably my favorite line in the entire game! There's something about it that just screams 'Yeah, it's endgame!'.
Well, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, tune in next time for the final race in the Heroes storyline!
-Have a great day, week, month, whatever, and stay upbeat, y'all!-