Chapter Ten: Chasing the Egg Carrier. Take 1

Not a large chapter, but it is something that will move the plot forward.

Sonic and Tails raced back to the workshop, hoping to get into the Tornado and take off after Robotnik's giant cruiser before it got too far out. However, neither of them were really looking forward to trying to take it down. From Eggman's just brief description of it, finding a weak point and taking out all of the defenses that were scattered across it was what they were going to be tasked with. And it was no easy task. For Sonic, that task for them would rate on a difficulty of nine-point-five out of ten. Ten, for him, was the virtually impossible.

Tails reached the door to her workshop and she looked at it before she took a deep breath and she asked, "Sonic, are you ready for this?"

The blue hedgehog nodded and he said, "This is going to be just like the past...with that old Eggman and not this new bozo."

The twin tailed fox opened up the door and she said, "Go wait on the runway. I'm going to be bringing the plane out fast." She then closed the door and dashed to her plane. Sonic went to where the runway would appear and he smirked, watching as it began to unfold.

Outside of the garage, it was simply what appeared to be a straight cliff with tall palm trees lining it. To a casual viewer, it would at first not appear to harbor any sort of runway. However, the palm trees started to move to the side on platforms, showing that they were actually false ones that Tails had put up. Then, the ground slid aside to reveal a paved runway that was elevated to be level with the garage. The doors opened, showing Tails starting to bring the plane along the runway.

Sonic's pride and joy was a red biplane with twin machine guns mounted on on the bottom right beneath the propeller. It was very fast, about as fast as Sonic was, but it did happen to lack maneuverability. However, Sonic figured that such a thing was not going to a problem. This new Eggman certainly did not seem bright enough to be that large of a problem.

Sonic hopped on and got onto the back, near the tail. This was, of late, one of his preferred positions when on these small planes. He had such extraordinary balance that he could easily stay there, and he could adjust easily even if the plane were to start spinning through the air. Tails glanced back at him and she asked, "You ready, Sonic? We're going to take the fight directly to him this time."

Sonic nodded and he said, "I'm greatly looking forward to it, Tails! Now then, let's get moving!" With that, Tails put the plane on full throttle, getting it moving across the runway. It then lifted off the runway and shot out into the deep blue sky. It was a cloudless day, meaning that finding the Egg Carrier was not that difficult. However, getting to it would be the main problem. Even as he watched it coming closer and closer, he was beginning to feel quite nervous about this offensive.

Soon, they were close enough that they could easily see the ship before them. Tails' sharp eyes caught some dots coming out from the bottom and she said, "Get ready, Sonic. We've got incoming fighter planes!"

Sonic now noticed the specks that were slowly growing larger as they approached the single biplane that was approaching the Egg Carrier. Sonic got ready for some major action, as did Tails. The planes were yellow on the bottom with blue around the top. However, they did not seem to be flown by anyone. It looked like they were controlling themselves, or being remotely controlled by some giant computer or something.

As they got closer, they began to fire small energy pellets at the Tornado. Tails deftly turned the plane so that the pellets missed and then she opened fire with the machine guns, catching two of the planes along their wings and making them unstable. The planes, not able to handle that, immediately began to spiral downwards. The third plane among this first wave was Sonic's game. He flung himself off of the plane and kicked off of one of the wings hard enough to send the plane spinning at a faster rate than it could control. This one too began to spiral downwards. Sonic easily landed back on the Tornado, this time in the middle of the wings.

Both Tails and Sonic could now see at least thirty of these specks approaching them. Tails said, "I don't think that we have enough firepower to do this, Sonic!"

Sonic thought for a moment before he said, "Do your best, Tails! Give them the best marksmanship that you have!"

The twin tailed fox nodded and then she began to strafe left to the left, taking precise single shots. Sonic watched as she shot and several of the specks began to fly down. Then, she strafed to the right, doing the same. She took at least twenty-seven of the thirty, but three managed to reach them and were going to ram into the plane. They didn't expect Sonic to act.

They were coming at the plane in a the pattern of an upside down triangle, deviously set up to ram right into them no matter how Tails moved the plane. Sonic took action, leaping towards to the bottom on and kicking his foot into the cockpit before leaping up as the plane caught fire in the computer filled cockpit and spiraled downwards. He then bounced between the other two planes and knocked them aside with cracks going through the planes. He caught onto the tail fin of the plane and hauled himself onto the tail again.

By now, they were close enough to get up past the engines of the Egg Carrier and to get over the top of it. The moment that they flew over it, Tails was greeted with a nasty surprise. The top was covered in cannons and turrets. All of them turned around and attempted to lock-on to the plane and shoot it down, shooting huge payloads of missiles. Tails very narrowly averted her course to avoid the barrage of missiles. Fortunately for her, they were not homing missiles. She did a quick strafing run following the narrow missile avoidance, and she tore the turrets and cannons apart. She flew along the side and found a similar encounter. This time, she was ready and had already taken down around half of them before they fired at her. She slipped aside again and did another strafing run to take the rest out along that side.

She said, "I hope that Eggman won't be missing those!"

Sonic let out a sly chuckle at her comment and then he said, "Man, if he does, then he's quite out of luck, don't you think?"

Tails nodded to this and then she continued her flight. She flew along to the front of the ship and flew out ahead of it, not remembering the mention of a giant laser. Sonic didn't think about it, or he would have noticed that something was wrong with their trajectory. He realized moments too lat what was going on. "Tails, I think that we-" he said before a giant blue beam blasted past their plane and shore off one of the wings!

The plane began to spiral out of Tails' control. She could not keep it from going into the dreaded death spiral. "Sonic!" she called out in a high, shrill shriek. Sonic held on and tried to get to her, but the spin was too much. It flung him off of the plane, away from Tails...Tails did her best to get out and managed to escape from the plane and did her best to spin her tails to slow her descent...the last thing that either of them saw of each other was that they were both falling away from a crashing plane, as the Egg Carrier passed overhead.

Plot twist from the actual game, I know. I'm lame like that. But at least its a chapter, right?