Act II/Chapter XX: Flying High

We had barely gotten out of the Ice Caps when we had seen the Egg Carrier. I was still giving the cold shoulder in regards to the avalanche, but I noticed that the icy terrain was ending. Beyond that was a big forest, which meant we were leaving the left side of the island, moving to the center.

"Why is he here?" Tails asked.

"Whatever it is," I answered, "we have to get up there and stop him."

"How?"

I couldn't believe he actually asked that.

"We're in a plane!"

Tails looked down at the throttle.

"Opps."

He pushed down on the throttle, sending the plane towards the rear of the aircraft. As we flew closer, I could see all the striking details of the ship itself: the enlarged wings, the pointed front, the blue boosters, and even Robotnik's "face" emblem on the side. Yep. Didn't look any different than the last time I saw it.

"How are we gonna get in?" I asked Tails.

"You have a point." He replied. "I don't see any other way we can get in without being-."

BOOM! Bullets started being fired at us.

"-SEEN!" Tails finished, now swerving the plane in any direction possible.

I slipped from the wings once again, but, luckily, I caught onto the fin on the back of the aero plane. As Tails piloted the plane in a new direction every 5 seconds, I noticed that the bullets weren't coming from the Egg Carrier itself… they were coming from Buzz-Bombers, one of Robotnik's most simple badniks. Think of it as a giant robot hornet that shots lasers from its stinger. It's actually pretty deadly if you saw one in person. I have… and it usually never ended well.

"I just fixed this plane two days ago!" Tails complained.

"And it just got waxed, too!" I joked.

"Sonic, this isn't the time!"

BOOM! The windshield in front of tails had broken, sending glass back at me (Tails had ducked just in time). The see-through surfaces soared through the air, momentarily slicing parts of my arms as I hung on the back of the plane. I nearly lost my grip because of the glass shards.

"Sonic? You okay?"

"I'll be good. Just need to lie down for a moment."

"We don't have a moment!"

Just then, a Buzz-Bomber buzzed its way down towards the plane. As I looked at Tails's flying masterpiece, it occurred to me that we could lose these awesome parts for real this time. In Grand Metropolis, there were at least replacement parts. There weren't any engineering shops in the forest as far as I could tell. I decided that the only way to keep the Tornado-III going was to turn the tide of this air battle.

Buzz-Bombers have these antennas atop their heads. Robotnik uses them to transmit his commands. However, he once spilled the beans on a second method to controlling them. If you could gain a hold on the antennas, you could control where it went and what it did. Someone who didn't know how to fly anything could at least fly a Buzz-Bomber. So, naturally…

I gained some footing on the plane in order to have a good amount of momentum to even grab the little bugger. Tails saw me out of the corner of his eye.

"What are you doing?" he asked, with a piece of fear stuck in his throat.

I gulped as the mech-bee flew closer to me. Just as it got only a few feet from me, I replied,

"Learning how to fly."

I jumped off the plane and snatched one of the antennas. The moment I pulled down with my weight, the bee decided to fly straight up (weird piloting controls). I pulled myself onto it as you would a horse. I grabbed hold of the other antenna and pulled up (to head back down).

As I inspected the bee, I noticed that this one had no firepower on it. That detail made me feel like I took this bee over for nothing… but I had remembered Shadow's ring.

"Let's see what we can do." I said with a smirk.

I pulled forward and leveled myself with the horizon. I saw the bees swarming around the left side of the carrier, trying to take down the Tornado-III. But they didn't realize that a) tails is an expert pilot, and b) we had the epic boosters on the back. Tails was able to elude things like never before. I saw him doing barrel roll in 2 seconds. That took mad skill.

I shot out my first set of Chaos Spears. The bees took a big hit from the first one. One bee's explosive end would knock another one into another, causing two explosions. Those explosions led to more explosions. A good third of the bees were taken out from that first swing of my arm.

I noticed, after the big flashes of the explosions, that there were no more bees in the area. I turned on my wrist communicator on my right, flying the bee itself with the other.

"Tails? You hangin' in there?" I shouted into the communicator (you can imagine how windy it was up there).

"More or less." He responded. "The plane hasn't taken any major damage, so I think I'm in good shape for now."

"Any bees on your end?"

"Not at the moment. You?"

"None for me." I told him, turning around to check. "Where did they… oh boy."

The bees had snuck up right behind me!

"Tails, help! Tango! Bravo! Seven-Niner! Whatever gets me support in the air!"

I began my treacherous path throughout the sky, hoping the bees would lose my trail. The bee was getting harder and harder to control (Robotnik must've known that it was being manipulated by an outside force). I kept looking back to make sure the bees didn't gain up on me too much (they were pretty close… but not close enough). And I might just be crazy, but I think the number of bees chasing me kept getting bigger and bigger every barrel roll from bullets I tried.

The head of the bee got shot off, which meant I couldn't fly myself anymore. In fact, it was pretty much a shuttle to hell, if you think about it (not that I thought I was going to hell). Sadly, I was flying downward when the bullet collided, so now I was really headed to hell. I may have screamed in a… rather high-pitched voice… *ahem*. Nevertheless, I feared for my life. The bees were even following me down to the ground. They were like kamikazes.

But, at the last second, lighting-quick light freaking made a blitzkrieg through the platoon. As I checked the left of the initiating explosion, I saw the light dim, and it turned out that tails flew straight through the battalion of old-school Badniks.

"That was for Narnia!" he shouted to the bees, which were now in smithereens.

He had flown under my now-useless bee, and I hopped into the back seat.

"Good flying, lil' bro!" I said to him.

"I guess he knows we're here." He stated.

"How'll we get in now?"

Tails turned to me and said with his little smirk,

"I have one idea."

"You sure this will work?" I shouted to him, hanging from the side of the left wing on the Tornado-III.

"You'll be fine." Tails assured. "Your head may hurt afterwards, but that's what your Spindash is for, right?"

I gulped. This wasn't going to end well… or at least I thought it wasn't.

Tails began to do a barrel roll, but instead of stopping after the first one, he kept barrel rolling to the right. We were parallel with the Egg Carrier's left side when we started, and Tails was still able to keep heading straight while barreling in the air.

I don't know about you, but my arms were about ready to pop off when he kept going. I remember catching sight of Tails's face, and… believe it or not… he wasn't scared a bit. This 14 year-old fox, from what I could tell, had definitely done this before! What did I miss?

"Here you go!" he shouted. "Let go… now!"

I released my grip. I was headed in an arc at the left side of the Egg Carrier. As I zoomed towards the exterior, soon to be the interior, I generated the revolving speed current in me once again, creating the Spindash. I recall gritting my teeth as the wall met with my kinetic ball of doom.

Once I hit the wall, I completely fell unconscious… for a minute or so. As I came to, I saw these odd, half-circle shapes hovering in the air. But, as my vision cleared, I could tell what they were: those Badniks with no heads. They were all "staring" at me. Their weapons weren't out; they weren't declaring war on my insides; they were simply standing there looking at me.

I looked back, and found that I had slammed right into a couple of mechs. They were all smashed up from the impact. Looking forward, I saw that I had made two holes in the ship: one entering from the outside air into a hallway, and the other from the hallway into a small, slightly shiny room. Even as I assessed my situation, the mechs just kept eyeing me down. I felt like I was in the wild-west, and we were just waiting to see who'd draw first.

Instead of drawing, I greeted them with,

"Fellas?"

I can sum up the whole situation after in four sentences: 3 seconds. One bullet shot. I escaped through the hole. They didn't.

I quickly called up Tails to inform him of my progress.

"Sonic, you make it in?" he asked.

"What does it look like?" I replied rhetorically. "I made two freaking holes in the ship already!"

"Where are you now?"

"Well, I just got out of a room full of Badniks… which blew up, ironically. I'm in some sort of hallway now."

"Where are the holes?"

I checked my progress down the hallway.

"If I was facing towards the outside, it'd be to my right."

"Perfect. I'll help you determine which way to go… or at least what seems like the best way to go."

"You think the doc has an Emerald?"

"Maybe, but we can't just lobby around if he does. Let's get moving."

I chuckled.

"You don't have to tell me that one twice."

As I ventured through the front of the ship, I came across a ventilation room. It had a metal walkway, consisting of platforms with narrow holes in them. Railings lined the path every way it went. I could see the ventilation machines, puffing out steam every few seconds. I could tell that my entrance did a little to the ship's systems.

Those subtle changes were placing the odds in my favor. If the doc focused on getting his ship repaired, I'd have a better chance of surprising him and beating him once and for all… at least, that's what I thought.

As I continued down the walkway, I could hear the sounds of bots shuffling in the lower deck. Tails had informed me that the ventilation room was on the deck closest to the exterior of the Egg Carrier. From what I could tell, I was at a good place.

However, as I neared the middle of this walkway, I heard the sounds of Badniks coming my way. I could see their shadows bouncing as they ventured down the corridor towards me. I turned around to head back, but another group of badniks had just arrived at that end. When I looked back at the corridor, I saw the Badniks blocking it.

I was stuck… for real this time. I may not have mentioned this, but there was this massive fan below the walkway. It helped blow air upwards towards the vents. I figured that, at the moment, me going down there would simply rip me to shreds. That wasn't really my idea of living… considering you'd have died at the end anyway.

The bots began walking towards me, readying their weapons. They weren't shooting me, but they were cautious about me (Maybe my fight at Angel Island taught them to be smart for once). One of them said to me,

"Stand down, prisoner. If you decide to attack us, you will be annihilated. Any movement will be counted as hostile."

Every movement, eh? I thought to myself. I simply shot my eyes to my left to see the fan swirling below. I looked to my right to see a wall of ventilation machinery… some of it climbable. I looked back at the bots in front of me. I narrowed my eyelids.

Then, like a ninja on crack, I zoomed off the walkway, over the railing, and onto the vent machines. Looking back, I saw that the first two bots in front of or behind me had destroyed each other. The miracles of speed, right? Sadly, the last four didn't do the same trick. They looked over at my position. And I honestly thought I was dead. However, I had an idea… one that involved much agility.

Having been angled parallel with the walkway, I hopped off the machinery. I flipped my feet to be in front of me. I watched the bots shoot at the machinery, but I wasn't finished (there was a fan I had to fear). Waiting for the precise moment with the right angle, I generated a speed current that shot down into my Homing Modules.

Once I shot off, you may think I hit the bot, but I didn't "hit" the bot. Let me explain: what I meant by "waiting for the right angle" was that I wanted to line up one bot with the railing of the walkway. Why? Well, you'll see why in a moment.

My feet slammed into the railing. I must've generated such a great current of speed that the force that receded from my feet shoke the whole bar. The vibrations, being so sudden and freaky, sent the walkway into hysterics, so to speak. The railing broke, the walkway began to crumble bit by bit, and the bots found themselves falling down into the fan.

Why couldn't I hit the railing without aiming for a bot, you may ask? Well, my Homing Modules only pick up on enemy signatures. I had to use my Light Speed Dash for things further away from me. That's the explanation for you.

I flew back onto the machinery, and I grasped each little tube, wire, or gauge box I could to stay on. Tails beeped me on my communicator, so I picked up.

"Sonic? Why do I see a bunch of robot debris coming out of the ship?"

"I just did a little house-cleaning." I joked. "I ended up getting rid of the floor in here, but it was obviously worth it."

"What are you doing now?"

"Clinging to machinery for dear life."

"Sounds like me."

"Yeah, except your machinery has guns."

"Well, they are only the finest proton-harnessing-."

"This ain't the time for bragging, Tails. We need to get to Ro-butt-nik."

Just then, I heard the doc's maniacal voice from around the room.

"You won't need to!"

I heard the fan begin to move quicker, and the air shot up faster. It was too strong for me to keep my hold on the vent stuff (I'm tired of saying "machinery"). It pulled me up towards the ceiling. But as I was lifted up to be squished between a rock and hard place, I began to think about this deck: it was the closest to the exterior. That gave me an idea.

I created a spinning kinetic current to create the Spindash once again. Furthermore, I unleashed the power of the Flame Ring, ready to leave a blaze where I left. I shot straight up at the ceiling, the air only giving me more momentum. I slammed into it, forcing my way through to the outside. I felt the breeze pass by, but the flames still rocked on. As I turned around to land near my exit, I felt an explosion from within the border of the decks. I must've passed through more vent stuff. The flames only grew larger.

When I landed, I saw that I was still at the front of the ship. I was looking down the exterior, looking at its details. The surface had a metallic stair way, if you will. They were big steps though (at least a 25 yards in length), and there were 5 of them. The first four had increasing opposing forces as you progressed to the 5th, which had this sort of circular, green, rotating thing (presumably the engine). Behind that was a small tower, which did rival that of the engine. I liked these odds: provided a small challenge as you went… kind of like how this story has gone so far.

I then heard Robotnik chuckling to himself.

"You had better hope you don't reach the engine, hedgehog." He snarled at me through the speakers in the room below.

I laid out my trademark smirk once again.

"You'd better hope I don't get there before you, Doc."

There was silence.

I continued, "… even though that'd be highly unlikely."

I feel like I called him "Doc" or "the doc" a lot in this chapter. Anyways, I hope you've enjoyed Chap. XX. It actually pleased me. We're getting to an action sequence that I've been imagining since I was 12. You'll know it when it's written (it will be the more highly descriptive one of the many sequences in my head).

We're getting there, guys. I have to leave school for summer on June 2nd, 2012, so I'm devoting this weekend to Broken Dreams writing. I'll have the story done (hopefully) by the end of Saturday, June 1st, 2012. Let's hope for a good finish.

By the way, when we hit Act III, I'll inform you guys of the results of the poll. Once revealed, I will do whatever changes may be necessary to this first title, depending on the results. Act III will have started by this Sunday. Trust me, this weekend is free for writing, so it's a good time to get down to business and finish this thing (I'm not rushing it!).

Another thing: we've entered the part of the story where I can't really get requests for stages. Characters maybe, but not stages. Send in requests for characters in the reviews or the PM box. Also, don't forget to vote on the poll. Your input can help bring what the viewers would like to see.

Anyways, Review, Request, & Vote! Read ya later!