Chapter 25: 3 Day Ride (Day 3): Shadow Awakes
10:30AM, with Eggman.
"Oh Silver! It's time to wake up!" shouts Eggman as he comes in Silver's quarters.
"Mmm, but I don't wanna go to school…mmm." Silver mumbles as he pulls the blanket over his head. Eggman stares, annoyed.
"Silver, you imbecile, it's time to put the transporters to the test! Merciless will arrive at point E in about 40 minutes."
"What's for break feast?" Eggman grits his teeth.
"It's called breakFAST! No eating until we see how these things work."
"Aww, but I'm hungry sir, an elite can't do well on an empty stomach."
"Bah! Fine, I'll have the chef-bot make pancakes or something." SWISH! Silver was out of bed and through the door before Eggman could finish his sentence. "Hmph, lucky for you my research indicates you need enough food to keep your strength level high." Once Eggman reaches the dining area, Tails, D.R. and Amy scramble in.
"Silver, you gluttonous rat!" shouts D.R. as he watches how fast Silver reaches the chair.
"Relax, Dark Red, everyone is getting something to eat before we begin our plans for today." A few minutes later a feast is set with everyone eating. Amy looks around the table and smile sheepishly.
"This could be fun!" she thinks. Silver is happily munching on pancakes until one of them levitates into the air and onto D.R.'s plate; he's unaware as he is drinking orange juice.
"HEY, YOU RED, GREEDY BASTARD! THAT WAS MIIIINE!" Silver shouts at the top of his lungs. D.R. looks at Silver dumbfounded.
"What?" he asks confused.
"YOU TOOK MY PANCAKE YOU FAT SACK OF CRAP!"
"I didn't take anything! OOF!" Tails is eating rice balls when, unaware, one of them lifts up and launches at D.R., hitting him square in the mouth. Silver bursts out laughing. D.R. glares at Tails. "YOOUU!" D.R. picks up a banana and chucks it at the orange fox, knocking him in the head.
"Grr!" Tails growl. "What the hell was that for!?" Suddenly he gets splashed with Silver's apple juice which Silver didn't get a chance to drink yet. "HEY!" Tails picks up an apple and fastballs Silver with it, breaking the apple, knocking him out the chair and cutting off his laughter.
"OK, that does it!" shouts Silver as he gets up. "IT'S GO TIME!" He lunges at Tails and D.R. jumps in, all of them creating a fight cloud. Amy giggles and continues nonchalantly eating her food. Eggman walks in and the fight cloud immediately stops with everyone on the floor.
"HE STARTED IT!" shouts all the boys pointing at one another. Eggman sighs, annoyed.
"Let's just go Silver, the rest of you get cleaned up and head to your quarters to await further instruction." Everyone leaves quickly while Silver follows Eggman. They make their way to a room in the hangar part with a computer. The hangar is neatly align with all sorts of battleships, some bigger than others, some more burly than others, some with cooler shapes than most. "All right Silver, I need you to send your vehicle units to assault Merciless' truck! The attack doesn't have to be successful but I need to know if these transporters are capable of handling large and mass numbers of metallic objects with fuel without combusting." Silver scratches the back of his quills.
"Not a problem but… I can't call them from up here. The Death Egg doesn't have the main server that I can use to mass summon them." says Silver then he realizes that he's in the Egg Fortress control room. "Uh? What the hell?"
"These transporters can easily break down any matter no matter how dense it is and it works quite swiftly wouldn't you say?" Eggman cries with glee over Silver's wrist comm. "The best part is there is no sound from it so no one can tell exactly where it comes from. These transporters are essential to the next part of the plan."
"Oh ok."
"The rebels are near point E, I've programmed the computer to find all the transporters I've created and soon will have them planted throughout the country. I'd sell this new technology to other countries but too much paperwork, bah! It wouldn't matter since eventually they will all come under my control!" Silver begins typing on the computer.
"Yeah, I'm sending them all to point E now! Those punks better be ready to defend themselves."
"Go as rough as you want on them, Silver, Sonic has caused me enough trouble throughout these years and I'll be damned not to keep him on his toes!"
"But… wouldn't you want to get rid of him?"
"That, I would, Silver boy, but how would it look if Sonic has gotten weak and soft over the years and then I come in and blow him away with a slight breath? So simple and anti-climatic, wouldn't you say?"
"Hmm."
"The result would be people calling me a cheap shot and I would never be able to rule the way I want. In fact, I am still criticized about my victory ten years ago even today! Letting Sonic get stronger then defeating him in his moment of glory will get me the respect I deserve! Now, GO SILVER! CRUSH THEM ALL!"
"No prob, clever egg, sir!"
With the rebels.
Merciless spots the AI motorcycles in her driver side mirror.
"Damn Eggman, you're so predictable." she mumbles. "Hmph. This is exactly what I was waiting for!" She sets the truck on auto pilot.
"We're being followed again, Merciless." says a voice on her truck radio.
"Ya, I know but as usual they aren't after you, just keep out the way." Merciless pulls out a gatling gun from under the driver side seat and struggles with moving it on top of the truck but still gets it up there. She walks to the rear of the truck while gritting her teeth and doesn't hesitate to spray down the opposition. "Eat this you bastards!" BANGBANGBANGBOOM! The only sounds heard are explosions as she mows them down; she doesn't give them a chance to return fire. Flare decides to jump into the midst of this and climbs on top of the truck. Red jumps to the rear of the truck.
"AQUA BUBBLE!" he shouts, a large blue water bubble engulfs him, also filling up the doorway and blocks any oncoming bullets. "You guys are lucky I saw those coming! Everyone get down in case I lose power!"
"What about Flare?" N asks.
"She'll be fine, she can handle the heat." BOOM BOOM! Helicopters swarm the truck but Merciless easily punishes them with her weapon.
"Looks like you got this under control!" cries Flare in amazement.
"Not really." Merciless replies as she tosses down her weapon. "My weapon just overheated, this desert is too damn hot to be using something like this."
"Oh, well, I'll help!" A helicopter aims at Flare and fires missiles, oddly, it has no aim so all the missiles fly over her head and hit the motorcycles that are on the sides of the truck. "Ok? What just happened?"
"Hmm, this is new to me."
Aboard the Death Egg.
"Um, Egg sir? We have a problem…the desert might be too hot to support my units. They're taking so long to attack and they can barely aim! What do we do?" complains Silver over Eggman's wrist comm.
"Hmm, they transferred successfully to the desert, correct?" Eggman replies.
"Yup, other than the massive heat, everything else seems OK."
"Very well, keep sending in more units until I say to stop. I want you to keep pressure on them."
"No prob, Egg!"
Back with the rebels.
"Um ok, now what are my attacks again…" Flare asks herself aloud as she starts to think. Merciless face-faults.
"How the hell do you not know any of your attacks!?" she inquires sharply.
"Never had to use them much. Then again, this desert makes my body feel…good. Lemme try something…OOF!" BOOM! Flare gets knocked back by a missile and nearly stumbles off the truck. "GRR!" Flare inhales and red swirls of energy began to enter her muzzle. "HAAAAAA!" She releases a large fire beam on a random helicopter, exploding it. As the attack continues, she aims it at the other helicopters, destroying them all one by one. "Whoa, that was what I used against Fusion!"
"Nice, Flare but we're not outta the woods yet!" More helicopters appear from nowhere.
"What…? Don't you have any attacks to help with?"
"I…have no powers…Only a special attack."
"Oh?" Flare felt her hands begin to tingle then she begins to form an orb of a fiery liquid between them. "My powers are slowly returning to me!" A stream of bullets head towards the girls and both leap pass them. Flare looks at the helicopter angrily. "LAVA BLAST!" She thrusts her hands at the chopper, releasing the attack towards its machine gun. The weapon melts leaving the helicopter defenseless. Flare then grins evilly, which worries Merciless. "Leave this to me…!" She forms flames around her hands and closes her eyes for a moment, when she reopens them, they are glowing and fire-like and she shouts…"FLAME BARRAGE GRRR!" She aims one hand toward the air and FWOOSH!FWOOSH!FWOOSH! releases loads of fireballs in a circular motion which explodes on every chopper it comes in contact with. On the ground level, the girls are oblivious to Sonic doing his part by taking out the fake police car baddies. He easily dashes through them using his speed and creating a junk mess in his path.
"Oh come on Eggman! After 10 years, this is all you got!?" he wonders to himself. Suddenly, a red lock-on cursor surround Sonic. "Wha-?" Beeep! ZZZT! "AAAH!" Sonic feels an electric blast hit him and sends him reeling, being left behind in the trucks dust trail. Red, who is still protecting the inside of the truck, gets locked onto.
"Oh crap…" he mumbles. Beeeep! ZZZT! "Grr..! UGH!" The electricity blast shines greatly around him, bursts his bubble and brings him to his knees. "Where... the hell did that come from?" Merciless and Flare also get locked onto and sequentially punished by the invisible blast. In the sky soars a shiny silver fighter jet.
With Silver.
"Dr. Egghead! I'm sending one of my most powerful unit! I can't stand to see these punk trash my vehicles like this!" cries Silver.
"Very well, you may stop when it is finished. I will inform Merciless that I am watching this just to keep her out of this. Sonic and Flare are the two I'm most interested in."
With the rebels.
"Merciless!" shouts Eggman over her wrist comm.
"What!?" she sharply replies back. "Call off your attack! You can end up blowing up this truck, it's already full of holes!"
"Bah! I don't care about any of that, you just do your duty while I watch for entertainment purposes." he then shuts her off.
"Oh crap…!" Merciless hurries inside the truck.
"Wait!" cries Flare. Sonia, seeing that Red is a bit dazed from the shock, decides it's too dangerous and has closed the rear of the truck doors. Flare strikes a fighting pose and glares at her opponent. "Damn, well, I guess it's just me alone then." The jet lowers itself to Flares level. "That thing is pretty small to be something of the military. I'm guessing this thing is not piloted similar those vehicle robots in the city." An orb of blue electricity begins to form on the front of the jet and a cursor appeared on Flare. Beeep! The attack launches immediately. "Not this time!" Flare rolls out of the way to dodge and retaliates by firing two flame shots from her hands. Boom! Boom! Both shots explode upon impacting on her foe and seemed to do mild damage. Flare decides that the cockpit is most likely the weak point and that its better if she focuses all her attacks there. The jet quickly locks onto Flare again but this time the cursor seems to have trouble keeping a hold of the lock. Beeeep! The attack misses Flare by a long shot and she once again returns a fireball at the machine. Boom! This time the robot seems agited and flies far off into the distance. "These robots always seem to have a pattern." The jet comes streaming back at Flare and attempts to ram Flare off the truck but she jump over it in ball form and THUD! The jet ended up with a cracked cockpit and bits of smoke seep from it. The jet turns around to face Flare and two slots open up on its left and right side and a cursor appears around Flare, once again it isn't focused well. Suddenly SWISH!SWISH!SWISH! Metal electrically-charged discs launch from the slots and home in on the cursors position. The ones that shot further away come to the cursors from the direct front or back of the truck so Flare jumps over those but there is a problem: none of the discs are colliding so every time it passes through the cursor it would boomerang back towards it but on an even farther scale. "So these disc revolve around that cursor." Flare immediately realizes that the top of the truck is now too dangerous and leaps to the edge and hangs on for dear life. "Damn! I'm gonna have to get rid of those discs first." The jet extracts its machine guns and aims at Flare who is only hanging helplessly in its sight. "!" BANGBANGBANGBANGBANG! The merciless machine fires but there is no target. Under the jet is Sonic running while holding Flare.
"Heh, looks like you can use some help." says the heroic blue hedgehog with a smile.
"Yeah, thanks a lot Sonic." Flare gets an idea. "Sonic! Throw me up there, on that fighter jet! Huh…?" She notice Sonic is sweating and struggling to hold Flare.
"Um, you're not exactly the lightest thing I've ever held and you're way taller than me…"
"Oops, sorry."
Flare spins into ball mode, making it much easier for Sonic to carry her.
"Ok, ready!?"
"Yeah, let's do it!" Sonic hurls Flare high into the air and black energy surrounds her body. She uncurls and is holding a large black and purple sphere of energy in the air with both arms raised high. "TERROR BOMB!" Flare crashes on her enemy with the sphere and a large black light engulfs the jet and annihilates it completely, Sonic catches her. "And that's a wrap."
"Good job! You never did any of this in the city though."
"Something about that…it's like something prevents me from tapping completely into my powers there but when I'm exposed to the sun it all came back to me. Something is ominous about Robotnik Land."
"I agree but let's worry about that later. We should get back inside.
Inside.
"Really, after your healing technique I feel a lot stronger." Mighty says to Red, continuing whatever conversation they were having.
"The bronze heal normally doesn't heal deep wounds like that though it helps speed up the recovery process. I guess we can call it miraculous that you're not laying down hurt and dying but you should still take it easy." You could still have internal damage." Red replies while examining the walls. His curiosity lead shim to the vent that are letting air into the room and keeping the inside at room temperature. Sonic and Flare enter the truck. "No need to tell us how it went, I'm sure we all heard the explosive results. What's up ahead is going to be a lot tougher so don't get too cocky about our wins."
"Yeah, I remember D.R. mentioning the rest of the empire." Flare recalls.
"Well, I think we've had enough excitement for one day, let's grab some snacks from the other truck." Sonic suggests happily.
Aboard the Death Egg.
Eggman is watching all on a satellite camera.
"So, Flare's powers are now unlocking as she gets further and further from the city. This would mean the others are also feeling the effects." he say to himself with a smile. Suddenly the monitor switched to Silver's face up-close.
"SIR EGG!" he blurts out immediately making Eggman fall back in his chair. "They beat the prototype!"
"Good heavens, Silver! You almost gave me a heart attack! Did you forget that I was watching!?"
"Oh sorry sir, I guess it's no big deal since that was a test run, right?"
"Correct! What was your analysis on the behavior of your units?"
"I hate to admit it but all of them couldn't resist the heat! I think they all blew a fuse or two because their aim sucked! Badly! I mean I'm no sharp shooter myself but their performance was cringe-worthy! I couldn't even get the damn thing to drop a bomb on them when they were under it!"
"I am aware of all that but would you say it was the fault of the transporters?"
"I don't know, they all seemed to arrive there in one piece."
"Perfect! This means we can start making more and distributing them around the country!"
"Um, Ok! Now what do I do?"
"Take the transporter device and report to the blast room and get ready to move the orb there to the Death Egg."
"WHAT!? THAT HUGE THING!? FROM HERE TO SPACE!? Um… how?"
"The same way you got from here to the Egg Fortress. Look for the transporter disc near you." Silver looks around confused then spots a half-chrome, half-red CD shaped disc on the ground. He picks it up and examines it.
"This it?"
"Yes, it make look like a CD but that's for size compression, the actual control units are inside."
"Why hasn't it relocated me yet?"
"No coordinates are set, you fool. It is useless if it's jammed or has no coordinate set. It needs objects to lock-on to or else it won't activate. That is to keep it from teleporting fixed structures such as the wall or floor."
"Ok, all this knowledge is making my brain hurt, I guess I'll hurry up and take the power energy thingy you want…"
Late night of the same day.
Everyone in the truck is asleep. Shadow slowy opens his eyes. He cautiously glances at everyone in the truck. All memories of the events in the city flooding to him.
"So…it wasn't just some nightmare." he thinks to himself. "It's safe to assume these people are not my enemy… Still I have to find out why…I am…alive…" Flash! Suddenly Shadow found himself in an area of pure white. "Hm?" A hooded figure dressed in a cloak seemingly made of light approaches the black hedgehog.
"Your element is not wanted in Korubia." The figure lifts its hand and a white orb forms around it.
"Who are you and what do you mean?" The orb disperses.
"You're a shadow element, I can sense it. You mean to tell me you have no idea what you are?"
"…I have only recently regained consciousness and return to my former self. I don't recall seeing you before."
"I see. It wouldn't be right if I destroyed you when you don't know what you are. Once all is revealed to you then you'll know the reason for your wanted demise. For now, I bid you farewell." The figure waves its arms.
"Ugh!" Shadow drops asleep.