(sighes) Here we go...the beginning of the final battle for Dusk Sets, and as a result the official beginning of the end for this story. All in all, it looks as though there will be a total of thirty chapters by the time Dusk Sets ends...the final battle itself will be broken into multiple parts, four in total, and then comes the epilogue.
I should probably also say this again, I don't own Sonic, Eggman, or any other official characters, all of them are owned by SEGA/Sonic Team. The only character/vehicles I own is Dusk and a new jet that premieres in this chapter.
Chapter 26 The Final Battle Part 1: A Rough Start
Eggman absolutely refuses to quit, even when his chances are grim, and that pest took an opportunity that Sonic and the other's unwittingly gave him...
While the Sonic gang was gathered at Tails' house, Eggman launched two sneak attacks, one at Blaze's palace and the other on GUN's base on Prison Island, stealing nearly every emerald that Sonic's crew had.
There were only four that managed to avoid capture; the gray Chaos Emerald (which was with Shadow), the purple Chaos Emerald (which was at Tails' house), and the yellow and green Sol Emeralds which were with Blaze.
How did he do it? The firepower of the Egg-Battleship helped greatly in both cases, but there were also reports of some mysterious new robot that helped in both attacks. It was described as an Egg-Raptor with an attitude that made the other Egg-Raptors seem docile, and had plenty more firepower as well as being significantly larger than the normal Egg-Raptor.
Regardless of the troubling news, everyone still gathered at Tails' workshop in the morning, ready to bring Eggman down again.
The eleven-Mobian strong crowd is gathered in Tails' living room, waiting for the fox to finish prepping the jet. About two minutes after he disappeared down into his big workshop, Tails returned and brought the rest of the crowd into his underground workshop...where a new jet was waiting for them.
The jet was quite a bit longer than the old X-Tornado and it could be seen that there were three cockpits instead of just two. The whole thing was very sleek and streamlined, which was done on purpose to provide the most aerodynamic shape possible. There were two large engines on the back, same as the X-Tornado, but these had gentle contours in their shape and were much more streamlined than the boxy engines that the X-Tornado had. The four wings were still present at the front, the lower two being folded inward, but were set backward at a smaller angle than the X-Tornado's. The wings in the back seemed to be the same as the X-Tornado's, and the paint job was pretty similar, but those were the only two things this jet shared with its predecessor.
"Tails...what happened to the X-Tornado?" Sonic asks after a couple second of gawking.
Tails smirks as he flies onto the jet, "This is the X-Tornado, or rather it used to be. I kept thinking up so many improvements and tweaks while rebuilding it that I finally wound up making a brand new jet. This is the X-Hurricane." the fox proudly says as his tails flick around, "This is faster, steadier, and more powerful than the X-Tornado was, and one of its many new features is side thrusters which allow the X-Hurricane to smoothly pivot or rotate to turn in addition to banking, which means that wing-riding is now much safer."
"Wow Tails...you never run out of creativity, do you?" Amy asks.
Tails snickers and gestures for the others to begin boarding. All of the Mobians take their appropriate places, Tails and Charmy in the front cockpit, Vector and Silver in the middle cockpit, Rouge and Blaze in the rear cockpit, and Sonic, Shadow, Knuckles, Amy, Dusk, and Espio out on the wings, and await takeoff.
"Alright guys, you'd better hold on...this baby is fast." Tails waits only for the hangar doors to open and a runway to extend from the cliff-side before beginning to taxi outward. The doors close after the jet exits (to shield the workshop from the heat and thrust of the engines), and Tails begins revving the plane up.
As the engines begin to charge up power, a loud, high-pitched whine is heard from them. After maybe a ten-second charge, Tails slams the throttle to its max, causing the engines to release a loud roar as the jet shoots forward at such a speed that it would've thrown the six Mobians off had they not been clinging to the wings.
The X-Hurricane leaves the runway and begins a surprisingly steady flight, which only becomes smoother when Tails extends the lower wings. Slowly the wing-riders un-latch themselves from the jet to stand back up, once they felt safe enough to do so.
This flight was so amazing for Dusk, standing on the metal wings of a jet soaring through the sky faster the Eggman's chair could ever hoped to have gone, the wind blowing through her quills and into her face...this really got her blood and adrenaline pumping. She'd rather fly on the X-Hurricane's wings instead of Eggman's wimpy chair anyday.
"You doing okay Dusk?" Sonic asks from his spot on the other side of the jet.
"Yea, I'm doing fine. This is so much fun!" She exclaims to reply
"Don't get distracted Dusk, remember, our goal is to take down Eggman." Espio states.
"Yea yea..." she replies, waving a hand to brush Espio's comment aside. "You need to unwind a little." she adds under her breath.
After a roughly ten-minute flight, the silhouette of the Egg-Battleship appears above the X-Hurricane. Tails gingerly pulls back to gain altitude, aiming to eventually get above the massive airship.
Finally their plan begins to work. The X-Hurricane flies above the much larger Egg-Battleship and approaches from behind. "Alright guys, this is it. Get ready to board the Battleship." Tails announces.
Eggman was reclining in his chair, greatly pleased at his apparent turn of luck. With the emerald count now in his favor, plus the Master Emerald aboard, and a few very destructive robots left with him, the genius was positive that he was going to win this time.
He lets out a pleased sigh, after gazing at the radar to make sure the airspace was clear. "Finally, the day has come to finish off Sonic for good. All I need is the last of the emeralds to make sure my victory is assured." He mumbles to himself, "Decoe, Bocoe, maintain watch...I'm going to take a well-earned nap." he orders before reclining a little more and preparing to fall asleep.
Just as his eyes shut and sleep began to take over, the alarms went off. The loud noise was such a shock that Eggman lurched upright and toppled out of his chair with a yell, bashing his head on a computer console in the process.
"What...what is going on?" he asks while rubbing where his skull and metal met.
"Some jet has entered our airspace at an incredibly high speed." Bocoe replies.
"Yes, it is approaching from behind." Decoe adds.
"On-screen!" Eggman orders. One of the computer screens in front of him changes to the best possible rear-view. He could definitely see a jet approaching, and from the small crowd out on the wings, Eggman guessed that it was Sonic attempting a counter-attack. "Hmph...time to shoot them down again." he mutters while turning on the auto-defenses.
"Get ready to evade some fire Tails." Dusk says, "Eggman's probably spotted us by now."
"How do you know? The Battleship hasn't done anything yet." Rouge states. Barely a second after Rouge finishes her sentence, laser fire begins flying towards them.
"Hold on!" Tails yells while making the jet strafe to the left, avoiding the first wave of laser fire. Another laser barrage flies toward the jet and again they strafe out of the way.
This pattern of strafe, get fired at, strafe again continues for the next minute before the X-Hurricane clears the superstructure. Tails pushes the flight stick forward, making the jet lower itself so much that he almost crashes into the flight deck...almost. A second before the X-Hurricane crashes, Tails levels the plane out and slows down enough for the passengers to leave.
"Everybody off!" The fox yells. The middle and rear cockpits open with a 'swoosh', allowing their occupants to leap out with the other six. The instant their shoes hit the ground, the crowd runs up to the doorway inside, which was currently sealed shut, while the X-Hurricane takes flight again to begin firing on the Battleship.
"Hey Knuckles, you think this will keep us out?" Vector asks, clenching his fist.
"Heh, not a chance." Knuckles replies.
With a yell, croc and echidna throw three punches each which is enough to blow the metal doors clear apart.
"Good luck you all." Espio says before hurrying off towards a few turrets.
"Yea, we'll do our best to cause havoc out here. You guys worry about finding Egg-head and the emeralds." Vector adds before charging at a couple turrets.
"Come on guys, just follow me." Dusk instructs before taking off into the large ship, her allies following on her heels.
The crowd of eight charge through the winding hallways of the Egg-Battleship, following Dusk's every move. Left turns, right turns, down a few staircases and along hallways that seemed to go on forever, everywhere the purple hedgehog went, the other seven followed.
Finally the purple hedgehog stops at a split in the hallway, one route went to the left, the other to the right.
Dusk turns toward her friends with a serious look on her face, "Alright guys, here is where we have to part ways." She points down the left hallway, "Sonic, that hallway will lead to a nearby staircase that will take you part of the way to Eggman. Just keep going upward and you'll find him. Oh, and don't bother with the elevators, when the Battleship is under attack they shut down."
"Thanks for the advice Dusk, now come on guys...lets go get Eggman." Sonic exclaims before moving down the hallway. Silver follows immediately, but Blaze tosses a small something to Dusk...the green Sol Emerald.
"You're giving me this?" Dusk asks with confusion riddling her voice.
"Sol Emeralds increase their holder's abilities. Don't worry about me, I've still got one." Blaze says before giving a thumbs-up and hurrying after the hedgehogs.
Dusk begins down the right hallway, but stops when Amy's arms come around her. "Keep safe sis...and good luck." The pink hedgehog says in a firm but still gentle voice.
"Thanks sis, you too." Dusk replies while returning the hug.
Amy lets go and hurries after her team, leaving Dusk's team to head down the right hallway towards the vault. Her trip was pretty un-eventful, the only major thing that happened was a detour around some damage which probably happened during one of Eggman's sneak attacks.
The fastest way to the vault was to take a shortcut across the training room, which is exactly the path that Dusk took...but it turned out to be a trap. Waiting for the purple hedgehog in that room were two Egg-Raptors...but they weren't the normal ones.
These robots had jet-black armor with plenty of nasty looking spikes running down the back and coming off the wrists and ankles. They were larger than the white Egg-Raptors, had an extra claw on each hand and foot, and were most likely more aggressive than their white counterparts.
"Mwahahaha..."Eggman's voice laughed through the speaker system, "How do you like these creations of mine Dusk? I call them the Terra-Egg Raptors and they put the original Egg-Raptors to shame."
"Do you want my real answer or a fake compliment?" Dusk semi-growled back at the speakers.
Her group could hear Eggman grunt in an unamused tone. "Still so rebellious...my raptors will have to fix that."
Without warning, the two doorways into the training room slam shut and lock the Mobians in with the robots.
"Do you really think those pathetic doors will hold us in?" Rouge asks in an arrogant tone.
"It doesn't matter...none of you will survive the attack of my Terra-Egg Raptors. And you can forget about that second group you sent to get me, I've already dispatched some Terras to get them as well."
Dusk lets out a small gasp at the danger Amy was in, but her nervousness subsides when Shadow puts a hand on her shoulder and whispers, "Don't worry about Amy, she's got Sonic, Blaze, Silver, and her temper to keep her safe."
The purple hedgehog gives a quick smile to the umber one before preparing to fight. Not a second after she got into her stance, did the two Raptors roar and charge at the group...beginning a battle that would eventually cause the downfall of two people...or rather, one human and one Mobian...