Episode 26: Warning! Dragon Ball-Z Rip Off Inside!
Jesse's pulse quickened as the power of Chaos surged through his body; setting his blood ablaze. He felt his muscles increase slightly in size, and his strength multiply a hundred times over. His eyes turned a brilliant yellow, giving off the same radiance surrounding him.
Fatal slowed to a stop about two hundred yards in the air, looking down at the human who dared see him as inferior. He was the Ultimate Life Form, surpassing even Shadow. How dare this human, new to using chaos at all, challenge him?
Jesse rose up into the air after Fatal, his brow sweating even through his super-form. Shadow was impossibly powerful, and Fatal was supposed to be even more so. Up till now, the navy hedgehog had seemed to have the mind of a teen, only understanding things relatively. The last thing Jesse had expected was for the hybrid to suddenly boast this much power.
Jesse's mind was fixed on Fatal, so he didn't notice Sonic following him into super-form and flying alongside him.
"You're not doing this alone, buddy!" Jesse looked over, staring at Sonic dumbly. "I suppose it was pretty stupid for me to think you'd actually run." Sonic gave him a thumbs up as they came parallel to Fatal.
"What about Metal?" Jesse asked, glancing down. The robot was still standing where he had been, looking up with his glowing red eyes, clenching his talons together. Jesse looked back up to Fatal, sizing up the powerhouse.
From all formalities and descriptions, Fatal was in a dark super-form, wherein he was more prone to rash reasoning and reckless actions. With Sonic helping him, Fatal should be easy to manage.
"For so long, Eggman sought to conquer Mobius, a world as alien to him as he was to it, a world that treated him cruelly." Fatal's voice came thick through the distance between him and the two supers across the sky.
"Eventually, Eggman was brought back to his home world due to a fluke caused by you, Sonic. He tried to bring Earth under him, but you continued to resist him. Your struggles caused the fusion of your world and his. After that came me. I am the greatest evolution of Eggman's conquest, made to be the pebble that would tip the scales for him. But I tell you now Sonic, I will be far more than a pebble for him! I WILL NOT LOSE!"
Fatal's hands raised towards his opponents, and the sky crackled with lightning. Bolts of Chaos arced down into his palms as he filled his reservoir with power.
Sonic pulled his fists to his hips, gathering power himself. Jesse tucked his hands in against his head as his legs folded up into a crouching position. Jesse released his limbs after a moment, yelling savagely.
The fire around the human grew to twice its previous size, matching in magnificence to both hedgehogs.
Fatal closed his hands, absorbing the energy he had collected. "Enough! Now you fall, Sonic! And after you're gone, the whole world will follow!" Fatal thrust his hands out at them.
"Chaos Spear!" an enormous spear blinked into existence, shooting off at the two golden figures.
Jesse and Sonic brought their hands up in a blocking motion, the spear exploding on contact.
Sonic lowered his arms without a word, but Jesse waved them a couple of times, shaking off the pain.
Fatal flew in closer to them, flinging Chaos Spears at every angle in Sonic and Jesse's general direction.
Jesse flipped backward to dodge one such spear, coming up with his palms together, fingers curving around a ball of chaos energy he was holding.
"Chaos Darts!" The ball depleted as hundreds of pen-sized streaks of energy shot out at Fatal. The hybrid had been entering a melee with Sonic when the darts started flying, so Fatal had to split his concentration between Sonic and the darts, allowing Sonic to score several skillful blows.
Fatal grabbed one of Sonic's punches and countered with a kick into the hedgehog's face. Sonic went careening backward, only to be replaced by Jesse, who executed his attacks with an acute precision that Fatal could not compensate for. The ex-green beret beat the smaller hedgehog backward through the skies as his super-enhanced reflexes out sped Fatal's blocks, fist after fist hammering into the hybrid's ribcage.
Sonic caught up with them just as Fatal finally managed to strike Jesse across the face, following up with a kick that sent the young man off to the side.
Metal Sonic stood on the ground watching the spectacle above him. The men whom Jesse had been with had taken cover and called for an artillery battery. Metal knew that nothing they could possibly have would even annoy the super people. What Metal Sonic had trouble comprehending was Fatal's super-form. In every way, he appeared to have executed a dark super transformation, but Metal was not reading any dark Chaos energy with his scanners. Metal Sonic thought back to when he had transformed into Metal Overlord using the power of dark chaos. The readings were a negative polarity from normal Chaos energy, and Fatal was emitting the same frequency of energy as Sonic and the human.
Metal Sonic again wished he had taken the white Super Emerald when it had been offered to him, Fatal would be even easier to handle if he had three supers on him. Metal Sonic blinked suddenly, an idea popping into his head. Raising his left arm, Metal Sonic unleashed a salvo of mini missiles up, targeting Fatal.
One of the men under an awning near him gave him the look one gives when they detect stupidity.
"Why the hell did you just do that? If he's handling both Sonic and Jesse, what are those going to do?" Metal Sonic's wrist reverted back to its normal state.
"In that case, what is that howitzer going to do?" The man thought for a moment before responding.
"Touché." Metal looked back to the skies, the missiles nearing Fatal.
Fatal threw Sonic off of him and Chaos blasted the human – Sonic called him Jesse – and backed up a bit so he could keep both opponents in his sight. Just as he was about to attack again, five small warheads collided with him, covering the area in smoke. Fatal spin-dashed out of the smoke, narrowly dodging a Chaos Spear from Sonic.
Fatal glanced down and saw Metal Sonic still at the scene. Why that little… Fatal put his hands above his head, a large blue orb forming. Fatal threw the orb downward at Metal Sonic, but did not get to see its effect, as he had to go back to fighting with Sonic and Jesse.
"Great, now we all get to die. Real smart tin head!" the man who had yelled at Metal earlier spoke again. Metal Sonic shot him a glance and returned his vision to the rapidly descending ball. Reaching up, Metal formed a small vortex above his hand, bracing for the impact.
The orb came into reach of the vortex and was instantly sucked into it. Metal Sonic closed his brightly glowing hand, sending the power all throughout his body. The robot's blue color changed into a golden yellow as he underwent a super transformation of his own. Metal Sonic flew off the ground, looking back wistfully at the man who kept telling him how stupid he was.
Metal Sonic darted up in between the two sides, surprising them both. "Boo." Fatal looked down to see Metal Sonic's mini Eclipse Cannon pressed into his stomach. Fatal's eyes widened as Metal charged the gun. Fatal's sudden change in control allowed his disguise to shatter, so that his coloration changed to that of a reddish-gold color and his eyes returned to normal.
"You see? We're all the same for now, so don't make me blow a hole in your abdomen." Fatal's orange eyes flashed green for a second.
"Chaos Control." He mumbled. There was a green haze, then Fatal was gone. The energy from the orb ran out suddenly, dropping the normalized Metal Sonic down a good one hundred feet before his jets kicked in.
Super Sonic and Super Jesse came down alongside him, astonished. Metal Sonic looked at them with a hint of sarcastic innocence in his eyes.
"I seem to be developing a habit of out-classing supers without really using one myself." Sonic, Jesse and Metal touched down, the two former reverting back to their regular forms.
One of the other men came to stand facing Jesse. "So, what's the deal? Where'd he go?" Jesse shrugged. "Well, he's a sore loser, so he'll probably be back at his last place of victory." Jesse and the rest of his group began to walk off, heading back toward the forward command center.
Sonic and Metal Sonic stood staring at each other for a couple of minutes, trying to decide whether to speak or to wait.
"That was pretty clever up there Metal." Sonic said at last. Metal turned to follow the soldiers.
"Perhaps, but everybody's going to need to be pretty clever by the time this is over." Sonic smirked. "Yeah, well just cuz we are that clever doesn't mean we have to be all uptight about it." Sonic dashed past Metal Sonic, who was quick to speed off after him.
Titan brought his skates back into his feet, setting him into a run that he quickly slowed down. The sight in front of him was not what he expected. The checkpoint into Portugal was burned to the ground.
So much for a simple quelling.
The small buildings looked as if they had been blasted by an artillery strike. Upon microanalysis, Titan fount traces of uranium scattered all across the site.
First particle accelerators, and now micro-nukes? Dare I wonder what's next? And where in god's name are these people getting this stuff? Titan made a wide sweep with his sensors, but he didn't find anything. Eggman would not be happy with this. The uprising he was to neutralize had already attacked him with technology that even Eggman hadn't perfected yet, the checkpoint was totally destroyed, and he had found traces of uranium in the area.
Something told him that this 'uprising' was a full-scale assault dealt under the table by the G.U.N., though that still left open to question how and why these men possessed particle accelerators.
Titan's back jest kicked into gear as he loaded his arm chamber full of howitzer shells. The mass of armor and artificial intelligence rose into the air, moving above the road at an amazing rate for his size. Titan knew that there was no way he could take on the kind of firepower against him alone, but he was determined to at least learn what exactly he was facing.
After another hour of flight, Titan finally came to the port-city of Lisbon. At least, what was left of it.
Titan walked through the ruined outskirts, looking into the destroyed buildings, scanning for any kind of life. All he found was more uranium, scattered everywhere; his radioactivity meters were going berserk. There was an eerie feeling in the air, like something one would associate with the 'graveyard feeling' in Hollywood zombie movies. Instinctively, (as if machines have instincts…) Titan extended his mace and held it firmly in his hands. The giant robot moved slowly through the dead city, his mood becoming darker with every step. Eventually, Titan stopped reading ultraviolet clearly, meaning that the gathering fog was going to bring an early dusk.
There was a noise nearby, like someone kicking a small object out of their way. The heavily modified Eggpawn Supercomputer spun to face the noise so fast that he about scared himself. Titan stared into the fog with regular camera vision, his thermo and light amplification could not pierce it.
A dark shape began to take form in the fog, something was moving toward him. As the shape became clearer, Titan tensed for a minute, thinking he recognized the silhouette of Metal Sonic. As the person continued to close in though, the idea was discarded. This was definitely another hedgehog though.
The hedgehog finally walked through the last of the fog and stood at its edge, twenty feet from the massive prototype.
"No need to quell that uprising, great warrior. It was the will of His Majesty that I see them gone." The hedgehog was blood-red with flaxen-yellow eyes. The bottom of the four quills on his head were interlaced with wiring, disappearing into its scalp. The forearms and forelegs were made of what looked like gold, along with the bottom half of the vermin's head.
"What are you?" Titan asked, disgust heavier in his voice than the fog in the air. The cyborg hedgehog raised a robotic hand to point at himself.
"I am Myrmidon." The hand swiveled to indicate Titan. "And you are nothing." Titan stood straighter, the servos loud in the dead air.
"I am far more than nothing. I am the finest technology in the world. I am machine perfectly bonded with sentience, the epitome of robotic evolution." Myrmidon laughed, a hearty, honest laugh. Titan just glared at the gruesome rodent, avulsed. Eventually, Myrmidon stopped laughing and stared at Titan curiously.
"Wait, you actually believe that that means anything? How foolish you are, great warrior. It is too bad you were not more intelligent, I would have liked to retell a profound victory to Almighty Mephiles when he returns." Titan recognized the name Mephiles from Fatal's reports and occasional ravings when he slept. Titan lowered his mace, feigning sudden interest.
"Tell me more about this Almighty Mephiles. Who is he?" it was like a switch was flipped in Myrmidon's head, as he was in full preacher mode suddenly.
"Mephiles is the god of the whole universe. He is the ruler of all that is. Mephiles is the prince of heaven, heir of Solaris, the Great Phoenix." Titan recorded Myrmidon's entourage for his master to review later.
"If Mephiles is indeed a god, let us see how well he favors his servant." Titan's mace was back in his hand, and a 102 howitzer shell was moving across the short distance at supersonic speeds. Myrmidon twisted at the last possible millisecond, flipping to the left to complete the maneuver. Upon landing, the humongous robot was gone. His demi-divine senses instructed him to look up, and he did so just in time to move out of the way of a powerful mace smashing the ground his over twenty tons of pressure. Myrmidon released a black cloud from his hand that shot out and struck Titan in the side. The bronze colored mega-bot grunted in pain as the cloud exploded across him, making his armor shudder. Titan's head turreted at Myrmidon, shooting him with the potent eyebeams. The blood-red hedgehog was pushed backward, but he sustained no damage. Titan freed his mace and held it out to his right as he turned to face where Myrmidon had been flung.
Titan's sensors picked up movement off to his left, so he jumped back to dodge the attack, while countering by bringing his mace through the area Myrmidon would pass. Unfortunately, Myrmidon stopped dead in the air, passing through after Titan's mace had gone. The blood red cyborg loosed another pair of black clouds at Titan, but the immense machine shattered the attacks by using his eyebeams to cut through them. Myrmidon passed into the fog once more, fading into the mists like a ghost. Titan's sensors were acutely aware of Myrmidon's position, but the cyborg had a tendency to have an erratic pattern to his movements, so Titan was not always fast enough to keep from being fried by more of that dark power Myrmidon kept hitting him with.
After only ten minutes, Titan's armor was scorched every-which-where, slightly warped in a few places, and Titan was now realizing that the blood red hedgehog was not even really fighting, just toying with his victim.
Titan may have been a robot, created to further his master's ambitions, but he had never been humiliated, so he became quite angry quite quickly.
"If you're so powerful, why don't you just finish me off already? Are you frail enough that not even your god can save you from the strength of a soulless machine?" Titan heard growling from in the fog, followed by Myrmidon dashing out of it right at him. Titan quickly swatted the fly with his 102 howitzer cannon, and then stood over the cyborg, who gritted his teeth.
"You commit sacrilege! I will show you the power His Majesty grants his servant!" Titan grinned, his turnaround had worked perfectly. Myrmidon zipped out from under Titan, floating in the air with his hands lost in deeper clouds than he had used before.
Titan prepped his intended counter, but he could only hope that it worked. Myrmidon's clouds ceased to deepen, appearing now to be holes in the fabric of reality; hungrily waiting to devour whatever Myrmidon threw them at. The clouds did not have to wait long. Myrmidon hefted the voids at Titan with a religious vigor, but too bad for him it would not mean much.
The top of titan's mace unfolded and opened into a gaping maw, like the jaws of a dragon. A bright white light came from deep inside the throat of the dragon head, and a beam of pure chaos energy streamed forth, vaporizing the black clouds and striking Myrmidon with devastating force.
The chaos reactor in the hilt of Titan's mace ceased to exhaust, ending the attack. Myrmidon was still right where he had been, but his face was frozen wit ha look of terror. Slowly Myrmidon's face changed into a horrible grin, made more appalling by the fact that the blood red hedgehog had no mouth.
"You see? You cannot defeat me. Mephiles has shown you His power!" Titan was grinning too, and Myrmidon couldn't figure it out. The robot pointed up, and Myrmidon realized the blast had gone behind him too. Looking up, the cyborg lost his cheer upon being crushed under a thirty-story building.
Titan smashed a piece of the building out of the way so that he could see Myrmidon's head.
"Wow, very impressive. Your god lets building fall on you. I think I should join the cause right now!" Myrmidon flew into a rage, but was unable to remove himself from under the ruins.
"Blasphemy! You will pay for this, you soulless…thing!" Titan kneeled down, looming over the insignificant looking cyborg.
"Perhaps I have no soul, but I more than make up for it in spirit." The giant prototype resumed his standing position, his back jets powering up.
"Thank you for the information you gave me about Mephiles. I assure you that any knowledge we have will be invaluable against him. Oh and, I'm sure your god'll come back to get you out of there eventually." Titan's massive body lifted into the air as the thrusters reached maximum burn. The bronze super Eggpawn tilted his weight some, sending him soaring through the skies, adding to his leave with a derisive laughter, leaving a scorned cybernetic hedgehog struggling underneath ten tons of debris.