Chapter 37
Battleship Bravery

"Since when were we towing a gummi garage along with us?" Alex asked as they entered the fairly large facility that Chip and Dale were leading the quartet into.

"The whole time," Dale replied matter-of-factly. "We gotta have one along with us in case we need to make repairs." Alex nodded passively as he looked around. It wasn't as large as it looked from the outside. There were three main functions of the gummi garage. Storage for blueprints, ship construction, and the launch pad.

Chip guided them to the construction area, where their new gummi battleship had been finished. Alex leaned against the pane of the window as he looked down on it. "Not bad," Goofy admitted as they all admired it. It was a wide, flat ship, with plenty of Aero gummis sticking out the back and sides, and a lot of guns and lasers along the bottom. The cockpit was in the center.

"So... why do we need something like this again?" Donald asked. Alex rolled his eyes. "To reopen the gate to Twilight Town. The Nobody ships have closed it all off. So we need a battleship to destroy a good portion of them so we can pass through safely."

"Shall we prepare for launch?" Dale asked them. Alex nodded. The loud whir of machinery went up a notch as the system moved the gummi battleship to the launch pad. Alex turned to face Sora. "Well, you're the pilot..."

Sora thought about that for a moment. "How about you fly it to Twilight Town?" Alex was surprised by this. "You mean that?" Sora nodded and smiled at him. Alex grinned, and raced over to the launch pad.

Alex jumped onto the gummi ship, which was now ready for takeoff. The bubble on the cockpit opened for him when he approached, and closed again as he settled down in the pilot's seat. "Alright, so how do I control this thing?" he asked.

Chip's voice came on the radio. "It's rather simple. We've already plotted a course for the gummi ship to follow. All you have to do is control the guns and fine-tune the directions." Alex looked, and saw two joysticks. He found out that the one on the left controlled the ship's lateral movement, and the other controlled the direction and fire of the gunnery. Pretty simple, just like in the game.

Dale spoke through the speakers. "There's one big ship at the front of their fleet. A Dreadnaught. If you can get past that, you can open the gate and we'll follow you to Twilight Town." Alex nodded. "Alright, let's do this."

Alex was suddenly thrown forward as the platform below him began to rise, carrying his ship along with it. He fiddled with the controls in anticipation. He had always liked the gummi route parts in this game, and now he was about to live it for real. Then again, it was a bit nerve-racking, considering that he was going to go through Assault of the Dreadnaught. And while it seemed easy outside the game, he knew that he was risking his life in this case.

His gummi ship rose and settled in front of another gate. A sign above the gate flashed "Ready". Alex nodded, and stood up. He pointed at the gate in front of his ship. "Start!"

The two screens on either side of the gate suddenly showed both of the chipmunks saluting him. The gate in front of him opened, causing a massive chain of doors to open behind it. The gummi ship began to vibrate as it rose off the platform. Slowly, it inched toward the gate...

Then it blasted off, throwing Alexander into his seat. The gummi ship quickly shot out of the gate and into the bright space of the gummi route. Alex was finally granted control of the ship, so he used the short time to get used to the movement controls.

Suddenly, he saw a bright keyhole-shaped opening closing in on him. Alex scowled. "Bring it on!" The light engulfed his ship...

And he found himself right behind a huge, blocky white ship. Alex swerved to the right as he passed it. He looked ahead, and saw many more ships ahead. More than he had first assumed when playing the game. This was going to be difficult.

The gummi ship was headed for the back of another large ship, so he flew under it. He dodged some more of the smaller ones, and barely skimmed over the hull of another cruiser.

Alex flew behind a fleet of small ships, which suddenly scattered. "Alex! Watch out!" Dale yelled at him. Alex suddenly lowered the ship, just as a large red beam of energy shot at where he and the small Nobody fighters had been one second earlier.

Speaking of the fighters, Alex saw them on the sides, turning around in two single-file lines to face him. Alex faced one line and opened up the cannons on them. The ships were decimated rather easily, and Alex picked some of the other line off with the lasers.

Alex dodged another large red beam as soon as the fighters were gone. The ship sped up, and was met by a number of the more familiar enemy ships that he recognized from the game, which immediately started firing at him. Alex's ship staggered as some of the bullets hit it. Now he had to mind the enemies as well as dodge the fleet. This was tougher than he thought.

Alex destroyed all of the enemy ships, and passed over the largest ship in the fleet. The Dreadnaught, Alex guessed. A large Nobody ship appeared in front of him, just as a green beam of energy shot up from a hole in the Dreadnaught. Alex swerved around the beam, and fired constantly at the ship in front of him. More beams were shot from the Dreadnaught, all of them in Alexander's path. Fortunately, he did a good job of dodging them.

He flew away from the Dreadnaught, and dodged a small fleet of cruisers and fighters. As soon as he came out of the fleet, he was flanked by more enemy ships, which he was able to take out with his lasers. Alex turned to face the Dreadnaught again, and saw a gate in the center of the large castle-like structure. Maybe he could get in through there. He sped toward it, but a fleet of ships was leaving the opening at the same time, and Alex was forced to dodge it.

Alex flew around some more, hiding behind small fleets and shooting at everything that shot him. And boy, were they numerous. Suddenly, he heard a beeping noise from inside his cockpit. The ship was running out of health.

Alex turned the guns and shot one of the cruisers as much as he could. In a few seconds, the cruiser exploded, and a few green polygons floated out of it. Alex flew toward them, and they merged with his ship. The beeping noise stopped.

He turned toward the Dreadnaught again. The gate was still open, so Alex gunned the throttle and flew inside. Ready to meet him was a bunch more enemy ships popping up out of nowhere, and many turret-type ships along the walls. Alex shot at as many as he could, though he really wanted to just run. Unfortunately, if he went too fast he ran the risk of running into the walls.

Alex went through a small corridor and ended up in another "room" of the ship, where more enemies shot at him. Alex couldn't help but silently thank the gummi engineers Chip and Dale. They had put plenty of guns on this thing. That was always a good thing.

The ship flew straight into another small corridor, but it was sealed by a small wall with a blue crystal in the center. Alex shot at that crystal for a second, and the wall slid open, allowing him to fly into another room. It was smaller than the others, but it was loaded to the brim with turrets. He couldn't aim at them all, so he just dodged them for the most part.

Alex flew into yet another corridor. "Alex!" Chip's voice blared at him on the radio. "You gotta get out of there!" Right on cue, a wall started to close in just ahead of him. Alex was able to make it past the wall, but he had to dodge it. More walls began to close, which Alex dodged for the most part. He bounced off a few edges in the process, but nothing too serious.

Alex pulled up as he left the corridor, and flew through a long room loaded with turrets. He ignored the turrets again and fired at the enemy ships that were appearing in front of him. They were the immediate threat. At the end of the room, Alex flew down into another corridor. This time, there were many walls that he had to shoot through to pass by. He barely made it through, considering how fast the ship was going at this point.

Alex flew into another long room. This one not only had turrets, but it had many pillars sticking into it from the walls. With all the bullets flying at him, it was hard to dodge the pillars. Alex ducked into a small corridor and entered the next room.

Suddenly, a red warning light flashed behind him, stating "Alert!" Alex twisted the gunning control, swiveling the cockpit and the guns to face directly behind him. Sure enough, there were enemy ships coming up behind the gummi ship. Alex shot at them the best he could, but he could do nothing to look where he was going. He had to rely on the autopilot. Alex saw the ships disappear as he ran through another long corridor. He accidentally bumped against one of the sides since he hadn't seen it coming.

The Alert light flashed again right behind him, and he faced forward again. The ship rose up and entered yet another long corridor. This one had a combination of the breakable walls and the ones that tried to close in on them. Alex had become so alert at this point that he managed to make it through unharmed.

Alex came out of the corridor only to enter another shorter one. He broke through some of the walls, and came into a big room, with a large sphere in the center of it. This was the core for the Dreadnaught's main energy cannon, he knew it. But he had never managed to destroy it before... What if he did this time? Alex swung the guns around as the ship's side faced the core.

Chip yelled at him again. "Careful, Alex! That place is dangerous!" A plethora of enemy ships appeared and started firing at him. "No flippin' duh!" Alex cursed as he fired madly at the core. He ignored the other ships (except for the ones that were right in front of him). The core needed to take most of the damage.

The flyby seemed to last forever, though it was only one time around the sphere. Right before his ship sped up to leave, the core began to ignite with fire, and started to explode. Alex flew right into the opening for the cannon and sped away from the ship. Alex turned to face the ship behind him, and saw bright blue beams piercing the ship one by one. After a few tense moments, the entire Dreadnaught exploded in a bright supernova.

Alex saw a light flashing behind him, so he faced the ship forward and flew right into the keyhole opening again. The gummi route had been opened. Alex settled down in the pilot's seat, breathing heavily. That had been intense. But he had won, and he grinned when this realization came to him. "Alright!" Alex shouted in excitement, standing up in the cockpit. He pointed forward at the path ahead. "Full speed to Twilight Town!"

Disclaimer: I only own Alexander, Joumae, and the Lockshield. Every other element of this story belongs to their respective owners. Namely Square-Enix and Disney.