--

Sonic felt the shuttlecraft decelerate. Inside the cabin, twelve armed and armored mobian marines swayed back and forth in their seats. Some held onto the straps that kept them safely secured to the walls. Others checked their weapons and their gear. Opposite Sonic, a very large rectangular box the size of a refrigerator threatened to pop out of its restraints and crush someone. For his part, Sonic eschewed straps and belts, enjoying the acceleration and deceleration, using his sneakers grip on the floor to keep from flying across the cabin and into someone.

"Sonic, are you listening?" Nicole's voice interrupted, drawing his eyes back to the small data pad he had been given before the trip down. Tails had insisted that it was a surprise 'he would absolutely love.' Unfortunately, the tech-happy kitsune had neglected to explain why his hedgehog hero would have to pore over a boring tech manual. As it was, Sonic had only a vague idea of what his little buddy had built for him this time around.

"Sorry!" he apologized quickly, only half meaning it. Staring at the electronic pad, he watched schematics fly by, along with instructions and safety warnings. It was all totally boring, at least in his opinion. Nicole didn't actually seem to be IN the datapad, but Tails had apparently programmed her voice in, to try and keep his attention focused. It had worked, too. At least for a few minutes.

There were no windows inside the marine shuttle, but Sonic felt it when they neared the ground, as the ship stabilized and turned upwards. The marines felt it too, un-strapping their restraints. They were all heavily armed, and had the same sort of professional, determined air that GUN soldiers had, back at Station Square. Sonic could see the appeal in having fighters like that helping the cause, but it lacked the coolness of the old days. Of course, all the real progress in the old days had been made by him leaving everyone else in the dust, so the new ways being less cool couldn't really be helped.

"Alright, boys! Hit 'em hard and fast! We are authorized to take prisoners, so if it doesn't have a weapon in its hands, don't cut it down." The leader of the platoon or squad or whatever (Sonic had no idea) looked over his men. He was an ursine, brown in color, and looked old enough to be a vet from the Great War. He said some more stuff, earning a chant from the grunts, and then the rear doors opened. The marines stormed out, and Sonic followed at a leisurely pace, tossing the data pad back onto his seat.

Shielding his eyes against the sun's glare, Sonic got a good look around, while the marines secured the area. Miles' little Battlecruiser had done a number on the area. There were craters wide enough to swallow a good sized house, and at least one of the enemy's shuttlecraft had fallen into a crater trying to take off. The drones had disabled it, and one even hovered proudly nearby, watching over the crashed hulk. A few bad guys (Tails had called them "battlebirds," and Sonic hadn't run into them before himself) put up a half decent fight, firing at them from behind cover or from a crashed vehicle.

The marines had things outside under control, so, tapping his foot twice, Sonic took off in a blur of motion. Racing past two surrendering battlebirds, he headed down to the labs and bunker below. Tails had asked him to stick with the force on the ground, in case it ran into trouble, but he hadn't explained just what it was that was down here. There was the Chaos Emerald, yes, but he got the feeling there was more, too.

Running down the underground causeway, passing by a few abandoned wooden crates (and one broken one), Sonic quickly reached the bottom. There was a large area there, with lifts going up to the left and right. A central security station had been mostly destroyed, and so had a handful of defense robots. A handful of battlebirds lay on the ground, dead, along with some of the security guards. Doors to the north and south had colored labels indicating they were different research labs.

Up ahead of him, to the west, large blast doors had been forced open. Inside was some kind of vault. Getting closer, Sonic saw bright lights: they were arranged along the ceiling, and they lit up a massive chamber. Inside was an eclectic mix of high tech looking equipment and more wooden crates. Other crates looked plastic, and many were piled so high Sonic couldn't even hope to jump over them. Walking deeper inside, he saw a treasure trove of items he did recognize.

"Rings?" he asked, gazing out over a just slightly sunken area with rows of Ring Boxes, neatly stacked and arranged. Many were on wooden platforms, to make it easier to move them with a nearby forklift. Box after box after box was in storage here, and Sonic knew from experience that each one had the equivalent of ten Power Rings in it. There had to be hundreds of rings taken altogether… maybe even a thousand! No: maybe even two thousand!

And that was just one area of the immense vault.

To Sonic's right, he saw another designated area, enclosed in red and yellow warning stripes. The design on the boxes here was one he knew well. There were rows of fire-type box shields. He'd used them many times before. When he'd broken those boxes open before, they'd encased him in a sort of flaming shield that made him basically immune to fire based attacks. Like with the ring boxes, these were neatly stacked in rows, and piled one on top of another, two high.

The fire shields weren't alone, either. Past them, in an area with blue and yellow stripes, were rows of water-type bubble shields. And behind that, he saw rows of electric shields, behind yellow and white stripes. To his left, an even more high security area held yet another type of box. There was a clean square cut into the transparent barrier there, and Sonic could see force field emitters that had been shut down nearby, too. Getting closer, he confirmed his suspicions.

Invincibility boxes.

Someone had gone through a lot of trouble to horde so many. In all his years adventuring, Sonic had never seen such a collection. He'd never even imagined it! Near the back of the vault, great crystal pylons held a constantly streaming flow of regular Power Rings. Near that, in its own high security area (also broken into, with considerably more force), was where the Chaos Emerald had been kept. Scientific instruments that had been nearby were ruined or in disarray.

It struck Sonic, for just a moment, as one of the Eggman's labs. But it wasn't. The style here, the architecture, wasn't Eggman-like. It was utilitarian, but with lots of flash and moving parts, and yellow color schemes dominated. Even around the Seal of the King, hung prominently from the scaffolding above, stark golden lines ran from one side to another, above and below. Then Sonic turned around, to face the entrance, and saw a new banner.

A banner with two tails, curled together into a taijitu yin-yang.

"Tails?" Sonic wondered aloud. Had he done all this?

The more the hedgehog thought about it, the more sense it made. None of the other Freedom Fighters had much experience with the shields and rings and power boxes. Rotor had studied ring energy for a while, but Sonic knew he couldn't actually use the stuff. Tails had quickly become the leading authority in the movement regarding chaos energy in all its forms and applications. He could use the boxes, too. Who else would be running all these experiments on all the different sorts of chaos energy? Only the Eggman or maybe someone from the Dark Legion back on Angel Island.

But what was Tails doing here with all this?

"Sonic!" the fox in question contacted him personally, using the earpiece Sonic had put on before his trip to the surface. "Jet and the Rogues are trying to make a break for it. Use the EGAP. I'll catch up with you in the air."

"Tails, wait!" But he was already gone. Not that Sonic had a microphone, anyway. And when had he ever yelled 'Tails, wait!' before? Sonic smirked to himself, and decided to put off any questions till later. Breaking into a run, he was soon out of the vault, and heading up the causeway. By the time he got back to the surface, the marines had landed in force. Ranks of battlebird prisoners were held up near one of the walls in the hangar.

Sonic passed them by and headed for the shuttle he had taken down. Inside, he unlocked the large metal crate he had sat opposite from, and dragged it outside. It was fairly heavy, and would've given most mobians trouble, but Sonic's strength was artificially augmented by his chaos powers. Even without trying, he could manage loads well above what he should have normally been capable of. Putting the crate on the ground, and making sure the face was up, he undid the last two locks.

The sound of distant thunder distracted him for a second, and Sonic looked up to see an air war stretching for a hundred square miles all above him. The Blue Typhoon and another ship seemed to be firing at several targets far away while contrails of missiles mixed with the streaking exhaust of drones and fighter craft. Something blossomed into a large explosion, hit by a beam from the Typhoon. Sonic could see the flashes of light, and the brief lances of energy beams, as anything that got too close to the ship risked blue tinted annihilation. Autocannons and tracer fire erupted from the ship's flank, as something tried to hug the hull to avoid the beams.

Sonic put that aside, and opened his early birthday present. Tails was always building him some crazy thing or another, and as Sonic opened the case, one of his eyebrows raised in impressed surprise. Inside was what looked like an extreme GEAR. Except this GEAR was encased in what looked like jets and an armored frame. On the side, in small writing, Sonic saw what EGAP meant.

Extreme GEAR: Assault Pack (mk.I)

It was heavy, but not unlike a normal board. He hoped it handled line one, too, especially since he couldn't remember word one from that boring instruction datapad he had been given. Powering the GEAR up (a large, well lit power button lay under a transparent pane of glass), Sonic heard it hum, and then roar. That was a new sound for a GEAR! Checking the intakes, he could feel air being sucked in.

"Let's do this!" He started running, and held out the board in front of him. Getting up a good starting speed, Sonic crested one of the craters in the runway and jumped. Tucking his feet in, and placing his shoes into the indentations in the board, he felt them lock in place. Additional straps wrapped around his shoes, along with two raised plates. Straightening out, Sonic pressed down with his back heel, and the GEAR activated fully.

"WOOOOAAAAAAHHH!"

Even for him, that was some killer acceleration. Already hundreds of feet in the air, Sonic could see a plume of green and red fire erupting out of the back of the Assault Pack part of the GEAR. Additionally, tiny canards or wings popped out of the sides, helping to stabilize the board in flight.

"Chaos User identified!" a female voice chirped in his ear. "Activating weapons systems. Please select shield."

"Shield?" Sonic asked, amazed anything could hear him through the roar of the air all around him. He used his left foot to slow down, and corrected the board as it started to fly to the right. Maintaining stability with the Assault Pack on the GEAR was a lot harder than he was used to, but then no normal GEAR could operate so far from a surface, either. It needed something to 'push' off of.

"Please select shield," the voice reiterated. It was obviously just a simple program. Sonic remembered all the shield boxes he had seen down in the vault, just a minute or so ago.

"Fire?" he asked. "Flame shield?"

"Flame shield. Activated."

A wave of red washed over him, and Sonic saw the glow all around the board. If this was like the shields he had used before, then it could be used offensively. The flame shields in the past had blocked things like plasma blasts (though not lasers). Similarly, bubble shields had blocked solid projectiles. He wondered if the Assault Pack had an invincibility shield, too.

"Woah!" Sonic had to keep from losing control again. It definitely wasn't safe losing your focus on keeping the GEAR balanced. Grinning wildly, the hedgehog turned towards the raging melee in the sky. Flames roaring out the back of his new toy, giving him the likeness and power of a small comet, Sonic raced into the fray.

Nicole sat in the Captain's chair, smiling quite happily.

She could actually move all about the bridge if she wished, even into the Captain's Ready Room, but while Miles had been around she'd dutifully remained on her pedestal. He'd given a few remaining orders, putting the fleet in an excellent position to counterattack. He'd probably have enjoyed staying and crushing the Battlebird Fleet, but just like his childhood hero, he took his personal vendettas and grudges very seriously. It was kind of cute, actually.

But organics did get so riled up about the littlest things!

Sally was the same way. Why she insisted in getting so involved with the boys around her, Nicole couldn't quite fathom. The AI knew her 'owner' loved Sonic, so that explained why she had to hang onto his every word and action so much, but Nicole doubted she loved Miles like that, too. Even though Sally had said 'I love you' to him in the ready room before. Nicole had listened in on that whole conversation, but she still didn't quite understand it all. Many of her AI emotions were framed by the time she'd spent in Sally's body, but there was still so much left to learn and experience. Perhaps when her control subroutines expired, she'd finally become as complete as any organic.

For the moment, she was both Nicole and the Blue Typhoon. She could feel the engineers working on her power core. She could feel the roar of engines, like the pulsing of her heart. Her weapons flexed like claws, eager to rend and savage the mayflies and gnats that swarmed around her. Her sensors were her eyes, seeing across the electromagnetic spectrum. Her hangar was like her womb, abuzz with life. She felt like the center of the world; she felt invincible!

'Even Nicole Prime can't feel what I do now!' Nicole thought, managing thousands of ship and fleet related processes as naturally and seamlessly as an organic would move their eyes, legs, or facial muscles. 'She'll be so jealous; I can't wait for our next uplink!'

"Captain!" the crew had been trained to treat her as the ship's Captain, when Miles was not in attendance. Which, frankly, was most of the time.

"I know." Nicole could guess what the tactical officer was about to say. "Ready my primary weapons systems and warm up the forward heavy plasma cannons. We're heading right in… to cut them to pieces…"

Nicole felt her claws extend, power flowing into them.

It felt good.

Miles stood next to his Tornado Two Custom. It was a beauty of a machine, finer even than his Cyclone War Machines. Those were just mass production models, after all. The TT-Custom was sleek, with a generous bubble cockpit, light but extremely strong Morganite-aluminium armor, massive muscular engines, and swept back variable geometry wings. Not that they could simply sweep back and forth – the wings could dynamically alter their shape in flight for maximum speed or maneuverability. It bristled with internal and external weapons systems, both conventional… and unconventional.

'God and the Source, if only she was a woman!' Miles patted the wing of the plane proudly, and seductively ran his hand along the cool, perfect metal armor around one of the engines. 'I need a sexy picture on this plane. And I should give her a name. A real sexy name… you'd like that, wouldn't you, baby?'

"Ahem!"

"Do you have to ruin the moment…?" Miles turned, and saw Sally standing in a flight suit, her hands on her hips. She filled out the jump suit well enough, and she even looked the part of a pilot. Except she wasn't.

"What are you doing?" he asked, eyes half lidded. "No means no."

Sally pouted. She actually pouted.

"You don't even like to fly," Miles said, not giving in. "This is going to be a lot more intense than cruising over to some island. There's going to be dogfights."

"I'm sure I'll be fine!" Sally assured him, holding up her helmet.

"I'm sure you'll pass out," he grumbled, but they'd already had this argument on the way down. She didn't like the idea of him flying off to settle a score with some Battlebird pilot. Not that he thought she had much say in the matter, but apparently since she couldn't stop him (she didn't even try) she felt the need to go through the ordeal with him. It was almost the sort of annoying thing Amy would try, except Amy would (and did) muscle her way into his plane when she wanted to go somewhere. At least Sally had the decency to ask and talk it through.

Not that it mattered.

Females, he deduced, were used to getting what they wanted.

"Fine, I hope you enjoy the ride. Please keep the helmet on in case you throw up." He climbed into the pilot's seat, and she followed right behind him, climbing up and into the co-pilot's seat behind him. If he'd just not installed that seat, then he wouldn't be having this problem. So really, this whole thing was Sonic's fault!

"Hey, I found a crumb! Is this from a cookie?"

"It's your cookie!" he yelled over his shoulder. "You ate gram crackers back there like 4 months ago!"

"I did?" Sally tilted her head as she thought it over, trying to remember. "Oh, that's right! Sorry."

Opening his mouth, Miles paused a few seconds… gave up and went back to the controls in front of him. Running a quick flight check, he made sure everything was in order. His Tornado Two Custom was a special plane, with very special needs. She needed a precise mixture of fuel, and a pilot had to handle her with gentle love and care. She was finicky, but for those who could tame her, her performance and power were unmatched. And like all his most powerful weapons, she could also use a Chaos Emerald to become even more powerful!

But as he had no Emeralds to spare, she would have to make due with her own beautiful and supremely awesome self. He quickly caught himself before he started nuzzling the controls. Even with his Blue Typhoon and all his other creations, he still considered his Tornado to be his most favorite (except maybe Fiona, but she wasn't entirely his creation). Checking all the weapons systems, the electronics, and the power, Miles smirked to himself. Everything was ready.

"Alright!" he yelled over his shoulder. "Hold on! We're taking off!"

Miles activated the comm. "Clearance, Command?"

"Clearance granted, Tornado Two," a voice replied. Lights lit up ahead of them, leading out the hangar and into open air. "Good hunting."

"Thanks, Command," he replied, switching off the comm. "Let's put the fear of God into them, Tornado Two!"

The plane's content rumble became a dragon's roar, and she shot out of the hangar like a bullet. Miles felt the tingle in his blood as the freedom and thrill of flying mixed with his kitsune love of the hunt. He barely heard Sally screaming into her helmet as he pulled a tight turn, ran down the length of the Blue Typhoon in an instant, and shot off into the air battle ahead of them.

In fact, he quickly forgot Sally was even there. His helmet HUD lit up with targets, supplied to the onboard computer by Nicole and the Blue Typhoon battlefield AWACs. Outside the cockpit, the Tornado's wings morphed, becoming better suited to high maneuverability dogfighting. Canards and wing flaps moved, paired with vectored thrust, throwing the plane into a spin and off to the left. Targets lit up the space all around him, and Miles highlighted them with his eyes and the targeting trigger under his thumb.

Setting the targets and switching to free fire, Miles depressed the trigger.

Outside the plane, a missile pod opened, releasing half a dozen crimson streaks. This was the Tornado's (and the Cyclone's) GAM-52 "Panic" General Air Munition Mini-missile System. Capable of engaging both high speed air and ground targets, the six independent missiles were programmed and guided to their targets by the onboard computer. Unlike other similar systems, his GAM-52 system could also be set to 'friend or foe' independent computer targeting.

The mini-missiles themselves had three-dimensional thrust vectoring engines, four mated aerodynamic control surfaces (each with an independent aileron), and four rear spoilers (or fins) for high maneuverability in excess of 18g's. Their only real weakness was their size. They were only mini-missiles, so their range was not great, and their warheads were relatively small: each one had only a four kilogram high explosive warhead.

They made wonderful little blossoms of fire that filled the sky with burning debris. Drone craft hit evasive the moment you ghosted them with active radar, and most pilots to survive this long on the battlefields of Mobius were either really good veterans, or really crappy raw recruits. Miles' Cyclone pilots were a mix of both, but there were a determined bunch and piloting extremely good weapons of war. He was sure they'd be able to handle the Battlebirds, but that didn't mean he wanted to lose out on the fun. Besides, the sooner the fighters were gone, the sooner they could strike at the enemy's heart: their capships.

Engines roaring, Miles maneuvered down and past the smoking barely-battleworthy wreck that was the HMS Prince Emerson. She had been savaged so badly that it was likely the crew would have to scuttle her, whether the battle was won or lost. At least the crew would survive. Scanning the sky for a list of priority targets, Miles identified the main bomber formation. It had split into three pairs of wingmen.

A warning indicator flashed and wailed, indicating he was being locked on. Jinking and burning, Miles tried to break the lock, but found himself being ghosted by two separate enemies. It was just like before, he remembered. The Battlebirds used fighters to designate for drones, rather than using capships. They then engaged as a pair. Miles had no wingman. Pulling up, he inverted his starboard thrust, sending his plane into a twisting spiral. He then pulled downward into a dive, heading towards his first target. This extremely sharp turn, possible because of the Tornado's thrust vectoring and dynamic wings, couldn't be matched by any Battlebird craft.

Diving into and locking onto the original enemy plane, Miles fired a short burst from the Tornado's four-barreled 30 millimeter cannon. The plane had only a limited ammunition supply, so the gun fired well under its maximum rpm. In just a second, however, what few high explosive incendiary rounds it did fire mauled the Battlebird fighter, tearing a wing off and gutting the center of the aircraft. It exploded in a fireball as Miles raced past the wreckage, heading towards the ground.

His radar warning receiver became a sudden solid tone as the remaining drone craft, still locked onto him, unleashed a wave of its own mini-missiles from compartments in its bulbous sides. Turning sharply again and dropping chaff, the Tornado twisted and weaved, engines burning hot as the missiles proximity detonated all around it. High speed shrapnel bounced off the plane's armor from the indirect hits, and it turned around, passing the drone fighter. The unmanned craft opened fire, heaving automatic cannon spewing killer lead, but the Tornado rolled and fired a single quick burst. Pulling up and away, the drone fell behind, burning and trailing fumes.

"Oogh." A disgruntled gurgle from the back seat.

"Sounds like you found the helmet comm.," Miles noted. "You still alive back there?"

"Barely," Sally sounded ok, if a little disoriented. "Where on Mobius did you learn to fly like that?"

"Practice."

"It's… amazing, actually."

He blinked, a little thrown off by the praise. He couldn't remember anyone ever complimenting his piloting like that. Sonic just sort of accepted it as the natural way of things, and none of his other friends really seemed to find it either unusual or amazing. At least none of them said so.

"Thanks. Thanks, Sally," he said, smiling now, and not just from the rush. "No one's ever told me that before."

"I'm just sorry I… well, that I never even noticed until now."

'You never much liked me putting weapons on my planes,' he remembered, and said, "I never really talked about it, so we're even. Hold on!"

The Tornado came about and headed back into the furball.

Wave wasn't much of a fighter.

Her piloting skills were more than good enough, and her plane was armed, but she had never found the actual fighting to be that interesting. So she loitered at the edge of the air war, trying to pick off one of those strange enemy planes with long range missiles. So far, she'd had no luck with it. The designs were fast and incredibly maneuverable, and she had even seen one shoot down her missile before it could get close enough to explode.

They had to be more of that little shrimp's inventions.

The fact that he was physically bigger than her now didn't change the fact that he was once, and would continue to be, a shrimp in her eyes. Still, Miles 'Tails' Prower made some interesting stuff. It was no wonder she had spent so long in the little bastard's shadow when she worked for the Armada. He had been their great child prodigy, and then she had come along and just been the replacement. Meeting him again, he'd been all smiles, but she'd seen through it. She'd known from the start that he was just using the Armada to fight his battles for him.

Looking across the battlefield, filled as it was with his inventions and hers, Wave felt a frown forming on her face. His inventions and his pilots were winning. But of course they were. He had more resources than she did, that was all! He had the entire Kingdom of Knothole feeding him men and materials. If she had the same backing he did, her inventions would be even better. Even deadlier. He was so proud of his Blue Typhoon, was he? She could do better. Wave knew she could. All she needed was a chance.

Sure, breaking into his little research and storage facility would seem a little desperate, but it was only to make things even between them. It was only to get rid of the unfair advantage he had! And he had turned that unfair advantage into some very interesting things. He even had plans for a Chaos Siphon - forbidden technology - tucked away just in case someone gave him the excuse to build it. There was no question he was way ahead of her in Chaos research. She hadn't even looked into it until recently. But that was only because Sonic had been collecting Emeralds long before Jet ever thought to.

"I see. She's basically a female version of me. That is very cute!"

Oh, how those words still ticked her off. She was not a female version of him! She was older; she had come first! If anything, he was an inferior male copy of her!

Not that she had planned all this just to get revenge on the annoying little kitsune brat. After that fiasco in Downunda that cost them the treasure of the Babylonians and von Mainz's Tomb, Wave had tried to salvage something from the ruins. The Armada assembled under Bean broke up without his leadership, and the Babylon Rogues were left with next to nothing. They'd even done a few jobs for the Eggman, out of sheer desperation.

Then her research finally bore some fruit! She'd overlooked a number of artifacts they had managed to recover from the ruins of the tomb. Later, with some access to the Eggman's records, she confirmed one of the relics as an "Ark of the Cosmos." Supposedly, there were five of them scattered throughout the ancient world among the great civilizations of the time: the Echidna, the Dingo, the Babylonians, the Third Republic, and the Overlanders. Together, they were believed to unlock a power as great as the Chaos Emeralds themselves.

What she and the Babylon Rogues had been after in Facility-7 had not been a Chaos Emerald, or even the many power rings and chaos shields contained within. Other artifacts were stored there, used in experiments and for study before being shipped to other areas on Mobius. Breaking into the data vault in Knothole had confirmed that tests had been conducted on two Arks of the Cosmos, finding them to be inert of any significant Chaos Energy sensitivity. The Chaos Emerald and all the other stuff, the Rogues had left for the pillaging battlebirds.

Wave had what she wanted.

With these two, the Rogues how had all five Arks. All they needed to do now was unleash and harness the incredible power sealed within them. It would be a power equal to the Chaos Emeralds, and it would be hers to mold into new and supremely powerful inventions! Inventions that would dwarf anything that annoying foxboy could come up with. Her creations would even eclipse those of the Eggman himself!

"Jet," she spoke into her helmet, careful to keep their communications discrete and secure. It wouldn't do to pick up an electronic warfare worm, or betray her position. "Are you sure you want to do this? I think we should just bug out."

"Oh no, not this time," Jet's reply was full of excitement. He wanted to settle this score he had more than he wanted to complete their mission. It was just plain immature in her opinion. "Have you pinpointed my targets?"

"I think so," Wave responded, searching through her target list. "All the non-drone enemy craft out there appear similar, but one seems to be slightly different. I believe it's him. There's also another target in the area… its small enough to be a drone, but it isn't acting like one."

"Send both targets to me. I'll draw them out and finish this. Inform Storm."

"Actually… it looks like Storm's gotten to the best part before me." Jet chuckled. "And you kept calling him slow!"

Storm's fighter/bomber was probably the most functionally similar aircraft to the Cyclone war machines that now pressed the battlebird air wings back. His Ba-177 Gryphon was fast and powerful, with strong armor protecting critical points and massive engines. What he lacked in comparison was the insane maneuverability of these new threats. His plane was conventional design: a fuselage flanked by massive engines, and wings bristling with missiles and bombs. Climbing and turning, he spotted his prey, ghosting it from miles away across the ever expanding air battle.

He'd been saving his best air to air ordinance for a duel with the enemy wing commander. Even without Wave sending him the target data, he had guesses which craft was the one he wanted. Command had reported a craft with unusual markings, and Storm had seen the Tornado Two close up before, when Tails stopped at Lafitte Island on his way to Downunda. Unlike Wave and Jet, Storm had no real dislike of the fox… Tails had been nothing but courteous to them, and when Storm had met him, the boy had been polite and even friendly.

'This isn't personal,' Storm thought to himself, activating multiple missile systems. 'It's just… business.'

His craft lurched, as the first two long range radar guided missiles took off. Hitting afterburners, Storm climbed to gain altitude, readying the next set. Forty miles away, traveling at over 600 knots, or more than a thousand kilometers per hour, the Tornado Two Custom accelerated and banked left. Rolling and abruptly climbing and making another sharp turn, it popped two canisters of chaff, combined with a generous pulse of directed ECM. The two large air to air missiles spoofed, spiraling after the chaff and exploding.

Turning and burning, the ship made another sudden turn and then an inverted dive, pursued by two flurries of mini-missiles. Putting on another burst of speed, it broke the sound barrier for a second time, jinking left and right, spoffing and setting off mini missiles as it went. Then it pulled up, spat a trio of flares, and rolled to the right, throwing two stealth infrared missiles off target where they exploded harmlessly in midair.

'Insane…' Storm had to give the kid credit. No wonder he'd been able to decimate the Battlebird Armada with the original Tornado Prototype. 'All right! Ok, kid! I'll acknowledge your skills!'

Activating every spare missile bank he had, and setting it to the one target, Storm's face became an angry scowl.

'I'll hit you with everything I've got! I won't hold back even the littlest bit!'

In the cockpit of the Tornado Two, Miles felt a chill run up his spine. His RWR was going off the charts. There wasn't just one active lock on him… they were more like a dozen. That wouldn't even include the passive tracking missiles heading his way. Hearing Sally's strained breathing from the back seat, Miles couldn't help but smile hard enough to push his cheeks back and show teeth.

'That's it! Show me everything you have! And I'll break right through it!'

"Hold on!" he warned his already shaken passenger. "Things are about to get a little rough!"

"A little rough?!" Sally squawked. "Then what was…?"

"Chaos Drive!" Miles yelled, activating the emergency system. He only had a limited supply of chaos energy from the ring capacitor onboard, and without a real Chaos Emerald providing power, he could only operate at maximum for two minutes. A screen on his controls, previously grey, lit up with green light. Outside, trails of similar green light coursed across his wings and down the fuselage of the Tornado Two.

Then the light reached the engines.

The Tornado literally blasted forward, breaking Mach 2 in seconds. Miles had no intention of trying to outrun the missiles. Most hit a top speed of 4 to 5 times the speed of sound, so instead he banked up, continuing to accelerate. Mach 3 passed with an inaudible boom, as he rose higher and higher. The clouds receded around them, and the sky turned from blue to midnight. He rarely traveled this high, and never with a weapons load.

As the altimeter passed 24 kilometers, the sky darkened and the air thinned. They were approaching the very edge of the stratosphere, and the limit of air fed engines. This high there was no air turbulence; no clouds; no storms; no disturbances of any kind… only a vast and pure sky, frozen between the heavens and the earth. To him, it was beautiful.

Perfect.

"Wow."

Sally seemed to appreciate it, too.

"Are we… in space?" she asked, in awe of the sight all around them: the gentle curve of Mobius on the horizon, and the vast sea of clouds that blanketed it.

"Not yet. But we will be," he promised. "Some day. But for now…!"

Unlocking and pushing a handle forward, Miles began the Tornado's transformation. Wings realigned, and the body of the plane shifted as the engines extended. The cockpit tucked into the now bottom-up fuselage as a large metallic shield enveloped them. Even as it did, the glass lit up; projecting the exact same mosaic they had been looking at before. Outside, where the Tornado had once stood, a humanoid robot now hovered at the edge of the stratosphere. It even had a pair of thin arms, ending in oblong pod-like stubs.

Inside, Sally watched as the clouds below them lit up. On the battle screen that now covered the cockpit glass (and on Miles' helmet HUD), two dozen tiny brackets appeared below them. Gradually, the battleoid began to free fall. Miles controlled the movement and angle of the descent, and in moments, the bracketed targets began to wink out. As first, it wasn't clear what was happening. Then Sally saw a thin, narrow beam. It reminded her of the ones that the Blue Typhoon had been firing.

'Some sort of particle beam?' she wondered, and guessed it had to be coming from the arms that the transformation had created. She could see an outline of the battle robot form on the cockpit display. One by one, the bracketed targets – missiles – winked out as Miles picked them off. Then another larger bracket appeared, along with a three dimensional radar image and projected schematic. It was a large enemy fighter.

"Die," she heard the pilot whisper. It wasn't a word she'd ever expected to hear from him, even if he had been (now that she really thought about it) killing people since the fight began. He just hadn't been doing it face to face, he'd been lobbing missiles and shooting at them from afar.

It hurt her in a way, that he could use his inventions to take them to this wonderful place above the clouds, a place she had never even thought existed, and then switch right back to killing someone. Fighting. Was it really ok; was it really right, for them to have encouraged him to use his genius like this? In a better time and place he would have used his mind to help people, but this lifetime of battle had changed him and perverted his naturally peaceful nature. And Sally knew she was partly to blame.

Her seat rocked, as the Tornado transformed again, back into a plane.

"You won't get away!" Miles roared at the escaping aircraft. It looked damaged, and he was hunting it down. The tone of missile lock filled her ears.

"Tails," she began to say, "Maybe…"

"This is war, Sally!" he replied. "Don't tell me you're getting cold feet now!"

From her back seat, she tried to see his face, but couldn't.

"No," she conceded. "I'm not."

Storm was in trouble.

"Jet… Wave…!" He felt his Ba-177 lurch, wounded but still trying to fly. "A little help?"

"Just hang tight! I'll be right there!" Jet's voice was confident and encouraging. He was leader, after all. He'd never let one of his subordinates die.

Storm grunted in reply, and steepened his dive. He'd been hit by some sort of energy beam, and it had blown out one of his ailerons and crippled a wing. He had his engines, at least, thanks to it being only a glancing blow. His missiles had been picked off one after another, and at the last second, with them all gone, he'd gone evasive. That split second decision had saved his life. His Gryphon was tough and fast, but he was out of ammo, and getting into a dogfight with most any enemy ship wasn't a prospect he relished. His plane was a missile boat, and his guns were designed for strafing ground targets.

His RWR blared a warning, but he didn't see any missiles showing up on radar. He was being ghosted, then. Storm had managed to put a good forty kilometers between himself and the diving Tornado Two, but that was still well within missile range. Then he saw it: a single blip on his radar screen. The computer outlined it in red.

'Radar guided? Chaff!' Storm's hand hesitated. 'Or maybe I shouldn't risk it! Maybe I should just bail out? But…!'

And then another friendly blasted by him, heading back the way Storm had come.

'Jet!'

Passing the radar guided missile, Jet's plane fired and barrel rolled to the side. The large AAM-8 "Anaconda" missile exploded, but Jet's plane was well out of range. He'd been showboating, but he liked the look of his plane heading for the missile, picking it off at close range, and then swooping carelessly out of range of the explosion.

"Jet," a familiar voice came over the open communications link. "Surrender now or die."

"That's funny, kid," Jet replied, activating his medium range ordinance. "I was about to say the same thing!"