Sonic and the Freedom Fighters
Chapter 6: The Island In The Sky Part 2
Disclaimer: The following is a non-profit fan-based work of fiction. All characters portrayed in this story, unless specified otherwise, belong to SEGA.
-Angel Island-
Things weren't looking too good for the Freedom Fighters. They had travelled to Angel Island by Knuckles' request to help him destroy an oncoming wave of robots sent by Dr Eggman to retrieve the Master Emerald.
However, instead of a normal dropship like they were expecting, the group was staring up at the gigantic airborne battleship, the Egg Carrier.
"That wouldn't happen to be the ship you saw before, is it?" Rotor asked Knuckles anxiously.
"Afraid not." Knuckles responded.
"Ah've never seen so many cannons in one place!" Bunnie uncharacteristically whimpered. "Ya'll don't think he's gonna..."
"Don't think so." Sonic said. "If it's the Master Emerald he's after, I doubt he'll risk blowing it up."
"I knew he had to have been holding back for something." Sally said.
"What do you mean, Sally?" Amy asked
"I mean this is a trap!" She replied, to the shock of the rest of the Freedom Fighters.
"I see you're just as sharp as ever, princess." Eggman's voice boomed from above. The group saw Eggman's Egg Mobile fly out from the Egg Carrier and down to them.
"Oh boy. Here comes his evil monologue." Sonic remarked.
"This was all part of my brilliant plan to steal the most powerful source of Chaos Energy in the world, while simultaneously getting rid of my greatest enemies. I figured that I could alert Knuckles here into bringing you fools into coming here. That way, I would have both the Master Emerald and all my enemies in one place. And with the hundreds of robots ready to fight currently stored in the Egg Carrier, crushing you will be a piece of cake! Of course, seeing as you're so obviously outmatched, I'm willing to negotiate. Simply hand over the Master Emerald and no-one will get hurt."
"I think we'll take our chances, Egghead." Sonic replied.
"Well, it's your funeral." Eggman said before pressing a button on the console in front of him. A hatch door at the underside of the Egg Carrier opened up and a horde of Egg Pawns, Egg Knights and a few Egg Hammers dived to the ground. Sally stepped back a bit at the sight of the seemingly endless mob of robots. Sonic noticed her nervousness and put a hand on her shoulder.
"Don't worry, we've seen worse." Sonic reassured her. Sally didn't respond for a while as she tried to control her breathing. After a while, she looked back at Sonic and smiled.
"Yeah... I guess you're right." Sally whispered.
With newfound determination, Sally confidently stepped forward and activated her Ring Blades.
"Freedom Fighters, engage!" She called, and the Freedom Fighters, Knuckles and Amy charged towards the robot horde.
"Robots, attack!" Eggman yelled before he flew his Egg Mobile back into the Egg Carrier. Upon his command, the mob of robots charged forward towards their enemies.
Sonic wasted no time and Spin Dashed into the Egg Pawns, leaving behind a trail of destroyed robots. Following Sonic, Sally quickly attacked the robots with a series of acrobatic flips whilst slashing the robots with her Ring Blades. Sonic dashed right through the Egg Pawns and stopped in front of an Egg Hammer, which then tried to crush the blue hedgehog, but to no avail. As it tried to attack him once more, Sally came from behind and cut the robot's right leg off, causing it to lose balance. Sonic used a Homing Attack to knock the robot backwards, causing it to land on its back and deactivate.
Tails, on the other hand, was flying around an Egg Pawn with an energy rifle, dodging the laser blasts it was firing. He was moving too fast for the robot to keep up, and the laser blasts from the rifle ended up hitting and destroying other Egg Pawns. Tails then quickly curled into a ball and charged into the rifle-wielding robot, launching it into the air and letting it fall back to the ground, shattering.
Knuckles and Rotor dealt with the robots trying to get to the Master Emerald's Shrine. The two noticed a large group of robots approaching them, so Rotor threw one of the robots lying on the ground into the air, while Knuckles jumped up and punched it at full force, sending it hurtling like a meteor into the approaching robots.
Meanwhile, Amy was fighting the Egg Pawns with her Piko Piko Hammer. She noticed a group of robots coming her way, so she used her Spinning Hammer Attack to charge into the incoming robots and knock them away, leaving them to fall to the ground and break.
Bunnie was destroying the robots attacking her nearly effortlessly. One of the Egg Pawns tried to attack her while she wasn't looking. Sadly for the robot, she caught the incoming fist with her left arm, swung the unfortunate robot like a weapon to destroy the one in front of her, and threw it into a large group of Egg Pawns, knocking them all down like bowling pins.
At the same time, Antoine was engaging an Egg Knight and several lance-wielding Egg Pawns in a swordfight, expertly dodging and parrying every strike from his opponents despite being outnumbered. After blocking the last strike from the Egg Knight and knocking it off balance, Antoine seized the opportunity and span around in a circle with his blade outstretched, cutting all the robots around him in half.
However, as he sheathed his sword, an Egg Hammer landed on the ground behind him. Antoine had just enough time to look behind him before the robot's gigantic hammer swatted him away, sending him back several feet and causing him to almost fall off the edge of the island, leaving him dangling on the cliff.
"Antoine!" Bunnie cried as she rushed to the ledge, barely dodging the Egg Hammer's attacks on the way. She got to the ledge and, with her robotic left arm, grabbed Antoine's wrist and pulled him back onto the ground whilst Sonic dealt with the Egg Hammer.
"Ah'm so glad you're safe..." Bunnie whispered, wrapping Antoine into a tight hug, nearly squeezing the life out of him.
"ACK! B-Bunnie... if you could be letting go now, si vous plait..." Antoine gasped out in discomfort. Bunnie immediately noticed she was hurting him and let go.
"S-sorry 'bout that..." She muttered.
Meanwhile, on the bridge of the Egg Carrier, Eggman, along with Orbot and Cubot, were watching the fight through
"I don't think this is working, Boss." Cubot said to his creator.
"I can see that, genius." Eggman sarcastically commented, glaring at Cubot over his shoulder. "Fortunately, I'm prepared for this kind of situation. It's time to unleash my secret weapon." He said as he turned his head back to the screen, adjusting his glasses slightly.
Back on the ground, the Freedom Fighters had destroyed the last of the robots.
"That's the last of them." Knuckles said. As they were catching their breath, Sonic saw something out of the corner of his eye. He turned his head slightly to see Eggman in his Egg Mobile flying towards the Master Emerald's shrine.
"Guys! Eggman's going after the Master Emerald!" Sonic shouted. The Freedom Fighters took notice and rushed to the shrine.
Before they could reach it, however, they were stopped by a large robot diving down into their path. The robot resembled a giant Egg Pawn and had a shield almost as big as itself attached to its left arm, and a massive lance in place of a right arm. It looked almost exactly like the Egg Emperor, but this one had a silver colour on its body instead of dark bronze like the original Egg Emperor, and it had blue markings instead of green. Also, there was a flat metal circle instead of a multi-coloured window.
"Is that the Egg Emperor?" Tails asked.
"I'm not sure. It looks different." Amy remarked. Meanwhile, Eggman hovered next to the giant robot.
"Well, looks like all of you are still in one piece." He groaned. "Nevertheless, that's about to end. Allow me to introduce you to my latest creation; the Egg Paladin! I based it on my old Egg Emperor design, but this one is much stronger and faster. Well, I'd better be going now. The Master Emerald isn't going to steal itself." He called as he hovered towards the shrine.
"Tails, Rotor, Antoine. You guys go keep Egghead away from the Emerald. We'll keep this thing busy." Sonic said. The three ran to the shrine, while the rest stayed to fight the Paladin.
Amy charged forward and leaped into the air to attack the giant robot with her hammer. However, the robot simply raised its shield and blocked the attack, leaving Amy vulnerable. The Paladin took this opportunity and swung its arm to the side to fling the young hedgehog girl away, sending her flying through the air screaming. Fortunately, Sonic caught Amy before she collided with the ground, before running back to Sally and Bunnie and setting her back on the ground.
Bunnie, meanwhile, switched her arm into its blaster form and fired a powerful energy blast at the Paladin, but the robot blocked it with its shield. Seeing her attack didn't work, her arm turned back as she flew into the air and charged at the Paladin, punching it with her left arm, sending a loud clang through the air. Unfortunately, this seemed to only leave a small dent in the shield.
"What in the...?" She muttered before the Paladin swiped its lance at her. Bunnie had just enough time to dodge before landing back on the ground behind Sonic and Sally.
"So, how the heck do we take this thing down?" Bunnie asked.
"I think we should take care of that shield first." Sonic said.
"How do we do that? Bunnie barely left a dent in that thing." Sally asked.
"Guess we'll just have to hit harder." He remarked. Sonic charged at the Paladin, and the robot responded by firing a volley of missiles at him. Sonic expertly dodged the missiles as he ran and jumped over the last one, landing a few meters in front of the Paladin. However, the missiles suddenly turned and headed back towards Sonic. The blue hedgehog had just enough time to turn around and see the missiles headed back at him and avoided them again, leaving them heading towards the Eg Paladin who raised its shield to protect itself. The missiles exploded on contact with the shield and left large cracks in it.
Seeing the cracks in the shield, Sally had an idea. "Bunnie, Knuckles. Hit the shield as hard as you can!" She commanded.
The two hit the shield at the same time, causing the robot's shield to shatter. As the shield broke, Knuckles's fist collided with the robot's chest.
At the Master Emerald's shrine, Tails, Rotor and Antoine were fending off Eggman's Egg Mobile, which currently had a long arm with a claw extending from its underside. Tails pressed a button on his arm cannon and then shot an energy blast at the Egg Mobile. When it hit, the Egg Mobile and the arm suddenly stopped moving. Antoine then seized the opportunity and cut off the claw arm. When the Egg Mobile started working again, Eggman turned the vehicle around and retreated, growling in anger as he did so.
Meanwhile, in retaliation to having it's shield smashed, the Egg Paladin fired another round of missiles. Sonic and Sally dived to the side to avoid the missiles aimed at them, Knuckles jumped over them, Bunnie shot them before they could hit her, and Amy swatted them away with her hammer.
"Ok, shield's down. Now what?" Bunnie asked. Sally thought for a moment before noticing the crack in the robot's chest.
"I have an idea. Sonic, try to redirect one of its missiles to its chest." Sally said. Sonic nodded before dashing towards the Paladin as it fired another round of missiles. He leaped onto one of them while avoiding the others and forced it to change its trajectory so that it was heading towards the Paladin and jumped of just before it hit the crack in the robot's chest and exploded, sending several pieces flying everywhere.
Eggman, who had flown back into the Egg Carrier after being repelled by Sonic's friends, watched the Egg Paladin explode. Furious, he pressed a few buttons on the ships command console, causing it to turn around.
"This isn't over, Freedom Fighters! I'll get you next time!" Eggman shouted as the Egg Carrier flew away from Angel Island.
-Minutes later-
After the Freedom Fighters defeated Eggman and forced him to retreat, they stayed on the island for a while at Tails's request to gather the broken metal left by the destroyed Badniks. Once they had collected all of it, they started to head back to the Freedom Fighter Jet, with Bunnie helping Tails carry a large bag of scrap metal. However, Knuckles asked Sonic and Sally to stay behind for a moment.
"I'm sure you've noticed that Eggman has become more active lately." Knuckles started. "If he needed the Master Emerald, I'm sure it's for something big. And since he failed to get it, his next plan will most likely be to find the Chaos Emeralds. If that's the case, you'll need to find them first."
"Wait, you're not coming with us to help"? Sally asked.
"I'm afraid I can't. I still need to guard the Master Emerald. If Eggman notices me fighting his robots, he'll see it as an opportunity to try and steal it again. However..." Knuckles paused as pulled out a green Chaos Emerald.
"Here, take this." Knuckles said while giving Sonic the emerald.
"What is that?" Sally asked, staring curiously at the gemstone.
"This is one of the Chaos Emeralds." Sonic explained. "Y'know, those things I told you about a while ago?"
"Yes, I remember. So Eggman is looking for these?"
"Well, if he is after them, then we've got a head start on him." He said before turning to Knuckles. "Thanks, Knux. And don't worry, Eggman won't be laying a finger on those Emeralds."
The two then said their goodbyes to Knuckles before leaving to catch up with the rest of the group.
-Egg Carrier-
Meanwhile, Eggman was still furious about having been foiled by Sonic and his friends once again.
"Curse those Freedom Fighters!" He growled to himself. "They may have stopped me this time, but mark my words, it WILL be the last time. Fortunately for me, I can just as easily use the Chaos Emeralds instead of the Master Emerald, and I won't let those pests beat me to them!" He pressed a button on his command console, and a holographic screen appeared in front of him. He scrolled through a list of names for a few seconds before stopping and selecting one of them, causing the word "CALLING" to appear on the screen.
"And I know someone who can help me with that." He said darkly as he waited. Almost instantly, the dial tone stopped.
"You require my assistance?" A sinister voice on the other end said.