Sonic and the Freedom Fighters
Chapter 19: The Death Egg, 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.
-The Death Egg - 5th Floor-
With the security of the Death Egg heightened after the Freedom Fighters managed to sneak on board, the corridors leading to vital rooms were filled with Egg Pawns standing watch to attack them on sight. In one such corridor on the 5th floor of the Death Egg, the Egg Pawns tirelessly patrolled up and down the passageway when the sudden sound of an explosion alerted them. The robots stared at the direction of the noise as two of them walked forward to investigate only for them to be destroyed as two blue figures burst through the wall, interlocked in a fierce struggle. One of them was their target, Sonic the Hedgehog, who was currently pushing the second, his robotic rival Metal Sonic, against the wall, his brow furrowed in determination and his teeth gritted as he struggled against the robot.
As the Egg Pawns rushed to assist their ally, Metal Sonic pushed back against Sonic using his built-in jet engine, propelling the two down the corridor. Seeing the incoming danger, the Egg Pawns immediately turned tail and tried to escape, only for the two hedgehogs to crash through them, shattering them in the process. The two struggled like this until Metal Sonic made a sudden turn to the left, crashing through the door and into a large circular room. Sonic quickly broke free of the robot's grip and landed on one side of an elevated platform, with his metal doppelganger landing on the other side. The two glared at each other before charging at blinding speeds, engaging in a high-speed battle as they continuously crashed into each other. Metal Sonic eventually got the upper hand and knocked Sonic back, but the hedgehog quickly recovered and dodged the robot's follow-up attacks, before kicking the robot and Spin dashing into his chest, causing Metal Sonic to briefly stagger. The robot retaliated by charging up the energy cannon in his chest, firing a powerful blast that Sonic quickly dodged. Metal Sonic rotated his torso in an attempt to hit the hedgehog with the beam, but Sonic used his speed to race around the room, avoiding the attack. After a few seconds, the blast died down, and Metal Sonic slumped slightly as if exhausted, prompting Sonic to stop.
"Aw, tuckered out already?" The blue hedgehog taunted. Metal Sonic responded by leaping up to a walkway positioned above them, before tearing out a chunk of the wall and placing his hand on the now-exposed wires that were transferring the Master Emerald's energy throughout the Death Egg. The energy caused green sparks to emanate from Metal Sonic's body and after a few seconds, he retracted his hand and turned to face Sonic.
"CHAOS ENERGY SUPPLY AT 100%." The robot droned, much to Sonic's annoyance, before launching himself at the blue hedgehog.
-The Death Egg - 2nd Floor-
Shadow, meanwhile, had just reached the 2nd floor of the Death Egg and wasted no time in confronting the soulless imitations of himself that had already been released from the hangars. He launched Chaos Spear after Chaos Spear at the seemingly endless horde of Shadow Androids, drawing strength from the energy used to power the Death Egg, destroying the robots in violent explosions. He dodged an incoming Chaos Spear from another android as several others rushed toward him, the black hedgehog sprinting forward before assailing them with rapid attacks and using Chaos Control to teleport himself out of danger from their attacks. And from the back, Rouge watched him annihilate the robots without hesitation or mercy. She had rarely seen Shadow fight with this much ferocity. This wasn't the first time either of them had encountered these duplicates, the event leading her to briefly wonder if Shadow was also a robot. Before long, all the Shadow Androids fighting Shadow had been reduced to scrap, the black hedgehog barely looking exhausted from the battle.
"There should be more up ahead." The hedgehog said tersely, walking forward as Rouge caught up to him.
"You're not usually this tense. Is something wrong?" The bat asked, kicking away the scraps of the Shadow Androids as she walked alongside him.
"Is that why you volunteered to help? So you could play therapist?" The black hedgehog replied dismissively.
"I'm just worried about you." The bat responded, unfazed by his cold demeanor, before stepping in front of him. "Be honest. This is about those Androids, isn't it?" She asked. Shadow stared at her for a few seconds before sighing, turning his head away.
"Those things are dangerous. If we leave them operational, there's no telling what Eggman will use them for, or how powerful they can become." He replied, his stoic exterior unchanging.
"I know. But you don't have to do everything by yourself." She said, crossing her arms. "I know you probably don't care, but... if you need someone to talk to, I'll be happy to listen." Shadow turned his head to look at her, before raising his hand and firing a Chaos Spear past her. The bat didn't even flinch, instead turning to find that the Spear had hit a Shadow Android that tried to ambush them, resulting in a gaping hole in its chest as it fell to the floor.
"We should complete our mission," Shadow stated as he walked past her and continued on his path. Rouge stayed in place, looking down with a concerned look.
"Rouge?" The black hedgehog called, catching her attention as she turned to face him, his head turned back to look at her. "Thank you." He continued before turning back and walking away. Rouge breathed a sigh of relief before running after him.
-Death Egg - Control Room-
In the control room, meanwhile, multiple Egg Pawns equipped with powerful weaponry marched around the control room as they guarded it, obeying their creator's orders to not allow anyone to access the room. Suddenly, the door was blown apart in a powerful explosion, the remnants smacking into a few Egg Pawns as Sally and Bunnie charged into the room and attacked them, with Sally slicing them apart with her Ring Blades and Bunnie firing her arm cannon, as they both dodged the robots' attacks. Once they were dispatched, reinforcements charged into the control room, and Bunnie charged ahead to fight them off.
"I'll handle 'em! You get this hunk a' tin away from the city." She yelled. Sally nodded and approached the command console and plugged Nicole in, before swiftly typing in commands, the words "ACCESS GRANTED" eventually appearing on the central monitor.
"Alright, we need to move the Death Egg as far away from the city as possible. We can't let it fall nearby any civilized areas." Sally stated.
"We would also need to make sure to minimize any disruptions to the ecosystem as a result of the crash." Nicole replied. Sally put her hand to her chin and thought for a second.
"That pretty much narrows down our options to deserts. Are there any nearby?" She asked. Nicole fell silent for a moment as she scanned the nearby landscape before she replied.
"Yes. There's a desert area accessible within under 3 minutes at full speed. No inhabited areas located." She said, showing the area in question along with the coordinates.
"Okay then. Divert as much power as possible to the thrusters and move the Death Egg to that location. And lock Eggman out of the system so he can't undo it." She commanded as she typed the coordinates into the console.
"Already on it." Nicole replied, and within seconds, Sally felt the floor shift slightly as the Death Egg began to move to the specified location. Sally then removed Nicole from the console as Bunnie destroyed the last remaining Egg Pawns, and the two fled the room. Meanwhile, Eggman was approaching the control room with his two robotic cohorts when he felt the Death Egg move and immediately rushed towards the control room to find various Egg Pawns broken and scattered around the room. Realizing that the Freedom Fighters had already been here, he moved to the console and saw that the Death Egg was moving to a new location. He tried to type in commands to stop it, but the screen displayed the message "ACCESS DENIED", and he bashed his fists on the console in frustration.
"Blast! Those insufferable pests locked me out of the system!" He shouted.
"Um, sir?" Orbot tried to get his attention, terrified at his creator's fury.
"What?!" Eggman snapped as he turned around. Both robots winced in fear before Orbot continued.
"I-It appears that the hangars holding the Shadow Androids have all been destroyed." He reported. Eggman looked away, hands clenching in anger, before turning back to the frightened Orbot.
"Orbot! Status update on the Egg Dragon!"
"Uh, s-seventy-three percent, sir." He reported.
"That should be enough," Eggman replied as he started to walk away. "I'm heading back to Hangar E. You two get yourselves to the escape pod."
Sally and Bunnie, meanwhile, raced through the corridors of the Death Egg, having reached the 5th floor and now on their way to the core of the Death Egg. Sally pulled out her communicator and dialed Tails, the communicator ringing for a bit before Tails' voice spoke up.
"Hello?" He asked as noise erupted from Tails' side of the call.
"Tails, have you reached the core yet?" Sally asked.
"Uh... yeah!" He replied, a little apprehension in his voice before another explosion sounded.
"Tails, what's going on over there?" Sally questioned.
"The core has its own defense system! We're trying to hold it off!" Tails explained.
"Okay, I'm on my way there now. Just hold on." She replied before hanging up, then dialing Sonic's communicator, waiting for a connection before speaking. "Sonic, when you're done with Metal Sonic, get to the core! Tails and the others need help taking down the defense system!"
"I might be a bit late!" Sonic replied as he held back the powered up Metal Sonic before he was flung across the room and against the wall. As he struggled to get back up, he noticed that the hole in the wall that Metal Sonic made was still sparking, and Chaos Energy was still flowing from it. Thinking fast, he dodged an attack from Metal Sonic before calling Rotor.
"Yo, Rotes, you got a sec?" He asked as he continued to evade his robotic duplicate.
"Uh, sure, I guess." Rotor replied.
"Okay, you remember that thing we found in the Shadow-bot?" He continued as he dodged a swipe from the robot.
"Yeah, what about it?" Rotor asked. Metal Sonic began to charge up energy to his chest cannon again before firing, which Sonic evaded.
"So, let's say, for example, that it gets a little too much juice pumped into it. What would happen?" He asked. Rotor took a second to reply.
"Hmm... I don't know for sure, but I think an overload would force the machine to discharge the excess energy, and the resulting power surge could short-circuit the machine." Rotor answered.
"Awesome, thanks!" Sonic replied before cutting off. He continued to dodge the robot's attacks before Metal Sonic began to run low on energy again and leaped up to the upper levels to refuel, jamming his hand into the flowing energy, only to turn around in surprise as Sonic followed him up and kicked him in the chest, followed by using his super-speed to push the robot into the severed energy cable.
"Hey, don't stop on my account!" He quipped as he continued to push. He quickly noticed that Metal Sonic began to charge up his cannon again, and he jumped onto Metal Sonic's head, keeping his hands on the robot as the shot fired, only to quickly swing down and kick the robot in the face, disrupting the energy blast. Sonic then turned the robot around and forced him into the energy cable, watching as Metal Sonic began to overload. After a few seconds, Sonic leaped back and watched as Metal Sonic staggered out of the wall, aimlessly firing his energy cannon in an attempt to discharge the excess energy before he convulsed as green sparks began to fly erratically from his body. Eventually, the sparks stopped, and Metal Sonic became limp before he fell onto the ground, deactivated. Sighing in relief, Sonic raced out of the room to assist his friends in the Death Egg's core.
-Death Egg's Core-
Meanwhile, in the core, Tails and the others were still under attack from the core's defenses as they tried to make a dent in its armor, albeit to no avail, as none of their weapons or attacks left so much as a scratch, something Tails quickly discovered as he tried to fire his energy blaster at the cannon only to see that it had no effect, and the cannon rotated to aim at him before charging energy into the base of its barrel. Tails manage to swiftly dodge before the powerful blast fired, but the explosion from the impact still threw him back and onto the floor. He struggled to get up as the defense system fired another volley of missiles at him, only for them to be intercepted as Cheese charged through them, destroying them. Cream landed in front of Tails and caught Cheese as he returned, slightly dazed from the impact. The young rabbit hugged the Chao as she turned to Tails.
"Are you okay, Tails?" She asked as the fox got back to his feet.
"Yeah, I'm fine." He replied before looking up at the cannon, while Amy and Knuckles kept the defenses distracted. "That's one tough defense system" He pondered, trying to figure out how to take it down.
"Tails!" They heard Sally's voice cry out, and turned to see the Mobian chipmunk rushing towards them alongside Bunnie, though Sonic is nowhere to be found.
"Where's Sonic?" Tails asked.
"Metal Sonic ambushed us on the way to the control room. He's keeping him at bay." She replied, before looking at the core's defense system. "So, what's the situation?" She asked.
"Not so good, Miss Sally. None of us have been able to do anything to stop the defenses." Cream replied sadly. Suddenly, Tails came up with an idea.
"Hey, what if we fired into that big cannon while it was charging up?" He wondered aloud.
"And risk blowing ourselves up in the process?" Knuckles asked incredulously, having overheard the conversation while still avoiding the blasts that came from the turrets. Sally thought about this suggestion for a few seconds.
"If the armour is heavily reinforced, it might be our only chance at taking it down. But what about the Master Emerald?" Sally asked.
"The metal composing the defense system and the core should dampen the backward force of the explosion enough to leave the Master Emerald intact," Nicole reported. "And I would advise we act now. The Death Egg will have reached its destination by the time we disable the defenses."
"Alright then." Sally replied before turning to her allies. "Tails, Bunnie, you two will need to get to the cannon and fire once it begins charging. Everyone else, focus on clearing a path and keeping them safe." Tails and Bunnie nodded before dashing towards the main cannon of the defense system. While Knuckles stopped one of the turrets from turning while Amy deflected the blasts of the other turret as she charged towards it before throwing her hammer into one of the barrels, causing the turret to explode as soon as it fired and flinging the hammer back into Amy's grip.
At the same time, the core defenses fired another round of missiles at the group, which were intercepted as Sally sliced through them with her Ring Blades, while Cheese charged through the rest, the pair destroying the missiles before they could make contact, allowing Tails and Bunnie to jump up to the main cannon, hanging onto the edge of the barrel. The second they saw the energy gathering in the other end, they aimed their weapons and fired into the barrel, leaping off immediately after and joining their allies as the energy within overloaded the defence system, sparking violently.
"Everyone, get behind me!" Nicole shouted as she appeared in front of them and erected a barrier around the group, and the defense system exploded, engulfing the surrounding area in flames, the Freedom Fighters protected by Nicole's barrier. Once the explosion subsided, the surrounding floor was scorched, the occasional flame flickering, and the access area of the core had been bent and warped from the explosion, while the lights and circuitry had died from the resulting loss of power. Nicole dispelled her barrier and Knuckles rushed forward to free the master Emerald, while the holographic lynx collapsed in exhaustion, her body beginning to flicker.
"Nicole!" Sally cried out as she rushed to her friend.
"I'm fine. Although my power is nearly depleted. I may need to preserve power for a while." The lynx replied as her body disappeared, leaving her computer on the floor for Sally to pick up. Knuckles, meanwhile, tore the twisted walls of the core apart, revealing the Master Emerald, wired to the core's interior and completely unscathed. As the echidna proceeded to tear off the wires, Sonic raced into the room.
"Hey, guys! Got here as quick as I... could?" Sonic trailed off as he saw that the defense system was already destroyed, and Knuckles was already in the middle of removing the Master Emerald. "Aw, I missed out on all the action?" He moaned sadly, eliciting a giggle from Sally as she stood up to face him.
"It's not like you to be late." She teased.
"Yeah, you can thank Metal Sonic for that." The hedgehog replied before Knuckles finally removed the last of the wires and pulled the Master Emerald out of the core, turning to the group.
"You guys need any help?" The echidna asked.
"Don't worry about us. You just focus on getting that thing back to Angel Island." Sonic replied.
"Got it. Thanks, by the way." Knuckles responded as he opened up his Warp Ring and carried the Master Emerald through, preparing to return it to Angel Island, the portal closing behind him.
-Death Egg - 2nd Floor-
As the others battled and destroyed the core's defenses, Shadow and Rouge approached the gargantuan doors of another hangar, the last one they had to destroy.
"This must be the last one," Shadow stated as he charged up Chaos Energy and prepared to enter the hangar. Rouge, however, heard something on the other side of the door, and whatever it was, it seemed to be powering up. She gasped in shock as she realised what was about to happen.
"Get down!" She screamed as she dived and pushed Shadow out of the way, just in time for something massive to smash through the hangar doors and rush past them. Shadow and Rouge looked on in shock, getting the briefest glimpse of something large and mechanical.
"What was that thing?" Rouge asked as Shadow stood up and looked into the now vacant hangar, noticing the large space and multiple disconnected cables hanging from the ceiling, apparently supplying whatever they were attached to with Chaos Energy.
"No idea. But whatever it was, it looks like it required a lot of Chaos Energy. I doubt it's another one of Eggman's rank and file." Shadow replied. Before they could question any further, the lights suddenly dimmed, as did the glowing circuitry embedded in the walls, a sign that the Master Emerald had been removed from the Death Egg. Almost immediately after, Rouge's communicator began to ring, prompting the bat to answer.
"Rouge. We've recovered the Master Emerald. Has everything been successful on your end?" Sally's voice asked.
"Sort of. Something big escaped before we could trash it." The bat replied.
"How big?" Sally inquired.
"Big enough to need its own hangar and, from the looks of it, a ton of Chaos Energy. I don't want to alarm you, but it might be headed your way." Rouge said as she looked back at the empty hangar.
"Understood. Make your way to the rendezvous point. We're on our way." She said as she switched off the communicator.
-Death Egg's Core-
The information she received from Rouge caused Sally to become concerned. Whatever had escaped Shadow and Rouge, it was apparently something big and fueled by a tremendous amount of Chaos Energy. Such a machine would greatly hinder their chances of escaping the Death Egg, so Sally decided they needed to hurry.
"Problem?" Sonic asked, snapping Sally's attention back to the hedgehog.
"Something escaped. We'll have to move quickly." She replied, before turning to the rest of the Freedom Fighters. "Okay, everyone, let's get back to Rotor and Antoine before Robotnik has a chance… to…" She trailed off as the Freedom Fighters heard sounds of distant crashing, trying to determine where the noises were coming from, before one of the walls suddenly exploded without warning, the Mobians adopting a defensive stance as the prepared to engage whatever was about to come through.
"Going somewhere?" The unmistakable voice of Dr Eggman asked rhetorically as a large mech slowly inched its way through the smoke. The machine resembled a large, intimidating dragon, complete with sharp teeth and claws, wing-like structures present on its back, and a large, powerful tail, all in the same red and yellow colour scheme favoured by the mad doctor. However, what was most prominent was the multiple glowing green lines that spanned across the mech's body, similar to the ones found throughout the Death Egg - a sign that this robot was powered by the energy harvested from the Master Emerald. The group stared down this titanic adversary, even as its piercing yellow eyes glowed ominously...
To be continued...