Legend of ChaosJedi-- Greater of Two Evils
by Ryan Carroll
The portal frame stood there. Looking like a bad high school science project, the PVC pipes and deformed CDs stood as a testament to science fiction turned fact.
The framework consisted of a set of PVC piping welded together, a series of holes punched at regular 5-inch intervals. At each of the holes a compact disc was attached, deformed and melted into a rough cone shape. At the center of each CD was a portal emitter, a small wonder of technology. The wiring synchronizing the emitters ran through the pipes and culminated in a cable leading to a laptop PC. As the final set of coordinates was entered, the portal sprang to life, looking like liquid tin foil. The surface of the portal reflected all light and rippled like water, but gave off no discernible or recognizable reflection like a mirror would. Though you couldn't tell by the surface, if the dimensional link was unstable, the portal was capable of hurricane force winds either inwardly, like a vacuum, or outwardly, like a wind tunnel, depending on which end of the dimensional link you were on.
Chaos8 looked intrigued.
"You mean to tell me that THIS is what makes trans-dimensional travel possible?"
"What were you expecting?" Dr. Robotnik sneered. "A highly-modified DeLorean car? I took this design from the source."
"You stole it from the brat, huh? I misjudged you; you are a sneak. I like that."
"I heard that you just got out of the Interweb yourself. What was it this time?"
"I managed to come out of that place with the ability to time travel, and I wanted to make the freak pay for sending me there. I saw that he was interested in a girl, and went back in time to kill her before she could meet him. I know how temporal distortion waves work, and I knew that he would see her disappear in front of his face. Somehow he knew about it and sent me back to the Interweb. ...Again."
"You know," the roboticist conjectured, stroking his moustache, "with this portal you could wreak havoc in any number of parallel worlds. Tell you what: I will give this portal to you on one condition."
"Let me guess: Kill Sonic the Hedgehog."
"You're catching on."
A shadow stirred in the corner. "I do not agree with this deal, Dr. Robotnik." Metal Sonic glided into the lighted center of the room. "Sssssonic is mine to kill. No other can have him."
"Very well, Mecha." Robotnik turned back to Chaos8. "Don't kill him then, but bring him back alive..." He waited a beat. "The condition of the body isn't important, just that he has a pulse." Mecha glared, but nodded consent.
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"So our sightings of Chaos8 have been verified?"
"Absolutely. Managed to get this picture last night." Slasher handed me a photo of the armored wraith stealing his way through Robotropolis.
"Why can't this freak just stay dead?" I muttered, primarily to myself.
Christine overheard me. "Relax, Ryan. With the two of us working together with the Freedom Fighters, we can take him."
Sally cut in. "Unfortunately, from what reconnaisance we've managed to get, it appears that Chaos8 may be working with Robotnik."
"Just what we don't need, an evil alliance. Robotnik, bad. Chaos8, very bad. The two of them together? That's on the scale of Jurassic Park bad." Slasher gave me a funny look at that comment. "What? You didn't hear about the accident that happened there a few years back?"
"I hadn't heard a thing, why?"
"Some idiot knocked the security system offline for a few hours in the middle of a freak tropical storm. The dinos got out of their designated areas and caused a huge mess. Very few survivors."
"And how did you come to know of this?"
"I know some people down at N-Gen. You can't keep a disaster of that magnitude quiet."
"You really think anything survived?"
"I don't know. No one's ever been back."
"Aren't we getting a bit off track here?" Christine reminded us.
"You're right," I agreed. "So what's the best way to assault Robotnik's fortress?"
"We'll need some hefty weaponry if we're going to do that, and we don't have the resources for that."
"I have an idea that'll take care of that. Anything else?"
"Just the huge number of SWATbots that have been patrolling the streets lately. Nothin' major," Sonic chimed in.
"We're not looking for sarcasm; anyway, my idea will cover that too. Anything else?"
"No," Slasher replied. "So what's your idea?"
"Get the Virtualizer set up."
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Within three minutes I was exiting the Virtualizer with the last load of weaponry. "Well, Quake 3 Arena actually came in handy for something."
"So what are these things and how do they work?" Sonic wanted to know.
I hefted a rifle in my hands. "See that can about 100 yards away?"
"Yeah, what about it?"
"I had Spark take a basket about a mile back that way."
"And?"
I raised the rifle to my shoulder, got the can in my scope, and fired. A corkscrewing plume of smoke flew away from the barrel, and the can virtually disappeared. Sonic went after it, and came back with basket in tow. the can lay in the bottom of the basket. "What IS that thing?"
"This is a railgun. One of these things shot at a SWATbot from that range will knock the thing back about 30 feet, disabling it."
"Yeah, but the factories can crank those things out at about 10 a minute."
"That's what THESE are for," I replied, hefting what looked like a mini-cannon. "I'm not even going to think about firing this off here. It's a rocket launcher. Fire this baby into the heart of a factory and Robotnik will be down that many bots. Carpeting is the best method for using these things."
"So why don't we use these on the SWATbots?"
"The splash damage might hurt someone on our team. That's a bad thing."
"But couldn't they backtrack the smoke trail of the rails?"
"Only if you don't keep moving."
"Right. I'll keep that in mind."
"So who's on the team? I know it'll be you and Slasher of course, and Christine and I are coming, but we need a couple more to round out the group."
"I was thinking of Serena, Knux, and Tails. And one more person..."
"Yeah, I guess Serena and Tails can take care of themselves well enough. But who else are you thinking of?"
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"You just can't get enough of me, can you, Little Lug?"
"You can knock off the Little Lug bit, 'Big Lug'; I'm as tall as you are now."
"So where's the lovely girl I keep hearing about?" Jason inquired, stepping beyond me.
"I'm right here," Chris replied. She glanced over at me. "Little Lug?" she repeated, raising an eyebrow.
"Long story," I responded, cutting off that topic abruptly.
"Hey, Ryan, how did you manage to get a good-looking girlfriend before I did?"
"Um, Jason, can we talk about this LATER? We did ask you to come for a reason, ya know."
"Oh, right. Where's 'the team' assembling?"
"Right here," Slasher replied as the rest of the small group filed into the hut.
"Well, the Freedom Fighters' own run and gun team. Cool."
"Jason, you've just given me a flash of inspiration."
"Huh?"
"That's what we'll name the team: the Freedom Fighters' Run and Gun team. The FFRAG team!"
"Hey, that's catchy. And it works, too."
"All right, everyone has their assignment. Let's move. If we mobilize fast enough, we may hit them hard enough and fast enough that they won't know what's going on until after the SWATbot factories are piles of smoldering wreckage."
-----------------------------------------------------------------
We moved quickly, splitting into pairs, with Jason teaming with Christine. I found his actions annoying (who the heck did he think he was anyway?), but I didn't dwell on them. Sonic and I went after the factory in the northwestern corner of the city, while Slasher and Knux took the southeast quadrant. Since neither Serena nor Tails could lift a rocket launcher, I had them cover for the rest of us from posts around the city with railguns. Tails airlifted Serena to different locations every so often, thereby providing coverage for all the team members.
"...RAG one, ...is sky FFRAG, ...ome in."
I adjusted the frequency slightly to account for the static. "We're here, Tails; what's up?"
"Besides me, you mean? You've got a huge squad of SWATbots coming up on your tail. They're marching in a perfectly straight line, by the way."
"One rail fits all," I replied as I turned and fired a slug into the head SWAT in line. The near lightspeed velocity of the projectile caused the shot to tear through each bot in succession and threw the whole mass of them against a far wall. "I love this thing."
"The factory's over here." Sonic indicated a massive building several hundred yards away spouting even more massive clouds of smoke.
"Right, I'll just use the scope here to find the power source, and..." My voice trailed off as I discovered something rather disturbing: eggs were interspersed throughout the factory. And since I was using an x-ray scope, I could see what the eggs held.
These weren't just any old eggs. These were Chao eggs.
My hand went straight for the radio. "This is FFRAG one to all FFRAG units: hold your rocket fire, repeat, DO NOT FIRE ROCKETS! We have... I guess you could call it a hostage situation here."
----------------------------------------------------------------
"I must say, Doc, the idea of putting those fragile eggs in the factories to ensure their operation was sheer brilliance."
"Well, my young protege, I must have insurance against certain, shall we say, unnatural disasters."
Chaos8 bristled at the term "protege", but said nothing. He turned his head slightly. "He's here. Shall I put phase one into effect?"
"Yes, you may go."
Chaos8 stepped onto his ebony hoverboard and flew off toward the city.
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"Did Ryan just say what I thought he said?"
"You're the one with the enhanced hearing. I heard him say that there were Chao eggs in the factories."
"That's what I heard him say as well. But there's one thing I don't understand. What the heck is a Chao?"
Jason explained to Christine about the adventure some time back with the merged worlds, the battle with Perfect Chaos, and the remnants left behind after the merged worlds. "So these eggs must be unhatched Chao."
"So how do we wipe out the factories without hurting them?"
"Simple: we wait."
----------------------------------------------------------------
"Tails, you got those eggs triangulated yet?"
"The coordinates should be in your scanner now."
I activated the hologram of the building, now with three glowing points indicating the relative positions of the Chao eggs. "Great work, sky FFRAG; go do the same with the other two factories."
"Roger, FFRAG one."
I turned to Sonic. "How fast do you think you could get through that factory and--"
Sonic was standing there with three Chao eggs.
"Never mind. Can you do that with the other two and get the eggs back to Knothole--"
Sonic was empty-handed. "Done."
I rubbed my eyes. "I must be slow today. I've never seen you move _that_ fast."
"It's a gift."
"So I gathered." I raised the rocket launcher's scope to my face to check, and sure enough, all
the eggs were gone. "All FFRAG units report."
Everyone reported that the eggs were indeed gone, and back in Knothole, Talon reported that Sonic had dropped the eggs off and had time to grab a snack while he was at it. I shrugged it off.
"All units fire at will."
The three factories were rubble within a minute and a half.
"Excellent work. Drop the rocket launchers and meet at rendezvous point Beta with rails only.
We're going after the mastermind once and for all."
--------------------------------------------------------------
Chaos8 watched the foolish heroes congregate to the fortress. This was his chance to take them all out. He would merely wait until they were bottlenecked at the fortress doors...
--------------------------------------------------------------
"So what is this item you wanted to keep secret from Chaos8?"
"This, Mecha, is what will allow me to defeat that brat who has the Chaos Emeralds. I can extract the Element Stones from the Emeralds and have both sets of gems. Then I will be victorious..."
"Think again, Eggs-for-brains!"
Robotnik turned to see the eight of us break into his study. Fortunately for us, we managed to catch him by surprise.
Unfortunately for us, we didn't manage the same with Mecha. He was well in motion by the time I noticed him flanking our group. He grabbed my wrist. Without thinking, I sent an electric charge through his circuits.
It didn't work. He was floating in mid-air, providing no ground for my electric attack. I was about to react by reversing my gravity when he pried the Chaos Emerald ring off my finger.
Suddenly the robot's death grip became excruciatingly painful as the protective energy of the emeralds was stripped away from me. I went to my knees in agony.
As I watched Robotnik put the ring in his device, the grip on my wrist suddenly went slack. I turned to see what had happened, only to find Chaos8 throwing Mecha across the room.
Robotnik happened to notice as well. "Chaos8! What are you doing?!?"
"The brat is mine, Doc. You can have the hedgehog, but you can't have the kid."
"Kid? EXCUSE me, but I'm in college, you nightmarish freak," I broke in.
"Yes, and you're powerless without your precious emeralds." He stalked toward me. The others stood petrified, not knowing what to do. I knew I had to act, so I pulled out my double-bladed lightsaber. "That may be, but just remember that these things don't have _built-in safety features_."
Out of the corner of my eye I saw Knuckles get my hint, and just in time, too; 8 charged me at that very second. I lit both blades and returned the assault.
As Robotnik extracted each pair of gems from my ring, he set the stones in a rack, the cut Chaos Emeralds in one row, the smooth Element Stones in another. The last pair to be extracted was the green emerald and the Light Stone; Robotnik started to gloat, until two things happened simultaneously...
The first thing that happened: Knux snapped up his railgun and shot the green emerald out of its place in the rack. The indestructible gem created a hole in the wall behind where it had sat. As the other gems fell to the ground, Robotnik tried to pick them up. He grabbed the red stone...
And with a fiery flash, six more holes were created in the ceiling as the Chaos Emeralds were once again scattered across the continent.
The second event: Chaos8 knocked me to the floor, and I screamed out a prayer of protection to God. Apparently it worked, as the Element Stones flew toward me as if guided by the hand of God Himself. My body inexplicably absorbed the stones, and I flipped onto my feet, recharged and ready to send Chaos8 back to the place from whence he came.
Deciding to beat a hasty retreat, 8 ran for the portal frame Robotnik had set up across the study.
Portal frame? My mind raced. If Chaos8 escaped into another dimension, who knew what kind of havoc he could cause with me unable to track him! Chaos8 leaped into the portal...
...and out the other side, Robotnik having unplugged the thing at the last second.
"What the-- You double-crossing idiot! What have you done?"
"It's not what I've done, it's what you failed to do. You didn't bring Sonic to me alive but captive like I said; therefore you didn't fulfill your end of the deal."
To punctuate the doctor's words, I hit the weak spot in 8's armor, sending him back to the Interweb for the umpteenth time. "I'll get you for this, Robotnik! It'll be sooner than you think!" he screamed as his body crumpled in on itself until there was no sign he'd ever been in the room.
I turned my attention to Robotnik. "You're next, Doc."
Without warning, Robotnik uttered an inhuman scream. Even I took a step back from him as he fell to his knees, still screaming. "The pain! Make it stop!"
All over Robotnik's body, black armor plating began forming.
"What's happening to him?" Christine asked.
The scream changed pitch until it sounded like Chaos8's voice was merging with Robotnik's.
"Oh my... Chaos8 is getting his revenge. He's taking over Robotnik's mind, and probably sending Robotnik into the Interweb..." I shivered. "I would never have thought it possible."
The scream suddenly died out. The black figure took a deep breath... and laughed. "Did you think you could keep me in the Interweb forever, boy? Now I'm in charge of things around here, and I say it's time to take over Mobius once and for all. But first, I need to do some housecleaning." Chaos8 waved his hand, and the portal inexplicably came on, sucking in anything within range with hurricane force winds. Chaos8 continued to talk, barely audible above the sudden whirlwind in the room. "I set the controls to randomize dimensions every few seconds. I hope you enjoy your new homes, as that's where you'll be staying, FOREVER!"
Everyone else was sucked into the portal in a matter of seconds; I managed to dig my fingers into the carpet and hold out a little longer. Chaos8 stomped on my hands, and I let go for a moment, sliding closer to that awful portal. I grabbed the nearest object I could find, but even the weight of that didn't stop my drift. I didn't let go of whatever it was that I was holding until I felt myself land in whatever dimension I happened to get dropped into. The portal frame behind me shorted out and broke with a pyrotechnic flash. I looked around and breathed a sigh of relief as I recognized my dorm room. I paused to look at what I had dragged through the portal with me.
"Oh no."
Mecha was just standing up from where he had landed after coming through the portal.
To Be Continued...
by Ryan Carroll
The portal frame stood there. Looking like a bad high school science project, the PVC pipes and deformed CDs stood as a testament to science fiction turned fact.
The framework consisted of a set of PVC piping welded together, a series of holes punched at regular 5-inch intervals. At each of the holes a compact disc was attached, deformed and melted into a rough cone shape. At the center of each CD was a portal emitter, a small wonder of technology. The wiring synchronizing the emitters ran through the pipes and culminated in a cable leading to a laptop PC. As the final set of coordinates was entered, the portal sprang to life, looking like liquid tin foil. The surface of the portal reflected all light and rippled like water, but gave off no discernible or recognizable reflection like a mirror would. Though you couldn't tell by the surface, if the dimensional link was unstable, the portal was capable of hurricane force winds either inwardly, like a vacuum, or outwardly, like a wind tunnel, depending on which end of the dimensional link you were on.
Chaos8 looked intrigued.
"You mean to tell me that THIS is what makes trans-dimensional travel possible?"
"What were you expecting?" Dr. Robotnik sneered. "A highly-modified DeLorean car? I took this design from the source."
"You stole it from the brat, huh? I misjudged you; you are a sneak. I like that."
"I heard that you just got out of the Interweb yourself. What was it this time?"
"I managed to come out of that place with the ability to time travel, and I wanted to make the freak pay for sending me there. I saw that he was interested in a girl, and went back in time to kill her before she could meet him. I know how temporal distortion waves work, and I knew that he would see her disappear in front of his face. Somehow he knew about it and sent me back to the Interweb. ...Again."
"You know," the roboticist conjectured, stroking his moustache, "with this portal you could wreak havoc in any number of parallel worlds. Tell you what: I will give this portal to you on one condition."
"Let me guess: Kill Sonic the Hedgehog."
"You're catching on."
A shadow stirred in the corner. "I do not agree with this deal, Dr. Robotnik." Metal Sonic glided into the lighted center of the room. "Sssssonic is mine to kill. No other can have him."
"Very well, Mecha." Robotnik turned back to Chaos8. "Don't kill him then, but bring him back alive..." He waited a beat. "The condition of the body isn't important, just that he has a pulse." Mecha glared, but nodded consent.
------------------------------------------------------------------
"So our sightings of Chaos8 have been verified?"
"Absolutely. Managed to get this picture last night." Slasher handed me a photo of the armored wraith stealing his way through Robotropolis.
"Why can't this freak just stay dead?" I muttered, primarily to myself.
Christine overheard me. "Relax, Ryan. With the two of us working together with the Freedom Fighters, we can take him."
Sally cut in. "Unfortunately, from what reconnaisance we've managed to get, it appears that Chaos8 may be working with Robotnik."
"Just what we don't need, an evil alliance. Robotnik, bad. Chaos8, very bad. The two of them together? That's on the scale of Jurassic Park bad." Slasher gave me a funny look at that comment. "What? You didn't hear about the accident that happened there a few years back?"
"I hadn't heard a thing, why?"
"Some idiot knocked the security system offline for a few hours in the middle of a freak tropical storm. The dinos got out of their designated areas and caused a huge mess. Very few survivors."
"And how did you come to know of this?"
"I know some people down at N-Gen. You can't keep a disaster of that magnitude quiet."
"You really think anything survived?"
"I don't know. No one's ever been back."
"Aren't we getting a bit off track here?" Christine reminded us.
"You're right," I agreed. "So what's the best way to assault Robotnik's fortress?"
"We'll need some hefty weaponry if we're going to do that, and we don't have the resources for that."
"I have an idea that'll take care of that. Anything else?"
"Just the huge number of SWATbots that have been patrolling the streets lately. Nothin' major," Sonic chimed in.
"We're not looking for sarcasm; anyway, my idea will cover that too. Anything else?"
"No," Slasher replied. "So what's your idea?"
"Get the Virtualizer set up."
------------------------------------------------------------------
Within three minutes I was exiting the Virtualizer with the last load of weaponry. "Well, Quake 3 Arena actually came in handy for something."
"So what are these things and how do they work?" Sonic wanted to know.
I hefted a rifle in my hands. "See that can about 100 yards away?"
"Yeah, what about it?"
"I had Spark take a basket about a mile back that way."
"And?"
I raised the rifle to my shoulder, got the can in my scope, and fired. A corkscrewing plume of smoke flew away from the barrel, and the can virtually disappeared. Sonic went after it, and came back with basket in tow. the can lay in the bottom of the basket. "What IS that thing?"
"This is a railgun. One of these things shot at a SWATbot from that range will knock the thing back about 30 feet, disabling it."
"Yeah, but the factories can crank those things out at about 10 a minute."
"That's what THESE are for," I replied, hefting what looked like a mini-cannon. "I'm not even going to think about firing this off here. It's a rocket launcher. Fire this baby into the heart of a factory and Robotnik will be down that many bots. Carpeting is the best method for using these things."
"So why don't we use these on the SWATbots?"
"The splash damage might hurt someone on our team. That's a bad thing."
"But couldn't they backtrack the smoke trail of the rails?"
"Only if you don't keep moving."
"Right. I'll keep that in mind."
"So who's on the team? I know it'll be you and Slasher of course, and Christine and I are coming, but we need a couple more to round out the group."
"I was thinking of Serena, Knux, and Tails. And one more person..."
"Yeah, I guess Serena and Tails can take care of themselves well enough. But who else are you thinking of?"
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"You just can't get enough of me, can you, Little Lug?"
"You can knock off the Little Lug bit, 'Big Lug'; I'm as tall as you are now."
"So where's the lovely girl I keep hearing about?" Jason inquired, stepping beyond me.
"I'm right here," Chris replied. She glanced over at me. "Little Lug?" she repeated, raising an eyebrow.
"Long story," I responded, cutting off that topic abruptly.
"Hey, Ryan, how did you manage to get a good-looking girlfriend before I did?"
"Um, Jason, can we talk about this LATER? We did ask you to come for a reason, ya know."
"Oh, right. Where's 'the team' assembling?"
"Right here," Slasher replied as the rest of the small group filed into the hut.
"Well, the Freedom Fighters' own run and gun team. Cool."
"Jason, you've just given me a flash of inspiration."
"Huh?"
"That's what we'll name the team: the Freedom Fighters' Run and Gun team. The FFRAG team!"
"Hey, that's catchy. And it works, too."
"All right, everyone has their assignment. Let's move. If we mobilize fast enough, we may hit them hard enough and fast enough that they won't know what's going on until after the SWATbot factories are piles of smoldering wreckage."
-----------------------------------------------------------------
We moved quickly, splitting into pairs, with Jason teaming with Christine. I found his actions annoying (who the heck did he think he was anyway?), but I didn't dwell on them. Sonic and I went after the factory in the northwestern corner of the city, while Slasher and Knux took the southeast quadrant. Since neither Serena nor Tails could lift a rocket launcher, I had them cover for the rest of us from posts around the city with railguns. Tails airlifted Serena to different locations every so often, thereby providing coverage for all the team members.
"...RAG one, ...is sky FFRAG, ...ome in."
I adjusted the frequency slightly to account for the static. "We're here, Tails; what's up?"
"Besides me, you mean? You've got a huge squad of SWATbots coming up on your tail. They're marching in a perfectly straight line, by the way."
"One rail fits all," I replied as I turned and fired a slug into the head SWAT in line. The near lightspeed velocity of the projectile caused the shot to tear through each bot in succession and threw the whole mass of them against a far wall. "I love this thing."
"The factory's over here." Sonic indicated a massive building several hundred yards away spouting even more massive clouds of smoke.
"Right, I'll just use the scope here to find the power source, and..." My voice trailed off as I discovered something rather disturbing: eggs were interspersed throughout the factory. And since I was using an x-ray scope, I could see what the eggs held.
These weren't just any old eggs. These were Chao eggs.
My hand went straight for the radio. "This is FFRAG one to all FFRAG units: hold your rocket fire, repeat, DO NOT FIRE ROCKETS! We have... I guess you could call it a hostage situation here."
----------------------------------------------------------------
"I must say, Doc, the idea of putting those fragile eggs in the factories to ensure their operation was sheer brilliance."
"Well, my young protege, I must have insurance against certain, shall we say, unnatural disasters."
Chaos8 bristled at the term "protege", but said nothing. He turned his head slightly. "He's here. Shall I put phase one into effect?"
"Yes, you may go."
Chaos8 stepped onto his ebony hoverboard and flew off toward the city.
----------------------------------------------------------------
"Did Ryan just say what I thought he said?"
"You're the one with the enhanced hearing. I heard him say that there were Chao eggs in the factories."
"That's what I heard him say as well. But there's one thing I don't understand. What the heck is a Chao?"
Jason explained to Christine about the adventure some time back with the merged worlds, the battle with Perfect Chaos, and the remnants left behind after the merged worlds. "So these eggs must be unhatched Chao."
"So how do we wipe out the factories without hurting them?"
"Simple: we wait."
----------------------------------------------------------------
"Tails, you got those eggs triangulated yet?"
"The coordinates should be in your scanner now."
I activated the hologram of the building, now with three glowing points indicating the relative positions of the Chao eggs. "Great work, sky FFRAG; go do the same with the other two factories."
"Roger, FFRAG one."
I turned to Sonic. "How fast do you think you could get through that factory and--"
Sonic was standing there with three Chao eggs.
"Never mind. Can you do that with the other two and get the eggs back to Knothole--"
Sonic was empty-handed. "Done."
I rubbed my eyes. "I must be slow today. I've never seen you move _that_ fast."
"It's a gift."
"So I gathered." I raised the rocket launcher's scope to my face to check, and sure enough, all
the eggs were gone. "All FFRAG units report."
Everyone reported that the eggs were indeed gone, and back in Knothole, Talon reported that Sonic had dropped the eggs off and had time to grab a snack while he was at it. I shrugged it off.
"All units fire at will."
The three factories were rubble within a minute and a half.
"Excellent work. Drop the rocket launchers and meet at rendezvous point Beta with rails only.
We're going after the mastermind once and for all."
--------------------------------------------------------------
Chaos8 watched the foolish heroes congregate to the fortress. This was his chance to take them all out. He would merely wait until they were bottlenecked at the fortress doors...
--------------------------------------------------------------
"So what is this item you wanted to keep secret from Chaos8?"
"This, Mecha, is what will allow me to defeat that brat who has the Chaos Emeralds. I can extract the Element Stones from the Emeralds and have both sets of gems. Then I will be victorious..."
"Think again, Eggs-for-brains!"
Robotnik turned to see the eight of us break into his study. Fortunately for us, we managed to catch him by surprise.
Unfortunately for us, we didn't manage the same with Mecha. He was well in motion by the time I noticed him flanking our group. He grabbed my wrist. Without thinking, I sent an electric charge through his circuits.
It didn't work. He was floating in mid-air, providing no ground for my electric attack. I was about to react by reversing my gravity when he pried the Chaos Emerald ring off my finger.
Suddenly the robot's death grip became excruciatingly painful as the protective energy of the emeralds was stripped away from me. I went to my knees in agony.
As I watched Robotnik put the ring in his device, the grip on my wrist suddenly went slack. I turned to see what had happened, only to find Chaos8 throwing Mecha across the room.
Robotnik happened to notice as well. "Chaos8! What are you doing?!?"
"The brat is mine, Doc. You can have the hedgehog, but you can't have the kid."
"Kid? EXCUSE me, but I'm in college, you nightmarish freak," I broke in.
"Yes, and you're powerless without your precious emeralds." He stalked toward me. The others stood petrified, not knowing what to do. I knew I had to act, so I pulled out my double-bladed lightsaber. "That may be, but just remember that these things don't have _built-in safety features_."
Out of the corner of my eye I saw Knuckles get my hint, and just in time, too; 8 charged me at that very second. I lit both blades and returned the assault.
As Robotnik extracted each pair of gems from my ring, he set the stones in a rack, the cut Chaos Emeralds in one row, the smooth Element Stones in another. The last pair to be extracted was the green emerald and the Light Stone; Robotnik started to gloat, until two things happened simultaneously...
The first thing that happened: Knux snapped up his railgun and shot the green emerald out of its place in the rack. The indestructible gem created a hole in the wall behind where it had sat. As the other gems fell to the ground, Robotnik tried to pick them up. He grabbed the red stone...
And with a fiery flash, six more holes were created in the ceiling as the Chaos Emeralds were once again scattered across the continent.
The second event: Chaos8 knocked me to the floor, and I screamed out a prayer of protection to God. Apparently it worked, as the Element Stones flew toward me as if guided by the hand of God Himself. My body inexplicably absorbed the stones, and I flipped onto my feet, recharged and ready to send Chaos8 back to the place from whence he came.
Deciding to beat a hasty retreat, 8 ran for the portal frame Robotnik had set up across the study.
Portal frame? My mind raced. If Chaos8 escaped into another dimension, who knew what kind of havoc he could cause with me unable to track him! Chaos8 leaped into the portal...
...and out the other side, Robotnik having unplugged the thing at the last second.
"What the-- You double-crossing idiot! What have you done?"
"It's not what I've done, it's what you failed to do. You didn't bring Sonic to me alive but captive like I said; therefore you didn't fulfill your end of the deal."
To punctuate the doctor's words, I hit the weak spot in 8's armor, sending him back to the Interweb for the umpteenth time. "I'll get you for this, Robotnik! It'll be sooner than you think!" he screamed as his body crumpled in on itself until there was no sign he'd ever been in the room.
I turned my attention to Robotnik. "You're next, Doc."
Without warning, Robotnik uttered an inhuman scream. Even I took a step back from him as he fell to his knees, still screaming. "The pain! Make it stop!"
All over Robotnik's body, black armor plating began forming.
"What's happening to him?" Christine asked.
The scream changed pitch until it sounded like Chaos8's voice was merging with Robotnik's.
"Oh my... Chaos8 is getting his revenge. He's taking over Robotnik's mind, and probably sending Robotnik into the Interweb..." I shivered. "I would never have thought it possible."
The scream suddenly died out. The black figure took a deep breath... and laughed. "Did you think you could keep me in the Interweb forever, boy? Now I'm in charge of things around here, and I say it's time to take over Mobius once and for all. But first, I need to do some housecleaning." Chaos8 waved his hand, and the portal inexplicably came on, sucking in anything within range with hurricane force winds. Chaos8 continued to talk, barely audible above the sudden whirlwind in the room. "I set the controls to randomize dimensions every few seconds. I hope you enjoy your new homes, as that's where you'll be staying, FOREVER!"
Everyone else was sucked into the portal in a matter of seconds; I managed to dig my fingers into the carpet and hold out a little longer. Chaos8 stomped on my hands, and I let go for a moment, sliding closer to that awful portal. I grabbed the nearest object I could find, but even the weight of that didn't stop my drift. I didn't let go of whatever it was that I was holding until I felt myself land in whatever dimension I happened to get dropped into. The portal frame behind me shorted out and broke with a pyrotechnic flash. I looked around and breathed a sigh of relief as I recognized my dorm room. I paused to look at what I had dragged through the portal with me.
"Oh no."
Mecha was just standing up from where he had landed after coming through the portal.
To Be Continued...