A/N: Sorry it's been a while since last update. I used to be ahead of what I posted, but now I've fallen behind. I'm not finished with chapter 8 yet, but I figured this was enough for a section. Next update whenever it's written.

P.S. Thank you Crazy Chocobo Girl for reading and reviewing my story!

Chapter 8

Zox Armada

"Huh? What? What's going on here?" Ash said.

"No, I was wrong, we're not going to an alternate dimension." Sonic explained. "We're slipping through it."

"Slipping through?"

"It's a method for traveling great distances. I don't fully understand it myself, but think of the alternate dimensions as separate entities grouped together. When you open a portal to an alternate dimension, you open the gap between the two entities and connect the dimensions. What happened here is that instead of entering one of the entities, we're traveling in the gap between the entities. So instead of actually entering an alternate dimension, we 'slip through' it. For some reason this causes the double vision you see there."

"I'm sure it's much more complicated than that, but I see what you're saying." Samus said.

"Anyways, when you create a dimensional portal, you can make the exit be anywhere in the dimension you're going to. If you want to travel to a far place but stay in the same dimension, you create a slip portal."

"So we'll still be in our dimension when we get to the other end then." They looked at the planet below them in the night sky. They could see that there was a large city down there as there were lights all across the lush landscape.

"Wow, it's beautiful. Sonic, do you know what that place is?" Ash asked.

"No clue. There is no known end to the amount of alternate dimensions." The ship started to shake again as the portal went back to glowing with different colors. The Zox mother ship ahead of them began to change course, and went to the edge of the portal. A hole in the portal opened up where the ship went, and disappeared as it went through.

Mario quickly tried to go into the hole that the ship went in, but he missed it. They kept on going and came to the end of the portal, and just as they returned to normal space, two CDs stood there charging their main weapon, and were just about to fire. It indeed was a trap, and it was too late for them to react.

Just before they were about to fire at them, several missiles came blazing at the CDs. Explosions erupted all around them, and the debris from the CDs floated away through space. They looked to where the missiles came from, and found a house on a pair of rockets. The heroes were saved once again, but this time they hadn't recognized their rescuer. A link was made to the flying home, and on the screen was an old, somewhat fat man with a white beard. Behind him was a woman with green hair vacuuming the floor.

"You all right over there?" The old man said. "Word has been spreading about you and the Zox. We spotted those CDs and came here to take them down, but we didn't expect to see you here."

"We're all right. Thank you for your help. If there was anything we could do to return the favor...." The man suddenly smiled at the words and replied by saying,

"Well, actually...." The green-haired woman then grabbed him by the shoulder and threw him across the room.

"Don't even think about it professor."

"Oh, you never let have any fun."

"Sorry about that, he can get kind of rude at times. Hey, if you're looking for any of those Zox ships, we saw a big one just behind you."

"Thanks, uh...." Mario was going to thank her, but he didn't catch her name.

"It's Marina, and you're welcome. I hope we see you again sometime." Marina smiled and turned off the link. They then had the screen switch back to Aran's ship.

"Just a message or two, huh?"

"What?" Samus said sheepishly.

The trap that they had fallen into placed them several thousand miles from where the mother ship had ended up. They stayed in robot form because of all the danger they had been running into, and at their maximum speed in that form, it took them half an hour to catch up, but once they did, they found that the Zox were waiting for them.

The mother ship stood there in robot form with its arms folded. Corneria was just behind it to the left. The beauty of the planet however was quickly disrupted as their main screen switched to a view of a Zox inside the mother ship.

"Attention warriors of dimension N, I am war master Karlnak." He said in a deep, guttural voice. He was even bigger and more muscular than the other Zox soldiers, and he wore a different uniform, signifying his superiority.

"Dimension N?" D.K. questioned.

"Yes, we name each dimension we encounter. Because Nintendo is the name of the planet we first encountered, we named this dimension N." Karlnak's attention then turned to Sonic's. He grinned as he said, "Your hedgehog friend came from dimension S." Sonic was filled with anger as he looked at Karlnak's evil grin. He was the same person who invaded Mobius, and Sonic couldn't stand it to see him breathing.

"Why are you talking to us? You invaded our home and then destroyed it without ever saying a word." Mario questioned.

"Because I am congratulating you."

"Congratulating us? What for?" Link asked, completely taken back by the statement.

"You are one of the few dimensions that have actually put up a good fight."

"So what's your point?" Zero asked.

"Because you have shown great strength, I am offering you the chance to surrender. If you surrender now, then no more lives will be lost. So what do you say? This opportunity isn't given to too many people, so I suggest you take it."

"No! Don't listen to him! A life under their rule is no life at all!" Sonic shouted.

"Give up all our rights to live?" Mario questioned, scoffing at the thought.

"Liberty is one of the things worth fighting for." Samus said.

"We would rather die than be under your rule." D.K. said.

"How about I give you an offer, Karlnak." Zero said. "Leave this dimension and stop your conquests, and we'll let you live."

"Very well, you had your chance. Now die, fools!" As he said that, a portal opened behind the mother ship, and CD after CD came flying out. It wasn't long before a whole armada faced the heroes of dimension N.

"Oh man, these odds are horrible!" Ash exclaimed.

"I know, they don't stand a chance. You ready over there, Samus?"

"Sure thing, Mario. Let's do this." As the 64 charged, so did the Zox, and a furious battle ensued. Everywhere they looked there were CDs and lasers flying in all direction, like a storm of flies.

They went straight forward, punching holes in the CDs that came up to them one by one. Their main intent was taking down the mother ship, but they had to get through the CDs first. Four were coming at them from all directions, and as they were in range, they rammed the feet and arms into them, and a CD was tuck to both hands and feet of the 64. As more came from behind, they threw the remains off of them and towards the approaching enemies, destroying them with the impact.

Many more were coming from all directions, so they clasped the hands together and formed an energy ball. As the several ships surrounded them, they quickly flew upwards and threw the ball into the group. The ball exploded, taking down more CDs then they bothered to count.

Samus was firing lasers and missiles at a ballistic rate, but so were her enemies. Two of them were close behind her, and she couldn't shake them. Another two were coming towards her up ahead, so she charged straight for them. Her ship was hit quite a few times as she came towards them, but as she flew right between the two, the two following her ran into the two up ahead, and exploded.

Out from the explosion of the CDs came another one. Samus turned her ship around and fired several missiles at it. She then turned on the other side and flew above the CD as the missiles impacted with it. She cut it a little too close though, as the bottom of her ship was hit from the explosion. She made it out in one piece, but her armor was getting low.

"Turn to the left! Look out for that laser! Now fire, you fool!" The Zox commander of the CD shouted at the pilot. "Don't get too close to that ship! Look out!" The pilot tried to get close so they could get a good shot at the 64, but then the huge fist of the 64 crashed through the ceiling of the control room, just behind the commander, and he was pulled into the vacuum of space along with his comrades.

"Careful Mario, our shielding is down to seventy percent now." Link cautioned. Mario knew that the ship was getting hit a lot by the lasers during the battle, but he was still sure that they would make it out of this okay.

"Not inviting us to the party?" A familiar voice spoke to them through the communication link.

"Fox?" A video of Fox appeared in the corner of the screen.

"Don't worry guys, we're here to help." On their screen, four Arwings rushed past them and joined in on the battle.

"Thanks, we appreciate it."

"No problem. This battle is scaring some of the people down on Corneria anyways." Fox then switched his link to his teammates. "All right guys, four-formation, go!"

"No sweat." Falco said. The four fighters flew together and fired at a CD all at once to increase their power. Once the CD blew apart, they broke formation and went after another. Again combining their firepower, they took down one CD after another. As they did this to one, however, Slippy got hit hard by one of the lasers, and they had to brake off formation.

"Sorry guys."

"Don't worry, let's split up now." Fox said. As they took their separate ways, Fox headed for a CD that was going after the 64. He rapidly fired at the center, taking chunks of the ship off around the hole at the center. Fox could see a small explosion come from the ship, and larger ones came after it. There was no time now to turn away from it, so he flew right through the middle of it, and the CD exploded as he past it.

Falco took down a CD, but just as he did, he found that another was chasing him. He flew up and down and zigzagged between the melee of ships, but the CD was still right on his tail, and each laser was getting closer to his Arwing. Falco then flew upwards and made a loop, and as he did, the CD kept going. Before the pilot of the CD could realize his mistake, Falco was already behind him, firing a nova bomb. The explosion was so massive that one of the other CDs ran into the explosion as it passed by, and was lit ablaze.

The amount of CDs had greatly lowered since they first started out, but there were still many flying around them. Zero had found that he could use different kinds of weapons depending on how he moved his hands over the control pad, and he was getting a good feel for it. Zero tried moving his hands in different ways, trying to see if the combinations would make the ship use any other handy moves.

As Zero stretched his three center fingers out, the 64's fingers opened and fired a bulky missile from each one. As one of the missiles collided with a CD, the missile broke apart, and ten more, smaller missiles spread from it, and once one of them hit a CD, it again broke apart into smaller missiles. With all the CDs being in such a close proximity, they had created a chain reaction.

"Everyone, get out of here!" Mario yelled out to the other ships. As they hurried away from the spreading danger, more and more explosions filled the scene. Once the 64 was clear from the battle area, they could see that the CDs were caught in the explosions. If they hadn't been in space, the loud, repeating noise would be almost unbearable. As the explosions slowed down and eventually stopped, seven CDs were still left, but they quickly fled the area.