Chapter V:
More Than Meets the Eye
One thing could be said for the doctor: He knew his way around war machines.
Metal could testify both with and without words. At present he was sitting, after having gone through the quick metamorphosis to assume his Eggman appearance, in the cockpit of the Egg Hawk.
It was a unique ship. It was a perfect exemplar of the "Might Makes Right" philosophy, the official creed of the Eggman Empire. It had machine guns mounted port and starboard, along with a mini-gun mounted in the bow. The overall features of the ship resembled a hawk, what with a beak, specifically designed wings, and even machine gun ports were fashioned into, peculiar, renditions of hawks' talons. Metal was quite confident in the design of the ship. But, he'd come to believe that its application was as flawed as his own.
Anxious?
No. Why?
You may be battle-hardened. But, this is your first time assuming command.
It's only temporary. Besides, it's not like we're following the Master's plan to the letter anyway. We're just going to assess the best way of, and then devise a plan for, eliminating Sonic. That is all. Everything will, then, resume its rightful hierarchy.
Oh… Well, all the same, whole platoons of Egg Pawns have been mowed down. And now, "they" are coming straight for you.
That may be. But, that's the point is it not? The fact is that the three life forms have been sighted, destroying the Master's soldiers, and one of them… is a hedgehog.
Well, of course. Do you think that he'd turn down a literally engraved invitation… or do you?
At that moment, dust clouds began to appear on the horizon. Metal leaned forward, shielding his eyes slightly. Effortlessly, he could focus his vision some yards, if not a mile or so, into the distance. If anything, the show of organic weakness was to accommodate his performance before the egg pawns. They may have lacked advanced A.I. protocols, but they wouldn't exactly tolerate an irregularity in command; it violated everything they were programmed for.
At the foot of the clouds, he could see them. He could see the targets. He could see…
Amy Rose!
Indeed.
But… Why is she here!
We do not know why. Does she pose a significant threat?
The recorded imagery returned to tell the story.
Sonic, the enemy, contemptible and proud; Amy Rose, the hostage, weak, trembling, and useless. Metal's POV was direct, unwavering… Factual. The only evidence to suggest dissimilarity between the girl of then and the girl of now was the difference in clothes, hair, and age. This lead to the logical assumption that:
Never… She's a bargaining chip!
Then what of the destroyed robots?
Metal eyed the large feline attached to the rapidly approaching column.
That large one. The one in the back of their group, he provides them with what strength they have.
Then, shouldn't you call up some of the reserves units?
No. We'll gun them down quickly and waste some of our ammunition, rather than the units we'll need for Sonic.
With that, the Egg Hawk swooped down to meet Amy and her "little team."
"So," Metal's "Eggman" voiced barked, "you're the ones who were playing games with my army!"
The pink damsel jumped back. Or maybe she was blown back by the sheer gusts of wind from the large Egg Hawk engines. Either way, Metal was unimpressed. Even after Amy moved into a stance to suggest fight, rather than flight; Metal was still indifferent to the girl and her posturing.
In what Metal considered an unnecessarily surprised tone, Amy exclaimed, "Dr. Eggman!"
Pleased that the ruse fooled "intelligent life," Metal declared, "I'll show you little brats a thing or two!"
No sooner had the last syllable been spoken than the egg pawns pulled back the charging handles for their machine guns. From there, it was but a matter of time before a few bursts of fire felled the bodies and Metal could resume his wait for Sonic.
To begin the skirmish, as Metal judged it to more or less be, the "Eggman" revved the ship's motors and threw them into reverse. The long and narrow pathway didn't exactly suit the ship, as it slammed into the huge columns along the sides. Fortunately, an Eggman design wasn't even scuffed by such obstacles. Despite jostling inconveniences, Metal had a few tricks up his sleeves. He'd play them further down the line. For now, the "fools" were taking the bait: they were charging! Even better, it was that suicidal form of attack: the frontal assault!
With smiles plastered on the three crewmen's faces, the triggers were pulled and the guns began barking like rabid dogs! The rounds flew in precision patterns. Though a fixed weapon, the bow-mounted mini-gun poured an unceasing wall of bullets straightforward. To support the main gun, the starboard and port gunners began unloading hundreds of rounds a minute in zigzag patterns. Complete saturation. One could even say that it was a textbook perfect use of the machine gun and fire direction.
The textbook, however, had a dissatisfying habit of being directly orthodox. It was the cream-colored rabbit that made the first unorthodox move.
She began by flapping her ears and taking flight! In perfectly fluid motion, Amy grabbed Cream's legs, and Big then grabbed Amy's! The most astonishing stunt, though, was that the little rabbit was able to lift all of the combined weight to an even higher altitude!
What!
Metal's CPU was momentarily stunned. The A.I. was quick to catch up, however.
… Bah! No matter.
In precise, stoic, motion the two egg pawns ceased fire. Despite the morale sapping potential of Team Rose's maneuver on organic life forms, the two robots were soon reloaded, retargeted, and ready to open fire again.
Right between the 'cute bunny's' eyes!
Perhaps.
The mechanical Cerberus resumed its deadly bark!
Proving that Team Rose's combat worth greatly exceed Metal's earlier appraisal, Amy released Cream's legs. The loss of ballast shot Cream straight up and out of the line of fire while Amy and Big fell to safety. The side mounted guns fell silent once again. The jarring recoil was too much for the retargeting procedure!
Taking advantage of the reduced fire, Amy and Big continued the charge on foot! With the mini-gun's set position, it could only direct a futile line of fire straight-aways! Metal couldn't even maneuver the Egg Hawk into a more effective position due to its sheer size and the hindrance presented by the large whale columns lining the path! This proved miserably pathetic as Big, Amy, and ultimately Cream zoomed toward, then underneath the ship!
How insulting!
Metal gave an illogical, yet quite reasonable, growl from his synthesized larynx. The Egg Hawk was not built for this! The side gunners couldn't maintain fire on targets that close! The safety bars ensured that no damage would come from friendly or self-inflicted fire and the mini-gun was too strong to mount on a traversing turret, it had to be stationary in its mount!
Argh! What impertinence! Now those amateurs might actually mount a successful counterattack to our rear!
… Reinforcements?
Only what we can spare from the Sonic and Shadow assigned units! The bare essentials! Nothing more!
Assisting Metal, who had given all of his direct physical attention to the ship's controls, the quicksilver serpents sprouted from his right forearm, unseen by the gunners on either side, and struck at the correct call buttons. The orders went out to teleport a scant few, unarmed, egg pawns to the battlefield. After all, they merely had to tackle a pair of legs… tie up the whole body but a few seconds… Egg Hawk launched munitions could easily find the fleshy targets through the unarmored hides of the metal in the way!
Whilst the egg pawns to his rear were coming online, Metal pulled the throttle back as far as possible, causing great rumblings throughout the craft. But, it was worth a little extra wear and tear. He was soon in front of his targeted guests once again. He regained a bit of his dark glee when he saw the first egg pawn run full tilt for the trio on the path.
A kill would come soon enough.
Amy pushed off the ground and made a jump so high that it bordered on "confounding." Soon after Cream made like a bird again. Only Big was in the way of the egg pawn. The cat didn't even break his stride as he drew his fishing rod, swung it high in the air and brought it down again. It didn't seem like it took any longer than a second for Big to "draw, slice, and destroy." He bounded over the wreckage of the egg pawn as Cream and Amy came back to the path and resumed running, on either side of Big.
Every time an egg pawn ran forward, the two females would jump high, catching the eyes of the gunners. They would pour withering fire into the air, to ill effect as Amy would turn and twist and Cream would evade. Meanwhile, Big had but to sidestep the gunfire in the center of the path and then smash the egg pawn in question.
It was a horrific stalemate! Team Rose would charge, an egg pawn would charge, be smashed, and the gunners would swat at the "pests" with lead, to no avail. Neither side was gaining, nor losing! But, Metal had a final trump card up ahead, or at least "behind."
After a considerable distance of "fighting in reverse," Metal saw the island coming up on the closed circuit camera mounted aft. This is what the Egg Hawk was designed for!
Giving a slight burst of speed to the engines, Metal brought the ship to the island's exact center and brought it straight down. Reversing gears in one engine, and maximizing power to them both, the ship began a lethargic spin. Metal then yelled, "Initiate rotary attack!"
To this, the pre-programming in the egg pawns registered and began unloading their thousand round clips in all directions. By the time Team Rose reached the island, they were quickly forced to find shelter. Big and Amy opted for lying low, out of the line of fire, while Cream sought the higher road. Metal resumed his grinning, this time in sure victory.
Amy, meanwhile, was working out a plan. Throwing up hand signals she pantomimed a strategy. Once the ship was turned around with the bow and its armaments completely focused away from them, Amy and Cream jumped onto Big's shoulders. Once there, he scooped up Amy first. For her part, Amy mimicked her idol and curled into as tight a ball as possible. Hours of idolizing and practice paid off. Once she was in a ball, Big tossed Amy up then swung his fishing rod like a baseball bat.
Metal looked down to see if the whelps were still hiding in the sand and sky. His face faulted when he saw the first swing of Big's fishing rod. A pink blur flew by the camera. Suddenly, an incredible jolt rocked the port side of the Egg Hawk! It was Amy! She'd done just a good as Metal's oldest, and only, rival in curling up and smashing through the hub of the port rotary blade! A second jolt signaled something had gone wrong on starboard! Metal spun his head around in time to see Cream also hurtling through the air, after previously slamming through the remaining functional rotary blade!
"Oh no! Both rotor's are gone!" shrieked "Eggman," genuinely distressed and alarmed.
They were stationary.
Stationary!
It flew in the face of modern military logic! It was against everything that E-666 and Metal had agreed upon! They'd been reduced to the befouled methods of "the Master!"
The painful rewards came hot and heavy. After they'd been propelled through the axles of the rotors, rendering the mechanisms useless, Amy and Cream unrolled themselves and produced their weapons of choice: a war-mallet and… a chao!
In ballerina precision the two females twirled and performed their attacks. Amy came down on the port side and into the egg pawn stationed on that side! Likewise, Cream launched Cheese down and through the starboard side machine gunner!
This is completely impossible! They cannot be such powerful opponents. They're children!
Perhaps a retreat?
Without responding, Metal decided that that would be the best course of action. Unarmed, there was nothing to prevent further attacks from Team Rose. Revving the motors, Metal directed all available power into the main thrusters along the aft and keel of the ship. With a tremendous groan, the lumbering craft heaved itself into the air. Traveling a few inches above the ground the crippled hawk often scraped the ground, leaving trails of sparks with every jolting bounce.
Focusing entirely on the three fighters before him, Metal guided the sluggish craft down another pathway. With egg pawns still coming, there was still hope that the bruisers would slow down any one of the three long enough for the bow-mounted mini-gun to slice them in half. Determined to make this plan a reality, the egg pawns weren't swayed by the cumbersome ship as it blocked all efforts to go under the wings. Instead, the fiercely loyal machines jumped onto the wings and made mad dives upon the first of Team Rose's personnel that fell into their field of vision. The effort was, easily repulsed, as Amy's mallet, Big's umbrella, and Cream's partner flattened the troopers. Completely frazzled, Metal was ready to let his synthesized jaw drop to the floor when he saw what happened next.
With the two main propellers out, and the assisting machine gunners smashed, the Egg Hawk was nowhere near as formidable as it had been. The reduced speed caused by damage taken made the ship so easy to catch. So easy, that Big was trailing only a few meters in front. Completely "out of left field," the ponderous feline made a mighty jump, far higher than one would anticipate. Balling up slightly, Big made a grace twirl in the air. Then, he went completely stiff, slinging his arms and legs out and allowed gravity to do the rest.
Most of Eggman's examinations proved useful in determining the amount of power it would take to do damage to his machines. Unfortunately, no one easily foresees the day that a six hundred pound cat would do a belly flop on the upper deck of their warship.
Like a meteor, Big slammed into the "backbone." There was little else to record, save for a tremendous series of fireballs and destroyed circuitry. The craft was mortally wounded, and Metal knew it.
Losing both his cool confidence, he was more than authentic when he felt an Eggman-style sense of rage developing, somewhere in his programming. He slammed his fist against the "Release" button.
"You'll pay for this!" roared Metal, in fine acting form. A second later, the Egg Mobile, central nervous system to most Eggman machines, ejected itself and rocketed into the sky above.
Quite proud of themselves, Amy, Big, and Cream let the threat slide. Cheers and cries of "chao!" erupted into the air. Indeed, the two young ladies and the eccentric cat had much to celebrate, considering the dozen egg pawns and flying warship they'd destroyed.
Furious eyes watched the jubilee from a distance away.
You should consider this a learning experience.
You should never mind.
Like when we suggested a fiercer resistance?
…
Just as we suspected. You should be more wary of these interlopers. After all, you're the reason they're here.
The answers lay within Metal himself. It didn't matter what convince Amy, she was but one third of a tribulation Metal had brought upon his own CPU. It was simple cause and affect. The result didn't bear that great of a punishment, rather, the rewards were beyond measure. So what if they'd won one round? They were far from total victory.
These righteous sheep couldn't do anything to a powerful war machine.
Continued…