(I do not own Sonic X, etc.)
S.O.N.I.C GO!
S.O.N.I.C GO!
Episode 18: The Monster called Leviathan.
Major Koji Naoko Okida, leader of the Freelance Division of G.U.N decided it was better not to dwell on the improbability of his situation. No amount of logical thinking was going to change the thing. So for the moment at least, he forced himself to accept that he really was on a planet which; only a few days ago, had been completely barren. Clearly the Machine Federation had access to a technology far in advance of their own.
Pursued by the whole of the Metal X army and separated from the others, the major had little option but to keep him and his companion and their Mech's out of sight. If so much as one of those drones that crossed over their heads in a patrol like pattern spotted them, every robot for miles as going to be homing in on them.
By the time they reached the landing sight of their ship it was night time, but to their dismay the Blue Typhoon was nowhere to be seen. The ground clearly showed signs of the landing, but greeting them was nothing but an empty space. Okida flipped a switch and the glass covering the cockpit of his Yahger Mech slid backwards. Dropping to the ground using his wings to slow his decent, the Major examined the ground for anything that might tell him what happened here. Inside, he was silently praying he wouldn't find evidence that the Machine Federation had gotten here first.
"Anything?" Topaz asked from the cockpit of her Raptor Mech. During the drop out of the falling ship, the Speed class Walker had received quite a bit of damage to one of its legs. A quick patchwork job had performed, but that wouldn't keep if they got involved in battle situation.
"Not much." Okida replied, rummaging through the dirt with a single hand. Taking a fashion tip from Sonic, he had adopted a pair of gloves; although these had holes for the fingers and a strong almost leather like grip in the palms. "They where here, and not too long ago either. Probably only a few hours."
Topaz slumped back into her seat in the cockpit. Great, so far this missions had left the two of them stranded on an entire planet in enemy territory, hunted by vicious slaughter robots and their only ticket out of here was either already on its way back home or captured by the enemy.
"Great, now how do we get off this rock?" She asked out load. Okida hummed to himself and kneeled down so he could get a closer look at the ground. The Martian soil was a dirty brown, rather than the red he would expect. In places, it had been sourced as the engines of the Typhoon helped to either lift the ship or descend. A sudden idea pushed itself into his mind and quickly he let his wings unfold and instantly he was flying up into the air. Returning to the high cockpit of his Yahger, the Major flipped on the infra-red scope. The Mech scanned the ground for heat traces, and found a faint trail leading off towards the west. But it was so faint he almost missed it, no wonder those drones crossing through the sky at regular intervals failed to pick it up.
Before any notion of celebration could register, Okida felt a lump in his throat. What if they hadn't failed to see it? What if they already had the ship in their possession and were taking it something to get picked apart and the others were being lined up against a firing squad already? He shook his head. Now the time for positive thinking.
"Er. Major…" Topaz began, looking up towards the sky with a worried expression on her face. Okida followed her gaze and sighted a ship flying overhead, casting a thick shadow down onto the ground. Like the Behemoth, it was shaped like an old 17th century galleon but with a metallic effect to it. It wasn't as large as Metal Sonic's grand flagship however, but looked large enough to posse a threat. It was too high for its crew to see them luckily and carried on past, over a last ridge of mountains before heading west. After the Blue Typhoon possibly?
"We're going after it." The Major announced, strapping himself back into the seat in his cockpit.
"Say what?" Topaz asked, looking stunned.
"We need the transport." Okida explained, his hands already on the controls of the Mech. The Yahger shuddered at its pilots command; its torso pieced rotating around to face west; a few moments later it's bipedal legs also turned and began marching in that same direction. "But we have to do this quick and silently. We can't let them send an S.O.S message." He added, the jets on the back of his battle machine flaring to life; lifting it off the ground. The Raptor, while it had some flight capability had also damaged its jets in the fall and so all Topaz could do at this point was follow the Major on the ground. Luckily however, one of the Raptor's strengths was its speed. It was able to cross over distances quickly thanks to the long legs.
The Yahger was a heavy combat Mech, not designed for extended periods of flights; yet it managed to keep itself afloat and soon the Major as the ship within his sights. It wasn't paying attention to them and Okida intended to keep it that way, forcing his Mech to stay below the reach of its radar. At least, that was the idea. Apparently, the technological level of the enemy was more advanced then he originally thought. Not only did the ship detect his presence, but a large pair of laser turrets rose up from the top of each wing. "Ah crap." The major cursed; his hands flying over the weapons system controls.
Several shots rang out, forcing him to withdrawing to a safer distance. Surprisingly the ship did not pursue him, instead it increased its speed and tried to break away. This behaviour forced the vampire bat to wonder exactly what it was carrying that warranted not finishing an enemy off, just slowing them down instead? He was determined to find out.
Forcing the jets into overdrive, Okida was forced back into his seat as the Mech went soaring forwards; the ship growing bigger as he could nearer. The laser shots rang out again, but with this new speed the Major was easily able to plough through them, some of them missing him entirely.
Its pilot realized that at some point the Yahger was going to overtake the ship itself and swerved to the side, now heading south to try and escape the pursuing Mech. Okida managed a smile, showing both sets of fangs. He had it now.
The torso of his Mech rotated around in mid air, he fired two missiles almost directly into the side of the engines propelling it out the back. The steady blue streams spluttered at the hit, before dying away altogether. It shook in the air, before descending slowly; smoke trailing out the back.
"Koji look out!" Topaz screamed up through the com. Surprised by her use of his first name, the bat looked down towards the ground; only to see an almost never ending succession of green laser blasts come flying at him. They were colliding into the side of his Mech's armour before he had time to do anything. The force of the attack knocked him clean out of the air, his armour now riddled with holes.
Had his jets not come back on line, he would have crashed headlong into the ground. Even so, his landing was not perfect. The Mech's legs missed the ground and he ended up come down on his side, hitting his arm against the wall of the cockpit. "Koji, Koji are you alright?" He could hear Topaz asked him. He groaned and rubbed the back of his head, feeling a sharp pain in his arm as he did so.
"Fine." He replied before testing the controls of the Mech's legs. Thankfully, they hadn't sustained that much damage and with a little effort, he was able to force the Walker to pick itself backup. "Ground batteries." The bat announced, stated the obvious conclusion for what had bombarded his battle Machine.
"Must have some kind of military installation around here they're protecting." Topaz agreed, leading them both under the cover of some local large trees for fear of being picked up by any Metal X patrols sent out to intercept or destroy them. "That ship must have been heading for it." Sighing, she turned looked over towards the Major's mech. "You almost got yourself killed." The bat smirked.
"It's my job." Was his simple reply. "You can yell at me for risking my neck AFTER we get out of this in one piece."
"Always have to have the last word." Topaz grumbled, folding her arms. Okida laughed, before running over the thermal imaging map the onboard computer had been running for him. From the air, the systems had had a good glance at the surrounding landscape and had been able to present him with a detail map. On it's original path, the ship would have been heading west and from the angle those laser blasts had come at, Okida guessed their position would have been about a mile in that direction.
Under normal escape and evasion tactics, Okida would be compelled to head the opposite direction. But this was not a normal situation and he had to adapt his strategy as such.
"We're going to pay that installation a little visit."
-
"Say what?" Sonic asked as Rouge finished her story, telling how she had seen the Metal X army take Bean, Bark and Hare captive. The Blue Typhoon, still under it's holographic camouflage was flying west towards the border of the swamp land. A few miles from their present position was wasteland of snow and ice. There they should be able to hide out until they finished repairs of the Typhoon itself and came up with a plan to rescue the others.
"They tried to get away." Rouge continued explaining. "But that Equinox guy had them completely surrounded. They were forced to surrender." Sonic crumpled to himself.
"Metal Sonic could have had them killed by now." He thought out load, narrowing his eyes in frustration.
"Use your head Sonic." Eggman snapped, sitting with his back to them at the front controls of the Blue Typhoon. "If they wanted to kill them, they'd have shot them on the spot."
"Why take them prisoner at all?" Amy asked, sitting nearby; leaning on her flat edge of her hammer.
"Hostages." Sonic replied. Metal Sonic was utterly ruthless. If he couldn't achieve what he wanted by sheer force, he would try other means. Like trading the safety of the captives for a few Chaos Emeralds.
"Forget it Sonic, they're dispensable." Eggman told him over his shoulder. "Those Emeralds are not." Sonic didn't have to like any of this, but under no circumstances could they let Metal X get a hold of all Seven Chaos Emeralds. Presently, they had four; three they found on Earth and one they took from the Machine Federation General: Equinox. Metal Sonic and his boys still had two, and Cream was given the task of finding the last one back on Earth. Whether or not she had found it by now, Sonic had no idea.
Outside, almost as if somehow had turned the page of a book the expanse of jungle, forest and swamp land ended and after passing through a short mountain range; the Blue Typhoon emerged out above the rolling tundra of a seemingly never ending land of ice and snow.
Being further from the sun, Mars was naturally colder than Earth and as such most of it's entire northern hemisphere had Antarctica like conditions. Long pillars of ice rose up to the north, forming the crust of the northern ice cap. Like Earth however, Mars' had varied environments. Scans taken while they had still been in orbit showed several tropical locations along with a large desert on one of the continents.
"Those can't be what I think they are." Tails remarked, staring down from the pilot's seat towards the ground. Sonic walked over to the window and followed his gaze. Wandering through the thick snow ridden grounds searching for grass were a herd of large, furry animals. Shaped like elephants but with far larger tusks and covered in dark brown shaggy fur; a few of these giants looked up as they heard the sound of the ship passing overhead but saw nothing.
"Mammoths." Eggman muttered out load, bringing up a holographic display of the herd for them all to see.
"But they're extinct aren't they?" Amy asked with a puzzled expression shared by everyone.
"Correct. Man was supposed to have hunted them to extinction over six thousand years ago." Eggman added, before returning to the controls of the ship.
"They look pretty lively to me." Sonic replied, scratching the back of his head. Eggman barred his teeth and growled loudly.
"Metal Sonic's experimenting with that technology he took from me. This is clearly a case of genetic engineering. The more he learns of it, the more powerful he'll become when he gets all seven Emeralds."
"Not gonna happen." Sonic told him firmly. Despite his doubts, Sonic stood firm in that understanding that no matter what, Metal had to be stopped.
"I'm getting a Chaos Energy signature." Tails announced, gaining everyone's attention as he brought up another holo-display. It showed a survey map that the Typhoon had put together, along with a set of coordinates off to the north. "It could be another Chaos Emerald." The young fox ventured.
"Best to stay clear for now." Sonic told him. "The last Emerald was guarded by a Metal X general and in our present state, I'd rather not have us going up against Leviathan or Lancelot and never mind Dark Oak." Still, stealing the Emeralds away from the Machine Federation was a mission priority. Selecting a spot between two snow banks, Tails set the large ship down; keeping the holographic camouflage up and running. Maintaining the invisibility was taxing the energy supply, but thankfully with four chaos Emeralds and the Master Emerald itself that kept the power shortage at bay.
Cosmo shivered as she journeyed out onto the Blue Typhoon's deck to get a first hand look at the ice world around her. She had heard tales of landscapes such as this, but being a Maginaryworld Seer she had had little opportunity to visit them. Big was already outside with his Frog, who was nestled comfortable in the fur on the top of the cat's head. With them was a pick Big had taken from the hold, his fishing pole and a can full of live bait.
Before Cosmo could say anything to the large feline, Big slid over the side of the ship and flew down towards the ground, landing softly in the snow; sinking up to his knees. She watched from above as he dug around in the white around him, found a patch of ice and began hitting it with the sharp end of his pick. Once a hole had been cut, he hook a worn on the end of his fishing rod and dropped it through into the freezing water below.
"He always finds time to go fishing." Tails observed, walking up next to her. Eggman and his robots, under close supervision by the others, were busy having the ship's sensors survey the area before they headed out. "I'm not sure if it's in defiance of danger, or just his clueless nature. Probably a bit of both." He added with a grin. Cosmo smiled back, the shivered. She lacked the fur mobians had to keep themselves warm, even in freezing conditions. "Here." Gently, he past her a coat. Unfortunately, it had belonged to Chris and was about two sizes too big for her. After a bit of fiddling, she managed to get it to stay on her shoulders.
"You're dimension is quite different from mine." She told him as she looked out at the lay of the frozen land.
"What's Maginaryworld like then?" Tails asked. Cosmo hesitated, as if unsure of how to describe it.
"Less solid." She replied eventually. "Maginaryworld is created by the sentience of every being in existence in any reality. With so many conflicting opinions and idea's forced into it, it is constantly changing. Only the stabilising presence of the Precious Stone keeps the centre of it stable enough for us to live there." Tails raised an eyebrow and looked over at her.
"Precious stone?" He asked. This was not the first time he had heard the people from that dimension mention it, but had neglected to ask what it was.
"It's like our version of the Master Emerald." She explained with a short grin. "Only Mistress Illumina knows how it works. She is it's guardian and our ruler. In thousands of your years, Void was the only one to ever challenge her power." There was a sudden loud bellowing sound from not too far away and the two of them looked up. Standing on the edge of the snow bank they had landed behind was a very large mammoth. Tails suddenly had a distinct feeling of displacement, as if he was detached from reality; entering some bizarre dream world where nothing made sense. Then again, after he met Sonic he supposed he'd been in that world ever since.
"How did Metal Sonic do it?" Tails asked out load. "The last Mammoth died at the end of the Ice Age. And why bother to resurrect their species at all?"
"That's what we're here to find out." Cosmo reminded him with a small grin. She still had lingering doubts of her usefulness, but she was here for a reason and until she determined what it was she would help them to the best of her ability.
Tails nodded with a s mile of his own. Metal Sonic and his Machine Federation had done a lot of things that didn't make much strategic sense, but that had to be a purpose and Metal Sonic did not seem the type to do all this simply to satisfy a scientific curiosity.
"That's odd." Eggman mused out load, bringing up another holographic display for all those on the bridge to see. "It's a Chaos Emerald signature all right, but if I'm reading this correct then it's moving." Sonic looked up.
"Moving?"
"That's what I said hedgehog." Eggman replied over his shoulder. "It's about a mile away from our current position and appears to be travelling south. Not only that, but it appears to be under the ice as well." Suddenly there was a loud bleeping sound, as the Typhoon detected something else nearby. "Body heat, barley detectable amongst the ice." Eggman told them. "About three signatures, all moving in this direction."
With no supplies, no protection from the cold, no idea where they were going and hunted by the Metal X navy; Those of the Thorndyke family were in one desperate situation. Sam's ploy to lead the Machine Federation off in one direction while they went off in another had worked for a while but eventually the robots had picked up their trail and were pursuing them without mercy. Under the ice, following them was the giant submarine like robot; Leviathan. Leader of the Metal X navy, Leviathan was gigantic, a battleship all to himself. With no chance of fighting it, they three of them, Chuck, Chris and Sam had taken off on foot; heading south according to the compass they had. Hopefully, and with a great deal of luck, they'd find the forested area they passed over in order to get here. There they could hide and perhaps find something to eat.
"I don't believe it." Chris announced suddenly, staring up ahead of them. To keep themselves warm, they had crossed their arm in front of them and kept their heads down against the wind but could not see where they were going. Looking up, both Sam and Chuck saw what Chris had sighted. Sticking out of the snow a short distance away was the yellow triangular front of the Blue Typhoon. Sam just stood there dumfounded, it hadn't been there a second ago. Only moments prior he had sworn all that had been there was a snow bank. Walking towards it, they saw that the snow around it slowly began to disappear. Backing up, they observed it come back again.
"It's a holographic camouflage." Chuck told them, waving his arm through the side of a rock that wasn't really there.
"Hey…Over here!" A voice, a very family voice, called out to them. Stepping through the camouflaging shield that surrounded the ship; Chris came face to face with the green eyed blue hedgehog he knew so well.
"You guys ok?" Tails, who stood at Sonic's side asked as Sam and Chuck followed Chris through.
"Could be better." Chuck replied, rubbing the side of his injured arm. "How did you hold up?"
"We're still missing a few people. You're the first ones beside Rouge that made it back to the ship after the bail out." Sonic told them. They continued their conversation only once they got include out of the cold that Chuck could get that injury of his looked at properly. Tails was not happy that they managed to loose the X tornado but deep down the only thing he cared about was that they had safety made it back. "You didn't see Shadow or anyone did you?" The blue hedgehog asked once Chris had helped himself to a warm drink. The human shook his head.
"Sorry. We've been running for about half a day through the snow now. Metal X nearly had us at one time."
"They still have you, you fool!" Eggman nearly screamed at them, summoning them all to the bridge. "I'm reading a very large incoming!" Sonic was instantly on his feet. "They let you go you idiots!" The doctor continued, jabbing at the Thorndyke family. "And then they just followed you right to us!"
-
With the façade of some kind airport, the set of buildings Topaz and Okida discovered had two long run ways lancing away from the interior of the facility. The whole thing sat directly in the edge of a towering cliff, one half of it guarded by a tall electric fence and the other half protected by a sheer drop of at least a thousand feet. Towering out of the top of the main building was a giant radar tower, the dish pointed up towards the sky. Placed in two rows on vacant spaces were about six more of those flying ships they had seen earlier. The ground battery turrets that had taken a pot shot at the Yahger Mech stood a little further way on the edge of the cliff itself.
The perimeter fence was patrolled by two of those giant robot spiders belonging to the Machine Federation ground forces. Yet these weren't even the main guard. Sitting in rows of five were well over fifty flight capable drones. Some matching the ones that they'd seen searching for them, and others they'd never seen before. At the moment they were too far away to tell exactly what they looked like. This was clearly a base for their air force.
The ship Okida had managed a lucky shot at was there as well, large pieces of equipment gathered around it for repairs.
"We have to take out that dish first." Topaz stated, gesturing to the tower. "If we attack while it's still up, they'll send out a distress signal and we'll by up to our necks in reinforcements before we know it." Okida nodded. First order of business was to isolate the base, then storm their defences. With luck they would be able to do considerable damage before they knew what was happening. Once the forces guarding the base had been destroyed, they would see what they could salvage and at the same time, 'appropriate' one of their ships.
"By, appropriate…" Topaz began giving the major a sly side glance. "Do you mean steal?"
"Call the thing what you will, we're still going nick it." Okida replied, watching the base from the top of his conceal Yahger Mech. "I think that one on the left, the one with those missile launchers under the wings."
"Kid in a candy store." The human sighed, leaning back into the cockpit of her own Mech."Er…Major." Topaz began. Okida looked back from his surveillance and followed her gaze to the hood of her raptor Mech. Perched on the edge of the walker was the last thing either of them ever expected to see. It was clearly a flying animal, with long leathery wings folded on either side. It was pine green, with scales covering most of its body with some short feathers down its back. It had a triangular head that included a single horn lancing backwards out of its head and a long beck. Its back legs were short and bent as it stood on the very edge of the raptor, cleaning its bat like wings with its beck, picking pieces and pieces out of the claws on the tips of the long finger like claws, before it spread them out to the full wing span of about several feet and taking off into the air; disappearing through the trees and then out into the sky.
Okida and Topaz watched it go with open mouths.
"What that a Dinosaur?" The human eventually asked, look back towards her superior officer who wore an equally stunned expression.
"A Pterodactyl." Okida replied. "Ok, this is just getting weird." Without another word, he slid back down into the cockpit of his Mech and throwing a few switches the glass covering lowered back into place.
"I was under the impression they died out millions of years ago." Topaz argued, retracting the covering back over her own cockpit.
"Tell them that." Okida told her, his gloved hands already on the controls of his Mech. "But do it later. Right now we have a party to crash."
Before any of the Metal X guards could get a distress signal sent, several missiles came rocketing out of nowhere. They crashed straight into the communication dish, the explosion ripping it completely in tower and bringing the tower crashing down on the commander centre itself. The two Spider Mech's guarding the base rose up on all eight legs and turned to confront the intruder as a G.U.N class Mech came marching out of the trees. It took only a few moments for their sensors to register it as a Yahger, an assault type Walker. Missile launch capable and armed with the new combat callable laser; which it was using as it charged. A beam of blue light crossed through the distance between them, landing a direct hit on the back of one of the Arachnid Mech's, forcing the insect like machine to back up several paces. The second turned back and fired its own laser out from between it's jaws.
Seeing the incoming, the Yahger side stepped and the energy beam struck the ground near its foot. Its torso rotating around, the Mech fired several missiles through the air towards its enemies. One hit the spider on the leg and the entire machine shook at the impact of two others against its back.
While the lion share of the bases defences were drawn towards the Yahger, none of the Spider's noticed the Raptor dart out from the forest a short distance away and make for the base. The Raptor was a stealth type Mech was easily able to avoid sensors and by the time any of them picked it up, a large metal foot came slamming down on top of the communications building silencing them before they could get a message out.
Topaz turned the head of the large walker around and riddled the back of one of the spider's with round after round of bullets from her machine gun. Following this up with a barrage of missiles, she carved a large hole straight through the armour back of the Arachnid Mech.
With a sudden twist, the spider like machine turned around to face the new threat; which proved to be a mistake as Okida was able to fire a missile straight through the hole Topaz was ripped open on its back. There was a loud rippling sound as the missile exploded near its chaos drive and the insect Mech exploded in huge fire storm. Outnumbered and out gunned, even its armour was not able to keep the second machine safe. Keeping clear of its mouth, Topaz managed to dart in close enough to get the Metal X machine a ram. With one sudden thrust, the metal insect was forced over the edge of the cliff.
"You keep an eye open for any incoming." Okida told her, the glass cockpit sliding back as the Major somersaulted over the side of his Mech, floating down towards the ground. "I'll pick out one of the big ones." And they were, for lack of a more descriptive word, big. At least five times the size of the Yahger, these flying ships were shaped like a stealth bomber but with a large towering front. The Metal fist symbol, the icon of the Machine Federation stood in full view on each side. Okida thought that perhaps these ships wouldn't look so ugly if perhaps they replaced the Metal Fist with the G.U.N 'G'.
-
Flip card 1:
Name: Topaz
Description: A member of Freelance division, subordinate to Major Okida and Rouge's best friend.