Flip card 2:

Name: Rikoye

Description: Commander of the Black Arm fleet and leader of their sect.

-

"Sir…we have an incoming message." Rikoye, commander of the Black Arm fleet looked up as a message was put through, the face of another of his kind, a fesonian appeared on the screen in front of him. It was a female, with a translator device around her neck. Her scales were a pale grey and the red on the end of her limbs stood out brightly, showing how young she was. Probably no older than a decade or two.

"Commander, my name is Jailos." She announced in their native tongue. "I am on board the ship the Blue Typhoon. I have important information." Rikoye glanced to the equipment at his side to check the transmission signal. It was indeed on the ship they had detained in their holding bay, which during the fighting not too long ago had managed to escape. Now it lay at the front of the combined armada, the closest airborne ship to the creature in the centre of the city ruins.

Of course, that ship could not have escaped without help from within.

"You are the dissident who aided in the escape of said ship?" The commander asked. As if it wasn't relevant to the situation in the slightest anymore, Jailos simply nodded in affirmation.

"Yes sir, I am. But thankfully there is no time for any charges of treason, the creature in the centre of the city is a being from Nexus." The very word 'Nexus' shut down all activity on the bridge of the mother ship. All technicians, pilots and personnel froze in their tracks, turning to stare up at her with wide yellow eyes blinking in utter surprise. Rikoye was left sitting in the commanding officer's chair completely stunned.

"Impossible." He stated finally. "That dimension was sealed for good a long time ago."

"We've all be deceived commander." Jailos announced, trying to explain to him just how desperate the situation was now. "It wasn't Metal Sonic who lured us here. It was another being from that realm, one we all know too well."

"She's right sir." One of the scouts reported in, his own image appearing right next to her. "We've just completed our survey, that creature is indeed from Nexus. The dimension readings confirm it." Rikoye suddenly felt weak at the knees. If a being from Nexus could get here…the full horror of it finally hit him. His people had just walked head first into a trap, but one of far more cunning design than that of Metal Sonic's conception. It seems the robot was a small a pawn as the rest of them.

"Order the evacuation!" He announced to the crew. "Get us off this planet NOW!"

"We can't run sir." Jailos begged him. "He'll find us no matter where we go, unless we stop him returning now." The commander kept barking orders for the Black Arm fleet to leave the Earth and run, to get as far away from this star system as it possibly could. "That creature sir, if we destroy it now, we can stop him. The Egg on it's back!" Looking back, Rikoye watched the image of the planet like lizard increased in size as the sensors zoomed in, locking onto the small white and round object embedded in a bony ridge on its spine. "He's inside that sir. If we can destroy it before it hatches…"

The holographic display on the bridge of the Blue Typhoon cut off as the communications link with the Black Arm mother ship was cut off. Jailos cursed in her native tongue, before turning the translation device back on; converting her voice back to Standard English.

"Didn't go well?" Okida asked sceptically. Even if none of them had been able to understand the frantic tone the commander's voice had taken.

"My people are terrified of the destroyer." Jailos sighed angrily. "They've been running from those who want to kill them for so long, it seems to be the only reaction they have to major threats."

"They didn't have any problems with invading us." Amy added in. Jailos ignored the remark.

"Hey look!" Tails declared, jabbing a finger forward. Everyone looked up to see the Black Arm mother ship moved forward, pushing through the front of the fleet to travel closer toward the city. Silently, its colossal form brushed past the Blue Typhoon and as its tip passed over the outskirts of the city, several large spikes projected out of the front.

"They're going to attack…" Their black arm dissident exclaimed, looking stunned by this sudden change in behaviour. And indeed they did attack, the spikes began sparking green lightning, before a powerful beam cumulated from the energy of each one and rocketed forwards down towards the city.

All thee of Dark Oak's heads rose themselves, watching the blast from the ship near them, streaking through clouds as it cutting a hole in the sky. Seeing the danger, the remain Dragons had hadn't been squashed or eaten flew off to a safe distance. Letting out one final laugh, all of Dark Oak's heads simultaneous opened their jaws and began powering up, their combined energy forcing one wall ball of light before them.

After tending to the attack's strength, the inter-dimensional being fired it forward and the two attacks met in mid air. For a while, each of them seemed to be of equal strength. Then Dark Oak just seemed to get a power boast of nowhere and the balanced tipped drastically in his favour.

The beam the Black Arm mother ship was trying so hard to maintain was being pushed backwards, slowly at first then rocketing backwards towards the ship itself. At the last second however, an intense barrage of missile fire struck against Dark Oak hard, fired from the Flag Ships of the Eggman Empire and G.U.N. One of the heads faulted and stopped supplying energy for the attack and then the Black Arms were able to fight back again. Giant Wing and the Whale Shark Flagship moved into attack position, tacking up flanking positions on either side of the Black Arm mother ship. Once there, all attack systems locked onto Dark Oak and then both of them opened fire. The air was a blaze with artillery, missile, bullets and laser fire, all concentrated hard on Dark Oak.

With one sudden thrust, the beam the monster was firing dissipated and all that firepower crashed into its body at once. A huge column of smoke and dust was thrown up into the air, blanketing everything.

"Woah, what a light show." Rei remarked, covering his eyes with a hand to protect them from the glare. Beck was trying to see what was going on as well, not to mention trying not to let an unconscious Charmee get blown away.

"Did they do it?" Cream asked, hovering at the flying squirrel's side with Emerl right behind her. Chaotix had been able to move themselves outside Station Square to the desert plains surrounding the city. Now they were in, what they believed to be, a safe zone. Espio groaned loudly and pushed himself up into a sitting position, rubbing the back of his head Opening his eyes, he found himself and the others in a very different landscape to where they'd been previously. Had he gotten hit on the head on something? Vanilla was there with them looking a little worse for where and Vector wasn't too far away he noticed.

"I feel worse than a dingo with all four legs clamped in bear traps." A voice stated. Looking to the side, Espio saw Fang the Sniper sitting a short distance away.

"You should murderer." The chameleon told him flatly trying to stand up. Fang shot him a glare and reached for a knife.

"There's a time and a place for this." Vector snapped back over his shoulder. The dust was clearing in the city centre, and the scene did not bode well. "And that is certainly not it!"

Dark Oak started laughing again, all thee lips working together in that chuckling. Despite the bombardment by the three strongest ships in the fleet, all he had on his skin being a few scratch and burn marks, not much of it had affected him.

"That's impossible." Jailos remarked in utter disbelief. Nothing could possibly survive fire power of that magnitude.

"Nothing's impossible for the seven Chaos Emeralds." Tails reminded them all, directing their attention to the sparkling jewels trapped in the Dark Oak's central forehead, supplying the creature with a great deal of power. It was like fighting against Perfect Chaos, the Biolizard and Metal Overlord all rolled into once.

Someone tapped the glass above them. Looking up, they gave Sonic waving down to get them from above. Lying on the top of the glass in a lazy style, greeting them as if today was just another day.

"'Bout time." Amy remarked with a short smile as the blue hedgehog slid down the side to reach their level.

"Sorry I'm late. Was busy kicking butt." Sonic replied in his usual tone. "Can someone get the Turtle Mech up onto the deck? I've got a plan."

"You're not going to shoot yourself out of that cannon again are you?" Tails asked with a worried expression on his face.

"Sort of, a few alterations to the design that time around." Sonic replied with an all knowing grin, before diapering, racing off to the front of the ship.

"I hope what he's got planned works better than the rest of them." Okida remarked, before racing out the door to comply with the request.

With a loud roar, the Turtle Mech; one of G.U.N's artillery walkers rose up into place on the front deck of the ship. The green armour plating that gave the Mech its name moved aside and the cannon itself moved up into position. There was a sudden loud clanking sound as the buffers, the metal straps that kept the walker in place while it fired, strapped themselves over the four bi-pedal legs.

Okida quickly slipped into the pilot's seat, the targeting sensors came on line, a crosshair lining up towards Dark Oak.

"Target locked." The Major announced through a head set to the outside world.

On the tip of the Cannon, Sonic and Shadow stood watching Metal Sonic. The robotic hedgehog stood on the tip of the Blue Typhoon's front with his arms crossed. There was complete and utter silence between them. Before Metal Sonic nodded once, uncrossed his arms and began to approach. Sonic gained a superior smirk and gave a thumbs up. "What the!" Okida exclaimed, watching the energy reading sky rocket. The Turtle Mech had just exceeded its tolerance levels, all sensors spiking into the red. From the bridge, Tails watched in awe as the top of the artillery cannon and gleaming like a second sun. A second later the entire ship began shaking as the energy levels climbed to new heights. Inside the cannon, spinning around one another like some bizarre atom symbol, Shadow, Sonic and even Metal Sonic himself were quickly gathering momentum.

Their combined energy culminated together, growing each time any of them passed by one another. At this rate, the entire ship was growing to break apart never mind the Mech. Okida could already se whist was happening to it. If the cannon fired, the resulting shockwave would knock the Blue Typhoon backwards over a mile.

Dark Oak looked up to watch the light spectacle. Clearly this was some elaborate plan to stop the revival of the Master. As the protector Dark Oak could not allow that. All three heads came together and opened their mouths, sharing their energy with one another, a single ball of bright light appearing between their jaws, growing larger and power bright with each passing second.

Okida swallowed hard. He didn't have a choice, it was do or die now.

There wasn't a person on the entire planet that didn't hear the bang that single shot made. Windows were shaking as far away as France and what was left of England. With a near literal earth shattering ka-boom, all three of them were sent rocketing out the cannon; spinning around each other like intense fireflies. A second later, the cannon itself exploded and Okida was forced to eject from the mech as it destructed, the green armour plating blowing to pieces in a second a fire storm advanced over the deck of the ship. The shockwave hit the Typhoon and it took every ounce of piloting skill of Tails part to keep her from plummeting down towards the ground.

Dark Oak's attack fired, a spectacular show of light as three energy beams merged into one before rocketing forward. The blast fired from the Blue Typhoon seemed to do the same, three points of burning orange light spinning around each other seemed to blur into one whole. The entire fleet was watching as with all the force of an atomic explosion, the two forces collided.

The ground shook like it was the end of the world and all Dark Oak could do as screech as his own attack gave away and his end came rushing to meet him. Sonic, Shadow and Metal Sonic tore into him like bullets before ripping out the other side, the deadly force of an intense explosion following behind them; deadly fire that quickly consumed the creature in a show of light that was visible from space.

"What the hell was that?" Bean asked as the chopper they were in got tossed about in the air like balloon in an updraft. With Bark at the controls they managed to avoid crashing into any buildings. Tikal widened her eyes in awe. They'd done it. They'd actually broken the defence. She could sense the exchange of energy from here. They almost had victory in the bag but it wasn't over yet. They were all still in a great deal of danger until they finished it.

As the smoke and dust cleared, the fleet could see Dark Oak was still there, his colossal form swaying in mid air. Two of his heads had been burned off and most of his tentacles destroyed. His only remaining head had had large chunks taken out of it and was barley able to keep itself up.

With one final screech, the neck convulsed and it crashed to the ground. As it hit, the seven Chaos emeralds dropped out of the forehead and scattered on the street before the beast. A second later, the monster died; a loud hiss escaping it's lips as the eyes slid shut.

Vector looked up as the chopper above descended towards the ground before finally touching the ground. Tikal leapt out even before its feet touched the desert floor and went running past Chaotix up to the city. She didn't stop until she was on the very outskirts of the ruined city, staring in, trying to see what was happening, straining to glare through the ruined buildings and bellowing clouds of smoke.

"What are you guys doing here?" Bark asked, stepping out of the chopper as the blades began to slow down.

"We've been asking ourselves the same question all day." Rei replied with a short grin.

Cream stared after Tikal, who remained completely stationary on the top of a sand bank, staring into the derelict city like a statue. The dust was beginning to settle and so far none of them could see the giant Dark Oak towering there, no slashing tentacles or three giant heads full of taunting laughter. Perhaps that last attack had done it. Quickly Cream went after her and was quickly standing at the girl Echidna's side, her ever dutiful guardian Emerl walking quickly after the rabbit girl.

"Are you ok?" She asked, tugging at Tikal's arm.

"Give me a minute." The female Echidna replied, beads of sweat running down her face. "Then I'll let you know." Her expression filled with anticipation and a good deal of fear.

-

Sonic pushed himself out of a middle of rubble, brick dust covering his quills. It had done the trick apparently, but it hadn't been a pleasant ride. Nearby Shadow hoisted himself up, also covered in dust. Shaking it out of his fur, he looked back the way they had come. After tearing through Dark Oak, all three of them kept going and had carved a very large scar down the ruins. A canyon like tear had been torn down after them, smoking rising from the edges were tarmac was till melting.

"Hey where'd Metal Sonic go?" The blue hedgehog asked, looking around for his metallic counterpart. A glint of metal on the sunlight caught his eye and looking over, Sonic saw a robotic hand sticking up through the covering of dirt and dust. Running over, Sonic pulled the robotic hedgehog up to a sitting position.

"I'm fine, leave me alone." Metal Sonic told him, brushing away any of Sonic's attempts to help him up.

"Well excuse me." Sonic replied with a bored expression, crossing his arms and turning away as if sulking.

"We don't have time for this." Shadow stated angrily, forcing himself to his feet and shaking the bits and pieces out of his quills. "You can chat later." With that he shot off, skating towards the carcass in the distance. Sonic ran off after him and once Metal Sonic had reactivated his jet engine tagged along as well.

The two of them caught up to Shadow as he stood in front of the dead creature, looking up at it's single remaining head sceptically, as if suspecting it was trying to trick them. Sonic picked up a rock and tossed it as the thing. It hit the beast directly in the eye but Dark Oak didn't move, he was dead alright.

"I guess he won't bee needing these anymore." Sonic added in a large smile, picking up two of the Chaos Emeralds that were simply lying round them. Shadow held out his hand and the remaining jewels on the ground flew right to them, hovering just before his fingers. He was going to need all the energy he could get to finish this. Turning, Shadow faced the egg on the top of the dead beast. He didn't know if Dark Oak's well being was tied into the egg's, but it was too much of a risk to assume so. With his free hand, Shadow prepared a Chaos spear. Sonic saw his efforts, smiled and prepared to fire a Sonic Wind to help him. Metal Sonic, also eager to finish this business raised his hands for an energy blast of his own.

"Hey what's that noise?" Sonic suddenly asked, dropping his hands. Shadow also paused, listening. Then they all heard it, a loud thudding sound, a regular as a heart beat and growing louder. They watched as the scales on the back of the dark creature began glowing bright red. Slowly this glow built itself up, before concentrating itself on the skin underneath the egg.

Sonic had to back step as suddenly, as if whatever energy was left in the body was sucked out, the body of Dark Oak collapsed into a colossal pile of grey dust. The egg dropped down to land with a soft thud in the largest hill of the stuff, then it rolled down to the bottom before getting caught in a refuse where Dark Oak's nose had been.

For a moment, everything was silent.

Shadow left a lump in his throat as the egg cracked and bony spikes shot out through the shell. Sonic and his metal counterpart watched as the shell gave way and with one sudden force, it fell apart completely revealing the new being inside. A long muscular tail swept out behind it, with four stegosaurus like spikes on the tip. A row of spikes ran over its shoulders and the outside of its arms; two horns lancing out either side of its head, curving up above.

Slowly, the new arrival stood up showing it was humanoid, but had bipedal legs with two large claw like toes in the end of its feet. Its hands were cloven and had talons instead of fingers. Its form was silhouetted against the sun, giving it more than a distinct dark impression as it stood there, its tail swaying behind it. Apart from the spikes, the entire body was coated in a thin short black fur. As it turned to face them, all three of them got a glimpse of those red eyes in person and the insect like pincers that took up the space of a mouth. All of them had seen his image, some more than others, but they all knew with certainly what he was and there was no question and green flames began burning across the width of his shoulders.

"You…" The black and red hedgehog hissed, fury seeping into his eyes like tears.

Tikal gasped out load, holding a hand to her heart as the shockwave passed through her like a tsunami. No…impossible...no….NO! He was alive, he actually alive. Not an essence, but a living creature, flesh and blood. NO!

At the same time, Cosmo felt it as well and her reaction was less than silent. It sounded as if the world was coming to an end when she screamed.

"Is that who I think it is?" Sonic asked stepping backwards a few paces. The demon like being standing there before them didn't move, its red eyes locked solely on them, not flinching even for a moment.

"Hello Shadow." It stated after that brief pause.

-

(In Chris' voice)

The stage is set for the ultimate battle. It's do or die as Krish prepares to destroy the Earth and only a last minute alliance of friends and enemies is going to have any chance of stopping him. But can anything really stop the Destroyer? Find out next time as Dark Ages ends with the End Game Saga, Behold the Destroyer. Next time on Sonic X, Don't miss it!