Chapter Six

Assault on the Flying Fortress

Our three stowaways find themselves waiting until the guards have left the room so they can make their next move. The guards left after they had checked the fortress's cargo and our three heroes came out of hiding.

"Now remember, we must use stealth in order to get to the engine room to get the Chaos Emeralds," Sonic warned them.

"Sure thing, Sonic," Ray replied.

"Okay," Mighty replied sounding disappointed.

They exited the cargo bay through the only door and into a room where there was a lone guard patrolling the area. They hid behind a control panel where the guard had approached their previous position. Mighty jumped the guard and hit him with both fists, crushing the guard's armored head and knocking him unconscious. Unfortunately, another guard just happened to enter the room and triggered an alarm that sounded through the entire complex.

"Nice going," Sonic sarcastically remarked as Sonic took out the guard that had triggered the alarm.

They left their current position as they exited the room and started to fight several guards that had been sent to block them.

Elsewhere, high above the clouds, there was a blue biplane piloted by a young fox nicknamed Tails.

"Damage my plane and steal my Emerald will they?" he thought as he pressed a sequence of buttons that caused the plane to transform out of its current form.

The wings changed from their horizontal position and into an X. The tail of the plane shifted upward slightly from its current position and a small cannon appeared between the copilot's seat and the tail of the plane. The propeller also disappeared into the plane and small rockets appeared on the plane's underside. The plane now was a jet. The fox pressed another sequence of buttons and the plane was fully armed with all of its arsenal.

"I must first take out their forward engines so that they can't get any further out to sea," the fox named Tails continued to think. He pressed, yet, another sequence of buttons and the plane's internal computer locked onto the fortress's forward engines and launched a wave off missiles.

In the command center of the fortress, the leader of the Armada was sitting on an elevated chair with his elite stationed around him. An alarm was sounded in the command center and one of his men turned to him.

"Sir, we have unidentified projectiles coming toward us."

"What!" the leader sounding alarmed.

Then the entire fortress shook as the incoming missiles hit their targets.

"All forward engines are down; switching to hover mode," one of his men said as he hit a sequence of buttons and switches.

All the lights in the command center turned red (showing a Code Red).

Elsewhere in the fortress, our three stowaways were knocked off their feet, along with other members of the Armada.

"Looks like Tails got the Tornado up and running and he is assaulting the fortress on the outside," Sonic said as he got to his feet and took out a series of guards, who had just entered the room.

"I hope he doesn't take the fortress down with us in it," Mighty yelled, due to the fact that the alarm was still sounding, as he took out a guard, sending him through a closed door and taking out several other guards behind it.

"Let's move and get those Emeralds," Ray yelled as he batted guards away with his tail.

They came into the next room, only to be under attack by guards firing guns at them from an upper level. Sonic was able to doge their fire with ease, but he could not get to them since the walls had the very same texture as ice and he couldn't even reach them. Mighty took out a guard and "borrowed" his gun to use it against his comrades on the upper level. Ray used an updraft from the pipes in the area to reach the upper level to attack the guards there. The pipes in the area started exploding and the explosion caused the rivets holding the pipe to spread out at such a incredible speed. They pierced through the hull as if it was paper and it also knocked out the guards but it wasn't enough to actually kill them since their armor protected them.

"Let's get out of here!" Sonic shouted as his allies regrouped and fled the room along with the chaos.

"Looks like their workforce purposely sabotaged certain key connections on the fortress," Mighty remarked as they exited the room.

"If that is the case; we need to be more careful," Ray said as they exited through the door.

Outside and around the fortress, Tails was also causing his own chaos to the fortress. After he had stopped their forward engines, he focused on their weapons around the fortress. An warning was sounded on his radar.

"Sending out aircrafts to stop me?" he sarcastically thought.

He turned the plane toward an area near the underside that had opened up. He had let loose a barrage of missiles and caused considerable damage inside the hangers. He destroyed all of the aircrafts in the hangers and took off their doors; causing a blast door to seal the hangers. His radar had picked up several bogies coming out from the other side of the fortress. Tails changed course and went to intercept them. He took them all out and they had to retreat since they only had their armor on due to the fact that all of their aircrafts were destroyed. The result was the same for the hanger doors as the ones on the opposite side. A steady beep was heard and Tails cracked a sarcastic smile to match Sonic's.

"So that is where you hid the Emeralds," he thought as he looked at the holographic projected blueprint of the fortress from his computer scan of it during his assault on it.

There was an opening on several sides of the plane and that led to the core of the fortress. He turned the plane and headed toward an opening that led to the core of the fortress and to the Chaos Emeralds.

Inside the command center, the leader of the Armada was furious.

"Status report!" he ordered.

"Engines still down," a soldier said.

"All weapon systems are down," another said.

"The hull is breached and we are loosing several systems," another said.

"Radar still down."

"Our security is down."

"We lost sight of the unidentified aircraft."

"Someone has breached the core."

"What!" the leader was outraged at what he had heard last.

The door of the command center was knocked off by an outside force. At its entrance stood Sonic, Mighty, and Ray.

"You can't win. Now hand over the Chaos Emeralds!" Sonic ordered.

"Never!" the leader shouted and he pushed a button on the armrest of his seat and he vanished down a shoot. Before our heroes could react, the entire fortress shook and it knocked everyone off their feet. The leader's elite were all knocked unconscious by a falling girder.

Inside the core, Tails navigated through the narrowing space as he made his way toward the core. The narrowing tunnel opened to a wide room and in that room was the Chaos Emeralds. They were held in a containment field as their power met at a central point and Tails guessed that was where he should aim. He locked onto that area and unloaded his strongest missiles onto it. The force of the explosion caused the core to collapse and Tails had to make a hasty exit.

In the command center, due to the result of Tails' actions, the entire fortress took a sudden nosedive; causing everyone to loose their footing.

"Looks like we need to jump!" Sonic yelled as he stopped himself just inches from falling out of the fortress.

"Are you insane!" Ray and Mighty shouted in unison as they too stopped themselves from falling out.

"Ray, can you parachute us to the ground?" Sonic yelled due to the change in air pressure.

"Are you insane? I never parachuted anyone to the ground before; let alone two!" Ray replied.

Another explosion shook the fortress and they all lost their grip and they began to fall. After freefalling for several hundred feet, they landed on something hard. It was a blue biplane and it was a young fox piloting it.

"Nice catch, Tails!" Sonic said giving him a thumbs up.

"Thanks for the save," Mighty replied as he got a good grip on the wing of the biplane.

"Thank you," Ray replied.

They landed on a remote beach and they saw something fall from the descending fortress and it landed near them in the jungle. They quickly went to that location to find that the leader of the Armada is still alive. He had apparently escaped in an escape pod and in his hands; he clutched the Chaos Emeralds.

"You have destroyed my fortress," he sounded very enraged. "Now I will take your lives. Starting with that twin tailed freak!"

The Emeralds in his hands began to glow and a blinding white light came from them. After the light had vanished, standing in front of them was the same leader, but he had an black aurora around him and his eyes turned black as coal. The Emeralds laid scattered nearby and they looked smoky gray.

"Great!" Sonic remarked and he charged at the duck. His attack was halted before he even reached the leader. He was stopped in midair and by the leg. The Armada's leader then tossed Sonic, but Sonic quickly recovered but, due to the force of the throw, he hit a tree.

Mighty then charged the duck and punched him. The duck took the punch as if nothing happened. Mighty stood there for several seconds before the clutched hand yelling in pain. The leader then punched Mighty and he sailed backwards into a rock where he went through it before it collapsed onto him.

Tails took his turn to kick the duck in the head but his attempt was halted.

"You will be the first to perish," he sneered at Tails. "Consider this my revenge from destroying my previous fortress," the leader took a handful of Tails' fur from his chest before he punched in the face. Tails' body went limp and the leader tossed him like a rag doll. His body went through several tree limbs before he hit the water of a nearby lake headfirst.

"TAILS!" Sonic yell as he saw his friend hit the water. Sonic took the opportunely to recover the Chaos Emeralds while the Armada's leader was distracted. He then charged him with pure rage, but the leader dodged his attack before he hit Sonic in the face causing the Emeralds to fly into the lake and they disappeared from view.

Sonic was temporary knocked out and when he came to; he was in an orbed prison. Mighty and Ray had also been captured. A vile laugh was heard and Sonic knew who it belonged to.

"No one can help you now landlubber!" he sneered. "The power of the Emeralds is already in use and they will not work for you! Your pathetic friends have been thorns in my side for the past few days, and I have triumph over you. Your pathetic freak of a friend is probably sleeping with the fishes by now!"

The leader then let his vile laugh ring again. Sonic broke down into tears as he had lost his best friend in the world. Mighty and Ray comforted him but it was no use. Images in Sonic's mind began to play in his head. The first time he had met Tails, the time Tails had saved his life, the time he learned what fruit to eat in the wild, the time they assaulted the Death Egg and several other memories began to ring.

This is not looking too good for our heroes. Three of them are captured while the last one is unconscious at the bottom of the lake. Can our heroes overcome this obstacle and defeat the Armada's leader, who now has the power of the Chaos Emeralds? Can Tails regain consciousness and help his friends, or will he remain there? Can Sonic free himself from his prison and help his friend? Will they defeat this vile fiend?

Preview:

Be prepared for a clash of titans next time!


Copyright: Sonic, Tails, Mighty, Ray, and the Battle Bird Armada are all copyrighted by Sega.
Post Author's Note: Don't hate me for ending this chapter with tragity, but I felt that it was a good cliffhanger. If you have a suspession about what might happen; DON'T say it in your reviews or you might give it away. Just to let you know, I dislike killing off characters in any fanfic.