Chapter 12: Return Fire

"It's showtime," said Conquest the Bat into her microphone.

She had never been the type of leader to sit safely behind the lines and bark out orders. No, whenever duty called, Conquest the Bat was right out there, leading the attack, barking out orders up close. Normally GUE regulations of orbital combat prohibited officers from joining in the initial attack waves, but the threat of the Ultimate Overlord changed the rules of combat drastically. There was no way but to throw everything they had at the enemy from start to finish. Whether they faced victory or defeat, this was going to be a short battle.

The purpose of the miniscule two-person X-winged starfighters was simply to draw the attention of the Ultimate Overlord's defences while the massive battleships prepared to launch their atomic missiles. From then on, it'd be a full-scale attack carrying on until the doomsday octopus was defeated or the GUE fleet's ammunition was depleted - whichever came first.

(It should be noted that atomic weapons in the present age were far removed from the first weapons that carried the name. Radioactive fallout was no longer a threat, as the atomic explosion dissolved the molecules of the target within the blast area instead of setting off a nuclear explosion. The far more extreme danger was the effect atomics had on the atmosphere. Normally the weapons were only deployed in outer space combat far removed from any civilisation. It said a lot about the direness of the situation that Conquest had approved their use in this battle.)

"Alright, Alpha one through Alpha six, follow my lead. Alpha seven though twelve, break off to the right. Spray the bulk of the enemy ship with lasers and try to draw as much firepower as you can. When the big guns fire, we've all got to get the hell away from the target, so watch for my signal!"

The Ultimate Overlord hadn't slowed its approach to the Ark. It was as if Metal Sonic wasn't aware of the vast fleet closing in all around him, or simply didn't care.

Overconfident dastard, thought Conquest. Let's see how you like this.

The Commander's starfighter dodged the unresponsive tentacles and flew in close to the centre of the monstrosity. While flying over at high speed, she fired off a series of laser blasts aimed at the border of the Ultimate Overlord's massive eye. It seemed the most likely area for a weak point to be, but Conquest was still surprised to see in her rear-view display that she'd caused deep scars in the metal surface. Maybe this was going to be easier than she'd thought. The rest of the starfighters followed suit, punching visible holes in the exterior of the Ultimate Overlord, which still failed to make any attempt to defend itself.

Conquest felt a lot more anxious about giving the order to unleash the atomics now than she wuld've been if the Ultimate Overlord had put up a tremendous fight that threatened to cripple the fleet. The gargantuan menace almost seemed to be planning something.

You could cut the tension with a knife as the entire GUE fleet sat with its finger on the trigger, so to speak. Finally, Conquest sent the message: "Fire the big guns."

From a safe distance, the GUE Commander watched as the missiles crossed the distance of empty space between the battleships and the Ultimate Overlord. They reached the last dying second before the missiles exploded against the hull... Conquest the Bat's eyes widened, as in that instant she saw with perfect clarity what was about to happen.

"ABORT!!"

It was too late. The entire titanic mass of the Ultimate Overlord flashed out of existence. The missiles passed through the now-empty section of space where the ship had been, and continued on towards the nearest target. A few of the battleship officers managed to react in time and press the self-destruct button for the atomic missiles. Those who didn't couldn't only watch in horror as the missiles they'd fired crashed into the battleships posted on the opposite side of the battlefield.

The Ultimate Overlord rematerialised in the spot where it had been. This time it didn't stay immobile, but immediately moved towards the nearest surviving battleships, extending its tentacles.

"Chaos Control," Conquest said to herself, feeling a fool.

Even today it was popular belief that the distortion of time and space known as Chaos Control could only be accomplished with a Chaos Emerald. The truth was that the Emeralds had only one single power, and always had. They could transform thoughts into power, which essentially meant that they had the ability to amplify and realise any potential power or ability to indominable levels. Anyone with the knowledge and the ability could perform Chaos Control - the Emeralds merely made the task significantly less difficult. Metal Sonic had copied the ability two hundred years ago, and used it extensively when battling Sonic and his friends. Metal had never wielded a Chaos Emerald while using the power, nor had he ever needed one to do it.

The GUE general who'd opposed Conquest's plan might've gained some small amount of self-satisfaction from knowing that her plan was a complete failure. He'd never have time to consider it, however, because in the instant that the Ultimate Overlord reappeared, Metal Sonic showed up in a flash of light on the bridge of the general's command ship - or rather, a Metal Sonic appeared, shortly followed by a pair of identical twins. The general made the mistake of raising his pistol, and was amongst the first of the crew to be killed by the Metal duplicates.

The same thing was happening in the bridges and control rooms of all the ships of the fleet. The Ultimate Overlord didn't need laser turrets or other defences. With an unbreakable link forced into the GUE computer systems, a destination could be plotted anywhere within the fleet, easily bypassing the issue of having prior knowledge of the destination when utilising Chaos Control to teleport.

The army of Metal Sonic doppelgangers witnessed by Silver and Blaze had not been created merely to impress, but as the means of rendering the GUE fleet totally helpless.

Only the GUE flagship managed to prevent the invaders from taking over. Conquest had ordered all of the Angel Echidnas in the service of the military to take up positions on the flagship, and with each one an equal to Knuckles the Echidna in terms of strength and resilience, they proved more than capable of crushing the Metal Sonics that Chaos Controlled onboard. Any hope of defeating the Ultimate Overlord seemed lost, but at least Conquest the Bat still had a command centre to return to.

While the GUE Commander landed her starfighter onboard the flagship, the Ultimate Overlord began repairing the damage to itself by harvesting the hijacked GUE battleships, one by one.

-

Shadow gently removed the seventh Chaos Emerald from its container.

"Finally," he said. "Metal Sonic wants these Emeralds' power, I'll deliver it to him myself."

Standing on the edge of Gerald's replica of the Emerald Altar, Shadow the Hedgehog let the seven Chaos Emeralds rise up into the air around him. He had hoped that he'd already saved the world enough times for one lifetime, but fate demanded more, it seemed.

Time to be the hero again. What a hassle...

-

"Commander! Commander!"

Conquest's fur was sticky with sweat. She didn't trust the elevators during a time like this, and the stairs from the bay area to the bridge went on nearly forever. She hadn't even had time to change out of her flight uniform, which meant her wings were plastered down on her back, and chafed insanely.

"What is it?" she said to the stiff officer, who was nearly as drenched with sweat as her. The guy probably hadn't seen much action in his career up till now.

"We're being hailed! By the enemy ship!"

"What!? Well, what are you waiting for. Put it through."

The upper half of a robot appeared on the main screen. It was Metal Sonic, but an entirely different version of him. The head looked the most similiar to the original form, except with longer and sharper spikes. Gone was the jet engine torso, replaced with a grey titanium chest plate. The hands were more defined, with joints in the fingers instead of just being five spikes sticking out of a plate. What was most unnerving was that that was all there was to see. The limbs connecting the pieces were nothing more than violent arcs of blue energy, holding all of it together.

"I am the collective consciousness of every robot created from the source code of Hedgehog Hunter Droid model 3, named Metal Sonic by its creator Dr. Ivo Robotnik. You can call me...Metal Mastermind. Know that I could've taken the Ark at any time I pleased, through the power of Chaos Control. I delayed my intentions only so that I could lure your forces to this place and use its resources to grow stronger before confronting the one being still able to pose a threat to me."

"We played right into your hands," Conquest admitted.

"Indeed. But you were not meant to survive this confrontation. I did not expect to encounter echidnas empowered by the Master Emerald onboard one of your vessels. If you had posted guards of their caliber throughout the fleet rather than just this one ship, you might have thwarted my plan. Congratulations are well in order."

"Thanks," said the bat in a dry voice.

"I have decided that for your achievement, I shall award you the honour of bearing witness when I conquer this world. I so love an audience." Metal Mastermind had no mouth, but from it voice it sounded like he was smiling.

"How very kind. I look forward to watching your performance." Almost as much as I look forward to watching Shadow smash you to bits, you arrogant buffoon.

"I promise you won't be disappointed. Goodbye for now."

-

A golden speck of light flew out of the Ark, and shot into the Ultimate Overlord...

In the next chapter:
- Burly Brawl, hedgehog-style. You know, from Matrix Reloaded? Neo versus a hundred Smiths? Coolest scene in the movie? Riiight. Yeah, the third one was pretty disappointing.
- Silver and Blaze are pushed further away from the action.
- After carefully reviewing the script, Silver reassures himself that he IS the main character.