Tails had proved himself a master of flight as he fought against rain, wind, and Eggman's floating armada. Ground to air missiles and turrets also tormented the little biplane, Knuckles and Shadow having fought off the physical projectiles while the vulpine pilot swerved around the laser blasts. Guns blazed and weapons of his own design targeted and fired in succession as the aerial display continued.
Words didn't need to be said as the group advanced on the Egg Fort 3. That was the center of the storm, the horde of planes and floating craft swirling around it like an angry hornet's nest. Some of the crafts launched smaller ships at them, but no matter how many missiles were returned or ships came down, there seemed no end to the barrage.
"We're not getting anywhere!" Knuckles said in an angry tone as his fist turned a missile aside into a ship that had moments before targeted them. It went down in a ball of flames and smoke seconds later.
"I can't get closer like this!" Tails replied as he swerved aside to avoid a stray missile. He fell down and cut power, falling behind a fighter-jet like bird robot that he then took out with a homing laser. The power was restored and he sped ahead, picking up the black missile that had just bounded off another such robot.
Shadow surveyed the surroundings while Knuckles continued to mindlessly bash projectiles. Occasionally he would leap into the air and swing one jet into another. "There's enough junk here to jump across," Shadow commented. He snapped his fingers and time froze, a missile just inches from his muzzle. He turned it around and spent a few minutes inflicting damage on neighboring robots before returning to the Winged Victory. A cacophony of explosions greeted his ears as time resumed its normal course.
Knuckles' jaw just hung open as he tried to figure out how much this hedgehog was capable of. "Ehh? You wanna try going on alone?" Tails shouted up to him, the boy breaking into a barrel roll, dodging another set of lasers that then overshot their marks and several of which hit their own ships.
"That's the idea," Shadow returned, hanging onto the wings with one hand while he was in a kneeling position for the sudden roll out.
Knuckles lost his grip but was able to glide until he caught the plane's tail. "You're nuts!" the echidna called after him. Shadow hadn't waited any longer, and as soon as the plane had righted itself, he was using homing attacks to bring himself closer to missiles and floating robots, jumping across debris and even the bridges of enemy ships. The trail of destruction was impressive. "Hey, Tails? How long can you keep this up?" Knuckles inquired, managing to make his way to the plane's wings again.
Tails pulled a pair of goggles down over his eyes, meaning he was taking things more seriously now that one of his allies had left. "I don't know. An hour? Maybe two if it keeps like this. But with so many forces against us, I can't keep it up indefinitely!"
A ground to air missile shot up in front of the pair as Knuckles was about to jump off the plane. A second sooner and he would have been dust. "Waaahhh!" But his eyes went wide as the missile hit one of the large battle cruisers of Eggman's fleet. The whale-like carrier with "fins" guiding it began an elegant swan-dive to the ground below.
"Sorry about that!" a gruff voice called through Tails' headset.
"Vector?" Tails replied to the voice, drawing the plane to a sharp left and spiraling down closer to the ground.
"Yeah! Thought we'd let you leave alone?" Vec's voice called back; he'd taken over one of Eggman's turrets seated on the side of one of the natural spires of Needle Canyon.
"Sally said you'd need backup, glad we came?" a hyper voice called, and a set of lasers dispatched some of the smaller pursuit robots tailing them.
"Charmy?!" Tails surprise grew but in a pleasant way.
"Hey? What's going on?" Knuckles asked, as he couldn't hear the communications going on in Tails' headset. The fox offered him an extra set, which he quickly put on.
"KNUCKLES! My man! Long time no see, bro!" a voice deafened the echidna almost immediately.
"V-Vec?! Where the hell did you guys come from?" Knuckles replied into a mouthpiece.
A ninja star breezed by his face, missing him by inches, but embedding itself into the power source of a flying robot resembling a dragon. It gave a mechanical hiss and exploded moments later, showering him with the tiniest bits of debris.
"Boo." A purple chameleon appeared fully next to Knuckles. "Don't you have a black hedgehog to support?"
Knuckles regained his composure and a toothy grin appeared on his face. "Right! Tails? Looks like you got backup now. Stay alive, guys!" he called as he leapt off the plane, going into a swift forward glide. His fists slammed into the side of a carrier robot, which he quickly scrambled up the side of. He made his way to its control center, bashing away both turrets mounted on its front and then ripping his fist into the main circuitry. He then bounded off of it and took flight again.
"I'll be following you in, with a little luck, I'll be about a half hour," Tails called in a more confident tone over the comm system. The Chaotix weren't the only ones to the fight, as Knothole's ground troops took the numerous tanks and turrets that had previously given his flight path a problem. Even Duo had joined the fight under Sally's orders, not that any of them would have cared.
This time, the mechanical creation didn't echo Sonic's command for Chaos Control…something he was very grateful for. Nega must have relieved him of the silver emerald after his failure. Not that it mattered; he had every reason to beat the tar out of him now. Even touching Amy was a criminal act, especially since he'd just been given the news she was pregnant again.
Sonic knew very well how tough his opponent was, so even with time suspended, it would take everything he had to dent the monstrosity. Whatever Nega made him from, he was glad Eggman hadn't made the original Metal Sonic so durable. And using his image? Feh...
Sonic unleashed a barrage of attacks on the frozen enemy, unsure if any effect would be registered after the hits had been landed, but his hand ran through his quills quickly, drawing a small device from it and attaching it to the metal faker's back. His last attack, he planted his feet firmly on its face and sprang off of him, grabbing Blaze as he shot downward and twisted to a safe landing with her in his arms as the Chaos Control's time ran out.
Amy had reached her board when Sonic put a halt to time, and now that it had resumed, she snapped her head back to it, hearing a loud snapping noise that actually consisted of a series of blows he'd inflicted on the enemy. The robot's body convulsed in the air before being sent flying backward. The device on its back, a micro bomb, exploded seconds later, launching him skyward. Amy was awestruck.
"Hey! What're you doing? Daydreaming? He's not down yet!" Sonic called; he pushed Blaze ahead of him, forcing her to get a handle on her skating quick.
"Right!" Blaze was on guard; she'd no idea Nega could be so cruel, or was this just the robot's will?
Amy didn't need any coaxing as she tossed the Pink Rose ahead of her and jumped on it. The wound wasn't that big, she thought. She held her right hand out and envisioned the Piko Piko Hammer in it. Instantly the hammer appeared in hand as she wheeled around toward Metal Sonic 3.0. "How dare you look like my Sonic?!" she shouted and headed for the dented robot. This time she knew he was there; there would be no surprises. A loud crack signaled the hit's success as Mecha 3 was thrown back into the air.
"Good job!" Sonic called, going into a corkscrew type of attack, slamming the metal creature through a nearby tree and into a stone structure jutting from the landscape.
The three-minute melee seemed like an eternity to the combatants. Mecha Sonic's durability was not underestimated by Sonic, as he commanded the girls to fall back or rush in at prescribed times. As the leader and the one with the emerald, he took his rightful place as the main target. With all three of them coming at him at once, it was hard for even the robot to keep on top of things.
He'd produced a translucent shield several times, deflecting fire blasts from blaze and even the physical blows of Amy's hammer. His sensors told him it wasn't there, but his optics said it was. "Intriguing, really superb. Master will be pleased, but I should really retrieve the emerald," Mecha hissed. He was growing tired of this struggle, but his master had been right...they were unique. As Amy's rage grew, the manifested hammer's strength and density seemed to grow. It had to be some sort of psychic power, the mechanics of which he was sure she had no awareness of. Condensed energy compacted into a physical form, how interesting.
Every time he shifted his focus to Amy, Sonic's spin dash or homing attack intercepted. It noticed the hedgehog's increased guard of the precious pink hedgehog. He did not envy either of them. Flesh was weak, a basic truism burned into his core. And yet, they were endlessly fascinating to observe. As each blow landed and his structural integrity weakened, he felt a sense of pleasure grow. "Even if I fail..." Mecha said as he fended off an attack from Sonic and his hand was burned afterward by Blaze, "you've made me happy." He grabbed Amy's hammer arm with his burning hand causing a shriek from her.
"Bastard!" Sonic's foot slammed into the side of Mecha's head and he quickly went to check on his mate.
"Happy?! How sadistic do you have to be to happy with this?!" Blaze's rage exploded, and she came at him with a series of jabs and kicks, primarily with her good leg, fueled by burning fire, pushing him farther and farther back.
Mecha 3 tried to engage his afterburners but fuel was low and the units were damaged. "It's just that...Nega said I am a copy of a copy who has no chance of being useful. Yet, as I observe you, I learn." His metal legs planted on the ground, though Blaze's berserker attack continued to push her forward. "I think I have emotions now, like you. And Master will be pleased with all the data I've sent him... You'll deliver the emerald, right?"
Blaze's eyes were wide at the statement. "You're...you're nothing like us! ..." With a final crack of pyrokinetic energy, an explosion launched the robot off the edge. Splinters of metal flew every which way and the robot's core temperature grew to a phenomenal rate...as it exploded. Blaze knelt at the cliff edge and caught her breath, her stomach twisting from the sickening height they were at.
"Thanks." Sonic put a hand on her shoulder seconds later.
Blaze smiled a bit, then frowned as she observed the sparking ignited fuel touch the canopy. "Oh no! The forest is burning!"
Sonic frowned. "Let's go! We gotta get ahead of that fire quick!"
Shadow broke into Eggman's floating carrier easily enough after leaving Tails behind. His drive now was to reach Maria, and only Tails' warning told him not to damage the place too much. Too bad Eggman hadn't told his robots as much. For the most part, the Eggman-like egg-robos fell to the ground in piles of scrap as he made his way through the complex, offering little resistance.
Emergency sirens blared as he tore through corridors, narrowly avoiding certain closing doors, and having to take out the latches on others. "Great...another bunch of turds," he said dryly as he came upon a large open room crawling with small beetle-like robots. They weren't fast, but they were well armored, and the electric shocks from their shoulders could definitely sting. He could only hit them moments before they fired the short range bursts, so taking on a room full of them made him frown.
"Aren't you tired yet?" Eggman's voice came over the communications system.
"Not a chance, fat boy." In a flurry of linked light attacks, a continuous single streak of red and black tore through the metal bodies of each and every Beetlegg. Shadow's form had landed and looped and blasted through unit after unit after unit, even as more fell from the ceiling. Each one that exposed its weapon fell to the ground in a shower of parts until he was standing on a pile of rubble. "Now where's Maria?!"
"Eeeh…. Come and get her!" Eggman replied. Two doors opened up at opposite ends of the room. "Heh heh! Choose wisely, Shadow...one way leads to your daughter, the other--HEY! You're not supposed to leave when I'm gloating!" he yelled as Shadow hadn't even waited for him to finish before sprinting through the left-hand door.
"Oi...what a mess." Knuckles held onto his hat as he looked left and right on the bridge of the Egg Fort. Most of the turrets had been destroyed. Most of them, at least. His fist smacked into a gun barrel coming out of the wall by the door, which had been forced open earlier by a sonic-type spin.
The echidna scratched his head and removed his hat, flipping off a few raindrops. "Hey, Tails? Got anything on this bucket of bolts for me?" he said into his headset.
"Yeah, I hacked a map of it a few minutes ago, caught up with Shadow yet?" he replied from the plane. With the Chaotix directly aiding him, the skies were starting to thin out and he was having to focus less on his flying. It was a good thing too, as the energy stores for the lasers and supply of missiles were swiftly running out. Still, the little genius had a few tricks up his nonexistent sleeves.
"No, but I can follow his trail of destruction. Usually I head to the core and blow it up, but not this time, right?" Knuckles idly strolled into the structure, stepping over the remains of a few robots.
"Yeah. Make sure Eggman doesn't escape, though, I may need him to help set things right."
Knuckles nodded, not realizing that wouldn't carry through the headset. "Ahh finally." He grinned and raced for an armored robot with a spear, and the few smaller robots with spiked balls orbiting them. His fists went through the reinforcements who'd failed to get there in time to stop his friend from plowing through. They fell apart at the seams as he dusted off his mitts. "Good, I was worried for a minute I wouldn't have anything to do."
"Ha... Hardly, okay ETA now fifteen minutes. If you could take down the computer-guided defenses, though, I'd be grateful," Tails spoke up.
"Uhh okay...and that's where?" Knuckles queried. Just ahead of him a door suddenly slid open and he found himself face to face with a giant metal robot with an equally sized mace looking at him with beady red eyes. "...Crap."
"I-Intruder?!" it asked as if it hadn't heard the blaring sirens.
"Hey, Mack...we got a live one here?" a thinner, faster robot with boxing gloves at his side called. It made a few punching motions.
"Oioioi... Don't do that, Joe!" It brought its mace down on its buddy, somehow causing it a lump on its shiny dome. They were patterned after the same kind of design as Decoe and Bocoe, but supposedly built for combat.
"Never mind, I think I'm about to find out," Knuckles said idly as he backed up into a fighting stance. "Hey! You boys wanna play? If I win, you take me to the defense center, okay?"
The two bots looked at each other, then laughed. "Deal!"