Uploaded this earlier than planned due to I will be away this weekend for cadets for Company Weekend until Sunday and I just KNOW I'm going to forget to add this somehow.
Disclaimer: It's the same as the other seven. I don't own Sonic or related characters, or Amadeus or Rosemary Prower. They are all owned by their respective owners.
So Eggman has challenged Sonic in a one-on-one. What will happen?
Nearly didn't finish this chapter in time. Wasn't paying it much attention because I decided to start playing Xbox Live again so I didn't finish it at my normal deadline. Luckily, I did though and still with just under 2 weeks left until I need to finish the next chapter. Yay!
Wow, that's all I can come up with... I'm running out of things to say up here DX Luckily the story compensates.
While reading chapter 4 for the hell of it (and to find something out which later turned out that it wasn't specified in the first place, if that makes sense. It does to me) I found that I had accidentaly put in a 2 in the middle of 'continued' at one point. Wish people would tell me these things DX
And remember: RRE – Read, Review, Enjoy! If you want. You don't have to. But if you weren't here to read, then I don't know why you are here, likewise enjoy this since you wouldn't be reading chapter 8 if you hadn't read the other 7. :S
Chapter 8: Winner takes all
Is there anything I can do to help? Tails thought over the recent invitation to Sonic. He'll need all the help he can get. No doubt Eggman has a few nasty tricks up his sleeve. But how can I help? It was half past eleven and it was drawing close towards midnight at a very fast speed. Maybe I could make a fake emerald? But he might notice... He didn't last time though. Tails looked at the two emeralds they possessed that lay on the table infront of him in the living room – the blue and green ones. He won't keep to the end of his bargain, so maybe we should do something to make sure he doesn't get them, even if he wins... Sonic will need something tough I guess... Wait a minute - that's it! Tails leaped up and ran outside to talk to Sonic.
Sonic, meanwhile, sat on top of the roof, staring at the night sky. His retaliation is a bit fast... what's he going to do this time? Well it can't be something hard if it's near water.
'Sonic!' Came Tails' voice as the fox himself floated up over the side of the roof.
'What is it bud?' Sonic replied, sitting up as the eager fox landed next to him.
'Sonic, I've got a plan!' Sonic was going to object, but thought otherwise as Tails' plans usually worked very well.
'Alright, let's hear it.' Tails began to explain the plan to Sonic. A short, brief one, but it would be highly effective if it worked. When Tails finished, Sonic thought it over. 'Okay then,' Sonic said after a few moments. 'But you be careful. I'll see you there, I'm going there now.' Tails nodded and went back inside and ran into the hangar. Sonic stood up, knowing it would shortly be time to head towards the gorge. He double checked the shoes that Chris had designed for him to grip onto slippery surfaces were secured. They wouldn't help if he fell in, but they would atleast help him not to do so in the first place.
Tails ran through the house, grabbing one of the chaos emeralds and headed down into the hangar. I just hope it's still in good condition he thought to himself as he scrambled into the X-Tornado. He fired up the engines, pressed a button to open the hangar and let the fake palm trees split apart as he clipped himself in the safety harness. Tails then grabbed the twin joysticks and thrusted them forwards, blasting the X-Tornado across the runway.
Sonic heard the faint rawr of the engines of the X-Tornado, shortly followed by the fighter taking off from the runway and wheeling round to go in the opposite direction. As it flew by Sonic, water vapour condensed at the front and rear, followed by a sonic boom, as the X-Tornado broke the sound barrier. As it flew off into the distance, Sonic jumped down infront of the house and went inside to collect the remaining emerald. He then walked outside and turned in the opposite direction to the X-Tornado before breaking the sound barrier himself.
Crateméro's Gorge was a rather small one set a few miles from the mouth of Daetron's Canyon. This particular section of the canyon was extremely thin, comparing to the fact that some parts reached over a mile in length. This one was a mere fifty metres. The area at the top was clear of trees for about a hundred metres from the lip of the canyon. Large and small rocks were placed around the gorge as the white waters flowed at a jogging pace down stream. Every now and then, there would be a waterfall. Below it, where the rocks had eroded much more than those around it, was a large dip making the bottom of a waterfall much deeper than the rest of the gorge. Crateméro's Gorge was favourited by gorge scramblers since it posed little threat and many different paths, giving the person many different routes to take and different points of view of the gorge, but a small slip would have you being dragged down the river until you caught on to something, or fell down the waterfalls, which wasn't a pleasant experience. The canyon rose up high over the gorge, the distance being one hundred feet at the gorge's highest point. Crateméro's Gorge was two hundred feet below the edge of the canyon. The moon shone brightly over head, Eggman's half clearly visible, with just a single cloud floating below it. The stars twinkled in the night sky like diamonds.
Eggman hovered over a ten foot water fall. The bottom was splattered with rocks and the sides of the gorge with sharp, jagged edges. Eggman had picked this spot specifically for the advantages it left him. He waited patiently as his latest creation hid away out of sight behind the waterfall. Eggman looked at the time displayed on a screen in the eggpod. One minute to midnight. Sonic should be showing right about... now. As soon as he thought this, a blue streak came running across the edge of the canyon, scanning the gorge for any sign of Eggman. Sonic spotted him sticking out like a sore thumb due to the light coming from the computers on the Eggpod. Sonic picked a rock and jumped down onto it, landing just behind the doctor as the clock ticked midnight.
'Perfect timing Sonic,' Eggman joked as he turned to face the hedgehog. 'Did you bring all of your emeralds?' he added. Sonic silently put a hand behind his back. When he returned it infront of him, the blue chaos emerald glimmered in the moonlight, as well as its own glow. 'Is that all?' Eggman asked, which was answered by a silent nod. Eggman then held out his hand. Before he could speak, Sonic said 'No way Eggman!' He stowed the emerald back above his tail. 'The only way you're taking it is if you actually defeat me. For once.' Sonic glared at Eggman, who glared back. A few moments of awkward silence passed over as Eggman thought things over. He won't hand it over and I don't have anything to threaten him with this time...
'So what toy's am I going to break this time Eggman?' Sonic finally spoke, taunting the doctor with a grin.
'Oh ho hoo!' Eggman chuckled as he snapped out of his thoughts. 'You won't be breaking anything of mine this time you infernal hedgehog... that emerald is as good as mine!' At this, Eggman pressed a button on the console.
It sounded as though the waterfall's rumbling intensified as something was clearly about to rise over the top of it. Sonic waited for his new opponent to emerge as Eggman flew upwards to avoid the fight, having conceded in Sonic's refusal to hand over the emerald. A slight drawback, but that emerald will be mine whether he likes it or not! Eggman thought to himself as he flew upwards and over the canyon.
Below him, Sonic stood on the slippery rock as the water rushed over the sides of his shoes. An object began to emerge from the rim of the waterfall. The Moonlight was obscured by an overhanging tree, making the object hard to see. Sonic squinted his eyes to see if he could make it out. Two small sources of light came over the top, which Sonic supposed were its thrusters on the bottom of it. The object moved closer to him, into the white light of the moon. Sonic raise an eyebrow. It was a metallic version of himself. A new Mecha Sonic. It looked exactly like the original version he had faught a few years back.
'You haven't changed much,' Sonic taunted, but the robot merely looked back at him with a lifeless stare.
Its left arm suddenly changed into a large, bulky laser cannon and aimed at Sonic, who's eyes widened before the cannon fired. He quickly jumped to one side and onto another rock as the previous one was blasted apart. Great, now he's got weapons too! Mecha Sonic took aim again while the real Sonic prepared to dodge again. Just stick to the plan. Sonic continued to dodge the oncoming blasts as large pieces of rock were blasted apart, the sides of the gorge from misfires tumbling down the river and water being hurled into the air. Sonic made a sudden change in tactics. When he got close enough to take his opponent off guard, he curled up for a spin dash towards his mechanical counterpart. The sudden change did what he had hoped and struck Mecha Sonic square on, sending him off the side of the waterfall. Sonic stood on the edge as Mecha Sonic fell to the jagged rocks below. Suddenly, its engines kicked back in, stopping it from being split apart by the rocks, just half a metre below it. It looked up at Sonic, deciding on the next course of action as it flew back up the side of the waterfall, level with Sonic.
But without warning, Sonic turned and ran up the side of the gorge, towards the top of the canyon. Eggman thought that Sonic would try to attack him and quickly maneuvered out of range. Instead, Sonic landed ontop of the canyon as Mecha Sonic blasted up after him. Sonic felt much safer up here since there was no water nearby. As it came over the edge, Mecha started firing at Sonic at a much more rapid frequency. Sonic quick stepped and jumped out of the way of the hellfire as Mecha Sonic began using the chaos emerald for a much more powerful impact. A glow came from the centre of the robot as the emerald was activated. I guess... that's where... Eggman's emerald is. Sonic tried to find a gap in the onslaught of blasts, but it was impossible. It seemed to know exactly what he was about to do before he did it. As soon as he moved, another shot would be fired on his landing spot, making him have to curl up into a ball and dodge the debris. After a whole minute of the repititive action of shoot, dodge, shoot and dodge again, Sonic began to make out a pattern. All of the blasts holes were in a line, which were all where he was landing. I wonder... Sonic tried doing a backflip to go backwards. Sure enough, Mecha Sonic fired on where the hedgehog was originally supposed to land.
In truth, it wasn't guess work. Infact, Mecha Sonic had calculated a complex sequence that allowed it to know Sonic's every moves using previous data. The sudden change in direction threw it off immediately, leaving it now clueless as to Sonic's next move. Now, it would be like swatting a fly – its path being completely unpredictable. Which was what Sonic's was right now. He went left right, up, forwards and backwards to dodge the now confused robot. He jumped onto the other side of the narrow canyon and ran along the side. The blasts shattered rock into every direction that it could, but all of the debris eventually falling into the gorge below. The splashes of rock on water and the crashed of rock on rock sounded throughout the area. Sonic jumped back to Mecha's side and ran straight towards it, quick stepping and jumping to avoid the blasts.
As Sonic approached nearer, Mecha decided it was time for a new weapon to be used. The cannon closed up and slinked into the arm to be replace by a glowing laser sword. The glowing from it's chest intensified as the beam grew suddenly brighter. It also got hotter as heatwaves started to be emitted from it. Mecha Sonic aligned itself with Sonic's path, who stopped dead in his tracks. Okay, new plan. Sonic tried to look for some sort of weakspot. As far as he could tell though, there wasn't any. I doubt I'll be able to do the same as last time I faught it... Sonic tried to think of what to do next to stall the robot until Tails arrived. He decided that running circles around it and continuing to dodge attacks would be the best answer. It was best to keep the chaos emerald stored for now.
Sonic ran at the robot and began to run circles around it. A cloud of dust began to form around Mecha Sonic as Sonic formed a whirlwind around it. Sonic was ready for it if it were to lunge forward to try to let him run into its blade. But instead, it flew upwards, out of reach from Sonic. Sonic made a sudden stop and looked up at the robot.
'Hey, get down here and fight me! Or are you a coward?' The robot clearly had no feelings, unlike its previous model, as it did not react to the comment. Instead, it just hovered overhead, looking down at its foe.
Overhead, without warning, a portal with various colours swirling inside of it opened up above Mecha Sonic. It looked up, wondering what was going on. The real Sonic recognised it immediately and smiled. As he did so, a large, coned shaped, orange-yellow object came out of it. This was shortly followed by two large spikes, one below and one above. The one on top had a runway built on top of it with trees lining the sides. Two stabilisers on the bottom began to come through, shortly followed by a hangar at the other end of the runway. What looked like an extremely large engine now came in to view. On top of it was the ship's bridge and on the bottom was two more stabilisers. The rest of the engines came into view, cone shaped with the glow of the flare of the engines around the sides of them. What was new was that this time, there were four large, domed turrets, two on either side of the runway.
The Blue Typhoon sailed high above the Gorge. Mecha Sonic immediately recognised it as a threat and began to scan for a weak point. Meanwhile, Sonic jumped up ontop of the robot and jumped again with as much force as he could to try to land on the ship's runway. He missed, not even reaching level with the bottom. Having nothing to grab onto, he began to fall back down to the ground with nothing to stop him. As he fell, a second plan to get on top came to mind and he pulled out the emerald. He concentrated on the top of the Typhoon as the ground came rushing to meet him. Chaos Control! He wasn't sure if it would work, it was usually left to Shadow to use the emeralds for teleporting.
Mecha Sonic was pushed down as Sonic landed on top of it and jumped back off. It followed the hedgehog's path and, with incredible and inhuman speed, it calculated the now falling hedgehog's path, calculated exactly where he would land and also at what point he should fire for maximum effect. The beam sword quickly switched back to the cannon and took aim. Sonic's path was plotted on its peripheral vision. A red X was marked on one point of the path. This indicated when it should fire on Sonic's landing spot when Sonic reached the X. Sonic came tumbling down the path's line. Had it had thoughts, they would be perfect! Instead, it just watched the poor pygmy as he plummeted towards solid ground. Sonic passed the mark and a single, powerful shot was fired. The blue laser soared through the air.
Chaos Control! Sonic thought to himself as he reached fifty feet from the ground, hoping it would do something. It did. Although the outcome wasn't what he wanted, it did save him. The emerald glowed a bright blue, as did Sonic. He didn't go anywhere. Literally. He stayed floating in midair for a few seconds before the effect quickly wore off. That time was all he needed though. He rectified his position so his feet were below him as he began to fall again. After just twenty more feet of falling, an immense explosion went off below. The laser struck with immense force, sending Sonic rocketing back upwards much faster than he fell. He went up two hundred feet into the air, as a small mushroom cloud formed below him. He went soaring past the side of the Blue Typhoon and directed himself to land directly on top.
'Alright, Sonic!' Tails shouted from the bridge in excitement. He knew the hedgehog wouldn't be able to hear him, but he did it out of habit. Mecha Sonic, meanwhile, flew up, level with the bridge. It had decided that the engines were too large to be destroyed in one shot, so by the time it would have fired the second shot, the Typhoon's laser shields would be activated. Instead, it had decided that the pilot would be the weakest target, who was located in the bridge. Mecha Sonic raised its cannoned arm and aimed at the tower, quickly calculating the most effective point.
Tails was unable to notice this as Mecha Sonic was obscured by the ship's metallic frame. Luckily for him, the new turrets he had installed were extremely intelligent and could tell the difference between friends and foes without having to search through a database of sorts first. All four of the large domes swivelled round to face the robot and primed. A message on Tails' screen told him that they had found a hostile target and awaited his say-so to fire. Before Tails could press anything, let alone move, Sonic was already running off the side of the runway towards the floating robot. He curled up into a spin dash. Now that he had more momentum due to more running space, he was now able to get some power behind the attack. As the laser cannon charged up, Sonic soared towards Mecha in a spindash. The robot didn't see this coming as it was still fixated on the Bridge. Sonic slammed into the side with incredible force, leaving a large dent in the centre of his mechanical look-alike. Mecha was sent flying backwards and plummeted the two hundred feet, smashing head first into the ground. Sonic wheeled round and landed on the top of the Typhoon.
'Heh heh heh' came a low voice. Sonic looked around for the source to find Eggman floating above.
'Hey! Forgot you were here Egghead! You haven't said anything for that whole fight,' Sonic called back. 'Hope I didn't break your toy too much or I won't have anything to play with,' he added.
'I wouldn't be so sure about that Sonic. You see, back on Earth I learned a thing or two. I -'
'Wow, Eggman learning. That's a first.' Sonic quickly butted in to wind up Eggman as much as he could. 'You hearing this Tails? Eggman learned! He actually learned for once!' Sonic shouted over his shoulder to Tails. There was no reply as the fox was squirming with uncontrollable laughter, clutching his stomach as if his splene would explode if he let go. Sonic took that as a yes and let Eggman continue his monologue.
'As I was saying,' Eggman said through gritted teeth, 'I learned a thing or two from Earth. I discovered an alloy that, when heated to the right temperature, it literally bends itself back into its original shape. This new Mecha Sonic is made out of that alloy, so I wouldn't be so sure that that dent did as much damage as you think it did. Watch.' Sonic bent over the side of the jagged edges of the ship to find Mecha Sonic climbing back to its feet and the many dents that both impacts had made were quickly expanding back into their original shape. When they had finished this surprisingly fast reaction, it seemed as though it had never been damaged at all.
'Hey Eggman!' Tails called out unexpectedly, still giving off a short giggle every now and then. Eggman looked at the Bridge of the Typhoon to listen. 'Where's the welcoming party? If you told Sonic to come alone, then why don't you have something else for us?' Eggman thought this over for a moment. Yes, he hadn't come up with something to welcome uninvited guests since he was too busy on Mecha's modifications. His original plan was to flee and destroy the gorge with Sonic in it. Since this wasn't the case, he was left unable to prevent the fox from doing anything. Eggman said nothing to the bewildered fox and returned to watching the fight as Mecha Sonic floated back upwards, level with the ship yet again. Tails decided that now would be a good time to fire the large turrets on Mecha. He flipped the cover of the button on the controls and pressed it.
As this happened, Mecha Sonic was met by a hailstorm of laser fire from the turrets. Blue streaks soared towards their target in a blur. Within seconds, Mecha Sonic was lost in the blizzard. No one could make out what was going on inside. Eggman, fearing the turrets would soon turn on him, slowly edged away as Sonic and Tails continued to watch the hellfire.
When the blaze ceased, there was hardly anything left of the robot. Both arms were missing, one side of its head had been torn off and a missing leg. The metal bent itself back into place as the robot lost power and plummeted for the second time within just five minutes. Eggman quickly flew away while he had the chance. Then he remembered. The emerald! He turned round to find Sonic already jumping down and spindashing to cushion the fall and head towards the remnants. Eggman had no backup plan to retrieve the emerald. In any case, either Sonic or Tails would hit him hard if he dared to try, since it was him who had said 'winner takes all'. He especially feared the Tails part, having just witnessed his new machine mercilessly ripped apart, aswell as the encounter the previous night. Without a word, thinking that the slightest sound would attract the turrets, he silently sailed off towards his base and away from the blast zone. He smiled as he remembered his last resort.
Sonic walked up next to the wreck of the obliterated mech and opened up the intact chest to reveal the white emerald, glowing gently. The light shone on Sonic's face as he picked it up. He then took out the other emerald so that they could come together without making an explosion. Then something caught his attention. What's that sound? Sonic listened closely. As he listened, the beeping sound began to grow louder. Sonic immediately recognised it as one of Eggman's if-all-else-fails tricks and ran from the ticking bomb. Sonic jumped as hard and fast as he could to the ship. He tucked into a spindash and tried to reach as close to the ship as he could. Tails, after catching the radio signals of the bomb on the monitors, quickly engaged the laser shields as Sonic got within them.
Just as Sonic did so, the bomb went off. For a small robot, the explosion was immense. It covered Sonic's tracks faster than Sonic had himself. The supernova explosion quickly engulfed the Typhoon, blinding it in a white and blue aurora. Eggman watched with his tinted goggles in the distance, well clear of the impended final obliteration of the hedgehog and the fox. Anyone who was watching would be blinded if they didn't have protection. Anything that the explosion touched was either obliterated or incinerated. Even rock itself was liquidised as the recreation of a miniature nuclear bomb carried on. The Typhoon and its occupants were unable to be seen as the explosion widened, engulfing the gorge. Trees as far as five hundred metres away burst into flames as a forest fire began to start. Maybe I overdid it a little too much... Well, atleast they're out of my way now. Eggman thought with slight concern. It troubled him that such an easy method was used to finally defeat his nemesis. Maybe I am going too far... not thinking straight. Oh well, I guess it's time to build Eggmanland! Eggman thought to himself with a smile as the domed glow continued to widen. I'll return later when everything is safe to collect the emeralds. Eggman deployed the small dragonfly-like robot to keep an eye on the wreckage in the mean time.
Wooh! My longest fight scene yet XD I'm not too good at them, so I apologise if there isn't enough detail, but I put in as much as I could. I visualise them with much too detail that I simply can't put into words XD I'm still learning.