Author's Note (10/21/2012): I really think this Chapter is all about the fight, so it seems to have a ton of somewhat lengthy paragraphs. I tried to split them up to make it not seem like many walls of text. I hope you enjoy. :)
"Hey you, Tortoise brains, you better move!" Sonic yelled at the over grown lizard. "We need to get through here!"
The serpent responded to the hedgehog's yelling by lowering it's skull and pulling back for a skull bash. With not even a blink from anyone's eye lids the creature struck the first blow. Slamming it's head into the now bewildered Sonic's frame, he was crushed against the wall. It's tail whipped behind Mario and snatched both him and Luigi in a coiling bind. Sonic was barely able to move after having been so thoroughly rammed into the stone, and felt literally crippled afterwards. He struggled with just standing, and with a hazy, unfocused vision he watched as the serpent retracted it's skull from connecting with Sonic's body.
Just as the beast was retreating it's head, Sonic mustered up some strength merely from sheer willpower. His frame curled into a spin-dash formation and swiftly accelerated in place. Upon releasing himself from that spot, his frame's momentum traveled in the direction of the creature's jaws. He managed to strike the beast square right in the teeth of the beast, cracking a tooth at the moment of collision.
Horrid hissing was the response he got for his assault on the creatures dentures. The blue hedgehog, having successfully completed his attack, bounced back to the ground. Mario and Luigi fell from the clutches of the serpents coiling. Catching his brother in mid-air, Mario proceeded to place him in the tunnel they had just climbed out of earlier. The mustached plumber then joined at Aragonite's side and then prepared to launch their attack against the tortoise serpent. Seconds passed for what felt like an eternity of both their enemy and them staring one another down. A whim of a moment sparked in both Mario and his companion to begin the fight. Launching their frames towards the creature they aimed directly for it's throat.
To their disbelief the tortoise was already one step ahead of their plan, having a charged beam rapidly emit from it's maw towards their incoming momentum. Mario swiftly dodged to the side by throwing his momentum into it to which caused him to barely avoid being fried by the beam of energy. Aragonite, on the other hand, did not receive the same luck. Concentrated chi crashed right into his shoulder, causing him to descend with a sputtering sound of pain emanating from his vocal chords. A thud followed after him as he collided with the ground, cracks formed around his landing site to indicate just exactly where he impacted.
This was but a mere set back and not to be the least of their concerns as the tortoise then retracted it's soft body within it's shell. This was followed by rapid spinning that of which had momentum gaining with each increasingly deadly spin. The speed began to blurr out any detailed images of the shell itself and soon it came directly at the group. With not a single second of leeway given to it's prey, the thing rammed it's ruby covered shell at the closest hero.
"Move! Don't let it hit you!" Aragonite yelled in vain as everyone was unable to avoid the massive inbound shell that swiftly spun it's way towards them with malicious intent.
Their bodies were tossed about like a salad, it was just too brutal for them. A moment of agony later and the attack had ceased. Everyone had bruises and cuts that slowly oozed out small rivers of blood on to their flesh. Not only did this batter them up quite a bit, but also they were now further apart from one another. The beast was centered in the room, it's body slithering on out of it's safe shell. In it's new position it was able to keep watch on all of it's new prey and be the one in control of the situation. Mario quickly decides to fling fireballs at the creature, this is unfortunately countered by the beast, who merely opens it's jaws and consumes the balls of flame. Once more it began to charge energy from it's mouth, the particles of chi gathering at a focal point that floated just above the creatures tongue.
The thing that made this attack more different than all of his previous ones was the next thing that happened. The heroes watched in horror as the compacted energy began spewing forth a barrage of beams down at them. Sonic and Mario managed to avoid the beams with some rather tricky maneuvering. Aragonite faced more of the same bad luck and had one strike one of his legs, or so it was thought to be bad luck. This turned out to be a strategy by Aragonite in which he deflected the beam back at the creature's face. This was to be something the creature was not expecting and so it was a successful hit, and had dazed the tortoise a bit.
"Here I go nows my chance." Sonic said spinning up for a rather devastating spin dash. He released himself at the slithering beast. "Take this!"
The snake had enough focus to swat Sonic away using his tail with relative ease. This was to mean a world of pain for the hedgehog who soon crashed into the ground. Upon where his body met with the pavement, cracks spawned. In response to their allies sudden failed assault, both Mario and Aragonite faced the snake and moved to clash with the serpent. This retaliation was met with an answer that was in the shape of the serpent's own tail whipping swiftly at them. For mere seconds both the creature's tail and the heroes stared each other down in mid-air.
"Ready Mario?" Aragonite asked his friend.
"I am-a ready! Let's-a go!" Mario replied ready to give it his all.
The snake bat his tail at them to break the moment that seemed frozen in time, it's strikes were filled with expert precision and incredible speed. Both of them were ready and matched it's tail head to head. A scene of fist flurrying unveiled before the near unconscious hedgehog.
"Get'em guys don't let that shell slitherer get the better of us!" Sonic cheered on for his combating friends.
In a sudden moment of bad timing, the beast manages to one-up both of the heroes, and slams them away from it's frame. Quickly following it's lucky break, it began to perform yet another rapid spin attack. Once again everyone was caught up in the vehement torrent of twirling shell and lay bruised and beaten upon the ground. This last attack left everyone on the brink of absolute exhaustion and the limits of pain. When the dust settled from this, the beast once again made itself present in front of it's prey. Charging energy for what it thought would be it's final attack, it then scattered a rain storm of beams at the already crippled group.
Mario, Sonic, and Aragonite all felt the pain of energy singing their flesh and showering the ground with their blood. It was at this time that Mario thanked whatever higher being their was that his brother was in the safety of the hall right before this room, unable to partake in this masquerade of pain. What happened next was more frightening then the thought of death itself. The snake's jaws unhinged whilst it's ruby encased shell emitted a strange glow. queer chains with a spectral aura lacing their physical entities crawled out from within the serpent's belly.
"Mama-mia, What the hell is-a that!?" Mario exclaimed with a look of dismay on his face and slight disbelief that he was actually seeing something like this happen.
"Mama-mia is right my friend..." Aragonite agreed with the mustached plumber as he was at a loss for any other words to say. He watched the unfurling madness that ensued from the very bowels of this serpent tortoise.
The chains slid out and sought out the heroes on the ground, or what they really were thought to be right now, snacks for the serpent. They felt both wet and slimy, and the very moment that these spectral chains gripped the heroes' frames they could feel energy draining from them.
"Ugh my energy... Mario... I feel so tired... " Sonic said while quickly succumbing to increasing amounts of fatigue.
When the energy of it's prey felt weak enough, the chains soon evaporated. Sonic was able to still muster a bit of energy to stand up, but this was short lived as the snake flicked it's tail into action against this. With a quick swishing sound, the snake wrapped it's tail around Sonic's ankle and began to life him up off the ground.
"Hey... What the heck?!... Let me down snake breath!..." Sonic yelled while trying to struggle free with what little strength he had left.
Retracting it's tail back the snake suddenly whipped Sonic across the room. Propelled through the air, Sonic shot towards the other side, his destination was another wall. The hedgehog's body impacted the wall and he stuck there for a few seconds. Afterwards he started to descend to the ground. This was too much for Sonic, and the results of this made him unconscious and a large wound was above his brow and currently leaking blood and staining his fur.
"Sonic!... No!..." Aragonite called out to the wounded friend of his.
The tortoise was growing weary of watching his prey move around so much and also was irritated by the small voices of theirs. Quickly, it performed another shell retraction move, and jumped up into the air. It had arced at just the right angle to where he would descend just right over Aragonite's frame. Aragonite viewed with widened and fear intoxicated eyes as the beast performed a body slam on his frame, pushing the full force of his weight and momentum down into him, instantly knocking him out.
Mario was the only one left now. He still couldn't move as well, and wondered if this was going to be the end for him and his companions. The serpent was now heading his way with the intent to clean up this mess once and for all and enjoy a tasty meal. One moment later, and Mario was wrapped in the coils of the serpent being crushed. Mario responded with a yell of pain and it was at that precise moment that something began emitting a light.
It was the ring he had on him and it was shining brighter than any super star he had ever laid eyes upon. Just as the snake began unhinging it's jaws and leaning in to start snacking, the glow vanished. The snakes jaws tried to clamp down on what it thought to have been it's finally finished prey, but to no avail they would not shut. A force was preventing them from accomplishing this simple muscle command.
"Yahoo! It's-a my lucky day!" Mario had exclaimed just when the beast's jaws were pried open by himself.
Standing there with the muscular upper-jaw lifted up, Mario retained a new radiance about him. He rolled out of the snakes mouth swiftly and hopped to the ground safely. Turning to face the serpent he realized that his body looked exceptionally better than it had looked moments ago when he faced near certain death. Even his clothes looked as if they were freshly bought and cleaned. Not only that, but they were different styled clothes too. The plumbers cap and shirt were all white now, and as for his overalls, they were a bright red. With a big stare down between him and the creature, he smiled.
"This is-a going to be-a easy!" he said invigorated with intense levels of newly acquired energy that he could feel coursing through his veins.
As Mario jumped towards the serpent, he began to easily avoid every swat of the beast's tail that came at him. He somersaulted a bit in mid-air and then aimed his skull directly for the creature's chest, and slamming his head precisely at this exact location. The snake was greatly effected by this and let out a "Hissssssss" sound in response. Mario gave the creature an upper-cut to the jaw, and the punch had so much power in it that the creature couldn't help but be skyrocketed into the air. Instantly the serpent retracted into it's shell instinctively to protect itself. As the tortoise ascended, Mario insisted on showing off his insane amounts of speed.
In fact his bodily movements had risen to a speed that was nearly invisible to the naked eye, and because of this, he seemed to be instantly traversing to various other regions in the room. He waited until the exact moment where the creature was just where he wanted him. Not only did he perform a round kick to it's shell but he then sent the beast into a pinball type course, using his speed to control the trajectory of the beast. Mario played this game until him and the shell met within the center of the room. Pulling out his hammer he clashed with the shell, and stopped it, and in that split-second afterwards he did a back flip-kick pushing the shell higher into the air.
Once he accomplished this he sped quickly to a position that was right above where the shell would soon be. As soon as the shell arrived at it's predicted spot, Mario landed on it, and proceeded to perform a spin-drill upon the ruby surface of the shell. Doing this caused both him and the shell to rapidly descend to the ground. His hands were parallel with the ground and as he did such, fireballs rained down in a spiral manner crashing down right into the gemmed shell.
Just as the creature crashed into the ground, the plumber jumped back up, pulling his hammer out once more. When he reached his peak he then did a few more somersaults with his hammer raised up and then came back down, his target being the tortoise. His hammer gained momentum and he applied all his weight and power into the strike of this hammer, to which he soon delivered upon the shell of the creature when he came down.
"Yahoo!" He said with empowered strength lacing his voice.
It was at this exact time that he said this, that his hammer smashed into the creature's hard exterior. There was no time for the creature to react to the sudden blow of devastating power. The hammer had impacted with such speed and force that the shattering process jammed up the nerves that preserved energy inside. The rubies glowed brighter and brighter until finally the energy released itself and the shell completely shattered. This left the snakes body to dissipate into dust afterwards. The plumber's frame rapidly spun off from the impact point and landed softly in the vicinity of his allies, who were still injured greatly.
"Oh no! Let's-a go guys!" He tried to coax them into waking up.
Nevertheless they seemed to be out for the count at the moment. Bad luck seemed to still be lingering from Aragonite and slowly cursed Mario a bit too, as minutes after the defeat of the tortoise the very foundation of the sewage system began to shake. Stone slabs broke off from the ceiling and fell to the ground, cracks creped their way through the walls of the structures and loose rocks came tumbling as well. Mario's reaction time was now on a short clock, in fact the destruction of the room was coming too rapidly for even him to handle. At it's current rate they were all going to perish under the bellies of great big boulders and stones.
One descended right beside Sonic, which prompted Mario to push his legs to the extreme. Meeting the boulder with a fist, he smashed it into dust. It seemed hopeless as both entrances were already blocked off, and miraculously enough, Luigi managed to avoid being harmed that much, or so it seemed that way when he looked over his shoulder at his brother. A rock soon came crashing down on one of his legs.
Upon further inspection he realized that this room also had water leaking from the ceilings from other parts of the sewage system. This was really bad news for them, the rocks were bad enough but water would surely end them even more quickly. He thought that just defeating the creature would relinquish them from harm's way, but now he was on the verge of losing all hope. This feeling was thwarted when he and his allies were enveloped within a light.
When this light had faded, a sweltering but relieving heat pelted his face. Behind him stood the wall, which he saw upon looking, and in front of him was the dessert. They had made it over and that meant that they were closer to their next destination. Mario soon prepared a camp site for his allies to rest at, they needed it after all.
As always, please review my story for any types of errors you may find, and to also review it for the plot, and what you think of the story thus far. Also, if you enjoy the story enough, please tell your friends about it, and have them read it. I desire input from various sources and much constructive criticism would be kindly appreciated. ;)