Chapter 22. The Final Battle.
The Door to a escape pod opened as Earl, and Erol, carrying the body and the still functioning head of Dr. Nefarious entered it.
"Where are we going?" Erol asked as a few aliens and robots entered the escape pod with them.
"We're going to find whoever hired us." Earl explained as he set coordinates. "We need to find answers, like who he is and why he hired us.
"And hopefully reattach my head with my body." The head of Dr. Nefarious said.
"We'll try to reattach your head during the trip Nefarious." Erol said. "Right now the number one priority is getting out of here."
"How are we supposed to know where the man who hired us is?" One of the aliens asked. "We never got the location to where he is."
"I secretly tracked his location during his messages." Earl explained. "Depending on where he is we should be able to find him easily."
"May I remind you we are about to fly into a warzone with an alien race thats allied with the heroes!" Nefarious yelled.
"We'll fly under the radar." Erol said making final preparations until launch. "They won't notice us."
"Very well." Earl said. "Let's go find that man."
One of the robots pressed the launch button and instantly, the pod's door closed, and launched from the death egg.
The pod flew past the fight between the annkorians and Eggman's forces. None of them noticing the pod that flew past them.
Back to the heroes, Sonic was right now facing down the universe eater. He was simply buying time for the others to try convert the duplicated chaos emeralds into an energy form to use against the universe eater.
Right now he was dodging the tentacles the universe eater was throwing at him.
"Man this creature is fast." Sonic said to himself as he dodged a tentacle that attempted to hit him.
He countered with a punch to the tentacle with force that managed to knock it out.
"Well, I at least managed to take out a part of it."
Then he heard a sound, and turned around.
He then saw the tentacle he punched out was regenerating back onto the universe eater.
"Oh come on." he thought.
He then charged at the Universe Eater again.
Meanwhile the rest of the heroes managed to quickly make a machine to convert the chaos emeralds into energy.
they made it out of parts of the machine used to summon the universe eater, and some spare parts Sherman
"Ok, I got the first duplicates of the seven emeralds in." Calvin said closing the capsule that contained the emeralds. "What do we do next?"
"Flip that switch over there." Sherman said, pointing to a lever on the machine.
Calvin flipped the switch and instantly the emeralds began to glow.
"I think it's working." Ratchet said, as the rainbow colored energy of the chaos emeralds began to flow into the tube, and began to fill a canister. "How long do you think this is going to take?"
Calvin checked the chaos emeralds in the capsule as they slowly dissolved into an energy form.
"It should take only about 4 more minutes" He said before looking at Sonic holding off the the universe eater. "Let's just hope Sonic can survive those 4 minutes, as well as the other 5 when we're converting the second batch of emeralds."
Ratchet nodded, and prepared a missile casing for the chaos emeralds energy to store on the aphelion.
Meanwhile Jak and Daxter were running after the three villains, right now they were running through the hall where they head the villains running away.
"They should be this way." Jak said pointing to a hallway to the left.
"I agree." Daxter said. "I think I heard those villains speaking around that hallway. They said they were getting out of here, and escaping."
"That's strange." Jak said. "They aren't going after the hostages, instead they're going to escape."
"That means if they're going to escape, we could encounter them again some other time."
"As much as i'm relieved that they're not going after the hostages, we still need them to answer some questions."
"I agree."
With that they ran to the left hallway in pursuit of the villains.
Meanwhile, Sonic was still trying to fend off the universe eater, which kept regenerating whatever damage it did to it.
It seemed to get more aggressive the more damage he tried to do to it. And to make matters worse, he was getting exhausted from fighting it.
"Ok, this is bad." Sonic muttered to himself.
He was so exhausted he didn't notice one of the universe eaters tentacles coming towards him, and by the time he noticed it it was too late.
He was knocked towards the universes eaters mouth, its mouth below it's head to be specific.
He managed to stopped just before he was swallowed by the eater.
Then he noticed the mouth beginning to close, he quickly began to fly out, and managed to get out just before the mouth closed.
He looked at the universe eater, which upon seeing him, it roared in rage and fury.
"Come on guys, I need you." Sonic said to himself.
Meanwhile the first batch of emeralds had finished being converted to energy, and Ratchet was placing the canister with the chaos emeralds energy inside the missile with the help of Clank and Sherman.
"Ok, I'm no expert on missiles but i think you put that canister here." Sherman said pointing to a section of an open missile.
"Ok, I'll try to place it there." Ratchet said placing the canister in the section sherman pointed at.
Ratchet with the help of clank connected the wires to the canister, and instantly the energy in the canister began to glow.
"Looks like it's working." Sherman said.
"Sure but we're going to have to find out if it can defeat the universe eater." Ratchet said, pressing the button that would teleport the aphelion to his location.
Luckily the room was big enough to fit the aphelion, so it teleported in just fine.
Ratchet carried the missile over and dropped it carefully on the ground, and got out his wrench.
"Ok, let's attach this missile to the ship." Ratchet said.
Calvin had begun converting the other emeralds and right now they were a quarter of the way through.
Then something went wrong.
The machine sparked, and instantly, the the energy began to stop flowing through the tubes.
"Wha...What happened?" Calvin asked as he tried to restart the machine.
Hobbes opened the side of the machine, and searched around it. "Ah, I see the problem."
"What is it?" Andy asked.
"The fuel cells are overheated." Hobbes explained. "I'm guessing there was nothing there to cool them down."
"Can they be cooled down." Calvin asked.
"It looks like it but it's going to take a couple hours till they can be useable again."
"We don't have a couple hours to spare." Tails said. "Can we do it any faster way."
"Well I can't fast forward through time into the MTM because by then, about 10 universes can be gone." Calvin said. "And besides the last time I did that, me and Socrates timelines got out of sync."
"Ah yes I remember that." Socrates said. "Sometimes it takes a millisecond longer to say something."
"That means there is only one thing to do." Calvin said, before pulling out a clothespin,a top spinner, and two silver discs. .
Hobbes, and Andy ran over, and grabbed the silver discs.
"We're going into time stop." Calvin explained to Tails and Amy. "We should be able to cool down the fuel cells in a few minutes in time stop, and here it should take only a second."
"Good luck." Tails said.
With the help of beaker pliers that Calvin had in his hypercube they managed to get the fuel cells out, and once they were safely on the ground, Calvin activated the time pauser.
BOOM!
Instantly Tails, and Amy froze, Ratchet who was attacking the missile froze mid wrench turn.
Outside Sonic stopped mid charge, and the universe eater froze.
Then Calvin put the atomic freezer on the first fuel cell, instantly it began to steam.
"I have a question." Andy said. "How is the atomic freezer not catching on fire because of the heat of the fuel cell?"
"Oh, I had the Atomic Freezer coated with a fireproof material." Calvin explained.
"Sometimes I wonder when you have the time to do all of this." Andy remarked
"He just has a lot of free time on his hands." Hobbes said.
Meanwhile, at the front of the death egg, the battle between Eggman's forces and the Annkorians had ended.
Right now they had gotten reports that the universe eater had awoken, and right now they were fearing the worst.
Galaxoid and Nebular had fled to the main ship, where they were watching the battle, King Stor had given them second in command in the assault.
"Do you really the Earth potentate and his friends will beat the universe eater?" Galaxoid asked.
"No, I don't think so." Nebular said. "He always finds a way to beat the enemy, no matter what."
Suddenly one of the the radars began beeping.
"Sir we have a ship coming." An annkorian said.
"Is it one of Eggmans ships?" Galaxoid asked.
"No, it appears to be a cargo ship."
"Bring them aboard." Nebular said. "But send a squad down to the landing bay, it could be a trap."
On the landing bay, the cargo ship landed, with a squad of annkorian soldiers pointing at the door.
The door slowly opened, and the former hostages slowly got out.
Qwark was the first to notice the soldiers and raised his hands.
"Don't shoot, Don't Shoot." he cried out.
Galaxoid and Nebular had gotten down to the landing bay and had noticed the freed hostages.
"Stand down." Galaxoid said, and the squad lowered their weapons.
"Who are you?" Kira asked.
"We are Galaxoid and Nebular, anakorians allied with the earth potentate to help fight Eggman's forces." Nebular said.
"So that's the name of man who threatened us was." Qwark said. "Thankfully he's dealt with."
"Now that I think about it, where are the other three beings that were held captive with us?" Samos asked.
Qwark then turned to the cargo ship, and ran back to it. A few seconds later he ran back out.
"I can't find them." Qwark said in a panicked voice. "They must have gotten left behind, we need to go back."
"I don't think they need rescuing." Galaxoid said.
"Why's that?" Kira asked.
"Because we know them."
That argument was apparently convincing enough and they turned and watched the battle against the universe eater that was happening outside the death egg.
Meanwhile in time stop, Calvin had finished cooling down the fuel cells, and were getting ready to exit time stop.
Hobbes was holding the fuel cells with gloves, again from Calvins hypercube.
Calvin looked at both Andy and Hobbes, and they both nodded, signaling that he was good to go.
Calvin pressed the button on the time pauser.
BOOM!
Time instantly started back up again, and for a moment Tails and Amy were at first confused on how they ended up at another location in just a millisecond before realizing what happened.
"It's ok." Socrates said. "You get used to it eventually."
"Alright." Hobbes said as he put the fuel cells back into the machine. "Let's get this done."
Calvin flipped the switch again, and the conversion process resumed.
"How long should this take MTM?" Calvin asked the MTM.
"Thanks to the cooled down fuel cells, it should take about a minute and 30 seconds."
"What about converting them into a beam you can use?" Hobbes asked.
"That should take about a minute."
"That's good." Andy said. "Should save us the hassle of waiting a long time for that."
Meanwhile Ratchet had finished attaching the missile to the aphelion.
"Well that should be it." Ratchet said.
"Indeed." Clank said. "Calvin should also be finished soon."
"Well that's a relief." Sherman said. "From what I heard the machines fuel cells overheated and Calvin had to use one of his inventions to help speed up the cooldown process."
"That was a bit inconvenient." Clank remarked. "But i'm glad he found a way around it."
Ratchet nodded as he secretly began to modify the aphelions teleportation system.
He had previously had Clank briefly scan the MTM, to see how it worked.
You'll see where this is going in the next chapter.
Calvin had finally converted the emeralds, and had made the energy into a beam for the MTM.
"Ready Hobbes?" Calvin asked picking up the MTM.
Hobbes nodded "Ready."
Calvin got out the Time Machine, and he, Hobbes, Andy, Sherman, and Socrates got in.
He then turned to Tail's and Amy. "Stay here, we need to have people here in case some of Eggman's minions come here."
They nodded.
Calvin turned to Ratchet and Clank, who had gotten in the aphelion, and gave them the thumbs up.
Ratchet nodded, and the two ships took off to help Sonic.
Speaking of Sonic, he wasn't doing so well.
The universe eater had grabbed Sonic, and was now lifting him towards his mouth, as if he was about to be eaten.
"I'm sorry guys." Sonic said, about to accept his death.
Then a missile hit the arm that was holding him, freeing him.
Sonic turned around and saw the time machine and the aphelion flying towards him.
"Need some backup." Ratchet asked.
Sonic smiled. "Glad you arrived on time. I was about to be eaten by the eater."
"We saw." Calvin said. "What do you say we destroy this creature."
"Yes, Lets." Ratchet said.
Sonic began to charge himself with chaos energy to catapult towards the Universe Eater.
Calvin got the MTM out, and aimed it at the universe eater.
Ratchet activated the targeting system, and after a few seconds, the system locked on to the universe eater.
"Target locked." Ratchet said.
After a few seconds, Calvin finally gave the word.
"Fire."
Sonic then charged towards the universe eater, Ratchet fired the chaos emerald energy infused missile, and Calvin fired the chaos emerald laser.
All at once their attacks hit the universe eater in the chest.
And nothing happened.
"Did it work?" Hobbes asked.
Just then the universe eater screeched.
"I think it did."
Slowly a rainbow colored light began emerging from the universe eaters eyes, and mouths.
It's screech became louder, and louder until it blew up.
Everyone shielded their eyes from the light of the explosion.
When the light died down, they looked at where the universe eater was, and their expression's turned to horror.
In place of the universe eater a black hole was formed, and it was growing, they could even feel it's pull.
"Let's get out of here." Ratchet said.
The three heroes flew away from the ever expanding black hole.
They managed to land at the death egg through the hole made thanks to the summoning of the universe eater.
Sonic returned to normal, and Calvin and his friends as well as Ratchet and Clank exited their ships.
"Wait where's Tails and Amy?" Ratchet asked, looking around the room.
Everyone looked around, and Sonic then noticed that the unconscious body of Eggman had vanished.
"Also, I think we have a bigger issue then Tails and Amy's disappearance."
"Oh yes, you have worse things to worry about." A voice said behind them.
They turned around, and their expressions became shocked.
Eggman was behind them, clearly looking worse for wear, his goggles were cracked, and his clothing was torn. What was even worse was that he was pointing a blaster at Amy, and Tails, both of them looking terrified.
"Eggman, look, a black hole has formed and is expanding quickly. We need to get out of here." Sonic said.
"Oh I know that." Eggman said with a grin that wasn't even an Eggman evil grin, It was more of an escaped psycho grin. "All of you are going to stay in here with me as the black hole comsumes us all."
He then pointed the blaster at them. "Or else I will kill you all myself.
The 3 heroes stood frozen in fear.
"So Sonic, got any plans to get us out of this?" Hobbes asked.
Sonic said nothing. For once he was completely uncertain on what to do, or how to get out of the situation.
All he could do was hope that Jak and Daxter would come back soon, and save them.
Authors Note: Talk about a cliffhanger to end the penultimate chapter on.
Next time will be the final chapter. Check back and see how it all ends.