Chapter 23. The End (for now)
A few minutes earlier, The escape pod bay doors opened, and Jak and Daxter entered.
Jak had his morph gun on blaster mode out, slowly turning it in case the villains were going to ambush them.
However nothing happened, and he put the morph gun away.
For a while Jak explored the room, looking for the villains, as well as appreciate the room a bit.
Then Daxter noticed something on a screen. "Uh, Jak."
Jak turned around, and saw that the screen contained the pods that are currently at the bay, and one was missing.
"I'm guessing the villains used an escape pod to escape."
"Who can blame them." Jak said. "From what I saw the universe eater looked terrifying."
He then sighed. "It's a shame they got away, I would have liked to find out who hired them."
"Actually I think we might find out about that." Daxter said from behind.
Jak turned around, seeing Daxter had picked up a audio recorder similar to the one they found with the Eggman recording.
"Good work, Daxter." Jak said. "Maybe that will give us some answers."
Just then the universe eater exploded, and it shook the death egg.
"That did not sound good." Daxter said.
However Jak had figured out what had happened, and grabbed Daxter, and they ran to where the rest of the heroes are.
Meanwhile, all the rest of the heroes were forced to go into a corner with Eggman pointing the blaster at them.
"Why would you do this Eggman?" Sonic asked. "When you defeated me those previous times, you didn't hold me hostage."
"Because I've had enough of losing to you." Eggman said. "I was close to achieving universal domination, but as always, you had to ruin it."
"Technically, you didn't achieve that." Calvin said. "You just got knocked out by the universe eater when you ordered it to kill us. And besides Sonic didn't defeat the universe eater by himself, we help…"
Then a shot from Eggmans blaster fired above Calvins head, scaring him.
"One more word from your mouth and that blaster won't miss you."
Calvin went quiet.
A moment later Jak and Daxter entered the room.
"The other villains escaped, but we.." Daxter began explaining before Eggman turned his blaster on him.
"One more step and your friends die." Eggman said.
Jak pulled the blaster out. "You wouldn't. I would shoot you before you could shoot them."
Eggman then picked up another blaster, and pointed it at Jak.
"Really, The moment you fire your weapon I will kill all of you with these blasters." Eggman said. "Now put your weapon away and join your friends."
Reluctantly Jak put his weapon away and went to where the other heroes were.
Eggman put the other blaster down and pointed his main one at the heroes.
After a few minutes, the heroes began to feel the pull of the black hole, and they saw various pieces of equipment began to go flying into the singularity.
"Eggman, please listen." Sonic said. "The death egg is getting too close to the black hole, the moment we enter it, we'll die, so please if you want any of us to continue living, let us go."
But it was abundantly clear that Eggman was beyond reasoning, in fact he had enough of Sonic.
"SHUT UP!" Eggman yelled in pure fury. "SHUT UP YOU STUPID HEDGEHOG!"
Once again the heroes were taken aback from the sudden outburst.
"EVER SINCE THE BEGINNING, YOU HAVE FOILED MY PLANS TIME AND TIME AGAIN, AND THE ONE MOMENT I ALMOST WON, YOU HAD TO RUIN IT."
While Eggman was ranting, Sonic remembered something back when they were in Jak's universe.
He pulled out the metalhead egg, and looked at it. It was at that point he realized what it was for.
He remembered on the trip how Calvin was talking about Hobbes pitching skills when it comes to baseball, and he secretly handed it over to him.
Hobbes noticed it and nodded, he turned to Jak, he made hand gestures, signifying if a metal head egg could be blown up if he shot it.
Jak nodded, and Hobbes got ready to throw it, and Jak slowly picked up his morph gun.
By then Eggman was finishing his rant.
"AND ANOTHER THING. I AM SICK OF YOU BEATING ME AND I'M NOT GOING TO WAIT FOR THE BLACK HOLE TO CONSUME YOU! I'M KILLING YOU MYSELF!"
Eggman aimed the blaster at Sonic, and just as he was about to fire it, Sonic's plan sprang into action.
"Hey Eggman, CATCH." Hobbes yelled.
Eggman turned, and Hobbes threw the metalhead egg, and just when it was near Eggman, Jak fired his blaster, hitting the Metalhead Egg.
The metalhead egg ruptured, and then exploded, the heroes covered their eyes to shield themselves from the light. Eggman however was not so lucky.
"ARGH, MY EYES." He yelled covering his eyes with his hands.
Ratchet then picked up his wrench and threw it at Eggman, Knocking him out.
"Well, That was Easy." Clank said.
"Though it was a shame I never got to use some of my pranks on him." Socrates said.
"Cheer up Socrates." Hobbes said. "There's always next time."
Everyone looked at Eggman's unconscious body.
"Right now, the only question is what do we do with him?" Andy said.
Everyone throught about it.
But their thoughts were cut short by a loud crack.
Sonic looked and saw that the black hole was getting closer, and it's force was now strong enough to begin to tear apart the death egg.
"We're taking him with us." Sonic said.
"But how are we going to get out of here." Calvin asked.
"Everyone to the aphelion, now." Ratchet said.
Everyone ran to the aphelion, with Hobbes and Socrates carrying Eggman. All the while fighting the pull of the black hole.
Eventually the reached the aphelion.
"Are you seriously going to try to cram us all into that ship." Daxter asked. "The last time me and Jak went in there we barely fit.
"That's not what I had in mind." Ratchet said opening an compartment of the aphelion. He then turned to Calvin. "Calvin can you get the MTM out."
Calvin nodded and got the MTM out. "What do you plan on doing with it?"
"I recalibrated the aphelions teleportation system so that it could work with the MTM's teleporter. You're going to need to help me plug it into the aphelion so that it could teleport us out of here."
"Of course." Calvin said. "And I know just where to teleport it."
Calvin plugged the MTM in, and began to set coordinates.
"Woah." The MTM said. "I sense an AI in here, it's about the same level as mine."
"Yeah, the aphelion has it's own Ai, though it doesn't talk as much." Ratchet said.
"Just like how I didn't talk much during this entire adventure." The MTM said. "Because i wasn't used much."
"It's ok MTM, maybe the next time an adventure like this happens." Calvin said just as he finished calibrating the coordinates.
"Ok Ratchet the coordinates are set. What's next?"
"I'll just press the teleport button on the glove." Ratchet said holding his right hand over the left glove.
Then an entire section of the Death Egg broke off, but thankfully it wasn't the part they were standing on, but it was near it.
"Ratchet if you're going to teleport us out of here, Do it now." Sonic said.
Ratchet quickly pressed the teleport button.
"Teleporting." The MTM said.
A electric field formed over the heroes and Eggman, and with a bright flash they were gone.
As soon as they were gone the section they were standing on broke off and went into the black hole. The Death Egg soon following.
The anakorians, and hostages watched as the death egg got sucked into the vortex.
"Well there goes the Death Egg." Galaxoid said.
"It's a shame." Nebular said. "We could have salvaged some of the tech there and reverse engineer it to build new technology."
"Though I just hope Jak, Daxter, and the others survived." Kira said.
Just then an annkorian, ran up to Galaxoid and Nebular. "Sir, we have found the earth potentate and his friends signatures on Anakor."
Galaxoid nodded. "Set coordinates to Anakor now."
The annkorian nodded and ran off.
A moment later all of the annkorian ships flew back and after a few seconds they went into lightspeed.
And a few moments after that, the black hole closed itself.
On Annkor, a electric field formed and a few seconds later, there was a flash of light.
The heroes, Eggman, and the aphelion then appeared.
"That was a close one." Jak said. "But at least this is over."
"I agree." Sonic said. "Say Daxter you were about to say something about the villains escaping and something before you were interrupted."
As Daxter explained what they found, Eggman had regained consciousness, and saw the heroes talking.
Taking advantage of the brief distraction Eggman slowly walked away.
However just as he was about 10 feet away he heard a voice.
"Where do you think you're going?"
Eggman turned around, and saw Hobbes, his arms crossed.
All Eggman could say is. "How did you get here so fast?"
Hobbes didn't answer. "If you try to scream, the rest of us will notice and come to you."
Eggman looked back at the heroes, and back at Hobbes.
Slowly he began to walk away, and then began to ran.
However just before he was far away from the heroes Hobbes struck.
He pounced on Eggman, and he screamed.
In about a millisecond, the heroes appeared thanks to Calvin's time pauser.
After Hobbes got off of him, Eggman was terrified.
"So Eggman. Do you have any other plans up your sleeve?" Sonic asked.
Just the Calvin noticed somethign in the sky. "Uh guy's, there are ship's coming, and I don't think those are Annkorians."
Everyone looked up. Indeed Calvin was right, they were black ships that with hoverwings, and they were descending upon them.
When the landed their doors opened and figure emered. They were wearing armor and helmets and weilding blasters, and they were heading towards them.
One of them approached them, though he was different from the rest because he had a robotic arm. "Where's Eggman?"
Everyone looked at each other confused.
"I said where's Eggman?" the man repeated.
They decided to step back and reveal Eggman, who was slowly getting up.
"I see. Could you please explain where he is doing here with you?"
Sonic came up and explained what happened, but left a few part's out just in case this man was another villain.
The the robot armed man nodded and walked up to Eggman, Eggman had noticed him and was slowly backing away.
"No, stay back." He said.
He quickly looked around and saw Calvin had the time pauser in his hand.
He then ran up to Calvin and grabbed the hand containing the time pauser.
"Hey, Let go." Calvin said, trying to free his hand.
Eggman then pulled his and away, somehow grabbing the time pauser in the process.
"So long, my enemy." Eggman said raising his hand with the time pauser in it, and then pressed the button.
However something went wrong, instead of him disappearing and reappearing somewhere else, electricity generated from the time pauser, shocking Eggman.
After a few seconds, he collapsed on the ground, twitching, however whenever he changed position, he seamed to freeze in place for a few seconds before going to the next position.
After about a minute he finally stopped, and one of the black armored people brought up some high tech looking cuffs and put them on Eggmans hand's.
"Good job Jones." The Robot armed man said. "Put him in the solitary cell until we arrive at the base."
The man apparently called Jones nodded and carried Eggman into a ship.
The Robot armed man then turned to the heroes. "I thank you for taking down Eggman for us."
"Uh, you're welcome." Sonic said before asking the question he asked since the mysterious men arrived here. "How did you know Eggman was going to be here?"
"We have sources." The Man said.
Just then another Soldier came up to the Robot armed man. "Eggman secure, we should go now."
The Robot armed man nodded and turned to the heroes. "Farewell, I'm sure we'll meet again sometime in the future."
The agents then went back to their ships, and they took off. Apparently they must have also had a cloaking device because the ships disappeared.
About a minute later the annkorian ships arrived and landed.
A moment later Galaxoid, Nebular, and the heroes allies exited the ship.
"Well done Earth Potentate." Galaxoid said. "You and your friends managed to defeat the universe eater."
"Yes we did." Calvin said. "Though, Sonic, and Ratchet helped."
"We know that." Nebular said. "and with that we thank them too."
"But we have to thank all of you." Galaxoid said. "Together, you defeated Eggman's forces, and the universe eater. For that, we are putting a celebration for you."
"Well I guess we deserve it." Ratchet said. "After all we traveled from universe to universe looking for the chaos emeralds, and we stopped an evil monster that would've destroyed universes."
Everyone nodded and murmured in agreement.
"We should have the celebration ready in about 30 minutes in Earth time." Nebular said. "After that well try to find ways for some of you to get back to your own universes."
"I guess that can work out." Calvin said. "All we have to do right now is wait for the celebration to start.
"Don't worry, It'll be ready soon." Galaxoid said.
After the ceramony, the heroes decided to eat at one of annkors restaurants, and were right now eating.
"So Sonic, Jak how are you going to get back from your own universes?" Hobbes asked.
"Oh, Kira is working on a universe portal so some of us can get back to our own universes." Jak said.
"That's good." Calvin said. "Because Annkor is in our universe, Me, Hobbes, and the rest are going to fly back to Earth in the Cardboard box, and from what I heard from you Ratchet you and clank are going to use the aphelion to get back to your universe."
"That's right." Ratchet said. "Before I left to get the galactic rangers, I put a universe warp drive on the aphelion, so that should get me back."
"Say, Daxter back when we were still on the death Egg you were saying you found something before you got held hostage by Eggman, and was about to explain before Eggman tried to escape. What was it?" Hobbes said to Daxter.
"Oh, right." Daxter said bringing the audio recorder out, and then pressed the playback button.
Earl's voice began playing.
"If you heroes find this we are about to make a small confession. We were hired by a man, you probably already knew this when you grabbed an audio recording back at the prison, but we need you to know this. This man, from what we have gathered, hes a mastermind, nothing like we've ever seen. Right now, Me, Erol, and Nefarious are going to go after him. Before we end this recording I just want to tell the earth potentate that this isn't over, we will meet again someday."
The recording ended.
Everyone thought about what they heard before Calvin spoke up.
"That's It?" he asked. "Just telling us what we already knew with nothing new."
"I'm afraid so." Daxter said. "No name or anything."
"Regardless." Jak said. "The other villains are going to find whoever is responsible for bringing them together, so hopefully they'll find him for us."
"Given our previous histories with them, I doubt it." Ratchet said.
"Let's not worry about that." Sonic said. "We scored a victory today, and we all deserve a break. We'll just go back to our home universes, and when a new threat arises we'll be ready."
Everyone agreed, and they continued celebrating their victory.
However none of them noticed a drone watching them from a far.
Elsewhere, The man was watching the heroes celebrate their victory. Next to him was a person holding some papers, presumably the messenger.
"Sir?" The messenger said. "You heard me, right?"
"Of course." The man said. "The heroes defeated the universe eater, Eggman got captured, and the other villains are going after me."
"Aren't you worried a bit?" The Messanger said.
"No, not at all." The Man said turning to the messenger, and we see his face clearly.
His face looked a bit old, with wrinkles, a dark beard, and grey eyes.
"In fact this is all part of my plan. This was just to see how strong the heroes are. I knew they would beat the robots sent to kill them, I knew they would escape the prison, and I knew they would defeat the universe eater."
"But you know the remaining villains are coming right?" The Messenger said.
"Let them come." The man said. "and I'm sorry."
"For what?" The messenger said confused.
"For Killing you." The Man said pointing a gun at him.
"NO PLEASE!" The Messenger said just before the trigger was pulled.
Instantly the body contorted back, and the body dissolved into ash.
The Man then went up to a table containing a chessboard, however it had figurines of the heroes, and the villains across it.
He grabbed the Eggman figurine, and took it off the board, leaving the Dr. Nefarious, Erol, and Earl figurines on the chessboard.
He then got a phone out and spoke into it.
"This is the Chessmaster, can you get a janitor down here, I have something for him to clean up. Also get another Messenger something...unfortunate happened to the last one."
He hung up and continued looking at the footage.
"Enjoy your victory while it lasts, because the next phase of my plan will be more difficult."
He tuned off the Drone camera, and went up to another table, activated a holographic projector, and got out a folder labeled Phase 2.
Authors Note: And that's the end of this story, I started this story a year ago, and after numerous delays. It's done. I thank you for Reading this story, and I hoped you liked it.
Also Yes, the Man who hired Eggman and the other villains is called The Chessmaster.
I think this would be a good time to confirm that there will be a sequel to Universe Collision. What? Did you think I would leave plot points unresolved. However I won't be writing it right away, I'm going to take a break from writing, and after that break, I'm going to write another story that doesn't relate to Universe Collision.
Tomorrow, I will post a bonus chapter. Until then, I'll see you later.