Chapter 15: Gaia Conflict

Minutes before the battle with Mecha-Dark Gaia, we find Sonic and Tails rushing along the tops of the buildings Eggman has built atop the Egg Continent. The blue hedgehog comments as he flips atop a building ahead of him "Geez, how many of these things does Eggman need? I feel like we're not making any progress Tails!"

The fox, with tails twirling behind him as he focuses on fixing up his arm cannon after the earlier battle, comments in a barely focused tone of voice "Yeah, probably not."

Sonic looks over ahead now that he had reached the peak of all the buildings, noticing in particular the growing presence of storm clouds in the area as the laser fence falls out of existence around them. The blue blur stops at the edge of the building in surprise, and Tails lands on the ground behind him. "Huh?! How about that, someone actually got rid of that silly fence Eggman set up."

The yellow fox actually looks away from his arm cannon for a moment to see that what Sonic said is true. "Wonder who did it? Shadow? Knuckles? Riku?"

"Probably Shadow or Riku. Knuckles probably is stuck in some trap Eggman dumped him in after we split up." Sonic comments with a jovial chuckle at the end of his sentence. He then looks up into the air as a swarm of G.U.N. Beetles and Bipedals mechs heads towards the back of the ship, with a large red mech descending upon a crater-like arena at the end of all the other buildings.

"G.U.N.'s involved in this now?!" Sonic exclaims in surprise as he looks away from the smaller robots. Tails points out to his blue friend "Can't blame them. Eggman's flying over the continent with, well…His own continent, so of course they'd get involved."

The blue hedgehog grumbles a bit as he reminisces about the last time he had to deal with G.U.N., and then Tails goes and points out "Not to mention Shadow IS one of their agents now, so they are just probably trying to recover him from the area."

Sonic glances at Tails and notes "Huh? Oh yeah, I actually forgot all about that." He then looks back at the large red robot and notices a dome forming over it, suggesting that Eggman had lured the rider of the robot into a trap.

Gesturing at the dome with his right hand, the blue hedgehog smiles and says as the rain starts to fall around him "Come on Tails! We're missing out on some action!" The blue blur then zips along as the yellow fox flinches in surprise and turns away from his arm cannon long enough to declare "Hey! Don't think you can take all of the action for yourself!"

Tails flies back up into the air and tries to catch up with Sonic, but finds that he wouldn't need to go too far as the blue blur skids in place as a streak of red punctures through the floor and rises high into the air. The two heroes skid to a stop and watch as Knuckles descends from the air and lands down with his right fist punching into the steel floor. The red echidna then looks up with a confident smile on his face that fades away into surprise as he sees his two allies standing in front of him.

Sonic cocks a smile and slants his right arm beside his body as he finds himself commenting to Knuckles "Hey Knuckles, long time no see!"

The red echidna stands back up and says in a somewhat angered manner to his friend "We weren't separated that long Sonic!" To which the blue hedgehog chuckles and replies with "I know, I just felt compelled to say that. So, where have you been?"

Knuckles folds his arms against his chest and says "I broke free from one of Eggman's traps and fought the mind-controlled Chaotix. Didn't even break a sweat."

Tails comments in a joking tone "Well to be fair Knuckles, the rain would have washed any sweat off by now." To which the red echidna looks at him with a twitch in his right eyelid and replies "Give me a break Tails, I am definitely capable of doing things on my own without struggling!"

Sonic is about to make a wise-ass remark regarding what Knuckles just said, only for the red echidna to take notice and snap at him with a simple "Don't you even think about it Sonic!"

The blue blur still gets the last word into the conversation by folding his arms against his chest and saying "I already did that Knuckles. Sorry, too slow." Which causes Knuckles to growl at his friend for a brief moment.

The three heroes' conversation is broken by a flash of blue-light coming from the dome in the distance. Sonic notices a chunk of metal being tossed through the red robot and says "Knuckles, we can share some witty banter later. Right now we're missing a party over there!"

With that the blue blur zips past the red echidna as he turns around to notice the dome for the first time. Once Tails flies past him, Knuckles leaps into the air and glides after his two friends as they head towards the dome.

Standing at the edge of the dome, Sonic looks inside and sees Riku finishing his battle with the red mech when the center of the floor opens up and a mechanical copy of Perfect Dark Gaia rises up. The blue hedgehog at first thought the creature was real until he saw the glass eyes, at which point he commented in an overly excited tone of voice "Well well, what has Eggman built here?"

Knuckles lands behind Sonic, and the blue hedgehog turns to face him and flips a thumb up towards the top of the dome while asking swiftly "Knuckles, launch me up to the top of the dome. We need to bust into this dome and join in on the fun!"

The red echidna glances over Sonic's body and sees the human boy, commenting to Sonic afterwards "That's that Riku guy, right?"

The blue hedgehog nods his head, and as he cocks a merry smile he comments "Yeah. And right now he's hogging all of the entertainment to himself!"

Sonic turns around and waits for Knuckles to hold his hands out to catch him by the feet as he leaps back. With all of his strength, the red echidna launches the blue hedgehog up to the top of the dome, leaving Tails and Knuckles to fly and climb up the side of it respectively. Spinning himself around twice to make the flight a little more exciting, Sonic looks down at the dome and quickly comes up with a entrance line as he pushes himself down foot first to crack through the glass with ease, smiling all the while.

We now return to the present, where Sonic looks up at the titanic Mecha-Dark Gaia and says to his gathered allies "Well, since Chip isn't here with his fancy little colossus, I guess we're going to have use something else to attack this robot!"

Snapping his fingers beside himself after making this comment, the blue blur is forced to leap back alongside his friends as Orbot and Cubot force the Mecha-Dark Gaia to swing one of his gigantic claws down at them. Tails then notes "Sonic, are you suggesting what I think you are suggesting?"

The blue hedgehog then glances back at the yellow fox as his body glows brightly and seven different colored Emeralds emerge from around his body in a ring. Knuckles is quick to point out in a somewhat angered tone towards his friend "You had the Chaos Emeralds on you this entire time?!"

Sonic shrugs and says "Yeah, why not? I just happened to run across them recently." To which the red echidna responds by mentioning "Then WHY DIDN'T YOU USE THEM SOONER?! WE COULD HAVE BEEN DONE WITH EGGMAN ALREADY!"

The blue hedgehog smirks and says in a nonchalant tone of voice "Where's the fun in that Knuckles?"

Before Knuckles can say anything to Sonic, the trio has to leap away from another claw swipe as Orbot exclaims from the controls of the Mecha-Dark Gaia "Sorry Sonic, but for the sake of our lives we can't allow you to use those against us."

After performing that swipe with one claw, Orbot throws another one up and points it down at the heroes, taking the Dark Gaia energy from within the core of the robot and firing out a foggy black and dark purple sphere towards the heroes. Instead of the trio leaping back though, Riku leaps at the sphere and tries to use his flaming sword to cut it down, only for his weapon to fail in the effort much to his surprise as the sphere collides with his body and bursts, sending him crashing against the ground behind the heroes with traces of Dark Gaia energy steaming out of him.

The attack hurt more than Riku expected as he slowly rises off the ground, his bones cracking in the process due to the impact with the steel floor. He scowls at the damage done to his body as he comments in his mind "Ok, I didn't just imagine that…My sword didn't even affect the attack…"

Sonic glances at Riku and says in a partially concerned tone "Hey, you ok there Riku?" The teenage Overlord gets onto his feet and replies with "Yeah…Just a little battered. I'm surprised that Dark Gaia energy hurts so much…"

Tails says to Sonic afterwards "Sonic, we can't exactly all go Super with the regular Chaos Emeralds, remember?" The blue blur remembers this fact quite well though as he looks at his dear friend and says "Yeah, you two need the Super Emeralds. But we could always do what we did when we fought Metal Sonic way back when."

The yellow fox, despite having some faith in the idea, is countered by the current situation as he points out to his friend "But Sonic, I don't think we'll be able to do it while we're under attack like this!"

As Tails says this, two of Mecha-Dark Gaia's claws come down upon the heroes. Without them charged by the foreign energy, Riku feels he can safely fly at the claws and block them by sweeping his left hand across the air and summoning forth a very thick wall of ice by drawing on all the moisture that had fallen into the dome. The ice blocks one of the claws, but the other one swings in at such an angle that it starts to head for Sonic, Tails and Knuckles.

Riku glances back while focusing on the ice wall in front of him to make sure that Team Sonic dodges the attack, and when the successful move leads to the claw scratching apart the ground the teenage Overlord lets out a relieved sigh and dispels his ice wall as both claws fly back into position. Swinging his sword out beside him while staring up at the titanic mech, Riku comments to the three heroes behind him "Just let me run a distraction, you three do whatever you need to fight this guy."

Leaving Team Sonic alone, the teenage Overlord flies higher into the air to put himself in front of Mecha-Dark Gaias eyes, at which point Orbot says to the boy "My apologies good sir, but you are not our opponent. If you would just stand aside and let us deal with Sonic and his pals…"

Riku responds to the robot's politeness by swinging his sword of fire at the central eye of the mechanoid, hitting it with a wave of pure fire that pushes the entire head back a little bit. The glass eye didn't have a single mark on it after the attack ended, causing the teenage Overlord to retract the comment he was about to say as Orbot goes on to mention "Sigh…Please don't embarrass yourself with this. This isn't your fight."

Cubot adds his own remark to the matter "Yeah, git outta here!" as he swings the mechanoid's body to the left and uses both claws in conjunction to backhand Riku's body with Dark Gaia energy, which leaves behind a shockwave of residue in the air as the teenage Overlord is launched against the side of the dome, his body crashing through the glass and sending him outside the battlefield into the rainy atmosphere.

But the teenage Overlord manages to flip himself around after impacting the metal floor outside, and after sliding a quite a few feet because of the slippery surface he kicks forward and launches himself back at the battlefield, moving through the hole created by his impact and heading straight for Mecha-Dark Gaia as it's four claws move towards the front of his body. Dark Gaia energy is charged from the tips to create a powerful projectile in the center of his serpentine body.

Riku slams right into the upper right arm of the mechanical beast with his body surrounded by electricity to protect himself. The collision disrupts the transfer of energy in that arm by budging it just enough out of the way. The teenage Overlord then tries to cut through the arm with one swift slash, only for the Dark Gaia energy to make the arm hard enough for not even the searing flames to burn through.

The distraction was made, however, and Orbot and Cubot stop focusing on trying to blast Sonic with the energy stored within the robot to turn and face the teenage Overlord. "You just won't give up, will you?" Orbot comments in a somewhat irritated tone as his dim-witted companion says "If this little git wants to act like a fly, we'll treat him like a fly!"

With all four claws raised out around the Mecha-Dark Gaia, Cubot continues on by mentioning "Time to go squish you little gnat!"

Riku curls himself up slightly and prepares to summon a barrier of flames to protect himself, only for him to detect a sudden spike in power behind him that makes his eyebrows twitch upward in shock. The purity of this power could not be denied nor ignored, as before the claws were within inches of clamping the teenage Overlord between them Orbot detected the readings coming from this power source and stopped the attack, commenting in a tone of disappointment towards himself "…We just fell for a distraction my good friend."

Riku takes this chance to back away from the claws and glance off to the right, where he feels a reservoir of power radiating off of Sonic, who now floats in the center of the air with a golden aura surrounding his body. His fur has also turned to gold, but save for that there was nothing different about his appearance save for the somewhat serious demeanor on his face. Beside him were Tails and Knuckles, who were kept in bubbles of golden energy that allowed them to fight alongside Sonic for the time being.

"You ready to rumble?!" Sonic brandishes a pointer finger at the Mecha-Dark Gaia as he exclaims that in an overly confident tone of voice.

Orbot turns the Mecha-Dark Gaia towards the three super-powered heroes and says in an annoyed tone of voice "…I really wish I could just retire and escape from all of this nonsense. Sigh…Would it too much to ask for you to go easy on us, Sonic?"

The blue hedgehog smirks at the two robots' remark and points out "So long as you try your hardest, I'll see what I can do." Which makes Orbot rear the claws of the Mecha-Dark Gaia into the air and take the battle a little more seriously as he exclaims "Very well then Sonic…Engarde!"

Orbot commands one of the Mecha-Dark Gaia claws to thrust at Super Sonic with all it's might, but he quickly zips between the fingers before the claws connect with his body. Tails and Knuckles split up to cover more ground, while Riku stays away from the rest of the heroes for a moment and concentrates on his sword, thinking calmly about the situation as he activates the Light element to change into his angelic garbed self, which allows him to truly grip around the handle of his newly formed diamond-gilded katana.

"Good choice Riku. This Dark Gaia energy is close enough to darkness itself that you should be able to permanently dispel it with this form." The black dragon Takashi notes through the mind of the teenage Overlord. Riku nods his head in agreement as he hardens his sword even more with pure light and joins Team Sonic in battle against the titanic mech.

Streaks of light both gold and white fly across the sky around the Mecha-Dark Gaia, forcing Orbot and Cubot to keep track of them all with the radar given to them by their creator. "You aim for the fox and the echidna, I will deal with Sonic and his human ally." Orbot states as he swings the claws on his side towards the blue hedgehog and the boy, missing just barely as he scratches the very air with Dark Gaia energy.

In the mean time, Cubot uses his claws to rapid-fire spheres of the energy at Tails and Knuckles, missing entirely with each shot due to the lack of a steady aim combined with the speed of the two heroes. "Blast it! Stand still you little varmints!"

Looping underneath one of the claws, Knuckles punches the arm at the joint with all of his might, denting it hard enough that the energy flow is disrupted for a brief period of time. A vibration shakes through to the center of the robot, causing Orbot to comment to his friend "Watch where you are throwing those claws! You're allowing them to break my concentration!"

While the two robots bickered a bit, Cubot used the working claw on his side to face Knuckles and grab him tightly in his grasp, coating the claw with Dark Gaia energy in the process. Tails notices this and quickly flies over to the claw, ramming it shoulder first in a very specific part near the wrist to break Knuckles out of Mecha-Dark Gaia's clutch. Once he was freed, the echidna takes his right fist and thrusts it straight at the palm.

Instead of denting the metal claw, however, Knuckles is blasted straight on by a burst of Dark Gaia energy in retaliation for him breaking free. The echidna is launched back through the air, his body spiraling around a few times before he regains control a good distance away from the titanic mech. Knuckles then pounds his fists together and charges back at the mech for another round, while Riku glances off at the echidna and fox after parrying a claw swipe from the right side of the mech.

The teenage Overlord notices something he didn't happen to before, where the scattered bits of Dark Gaia energy are slowly pulled back into tiny vents on the arms of the mech. Remembering what Takashi suggested regarding the Dark Gaia energy, Riku drew his sword in front of his body and flew back far enough to force one of the claws to launch a sphere his way. Upon the mech doing so, the teenage Overlord cuts the sphere down with his light energy, and with the purity of light infused within the weakened Dark Gaia energy it vanishes into nothing in a few seconds.

"Then that's the way to handle this…" Riku quietly notes as he clasps his arms around his katana's handle and waits patiently for the mech to fire another Dark Gaia related attack. Calmly positioning himself in order to strengthen his light energy output for defense, the teenage Overlord floats in place and uses a defensive shield as a claw swings at him with Dark Gaia energy around the tips.

With the shield consisting of light, the energy burns into nothing upon impact, but Sonic doesn't notice this and instead rises up to uppercut the claw from the wrist to knock it away. He then zips away from a projectile launched from the other claw before Riku can thank him and heads for the eyes of the creature. As a show of good sport, the golden hedgehog only punctures straight through the far right glass eye, rupturing through the metal skin on the back and pushing the head in that direction at the same time.

Orbot exclaims in a panic as the sirens go off from the damage dealt to the body so far "This idea would have worked so much better if we were just fighting Sonic! Four against this gigantic mech is too much to handle!"

In a panic the robot flips his arms around to try to use the mech's many features, which results in a rapid-fire of Dark Gaia energy orbs from his claws along with random swipes in-between each shot. Riku notices this bizarre assault and speeds back and forth through the air, taking down the energy with his own light while Orbot fails to notice that the energy gauge was depleting in front of him.

In fact, it was Cubot who pointed out the oddity between his efforts, and as he turned to his normally composed companion and said "Ummm pardner…We're kind of losing power here…"

Orbot sighs and says in an unsurprised tone of voice "Fantastic…Just what I needed to hear Cubot. Now Sonic and his friends are going to destroy our mech and the doctor will dismantle us and probably use our parts for Egg Pawn materials!"

Just as he says this, Sonic turns back around and rams through one of the eyes closest to the control panels, creating an explosion that blows Cubot down onto the side of his body and pulls him away from the controls. The claws on his side are disabled, and the robot raises his left pointer finger up and comments "I reckon our defenses have been lowered as well because of this."

Orbot responds with a sarcastic tone "Oh JOY" while slapping the front of his orb shaped head. On the outside of the mech, Sonic smirks and looks at Riku, saying to him as he wags his left pointer finger in front of him "I'll go for the head, you go for the body, ok?"

The teenage Overlord nods in agreement, and after Super Sonic looks at the Mecha-Dark Gaia and pumps his fists beside his body before covering himself in a shiny golden veil and charging straight at the gigantic eye in the center of the mech. Riku meanwhile goes right for the center of the serpentine stomach, cutting straight through it with the glowing swathe of his blade at the same time as Sonic punctures right through the central eye.

The combination of the two attacks causes the head of the body to start collapsing forward, the claws going limp in mid-air as Orbot and Cubot begin to lose their balance near the Mecha-Dark Gaia's controls. Orbot looks at the looming collapse up ahead and turns to his friend, saying to him with an accepting sigh "Well my good friend, we've had quite a good service time…It was an honor to be with you."

As explosions go off around the two robots, Cubot can't help but point out to his brother in mechanical arms "But I was only activated five months ago!"

Orbot says to his dim-witted friend "…I am truly, truly going to miss your dim-witted nature, Cubot." as both of their bodies are flung out of the front of the glass eye. However, before their demise can be delivered, out of the blue Sonic swoops in and catches both robots in his hands, moving out of the way of the crashing wreckage of the Mecha-Dark Gaia and dropping the two robots off on the ground a safe distance away.

Orbot is naturally surprised by this gesture from the blue hedgehog, who reverts back to normal along with Tails and Knuckles now that the Mecha-Dark Gaia has exploded apart behind him. With the crackles of the burning wreckage acting as a backdrop, the rounded robot asks "W-What? This doesn't make any sense…Why did you save us?"

Sonic brushes the bottom of his nose with his right pointer finger as Tails looks at the blue hedgehog as though he had lost his mind. Sonic's response to the question was "Eh, it wouldn't be Eggman if he didn't have two bumbling robots playing off of him. Besides, you're nicer than most of the other robots Eggman has tried to kill me with, so I'll let you off with a warning this time."

Orbot and Cubot are left dumbfounded by Sonic's decision even after an explanation, and the blue hedgehog turns to face Tails as he says "You sure that's a good idea Sonic?"

Sonic shrugs as he begins to walk off, saying in a nonchalant tone of voice "Eh, what harm can they cause? Come on Tails, now that this is over with, nothing's standing between us and good ol' Egghead!"

The blue blur dashes off towards the off side of the dome, and Tails and Knuckles follow soon afterwards. The echidna points out as they run "Doesn't it seem odd that it was easy to take that giant mech down?"

Tails responds to Knuckles by mentioning "Going by how this was all setup, I don't think Eggman was expecting this many people to fight him. Nor did he probably expect Sonic to have the Chaos Emeralds."

Team Sonic rushes towards the end of the dome, where Riku drops down and uses his sword to quickly cut apart the glass so all four of them can escape. Afterwards he reverts back to his normal state and lands in front of the trio, he gives a quick thumbs up towards Sonic specifically and comments "Hey, good work on taking down the head."

Sonic meets the boy's gesture with a similar one of his own, giving him a quick smile as he comments "Same goes to you Riku. Anyways, while we're heading to give Eggman a run for his money, you should tell us what you've been up to!"

The teenage Overlord nods his head in agreement and turns towards the opening in the dome, and all four heroes run off ready to go infiltrate the Final Fortress and take the fight directly to Eggman…

Next Time: The Ally Revealed