Chapter 21: Egg Chimera III: Desperation Dragoon
Leaping out of the rift in time and space once more, Riku finds himself in a long winding tunnel filled with glass windows and many still working machines that pumped lava through tubes in this facility. Glancing quickly to the left as he skids along the floor of the crimson metal tunnel, the teenage Overlord notices a large-scale amusement park with Eggman's face on the entrance in the distance. Sheathing his katana for the moment as he realizes that the Egg Chimera was nowhere in sight, Riku comments "So now I'm in Eggmanland…Is this in the past, or the present?"
Suddenly, the area distorts around the teenage Overlord's body in a manner different from usual. The entire atmosphere becomes wavy and barely visible, leaving Riku puzzled for quite a few seconds before the effect ends and Eggman finally emerges above him in a second rift. The Egg Chimera had now changed slightly, with pure black gears extending from the back of the machine where the Egg Wyvern's left wing once was.
The Egg Chimera now looked more like the Time Eater, something that was especially evident with the two claws still floating out on both sides of the titanic machine. Eggman perfectly spun the Egg Chimera around to face the teenage Overlord, and after flipping the glass dome of his pod away he stood up and swung his arms out at the boy, clenching one hand into a fist and exclaiming "Your new form may be impressive, but I will not falter while I still have this machine!"
Riku calmly moves his right hand towards his katana's handle, pulling it out with nary a comment from his mind as he leaps towards the Egg Chimera to take it down for good. But Eggman quickly reacts to his attack by swinging the right hand of the Time Eater at the boy, backhanding him away from the main body and sending him fly a good few feet away before he recovers with a single flap of both sets of wings. The teenage Overlord glares at the robot, stating to himself quietly "Huh? How did he react to my movements…"
Eggman seals himself back in his pod and activates the boosters of his Egg Chimera to start flying backwards through this elongated tunnel surrounding Eggmanland while also retracting the claw of the Time Eater. The teenage Overlord wastes little time in flying after the machine, but much to his surprise he is only able to keep pace with the Egg Chimera despite how much slower it's momentum was as it was going backwards.
Riku knew he was going at full speed, meaning that Eggman had just pulled a trick on him that made him much, much slower. To test just what the doctor had done to him, the teenage Overlord swings his katana out after coating it with light to send a crescent projectile of energy at the center of the machine. The Egg Chimera reacts with the same speed that it did before, only this time one of the Nega-Wisps tentacles lashes out and chomps down on the light energy, breaking it apart before it could do any lasting damage.
"So it's not just my body that's slower…My attacks are as well…" Riku notes as he sheathes his sword for the time being and adds on to his previous thought with "Or maybe the Egg Chimera's speed has increased? There's only one way to test this…"
The teenage Overlord has noted the speed of the Egg Chimera during the battles so far. Specifically relying on his information regarding the backwards speed, Riku pays very close attention the machine as he continues to fly towards it, and with a thrust of his left hand the teenage Overlord fires off a beam of light in what would be an instance for him. The Egg Chimera swings to the left to dodge the attack, something which should have been impossible even if it was faster than it was before.
This confirms Riku's theory that his speed had been vastly lowered, and with the reveal that the Time Eater was a part of the Egg Chimera's entire being the teenage Overlord thinks "So he used time-space manipulation to slow me down…Well-played Eggman."
As Riku lowers his eyebrows out of annoyance towards this revelation, Eggman cracks a slight smile. The teenage Overlord then comments "I think I hate time-space manipulation now…"
The teenage Overlord goes for the ground to dodge the swing of the Egg Chimera's drill, landing down just before the bottom of the drill brushes his wings as he sheathes his katana and pulls out his dagger. He throws the dagger at the main body, and decides to trick Eggman by creating a darkness rift in front of the path of his dagger before the doctor can deflect it with one laser.
While the dagger was gone Riku swung his freed up right hand to launch a couple darkness spheres at the cockpit of the machine, which Eggman deals with by doing absolutely nothing as the barrier takes them with ease. But the impact creates smoke, allowing the teenage Overlord to finish guiding his dagger through the realm of darkness with his mind and letting it emerge from behind Eggman's pod.
The dagger flies for the back of the pod and impales into the little gap around the neck. Riku ignites the dagger with hard black flames to dig it deeper into the machine. The teenage Overlord tries to force Eggman's pod away from the main machine in order to prevent him from controlling time and space anymore, but the doctor received a fair warning on his console and quickly swung one of the Nega-Wisp Armor tentacles up to clamp the handle of the dagger and pull it right out.
After lifting the flaming dagger up, the tentacle flings it back towards it's owner. Riku lifts his hand up to drag it back to him while he continues to run along the ground while Eggman swings his artillery cannon forward to launch a bombardment of Nega Hyper-go-on energy spheres at him. Once the teenage Overlord takes his dagger back he swings it out once to take out a couple spheres while simultaneously opening another rift to take care of the rest of the spheres.
While the rift was dealing with the onslaught of spheres, Riku stood in place and sheathed his dagger while saying to the black dragon Takashi "You aren't affected by the time spell…You think you can absorb some of this energy and launch it back through another rift?"
"Already ahead of you there." Takashi replies, which allows Riku to shut the rift in front of him and sprint forward underneath the remainder of the attacks as the Egg Chimera continues to move back through the tunnel. "Come on now boy, surely you are faster than this? Or maybe not…Maybe you're too slow!" Eggman taunts the boy arrogantly from the safety of his cockpit.
Riku responds to this mockery attempted by mentioning jokingly "Geez, you were saving that one for Sonic, weren't you?" To which Eggman says in turn "Yes, just another glorious moment ruined by your presence!"
After mentioning this the doctor fires off multiple spiky missiles from around the cockpit while simultaneously using the Nega-Wisp Armors tentacles to spread a ton of spiky balls along the ground, forcing Riku to take to the air again to avoid ruining into them. When the missiles home in on his body, the teenage Overlord swings his wings forward to push himself back, saying to the black dragon through his mind "Lets do this!"
Pulling out his dagger and swinging hard against the air to creating a gigantic gash of darkness, Riku watches as a massive black, red and purple fireball is launched out at high speeds and burns through the missiles, filling the air with many explosions before it reaches the Egg Chimera seconds after Eggman notices it and reacts with utter shock on his face.
The fireball collides, causing the entire machine to recoil back as the fireball bursts and spreads darkness and Nega Hyper-go-on energy across the entire machine, disrupting the aura surrounding the machine and forcing Eggman to exclaim "No! What did you do to my beautiful machine?!"
As the rift in front of him seals up, Riku sheathes his dagger and thanks his draconic ally with a simple "Good work Takashi, I should be able to handle this from here."
The black dragon replies with "You're doing well. His mobile junk pile shouldn't last much longer." His companion, the white dragon Sodenko, says as a companion to this comment "Of course, if we were the Lord of Chaos, this fool would have been done with in an instant."
"I'm not freeing you Sodenko, and I'm definitely not dealing with your antics right now." Riku bluntly replies to the white dragon while drawing out his katana for the next phase of battle.
As Eggman rapidly swings the limbs of his machine around to put out the fires that had scorched most of the metal coat off of the main body, he exclaims in disbelief "You still have more powers at your disposal?! Just who are you?!"
The teenage Overlord jabs the tip of his katana into the air and proclaims humbly "My name is Riku, what you see is all that I am!"
"What I see is a pest!" Eggman angrily proclaims in response to Riku's remark, and after slamming both of his fists hard against the console he swings his left hand out while stating "A pest that I will squish into dust! All weapons, open fire!"
All arms of the Egg Chimera lift up and take aim at the boy as he floats in mid-air. The drill fires off first, followed by the artillery cannon firing off a rapid stream of orbs and the tentacles of the Nega-Wisp Armor flailing about firing lasers in multiple directions, and finally the spiked missiles around the cockpit launch off and quickly home-in on the boy.
Riku flies up to dodge the drill, recognizing the timing necessary to avoid it while his speed is slowed. He then holds his katana in front of him and calmly summons forth a shield of light around his body to block most of the Hyper-go-on energy streams from the artillery cannon, but he then replaces the shield with a reflective barrier to turn the energy against each other, allowing him to slip off to the right.
The lasers from the tentacles are dodged by a combination of quickly timed swerves along with swings of his katana to briefly deflect the energy, and after going far enough to the right to get out of the laser's range Riku lands against the wall and starts to run along it to catch up to the Egg Chimera while remembering that the missiles were still a threat.
The barrage of approximately thirty missiles is noticed by the boy, with all of them coming at him in such a way that at his speed he wouldn't be able to leap off the wall in any directions to escape. So instead Riku goes for his dagger and slashes at the air in front of him to create a rift big enough for his body that he leaps into with a forward tumble, allowing the missiles to crash against the wall and completely annihilate it a singular explosions.
While in the realm of darkness, the teenage Overlord feels as though his speed had gone back to normal, which he grins at as he leaps a great distance to the left and proceeds to hold his katana out beside his right side, igniting the very tip with pure light so he can cut a thin window through the darkness that allows him to see the Egg Chimera as he runs through the realm to catch up with the machine.
Outside, Eggman is furiously pounding at the console of his machine, firing off all of his weapons against all of the walls in the tunnel and blowing everything around him to smithereens in his rage as he exclaims "Where are you? WHERE ARE YOU?!"
The explosions weren't helping Riku in his attempt to attack the Egg Chimera, but the boy was willing to be patient for as long as it would take for him to strike. The teenage Overlord receives a comment from the black dragon, who points out "My fireball greatly weakened the center of that machine. Strike there decisively Riku and put and end to this man's plans for good."
The teenage Overlord nods as he notices that he was now lined up with the side of the Egg Chimera's body, and after going just a little bit further Riku leaps into the air and spins around, using his dagger to cut an exit out of the realm of darkness that's large enough for him to leap through as he lands on the ground.
Folding his wings behind his back while crossing his arms in an X-Shape in front of his body so his weapons are pointed upward, at which point he leaps straight through the gash and flies at high-speeds towards the center of the Egg Chimera's body.
As Eggman notices Riku's presence, it was already far too late for him to react. The boy swings his sword and dagger out as he crosses in front of the Egg Chimera's center, both blades cleaving right through the weakened machine with solid streams of light and darkness going through the body in an X- shaped formation.
The severity of the damage dealt to the main body of the Egg Chimera causes the entire machine to swiftly be covered in a series of explosions that starts from the center and spreads across in all directions. The first explosion pushes the Nega-Wisp Armor onto the ground, while one of the final ones launches Eggman's pod right out of the cockpit, leading to the glass dome crashing against the ceiling and cracking slightly.
The time-space manipulation comes to an end, returning Riku to his normal speed as the Egg Chimera is engulfed in one final fiery explosions that leaves nothing of the Egg Dragoon behind in it's wake. The teenage Overlord calmly stands near the edge of the explosion while sheathing his weapons one after the other, and as the flames touch his wings he turns around and watches as the explosion settles and only a cloud of raw smoke remains in place.
Riku looks up and notices that Eggman's pod has already started to fall from the ceiling, and as it descends into the cloud of smoke the boy prepares to run forward to catch the pod before the doctor can escape. The battlefield begins to distort as without warning the teenage Overlord is smacked away from the fading cloud by the backside of one of the Time Eater's golden metallic claws.
As the teenage Overlord crashes against the nearby wall, the smoke fades away, revealing the Time Eater in all of it's reborn glory. This four-armed monstrosity was composed of multiple golden gears and spikes filled with a surging dark-purple energy. The face of the monstrous machine was filled with hazy blue flames in the eyes and mouth, and had a menacing appearance to it thanks to that along with the gruesome dark-violet smog surrounding it's main body and limbs.
Eggman could be seen in the uppermost pod, perfectly connected to this machine of his as evidenced by the fact that he retracted the upper right claw and used the lower right one to reach for the Nega-Wisp Armor and quickly attach it to the back of the Time Eater. As Riku peels himself away from the wall, he looks up at the Time Eater and asks "Now where did this come from?"
The doctor responds with a simple "That's one of the benefits of a time-space manipulator. You can easily stuff a giant machine inside of the core of another!"
"This is pointless and you know it Eggman." Riku points out the futility of the doctor's actions here as the area distorts even further, leaving barely anything recognizable in the area.
"You think I am just going to surrender?! I won't stop until I have destroyed you and that pesky blue hedgehog for good! That will be a victory greater than any other!" Eggman exclaims as he creates a rift in time and space for him to escape through.
But before he goes, Riku points out "You're insane if you think anything is ever going to change Eggman! It doesn't matter who you face, you will always be stopped! Just surrender now and you can go back to whatever facilities you have to come up with another failure of a plan!"
Eggman grins in his machine, whether born of arrogance or insanity, and says in a sly tone of voice "How can you be so confident when you haven't stopped my plans fully?" This remark makes Riku take pause and think "What? How can he still have something up his sleeve?" The doctor then takes the Time Eater through the rift behind him while the teenage Overlord keeps this question on his mind as he leaps after him…
Next Time: Eggman's Defiance