Chapter 65: The Grand Finale - Part 2:
I'm Sonic! Sonic the Hedgehog!
It wasn't easy, but we've finally made it to
Eggman and Eggman Nega! And we're only one step
away from saving the girls! I gotta admit! The mech
they're trapped in looks pretty damn intimidating!
But the power of the Chaos Emeralds and the
help from my friends should make this fight a snap, right?
"Alright, you've been staring at us for a while now. Can we get started already?" Eggman groaned impatiently.
Sonic said nothing in response, instead turning to Silver and Shadow as the three hedgehogs stood in a circle.
"Uh, hello? Sonic?" Eggman Nega asked.
"Ready?" Sonic asked his team.
"Ready." Shadow and Silver replied in unison.
The trio shut their eyes tightly and interlocked their fingers, summoning the Chaos Emeralds, which began to circle them with increasing velocity before being absorbed by their bodies. Once the blinding light died down, the hedgehogs were revealed in their super forms.
"Ah, I see, you're just getting ready!" Eggman said, "Now then. Let us settle this ongoing rivalry once and for all!"
"You'd best say all the generic villain lines you want now, Doc!" Silver warned, entering a fighting stance along with his partners, "Because once we trash this robot like we've done to all of your minions, we'll make sure you never speak again!"
"He still needs a little work on the arrogance." Shadow muttered.
"Enough talk, Eggbrains! Let's do this!" Sonic said, as he and his comrades flew into the fray at a high speed.
The slot-machine built into the Death Egg Mk. IV's shield began to rotate, until each wheel stopped on a random icon. One landed on a missile, another landed on a spiked ball, and the third landed on an Eggman emblem, which doubled the output of both attacks. A barrage of the aforementioned projectiles was fired off. Super Shadow flew ahead and destroyed all but one of the missiles with Chaos Spears, before catching the final one in his hands and throwing it back, immediately chasing after it. However, the missile was destroyed with a bullet from the Egg Dragoon's blaster, causing an explosion that knocked Shadow back. Super Sonic and Super Silver were undeterred and continued to dodge the spiked balls. Sonic flew ahead and attempted to spin-dash through one of the "eyes" on the mech, though he was deflected by the shield and his attack didn't even leave a scratch. Silver attempted to toss back some of the projectiles with his powered up telekinesis, which made the mech flinch but did not damage it at all. While attempting to grab the fortress itself while it was stunned, he suddenly found himself trapped inside a purple cube fired from one of the Nega-Wisp Armor's arms and punched away. Regrouping with Shadow, the two proceeded to fly haphazardly around the colossal robot, trying to find an opening.
"Hah! Like that'll work!" Eggman Nega jeered, activating all of the weapons (minus the drill) at once.
Suddenly, a massive barrage of spiked balls, missiles, purple cubes, laser beams, and bullets was unleashed, forcing the trio to retreat back to the asteroid belt, but they kept getting hit along the way. Finally out of range, they quickly huddled and began discussing battle tactics. After a simultaneous nod, Super Sonic curled up into a spin-dash. Super Shadow fired an energy ball into him, powering him up and making him glow even brighter. Finally, Super Silver used his telekinesis to grab every single projectile near the mech, and coated Sonic with them, creating a large sphere. Afterwards, he used a psychic push to send it hurling right towards the Death Egg, with Shadow running in place on top of it to maintain its momentum. Before either doctor could react, the mech was hit right in the front by the ball of projectiles, stunning it and keeping it occupied as it tried to lift it off. Shadow got off of the ball and snapped his fingers, detonating the energy ball that was in its center and causing an explosion that sent the mech flying into the asteroid belt, finally suffering a bit of damage. Sonic flew out of the explosion unharmed, and locked his fingers with the others, touching the flats of his feet with theirs as well. The trio spun around in this formation and turned into a large, comet-like projectile, launching themselves towards the incapacitated robot at an alarming speed. However, while they were recovering from the impact, Eggman was quick to notice the incoming attack and activated the Egg Dragoon's drill, which blocked them and (after a brief spell of the two attacks trying to overcome each other) stopped their assault, breaking them up in the process. Dazed, the three hedgehogs were all open to attack. Silver was promptly snapped up by one of the Nega-Wisp Armor's arms, and Sonic was punched into a large asteroid by one of Metal Robotnik's arms. Shadow showed the most resistance, dodging most of the attacks thrown at him. When he attempted to fight back with a Chaos Lance, he was taken by surprise as the Egg Emperor's lance effortlessly sent it flying back with a slash, sending him hurtling into the same asteroid.
"Well this is disappointing!" Eggman Nega said, "My ancestor told me that you had more fight in you than that!"
The two doctors continued to cackle at the sight of their enemies barely conscious. Inside the Death Egg Mk. IV, all three girls were still immobilized in their armchairs as they watched the battle taking place, now growing nervous as their lovers seemed to be nearing their end. Blaze in particular was somewhat angered by this, her rage causing the temperature in her body to increase, and causing the metal bands holding her limbs in place to melt slightly, followed by the collar around her neck starting to emit a small amount of steam. The weakening of her bindings gave her just enough power to summon the Sol Emeralds, which caused her fellow prisoners to let out a quiet gasp, but didn't draw attention from the doctors, or the four robots.
My name is Miles Prower, but everyone calls me Tails!
Still no word from Sonic on his current status, or just whatever the
hell is going on up there. Being his best friend, I can't help but worry,
even though I'm still confident, given what I've seen him do in the past!
Regardless, I'm still holding up down here pretty well! Even when you're
as worried as I am, the beach is always a great place to go!
Meanwhile, back on Mobius, Tails was busy working with a chemistry set as he sat on the sand, while Cream stood behind him, looking over his shoulder with curiosity. Sonic Jr., however, was paying no mind to this, and instead sitting a fair distance away as he built a small sand-castle. Knuckles was sleeping soundly on a nearby beach-chair, a few empty alcohol bottles lying on the sand around him, and the lid of the nearby cooler open, its only contents being a pool of water that occupied half its volume (the result of all the ice having melted). Without warning, the silence was broken as a sound akin to a cell-phone vibrating on a coffee table could be heard, startling Tails into almost dropping a long-necked beaker of scarlet liquid, and causing Knuckles to jump up in shock and land on the ground. One could see that a green aura was glowing out of his rear end.
"Uh, Knuckles? Are you alright?" Tails asked, popping a cork into the beaker and putting his chemistry set away.
"I'm fine, but something else isn't." Knuckles replied as he pulled out the Master Emerald and set it on the ground, Tails, Cream, and Junior walking closer to him as he did so.
The emerald was glowing much brighter than usual, but not bright enough to blind anyone who looked at it. Knuckles leaned in and began to stare at the emerald's topmost surface like a crystal ball, before Tails and Cream saw his eyes widen.
"Uh oh, this isn't good!" He suddenly said, followed by Tails and Cream looking at each other, confused.
"Oh, a-heh! I guess I should've explained this!" Knuckles chuckled, "See, since the Master Emerald is connected to the Chaos Emeralds, I can use it to determine not only where the other emeralds are, but to also see who is in possession of them, and whether or not their power is being used. In this case, Sonic, Silver, and Shadow are using them, but they're in some deep shit, judging by the signals the emerald is giving off...and by what I'm seeing here."
The others gathered around to see for themselves, and saw a reflection of Super Sonic and Super Shadow lying limply against a large asteroid, their eyes weakly open.
"Oh no! SONIC!" Tails said, growing worried, before beginning to turn angry, "Ooh! I told him he should've let us come with him! Now look at what happened! I know that arrogance has always been a part of his personality, but he'd better think twice before doing something that reckless again!"
"Relax, Tails! There's still time!" Knuckles assured, "Quick! Everyone touch the Master Emerald! Junior, you too!"
Everyone obeyed and placed both of their hands on the emerald's surface, causing it to glow even brighter. Once the light died down, Knuckles was revealed to have turned carnation-pink, and Tails was now glowing neon-yellow. Cream and Junior were the only ones to not undergo any transformations, as the former simply did not have one, and the latter was too young to have one anyway.
"Whoa!" Cream awed, "Tails, you look so hot!"
"Heh heh, thanks!" Tails blushed.
"Once again, thanks to the Master Emerald's connection to the Chaos Emeralds, it has the ability to power them up even from long distances away and grant their users extra strength. And since the emerald was being touched by two people with super forms (i.e. me and Tails), that immense power also entered our own bodies!" Knuckles explained, putting the Master Emerald away.
"Yeah yeah, that's great! Now let's hurry up and save Sonic!" Tails begged, "...Oh wait! I almost forgot!"
He let out a loud bird-call that echoed across a gigantic radius and caused several golden flickies to fly from all over and join Tails.
"Wow! And you can call animals too?! Aren't you the cutest little thing?!" Cream asked.
"I can't really vouch for that, being a straight echidna and all, but yeah, he's powerful in that form, alright." Knuckles replied, "Now we don't have any more time to lose!"
"Alright!" Tails cheered, "Oh, but Cream? Could you please watch Sonic Jr. while we're gone? Whenever I'm asked to babysit, Amy always says she'll make a scarf out of me if anything happens to him, and you're really the only one here who can watch him now. Plus, I doubt she'd make a scarf out of her best friend, so in a way, I'm kinda' saving both of our skins."
"Don't worry about it! I've got him! Now hurry up and bring them all back safely!" Cream ordered.
With a final thumbs up, Super Tails and Super Knuckles flew up into space to try and find the hedgehogs.
I'm Shadow the Hedgehog! The Ultimate Life-Form!
It was no picnic, but we finally made it past all those recycled
foes and are set to ultimately put an end to this twisted scheme!
However, it seems that this was more difficult that we all thought!
We could barely land a hit on this robot, and have already gotten
our asses handed to us! I know most people don't expect me of
all hedgehogs to say something like this, but we could really use
some back-up right now!
Back in the depths of outer space, Super Sonic and Super Shadow were still on the asteroid that they had both been knocked into, though now they were slowly struggling to get onto their hands and knees, their golden bodies flickering somewhat. Their eyes widened slightly more as they heard the constant evil laughter stop.
"Whew! Man, how many fucking times have we beaten that record today?" Eggman Nega asked, panting.
"Beats me, but we can figure that out later." Eggman dismissed, "Time to stop delaying the inevitable and exterminate these rodents!"
Still shaking, Sonic and Shadow finally managed to get back on their feet, though it looked as though they were going to collapse again any second.
"Oh, so you got back up, eh? Y'know, part of me thinks that you're not hedgehogs, but cockroaches in hedgehog-suits!" Eggman quipped.
"Real...funny..." Sonic groaned, before suddenly feeling a strong power entering his body.
He and Shadow stopped trembling and felt their strength returning by the second, though with some extra strength tagging along. As the two hedgehogs examined their bodies, they were taken by surprise by a blinding flash of light. When it died down, they were both revealed to be glowing even brighter, and were now flashing multiple colors (save for Shadow's red stripes).
"Wait! What is this shit?!" Shadow asked, having never entered a hyper form before.
"It's my hyper form! I didn't know you had one too!" Sonic replied, "And oddly, this is the second time I've transformed into it against my will!"
Both doctors looked at each other with slight worry.
"Regardless, this should work in our favor!" Sonic said enthusiastically, dropping into a fighting stance.
Nobody said anything for a few more seconds, but everyone was startled when one of the Nega-Wisp Armor's arms began to shake vigorously.
"Uh, Nega? Could you stop trembling? You still have your motion-controllers on." Eggman asked.
"That's not me." Nega replied, confused.
Suddenly, the head at the end of the arm burst open with an explosion, rendering that arm useless and revealing Silver, who had also gone hyper. He quickly rejoined his partners as they stared down the partially damaged fortress.
"Well, that killed the moment." Eggman said, "But we still won't give up! After them!"
The Egg Emperor's lance was swung around, sending out some sonic booms that homed in on the heroes, who merely hovered in the air and took the hit, not even flinching as they did so. Both doctors' jaws dropped.
"Was that all you got?!" Hyper Sonic taunted.
"If so, then now it's our turn!" Hyper Shadow added.
Before anyone could continue the fight, what appeared to be two comets flying in their direction could be seen, one pink and the other yellow. Both entered the scene, too fast to make out, but immensely powerful. The pink one rammed two large fists right into the front of the mech, knocking it back a considerable distance, while the yellow one flew in and sent it flying upwards with a whip of its two tails. The Death Egg Mk. IV landed right on the remaining half of the moon (which somehow did not shatter after it was hit) and got up a few seconds later. The two comets flew back towards the trio and slowed down, allowing them to see their true forms.
"Tails!" Sonic cheered, "What's up?!"
"I think we should be asking you that!" Knuckles replied.
"Yeah! Ya' kinda' had me worried there for a bit, Sonic!" Tails added, "Maybe next time, you'll think twice about not letting me come along for the ride!"
Sonic said nothing in reply, but then realized that Knuckles was nearby.
"Wait...KNUCKLES?!" He asked, "I-I though you were dead!"
"Huh?" Knuckles replied.
"Y'know, you somehow managed to stow away on the rocket and then you fought me! You almost won, but I beat you and sent you flying right into a mountain! You were killed in an avalanche!" Sonic explained.
Knuckles could only scratch his head in response.
"Eh, forget it!" We've got work to do!" Sonic dismissed.