Chapter 66: The Grand Finale - Part 3:
My name is Dr. Eggman! The greatest
scientist in all the world! Is this bullshit, or what?!
Just when I thought I had finally defeated those
meddlesome hedgehogs, they suddenly got their strength
back and now Tails and Knuckles have joined them too!
Rrgh! Now my hope of winning this fight is at an all-time low!
Just what am I going to do?!
"This is really not looking good!" Eggman Nega moaned, "Now there are five of them?!"
"Oh, quit your worrying! Five animals means five rugs for the fortress we're going to build once we conquer the world!" Eggman grinned, activating several of the mech's weapons.
Hyper Silver quickly used his beefed-up telekinesis to catch every single projectile that was fired off, giving the others a chance to fly in. Hyper Shadow began rapidly firing off Chaos Lances, which were all either swatted away with the Egg Emperor's lance or blocked with its shield. Super Tails flew behind the mech while it was occupied and began spinning his tails around rapidly, dealing several rapid yet powerful blows to its backside and lowering its guard, thus allowing Shadow to take out both the Egg Dragoon's blaster, and the remaining arm from the Nega-Wisp Armor by jamming them with Chaos Lances. Super Knuckles then intervened and grabbed the fortress' tail, before swinging it around at an incredible speed and launching it upwards. Silver took the opportunity to toss all the objects he had just caught right back at the robot, damaging it some more, before doing the same with Hyper Sonic (who had curled himself into a ball) and knocking him right into the asteroid belt. All five heroes took a step back and watched as the Death Egg slowly got back up, covered in large dents, scratches, and the occasional exposed sparking wires.
"Honestly, Eggman, sometimes I think you're too optimistic." Eggman Nega groaned.
"Yeah, well when you're a villain who always loses, you kinda' need to stay optimistic if you want to avoid depression and the health issues that go along with it." Eggman replied, folding his arms.
"Hahaha! You're one to talk about health!" Eggman Nega said, poking his counterpart in the stomach.
"Gee, just look who the fuck is talking!" Eggman replied, punching his counterpart in the stomach, "On a serious note though, at least our robot is still functional, the battle doesn't have any guaranteed outcome yet, and we're both still alive! It could be worse!"
"The only way I could see this getting worse is if the bitches-" Eggman Nega started, only to be forcefully cut off.
Before either he or Eggman could react, a flaming fist nailed him directly in the face, sending him reeling to the back of the room where he created a hole in the dry-wall upon impact. He was rendered unconscious, his face covered in third-degree burns, his nose bent and crushed in, glasses cracked, and his mustache completely burnt off.
"Wha?!" Eggman shouted in alarm.
Back outside, all five heroes watched as the entire robot shook due to the commotion inside it, causing it to forcefully tilt backwards and unleash the Egg Dragoon's drill.
"Flickies! Unite!" Tails called.
Immediately, his army of golden flickies flew in towards the incoming drill and they each gripped it in a specific area with their beak, causing it to slow down and allowing them to control it. They turned it around and sent it spiraling back towards the Death Egg, where it struck the slot-machine built into the shield and destroyed it, causing the entire shield to disintegrate as well as the arm that was holding it, and preventing the mech from using almost all of its attacks.
Neither doctor took notice of this. Eggman Nega slowly rose to a stand and rubbed his face, immediately growing shocked at the pain radiating throughout it (as well as the fact that his mustache was gone), while Eggman continued to stare in wonder and horror at the being who had punched his counterpart. It turned out to be none other than Burning Blaze, having used the Sol Emeralds to escape her confinement. Without a word, she used her immense heat to melt the bands around the limbs of her fellow prisoners and to destroy the collars that were stifling their powers. Both doctors gulped. Outside, everyone watched as the entire fortress began to rock and sway all over the place due to the doctors being distracted, for all of the girls were attacking them.
"Here goes!" Hyper Sonic called, boosting straight towards the mech. He rammed through it, sending it spiraling for a spell, before he launched it back towards his teammates via a roundhouse kick. Super Tails sent his flicky army at it, watching with a proud smile as they began to peck rapidly at its entire body, somehow forming large dents in it. He then called them off and launched the mech himself with a tail-whip. After a series of rapid punches from Super Knuckles, the Death Egg Mk. IV was launched again, but was caught in Hyper Silver's telekinesis.
"Shadow! Catch!" He yelled, tossing it upwards.
Hyper Shadow said nothing and instead sent the fortress flying off into the distance with a Chaos Blast. Everyone followed it. By the time they caught up, it had become lodged in the Eclipse Cannon (which was built into the currently inactive Space Colony ARK) with seemingly no way to escape.
"Something tells me we'll need to activate that cannon again!" Tails exclaimed, popping all of his fingers at once, "And this is where I come in! Boy do I love hacking into machinery!"
"Like you've had absolutely no role in this battle so far?" Knuckles replied.
"Before we shoot anything, we need to get the girls out of there first." Sonic butt in, "Come on, you two!"
Silver and Shadow joined him, and the three teamed up to repeat the tactic they had attempted to use previously. This time, it worked, and they managed to ram a smoking hole right in the front of the mech, ending up inside the bedroom where the girls had been held. Without a word, Tails rammed a hole into the ARK to prepare the cannon. Before taking any action, the three hedgehogs took a second to watch the action going on. Burning Blaze was seen repeatedly dashing through Eggman Nega with her boost, sending him falling back onto the floor each time he tried to get up. She ended the combo with a vicious claw-swipe and a kick, knocking him into the wall again. He weakly got back onto his feet, covered in bloody scratches and burns, before he was knocked backwards, letting out a blood-curdling scream as he was hit directly in his broken nose with a screw-kick from Rouge. Meanwhile, Amy (with the ability to summon her hammer having returned) was seen repeatedly trying to smack Eggman, who was barely dodging all the attacks. She managed to hit him on the head, but he was unharmed save for a bruise and got back up. Orbot, Cubot, Hexbot, and Tribot were merely running around frantically and somehow not getting hit. Before any of the men could intervene, Knuckles could be heard.
"Hey Shadow! Tails says he needs some chaos powers to start the cannon! And he says he might need Silver's help to stabilize the ARK in case something backfires!" He called.
"We're coming!" Shadow called back, he and Silver flying back out.
Now it was just Sonic left to deal with the main threat. Without hesitation, he stepped forwards, gaining the attention of Blaze.
"Thank God you're here, Sonic." She said, "Uh, here! Take this! You'll need it!"
She shut her eyes and held out her palms, sending out what looked to be a stream of flame directly into Sonic's chest. Sonic recoiled at first, but realized that he wasn't feeling anything and let it happen. Now he was glowing even brighter, and the colors he was flashing changed from yellow, green, and pink to three shades of orange. With the added power of the Sol Emeralds onto his hyper form, he was now Ultra Sonic.
"Whoah! This power feels incredible!" He awed.
"I'll bet. And I didn't even know you could combine so many power-sources at once!" Blaze replied.
Ultra Sonic nodded, before quickly noticing Eggman Nega continuing to get up even though he stood no chance. He rammed into him with a series of rapid spin-dashes, much faster than he could have ever done so in even his hyper form.
"And stay down this time, bitch!" He said, before dashing off to take care of the other villains.
He effortlessly destroyed Orbot, Hexbot, and Tribot with homing-attacks, leaving only Cubot behind. Cubot began to shiver in place, watching as Sonic continued to step towards him. He suddenly twitched as an idea came to mind and pulled out the Resurrection Gun, before firing it at Orbot.
"Oh no you don't!" Sonic said, picking up some more speed.
To his luck, the gun was jammed, and he boosted right through Cubot while be was busy examining it. Back in the corner of the room, Eggman Nega somehow got up yet again, but Blaze noticed it.
"Don't you ever give up?!" She asked, forcefully kicking him back down and stomping on his back repeatedly. She ended the combo with a flip-kick, causing him to ricochet off the ceiling and rammed through him with a Burst Dash, effectively taking him out in the same way as Sonic had killed Eggman earlier on.
"Nice work, Sonic!" Amy jeered, running in and hugging her powered up husband.
"Don't praise me just yet." Sonic replied, "I still have Eggman to deal with. No way am I letting him go after what he did."
Amy nodded.
"Hey guys!" Knuckles called from outside, prompting everyone to look up, "The cannon's ready! Just give us the word and we'll fire away!"
"Um, could you hold off on that for now? I have some personal business to take care of here!" Sonic called back, "See you on the ground, girls!"
As if on cue, Silver, Shadow, and Knuckles flew in and each grabbed a girl, before flying off towards the planet. As Blaze left, Sonic could feel the power of the Sol Emeralds leaving his body, reverting him back to his hyper form, though he didn't think much of it as this was all he needed to vanquish his foe. With them gone, he looked around, determined to find and kill Eggman. During his scan of the bedroom, he noticed half of a long, brown, frizzy mustache sticking out from under one of the beds. Without hesitating, he sped over to it and used his increased strength to lift the bed above his head, causing Eggman to yelp in fright upon being discovered.
"No, Sonic! Please! I'm sorry! Don't hurt me! I'll do anything! I fucking swear!" He said desperately.
"Cut the crap, Eggman! Even though there's no planet-shattering cannon for me to get trapped in this time, I'm still not gonna let that bullshit change my mind! I don't know if this has gotten through your thick skull yet, but I'm a hedgehog of my word!" Sonic said, balling up his fists, "...So do you have anything left to say before I lay waste to both you and your precious fortress?!"
Eggman did not reply, instead moaning and shivering in fright as he slowly rose to a stand against the wall.
"Suit yourself." Sonic said, before revving up a spin-dash and letting loose, only to find that Eggman had managed to get out of the way.
As soon as he saw him bolting for the other end of the room, he revved up again and launched himself at the doctor, intentionally doing it from a shorter distance so he wouldn't knock him back too far. He then landed a roundhouse kick right in the side of his torso, sending him crashing into the wall. Eggman tried to get back up, but quickly dropped back down as he felt immense pain in his side. A massive bloodstain had formed on his clothing and was forming an even larger puddle on the floor.
"I hope that shattered every single rib you have, you mustachioed bastard!" Sonic spat, walking closer, "I'll bet now you know how it feels to have the things you love taken away from you! You would do well to think about these words as you enjoy your last few breaths of air...even though we're in space."
"Ugh, p-p-please! Sonic!" Eggman groaned.
"SHUT UP!" Sonic replied, punching him flat onto the ground and stomping hard on his back, making an audible cracking sound and causing him to scream again, "I'm done here."
He flew out of the hole he had created in the Death Egg Mk. IV and signaled to Tails to fire the cannon. After a few seconds, both the Death Egg and the Space Colony ARK were eliminated in an explosion so large it could be seen throughout the world. Despite its size, it only took a minute or two to die down, revealing nothing but a thick cloud of smoke.
"Thanks, Tails." Sonic said, "Now if you don't mind, could you go back to Mobuis and meet up with the others? I want to stay behind and make sure he's actually dead."
"But Sonic, he should be...!" Tails replied.
"Just do what I said." Sonic calmly cut him off.
"O-Okay." Tails replied, flying back home, followed by his army of flickies.
When Hyper Sonic made his way into the wreckage, he found that the ARK remained mostly intact, though its cannon had been destroyed completely. The remaining chunks of the Death Egg were floating aimlessly around the now flat surface of the ARK. He proceeded to fly towards this part of the remains and landed on it. However, to his shock, he noticed that Dr. Eggman still had a hint of life inside him, and he was weakly resting on his hands and knees, his breathing unrealistically heavy.
"What?! How is this possible?!" Sonic asked, startling him, "You just never know when to die, do you?!"
Now Eggman had grown more alert, watching and trembling with fear as Sonic began fast-walking towards him. In desperation, he dug into his pockets and pulled out a small remote with a single button on it. After pressing it, a long beam resembling a bolt of electricity was emitted from the antenna, hitting Sonic in the chest and causing him to scream in agony, for the power of the Super Emeralds was being painfully removed from his body.
"Heh heh heh heh." Eggman weakly chuckled, before being taken by surprise as the power that was sucked into the remote suddenly began to enter his body.
Sonic, now reverted to his normal form, was weakly resting on his hands and knees and panting when he looked up and saw Eggman being lifted back to a stand as if by levitation.
"You...you BASTARD!" He managed to shout, before he was suddenly grabbed in the doctor's fist.
Eggman laughed menacingly as he continued to harness the immense power for himself. Not only did the energy restore his strength, but also increased it exponentially. Sonic, in the midst of kicking his legs madly and desperately trying to pry off the hand that was choking him, could only watch through squinted eyes as his enemy's limbs grew to three times their normal length and became so muscular that they began ripping his clothes to shreds. The doctor's transformation continued; he grew to three times his normal size, became muscular all over, and his clothes continued to shred until nothing but the top half of his pants and the back of his jacket remained, the latter acting like a cape. His mustache turned black and became longer, and all of the individual locks that stuck out became razor-sharp and pointed. His teeth sharpened as well, and claws sprouted out from his now exposed hands. The increase in muscle-mass was so drastic that even his skin could barely hold it all, as some tears appeared all over his body, some of them revealing raw, pink flesh, and others leaking blood. Some of his vertebrae were partially visible on his back now. Finally, due to the power of the Super Emeralds increasing his heart rate by so much in so little time, Eggman couldn't help but regurgitate some blood onto the ground at his feet. He leaned in close to Sonic and let out a massive roar, spraying a mixture of blood and saliva all over him. He then tossed him harshly to the ground and roared in his face again. Panting, Sonic managed to roll a few feet away and get back onto his feet, mortified at what was happening as he massaged his neck. Suddenly, Eggman's sunglasses fell to the ground, their lenses shattering upon impact. Looking at his face, one could see that his eyes had become red with black sclera, and he had gained a snake-like tongue. He let out a massive roar that almost sent Sonic flying off of the destroyed ARK, his tongue waving around in a zigzag-like fashion and yellow and red rings rapidly expanding within his eyes.
"Whoo yeah! Check out this body!" Hyper Eggman awed, his voice much deeper and louder as he admired himself, "Hot damn, just think of the possiblities! I could be on the cover of a fitness magazine, I could be an irresistible pimp, or...defeat a certain hedgehog in one clean stroke!"
Sonic, having already recovered from the sudden attack, proceeded to shake his entire body clean in a dog-like manner, before dropping into a fighting stance.
"I'd like to see you try!" Sonic replied, determined to fight, but skeptical about the possible outcome.