Chapter 52: Eyes of the Dragon Pt 1
Espio has arrived at Tails' Workshop to meet Tails at the door. "Hey Espio, what's up?" Tails asked. "I am here to deliver a message to Team Fighters. Bring Sonic and Mina here as well," Espio said to sit in the living room for Cosmo and Nicole could see the ninja chameleon looks very serious.
"Hello Espio," Nicole greeted.
"Hello Nicole and Cosmo, I am here seeking aid for a mission," Espio said.
"What is the mission?" Cosmo asked.
"I will not tell until everyone is here," Espio said as within an hour Sonic and Mina arrived with Sonic's team fully here.
"So Espio what's up?" Sonic asked.
"My clan leader is ordering me to kill Snively and Regina. I need your help to complete this task," Espio said.
"Seriously, what did they do now?" Mina asked as Espio took out the intel report from the scouts to show Snively has access to anti-matter missiles.
"These weapons are being used to hold back GUN due to the Dragon Empire is stealing people in villages and towns within the United Federation. Going to war will cause millions to die in Snively's counterattack with those city-busting missiles," Espio said as everyone is horrified by this.
"This is so low for that nasty little man," Sonic said.
"This is a very hard position," Nicole said.
"Yes, sending in Team Dark or GUN Task Force X will be seen as an act of war and Snively will use his missiles to kill hundreds of millions in an instant," Tails said.
"Exactly, so the president contacted my mother the clan leader to organize a neutral party to go after Snively and take him down. I and Liz were given this mission but I heard about my mother's old foe Conquering Storm is within the area," Espio said as everyone was confused by this.
"Who is that?" Sonic asked.
"She was the leader of one of the leading ninja clans who protect my region but she and her clan went to Eggman for greed and power," Mina said.
"Yes, rumors are she is working with Naugus to collect the Chaos Emerald which is in Snively's stronghold," Espio said.
"This is getting heavy fast. So, we need to sneak into the Dragon Empire, go into Snively's base let you take him out, and grab the Chaos Emerald. In the process, we free the people of the Dragon Empire to return it to the Dragon Kingdom," Sonic said as Espio nodded his head.
"Correct. We will meet my friend Liz at the border where we will begin our operation. Surprise is on our side, let's make this clean and efficient," Espio said as Team Fighters moved out to help Espio and Liz takedown Snively and Regina along with their empire.
Elsewhere deep within Snively's castle within the borders of the Dragon Empire, Snively comes out of the doors to enter a long hallway filled with tubes filled with copies of a certain person floating in a green liquid while naked and attached to cables connected to computers.
He goes into an observation deck to overlook his greatest success to see a short, beautiful Mongoose covered in a black tight-fitting combat suit wielding an elegantly shaped one-sided blade. "Minerva show me your efforts lately?" Snively demanded.
"Come course, sir," Minerva said as she had doubts about her place within Snively's empire. "This man created so many of me in the past. Wanting to weaponize the Wisp into a tool to kill Sonic but I hate my counterpart who has the powers but doesn't go all out with them," Minerva thought as she trained to destroy Swat bots, Hover Units, and Assault Walkers.
She channels her blade with electricity to swiftly slice up bots with powerful sword swings infused with elemental power.
"When I destroy Sonic, then what?" she questioned within her mind as she used Hover to lift the machines into the air. She bounces off the walls to slice up the robots to appear on the floor for metal scrap is falling around her. "He will replace me with a brand new better model, I can't live like this," Minerva said as she recalled one of the training sessions from before which made her hate this man.
-Flashback Begins-
Minerva is within a plain white room which is very spacious for she is stripped naked and put against a wall with her limbs chained by tight metal binds. Snively is in an observation station just above the wall looking inside.
"Okay my dear, I need you to focus your Quake color powers to strengthen your body to defend yourself against these metal balls coming out of this cannon," Snively said on the loudspeakers for Minerva sees the cannon on the other side of the room. "Prepare yourself," Snively said as the cannon was shooting heavy metal balls to strike Minerva's stomach. The Quake power held up but felt large amounts of pain from the hard impacts.
"Shit," the mongoose said as three metal balls strike her to slam her arms to feel a painful sting for her power is weakening from each blow. Suddenly a fourth ball appears to go at twice the speed to strike Minerva in the chest to break her Quake power and one of her ribs breaks from the hit catching her off guard.
"Oh Minerva, better check next time," Snively said as Minerva feel something coming down her legs to see she is pissing on the floor. "Oh; how dreadful, get a cleaning crew down there. Don't want our pet to get sick in her filth," he said.
Minerva felt like dying from the sheer humiliation. "This is so terrible, this has been like this since I got out of that tube," Minerva said as she hung off the binds for her Wisp-go-On energy was healing her broken rib within an hour.
"Interesting her healing factor has increased recently," Snively said.
A cleanup crew comes in with Minerva feeling embarrassed by their leering eyes some with disgust and others with lust. "What a freak," the human male said as one of them stared at her shapely hourglass figure.
"Too bad, too bad," the other human male said to lick his lips at the pleasant sight of Minerva's long purple hair blocking her whole face.
"Why can't this stop," Minerva thought as she dwelled into the depths of her mind to comfort herself as Snively unlocked her binds for she hit the now clean floor.
"Get into your combat suit, we will be running combat situations later. Get prep in 30 minutes," Snively said as Minerva nodded her head.
"These memories are the only ones I am going to have, I am pathetic," Minerva said thinking about her miserable existence to go off to her room to get ready for more horrible tests.
-Flashback Ends-
Minerva is using her hatred to drive herself to make herself stronger to finally get out of his grip and forge her path. "I need to come up with a plan and stick it to this asshole. I hate this guy and I hate Mina for putting me in this mess in the first place," Minerva thought as she finished her training to put her blade away.
"Time for your break, patrol the castle," Snively said as Minerva nodded her head.
"Yes sir," Minerva sports a big grin. "Time to put some droppings in his cereal and watch it spoil his victory," Minerva said as she began her plan to make Snively look like a fool.
Elsewhere Sonic and his team consisting of Mina, Tails, Nicole, and Cosmo along with Espio are at the border of the Dragon Empire to meet with Epsio's friend Liz Chameleon. "Oh, good thing you all showed up," Liz said as she was sporting a blue ninja female bodysuit with a tanto blade holstered on her hip.
"So, what is the plan?" Tails asked to be within his Cyclone in walker mode with Nicole attached to her drone within the Cyclone to look at maps of the area.
"There are several patrols on the main roads. The easier route would be through the mountains to bypass their defenses and head for the capital city where Snively's fortress is located," Nicole said.
"I agree, I know a path into the mountains. It will be the most lightly defended, follow me," Liz said as she and Espio led the way as Team Fighters came behind them.
"Can you tell me more about Conquering Storm?" Cosmo asked the ninjas.
"She used to be part of the three head ninja masters who defended the landmass of Yurashia. They come from the Dragon Kingdom which is the origin place of the Mobian Dragons which are very few of them these days. Conquering Storm teamed up with Regina and Snively who took control of the Dragon Kingdom shortly after the Black Arms invasion ended. The Ninja clan went to Eggman instead to gain the power they needed and broke away from Snively and Regina," Mina explained.
"Gee sounds terrible," Cosmo said.
"Yes, it is. Naugus is making his moves here in the Dragon Empire to grab the last Chaos Emerald in the wild while this chaos is happening," Mina said as Tails wondered about something.
"They have been in control for some time now. Is there anyone fighting back against their rule?" Tails asked and he doesn't hear anything about it on the internet.
"All media has been shut off from the outside world but rebels are trying to get rid of Regina and Snively," Mina said.
"There could be rebels within the main city," Nicole said as they went to the mountains to see a patrolling Swat Bot unit. "Detecting enemies," Nicole said.
"We should take them out swiftly," Espio said as they engaged the enemies with Nicole jamming the robots with Tails and firing homing shots to blast away the machine troopers.
"Okay, take this," Espio tosses explosive ninja stars to nail several Swat Bots to take them out with explosions. Liz is using her katana blade to slice up machines to sever the head of a Swat bot.
Cosmo creates spears of wood to pop out of the ground to skewer the robotic troopers with her tossing bubs into a group of Swat bots. The bub bombs emit acid to melt into piles of goo.
Sonic and Mina use their speed to tackle the other Swat bots to knock them into trees to burst apart on impact.
"That takes care of them," Tails said as they went up the mountain path to see the mouth of the cavern. "Perfect, come on guys let's go," Tails said as they went inside the cavern to go deeper within the region.
Back with Regina and Snively, they noticed one of the scout units detected Sonic and the others in the mountains near the capital city. "I see, those GUN fools send the hedgehog and his little friends to take care of me. They didn't have the guts to go to war against me," Snively said.
"I will go and give them the red carpet treatment. My love, I will take our new weapon to test-run her against the others," Regina said.
"That would be wonderful, I hope she does better than the last ones," Snively said darkly for Minerva came in with her full combat gear and her sword on her back.
"I will defend you and test my skills against them," Minerva said as she was waiting to fight against Mina. "I hope you are ready for my blade girly," she thought as she began to build her plans in the back of her head.
Back with Sonic and the team are in a deep cavern to see no machines in sight. "Good to go, once we get through here. We will reach the capital city and the stronghold as well," Tails said.
"I heard about the situation in Efrika with former General Kodos," Nicole said as she looked up that man since she looked up the terrorist attack on the news.
"Yes, that man is very vile and has a deep hatred for humans," Mina said.
"Yeah, that guy used to work for the Kingdom of Acorn in the past," Sonic said as Tails felt chills about his name.
"Yeah, he was a big shot back in the day in the Mobotropolis but due to his vicious and bigotry towards humanity. King Max Acorn banished him from the kingdom and now he is a warlord over the Mobian Kingdom called Stonehaven at the southern tip of Efrika," Tails said.
"In ways, Snively and Kodos are two sides of the same coin. Both vicious bigots who want to wipe out their enemies and destroy anyone in their way," Nicole said.
"Sadly, there are people like that in this world," Cosmo said.
"Tell me about it, I hear all kinds of mess-up stuff about Snively and how he tortures Mobians for fun due to his hatred for us," Tails said.
"Insane," Cosmo said.
"Tell it to that guy," Tails said as Espio noticed a red laser aiming at them.
"Look out," Espio said as he tossed a smoke bomb to let out a smokescreen with Tails trying to lock onto the targets but his Cyclone started to act up.
"What in the world?" Tails questioned as his mech walker was not in his control anymore.
"Tails, what's wrong?" Sonic wondered as Tails got knocked out of his walker via an ejector seat.
"My walker is going haywire," Tails uses his twin tails to hover to equip his laser pistol while he uses pocket Miles Electric in his opposite hand.
"Bad move Fox boy," the Iron Queen aka Regina appears wielding her magical staff to use her Magitek to take control over the mech walker to fire open on the group.
"Damn it, scatter," Espio said as Swat bots pour into their position for chaos spread within the caverns with everyone trying to survive.
"Test Subject, confront the targets," Regina ordered.
"Of course," Minerva wielded her sword to engage the enemy. "Hover," Minerva leashes out an energy wave to lift Tails and Cosmo into the air. "Die," Minerva leaps at them blade ready to kill Tails and Cosmo.
"No, Laser," Mina swiftly slams into Minerva to send them flying into another part of the caverns far away from the battle.
"Mina," Sonic said as he went over to Tails and Cosmo to check they were okay. Liz is slashing up robots with her tosses sticky bombs to release goo which holds the robots in place. Espio tosses explosive shurikens to wipe them out. Espio looks at Liz to go after Tails' Cyclone with it trying to shoot them but the two ninjas use their speed to avoid its weapons.
"Espio," Liz said as Espio tossed a sticky bomb to impart the walker's movements. Liz uses her sword to slice up the mech reducing it to pieces but Nicole's drone is perfectly fine.
"Oh boy, that was crazy. I was locked out of there," Nicole said as Regina looked at the drone to see it was controlled by an AI.
"Oh, how cute," Regina takes control of the drone to bring it closer to her.
"Oh no, Nicole," Tails said as he fired his blaster pistol but Regina summoned a barrier to protect herself. All the robots are unleashing rocket attacks to blast sections of the cavern to block their pursuit of the techno mage.
"Damn it," Sonic said as Regina turns off the drone and capture Nicole.
"This is a nice treat; she will serve us well. My Iron Bear will take care of you all," Regina summons nanites to take shape to become a huge robotic bear dubbed Iron Bear. "Have fun," Regina said as she walked away to let her tools do the work for her.
Elsewhere Mina and Minerva are in a huge cavern filled with pools of water and waterfalls. Mina looks upon the cloaked figure who is wielding a nicely made sword. "Who are you, one of Snively's goons?" she demanded as Minerva had memory flashes of tortures done by that man who she deeply hates.
"You mean the little man, I want to love to gut him like a fish but I have other ideas," the woman said as Mina was shocked to hear this girl sounded like her.
"Who are you?" Mina demanded as the woman dropped her cloak to reveal her face which was the same as her own but much more worn and sporting a frown. "Oh shit, Snively cloned me?" Mina is horrified by this.
"Yes he did, he saw your excellent results with the Mother Wisp and wanted to weaponize you with the blood he has DNA he gathered on you. Many died for his sick experiments which leave me standing here before you called Minerva," Minerva said as she was wielding her blade to get into a fighting stance.
"That's terrible, what did he do to you?" Mina asked showing empathy for her clone but Minerva didn't take this well.
"Unspeakable things and because you all my sisters died in terrible ways to please that sick man's deep desire for killing Sonic," Minerva said as she recalled seeing videos of her clone sisters killed in horrible ways like being crushed in the head by metal balls, getting cooked alive, being turned to ash via electrocution, being drowned in water or getting mauled by mutant dogs.
"Snively, he does his uncle Eggman proud," Mina feels sickened by this for Minerva goes in to tackle Mina into a rock.
"I am going to test myself against you and see what you got," Minerva said as she swung her sword at Mina dodging her strikes but got caught in a field of energy to lift her into the air. She leaps and slashes at Mina while kicking her down to the ground. "Burst," Minerva shrouds her blade in flames to unleash crescents of flames with Mina rolling away from her energy attacks.
"Gee, she does have similar powers to my own but they are more ruthlessness behind it. Can't hold back on this one," Mina powers up to rush at Minerva to kick her in the chest to knock her onto the wall.
"Burst + Lightning," Mina creates Plasma orbs to toss them at the clone with Minerva using her speed and sword slashes to head for Mina.
"Why even fight me, Snively made you suffer?" Mina questioned as Minerva used Rhythm to unleash a wave of high-pitched sounds from her mouth to make her ears ring.
"Yes, but you have these powers that put me in this situation in the first place. As long as you live, I will always be in your shadow and the nightmares will never stop," Minerva said as they both used Laser to strike each other trying to overpower each other. Minerva manages to sidestep out of Mina's path and kick Mina into the dirt.
Minerva creates flaming discs to toss them at her original while making explosive clones. Mina makes a stone wall to block the discs but the clones destroy it while Minerva comes in to slash her arm leaving behind a deep cut with blood flowing down it.
"Damn, she is lethal," Mina thought said as Minerva tries to thrust her blade into Mina's head. "Ghost + Laser," she goes intangible allowing the blade to harmlessly go through her head as she speedily tackles her to tag her several times.
Mina gets out of her ghost form as all the energy tags explode causing some damage to Minerva but she gets back up. She powers up with a rainbow aura to begin healing her wounds as Mina looks with confusion.
"That is new," Mina said as Minerva delivers a kick while Mina delivers her own. The two clash and their blows create a shockwave that rocks the whole area.
"Interesting but not enough," Minerva empowers her blade to swing it to unleash a huge wave of energy to slam Mina into a wall.
"Minerva come back to me, let the Iron Bear take care of the filth here," Regina said on the radio.
"Sure," she said as she summons a huge stone wall to make it swiftly go towards Mina. "Mina, I will seek my path and no one will get in my way," Minerva made the stone wall explode trying to bury Mina in piles of rocks.
Mina uses her Ghost state to phase through the rocks as she pulls out a healing shot to insert it into her wounded arm to see her bloody wound rapidly closing up.
"Well, my clone is a bit ambitious. What is she going to do? She is very powerful and has all my powers but is much more ruthless and efficient with them. Snively has gone too far this time," Mina speeds back to her boyfriend and friends to see they are fighting a huge robotic bear which is the Iron Queen's Iron Constructs like the robotic turtle she fought before when she caught before.
"Mina, good thing you are here. Regina has captured Nicole," Tails said as he tossed an anti-gravity mine to make the Iron Bear float into the air while Cosmo tossed acid buds to soften its armor. Espio and Liz toss their bombs to further weaken the machine.
"Seriously, I found out I have clones. I fought one of the clones, Minerva is her name," Mina said as she peppered the beast with Plasma orbs and flaming discs to damage the beast but still kept going.
"Gee, so many things happening at once," Sonic said as he tapped into his Mystic Form to entrap the large machine into orb water. He makes the sphere of water implode to crush it into a pile of scrap metal.
"Okay, we need to go through the city, sneak into the stronghold, kill Snively and Regina, and save Nicole," Espio said.
"Talk about a huge plate on our hands here," Sonic said as Mina was worried about Nicole and that clone of hers.
"Yeah, too much is happening. Let's head for the city," Mina said as they managed to get out of the caverns and head for their objective.
Elsewhere within Snively's castle, Regina is twisting Nicole to hear her screaming in pain. Minerva looks on to feel empathy for the AI as she is going to be enslaved by the evil couple. "Now Iron Nicole, you will obey me," Regina uses her magic to transform Nicole into a twisted version of herself. Her hair was up in a bun with hair sticks, and she wore a high-collared black and purple dress with long purple gloves and a red belt while her eyes became red-orange.
"Yes Mistress," Nicole said in a very robotic voice as Minerva was not happy with this.
"Another victim of those fiends, she will factor in my plans to humiliate Snively, and watching him fail would put a big smile on my face," Minerva said as she began to plan her master's downfall to be free from him forever.