The thirteenth chapter of Flashfire212's Book Three: The Invasion.
Chapter Thirteen: Final Round[]
In the command center, Tails was running between strategic arrays like mad, trying to coordinate the entire battle essentially on his own, with Ronan giving some aid and Sally supposedly on her way. Sweat dripped from the fox’s face as he dashed around, watching the main scanners on the battle, tuning out everything but the radio and screens.
“Tails, you need to drop the shields.” NICOLE, the AI in charge of the nanite-based city, materialized beside Tails, and immediately took on the role of battle coordinator, letting Tails focus more on the alternate screens and relaying information to the teams.
“Tails, you there? You need to drop the shields, now.” Tails spun to the doorway, and saw Sally Acorn stagger in, tired after her trip. The squirrel took a few moments to catch her breath, before snatched the radio off Tails and shouting down it her commands.
“Tails, why’d you invite that…thing?” Drop the shields, NOW!” Sally froze, her body locking in place at the sound of her hated rival’s voice.
“YOU!” she roared, pointing at one of the screens at the black and green fox on the screen. He gave a dark smirk, something Tails could imagine him giving an enemy he had boxed in, before finishing them.
“Sally Acorn. Now my day is complete. Drop the shields, now.” Ronan stated, shaking his long black fur and running a hand through his green hair. Tails immediately turned to do that, but Sally knocked him down in her attempt to stop Ronan getting his way.
“Is this one of your Col’nesian plots to take over Mobius and kill innocent people?” she screamed at him. Ronan grimaced, his ears drooping down slightly.
“What Col’nesian plots? No, this is something closer to home, check your external monitor.” Sally immediately did so, and found a large squadron of Eggman units, lead by Eggman himself. In her shock, her hand strayed away from the manual shield control, and NICOLE dropped the shields, giving Eggman the opportunity to get his revenge.
Shadow, Sonic and Amy stood there in a triangle formation, keeping Moebians away. Sonic, for once, wasn’t moving, but instead using lightning-fast strikes at anyone that got to close. Shadow was doing the same, but added in Chaos techniques to keep the area in front of him clear. Amy was swinging her Piko Piko Hammer haphazardly, knocking Moebians to the ground or sending them flying with a single smack with the large mallet. Then, the green tinge to the sky caused by the shields disappeared.
“That isn’t good!” Sonic grunted, before a large missile smashed into the ground in front of him, sending a Moebian flying. The blue hedgehog turned to see an astonishing sight – a fleet of Egg Pawns, Egg Gunners and a few larger vehicles piloted by EggRobos and Snively, but pride of place was the Egg Emperor, with Eggman himself in control.
“Eggman? What are you doing here?” Sonic asked, confused, as Eggman swatted away another Moebian with the large spear his mech carried.
“Getting my revenge for them stealing my Casino Park base! ATTACK!” the overweight human shouted, and the entire robotic army responded, attacking Moebians and ignoring Mobians, and just all-around causing damage to the Moebians. In one of the few free moments he had, Miles radioed back to Casino Park.
“Open package two, if you’d please. We need the support.” As soon as he finished the transmission, he was back into the fray, dueling Silver the Hedgehog in a battle of telekinesis.
Back in Casino Park, a gothic-looking cream rabbit stood near an array of cannons and a group of other Moebians. She rolled her eyes at the stupidity of the order, before responding.
“Butters acknowledges, watch the skies.” She turned to the mob of Moebians clumped around, before pointing at one, a red Sonic recolor.
“Ready, Pyris?” she asked, the look on her face suggesting a lack of care for whether he was or not.
“Yeah, I am…do I get to choose the cannon?” he asked, turning off his e-Pod and turning up the charm as much as he could. Butters rolled her eyes as far back into her head as she could, before nodding. Pyris ran for the cannon with the expanded red World Ring wrapped around it, diving in a spinball in preparation. Butter lit the fuse with the small lighter she kept on her person, before ducking behind the cannon. Even before it fired, Pyris had coated his body in flames, and as he passed through the red World Ring’s power, the flames had tripled in size and burned with an amazing intensity. The cannon thundered and spat the flaming hedgehog out on a parabolic arc, straight at the city.
“Right, who’s next?” Butters asked, her face the utter epitome of perverse delight.
“Yo, Egghead,” Sonic shouted over the din of battle, even though he stood on the shoulder of the Egg Emperor, “Incoming!” Eggman turned the mech to see a fireball racing directly towards them. In a strange move, he dropped the spear and swung the right hand behind the shield. Sonic, unable to see, nearly jumped out of his skin when a thunderous noise, like an explosion, went off directly in front of him on the shield, in which a massive dint appeared. Eggman cursed.
“Artillery. They’ve started shooting their own people at us through cannons, probably with some kind of elemental filter over them. That was probably a targeting shot.” Sonic looked confused, as Shadow leapt up onto the other shoulder to join them.
“What, so someone has to go deal with the artillery?” he asked darkly. Eggman opened his mouth to answer, but another voice was first off the mark.
“I can deal with the aerial shots. Eggman, drop the shield.” The fat human stared at the spiky-haired wolf in surprise.
“I’m not dropping the shield! That’d leave me with only my missiles to fight with, you impertinent brat!” The wolf tapped his foot impatiently, before the discarded lance rose up on its own accord and settled into the Egg Emperor’s fist.
“What is this? Telekinesis?” Eggman demanded, confusion evident over his rotund features.
“Now will you drop the shield?” the wolf pressed. Muttering a stream of curses under his breath, Eggman had his mechanoid battlesuit drop the shield, before swatting a group of Moebians on the ground with a spear jab. The wolf, which hadn’t stopped fighting with a pair of katanas through the exchange, stomped on the dint in the shield, popping it back into shape. A pair of massive black wings formed on its back as it sheathed the swords, then took the shield in both hands and started to fly. As it did, Sonic saw a red and yellow blur materialize in the air through a warp-ring portal and fly straight for the shield, only to get smacked aside by a Nanite Cannon’s chaff burst. A second blur, this one a deep purple, did the same thing, only to get smashed into the ground by the wolf, who had shifted the massive shield to a one-handed grip and was using it as a giant bludgeon. Even so, with the enemy reinforcements now easily destroying the smaller Eggman robots and giving the larger ones a lot of grief, the battle wasn’t looking good.
Sally and Tails were both locked in a heated argument over Ronan’s involvement when the Col’nesian tactician once again spoke.
“How clear is the area to the north of the conflict zone?” he asked. Sally opened her mouth with a venomous retort, but NICOLE cut her off.
“It’s reasonably active with conflict, Ronan.” The black and green fox pursed his lips, before smirking and pulling a cigar out of an off-screen drawer.
“Have someone throw a colored smoke grenade slightly further north of that conflict, and then forget about it.”
“Why should we?” Sally shouted, but Tails was already ordering it in.
“TRAITOR!” Sally roared, diving at Tails, but the fox managed to turn and blast her with a ball of Chaos Energy, throwing her to the ground.
“Keep out of the tactical rooms, princess. Your issues with Ronan are getting in the way of proper tactical planning and battlefield control.” Tails growled.
“Yes, go back to your lady friends and husband, leave the hard work to those with aptitude for it.” Ronan added, lighting his cigar and smirking even further. As NICOLE lifted Sally and started carrying her out, she turned to Ronan’s image on the screen and spat at him.
“If this battle fails, then I am holding you responsible! You shall never set foot on Mobius again, and I shall see to it that you don’t get any more contracts with anyone from Mobius ever again!” she screamed. Tails and Ronan both took the same expression as they looked at each other – right eyebrow raised, lips pursed and a hint of confusion on their faces. Tails shrugged it off first, calling in the order again.
“Ok, someone throw a colored smoke grenade into the area north of the battlefield, and there shall be support from the air.” Maddy grabbed her radio and responded.
“Maddy here, I’m on it!” Lightly, she stood, grabbing the only smoke grenade she had been provided, and ran through the battle with speeds more reminiscent of her father, dodging around as many Moebians as she could. She could see the edges of the battle ahead of her, so she stuck on a burst of speed to reach there, only to have her way blocked by a slim, flexible red fox.
“You…Fiona!” she growled, using her momentum to pull the pin and hurl the smoke grenade just over Fiona’s head. Fiona instinctively ducked, before flicking her whip out to full length. Maddy reacted on instinct, launching a Chaos Freeze followed by a series of Frost Spears. Fiona easily dodged the attack, and brought her whip around in a stinging blow on Maddy’s cheek. Maddy backflipped then launched herself forward with Chaos-enhanced speed, ramming her head into Fiona’s gut, before smashing her to the ground with a single punch between the eyes. Fiona started to lash the whip out again at Maddy, but a sudden thud and resulting shockwave threw her off balance. She spun to see what had done that, and her jaw dropped, while Maddy’s eyes went wide. A gray orbital drop pod had smashed into the ground, with three thick-furred wolves holding rifles swarming down. More drop pods fell down, until there were fifteen soldiers of various species there. One of them shot Fiona with a strange Blu-ray, and she collapsed. A single soldier stopped to check on her as the rest set to work demolishing the Moebian attack force. Maddy started to turned back to the battle, but a final drop pod hit the ground. She turned to look at it. It was smaller than the rest, and only a single occupant exited it, but it was disturbing to look at. It limped from the pod, scarred and marked with cybernetic parts. It had black and white fur where it wasn’t extremely scarred, and Maddy realized it had once been a raccoon.
“I…live…to…serve…Col’nesia..! I…live…to…serve…Terraclos..!” it droned. Maddy pulled away, slightly sickened, and turned back to the battlefield, only to find the battle over. Most of the Moebians had disappeared, which she attributed to Chaos Control. For the Mobians, the strange soldiers were administering battlefield medicine on those who they could, and GUN airships started to land in the area, dis-engorging medical teams and extraction teams to aid. She walked over to Statyx, who was surprisingly unscathed considering the ferocity of the battle.
“What happened?” she asked. Statyx shook his head, frustrated.
“Not a clue. They just Chaos Controlled away, probably back to Moebius. I don’t like what that implies, but there’s been a tactical meeting called at the Monolith’s briefing room.” Statyx turned and started to walk away, while Maddy took a final look around, before walking after him, the medical teams and a few other combatants following.
Striker shifted his stance to a more traditional combat stance, opening his body to the information pouring through his Sharingan and Sharinshotogan Eyes, letting himself see a few seconds ahead in time, to predict what his opponent would do. However, they kept showing the same thing in a constant loop, an unusual sign, like time was trapped in a spiral. He focused, as if breaking an illusion, and realized what was happening. That form he’s entered, it’s subconsciously emitting a Chaos field capable of rewinding time a few seconds when faced with a time-based ability. Fascinating, he thought. Instead of powering his eyes down, he powered them up further, to their second stage. The three-point pinwheels disappeared, replaced with a dual circle design, the outer circle possessing three smaller circles within it, the inner circle filled with black. Again, his left eye had the black lines broken, the mark of a Shotogan Eye. It was at that moment of distraction that Dark Will struck, launching a Chaos Blast Beam in a sudden burst, followed by a Chaos Control to put it behind Striker, before finally unleashing a stream of physical strikes that could have broken through steel. Striker let the Chaos assault strike him, before spinning on the balls of his feet and unleashed the power of his Mangekyo Sharinshotogan straight into Dark Will’s chest. The repulsive and slicing power of the Shotogan struck Dark Will, forcing him back a few meters, but even enhanced by his Mangekyo Sharingans, failed to even leave a bruise on his counterpart’s skin. Growling, the Moebian reached for a sheath hidden by his armor on his back, withdrawing a short sword make of the same metal as his armor, which he held in an experienced one-handed grip, before unleashing a massive spray of Ice from his body, a perfect Sheer Cold attack that he’d copied from someone. Dark Will just stood still, and the ice simply passed over his body, instantly disappearing as it touched him, before he sprinted straight at Striker, dropping into a slide aimed to knock his feet out from underneath his rival. Instantly, Striker cartwheeled to avoid the attack, only for Dark Will to launch a stream of red Chaos Darts racing towards him, as if fired from a machine gun. Striker took the first five strikes on his sword and armor, but then started using both the Shotogan’s slicing vision and Kamui from his Mangekyo Sharingan to remove the threat from the rest of the darts, starting by stopping their forward motion so they became just a field of red energy, then removing the energy from play with Kamui. Each party stared the other down, although Striker was already starting to feel tired – using his Sharinshotogan so much was a massive drain on his strength, and the Sheer Cold hadn’t helped matters by draining more energy than normal due to its Ice affinity. Dark Will, on the other hand, still looked as intimidating and dangerous as before, the Chaos powers that made it so powerful still evident in the purple-black flames that formed the energy-cloak most forms supported. Dark Will growled, a sinister sound not suited for any Mobian, before racing at Striker with more speed than ever. Striker only just managed to dive to the side, before launching a series of Chaos Spears straight into Dark Will, only for each one to disintegrate upon contact. He followed up with a Lightning Attack, unleashing a spray of large sparks from his hands into Dark Will’s body, which arced for a few seconds, before the eyes narrowed. He slid forward and grabbed Striker by the neck, and within ten seconds struck over a hundred times, his anger magnifying each strike in the Raging Demon to something of astonishing intensity. Striker was in agony, and his eyes powered themselves down as he fell into unconsciousness.
Dark Will felt no satisfaction that his enemy had collapsed, only anger and pain. There was no place in the one-track mind for anything else but defeating the threats to him and those he cared about. Suddenly, a purple and blue flash struck him in the chest and threw him back a few meters, this one cutting through the energy cloak like it was made of butter. Super Scourge floated between him and Striker, before bending and grabbing the unconscious echidna, Chaos Controlling the duo away. Suddenly with nothing to focus his anger on, Will powered down. Knuckles burst from their house, having finally been able to deactivate the Chaos Shield around the house, and grabbed Will just as he started to collapse.
“Will…” the elder echidna started, but there was no need, Will’s energy needs had struck him back and knocked him out, one of the side effects of his Dark form. Knuckles stooped over and lifted his son, carrying him away from the emerald and over to the Monolith. He knew Will would wake soon, and the planning session needed all of them awake.
Dramatis Persona[]
List being compiled