Sonic Returns

Chapter nine: battle!

As the Tornado closed in on the Wing Fortress, Tails noticed several shadowy shapes swarming out of the massive battleship. Narrowing his eyes, the two-tailed fox realized he was seeing badniks of every shape, size, and design type were coming out of the Wing Fortress, and racing towards the small plane.

"Uhhh, Sonic? Amy?" Tails called out nervously, looking back at his two friends. "I think we have a little bit of a problem here!"

The other two Mobians looked up, and saw the incoming threats approaching from the gigantic vessel. Sonic took a fighting stance, while Amy unbuckled from her seat.

"Tails, use the guns and clear us a path to the airship." The blue blur narrowed his eyes. "I will leap off onto the big vessel to care of Eggman, while you swoop down and drop Amy on the ground to deal with the Badniks there. After that, stay in the air, and take care of the flying robots."

"Will do." Tails replied, pulling his goggles down.

"Got it." Amy agreed, readying her hammer. "Good Luck, Sonic."

The Tornado flew in close, opening fire with it's newly installed laser cannons upon the flying badnik swarm, blowing nearly a dozen of them up. Turtleoids- large flying turtle badniks with smaller robots' turtle pilots- and Nebulas- black spherical badniks with helicopter propellers on top- returned fire on the Tornado. Tails dodged to the left and right, avoiding the lasers and missiles, as the biplane's cannon unleashed another volley on the enemy's fleet, bombarding them with blasts. A few shots managed to graze the Tornado, but Tails flew on, undeterred.

"Go for it, Sonic!" Tails yelled. Sonic leaped off of the Tornado, landing on the surface of the Wing Fortress. Tails quickly pulled away from the airship, and dove towards the island. As he skimmed near the shoreline, Amy jumped out of the passenger seat, and landed gracefully on the sand. After making sure she had landed safely, Tails veered back up towards the sky, and the final battle truly began.

Amy raced along the ground, heading straight for the badniks that were trying to topple over the Easter Island stone heads. Several rollers- spherical badniks that unfolded into robots- came rolling swiftly towards the pink hedgehog, trying to bowl her over. Amy Rose tried to dodge the rounded badniks, but the pink hedgehog was not as swift as her blue counterpart. Several of the rollers slammed into Amy's face, arms, torso, and midsection, knocking her back and forth like a ping-pong ball. The pink hedgehog stumbled around, trying to keep her foot as blow after blow struck her... hard.

"ACK OW! EEK! ARGH! AIEEEE!" Amy Rose wailed, finally tumbling to the ground. Seeing her go down, one of the badniks went rolling towards the pink hedgehog to deliver the killing blow. But before it could reach her, the beaten and bruised Amy Rose leapt back to her feet, and violently swung her hammer back at the round badnik. The blow shattered the rolling robot, breaking it into pieces, and freeing the trapped chipmunk inside.

"HIIIIIIII-YA!" Amy ran through the battlefield, zipping from roller to roller, and smashing each and every one of them into tiny pieces. The normally bubbly and serene pink hedgehog was like a madwoman, shattering ever badnik that happened to get in her path. Many rollers tried in desperation to get away, but it was all in vain. By the time she finally stopped for a breath, Amy Rose had cut a swath of destruction across the battlefield, leaving all the rollers as a field of scrap behind her.

"Whoah." She muttered in disbelief, looking around at her handiwork. "I really made a mess, didn't I?"

The pink hedgehog barely had time to reflect on her accomplishment, when the second wave of attacks hit. Several ball hogs- pig badniks that launched ball-like explosives from their midsections- hurled their projectiles at Amy, who weaved and bobbed this way and that, in order to avoid the projectile explosions.

"BOOM BOOM! BOOM! BOOM BOOM!" The explosions rocked the entire beach area, almost knocking over the ancient stone heads.

"Oh, no!" Amy Rose exclaimed in despair. "I can't let them damage the ruins!"

The explosive spheres rolled along the ground towards her, sometimes even exploding as they hit each other. Realizing she had to act, Amy Rose lifted her hammer, and slowly began to twirl in a circle. Faster and faster the pink hedgehog went, picking up speed, until she was spinning like a hammer-wielding top. As the explosive projectiles rolled towards her, Amy Rose's hammer smacked into each and every one of the spheres, sending them flying back into the pig badniks that had launched them. Several ball hogs exploded, each one crumbling and releasing the small animals with the strike of her whirlwind of hammer fury smashed its way through this second wave of badniks, leaving a second layer of scrap across the landscape.

"Ohhhh..." The pink hedhehog groaned, as she stopped spinniung. "I feel soooo dizzy..."

After destroying all the badniks, Amy rose stumbled over to the pit they had been digging. Sliding down into the bottom of the hole, Amy Rose dig around for a few minutes, before pulling out a glowing purple gem.

"The last chaos emerald!" He exclaimed excitedly, holding the jewel high. "I've finally found it!"

While Amy was fighting the badniks on the ground, Tails was busy in a vicious dogfight in the air. The turtleoids and Nebulas launched several barrages of missile fire at the Tornado, which the two-tailed fox dodged with a quick barrel roll. a few shots managed to strike the wings and the sides of the plane, violently knocking tails around in the cockpit. Tails barely managed to keep the plane aloft, as he turned the stick around to face his attackers.

"Try to shoot me down in my new plane, huh?" The fox yelled in defiance. "I'll blow you flying buckets of scrap clean out of the sky!"

Going into another spin, Tails unleashed a flurry of missiles at the swarm of badniks. The streaking projectiles raced towards the aerial robots, lighting up the sky in a stream of small explosions. Several dozen of the flying badniks were obliterated, freeing all kinds of birds, who all flew off into the sky. But Tails didn't manage to destroy all the badniks, however, and several turtleoids managed to quietly pull up beside the plane, and the robot turtle pilots managed to climb off onto the tornado undetected.

*SMASH!* *BREAK!* *RIIIIIIIP!* The robot turtles began tearing pieces of metal and various parts off of the rebuilt biplane. Finally, noticing the badniks tearing his beloved creation apart, Tails quickly grew angry.

"Hey! What are you junkbots doing back there?!" The two-tailed fox growled. "Get off of my plane!"

Pressing a button on the plane's console, Tails electrified the entire surface of the plane, except for the cockpit. The robot turtles were electrified, shaking and glitching before they exploded. The larger turtleoids, having lost their smaller pilots/companions, tried to ram the damaged plane. A couple of well-placed misses smashed those turtles shells, breaking those badniks apart.

"Well, that takes care of the turtle bots." Tails noted, swinging his plane around to face the Wing Fortress again. "Now to take care of those helicopter-ball-robot- thingies!"

But the Nebulas were already planning to take care of Tails, as they flew above and below the Tornado. The badniks fired nearly thirty harpoons at the Tornado, puncturing the plane all over its body. With that many tethers all over the Tornado, the fleet of Nebulas moved as one, trying to drag the Tornado to the ground.

"Hey you guys, stop trying to string me along!" Tails cried out, grabbing the stick tightly. "Now it's my turn to take you for a ride!"

The Tornado shot ahead at top speed, pulling all the poor nebulas along with it. As the badniks were dragged along behind the plane, they began smashing into each other, exploding as Tails pushed the plane ahead. As the Tornado shook off the last of the Nebulas, all sorts of warning lights began to appear on the plane's console.

"Uh oh, she's taken too much damage from the fight!" The two tailed fox exclaimed, slowly steering the plane towards the ground. "I'm gonna have to bring her in for a landing!"

And as Tails brought his plane back to the ground, he looked back up at the Wing Fortress. He saw explosions coming from the gigantic craft, and hoped Sonic was faring better in his fight aboard the airship...