Chapter 90 - Welcome to Planet Freedom

Mercifully, their forced conversation was cut short. Ekyt pushed her out of the way, while dodging himself, as more robots piled in. “They’ve got Knuckles!” Sonic shouted. “I’m going after him! Ekyt, can you and the others hold the robots off?” Ekyt looked at the distance they had. There was a football field-sized amount of land separating Eggman’s force from Sonic and friends. “I’m gonna try.” Ekyt told him. “Good luck.” Ekyt told the fast-fading blue hedgehog.

Ekyt went to run, but found himself slowed. “What? What’s going on! Ugh!” One robot had taken a shot at him. Ekyt had leaned backward to dodge it, with the beam barely missing. Greg was slowing down too. “The atmosphere must be affecting us!” Ekyt called. How the heck was he going to fight off a hostile takeover when he could barely move?

Sonic used his homing attack in rapid-fire succession, robot parts flying all over. An unconscious Knuckles was up ahead, being dragged by two robots. Sonic ran in a circle around the two robots, confusing them. The blue whirlwind he created swallowed them up. He slung Knuckles over his shoulder. Then Sonic gulped. He had to get back through a seemingly endless sea of robots. “Knux, c’mon man, wake up!”

“What’s wrong? They’re not fighting!” Shadow looked furious. “We haven’t had humans here, save for Eggman, who was born here. Maybe the atmosphere is bothering them…Any ideas Tails?” Tiffany asked. “I have the answer, but we can’t to them without getting hurt! Unless you can do chaos control?” “I can’t pull it off again, not on that scale.” Tiffany admitted. “I’ll do it.” Klein said quietly. He took the packages from Tails and ran out of the lab.

The robots marched forward, mercilessly, their gears grinding in an incessant whirring motion. It irritated Ekyt to not be able to do more than dodge. A furious wind blew, creating a column in the robots. Klein threw the packages at Ekyt and Greg. They tore them open. “Shoes? You’re picking now to criticize my wardrobe?!” Greg yelled. This was frustrating for him, even more so than Ekyt. He liked movement, after being in the hospital bed for so long. “Try them on, then complain!” Ekyt called, strapping on his own. He breathed a sigh of relief. He could move again, and slightly faster, thanks to the weird gravity. “Thanks Klein! Time to push these guys back!” Ekyt tucked his staff under his arm, so he could run faster. The robots programming jammed momentarily as they had to decide how to combat the latest threat. It took them too long. Ekyt, joined by Greg and Klein, crashed into their front line, demolishing them.

Because of the narrow opening to the mountain base, the robots could only march in rows of five. That meant they could be fought off with a smaller number. Holding their position was the best move. If the robots broke through, they were done for, because they had nowhere to run.

Knuckles finally woke up. “What? Sonic?” “Red, no time now! Hang on tight, I’m going to juice over these robots!” Sonic ran up the mountain, his speed allowing him to maintain a foothold on the sheer terrain. The robots now faced two threats, overloading their programming temporarily.

Sonic and Knuckles returned, and they were soon joined by Tiffany, with Tails flying the X-Tornado overhead, crippling the robots with an EMP wave. Still, their were hundreds.

Ekyt hit the dirt. Because of the gravity change, he misjudged his landing, hitting his ribs hard on something. “Is that a- chaos emerald?” He picked it up, curious. Suddenly, he wasn’t sure why, he gripped it harder. As if he couldn’t control it, he chanted “Chaos Vortex, come to me!” He felt something strike him.

“Oh My God…How did he…invoke the chaos vortex?” Knuckles couldn’t believe it. “When he destroyed the master emerald, he must have retained some it’s power, and could only access it on Planet Freedom!” “What’ll it do to him?” Sonic asked, getting ready to attack. “The Chaos Vortex grants immense power for a thirty-second span. It’ll take a lot out of him, but he can turn the tide of the war!”

Linda was tending to the injured fighters when she heard the crackle of power outside. “Chaos energy? But the emeralds are back on Station Square…Ekyt…but he doesn’t have chaos powers…does he?” She found herself smiling. “Like him or hate him, that boy is amazing.”

Ekyt somehow knew to hold his staff in front of him and swing. He destroyed ten robots as fast as he could destroy one (5 seconds in). Fifty lay, nonfunctioning (20 seconds in). Ekyt threw his staff, mowing down twenty more. He held up his hand, and the staff…came back to him? (29 seconds) Instinctively, he ran back to the others, taking cover in a small outcrop of mountain as retaliatory fire was shot at him. He sagged, suddenly completely drained.

But the tide of the war had turned. Eggman pounded on his master console, yanking his moustache. “Ready the EggAmoeba!” He yelled to his small maintenance crew of robots. “I’m going to wipe them out!”

Ekyt started to get the feeling back in his legs first. Then arms, chest, back, and head. He got up, normal. He had to recharge, for want of a better word, for five minutes. Back to the fight. Good timing. Eggman’s newest machine had just sucked up everyone but him and Sonic.

Eggman’s machine was a pale-blue glass structure, with appendages that acted like vacuum cleaners. They could see Eggman in the cockpit. But he was out of reach…

“Time for a tactical retreat!” Sonic called. He and Ekyt ran for it. “Any ideas?” Sonic called over to Ekyt. “If we could get up that mountain, we’d be eye-level with Eggman’s machine…” Ekyt thought aloud. “Hang on to me, then! I can get up there!”

Once up the mountain, they saw Eggman’s laughing face. “You’ll never break the glass seal! Never!” Ekyt handed Sonic the chaos emerald he had tripped over. “What? A chaos emerald? How did you…but there’s no way…” Ekyt had grabbed Sonic’s arm. He spun around, the energy of the chaos emerald Sonic was holding giving him enough strength to throw Sonic.

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