Tails the Fox
Chapter 26 - Defending the Base!
Stage 14 - GUN Warship

Note: Sonic the Hedgehog and related characters are (c) SEGA and 
Sonic Team. You knew that, right? Right? DIDN'T YOU KNOW THAT!?

Punchy was sitting on Eggman's control chair, sleeping. It was so boring waiting around for something to happen, and Punchy couldn't keep his eyes open. Finally, the computer made an alarm sound, which Punchy slept through. Luckily, Rainbow was nearby, and alerted him to the alarm. "WAKE UP, ONE!"

Punchy jumped in his seat and started looking around in a panicky manner, shouting "Who, what, when, where, which?!" Rainbow pointed to the computer screen. "We have a message!" Punchy looked at the control panel and realized he didn't know how to work the computer. "OK... How do we get the message?" he muttered to himself. Rainbow pushed in front of him and pressed a few buttons, then moved back out of Punchy's way. Eggman's face appeared onscreen. "How did you do that?!" Punchy wondered aloud. Eggman looked at Punchy impatiently. "What took you so long? Never mind. Punchy, GUN is approaching your position!"
Punchy jumped again. "WHAT!? W-wait a minute! Where the heck are you?" he shouted. Eggman looked a bit irritated. "I'm... in the middle of something. And so are most of the robots!"
Punchy had begun to panic. "Well, what do you want me to do?! Sounds like we're beat!" Eggman was a bit annoyed, but tried to maintain a calm tone as he replied. "I want you to take the plane to the GUN Command Warship, land on it, and eliminate its power supply! If you do that, it'll crash and Gunner will have to form a new plan! Got it!?"
"You can count on us, Tubby!" Rainbow said excitedly. Eggman roared back at her, "TUBBY!? You insolent little..." Rainbow rolled her eyes and replied in an innocent tone. "What should I call ya? Fatty? Blobby? Balloony?" Eggman tried to control his anger, but it showed through in his reply, "EGGMAN will be fine!" Rainbow grinned. "How about Humpty Dumpty?" Eggman was enraged now. "I'm hanging up! You just defend the base until I get back!"

Eggman hung up his phone, and Punchy turned his attention to Rainbow. "All right, Rainbow. While I'm gone, I want you to look for the Master Emerald." Rainbow looked thoughtful for a moment. "You mean the big green one in the hologram?" Punchy nodded. "Yeah, that's the one. I'll help you when I get back." He stood up and started on his way out of the control room. Rainbow waved to him as he headed out the door. "Good luck, One!" Punchy stopped short and yelled back, "DON'T CALL ME ONE!!!" Rainbow rolled her eyes again. "How about Uno? Or maybe..." Punchy smacked his forehead. "Forget it! I give up!" As he ran away from the control room, Rainbow grinned contentedly. "One it is..."

After a while, Punchy found Copter's plane, the Hurricane. Punchy hopped in and looked over the controls. "How does this thing work...? I guess I'll have to learn as I go..." he muttered. As he started up the plane and began to take off, his expession turned very unhappy. "Nothing is worth all this trouble..." he thought. The plane launched into the air at a very high speed, which Punchy hadn't expected. "Whooooooaaaaa!!!!!!" It took a moment for Punchy to recover, and once he did, he spotted a large flying warship heading towards the base! It was still pretty far away, but the Hurricane caught up to it quickly. "Now how am I going to get in there?" Punchy wondered aloud. Before he could think of an idea, the Hurricane crashed into the front of the warship, smashing through a few walls and finally finding himself inside the gigantic warship! Punchy dizzily hopped out of the plane. "I wish I knew how to fly that thing... I could've been spared that... at least it worked..." The Hurricane was really beaten up, and it turned around on its own to fly out of the warship! "Was it supposed to do that?" Punchy muttered, realizing that it wouldn't be easy to escape the warship when this was over. To make matters worse, Punchy's crash caused an "intruder alert" alarm to start screeching throughout the warship. "I better find the power supply fast!" Punchy thought. So, he began exploring the ship.

It was a difficult journey, as GUN had employed an army of androids that beared a striking resemblance to Copter. They fought similarly to Copter as well, except they were rather fond of firing missiles out of their tails! Punchy decided that it would be easier to simply avoid the missiles and let the androids tear the ship apart, but that plan wasn't working out well. So he took cover by running into a hallway, which was too small a space for the androids to follow in large numbers. He dashed through the maze-like halls until he ran out of hallway. He found himself in an area with several bridges extending across the underside of the ship. As such, there was no floor under the bridges. Worse, several of the androids had followed Punchy there. "That does it!" he thought. "I'll just have to make them stop following me!"

Punchy turned to face the androids running after him. As they got closer, they suddenly started getting knocked off the bridge by a fast-moving object! "What the heck? What's going on here?" Punchy thought as he clobbered the one android that managed to get through. Suddenly, the object rushed toward Punchy, and he braced himself for the impact...

But nothing happened. Punchy lowered his guard and noticed Charmy hovering in the air in front of him. "All right!" Charmy said excitedly. "We sure showed them, huh, Knuckles?" Punchy growled at the bee who had just mistaken him for his nemesis. "I'm NOT Knuckles!" Charmy flew around him and chuckled. "C'mon, Knuckles! That disguise is so lame! Green fur dye kinda makes you stick out more, too." Punchy opened his mouth to protest, but Charmy wasn't finished. "By the way, didja know there's an intruder aboard the ship? Those Experiment Androids probably thought you were the bad guy with that makeup on. Robots are so dumb!" Punchy, remembering how useful Charmy had been fighting the robots, decided to take advantage of this turn of events. "Right! That's what I was doing! Searching for that intruder! I'll show him! You want to help me, kid?" Punchy said, trying to mimic Knuckles's voice as he spoke. Charmy found the voice acting hilarious. "OK, OK! Just don't talk with that silly voice the whole way. I can't take it. Hehehe... It makes you sound even dumber than usual, Knuckles!" Punchy looked away from Charmy and rolled his eyes. "I'm gonna go nuts if he keeps calling me Knuckles..." he thought.

Punchy and Charmy continued across the bridge. On the other side, Sargent Gunner had arrived, and almost walked past Punchy and Charmy, but stopped suddenly and turned back around. "You're not an android... You're the punk who stole our Chaos Emerald!" he shouted as he suddenly realized it. Punchy and Charmy turned around, and Punchy felt he would explode. "Not you again! Shouldn't you be retiring somewhere by now, gramps!?" Punchy growled. Gunner did not like the remark about his age. "I'm not so old! I'm just about as old as Dr. Eggman!" Charmy then broke out laughing. "You look old enough to be his grandpa!" Gunner glared furiously at the two youngsters. "You won't be laughing when I finally eliminate you furry freaks once and for all! You intruders won't get far here. We've been upgraded to maximum security! Our new androids based on Experiment 2 are everywhere! You'll never get our Chaos Emerald this time!" Punchy and Charmy glanced at each other, then at Gunner. "Chaos Emerald?!" they both said, surprised. "That's right!" Gunner continued, "I don't think you'd want to take it anyway. It just so happens to be powering our ship's engines! If you take it, we'll crash, and we'll all die!" Punchy grinned menacingly at him. "Really? How convenient. I'll take it!" Gunner's eyes went wide, and his voice quivered from the shock of what this meant to him. "You fiends! Just you wait! When I get back, I'll destroy you all!" Gunner then ran away towards the front of the ship in a panicky fasion. "That's it, Gunner! Run away to your escape pod! Don't bother me!" Punchy said. Charmy watched the old sargent run across the bridge. "Wow, he runs fast for his age. He's nuts, too. Mistaking us for bad guys. Still, I bet the real bad guys are after the Chaos Emerald! We gotta get there before they do, Knuckles!" Punchy agreed, continuing his lies to the trusting kid.

As they continued toward the engine room to the warship, it began looking more and more like one of Dr. Eggman's battle ships in a more military style. Punchy and Charmy continued as stealthily as possible, so that the many turrets positioned throughout the ship wouldn't target them. 

"The engine room is just a little bit further." Charmy finally said. "I was exploring this ship ever since it took off, so I know the way! You can count on me, Knuckles!" Punchy had enough of being called Knuckles. "SHUT UP!!" he shouted. Big mistake. The turrets suddenly pointed right at him, alerting the androids at the same time. "Oh, shoot..." Punchy whimpered. The turrets let loose with a hurricane of bullets, forcing Punchy and Charmy to make a mad dash for the engine room, which was blocked by androids. The androids didn't faze them at all, though, as they simply pushed past them, allowing the shots from the turrets to deal with them. "Artificial intelligence, my foot!" Punchy shouted back as the two of them continued their run for the door. Charmy reached the door before Punchy and shut it behind him when he got through. Luckily, the doors were bulletproof. "About time you got here, Charmy!" came a voice in the room.

They had reached the engine room. The main engine was in the back of the room, and inserted in a slot attatched to it was the pink Chaos Emerald! Vector and Espio were standing near the emerald. It was Vector who had spoken when they entered the room. Charmy flew over to his friends and smiled excitedly. "Sorry I'm late, Vector, but I had to help Knuckles get in here because that sargent guy thought he was an intruder!" Vector and Espio looked over Charmy's companion, and both their jaws dropped at Charmy's mistake. "That's not Knuckles, Charmy!" Espio shouted. Punchy nodded. "That's right. I'm NOT Knuckles! I HATE Knuckles!" Vector pointed an accusing finger at Punchy. "I bet you're the intruder after the Chaos Emerald!" Punchy clapped his hands. "Nothing escapes you, croc boy! Now, get out of my way!" Vector stepped aside. "Be my guest, but you'll be sorry! That emerald's powering the engines!"
"Who cares!" Punchy said. "It's my job to stop this ship, anyway!"
Vector gave Espio a worried look. "Should we do something?" he wondered. Espio shrugged. "It's not our job to keep this ship in the air." Charmy suddenly took on a panicked look as he remembered something. "The ship! It's on auto pilot! I noticed while I was exploring! There's no one flying this thing!" Vector and Espio gasped with alarm, and Vector took charge right away. "All right! I'll land this thing! Follow me, team!" he said, starting to head out the door.
"You don't know the way." Espio pointed out.
"Oh, right..." Vector said sheepishly. "Charmy, lead the way!"
"OK..." Charmy said. "But we better be careful! Those gun turrets are nasty!"

As Team Chaotix rushed out of the engine room, Punchy turned his attention to the Chaos Emerald. Suddenly, he heard a voice behind him. "Don't touch that yet!" Punchy stomped his foot and turned around. "Interruptions, interruptions! Why can't everyone leave me alone!?"
"Nice to see you, too, Dark One." said Illusi, who was the owner of the voice. Punchy sneered at the shrew. "Stop calling me that! I'm no dark one! I'm just... me..." he sounded somewhat unsure as he spoke the last word. Illusi chuckled at him. "Oh, really? Are you now? I do believe you need a wake up call, and I'm just the one to give it to you!" Illusi called forth an illusion of Knuckles. "I can show you just who you are..." he said, "Many seem to think you are this guy, but that's not quite true, is it? Half true, maybe..." Punchy hurled his fist at the illusion, which vanished before he hit it. "That's enough out of you!" Punchy snarled. "I don't need you to tell me who I am! I'll shut you up once and for all!!"

To be continued...