Mario and Sonic: Heroes Unite!

Chapter 63: The New Machine!

Neo Prison Island, inside G.U.N lobby

"...so that's why we came here to rescue Donkey Kong." Sonic said as he finished explaining why he and Mario had broken into Neo Prison Island.

He, along with Mario, Donkey Kong, Shadow and Rouge, were inside the main lobby of G.U.N's lobby. It had been after Mario broke Donkey Kong out of the laboratory. Sonic had finished explaining his reason on why they were on the island. He took the liberty to explain his disappearance from their world to backup his claim.

"That's a lot more detail than I was expecting," Rouge said as she thought over everything that Sonic had just said. It all made sense to her now. It explained why the Chaos Emeralds had disappeared. Why Sonic and his friends seemed to have been erased off the face of the planet. Why Mario and his friends started popping out of no where.

"So, you're saying, in the other world, you made friendly with these two guys?" Shadow said, staring at both Mario and Donkey Kong. "I guess our world is top-notch compared to their 'mushroomy' world."

"Hey! Our world is-a just different than yours!" Mario explained, taking a little offense to Shadow's comment. "There's-a nothing wrong with that."

"Keep telling that to yourself." Shadow said confidently, crossing his arms.

"Hey, no need to bash against them, Shadow," Sonic told him. "If it weren't for them, I'd still probably be stuck in their world having no clue on what to do." Shadow simply rolled his eyes at him.

"Anyway, I have no interest on what their world is about," Shadow said. "What does is what happened to the Chaos Emeralds. You're telling me that Metal Sonic was behind all this?"

"Yeah," Sonic nodded. "You see, Metal Sonic stole the Chaos Emeralds from our world, including the Master Emerald and the Jeweled Scepter, and took them to Mario's world. His friends have some sort of ability to open up a portal to this 'Negative Dimension' or something like that,using the artifacts."

"And your telling me Metal Sonic said this?" Shadow asked. Sonic shrugged, saying that the robot told all that to Mario and he was just restating it. "Hmph! I doubt these two have extraordinary powers. They look like normal, boring creatures."

"I oughta clobber you for saying that!" Donkey Kong growled at him. Shadow gave him a dirty look. The gorilla had the urge to punch Shadow out, but Mario stopped him from doing so.

"Aww, come on Shadow. Don't be so mean to them." Rouge said. She was never the one to defend others, but this problem was related to jewels. "I think we owe them a little apology for giving them an inconvenience."

"Hmph, whatever." Shadow said, tilting his head away from Mario and Donkey Kong. Rouge ended up apologizing for both of them.

"Anyway, we were wondering if you could explain to the government of this whole misunderstanding with Donkey Kong." Sonic asked Rouge.

"Fine. I guess I can try to butter them up." Rouge said. "I don't know how they'll respond when I tell them this ape is just another harmless animal that came from another world." She walked out of the base and turned on her radio device to explain the government about their situation.

"I'm assuming Metal Sonic is our biggest threat right now." Shadow said to Sonic. "You told me the doctor is gone in the other world, right? Good riddance to him."

"Great, now that you know everything, you think you can help us with finding Mario's friends then?" Sonic asked.

"Maybe. I'll keep an eye out, but it won't be anything on my top priority list." Shadow explained. "But, I will definitely look for the Chaos Emeralds. I don't want that damn robot to become any stronger than I am."

"Speaking of Chaos Emeralds, mind if we have the one you have?" Sonic asked. He pointed to Mario. "A friend of his desperately needs it. She's in a coma right now, and only the power of two Chaos Emeralds are need to wake her. We already have one and we just need yours."

"No."

"What?"

"She doesn't pertain to my interest in any way necessary." Shadow explained. "Your friend has nothing of importance to me, so I have no reason to help them. If you want another Chaos Emerald, find another one yourself. You have no idea how much trouble I went through just to get this one."

"But we really need the emerald. My friend's whole life depends on it." Mario begged.

"Sorry pal, but you're outta luck right now." Shadow told him off. He gave the plumber one last stare before exiting the base to meet Rouge. All Mario could feel at the moment was anger towards Shadow.

"What's his problem? Does he even have a heart?" Donkey Kong complained. "They guy wouldn't know what a good deed was if it'd hit in in the face."

"Shadow is just...self-contained," Sonic tried to explain to them. "He really only does favors for others if he gets something in return or seems really important to him."

Mario clenched his fists. He was disgusted by Shadow's behaviour. Not even Wario was that cruel, to not do a favor that depends on someone's life. Mario wondered if Shadow ever cared about anyone other than himself, but it wasn't in his interest either to know.

"Come on guys," Mario said as he walked out of the base. "the others are waiting for us back home. We don't want to worry them."

Emerald Town, Tails' House

"I am...so bored." Yoshi yawned to himself.

It was about night time and the dinosaur was lying down on the couch in Tails' living room. The television was turned on to the food channel, but Yoshi was not interested in watching it anymore. He watched almost more than 10 hours of food related shows that he grew bored of it.

"I wonder when we'll get to go adventuring again." Yoshi said to himself. It had been almost a full day of no adventuring for Yoshi. He longed for excitement. He wasn't going to get it by sitting on the couch all day.

Suddenly, the doorbell rang. A surprised Yoshi fell off the couch and quickly got up. Wondering who it was, Yoshi rsn downstairs and opened the door. zto his delight, he was greeted by Mario, Sonic and Donkey Kong.

"Hey! You guys are back!" Yoshi exclaimed. When he saw Donkey Kong, his face lit up in happiness. "Donkey Kong! You're okay!"

"Hey dino bro! It's been awhile since I've seen you!" Donkey Kong exclaimed as well. He went up to Yoshi and gave him a big gorilla hug.

"How was it being trapped inside a government prison?" Yoshi asked. Donkey Kong explained to him how cramped it was inside the glass tubes and also how they'd never feed you anything. "That sounds terrible! Hold on, I think Tails has some extra food in the fridge. He just went grocery shopping today after he and Knuckles finished with the aircraft and bought a whole ton of food."

"Wait, Tails and Knuckles are already finished building the aircraft?" Sonic asked the dinosaur.

"Yeah, they finished about an hour ago before you guys showed up." Yoshi explained. "They doing a few small tweaks, but overall, they're done the body and engine. You should go downstairs and see it. It's really cool!"

Yoshi led them downstairs into the Launch Tunnel where the new aircraft was being held. It was still covered in the large blanket. Tails and Knuckles were putting away their tools on the wall.

"Hey! You guys are back!" Tails waved to them. "And hey, you rescued Donkey Kong as well! I knew you guys could do it!"

"Hmph, it looks like you didn't need my help after all," Knuckles said, congratulating them. "Nice going you two. Never shoulda doubted you the second you guys left."

"You doubted me and Mario?" Sonic asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Uhm...yeah..that's not important right now." Knuckles tried to assure him, giving a nervous grin. "What we should get out of this is that Donkey Kong is safe with us!"

"Boy! And am I really glad to see you guys again!" Donkey Kong exclaimed, giving the two yet another one of his gorilla hug. It seemed like the gorilla would give a hug to anyone nowadays.

"Anyway, it seems like you guys are finished building our new aircraft." Sonic said, pointing to the blanketed machine. "Mind giving us the big reveal?"

"Of course!" Tails nodded to them. He motioned Knuckles to tear off the blanket off the aircraft. "May I introduce you our bigger, powerful and faster aircraft: the Star Fighter!"

Knuckles ripped the blanket off. The others could only stare in awe at the sight of the aircraft. First off, the aircraft was a painted golden-yellow. It had a sleek design of a jet plane. The whole body of the aircraft was large, almost over 60-feet wide. There were two triangle shaped wings that stuck from the back. The rudder had two bars attaching to each wing. The thrusters were fixed under each wing. Behind the front window of the aircraft were two parts that were shaped like fox ears. The front of the aircraft had a long, sharp point.

"I've never seen anything like this before!" Mario gasped in amazement. "Mamamia! You guys did a fantastic job on the plane!"

"I told you it would look cool, am I right?" Yoshi asked the others. Donkey Kong nodded to him. The gorilla slowly walked up to the aircraft and touched the underside of it, making sure it was real.

"Hey! Don't get your hands on it!" Knuckles shouted, slapping Donkey Kong's hand away. "We worked really hard on this! I don't want you to mess up our hard work already!"

"Calm down, Knuckles." Tails told him. "I wouldn't be worried about the aircraft. It's made out of indestructible titanium after all, remember?" Knuckles nodded to him, but still warned Donkey Kong not to

"I have to say, this may be your best work yet, buddy." Sonic complimented, patting Tails on the shoulder. "So, what kind of super cool name did you give it?"

"I call it, the Star Fighter." Tails announced. "Or S-Fighter, for short." Mario asked him why he named it that. "Well you see, while we were building the aircraft, Knuckles had asked me what would power up the plane. After thinking about it, I remembered a little gift Mario and his friends gave us back in their world."

Tails went up to his workbench and took out the Power Star their friends had given them right before leaving. "The Power Star will power up the entire plane. And since it possesses great power, it should have no problem powering up all the engines of the S-Fighter."

"That's a good idea!" Mario exclaimed. He smiled. "I'm-a glad our gift to you was much more useful than expected. What does the Power Star help power up anyway?"

"Well, for starters," Tails began. "it allows the S-Fighter to fly at incredible speeds without the need of large amounts of energy. Also, it powers up the weaponry installed on the plane, such as the missiles, guns, lasers and even the shield."

"I want to know how comfy it is flying in that thing." Donkey Kong asked. "Yeah sure, you have all that special equipment with you, but does it have suitable resting quarters that, you know, fit me?"

"Don't worry about that, the plane has plenty of room to relax inside." Tails assured them. "The S-Fighter was built to possess both the comfort of a private jet and the power of a jet fighter. There are rooms where you can sleep in, watch movies and even eat inside!"

"Sounds good to me!" Yoshi said happily. "I want to fly in the S-Fighter right away! When are we going to hunt for another Chaos Emerald already? I'm pumped for adventure!"

"Oh yeah! That reminds me," Tails said. He went back to his workbench and took out his Miles Electric. Behind the gadget was a slot where the Red Chaos Emerald was placed into. "I just finished upgrading the Emerald Radar. With it, we can see the locations of all the Chaos Emeralds around the planet."

"You never cease to amaze us with your genius intellect, Tails." Sonic said, this time giving Tails a high-five. "We should check to see where the rest of the Chaos Emeralds are."

The heroes grouped around the Miles Electric to see what the Emerald Radar would tell them. An image of Sonic's planet appeared on screen. Coordinates of all seven Chaos Emeralds appeared on screen. The Red Chaos Emerald was, obviously, with them on Westside Island. The Green Chaos Emerald, which was with Shadow, appeared to be nearing the continent of Holoska. The Blue and Purple Chaos Emeralds were surprisingly together and were moving towards Chun-nan, which was also the location of the Cyan Chaos Emerald. The Yellow Chaos Emerald was somewhere on Shamar, while the White Chaos Emerald was on the same continent as Empire City.

"This is great!" Mario exclaimed. "We can see where all the Chaos Emeralds are! This is really going to help us on the long run. If only I had this kind of technology for when I was searching for the Power Stars."

"Which Chaos Emerald should we go after first?" Knuckles asked the others. "There are so many choices."

"Why don't we go after the one in Chun-nan?" Sonic suggested. He pointed out that both the Blue and Purple Chaos Emeralds were moving towards the same location, which also had the Cyan Chaos Emerald. Thinking that something was fishy, Sonic wanted them to go there first. If he was right, they could snag the three Chaos Emeralds at the same time.

"That seems like a good idea." Yoshi said. "It's like taking all of the food from a buffet table before anyone else can."

"What does that have to do with anything?" Knuckles asked. Yoshi simply looked back and shook his head in disappointment.

Just then, the telephone rang upstairs. Tails rushed up to answer it, then came back down with the phone in hand. "Sonic! It's for you."

Puzzled of who called, Sonic grabbed the phone and answered it. To his surprise, it was Amy. She had called after finding out Sonic infiltrated G.U.N's base. "Sonic! Are you alright?" Her voice had a worried tone to it.

"Oh, hey Amy. I'm fine." Sonic assured her. "Why'd you call?"

"I just wanted to check on you." Amy told him. "I just saw the news report on television about you attacking G.U.N's base."

"Don't worry Ames, I'm fine. I can easily take out anything with my speed. What do you expect from me? " Sonic joked with her. His quirky remark made Amy angry.

"Sonic! You're not being serious! This is no time for jokes! I was genuinely worried about you! Do you know how dangerous it is to break into the military?" Surprised by her reaction, Sonic apologized to her. Amy quickly calmed down. "Anyway, mind explaining to me why you had to break into G.U.N's base?"

"Well, you see, we had to pick up a little friend of ours." Sonic explained to her what happened to Donkey Kong. How he was captured by Shadow and Rouge and was brought into the base in captivity so they could do tests on him. Luckily, Mario and Sonic came in for the rescue.

"That sounds terrible." Amy said, horrified to think Donkey Kong had gone through such a terrifying and unexpected event. "Is Donkey Kong okay?"

"Don't worry, he's better than ever." Sonic said. He looked back to see Donkey Kong giving Yoshi and Tails a ride on his back. "Speaking of our friends, how is Blaze? Is she feeling any better?"

"She's doing fine. In fact, I think she'll be back to her normal strength by tomorrow." Amy suddenly paused and sighed. Sonic asked her what was wrong. "You see, I just realized we haven't been able to spend time together for the last couple of weeks. I sort of missed being around you. And our friends."

Sonic figured out what she was talking about. Ever since he and the others were going around the world on epic adventures, she was stuck at home with Cream. For once, Sonic was thinking about what Amy was going through. If it was him in that situation, he would've been bored out of his mind.

"Hey listen, I have an idea." Sonic began. "You see, Tails and Knuckles took the time to build us a new aircraft for us to fly around in. Tomorrow we're going to Chun-nan to find a few more Chaos Emeralds. I was wondering...you interested in coming along with us?"

Amy was overjoyed to hear his request. Of course, she said yes to him. Sonic asked her if she could bring Cream and Blaze along with them, saying they could use their help and it would be a lot more fun with them around.

So it was planned that the heroes would venture to Chun-nan in hopes of finding the Cyan Chaos Emerald there and supposedly the Blue and Purple Chaos Emeralds. With the team they had with them, they were determined to complete their mission.

Eggman's Secret Headquarters, Hanger Room

The hanger room was located near the upper levels of the headquarters. It house the many destroyed machines of Eggman, which were used to try and defeat Sonic. Of course, due to their broken state, it was obvious they had no chance against the hedgehog.

Right now, Orbot was in the room, waiting for Cubot to come up. He had called him after he found an interesting machine of Eggman's. Coming up with an idea, Orbot wanted to show Cubot and explain the plan he'd come up with.

"I'm here Orbot!" Cubot said as he hovered into the room and waved at him. "What was it that you wanted me to come up for?"

"Come here, Cubot. I want you to see this." Orbot motioned him to come forward. He led them to the corner of the hanger room. There, was a large hovercraft of Eggman's. The main body of the machine was in a diamond shape and it was where the cockpit was located in. The wings were shaped in sharp and bent, giving the whole hovercraft the shape of a boomerang. The wings were colored red, while the cockpit was grey.

"What is that? I've never seen that machine before." Cubot asked.

"Remember right before Eggman had disappeared, he was working on his new machine." Orbot explained. He pointed at the hovercraft. "This is what he was working on. It is called the Egg Boomerang."

"That's cool!" Cubot exclaimed. He hovered up to the Egg Boomerang for a closer look. "So what do you have in mind with this thing?"

"I'm thinking we could use it to help in our capture for the one who might have caused Eggman's disappearance. That plumber fellow, Mario." Orbot told him. "Eggman had already finished building the machine and only needed a power source. Luckily, we have one." Orbot showed the Yellow Chaos Emerald in his hand.

"Do you think we'll be able to do this ourselves?" Cubot asked. "I mean, we were never programmed to fly a plane."

Orbot hovered up to the cockpit of the Egg Boomerang and opened it, climbing inside and taking the wheel. "It cannot be that hard. I'm sure that anyone can learn how to fly a plane. Even if it's their first time."

.

..

...

To be continued!

The heroes now have a new aircraft at their disposal: the Star Fighter! And now that they know where the rest of the Chaos Emeralds are, the real question is: will they be able to retrieve them all? And will Orbot and Cubot's new hovercraft be able to catch Mario? Tune in next week for the next chapter of Mario and Sonic: Heroes Unite!

A/N: I kind of rushed the ending for this chapter. I was procrastinating too much this week and forgot about finishing this chapter, so I'm sorry if the writing isn't that good near the end.

The design of the ship is based off the picture I found on the internet. For a much better image than my lousy descriptive skills can offer, search up "Lockheed Martin Private Jet" on google and look at the second image. That's what the Star Fighter is supposed to look like. I chose that design because of the way those two edges on top of the plane reminded me of fox ears, which makes sense since Tails built the plane. With Knuckles, of course.

I remembered about the Power Star that Mario and his friends gave to Sonic back in Chapter 45: Goodbye Forever? I wanted to put some use into that Power Star and finally found a way to add it in the story. Hope you guys liked the twist!

Thanks for reading this week's chapter and for supporting me all this time. I wouldn't be doing this if it weren't for you guys. Please leave a review if you have the time to, as I like reading what you guys have to say. Bye for now! :D

-Azurixx

~I do not own any Mario or Sonic related material. They belong to both Nintendo and Sega, respectively~