It's mah birthday, lalalalala... ^_^

Chapter 11: The Fall of the Shellnaught

On the way to Aevias, the Jackrabbits were forced to run slightly slower than usual, to allow Lt. Indigo and Splitter to keep up. However, even at their slightly decreased speed, they reached Aevias’ Ground Point, a single, small building, in a moderately short time.
Jazz looked up. There, hovering above them, was the majestic floating city Aevias. From below, it looked like a round, dark grey disk, striped around the sides and through the center by black anti-grav strips. From the side, it would look like a large platform, with hundreds of buildings resting on top. There was also an invisible air shield surrounding the city, to keep its residents unaffected by the low-pressure air around the city. Aevias rivaled two other cities in size; namely, Carrotus City and the Myriad Metropolis. However, anyone who had never seen Aevias before would swear that it was the largest city on the planet. Or rather, off the planet.
Jazz pondered this as he followed the others into the small building that was the Ground Point. Inside was a single room, and at the center of the room was a large teleportal, shimmering with light. Jazz had seen the portal before, but it never ceased to amaze him. Numerous control panels ringed the outside of the room, but the rabbits didn’t bother with them; they weren’t teleporting anything out of the ordinary up to the city. Nevertheless, Jazz watched Spaz, then Splitter, run full speed into the portal, leaving ripples in the iridescent surface. As he followed suit, charging into the portal, he felt the signature pull on his center of gravity as he blinked out of existence…

Jazz reappeared on all fours in a larger room. The faint hum from below indicated that he had indeed reached Aevias, and was listening to the anti-gravity generators beneath him. As he stood up and dusted himself off, he noticed Spaz watching Splitter rummaging through some filing cabinets on the other side of the room. He was about to say something, when Lori fell out of the teleportal, right on top of him.
Jazz was not impressed. “Das-blammit, Lori, would you stop doing that?!”
“Um… oops?” Lori grinned awkwardly. Spaz tried as hard as he could to keep from laughing, and was about to pop when Splitter pulled a small device out of the filing cabinet, and held it up triumphantly.
Spaz was first to ask what it was. “What is it?”
Lori hopped off of her brother, and Jazz stood up, only to be flattened again as Indigo chose that exact moment to come through the portal. Jazz simply lay on the ground, shaking his head resignedly.
Spaz repeated his question. “So what is it?”
“This is an input/output carrier signal disruptor. Used to pinpoint anyone’s exact location on the planet.”
At this point, Jazz, still pinned under Indigo, brightened up. “Ooo, like the one they used in the Matrix?”
“Yes, except this one’s hardware, not software,” Splitter replied, as he pressed a few keys on the device. He stared at the results in awe.
“I don’t believe it. She’s still here.”
“Who is? Who’s still here?”
But Splitter had already left, running at top speed, chunnering away to himself. Spaz glanced at Indigo, then tore away after Splitter. Jazz was immediately up on his feet, and he and Lori were gone before Indigo even hit the floor. Which left the Lieutenant sitting on the floor, scratching his head blankly.

Elsewhere, Jack was flying as fast as his BIAS could, and had been doing so for the last half hour. He was heading towards Tank’s battleship, or where it was before, and he was intent on taking the imposing juggernaut out of the sky for good.
Meanwhile, Blaze and Acid were in freefall after being blown out of the side of the airship, and were falling dangerously rapidly toward the ground.
There seemed to be a red haze around Jack’s airborne self, and his peripheral vision was clouded in redness. It took him a few seconds to notice the pair of falling bodies before and below him.
As soon as he did, his mission changed. Instead of continuing towards the airship, he dove downwards to the two falling rabbits. He didn’t notice it, but the red haze around his field of vision had disappeared.
At first, Blaze had seen a fiery streak crossing the sky above, and had mistaken it for a guided missile, headed for the airship. However, when the fiery streak turned in his and Acid’s direction, Blaze knew there was something very wrong. He instantly did the first and only thing he could think to do.
He opened fire.
Luckily, Jack’s outstanding skill with his BIAS paid off. Also, fortunately for Jack, Blaze had lost his shades, and the black rabbit’s gold-coloured eyes were having mild difficulty adjusting to the flare from the BIAS’s boosters against the dark dusk sky. Jack rapidly dodged side to side, avoiding Blaze’s blaster shots. As he got closer, Blaze recognized his target, and would have kicked himself for shooting at his own comrade had he not been in a more precarious situation.
Jack flew into a steep drop alongside Blaze, and released the BIAS’s boosters. They were now face-to-face, upside-down, and falling fast. Jack’s blue eyes seemed to bore deep into Blaze, and the spy rabbit couldn’t tear his gaze away.
Suddenly, after staring Blaze in the eye for a while, Jack broke into a fit of laughter. Blaze looked at Jack strangely, and when the latter’s mirth generally subsided, asked, “What’s so funny?”
Still smiling, as if it were some private joke, Jack admitted, “I don’t know. What I do know is that if you and that other rabbit don’t get out of this freefall soon, you’ll be rabbit pancakes. So…”
He spun around, so that he was still upside down, but facing away from Blaze. “Grab on.”
Blaze did obediently as he was told, holding on tight to Jack’s shoulders, and was immediately rewarded with not falling off as Jack gunned the jets and flew over towards Acid.
The green rabbit was flipping backwards as he fell through the air, and he was still unconscious from the blast of his own missile. Jack had to time his approach just right, or risk accidentally getting Acid’s foot in his face. All at once, he slowed down for a moment, then sped up again to perfect his timing.
The speed drop worked perfectly, and Jack was able to grab Acid’s limp form by the wrists. Once he had a good grip on Acid’s wrists, he reverted himself in a quick forward roll. As Jack slowed their descent, there was a resounding boom overhead. Jack and Blaze looked upwards simultaneously, and watched as Tank’s airship tipped forward, a spiral of smoke trailing from its tail end. An enormous explosion rocked the airship, and Jack smiled, red eyes gleaming, as it completely lost its stern end.
Suddenly, a bright white beam shot out of the top of what remained of the airship. The beam shot away into space, almost directly above the airborne rabbits. A few seconds later, the beam faded from view, and as it did, the remainder of the great Shellnaught exploded in a gigantic fireball.
Jack, Blaze, and Acid landed amid a cloud of dust. Jack peered up into the sky, and said calmly, “Well, that takes care of that.”

From her high-speed airboard, Headcheese had seen the bright flare streaking across the sky, turning, going out, and returning again, but going much slower. She had also seen the Shellnaught lose its back half, and then emit the bright beam into space. Then the final, gargantuan explosion ripped through the dark sky. Headcheese had to shield her eyes, and as she did, she lost control of her airboard. The unsteady airboard wobbled back and forth behind her, propelling her side-to-side crazily. She knew a crash at that speed would be fatal.
If it wasn’t one thing, it was another thing popping up in front of her, and she had to frantically waver sideways to avoid smashing head on into one of the things while just as frantically try as best she could to slow down. It wasn’t working.
Finally, the nose of her airboard hit a rock. While the airboard stopped, Headcheese didn’t, and she dove forward, now completely unable to stop herself from crashing into anything. She shut her eyes, and braced for impact with something… anything…
Surprisingly, the impact wasn’t as lethal as she had thought it to be. While her obstacle wasn’t the softest thing around, it was definitely enough to stop her without killing her. In fact, she felt it give almost before she had made full contact with it. When she stopped, and opened her eyes, one saw white fur, and the other saw night sky.
“Um… Headcheese…?”
Headcheese looked up. There, above her, was her brother’s face, staring back down at her. It took her a second to realize that she was sitting on top of Jack. She scrambled off of him, and he stood up and brushed himself off. Blaze was sitting nearby, chuckling. Amazingly, Acid was still out cold.
Just then, Wizard and Firefox skidded to a halt nearby in the blue superbike. The top panel slid open, and Firefox hopped out. He turned around, and yelled back into it, “I still think it’s fort-ay!”
He turned back, and, noticing Headcheese, simply said to Jack, “Heya. I guess she found you before we did.”
“Guess so. I kinda noticed when she crashed into me.” Jack smiled, rubbing his midriff ruefully.
There was a short silence, then Firefox continued. “Well, I see that you’ve taken care of the airship well enough…”
“That was Acid,” Blaze said. “Not intentional, but it worked.” He smiled.
“Acid?” Wizard's head poked out from the open top of the bike. “As in the Acid that this belongs to?”
As soon as Wizard produced the rocket launcher from the bike, Acid was on his feet, and he reclaimed it at about the speed of sound. Firefox was lost for words as Acid hugged his weapon like a child who had just found his favourite toy.
“Okay…”

Got me upgraded computer! Woowoo!

Best of all... JJ2 runs at 70FPS! YAAAAAAAAAAA! *trips and falls down the stairs*