SONIC STRIKEFORCE

Based on the series created by

Yuji Naka, Sonic Team, SEGA, et al.


Story 1

"SONIC GOES METAL"

Act 1

"Sonic and the Freedom Fighters"


[Opening titles: "Invincible" by Tomoyo Ohtani / Sonic the Hedgehog 2006]

xxx

Bark the Polar Bear lowered his night-vision binoculars.

"All right," he said, "the boys are in position. They're just waiting for the signal. Ray, how long?"

Ray was a diminutive flying squirrel with bright yellow fur. He was sitting in the back of the van, buried up to his waist in cables and surrounded by machines. A laptop was open across his folded legs. He did not look up. "One sec, Bark. Looks like Robotnet's received a new patch update. I need to adapt to the new security system. Trying to find a backdoor past the encryptions."

"So are we in trouble?" Bark growled. "Should I radio the others to get out before they're seen?"

"Nope," said Ray. He tapped, 'enter,' and the laptop emitted a gentle beeping tone. "I'm in. Hazelnuts, baby. Hazelnuts." He did a little wavy dance with his arms, then went back to typing. "The Badniks in the facility are controlled by a transmitter at the top. Short-range. They're not meant to go any further than the outer grounds. I'm going to confuse their orders, clear the way to the cells. I can send them all to the eastern wing and get them to turn their guns on each other."

"No," said Bark. "Send them, fine, but there are people inside."

"It'll only be a matter of time until they realise what's happened," said Ray. "The system will notice an error eventually. They'll be back, and they'll be mad. We should take them out. Make the job easier for all of us."

"And what if we'd made the same decision when you were in the same position?" Bark asked, then before he could register Ray's fallen expression, returned to the matter at hand. "Can you deactivate them?"

"Not without shutting off life support," said the squirrel, "but give me a few minutes and I might have a present for them. Little something I've been working on the past couple of days."

"Fine," said Bark. He depressed the transmit switch on his walkie-talkie. "White to Blue, do you copy? Over."

"Orange to White," came the response. "Blue's kind of occupied. Over."

Bark cursed under his breath. He should have expected this. His second-in-command was pathologically incapable of awaiting his signal. He probably had a note from his psychiatrist about it somewhere at headquarters.

"White to Orange," he said, "what's your status? Over."

"Orange to White. We're inside. Badniks spotted us. Only a handful. The rest seem to have abandoned their posts. Yellow's work? Over."

"White to Orange, that's an affirmative. Continue as planned. Already contacted Brown, she's holding her position in Freebird. Over."

"Copy that. Anything else?"

"That's it. Keep in touch. Out."

Bark picked up his binoculars again.

xxx

Miles Prower watched in awe as the Badniks fell in half, sliced apart by the whirling blade that was boomeranging through the hallway. He had seen the display plenty of times by now, but it always amazed him. Dazed Mobian victims writhed in the remains of their broken metal shells, and once he was able to wave the stars out of his eyes, Prower set to the benign task of helping them to the door. The path they had taken this far in was cleared. The freed prisoners could hide until they were rescued. The blade stopped at the point where the hall crossed over with an adjacent one, turned, and rolled back towards him. It came to a stop, changing instantly from being merely a shape to a figure. One with huge, streamlined quills down its back, blazing green eyes, and lips that constantly curled into an arrogant smirk. Prower reported the last conversation to him.

"Well, I didn't see any more malingerers," said the blue blur. "In future we should tell Ray not to bother. It's not as fun this way. Let's have the layout again, Tails."

"Right, Sonic," replied the younger animal, pulling a folded sheet of paper from the thick brush of one of his curiously twinned tails. He opened the sheet and pointed to an image on it. "We're here in the west sector. Ground floor. We want basement two. That's where the prisoners are kept. Basement one is the plant itself, where they're processed. Lifts are here, here and here." He tapped three points on the map.

"Let's go, then," said Sonic, turning again and heading onwards. "I want to sort this out and get to Ace's before it shuts."

Tails sighed, stowed the map away, and followed him. With Ray sending who knew how many confusing signals to keep the Badniks off-kilter, it was embarrassingly easy to reach the lifts. Sonic was gifted with a kind of athleticism that defied logic, but he held himself back just enough to trip the targeting sensors in the security cameras, and while their attention was fixed on his vapour trail, Tails went to work with a pair of wire cutters, killing the video feeds. Before too long, they had blinded the sector, plunging the already disarrayed robotic staff into even further chaos. They found the lift doors all locked down, but Sonic promptly sliced them wide open with a spin of his quills, and down they went. They landed on the roof of the lift, which had stopped halfway between basement levels.

"This isn't a problem," said Tails. "I mean, you can cut through this, right? We can bypass the plant and go right down to the cells using the shaft."

"Sure," replied Sonic. "I'll do that, but you go ahead. I'll be hanging back for a bit."

"What?"

"I said I wasn't having enough fun, didn't I?"

"You also said you wanted to get the job done quick so you could go to Ace's."

"Yeah," Sonic nodded, "but I want to make it worth it. Gotta build up the old hunger a bit."

Tails gawped at him. Sonic grinned in response, and with near-supernatural control that defied Tails' understanding of the laws of physics, cut open more holes in the roof and floor of the lift, then he primed himself like a pistol on the doors of basement level one. "Go on, then," he said. "Get a shift on. Don't worry, I'll catch up to you."

xxx

Ray swore.

"What's the matter?" asked Bark.

"I got cut off," the squirrel reported.

"What do you mean you got cut off? The system found you already?"

"What? Mobius, no. It's this shoddy wired set-up. Connection's dropped. I need to re-establish it before I can finish what I'm doing," said Ray, talking and checking plugs and cables almost as quickly as the blue hedgehog moved. "You know we should dip into our bank account and see if we can't at least get ourselves a decent nutting Wi-Fi router in here. Needs less gear so it wouldn't be so cramped in the back."

"Hey, can you focus just for a second, Ray?" Bark growled. "Is the security grid going to do something like seal them inside and electrify the floors?"

"Not yet. I'm giving the signal some extra juice, so I should be able to get back in before they go into total emergency lockdown," Ray grumbled. "The Badniks, though, they might be a problem. The admin computer that streams commands to them is separate from security. Robotnet's irritating that way. Instead of one big cyber-brain running the place, it's more like a cluster of little brains. Now I've been removed from the equation temporarily, it'll reboot in diagnostic mode and the Badniks will reset to their default operating parameters until it's finished."

"Can you say that in terms I understand, Ray?" Bark sighed, exasperated.

"The 'bots know the lads aren't where I put them. They'll spread out and go hunting. It's nuts. They should be equipped with some kind of safe mode for when the collar's taken off them. It's almost a routine practise!"

"Since when did Ivo Robotnik care about anyone's safety?" said Bark, and he jammed the switch on his walkie-talkie so hard it almost broke. "White to Blue and Orange, we're experiencing a setback. Take cover and wait for us to fix it. Blue and Orange, do you copy?"

xxx

Sonic did not copy. He was too occupied with what awaited him when he emerged from the lift shaft. No less than a dozen robots, in all manner of outlandish shapes and colour schemes, rolled and floated and crawled towards him from either end of the hallway. He braced himself, knees bent, arms pulled in tight and crooked at the elbows, fists clenched.

"Priority alpha-one: hedgehog, confirmed," said one Badnik, lifting its particle emitter gun. "Orders to capture on sight." The other machines began chorusing the statement, charging their own respective weapons and tightening their targeting reticules on the hedgehog.

"Yeah, we're not gonna do that," Sonic replied, matter-of-factly. "What we're gonna do is…" He opted not to finish the sentence. Instead, he bounced into the air and curled into a ball. His quills seemed to stiffen and harden, fuse together and turn him into a large, blue morning star. Tongues of cyan energy rolled off him and leapt into the air, exploding like tiny fireworks and forcing the robots to leap about to avoid them. Those who were unlucky would be the first to fall. "Sonic Homing Attack!" the hedgehog cried, voice distorted by his rapid rotation, and slammed into the face of the first Badnik with the force of a meteorite. The machine crumpled, its face concave, and accidentally fired off a shot that struck a second Badnik across the shoulder, severing its arm.

Sonic took note of the brutal intensity of the blast. He was confident he could move faster than they could shoot, even in the confines of the hall, but it meant he would have to maintain his current speed until they were all down. Luckily, he was well practised. Inertia meant nothing to him. He zeroed in on the second Badnik, knocking it over, then went on to the rest, weaving through their laser-fire, and soon no less than five Badniks were reduced to piles of smoking scrap metal. He uncurled and dropped to the floor to avoid intercepting shots from the seventh, eighth and ninth Badniks. Tightly condensed waves of blue excess energy rushed out to either side of him, denting the walls with ashy silhouette stains. The remaining Badniks, the sixth through twelfth, surrounded him, guns humming with energy.

"Surrender," said the sixth, who seemed to have taken over initiative since the defeat of the first. "Our orders dictate that you may be taken alive to His Imminent Genius in custody. You are not required to die."

"If, 'His Imminent Genius,' wants me," the hedgehog replied, "then he can peel himself out of his chair and come get me himself!" His hand went to the belt he was wearing, upon which was a set of three switches from left to right, and in order, blue, yellow and red. He ran his thumb over the yellow switch. "Lightning Shield on!" he declared, and his entire body, from his spike-tips to his shoes, was engulfed in a bubble of coursing electricity. Gold and silver tendrils of power curled and waved between him and the machines. Laser-bolts bounced off the force-field as Sonic propelled a super-charged fist into the chin of the nearest Badnik, then hopped into the air to knock down the next with a flying kick. The force-field lasted only a few moments, but it was ample enough time for the hedgehog to throw off the robots, the last of whom fell under each other's blasts. Within each evil machine was a black, egg-shaped container, and Sonic sliced them open, releasing the animals trapped inside.

That was when Sonic copied.

"This is Blue," he said into the walkie, "I had my hands full for a few secs. What was that, White? Over."

"Ray got cut off," crackled Bark's voice, "but he's working to get back in. Sounds like you've already seen the results first-hand." A muffled second voice said something. "He's reconnected," said White, "but the encryptions have changed. Camera link shows there's a group waiting at the door. Nothing on the prison floor yet, but there could be-"

"Too long, no time, White," Sonic interrupted. "If any Badniks reach the prison, Tails and anyone he gets out can handle them. You can meet the ones I'm sending up at the doors. Put those big old ham-hands of yours to use, okay?"

"What? And what are you planning to do in the meantime?" asked Bark.

"Going to find the place's computer-brain and fry it."

"Sonic, wait!" Bark protested. "Stick to the plan!"

xxx

Bark snarled and crushed the walkie.

"Reckless…" he muttered. "How long, Ray?"

"One, maybe two layers of encryption to go, and I'll be back in control," said Ray.

"You already broke the encryptions," said Bark. "Shouldn't that part be easy?"

"It's changed. Must be part of the new patch. I'll have it again in little under a minute."

"Better be," said the polar bear, and opened the door of the van.

"Where are you going?"

"You heard the hedgehog. He's sending more up through the front. I'm going to clear the way. Radio Freebird. I want the prisoners aboard as soon as they're out." He headed across the street, all the time growling about how Sonic's decision to cause as much destruction as possible would alert exactly the people they wanted to avoid. Whether or not Ray could block any outgoing electronic signals, it would definitely be noticed when something smack-dab in the middle of the Metropolis Zone went boom. Things often did when Sonic decided to work outside the lines, and Bark mentally kicked himself for even imagining the renegade's involvement could go any way resembling agreeable.

A Badnik was waiting in the doorway with its back to him. One of the newer models, he guessed. It was egg-shaped, with spindly limbs and a domed head that could twist three-hundred-and-sixty degrees. Beady, red eyes peered out. It carried a double-handed light-rifle. The Eggrobo emitted a beeping tone and turned around, and three more identical machines appeared beside it.

"Priority alpha-two: polar bear identified," it spoke. "Orders are immediate destruction. Do not take into custody."

"If you tin cans are going to shoot someone," Bark sneered, charging at full tilt towards them like an uncontrollable juggernaut, "then shoot them! Don't talk about it!" Laser-bolts singed his fur. Bark might have been slow compared to Sonic, but he was big, he was tough, and when he was mad, he did not notice pain so much. He charged on through the assault, wrapped his arms around the first Eggrobo, and cracked it open. He hurled the remains into the second, knocking away its rifle. He then grabbed its wrists, tore its arms out of their sockets and jammed them through the machine's face. He finished that one off with a kick to the chest. Bark was growling the whole time, and released a ferocious roar as he turned his sights on the third robot. It squeezed off a shot, and the laser burnt through Bark's thick shoulder. Bark ripped its eyes out seconds after. It began to fire wildly, as if in panic. The polar bear hit the ground, his fur smoking, but not out of the fight. He clamped his fists around the robot's ankles and hauled them out from under it. The Eggrobo crashed onto its back, and ripped it apart up the middle, spilling its sticky, sickly sweet-smelling internal fluid in every direction. He was about to look for the fourth, when agony coursed throughout his entire body. The final Eggrobo had taken advantage of his prone position to activate its internal jet-pack and take to the air, giving it a perfect shot to unfurl an electrified net that now pinned the bear and the three animals released from inside its fellows. It was now hovering lower, eyes glistening wickedly. Bark felt the cold barrel of the weapon press against his skull, felt the heat building, heard the whirr and click as the robot prepared to incinerate his brains. He tried to move, but the net had attacked his nervous system, paralysing him.

"Preparing to execute," the Eggrobo said, but then, it did not. Bark opened his eyes, and saw the machine's eyes cross as it blasted its own head open.

"Like I said," Bark murmured, "don't talk about it."

Ray came running with a pair of pliers and rubber gloves on, and he cut the net open.

"Holy Mobius, Bark," the flying squirrel gasped as he did a quick inspection of his friend's injuries, "we need to get you out of here."

"I'm fine, I've had worse," the polar bear grunted. "Did you get back in?"

"Every 'bot from here down to the first basement," said Ray. "Might be a few left down in second, but I think I've got most of them."

Bark looked at the remains of the fourth Eggrobo, and breathed a sigh of relief. The animal it was using as a battery was dazed, but alive.

"I got them to shoot out their own processors," Ray explained. "Wasn't easy, I had to rewrite a lot of programs in less than a heartbeat, but I did it."

"This is why I keep you 'round, Rayjay," Bark managed a pained grin. "Freebird?"

"On her way from exit-point position," said Ray. "S.P.'s up and ready for us."

"Great," said Bark, and he got to his feet. "If that means we don't have to worry about the Badniks anymore, I'm going to check the ground floor for the animals locked inside them."

Ray stared at him like he had just fallen out of a tree. "You're out of your tree, man!" he yelped shrilly. "You've got holes in you, and you smell like you should be on a plate with chips and salad garnish! You'll collapse any second!"

"Thanks, man, good to know I have your confidence," Bark fumed. "Just shut up and do it. And before you start worrying about me, worry about what I'll do to Sonic for going off the plan."

xxx

The building in which the Badnik processing plant was housed was not completely flat on top. Positioned in the dead centre of the roof was a tower that made the building look as if it had been impaled on an enormous needle. There was a satellite array installed around the perimeter of the topmost floor, used by His Imminent Genius to maintain communications with the computer-brain that ran the facility's operations. That was the idea, anyway.

Tails felt something about this whole operation was off, especially when one of the prisoners on the second basement level pointed out a key-pad on the wall that opened all the cells at once. The place was wholly automated, so there would be no need for analogue interaction of any kind, right? He should bring that up with the team, but now he was by himself, and being depended on to get the freed prisoners to the surface. Tails, of course, would never, ever, ever even dream of letting Sonic or the others down, so just to be on the safe side, he appointed some of the former prisoners to act as rear guard.

One of them, a rabbit, tore a length of pipe off a wall to use as a weapon, while another, a pig, readied himself with a small laser-pistol Tails had taken from a destroyed Badnik. Tails never was any good with the wretched things anyway; he had just taken it on impulse. It was better off with another animal.

"All right, people," he said after a quick head-count (twenty, not including himself), "follow me and stay close. My friends will definitely keep the Badniks away, so the path's going to be clear."

"Follow you?" someone snorted. "Look, we appreciate you getting us out, but you're like what, eight?"

"I'm fourteen!" Tails snapped indignantly, adjusting the jaunty beret he had brought along to make him look more roguish. "In three months," he added as an aside.

"Sorry, is that how they say thanks where you're from?" someone else asked the questioner. Tails looked up and saw the grey and white rabbit, who was almost nose-to-nose with an uppity squirrel. "You're free to wait back here for an adult if that's how you want it, mate, but anyone who fancies getting out is doing so because of this kid." He turned his clever, heavy-lidded eyes to their rescuer. "What's your name?"

"Everyone calls me Tails," said Tails.

"Johnny Lightfoot," the rabbit replied, "and I owe you my life, Tails."

"Come on, let's go," said Tails, feeling his confidence return.

xxx

Sonic did not allow those concerns to hold him back. Instead, he focussed on how to follow through with his bravado now that he had started down this path. He did not think about how Bark would get on his case about it, either. He was moving up the tower with such speed that if anyone possessed eyes that were superhuman enough to keep up with him, his body would look like it was hovering over a rapidly spinning figure-eight. The muscles in his slender legs were bunched tight like bundles of wires, carrying him up and up faster than the best-oiled machines, cycling incredible energy to rival the power grid of any one of the Metropolis Zone's great urban blocks. His surroundings were little more than blurs of flickering colours, and at this velocity it was only his instincts that kept him from smashing into something or somebody. In the early days, circumstances, and the likelihood of running face-first into them, had turned him into an itching ball of nerves, but now he could not imagine himself moving at a normal pace. He was Sonic the Hedgehog, and he was too cool for accidents, too cool for caution, too cool for normal.

Sonic skidded to a halt in front of a set of sliding double-doors, and just like before, a wave of blue excess energy shot out of him and dented them open. Squeezing through the gap, he went to the centre of the room and looked around him. He was on a grated, metal catwalk without safety rails, and the room around it was perfectly spherical, like one of those stunt-cages he had seen at a circus. It was illuminated by the lights of countless fluctuating monitors. He spotted no consoles, no power sockets or cables, just screens from top to bottom, and one other thing. A few feet in front of him along the catwalk was a huddled figure with two white horns curling out of its head.

"I take it you're the boss of this level?" the hedgehog sneered. The figure rose. He was a head or so taller than Sonic, dressed in a black outfit with lines of glowing trim. Armour plating was attached in a number of places so he looked more machine than animal, and silver cables trailed up from a pack on the back of his waist to his shoulder-blades.

"You could say that," said the figure in a low, flat voice. "The name's Dread Metal. You would be?"

"Sonic," the hedgehog replied, going into a dramatic pose, "the Hedgehog! I'm the fastest thing alive!"

"Sonic. I was expecting something more than a little boy," Dread Metal sighed, sounding genuinely disappointed. "Whatever. I'll have to settle on money for old rope."

"You're a mercenary," said Sonic. "Old walrus-chops must be getting desperate if he's started out-sourcing goons. 'Course, no robot he's ever made can match me. Too much going on up here." He tapped the side of his head with two fingers.

"Hardly," said Dread Metal, and that was that. The mercenary reached behind him and withdrew a long-nosed gun, which clicked into place on his right shoulder. The cross-hairs in his visor zeroed in on the hedgehog, but Sonic was already gone. Dread Metal felt the impact in his stomach before he saw the flash of blue, but he was made of sterner stuff than the average thug and stood his ground.

"Equaliser: hot shot mode," he said, and a thin plasma-bar on the side of the gun turned red. He pulled the trigger, and a gout of flames emerged from the weapon. Sonic could easily dodge the attack, but Dread Metal surprised him. The creature he initially took to just be an ordinary Mobian in a suit began to twirl in the middle. His feet remained grounded, but everything above his waist, including the weapon, was now swivelling around and around, becoming a cyclone of deadly heat. The hedgehog pressed the red button on his belt.

"Fire Shield on!" he gave the vocal command, and a column of swirling crimson appeared, separating him from the awful flames by inches. The stream passed over him harmlessly, and he jumped into the air above Dread Metal. The shield dissipated just as he brought down his foot in an axe-kick on his opponent's skull. Dread Metal stumbled and the attack tapered out. Sonic dealt him another kick, a roundhouse to the back. The mercenary's top half twisted and he caught the hedgehog's leg in one gauntlet-clad paw. Sonic cried out in surprise as he was hurled into the wall and rolled down to the bottom, stunned.

He recovered his senses just in time to roll out of the way as Dread Metal's feet slammed into the floor beside him. The plasma screens of the monitors under and around the mercenary rippled from the impact. He managed a glancing blow on the hedgehog's arm, and Sonic guessed from the pain he felt that it would bruise nicely under his fur. The strike knocked off his balance, and he had to change his course to avoid tripping over his own feet. Dread Metal watched as Sonic zipped this way and that, circling the chamber. They traded blows for the next few minutes, Sonic's being numerous and random due to his speed, landing them before Dread Metal could conceivably defend himself, but the mercenary's, though fewer, were harsher, and he refused to be moved from his spot. A signal reached Dread Metal through the metal headset he wore, and he pulled back his fist as Sonic rushed straight towards him.

Time stood still as the opponents clashed. Sonic's fist crumpled Dread Metal's visor, sending cracks across its surface until it shattered, then pushed through to the forehead underneath. The mercenary's gauntleted paw unfurled two short, studded claws, cutting through the skin of the hedgehog's stomach. Both warriors, their expressions twisted in pain, stopped, and a blue energy burst hurled them apart. Dread Metal did not get up, and though dazed, Sonic could tell that their fight had taken its toll on their arena. Screens were fizzling, blacking out, melting, exploding, or a combination of all four. The fire would engulf the place soon enough. He may not have found the brainy gear, but it looked like he had done his job. He had to give the unconscious Dread Metal credit. He had been a challenge. It would be nice to go toe-to-toe with him again in the future. Holding one hand over his bleeding stomach, he staggered over to the mercenary. The acrid smoke in the air stung his eyes and throat.

"Hey," he choked out. No response. Sonic grimaced and tried to pull Dread Metal along by his horns, but he must have weighed at least a tonne! The walkie-talkie in his jacket pocket buzzed.

"Orange to Blue!" it crackled. "Orange to Blue, do you copy? Blue!"

"Easy, Orange, I'm here," he said. "What's going on? Over."

"We've got everyone out," said Tails. "Brown's here with Freebird, but we can't leave without you! What's going on? Over."

"Just making sure this place is out of commission permanently," said Sonic. A screen above his head erupted outwards. "I think I'm done. I'll be with you in two secs. Over and out." He stuffed the talkie back in his pocket and turned back to where he had left Dread Metal. He was gone. Sonic's eyes widened, then he squeezed them shut again as the smoke irritated them. No time to dwell on it. He needed to juice.

xxx

Freebird was the call-sign for a small V.T.O.L. airship cannibalised from a dozen salvaged transport vessels. She was primarily dark green in colour, with four wings, elaborately finned twinned horizontal stabilisers, and a bubble canopy over the cockpit. She was hovering over the street outside the facility, as the escapees scrambled up the rope ladder that had been unfurled for them. Her pilot, and the genius who created her, was a certain Greasy Monkey, one of the first to join Bark the Polar Bear's Freedom Fighter cell. She had made the machine her pet project, as a way for the team to evacuate larger amounts of Mobian civilians. Although it was close to full capacity already, it was an improvement over their old methods, and it was her sincerest hope to eventually oversee the construction of many vehicles that would allow the myriad resistance cells spread out across the planet to even the playing field. Once the last escapee was aboard, Greasy radioed the van.

"You boys ready to make tracks? Over," she asked.

"Take off ahead, Brown," replied Tails. The fox had taken over the steering wheel while Ray applied first-aid to Bark's injuries. "We'll confirm Blue's exit and follow you from the ground. Over."

"Copy, but I wouldn't worry about waiting," said Greasy. The hedgehog dashed out of the plant milliseconds before it vanished in a plume of hellfire. The Freedom Fighters were ready to move out, however the explosion did not go unnoticed. A few streets away, Badnik police units gave chase. Eggrobos with their jet-packs deployed, accompanied by star-shaped Asterons, insectoid Buzzbombers and spherical Orbinauts pursued Freebird in the air, while mantid Slicers, uni-wheeled Motobugs and crustacean Shellcrackers poured out of the alleyways to ensnare the van. Sonic eagerly smashed his way past these latter groups, clearing the path for his friends, while up above, Johnny Lightfoot, the pig, Porker Lewis, and two or three others used laser-line throwers to pick off the airborne robots.

"Sonic!" Bark called out of the van's front passenger window, before ripping off the face-plate of a Badnik that got too close and let it go careening blindly into two more. "Get a shift on! Make sure the Star Post is fully charged up! I don't want to have to wait in line with this lot when we get to it!"

"I already planned on it!" Sonic retorted, and disappeared in a blue pulse. Heart racing, legs pumping, head tilted forward, arms pulled back behind him, fists clenched, he tore towards the zone's warehouse district, where the security was under routine maintenance and down for several hours, allowing the Freedom Fighters to utilise it as their exit-point. Situated in the middle of a vacant lot between two of the warehouses was the Star Post, a silver pole with a thicker base that coned outwards lower to the ground, topped with a red orb marked with a jet black circle on opposite sides of its surface. Sonic approached the pole, then began to run in circles around it. Each circumvolution sent blue sparks along the ground and into the Star Post. Tendrils of light cracked and clapped inside the red orb, and white stars appeared within the black circles. Again and again he went, until the stars glowed brightly enough to illuminate the lot, and the surrounding streets. Sonic could spy the van and the airship approaching. The pole extended upwards to three times its original height, and tiny particles whizzed about inside the orb. The stars were dazzling to behold. The van tyres screeched towards him. The airship's motors roared overhead. The Badniks buzzed and hollered in outrage. Weapons screamed.

The light dissipated, and the Mobians were safe, enveloped by the peaceful eskers and sleepy meadows of the Green Hill Zone, many miles away from danger. Sonic breathed a sigh of relief, not that there was any doubt mind you, then he checked his watch and realised Ace's would be shutting in two minutes.

"See you later!" he yelled to nobody in particular, and he was gone.