Author's Note: Oh hi there people. This is just something I decided to do out of the blue. I just beat Sonic Rush again the other day and figured I could possibly do a novelization of it. This is going to be my interpretation of the story, but I'll try to stay as accurate to the actual game as possible. So, let's get on with the show. Might as well put in the disclaimer first, though.
I don't own Sonic the Hedgehog and all characters and related content; they belong to Sega.
Chapter 1: Stranger from a Different Dimension
A light flashed in a mountainous region in the south. From the light came a lone figure which landed hard on the ground. The figure picked itself up after a while and began to look around.
"Ugh," the figure started, feeling very woozy from landing so hard on the ground. If anyone were around to see, they would see that the figure appeared to be a lavender and white cat with a red jewel on its forehead and fur tied back by a red hairband. The cat wore a royal purple robe with red trim and a yellow collar. The robe cut off just below the midriff but extended down to the middle of the legs at the sides and back. The sleeves had rough-looking frills. On the cat's feet were magenta and white heels, confirming the cat was female. The shoes also had rough-looking frills at the top. She wore plain white gloves to complete her outfit. Her amber eyes looked as though they could burn you to cinders with just one look. She shook her head to try and get rid of the dizzy feeling. Once she had righted herself, she took in her surroundings. There were nothing but mountains as far as the eye could see. Suddenly, she realized something.
"Uh oh! What's this?" she said to herself, clearly startled about something. To her, the air didn't feel right, and she could tell something was amiss. "What's happened to me?" She shook her head again and began to walk around, seeing if she could find a way down from the mountains. While she was looking out over the horizon, a sudden realization dawned on her. She gasped as she realized she was missing something. "The Sol Emeralds!" she stated in shock. "My world will be in trouble without them!" The light that had flashed when she dropped from the sky was apparently a dimensional warp that brought her from her world to this strange new one. This robed stranger was Blaze the Cat: princess of her realm and Guardian of the Sol Emeralds. The Sol Emeralds contained great power that held her world together. Blaze attempted to calm down after finding out that the Sol Emeralds had gone missing, mentally backtracking to see if she could find out what happened to them. "Hmm... that mustached old man..." she wondered aloud. "Did he... yes, he did, didn't he? How did he obtain the Sol Emeralds? Wait a minute... I remember now... I followed him. Then, I got engulfed by a pure white light." She wandered a little, finding her way down the mountains. "But, where am I?" she wondered. "Am I in... a different dimension?" She shook her head, dismissing her thoughts. "It shouldn't matter now. I have to locate the Sol Emeralds!" She began to pick up some speed as she left the mountainous region. "I've got to recover them. Otherwise, my world will be in grave danger." She stopped abruptly, thinking things over. "I should probably look for some clues first," she told herself, knowing that she wouldn't be able to find the emeralds if she didn't have a lead first. She had been walking for a while now, and it was nearing nightfall. "I ought to find some place to shelter myself for the night soon" she said to herself. After walking for a little while longer, she came across some civilization. Neon lights lit up the night sky and loud noises filled the air. 'Hmm... seems like we've got a city that never sleeps here,' Blaze thought. 'This might be a good place to start.' Blaze entered the city and began looking around for anything that might lead her to a Sol Emerald. She didn't have much luck, though. The civilians all either gave her a strange look or knew nothing of the Sol Emeralds. A few helpful individuals pointed her to the city's main attraction: an area known as Night Carnival. Some of the locals had seen a mustached man piloting a small aircraft go into the Night Carnival. Something clicked when Blaze heard that, so she raced into Night Carnival, flames literally trailing behind her. She hoped nobody would bring that up, though; she had an inherent power over fire. Entering Night Carnival, she steeled herself and prepared to dash through the neon lights of the crazy carnival-like zone.
Lights flashed on and off as Blaze ran along a straight stretch of road through Night Carnival. A small trail of flames burned in Blaze's wake.
"Ok, so, I need to find that mustached man," Blaze muttered to herself. "According to the people I talked to, he only recently went through, so I should guess he'd still be here." As she muttered to herself, the ground sloped downwards suddenly and she almost lost her footing. "Whoa!" she yelped. She regained her balance quickly, though, and ran at a breakneck pace down the slope. As she neared the bottom of the slope, her speed picked up even more and the trail of flames behind her intensified. Coming up quickly, though, was an extremely steep incline that led straight into a loop-de-loop. Blaze almost stopped when she saw this, but pressed on and attempted to traverse it. As she began to make the climb, she felt a sudden increase in her running speed. She didn't have the time to look back, though, as she quickly sped through the loop-de-loop. She braked to a halt afterward and saw that a dash panel had propelled her through the loop-de-loop. "Ok, now I know that whenever I feel an unnatural speed boost, it's most likely one of those things," she noted. Turning back around, she took off again and hit another dash panel that propelled her upwards into a trapeze that sent her swinging through the air. Blaze was surprised at first, but recovered and began shifting her momentum to get the trapeze to swing. At the peak of the swing, she leaped off, twisting around as she jumped and coating herself in fire. She had basically patented this move, and she called it the Axel Jump. She landed and took off again at top speed. The next obstacle in her way was a rail she could grind on. Setting her feet, she jumped onto the rail. While grinding, she began switching her stance and performing some simple tricks. After that, she jumped off of the rail and began running again, speeding through another loop-de-loop and launching off of a ramp. As she sailed through the air, she began performing some acrobatics, kicking out and twisting her body around. Power began to well up inside her as she performed these acrobatics, and she wondered what it was. Landing on the next stretch of road, she lost none of her speed and ran straight over a small drop. Dropping down, she landed on a green button that set off a trail of neon green lights over a large pit in from of her. Instincts kicked in and Blaze jumped onto the lights, which were moving of their own accord. She picked up some golden rings along the way, wondering what their purpose was. At the end of the light bridge, she saw a bat-like robot flying in the air. "What is that thing?" she wondered out loud. The bat robot noticed her and attempted to dive-bomb her. Blaze jumped out of the way and attempted to land on top of the robot. The minute Blaze's feet made contact with the robot, it exploded in a cloud of smoke. Nuts and bolts flew everywhere and a small animal dropped from the wreckage. Blaze froze for a moment. "What is this? Small animals in machines? That's inhumane! What sick man would do this?" Disgusted by this, she took off again. She sped through more loop-de-loops and swung from another trapeze before coming across another robot. This time, the robot looked rather generic. It was green, somewhat egg-shaped, and bounced around an a pogo stick. Blaze twisted her body around, coating herself in fire, and ran into the robot, destroying it and freeing another small animal. She then hit what looked like a star surrounded by four red lines and she felt more power well up inside her. "What is this power I'm feeling?" she wondered. "I guess I'd better test it out." She faced the direction she came from and tapped into the power she felt. Suddenly, she rocketed to the edge of the straightaway, stopping herself before she fell off. "Wow!" Blaze said to herself, breathless. "So, that was an instantaneous speed boost." She turned back around and saw a strange contraption with a handle at the bottom. She tapped into the power again and rocketed towards the contraption. As she grabbed the handle, the contraption began twisting around while moving forward. When the contraption reached the end of its path, it stuck in an upright position and launched Blaze forward. Blaze noted to herself that she could use this speed boost power to move along very quickly. She continued on, pressing buttons to cross light bridges or light up rails that were otherwise unable to be traversed, destroying robots, speeding through loop-de-loops, collecting more rings, and bouncing off springs and chargeable spring devices. At one point, she ran into a box with a power-up inside, and she felt more power well up. The ground sloped and she picked up speed. She had only just started running, though, when she heard a loud thud behind her. She quickly looked behind her a saw a massive, pink, metal ball rolling down the slope. Blaze panicked and activated her speed boost power to run away from the massive ball. "Oh no! If that thing catches me, I'll be crushed!" she said to herself, panic clear in her voice. As she rocketed down the slope, covered in a burning aura of flames, the ball got ever closer. Just as the ball appeared to catch up with her, Blaze launched off of a spring and into a rainbow-colored hoop that propelled her onto a straight stretch of road while the ball simply fell into a seemingly bottomless pit. For the rest of this section of Night Carnival, she sped through more loop-de-loops, destroyed more robots, swung from more trapezes, crossed more light bridges, and jumped to a few platforms. Eventually, she reached the end of the area, which was marked by a giant ring with a star in the center. As she passed it, the ring began to spin and the star turned into a hand making the 'peace' sign. Blaze ran right over a large drop that took her to the second section of the zone. It was filled with many of the same things as the first area, so Blaze decided this would be the best time to look around for the Sol Emeralds. As she crossed light bridges and rode more rails, she looked around the bright cityscape for any signs of the emeralds. She was unsuccessful, however. The Sol Emeralds were nowhere to be found. For the rest of the zone, Blaze simply took in the surroundings. Bright neon lights flashed constantly and loud noises could be heard in the distance. Blaze couldn't take much more of it as it was starting to give her a headache. "Of all the places to start looking for the Sol Emeralds, it had to be in a city that never sleeps, didn't it?" she muttered. She continued onward, avoiding three more giant metal balls in the process. One ball came dangerously close to flattening Blaze, and she breathed a sigh of relief when she successfully outran it. "That was too close" she said to herself. The rest of the way bored her, though, since it was the same as in the previous area. She reached the end of the second area in good time and passed another large ring. She arrived at a circular area with a machine resting in the hole in the middle. "What could that be?" she wondered.
Inside the machine sat a very large, egg-shaped man with a brown mustache and shaded spectacles. He had goggles on the top of his head and wore what seemed like a large red lab coat zipped up by a large white zipper. The coat had yellow and white squares and lines on it. The man also wore black pants and black boots with white zippers down the middle. He twiddled his mustache while he sat in his machine waiting for something to entertain him. This man was the renowned mad scientist Dr. Ivo Robotnik, commonly known as Dr. Eggman or simply Eggman. Something caught Eggman's attention and he sat up in his seat to see what it was. He saw a lavender and white cat wearing a purple robe standing on the circular platform his machine was resting in the center of. "Eh?" Eggman wondered. The cat began talking.
"Hey you! You mustached old man!" Blaze called out. ""I've finally found you!" It dawned on Eggman that he had seen this cat once before.
"Ah, that cat girl I saw when I made that small visit," Eggman stated in surprise. He shook his head a little and calmed down. He then chuckled to himself. "Ha ha ha, I'm surprised you came to this world to find me," he said, now with an evil grin on his face. Blaze's eyes narrowed a little.
'He said "this world"... As I suspected, this is another world!' Blaze thought. She regained her composure and called out to Eggman again. "Return the Sol Emeralds!" she shouted. She mumbled the next line to herself. "They must return to my world, otherwise..." Eggman began laughing.
"Mwa ha ha. HA HA HA! You mean these pretty little things?" he taunted as he showed Blaze a brightly shining, rectangular red gem. Blaze froze in surprise. "HA HA HA! They are the key. They are my means to the ultimate power! Now scat, cat! MWA HA HA HA HA!" Eggman laughed. Blaze glared at Eggman.
"Hmm, it seems you like to play with fire,: she said as a smirk broke across her face. "Well, let me light up your fingers, then!"
"You'll be regretting those words once I'm through with you!" Eggman growled. He pressed a few buttons and his machine whirred to life. The machine was designed similarly to a crane, but Eggman's cockpit was lifted high up into the air. On the opposite end was a large metal ball with a few spikes on it. The ball was coated with a field of electricity. Rings were scattered around the circular platform. Blaze quickly collected three rings before Eggman's machine began moving. The crane machine simply went in circles counterclockwise in an attempt to hit Blaze with the electricity-coated ball. Occasionally, the ball would shoot a bolt of electricity to the ground. Blaze had the reflexes to dodge these bolts easily. When the ball lost it's electricity field, Blaze tried jumping into it to see what it would do. She figured that since no other part of the machine was close to the floor, the ball had to do something. She hit the ball forcefully and it shot up into the air, bringing the cockpit down to the floor. The machine slowed down almost to a halt. Blaze headed straight for the cockpit and jumped into the glass windshield, dealing a decent amount of damage to it. "You!" Eggman yelped. He growled and brought the cockpit back up into the sky, lowering the ball again, but this time, a small caterpillar-like robot on wheels dropped with it.
"Hmph, just another useless robot," Blaze said. She jumped on top of the robot, destroying it, but upon contact, she was launched into the air as if the robot were a spring. She dropped back down to the ground just before the cockpit of the machine passed by. "All right, I've got this figured out," she said to herself. "The cockpit is the weak point. Hitting the ball when the electric field is down will bring the cockpit to the ground, then I can hit it. As for those robots, I think I can time my jump to launch off of them and connect with the cockpit as it passes overhead." Having put two and two together, Blaze simply smirked at Eggman.
"Huh? What are you smirking about?" Eggman shouted.
"Nothing, just that I've got your machine figured out," Blaze retorted. The ball came back around and shot more bolts of electricity. Blaze was caught off guard and took a hit. "Ugh!" Blaze grunted. The three rings she had collected scattered when she was hit. "Huh," she started. "So, those rings protect me when I get hit. Good to know." She picked up three more rings and waited to attack the ball again. When the ball came back around, the electric field was down, so Blaze jumped into it, bringing the cockpit back down. She raced over to the cockpit and jumped into the glass windshield again.
"Ow!" Eggman yelled. "I'm going to get you for this!" He brought the cockpit back up and dropped another caterpillar robot. Blaze smirked and jumped on the robot, propelling herself into the air and destroying the robot. Just as she reached the peak of the propelled jump, the cockpit of Eggman's machine passed by. Using the fire coating her, Blaze kicked the cockpit's glass windshield.
"Gah!You little...!" Eggman shouted at Blaze. The cat dropped back to the ground. Eggman was getting frustrated, so he sped up the machine. Blaze kept her cool, however, and continued to attack when the ball's electric field lowered. After three more successful blows to the cockpit, Eggman began to really get angry. "Argh! You're not gonna get away with this!" he growled. The machine sped up even more and the ball's electric field stayed up for much longer. Blaze was now hard pressed to hit the ball. She took a few hits from the bolts of electricity, but she managed to recover her rings. She hit the ball again, bringing the cockpit back down to the ground and she kicked it. Eggman was slamming his fists on the controls now. "Gah! How am I losing to this little cat?" he shouted. The machine dropped a caterpillar robot, but before Blaze could jump on it, Eggman brought the ball down a little lower. As it passed by, it struck Blaze.
"Ow!" Blaze yelped. Her rings scattered. She scrambled to recover her rings, narrowly avoiding another hit by the ball. Once she recovered her rings, she jumped on the caterpillar robot, launching herself into the air. Just as the cockpit passed by, Blaze glared at Eggman as she lashed out with a powerful, flame-coated kick. The cockpit's glass windshield broke and the controls were destroyed. The machine began to malfunction.
"What? No! This can't be!" Eggman shouted. He ejected his personal aircraft, the Eggmobile, from the cockpit just as the machine exploded. "Argh! How did I lose?" he complained. Blaze landed and called out to Eggman.
"Now, if you return the emeralds quietly, I won't need to raise any more flames," she called out. Eggman simply harrumphed.
"Your little parlor tricks don't impress me," he said rudely. "The emeralds are mine!" He turned the Eggmobile around and attempted to get away.
"Hmph, don't be such a poor loser!" Blaze taunted. She set herself for a large jump. As Eggman tried to get away, Blaze jumped right at the Eggmobile, twisting her body and coating herself in flames. "Give me back... the Sol Emeralds!" she yelled, kicking the Eggmobile. Eggman was jarred almost out of his seat, and he dropped the red Sol Emerald.
"Gah! No! The emerald!" he said as the emerald dropped towards Blaze. "Grrrrr... you'll regret this!" he shouted as the Eggmobile flew off into the distance, out of control.
"Hmph," Blaze started. She snatched the falling Sol Emerald out of the air. "First emerald retrieved," she said as she tossed the emerald in her right hand. "Maybe he'll learn to never get on my bad side." With the first Sol Emerald in hand, she found her way out of Night Carnival. "Now, where should I go next?" she wondered. There were still six Sol Emeralds to find, and Blaze didn't know where to look next. Dawn was beginning to break on the horizon. "Guess I'd better get going," Blaze said to herself. "I've still got six emeralds to find, and I probably don't have much time. I must find the Sol Emeralds, otherwise, my world is in deep trouble.."
And that's the opening chapter. I decided to simply follow Blaze's story for this chapter since her story begins a whole zone before Sonic's story begins. The next chapter and all future chapters will switch between Blaze's and Sonic's stories. So, in case you weren't already aware, Blaze has come to a strange new world after following Dr. Eggman through a bright white light after the mad scientist stole the Sol Emeralds from Blaze's world. Going into Night Carnival, she locates Eggman and defeats one of his machines, recovering a Sol Emerald in the process. Next time, Blaze continues her search for the Sol Emeralds and meets a new 'friend', while Sonic starts his quest to stop Eggman... but, is it really Eggman he's set out to stop? All that next time!
Until then, MasterFreezeman, signing out.