This is my take on a pilot episode for the Sonic SatAM cartoon.

Part 1

Through the green-tinted stratosphere of the small, formerly peaceful planet called Mobius, the birds-eye view of a humongous mechanized city emerged, with tall, pod-shaped buildings, chemical plants, and smoke-topped, fully powered factories stretching well beyond what one could see. Between each large building and structure, intimidating patrol hovercraft flew, and on the ground, robots and Mobian people alike walked. Only for the robots, many were working to transport cargo, manage power circuit boards, direct traffic, or perform a daily grind at the factories. Most of the Mobians were in their own world, roaming carefree or doing jobs for entertainment rather than for the city itself.

Along the skywalk linking a small structure to the city's core – an egg-shaped facility – a shadowy figure lumbered. It was Dr. Robotnik.

Face hidden, Robotnik stopped in the middle of the skywalk and turned to look out of the polygonal glass, down to where his robots were working on the ground level. He had a small chicken robot perched on his left robotic arm, which was looking outside as well.

"Hmm," he thought aloud, reaching up to stroke his mustache. The chicken robot glanced up at him.

"Everything seems to be going according to schedule. Don't you agree, O' Cluck?"

The chicken robot clucked in agreement. She returned to looking outside as the doctor turned and lumbered onward.

Inside the base of his secure control center at the dumping chute level, Robotnik stepped past the worker bots stationed there at wall circuit panels, waving to him without any acknowledgement, and over to his beloved revolving chair, which he promptly slumped into. "Activate all online monitors," he sent as a voice command to the mainframe computer. He pressed a series of buttons, elevating his chair up to his inner control sanctum. Once his chair reached the sanctum's floor, he revolved it around to face his array of mainframe monitor screens and keyboard control interface. The screens immediately turned on in his presence, and he began leaning in, eyeing the different regions of Mobius intensely. Cluck hopped from his arm to the top of his shoulder as he folded his hands.

Suddenly Snively burst through the main security door on the other side of the sanctum and came rushing across the walkway with loads of papers in his arms, panting all the while. He wheezed as he slowed down to approach Robotnik, who frowned at the sound of his nephew.

"Good day, Dr. Robotnik!" Snively commenced as he tried to regain his breath. "How are you feeling this morning?"

Robotnik answered that question in his own way. "You're three and a half seconds late, Snively."

"Sorry Sir, I got a hang-up on the surveillance system before sunrise and had to make some emergency adjustments. Those blasted maintenance bots weren't calibrating the sensory programs and I – "

"I don't want to hear excuses. I want… results." Robotnik drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair.

"Well, yes, I… I have the problem reports right here documenting what went wrong." With that Snively held out the papers. "H-have a look for yourself."

Robotnik turned his chair around and snatched the papers from Snively's hands. One or two of them drifted to the floor. He held them close to his red eyes and skimmed them over. He became even less happy.

"This is not the quality of performance I expected from these droids. What model-class are they?"

"X1J-214, Sir, air-to-ground spy engineers."

"Arrange them for a bug screening and sort out the issues immediately!" Robotnik slammed the papers on his chair arm. "I want them only doing flawless work."

"Of course," Snively conceded, closing his eyes. He then reopened them. "…And another thing, Sir."

Cluck clucked as Robotnik tilted his head at Snively in an impatient manner. "Yes…?" he questioned.

"If you read on to the next page, there were reports last night at Sector 5-8 of an unusually strong gust of wind blowing through the sector's southeast corridor. I find it reasonable to assume the hedgehog was running through and causing more trouble. A few spy vehicles assigned to that sector were suspiciously trashed as well."

Robotnik had lifted the papers again and was glossing over the next few pages. "Sonic, the Hedgehog," he muttered.

Snively nodded knowingly. "The same."

Robotnik slammed his fist on his chair arm this time, making both Snively and Cluck jump.

"Arrange for another city-scale upgrade in security and investigation, Snively," Robotnik decided. "We want that meddlesome hedgehog neutralized!"

Snively felt he needed to object. "B-but Sir, we already spent so many resources on our, may I remind you, very recent security expansion project and I don't think we can – "

The moment he mentioned the word "don't," Robotnik leaned forward and stared Snively deep in the eye, igniting more fright in the small man.

"It will be done, dear nephew," stated Robotnik in a grave tone. "You are not in the position to be second-guessing my judgment. No matter the cost, this is for the good of our being."

Snively shivered in his boots. "Y-y-yes…" he granted.

With that in mind Robotnik revolved his chair back around to face the largest and front-most monitor screen, showing a clear visual of the forest nearest his grand city.

"The rodent and those other ignorant forest dwellers have had too many opportunities at sabotaging some of my greatest machines in their infancy."

Without warning Robotnik swung his chair back around to face Snively once more, startling him.

"So scrape the means to budget higher security and search patrol, lest they try setting us back another year!"

Snively gulped and frantically affirmed the success of the idea. "Y-yes, your Supreme Brilliance; it will be done!"

While Snively tugged at his scarf in the newly drawn silence, sweating, Robotnik returned slowly to the monitors, paying particular attention to the front-most screen.

"Ah," Robotnik began, letting his thoughts speak, "it seems like such a long day's past since the prototype Roboticizer failed to produce robots that were one hundred percent loyal and mistake-free."

He began petting Cluck, the deeper his thoughts went.

"Imagine how the hedgehog and his rogues could be transformed into something of complete contradiction to their habits. Oh… now that would be a glorious scientific achievement, wouldn't it? Heh-heh-heh-heh… it's only a matter of time."

Dr. Robotnik continued to watch the monitor, showing the Great Forest and its surrounding emerald hills from the eye camera of a hovering spybot on the outskirts of Robotropolis.

Meanwhile, on another side of the city, a blue blur could be seen dashing across rivers, through looping logs, and over rock walls, heading toward a flowery meadow. Eventually the blur stopped in the middle of the meadow and revealed itself as Sonic. He took a minute to stretch, and breathe in some fresh spring air.

"Whoo, what a burn!" he exclaimed. "At least the heat's natural."

He gazed in the direction of Robotropolis, whose tallest buildings could be seen in the distance above some trees. He started walking but stopped a foot midway from stepping on a flower he noticed below.

"Yikes, don't wanna step on you, little guy."

He stepped over the flower and glanced over to find another flower off to the side that appeared especially beautiful.

"Hm. What have we here?"

He bent down for a closer look. This flower was a deep blue color.

"A truly handsome specimen," he noted, rubbing his chin. "Wonder if Sal likes tulips as blue as yours truly."

He was about to pick it when out of the blue a laser struck the poor tulip, leaving it charred and withered.

"Hey, what gives?!" Sonic demanded. He looked up to see a tall chicken robot emerging from the nearby forest brush, holding up a wacky-looking ray gun.

"Ah-ha-ha-haaa! I knew you'd be out in this dainty pansy patch! After all you've gotta go somewhere to pick another bouquet for the lost princess!"

Sonic lifted his hands. "Man, you sure are creeping me out with all this deep wood stalking! Can't you leave a hedgehog to his own business like a normal Robotropolian schmuck?"

Scratch shook his head. "Nope! After I've zapped you good you're gonna tell me where the fair Princess of Mobius and those other jellyfish are. And don't even try to escape!" He shut one eye tight and proceeded to fire another blast.

Sonic expertly dodged the blast by flipping into the air. "Your average greeting from city folk," he commented midair.

After landing with a grunt, Sonic bent his knees to prepare for another attack. And another attack did come, but it wasn't from where he expected. It came from his side: drills on tracks. He gasped and leaped out of the way as another robot sped past.

"Whoa!" He nearly lost his balance. "Yo, watch it!" Once he had found his footing, he turned toward the direction of the attacker.

Grounder appeared on the opposite side of Scratch, rotating around and brandishing his drill arms. "We got ya surrounded now, Hedgehog! Time to give up!" He poked one whirling drill in the air, all threatening-like.

Sonic analyzed the situation quickly. "Okay, I see where this is going. But since I am in a generous mood…"

Scratch and Grounder began to close in on him.

"…How about you take the rebound of a triple Sonic spin!"

Sonic formed into a saw and spun off the ground, causing Scratch and Grounder to crash into each other.

"Oof!" they both grunted.

Sonic landed nearby and waited as they regained their bearings and pulled themselves off the ground.

Next Sonic pointed a finger at them. "Now what I wanna know is: what do you keep trying to put the bars down on me for? You're already on the outs with Dr. Robotnik and have been for years! Let alone seeing I've got you trumped in the all-around 'quickness' department."

"Rgh." Scratch rubbed his head as he got up. "Oh come off it!" he shouted. "Catching you will mean we're not useless to the Doctor!"

"Yeah," Grounder added, making sure his head was screwed on tightly enough, "he'll return us our old positions after we've proven we're not defective!"

"And you've been a big pain for everybody else anyway; everyone will thank us!" Scratch declared.

Sonic folded his arms and thoughtfully tapped his foot. "So let me get this straight: a miner bot and a chicken-of-a-guard bot get fired for majorly botching their jobs and now they're taking out their frustrations on a poor, innocent free spirit like me. You really should adopt a better hobby, like, for example…" he thought for a few seconds, then snapped his fingers, "underwater basket weaving!"

"We don't want anymore of your smart-mouth blabbering!" Scratch said, lifting his gun and aiming to shoot.

"And we didn't get fired," stated Grounder. "We just got, uhh… demoted!"

"Yeah, you don't even know us! But we know you, and we all know you and your friends'll be better off squatting in a dungeon." Scratch gestured with the gun. "Now hands where I can see 'em! I won't fry ya if you at least stay put!" He started to charge it.

Sonic shrugged, then finally decided to go ahead and raise his hands. "Have it your way," he muttered.

Just then, a voice screeched from overhead.

"Hold it!"

Everyone turned his attention to a nearby palm tree, from where Coconuts popped out. He was looking mean and gently tossing a coconut bomb up and down.

"Nobody's sacking the hedgehog today but me!" he yelled.

Grounder made a face of revulsion. "Coconuts?"

Scratch palmed his forehead. "Oh not you again!"

"Uh-oh, here's the retired demolition bot," announced Sonic. "Retired, or so we thought."

"Get lost!" Grounder yawped at the monkey robot. "This is our catch!"

"Lucky I caught onto the trail of you two tin-heads," Coconuts went on. "You actually found him this time! And now he's gonna belong to me! Ha!"

Sonic frowned and raised a brow. "What is this, a pet shop?"

"Bombs away!" Coconuts called as he prepared to throw what else than his bomb.

Sonic instantly gasped. "No wait!" This made Coconuts stop mid-throw.

"You're just gonna give me a chance to escape!" Sonic explained to him. "If you really wanna capture me, at least think things through before you go trying to blow up everybody!"

Scratch nodded at Sonic. "Good point." He turned up to the monkey bot. "Yeah Coconuts, let me handle the spiny blue pest. Go back to swinging on your vines."

Coconuts withdrew into the palm tree a little and scratched his head, rethinking things – wondering what to do next.

Grounder switched back over to Sonic. "Back to business! Start moving Hedgehog, and no tricks!"

Scratch put a wing on his hip and aimed the gun. "If it's a long walk to your hiding place then you'll have plenty of time to tell us everything about that rag-tag pack you call the Freedom Fighters."

"This is so exciting!" Grounder couldn't help but say. "We never came close to catching Sonic before!"

"I know! It's a good greasy feeling, isn't it?" Scratch expressed, grinning at Grounder deviously.

Grounder beamed. "Heh-heh, yeah, now we'll finally be reinstated to the Robotropolitan work force!"

"You mean I'll be reinstated," corrected Scratch, pointing a thumb to himself.

"Heh-heh…" Grounder was slow to catch what he said, but he did soon enough. "…Wait, whaddyou mean just you? We both captured Sonic!"

"I'm the one with the gun; all you did was swipe at him, and miss no less!" Scratch explained from his point of view.

"Yeah, but I almost had him!"

"You did not!"

They ceased arguing as soon as they heard Sonic whistling, from yards and yards off.

"Yo bots! I'm getting a little carried away with this captive role!"

Scratch and Grounder both voiced a great big, "Huh?"

They were witnessing Coconuts swiftly carrying Sonic away on his shoulder.

Almost impressed by Coconuts' tree-descending record, Sonic gave him a rather backhanded compliment.

"Nice speed, monkey-limbs."

"Heh-heh," Coconuts started bragging from over his shoulder, "you may be fast, but I'm fast and strong!"

"Hey!" Scratch and Grounder both shouted. "Get back here!" Grounder demanded additively. The two practically scrambled over each other in an effort to pursue them.

After a while of running along the grass, the hanging Sonic had a suggestion to share with Coconuts.

"Say, uh, think it might be a good idea to toss your bomb back to 'em? Now that they're, you know, at a safe distance?"

Coconuts widened his eyes at the prospect, and the light bulb on his head flashed. "Hey yeah, you're right! Very good idea! It'll lighten my load."

Smiling aggressively, Coconuts whirled around and prepared to throw the bomb in his other hand.

Scratch and Grounder stopped mid-run, and Grounder gasped. "Look out!"

"Don't worry," assured Scratch, "I'll blast that bomb to smithereens before it gets anywhere near us!" With that he pointed his gun up and charged it.

"In that case," Grounder proposed, planning his move, "…I'll circle around to that monkey!"

Grounder took off tracking around a potential blast radius toward Coconuts and Sonic. Coconuts was just about to throw his bomb for the second time when Sonic caught his throwing arm.

Sonic wagged his finger. "Ah-ah-ah!"

"What?!" Coconuts questioned out of shock.

Expecting to blast the bomb in Coconuts' range, Scratch fired too late, as Sonic flipped Coconuts over and against the ground and escaped his grip. Coconuts in turn reactively threw his bomb up into the air, which headed directly for Grounder.

Grounder looked up at it and saw it coming right for him.

"Aah!"

The bomb landed and the resulting explosion hurled Grounder backward. Coconuts found himself getting shot by Scratch's laser blast in the backside, and yelped as he short-circuited. Scratch pondered his mistiming for a second before peering ahead to catch a glimpse and barely react to Grounder bashing into him. The impact kicked up a cloud of dust. When the dust cleared, the two lay scattered on the grassy ground in pieces. Coconuts, now burnt to a crisp, sat up in a daze with a broken, crackling bulb.

Sonic escaped to the top of a hill where he could see them all in their rut. He broke out in laughter and slapped his knee.

"Ha-ha-ha, those dumbots always manage to blow themselves up! I almost feel sorry for 'em." Wiping a tear from his eye, he noticed he was standing next to a patch of some more nice-looking flowers. "Oh well…" He bent over and deftly picked a few of them.

"Time to vamoose and juice!" With a fresh bouquet in hand, Sonic revved up and zoomed off out of the flower field and into the Great Forest.

Deep in the forest, among the thickness of the trees, Tails was flying around with his two tails, desperately calling out for Sonic.

"Sonic! Sonic, where are you? Sonic!" he hollered.

Not watching where he was flying, Tails went and flew right into a hardly visible spider's web, getting himself tangled in it.

"Aah! Ooh! Yuck!" he sputtered.

After a minor struggle Tails freed himself by spinning his tails again and wrapping the web in their fur. He lifted himself onto a branch up top and threw the webbing off. The spider who had laboriously spun that web, however, was standing on that same branch, shaking an appendage of a fist at him.

Tails acknowledged the arachnid and flattened his ears. "Oh, sorry."

His ears pricked when he heard Sonic's voice ring out. "Tails!"

"Sonic?"

"Down here little bro!"

Both Tails and the spider stared down at the bottom of the tree they were in and saw Sonic standing there, waving. Tails flattened his ears at the spider in apology one last time and clasped his hands together, then spun his tails again, descending from the branch. He landed on the ground in front of Sonic and slowed his dust-kicking tails to a halt.

"You getting into trouble again?" Sonic asked, hands on his hips.

"Kinda." Tails averted his eyes and shuffled his feet a bit. "…Anyway, I was looking all over for you."

"Sorry, had to find a makeup gift for Sal; she's gonna seriously rip into me for not picking up a new computer chip at the Robotropolis tech base."

"Really?"

Sonic literally hand-waved that thought aside for the moment. "But that's not your concern; what is is the fact that you're flying around the forest all by yourself."

Tails furrowed his brows. "But I've told you I'm ready to go out on my own! I can fly from danger and I won't ever get lost!"

Despite those reasons, Sonic got down on one knee to see Tails at eye level.

"Listen Tails, you may think you're ready, but you have no idea what's out and away from Knothole. Heck, I just ran into those robo-misfits Scratch and Grounder not long ago."

"Those guys again?" Tails peeped.

"Yeah, them and Coconuts are crawling around out here still searching for our hideout."

Tails' eyes wandered the forest surroundings as he put a finger to his lip, ever-so-slightly fearful.

Sonic stood up. "Let's head back home, pal. We don't wanna give Sally an ulcer."

Tails nodded solemnly up at Sonic. "O-okay."

"C'mon, I'll let you ride on my back down the ol' tree pipe."

It didn't take but a split second for Tails to brighten with excitement. "Wow, you mean it?"

"Yeah!" Sonic turned around and motioned for Tails to climb on. "Just watch out for the spikes and hang on tight!"

Tails carefully climbed onto Sonic's back, and once he was settled, Sonic revved and blasted off deeper into the forest.

A matter of minutes later, Sonic slowed and stopped at a bush in front of a mysterious tree. His eyes shifted to the right and left and he made a full-circle revolution to make sure no one was following him and Tails.

He whispered to his bud: "All right Tails, it's clear. Ready?"

"Heheh, yup!" Tails replied.

"On the count of three." Together, Sonic and Tails counted down quietly. "One," Sonic started, "Two," Tails continued, "Three!" Sonic finished. On three, Sonic dove into the bush and into a big tree hole inside. He and Tails slid down the tube it led into, laughing and having a good old time.

At the hidden Knothole Village, which consisted of only a few small houses built from natural materials that stood next to a stream flowing through the open area of wood, the Freedom Fighter members were found at a watermill, stationed at its out-looking balcony. Rotor's feet were sticking out from under a large satellite probe standing on legs, and Rotor himself was humming along while working underneath it, trying to fix its frame.

"Wrench," he mumbled to himself, along with some other unintelligible babble. He reached out from under the probe to feel for the wrench he thought had been returned to him, only to discover it wasn't there.

"Huh?" Rotor slid out from under the probe on a wheeled board and sat up, searching for but seeing no wrench.

"Bunnie, could I have my wrench back, please?" he requested with a hand outreached. "I need to tighten a loose bolt on this panel."

"Well now sugar I told you I'll be givin' it back when I'm done. My ankle still don't feel right."

Bunnie was sitting on a wooden supply box near the satellite probe, using Rotor's wrench to tighten a bolt on her foot.

Rotor sighed. "Let me know when it does feel right. However long that'll take."

Sally meanwhile was sitting at a worktable close by, finishing hooking up her handheld computer to the satellite via a cable. Hearing Rotor's distress about the lack of a wrench, she dug into a toolbox on the table and pulled out another one.

"Here, I've got a spare." She held it up for Rotor to see, then tossed it over to him. Rotor caught it with a grunt and held it up in gratitude.

"Thanks."

Resuming her task, with a firm press of a button Sally rebooted her computer. It blipped and bleeped for a couple of seconds, and then it spoke. "Starting."

Sally crossed her fingers. "Come on…"

"Connection to satellite complete," it informed automatically. "Data stream listener module… online."

"Yes!" Sally pumped her fist. "Excellent job Nicole."

Rotor cleared his throat from underneath the satellite.

"And of course you too, Rotor," she offered him.

"Actually, that was just a cough," Rotor said.

"Incoming message, Sally." Sally refocused her attention on Nicole as the computer emitted a blue holographic projection. The projection played a television advertisement for the Robotropolis Casino.

"Drop by the Robotropolis Casino!" said the announcer. "We've got fun, games, roulettes and more! Now making happiness for over a thousand suckers – I mean customers!"

Sally groaned out of both frustration and annoyance, and closed the projection. "This isn't the frequency I thought it was. We're not tapping into any communications between the mainline city hub and Dr. Robotnik's headquarters!"

Rotor reappeared, and this time stood up. "I tried reconfiguring the satellite's harmonizer but apparently that's not doing any good."

Sally kept tapping on Nicole's relay buttons. "No, no, no, I can't find any data feed related to important confidential operations, not even when plugged into the satellite directly. This isn't going to work."

Rotor placed a hand on the upper part of the satellite probe and examined it. "Maybe the dish's receiver needs to be better tuned to capture encrypted signals."

Sally sighed. "No, what we need is a faster processor chip for Nicole so she won't be overwhelmed by all this data feed! I'm sure she'd be able to pick up on everything if she didn't have to slow down to such a crawl to do it."

Sonic's voice suddenly came from out of nowhere. "Slow down?"

Sonic rushed to the scene. He jumped onto the watermill's water wheel and rode it up to the balcony, then did a fancy backflip and landed in front of the gang.

"…That is a problem!"

"Sugar Hog!" Bunnie greeted warmly.

Rotor waved. "Hey Sonic."

Sonic turned to Sally, who didn't seem too impressed by the backflip. "Sal, I got something for you – somethin'… you might like."

Sally gasped slightly in anticipation. "Did you manage to find that chip?"

"Even better." Sonic brought out his bouquet of flowers. Sally's expression became blank… and weary.

"Ta-dah! Aren't these flowers gorgeous? They're to say I care even if I fail."

"Oh boy, here we go…" Rotor uttered.

"Duck and cover," said Bunnie.

Sally put Nicole down and threw her arms in the air. "Sonic, I cannot believe you're clowning around when there's work to do!"

"What?" Sonic dropped the flowers and scratched his head. "I tried looking for that chip a dozen times, but none of them had the stuff you asked!"

"You weren't looking hard enough! There are many newly manufactured chips for this type of computer that go beyond the speed of Nicole's by a huge margin!" Sally tapped a finger in her palm for emphasis. "It's crucial that we get that speed so we can keep up with Robotnik's plans from the safety perimeters of Knothole."

"Well let's be honest," said Sonic, "who or what keeps up with Robotnik better than me?"

At that question Tails flew up to the watermill balcony and perched himself on the railing.

"None that I know, Sonic!" he exclaimed.

"Tails, honey," Bunnie advised, "we best not encourage him."

"But really!" Sonic argued. "I've got more speed in my step than a tiger has stripes! Who needs a computer when I can zip back and forth from the city in the blink of an eye to get the latest dirt?"

"Because Sonic," Rotor told him, "we don't want you to put yourself in danger anymore than you have to in order to stop those environmental-control machines."

"Why?" Sonic begged to question. "What's the worry? Afraid I'll go down at the hands of a slimeball chump like the doctor? I can handle any unholy contraption he makes. Machines? Pthuh." He flicked his wrist. "Organic's where it's at."

"Yeah," Tails agreed, for the most part, "but not always though, right? Machines can be cool."

"I'd cheer to that!" Bunnie chimed in. "I dunno where I'd be without these metal limbs after that freak accident." She wiggled the toes of the foot that had been causing her trouble.

"It is hard to admit," Sally thought aloud with a hand on her chin, "but Robotnik's given us amazing technology. It's just that he's gone too far and, unfortunately gained too much control of our planet's natural resources. Micro-managing the ecosystem, I'm afraid has done more harm than it has good."

"And don't forget he dethroned you and your family, Sal," Sonic pressed. "Never forget that."

"I know. I won't."

Sonic leaned over and spread his hands on the worktable. "Our friends and loved ones gone, all moved over to Robotnik's side – he's really nothing but a dictator and a menace." He slammed a fist on the table. "We're the only ones left keeping him in check."

Rotor took off his hat and rubbed the back of his head and neck. "Yeah, good thing we haven't given in to peer pressure yet, heh." He put his hat back on and readjusted it.

"So whaddowe do next, Sal?" Bunnie asked, rising from the box she'd been sitting at, stretching her back and robotic arm. "I'n't it fair game for a heist?" Rotor fell back on his wheeled board and returned to his work underneath the satellite.

Sonic's eyes widened. "No way," he cut in, "you guys don't need to risk your hides for a silly fetch quest! Let me go back and search again."

Sally closed her eyes and shook her head. "It'd be a better idea if we go together this time, Sonic," she told him. "As it stands, I'm the only one who can find exactly what I'm looking for. We'll bring Bunnie for backup. Rotor can stay here and watch over Tails."

Rotor gave a thumbs-up from underneath the satellite probe. "Check."

Tails folded his arms hard against himself. "Aww man!"

Sonic turned to Tails, who was sitting almost directly behind him. "What, you wanna come too, bud?"

"Tails, you can't go," Sally immediately made clear, "It's too dangerous and you're too young."

"That's what I've been telling him!" Sonic claimed.

Tails continued to pout, resting his chin on the fist he made and casting the sky a nasty glare.

"Right," Sally answered to Sonic. "Now, here's the plan: let's get our gear, go down the hidden path to the city, then wait in the burrow zone until after sunset before heading in. The city lights are dim enough for us to go through safely… for the most part."

Sonic threw her a thumbs-up. "Okay, got it! But remember, covering for you is gonna be our number-one priority." He held up his forefinger.

"'Course the Princess' safety always comes first!" commented Bunnie, grooming her ears to look nice, even though the job itself wouldn't be.

Sally rolled her eyes. "Oh please, we've been through this time and time again: all of you are important."

"But as soon as we restore Mobotropolis you're gonna be the one wearing the crown!" Sonic pointed out.

"That's to say if we can ever get Robotnik to step down," Sally cautioned. "He's got an endless amount of people supporting him and next to zero supporting the royal family, wherever they are…"

To that, Sonic stepped up to Sally and put his hands on her shoulders.

"And we'll find your family, and with 'em we can win back Mobius' trust."

Sally turned her face away from his and sighed. "Maybe."

She found herself without warning being shaken in Sonic's grip. "Don't say maybe!" Sonic said. "Say yes, absolutely, no strings attached! We've got this; we just need a little skill and a little luck!"

Rotor raised a finger. "Make that a lot of skill and luck," he revised.

Sonic removed his hands from Sally's shoulders and shrugged. "Same difference. So c'mon, what're we waitin' for, let's gear up and get outta here!" He shoved a thumb in the direction of Robotropolis. "I'm already starting to lose my patience."

Listening to Sonic, Tails turned his head and stared off into space, a melancholy expression on his face.

End of Part 1

I probably won't do Part 2, unless a good amount of people are curious to see where I'm going with this. Basically I'm combining AoStH with SatAM and... maybe a little Underground? (Not really though.) I was hoping to show a more morally gray world than a black-and-white, good vs. evil one. Even though Dr. Robotnik's still evil and twisted, he doesn't want to destroy the environment, but instead control it as he sees fit. As you can see, this read was pretty exposition-heavy so I could show how I'm interpreting Sonic's world. There are so many canon (or otherwise) interpretations that I just wanted to pick what felt like "classic Sonic" to me as I remember it from my early childhood. (That being the first two cartoons and games.)

In addition, I wanted to practice my writing here because while SatAM did have its problems I enjoyed the level of depth the writers were willing to go to make a world and characters that you could get sucked into, unlike most other cartoons airing at the time.

To offer even more exposition, the backstory for the villains of my version is this: Dr. Robotnik and Snively (and even Cluck) came from Earth, and introduced technology to planet Mobius. Robotnik decided that the Mobians were inferior to him, them being animal-like and all, but was careful not to upset them because he stood no chance against their numbers and instead offered to work with them to make their lives easier. So they let him rebuild their city and let him roboticize some of them so they could live longer and let him take over.

In the meantime, Sonic tried to warn people about Robotnik but they wouldn't listen. Only the heroes, Sonic and his friends, really understood the extent of the damage Robotnik was doing to the planet and would try stopping his machines. Which made people view them, but especially Sonic, as the bad guys, trying to destroy their new cozy way of life.

Anyhow, that's my take.