Written for the Kelviniana forum Summer's Up challenge.
RUSE
Sonic jumped into the darkness.
There was a wet noise and plenty of screaming, the usual combo for Labyrinth Zone.
Jaws piled up behind him. The mass of hungry red piranhas rushed through the stream. It didn't matter if some of them fell off the ledge into the unknown as long as Sonic died in the process. The hero couldn't count them all. Eleventy thousand?
Barely a minute ago, Sonic was happily stomping crabs. He didn't expect things to go wrong so quickly. Eggman soured Sonic's vacation by kidnapping his friends, but a sea of bot pouring into a sea of water looked like overkill.
One water slide ended, landing him on the next one. And the next one, and the next one.
It wasn't until Sonic saw the mass of Jaws units in front of him that he realised what happened: the waterfalls were somehow looped in space. Weird things frequently happened on South Island. Right now, Sonic was happy about it. He used the mountain of robotic fish to jump beyond the loop onto a ledge with a box of rings.
He smirked, having absorbed the rings, and stared at the desperate piranhas constantly falling, constantly failing. Explosions echoed back at him as he ran.
At one point, the echoes grew stronger, prompting Sonic to slow down; he didn't want to enter another loophole in time and space. A door engraved with an angry owl face ended the corridor. Sonic put his hand on it and listened.
Strong winds blew on the other side. He had to check it out. Sonic knocked it down with a homing attack and rushed inside.
"Y-argh!" he exclaimed, wallowing into a void.
He had jumped into an enormous well. No bottom in sight. No echo to his screams. Miraculously, Sonic's momentum brought him flying all the way to the other side.
The stone walls were covered in purple gunk, making it difficult to get a grip. Sonic cursed when an unstable block injured him. He'd need to move carefully: the entry slip sent him half a klick down the well.
No way but up. A bright light stood at the end of the tunnel. The long haul began.
It didn't take long for Eggman to reach him over the intercom. "There you are! I wanted to talk to you, if possible."
The well shook, dislodging multiple blocks. Sonic had to watch out for more hazards and Eggman wouldn't shut up.
"I'll be honest. The death traps have been a failure for both of us. I think you'll agree. And you're getting close to my lair. So, I just wanted to give you the chance to kill yourself now. Save a trip to the lair. Just, you know, jump into the pit. Less a death trap and more a death option for you."
Sonic ignored him and kept climbing. The villain was trying to lull him into more danger. It became apparent when he heard a clicking sound.
The hedgehog picked up speed.
"Sounds crazy, but hear me out. Once you get to my lair, death will not be optional. It will be mandatory. No tricks: just you dying, as a result of me killing you in a very gruesome way. So, the better offer is just to kill yourself. Seems like a lot of effort to run to my deadly lair when there's a serviceable death option right here. Not a death trap. Your death would be entirely voluntary and very much appreciated."
For a villain about to get a double dose of butt whooping, Eggman sounded tame, almost as if he was reading a script. Sonic scattered the thoughts as they were slowing him down. He stared at the light above. He saw…shadows.
An arrow whizzed past his nose. It came from an owl-faced plate on the other side. There were thousands of them in the well. Sonic decided to make a run for it before Eggman activated more traps. The arrows had surprising knockback that was detrimental to Sonic's ring supply.
Eggman must have scrubbed any additional rings off the walls prior to Sonic's arrival.
"The pit does work. It contains a bottom. If that's one of your concerns about jumping in, the pit will kill you. Painlessly. Well, not painlessly, but you will die as you lived – quickly."
Sonic had an eerie suspicion the well had something worse than a hard landing. And that something was breathing. Eventually, the breathing got louder than the constant clanking caused by arrowheads.
"In summary: reach certain doom, or give up now, honourably. Like a hero. Save yourself a trip. It's a win-win. Eggman-approved. Plus, I put a lot of effort in getting this lair ready for you. It'd certainly teach me a lesson if you simply died a dash away from the door. I'd be furious, mad!"
The hedgehog wanted to snort, but a different voice came out of the intercom. "Sonic, save us!"
"Amy? Hold on! I'm coming!"
"Shut up!" Eggman roared.
Knuckles was also trapped. "Hurry! I can't feel my ngh-argh!"
The screams escalated into shrieking in a matter of seconds before dying off to give rise to Eggman's laughter.
"As I was saying, if I was up against impossible odds, this is the way I'd want to go: falling with dignity. Take your time. I'll let you think about it. I don't want to pressure you. The lair, the pit – it's your pick. I'm leaning towards the pit."
One of the unstable stones jabbed Sonic in the shoulder. The hedgehog hissed. He had enough strength to zip through at lightning speed, but he didn't want to expose it to Eggman. Not until the villain played his last card.
"Hah! Is that the whooshing sound of you falling to your doom, you fool?! It's not. You're not heading down; you're doing the opposite. I expected better from a friend, Sonic…my friend."
The mysterious breathing intensified.
"Which is why I'll help you make the right choice. That's right, I trust you to trust me with a decision that will benefit everyone."
Sonic looked around. Something was happening. He didn't know what until a dream-popping roar reached him. It was heading his way!
"Do you remember the little alligator from Lost Jungle? It's grown. Why don't you drop down and chat?"
Multiple plates of armour slid from the walls near the top. Eggman wanted to lock him in with the monster. That'd never happen. Sonic whizzed past the first blockade and squeezed through the second one in record time.
The light was within his reach now. Eggman had no more roadblocks to throw at him.
Sonic cheered until he took another glance below. The monster tore through the barriers as if they were made of paper using its formidable claws. Size allowed the alligator to cover great distances with every step.
Instead of speeding up, however, Sonic found his legs failing. They were fine; he just couldn't gain ground. That's when he saw how the shadows above never stopped moving. Eggman had placed massive fans as the last line of defence. They were trying to blow Sonic into oblivion.
Eggman chuckled. "I'm not always the one to fan the flames of friendship, but you need help."
The fans were spinning so quickly, Sonic couldn't see the blades. Going through could easily result in minced hedgehog, and Sonic needed to boost constantly to stay in place. He also needed time, which he had none of.
Down below, a maw opened wide. The only one willing to embrace Sonic was a monster, and Sonic didn't want to disappoint. He dived as a tight ball towards the alligator.
The jaws snapped shut, ready to mash the morsel. It wasn't there.
Sonic had unrolled during the dive, losing enough speed to land on the alligator's nose. Viewing the sky from the pit's centre, Sonic found the one thing he was looking for, a firm shadow. The fan that blew him away had an exploitable axis.
The alligator gave him enough thrust to jump ahead. With the wind being much weaker in the eye of the hurricane, Sonic easily bypassed the blades. As he flew over the fan, he saw another one blowing ahead. The monster wasn't game for more tricks.
It was angry. The alligator lashed at the fan despite losing chunks of scales at the slightest touch. Blood splattered on the walls, but the monster was so big it raged on. The fan fell apart, putting Sonic on the back foot.
Only sideways. If the fan didn't let him through vertically, he'd dodge the contraption with a horizontal dash. Sonic managed to gain enough velocity to spot a gap between the blades and slip right through.
Clear skies awaited him. Eggman ran out of arrows and only stable stones remained in place. The monster released its final roar: having lost enough energy on the first fan, the alligator suffered too many lacerations to break through the next one. It fell.
Eggman's taunts returned. "The walls are so bloody a hedgehog must have met his timely demise. Hear that, vermin? Your hero is dead! D-E-A-D!"
"Let them go! This is between you and me!" Sonic shouted at the purple sky.
"What's that? I can't hear you over these whiney specimens. Here's an idea: say it to my face and I'll think about it."
When another shadow appeared, Sonic wasn't worried. No closing mechanism in the world could stop him now. Sonic made it to the top.
He stood in an enormous chamber with thousands of monitors for walls. His friends were nearby, locked inside a Prison Egg. A strange contraption made of three spinning rings, each smaller than the previous, was fixated above the capsule.
"Hang on, guys! I'm coming!"
Sonic hopped onto the capsule's release switch, eager to hear his friends' cheers. Instead, he heard the sound of a spring. It was a trap: Sonic was sent flying into the tri-ring machine.
Everything disappeared, giving birth to a pitch-black night. Sonic fell on a floor that materialised upon his touch. He examined the environment. It smelled like the chamber he was in before, but he couldn't see anything beyond the metal rings
"Show yourself, Eggman!"
There was a ripple effect. "I've made a little pocket dimension generator in my free time. Think of it as Chaos Control that will never end unless I say so. No one will disturb us here."
The distortion grew until a dragonfly-shaped craft emerged. One of Eggman's personal doomsday toys, no doubt. Sonic noticed the thing's armour plates had a ceramic finish to them.
"Allow me to introduce you to my latest creation, the Egg Dropwing!"
At those words, it materialised fully in the pocket dimension. Despite looking like a winged version of the Egg Viper, it had almost excessive armour protecting the cockpit on the insect's head, right above a large gun barrel.
Eggman got comfortable in his seat. "I've watched tapes of you beating me before, and I'm not going to make the same mistakes. Four part plan is this. One: no rings."
A glowing circle formed around Sonic's feet, rapidly draining his ring supply. The hedgehog growled at the sight of his rings being sucked out by the dimension's lining.
"Two: start up the death ray immediately."
Sonic knew it wouldn't take long for that gun barrel to fire. He felt immense heat accumulating inside.
"Three: bomb-proof shield for me, leading directly to four: bombs for throwing at you."
Armour plates on the Egg Dropwing's surface changed angles to reflect Sonic's position. The craft's stinger shook, resulting in multiple explosive spheres detaching. These rolled on the ground before exploding. The stinger generated more bombs non-stop.
Eggman laughed at the look of Sonic's face. "You know, this plan is so good I'll give you a sporting chance and turn off the death ray. I'm joking, of course. Goodbye."
Egg Dropwing's main cannon fired in the middle of the platform Sonic was standing on. The explosion took up most of the dimension, warping the central point into a purple light and heating up the rest. Sonic couldn't stand on the spot without feeling the burn in his feet.
The heat affected Eggman's bombs, blowing them up on contact. Before too long, Sonic saw his foothold crumble with every impact. He didn't want to find out what would happen if he were to fall through the floor.
"Alright, Eggman. Let's see how bomb-proof you really are."
Sonic spotted three explosives heading his way. He sped up to intercept and kicked two back at the aircraft while latching to the third one via a back-burning twirl on the floor.
Egg Dropwing shook lightly, and its casing shifted dynamically in anticipation of the third explosion.
"Ho-ho-ho! It's no use. Give up!"
The bomb exploded above the aircraft without causing any damage. Eggman spotted a weight increase; Sonic had boarded his battle fortress. Armour plates changed formation to act as spike traps. Sonic had no way to reach the cockpit.
He wasn't intending to. The doctor had taken great care to secure the Egg-O-Matic. Instead, Sonic ran towards the biggest warning sign on the machine's back, at the base of the stinger. Bomb-proof, sure, but was it hedgehog-proof?
A homing attack solved that question. Dents appeared at the first try. By the third strike, he broke through the plate to find the one spot he was looking for.
The stinger struck him down, yet it didn't have the speed to shake him off. Sonic latched onto the sharp tip in hopes of increasing the damage.
Rather than flail randomly, the stinger coiled around him and brought the prisoner to the aircraft's front, facing the death ray. Eggman grinned in anticipation.
"Before you get any bright ideas, this one will help you feel the sunshine…at 5778 kelvins."
The hedgehog struggled to get out. He had to find a way to delay Eggman because the death ray felt powerful enough to have truth to its name. "Still writing your own speeches, huh?"
He got a swift reply in the form of a heat wave. Sonic closed his eyes and exhaled. Eggman discharged the weapon before it could reach maximum potential, but more heat was coming in. Sonic fidgeted, trying not to think about himself set ablaze, until the reality warping effect manifested itself. The hedgehog blacked out for a heartbeat. Burning alive was the least of his worries. If Eggman did away with him using the weapon, there was no telling what would happen if a Chaos-imbued being entered transdimensional limbo.
Sonic would have been covered in sweat were it not for being steamed dry. His quills singed and darkened under the ray's influence. Sonic didn't make a sound, resisting to the end. The moment he'd open his mouth to relieve the pain, his lungs would roast.
Despite his eyes being closed, he sensed the intensity of broad daylight. The blackouts grew stronger and more frequent. Sonic shook involuntarily between conscious attempts to run free.
To make sure the weapon reached its peak power, Eggman opened a dimensional rift for the purple light to shine onto his creation's wings and let Egg Dropwing recharge. The villain wanted to record his triumph, but too much heat radiated off the burning hedgehog. Instead, Eggman sat there under multiple shields to avoid going blind.
"So long, friend."
With that, he diverted all power to the death ray. The radiation ceased. Sonic was no more.
Eggman removed the shields to gaze at the destruction. The stinger's tip melted off completely. Nothing that couldn't be replaced. But Sonic! Oh, that Sonic! Could he be replaced?
"You were a kelvin short of the promise, doc. And 3224 kelvins away from being cool."
The scientist smiled. Sonic was comfortably sitting on top of the flying fortress. Eggman couldn't tell how much of the hedgehog was left because the shape's heat could melt a diamond. Were it not for the craft's ceramic coating, Eggman would have gotten worried.
So, the stinger wasn't coated to preserve flexibility, which allowed Sonic to run off as soon as the heat weakened the metal enough. Eggman wanted to congratulate the hedgehog on eluding him yet again.
But he wanted to win more than that, so he watched Sonic approach the warning plate and melt it off with his own body heat. The self-destruct button lay underneath.
"Live and learn, doc."
Sonic punched the button, ready to jump off an exploding scrapheap. He loved the part with the red whine.
"Part five: booby-trap the self-destruct button!"
The fake button popped off, revealing a large bomb that exploded in Sonic's face. Scratched and baked, he was sent spinning into the rings above.
Even though it wasn't the floor, he found out what would happen if he were to reach the edge of the dimension. He got kicked away with extreme force by each of the outer rings, pinballing him across the dimension.
Somehow, he made it in one piece onto the platform. More bombs rained down on him. Egg Dropwing completed the recharge cycle and activated the main weapon again, set to spray rather than a concentrated ray. The environmental temperature started increasing.
Eggman's craft approached Sonic, who was lying on the platform motionlessly.
Sonic reached the end of the line. He had no more fight left in him. It hurt to twitch, breathe, even think! He always liked a challenge, but Eggman needed to understand when the time for games was over.
The seven Chaos Emeralds materialised in a tight circle around Sonic. Eggman attempted to scatter them, to no avail. The villain looked away, snarling as Sonic transformed into Super Sonic.
His quills were restored, the lacerations vanished and he had more than enough fervour left to finish the job.
"You still think you can win, eh? I'll show you who's in control. Egg Dropwing, go!"
The four wings popped off the craft's body and headed for the rings that kept the pocket dimension intact. An electric arc lit up the wings, connecting them via persistent lightning bolts to Eggman's machine. The wings started spinning in accordance with the rings they connected with.
Sonic saw it as a protective mesh meant to repel any attack. The broad structures also acted as an additional propellant for Eggman's bombs. Explosives jumped all over the empty space, hitting Sonic from multiple directions simultaneously.
It was his turn to attack. Sonic blasted forward, testing Eggman's defences. He broke through one wing, but was soon swatted down and shocked by the next. Explosions disabled his hearing for a spell. So, that was the best Eggman could dish out?
The heat coming from Egg Dropwing's cannon complicated the situation. It turned the aircraft brighter than a star, and just as hot. Sonic had to develop an energy field to avoid touching the surface by accident.
When Sonic dashed forward, ignoring the megavolt electric arc that flashed over his body, he broke through the blockade to get to the source. Sonic curled into an all-penetrating ball and dived for the light.
He didn't expect to be swatted away like a fly by the machine's stinger. A bomb smashed him in the nose upon landing and an electrocution diluted the gold in his quills. Eggman had already lost; he just didn't understand it yet. There was no science in the universe that could save him from the power of Chaos that Super Sonic wielded.
Were it not for the blinding glare, he would have seen the man's face bleached by fear.
But Eggman kept fighting. He batted Sonic away from the cockpit with bombs and not once released the trigger to the main weapon. Even the Chaos Emeralds would stop being a nuisance once Sonic boiled on the inside.
Concentrated on one goal, Eggman allowed the fever to go beyond the limits of his own craft. A bomb exploded dangerously close to its release point. Before the scientist could disable the bombardment, Sonic had already visited the dispenser.
The next thing Eggman knew was that the aircraft's cooling system malfunctioned. Everything else went to hell: Sonic smashed an armed explosive into the ammunition chamber and set off a chain reaction. Eggman's pod had external armour, but not even a hazmat suit at the ready on the inside.
Sonic's glowing aura met him on the outside. The hedgehog's words brought chills down Eggman's spine. "About what you said. Yeah, I think I can."
In that very moment, the pocket dimension dissipated.
Eggman fell on the platform next to the animal capsule. The rings responsible for keeping Sonic away were in tatters, just like his latest creation. The monitors, however, were all turned on. They featured badniks in various parts of the world carrying tanks of purple liquid.
"What are you up to, Egghead?"
He got a laugh in response. "As we speak, every badnik on the planet is contaminating the world's drinking water with synthetic Hyper-go-on mind control serum. Once it enters Earth's ecosystem, every creature that walks, crawls and squats in the mud will be under my control. My ultimate victory has begun."
Sonic glared at him. "This isn't the end."
"You can destroy one of my robots, maybe even a hundred, but to squash millions…you'll need to be everywhere at the same time. And that, hedgehog, is impossible. Even for you."
"Just watch me… Chaos Control!"
"No! This is cheating! I-" Eggman protested. Super Sonic was already out there, disabling Eggman's pawns one by one.
The scene was identical in every monitor: the robots just vanished along with their payload. Millions went down to thousands, then hundreds until the very last screen turned off. Eggman was next. He laughed an insane laugh, thinking he may have to flee after all the planning, all the wonderful scheming.
Upon return, Super Sonic ignored him at first, intent on conserving his golden form. Even with the gems' power, he was at his limit. The colour flickered and, once he forced his friends' capsule open, it evaporated completely. Finally, Sonic would have the relief he deserved.
What he got was jaw-dropping: a feral hedgehog stuck in a red dress, a scared woodland fox that couldn't stop floating in the air and a misshapen reddish echidna with twisted spines.
"Sssonic…" the echidna uttered, in visible pain due to the way its jaws were connected. The animals approached him, and Sonic didn't know what to do about it.
That's when he looked at the purple sky. It wasn't the sky that was purple…all this time Sonic had been under a tank of mind control serum.
Eggman was gone, unlike his voice. "Impressive, isn't it? The serum's side effects, I mean."
"What have you done to them, you freak?!" Sonic screamed, tearing at his quills. His blurry image reflected off the tank's bottom.
"I knew you'd come prepared after I've kidnapped your friends, so I made a game we could both play to bide our time, a ruse. Those badniks had immaterial amounts of serum, which would not have been enough to mind control a fly. Besides, what good would mind-controlling everyone on the planet create? Too much, and they start devolving like your four-legged entourage. Too little, and they rebel when the effect wears off."
He paused. The tank started to crack, sprouting leaks.
"There is consolation for you, Sonic. I think I have the exposure time just right by now. All credit goes to our lovely specimens: Not Amy, Not Tails and Definitely Not Knuckles...anymore. If I were you, I'd take a big breath and embrace your new ruler, Doctor Ivo Robotnik!"
With that said, the ceiling fell apart, drowning the remnants of Sonic's sanity in purple goo. He didn't know what happened after that. All he knew was that he lay restrained in a prison cell, hearing the man's voice.
"Rise and shine, brown hedgehog… Wake up and smell the ashes."