A/N: Hi, guys! Okay, so chapter six of My Turn to Shine isn't as ready as I thought, but here's chapter two of this! Enjoy!

Sonic opened his eyes, sat up, and blinked. He was laying on a patch of soft earth. Warm sunlight shone through gaps in the puffy clouds overhead, but the wind was unsteady. He could tell as it shifted through his quills that something was off. Way off.

"Ughh… wh-where am I?" he staggered to his feet and found he was on a path of some kind, but the rows of tall hedges on either side gave him tunnel vision, so he couldn't make out much. Up ahead, the road forked off in different directions, each lined with more tall greenery.

"Woah. Talk about surreal." Sonic smiled with curiosity and tilted his head.

He wasn't one to reflect on the past very much, but still… the arena fading and him and Cloud being sucked into that odd, oily black whirlpool? What happened back there?

It was a fleeting thought, and he quickly disregarded it in favor of the new fun adventure ahead.

He looked down the path, put his fingers to his lips, and whistled. "Hmm… can't judge the miles," he said, listening to the sound travel. Sonic leaned his head further forward, and heard a faint thumping sound, like giant footsteps.

He wasn't alone.

The ground rumbled beneath Sonic's feet, and he turned around, ready to fight… "Ah!"

A giant Goomba waddled in from the left, its large, brown, mushroom-like body taking up most of the path. The monster noticed Sonic and lumbered towards him, its face an angry snarl.

"Woah!" Sonic took off in the opposite direction to try and find a way around the monster. But, with sharp turns and limited visibility, the paths were hard to navigate. Like a maze, he realized.

The Goomba was pretty quick for its size. Each footfall shook the ground, and it was hard for Sonic to really turn around and face it.

Sonic tried to run up the hedges. He hoped to gain an advantage over the monster, and maybe even get a peek above the crazy maze.

Little did he know that his every move was being watched.

The Maze Master sat in the middle of a vast, stone room. The walls, floor, and ceiling depicted different terrains, as if mapping the geography of a twisted world. One section depicted vines and flowers. Another manifested a misty fog. A third resembled the stars in space. Many paths snaked and zig-zagged across the floor and up the walls, but nothing about the room was logical. The outer space portion was below a tunnel of stone, and the hedges were above a section of clouds, like a patchwork quilt with no pattern.

Many crystal orbs floated around the room. Most of them were empty and remained still, but one in particular shone with life, and moved pretty quickly towards the top of a green section laden with undergrowth. The image in the orb showed Sonic running up the hedges.

Maze Master looked down into the orb and laughed. "No, no, no! Don't you know? That's cheating! Hehehehe! Cheaters get penalties!" He raised his hand, and smashed it on the crystal. The orb shuddered, and the Sonic in the image fell to the ground.

"Offph!" Sonic face-planted and slid across the ground. He spat the sand out, moving his hand over his tongue to get the taste out of his mouth

'What was that? Some kinda energy whacked me clear down! Something's keeping me from going over the top.' He looked up and glared, before he heard the Goomba turn around. "Uh-oh!" He got up and kept running.

In his lair, the Maze Master clapped his hands, flailing and bouncing around in a hyperactive episode that would have given Crazy Hand a run for his money. "Hehehehe! There you go! There you go!" He hopped in mid-air, then returned to a balanced hover. "You'll soon learn… My mysterious maze of misery and malice will keep you down and out of our way! Hahaheeheehe!"

A tinkling sound caught Maze Master's attention and he looked to see another glowing orb making slow progress down one of the paths in the stone tunnel. He grinned, satisfied. "Ooohhh! You won't need me to bring you trouble right now, as amusing and confusing as that would be! You'll do plenty of that yourself! Haha! Hehehehehe!" He then turned back to Sonic's orb.

"Aw, no!" Sonic skidded to a halt when he reached a dead end. As the Goomba approached, he stood upright… watching… sizing him up.

He then smiled. "You know what they say about the bigger they are!" Sonic bent his knees and raised his fists. "The harder they fall! Especially when they've cornered a Hedgehog! Now you're about to see how fast fast really is!"

The massive creature only had time to widen its eyes before Sonic accelerated so fast his body was a blur.

"Here I come!" He spun up into a ball, rapidly hitting the Goomba on all sides. The Goomba looked like Saturn and its rings with the blue hedgehog darting around it at supersonic speeds.

The Goomba tried to keep up with the blue blur, but doing so only made it dizzy. Its eyes spun around in its head and it toppled over into the dirt. It kicked its stubby legs, trying to right itself, but to no avail.

Sonic spun to the ground and uncurled with a cocky grin. "Heh," he chuckled, placing a hand stylishly on his side and wagging his finger at the struggling monster, "tsk, tsk, tsk. You should know, I'm not easily caught." Smirking, he dashed over to the Goomba and jumped up on its head. "Let's see what one of you looks like as a pancake!"

It only took a few hits; the Goomba did just that, flattening briefly before vanishing completely. It poofed away in a cloud of dust, leaving behind a single gold coin.

Sonic landed and steadied himself before walking over and picking up the gold. He flicked it in the air, then looked it over. "A coin? Heh, I would have gone for a ring better." He rolled his eyes, "Some people don't understand the perfect sense of fashion that is within ring collecting." He decided to hang on to the coin, maybe wave it in Mario's face in the next Olympic games.

The hedgehog continued to race down the different dirt lanes until a trickling sound caught his attention. "W-whoa!" He skidded to a stop and shielded his face with his arms. Water spurted up from a crack in the earth about ten yards ahead of him.

He blinked and looked at the broken, soaked earth. "What's going on down there?" He narrowed his eyes for a moment, then grinned and took off towards it… just as a massive creature's head burst through the ground and roared!

.

The first thing Cloud noticed was his pounding headache. He opened his eyes and lifted his head, feeling the pain in his body and limbs. It was as if someone had just tossed him aside and left him on the cold, stone floor.

Warily, the soldier stood and looked around. He was in the middle of a dark, stone corridor. The air smelled musty and moldy, and a shiver ran through his body.

Cloud pressed a hand to his forehead to ease the pain. This had to be an illusion, a false memory created by his Mako-clouded mind. It had been years since the Mako-poisoning, but he assumed it would still act up once in a while. But how could he have false memories about a place he had never seen before?

The soldier ran his fingers across the rough, stone walls. He jerked back as a wave of cold shot through his fingertips. Okay, so this wasn't an illusion.

"How-?" he asked himself, but the word hung in the air as the events in the coliseum replayed in his mind. "What did that guy do?" Cloud muttered, remembering the crazy mage in swirling robes.

He drew his Fusion Blade and started forward. The only way he'd figure out what was happening was to begin exploring.

First thing's first, he had to get back to his world, or at least to the Smash mansion. Part of him wondered where his coliseum opponents ended up, and what Ganondorf was planning. Something told him that the other Smashers were in danger, but he couldn't risk getting involved. After all, he was looking for more than a way back. He was looking... for Sephiroth.

Up ahead, the tunnel continued off to the left. Cloud stopped. He didn't know why, but he sensed something dangerous down that way.

There was a deafening stillness, as if the air was holding its breath. Then, a loud cry echoed from down the corridor.

Cloud raised his blade higher, wondering what kind of monster's roar could make dust fall from the ceiling like that.

Another cry, closer this time. Then a gold light appeared in the distance, before a massive, green dragon snake slithered through the air, headed right for him. The gold light, Cloud realized, was the charge of a power beam in the monster's mouth!

Rayquaza fired, and Cloud threw himself to the ground. Scorching heat enveloped him as the dragon's energy beam demolished the back wall with a thunderous crash.

Rayquaza reared back its head and roared furiously, its eyes as intimidating as a beast to its prey, but Cloud had fought plenty of monsters, so he wasn't too afraid. He did wonder what had gotten this one so riled up, though.

He leapt into the air and slashed at Rayquaza's neck, but the Fusion Blade glanced harmlessly off the Pokémon's body. With a lash of its tail, the dragon snake knocked Cloud to the ground.

The soldier groaned, coughing as dust filled his lungs. He looked up just in time to see Rayquaza advancing on him. Cloud gritted his teeth and pushed himself to his feet. With a burst of strength, he thrust his blade forward.

The massive snake roared in pain and the entire corridor shook. Rayquaza jerked away from Cloud's blade, knocking a cascade of stones loose from the roof.

"Gotta do something… before this place comes down on top of me…" Cloud muttered, dashing to one side as more stones crashed down from above. Then he got an idea. He reached for the piece of Red Materia in his pocket, his last piece. He always carried some Materia in case of emergencies, and an angry Pokémon and a collapsing tunnel definitely fit that category.

"No reason we can't have two giant snakes in here," he stated, and activated the power of the red orb in his fist. "Leviathan! Crush my foe under the ocean's waves!"

Rayquaza shook its massive head and coiled up to defend against what was coming.

The red orb grew warm in Cloud's hand. With a burst of light, the Materia exploded, and Cloud heard a roaring rush of sound, and smelled the salty air of the sea. Suddenly, a massive tidal wave washed through the corridor, and the soldier took a deep breath, knowing that he was about to be pulled under.

Rayquaza roared in fright and raised its head skyward, trying to dodge the onslaught of water, but the waves were too much for even the massive dragon snake, let alone a swordsman. Cloud glanced behind him and saw the silhouette of the Leviathan before a wave of freezing water washed over his head.

The rushing water dragged Cloud's body like a rock in a riptide. Not even he could fight the powerful flow, and struggled helplessly as the current swept him along. He didn't really care where he was headed, just as long as Rayquaza didn't end up with him.

Cloud's head broke the surface and he took a sharp breath of cold air, only to be pulled under again. His shoulder slammed against a rock wall, and he gritted his teeth against the pain. The water shifted direction once again, carrying the soldier in its grasp.

Thinking he should go with the current, he kicked off, but there was nowhere he could go up for air. His hands scrabbled along the rough walls, looking for some kind of exit, but there was none.

Already his chest constricted and felt like it would burst. Was this really going to be the end of him? After everything he fought for? Was he really going to drown? And what about his family? Tifa, and the kids… How could he have let this happen to him?

Cloud couldn't hold his breath any longer. Icy water poured into his mouth and air bubbles floated up to the ceiling. Just as panic and lightheadedness were about to overwhelm him, he heard a slurping sound, as if the water was draining somewhere.

Whoosh!

A final wave pushed Cloud forward into a wide-open space where the water spread out and receded. He shakily got to his feet, gasping and sputtering for breath,

"That could've gone better," he said.

The corridor had widened into a large, square room. The water continued flowing down a narrow path on the opposite wall. Maybe summoning the Leviathan in such closed quarters wasn't the best idea, but at least Cloud was away from that giant Rayquaza and he had time to figure things out.

He supposed it would be best to continue on the path he was already taking, and that meant following this corridor to wherever it led.

Cloud was about to start forward, when a glint of red light caught his eye. Perplexed, he gazed out on the water and saw a heart-shaped object carried by the now faint current.

Quick as a flash, the soldier scooped it up and held it to his eyes. What luck! A Heart Container! The coliseum and the fight with Rayquaza had really done a number on him, and the restorative was just what he needed. But, he wondered, where did it come from?

Cloud raised the object higher and a wave of warm energy radiated from it, starting at the crown of his head and flowing down to his feet, healing his previous pains

Grateful for the otherworldly heart, Cloud looked onward. For a brief moment, he considered looking for Sonic, but he shook his head regretfully. Thinking like that would only put the hedgehog in further danger.

Cloud had only been in the Smash tournament a short while, and though he had begun to secretly consider the Smashers on the list of things he cherished, he couldn't involve them in his search. That would only mean more people he wouldn't be able to protect.

No. He'd have to continue on alone.

A/N: Thanks for reading! I'll try to bring more updates soon!