"We will not stand idle while these humans massacre our people. There will be war."
-King Maximus Acorn, March 6034
When Sonic woke, Tails was no where to be found. He mentally shrugged and pulled himself off the comfy spot he had made in the grass. He spotted a small stream and went down to get a drink. He cupped the water in his hand and brought it to his mouth, but then hesitated, smelling garbage.
Smells like Robotnik.
He followed the stream until he spotted the source of it. It was flowing out of a pipe that was protruding from a mountainside. To Sonic's surprise, standing just under the pipe was Tails, who was happily relieving himself into the stream.
Great. Just one more reason to avoid it.
A thick smog blanketed the mountain. Upon closer inspection, the entire mountain was surrounded by a moat of purple liquid. The streams stretched out like tentacles in all directions, so that the entire area smelled repulsive, and purple waste was everywhere.
"Well, we gotta cross this stuff to get to the base. Going around it would add a couple more days to our journey."
"How about I fly us over?"
Sonic raised his eyebrow in amusement. "You can carry me? Seriously?"
"I don't know. Lemme try." Tails helicoptered up into the air with his tails and grabbed Sonic's hands. Sonic felt a slight tug, but other than that, nothing happened.
"Are . . . we . . . flying?!" Tails squeaked out, straining to even speak.
"Nope," Sonic said simply, letting his boredom show.
Tails let go and fell to the ground, exhausted.
"I'll just run across. You fly."
Tails nodded, so Sonic charged up, and dashed away at full speed, going so fast that he was able to run right over the liquid as though it were solid ground. It took him only a minute to reach the other side. He sat and waited another five for Tails to show up, as he had to stop and take a break every half minute, and he had to search for a good sized rock or pipe to stop on.
"Kay, now all that's left is the Great Forest."
"Where's that, Sonic?"
"Just over this hill."
"There's no forest up there. I saw it."
Sonic frowned.
"Then what . . ." Sonic trailed off as he climbed to the top of the hill. The forest had been replaced by a gigantic chemical plant that spanned several square miles. "H-how?" He was dumbfounded.
That forest had stood since the start of Mobian history. He had passed it just a month ago, and nothing was here but trees. Now plumes of toxic smoke rose from the sprawling plant that now laid there. He suddenly forgot about the trip home, as his hatred for Robotnik stoked his anger, and exposed his recklessness.
"I'm putting this thing outta business. C'mon Tails," Sonic said, storming off towards the plant with Tails in tow.
"Are we gonna blow it up?" Tails asked apprehensively.
"That's the plan!"
They rushed to the electric fence that surrounded the compound. The fence was only about seven feet high, but buzzed with electricity. "Stand back!"
Sonic backed up, squatted, and uncoiled his legs, launching him into a great leap. Mid-way through it, he spun into a ball while soaring over the fence,
clearing it by at least two feet. "C'mon. Fly over, Tails."
"But I. . . don't think it's a good-"
"Don't be such a wuss. Fly over."
By the time Tails had helicoptered over the fence, Sonic was already running into the plant. They ran towards the center of the compound, with Sonic only stopping to look at every intersection before dashing to the next one with Tails flying in pursuit.
"We s-s-sure are making a lot of noise. . ."
"Doesn't matter. Robotnik's bots can't hear squat."
"Really? Cause the ones I've seen lately-" Tails was cut off when they reached an intersection to find a row of robots in each direction, waiting for them. "-could."
They began to turn around, but were blocked by another squad. Sonic took a quick look around. No vents, no ducts, no secret passages. They had ambushed them at just the right spot.
"Tails."
"Sonic, I'm sca-"
"When I say go, I want you to fly over the squad behind us and-" Sonic couldn't say any more as the bots began firing. "GO!" Sonic leaped straight up and came directly down, curling into a ball and punching a hole through the floor on impact. He fell into a sewage tunnel that was full of the purple liquid.
He hopped onto a catwalk above him and ran, hoping that Tails had done as he had instructed. He eventually reached the end of the catwalk, so he leaped down to an unlabeled access door. He couldn't find a way to open it, so he just spun through it, destroying the surprised robot guard on the other side in the process. Another robot awaited at the end of the hallway, and had already began shooting at him.
He dashed forward and suddenly leaped over it, then turned and kicked it's head off before it could rotate to face him. He exited the hallway and ran at full speed towards an exit.
Forget blowing the thing up. Security is too tight! What was I thinking? We should have just gone around it!
He had just exited the building when the alarms began to scream. The electric fence extended and doubled in height, forcing him to go back inside and find a higher route. On his way back in, he realized that Tails may have not made it out.
If he isn't roboticized yet, he is one lucky fox.
Sonic followed signs to the prison, all while sneaking around, as he knew he was no match for a large group of robots. He finally found the prison, which contained just one cell.
The roboticizer, just a glass cylinder with the machine attached to the top and bottom. Inside it, was a tiny yellow fox, panicking and crying, trying to break the glass to get out. There was a robot at the controls, literally seconds away from turning the fox inside the machine into another of Robotnik's slaves.
He punched the robot, knocking it away from the controls. He hopped over the robot and smashed the emergency release button next to the cylinder. The container hissed as Tails was freed.
He stepped on the robot's head before it could get back up, smashing it.
"Sonic . . ."
"You okay Tails?"
"Your hand is bleeding." Confused, Sonic looked at his right hand. Sure enough, blood was trickling out from his index finger's knuckle.
"I guess I punched the thing a little too hard, huh?" Sonic said with a short chuckle. "Come on, let's get outta here."
They ran back out and began to get lost in the maze of hallways. They eventually reached a massive area that had an exit door on the opposite side. Before even Sonic could react, a robot worker spotted them. But instead of attacking, all of the workers ran away.
"Smart robots," Sonic said as he cockily strode to the door. He was halfway there when a strange bubbling sound made him stop. Tails hovered above Sonic, searching for the source. A few feet away, purple waste began oozing out of a drain in the floor. Soon all of the drains were overflowing and the liquid was a foot deep, and rising quickly.
Sonic hopped up onto a disabled conveyor belt and began searching for exits. Tails yelled at him at pointed towards a small window that was adjacent with the roof. It was above the door, the only viable path to it a series of conveyors and machinery. Tails flew over to it and tried to smash
it, but wasn't strong enough to even make it crack.
"Tails! Get away from the window!" Tails obliged and flew away from it, hovering just below the roof.
Sonic's ideal path to the window was a leap from this conveyor to a higher one that ran parallel with the one he was on. Then he would leap from that to the top of a machine, then onto a thin, hanging fluorescent light fixture, from which he would leap to the window.
He looked down, surprised to see the waste had already reached his feet, at least ten feet off the ground. He took the first jump just fine and landed on the second belt. As he was running towards the jump to the machine, liquid began pouring from pipes that ran along the roof.
Sonic ran directly into the downfall and was knocked off of the conveyor and into the waste. He tried to get Tails' attention by screaming at him, but that just made him inhale the waste, causing him to choke. He drifted to the floor, his little hedgehog lungs quickly becoming starved of oxygen.
As a last resort, he planted his feet and pushed off with all of his might. He soared to the surface, escaping the liquid just long enough to get a breath and a quick look around. The liquid was only a few feet from the ceiling, and Tails was busy trying to stop the flow from the pipes by blocking the openings with his hands. Sonic was just behind the machine he had been trying to reach earlier.
He saw all this in just a three second glimpse before his head hit the ceiling, causing stars to erupt in his eyes as he floated back down to the bottom. He couldn't see underwater, so he began blindly walking towards the door, feeling his way around the machine. He tried to remember where the window was in relation to the machine, recalling that it was slightly to it's left. He felt his way to the front of the machine and planted his feet, then pushed off.
The moment he surfaced, he did a three-quarter back-flip, placing his feet on the side of the machine and then launching himself towards the window. He whipped into a ball and smashed through the window, falling about twenty feet before landing on his feet, then losing his footing and falling on his face.
Tails had heard the window smash and flown out of it just as the liquid reached the window and began spilling out from it. Before the surrounding workers could react, Sonic dashed towards the fence. He jumped on top of a bewildered robot and used it to spring him over it. Tails followed him over and they both ran away as fast as they could.
Two days later, at midday, they reached the Mystic Ruins, home of the freedom fighters.
Sonic and Tails snuck into the Ruins and quietly entered an empty tent that was pitched among hundreds of others.
"Why are we hiding Sonic?"
"Cause," Sonic said as he laid down on the floor, "I don't want to be assaulted with praise and all that; at least not yet. Rest now, praise later. We'll meet the princess tomorrow and juice back out."
Or, at least, I will.
And with that, they both fell asleep.
