Chapter 3: Super Sonic Bros

Sonic had made two assertations so far. The first was that he'd been sent somewhere due to Chaos Control. By now, he'd learned how to recognise that unique sensation of being transported through a warp in time and space. The second was that this probably wasn't Mushroom Hill Zone on Angel Island, unless the place had sprouted a ridiculous number of toadstools since his last visit.

The toadstools wasn't the strangest part, of course. Nor was it the complete lack of any rings around. It was the eyes. The eyes on clouds and hills and boxes floating in the air - elongated pupils that seemed to watch him, expectantly. The eyes didn't didn't strike Sonic as threatening, just really, really creepy.

Nothing seemed to be happening, so Sonic the Hedgehog shrugged and started running across the green plains dotted with mushrooms. These bright fields seemed to go on forever, and pretty soon Sonic was enjoying himself. Wherever he was, there was space to run freely. Sonic finally came to a stop when he nearly ran into a huge brick wall standing in the middle of nowhere.

"Psh! No problem," uttered the self-confident hedgehog before rolling into a ball and shooting himself through the bricks like a cannonball.

Sonic ended up getting the wind knocked out of him, however, when he hit something in the middle of the bricks that was harder than the surrounding blocks and didn't even get scratched. It was a big yellow square block with a question mark on it. Curious and annoyed, Sonic tapped the box, which immediatelly turned dark and sprouted a pair of eyes, while at the same time depositing a weird brown leaf.

The scream could be heard from a mile away.

"Argh! Getitoffgetitoffgetitoff!" Sonic yelled, all his cool lost for the moment, as he ran around in speed-blurring circles, trying to grab at the freaky raccoon tail that'd suddenly replaced his sleek sharp blue tail.

The panic made Sonic push forward across the vast distance, going faster than his comfortable speed, and at one point actually outrunning the sound of his own yelling voice. Eventually, he did find help at the gates of a tiny fortress that looked out of place in the tranquil landscape. All the guards were anthropomorphic turtles, but Sonic had more important things on his mind than to wonder about that.

"Get this thing offa me!!" Sonic requested.

The koopas had been intending to sneer at the sudden arrival of their arch-foe with comments like "Well, look who we got here?" and "Well, well, well, if it isn't the Princess's mustached muscle!" but the intensity of the apparent plumber's voice threw them off guard. The Hammer Bros in charge of the squad reacted as he was trained to and threw a heavy hammer at what looked to him like Mario with a raccoon leaf power-up.

"Ow!" Sonic uttered after getting hit on the head by a carelessly thrown construction hammer. "Hey, what's the big dea- Whoa, it's gone! Thanks guys!"

Filled with relief, Sonic dashed over to the turtle in the black armour to shake his hand. He wasn't expecting to experience a shock of pain the instant he touched the turtle, and he definitely wasn't expecting to suddenly shrink to half his normal size.

Sonic looked down at himself in shock. This was new. Once again weirded out by the sheer insanity of this unknown world, Sonic nearly didn't react in time as every single one of the turtles ganged up on him with violent intentions. Sonic jumped straight up and cleared the hurdle of shells and hammers in a single bound. After what had just happened, he wasn't sure he wanted to test the effectiveness of his spin-attacks against these foes, so a tactical retreat seemed in order. As insane as the physics of this place was, at least he still had his natural born super speed.

While most of the koopas gave chase, the Hammer Bros in charge went back inside the miniature fortress to report to the great king of the Koopas, who'd happened to visit recently for some unknown reason.

"Mario just showed up at the gate, but we succesfully chased him away, King Bowser," said the koopa, bowing deep before the makeshift throne.

"Excellent," the King responded. "Round up all the troops in the area and chase him towards the water's edge. He'll be easy to capture there."

"But your majesty," the koopa protested, "we haven't got any Scooba-Koopas to go after him when he goes into the water. He'll be able to swim away through the underground rivers."

"Rest assured. 'Mario' won't dare to get wet even to save his life," said Dr Eggman. "Muahahahahaaa!!"

"As you say, your majesty."

Next: Ripples in Reality