The sky grew purple and the flashing of glitzy lights sliced down from their heights in the city. Underneath Sonic's feet, the paving of the ground changed from ancient tile to concrete. Sonic made his way into the city followed by a raccoon he found in the marble zone ruins. Their path took them high onto the city's rooftops. Occasionally they bounced off for bumpers with a yellow star logo on them. Any badniks along their path were destroyed, well it was mostly Sonic doing the destroying.
Up high upon the skyscrapers, strong winds rushed around the duo. Sonic noticed Lens looking down at the nearly abandoned city down below. The buildings had fresh walls that barely weathered wind or rain. Yet even with nobody living in there. The entire city looked ruined and decrepit.
The worst part of it was that the raccoon looked at the buildings so despondently. "You alright?" Sonic said, keeping the raccoon in sight from the corner of his eyes.
"It's so empty..." Lens sounded dead. From what Sonic could see, the other kid's eyes were dull and listless.
"Hey, there's you, and me right? I'm quite enough for a coon to not consider the city empty." Sonic thumb pointed to himself. Pretty sure he was awesome enough to drive out whatever had gotten the raccoon down. It seemed to work
The sound of hacking then cut the gathering tension within the air. Sonic coughed into his fist while still maintaining constant speed. It was the ever present chill of the evening air sharply rushing past the inside of his throat.
Lens frowned and his head went back to that acute angle as if everything that existed or done was a entirely new puzzled. "Is something wrong?" He said, voice wavering among the question.
Sonic just held one hand out signaling everything's cool while hacking into his elbow. "Nothing" Sonic said through that occasional deep breath. "just running in the cold is murder on my throat." He had a strong body that could take a lot of punishment. The blue hedgehog had been crushed, bludgeoned, shot at, set on fire, squished and endured various other types of bodily injury. The protection of rings kept him from being seriously hurt but he was still affected by the consequence of running at high speeds through cold air.
Lens said "You should probably get something to cover it."
"Like what, a scarf?" Sonic considered the image that would make. Heroic, cool and confident, all traits that he had but then he shook his head. "Maybe not, I'd look like a hipster."
"Hipster? Wouldn't it be better than having a hurting throat?" Lens asked.
"I guess" Sonic said. The neon lights blurred past the pair with Sonic was easily able to smash apart more badniks to release his animal buddies. At the same time to the hedgehog was considering his image with a scarf. Sonic thought it wouldn't be so bad if he used it for those really cold places like way up north.
Lens was faithfully keeping pace behind the hedgehog. The hedgehog noticed that, keeping that gray raccoon in the corner of his eye as he rotated his leg out to send some more flying badniks to blow apart as they bounced and crashed against each other.
It interested the hedgehog, the way the raccoon didn't seem to be getting faster. Lens just moving at the same pace but keeping the distance between them constant. Though the young hero did notice the raccoon had an advantage over him in jumping to higher places. "So how are you keeping up with me?" Sonic asked.
Lens looked down, eyebrows lowered in thought. He gave flick of his ears and said. "I'm not sure, I think I just make sure I travel more with every step I guess."
It wasn't an explanation that really made sense but it was good enough for Sonic. The hedgehog felt the surging pulse of the energy coming from the rings he had collected. The goal post that declared who claimed the area was up ahead. Furthermore there the shining glow of another large warp ring. Most likely to another nauseating special zone with a chaos emerald at its core.
He braced himself to jump into the bizarre world where direction was merely a suggestion and the background was an assault and battery charge against the eyes. He dove straight into the ring without hesitating. Sonic was beginning to get used to the bouncing off of those mysterious and suspicious orbs. Oh who was he kidding with those screams and panicked flailing about?
With another chaos emerald collected after much trial and suffering, Sonic popped out of the special zone. When Sonic returned however, it was to being seized by his shoulders and meeting a dilated set of eyes. Before the young hero was an agitated Lens. "Don't make me be alone." The raccoon said. There was an edge to the boy's voice. A delicate balance that could topple from the wrong move. It was built upon a foundation of despair and solitude.
Sonic could never let a person suffering remain that way. "Alright alright" hands pushing away the raccoon's worries and grip. "But I need to get these emeralds. Can't let Eggman get a hold of them." Sonic said, taking out the three chaos emeralds he had collected. He juggled them and said " If I need to go get them, I'll let you know 'kay?" The raccoon wasn't a bad kid and he did help. The ring tailed boy being a dab hand at taking out any badniks that tried catching the hedgehog from behind. Not that Sonic needed the help or anything. And just leaving this kid out here in the lurch with Eggman on the prowl wasn't an option ever in Sonic's opinion.
This city with only three people and a multitude of robots had its distance eaten away leaving a trail of wrecked mechanical parts and released animal friends bouncing off to safer pastures behind the duo. "Ah Sonic? Who are you?" Lens said.
It was a simple and odd question. The kind that came from somebody that viewed everything with innocent and unknowing eyes. To that Sonic could only answer with a simple response. "That's easy, I'm just a guy that loves adventure. I'm Sonic the Hedgehog." The world's fastest hedgehog said, pointing to himself with his thumb. Sure he was also the hero that fought against the evil of Eggman.
Sonic had his own questions for Lens, wanting the raccoon to open up some more and talk about who he was. He didn't have any company who could keep up with his speed, so he wanted to take advantage of the chance to chat while running.
Lens wasn't sure how to answer, coming up with broken responses that more or less said he didn't know. To the raccoon it was everything in his head was foggy and smudged. All he could do was paint in broad strokes with the colors of feelings and impressions. Everything else seemed too difficult for him to convey in any meaningful words.
Though making any coherent conversation was difficult when dropping down several stories at high speed. The pair used the momentum and a curve to make their way across the huge gaps between rooftops. The situation became more ridiculous when mighty spheres swinging around with sharp spikes made their appearance to block the way forward. Sonic ran rings around the dangerous traps laughing all the way, while Lens ducked under them.
"Isn't this great, just me, you, the wind, and all these traps and badniks to make it interesting." Sonic said. He curled into a ball to take out a trio of snail like badniks. Their spiked shells made attacking them from above a questionable course of action. But the sudden drop out of nowhere was a shocker. Thankfully there was an entire field of springs there to send the duo soaring back up to land safely on the other side.
It was all downhill from there and Sonic continuously went to collect any rings he could see. "How many chaos emeralds are there anyway?" Sonic asked.
"Seven" Lens said and when Sonic asked how did he know that. The raccoon could only answer that he didn't know.
It was as good an answer as any for now in Sonic's opinion, now that another giant warp ring was in front of them just beyond the goal signpost. Giving a thumbs up and a reassuring smile to Lens, Sonic dived back into the special zone. The dizzying area continued with its timeless existence solely for the protection of the chaos emerald held at the center of its maze. This time Sonic rushed through the entire setup grabbing his fourth chaos emerald.
Popping out of the exit, Sonic came back to Lens shuffling from foot to foot. The raccoon still had an uncomfortable look on his face and mouth turning down in the beginnings of a pout. Fingers were linked together in front of Lens whose eyes were still wide but without the sheer panic the first time Sonic left.
"Come on" Sonic said, pointing down an incline of buildings. "Eggman's around here I can feel it." The path they took went higher upwards towards the very tallest skyscrapers in the city. There the distance between rooftops became much wider. Crossing those large gaps had the hedgehog and raccoon balancing on convenient but perilous swaying platform bridges. One misstep would send them tumbling down on a one way trip to splat on the ground.
After dealing with that dizzying and unstable situation, the sound of their feet hitting the ground changed. It went from fairly sound of concrete to the rough scritch scratching of brick. Sonic skidded to a halt while Lens stopped on a dime. "Something stinks and I bet it's Eggman" Sonic said.
Dropping down like an unwelcome present from above, the mad scientist within his aircraft maniacally laughed. "Behold rodent, and you other rodent." The doctor pointed to Sonic and Lens in turn. "The Eggmobile S!" With a grand gesture, Dr Eggman presented his vehicle. Which looked exactly the same as it was before.
"Ehhh? What does the S stand for?" Lens asked. The raccoon had crossed a leg behind his other leg while he was looking up at the doctor. The egg-mobile's bottom suddenly had a spike jut out from it. "I still don't get it." Lens said.
"Pfft and what are you going to do with that Eggman?" Sonic placed his hands behind his quills, utterly unconcerned with whatever Eggman's contraption would do. The doctor so enraged swooped down upon the duo. Sonic and Lens broke apart from each other. The spike on the other hand stabbed into the brick bridge. Thrusters flared and the doctor rose up with a brick block leaving a hole in the bridge.
"So that's your plan." Sonic said "Well your little toy is gonna get wrecked faster than you can tear up this place." The hedgehog punched his hand and then spun towards the Egg-mobile.
"Get off you miserable little hedgehog" Eggman tried waving Sonic away but sadly the spike device took up the entire power supply for the Egg-mobile S and so Eggman had no other weapon to drive his enemy off. "Grrr I'll get you for this!" The doctor steadily piloted his vehicle, diving down and tearing up the bridge so to plunge Sonic and the other one to their doom. "Wait a minute. Where's that other rodent."
There was a satisfied cry from behind, and Eggman turned to gape at the raccoon plunging a hand right through the reinforced steel, sure it was scrap quality steel made from weak pig iron but it was still a hunk of metal. With a firm grab and tug, Lens tore out some important parts like the fuel lines. "What, what, what! That isn't possible, simply impossible, how could you reach through almost two inches of steel and assorted parts and not even have a scratch on you." Eggman said pointing to the target of his aggravation.
"I don't know, maybe rings?" Lens said blinking at the sad tubes that dripped oil onto the brick floor.
"Hey Eggman." Another voice came and Eggman already having veins bulging with anger turned towards the sound. Then Sonic bashed one time too many into the Egg-mobile setting off another chorus of explosions. "Made you look." Sonic said back to the doctor when he landed.
Eggman could only rage and retreat, muttering all the way. The two boys chased after the egg shaped round man who was actually gaining distance in spite of flying in a damaged machine. Thankfully for the doctor, a distraction allowed him to dive into a cave entrance. That distraction was another capsule containing Sonic's animal friends. As the little animals bounced and rushed out of their confines Lens turned to Sonic who was watching and making sure everybody escaped safely."Ah, what is it between you and Eggman?" Lens said as they continued the chase of the mad doctor into the caves he escaped to.