Hey guys I figured I ought to finally get this chapter out since it's been about a week since I updated, and I know how it feels to be hanging on to a story. It's great to see that you all like the story, even though it had a somewhat bumpy start.
Without further ado, on with the show!
Trials of Soleanna
via TwiddledSpire
Chapter 3: Back to the Future
*Like 200 years in the future…*
As the trio fell on either their head, ass or feet they managed to stand up and brush themselves off. Looking about at the rubble Sonic concluded that unfortunately, Eggman's machine really had worked and now they were down one shiny rock and a princess. He could feel a headache coming on.
"Well look who's here, I didn't expect to see you guys." A flirtatious voice came above them and looking up they found Batgirl and Mr Unsmiley smirking down at them from a broken window.
Sonic wiggled his eyebrows and smirked back, "Hey babe, long time no see." Rouge laughed and ran a finger down Sonic's cheek who grinned, "Actually I was talking to Shadow." He winked and everyone but grumpy mcgrump pants snorted.
As they made their way out to get a good look at where they were Shadow felt the need to state the obvious by declaring they were in another location as they looked at the abandoned city in ruins.
"Really? I thought we were at my 8th birthday party." Sonic smiled, even though he felt a little nervous about how they were going to get back to their own timeline. They were short of an emerald and all of them were in the timeline they'd just left.
"Sonic I'll use your quills for a toothpick if you don't shut up. How are we supposed to get back to our own timeline?" Tails wondered as he turned to the two GUN agents for help.
Grumpy pants spoke up, "We need a space time rift." His red eyes scanned the decimated city and wondered just whereabouts they might be, it was doubtful they were in Soleanna as the kingdom didn't have any skyscrapers.
Rouge muttered sarcastically, "Well it's a good thing I just happen to have one in my pocket, never thought I'd need it though."
Emerald eyes looked to his copy in understanding, "You mean using Chaos Control will –"
"Yes, but that alone isn't sufficient. The best way to find what we need is to split up so we can cover more ground."
*One Crisis City later*
The trio walked down a corridor sighing as their hopes were starting to fall. "No matter where we go, all we see are ruins. What the hell happened here?"
They found an open door with shadows moving and talking inside, the gang poked their heads through and Sonic felt a stab of shock at seeing Shadow and Blaze, as well as Pothead. Looking closer he found that it wasn't Shadow, the stripes were grey instead of red and his voice sounded deeper.
"If I eliminate that guy, will our world be saved?"
The Shadow lookalike nodded slowly and turned to the array of computer screens. "The Day of Disaster…Here are my records of this event." He opened a file containing a diary, "This was when Iblis was freed and his flames were released into the world…And you have this person to blame…" Pulling an emerald out nowhere he passed it Silver who took and gazed into it, stuck to the back of the emerald was a badly drawn picture of Sonic, but Silver, being an idiot believed that he was actually seeing Sonic in the emerald.
"I see it! So that blue hedgehog is the Iblis Trigger ?" Silver's eyes lit up in excitement and determination, clearly not seeing Blaze's expression of uncertainty.
"Blue…hedgehog…?" she murmured. She frowned and saw something by the door, narrowing her eyes she saw familiar emerald greens gazing back at her and slowly shaking his head. Feeling a pang of happiness at seeing Sonic again and wanting to talk to him she was forced to ignore him in favour of Mephiles who used his glowy powers of dark stuff to send them back in time.
When the three were gone, Sonic and the others ran forward to read the database. According to it Elise had died when Eggman's Egg Carrier exploded.
'Oh shit.' was the simultaneous thought.
*Where the next cutscene starts*
Team Sonic ran forward and managed to somehow find the other two posing. "You guys are so slow; we've been posing here for hours." With a look of triumph she showed them the best emerald of all – the one that was actually green. Seeing an opportunity to piss off dreadlocks guy she smirked like Cheshire cat. "I may not look it, but I'm a real treasure hunter." She leaned forward to Knuckles. "Unlike a certain echidna I know."
Riled up, Knuckles and Rouge started fighting and Tails cocked his head to one side. "Knuckles since when are you a treasure hunter, I thought you just guarded the Master Emerald all day."
Bored and folding his arms as much as possible in an attempt to out-cool Sonic, Shadow asked if they had found anything and resisted the urge to smack Sonic when he just pointed out the sexual tension between Knuckles and Rouge (both of which were still too busy arguing to hear).
"I got a signal there was an emerald through that dark and scary looking cave…"
Batgirl looked indignantly at Tails, "You mean we've got to go through there?!"
Knuckles snorted, "If you don't like you can just stay here."
Rouge scoffed, "You've got to be kidding."
Feeling in the mood to annoy Shadow once again he pointed and said cheekily, "Don't you be late." He seemed shocked when Shadow (instead of outright ignoring him like always) walked over to him and muttered, "Same to you." in his blue ear before skating off to Flame Core Zone. Sonic, happy that Shadow wasn't as grumpy as he pretended to be (he knew that all Shadow needed was a cup of coffee and Cheerios) ran off after him.
'Gay.'
Indeed Tails.
The gang knew they had reached the point of destination when they found a hovering Goal Ring spinning in all its random glory.
"Have you ever wondered who puts this shit here?"
"Every single day."
They walked into a decently sized room fit enough for a boss battle (spoiler) and found a Chaos Emerald floating above. As Rouge flew up to grab it Jason Griffith delivers the best line of the day:
"Don't touch it!"
Thanks Griffith.
Rouge fell away from the floating emerald as a plume of lava blew up in her face; Shadow caught her and stood protectively in front as a giant…horned…worm of sorts leered down at them.
"Guys! Protect the goods!" Sonic yelled as he shoved Knuckles in front of him.
Not wasting any time Shadow leapt into action with a reluctant Sonic following in tow. Using the real superpower of teamwork they beat the evil worm guy who doesn't even deserve a fight scene and flew out the volcano.
Using Chaos Control x2 they managed to open the space-time rift to open a portal back to Soleanna. Biding the others a farewell Team Sonic jumped though back into a deserted square. Come to think of it, Soleanna was deserted in general…where were all the people from the festival? Whatever.
As they appeared in the square Sonic found a paper conveniently placed there and read it, hmm, it seemed today was the day the world was going to end…Ohh a vendor!
Buying the bounce bracelet and feeling sorry that Tails and Knuckles weren't cool enough to have powerups for themselves he bid them a farewell and took a magic mirror (no I didn't make that up) to Radical Train.
"Thanks for a crappy birthday, Sonic." said Tails.
"You're welcome buddy."
When he got to the zone several things happen that confused him, first Eggman's voice came out of nowhere and told him that he needed to save the train, then Elise screamed for help…So was Elise on the train with Eggman or not?
Realising that he was in fact – too slow, he decided to actually live up to his name and shattered the sound barrier in an effort to get to the train in time… but which one?!
*One Radical Train later*
As Elise was babbling in his ear about how she knew he would save her Sonic concluded that Eggman was a stupid fucker (not that he hadn't done so before), but this was just inexcusable. So it turned out that Eggman had put Elise on a train separate from him despite not having the secret of the Flames of Disaster yet which made is entire plan involving her a waste. And if Sonic hadn't saved her in time then she would've died and he still wouldn't be able to get the Flames of—Ugh! So what was the point of not getting the secret of the Flames and then deliberately trying to kill her when he needed her-?!
'Shit!'
The blue blur swiftly skipped to the side as he heard a whoosh sound heading for them. He stopped and put Elise down, unable to believe his bad luck at his visitor. "You again?!"
"This time there will be no more interruptions!"
"Dude fuck off! I'm the hero!"
"Lalalala I can't hear you!"
Blue boy growled, "Well maybe if you took your damn hands away from your ears!"
Silver distracted Sonic by attacking him with his invisible powers of death while Eggman grabbed Elise (sigh) again. The Princess was screaming at Eggman. "How dare you try fucking to kill me when you still need me?! What the actual fuck is wrong with you?!"
"W-Well, I thought…it'd be…okay with you…" He looked a dog with his tail between his legs; Elise was having none of it and unleashed her Bitch-Fu on him while Sonic was being squeezed to death by White the Pothead.
Someone up in SEGA took pity on their mascot and brought Shadow to fight Silver. "Mephiles! Why are you getting in my way?!"
The dark hedgehog stood up and folded his arms to be make fanboys squeal at his coolness. In his huskier version of Sonic's voice he stated: "I am Shadow. Shadow the Hedgehog."
"My hero."
He gave his blue counterpart a nod to let him know he had this who gave him a thumbs up and ran after the Princess.
'You know life's bad when you're imitating your Italian plumber arch rival…'
*Soleanna Forest/Jungle*
"Now Princess, calm down, there's nowhere for you to go."
Elise had had it; she wasn't even being treated like a plot device properly. "No! I'm sick of this, I'd rather die than be your prisoner again you asshat!"
And with that Elise let herself fall like a million feet (but not really) to her death.
'Someone's on their period.' thought Eggman as he watched by leaning over the edge. It seemed that even death itself did not want Elise as she was caught just before she made impact, gasping she turned her head to find Sonic grinning slightly.
"You're one insane chick." They weren't given any more time to talk as Eggman announced that he wasn't going to let her get away.
Boss Fight: Egg-Megadrive (I mean Genesis)
This giant of a robot came literally out nowhere. It had a massive torso and four huge arms. Obviously its head was going to be its weakest point and the four arms provided Sonic with a way to get up there, hell the arms even lowered and rose up again. Could this be any easier?
"You think you can intimidate me with just your size? Come on, let's see what you can do!" The arms of the robot span like a windmill and didn't even touch the ground, seeing this, Eggman activated the lasers! Which…also, did nothing of any use. Yeah. Good job Eggman.
As the torso of the robot lowered again Sonic ran underneath and used his bouncy powers a go-go to do some serious damage. He rinsed and repeated this formula even as the arms blew off one by one after every couple of hits. In an effort to somehow scare Sonic when all of the arms had been destroyed he proceeded to try and crash his slowly falling robot onto the oh-so-squishable blue pincushion.
With no effort Sonic practically walked away from the machine and it fell into the huge field. With a bored yawn Sonic picked Elise up (who had been hiding and cheering from behind a rock) and ran away into the jungle when Eggman's backup arrived.
Getting away from his robots was no big deal. At least Elise seemed to have the time of her life, as we all know being a princess isn't that easy.
"You know you're going to need to go back to the castle, right?" He hated to burst people's bubbles (okay he loved it, but in this case he felt bad for doing so) and frowned when Elise gave a feeble 'okay' as a response. Feeling guilty for spoiling her good mood and wanting to make up for it he took a right into a flower field to take a breather.
Being a girl and all, Elise took a liking to the flowers, having never seen so many in her life. She seemed a little jealous that Sonic had travelled to many beautiful places in the world, and that nothing ever seemed to tie him down.
"Sonic, when you defeat Eggman…you'll go, won't you?"
Yes was the obvious answer.
She looked over her shoulder to find Sonic chilling on the grass looking thoughtfully up into the sky with his hands behind his head. With a heavy sigh she sat next to him and twirled a flower in her fingertips, quietly regarding her adventure.
"There's been a lot of times when I've been afraid of what might happen to me, but I've enjoyed this adventure." Although Sonic's eyes were closed he was quietly listening to her. "For once I didn't have be a princess, I was able to be myself, a girl."
Sonic gave an amused smile. "And here I thought girls wanted to be princesses."
"Don't get me wrong, I really love my home but I just want to get away sometimes, y'know?"
"We're teenagers; everyone wants to run away from home at some point. Rebel, have fun, that kind of thing."
They sat in silence and enjoyed the scenery.
"As corny as this is going to sound, I won't forget this place. Thanks for showing it to me Sonic." She smiled when he just waved it off.
*After dropping Elise off*
The Egg Carrier had made its way back to Soleanna Castle. Eggman's voice sounded from a speaker:
"Princess Elise, ruler of Soleanna… By refusing to negotiate with me, you have forced me to take drastic actions. Meet me at the specified point alone at 4 o'clock today. Failure to do so on time will result in my levelling of this city so that nothing but ashes remain!"
*Aboard the Egg Carrier…*
Eggman sat down on his chair and watched the recaptured princess quietly. He was surprised that Sonic had been stupid enough to just leave unprotected at the castle without even dealing with him.
Taking a sip of his drink he spoke, "Did your parents ever tell about Solaris? His power can change time, and even manipulate the fabric of time itself."
You mean kind of like the Chaos Emeralds Eggman?
"Where on earth does that voice come from?!"
Elise just raised an eyebrow at the madman.
*Soleanna*
Tails and Amy had met again back at Soleanna while Sonic was off doing hero things. As the princess being taken by Eggman, Tails had been tipped off by a SEGA executive telling him the next place to go was the ancient castle through the dreaded Soleanna Forest.
Tails found Sonic and off they went for partake in the stupidest mission in the game, the trials of Soleanna. But first Sonic got an owl from Future City telling him he had even more powerups available from the only black guy in Soleanna.
"So what exactly do these gems do?" Tails asked. The green one was to breakdance a tornado, the blue one was to make him less lazy and run faster and the red one made people act slow. All quite pointless, but Sonic bought them all the same.
Because the guards were jealous of his mad skills they initially refused him entry to the ancient castle, going on and on about the trials of Soleanna. Naturally Sonic told them to fuck off and made his way to Kingdom Valley Zone only to be ambushed by Eggman's robots…and then saved…by Silver. God why.
"You look like you're in a hurry."
"I swear to god I am not in the mood for this: No means NO!"
Pothog smiled. "Circumstances have changed, I need to rescue the princess."
"Shadow kicked your ass and now you wanna help? Cute, real cute."
"I'm being honest here."
"And I'm honestly telling you to get lost." Not waiting for a reply Sonic took off and made his way throughout the abandoned castle, deliberately knocking things over so Silver couldn't follow him and try to 'help'.
Even with his pointless gems and speed section Sonic was unable to catch the Egg Carrier and watched as it crashed in a plume of fire and smoke over a hill. Someone he had tried to save actually died. Even though Eggman was dead too, that didn't nothing to quell the feeling of failure in him.
A warm hand touched his head and a soft voice called him. "Sonic, it's not the end. If we go back in time we'll be able to save her."
His heavy head turned to find Blaze's face coloured with concern. "Blaze? What are you doing here? Did you know this guy has been trying to kill me?"
"Actually she tried to dissuade me from doing so. She also comes from the future."
Shut it you!
Sonic narrowed his eyes between them in confusion. "You said you came from a different dimension…"
"I do…I lied to Silver."
Silver's jaw dropped. "W-What?!"
"Whatever! The point is I'm down a Chaos Emerald and I can't go back." Luckily, Silver had one and used it to open a time portal before handing it to Sonic. 'Sucker!'What Silver didn't know was that Sonic already had another emerald, he just wanted to steal Silver's.
He jumped through and was conveniently tipped off by another SEGA employee who told him to go someplace called Aquatic Base Zone where the Egg Carrier was being launched.
Let's not go into Aquatic Base Zone. It was long, boring and Sonic got there in time to jump on the Egg Carrier just as it was leaving. Crisis adverted.
*Egg Carrier*
Just as Eggman was going on about how they were going to crash, Sonic whizzed in and grabbed Elise before running like hell out the rooms and whatever corridors he could find. Eggman had realised that Elise had gone missing and upon noticing the cameras set up before him came to realise that Sonic was aboard and lucky for Egghead, couldn't find a way off the damn ship.
He ran to the room to try one last time to nab Elise.
"Sonic! What do we do?"
"I don't know, cry?" He swerved around a corner and broke through the glass, he was just going to have to jump to safety somehow – but crashed onto a platform below. 'Dammit!'
Elise rolled away from him and was pulled away by the wind off the platform, barely hanging on. He ran and tried to reach for her hand but she was snatched from his grasp once again (how many times has this happened now?) by another hand, this one was robotic and was attached to a machine. Eggman's robot. She was swept away in the canopy to sit beside the doctor who broke his shades in his hand from frustration.
Boss Battle: Egg-Wyvern
"You're screwed now you little pincushion!"
Sonic cupped his ear, unable to hear over the wind. "What?"
"You're screwed!"
"Whaaaaat?" This was almost was pointless as Knuckles in this story. Using the platform to run about and avoid Eggman's lasers, diving when Eggman lunged forward and generally dodging whatever the madman threw at him. Sonic wasn't sure what he could do to land a hit on the robot, it was far out of his reach and he couldn't risk homing attacking and missing otherwise he'd fall off and never be able to save her. 'cause y'know, that'd be bad. But not really.
The Egg Carrier began to explode and plumes of smoke belched from everywhere, luckily the wind was ripping it all behind the ship but the hedgehog didn't have long until it crashed.
Spending a few minutes ducking and twisting out of the way he tried to figure out what to do before he decided to just grab the horn and hope for the best. The speed of the robot was blinding and Sonic wasn't sure how he managed to grab a hold (it's quite simple, I wrote it Sonic), once he had a grip (and with a little help from moi) he steered the wyvern into the falling debris time and time again until the doctor finally thought it'd be best if he changed tactics and besides, the horn had snapped off.
The doctor fired missiles to break the platform Sonic was standing one by one and for a horrifying moment he thought he missed Eggman, only for the turbulence of the wind to steer him directly into Sonic's miscalculated line of attack. The constant blows were slowing the wings of the wyvern down and making it easier and easier to land hits on.
Eggman being the sneaky bastard he was dislodged his egg-o-matic from the wyvern when it was smoking from every which way; Sonic dived and grabbed it, unbuckling the fat man's seatbelt, immediately the man was ripped away by the wind and below the clouds.
The Egg Carrier was falling to pieces around them, unbuckling Elise from her seat he pulled her into his noodle arms and leapt off the broken egg-o-matic machine onto whatever he'd landed on before sprinting up along it, zipping off every surface of scrap metal large enough to take them with Elise screaming in his ear all the while, he reached a cliff and fell onto it.
They lay still as the ship continued to explode and eventually the engine erupted, the force of it being blasted outwards being strong enough to send Sonic and Elise flying further away from the edge of the cliff.
'We made it? Yay let's a have a party…zzzzz' Exhausted, Sonic had fallen asleep and was dreaming of electric eggs. Elise got up and walked over to him; she didn't bother waking him up, the longer he was asleep the longer she could be away from the castle. Tired herself she fell back and felt relieved Eggman was dead, with that comfortable thought in mind she fell fast asleep too. (The credits should kick in about now)
Brought to you by
TwiddledSpire
Originally made by
SONIC TEAM
The End. For now. But not really.
Wow. That story arc went quicker than I expected, must've been the lack of endless loading screens lol. Anyways I shall be seeing you in Shadow's story arc next who hands down has the best story in the game.
Leave a review my pretties.
~Next Time:~
"I would never have believed I would reborn from your shadow. I thank you, Shadow the Hedgehog, our meeting is somewhat ironic, no?"
"Who are you? How do you know my name? And why do you sound like that red echidna?"
"I am Mephiles. Mephiles the Dark."
