"Twinkle, twinkle, little star, how I wonder what you are...up above the world so high...like a diamond in the sky..." Sonic paused. "Hey, that sounds familiar..." He kicked a large stone out of boredom. Maybe I'll go check out the tunnels... He thought. Sonic ran up to one of the holes in the ground and began climbing in. How does Knuckles do this? Sonic wondered. He felt a bit claustrophobic in the tunnel so he jumped out. "This SUCKS!" Sonic yelled, and hoped someone else would come by to take over for the job.
Meanwhile, Tails was dragging Knuckles's body into a hotel named "The Arthur Hotel". Tails thought that was a weird name for a hotel, but he did not care at that point. He dragged Knuckles up to the till where an orange echidna wearing a top hat and a monocle sat.
"Is he dead?" The echidna asked.
"No..." Tails replied, "I think he's just paralysed...we need a room, but...we have no money...I could pay you in some other way..."
"Wait...is that Knuckles or whatever? How marvelous! My name is Sir Krinklestein K. Snegon, but you can just call me Krinklestein." the echidna exclaimed. "You can have a free room!"
"Alright, thanks...Krinklestein..." Tails said.
In no time, Tails had gotten themselves their own room, with two beds, something that appeared to be some sort of TV, and a really creepy bathroom. The room was complete with photos of ants.
Tails dragged Knuckles up onto the bed, who surprisingly still had the cookie in his mouth, but it looked soggy and gross.
"Ew..." Tails mumbled. "Well, just stay there. I'll lock the door. Hopefully we're safe from that Emily Su or whatever..." Tails got up and made sure every lock on the door was secure - the handle lock, the actual lock and even the extra chain lock. He walked back over to the second bed which was closer to the balcony and shut the curtains, even though they were fairly high up. Tails then grabbed a remote and tried to turn on what looked like a TV.
The screen turned on, but it was green and everything was formed from black pixels. It looked terrible; it looked like ants moving across the screen.
"What is this?" Tails asked himself. He flipped the station. It looked like pixelated echidnas running around in some sort of pixel cartoon.
"Isn't it exciting, Riv-Er? We finally get to solve the legend of the guardian echidna!"
"Definitely!"
The pixelated echidnas were walking a bit until suddenly another dropped down. He looked like a pixelated Knuckles.
"Roar, I'm Spikles, go away little babies! It's my emerald!" He said in a really high-pitched voice.
"What the heck!" Tails yelled.
"Oh no he's big mean and scary let's run!" It showed the two echidnas running away from "Spikles". Then something that looked coincidentally like Sonic and Tails appeared.
"Don't worry, sweeties! I'll save you darlings from the evil Spikles!" the Sonic-looking one said in a British accent.
"Oh, it's Josh, and his pal Moomoo!" Josh and Moomoo began beating up Spikles. Then Spikles exploded.
"Yay, we killed that horrible demon!" Moomoo exclaimed in a really deep voice. Disturbed, Tails quickly shut off the TV.
"How horrid..." Tails mumbled, almost crying. He looked at Knuckles. "I would never do that to you..."
Meanwhile, back at the Mighty Barking Bean, Bean the Dynamite was busy picking up pink cookies.
"What the heck happened? Where did they go? Where did the pink cookies come from?" Asked Bark.
"They ran away from Jordan Girard." Bean replied.
"What? Who the heck is Jordan Girard?" Bark exclaimed.
"Some weird pink girl echidna..." Bean replied.
"Oh...Julie-Su or whatever?" Bark wondered.
"I don't know, Tails said Jordan Girard... Knuckles had some sort of panic attack, it rained pink cookies and that old guy over there hasn't even batted an eye once." Bean explained.
"Oh, okay..." Bark said, and walked away leaving Bean to pick up all the pink cookies.
It was later, and Tails had received a bunch of free food from the lobby. He returned to the room with a giant plate of fruit and vegetables since the only other thing they had was a lot of ants and termites.
By the time Tails had returned, Knuckles was finally regaining some actual consciousness again.
"Where are we?" He asked as Tails set the plate of stuff on the bed in front of him.
"Some creepy hotel named The Arthur Hotel." Tails replied. "We kind of lost a lot of those cookies, but I got a bunch of free food from the lobby. The room was free, too."
"Oh, yeah..." Knuckles mumbled, and fell back down.
"Knuckles! Please don't do this again..." Tails cried.
Knuckles lifted his head back up. "That girl...we…"
"You mean Carly Rae Jepsen or whatever?" Tails asked.
"Carly Rae…what?!" Knuckles yelled. "I thought she said Julie-Su."
"Oh, yeah… she was really mean to me..." Tails mumbled.
"She was?" Knuckles asked. "I'm sorry...how mean was she? What did she do?"
"She called me names." Tails replied"
"That's stupid...figures..." Knuckles grumbled. "Makes me dislike her even more..."
"I locked the door a bunch. Hopefully she can't get in. But we need to hurry and find a way out of here before we end up dying from the cave-in." Tails remarked as he grabbed some carrots.
"Can't we just take the elevator back up?" Knuckles asked.
"Yeah, that's...oh..." Tails said. "It probably doesn't work going back up or something..."
"But that makes no sense!" Knuckles argued. "Tomorrow we'll get up early to avoid Julie-Su, and we'll check out the elevator."
"Alright." Tails agreed.
The next morning, Tails was enjoying his sleep-in when suddenly he was being shaken awake.
"Go away, Sonic..." He murmured.
"We have to go, Tails! It's like six o'clock! She shouldn't be walking around out there at this time!" Knuckles exclaimed.
"Oh yeah!" Tails jumped out of bed suddenly. He nearly fell into the glass door of the balcony. "Are we still staying in this room?"
"I don't know, not if we get the elevator working...and it's not like we have anything valuable in here, anyway." Knuckles replied. So they ran out and down to the lobby.
No one was even in the lobby. It was dark. They ran out the front door and looked around. All they could see were some random street lights that were on at a low light.
"I think it's this way," Tails pointed. They began running down the dirt street. There did not seem to be anyone about, luckily. Eventually they made themselves back to the elevator. Knuckles hit the button.
Clanking sounds could be heard from the elevator.
"See, it works." Knuckles exclaimed. However, suddenly they heard a large crash, and the doors never opened. Knuckles just stared at the closed doors with a dead expression.
"Uh...I think you just broke it...completely..." Tails stammered.
Knuckles looked about ready to kill himself. He fell down on his knees and shoved his face into the ground.
"Uh...Knuckles?" Tails mumbled.
"We're going to die..." He mumbled into the ground.
"No we aren't, Knuckles. It's alright. Everything will be fine. We'll find a way out, and hopefully we won't see Juliet Starling again."
"It's Julie-freaking-SU!" Knuckles yelled, suddenly getting up.
"Sorry!" Tails cried, backing away. "Don't hurt me..."
"Why would I hurt you?" Knuckles asked. "I'm sorry, I'm just frustrated, okay?"
"Is there a problem?" Asked a creepy deep voice. Knuckles and Tails turned around to see a dark-red and white echidna with a Kirk moustache and a cowboy hat. "My name is Googoo. Are you Knuckles and…who are you?"
"I'm Tails..." Tails replied.
"Googoo?" Knuckles mumbled under his breath.
"I think we just completely broke the elevator…we found this weird ancient note saying how everyone moved or something..." Tails explained.
"Oh, yes, long ago we left that note, hoping someone would find it…hopefully Knuckles… That elevator didn't really work anyhow, only sort of to come down...so you didn't really ruin everything. Why won't you two come over to our house for breakfast?" Googoo offered.
Tails looked at Knuckles. Knuckles gave Tails a "I don't care what you do" look.
"Alright, sure, thanks." Tails replied. They followed Googoo over to a road named Snorty Street.
"We live just at the end of Snorty Street here." Googoo pointlessly informed as they walked down.
"Snorty Street?" Knuckles whispered. They walked up to a house with address 16 and entered it. Inside they could the sound of pancake mix sizzling in a frying pan, and it smelt like burnt ants.
"Blech..." Knuckles mumbled. They walked into the kitchen, where a very creepy pink echidna wearing weird track clothes and had freakishly long eyelashes was making pancakes. At the table there were five spots set-up, and an old couple was already sitting down. Googoo went to go set up two more spots for Tails and Knuckles.
"Thanks! This is very kind of you!" Tails exclaimed.
"No problem." Googoo replied. Tails sat at the end of the table closest to the front door, while Knuckles sat at the side by an empty spot. The creepy pink echidna walked over and set a plate of pancakes in the middle of the table.
"Are there ants in the pancakes?" Knuckles asked.
"No, but I did make my famous ant syrup! By the way, you can call me Momma."
"Um, okaaay..." Knuckles replied. He looked at the old couple. "Uh, excuse me, who are you?"
"You can just call us Gramgram and Grandpop, dear." Said the creepy old lady.
"Okay..." Knuckles said. Googoo sat at the other end and Momma sat beside him and the empty spot by Knuckles.
"We're starting, now!" Momma shouted, sort of loudly. Knuckles was about to grab one of the pancakes with his fork when suddenly someone grabbed him.