Chapter 7: City Escape I
It is the next day. Everyone is preparing for the trip to Sonic's world. Sonic has been trying to practice his Red Star Emerald powers. He can never fully draw all of the power from the emerald. Mario has been standing by with Sonic outside in front of the castle. Sonic failed constantly to reach his full power. Mario shakes his head at him. Knuckles went outside in order to see where Sonic and Mario was.
"What's going on out here?" Knuckles said.
"Sonic's been up early," Mario said. "He wants to draw the full power of the emerald, but he fails every time. He must be a bit bad when it comes to romantic things."
"True," Knuckles said. "I hope this date with Amy helps him."
"How do you know about that?" Sonic said.
"Amy's been telling everyone," Knuckles said.
"You should have seen her," Mario said. "She was so happy."
"Why did she have to tell everyone?" Sonic said.
Luigi and Yoshi are in the kitchen part of the castle on the second floor. They are going through the pantry looking for mushrooms and flowers. The most they can find is three of each in the kitchen. Tails walks into the kitchen.
"What's with the big mushrooms and flowers?" Tails said.
"They give us our power to conjure fire," Luigi said. "The mushrooms restores health when we are almost dead."
"A flower gives the ability to shoot fire?" Tails said.
"Yep," Luigi said. "We have to eat one at least every three days."
"Weird," Tails said.
After helping Luigi, Yoshi went outside to meet with Peach, Amy, and Rouge. They are in the backyard. They are sitting down by the fountain. Amy pulls out the egg she found last night.
"Uhh," Amy said. "This might be a weird question, but is Yoshi a boy?"
"Well," Peach said. "You see, this particular animal has her father's name. The Yoshi we had before this one was very strong and he was Mario's best friend. He died recently. This is his daughter. We named her Yoshi because we couldn't think of another name. These types of animals are special. The males and the females can make eggs out of anything. That doesn't mean that the egg is necessarily a baby. Only the female can lay a egg that will hatch into a baby. This can only happen after mating."
"Really?" Rouge said. "Is this egg going to a be a baby?"
"Only Yoshi knows," Peach said. "Is it?"
So this is Yoshi's daughter... Anyway, Yoshi shakes her head in order to say yes.
"Sonic told me this egg came out when Yoshi swallowed a robot," Amy said. "Did you eat the robot then made your own egg or was the egg made from a robot?"
Yoshi holds up one of her fingers for choice number one.
"Okay," Amy said. "It would be kind of cool to have something like Yoshi."
"You can keep the egg if you want," Peach said.
"Done," Amy said.
An hour has passed. Everyone is now outside. Peach is locking the castle door with her mushroom shaped key. They are now walking to the portal. Mario orders everyone to check for everything. Sonic has his Red Star Emerald. Peach and Amy have their necklaces and their pieces of the legend. Luigi has all of the stuff packed. Everyone is accounted for. They all jump in the portal one by one. They are going through the same weird trip as before. Upon entering the city, it seems that all of Chaos Square is gone.
"Things do look bad here," Luigi said.
"Question," Tails said. "Why is this world being sucked in but the other one isn't?"
"Maybe it's because Sonic was the one to fail?" Knuckles said.
"You just love pounding on the guilt, don't you?" Sonic said.
Before they can even take one more step further, they are stopped by the army. The weird thing about this is that the army isn't just composed of regular soldiers. There are also goombas in the army as well. Luigi and Mario chuckled at the sight of goombas in army uniforms. Sonic is still serious.
"Amy, Peach, and Rouge" Sonic said. "You guys should wish yourself to Amy's house. "
Amy and Peach agrees. They are gone in under a second.
"What do you expect us to do now?" Tails said.
"My Red Star Emerald is reacting," Sonic said. "The second one is near. I can't feel this one."
"Yahoo!" Mario said.
"That means he can feel it," Luigi said.
"You understand him?" Knuckles said.
"I used to be just like him myself," Luigi said.
Mario starts running off down Rush Avenue. Everyone else immediately follows. The army takes off after them. Some music starts playing out of nowhere again. Yes, it is City Escape. Mario is leading the pack this time since he knows where the Star Emerald is. Sonic is right behind him. Everyone else is following in the back of them. There are coins around instead of rings. This street is full of houses on each side. There are cars lined up on each side of the street too. The street is sloped like a hill. Everyone is running down it. There is a ramp on the left lane of the street. Mario decides to runs over this. Sonic follows him. Everyone else takes the ramp one by one. The ramp launches them to the end of street. This is where they encounter their first Mario themed problem. The main thing that catches Mario's eyes is the Fluud.
"Huh," Mario said. "Yahoo!"
"What's that?" Tails said.
"The Fluud," Luigi said. "How did it get here?"
"It isn't supposed to be here?" Knuckles said.
"We found this on Delfino Island back in 2002," Luigi said. "How did it warp through time and space?"
Mario grabs the Fluud. He puts it on his back and it awakens.
"Mario," Fluud said in a robotic voice. "I am back again in order to help you."
"Yahoo!" Mario said.
There is a switch which will let them open the gate in order to proceed. It is too high for anyone to hit. The army is getting closer.
"Use it," Sonic said.
"Yes," Mario said. Fluud already came with a full tank of water. Mario is able to shoot the target in one shot. They all proceed without the army catching them. They are now in someone's back yard. They have to get over the house in order to proceed. Mario, Luigi, and Yoshi are able to jump this with no problem at all. Sonic, Tails and Knuckles are in Flight Formation. They are able to make it on top of the house like this. Mario points straight ahead. The Red Star Emerald is in that direction. They are jumping from roof to roof. The army has a helicopter after them. Their roof hopping is stopped at the roof of the courthouse. There is a lake behind the courthouse. Mario points across it.
"What?!" Sonic said. "You want us to cross the lake? I can't swim."
"Impossible," Tails said. "The navy is in the lake and I can't fly that far."
Mario is thinking. He then looks to his left. Luckily, there is a red box. Mario breaks open this box with a fireball. The rocket nozzle for Fluud was in it. Mario puts this on for Fluud. He instructs everyone to grab on to him. Knuckles can glide across the lake. Tails is on Mario's shoulders. Sonic is on Mario's right arm. Luigi is on Mario's left arm. Yoshi has her tongue wrapped around Mario's neck. The Fluud is able to carry everyone over the lake. Mario takes this chance to refill the Fluud while they are on the other side of the lake. Right now they are in front of Twinkle Park. Sonic reads the floating monitor.
"Hmm," Sonic said. "They still have the couples deal going on. Jackpot."
When Mario reaches them, he points to the inside of Twinkle Park.
"It's in Twinkle Park?" Sonic said. "There goes my idea. Mario will destroy the whole thing when he will have to show when he is worthy."
Everyone runs inside of Twinkle Park. They come across six bumper cars. No robots or floating monitors are around. Instead, Toad is here.
"This is getting weird," Luigi said. "Toad, how did you get here?"
"I don't know," Toad said. "I guess I am the messenger in this world. Let's get down to business. These bumper cars all start off with a total of ten coins. Your speed will increase once you catch more rings. You cannot ram into an enemy until you have collected at least a total of thirty coins. If you do, your car will explode and you will have to run the rest of the track. Any questions?"
"Nope," Tails said. "That seems straight forward."
"It is so simple that even Yoshi understands it, right?" Knuckles said.
Yoshi shakes her head in order to say yes. Everyone then picks the car that matches their color. Sonic picked a blue car. Tails picked a yellow car. Knuckles picked a red car. Mario picked a dark red car. Luigi picked a dark green car. Yoshi picked a regular green car. The door in the back of the room opened automatically. Mario is the first car to take off. Sonic is right behind him. Luigi, Tails, Knuckles, and Yoshi are in a line by this order.
From the castle within Twinkle Park; Eggman, Shadow, and Bowser are waiting. Eggman is watching our heroes from security cameras. Shadow already has the second Red Star Emerald. Bowser is the one giving tips to the army from a radio. Shadow is tossing the emerald up and down with his right hand. He can't seem to use it or anything.
"Why I can't I use this like I could with the Chaos Emerald?" Shadow said.
"Hmm," Bowser said. "It has something to do with romance I think."
"No," Eggman said. "I thought that only the savior and/or the lover of the princess could activate it."
"So," Shadow said. "If I were to save Amy from some staged capture, I could activate this thing?"
"Only if the princess heart desires," Eggman said.
"Weird," Shadow said. "We should try to set this up."
"My thoughts exactly," Bowser said.
Their plans never work... Moving on → Will everyone survive the bumper car track? Will Mario get his Red Star Emerald? When in the world will Amy get her date? Read and find out.
Next Chapter: City Escape II
