Blue Star

Part 10: The Starlight Zone

Sonic shook the dizziness away rapidly as he got back up to his feet, and glared at the remains of the robot that had ambushed him as soon as he had set foot into the Zone. It had been a roughly spherical shaped thing with two legs and a single antenna, but it had decided to self-destruct when Sonic had nudged it with his toe.

Okay, so maybe it hadn't ambushed him. But Sonic didn't need to admit that to himself. So he dusted his fur down and started walking along the silvery pathways, between the towering structures that were still under construction. The Starlight Zone was, apparently, even less complete than the Spring Yard Zone had been. Bright orange warning cones and scaffolding were the predominant decorations, along with more of those giant fans here and there. And grey objects that reminded Sonic of...

"See-Saws!"

Sonic dashed over to one and bounded around it to get a better look. He nodded at the pivoted flat platform, but frowned at the large, spiked ball on one end of it. Now, how pointless was that? The young hedgehog prodded the ball, then looked upwards. Well.... That was certainly an interesting platform potentially looming above him... Perhaps he could use the see-saw to get up there? The metal ball seemed heavy enough, and besides, it always worked in cartoons, right?

With an excited whoop, Sonic turned back to the device, grinning eagerly at the empty end. The key question was what direction the ball would fly in, however. If he wasn't careful, he might get hit in the face by it, and he was sure that wouldn't be pleasant. But you never got anywhere without trying, of course! So he leaped into the air, and dropped down onto the free end of the see-saw, which lowered under his weight, throwing the spiked orb skywards. Sonic watched it, noted it was heading for his end, and hurriedly ran over to the other side.

The steel ball of spikes crashed down heavily on the spot where he had been but moments ago, sending the hedgehog sailing upwards through the air. He twisted, and in doing so managed to alter his direction enough to land on the edge of the interesting platform. Which he noted, once he'd finished celebrating his perfect ten-point landing to an invisible audience, wasn't so interesting after all. In fact, it was pretty much the same as the platform he'd just come from.

How boring.

Sonic snorted at the metal plating, almost insulted that it had dared to be boring when he'd expected there to be at least something interesting up here. To punish it, he stamped a foot. Hard. And proceeded to swear as it stamped back.

"Ngh, okay Sonic, don't damage the feet," he growled at himself, as he hopped on one foot and rubbed the other, "you need those."

When the pain finally decided to subside, the hedgehog straightened up, looking around for a clue on where next to go, before focusing on an interesting curve to the platform that he was on. He walked up towards it, craning his head up to follow its curve vertically. Sonic tapped his chin thoughtfully, then turned to look back at the edge that he'd landed on, counting the paces as he walked back to it. He came to the conclusion that it was a pretty short platform, but...

He backed right up to the edge, and started jogging on the spot, his legs speeding up quickly, before he altered the angle of one foot to suddenly charge towards that upwards curve. For a moment he thought it might not work, but kept his feet pounding, accelerating rapidly until his momentum threw him up above the top edge of the curve. He grinned, pleased with himself, but this time, instead of allowing himself to stop, he flipped over in the air and pedalled his feet rapidly in preparation for landing.

The moment his leading leg touched the silvery metal, it left it again, and the second one touched then left a split second later. What, for a normal person, would have been a fast tap-tap-tap, became a resonating rumble of shaking metal with the pace that Sonic moved. He shot along the walkway, and up through a loop that had been built into it for some reason. It reflected the twilight stars in a strange way around its curvature, that confused Sonic for a moment, which had led to the running the loop before he had realised it was there. At the base was another large fan, which happened to be turned on.

His legs spun, the rubber on the bottom of the shoes screeching as they fought against being pushed backwards, but he continued to charge at the fan, his mind racing through possibilities of getting around it, finally starting to settle on one. Just as the fan abruptly stopped. Surprised, he rocketed past it, the following boom caving the machine's blades in. He turned his head briefly to look, but that moment's distraction led him into crashing into the scaffolding ahead of him with a resounding clatter of heavy metal pipes and wooden platforms.

Sonic cried out, finding himself squashed beneath them, and wriggled madly. He stopped as he twisted his injured wrist again, and pain shot up through his arm, followed by a matching shock from his leg. He pulled his good arm free, using it to shove a plank from his head, letting it fall away from the pile. Sonic turned as much as he could, to look over his shoulder at the pile atop him, and wailed. There was no way he was going to shift that himself! None!

"... Oh no!"

Another of those little exploding robots was approaching him, slowly but surely. He tried removing the pipes from his back with his free arm in desperation. The ticking, ball shaped machine stopped nearby, and the fuse lit itself. Sonic's eyes widened as the wire lessened rapidly, and tucked his head in as best as he could, covering it with his arm. The robot tick-ticked as the fuse finished burning, as its final warning, before it exploded.

The hedgehog screeched as shrapnel shot across his body, shredding his diamond-bladed quills and ripping gashes in his arm, shallower ones across his head where the arm could not protect it. The heat from the burning explosives within the machine scalded him, and the Chaos Emeralds in the bag on his back sang out loudly. Their voices rose to a crescendo, and they rang with the explosion within Sonic's ears. He cried out, subconsciously mimicking their song as he did so. A high pitched whine overtook both sounds, until Sonic collapsed and it all went silent.

When he finally came to, the night had fallen completely, stars scattered the sky as he lay on his back, staring up at them. The robot's remains were to one side of him; well, the feet were. The rest of the machine was scattered in a circular pattern around it, apart from a large gap where the scaffolding had been. It took Sonic a while for this to register. Had been? And wasn't he face down?

He sat up and looked around him. What had happened? He noted that he was still next to the wall. Pieces of shrapnel were still in his skin, and the arm that had been shielding his head was torn up. The scaffolding, it turned out, was in a heap of twisted metal behind him. He scowled at the remainder of the robot.

"Ghh... You packed a punch..." Sonic struggled to his feet, a hand on his head. "... What happened...?"

Remembering where he was, it came to him that he probably didn't have time to figure it out. Sonic put a hand onto the pile of metal and used it to help haul himself to his feet. One leg slid across the metal a little as he put his weight onto it, and he hissed as it twisted, then picked it up and put it down again, a bit slower this time. When it didn't give way, he lowered his hand, taking a moment to check the twisted wrist over, before turning his attention to the bloodied arm. He gingerly touched it, cringing even as he did so, looking over the remaining pieces of metal sticking out of it. He debated for a moment, trying to figure out whether he should pull them out or not, before deciding that it would probably be safer to leave them, for the time being.

He looked around, trying to decide where to go, when his mind was made up for him and he was forced to jump to avoid a flying ball covered in wicked looking spikes. He put his best foot forward as he landed, and propelled himself along the pathway, sliding underneath the spherical robot that had appeared as he had been pondering. Sonic yelled a brief insult at it for daring to defy gravity, vaguely hoping that the facts would stop it from just floating there, but not being surprised when it continued to.

The hedgehog rolled back to his feet, and looked at the robot. It seemed to be ignoring him, continuing on the path it had been going, which had happened to have had Sonic in the way at the time. The four spiked balls rotated around it, and he stared at it for a moment, debating whether or not to smash it and let the little animal bound to be inside out. After noting how quickly the balls spun around it, he decided better of it and turned away once more. He scanned the floor as he shuffled across it, and scooped up one of the scaffolding poles that had hit him earlier, using it as a staff to ease the weight on the still throbbing angle until it would stop protesting at him.

With his footsteps now accompanied by a metal clunk every other step, he took his progress through the Zone a little bit slower this time, taking the extra time to look about a little better. The bright green of the metal used in it had been darkened to a black-grey by the night sky, partially lit up orange by the lights atop the traffic cones that were dotted around the Zone. The silver-ish walkways reflected the sky, becoming solid paths of stars. Despite the place being a huge maze of paths and loops, and spiralling slides; in essence, a giant roller-coaster; Sonic found that he couldn't deny that it was certainly fascinating.

He looked back down to his injured arm, watching the stars reflect much less-so on the dull surfaces of the shrapnel. Well that was hardly fair, he couldn't help but think, especially when his arm was starting to itch like crazy. He flicked his left ear irritably, ignoring the pieces of metal still piercing that, and tucked his new pole under his arm to free up his hand for a moment. Grabbing the fingertips of his glove between his teeth, he pulled it off and examined the pointed nails, before using them to scratch between the shrapnel pieces, carefully avoiding knocking them. He made a mental note to get those seen to as soon as he wasn't in the midst of an unfinished Zone that was apparently abandoned.

Sonic frowned. Yes, it was indeed apparently abandoned. A project this big would have had people milling over it at night too, but there was no sign of anyone. Much like in the Spring Yard. Sonic took his staff back into his hand, and resumed his trek through the Zone, walking a little bit faster as his mind raced through what he'd started thinking about back in Spring Yard. Granted, if the Zone were full of people, he wouldn't have been able to cover so much of it already, but if the Zones were abandoned, there had to be a good reason. Sonic wasn't keen on ghost stories. Especially when they were forming themselves in his mind and twitching in the darkness beyond the reach of the traffic cone lights.

He gave a startled yell as a massive blast of wind burst against him, and fell off balance as he was pushed sideways by it. He landed with a heavy thud a distance away from the walls he'd been walking past, continuing to slide across the floor. Until the floor wasn't there any more. Another heavy thud and gasp later, he pulled himself back to his feet, dusting himself down as he looked for where his pipe had fallen. As he noticed it, the emeralds in the bag started singing, and he flicked the ear again. Sonic padded over towards the staff, looking around. There was a pattern, of sorts, that the Chaos Emeralds' singing had, and he was starting to recognise the one they sang when he was nearing another.

"Hmm...."

Sonic picked up his scaffold pole, and leaned on it, looking around. His ears twisted in all directions, hunting the matching song, before he started walking purposefully in the direction beyond where the pole had fallen. The new direction led him towards the edge of the pathway, where he could look out and see a sprawling city. This wasn't something he'd heard about in the local news or gossip. And he still didn't approve of South Island getting huge building projects, but short of demolishing both Zones and the City, which he certainly wasn't up for at this current point in time, he couldn't think of any way to stop them. So, he resumed his hunt for the next Emerald instead.

Laying against a traffic cone was the shining stone. This one was an indescribable shade of blue, a similar colour to that of his quills. He sat down next to it, with his legs hanging over the side of the platform, and just watched it as he listened to them singing. Sonic sighed, humming quietly along with the song for a few moments, though it seemed longer to him. He absent mindedly trailed a finger across the stone, before finally picking it up, holding it up to the sky to look through its own glow.

"I wonder how many of these there are...." he said to himself, watching the twisting light within it.

Casting another glance down to the City, he watched a group of the wasp robots fly past in a v formation, and snarled at them. After he'd finished chasing that scientist down, he'd come back and wreck every single robot on the island, he decided. Giving a tired sigh, Sonic worked his way to his feet, wincing. He put the Emerald into the backpack, and leaned heavily on the pole, as he looked around, trying to regain his bearings. All the slipping and sliding and fans had thrown his sense of direction off, and now he couldn't tell which way was which. Except that the City was not the way he needed to go. So he turned around, and proceeded to walk back towards where he'd been blown down onto this ledge.

Looking around as he approached the scuffed metal where he had landed, he found a simple sloped plank of wood nearby, and frowned. Typical. Giving a small, tired sigh, he made his way back up it, and turned to survey his position again. It was still difficult to determine what direction he had been heading in, but at least now he wasn't stuck. He leaned on the scaffold pole again, frowning, before he caught the faint sound of whirring engines. His ears perked up, and, turning, he straightened to face towards the sound with a more confident stance. A small smirk crossed his face, and he started walking toward that distant noise. A soft thrumming vibrated through the metal under his feet, and a light breeze rushed over his fur. As the thrumming grew louder, Sonic glanced warily into the shadows, and started walking faster. His ankle throbbed in protest, but he ignored it, accelerating rapidly to rush past the large fan before it could push him back off the edge again. As he gained speed, the pain became a second concern to concentrating on where he was going, and so he rushed up towards his top speed again, lifting the pole so that it was levelled parallel to the ground.

Pretty soon, the thrill of the raw speed rushed through him, and he leaned forwards, eager for more, the injuries all but forgotten as the air boomed past him. This was easy, this was fun, and in the glee of the running he grew calmer, his thoughts trailed away from how lost he was towards wondering how fast he was going instead. The zone became a blur around him, and he lowered his head to lessen the impact the running was having on his face. Creaking metal and booming wind were only barely catching his attention, as he tore through the zone with an ecstatic laugh. There were a few robots foolhardy enough to pass by, but Sonic ignored them, letting the trailing slipstream deal with them instead. Ahead he could see further loops and see-saws, and another formation of buzzbombers at the top of a higher structure. Giving a wicked little grin, he lifted the pole onto his shoulder, and pushed himself to run faster.

He waited a few more seconds, then thrust the pole forwards of him, slamming it against a join in the platform. He sped on, leaving the staff behind and using the new arc of motion to throw himself through the air, sailing above a group of the floating ball robots. He curled up as he came back down, spinning as he landed on one end of the nearest see-saw, and rolled along to the other end as the spiked ball came down. The hedgehog was thrown back into the air, and he uncurled from his ball to get a view of where he was. Twisting in the air, he repeated the movements with the next see-saw, this time uncurling immediately after being launched.

With his arms tight against his aides and his head tilted up to maximise his natural streamlining, he shot up past the top of the tower, between the buzzbombers. They scattered as he landed on the back of one of them, sitting across it and grabbing its antennae for support. He scanned its back, before locating a panel in it, then relocating the panel to the floor below. The hedgehog darted a hand into the machine's innards, and promptly proceeded to rearrange the components within. The circling buzzbombers turned to aim their stinger bombs at him, so he jumped into the air again, pulling his robot's wings with him. As the vandalised buzzbomber exploded under the attacks of its companions, Sonic laughed and flipped over, throwing the wings at the others while he did so. Two more buzzbombers dropped from the sky, their flying mechanisms shattered by the large sheets of plastic slicing through their carapaces.

As he fell to the ground again, he bent his knees to propel himself upwards once more, the movement scattering the robots again. This time, however, they immediately aimed for him, firing the plasma balls in his direction. His jump kept him moving quick enough for them to pass underneath him, but it was close enough for him to realise that they weren't willing to play. So he spun into a ball, spiralling at the nearest one, and uncurled as he bounced off its surface again, taking the moment of being airborne to take note of the positions of the remaining machines. When he landed beyond them, he turned, and spun his feet into a blur below him. Waiting a moment for the robots to charge another energy blast, he took their hovering as the perfect opportunity to rush forwards, jumping to ricochet in a ball between them. His diamond quills ripped through them, destroying each with its own small explosion and the resounding clatter of pieces of metal. The little animals from the flight of robots gathered around Sonic as he landed, as if unsure what to think about him, before he nudged one with a toe and they scampered off.

Sonic rubbed his head as best as he could, compensating for the shrapnel again, before turning to face in the distance. From this structure, he could see the looming form of a gigantic factory, and so he nodded to himself, deciding that that was the way to go. He dashed to the edge of the tower, wide eyed and grinning as he looked down towards the remainder of the Star Light Zone, and the roller coaster ride it proposed. With an echoing whoop, he lunged forwards from the edge of the platform, leaning to an extent that gravity could pull him to face the ground. Before he could fall, his legs were moving again, and he started running down the side of the building. The combined force of gravity and his speed helped him to stick to the metal side of the structure, accelerating down it. As he neared the base, he jumped from it, flipping to run along the silver pathway. He rushed along it, following the steep grades and sharp curves with glee, skidding around the corners and sliding down the slopes, until he came to the end of the road, dropping abruptly off the edge of the platform.

As he uncurled from the ball he rolled into to lessen the impact, he ended up sitting in front of three see saws on a wide, flat expanse of metal that spread out ahead of him. Looking around, he figured that he was back on ground level, and he stood up, the energy from his running still coursing through his body. Looking past the field beyond the edge of the Zone; black against the star lit metal; he could see the lights illuminating the large power plant ahead, and coming from that factory was a large hovering blob that was rapidly becoming familiar to the hedgehog. Sonic's quills bristled, and he got back to his feet, waiting for the scientist to approach. The bright headlamp shone down on him as the hovercraft drew close, and Sonic threw a hand up to shield his eyes from the glare.

"Yo, Eggman! I was wondering if you'd turn up to meet me!"

"Ho ho my boy! What have you done to yourself?" the rotund human leaned forwards in the machine to get a better view of the tattered and torn hedgehog.

"That was your stupid robot, not me!"

"Oh was it?" Robotnik laughed "I shall have to remember that design then! Now hand over the Chaos Emeralds."

Sonic snorted in disdain at him, and backed away a couple of steps, grinning. It was a silent gesture of defiance, as he fixed his glowing green gaze upon the underside of the machine. The device was shoddily put together, as if it had been crafted in a rush, with less effort having been put into it than the previous one, and the technologically minded hedgehog scoffed at it. It wouldn't take long to trash this one, just as he'd damaged the other. He started running, picking up speed at an incredible pace, and jumped into a spin aimed at the machine. Which moved out of the path of the whirling quills, leaving Sonic to bounce back onto the floor, uncurling and staggering forwards on the end of one of the see saws rather ungracefully. There was a cackle from above, and Sonic looked up, to see the bottom of the doctor's hovercraft. A small hatch opened in the bottom of it, and Sonic blinked, before yelping and jumping backwards off the teeter totter as a spiked ball crashed down on the end he'd been standing on. Looking at this ball, he thought back to the ones he'd used to help himself traverse the Zone, and an idea hovered in the back of his mind.

Flipping backwards along the length of another see saw, he stood on the end and waited for the hovercraft to float overhead. The hatch slid open once more, and as the ball fell from it, Sonic ran to the other end of the oversized playground toy, to repeat the springing method he'd used to get through Star Light. He drew level to Robotnik's machine, and spared a moment to wave as he passed, curling up to spin into the side of it on the way back down. The doctor's yell of irritation became a single expletive as the force of the hedgehog landing on the end of the teeter totter threw the spiked ball into the underside of the pod, denting the shell inwards. It seemed to remain fixed in place for a moment, before it dropped down once more, sending Sonic back into the air. This time, Sonic landed on top of the pilot's head, and laughed.

"So... how are those supposed to work?"

"Get off of my head you impertinent little brat!"

"Hey, you started it- whoa!" Sonic jumped, star-like, as the scientist swung a hand to attempt to know him off. As he landed back on top of the bald head again, he leaned forwards to look into Robotnik's face; albeit upside down. "You give up yet, or do I have to give you a headache?"

"You are already becoming a headache, boy. How about you hand over the Chaos Emeralds, and I'll do my best to explain what happened to your Zone?"

"Yeah, right, finders keepers, I got the shiny- wait, what?" Sonic stepped off of Robotnik's head, and perched on the console in front of him, sceptically raising an eyebrow. "You wouldn't explain before, why d'ya wanna explain now?"

"Because, child, I am getting tired of you following me across the entirety of the island just for an answer you'd have if you had paid attention in your history classes?" The end of Robotnik's sentence became a question, and Sonic frowned.

"You must think I'm really stupid."

Before Robotnik could respond, Sonic back flipped off of the craft, and planted a good kick into its headlamp to extinguish it on his way down. The lamps to either side of the wide walkway threw the middle area, between all the teeter totters, into pitch darkness, and within this dangerously dark playground Sonic hid.

"I don't just mean Genocide. And I'm not trading these... 'Chaos Emeralds' for any information about it. I just want to know one thing now, Eggman..."

Robotnik gripped the sides of his pod as it shook violently with the force of a super sonic hedgehog crashing into the base of it, accompanied with the sound of screeching metal as his unnaturally sharp spikes ripped through the hull.

"... I want to know why you attacked my Zone in the first place! Tell me why you did it!"

Another resounding wrench of torn metal, and Robotnik decided now was probably not the best time to get the Chaos Emeralds from the hedgehog. Sonic clearly had no idea how powerful the stones were, but he was not going to give them up without a fight...

And neither was he.

Robotnik peered over the side of the machine as Sonic dropped down from it again, vanishing back into the shadows below. The scientist looked around for him, but quickly stopped trying. He shook his head, the bushy moustache rustling as he did so, and he called down into that darkness.

"Stop attacking my egg-o-matic, Sonic, my boy. I do have a very good explanation for that. However, it is something you have to see. Which, even if I had it to hand right now, you could not see here, it's just too dark. So if you'd follow me to Scrap Brain, I have to documents within my office there."

"Documents? Office? Scrap Brain?" came the young hedgehog's voice from the darkness below.

"Yes. That power plant over there is the Scrap Brain. And if you would be so kind, please try not to mess it up when you come in?"

"What? Hey! Hey, wait! Come back here I'm not done talking to you yet!"

The scientist chuckled to himself as he piloted the crippled machine towards the factory Zone, and as Sonic charged after him. The hedgehog would not be able to get in the same way that he could, which would give him plenty of time to set up a surprise for him when he got there.

Sonic kept yelling at Robotnik to come back, but the scientist's machine had clearly not suffered enough damage to slow it down significantly; instead, all the exertion against it had caught up in the time he'd been talking to Robotnik, and the hedgehog found himself unable to manage much more than a brisk jog towards the looming Zone ahead. As he ran, he growled at himself.

"Why, Sonic? Why didn't you make him talk right then?! Idiot!"

He hissed at the pain in his limbs, but kept pushing onwards. He'd catch him and this time, he promised himself. He would not let him run.

-TBC-

Author's Note: Sorry about the epic delay between this and the previous part! Other projects and work and stuff tend to get in the way. If it seems a bit disjointed, that'd be because of that gap too, and my sincerest apologies if it doesn't follow on quite so well. If you see any gaping plotholes in the way it follows on from the previous chapters, feel free to point them out to me, so I can fix them as quickly as possible ^_^;

Finally, if I had been following your fics and stopped replying, I'm sorry about that. Real life comes first I'm afraid :/ I'll try catch up with them when I have the chance to.