Disclaimer: I don't own Sonic, Sally, Rotor, Tails, Bunnie, Antoine, Robotnik and all the rest. No, not even Knothole…
The 'Sonic the Hedgehog: In Castle Robotnik' book is a Sega owned copyright, published by Virgin Books and written by Martin Adams.
---Cue Special Sonic Unlimited Opening Theme: Sonic CD – Sonic BOOM---
CHAPTER 14: Things That Go Bump In The Daytime
Tomb of the Great Priestess 'Goateses' / Castle Robotnik / South Island / 06: 58 AM
The jackal-headed statues surprisingly reached the duo first, deciding to each go for one particular of them, whilst the Mummy got ever closer.
Sonic easily parried a sweeping claw motion from his enemy with a quick flurry of his legs; it's not as if statues that had to hop around like the oversized-looking chess pieces that they weren't hard to anticipate. They only had two arms to attack with it seemed, after all. And a quick jab to the head by Tails soon sent the other one barmy in the head, and stumbling in distress in Sonic's direction.
Sonic sent Tails a crafty wink, who seeing his plan, then acted accordingly by staying at his side. The two robots dashed in their direction and in the last optimum second, the duo leaped into the air and allowed the two to meet. Needless to say, their attraction was quite explosive.
And this resulting explosion not only melted most of the gold stock in the room, but also had lit up the Mummified Sally's long auburn hair, who was none too pleased as a result.
She roared in fury and charged at them now; her eyes open for the first time, full of azure flame. Sonic knew that this time he had no choice but to take some form of offensive, least because the room around them was still melting and crumbling apart. If he and Tails remained here any longer than he feared the chamber would claim them as its latest victims.
"Tails, hang on to something, and hold it tight!" Sonic shouted, getting into a tense and combative stance.
"What are you gonna do, Sonic…?" Tails asked worriedly.
"Chill out, dude. I'm just gonna give mummy features here a cut and clean cut blow-dry!" He replied, a smirk on the edge of his lips.
With that, the cerulean blue superhero did a figure of eight spin on the spot in anticipation, eying all the remaining corners of the room before he speed off in a flash of blue. He spin dashed from each of the four corners of the decreasingly disappearing room, creating the momentum he needed, in the place that he needed, i.e. the centre of the room where 'Priestess Goateses' currently resided.
A howling wind, akin to a werewolf's cry at a silver moon, formulated in Tails' ears, and he inwardly urged himself to hang on with all his the strength he had left. Sonic had only created this technique recently but it was still unpredictable and dangerous, so foe and ally were liable to this 'Sonic Cyclone'.
Next to come in the centre of the room was the rippling funnel of air itself and with its entrance everything not tied down was scattered and bashed asunder.
Tails was almost hit with half the remains of a gold vase, but Sonic wasn't so luckily… as a flurry of gold coins rain down on him, pinning him to the ground. His groan of exhaustion wasn't heard above the still howling wind, for all that could be heard now was the wailing unnatural screams of the Mummy itself as it was flung around the room.
After a few more moments, it eventually slammed right into one of the still solid walls, knocking it senselessly right out cold.
Sonic was about to make a remark about how that'd leave one with a killer headache when something unexpected, but still not that bizarre [considering the eve's events], happened.
The wall of the western side of the chamber, which had minutes before been made of this gold-like material, had completely melted down in the inferno leftover by the jackal robots. But from it came some robots, more animated, smaller and more humanoid looking ones, who quickly scooped up the pair, now too tired to protest, away and into the darkness beyond the hole.
What they found beyond was a film crew who'd been eagerly awaiting their arrival.
"First call for makeup, luvvies," crooned a rather elegant-looking robot with coiffed metallic hair. Its model base looked rather like a Burrobot to the duo. "Good scene, good scene, my luvs. Loved that electric feeling! Exude, exude, that's what the director always said. I thought you were just super, darlings. That last special effect came out of nowhere, even for me!"
Sonic and Tails exchanged glances, and were going to explain what had really occurred, but then thought better of it. It'd be a long, long night, and that didn't want to send the camp robot off on another tirade.
A hatch covered up the remaining hole, separating the duo and film crew from the angry mummy that was wailing and pounding her fists hard against it.
"Ohh, those actresses, they're so temperamental," the robot said disapprovingly. "Honestly, give them a bit part and they think they can throw tantrums like real stars. What a little madam."
Sonic and Tails looked at each other again in stunned amazement. The degree of bogusness had passed beyond the max and was now accelerating into the depths of the megabogus. After a night without sleep, they began to wonder if they weren't, after all, fast asleep and dreaming – or having a nightmare.
"Do you mind if I fluff up those spines a little?"said diminutive robot with a disarming appearance to one of Robotnik's Coconuts. "And perhaps a little bit of blusher? Bring out the colour of your cheeks. Oh, you do look pale, you know."
"Of course I do," Sonic said irritably, pushing away the face puff being shoved at him. "I've been awake all night, and I'm bushed."
"Ohh! You actors are all the same. All-night parties and dancing 'till dawn, eh, I shouldn't wonder. You should look after yourself better. Your body is a temple," the robot said bizarrely.
"Well," Tails said in a moment of inspiration, "the thing is, we need relaxation. Outside of the castle."
"Outside the castle?" the film crew said as one. They were clearly suspicious.
"Ah. No, not exactly outside the castle," Tails said hurriedly. "We have a scene to retake with the headless horseman. In the coach-house," he explained. "We could relax and get some fresh air. That would make us look and feel much better," he concluded hopefully.
"Oh, why didn't you say so?" said the Burrobot-looking robot with the improbable metal coiffure. "Well, perhaps we could arrange that. But right now you're wanted at the Grey Tower, dears. The Director is quite adamant. And you know what happens when you keep old Bossy Britches waiting."
Sonic and Tails groaned. They were desperately tired and they needed to find somewhere safe to sleep, and Castle Robotnik certainly wasn't safe. If only they had noticed that the robot had mentioned a director. The other film crew had mentioned the producer. But, then, after a night without sleep hedgehog and foxes aren't at their most observant and what the heck, directors and producers are both dweebs anyway.
"We've been working more hours then we're supposed to, it's against the rules of the actor's union," Sonic pleaded. "We need our rest!"
I'm sorry, luvs," the Burrobot said with a steely edge to its voice, "but if we don't bring this movie on time we're scrap metal and you're just a pair of has-beens without any future in this Tinseltown city. So let's be professionals, shall we? Just the scenes in the Grey Tower to do and then you can have your quality time, luvvies. And remember: exude!"
"I wish I had the energy to stomp these totally annoying nerds," Sonic whispered to Tails. "I suppose we'll have to go along with them, though. The weird thing is, this doesn't feel like Robotnik is behind it. If he was, and he knew how exhausted we were, he'd send in a bunch of robots in to attack us and finish us off, not to do this."
Tails nodded. It puzzled him too. He pulled his paws out of his pockets, realising for the first time that he was still wearing his dinner jacket he'd put on to dine with the Count.
"I've got some entrées left," he said. "Just some nuts and nachos."
"Why didn't you say so before?" Sonic beamed. "Right on or what? Let's go and sort this bogus Grey Tower nonsense out, dude."
"Make-up first," the robot insisted. "Must look you best for the big scenes, you know."
Sonic took one look at the face puff and scowled.
Unknown Location / Castle Robotnik / South Island / 07: 13 AM
Robotnik was beside himself with rage. He jumped up and down and banged his fists on the consoles. He looked like a huge wobbly yo-yo in a white coat.
"Pah! That hateful hedgehog has escaped again! What are those robots doing? Where did they come from? Spielbot, is that your film crew?!" he eggploded.
"Certainly not!" Spielbot sniffed huffily. "My fine team of expert robot technicians are in the Grey Tower itself, just in case those animals survive long enough to get there."
Eggor kept quiet. His plan hadn't worked out too well. The Master was angry and this was bad news. Eggstraordinarily enough, Robotnik didn't ask him about the second film crew. Part of Eggor was relieved, but the Snively aspect of him was a tad annoyed too. He was supposed to be the Director, after all.
"Find them and have them melted down for scrap," the lunatic scientific genius ordered Eggor. "Twice."
Eggor really didn't understand what was going on. On the one hand, Robotnik wanted to make his movie, with its great cinematic scene atop the Great Tower, and that meant that Sonic and Tails had to survive long enough to get there. But when Sonic and Tails were trapped somewhere else in the castle, Robotnik seemed to want to destroy them if he had the chance. It didn't seem to make sense, unless…
The Master is confused himself, Eggor realised. He's not certain what he wants. Or perhaps it's just the eggscitement of the moment when the animals are backed into a corner which temporally overcomes him. But either way, he is not being entirely logical.
That troubled Eggor deeply. Obviously Robotnik was completely mad, but being illogical was something a scientist shouldn't really be. Deranged, yes, but illogical…
Eggor shivered.
Underground Depths / Castle Robotnik / South Island / 07: 13 AM
"Well, maybe just one more quick shine on my sneakers," said Sonic, relaxing in his chair. The shoe-buffing robot frantically rubbed harder with its cleaning cloth. "Don't have any pizza at all, dude?"
"Tut, tut," the coiffured robot said. "No time for meals, luvvie. Anyway, you'll probably bring it back up in the first scene and we can't have that. Look terrified, please, but definitely no pizza-pebbledashing of the walls. Catering will be along later to take your lunch order."
Tails proudly inspected his newly fluffed tails, using an especially shiny chrome robot as a mirror. He thought it looked really cool. Even his dinner jacket had been cleaned.
"Tell me more about this Grey Tower," Sonic asked. "Like, what are we expected to do, exactly?"
The robot in charge looked suspicious again. "What do you mean? Haven't you read the script? Are you sure you two are in this scene?" Other robots began to circle round the animals, looking threatening.
"Oh, right on, make-up dudes. It's just that even the biggest megastars can do with a quick refresher, right? What I meant was, umm…" Sonic tried to think himself out of trouble. Bad move.
"Yes?" the robot said, still a little uncertain.
"I meant, like, we need your expert guidance on the best scenes to, umm, exude in. give us your creative input," the hedgehog finished, using one of the gibberish phrases he'd picked up from videos about movie-makers. The robot seemed much more satisfied by that. It preened itself a little, and began to tell Sonic and Tails what to expect from the first two scenes. The friends shot each other worried looks when they found out.
As the robots guided them along the labyrinthine passage to the Grey Tower, Sonic whispered to his friend. "We could stomp them. I feel a bit better after this sit-down," the hedgehog growled softly.
"I don't. I'm still exhausted. And even if we do stomp them, we'd still be trapped. We don't know any way out of the castle. Maybe there's one in the Grey Tower, and we really need to find it if it is in there. We've got to find somewhere safe to get some food and sleep, and there isn't gonna be anywhere safe in here."
Sonic sighed. Tails was right and he knew it, because he was fatigued too. Thing was, he didn't like not being able to stomp these wretched robots into junk. He tapped the floor with his foot, irked, as a Coconut stopped at a wall panel beside a pair of metal doors and keyed in some entry codes. The doors swished open to reveal an elevator room beyond.
"Top floor, luvvies, and then straight through to the top," the robot leader said. "And don't forget–"
"Yes, I know," Sonic sighed. "Exude, exude." The moment the robot turned away, he looked at Tails and putting to two fingers to his mouth, made 'I want to puke' signs. He stepped into the elevator with Tails and pressed the top green button. Within seconds, they were atop the Grey Tower, and they stepped out into a bare grey-tinted room without any windows. There was still no way out that they could see.
The Grey Tower / Castle Robotnik / South Island / 07: 34 AM
"Okay, here goes, dude," Sonic said, breathing heavily. "Let's get this turkey on the road." He crossed the room and opened the decaying-looking brown door on the far side. As he'd been told, there was a long monorail spiralling crazily downwards to the bottom of the tower, and a single open carriage for riding down it. And because the monorail was built into a wide spiral around a central stone pillar, they couldn't see what lay below them, but they got into the carriage anyway.
"Going down," sneered an automated robotic voice. "Welcome to the helter-skelter. Heh heh!"
The carriage gave a lunge forward and then accelerated more smoothly. Soon it was hurtling down faster than a robot Sonic would be if it'd just been kicked off a rooftop.
"I'm getting dizzy," Tails whined. "My brain hurts. Awwuurgggh!" The carriage started rocking from side to side and they had to hold on with their paws. Tails was going a nasty shade of puce and his white-knuckled paws gripped the side of the carriage for dear life. Sonic wasn't too far behind him, recalling the 'pizza spewing' comment that coiffured robot had said earlier, and was slowly going a pale green. The helter-skelter suddenly hit the bottom of the descent and threw them out. Then it lurched forward again, through a high archway with the words 'GHOST TRAIN' painted in large, spooky, green and white letters above it.
"Bogus or what?" Sonic said after a moment or two of regaining his composure, in a mocking tone. "Ghost and ghoulies, huh? Let me at 'em!" The carriage shot forwards.
It was very, very dark inside the ghost-train tunnel. They could hear the sound of lapping water all around them, so it was plainly too big a risk to jump out of the carriage and look for a way out at random. Luminous painted skeletons and leering pumpkin faces flew at them from all sides, almost colliding with them.
"Yikes! It's getting kind of scary," Tails whimpered. He really didn't like this kind of thing at all. He'd rather of taken on Robotnik's Swatbot's or Badnik's than this.
"Huh! It's all fake," Sonic repeated as if trying to persuade himself too that was true. It wasn't nice down here at all and it was too dark to see anything, which really cheesed him off.
The carriage lumbered to a halt, tipped over sideways and dropped them out onto solid stone ground. The sound of water was a little way behind them now, and a dim light came from flickering candles set in brackets along the walls. It was very quiet here, and dirty cobwebs and dust lurked in all corners and crevices of the stone passageways. It was more than a little spooky.
"Let's get moving. And keep checking the walls. There may be something hidden, like that revolving bookcase door you found in the library or that secret door behind the Pharaoh's statue," Sonic advised; he'd seen this sort of movie hundreds of times. "There's got to be a way out somewhere. If Robotnik has puts traps or robots into this place, dude, he must have got in to do it. That means there must be a way in – and a way out."
"Unless he bricked it up on the way out," Tails lamented. "Perhaps we'll end up in one of those stories about people being bricked up alive. Oh, that's too gross!"
A faint wail came in the distance. The fur along Tails' spine raised up a little and he almost looked like Sonic in the spiny department.
"…What was that?" he whispered.
"We know what it was. It was just a special effect," Sonic scoffed. "Real ghosts don't exist. Everyone knows that."
A luminous phantom drifted into sight around the corner they'd left behind them. It looked like a venerable, white-haired old human, and a second ghost, which looked like a large green blob, bobbled along happily behind it. The man looked awfully convincing for a special effect.
"Woe is me," the figure lamented. "Condemned to haunt this ghastly castle all my days!"
"We're not scared. We know you're just a bogus special effect," Sonic challenged it. Tails cowered behind him to add extra substance to his words.
"You disrespectful little toe-rag," the man snarled. "I used to be one of the finest actors of my generation until that horrible, horrible man disposed of me. Now I have to haunt this awful place!"
"Disposed of you?" Tails said, wide-eyed.
"That's what I said, didn't I?" Are you deaf or something?" the ghost scowled and then let out another horrible wail.
"I wish you wouldn't do that," Tails said. "I've got a bit of a headache already."
"Headache? Headache? Is that all? Listen, you furry dweeb, I'm condemned to haunt here for all eternity in endless suffering and misery. You have no idea what pain is truly like."
"Is it a bit like having the Count's poetry read to you every day for the rest of your life?" Tails asked helpfully.
"Worse. And it goes on forever. Long after you've scoffed your last pizza I'll be trapped here still, with no one for company. Oh woe is me!" the ghost wailed again. It really was a scary and distressing sound, like eerie bell chimes and something else, unnatural-sounding intertwined with it. Then the ghost's expression changed to that of a dark smile, combined with two glinting pools that were his eyes. "But I suppose I have some company now!"
"What do you mean?" Sonic asked suspiciously.
"I mean, if you became ghosts then at least I'd have you to talk too. You're not much, let's face it, but I suppose you'd be better than nothing."
"But we aren't ghosts. No one becomes a ghost unless… unless…," Tails said, cowering even more, realising what the ghost meant even before he uttered it.
"Right. Unless they're DEAD!" The ghost turned to his blobby green companion. Which had until now said nothing and remained invisible. "Udolpho: slime them, boy!"
Our heroes turned as one and fled as a huge glob of green slime slammed into the wall at their backs. They could hear the fizzling of powerful acid dissolving the stone behind them even as they ran like crazy.
"What are we gonna do? We can't stomp that. If we get hit by that yucky stuff, it'll make Mega Muck look like soda-pop," Tails yelped breathlessly as they ran at full pelt.
Behind them, the green blob flew through the air, spraying slime all around it. What was even worse was that they were now running ankle-deep in gooey sludge. It was abit like the Mega Mack of the Chemical Plant Zone, or at least it smelt like it, but fortunately it didn't make them stick to the floor. And it didn't threaten to dissolve them like the slime the green blob was spraying around. But it did make Sonic's freshly-cleaned sneakers slimy, and he absolutely hated that.
Sonic spotted a crimson metal door ahead of him and, as he got closer to it, his sneakers burning up the ground, he saw the sign on it: 'SPECIAL EFFECTS'. He smashed into the door and knocked it off its hinges. There was a huge clatter of equipment and props stored in the room, and right in the centre of the large table was a very complicated and weird-looking machine.
"Whatcha gonna do?" Sonic said. "Call Slimebusters!"
Of course, it had helped to have spied a manual bearing the title 'Ghost Neutralising with the Mark 12 Neutronic Slime Imploder' on the table beside the machine. Desperately, he picked it up and began looking at the diagrams on the first few pages. Sonic was not good at working out the details of fabulously complicated scientific machinery, especially in such haste. The green spectre then appeared at the doorway.
"Keep back!" Sonic yelled, pointing something that looked very much like one of those vacuum-cleaner attachments you use for cleaning the stairs at the hovering horror. "Or else, you're slime history, ghostly blob-type dude."
The green blob wobbled up and down uncertainly.
Man, ghosts being scooped up by vacuum cleaners. As if that'd ever happen, who'd play a game like that or yet alone watch a film with such a thing? The hedgehog thought, as the scene unfolded. It was just too cheesy for words.
"Now, why don't we just talk about this like reasonable guys?" Tails said hopefully. The blob sneakily advanced a metre or two, until Sonic held out the vacuum cleaner again and flicked a switch on the machine. It began to hum, and the blob retreated back.
"Udolpho!" a voice came from somewhere outside the room, getting closer. "I said slime them!"
The blob began to expand. It was winding itself up for a real mega slime-out. Sonic in desperation pressed every button he could find and hoped for the best. A ray of pearly light shot out from the attachment he was holding – and hit the blob!
The result was totally awesome, and plainly very expensive.
The blob imploded. It collapsed in on itself until it was nothing more than a single pinpoint of green light and then it was sucked away into the white light and drawn into the machine. Sonic felt the metal tube he was holding getting very hot, and the machine began to smoke rather worryingly. Then it began to hum, a grating buzz which got louder and louder.
"It's going to explode, Sonic!" Tails yelped. "Let's scarper!"
Just then, the white-haired ghost appeared in the doorway. He looked a bit miffed, to say the least.
"Yes, you run you wretches," he leered. "Come to me!" He stretched out his ghostly and elastic-like arms. The pair shrank back. The machine howled. Sonic kept on pressing switches and pulled a large red lever which had a sign which read 'Do Not Pull Under Any Circumstances'.
The machine fell apart, but as it did so every bit of weird energy stored inside it discharged itself through the tube that Sonic was still holding. The recoil was so tremendous that the hedgehog was flung back against the far wall, knocking him into the middle of next week. A huge white blob of supernatural [or perhaps special effect-ual!] force screamed out far across the room, blew apart the ghost blocking the doorway out, and hit the wall of the passage outside. The stonework dissolved, and kept on dissolving. As Tails stared at it, he saw a tunnel being burned right through the stone – and at the end of it there was daylight!
Tails helped the stunned hedgehog to his feet. Sonic tottered a little unsteadily across the room, still seeing tiny green blob-things circling round his head from the force of hitting the wall.
"I think we just found a way out!" Tails squeaked excitedly.
"Yeah, like, totally!" Let's grab a souvenir or two before we go," the hedgehog growled, his senses slowly returning to him. "I can think of someone who just might be able to tell us something about them."
Unknown Location / Castle Robotnik / South Island / 08: 09 AM
"We're going to be melted down for scrap," Spielbot groaned, his tone faltering with fear. "I'll never get to make my best movies now. Blast that hedgehog!"
"I'm not so sure," Eggor said slowly, in a tone that was more calm and composed than Spielbot's was currently. Eggor in question had been doing some more research on Robotnik's monster atop the Great Tower and now he thought he understood it abit better. "The Master did get something he wanted."
"What? They escaped," the assistant director pointed out.
"Yes. But they will be back. And we have plenty of footage of them being eggstremely frightened," Eggor replied simply.
"Great. What good's that going to do?"
"Well, it's like this…"
END CHAPTER
I added some new parts to this chapter, as I felt the deux ex machina save device had gotten abit overused at this point [as if Sonic and Tails couldn't have taken those guys!].
Oh and that totally wasn't a dig at Luigi's Mansion by the way, I love that game [a sequel couldn't come soon enough]. I'm indifferent to Ghostbusters though. *shrugs*
I hope you like this little adaptation [with a few twists and stuff of my own thrown in] so far [especially those who had read the original book!].
I'll see ya sometime, somewhere next time folks. *smiley face*