Chapter 26: New Super Sonic Bros.
Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Luigi, and Mario are standing in the main hall of the castle. They are looking onwards as the place sparkles. They have cleaned the whole castle in less than an hour during their first day on the job.
"That was very fast," Sonic remarks as he takes a seat on the floor. "Now we can have the whole day to ourselves."
"No we can't," Tails replies. "We have to be their slaves remember?"
"No we don't," Sonic says as he jumps to his feet. "If we go look for a Star Emerald, then they can't interrupt us from that."
"But we haven't had a trace of a new one," Knuckles reminds him.
"Well, what if we went looking for a star emerald and it happened to take the rest of the day," Sonic implies.
"Oh no," Mario says. "Not again. We are not following you on one of your crazy plans. We always end up getting caught. I say we stay here until we get another lead."
Everyone agrees with him for once. Sonic has now been defeated. He walks outside of the castle door and sits under a tree on the castle grounds. A piece of paper comes wafting in the breeze. Sonic catches this hoping it's a clue, but it's just a blank piece of paper. He tosses it over his shoulder and continues to look on with a sad expression. He then hears footsteps. He gets up happily with a joyful smile, turns around and sees Amy then his heart drops.
"What do you want," Sonic asks.
"I have a message to give to you," Amy says. "We have reports of strange activity on the outskirts of the mushroom kingdom caused by mysterious orange gems."
"Really," Sonic screams. "Yahoo! I was losing my mind. It was getting boring around here."
"Well, it'll get boring as you guys return," Amy remarks. "Everyone else is at the castle gates already. You should go there."
Sonic darts off towards the castle gates. Once he comes to a stop, he looks around. To his surprise, he finds no one here. A huge shadow is slowly falling down upon him. He doesn't even bother looking up. Amy catches him in a net and carries him back to the castle. He just sits in the net with a look of irritation. She carries him to the top floor where he finds all of his friends playing the Wii.
"Haha, Sonic got caught trying to escape," Knuckles blurts out as he points and laughs.
Amy dumps Sonic out of her net. "You guys need to get real. Peach is very serious about this and we'll do our best to make sure that this goes through fully. If any leads for the Star Emeralds are to be discovered, we will take care of it ourselves."
"What," they all scream in unison. "We can't let that happen." They all look awkwardly at themselves for shouting that at the same time.
"Anyway, that's our purpose until the job is done," Tails explains. "We are supposed to find the star emeralds and protect you guys, not the other way around."
"Yeah, I mean what happens if you get hurt or run into Shadow and his gang or get into some pretty big trouble," Luigi asks. "That just wouldn't look right. Are you sure you can handle things?"
"Nah you know what," Sonic explains. "I don't care anymore. If they want to keep us here to prove some stupid point and do all the dangerous stuff we usually do then let them. All we did was break our backs to protect them. Yeah sure we did one bad thing, but something so minor that didn't hurt them in anyway should be excused since all they usually do is sit here and do nothing anyway while we do all the hard stuff. The way I see it, they don't appreciate what we have done for them these past few weeks. You can have your little emerald hunt without us, but don't come crying to us for help!"
Sonic just had the guts to say what every other man in this room has wanted to say since yesterday. He knew it, and so did Peach who was listening in on the other side of the door. Amy doesn't even have a reply. The whole room is silent as Sonic is ready to start an argument with the next person who opposes his viewpoint. Amy just backs out of the room. Sonic takes a seat in one of the theater chairs. Knuckles, Tails, and even Luigi congratulates him on his little speech, but Mario just sits on the other side room without getting into it at all. Sonic just doesn't let Mario get away with it though.
"Mario, you agree with me right," Sonic tells him.
"Ok, I admit it you are right," Mario replies. "But don't you think that you were a little bit too harsh?"
"Not at all. You have to be serious to let them know that you really mean business," Sonic says. "They will realize that they were wrong and will come back and apologize before we even get another hint towards the next set of star emeralds."
"That reminds me, how many do we have," Tails ask Knuckles.
"That's simple to figure out," Knuckles elaborates. "All of you have your Red, White, Blue, and Black Star Emeralds correct? Four times four is sixteen. Rouge and I have the Rainbow Star emeralds so that's eighteen. All the girls have their green star emeralds so that's now twenty-two. There are eight left. These are the yellow ones which control the power of the weather and the orange ones which gives you mastery over the machines. That's eight more. If Shadow keeps going into our world and finding Mario and Luigi's Star Emeralds for us then this will become easy."
"Good that someone is keeping count," Tails says.
In the courtyard sits Amy and Peach. Since this whole ordeal began they have become great friends and are closer than ever. They are obviously talking about the event that just unfolded.
"I think we should end this and just let them go get the two star emeralds in the underground cave," Amy says. "Like it or not, Sonic was obviously right. You did kind of overreact to the whole thing. We just acted on your orders."
Peach then stands up quickly and dramatically.
"Please don't say what I think you are about to say," Amy says as she puts her hand on her face.
"We can do one of their so called missions and complete it without a problem," Peach says strongly. "We shall go get the star emeralds ourselves."
"I knew it," Amy says unenthusiastically. "I guess I should tell the others it's time to depart."
Amy walks towards the courtyard and tells everyone of the current events. They all agree towards Amy's side.
"She's taking this way too seriously. If we go behind her back and straighten things out with the boys then they can go and get the Star Emeralds. We can't do anything with them until they activate them anyway," Rosalina says.
"So it's agreed, we'll go apologize and hopefully they'll go get the Star Emeralds," Cosmo asks.
"Yes that's the plan," Rouge agrees. "But we must do it without letting Peach know."
Rouge gets to work on this task as she scales the castle walls. On the roof of the castle, she walks towards the tower in the middle which contains the theater. She looks in to find no one inside. She quickly flies back to the courtyard.
"They are not there," Rouge says.
"Wut," Amy replies.
Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Mario and Luigi are actually in the front of the castle.
"We are really going to train," Tails asks.
"Yeah it'll be cool," Sonic says. "We should work on our mastery of the emerald's elements."
"Wait, what I do," Knuckles says. "I can't use the Star Emeralds so I can't train."
"I don't know. Go write a rap or climb a tree or something," Sonic remarks.
"Not fuuny, I'll sit and watch," Knuckles says.
"Ok so, let's think about this," Luigi suggests. "All elements can be beaten in some way by another. Water has the ability to stop fire. We can create ice by merging wind and water as Mario demonstrated a while back. Ice should be able to freeze water so we can take care of water that way. What do you guys think could counteract wind?"
"Maybe the ground because the wind can't move or harm the ground," Tails replies. "Also, we can probably use our ground powers to cancel out electricity since the ground is not harmed by electricity."
"Sounds good," Sonic says. "Let's put Luigi's theory to the test, Mario. I use water while you use fire."
Mario prepares the red star emerald while Sonic prepares his blue one. Mario gains his crown and red scepter and Sonic gains the blue sword. Mario starts out simply by using a fireball. Sonic shoots a small stream of water out of his right hand which turns the fireball into steam. Luigi then asks for a stronger fire attack. Mario twirls his scepter over his head creating a fire tornado. Sonic swings his sword though the middle of it and it turns into steam again.
"The fire water theory works," Sonic says. "Want us to try the ice and water theory next?"
"Wait, what I'm more concerned about is how Wario was able to part the sea," Mario says. "I want to figure out how to do that."
Amy comes outside from the castle door. She walks towards everyone.
"Hey guys, I have something to say. We want to apologize for our actions as of late and we decided to cancel the stupid punishment that Peach came up with," Amy speaks on behalf of all girls except for Peach.
"Cool," Sonic says. "Everything is back to normal now, right?"
"Yes, now then, I have some news to tell you guys. Peach is missing and the fake report I gave you about star emeralds are actually real. They are in the underground cavern through the tunnel over there," Amy replies.
"Finally, a new mission," Sonic screams happily.
"Do you know anything about where Peach has gone," Mario asks.
"Don't worry about it," Amy reassures him. "We can't have you guys do both things. Sonic's speech made us realize that we lay too much responsibility on you. We'll go rescue Peach. You can go look for the star emeralds."
"What," Sonic exclaims. "Well, I'm not letting you go anywhere without some type of protection." He then turns to his friends. "We will only need the black star emeralds to get through the cavern so we might as well let our princesses use the others. What do you guys think?"
"Sounds like a good idea," Luigi says. "We wouldn't want anything to happen to them."
"Yeah, let's do it," Tails says.
Sonic, Luigi, and Tails sacrifice all their red, blue, and white star emeralds to Amy. Once that's done, they take off towards the tunnel in the front of the castle.
"So like, we just jump in or something," Sonic asks.
"Yes, the tunnel is like a portal," Mario replies.
Mario and Luigi stand on top of the tunnel and jump in making it look easy. Sonic hops in, but he rolls into a ball first to assure that he fits. Tails walks towards the tunnel, but he trips over a rock and falls in. Knuckles glides over it then drills down into the tunnel. Once under the ground, Mario and Luigi lands like normal, Sonic lands on his feet, Tails lands on his face, and Knuckles flies in causing everyone to jump out the way. He spins into the ground then jumps back out. This cave is pretty breathtaking. Its ceiling is filled with stalagmites which are shiny due to reflecting the pool of water to the right. The floor of the cave is made out of marble. It's very smooth as Tails runs his hand across the floor to test this. This place seems very extensive with many caves placed above and besides each other on a wall on the other side of the lake.
"Looks like we have to get over there," Knuckles says. "You guys are on your own," he says as he proceeds to jump up and glide the length of the lake without a problem. Sonic runs across it. Luigi does the same. Tails carries Mario over it. Now in front of them sits six caves. They are in two columns.
"I think I can feel a star emerald coming from out the cave at the top to the left," Tails says.
"Me too," Sonic agrees. "How are we going to get up there?"
"Well, I know how I can," Knuckles remarks.
"Shut up Knucklehead," Sonic screams. "Tails, you think you can carry me that high?"
"Yeah, I can do that," Tails says. "But what about you guys?"
Mario and Luigi both take out the feathers they had with them. They fly to the top and wait for the rest. Knuckles climb up there and Tails carries Sonic up there as promised. The path from here on out is dark so Mario uses his red star emerald the makes his scepter into a torch. They all proceed.
"I wish it wasn't so dark in here," Tails says quietly.
"Ha, you are afraid of the dark," Knuckles blurts out.
"I am not," Tails screams.
"Hey," Mario says. "I see something up ahead."
A huge golden door blocks the path. Mario pushes it open. To everyone's absolute amazement they find a huge room with nothing but shelves filled with books. It's a library that's located in the middle of a cave. The carpeting is red, the walls are solid gold, and there's actually electricity down here. They are even more stunned as they look to the right.
"Why are you here," Sonic asks. "Why did you come here?"
"If you don't mind I need to talk to Mario," Peach says. "On the other side of the library is where you will find the Orange Star Emeralds for Tails and you."
"You just plain don't understand, the girls were worried about you and went off to look for you," Knuckles explains.
"None of that matters now," Peach replies strongly. "Now, go."
"Yes ma'am," Tails screams as he runs away. The others follow.