Chapter 12
Nick flung himself out of bed and slammed on the floor. "Huh. Just a dream. I must have fallen asleep as soon as I put my phone away." Then he sprinted over to the mirror. His hair was black. "Phew," Nick sighed in relief. He got on his favorite clothes, pink T-shirt and shorts with yellow and violet stripes on them. Glancing at his reflection one more time, he then jumped over all the stairs, landing hard right in front of his mom. "Nick! You have to stop doing that!" she scolded, walking over to the table and setting her tray of pancakes down. "Whatever," Nick said, stuffing a pancake in his mouth and throwing on his roller blades.
Nick burst through the door, looked around for a second, then skated down the sidewalk. He sped by people with confidence and a carefree attitude, then went out into the street right before he flew off the top of a giant hill. In his reckless abandon, he crashed down on the asphalt, barely keeping his balance. Nick noticed a car approaching him from the lower part of the hill. Nick grinned, jumped on the hood of the car, jumped off, and looked behind him. He was about to jokingly salute the car as it drove off behind him, but he instead slammed painfully into a streetlight.
"Ouch. I really...oof," Nick said, pressing his hand against the discolored spot on his forehead. He lost balance on his roller blades, slipped and fell, hitting his head against the sidewalk. He was dazed, barely conscious, and in a lot of pain. Nick sat up slowly, so that his double vision wouldn't become triple vision. Touching the back of his head with his finger, he found that it was completely red from poking it for an instant.
"This is bad," Nick thought. He pulled off the roller blades and stumbled into an alley. Nick climbed up into a trash can and transformed.
"Whew. That's better," Sonic said to himself, jumping out of the trash can and brushing himself off. He walked out of the alley and looked at the drops of blood next to the streetlight. "Eh, I can still get over to Miles's like this. Totally," Sonic said, leaning down to hold the ground with one hand as he charged up a super peel-out. He released it, heard the familiar whoosh sound, then sped up.
"Well, looks like I'm at Miles's place already," Sonic said, turning into Nick again and feeling the pain ruch back to his head. Nick sighed, then reached into his backpack and pulled out a chaos emerald, transforming himself and healing him at the same time. Sonic put the chaos emerald away and turned back into Nick. "Being invincible is fun," Nick said, running up to the Prower's door and knocking on it until someone answered it.
"Well Miles, I made it. Despite your directions," Nick said, doing his best impression of Superintendent Chalmers from the Simpsons. "Ugh. Just, get in here. And keep your mouth shut," Miles grumbled as he pulled Nick inside.
"Jeez, what's the big deal?" Nick asked, pushing Miles away.
"The big deal is that my parents can't know that we're taking the Tornado and going to Westside Island!"
"Nice! Where are your Mom and Dad right now?"
"They're downstairs, I think they've been watching a movie or something."
"So why don't we go right now?"
"Because I've been waiting for you to get here."
"Hey, I got hung up in a... streetlight."
"Good job, let's get going."
Nick ran into the basement, followed by Miles. They came to a big steel door, and Miles typed in a super long password. The door slid open, and lights on the other side switched on high above the two. In the middle of the underground warehouse, there was a small, red biplane with gray wings. "Jeez, your dad made this place to survive a nuke!" Nick said, looking around at the concrete and steel walls. Miles climbed inside of the aviator's seat, and Nick hopped up on the wings, his arms crossed.
Miles donned a leather pilot cap with goggles, hit some buttons, and gave Nick a thumbs-up. Nick winked, then crouched slightly. The wall in front of them opened up and unfolded into a steep ramp piercing the clear blue sky. The Tornado lowered a small hook into a groove in the middle of the ramp. Then, with no warning, the Tornado shot off in the sky, the propeller already spinning thanks to Miles. Behind them, the Tornado's hangar completely shut down and closed up.
About an hour later, the Tornado was coming up on the mass of smoke surrounding Robotnik's Metropolis. Miles landed near the edge of the Oil Ocean factories, hid the Tornado, set up some traps, and transformed into Tails. "Come on, let's go!" he said, flying up in the air and then speeding off when he got close to the ground.
"Didn't I just do this?" Nick said as he transformed into Sonic and ran past Tails, breaking the sound barrier. He crashed into Metropolis to find all kinds of badniks, spikes, lava, crushing traps, and pits. "This is going to be fun," Sonic grumbled.
"Hey Tails! Mind flying me past all of this so we can beat up Robotnik's newest creation soon?" Sonic yelled, tapping his foot on the ground impatiently. "Fine, but only for a little bit. I can't carry you for too long!"
Tails jumped up, his tails an orange blade above him. "Grab ahold of my hand!" Tails said, reaching down towards Sonic. They flew high above some traps for a couple of seconds, and when Tails started to tire, he spun around and threw Sonic at a Shellcracker.
Tails landed down next to Sonic, who was looking at Tails in a way that meant 'Look at this trick I can do with my overwhelming speed, Tails.' Sonic looked sort of blurry and was emitting a 'shwiff' noise every couple of moments. "Sonic, what are you doing?" Tails said, slightly annoyed.
Sonic smirked wildly, then appeared a couple of feet away. "Hey Tails, I was just-"
"Going so fast that you were just an afterimage, staying in place for a few milliseconds longer in one place so I could only see you in that place," Tails said, excited to show off his ability to over explain things. "Yep. That's exactly what I did," Sonic said, giving his sidekick a thumbs-up before rolling into another Shellcracker.
They ran through the rest of the Metropolis with minor trouble, and freed all of the small animals in the capsules and badniks. Sonic came to a door, and when it shifted open to let him through, he found that he was outside on a balcony. Off in the distance, there was a giant airship painted mustard yellow and surrounded by a cloud of badniks. "Hey Tails, " Sonic said as soon as he heard the metal doors behind him open again, "you want to get the Tornado really quick, that's Robotnik's Wing Fortress over there.
"Ok, I'm on it!" Tails said, turning around right when he got to Sonic. "I'll just be a couple minutes, and before you know it, we'll be on a sky chase!"
"Well get on it!" Sonic said, now laying on his side, his legs crossed and head resting on his hand.
About 40 seconds after Tails left, Sonic stood up, thinking, "This is taking too long." He waited for another Balkiry to fly by, then he jumped on it and grabbed it's wings, guiding its flight. "Alright, this is easy!" Sonic thought, then a Nebula dropped a bomb on him, but Sonic jumped up, stepped on the bomb, and then pushed himself up above the Nebula. He curled into a ball, speeding through the air and crashing into the Nebula. He used the force of the explosion to push him onto a pair of Turtloids. He ripped the small one in half, and when he landed on the bigger one, it flipped over, dropping Sonic into the clouds far below.