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Given more time, I'd have ideally conjured another wannabe-creative way of acknowledging LordChico, Cytisus, and Cyan Quartz for their most recent reviews, but...oh well. Thanks!
[If you're checking this chapter because you got an update notification...yes I did update it. Explanation at the end.]
[The last story update was on 12/13/20; if you're reading this after getting yet another notification on 1/3/21, it's because I added a fanart link at the end]
NO WAY! NO WAY! NO WAY! NO WAY?
Tails: check.
Knuckles: check.
Checkerboard: check.
Sonic's fighting stance melted into a slouch. "Great, we all made it."
Tails blinked, then immediately looked down at himself. He sighed, immensely relieved that he was still wearing his birthday suit. Plus shoes and gloves, of course; he was a civilized fox.
Knuckles frowned deeply as he looked around the landscape. The vaguely spherical floor was checkered gray-and-yellow, and the cyan horizon was filled with appropriately nonsensical whirling shapes, but not much else was going on quite yet.
He shook his head. "I still don't understand why or how a Warp Ring just appeared like that."
"And I don't really care," Sonic said tiredly as he rubbed a palm against his temple. "Anything's less painful than those lasers."
Knuckles gave him a scornful look. "You don't know that. This isn't exactly a vacation cabin."
Sonic volleyed the look back. "I do know we needed to escape."
"We almost had him."
"What part of 'we were trapped' don't you get?"
"We wouldn't have been trapped if we did more fighting and less whining."
"And who's whining right now?"
"You've been whining nonstop since you woke up."
"Guys…" Tails whined.
"Alright, genius," Sonic continued, ignoring the actual genius nearby. "So what do you think we should do next?"
"One of us has to get the Chaos Emerald here. I expect you to brag about the number of times you've collected them."
"Oh no, I would never do that before the mighty Guardian himself. By all means, you can volunteer to play this one."
"Fine," Knuckles spat, walking off to examine the scenery.
Sonic huffed, but didn't budge. Tails took a closer look at him, and the concern on his face deepened.
"Sonic...do you need to sit down for a bit?"
"Once we're in the clear."
"I'm sorry. I should have insisted you rest for longer..."
"Don't start with that again," Sonic said, smirking humorlessly.
"Why has nothing happened yet?" Knuckles wondered aloud.
A portal opened in the sky and a purple UFO flew out.
On the ground in front of the heroes, another portal opened. A green robot rolled out, resembling the beloved spawn of a totem pole and a trash can. Upon noticing the UFO, it gave chase.
The heroes simply stared at the robot as it zoomed past them whilst droning "I WANT TO BELIEVE."
After a few moments, both the robot and the UFO abruptly disappeared through a new pair of short-lived portals. A long silence then followed.
Sonic frowned. "Guys, I'm not still...?"
"N-no," Tails responded quickly. "You're not hallucinating."
"Just making sure," Sonic mumbled as he took a few steps towards the site of the disturbance.
There was a faint splashing noise. Sonic immediately tensed up, then looked down to see that he was standing in an inch-deep puddle. He cautiously backed away until he was on tiled ground again.
The puddle slowly disappeared into the floor.
Tails raised an eye ridge. "Was that a challenge of some sort…?"
"I'm not really sure..."
Knuckles stopped at the interruption of a clicking noise. The squares in the tiled floor began to lift upwards, revealing themselves as three-dimensional cubes. They locked in place at regular intervals, giving the heroes the impression that they were standing at the bottom of a voxelated maze that stretched into the sky.
Sonic's eyes lit up in recognition. "Wait, is this about to-"
The entire structure began to tilt forwards.
"Of course," the hedgehog sighed.
He began walking forward to keep himself on horizontal footing. The other two followed him.
"It seems we're all playing," Knuckles said, though he didn't seem confident about it.
"You've seen these?" Tails asked Sonic.
The hedgehog didn't turn to answer as he continued to step over the uneven blocks in an almost robotic fashion. "Yeah. Main point is to stay focused on your goal so you don't get disoriented by everything else."
The rotation began to speed up and the trio broke into a jog. Soon, the maze split into multiple paths. Sonic pointed to a faint apparition that resembled a peppermint candy.
"Through there."
As soon as they jogged through it, it solidified, blocking them into a room with a clump of shining crystals in the dead center. Several pits on the outskirts of the room contained red, flashing spheres. The blocks themselves also started flashing different colors as the spin cycle sped up further.
Sonic grimaced and partially covered his eyes as he tried to focus, but ended up jogging straight into a bumper as a result. He flew backwards and collided with Tails. They struggled to regain their footing as the ground against them turned vertical.
Tails started flying and caught Sonic just as they were about to tumble into a pit with red spheres at the bottom.
"You alright?" Knuckles called, hanging from what was currently the top of the room.
"Ugh. Yeah, just get through the crystals," Sonic replied. "Should take four or five hits per-"
Knuckles kicked off the ceiling and dove fist-first into the mass of crystals, shattering them all at once.
The crystal shards suddenly inflated to resemble a spray of bubbles as they flew outwards. They impacted Sonic and Tails, who suddenly found themselves suspended in one floating bubble each. They looked at each other, then down at Knuckles.
The echidna was now standing on what appeared to be a boardwalk made of wooden planks. Everything else had disappeared. He looked down at the planks, around at the distant scenery, and then up at Sonic, who was still floating helplessly in a bubble way above him. He appeared to be deciding which question to tackle first.
Unable to choose, he settled on sarcasm instead. "And I'm sure you expected this too."
Sonic shrugged in reply. "I would at least start running."
Knuckles took off jogging along the curved boardwalk. Presently, he came across a vertical wooden wall that was twice his height. He scaled it, then continued running on the boardwalk path that continued at the top.
The path continued to curve in an arc until Knuckles found another tall step, which he subsequently scaled. He took off running for another few moments until he reached a third wall.
Tails looked down from his bubble, then at his likewise-suspended friend nearby. "Sonic..."
The latter folded his arms. "If he's gonna keep sassing me, he can figure it out himself."
Tails shook his head. "There might be a hidden timer." He turned to face the echidna. "Knuckles, you're running in a big circle!"
Knuckles looked up. "What do you mean, I'm running in a big…"
He saw the vertical wall approaching again, and with a sudden roar of frustration, decided to run through, instead of over it.
The planks shattered, flying outwards and popping both bubbles. Tails and Sonic dropped, landing in what appeared to be a glowing half-pipe. They took off running, quickly approaching Knuckles as he traversed the new scene.
"You'd make a terrible spirit guide," the echidna said, scowling suspiciously at Sonic as he jogged up alongside him.
"And you'd make a great Olympian," Sonic retorted, not sparing a side glance.
Knuckles grunted in irritation and gave Sonic a light shove. The hedgehog stumbled for a few paces, then tripped and fell.
Still running, Knuckles blinked a few times before turning to look behind him. He saw only Tails, the worry on his face notable even among the present scenery.
"Don't..."
Knuckles nearly gave himself whiplash with a three-quarter whirl in the other direction, but the raw aggression in Sonic's posture only served to validate the imminent threat laced in his tone.
"Ever…" Sonic continued, leaning in close enough for Knuckles to hear his breath shuddering. The echidna hesitated, then glared back.
"Look out!" Tails shouted.
Sonic and Knuckles split apart just fast enough to avoid colliding with a bomb. Tails jumped over it.
The pipe dropped into a bend, bringing the horizon into better view. The sky was now a deep navy blue, with a golden crescent moon serving as the lone decoration.
"Was that there before?" Tails asked.
"I don't-whoa!"
Sonic dropped to slide under a pair of floating pod robots that charged towards him. They turned around for a second sweep, only to meet their demise courtesy of a pair of spiked fists.
A trail of floating golden rings appeared in front of them. Sonic ran through it, and as he touched each ring, it instantly vanished. The moon flashed, its phase slowly advancing in time with the ring collection.
"That's interesting," was all Tails could manage.
Knuckles smashed through another set of drones. "I'll take the hazards."
The trail split in two, curving along the sides and ceiling of the now full-pipe. Sonic and Tails went for one trail each, swerving and running along the top of the pipe as necessary.
The moon continued advancing in phase until it was completely full. Then, with a flash, the trails of rings disappeared.
The pipe dropped and turned into another bend. Ahead, dozens of brightly colored orbs were bouncing erratically about the path, like crickets throwing a tantrum.
"Uh, now what are we playing?" Tails asked, though at this point, he wasn't expecting any informed answers.
Sonic threw his hands up and attempted one anyway. "Calvinball?"
Tails cautiously touched an orb that bounced over his head. It shot forward into the sky, becoming a twinkling star next to the large moon.
Sonic stared. "Huh."
He and Tails shrugged at each other and then continued running forward, touching every orb they could while Knuckled handled the occasional drone ambush. The moon continued advancing as the sky filled with stars, until it was a waning crescent.
"Watch out," Knuckles warned.
The other two looked forward to see the pipe completely blocked by a large red balloon with a star on it. The echidna charged into it fist-first.
Unsurprisingly, it popped. The three were sent flying upwards out of the pipe. When they fell back down again, the ground was flat and tightly packed with springs.
They landed on a spring each and were launched up into the starry sky again. Then they fell and hit more springs.
After several reruns of this sequence, Sonic located a vertical pillar with a spiral pattern. He landed on one colored ridge and clung to it.
"Gimme just a sec," he replied to Tails' unspoken question from nearby.
"This one is different," Knuckles said, pointing to spring near a wall.
The echidna steered himself to land on the spring in question, and as he reached the peak of the resulting jump, time around him seemed to slow. Several violet orbs materialized in front of him while he hovered in place. Each appeared to have some writing in it.
"Touch them in counting order!" Sonic called.
Knuckles looked at them and froze. After an awkward pause, a buzzer sounded, gravity returned, and he fell back down. A bubble appeared around him, suspending him in midair.
"Really, dude?" Sonic groaned. He kicked off the pillar and headed over to jump on the same spring. He reached the peak, his trajectory crawled to a near-stop, and the orbs appeared before him as well.
"Okay, so this is how we count from one to- what?"
Sonic gawked in utter bewilderment before he too dropped and was forcefully enclosed in an effervescent time-out.
"You sure showed me," Knuckles said.
The glower he received in reply might have been more effective if its owner wasn't presently floating upside-down.
Tails took a deep breath and headed to the spring.
"Careful bud," Sonic called as his sidekick was launched upwards. "I think it's some sort of trick..."
The fox stared thoughtfully for half a second and then quickly slapped the orbs containing j², q, cos(0), e, π, 0x10, and c, in that order.
There was a pleasant ding as the orbs disappeared. The sky seemed to open up above Tails, and as he fell back down, he tapped each bubble, freeing his friends.
They fell together and landed on one large red spring. This time, they were rocketed upwards at a constant speed, as though gravity didn't exist at all.
"Dare I ask what you did?" Knuckles asked several moments into his infinite jump.
"Uh, well," Tails replied, "it was in ascending order, but not all of them were integers, or in base ten…"
Knuckles shook his head. "Never mind."
"Wait, gravity's returning!" Tails gasped.
Their ascent finally began to slow down until their flights peaked with the starry sky and moon the only scenery in view. Then they fell freely.
"Should I be concerned about this?" Sonic muttered, doing his best pancake impression to slow his descent.
Far below them, three glowing lights appeared. One was gray, one was cyan, and one was yellow.
"Guys…" Tails said slowly. "Which Emeralds are we missing?"
Sonic's eyes widened. "No way."
"That's not possible," Knuckles began, but Sonic had already straightened his body into a hard dive to speed towards the three lights. The other two followed.
The distance between them and the glowing lights began to shrink. There was a flash of green lightning and an explosion from somewhere nearby. Shards of wood and crystal blew towards the trio, who found the sudden need to twist and shield themselves against the battery.
A large, solid gray ring appeared below the lights, apparently extending into a tube-like, ribbed structure that angled diagonally. The lights changed directions and entered the tube.
Sonic grabbed a long, broken plank as it flew nearby, and on a whim, slapped it to the bottom of his shoes. It pressed and stuck, as though he were wearing a snowboard. Using his new equipment, he swerved sideways to enter the tube. A quick glance at his surroundings showed that neither ally had been able to follow.
He gritted his teeth and narrowed his eyes, trying to focus amid the coruscating scenery.
"Alright..."
Sonic straightened into a dive again, angling the board for maximum downward speed as he swerved through the winding pipe.
A glass pane suddenly entered his view, and he tilted his board just fast enough to squeeze through a small opening on one side. A group of bombs flew in from multiple angles. He waited until they were close before swinging himself into a somersault, batting them away with the board.
The three lights finally came back in range. He dove forward again, extending his hand as he approached the lights from ten feet away, then five feet, then two.
Sonic thrust his hand into the center of the three lights. They circled around his arm for a few moments, then suddenly shot forward again.
"Wha-!"
The lights turned the next bend and passed completely through another glass pane just as it came into view. There was no opening in this one. Sonic swung his board around just in time to impact the pane feet-first.
There was a loud crashing noise. Sonic's hands flew to his ears and his eyes squeezed shut as he heard the pieces shatter and fly past him. He felt the lurch of his descent slowing unnaturally, then the impact of his legs absorbing a landing on something else.
He looked down to see himself standing on solid ground. There was no board, and no glass. Tails and Knuckles ran up to him.
"Did you get anything?" Knuckles asked.
"I... don't think so," Sonic replied slowly. He rubbed his head and looked around with the other two.
The area had returned to more or less the state they found it in. The checkered floor stretched out in all directions with a noticeable convex curvature, while sky was its usual mass of swirling nonsense. Except...
"I thought we already got the green Chaos Emerald," Sonic said, an odd tone to his voice.
"W-we definitely did!" Tails protested.
"So...what's that all about?"
The others turned to see Sonic pointing at the sky, where a large green sphere was beginning to glow. After a moment, the visual spread apart horizontally, an identical sphere moving to the first one's side. The rest of the swirling background began to slow and dim. The floor faded to a grayscale palette.
"Knuckles, is this normal?" Tails asked.
"I..."
A series of dark cracks began to run across the frozen background until they covered it. There was a pause, then the sky visibly and audibly shattered.
Sonic instinctively yanked Tails behind him, then watched the pieces fall away, leaving a pair of blinding green orbs centered against a vast darkness. "Knuckles, seriously, what in the world…"
"I...I don't know…"
On the lower-right of the horizon, a white-gloved left hand came into view as it approached the trio. It stopped, hovering a few meters in front of them.
Knuckles stepped forward. "What's happening?" he asked the hand.
"Can they talk?" Sonic whispered to his sidekick, who shrugged helplessly.
The large hand did not respond in any way. It continued to float in place, its fingers gently swaying to a nonexistent breeze.
Another gloved hand approached. It was identical to the first, but a mirror image: a right hand. It stopped at level with the first hand, giving the visual of the two flanking the green orbs in the background.
Knuckles set his jaw before continuing. "I am the chosen guardian of the Master Emerald and Angel Island. Tell me: what is happening?" he demanded.
The green orbs narrowed slightly, then suddenly widened. The first hand went rigid and began to shake. A light blue glow from its hollow base spread outwards to its fingertips as the whole shape writhed. After a moment, the glow disappeared and the hand went limp in midair.
Sonic's head tilted. "Okaaay?"
The left hand snapped back upright, its fingers now jerking and curling erratically, like the limbs of a cornered tarantula. It slowly began advancing on the nearest group member.
"Knuckles, watch out," Tails said nervously.
The echidna held his ground with a defiant glare. "This is not how the Special Zone is run."
The hand stretched out into a palm and slammed against the ground where Knuckles had been standing before Sonic dove into him.
The two rolled back to their feet. Sonic's balance abruptly faltered, and Knuckles reflexively caught him by the arm.
"I kinda doubt ol' Glover here is open for debate," the hedgehog promptly quipped, jerking a thumb to point at the crazed hand.
There was a pause. Sonic directed a pointed glance down at the mitten still gripping his arm, and then back up at its owner.
"...can I help you?" he deadpanned.
Knuckles gave Sonic an odd look, then released his arm and turned towards the left hand again. It pulled itself off the ground, shook itself out, and focused on the group again as Tails ran up to rejoin it. Its fingers continued to flail as though it was attempting a Flight of the Bumblebee performance on an invisible piano.
"Are we expected to fight it?" Tails asked.
While the right hand continued to observe calmly from a distance, the left hand pointed an index finger at the group. A rocket abruptly fired from the fingertip, and the group scattered before the subsequent explosion.
"Good enough for me," Knuckles growled, charging forward with a punch. The impact knocked the hand back a few feet.
Were it possible for a giant disembodied hand to look offended, said feat was accomplished moments before Knuckles was sent flying by a spring-loaded poke.
The hand charged on four fingers like an irate bull, then took off flying into the distance, jet-like flames shooting from its base. Knuckles brushed himself off as the other two grouped to him. He opened his mouth, failed to locate any words, then closed it.
Sonic found two. "Look out!"
The trio scattered again as the hand rocketed back in with a punch. Upon failing to hit any targets, it did an about-face. It attempted several more strikes without success, and finally dropped to the ground, landing on its back.
The separated trio looked at each other, and cautiously began walking towards the inert hand. It twitched like an inverted beetle, then suddenly began thrashing violently. The heroes had to jump back to avoid being struck by an errant finger, and then to avoid being crushed entirely as the flailing intensified to the point of the hand flipping itself airborne and slamming against the ground repeatedly.
Knuckles watched the hand's tantrum, waited for it to slow in exhaustion, then began charging fist-first at the next apparent opening.
The right hand snapped its fingers from afar before the echidna connected. The melee was overwhelmed by a blinding flash and a deafening bang.
Tails grimaced and shook his head to clear the ringing in his ears as the scene blurred back into view. Knuckles too looked rather stunned, but seemed to be recovering.
Tails quickly scanned the area for Sonic. The hedgehog had doubled over, clutching his head and sucking in ragged breaths through his clenched teeth. His legs buckled and he dropped a hand to catch himself as he landed on one knee.
Tails suddenly realized the right hand was also watching Sonic. He gasped and sprinted forward. The hand also swooped towards the same target, and reached him first.
Sonic let off a cry of surprise, struggling ineffectively as it enveloped him in a fist. A pink glow began to form in the hand's hollow base, but was interrupted as Tails flew in with a hard kick.
"Let him go!"
Knuckles jumped atop the fist as the fox continued battering it. He succeeded in prying one finger open, then moved on to the next. The first finger simply curled back to its original position once it was released.
The echidna roared in frustration. "Come on, just open up already!"
The entire hand suddenly opened into a flat palm, dropping Sonic to the floor.
Knuckles blinked incredulously as he hung from one finger. "...that worked?"
"Knuckles!"
Unlike the echidna, Tails had seen the left hand careening towards them. He flew over and yanked Knuckles off just before the left fist impacted the right palm. They landed just as Sonic got back to his feet, looking slightly dazed.
Tails rushed to him. "Are you okay?!"
"I-"
The green glow in the background suddenly intensified. The left hand writhed and twitched again, then abruptly headed towards the light.
"Oh no you don't!" Sonic yelled, running after it. The other two followed, until the right hand flew in front of them, palm out.
Sonic and Tails screeched to a halt. Knuckles didn't, instead opting to bulldoze it onto its back. The three of them jumped over it and continued to run to the light. The left hand, convulsing violently, had all but disappeared within the glow.
A high-frequency hum began to intensify as the trio approached the glow, but the right hand reappeared and suddenly dropped on top of them, palm down and fingers curled in a makeshift cage.
"Argh! No!" Knuckles roared. The three of them grabbed at one of the fingers and tried to push it aside before an explosion of green light and cold air seeped through the cracks.
Taking advantage of the hand having gone still, Knuckles shoved open a gap wide enough to pull himself and his friends free. Where the glow had been, there was now what looked like a mushroom cloud made of a green aura beginning to spread across the black sky. The three heroes stared for a few moments before Knuckles began running towards the event.
The right hand dove down in a drilling motion, mere feet in front of him. Knuckles reared back with a punch, but lost his footing as the tiled ground began to crumble into nothing.
Sonic dove forward and grabbed Knuckles as he fell. The former kicked off several tile shards and then the hand itself, aiming a last-ditch jump towards the solid ground that was quickly receding out of range.
Tails caught them in midair and flew them over a safe area, but then yelped suddenly. All three heroes crashed to the ground.
Sonic was the first to jump to his feet, lifting up his sidekick in alarm. "Are you hurt?"
"N-no, but I suddenly lost thrust. It's like there's no air here…"
Sonic blinked. "So how are we breathing?"
Tails made a face.
"I-I-I mean, don't think about it!" Sonic stammered, waving his hands frantically.
"Hey!" shouted Knuckles, snapping the other two out of their distraction as he pointed at the rest of the floor rapidly disintegrating.
The hedgehog grabbed his friends by a wrist each and took off running. He repeatedly swerved and jumped towards what looked like the most solid ground, but after several moments, skidded to a stop on a single intact tile. He nearly fell forward until the other two planted their feet behind him.
Elbows linked and facing outwards, the three heroes stumbled and swayed, leaning forward to adjust their balance until they reached an equilibrium where everyone was on the edge, but no one was falling. The tile stayed solid.
Not sure what else to do, they looked around. An illuminated green fog continued to spread across the sky, the lone tile below them was gray, and everything else was pitch darkness.
Then Sonic laughed, and even his voice seemed to get sucked into the surrounding void.
"How is this funny?" Knuckles snapped.
"I never thought I'd see the day you let me square dance with you."
Tails felt Knuckles' arm stiffen against his own as a low growl began building from the same general vicinity.
"Um, actually," the fox cut in, his voice trembling from a cocktail of effort, adrenaline, and the fact that as the lightest, he was leaning rather far above the gaping abyss. "We're forming a triangle..."
Knuckles' growl escalated exponentially, but nothing came of it before the right hand flew in, snatched the trio, and slam-dunked them downwards.
They fell, fell, and fell some more, until even the green sky above them faded into blackness.
XXX
There was a flash of light, intermingled with the natural rays of the sun. Light was good.
They'd stopped falling, which was also a plus.
They'd returned to where they'd entered the Warp Ring. This, too, was favorable.
It could only have been better if that particular location still contained the flying fortress. Or anything tangible, really.
"Aw, COME ON."
Gravity resumed its scheduled maintenance of the airspace.
Author's Notes, 11/24/20:
Say what? I was supposed to leave the creepy events for Sandopolis?
Turns out I can't write a Special Stage without liberally referencing other fandoms. Yes, I admit I was totally invoking Master/Crazy Hand imagery at the end. At least Sonic's a veteran Smash Bro at this point...?
In case you got the notification for yet another post and decided the bizarro title meant I was trolling you like I did in Launch Base...well, I wouldn't blame you for that. I figured the only way to atone for pretending to post chapters two weeks apart would be to post two legitimate chapters in a single week.
But in case you think I suddenly gained a super form to pull this off: no way. I originally included this scenario as part of the previous chapter and decided very late to split them apart, so this chapter was very nearly done last update. +1 to Cytisus for correctly interpreting my trollworthy hint on that fact.
And, it's Sonic 2sday! I was hoping to hit the Japanese release on the 21st, but either way, Happy Birthday to (objectively) the best character in the series!
Shamefaced Update, 12/13/20:
I really hate doing this, but I updated this chapter a few weeks after uploading it, which, yeah, is probably why trying to make a scene of quickly posting it was a bad idea.
This update doesn't retcon anything, nor add any crucial details; I just restored a few "deleted scenes" embellishing the fact that Sonic and Knuckles did an abysmal job of tolerating each other. I chickened out earlier because adding pre-finale tension feels like betraying my readers, but believe it or not, I am actually trying to enhance future humor with this.
Another +1 to Cytisus for providing kind advice and putting up with my panicked indecision on the matter.
(In case it hasn't already been made obvious from my author's notes, allow me to clarify once and for all: if you think I'm someone whose mind resembles a tangled bowl of neurotic spaghetti with anxiety marinara and perfectionist meatballs, you're absolutely right. Also broccoli. I'm a huge broccoli fan.)
Hysterical-Giggling Update, 1/3/21:
Seriously, how did I get such awesome readers on here?!
[deviantart dot com]/micazee/art/Gremlin-Island-866013791
*sob*