A cool breeze swept across the plains of Windy Valley. The grass rustled gently under the warm sun. The grey earth almost glowed in the early afternoon light, even the looping archways and twisting stone peaks lining the horizon seemed nearly shadowless, like plastic, as the sun shone directly down from a cloudless blue sky. Windmills made of a dark wood and in various states of disrepair dotted the walls of the valley at random intervals, creaking slightly as their sails lazily rolled around. It was a peaceful scene, like something out of a picture book. In the blink of an eye an azure streak zapped past, to an outsider's perspective seemingly ignoring the beauty of the landscape entirely.

That couldn't be further from the truth. Even after a lifetime of travelling at the speed of sound, Sonic was still surprised at how many sights he was able to take in.

As far as he was concerned, there was nowhere else he'd rather be.

The blue blur smiled to himself as he blitzed along a familiar trail. It was the same route he had taken for a long while. He first arrived here on the continent roughly nine years ago after leaving South Island in pursuit of his self-appointed nemesis, Doctor Eggman. He had taken a strong dislike to the Doctor's 'forcibly enslave woodland animals in robotic prisons, use them to conquer the world' shtick and had promptly trashed the Doctor's plans as well as his robotic army. Several times. Enough times in fact to make the rotund man give up on invading the archipelago and turn his sights eastwards to the much larger landmass beyond where the humans lived.

His current destination was Mystic Ruins, one such place that the 'good' Doctor had tried to take for himself to no avail. The distance between the Sonic's location and his destination was rather large. Specifically, it was the size of an entire mountain range and a cave system that would take at the very least two days of careful navigation. Well, that would be the case, unless you could move twenty times faster than most living things on Earth.

No matter how many times he wore his footprints into the ground he never grew tired of it. Every leap from spire to spire, the feeling of weightlessness in the loop-de-loops that curiously formed naturally, the warm sun on his quills, it was all perfect. There was nothing quite like grabbing a narrow peak of an outcropping, spinning around it like a top athlete to build momentum followed by throwing caution-and himself-to the wind. The feeling of bounding over the land to the view of greens and greys and browns that mixed with the scent of the dirt and grass just right was almost intoxicating.

Even though he technically did own a small wooden lodge by the coast, Sonic's real home was wherever the wind took him. If it wasn't for the great outdoors Sonic's gift of superspeed would be near useless. Built-up settlements like Station Square had their own boons (where else was he supposed to get chilli dogs?) and his ego enjoyed basking in the praise given by grateful citizens after foiling yet another of Eggman's schemes, but running at seven hundred miles per hour in a bustling metropolis required him to be at full concentration, lest he either collide with someone much less accustomed to high speeds or get struck himself by a vehicle much more durable than a hedgehog's body. While the quills lining his back were as tough as anything (and could cleave through Eggster's cheaply made robots with ease) the front of him was not. If he was caught unawares by a human vehicle it was lights out. It was hard to appreciate life when your brain was mashed potato smeared on a car bumper.

Thankfully Sonic's train of thought had to make an emergency stop on the track before the mental image of himself as roadkill could linger, as he was quickly approaching that part of the trail. "Ohh, YES." Sonic thought, "Here we go…"

Between the valley and the cave system was a gorge. Where the valley had spires and hills to provide some semblance of safe ground, these quickly gave way to a sheer drop with nothing but a thin river hundreds of feet below. The first few times he had sped through the blue hedgehog had almost plummeted to his doom when the ground suddenly disappeared below his feet, but after repeat visits he found that if he angled himself just right…

"Wooooo-hooooo!" Sonic yelled as he launched himself at a gentle decline off the ground and down into the valley, "This is the life!"

He knew he was in no danger. At the right angle, even despite the sudden massive gap between his shoes and terra firma he would be carried by his own momentum and zip downwards across the river of the valley like a swooping hawk. His legs would catch a sliver of earth leading into the caves, allowing him to continue moving at top speed, without becoming a bright blue splat painted lovingly onto a rock like some naturalist's art exhibition. He had discovered this 'shortcut' by pure chance a few years ago and it saved about five whole second of travel time! That was five more seconds he could use to hang out with his best buddy, Tails.

Meeting up with his friend was exactly where he was headed this afternoon. In contrast to Sonic's carefree nature, Tails was a Mobian of four-walled science; after spending most of his youth living with and learning from his older brother figure the kit had eventually settled down in a workshop a while back on the south-eastern side of Mystic Ruins that faced the ocean, which had ample room for him to fiddle about with gadgets and gizmos without potentially causing ungodly amounts of property damage in Station Square, which was a single stop by train away.

Given the blue blur's accidental tendency to disappear for days at a time on his travels they had decided that, whenever Sonic was in the area, Tuesday would be their weekly 'chillout day' where he would stop by Tails' house to do whatever the duo felt like: swapping stories, gaming, trying out experiments, anything was on the cards. As he rushed down the walls of the gorge he couldn't help but smirk at the thought of his friend. The two-tailed fox had joined him on an outing to this exact area once and almost panicked himself to death when Sonic seemingly leapt into the abyss of his own will. Ignoring his bud's protests of "never doing that again! I swear Sonic, you almost gave me a heart attack!" he kept to this path every time and despite Tails' worrying nothing had ever gone wrong!

Luckily that streak continued, as Sonic touched down on the far side of the river and just as predicted caught the ground running without so much as a jolt or a bump… Or a broken leg. His smirk grew into a grin as he swiftly entered a side passage into the caves of Mystic Ruins.

Even the sudden lack of space and cramped tunnels couldn't slow him down and neither could the sudden drop in light levels. When moving as fast as Sonic, being able to make out pathway options and changes in the surroundings on a dime became second nature. It had to, because something that could move impossibly fast and be clueless as to where it was going was NOT a good combination. Even without superspeed, the hedgehog had heard the horror stories about humans getting lost in caves and ending up stuck in a narrow tunnel upside down and-

"Ugh… Let's not think of that." Sonic thought as he rolled into a spin dash and shot through a small gap in the base of a cave wall. It sloped downward and opened out into a (thankfully) much wider area of the cave. The river that ran through the gorge continued even this far in, coalescing into a much less volatile stream. It stretched on and on, but he could feel the breeze again and knew he was close to Mystic Ruins. If his calculations were correct (and given he had taken this route so many times it was probably in the triple digits, he knew they were) then there was one more confined tunnel to trek through before he reached the mouth of the cave where the river flowed out into a lake. As he jogged through a space with a significantly lower ceiling than before he wondered what Tails was up to. "Probably tinkering with his biplane in the garage or tweaking one of those item-tracking gadgets."He thought as he stooped to crawl through a far narrower spot in the tunnel. The enclosed space didn't bother Sonic too much and before long he hopped to his feet on the other side. If he ignored the threat of getting stuck Sonic found that enclosed spaces could be peaceful. Sometimes on his travels when the weather took a stormy turn, he would rest in a cave entrance and fall asleep to the sounds of nature.

The faint whooshing of the wind…

The rippling of water droplets against the stalagmites…

The sound of a young girl crying for help…

…Wait, what?

Sonic came to a dead stop with a jolt. His emerald eyes widened, and he instinctively began flicking his head around in all directions to pinpoint the source of the noise.

"Hello-oooo? Where are you?" Sonic called out. He knew he was probably going to be late to Tails' place, but that could wait! Someone was in danger! He also knew his little brother would understand (and would agree helping would be the right thing to do. The fox had a good head on his shoulders). The mental image of some poor kid trapped in a cave unable to move brought back images of the tragic stories he had overheard, and it quickly became priority one that he find whoever it was that needed help immediately.

"Please… Someone! My leg… It… Hurts!"

Sonic's ears pricked up, his body swivelling in the direction of the noise. It was faint, but he could just about hear it carried on the wind… The wind! That was it! Speeding off without a second to waste, Sonic kept himself facing the opposite direction the weak breeze was flowing through the caves. In a flash he was outside, right hand raised to both help his eyes adjust to the sudden increase in light and to try and to locate anything even remotely shaped like an injured person. At the very least he was thankful that this meant they weren't wedged somewhere in the cave, but he wasn't about to rest on his laurels either.

All he could see was a large, peaceful lake and flat grassy plains that rolled in the breeze nestled in between the endless horizon of rocky mountain walls that circled the area. It was almost like a colossal bowl formed into that shape from the earth deliberately. and Station Square's Natural History Museum seemed to agree, as certain times of the year lead to the place being swarmed with humans in their exploration getup chiselling away at walls and poring over maps to find any sort of geographical clues. When the remains of an ancient civilisation were found that effect only doubled, leading to the place's new name. This was Mystic Ruins, alright. At the very least Tails' house would be nearby, so he once he found the girl he could hotfoot it over to get her some medical help.

"Hello? Hey!" Sonic called out once more. He heard the girl's cry again, a little closer this time and shot over towards the lake. As he arrived, his eyes landed on three things: a single green reed sticking out higher than the rest of the foliage along the edge of the water, the remains of a bicycle that was crumpled painfully at the front end a few feet beyond a carefully hidden natural ledge in the ground, and the shape of a yellow-furred Mobian lying on her back next to the bank of the lake.

Sonic gasped under his breath and put one foot down in a running stance, ready to race over and help, but suddenly stopped. He yawned, rolled his eyes, and quickly gave his back a stretch.

"...Alright Egghead, the jig is up. You can come out now."

Even from this distance, Sonic knew it was a trap. He should've known from the start it was a trap but saving people in need was just part of his nature. If it truly was someone in danger and he had abandoned them, he would never forgive himself. It was a chance he was willing to take.

Eggman had been on his case for so long he could pick up the tell-tale signs almost immediately. Firstly, the 'Mobian' lying on the ground clearly had lines separating her face into equal portions and bolts on her cheeks. The same went for her wrists and legs, almost as if her body was made of pieced-together metal plates. Secondly, Eggman had done too good a job making her 'accident' look real, as one of her glass eyes had smashed. Thirdly, the one reed sticking up out of the lake was now rising, revealing a grumbling ovular man underneath.

"Blast! How did you know?!" Eggman shouted, wading out of the water to face a very unamused Sonic. As he tramped over to dry land his appearance was a far cry from the usual sophisticated scientist ensemble he had going on. Standing there in his bright red scuba suit he looked like a deflated balloon pulled over a watermelon. His otherwise magnificent fiery orange moustache was drooping like a walrus' tusks from all the water it had soaked up. "At the very least he had the sense to put those goggles of his on." Sonic thought. He shrugged.

"C'mon Eggy, how long have you known me for? Those tricks aren't gonna work any time soon. You need to step up your game!" Sonic pointed at his seething arch-rival and stuck his tongue out for extra insult. Eggman yelled incoherently and stamped his feet against the ground. It was sights like this that made the hedgehog wonder how exactly this man could claim to have an IQ of three hundred.

"Silence, you RAT! This plan was foolproof! Foolproof, I tell you!" Eggman groused. He was gripping the metal reed so hard it was a miracle it hadn't snapped.

"Yeah, you've totally lost it now. If you hadn't already." Sonic added under his breath. "Just go home, Egghead. You need to get out of that diving gear and into bed. Too many late nights staying up to think about how much you hate me?"

"What was that? I couldn't hear your stupidity over the sound of me wringing out my moustache." Eggman retorted, scrambling for any sense of dignity as a shocking amount of water gushed from his facial hair. "Besides, I get a full eight hours of sleep per week, thank you very much!" When Sonic pointed out that means he had been listening, Eggman grew even redder in the face.

"Agggghhh! I! Hate! You! Hedge! HOOGGGGG!" the portly man bellowed, his head raised back in anger. Sonic backed away cautiously, almost feeling pity for his enemy. Sure, the human wanted his blood, but he had never been so… Pathetic about it before. Every other plan of his to capture or maim the blue blur had at least had some semblance of planning or carefulness to it. Even for Egghead's standards this was embarrassingly low, both in effort and execution. The hedgehog was half afraid that he was about to get jumped and strangled.

"Alright Eggster," Sonic spun on his heel, "This has been fun, but I've got places to be. Smell ya late-"

PHMPH

The second his back was turned he suddenly felt a sharp pain in his between his quills. Reflexively reaching a hand backwards, he winced as fingers found and yanked out an unnecessarily long needle. Putting two and two together as his knees already began to feel weak, Sonic was reminded why exactly the man boasted about his three hundred IQ. He wobbly twisted his head around to glare at a very, very smug looking Eggman, who was holding a blowpipe cleverly disguised as a reed. The garishly wide grin on his face was proof enough his trap had gone off without a hitch.

"Oh, you sneaky shi-"

And then the world went black.

The good doctor couldn't stop the whoop of joy as he watched the paralysing agent in the dart do its dirty work. The rat's head had barely touched the grass when the rotund genius swooped over with surprising swiftness and scooped his nemesis up into an unmarked brown bag (lined with a layer of thin titanium, of course). Kicking the remains of his useless robot decoy out of the way he whipped out his radio wristwatch. He gave it a whack to make sure it was actually waterproof.

"Metal? Come to my location immediately," he spat. "The blue menace has been secured." While he waited for his robotic henchman to arrive, for no reason other than spite he slapped a sticker onto the bag that read 'FRAGILE: Handle with as little care as possible.'

In a dark place, in a dark room, a small shape began twitching back to life.

"Wha…? Oh. Ugh. Ow. Darn it, Egghead…"

Sonic didn't know how long he'd been out for when he awoke, but one thing he did know that wherever he had been stuffed it was dark and cold. Another thing he knew was that he felt like a glass sculpture that had been packed up and snail-mailed along the bumpiest road in the known universe. The resulting bruises all over his body were proof enough of that. When he tried stretching his stiff limbs and smacked both of his shins into a hard metal surface he realised it was cramped, too.

Before he could complain, the small container was flooded with light. Raising his hands in front of his eyes with a groan, the hedgehog could just barely make out the floodlights boring down into the tempered glass front of the cube-shaped prison he was contained within. As his eyes focused, he found there was nothing else of note in the large metal room outside his cage except for the cross shaped divide embossed in the wall opposite that, given what he knew about Eggman's previous large scale-contraptions, implied he was in a cargo bay of some sort. This meant he was either in a factory or a transportation vehicle.

Either of those were good options as far as Sonic was concerned. If he was in a factory that meant Egghead would be dumb enough to sic one of his newest robot prototypes on him, which he would destroy handily and then proceed to make the factory go up in smoke with a quick spin dash to the control panel. If it was a transportation vehicle then there would be an opportunity to make a break for it whenever it arrived at its destination, which was probably a factory anyway, so even if he didn't escape then, he would just have to wait for the 'Egg Foldable Bicycle' or whatever the scientist had been working on to show up for a fight and he was back to square one.

"Dohohoho! I see you're finally awake, little needlemouse!" an annoyingly familiar voice rang out over a speaker system. "Enjoy my little trick?"

Sonic sighed, rubbing his temples. "Not really." Eggman chortled.

"Perfect!" he exclaimed, clapping his hands together. "Just as I hoped. Bet you thought I had finally lost it, eh?"

"Not any less than usual." When that got an agitated grunt out of the human Sonic grinned.

"Pah! Keep talking, rat. We'll see how smug you are when I jettison you out of the Egg Carrier Mk. II!" that caught Sonic's attention. If there was one thing he hadn't accounted for, it was Eggy's transportation vehicle being a flying one. That made things a little more annoying.

"Another Egg Carrier! What're you gonna do, crash it into the ocean again like last time?" Sonic tried to ignore his nemesis' threats of launching him out of the immense airship. If it was anything like the previous Egg Carrier, the latest in Eggman's flying fleet must be massive, with any luck to his own benefit. A machine that large was obviously going to draw some attention and he silently kept the hope that a dispatch team from G.U.N in the nearby Station Square headquarters would take notice of the giant metal ship flying near the city. A couple of years back when the Chaos Incident happened, in one of his more deranged moments, Eggman had piloted the original Egg Carrier and attempted to destroy the city with a ballistic missile which was thankfully intercepted by Tails. His thoughts were interrupted as he tried and failed to ignore the sinister chuckle echoing out over the speaker.

"Funny you should mention the ocean Sonic, as it won't be my incredible machine that lands in it tonight." Despite his best attempts to keep a cocky grin on his face, the hedgehog's aquaphobia betrayed him. Over the security camera Eggman almost squealed with glee at the cold dread that shone in his foe's green orbs. His smile almost split his face.

"Oh yes, you blue buffoon. As we speak, my glorious Egg Carrier is being refuelled by my Egg Pawns, ready to travel out over the western ocean. Once I've found a suitable location, your little box is taking a skydive into the brine." Sonic was suddenly aware of just how cramped and confined he was within said box. "Of course, to get the most out of it, the cage's walls will open. Not enough for you to escape, of course, but just enough for countless gallons of saltwater to slowly trickle in."

The realisation of his enemy's plan had fully set in, and Sonic attempted to struggle his way out of the metal prison. It refused to budge. There wasn't even enough room to properly attempt a spin dash. He began to sweat. Eggman leaned forward in his comfy leather chair.

"Heh, typical Egghead. You know I'll find a way out." Sonic bluffed, trying to make his struggling somehow seem heroic and not entirely desperate.

"I think not, Sonic. But don't worry, your cage has a tracker inside. Once you've been submerged for, say, five hours, I'll make sure to come and collect your bloated corpse! BwahahahaHAHAHAHA!" Eggman howled with laughter. "Once you're gone, NOTHING will stop me! Rest assured, your head will make a fine centrepiece for my new office at the heart of the Eggman Empire!"

Sonic was beginning to panic. He had been in life-or-death situations with Egghead before. Hell, he had been in this exact situation, only in space! But there he had a fake Chaos Emerald that miraculously saved him with the power of Chaos Control. Here, he had no such leg up. He could already imagine the feeling of the ocean water forcing its way into his prison. The feeling of being completley unable to escape, his breathing room diminishing…

Sonic closed his eyes, blotted out Eggman's wheezing laughter (and subsequent coughing fit) as best he could, and began to breathe deeply and slowly. In, out. In, out… He had to avoid panicking. That would only goad the egg-shaped lunatic on. What could he do…?

His eyes snapped open. Tails! He was supposed to be at Tails' house, probably several hours ago. He would know something was amiss and come looking. His trusted his little bro.

All he had to do was wait, and quietly hope. And so, hope he did.

"C'mon, Tails… I believe in you…"

Author's note: It's been a while since I last tried writing any stories like this, so I'm not sure how frequently I'll post updates but I at least want to see this story through to the end. My aim is to keep the cast as in-character as possible so if you've got any feedback for me in that regard (or anything to make the story flow better) please let me know through a review. Thanks for reading!