Chapter 3

Sonic Retaliation

In just a few seconds, Mario and Link were in Station Square. Everyone around them stopped what they were doing and looked at them.

"Man, of all the people we have to find, it has to be Sonic." Link said.

"What's wrong with Sonic?"

"Eh, that guy can be cocky. Sure, his heart is in the right place, but he treats everything as if it were a game."

"You've met him before?"

"No, but I've definitely heard of him. Heh, everyone finds out about heroes, such as ourselves."

"True. Well, perhaps we should ask around? I'll go down here and you can go there."

"Sounds like a plan. All right, meet up later?"

"Yeah." As Mario walked down the street, he came across a boy and his mother, and asked them.

"Hello, you wouldn't happen to know where Sonic is, do you?"

"Mario! It's Mario, mommy! He's my hero!"

"Oh, well, thank you." Mario said, beginning to blush.

"Sonic? No, I haven't seen him in weeks. I heard he went to another dimension. Sorry." The mother said.

"Well, thanks anyways."

"Bye." Mario came across a hotel, and decided to go in there. Inside, he saw the manager and asked him.

"Hello, would you happen to know where Sonic is?"

"Sonic? No, I heard he left. Say, what's a hero like you doing here anyways?"

"I'm here to save the world."

"Ha ha ha! Of course! What else would you say?"

"Yes, I guess you're right. Thanks."

"No problem!"

As Link was walking down the street, he noticed a sign advertising something.

"Have you ever wanted to fly a rocket belt? Ever dreamed of parachuting? Then sign up today and earn your Pilotwings!" The thought of trying something like that sounded interesting, but he had more important things to do. He then saw two teenage girls, and went to ask them about Sonic.

"Excuse me, do you know..."

"Oh my gosh, it's Link!"

"Link? Link!" Before Link knew it, he was surrounded by a group of screaming fans. It was obvious he wasn't going to get an answer out of any of them, so he decided to run for it. Link had figured that he might be popular, but he never had seen anything quite like this. Luckily, Link was much faster than any of the humans there, and escaped easily.

As Mario wandered the city, he found Link running.

"Something wrong?"

"It's nothing, just some crazy people. So, any luck?"

"No, they all say that Sonic left this dimension."

"Yeah, I got the same thing."

"Well, unless we can travel between dimensions, I don't think we can reach him." Just as Mario had said that, there was an explosion about nine blocks down.

"What was that?"

"I don't know, but we should check it out." When they got to the location of the explosion, they saw that it was at the bank. It looked like someone had blown open the safe, but they knew who it was when he walked out. Riding on a large, hovering battle tank was none other than the infamous Dr. Robotnick.

"I think you should put that money back." Link demanded.

"My, this is quite a surprise. Seeing you two here together makes we wonder what reason you could have for being here. No matter, I'll squash you anyways!" One of the canons on the tank pointed at them and fired. Link and Mario managed to jump out of the way, but the power that the laser cannon had worried them.

"Hah, for once I can aim at something that doesn't move so fast!" Link and Mario tried to come up to the tank to attack, but the Dr. kept firing at them, making it very difficult. They were able to avoid being hit directly, but he was making a mess out of the city. All of the sudden, the clear blue sky became dark for about twenty seconds, and then the sky was blue again. The laser cannon pointed at them again and fired, and they were able to dodge it, but the laser rammed into the building behind them, making it collapse.

"Mario, look out!" Link was out of the way, but the building was just about to hit Mario. Then, in the blink of an eye, Mario was out of the way, moved by a blue blur. Once it stopped, Link could see that it was the person they had been looking for.

"Attacking this city while I'm gone, Eggman? I should have known you tried something this cowardly." Sonic said with a smirk.

"What? What are you doing here? I thought I could actually accomplish something this time! Die, hedgehog!" Robotnick then pointed all the weapons he had at Sonic. Soon lasers were flying everywhere, and Link and Mario had no choice but to run for safety. Explosions were happening everywhere as he tried to hit Sonic, but Sonic avoided them with ease.

"I'm over here, Eggman, no, over here! Na na! You couldn't hit the board side of a barn!"

"Will you just shut up?" As the fun was starting to die down, Sonic went under the hovering tank and hit it. The tank went flying up, and when it landed, it landed upside-down while wrecking the guns. With his machine wrecked, Robotnick used his hover pod to escape.

"I'll get you next time!" Robotnick said, and flew off. Sonic looked around and saw Link and Mario, and went over to them.

"Sorry about that. He always tries to pull something now and then, so I need to keep track of him and keep him in line."

"Right." Link said with a frown.

"So, what are you two doing here anyways?"

"Looking for you. Since you've gone to other alternate dimensions, we thought you might know about something." Mario said.

"So what is it?"

"Well, I was in the Mushroom Kingdom when a portal opened, and a whole bunch large, round ships came flying out." The smirk on Sonic's face was gone. "Then, this really big, rectangular ship came out with these claw looking things behind it." Fear was then starting to show on Sonic's face. "And when the portal closed, all the ships left except for one of the round ships that stayed to blow the castle up with a single blast!" Sonic was now quite scared, and seeming to panic.

"Oh no! We, we gotta get out of here!"

"So you know them? Who are they? Why are they attacking us?"

"No, we all need to get out of here, or we're all dead!" Sonic looked like he was about to run, but Mario grabbed his hand and stopped him.

"Calm down. Now tell me, who are they? We need your help." Sonic started to calm down, and then told them what they wanted to hear.

"They're called the Zox, and they're the reason my friends and I left our dimension in the first place. Like you, they came out of nowhere. They wiped out the most powerful nations first, and then spread to the rest of the dimension and conquered it. The process was slow, but they had conquered our dimension without much trouble. I'm one of the few who made it out of there alive."

"Didn't you fight back?"

"Of course I did! They're just too powerful, and too many of them. Knuckles, Tails, even Eggman tried to help, but by the time we found out about them, there wasn't many others to help, and we didn't stand a chance. They don't bother declaring war or even speaking with anyone. The only reason I know about this is because we managed to get on board one of their ships. When it didn't look like we would make it, Tails came up with a device that could take us to an alternate dimension, and that's how we got here."

"But why are they doing this?"

"For power. They already rule the dimension they come from, but when they found out there were others, it wasn't enough. They go from one dimension to another, extending their power. They dream of being able to name everything theirs."

"Gosh, I'm sorry. I never knew" Mario said.

"It's all right, but you guys need to get out of here while you can."

"Are you serious? There's no way I'm just going to sit back and let this planet be destroyed!"

"Yeah? Well you don't have a chance, so you better just run. The only thing that keeps me alive is being able to keep running."

"So you're going to leave us while we fight? What kind of hero are you? Do what you want, but we're going to find the Nintendo 64, and use it to stop them."

"The what?"

"It's a ship that was built long ago. It's so powerful that you need to have four keys to unlock it, and their location are known only by four people, and they're guarded with powerful forces."

"That powerful, eh?" Sonic said, slightly curious.

"Come on, what do you say? The more that can help us, the better chances we have." Mario said.

"Well...."

"Just how long do you think you can run from them?" Link asked. Sonic was obviously thinking it over.

"Well, there weren't many who were able to help the last time I tried to fight them. Perhaps, it could work this time. You know, you're right, I can't just keep running. After a while, there won't be any place to run. All right, I'll do it." Sonic finally decided to go with it, though he didn't sound too terribly happy about it.

"Just let me go see Tails. He brought me here on the Tornado and he went to check on some Chao."

Sonic entered the Chao Garden, and found Tails petting one of the Chao.

"Oh, you're back! I was starting to worry; you were gone for a while."

"I was talking to Mario and Link."

"Really? Here?"

"Listen Tails, the Zox have come here."

"What? Oh no! We should...."

"No, I'm not going to run anymore. Link told me that there's a powerful ship here, one that might possibly rival that of the Zox's mother ship. I'm going to go with them." Tails had become deep in thought.

"Then I'll fight too!" Tails said with determination.

"Thanks, but I think you should stay here. They haven't attacked this city yet, so I think you should stay here to protect it. Oh, and tell the others about it."

"Will do!"

"Well, I'm off! Good luck, Tails."

"You too."

Sonic came back to Mario and Link, and told them that he was ready to go.

"So, where do we go then?" Sonic asked.

"Hold on, I'll see if I can ask Zelda." Link then tried to speak out to Zelda with his mind, hoping that she could contact him telepathically. "Zelda, can you here me?"

"Yes. Link, did you find Sonic?"

"Yes. Where do we go now?"

"The next key should be in Kanto"

"All right." Link then stopped focusing his mind. Zelda was able to communicate with Link easily, but it was much harder for Link to use such powers with his mind. "We need to go to Kanto."

"Kanto? Hey, that's not too far from here! I bet I could run across the water and get there in about ten minutes." Sonic said. As they went to the dock, they found a small boat. They went up to it, and a man was standing beside it.

"Hey, mind if we borrow this?" Sonic asked.

"What? Of course I do!"

"Sir, this is a matter of life or death." Link said.

"Yeah, right."

"No, seriously! We need the boat to get to Kanto and save the world!" Mario said.

"Hey, wait a minute, Link, Mario, and Sonic? You guys are always saving the world and stuff, aren't you?"

"And if you let us use the boat, you will be helping us. You'll be a hero!"

"Me, a hero? I don't know."

"Here, take this." Link said.

"What's this?"

"It's a rubee. In Hyrule, it's used as money, but I imagine its worth more here."

"Wow, thanks! All right then, sure, use the boat!"

"Thanks." As Mario and Link got in the boat, Sonic started to walk backwards.

"Hey, you two might want to hold on to something." Sonic said. Link and Mario looked at each other, and then sat in the two seats, holding on tightly. Sonic then backed up to get a running start, and then, running as fast as he could, ran towards the boat. He put his hands out in front of him and held the back of the boat, and with his great speed, pushed it along. Sonic was able to run so fast, that he ran right over the water.

As the man watched the three disappear from sight, he smiled.

"Ha, suckers, that boat wasn't even mine."