Chapter 7 Free fall
"This has been one long day! How much further until we get to Knothole?" Sam asked.
"About another half hour, maybe. We have to be in by sundown, though." Sonic answered.
"Why do we hafta be in by sundown?" Aaron asked.
"We have spotted robots wandering through the forest at night, but lately they have developed chameleon-type qualities making them super-hard to see." Sally explained.
"Think we should all hang onto each others shoulders and have you do the running? Because, if I remember right, there's like another mile or two until we hit the village." Aaron suggested to Sonic. Aaron remembered making that map of Mobius based on the map that was provided in the comic book once; he had spent close to a month drawing it and redrawing it to get it exactly to scale in proportion to Earth.
"Alright, I get to try out my new move! Hold on… 'cause here we go!" Sonic said as he peeled out and off they went. Within a matter of seconds, they arrived at Knothole. They let go of each other's shoulders and started towards the inner village circle.
"I'm going to go find Rotor and find out what's been going on in our absence." Sally said as she headed to the Infirmary. Aaron, Sam, and Sonic followed her.
"Rotor! Where are you?" Sally called out.
"Princess, you're here. We have good news and bad news." Rotor announced.
"Bad news and then the good news." Sally instructed.
"Okay, the bad news is this; the merging of the planets is accelerating… already twenty-five percent of both planets has become one. The good news is… is… um, you better see for yourself." Rotor said as he led the Princess into the Emergency Room. Upon entering, the scene in front of her was a total shock. Lying on a bed was the one person she never thought she would see again, completely hooked up to Doctor Quack's life support systems.
"Oh… my… God! Daddy! What's happening to him?" Sally cried.
"Princess, we have no clue as to what is happening to him. All we know at this point is that he suddenly fell out of my portal about two hours ago and he's only said one thing since he got out of it: 'There's… not… much… Doomsday'." Dr. Quack said as he attended to the King. Just then, Aaron, Sam, and Sonic entered the ER.
"Great Scott!" Sam exclaimed.
"My God!" Aaron gasped.
"Holy crap! It's the King!" Sonic gasped as he beheld the scene in front of him.
"What is happening to him? He seems to be changing." Sam observed.
"Do you think a Chaos Emerald might help reverse it?" Aaron asked.
"Who are you and where do you think you're gonna get a Chaos Emerald? Last I heard Robotnik had the last useable emeralds." Rotor explained.
"Not entirely true," Aaron said as he set his backpack on the floor, "I have two of them. I use them to power my car." He said as he handed them to Rotor. "I'm Aaron and this is Sam." Aaron said as he introduced himself and Sam.
"Where'd you get'm from?" Knuckles asked from the shadows.
"I found'em back on my home planet in my garage." Aaron explained to Knuckles, who was obviously irritated. Sally was knelt beside her father in silent prayer. She got up and came over to where Aaron, Sonic, and Sam were standing.
"Sonic, we must get into Robotnik's HQ and get the Sword of Acorns so we can get the King back and finish this thing after all these years." Sally explained with tears in her eyes. Sonic wiped the tears from her eyes and took her hand.
"How about this as a plan: we send two teams, each team covers the other. How should we infiltrate the building?" Geoffrey St. John, who had been in the emergency room watching from the corner, asked.
"I think the stronger team should take it from the inside and search from the ground floor up while the other team takes the outside and climbs up the wall and go straight to the office to get the sword. We'll rendezvous at the top floor and both teams go back down one way." Sally explained.
"We'll have fifteen minutes to get the two teams together and as well armed as possible with what we have." Antoine suggested. At that, the small gathering broke up as everyone went around gathering everyone who wanted to go. They then went to the village armory and got what weapons they had.
"Sally, are you sure you want to go through with this? What if it falls through? Is it worth that kind of risk?" Sonic asked.
"Are we gonna come with or are we gonna stay here?" Aaron asked.
"It would probably be better if you guys stayed here. We can't risk your lives to save our King's." Sally explained. Aaron turned to Rotor,
"As I'm sure you're wondering how we came to be here, I'll explain it quickly for you. For the past few months, I had been designing a portal that must be very similar to one around here. When I started it up, I gave it the destination Mobius and went through it. Sam here fell into it when she tried to pull me out of it. Somehow, Sonic's and my bodies merged into one same as Sam and Sally. We spent the next day as normal, but got freaked out by the new factory that appeared across the street from our school. I called my car to the school and we fled here. Upon arriving, Sonic and Sally separated from me and Sam and Sonic and Sally brought us back here." Aaron explained as quickly as he could.
"Well, you arrived right on time. As we speak, we're about to enter into what may be the final battle for our planet." Rotor said as he listened to the radio communications coming from Robotropolis and watched out the one window in his lab as St. John and Sally went around to try to gather some more citizens for their teams.
Hershey had arrived at Robotropolis. She was on the roof of Robotnik's Command Center waiting for Snively to show his face. Hershey put on the fake Sonic head. She then looked down and saw Snively and an army of SWATbots approaching. Hershey got ready and waited to see what he would do.
St. John and his team had already begun the infiltration of the ground floor while Sally and her team worked on launching the grappling hook so that it caught on the upper edge of the wall.
"I'll go first. Everyone follow my lead." Princess Sally instructed. She started slowly and was halfway up within a minute. Her instincts told her to look up and to her surprise, she saw Sonic looking down over the edge. Sally reached her hand up and Sonic brushed it away. Sally stared in both surprise and curiosity as to why Sonic had brushed her hand away, but did not have a chance to ask. Sonic then reached over the edge and cut the rope with a pocketknife. Immediately, Sally began falling the seven floors she had just climbed. After what seemed like an eternity, she hit the ground.
"Oh, mah stars!" Bunnie gasped.
(End of Chapter 7)