Poridet: Yeah...I think 'owies' is a very good way of putting it, although maybe not how Sonic would have phrased it :P
DragonUk: (eats chocolate biscuits) I am indeed a sucker for bribes :P And thanks; glad you enjoyed it. Putting Tails in a blender...aw, even I'm not that cruel to my characters ;)
TrueVulcanRaven: Thanks :)
D.C.111: Heh, no worries :P And thanks; glad you like it (blushes)
Hawks Soul: Homework...well, my homework for this consisted of continuously cross-referencing to my dog-eared piece of paper with doodles of various things unique to the level and studying screenshots, not to mention replaying the level :P Believe me, that's more than enough...I was checking back with almost every sentence I wrote ;) Sonic...hmm, yeah, I think hydrophobes take showers :P
Maverick87: (blushes) Thanks. Sonic's oil coating...I thought it was kinda weird that he slides down the chutes, falls in the oil ocean and yet is still as bright blue as ever ;)
Professor Vengeance: You're right; nobody appreciates the flip side to being an evil genius :P Robotnik's comment was also based on my own experience; before writing this I had no idea how tough it was to come up with 'eggy' names that fit into the machines ;)
Gameorama91: Thanks :) As for Sonic revealing his dark past to Tails...heh. Like I told D.C.111, it happens in my fic Secrets of the Emeralds but not in this one ;)
K Twenty Two: (blushes) Wow, thanks :D Sonic fics as comics...oh man, that would be the ultimate :D Believe it or not, I have started adapting this one (and Secrets of the Emeralds) to comic form...soon as I get my scanner working, I plan to upload them to deviantart. It looks like it's going to take a very long time though; maybe I'll finish it, maybe not;) I did have one person offer to illustrate scenes fromGuardian's Choicefor me but that was ages ago...either they've forgotten orcan't be bothered anymore :(Tails' accent...(shrugs) It's not so much an accent as a young kid's voice; four/five year olds can't pronounce words like adults can :P As for S3&K...I've written parts of it, so after this one is finished...;)
Lewisty: Looks like it ;)
Reko Reborn: Heh, you had me going there for a minute :P And thanks :D I'm trying to get work with Sega – currently training up in 3dsMax and (hopefully) Maya – so...maybe ;) Then again, I'd be happy being a writer of anything...maybe my own stuff'll get published and someone from Sega will read it and want to hire me there and then. Unlikely, but maybe ;) As to the rest...yes, I do know about copyright and publishing, but I PMed you; it's too long-winded to go into here :P
Sonic-Addict: Thanks, I'll try :)
Private somebody: Heh, thanks :D As for channelling a megalomaniac and a five year old at the same time...there's not a lot of difference between them sometimes ;)
Truten: Ah...will Sonic get royalties or not:P Maybe...all shall be revealed in this chapter ;) And thanks, glad you enjoyed it :D
Shadow-spawn180: Thanks and too late, at least for Tails :P As for the royalties scene...well, it's been kicking around ever since the beginning of Casino Night Zone and now I finally get to use it (happy sigh)
Matt Lans: Yeah...(cringes) I think I felt Sonic's pain at that attack and I'm not even the right gender ;) A pic of Sonic and Tails covered in oil...ooh, good idea (scrabbles for paper and pen) :P
Parslie: Heh, yeah, maybe he could...then again, at four/five years old, you tend to think people know everything about you ;)
TC Chan: Thanks :D Sonic going to Metropolis as The Blob…ooh, hadn't thought of that. Well, maybe…no. No, resist temptation :P
Milette Tails Prower: I hope so :P And thanks
Sonic admired his skin for the fourteenth time that morning, tilting his arm from one side to the next.
"Man, I don't think I've ever been this clean!"
The cleansing process had been thorough, invigorating and incredibly powerful; Sonic had been showered under what felt like a fire hydrant, sprayed by jets of soap and detergent, showered, sprayed, scrubbed in what looked like a miniature car wash, showered, sprayed, scrubbed, combed out with what looked like a chamois leather with teeth, showered, sprayed, scrubbed, combed and finally air-blasted in a giant dryer before being shunted out the other end where he'd promptly collapsed, been rushed to the hospital and diagnosed with exhaustion and borderline malnutrition. Sleep had taken care of the first problem and as for the second...well, Sonic planned to get to work on that just as soon as the chilli dogs were ready.
"Feels like I been pounded with a steak mallet though," he added.
The nurse who was in charge of his room for that day – a hedgehog whose fur and quills were so light brown as to be almost golden in the sun and who had introduced herself to him as Maegan – laughed.
"If you'd had feathers, we'd have had to have been a lot gentler. As it was, we could just go for broke."
"Feathers? Great." Sonic shook his head. "Man, why couldn't I have been born Sonic the Budgie?"
The door opened and an orderly came in with a plate of chilli dogs which he placed nervously, almost reverently in front of Sonic before scurrying out again.
"You know, everyone in this Zone seems to be tiptoeing around me like I'm some kinda bomb," Sonic said, a little waspishly. "You wanna tell me what that's about?"
Maegan hesitated. "You don't know?"
"No."
"Well...you're completely different to what we expected."
Sonic blinked. "Different? How?"
The look never left the nurse's eyes and Sonic finally managed to pin down what it was; awe and admiration mixed with appalled pity.
"You're just a kid."
Sonic smiled slightly, a somewhat cynical expression. "Am I."
It wasn't a question, but one look at those jade eyes still gave Maegan her answer. They were the oldest eyes she had ever seen, and seeing them in the face of an eleven year old made it even more starkly obvious.
"Is it true you destroyed Robotnik's Sky Base all by yourself?"
Sonic snorted. "Well, I sure didn't have any help."
That still rankled, even now. He'd hoped Mighty at least would have stuck by him, but the 'dillo had been too wrapped up in grief for his family to even think of such a thing.
The door clicked open at that point, interrupting Sonic's thoughts, and Tails padded in, his own fur so clean it was gleaming…at least, clean except for the pink ring around his mouth, which could be attributed to the stick of rock he was holding.
"Hey lil bro." Sonic grinned. "How's things?"
"Sonic! You're 'wake!" Tails bounded over to sit next to Sonic, swinging his legs. "Boy, I thought you were gonna sleep forever!"
"Me? Nah." Sonic swung his legs over the side of the bed.
"What are you doing?" Maegan said.
"Getting up," Sonic said, in a what-does-it-look-like kind of tone.
"I'm not allowed to let you up without official permission from the doctor," the nurse said severely.
"You gotta listen to her, Sonic," Tails said around a mouthful of peppermint candy. "She's real nice an' she fed me an' she's been looking after you real good."
"Fed you?" Sonic echoed.
"Uh huh! Loadsa chocolate an' I ate two double layered triple frosted chocolate fudge cakes for breakfast this morning an' she gave me a chocolate milkshake to drink an' a pella pie!"
Sonic fixed Maegan with a look. "Oh really?"
"Yup!" Tails licked his rock enthusiastically, then remembered what Sonic had said outside Oil Ocean and held it out. "You wanna have some?"
"Not after you've just slurped on it, no," Sonic answered, "but thanks for the offer." He returned his attention to Maegan. "Make sure he eats something healthy as well."
"'Sokay Sonic; I told her you were cool an' didn't make me eat icky stuff like vegetables," Tails piped up, sucking noisily on his sweet.
"Yeah, I bet you did," Sonic muttered. "How was the immersion, kiddo?"
"Cool! They put me in this washy thing that squirted me with water an' then all these brushes came down an' they were real tickly, an' then they dried me an' lookit me!" Tails beamed hugely.
"Yeah, you look great, lil bro. I almost didn't recognise you."
"You didn't?" Tails looked stricken. "Mebbe I should go jump in a mud puddle."
Sonic blinked. "What?"
"Well, if you didn't rek'nise me, mebbe you'll go without me when you leave an' I don't want you to go without me." The expression on Tails' face was now so genuinely worried that Sonic swung both legs around to sit on the side of the bed and lifted the little fox up next to him.
"You think I'd leave my little brother behind?" he said lightly, ruffling the gleaming fur between Tails' ears.
"You might if you didn't rek'nise him. Mebbe you'd think I'd gone on ahead or something an' then mebbe you'd go on after me when all the time I was here waiting for you an'…an' we'd never see each other again..." Tails' voice trailed off and Sonic laughed.
"You really are a worst-case scenario little fox, aren't you, squirt?"
"I'm not little!" Tails protested. "An' what's a safario?"
"Doesn't matter." Sonic caught hold of Tails, pulled him down and—
"Hey! No fair tummy rubs!" Tails protested as he tried unsuccessfully to wriggle free. "How come you always do that, huh Sonic? How come?"
Sonic laughed again, easing his hold just enough for Tails to scramble over and headbutt him hard. "I dunno, kiddo. I just think it's pretty cute how your leg pumps like that." His stomach growled and he placed a hand over it. "Anything to eat in this place?"
"I c'n buy us food, Sonic!" Tails boasted.
"Oh, like you did in Casino Night Zone?" Sonic quipped, then regretted it as Tails' ears drooped.
"I said 'm sorry for that loadsa times, Sonic."
"I know, lil bro. I know. I was only kidding. How are you going to buy us food when you don't have any money?"
"I do! See?" Tails held up a brand new ten Mobium note, beaming all over his little face.
"Wow. Where'd you get that?" Funny how perspectives changed, Sonic thought wryly; when he'd had his life savings of over three hundred Mobiums with him, he'd thought nothing of spending ten here or there…now he was flat broke, ten Mobiums looked like a small fortune.
"I got it when you were sleeping! I know you don't have any money an' I wanted to get some an' buy food 'cause then you'd be happy again an' I know what it's like to be real real hungry, Sonic an'…an'…Sonic, you're not gonna tell me I did something bad again, are you?" Tails pleaded, catching sight of the hedgehog's expression.
"That kinda depends on where you found that ten Mobiums, kiddo. How'd you get it?"
"I went out an' looked cute! Cool, huh Sonic?"
Sonic hesitated. Tails was so proud of himself and it looked like he was going to be so thoroughly hurt and heartbroken if the hedgehog made him do the right thing that Sonic wasn't sure what to do.
"Sonic?" Apprehensive at the fact that his big brother (and boy, if the kids back in Emerald Hill Zone could only see him now!) hadn't leapt up in delight, Tails ducked both namesakes between his legs. "Sonic, I didn't do something bad, did I?"
"No," Sonic conceded. After all, if people wanted to give away so much money, that wasn't Tails' fault. "Just…tell me exactly how you got it?"
"I looked cute!"
"In a little more detail than that, squirt."
Not quite sure if Sonic was angry with him or not, Tails squirmed. "Well…I went out an' into the streets an' sat on a kerb an' looked as cute as I could an' a guy an' girl came an' sat down an' asked what I was doing there, so I said I was trying to get some money to buy food for you an' they took me back to their 'partment an' the girl said if I helped her make cookies she'd gimme some money so I helped her an' I cleaned the oven after an' she gave me summa the cookies an' ten Mobiums an'…an' Sonic, please don't be mad at me."
Sonic smiled slightly. "I'm not mad at you, kiddo. Seems you earned those Mobiums fair and square. What'd you do with the cookies she gave you?"
"Ate them!"
"Oh well, in that case, yeah, I am mad at you," Sonic quipped, a slight grin on his face to let the little fox know he wasn't serious.
Tails hesitated, then offered up the ten-Mobium note.
"I thought you'd rather have the money 'cause then you can buy loadsa cookies!"
Sonic shook his head. "No, you keep it, Tails. You worked for it, it's yours."
The little fox's eyes grew huge and hurt. "You mean…you don't wannit?"
"You earned it, lil bro."
"But…but I earned it for you." Tails pulled out Sonic's hand and pushed the money into it, looking at him beseechingly and folding the hedgehog's fingers over the note.
"Why don't you look after it for Sonic?" Maegan put in, having followed the conversation with no small amount of amusement.
"Yeah." Sonic pounced on the suggestion with no small feeling of relief. "Yeah, that's a great idea. Because it might get damaged when I'm fighting Robotnik, and that'd be a shame after all your hard work, wouldn't it?"
Tails' face cleared. "Boy, would it ever!" He stashed the note safely away, then seized Sonic's hand. "C'mon, we gotta go to Metropolis!"
"Hold it." Maegan caught hold of Sonic's other hand. "He's not going anywhere, not until he's fully recovered. Your friend's very weak."
"I am not," Sonic protested, trying to free one of his hands long enough to wave it dismissively.
"Who's the nurse here, me or you?" Maegan pushed Sonic back onto the bed. "You got a lot of making up to do. You've already caught up on your sleep, now let's see if we can't get some more food into you. I'm not letting you out of hospital until you're fully healthy."
Sonic glared at her, then abruptly gave in. "Fine, but you can at least let me out of bed. Maybe I'm not fighting fit, but I'm not an invalid!"
Maegan studied him. "Will you give me your word not to race out of your room the first chance you get?"
"Um…" Sonic pretended to consider, then grinned. "I promise I won't race out the hospital, how's that?" He took an enormous bite of his chilli dog, chewed and swallowed. "Especially not with food like this. I think I can stick around…ooh, about two days."
In fact it was a week before Sonic was pronounced fully healthy again, and another day before he and Tails managed to get going for Metropolis Zone; the residents of Oil Ocean insisted on loading them down with parting gifts, mostly of food (Sonic refused all offers of cash, hoping that his visit to the publishing house would put him in the black again).
Several miles away, the factory and main power source for Metropolis Zone – easily the same size as a city – had been empty ever since Robotnik had taken over and filled it with his own bots. He'd done surprisingly little in the way of traps; with all the pistons, gears, uncovered pools of liquid energy that was comparable in temperature to lava, he thought that anything else might be considered overkill and maybe even a sign of insecurity.
Looking over his Egg-O-Matic – now redesigned into his latest Sonic-smashing device – he permitted himself a satisfied smirk. There was no way that spiny little pest would make it through this factory, but Robotnik was a firm believer in the for-want-of-a-nail theory, and there was no point taking unnecessary risks. On the offchance that Sonic did survive long enough to make it through, Robotnik wanted to be ready for him.
Settling himself on the highest platform he could find, he opened the latest issue of Science Weekly and started to read.
On the other side of the factory, if someone placed their ear to the wall, they might hear something like this:
"OW!"
"Sorry."
"You wanna watch where you're going? That was my tail!"
"I said I was sorry." Pause. "Owp! Soddic, dat was by dose!"
"Sorry lil bro." Clang. "Hm. Wonder what that was."
"A big pipey thing."
"Yeah? How'd you know?"
"'Cause it jus' hit me on the head. Sonic, c'n you please take your foot out of my ear?"
"Yeah. As soon as you take yours off my wrist! Guy's gotta be able to move, Tails."
Pause.
"Sonic?"
"Yeah?"
"What's the plan again?"
There was a sigh. "How many times? We slip into one of the air vents undetected—"
"Done that."
"—then we find our way into the main factory—"
"Yup."
"—since the energy here will be enough to light up the ducts."
Pause.
"I dunno, Sonic, but it doesn't seem light to me."
"Alright, fine! I screwed up! Happy now?" Another pause, then, "Hey, I think I found the exit."
There was a sound like a chainsaw revving and a section of metal wall dropped neatly onto the ground, where it continued to smoulder for a few seconds as Sonic emerged.
"Wow!" Close behind, Tails looked around. "Cool! You're real cool, Sonic; I think we're in the middle of the fact'ry! You got us past any traps ol' Robotnik set up!"
Sonic paused in the middle of dusting himself down, smirked and tried to make it look like he'd planned it that way.
The noise was almost deafening. Pistons, gears and machinery that Sonic couldn't even begin to identify were grinding away furiously in the background, and the factory was illuminated partly by the liquid energy – Mobian energy was some form of lava crossed with electricity, and that was all Sonic knew about it – and partly by the huge fluorescent lights hanging from the ceiling. It was just a shame nobody had thought to install bulbs in the air ducts, the hedgehog thought, glowering at the improvised exit he'd created.
"Where's ol' Robotnik, Sonic?" Tails asked eagerly.
"I don't know and I don't wanna know," Sonic answered. "C'mon. Let's get moving."
"Okay." Tails seized Sonic's hand and tugged him along, only stopping when he collided with what looked like a smaller, brown version of the valves they'd encountered back in Oil Ocean.
Some instinct warned Sonic and he yanked Tails back just as scalding steam exploded from the sides of the valve. Unlike the Oil Ocean ones, the top didn't fly off this one but instead clunked back down. Sonic guessed the machinery was in better repair here...either that or the ones in Oil Ocean had got just that little bit too much oil.
"C'mon kiddo. This way." He led Tails carefully around the valves, came face to face with what looked like a huge, rotating tunnel and stopped dead. "What the..."
"Cool!" Tails scampered past and bounced into the tunnel, shrieking with laughter as some form of gravity caught hold of him and spun him over and over.
"Tails!" Sonic raced into the tunnel, grabbed the little fox and carried him out to safety. "What did we agree about dangerous situations?"
Tails giggled, head and eyes meandering dizzily. "'S not dang'rous, Sonic, 's fun."
"Any situation that might involve Robotnik or one of his traps is dangerous."
"You're jus' jealous 'cause you didn't get to ride it first!"
"Dammit, Tails, do you think this is a game?" Sonic stared hard at the little fox. "This is reality, kid. You die here, you don't get any extra lives, you don't get any continues…you die here and the game's over, kid."
"But I didn't die, Sonic, an' that spinning tunnel thingy's really cool!"
"You think everything's really cool." Sonic's tones were due more to abject terror than any real anger; the fear he'd felt when he thought Tails was in danger was only just beginning to fade.
"Nuh uh, jus' ev'rything that's fun!" Tails looked back at the tunnel. "How come it spins like that, Sonic?"
"I've no idea." Taking a long, deep breath, Sonic exhaled slowly and felt some of the adrenaline slide away. Looking up at the corridor above them, he frowned slightly. "How're we gonna get up there?"
Tails didn't answer, largely because he'd found a big switch and was busy jumping up and down on it with both feet to see what would happen.
A grinding sound drew Sonic's attention upwards again to where a bridge was extending until it settled into place with a chunk.
The hedgehog smirked slightly.
"Okay. Guess that answers that question. C'mon squirt."
Tails abandoned his switch and raced to join Sonic, flying to land neatly next to him on the bridge and then on the platform.
Neither of them noticed the star shaped robot clinging to the wall below.
"Sonic?" Tails said after they'd been going for a few minutes in relative silence.
"Yeah, lil buddy?"
"What's that clanging sound?"
The hedgehog frowned. "Clanging sound?"
Tails nodded. "Uh huh. 'S like something real big an' metal pounding an' pounding an' pounding. Is it gonna squish us?"
"How should I know? Ask me again once it turns up."
They didn't have long to wait. As Sonic and Tails rounded a corner, they both caught sight of what Tails had heard…and heard with surprising accuracy, Sonic admitted wryly, since 'metal things pounding' turned out to be exactly what it was. A pair of pistons, so large that Sonic could have stood next to one and struggled to see over the rim, were crashing up and down with rhythmic precision. The hedgehog could see the corridor continuing on into the factory on the other side, but he was damned if he'd try running across those pistons!
Tails, however, had other plans. Timing his moment carefully, he scampered forward as the pistons were up, leapt into the gap underneath, turned to wave at Sonic and jumped clear a split second before they crashed down again.
There were some days, Sonic thought grimly, when he could cheerfully have waved goodbye to his little sidekick!
Gathering his nerves, he closed his eyes, hoped this was going to work and bolted across the pistons as they slammed down.
"Tails, what the hell was that?" he yelled above the noise of clanking machinery.
Tails beamed. "Didja see me? I was cool like you, Sonic! I cheated death with a brave, death defying leap an' with a bound I was free, jus' like it says in your comics!"
"You could have been killed!"
"Well, I couldn't hardly do a brave, death defying leap on a bouncy castle, could I?" Tails pointed out reasonably.
Sonic let out a breath he hadn't realised he'd been holding and gripped Tails tightly by the arms. "Don't you ever, ever scare me like that again!"
Tails flattened his ears. "Did I do something bad again?"
"You broke one of our rules, squirt. I go first into any dangerous situations, remember?"
Relieved that Sonic apparently wasn't going to start yelling at him, Tails relaxed slightly. "Yeah, but you didn't go. I thought you were waiting for me, honest. An' I'm sorry but I really like this place an' I didn't wanna go yet." Enthusiasm taking over again, Tails added, "Lookit all these cool pipey machiney things, Sonic! No wonder ol' Robotnik wanted to take over this place!"
Of course, there was that, Sonic admitted. To someone as mechanically gifted as Tails, this place must be better than a candy store.
"I know, kiddo, I know, but we gotta be careful. We don't know what any of this stuff does and I'd hate you to get hurt." Sonic's own relief at Tails' survival was kicking in and he winked. "C'mon. Where do we go now?"
"Uh…" Tails frowned. "You're asking me?"
Sonic quirked an eye ridge at him. "Well, you're supposed to be my guide, aren't you?"
Contrary to the jubilant response he'd been expecting, Tails' ears drooped and he chewed on his bottom lip. "Does that mean you don't wanna little brother anymore, Sonic?"
"Little brothers can be guides too," Sonic pointed out. As he expected, Tails immediately perked up.
"Boy, can they ever! Okay, c'mon! We go…uh…this way!" Seizing Sonic by the hand, he pulled him along, racing through the corridors until they came to what looked like an elevator crossed with the same kind of pipes Sonic had seen back in Chemical Plant Zone.
"You want to go in there?" he said incredulously.
Tails' face lit up. "Boy, do I ever! You're the coolest, Sonic!"
Before the hedgehog had a chance to answer, Tails had hauled him into the pipe. There was a flash of white light, followed by a sensation of terrific suction and they were eventually spat out of another entrance a few floors down.
"That was not an invitation, Tails!" Sonic said, as soon as he'd recovered his breath.
"It wasn't?" Tails frowned in perplexity. "What was it, Sonic?"
Sonic's mouth opened and closed for a few minutes before he said, "Never mind. C'mon, let's keep moving."
This was a suggestion Sonic came to regret very shortly, as soon as he saw the three blocks extending from the walls, like horizontal pillars.
"We c'n jump on these, huh Sonic?" Tails said hopefully. "It's not dangerous, right?"
"They don't look dangerous," Sonic agreed. "Okay. You wanna lead the way, lil bro?"
"Yeah!" Tails raced forward, leapt and then took off rapidly as a row of spears erupted from slots all along the top side of the pillar. As they watched, the deadly blades retracted to shoot out the right hand side.
"Uh. I changed my mind." Landing, Tails crowded behind Sonic and nudged him towards the spearblocks. "You c'n go first."
"Thanks a lot." Sonic studied the blocks carefully. The spears were clearly mechanical – they were going around in a clockwise direction with perfect rhythm and regularity – but they didn't all emerge from the same side at the same time.
Well…maybe…
Hoping like hell he hadn't misjudged this and that the spears wouldn't suddenly change direction and erupt underneath him, Sonic leapt across them. His foot slipped as he reached the third, and he would have fallen if Tails hadn't been hovering above him.
"Pretty cool, huh Sonic?" Tails dumped the hedgehog unceremoniously on his backside a little way from the third spearblock, then flew back to study it curiously. "How'd they get the spiky things to come up?"
Sonic shivered. "I don't know, and if finding out can't help us to stop them coming out then I don't wanna know."
"Oh. Okay." Tails looked down admiringly at the spears for a few minutes, then caught sight of something far more interesting. "Ooh! Look, Sonic, there's another switch!"
Flying over to it, he jumped on it hard, then frowned. Must be broken; it hadn't made a bridge appear.
"Tails?" Sonic's voice came from somewhere down below and Tails flew down the large gap to rejoin the hedgehog. Odd. He hadn't noticed that gap before.
"Yup?"
From where he was half collapsed on a platform that was moving along at a fair pace, Sonic fixed Tails with a glare. "What did I tell you about collapsing bridges when I'm standing on them?"
Tails flattened his ears. "Oops. Sorry." He landed next to Sonic. "Where we going?"
"Your guess is as good as mine." Sonic frowned as he studied the opposite platform. He could make out something there, some kind of green thing, but at that distance he couldn't see what it was.
The mystery solved itself a few minutes later as the thing took shape; a vivid green robot built to look like some kind of insect…maybe a grasshopper or something, thought Sonic, whose grasp of entomology was only slightly shakier than his grasp of science as a whole.
Given a few more minutes, he might have figured it out, but the possible-grasshopper detached both bladed arms from their moorings and hurled them at Sonic with such pinpoint accuracy that the hedgehog did the only thing he could to save himself; he grabbed Tails and leapt off the platform.
The fall wasn't so bad, he remembered thinking much later. At the very least, sliding down several steep slopes and falling down plenty more minor shafts – albeit ones with yellow triangular bumper things that ricocheted him off the opposite wall several times – at least that was preferable to being carved up by a pair of giant razor blades.
When he'd hit the floor (and spent several seconds there without falling any further) Sonic risked getting to his feet.
"Why'd we jump?" Tails asked curiously.
"Didn't you see those blades?"
"Oh sure, but you're Sonic the hedgehog. You c'n dodge those old blades with…with…with your eyes shut!"
Sonic let that one go; he couldn't be bothered to correct the little fox. "Whatever. Where are we now?" He sniffed. "And what's that smell?"
"What smell?"
"That kind of burning, electrical smell. If I can smell it, squirt, you oughta be able to."
Tails sniffed loudly for a few minutes, then his face lit up. "Yup! I got it! I think it's coming from that great big pool of bright red glowy stuff!"
Sonic followed the little fox's pointing finger to the red glowy stuff in question and felt his blood run cold.
"Lava?"
Tails giggled. "Nuh uh! Nobody uses lava for energy, Sonic, 'cause it's too hot! They zap the lava with 'lectrics an' use that."
"Oh great." Sonic scanned the glowing lake ahead of them. "So if we fall, not only do we get burned, we get zapped as well."
"Nuh uh," Tails said again, "'cause we can jump on those platforms! See?" He pointed again, this time at a rotating pulley system that had several small platforms attached to it. "Or mebbe I c'n fly you across—"
"Let's try the platforms," Sonic said shortly. Tails' intentions were always good, but the same couldn't always be said about his ability to carry them through.
"Cool!" Tails scampered forward and bounced on a switch that Sonic hadn't noticed until then, extending the platform they were standing on by several feet.
The hedgehog relaxed slightly. That made it easier; at least the jump didn't have to be as exact as he'd originally thought.
Taking a deep breath, he ran to the edge and jumped, landing neatly on one of the smaller platforms and seizing the pulley cable as tight as he could.
"Ha! I beat you, Sonic!" From three platforms across, Tails beamed at him. "I got here first an' I'm gonna land on that block first!"
"Tails, this isn't a race." Almost immediately the treacherous thought flashed through Sonic's mind, But it could be.
He shook his head, dismissing it angrily. No. No way.
Up ahead, Tails jumped onto a block that was bobbing cheerfully in the energy and bounced off again, landing on the next pulley and from there jumping onto the opposite platform.
Sonic, on the other hand, was left with a problem; namely the little fact that Tails' jumping onto the block had sunk it, leaving him stranded on a machine that was rapidly carrying him towards the very thing it had just saved him from.
There was only one thing for it. He'd have to leap from pulley to pulley and hope that somehow, he made it.
Judging his distance as carefully as he could in the time – he really did not want to think about what would happen if he missed – Sonic took as much of a run up as was afforded by the small platform and leapt.
He almost made it as well. As it was, his feet hit the opposite pulley and slid off. Scrabbling for a hold, he managed to grip the edges of the platform, which swung crazily, almost tipping him off, and haul himself onto it, then took another jump and landed next to Tails, dropping onto his hands and knees and rolling sideways.
"Feel free to give me a hand anytime!" he said tersely.
"That was cool!" Clearly not hearing a word Sonic had just said, Tails padded over to look down at his hero with adoring blue eyes. "I wish I'd thoughta that, Sonic, that pretending you were gonna fall off that platform an' you didn't!"
"I wasn't pretending, Tails."
"Sure you were! You're Sonic the hedgehog, 'member? You're unwhumpable!" Tails beamed. "An' speaking of whumping, Sonic, I got another bot! Didja see me?"
"No, I was too busy trying not to plummet to my death," Sonic retorted, with a little more sarcasm than was strictly necessary.
"Oh." Undeterred, Tails pressed on. "Well, I whumped it real good, Sonic! See?"
He pointed to the mess of machinery, wires and chips that was unrecognisable as anything, and Sonic devoutly hoped that it had been some kind of bot. If it hadn't, he and Tails were going to have some explaining to do once they freed the people of Metropolis Zone.
"Yeah, I see. You sure it was a bot?"
Tails nodded. "Uh huh! I was gonna land an' I saw this giant crabby thing an' it shot out an arm an' tried to whump me, Sonic, but I whumped it first!"
"Yeah, I gathered." Sonic pushed himself to his feet. Tails' enthusiasm was infectious and the hedgehog found himself grinning back. "You're getting pretty good at bot-whumping, huh?"
"I sure am! Mebbe I could be the next national hero when you retire, huh Sonic?"
Sonic laughed. "If I'm still alive come retirement age, we'll talk about it, how's that?"
"Okay!" Tails raced forward and skidded to a confused halt underneath a shaft. "Hey Sonic, how're we gonna get up here?"
The hedgehog joined him a moment later. "Maybe we won't have to." When Tails looked baffled, Sonic nodded towards a door that had been set in the wall. "Try that."
"Oh. Okay." Feeling a little silly that he hadn't spotted it before, Tails grabbed the handle, only to find it rattled uselessly in his grasp. "I think it's locked, Sonic."
"You sure? Maybe it's just stuck." After several fruitless attempts of his own, Sonic finally admitted defeat. "Okay, it's locked."
Tails' ears lifted hopefully. "Hey, mebbe you could spindash it, huh Sonic?"
"I could, but I'm not going to. It's not nice to destroy people's doors without a good reason, lil bro."
"We wanna get through. How come that's not a good reason, Sonic?"
The hedgehog rolled his eyes. "Never mind." Craning his neck back, he saw a platform moving back and forth above them. "We're gonna have to get onto that, squirt."
"You want me to carry you?"
"Save your strength, lil buddy; I think you're gonna need it." Sonic curled into a ball, revved up and exploded into action, ascending straight up the opposite wall. When he thought the time was right, he kicked off and landed squarely on the platform.
There was a thwapping sound and Tails came to hover next to him.
"That was the coolest thing ever!"
Sonic waved a hand. "Ah, it was nothing." Jumping onto the next ledge, he stretched out leisurely. "Just a little exercise, that's all."
The grin died off his face as he saw the giant cog up ahead. There were no others to be seen (thank goodness for small favours, he thought; at least there was no risk of getting crushed between two of them) but it looked like the only way across the liquid energy he could see underneath. Worse yet, there was no platform either; just what looked like a giant nut-and-bolt combination that he might be able to jump to. Might.
"Tails?"
"Yup?"
"If we jumped onto that cog, could you fly me from there to that bolt?" Was it a bolt that was the round bit, or was that the bit you put into the round bit? Sonic didn't know.
"That what?" Tails said.
"The big round metal thing, kiddo; you can't miss it."
"Huh? Ohhh, that." Tails beamed. "Sure I can, Sonic! C'mon, let's go!"
Grabbing the hedgehog's hand, he raced forward, bounded onto the cog and had taken off before Sonic had a chance to really register what was happening.
Dumping the hedgehog squarely on the bolt, Tails collapsed next to him, panting for breath.
"Whatcha gonna do now, Sonic?"
Sonic didn't answer, mostly because the idea he'd just had was so crazy he was almost embarrassed to tell anyone about it. Instead he started to run and to his amazement it worked; the bolt started turning, taking them with it.
"Uh. Sonic?" Tails said after a few minutes had passed.
"Yeah?"
"How come we're going back down when I thought we were gonna go up?"
Oops. Sonic hit the brakes, grabbing the screw, nut, bolt, or whatever the big metallic pillar thing in the middle was called, and hastily reversed direction.
Going up was a little easier and smoother than coming down, largely because Tails was now helping instead of rotating round with the bolt and forcing Sonic to jump over him every rotation.
"We're not gonna hit the ceiling, are we?" Tails asked nervously.
"No. No, we're not." Sonic answered as he leapt off. Inwardly he was glad Tails had pointed it out; if he hadn't, chances were good the hedgehog might have kept going and been turning too fast to stop by the time he realised he was about to be crushed.
They walked on down the corridor together for about ten minutes, neither saying much until they found themselves in a huge room with the prison egg at one end.
Tails' face lit up. "Hey, look! Guess ol' Robotnik's not here, huh Sonic?"
"Sure." Sonic leaned against the wall, arms folded across his chest.
"Uh. Sonic?" Tails padded over and peered up into his adopted brother's face nervously. "Whatcha doing?"
"Waiting."
"Whatcha waiting for?"
"You'll see." Sonic returned his gaze to the room.
After several minutes had gone by, Robotnik got bored with waiting for the hedgehog to enter the room and be ambushed, and so he glided down.
"You're late. Again."
"This is one hell of a big Zone, doc," Sonic answered. "Next time you wanna take over the world, would it hurt you to start in a closet or something?"
"An intriguing idea, Sonic, but I'm sure you won't be offended if I don't oblige you." Robotnik paused for effect, then added, "Although I must admit I did take your other suggestion into account."
"You mean the bit about installing a self-destruct switch in your machines?" Sonic said, not very hopefully.
"No, I just took care to be more original with my names," Robotnik answered pleasantly. "Here. I want to introduce you to a close personal friend of mine."
This remark went unanswered by either Sonic or Tails. He could practically hear the whoosh as it swept over their heads and sighed. That was the problem with trying to take over an alien planet; all your best plagiarised lines fell flat.
"This is my Eggsploder."
Sonic quirked an eye ridge; as far as he could see, the Eggsploder was nothing more than Robotnik's normal Egg-O-Matic. "That's what you call original?"
Robotnik heaved a martyred sigh. "There's just no pleasing some people, is there, Sonic?"
"You never named your machines back on Green Island."
"True, but these machines are a little like hovercars. Most Mobians name their vehicles, after all; why should I be any different?"
"You're not a Mobian, doc." Sonic eyed the distance contemplatively before reluctantly deciding that Robotnik was a little too high to jump on.
Robotnik chuckled. "Oh, Sonic. You know, for all your other faults, I never had you down as a xenophobe."
"He's not a zeenypoke," Tails shouted indignantly, "he's a hedgehog!"
"I'm not xenophobic," Sonic shot back, ignoring the little fox. "I'm just not too happy with someone who wants to pound me into a hedgehog pancake, no matter who they are!"
"Oh, but we did the pounding thing back in Aquatic Ruin," Robotnik reminded him pleasantly. "I have something much more…original this time."
He pushed a button, and what looked like balloons emerged from the underbelly, orbiting his Eggsploder like crazed satellites.
"Let me guess," Sonic said flatly. "Bombs?"
"Well, they aren't water balloons, Sonic. Touch one and they'll be scraping you off the ceiling."
Sonic rolled his eyes. "You just don't quit, do you?"
"You're a fine one to talk." Robotnik started gliding back and forth above them, bombs circling too fast and too erratically for Sonic to dare attack. He tried jumping a couple of times, but each time Robotnik simply discharged one of his bombs that, if the somewhat precise path they took was anything to go by, were equipped with homing devices, and the narrowness of his escapes on both occasions (helped largely by Tails) made Sonic reluctant to repeat the experiment.
"So what now, doc?" he demanded. "Stalemate? You can't kill me and I can't beat you, is that what you want?"
"Well, I'd prefer to spray your slimy little innards all over this Zone, Sonic, but your suggestion is a possible second choice, yes. If I can't kill you, the very least I can do is make sure you don't interfere with my plans."
Sonic tuned him out, mind working frantically. The bombs. That was it. The key was in the bombs; if they were gone, the Eggsploder would be defenceless.
The problem was that short of standing underneath and inviting Robotnik to drop them on him, Sonic couldn't for the life of him see how he was going to accomplish this minor miracle.
Tails raced forward, leaping into the air and hovering at an eye level with Robotnik.
"You're gonna be sorry, ol' Robotnik! Sonic's thinking up a real smart, cool plan an' then he's gonna whump you real good!"
"Really?" Robotnik detached another of his bombs, watching Sonic's narrow escape from this one with a smirk. "I'd say this is going to be more a case of – if you'll pardon the paraphrase – the whumper whumped."
Five bombs. Maybe there was enough of a gap now…Sonic leapt into the air and managed to dodge the bombs to land a solid hit on the Eggsploder, and the little fact that this violent action dislodged a fourth bomb only slightly marred his triumph. He had to hand it to the people of Metropolis; they built damn good factories. Despite having been blasted by four explosives, the building was still standing, was hardly even marked.
An idea occurred to Sonic. "Tails, when I say now I want you to divebomb the Eggsploder as hard and as fast as you can, okay?"
"Okay!" Tails glowered at Robotnik, who was now watching him with single-minded intensity, ready to throw up his defences as soon as he heard Sonic's voice again.
Something rammed him from underneath, hard, and the shock snapped him back in his seat.
The gall of the rodent! The sheer, unmitigated gall! Sonic had double-crossed him! While Robotnik had been busy watching Tails, the blue pest had attacked from underneath! It was insufferable, it was…it was…
Well, it was exactly what Robotnik himself would have done in the same situation, but that wasn't the point!
Another series of explosions from underneath informed him that the force of Sonic's attack had dislodged another three bombs. Well. That was one consolation; there was no way the hedgehog could have survived that.
"Nice view from up here."
"What?" Robotnik twisted his head around and looked up at a grinning Sonic, who was standing on the back of the Eggsploder.
"I'll show you, you little pest!" Flicking switches, Robotnik recalibrated the targeting device within the bomb, set it to hit Sonic where he stood, past caring that this would blast the Eggsploder out of the sky as well.
Seeing what he was doing, Sonic leapt off, catching the bomb and yanking it free before dropping to the ground and hurling it away from him just as Robotnik pressed the manual detonation switch.
The blast didn't kill Sonic, but it did throw him across the room. His head hit the wall with an audible crack and he slid down it, dazed.
Robotnik grinned at him. "Looks like it's the end of the line for you, Sonic."
Sonic staggered to his feet one hand on the wall and, much to the doctor's discomfiture, grinned back.
"Guess what, Robuttnik? You just ran outta weapons."
He winked at Tails, who was now giggling so hard at Sonic's new name for Robotnik that he was having difficulty staying airborne.
Robotnik sneered at him. "I've got one more, Sonic."
Sonic didn't wait to find out what it was. Instead he leapt, curling over and burrowing up for a devastating attack.
And this time, it worked. There was no hidden defence, no water or oil for Robotnik to hide in; Sonic burrowed and kept burrowing until he felt the Eggsploder begin to fall. Jumping clear, he stood over the wreckage with folded arms.
"You're finished, doc."
He had to hand it to him; even when sitting in the wreckage of his machine, Robotnik still wouldn't surrender. A smile appeared on the doctor's face.
"I hardly think so, Sonic."
Pulling a remote from inside the glove compartment, he pushed a series of buttons and a white light descended from the sky.
"Is he dying?" Tails asked curiously.
"No." Sonic stared. Surely Robotnik wasn't…he hadn't…he couldn't!
Yet even as the hedgehog watched, the doctor and his Eggsploder were sucked into the air and into nothingness by an invisible force.
"What was that?" Tails wanted to know.
"Transporter beam." Sonic looked away, feeling sick. If he'd only struck…if he hadn't waited…damn, Robotnik had been beaten! "Who knows where it took him?"
"Oh." Tails was silent for a couple of minutes. "But we got him off Westside Island, huh Sonic?"
"Yeah." Sonic glanced down at the little fox and smiled, a smile of pure relief. "Yeah, lil bro, we did. You and me."
At least until next time, he thought grimly, but kept that particular gem to himself as he leapt up and onto the prison egg, freeing the inhabitants. After all, why borrow trouble when you could get it so often for free?
It took several days before things in Metropolis Zone returned to normal, and Sonic and Tails were interviewed, photographed, sought out and gave so many autographs that by the end of it Sonic's wrist was aching and Tails' cursive signature was pretty much perfect.
It was a week after the Zone was running smoothly that Sonic decided he'd spared Offerings Publishing House and Manufacturers long enough, and so he persuaded Tails to leave the apartment they were currently squatting in (the estate agents had been falling over themselves to give them a property, and Sonic could have set himself up in one of the biggest mansions on Mobius if he'd wanted) and come for a walk with him.
It wasn't just sensitivity on the hedgehog's part which had kept him out of the publisher's for so long; he'd been half hoping that they would come to him and they could negotiate from there. When this hadn't happened, and when Sonic had spotted a new issue of the Sonic Comic on the shelves (this one dealing with his defeat of Robotnik in Metropolis Zone, and that really pissed him off; even with front row seats to the fight, the writers had still managed to get it completely wrong, giving Robotnik ten giant nuclear warheads) he'd made up his mind to confront them himself.
"Where we going?" Tails wanted to know as he trotted along by Sonic's side, holding his hand tightly.
"I got a few chores to do, squirt, that's all."
Tails sighed. "Chores are boring, Sonic. Why do I gotta come with you, huh?"
Sonic winked at him. "Tell you what, kiddo. You come with me while I do my chores, and we'll go to that big water park afterwards. How's that?"
Tails' face lit up. "Really? You mean it?"
"You bet." Sonic had been avoiding the park in question like the plague; it was one of the largest and grandest not only in Metropolis Zone but in the whole of Westside Island. Still, he didn't have to swim, and Tails had stayed out of trouble and been so well behaved lately that the hedgehog felt he deserved a treat.
"Okay! What we gonna do first?"
Sonic glanced down at him.
"That ten Mobiums, kiddo, can I borrow it?"
Tails pulled out and looked at the note which represented all his monetary wealth, then looked away and handed it up to Sonic, ears drooping slightly.
"Thanks, little bro. I'll give you another one as soon as I can."
Tails looked up at him. "You promise?"
"I promise," Sonic assured him.
"Well, okay." Tails perked up. "Whatcha gonna buy with it, Sonic?"
"I'm not buying anything with it, squirt. I'm going to open a bank account with it."
"What's a bank account?"
Sonic winked. "Watch and learn, lil bro."
There wasn't much to watch, in Tails' opinion, and even less to learn. All that happened was Sonic walked into a boring building and spoke to a boring hippo about a boring thing called a pers'nal count and Sonic filled in a lot of boring forms and answered a lot of boring questions and by the end of it Tails was fidgeting so much he was almost giving himself friction burns.
Eventually, just when Tails thought he was about to scream in boredom, Sonic stood up with a broad grin on his face.
"That's great, then. Thanks for your help."
"Are we done yet?" Tails demanded. "'Cause I wanna go play in the water park an' you said we could go once you'd finished all your chores."
Sonic laughed. "Yeah, we're done here. I just got one more place to go to, and then we'll hit that water park for the rest of the day, squirt."
"Is it gonna be as boring as this one?"
Suddenly in a good mood, although he didn't fully know why yet, Sonic scooped the little fox up into his arms and tickled him hard.
"Nowhere near, lil bro!" He settled Tails into a more secure hold and then winked. "Hold on tight. Next stop, Offerings Publishing House and Manufacturers."
Tails yipped with delight as Sonic broke into a run that got faster and faster until the city blurred around them followed by a stop (with appropriate screeching noises) that lasted a full hundred yards.
Putting on his best female voice, Sonic said, "We would like to thank you for choosing Hedgehog Transport today. Please avoid the feet and way cool sneakers when disembarking and we hope you'll choose to travel with us again soon."
Tails giggled. "You're real funny, Sonic." He still wasn't sure why Sonic was so happy, but still, if Sonic was happy then Tails was ecstatic.
Sonic pushed open the doors to the publishing house and stepped in. He was impressed with the décor – the mahogany furniture, plush red carpet and chandeliers all pointed to extreme money – but only mildly.
After all, unless I miss my guess, most of the money that paid for this stuff should have been mine, at least partly.
Striding up to the receptionist – an elderly hamster who seemed more interested in his copy of 101 Fun and Exciting Cheese Recipes than the public – Sonic smiled broadly and said, "Hi."
The hamster looked up, saw the hedgehog and said, "Oh—"
Much to his disappointment, Tails didn't hear the exact word that followed since Sonic had clamped both hands over the little fox's ears, and the next thing he heard was the hedgehog saying, "C'mon pal, I got a four year old kid here."
"Five!" Tails said indignantly.
"Right, five. Sorry kiddo." Sonic returned his attention to the hamster. "I guess you know what I'm here to talk about."
The hamster swallowed. "Any complaints must be taken up in writing through a form filled out in triplicate and mailed to the appropriate department. If you care to wait I can give you the addresses—"
"I'm in something of a rush," Sonic said pleasantly. Wandering behind the desk, apparently aimlessly, he opened the door marked AUTHORISED PERSONNEL ONLY and walked through, the hamster trailing behind him like a noisy and ineffective shadow.
"I see the latest issue is already being worked on," Sonic remarked chattily as he saw the pieces of paper lying scattered on the nearest desk. Half interested, he picked up a few pages at random, then froze as he read one.
"Who came up with this story?" he demanded.
The hamster shrugged. "All our stories are co-written by several highly qualified authors and—"
"Who wrote this one?" Sonic all but screamed at him, screamed so loudly that an office worker in the building over the road looked up.
The hamster jerked back as though someone had kicked him, then said in a strained voice, "Mr Sonic, if I could ask you to moderate your voice—"
"I'll worry about my voice, pal! Tell me who wrote this story!" Sonic wasn't screaming now, mainly because his voice wouldn't take it, but he was speaking much louder than normal.
The hamster wilted in his seat. "Mr Sonic, please. I just work on reception. I don't know who does what here, and sometimes we hire freelance writers to meet demand."
He was most likely telling the truth, Sonic realised, and sighed. "Look—what's your name?"
"Cheeks."
Next to Sonic, Tails giggled. "That's a funny name."
"Tails, don't be cheeky," Sonic admonished, only realising his poor choice of words when Tails broke up into giggles again.
The opposite door clicked open and a raccoon came through, his entire bearing practically screaming his directorial status.
"Is there a problem, Cheeks?"
Stepping in front of the hamster, Sonic smiled broadly at the director's expression and said pleasantly, "What do you think?" The smile vanished as he threw the papers down at the raccoon's feet. "When's this story going to be published?"
In the pseudo-respectful tones of one who can see his paycheck and annual holiday aboard a luxury liner vanishing if he doesn't talk fast, the director said, "It's going to press as we speak."
"Cancel it."
The raccoon stared at him, jaw slack. "What?"
"You heard me," Sonic shot back, no longer smiling. "At the risk of sounding incredibly cliché, stop the press."
The other sighed. "Mr Sonic, it's not as simple as that. There are people waiting on this, people waiting to read your latest exploits—"
"Whose exploits?" Sonic said, his voice now dangerous. "I don't remember doing any of this."
The raccoon folded his arms. "Mr Sonic, apart from the cancellation of one of the most long-awaited issues since this series began, what exactly do you want?"
"I want what anyone in my position would want," Sonic said flatly. "First, royalties, twenty percent on domestic sales and thirty five on external, ie, all sales outside Westside Island. Second, a back payment of all those royalties I've not yet received."
"Twenty percent on domestic?" It was a ridiculously high commission, was, in fact, ridiculously high for external sales.
"If you hadn't done this behind my back, we could have negotiated," Sonic said coldly. "You should have talked to me before doing something like this."
The raccoon squirmed. "We were going to, but we couldn't contact you or find out your account details."
Since this could never really be proved or disproved, Sonic shrugged. "Well, I'm here now." He grabbed a pencil and started scribbling on the back of the nearest page, writing down his bank details. "I want a back payment to be made into this account, a cheque for seven hundred and thirty two Mobiums to be sent express delivery to the manager of the Velvet Hotel in Casino Night Zone – I'll give you a note to put in as well so he knows it's from me – the royalties on any future merchandise and most importantly, you print an article now and a disclaimer on every future comic and item saying that everything that comes out of here is total fiction. Including that damn biography!" Sonic held out the details to the director, who took them with the very tips of his fingers, as though it was poison. "You've taken everything that happened on Green Island, you've cheapened it and now you're just selling it to make yourselves a quick Mobium…and one more thing. If you print any more stories about my being responsible for Robotnik's presence, no matter how I did it, you can kiss the rights to any future Sonic merchandise goodbye, not to mention your own ass. Slander me in any other way you want, but not like that. You got it? Good," Sonic added without waiting for a reply. "Now give me what you owe me and I'll be out your face."
"Here." Pulling out his chequebook, the director wrote out one of the cheques and handed it to Sonic, who glanced at it and froze.
"Two hundred and fifty thousand?" Something inside him told him the truth and he raised an eye ridge. "That hardly seems right."
"It's all we can afford at the minute." Now the director sounded distinctly sulky.
"Fine." Sonic tucked the cheque away. "I'll take it and we'll say no more about the rest of the back payments you probably owe me, but in that case I want forty percent on external sales and twenty five on domestic. Okay?"
Judging from the raccoon's face, it was far from okay, but Sonic grinned broadly and said, "Cool," before the other had a chance to protest, then took Tails firmly by the hand and walked out of the publishing house with him, royalty cheque firmly in his hand.
"How much'd they pay you again?" Tails wanted to know.
"A quarter of a million." Despite his words back in the building, the thought of that sum still made Sonic's head spin.
"Is that more'n a hundred Mobiums, Sonic?"
"Yeah, lil bro, it's a lot more. If I had four of those cheques, I'd have a million Mobiums."
"A million!" Tails barely breathed the words; he couldn't imagine such wealth.
Fair enough; neither could Sonic. The hedgehog was still struggling to come to terms with it and paying more attention to the cheque in his hand than where he was going, as became apparent when he collided with someone.
"Ow! Hey, I'm sorry, I didn't—" Sonic broke off, startled. "Mighty?"
"Sonic?" The armadillo rubbed his skull – Sonic really had walked into him hard – and fixed the hedgehog with a look that, while not hostile, wasn't the friendliest expression Sonic had ever seen either. "What are you doing here?"
"We were jus' getting Sonic's royalty cheque from Offings Pubbing House an' Mannyfaxes!" Tails piped up.
"Royalty cheque?" Mighty stared at Sonic with a mixture of loathing and disgust. "You're unbelievable."
Too young to pick up on the hostile nuances in the armadillo's voice, Tails said, "He sure is! He's Sonic the hedgehog an' the coolest guy in the whole wide world!"
Mighty glanced at Tails and smiled at him briefly, then looked back at Sonic. When he next spoke, his voice was quiet and so angry that even Tails had no trouble picking up on it.
"Is that why you wanted me to help you save this little kid, Sonic? Just so he can follow you around and worship you? Does he know—"
Sonic backhanded him, the blow hard enough to send the armadillo staggering. Next to him, Tails yipped in alarm, glancing from one to the other as Mighty half turned. From his body language, it was clear he wasn't going to strike back, but he also wasn't happy. Seeing the armadillo's split lip, Sonic brought one hand up to his own, touching the place where Mighty had struck him back in Green Hill Zone, smiling grimly.
"Now we're even."
"Yeah, an' you better not hit Sonic back!" Tails said belligerently, rushing to stand between the two antagonists.
Mighty wiped blood off his lip with the back of his hand and spat more onto the sidewalk. "Using a four year old as a shield?"
"Five!"
Mighty continued, taking no notice of Tails. "That's low, Sonic, even for you." He shook his head. "Don't think I haven't seen all the merchandise; Sonic toys, Sonic keyrings, Sonic books, Sonic games...must be one big ego trip for you, huh?"
"Do you buy any a that Sonic stuff, mister?" Tails asked.
Mighty curled his lip. "I got better things to spend my money on. Like touring a sewer."
"Good!" When the armadillo shot him a startled look, Tails said, "'Cause Sonic hates being in all that stuff. He on'y went in there to tell 'em that they weren't getting it right an' were selling it too cheaply!"
"Tails, I didn't!" Sonic stared at Mighty, willing the armadillo to believe him. "I said they were cheapening what happened on Green Island and selling it to make themselves a quick Mobium."
"That's what I said," Tails protested. "They made it cheap an' now they're selling it! On'y Sonic got real mad an' stopped 'em making a story an' said they weren't 'llowed to sell stories which told about him making Robotnik!"
"Really?" Mighty narrowed his eyes. "So if someone asks you where Robotnik came from, Sonic, what are you planning to tell them?"
Sonic raised his head and stared the armadillo straight in the face.
"That it was an accident." He spoke quietly but with enough force to silence the retort already forming on Mighty's lips. "Everything that happened to unleash Robotnik was an accident. Nothing more."
Mighty snorted. "Is that the excuse you're giving people now?"
"Yes it damn well is! It's the truth! I wasn't responsible for Robotnik deciding to take over the world! He thought of that on his own and it was all I could do to stop him!"
"Oh really?" Mighty said again. "If you're such a bigshot hero, why didn't you save my family? Why didn't you stop Robotnik taking them?"
Sonic met the armadillo's diamond stare with one of his own. "Why didn't you?"
The diamond shattered and Mighty looked away without answering.
"And if you hated him so much, why didn't you come with me?" Sonic demanded, his temper rising. "I expected the others to go back to their lives, but you..." He shook his head. "Damn, Mighty, we were like brothers!"
"He's your brother?" Tails said. Squinting at the armadillo, he added, "You don't look like a hedgehog, mister. Did ol' Robotnik chop your spikes off?"
"You haven't answered my question," Mighty said to Sonic. "Why did you really save this kid? Because if all you want is a little sycophant, then the kid would have been better off where he was."
"You slammed me into the ground because I was gonna leave Tails behind and now you're on my case because I didn't?" Sonic folded his arms. "Jeez, Might, would it be too much to ask if you could make up your mind?"
"Sonic saved me," Tails put in. "He was real nice an' he fed me an' bought me my bestest most favouritest pair of sneakers ever! See?" He lifted one red and white shod foot for inspection, wobbling crazily on his one leg.
"Sonic only has you along because you feed his ego," Mighty said. This was no spite or malice on his part; he did genuinely believe what he was saying.
"He doesn't have a neego!" Tails shouted. "He's the coolest—"
"—guy in the whole wide world, yeah, you told me."
"Exactly! An' I'm not gonna let you be mean to him, not after he helped me an' ev'ryone else!" Tails launched himself at the armadillo, small fists flying.
Without looking, Mighty put one hand on Tails' head and stepped away, holding the little fox off with almost no effort while Tails did his best to resume his attack.
"All this adulation, Sonic…" Mighty gestured with his free hand to where a shop was selling life size Sonic cutouts (and that had freaked the hedgehog out big time when he'd first come face to face with one in that store). "You must really love it."
"Yeah, well, that's all you know!" Tails shouted. "Sonic hated my comic an' Sonic toy so much I had to smash 'em! It was the on'y toy I had but he still got me to smash it!"
"I didn't!" Sonic protested, then fixed Tails with a glare. "Squirt, shut up for five minutes, okay? Let me talk to Mighty."
"I shouldn't bother, Sonic," Mighty said coldly. "There's nothing you can have to say to me, and there's damn well nothing I've got to say to you."
Sonic closed his eyes and pulled out one of the small, individual pella pies the residents from Oil Ocean had given him, handing it to Tails. "Tails, take this and go eat it by that tree over there, okay?"
"Okay!" Tails grabbed this unexpected treat and bolted with it before Sonic had a chance to change his mind.
"Right." Sonic stared hard at Mighty. "I never, ever told Tails to throw his comic away or smash his toy. He did that on his own. I did rip up his comic, I'll admit to that – though I'm not proud of it – and he thought that if having to read it or see him play with his super cool Sonic fighter ship made me unhappy, then if he got rid of them I'd be happy again."
"Save it, Sonic." The armadillo shook his head. "My family are dead because of your so-called accident, and nothing you say is going to make that alright again!"
"They were my family too, Might," Sonic said quietly. "You think I'm proud of what happened?"
"I think it hasn't taken you long to cash in on it."
"And what else am I supposed to feed Tails on? Air?" Sonic folded his arms. "Forget it. I can't think why I ever expected you to understand."
"Oh, I understand just fine, Sonic," Mighty said, his voice now dangerously quiet. "I understand that you screwed up big time, you as good as murdered my family and now you're taking royalties on the media hype about it all! What I don't understand is how you could do something like that after all we've been through."
"And just what have we been through?" Sonic answered, his silky tones matching Mighty's perfectly. "Say what you like about Robotnik; if I hadn't stopped him he'd have wiped out everyone, you included! But I did it alone, Mighty, because nobody, not even my so-called best friend could be bothered to help me!"
Without waiting for a reply, he turned and stalked over to where Tails was watching the proceedings anxiously.
"C'mon squirt, let's go. We have to find somewhere to stay tonight."
"What 'bout our home?"
"Our home's going, kiddo. The agent phoned me while you were still asleep and told me he had someone who wanted to rent. We only stay in places while nobody needs them, you know that."
"Bu-but—" Tails' eyes were huge— "but what 'bout my toys, Sonic? If I'da known we were gonna move, I'da brought 'em with me. Can't we go an' get them? Please? I don't wanna lose more toys 'cause of someone moving into my home."
"Course we can, lil bro." Sonic squeezed Tails' shoulders. The little fox didn't have much in the way of toys – he had a tennis ball and, most importantly to him, a screwdriver so he could examine anything mechanical that took his fancy – but he did love the ones he had. The screwdriver in particular was his pride and joy; he had it on him somewhere.
"Okay!" Perking up again, Tails pointed. "Can we stay there?"
Sonic followed the little fox's finger and snorted. 'There' was a hotel, one of the most exclusive in the Zone and the one which also had direct access to the water park Sonic had promised to take Tails to.
Still, at least this way they'd both be happy. Tails could have the park and Sonic could have…could have…well, he thought there must be some kind of activity which didn't involve H2O.
"C'mon then," he said aloud to Tails, who yipped with delight and led the way into the hotel reception, which was deserted.
"Ooh, look!" Excited, Tails flew over to the wall. "I never seen one of these before!"
"Yeah," Sonic said distractedly. The only thing that got Tails that excited (apart from a big meal or a trip to the movies) was something electrical, and therefore something not interesting to the hedgehog, although he had to admit he did find it fascinating to watch Tails work on some of these things.
Then he suddenly remembered what happened to electrical objects that Tails had never seen before and whirled. "Tails—"
Too late. The object in question now lay in chips around the little fox's feet, and he was still burrowing into it eagerly.
Turning back, Sonic came face to face with a sparrow and forced a grin. "Hi. I was wondering if you had a spare room?"
"We do indeed." The sparrow called up a list on his computer, tapped a few keys and then looked back at Sonic. "That will be twenty Mobiums for the night and seventy nine and a half Mobiums for the CCTV camera."
"I c'n fix it," Tails offered, holding up his screwdriver as evidence.
"No, kiddo," Sonic said with a sigh as he handed over five twenty Mobium notes and took the keycard with a thankyou. "C'mon lil bro, let's go check out our room."
Aware that he'd messed up again, Tails padded after the hedgehog despondently, stopping outside as Sonic inserted the keycard and opened the door.
"Uh." Tails squirmed. "I think I'm gonna go play in the water park, Sonic; they got a real good wave machine an'—"
"Inside," Sonic ordered, pointing.
"Or mebbe I could ride the slides—"
"Inside."
"Though the whirlpool looks pretty cool too, so—"
"Inside."
With a singularly martyred expression, Tails obeyed as Sonic followed him in, shut the door, turned around and held out his hand.
"The screwdriver, Tails."
Tails squirmed. "But Sonic—"
"Now."
The little fox hesitated. "But it's the on'y one I got an'...an' I promise not to do anything bad with it but please can't I keep it?"
"I'm not going to throw it away, squirt. But if you want to take something apart, you gotta ask me first, okay?"
Tails looked down at his beloved screwdriver, then up at Sonic again. "You promise you're not gonna throw it away?"
"I promise."
"I really coulda put the cam'ra thing back together."
"I know you could, kiddo, but other people don't know how good you are at building things. Give me the screwdriver, please."
With an expression that suggested he was tearing out his very soul, Tails placed the tool in Sonic's outstretched hand, ears flat.
"Thankyou." Sonic tucked it into his bag, then ruffled the fur between Tails' ears. "Don't look so sad, lil bro."
"You'd look sad if someone took away your on'y screwdriver, Sonic."
"I'm not taking it away; I'm looking after it for you to stop it getting damaged and to stop you using it to cost me any more money."
Tails giggled. "But you got loadsa money, Sonic, 'member?"
"Yeah, but I won't if you keep costing me, will I?" Sonic winked at him.
Tails' face cleared. "Oh yeah. Hey Sonic, c'n we go play in the pool now?"
"You can. I'm not getting within fifty feet of that water, Tails, you know that."
"Okay!" Tails grabbed Sonic's hand and pulled him downstairs and over to a sun lounger. "You c'n stay right here!" He hesitated. "Though...mebbe you wanna swimming lesson, huh?" He looked up hopefully.
Sonic shook his head. "No thanks. I'm fine on dry land."
"It's real cool, Sonic."
"No, Tails."
Tails subsided. He knew Sonic would love the water when he got into it and went down slides and started playing and stuff, but he'd never quite forgotten Sonic's reaction in Aquatic Ruin Zone when he'd tried to get the hedgehog to swim with him.
Still, there was nothing to worry about right now…Sonic had whumped ol' Robotnik again and Tails had helped! Boy, he just wished the mean kids in Emerald Hill Zone knew that!
In the meantime, however, there was water to play in, and that was all that mattered to the little fox. Robotnik was well and truly whumped and he wasn't gonna come back to Westside Island, not never!
Tails lay back in the water, floating on his back with a smile of pure happiness. Better yet, some of the other kids in the Zone wanted to play with him! Tails' eyes drifted shut and he dreamed, wondering if he'd get to whump ol' Robotnik again and what Sonic was gonna do now.
While he was still trying to puzzle it out, he fell asleep.
Okay...Metropolis Zone, the one I was most looking forward to and dreading at the same time :P It also beats Hill Top Zone by another four pages…given then length of the Zone in the game, I guess that's not surprising ;)
Forestalling potential remarks, I'd like to point out that I was going to include the part where Sonic leaps over a lake of lava from spear block to spear block, but you know what? In all my times of playing Metropolis (over and over trying to get it for this chapter, thank Sega and the Emeralds for Level Select codes ;)) I've only ever found that part once and no matter where I went or how much I explored I always found the end of the level before I found the lake of fire :( Sorry guys. I basically just played the whole Zone through one morning and took notes on everything else I saw and what happened and turned it into this chapter :P Including Tails sinking that block...
This one turned out so long I did wonder whether or not to post it as two separate chapters (so much so that I even wrote the Metropolis Zone separately to the rest of it) but I think it's okay like this :) Sky Chase will be along very shortly :D