Disclaimer on chapter 1

Chapter 7: the Roads above Station Square

It was well past night time when Sonic had eventually made it to town (that labyrinth was out in the middle of no where, no surprise and it was already sunset when Sonic had gotten out). The city was unlike any of towns or villages Sonic had seen before. Bright lights in a multitude of neon lit varieties covered each building. There where the sounds of the strange vehicles known as hover cars, and the humming noise they made. Various Mobians and Humans walked the streets. The where restaurants, shops, casinos and a various amount of other things. Sonic was in awe for the first few minutes. If it hadn't been for a rude, loudmouthed, large green crocodile accidentally shoving him as rushing past, chasing some kind of fly, yelling "STOP YA CROOK!" Sonic would have forgotten what he was here for.

"Crook… hey yeah… I got to ask about Eggman…" He muttered as he got up. It was rather late into the night by the time Sonic had been able to get any information on Eggman. Apparently robots had been seen on one of the upper highways called "Starlight Highway"

"Has to be Eggman" Sonic thought to himself as he rushed up there to meet him.

When he got to the highway, he was as much in awe as he was when he got to into station square. The Highway had not been used for years, ever since a car accident of some kind, and now it was only used by pedestrians, especially stargazers due as it was such a good vantage point. There where lots of lights, true, but they had a small, warm, yet soft feel, no brighter than a nightlight. It wasn't long before he was interrupted though, as a couple new badniks appeared in front of him. Sonic was curious of them at first. They didn't seem to attack in any way, just walk slowly towards him. Odd little things red, with grey helmets and blue legs. They seemed to have a large pointy stick poking out the top of them. It wasn't before they got into stepping distance that Sonic jumped away. He thought it was going to use some sort of weapon to attack him. He was wrong he realised.

BOOM

The small badnik blew up, and the shockwave pushed Sonic away, into a lamp post.

"WOW" he yelped as he was thrown back into a wall. "… ok I think I will stay away from them" he muttered to himself.

XOXOX

"That was a Close one…" Eggman said as he panted "He almost had me."

The Doctor was closing in on his front line base. The Penton street office building, just off of the Starlight Highway. It was a large building that had once been a newspaper office. But now Eggman owned it, and the printing rooms where perfect for his miniature Badnik production lines. And what's more no one knew it was Dr. Eggman who owned the building, as he had bought it with his real name, Dr. Ivo Robotnik. He was lucky everyone had forgotten about the ARK thing, and who his grandfather was. It had been well covered up by the government. Now Ivo was following in his grandfather's footsteps, trying to conquer the world with the power at his disposal. The power of Science.

The Badniks being made here just now where low quality however. Uni-Unis, a variant on the Unidus that couldn't throw its spike balls. This meant that it was harder to destroy as the spikes protected it, but its only form of attack would be to fly into something, and at its slow speed, that was unlikely. The other was the bangs, exploding robots. Their attack potential was enormous, but the problem was, it could only attack once, and then it was gone in its own kamikaze blast, which wasn't good as it meant he had to constantly make new ones to replace the ones that blew up.

"Report" he told the Uni-uni next to him.

"SIR, NO WORD ON EMERALD YET" it declared

"What could be taking so long?"

"SIMILAR PROBLEMS AS IN SPRING YARD TOWN. REFLECTIVE ROADWAY, REFLECTING CHAOS ENERGY"

"But the entire Highway is made of the same stuff!"

"AFFIRMATIVE, HENCE THE PROBLEM"

"GAH! Any word on Sonic?"

"HE CAME TO STATION SQUARE LOOKING FOR YOU; HE IS NOW ON THE HIGHWAY."

"OH NO! Quick, get my Egg Bomber ready! I won't be taken by surprise by him this time." Said the doctor as he went to think

"This hedgehog is getting to be a real pain in the behind… could it be possible that I won't be able to beat him?" he pondered, and then laughed at it "HA! No one can beat me, why should I even conceive the idea of him beating me!"

Then another idea came into his head "… I could beat him… but he is so powerful…" he grinned "… maybe I should convince him to JOIN me instead!"

XOXOX

Sonic found that the highway, while nice to look at, was as dangerous as some of the other places he had been. For some reason there where see-saws with spike balls on them all over, fans which could blow you off portions of it, and of course the bomb badniks with their planetoid friends. Similar to the things in the underwater maze, but they didn't launch the orbiting spikeballs at him.

This meant they didn't become defenceless which was annoying as he couldn't free the animals inside. He would have to come to them later, just now he felt it more important to find those other three chaos emeralds. He thought that since there had been badniks in the other areas he found emeralds, maybe it was because they where looking for the stones, and so he wanted to find them before Eggman's buddies did. But unfortunately he hadn't found any yet. He had noticed that the badniks where more densely populated in two directions. One was towards the end of the highway, where he figured the canister was so therefore Eggman may be waiting there. The other was to the centre of the highway. That was more interesting as that may be where the emerald was, so he headed in that direction. He eventually came to a building with a big billboard on it reading "Penton Building". Sonic assumed that was the name of the building. However what he found interesting was that, coming out of the top, where more planetoids.

"That must be it!" he said to himself "That's where the Emerald is!" he jumped up the fire escape to get through a window and into the building to get inside. Once inside he found the place was deserted, except for the random badnik. He found this odd as it seemed to be an office, why would an office be empty? Sure there where badniks around, but there where a number of closed doors. The badniks in this area had no hands to open the doors so surely there would be people who preferred to hide inside than run a gauntlet.

Something did not make sense. This was reinforced in Sonic's mind as, while he went deeper, the amount of badniks intensified. It wasn't long before he found out why. There was one door in the building that was harder to open. Sonic had to use his spinning thing to get through it. When he got inside, he found a biggish room, inside which was machinery. And the machinery was making more bombs and plant things.

"Time to put a stop to this!" he exclaimed as he started smashing the machinery. Bit by bit it flew apart until none of it was left. This was going to be bad for Eggman's operation.

"So that's why the badniks where here… this must be owned by Eggman." Sonic muttered. Then he thought to himself "Isn't there an old saying, about… 'Know they enemy'?" he smirked. It was a good idea. He could explore this building and see if there was anything that could tell him more about Eggman and his plans. And most importantly to stop his attempt at world conquest.

Sonic rushed out of the room and up to the top floor, where he expected the "boss's office" which was probably where Eggman kept all the information. It was easy to find the office. The top floor itself was taken up by most of it.

He was surprised by the look of the room. It basically looked similar to what you would expect the office in president's house to look like. Large. And with a desk in the middle, a red carpet leading up to it.

Sonic approached the desk, assuming what ever information he wanted would be on it. And considering the fact that Eggman, too this point seemed to think he was invincible, it was rather unlikely he kept it all under lock and key.

He searched a few drawers. Nothing. He checked a few books on the desk. Nothing. So he was left with the computer.

He grumbled. He hadn't had much luck with technology as far as he could remember. He woke up in a plan he couldn't fly, and had to fight robotic animals. He got run over the first time he pressed a button on the containment unit and his opponent seemed to have machines and traps by the gallon. So it stood to reason that he would be rather hesitant in using a new piece of technology that was probably alien to him. He shoved the mouse a little, making sure it wasn't booby trapped. The screen fizzed as the computer came out of sleep mode. He shook the mouse to make sure it worked properly. The cursor on the screen shook with the mouse.

"Everything seems to be working" Sonic said softly to himself as he sat down. He was in luck too; the computer was logged on and unlocked already. No need for password. Good thing too. Because on top of just trying to work this thing, all Sonic would have needed was to go nuts having to hack a password. After a good few minutes he figured out how to open the "my documents" folder. It was then he hit password protection. All except for one file marked "Deed". He opened it and saw some interesting facts. One in particular, the name, which was not "Dr. Eggman" but "Dr. Ivo Robotnik"

"Robotnik… why does that sound familiar…?" Sonic asked himself. He shrugged and closed down the computer. There was nothing else on it he could use, and since the badnik making machinery was now gone, there was nothing keeping him here, so he decided to head towards the other epicentre of badniks, hoping to find a chaos emerald on the way…