Chapter Two

A Nack for Trouble

Near the center of South Island there are ancient ruins of a forgotten civilization but they are still dangerous. There are booby traps throughout the ruins and the place is plagued by lava pits that had decimated the lost civilization. The populous of the island stay away from the marble ruin structures due to the dangers in the area, but this doesn't concern a certain hedgehog from entering the ruins.

Sonic had followed his new foe, Dr. Ivo Robotnik, into the ruins and he was on the border between Green Hill and the ruins that were before him. He just had his first skirmish with Robotnik and he had acquired his first Chaos Emerald, but he's unsure how many more there are on the island.

"Why did Eggman have to come here?" Sonic asked himself as he surveyed the ruins. "I mind as well go into these ruins since I've seen Eggman go into them."

Sonic took off down the hill with his incredible speed and into the ruins. He only stops when he came to a pool of lava in front of him.

"What's that smell?" he asked as he sniffed the air and it was coming from the lava. He then started to gag on the smell, "How can something like this smell like rotten Flicky eggs!"

He tried to hold his breath and jump onto an island in the middle of the lava but that only proved futile since he was still gagging on the smell coming from the lava. However when he did this it caught on fire and he had to jump to the shore on the other side. Sonic was just catching his breath when the ground gave way and he landed in an underground cavern.

"Great," he sarcastically muttered as he dusted pieces of earth that hit his head. "Just what I needed, me playing the role of a mole."

Sonic takes a nearby torch and uses it as his light source as the trudged through the darkness of the cavern. He didn't know how long he'd been in the cavern and he thankfully didn't meet anything that went bump in the night within the cavern. After some time in the darkness, he came across a hole in the ceiling with sunlight coming through it.

Sonic let out a sigh while dropping the torch, "Here's my way out." Sonic then heard something and he turned to the source. "What was that?" he asked himself just as a shadow came over the light. "Huh?" he said and he looks down at the shadow. The shadow looked like a silhouetted bat. "Hey!" he shouted at the silhouetted figure above him as he shook his fist at it. "Go back to Gotham City! I think I hear the Joker calling you!"

"I'm not the one in which you speak of," a metallic, monotonic voice spoke as the figure flew down and hung itself upside-down on a low ledge folding its wings. It was a bat with a jet where his tail was supposed to be. "So you are the one Dr. Robotnik speaks of? You don't look as troublesome as the Doctor says."

"Well," Sonic replied while chuckling, "he doesn't know this Hedgehog well enough."

"Now," the bat spoke again while ignoring Sonic's comment as the lights came on revealing more robots. There were more of those mutant wasps, more bats, and some kind of worm-like robot with spikes on it. "I think it is time that we said good-bye."

Then the sound of a chain being released was heard and Sonic looked up to see a spiked trap coming towards him. He dodged out of the way, but only into another trap. As he continued to dodge while the robots laughed at his predicament, more traps were sprung as iron weights fell from the sky and as the ground began to crumble under the pressure from the falling traps revealing lava underneath them. As another spiked trap fell, Sonic got on top of it this time and rode it into the air. He came across one of the spiny worms and attacks it with his Sonic Spin. However, it turns around allowing Sonic to hit its spines and he yelped in pain. The Sonic Spin did destroy it as it separated while the robot laughed at Sonic's pain, but stopped when his circuits from his head were grabbed by Sonic and was slammed into the ground by Sonic releasing the trapped animal.

The wasps then started to attack Sonic while he was on the ledge, but Sonic ran towards them jumping off the ledge at them. He started to rebound off them one by one using his Sonic Spin as he destroyed them as they tried to attack him. They missed him either hitting the worm-like robots, the bats, or one of their own. After roughly fifteen minutes of being a hedgehog pinball, they were all destroyed and Sonic exited through the ceiling of the cavern.

He moaned as he rubbed his head after he got to the surface, "Note to self: get used to smashing robots with your Sonic Spin and," he moans again as he grabs his head with both hands as his balance wavered, "get used to spinning for a long time," while his face turned a shade of green.

As he was getting his balance back and his head stopped hurting, a cocking sound was heard and he felt something cold against the back of his neck. Sonic instinctively put his hands in the air.

"Now mate," the one behind him spoke and with an accent foreign to Sonic, "hand over that pretty gem that you have and you'll live."

"Who are you and I don't know what gem you are talking about?" Sonic asked with a hint of fear in him since there was an unknown weapon pointed at the base of his head.

"The name's Nack, Nack the Weasel, and you have a gem that I want. Don't try anything you'll regret since I've seen you with that gem a few minutes ago. So, hand it over and tell me where the others are."

Sonic's mind began to race. What would this weasel want with the Chaos Emeralds and does he work for Robotnik? As he continued to think, the figure moved and was now in front of Sonic with the barrel of a shooting iron aimed between his eyes. The weasel was purple with leather gloves, boots, belt, and a hat with the brim tilted towards the sky and what seemed like crocodile teeth on a string surrounding the place where the brim meets the top of the hat.

"I'm not going to ask you again!" Nack spoke again but this time with more force. "Give me the gem and the locations of the others!"

Before Sonic could answer, an explosion threw them backwards onto the ground and a swarm of buzzing sounds were heard from above.

"There he is!" it was more of those wasps from before and they were charging up their stingers for another attack.

They unleashed their attack but missed as both Sonic and Nack dodged the attacks. Sonic ran towards them as he dodged their attacks, but they left Nack alone since they were concentrated on Sonic. Nack started to attack them with his shooting iron, but by doing so; some turned their attention to him. One by one they fell as Sonic dodged their attacks as he countered with an attack on his own while Nack used his crooked tail as a spring allowing him to get into the air. Sonic jumped into a circle of the wasps just as they charged up for another attack. They missed hitting one another freeing the animals that were trapped.

"Now," as Nack destroyed the last of the robots, "where were we?" he turns towards the last location of Sonic as he cracks a vile grin, but finds that he's no longer there. "Where'd you go?" his question was answered by a strong guest of wind that spun around him. After the wind settled, he finds that he's hog-tied by several wires from the robots with his hands and feet behind him.

"Sorry to leave you all tied up, Nack," Sonic spoke as he stretched his legs and ran in place, "but I have an appointment with a doctor. By the way, Crocodile Dundee," he added taking off Nack's hat examining it. "I suggest you return the croc's teeth before he goes looking for you," Sonic continued before he threw Nack's hat to the ground and sped off over the next hill as Nack growled in frustration while he struggled to get free from his bounds.

Sonic ran over hills and jumped across lava pits until he stops on top of a large hill to find Robotnik in the distance near one of his Prison Eggs.

"There you are!" Sonic said as he sped off, but the ground gave way and he landed on his head. "OW! Again!" as he rubbed his head and he saw a golden light. It was another one of those enormous rings that he had seen in Green Hill. He touches it and he was transported elsewhere.

After a few minutes in another crazy place and being a hedgehog pinball again, Sonic emerged victorious with another Chaos Emerald beside the pit that he fell into. He stares at the Emerald before it too vanishes into his glove like the previous one.

"Now to get out of this… huh?" Sonic looked up assuming that he was still in the pit, but he was now besides the pit. "Never mind that! Eggman, here I come!" as he ran off towards Robotnik.

He runs towards Robotnik and stops near a lava pit where Robotnik is; however, Sonic's senses were overrun again by the smell of the burning lava.

"Give it up, Eggman! You can't outrun this Hedgehog!" Sonic shouted trying not to gag on the smell again

"You again?" Robotnik shouted as he placed a hand on the side of his head.

He then presses a button and his pod converts into another form. It looked the same except that it had a small attachment on the underside of the vehicle.

"This time I'll end your life!" as the underside of the pod aims itself towards Sonic and fires a fireball at him.

Sonic dodges the attack and lands on one of the islands in the middle of the pit. Robotnik launched another and another fireball at Sonic as he let out a vile laugh. More and more of the islands became inflamed by the fire until there was only one left leaving Sonic stranded in the middle of the lava pit.

"You're out of options, rodent!" as Robotnik fired another shot.

Sonic jumps towards Robotnik and unleashes a Sonic Spin that allowed him to bounce off Robotnik's pod and land safely on the ground outside of the lava pit. His attack also sent the pod out of control as it crashed into the lava pit and Robotnik had to abandon his attachments to flee and fight another day. Sonic destroys the Prison Egg and ran after Robotnik.

"Come back here! You oversized egg!"

Sonic had just dealt Robotnik his second defeat and Sonic needs to stay on his toes. Will Robotnik find out that Sonic has already acquired two of who knows how many Chaos Emeralds of South Island? What of Nack the Weasel? Will he be able to get the information out of Sonic over the location of the other Emeralds, or will Nack fail in his attempts at getting these 'pretty gems.' What other crazy adventure will Sonic go through next, and what other contraptions does Robotnik have up his sleeve? These questions and more will be answered in the next exciting chapter of A Hero is Born.

Post Author's Note: I know, I know, that Nack the Weasel is not in this game, but I needed a third party after the Emeralds instead of the usual Robotnik wants Emeralds, Sonic pursues, and Sonic succeeds. I also changed Robotnik's attack so that it would look a little more exciting instead of having him over his target.