It had been months since Sonic defeated and banished the insane scientist known as Doctor Robotnik to the Mushroom Planet with help from police officer Tom "Donut Lord" Wachowski and his wife Maddie "Pretzel Girl. In that time, Sonic had been adopted by Tom and Maddie and made another new friend.
Just weeks after the energetic blue hedgehog moved in with Tom and Maddie, his life changed when he came face to face with someone from his world in the form of young two tailed fox Miles Tails Prower. Sonic and Tails became buds the day they met, leading to Tom and Maddie deciding to take in Tails as well.
Now, it was December and Winter had set in, almost all of Green Hills was blanketed in snow. Because of the snow, it made getting ready for Christmas harder for Tom. Thankfully, they had snowplows and Sonic to help out, all thanks to his super speed.
One frosty Monday morning, just days before Christmas, Tom and Sonic were slowly treading their way through the snow, hauling in a Christmas tree after a trip to the local tree farm. Thankfully, Crazy Carl and Tails had offered to help out. Sonic, despite being covered in fur, was shivering in the freezing weather a little bit.
"How are we doin', Sonic?" Tom asked as they finished hauling the tree towards the house.
Sonic kept his teeth from chattering long enough to say, "Doin' great, Donut Lord. You're darn good at liftin' pretty heavy stuff, then again, it's too bad you don't have any very extraordinary superpowers compared to me."
"I don't need superpowers." The donut eating Green Hills town cop grunted, "I'm fine with helping anybody as a regular cop guy." He laughed, "Me with superpowers, after seeing you run at high speed, the next thing people are gonna wish is that I could shoot energy beams from my eyes or have claws come out of my knuckles."
"Or Maddie could move things with her mind." Crazy Carl suggested, he'd been listening in on Sonic and Tom's chat as they neared the house.
"Why are we suddenly talking about fictional superpowers?" Tails asked, "Sounds like something from a comic book or a movie based on a comic book."
"Hey." Tom chuckled, "Lookin' at Sonic and his super speed, that's certainly almost like somethin' out of a comic. C'mon, he's like the Flash and Quicksilver combined."
"Now that you mention it, I have some DC Flash comics in my cave." Sonic said, "I never thought it would be possible to compare moi to a fictional superhero, well, a lot is possible from where I'm from. C'mon, Tails has, well, two tails."
As the group reached the house where Maddie was waiting for them, Tom commented that, until he met Sonic, he never thought in a decade that talking alien woodland creatures were real and there was a world full of them out there. Maddie helped her husband and the others carry the tree into the house, grabbed the tree stand and set up the tree gently.
"Well, that takes care of that." Crazy Carl tipped his hat, "It was a pleasure hangin' out with the likes of Sonic again." He winked at the blue hedgehog and walked off, "Until next time, blue devil."
Sonic chuckled, "No problem, Crazy Carl.
Over the next couple days leading up to Christmas, Sonic and Tails helped Tom and Maddie set up the tree and the Christmas lights and get some Christmas shopping done in a short period of time. Thanks to Sonic, the Wachowskis were able to get most of the Christmas set up almost all in a single day at one point.
However, little did everyone know of what this Christmas was going to bring. One Christmas Eve morning, Sonic and Tails awoke in the blue hedgehog's cave up in the attic to find that the house was relatively quiet and nobody else was around. This spooked the daylights out of Sonic, where did Tom and Maddie go?
When the duo looked outside, they noticed that the car was still there. Maybe the couple went out for a wintery walk and were taking a while to come home, maybe for the first time, something big happened and Tom was on cop duty. Heck, what if Maddie had decided to take up cop training. This didn't make sense; Pretzel Girl was a veterinarian!
"Man, this is spooky." Sonic muttered.
"Chilling too." Tails added, "S-Sonic? What if someone kidnapped them?"
The hedgehog and the fox decided to look outside for clues and found foot prints in the snow, indicating that someone must've came and, to judge by the markings, there must've been a struggle.
Both Tails and Sonic looked inside the mail box and were surprised to find a note inside, Sonic unfolded the paper and his eyes widened as he read it...
Remember me, hedgehog? I'm back and I never forgot you. Because of you, I was stuck on that Mushroom Planet for months and you may be wondering where Tom and Maddie are.
You see, I have kidnapped them. Why?
TO LURE YOU OUT SO I CAN HAVE MY REVENGE! If you want them badly, COME TO MY SNOW FORTRESS! I'll be seeing you soon!
-Doctor Robotnik
P.S, the directions are on the back of this paper. Don't keep me waiting...
"How did Eggman find a way off the Mushroom Planet?" Sonic questioned, eyes wide with shock. After beating Robotnik, he never thought he'd have to hear from that lunatic again. But now, that loony scientist out to dominate the world with the speedster's own powers was back and wanted revenge.
"I have a real bad feeling about this." Tails said with a shiver. Sonic turned the paper over, finding a picture of Eggman along with instructions on how and where to find Robotnik's Snow Fortress. The place was outside of town, somewhere in the mountains, not too very far from here. Sonic clenched his fist; the doc was so going to regret this one.
"Well, Tails." The hedgehog turned to face his two tailed companion, "We got work to do, nobody kidnaps my family. Last time, this was really serious. This time, it's personal and more serious. We know what to do, it seems Robuttnik still wants my powers and so we're gonna make it clear that he will NEVER be able to harness MY powers."
Sonic sped off at high speed with Tails right behind him, his two tails spinning faster than ever. The hedgehog held on to the letter and the map, remembering the directions on where to go. The two of them sped through the snow-covered town, racing across snow-covered grassland all the way up to the mountains not too far off.
The sky was clear and blue with very few gray clouds up above, the sun was shining but it was a bit small, especially since it was the cold days of winter when Earth was far from the sun. The only times the sun was close was in Spring, Summer and in the very early days of Autumn, the sun got further away a bit in the later days of Autumn before Winter started.
In just a matter of minutes, Sonic and Tails could see a towering metal structure up ahead in a valley empty of any plant life. The structure was shaped like the face of someone with a big moustache and had white eyes, the top was decorated with chimneys spewing smoke into the sky and the place seemed to be guarded by new attack robots.
"You all ready, Tails?" Sonic asked his foxy pal.
"Pretty much." The fox replied sheepishly.
"Let's do it to it."
The hedgehog blasted towards the fortress at top speed, knowing that it was definitely Doctor Robotnik's Snow Fortress and the doctor was waiting inside. The robots guarding the facility spotted Sonic and Tails coming for them and opened fire ready, but the speedster slowed down time long enough to trash the robots before they fired their guns.
Filled with determination, Sonic blasted through the front doors and inside the fortress, Tails right behind him. The metallic hallways looked huge and intimidating, the work of a true madman and, of course, the madman was the crazy Doctor Robotnik. Music echoed its way through the halls, 1970s era music at that.
Heck, Sonic seemed to recognize the music, it was the strangely well-known song 'Where Evil Grows' by the Popeye Bros and 'Where Evil Grows' was part of the Tunes of Anarchy sound track. Did Robotnik listen to that from time to time a lot in the years he was plotting up something nasty, even before Sonic came and banished him to the Mushroom Planet?
Hearing and following the sound of the song, Sonic smashed his way through a door into a humongous room filled with advanced tech, finding a tall and fat man in a suit with a huge moustache and wearing glasses just waiting for him. Close by, Tom and Maddie were tied up and bound to some kind of table and they were groaning in pain.
Sonic noticed a jukebox-looking machine near the device holding his foster parents hostage and began realizing that this crazy man had the song playing on that jukebox machine at full volume, torturing the couple. Tails caught up to the blue hedgehog just as the big man in the room chuckled maniacally.
"WAH HA HA HA HA!" Robotnik cackled, "It's been quite some time since we last came face to face, hedgehog! HAPPY CHRISTMAS TO YOU AND YOUR SILLY LITTLE family. I've been waiting for you, welcome to my fortress. I take it that you received my letter?"
"We sure did, Ro-butt-nik." Sonic retorted, "I dunno how you got off the Mushroom Planet, but you got a lot of guts for someone like you to kidnap my family, especially on a day like Christmas Eve. You better let my family go right now or I'm not going easy on you."
"HOW DARE YOU CALL ME THAT?!" An angry Robotnik yelled, "YOU'RE GOING TO REGRET MOCKING ME STRANDED ON A PLANET SURROUNDED BY MUSHROOMS AND YOU MADE ME TEAR EVERY INCH OF HAIR FROM MY LOVELY BALD HEAD, SONIC!"
"Th-this guy r-r-really scares me, S-S-Sonic." Tails whimpered, "C-Can we really take him on, e-e-es-especially since h-h-he's r-r-r-real angry a-a-at you f-for wh-what you did to him b-b-before I-I showed u-up here on th-th-this world?"
Sonic pat Tails on the head, assuring him they would get out of this and save Tom and Maddie, a laughing Robotnik pressed a red button and a humongous robot appeared, the doctor climbed a series of steps leading into the pilot's seat of the machine and sat down, pressing more buttons and the big Robotnik Bot came alive.
"WAH HA HA!" The doctor declared, "I WILL MAKE YOU SUFFER AS I HAVE SUFFERED, PINCUSHION. All organic life will be eradicated, paving the way for a world ruled by me and an empire of machines. I will dominate the universe and annihilate those who defy my will, MY DREAM WILL BE REALIZED AND YOU WILL FALL PAINFULLY!"
Prepared for combat, Sonic breathed to calm himself and called upon all the energy he could muster as his entire body glowed with blue power, even his green eyes glowed as well. He took Tails' hand and the fox started glowing as well, the two friends stood strong in the face of adversity as they faced the insane madman seeking vengeance.
Robotnik slammed on a button and fired a series of missiles at Sonic and Tails, determined to wipe them out of existence, only to miss as the speedster and his ally dodged and charged straight at the mecha. Time slowed down all around the duo thanks to Sonic's powers, freezing everything in place and allowing them to strike Robotnik's robot.
He launched a homing attack against the knees and smashed them one-by-one before striking the missile launchers, Sonic and Tails swarmed the mech and smashed it slowly but surely all the way up to the head and bashed it up. As time returned to normal, the mech crashed down and an angry Robotnik spilled out in a robot flier.
"NO! NO! NO!" The doctor raged, grabbing his bushy moustache, stomping his foot and smacking the control console. "I CAN'T BELIEVE WHAT JUST HAPPENED!" He yelled, "I'VE BEEN HUMILIATED AGAIN! I'll be back, THIS ISN'T OVER, I'll build more robots and I WILL achieve my dream of a GLORIOUS machine empire! Until next time, hedgehog… and FOX!"
Sonic got the chills hearing the venom in Robotnik's rage-filled voice even after the insane lunatic had left the room and the base's self-destruct sequence activated, the hedgehog and Tails quickly worked on freeing Tom and Maddie, successfully saving them from the machine and destroying the active jukebox playing "Where Evil Grows".
The Wachowskis were dazed but were still healthy, even after being kidnapped. Sonic and Tails scooped them up and ran out of the base at high speed, making sure to get enough distance between them and the base as possible in order to avoid being caught in the blast.
The four made it to the top of the hills, watching as Robotnik's Snow Base blew up in an incredible scene that would've made for an interesting scene in a movie. Tom and Maddie stood with Sonic and Tails, the cop and the veterinarian sharing a tender kiss and expressing their relief that they were OK thanks to the duo of Sonic and Tails.
"Thanks, Sonic!" Tom said, "Man, I never thought we'd hear from Robotnik again. Hopefully, we'll be prepared for something like this next time." Sonic shrugged and, together, he, Tails and the Wachowskis headed home to rest and get some breakfast...
The End