The sky dimmed as clouds muted the sun from the world. Mountains rose in Sonic's sight as he entered the location known as the Marble Zone. Though it didn't seem like anything here was actually made of that material.
The ruins here were made of some purple rock instead. Those remnants from a far more ancient time littered the landscape, crumbling but still standing as a testament to those who came before. Furthermore, as Sonic ran across it, he noted that the grass grew in two varieties giving an odd striped pattern of light and dark.
But enough of his attention was given to the landscape and Sonic headed towards the badniks, familiar and new, littering the landscape. Buzz Bombers, the firefly like robots flew into position. Their stingers were instead energy cannons shooting a rain of lasers down at the hedgehog while Caterkillers, long spiked worm badniks crawled slowly across the ground. The caterpillar-based badniks were confident, for a robot that their spikes would protect from any rolling hedgehog assault.
Sonic for his part jumped and curled up into a spinning ball of spines, his trajectory ending up smashing into the robots. The hedgehog timed his impacts to avoid being skewered by the spikes upon the Caterkillers. The aftermath was a trail of squirrels left to scurry away to freedom. Though the way they made Olympic style rodent leaps to avoid being roast squirrel had an unusual form of grace.
Furthermore, the hedgehog gained height bouncing off the enemies like platforms to land on some more ridges of purple brick. He wobbled before firmly planting his feet on the ground. There was hardly any time to take a breath as the grass suddenly caught aflame! Sonic's weight on the ground had sunk the stone island enough that the grass touched the lava moat and caught fire.
That fire began to spread all over the surface of the platform. Sonic raced forward to escape being burned, leaping to wreck distance and badniks and soaring over fireballs that just shot out of the lava at random. It was all down hill from here and Sonic had to pause to gain some speed to cross over several rings of lava moats.
As he leapt over a chasm before the moats, he looked back and saw there was a hidden chamber behind him within the chasm. It made sense; this was an ancient area of ruins; secret rooms and passages should be littering the place.
Eventually however Sonic's way forward was soon blocked by a very tall wall of those very durable bricks made of that strange purple stone. Sonic curled into a spin dash hoping that he would be to grind a path through the wall. He found his quills were unable to make even a single scratch upon the material though.
However, Sonic wouldn't let a little thing like that stop him from thwarting Eggman. Remembering that he saw a secret room before getting to this wall, he looked around and saw the floor just behind him sinking into the ground slowly and steadily. What was revealed to the hedgehog was another passageway deep underground with a red glow coming from the depths.
He dived into the tunnel and was met with a giant blast of stale heat. Quills drooping, the hedgehog saw that he was now in some sort of underground tunnel the hot glow of lava providing the only source of light. Sonic blinked several times as even that reddish and yellow glow was occasionally cut off leaving the boy in periods of darkness.
Taking deep breaths, Sonic carefully ran through a gauntlet of mysterious piston machines with a patina of age moving stately up and down constantly for whatever unknown purpose. Once he past those pistons he found his light source wasn't blocked off anymore.
Then Sonic found his way barred yet again, but this time it was by some sort of metal platform covering another hole down to a lower level deeper into the tunnel system he found himself in. The hedgehog found the switch to pull the covering up and stepped on it to raise the platform, spotting its bottom had a nasty table of spikes. However, it couldn't be that simple and Sonic found he had to use a handy heavy block to keep the switch pressed down or else the platform would drop down before he could go any further.
Feeling pressed for time, Sonic raced forwards but sadly ran straight into a hidden spike trap. His collected rings scattered around him, the energy within shielding the hedgehog from serious injury. It still stung like nobody's business. Grumbling, Sonic dropped down picking up what few rings stuck around and found himself at the shore of a lake of lava.
"Great, now how am I supposed to cross?" The hedgehog tapped his foot looking all over for a way to advance, backtracking at this point would be meaningless cause there wasn't any other way around the wall that sent him here in the first place.
Surprisingly the answer made itself clear while Sonic was tapping his feet in puzzlement. Some purple invincible bricks began falling from the ceiling. They landed and floated on top of the lava, providing a path for the hedgehog to make his way across the lake of molten rock and searing heat.
Sonic's teeth ground together however as the blocks weren't helpful enough to fall down all at once but instead did so in a slow cascade. He rushed over the islands on the lava lake, feeling he was wasting enough time waiting around the lava lake. Sonic then found himself squished underneath a heavy counter weight to some mechanisms that dropped down out of nowhere.
Thankfully, his rings protected him, but Sonic did grumble at their loss and at the crushing weight that forced him onto his belly. Thankfully, the trap released its pressure on the hedgehog's body He pulled himself up, pushing with shaky arms and legs and kept on going, jumping up onto the only ledge in sight. At first, there were no other paths but a sudden drop of metal platform with rows of spikes on its underside allowed for the hedgehog to gain height.
It was a long slow climb up and out of the dungeon, made more annoying by bat like badniks swooping down every so often. But at least Sonic was able to get on the other side of the great purple wall and breathed that fresh air. Yet there no sign of Eggman then but the area claim signpost was just up ahead. Seizing the area from Eggman's control, the hedgehog went deeper into the ruins.
The remnants of a lost civilization raced past as Sonic made his way deeper into the Marble Zone. Blowing apart Buzz Bombers released some captive seals from their prison. But the hedgehog found his path led him inside one of the building complexes. Underground he had to deal with annoying lava moats, booby traps that fired jets of flame and even ran for his life against a racing flood of lava within the deepest level of the complex. To Sonic, the caterkillers were just overkill but the surprise spring that bounced him back into them was just nasty.
The hedgehog found himself in for a long wait to be carried across yet another lava moat, but at least it had the exciting feature of plumes of lava blasting the brick he used as a raft high into the air. Sonic found himself in the dimming afternoon light yet again but sadly due to the odd construction and ravages of time, he found himself needing to go back underground again with its slow inducing tunnels. Grumbling all the while, it came as a relief to the speedy hedgehog when he burst that container of protective energy. He raced the last few lengths of distance to the area signpost, laughing at lava, sudden drops of heavy spikes and the caterkillers with their sharp spines.
When Sonic entered the next area, his quills stood on end. He could feel the presence of Eggman in the air. He was totally going to show Eggman who's boss around here. Sonic made his way downhill, gathering some protective rings when he felt the floor drop down under him. The hedgehog's eyes raced to see another secret passage behind him and he gave an easy shrug. It didn't seem like going into those secret passages were doing any harm.
Sonic started having second thoughts when he encountered all the defenses within. Crushing weights and spikes, pitfalls into lava, badniks, and more of those turrets shooting balls of fire that singed uncomfortably close. Sonic had the thought earlier that Eggman hadn't really done much of anything inside these Marble Zone buildings. But with this sudden spike of booby traps, the hedgehog began to suspect that something was being guarded here. When Sonic spotted a corridor that led to nowhere but still had a spike trap installed, he had his interest and suspicions piqued. "Why would there be a trap at a dead end?" He said.
The blue hedgehog left over the spikes and promptly fell down the fake floor covering a long deep shaft. With a large splat and face plant, Sonic landed in what seemed to be a much older part of the buildings. It didn't seem there was any foot holds to jump back up. Thankfully there was another passage leading away from where he fell. Sonic however had to make his way slowly, what light that came from torches and lava above him faded away the deeper he went in. With one hand on the wall, he kept walking.
Not knowing how much time had passed, Sonic's eyes caught the smallest glimmer of light in the distance. Speeding up, Sonic ran and the speck became bigger until it was a full on rectangle. The hedgehog shielded his eyes from the sudden glare and his pupils widened at the sight inside.
It was a whole entire chamber filled with strange machinery, but what made this room's devices much difference was the change in complexity. The technology in this room seemed to be more modern and futuristic, beyond what Sonic had seen in the Marble Zone. Then there was something in the middle of the room seizing the hedgehog's attention. He wasn't alone in this room.
Floating upside down within a glass cylinder was a person. It looked like he was sleeping, a raccoon with gray fur and velvet colored facemask. Out of the boy's mouth drifted every occasionally bubbles that floated up in the fluid the raccoon was suspended. Sonic took a few hesitant steps forward, ears flicked to catch any change in sound. He came closer to the glass tube, and then silver eyes opened to meet black ones with hints of green. Sonic stumbled back at this sudden sight. "Whoa!" He said but crept closer. "Who're you?"
The raccoon blinked so Sonic knew that the person inside heard him. Then the hedgehog saw the raccoon's mouth move but no sound was heard on the part of Sonic. But the hedgehog Sonic realized whatever liquid this guy was in blocked out sound. The blue hedgehog came closer.
"Hey, you okay, Eggman didn't lock you up in here did he?" Sonic scanned down, seeing a bunch of mechanical controls, switches, dials and meters all of which made little sense to him. "Hold on 'kay I'm going to get you out of here." Sonic said, the surprising clean air barely aggravating his throat. He spotted a large red button, and from prior experience, something like that usually did something important. So Sonic pushed it and the machinery in the room rumbled softly.
Within the tube, the fluid clear and tinted slightly green drained slowly through a hidden grate. As the fluid level sank so did the captive inside sink with it. Eventually the raccoon was curled up at the bottom of the tube. The glass tube removed itself. The raccoon blinked several times at Sonic and there was an uncomfortable silence.
But the hedgehog repeated his question and got a garbled response from the raccoon that Sonic couldn't understand. "You alright there?" The former prisoner paused, forehead strained in thought and then said. "Yes.. Thank you for letting me out..." Sonic scratched at the back of his head. At first, it seemed like the raccoon didn't understand him but that didn't seem to be the case.
"I'm Sonic, Sonic the hedgehog. So who are you, and why were you in that thing?" Sonic pointed to the now deactivated machine. The raccoon's voice was soft and stumbled over the words, as if relearning to talk after so long being silent. "I'm Lens, and well.. Why I was in there... " Lens' voice cut off and had Sonic do something he disliked, waiting.
"Come on then." Sonic said, "why were you put in there?" He carelessly waved towards the machine remaining behind the raccoon. But there was no answer but Lens' gaze to the floor. The hedgehog scratched at his quills. "Well you don't have to say if you don't want to." Sonic said softly. "Do you know how to get out of here?" The raccoon's head popped up and gave a slow nod. He unsteadily got up to his feet and guided Sonic to another hidden passage behind the giant now de-active machine.
"Cool, now let's get out of here." Sonic said, racing into the tunnel. It was several meters before the hedgehog remembered, almost nobody could catch up to his speed. "Aw man" he sighed, leaving that kid just didn't sit right with the hedgehog. He turned back and saw that the kid was behind him, although breathing heavily and leaning on his knees. "Whoa you can keep up with me?" Sonic said in surprise.
"Not really " Lens said, wobbling from side to side. His voice still wasn't very loud but it was enough in the quiet air of the tunnel.
"Fine then" Sonic said and kept racing forward, but he did peek behind him to see how the raccoon was keeping up with his speed. It was an interesting way to move, Sonic could say that at least. The kid, well that was what the guy seemed to be didn't so much as move fast as to cross a larger distance per step. Then again, something as simple as that wouldn't have been enough to catch up to Sonic's speed. But at least it allowed Sonic to keep moving without worrying and that was good.
A light came at the end of the tunnel, well actually, a spring but it was able to send Sonic and then Lens upwards. The bricks raced past Sonic's sight and he saw they decreased in the wear of time as he rose higher. Sonic spotted light above him, it came through cracks though and the hedgehog saw that they were going to crash into a brick ceiling. He wouldn't let that happen and curled into a ball, rotating at high speed. His spines went and blasted the obstructing stone apart.
Sonic landed on his feet and one hand, while slightly behind him, Lens flopped onto the ground. "You okay, nothing broken?" Sonic asked. When the raccoon shook his head at the question, Sonic turned back to run forward yet again. However, there was one set of traps that got the hedgehog rather irritated. It was a series of spikes that alternated being sprung and retracted at different time periods. They forced him to stop and time his passage. "Boy, what I wouldn't give for a way to skip all these traps." While Sonic was always up for a little danger and excitement, all this waiting around wasn't in his style.
"Well..." Sonic turned back to Lens, who still following, spoke and pointed forward. "If, if I remember right. There's a hidden passage over there." Over there was a wall, and the only way to reach it was some helpful and dangerous giant spiked counterweights. Their tops doubled as platforms and Sonic used these to make his way over and crashed into the wall.
Loose bricks flew away from the impact, and Sonic followed by Lens bypassed many other traps through the hidden tunnel. Though the raccoon mentioned that the end of the tunnel led to the bottom a pit. Said pit had a trap with another bottom-spiked platform falling down to cover it. The two avoided it fairly easily only for Sonic to be further annoyed at the slow pace to avoid some booby-trapped stairs.
It got even more ridiculous with jets shooting balls of flames, batbrains that were small purple flying badniks swooping down every so often and the final spiked wall after crossing over a giant lake of lava from dangling counterweights was just one more small annoyance in this stifling dungeon.
But finally, Sonic breathed in the fresh air yet again and Lens staring out over the purple ruins, green grass and the rapidly fading cloudy blue sky. Then the raccoon just blinked and shook his head, looking towards Sonic. There was a trusting expression in the gray boy's eyes.
At first Sonic thought it would be the end of the kid following him once they had gotten outside. But the hedgehog just couldn't leave this raccoon kid out here, all alone looking so lost. He was pretty sure if he did leave, Lens would end up in trouble pretty quickly. "Ah come on then." Sonic rushed off slipping over lava moats that continued to shoot balls of flame for some reason, dutifully followed by the raccoon.
Then a familiar ugly mug showed up. "Eggman!" Sonic said with fist clenched. "You aren't getting away this time." Eggman merely laughed at this declaration of war. The doctor was in a new Egg-mobile model. This time it had a cone like attachment on its very bottom.
"Hahahaha Sonic I see you picked up a straggler, but it will hardly make a difference. Now prepared to be flash fried by my Egg-mobile M!" Eggman floated over to the platform where Sonic was. The hedgehog caught the doctor's machine in a parting shot as he jumped over the gap of lava.
The Egg-mobile M wobbled from the impact. However, in retaliation, the doctor dropped a large hunk of fire down. The entire top of the purple stone caught aflame. To the hedgehog's panic, the fire spread to where Lens was. Sure, he just met the guy but that didn't mean he should be caught up in this fight like that.
The flames parted ways as the gray raccoon, marked with soot stains, came flailing to where Sonic was. Sonic grit his teeth and glared at the doctor. "Eggman, that's no good."
It was a sad beat down on the doctor after that. The Egg-mobile H had only one offensive ability, and that was to drop fuel to set an area aflame. Furthermore the vehicle was slow and when it was in a position to fire again, the flames from its previous shot had died out.
So it was simple to jump back and forth, slowly damaging Eggman's machine. To the both the doctor's and the blue boy's shock , Eggman got a kick to the face from an unexpected source. Sonic chuckled a bit, as Lens had somehow gotten up onto the Egg-mobile and was putting his foot into Eggman's shiny chrome dome through tears and complaints of how much being set on fire hurt.
Sonic finished up with the destruction of Eggman's war machine with one last spin dash. Mini-explosions occurring burst across the machine and Lens bailed out of kicking Eggman's head like a football. "This isn't the end hedgehog and you raccoon!" Eggman spat as he fled. Sonic went to chase the mad scientist but the sudden slamming of an animal capsule stopped him in his tracks.
The blue blur jumped into the air and a quick slam on the top of the capsule busts the animal friends out. The little critters fled from their prison in droves. Hearing someone breathing heavily behind him, the hedgehog looked back to Lens. The raccoon had singed fur all over the place and seemed unsteady on his feet.
"Hey you okay there? You didn't need to get involved. I can take care of Eggman myself" Sonic winced as Lens seemed to fold in on himself again; seriously, it was like the kid didn't understand he needed to be kept safe. Though Sonic shouldn't be one to talk. "But yeah, you did pretty well. Eggman looked so stupid with you giving it to him like that" Sonic said and was rewarded with a more cheerful masked face.
Sonic blinked at the grateful eyes locking onto his own. Seriously what was with that kid, it wasn't anything special so he did help out and made Eggman look more like an idiot. Sonic turned away to the distance where Eggman fled, the towering heights of a city starkly contrasting against the pristine nature of the island. "I guess that's where we're off to next then." Sonic said giving an inviting wave of the hand as he dashed off. Lens nodded, following the rush of blue speed heading towards the city.