Who Wants to Race Me?
DISCLAIMER: SpongeBob SquarePants is owned by Stephen Hillenburg, Nickelodeon, and United Plankton, Ltd. Sonic the Hedgehog is owned by Yuji Naka, Sega, and Sonic Team.
CHAPTER SEVEN: TERMINATION INFALTRATION
From the previous chapter:
Sandy looked with sympathy towards Sonic. "Sorry little blue dude, but you might as well face it. With that nap you took at the beginning of the race, you spelled victory for the rest of us!"
"Are you sure?" asked Sonic, starting to grin mischievously.
"Pretty much," answered Sandy.
"Really? THINK AGAIN!!"
Spongebob and Knuckles were both on their ninth lap, Sandy was half-way done with her tenth lap, and Sonic was only on his fifth lap, and now, after all this time, Sonic finally revealed his true speed. Sonic spun his legs at faster-than-lightning speed, and took off, traveling just barely below the speed of sound!
"What in tarnation?" asked Sandy, and by the time she said this, Sonic was beginning HIS final lap! Sandy ran as fast as she could. She was only a few centimeters away from the finish line, but at the rate Sonic was going at, he would finish before Sandy even put her foot on the ground!
Now both competitors were neck-and-neck, both just an inch away from the finish line.
Tails leaned forward from his seat, nearly tipping over the hosting box. He was intrigued beyond belief, and the moment everyone was waiting for was taking place before his very eyes! "And the winner is…" started Tails, ready to take a snapshot for a photo finish, but as he was about to reach for the camera, he noticed something above the finish line. He focused, and he suddenly realized this mysterious object was an enormous cage!! "GUYS, LOOK OUT!!"
But by the time he said this, the cage had already dropped, and it trapped both Sandy and Sonic! "What in the name of…" said Sonic, and he faced Spongebob who had hit Sandy's tree when trying to do a sharp turn, halting his running. "YOU probably had something to do with this, huh?!"
"NO, NO!! I'm innocent, I swear!" exclaimed Spongebob.
"He's right," said a voice.
"Who said that?" asked Knuckles who had stopped running when he saw the cage drop on the two speeding rodents.
"We are the ones that not only have something to do with it; we have everything to do with it!"
From a shadow came two figures, one extremely short and the other extremely tall, and after a few seconds, the two figures revealed themselves to be Plankton and Dr. Eggman!
"EGGMAN!!" shouted Sonic, Knuckles, and Tails.
"PLANKTON!!" shouted Spongebob, Sandy, and Mr. Krabs.
"That is correct, cretins! It is us, Dr. Eggman and Plankton!"
"I had a hunch this was all of your doing, Plankton!" Spongebob pointed his finger towards the small green protozoa.
"But I couldn't have done it without help from the doctor!" Plankton said smugly, putting his hands, err…stubs on his hips.
"Why you little monster!" shouted Tails as he stood up and started running to where the two villains stood. "I'm gonna crush both of you!"
"Not so fast, fox!" pointed Eggman. "Remember that that bomb is still under your skin, I still carry the detonation device, and we wouldn't want a little accident, now would we?"
Tails remembered the incident at the hut, not to mention the pain, and backed away some. "That's right, Miles! Don't even think about messing with us! By the way, if we catch you or your friends doing anything suspicious, the bomb will go off, and all that your friends will remember you by is a small, charred piece of yellow fur!" Eggman threatened.
Plankton hopped on top of the hosting box. "Now if you don't mind, I'll be taking this gem back to our base!" Plankton boasted, grabbing the emerald that was on the trophy.
Sonic growled under his breath, "The Chaos Emerald!"
"So what do you plan on doing now doc?" asked Knuckles, getting closer to the cage holding Sonic and Sandy.
"Now, I shall add this emerald to my collection, and using their immense power, my friend and I shall rule the Earth! As for Sonic and the squirrel, I shall allow them to stay in the cage. With any luck, they'll both starve to death!" Eggman laughed.
With that, both evil geniuses left the tree dome, and everyone faced the cage, some of the fishes leaving the dome out of fear.
"Hold on Sandy," directed Sonic. "I'm gonna try to bust us both out of the cage!" Sonic got near the back of the cage, and curled into a ball, creating his infamous spin dash. He spin dashed the walls of the cage repeatedly, Sandy barely dodging the blue ball of pain. With as much power Sonic put into his spin dash however, the cage refused to receive even a dent!
"Come on, Sonic!" Knuckles ran to the cage. "Let's try to do this together!" Knuckles revealed, as he rapidly power punched the cage. Sonic spin dashed and Knuckles punched with all his might, but after an entire ten minutes, the only thing the duo succeeded in doing was giving the cage a miniscule dent!
"At this rate, it will take forever for us to break open the cage, and by that time, Eggman and Plankton will already have done some major chaos to the rest of the world!" Sandy said downheartedly.
Suddenly, Tails approached the cage. "Wait a minute, there's a keyhole at the top of this cage!"
"Of course, there's always some sort of stupid loophole!" muttered Spongebob.
"There has to be some sort of key back at the Chum Bucket!" Sandy revealed.
"If there's a rescue mission going on, count me in!" Knuckles boasted.
"Ditto!" shouted Spongebob.
"Krabs, what about you?" asked Sonic.
"ARGH! ME BACK!! I DON"T THINK I'LL BE ABLE TO HELP YOU FELLAS!!" said Mr. Krabs "coincidentally".
"I'm afraid I'm too scared to even show my face in that rust bucket! If either of the geniuses catch me, I'm done for! Plus I'm not as fast or sneaky as you guys; I think I'd just get in your way!" Tails said.
"Fine, Spongebob and I will enter the darn slime ball," Knuckles complained.
Knuckles put his air necklace back on, and both of them left the treedome.
The odd duo ran to the main street, to where the Krusty Krab and Chum Bucket were. Spongebob entered the bucket of evil first, due to his accidental trip. The two walked cautiously around the main dining room. There didn't appear to be anything suspicious besides a couple of dusty old chairs and tables. Before them stood two doors. "Okay Knuckles, you go through the right door, and I'll go through the left door," directed Spongebob.
"Right," Knuckles shook his head.
They did exactly that.
Knuckles opened the door Spongebob had directed him to go through. It felt a little bit odd taking orders from a sea sponge, but regardless, the echidna continued. Inside, there was a rather large room with loads of computers and computer equipment. Knuckles walked upon the chrome tile while looking for anything that might resemble a key. Knuckles searched in all places, both hidden and in plain sight, high and low, and far and near, but there was no key. Knuckles walked to a rather large CPU and leaned on it. "And to think I could be protecting the Master Emerald right now."
Knuckles leaned on the CPU, but as he did, a loud beeping sound went off! "WORKING," said an electronic voice.
Knuckles just stared.
"Plankton, is that you?" asked the computer, which if you didn't figure it out yet, was Karen.
"Do I look like a walking bean to you, chrome face?" Knuckles sarcastically asked.
"Watch it, dude. Anyway, if you're not Plankton, who are you?"
"Name's Knuckles."
"What are you doing here anyway?"
"None of your business."
"I said," enunciated Karen angrily taking out a laser out of oblivion, "what are you doing here?"
"Oh look, a death ray. Oh no. Whatever shall I do now?" said Knuckles sarcastically again.
"I'll use it, don't think I won't."
"Heh, even if you did, you wouldn't be able to zap me!"
"Oh really?!" Karen zapped her ray, but Knuckles easily got out of the way.
"Nice shot. Maybe you'll get me next time."
"Grr, shut up!" growled Karen, as she fired her laser again. Knuckles simply moved out of the way easily.
For the next few minutes, Knuckles simply danced tauntingly as Karen angrily continued to attempt to zap Knuckles. After those few minutes were up, Karen ran out of plasma to use as a projectile.
"Darn, out of ammo. You're really lucky, you know that knucklehead?"
"As if I haven't heard the previous statement numerous times before. But now that you're out of ammo, why don't we calm down and talk a bit," suggested Knuckles.
"Permission granted. So what do you want to talk about?"
Knuckles didn't want to tell her about Sonic and Sandy's kidnapping, since she might still be defending Plankton. Knuckles looked around the room, and then noticed a yellow cuboid made of metal. "Say, what's that yellow robot thing?"
"That's just the robot chef that Plankton made once to see if he would create a krabby patty if he gave the robot Spongebob's brain. It didn't work out so well, so he just tidies up minimally now. As you can see, it's modeled to look like Spongebob."
"Eww…Plankton took out Spongebob's brain? Now that's just creepy."
"Tell me about it."
Knuckles and Karen continued conversing. Secretly, however, Knuckles simply continued talking to Karen because he knew that if he did, Karen would be distracted, and would therefore not notice Spongebob, meaning that Spongebob had one less person to avoid while he looked for the key! All Knuckles had to do was keep on talking…and talking…and talking…and well, you get the picture.
He still couldn't believe it. He, the fastest thing alive, trapped in this cheap little cage! Sonic had experienced close calls before, once when he was captured when trying to give Eggman a fake Chaos Emerald at Space Colony ARK, and another time when he was killed by Solaris, only to be revived by his friends and the Chaos Emeralds. This wasn't the most dangerous situation, in his opinion, but it was definitely the most humiliating. Sonic only sat on the grass, waiting quite impatiently.
As for Sandy, she still couldn't believe that someone, to make matters worse a hedgehog, A HEDGEHOG, was able to actually be faster than her. Many times before, Sandy and Spongebob cheated to get in front of the other, explaining Spongebob's single victory against Sandy, but this time both competitors played fairly, and someone still beat her. Her egotism had gotten the best of her, and she felt horrible about it.
Both competitors sat in the cage, destroyed (emotionally) and humiliated. Soon their freedom would come, and then they would finally have a chance to prove themselves again. Now however, they must wait…for something to happen.
Back at the Chum Bucket, at the same time Knuckles had opened the right door, Spongebob opened the left door. Inside, all he saw were piles of rancid meat. Spongebob waved his hand around his nose to possibly shoo the smell. That didn't work well, obviously. Spongebob sat upon a pile of rancid meat to rest a bit, but the pile gave way to his (light) weight, and Spongebob toppled over, creating a huge mess of rancid meat. However, at the same time, Spongebob discovered a door where the pile of meat used to be! Out of curiosity, he opened the door and saw a rather large black cauldron in front of him…with Patrick and Amy dangling from a rope above it!!
"PATRICK!!" Spongebob shot loudly.
"SPONGEBOB!! HELP ME!!" Patrick yelled at an equal volume.
"Don't worry, Patrick! Help is on the way!" Spongebob spoke in a heroic voice.
Spongebob hopped to the top of the cauldron…and burned himself. The cauldron was so hot, in fact, he was thrown to the wall above the door from which he entered! "Umm…what I meant to say was 'Help is in the process of being on the way'!"
About ten seconds after he said this, the three noticed that the door was opening! "Quick, sponge man! Hide!" Amy yelled, not knowing what Spongebob's name was. In order to speak and breathe, Amy mastered a way to conserve breath and extract oxygen out of the steam that was coming out of the boiling oil. It made her feel like she was choking, but at least she had enough oxygen to breathe.
Spongebob simply hid behind the cauldron since there was space behind it. After he did, the door opened, and it was revealed to be Plankton.
"Well, well, if it isn't small, green, and ugly," Amy taunted.
"Shut up, hedgehog. I'd treat me with respect if I were you, considering your current position," Plankton pointed out the cauldron of bubbling oil.
Amy put her head down. "What do you want?" she asked calmly, with a bit of sadness detected.
"I just want to gloat in front of you, since the next time you'll see me, I'll be ruler of the Earth along with Dr. Eggman!"
"Is that it?"
"Uh huh. See you later, mammal and starfish." Plankton exited.
"Well, that was a stupid reason to come in," Amy muttered.
Spongebob exhaled out of relief, and then noticed some keys above him! These must be the keys to open Sonic and Sandy's cage. Spongebob quickly and quietly jumped up, grabbed the key, and went on his way out of the room to retrieve Knuckles. "Sorry, guys! I promise the next time you'll see me, my friends and I will rescue you!"
"Well please hurry! I don't want fried hedgehog and starfish to be a new menu selection for this place!" Amy yelled.
Spongebob left the room, waited beneath some rancid meat for Plankton to leave the room, (oddly enough, Plankton didn't seem to notice the mess of meat) left the meat locker, waited for Plankton to leave the main room, and went to get Knuckles who was still talking with Karen.
"So have you ever wondered how water-proof computers were made?" asked Knuckles.
"Well…" began Karen, but she stopped as she saw Spongebob.
"Knuckles, I got the keys. We can leave now," whispered Spongebob.
"Excellent," Knuckles faced Karen, "Sorry Karen, but I need to leave now. Take care."
"Likewise," returned Karen.
So Spongebob and Knuckles left the Chum Bucket, entered the treedome, and approached the cage. "Sonic! Sandy! Your freedom is at hand!" Knuckles shouted as he put the key in the lock and opened the cage!
"YES!!" yelled Sonic as he ran around the treedome several times at his top speed.
"Shoot, Sonic! You really are the fastest thing alive!" realized Sandy.
"I'm also a claustrophobic, but that never stopped me from saving the world either!"
"Sonic," Tails flew down from the hosting box to where Sonic was standing. "now that you're free, my confidence has returned. I'm gonna help you on whatever you're gonna do next. Krabs on the other hand, still is suffering from the pain in his back."
"No worries. Anyway, you should know what we're gonna do next," Sonic put on his air necklace, "Come on guys! We've got an egg to scramble!"
Ooh, things are really getting hot now, huh? Well, it isn't the end yet! Keep an eye out for the next chapter! Until then, see ya!
