Sonic Ballistic

by Shblue

A few years after Sonic & Knuckles, Dr. Robotnik returns with a raging yet calculated vengance to conquer Mobius and punish Sonic forever. What seems like an ordinary adventure at first will slowly transform and change everything Sonic knows about being a hero. - Childhood fangame idea reimagined as a hardcore epic, and depicted in text. Finished 2010, uploaded here first.

3. Sonic Ballistic, Part 2

Part 2

Crystal Cavern [Act 1] (2/8)

Sonic chases after Robotnik. The blasted tunnel connects to a series of long, twisting caverns. Large crystals point out of the rock surfaces, shining with a magical soft light. While they're pretty to look at at first, their sharp edges may jut out of the ground and walls in places like spikes, necessitating careful platforming. These tunnels twist, turn, drop, rise, split up and join back together, but fortunately there are not many dead ends. They occasionally enter into large cave spaces, sometimes the same ones. In addition to the usual platforming, some of the rocks crumble beneath his weight and he'll need to time his jumps quickly. In a few areas, if he falls, he will fall into a crystal pit [i.e. a spike pit], unable to escape. Most of the large caverns are centered on underground lakes (in which Sonic can always escape, unless he chooses to stay still and drown for some reason). Aside from that, the only other threat comes from the waves of robots that Robotnik called ahead to slow Sonic down, but they are pretty weak. Overall, the cave is mostly horizontal.

Sonic comes to a waterfall spilling down a wide vertical chasm, with no footholds to climb. Instead, he sees a cave beyond the curtain of water and spindashes to make it there (walking, running, or jumping into it will just push him back out). The small cave seems to be a dead end, but the wall ahead is actually a pile of collapsed rocks. There is a tight passage in the bottom which Sonic can spindash through to roll to the other side.

On the other side, he finds himself at a true dead end, but this place is different. The surfaces are mostly clean and flat aside from a few small stalagmites and stalactites. Crystals of like size and shape are set straight in the rock, resting next to each other like a mosaic. These crystals form a ring around the medium-sized chamber, and their light pulses through each other around in circles. At the other side of the room is a crystal larger than any he's seen yet. It's cracked and bears runic engravings. Every few seconds it fills with light and glows brightly before fading back to transparency. Sonic sees a creature, a man, trapped inside, his image distorted by the crystal's interior self-reflections. He thinks he sees a tunnel hidden behind it and decides to break it apart. He hits the crystal three times and the cracks cleave all the way through, shattering it into sparkling shards.

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[Act 1 Boss]

The man inside falls backward on the ground. It seems there was a space inside the crystal as he is not crystallized himself, but he still must be dead. The man is an echidna, gray, and naked except for the mysterious markings and rings around his limbs. "Power rings!" Sonic realizes, and just then the rings start to glow and rotate against the ground. Then the markings glow once, in a pulse of light from the rings up his limbs, over his body, and toward his head. Once it reaches his eyes, his eyes shoot open. He then shouts out in agony for a few seconds, before seeing Sonic and then quickly turning onto his feet. He shouts again, this time a battle cry, and rushes at Sonic!

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His attacks are:

- punching, which fires multiple fist-sized energy projectiles at Sonic,

- stepping back and throwing out his chest, which then emits three to seven circular waves of smaller energy projectiles (ten to twenty per wave),

- spinning around before punching, which fires a pulsing energy projectile at Sonic that explodes on contact,

- and holding out one arm with open palm, his other arm supporting it, which fires an energy beam that he can adjust slightly while firing it.

Despite his ferocity and quick attacks, he seems to be wincing in pain and his movement is slow (particularly his evasion). He takes eight hits before falling to one knee, defeated.

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The echidna stares at the floor, trembling with anger.

"Augh... So be it. Kill me."

Sonic laughs. "What, why? I was only defending myself. Who are you, anyway?"

The echidna looks up with rage. "What vile torment! You gain nothing by tarnishing my honor further! I demand you kill me!"

Sonic shakes his head and crosses his arms. "I don't think so, man. Calm down! If anything, I just saved your life! You were trapped in that crystal there... actually, I'm surprised you didn't suffocate or starve to death in it."

The echidna's expression stays for a moment, but then a thought flashes and he turns his head around. For another moment, he stares, but then quickly turns again and lowers his gaze.

"Is that so! I was freed..."

He looks at Sonic and then bows again, planting his head on the floor.

"I have given you shame, sire. I am a lowly fool. I deserve no honor. Do with me as you will."

Sonic rolls his eyes. He walks over to him. The guy remains in kowtow. Sonic shakes his head again and lowers his hand, crouching to get it in the guy's view. Seeing it, he slowly looks up at Sonic, seemingly scared. "For speed's sake, grab my hand and stand up, will ya?!" He slowly touches, then grasps his gloved hand and then Sonic yanks him up all at once.

"We are equals. Equals! I don't even know who you are and you're acting all crazy on me. Let's start again, okay? Now, tell me your name."

Now the man is beaming, a smile growing across his face. He looks around, up and down, as if gazing upon some incredible deity. He even turns around, as if thinking something out. Sonic starts to pat his foot, but with one pat the man turns and looks straight at Sonic.

"My name is Zaga. I am the greatest warrior of the echidnas. If I may say so, and I suppose I may as you deem us equals: you amaze me quite delightfully. To not even know who I am! And then to best me in combat?! While I may be weak, that was no small feat. I assume you are a distant stranger, which makes it all the more curious. But then, to let me live, call me your equal... whatever tradition you hail from, sire, it is a life-giving fountain of justice. I am... honored."

"It is 'curious'. I've never heard of you, and I am *ahem* the greatest warrior in the world! More importantly, you're an echidna! I thought they were extinct, except-"

"What?!" Zaga interjects. "Extinct?! Are you mad?! An idiot?!" Wide-eyed, he then catches himself and takes a breath. "Forgive me. I would never think to hear such words. Truly, there is a mystery at hand between you and me."

He then smiles. "It is exciting. Come," he motions to the floor, then sits down cross-legged. "Sit."

Sonic pauses, concerned about Robotnik's escape with Mechanix. He then remembers Mechanix Seal and its ancient design. He has a hunch this man might know something. So he sits. "I am absolutely certain you are not from my world. You seem to know nothing about it..."

"And I am just as certain that you are not from mine. Our only connection is through the crystal seal."

"Seal?" Sonic asks, as light continues to swing around the room's walls.

Now Zaga pauses. He looks to the side, placing his hand over his chin and mouth.

He turns back, and asks, "Was Mechanix released as well?"

Sonic is surprised, slightly. "Yeah. By Doctor Robotnik. ...He's an evil genius, oppressor of Mobians, and my archnemesis. He plans on fully powering it up to destroy the world."

"Mechanix was not destroyed!" Zaga whispers to himself. "His infinite power continues to beckon evil, throughout time..."

Sonic suddenly understands.

"You... Are you one of the ancients who created Mechanix? From the dead civilization?"

Zaga's eyes shot open. He trembled for a moment, flexed to resist it, and looked away. He takes a little while to recover. Sonic realizes what he said must be true.

While Sonic was thinking, Zaga breaks the silence, saying, "That is it. That is why. I was not only exiled from home, from freedom... but from my own era in time. I have awakened... in the distant future."

Zaga suddenly looks at Sonic, searching for an answer in his eyes.

"How long has it been? Since my civilization went extinct? What happened to my world?!"

Sonic is saddened, but shrugs and shakes his head. "I don't know. I'm the one of the few people who even know what an echidna is. There are only ruins now, it seems. Although, Robotnik... Robotnik must have learned about your people from your ruins, to know where and what Mechanix is."

Zaga stands up. Sonic then follows suite.

He looks out at nothing again. "I must seek out this Robotnik. I will destroy Mechanix once and for all, and then I will force him to tell my the end of my people's history."

He then turns to Sonic with a confident but serious expression. "It is settled, then. We are allies, after all! But no more talk. If Mechanix is freed, time is equivalent to life itself. We absolutely must not let Mechanix's true power become fully realized once again. I fear it will destroy your world just as it did mine..."

Sonic nods and smiles. "With us, Zaga, not a chance! C'mon then, let's go!"

Zaga smiles back, but shakes his head. "No, I must recover for now. Go on ahead; I will continue in a moment. Our intertwined fates shall not leave us far from each other."

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[Act 2]

The remainder of the cavern looks similar to the section before, however the path is slightly more challenging. There are many more crystals and careful platforming sequences to traverse, as well as more large caves with deep lakes Sonic can only cross by running over the water at top speed. In this section in general, there is more vertical platforming as Sonic comes closer to the cave's entrance at the surface. As he ascends, the crystals diminish in number and it becomes more of a conventional cave. Without those spikes it seems safer, but that also means it's darker. Sonic must be careful as the rocks are less stable, too, and he may fall into pits or get crushed to death if he's too careless. Finally, there are even more robots sent in to attack Sonic, and they have even set up ambushes, especially in the dark areas. In some narrow tunnels, there may even be walls of connected robots firing shots as Sonic breaks them apart to get through.

Sonic runs through a long tunnel in complete pitch-black, seeing at the end a ray of vibrant moonlight. He comes to it and looks up the beam, up the sides of the large and tall vertical shaft that eventually opens at an angle into the open night sky. Seeing a foothold, he starts jumping up all the ledges he can reach. Several times he finds he comes up short, and searches the opposite wall for a viable route. He finds them, but due to the cave's width he has to leap across with no hesitation, and even wall-jump for the extra height he may need.

And then he is stuck. He has covered quite some distance in height, making a fall deadly from here, but looking up he finds he's not even a quarter of the way to the entrance. He then notices a silhouette sticking out over the topsoil, but just then almost all light is obscured by its complete shadow. It rapidly drops down the cave, passing Sonic in a gust of wind, before slamming with the sound of metal on the stone floor. He looks down, and sees electric lights and hears the motion of an engine and gears. It extends two dark arms until they hit the walls, and then he hears the pressure of mechanical force and the drizzling crumbs of digging. It climbs the walls, level, and accelerates. In short time, this contraption rises in view below Sonic. On its long wings are grinding gears with fang-like teeth, and across their wide span are all sorts of functional weapons. As the gear comes for him, he jumps onto the machine.

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[Act 2 Boss]

The elevator robot consists of a large, central, armored hemisphere, with its two flat wings reaching to both sides of the wall, telescoping back and forth as the width changes. Obviously, the sharp gears grinding up the walls are hazardous as spikes.

Its attacks are:

- firing eight laser beams from small tubes laid uniformly across its top surface from wingtip to wingtip,

- opening shutters at the edge of the wings, ejecting a finite amount of mini-robots that charge and attack Sonic in steady waves,

- charging electricity in tall coils right next to the gears before cracking open a few bolts of arced electricity from wingtip to wingtip (Sonic must wall-jump above the gears beforehand, as it's too short to duck under and lasts too long for the airtime of a normal jump),

- and opening compartments in the middle of both wings to fire multiple homing missiles (they home in on Sonic for 3.5 seconds).

By leading the missiles back to the main body, its armor can be damaged. After four volleys of missiles (or twenty individual missiles if Sonic does not get all the missiles in each volley), the armor is blown off. Sonic can now attack the vulnerable core.

This activates the last weapon:

- A turret rotates from the backside of the core and telescopes out its barrel. It is a machine gun which immediately sprays bullets at Sonic. Fortunately, they're energy bullets so they're slow enough to avoid, but they're also larger and force Sonic to carefully platform between them. Each volley lasts four seconds, with an eight second cool-down time.

The machine won't use its other weapons when it fires the machine gun, but there could still be mini-robots or homing missiles from its previous attack that can trap Sonic. This shouldn't be a problem, as Sonic can bounce on the core and land all eight hits before it fires again, so long as he avoids the other attacks.

An explosion blasts the small, spherical core into the air and a second explosion scatters it to smithereens. The rest of the machine simply stops in place. Conveniently, the semicircle that was holding the core in place is now visible. Sonic jumps in and spindashes up a side. He flies for a blip before landing on a smooth curve in the cave wall. He finds traction on dirt and soon grass as he climbs out of the cave. He returns to fresh air, directly under the moon.

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Green Meadows [Act 1] (2/9)

There are no power rings on this level.

This level has a moderate resemblance to both Green Hill Zone from Sonic 1 and Emerald Hill Zone from Sonic 2. However, it is nighttime.

Sonic starts running down a grassy slope and looks around. Tall palm trees mix with fruit orchards, berry-laden bushes and fields of flowers between a soft, golden beach and verdant hills leading off a ridge of mountains. Looking off the island's edge, the ocean and night merge into darkness with not a cloud in sight.

Sonic dashes up and down the varying gradients of land through the isolated paradise. He rolls into a forested valley, and then climbs up the slopes of the mountain, jumping across steep ledges and past waterfalls. At the top, he starts to notice the glow of light and finds a harbor at the other side of the island. He leaps and rolls down the leeside's ledges before entering a large field. As he runs through a meadow of big sunflowers and tall grass, he spots and catches up with Robotnik.

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"Stop right there, Robotnik!" Sonic shouts out. Robotnik turns his head to look, then stops and turns the whole Egg-o-Matic around.

"Did you really think you could outrun Sonic the hedgehog?" Sonic smugly states.

"Hoho. Don't tell me what I can and can't think, you stupid rat." Robotnik replies. "I anticipated this. Note how Mechanix isn't with me. I sent him ahead to prepare Tails' execution."

"What!" Sonic growls. "You bastard!"

Sonic bolts and spin attacks the Egg-O-Matic, making it recoil backwards. "How typically base. You have as much mind for your imminent death as the plants around you."

"That doesn't make sense." Sonic snarls. "You better explain something good before I really whack you!"

Robotnik remains nonchalant. "Power rings litter the entire planet of Mobius. They are as naturally widespread as the weather. And yet, this island has none. Why is that?"

Sonic waits, tapping his foot.

"Idiot. It is because I took them all. This land no longer serves any purpose." He then presses a button on his console.

A shutter opens underneath the Egg-o-Matic and a flamethrower extends out of it. It immediately blows out a fireball across the ground. Sonic jumps out of the way as flames engulf the flora behind him. The fire catches and spreads quickly by itself and even more quickly as Robotnik turns the nozzle around, throwing fire in every direction. Within seconds, a wide swath of the meadow is ablaze. Just as Sonic sees an opening in the inferno, Robotnik then launches hundreds of small missiles from the back of the Egg-O-Matic which land across the rest of the fields all around them.

"Haha! Look at this madness! You've gotten so scared, Robotnik, you only feel safe destroying the helpless! Let me remind you who you should really be scared of!"

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[Act 1 Boss]

The place is the burning meadow inside a ring of fire. The enemy is Robotnik in his fire-spewing Egg-O-Matic.

His attacks are what were just shown:

- the flamethrower (its fireball grows as it is propelled out with more fire. Sonic must notice the pilot light and then roll under the initial flame to Robotnik's other side to evade the attack.)

- and the fire missile barrage (they launch and land one by one, blasting in a small, short-lasting column of flame. Sonic must avoid the impacts and columns as he runs back and forth.)

There is also an additional attack:

- the flamethrower rotates and changes place with a cannon that launches large exploding fireballs straight at Sonic's position every five seconds.

Robotnik moves horizontally, trying to corner Sonic against the ring of fire, or evading for a while after being hit. Every three hits, he will rise into the air and fire two of the three weapons twice before returning closer to the ground. Sonic should be careful, as he can easily lose rings into the fire if he has any. After eight hits, the damage explodes his weapons off, leaving the Egg-o-Matic naked yet again.

The pod sputters and Robotnik flees grimacing. Sonic gives chase at first, but his attention is caught by the shape of a roboticizer capsule in another direction. Angrily he looks back at Robotnik and runs to the capsule. He jumps on the button and blasts its walls open, releasing the captured animals inside. But they stay there, scared of the fire, so he quickly spindashes to blow dirt and dust into the flame and douse out a viable exit. They make a quick escape, and wiping the sweat from his brow, Sonic turns back to Robotnik and runs after him.

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[Act 2]

There are no power rings in this level either, and the player should be careful not to lose any in possession.

Like Angel Island Zone Act 2, the entire background is aflame.

Just when Sonic gains on Robotnik, Robotnik starts his afterburners and suddenly blasts off. He flashes away to a ball of light shooting far out to sea. Sonic is left in a cloud of smoke. He curses Robotnik but keeps running. "Through the burning fields, Sonic enters the fire in the forest. He jumps over burning trees and brush and runs past falling trees and branches. He carefully but quickly descends cliffs and drops, checking his speed down hills. He goes through a few blazing forests as he crosses more hills and valleys, keeping top speed to speedily run across any rivers or bays he may meet.

He finally reaches the beach itself. It is tremendous, with a very long, smooth slope. Crashing at the bottom in the dark are massive waves up to five stories high. While awesome to see, he notices a floating truck a little ahead of him on the sand. As he comes closer, he sees it's carrying more roboticizers and he angrily speeds up. Then there's an explosion from the back of the truck bed which sends something large flying out. The capsules barely budge. Sonic blinks and looks up, seeing the silhouette of a hostile shape falling ahead of him. Just before it lands, it blasts out fire from its back, stopping it in place. It then accelerates to just below Sonic's pace until it's within range.

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[Act 2 Boss]

It looks like the axe-toting robot from Mushroom Hill Zone (in Sonic & Knuckles). Like its predecessor, it has no legs and instead uses a small jet engine on its back to hover and move. This one's engine is more powerful, scorching the sand white hot with a constant column of fire, while black smoke fires out the other side with machine-gun speed. Its torso and two arms are armored and painted black, but it is not camouflaged under the moon and vibrant starlight. The first arm carries a cannon; the other, the axe.

This is a running battle, but Sonic shouldn't get too close to the exhaust, which can hurt him. Even the sand being burnt can hurt him, but only briefly as they rapidly cool down because they are moving. The robot will also move from in front to behind Sonic, but it does both differently. To get behind, it drops its thrust which causes it to gently fall down as well as back, before keeping steady pace there. To get back ahead, it drops its thrust more quickly this time, and then lets out an afterburner which quickly accelerates it like a rocket at Sonic. In both cases, Sonic needs to jump to avoid the exhaust. But the back-to-front maneuver is more dangerous, and he actually needs to bounce off of the robot for the height as the exhaust is up to four times larger than on the front-to-back.

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Its attacks with its cannon are:

- Firing ahead of Sonic a small iron ball which expands spikes upon contacting the ground. (If the robot is behind Sonic, it'll shoot above Sonic in a dangerous arc and continue to roll ahead of him before friction starts to slow it down.)

- And firing four shots of napalm which explode upon contacting the ground, leaving a spot of fire to jump over.

Its attacks with its axe are:

- moving closer to Sonic and then chopping a wide vertical arc (sometimes with a second swing forwards),

- and throwing its axe at Sonic. It must then go and yank it out, whether it's ahead or behind, leaving open a chance to counterattack it.

Twelve hits causes it to malfunction for a second before its jet engine suddenly explodes. The rest of the robot is rocketed away into the giant waves. Sonic then speeds up to catch up with the truck.

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Quickened Quay [Act 1] (2/10)

There are power rings here. There are also enemies here.

The grassy hills turn into shrub land and rocky hillsides, with so little flora that the wildfire has nothing to snuff out. Ahead is the large harbor lit up in dotted lines of small lights becoming clearer on the approach. Sonic then comes to the only road on the island, of fresh asphalt with iron lighted guardrails. Sonic catches up to the truck and jumps over the bed wall onto the floor. He bounces up and down in the back, hitting the buttons for all three capsules, freeing the animals inside. The land animals hesitate seeing the moving road, but brace themselves and jump off anyway. He then spin attacks the small robotic cockpit and causes it break in four hits. The truck suddenly falls front-first into the ground and Sonic is flung off whether he jumped or not. He keeps moving as the truck flips a few times before exploding, sending it flying into the air flipping, then landing and spinning around, skidding in a wall of flames.

The road leads into Robotnik's seaport. He passes rows of stacked cargo crates and cement buildings to the long metal pier over the shallows. He enters a mechanized area of bare iron scaffolding and a long circuit of conveyor belts as slopes and bridges to accelerate on. He goes through processing plants and short hallways of corrugated steel. He climbs the buildings and leaps over wide canals, as well as climb cranes and use their height for additional distance. Soon he'll come across Robotnik's large drilling ships. He can run on their decks and explore a little inside (most of the hatchs are locked shut), or run along the dock's edge.

He comes to the entrance of a large hangar at the water's edge, with a crowd of robots including Egg Robos waiting for him. Breaking through them, he enters and sees a big, empty barge starting to depart. He jumps up the boxes and then onto a crane. He leaps onto the deck and stops moving. He waits as the ship starts to leave the hangar. After a few seconds, he hears an alarm sound on the ship.

All of the ship's sailor robots come out to attack in a constant stream from the doors and hatches on deck. A few more from the hangar jump and climb onto the deck up the sides. Some of these are Egg Robos. Sonic fights two to three badniks at a time out of twenty-five to thirty in total. After twenty seconds the ship leaves the hangar. But the Act doesn't end until all of the robots are destroyed.

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[Act 1 Boss]

The deck suddenly lowers and pulls apart its two halves. A deeper mechanical whirr comes from within as a large elevator brings up a tank! This boss, as a super-thick pyramid of armor and steel, is invulnerable. Its armor cannot be destroyed in any way. Its widely domed head turns at Sonic, showing four weapons: a cannon, a mortar launcher, a machine gun, and a missile launcher.

Its attacks are:

- shooting a powerful explosive shell at Sonic (which blows up burnt pits into the deck),

- launching up mortar bombs that land in a splash of fire,

- unloading two seconds of a stream of bullets,

- and firing homing missiles that track Sonic for two seconds.

The deck is long enough that Sonic can run into its far range and think out a plan. He should be careful at the edge as the guardrails are short. A rogue shot could easily knock him back over the rails to get keelhauled. The tank is very slowly moving forward (Sonic could be crushed if he stood blissfully careless against its front). Sonic can jump on it without being harmed, however. Behind it, the cannon can't hit him and the machine gun doesn't turn much while it's firing. If he's careful of the explosions, he can let the tank's own missiles and mortars bomb its own back, pushing it forward. Once it's close to the edge, it will stop and move in reverse, but again very slowly. Its weight crumples the railings. In about sixteen total pushes, it leans over and slides off the edge. With a deep sploosh and a big splash the tank plunges into the ocean and the ship goes merrily on.

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[Act 2]

The level has a passing resemblance to Oil Ocean, if it was tied in a block-shaped knot.

A large oil rig base stands on giant stilts above the wide ocean in the late hours of night. The ship arrives and stops by a low dock at the side of a giant reinforced column.

Climbing up the simple slopes and platforms of the dock, which lead up the pylons to the the metal scaffolding and catwalks on the underside of the main structure. Through a few dark pipe-lined tunnels lit by orange lights, he comes to the wide bottom 'floor' of the base. It is a labyrinth of catwalks and water tubes that jet him from side to side and floor to floor. He occasionally enters interior areas with many robots, rings and electronics. In the center is the large drill tube leading to the small building at the very top.

He rolls around for a while, and then in the upper areas starts platforming across roofs, pipes and oil tanks. He returns to the center and runs up the hanging staircase into the drill control room. It's deactivated. Moving on, he sees a sturdy launch platform and a small hangar that could hold two space ships. It holds only one, confirmed by an ashen blast mark on the platform. Sonic looks at the ship and contemplates how he could learn to fly it when suddenly a rocket is launched from behind and so he jumps out of the way just at the spaceship blows up! The explosion blows apart the hangar's walls and ceiling. Sonic lands in front of Egg Hunter.

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[Act 2 Boss]

As they fight, Egg Hunter slowly moves backwards, out of the hangar area and into the drill control room..

Egg Hunter fights the same as before with some improvements:

- Its pulse gun and missiles are fired 150% as fast, and the missile explosions have a slightly larger splash radius.

- If its punch connects, it follows into a 5-hit combination attack.

- Occasionally it dashes the other way, towards Sonic himself, and tries to grab him. If it does grab Sonic, Sonic can't move as it throws him down, making him roll helplessly across the floor while it shoots at him. If it misses its grab, it stumbles for a moment, giving Sonic a chance to attack.

After fourteen hits, it stands still, visibly weakened. Sonic must eventually approach it, when it then suddenly steps in and grabs him. Before he can react, he's thrown to the corner of the room where a hatch immediately opens before him. He falls into a small chamber below that connects to the top of the drill shaft. The hatch shuts and locks above him, and he then hears a crash. He looks out of a thick chain-link fence to see Egg Hunter flying out above the oil rig. It then fires missiles at each tank and with deafening blasts explosions mushroom out of each other. A wall of fire rises into the sky behind Egg Hunter, who turns around and stares at Sonic.

Sonic has about 5 seconds to jump through a hole and drop down the drill shaft. After 5 seconds, the oil rig's supports start bending the entire platform before breaking apart. The shaft snaps and the rest plunge into the water. Egg Hunter won't move the entire time and watches as Sonic gets trapped and drown. That is, if he waits more than 5 seconds to escape.

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Crumbling City [Act 1] (2/11)

Strangely, there are both power rings and enemies here.

Sonic lands on the drill bit at the bottom after a long, long fall (wall jumping to slow down). The drill wobbles under the ceiling of a large cavern. The stone walls are lit by bright electric lamps. Below is a thick pool of oil, lightly boiling with gooey bubbles popping sizzling drops around. He sees a corridor in the wall on the edge of the pool, but it's too far. For a moment, Sonic waits.

Shortly, a shock wave from the oil rig's final explosion above finally makes it through the tunnel into the cave with a boom. Stalactites crisply crack off the ceiling and fall into the pool, bridging with the rounded stalagmites a way across. Sonic platforms, avoiding the bubbles, and reaches the corridor.

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Just as he comes to the complete steel tunnel that is obviously Robotnik's, a great rumbling comes from the oil cave when the ceiling suddenly caves in. The drill is pushed headfirst deep into the oil with the drill shaft broken into pieces. Before the debris flies into the tunnel, a door automatically shuts in front of Sonic. So he goes the other way, which stretches on for a short while. At the end it simply opens into a new cave. A very large one. A gargantuan, truly monstrous cave hundreds of stories high, its ceiling so dark Sonic almost thought he was seeing the night sky again.

Sonic then makes out what at first seemed like an intricate web of giant stalagmites. They are actually the buildings of a massive ancient underground city, almost perfectly intact. It is made of stone and metals with austere decoration and narrow intermixed spaces. There are unified flows and themes, with function forming size and grandiosity. For example, a row of houses have small square windows randomly set across while a public building has very many thin tall windows on a similiar wall. The architecture is somehow... malicious. The floor is the flat, featureless stone roofs of other buildings and the cave-rock ground at the very bottom, with a bare metal grating fearlessly set straight over gaping pits of darkness. And that darkness creeps through the alleys and windows, into the edges of whatever engraved decoration there is. It did not consume Sonic whole only because of the small orbs of light that are caged in the tiny lanterns hanging off the blank walls. Those orbs are not electric, nor are they gas. They float and shiver in the cage, eerily seeming alive. Sonic notices there are also a few electric lights from large metal spikes slammed into the walls. Probably Robotnik's.

In the very middle of the giant cave is what looked like a stalagmite most of all. It is a conical citadel with a central tower gently rising up into the darkness. Sonic looks at it and gets a hunch that's his destination. Catching him think this, Sonic then thinks, "Why am I here? I should be saving Tails right now, who could be anywhere in space! Is that why Egg Hunter threw me in here, to stop me?! Well I'm stuck anyway."

Sonic is then reminded of his other recent spelunking expeditions. "Hmm. I wonder... is this an echidna city?" Rubbing his chin he figures there's only one way to find out.

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He jumps out and onto the street of the dead city. He follows the road, changing directions as he reaches buildings of different heights. In spots he can wall-jump up or down the narrow alley walls between close buildings. He can even enter some of them, but their interiors are completely barren of everything and are uncomfortably narrow and cramped.

Every once in a while, Sonic sees one of two things. The first being what seems like a person's silhouette running away just at the edge of sight. The second is seeing the scattered remains of badniks, or seeing the badniks being attacked, stabbed, and ripped apart by an unfamiliar type of small robot with sickle hands. Once the badnik is destroyed, they only stare at Sonic. Even alone, they stare at Sonic, and don't attack.

After exploring the mostly harmless streets, Sonic climbs the long staircase to the great entrance of the fortress. But the entrance is sealed with stone... and standing guard in front of the wall is a large statue. It slowly starts to move.

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[Act 1 Boss]

The statue is an automaton, its stone body sliding on a metal skeleton. It resembles a giant mantis with two large scythes on its arms. Its smoothly cut body is engraved with runic symbols and fiery design. Despite its size, it is rather quick. Its weight also makes it rather strong. However, its legs are tall enough for Sonic to roll under it to the other side.

Its attacks are:

- slowly approaching Sonic and dropping vertical slashes if he's too close (Sonic must quickly turn and run out of the way),

- dashing at Sonic and then swiping a horizontal cut (Sonic can jump or duck),

- standing still, swinging its arms faster and faster until a wave of 3-6 air blades fly at Sonic (Sonic can jump and roll between them),

- from a distance, striking a rising slash three times, with each strike causing sparks to turn into a fireball, and all three fireballs revolving around in the same vertical circle. This circle of three fireballs shoots at Sonic as soon as the first fireball is made (Sonic can jump through the gaps between the fireballs).

- At low health (three hits remaining or less), it occasionally climbs the wall using its scythes and stands off of the wall. For a moment it stands, charging power, and bending into its legs. It then leaps off of the wall high into the air then crashes its two scythes together, launching diagonally down at Sonic a wave of shrinking air blades (Sonic can run between them as they shrink with distance) followed by a massive fireball (Sonic has to run far out of the way) before falling back down (it can crush Sonic if it lands on him with one of its four legs).

As a reminder, when Sonic dies he dies according to what hit him. In this battle for example, he can be burnt to death, crushed, and cut into pieces.

Each hit cracks open its stone body. After four hits, the stone breaks apart entirely, leaving the bare metal frame covering the robot's machinery. It gains speed but loses strength. As mentioned, after five hits it starts using the wall-jump special attack. After eight hits, the machinery suddenly halts and bursts into black flames. It collapses into pieces, leaving only rubble and small pieces of a jet-black stone.

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[Act 2]

Sonic can start climbing the citadel from the footholds the mantis statue made. He reaches the second story and from there wall-jump up flying buttresses and jump onto and across roofs. Strangely, all of the windows and doorways are sealed shut with solid sandstone, so he has no choice but to ascend from the outside. As he does, he notices the building is designed in a way that mixes the masonry of the Torch Temple ruins and the hollow ironclad style of the Mechanix Seal ruins. The iron is rusty and the stone is old and cracked, and in many parts the platforms or bridges Sonic are on collapse under his weight. In addition, the small sickle robots rapidly crawl up the walls with their blades before making leap attacks at Sonic. A few of Robotnik's robots may attack him as well. As Sonic climbs and sees more of the cave city, he also receives less of its dim accumulated light and the path above becomes increasingly dark, although there are still lanterns every so often.

At the fifteenth floor, the top of the citadel splits into two towers supporting one central, larger one. Finally Sonic can go inside, but the rooms are bare of nothing but tiled floors, columned walls and open window spaces. The towers are connected by bridges on many floors, which is convenient as all three have sections of significant damage that would completely block Sonic's progress otherwise. Sickle-bots hide beneath the stairwells and chase Sonic as he climbs the stairs. A few tumble down the steps from the opposite direction, and while they're destructible, it's better to jump over and let them knock the chasers behind for a second.

Every other floor in the skylobby of the main tower there is a large relief piece, illustrating respectively:

- a great fire,

- a detailed and chaotic war scene,

- the designs of the sickle robot, the mantis statue, and many other types Sonic didn't see in person yet,

- mountains of dead echidnas lying at the feet of an unknown figure, whose image was chipped away by someone long ago,

- a battle scene of a handful of echidnas, wearing elaborate armor and striking poses,

- one particular echidna dramatically clutching a graphically exaggerated sword wound,

- a large explosion, depicted as many concentric spheres of fire,

- and Mechanix, on a background of elaborate circuitry-like lines, very similar to how the advanced technology looked in the Mechanix Seal core room.

The two support towers end and Sonic climbs a stairwell in the central tower. It suddenly ends, broken off, so Sonic exits through a hole on the wall to a platform on the outside. He ascends the iron bar-and-metal mesh scaffolding on the outside wall of the tower, carefully platforming over huge drops and off of falling floors. In a few spots, he can take a shortcut if he wall-jumps off of and up vertical walls.

The final floor is hewn of marble, as are the circumferential columns and the dome above. The only light comes from the only hole in the floor: a third of the room's diameter and located in the center, containing layers of parallel gratings. Underneath those in a chamber below is a blazing fire, still burning so hot that the gratings above are dangerous to touch.

Deflecting its glowing red light is another statue, marble this time and stationary for now. It looks like a beefy anthropoid, with a short head and legs but thick arms and torso. Its forearms are buzz saws.

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[Act 2 Boss]

In this battle, holding up or down will let Sonic strafe around the room. If he somehow flies off the top of the tower from inertia and being positioned between the columns, he will end up dying with a splat.

The background is an abyss of darkness, with dim images of spleothems on the cavern walls and ceiling and the speckles of light caged in the city below. In the foreground, the light of the fire pit flashes about in high intensity from the large volume of flames, flashing jagged shadows onto the warriors and battleground.

The saws suddenly start spinning and whirr to life. The statue raises its forearms parallel to the floor and level with Sonic's head. The statue raises and the robot slowly starts to lumber towards Sonic. It will constantly approach Sonic until it corners him against a column, and do so even if Sonic jumps over its head to its other side (it turns around, quite simply). For the first three seconds after it leaves the fire pit, its body is too hot to touch. After it cools, it can only be damaged by a hit on the head. Hitting its body does make it fall a step backwards, however. Unfortunately, the columns around the room are too close together for the robot to eventually be knocked off the tower.

Its attacks are:

- drawing back its arms before throwing them overhead and dropping them onto the floor, causing a flash of sparks at a low angle,

- pushing the two saws together, spraying a trickling waterfall of burning hot sparks over Sonic (he can jump back or roll closer under them)

- firing out one of its buzz saw forearms from its upper arms while connected by a chain link, out to 4.5 times its former arm length, and then reversing the saw direction causing it to zip back across the floor before reconnecting (Sonic has to duck or roll under the initial launch and then jump over the return).

Again, if Sonic has no rings and is hit by the buzz saw, he will meet a painfully disturbing end.

It is actually that last attack, the arm launcher, which has force sufficient to destroy a column if it lands into one. Two columns gone makes enough space so that Sonic can knock the robot off of the tower if he chooses. But if five columns in a row are gone, or twelve columns overall, the roof will collapse onto both the robot, destroying it, and Sonic, killing him instantly.

After eight hits, this robot also self-destructs in black flames. The impact of falling off of the citadel tower is equal to eight hits, so if that happens then the robot is also destroyed by that means.

.

Sonic then hears a sound of blowing wind, and jumps when he sees an echidna rapidly glide in and roll to a stop across the floor. It's Zaga.

"You must have come from the oil chamber. I've been waiting for you."

"You knew I'd come here?" Sonic asks, suspicious. "How?"

"After I recovered, I saw many tools of alien machinery. I disabled a few and studied them, and I assumed they are the make of someone from your time. That is to say, 'Robotnik'."

"Yes, it seems he's been in this area for a while. But that doesn't mean I'd come here," Sonic argues.

"No, my friend. It does mean that and exactly that. For you see, this place was once the capital of echidna civilization, Ka'ralei. It is where we created Mechanix! And it is my home!" Zaga declares, rather solemnly at that. "Whenever Mechanix is awake, it has always been fate for the heroes that stop him to first assemble here, where it all began."

"I guess it's just us then, haha." Sonic then wonders about it, and looks around at the city. "Then, is there something here we can use to stop Mechanix?" He turns to Zaga excitedly, asking, "Do you know where it is?!"

Zaga frowns. "I am sorry, Sonic, there is nothing left. I explored every option from what remained... but there are not many remains."

He turns away, his face darkening with sorrow. Sonic is quiet for a moment, but after a thought he asks, "Were your people at war?"

Zaga turns around, surprised and somewhat horrified. "How did you know that?"

Sonic laughs, causing Zaga to ease up a little. "It's all over the walls, man! I mean, the reliefs. Here and... somewhere else, too. I keep on seeing death, violence, fire... a massive explosion... and Mechanix. Those must have been actual events, right? Really important, too?"

Sonic kicks the robot rubble (or looks over the side if the robot fell off), and says, "And what's with all these deadly gargoyles?! I only know one reason why anyone makes robots: to kill other people efficiently. If they're still here now there must have been a bazillion of these things in your time!"

Zaga was looking absently at the rooftops. "Yes... Yes, you are perfectly correct. Yes. We were at war with each other. This city amongst all the others, in the Skyless Time."

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He looks at Sonic seriously for a second, and then smiles and snorts at self-reflection. "Come, Sonic, shall I tell you the reason for Mechanix's creation? It would be a short tale, brief enough to explain what you have seen, and understand the great threat that is Mechanix."

Sonic smirks, thinking "A short tale yeah uh huh," and answers, "Well sure, Zaga! I've been pretty curious, but if you already know everything c'mon and tell me!"

"Very well, comfort yourself as I elocute. *ahem* The echidna civilization is ancient by even its own standards, lasting tens of millenia and reaching the edges of heaven at its zenith. That time was the Great Era, and it ended in apocalyptic cataclysm a century before my own time. To survive, all the billions of echidnas had to hide away forever, as the open air of the world burnt with fire. Even now I do not know if all seven nations survived effectively... that is, in my time I could not know. As it seems, Ka'ralei... and all the others... could not survive to your time..."

"They may have killed each other. The council of elders from each of the seven cities had become bitterly corrupt, selfish and violent by the time I was born. They had always blamed each other for having some connection or another to the apocalypse, and rejected each others' peoples as being true echidnas. It was stupid, but our government was constitutionally oligarchic and dictatorial... and even now I suspect the cursed event which chased us into the dirt was the monstrous consequence of some projection a stupid fool with power felt to make... Imprisoning us in darkness and ignorance... demanding the morality of hypocrites and killers. They went mad talking self-importantly to each other, judging heathenous the petty acts of commoners. When the people asked for reason and voice, the elders screamed in fury for cleansing by fire and sin sacrifices of blood. A war did begin... but I will return to this matter."

"Let me now speak of Mechanix. He was created by geniuses who knew the edge of our knowledge, however finitely rescued from total global destruction. They crafted his material form with the function of innately absorbing the energy of the overworld, crafted an artificial mind advanced enough to devise a method for global restoration yet restrained enough to seek no harmful intention, and perfected a mechanical body of the strength and endurance to withstand the execution of global restoration. Consequently, it was a tremendously powerful entity, and certainly the most significant one in my time."

"But the elders... as soon as they saw it was functioning, they ordered research and experimentation to cease. They snatched it away before we could finish the behavior controls, and knowingly as well, I declare. Naturally explaining it away as the urgency of a return to the sun..."

"Ka'ralei declared war on numerous other countries, a few of which who were already at war with more others. It was already a bad time... epidemics, famines, droughts, and the worst being air blocks, where people choke and die by the hundreds on the spot... But the elders had no one but each other to play with their puppet societies of living people strangling from the chains on their fingers. Ka'ralei used Mechanix. They broke his controls and used him to kill. To massacre. To obliterate. Mechanix slaughtered tens of thousands of people, destroyed large zones of other cities. Armies raised to defeat him were demolished in a day.

"In retaliation they created the war tools, which invaded in the thousands. They killed many of us before we made our own war tools to fight back. Mechanix wasn't used for defense. No, the elders were safe up in this tower, it is better for Mechanix to continue killing elsewhere. Devils."

"History had turn its final spiral towards sheer screaming hell when, seeing certain death, my spirit came aflame with righteousness. I had to end it all, kill all the elders, destroy Mechanix, build a safer machine, and revive the freedom in the depths of the echidna heart. With clear mind and purpose, my voice shone through the lies with justice and I wrought upon the masters a glorious revolution to reclaim their souls. They called us children, then traitors, then monsters, and as we came to the citadel in the millions they finally feared for their lives. They sent Mechanix to kill us all. It was a desperate battle, but in the end I subdued Mechanix and disabled him. We sealed him far away in ways we thought were permanent at the time..."

"I quickly went with my comrades to start the operation that would overthrow the elders, when someone betrayed me and knocked me unconscious from behind. Some fool who let a question of the enemies' ideas stay in his head. I reawakened to find myself midway through the very rare punishment of temporal exile for 'treason beyond treason'. They had me paralyzed, mocked me with shallow narrations, and froze me alive with some ancient energy seal technique, much weaker than the one we used on Mechanix. Still helpless, I fell into a dreamless sleep that faded into the streams of time."

He relaxes his posture. "While my seal weakened over time, Mechanix's seal was more permanent than death, contained in a machine that actively resisted all possibilities of its material reawakening. If Robotnik can surpass that, we must henceforth assume he is fully aware of Mechanix's potential and seeks to attain it. He is an incredible threat. But Mechanix is worse. If he has the capacity to restore the earth, he has the power to destroy it."

.

Zaga seems to reflect on this danger as he stays quiet. Sonic breathes a sigh of relief. He then breathes a sigh of frustration.

"Damn it, this isn't good. We can't let Robotnik use Mechanix, he'll definitely destroy the world as soon as he can. But they're in outer space by now! And we're waaay underground. We need to get back above ground... cross the sea somehow... search Robotnik's bases for other space ships... damn it!"

Zaga turns and says, "Outer space? Do you mean, the heavens? By Zexa..."

Sonic replies, "Yeah, space. Well, we should get going-"

"Wait," Zaga says, and then walks over to the fire pit. "I was caught up in the past and nearly forgot. There is a way."

He waves his hand in coordinated movements over the pit, and the fire seems to react, blowing around below. "This is the eternal fire of Ka'ralei. It is the symbol of the echidna fate, the symbol of heroes and mad rulers alike. It has true power, and the elders transformed it into a gateway. A gateway that connects to the ground before Mechanix, wherever he is."

Sonic's incredulous. "What? That sounds a lot like-" Zaga then waves his arms away from the fire pit and suddenly a thin tongue of flame burns through the air out of the grates and around in the air into a ring of fire. The enclosure within turns hazy with heat, and the mirage distorts into a smoky cloud that then took on new color and shape. It forms the image of another dark cave. Zaga lets out a "hmm," as Sonic scratches his head.

"Are you sure that's working? Neat, but, seems like it's just showing another cave."

Zaga shakes his head. "The rock walls are different from any cave I've seen, and I've lived my life in caves. But we should be seeing Mechanix directly. The gateway is energy-based, so there must be a distortion in the energy field..."

Sonic rubs his chin and shrugs. "Yeah, yeah, whatever. This is some magic but if it's quick and works I'm all for it. It does work, right? We can use this to find Robotnik and stop him and Mechanix!"

Zaga smiles, shaking off his thoughts. "Yes, certainly! I used just this to surprise Mechanix and disable him before."

"Good, let's do it!" Sonic says and runs at the portal all of a sudden. He jumps into it and finds himself hit by a wall of freezing cold air, and a much harder, if less irregular rock floor. "W-w-well it w-works, Z-z-z...Z-Zaga?!"

Sonic turns to sees a ring of electric arcs on this end, with the enclosure turning cloudy.

"Sonic!" Zaga yells out through the sound of the crackles and a strange muffling. "I thought this might happen! The distortion is too strong, I'll come out in chops of meat if I jump now!"

Sonic is amusedly disgusted. "What? Ew! But wait, what will you do?"

"It seems we cannot fight together yet! I will search the other cities. You must keep going! Defeat Robotnik! Destroy Mechanix!"

The clouds then fade into haze which dissipated into nothing, showing the rock wall ahead. The ring of electricity then near-instantly zips close into a small ring and makes a final pop.

Sonic breathes out through shivers and turns around. "Okay. He's here. Robotnik is here, Mechanix is here, and Tails... Tails is here. This is it! No more running around, Robotnik!"

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Assimilated Asteroid [Act 1] (2/12)

The dark stone is cut clean and straight in many areas, revealing the criss-crossing diagonal lines of the metal crystals within, but there are no speleothems. Instead, the larger cave spaces are connected by smoothly-cut tunnels that orient themselves in every direction, including diagonal and straight verticals. As he passes electric lamps set in even intervals, he finds himself crossing steel scaffolds and following series of wires. When they lead him to mines with drill machines autonomously and continuously digging and storing ore, he realizes Robotnik is active here. Of course, he also runs into many robots, including shielded guards and miners that turn their diamond pickaxes on Sonic. A few areas also have totem-shaped robots as stationary turrets and moving spike bots (whose spikes aren't fake and bouncy like the ones from Marble Garden Zone).

While the tunnels are easy to pass through, the caverns typically require more platforming (as in Crystal Caves) and fighting, especially the mine caverns. In the mines, Sonic has to cross a maze of platforms and machines, sometimes climbing ladders or crossing ceiling rungs due to the unjumpable distances involved. He may even need to spindash under the drills at the right moment to get through. Eventually, he'll find his path going more upwards than anywhere else, and it eventually breaches the surface.

Above the low hills of ice and stone is a great field of black, with stars carelessly sprayed across it in nebulae and galaxies. Stretching into space is the curvature of the planet Mobius, the grand colors of ocean blue and earth brown in speckles behind an embroidery of white clumps, sheets, and spirals. He realizes he is on an asteroid.

The asteroid's surface is very bumpy, rocky, and hilly, and interrupted by open-air mines that dig deep quarries back into the rock. There are also a few standing structures: power substations, robot barracks, or storage garages; with continuously smooth manifolds for walls and floors, often connected to small stretches of roads to other structures. If he keeps aware of hurdles and hazards, Sonic can reach top speed and keep a steady course on the highest points of the land. If he's not careful, he may end up in a loop-de-loop that sends him back down into the caves.

Tall stadium lights stand in the distance over a dry sea of smooth rock. There stands Robotnik's base, the size of a small city. He makes his way through the aforementioned terrain before coming to a single road leading to the main gate. After fending off robots attacking from oncoming vehicles, he hears the base's alarms go off. Just when he stops at the large reinforced metal slabs which made the doors of the main gate, a large humanoid robot vaults over the top and lands in front of Sonic.

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[Act 1 Boss]

The robot is a miniature version of Robotnik's Death Egg Suit (from Sonic 2), about half its original size (and twice Sonic's).

It has the same attacks but they're all slightly improved:

- walking forward with spiked hands twice as fast as its predecessor (it's also shorter, so Sonic will not be safe underneath the arms as before),

- launching into the air to lock-on and crush Sonic (this is three times as fast and lets out a small shock wave),

- dropping bombs from a backpack next to the jetpack, this time while hovering over Sonic to specifically target him,

- and firing out its arms as rockets to hit Sonic from long distance, before returning and connecting them to the body. It does this six times instead of only two, and more rapidly, too.

Eight hits sets off a chain reaction, the explosions rending the legs off the body, which falls and topples over. The head then opens as an Egg Robo crawls out. It does so quickly, just before the suit suffers one last, giant explosion that blows open the gate (and can hurt Sonic if he stands too close).

The Egg Robo attacks Sonic, but it's just a standard one and is defeated in two hits.

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[Act 2]

Sonic enters the base. The alarm continues with spinning and pulsing klaxon lights while the wailing horn klaxon ceases. Sonic dashes down brightly lit roads lined with defensive robots even up the lamp poles. The stadium lights blare down from ahead washing out every shadow and mixing with the yellow guardrail sidelights and the blue street lamps. Stars of red and blue lights dot the heavily industrialized base with its purely mechanical buildings and infrastructure, pipes, scaffolds, tanks, fences, silos, factories and control rooms. The road cuts off into the dense platforming sections of these very places, defended by sentry turrets and robots tucked away in every corner for ambush.

He reaches the edge of the base and enters a small building with heavy security. It connects to a monorail station, in which Sonic enters a car and activates it. After a few sparks by the capacitor at the end of the rail, his car is then launched down the rail. The hills and pile drivers slide by in the background.

Suddenly, a hologram appears from a terminal in the front side of the car. It's Robotnik.

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"Ah, how convenient of you to find an alternate means to chase me. For once, I don't need to provide for you."

Sonic doesn't care about the remark. "Show me where Tails is. Now."

Not missing a beat, Robotnik rejoins, "No. Are you not my enemy? I could activate that rail car's self-desruct button instead. It would be easy, and to be honest I am quite tempted."

Sonic is still unfazed. "Right, you want to make me suffer. You're doing that just fine, being your usual annoying self. But it doesn't matter. I'm coming for you, Robotnik. I'm ending your petty game."

The camera then switched to one in a horizontal missile silo, with a gargantuan rocket on a charred track being checked over by hundreds of robots. Sonic inhales, already recognizing the objective of destroying it.

Robotnik's voice continues. "This is Flying Fury. Its warhead is of equal strength to one hundred thousand megatons of dynamite. It will incinerate the continent you Mobians have most infested, and eliminate most of the other cretins with fallout radiation. The warhead is 100% failsafe. In addition,"

The camera changes to one inside a narrow compartment in the rocket. Under dim maintenance lights, chained to a group of pipes, is Tails, unconscious and beaten.

Robotnik speaks with pressing schadenfreude. "Your cute little butt buddy is locked inside it and is going to be the first one to die."

Sonic is furious. Robotnik never stooped so low, and he's doing it just to spite Sonic. He's steaming, clenching his fists and teeth. He calms only when he thinks that Tails' rescue is at finally at hand.

The camera returns to Robotnik's face, calm and disinterested. "It's so unfair that billions of Mobians will die." Sonic stares at Robotnik, disgusted to hear him say such a string of words. Robotnik continues, "Why do I have to suffer so much work just to live alone in peace?"

Sonic curses Robotnik but he only laughs. He laughs a little more than he should, as if what he said was some great subtle joke.

"By the way, I am going to kill you after all." Sonic's eyes choked wide on the first thought and a rush of adrenaline made him spin attack through the layered glass windows and fall onto the hard rocks below. The monorail car subsequently explodes.

Sonic looks at the burning remains still scooting down the rail in a ball of flames. "He's more serious now. Damn it, I should have figured he was holding back all those times."

He thinks of the Death Egg, but then he is suddenly reminded of the core. "I should have known how insane he is."

.

Half of the level remains.

Sonic runs up and down the hills and passes smaller bases, a few of which lead back inside the asteroid. Egg Robos now join the attack, and even the mines' drill robots turn from their jobs to attack Sonic.

Underground, he comes to a large cave bisected by the mechanical wall of an underground facility. Braving the turrets he spindashes through the main door. The hallways in the base are brightly lit with shiny waxed floors and complicated electronic-ridden walls. He plows through waves of robot fireteams, goes up and down sloped corridors and crosses steel walkways through mines. The motion-detecting doors swoosh far before him, allowing a constant speed. Two or three times he finds himself passing blinking neon signs into construction areas, platforming across girders and pipelines.

Exiting that base he follows a large pipeline through tunnels and a chasm before it rises a slope to ground level. There it connects to the back of a large cement-and-girder wall of a large complex. Next to it is a large and loud atmospheric air generator, which leads into the building with a metal ventilation shaft. Sonic pops a hole open in it but is blown away by a gusty cloud of condensed air. The air continues to blow out afterwards, but much less forcefully and with a whistle. Sonic enters as a spinball, only to find the air pressure inside still strong enough to roll him down the shaft and through a vent into a long utility tunnel, with a flat roof and two parallel walkways above a dark, dusty floor, under long neon lights.

As he runs down the montonous tunnel, he finds it somewhat dilapidated with sharp busted pipes and sporadic electric arcs. Before too long, he then hears the muffled broadcast of Robotnik's voice, followed by a series of separately located mechanical sounds of such volume as to rumble and shake Sonic if he stands still. He then hears another rumbling, one of higher frequency, coming down the rails at the bottom floor of the tunnel. He hears its weight and speed, so he runs faster. A purple glow spreads and brightens the passing walls as a maintenance robot scoots up behind Sonic, catching up to his speed.

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[Act 2 Boss]

This is a running boss so Sonic should be especially careful not to lose rings. They won't bounce more than once before flying off screen.

The robot looks much like a train, with a cylindrical, mechanical body (if somewhat shorter) and a sharp nose. It levitates magnetically over the tracks. It also generates a purple electric shield (the source of its light) that will hurt Sonic if he falls back and ends up touching it. However, as he runs, Sonic can jump between the floor with the rail and the floor with the walkways. Although he won't get hit by the shield on the walkways, the robot holds out an arm with an electrified spike slightly behind the edge of its shield at the 'nose'.

If Sonic stays on one floor or another for 20 seconds, it slowly extends a third arm holding one of three weapons:

- a rapidly clipping pair of industrial scissors,

- a blowtorch which fires for 3 seconds, forcing Sonic to change floors,

- a wrench-like claw waits behind Sonic and yanks out the first broken pipe that passes by. It then tries to shank Sonic twice before throwing it at him.

Sonic can destroy these arms by spin attacking behind the weapons and bouncing. Each is destroyed in four hits.

The tunnel's hazards remain as before, and it can be discerned the walkway has more pipes (spikes) and the railway more wires (electric arcs). Every 15 seconds at their speed, they come across big electric arcs that cover 75% of the vertical space of both floors. That is, Sonic will have to either jump on the walkway then over the top or drop below and roll under. These giant arcs inevitably crash into the robot, and after two collisions its shield destabilizes for 5 seconds. Sonic can then attack its 'head' directly for 4-5 hits per shield disruption.

After ten hits, the robot starts crackling with electricity and decelerates. Explosions start to pop off just before it leaves the edge of sight, and this continues to be heard for a few seconds until the thing explodes altogether.

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Flying Fury [Act 1] (2/13)

The utility tunnel connects to a large complicated machine room that Sonic fortunately doesn't need to explore. He follows a path to a staircase that leads him to the tall main lobby of the launch base. He fights a crowd of robots against a wall of glass looking out on the asteroid before coming to an elevator. He goes in and it takes him up into the control room.

The control room is filled with computer screens and blinking lights. They monitor the rocket and it becomes apparent from the visuals that the missile's launch sequence has been activated. In a rush, Sonic flies down the room's main entrance, down a large staircase, across a cement bridge and into the silo itself. The way is blocked by a metal door, but without delay Sonic smashes into it four times before breaking through.

The silo is massive, three stories tall and maybe a dozen times that length. The inside walls are covered with blast-resistant steel girders and heavily protected industrial lights, all in a metallic orange. Sonic sprints down the catwalks in the middle of the room, under the sound of heavily burdened wheels, like tank treads, and the artificially voiced countdown that is approaching the final number.

He sees and passes the tail of the rocket. Its main body is purely black and smooth, with a few pinprick lights and Robotnik's name in red on white. It moves along a conveyor belt at the very bottom of the silo, but stops as Sonic reaches it. As he runs down its great length, an elevator slowly raises it and then arms load its wings into slots in the silo walls. The countdown ends.

The engine ignites, blasting out a column of white-hot fire. Sonic keeps his top speed as the giant mass starts to accelerate. If he falls behind, the wall of fire incinerates him instantly. If he holds on just a little longer, he finds a latch and breaks through it.

The camera switches to show Sonic from inside Flying Fury.

Looking out of the door, Sonic sees the rocket constantly accelerate as it flies out of the silo and then thrusts away from the asteroid's surface. An alarm inside the rocket is going off, and a second door slides shut between the walls where the latch was broken off. Sonic waits no longer and keeps moving.

The inside of the Flying Fury are very confined sections of metal and machinery, divided by locked doors breakable in four hits each. There are even robots in a few sections, but they turn out to have animal cores. The animals cannot escape. Impatiently passing porticles showing the growing image of Mobius' atmosphere, Sonic eventually breaks down the door into the section that has Tails.

.

"Tails!" Sonic looks at his body, scuffled, bruised and cut. The blood is dry. His arms are bent uncomfortably behind him. He goes and spins through the chains, the buzzing sound causing Tails' ears to flick.

Sonic walks back around as he slowly wakes up. He opens his eyes, mumbles, "Son...Sonic? Where..."

Sonic waits as Tails blinks and slowly frees his numbed arms. He then turns to look out a porthole and suddenly becomes fully awake. He looks alarmed at Sonic, who holds out his hand and pulls him to his feet.

"Tails, we're running out of time. We're inside a rocket that's heading straight to Mobius, and it's really bad. You need to disable it! There's living Mobians on board..."

Tails holds his head and stumbles. "I... I'm not feeling so good, Sonic... Bring me to where I need to go..."

.

Sonic continues ahead, breaking down doors in the way as Tails slowly follows behind. After several segments, they come to one with a computer console lighting up the room. Tails goes to it and gets to work, rapidly flipping through screens of information and typing commands. While awake, he seems to be limping.

"I can redirect the course of the missile, that's it. The warhead isn't even in the system. But there's a jettison device we can use... This is Robotnik's, isn't it... He designed the warhead to ignite no matter what anyone does. Fortunately for us, it's not impact-based."

Tails turns to Sonic, suffering pain but remaining serious.

"I don't really know what's going on, but this is serious. It'll take me a while to override Robotnik's controls. I might even be able to make the rocket land without killing any of us on board! But the ejection mechanism is all hardware. You need to get to the nose... from the outside... find and smash it. There's some kind of gravitational system on-board so you'll be fine but... I don't know why he'd make that..."

"He's right," Sonic thinks, "He must have expected me to stop it, which means... there's a trap ahead."

"I don't like this," he then says. "Be careful. I'll return as soon as I can."

Tails nods, but something flashes on the screen drawing his attention. By the time he turns around, Sonic is already gone.

.

Sonic finds another hatch and breaks out, back to the outside of the rocket, landing on the hull. The rocket closes in on Mobius' atmosphere, although it's angle of approach is being adjusted. Sonic simply runs down the shaft of the rocket until he reaches the nose.

.

Before he even sees the hatch a laser shot sizzles into the metal right beneath where he just stood. Standing in his way is none other than Mechanix. He has changed form slightly, being slightly larger with a more angular build. There seems to be a slight glow from between his overlaying body parts. He keeps his arm raised, unmoving, when Sonic hears Tails' voice over an intercom.

"Sonic! Can you hear me? The controls, they're locking up! Robotnik froze the controls! Sonic!"

Tails' voice then disappears in static and Sonic watches a fighter ship fly in next to the rocket. Through the glass of the cockpit he sees Robotnik, talking through a headpiece (with no helmet).

"Now Sonic, did you think I'd let you save the world from my Apocalypse yet again? Why would I give any hint of its existence to you, if it was not all a trap from the very beginning? Why, even Mechanix helped me set this together. I've been giving him Chaos Emeralds, you see. Three, actually! In addition to increasing his strength, it also makes him smarter it seems. He might even become a worthy interlocutor with all seven, much more worthy than you, who's stunned speechless."

Sonic knows he can't be heard. "Fuck you," he says. Narrows his eyes. "I'm going to destroy both of you."

"So naive," Robotnik shakes his head, apparently hearing him after all, or maybe lip reading him. "So stupide. You can only save things at the last minute, but you think that makes you a hero. Tsk. I'll kill you now."

.

.

[Act 1 Boss : MECHANIX LV.2 ['ADEPT' : ▿ ▿ ▿] & EGG HARRIER ]

The rocket has three minutes until it enters the blue of the sky, and six minutes until it's impossible to further fix the rocket's trajectory with the warhead still on. Thirty more seconds and it explodes, a swift flash of white cleaning the screen and staying a blank white for a full 45 seconds before fading to rising clouds of fire.

The battlefield is the length of the rocket. If he goes all the way back, Sonic can fall off the back of the rocket and die, burnt to a crisp in the exhaust. If he tries to reach the nose, Mechanix will keep a steady position right in front of the hatch. He and Robotnik in his ship will otherwise follow Sonic and attack him.

Mechanix is now slightly faster than Sonic and can outrun him after a few seconds. His attacks switch out faster as well. He also attacks more accurately, and reacts quicker to Sonic's movements, particularly spindashes.

In addition to his previous attacks, he has new ones:

- a laser cannon that raises out of his left forearm and fires five flashing rods of energy,

- and a laser cannon that raises out of his right forearm and is charged with the left, firing a large beam that Sonic has to roll under.

After sixteen hits, Mechanix moves to the hatch and drops onto it, blurbing with radiating energy.

.

The Egg Harrier is a four-winged space fighter that usually stays at a distance as Mechanix attacks while occasionally firing. After every eleven of his attacks, he backs away as the Egg Harrier swoops in above the rocket and fires at a much closer, much less avoidable range. It uses three different weapons:

- a pair of regular energy pulse guns (the pulses are electric spheroids and fire in vertical pairs),

- a lock-on laser gun (locks on Sonic's position instantly, fires a half-second later, for 5 seconds or 10 beams total),

- and a heavy machine gun (generally follows Sonic's position).

It may appear either behind or in front of Sonic, and he should be careful not to be stuck between it and Mechanix (who does attack if Sonic gets too close to him). It also chases Sonic no matter where he is on the rocket, as Mechanix does. To attack it, Sonic has to jump and hit the cockpit itself.

After eight hits, the cockpit window is cracked and Robotnik backs off, staying in the background. He still fires but much less often than before.

.

Mechanix then flies off the rocket and towards the Egg Harrier. Robotnik is startled and exclaims, "No! I cancelled that order! Damn Tails jammed my signal! Stop it Mechanix don't come-" But Mechanix already reached the ship and opened a hatch. He reached to a tube inside when a spark twinkles and suddenly they're both engulfed in a colorful Chaos Energy explosion.

As the fireball slows and falls behind, Tails comes on the intercom again. "Gotcha Robotnik, heheh." "Tails!" Sonic shouts in joyful gratitude.

"Sonic, the hatch!" Tails presses in reminder.

Sonic immediately goes to the hatch and spin attacks it twice to jump in. "There should be a computer- a small electronic box, somewhere in the middle there." Sonic spindashes through the cramped machinery and ends up busting the computer in question.

Tails says a few jargon words under his breath as he types and then says, "Alright, I got it now. Now get away from there or the detachment rocket will burn you!"

"Got it!" Sonic says as he gets out. As he runs back to the door near Tails, the warhead detaches from the main rocket before blasting off on its own. Tails managed to get Flying Fury facing away from the earth as it fell in, so that the warhead would fly upwards and hopefully back into space.

Sonic turns his head to see it go, only for the rocket to start to rumble and shake.

"Oh... Oh yeah! Taking out the nose would ruin the aerodynamics!" Tails yells out. Sonic is alarmed but then laughs about it. Tails goes on, "Looks like we can't land as smoothly as I thought. But I can still save the animals! Hold on, Sonic, things are gonna get intense!"

Sonic shakes his head, smiling, and finds another hatch. Instead of spin attacking, he plants himself between the rungs, holding on tight. He looks down the length of the rocket tube and hears the noises of detachment before a large lower section disconnects and drops behind. It falls ahead of the rocket for a moment when its boosters engage and suddenly yank it far above them.

The rest of the rocket starts to spin in the air when its own exhaust launches, sending forceful jolts up the metal past Sonic, manifesting as powerful quakes.

Tails speaks with caught breath, "Well, we're not gonna land now. We're gonna crash!" Then static.

"Tails!" Sonic yells, unable to hear his own voice. The static stops, a strange silence in the rocket's din. He clings to the metal rungs, which grew hotter as they came near re-entry. Sonic knew from experience how hot re-entry would be.

Just as he figures to take his chances back inside, the hatch suddenly turns in the air and Sonic freaks out yelling, "Aahhhh!" Did the rocket explode?! Is he alive?! But then he sees he's stationary next to the rocket surface, at a different angle. He lets go and sees Tails crawl against the force of air pressure out onto the surface.

"TAILS, YOU'RE OKAY!" Sonic yells over the noise. Tails smiles while slowly crawling over to Sonic.

"NO POINT STAYING HERE! LET'S JUMP!" Tails shouts back.

Sonic appreciates Tails, enjoying this playful bravery, his smile widening as he remembered how young this little guy was, and still is. He nods, forgetting all about Robotnik and Mechanix and Zaga and everything else. They slowly stand to their feet, together, as the rocket's fuel burns out and it starts to flip through the medium between space and atmosphere. A dome of light suddenly flashes right over the rocket as its portable atmosphere crashes and burns into Mobius's. On the third flip, just as the light comes to grab them, they launch themselves off.

They shoot off as parallel to the ground as they could predict. Flying through the sky at several hundred miles per hour, wildly laughing and spreading their arms in the wind of the upper sky. Tails stretches his tails and gestures to Sonic, who gives him a thumbs-up. Tails then exerts himself, rapidly rotating his tails against the force of wind, clutching his eyes and fists. Sonic rolls to his side and turns towards Tails. He evens out and taps Tails, who looks at Sonic with an exerted expression. Sonic then feels guilty, only for Tails to smile and laugh. He sends out his hands and Sonic catches them. They then rapidly decelerate and tumble through the air, as the rocket falls flipping to the side.

They slow down after a while and eventually come to Tails' normal flying speed. He relaxes every now and then, making them gain a little speed from the drop.

"Maaaan that was close. I couldn't have done it without you, Tails."

Tails smiles and looks away. "Aww, well... you saved me first." He then turns to Sonic. "Hey, more than that, didn't we just stop a nuclear warhead from blowing up the entire planet?"

Even though he saw both space, the atmosphere, and parts of the surface of the planet, that didn't register as he stares blankly at it, "Yeah. Yeah we did!"

"Haha! I just woke up, too! 'All in a morning's work!'"

They both laugh heartily and relaxed.

Suddenly, they're both blinded. A white light blots out all of the sky and all of the earth. It is hundreds of times brighter than the sun, and after the shortest glance they tucked their chins in and squinted as hard as they could. They yell in pain, then yell at each other to hang on.

After half a minute, it slowly begins to fade away. Tails stops and turns, looking upwards at the 100,000 Mt explosion rinsing away the heavens, just barely out of the planet's atmosphere.

The near clouds scatter and a momentous shock wave blasts into them splaying their bond in an instant. They yelp for each other, deafened by the boom, eyes red and wet from the light and wind, helpless. Another shock wave smashes through their bodies and flings them down, down into the earth. Sonic spins, blind, deaf, in pain, in emotional pain, judging nothing and no one. He loses Tails and falls through the clouds of night.