Chapter 10 - Overcoming Momentous Obstacles
Author's note: Hi readers! I'm back with what is easily the longest chapter of the story so far! It doesn't seem like I've received any reviews for the previous chapter, so on with the story!
Once we set foot inside the Chum Bucket, SpongeBob led me, Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles straight across the dining room and towards a pair of steel double doors. A sign above the doors read "KITCHEN" in green letters.
"This is the entrance to Plankton's Evil Lab," SpongeBob said to us as we marched into the "kitchen". In reality, it was a dim hallway that was like a maze that twisted and turned in every direction. Before long, we reached another pair of doors, but these ones had a picture of Plankton dressed up as a clown, along with a sign that read "Entrance to the Unwelcomed Funhouse".
"That's a creepy name," I remarked, turning to the others, who gave me a nod of both agreement and reassurance. "SpongeBob, since Plankton is your arch-nemesis, you can do the honor of opening the doors again if you wish."
"Okie dokie!" he replied. With a click, the doors opened, and we entered the Unwelcomed Funhouse.
The funhouse was almost pitch-black, with the exception of glowing clown silhouettes and the occasional dim light bulb. We first had to dodge some spiky balls that were rolling across the floor, which presented zero troubles for us. Then we came across a tall robot that was hunched over and moving slowly, as if it were asleep. Its head emitted a dome-shaped white light that enveloped it and a bit of its surroundings. Its light was taking up the entire width of our path.
"What is that?" Tails asked, pointing at it.
"That is a Sleepytime robot," SpongeBob replied. "You have to sneak carefully when you enter its field, otherwise it'll hit you with a laser and you'll be toast."
"Uh, do you remember who's on your team?" Sonic piped up, jabbing his thumb into his chest. "I'll take care of it." He jumped high into the air and destroyed the Sleepytime robot with a quick Homing Attack.
"Wow, well done!" SpongeBob congratulated him. "Those robots are terrifying to most of us undersea dwellers, but with you here, they don't stand a chance!"
"Together, we can do anything," Tails said with a grin. "We'll destroy whatever mechanical menace dares to come our way!"
We passed a door that didn't seem to go anywhere, and up ahead I saw something golden and shiny. I pressed a button, and a bunch of platforms rose up from below. I jumped on one, then another, then another. Most of the others followed me, except for Tails who just flew above them all. I landed on a platform in front of a door, and floating in midair was not a key, but a shiny golden spatula.
"Well done," an evil voice cackled throughout the room. "Now use the spatula to unlock the next door. My creation is waiting for you on the other side."
"Creation?" Sonic wondered aloud, immediately suspicious. "Could that voice be from this Plankton creature you were talking about?"
"Right you are," SpongeBob replied. "The only way to end his dreams of stealing the Krabby Patty formula is to defeat whatever his new creation is. So let's go in."
And with that, SpongeBob took the spatula and used it to unlock the next door.
The next room we entered was nearly pitch black. We walked down a long flight of stairs, and an eerie green light shone on the staircase. There was a Sleepytime robot at the very bottom, so Knuckles leapt towards it and used his punches to destroy it. Once we reached the bottom, we found ourselves on the edge of a platform. I looked at the floor below, and it would be a nasty drop to get down there. Tails grabbed onto Sonic and Knuckles, safely bringing them down to a soft landing. SpongeBob blew an enormous bubble shaped like a parachute, and he carried me down with it, much to my relief. We turned left through a doorway, and we entered a massive sports arena where hundreds of fish were cheering at us from the stands. There was a huge scoreboard in the middle that was being controlled by Karen, Plankton's computer wife.
Two spotlights shone onto the ground, not far from where we were standing, and they brought everyone's attention to a pair of very familiar people—er, creatures—who were walking onto the stage.
Karen announced in a booming, computerized voice, "In this corner, defending the Chum Bucket Arena, are Patrick Star and Sandy Cheeks!"
Suddenly, there was an almighty CRASH from the other end of the arena as something big charged through the stands. Dust and debris went everywhere, but at least no one was injured.
"MY LEG!" someone exclaimed.
Okay, that one fish was an exception.
"And their challenger..." Karen continued, "...a humongous robot shaped like a sponge!"
My breath was taken away. It was indeed a robot version of SpongeBob. Unlike SpongeBob, it was made entirely of metal, it stood at least fifteen feet tall, and it had an evil grin permanently plastered onto its face. It even wore an oversized version of SpongeBob's red karate helmet and gloves!
"Look, it's a giraffe!" Patrick exclaimed as he gazed upwards into Robo-SpongeBob's emotionless eyes.
"It's a robot version of...me," SpongeBob said in awe. "Bring it on, Patrick and Sandy!"
I knew that SpongeBob and Patrick had to fight Robo-Sandy, and SpongeBob and Sandy had to fight Robo-Patrick, so it made sense to me that Patrick and Sandy would have to fight Robo-SpongeBob.
"Prepare to fight!" Karen called out. "Three...two...one...FIGHT!"
A bell rang loudly and Patrick performed a belly flop, hoping it would stun Robo-SpongeBob, but it had no effect on the robot. His enemy laughed, and the sound was eerily close to the real SpongeBob's trademark laugh. Robo-SpongeBob was quick to perform a counterattack by whipping out a giant bubble wand, and blowing a Cruise Bubble of its very own! It was the same attack that SpongeBob used against the Bad Electrobot.
"Ahhh!" Patrick screamed as he tried to outrun the Cruise Bubble, but it hit him and he fell to the ground face-first. However, the starfish immediately got up and said, "Hey, thanks! My back feels better!"
A force field sprung up to protect the audience (and us) as Robo-SpongeBob emitted lasers out of every one of its pores! The robot spun around and around, and somehow Sandy and Patrick managed to jump over all the laser beams. Next, Robo-SpongeBob charged straight at Patrick, getting ready to perform a karate chop, but Patrick dodged the robot and it slammed to the ground instead. While the robot was down, Patrick looked around for some kind of weak spot, and thankfully it had one in the form of a metal plate on its back. Patrick was barely able to loosen half the screws with his arms before Robo-SpongeBob leapt back up and flung him all the way across the arena.
"I'm gonna kick yer butt, Texas style!" I heard Sandy proclaim as Robo-SpongeBob locked its sights onto her. Swing hooks descended from the ceiling, and the squirrel used her lasso to latch onto one just as the robot repeated its Cruise Bubble move. Sandy let out a loud "YEEEEHAWWWW!" as she swung from hook to hook like a monkey in the jungle, and the Cruise Bubble harmlessly popped on its own. Even as the robot started to spin around while shooting out lasers again, Sandy was still swinging and dodging the deadly beams in ways that only squirrels could pull off. Robo-SpongeBob stopped spinning a few seconds later, and once again it did the karate chop, but Sandy was too quick for it to harm her. Robo-SpongeBob slammed to the ground, and Sandy whipped out her lasso to loosen the remainder screws from the metal plate on its back. Robo-SpongeBob leapt back up and flung Sandy across the arena, but the clever squirrel quickly whipped out her lasso and spun it around like a helicopter, allowing her to safely glide back down to the ground.
"My turn to play again!" Patrick grinned as he eagerly faced Robo-SpongeBob for one more round. Robo-SpongeBob did all the same moves from earlier, including the Cruise Bubble, the spinning, and the karate chop (Patrick almost got clobbered this time!), Robo-SpongeBob slammed to the ground once again. Now that all the screws were loosened, Patrick picked up the metal plate with his strong starfish arms and threw it aside, exposing the robot's internal battery. The starfish let out a battle cry, pounded his chest once, and did a humongous belly flop straight onto the battery. The battery began to smoke, and Patrick leapt off the robot just in time for the battery to burst into sparks and flames. Robo-SpongeBob had been successfully defeated!
"WOOHOO!" Patrick grinned, thumping his chest like a gorilla and running a victory lap around the arena while the crowd cheered. "That was so much fun!"
"NOOOO!" Karen cried, shedding pixelated tears. "All my husband's plans have been ruined!"
"This isn't fair!" Plankton growled with rage, shaking his microscopic fists for all the world to see. "I always wanted to steal the Krabby Patty formula and I can't do it now!"
"Well, it is fair to us," Sandy said, glaring at Plankton.
"Let's just go," Karen said to Plankton, and they fled from the arena with no time to waste.
"Cowards," Knuckles grunted.
Sady and Patrick then noticed us. "Hi SpongeBob!" Patrick said, running over to give his best friend a high-five. After that, Patrick looked around and noticed me, Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles. "And who are these?"
We began to introduce ourselves, but before we could possibly finish, something weird happened. The whole area went dark, and Patrick and Sandy disappeared as if I had just switched off a TV. I began to panic, not sure if all my other friends were still with me or if I'd be all alone again, but thankfully they were here. We all breathed a sigh of relief as our surroundings faded into view once again. This time, we stood outside the Chum Bucket, facing the Krusty Krab.
"So now we have to go back there?" I asked, pointing at the Krusty Krab in confusion. "That's the door we came out of after relaxing in that apartment."
"Let me show the way," SpongeBob smiled, and he led us through the door and into the Krusty Krab. Guess who was there to greet us? Mr. Krabs of course!
"Welcome back, me boy!" Mr. Krabs greeted SpongeBob. "Yer friends really gave that robot a well-deserved whoopin', ar har har har! But there are still lots of traps ahead in the maze! Sandy and Patrick will accompany you."
Suddenly, the starfish and the squirrel appeared out of literally nowhere, initially startling everyone, but SpongeBob high-fived both of his friends not even a second later. After properly introducing ourselves this time, Patrick said, "I have this key in my pocket for some reason. A voice told me that it was called the Food Key or something like that. Unfortunately it didn't seem to work. Instead I was brought over to Plankton's lab to face the giant robot that looked like SpongeBob!"
"Maybe the key will work in a room further up ahead," Tails said with a smile. "And Sandy, I saw that you can fly too!"
Sandy shook her head. "Not exactly. Yeh saw me glidin'. But you said you can fly, so we'll all make a great team!"
"Well Mr. Krabs, we'd better go," SpongeBob told his boss. "We got a mission to embark on!"
Sonic whipped us out of the Krusty Krab before Mr. Krabs could respond. Strangely enough, we didn't seem to be in Bikini Bottom any longer. Instead, we were in another stone-clad room much like the Trap Zone, and there was a large door with iron hinges. The next key was floating in midair, and I took it in my right hand.
"This is the Lava Key," the disembodied voice spoke. "The door has been unlocked."
"I don't like the sound of that," Patrick said, profusely shaking in fear. "I guess we'll...go in?"
"There's only one way out of this maze," Sonic said, "and that is by continuing on through this next area. Let's go."
"Oh, no way!" I steamed. The door opened into a scorching volcanic room that was even hotter than The World of Fire! Bubbling, boiling, seething lava bathed the floor. Smoke filled the air. The rocky walls were combusting and burning as bright as the sun. I was barely able to make out the words "The City of Lava" amongst all the lava and flames. The smoke quickly caused everyone to cough, except for Sandy since she always wore her protective suit for breathing underwater.
"Everybody grab onto me!" Tails commanded. "I'm a lot stronger than I look."
After some shuffling around so we could all be in the right formation, Tails lifted us into the air while trying not to inhale too much smoke. He gritted his teeth as we flew past the enormous volcano and above even more boiling hot lava. Just when he was well on his way to losing all of his stamina, we made it across to the other end, where the next key hovered on a small platform.
"This is the Darkness Key. The door has been unlocked."
I literally jammed that key as hard as I could into the door, and used all my weight to get the door open quickly. We hurtled into the next room and the door slammed behind us.
"That was way too much," I said, sweating and panting heavily. My eyes were still overwhelmed by the sheer intensity of the previous room, so much that I couldn't see my own hand in front of my face! "AHH! Did I go blind? I can't see anything!"
"Me neither!" Tails replied, followed by everyone else's panicked words of confirmation.
"Wait," I said, sticking my index finger into the air even though I knew that nobody could see it. "The key was called the Darkness Key. Maybe the Lava Key and the Darkness Key were placed here to disorient us even more?"
"I'm sure of that," Sonic said. "So we're not blind; we're just in a room that's pitch-black...which really isn't much better given the current situation."
Suddenly, a row of relatively dim torches began to illuminate the room. It was just a short hallway with another door at the end, and the next key was visible. I took it once we got there.
"This is the Boss Key. The door has been unlocked."
"Yeah, we know," I said, annoyed by the voice.
"But wait," SpongeBob spoke up. "The Boss Key...what if this is the last key before the end of the maze?"
"That would be awesome!" Patrick said, thumping his chest. "We'd finally be out of here!"
"And we couldn't have done it without you," I replied, smiling at everyone from ear to ear.
"Wait!" Sandy interjected. "But Patrick still has the Food Key. This means we're not done yet. It's time for us to stop yappin' and get to it!"
As soon as we entered the next room, which resembled a factory, I immediately experienced deja vu. The sounds of machinery huffing and puffing, the smell of oil, and the sight of white-hot steam shooting out of narrow copper pipes overwhelmed my senses. A metal sign in front of me read "Welcome to Boss Factory # 2!"
"I was right," I said as I looked around. "There is indeed more than one Boss Factory."
As we walked along, making our way towards a door at the far end, there was a short hallway with figurines of all the bosses we've faced so far, and they were encased in a glass display case. Starting from the half-shark/half-zombie creature, the mako shark, and Stella the Skunk; all the way to Robo-SpongeBob, which was our most recent boss fight. After that was a question mark with an arrow pointing towards the door in front of us.
We didn't dare to say any more words until we reached the door, which automatically rose upwards to grant us access to the next room.
"This is getting kind of freaky," Sonic admitted as we entered this area of the second Boss Factory. Once we were all inside, the door closed behind us, I bonked my head on something, and a bright light illuminated the room.
It turned out that what I had bonked my head on...was a giant floating eyeball. Now I was really experiencing deja vu, but that was the least of my worries.
Suddenly, sirens and buzzers and spinning red lights scared the bejesus out of all of us! The eyeball rose a little higher into the air and turned its gaze to face everyone in our group.
"Intruder alert!" the eyeball spoke in a deep, robotic voice. A light went off in the middle of its pupil and a blue laser beam almost vaporized Knuckles!
"This thing is trying to kill us!" Patrick cried. That made me remember something.
Now what did the Evil Eye tell me a long time ago...? I thought as the eyeball continued to wreak havoc on my friends, amazed that it hadn't started to attack me yet. Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, and Sandy were going to town on this thing to try to defeat it, but they were having quite a hard time. Suddenly, the memory came back to me.
"You're Gt. Eyeball!" I shouted. The mechanical eyeball's iris glowed red for a second, and then it turned towards me! "Uh oh."
Gt. Eyeball didn't verbally respond. Instead, it dropped down to the floor and began to roll itself towards me like a giant boulder!
"RESCUE HIM, SONIC!" Tails shouted as Gt. Eyeball quickly gained on me, ready to squash me flat as a pancake. I was immediately yanked out of its path thanks to my spiky blue friend, who leapt up and started pounding Gt. Eyeball with dozens of homing Attacks. Gt. Eyeball slowed down somewhat, but it certainly didn't seem ready to end the battle. Once the eyeball stopped rolling around and resumed floating in the air, SpongeBob delivered a Cruise Bubble straight to its pupil, but it had no effect other than making Gt. Eyeball chuckle evilly.
"We won't give up so easily!" Tails shouted to the eyeball. The fox whipped out a large, golden ring. "Here, Sonic! Catch!"
The blue hedgehog took it in his right hand and started to glow with newfound energy. "Ready when you are, my friends!"
Gt. Eyeball was getting ready to fire yet another blue laser beam, but Knuckles, Tails, and Sonic joined together around the ring and called out, "TEAM BLAST!" Knuckles spun Tails and Sonic around and around like an Olympic athlete getting ready to throw a hammer, and once he let go, Tails and Sonic flew around the room at supersonic speeds in a dizzying blur of orange and blue. Smoke and sparks came out of Gt. Eyeball, and before long, it was reduced to a pile of smoldering circuits, dented metal, and blown fuses.
"Yay, we did it!" Tails cried in victory, and he gave everyone, including me, a double-high-five.
"Thanks for the ring, Tails!" Sonic smiled. "Without it, this fight would have been going on for much longer, even for the fastest creatures alive!"
"You're welcome buddy," Tails said, patting Sonic on the back.
"Onward?" I vocalized.
"Yes!" Sandy said, making a fist. "Whatever comes our way next will have no match for us, just like me in a big ol' Texas rodeo!"
The next door didn't require a key to unlock it, but as soon as it opened, I heard a strange hissing sound, along with a weird rattle. This room was themed to look like a desert, much like the room where we experienced the sandstorm. Thankfully, the air was calm here, albeit on the hot side.
"I know that sound from my ol' days in Texas," Sandy said. "So we'd better tread very carefully around here."
I looked around to find the source of the sounds, and there it was: a Western diamondback that lay well-camouflaged on top of the sand. We kept a very good distance from it as we made our way to the door at the end of the room, and even Sonic walked slowly alongside the rest of us. According to a wooden sign half-buried in the ground, it was called Lindan Rattlesnake, which I thought was a very bizarre name.
"I see it," I whispered. "We're doing a good job."
Eventually, we arrived at the door and opened it, and once we stepped over the threshold of the new room, we were met with a nasty surprise.
There was no key in sight.
I tried the door.
And it was locked.
"Uhh, how do we get out of here now?" I said on the verge of panicking.
"Uhh, not sure," Patrick said as he began to fish around in his pockets. "Hey wait, I still have the Food Key!"
"Safe and sound," SpongeBob smiled. He did his best imitation of the disembodied voice. "This is the Food Key. The door has been unlocked. Did I do a good job?"
"Yippee," Knuckles said with a hint of sarcasm. "We've heard the same voice for I don't know how many times."
"Want me to start calling you Squidward?" SpongeBob teased, winking at him.
"No!" the echidna growled. "Just get the door open so we can get moving!"
"Not a problem!" SpongeBob grinned. "Patrick, you do the honors this time!"
"Okay," the starfish replied. He opened the door with the Food Key, and we all marched into the next area.
Author's note: Wow, that was one heck of a chapter, wasn't it? I have to give you some backstory regarding about the Chum Bucket Lab and Robo-SpongeBob scenes. Again, keep in mind that I originally wrote this as a kid. One of my favorite video games is SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom, and I've always wondered where the doors to the kitchen could lead to, since I didn't have enough Golden Spatulas to enter at the time. Of course I now know that it leads to the fight with Robo-SpongeBob, but at the time I thought there would have been an entire level before it. I don't know where the name Unwelcomed Funhouse could have possibly come from; perhaps just something completely random that my eight or nine-year-old imagination came up with! Anyway, I hope you enjoyed it. Please feel free to leave a review, and stay tuned for more!