General Audiences, Depictions of Cartoon Violence.

I do not consent to any use of this work in training Machine Learning programs, referred to by some as "AI."

Though the loose rock strewn over the land ahead was antagonistically jagged it did nothing to slow down Sonic the Hedgehog. In fact he found it quite useful as he evaded a swarm of badniks. When Buzz-Bombers and Bee-Bots swooped down he simply accelerated, kicking a volley of sharp gravel into their wings. The Motobugs in the corner of his eye fared even worse when their tires met the terrain, leaving them open for easy attack.

A series of metallic pops echoed behind Sonic as he landed on an elevated boulder. Looking back for the first time in a bit he saw the Motobugs shattered and the flying badniks crashing in disarray. Most of them at least, as Sonic noticed one particularly determined Buzz Bomber navigate the fray and charge toward him. He turned his heel. But he then relaxed his posture at the sight of his favorite yellow fox flying out from the side.

"Gotcha!" said Tails the fox as he landed square on the back of the Buzz Bomber and grabbed its head. Though the Badnik wasn't immediately destroyed, the mischievous grin Sonic noticed on Tails' face implied this was on purpose. There was no need to worry, yet.

"Sonic!" shouted Tails as he got jerked around by the panicked Buzz Bomber, "watch out!"

Sonic almost cocked his head, until he felt a rumble in the rock. A quick glance behind showed a large purple centipede-like badnik shooting out of the ground, ready to lunge with sharp pincers. Though the sound of buzzing closing in implied that this wasn't all Tails was warning about.

With a quick hop, Sonic gracefully landed on another boulder, evading the Centipede's attack with a whole second to spare. Then with a great fall and a kick from Tails the Buzz Bomber clumsily crashed into the Centipede.

The resulting explosion of shrapnel made a decently cool backdrop for Tails as he landed before it. Though he took an aloof pose, his eyes told Sonic that he wouldn't mind some praise.

"Cool maneuver and nice landing bud," said Sonic.

"It was nothing," said Tails, "...was the explosion cool?"

"Yeah, you shoulda seen it."

"No…" Tails squinted as he looked ahead to an inclining ridge, "I've grown too tough to care."

Sonic let out a snicker. The annoyed look on Tails' face made him stifle it, at least until he too broke and let out a giggle. What a funny little guy.

Their conversation was interrupted by the sound of something rolling toward them from the ridgeline above. It seemed a blue ball shaped badnik was speeding toward them, an opportunistic Roller.

Before he took off running, Sonic felt another tremor in the boulder beneath him. These badniks really do tend to blow their surprise factor at the last second. So Sonic decided to follow Tails' bit now, putting his arms on his back and leaning away casually right before either bot could get him.

With a loud reverberating thunk, the Roller hit the boulder just to be launched into the air by a Centipede bursting from the ground. The Roller flew like a cannonball all the way up into the cosmos. Well Sonic figured it would probably land somewhere, but it was out of his vision range pretty quick. He turned to face the Centipede and it faced him… for a moment. Then it was crushed under the boulder it had launched straight up into the air, segments of its body flying every which way.

"...Huh," is all Sonic could say.

A whine turned Sonic's attention to Tails. Well, it turned out to be more of a muffled giggle as Tails completely broke down in a laughing fit. Soon he was bent over clearly trying to catch his breath amidst his unrelenting cackling. Everytime it seemed he was about to regain his composure, he spit up another howling laugh.

"Huh…" said Sonic as he patted Tails on the back, "you gonna survive or do I gotta shake you around a bit?"

"Ye-yeah, I jus-Pfft!" Tails coughed and gasped, "The rock just- perfectly vertical! And, and-"

"Yeah, that was pretty funny," said Sonic, feeling a spot of envy for how much amusement Tails found in this.

"I… I really hope Eggman saw that somehow! Just imagine his fa-PFFT!" Tails now covered his mouth as he tried to stifle his cackling. "I'm sorry! We-we should get going."

"I'll give you another minute to actually breathe some air."

"No no! I'm-" Tails coughed and hit his chest, "I'm good! We should hurry!"

"Hurry? If you say so…" said Sonic.

Walking far enough from Tails, Sonic gave him a smirk before peeling out on the loose gravel. This kicked a barrage of sharp pebbles into the air and he felt himself dig at least a foot into the ground before catching enough traction to launch forward. Of course he looked back before getting too far ahead.

Luckily it seemed Tails had recovered enough to accept this challenge, taking off in an all out sprint as he wound up his tails. Soon he was actually catching up, despite his clearly labored breathing. "Show off!"

"You know I'm not even showing off yet!"

"Prove it!" shouted Tails.

And so Sonic went about proving it. As they bounded across this land, which was mostly barren of plant life, more badniks made an effort to slow him down. Unfortunately for them Sonic was showing off, as was Tails. He easily dodged a few attacks and sped past several more badniks before they could even try. This led to many attempting in vain to chase after him.

In their focus on Sonic, they were left completely open to assault by Tails. Every so often Sonic glanced behind to see Tails pouncing on bots that had lined themselves up perfectly. For the most part though the sound of crashing and robotic deconstruction behind him kept Sonic content that Tails was keeping up.

Soon one tall tower, for some purpose Sonic didn't care to know, loomed ahead of them atop the tallest ridge. As usual, Eggman had spoiled the nature of his traps and surprises before this last gauntlet. Every hidden centipede Badnik met a terrible, sometimes embarrassing fate. In short order Sonic found himself standing in front of the big logo of Eggman's face at the base of the tower. Before he could even ask Tails the best way to demolish it, the fox showed up with a stampede of bomb armed Badniks, all of whom armed their weapons once Sonic was in their line of sight.

The plan was obvious. Sonic waited long enough before dodging to allow Eggman's own machines to do this job themselves. In short order a series of massive explosions rocked the ridge, sending metal scrap and sharp rocks flying everywhere. A series of cracks ran down the sides of this rocky hill as the tower buckled and tumbled over. It almost brought the whole ridge down with it as it collapsed, its pieces rolling down the ridge into a valley below.

"We… may have gone a bit overboard," said Sonic.

"To be fair," said Tails as he landed next to Sonic, "this is Eggman's fault for giving those bots such high-yield explosives."

"Kinda seems like he's upset with us or something."

"What? No! He loves you!"

"Aww, thanks pal," Sonic ruffled the fur on Tails' head, "you just saved my self-esteem."

"Oh it's nothing. All I had to do was lie!"

Sonic let out a "snrk!"

A look of astonishment overcame Tails' face. "Oh! I got you to laugh first!"

"If that was a laugh," Sonic poked Tails' nose, "then that cackling fit of yours earlier was some sort of super extra dimensional laugh!"

"It was just a little titter."

"A what?!"

"It means giggle."

"Who'd you pick that up from?"

"Thesaurus."

Sonic took note that he needed to have a word with that thesaurus. Though admittedly he wasn't sure that 'titter' was an inappropriate word, but it sounded like it should be.

"Y'know, there's a good view up here," said Tails as he looked across the landscape from this high ridge.

Of course the view wasn't the best one they'd seen. Most of this landscape was gravel, stone hills, and abandoned quarries. But the funky shapes of the many sharp rocks jutting out of the land was worth a couple seconds to behold. After exactly five, Sonic felt quite ready to change the scenery. "Well Egghead's choice of scenery made us land a good ways away, how fast do you think we can get back?"

"If there aren't any more hidden badniks, probably three minutes and… thirty seconds, for me." Tails turned to Sonic with a sly smile. "For you, three minutes and forty seconds."

"Woah!" Sonic folded his arms, "feeling overconfident are we?"

"In this terrain my flight will give me an unfair advantage."

"You're saying this after seeing me show off?" Sonic leaned over the edge of the ridge and looked down, "you really are confident."

"If you're worried, feel free to have one of your mid-adventure naps instead."

"Oh no bro, we're gonna test this theory of yours."

"Don't be upset when I'm right." Tails shrugged casually but the flicking of his tails showed Sonic how excited he was.

With nothing left to say, the two of them readied on the edge of the ridge. They took a dramatic pause before taking off, which gave Sonic a chance to actually consider the path ahead. Directly below was that valley, now home to a scattering of debris. But among the stone of the descent he spotted a few conveniently ramp shaped rocks. From one of those he could gain enough altitude to reach a favorable path on the other side of the valley. Then with some effort he could leap between high points and boulders on a steady decline, no obstacles to slow his momentum.

"Ready?" said Sonic, focused on the point he planned to land.

"Yup."

Sonic gave a countdown and on three they were off. Side by side they accelerated down the ridge toward the rock ramps. After checking his target ramp, Sonic couldn't help but glance at Tails and notice the sheer determination on his face. For a moment he felt hope that Tails would win, until he remembered who the other contestant was.

Suddenly Tails turned towards a ramp shaped rock and Sonic remembered to look at his path. His ramp was upon him already, but he could easily turn and-! Something gave out under Sonic's feet and he skidded right past the ramp. He tried to stop, but saw a small landslide was following close behind. Forward then! Though directly ahead was a large chunk of the tower, hot sparks flying off of its surface.

With a gasp Sonic hesitated, then accelerated again. He could make it over this! Gaining as much speed as he could, he jumped and let his momentum carry him right over the debris. But the valley ridge on the approaching side looked less stable and more vertical than the last one. Even as he kicked his legs into a run before hitting the gravel there was no traction to be had. All Sonic managed to do was create yet another landslide as he steadily slide backward toward the bottom of the Valley.

"Oh Come on! Come on!" muttered Sonic as he ran faster. While he should've seen it coming, eventually one of his legs slipped too far and he faceplanted into the gravel. The ensuing landslide carried his disoriented body down to the valley. Honestly he felt a sense of relief when his moment halted with a thud. The best move now seemed to be to let the convening landslides bury him.

That would be irresponsible though, and not the cool kind. So after taking a moment to grumble, Sonic scrambled to his feet and dug himself out of the gravel and dirt. Directly above him hung a large chunk of debris, all around him was loose rock, and to his sides were steep inclines. Okay, he's made it out of worse. But there wasn't any more time to spare if he wanted to have any hope of beating Tails.

"Alright, let's go!" Sonic lifted his legs out of the gravel and got ready to jump. Though one step was just unsteady enough for his right leg to slip back into under the rocks. In fact it fell deeper than he thought it should've. He grunted, taking solace in knowing Tails wasn't here as he lifted his leg. But his leg didn't lift as some unmoving stone clamped on both sides of his ankle.

"Oh what the heck," said Sonic as he looked down. He gave his leg a hefty tug, but felt a sudden sharp pain in his ankle. "Ow! Sh-heck! What the heck?!"

Sonic wasn't panicking yet, there wasn't a need to. He just needed to dig out the gravel and move whatever heavy rocks were holding him down. It took an agonizingly long five seconds, but he managed to throw all the gravel in his immediate vicinity away. Instead of bigger rocks however, he found a crack in the solid stone beneath him. It was filled to the brim with gravel before and after his leg and didn't seem to have nearly enough clearance for his foot.

"How the heck?! Eugh!" Sonic tried tugging on his leg again. "Okay okay, I got into this mess, I can get out."

Seconds turned to minutes and Sonic's careful pulling turned to frenzied wrenching. The last thing he wanted was to injure his leg in this process, but some sort of primordial, bestial instinct was taking hold. He was stuck and he needed to stop being not free. But at what cost, he wondered, as his eyes kept drifting to some nearby sharp metal shrapnel.

"Sonic?!" shouted the distant voice of Tails, pulling Sonic out of his primitive fears and into more advanced social anxieties.

A look up revealed that Tails was flying between platforms of stone overhead, looking around with a concerned look on his face. It wouldn't take long for him to see Sonic stuck helplessly.

"Uh…" Sonic lied down and assumed the most casual pose he could while covering his stuck leg. "Down here pal!"

"Sonic!" shouted Tails with a tone of elation. As he hurried down to the valley though, Sonic noticed his face showed less concern and more outrage. "Sonic!" Tails' tone was definitely more pointed now.

"What's up?"

Tails landed in front of Sonic and scowled. "I thought we were taking that seriously! What are you doing?!"

"Oh, uh…" Sonic glanced around the environment for a second, "I actually wanted to take a break. Besides, you said this place had a great view."

Tails' mouth hung open as he looked at all of the dull rock and ugly wreckage around them. He didn't even say anything, instead gesturing sharply at the scene.

"Okay, you got me," said Sonic, as he still searched for an excuse less embarrassing than the truth. A glance up at the wreckage hanging overhead actually gave him an idea. "I also got thinking, maybe I should try and clean this up a bit better."

Tails looked up at the chunk of tower, "Oh, I guess that is a falling hazard… Why didn't you say something?"

"You were like, way too fast and got out of earshot."

"Oh yeah I was pretty in the zone," said Tails as he put a hand to his chin, examining the wreckage. "This'll be hard to dislodge with sheer force though, it's dug deep in both sides of this crevasse."

"Yeah that's a good point, you got anything that might help?"

"No, well, maybe…"

Tails turned away from Sonic, pacing and muttering to himself. So Sonic kept an eye on him as he made another quick attempt to yank his leg free. This wasn't successful before Sonic had to reassume his casual pose as Tails turned back around.

"Oh yeah! I brought my compact electro-magnet! It might apply enough force so that you can knock this mess the rest of the way down."

"Magnets are pretty cool," said Sonic as he wiped his nose. Evidently he was getting stressed enough to trigger his hay fever. "Why don't you run and get that real quick, I'll make sure no critters wander under here."

"Oh, so you're admitting I'd get there faster?"

"No. I don't know what your mini-magnet looks like."

"Sure, sure," said Tails with a frankly annoying nod, "I'll be back before you get a cramp from laying there."

"What?"

Tails snickered to himself as he took off flying up the side of the valley. Now if only Sonic could get himself free without losing his ability to run. He leaned over and dug at the crack some more, but no amount of clawing made a difference.

As he pushed some gravel away though, a loose cable came uncovered within reach. Hope filled his nerves as Sonic quickly grabbed the cable and started pulling on it. Unfortunately it was completely loose, giving no anchor for him to lift himself free. Still he coiled it up, then began looking for a place to lasso it. The only clear option near enough was the tower wreckage above him.

"Hmm…" Sonic tilted his head as he weighed the chances of something going horribly wrong. He didn't want to crush himself to death and the mental image of Tails returning to find him flattened in such a foolish way was beyond embarrassing. Maybe his only way out was going to be asking for help.

Or… the bit of what looked to be dripping grease from a tube in the wreckage above could serve as a good middle ground between safe and foolish. Tongue poking out the corner of his mouth, Sonic swung the cable like a cumbersome lasso and focused. In one hefty swing he sent it up and right onto the grease tube.

"In one try! Heh," said Sonic aloud to his own ego.

With a steady pull, Sonic watched the tube buckle and bend. It then broke loose, spilling a decent amount of machine grease a few yards uphill. From there the grease flowed down toward him very, very slowly.

Soon Sonic felt himself tapping his foot as he watched the ridge for signs of Tails. He knew his brother was faster than this grease, and that was scary. He looked back up at the broken tube, maybe he could bend it to spill grease closer to him? Without a second thought he yanked on the cable again. It quickly slipped loose of the grease tube, for some unimaginable reason, and snagged another cable on its way down. This sent a flash of sparks scattering down to the grease.

"Oh sh-wait, grease isn't flammable!" Sonic let out a relieved laugh as hot sparks fell over the flowing grease. Then in an instant the grease lit aflame. "...What the burning hell?!"

The burning grease rolled toward Sonic as a slow volcanic inferno of his inevitable doom. Yeah, there was no way he was taking his chances with that, especially with the awful smell it gave off. He looked back up at the wreckage, finding a dent with a good enough jagged chunk to lasso. This time it took him three swings to get his cable latch on. In that time the black smoke from the grease started wafting over him, making his eyes water and his lungs sting.

Stifling a cough, Sonic started trying to pull himself up. But even with a more vertical angle his foot wouldn't come loose. His ankle gave a sharp pain, warning it may give out. Going slow and careful wasn't working, so Sonic took a breath and gave one hard yank on the cable. There was a snap, it wasn't his leg. Through his blurry eyes he saw a large blue blur falling toward him.

The object fell to the ground beside Sonic. It was a metal ball with a large dent in its side. Sonic wiped the haze from his eyes, there was no way this was that badnik. As he got a clearer look however, the ball opened up itself and glared with an armadillo-like face. It was a Roller, one who'd had a bad day. The look in its eyes told Sonic it was going to make this his problem.

"How are you even in-tact?!" said Sonic.

The Roller snapped back into a ball shape and charged toward Sonic. The dent in its side made its trajectory wobbly, allowing Sonic to deflect it away with a shove. A warm feeling then touched his legs. With a yelp, Sonic turned and started rapidly stomping the burning grease with his free leg. He kept his ears on a swivel as he played firefighter, following the audible path of the Roller until it swung around well enough to charge him again.

"Just give up already!" shouted Sonic as he turned and stopped the Roller with his hands.

The Roller responded with some sort of electronic growl that Sonic had never heard before. The force Sonic had to exert to keep it from rolling him over was really straining his leg. If he didn't figure something out soon, the fire would reach him. Or even worse…

"Sonic!" shouted Tails from above.

"Oh please no," muttered Sonic.

Managing a glance up, Sonic saw Tails brandishing a large dish shaped device as he descended. What must this scene have looked like from his perspective? Sonic almost fell backward into the fire as he fretted.

An electronic whirring sound came from Tails and suddenly the Roller was a lot lighter on Sonic's end. It then shot up into the sky toward Tails accelerating dangerously fast. A yelp came from Tails and he dropped his new device right before the Roller slammed into it. The momentum carried it past Tails and into the ridge where both machines shattered into pieces. Then their pieces, along with yet another even larger landslide descended towards Sonic's position.

"Hang on!" shouted Tails as he swooped down and reached for Sonic.

Out of habit Sonic grabbed Tails' arms. Then he realized he was still stuck. "Tails wait! My leg is-"

Tails lifted straight up and with great ease Sonic's foot slid out of the crack in the rock. He gasped and looked down to see the burning grease pour into said crack like a lava flow. The fire was then promptly smothered by a massive wave of rock and dirt as the landslide buried everything up to the bottom of the tower wreckage.

"Oh… nice save," said Sonic.

They softly landed atop the ridge overlooking the mess in the valley below. Sonic could hear Tails catching his breath behind him, so he took this time to think about what he should say.

"Hey, uh…"

"What the heck happened while I was gone?!" said Tails between heavy breaths, "I missed all that action in what, a couple minutes?!"

"Well, you see, uh… honestly I'm not even sure," said Sonic. It was half true.

"What happened to your leg?" said Tails.

Sonic looked down and noticed all the obvious scuff marks and dark smoke stains right above his shoe. Looking at it made Sonic realize he was in a bit of pain. "Well I… It was a cheap shot."

Tails started circling him now, which was always watching his step, Tails slipped for a second before catching himself. Both of them looked down to see one of the many cracks in this stone hill.

Sonic slowly looked back up to Tails' face, who was still looking at Sonic's leg with a hand on his mouth and a look of pity. Oh jeez, he knows.

"Well one out of every thousand ambushes are gonna catch you off guard I guess."

"Oh, yeah," said Sonic as he wiped his nose and let out a relieved laugh, "maybe we oughta postpone that race though, not sure I should go full speed yet."

Tails nodded, hand still on his face as he looked down. Then Sonic heard a huff, followed by a cough.

"I… I should-" Tails was cut off by another sharp breath, "I-I'm gonna get my magnet."

"Oh yeah, sorry it got busted immediately."

"Don't be-" Tails clearly stifled another sharp breath, "You should-Pfft!" Sonic recognized that snicker, "g-get the Tornado ready."

Oh, Tails did know. Of course he did, he was smart. "Listen pal, you don't gotta-"

"I'm nice," said Tails as he poked Sonic's snout and stifled another sharp breath, "It-It'd be mean to laugh."

"...I know you are." Sonic patted Tails' head, "thanks for that save."

"Get out of here!"

"Okay okay," said Sonic, surprised by a feeling of relief washing over him, "...but don't feel bad for having a little titter at my expense."

Tails immediately keeled over onto his knees and covered his face with his hands. Sonic felt a light chuckle from his own chest, then carefully took off toward the Tornado. This was embarrassing, yes. But not that bad, not really. A smile grew on his face, as he too found amusement in the whole situation. He even let out a proper giggle.