Half an hour later, Sonic finally finds his way out of the underwater monorail tunnel network and emerges onto the beach his friends (and Eggman and Orbot) had previously found. Not seeing anyone, he activates his communicator. "Yo Tails, how far away are you?"
The answer is total radio silence.
"Tails? Are you there, bud?"
The radio silence continues.
Starting to worry, Sonic looks out over the sea, but all he can see is the shimmering blue water. Where are they?
Suddenly, his communicator springs into life. "So, you finally found your way out," Master Zik greets.
"What have you done with my friends?" Sonic asks.
"They are alive for now," Zik answers. "How long they remain alive is dependent on whether you find them in time or not."
"Where are they‽" Sonic demands.
"Answering that question would deprive me of the opportunity to learn all I need to destroy you," Zik explains. "You claim to be fast. Prove it."
The communicator falls silent.
Looking around, Sonic sees no obvious clues. Might need a little help with this. Activating his communicator again, he dials it to the Sky Patrol frequency‑
"I anticipated you calling for help," Zik interrupts. "You must complete this task alone."
"I will find my friends, and I will save them," Sonic growls.
"You will try, and you will fail," Zik replies before Sonic's communicator dies completely.
"Darn it!" Sonic takes a deep breath. OK, keep calm and think: what would Amy do? No, wrong question; what would Sally do? And why did I think of Amy first? Sonic shakes his head. Focus. Think… Sal would look for something‑ Clues. Zik must have left clues. Gotta find them.
Sonic carefully looks all around him for anything that appears out of place, an act that proves challenging because he's never been here before. But eventually he spots something suspicious: a single stick inserted into the topsoil enough to remain upright. Curious, Sonic approaches it, quickly noticing a second, a third, a fourth, a fifth upright stick, all in a line. A trail? An arrow? It's worth a shot.
Sonic gets ready to charge a Peel Out but stops himself. Hold on: if it's an arrow, then there might be more, and I don't want to run past any… I gotta go slow. Sighing to himself, Sonic walks in the direction the line is pointing, eventually finding a second, which points to a third, a fourth, a fifth…
Clara stirs awake, her whole body tingling slightly. Ugh… what happened? Where am I? Opening her eyes, she's surprised to see curved glass just a few inches from her face. What on Mobius‽ She tries to turn only to find she can barely move. What in the name of Gaia is going on‽ Fighting a rising sense of panic, Clara forces herself to take a few deep breaths, calm down, look around her, and analyse the situation. OK… My arms are tied behind my back and my legs are tied so I can't stand up, not that I have room to do so thanks to the red cap above‑ I'm trapped in some sort of capsule then. Maybe Sparky can‑ "Sparky! Where are you‽" she calls, looking around frantically for her friend.
Confused drowsy squeaking is the reply from her right, quickly followed by frantic frightened squeaking.
Clara looks to her right to see the panicking Sparky in the capsule alongside. "Thank Gaia you're OK!" she sighs in relief. "Don't worry, I'll think of a way out of this… somehow."
Clara's words comfort Sparky enough to stop their frantic squeaking, but there's no doubt they're still petrified.
"I'm scared too," Clara admits. "But we can't let fear control us: we must draw strength from it. Can you do that for me?"
Sparky closes their eye, performs a somewhat reasonable facsimile of taking a few deep breaths, opens their eye again, and squeaks a calm confirmation.
"Thanks," Clara smiles. "OK, just need to think things through… Can I tip this over and break the glass?"
"The glass is too strong for that," Tails informs, having just woken up and found himself bound and trapped in the capsule to Clara's left. "Also, we're hanging about two hundred feet in the air."
Clara looks down and immediately regrets it. "…I didn't know pilots could be acrophobic."
"It's basophobia you're feeling," Tails corrects.
"Good point," Clara accepts. "We hit the water, we're dead, right?"
"Right."
"What are we going to do?"
"I don't know yet," Tails admits. "For now, we just gotta hope Sonic finds us and saves us."
"Yeah, I'm not seeing any other option at this moment," Clara agrees. "Unless… Where's Eggman?"
"Right behind you," Eggman answers, his inert locked Eggmobile suspended above the water immediately behind the capsules. "And don't bother asking for help: I can't even if I wanted to."
"Master Zik has disabled all the Eggmobile's controls, rendered it inert, and locked the canopy," Orbot adds as explanation.
"Well, there goes that idea," Clara sighs, relaxing as much as she can. When I'm out of this, I'm gonna find that sadistic blueberry and make him pay for what he did to Sparky.
After several minutes of following arrows made from vertical sticks, Sonic finally sees his friends (and Eggman) are suspended from an overhanging cliff about two hundred feet above the water.
"It is quite the situation they're in, is it not?" Master Zik asks, emerging from a nearby bush.
"Let them go," Sonic demands.
"My, such impertinence," Zik sighs. "You should learn to respect your elders more."
"I don't respect anyone who puts my friends in danger," Sonic growls.
"How much danger your friends are in is entirely up to you," Zik informs. "From my observations of your previous encounters with my fellow Zeti, your main strengths are your speed, agility, stamina, and durability. Despite your slim build, you can withstand extreme punishment, and despite the amount of energy you expend, you never show signs of fatigue. However, while such qualities have served you well so far, they alone cannot win every battle."
"Wanna bet?" Sonic quickly charges up and unleashes a Peel Out… and falls flat on his face, having been tripped by Zik's staff.
"I have no need to bet," Zik comments, his point proven. "Before you continue, understand that persisting in fighting me directly will sentence your friends to death."
"I can take you down and save my friends in seconds!" Sonic retorts defiantly, getting to his feet and preparing to attack.
"Are you fast enough to outrun gravity?" Zik asks, producing a small handheld control unit from behind his back. "I press this button, and four seconds later, your friends are dead."
Sonic makes a sudden dash for the control unit, only to grab hold of thin air.
"Speed will not save your friends," Zik cautions, the control unit still in his hand. "Ahead of you lies a challenge that your speed cannot win. Your ability to overcome it via other means will determine the fate of your friends."
Sonic watches Zik disappear back into the bushes. Whatever you throw at me, I can handle it.
From their capsules, Tails and Clara see Sonic arrive.
"See? I knew he'd find us!" Tails chimes.
"But what's he doing?" Clara asks. "Is… Is he just talking to that sadistic blueberry?"
"He'll do something any moment," Tails assures.
And sure enough, Sonic does something: trip over Zik's staff and fall flat on his face.
"…that wasn't in the script," Tails quips.
They then witness Sonic's failure to grab the control unit, though at this distance, it's hard to tell what exactly is going on. And when Sonic lets Master Zik get away a few moments later, Clara and Tails are utterly confused.
"He's letting him get away‽" Clara exclaims.
"There must be a reason for it," Tails assures.
Sonic turns his attention to the capsules and the cliff they're suspended from. There must be a control panel up there to pull them back in, or at least allow the capsules to open safely. I'll be up there in a few seconds. Sonic quickly charges a Peel Out, but before he unleashes it, he notices a strange glutinous substance flooding the ground between him and the cliff. Abandoning the Peel Out, he carefully approaches the edge, kneels, and dips a single finger into the substance.
Pulling the finger out again proves surprisingly difficult, which leads to only one logical conclusion: between Sonic and his friends lies a wide pool of Mega Muck.
Sonic gets to his feet and tries unsuccessfully to shake the Mega Muck off his finger. "Well played, Master Zik. But it's gonna take more than a pool of Mega Muck to keep me from saving my friends."
In his capsule, Tails watches Sonic's actions. "Uh‑oh."
"I'm not going to like the reason for that 'uh‑oh', am I?" Clara asks.
"Looks like Sonic's completely blocked off from us by Mega Muck," Tails explains.
"You mean that awful stuff in Chemical Plant?" Clara inquires. "It's no harder to get through than water."
"That's Mega Mack, you foolish feline," Eggman corrects. "I flooded the lower levels of Chemical Plant with it to try and poison Sonic to death. Mega Muck is only meant to slow him down."
"Polecats aren't felines; we're mustelids and therefore closer to bears and dogs than cats," Clara corrects in turn. "If you're going to treat me like I'm stupid, at least get your own facts straight."
"He's just trying to get a rise out of you," Tails explains. "He does the same thing with Sonic when he calls him a rodent."
"And it worked," Eggman gloats.
Clara elects to stay quiet.
Knowing he can't simply run across the Mega Muck, Sonic begins his search for a way past it. Running around the edge of it reveals that Master Zik has been very thorough in laying it out, leaving no path through all the way up to the water's edge. Figuring the only way over is to build some form of bridge, Sonic starts looking around for suitable materials, only to quickly find that there are none.
Seemingly out of options, Sonic returns to the water's edge and seriously considers trying to swim despite not knowing how. But as he's contemplating, he notices something where the water meets the Mega Muck. Curious, he bends down for a closer look, and that's when he sees it: the Mega Muck stops at the highest point the water reaches as it gently ebbs and flows.
With a confident smirk, Sonic sprints through the edge of the water, throwing up a rooster tail that creates a rainbow as it falls, reaching the base of the slope leading up to the top of the cliff in just a few seconds. Of course, he doesn't stop there: he runs all the way to the top of the slope to find Master Zik waiting for him beside a small console with a single button marked 'Release'.
"That wasn't much of a challenge," Sonic smirks as he approaches the button. "You barely slowed me down!"
"You worked it out quicker than I anticipated," Zik admits.
"And now all I have to do is press this button and free my friends," Sonic confidently states, reaching for the button.
"Or send them plummeting to their deaths," Zik counters.
Sonic's hand halts just above the button. "What do you mean?"
"'Release' has multiple meanings," Zik answers. "It could mean releasing from captivity, or it could mean releasing the capsules to fall into the sea."
Sonic accepts the control unit. "What sort of trick are you playing?"
"I am playing no tricks," Zik answers. "I am simply giving you all the options."
Zik's word choice causes Sonic to think for a moment. 'All the options'… Does that mean there's more than two? "You mean I have to choose whether to press one of two buttons, both, or neither?"
"Correct," Zik confirms. "Only you can decide which is the right option. You have sixty seconds."A countdown appears on the console and starts ticking down from sixty.
In the capsules, Tails, Clara, and Sparky see the same countdown appear on the glass in front of them.
"This isn't good," Clara states unnecessarily.
"Dude, not cool," Sonic states angrily.
"I told you I would challenge you," Zik reminds. "This is that challenge."
"Then why bother with the Mega Muck?"
"That was a warm‑up."
Resisting the urge to punch Master Zik, Sonic places the small control unit next to the button on the console, then takes a deep breath to clear his mind. Think, Sonic, think! There's got to be a solution to this! Two buttons, four options… I need to narrow down those options. "What if I choose not to act?"
"Then your friends will die."
Sonic thinks for a moment. "If I press one, how do I know which one to press?"
"It is your challenge to work it out," Zik reminds.
"And what if I pressed both at the same time?"
"If I answered that honestly, there would be no challenge."
"Thanks a lot," Sonic snarks before turning back to the buttons. Those answers were no help at all! Ugh, why couldn't he just be straight with me‽
"The clock is ticking," Zik reminds.
Sonic looks to see he has just thirty seconds to decide. OK… OK… Gotta work through this… I do nothing, my friends die. I press one button, they might live, but only if I choose the right button. And if I press both, then… What did Zik say again? He said if he answered honestly, there'd be no‑ "…you have got to be kidding me."
"I do not kid. You have made a decision."
"I have." Sonic presses both buttons simultaneously.
In the capsules, Tails, Clara, and Sparky see the countdown stop. Fearing the worst, they close their eyes…