Chapter 3:Mine (鉱山; Kōzan)

Desert Plains Quarries. Usually mining industry develops in these places, as useful minerals can be found in these places. Soon, in the distance, we will notice a blue hedgehog, which was quickly approaching these places, leaving behind a blue stripe.

"Here are the Quarries," Sonic said as he ran. "I heard from the locals that Mavericks showed up out of nowhere. I wonder if Dr. Doppler is behind this again? Maybe here in these places is the second chaos emerald? I'll find out about this sooner. First I need to warm up!"

With a trademark smile on his face, the blue hedgehog ran forward even faster. Soon he arrived at the mountain, at the foot of which was the entrance to the mine. The hedgehog stopped and hid behind a large stone. Near the entrance were Maverick robots that mined something in the mine or guarded the entrance. What these mavericks got, they dragged inside the truck. The truck had a stylish "D" sign (if that, see chapter 2.5 for a description of the sign itself). Sonic began to suspect that these Mavericks must have belonged to the infamous Dr. Doppler's army. When the robots turned away to go for minerals, the blue hedgehog came out of his hiding place and killed two of these mavericks. The robots have noticed.

"It's that blue hedgehog!" one of the Mavericks shouted and ran for the weapon.

But Sonic had already interrupted him with a spin dash. He stood in front of the robots with his index finger raised.

"So, what do we have here?~" he asked in a firm and defiant tone. "You're doing something here, aren't you?"

"Oh, sugar honey iced tea… *" said one of the robots in an alarming tone of voice, holding a weapon in his hands.

"What are we standing?" shouted the second of these robots. "Finish off this hedgehog so that he does not dare to stand in the way of our master!"

With these words, the Mavericks went to the hedgehog.

In the other place…

The tank was driving along the road among the rocks. Inside the tank we see X, a red reploid and an old man who was laughing for some reason.

"Wah-ha-ha! How absolutely amazing!" said the old man, still laughing out loud.

X looked confused while the red reploid looked annoyed.

"Hey, X…" - said the red one. "Can you please shut up that old man for a minute?"

"I think I should." X said uncertainly and turned to the old man. "Um…Doctor…Please be quiet for a little bit…"

"Oh!" said the old man, then he burst into a huge cry. "W-WHAT?! HOW CAN YOU BE SO COLD TOWARDS ME?!"

Having calmed down a little, the old man began to speak, bowing his head:

"Where to go frail old man, old in soul and body, who escaped from the rude media with swoosh. But don't you let this lonely soul travel with you because he will become a burden? If this old man has nowhere to go... Then this old man will silently wait until he is called to heaven."

X looked even more confused, and Zero even more irritable.

"Tsk." said the red robot. "You can go to heaven or anywhere you want."

Bump.

"!" The red robot opened its eyes as it realized that something was happening behind its back.

He shook his hair in front of him and saw that his blond hair was in a braid.

"Ah!" he exclaimed, jumping out of his seat. "WHAT THE HELL DID YOU DO?!"

"Oh, I can't help myself…" said the old man. "By the way, you look cute with a braid…"

"Pfft…" - X tried not to laugh.

Soon we will be transported outside, where the loud voices of these three came from the tank.

"EEK! WHAT ARE YOU DOING? YOU ARE A DEMON! DEMON!"

"PLEASE, BOTH OF YOU, CALM!"

"LET ME GO, X! I WILL KILL THIS OLD MAN!"

Meanwhile inside the mountain...

Inside the mountain, an ominous and eerie voice was heard:

"Some fools enter this mountain to destroy my dream...Tunnel Rhino, I leave them in your hands. A glorious death awaits these fools. And oh yes… Don't forget about that blue hedgehog. I was informed that he was inside this mountain. If the two Hell Crushers I sent after him fail to destroy him, then get rid of him yourself."

"Yes, sir." said the second ominous voice that belonged to the Tunnel Rhino.

"I'm relying on you." said the first ominous voice.

"I'll do it," said Tunnel Rhino. "Stay tuned for good news."

With these words, he turned and left.

To Sonic...

The blue hedgehog ran along the miner's "corridors" back and forth. It took a lot of time and he didn't like it very much. Soon the hedgehog began to get bored with all this.

"It feels like I've been running here for ages!" Sonic said in his head. "I'm even starting to get tired of limited running, not knowing where I'm running, and endless back and forth."

Suddenly he heard some sounds behind him. Turning around, he saw a huge robot there. That robot rode on a caterpillar chain. The giant was painted red, yellow and blue. Its lower half was somewhat like a tank, while its upper half was a robotic body, similar to those Sonic had encountered before, but with large round shoulder pads and drills on his arms instead of a palm. His cork-like helmet was blue in color and in the middle of the helmet was a small red crystal in a downward triangle. His eyes were bright green.

"Oh, hello, big guy," said the blue hedgehog. "Come to finish me off?"

The giant robot didn't answer. He pointed the drill at the hedgehog. Sonic easily dodged and landed on the right side of the giant.

"Here!" the blue hedgehog said loudly, as if teasing the robot.

The huge robot turned and pointed the drill at him, but Sonic had already moved in the other direction. This continued until Sonic returned to his original location, where he encountered a giant robot and, turning into a spin dash, performed one of his attacks: Speed Web. He quickly jumped from one wall to another, while hitting his opponent from all sides. From above, we can see that this has formed a web. In the end, the blue one landed gracefully in front of the huge robot. The damaged giant robot stood for a while before its upper torso fell to the ground so that huge cracks appeared along it.

Sonic ran in a different direction before the ground beneath the huge robot broke apart and the body fell down.

"God bless." The hedgehog sighed with relief.

Suddenly the blue hedgehog heard voices.

"Where did this damn robot come from?" one of those voices asked.

"Dr. Cain, I think someone fought him up here." answered voice, that familiar for the hedgehog. "That's why we heard the noise upstairs when we fought the Tunnel Rhino!"

"X?" Sonic asked as he approached the crack and looked down.

There he saw a familiar blue robot, a red robot and an old man. All three were looking at the blue hedgehog.

"Hey X!" the hedgehog greeted him. "I didn't know you'd be here!"

"Sonic?!" X said in a way that seemed to be surprised that Sonic was here.

The blue hedgehog jumped off and landed in front of them. He stood up, arms folded at his sides with a trademark smile. There was silence between them before the red robot broke the silence.

"X?" he turned to the blue robot. "Is this the hedgehog you told us about earlier?"

"Yeah," X replied before he started introducing them to each other. "Zero, Doctor Cain, this is Sonic the Hedgehog or Sonic. Sonic, this is Zero and Dr. Cain, my allies and friends.

"Glad to meet you"! the blue hedgehog said amiably, then he asked. "By the way, who is the Tunnel Rhino?"

"This is a reploid that became a maverick due to a virus." X replied. "We came there to fight him and bring him to us for research.

"X, you better not tell him so much," Zero suddenly said. "We don't know about him yet. We don't even know where the hell he came from!"

"I will tell". Sonic said with a smile. "But first you need to bring this Rhino to your base?"

"Exactly," said X, turning somewhere. "He lied here… (he saw something up there, from which the pupils of his eyes became smaller) WHAT THE HELL?!"

Instead of the body of the defeated maverick, the blue reploid saw that upstairs, there was something resembling a cocoon.

"What's going on now?" asked a shocked X.

Everyone looked at the cocoon in puzzlement.

"And I thought that Dr. Eggman was already doing strange things, but this…" thought Sonic.

"This is evolution…" a voice suddenly said. "You've been there before, X."

Everyone looked to where the voice was coming from. They noticed a figure approaching them. Sonic was puzzled as he had no idea what that voice was talking about.

"Evolution…" the voice continued. "This is the acquisition of new adaptation skills. It's a survival technique... Am I wrong Dr. Cain?"

Soon the figure itself appeared. He looked like an older man with a curved white beard and wild hair that swept up, thick eyebrows, black streaks running from the eyes to the end of the face. He wore a robe and a "band" on his forehead. What can define him as a robot is his "ears".

"Doppler…" said Dr. Cain.

"Does he know him?" Sonic asked in his mind, looking puzzled at the old man.

"Don't look at me so intently…" Doppler said before he turned to the hedgehog. "The same applies to you, Sonic the Hedgehog."

"Where did you know about…" began the blue hedgehog before he realized how he knew his name. – "Oh, right..."

"You will be the first, so watch me complete THIS EVOLUTION!" said Dr. Doppler loudly and in a villainous tone.

Soon, two large canisters of wires and tubes emerged from his shoulders, connected to his back. His wires joined his "ribbon". After that, Dr. Doppler took the dressing gown with holes at the ends of his fingers and flung it open. Beneath his robe, there was a tricked-out body covered in gray-blue armor. He also had "black pants" and tubes protruding from the sides of his torso.

"This is the evolution of Reploids!" the mad scientist reploid said loudly. "In order to destroy humanity, I acquired my power with my own hands!"

"Wow," Sonic thought, genuinely admiring. "This dude is serious..."

"I can hear the sounds of evolution!" Dr. Doppler continued, but his words were muffled by Sonic's thoughts, who had a bored expression on his face.

"…Or not."

"Alas, what a pity ..." - Dr. Cain suddenly intervened. "You're using such a great talent for the warped dream, Doppler."

"Not at all." the Reploid scientist replied in turn. "I was more pitiful in the old days, when human comforts were forced upon us. After all, "man" and "machine" are incompatible."

"Look who's talking here." thought the blue hedgehog with an obviously annoyed look, looking at Dr. Doppler. "Did he ever watch Buffalo and Toshihiko interact? Or does he not care?"

"All you have is your friend and your comrades!" Dr. Cain said loudly and confidently.

His words greatly surprised X, Zero and Sonic. Dr. Doppler looked at Dr. Cain intently.

"Wait, are you both friends?!" asked the blue hedgehog the old man.

In response, the old man looked at the hedgehog with sad eyes. Sonic began to realize that this was upsetting Dr. Cain.

"Hmph. I wonder how long this idea will last…" said the reploid scientist.

BWAM

Something began to charge under his feet, like space rockets about to take off.

"Well, enough fun for me." Dr. Doppler continued. "Now is my departure time, so please excuse me. By the way, Sonic the Hedgehog. In another mountain that is next to this mountain, there is another emerald that you mentioned earlier on the way here. If you want to get your emerald, then hurry up before it is taken."

WHOOSH

Dr. Doppler flew up with his jet legs.

"Where did you go, Doppler?!" Dr. Cain called loudly to the reploid scientist.

KA-BOOM

"There is still a lot to be done!" his echo was heard in the cave.

Even in the sky, the reploid scientist continued:

"This is getting really exciting, Cain! I will look forward to it!"

After that, Doppler's voice was no longer heard.

"Doppler…" - said the sad Dr. Cain.

Sonic looked at him with sympathy. He saw how hard it was for a man when his friend became a villain.

"Doctor Cain…" X said and took the old man by the hands to calm him down.

"We'll comfort you later." Zero said, pointing to the cocoon. "We have to deal with this cocoon!"

"Hey Zero!" Sonic said. "Can't you take it easy with the old man? He was sad about his friend!"

"After he tied my braid without my permission?" the red reploid asked sarcastically.

"Are you still offended by Dr. Cain?" X asked.

"Quiet." Zero commanded and looked at the cocoon.

Thump. That's what the cocoon produced. To be honest, it looked creepy.

"Sonic," X turned to the blue hedgehog. "You must go for the emerald."

"Why?" Sonic asked puzzled. "What if something happens to you?"

"We can handle with Zero," the blue reploid said with a serious expression. "You need to go."

"I…" Sonic began, then he realized that arguing with X was useless. "Fine…"

The blue speedster ran at the speed of sound from the cave of the mountain and headed for another. Soon he arrived at the indicated mountain and entered the mine. On the way, our blue hedgehog encountered mavericks, but he coped well and easily with them and moved on. After a while, he arrived at an open space in a cave. Sonic took out a white chaos emerald, as it can be used to determine the location of the second emerald. He walked across the open space until the emerald glowed brighter toward one corner.

"Here it is!" exclaimed Sonic and walked to the corner.

He saw something glowing under the piles of small stones. The blue hedgehog approached the pile of stones and removed the small stones. As he did so, he saw a yellow emerald in front of him.

"Got it!" said Sonic and took a yellow emerald.

Soon the emerald began to glow so brightly that it pulled the blue hedgehog into the light. This time the hedgehog closed his eyes. When he opened them, he found himself in a clearing full of flowers. Sonic looked around to see the Atomic Man (that's what Tails called him in his vision from the red Chaos Emerald), who was sitting in this clearing and looking at the flowers.

"Who is this?" the blue speedster asked to himself, then he began to approach this creature. "Hello!"

But the creature did not react to the hedgehog's words. Suddenly they both heard a rustle. The Atomic Man turned his head.

"He reacts to it." thought the blue hedgehog. "So he can't see or hear me?"

As Sonic thought, the creature walked past him towards the bushes. After a while, he heard a cry:

"AAAAAAHHH!"

The blue hedgehog paid attention to this and ran to the bushes, hoping to help the one who was screaming. But when he ran, he saw a completely different picture. Atomic man sat down on his knee and extended his hands to an 8-year-old girl. She had red hair tied into a braid. She wore a green plain dress and did not wear any shoes. The creature touched her leg, and then he put his hands on the ground. The girl looked at her knee. She looked surprised.

"You healed my wound?" she innocently asked Atomic Man.

The creature made sounds, as if it say yes.

"Thank you, Mister Creature." The girl smiled as she stood up. "You helped me a lot!"

The Atomic Man looked at her in surprise before joy lit up in his eyes.

Soon the vision disappeared, and Sonic was again in the open space of the mine. He stared at the emerald in puzzlement. Suddenly, the blue hedgehog heard something behind him. He turned and was hit by a drill projectile that belonged to a giant robot that looked like the huge robot that our hedgehog had encountered earlier. Sonic dodged and landed on the ground not far from the giant. He again attacked with a drill projectile at the hedgehog, but the blue hedgehog easily dodged his attacks. But the giant had already sent a second shell at him and hit the hedgehog. He flew off and the chaos emerald flew out of his hands and fell to the ground. Realizing that he no longer held the emerald in his hands, Sonic turned his head and saw that the emerald lay on the ground before it landed. He ran towards the emerald, when suddenly a flying robot that looked like a flying mouse appeared out of nowhere and took the chaos emerald.

"Come back!" the blue hedgehog said loudly and chased the flying robot into the "corridor", but the drill projectile hit the top of the entrance to the "corridor", from which the stones fell down and blocked the entrance.

Sonic realized that this giant robot would not let him go anywhere. He began to run along the wall, while dodging the attacks of the robot. This went on until the blue hedgehog stood in front of the closed entrance. The giant sent a projectile at him, but our hedgehog ran away from the place of attack and the projectile hit the stones, which made a small passage into the "corridor". While the robot did not see, Sonic ran along his arm to his head. When the hedgehog got there, he jumped off and curled up into a ball. The giant robot noticed this and began to prepare to shoot at him, but the lightning ball went through his head. Sonic landed on the wall and watched as the giant stood still before he fell onto the wall with a hole in his head.

The hedgehog jumped off the wall and ran into the "corridor". He ran all over the mountain for a while, but did not find the robo-bat with the chaos emerald.

"I lost the emerald…" the hedgehog thought grimly before he ran towards the exit of the mountain to head towards the mountain where his allies were.

Seconds later...

Sonic reached the mountain where his allies were and fought with the Tunnel Rhino. He entered the cave and ran to X and Zero.

"Hey guys! I'm here!" he said loudly to them, but when he saw that X was not here, but only Zero, who was cutting drills with his laser saber and standing near a small pit, he stopped in front of the red robot and asked. "Zero, where is X?"

But Zero didn't say anything. Soon the hedgehog noticed Rhino's Tunnel itself.

Tunnel Rhino's name was true to its second part because it was based on a rhinoceros. It possessed the drill snout and thumbs of said animal. His body is equipped with drills on his shoulders and on one arm. He also had colorful red, brown, green, and blue designs, including his skirt-shaped armor.

When the red reploid finished cutting the drills, he said with heavy sighs:

"It's over, right? "Huff" "Huff" "Huff" It's not hard at all!"

"Great buddy!" Sonic told him, raising his finger up.

"ROOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAARRRRRRR" the reploid rhinoceros snarled loudly and walked towards them, horn outstretched.

Zero threw his saber at Rhino's feet, causing the reploid rhinoceros to stumble and fall down.

"My chance!" Sonic said and jumped.

"Sonic, STOP!" the red reploid shouted, but the hedgehog no longer heard him.

He curled up into a ball and headed towards Tunnel Rhino.

"YOU HAVE BEEN MANIPULATED BY DOPPLER!" suddenly Sonic heard the X's voice...

KA-BOOM

Rhino's body flew up from the scope, where it hit the stone "ceiling" hard, then the rhinoceros reploid's body fell down and landed on solid ground. He didn't move anymore. X and Zero looked at him with concern.

"Did I shoot him too?..." the blue reploid thought anxiously.

Everyone suddenly heard rustling sounds that were familiar to the blue reploid.

"Sonic is alive…" X said. "Thank God."

"He shouldn't interfere with our fight at all!" Zero said.

"Good job!" the two Reploids heard the voice of Dr. Cain pleased.

"What are we going to do with Rhino?" X asked.

"We can take him with us," Dr. Cain replied before he smiled. "Maybe we can uncover Dr. Doppler's secret. If we fix him, he can be rehabilitated.

His words were soon silenced as the camera panned to Sonic, who was standing not far from them.

"They are nice guys." said the blue hedgehog, before his expression changed to serious and grim, he folded his hands into fists. "I need to find Tails and the emeralds… I don't the idea that would emeralds and he…possibly hurt Tails."

Sonic ran to another exit from the mountain. Coming out of the mountain, he rushed in an unknown direction ...

Next time…Weapons Factory!

*Oh, sugar honey iced tea is a joke from the movie Madagascar. It can be heard in English dubbing (for those who are not from the US or other English-speaking countries).

Notes: Hell Crusher is the mini-boss of the Rhyno Tunnel career scene. Due to the fact that this boss (how to say) had a bad design, I decided to change his appearance a bit.

To Dakota Bruder's comment: Thanks for the question. The little fox painted over the Sigma symbol on the plane for two reasons. First, so that he is not confused with a Sigma army soldier. Secondly, so that again his plane would not be attacked again because of the sign on it. And third, it's because of what Tails was told about Sigma and his crimes.

Thanks to Thunderblood89 for his good reviews of the first and second chapters.

Big thanks to Sithlod-6666 for explaining why the Sonic and Mega crossover work so well.