Chapter 10 – A Broken Assembly
Sonic absently spun the Chaos Emerald on one finger as he looked over the crude sketch he'd added to his journal, chewing thoughtfully on a piece of fruit. A quick doodle, a few notes on his observations and experience, a fresh juice stain where he'd been a bit sloppy with his evening meal. Eh. Uncle Chuck probably wouldn't care about that last, given the rest of it.
A real, live Chaos Emerald.
He twisted his hand, and the Emerald disappeared in a sparkle of light, its weight gone from his grip but still there somehow, out of reach. And then another twist, a grabbing motion in the air, and there it was again, solid in his palm and glittering in the slanting sun. Gone with a flick. Back again. Over and over.
Very cool, but very weird.
Not that Sonic was complaining. It was certainly a lot more convenient than stuffing it in his pack and hoping he didn't drop it somewhere. He wondered if other things could be stuffed in alternate space like this. He could revolutionize pockets!
But more importantly, he now had a real, actual, really real Chaos Emerald. He pulled it out of midair again, held it up to the fading light and caught the sky's golden glow in its facets. No weird reflections, thankfully. Just a warmth on his hands and a soft light from within that lit his glove up in shades of green. Uncle Chuck was going to go out of his mind at the discovery. Maybe run some tests, even. See what it could do.
Heal people, for one, that was sure. Sonic glanced reflexively at his side, pushing the Emerald back into other space again. There were marks on his fur there, places where it looked too pale, too new. Freshly healed. Spots where the skin was tender to the touch or still ached just a bit if he bumped it or moved it wrong. But his injuries were healed nonetheless, like power rings dialed up well past eleven.
And that rush of adrenaline. It was gone now, the last of it spent on a string of bots that had tried to accost him on the way into the forests beyond the lava-laced ruins. He'd crashed through them all like a blue buzzsaw, whooping the entire way. Heady, intoxicating. He'd felt limitless. Undefeatable.
Then he'd felt tired. But the emotional high was still there, and he was more than happy to ride it as far as it would take him.
Which turned out to be deeper into the forest that cloaked the island's foothills, ears always perked for bots now, eyes sharp for signs of habitation.
Or walrus PJs.
Because every single bot so far had held a Mobian captive. How many more were there on the island? Could he free them all? Did he want to?
Stupid question. Of course he would. It was the right thing to do.
Though he'd have to remember he couldn't rely on the Chaos Emerald for boosts. Despite poking at it and fiddling with it and doing his honest-to-goodness best at trying to meditate with it—no mean feat for him—he wasn't able to replicate the effect. The Emerald refused to re-energize him. Oh well. Back out in the fresh air, power rings were at least common enough to give him just that bit extra.
Sonic stood and dusted himself off, shouldering his rucksack—journal safely tucked away again, stain and all—and tapped his toes against the grassy turf to settle his shoes. The Chaos Emerald hummed at the edge of his consciousness, stashed safely in other space, warm and...watching. If it hadn't also felt so familiar, somehow, Sonic might have been unnerved by it. At least it was faint. Easy enough to ignore once he got moving and focused more on his surroundings.
Surroundings like the cypress trees that had dotted the marble ruins and now mingled with thicker, taller stands of mulberry and chestnut growing wild on South Island's slopes. They weren't so densely packed that Sonic couldn't find a good running path among them, but he did have to frequently hop tangled roots or sudden gullies, dart beneath stone outcroppings and roll down sudden inclines to pick up speed for the rise on the other side. It became a game to see if he could go fast enough to ramp himself up and out of each new basin he discovered, how much air he could attain, before gravity forced him down again.
Sunset had painted the forest in rich amber and violet tones when he heard the telltale sounds of industry off through the trees. He skidded to a stop to swivel his ears around, get his bearings, pinpoint the location, then took off at a run through the underbrush and the deepening shadows toward the sound. Foolhardy? Probably. But it was a lead.
He shot out onto a shelf of land that clanged under his sneakers, and scrambled to stop, arms windmilling wildly, before he went flying off the edge into the abyss.
Well, not abyss. Close, though.
The "land" beneath his feet was actually metal, sheets of it riveted together into a boxy structure that marked the abrupt end of the forest. Mere inches beyond Sonic's toes, it dropped away sharply into a ravine cut out of the foothills, lined with more metal and forming a channel of sorts that funneled scrap and debris down toward what appeared to be a foundry of some sort. More of the structures sat in rigid lines—orange metal, green mesh—dominating the hillside and drowning what tranquility there might have been in a barrage of lights and steam and moving parts and a cacophony of grinding and crunching and pounding that echoed against the sheer metal walls. Sonic rubbed at his ears and grimaced.
Surely this wasn't the island's sole city. It didn't feel right. Mobian settlements tended to incorporate nature, build around it, with it. Sure, the trees continued again, clustered where the construction hadn't ripped them up to make room for sterile metallic walls and ramps, but it was too stark a difference, too obviously an anomaly. As conspicuous as a dead fish in a fruit bowl. And as Sonic examined the hard angles and industrial sterility of the view, he could make out the framework beneath in places, the remnants of smaller wood and stone buildings that held up the factory facade.
Not the city, no. Just a village, torn down and built over to make...
Well, Sonic couldn't quite see from his vantage point. But definitely manufacturing something. One didn't build a whole production complex like this just to make a mess and ruin the locals' day, surely.
Maybe it was time to ruin someone else's day. Like a certain whiskered human's.
Sonic eyed the drop below his feet. No sign of convenient handholds or even more convenient stairs. Drat. But it looked like the floor far below actually connected with the wall in a nice curve, rather than a sharp angle. The opposite side looked to be the same, and there, a path he could continue along.
He swallowed. This was probably a bad idea.
Maybe fun.
Definitely stupid.
Before he could think too hard about it, he dropped from the shelf and into free fall.
Wind whistled past, shrieking in his ears. He tried not to think about what could go wrong, and tucked into a ball instead as the bottom of the ravine rushed up to meet him.
He hit the slope with a bit more impact than he would have liked, briefly stealing the breath from his lungs, but being balled up saved him from broken bones as he went into a breakneck roll. Across the bottom of the channel. Whipping up the other side. Flung high in the air, higher than he'd flown before, untucking at the apex to spread-eagle and feel the wind across his limbs. He whooped at the rush.
Something loomed in his periphery, and he tucked into a ball just in time to ricochet off of an object that echoed with a hollow ping noise. It flung him with more force than expected into another, then a third, the ping-ping sound following him as he jolted around like a pinball in a machine. It even sounded like pinball, and he could just make out the bright red and yellow face of the bumper before it knocked him unceremoniously down to the ground. He landed in a heap on another slab of metal, the wind knocked out of his sails, and it took him several heartbeats to find the strength to push himself back up to his knees.
"Ugh." Sonic pressed a hand to his ribs, though it was mostly his ego that had bruised. "Did anyone get the number of the cart that hit me?"
The only response was a neon sign flashing impassively against the metallic walls that read, "COPE."
"Rude."
Sonic shook his head and forced in a deep breath, then took off at a jog further into the complex.
It really wasn't that bad a place to run, all things considered. Once he knew to look out for more pinball bumpers, of course. Not as good running terrain as the green coastal hills, not as many smooth straightaways and looping arches, and it lacked the natural charm that trees and grass and flowers brought, but it was far better than the depths of the marble ruins. The bumpers appeared to be some sort of defensive obstacles, placed to keep something out...or possibly in. Spiky turnstiles blocked off avenues in turns, and there were places where large metallic crates slid past each other as machinery moved them to different parts of the scrap yard. Sonic hopped along the crates to find higher ground, careful not to slip and fall between them. The space was narrow, not close enough to grind against each other, but only just wide enough to snag a shoe, twist an ankle, crush a careless hedgehog. He timed his jumps carefully, and wiped sweat from his brow when he cleared the last one.
Everywhere around him, lights flashed and flickered, edging the metallic surfaces with streaks of color, projecting words across the walls. Names of sections of the factory, demotivational propaganda, "days without insubordination" signs.
Insubordination by who?
At least the tunnels were roomier—and far better-lit—than the marble ruins. He was able to hit higher speeds in them, hopping low obstacles, ducking past crates that slid by on conveyors, but smoothly, without breaking stride. Down here things smelled of metal and coal, sharp and hot in the nose, but not quite thick enough to choke. Lights streamed across Sonic's quills as he ran beneath their fittings high in the walls, and he wondered if this might be what some big city highways were like, the ones he'd read about in books. Ones he wouldn't mind seeing when this adventure was done. He could probably hit really good speeds on those.
He slid out of another tunnel and into a shallower half-pipe, rolled up the far side, and scrambled to stop at the sight of bots ahead.
Bots...and Mobians.
The villagers.
Squirrels and rabbits, mostly, with a few others here and there, working away at the factory's walls while spiky crab-like bots with wicked-looking pincers watched. They arranged scaffolding, bolted metal sheets into place, swept scrap and debris into channels for processing. Their clothing was clearly worn and dirty, their shoulders slumped and expressions downcast.
Slaves.
Made to turn their homes into factories, and guarded by overseers that very likely held their own kin inside.
Sonic clenched a fist. Crouched. Moved without thinking.
The activity in the area came to a screeching halt as Sonic tore into the first bot, quills separating the spiky outer shell from the rest of it. He couldn't hit them from above without turning himself into a pincushion, but their sides were less protected. He forced the shell off, sending it clattering to the side and uncovering the captive Mobian within—walrus, young, male—then spun on one hand and ducked beneath the flailing pincers of the next. A quick jab upwards with a foot and it teetered backwards, only for Sonic to cut its legs out from beneath it and leave it on its side like a beached boat. Third and fourth went down just as quickly, knocked into each other and sliced open end to end, and Sonic skidded to a stop in the middle of the carnage.
The enslaved Mobians stared, jaws slack, tools held limply in blistered and oil-stained hands.
Sonic straightened up and dusted himself off, grinning. "Nick of time, hey?"
The others continued to stare, faces a mix of confusion, apprehension, and...worry?
"No need to say anything," he said, holding up his hands in a reassuring gesture. "Happy to help. You good to find your way home, or—"
"What did you do?" One of the Mobians, a squirrel with a shock of red hair and a bushy tail, took a step forward. It didn't escape Sonic's notice that he still held his wrench.
Sonic blinked. "I...rescued you? You know, from the bolt-heads?" He pointed at the wrecked crab-bots, one of which still twitched ineffectually. The captives were stirring in the others, soft groans barely audible above the sounds of the scrap yard around them.
The squirrel's expression shifted toward anger. "He's going to come back."
A murmur of agitated whispering rose from the other Mobians. Sonic felt the quills on the back of his neck rise.
"You don't mean ol' Whiskers, do you?" Sonic laughed, but it came out a bit weak. "I've dealt with him before. I can take him. You don't have to be worried about being stuffed in machines or made to work his factory anymore." Sonic turned his smile to the others.
They didn't return it.
Sonic felt his bravado slip, his expression fall, his ears involuntarily flatten. He took a deep breath. Tried to shore up his smile. It's fine, everything's fine. They're just...shell-shocked. Right?
The squirrel still hadn't let go of the wrench.
Sonic opened his mouth to try to salvage the situation.
The clatter of approaching bot feet on metal roadways cut him off. Sonic turned, crouched, the grin returning in earnest. "Don't worry, I've got thi—ack!" He cut off with a yelp as hands grabbed him by the pack, clamping around his arm, holding a wrench to his neck. The squirrel and one of the rabbits.
"He's over here!" the squirrel shouted.
The sound of bot feet sped up.
"Hey, what're you doing?" Sonic struggled against their grip, but they were bigger and stronger than him. He might hurt them if he did too much.
The squirrel glared at him. "Doctor Robotnik is going to punish all of us now because of you," he hissed. His grip tightened on Sonic's arm, squeezing hard.
"But...he—ow!—enslaved you!"
"It would've been better if you'd just left us alone."
More crab bots scuttled into sight. Pincers flashed in the neon.
Sonic looked at the other Mobians.
None met his eyes.
Defeated. All of them, broken.
His focus narrowed with the heat of his anger. This wasn't right.
"Sorry," he murmured.
The squirrel barely had time for half of a confused, "Huh?" before Sonic kicked off of the ground to throw himself sideways into the squirrel, then back against the rabbit in quick succession. The force of his sudden movement, the sudden impacts, broke his captors' grip. He only hoped he hadn't broken any bones.
No time for that right now, though. He had bots to deal with, and Mobians to run from. Unfortunately.
Only two crabs. Quills cut through them both in a flash, laid them out in a scattering of scrap and disoriented captives. Someone grabbed his rucksack. Sonic twisted and spun out of the straps in a roll, and then he was off and running into the depths of the factory with angry shouts at his back.
—
A/N: Hammerspace introduced.
I know a lot of fic writers just have the characters tuck things like the Emeralds into their quills, between tails, etc., and while I'm not faulting them for using it in the slightest, I wanted to do something different. In the series, we just see the darn things disappear and reappear as needed (see the opening cinematic for Sonic Unleashed for example), often without even hand gestures, and this way I don't have to worry about where Sonic is keeping these or if they're going to fall out at an inopportune moment.
So: hammerspace.