Bluey marvelled at the sight of the early morning sun shining over the city below. Her jubilant tail-wagging inadvertantly caused her tail to wack her father in the face a few times as she sat up on her knees, muzzle pressed against the window glass to take in all the splendor.
"All right, kiddo, that's enough now, sit down!" Bandit insisted as he firmly pulled his daughter back by the shoulder and pressed her back down in her seat.
"Honestly, mate, I would've thought you'd have less energy in the morning by now," her father muttered half to himself as he rubbed his eyes. Although Bluey was now around twelve, she still had plenty of the puppylike energy and mischievousness as in her earlier years. She was currently wearing one of her favorite outfits consisting of a pink t-shirt with a glittery star design, a yellow skirt, a light-blue hoodie, and a pair of colorful sneakers with white socks. A silver chain necklace with an ornate bone charm completed her look.
"Sorry, Dad," Bluey apologized, sitting back as she continued to stare out the window. "I'm just so excited about finally visiting America, and Station Square looks so beautiful from up here! It's too bad Mum and Bingo couldn't come with us!" she gushed, bouncing slightly with excitement, though she managed to contain it enough to stay in her seat.
"Yeah, sorry 'bout that, kiddo, G.U.N. would only allow one guest to accompany me, confidentiality reasons and all that...Maybe we could plan another trip on our own sometime and they could come with us next time," Bandit suggested as Bluey nodded eagerly.
"Yeah! It's sort of strange it's so sunny out there in the middle of winter, though," she commented skeptically as Bandit chuckled.
"Well, mate, a lot of people think Australia is the odd one for that, it's summer in most other places around the world!" Bandit reassured her.
"Wot?! For real life?! How is THAT possible?!" Bluey asked, clearly confused.
"Well, you'd probably have to ask a meteorologist 'bout that one, kiddo, I'm an archaeologist!" her dad joked before he stretched and put his seat tray up.
"Anyway, we'll be landing soon, so make sure you're ready to go before then!"
"Other side, Dad," Bluey reminded her father without looking up from her phone and there was a slight screech of tires as Bandit quickly pulled the rental car back onto the right side of the road after turning.
"Bloody 'eck, mate, how do these people DRIVE like this?!" Bandit sighed, looking around the city.
"I'll never get used to driving like this!" he continued as he continued looking for their hotel.
"Well, at least G.U.N. will be driving us and the other scientists to the Mystic Ruins themselves tomorrow so you won't have to worry about crashing into the nothing out there," Bluey quipped with a dramatic flourish of her hand as her father gave her a sideways glance.
"Ehahahaha, very funny...What about you, you were so excited to see the city a bit ago, but now you've had your nose stuck to that thing since we got in the car," Bandit pointed out as Bluey shrugged.
"Eh, they'll be plenty of time to see everything on your days off, but I've missed out on so much gossip on the plane...You wouldn't believe what McKenzie tried to do the other day!" Bluey commented as she continued texting with her friends.
"Well, you should at least...What the...?!" the car screeched to a halt as they came to a group of cars that were stopped in front of several barricades set up to block off the road ahead of them as well as several adjoining streets. People were gathered around the barricade to watch whatever was going on beyond them as several G.U.N. soldiers made sure nobody tried to get past them.
"For the love of...OI!" Bandit yelled as he got out of the car and walked over towards the nearest soldier. Meanwhile, Bluey finally looked up from her phone as her curiosity got the better of her and she made her way through the crowd of people to the barrier and went up on her tiptoes slightly to see over the barrier.
She found a rather odd-looking and rotund man with an enormous mustache sitting in a huge robot wielding a massive hammer. He was surrounded by a small army consisting of diminutive orange robots resembling their master as well as a multitude of small robots resembling different insects.
There was a blue and red streak racing around the robot's feet, smashing into the robots and reducing them to scrap as it avoided being smashed by the hammer, but it was moving far too fast for Bluey to get a good look at what it actually was. Her attention was then drawn to the air as she noticed a a yellow streak flying around the robot, blasting at the robots on the ground with some sort of laser.
This second streak was quick, but wasn't moving nearly as fast as the streak on the ground, and Bluey could almost make out some of its features. All at once, the streak suddenly stopped, hovering in mid-air to give her a good look at them. Bluey felt a chill down her spine, her heart thumping in her chest as she took in the figure before her; a slender yellow fox a few years older than her with sky-blue eyes. He wore a simple pair of baggy cargo pants with a tool belt and a pair of goggles on his forehead.
He appeared to be keeping aloft via some kind of propeller attached to his body, though whatever it was spun too fast for Bluey to make out much more than a spinning yellow circle. He seemed to be doing something on a small tablet in one hand as he absent-mindedly blasted any flying enemies that came too close with the blaster he held in his other hand.
Just as suddenly as he had stopped in mid-air, the figure then took off again to continue the fight as Bluey stared at the spot where he'd been a moment before, somewhat dumbstruck.
"Who WAS that?!" she whispered to herself. She was shocked out of her reverie as her father's voice then cut across the sounds of the distant battle.
"Oi, Bluey, come away from there, this bloke says he's going to let us through!" Bandit called over from another barricade as Bluey quickly made her way over to them.
"I'm sorry again for the misunderstanding, Professor Heeler, I've called for an armored escort to come pick you and your daughter up to give you a ride to the hotel, and we'll arrange for your rental car to be retrieved after this issue is resolved," the soldier her father was talking to was saying before he walked over to discuss the matter with another soldier. Bandit simply sighed, shaking his head as he pulled at his face.
"Honestly, I heard this sort of thng happens often 'round here, but for this to happen our first evening here..." he complained as Bluey walked over to him.
"So what IS this all about?" she asked, not fully understanding what was happening.
"Apparently some nutter calling himself Eggman or something like that has a habit of terrorizing the city with all sorts of mechanical doohickeys, and apparently the only one who can effectively fight him is some blue hedgehog, can you believe that?" Bandit relayed, the disbelief plain in his voice.
"I think I might have seen him down there, but he was moving too fast for me to really get a look at him...His friend though, that flying fox..." Bluey trailed off as a distant, dreamy look came over her face at the thought of him.
"Flying fox? You're as cracked as the rest of them, squirt," her father teased, bringing her back down to Earth as she crossed her arms, looking away and pouting a little, but neither of them had much time to dwell on it before a large armored jeep pulled up to the barricade and one of the soldiers waved them through to their escort.