Chapter 12 – Springing Into Action
Sonic pressed himself into the gap between a ramp and the neighboring wall, taking stock of his situation, ears perked for sounds of danger. On the run from bots and Mobians alike, now. Turned against by his own kind, crushed under the boot-heel of a human usurper until they were convinced that the best thing to do was submit. His pack was gone, lost to whichever villager had grabbed it. Which meant no more rations. No more first aid kit. No journal.
Hopefully Uncle Chuck wouldn't ground him forever for losing that.
At least he still had the Chaos Emerald. He pulled it from midair and contemplated it for a moment. Very handy that it could just disappear like that. Very lucky. So that at least meant they couldn't steal it too.
Not that it was doing all that much right now, except looking sparkly.
He put it away with a twist of his wrist. Well. If nothing else, it was probably best to keep it out of Doctor Robotnik's hands. The Emeralds were supposed to be a source of power, right? He reached for his journal, then sighed.
Right. Stolen pack.
He'd have to make do with what he could remember.
Which...wasn't much.
Drat.
Okay, focus. Probably best to avoid Mobians for the time being. If they didn't want to be freed, if they were going to actively get in the way when he tried, then he'd just have to stay out of their way while doing it. Work behind the scenes. Or beside the scenes. Or at least out of arm's reach of the scenes.
Basically, not give the villagers the chance to grab him again.
That he could do easily. Had been doing for years whenever someone back home thought they'd take matters into their own hands and discipline Charles Hedgehog's nephew for him, or whenever some bully thought it'd be funny to try to turn him into a punching bag. Sonic had yet to meet someone who could actually keep up with him. He was content to keep it that way.
The thought briefly crossed his mind that he could just leave the island. Abandon ship, take the Tornado and vamoose, leave the broken Mobians behind with their oppressor like they thought they wanted and—
Nope. Couldn't finish the thought without laughing. Like he could do that now that he was here.
Besides, this was a challenge. It felt good to have a challenge for once.
Speaking of, it was probably time to get moving again. He couldn't sit around forever. Bots didn't break themselves, and the villagers certainly didn't look like they were going to take the initiative.
Sonic leaned cautiously out of his hidey-hole one ear at a time. No alarms yet. No shots fired. Good. He poked a little further out, gave a furtive look.
Left.
Nothing.
Right.
Nothing.
Up.
A bot sat at the top of a nearby slope, its back to him. It was kind of armadillo-shaped, its spherical blue body split across the middle like a clam shell so that its pointy red head could peek out and peer side to side. Scanning the factory around it. Looking for Sonic?
He'd just take it out quickly, and—
Two more rolled to the top of the rise. Spotted him. Squealed an alert.
Well, phooey.
Sonic darted from his refuge and took off at a run. Something crashed into the wall behind him not even a second later. He risked a glance back.
One of the roller bots sprawled in a heap where Sonic had just been, limbs tangled on each other, body hinged open and mechanical eyes spinning almost comically. The other two were slower on the uptake, but already closing the gap, rolling at him madly like possessed bowling balls.
These things were fast. Faster than the motobugs.
Sonic grinned.
Oh, this was gonna be fun.
The alley here was just a bit too narrow for full speed, the walls close, the ceiling low. Sonic took a tight turn, kicking off of the wall to change direction faster. The rollers clattered against each other and the metal paneling behind him, but kept up the chase.
Good. It wouldn't be fun if it was too easy.
Sonic slid beneath another of the spiky turnstiles and wove between sliding crates and flashing light fixtures, laughing at the thrill of adrenaline in his veins. He vaulted over low walls, side-stepped bumpers that tried to launch him backwards into his pursuers, and whooped loud enough the whole scrap yard had to have heard him by now. Let them. It was too late for stealth now.
The floor sloped suddenly downward. Sonic rolled with it, picking up speed, and launched out into a wide, open thoroughfare. A channel for processed metal blocks, by the looks of it, but much wider, much easier to run in.
He pushed himself to full speed.
The wind whistled past his ears, full of clanging and banging and pounding from the foundry around him, and the squawking of the rollers behind him. And beside him, as four more swooped in from side roads, blue shapes whipping along at a mad clip.
Wonder how good their brakes are.
Let's find out.
Sonic waited until one of them rolled up abreast of him. No sign of its face, tucked away in its plates of armor, but he got the feeling it could still see him. Knew he was there somehow. Sensors, probably. He flashed it a manic grin, a small salute. Then he ducked, sneakers catching against the ground in a skid, and pushed sideways in one fluid motion. Changing direction, dodging to the other side of the bot's headlong roll. The bot couldn't change direction quite fast enough, and crashed plates-first into the side of a low wall.
One.
No time to gloat. Sonic followed the curve of the channel around a bend, the rest of the rollers swarming around him, trying to collide with the blue hedgehog. One charged at him from the side; he rolled beneath it, then kicked up and arced over a second as it tried to hit him. The two rollers crashed into each other.
Two, three.
Another curve, and then a slope down into a bowl with a spiked ball pivoting around a central point. Metal debris lay in the bottom of the basin, gouges and silvery scrapes left by the spikes as they ground scrap down. Sonic's momentum carried him down into the bowl, and he timed his roll to swing just past the spike ball and back up and out. Up in a small arc, toward a second basin, then a third. Metal screeched behind him.
Four.
Two more to go.
Sonic cleared the grinding pits and angled down another long slope, picking up speed. The rollers kept pace, faster and faster. Tried to sideswipe him and missed.
The ground curved up ahead, into a long ramp that led straight to—
Perfect.
Sonic hit the curve. Soared upward. Twisted just slightly to correct his momentum.
He managed to just miss the first in the series of bumpers, landing on top of it with his feet instead of colliding with the underside. It pinged as it launched him higher, toward another, then another, bouncing him along. In control this time.
Behind him, a discordant din of hollow pings echoed as the last two rollers hit the bumpers the wrong way around, ricocheting like pinballs in a rapid-fire series of impacts before being thrown back to the ground below. Sonic winced in sympathy.
Five and six.
Sonic landed nimbly and ran forward, free of his escort, hoping the Mobians captive inside the bots were likewise free. No time to double back and check, though. Had to keep moving.
There, ahead. The foundry widened, flattened out. Lights converged on something in the center. The village square? Or what remained of it, at least? Only one way to find out.
Sonic skidded to a stop at the end of the road, inches from another drop-off. A wide moat of sorts, carved deep in the ground and lined with spikes in the shadows at the bottom if his eyes weren't playing tricks on him. Bridges spanned it in places, narrow, moving as needed to transport cargo from one side to the other as bots brought crates of scrap and bundles of robot parts to carry across. And on the other side, in an open plaza...
More villagers. Herded into oversized containment capsules by more of the crabs, watched over by none other than the Whiskered Wonder himself in another of his hovering vehicles. Carting Mobians off to Chaos-knew-where. Probably to turn into more bots.
Not if Sonic had anything to say about it.
He found himself scrambling across the precarious bridges on instinct, driven by his sense of justice. His sense of freedom. Pushing down the little voice that reminded him that the villagers had actively tried to obstruct his efforts earlier. Had tried to hand him over to their captors. That was their choice.
This was his.
Everything halted when Sonic slid to a stop in the plaza. Robotnik turned to take stock of the interruption, and Sonic grinned when the human threw his hands in the air in exasperation and rolled his eyes. "You again?" Robotnik demanded.
Sonic rubbed at his nose and shrugged, feigning indifference. "Miss me, Whiskers?"
"Not this time, I won't!" Robotnik threw a lever in his vehicle, and a spike extended from the underside as he raced toward Sonic.
Who jumped out of the way as the machine stabbed into the ground where he'd just been standing. "Too slow!" Sonic blew a raspberry at the human. "No fair, skipping the banter. That's the best part!"
"Hold still, you little menace!" Robotnik pulled his machine up, a chunk of the plaza lodged on the spike, which broke into fragments that peppered the ground with a noisy clatter. He swung the controls around, stabbing at Sonic again, who simply jumped backward out of the way. The spike jammed into the ground again. Sonic jumped up and hit one of the side panels with his quills, and landed to the side to admire the dent he left behind.
"Yeah, no, don't think I will." Sonic stuck out his tongue and pulled down his eyelid.
Robotnik growled and pulled up another chunk of the ground with the spike, sending more pieces flying. Sonic merely laughed at how red the human's face had turned, and rolled out of the way of a third attack.
And nearly fell into the first hole the spike had left behind.
"Whoa!" Sonic teetered on the edge, arms swinging for balance, realization dawning horribly.
The entire plaza was suspended over the spike-filled moat, hollowed out beneath the stone blocks, and Robotnik was removing them one by one with his spike machine. If he kept this up...
Well. Sonic didn't think he had enough time to spontaneously learn to fly.
He jumped the gap as Robotnik's spike machine came slamming down at the hole's edge, sending another piece crumbling to the spikes below. Sonic circled around, leaped at the machine's underside again, missed as Robotnik flew too high. Reflexes kept Sonic from falling back into the hole, but only just. He still stumbled as he tried to avoid it.
He needed to take out Robotnik before he lost too much ground.
Literally.
The spike came down again. Sonic dodged, jumped, hit another side panel. Left another dent. Lost another piece of the floor in the process.
But Robotnik kept aiming for him. No real strategy other than that.
I can use this.
Sonic's eyes darted across the plaza in a flash. If the big hole got much bigger, the whole plaza might collapse, but if he could spread the damage out, keep the holes small and far between, he could direct the fight. Keep things on his terms.
He ran to an intact portion of the plaza and turned to razz at Robotnik again. "Worst pogo stick ever, by the way! You do know you're supposed to bounce, right?"
The only answer was the spike lancing down again. Sonic dodged easily. Hit the side of the cockpit. The machine was sparking now.
Sonic laughed as he darted back across the plaza, hopping the holes and making faces at Robotnik. The human was too easy to taunt. Another stab. Another hole. Another hit. More sparks.
One more ought to do it.
"I gotta ask," he jeered, weaving around and waggling his hands up by his ears, "what's with the walrus PJs? Is it casual day at the office or something?"
That struck a nerve. "You little rodent!" Robotnik snarled, spittle flying, his spike machine spinning wildly toward Sonic.
"Whoops!" Sonic jumped up before the machine could connect, tucking into a ball to slam directly into the control panel of the vehicle. Sparks flew. Something exploded with a cloud of acrid smoke. Ash billowed up from the controls, dusting Robotnik's face and Sonic's quills in a smear of grey. Both choked.
Sonic fell clear of the vehicle as it sputtered and jolted about erratically. Robotnik wrestled with the levers in an effort to regain command of the machine, but either he failed, or felt retreat was the best option with his weapon in such a state. With a shaking fist and a curse, he steered off into the corridors of the foundry, trailing stinking exhaust and sparks.
Sonic would have followed, would have chased him down to finish the job, maybe even demand he abandon the island and its inhabitants, but didn't really have the upper hand. Not yet. Robotnik still had too many resources at hand, and honestly Sonic considered himself lucky the human hadn't involved any of his bots in the fight.
Speaking of which...
The crabs stood frozen, glancing shiftily between hedgehog and containment capsules. Almost like they were hoping he'd forgotten about them. One scuttled backwards a few steps. Eyed an escape route.
Fat chance.
Moments later, Sonic dusted himself off after splitting open the last of the crabs, rolling one shoulder to loosen up tight and slightly sore muscles. He had a few new cuts, all minor. Nothing a few rings wouldn't fix. Still, it would have been nice to have his pack and its first aid kit at hand. And he needed another bath now to get the greasy soot off of his quills.
A pounding sound caught his attention. A fist on glass. Muffled shouts. He looked up in surprise.
The capsules.
There were three of them, and Sonic could see faces through the thick glass windows in the sides. Mobian faces, scared, defeated, crying. One captive pounded on the glass again, shouted something Sonic couldn't quite make out due to the muffling, but their expression was more urgent than anything else. Pointing up, above their head.
The top of the capsule. It looked like a big switch.
Sonic didn't need to be told twice. He jumped to the top of the first capsule and landed on the switch with the full force of his weight, depressing it. He heard the hiss of pressurized air as the clamps on the sides popped, dropping the capsule walls to the ground. Two more quick hops and the second and third followed suit, and he landed back on the ground face to face with the imprisoned villagers.
Most of them stared back at him in surprise. Some gave him suspicious looks. Most just looked apprehensive.
He held up his hands and started backing away, remembering the other captives he'd tried to free. No sense getting grabbed again. "Glad you're out now, but I'll just be going, hey? Maybe run while you can?" He turned, fully intending to follow his own advice.
"Wait!" The one who'd pointed out the switch, a female chipmunk probably about his age with a shock of red hair, reached out to stop him. Just like the squirrel. Too much like the squirrel.
Instinctively, he twisted out of her grip. "It's fine. I chased him off. Sorry."
She faltered, but didn't reach for him again. "Why are you apologizing? You saved us."
"I—" He broke off. Stared at her. "You're...not mad?"
"Why would we be mad?" She glanced at the others, who murmured and nodded in agreement.
"It's just..." He shrugged. "Today's been a bit of a thing."
The chipmunk eyed the capsules. "I'd believe it." She held out her hand. "Sally Acorn."
Sonic hesitated, before uncertainly taking her hand in his. "Sonic the Hedgehog."
She smiled, genuine, and he felt himself relax as he realized that they really weren't going to hand him over to the bots. "You're not from around here, are you, Sonic?"
"I'm kind of just visiting." He rubbed the back of his head sheepishly, but didn't elaborate. She didn't press the issue.
One of the other villagers, an older pig with patches of grey on his pink skin, had taken the initiative in rounding up the freed captives. Some of the adults propped up the groggy, disoriented Mobians that had been in the crab bots, while the younger ones pulled anything they could use as defenses—tools, pieces of the capsules, spikes and pincers from the crabs—to hand. Sonic noted there were no children in the group, no one younger than him and Sally at least, and hoped that wasn't an ill omen. The pig who had taken up the ringleader role gestured for everyone to move out.
Sonic held back.
Sally gave him a quizzical look when she realized he wasn't following the group.
"I...um. Places to be, you know?" He shrugged again. "Bots to break, oppressors to overthrow."
"Oh." She glanced back at the group. "We owe you our lives. At least let us repay you with a meal before you go? Maybe some bandages?" She gestured to his superficial cuts and bruises.
He thought of refusing. Of turning and bolting before the villagers could change their minds about handing him over to Robotnik after all. He doubted any of them could catch him if he really didn't want them to, but he also didn't relish the idea of having to fight more innocent, downtrodden people.
She seemed to read all of that in his face. "'A bit of a thing,' huh?"
Perceptive, this one.
He made a decision. Fell in step beside her. Saw her relax as he tentatively let his guard down. "I had a run-in with some of your neighbors," he explained. "They didn't much like me taking out the bots."
She sighed and rubbed at the bridge of her nose. "Sorry. Some of the villagers seem to think that it won't be so bad if we don't fight back."
"Yeah, that's what the squirrel said."
Sally's sigh turned into an exasperated groan. "I am going to kick Ricky right in the tail next time I see him," she grumbled.
"Ricky?"
"My idiot brother."
"Ah. I, uh, see the family resemblance."
"I promise, not everyone here thinks like that. Many would rather fight back if we could." She glanced over at him. "Though none of us really have the means to do so."
He suddenly felt very self-conscious about his speed, something he hadn't experienced in years. Uncle Chuck had treated it as normal, worked very hard to help instill that into Sonic. And before his uncle... He pushed the thought aside. Fumbled for words, for a response.
"I think your brother has my pack," he blurted.
Sally just face-palmed.
"I mean, I can get on without it," Sonic continued, "but it does have some of my things in it, and—"
"I'll get it back for you next time I see him."
Sonic swallowed his rambling and nodded. "Thanks."
The villagers wound down through side alleys in the factory until they came to a passage that led beneath the cold metallic structures to the underbelly, and the remains of their village beneath. It was dark, overshadowed by the construction above, and smelled of stale air and harsh factory odors settling in the low places, but the buildings were still kind of intact, and other Mobians came out at a low whistle from the pig to greet everyone with tears of relief. More than a few cast curious glances Sonic's way, but no open hostility. No grim looks or threats of imprisonment. Some even looked grateful, especially after the former captives explained why he was there, how he had rescued them.
In no time, Sonic found himself crowded into one of the huts-turned-hovel, sitting at a table that had seen better days, wedged between Sally and an older chicken, recounting his fight against Robotnik in the coastal hills over a plate of meager but warm and appreciated food. His injuries, minor though they were, had been treated by one of the older women in the village, and he'd even had a chance to wash his quills clean while the food was prepared. There was something about the way everyone had pulled him in like he belonged there, how they now listened intently to his story and joked along with him, that felt like home in a way he hadn't experienced in a long, long time. Not even with Uncle Chuck.
He could get used to this.
He held something back, of course. When someone asked what had brought him to South Island, he merely said, "Adventure." Didn't talk about his uncle's journal. Definitely didn't show them the Chaos Emerald he could feel at the edge of awareness even now. That might complicate things. Change the dynamic in a less-than-ideal way. No sense muddying the waters.
They offered him a place to sleep for the night, somewhere he could rest in safety before moving on. Only Sally looked like she didn't expect him to take them up on the offer.
Which he didn't. He needed to keep moving, and said as much to try to stave off their disappointment. The best thing he could do for them was draw Robotnik's attention away from their tiny village under the scrap yard. Strike him where it hurt the most.
Instead, Sally led him to the edge of the factory as night fell, a small bundle of what little food the villagers could spare slung across his back.
"There's a cave entrance up the hills there," she said quietly, pointing, ears perked for bot patrols. "It's a labyrinth beneath, but you should be able to use it to sneak into the city instead of going overland. Easier to avoid patrols that way."
He readjusted his bundle and took a deep breath. Caves. Great. "Thanks," he whispered, and started into the underbrush.
Her voice halted him mid-step. "Sonic?"
"Hm?"
"Good luck."
He grinned and saluted, barely visible in the dark, and took off at a jog without another word.
—
Fun fact: the cute little animals in the original games have names. The little squirrel was named "Ricky," but Sega of America changed the name to "Sally Acorn" for the Sonic Bible.
For anyone worrying that this means I'm completely crossing SatAm and the games in this story, I'm not. Sally here is meant to be a cameo and a reference to the early Western name of the squirrel, nothing more. I need to fill out the cast a little, and I thought this worked (like including "Old Man Lewis" in the previous chapter, a reference to the Western name of Picky, "Porker Lewis").