SONIC THE HEDGEHOG: VELOCITY'S END
A fanfiction by Mythick Voices
Chapter 3
In an azure blur, Sonic decimated the speed of sound, traveling from the Great Forest to the Kingdom of Mercia in 4 seconds. This 4,844 mile distance included the Batlantic Ocean, which Sonic negotiated easily by maintaining a stride of around Mach 1.5. He arrived at dusk local time, stopping around 100 feet from the Snottingham Castle drawbridge.
Snottingham was an intimidating spectacle to behold to be sure. A dark metal facsimile of a castle straight out of Arthurian legend, long guns, cannons, lasers and energy weapons peeked out from every battlement and tower keep. The once welcoming, Mercian charm of the castle was a distant memory, a side-effect of its occupation by the Dark Egg Legion, led by the nefarious viper, Mordred Hood.
Beyond these armaments, within its stony walls, numerous traps constructed by the badniks lurked within its dusky corridors. And though the Chaotix and the Mercian Freedom Fighters destroyed many of their number, there were still many G.O.O.N.S.— Giants for Offensive Occupation and Nullification—created by Eggman, still intent on fulfilling their mandate of eradicating Deerwood Forest and its free peoples.
Though the royal family of Mercia no longer resided in the castle, it was known to Sonic that many relics and powerful artifacts acquired by the O'Hedge family remained undiscovered by the fortress' current sovereign. One of these was Sonic and the Black Knight, an ancient tome printed and bound with Chaos Magic, that could transport one from Mobius to the world of Camelot and back again. That was what Sonic aimed to retrieve.
Having less than a minute earlier traversed an entire sea, getting across the castle moat and up the gray metal walls was like a warm-up stretch. Once inside, Sonic stopped, shocked to find himself in the center of an empty courtyard. Plumes of waning smoke wafted into the air from torches, firepits, and piles of scrap metal strewn about the inner bailey. Expecting to find at least a handful of Mercia Dark Egg Legionnaires manning the fort, Sonic felt a tinge of disappointment. He felt pent up, frustrated, anxious—and trouncing some badniks would do much to work out the feeling.
The entrance to the vaults was well-hidden within a garden nook, tucked away in the back of the upper bailey. Sonic jogged up the weathered stone path to where a large metal gate blocked the entrance. Security upgrades, no doubt, after Hood's embarrassing defeat at the hands of the Deerwood rebels. The blue hedgehog began to worry that, with all the renovating being done around the castle, the vaults had already been discovered—and looted.
Sonic placed a white-gloved hand against the metal portcullis, trying to get a sense of its weight and structural integrity. After a few moments, he took a few steps back, lowered his center of gravity, then charged up a spin dash. He accrued momentum equal to that of a Type-94 460mm shell being fired from a Yamato Class warship deck gun, then released it upon the door. A crackling explosion of energy ensued, followed by a thunderous bang that shook every stone and metal plate across the fortress.
Sonic came to a moment later and realized he was lying flat on his back about 20 or 30 feet back from the portcullis. Even now, the large dent his attack had caused was somehow reforming and rebuilding the damage before Sonic's very eyes like magic. Then he heard a wicked laugh from behind him.
"Sssssssssso," the raspy, reptilian voice of Mordred Hood sounded over the sudden ruckus of clattering steel and iron. About two dozen Dark Egg Legionnaires, replete with laser rifles and mechanical implants, filled the square and surrounded Sonic. "The ssssstage is finally sssssset: the Blue Blur has come to my cccccccitadel at last!"
Though Sonic himself had never faced Mordred, he'd learned enough from Mighty the Armadillo and Ray the Flying Squirrel to have formed a general opinion of the cretin's character. To call Mordred a snake would have been as reductive as it was literal. The mobian cobra had usurped control from the O'Hedge family to which he'd been an advisor for more than a decade, then wrested control of the Mercia Dark Egg Legion in order to destroy the peaceful denizens of Deerwood Forest. His black leather attire was likely as black as his heart, which Sonic had neither the desire nor the patience to bother trying to redeem.
"Mordred Hood," Sonic laughed, climbing to his feet. "Your place was in such shambles, I was startin' to think you'd slithered back to whatever nasty pit you crawled out of!"
The cobra declined his head slightly with a fanged grin. "I'm between decorators at the moment," he said in jest.
"Well, the Mercian family could have helped you with that but—oh! Wait! That's right, you stole the throne for yourself! Then filled this place with a buncha half-roboticized scoundrels!"
"Oh, sssssssimmer down, my heroic, blue friend! The O'Hedge family means abssssolutely nothing to you. You, on the other hand, mean a great deal to me."
Sonic placed his hands on his hips confidently, obliging the villain his monolog. "Is that so?"
"Oh yessssss," the snake said, slithering back and forth at his elevated position, reciting what was almost certainly a well-rehearsed soliloquy. "You ssssssee, you and King Naugus might have managed to repel the great Eggman, stopping the Death Egg Mark 2, but the bounty for you on the Eggnet is abssssssolutely enormousssssss! And I, King Mordred Hood, Lord of Snottingham Castle, intend to cassssssh in!"
"Yeah, how big's the bounty?" the hedgehog shot back. "I'll tell you if it's worth getting all your robian butts kicked or not!"
The Dark Egg Legionnaires surrounding Sonic lowered the muzzles of their weapons in unison to point directly at him.
"Enough to help me get sssssstarted tracking down a Chaos Emerald," the cobra replied, so sure of his schemes that he relished exposing his plans to his enemy.
"You guys just never learn, do you?" Sonic growled. "All the Emeralds ever do is bring chaos and catastrophe!"
"Exactly ssssso," Hood sneered. "And when I become masssssster of that chaossss, we'll have to ssssee which deed I'm more famousssss for: becoming the very first sssself-made Ssssuper Badnik, or stopping Sssssonic the Hedgehog!"
At the exact moment the cobra commanded his troops to open fire, time slowed to an imperceptible crawl. Sonic crouched low to the ground, closed his eyes, and tapped into the energy of his accumulated power rings in barely a fraction of a fraction of a second. Then, as time resumed, a phosphorescent sphere of shimmering blue light exploded out from where Sonic stood. The rapid vibrating and flash-heating of air molecules around him completely engulfed Sonic with a projectile-deflecting shield. All of the laser beams fizzled and sputtered against the sphere of light. After 8 or 9 seconds of constant barrage, Mordred ordered his men to cease fire. The shield dissipated as Sonic slowly opened his eyes, a broad smirk spreading across his face.
"What else ya got, Mordy? I reeeeally hope that wasn't all, 'cause I was kinda hoping for a workout."
While the cobra's brow twitched with annoyance, he hardly looked defeated. "You're only one hedgehog," the snake hissed. "Even if you do have ssssssuper powerssssss! Get him!"
The hedgehog gasped, surprised when the Dark Egg Legionnaires dropped their laser rifles, and came at him with mechanically-enhanced axes, hatchets, swords and pikes. Sonic spin-kicked the first few that reached him away before somersaulting into a group of six and knocking them back like bowling pins. Then, he charged a dash and accelerated up the circular metal wall of a tower stairwell, then backflipped off it into the air. He rotated his torso as his momentum began to build once more, then with a loud bang and a bluster of wind, drop-dashed directly into the remainder of the thugs where a furious melee ensued.
Seeing the numbers of his forces dwindling more swiftly than anticipated, Hood unclipped the remote-control device fastened at his hip before pressing the big red button on the center of the pad. "Think you're ssssssso ssssssswift," the cobra scowled. "Let's see how you handle thisssss!"
Just as Sonic was finishing off the last of the Dark Egg Legionnaires, three large metal gate doors opened along the opposite side of the square, just below where Mordred stood shouting orders. There was a terrible tremor accompanied by a cacophony of metallic screeches and robotic howls. From within each gate emerged a G.O.O.N., their frighteningly cycloptic helmets blazing red hot and staring directly at the Blue Blur.
"I'll admit, you've got ssssssome skill, but I've seen better! This is where it endsssss, Sssssonic!"
"Well I hate to dissssssapoint you…" the hedgehog said mocking the cobra's speech. He dusted himself off as he walked forward from the pile of unconscious legionnaires he left behind. "…but I've seen much worse than you."
"Hah! I might be the cobra, but you're the ssssssnake oil ssssssalesman, ssssslinging such false bravado! I know the Chaos Emeralds are missing! Which meansssss you can't reach your full power! Without it, ooh, I'll bet all ssssssorts of badnicks and ssssssuper badnicks are jussssst lining up to take their ssssshot at you, Ssssssonic!"
"Let 'em come," the hedgehog retorted. "I've had enough playing Mr. Nice Guy! All that ever gets me is more lost friends! Well that stops here! Now!"
The G.O.O.N.s attacked Sonic all at once and without restraint. The powerful energy beams fired from their optical weaponry emitted a deafening screech that rattled the hedgehog's quills. Sonic's feet accelerated across stone with such speed and precision that the blur beneath him appeared to show his legs moving in a figure-eight pattern. His peel-out maneuver caused the very stone beneath his glistening red shoes to crack and split as he dashed. Spinning upward, he leapt again from an invisible plane of air, catapulting himself to eye-level with the G.O.O.N.s. Utilizing his homing attack, he cratered his powerful feet into the visors of each of the giant robot sentinels, one after the other. The sickening crunch of metal and buckling struts rumbled throughout the square.
"Curssssse that hedgehog!" Mordred howled with anger. "You G.O.O.N.s were upgraded for thissssss purpossssse!"
One of the G.O.O.N.s managed to swing its powerful metal arm at Sonic during the chaos and confusion, clipping the hedgehog as he was coming out of a maneuver. The immediate deceleration from such high velocity whiplashed Sonic in reverse with enough force to fling him the remaining distance across the courtyard back against the metal portcullis, caving the metal in for a second time. Sonic let out a loud, audible groan of pain.
"You ssssssee!" Hood hollered. "He's not invinccccible! The Fassssstest Thing Alive isn't invincccccible! Kill him! Kill him!"
Sonic shook his head, recovering from the pain and regaining his composure just in time to roll out of the way of another laser beam attack from one of the G.O.O.N.s. And that was when the hedgehog had, what he considered at least, to be his first truly brilliant idea so far that day.
"Come on, you big, ugly, hunks of scrap metal!" the Blue Blur taunted the giant sentinels. "You were programmed to destroy me with those laser beams? Well take your best shot!"
Sonic lowered his center of mass, crouching and placing one hand on the cold stone ground in front of the portcullis. It had to be timed perfectly. Hood was right about one thing: his energy wasn't infinite. Especially without the Chaos Emeralds to fall back on.
The three G.O.O.N.s reassembled in formation and approached Sonic. They lowered their heads in unison, their visors gleaming, weapons charged. As the three red laser beams converged into one giant, white-blue hot column of crackling energy, Sonic vibrated the molecules of his physical form at such speed that he was able to alter their quantum spin. This allowed the photonic energy from the beam weapons to pass directly through him like he was a ghost. Instead of blasting into the hedgehog, the radiant explosion made contact with the sturdy metal portcullis. True, the door had been redesigned to withstand a tremendous amount of force from a kinetic impact. Energy weapons, however, it was not.
When the G.O.O.N. annihilation beam finally subsided and the brilliant white light bathing the area waned, there was a huge hole in the bottom of the metal gate, the perimeter of which was still glowing white-hot from the heat of the lasers.
"Is… issss he… dead?" Mordred wondered fearfully.
The fog cleared. Sonic's green eyes gleamed through it before the rest of him could even be seen. "You better shed that skin yourself, Mordred, before I rip you from it! Up, over, and gone!"
In a crackle of furious blue lightning, Sonic ran up the metal portcullis and backflipped off it into the air. He stomped down on the head of each G.O.O.N. with all his might, causing each sentinel to sink into the ground to the waist and frying most of their operational circuits.
This sent the snake into a blinding rage. "Confound you! Of all the noble heroesssss I've ever wanted to defang, none are more positively exxxxassssssperating as you! We'll meet again sssssoon! That's a promissssse, rodent!"
The cobra turned from his parapet and disappeared into the castle keep. Sonic simply sighed and let him go. He wasn't here for Mordred. He was here for the book. He desperately needed it to visit a realm he'd been summoned to once before in order to treat with an old friend and enemy both. Of all the things the hedgehog possessed—speed, confidence, dexterity, charisma, power and allies—the thing he always found himself lacking was wisdom. And right now, to save Sally Acorn, he was in dire need of it.
End of chapter three
