Sonic, Mighty and Ray landed on an icy slope in a room with walls made of ice cubes, and before they even had time to react, they fell down the slope into a lake which carried them under the ice floor. Once they emerged, they all shivered, and Sonic muttered,
"This is why I hate water…"
He then looked at Mighty and Ray and told them,
"Well, since we're here, what's you guys' stories?"
Mighty and Ray looked at him and then looked down sadly. After a few moments, Mighty began telling his story. He said to Sonic,
"I'm from the city of Avalon in Mercia. When I was 5, Robotnik's swatbots and robians stormed the city. Our army didn't stand a chance."
Sonic was confused by the term "robian" and asked what that meant, and Mighty responded,
"That's what me and Ray call roboticized mobians. Anyways, while the army tried to hold them off, me, my parents, and my little sister were being escorted to an evacuation zone. But…one of the swatbots managed to hit our guide with a laser blast. More then stormed the crowd, and while I was being taken away alongside other kids by another one of our mayor's men…I saw my family being dragged away by Swatbots."
Sonic looked on in sympathy as Mighty said,
"I never saw them again."
Sonic then asked him what happened next, but before Mighty could reply, Robotnik yelled over the monitor,
"You fools should be glad I gave that armadillo the chance to lay out that much of his life story, because I've got you now!"
He then pushed a button, and the 3 mobians then looked up and saw huge ice spikes rapidly falling from the ceiling. Sonic yelled at them to run and then began running. Mighty and Ray followed after him, and although they weren't as fast as him, they managed to barely evade the ice spikes. They and Sonic then had to dodge giant blocks of ice that were shooting out of the wall. Luckily, they managed to dodge every one of them and got on a slow snowy path.
However, they couldn't rest, as the floor began collapsing almost immediately. They began running again as the floor collapsed behind them. Once they reached the end of the path, they saw monkey bars leading to the other side. Sonic said to Ray,
"Hey, Ray! You're a flying squirrel, right? Then fly us over this!"
"I-I can only glide at best, and only for a few seconds!"
"Well, that's just great! I hope you guys can use monkey bars!"
Sonic leaped onto the monkey bars and began swinging across them, Mighty and Ray following behind them. While Mighty seemed more adept at this than any of the three of them, Ray was clearly struggling. However, once the 3 managed to clear the monkey bars, they were met with 2 more of them. Sonic gritted his teeth in annoyance at this and hopped onto one of the monkey bars, Mighty and Ray hopped on another one of them, and they began swinging
However, after a few swings, Ray slipped and fell off. Mighty yelled out his name and leaped after him, with Sonic being forced to leap after them. They all soon landed on another icy surface, cracking the ice on impact. They all got up and winced in pain, with Sonic angrily asking Mighty,
"What the hell were you thinking?!"
Mighty grabbed Ray by the shoulder and told Sonic,
"I couldn't let my friend die…"
After thinking a moment, Sonic then asked him,
"How'd you two meet, anyways?"
Mighty stayed quiet for a moment and then replied with,
"Alright, I'll finish the story. After me and the other people of Avalon fled the city, we were spread out across Mercia hiding from the Swatbots. 2 years ago, while I was hunting for food in one of the cities they conquered, I found Ray hiding from some Swatbots."
Ray then piped into the conversation and said,
"Yeah, I lived on the streets and didn't have a family. Mighty saved me from those Swatbots and ever since then, we've been a team. He's like a big brother to me."
Sonic gave a bittersweet smile upon hearing the rest of this story, and told his 2 new allies,
"I know what it's like to have a family you care about even though they're not really your family. But I also know what it's like to have your real family get turned into hunks of junk by that overgrown egg."
He then looked up the slide and told them,
"Come on. I've got a feeling Robotnik's got more traps up his sleeves."
Sonic began running up the slope, with Mighty and Ray following after him. They dodged spears that jutted out of the floor with the intent to skewer them, then skidded to a stop just as they were about to impact giant springs on the wall that were no doubt intended to send them right back down. They then began running down another series of slopes, and once they got to the bottom, they ran across another strip of land before stopping in front of a section of floor made of ice cubes.
Sonic began stretching and remarked,
"If I were a betting hedgehog, these things are probably gonna collapse when we try to run across them. You guys feel up to that?"
"Yeah!"
Both Mighty and Ray shouted this as they got into running position alongside Sonic and shot off across the icy floor. Sure enough, the floor did collapse beneath them, but they easily ran over the collapsing blocks, then leaping atop a platform to another strip of land. After repeating this cycle 2 more times, they landed on a strip of ground that seemingly had to obsticles.
Sonic looked forwards and saw a door, then pointing at it and telling Mighty and Ray,
"Hey, look! I think I see the exit!"
The 3 then ran forward, but as soon as they got to the patch of ground covered by snow, ice spikes littered all across the ceiling all fell down at the same time, impaling everly last part of the icy pathway. The 3 mobians leaped in surprise at this, turning around and seeing all these ice spikes impaled in the floor. Sonic sweated a bit and said,
"Man, if we were just a second slower we'd have been done for. Good thing you guys can keep up with the fastest thing alive, AKA yours truly."
Mighty grimaced a little at Sonic's bravado, but followed behind him alongside Ray through the door, which led to the outside of the base. Looking around now that they were freed from the icy aisle, and Ray then asked Mighty,
"Where do we go now, Mighty?"
The armadillo looked around for a few seconds and then responded to his friend by telling him,
"I think we should probably head over that river. That looks like the closest thing to the tower Robotnik had us all locked in. What do you think, Sonic? Sonic?"
Mighty looked at where Sonic had just been standing, and the hedgehog wasn't there. Instead, he was running towards a desert area in the distance while chasing a whale chasing what looked like a giant metal mud dauber, or as it was known to mobians, the Buzz Bomber. Mighty yelled out for Sonic and began running after him, Ray following behind his brother figure. Meanwhile, Robotnik was looking at the monitor in increasing rage.
"Just you wait, you infernal rodents . You won't survive much longer. Let's see if you can survive the perils of Desert Dodge…"
Sonic rushed after the Buzz Bomber, his shoes scraping on the sand beneath him. After only a few minutes of running, he managed to get close enough to jump up and destroy it with a rolling attack. As the mobuni pig that had been powering it fell out, Sonic petted it on the forehead and told it,
"Don't worry, little guy. You're safe now."
As the pig happily oinked, Sonic noticed a speaker within the destroyed remains of the Buzz Bomber he had just smashed. Suddenly, Robotnik's voice yelled over the speaker, proclaiming,
"I'M GOING TO BLOW YOU AWAY!!!"
Sonic, knowing this couldn't be good, quickly scooped up the mobuni pig in his arms and began running. As he ran, large sections of the strip of land he was running on began to collapse. Sonic desperately dodged the huge holes that threatened to drop him and the mobuni to their deaths, but was then attacked by 4 sand tornados.
Sonic was spun around like crazy by the tornados, but managed to escape and kept on going. After a few minutes of running, Mighty and Ray caught up to him. Mighty angrily yelled at the impestuous hedgehog hero,
"What the hell were you thinking?! Why'd you run off like that?!'
Sonic chuckled and replied,
"Well, I couldn't just leave this little guy trapped in here, right?"
Mighty rolled his eyes, but turned his attention back to their current problem. He and his two friends ran across the sand, even managing to flee a giant green robot caterpillar created by Robotnik. After evading the tornados, trudging through quicksand (which Sonic particularly hated, and avoiding pits of doom, the 3 mobians eventually managed to get back to solid ground. Once they did, Sonic let the little mobuni pig go, and it happily ran off.
Mighty then asked Sonic,
"Well, since you wanna run into danger so badly, where do you think we should go next?"
Sonic playfully looked around for a bit before spotting a large gray tower just ahead of them. The hedgehog smirked and ran towards the tower, with Mighty and Ray following after him. Meanwhile, Robotnik slammed his fist against his monitor in a fit of rage. The mad dictator yelled,
"CURE THOSE REPUGNANT RODENTS!!! ONCE I GET MY HANDS ON THEM…!!!"
Robotnik then took a deep breath and told himself to calm down, reminding himself,
"It's ok. This is all a distraction. Besides, they won't be getting past Trap Tower…"
Author's note: Since I can, I want to lay out the birthdays and ages of the characters in this story here for everyone to know.
Sonic, Sonia and Manic: Born day 162, 3227 (Are all 8 during Underground, 9 during chapter 1 of this fic, and Sonic is 10 by chapter 2 onwards. Sonia and Manic are both locked in the bodies of 9 year olds thanks to their robotization)
Dr Robotnik: Born day 253, 3189 (Is 50 during Underground, and 52 during this story)
Knuckles: Born day 251, 3226 (Is 9 during Underground and 11 during this story. 9 is considered teenage by Echidna standards)
Mighty: Born day 240, 3226 (Was 9 years old during Underground and is currently 11 years old)
Ray: Born day 250, 3231 (Was 4 when Mighty found him during Underground, and is now 6)
Queen Aleena: Born day 287, 3202 (Was 25 when she gave birth to the triplets, 33 during Underground, and currently would be 35. Her current whereabouts are unknown)