Back to Chapter 24

The bright, neon lights of the Spring Yard Zone greeted Sonic and Johnny as they chased Snively’s Egg-O-Matic- or, rather, the direction he’d been hurled off at mach speed. The hovercraft had enjoyed far too much of a headstart for Sonic to know where it was now. Obviously Sonic could have kept pace with it had he tried, but keeping Tufftee safe and freeing Dulcy and Johnny had taken precedent.

At any rate, the two friends entered the enormous amusement park warily, hoping to spot a sign of one of their targets- either one of the evil doctors would do. Sonic cautiously surveyed the area. The two of them were going to have to be careful- there were Badniks absolutely everywhere. As much as Sonic had no concerns about whether or not he could take down a Badnik on a one-to-one basis, having Johnny in tow complicated matters somewhat. On the one hand, it was good to have someone around to cover his back. The downside was, Johnny was an athlete, not a fighter. Sonic couldn’t ask Johnny to get involved in a physical confrontation with the dangerous robots.

The two friends passed through a tunnel that led to the park’s “Pinball Whizzer” ride. Sonic looked over his shoulder at Johnny.

“You’re not scared of heights are you, Lightfoot?” Sonic asked.

“No, I can handle heights alright,” Johnny nodded his head.

“That’s good- because I think you and I are going to have to get up high. Last time I was here, I noticed the Pinball Whizzer- it’s the most exciting ride in the park. At least that’s what the sign says. You get launched up high into the air and sort of bounce around on the bumpers, a bit like a pinball”

“Hence the name”

“Exactly,” Sonic smirked before his mood lowered a little, “I don’t know about you, bud, but an amusement park without the guests? That’s pretty creepy”

“I’m not into it,” Johnny admitted, “Though the Badnik guests don’t exactly fill me with much happiness either”

“Ah, you noticed them too,” Sonic answered, “Look, Johnny, if we have to fight them then I want you to let me take the lead. I hope you don’t think I’m afraid to get into a scrap but there are a lot of Badniks here and I kind of want to know where Robotnik is before we engage”

“Sonic, let’s be pragmatic,” said Johnny, working on the basis Sonic knew what pragmatic meant, “Being trapped in those Badniks is horrible. But as long as the people of Mobius are already trapped in them, they aren’t in danger from them anymore. If we have to take the long way round to save them then maybe focusing on Robotnik first is the right idea”

“Right. Stop him from making any more of them, then double back?”

In truth Sonic was sort of winging the situation. It didn’t sit right with him to leave the Badniks un-smashed. But the truth of the matter was Sonic had no idea how many Badniks Robotnik had created. He and Johnny could spend days tidying up the Spring Yard Zone and still be nowhere near done- and by that time, Robotnik could have conquered South Island and moved further afield. As much as he didn’t like the idea of people being trapped inside the robots, Sonic knew what Johnny was saying made sense.

Sonic and Johnny came to a dead end.

“Now what?” asked Johnny.

“Now…” Sonic paused, “We wait for the ride to kick in”

Suddenly, the floor panel the boys were stood on slid away and revealed a huge red spring beneath it. In a fraction of a second, gravity did its job and dropped Sonic and Johnny onto the spring- which almost as rapidly launched them upwards.

Sonic almost instinctively curled into a ball, taking the pinball concept perhaps a touch literally. Johnny, meanwhile, found rabbits lack the innate propensity for balling themselves up that hedgehogs have, flailing wildly as he found himself bouncing from bumper to bumper, pinging around the ride at high speed.

Sonic was unable to control himself, loudly shouting “WAAAAAAHOOOOO!!”

Similarly, Johnny was unable to keep quiet, proclaiming, “HUUUUUAAAAAARRRRGGGH!!”

Johnny, whirling around in the air, looked over to his right, gasping for breath. He could just make about a blue ball soaring through the air. The ball pinged and bounced and bumped and flipped and whirled through the pingers and bouncers and bumpers and flippers and whirlers, rattling around the giant pinball ride. Seeing just a flash of red in the blue, it didn’t take Johnny much to work out the ball was his friend, clearly enjoying himself.

Johnny tried his best to use the features of the ride to head in Sonic’s direction, eventually landing on a flipper which launched him way up into the air above Sonic. Johnny looked down to see Sonic uncurl, which he thought was odd. He thought it was even more odd when he realised Sonic was hollow on the inside. Stranger still was the fact Sonic looked a bit like a mechanical armadillo. Johnny’s heart skipped a beat as wires shot out of the Badnik that was most definitely not Sonic.

The Badnik called out to Johnny, “Do not resist! Become the organic battery for this unit! Submit to life as a Roller Badnik!”

“No fear!” Johnny scoffed, narrowly avoiding the cables which were trying to draw him in. As he fell towards the Roller, Johnny flailed his legs wildly, kicking in a panic. Eventually, that panic proved his salvation as the combined force of gravity and his hysterical thrashing resulted in him kicking the Roller right in the face. Lacking any kind of propulsion system beyond the momentum of the park, the Roller fell downwards before crashing into a huge neon sign which read “DOPE”. An enormous electrical surge blew the robot to pieces and that was the end of that.

Johnny didn’t see much of this as he had fallen onto a spring and begun his ascent once more, his heart practically thumping out of his ribcage.

Eventually, Sonic- the real Sonic- was flipped upwards by a bumper and landed on a rooftop. Johnny flailed in the air and almost didn’t make the landing, fortunately being grabbed by Sonic at the last moment. Johnny risked a peek over the edge then threw himself flat-backed to the roof, murmuring.

“I thought you said you didn’t mind heights?” Sonic crossed his arms.

“I don’t…” Johnny finally coughed, “I’m just not keen on falling from them”

“Fair enough,” Sonic rolled his eyes, “Come on, up you get, we’ve got work to- yow!”

Sonic, not looking where he was walking, had wandered into the business end of a Badnik. This one most resembled a hermit crab, only hermit crabs generally don’t have enormous spikes protruding from them as this did. It was a fortunate thing Sonic had only been walking slowly, else he’d have been turned into a blue pincushion.

“What the heck is that?!” Johnny asked hopping to his feet.

Sonic rubbed his arm where he’d been jabbed by the Badnik, “I dunno, probably Spikey or something lame, these Badnik names just get worse”

“My unit designation is Spikes, hedgehog!” the Badnik bellowed, the sinister effect of which somewhat offset by its googly eyes bouncing around on springy stalks.

“Close enough. Look, pal, I usually jump on top of you guys or roll into you but you’re pretty pointy in general so just give me a sec to come up with an alternate strategy, okay?”

“No chance, hedgehog!” the Spikes Badnik snarled, clattering its way towards Sonic with its creepy pointed pincer-like forelegs.

Sonic slowly edge backwards, though soon found himself running out of room. In order to reach the highest point of the theme park, he’d inadvertently given himself the least amount of room to manoeuvre. Sonic’s heart skipped a beat as his heel almost slipped over the edge of the roof.

“What should I tell them to put on your headstone?” taunted the Badnik.

Sonic gulped, “How about… Here lies Sonic the Hedgehog… super fast… really good looking… excellent at providing a distraction”

“What are you talking ab—” with a pop and a fizzle, the Badnik burst open, thanks in no small part to the length of metal pipe that Johnny had pulled off the roof edge and swung at the robot’s face. Smoke fizzed out of the Badnik’s casing and a Mobini bird flew out, tweeting happily.

Sonic stepped forwards and smiled at Johnny “Thanks, bud”

“No worries,” Johnny smiled back, “It’s only fair, you saved me after all”

“True enough! And there’ll be more needing saving yet. Let’s get a move on”

The two friends ran from rooftop to rooftop, mostly managing to avoid the gaze of the Badnik patrols and handily smashing any of the mechanical marauders they did encounter.

Soon enough the pair came upon a familiar unpleasant sight. Doctors Robotnik and Snively, piloting their Egg-O-Matics were arguing near to a Prison Egg Capsule. Well, in truth, it wasn’t much of an argument- it was more Robotnik shouting Snively into submission. Sonic almost felt sorry for the slimebag for half a second. Almost.

“This cannot be tolerated, Snively!” Robotnik roared.

“Yes, sir, sorry, sir,” Snively toadied.

“Your patrols have lost sight of more than one of the Warps of Confusion! Do you know what that means?”

“Uh, th-that we need to increase surveillance, sir?”

“Nincompoop! A Warp of Confusion only disappears when stepped through! Someone has used those warps to locate the Chaos Emeralds!”

Sonic recoiled slightly. He hadn’t encountered another of those giant rings since he got his Chaos Emerald. Was there someone else on the trail of the gems? Who even knew about them other than him, his friends and the mad doctors?

“I’m headed into the Star Light Zone,” Robotnik continued his tirade, “You guard this Prison Egg Capsule with your life- because if you let Sonic break it open, that life may well be forfeit!”

Snively squeaked, “Yes, sir! Of course, sir!”

Robotnik narrowed his eyes and took off in his hovercraft. Sonic was glad Robotnik hadn’t spotted him and Johnny. He wasn’t sure he could manage to fight both of the doctors and keep an eye on his friend. Now, though, they had a two-to-one advantage.

“Ready to save some people, Lightfoot?” Sonic asked.

Johnny was still holding on to the length of pipe from earlier and rolled it around in his hands, “Sounds good to me!”

The two friends leapt down off the roof onto the anti-grav bridge below, scaring the daylights out of Snively, “You pest! Why can’t you just be a nice little hedgehog and get squashed?!”

“Oh, please, nosey- if I died, how would we get to keep on having so much fun?”

Snively growled, “Let’s see if you find this fun!”

Snively pressed a button and a small circle slid open on the bottom of the Egg-O-Matic. From inside poked a large and very nasty looking spike.

“You looking to have the world’s weirdest shish kebab with that thing?” Sonic tutted.

“Why not?” Snively grinned maniacally, “Skewered hedgehog sounds delightful!”

Johnny looked over at Sonic dryly, “Do you really have to antagonise the lunatic?”

“Something to do, innit?” Sonic replied, the corner of his mouth upturning.

Snively began to draw his Egg-O-Matic closer to Sonic. The anti-grav bridge was not particularly wide and didn’t offer the two animals much room to move. Snively swooped down towards Sonic who barely managed to roll under the craft in time.

“Hey, baldy!” Johnny shouted, “Don’t let Sonic have all the fun!”

Snively, enraged at the quip about his thinning hairline, took aim at Johnny who put to use his sprint techniques to evade the pint-sized doctor as best as possible. Just before Snively was about to make contact, Sonic leapt up to kick the craft in the rear, sending it off-balance.

Snively growled, “I’ve had it with you, hedgehog! This time I’m going to put the speed of this thing to good use!”

Snively pushed forward a lever on his control panel which gauged the speed of the Egg-O-Matic. Pushing forward from the default setting of “Fast”, past “Reckless” and into “Psychotic”, flames shout out of the exhaust at an alarming rate. Shouting what sounded enough like a war cry, Snively rocketed forward towards Sonic.

Unfortunately, though he was travelling at psychotic speed, Snively wasn’t faster than Sonic, who deftly dodged and watched with some amusement as the spike on the Egg-O-Matic’s underside speared into the bridge… and became wedged.

“Oh dear…” Snively uttered.

“I should say so,” Sonic agreed before leaping at Snively, booting him in the face with a kick.

“My turn!” shouted Johnny as he sprang from behind the craft to smash the control panel with the pipe.

The Egg-O-Matic overloaded as Snively shouted “No!” repeatedly. An electrical impulse from the control panel surged through the Egg-O-Matic, conducted along the spike into the anti-grav block that made up part of the bridge… and deactivated it.

Suddenly dropping like a bag of stones, Snively screamed for dear life as he fell far below.

Johnny looked down, “He’s not going to go splat from that, is he?”

“Nah,” Sonic shook his head. I checked the map of the park last time I was here- there’s one of those weird funky web things below that should slow his fall a little and a big trampoline at the bottom. Though I wouldn’t bet on a soft landing”

The two friends crossed over towards the Prison Egg and Sonic set about freeing the captives.

“Ta-daaaaa!!” cried a familiar voice.

“Hi, Chirps,” Johnny greeted the chicken.

“Please… I cannot be taking any more of zis mad cluck’s nonsense,” came Antoine’s whimpering voice from inside the capsule.

“Easy, Ant,” Sonic helped the coyote up, “You’re free now”

“Soneek!” Antoine exclaimed, “Have you seen Sally?”

“No such luck, bud. You guys lay low in the park for a while. It’s crawling with Badniks so try to find some place to hide- avoid conflict”

“Non,” Antoine shook his head, “Chirps may hide but while ma princesse is unaccounted for, I shall join ze search”

Antoine drew his sabre dramatically. Johnny felt his length of pipe was somewhat less dramatic.

“Coo!” Chirps looked impressed, “Reckon you’ll be alright with that thing to hand! I’ll catch you guys later. Be safe- I don’t want to miss out on the footie tournament because you’ve all been turned into robots, okay?”

“Okay, Chirps,” Sonic laughed as he and Johnny waved their friend off, “Glad to have you on board, Antoine. Now, let’s keep going”

On to Chapter 26