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The peaceful nature of the Hill Top Tribe had made them easy targets for Robotnik in the past. Now, however, Robotnik was starting to get angry with his recent string of failures. This made him even more dangerous as he was willing to go to greater lengths to achieve victory over Sonic and his friends. Knowing the tribespeople wouldn’t readily fight back, Robotnik easily calculated that made them prime bait for Sonic, someone who just couldn’t resist defending those who couldn’t defend themselves. Robotnik had decided to see if Sonic had any skills at pattern recognition. He’d recently suffered a setback in the Aquatic Ruin Zone and Sonic had been there to push back against Robotnik’s measures of aggression. Given the similar setback Sonic had handed Robotnik in the Hill Top Zone, Robotnik reasoned he could make Sonic easily believe he’d petulantly sent out a Badnik strike on the Zone.
He was right.
Robotnik’s prediction had been spot-on as not only had Sonic made his way to the Hill Top Zone, he’d arrogantly done so alone. The Kintobor Computer had informed Sonic that his sensors had detected only regular Badnik activity and minimal numbers of Troopers. While the others had stepped out for a bite to eat, Sonic decided he’d work up an appetite by bopping a Badnik or two, only to be back in time for lunch.
Sonic had to admit to himself, the Badniks’ aim was improving as he ducked a Spiker’s spiked missile and slid underneath a fireball shot by a Rexon sat in a nearby lava pool. That said, as per usual, he’d managed to remain unscathed, “Sorry, guys, you’re still not quite up to speed. They don’t call me Sonic for nothing, you know. I don’t know if you read the briefing but my whole thing is I’m fast. Might wanna file that one away for future reference.”
Of course, they do say that pride comes before a fall. And a prideful display such as this from Sonic led karmically to an immediate fall- quite literally. Sonic suddenly found himself in mid-air as the floor beneath him simply stopping being there. A pitfall trap had been bored into the ground and Sonic tumbled down it with a surprised gasp. With a big, wet sploosh, Sonic landed in a pool of wetness below. Half-panicked, he kicked upwards and just managed to get his face out of the water before he realised it wasn’t, in fact, water. Whatever Sonic had landed in, it was yellow. As much as he didn’t want to be sticky, Sonic supposed lemonade was too much to ask for.
Sure enough, as Sonic tried to move the rest of his limbs, he found the liquid hardening around him- and fast. Before long, he was completely stuck in place. Suffice to say, he’d be giving Tails the edited version of events if he got out of this one.
A brutish, mechanical figure peered down the hole up above. Sonic’s eyes adjusted and he realised it was a Trooper Badnik. The Trooper called over to one of his allies, “Phase one successful. Hedgehog captured in molten plastic. Looks like he’s stuck firm. Hurry, bring the winch and laser cutter, we have to enact phase two!”
“I don’t much like the sound of phase two,” Sonic said to himself. His mind raced, trying to work out a way to break free, but it was no use- he was, as the Trooper had said, completely stuck firm.
Before too long, Sonic had been extracted from the hole, still encased in the solid plastic which had now been cut into a neat cuboid, and loaded onto a dolly to be wheeled by the Troopers towards a large, metallic structure. Sonic couldn’t quite work out what it was. Then he spotted the smoke emanating from its base. A rocket ship. Robotnik was going to have him blasted into space. Not exactly a delicate touch but, then, when did Robotnik ever do things by halves?
The Troopers stood on a flat metal loading platform, dolly still at hand, and pressed a button to raise the platform. Slowly but surely, Sonic drew level with the door to the rocket. If he was going to come up with some genius escape, he’d have to think of it fast.
No such luck. With one mighty shove, the Troopers pushed the Sonic through the door. “A fine way to treat a superhero, that!” Sonic shouted.
The Troopers were unmoved. One of them sneered down at Sonic, “With you out of the way, hedgehog, the rest of the planet will fall in no time. Your days of illegal vigilantism are behind you. All power to the one true leader of the planet. All glory to the doctor!”
With that, and a mighty slam, the door to the rocket shut. Sonic was all alone. He did his best to peer around the tiny space. It was obviously intended to be a one-hedgehog craft. Despite that, for some reason, there were two chairs present. Maybe Robotnik just didn’t like the way they felt under his massive backside and was using this as an opportunity to dispose of them.
And then, Sonic spotted it. A thermostat, clearly marked with temperatures ranging from “Pack A Jumper”, through cool, up to hot, past “Sweaty Weather” and to the rather promising “You’ve Got To Be Joking”. And, as luck would have it, it seemed to be operated with a sliding dial.
With no other option available and with a launch sequence counting down, Sonic used every fibre of strength in his body to begin to rock back and forth. Slowly, he gained more and more momentum with each rock. He had to hope his forward momentum would win out in the end- if he fell backwards now, he was done for.
With one final exertion, Sonic fell forwards and into the dial, knocking it all the way down to the bottom where the hottest setting was. As the heat began to rise, Sonic asked the universe to grant him a miracle. Slowly but surely, the plastic began to melt- yet slowly but surely wasn’t nearly as fast as Sonic would have liked…
Outside, the Trooper Badniks watched on. One turned to the other and asked, “What do you think will become of the hedgehog, lost in space?”
The other returned the look and gave an approximation of a grim smirk, “Who cares?”
The two Troopers laughed, failing to notice the gloved hand of a nearby speedy blue hedgehog attacking a length of cable wrenched from the ship to their legs. Of course, moments later when the rocket launched from the ground and headed skywards, they noticed then, yanked as they were into the air as the other end of the cable was very much still attached to the rocket.
One might think that Doctor Robotnik would program his Badniks not to panic. On some level, however, Robotnik must have enjoyed seeing them flail about. Were that the case, he’d have been delighted with the scene in that moment as the two Troopers screamed and panicked and yelled for their mechanical lives.
Mercifully for them, it was at this point that the cable snapped.
Much less mercifully for them, they were now several hundred feet in the air.
The rocket continued its journey towards the stars, now free of any kind of passenger. The Troopers, meanwhile, continued their journey towards the ground, now free of any hope of remaining in one piece.
Sonic screeched to a halt in front of the Spiker and Rexon Badniks that had attacked him earlier, “Hi, guys! Your little trap was a neat diversion, but I’m afraid you’ll have to let old eggy know his plans have come crashing down to Mobius”
“Not while we still stand, hedgehog!” the Rexon barked.
“Yeah, well… give it a second.”
With a mighty crash, the Troopers landed atop the two Badniks, leading to a cacophony of crunching metal and parts flying everywhere. In the confusion, the two Mobian prisoners of the Badniks were freed from their metal prisons, thanking Sonic for his help.
“Think nothing of it, dudes,” Sonic took a bow, “I don’t know why Robotnik would need to mess around in outer space anyway- the biggest star he’ll ever see is right here!”
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