Embedded Files
Sonic had been right on the money- the structure was assuredly man-made. Pink metal jutted at awkward angles out of the ground, reaching far into the sky. As Sonic looked up, it was at this moment he realised just how odd the sky was- Mobius hung, upside-down above him. Sonic tried not to stare as it was making his head hurt.
So too were all the neon lights, come to that. What was this place? A sign nearby read “WELCOME TO THE COLLISION CHAOS ZONE!” The place looked a bit like the Spring Yard Zone but with none of the care of design that grand theme park enjoyed. There was no question, this had Robotnik’s fat fingers all over it. Weird vaguely triangular bumpers hung in mid-air- this definitely resembled the Spring Yard Zone now, the giant pinball table aesthetic gave it away. Couldn’t Robotnik even make a huge amusement park without ripping off someone else’s work?
And, more to the point, why would he want to make a huge amusement park?! It made sense to take control of the Casino Night Zone, at least that was a source of income. But a theme park on a deserted miniature planet? Sonic supposed Robotnik wouldn’t have to wait in line if there was nobody else here. Not that he could envision Robotnik on a rollercoaster. Somehow the visual didn’t look quite right in Sonic’s head. Fun and Robotnik just didn’t go together.
“Sonic! Over here!” A high-pitched voice cut through the air. Sonic knew there was only one hedgehog it could belong to. Sure enough, Amy came trotting over to him, “Thank goodness, Metal Sonic dropped me down here then disappeared to recharge. Where do you suppose a robot like that recharges?”
“I’m guessing it’s not a little cable next to his bed,” Sonic shrugged. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I guess so, all things considered. That robot’s scary, Sonic. It’s creepy…”
Sonic could see Amy was unnerved. While she was perfectly happy to walk into dangerous situations to help the Freedom Fighter cause, this was the first time Amy had had to deal with a threat of this magnitude. She must have been terrified. Sonic realised he’d have to choose his words carefully to calm her down.
“You’re a real numbskull sometimes, you know that?”
Jackpot.
“And what is that supposed to mean?!” Amy was indignant.
“Disappearing before we were all awake, running off towards who knows what kind of danger all by yourself, anything could have happened!”
Amy smiled sweetly, “Oh, I knew you cared!”
Sonic winced, “Would you ever be serious?!”
“Where’s the fun in that?”
“Look, how about we find a way to get you off this rock and back to Mobius?”
Amy put her hands on her hips, “No way! I didn’t plan on being stuck here, sure, but we’re in this together. You really want me to leave you alone with Metal Sonic on a strange planet covered in machinery?”
“Honestly, the way you carry on, you make me miss Metal Sonic!”
A coarse robotic voice interjected, “Then miss me no longer.”
Sonic turned just in time to watch the wall behind him explode outwards as Metal Sonic smashed through it. As Sonic shielded his face from the debris, Metal Sonic, quick as a flash, grabbed Amy and declared, “Unit operating at 100% efficiency. Resuming previous operations.”
As Metal Sonic took off to the skies out of Sonic’s reach, Amy in his clutches, Sonic looked up at the pair, “Oh you have to be kidding me! Amy, you’re doing this on purpose!”
Amy looked worried as she dangled precariously in the air, “I can assure you I’m not!”
Before Sonic could get another remark in, Metal Sonic had rocketed off, his captive in his clutches.
“Rats!” Sonic shouted to nobody in particular, “Amy Rose, professional hostage, strikes again. No telling where Metal Sonic’s taken her, but I’d bet my last Mobium it’ll be somewhere near the heart of Robotnik’s machine.”
Being a curious sort of hedgehog, Sonic decided to inspect the wall Metal Sonic had burst through. Finding a tunnel behind it, Sonic jogged through. The tunnel began to slope downhill, forcing Sonic to pick up the pace of his sprint. Before long, it had angled downward so steeply, Sonic couldn’t help but roll into a ball for his own safety out of pure hedgehog instinct. On the other side of the tunnel, he found himself being launched high up into the air as if he were the ball on a gigantic pinball table.
As Sonic uncurled in midair to have a look at his surroundings, the world blinked around him. Tentatively, Sonic looked skyward and was pleased to see Mobius remained unchanged. The problem was isolated to the Miracle Planet. As things around him came into focus, the pinball park became rusted and brown, with toxic smoke belching from machine into the air. In this possible future, Robotnik evidently didn’t maintain interest in his theme park for very long. Sonic supposed he’d been right in the first place, Robotnik and rollercoasters just didn’t mix.
Landing on a nearby platform, Sonic recoiled slightly as the grass squelched brownly beneath his feet. Yuk.
In a flash, the world reshaped once more. This was definitely the past as the hills were all natural- no metal anywhere. Well, actually, that wasn’t true, a few tentative girders had been placed. But not many. This was evidently right at the beginning of the construction job. Sonic peered over the ledge and saw a Badnik Transporter teleporting Badniks into reality. One looked rather like a grasshopper, not too unlike a Slicer Badnik; one kind was a ladybird and third kind seemed to be a moth, its wings sparkling as it flew about. More bugs. Strange, it wasn’t like Robotnik to theme his Badniks.
Before Sonic could leap down and attack, he noticed something unusual. The Badniks were all headed, in a line formation, towards a nearby machine. It seemed to be a hologram of some kind. Sonic decided to chance it that the Badniks would ignore him again and get a closer look at the machine.
Sure enough, the small machine, which only came up to Sonic’s knees, was projecting a hologram image of Metal Sonic. The robot was cruel even in light-generated form, threatening to crush a projection of a Mobini rabbit underfoot.
Robotnik’s voice emanated from the machine, “All Badniks to report and download construction schematics. You are to receive your instructions and create the structure you see in the downloaded file.”
Sonic looked at his watch, “Any ideas, Kintobor?”
“I do have one, actually,” the Kintobor Computer replied. “Hang on, just transmitting now… yes, there we go! I think that’ll do nicely!”
“What did you do?” Sonic enquired, unsure what had just happened.
“Hopefully you’ll see- if you can set things right around here!”
Sonic decided to hide and see what the Badniks did next. One by one, they lined up to download their instructions and, one by one, they progressed to collect supplies to construct the gigantic pinball theme park.
“I hope you know what you’re doing, Kintobor…” Sonic remarked.
“Oh, I do,” Kintobor replied with a smile.
Before Sonic could watch any further, the world fizzled and blinked around them. They were back in the future (which was now the present). Sonic took off at a walk, “Whatever it was you did, I hope time catches up and straightens itself out, because I don’t much care for thi—!” Before he could finish his syllable, Sonic had tripped and fallen down a hole.
A twisting, winding tube ended up throwing Sonic into a complicated system of pinball madness, launching him into bumpers, off springs, colliding with things that went ping and ding, bouncing off flippers and flappers and crashing through all manner of things that probably weren’t intended to shatter into a thousand pieces but had assuredly done exactly that.
Sonic tumbled out into a large central room, two huge flippers either side of him. He wasn’t terribly impressed. He let out a weak “ow” as he stood up.
An all-too familiar vile voice roared from above, “You’ve broken my pinball machine, you horrible hedgehog!”
Sonic tried to stop the world from spinning as he looked up to see Robotnik seated in the Egg-O-Matic, fuming and pounding at the console.
“Oh yeah?!” Sonic shouted back up, “You wouldn’t have liked it anyway! You’re like the spoiled kid who gets all the nice toys for his birthday but throws them in the cupboard after a week, never to play with them again!”
“What on Mobius are you on about?” Robotnik asked.
“Never you mind. You wanted a pinball machine? You got one, ugly!”
Sonic flipped onto a flipper, which launched him high up in the air, right towards the Egg-O-Matic. Whacking into the underside of the machine, Sonic sent Robotnik tumbling and tilting in the air. Robotnik tried frantically to lock the ceiling on the pinball machine to trap Sonic inside but he was too slow, only managing to create a platform for Sonic to land on and make it all the easier to hit the hovercraft more times. With a scream of annoyance, Robotnik treated.
“Go build your giant pinball table somewhere else!” Sonic shouted after him.
Pulling himself properly onto the roof of the structure, Sonic eyed a capsule not unlike the one he’d seen at the end of the Palmtree Panic Zone. Smashing it, he smiled as flowers sprang forth and bloomed.
“Ready to move on, Kintobor?” Sonic asked.
Kintobor’s voice responded, “Just wait one second, Sonic, I’m hoping we’ll get another glimpse of the future…”
Sure enough, the world shimmered once more, this time for the better. The sky became clear blue, the grass was a vibrant green and beautiful plants sprang up everywhere. Best of all, the air was so clean that Sonic’s lungs felt like they were on a wonderful holiday when he breathed in.
“Kintobor, did you do this?” Sonic asked, delighted.
“Absolutely. I hacked Robotnik’s internet, so to speak, and replaced the schematic that was being transmitted wirelessly to the Badniks, replacing it with one of my own. I realised I could turn the structure into an air-purifier. Rather large scale, naturally. Oh, and I took the liberty of telling the Badniks to destroy the transporter then self-destruct once the job was done. The Miracle Planet seems to have taken care of the rest.”
“An enormous pinball table, turned into an enormous air-purifier! Only you could think that one up, doc!” Sonic laughed.
“Well, I mean, I only come up with things based on what the real Doctor Kintobor would have thought. You should thank him, really.”
“You know something, buddy? The next time I see him, I might do just that. Come on, let’s see what else the Miracle Planet has in store for us!”
As Sonic slid down the side of the structure, the world blinked back to the present day and he continued onward once more.
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