Embedded Files
As it turned out, what the Miracle Planet had in store for Sonic next was pretty well exactly what he didn’t want.
“Water. Great.”
Sonic had found himself in a rocky region with all manner of stone carvings surrounding the area. A sheer wall of stone stood mockingly ahead of him, a body of water at his feet. He looked down at the surface of the water. It seemed clean, at least, which was a nice improvement over some of the places he’d found himself submerged in recent months.
Kintobor’s voice came from Sonic’s watch, “Am I to guess from that reaction that you’ve left your rebreather back at Knothole?”
Sonic huffed, “I was in kind of a hurry, I didn’t exactly have time to go digging for it and make sure the air cannister was full.” He peered over the edge of the water, “I think I can see the bottom. It might not be too bad…”
The watch bleeped, “Sorry, don’t mind me,” Kintobor remarked, “Just scanning some of the engravings on the wall in case there’s anything interesting here. I don’t have any kind of maps to help you, unfortunately. But cross-referencing this ancient writing on the wall with some samples of old languages in my databanks does seem to give a name to our surroundings- the Tidal Tempest Zone.”
“Super, tempests are usually really calm aren’t they?” Sonic chuntered.
“I’m afraid I don’t see a way around, Sonic. If you’re going to rescue Amy, you’ll have to get your quills wet.”
Sonic looked into the distance. Robotnik had already set up factories which were belching smoke into the air. He didn’t have a single second to lose, Amy or not. What a pain.
Deciding to take the plunge, quite literally, Sonic divebombed into the water. In slow motion, he sank to the bottom, but it didn’t take long for him to get his feet on the ground. Looking around, he spotted a promising crack in the ground which, true to his training, soon released an air bubble for him to suck down.
The cleanliness of the water truly surprised Sonic. If not for the fact he’d probably forget about his breathing, he was almost tempted to try swallowing some of it to see how it tasted. Suppressing this urge with little struggle, Sonic walked on through the underwater cavern. He found it was well lit, which even he was able to deduce meant more light was coming in from above- therefore, the way out couldn’t be too far.
Without warning, Sonic stood on an otherwise innocuous floor panel which, were it not muffled by the water, might have given a click. The floor panel slid away and Sonic found himself being propelled into the air by a previously unseen spring. He barely had time to shift his body as he ascended to see that he was being shot upwards into a pipe. A glass pipe, specifically. More of a tube, really, but now wasn’t the time for semantic pedantry.
Sonic whooshed through the tube, carried by the force of the water. If he had plenty of oxygen to breathe he might even have enjoyed it as a sort of waterpark style attraction- he could bare water in those kinds of scenarios no problem. Before too long, he came to the end of his ride, which deposited him with a wet sploosh on dry ground on the other side of the sheer wall he’d seen before.
Sonic coughed slightly as he took in a lungful of air, “Bit of a weird way to get through the wall. Most people would just build a door.”
“Fascinating,” Kintobor noted.
“What is?” Sonic asked.
“Well, it seems to me you’ve just been subject to a rudimentary filtration system.”
Sonic wrung the water out of his socks as best he could, “A rudey what?”
“Well, think of it like this: you weren’t meant to be in the water, were you?”
“No I flipping well was not!”
“So, the filtration system did what it could to remove you from it, forcibly yet relatively safely. Handy, no?”
Sonic shook a little water out of his ear, “Well, yes, if it means I’m inside without having to do much more swimming. But if I’m understanding you right, that would mean we’re inside some sort of giant machine?”
“Quite so,” Kintobor’s holographic image looked about while the computer itself loaded and cross-referenced data, “If my theory is correct, this is an ancient water filtration plant, designed to cleanse the waters of the Miracle Planet. Presumably this Zone is the source of much of the planet’s water flow.”
Sonic was intrigued, “Is that even possible? That sounds like the kind of thing you’d find in a factory, not in ancient times on a distant, abandoned planet.”
“Oh, it’s quite possible,” Kintobor responded, “In fact, according to Doctor Kintobor’s notes- uh, the real Doctor Kintobor, that is, not me, of course- back on Earth, in relatively modern times there were discovered ruins from ancient times which proved the ancient world had created all manner of systems and inventions which people previously believed were quite recent in their genesis. Instead, they’d been lost to the ages. An invasion here, a suppression of culture there- I mean, it isn’t pleasant, of course, but the history of civilisation so rarely is.”
“So whoever the people who lived here were, they were obviously pretty keyed in.”
Once again, taking Sonic by surprise, the world around him shimmered, revealing the ancient past once more. Sure enough, the glass pipe remained, as did a number of other similar structures. The walls of the cavern hadn’t been carved into anything quite so ornate just yet, so Sonic reasoned this must have been at some stage before the ancient civilisation departed the Miracle Planet. Still, if he truly was inside a machine, he probably wasn’t anywhere he was meant to be, which meant there’d probably be nobody around to talk to.
Perhaps most remarkably of all, the water was even cleaner in the past than it had been in the present. Sonic decided to risk a drink, cupping his hands and dipping them into the cool water, bringing up with them enough to get a few gulps. It tasted lovely.
“If you bottled this, you’d make a fortune,” Sonic noted.
“Not if they get their way,” Kintobor remarked, drawing Sonic’s attention to some unwanted company. A dragonfly Badnik swinging a mace from its tail buzzed around somewhat aimlessly. Nearby, a pondskater Badnik whizzed back and forth on the surface of the water. The Badnik Transporter was evidently nearby. Seemingly the plan was for these Badniks to be sent back in time to gum up the works of the ancient machine. It almost seemed foolish to Sonic- as a human, Robotnik needed water too, so what did he gain from polluting it? Robotnik’s logic was beyond Sonic- and Sonic was fine with that.
Sonic decided that since the Badniks on the Miracle Planet weren’t paying attention to him, he’d attempt something a bit graceful. With all the grace he could muster, he leapt into the air, bouncing off the exploding pondskater, catapulting back into the air and through the shattering dragonfly to land on a ledge on the other side of the water. And with absolutely none of the grace he needed, he then tumbled down the ledge and rolled into the Badnik Transporter found there, smacking his forehead on it.
Sonic let out a grumble as he watched some underwater Badniks exit the machine, one a lobster and one resembling a dragonfly larva with a jet engine attached to its rear. Quickly dispatching them, Sonic hurled himself once more in a Spin Attack at the Badnik Transporter, blowing it up nicely as the bits of Badnik reconstituted into pretty underwater flowers.
“He’s finally branching out- a lobster isn’t a bug!” Sonic announced, in the hope Kintobor wouldn’t mention his awkward tumble.
“True, but crustaceans and many insects share traits. Similar bodies, exoskeletons, similar joints. In fact, a lot of studies—”
“I’m not listening, Kintobor.”
“Fair enough, one science lesson per Zone was probably as much as I could have hoped for.”
Sonic suddenly became aware of a whirring noise. He ran through the natural corridors of the cavern to come face to face with Robotnik in his Egg-O-Matic.
Sonic clenched his fists, “Of course I find you here, egg breath! We’re kicking you out of this Zone too! In fact, why not make things easy on yourself and get off the entire planet? While you’re at it, clear off of Mobius too!”
Robotnik was clearly caught off guard. In truth, he hadn’t had opportunity to attach a weapon module to the Egg-O-Matic since his last encounter with Sonic. Panicking, he stabbed at a button on his control panel and a glass shield covered his cockpit. In an attempt to escape, Robotnik piloted the Egg-O-Matic towards a nearby pool of water and submerged.
“Oh no you don’t!” Sonic chased after Robotnik but, just as he was about to leap into the water, the world shimmered around him once more. This time, he saw what would happen if Robotnik had been allowed to conquer this Zone. The stone structures were in a state of disrepair, the glass pipes were cracked and missing chunks, rendering them useless. And, worst of all, the water was purple.
Purple! The same colour the water- if you could still call it water- had been under the Scrap Brain Zone. That was after months of pollution- but in this dark, desperate future, the water must have been polluted for years! It didn’t bear thinking about. As a matter of fact, Sonic had to force himself not to think about it as his target was now underneath the slimy, oily water. Pretending everything was fine, Sonic took a plunge and leapt in.
It was a little harder to keep his eyes open in the murky water. As a matter of fact, Sonic’s eyes stung a little from the general grossness of his surroundings. Nevertheless, the blinking lights on the Egg-O-Matic did help see which way he needed to go. Following Robotnik further and further inside the ancient machine, Sonic became dimly aware at the back of his mind that he’d have to end this one quickly. Robotnik could breathe indefinitely inside his sealed cockpit- Sonic did not have the same luxury.
Sonic drew close enough to get a lucky kick on the glass shield but it didn’t yield even a fraction. Sonic had no intent to drown Robotnik, of course, but anything that might force him back up onto land could only be a good thing. Instead, Robotnik dove deeper, clearly sensing Sonic’s predicament.
Shortly, the two came to a large open chamber. The area was just as filled with water as the tunnel leading to it had been so Sonic was out of luck, but Robotnik had a plan. He pressed a button on his control panel and lit up the emergency back-up weapon on the Egg-O-Matic. Four tiny laser bolts began to charge. Ordinarily, Sonic would have no difficulty in dodging such an attack. Today, however, Robotnik was thinking outside the box. He pressed another button and the Egg-O-Matic whirred, as if drawing in power. Water whizzed and whooshed around the craft in an attempt to disorientate Sonic. It certainly had some effect as Sonic spluttered the remaining bit of air from his lungs. His chest was starting to hurt.
Sonic watched as the water slowed around the Egg-O-Matic. It formed into several large bubbles. Several large, dirty bubbles.
Oh no… Sonic thought to himself. He wasn’t going to enjoy this.
Regardless, his momentary discomfort would be secondary to the thing which saved him. Sonic begrudgingly pushed off the floor of the chamber and over the four laser bolts, which fired at him somewhat unimpressively. As he approached the bubbles, wincing, the world once again shimmered. To Sonic’s delight, the water instantly cleaned up. The timeline had caught up once more. In preventing the Badniks from causing havoc in the past, the Tidal Tempest Zone had never fallen into ruin. In fact, as Sonic looked around, he could see signs that the Zone had been renovated by- well, who knows, really? It was the future, after all. Instead, the Zone was pumping out clean, beautifully filtered water at maximum efficiency, a beautiful blue sparkle to the hue of the water. Which meant, more importantly in the here and now, those several large bubbles would be perfectly fine to swallow.
Sonic breathed deeply, sucking down the oxygen from the bubble, then inhaling another couple for good measure. Robotnik didn’t seem to know what to do. He knew the laser bolts were a last resort but he really had no plan now. Sonic kicked off a nearby wall and curled into a ball in an underwater Spin Attack, flinging himself at the glass shield. The shield cracked nastily and Robotnik jumped back in his chair in fright. The tiniest little hole let in the smallest leak of water, which sprayed onto the control panel of the Egg-O-Matic. Sparks sputtered from the control panel and Robotnik recognised it was time to beat a hasty retreat. Using the Egg-O-Matic as a battering ram, he burst through the wall of the chamber to the outside world.
Water rushed and gushed through the hole, bringing flooding the chamber with oxygen. Computer systems nearby beeped and lights lit up.
“Looks like the self-repair program’s going to restart in two minutes, Sonic,” Kintobor explained.
“Then we’d better not be here. Which suits me fine.”
As he headed towards Robotnik’s hastily added exit hole, Sonic spotted another spherical capsule. With a well placed boot, Sonic smashed the device before diving for freedom through the Robotnik-shaped hole in the wall. Taking a mere moment to catch his breath, Sonic rushed onward in pursuit of Robotnik, Metal Sonic and Amy.
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