Embedded Files
It didn’t take long for the two hedgehogs to find the final facility Robotnik had set up on the Miracle Planet. Every bit as angular, ugly and unnatural as each of the doctor’s other facilities, this latest discoloured monstrosity sent a shiver down Amy’s spine as she and Sonic entered.
Sonic, on the other hand, had a different reaction, “Hm. Oddly familiar, this.”
“Familiar?” Amy enquired.
“Yeah, take a look, this isn’t an ordinary factory.”
Sonic pointed in all directions and Amy took in the sights surrounding her. Conveyer belts whirred, connecting pieces of gigantic hardware to one another. Huge pistons pumped. Strange cylindrical tubes much taller than either of the two Freedom Fighters whirred and span around.
“I’d say this isn’t a factory at all,” Amy hazarded a guess.
Sonic nodded, “Bingo. This is just like Robotnik’s old Scrap Brain Zone on South Island. If I had to hazard a guess, I’d say this is some kind of gigantic supercomputer.”
Amy was wary, “I don’t like the sound of that…”
“No, me neither. The Scrap Brain Zone was a huge mess. It polluted the skies above South Island with a dense, poisonous smog. We had to use the power of the Chaos Emeralds to undo the damage Robotnik had done. Unlucky for us, those are far out of reach right now…”
“Though I don’t think bringing the Chaos Emeralds into Robotnik’s holiday home would be a very good idea anyway,” Amy pointed out.
“No, you’re right. But maybe…” Sonic trailed off.
Amy coaxed him, “Maybe…?”
“I uncovered a message from the past. Wait, no, that doesn’t make sense. It was a message from the future. Wait. It was from a future that hasn’t happened yet sent back to my past which was, at the time I heard it, the present. Does that make sense to you?”
“Not really,” Amy shook her head.
“No, me neither. Time travel’s a pain isn’t it? Anyway, the message said I had to find something called the Time Stone. If we can find that, I think we’ll be able to undo all of Robotnik’s scheming.” As if listening to the conversation, the world around Sonic began to shimmer. He saw glimpses of the past and the facility around them being constructed, with scarab beetle Badniks pulling a girder into place to allow a rhino beetle Badnik to slice it up and a wasp Badnik to hammer it into place using the maces attached to its tail. Sonic saw glimpses of a possible future where it lay in rusted ruin, glimpses of a possible future where it had been renovated for good, and a glimpse of a world where it didn’t exist at all. Sonic had to admit, he quite like that last one.
He turned and looked at Amy, “Don’t suppose you’re seeing all this?”
“All what?”
“Thought not. Since arriving here, I’ve been seeing visions from different time zones. It’s sometimes helped us change the course of time for the better. And sometimes it’s been a vision of a future we have to prevent. The only problem is, the fluctuations in time are getting to be really rapid now, as if I’m getting closer to the centre of a time storm. I can barely react to one vision before the next one comes along.”
“Well then I guess we’d better find the Time Stone. That’s our only lead, right?”
“Right. The problem is, I don’t know where- or when- to find it. It’s not like someone’s just going to hand it to me, is it?”
The two were interrupted by a loud and deep robotic exclamation of, “PING!”.
Sonic felt an uneasy sensation in his stomach, “I don’t like the sound of that. I’ve heard Badniks say that before. But they were usually a little higher pitched…”
A stomping noise soon followed as the owner of the deep, robotic voice came clear into view- a gigantic Bomb Badnik.
“Let me guess…” Sonic winced, “Bomb 2.0?”
“BIGBOM! PING!” the Bigbom announced.
“Great.”
The fuse on top of the Bigbom lit itself. Amy squeaked involuntarily as Sonic grabbed her arm before announcing, “Come on! Run for it! We don’t want to be around when that thing pops!”
The two rushed towards a nearby electronic door, which mercifully slid open to allow them access. Diving through, the hedgehog duo watched with baited breath as the door slid shut once more and masked a muffled boom as the Bigbom detonated with a fiery explosion.
Sonic and Amy breathed a sigh of relief. They stood and took a moment to brush themselves off before moving onward down a corridor. It was dark and dingy in here, with only small LED lights to illuminate surroundings. As a matter of fact, the further the pair went, the darker things got until the room was pitch black. The two were made aware of another electronic door sliding shut behind them, penning them into a small room.
“Don’t suppose you brought a light?” Amy quipped.
“Funnily enough, I must have left them in my other socks,” Sonic retorted.
However, a light soon provided itself- a small, spherical light, in fact. In the darkness of the room, Sonic could only just make out the light’s owner- a Hotaru Badnik, its tail lit up. It wasn’t the light that Sonic was concerned about, however. The Hotaru’s tail was giving off an intense heat, not unlike a fully charged Flasher Badnik. And, just like a Flasher Badnik, this one was ready to attack.
With no further warning, a huge blast of energy fired from the Hotaru towards the floor. Sonic and Amy leapt in opposite directions to avoid being zapped, just barely avoiding the blast as it faded away. Not keen on giving the Badnik another chance, Sonic leapt high and smashed through it with shattering force.
To Sonic’s dismay, the room was now lit up by two spherical lights- a pair of Hotarus. There wasn’t really enough space in the tiny room for two hedgehogs and two Badniks, at least not if the latter were intent on firing red hot death at the former.
“Stand back,” Amy announced, pulling her crossbow off her belt clip.
Sonic wouldn’t usually tolerate being bossed about, but he’d made it a personal rule never to argue with someone wielding a loaded crossbow. Amy took careful aim at one of the Badniks, paused for a moment and fired a bolt. The bolt rocketed through the Hotaru’s casing at lightning speed, cracking it wide open, before coming out the other side, ricocheting off the upper corner of the room, back down towards the second Badnik and destroying it in similar fashion. The bolt plunged towards the ground and embedded itself in the floor, whereupon Amy retrieved it.
Sonic was impressed, “Remind me never to annoy you.”
“Oh you could never annoy me, sweetie,” Amy teased. In the darkness of the room, Sonic could have sworn her saw a mocking smile on Amy’s face, but he couldn’t have proven it.
The room began to light up as strip lights in the ceiling switched on. Amy and Sonic squinted briefly as their eyes adjusted, then watched as yet another sliding door opened up, leading into another corridor.
Tentatively, the pink and blue hedgehogs walked down the new corridor, the sound of their shoes clacking on the metal floor. Before too long they realised they were coming to what appeared to be a dead end, with the room widening out around them.
Sonic peered at a metal join in the wall, “That’s odd. I wonder if there’s something behind that…”
“How right you are, you insufferable blue menace!” Robotnik’s voice snarled as the join split open, revealing the wall to be two huge metal doors. Behind the doors stood and enormous electronic mass that Sonic had to assume was the central computer controlling the facility. More important than that, behind the doors was Doctor Robotnik in his Egg-O-Matic, looking none too thrilled.
Robotnik bore down on Sonic, “The two of you have been quite the thorns in my side. Had I realised that you would be the persistent pain that you have been, you vexatious little madam, I’d have had you turned into a Badnik those months back!”
Amy grimaced, “You got your flabby hands on me once, Robotnik, it’s never going to happen again! And look at what happened when you sent the best Badnik you ever designed- Sonic got him blasted to bits!”
Robotnik chuckled, “Oh, I wouldn’t be so sure about that. A minor setback at most.”
“Save it, lardo,” Sonic interjected, having heard more than enough, “We’re here to put an end to this metallic madness!”
“Ooh, I say,” Robotnik smiled, “The Metallic Madness Zone. I rather like that! It will do more than well enough as the name for my base of operations here on the Miracle Planet. With this huge computer brain, I’ll be able to co-ordinate attacks on Mobius for decades to come! In fact, with the power of time travel on my side, I’ll be able to co-ordinate attacks on Mobius for millennia to come and then beam them right back here to myself in the present day- isn’t that fun?”
“Didn’t you learn your lesson the last time you messed with time travel?” Sonic asked, forgetting in the moment that Robotnik’s memory of the events of the Fourth Dimension had been wiped from the timeline.
“Of course I did! My time machine didn’t work, so the lesson learned was to find a method that did work!”
Sonic shuddered. In preventing Robotnik from interfering in the course of history, he may have inadvertently led to the dictator redoubling his efforts.
Robotnik waved a dismissive hand, “But before I get carried away, what say you and I end this here?” He pressed a button on the Egg-O-Matic’s control panel and four rotor blades extended from the machine, whirling around the hovercraft at breakneck speed that even Sonic had to be wary of. “I’m afraid it’s the end for you, Sonic- no matter how you slice it!”
Sonic watched as light glinted off the rotor blades. The edges had been sharpened to a razor point. If one of them made contact with him, it was going to hurt. If one of them made contact with him while travelling at that speed, it was going to hurt, but not for very long. Sonic’s heart pounded. While he tried not to let it consume his thoughts, he knew at the back of his mind that this could very well be the moment he died- the uncertainty of the future visions he’d seen were proof of that potential.
Robotnik piloted the Egg-O-Matic with ferocity, chasing down Sonic. Unable to get in close as the blades whirred, Sonic was forced on the defensive, ducking and diving, weaving and swaying to safety. Robotnik cackled, “You can’t keep that up forever, Sonic! You’ll tire eventually- or trip! One or the other! And then I’ll have you!”
Sonic put aside his worries about his possible impending doom and focused on the matter at hand- survival. But it was no use- there was no getting in close while those blades were spinning so furiously.
“What’s wrong?” Amy called out to Sonic, noticing his grim expression.
As he rolled to avoid the swooping Egg-O-Matic, Sonic replied, “I can’t get a hit in on his machine, I’ll be cut to ribbons!”
“Well why didn’t you say so, silly?” Amy tutted.
“Eh?!” Sonic was boggled.
“Leave this to me,” Amy had her crossbow drawn and aimed at Robotnik. He was moving at a pretty impressive rate of speed on an erratic course, meaning anyone would have had a difficult time getting a lock on him. Anyone, perhaps, except Amy Rose.
Amy squeezed the trigger on her crossbow and a bolt lunged forth. It sailed through the air towards the Egg-O-Matic and, for a moment, Robotnik was genuinely fearful for his life. Amy hadn’t been aiming for the protected cockpit of the hovercraft, however. Instead, her aim had been true- as the bolt plunged into the housing of one of the rotor blades. Sparking and crackling, the housing exploded and the blade fell to the floor harmlessly.
Robotnik looked on in dismay. Sonic grinned. Amy had created a big enough opening in the blades for him to aim through. Hurling himself in a Spin Attack, Sonic slammed into the machine’s cockpit and sparks shot everywhere. A second blade fell off and clattered to the ground.
Suddenly desperate, Robotnik punched an emergency button on his control pad and one of the blades fired at Sonic like a missile. However, this was a much easier task for Sonic to evade, leaping over the blade as he did, with the offending metallic item embedding itself in the floor.
With only one blade left, Robotnik grew panicked, “Y-you can’t do this! I won’t allow it, you rotten hedgehog!”
“Can it, baldy,” Sonic revved up a Super Peel Out then shot himself forward before leaping into the air to barrel directly into the Egg-O-Matic. The final blade swung loose and Robotnik sprawled in the cockpit.
Things immediately took a turn for the worse, however. The final blade dislodged itself and swung backwards towards the supercomputer, slicing through a rather large and thick power cable as it thunked into the ground. The supercomputer suddenly found itself down a crucial power cable and unable to cope with the load, its remaining cords not enough to deal with the electrical surge.
Sparks popped everywhere, which soon turned into bangs and outright explosions. Robotnik watched for a moment, aghast as his plans began to go quite literally up in smoke. Then, resigned to defeat, he muttered, “I hate those hedgehogs…!” and pressed a button on the Egg-O-Matic’s console, warping himself away and back down to Mobius’ surface.
There was no time to waste, however, as the explosions grew larger, louder and more frequent. Sonic turned to Amy, “Amy, hop into my arms!”
“Gosh, how romantic!”
“Will you stop for just one moment?!”
Amy clambered into Sonic’s arms and held on tightly as he made a break for it through the crumbling facility. The power surge had spread to the entire construct, leading to a total collapse. Floors gave way, the ceilings began to cave in in spikes and walls fell apart awkwardly. Though it was only a minute or so, the tension of the moment, the prerequisite precision of his movements and the need to get Amy and himself to safety meant Sonic felt as though he was running for hours.
Finally bursting through the entrance door, Sonic skidded to a halt a safe distance away. He placed Amy gently on the ground and the two watched as the Metallic Madness Zone crumbled before their eyes.
As the rumbling of the total collapse of the facility grew quieter, there was a pause. The tension seemed to evaporate. Amy smiled at Sonic.
Sonic looked at the wreckage of the Zone. The world around him shimmered. Different futures played out. One in which the facility was rebuilt. One where no trace remained. One where a different, cleaner facility stood in its place. This didn’t make any sense.
“I don’t understand…” Sonic said under his breath, “I stopped Robotnik. He’s given up. He’s gone back to Mobius. How can time still be in flux?”
Amy shrieked in horrified surprise.
Behind Sonic stood Metal Sonic.
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