Chapter 5: Ice Cap Mountain
Sonic, Tails, and Amy were killing some time in the Ice Cap lounge, waiting for the ski lift to start operation. Tails and Amy each had hot chocolates; Sonic had his usual morning coffee. A television in the background was going over footage from last night’s attack.
“Junk, do we have to watch this again?” Tails groaned. He turned to Amy and started to attempt a conversation when Sonic grabbed his attention.
“Look at this,” he said quickly. He walked over to the TV and turned up the volume two notches.
“... were injured in the attack last night,” the reporter, a blonde Overlander, was saying. “One of them, a Mobian wolf by the name of Lobo, was in critical condition until early this morning. Doctors have announced that he is beginning to recover and will be out of the hospital within two weeks.”
“Robotnik got off easy this time,” Sonic said.
“Another Mobian, known as ‘Bunnie,’ received spinal damage in the attack last night as well. After the attack, she complained that she could not feel her legs and left arm. Now, normally, this would mean paralysis for life. However, she has volunteered to be the test subject in a new treatment being developed by scientists Sir Charles Hedgehog and Alex Prower. We can only guess as to what this treatment is, though. Now back to you in the studio.”
Sonic turned the volume back down and walked back to Tails and Amy. “Uncle Chuck’s finally going to be able to test the Robotisizer, eh?” he said.
“What’s the Roboto… thing?” Amy asked.
“It’s a machine that basically turns flesh and blood into robotic counterparts,” Tails explained. “Dad’s been going on about it for ages; I hope Bunnie’ll be all right.”
Sonic waved this off. “Ah, she’s with Uncle Chuck. What could go wrong?”
Tails smirked. “She’s with my dad. Everything could go wrong.” He got up and walked over to the jukebox at the far end of the lounge. He took out a couple of coins and flipped through the selection. “Hey, Sonic,” he yelled, “they’ve got The K!”
“Sweet!” Sonic said. “Manic said we needed to practice.”
Tails flashed a mischievous grin at Sonic and punched his selection in on the jukebox. Within two seconds loud rock music poured out of the box. Sonic and Tails each brandished air guitars and started “practicing” while Amy watched in amusement.
“Somewhere back there I left my worries all behind,” Sonic sang. “My problems fell out of the back of my mind.” He energetically played his “guitar” while he sang, and Tails piped in with backing harmonies every so often as he played his “bass.”
“Pressing on, all my distress is going, going, gone. Pressing on, pressing on,” Sonic and Tails sang. “To go back to where I was would just be wrong, I’m pressing on…”
Amy took a sip of cocoa in amusement. These guys were real clowns sometimes. When the two of them got together with Sonic’s siblings, Manic, his brother, and Sonia, his sister, things really went off the wall.
Amy thought the mug she was holding felt a little weird. She took a good look at it and realized she had been drinking Tails’ chocolate. Quickly she put the mug back on the table, hoping he wouldn’t notice.
-
- *
Sonic tightened the straps on his rented snowboard. “The Emerald chamber’s in a cave at the bottom of this mountain,” he said. “Amy, if you get there first, hoard off anyone that may come along with Beatdown until me or Tails gets there.”
Amy nodded and brandished her ski poles. “What about Knuckles?” she said.
“Hold him off until we get there,” Tails said, frowning. “I’ll be keeping an eye on you two from up here.”
“Last one there’s a rotten Eggman!” Sonic yelled as he took off down the mountain. Amy gathered her resolution and followed. Tails watched them for about half a minute, then he took to the air. Normally, flying would wear him out in a few minutes, but if he paced himself he could glide more than fly, stretching his endurance to about fifteen minutes. No sign of trouble yet, he thought to himself.
Sonic tore down the mountain as fast as he possibly could. He especially loved snowboarding since the speed factor and the danger factor were multiplied as opposed to skiing. The wind whipped though his spines and pulled on his medallion. He noticed a dropoff coming up, and crouched in anticipation.
“Boo-yaa!” he yelled as he jumped over the cliff. He turned himself around to get a view of the scenery: the green trees, the clear sky, the glistening snow… A sudden flash from the base of the cliff caught his attention. Distracted, his jump was ruined, and it was all he could do to put the board down first. His balance was thrown off, and he fell face first into the snow, facing a small cave at the base of the cliff.
Amy soon appeared over the cliff. “Look out!” Sonic yelled, praying she wouldn’t land on him. She noticed him at the last minute and landed her jump short and stopped not more than three feet from him, spraying snow into his already snow-covered face. Sonic spat the snow out in frustration and glared at Amy.
“Sorry,” she muttered.
“Just get in that cave up there,” Sonic groaned. “You’re wearing skies, you’ll get there quicker.” Amy nodded and began climbing.
Sonic wiped the last of the snow off his face and looked uphill. In the clear sky he noticed a small object flying towards them. A sudden breeze was blowing some of the trees together, obscuring his view of the object except for quick glimpses. He couldn’t tell what it was from where he sat, but he automatically assumed the worst: Knuckles. “Hurry up, Amy!” he called desperately.
“I’m going as fast as I can!” she yelled back. Sonic looked back at Knuckles. He was coming too fast; they weren’t going to make it. He brandished his medallion and readied himself. He was closer, closer, closer…
Tails dropped out of the sky. “Did you find it?” he asked.
Sonic heaved a sigh of relief. “Amy’s on her way; I can’t move,” he said shortly.
Tails raised an eyebrow and tossed the phone to Sonic, then flew up to the cave. Sonic picked up the phone and did his best to sit up as he hit the speed dial button.
“Sonic!” Sally answered. “How are things going on the mountain?”
“Eh, okay,” Sonic said. “Where ya at?”
“I’m with Bunnie at your father’s lab. They’re setting up the Robotisizer now.”
“They are? Well, tell Bunnie she’s in good hands.”
“Don’t do it!” Tails yelled from the cave.
“Oh, and Tails says not to do it,” Sonic said.
Sally laughed. “Will do. So, have you found the Emeralds yet?”
“Um… yeah. We’re at the cave right now, and Tails is showing me the purple one now.”
“What about the yellow one?”
Sonic felt a pang of fear. “Say again?”
“Have you gone to get the yellow one yet? It’s at the top of Mt. Runya… you did know about this one, didn’t you?”
“Um, on my way?” Sonic said quickly and hung up the phone. “Tails! Help me get this thing off!” he yelled.
Tails flew over to Sonic and handed him the Emerald. While Tails undid Sonic’s snowboard, Sonic touched the tip of the Emerald to a small hole on the medallion. In a flash, the Emerald shrunk down to the size of a pebble and was locked in the medallion.
“The purple one’s at the top of that mountain,” Sonic said quickly, pointing. “I gotta go fast; you and Amy catch up.”
Tails nodded, and Sonic took off.
-
- *
Sally stared quizzically at the phone for a second before hanging it up. Knowing Sonic, he was probably too chicken to say that he had forgotten about the other Emerald, so Sally just let it slide. There was no news yet of an attack at Ice Cap, so she wasn’t worried. Besides, they already had four Emeralds, and that guy who left the note had another one, so that left one Emerald with Knuckles (and therefore Robotnik) and one more up for grabs. Even if Robotnik could get his hands on the last Emerald, how would he be able to launch the “Egg Rocket”?
At the other end of the lab where Sally, Bunnie, and Cream were, two Mobians in white coats were talking. One of them, a deep orange fox with a white muzzle and slightly taller, was grinning insanely and going down a checklist with pure excitement in his voice. The other, a blue hedgehog with a large brown mustache and whose quills were beginning to pale with age, was examining the items called out by the fox with a calm and steady hand.
“And the analytical engine,” the fox said, “is it ready, Charles?”
“It’s as ready as I can make it, Alex,” Charles said. “Of course, this is the biggest test to date.”
Alex nodded in approval. “Yes, it is.” He turned to Sally and called, “Do you know where Bunnie is?”
“Room 218,” Sally said, pointing.
“Thank you,” Alex answered as the three of them strode out of the lab towards the room where Bunnie waited.
“Um, Charles?” Alex said hesitantly while they were walking.
“No,” Charles answered flatly.
“But I really need to test these features out!”
“Alex, we’re hoping to be able to de-robotisize her eventually. If we pack her legs full of extra overblown features, it might impair the process.” By this point Charles was sounding fairly agitated.
“All I’m asking for is some rocket boosters… and some roller skates… and—”
“And a fishing rod and a pogo stick. Alex, we are not here to turn this girl into ‘Inspector Gadget’; we are here to let her walk.”
Alex feigned disappointment. “Can I at least give her extendible limbs?”
Charles threw up his hands in frustration. “Fine. Do that.”
Alex glanced at Sally and clinched his fist in excitement. Sally just rolled her eyes. Charles and Alex were just like Sonic and Tails, except “Uncle Chuck” was more like Tails and Alex Prower was more like Sonic in terms of personality.
They made it to the room where Bunnie was laid out on an operating room table. She could move her head, but her torso as well as her arms and legs were strapped down tight to prevent her from aggravating her already serious injuries. Cream was seated at the head of the table looking extremely anxious.
“Question number one,” Alex said sarcastically, “how do we get her into the Robotisizer?”
“It doesn’t matter if she’s on a backboard or not,” Charles said. “There’s one in the closet over there; get it.”
Ten minutes later Bunnie was propped up inside a glass tube on a grated platform. A faint light came from the complex machinery overhead. If it were not for Bunnie’s strong confidence in Sally’s confidence in the two scientists running the machine, she would have been scared stupid.
“Sugah-Sal, are ya’ll sure this’n a good idea?” Bunnie asked nervously through the glass.
“Positive Bunnie,” Sally said, trying extremely hard to hide her nervousness.
“Now, Bunnie,” Alex said, “this is going to seem like something out of one of those old horror flicks. I need you to stand still and move a little as possible, okay?”
Bunnie just stared at him. Sally raised an eyebrow and said, “You’re kidding, right?”
Alex blushed, cleared his throat, and continued. “Um, just don’t be afraid, and it shouldn’t hurt a bit. Charles?”
Charles rolled his eyes and pressed a sequence of buttons. The machinery began to hum and the light began to grow in intensity. Everyone in the room felt their heart beat just a little faster. Cream was holding Sally’s hand so tightly Sally was surprised it hadn’t broken by now.
“Here we go,” Charles muttered. He flipped open a lid on the console and pressed the flashing button beneath it.
The tube filled with purple light. The other lights in the room dimmed as the robotisizer pushed the power grid of the building to its limits. Charles bit his lip, Alex wrung his tail, and Cream buried her face in Sally’s vest.
After a half minute that seemed like an hour, the light faded. Bunnie was standing on her own, her legs and left arm turned completely metal. The glass tube began to retract into the ceiling as Bunnie began to slowly move her new appendages.
“How is it?” Sally asked.
Bunnie clenched and unclenched her metallic fist several times before answering. “Ah guess I can get used to it,” she said softly.
-
- *
Sonic ran as fast as he could toward the mountaintop. He was hoping— praying— that he wasn’t too late. He was running so fast, he didn’t see the ice slick straight in front of him. Before he could react he was on his back, winded. He slowly picked himself back up and attempted to slide across, but only fell on his face several times. When he finally did get to the other side, he saw a security container on a ledge above him emblazoned with the GUN logo.
Here it is! he thought as he climbed up to the top. And I’m not too…
The side facing away from the ledge was completely ripped apart. Apparently heavy firearms had been involved, for the metal and the ground around it was scorched. On the ground about five feet away lay one of Knuckles’ shovelclaws. Sonic picked up the shovelclaw and looked at it, not wanting to believe the logical conclusion behind it…
Tails flew up with Amy in tow. “Too late?” Amy asked.
Sonic nodded slowly and held up the shovelclaw.
“Knuckles did this?” Tails said, looking around. “No… he couldn’t have. It’s not his style to use firepower.”
Sonic threw down the shovelclaw and stomped on it. “That’s it, we’re going,” he said shortly.
“Going where?” Amy said.
“The Floating Island.”
“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Tails asked. “I mean, if Knux is really with Robotnik, or if he’s got power madness—”
“Tails,” Sonic interrupted, “I’d like to think I know Knux, and I don’t think he’s going to trust Robotnik after all the stuff he’s pulled. I also like to think I know the Master Emerald a little bit, and I know for a fact that thing wouldn’t let Knux get power madness. If either one of those is true, then it’s the end of the world and we should all go home and cry. This whole situation screams fraud.” Sonic looked towards the sky and took a deep breath. “Let’s go.”