Sonic and Tails in Castle Eggman Zone - Act 3

Act 3

The dungeons of Castle Eggman were dark, and save for the light of a small flickering torch attached to a wall; Sonic and Tails could scarcely see a thing.

“Any luck, Tails?” Sonic called up to his friend, who had used his two tails to fly up and find the ceiling.

“No good,” Tails called back “It’s too high up for me, and it looks like the door’s locked shut!”

“Well, we have no choice then” replied Sonic as he grabbed the torch light off the wall, “We’re gonna have to escape the dungeons the long way round!”

    With Sonic holding the torch in front of him, the two pressed on ahead, but weren’t able to make more than a few steps from their landing point before a loud crunch noise emitted from under Tails’ shoe.

“Yaaah!” cried the small fox, jumping backwards in alarm. Sonic had instinctively shone the torch in the direction of Tails, revealing the crunching sound to have come from a pile of bones. If this really was the “grand opening” of Castle Eggman, then surely someone couldn’t have already…? Sonic shook his head and took his mind of it. It was probably just Robotnik’s twisted idea of décor.

“Now what do you s’pose this is?” Sonic pointed the light in the direction of a barred door.

“Here, hold this a sec…”

Having passed the torch to Tails, he was free to curl up in a ball and spin at the bars. No luck. They weren’t going to give with force alone.

“I get it!” squeaked Tails. Next to the door was a series of levers. This wasn’t some obstacle course for Sonic to get through, but a puzzle.

“It’s a combination lock! If we work out the correct positions of all the levers, the door will open!”

Tails proceeded to enthusiastically pull on the levers in all sorts of different combinations. The whole thing reminded him of a computer game he liked to sometimes play. In no time at all, he had solved the puzzle, and with a creaking noise, the gates swung open.

    “Great job Tails!” said Sonic, giving him a thumbs up, but Tails didn’t reply. Upon closer inspection, the orange fox had frozen in place, a look of terror on his face. He slowly and shakily pointed back to where they had been standing before.

“S-S-S-Sonic…”

 The pile of bones was rising from the ground, hovering eerily as they started to form the shape of a skeleton. Tails scurried and hid behind Sonic for protection as the bony figure ambled towards them while producing a horrible groaning sound. It had a sword in hand and was clumsily trying to swing it at Sonic.

“Don’t worry Tails, I got this!” Sonic charged up his famous spin attack and zoomed into the skeleton, sending it scattering across the dark room, back into the pile of bones from which it came.

“There. Piece of cake!” he grinned. Only he couldn’t shake off the feeling that there was something very different about his latest foe. The whole dungeon didn’t feel like one of Robotnik’s usual traps. No, something just felt…off.

            Ignoring these concerns once more, Sonic speeded through to the next room, where he was instantly met with a constant barrage of arrows flying in every direction. Dodging and weaving out of the way, something high up caught the corner of his eye.

“Now this is my sort of challenge!”

He holstered the torch in place on the wall and spin jumped on top of the nearest flying arrow. Leaping from arrow to arrow, Sonic gained height, and as quick as he could, he made the final jump towards a button positioned high above the door, giving it a high five before falling back down to the ground on his feet. The arrow trap stopped, and the door was unlocked.

“Hey Tails, did you see that? Tails?”

Sonic turned around to notice that his friend wasn’t behind him for once. Tails was still in the first room.

“What are ya’ waitin’ for Tails? You just missed my cool moves!”

Tails stepped into the room as dramatically and importantly as he could muster. He had on him the circlet that the skeleton was wearing, and was holding the sword aloft.

“Good morrow, fair hedgehog! Mayhaps we should continue our yonder adventure?”

“Uh, Tails?”

“I am not Tails! Nay, I am Sir Bravefox, the bold and fearless”

Sonic scratched his head. Clearly something was making Tails act strangely. He tried once more to get him to continue.

“Come on Tails, the next doors open! We should be able to get out of this weird place soon.”

Tails gave a little startled look, before marching slowly on ahead, his sword wielded out in front of him.

“Oh! Uh, of course! I am the b-bravest warrior who fears not of this dark dungeon! Forsooth!”

Sonic blinked slowly and stared at Tails as they walked through to the next room. This castle has got to Tails’ head, he thought to himself, and we better get out of here as soon as possible.

    The next room was decorated in a manner of chains of varying lengths, all of which were hanging from the ceiling. Before Sonic could figure out if this was part of a new puzzle, Tails had already walked forward, only to activate a large crusher.

“Zounds!” he exclaimed, stepping back and narrowly avoiding trouble. Sonic assumed that there was some kind of trick to turning it off and knew that Tails would normally be the first to pick up on it. Unfortunately, ever since Tails had decided he was some kind of old timey adventurer, he hadn’t been acting himself, so Sonic went for his own solution. As soon as the crusher went down, he broke into a run, staying close to it until it rose again, so he could make a dash to the other side. Sonic skidded stylishly to a halt, and called for Tails to make his way across. “Bravefox” however, was too busy looking around frantically, as though he could sense something was there.
“Show thyself! I’m not afraid of thee! If thou doest not leave, I shall brandish thy…uh…my sword! Verily!”

Sonic sighed. To say he was little tired of Tails’ act would be an understatement. The little adventurer wasn’t wrong though, as a loud echoing voice filled the room.

“LEAVE THIS PLACE!”

That was it for Tails. He bolted across the room as far as he two tails could carry him. Sonic was sure that his was just another trap, but he didn’t want to stick around and find out what it was. He took Tails by the hand and started running.

            Sonic and Tails could sense that they were being pursued as they sped down the corridor, narrowly avoiding several barred doors that came crashing down. They soon found themselves in a circular room that opened out into several paths. Perhaps stopping momentarily to consider which way would be best was a mistake though, as the voice had followed them in.

“YOU’RE NOT WELCOME HERE!”

Tails grabbed hold of Sonic for comfort. The paths had suddenly been blocked off by gates, and the two were trapped.

“That’s enough, Robotnik!” Sonic called out, but all he was met with was the source of the voice. A gigantic monstrosity of a ghost had entered the room and was enclosing in on them. There was nothing that Sonic and Tails could do but shut their eyes and wait for the worst.