by Jake Black
PENGUIN YOUNG READERS LICENSES
An Imprint of Penguin Random House LLC
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Copyright © 2018 by SEGA®. All rights reserved. Published by Penguin Young Readers Licenses, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC, 345 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.
Ebook ISBN 9781524788964
Version_1
Contents
COVER
COPYRIGHT
TITLE PAGE
NOT-SO-FANTASTIC JOURNEY
FIGHTING SHADOW
DOPPELGÄNGER
Not-So-Fantastic Journey
WHAM! Another robot slammed into the wall, breaking into two, now inanimate, pieces of junk metal. Sonic turned around to see that it was Knuckles who had stopped the robot right before it had reached him. He gave him a quick nod as they both kept fighting and shouted, “Thanks. That was a close one!”
The day began like any other day. Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, and Amy Rose learned that a small army of Dr. Eggman’s robots had descended on the city and were wreaking havoc everywhere. As usual, the team raced to the scene and leaped into action. Sonic sped up and down buildings, leaping off them, smashing through the outer shells of robot after robot. Tails weaved his plane in and around the cityscape, blasting robots into oblivion. Knuckles and Amy Rose used their strength and fighting skills to dominate several other robots. It almost seemed too easy. And perhaps it was.
Not far from the scene of the battle, Dr. Eggman observed the fight between his creations and Team Sonic from a floating platform. Smiling, he pulled a small remote control from his pocket. He pressed a small button on the side of the remote. Suddenly, from beneath the platform, a swarm of what appeared to be bees formed a cloud around Eggman.
“Finally! My ultimate plan has come to pass! These robot bee stings will inject Sonic with tiny nanobots that will take over his cellular structure and turn him into a robot—a robot that I can control!” Eggman said and laughed. “Fly, my pretties!”
The swarm drifted high into the air and began the flight toward Sonic and his friends in the city.
Unaware of the oncoming cloud of robot bees, Sonic stood with his friends in the middle of the carnage, and smashed and shattered the remains of the evil robots surrounding them.
“Nothing like totally winning another fight with Eggman’s loser ’bots!” Sonic said, his friends laughing.
“Oh, Sonic,” Amy Rose giggled, “you were amazing, as always.”
Tails and Knuckles rolled their eyes at each other.
“You’re right, I was!” Sonic said.
“Whatever,” Knuckles said. “You couldn’t’ve done it without us.”
“Could so!” Sonic replied, pretending to be offended by his friend’s words.
“What I don’t totally understand, is why it was so easy to beat these robots. Something’s up,” Tails said, sounding unusually worried.
“Easy?! There were like a million robots. That wasn’t easy!” Knuckles protested.
“No, he’s right,” Sonic said. “It’s almost like it was supposed to be a distraction. Eggman’s up to some—” Tails raised his hand. “Shhh. What’s that noise?” he asked.
The group went silent. In the distance, they heard a humming noise. It grew louder and louder. The sky darkened as the cloud of bees shrouded the sun.
“What . . . what is that?” Amy Rose asked, her voice quivering.
“Eggman’s distraction,” Sonic said.
The cloud of robot bees shrunk and morphed into an almost-solid cube. The cube picked up speed as it hurled toward Sonic. The speedy hedgehog was poised to strike. Just as he was about to run toward the cube, the cube exploded into a spherical swarm. Each of the thousands of robot bees pointed their stingers toward Sonic and were moving down on top of him in sphere formation. Sonic’s eyes grew wide. He’d never seen anything like it before. Paralyzed in wonder, Sonic could only stare as the bees moved faster and closer to him.
“Sonic! Move!” Tails yelled. But it was no use, Sonic was hypnotized by the bees.
Knuckles jumped into action. The red echidna climbed rapidly up the wall of a nearby building and sprang off toward Sonic. The bees were getting close, only inches from Sonic.
Knuckles collided with Sonic, slamming the hedgehog to the ground and out of the bees’ path, snapping him out of his hypnotic trance. Sonic stood just in time to see the sphere of bees cover Knuckles, stinging him all over his body.
Seconds later, the bees regrouped as the cube and flew away, high into the sky. Sonic, Tails, and Amy Rose stood over Knuckles.
“Uggghhhh . . . what . . . happened?” Knuckles managed to say as he moaned. “I . . . I don’t . . . I don’t feel right.”
“We’ve got to get him back to my lab,” Tails said urgently.
* * *
Back in Tails’ lab, Knuckles was flat on his back and connected to several different machines. The brilliant fox was examining a strange spot on Knuckles’ arm.
“Guys, come check this out,” Tails said. Sonic and Amy Rose joined him, peering at the weird metallic spot that was slowly growing on Knuckles’ arm.
“I think those bees are turning Knuckles into a robot,” Tails said matter-of-factly.
“How is that possible?” Amy Rose asked.
Sonic turned away, angrily. “Eggman. He has to be behind this. Those robots we beat were a distraction, like we thought—a distraction so those bees could sting me and turn me into a robot.”
“Exactly,” Tails said. “I think those bees’ stingers injected Knuckles with microscopic robots—nanobots—that are rewriting his body and turning him into a robot.”
Amy Rose teared up. “Is there anything we can do?”
“We have one shot, but it’s a long one,” Tails said. “We have to get inside Knuckles and destroy the nanobots that have started to take over his body.”
“Inside?” Amy Rose asked, confused.
“Yes,” Tails replied, walking across the lab to a large machine topped by a laser. “We can use the Super Shrink Ray and enter his body through that robotic spot on his arm.”
“I’m going in,” Sonic said.
“I thought you might say that,” Tails said. “Here’s what I think: It looks like the nanobots are just like any other beehive. They have a ‘queen’ that’s controlling them. Plus, I think they’re self-replicating or something . . . anyways, they have orders from the queen to complete their task, so they will not stop until they do.”
“Or until I defeat the queen,” Sonic said.
“Exactly,” said Tails.
“Knock out the hive. Got it. Where’s the queen gonna be so I can kick her tail?” Sonic asked.
“I don’t know exactly, but I bet she’s inside Knuckles’ brain,” Tails said.
Sonic nodded. “Let’s do this,” he said.
* * *
Deep inside his hideout, Dr. Eggman welcomed his swarm of bees back into their mechanical hive. Like real honeybees, with the loss of their stingers, the robots would soon shut down
forever. Eggman, disappointed the bees were unable to get to Sonic, took comfort in knowing that Sonic would suffer from watching his friend disappear.
He pressed a button on the remote control to turn on the nanobots’ cameras and then turned on a computer monitor to watch. The nanobots inside of Knuckles’ body were busy replacing his biological parts with robotic parts. “This won’t take long at all,” Eggman said, and then laughed.
* * *
Sonic stood in front of the Shrink Ray. He was angry: angry that Eggman had attacked; angry that Knuckles got hurt; angry that he was so hypnotized by the bees in the first place. But, even as angry as he was, he was excited to fight the nanobots inside Knuckles. This was an adventure and a rescue mission all in one. And one that required him to go fast, before it was too late. And Sonic loved going fast.
Tails gave Sonic a handheld digital map of Knuckles’ innards. A flashing dot showed Sonic his location on the map. He’d be able to use it to find his way around the maze of Knuckles’ organs.
“This might tickle,” Tails said as he flipped the switch on the Shrink Ray.
A blast of green-white light burst out of the machine, and an instant later, Sonic disappeared from sight, shrunken to an almost-microscopic level. Tails used a pair of tweezers to pick Sonic up from the ground. He and Amy Rose were careful not to speak as the sound waves from their voices could have moved Sonic like he was blown by a massive hurricane. Carefully, Tails set Sonic into the metal spot on Knuckles’ arm. It looked to Sonic like the doorway into a massive steel castle. He stepped inside and found a metallic hallway that led to an opening of muscle tissue.
Sonic ran to the muscle tissue and looked around the inside of Knuckles’ arm. He was amazed by what he saw. The nanobots were all moving rapidly throughout the arm, replacing nerves, muscles, ligaments, and other tissues with robot parts. It was almost like the nanobots were overwriting these tissues with their technological organs.
“This place is crazy!” Sonic said, pushing a button on the map device. “How do I get to Knuckles’ brain?”
“Follow the nerves in Knuckles’ arm to get to his brain,” the computerized voice of the map device said.
Sonic looked around the city of body tissues until he spotted what looked to be power lines running throughout. There were small electrical sparks crackling along the power lines. Nerves. Sonic began to run alongside the nerves. He picked up speed, racing toward the brain—where all the nerves would come together.
Suddenly, a pair of nanobots cut him off as he ran. Sonic curled himself into a ball to avoid smashing into the nanobots. Rolling to a stop directly in front of the robotic bacteria, Sonic watched as the nanobots began planting their technological body parts over the nerve Sonic was following.
“Knock it off, you guys. You’re getting on my nerves!” Sonic said. “Er . . . actually, Knuckles’ nerves, I guess. Whatever. Just stop.”
The nanobots turned for a brief second to glance at Sonic and returned to their work. Sonic smirked.
“That’s how you want to play it, fine; that’s how we’ll play it,” Sonic said.
Sonic ran toward the nanobots and threw a mighty punch at the one closest to him. The nanobot shattered into a million pieces. The second nanobot continued to work on the nerve. Surprised and emboldened at how easily the first nanobot was destroyed, Sonic wound up and blasted the second nanobot with a massive punch. It shattered just as easily as the first.
Sonic laughed. Whoa! This isn’t gonna be hard at all! These things are totally wimpy! he thought to himself.
No sooner had he finished that thought than another pair of nanobots arrived and began working on the nerve exactly where the first two had been. Sonic destroyed those, and they were immediately replaced by another set. He was going to need to get to the queen.
Sonic jumped back into running along the muscle tissue. Because Knuckles was strong, his muscles were firm and tight—it was actually the perfect type of stuff to be running on. With the power-line-like nerve crackling above him, Sonic ran as fast as he could, heading up to Knuckles’ brain.
* * *
Dr. Eggman had stepped away from his monitors for only a minute—even mad scientists have to eat once in a while—but when he returned, he heard the computers blaring an alarm.
“Warning. Intruder. Damage to nanobots. Warning. Intruder. Damage to nanobots,” the computer repeated.
Dr. Eggman hurriedly sat down and examined the monitors. He could see the nanobots Sonic had destroyed. He pressed some buttons to change to different cameras. And then he saw it. The blue blur he hated more than anything in the world.
“Sonic,” Dr. Eggman hissed.
Typing quickly into his computer, Eggman ordered the nanobots to attack Sonic. Dozens of nanobots inside Knuckles’ body left their tasks of robotizing and moved in a mini-swarm to Sonic’s location near Knuckles’ shoulder.
“Maybe I’ll get the Sonic I want after all,” Eggman said, pleased.
* * *
Sonic had been running and dodging obstacles—both biological and technological—throughout Knuckles’ body. He was nearing the collarbone and neck. Just a little farther and Sonic would be in Knuckles’ head on his way to the brain. But that would have to wait another minute.
Sonic screeched to a halt, sliding on Knuckles’ collarbone. Eggman’s mini-swarm of assault nanobots gathered around him. They looked a lot like the swarm of bees that had distracted Sonic earlier, but he wasn’t going to let them hypnotize him this time.
The nanobots encroached, and Sonic blasted them away. He ran in a circle, creating a whirlwind that yanked several nanobots from the swarm and smashed them against each other in the funnel of wind. He rolled himself into a ball and bowled over another group of the nanobots, sending nanobot shrapnel flying everywhere. He spun in the air, kicking through countless more. In a few short moments, the attacking nanobots had all been destroyed.
“I’m not gonna wait around for replacements to show up!” Sonic said and hurled himself back into action.
Sonic arrived at the base of Knuckles’ neck. The nervous system turned upward, but there wasn’t much he could run on to follow it to the brain. Sonic noticed Knuckles’ windpipe was right in front of him. If he could catch the wind current when Knuckles breathed out, he could ride that up into Knuckles’ head.
Watching the movement in Knuckles’ neck in order to time his leap, Sonic stepped backward to give himself room to run. At the right moment, Sonic sped forward and jumped into the middle of Knuckles’ throat. For a brief second, Sonic panicked that he’d mistimed his jump and Knuckles was breathing in, the air pushing Sonic downward. But before he could even finish that thought, Sonic felt his body soaring upward on a stream of air carrying him into Knuckles’ head.
Sonic moved toward the back of Knuckles’ head—near the base of his skull. He followed the hundreds of nerves that had converged at Knuckles’ spine, and climbed up into his friend’s brain.
“I’m actually in Knuckles’ brain. That’s so weird,” Sonic whispered to himself.
Sonic could see a cluster of nanobots that surrounded a larger nanobot—the queen. There was no time for hesitation. Sonic zoomed from the base of the brain straight to the queen and her minions. He moved so quickly that the minion nanobots didn’t put up any sort of fight. He’d caught them off guard. Leaping from the carnage of the shattered minions, Sonic landed atop the queen nanobot. With superspeed, Sonic curled his body into a ball and charged toward the queen nanobot in a mighty spin attack, blasting the queen into oblivion. The queen destroyed, Sonic looked around in awe as the carcasses of the other nanobots disappeared. By destroying the queen, Sonic had caused all the bees to self-destruct. The plan worked! Knuckles was free of the nanobots.
“Mission accomplished, Tails . . . as if there were any doubt!” Sonic whispered to himself as he glanced at the map of Knuckles’ insides.
/> “How do I get out of here?” Sonic asked the map.
The map told him to go back down near the windpipe and take a left at Knuckles’ nose.
“His nose? Gross!” Sonic said.
* * *
Eggman roared in anger. By destroying the queen, Sonic had destroyed all the nanobots and bees Eggman had ever created.
“Next time, Sonic. Next time,” Eggman promised.
* * *
A few hours later, after Sonic had climbed out of Knuckles’ nose and Tails had unshrunk him, the team gathered around Knuckles who was still on Tails’ lab table.
“How are you feeling, Knuckles?” Amy Rose asked.
“Ugh,” was pretty much all Knuckles could say.
“Thanks for taking the hit for me,” Sonic said. “I mean, I probably would have stopped them at the last minute, but still . . .”
Tails rolled his eyes. Knuckles looked at Sonic. “You’d have done the same for me. But next time you have to shrink down and go inside my body, don’t climb on my spine. I still feel your footprints back there!”
“Deal!” Sonic laughed.
FIGHTING SHADOW
Sonic didn’t like to sleep. At all. But tonight he was more tired than usual. He couldn’t explain it, but he simply could not stay awake. He dreamed of destroying Dr. Eggman’s robots and defeating the deranged scientist once and for all. It was a good dream.
Miles away, though, the real Dr. Eggman was about to unleash a new, sinister plan. He had invented a long-range mind-control device and was going to direct it at Sonic. Standing at the device’s controls, Dr. Eggman turned some knobs and rotated some dials, finishing some final tests. It was ready. It looked like a small speaker, and was directed out the window of Dr. Eggman’s lab, toward Sonic’s home.