//------------------------------// // Chemical Plant: Network Terminal // Story: Sonic Forces: Resistance is Magic // by MetalJrock //------------------------------// Starlight looked out the window of the blimp, looking over the Chemical Plant that awaited them below. Her mind dwelled over everything from her past, to her capture, to her being mind controlled. It may have been brief for her, but Mobius was being tormented by the splitting image of her for six months until they actually detained her. She sighed, wondering how she was even free to help the Resistance. Sonic was about to update Starlight that they were free to infiltrate now that their distraction worked, but he paused. Noticing the unicorn’s sadness, Sonic walked over and sat down next to her, asking, “You alright?” “I… don’t know.” Starlight admitted, “Infinite’s mind manipulation turned me back to my old self, and I realized that I don’t deserve mercy.” Sonic raised a brow and asked, “What do you mean?” The unicorn muttered out, “Being forgiven. The girls were willing to give me a second chance despite all the horrible things I did, and then you and the Resistance gave me a chance to help you despite having your first impression of me being an ally to Eggman.” she sighed again, “Somepony with my face conquered the world before I continued the job for them because my mind was fragile enough to break. This war is partially my fault.” The hedgehog scowled, “No it’s not. This war is Eggman’s fault, he came up with the plan, got your world involved, and had Infinite turn you against us against your will. The girls know that, we know that, and deep down so do you.” Starlight was about to say something else but Sonic cut her off, “And here’s a little fun fact: The Resistance is a very trusting bunch. A few of my friends picked a fight with me when we first met for one reason or another. See the Moon?” he pointed to the sky. The unicorn’s eyes widened once she noticed that it looked off compared to the Moon on her world, “It’s in half!” Sonic explained, “Back when Shadow thought his purpose was to seek revenge, he helped Eggman blow it up and nearly committed to following it up with the planet. Now he’s a friend can depend on when things get rough, although he might try to argue otherwise. And let me just say, if I can forgive Shadow for all he did, I have little reason not to trust you.” “That sound like more reasonable motive than becoming a tyrant that also messed with the timeline itself out of spite just because their best friend moved away…” Starlight shamefully admitted. Sonic shrugged, “We all have done things we aren’t proud of. What matters to me is if you learn from those mistakes and be better, and I’m sure that’s the mindset your friends believe in. The fact that you’re talking to me about this shows how much you’ve changed since you gave up your former ways. So welcome to the Resistance, Starlight Glimmer, where friendship and teamwork is our biggest source of morale besides winning.” Starlight smiled, “You’re surprisingly well-versed in friendship lectures.” “Eh, I’ve had plenty of practice.” Sonic admitted, “Just remember that we’re by your side. And if you don’t believe me then ask Twilight or Spike, I’m sure they’ll vouch for me and you’ve known them longer.” “I will… thank you, Sonic.” Starlight said. “Anytime. I could never leave a friend feeling down.” Sonic told her, “So are ya ready to go? Twi said that the Death Crab’s down and all of Egghead’s forces are occupied.” Starlight stood up and said, “Yeah, I am. Do you have a plan?” Sonic raised a finger, but lowered it, “I, uh, my plan was just to bust in and smash some bots along the way like I usually do. Tails already mapped out the same route he used.” he reached into his quills and pulled out a flashdrive, “Basically that and shut down Egghead’s security with this since I’m not a tech wiz like Tails is.” “Eggman most likely has that area under more protection and surveillance now that he knows it was infiltrated.” Starlight revealed to the hedgehog, “I still have a map of the plant memorized in my head. There’s a back entrance we can sneak through if you’re able to reach it, and it’ll take us to the underground levels of the plant. It should be safe to wander in there since Eggman wouldn’t expect company.” Sonic nodded then asked, “Nice. So is there any obstacles in our path or something?” The unicorn rubbed her head, trying to remember the exact details. She then said, “There aren’t any platforms or pipes to walk on to reach the entrance, instead there’s a bunch of rails in midair, not sure why that is.” “Alright! I can work with that.” Sonic insisted, “I hope you have a way to get there yourself, because my usual brand of parkour is kinda tough to do in the air while carrying someone.” “Not to worry, I have a levitation spell that should last the entire way.” Starlight explained. Sonic smiled and adjusted his glove, “Great. Let’s get this party started!” The blimp door opened and Sonic and Starlight immediately bolted out of it. They trekked on one of the chemical tubes, Sonic running and Starlight hovering. “How long can you keep that spell up?” Sonic asked his unicorn friend. “As long as I need to. It shouldn’t take too long at least.” the unicorn assured the hedgehog. Sonic gave a thumbs up and chose to focus on what was ahead of them. He spotted some hijacked GUN drones and Egg Pawns in their way. The blue blur said, “So I’m gonna give you a brief lesson on smashin’ bots. One good hit is all it takes to bring ‘em down.” he jumped as he said this, using his Homing Attack to break right through the opposition, “Although you might be too focused on your hovering to do that, so for now I’ll just make sure nothing distracts you.” “Good idea.” said Starlight. Sonic leaped off the pipe and stomped on a spring, bouncing as high as the object would let him. He landed on a rail and grinded on it, Starlight asking, “How are you doing that? ” Sonic replied, “The momentum I got from being in the air, plus…” he went right through a Wisp capsule, the White Wisp giving him energy to gain a burst of speed via his trademark boost, “This.” he finished, looking at the unicorn for a moment. “I’ll have to teach you and the girls how to do this one of these days for emergencies.” Starlight responded, “I’ll… keep that in mind.” she was more appalled at the sight of the aliens trapped in capsules and left a mental note to ask about that once they were finished. The hedgehog grabbed a crane and used his boost to push it forwards. Starlight hovered right behind him as he did this, ensuring they were moving at an even pace. She could tell Sonic was intentionally slowing down so she wouldn’t so far behind. Sonic let go and landed perfectly on the rails right below him. The unicorn blinked, wondering how one could have such precision. Egg Flappers were seen floating atop one of the Mega Mack pipes. Sonic smirked and used his Homing Attack to break through them before landing on the middle pipe. He ran on it and bounced off another spring onto another rail, asking, “Yo, Starlight! Are we heading the right way?” “Yes, actually. We’re close to the entrance I was talking about.” Starlight revealed. “Sweet!” Sonic said. Then, Sonic grabbed another crane and pushed it to where he wanted. Unfortunately, his momentum made him unable to reach the spring so he flipped and placed his feet on the wall, running on it to reach the spring so he can bounce off. He landed on another spring and was launched into a hole, the entrance he assumed. “Woohoo!” Sonic shouted. “Careful, Sonic!” Starlight warned, levitating in after him, “I think Eggman still has some security here!” Sonic nodded and aimed his diving so that he avoided the lasers that were suddenly activated. He turned around and gave a confident grin, yawning during his descent. Starlight wondered how he could act like that during a crisis like this. The two landed on a pipe and ran through the door, finding themselves in the inner workings of the lab. Sonic tapped his foot, “So this is the lab, I presume?” “Correct. It’s surprisingly empty here.” Starlight admitted, “I know I said there was less resistance compared to the rest of the plant, but… I admittedly prepared for more.” Sonic shrugged, “Hey that just means less work for us. Now let’s go and find the computer room!” The heroes jumped off a platform, Sonic ensuring Starlight made the leap. While they wandered, Starlight asked, “Does any of this look familiar to you, Sonic?” “Eh, not really.” Sonic admitted, “I’ve only ever stuck to the upper floors of this place. Maybe younger me saw it before he ended up here.” “Oh, okay.” the unicorn said, “Can I ask another question?” Sonic nodded as an answer, “How can you be so relaxed about all this? I mean, we’re fighting in a war and the fate of the planet is falling on us. Twilight said you were pretty calm for a worldwide hero, but you’re just treating this like it’s normal.” Sonic said, “Well that’s the thing, Star. This is kinda normal for me. My friends and I have spent years fighting Eggman and foiling his plans. He got the upper hand once but I’m not gonna let that happen again. And yeah, the whole thing is a little stressing since we’re liberating the world this time, but I’m not gonna let any doubt hold me back because I’ve kicked Eggman’s butt plenty of times before and I’m gonna do it again. The only difference is that this one is off schedule. I’ve seen everything he could possibly throw at me, learned a lot of things and what not. It’s just a high-stakes adventure for me.” “I see…” Starlight muttered, “Before all this happened, my friends had to save the girls and the princesses from Queen Chrysalis and her changeling army by ourselves and it was the scariest thing I had to endure. Twilight and the others are usually the ones on the frontlines and so far they’ve been doing great, it’s just… I don’t know if I‘ll be any help.” Sonic waved a hand, “I get it, you’re new to all this. We have a kid on the Resistance who’s just as green to the whole adventure thing like you and I can still trust him as much as I would with Tails, Knuckles and everyone else I know. You’ll be fine.” “You think so?” Starlight asked. “I know so.” Sonic assured. The hedgehog placed a hand in front of the unicorn, stopping her. Sonic pointed to the line of robots waiting for them, including Egg Pawns and Flappers. “Got any cool spells to take these guys down?” Starlight crouched down slightly and focused all her energy onto her horn. An aura covered the robots, sending them high into the air and keeping them still from attacking. In a matter of seconds, the robots transformed into fruit and got smashed once they hit the floor. Sonic blinked and scratched his head, “I, uh… I wasn’t aware ponies had that kind of magic.” The unicorn said, “It takes a lot of practice to do. Twilight taught me that actually.” “Well that just means you’re a natural learner. You turned robots into fruit! That’s pretty cool. Although, I’d avoid picking those up. We already broke the ten second rule and this place is no doubt breaking hundreds of health code violations.” Sonic warned. “Got it.” Starlight replied, wiping some sweat off her head. The spell took a lot more energy than she expected. The two walked on a grate and then a wave of Mega Mack fell on top of them, falling through the grate. Sonic gasped and held his chest, clearly scared for his life. “Wah! Huh?!” he choked out, coughing some of the liquid from his mouth. He looked around in a paranoid manner, wondering what just happened. Starlight shook her body dry and raised a brow at Sonic, “Uh… are you okay Sonic?” Sonic brushed one of his spines with his hands, “Yep! Never better!” he said swiftly. “Now let’s just move so we don’t have to worry about that Mega Mack again!” he grabbed Starlight’s hoof and ran back onto the pipes before releasing his grasp on her. The unicorn noted Sonic’s attitude shift but chose to let it go, not wanting to pry into the personal matters of someone she just met. “...Alright then.” she said. Starlight looked up and saw some platforms connected to a wheel, “I think taking that should make our trip easier.” Getting his confidence back, Sonic said, “Cool! I’ll meet you up there!” he ran along the side of a wall to ascend and flipped onto the platform while Starlight levitated herself there. “So now it’s a matter of figuring out what to do. These platforms tend to move by themselves most of the time.” “Wait really? Usually you’d need something to move these.” Starlight replied. “Oh yeah, you’re new to Mobius. Trust me, this isn’t the weirdest thing to happen in the scenery nor is this the first place to break all logic.” Sonic quipped, “You’ll get used to it.” At that moment, Mega Mack fell from a pipe onto the opposite platform and launched the two heroes into the air. Sonic managed to catch on and flip sp that he landed on his feet, Starlight however wasn’t so lucky and fell on her face. Sonic dusted himself off and helped Starlight up, the unicorn looking a bit annoyed, “Okay, so you assumed correctly in this case I guess. At the very least we made progress. Any idea where the lab is at?” Starlight sighed and said, “We shouldn’t be too far away.” “Alrighty then.” Sonic responded. The hedgehog and unicorn walked along the pipe the found themselves on and stopped once they saw a spring, “Okay, so I assume you haven’t exactly mastered landing with springs, right?” Shaking her head, Starlight said, “I didn’t.” “You might need to brace yourself then because I think your secret lab entrance is through a Mega Mack waterslide.” Sonic warned her, the unicorn’s eyes widening at that. “Wait what?” Starlight gulped. Sonic grabbed Starlight and bounced on the spring, letting go so that she could slide freely in front of him. The hedgehog raised his hands and yelled, “Woohoo! I miss this stuff!” “Waahh! Stop this crazy thing!” Starlight screamed at the top of her lungs. The slide reached a hole that the heroes fell into, Sonic managed to land first thanks to his Stomp and caught Starlight, giving a smirk, “Now wasn’t that awesome?” Starlight leaped off and rolled her eyes, “No, it was far from that actually. Ugh, I wish I studied this place more.” The area they were in was the lab spoken of, containing nothing but tubes filled with Mega Mack and a supercomputer, the one Sonic was searching for. He shrugged, “Well despite that we made it!” he reached into his spines and pulled out the flashdrive, “All we have to do is pop that in-“ he paused once he realized he put it in the wrong way, “No wait.” he stuck his tongue out and tried again to no avail. Finally he plugged the flashdrive into the port, “Not sure why doing that is so annoying but I did it…” he muttered. A loading bar appeared on the screen, the words “Now Loading” appearing on it. Sonic tapped his foot, waiting for the hacking to be done. After a minute or so, Starlight asked, “Is it supposed to be taking this long?” “I dunno, but it’s getting on my nerves. Maybe the thing is buggy or something?” the hedgehog suggested. Finally after what felt like an eternity, the process was completed, allowing Sonic to remove the flashdrive and hide it again, “Sweet! The Death Egg’s defenses are finally lowered!” “Is that all we needed to do?” Starlight questioned. “I didn’t think it’d be that easy.” “Yep. Now let’s get going before Egghead catches on that we’re here.” Sonic answered, grabbing Starlight’s hoof and bolting out of the door now that their mission was a success.