Big's Big Prologue
Plastic and wooden boats lined the walls of the shop. Each and every one of them were ready for aquatic use, and in front of the cash register belonging to the boat shop found just underneath the train station stood a skinny, middle-aged man. He was busy attending to his next customer. "You s-see, sir..."
In front of him towered a stark figure. He was a purple, heavyweight bobcat with an indifferently colored, violet striped tail which complimented his broad and matching striped limbs. His chest and whiskers were white, and he wore a pair of oddly baggy, tanned gloves. He also had on a belt with a shiny, golden buckle securely fastened around the waist, and loosely wrapped around his pudgy feet were a couple of old, rugged beach sandals.
Big the Cat also adorned a thick, rope strap that coiled snugly around his torso. It secured three prized belongings that were very important to Big. One of the items that was latched to his back was a fancy ukulele. There was also his signature long fishing rod, and in front of that was his broad beach umbrella. Big ominously stared blankly at the sales person. He didn't say a word for a long time. Big then merely kept on blinking, and stared at the many, many rows and rows of multicolored boats. He eventually pointed at one of them, and said, "I wanna ride on this one!"
The sales person noticeably stumbled after hearing this. "Again, y-you see, s-sir... Mr...?"
Big blinked, and waited a moment before coming to his senses. "Oh," he exhaled with a surprised expression. "I'm Big. I'm a cat, and I just really need a boat so that I can go fishing with Froggy."
"Err... With Froggy? Who might Froggy be?"
Suddenly, and to the sales person's shock, Big's pet Froggy leaped out from behind Big, and landed directly on top of the bobcat's round and slightly fuzzy head. "That's Froggy up there," Big then exclaimed with a bit of excitement in his voice. He also pointed, saying, "He's my best friend in the whole, wide world, and we've been through a lot together."
The person in front of Big cleared his throat, and then said, "Well, that's all very good and nice, but... I've g-gotta s-sell you the boat, actually. You've been dodging my question this whole time." He tried to stand his ground, but Big was a mile above him. He was covered with the cat's entire shadow. "Do you have any money with you so that you can even buy this boat?"
Big stood there, and blinked, and he then patted his sides as if he had pockets. "Nope," he said with a shake of the head. "Do you take rings? I've stashed about two or three back home. I keep them tucked under my bed."
The salesman stumbled. "What's with you fluffy types and always trying to pawn those ring things off to everybody all the time?"
He sighed, and then saw Big advance, but Big went right passed him in order to gaze at all of the boats once again. "It's been a while since I've been fishing way out in the ocean," he commented. "I fished non-stop when that big ship was there."
The salesman scratched his head in wonderment, and then vocally asked Big, "Wait a minute... You're not that same cat, are you...?"
"Hmm?" Big hummed curiously.
"I think that... if I'm not mistaken, that was at least, like... three years ago," the sales person realized. "So you're... that same bobcat... that helped Sonic and all of his other friends while they took down Chaos and Dr. Eggman! Right?"
Big just blankly blinked some more, and then, he nodded happily. "Oh," he sighed with a smile. "I remember now! Yup, that sure was me, but mostly, I liked going out to that huge, large boat that used to be over there. Now..." He looked around aimlessly. "I just need a smaller boat, but which one should I ride?"
Unable to contain his rising anger any longer, the salesman tightly grabbed hold of his fishing hat, and growled for a moment. Soon enough, however, his groans would turn into shrieks. He hastily realized that one of his sharp hooks had pricked his thumb. These noises caused the manager of the establishment to come climbing up from the wooden latter.
He asked as soon as his head popped up, "What's all the commotion?"
"Boss!" The salesman panicked while he bandaged himself. "This humongous cat wants to buy a boat!"
"Then let him! His money's good here."
"With rings?" The manager was just about to turn back around when he heard this. He grumbled, and then, he took another glance at the violet and purple feline who giggled quite innocently. The sales person then also told him, "I think I'd rather just give him a boat since... well..."
"Out with it."
"Y-you see, I believe he might be friends with Sonic the Hedgehog!"
There was a calming silence that followed, and the manager just nodded. He then breathed towards Big, and he then kindly stated, "A friend of Sonic the Hedgehog is more than deserving of a complimentary watercraft. Which one would you like?"
The bobcat responded with, "I don't need a watercraft. I just need a boat."
Following their conversations, Big somehow managed to pick out possibly the most expensive boat there was, but luckily for both the sales person and the shop owner, Big couldn't exactly understand or accurately figure out how the keys worked. Because of this, he decided to go with an old fashioned rowing boat. Once he had descended down the latter, he was amongst the many, many floating docks that occupied the open ocean's tides.
"How about this one?" The manager offered Big a much smaller boat while gesturing to it with his arms.
"That one looks great," Big merrily muttered as he came closer, and began inspecting the bow.
"By the way," the manager said idly. "Those are some impressive stripes!"
Big just watched as the manager patted him on one of his powerful forearms. "These aren't natural stripes," Big openly voiced to the manager. "It's a disease."
The cat stared as the manager slowly removed his hand. "Wh-what? Really?"
Big came in closer to say, "It's slowly taking over my body..."
It grew grimly quiet as the manager tried to ask Big, "Is it... c-contag-"
"Look, Froggy," Big blurted out loudly as he pointed giddily towards his newest possession. "It even comes with its own set of oars! That means we don't have to go home at all. Since we brought along all of the fishing gear that we're gonna need, why don't we both hop right on in and get moving?"
He and his pet, Froggy did just that, and as they sailed away rather peacefully with their free row boat, the manager that was still standing underneath his store just stared on while squinting his eyes to shield his vision from the sun's blinding rays.
Water totally surrounded Big and Froggy. It didn't matter wherever the bobcat and his friend looked because the whole underneath of their boat was blue. It went on forever, but that was just fine for Big. It was a windy and sunny day, and Big could hear the faint sounds of distant waves. He smiled, and with a mere flick of the wrist, he sent his line flying as far out into the open ocean as he possibly could.
"The past weeks have been going by so fast," He commented. He then sat back down, and carefully propped his fishing rod so that he could loosely keep an eye on it. After all, he didn't expect to catch hardly anything this early on, so he relaxed some more, and gently patted Froggy on the back. "It's all the same, Froggy. Y'know what I'm trying to say? The bright sky and shining sun... I just have a feeling it's gonna be a fun day."
"Ribbit," Froggy croaked.
"Mmmh?" Big adjusted himself in his seat. "Yep! I know what you're saying, little pal. It sure is a nice breeze. The sun is out, but it's not too hot, and everything is just so nice!"
He closed his eyes, and although he might not've been able to spell tranquility, he slipped right into it. The sounds and distinct smell of the ocean's waves always helped make Big feel beyond calmed, and they soothed him almost to sleep.
A tropical note was then struck rather suddenly. Big had pulled out his ukulele, and started playing a tune to match the breezy atmosphere surrounding him and Froggy. The time went on like this for quite a while, but eventually, Big would feel his fishing rod jiggling. He looked at it while somewhat sourly halting his performance. He prayed that this wouldn't turn out to just be a false alarm after all, and to his overwhelming joy, it wasn't.
He had caught something for sure, so he tucked upwards. To Big's surprise, his lure came flying out of the clear, blue water rather easily. At the end of it shined a familiar, green light, and as it fell right into Big's opened, gloved palm, he gasped. "It's... gotta be one of those, uh... uhh..." He scratched his head and floppy ears momentarily, and tried to remember what they were actually called. "Oh, yeah! It's a chaos emerald. Right?"
He looked towards his partner, but Froggy didn't answer. Instead, the amphibian leaped nimbly, and used its sticky lips to snatch the emerald right out of Big's grasp. Froggy then dipped into the water with a wet flop. That's where Froggy presumably swallowed the emerald, and this was because the water had immediately stopped glowing brightly.
Big just sat there in his spot while shaking his head. In a confused state, he then held onto his boat for a second more before voicing aloud, "What... happened? Froggy?" He looked over the edge, and just faintly managed to see Froggy sinking further and further down. He just couldn't believe his eyes. Soon enough, Froggy had disappeared completely into the murky depths below, and for a moment, all Big could do was stare.
"Not... again," he simply said while feeling a breeze as it lightly pressed against his back. Big took just two steps in preparation, and then, he grabbed hold of his nose along with some of his whiskers while performing possibly the most magnificent cannonball of all time. The waves were so powerful that they juggled and flipped Big and Froggy's boat around a couple of times. Remarkably, once it landed, the boat was somehow right side up with both of its oars still in their respective holders.
As Big sunk further and further down, he had to move himself from left to right in order to catch the rising air bubbles. Otherwise, if he didn't, he'd surely run out of oxygen and drown. The more he descended downwards, the more and more anxious Big felt. He'd never gone this far below the ocean before, but all he could really concentrate on was somehow catching up to his little buddy, Froggy.
"I hope I didn't pass him," Big thought while glancing around, but amongst all of that blue and vast water, the was nothing else but himself. "I'd better keep going..."
Soon enough, something strange happened. Big began hearing a rather odd noise sounding in the background. The closer to the bottom he got, the louder it became, and eventually, he started seeing just why this was happening fathoms and fathoms below the surface. It was the Egg Carrier of all things, and based off the sounds that it was making, it appeared that its automated distress signal had been triggered.
With a bubble leaving his murmuring lips, Big asked aloud, "Froggy?"
Directly below Big was his friend, but from the looks of things, Froggy didn't seem as though he was about to willingly swim back to his daring owner. One of the Egg Carrier's giant, industrial tubes had sucked the poor frog up like a vacuum.
"Riiibbiiit!"
"Froggy!"
Because of losing even more oxygen as he continued to spout the amphibian's name, Big sank that much more faster. He hastily and involuntarily dipped directly into the slipstream only to get sucked into the sunken battleship as well.
BANG!
"Ouch," Big said.
CRASH!
"Ouch," Big said once again while he was harshly launched out of an air duct. It was connected to one of the Egg Carrier's restrooms, and as Big got up, he made his way towards a nearby rack of towels. Just before drying himself off, however, he made sure to first check around for Froggy, but Big just couldn't find him. After leaving into the rounding hallways, and while still holding onto the towel, Big commented, "I bet even his napkins has the Doctor's weird face thingie all over them, too..."
It doesn't take Big long at all to somehow locate the camera room. Inside were lots and lots of screens for him to look at, but most of them were blank, cut off or showed off all of the remnants of the Egg Carrier's previous and fatal battle with Sonic. At the moment, there were only two televisions worth Big's time. They both had familiar faces on them.
Big brought his hand up to Sonic's screen. He also saw that Tails was in the blurry shot as well. Even though Big knew that Sonic wouldn't be able to hear him, he still said to the screen, "Hey, little guy..."
Big's attention was then diverted to the other screen where Dr. Eggman was making a grand reentrance. As usual, he was riding around on that strange, floating contraption, but this time, it seemed much bulkier. "Lights," he commanded. "Bots... and they're on! Most importantly, turn off that alarm! Just how long has that thing been running?" He scratched the back of his neck, and then flipped another switch while mentioning, "I'd better get to work..."
In an instant, his machine that he sat on stopped flying in the air, and instead, it grew new, mechanical legs. It also sported a rocket launcher and a second, high powered machine gun. Armed and finely mustached, he proceeded. All the while, Big just kept on listening in, and heard him also state, "The Egg Carrier has been like this for far too long. Most of my defense robots are malfunctioning. Time to take out the trash..."
Big then heard Tails say something on the other television. "Thank goodness the submarine didn't rupture, but you were right, Sonic! Eggman really is trying to salvage his old tech. What do you think it could be?"
Sonic rubbed his nose, and said, "Knowing Eggface these days, and considering this is from when we nailed Chaos, it could be anything. We'd better hurry."
Sonic dashed away, and Tails did his best to keep up. On another screen, Big faintly saw Dr. Eggman bouncing around and obliterating robots with swift precision. He then heard Dr. Eggman say with a somewhat agitated voice, "I must get to the boiler room. That's where that infernal frog will be." Hearing this made Big gasp, and his ears perked intuitively. "It must have some of Chaos still left within him. It's the only logical explanation as to why he keeps on eating my chaos emeralds!"
Big took off quickly in order to locate a nearby map, and after that, he made his way to the boiler room. "Froggy," he called while allowing his voice to bounce. "Wait for me!"
Huge, copper tubes lined the walls of the wide room, and Big walked right on in without a hitch. "Wow," he said as he entered. "The boiler room wasn't that hard to find! I even got here before the doctor. I wonder what's taking him so long to get here... Oh, well..."
He came closer to the end of the walkway. To the left of Big were dysfunctional lasers that seemed to be inactive, and to the right of him was a huge, gaping hole. He shivered as he saw some water loosely pouring in, but Big couldn't allow himself to be distracted.
"Froggy?" he asked suddenly, and loudly.
Right in front of Big was his little buddy, but Froggy was encased in a glass dome. It didn't take Big very long to free Froggy, and afterwards, Big gave his best friend in the whole wide world a gentle hug. "I found you again again!" He just laughed and laughed his cares away while relief washed over him. He held Froggy up for a moment longer in both of his hands while saying, "You gotta stop wandering off like that!"
Once he was done celebrating, Big looked all around, and double checked his surroundings thoroughly, but it didn't seem as though there were any other exits except for the passage that he had originally came from. "Oh, no, Froggy... I think we're lost..."
Big turned back around to face the caged in wall, and for a second or two, he and Froggy merely stood there with no real or exact idea on what to do next. Luckily for the two of them, from up above, Sonic busted through, and bent the steel bars along his way. He landed directly in front of Big. From a majestic, kneeling position, Sonic arose, and just stared at the cat for a while before crossing his arms, and smiling. "Hey there, big guy! Haven't gotten yourself into any trouble, have you?"
Big could only respond by giggling, and chuckling happily while saying, "Hey there, little guy..."
Sonic then presented a fist for Big, and just when their fingers brotherly bumped against each other, another crashing sound echoed from nearby. "You two had better go on ahead! I've cleared the way, but I'm staying. I've got unfinished business to take care of." Before Big knew it, he was climbing, and climbing just in order to reach the hole that Sonic had created, but it hardly seemed as though they were getting any closer anytime soon. Finally, once they had pulled themselves up one last time, Big took a breather, and huffed while holding onto Froggy tightly.
"That was tough," he said as he sat down. "Froggy, look... Sonic's taking on a bunch of the Doctor's robots!" Even though they should've left immediately, Big then offered, "Let's watch and see what happens..."
Sonic spin slashed his enemies to pieces while also dodging a wide assortment of deadly projectiles including a wooden chair. "Hey, c'mon, Eggman! Is that the best you got?"
He jumped into the air several times only to be repeatedly returned to the ground moments later. "Not so hot now, are you, Sonic?"
The blue blur bounced clear off one of Eggman's more hearty robots, and observed its sharp, electric shielding. "Shoot! My attacks aren't going through..." He then looked up towards his floating nemesis, and decided to try and level with him for a change. "Say? Dr. Robotnik..."
His hairless eyebrow rose. "What is it?" He sounded dastardly, and as though he might have something up his sleeve.
Sonic thumbed at it, saying, "This thing's actually a real challenge. What is it?"
Dr. Eggman just laughed, and said, "Fool... I'll bother telling you, but only because this'll be your end... After this, you'll be gone for good." He cleared his throat, and gestured with his hands, "I've devised a way to infuse the life-force of Chaos into this very machine!"
Sonic then asked more dramatically, "What's that? Chaos? How's that even possible? There was nothing left of Chaos after I battled him personally! Eggman, what did you do?!"
He then laughed, and said, "That exasperating pet frog of Big the Cat still had some of Chaos left within his bloodstreams. All I needed to do was remove it, and do you want to know what the cherry on the pie is, Sonic?"
The hedgehog just kept on smiling, and asked modestly, "What is it?"
"It's that I've also stuffed six of the chaos emeralds into this baby!"
This last big reveal left Sonic just a little bit uneasy. "Just hand over your chaos emeralds, Sonic... or I'm going to quite literally blast you into a whole other universe."
Sonic bluffed, "Okay, but what kinda universe is it? I might like it over there... especially if it means that I'll never have to deal with taking you down again!"
Dr. Eggman just stared at his foe awkwardly, but he couldn't be sure if Sonic was being serious or not. "What does it matter? Just hand over the emerald... unless..." He leaned from the edges. "You don't have it, Sonic?"
Shrugging, Sonic confessed, "I wish I did... I'd juts give it over, and figure out a way to win somehow in the end. This actually... works out in your favor. I just wish I could've said bye to Tails, and everyone else, too." He just beamed at Eggman cockily, and said, "Last battle for the ages..."
The teleportation device fired without warning, and for Big, it was like watching events in slow motion. Sonic dodged every shot just in time, and he seemed to have things under complete control for the most part, but Big wouldn't actually have the luxury of seeing this thrilling fight all the way through to the very end. That was because of just one, single stray line of shimmering light that skimmed through the air, and went right towards him. It struck Big's chest with a radiant flash of odd and mystifying aura. Whether or not Sonic managed to stop the Doctor no longer mattered in the slightest to the onlooking, fluffy cat, because he and his pet frog were then and there bound for somewhere else.