There's Snow Place Like Home by the tECHIDNA (Jabari Roberts)
In Knothole, the usual appearances of summer are there: lush flowers, towering trees, and rushing rivers. All which is not the case this year. In fact, the scenery of Knothole is now decaying flowers, brittle trees, and rivers that are dry as a bone.
What is wrong with this picture?! The blame here is the sudden heat wave that sent temperatures from a balmy 85 degrees to a scorching 115 degrees. The Freedom Fighters, that merry band of animals going against Dr. Robotnik, are not so merry because of this heat.
Speaking of Dr. Robotnik, we now change the scene to Robotropolis, the mecha-zone which is the major reason why the planet Mobius is so polluted. But the heat is not all peaches and cream for Robotnik, either...
"Snively!" Dr. Robotnik screamed.
"Yes, your imperialness, sir," replied Snively.
"What is the standing of my budget Gosh, it's hot!"
"Uh, we're br-"
"Dr. Robotnik! Dr. Robotnik!! We have a problem!" said Scratch, one of Robotnik's best known (and most stupid) robots.
"Yeah, the air conditioning stopped," said Grounder, another one of the Doc's henchbots.
"Now why did it stop?" said Robotnik, his voice getting meaner.
"The bill wasn't paid," replied Scratch and Grounder.
"WHAT BILL?!"
"The electricity bill for the air conditioning."
"A bill! But the A/C runs on its own plant!"
"Well, you have to pay for everything around here, you know," said Snively. "Also, we're br--"
"Well, pay the bill already!"
"Robotnik, we're br--"
"Snively, will you be quiet?! I'm thinking! Also, it's a great thing I'm not broke."
"But sir, we ARE broke!"
"What do you mean 'we're broke'?!"
"That's it sir, we're broke! There's no more money!"
"Darn. No money, no air conditioning, the whole planet's on a heat wave that's it!"
"What's it?"
"We'll make our own weather. In fact, let's make it snow!"
"I think the Doc is a card short of a full deck," said Grounder to Coconuts, who just came in and heard the news.
"I HEARD THAT! But I'm not crazy, I'm mad! But we can make our own snow, and it doesn't need any money! I can just use some of these surplus parts..."
(Time passes)
"...and presto! A weather machine, and to go along with the ensemble, freeze guns! Now, to give it a test!"
The machine looked like it could fall apart, but it didn't! In a few seconds, a cloud came out of the machine, put a small cloud inside Robotnik's chamber, and it really started to snow!
"Yay! It's Christmas again!" And the three duncebots (Scratch, Grounder, and Coconuts) began hurling snowballs at each other.
"And the best part is, there will be a blizzard around the globe! The snow will never stop, the people eventually will freeze, I'll get rid of Sonic, and I have the perfect place to put the machine that will wreak havoc the Marble Zone!"
Yes, the Marble Zone, the place where the slogan goes: "If there isn't a volcanic eruption, then you're not in the Marble Zone!"
"But sir, how are you going to get rid of Sonic?"
"Glad you asked, Snively! I'll create a fake invite to the Freedom fighters to come to the one the coldest places in the sky, the Ice Cap Zone on the Floating Island! And when I'm finished with the planet, I'll get that floating piece of rock, the Chaos Emerald that powers it, and above all, I'll destroy of Sonic and the Freedom Fighters all in one swoop if the Island's guardian, Knuckles, doesn't destroy them first! HA HA HA!
Thus, Robotnik sends his plan into motion. He hacked into the servers of the Freedom Fighters (don't ask how he did it), sent the fake invitation to everybody, and everyone was packed to go. (Well, you would too, in this heat?) The morning after Dr. Robotnik's plan went into motion, Knuckles (who turned out to be sleeping near the Ice Cap Zone)got a rude awakening.
Sonic walked up to Knuckles and said rather screamed
"Hey, Knuckles!"
Did it scare Knuckles? Of course...not. Knuckles just kept right on snoring.
"This is going to some work if we are going to the Ice Cap Zone," said Sonic. And he quickly constructed a huge machine guaranteed to wake up anybody including rocks. This machine had a pie thrower, a water bucket filled with water, and a very high-pitched trumpet all aimed at Knuckles and released when Sonic pulls the lever. But, as fate would have it, Tails bumped a pin off a tree where Knuckles was asleep in the hammock, and when the pine needle hit the grass...
"I'm awake! I'm awake!"
"Party crasher," said Sonic.
"Sometimes I wish I'm awake when I'm asleep. Now, what do you want?" said Knuckles (his voice getting angrier).
"We want to know where's the Ice Cap Zone."
"Oh yeah? Well, let me tell you something, hedgehog. Coming on my island without permission was bad enough. But nobody, but nobody wakes me up when I'm asleep!" And when Knuckles was about to pulverize Sonic, he didn't know that he had just stepped in the Ice Cap Zone and was about to go off an ice ramp! Knuckles fell and slid for about a mile until he hit a snow bank. And just when Sonic was about to find him, Knuckles threw a snowball and said, "Snowball fight!"
Sonic couldn't resist a snowball fight (especially with his biggest rival) and joined in. Tails took score on how many hits it took to surrender the snow bank and the game. The game went on for about 15 minutes when Sonic started to get impatient (as usual). So Sonic decided on a surefire way to win: to put a block of ice in snow, aim it at Knuckles' head and...well, you get the picture.
Sonic threw the ice ball and missed. However, the ball ricocheted between trees, other rocks and snow banks, until it finally bopped Knuckles' head. And sure enough, he was out cold. After time passed, Knuckles was in the hospital on the Floating Island. Everyone tried to comfort Knuckles, (who turned out not to be out cold, but asleep after he was "playing possum" to trick Sonic into thinking he was out cold, but fell asleep after being tired). However, everyone was oblivious to Dr. Robotnik's plan of making the whole planet chilled. In fact, a huge cloud was over the entire planet of Mobius like a blanket of smog. It was snowing everywhere on the mainland.
"Ha ha! said Robotnik. "My plan is working out beautifully. Already, there's 10 feet of snow on the ground. In about 1« hours, the entire planet will be a giant snowball! Ha ha!"
At that same moment, Sonic came next to Knuckles. As fate would have it, Knuckles picked that time to wake up. And then (after a little restraining from Knuckles and Sonic), they went out and Knuckles discussed about how he never invited the Freedom Fighters to the island. Then Sonic noticed a big black cloud under the island, which, of course, is strange. So Knuckles and the Freedom Fighters went down to investigate...after they landed in 15 feet of snow. To make matters worse, Scratch caught our heroes and took them to a secluded place near the Doc's mean machine.
"Ha ha ha ha! Now I finally got you, Sonic! I'll freeze you with this freeze ray, and then bury you in the snow. And I'll freeze you in your cell, and then get the rest of the Freedom Fighters!" But Scratch forgot one rule that Robotnik learned: Knuckles and rope do not mix. Knuckles, having being accustomed to this, cut out of the rope and started for Scratch. Scratch wasn't so dumb this time; he turned around and froze Knuckles with his freeze ray! Knuckles fell to the ground, and Scratch pushed him away to Princess Sally. But Sally doesn't give up when times are tough; she used some fancy footwork to guide Knuckles' knuckles (no, that is not a typo) against the rope around her legs. Eventually, she got herself loose, got the others loose and knocked down Scratch as soon as he was about to pull the trigger!
As soon as Sonic was released, the Freedom Fighters were on their way if only they knew that Sonic didn't have good traction on the snow. So they used a little ingenuity and used the still- frozen Knuckles for a sled. They just tied a rope to him and the other end to a piece of cabin plywood, and now they were on their way.
"Where is Scratch?!" Robotnik bellowed. It was about an hour since Scratch was gone. But over the horizon, there was something Sonic and the Freedom Fighters!
"One thing you can count on with Robotnik," said Sonic, "whatever Dr. R freezes, it stays frozen and why is there a really heavy blizzard in the Marble Zone?"
"We must be close to the machine," replied Sally. Hold on we're going in!
"You?!" said the Doc when he saw Sonic. "No matter I'll freeze you all!"
"And how are you going to do that?" Sonic asked.
"Simple I just replaced the freeze gun with a freeze cannon! The bigger, the better, I always say! You want to see how it does this? You got it!"
And Robotnik fired a shot from the cannon that was aimed at a nearby tree. First, it froze the tree as usual, but it sent a sonic boom (the same sound that comes out when Sonic goes at really high speed) at the tree, breaking it into a thousand pieces! The Freedom Fighters were in awe.
"And now, you're next, Sonic! Prepare to be shattered!" Robotnik fired the ray at Sonic, but Sonic ducked in the nick of time. It ricocheted around the area until it hit the freeze cannon. The freeze cannon didn't freeze (it was thermally protected), but it malfunctioned and sent it into reverse. It was now shooting a heat ray! As luck would have it, the 5th shot it fired hit Knuckles, and he was now back to normal well, dazed, but back to normal. While the Freedom Fighters were ducking the cannon's shots, Robotnik, the frozen Scratch, Grounder, Coconuts, and Snively saw this time to get going while the going was good. But fate wasn't lucky with Robotnik; he was shot with the heat ray, which burned him, which bounced him on the cannon, which the bump from Robotnik's weight got it going again, which the cannon struck him with the freeze ray, which flash froze him (frozen, but not frozen all the way).
"I-I have ac-c-c-ount-t-ted for th-th-is d-d-d-iffic-c-culty," chattered the half-frozen Robotnik. "I have s-s-set the machine to g-g-g-go off on the s-s-super freeze bomb in 30 seconds, and it will b- b-b-blanket the planet w-w-with ice. T-t-t-toodles!" And Robotnik waddled the best way he could to his ship. But he was caught by Sonic, while Rotor, Sally, and Knuckles tried to figure out how to defuse the machine's bomb.
"Robotnik's sure has done his homework; the wire connected to the bombs thrusters which are connected to the fluid socket which are connected to a microchip electronic failsafe." babbled Rotor.
"10-9-8..." the bomb went.
"Meaning--" said Knuckles.
"...6-5-4..."
"IT'S GONNA BLOW!!" interrupted Sally. So Knuckles, Sally, and Rotor ran for dear life, when Knuckles tripped on a cord, and the bomb went "...3-2-1-zeeerrrrr.."
"What did you do?" asked Rotor.
"Easy I tripp..er..pulled out the plug. Everything has a cord these days, don't you know that?"
"Y-y-you s-s-stopped my b-b-beautiful machine!" cried Robotnik as he took off in his ship. "B-b- but I'll b-b-be back, just you wait!!"
A few days later, thanks to the heat wave, all of the snow melted, and was soaked up by all of the plants and rivers, and everything started growing again, including Dr. Robotnik's cold.
"I-I d-d-don't understand it, the plan went so well! Now I'm back to no air conditioning, Sonic still is here, no ton of snow, and all I got to show for it is ah-ah-ACHOO!!" said Robotnik, still shivering.
"Here is our billing statement, Dr. Robotnik," said Snively. " We are still broke, but that is because we overpaid on the air conditioning bill."
"Whoopty-doo."
"However " But Snively didn't finish his sentence, for the electricity ran out!
"W-what now?"
"We didn't pay our electric bill."
"Now I have no lights with my cold?! I hate that hedge ah-ah- ACHOO!"
"Hedgehog, sir?"
"Snively, shut up."
The End
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