Billings, Montana wasn’t nearly as big as San Francisco, but Sonic the Hedgehog still stood in awe, hidden among the trees on a hill, looking down at the city and the big arena complex where Monster Brawl was taking place tomorrow night. He was pretty sure he didn’t need Tom’s GPS anymore so he packed it away inside his small leather pouch slung over his shoulder. He hadn’t brought anything else, including his precious golden rings, which he had been keeping hidden in his cave for safety. After everything that had happened with Robotnik, he was careful to never use them again – for any reason. He only had so many left, and who knew if he would ever need them again. That was the one thing he and Tom had agreed about.

During his run, he had begun to wonder if he should go back home. But now that he was standing here, looking down on a new adventure, he was really glad he had decided to come anyway – Tom or no Tom. Part of him wished Tom had wanted to come with him. How could you not love over-sized vehicles battling for ultimate supremacy!? He knew Tom would be mad and he figured this whole “grounded” thing might last a lot longer than just a weekend at this point, but that was something for future Sonic to deal with. Present Sonic was-

Sonic’s stomach grumbled loudly and he realized two things. One, he should have packed some food, and two, he needed something fun to do to distract himself until tomorrow night, which suddenly felt like it was years away. Poor planning aside, he was here now, so he might as well make the most of it. He took off, blazing around the city, grabbing any tourist brochures he found to try and find something to do.

He stopped when he smelled something on the breeze. He sniffed. Was that… a chili dog?

After he had stuffed himself on them at the Piston Pit the first night he had met Tom, Sonic quickly decided that chili dogs were his favorite Earth food. He followed his nose to the source of the smell and discovered a small carnival just a few blocks from the arena.

Sonic’s eyes widened. He had never seen anything like a carnival in person before, just on movies and TV. The rides looked fun and he was assaulted from all directions by new smells and the cacophony of people chatting, screaming with joy, and laughing. This place would definitely keep him entertained for the rest of the day and night!

No one seemed to notice him as he sneaked about, which was good, because… well, he didn’t have any money. His stomach grumbled again. Tom had reiterated to him that stealing was wrong, but this was an emergency, and besides, Sonic was only taking a little. Someone wouldn’t miss one little chili dog that badly, right?

Sonic hid near the chili dog stand, watching it for a few minutes, scoping out how the chili dogs were made, bought, and then taken. The line was thinning out, and he figured this would be the best time, when less people were around.

He watched carefully as the next customer, a large man with a bald head, stepped up to the window and ordered several chili dogs. Perfect! The man stepped aside to the pick-up window and Sonic readied himself, picking up a discarded soda can from the ground.

When the chili dogs arrived at the pick-up window, Sonic pitched the soda can at the steel barrel that was serving as a trash can. The man jumped at the loud bang, whipping around to see the soda can rattling on the ground.

Sonic blasted over and snatched one of the paper trays, but was shocked when he saw the face of the man he was stealing from turn back to face him. He didn’t even realize that time had resumed normally for a moment.

“Bear!?” Sonic exclaimed.

Sonic knew this biker guy. He was the same one who had started the bar fight at the Piston Pit, the one who had called them “hipsters” and nearly beaten up Tom. He was also the same angry guy who Sonic had dropped a taxidermy bear head onto and pretty-much humiliated him.

“Uh-oh.”

“YOU!” Bear growled fiercely, “I’m gonna kill you, you little blue-” He lunged.

“Whoa!” Sonic dodged him easily, “Gotta catch me first!” He was gone in a blue streak.

All Bear caught in his meaty fists was the dust on the ground. He pounded it furiously and scrambled to his feet, chasing after Sonic.

Sonic zipped around the carnival several more times until he was sure he lost him, ducking behind the back of the Tilt-a-Whirl. He leaned against the cool metal and slumped down. He looked at his tasty prize, which was still steaming hot. Better not let it go to waste, he thought, and began munching it quietly, glad that was all over. That had been too close. It was nothing he couldn’t handle though. He was old enough to take care of himself.

The encounter with “Bear” the biker was soon forgotten as Sonic lost himself in the wonders of the carnival. He was particularly interested in the arcade midway and spent a long time analyzing each of the games. There were a lot of prizes on display but he didn’t see too many people walking around with them.

One particular game caught his eye: the ring bottle toss. Sonic pushed his head between two jumbo stuffed toys and watched as the kids and adults below him were given buckets of red plastic rings. He watched as the players tossed rings over across a long table covered in a sea of glass bottles that were arranged in perfect rows inside a giant wooden box. The rings ricocheted off the bottles, off each other, and most of them either clattered onto the ground or fell down between the bottles.

“C’mon, c’mon!” He cheered quietly, but one after another, each of the thrown rings failed to hook around the bottlenecks.

One particularly crafty player did a coin flip with his ring and it bounced around before landing on the bottle, but the attendant pointed to a sign that said, the ring must come to rest around the neck of the bottle. The player only argued for a moment before giving up and leaving, hands shoved in his pockets.

“Okay, that one was totally around it! I saw it!” Sonic was feeling just as flustered as the players were.

There was one little girl and her father left at the moment. She looked a little younger than Cousin Jojo and only had one red ring left in her plastic bucket, which she held up.

“Dad, what if I don’t make it?”

“We can play a different game, sweetheart.”

“But I want that sea turtle,” She said, pointing up at the stuffed animal hanging across from where Sonic was perched.

“You can’t always get what you want,” he said softly, and the little girl sighed, looking at the ring in her palm.

Sonic frowned. Was that some kind of universal parent mantra or something?

“Here goes,” she said, and carefully underhand-flipped it towards the center of all the bottles. Sonic could tell she was aiming for the special bottle, painted gold around the opening – if you landed a ring around that one, one of the big signs said you could win your choice of prize.

Sonic wasn’t about to let her lose, glowing blue as he sped towards the ring.

The ring hit the bottle, but it started to bounce off. Sonic lined himself up and slapped it back down, but it hit another bottle instead and went off in another direction. Unfortunately, he was adding too much force to his hits, making it bounce off more bottles. This only made him more frustrated and he sped up.

“Stay on there!”

The little girl and her Dad were shocked when her last shot not only went wild, but became a blue blur of speed. The attendant also stepped out of the way, all of them looking wide-eyed at the red ring.

At last Sonic lined it up vertically and he spiked it down hard towards the gold-painted bottle. It started to bounce off, but this time he landed and kept slapping it down until it finally settled around the bottleneck.

“Woo-hoo! Nailed it!”

Sonic realized too late that he was now just standing on all of the bottles, in plain view of everyone.

“Uh,” Sonic started to run but slipped on the bottle tops, flailing his arms to right himself and falling backwards onto the ground, a bunch of the bottles tumbling onto and around him. At least they weren’t breaking, which was good, but he had other immediate problems to worry about.

“Whoa!”

“What is that?!”

Sonic groaned and pulled himself to his feet, realizing there was a huge crowd gathering around the game booth now, blocking all directions, people pulling out their cameras to take a photo or video of him.

He held out his hands to cover his face, but the flashes continued as the game attendant reached down towards him.

He had to get out of here, now! He leaped onto the counter and thankfully, the crowd backed up, a little terrified of what he might do as he glowed an even brighter blue, a spark rolling down his quills. All, except one person who barreled towards him. It was Bear again, of course.

“Stop him!” Bear yelled as he lunged to grab Sonic, “Thief!”

Sonic took one look at his shining bald head and decided to play this one literally head on, leaping and stomping down on Bear’s head, using it as a springboard to leap over the crowd. He flew over their heads and tucked into a ball, bouncing off several structures and one guy who wasn’t paying attention before rolling to a stop under one of the metal trailers.

Sonic crawled out, scrambled to his feet, and took off running. He didn’t stop until he left the carnival grounds, skidding into some bushes near the tree line. He dared to look back at the carnival and saw Bear stomping around the exit, looking for him.

“Looks like I can cross win a carnival game and outrun a bear off my bucket list,” he said, laughing to himself, but only halfheartedly.

The sun was beginning to set and Sonic’s jaw dropped as the bright lights of the carnival suddenly switched on all at once, making it seem even more magical. Now he really, really, really wanted to go on the rides, but… He watched carefully as Bear seemed to give up at last and go back inside.

He wasn’t scared of Bear. He just had to be more careful, that was all. So a few people saw him. It was fine, right? He really, really, really hoped that was fine.

Sonic knew he should probably leave and find somewhere else to hang out, but he found he just couldn’t resist the lure of the colorful lights as the sky continued to darken. He did at least force himself to wait a little longer before venturing back inside, sticking to the shadows, keeping an eye out for Bear.

Sonic quickly discovered the hardest part about getting on the rides was doing so unnoticed, which became a problem for certain rides where he would run the risk of being locked inside. That meant no Zipper Ride or Gravitron, but also no rides where he would be easy to spot him on like the Big Swings, the Roller Coaster, and the Swinging Ship.

However, he was pretty sure he could get away with at least three: The Tilt-a-Whirl (which looked AMAZING), the Ferris Wheel, and the one that excited him most of all, a haunted house ride that was simply called The Chamber of Horrors. Sonic decided to save that one for last.

Sonic made his way to the Tilt-a-Whirl and watched it a few times to get a feel for when it would be good to hop on. He saw his chance when one of the ones in the back was left open and he zipped over the fence, hurrying in and pulling down the bar. He hid himself as the tired attendant came by, who nudged the bar, saw it was secure, and kept going. Sonic scooted to the center and psyched himself up.

When the ride started, his high-backed car only started rolling back and forth gently at first, but he began to gain momentum as the platform spun, moving up and down. He squealed when it did a complete rotation, the centrifugal force pulling him to one side. He quickly learned he could keep it going if he leaned at just the right time and was able to get twirling very fast. His stomach fluttered and he laughed out loud as he swerved up and down and all around the track several times. Unfortunately, it was all over a little too soon for his taste as the ride slowed to a crawl. But as the lap bar released and he stood up, he suddenly realized he was a lot dizzier than he thought, stumbling a bit as he fell over the railing, landing instinctively into a ball. He laughed for a moment more as he uncurled until he realized his lunch was coming back with a vengeance. He just managed to make it to the nearest trash can before puking.

“Tilt-a-Whirl? More like tilt and hurl,” Sonic said, wiping his mouth, “I’m never riding that again.”

Now that his nausea was gone, he was back to scoping out the other rides, the incident quickly forgotten.

The Ferris Wheel was much easier to climb aboard, slipping into the gently swaying car. He was in luck because it came to a stop at the very top, loading in a small family of passengers below. He stood up on the seat and peered down over the side, instantly regretting it, sitting back down, and deciding that facing forward was a good direction.

From up here, he could see most of the carnival itself and the monster truck arena in the distance, which made him smile. He found himself wishing again that Tom and Maddie were here. It was fun riding the rides, but he bet it would be even more fun with someone you cared about. After loading in a few more passengers into the cars below, the Ferris Wheel lurched forward again and began to spin. Sonic hopped off as it neared the bottom, sliding down one of the steel rails and dropping quietly to the ground.

Sonic hurried to his last attraction of the evening: THE CHAMBER OF HORRORS (shown all in caps with blinding white light bulbs that flashed to red every few seconds), which was essentially a giant metal trailer spray painted to look like a haunted castle, complete with flickering fake torches, plastic gargoyles, and huge “wooden” gates that swung open and shut, allowing the excited riders to pass through on their tiny black mine carts. Expertly spray-painted all over the entire building were huge, colorful murals of famous movie monsters, some of them grotesquely distorted for greater scare factor. He could identify a few of the characters, but Tom and Maddie weren’t big on horror movies, so many of them were new to him and utterly terrifying in a good way. He made a note to try and find some of these movies to watch later.

This dark ride was a bit harder to sneak onto, but Sonic managed, hoping into an empty cart as the ride attendant turned their back. He slid under the lap bar and ducked out of sight, holding on as the little rickety mine cart moved forward through the gaping doors, shutting loudly behind him and leaving him in almost complete darkness. He sat up and held onto the lap bar, looking around.

A fake thunderstorm boomed, followed by flashing lights that lit up scary looking trees that branched above him, some of them looking like hands reaching to grab him. He flinched when a loud buzzer sounded and a fake ghost on some kind of lever popped up behind a tombstone.

“You call that scary?” It let out a badly recorded evil laugh as it lowered itself back down.

Sonic shifted in his seat, wishing the backs of the carts were a little taller. He suddenly felt very exposed in here, like anything could jump out at him. He looked around in a panic, but he was the only one on the ride at the moment.

“Definitely not scary,” he told himself. The cart turned into another small room that had a bunch of grandfather clocks, ticking and tocking until one of the cases lit up with cartoonish skeleton bones stuffed inside, making another ridiculous horn noise. He flinched again, but that was only because these were cheap jump scares. His cart turned sharply and a giant tank of water lit up. A very fake severed clown head moved and jiggled inside it as a bike horn honked.

“Okay, I think I want off now.”

But the ride continued and he was pulled into another room, this time with a bunch of prison bars all around him. The lights flashed on and off rapidly as a bunch of fake prisoners “shook” the bars, making horrible noises. The flickering lights made everything feel more real somehow. A few prisoners were wearing potato sacks over their heads or scary masks, but the last one had a fake bear head and that was a little too much for Sonic. He screamed, ducking down.

Thankfully, the ride was over, and it spit him out the exit doors. He scrambled out of the mine cart as soon as the lap bar released and stumbled down the exit, nearly stumbling to the ground. He could still hear the sounds of the ride as he sped away. He didn’t stop until he neared the back of the roller coaster.

“For the record, most of that ride was totally lame, but I don’t feel like doing that again,” he said and his stomach grumbled again.

“I didn’t think I’d ever feel like eating again after losing my lunch, but here we are,” he admitted.

Well, there was one quick remedy he could think of… He would just have to be extra careful now. Maybe he was being too cautious, though? He doubted Bear was even still around the carnival. He hadn’t seen him at all since he started riding everything. That had to have been at least an hour ago.

Sonic cautiously peered around the corner of his hiding spot, watching the chili dog stand. It wasn’t as busy as it was earlier in the day, but there were still a few people lining up. He scanned the nearby picnic tables and his eyes widened. No way!

Someone had abandoned a perfectly good chili dog on one of the picnic tables. It was sitting in the back next to some other empty trays and cups, so Sonic guessed that’s why no one had taken notice of it. That made it perfect for him to take though! This was his first lucky break of the whole day and he wasn’t about to let it go to waste.

He ran in, snatched the paper tray and zipped back to his hiding place. He leaned back against the metal trailer and sighed, taking a bite and just watching the octopus ride nearby animate and the people walking by, all of the colorful lights flashing rhythmically to some stock music. His chili dog tasted perfect. He looked up at the sky. The carnival had too much light pollution blocking out most of the stars, but it was still a beautiful night. He quickly wolfed down the rest of the chili dog as a chilly wind blew by.

Speaking of night, he’d have to find somewhere to sleep. Somewhere safe for that matter. He now realized how used he was to sleeping in a warm bed with a roof over his head. The ground wasn’t feeling nearly as comfortable as it used to be. Seems he hadn’t thought ahead about that either.

Sonic hugged himself, looking up at the stars. He clutched his leather bag, opening it to make sure Tom’s GPS was still there. It was, but he didn’t want to look at it for long, closing it back up. All he could think of now was what the last thing he had said to Tom…

Then maybe I don’t want to live under your roof anymore!

Did he really mean that? What if Tom was relieved he was gone? Maybe the Wachowskis were better off without Sonic there messing up everything…

Sonic yawned. He hadn’t realized how tired he was. Like, really tired. How late was it, anyway? He realized he didn’t have a watch and there weren’t any clocks nearby. Maybe it was time to find somewhere to sleep?

Something felt wrong though. His steps felt heavy, like he had boulders for feet. He stumbled and steadied himself against the wall, but he started to slide down, unable to keep his grip. He was losing feeling in his fingers.

“Huh?” he looked at his own hand as he fell forward, hitting the dirt.

He had just enough energy left to keep his eyes open a few moments more, watching as a pair of biker boots stepped towards him. Then his vision doubled as his eyelids fluttered closed, his mind enveloped by darkness.