Hey, remember when I said that I wouldn't take 4 months to release the next chapter? Well 6 1/2 is not 4, so I kept my promise. Yeah, it's technicality BS, but it's not like lawyers don't do the same thing.

In all honesty, though, a lot of things has happened (some of which may or may not have involved video games and YouTube) over the past several months that hampered my ability to work on my story. I'd explain more about it, but this isn't Twitter, so I'll just sum it up as life getting in the way of...well...my life. At least things are calming down a bit for me, so I can get back to more video g—storywriting.

Oh, and many thanks for all the feedback I've gotten during my absence. I've even inspired others to write stories, as well. That's the kind of thing that makes this all worthwhile.

Chapter 3: Ring Fever

"What do you mean he won't take your money?" Noire questioned as she and Uni went to see what the problem was, "You do have enough money to buy cotton candy, right?" The rest of the crew also walked up to Neptune—sans Vert and Peashy, in which the latter was bugging the former to buy her a plushie from the souvenir shop.

{BGM: Sonic Colors—Tropical Resort Map}

"I don't know. He just keeps pointing at signs. See?" Neptune pointed to the Egg Pawn standing behind the cotton candy stand, holding up a "not allowed" sign in its right hand and pointing to another sign with its left. The sign being pointed at had a picture of a golden ring on it with a "40" going through it. "Oh, I know! Maybe he just doesn't take cash!" She turned to face IF, "Hey, Iffy? You have a credit card or something I can use?"

"No," IF shot down, "Even if I did have one, I'd make sure to keep it as far away from you as possible."

"Aww, don't be like that! You know what they say: 'til debt do us part!"

Histoire figured that she had yet another subject to "teach" Neptune about later.

IF sighed and took another look at the sign with the golden ring on it, "Anyway, I think the real problem here is that we need some sort of foreign currency we don't have."

"Aww, that's too bad," Compa said, both saddened and annoyed about this since she also wanted to buy some cotton candy.

"How could we now have the wrong currency?" Noire threw one of her hands out in anger and confusion, "Didn't the ticket booths back at the entrance take credits?"

"Well, there wasn't really a price list on the booth, and the guy running it was broken, so we didn't know," Uni pointed out, "The V.I.P. tickets let us get in for free, remember, sis?"

Getting even more irritated, Noire took a quick look at the large space plaza around her, which seemed a bit larger than it needed to be. More palm trees, street lamps, and foliage made a makeshift border around the circular plaza, followed by tropical-themed concrete buildings behind them that didn't seem to serve an actual purpose other than to look cool. When she observed the various stores and stands there and saw what they were selling (and what items were on sale, just in case), her eyes widened when she saw the unfortunate truth, "Wait a minute…none of the stores here take credits! Why!?" The others also looked around the plaza to see if what she said was true. The souvenir shop (with a sad Peashy and Vert leaving the store), the concession stands, the flying shuttle buses…everything was priced in rings, not the credits they currently had so much of.

"So…we basically just waltzed into the middle of space virtually broke," Blanc flatly remarked.

"It would appear so… (≖_≖ ; )" Histoire reluctantly confirmed, now sitting on Blanc's right shoulder again. Even while they're on vacation, more problems just pop up like weeds. There's just no rest for the weary, or basically anyone not named Neptune or Plutia.

Blanc sighed and shook her head as she crossed her arms, "Why does something always have to go wrong while we try to enjoy ourselves? It's like we're cursed or something."

"I feel your pain, Blanc. o(´д`o) …"

"What are we going to do?" Nepgear worried, "Shopping is part of the experience in an amusement park!"

"Perhaps there is some kind of currency exchange booth nearby?" Vert wondered, walking around and looking for one, "Peashy wanted a plushie, and I do not intend on letting her down." Her scavenging skills and attention to detail were second to none…at least when it came to video games. Then again, the whole place looked like it came straight from a video game. Weird.

"That's not really something you'd find in an amusement park," IF told Vert, scanning the surroundings, "Not like we'd know how to even get to one in the first place. There's no directory or signs here to show you where everything is. This might be a problem…"

"It's a conspiracy, I tell you!" Neptune boldly declared, "They knew we were filthy rich, so they purposely made it so that we would have to use some new currency and start from square one!"

"Don't be stupid, Neptune!" Noire interjected, "What kind of amusement park doesn't want your money?"

"This one, duh! They must've known we only use credits in Gamindustri, yet they still went, 'Hey, you know what? Credits are stupid. Let's charge rings for everything instead!' I bet the mastermind behind all this is laughing at us right now..." she pouted.

"Or they could just be a bunch of foreigners in a rush to get this park ready for opening day. They made some rookie mistakes and ignored the price discrepancies. I doubt they did this on purpose."

"'Rookie mistakes,'" Blanc scoffed, "I didn't realize you were experienced at making space parks."

"Sh-Shut up! I'm just saying—!"

"Noire!" Vert suddenly called out as she was walking down a long, flat bridge of sorts, the sole exit out of the plaza. The bridge itself had a blue, glass center with an inner white stripe and an outer yellow stripe zig-zagging by the edge. There were also more greenery and street lamps lined right in front of the guard rail, with giant tiki torches placed behind it. Vert stood on her tiptoes, squinting to try and see something, "I think I see some rings over in the distance! Some of them even have the number 10 on them!"

"Huh? Where? Are they on the ground, are they stuck in some trees, or what?"

"Um…they are just floating around and spinning in place, scattered high and low above the roads and some rails…and some fans…and…spikes? Why are there…?"

Noire comically made a "(¬_¬)" face as she put her hands by her hips, "They did do this crap on purpose, didn't they?"

"Oooooooh, this is going to be one of those adventures," Neptune said with glee, having stars in her eyes and a huge smile growing on her face, "I've always wanted to be in a platformer!"

"Platforming? Aww, I don't wanna jump around…" Plutia whined, "It sounds like a lot of work…"

"But it's so much fun!" Neptune insisted, "You get to run around, do lots of cool things, see lots of cool places, meet lots of cool people, jump onto lots of cool people…"

"Well, that's the thing…I don't wanna run around, either. Jumping onto people sounds like lots of fun though…"

"Well, it's loads better than being confined to a stupid grid, standing around and waiting to get smacked by something."

"Did you just diss the very kind of game you came from? The game we all came from?" Noire questioned Neptune, crossing her arms, shocked that she would just blatantly bad-mouth her own game like that.

"N-No, not at all, silly Noirey!" Neptune nervously defended with waving hands and a forced smile, "I-I-It's just that a change of pace is nice every once in a while…y-you know?" She let out equally forced chuckles, which died out as quickly as they started. Please don't smite me, almighty Mr. Izawa, she quickly prayed.

"A goddess answering to another god," Noire thought aloud, "I think I read about something like this in a book about Greek mythology."

"What's myth…mmm…mitochondria…uh…mi-thol-uh-jee?" Compa honestly asked with her head tilted to the side and a finger to her cheek, "Is that some sort of personality disorder?"

"Wha…?" Noire was thrown off by that question (and confused by Compa's selective pronunciation skills), "N-No, it's not. You don't know what mythology is?"

"T-They don't teach mi-thol-uh-jee in medical school…" Her face went to a mix of sadness and embarrassment. Being a specialist has its downsides.

"Hey, Compa?" Plutia interrupted, trying to go back to the original conversation, "Can you carry me over there…please? I'm tired and I don't wanna run…"

"Um…well, if I give you a piggyback ride, we would both get slowed down," Compa pointed out, "And…to be honest… I won't be able to jump that much with you on my back. I don't think you're as light as Peashy…n-no offense."

"That's okay…I just wanna nap for a while. When we get to the jumpy stuff…I'll be so full of energy that I'll just hop off and do them myself!"

"Really? Well then…" Compa glanced at IF for a second opinion, except IF didn't know what to say and just shrugged. Compa then looked back at Plutia with a warm smile, "Sure, I'll carry you!"

"Yay!" Plutia cheered as she latched onto Compa's back, "Thank you soooooooooo...zzzzzzzz."

"You're welc—oh. She's already asleep."

"Ooo! Ooo! Can you carry me, too, Compa?" Neptune asked with a gentle smile and puppy eyes.

"I-I can't carry you both, now!" She quickly formed an "X" with her arms.

"You need the exercise, anyway," Blanc remarked, earning a glare from Neptune.

"Well, we should head over to the rides for the time being," Blanc's shoulder companion suggested, "We can always buy something later,"

"May as well," Noire agreed, "We don't have that many options right now. Let's just walk around and find something fun to do. We'll collect whatever rings we can find along the way."

"Hey! Hey! Nowar?" Peashy ran up to her and tugged on her left sleeve, excitedly hopping up and down like the little kid she was.

"Hmm? What is it, Peashy?"

"Can we go on that big thing over there? Can we, can we? It looks like fun!" Peashy pointed to a humongous Ferris wheel in the distance that seemed to tower over most of Tropical Resort. The Ferris wheel, like the unhealthy amount of "Welcome!" signs strewn about, was saturated with changing, colorful lights. There were, for whatever reason, many similar Ferris wheels scattered about (all of them bearing a flower and Eggman's face with the words "Enjoy!" in the center), but the one Peashy was referring to seemed to be both the largest one and the one highest up.

"The Ferris wheel, huh? I guess we can go there first," Noire turned towards the others, "Are you guys okay with that?"

"Of course they are!" Neptune answered for them, "Now let's go do some arbitrary platforming for the sake of progression!" She grabbed Noire's right arm and starting sprinting across the bridge, forcing Vert to jump back as she sped past.

"H-Hey! Let go of me, you idiot!" Noire commanded to deaf ears as she was dragged across the floor, "I know how to walk! You're gonna ruin my dress!" At least the floor she was on was smooth and clean.

"Wait! Neptuna! Don't be mean to Nowar like that! Let her go!" Peashy called out as she ran up to Noire and grabbed Noire's left arm, "I'll save you, Nowar!" She started pulling away from Neptune, using her feet like emergency brakes, to little success. She also was completely oblivious to her own strength—and so was Neptune, apparently.

"Ow! OW! You two are gonna rip my arm—OOWW! STOP IIIIIiiii…! Noire's cries faded out as Neptune continued down the long bridge and the trio disappeared behind a downward slope and more palm trees, knocking over a few Egg Pawns along the way.

"HEY! Don't treat my sister like that!" Uni shouted as she ran to rescue her big sister. She could've just stopped Neptune with a "harmless" paralyzing shot, but using a gun inside the park would definitely cause some problems. The incident with Blanc was already pushing it.

Vert just stared at the four as they darted off into parts unknown, shaking her head and giggling with one arm supporting the other in a sort of "L" shape underneath her chest, "Neptune's childish ways never seem to go away, no matter what we do or how much time has passed."

"Miss being in your youth, huh?" Blanc teased as she and the others met up with her on the bridge.

"Hmm? Did you say something?" Vert's head snapped towards Blanc with a threatening smile.

"Nothing," Blanc dismissed, unintimidated by Vert's face, "Let's just go. Standing around sightseeing is nice, but I'd rather be doing something productive right now."

"Shouldn't we chase after Nep-Nep? What if she gets hurt or lost?" Compa worried as they walked across the bridge.

"That's her problem. She shouldn't be running like a lunatic."

"Besides, knowing Nep and her 'main character powers'," IF added, "she'll wind up taking the long way around without realizing it."

Compa was still trying to see where Neptune might have gone to, but the only things she could make out of the sea of trees, buildings, and lights were more stores and some carnival games that only took more of that foreign currency they needed to find. She went towards the right edge of the bridge and leaned over to get a better view, but immediately regretted doing so as she saw that she was right next to an enormous lack of floor that lead to, aside from a few blue tunnels and several flying hovercraft, nothing but the vast void of space.

"WAAAH!" Compa screamed as she made a mad dash back towards the center with her heart now working double-time, "T-T-There's nothing but s-space down there!"

"Well, we are in space…" Captain Nepgear of the S.S. No Shit proclaimed.

"True, but shouldn't they have put more than just a basic guard rail to protect people from falling to their deaths?" Vert questioned.

"They did a piss-poor job with public safety so far. I don't see how that'll change anytime soon," Blanc commented.

Out of pure coincidence, the PA system decided to come to life, "Ladies and gentlemen, this is a friendly reminder that while the guard rails are sturdy and designed to keep you away from the vast nothingness of space, they are not fool-proof. As such, please do not lean on, sit on, grind on, jump over, or throw other people over the guard rails. Thank you."

"I hope Nep heard that," IF muttered as the remaining crew continued their trek towards the giant, metal circle in the distance. After a minute or so, they made it to the end of the bridge and began walking down a boardwalk of sorts when Nepgear realized something…

"Um…everyone?" Nepgear said, causing the group to stop and look at her, "Where's Nisa? Wasn't she with us a while ago?" The others noticed the absence of the self-proclaimed heroine and looked around in different directions.

"She did say that she wanted to meet up with Sonic as soon as possible," Vert pondered, "I guess she got tired of waiting."

"Was she at least with us when we decided to go to the Ferris wheel first?"

"Doesn't matter," Blanc stated, "Neptune and Noire's yelling will act like a beacon for her. It'll be easy for her to reunite with us."

And so, the crew resumed walking down the road like the normal people they certainly weren't.

{BGM fade out}

{BGM: Sonic Colors—Tropical Resort Act 1}

Elsewhere in the park, the self-proclaimed heroine of justice ran up to some sort of fountain shaped like a chalice in the middle of a walkway of sorts. Underneath the fountain was a circular, elaborate floral pattern that contained more colorful circles. There were more like it nearby, but it's not like it mattered; you'd only see them for maybe a second apiece in the game, anyway. She slowed herself to a stop and surveyed her surroundings, trying to see where her new idol could've gone to.

"I could've sworn I saw him over there, but…" Nisa muttered to herself as she stared at a plaza way off in the distance. The overabundance of foliage and bright neon signs, coupled with Sonic's natural speed, was making it extremely difficult for her to keep track of the blue blur. "Maybe I should look for a better vantage point," she decided. Running around blindly was getting her nowhere, so her best bet was to just continue along the path she was already on and try to get to higher ground.

She resumed running down the walkway while still looking off to her side, unaware that her right foot had just stepped onto what seemed like a runaway treadmill on the ground. In a fraction of a second, she found herself much farther ahead than she should have been. As good as Nisa's reaction times were, they weren't enough to save her from the almighty laws of physics. She stumbled for a second and struggled to stabilize herself before her footing gave way completely, causing her to fall face-first into the ground and skid several feet forwards until she stopped short of a small hill. After a few more seconds, Nisa turned her head to the side and stared blankly ahead, unable to register what just happened, until she finally opened her mouth to speak:

"Wha…?"

She stood up and inspected herself. Surprisingly, her outfit was in the same condition as before, albeit dirtier. There weren't even any scratches on her body, though this is probably due to some unwritten law about cute anime characters. After dusting herself off, she went back to the mysterious treadmill, curious as to why such a thing was there in the first place. "What in the world is this for?" Nisa wondered out loud, "Is this like one of those floor conveyor belts they have at airports so that people can get to places faster?" She squatted down to get a better look, "Why is it so small and fast then? Is it even safe—"

She looked back at the hill over yonder. Her tumble earlier pretty much answered that last question.

Standing back up, she folded her arms across her chest, "This is definitely some sort of health hazard. I can't believe someone actually decided to place turbo-charged panels everywhere. I mean, did they really think…that it would be…okay for people…to…to…"

Out of the blue, Nisa envisioned herself stepping onto the panel (properly, this time) and speeding off into the distance, running along the ground and even the buildings like a true super-heroine. She was even doing many heroic deeds all the while, like returning an old lady's purse that was stolen by a thief, saving a helpless cat from a burning tree, and taking Noire to a cosplay convention. A huge smile was subconsciously forming on her face, but she quickly shook her head and tried to regain her composure.

The whole idea of using the panel, however, didn't leave her mind. Sure, something like that could easily wind up putting the average person in the hospital, but Nisa was far from average. Her entire career consisted of fighting monsters that could crush/eviscerate/slice/disintegrate/eat/slime/mildly annoy her to death if she didn't bring her A-game. A chance of getting road rash seems preferable over a chance of having half your internal organs outside your body.

Ultimately deciding that she had nothing to worry about, Nisa took several steps back directly behind the panel and got into a runner's stance. After about a second or two, she broke out into a full sprint right onto the high-speed panel. Her already fast speed was suddenly doubled as she raced across the pathway and over the small hill from before. Part of her wanted to cheer like she was on a rollercoaster ride (which, in a way, she already was), but she also knew better than to lose focus. Humans weren't meant to move fast like sports cars…yet…so Nisa had to be careful not to trip on anything or crash into a wall or fly off into deep space or…

Actually, there was a lot that could go wrong at those speeds, but the Heroine of Justice was too busy enjoying herself to care.

Woah, Nisa thought, this is amazing! I think I understand why Sonic didn't just take the elev—uh-oh!

Her train of thought was cut short as she realized too late that the path she was on curved straight down, and momentum forced her to keep on going. To her relief, the road didn't dip into an endless abyss and instead curved back to level ground. Unfortunately, she found that a section of the road ahead was now, for whatever reason, about three stories lower down with a stone barrier protruding from near the middle—which Nisa was about two seconds from crashing into. Reacting quickly, she made a huge leap of faith off the edge and barely landed on top of the wall. She then hopped off it and landed onto the part of the road that wasn't deep down below, though it was oddly curved up like a half-pipe. After going from one end of the "half-pipe" to the other, she found herself back onto level ground.

She slowed herself down to a halt and looked back at the miniature obstacle course she just went through. It's not like parkouring was anything new to Nisa, but the fact that she even had to do it just to get to point B in an amusement park made her suspicious.

You know, she thought, if they just wanted people to go sightseeing and go on fun rides, why is the layout so weird? I could've sworn I saw some giant, red bumpers and a floating, rainbow-colored hoop back there, too. Do they really expect the average person to just waltz through all that?

Her suspicions only grew when she looked back forward and saw that there was a set of gray spikes in the way with some out-of-reach platforms above it. A row of what looked like five golden rings was also hovering in an arc over the spikes. Curious, Nisa went to the first ring and tried to grab it, but it disappeared into sparkles the moment her hand touched it—and with a small chime playing for some reason. The second ring did the exact same thing when she reached up to grab it. Seeing where this was going, she jumped over the spikes with ease, touching the remaining rings along the way and making them disappear.

Where did those rings disappear off to, anyway? Nisa figured that it's a mystery that will have to wait until she found Sonic.

Going back into a run, she went up to a bridge consisting of large square tiles and, of course, no barriers whatsoever. Thankfully, the bridge itself was plenty wide for Nisa to safely cross, but as soon as she stepped onto the first square, she felt it start to shake.

"Huh? What the heck is going onaaAAHHHHHHHH!" Nisa screamed as the tile she was on suddenly broke off the bridge and started to fall. She couldn't see what exactly she was falling towards, but she figured that the end result would be pain or death (she wasn't immune to fall damage like Neptune, after all). She leaped straight up and barely grabbed onto a remaining tile as the one she left fell to parts unknown, but now she felt this tile start to shake. She quickly pulled herself up and sprinted for her life as the bridge fell apart behind her. The blue-haired heroine safely made it to the other side and escaped certain doom, though she stopped for a while to try and calm her heart down. As dangerous as her situation was, she was just glad that it was only her that had to go through that and not some innocent civilian.

Where was everybody, anyway? Aside from the group she was (initially) with, she hasn't seen anybody else here besides orange robots, not even an NPC silhouette.

After traveling for a while longer, the Heroine of Justice found herself entering some sort of massive hallway. The area had a blue floor with a white, segmented stripe down the middle, yellow walls with a red band and a white floral design going across it (and the occasional yellow support pillar jutting out), and a ceiling which was half-beige and half-grandma's rug. Thankfully, a row of boost panels was there to help her zoom past the tacky roof as quickly as possible.

Once out of the hallway, which took a while to get out of, another gap in the road up ahead forced Nisa to slow down. She decelerated to a walk as she inspected the section up ahead. There were a few platforms that were floating level to where she was, but underneath those platforms was a bed of spikes that looked much like the ones she saw earlier.

What's wrong with these park designers? Why would they make something like this? Someone could get killed over here!

That someone wasn't going to be her. Although the platforms were spaced out a good distance away from each other, they weren't jumps a heroine couldn't handle. She even did a few somersaults as she went from platform to platform. When she got to the last platform, she found herself going from a river of spikes to a river of fans with a massively high cliff at the end. The fans themselves had a pretty strong gust to them, and Nisa made full use of that by "leaning" into the wind to glide all the way up to the ledge. For whatever reason, not only were there golden rings floating above the fans, but there was also a larger red ring with a red star inside it. It made a different sound and had different sparkle effects than the normal rings, but it disappeared all the same when Nisa touched it.

To Nisa's surprise, when she got to the top of the cliff, she found that the path was…well…completely normal. It was a long straightaway and mostly went at a downward slope, but other than that, there were no dash panels or spikes or fans or bumpers in the way…or anything else that shouldn't even be at an amusement park in the first place. Why wasn't the route like this the whole time, she thought as she ran down the road. The increasing number of view-blocking buildings was making it impossible to scan for the blue hedgehog, so all Nisa could do was keep moving forward and hope for the best. If only she could fly like the CPUs…

{BGM: Sonic Colors—Results Screen}

The road up ahead seemed to curve back to level and end at a circular plaza with some sort of red device in it's center and an odd-looking "temple" behind it. However, right before that was a horde of Egg Pawns scattered around a huge area. Some of them were holding "Welcome!" signs, some of them didn't, but all of them were jumping around and cheering Nisa on as she ran past. Nisa slowed down to a jog, looking very confused as she hesitantly waved back to the cheer squad around her.

Why are they cheering for me? Are they cheering because I survived? But then, why make the route so dangerous in the first place? Oh! I know! Maybe I wasn't supposed to go this way, but I did it anyway. I mean, I did take a lot of shortcuts before all that by jumping across buildings and whatnot. They probably put those gimmicks and obstacles in the way to test people's bravery and athleticism, both of which are marks of a true heroine!

It wasn't the best conclusion she could come up with, but given how wacky things have been so far, she didn't know what to believe. Nisa continued on, now giving brighter smiles and happier waves to the robots, until she reached the plaza, which, unfortunately, seemed like a dead end. Nisa's smile quickly dropped, but not just because of that.

{BGM fade out}

Upon closer inspection, the strange red device she saw earlier had two long capsules sticking out of it. Inside of those tubes was a swarm of…well, she wasn't sure what they were. She thought they were squids at first, but they were bluish-white, had one frontal eye with pink irises, three tentacles, two alien-like antennae, and spherical heads—not exactly the kind of squids you'd want to eat. Most of them were "swimming" around and a lot of them seemed very worried about being in there. When Nisa got even closer to get a better look, all of them suddenly turned their attention to her, causing her to jump a bit. They started to speak to her…or at least, that's what Nisa thought they were doing—it honestly just sounded like random babbling. She had no clue what they were saying, but their body language told them everything she needed to know.

They're scared. They're trapped. They're in danger. They want out.

Something's definitely wrong with this place.

I'll be honest, writing Nisa's part was tougher than I thought. I've never played a game where Nisa was a playable character, so I pretty much have to rely on whatever the wiki(s) says that she acts like. Hopefully, I didn't screw up her character.

But hey! At least we're getting through Tropical Resort's acts (or stages or levels or whatever you want to call them)! Platforming! Huzzah! I'll even give you a cookie if you can guess which act Nisa just went through. I'll give you a hint: there's six to choose from.

Also, for the record, I'm not going to recreate all six acts for any of the zones (areas, hubs, whatever). That's just crazy.