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Eggman                                MAGINARYWORLD                                

     Once more, the gradual decay of reality into Maginaryworld is a Dali painting in action. The comfortable, warm interior beach of the Egg Carrier melts away. The eyes grow lidded and heavy. Sleep...

     ...becomes waking beneath the massive red moon, the roiling purple sky, the huge Eggman Empire logo.

     Wizeman, God of Nightmares, is already waiting. The six robot hands are clasped together in a waiting stance. The sound of some deep and creeping music floats around its helmet. Nearby, the gold-domino jester, Reala, waits, tapping their foot repeatedly in the air and looking at a watch. Void, the green-haired creature, stutters over to the guests, a big smile on their face.

     "Welcome back to Egg Night Zone!" Void says cheerfully. Reala clears their throat. Void lowers their head slightly.

     "We've been waiting. We're heading into the first Nightopia today - Emerald Hill Spinball." Reala jerks a thumb at Wizeman. "Master Wizeman is opening the gateway now."

     Void stutters over towards Mordred. "I did some preliminary scouting while it was being formed!" They say excitedly, "It's a big, green beach. It looks like a nice dream."

     "All the better when we turn it into a nightmare." Reala's grin has far too many teeth. A nightmare clown, indeed.

     Wizeman opens its arms. The gate of Egg Night Zone swings open. The ticket-taker clown with their eerie metal smile and their eerie metal eyes produces a stamp in the shape of the Eggman Empire logo for every hand that passes through.

     And then, the party is in a paradise.

     A vast, beautiful blue sky stretches towards the horizon. The gentle, relaxing sound of waves beats against the ground. In the distance, there's a strange formation and a big green emerald up on a high hill; all around it are trees, arranged in some kind of track. Ill-fitting, but gentle, rap music plays alongside the sounds of birds and ocean, melding together into an odd and off-putting soundtrack.

     And then there are the heroes.

     The blue hedgehog. The yellow two-tailed fox. The floating purple jester. The pink hedgehog with a hammer.

     Sonic the Hedgehog is leaning on a strange wall that just sort of emerges from the trees. On the other side, Tails the Fox examines another wall, writing notes on a legal pad. Knuckles the Echidna is laying on the ground humming to the music. Amy Rose plays with a bird.

     NiGHTS flits over to the party.

     "Hello again," they say. Reala tenses. Void waves.

     "Welcome to Emerald Hill Zone. This is the dream of Knuckles The Echidna. Here, you'll be competing in Spinball."

     Void floats over behind NiGHTS. "Th-that means you're going to be bouncing around on the Spinball track against the other team! If we win, we get the Ideya from this Nightopia! G-go team!"
Hesinca "Okay," says Hesinca.

"The dream game thing has started now, right? That means we can kill the other team, right?"

"I brought a gun."

It's a real gun, not one made out of one of her prinnies, even.
Majima Goro     Majima Goro, Hand of the Concord, drifts off to sleep in a floating fortress, waking up in a nightmarish hellscape. A very well-branded nightmarish hellscape, mind. He greets the floating custodians with an overelaborate bow, before slicking his hair with a hand. "Ahhh. Heh. ...Y'know, there's a good joke 'bout there bein' no rest for the wicked, but I lost it." He tuts, and...

Well, moving right along, an emerald, a hill, a pleasant strange track, with rap music that really makes no sense for where they are. "...Eh?" He asks, looking over at the assembled heroes, then over at NiGHTS.
    "Ah, right. You're, eh, representin' the forest animals in this one, ain'tcha. Neehahaha!"

He looks at Helsinca. "...Eh? Weren't ya payin' attention? We gotta play the fuckin' game, not shoot 'em. 'sides, I'm pretty sure that guy," He points to Sonic, "...'s actually faster than that gun anyway. Just simmer down and, uh..."

He taps his foot. "...so, what, do I get into a giant ball or somethin', or just run along the track back and forth?"
Mordred      "A beach, huh? Damn, should've looked for some beachwear, then." Mordred replies to Void with a light sigh, dressed in that ever-comfortable Eggman Empire shirt she had been gifted the last time she was here. There isn't much else that the knight could have worn, so she might as well be wearing thcolors of...

    Actually, it's just because it was the only other thing she had. She'll expand that wardrobe one day. For today, though, she'll have to settle with looking... Actually decently dressed considering the peaceful place the group winds up in. Mordred's even raising an eyebrow in approval at the ill-fitting rap music, grinning slightly when she spots the competition already waiting further ahead in front of them.

    "Yo." NiGHTS gets a proper greeting and hand up in a brief wave, almost as if she's deliberately trying to contrast with the tense atmosphere. "What's this bouncing thing you're talking about, anyway? Ain't pinball about slapping the paddles around and not tilting the machine too hard?" Majima mentions giant hamster balls, and NiGHTS confirms it.

    "Heh. Must suck for anyone without armor, then." She laughs, then sizes up the trio of vaguely dressed forest animals before frowning slightly. "You sure you gonna be okay getting whacked around?"
Bowser Bowser is wearing his 'MaginaryWorld' shirt. Which he had to buy again because the merch didn't come with him, which SUCKS. But he does have cotton candy in the shape of Eggman's head. He is pulling off the nose as the rolls get annoounced, "That's EASY! I thought this would be something hard! Like picking how many fruit to put in a basket, or matching those big cube shapes together, or figuring out how to make bacon sandwiches as fast as possible."

Bowser tosses half of Eggman's sugary face into his mouth, chewing it briefly before noting to Hesinca, "We can't just KILL THEM, first we gotta beat them and show them we are the best, then we'll take over their stuff, then they'll feel so bad they'll admit we are the best."
Sumiko The shift into the Dreamworld was new for her, but Sumiko is on the other side seeing these things for the first time.  Wizeman gets a respectful nod, as Void and Reala get more friendly smiles as they seem easy to get along with.  Through their determination to turn things into a nightmare means little to /her/, as most of her dreams are that anyway.  Right now, Mikoto is in her standard outfit, tattered clothing with a tattered cloak over that, covering her body for the most part, and her hood down, allowing her long dark hair out for a change.

"Huh, so this is the dumb-looking Red thing's dream?  Eh, I've seen worse, I guess.  Though the beach could be done better," She comments, before regarding NiGHTS. Guess that one is on team dumb face.  Yes, that's the best one she has.  

Her eyes search through the enemy team.  So they have an advantage, and her power seeks to steal that advantage in this fight.  After all, if they had arrogance, then she would respond with her overwhelming greed.
Guzma "So, yo, I've been thinking about the ethics of all of this..."

Zipp's statement, as the group approached, causes Guzma to rear his head around. "Huh?"

"Yeah, boss! Like, we're choosing nightmares over dreams, and bad over good...are you sure we should be doing this? Aren't we the baddies?"

Guzma sighed, and hid the fact that he had similar thoughts. They were there, so, he had to play strong. "You're being dumb, Zipp. We're supporting Concord interests. Ethics? Who the heck cares about ethics?!"

Guzma was a bit uncomfortable, as he turns to the rest of the group.

"So, we jump in the pinball course, right? Sure. Me and my goons will rotate. I've got my Pokemon, too. Let's kick their butts."
Metal Sonic      Green Hill Zone. It's always Green Hill Zone. If Metal Sonic has to see Green Hill Zone one more time they're going to lose it. It's just a dream, but the thought of correcting it comes to mind. Maybe turning it into a metallic version. There's a feeling that plans been done once before already, but it's appealing nonetheless.

     The robotic's hedgehog mental anguish about overused zones for the mean time being over, they're set to just angrily glare at everything as they tap their foot throughout the entire explanation, the only acknowledgment they give to the things currently happening being when they look up to stare directly at Sonic.
Flamel Parsons     Flamel Parsons is here! Is it possible to still look like men in black at a beach? Apparently! He doesn't seem to mind. The vague yet menacing government agent seems upbeat about this. "We're on a beach, you just have to figure out some way of keeping your momentum over water and sand. People on beaches have been doing that for thousands of years!" Sand? Wait, but this is GREEN. Well, he'll figure it out. He's clapping his hands together once and rubbing them excitedly. "Though, I guess I have a bit of a cheat."

    He activates LEVITATION, abruptly frictionlessly locking the distance between his body and the ground at about a half-meter, then plants two fingers on each hand on his temples, summoning up what looks like a somewhat translucent sphere of metal plates -- his psi-shield! "This should work for me! Where do we load up and start?" His Telekinesis has already summoned up a pair of large, two-meter-wide translucent hands to operate whatever machinery is necessary to load him in and fire!
Eggman      There's a bunch of chatter. Void grabs the gun out of Hesinca's hands and waves his in front of her. "N-no! No! You're not supposed to do that! Killing people will just destroy the Ideya, and then w-we don't get it either! We d-don't want to fight! Fighting will break the Nightopia!"

     "We *want* the Nightopia," Reala emphasizes, a bit of an unhealthy glow in their eyes. Their gaze is fixed on NiGHTS. NiGHTS gives the other jester a distant smile, which just seems to tick Reala off.

     Sonic taps his feet furiously enough to kick up a cloud of sand around his feet. He's suddenly just kind of standing next to Guzma's minions. "Yeah. That makes you the bad guys. Eggman's a bad guy, man. He's crazy and he's crazy dangerous. Backing him up just means saying it's OK that he's gonna do bad things, 'cause he's not doing them to you." Sonic pokes one of the Goonzmas in the chest. "That's right. You guys are the bad guys. Hope you're okay with it when all these nice dreams turn into that amusement park from heck."

     And then he's gone. NiGHTS floats over to a set of trees and presses a button. A spring appears. Sonic, Knuckles, Tails, and Amy load in, curling up into balls. Sonic starts revving himself up, even. Oh boy.

     "Load up here, please," NiGHTS says, "And please prepare yourselves. This will be an experience indeed."
Eggman      As soon as the spring is pulled, Sonic and friends are off. Sonic's bounding off everything in sight - trees, mysterious random bumpers, a couple weird roulettes in the middle of a copse of trees (!?). Knuckles veers off into the ocean, where octopi arms and shark fins act as bumpers to bounce him to and fro through cards with the faces of a bunch of people (and also Wizeman, NiGHTS, Reala, and Void for some reason?) on them. Amy, meanwhile, uses her hammer to JUMP over some of the ramps and obstacles into more compact areas, where she pinballs about like only a rolling hedgehog can. The Master Emerald goes 'bing' a whole lot of times as numbers start shooting up as fireworks in the sky.

     That's a lot of number.
Hesinca "Alright, so what if we wake up, and *then* we track them down and murder them in their sleep?"

"Mistress Hesinca dood, please, can we just play the minigame?" pleads a nearby prinny. "We already spent a whole scene on explaining the premise and rules, dood."

"Fine, fine... so I just gotta ram into the high scoring stuff, right? Easy! Super easy!"

The demon centaur charges in, and soon finds herself careening around the course out of control - given that she has little control over her own momentum to begin with, this presents a problem very quickly.

"NO FAIR THIS IS HARDER THAN IT LOOKS!"

As she goes careening by again, she starts stomping her feet extra hard with each step - and the earth starts responding, breaking apart to form channels and barriers to redirect her back into the high scoring zones.

"NEVERMIND IT GETS REALLY EASY IF YOU JUST CHEAT!"
Mordred      Sonic explains his view of Eggman's intentions, and Mordred sighs lightly while stepping towards Guzma. She gives him a quick nudge with her elbow, then stares right at the crew of heroes. "That's right, we are the bad guys in this situation. If you don't like it, tough. We ain't a gaggle of dumbasses flying by the seats of our asses over what feels good in our guts." A beat, and then she continues. "If you don't want this place to get wrecked by us and Eggman, then you better make sure you don't slack off against us!"

    This would have sounded so much more impressive if she had her armor on. And if she wasn't shorter than nearly everyone here. Still, the conviction is clear in her voice, and then she stares at the spring while the animal crew do that... Weird ball thing.

    "... Uh. Okay. Screw it, I can do that, too!" And then Mordred steps next to the launching thing, watching while she curls up as best she can. She's holding her knees to her chest as best she can and tries rolling in place without moving.

    Naturally, it doesn't go very well. She flops out of position several times, struggling just to figure out the... All of it.
Sumiko Sumiko moves to slap the Hedgehog's arm away from Guzma and his people.  She gives him a stare, before speaking, "Ignore this jerk.  You're standing by your allies and friends, while he wants you to abandon them because of arbitrary stuff like good and evil.  You should do things because you feel like it, not because of some stupid Hedgehog and his grade school level morality."

Turning, she heads towards the pinball itself.  Quickly she curls into a ball and /spin dashes/ off inside.  She goes bouncing wildly, as this was the first time she had managed to pull this off.  Bouncing around the middle of the arena back and forth before finally out through the top and down to the bottom ending in a very unimpressive bounce.  

"Ok, going to need to get used to /that/."
Majima Goro     Majima, at the moment the spring is pulled...

Is nowhere to be seen.

And then, a long moment afterward, he bursts out of--the thin air, in an explosion of smoke and bright pastel stars. The snakeskin jacket is gone. The black leather pants are gone.

No, he's not naked.

He's wearing a--
    ..it's a...
     It's this. https://pm1.narvii.com/6615/9e06836123423f1cd78aa6f66f6538ef4238a9bf_hq.jpg Can words even do that justice? Of course not. Don't be ridiculous.

He's off like a shot, aiming directly for the first tree. He leaps, pirouetting into the air, bouncing back and resting on one skate. And then, he comes across the channels of earth and barriers, and...he just rides up them. Do tricks give extra points? He has no idea. But he can /absolutely/ get some air to land in high scoring zones, and look hilarious to go with it.
Bowser Bowser tosses the rest of the Eggman head into the air and catches it into his mouth, paper cone and all. He chomps it down, then lets out a brief belch. "AMATEURS!" He bellows out at the various forest animals before he leaps at the spring, shoulder tackling it LIKE A MAN.

Then when he explodes out from it, Bowser pulls his limbs and head into his shell. Trees CRACK like thunder as the massive spiked shell hits them, careening wildly on the belly of the shell. It is probably more dangerous for the other Concord members as there are MENACING SPIKES ALL OVER.
Guzma Guzma's allies step up to support him. That's good. That keeps him on the side of The Bad Guys, because he is very validation-focused.

Zipp, on the other hand, goes quiet, lost in thought. Sonic's a smart guy - he might get that he really actually nudged something to Zipp, before Sonic leaves. Zipp doesn't really cheer as Tupp and Rapp do, but he gives a few 'yo!' from time to time.

Guzma's turn. He releases Golisopod from its Pokeball, and then slouches, climbing on top of the super strong isopod.

"Alright, let's ROLL!"

Golisopod gets into the machine and launches out, as Guzma struggles to hang on for life. It slams into a bumper, Guzma screaming like he's on a rollercoaster, as it uses its claws to literally grab onto the course and redirect itself towards whatever point boosters it can. Guzma looks like a dork, Golisopod looks like an efficient pinball machine, because the bug is extremely good at what it does.

"THIS IS WACK!" Guzma shouts out, trying to do good for the team.
Flamel Parsons     Flamel is ready to dive in, but it looks like the others have a whole lot more readiness. He sticks to the sidelines, ready to tag in when the tagging needs tagged. "It /is/ pretty wack! Good luck, do your best Guzma, I believe in you!" Really that's the only one here who needs any kind of encouragement, you know? He sits on his levitation and considers the situation.

    "I think it probably means something that the large one with the terse voice and the violent look has made a somewhat gambling-derived challenge his home turf." He says. "But I'm not sure how it would be possible to put that information to use and exploit it here. Do you guys have any ideas?"
Eggman      Void sort of hangs around Mordred and pokes her a little. "I think you probably shouldn't curl up...I f-feel like that might hurt a lot more for you than for them..."

     "Don't forget," Reala says to Flamel with a bit of disgust in his voice, "The big, gruff red idiot picked a relaxing beach. And that emerald in the center is the Master Emerald - some kind of power source he guards."
Eggman      As the groups come spinning out of the spinball zone, Sonic unravels first, shooting past Metal Sonic and skidding to a halt. It's a very intentional snub. Of course it is. He does a double finger-gun at Metal, puts a hand on his hip, and looks up at the scoreboard.

     That's a *lot* of number for Team Sonic.

     The rest of the party filters out. A valiant effort indeed, but it doesn't quite match the sheer animalistic (ha ha) skill the Freedom Fighters have at being bounced around like a ball. A nice tiki lounge sort of forms out of nowhere as Sonic crosses the finish line, so people have somewhere to sit amidst the pleasant ocean coolness.

     There's a weird cyborg echidna lady in a blue vest shaking the drinks, but, you know, other than that, a pretty normal bar.

     She's noncanon, don't worry about it.

     Reala's eyes narrow behind their mask as they float near Flamel. "Can you use that, too?" They ask.

     There's some brief social downtime so everybody can get ready to go again, but most of the first crew is gonna need *more* time than they've been allotted to rest.
Majima Goro     Majima saunters over to the weird tiki bar, whipping out a cigarette and lighting it to go with the drink he orders. Whiskey, on ice. You know, the thing you get in a bar when things actually matter. "...Aiiyah." He says. "...That shit's harder than it looks, yeah? How much practice ya guys had at this already?" He waves his cigarette vaguely in Sonic's direction.
Mordred      Another roll, another flop. "I almost got it!" Mordred snaps at Void, growing visibly frustrated with how not she's got it. She does manage a few consecutive front rolls along the ground, but there's no way she's going to get any kind of distance or air time in any reasonable time frame with that kind of progress alone. "Did they stick their legs in like this? Nah, could've sworn the knees went like..."

    She's got the posture right, at least. Just not the... Everything else. "Feels so freaking stupid, but... I'll figure it out!" She shouts at nobody in particular, thne looks up as it looks like the finish line is already being crossed. "Son of a...! Tch. Just round one. I'll get it the next one!" Again, more shouting, more.. Not at anyone specific. Void's still there, though, and Mordred locks eyes rather quickly. "Oi. Give me a boost. Maybe gettin' in the air'll help me figure this out."

    She steps over to the spring, curls up into that weird headball squat again, then waits.
Eggman      "Tons," Sonic says, taking a tall glass of what is probably lemonade with a straw in it. "It's how I fight Doctor Eggman most of the time. Just bounce and pow!"

     "Robots blow up."

     "Although I bet it won't be so easy to beat Wizeman. Gives me the creeps."
Sumiko Sumiko usually isn't this motivated unless money is involved, but now she's fully into it.  Why?  Because there is a giant emerald she could steal.  Well, not /actually/ steal...but...

Also because she's annoyed by Sonic.

She grabs something to drink after the fun and moves towards Flamel.  "So I think I have an idea.  So our allies said that Knuckles guards the emerald right?  This is all a representation of his dreams?  I think the thing we're spinballing over IS the emerald, or rather, inside.  Like a projection?"

"So maybe we could steal it.."
Bowser Bowser is used to this. It's break time. "We are going to CREAM you guys," he points at Knuckles, fuming.

Then he moves up to the bar, "What do you want to drink?" He points at the bar, "Give me one of those Pineapple Diaquiris!" He demands, getting a drink with at least five little decorations in a tiki glass.
Eggman      Void, eager to please, glitches their way through the air to Mordred and grabs onto Mordred's sides. Void is much stronger than they look - Mordred is *flung* into the air quite hard. Void glitches up alongside her. In case she needs help!

     Knuckles scoffs at Bowser. "Whatever." Tails sits down next to Bowser and looks up at him. "Why are you helping Doctor Eggman, anyway? I feel like you're pretty familiar, but I didn't think you were a really *bad* guy..."
Flamel Parsons     "Oh, you mean insight into people through the allegorical lens of mental imagery and psychological construct?" Flamel tilts his head at Reala. "Well, 'use' isn't really a good word. If I know some fact about another person's mental flaws, it's not like I can push a fresh new button and debilitate their brain. But understanding others is how we get by in the world! Finding new ways to know people progresses little things we can't exactly put into words. Does that make any sense?"

    He disperses his setup enough to grab something to drink, and meets with Sumiko. "You know, I don't think stealing it is /quite/ how this works, but you actually have a fantastic idea, pointing out the guard. That's the most important thing on the field. It stands to reason that some parts of all this are 'guarding' it. Pinball likes multi-part setups -- maybe when we're out on the board, we can look for something that will have an effect on the emerald, a way to score more points through it. He'd make it the biggest point-value gain if he was building this, consciously or unconsciously, I think."
Bowser Bowser leans against the bar, putting the straw into his giant mouth. He drains half of it in one go, "Listen, one, he's a smart guy. B, that Sonic guy IS kind of annoying. And last, I need his help if I'm going to kidnap Princess Peach without that stupid MARIO getting in the way. I'm JUST TRYING TO GET MARRIED!" He crushes the tiki cup in his hand. He glares at it and slams it on the tiki bar, "ONE MORE!"
Metal Sonic Metal scratches the bottom of their nose as they watch everyone make a leap into the pinball machine and just kind of calculates mental notes. For himself. Not for them. Not that anyone here except maybe the fake Sonic could parse what he's thinking. But even they would miss the subtleties they have planned due to their barbaric nature.

     Bowser orders a drink, which promptly disappears in a flash as it's contents are suddenly dumped on Sonic's head. Or at least, directed at his head. If he's paying attention, he's probably fast enough to get out of the way.

     Luckily for Bowser, the mysterious super fast person was courteousenough to make him a new drink, and now Metal Sonic is casually leaning against the refreshment table like nothing has happened. He's not ordering anything though. Because Eggman has enough aesthetic sense to know giving them a mouth would be dumb.
Eggman      Reala purses their lips. They don't say anything about understanding, but there's the sense in their eyes that that's more than just 'something somebody said' - it's a new idea to the Nightmaren, one they're turning over in their head and contemplating. Flamel can tell that this is an intelligent, independent creature that Wizeman made - not some bumbling dreamself, but a real, living thing spawned from a subconscious world.

     And he's teaching them.

     Finally, Reala says, "You think the Emerald itself is worth more points? Intriguing. I'll go take a look at the board from above. Perhaps I can find a route for you." With that, Reala sort of disappears. NiGHTS looks concerned.

     Tails leans back as Bowser smashes the Tiki cup. "Wow...um, this Princess must be really special to you, huh? That's great." He's just not even touching the kidnap subject, because Tails is much, much smarter than Sonic. "Amy knows a thing or two about that stuff. Amy!"

     Amy toddles over. "You're trying to get married? That sssounds pretty familiar..."

     Sonic is absolutely fast enough to catch Metal Sonic's flung drink. A white blur of a hand snaps up to grab it and fire it back at Metal Sonic like a bullet. Metal Sonic will probably avoid it - and the drink will enters the spinball zone and start bouncing furiously around.
Bowser Let's be honest, by the time Bowser's arm brain gets to his real brain, he doesn't actually notice the two seconds his drink was gone.
Majima Goro     Majima shrugs, nodding. "Eh, fair 'nough." Sonic gets a nod, as he looks back into his drink.

"Heh. Ya ain't--" ...Then there's a drink, and it's caught, and thrown, back into the arena, and he rubs his chin. "..Wait. Who gets the points for that shit?" He waves his arm towards where the drink is now flying frictionless through the arena.
Eggman      "It's a hazard for round two," Sonic says with a big grin.
Guzma While everyone else plans, Guzma's drinking tiki drinks. The trio also have their own cups, but Zipp's lost in his. "Bad guys, huh..." He mutters, low but enough to probably be picked up by the perceptive.
Hesinca Hesinca trudges off of the spinball field, looking exhausted.

"Someone else do the thing next round..." she says, reaching into her armor and pulling out a glowing floor tile.

"I'm gonna go visit the spa."

She drops the glowing tile on the floor and then disappears into it.
Mordred      That's one way to do it. Mordred maintains her assball posture as she goes flying upwards, spinning a few times in midair and taking note of the way the wind feels. The air. She's jumped huge distances before, and she's ranq uickly before, but spinning through the air in this manner is new.

    It starts to click. "So that's what they're doing...!" As she starts to plummet back down to the earth... Ground... Dream-beach-floor below, the knight starts laughing, sounding just as confident as her usual self despite doing absolutely nothing to try and slow her descent. "Look out, fox and... 'Hedgehog' and 'echidna'! I got your number in round two!" She boasts while whirling herself around in midair, raising her hand in a firm thumbs-up towards the helpful Void before landing inthat generic hero-crouch right by the bar.

     "Don't think you'll get off so easy in the next one. I got it all figured out this time." Mordred laughs again, then turns to whoever's manning the bar. "Orange cream soda. Make it big!"
Bowser "OH yea, I've got the patterns all picked up, I've got these napkins ready with yellow flowers, I know they are her favorites and I got this..." He doesn't stop.
Sumiko Sumiko nods towards Flamel, he's the expert here, and so are the little minions of the nightmare guy. So she leans back and enjoys her time of rest. "Well, glad I could help. I'm not the strongest, so I've learned to try and think around problems."
Eggman      Knuckles' shoulder rolls as he looks over at Zipp. "Yeah. Bad guys."

     "It sounds like it's pretty simple, right? That's because it is." Knuckles shrugs. "It's not like Eggman's making some kind of argument in his favor. He wants to pave over the world. It's not a matter of some kinda good-reason excuse or something where he's misunderstood. He knows what he wants. He knows what he's doing. He knows he's the bad guy."

     Knuckles pokes Zipp in the chest with a big blunt glove. The aforementioned knuckles also poke a little. "I don't think you're a bad guy, or you wouldn't be worried about it. You don't feel like the kinda guy to just let yourself get used like this. Eggman...I don't think he has friends."
Majima Goro Majima gets up, stretching. "...Aiya. I gotta look at this track a bit better, eh?" Sonic gets a nod. "...Neheh. Ya ain't too bad, though. Ya clearly live the way ya wanna live, no bullshit. I respect it. I'm stayin' outta this one, but you watch out for next round, eh?"
Eggman      Sonic chuckles and pats Majima on the side as he goes past. "Thanks. You don't seem so bad yourself. Too bad you're working with that fat jerk. Let me know if you ever decide to play on the right side." And then he's standing over at the launchpad, tapping his foot furiously.
Guzma Zipp holds his cup tightly as Knuckles gives the chest poke. In the end...he actually agrees with the Echidna. "Yeah...I'll talk to him, yo. I might not be able to reason with him, but then at least I tried to do something, right?"

And then, a friendly nod. "Good luck in the spinball, yo!" It's weird. They're fighting, but Zipp doesn't hate these guys, because they believe the same thing as him. That this is weird and wrong. And in the end...

Well, Guzma will always make the right decision, right?
Eggman      "Yeah," Knuckles says, "Good luck out there." And then he stands up and heads over to join Sonic.
Guzma As Knuckles wishes him luck back, Tupp, Rapp, and Zipp go to the starting line as well. It's their turn. Instead of summoning Pokemon, however, they...

Kinda cheat?

See, they stack up on each other's shoulders, Zipp>Tupp>Rapp from bottom to top, and all squeeze into the launcher together. When they get fired off, they split up, the three of them trying to hit as many points as possible. They're technically one entity, but with more reach!

"THE BOSS WAS RIGHT, THIS IS PRETTY WACK, YO!" Tupp shouts out. "YO!" "YO!"
Bowser Bowser rubs at his chin. He's gotta figure out how to cheat this whole thing.

It's weird being IN the system, instead of being outside of it, not allowed to play, because everyone sucks, so he has to steal shit from other people in the game HE IS NOT BITTER.

But Bowser's fore brain doesn't get to his hind brain in time, so instead he throws himself into the spring.

As Bowser starts to swing at full tilt in his shell, sliding easily across the field as if it were made of ice, HAMMERS VOMIT FORTH FROM EVERY ORIFICE in the shell.

HAMMERS CRASH INTO TREES, HAMMERS EXPLODE AGAINST GEMS, HAMMERS CRASH INTO HAMMERS.
Sumiko Sumiko with a grin at Flannel walks towards the starting line again.  She gives the other team nothing but a smile, disregarding her early grumpiness.  "May the best woman win," She says, obviously speaking to herself.  

Crouching, she proceeds to SPIN DASH again, flying forward and then bouncing again.  This time she aims to bounce around the green hills part of the zone, aiming to go through a loop, and then fly off towards one of the hills.

It reveals a bounce pad, where she bounces up towards a small cliff and quickly bounces between several cliffs.  

Mid-air, she summons a mount, catching her and tossing her back towards the ground in the reverse of her same direction, bouncing furiously.  She repeats this, before finally flying out over the water, hitting an octopus, and hitting the finish line.
Flamel Parsons     Flamel gets up from the bar and heads out. Re-summoning his LEVITATION and his SHIELD, he loads up. Let's make this work. A quick load into the spring, the giant psi-hands actually manually operate the plunger with fine degrees of finesse. He shoots fast and quick, precisely going for those lights he heard about earlier.

    His own particular gimmick manifests in simply embracing the aesthetic and the terms of the game here: His pair of giant psi-hands settle somewhere and muster the telekinetic influence of several large FLIPPERS. While Parsons himself can get some maneuverability, since this is his levitation, he needs to move /fast/, and that means harsh turns. By flipping the flippers quickly and with short rests, he can precisely shoot himself at any of those orange lights, trying to roll over them or ram into them where needed. CLAIRVOYANCE can give him a bird's-eye view of things, letting him track more of the lights ideally, since this place is entirely made of perceivable psychic residue.

    This /should/ be straightforward. Get all the lights, get the prize at the top. Hopefully, right?
Mordred      And then it's time to get ready for round two! After chugging down her drink, Mordred gets oto the spring. She curls up into that weird ball. She doesn't roll, she doesn't spin, and she doesn't move.

    She waits for the spring to launch her, and that's when the fruits of her training pay off! All... Five minutes of it, but still. As she soars through the air like a majestic human cannonball, she maintains that balled up pose, and she goes higher and higher, high enough to reach the very sun itself!

    Well, not really reaching the sun, but she might as well have. It's not until the descent that Mordred starts to actually spin a little, rolling forwards and building up speed or negating air resistance or... Something. She heard about it on TV once, and it feels like something's happening with all the spinning she's doing!

     She very nearly forgets to actually land properly, but her feet hit the ground in mid-roll, and she springs forward with all the speed she can muster. There's a bit of disorientation as Mordred flings herself along the path, bounding off platforms and doing relatively acrobatic front flips each time, but she's finding her rhythm, and she's howling with excitement each time she manages to leap across platforms with just the right amount of spin to land on her feet to get that little extra boost of momentum for the next one.

    Realistically, though? She probably would have done just fine just running at the targets like a 'normal' person. Believing that she's actually picked up something by trying to imitate the Freedom Fighters' spinning maneuver is certainly helping her mood, though, if nothing else.
Hesinca Hesinca re-emerges from the glowing floor tile.

She's freshly cleaned and her armor has been polished, and in general she looks ready to rip it up next round.
Majima Goro Majima is, for his part, mostly consuming alcohol, energy drinks, whatever food is available.
Metal Sonic      Metal Sonic rolls up to the launcher in the proverbial sense when it's finally their time to play pinball, and literally rolls up when they load themself in to be launched. They don't seem to be too bothered of being used as a living ball, probably because they're used to it. He doesn't seem to get any amusement out of it either though. It's just a means to the end.

     When they're finally inside the actual pinball machine, they unfurl themselves, falling down in a more traditional sense. They only recurl themselves after they come in contact with, and even then, they reach a hand out to parkour and direct themselves in a desired direction while doing a pointless and over the top flourish before doing so.

     The name of the game is to hit everything that he wants to hit and rack up BIG POINTS. And like some sort of machine learning algorithm that didn't decide to cheat for infinite reinforcement, he seemed to find the most effective method in doing so.

     Minus all the stupid 90's tier skateboard stunts they're doing. That's pretty suboptimal. But it looks cool.
Eggman      The Goonzma stack will probably feel sick after the fact, but boy did they adapt. Rapp, Zipp, and Tupp only have to hold on to one another as they careen through the field. Every tree is rubber, every spring is painful, every bounce pad sends them on violent new adventures in the field of gastrointestinal distress. They bounce around, clearing the way for Flamel to investigate some of the orange lights.

     Bowser's bounds about like a professional. He's done this before. He's the King of the Koopas. Koopas practically make a living out of being bounced around in their shells. The hammers come down on secret switches, flipping open new routes to take advantage of with what limited aim the party can produce. Sumiko goes through one of them to hit the loop and find herself hurtling along the water, skidding along to grab another of the orange lights for Flamel. She rebounds off the octopus and is deposited outside in the tiki bar.

     Metal Sonic's show is nothing short of disgusting. He's a machine engineered by Eggman to exceed Sonic, and in this case, he certainly lives up to the promise. Styling and profiling is the name of the game. The metal hedgehog spins out with one of the orange lights after racking up an enormous number of points.

     Flamel is the last out.

     Each light is a piece of a voice. It's a voice that is absolutely foreign to the Nightopia, and the dreamscape in general. He can't hear it - it's very far away - but it has *some* connection to the Master Emerald, some jumbled-up hiccup of a *thing* that links to the Emerald. In fact, once he collects all of them (with some help from the rest of the party), Flamel can see a 'flicker', a sepia-toned historical filter, over the Emerald Hill Zone - some kind of massive ruins built around the Master Emerald. And, with the historical filter up, he can find the optimal path in *no* time - just a bunch of bumpers left behind to take somebody *straight* up to the emerald's path.

     Team Sonic skids out of the spinball with far, far fewer points this time. Sonic shakes his head. "Dang!"

     "We're all tied up now," Amy says, putting a hand on Sonic's shoulder, "We just have to not lose next time, right? We're the good guys. We won't let Eggman have his way!"
Majima Goro Majima cracks his knuckles, looking over at Sonic. "Neehahah! Come on. Ya just givin' us a fightin' chance, right? Wouldn'ta been any fun if ya just wiped us clean in two rounds in a row!"

His arms stretch upwards, and he looks over at the course again. "Ahh...kinda wish they had this shit in Kamurocho. Could use more practice with this, ya know?"

Amy gets a look. "Ahh...heheh. ..Nah, nah. Ya gotta work for it. Bein 'the good guys' doesn't getcha shit in this world, Amy-chan~" He grins madly, digging a finger into his cheek and twisting it in that 'cute' way.

"...Now come on, eh? We got a round left, quit whinin' and get ready!"
Mordred      Mordred wants to pant. She put a lot into that last round, she's a little winded from all the flipping, but she actually made some good progress especially with that 'technique' she's learned. She can't show weakness just yet! "Alright... Feeling it. Feeling it. Just one round left, and that'll settle this one!"

    Sounding and feeling enthused, the Knight starts stretching her arms from side to side while turning to the multi-colored animal force. "So somethin's bugging me about all of you. Do all animals in your world know how to talk and run like people? Or is it.. Like..." She squints slightly, looking towards Tails in particular as the sole member that actually looks like something she recognizes.

    "Do you only hunt the dumb ones to eat, but not the talkers and the walkers?"
Hesinca "If you think you're the good guys, then you have a painful lesson ahead," calls Hesinca.

"... Well, no, I'm lying, you've got a painful lesson ahead of you whether you think you're the good guys or not."

She gets in line for the launcher and starts stretching. "Right! Maximum effort!"
Sumiko "Give it up, you guys already lost," Sumiko says while walking from the finish line.  "You've lost because you don't know what friendship actually is.  You're just sitting there high fiving each other and going 'wow aren't we so good'."

"You go around trying to place doubt in other's friendships, calling them evil.  Look, you want to stop Eggman, sure whatever.  Goals conflict all the time, his dream and yours aren't compatible.  Slapping a label on him like that?"

"That's no good," she walks away towards the bar and drinks some more.
Bowser "PPFFFFFFFFFFT!" Bowser pfts, loudly. "You are going to lose!" He gets a big bowl of brazil nuts from the bar, "AND WE ARE GOING TO WIN! HECK YEA! IN YOUR FACE!"
Eggman      Amy sort of stares at Mordred. "...we have humans, too, you know. There's a bunch of cities with humans. We usually call them 'overlanders', but that's, uh...Tails, what's the word?"

     "Archaic," Tails says, "It's a relic term from a while ago. Dr. Gerald Robotnik coined it in a paper about Echidna archaeological records."

     "Right." Amy puts a hand on her hip, still staring at Mordred. "Also, we are people, thanks."

     Tails sighs and runs his fingers along the bridge of his nose. "You eat animals, right? And you feed animals to other animals? You have tigers, and bears, and they eat animals. Is it really that weird that we also eat animals? I don't know other foxes and it doesn't bother me when they get eaten by wolves, and Sonic doesn't know other hedgehogs and it doesn't bother him when they get eaten by whatever hedgehogs get eaten by."

     Majima gets a grin back from Sonic. "Yeah, something like that, I guess. Gotta be fun, right? More fun to crush you guys in round three than have a total shutout."

     "We're trying to save the world here," Knuckles reminds him, pushing Sonic forwards.

     Amy scratches her quills. "Eggman slaps the label on himself, though. He *says* he's the bad guy. He *openly* says he's the bad guy. He *knows* he's the bad guy. Heck, he introduces himself to everybody as the bad guy! That's not about friendship or anything, that's just..."

     "We can't afford to lose," Knuckles shortcuts, "That's all. You don't have to play her game, Amy. She already decided that Eggman's her friend for some reason, and that's all there is to it."

     Amy kicks at the dirt, frustrated, and follows Knuckles away.
Bowser "YOU ARE GOING TO LOSE!" Bowser calls out after Amy. He feels good about himself.
Eggman      "YOU'LL NEVER GET MARRIED IF YOU ACT LIKE A JERK ALL THE TIME!" Amy shouts back.
Bowser Bowser's head reels back as if he were punch, his hands shattering around the brazil nut bowl. "I'LL POUND YOUR WHOLE TEAM INTO PASTE!"
Metal Sonic As Metal Sonic leaves the course, he feigns cleaning his ears and picking his nose in disinterest. He doesn't have either those though, so it's kind of weird, but at least it fits their attitude.

     "Friendship and luck are a quanity that the fake is well known for having, insulting them in that regard is pointless and factually incorrect."

     Metal Sonic is too short to put a hand on Sumiko's shoulder because he's only three feet tall, but given the way he's speaking, one can kind of feel that that's the tone of voice he's going for.

     "Our goals are also, by how society as a whole defines, evil. Though I understand that people don't like to admit being as such, so I don't blame you for trying to justify otherwise."

     There's a long awkward pause, before Metal Sonic speaks up again, though his tone now is a lot more casual. More like a certain blue hedgehog than his own.

     "So what I'm trying to say is, own what we're doing and call the fake stupid idiot scumbag. The moral high ground thing is overdone."
Sumiko "Yeah, I did decide that Knucklehead. When I was in a very bad place, he tried to help me out of it. Everyone in the Concord did, and here I am. I pay back my debts. Also, if you don't put lables on him, then why is he Eggman, instead of his real name? Hmm?"
Flamel Parsons     There we are. There's a bit more of this in here of Knuckles than he meant. This is part of the mental vault, and Flamel can *make it* up to the Emerald, impacting it for whatever points it offers! Yesss, a perfect approach here! Not breaking the rules, just engaging with the medium, grappling properly with the brain -- it's psychonautry, in its essence, if not its practice. The same concepts, broadly. Though, how will they do the same for the less simple of the four...?

    He slides out and exits with a dramatic skid. It's looking like things have wrapped. He breathes a relieved sigh! Time to wander back over to his team. "Good idea, Sumiko!" He gives an appreciative clap on the shoulder to her. And then he quickly heads to Bowser. "Hey, big guy, she's just trying to go for your weak points. You're wealthy and dedicated, you're absolutely gonna get married someday." He also looks to Metal Sonic, and then... nods! "Yeah, this /is/ pretty evil. I mean, I could talk about how this is for the greater good of Nightmare management, but it's pretty bad. I think that proper uncritical support is key to improving psychological state though! I bet this will help Eggman in more ways than one, if he can depend on us and we deliver like this. Evil or no!"
Mordred      "Huh. Your world sounds weird. I need to see how they handle doors sometime." Mordred, ever the excitable one, keeps grinning like an idiot while listening intently to Amy's and Tails' explanations. If ntohing else, she's certainly attentive to what they're saying. "Not people like 'people', but people like-" She exaggerates walking on two legs and standing upright. "-instead of 'animals' like-" She then starts bounding around on all fours like some kind of cat or dog or something.

    She does it a little too easily.

     "Not that weird, nah. I'm just wondering if you go hunting like... Jumping on 'em and biting into their necks, or if you just grab a rifle or spear or something." Again, she's looking right at Tails, although there's a curious look directed at Sonic and Amy when hedgehogs are brought up again.

    "What do...? Hm." Mordred makes a mental note to find a meat market later. Alternatively, a pet store.
Eggman      "...I usually go to the *grocery store*," Amy emphasizes at Mordred.
Bowser Bowser flexes his arm, "Heck yea I am! She's really going to love my ideas for mandatory military into socialized healthcare and taking over Block Kingdom!"
Mordred "Oh. That's... Normal." Mordred sounds intensely disappointed at that fact.
Hesinca Hesinca gets into the launcher. "Alright, here we... GO!"

There's no chicanery this time - just raw effort and power, as the demon throws herself at bumper after bumper, trying to compensate for lack of control with sheer speed and power and endurance.

"HARDER!"

"FASTER!"

She slams herself off a flipper, careening all over the board like a bat out of hell.

(Which is half right, since she's not a bat.)
Majima Goro     It's time. Majima stretches out, readying for The Spring. "Arright. I think I get this shit now, eh?"
Just before it comes out, however, he draws something, flaring with a yellow light. He's got a baseball bat. Bright, shiny, colorful, metal baseball bat. Once he's launched, he's off on those roller skates, going as fast as he can. He's making this happen. He is turning this around. He was, in fact, born to make history.
    Majima is not set up to go to the Mystical Emerald part, but as the first bumper approaches, he just lights up.

HEAT ACTION: ESSENCE OF PINBALL

And just as he impacts the bumper, the bat is swung--not only offering him extra speed, but letting him /control/ his direction without slowing him down, and he just manically starts spinning around, swinging the bat as need be to direct himself. He already saw all the high-scoring zones earlier on his first, leisurely jaunt. Now it's time to swoop in and clean up on every weird little tropical niche.
Guzma Guzma is purposely ignoring Zipp's debate on the radio. He could silence him, but that'd be bad for morale, and honestly, Zipp's saying good things. Maybe let it ride.

When they get back in, he summons Golisopod again, and they roll in. The same clawing mechanism is used again, but this time, blasts of water are used to actually just spray at the bumpers as they pass by, trying to ring them extra times! It's rank cheating, but...

Amy was using her hammer, so who gives a damn?
Sumiko Sumiko crouches, giving a fangy smile towards the other members of Team Sonic. Why is she messing with them so much?  Maybe the stuff with Zipp had gotten under her skin and now she's taking it out on them.  It's almost like maybe Sumiko isn't a healthy individual.  However, she does love herself more now, thanks Doc.

Bouncing through the zone again, in her spin dash, she aims to be /extremely flashy/ this time.  Grinding off the edge of the map, bouncing across several pads before doing a cut-through of the entire map, trying to hit /every single bumper/.

Why?  To literally style on Team Sonic, because they already won.  Everything else was just showing off.  As if saying, 'no matter what I do, we already won.'
Mordred      Back to work. Mordred gets into position for round three, and she's ready for thel aunch this time. The ascent. The descent. How the very foliage works like rubber than leaves and branches, how the floor feels like ice. Everything's going to feel better this second time around, and the Knight of Treachery gets her chance to shine once more! Hurtling forwards with far more confidence than even her first (technically the second) round, she starts putting it all together.

    Trees are used to slingshot Mordred forwards. Hills are used to build speed going downwards and ramp off of going upwards. Springs are used to change direction abruptly to take sharp corners. Boxes are... Well, boxes are fun to crash through. Mordred makes sure to grab a few on the way, occasionally throwing them ahead at the springs just to see what happens.

     There's even a few points when Mordred curls up into a ball again to try bouncing off the springs that way. It won't end well, and it only takes about three bad impacts before she settles for using her feet again, but it's a learning experience!
Bowser Listen, Bowser has teamed up with worse people to get what he wants. The heart wants what it wants. And if he has to break a few million eggs to find TRUE LOVE, he'll do it. He has no shame. Yea, Eggman is kind of terrible, but hey. THE HEART WANT WHAT IT WANTS.

Bowser goes for bombs. It's not easy using bobombs. You can't just drop one and it explodes. You have to drop it, wait, and then bounce back at it and explode off.

Anyone with an advanced knowledge of physics and geometry can take advantage of this.

Which is why Bowser just spews a whole bunch of them and lets whatever the fudge happen actually happen, sending him rocketing away in a sudden violent burst.
Eggman      It is one hell of a show.

     Majima's baseball bet. Majima's Essence of Pinball. The ex-gangster just goes whirling round and around and around and around, in whatever direction he chooses, bending himself into every high-scoring zone and at least once knocking aside one of Team Sonic's members in the process. He bounces about everywhere, pinging off the various high score fields - the faces, the roulettes, everything - and cleaning up.

     Sumiko grinds and twists and flips and whirls, bouncing against every bumper. In the process she nearly touches the emerald, but only nearly - her fingers whizz just by it as she passes. She gets pretty much every bumper, knocking down plant-shaped ones and bounding off trees.

     Guzma blasts left, and right, and every which way. Like Majima he's got full control of himself - and like Majima he knows where all the high-score hits are, because he's done this once before and he was paying attention. Now he's in *control*. Now he's *got this*. The Boss Man has it down pat and it shows. Golisopod whirls into several of the inexplicable gambling machines, stuck there for a moment, before it uses its water burst to fix the outcome.

     And Hesinca, well, it's raw power and direct endurance. It's not surprising how much a big centaur can hit in one pass. It is surprising that she's enough of a brick to keep hitting it, throwing her weight around to hammer against things that neither Majima nor Sumiko is heavy enough to make a real impact on. She knocks through some of the trees that they can't, pushes aside paths that they can't reach.

     Mordred, meanwhile, has decided that exhaustion is for other people, and throws herself back in at full force. She smashes across the field the way she smashes through everything - directly and madly. She crashes, she bashes, she slashes probably at least once to get a sudden spike out of her way (of course there's sudden spikes, this is Spinball). Mordred is a red streak in contrast with Knuckles', a crazy bouncing red demon amidst the green.

     Bowser doesn't care. Bowser doesn't do complex. Bowser does simple. Bowser does 'bombs everywhere.' Bowser does 'I'm just gonna fly through the air with the greatest of ease by rocket-jumping the entire course.' Unsurprisingly it is way more effective at sending Bowser barreling alongside Hesinca and Mordred, the other two Huge Powerhouses, who just kind of keep on going and don't stop.

     And at the end, everybody hits the bumpers up to the emerald Flamel located, and the score goes insane.

     By the time Team Sonic emerges, they have a really good score.

     By the time Team Eggman emerges...

     Their score is still ticking upwards.

     The fireworks are clear. Team Eggman wins. Sonic has just enough time to say, "No!", before the Master Emerald cracks. Green energy pours straight up and out of it, a fire hydrant of raw creative force.

     The Nightopia disintegrates.

     Sonic, Knuckles, Tails, and Amy vanish. NiGHTS hangs there, alone in the void, looking sadly at the font of green power in the middle of it. Then, NiGHTs vanishes too.

     Void whoops, "We won!"
Eggman      The green energy begins to flow upwards and outwards. It's a geyser against a ceiling. Glittering green rain falls from on high, spilling across the void in little droplets.

     The gates of Egg Night Zone swing open from nowhere, cracking through the space into the remnants of the Nightopia. The massive Wizeman floats into the void, followed by a number of jesters. Both Reala and Void drop to one knee. The terrible god of Eggman's design hangs before the party, the eyes on its hands looking down at them.

     "Well done."

     "You have earned this Ideya. So it shall be you who shape it. Decide what form you shall give it, and it shall be given form."
Flamel Parsons     Alright, let's go! Back into PINBALL mode, Flamel launches with a heavy rush. For him, he doesn't have anything stylish or impressive to close this out. His skills are the social, the psychological; his work here has already been done, and so he simply focuses as best he can, using basic pinball skills, on accumulating all the points he can with the opportunities presented by the emerald's shifts. Let's see what all we can do here! He's just drinking in the last of this Nightopia's sights and sounds, enjoying the beach, the ocean, the hills, the gorgeous beauty of the emerald and of the environment.

    The smile stays on his face even knowing this beauty is going to vanish like a forgotten dream soon. Things aren't beautiful because they last forever, and a dream wasn't good because you never woke up.

    And once he skids out of the Spinball field, it soon becomes time to shape.
Bowser The entire world is that much more doomed to being a nightmare scape where no one will be able to dream anything but Eggman dreams. They won't be able to sleep, they will only buy and consume Eggman products and pave the way for Eggman to rule a portion of the world.

Creativity in the world will die and people will become sleepless zombies.

BUT WHO CARES BECAUSE WE WON! Bowser pumps his arms in the air, "TAKE THAT, FOREST ANIMALS! WE BET YOU! WHO IS THE BEST, CONCORD IS THE BEST! AITCH YEA!"
Flamel Parsons     "Hmmm." Flamel says. "That's a good question. Well, I don't have much in the way of original ideas on that topic. But I do have... an awful lot of plagiarism I can do!" He plants one pair of fingers on his temple, and then takes the other hand and just... sort of... reaches into his own skull, rummaging around.

    Out comes some of the man's own personal history. The minds of others. Pieces, fragments of worlds from other minds, in strange, shimmering mirages. "I do have all the pieces of minds I used to visit, if you think those might be a pleasant sort of dreamscape to deal with!" An ancient chinese mansion's rooms. A hospital's winding halls. A port town's clustered buildings. A vast, ancient library. A great, vast beehive. A densely-clustered old study, and ancient, wild frontiers full of jungle wildlife. A vast industrializing city. Towering mountains with an ancient, icy fortress topping them. A massive underground laboratory...

    "I think you could make something good out of some of these pieces, if you want!" He says, cheerfully, as his brain leaks shimmering architecture into the void. "Go ahead and take whatever you like!"
Hesinca Hesinca steps up.

"I got this, then..."

She reaches into the Ideya, and starts feeling around. "... Oh! Oh, okay... it's..."

She starts 'painting'. "It's familiar. Granted, I'm usually making imaginary hellscapes to torture human souls, but the principle remains the same..."

She starts working. "You make in the abstract - make the broad strokes. Beaches, beaches of pristine crystal sand, and let the dreamers fill in the exact details..."

She crafts. "Little tide pools here and there, for some variety, a little cove - gotta have one of those underwater caves that you can only get to by swimming in when the tide is low..."

"... Sand, though - the sorta sand that's just the 'right' kind? Dream sand. The sort that doesn't get into your beach picnic or stick to you - unless it's just before it's time to go home, when you can wash it off and feel just so clean again..."

"And it stretches out, either side, on and on... varied terrain, stuff to see if you go walking, but never far from the exit when it's time to go back in..."

"... And framing it all, this little winding path between the sand dunes - maybe add some wooden boardwalk, the kind that makes a satisfying sound when you walk on it - so that you get the scent of the ocean first and then the beach just comes into view around a dune as you round the corner, stretching out, the sun reflected on the calm waters..."
Majima Goro     Majima is an architect.
Y'all remembered that, right? He does architecture. He designed an office building. This is Knowledge: Architecture right here.
You have given this man raw creative power, and he has used it to....

Okay, never mind, he put up the framework for a hotel, the rebar. With a crane next to it.

Foottap. Foottap.
He waves his hands again, and then 'pours' the concrete. Tap. Tap. Then the wiring snakes up from..somewhere, like crawling insects, flitting about inside as light bulbs pop and form into existence. The crane collapses down and collapses into a small explosion of patio deck and furniture that arranges itself, as the building 'grows' a skin of cladding, glass dripping into place.

Then he realizes he's made something about fifteen stories high, so he just 'squishes' it and 'stretches' it out to be about four stories long, and vaguely U-shaped instead, around the central patio area. There. You can't have a beach resort without a hotel. That's just how things work.
Mordred      There's all sorts of things that belong on a beach. Food, waves, giant fish to become the food and create giant waves, things to ride those waves... Mordred's mind is actually going a mile a minute for once, the sheer breadth of possibilities just churning in her head as the Concord achieves victory in Spinball.

     The Ideya is there for the taking, the blocks are in place thanks to... Whatever it is Flamel's doing that she doesn't quite understand, but Mordred can certainly see it working. Peering at the pieces, peeking at what's already being done, she starts adding her own touches to make everything BIGGER and BETTER. Bigger hot dogs. Bigger pretzels. Bigger funnel cake. Bigger whales for bigger waves. Surfboards and jetskis.

    And a JUNGLE FRONTIER to get the blood pumping when water won't do. There has to be something to do here during the winter months, after all!
Sumiko The beach should also be on some sort of island...a VOLCANO ISLAND. Why? Because then it can also have HOT SPRINGS. Sumiko, wanting a place where she could go all out in her indulgence wants somewhere where there can be anything she wants to do.

Also, most everyone else has gotten what she wanted already.
Metal Sonic     'Shape the Idyea'

     Metal Sonic briefly considers helping. But ultimately decides against it, instead leaning against a conveniently placed rock as shapes the dream to their whim. If he's going to do any shaping, it's going to be to the Fake Sonic's dream. For now, he's keen on just keeping an eye on everyone and making sure nobody makes anything vulgar our dumb. Like some sort of censor bot. Except cooler.
Guzma Once the resort is up, and all the jungles and stuff are done, it's time for Guzma. But Guzma doesn't do anything. Instead, he gestures to Zipp. "You were so loud-mouthed about this, you do it." Zipp nods, and steps forward.

PAint swirls out of the water, and into the air. The colors become vibrant. The resort has a mural sprayed across a low wall, a mixture of graffiti and actual mural art, with a small Concord-representing symbol. Purple is splattered everywhere in an aesthetically pleasing way, in the plants and the bushes and the trees, without overpowering.

It's creative. It's frenzied. It's memorable as 'a dream', instead of 'just some resort you could see in real life'.
Eggman      The dream converges.

     It really is like fingerpainting on eternity. Ideya molds so easily, so beautifully. It splashes into the tide pools Hesinca crafts. Splatters into crystalline sands and oozes out to make the tide. Majima's fingers stretch and arc it into the layout of a big hotel, a five-star resort for people to relax in and overlook the giant jungle and the massive volcano, the fantastically big whales, the boardwalk. The Ideya drips into hot springs as the volcano rumbles a hint of danger, that little hint of danger that makes the world a little more exciting despite *knowing* that it's completely safe. Zipp turns the colors vibrant, marvelous, purple and frenzied, a majestic, vibrant, larger-than-life majesty of a dream.

     At the end of it all is the twilight. Wizeman itself produces the twilight with a flick of its finger into the last of the Ideya - casting it into a sun in the shape of the Eggman Empire symbol. A lazy red twilight overseen by a descending Eggman Empire symbol. A touch of nightmare in a pleasant dream.

                             EGG CONCORD ISLAND                            

     The gates of Egg Night Zone open. Dreamers come flooding in to the new resort, already staffed by eerie robot clown Nightmaren. The last thing the party sees as the waking world tugs on their arm is the quiet beating of the water against the beach, a mural of smoky blue and orange and red.

     And then the Concord awakens in the Egg Carrier's private beach, to the beating of the waves against a very real beach under a very sunny artificial sky.