Sonic the Hedgehog: Robotnik's Oil

Sonic the Hedgehog: Robotnik's Oil

Publisher: Ladybird
Publication date: 1994
Genre: Novel
Type: Hardcover
ISBN-10: 0-7214-1740-X

Sonic the Hedgehog: Robotnik's Oil is a picture book published in the UK by Ladybird Books. It was released alongside Sonic the Hedgehog: The Invisible Robotnik, and both feature fold-out center pages. The story takes place in Sonic the Hedgehog 2's Aquatic Ruin Zone (here called the "Aquatic Ruins Zone").

Plot

Sonic is racing through the Aquatic Ruins Zone, collecting rings, defeating badniks, and avoiding arrows, when he comes upon a large expanse of ground covered in oil drilling machines. Inspecting them, he discovers that they have been installed by Ivo Robotnik, who immediately appears and runs at Sonic, though rather than being captured, Sonic runs circles around Robotnik, leaving him in a dizzy heap. Sonic threatens the villain with another spin unless he spills about his current plan.

Robotnik recovers and excitedly reveals his discovery: Aquatic Ruins Zone sits atop a massive oil field. Sonic expresses his concern about the environmental effects of Robotnik's oil pumping, but Robotnik cavalierly states that he does not care. Sonic states that he does care, and races off to try to stop the Doctor's nefarious plans. Robotnik makes chase in his flying machine. But when he loses sight of Sonic, he steers straight into a stone column while not watching where he's flying.

Thrown clear of the resulting destruction, Robotnik orders his Grounder badniks to get Sonic, but unafraid, he uses his spin attack to defeat them all. Soon, however, he sees a group of Whisp badniks flying towards him, but averts disaster by jumping out of their path at the last moment, so that they collide right where he had been just seconds ago.

With these distractions out of the way, Sonic makes way for Robotnik's machinery with a wrench in hand, making adjustments to the operation of each machine as he passes by. By the time Robotnik arrived, Sonic was long gone, but his drillers still seemed to be working, so when the ground below him began to rumble, he believed he had struck oil. But what gushed out instead was gallons of water, soaking Robotnik to the skin.

Unaware that this was Sonic's doing, a sneezing Robotnik finally gives up and dismantles his machinery, carrying it all away in his repaired flying machine. Sonic's animal friends gather to celebrate and thank Sonic for saving the zone, and Sonic attributes his success to Robotnik's lack of supersonic speed, superheroism, and general condition not being that of the hedgehog. With that, he happily runs off into the distance.