Sonic Squad: Taking Down the House
By Cole Bezotte
One day, at the Mario Bros. Plumbing Shop, anonymous lull had settled in. Luigi and Sally Acorn had never been so bored like this in such a long time. Luigi had been sitting at Mario's desk for about an hour now, on the duty of taking whatever phone calls that would come. But Luigi received no phone calls at all, so he found it as a useless job while the rest of the gang was out of the house.
"I crave action, Sally. Action!" Luigi spoke up after the hour went by.
"Were you always an impatient one?" Sally replied.
Right then, an alarm signal went off in the living room. "An intruder is on the paralysis," Luigi said, rushing to the living room. "I'll handle this." As he approached the intruder, he was startled to see that this guy was actually another Mobian. It was a skunk, with a sword in his sheath! He had been in service with King Maximilian Acorn back in the days of the Great War, and had a secret crush on Sally, even though she already loved Sonic!
"Halt!" Luigi shouted as he ran into the living room to meet Geoffrey St. John the skunk. "In the name of the Sonic Squad!"
"It's time someone showed up," Geoffrey spoke up as he saw the plumber standing in front of him.
"You were ordered to halt!" Luigi continued. "Now I'll…"
But before Luigi could make another move, Geoffrey right away drew out his sword and began to swing it at Luigi. "Back!" Geoffrey barked. "Nobody orders a Mobian general!"
"Hold your tongue!" Luigi protested as he gave Geoffrey a blow on the back of the head. "You speak to a Freedom Fighter!"
"My blade will slow you down, you plumber!" Geoffrey said as he spun his sword around like a propeller. Sally watched as the merciless Geoffrey wielded his weapon, and she wanted to put a stop to this. So, Sally drew out a pistol and shot Geoffrey in the hand, causing his sword to slip through his fingers. "What happened?" Geoffrey continued as his sword tumbled underneath the couch. "With my sword stuck under there, I'm no match for his abilities."
Luigi ran back over to Geoffrey to settle the score here and now. But before Luigi could make a move, Geoffrey halted him in his tracks. "Hold it!" he exclaimed. "Stop!"
"And now," Luigi continued, "it's time to talk!"
"No need to fight any more," Geoffrey explained. "I was just testing you."
"You were testing us?! Surely, you lie!"
Sally came over to Luigi and stopped him, saying: "Wait! Hear him out. Let's see what he has to say."
Geoffrey continued: "I wanted to join your group, but first I wanted to see if you were as good as they say. Before joining, I owe you this for those taunting blows you gave me." With that, Geoffrey raised his fist, now bleeding from the shot Sally gave him, and punched Luigi hard in the face with it.
As Sally watched Luigi stagger to the floor from Geoffrey's blow, she shouted at Geoffrey: "You'll pay for that!"
"Relax, my love," Geoffrey replied. "I just let him have the flat of my fist. That'll teach him not to be so trusting next time."
"You'll never be a Freedom Fighter; you lack honor!"
"Don't force me to defend myself against you. After all, I love you like I always have."
"Stop saying that!" Sally barked. "Sonic has always been my true love from the start! We've been together even after we destroyed Eggman's Doomsday Project. Later, I was taken captive by an insane Eggman and was roboticized for a few years. Later, I made it here to this merged realm and was soon de-roboticized by my friend Bunnie, soon to meet the Robotnik of today."
"So that's where you've been all this time, eh?"
"Exactly!" a voice spoke up from the distance. Into the living room stepped Sonic and Mario, here to settle the conflict that was going on. "You have no right to be here, Geoffrey!" Sonic continued. "I'll ask you once to take your sword and get out of here!"
"You can't tell me what to do," Geoffrey protested. "After all, I am a Mobian war general. You cannot give me orders."
"But," Mario spoke up, "I certainly can if you're at my place. This here is my plumbing shop, and I ain't letting you take over! Look what you did to my brother!" Mario showed Geoffrey the mark that he made on Luigi's face, now with a droplet of blood on him.
"It's what he deserved, you should know," Geoffrey replied. "After all, he did attack me first."
Luigi turned to whisper in Mario's ear: "Don't listen to him; he's lying."
"Come on, Luigi," Mario continued. "Let's go get the first-aid kit."
"No need to," Luigi explained. "This blood is actually from that skunk's bleeding hand, in which he stuck me with. Perhaps this blood of his could be something of good use." With that, Luigi took a water bottle he had out of his pocket, drank the remaining water contained, and scooped up Geoffrey's blood off his face, letting it slide into the bottle.
"What the heck are you doing?" Mario asked.
"Something useful," Luigi replied. "I'm saving this for later. There's something very suspicious about that Geoffrey character."
Much later, Geoffrey had left the Mario Bros. Plumbing Shop and went to Dr. Eggman's secret lab. Now it is revealed to us that the assassin Eggman was talking to in our previous story was actually Geoffrey St. John himself.
As Geoffrey reported his progress to the evil genius, he became nervous as to what Eggman would do to him if he failed his mission. "I got a good look at them, sir," Geoffrey said, reporting his progress. "They are all together, all caring about each other, too soft! I don't like it! And that tall man in the green hat, how I hate his arrogance!"
"Face it, Geoffrey," Eggman replied. "All of us villains are arrogant. But there is one thing that we're good at: getting on other people's nerves. What a coincidence! Anyway, you saw those dudes, now we know how many they are. And if I can list them:
Sonic
Mario
Luigi
Sally
Bunnie
Antoine
Amy Rose
Daisy
Tails
Christopher
Shadow
Knuckles
"Twelve!" Eggman continued. "Too many of them! But not for long! Soon, I'll make another big army of robots to even take on this merged realm! What great triumph we shall have!"
Later, Wario and all the other arrested villains (except for Black Doom) came bursting into the lab, eager to move on with the evil plan. "Wow!" Wario exclaimed. "What a jailbreak! I wish we were more successful back den! Eggman! I have a brilliant idea!"
"What is it, man?" Eggman said, listening closely to this new addition to their terrible plan. "Talk! Give! What is it that you have?"
"I dought about dis while me and da oders in prison. Da only Freedom Fighter dat has special powers is Shadow; he was created specially wid da powers to heal your cousin Maria. But he was given much more dan dat. Maybe we can harness it to help da roboticization process and make it go faster! We already have da Chaos Emeralds here, but now we need Shadow to speed dis dang ding up!"
Eggman smiled at Wario's idea. "How brilliant," he said. "I'll be buying this! Thanks, Wario! You have served me well." Eggman turned to shake hands with Geoffrey. "And, I shall never forget how faithfully and well YOU have served us, Geoffrey."
"Thank you, your supremacy," Geoffrey replied as he let go of Eggman's hands. "But, long have I wondered about one strange thing: how did this chubby one convince Shadow to come to us and obey our commands?"
"Us?!" Eggman said. "You dare place yourself on a par with me?! Have a care, Geoffrey—have a care!"
"Forgive me! I did not mean to—"
Wario interrupted Geoffrey: "But da boss is right. You shouldn't find yourself as an equal to da boss."
"Will you be quiet?!" Geoffrey barked. "I'll have you know I am a Mobian general! It says so all over me!"
"Face it, buster! You're a has-been! But, to answer your question—my opportunity came last week, when I went to da Mario Bros. Plumbing Shop wid da oder men to take on Shadow. (As seen from stories ago) Upon being arrested after da battle, I shook hands wid Shadow—just as Eggman shook YOUR hand, Geoffrey. I pretended to compliment him on da battle dat we put up. And, in doing so, I placed him under a painful control, but he doesn't know yet. He will soon once I activate it, and as he comes closer to da lab.
"Anyway," Wario continued. "I put him under a strange control—exactly as Eggman have done wid YOU, you pitiful blunderer! For, I planted a miniaturized neuro brain-tap device in da palm on his hand—da same as yours—dus, having not his mind but his movement under my absolute control, I will soon will him to bring himself to me—as I now will YOU to take your gun from its holster-!"
"What's happening to me?!" Geoffrey shrieked as his body was commanded to draw his gun out and point it at his head.
"You should have known Eggman shares his triumphs wid no one—! Now, slowly—release da safety, while da boss and I leave da room—" Wario and Eggman left the room, leaving Geoffrey in there alone to meet his fate. "I will not will your final command until I have closed da door," Wario continued as he and Eggman stepped into the next room of the cave. Then, they heard a gun fire, marking the end of Geoffrey's life.
"Good work, Wario!" Eggman said after hearing the shot. "Now I need not be disturbed by the sight of any unpleasantness."
"You can count on me, boss," Wario replied. "And now… to action!"
Moments later, the Sonic Squad's latest meaning came to a close as they finally set off for Eggman's lab. "I remember exactly where it is," Sonic said as they headed out the door of the plumbing shop. "Come on! It shouldn't be that far."
Luigi was tagging along at first, until he realized that he had forgotten something very important. "Good grief!" he exclaimed. "I forgot to wake him up! You guys go on. I'll be right back with you." With that, Luigi went back into his house and headed for his bedroom, where he found Shadow sleeping on Luigi's messed-up bed (Luigi has always lived like that, we all suppose). "Shadow," Luigi spoke to him. "Are you awake?"
"Am now," Shadow replied as he tiredly got up from the bed.
"Listen, Shadow, we have to go to Eggman's lab now. Everybody else is going, so we must catch up with them."
"Okay, then. Let's go." But Shadow was overconfident; once he took a step forward away from the bed, he messed up his footing and twisted his ankle as his foot stepped with its side. He tripped to the floor with the impact of his slipup.
"You must be tired still," Luigi said as he picked up Shadow and started to carry him on his shoulder.
"Perhaps so," Shadow replied as his eyes began to close again. "I haven't been sleeping lately. I feel as if something is bothering me."
"We'll talk about it along the way to the lab. In the meantime, let's move on." They went outside the shop, hurrying to catch on with the others. The group decided to go by foot because no vehicle was allowed to park near the forest, so they could not use the Mario Bros.' plumbing van.
"What a workout," Luigi continued. "This is already a fun journey, right, Shadow?" But Shadow did not answer. He fell back asleep on Luigi's shoulder so fast. The light from the sunset did not bother him, so he was out cold fast. "What the heck," Luigi continued, talking to himself. "He may be tired, but he'll still need some help. And Sonic and the others may not be with us at times. Who knows what is to happen next?"
NEXT TIME: WARIO'S PLAN WILL COME TO A BEGINNING!
