I got the idea for this story after reading a Mario and Sonic crossover western by SuperSaiyanSonic75, who gave me permission to do my own Sonic western. That crossover is a good story, you should read it. Disclaimer: I don't own Sonic characters. I do, however, own Maria the Dark Chao, Zombie the Mixed Breed Chao, and Checkers the Painted Chao.
The sun blazed down without mercy on an arid desert somewhere out in Texas (Most good westerns take place in Texas). The heat from it's rays were intense. Only a moron would be riding out in the middle of this desert.
Three lone figures, saddled atop trusty Chao steeds wandered this lone prairie, where none but the buzzards could spy them and wonder what these three morons were doing out in the middle of a desert. (Don't even ask me how they can get on Chao. They just do. Go with it, alright?)
The one in front was, quite obviously, the surrogate leader of the trio. He was an ebony black hedgehog with red highlights streaking his quills. He wore gloves, a black cowboy hat, and a black leather vest. He wore two bright power rings as bracelets and his haunting crimson eyes were constantly searching. His name was Shadow the Hedgehog, the leader of the Hedgehog Gang.
His trusty mount, Maria, was a pitch black Dark Chao, without the customary red areas that most Dark Chaos posses. She didn't even have pupils, and the whites of her eyes, were actually the blacks of her eyes. The only break from the uniform blackness were her purple bat wings, which were commonly used for a saddle.
Behind and slightly to the left of Shadow, was a blue and peach colored hedgehog with emerald green eyes and a cheerful demeanor about him. His hat was a brown color, and he had a multi-colored vest that clashed sharply with his fur. (Have you ever seen the vest on the Veggie Tales show The Ballad of Little Joe? This one is even more tacky than that.) He had white gloves on and unlike Shadow, he seemed to be fixated on some far off point in the distance that he could never seem to reach. His name was Sonic the Hedgehog, the mouth of the Hedgehog gang, and the member who started many of their more…perilous and unnecessary adventures. (Or, if you ask his two comrades, "The idiot who got hyped up on root beer and mouthed off to that really big guy, who then tried to use our lower intestines for a jump rope.")
Sonic's Chao, Zombie, looked like, well…a mistake. Zombie was a mixture of all three Chao breeds, giving him the coloring and halo of a Hero Chao, the sharp teeth of a Dark Chao, and the body of a Neutral Chao. His eyes were a bloodshot yellow color, and he constantly stuck his tongue out and drooled whenever he wasn't moving. His wings were a lot like a dragonfly's, crooked and jagged.
The third member of the ragtag group was a white Hedgehog with yellow eyes, only not quite a sickening yellow as Sonic's…steed, for lack of a better word. (Disgusting, slovenly freak would be too quaint.) He had a white cowboy hat on and a denim blue jean jacket, and two yellow bangles around his arms. His name was Silver the Hedgehog, the team's trusty psychokinetic. Sonic has been known to ask him, "If you're psychic, what're tomorrow's winning lottery numbers?" to which Silver usually replies, "I move stuff with my mind, I don't tell the future, stupid!" But he means that in the nicest possible way.
Silver's Chao, Checkers, was either purple with blue stripes or blue with purple stripes. All that is known about the matter is Sonic's direct quote, "There were some paint cans…and a paint brush…it was dark…I saw a Chao…I was bored…I said I was sorry!" Also, the brush marks were not in the shape of a checker board, nor did this particular Chao have anything in common with checkers. Why Silver called him Checkers was a mystery, but I do know it had something to do with mounting up that dark night before the paint had dried.
The three were riding across this arid wasteland looking for whatever town might be nearby so they could rob it. It was extremely foolish to wander around a desert without a map trying to find a random town, but Sonic got bored easily and road maps made such doggone good paper airplanes.
So the trio was effectively lost out in the desert, hoping to find either a town with access to watered down root beer or a giant root beer keg, whichever they happened to find first. (You wouldn't expect them to drink from a water hole, do you, there are all sorts of germs in those things!)
By and by, Shadow pulled up, dismounted, and peered off into the distance. "Looks like a town," he said.
"Wow! Finding a little town out in the middle of the desert without a map, what're the odds of that?" Sonic asked, more out of a desire to hear his head rattle than with any need for answers.
Both of his comrades glared at him in a way that certainly would do nothing to promote international peace and happiness. Though it might start a war or two. Sonic, however, took no notice of anything except Zombie, who, since they'd stopped, had decided to amuse himself by blowing spit bubbles.
"C'mon," Shadow said, stepping into both his role as leader and a nice little surprise some wild coyote had 'made' for him. Absentmindedly scraping his foot off on a rock that was sitting there for no apparent reason, Shadow remounted Maria and started towards the town.
"What's the plan, Shads?" Sonic asked.
"We'll go in, get some supplies and another map that you are absolutely not to touch, and then rob them blind and high tail it out of there," Shadow informed him. "And don't call me 'Shads.'"
"You got it, Shads," Sonic said approvingly.
Shadow closed his eyes and counted to an unbelievably high number, then led the Hedgehog Gang into the town, which happened to be completely deserted, and had been for some time.
"Where is everybody?" Silver asked theoretically, looking around.
"Maybe they went for a walk?" Sonic suggested, but the glares the other two were giving him made him think that that must not be what happened.
Whatever had happened to the townspeople, they had certainly left in a hurry; they left all their stuff behind. The saloon was full to bursting with root beer, the general store had tons of supplies and a genuine paper airplane proof map, and best of all, the bank's safe was unguarded.
Though he really wasn't expecting much of value—why leave money in a deserted town?—Shadow decided to crack open the safe anyway, just in case. Using a Chaos Spear, he broke the hinges on the old safe and the door fell away and nearly landed on Sonic's foot. Luckily for Sonic, the blue blur was fast enough to get out of the way in time.
Just as Shadow had suspected, there was no money in the safe. There was, however, oodles and oodles off…
"Sweet!" Sonic cheered. "We found the Twinkie mother load!" Sonic rushed to the safe and grabbed entire handfuls of the tasty pastry, shoving it into his vest and in odd places in his quills where he could make the cake like snack stay put. Several off them ended up shoved into his mouth, until at last he was having trouble breathing because they were jammed in it so tightly.
Silver and Shadow looked at each other and decided to get out of there before Sonic gave himself a Twinkie-induced sugar high. Sonic grudgingly followed them, but not until he shoved the last of the Twinkies into his shoes for safe keeping.
Mounting up on their perspective Chao, Shadow studied the map he'd taken from the deserted store and found another, non-deserted town not far from where they were, with a nice stagecoach they could rob. The Hedgehog Gang rode out, unaware of the massive amounts of trouble they were now in, thanks to Sonic's recent Twinkie spree…
Not twenty minutes after the Hedgehog Gang had left, one of the most successful Posse-for-hire in all Texas was riding back to their base, a deserted town in the middle of the desert. The leader, Vector Crocodile, stopped just outside the town, feeling in his gut that something was wrong.
"Look, Vector," one of Vector's men, Espio Chameleon, said, nodding to the ground. "Fresh Chao tracks. And look, someone wearing trendy sneakers dismounted there."
"What idiot wears sneakers in a Western story?" Vector asked with disgust. "You're supposed to wear crocodile skinned boots!"
There was an awkward silence, then Espio cleared his throat and said, "OK, first of all, you're not supposed to know this is a story, and secondly, you do realize that you are a crocodile, don't you?"
Vector digested this new and interesting piece of information, then his eyes widened and he ripped off his crocodile skinned boots, inspecting them closely. "Oh no!" he gasped. "Grandma! Speak to me!"
Espio closed his eyes and rubbed his head, which was starting to hurt. Meanwhile, Charmy Bee noticed another crucial piece of information.
"Look, guys!" the six-year-old said, pointing to the randomly placed rock that Shadow had used to clean his boots earlier. "Look at what they did to my pet rock! Are you OK, Spot?"
The rock didn't answer, because it's a rock, and rocks don't talk. Or move. Or breath. In fact, there really isn't much reason to own a pet rock, unless you like staring at a rock acting like a rock all day. (Rocks aren't very good at acting; so you'd have to be EXTREMELY bored to find this entertaining.)
Vector, Espio, and Charmy rode into their town and found that someone had drunk all their root beer, taken all the paper airplane proof maps, and worst off all, they'd stolen their prized Twinkie stash!
"Saddle up, boys!" Vector ordered upon seeing the state of his beloved Twinkies. "This is personal! We got us some outlaws to track down and hang! Nobody steals from the Chaotix Posse!"
"And we gotta get 'em for what they did to Spot, too, right?" Charmy asked hopefully.
"Charmy, there's some things that you need to know," Vector said gravelly. "One of which is that neither of us could care less about your stupid rock."
Charmy looked at Espio sadly, and the Chameleon shrugged and got on his own Chao. Charmy sniffled and climbed upon his, and the Chaotix Posse rode out to catch themselves some outlaws.
Yes, I will still continue my updates on Mephiles' Babysitting Nightmare, don't worry about that. I just wanted to try my hand at a non-baby story to see how I did at it, and once I got the idea for this, I had to do it. RR, please.