This story is a bit of nostalgia every writer feels once in a while. I don't recommend reading it, as it's best to read up-to-date productions that tend to give a much better welcome. Though, if you're intent on seeing an unrealistic attempt at vocabulary practice, be my guest!
Disclaimer: I do not own Sonic, Shadow or other characters that belong to SEGA and Sonic Team.
School of Discontent: Christmas
Chapter 1: Treasure Rush
Winter, the jolly time of the year came to Station Square bringing lots of snowflakes, ice and chill. The same thing was in its school. The light-colored four-story building in the form of the letter 'H' was topped with a thick layer of brilliant snow, making the building look absolutely white from every angle. The cloudy sky ensured a snowy season that would surely cool down the hot tempers on the ground - the ones that caused total annihilation of the old school compound a few months ago.
The school's principal, none other than Shadow the Hedgehog, was the one making sure of the good functioning of the school and efficient work of its staff. He was also the one coming 'right on time' to his work place, even though he never had to. That fateful cloudy Monday morning the principal went to carry on reigning over Station Square's education, holding his black briefcase, with his eyes moving rapidly from object to object as for usual. He had to make everything look in shape and that was meant to both inside and outside of the building. To his enlightenment, the whole property, including the troublesome flag post, was in great condition. So were the children: going to the place of obvious wisdom and greeting the principal on their way.
Shadow entered the building and marched to his office on the second floor. The room had dark walls and furniture. Yet a large window with horizontal blinds and a lamp on the ceiling made enough light inside. His secretary, known as Rouge the Bat, greeted him and gave her boss the schedule for the day.
"I hope there won't be any unexpected incidents this week," the bat said as she gave him a few sheets of paper.
"I hope so too…and it definitely will…if faker doesn't show up, that is," Shadow said with a sigh. "Find Espio and tell him to keep a look out for him!" the hedgehog ordered.
"Yeas, sir!" the principal's helper that was previously invisible removed his disguise and saluted, "I'll keep good track of him and make a full brief report if I ever get a bigger notebook."
"I don't get it! How can you fill a fifty-page notebook in one day!" Rouge exclaimed making the chameleon grin.
"I'll be glad to switch jobs with you," Espio proposed, making her remember the perils of following a speedy hedgehog in a school.
"No, thanks. If there is one thing I wouldn't do…you just mentioned it," the bat replied squirmishly.
Then, a few screams were heard.
"Okay, he's here. I'd better start working," Espio took a trusty notebook from Rouge's desk and paced out of the room.
The secretary immediately closed the door to prevent commotion inside of her boss's office. Past experiences taught her...valuable lessons.
The bat was typing something on her laptop that oddly calm day when loud banging came from behind a closed door of the principal's office.
"Rouge! Rouge! Let me in! This is an emergency!" somebody cried desperately from outside the room.
'Your life is an emergency if you'd ask me,' she sighed and unlocked the door.
All of a sudden, she was knocked down by a speeding blue blur. It was Sonic. The hedgehog looked so tired as if he had been running since stone age.
"Thanks…" he said and tried to catch his breath. Rouge got up and pushed the door to make it closed when another blur knocked her down.
Her nightmare had just begun, she thought. Rouge closed her eyes as she heard crashes and sounds of glass, then wood - breaking. Sonic was running for his life trying to evade a pink blur and not to mess up in the office.
"Amy, stop!" he shouted, but the spinny female ignored his plead to continued chasing him while bumping into various objects set in the room. Chaotic breaking sounds just added drama to her melodic love-me-now humming.
"You're going to get me killed!" he yelled again.
The hedgehog knew that his life would be over if the boss came, so he stopped escaping and got ready for the worst. Amy Rose unrolled and grabbed the bluish hedgehog in a cuddly fanfare.
"I finally got ya, Sonic!" she hugged him, squeezing with increasing strength to make him dizzy.
Amy was very experienced at hugs. If she made Sonic faint for her due to oxygen deprivation, he'd be secured for altar procedures. The bat tried not to look since it was too horrid for her to watch a nymphomaniac play with a gameophobe.
"Amy! Cut it out! I'm not ticklish, you know that!" Rouge heard Sonic's voice reach high notes. A thud on the floor: he fell. "Haha! Stop! I'm not ticklish! Hahahah!"
Then, the door opened for the almost last time and revealed a figure that made the bat sigh in relief. Shadow appeared in a very good mood. The briefcase fell, he inhaled, and Rouge giggled inwardly (she loved mental fireworks).
"Faker!" Shadow roared, stilting all movement, except one of Amy's fingers that was still busy tickling a grounded blue hedgehog.
Sonic could only try to be 'reasonable' from the floor.
"My day is spoiled… At least he suffers more," Shadow sighed, thinking about the incidents Sonic caused,and sat down on his black leather chair.
His hand reached for a little device that lay on the table and pushed a red button on it. The school bell rang, meaning the start of a new day of learning, torment and boredom.
Not everyone's workday had started when the bell rang, as some of the teaching staff had no first lesson. The science teacher was one of them. The chubby man wearing a long, loose white lab coat over a red suit sat near a cup of hot coffee, yawning. A bluish male hedgehog, looking a lot like Sonic, was with him. Besides a central parting of his quills, a dark blue beret made him distinguishable from the heroic blue devil. The furry had a cup of tea and a croissant by him. Obviously, the two were getting ready for a day of hard work.
"Thanks for getting me out of that GUN camp, doctor," the hedgehog said as he took a sip of his drink. "English tea…ugh!" he exclaimed, pinching the tip of his nose to express utter disgust about the English.
"Whatever…" the fat man replied near a yawn. "At least you're not on a diet," he said, seeming annoyed. "Either this or back to GUN, Pierre. Complain to Shadow if you think you can make it out of his office alive."
"I hope those...those... children won't kill me on my first day…"
"They're not so bad. You just have to find a way and they will obey your every command," the man told him and drunk all of his coffee.
"I have better chances with them than with Shadow. I'd better leave and look around. Oh, and do you know where is my cousin?" Pierre asked.
"He's in the P.E. hall. You can't miss it," the man said with a lighter face.
"Oui."
He had some trouble finding the right place, whisked out of a military installation to a school labyrinth. Pierre approached the door of the hall and put his ear to it so he could hear what was going on inside. Somebody's monotone was heard, followed by complaints, and angry comebacks. The listener chuckled as he recognized the complainer's voice. But his fun has ended when the door got opened forcefully hitting the hedgehog into a wall. The culprit looked at him, flopped back against the wall, shaking his head in disagreement with a large bumpy pain implant.
"Pierre?" the pain inducer asked with disbelief.
"American Cousin?"
"What the heck are you doing here? You were supposed to be locked up in that GUN base!" Sonic shouted. A mixture of confusion, surprise and annoyance could be sensed in his voice.
"Well, I'm out and I'm here. So live with it, cousin," Pierre replied with a grin that faded away when he touched the lump. "Ooof. The first minute I see your ugly face, I get a headache."
"I was the handsomest in the family anyways. Mirrors always liked me more," Sonic spat back.
"Ahem!" Somebody's angry grunts came from behind Sonic.
"Oh! Forgot about you," the hedgehog grinned and looked at Espio he had in a strangle hold the entire time. "Talk to you later, slimy Pierre. I have to teach this loafer a lesson."
Sonic glared back at the chameleon that was taking notes of the conversation and dragged him down the stairs.
The principal sat on his comfortable seat reading a newspaper when noises coming from the outside attracted his attention, indicating the usual unwanted commotion outside. He looked through the window and noticed Sonic getting a beating from Espio. A long breath...shouting levels at optimum efficiency.
"Faker! What do you think you're doing!"
"I'm trying to teach this Nosy a lesson and I would have been finished if he stood still!" Sonic explained his case causing Espio to show a minor expression of major annoyance.
"Stop beating up Espio or I'll cut your salary!" the principal ordered
"Why don't you fire me instead!" Sonic suggested.
"Good idea. But I won't get a gun until the next game," Shadow retorted.
Sonic wanted to give Espio at least one painful blow before getting back, but he got the blow himself.
One of Sonic's trusty pupils chucked a combat boot at a cheap windowpane. A desperate cry followed, as someone felt bad without the shoe. Obviously, it wasn't even close to what Shadow thought about the non-existant window
"You…left…the kids…alone?" he asked calmly with anger bubbling in his blood stream, readying his body for drastic measures.
"Yeah?" Sonic couldn't get the sense of the rhetorical question.
"Espio…check the hall for damage and give the bill to the culprit," Shadow said while looking at Sonic intensively.
"Yeas, sir," Espio said and turned the page of his notebook.
Shadow closed the window and Sonic decided that the coast was clear enough to pay back the chameleon. Unluckily, the lizard turned invisible and he was inside the building by the time. Another loud noise came to Sonic's ears so he sighed and rushed to the sports hall. Two windows were broken and somebody had found the paint used for the girls' dressing room. By the time he returned, a wall was already autographed with pink.
The lesson was about to end so Sonic sent the children to the dressing rooms and waited for the bell. Soon it rang letting the children scurry away for their second lesson. Another teacher had P.E in the hall so Sonic had some time to rest and find the annoying chameleon, who managed to stick the bill on one of Sonic's precious quills. He was hoping to find him in the teachers' lounge on the third floor but curiosity brought him elsewhere. A small green male hawk was pacing through the corridor carefully holding a piece of paper in his hands. Sonic decided to take a look at it but the hawk folded up the sheet.
"The treasure is mine, so you can't have it," the kid told him.
"Treasure?"
"I have a map of a secret treasure that is somewhere in this building," the boy explained, getting Sonic's interest.
Unluckily for the juvenile treasure hunter, the bell rang and he had to go. Seeing the treasure hunt was an obvious fiasco when doing it alone, he needed an accomplice.
"Umm…wanna make a deal?"
"Yeah!" Sonic replied cheerfully.
"I'll give you the map and I'll share the treasure when you find it," the bird said.
"Cool!" Sonic exclaimed, the map splastered on another quill.
"You'll pay up that bill with your share!" a chuckle reached the hedgehog.
The student ran to a classroom and left the teacher holding the scrap of paper. Sonic unfolded it and followed the instructions. He was taking large coordinated steps along the hallway ignoring everything that was happening around him, even the janitor, who was washing the floor. That was a serious mistake as the janitor's discarded bucket of water was in his path. Sonic's foot was carefully yet unluckily set in the evil bucket of water. The hedgehog hadn't felt it, as the map had captured his full attention. Then, the wet shoe came out of the bucket and the hedgehog made another step. The big and round purple janitor watched this strange scene in awe for a moment and continued the job since he couldn't get it anway. Sonic ended his walk in the corridor and moved down the stairs. A red male echidna that was in charge of the wood and metal workshop saw the hedgehog going down. He wanted to simply pass the strangely slow hedgehog, but curiosity had won against a sane mind.
"What are you doing, Sonic?" the echidna asked.
There was no answer.
"Sonic!" he shouted but the hedgehog kept on ignoring him.
The echidna's short temper ended and he took the map out of Sonic's hands. There was no reaction what's so ever so he punched the bluish animal in the face, "Snap out of it already!"
"Oh, hi, Knuckles!" Sonic said, as he had finally noticed his crimson companion.
"Daydreaming again?" Knuckles asked.
"No, I'm hunting for a treasure," Sonic replied thinking about lots of money he was about to find.
"Treasure? What treasure?"
"The one that makes you rich, duh. Now give me the map! I'm almost there," Sonic said, wanting to snatch the paper out of his companion's hands.
Knuckles grinned and pushed Sonic out of his path.
"Then, let the pro lead the way."
The map led them to a small 'X' mark on the second floor.
"Well, that's it. You sure the place is right?" Knuckles asked to make sure.
"X marks the spot. Now we have to dig," Sonic took a look at the map and saw the instructions.
"Hold on! I'll get my digging claws from the workshop," Knuckles said and rushed to the first floor to get his tools. He returned after a few minutes to the anxious hedgehog.
"Come on already! I don't have all day."
Knuckles took his position at the 'X' and dug through the concrete floor of the second level. Knuckles fell one floor lower. Neither found it strange, fully concentrated on one serious goal.
"What does it say after you fall down?" the echidna asked.
"It says 'keep digging'!" Sonic replied still hoping for the riches.
Knuckles shrugged and continued going down. Meanwhile, Sonic looked at his friend going lower and lower into the ground with his mind set on various things a treasure can hold. Unluckily he didn't notice a door, opening behind him and pushing him into the hole in the floor. Sonic lost his sense of balance when he saw who it was, and lurched himself down to escape.
"I'll be back in a minute," Shadow said, not looking on what was going outside of his office.
He went out of the room as for usual but a surprised look appeared on his face when he noticed that there was no support for his feet. Fortunately, the moment he did realise that, the principal was already on top of Sonic and Knuckles.
"What is the meaning of this!" Shadow voice could be heard out of the gap.
"We were looking for a treasure and we dug this hole…" Sonic explained but he was interrupted.
"On the second floor!" Shadow yelled as anger made his blood boil.
"Yeah! The treasure…uh oh!" Sonic was about to make another excuse when somebody's scream from the top made him look up. Rouge, who was holding a few encyclopedias for the library fell down and completed the grounded quartet.
"What happened?" Rouge asked in confusion.
"I'm waiting for a reasonable lie, faker. Now start talking and make it look good!" Shadow ordered while taking a heavy book off of his head.
"Guys, I can't feel my legs!" Rouge exclaimed, trying to move.
"Ow! Stop kicking me!"
"That's my eye, not yours... Oh, wait. My mistake."
"Faker!!!"