This is the sequel to Hover Above. It is a bit grittier than its predecessor, nothing graphic, but still contains romance and much amusement, so I hope you enjoy it regardless.
Hover Beside
The Freedom Fighters hurriedly arrived at the bank in downtown Knothole, and saw multitudes of law enforcement personnel who had surrounded the large, elegant building. They were babbling amongst themselves of a truly dire situation. Within the walls, inside the opulent foyer, stood Bean the Dynamite surrounded by thirty-five sejant hostages. Eight of the hostages were terrified children. Bean's apparel consisted of nothing more than a bulky suicide vest filled with high explosives and canisters of extremely radioactive spent nuclear fuel, and the spring-loaded detonator of which resided firmly within the grasp of one of his feathered hands. He had already activated it, which meant that if he were to remove his thumb from the device, it would all be over. The green avian was clearly visible through the glass wall of the front, as was his truly psychotic facial expression.
Sonic approached one of the loudspeaker-wielding negotiators, who was trying in vain to talk some sense into the menace. As his friends stood by, he asked, "Any progress?"
After the negotiator apprehensively ran his fingers through the fur on his head, he set the speaker down on the trunk of a white cruiser and replied, "No. Nothing. This freak has totally lost it. He won't respond to any of our suggestions, and won't even approach the phone when we call it. I'm really concerned that he just wants to go out with a bang."
As Sonic conversed, Kaolin briefly looked at Tails in a concerned manner. She wasn't quite ready for this kind of suspense, and seeing the lives of all those people hanging in the balance, especially the kids, was very disconcerting. It brought back unnerving memories of all the atrocities Robotnik had committed over the years, including the ones done to her own family.
Bean noticed the Freedom Fighters, scowled, and immediately rushed to the ringing phone. To the negotiator on the other end, he exclaimed, "Get those filthy goodie-goodies out of here. If they don't leave within five minutes, thirty-five people will die instantly, and many more will suffer radiation poisoning. You have FIVE MINUTES." With that, he abruptly hung up and returned to his previous position.
The negotiator began to sweat, looked at the phone, and ended the call on his side. His distraught expression caught Sonic's attention.
"Hey, you, what'd he say?" inquired the blue hedgehog as he approached.
Solemnly, the negotiator responded, "You and your friends need to leave. Your presence has made him more hostile. He threatened to explode if you're not gone within five minutes, and not only would those thirty-five people die instantly, many more would be irradiated."
"Irradiated?" queried Sonic, "You mean he's carrying a dirty bomb?"
The negotiator sighed, looked at the bank, and replied, "Yeah. Got a lot of canisters of highly radioactive spent nuclear fuel on him."
Sonic's heart sank. If Bean were to do the unthinkable, it would be a long time before that bank would be usable again. He had to think of something, and think of it fast.
Tails happened to overhear the conversation, and he walked over to Sonic with an idea in his brilliant head. "Hey bro, I have a suggestion."
Bean scowled when he saw that they were still there. He had actually wanted them out instantly, and now knew that five minutes may have turned out to be too much leeway. He walked over to the phone again after warning his captives to stay put, and impatiently waved his free hand at the negotiators, inferring that he desired to speak with one of them. The phone rang, so he picked it up and answered, "Since the Fighters do not seem to be making any effort to leave, I have decided on something else. They must leave within one minute, or I will brutalize and slaughter one hostage for every minute they continue to remain. I happen to have a rather large knife on me, and it has been a while since I've drawn blood, and I must say, I simply itch to do it again." He slammed the phone onto its dock, approached the group of thirty-five, and grabbed a female civet by the arm. Her young daughter screamed and pleaded for the monster to let her go, but he curtly ignored her cries, and even smiled. Bean got the woman in a headlock using his detonator arm, and unsheathed a razor-sharp flint knife with his free arm. He put the knife up against her face, in preparation for a slash.
Into her fuzzy ear, he whispered, "I am sorry for this predicament you are in, but it must be done. For you see, these people outside; the law enforcers, they had this coming. Decadently, they stroll through life, helping only those whom they perceive as worthy of being helped. In retaliation for their iniquities, many more than I have made mention, I shall start with a slice to your face. It will sting considerably, and there will be decent blood loss." He closed his eyes, reclined his head back slightly, sniffed deeply while licking his beak, and continued, "Mmm, blood. It has been long, so very, very long, since I have had the pleasure of drawing blood. Hearing the resounding screams of a victim, or 'toy' as I prefer to say, and watching the small streams of crimson pleasure coursing their way down from the wound is one of the things I enjoy most in this world. Society has not been kind to me, so why must I reserve myself to return the favor? Hm? Why should I try to be good when it is not returned? Why? Why? Everybody, ALL OF YOU, had this coming for such a long time that it isn't even funny...or is it? Is it funny? Does it strike a chord of amusement within your prejudiced, affluent psyches? For me, it does. It fills me with unfathomable glee!" He then proceeded to laugh maniacally, and gave her a very minor cut as a sign that he wasn't kidding. Tears streamed down her face as she began weeping.
Outside, Tails shared his idea with his blue friend, "We need to lure him away from those people somehow. I theorize that if everyone out here holds something extremely shiny, it'll distract him enough to allow us to infiltrate the bank."
Sonic rubbed his chin with interest, but before he could answer, one of the negotiators approached them and said, "I need all of you to leave immediately. Bean just threatened to brutalize and kill one of his captives if you aren't out of here in one minute."
Sonic nodded to his teammates, and they began to leave the area. He then turned toward the official and said, "Before we go, I have a request which was brought up by a friend."
While the two discussed Tails' plan, Kaolin walked up to the orange fox and asked, "Hey, can't we just use one of our EMP guns to disable the vest?"
"No, there would be a chance that it could actually trigger a detonation," replied Tails, "I'd thought about using gas to knock him out, but because his thumb is already on the spring-loaded detonator, that wouldn't work too well, either. I have a plan, though."
As Tails shared his plan with Kaolin as they walked out of sight, Bean continued his depraved monologue, "Ooh, it looks like our friends are leaving, like good little sheep. Seems you get to live a little longer. By the way, I'd like to share with you a little snippet of my past. Back before I was put in a mental ward a year ago, I was a very happy duck. I played with my closest friends, tormented the Freedom Fighters, did business with Robotnik, and various other pleasurable activities. It all ended one fateful, rainy day. While Bark and Nack were plotting our next mission, I was outside gathering castor legumes, when all of the sudden, Sonic whizzed by so fast that the rocks which were riding his wake battered me ever so. He subsequently plowed into the building where my friends were and beat them senseless. He had caught wind of our plan to put ricin in the New Mobotropolis water supply, as a mission for Robotnik to show his strength and capability as a dictator. As I laid there, bleeding, whilst hearing the reverberating screams of my compatriots, something nestled deep within the dark confines of my mind snapped. Broke. Shattered. I suddenly realized that the world was after me. Nothing I did was ever good enough. It finally sunk in that neither the population nor my friends respected me in any way. All I was to them was a babbling green stain who had an unhealthy obsession with bombs and reflective objects. I was mindless and malleable in their eyes. So, after Sonic had his fun, called the police and left, I stumbled my way into our small base and put my so-called friends out of their misery with a hacksaw. When the police arrived, they found me gorging on fresh liver with a large bottle of Chianti wine and a small dish of fava beans sitting on the floor adjacent to me. Since I was covered head-to-foot in sumptuous blood, they automatically assumed that I had done everything. They assumed that Sonic had merely subdued them instead of what he really did." Bean began to cry, but the tears were soon followed by insidious giggling, "Of course, I was put into the asylum as consequence. I'm not exactly sure how, but I escaped a few months later and killed a few more people. It was then that I started formulating this day out of vengeance for all that had happened. I acquired the parts for the vest at various hardware stores late at night when nobody was there, and managed to talk Robotnik into giving me some of his spent reactor fuel. And...and now, would you like to hear something truly crazy? No? Yes? Nobody understands just how amazing liquid water is. It truly is. They know not of how it will rule Mobius in the future! Everyone is a fool. EVERYONE. Meeheeheehee!" His maniacal ranting and depraved thoughts only terrified his captive even more.
During Bean's little speech, the Freedom Fighters reached the top of the four-story building via Tails and Kaolin hauling them up.
"Ya know, Tails, you never told me your teammates were so heavy!" complained Kaolin as she lifted Julie-Su.
"Hey! You may be new but that doesn't justify mocking my weight!" Kaolin's cargo exclaimed.
"I wasn't mocking your weight, echidna, I was just saying that I'm not used to carrying people!" snapped the grey fox as she struggled to stay airborne. Julie-Su glared up at her transporter, but knew that she was indeed heavier than average because of her cybernetic enhancements.
After everyone had been hauled to the top, they gathered together and discussed their course of action.
"Alright NICOLE, what do your scanners say about the ventilation shafts? Is our plan doable?" asked Sally to her supercomputer as she held it in the palm of her hand.
"Yes. There is an entrance towards the center of the roof, and that shaft will take you right above Bean. There are not any vertical drops, so no need to worry about that," answered the electronic lynx.
"Zen let us do zis," commented Antoine as he and Bunny tenderly held hands.
Sally continued, "Okay, everyone has everything ready?" After each member nodded, she concluded, "Good. Lets go!"
The group let out a hoo-rah and made their way to the ventilation shaft. Knuckles tore off the grate with his gloved hands, and they entered forth, one by one. Kaolin's heart raced as her mind processed the fact that she was on her first mission. Lives were at stake, and she knew that if she messed up, lives could be lost. She had to stay on her toes.
As the Freedom Fighters descended into the building, Bean's insane babbling continued further still. "And then, THEN, when water is crowned king of all existence, I shall be made ruler of all of you because of my loyalty to the Divine Wetness. Then I shall make all of those have-nots out there, the ones with the guns and badges, pay dearly. OH how dearly they shall PAY. Pay...pay with cheese. Cheese is quite delightful, wouldn't you say? Cheese, in all its many splendors. Cheese, in all its many varieties and colors and flavors and smells. It reminds me of this one time..."
A few more minutes passed, and the Fighters crawled their way to a vent right above the loquacious green duck. Tails was ahead of everyone else, since he had made the decision to drop in first. His light weight and ability to fly made him the perfect candidate next to Kaolin, who lacked the experience necessary to effectively handle such a delicate situation. He peered down through the vent, and witnessed Bean continue his incessant babbling to his unfortunate captive. He pressed a button on a communications device, which signaled the police that they were in place. The units outside proceeded to hold out large disco balls, which gleamed brightly in the afternoon Sun.
"I'm not making any sense, am I?" Bean continued, "Perhaps my time is coming. Perhaps it is indeed time to end this madness once and for all. And...and..." As his prisoner squirmed uneasily, Bean noticed the shimmering globes through the outside windows; their reflective wonders threw light all over the room. Due to the room's polished marble walls and ornaments, the shine was made even more spectacular. "And...it...is all so...beautiful. Such splendorous, magnificent...shiny..." he said with an awed whisper as his obsession with all things reflective began to rear its ugly-yet-convenient head.
That was when Tails went for it. He silently removed the unattached grate, which was being held by supportive ledges rather than screws, and hopped through. He quickly landed right behind Bean and grabbed both of his hands, not only allowing the female civet and the rest of the hostages to escape, but holding Bean's trigger thumb with his own thumb to prevent the detonation. The duck struggled furiously as other Fighter members hopped through the open vent two-stories-above and ushered the freed hostages to safety. Sonic aided Tails by cutting the masking-tape-bound explosives from the vest, grabbing the detonator, and taking it away as Tails tried to subdue his opponent. Kaolin was the last to emerge from the vent, but as she leapt, her shoe got caught on a small protruding piece of metal. She tumbled to the floor right as Bean wiggled his way from Tails' grasp by back-kicking him in the groin. The avian instantly saw his chance to take another hostage, and ran toward Kaolin as she laid on the floor, struggling to get back up. He got her in a headlock and put the knife to her neck.
"Tails, help me!" was the first thing that popped out of her mouth, and this not only surprised Tails mildly, but flattered him deep within his psyche. Could it be that she looked up to him that much?
"Silence, grey fur! You're mine now. Everyone STAY BACK!" exclaimed Bean with an absolutely psychotic countenance. He looked at each of the Freedom Fighters as they returned. None of them dared to approach, because they knew what terrors he was capable of.
"Calm down, Bean. You don't want to do this," said Tails, hoping to convince him to let her go. He knew, however, that this was highly unlikely.
"You idiot, do you think that will sway me? Do you think that will make even the slightest of dents in my hardened resolve? I'd intended for this day to live in infamy, but you furs-and-quills ruined it. Oh, and those disco balls were quite the clever trick. I find it both amusing and annoying how you took advan-..."
He was cut off by the sound of a sniper bullet penetrating the window and sending the knife careening from his hand. The Freedom Fighters took that chance to rush him and free Kaolin, who, without even thinking, ran to Tails and embraced him in tears. In his mind, he wondered if she really did feel something for him. Even though they had known each other for a week, he felt something about her as well -- something special, and it was apparent that she did, too.
Bean was escorted to a police cruiser, and the group made their way back home.
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Stay tuned for Chapter Two, coming soon! Update: Chapter Two is up!
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Sonic characters and places are copyright of Sonic Team/Sega
The liver, fava beans, and Chianti comment is copyright or trademarked of whoever owns Hannibal Lector
Kaolin, story, etc is copyright of myself, NuclearCookout