Author's note: I did take a bit of creative license as far as Sonic's appearance goes. He's slightly older in this story (17 instead of 15 in the games I think), so he's darker in color and has a more threatening appearance.
Thanks so much to MilesTailsPrower-007 for proofreading this. Your editing suggestions were much appreciated!
SONIC THE HEDGEHOG
WORLD IN CHAOS
Chapter One
As the large, elegantly decorated glass doors opened, twenty-three year old Lin Zhang felt as though she had just stepped out of darkness and into a palace of gods.
But, even a small cottage would seem opulent after standing outside in the chilly darkness for several minutes.
As she entered the lobby, a young Japanese man with meticulously trimmed dark hair and a straight complexion appeared on her left, waving her further inside the building.
"Hello Ms. Lin," the man said. "My name is Lee. Please accept our sincerest apologies for keeping you waiting so long."
Lee did not offer an explanation as to why they had kept her waiting, and frankly, Lin did not want to wait for one. She walked ahead briskly on high heels, basking in the warm air that poured down on her from the overhead heating units.
God, what had she been thinking, wearing a skirt on a chilly night like this?
The two reached a pair of large wooden doors. Lee stepped forward and pulled a set of keys from his pocket, all the while examining the gunmetal gray briefcase that Lin held her right hand.
Lin resisted the urge to roll her eyes. This deal depended on the contents within the case, so Lin thought it was safe to assume from the beginning that what she carried was genuine.
Besides, Lee had had plenty of time to confirm that she possessed the case while he was examining her toned legs on the way in.
The lock inside the door snapped open, and immediately the large wooden doors swung open silently and in an ominous sort of way.
As Lin stepped into the large, windowed room, Lee's footsteps stopped behind her, as he waited for her at the entranceway.
She quickly discovered that she no longer needed him to direct her.
Sitting at polished glass table was a Japanese man with long, dark hair and a placid expression on his face. His jacket and pants were almost as white as the carpet, and the contrast that his black, high collared shirt created with them was almost staggering.
As she approached him, she noticed that he looked impatient, showing no signs of impatience or rigidness.
If he had been waiting long, he certainly did not show it.
When she had reached the table, the man stood slowly, smoothing his already pristinely pressed jacket.
Lin smiled politely, and bowed deeply, the briefcase still in her hands as she brought them towards her midsection.
When she had risen, the man politely returned the gesture.
"It's a pleasure to meet you, Chin Fei," Lin said, keeping her smile.
Chin Fei's eyes, moved from her to the briefcase she possessed.
By the time his eyes had reconnected with hers, a cloud of satisfaction had spread across his features, molding his expression into one of dignified pleasure.
"The pleasure is mine, Ms. Zhang," he replied.
He gestured for her to sit down in the chair across from him, and she obliged, carefully setting down the briefcase on top of the table as she did.
"I am sure Lee apologized for keeping you waiting, "He said. "But as you can imagine, I am a very busy man, so I will not keep you waiting any longer…Let us get down to business. If I may…?"
Lin nodded, and Chin clasped his hands on the side of the case, slowly dragging the case over to his side of the table. He carefully undid the case, and pushed the latch open.
Instantly, his face was illuminated by a soft blue glow produced by the case's contents. His eyes widened slightly as if he was gazing at an incredibly rare jewel.
Then, his expression changed to that of smug appreciation, as an almost sinister smile stretched across his face.
Lin felt a chill come over her as Chin stared at his new toy, and she fought to keep her aura of calm and collected professionalism.
Chin carefully lifted the object out of the box, holding it in both hands immediately before his eyes.
The object itself turned out to less remarkable than the meeting arranged around it. It was cylindrical in shape, wide in side, and black in color. Glowing blue bars of light lined its sides, giving the object its natural luminescence. On either end were mishmashes of ports and openings, along with labels that explained how to safely connect the device.
Chin continued to stare at it curiously, as if he was looking at God Himself.
Not desiring to drag this meeting on any longer than possible, Lin finally spoke up.
"I believed we agreed on 8631200 yen," she said.
A flash of annoyance appeared on Chin's face, but was quickly replaced with the same polite smile that he had greeted her with earlier.
He snapped his fingers, and almost immediately, a man wearing a dark suit and sunglasses, presumably one of Chin's guards, appeared on his right.
The guard handed Chin a checkbook, and he quickly scribbled something down into it.
When he was finished, he handed Lin the check for the correct amount.
"I am a man of my word, Ms. Zhang," He said.
When he said nothing else, Lin rose, bowed to him, and turned on her heels to leave.
She had made it halfway to the doors when Chin spoke again.
"The question is," Chin said icily. "are you?"
Lin froze in her tracks, and turned to face her host once more.
Like a well-trained actress, Lin played her part by allowing a look of confusion to form on her face.
Chin rose, and walked towards her. His stride was long, slow, and confident, and as well as almost completely silent in his movements.
It allowed Lin to hear her own heartbeat racing.
"I'm sorry?" Lin asked, feigning confusion again.
Chin chuckled to himself, as if she had just told him the punchline to a wonderful joke.
"Are Taurus Millenium PT145 handguns the typical equipment of sales representatives?" he continued. "Strange, because that PT145 you're carrying happens to be the preferred sidearm of GUN undercover agents."
She felt her body go numb as Chin stared at her. He was, of course, referring to the compact handgun that sat in a holster around her thigh. Obviously, it was not as well hidden as she thought.
An objection was beginning to form on her lips, but it was immediately lost when every guard in the room pulled out their handguns and pointed them directly at her.
The guards at the back of the room, rushed to the center, their gun barrels never leaving their target.
She turned around slowly to face the exit doors, where only more ways to die awaited. The platinum pistol in Lee's hands suddenly made his discreet sexual advances look entirely innocent.
Chin walked around her slowly so that he stood before her. On the outside, she looked collected. On the inside however, she felt like a glass vase that was about to be destroyed by a sledge hammer.
"GUN feels it can police the world," he said calmly, his eyes never leaving hers. "When in reality, the world is completely out of your hands."
"We will stop you, Fei," Lin said, using her anger to overcome her fear. "Whatever you're up to, we'll stop you."
Once again, Chin allowed his confidence to show. There was that smile again.
Chin walked towards her, and ran his hand across her cheek, tracing her smooth skin.
"Shame," he said finally.
Chin walked away from her, and back towards the table. Lin heard him close the briefcase, and lift it up from the table.
"Kill her," He said as he walked towards the back of the room.
Instantly, in the room cocked their weapons, and prepared themselves.
In those last moments, Lin allowed her fear to pour out. Her chest inflated and deflated rapidly, as her heart began to race faster and faster. Beads of sweat began to drip down her forehead as she prepared herself to be ripped apart in a volley of gunfire.
As she examined the faces of the guards around her, she knew that these men had absolutely no reservations about blowing her to pieces.
The only thing they had to be remorseful for was the bloody mess that would soon be splattered across the carpet. Chin would probably make them clean it up.
She closed her eyes, and prepared herself for that last, horrifying sound.
However, the sound that came was completely different from the one she was expecting.
The sharp, piercing sound of shattering glass behind her caused her to turn around, and she immediately found its source: two of the large windows on the right side of the room had shattered.
Lin watched as three of the guards rushed over to it, while the other four kept their sights on her.
She watched in amazement as a massive cloud of dust and dirt came pouring into the opposite side of the room on a strong, howling wind, engulfing the three guards in a dark abyss.
Strange. The wind was not even close to being this strong earlier.
Suddenly, a flash of blue shot across the cloud, almost like lightning.
There was a horrified shout, followed by an agonized scream. The blue light flashed twice more, and was then followed by two more screams.
Lin noticed immediately that the remaining guards had turned their attention away from her and towards the cloud on the other end of the room, staring at the cloud in bewilderment and fear.
She had to admit, she felt the same way.
Before they had much time to contemplate what was happening, the wind suddenly shifted direction, and blew straight across the room.
Lin was thrown off her balance as the cloud and wind consumed her. Lin landed on her hands and knees, coughing as dirt was shoved down her throat and into her lungs.
She crouched as low as possible, attempting to duck below the swirling cloud that had seemingly formed around her.
Finding small spots of clean oxygen, she breathed deeply, still wheezing as she attempted to dislodge the soil that had begun to line her throat.
Then, finding enough strength to stand up, Lin pushed herself to her knees.
As she did, several flashes of blue sparked in the cloud around her, and she ducked again to avoid them.
She could barely hear the agonized screams of pain from the guards, but they still sent a chill down her spine.
Whatever this thing was, it was saving from her from the guards, but what happened when it ran out of bodies? Would it come after her next?
As these thoughts entered her mind, the wind suddenly died down and cloud of dirt and dust vanished almost instantly.
Lin suddenly felt like a survivor at a bombsite.
Bodies were scattered all around her: some of them were lying against the wall, having apparently been thrown several feet. Others laid in uncomfortable positions on the ground.
Some of them made muted moaning sounds, while others did not move at all.
Lin looked around her, feeling her jaw slacken more and more as she took in the sight around her.
Forgetting completely about Chin and the deal, she turned around to face the exit.
Instantly, her eyes fell upon a paralyzing sight.
Standing in front of the doors was a creature of some sort. It was a little over five feet in height, had two legs and two arms, and two hands with five fingers each, but the rest of it looked completely alien.
Several clusters of quills dominated its back, and ran all the way up the back of its head. The quills were clustered together to form large spikes, which combed backwards in a sleek and aerodynamic shape.
Though its legs and arms were slender by human standards, they were visibly muscled. Through the quills on its back, Lin could see that the muscles on his back were visible and tensed.
Save for the burgundy shoes he wore on his feet and the white gloves that covered his hands, he was completely covered in a midnight blue colored fur.
Apparently sensing movement behind it, the creature turned around to face her.
Its head was larger than a human's, and was dominated by two massive eyes. Instead of being round, its eyes were almost right-triangle in shape, except elongated and with sharp corners on each end of the eye. Its irises were a striking shade of green.
Its muzzle and belly where sandy brown in color, and along with the narrow black nose and eyes, were the only body parts that were not blue.
The creature's eyes were locked on her in a threatening glare, and slowly, it began to approach her.
Lin attempted to turn and run, but failed miserably, and instead ended up losing her balance and falling over.
She watched in terror as the creature slowly moved over to her, then stopped, only a few inches away from her body. It still stared him down with the same threatening glare
She prepared herself to meet the same fate as the guards.
Needless to say, she was shocked when the creature's expression softened, and a smile appeared on its face.
"Hey," it said, with the fluency of any human.
Lin stared at the creature, completely dumbstruck. She did not know what was more shocking: the fact that the creature was not going to kill her or the fact that the creature could apparently speak English.
"Well," it continued. "You could at least thank the guy who just saved your life."
It moved closer towards her, and Lin instinctively moved backwards.
"Hey, relax," It said soothingly. "I'm not going to hurt you."
Its voice sounded like a teenage boy in the later years of adolescence. It was somewhat deep in pitch and yet still sounded young, but lacked the hyperactiveness that most young boys possessed.
"My name's Sonic," he said. "What's yours?"
Finding herself able to form words again, Lin managed simply, "Lin…Zhang."
"Seems like you made some enemies here, Lin," Sonic said, examining the room. "I'm looking for someone here…Wanna come along?"
He extended his hand towards her, and Lin looked at for a few moments. He was completely alien, unlike anything she had ever seen before, yet that friendly smile on his face was somehow reassuring.
Finally deciding, Lin took his hand and he helped her to her feet.
Oh well, she thought. it was not like this was a normal night anyway.