Welcome To The Working Week
I know. I didn't think I'd like Loonatics Unleashed either. Well, not not like, just not care. But Warner Brothers surprised me. As did Sega with that mascot of theirs. Amazing what TV can do.
Ha, see how I have totally skipped around the standard disclaimer? I haven't even mentioned the word!
Damn.
---
Unsettling light gleamed off deep blue quills.
"Ow…"
Note to self; Chaos emeralds suck. Really truly suck.
No wet feeling under hand, so hopefully no bleeding, but it would be hard to tell with gloves wouldn't it? Then again, Sonic the Hedgehog found himself in situations where bleeding cocktails of adrenaline rushes were pretty standard. Hail the conquering hero. Stupid Robotnik…
Sounds. Gentle boot scrapes on metal floor. Light, even low as a dying lamp, stung a tad too much for grass green eyes, so he kept his blue lids closed. Probably best after the mini sun he'd gone through. With both eyes. A pause crawled into his ear, scraping tired nerves.
Might as well…super fast feet weren't going anywhere.
"Okay…I'm gonna open my eyes. If I open my eyes am I going to regret it?"
"That depends doc."
Brooklyn twang, the hedgehog noted. Wise guy. And probably not afraid to show it. I like him already.
"I, uh, know yer half outta it down there, but how are ya feeling about getting some pants on? We got a lady present."
A thud of elbow off ribcage, muffled by material and expelled breath through teeth.
"Watch it fearless leader."
Spaghetti thin drooping muscles managed a smirk. They got together and tried at an eye lid. The light stung but no where near as much as whatever had been up with that chaos control. Surrounding billowing smoke helped.
"Huh."
Shadow black splashed with random rainbow colours. No two the same, save the two rabbits. Yellow and pink, yellow for the male strangely enough. Bruise purple on a mass of muscle (Sonic couldn't distinguish what species, and not just because of the bad lighting his brain was receiving) towering over the too bright orange bird in front, sharp angular beak agape. Pale mint green on a wire thin frame, night vision lens like eyes intently fixed on the hedgehog down a long canine snout. Halloween was truly an inter species thing.
Weak shoulders shrugged.
"Seen weirder."
---
"So…ideas?"
Sparks dancing over head, Knuckles the Echidna shielded long red furred dreadlocks as he duct under twisted metal. Metal soled boots crunched over earth fussed into dessert hot glass. He tapped the frozen figure in front of the mass of red hot flame and redder, hotter metal
"Tails, don't freak out on me here."
A haughty sniff behind them.
"You have no idea how to talk to kids guardian."
Violet eyes narrowed. "Like you'd know."
He didn't bother turning around. Shadow was probably gazing off uninterested into the distance already, trying to convey to the miles of sand, rock and dust that had once been a three mile part of forest that he was The Ultimate Life form. Right now the guardian echidna had bigger things to worry about, possibly even bigger than the hedgehog's ego.
"Tails. Look at me so I don't feel stupider around you than I normally do, please."
Prower stirred.
"Knuckles…I…"
A shovel blade sized hand rested on a young shoulder.
"Easy kid. Get a grip."
The fox boy turned blue eyes to the guardian, threatening to become ocean blue under wobbling tears.
"It…it was only a test…I didn't…did I…?"
"Hey, no. No…"
Although Knuckles had to admit, taking in the mass of disfigured mush that had once been an efficient upright blade of technology, it didn't look that good.
Sonic goes in, this thing goes up. And me and creepy the ultimate ego mass are the only ones left with the kid. Why do these things always happen to me?
Tails' lower lip was quivering like snow in an avalanche. "It was only meant to be an energy converter."
With a chaos emerald as a power source. Safety features might as well be a chair propped against an unhinged door when taking into account the sheer limitlessness power of whatever kept those things going. And even without one of the most unpredictable things on the planet acting as a battery, using the fastest thing alive, mouth included, was an extra recipe for disaster ala mode.
"An energy converter…okay. Why did Sonic have to take part again?"
A shuddering breath, and inventor turned back to burning creation. The occasional sniffle drooled in among his words.
"The emerald was unstable…way unstable…but if I could get it to work…well the power could keep the entire nation running for a millennium, theoretically…but I needed to know what kind of energy would be the best way to go. I didn't want a direct tap, that would over load everything…so I thought I'd start small…"
Knuckles eyes asked the question for him. Hooking one of the few organic things that could survive breaking the sound barrier up to a treadmill was small?
"He…we…I…I thought it'd be best to go the old fashioned way…kinetic energy…Sonic runs, the generator turns the output into chaos energy by passing it through the filters…but…but it got too big…"
Another gulp.
"The emerald…amplified it…too fast…I think…I think we initiated chaos control…"
The drama from a few moments ago played out in the echidna's head. The flash of sunlight off the polished metal of charging robots. The sound of jet thrusters and pounding shot guns. The almost unnoticeable, hollow sound as a lucky bullet made one of the almost indistinguishable heaps of technology clustered around the device stand out from the rest, smoke and sparks beginning a mad tango around failing mechanisms. The all too familiar whine of a revolving emerald, energy crackling under every note. The look on the hedgehog's face as he was there one second. And then not the next. Vanished in the space between heartbeats and leaving a frantic Knuckles to pull the kid away from tiger growling machinery and hurtle past Shadow ( who had appeared from nowhere amidst the sound of breaking metal and gunfire) into the presumable safety of the woods. The calculating look on the hedgehog's face as he turned, body firm against the headache throbbing light, arms flexing with the thundering conversion of a Chaos Blast.
Even as the golden shield of Shadow's power sped surging forward to carry the hellfire red of the blast, Knuckles thanked whatever ancient gods that his people had worshipped, and weren't sealed away in the Master Emerald, that his instincts had screamed like molten lava into his leg muscles, forcing him into a straight jump and glide with Tails clinging as if magnetised to his back. The tree they had initially sheltered behind, or rather it's atoms, were probably what had crunched under his foot as had landed, tripping and rolling as a final heat wave smelling of copper had swept them up in billowing arms and flung them in a straight line towards what was left of the dense bushes some yards away.
"Well…at least you didn't use the Master Emerald."
Tail's looked like he was about to simultaneously dehydrate and asphyxiate. Another haughty sniff. Knuckles tried to force the same kind of effort that was keeping him from finding a volcano and introducing the hedgehog to it head first into his facial muscles, a reassuring look as brittle as ancient cathedral glass
"Hey, it's Sonic."
"Uh, excuse me?"
Instincts kicked in, the guardian's body suddenly between the world and the fox boy, namesake in a defensive stance so solid a hurricane would have had to go around him.
"Yeah, hi, I'm uh…stuck here, could you give me a hand, only if you can afford to, I don't want to put you to any trouble, although it may be difficult getting me out of here, but probably not a difficult as me digging myself out, which come to think of it I can't do, not that I have any broken bones or anything, although my neck is incredibly stiff, its just too heavy, so could you help a guy out?
The echidna stared at the fox, glanced over a shoulder at the hedgehog, who's red eyes were pinned to the origon of the sound like a dart to a board. A hand was extended. Knuckles tried not to shudder as it was gripped.
The…bird that emerged gave himself a shake, cracking a katana smooth neck to the side. Sparks flashed briefly off streamlined feathers before fading against the black of whatever material the body suit he was wearing.
"Ooooooh, man, is it good to be out from under there, boy oh boy I thought I'd never see daylight again, although maybe that's a little over dramatic since I was only under there for about five minutes, at least I think it might have been five minutes, I couldn't really tell, I may have a concussion, which may have impaired my time telling ability, in which case I should probably lie down, although if I do I'll probably start blacking out, but not if someone talks to me, oh where are my manners, man my mother would be ashamed, I'm usually better at making a first impression than this, hi I'm Rev Runner, and you are?"
Knuckles looked around the entire scene. Smoke, fire, robots, stuck up hedgehogs and now something that talked more than Amy Rose on a bender.
"Of course this would have to happen on a Friday."
---
"An energy converter?"
Impressed eye brows raised, Tech E. Coyote kept an equal amount of focus on subject and scanner.
"That was the idea."
The hedgehog's voice reverberated from inside the tank, pale green glow sliding up and down his body, soothing as ocean waves. The local genius made a note to hurry. From personal experience, too long under the med scanner analysis ray and you'd need to get checked out for bladder problems.
"Of course, go figure, half way through Robotnik decides to gatecrash and next thing I know I'm shoved into the next plain of reality or whatever this place is."
"Robotnik. You mentioned him before."
Green eyes wandered off the scanner enough to take in twisted metal on a near by work bench.
"Yeah, old Ivo. Imagine an egg. Imagine that egg walking and not shaving for a week and that's about what you get."
Screens danced with data, everything from quills to cellular structure live and outlined in infra red and ultra violet.
Tendon strenght…skeletal build…almost every vital organ but the stomach is small, but reinforced. Meaning it can stand operating way faster than your average Olympic hopeful. And about the same pressure as an armoured sub. If I'm reading this right (and he was) the acid breaks down and converts nutritional energy into kinetic energy…a lot of kinetic energy…
No doubt about it. Build, metabolism…even the organs had that streamlined smoothness to avoid liquefy past anything faster than a speeding laser beam.
They had traded one speedster for another.
---
"He's cute." Lexi declared.
Duck snorted, not an easy sound to make with a beak. Not pleasant either.
"He's a rat."
"Hedgehog." The rabbit's glare was more powerful than laser vision.
"Same difference."
"You got a problem with hedgehogs?"
Duck unfolded his arms, leaning back upright from the wall he'd been lounging against.
"No, but I know vermin. Bad childhood memories." A shudder. "He's gonna have a sense of humour. I know it."
"I like a sense of humour."
"Then how come you never laugh at any of my jokes?"
"Do you really need an answer Mr Bucket Of Water Over The Door?"
"In my defence the old ones are the best."
Lexi's face may as well have belonged to a panther. Even Slam, pizza sauce smeared across purple mouthpiece, paused. Duck look around for support, found none and did what all birds are good at.
"Uh…gotta go. Early migrating season."
No tactical retreat ever looked as good as a Quantum Quack. Ace smiled, head shacking before swallowing a slice that he'd tactfully retrieved at the risk of becoming one handed in the face of Slam's usual full on assault. Their impromptu guest was mulled over between bites. Despite the possibility he may be part of a Mastermind plot (hey, the broad had come up with crazy stuff, a robotic assassin disguised as a hedgehog wasn't impossible) he had to admit he liked the guy. Even with his head one step away from a total one eighty and probably going to be lucky to have just a concussion, he'd taken in the situation first and asked questions once the room stopped spinning. And not just the easy one's like "Where am I?" or "Who are you?", but stuff like "Did I hurt anyone crashing out of the sky like a meteor out of a sci-fi movie?" and "Nice place. Rent or own?" Also while not exactly having a martial artist's build the guy clearly knew how to take care of his assets, possessing a stream lined form similar to Rev's but with the work put into it showing. Stuntmen/ Martial artists/ Superhero team leaders liked that in a person as one pro to another and while Rev hit the gym a good solid two hours a day a little less junk food wouldn't kill him. Plus you had to hand it to a guy who could pull off that much blue and the retro Nude-Anthromorph look. "Sonic" seemed to have taken to the whole stranded in an alternate reality thing rather well, hence the suspicion on the rabbit's part. Still, how many robotic assassins crash landed in front of targets? Or asked for chilidogs?
Guy knows what he likes.
A near by dog pocking out of the wrappers near by (Tech had deduced from the hedgehogs gazed condition that he was low on protein and water so they'd brought in bulk) was surreptitiously pulled out.
Slam grunted (Crud.) and a pink gloved hand slammed down on top of a yellow one (Double crud!).
"That's for Sonic."
An innocent grin.
"Wouldn't give me grief if he'd ordered carrots."
"Yeah, but he didn't. He ordered chilli dogs. Because of his condition"
"Somehow I ain't seeing the benefit to his health. These thing's calories probably have weight problems."
"So how come your sneaking one?"
Sly grin. Stakes were being raised. Ace played a hand.
"C'mon, Tech's taking care of him. What's the worst that could happen?"
The explosion rattled chilli dogs, pizza, fries and soda to the floor. Ace counted to ten, thought about it a little, counted to twelve, and shuffled towards the infirmary. Smoke wondered idly out of the sealed doors and down the halls as if on a casual stroll, which given the nature of anything in Tech's hands was something you learned to live with. Still, caution had its benefits, as the Guardian Strike Sword had often pointed out. Said point was aimed straight ahead, slid between the doors like a good cocktail going down a throat. A glance at Lexi. She shook her head, fully erect ears remaining steel beam still.
"Not picking anything up. Too much echoing to pick up heart beats."
Nevertheless she kept her senses skyscraper high as Ace strained.
A twist, a scrape, a whistle of air seeping through metal, several coughs. Darkness. Light and the familiar whoosh of dimensions to let Duck through.
"Whahoppin?"
Radar bounced right and left, searching the room in front. Running water, burning metal, collapsing equipment. Excited breathing that didn't sound like anyone Lexi knew. Slam eclipsed the hallway light outside for a few seconds, pushing the doors wider. More light spilled into the room…revealing a wide eyed shell-shocked hedgehog sitting atop what was left of the medical scanner, monitors sparking around him, staring down at a pile of green ashes.
"Um…"
The eyes looked at the rest of the Loonatics without really looking. Ace tucked the Strike Sword away.
"Ah don't worry about it."
A flash of green, a stomach turning sight of the pile rebuilding itself, thankfully excluding any organs. Tech shook his snout, green sparks vanishing off in a short waterfall. He cracked his neck, giving the hedgehog a reassuring look.
"Part of my powers. Happens every couple of days, and that's in the lab alone."
"Oh."
The hedgehog blinked some more.
"There anymore soda left?"
---
A slurp echoed through the glade. Rev smacked his beak.
"Man, did that hit the spot, thanks a lot, I thought I was gonna pass out…"
"Probably would have saved us all a migraine." Shadow muttered.
"Save it." Knuckles cracked open another water bottle, a deep chug sloshing down his throat like a waterfall down a sand dune. Severally needed, although more for mentality than anything physical. He'd been no where near as dry as the gasping bird had been minutes ago, eventually forcing the echidna to sling him over his shoulder and carry him in a mad sprint to Tail's lab. Shadow probably could have done the job faster, but other than studying the guy out of some sort of self indulgent curiosity he really didn't seem to be interested in helping out anymore. Which suited Knuckles. Team Sonic, as the media insisted on calling the time he spent trying to help Sonic and Tails in an attempt to avoid having the planet blow up, had accomplished a lot before anyone had even heard of Project Shadow or the Black Arms in fifty years. Although at the rate Rev talked, if not just the speed, it might take them a while, but what else was new?
He had to admit to being shaken though. The high speed style Rev communicated in indicated he wasn't the sort to suffer heat stroke or instant dehydration or whatever had happened, but the attack had been sudden. Some (a lot of) food and (even more) water
later seemed to have done the trick though and the guy now sounded stuck back on fast forward, assuming that was normal. Experience loved cynicism, and Knuckles doubted the cosmos was going to be kind enough to just once let something weird like that sudden fit be perfectly innocent. Eyes ran Rev over for the umpteenth time in an umpteenth second, hand tipping the bottle back for another swig. Cloud bank had cracked in half as slow as ordering a laptop in Chinese for the better half of the afternoon (And the echidna had a bad feeling about that as well. Always calmest before the storm and someone who lived in the wilderness most of their life made a habit of trusting the weatherman's subject rather than his words.), sunlight slashing through fur and boiling sweat out of skin. Indoors had been oven worthy ever since Sonic rode the head of a skateboard into the AC system, and if the group was going to flash fry at snail speed they might as well do it in the fresh air. That and the TV exploding under Rev's finger tips.
Tail's scientific curiosity and youthful enthusiasm dictated Rev be placed under every kind of scanner known to man. Shadow and Knuckle's common scenes and natural cynicism suggested they postpone putting the Road Runner under anything else mechanical. Metal, glass or wood; shrapnel with momentum could sheer air in half.
Nature having cheated (in Knuckle's opinion) and provided the fox with an inbuilt backside fan, the rest stir fried for the most part in silence while the lab was put back together. Although if Shadow felt anything from the heat it didn't show, and Rev brain seemed to operate at a high enough speed to avoid burning out so far.
"Man I am really, really, really, really, really sorry about the TV, I had no idea it was going to do that, although I'm not sure if that's how TV's are supposed to work in this dimension, in which case could you warn a guy next time, almost had the fright of my life, and I've seen some scary stuff, like the Bio-Tech Parasite, wonder where that went…"
"Muhuh?" Knuckles had been half asleep.
"Start over." Shadow hadn't.
"Ah it's nothing important…"
"All done!" Tail's voice called like the narrative plot device of a god "You can come back in!"
"Oh happy, happy, happy." Knuckles half muttered, half chewed.
"It's just heat."
"A lot of heat. But you'd know all about hot air wouldn't you?"
Needlessly aggressive, but they'd been playing this game for the better half of a day, and the echidna did not like guns. Hand or blade may be just as cold, but they said someone actually cared enough about your death to do it to your face. Shadow remained outside, came in last, and slammed the door shut. Knuckle's expected this was to annoy him. But the hedgehog wasn't focusing on him. Blinking away purple ghosts from the sudden darkness, Knuckles took in the Road Runner as well.
"For someone who prides himself on lack of social grace, you seem pretty interested in this guy."
Shadow's didn't even blink, a new note to add to the long line of creepy things about the guy. His voice was a wind quiet whisper when he spoke.
"Can you see that slight residue? Like liquid light."
Knuckles dove inward, reaching out to the Master Emerald miles away and above on Angel Island, tuning into the bond between emerald and guardian, pushing it out and over the road runner, searching.
The images hit him like a iron forged tidal wave.
"Whoa…"
"What, do I have something on my face, hope it isn't a bee, I hate bees, not that I don't think their cool, some of my best friends would be bees if they could talk, which they can't, or maybe they can and just don't, sounds kinda rude, maybe that's why that one stung me when I was five, hey did you know bees can't see the colour red, so if they don't react to you it might not be because their rude but because they just can't see you, although they may be just ignoring you, in which case that'd be really rude…"
Light hidden on the border of consciousness stabbed into the forebrain, jostling the bond, making maintaining the link like trying to stare into the sun, the mind squinting like an eye lid, wanting to shut. Not chaos energy, although that was in there as well. And the road runner was covered in it.
Knuckles broke contact before he microwaved his brain, noting that Shadow had apparently been picking that energy signature up the entire time or just now figured out what it was.
Just how much did they keep having not to know about this guy?
"Uh, Rev…when whatever happened happened…"
He frowned at a distant sound. Shadow's ears perked up like a sudden knife through someone's back. A thud echoed from outside. Tail's open the door, peering out into the sun lit world outside on his front yard. He was almost blinded by the glare from a battalion of shiny egg robots.
///Priority hedgehog is not available. Primary Master signal is…unaccounted for. Beta squad location unknown. Assumed terminated. Multiple targets available. Guardian Echidna, Primary Fox, Secondary Hedgehog, also known as Ultimate Life Form identified. Additional singularity also present///
Electronics whirred and gleamed at each gaze.
///Scanning. No matches found. Singularity remains unidentified. Assumed non threat. Precaution advised. Initiating primary termination programming///
Gun barrel arms clicked.
///Targets acquired.///
"Secondary hedgehog?" Black arms unfolded. "Charming."
---
"I'm gonna take a wild guess and say he was here."
Twisted flame danced against the liquid black shine of Duck's uniform as he stood among the wreckage and too bright light.
"Ya might be right there." Although it didn't take much, Ace had to admit. Crushed cars, smashed walls, mangled fires waltzing with smoke and settled dust, most of the major planetary threats locked up or at least far enough out there not to do anything immediate; setting up the scanners and taking witness accounts was barely worth Duck's time, let alone a productive mind like Tech's. This wasn't a forensic scene, it was damage control.
They were pretty much here as a technicality. Damage control. He hated damage control. Actually what he hated was responding to Zadavia's calls too late. No way to technically track down the freak of the week except wait for Tech's muse to start humming and do the fire departments job. And it wasn't even their freak.
Ambulance doors sealed shut in a synchronized hiss of smooth running technology, sirens wailing like a flock of mourning birds, and Tech, scanners and all, trudged back as the last of the rescue units set off.
"Well we know their honest in that other dimension. Just finished talking to an old woman who's description matches twenty other witnesses accounts. Giant robots and a fat weirdo with a bad hair day on his lower lip."
"Sounds like Sonic's guy alright."
Ace kinda whished he'd taken the guy up on his offer to help out, but after the event in the medical lab he'd figured if the guy did need anything to do it was getting a tour around Acmetropolis that didn't involve high explosives. A Battle Ball game hadn't sounded like what either of them had had in mind, but Lexi had insisted ( none of the guys were sure how to feel about that, although Duck had dropped some distaining comments on inter species dating that were about as subtle as a rock to the head and were probably going to result in a painful couple of weeks until the medical lab was rebuilt) and Slam had had nothing to do (neither had Duck but that beak loved nothing more than being on the evening news) and had played chaperone at Ace's request, much to Lexi's annoyance.
He played out the afternoon's events in his head, even though it felt like longer now.
Mastermind had somehow got those warped hobgoblin hands on leftovers of the battle with the Bio-Tech Parasite. Rev had taken that personally, even though Rip had confirmed he was okay amid numerous phone calls. After the usual robot death-trap fight they'd found good old Mallory using Acmetropolis power plant to power some kind of portal device, something about a quick ticket to "launch". Rev had darted forward mid battle…and then they'd found Sonic in the remains after the dust settled. That had been hours after they'd dug they're way through in search of the Road Runner. Plenty of time for a disorientated mad genius to slip pas them, even though Mastermind had been chained up and ready for transfer to the usual cell underground.
"If it is him, he'll probably be either thinking planetary takeover or just figuring out the quickest ride home."
Tech's eyes said he was thinking what his leader was thinking, the nod confirmed it.
"Mastermind's portal."
"Right. So we gotta find out what he's up to in case we can get Sonic a free ride home too. But first we've got to solve the little mystery of where he's going."
Duck yawed, stretched from leaning against what had been a wall.
"So the sooner we solve it, the sooner short, blue and spiky gets lost. I'm motivated."
"And we get Rev back."
Ace's arms were folded, face determined.
"Okay Tech, dazzle me. Whaddaya got?"
"It's a tourist spot. Best guess, he was looking for quick info. Start with where he is and he can work his way up, which is why I'm willing to bet he jacked into any available computers and did a major google on the city."
Ace took in a crack in the cement which might be the aftermath of stamping metal, various others leading away from the heart of downtown. Away from downtown, and most of the financial and industrial centres. Pretty big side step given a need for resources this Robotnik would need.
"Any idea what he was looking for?"
"Something roughly a couple of hundred miles away, where we just finished a recent exchange with."
Orange bill flipped from one to the other. Duck tapped an annoyed webbed foot.
"Did I quack out and miss something or what?"
Tech tapped him on the shoulder.
"Duck, we're superheroes. There's a super villain from another dimension running loose. The scanners show he was thrown in this direction mid teleport. We've been to the one place he probably ended up more times than we would ever want to count. And above all…"
The coyote's eyes were as hard as rifle scopes.
"It's Friday night. The one day where everything that has no right to go wrong will go wrong. Where do you think he ended up?"