TF: So, here's something totally unexpected by most – another one-shot in my Christian story series! This should be a series ... any ideas what I should call it?
Wilbur: No idea.
Skye: Nada.
Felix: Lemonade!
TF: Ah ... *sweat-drop* no. Thanks anyway, Felix. Anyhow, here's something that just popped into my head around five o'clock in the morning, so I wrote it down now for you guys to read! Credit goes to a FanFiction writer named Towerdepths "Tower", the basis for this story can be found on his profile bio, so thanks, Tower! :D
Skye: Oh yeah, also found out that somebody with a nice avatar of Silver on FanFiction is celebrating their birthday today! Happy B-Day, Cooldude1453 "Cool"!
Wilbur: And getting to the chase. We don't own any of the characters except for Zirtual, the Zone Cop version of Virtual. Everybody else is owned by SEGA, except for several other OC's appearing in here.
TF: Noah the Panda and Spencer the Gorilla belong to bearvalley3365. Zaito the Snow Leopard is based off of Saito the Snow Leopard, owned by Cyborg77, and Zhade the Hedgehog is based off of Shade the Hedgehog, owned by none other then Cooldude1453! Enjoy! :D
Skye: Oh, PS – you don't like the story, go read something else. All flames will be absorbed by Zirtual, TF is not going to stand for another mean reviewer (no names, but we know who you are) when all she's doing is expressing her beliefs. So THERE!
TF: Hope you guys like! Review nicely! :) Oh, and if any of you think up a good name for this series of Sonic Christian one-shots, please PM or review it to me, love to hear your thoughts! Thanks!
Wilbur: And a side-note – no idea if there's a Master Emerald in No Zone, but we made up the Master Zircon as a version of it. Just in case anybody wonders what the Master Zircon is. It's yellow. *grins*
Skye: We also don't own the cover picture, the original can be found here, delete the spaces, and add the h-whatever thing at the beginning – / / lujji. deviant art art /ZONIC- 286 683 554
"Life is like a game of cards. The hand you are dealt is determinism; the way you play it is free will." – Jawaharlal Nehru
∞∞∞ Deck of Cards ∞∞∞
A blue Hedgehog flipped up the visor on his helmet, revealing a pair of neon-green eyes, and crossed his arms, looking around his surroundings. The Zone Cop base of the Dimension of Zones, No Zone, was relatively quiet – no chasing down bad guys, no kidnappings, no attempted murders or illegal dimension-jumping today. For that the leader of the Zone Cops, the Hedgehog himself, was glad. You could only fight so long before it got tiring, not to mention dangerous. His shoulder still stung from the bullet-graze he'd gotten from his Moebian version, Scrounge, only last week during an attempted jail-break.
The blue creature frowned at the memory, rubbing his forehead as he sighed, closing his eyes. "Ugh ..."
"Zonic?"
The Hedgehog's green eyes opened as he turned his head in the direction of the voice. "Yes, Zamy?" he asked.
The pink-quilled, Hedgehog female pulled off her Zone Cop helmet, walking over. "Are you okay?" she asked worriedly. "You look tired. That's not like you."
Zonic looked away from his unofficial-girlfriend's matching, neon-green eyes. "I'm not exactly tired, Zames ..."
Zamy wrinkled her peach muzzle, placing one navy-blue gloved hand on the shoulder of Zonic's red and gold uniform. "Oh? Then what are you exactly?" she mimicked, a tinge of a teasing tone in her voice.
The blue Hedgehog chuckled a bit at that before rubbing the back of his neck, smile fading. "Well, I ... I don't know, Zamy, it's just ... sometimes, I really wonder why we are here."
Zamy blinked. "... Come again?"
"Us," Zonic repeated. "Why are we here? Why are we alive? We defeat law breakers, we make sure dimensions aren't mixing, we keep saving the worlds over and over again – for what? What is the result in the end? More crime to keep us running in an endless circle?"
The female processed those words. "... You're still thinking about Zhadow and Zilver's argument last night, huh?" she asked softly.
Zonic sighed. "Well, only that part. I'm on Zilver's side that we need to help people, not let them die, but ... Zhadow had a good point. What use is it? What use is any of it? Who we are, what we do ... when we die, does it really matter? Does anyone even remember us?"
Zamy pursed her lips. "... I don't know, Zonikku. I really don't know. Death isn't exactly something people experience then write a book about, you know? It's beyond our control."
"Then who's control is it in?" her boyfriend asked. "We can't be here by accident, something other then a massive Big Bang thing must have caused all this! What created us? Immortals, alter-dimensional portals, displaced space-dust, energy beams from another planet ..."
"... A god?"
Zonic looked at Amy in confusion. "What?" he asked. "Something almost as powerful as a god?"
He chuckled, shaking his head. "From what I've heard from my Mobius version, Sonic, Perfect Chaos was rather close to that, but it was more of a destroyer then any kind of creator, so that monster is not even going to be mentioned in my train of thought."
Zamy rolled her green eyes. "Zonic, I meant an actual god. You know, those mysterious ones that live up in the sky and watch over and judge everybody in the worlds? Those kinds?"
The blue Hedgehog's smile faded, and he fell silent, musing over that before turning his head away "... Maybe," he finally murmured. "But Zames, there are so many gods out there, even Znuckles lost count of the dimensional religions almost an entire year ago! Who's to know what is real and what isn't? Some seem genuine, but others ..."
He wrinkled his nose. "You would need to be insane to believe in it."
Zonic sighed, shaking his head. "Maybe we're wrong. Maybe there isn't any god or gods. Maybe we are just misplaced space-dust in need of vacuuming."
Zamy paused. "But, Zonikku ... wouldn't you rather live your life as if there was a god, then died and found out there wasn't, rather then living life as if there never was a god, then died and found out there was?" she pointed out gently. "I'm no expert on religion, but you're right – there MUST be something that did all this."
She held out her arms at either side. "Something so big and powerful and complex, yet so simple–"
"Hey, lovebirds!"
The two Hedgehogs turned to see a red-quilled Echidna run over to them, screeching to a stop, and Zonic smiled. "Hey, Znuckles!" he exclaimed, high-fiving the new Mobian.
The Echidna, Znuckles, chuckled before motioning around the base. "Hey, in case you haven't noticed, visiting hours are almost over. Zails invited all the guys over to his lab for a kind of sleepover, since we're pretty sure nobody will try anything tonight, and Zouge invited the girls over to her Zone apartment as well. You two coming or what?"
Zonic rolled his green eyes with a chuckle. "Yes, we are, knuckle-head."
Znuckles made a face of disdain at him, and Zamy laughed. "Knuckle-head? I've never heard that one before!" she grinned.
"Yeah, and you're never gonna hear it again," Znuckles scowled, crossing his arms.
Zonic shrugged. "What? Something with that name and all the versions of you, particularly the Mobius one—"
"Knuckles?"
"Yeah, that one. Something about the name just FITS."
"Uh huh. And my fist connecting with your face just FITS."
"Guys, c'mon!" Zamy interrupted the upcoming argument, already heading for the back door leading to the apartments. "It'll get dark soon!"
Zonic waved at her. "All right! See you tomorrow, Zames!" he called.
"You too, Zonikku!" Zamy smiled back as she waved, opening the door, then slipped through and quietly closed it as her footsteps faded away beyond the metal frame.
"... Lovebirds."
"Shut up," Zonic made a face. "As if you and Zouge aren't an obvious couple, like Zicole said."
Znuckles blushed slightly. "H-hey, we are NOT a couple! What does Zicole know, anyway, she's never been in love with anyone!" he pointed out.
The blue Hedgehog shrugged. "Actually, yes, she has been. She currently has a crush on Zhard," he admitted.
"The robot?"
"Of course, what other Zhard do we know of?" Zonic smirked. "But before he arrived, she told Zally, who told me, that she and Zespio actually liked each other at one point."
Znuckles looked interested. "They did? Huh, figures, they're both purple ... and what do you mean, at one point?"
Zonic shrugged again. "Organic animals and computerized AI's do not mix."
"Oh, yeah ... I keep forgetting she's a computer," the Echidna mused thoughtfully.
"You'd forget where the Master Zircon was if you didn't spend most of your free time WATCHING it as if it'll grow legs and run away," Zonic snickered.
Znuckles frowned, rolling his bright purple eyes. "Can it."
The two Mobian males headed for the doorway leading to Zails' laboratory a few hundred yards away, and Zonic asked, "So, who is going to be here?"
Znuckles shrugged. "Eh, you know, the usual. You, me, Zails, Zhadow, Zilver, Zector, Zespio, Zharmy, Zighty, Zob'O, Zomega — I think Zhard, Zightning, Zantoine, and Zotor'll be there, too. Zaito and Zhade will also be present, but they'll be a bit late – they're helping the Doctor back in the headquarters office – and Zeoffrey said no thanks, he's still upset over that whole ... dimensional thing."
Zonic's ear flicked. "Still? Just because most of the dimensional versions of him turn out to become evil doesn't necessarily mean he'll turn on us."
The red teenager's purple orbs glanced at Zonic. "Tell that to him, not me. Besides, he kinda does have a right to worry — most of YOUR versions are leaders, most of MY versions are guardians — why wouldn't most of HIS versions be criminals in the making?"
"You're as optimistic as ever, I see," Zonic rolled his own green eyes.
Znuckles smirked. "I try."
He held up a spiked hand, stopping. "Oh, yeah, one thing, Zonic."
"Yes?" the Hedgehog asked.
Znuckles jabbed a thumb behind him. "Can you find Zirtual and ask him if he wants to join the sleepover thing?" the Echidna asked. "Zails would've done it, but nobody's seen the guy all day."
Zonic shrugged. "Why not? Sure, I'll go find him."
He smirked. "Just leave some chili-dogs for me, got it?"
"I'll restrain the others," Znuckles retorted, half-closing his slanted eyes as his voice dripped sarcasm.
A gust of wind smacked his face in reply, Zonic having already vanished in a super-sonic second. The crimson Echidna flipped down his helmet visor, giving a wave in the direction Zonic had left in as he headed back for the lab. "Chili-dogs ..." he muttered, shaking his head.
A blur of blue and red whizzed through the twisting streets of No Zone, Zonic weaving expertly through the people on the ground, turning up to walls and occasionally the ceiling as gravity twisted and bended in this odd dimension. Here in No Zone, up, down, and sideways were anywhere and everywhere – people walking up the sides of buildings was perfectly normal, especially since those buildings were also futuristic streets, and ceilings existed where none should be, and everything looked like something out of the Matrix.
Zonic tried to think of where the gray Kitsune Cat could possibly be. Visiting one of his dimensional versions? No, he would have told them, and besides, then he'd already know about it since they monitored the dimensions. Hoverboard practice? No again, the Reality Warper was still being repaired since that accidental crash between Zirtual, Zeoffrey, and Zightning. Maybe ...
Zonic face-palmed. Of course! Today was Sunday, and Zirtual stayed in the base on Sundays! Rolling his eyes at himself, the blue Hedgehog did a quick U-turn, almost blowing over a small group of Mobians from the Classical dimension. "Excuse me!" he apologized, speeding off, then quickly dodged around two Mobians from the Mobius dimension, a multi-colored Panda Bear and a Gorilla. "WHOA!" the Panda yelped, leaping back and crashing into the Gorilla.
"Very sorry! My apologies!" Zonic called back again, zooming for the Zone Cop base and leaving the two Mobians staring at each other in confusion.
"... Was that Sonic?" the Gorilla asked.
The Panda paused, then shook his head. "No, I don't think so, Spencer. That was probably a Sonic version."
"How do you know that?" Spencer asked.
His brother, Noah, smirked. "I don't think the real Sonic would have even noticed, let alone apologized."
Reaching the huge building of the Zone Cop base in an instant, Zonic zoomed inside and zipped through the headquarter hallways in a gust of blue wind.
Farther inside the building two Zone Cops, a bright red Hedgehog that looked similar to Zilver and a black and white Snow Leopard, walked out of one of the offices, carrying several paper bundles. "Is that all, Doctor?" the Hedgehog called.
"Mm, I think so, Zhade."
A mustached human, Dr. Zeggman, walked out of the office the two Cops had come from and down the halls, flipping through a bundle of paperwork he had just finished printing. The red Hedgehog, Zhade, hurried after him, followed by the Leopard, Zaito, who kept dropping sheets accidentally and stopping to pick them back up, trying to adjust his stack to be less messy.
Dr. Zeggman hardly noticed, too busy frowning at the papers. Yet more court charges on the damage his Mobian version, Dr. Eggman, kept inflicting on the worlds ... the man shook his head, adjusting his sunglasses. Goodness, he really wondered about his versions sometimes ...
"INCOMING!"
Dr. Zeggman, Zhade, and Zaito all looked up, then gasped before leaping to the side, plastering themselves against the wall just as a blur of blue quills zipped past them, the huge gust of wind in it's wake ripping the papers from their arms and scattering them all over the hall. "SORRY!" a voice called back apologetically before the blur vanished.
Zaito blinked, looking at Zhade, who shrugged. Dr. Zeggman just sighed, stepping away from the wall as he rubbed his forehead, studying the askew sheets of papers lying all over the floor. The Leopard rubbed the back of his neck. "... So, I guess we pick them up all over again, huh?" he asked.
Zhade groaned, face-palming. "Brilliant. I spent over an hour trying to put those thing in alphabetical order!" he exclaimed, brown eyes staring at the mess.
"I think we should computerize the files these days ..." the Leopard mused, pale blue eyes wandering around.
Dr. Zeggman, again, was barely listening, already analyzing the strewn files and coming up with a verdict – this, would take a while. "Seriously, Zonic ...?" he muttered, bending down as he began picking up the documents and folding them up all over again, shaking his head.
Meanwhile, Zonic finally reached his destination and screeched to a stop, lifting one blue-gloved fist to knock on the closed door in front of him. "Hello? ZR? You there?" he called.
A rustling sound, faint pattering, then a click as the door swung open, revealing the familiar gray-furred, white-eyed figure of Zirtual, triple tails flicking back and forth as usual. "Hey, Zonic!" the Kitsune Cat smiled, leaning against the doorframe. "Didn't expect to see you here."
Zonic chuckled. "Hi, Zir," he smiled. "What's up?"
Zirtual shrugged, leaving the door open as he walked back into his room, plopping down on a black couch as he arranged what looked like rectangle sheets on the coffee table in front of him. "Mm, nothing much," he admitted. "It's been a quiet day. You?"
Zonic shrugged himself, walking inside himself to drop into a black easy chair across from the blind teenager. "Same for me. Except I almost ran over Zeggman and two Zone Cops out there," he chuckled, pointing out at the doorway. "The Doctor's face!"
Zirtual grinned. "You're cruel, you know that? Almost giving the man a heart attack!" he laughed.
"Excuse me, it was accidental! I didn't know he was in the halls, I thought he was still catching up on paperwork in his office!" the Hedgehog protested, throwing up his hands.
"Uh huh. Anyway, why are you here? You usually don't drop by my apartment that often," Zirtual commented.
Zonic lowered his hands. "Oh, yes. Zails is having this kind of boys-night sleepover at his lab, so we were wondering if you wanted to come over too."
Zirtual pursed his mouth. "Mm ... I might," he murmured, fixing the position of one if the rectangles.
Zonic looked down at the coffee table, then blinked. The rectangles, oddly enough, were a bunch of playing cards, all spread out on the table and adjusted into neat, tidy lines and stacks. He flicked one blue ear, crossing his arms with a slight frown as he tried to make sense of this – Zirtual wasn't one for card-playing – before turning his neon-green eyes to gaze at the Cat. "ZR?"
"Mm?"
"Why exactly weren't you out with the rest of the Zone Cops all day?" Zonic asked.
Zirtual sat back, brushing his bangs out of his face. "Well, today's Sunday, so I thought I would stay behind and spend some time with God," he explained.
Zonic looked back at the laid-out cards. Right, Zirtual was the religious one of the team, the one that believed in the religion called "Christianity". Normally, Zonic would just nod and not think about it, but his earlier conversation with Zamy played back in his head ...
"But, Zonikku ... wouldn't you rather live your life as if there was a god, then died and found out there wasn't, rather then living life as if there never was a god, then died and found out there was? I'm no expert on religion, but you're right – there MUST be something that did all this. Something so big and powerful and complex, yet so simple ..."
... She was defiantly onto something. If a god existed, then he wanted to know about it. But who was to know which god or gods were real among all the other fake ones? Zonic privately decided that learning about each religion, one by one, would probably be best until he could figure out which one was true ... and since Zirtual was a Christian ... maybe he could learn a little bit about what exactly Christians believed in.
The Hedgehog pointed at the table. "It looks like you're about to play cards to me."
The Kitsune shook his head. "No, I'm not. You see, remember during that huge jail-break a few months back, O'Knux bombed part of the base?"
"The Moebian, pyromaniac version of Znuckles?" Zonic asked, wrinkling his peach muzzle. "Chaos, yes!"
Zirtual chuckled at his response before the smile on his white muzzle faded. "Well, the bomb destroyed a large area of the apartments, my apartment being among them, so the Bible I had got burned up. I haven't saved up enough money to buy another yet, since they're rather rare in this dimension, but in the meantime, I've decided to talk to the Lord by studying this deck of cards."
Zonic raised an eyebrow, seriously wondering if Zirtual had lost it. "And ... how would you do that?" the blue Mobian asked.
Zirtual smiled at him before pointing at the first card. "You see the Ace, Zonic?"
The Hedgehog looked down at the Ace, then nodded slowly. "Yes ..."
The Kitsune nodded back. "Well, it reminds me that there is only one god, the Lord Jehovah."
He pointed at the next card. "The Two represents the two parts of the Bible, Old and New Testaments."
Another point. "The Three represents the Father, Jehovah, the Son, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit."
"The Four stands for the Four Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John."
"The Five is for the five bridesmaids, or virgins – there were ten, but only five of them were glorified, because they had extra oil in their lamps."
"The Six is for the six days it took God to create the Heavens and the Earth."
"The Seven is for the day God rested after making His Creation."
"The Eight is for the family of Noah and his wife, their three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, and their wives – the eight people God spared from the flood that destroyed the Earth."
"The Nine is for the lepers that Jesus cleansed of leprosy. He cleansed ten, but nine never thanked Him."
"The Ten represents the Ten Commandments that God handed down to Moses on tablets made of stone, written by his own hand on Mount Sinai."
"The Jack is a reminder of Satan, one of God's first angels, but he got kicked out of heaven for his sly and wicked ways and is now the joker of eternal hell."
"The Queen stands for the virgin Mary, who was blessed enough to be the Earthly mother of the Son of God."
"The King stands for Jesus, for he is the King of all kings."
"When I count the dots on all the cards, I come up with three hundred and sixty-five total, one for every day of the year."
"There are a total of fifty-two cards in a deck; each is a week – fifty-two weeks are in a year."
"The four suits, Heart, Club, Spade, and Diamond represent the four seasons, Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter."
"Each suit has thirteen cards – there are exactly thirteen weeks in a quarter. So when I want to talk to God and thank Him, I just pull out this deck of cards, and they remind me of all that I have to be thankful for."
Zonic just sat there, mouth open slightly in shock at the entire explanation he had heard. How was all that possibly even able to fit in so perfectly with just a set of playing cards? It almost sounded impossible, if Zirtual hadn't just shown him, and Zonic blinked as Zamy's words again echoed in his mind.
"Something so big and powerful and complex, yet so simple ..."
"... Zirtual?"
The Kitsune looked up. "Yes, Zonic?" he asked.
Zonic looked at him, the beginning of tears starting to form in his neon-green eyes. "... Can I borrow that deck of cards?"
"Thus says the LORD, the King of Israel, And his Redeemer, the LORD of hosts: 'I am the First and I am the Last; Besides Me there is no God."
Isaiah 44:6, NKJV (New King James Version)
TF (TFTime)