Misadventures of the Spooky Kind
Notes: This is just a silly little oneshot I concocted for Halloween. I wanted to take a break from Sonic Generations based fics, so I placed this around the time that Sonic is 13. I hope you enjoy!
Halloween was a day of spooks and candy, of tricks and sweets, and of hyper children and harried adults. And, more than anything, it was a day of becoming something you weren't.
And, for Sonic, that was anonymous.
On Halloween, he was just another kid out to snag some free candy in a Sonic the Hedgehog costume (twenty-three and a half Mobiums plus tax at the local Ultra-Mart), never mind the fact that his costume looked amazingly like the real thing or that his voice sounded just like the Blue Blur's. Adults cooed over him and his matching twin-tailed sidekick, gushing about how cute they both were and here have some extra candy because it must have taken some time to make those costumes. He took the candy of course, not wanting to be rude, but his inner sense of right and wrong always went off, because he had put forth no more effort than usual when he had gotten up that morning.
Oh, who was he kidding? He took the candy and enjoyed it. Proper comeuppance for how much he stuck out his thirteen year old neck for these people. Sometimes, he even shared the candy with Tails.
There was an advantage to lugging a six year old kid with him on Halloween. The fox had the uncanny ability to make those dark eyes of his waver with just the right amount of moister if he felt that the adults didn't give him enough candy. Usually, they left houses with more candy than five other children combined.
This Halloween was different however. Tails had decided that he was done not dressing up and he had gone out of his way to concoct a very realistic zombie costume, fake blood around the lips and everything. He walked along the road with his arms straight out a la Frankenstein and moaned like he was being stabbed in the eye, which was pretty accurate considering he had a fake knife coming out of his forehead a few inches above his eye socket. Sonic was forced to follow Tails around the suburbs of Station Square – one of the few human cities that openly accepted Mobians among them – attempting to look like a regal adult chaperoning a child and not a lame thirteen year old without a costume following around his hyper little brother.
Really, he should have seen this coming. Tails had been hinting for about a month that he wanted to go costume shopping, but Sonic had been exceptionally dense and had figured that the kid was playing with him. They always went trick-or-treating as Sonic-and-Tails-Unstoppable-Crime-Fighting-Team and he didn't count on Tails to screw up the tradition.
Of course, the tradition was only about two years strong, but still…
He looked like an idiot!
Well, okay, he only looked like an idiot to himself. To everyone else, he looked like a very realistic Sonic the Hedgehog escorting a Zombie Tails the Fox. Why Tails was a zombie was anyone's best guess, but the costume pair still got them amazed cooing and extra candy, but he couldn't help but feel like people were staring at him.
And not for the usual reasons they stared at him. They were staring at him because he was out trick-or-treating without a costume!
"Hey, Sonic!" Tails yelled, jarring the hedgehog into the here-and-now, yanking on his gloved hand. "There's a huge house up ahead! We should go there next!"
"Yeah, whatever you say." Sonic replied without feeling, trudging along after the kit as he zombie walked quickly up the hill toward the house.
One look at the house – no, mansion – and Sonic felt his stomach drop. The place was decorated to the rafters with fake bats, smiling ghosts, and snarling werewolves. The front gates, held open with two bubbling caldrons, had spider webs strung between the spires and skeletons were hanging off the fence attached to the gates. Sonic twitched as a sinister laugh came from some cleverly hidden speakers.
"Uh, I don't think this is a good idea, Tails," Sonic mumbled, pulling the fox away from where he had been about to stick his finger into the caldrons. "I don't think this is a trick-or-treating house."
"What are you talking about Sonic? !" The kitsune demanded, darting away from the hedgehog and up the pathway – which was lined with small, plastic skulls – to the house. "This is totally a house to get candy from! Why else would they decorate it like this?"
Sonic easily zipped ahead of the fox, holding out his hands to stop him. "Because it's a haunted house, kiddo. You know, walk through and they try to scare you type thing?"
Tails looked mystified at that for a few seconds and Sonic was about to breathe a sigh of relief and turn the fox around to hit a few more houses and then call it a night when the kit's eyes lit up. "Way past cool!" He squeaked, rushing around the blue speedster to continue toward the house. "C'mon Sonic, let's go through it!"
Sonic groaned inwardly, wondering slightly how exactly got stuck with this little zombie-maniac in the first place, before plastering a placating smile on his face. "Why don't you go through, li'l bro? I'll wait out here."
"You don't wanna go with me?" Tails inquired, latching onto Sonic's arm and pulling him down so he was eye-level with him. "Why not?"
The hedgehog sighed, wrestling his arm free so he could rub the fox on the head. "I don't do well in dark, confined spaces, kid. I wouldn't make it through there without punching someone's lights out."
Tails grimaced, his eyes dropping low. "Oh yeah," he mumbled, digging his toe into the dirt, "I forgot." He turned mournful eyes toward Sonic, and the hedgehog bit back a curse. The kid was attempting to his puppy-dog eyes on him, and it was working! "We can go trick-or-treat somewhere else then."
Sonic sighed again, tearing his gaze away from the wavering and slowly tear-filling eyes of his little brother. "Fine."
"YES!" Tails yelled without thinking, translating that omission into haunted house success. Almost immediately, he clapped a hand over his mouth. "I mean, really?"
"Nice try," Sonic relied, tapping the fox on the nose. "You totally owe me for this." Standing fully, he grabbed the fox's hand. "Let's get this over with."
o0o
In retrospect, the haunted house wasn't that bad. It was free, which was always a check for the almost-broke hedgehog, and it wasn't as dark as he thought it would be. Strobe lights lit up the place at steady intervals and there were green glow-in-the-dark strips that helped to keep him on the path. Tails wasn't doing too well with the strobe lights, because they reminded him of lightning, but he managed to keep his discomfort contained to a small whimper every time they flashed. He stayed permanently glued to the hedgehog's left leg, seriously hindering Sonic's ability to walk, but the speedster allowed it because it helped him to keep track of the small fox.
The scary aspect of the house wasn't much more than people who jumped out at them in costumes. This tactic effetely rendered Tails terrified, but did little to scare Sonic, who was used to robots with razor sharp weapons or guns popping out of nowhere and trying to kill him, so he was pretty bored all of the way through.
There was one instance when one of the 'spooks' or whatever these people were called tried to grab Sonic and shake him when they noticed that his reaction wasn't moving past amused annoyance and he had been forced to lightly tap the guy on the head to make him let go. The human had gone stumbling backward, his mask falling off his face. The look of comical shock was so funny that Sonic couldn't help but smile in amusement. No one touched him after that.
Eventually, they reached the end of the haunted house and Sonic breathed a sigh of relief. Nothing too surprising or truly frightening had happened and for that he was eternally grateful. He didn't want to have to drag a comatose fox kit home, thank you very much. Grabbing Tails' hand, he was about to haul the little genius out of the house and back to the main street when something in the corner of the room caught his eye.
It was a camera, cleverly hidden underneath a mass of spider webs. The body of the camera was hidden beneath the webs, but a flashing red light was still visible to his sharp eyes. Squinting slightly, he focused on it.
Why would you want to video tape a haunted house? He asked himself, eyes lighting on a small insignia on the side of the casing. His eyes narrowed. "No way…" He mumbled as he walked toward the wall, yanking Tails with him.
"Wha-? Sonic!" The fox yelled as he was pulled off the lighted path and into the dark. "What are you doing?"
"Ssh for a second Tails." Sonic hushed, stopping right underneath the camera. "Can you tell what that is?" He pointed up at the logo on the side of the camera.
Tails squinted in an attempt to get a look at what Sonic was pointing at. "It looks like…" He trailed off, his eyes widening. "No way!" Sharing a look with Sonic, he twirled his namesakes, taking off from the ground to hover right beside the camera. "It's Robotnik's insignia!"
"That's what I thought." Nodding to himself, Sonic placed his hands on the wall the camera was mounted to, knocking slightly at random intervals. "If I'm right then-" He cut off as his hand knocked against a spot that made a different sound than the rest. "Then there's a door here!" Pressing slightly, the wall slid away and a small dark hallway greeted them.
Looking at his best friend, Sonic held out his hand. "Shall we venture into a real haunted house?"
"Yes, I think we shall." Tails answered, giggling slightly and slipping through the door. Sonic followed, making sure to ease the door closed behind him, leaving only a sliver of it open.
o0o
The hallway widened as they went future in, and light slowly started to trickle in, letting them know that they were close to the end. Sonic walked with his left hand on the wall, the other grasping Tails' hand tightly. The fox had better night vision than him, and his ears were bigger, so Tails would notice something amiss before he did. He kept his senses tuned to their surroundings, analyzing the echoes of their footfalls off the walls to determine how far away the ceiling was and how wide the hall was.
Eventually, they came upon a thick metal door, light filtering in through small cracks in the wall around it. Tails easily cracked the code on the door without even looking at the keypad, and they shoved it open together.
What they set their eyes on once the door was open neither will be able to completely forget. Robotnik was sitting on top of what looked like a mountain of candy, shoving some type of sugary treat into his mouth. Around him, like small worker ants, motobugs with small shovel looking devices attached to their pincers were slowly adding to the mound of sweets. They scurried to and fro, dumping sweet delights made of chocolate and/or sugar at strategic points to make the mass of candy stronger.
"Woah…" They said at the same time, louder than they intended. Robotnik's head whipped around toward them.
The doctor said something that sounded like "Paafh, Tonith!" which probably would have been "Aaaah, Sonic!" if his face weren't so full of candy.
"Come again?" Sonic asked, digging a finger into his ear. "I'm not sure I heard that correctly."
Robotnik held up a finger, swallowing his mouthful. "What are you doing here, you blue pest?" The overweight man demanded, attempting to stand.
"I heard you were having a party." Sonic answered, glancing sideways at Tails. The fox giggled. "Didn't know it was a party of one." Seeing the scowl form on Robotnik's face, Sonic couldn't help but add, "Unless the candy counts as someone else…?"
Robotnik glowered, his eyes narrowing. "How did you get in here?"
"I think the more important question here is, where did you get all of the candy?" Sonic cut across. "Don't tell me you've been stealing from children."
"Actually," the doctor crowed, "that's exactly what I've been doing!" Sonic's eyebrow quirked. "When children walk through my haunted house, their bags of candy are almost forgotten as they drag them through! My robots subtly slip a few pieces out of each bag and bring them here to me! It's genius!"
"Uh huh…" Sharing another look with his friend, Sonic rolled his eyes. "Do you think this qualifies as evil or just petty childish stupidity, Tails?"
"The second one, defiantly."
"Okay," Sonic nodded, "then I don't need to put forth any effort to stop it." So saying, he turned on his heel and moseyed back out of the door. "C'mon kid, we've got a few more houses to go pilfer before heading home."
"Awesome!"
They got about four steps into the hallway before Robotnik started yelling at them. "Sonic! Come back here! I have a robot to fight you with! The Egg-Jack-o-Lantern! Come and face your death, you coward!"
Shaking his head, Sonic grabbed Tails around the waist and threw him over his shoulder. The fox laughed, throwing his arms around Sonic's neck just as the hedgehog started to run.
They dashed out of the hall, back through the hidden door, and out of the haunted house in record time. Placing Tails back on his feet, Sonic laced his hands behind his head and turned to walk down the road. "This time, I pick the house."
"Good deal." Tails nodded, rushing to keep up with the quick pace Sonic set. "And Sonic," he grasped the hedgehog's hand for what had to be the twentieth time that night, "thanks for going through the haunted house with me. It was fun."
"Anytime, li'l bro, anytime."
Yes, stupid and cheesy, but what do you expect from Halloween? :D
Review please?