"You and your twin brother Sonic looked very similar, and you still do, but back when you two were still tots, you both seemed to think alike on so many things that your mother swore you were both telepathic."
(Hedge house, October 31, 11:32 am, 2003)
The lake house that could easily be mistaken for a mansion was totally silent, save for a young police officer climbing up the stairs. He had his revolver raised in front of himself as he scanned his surroundings for his target. He checked all the rooms, looked in all the closets, even going so far as to look in all the drawers, but to no avail. There was only one place left to check: his own room.
He crept toward the door across the hall from the bathroom and slowly opened the door with his foot and leveled his revolver at the room's interior, watching for anything out of the ordinary as the success or failure of this operation depended on it. The Nintendo was where he'd left it, the blankets on his bed were untouched…but the person he was after could still be hiding under the bed.
He quickly dived at the bottom of the bed and pulled up the blanket draped over the side and aimed his weapon at the bed's underside, but saw nobody.
Then he heard a noise behind him and rolled over onto his back to see a figure dressed in red jumping out of the laundry hamper placed against the wall across from him. He quickly raised his revolver toward the figure and pulled the trigger. A loud crash like thunder echoed through the house, and the figure crumpled back into the hamper from whence he came.
"I win!" laughed Manic, blowing imaginary smoke off the orange tip of the barrel of his plastic cap gun.
"No fair," said Sonic, climbing out of the laundry hamper in his devil costume, "you have a gun, but all I got is a pitchfork."
For the past few months, Sonic had been saving up whatever change he could find to get an army costume he'd been wanting for halloween, but now that halloween had finally arrived, he'd come up short and it seemed he'd be forced to wear the same costume he'd used the previous year.
"You just need to be faster," retorted Manic, setting the plastic gun in it's holster.
"One day, I'll be way faster than you!" shouted Sonic, aiming his pitchfork at his twin brother.
"First you gotta catch me," challenged the green hedgie, racing out of the room.
Sonic ran after him...at least he tried to, but he forgot that he was still in the laundry hamper and fell flat on his face. He got back up and charged after Manic who ran into the bathroom, with just enough time to lock the door behind him.
"You're too slow," laughed Manic.
"Well then open this door so I can run around on you!" shouted Sonic.
"I'm waaaaiiiiitiiiiiiiing," taunted the green spike ball.
Then he heard a strange clicking noise and didn't have time to register that Sonic had found the spare key to the bathroom before the door swung open and Sonic had him pinned to the floor.
"Say 'I give up'," said Sonic.
"Neva!" replied Manic.
His defiance proved costly when Sonic started tickling him.
"NO STO-HAHAHAHAHAHA-P!" laughed Manic hysterically, writhing around underneath Sonic.
"Say it," said Sonic, his evilness of his smirk matching the costume he was in.
"NO! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" laughed Manic, still trying to get away.
This continued until Manic was able to grab Sonic's sides and return the torture. Before long, both twins were struggling to get away from eachother and finally clawed their way to opposite sides of the bathroom, catching their breath.
Neither one spoke as they got back up and washed the sweat off their faces off in the sink, but then two arms reached through the shower curtain and grabbed them. The twins looked in the mirror to see the face of an old witch sticking through the shower curtain and screamed in horror, flailing around in her arms to get away, the story of Hansel and Gretel still fresh in their young minds.
"GET HER OFF! GET HER OFF!" shouted Manic.
Sonic was too scared to even think coherently and screamed at the top of his lungs, hoping someone would hear him, but knowing it was hopeless since both their parents had taken Sonia shopping for her halloween costume.
But then the witch unexpectedly let them go. The tots fell to the floor and stared up at the monstrous woman looking down at them, but as if they hadn't been through enough already, the witch reached up and began peeling off her face to reveal...Aleena?
Their mother stood there in there in the shower, dressed as a witch, laughing harder than either of them had ever seen.
"I guess this means I win," she giggled.
That must have meant she pretended to go with Jules and Sonia, but then waited in the bathroom for them in her new costume. Manic's mind slowly began to register that their own mother had just played the biggest prank on them, ever, while poor Sonic couldn't take all that excitement at one time and burst into tears.
Aleena reached down and pulled young Sonic into a tight hug, her witch costume wrapping itself around him as she held him. He continued sobbing into her shoulder while she ran her fingers through his quills, trying to calm him down.
"What a crybaby," thought Manic, walking away from the awkward scene, "I'm sure the real Devil would have laughed at the witch and poked her to death with his pitchfork."
He walked downstairs and got some grape juice out of the fridge and a sippy cup out of a cabinet and poured himself a cup of the heavenly elixir and savored the first moutful before finally swallowing it.
"Man that stuff is good!" said Manic, his eyes like saucers.
He raised the cup to his lips a second time, only to discover the juice was gone. He must have finished it without realizing it (NEVER underestimate grape juice!).
Then he heard the front door open, accompanied by the sound of shopping bags crinkling as their carrier walked in. That meant Dad and Sonia were home!
Manic rushed into the foyer to see Jules holding two plastic shopping bags, followed by Sonia who was dressed as Belle from Beauty and the Beast, wearing the yellow dress she had on in the dancing scene.
"What'dja get?" asked Manic, strolling up to Jules.
"This is pretty much it. Just some things that Sonic and your mother both wanted." replied Manic's father, taking the bags into the kitchen and setting them on the table.
"What's in it?" asked Manic excitedly.
Well, your mom thought we should bring something to the Halloween party at Skye's house this afternoon, so I got some brownie mix, and some orange and brown sprinkles to go with them." replied Jules, holding up the brownie mix and the sprinkle container.
"AWESOME!" shouted Manic, jumping for joy.
"Hey Sonic, I got something for ya," called out Jules, holding up one of the bags.
Sonic walked down the stairs, drying his eyes, followed by Aleena.
"Did something happen?" asked Jules, noticing Sonic's moist eyes.
"I think my new costume was a little too much for him," replied Aleena, holding up her witch mask.
"I see...well anyway, I got something you might like," offered Jules, holding the shopping bag out to his son.
Sonic's eyebrows lifted when he noticed the bag and took it and looked inside. His face lit up when he saw the army costume he'd wanted inside the bag.
"WHOO!" whooped Sonic.
He hugged Jules, thanked him, and raced upstairs to change into his new costume.
Sure was strange to watch the blue spike ball go from sacredy hog to happy joy joy in three seconds, but at least he wasn't upset anymore.
"I'm Belle," squeaked Sonia, "I'm the beauty."
Manic almost laughed at her incorrect assumption of the Beauty part of the movie title.
"So where's the beast?" he asked jokingly.
"He got sick. I promised to bring him candy," squeaked Sonia, her toddler vocabulary making her seem out of character in her costume, but it didn't bother Manic that much. She was just a little girl pretending to be both her favorite disney character and who she wanted to be when she grew up: a princess. In some ways, it was alot like Manic dressing up as a Police officer since he'd always wanted to be one, despite his tendencies to dress like a rock star, from time to time.
One of his main inspirations had been none other than his dear old Uncle Chuck, who was also a Police Officer. Not once did he stop by to visit without telling Manic and Sonic about things he'd done and witnessed during his job. Some were recent, some were long past, all of them fascinated Manic and were part of the reason he wanted to follow in his Uncle's footsteps when he came of age. He looked forward to wearing that shiny badge, carrying his own gun in public, driving an awesome car, busting bad guys, and especially rescuing little children from crazy people.
That last part found itself on his list of reasons for being a cop after Chuck had told him about a teenage girl who had been held captive by some psycho for several years before she finally worked up the courage to sneak out of his garage and call the police. Chuck knew about this because he had been apart of the Squad sent to kick down that monster's door and haul him off to prison. Ever since then, Manic wanted desparately to be apart of that. He wanted to find people who would hurt little children and lock them up in a place where they'd never hurt anyone again. THAT was his main reason for wanting to be an Officer like his Uncle.
Speaking of which...
"When will Uncle Chuck be here?" asked Manic.
"He said he'd be here around 1, so I'd give him another hour and a half," replied Jules, getting the water, oil, and eggs required for the brownie mix.
Then Sonic came back downstairs in a camouflage jumpsuit with a belt and suspenders strapped on over it, with a plastic knife, canteen, and flashlight attached to the straps. Even Manic had to admit it looked good on him.
"Check it out!" said Sonic, posing proudly in his new costume.
Aleena immediately started giggling. So much, in fact, that the other four hedgehogs looked confused.
"What's so funny?" asked Manic.
"It's not funny, it's sooo cute," squealed Aleena, her knees touching.
"Uhhh..." was all that came out of Sonic.
"You're both wearing each other's colors...I gotta get a picture of this!" said Aleena excitedly, rushing upstairs and returning only seconds later with the digital camera Jules got her the previous Christmas. She snapped several pictures of them with the camera and then had them stand together, stand apart, stand back to back, and all sorts of ridicluous things that only a mom with a camera could have thought up, then had them stand on either side of Sonia, and finally finished a good five minutes later.
"Perfect! I gotta email these to your grandma!" laughed Aleena, taking the camera into the office.
"I hope she doesn't do that ever again," said Sonic.
"Grandma's gonna see me as a princess!" squeaked Sonia excitedly.
Manic just rolled his eyes.
"Well now that that's over, you kids wanna help me make these halloween brownies?" asked Jules.
"Yays!" shouted all three hedgies simultaneously as they rushed into the kitchen.
I'll try to have the next chapter up as soon as possible. Remember, this is 7 years before Counterfeit Manic, which means it is 2 years before Manic gets kidnapped by Robotnik. The reason I posted this was because I felt that I needed to post at least one halloween story, and I settled on the Counterfeit Manic one, but since it's still July in CM, I decided to do a separate story that would allow CM fans to get a good look at the real Manic, along with some of his relatives. Read the next chapter (when it's up) to find out more.
You might as well since I won't be updating CM until I've finished this short story. MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!