DISCLAIMER: "Sonic the Hedgehog" and most other characters and situations in the following story are copyrighted trademarks of Sega Incorporated, Archie Comics and/or DIC Productions. Permission to reproduce this specific material may be granted by the author so long as you email first. (c)2008 velvetdcoolette .

SONIC AND THE DELIBERATE MARY SUE 3 CHAPTER 1

Knothole had a way of being calm and light. Maybe it was the backdrop of leaves and trunks that lent a placid dark green setting behind the huts, or maybe it was the constant rustle of leaves and the sweet song of birds. Perhaps it was simple association: this was a wonderful place to live. Of course, it could very easily be the perfectly clear river that ran the whole length of the village and beyond; for water had a way of leaving people relaxed and happy. Even the lumpy grey clouds overhead and the steady fall of rain didn't dampen the hideout's cheerful ambience.

Especially so today for a Mr. Antoine D'Coolette. He surveyed the contents of his luggage case and ran through a mental list of what he would need. Clothes? Yes. Soap pods? A whole bag. Writing materials? Present. Money? Just enough; but a dish-washing job during the holiday would help. Mercia was his homeland: it would provide on that front. Most importantly, space? Yes, there was space. He loved to bring home presents for his friends and there was room enough in the case for those, too.

It seemed Antoine had everything he would need. Satisfied, he shut the case and pushed the clasps into position. At the sound, his friends turned to look at him and he, anticipating this, looked at them too.

"Are you ready?" Princess Sally asked.

"Why yes, my princess," he replied. "Everyzing," he continued proudly as he rested his hand on the luggage, "iz in 'ere!"

Sally smiled at him and got up from her seat. Bunnie did the same, and the others followed suit. Bunnie sighed with a light sadness.

"Ah'm gonna miss ya, Sugartwan!" she said, and offered him a hug.

"I shall be 'appy to send you greetings when I get zere, Bunnie," he replied.

"Ah, come on, Bunnie!" Sonic chipped in. "He's only going on a trip! You're actin' like you'll never see him again!"

The rest of the group laughed and the two animals disentangled themselves. Antoine picked the case up from the bed where it had been laid. He made for the door and looked back at them all, his hand on the door handle. "All of you must to be looking after of yourzelves! Now, au revioir!"

And, with a grin, he walked outside to begin the journey. His comrades came to the door.

"So long, Ant!"

"Have fun!"

"Bring me back some of that fish paste, yeah?"

Antoine looked over his shoulder one last time and laughed good-naturedly in response to his friends.

SONIC SATAM

Sally turned a page on the notepad and scribbled on it, drawing a hurried table that she would later expect to fill. Then she looked up at the others.

"Okay," she summarized, "So we have several possibilities: under the floor tiles, in the ventilation ducts or attached to a piece of hardware in the room itself. Any thoughts, guys?"

Rotor absent-mindedly manipulated a pencil in his own hand as he thought through these options. Finally he took a breath and slowly said, "It's gonna be difficult to make a microphone that's sensitive enough to go under the floor... But it looks like the safest choice."

"The ducts sound like a good ahdea," Bunnie offered. "Safe, easy to get into... Why not there?"

Rotor shook his head slightly in response. "Yeah, but they're not gonna be that much better than putting it under the floor. The sound's gonna be muffled. But yeah, it's safe." he paused and looked at Sonic and Sally, knowing that they'd be the ones taking most of the risks. "I dunno," he concluded, "I'm not sure yet." He looked up to see if anybody else wanted to speak.

Sonic looked like he had something to say: "It's no biggie; we can handle it, right Sal? Just give me the ol' mike: I'll get into Sniv's room and put it anywhere you want. It'll take me a sonic second!"

Sally caught Rotor's eye; and he hers. They grinned knowingly at eachother. "Heh, Sonic?" he answered, "I'm not sure you'd get this mike fitted and configured so quickly."

Sonic turned to Sally. "D'you think you can fit it quick, Sal? I mean, it's no toughie, right?" But Sally shook her head.

"It depends on where exactly we can put it," she said regretfully. "We don't want it to be discovered, and you know how sharp Snively can be. It'd be great if we could get it onto a piece of Snively's hardware or maybe his furniture... but I'm with Bunnie on this; I think the ducts would be the best place. The sound isn't so bad from there, right?" Rotor nodded a little at this, but seemed to be deep in thought. Finally Sally prompted him to speak. "What is it, Rotor?"

"I might be able to make the mike a little more sensitive," he replied slowly, "but I'd need to see what we can get from the scrapheap."

Still poring over the notes, the animals continued to talk the problem through. They considered making a flat bug to put on a wall, floor or ceiling, but nobody had much confidence in that; Sally suggested they remove a bar from a vent and replace it with a narrow device, but Rotor pointed out that the bars were too difficult to remove in such a dangerous location. Bunnie even had the ingenius idea of trying to stitch a tiny bug into the hem of Robotnik's cloak if they could get at it, but 'though the rest of the team laughed, the idea was eventually discarded when Rotor said he couldn't make a microphone so small.

They eventually stuck with Bunnie's idea of fitting it in the ducts.

SONIC SATAM

"Come on, Starla!" groaned Phyre from the doorway to the classroom, folding his arms and looking around impatiently. Starla, crouching beside her desk, furrowed her brow as she hurried to pack her science books into her bag. She hated to keep Phyre waiting - it made her feel panicky. Stuffing the last of her books in, and hardly noticing that she'd bent several of the pages, she clipped the bag together and slung it over her shoulder: finally she was ready!

"Let's go!" she said brightly. But his attention had been drawn away: he was looking out the window, ignoring her. Starla craned her neck to follow his gaze, though she was already pretty sure of what to expect. Yep, she thought glumly: he was eyeing up another girl again. This time it was Rhaine, with her perfect, soft curves and prettily-contrasting blue-with-pale-dapples fur and lilac mane. The mare's sweeping tail swished behind her, accentuating her ample hips - and, therefore, her very narrow waist. Starla clenched her teeth, trying not to feel afraid, but as she looked back at her lover - who was still ogling Rhaine - she couldn't help but worry. But she tried to shake the feeling free: Phyre was with her, not Rhaine.

But the expression on his face wasn't reassuring.

"Let's go," repeated Starla, only too aware of the nervous tremble in her voice, and nudged him toward the doorway and into the hall. By the time they got outside Rhaine would be out of sight. She hoped.

SONIC SATAM

Sonic carried Sally as he sprinted through the gates of Robotropolis and into the grubby, polluted city streets. As they neared the main hub where Robotnik and Snively worked, he skidded to a halt and set the ground squirrel onto her feet. He approached the vent and pulled the grille free while, at the rear, she looked around nervously in case they'd been detected.

The grille slid out of its frame easily enough and he set it on the ground. "Piece of cake," he announced. Sally needed no further encouragement and clambered deftly into the vent. Once inside, she knelt on one leg and waited for Sonic to crawl in and replace the grate. They faced eachother and she smiled at Sonic's confident and positive - and handsome! - visage.

"Right," Sally said and put her fists up. "Let's do it to it!"

The pair made the signal and began the inch-by-inch journey through the metal tunnel.

SONIC SATAM

They walked together through the double-doors and out into the fresh air. As they went, Starla looked around at the school grounds, at the other students, each doing their thing. She was on Phyre Blackpaw's arm and that was where she belonged! Her position there marked her as the prettiest, the sexiest, the most desirable girl here; Sandhall High's Year Queen! She felt regal just now! Satisfied with her social position, she put her head up, re-folded her wings more smoothly and strode alongside her man, secure in the-

"Hel-lo, Baby!"

Phyre's words instantly knocked the confidence from Starla, and she looked around in search of the girl he'd just spoken to. Her whole body tensed: Naomi! And she was looking incredible too, in knee-high boots, a waistcoat that squeezed her breasts together perfectly, a cool hat and cut-off jeans. The reptile-cheetah hybrid was looking at Phyre with a knowing glint in her eye.

Don't you dare, Starla mentally threatened. Her rival slunk down from the low wall she'd been sitting on, posing seductively as her feet touched the ground.

"Hello, Phyre. So I see you guys are goin' somewhere, huh?" she asked silkily. Starla knew she was pretending to talk to them both but was really only speaking to Phyre. Starla shot him a pleading look; he remained completely unaware she was doing so. She looked back at Naomi, struggling to smooth the jagged ripple of worry that made her skin crawl.

"Hell yeah, baby!" Phyre replied, flirting right back at her, "I'm goin' to Dark's party tonight."

What do you mean, "I'm going to Dark's party?! We both are!

Naomi caught Starla's eye and subtly looked her up and down, before dismissing her. She sauntered a little closer to Phyre until her face was suggestively close to his. "Well, then I guess I'll come along, too!" she said in a quiet, cut-glass whisper. Don't you dare! Don't you dare! Starla thought desperately. Something caught her attention at that moment; a dry, dusty smell. She frowned as she tried to place it, but her attention was almost wholly on Naomi and the moves she was pulling on Phyre - and those he was pulling on her in return. Starla was unwilling to concentrate on anything but her rival. The sexily reptilian cat held position for a few seconds, and then slunk past Starla as if to leave. Once a few steps away she turned back to look at Phyre again, and Starla saw the intent in her eyes. She wasn't going to tolerate this!

"Why don't you back off, you slut!" she growled at Naomi. That dusty scent returned, but she paid it no heed, although for some reason it bugged her. Not now, she thought. Let me get rid of this bitch first!

Naomi feigned hurt at her words. "Starla! You didn't just call me a slut, did you?" she batted her eyelashes. "You don't think I'm a slut, do you, Phyre?" she asked the dark-furred male in her girliest voice.

He was just about to answer when that dusty scent returned in full-force to Starla's nostrils; at the same time a sucking wind pulled her backwards and, instinctively, she grabbed Phyre's arm. Just for a moment Starla saw Naomi's expression show surprise. Phyre wasn't heavy enough to keep them both grounded and with a grunt of protest, he was pulled in

to the vortex with her. The two animals had been standing and talking, their wings folded against their backs, but suddenly they found themselves unsupported by any ground, and they fell.

Starla looked for him: it had just dawned on her what had happened - they were both in the space between universes! Opening her wings in a panic, she shouted down to her lover, "FLY!"

His wings jerked open in an instant and he beat his way up level with her. He circled irritably, head casting one way and then the other to work out what this strange place was and why he was here.

"Where the hell is this?!" he demanded. Starla circled along with him, struggling to keep close to him and anxious to find the way out as soon as possible.

"This is where I come to when I disappear," she explained hurriedly, trying to get him to calm down. She worried when he got like this. He tended to go off on his own when he got angry, and when that happened she never knew what he was doing or who he was with...

"Damn that to hell, Starla, everybody knows you ran away!" he snapped back.

"No! I've never run away!" she shouted back immediately, the blood pumping hard in her ears with the stress of arguing with her love. Then she checked herself and lowered her voice to a normal level. "There's another universe nearby and... a-and that's where I go. I just get pulled through to here sometimes."

Phyre beat his way higher than she, looked down at her as if she had two heads and sneered. "You're a freak," he said finally.

Starla felt her wings tremble a little at those words, so she shook them to keep herself in control of her flight. She looked outwards and saw what she was looking for: a suspended halo of light. She broke out of the spiral and headed there.

"That's what we're looking for," she called. "Follow me."

Phyre silently pulled out of his own flight circle and did so, maintaining an ominous distance behind her, even when she slowed down for him to catch up. With her in the lead, they

passed through into clear sky over green, gently rolling meadows. A village sat nestled against the forest up ahead. Starla led her boyfriend towards it.

SONIC SATAM

Snively watched the screen with interest; Freedom Fighters Sonic Hedgehog and Princess Sally Acorn had just pulled a grate out of the ventilation system - as cocky as if it were their own - and infiltrated Robotropolis' inner control system. Now they were out of sight.

Snively, although he would never wish to admit it, was very much like his uncle: although a swift kill held a kind of appeal, playing with his prey was far more attractive, the way a cat would toy with a mouse. Right now, his prey were almost cornered and presumably felt secure in their enclosed little world. An evil grin played on his face: so they thought they could outwit him with such a simple trick, did they? He would observe them, then, and let them think they had been succesful in evading him. He opened a hatch to his left and tapped a command into the odd keyboard of buttons there. A Spybot, one built essentially as a modified chimney sweep, disconnected from the inner wall of the vent and, crawling on spindly metal legs, stalked the two animals silently.

Snively leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers as he watched its progress through the ventilation shaft. One tap of the keyboard offered him a live feed of the sounds coming from those tunnels.

"Yo, Sal," the hedgehog's voice echoed from ahead of the Spybot. "There's gonna be hundreds of places for the mike in these cables; what d'ya think?"

"Maybe. I think you're right, Sonic."

Mike? They intended to install a microphone? Interesting... Snively slowly drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair as he watched and listened for more information, silently pleased to be spying first on those who intended to spy on him. Oh, he would play with them alright...

SONIC SATAM

Sally crouched as she scribbled further information onto her notepad. Finishing swiftly, she looked up at Sonic.

"Right, that's it!" she said. "I've got all the notes Rotor'll need."

"So that's all we gotta do here now, right?" Sonic confirmed. The princess nodded and he looked around. "Let's go."

SONIC SATAM

Snively heard this signal and tapped a silent command to the Spybot. In response it fitted its skinny legs against the edges of the duct and pushed its narrow body against the ceiling until it made a near-perfect fit, looking more like a set of cable ducts or a humidity gauge than anything else. He continued to watch the screen as Sally, then Sonic, loomed large, scraped lightly against the hidden robot's body and passed underneath it.

Now the freedom fighters were on their way out the robot could provide no more information, so he reviewed what he'd learned. They intended to bug his room, but they hadn't decided where it should go; they certainly hadn't fitted it.

On another of the screens, he watched Sonic and Sally pull themselves out of the duct. Sonic picked up the princess and sped away. Neither, it seemed, were aware that they had been seen.

Satisfied that he had all the information he could get for now, he set the Spybot on standby. It would be ready to alert him should those ducts be invaded again. It would bring him more information on the next stage of their mission.

TO BE CONTINUED...