Red and Blue
Chapter 1 - What If?
Just outside of our planet, Earth, a large and alien spaceship of the evil Doctor Eggman, hovered amongst the darkness and stars as he skulked and schemed.
To launch his flawless plan, he had captured Miles 'Tails' Prowess to lure the world's fastest hedgehog and force him to use the Chaos Emeralds to rescue his beloved fox friend.
If there was one thing Sonic knew, it's that no one messed with his friends, or anyone innocent for that matter, and he would do anything to protect them.
As the hedgehog approached Eggman's ship, his golden fur and red eyes continued to glow brighter from the power of the Emeralds. Bracing for impact, Sonic crashed head first through an docking station and headed straight for the cockpit of Eggman's ship.
But if Sonic knew Eggman, he knew there would be a trap waiting for him.
But upon the cockpit, the room was surprisingly quiet. Too quiet for Sonic's liking, not to mention that Eggman was nowhere in sight. On the other side of the room, Tails was unconscious and rendered immobile with chains. But it's what he was chained to that was the problem; the two-tailed fox was chained to a giant red laser gun that took up a quarter of the room, but there was something off about the obvious world-dominating weapon.
For one thing, even though it was more or less pointed down to Earth, it didn't seem to be active. And two, there was no one at the laser's control panel; not even Eggman was there to give an evil yet cliché speech.
But Sonic wasn't going to risk losing the chance of rescuing Tails, so he rushed to his unconscious friend, and used a spin dash to cut through both chains with ease.
"Tails! Tails, you ok, Buddy?" Sonic whispered urgently, but Tails wouldn't move or make a sound.
"Geez, Eggman…what did ya do to him?" Sonic grunted as he lifted the fox up and draped him over his shoulders, failing to notice how much heavier he had become.
"Only what was necessary!" Sonic looked up to find Eggman and his two robot minions, Orbot and Cubot, entering the room, and the evil egg-shaped doctor was wearing a satisfied grin.
"Hey, Eggy! Long time, no see! I was afraid you've run out of evil plans for old time's sake," Sonic mocked.
"No, Hedgehog, I haven't given up—I've just been away, creating a foolproof plan, that will surely defeat you so that I can conquer the world. And this time, I think you'll want to sit down, because I've got a pretty interesting scheme," Doctor Eggman chuckled darkly.
"I don't have to listen to anything you have to say, Eggman! I've got what I came for!"
"Oh, but on the contraire, Sonic—I believe it is your 'friend' who has you!"
With that, Tails suddenly jolted to life, but the mechanical whirring and glowing red eyes immediately told Sonic it wasn't his friend, but a robot replica.
Sonic threw the robot as hard as he, but robot Tails proved to be much too fast for sonic, as it grabbed his back quills in a vice grip; the force of Sonic's throw caused the robot to tear a few big clutches of quills from his back.
The hedgehog screamed in pain as he collapsed to his knees, the power of the Chaos Emeralds nearly fading from his body when he nearly lost too much focus. But Sonic wasn't going to give up just yet.
"You're going to have to rip out more than that ta defeat me, Doc," Sonic grunted in pain as he slowly stood back up, but that's when he was greeted with the sight of the real Tails, who was fully awake, bounded and gagged, as Orbot and Cubot brought carried him.
"Then how about after we rip out this little tod's heart instead?" Eggman taunted, reaching a claw-like hand out to Tails.
"Erm…technically, you would need surgical equipment to perform such a thing. Without the proper equipment, it would cause long and sufferable pain for Tails," Orbot couldn't help but inform.
"That's the point, you dope!" Cubot snapped, and Eggman sighed and slapped a hand to his forehead in disappointment.
"Nevermind! The point now is, I finally have what I need," Doctor Eggman interrupted, and he smiled at robot Tails, as it handed him all of Sonic's quills he had managed to fatally pluck, blood dripping off a few of the nerve ends, and they faded back to his normal blue hue after they were disconnected from the power of the Chaos Emeralds.
"What're you gonna do with a few petty quills?" Sonic inquired meekly.
"Oh, haven't you heard? You're Sonic the Hedgehog, the world's only high-speed hedgehog. You're quite special, Sonic. And not only that, but you also have the ability to master the Chaos Emeralds' ancient powers—but let's face it, with all that power, we're practically playing an unfair game of Hero and Villain—so that's when I figured I should level out the playing field."
"What are you talking about?"
"Are you blunt?" Orbot cut in flatly.
"Yeah, can't'cha tell he's goin' ta cheat?" Cubot growled.
"ENOUGH!" Everyone froze at the sound of Doctor Eggman's booming voice. "With these quills, I can take the rather useful DNA samples from them, and your samples will be the last ingredient to my little project."
"Which is…?" Sonic hissed.
"I can assure you, it will be my second greatest achievement," Eggman informed with a wicked grin. Before Eggman went on, he walked up to the ship's control panel, and pulled down on a large lever.
The result of the lever being pulled was a hole in the floor opening in the middle of the room, and a large vat filled with bright green bubbling liquid slowly arose from the darkness, bubbling liquid; sitting inside the sealed vat was a large red sphere, occasionally molting like the material you would find in a lava lamp.
"What is that?" Sonic asked in awe, not taking his eyes off the orb.
"You know, they don't call me 'Doctor' for nothing. Just because I never finished medical school, doesn't mean I'm not a good physicist. I used all of my experience to create this little beauty," Eggman began as he walked up to the vat and pressed a hand to the glass, "And just wait until you see it in action—it'll finally be enough to take you down, Hedgehog. All it needs is an original DNA strand of your, and it will be complete."
"What do you mean? What are you going to do with them?"
"I'm simply going to input your DNA into it. Once that happens, you will no longer be the world's fastest hedgehog—and it will be the greatest and only weapon I ever needed."
"Only weapon? Then explain that?" Eggman cocked an eyebrow and followed Sonic's finger, which was pointed at the large ray gun.
"That's simply part two of my plan. My Red Runner here is going to help launch it."
"Red Runner?" Sonic repeated under his breath, and he then realized he must have been referring to whatever was trapped in the vat, "You can't do this, Eggman!"
"And why not?"
"Because you've never won before. What makes you think you even stand a chance now?"
"There's a first time for everything, Sonic—and I believe my first victory is nigh."
Eggman began to laugh evilly at that, and he handed the quills back to robot Tails, who flew up to the top of the vat and dropped the quills into it like he were feeding a fish.
"NO!"
Just as the quills slowly sank closer to the red orb, Sonic suddenly performed another spin dash, but Eggman and his robotic minions moved out of the way just in time, causing him to hit the only thing that couldn't dodge him: The vat. The glass container shattered upon impact, and green liquid spilled everywhere, along with the red orb that splat like egg yolk on the floor.
"No, my probject!" Eggman cried and ran up to the red goop. But as he sulked over his lost project, Sonic was busy freeing Tails from Orbot and Cubot and undid his bindings.
"Phew! Thanks, Sonic!" Tails cheered.
"Don't thank me yet! First, we gotta get outta here! See ya, Eggy!" Sonic shouted and grabbed Tails' hand, and the said young fox propelled his two tails, as the two flew out of the ship to head back home.
"This isn't fair! I was so close! I knew I should've thought of a better trap for that hedgehog! I could've finally destroyed him and taken over the world, and then the universe!" Eggman rambled on angrily, getting down on his knees and banging his fists on the ground.
"Well, maybe you can try again, Sir?" Orbot guessed, but Eggman never said anything. The robots sat there in silence, waiting for their boss to say something or even move. But he just sat there, leaning over his destroyed work.
"No."
"What?" Orbot and Cubot questioned.
"No, I don't need to try again," Eggman repeated firmly, "I didn't fail. Look."
Cubot, Orbot, and robot Tails looked at the red goop at Eggman's knees, and they noticed that Sonic's quills had stuck out like sticks in the mud, but then they noticed something else; the goop was starting to move and twitch in the places where the quills punctured it.
"It's still alive!" Eggman stated with excitement, scrambling to place any other misplaced quills into his project. Once he had gathered the rest, he sprinkled them all over the red puddle. And then they waited.
And just as Eggman predicted, to the touch of the rest of the quills, the red goop started to have a much stronger reaction; it began to twitch violently, and before long, it consumed each quill.
"What's it doing?" Cubot asked as he and the other robots backed away in fright, but Eggman stood with pride, as the goop quickly rose from the floor and took a familiar form.
Though it was quite unexpected, Eggman still grinned at how his project had turned out, especially when it took the form of hedgehog.
"Greetings, Red Runner," Eggman greeted softly, as the red hedgehog stumbled onto its hands and knees in exhaustion.
"You three, hurry up! Input the nerve transmission chip!"
The three robots quickly grabbed the mutant and held it with a vice grip, and just being 'born', it was still pretty week and couldn't defend itself. Soon, Cubot pulled out small gun with a large spike on the end, almost like a stapler.
"Hold still! This isn't going to hurt—me!" Cubot cackled and suddenly stabbed the hedgehog in the back of its neck with the spike, not hesitating pulling the trigger. The red hedgehog grunted and screamed in pain, as the chip was pushed deep into its neck.
Sonic grunted when he felt a faint stinging pain in the back of his neck and down his spine; he started to message the pain away, as he recalled that he and Tails stopped by a hot dog cart in New York.
"You ok, Sonic?" Tails asked with concern, walking back from the cart with a chili dog and a regular hot dog with ketchup, and handed the chili dog to the said blue hedgehog.
"W-What do you mean?" Sonic denied
"I mean, you were totally spacing out, and you look a little pale."
"Right…well…" Sonic tried to search for the right words, but he stalled by shoving the chili dog in his mouth, "I don't know…maybe it was just some arthritis?"
"How? You never get arthritis."
"Arthritis or not, it's nothing a little aspirin can't cure."
"Well, if ya say so…"
But just as the two tried to let it go, Sonic couldn't help but let his mind take him somewhere else again, as Tails just walked on without him. Sonic felt more pain in his neck and back, albeit faint, while staring up at the clear blue sky.
What if Eggman was right? Sonic pondered.
This is my first Sonic the Hedgehog fanfic, so please don't be mean!
Until the next chapter, I'm TRikiD, bye-bye!