Experiments

by Elpriede

Bled the Crow was living a normal life. That is, until his school was attacked and everyone was abducted, including himself. One experiment later, he's become a power to be reckoned with, and everyone wants use him. He has to pick sides now, but whose will he choose? My first story.

2. A Destroyed School

AN: Welcome to chapter two, fellas! I thought this was going to take a little bit longer, but I managed to finish it tonight and and read through it quickly. Enjoy, please rate and review!

All Sonic characters belong to SEGA and Sonic Team.

Vulcan belongs to my friend!

Bled, Gizmo, and Summer belong to me!

The next time a coherent thought went through my head, it was filled with pain. The front and back of my head ached. I explicitly remembered taking a rather large rock flying at probably 100 miles per hour to my forehead and falling over, obviously. Who wouldn't fall from taking such a thing right in front of where their brain would be? The idea of someone taking a hit from a large rock going that fast to their head and NOT being knocked unconscious is ludicrous, I thought. But then I remembered how much my head was currently hurting, and I briefly wondered how I forgot about it, but then a throb of pain reverberated throughout my brain, once again reminding me it was still there.

I slowly opened my eyes, grimacing as the pain in my head flared up, dying down, and coming back to a peak once again, throbbing in time with my heartbeat. It was at this point that I really, really hated that damned rock that flew out of almost nowhere ('nowhere' being the bloody hole in the bloody wall that caused the bloody rock to come at my face and give me a bloody forehead). Now that I thought of the rock (ow, brain, stop having a migraine) my eyes slowly slid to my immediate right, where the rock lay next to my arm, ash covering it with the visible tip where it impacted. It was slightly disconcerting to see my blood on the rock.

I felt way too dizzy to even fathom the thought of picking that rock up and attempting to destroy it. My willpower simply wasn't enough to do such a feat, and even if it was, I don't think I was patient enough to follow through with the task. Another throb from my head reminded me, once again, that I had quite the headache, a migraine even. Migraines suck, I moaned mentally. I blinked my eyes open quickly and through the bleary haze that was settled over my vision, I could make out that it was night time. I raised my hands up to rub my eyes, they instinctively closing to not let in any foreign material.

I slowly sat up in place, rubbing only my left eye now with my left hand, my right wide open. I looked at my surroundings and immediately noticed a nice ring of rubble that was around my body. Either something above was looking out from me, or I got extremely lucky. Either way, go figure. However, it was at this point that my migraine reached a new level of pain, flaring in time with my heartbeat still, the center of it at the place of impact of the rock. I groaned softly, holding my left hand to my forehead now. Damn that rock, why was it so rude?

I looked over to my side for the rock. I found it easily, and picked it up shakily with my free hand, bringing it up to eye-level to inspect it, a very noticeable layer of dust and ash had settled over the top of it, staining my fingertips with the stuff. I tried to recall why I was knocked unconscious now; searching through my memory ... Something made that wall go boom. What did those robots have against walls anyways? Wait, robots? Yes, that's right, those shiny things that were moving in as a swarm ... Strange, who would make an army of robots? I didn't know, and I threw the rock off somewhere. I heard it land with a dull thud, and I barely managed to catch it breaking into several pieces upon landing.

Satisfaction filled me. Take THAT, stupid rock, feel my wrath! With that brief victory scream in my head, I felt slightly better about my current situation. I slowly stood up, my joints and back cracking from having laid in the same position for such a long time. I groaned as I got to my full height, and dusted myself off; there was a relatively large amount of dust that had built upon on my body in a lot of places, but I just paid it no mind and inspected my surroundings. Tables were overturned and shattered, chairs were destroyed and mangled, rotting food covered in dirt, some of them squashed by feet from what looked like, was scattered around the floor, along with lunch trays, jackets, backpacks, and much more.

That wasn't even counting the debris that had settled all across the cafeteria floor. I small light caught my eye, and I looked up to see a large chunk of the ceiling was missing, bathing a spot a few feet to my left in moonlight. It looked kind of cool in reality, and I admired it for a few moments before deciding it was time to move along. Placing my hand on a piece of stone that was there, I slowly stepped over it into a clear area. However, I walked for a few seconds, observing the dreadful scenery before something shiny caught my attention.

I turned my head; my eyes squinted in the direction of the shiny. A small patch of moonlight was hitting a specific spot, something large was semi-squished by large chunks of what I think is wall or ceiling. I felt sort of sorry for whatever thing it fell upon, but then had the strange thought that it looked like a taco, which made me stop in my tracks and confused me greatly. That ADHD I was diagnosed with as a child must be getting to me. Which reminded me, did I ever take my pills that morning? No, I didn't. Humming quietly, I made my way over to the shiny, stepping over rocks, wrecked tables and chairs, and food. My stomach grumbled, but NOT for the food I was currently seeing.

I reached the shiny shortly after, and noticed it was a very bulky thing, with its head poking out from under the debris. A weird triangular shaped thing with what I could see was probably some lights on it, sort of in the shape of a visor. I reached out and touched the thing, dusting its head off lightly, that's when I noticed the strange symbol it had on the top of its head; a red face that appeared to be a silhouette, smiling with small, rounded eyes and two bumps on the top of its head with three spikes coming from both sides of the face, looking like a moustache. It must be the mark of the manufacturer, and the mark seemed oddly familiar.

Shrugging it off, I was about to stand up until the lights on the robot suddenly came alive, its visor flaring up red. I squawked in surprise, completely taken off guard, falling on my butt and scrambling back away from the thing. My heart raced as I watched the mechanical thing struggle for a minute before a strange buzzing came from it and the lights on it suddenly died out once more and it laid still. I let out a breath that I was apparently holding; what away to scare a guy, touching something you thought was broken and it suddenly coming alive.

I slowly stood back up, not having the courage to go near the thing once again. I officially hated robots; they wrecked my school (though it was already a dump, the students here were a bunch of douchebags), and it gave me the jump scare of my life just now. Stupid robots, they should get a life. I chuckled at my own mental joke out loud, and was suddenly grateful that no one was around to see me laughing like a madman (bird?). Excusing my scatterbrained-ness, I tried to recollect what had happened yesterday once more, starting from the beginning.

The first thought that immediately came to my mind was that strange dream I had woken up from, and in the flashback of the dream, the memory, I remembered the symbol I had saw there. It was the same one on the top of this robot's head. That couldn't be just a coincidence, but what was the relation between the dream and what was happening now? Was it maybe a warning that this was going to happen? If it was, why was it so vague, and why did it involve me getting tortured? Something about an experiment ... Was whoever owned these robots collecting Mobians for an experiment of some kind with that 'Master Emerald' thing in the dream?

Then there was the battle that was occurring before and after the flashback within my dream. Was that mere chance, was that fake as well? Or was it some foreshadowing of the future? If it WAS a vision of the future, why was it given to me? Did anyone else have the dream as well? This was all just too confusing to process at the moment, what was the purpose of launching an attack on a high school of all things? What happened to everyone, the school was vacant as far as I could tell. I tapped my foot in thought, rubbing the underside of my beak with my right hand's thumb and index finger, my left arm folded under my right's elbow.

I was snapped out of my thoughts as something creaked behind me before I heard something splinter and break, creating a loud commotion as several pieces of something fell to the ground. My sharp ears caught the sound and interpreted it as wood. However, I hardly notice that, just as I was hardly breathing, having frozen up. What the hell was moving behind me, and why did I just had the gut feeling to not look, to run away as fast as possible? I think I knew what was behind me as well, and a series of electronic beeps only confirmed those fears of mine. Slowly, I turned around.

A robot stood before me, blue in color, and just as bulky as the one I under the rocks. Its arms and legs were long and obviously jointed, the pieces sticking out like a sore thumb from the main body, which was triangular in shape just like the head. Six lights protruded from the front of the robot's body, shining straight at me, illuminating a large amount of the front of it. The head also has a search light just under its glowing red eyes, the lights themselves being blue LEDs. It was slightly blinding to my eyes, but I paid no attention, only to its sounds.

"Lifeform detected. Scanning for new data ..." It beeped several times, as if computing. It wasn't even a second later when it dinged. "Mobian detected. Mission; bring all Chaos High School (creative, I know) students to Doctor Eggman for 'Master Experiment'." Well, that basically proved my theories. I turned around and was gone within a heartbeat, sprinting out of the cafeteria through an unblocked, crumbling doorway. The vibrations from my feet apparently was enough to make it collapse as well, but I heard a loud bang, followed by more bangs, and then loud metal feet scraping the floor consistently from a distance behind me.

This wasn't looking good for me. I sharply turned a corner, moving down the hallway as fast as I could. I knew this school like the back of my hand; hopefully the robot didn't have a map installed on its hard drive. The pain in my head had escalated from the physical strain, and it didn't help that the robot was chasing me too. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a door open as I was about to pass it. I didn't have time to react; two hands reached out and grabbed me by the arms, yanking me sideways and into the room with it. I screeched in surprise and fear, but a hand quickly clasped itself over my beak as the door shut.

"Quiet, idiot, or you'll get us both caught!" A male voice angrily muttered. It was a bit scratchy. I recognized the voice almost immediately. Vulcan?

I didn't have much time to really think about that thought, though. I heard the heavy footsteps coming down the hallway slowly, the robot had apparently heard and me and followed the sound. I hoped to all divine things above that it would not think to check the room. Do robots think? I'll have to figure that out later. I thought, but kept myself deadly quiet, barely daring to even breathe in any air, thinking that it might make too much noise, as I wasn't sure exactly how sensitive the hearing devices that were likely installed onto the damn robot were.

Several tense seconds went by as me and my captor heard the robot shuffling around just outside the door, obviously trying to figure out where in the world I went. Honestly, I wasn't sure what room I got pulled into by this madman in the first place, though he might have just saved me from becoming the lab rat of this 'Doctor Eggman'. Soon, I heard the footsteps getting quieter, until they disappeared completely. I was then released and I immediately spun away and made a short hop backwards.

A tall red and orange hedgehog stood before me with blue stripes down his upturned spines and down his arms and legs. His spines themselves were chaotic, appearing like flames, and to some extent, WERE flames, the very tips of the quills moving around on their own, ever burning. The hedgehog that stood before me had his arms crossed, a smirk on his muzzle, his ears perked up, and amusement in his eyes at my cautiousness. I don't know what was so amusing about it, considering he literally grabbed me out of nowhere and pulled me inside what appeared to be a classroom.

I eased out of my stance, splaying my arms out in a questioning manner. I was about to speak, but Vulcan got there first. "I didn't expect to see you around, Pale. Where were you when they took everyone else?" He asked, still sounding highly amused. I don't know why he found the situation currently humorous; everyone was taken away by some crazy scientist.

"I—what—how—" I stuttered incoherently. After the third attempt at failing to formulate speech, I sighed. This was all just way too crazy for me to handle. So I just decided to answer him. "I didn't expect to see you either," I sounded relieved, which of course, I was. "But I was out there in the cafeteria unconscious on the floor from the original explosion. Vulcan tilted his head, his eyes scanning my body.

He responded after a few seconds. "Must have not gotten hit in the original one, then, the only thing I see on you is that nasty welt on your head. Also, it's nice to know you got a really nice nap while everyone was running around screaming." He grinned. "I'm just glad you didn't get captured."

I sighed. "Yeah, I am as well ..." I then spotted movement behind Vulcan. It was easier to spot because his body glowed very softly, , but my natural bird eyesight made it so I could see in the darkness either way. Which, I realized, this classroom was very dark, probably kept that way so the robots didn't think anyone was in here. Vulcan noticed where I was looking, and glanced over his shoulder. He stepped sideways.

A petite ferret girl was kneeled down, her eyes locked onto a backpack she was apparently fussing with, her hands reached inside the main compartment of it and shuffling around, probably looking for something. She was mostly brown in color, with flecks of white and black along her body, though most of the white seemed comprised to her face, while the black affected her arms. She wore brown cargo shorts and a born tank top, a white jacket draped over her with the sleeves rolled up. I'm slightly ashamed to admit this, but that girl was packing quite a bit of junk in the trunk, and I wondered why that was even a thing in society. I never understood it. I didn't dare step any closer because I didn't trust this girl in the slightest. Vulcan then cleared his throat softly, however, and the girl looked up at him, appearing confused until he gestured towards me. She looked at me, and I immediately saw distrust flash in her eyes, which were crimson.

"Pale," Vulcan said, addressing me first. My eyes didn't leave the girl when he spoke; never take your eyes off a potential threat. However, I saw my friend gesture to the ferret. "This is Gizmo; she saved me from one of the robots. Gizmo, this is Pale, my best friend at this school. Now, can you please stop distrusting each other so much? It's making this bleak atmosphere worse." He chuckled.

I still didn't move, but the girl looked up at Vulcan. "You could have handled that robot yourself if you didn't refuse to melt the hunk of junk down with your fire because of all the people around," she protested, humbly, her voice high-pitched and squeaky. I immediately thought it was extremely annoying—it was like those characters that purposely were made to be extremely irritating in those T.V. shows.

He shook his head. "Oh, no, you aren't getting humble on me right now," he said, reaching down and messing up the fur on the top of her head. "This girl right here had a Taser In school for what reason I'm not going to ask and pulled it out, turned it up to maximum, and gave that robot quite an electrifying experience." Gizmo and I both muttered something dark at his pun. Maybe she wasn't so bad after all. Vulcan continued on, unnoticing. "Then we both fled and ran to here. We've been stuck here ever since, and it was apparently the class she was supposed to go to for her next hour after lunch, luckily, she had her bag."

She sighed. "It really was nothing, you know. You could have handled it yourself." Vulcan shrugged.

"Maybe, but you did a better job than me."

Then a thought suddenly struck me at that point. These two were conscious when the attack first started, maybe they could tell me something about what had happened. "Speaking of the attack, could one of you explain exactly what happened? I only remember having a gut feeling that something wasn't right and then the wall exploded. A red fox girl ..." That last part was muttered low enough so only I could hear it, I just remembered the girl. We had walked into the lunch room together, hand-in-hand, and I remembered being a bit of a white knight previously. But, I couldn't remember her name, not even the first letter.

Vulcan shrugged again. Putting on a flat look of unknowing. "I don't know, man. The blasted the wall to smithereens and then started coming into the school is really big numbers. Gizmo and I barely got away in time. We don't know if any others are still in the school, or if maybe they had gotten out of the school before being caught, but if they did, who is to say that the town hasn't been ransacked by these 'bots as well?" He sounded a little more serious now, his arms crossing once again over his chest.

I nodded my head, looking down at the floor in thought. I knew these events couldn't be just coincidences, and if they were, how did the dream I had before tie into all of this? What was really going on here, and for what purpose exactly? If it was like my dream, then, was it to infuse a living being with the powers of the Master Emerald? But, then, I wondered what the giant green diamond was in the first place. Facts I suddenly knew it the dream came to life; a gem of infinite energy, created by some divine force above and given to Mobius as a gift for some deed. That's what the legends told, anyways, whether they were true was questionable at best.

At this point, another thought struck as well. The Master Emerald had chosen me is what I said in the flashback of a memory in the dream. Of course, I could have been making up something completely bogus and irrationally stupid then, but if I was right ... Why did it choose me? I didn't exactly hold any truly defining qualities to myself at first thought, but I never really stopped to examine who I truly was. I just knew who I was and refused to let others change that, I refused to change because others didn't like one thing about me.

Was that why it had chosen me in the dream, because of how I was so sure of myself? That didn't make any sense—Sonic the Hedgehog was sure of himself, he was confident in his abilities, but in the dream he was not chosen, Eggman had stated that 'he could not handle the power,' as well as the infamous Shadow the Hedgehog, rival to the blue blur. Things just didn't make much sense, and I really wished they would start to. What was it about me that made me ... Different?

A hand waved in front of me just then, snapping me out of my thoughts. "Hello, Mobius to Pale, do you read me?" Vulcan asked. I lifted my head up, looking confused.

"Huh?" Was the only thing that I could spit out, not that I really thought hard about what to say.

He laughed, poking my chest fur, just under my scarf. "Zoning out like you always do even in times of crisis? What if I was a robot right then, mate? You need to be aware of your surroundings at all times, trust me, I'm pretty sure it'll pay off in your favor if you do," he playfully scolded me, smirking.

I shoved him back, making him stumble a good foot or two back. "Yeah, and what about those times I've caught you staring off into space thinking about whatever goes on in that messed up head of yours?" I shot back.

Vulcan chose not to respond, but walked back to me and to me side, draping one of his arms across my shoulders. "You seem a little tense, something on your mind, Mr. White?" He asked, using my nickname. I hated that nickname, and he knew I did. I sighed, might as well tell them.

"Well ... Take a seat, Vulcan, Gizmo; I'm going to need to start from before I woke up to tell you this story." I walked over to the desks and sat down on the table. The two of them followed, with the ferret a little reluctant as she took a seat across from me, with Vulcan right next to me on my right, leaning on the desk I was sitting on. I went straight into a full explanation of what was going on through my head, starting from the beginning where I first had my dream, from when I woke up, discovered the emerald colored eye I now possessed, and the strange experience I had coming to school, all the way up to me finally meeting back up with them. They both listened intently, ears pricked up. When I finished, Vulcan was frowning for once, his smirk having vanished completely from his face.

"So, that evil Doctor Eggman from the news ... You think he has kidnapped everyone and taken them to experiment on them with this object called the 'Master Emerald,' which is a sort of limitless power?" I nodded. Figures he could sum it up so easily, he always did. He stood up completely, looking at both me and Gizmo seriously. "Well, we need to go save them!"

I'm sure the look we both gave him was mutual, because that was simply a crazy idea. "'Go save them'?" I repeated incredulously. "Vulcan, I don't know if you noticed, but we barely saved ourselves from these robots, and the fact that we would probably be going to the heart of a evil scientist's base to rescue thousands of prisoners is a ludicrous idea as it is!"

"I agree with the bird, Vul," Gizmo piped up, her squeaky ears grating on my nerves even more now that I was in close proximity to her. "That sounds like a bad idea ... Let those heroes handle it! Wouldn't they know that Eggman had attacked us?"

Vulcan growled, which shocked me; he was never known to growl before. "Well, we can't just sit here and do nothing! Where are they now? They haven't even come to check if there are any students that might have escaped and been trapped here like us yet." He exclaimed, probably a bit too loudly.

I hate to admit it, but Vulcan did have a point. Those heroes we've heard so much about in the news haven't even come to check on the high school, which could mean many things, each of my theories worse than the last. "Yes, but ... We're just high school sophomores! What could we even do against those robots?"

The red and orange hedgehog shrugged now, returning to his previous expression, though slightly more neutral now. "I have my pyrokinetic abilities, Gizmo is a whiz at engineering and building things," I noticed she blushed slightly, but said nothing, "and you ..." He paused, looking slightly miffed.

Yes, exactly. I didn't have anything special about me, I would be almost powerless against these robots unless I could suddenly learn how to do a Spin Dash like Sonic, or use Chaos powers like some of the other students in the school. Many of them had powers; ice manipulation, telekinesis, water bending, super speed, extreme strength, electric manipulation, and in one case, magic. Except for me, though, I was the minority. I had nothing special about me, and if that brown hedgehog from early wasn't a total wimp, he could have annihilated me. I knew he had the ability to bend earth to his will, yet I picked a fight with him anyways.

I sighed. "Yes, I know, I don't have anything special. I'm not super smart, I don't have super speed, I can't fly, and I can't do any of that crazy stuff you guys can do with water, fire, wind, whatever. I would be totally helpless against the robots."

Gizmo was looking thoughtful, however. "Well ... if I could get my hands on some scrap metal and some makeshift tools; I might be able to put something together to help you. I know I'm crazy for saying this, but I think we should try it."

I looked between the two of them. "Are you sure?" I asked, didn't want to rush into things if we didn't have our minds made up.

"Yes," they both answered in unison.

I patted my legs with my hands, standing up. "Well, looks like we're going on a rescue mission then, guys." I said with finality. "But first, we're going to need a plan."