Sonic Storm

(I do not own sonic etc.)

Introduction

Episode 2: Enter the Eggman Empire

It was beautiful day in Station Square, the kind of day that just makes you want to sit still in a park somewhere and enjoy nature. Amy Rose was doing just that as she sat on a bench in Station Square City Park reading her latest sci-fi find. Amy found it best to enjoy nature while enjoying a good science fiction book; often time science fiction book revolved around interplanetary war and destruction, It helped her not to take the beauty of nature for granted. There always seemed to be some mad man out there who wanted to destroy the world, Amy knew that the many comforts that nature had could be wiped out in an instant by someone with enough power.

She shook her head, although it was good to enjoy nature sometimes she wondered if she took it too far. She sighed, how she wished that Sonic would slow down long enough to enjoy the beautiful flowers and trees and birds with her. Just as she was thinking this a humming bird landed on a nearby leaf, she smiled Mother Nature always knew how to appease.

And for some reason Amy now heard Espio's voice in her head "Why don't you ask him?" he had said in answer to her inquiry about the history of Knuckles and the Chaotix. She hadn't and she wondered now if it had been the right thing to do, she really wondered why Vector would care enough to send a member of the finacialy floundering organization to check on the crimson echidna, she never thought that he considered Knuckles his friend.

And Espio he seemed to come only grudgingly, some code of honor binding him against his will. Amy sighed, she knew that the easiest way was probably to ask Vector, but she didn't want to take up time he needed to keep the Chaotix afloat, he was probably hard at work right now.

Vector was lounging on his favorite couch, gold piled high on each end, a female crocodile lounged opposite him as he told great stories of the Chaotix's adventures. He souped up the details a bit to make himself look a little better, but he was sure that the others wouldn't mind. He was interrupted occasionally by the females comments of "Really?" and "Oh Vector, You're so brave." And "Hey Vector wake up!" strange that last one didn't sound very feminine.

Vector opened his eyes, sat up and yawned. Espio had obviously just walked in as the door was still swinging a little, he now stood at the other side of Vector's desk.

"You know," Vector said somewhat disappointed "You just interrupted a beautiful thing."

Espio rolled his eyes "Oh I'm sure I did, but your fantasies don't help us pay the rent you big green oaf."

"Hey!" Vector said angrily "I know your upset that I picked you to go give Knuckles our condolences, but that's no reason to call me names; besides you two really need to forgive each other."

Espio fairly snarled "That doesn't change the fact that there is still a $1,500 bill on your desk."

At this point Charmee burst into the room "–"

"Hey Charmee, slow down!" both Vector and Espio said at once

"Whoa, that sounded weird," Charmee said as he slowed down "I didn't know you guys could do that."

"Ahem," Espio butted in "You were going to tell us something."

"What? Oh yeah," Charmee said hastily "I figured out how we can pay our rent."

Vector chuckled "This ought to be rich." He said

"Let's hear it." Espio said, a hint of sarcasm in his voice

Charmee put on his biggest smile, grinning ear to ear "It's brilliant!" he said

Sonic wished he could just work out like a normal eighteen-year-old mobian sometimes; seriously this was getting so boring. He spin-dashed into a big mobian rhino as he tried to rob a bank, knocking him unconscious. Grabbing the bags of money he threw them back behind the counter and turned his attention to the big rhino's buddies.

There were three mobians; a lizard, a raccoon, and a bird of some kind; and two heavily armed humans. Sonic looked around to see if he needed to shout "Everybody get down" or not, since everyone was already hiding under a table or a counter he just went for an attack.

The two humans were definitely the most dangerous of the five as they were armed to the teeth with just about every weapon he could imagine. He dashed past the first one tripping him with his foot, Bullets ricocheted off the walls and ceiling as he fell pulling the trigger of his automatic.

Sonic dashed over the prone form stripping him of his side arms and grenades. By now the other human had him in his sights and the mobians were closing in on him, these guys were pretty fast for petty thieves.

The bird took off and flew downward towards him as the lizard lunged towards Sonic's throat with a knife. Sonic watched the two of them collide from the other sided of the room, but had little time to rest as the other human opened fire.

Now Sonic hated guns, he hated everything about them, but he didn't mind smoke grenades, and it just so happened that the downed thief had had a few. Smoke filled the room as Sonic dashed to the other human and knocked him unconscious with a punch to the temple. His attention then turned to the two mobians only to find that they had left and taken the money with them.

"Think you can escape the fastest thing alive huh?" Sonic said smirking

Sonic shot out the bank doors and up the skyscraper across the street, nearly knocking over a small army of people that had gathered around to see what was happening. Putting his hand over his eyes to block the sun Sonic spotted his quarry not a quarter mile away slinking through an alley. "Why do they always corner themselves in an alley?" Sonic thought to himself as he dashed back down the glass tower.

Dr. Eggman smiled as he pulled on the red and white lever to his right, he felt the room shudder a bit as his robot launched. Eggman keyed his Mic. "Jetstorm, Sonic has been sighted in southern Station square chasing the bandits I hired, keep him occupied for me." The robot turned and Rocketed towards Earth in response.

Sonic turned the corner and met the two mobians head on, his foot tripped up the bluebird, and a solid elbow to the head stopped the lizard cold. Before he could turn to interrogate the bluebird an explosion ripped through the air, Sonic could feel heat behind him. He looked towards the skies and saw a red and gold, jet-like robot with a familiar face painted on it's side.

"Eggman!" Sonic said balefully, spreading his feet he began to loop chaos energy within his body in preparation for a spindash. Sonic curled into a ball gathering more energy and finally shot like a missile straight towards the offending, tin headed robot.

Sonic bounced and groaned as he discovered that the robot's armor was thicker than he had expected, just like Eggman to through a curve ball. "You wanna play rough?" he said circling around for another shot.

He never got to make contact several red and white jets with the government "G" on their sides opened up with missiles and blew it out of the sky. Sonic's quills were singed as he just barely avoided the explosion.

"Hey watch where you're shooting!" he yelled as the planes came down for a landing.

The planes transformed into cars (one of tails designs, and one of very few that managed to find it's way into GUN hands) and came to a screeching halt. Two white ones and one red one, Sonic knew who the pilots were before they even stepped out.

"Heh, how ya doin' Sam?" Sonic asked with a smirk.

Sam removed his flight helmet as he stepped out of the red car "What no 'thank you Sam for saving my life?" he said smiling.

Sonic half frowned "First of all you didn't save my life, you stole my target, second, since when do I tell YOU thanks?" he said.

Sam sighed "Well it was worth a try anyway. So what do have for me?" he asked.

Sonic pointed at the lizard trapped beneath rubble "Him."

"Great a lizard, as if Vector wasn't bad enough." Was Sam's reply.

The Lizard's face turned red with anger, his eyes flitted between Sam and Sonic, who was frowning at the human's last remark. Sam approached the Lizard and began examining the rubble to see about how to move it. The Lizard stared at him for several awkward seconds then his eyes returned to Sonic, but the anger was gone out of his face, replaced by guilt, or sadness Sonic couldn't tell which.

"Well," Sam said standing "He's going to be stuck there for a little bit, I'll get the rest of the guys down here and see if we can lift it." He sighed in frustration.

"I'll let the mayor know what happened," Sonic said "I'm sure he'll be able to deal with it." With that the blue hero zoomed off to the city center, leaving Sam wondering how much larger the city dept was going to get after this; well, at least Eggman didn't take out the hole block this time.

"Curse that confounded hedgehog!" Eggman yelled in anger "Now I wont get that money, I need those funds!"

Most people didn't really think about all the effort that went into making his personal army of metal minions, it's not like he just materialized them out of thin air. He needed materials for his robots, sometimes very rare minerals or metals for the more specialized ones, like those he was working on now. All those things cost him money, and since he was considered a terrorist and had yet to gain a big enough hold on earth to make a country he could not gain or spend money by legal means.

Eggman had a large group of mercenaries that gathered needed materials and intel on political figures. That's where the money came in, he had to pay these mercenaries to do their jobs and they were quite stingy about money. Not to say that he feared any of them on a physical level (his robot army was more than capable of defeating a few small time thugs) but if he failed to deliver, his "street cred" would go down and less mercenaries would be willing to work for him. And mercenaries hated counterfeit money, robbing Eggman of an easy way out.

The would be dictator rubbed the stubble on his chin while he sat thinking, the best way to gain the needed funds would likely be by establishing someplace on earth that would be considered an independent nation, said nation could print it's own currency and be actively involved with world trade, weather the superpowers liked it or not. But he didn't have the funds to launch a campaign against enough of the world to gain a permanent foothold.

Eggman smiled as an idea dawned on him "I know exactly what I can do."

To nobody's great surprise the mayor sanctioned the repairs necessary; grumbling and griping the whole way about getting stuck running the city that Eggman's greatest foe inhabited. Sam wondered briefly if this would affect his paycheck, after all he had bills to pay too.

Sonic had of course reported the damages as though they were nothing important, which had put the mayor in a particularly bad mood, he grumbled a bit more under his breath as he was writing something down.

"Sometimes I wonder why fate assigned me this post." He said loud enough to hear, "Why am I supposed to care for the city inhabited by Eggman's greatest foe."

"This is gold!" Vector said "I'm just surprised that Charmee found it."

"Hey!" the little bee exclaimed

Espio sat, a bit embarrassed that Charmee of all people had been the one to finally find them some work.

Vector read the wanted poster aloud: "Rick Buliss, Mobian Rhino; subject is considered armed and dangerous; reward $15,000! Ca-ching!"

"Oh brother." Espio said as dollar signs virtually replaced the mobian crocodile's pupils.

"ItoldyaItoldyaItoldyaItoldya!" Charmee exclaimed

"Yeah," Espio said "now where do we find him?"

There were very few patrons in the small bar on the corner of 8th street and Patton Blvd. There was a man in a cheap suit drinking his fifth bottle of beer, probably had a bad day. There were two mobians, a duck and a lion, and a rough looking human with tattooed arms at a table in the corner. Lastly there was a purple weasel with a kink in his tail, wearing a canvas hat sitting at the bar itself. His flaxen yellow eyes scanned the room and locked on the bartender as he returned from the back with his second drink.

Fang set a hundred dollar bill on the bar "Know where I can find some fast wheels around here?" he asked.

The bartender, a big hairy human male, eyed the bill suspiciously then looked at Fang with a smile "You gonna have to do better than that." He said with a new jersey accent. Fang returned the smile setting another two hundreds on the bar.

The Bartender picked up the bills and leaned into the weasel's ear "Sixteenth street and Libons, there's a night club," he whispered "yer lookin' fer a guy named Buliss he's a big black rhino, usually wears a suit, runs the black market 'round 'ere."

"Thanks" Fang said flashing his namesake, he got up from the bar and left pulling his hat bit further in front of his eyes.

Uuuugh! For those of you who were waiting for a second chapter, I'm sorry I took so long, a lot of crap happened to me lately, not the least of which was losing my computer for a while, and also losing internet acsess to a rootkit (nasty little bugs) that ruined my computer for even longer. Thank God for jump drives and external hard drives!

Anyway review and tell me what you like and don't like (BTW I could really use some beta readers.)