AN: Aw dang, I wrote another one… Much shorter than the 1st one, tho.
The hunt for the Chaos Emerald continues, and this time, we join Team Dark in their search for the mystical MacGuffin.
Happy Tree Sonic Heroes & Knuckles
Today's Episode: You're a Gem
Starring:
Sh is for Shadow- Shiny shoot-bangs shall surely put an end to shady shenanigans!
This week featuring:
Team Dark- Rouge, E-123 Omega
Also featuring:
The Happy Tree Friends- Cuddles, The Mole, Pop, Cub
"Hurry up, you two!" Shadow rushed both of his teammates right before running ahead of them again.
The bat and the robot have had a hard time catching up with him. After what happened the day before, Rouge wanted to abort the mission altogether and forget about the Chaos Emerald. But Shadow would have none of it.
"Well, at least we're out of that cursed forest…" huffed the female treasure hunter, the memories of the bloodbath they encountered there continuing to haunt her.
"Affirmative," Omega agreed with her.
After leaving the seemingly unending, dreadful jungle behind, they now entered an area full of rolling hills, covered in juicy-green grass and bathed in sunlight. Their surroundings seemed completely serene… but so it had been right before yesterday's slaughter. The whole team therefore decided to remain extra cautious.
Shadow halted on top of one of the hills, observing. The frown on his face informed his comrades that the colorful environment was still quite sickening to the black hedgehog.
As their leader surveyed the area, Rouge stood nearby alongside Omega, stretching her tired wings.
"I seriously wonder if he even knows where we're going," the bat whispered to the robot, making sure Shadow didn't hear her.
But Omega was far less dismayed than her.
"Have confidence," he beeped. "If the Chaos Emerald is in the vicinity, Shadow would be the one to know."
"Yeah, that's what we're hoping for, right?" Rouge responded without much conviction.
She then glared at a bunch of flowers beneath her feet. They looked almost overly sweet- like they were fit for a picture hanging on the wall of a Chao Kindergarten, or something. She started thinking.
"Omega… do you remember that bear from yesterday?" asked the bat.
"My records of him are intact," the robot announced, turning her way.
"When we met him, there was absolutely no sign that he would… you know… flip like that, right?" she uttered, biting her lip. "And what later happened to Sonic… They weren't being themselves! It felt as if something had…"
Suddenly, both Omega and Shadow turned in the same direction, completely startling Rouge.
"Movement detected!" said the robot, interrupting the bat's monologue. He immediately brandished his weapon.
Omega's teammates, however, stood in complete bedazzlement, with their mouths agape. And that was because what they saw…
… was a rabbit.
"Hii!" the cutesy woodland critter called them from the top of a neighboring hill.
His fur was bright yellow, he wore pink bunny-slippers on his feet… even his squeaky little voice sounded exactly the same as the character whom all of Team Dark saw being massacred by Flippy just the other day.
"What the hell…?" Shadow whispered under his breath, immediately becoming visibly agitated.
"Tell you what… How about we just get out of here?" Rouge said with an awkward laugh. She was just as confused as the rest of her team, and not in a good way.
Not knowing what else to do in such a situation, Shadow turned toward Omega.
"It's the same rabbit…" he growled. "It's the same damn rabbit! How can this be possible?!"
The robot stood silent for a while, analyzing.
"Slight chance of this lifeform being an identical twin of the other," he finally responded. "Estimating probability percentage… Error! Does not compute."
All of Team Dark once again looked toward the critter.
Yup, it was Cuddles alright. Or at least, an exact clone of the walking Easter decoration.
"Haha! Hey, follow me!" the bunny seemed to be saying in his bumbling dialect. He then waved at the stupefied comrades, ran ahead, and vanished beyond the top of the hill.
"What do we do now?" Rouge asked, looking like she'd just seen a ghost.
Shadow clenched his fists.
"We do what he said! After him!" he ordered, and immediately hovered forward.
Omega soon followed the hedgehog, and although she had a really bad feeling about all of this, their female teammate soon joined the two.
To Rouge's surprise, on the other side of the hill, she found something that looked like a small village. Scattered along the plain were wooden houses and other buildings painted in pastel colors. Next to the road which led to the miniature town, there stood the welcoming committee, in the person of the eerily cute yellow rabbit.
Rouge joined Shadow and Omega as they stood by the critter, looking at him intensively. When the bat stood by her teammates, the bunny smiled at all three of them and mumbled:
"Wewwo! Wewwome woo Wappy Wee Wow!"
"Omega. Translate," Shadow ordered.
"At once," replied the robot. "The lifeform's vocalization may be interpreted as meaning- hello. Welcome to Happy Tree Town."
"Happy Tree Town, huh?" wondered Rouge.
The settlement indeed looked like a happy one. It was full of bright tones, clean streets, and well-kept lawns. The woodland animals walking around seemed to always smile, and some of them were even whistling or singing as they strolled down the sidewalks. Birds were chirping in the branches, and the air was permeated with the smell of cinnamon.
"I don't like the looks of this place!" Shadow stated abruptly. Then, he addressed the rabbit standing in front of him. "You! You understand what I'm saying, don't you?"
The critter nodded eagerly, his long ears flapping as he waved his little head. Then, he manifested another smile.
Shadow arched a brow.
"Your name is Cuddles, right?" he asked distastefully.
Another nod. And another smile.
Now Rouge became even more gobsmacked. She remembered it clearly, and knew it was no hallucination- Cuddles had his heart torn out through the back by Flippy the Bear just the day before. She could still remember the smell of the bunny's blood. And yet, here he was- all fine and dandy.
"Identity with previously encountered creature estimated at 100%" Omega affirmed just to make things even worse.
"But… how?!" asked the female treasure hunter, her voice becoming erratic.
She also noticed that, for some reason, Shadow did not seem to be astonished by this fact anymore. Ignoring Cuddles, he turned toward the rest of his teammates and, speaking completely seriously, said:
"Haven't you still been able to figure it out?"
"Figure out what?" the stupefied bat inquired. "Shadow… you did see the same things we did yesterday, didn't you? Cuddles was murdered! As in, to death!"
"Yeah. So?" the hedgehog responded bluntly.
Omega and Rouge shared a startled look…
"Does not compute," the robot blooped. "The creature's life functions had been completely terminated. How could he have been resuscitated after receiving such deadly trauma?"
A mysterious spark appeared in the corner of the dark hedgehog's eye.
"There is one way…" he began. "An artifact of great power. One which is said to even be able to bring someone back to life."
Now they understood. Of course! The same thing which they've been looking for!
"The Chaos Emerald!" Rouge and Omega said at the same time, embarrassed with themselves for having ignored something this obvious.
"Yes!" Shadow responded. "If that is indeed what happened, the Emerald must be close. And he is going to take us to it!"
Saying that, the hedgehog pointed at Cuddles. This caused the rabbit to once again open his mouth and laugh.
Team Dark's leader went over to face the critter.
"Tell me," he said. "In this little town of yours, do you keep any precious stones? We're looking for one particular gem of great value. It's about the size of your heart."
An expression of wonderment appeared on the critter's face as he rubbed his chin. But just a moment later, he bared his teeth in a smile, saying:
"Oh yeah! C'mon, fowwow we!"
Pointing toward something in the distance, Cuddles began to walk, inviting the others to come along with him.
The members of Team Dark looked at one another, and shrugged. Then, they just followed the rabbit down one of the streets of Happy Tree Town.
"Stay alert, remember what happened yesterday," Shadow advised the others.
Yet as they walked along, seeing that the village was a true abode of peace and tranquility, their inner tension began to loosen up. The town's bright colors and the way the inhabitants happily went around their daily activities created an overall atmosphere of safety.
Only Shadow remained silent and grim. But that was just him being himself.
After making their way down several blocks, Rouge felt far more comfortable. Just like her two companions, she followed Cuddles wondering where he was taking them. The bunny waved at his friends whom he passed on the way, humming a song as he walked.
Suddenly, Rouge called the rabbit, telling him to stop.
"Hey, hold on a minute."
"Huh?" Cuddles halted and turned her way. Shadow and Omega did the same.
"What is it?" asked the hedgehog.
Smiling to indicate that they had nothing to fear, the bat pointed at a nearby grocery store.
"I'm hungry. We haven't eaten anything since yesterday! What do you say we stop for a little snack?"
Though Cuddles reacted enthusiastically to her proposition, the team's leader was greatly reluctant.
"We don't have time to lose!" Shadow protested. "We need to find the Chaos Emerald before Sonic and his gang get to it first!"
Rouge, however, remained persistent.
"Ah, c'mon Shadow! I'm not talking about a sit-down lunch. Let's just grab something we can take on the road. It'll only take a second."
Surprisingly, Omega backed her idea.
"I agree. A brief interlude would be highly beneficial."
"Not you as well!" the hedgehog growled at him. "You don't even eat food!"
Noticing that Cuddles was also gazing at him like a three-year-old at an ice cream truck, Shadow groaned, finally deciding to give in to their requests.
"Ah, fine! But make it quick."
Led by Rouge, they all entered the grocery store, and stood in line with the other customers.
Shadow went to the side, deciding to wait for them in the corner. As he stood with his back against the wall and his arms crossed, he noticed that one of the customers' children, a tan bear cub, barely a baby wearing a diaper and a little propeller hat on his head, was gazing at him intensively.
Once he caught eye contact with the adorable little critter, the cub laughed at him innocently. Exasperated, Shadow rolled his eyes, and looked the other way.
Immersed in his thoughts, he wondered how long this whole unnecessary ordeal would take, and how far they were from the Chaos Emerald. He tried to concentrate in order to detect the precious jewel's presence…
… and then he felt something odd.
Shadow turned his head and looked down. There he noticed the same bear cub, pulling at the gun he carried at his side, attracted by the shiny object's glitter.
"WHOAH!" the hedgehog reacted instinctively, pushing the child away before it was able to seize the dangerous firearm. "Don't you dare touch that!"
The startled cub made a few steps back, swaying and looking as if it were about to fall over. But then, from between one of the store isles, another bear came running. The adult, who for some reason wore a brown bath robe, was apparently the cub's father. Crying out loudly in panic, he managed to grab his son in the nick of time before the child collapsed to the floor.
The cub fixed his eyes on Shadow, made a sad face, and burst out crying.
Seeing that the dad gazed in his direction angrily, the hedgehog looked right back at him and hissed:
"Curb your brat, pops!"
The bear grumbled, readjusted the smoking pipe he was holding in his teeth, and quickly took his son away from this rude individual.
Rouge was done with her shopping shortly afterward, and they returned to walking down the streets of Happy Tree Town just a while later. The bat now carried a big bag of cherries, which she shared with the giggling Cuddles. Noticing that Shadow maintained his gloom, she also offered some to him.
"Cheer up, mister frowny face!" she spoke with a mouth full of seeds. "You want a cherry?"
But the hedgehog offered her nothing more than a snort. Then, he took some raw coffee beans from a bag he himself had apparently obtained at the store, popped them in his mouth, and began to chew grimly.
After a few more minutes, Omega pointed toward another building which stood in front of them, saying:
"I estimate that this is our destination."
The place appeared to be a jewelry store.
"Haha! Yeah!" Cuddles joyfully confirmed the robot's assessment. "C'mon in!"
Following the rabbit, the members of Team Dark entered the establishment. At the register, they saw the owner- a mole wearing a dark turtleneck and black glasses.
"Oh, I like this place!" Rouge's eyes immediately lit up as soon as she saw the precious jewels and gems kept within the store's display cabinets.
Something else caught Shadow's attention, however.
"Why the hell would they hire a blind person to run a jewelry store?" he expressed his consternation looking at the clerk.
"Equal opportunity employment," Omega answered him.
It was obvious that the mole (whose light purple face was adorned with a literal mole) did not even notice the customers entering the building. In order to grab his attention, Cuddles came up to the counter, and proceeded to wave his hand and speak to the clerk in their unintelligible dialect.
That seemed to do the trick. The mole nodded, grabbed his white cane and went out back, almost colliding with the door. But when he returned…
All the members of Team Dark stood in astonishment as they noticed a glass case in the blind clerk's paws, which held within it a huge gem of a deep green , they had reached their goal! And better yet, they did it earlier than the dweebs from Team Sonic.
Before the mole set the jewel in front of them, however, he bumped into the counter, and the case slipped out of his grasp.
"Uh-oh…" Cuddled said sadly.
"NO!" Rouge and Shadow yelled in unison.
Fortunately, the case had a metal base, and once it fell on the wooden surface of the counter, it wobbled a bit, but remained upright and intact.
Everybody breathed with relief.
Enchanted by the beautiful gem's glow, Rouge approached in order to be the first one to examine it.
"Is that really the Chaos Emerald?" she said in wonderment, stretching out her hand to touch the glass surface of the case.
Shadow, however, preferred her not to do that.
"Don't touch it!" he said, attempting to stop her. But he was too late.
As soon as Rouge laid her fingers on the armored casing, the metal base emitted several red rays of light, which shot out straight up. Recognizing them to be lasers, the bat gasped and quickly took her hand away before losing her fingers. Unfortunately, doing that caused the case to tip over, and shoot the lasers toward those standing at the other side of the counter.
"GAH!" the members of Team Dark exclaimed as they quickly jumped away from the deadly beams.
The lasers continued to shoot out for several more seconds, and then they were deactivated.
Shadow, who managed to avoid getting diced by quickly dodging the beam, now looked toward his companions. Omega seemed unharmed… but a strange expression of terror was painted on Rouge's face.
It was not because the deadly trap hurt her, however. No. It was because Cuddles, who wasn't fast enough, presently had a diagonal cross-section running straight through the middle of his horrified little face.
When half of his head fell off from the rest of his body, and a prime example of bunny anatomy became visible to the members of Team Dark, along with a waterfall of blood, Shadow saw that Rouge was about to lose it.
Running up to her quickly, he covered her mouth with his hand.
"Quiet! Shhhh! Don't scream!" he ordered her in a toned-down voice, immobilizing the bat while she struggled in panic. "Look!"
He then pointed at the mole behind the counter. The critter just continued to stand there as if nothing had happened. It was obvious that he hasn't even noticed that Cuddled had just been sliced in half in his own establishment.
After a short while, Rouge was able to settle down, though her eyes were still as wide as saucers. When Shadow finally let her go, she continued to pant, unable to look away from the dead carcass of a rabbit which lay on the floor, soiling it with red stuff spewing from the open skull.
Holding himself in, Shadow approached the counter again.
"Could you... open this case for us?" he said to the mole plainly.
The clerk nodded, took out a key, and quickly unlocked the armored glass casing. The huge gem now lay in front of them freely, in its full beauty.
There was only one problem.
"Error," Omega suddenly announced. "My readings indicate no trace of Chaos energy. This is not a Chaos Emerald."
"What?!" Shadow gasped, grabbing the jewel and lifting it before his eyes. "He's right! This… this is just a regular emerald! It's useless!"
Everyone could see how greatly disappointed the hedgehog was. And how mad he became.
"Arr! Damn it!" cursed Shadow, tightening his grip around the gem, wishing to break it in his fingers. But then…
Bang!
The green surface of the emerald suddenly became red. Astonished, Shadow also noticed something on his face.
Looking up, he saw that where one of the mole's nonfunctional eyes had once been, there was now a hollow space. The clerk swirled a bit, and then collapsed with his face on the counter. The hedgehog could see that not only was the inside of the mole's cranial region clearly exposed, but that particles of the critter's cerebral matter now covered most of his own body.
Seeing this, Rouge opened her mouth, and shrieked.
The emerald fell from Shadow's hand. Turning to the side, almost completely stunned, he witnessed a very peculiar sight.
In the middle of the jewelry store, there stood the bear cub Shadow had encountered earlier. Only that this time, he was holding the hedgehog's gun firmly in his grasp.
"Hahaha! Pew! Pew!" said the cub, playfully swinging the firearm up and down.
To his shock, Shadow realized that the kid must have taken the gun from him when he wasn't looking.
Suddenly, they all heard another scream. It was the cub's father, who had just run into the store. Noticing the bodies, as well as the three blood-splattered characters in front of him, the critter gasped as his face turned pale. And then he noticed his son with the pistol in his little hands.
"WAAAH! No no no!" the bear screamed, running over to the kid.
"La-la! Pew pew!" the cub continued his play, this time directing the weapon toward the largest target in the room.
Omega.
Fortunately, before the child was able to pull the trigger again, his father snatched the gun from his hands. Looking at his disappointed son sternly, he wagged a finger at him.
"Uh-uh-uh!" the bear started to rebuke his naughty child. But doing that caused him to ignore another important fact.
That Omega now had his miniguns directed at both him and his son.
"Target locked," the robot announced coldly.
"Omega! NOOO!" Shadow and Rouge attempted to stop him. But having been threatened like this, the machine reacted according to his defense protocol.
DADADADADADA!
His comrades covered their ears as Omega fired 60 thousand rounds per minute, showering the floor with bullet shells. They saw both pop and cub get reduced to minced meat with speed comparable to having been thrown in a blender. The critters' screams of horror were muted by the gunfire, and when the robot was done with them, there was hardly anything left of their bodies but piles of unrecognizable flesh bits, with an intact smoking pipe lying in the middle of the bloodbath.
"Threat eliminated," Omega announced proudly.
Rouge and Shadow stood gobsmacked in silence for a while. But then the former of them began to scream from the top of her voice.
"AAAH! AAAAAH…!"
The sound of the bat's outcry of fright was soon accompanied by an even louder one- that of the store's burglar alarm.
Letting out a deep sigh, Shadow covered his face with a hand. He wiped off some of the mole's brain tissue, and said:
"Well, shit."
Then, grabbing both the unfazed Omega and the hysteric Rouge, he quickly teleported out of the jewelry store before whatever law enforcement Happy Tree Town had could catch them.
AN: Here's a piece of trivia for you- the Happy Tree Friends video game, 'False Alarm', was actually published by Sega XD