Japan, 3 months ago.
"Fight!" Yelled the referee of a sumo wrestling, on his call two very large men began charging and pushing each other.
The crowd who was very into the game didn't take notice to the young Japanese man wearing a dark business suit, slip towards the back of the room.
"I'll never understand it…" Another man stated towards the Japanese man, he was leaning against the wall while puffing a cigarette, the smoke the flew through his mouth danced around for a moment before disappearing, "Why do your people take such fascination in such a game, Espio?"
The man, a Caucasian wearing an outdated white suit with minor stains doting the once expensive, nice clothing. He turned towards Espio and smiled broadly. Episo was basically his polar opposite: dark, thick, short black hair that just barely fell over his left eye, a sleek, black suit that was fresh off the dry cleaners and the way he held himself meant he was 'all business' while the other man seemed to take annoyance in these little meetings.
"…" Espio cared not to respond to the ignorant man, instead he joined the man next to the wall, pretending to watch the game in attempt not to draw any unneeded attention, "I'm here for the information, nothing else."
"Okay, geez," the other man shrugged while pulling out a file and handing it to Episo, "Once you complete it we'll forward the rest of the cash to you."
Espio slipped the paper out of the yellow file, examining the paper he made a quick glance towards the other man, who simply shrugged.
"I hope you live up to what they say: 'No questions, no matter what'?"
Espio made one last glance at the man, who smiled back in such a sick evil way that it made Espio sick. Slipping the file into his suit jacket and giving it a safe pat of insurance, Espio nodded towards the man before saying...
Chapter Four: "No questions needed."
"Where did you get that…?" I ask while my mind raced with a mix of confusion and rage.
I couldn't understand any of this; we had placed all seven emeralds somewhere safe from the reaches of people like this. How could he have possibly have gotten one?
Did he steal one of ours?
Is there more than seven?
As my mind raced with so many questions Espio simply walked around me, tossing the emerald up and down like it was some sort of toy!
"Enough!" I growled out, ready to lunge at him with any given second. He stopped tossing the emerald and looked over at me as if I were some child and he was the older and stronger bully that had just stolen my favorite lunchbox.
He shifted his head towards the left, his thick, long hair moved with him. Despite his mask that shrouded his face I was sure that he was smiling at me.
A moment of silence as he just stared at me, no one moved… at least until he tossed the emerald once more into the air and spoke out, "You want it? Just try and take it."
Oh it's on. I jumped at him, fist clenched with the intent if delivering a knockout punch complete with shiny yellow stars spinning around his head.
"One…" Espio spoke softly while twisting to the right, my fist flying right past him. Utilizing my speed was nearly impossible, in this small enclosed area I'd probably end up hurting myself more than doing any sort of damage against him. However, I am able to use my speed to deliver some quick attacks without jumping all over the place.
My fists probably looked like blurs, flying at him with incredible speed that no normal person would be able to dodge…
Normal person… right, he sure looked normal. But there was no possible way; he dodged every single punch I threw at him.
"Two, three, four," he spoke out in a smooth, calm voice as he dodged my fast moving fist, "Five, six, seven, eight, nine…"
I cringed as each fist flew past him, I focused with everything I had yet he seemed to move around it as if I were simply swinging at fog!
"…And ten." Suddenly he grabbed my fist and with one swift movement he brought his other hand down, causing a loud and incredibly painful snapping sound as he broke my arm.
I should be screaming, perhaps even dropping to the floor and crying, but I didn't even have time for that. He moved from breaking my arm to grabbing me by my neck and squeezing hard.
"Interesting…" he spoke as I struggled to break free, with no ability to breathe it seemed as if I were struggling uselessly against him, "I gave you ten tries to land a strike on me yet you produce no results. Thankfully, you being an animal provide you with no advantages over my strikes…"
I'd like to describe his over confidence, yet disappointed face in greater detail but at that moment I was beginning to lose all focus. Was I going to be defeated that easily? Were all my previous fights for nothing?
Oh wait a second, did I forget to mention to Espio what I was now? Right, I didn't just use the emerald… I was the emerald, in the most basic way of saying it.
I clenched my fist, my eyes began to change colors as I began to feel Espio's grip around my neck weakening. Just as I was about to unleash a Chaos Gale against him he leaped away, sensing that I was about to do something that he himself had not expected.
The Chaos Gale unleashed with a viscous bite, whipping up around the surrounding area, causing Espio to loose footing and fly straight back into the wall. Got to admit, it felt good to smack him around a little.
Espio didn't move from where he was at, his body remained completely still by the wall. I narrowed my eyes towards the man, briefly feeling a fear build in the pit of my stomach.
I had kicked around plenty of people in the past, but never had I used Blue Gale against a regular person. Had I… killed him?
"H-Hey!" I called out, hoping to see any sort of life in the man. I wait for a moment with no such answer from the man, "Oh you've got to be kidding me…"
I take a couple steps forward, carefully nudging the man with my foot, "You better not be dead-"
I stopped speaking as soon as I felt a cold knife press against my neck, the cold steel catching my attention right away.
"Did you really think you could defeat me by simply strength alone?" Espio's voice whispered to me from behind. The 'Espio' that was lying in front of me seemed to vanish in thin air – it was like magic, it was completely unbelievable.
"How did…"
"'I do that'?" Espio laughed before using his other hand to show the emerald to me, "This power is… incredible. The thing I can do with it? Nothing can stop me, not even New York's very own hero…"
Espio suddenly grabbed me and spun me in the direction of the computer, "And now the entire country will know about it…"
The computer monitor turned on, revealing a bee with a loading bar under it reading 'linking webcam to nightly news'. My eyes widened and before I knew it, it clicked on.
"Smile for the camera, Sonic…" Espio said while patting the side of my cheek, "You're on national news."
Miles shifted in his seat uncomfortably, the noises on the other side of the microphone didn't sound good at all. As soon as he heard 'national news', Miles instinctively ran for his remote – dive bombing into a pile of dirty clothes where he was SURE it was, throwing side clothing until he managed to find the object he was looking for.
Flipping to the nightly news, he managed to catch a brief glance at the news anchor before the feed switched to the dark room of the facility that Sonic and Espio were fighting in.
"Hello!" Espio yelled out, his voice was dark and almost… sickly, "Tonight I will achieve something extraordinary. Tonight I will break the faith that you have so foolishly put in this 'hero'."
Espio pressed the knife closer to Sonic's neck. Miles felt like he couldn't breathe for a second, he feared that any moment now he would watch his best friend be killed. Miles pounded his fist against his desk as if the act of protest would cause Espio to stop.
Espio held his other hand up above Sonic, the emerald holding tightly in his hands, "Tonight is the night… I win."
He swung his fist down, the emerald slamming straight into Sonic's head. Collapsing Miles's best friend to the floor.
"Sonic!" Miles yelled, sitting up from his chair. He could feel tears build in his eyes, he couldn't believe what he was seeing…
The world couldn't believe what they were seeing…
Sonic the Hedgehog had lost to regular human.
New Founders Base, Texas.
Three people sat around the TV, watching repeats of the feed where Sonic the Hedgehog was defeated by a masked man.
"This is surely disappointing…." One of the men said, running his hand through his thinning hair, "Does this mean we'll have to get our hands dirty?"
"…We can't let this go on any longer," the other man said, waving his hand at the TV as if it would respond to his frustration, "We're losing more and more with every passing minute!"
"Then perhaps…" The final man began, leaning forward in his chair, "It's time to put 'Shadow' for his first real mission…"
Texas, Far Land's High School.
The ringing of the school bell echoed across the halls, unleashing waves on waves of teenagers scrambling to escape the confining walls of their school. Between the various teenagers scrambling to get out, one purposely waited in the back of the crowd, patiently waiting for everyone to clear out while she flipped through her phone with little conviction to do anything else but look preoccupied.
Her name was Maria Robotnik, a sixteen year old with long blond hair, bright blue eyes, fair white skin and was dressed in her school uniform that consisted of a white button up shirt that was tucked into a long blue skirt that just barely reached her knees. She was the 'good' girl that everyone has known once in their lives, goes to school before promptly returning home to further study, never gets below an A- and never blows off her school work for friends. Friends was a hard thing to come by for her, being a transfer student from New York, Texas was a rather odd place and she found it hard to slip into the already tightly formed groups. This was primarily the reason why Maria hung back until everyone cleared, because it kept her out of problems and problems were bad!
Finally, the sea of moody teenagers cleared out allowing Maria to begin her exit. Pushing away from the wall she had called her friend she shoved her phone into her bag and quickly began her movement to exit the building. One thing she did enjoy was that when nobody noticed you, NOBODY noticed you, not the jerks, jocks or girls that made it their life's goal to make her life a living hell, those are these she never missed of New York. There wasn't much she actually missed from New York, all of those memories are better left in that city.
Exiting into the city she inhabited, she quickly began her walk towards the small house her grandfather owned. She avoided the city's buss at all cost, it was always crammed with people and stank of bodily odors that thrived in tight spaces of human interaction. So Maria kept to the same path as always – one left, two rights and a straight walk all the way home. It was her known path, it had become a muscle reaction, really.
Apparently other people have noticed this habit of hers; two older teenagers from her school had been following her now for the one right she had taken into the alleyway. Maria hadn't not noticed this of course, but she didn't feel too threatened as the two teenager were from her school, one of them had been trying extra hard to get her attention. Half way into the alleyway the light haired boy finally called out to her.
"M-Maria," he yelled, his voice cracking out of nervousness, "Hold on a second."
Maria took two extra steps, just about to round the corner when the man called her name out. She stopped in her place, turning slowly to face the two of them, one which was snickering in attempt to hold back an entire burst of laughter while the other one had a noticeable amount of sweat dressing his face.
"Oh," Maria said in a surprise expression as she glanced between the two, locking her eyes onto the one that called her, the sweaty faced one, "It's Cole, right?"
"Y-Yes," Cole nodded, adjusting his jacket in nervousness, "My buddy and I were wondering-"
"Cole was wondering!" His friend corrected through snickers.
"I was wondering if you'd like to hang out with us? I-I could buy you a drink and we'd all have a lot of fun," he was trying hard to sell his offer and Maria found the attempt very cute. However, accepting such an offer would break the social bubble she had worked hard to surround herself in. If she were to accept suddenly she would be in their social circle, and the idea of friendships and relationships actually scared her...
"Thanks, Cole," she suddenly spoke, causing the young man to look up at her with wide eyes, "But I can not. I've got too much school work to attend to. I'm sorry."
She turned to exit the company of the two boys, thinking it was best not to prolong this embarrassing moment. However, as she turned she came face to face with a much taller man with long dark hair that was shrouded by a dark hoodie he sported, a little overdressed for this weather. His eyes scanned the three, falling aggressively onto the two boys.
"Everything alright, Maria?" The man asked, his voice hissing with so much anger that it actually made the two boys take a step back.
"N-No trouble, sir!" Cole quickly said as he and his buddy turned and made a run to the end of the alley.
The man scoffed at the two before glancing back at Maria and giving a somewhat disapproving look, which was returned with a wide eyed, innocent eyes that might have melted any man's heart.
"You shouldn't take alleys," the man said before turning away from her, "It's just asking for trouble."
"Trouble?" Maria laughed, speeding up a bit to keep up with the man. "How could I be in trouble when I have you, my knight Sir Connor!"
Maria's entire demeanor had changed, all that bullshit she had told herself about staying out of social circles was quickly brought about when she remembered she was already in a social circle. A small one maybe, but Maria was absolutely infatuated by this young man named Connor. He worked with her grandfather as some sort of super genius that her grandfather spoke very fondly of and have had him over for dinner many times. Connor and Maria had become close over time, he had devolved a bit of a protective attitude over at upon learning of her hardships back in New York.
"I won't always be here," Connor replied to her praises with a mute expression of conflicted feelings.
"Whoa, whoa," Maria said, quickly running ahead of him and stopping in his way, "Why are you talking like this?"
Connor looked at Maria, her expression focused and demanding. He sighed, shoving his hands into his jacket pockets and giving the information she wanted, "I'm leaving for a job." Her eyes widened at the words 'leaving', "I'll be back. But it'll be a little awhile, nothing too long. The company's just having some hardships and they want me to make sure it all returns to normal."
Maria wanted to complain, but that would be... too much emotion. She swept that aside and simply smiled at Connor. "Fine... well, good luck. Just, you know, text me whenever you have free time."
"I will."
"Which, by the way," she started, looking over at him with a rather worried look, "when are you leaving?"
"..." his silence was all she needed to know. He was leaving right away. She kept a still face and simply gave him a friendly hug.
"Good luck. Stay out of danger, wherever you are heading!"
"Come on, Maria. There isn't anything dangerous in what I do..."
I've been knocked out many times in my 'career'. But this time was different, while I had that same groggy feeling as I opened up my eyes it didn't last as long as before. I was able to become aware faster, remember what had happened and start thinking of my next move.
Speaking of which, I needed to make that decision now. I was surrounded by a group of doctors who had their fingers all over me, checking my wounds and generally just making sure I was alive. Which would have been all well and good except as I looked over I saw one of the doctors positioning a needle right above my skin. I couldn't let them have my blood because I didn't want to know what they'd do with it!
"Hey..." I said, suddenly catching the doctor's attention, "I'm going to give you three seconds to get your hands off me. No offense, I'm just allergic to 'people'."
The doctors stared at me for three brief seconds before a voice suddenly gave them orders, "Don't let him go, we've got questions for him!"
The voice came from New York's finest. This was annoying, I didn't want to hurt these guys, but dammit the three seconds I gave them was well up! I was actually charitable because honestly, I gave them easily six second.
"Alright boys, time's up!" I slammed my foot against the fool with enough force to pull myself up from their grasp, with the sudden movement the doctors backed off. The police man on the other hand hunched over, held his hands out to try and grab me as if I were some puppy trying to make a run for it. It was a nice try but before he knew it I was gone, zipping my way out of this facility and back to the sweet outdoors!
Perhaps they'd try and give chase against me, if so it would only last a couple of minutes until they noticed that I would have gotten to where I already intended to go. Where did I intend to go? Where else but my good buddy's place, it was my 'panic' area, and boy I was in a panic!
Somewhere between the facility and Miles's house I began to become aware of all my injuries, most notably my broken arm that was screaming out for me to halt and secure it. I pushed past that pain and kept my course, dodging people on the streets before finally coming into his neighborhood, literally skidding to a stop on top of his grandmother's roses. Add thorny thorns to my list of injuries!
I made sure to transform back to my human self before throwing myself against his window, giving it a loud knock to try and get him to open it up faster. Through the shades I could see Miles almost fall out of his chair, leap over his bed and throw open the window with such a force that it caused a loud 'thunk'.
"Sonic!" Miles said, worry clear in his voice, "Get in, quick!"
I pulled myself into his room before falling flat onto his floor, giving a loud groan as my broken arm put up a very painful fuss.
"Miles," I began.
"Y-Yes, Sonic?" he said, grabbing my arm to try and pull me up. Of course it was my broken arm.
"My arm is broken!"
"S-SORRY!" Miles yelled as he dropped my arm, which fell roughly to the ground causing me to hiss out.
"WHHHYYYYYY!?" I whine as I pull myself up, Miles frantically apologizing as he wheeled his desk chair over to me. I slumped into the chair, taking the towel offered by Miles to wipe my forehead of sweat, "Can you do anything about this?"
"You mean do I have some super high tech machine that will magically fix your arm?" Miles asked as he pulled out a box from his desk and lugged it over to his bed where I was just a mere distance away.
"Yes?"
"No, of course I don't have that..." Miles shook his head as he pulled out a couple of materials, "Take off your jacket."
"Shit..." I hiss as I slide my jacket off, "It wasn't supposed to go down like that..."
"I figured..." Miles merely added as braced my arm, "You're really going to have to head to the doctors over this."
I wasn't against the idea, after all I would just be one of the many teenagers with broken arms. Not the blue hedgehog that they were looking for, that's for sure. Although perhaps it wouldn't be great that I share that same name with that said blue hedgehog...
"I'm leaving this one up to you, Miles," I decided, earning a rather annoyed look from the kid.
"Okay, I'm going to give you a choice," he began tightening the brace, which earned a weak squeal from me (I'm man enough to admit), "You can go down to some sort of free clinic, have the good work done without much questions while I try and find more information on the guy that beat you up... or you wait here, I do a terrible job and you die from some sort of infection."
"Whoa. That got intense."
"It's possible."
"FINE." I give up as I push myself up from the chair, wobbling a bit before finding my balance, "Do whatever you need to do. Find this guy, okay? He's ruined everything I've worked to build up..."
I put one foot outside the window, glancing back at Miles who merely stared at me with blank eyes.
"What?" I ask suddenly causing him to shake his head.
"Just..." he started, turning away from me and shoving his hands into his pocket, "Be careful. There are more important things than your image."
"Not much, Miles. Not much." I say simply before taking a final step outside the window. I'm now off to find this free clinic Miles spoke of...
Whoooaaaa, it's been awhile sense I've posted a chapter. I just had a burst of inspiration that I needed to get out. No idea if anyone is still reading this, but boy I hope you guys enjoyed it. I'm going to try and get more out in a reasonable time.
If anyone is still reading this, give me your thoughts and review! Thanks!