Yo guys! Before you read, just know that I am still open to story suggestions. I've got a few lined up, but not nearly enough. Feel free to leave a suggested story in a review or a PM! Thanks in advance!
So I don't know why this one didn't want to come together, but it was fighting me the whole way. XDDD Glad I got it finished for you guys though! Hope it's worth the wait!
The smell. That's what met them before any sight of the place. The horrid, putrid odor of rotten food and scents of disgusting waste bombarded their senses with no remorse. And yes, not only the noses of the unfortunate group were violated, their tongues were as well. The visceral incomprehensible smell of the massive compound of garbage was so powerful that within moments of following the stench to its source, they found themselves gagging.
This phantom taste conjured up by their active imaginations working in tandem with their assaulted noses was nothing short of revolting. A putrid, rancid, bitter taste clutched their tastebuds in a way that nothing ever had before. This reeking, foul sensation was quite noxious for the three companions, it was almost surreal how incredibly tainted the atmosphere was. It was as if they had mistakenly slapped used barf bags on their faces and the contaminated aroma was only getting stronger as they pressed on toward their destination.
In this moment, Charmy was quite thankful that they had never been to the city dump before. This was the worst he had ever felt, including the time he ate all 31 flavors of ice cream with all the toppings in one sitting. He had never been so sick in his life and according to Espio, he was never going to get that sick by normal means again. The traumatized bee violently gagged, lurching his small body forward a bit, the memory of barfing up at least 3/4 of his body weight in ice cream still haunting to this day.
God, he was making all of this worse on himself. He knew that. But he couldn't help it, when the hyperactive bee experiences one traumatic event, he can't help but compare it to other ones he's survived. And WHOO HOO HOO BOY, DID THIS QUALIFY AS TRAUMATIZING. Throughout this seemingly endless trek, the suffering child looked toward his two older companions, secretly hoping they were feeling as bad as he was so he wouldn't feel alone in his agony.
And one look at Vector was all he needed to feel connected. The giant croc had one massive hand covering his long mouth, his cheeks puffed up as if they were full of something, and the other was placed on his striped underbelly. His walk was a lot different from usual, which ranged from rhythmic dance walking to confident, powerful strides. But right now, he was swaying and nearly tumbling over with each step, clearly feeling queasy.
A quick shift to the right of the struggling reptile, the normally rambunctious boy was surprised to see the stoic ninja keeping his composure. It was like he was in a completely different place than his writhing partners; the magenta shinobi's signature reserved attitude and maturity clear. Staring in awe of his older chameleon coworker, Charmy had failed to notice that Espio... wasn't breathing.
The young insect had no clue the various skills a ninja is trained to possess, the ability to hold one's breath for an unbelievably extended period of time was one such skill. Unfortunately, the masterfully great warrior... was nearing his time limit. Pretty soon, he was going to have to inhale, and he knew that would be the last thing he ever did. Once the group of detectives were within nose-shot of the dump, the chromatic lizard felt his stomach clench uncomfortably, and his breathing halted upon reflex. That was 5 minutes ago, his limit was 5 minutes 45 seconds.
Much to his delight however, the odious location that they were looking for finally came within view. The city dump was just a couple of blocks away! Without warning, a swift and strong hand grabbed the tiny floating bug and pulled him close, another grabbed the gold chain of the large aquatic reptile. And before either of the grabbed animals could say anything, Espio shot off like a rocket, carrying them across those city blocks in record time.
Charmy scarcely remembered crossing the threshold of the dumping yard's entrance, they moved so fast it was all a blur that suddenly came back in to focus and poof. They were in the smelly old dump. His emerald scaled boss, due to the sudden express trip from Espio and the horrid smell of the place multiplied by 10 from proximity, let out a strained oh no and turned his back to his teammates, before hurling violently onto the ground.
Young Charmy winced and averted his gaze, his brow wrinkled intensely, uncomfortable couldn't even describe how he felt right then. In fact, hearing Vector puking was inciting a familiar queasiness that always proceeded to the boy upchucking. Sticking two fingers in his tiny nostrils and covering that hand with his second, Charmy frantically looked around for some sort of solution to their predicament. He noticed Espio as well, his face turning blue and his eyes wider than dinner plates, which only made him look around faster.
With an excited gasp, Charmy had found their solution.
"OH MY GOD, GUYS LOOK! SMELL GOOD TREES!" pointed the yellow striped child, his finger leading his struggling friend's eyes to a large jar sitting at a makeshift front desk.
"CAR FRESHENERS!" Espio and Vector simultaneously screamed in delight, while hoofing it to the jar along with Charmy. After a violent assault on the now broken jar, the frantic Chaotix shoved the sweet smelling fragrance emitters into their faces. The collective inhale they all performed was laced with nothing but gratitude. Their subsequent sigh was more relieving than any of them every imagined it could be. For a moment, the trio just stood there, breathing deeply with the various plastic trees plastered on their faces.
"Ahhhh, that's so much better. Ahh, mmm, can I get-" the content Vector spoke airily, before stammering as he reached on the ground for four more trees.
"I'm just gonna- yep..." is all he could manage as he tied the additional fragrance trees on the end of his long upper jaw. With another powerful sniff, the macho crocodile was back to feeling content.
"Thaaaaaat's the stuff..." deeply exhaled the happy detective. His smaller companions nodded in agreement as Charmy mimicked his boss exhaling loudly. Espio, finally regaining his breathing, tidied up Charmy's car fresheners, the over excited sprout had basically turned his head into a christmas tree with the small plastic scent enhancers as ornaments.
"Not like I care or anything, but this is one of the many benefits of owning a car, Vector" the magenta hue ninja reminded his leader, still fixing his youngest companion's tangled mess of car fresheners. The hyperactive bee, now free from the offensive almost deadly stench of the garbage around him, squirmed and wriggled around awkwardly, wanting to go explore. But Espio retained his gentle grip on the young one, whispering for him to keep still for a few moments longer.
"Oh come on, Espio, don't start that again" an exasperated Vector responded, realizing his own car freshener accessories should be spruced up a bit. Thick fingers gingerly moved to the tip of his emerald hue snout as the strings tangled on his face began to loose and systematically unravel to a more orderly fashion.
"I'm just saying, it's something we should really think about, there are many advantages to having a vehicle" wisely pointed out the shorter adolescent, standing to his full height and nodding to the youth he had just managed to refine a bit. With the nod, Charmy giggled excitedly, his eyes shining with anticipation, before he floated to the sky once again and flew in a random direction. But not without thanking the subtly doting Espio for helping him out.
"Espio... with what money can we buy a car?" the slightly annoyed giant asked rhetorically, pulling the last rainforest mist fragrance tree to line up with the other various scents. The smaller chameleon finally turned to fully face the massive crocodile looking down on him, an unamused expression adorning his visage, made slightly comical, because of the swaying car fresheners under his horn.
"We would have more money if you didn't take freebee jobs like this current one" chastised the sharp lizard, earning him a more upset expression from his bulky associate. Vector leaned in closer to the taut bodied martial artist, glaring defensively at the heliotrope teen.
"Hey, if a little old lady came up to YOU and asked YOU to help find her diamond necklace that her dead husband gave her for their 1st anniversary, I'd like to see you say no!" countered the chivalrous leader. Vector could recall her pleading face even now, heartbroken and needing his help.
"I wouldn't have said no, I would have said, "that'll be about 50 dollars an hour, ma'am. Cash or check only, no credit" intelligently replied the lean ninjitsu master, shocking the gigantic crocodile before him.
"You'd break the poor old lady's heart, you cold insensitive jerk!" Vector shouted almost disgusted.
"And you think it's better to waste all our effort on something that's not going to financially benefit the-" Espio sensibly argued before a sudden familiar voice shoehorned its way in their argument.
"GUUUUUUUUYS!" pleasantly called their young insect, who had been absent for a couple minutes now.
"WHAT, CHARMY?!" Vector and Espio simultaneously whipped their heads in his direction, irritated at each other and now him. But that irritation was soon replaced by shock.
Little Charmy had gotten into a pile of garbage and decided to make himself a robot suit of some sort. He had taken tin cans of all sizes and wrapped them in radial form around his limbs and torso. On top of his helmet, a broken bowl strainer was resting, his antennas sticking strangely out of two random holes in the strainer. Lastly, he had made shoulder pads out of two halves of an ironing board. To top it all off, he was posing in a ridiculous, boastful stance, reminiscent of a corny super hero movie scene.
"LOOK, I'M THE CANINATOR!" he announced in bubbly innocence, his arms now raised above his head excitedly. But doing so made the strainer drop lower on his head, covering his eyes, yet Charmy's expression did not waver at the subtle change. His older caretakers continued to stare in silence, not really sure how to react at first.
"... pfft!" Espio, much to everyone's surprise, sputtered out an amused laugh, losing his composure a bit as he bent his knees a bit and placed his hands on them for support. The normally uninterested shinobi's outburst, immediately caused the robust scaly colossus to blurt out laughter, deep and uncouth, but genuine. And Charmy, not knowing what else to do, laughed right along with them.
"Ha ha ha ha, squirt! Ya crack me up!" Vector barked between laughs, a joyful tear climbing to his green eyelid, quickly brushed away by a thick finger.
"Very creative Charmy. But we should focus on the task at hand" the smirking, but emotionally recovered investigator said, earning him a look from the towering emerald scaled man.
"Even though we're not getting paid for it?" coyly mentioned the music loving crocodile, a smug look on his face. Espio simply walked away from him as he replied.
"You're adamant about doing this, I'm tired of arguing with you about it, Charmy's the caninator, let's just get this done. Besides we can't let down a little old widow, now can we, boss?" the heliotrope chameleon reminded his larger companion, turning his head to shoot him an understanding glance. There was nothing wrong with helping an elderly widow for free, and there was nothing wrong with Vector for standing by his altruistic nature. At least THIS TIME, there was nothing wrong with his altruistic nature.
"Heh, that's the right attitude!" Vector grinned proudly, his long jaws producing an interesting smile. The broad shouldered reptile turned swiftly and called out to one of the very few people who worked in the dump. The man scurried over to the towering Vector, secretly scared of his intimidating visage. But after a moment of speaking with him, the smaller mammal warmed up to the gentle croc. Even after Vector had finished speaking to him, he produced his hand to amicably shake Vector's, which dwarfed his as just two fingers were enough to swallow the worker's paw.
Taking a few swift steps back to the waiting Chaotix members, the massive leader began to relegate their situation, "Alright boys! According to the dump guy, all the trash from that lady's neighborhood is over in Section G, so let's head over there and start searching!"
"You know, that actually doesn't sound too bad. We might get out of here quicker than I thought" the toned ninjitsu expert said in calm surprise as the group of three went to find Section G, Vector leading the way since the dump guy probably told him the way to Section G. The excitable bee flew in front of his enormous friend's face, gasping in surprise.
"REALLY?! When can we go back home?! In 5 minutes?! 2 MINUTES?!" Charmy questioned hopefully, his caninator suit loosing a couple of cans as he moved into Vector's personal space.
"Uhhhh... maybe not that quick sport" honestly corrected Vector, wincing a little as he did it. He really wasn't eager to spend a long time here, considering he didn't know how long the car fresheners would last. But they had been walking at a pretty brisk place and Section G wasn't in sight yet. Not to mention these sections were very, very large. Charmy's smile fell just a little as he nodded in understanding, slowing up to float behind Vector's head.
"Okay, you're right, that makes sense, we still have to get to the Section B pile" the yellow striped bug reasoned to himself.
"That's Section G, Charmy" dispassionately corrected Espio, his eyes half lidded and focused ahead of him.
"Yeah, don't care" the young boy waved off his more mature associate. A slightly annoyed pout was the chameleon's reaction, but Charmy didn't notice. "So I'll have to be more realistic with the timing..." continued Charmy, placing a hand on his plump cheek, his head tilted to the side as they continued walking through the smelly garbage piles.
"That's it exactly, Charm. Now let's get to it!" Vector kindly chimed in, finally seeing Section G in the distance.
"Yeah! We'll be home in 8 minutes!" the tiny, happy-go-lucky youth celebrated in ignorant bliss. Snapping out of his comfortable stoicism, Espio looked up at the flying hyperactive child with a puzzled squint.
"... Do you know what a minute is?" asked the shinobi chameleon, sincerely wanting to know, while still being passive-aggressive about it.
"It's like half of an hour or something, right?" Charmy answered quickly with no waver in his excitement. Espio remained quiet for a couple of seconds, sure that he had already taught the boy how units of time work.
"... We need to go over units of time when we get home" the authoritative magenta shade man ordered blandly, returning his gaze forward.
"Okay, let's meet up as soon as we get home in 10 minutes" replied his bubbly compatriot, not realizing how dumb he sounded. With a mildly annoyed sigh, the disciplined reptilian placed a gloved hand on his brightly colored forehead.
"Yare yare daze..." was his quiet oriental lament. This child was going to drive him insane one day...
With a few more quick paced steps, the ragtag detectives made it to Section G. It was identical to all the other piles of garbage they walked past, and they were thankful that there was some sort of organization in this place. Yet, the daunting size of the mound was more prevalent than their slight optimistic view of the dump.
"I take back what I said... this is going to take a lot longer than I thought..." the magenta Espio said dryly, making sure to give his emerald shade employer a stabbing look. Said green reptile felt the cold, ominous golden eyes of the lean shinobi and a wave of nervous panic arose in his gut. Vector sheepishly shot him an uncomfortable smile while raising his shoulders for a sluggish shrug, sweat coming off of him a little.
"Aw man, we're gonna be here for like 30 minutes! That's like half of my life!" complained the airborne infant, drooping his entire visage like a saggy sack. Again, Espio looked up at the child, squinting in mild disbelief of how dumb that statement was.
"... We're definitely going over the concept of time in detail when we get home, kozou" instructed the serious heliotrope chameleon. This was getting out of hand, even for the bee.
"Awwwww man! This whole day is gonna suck!" whined Charmy in his high pitched, childish voice.
"Come on kid, be a man and start shifting through this garbage!" Vector commanded in his bossy tone, diving his massive hand into the waste pile immediately after. Espio sighed deeply before doing the same, albeit with more finesse. With pleading eyes, the crafty lad hoped they would give him a pass on this annoying task. Unfortunately for him, his older reptile companions weren't even looking at him, rendering his persuasive childish look useless. So, with a heavy heart, the melancholy insect resigned himself to this fate of boredom. With his dignity and maturity in tact.
"UGHHHHHHHHHHHH... you guys are the worst!" Charmy immaturely whined, before throwing a classic temper tantrum. Okay so he wasn't keeping his dignity or maturity intact, but that didn't matter. The black striped boy just wanted out of here... however even the might of his childish outburst wasn't enough to get his caretakers to turn their attention toward him. With a dissatisfied pout, the young half-pint flapped his translucent wings and fluttered himself over the massive mound of trash bags. Reluctantly and moaning obnoxiously all the way.
Upon gaining a higher vantage point, the small, round-faced, arthropod saw an... interesting sight. It must have been special trash pick up earlier that week because there was a lot of... peculiar items in with the normal stuff. Interest piqued, Charmy flew down to the pile, a couple of meters from Vector and Espio's spot.
The items collected under him, as he studied them, looked... familiar. There was this weird pad, with a grey treadmill thing on it. And even though it was clearly broken and not plugged into anything, it was still moving in the direction of the arrows. Oh yeah, there were arrows painted on it, hazard stripes colored on the front and rear boarders of it's rectangular form. It was quite weird. And when he put his tiny hand on the staggering conveyor belt, it suddenly launched it and by extension, him into a pile of garbage a couple feet from where the panel was.
He collided with significant force, yet he popped to his feet a second after impacting the garbage pile, a wide, mischievous grin on his face. Quickly, the hyperactive bee grabbed whatever trash was within arm's length and chucked it at the panel. Every item that landed on the conveyor belt, no matter it's weight or size, was launched across the air, entertaining the excitable boy immensely.
Wanting to see more wanton small scale destruction, rambunctious fingers grabbed onto a random item, their oblivious owner not even looking to see what was being clutched in his tiny hand. However, the odd texture of the unseen object caught his attention, causing the imaginative yellow striped insect to turn and appease his curiosity.
There in his hand, a metal pole connected to what looked like a red ball. It was hidden under some trash bags, so Charmy thought he'd liberate it with a strong pull. Upon it's release, the investigative child could see that it was in fact a red ball it was connected to. Must have been an antique or something, it had a simple design with a yellow post bottom with light grey stripes, metal stretch rod and a red bulb on the top. Only the red bulb was totally broken and the whole thing looked rusty.
Yup, definitely an antique, he thought to himself. Too bad it was broken, maybe he could have given it to Espio, he likes old stuff. Tossing the broken lamppost to the side, something else buried under random trash caught Charmy's attention. With a playful squatting and standing motion, the trash revealed another puzzling sight.
Another perpetually moving object, this one was a lot more colorful than the dash pad. It looked like a barrel, but like for a circus. The rotating barrel was red with rows of white diamond shapes on it, spinning slowly, almost tempting the easily influenced bug to stand on it. And he did, with a joyful leap his little shoes connected to its top, slowly spinning the excited boy. But after a long stretch of time spent turning in place, Charmy got bored again.
"Well that was a letdown. Aren't you supposed to... DO SOMETHING other than spin in place all day?! Why do you exist, you dumb barrel!?" complained the irritated toddler, kicking the thing spitefully. But that wasn't enough for him, the aggressive bee lifted the disappointing and frankly meaningless cylinder and threw it far away, hoping no one would ever happen upon it again.
Huffing in annoyance, Charmy walked back to the dash pad, knowing that it would still be entertaining at least. However, he took a step on something which sprung him forward and into the air a couple of inches each. Staggering to stop himself from falling over, the curious colorful arthropod turned around to examine just what this new toy could be.
The questionable item was a two plated stapler looking device. The top plate was red and white, set at an angle, with two circles on each side, white stars in them. The bottom plate was straight compared to the angled top plate, with a black finish and a spring resting between the front top of this bottom one and the front bottom of the first plate. Charmy, testing how it worked, pressed down on the top plate with one finger, the spring coiling in response, and upon release, the top plate pushed upward before settling back down.
This gave the imaginative youth an idea. He flew his tiny body back a few feet, to give himself a running start. When he sprinted forward and finally stepped on the catapult, he was sent cartwheeling in the air, flying speedily and wonderfully out of control, the cheering boy laughed all the way before falling through a pile of garbage bags and getting hidden by them.
With a swift, surprisingly powerful pump of his fists, the few garbage bags that had completely covered Charmy were flying off of his small form, revealing the laughing chubby cheeked bee. This action also allowed him to find yet another curious thing, which he appeared to be standing on. Fluttering his see-through wings, the adorable kid pulled out a large flat circle. It was a large metallic disc, who's face had red outer rims, its middle rim was grey and in the center it had a blue circle with yellow edges and a yellow star in the middle.
A strange feeling came over Charmy when he looked at this item. It was almost as if he'd seen it somewhere before. It was quite colorful... maybe he had seen it in an arcade or an amusement park or something like that. Its design gave off the overwhelming sense that one was supposed to hit its center circle and the rambunctious young insect was never one to shy away from hitting stuff.
With a light press of his stubby index finger, the center of the target switch was pressed deeper into itself. Immediately, the large disc spun like a coin flipping through the air, causing the ignorant boy to yelp in surprise. Once it had reached a considerably high altitude, it exploded into glittering sparkles, with no trace left behind. The expression on Charmy's face was hilarious confusion, not knowing whether to be mad or slightly impressed or surprised at what just happened. He went with slightly impressed and returned his gaze to his garbage surroundings.
Which, now that he thought about it, had a plethora of rails running through it. Like, an un believable amount of rails. Rails that started out of nowhere and ended out of nowhere with nonsensical twist and turns in the middle. One would question the laws and physics of the world they inhabited if they had even the slightest amount of maturity. But thankfully, Charmy simply opted to riding on the gravity defying stretches of metal.
With speeds rivaling Shadow the Hedgehog, the extremely bubbly and ever skillful insect sped through the entirety of Section G, even moving through the boundaries of Sections F and H, laughing excitedly all the way. Who knew the dump could be so thrilling? As he moved through the landscape, the railing suddenly dived deep into the trash mound. This would have terrified someone else, but Charmy just focused some of his red-orange inner energy to his index fingers and blasted away all the trash in his way, not losing any speed whatsoever.
"WOOOOOOOOO! HAHAHAHAHA! BRING IT OOOOOON!" he screeched happily in a high pitched voice full of joy. The continuous twists and turns of the rail ride was engrossing, Charmy's fingers blasting countless bags from his path, spinning his body and arms in a crazy dance of acrobatics, while digging himself a trail in the mounds of trash he traveled through.
Eventually, the railing took an inclined direction that led out of the dense pile of garbage, the boy inwardly thanking God that the car fresheners were still dangling under his nose after all that.
Finally running out of road, Charmy jumped from one of the random ends of the tangled mess of rails and landed in approximately the same place he originally got on.
"Hee hee hee hee hee! That was AWESOOOOOOME!" giggled the adventurous ball of energy, as he floated in the air a bit, sheer adrenaline coursing through him. Eager to find something else in the wonderful piles of adventure, but really trash, although Charmy refused to think of this Section G of the dump as a pile of waste. He now liked to think of it as "Section Good random stuff" rather than just Section G. Something reflecting sunlight caught the corner of his wide eyes, so eager to investigate whatever new wonders, the little tot floated quickly to the shining surface.
Upon inspection, the wise junior detective deduced... it was a computer. Huh, he's was expecting... something more abnormal than that. Plopping his light round body on the surface of the pile, Charmy placed the cracked and dented device on his lap. Switching on the electronic object, the boy hoped against hope that it would turn on and maybe have a video game on it? To his surprise, it turned on, though the only thing visible was the familiar symbol for WiFi. Although it did have a spinning satellite dish on its top and its clearly non-modern thickness suggested this thing was pretty dated.
Swift fingers rigorously typed at the random keys on the connect keyboard, waiting for a reaction of some sort. Finally, a message popped on screen: positioned betwixt the apex point of two celestial structures below planet. Of course, the kid didn't know how to read that well, so he basically just looked at it in confusion. But he didn't have time to wonder just what the heck that meant, seeing as another identical computer floated out of the heaps of garbage, its own message on that.
"... Ooooookayyyyy... didn't see that coming..." muttered the highly confused bee, floating to the new computer to see what it said... which was basic nonsense: .selkcuhc eht htiw, selkcunK s'ti, kconk kconK
"... Is this even english?" the perplexed Charmy asked aloud, not sure how to even interpret this new turn of events. Much to his dismay the other computer notified him of another message: It isn't not the opposite of over there except backwards.
"That's just incredibly unhelpful! Am I supposed to be looking for something or what?!" angrily questioned the fuming insect. When all of a sudden a third computer floated above its trash grave and presented its own message. The only thing was it was far away, so Charmy had to fly all the way to the top of this particularly large hill of trash to get to it. When he finally did, this was the message it gave him: "It's behind you!"
An excited gasp escaped from the adorable child as he turned faster than a top, expecting something spectacular to appear, rewarding him for enduring this confusing turn of events. Unfortunately, the only thing he saw was the other computers he left behind, all of the presenting the same new message: "No it's not, dummy! You'll never find it!"
"GrrrrrRAAAAAAH!" roared Charmy, reminiscent of Vector's battle cry, before he lunged at the floating computers, tumbling off of the giant hill of trash and repeatedly punching holes in the monitors of the annoying devices. The small, violent child hit the foot of the hill with such force, he made the surrounding trash fly several meters in the air.
"Who do you think you are, ya crusty, shells of a computer?!" hollered the frustrated toddler before flinging all the offending technology into a random direction, hoping to never see them again. Charmy turned his back toward the falling devices, wanting nothing more than to forget about them... but unfortunately a loud smashing sound and a subsequent cry of pain directed his attention back toward the direction of his flinging.
"WHAT IS YOUR DAMAGE, BRAT!? YOU TRYIN' TO KILL ME?!" accused the mobian in a dump jumpsuit. The guilty young boy gave a sheepish frown while averting his eyes to his left side, comically unsure of what he should even say. Other than an obvious...
"Sorry about that. Didn't know there was anyone over here, ha ha ha... haaaa..." an awkward tension grew between the nervously grinning bee and the older, workman. He trekked up to the small child, a large bump prominent on his head as he got closer to him. With a stiff, bitter point, the man looked down on Charmy, staring daggers into his helmet.
"This ain't no playground, boy. This stuff is dangerous, for you AND adults. Just stay out of my way and DON'T THROW THINGS THAT DON'T BELONG TO YOU, ya little shirt stain!" the intimidating adult threatened. The slightly uneasy bee started to nod his head in understanding, but couldn't help but notice the man's... accessories.
The garbage man was wearing... a lot of jewelry underneath his uniform. Several gold chains, some with lockets on the end, other's with jewels on them. And on his arm, 4 very intricate and dazzling watches, his other arm was decorated with gaudy bracelets, equally as intricate and expensive looking as the watches. His fingers were covered with rings, each and every one of his digits had at least 2 gem encrusted rings, all of which looked like wedding rings. His sharp ears had various types of earrings in them: studs, hoops, the dangly kind, every kind of earring Charmy had seen on celebrities. And now that he was looking at the guy, he had 3 pairs of glasses. 3! Who needs three pairs of glasses?! And they were made of platinum or something, meaning they were super expensive too!
Not to mention... one of the necklaces looked exactly like the old lady that hired them's necklace. Like, this one was identical to hers. Impossibly so.
Interesting that this garbage man was adorned in all this expensive stuff. Charmy thought that these dump guys were essentially poor like they were, considering they deal with garbage all day. But then how did this guy afford all of this stuff? And it was weird that he was over here, when all the other dump guys were having lunch right now, meaning he was the only one here besides Charmy himself and his detective bros. Plus, he looked... shifty... like a scummy criminal, whom Charmy had seen multiple times during his career of "detectiving". But he had to interrogate him real quick, to see if he was jumping to the right conclusion.
"Ya got it, squirt?!" the canine spoke loudly, bringing Charmy back into the moment.
"Yeah, I got it. I'm really sorry mister, won't cha forgive me?" he asked turning his cute charm on. The canine recoiled in surprise, guess he wasn't expecting this. Good. That would make this next part easy.
"Uh, sure kid... I'm sure ya didn't mean nothing by it" the suspicious canine responded, awkwardly smiling down at him.
"Say, ya look really shiny mister! Where'd ya find all that sparkly stuff?" craftily acted out the seasoned detective, making full use of his age and non-threatening image.
"Heh heh, thanks for noticing. Ya could say I got them while I was... on the move..." suggestively whispered the canine.
"They musta cost a lot a dollars, huh mister?" exaggerated the insect, holding his arms out like an ignorant child. The canine laughed proudly and leaned in to whisper to Charmy.
"Between you and me, kid... I practically got 'em... for a steal... ya know what I mean?" slyly mentioned the canine before winking at Charmy, who had all the evidence he needed to know the truth. The mysterious jewelry, the suspicious appearance of the canine while everyone else is at lunch, the fact that he just mentioned he got them for a steal. There was no mistake in Charmy's mind... that canine... he had to be...
"Boy do I! I get discount stuff all the time from stores!" Charmy innocently replied.
He had to be an money savvy man that saved up money from this job to afford all that stuff. And the lady's husband probably bought a generic necklace that has multiple copies in several locations. That's the only explanation for all of this, Charmy thought to himself. The canine walked away, but not before eyeing something shiny under his feet, picking it up, examining it with a monocle he had in his uniform pocket, and place the object in his pocket.
"Bye little man, remember to be careful around here!" he called back while waving.
"Okie dokie! Take care, shiny garbage man!" pleasantly responded the endearingly naive arthropod, waving energetically at his new friend. "What a nice man!" he thought out loud, genuinely happy to have met the mysterious canine. But before he could dwell on him another moment, his incredibly small, adolescent attention span focused on something else entirely, a rainbow colored something else.
"Ooooooh, what's that?!" Charmy eagerly questioned before flying over to the object in question. Once he got closer, he saw that it was a... rainbow-colored question mark. Surrounded by a ring of dots in different colors, this ring of chromatic dots orbited around the question mark at a slow speed.
This colorful contraption practically begged the hyperactive bug boy to reach out and touch it. So with explorative hands, Charmy did just that. Once he did, the question mark lit up on contact and a digital tone rang out at the same time. For a moment, there was silence, confusing and tense silence. In that moment, the happy-go-lucky sprout thought if he waited long enough something would happen, he had to be patient to let the fun stuff reveal itself.
"HI!" an annoying high pitched robotic voice shrieked, virtually making Charmy leap out of his fur. Whipping his head around frantically, the startled helmet-clad bug tried to find the source of that awful-
"I'M OMOCHAOOOOO!" announced a flying robot that suddenly revealed itself to a screaming Charmy.
"WAAAAAAAAH!" the boy hollered in fear. The flying robot was shaped like a Chao, its small body, with stubby limbs, and a large head with a red two-bladed propeller attached on top of its head and a grey wind-up key on its back. It had an orange head with ripple-like eyes... its eyes... that's what made him scared.
Those soulless... horrid... psychotic circles that it used for eyes... Looking into them for too long was a death sentence in and of itself.
"I'M HERE TO ASSIST YOOOOU!" spat out the disturbing small monstrosity in a grating voice. Ugh, Charmy's ears were bleeding at the sound of this atrocious distasteful sound. And that was saying something, considering he's used to all manner of various sounds that would be difficult for even Vector to hear. But this... this was on a whole new level of difficulty.
"JUMP MAKES YOU JUMP! PRESS THE JUMP BUTTON TO JUUUUUMP-!" Omochao attempted to continue its verbal assault on Charmy, but the bee managed to silence it mid sentence, with a finger energy blast.
"DIEDIEDIEDIEDIEDIEDIEDIE-!" maniacally chanted the frantic boy as he unleashed a volley of aura bullets, fired from his index fingers like sharpshooters. Each one of the red-orange balls of energy hit the terrible Omochao with incredible precision, effectively ripping apart the metallic beast of annoyance.
"-DIEDIEDIEDIEDIEDIEDIE!" he continued to attack the smoking pile of metal, not wishing to leave a trace of the vile Omochao. And after expending all of his endurance, there was nothing but smoke left. Which was nothing but a welcome sight for Charmy, who was still hopped up on fear and adrenaline. The tense toddler heaved heavy breaths, an enraged yet tired look on his face.
"That... was the most... horrifying thing... I ever saw... Oooh what's that?" Charmy said fully over the distasteful Omochao. When the smoking remains of the aggravating device dissipated, an unbelievable thing was waiting in the distance. It was a disk-shaped platform with a shinny green orb, surrounded by four floating yellow hedges, below it. The thing looked like an amusement park ride.
"Oh hohohoho that looks like so much fun!" jubilantly proclaimed the yellow striped child. Eager to find out how it worked, Charmy jumped on the top platform and immediately started probing and prodding the various surfaces of the ride. Doing so rotated the platform which lifted the ride in the air slightly.
"Wha? Oh. Ohhhhhhh I get how this works now! Huehuehuehue! This is gonna be awwwwwesome!" the chubby-cheeked boy cheered in realization. Standing proudly on the platform, the little energetic child ran in place, the device rising in the air slowly. But as Charmy speed up his running pace, the ride raised higher in the air, eventually flying forward as well.
"Heeheeheehee!" amusedly chortled the young arthropod as he rode through the sky, mildly losing control at different intervals. Man, who would ever throw this thing away?! It was so cool! Charmy wondered if Vector and Espio would let him keep it. Oh, he could show them how awesome it is and they would definitely let him take it home with them! Doing the best he could to steer the clunky thing, Charmy clumsily maneuvered the spinning top toward his detective bros.
Unfortunately, the little control he had escaped him only a couple of feet from the older reptiles. With a loud bang, the spinning top crashed inches from Vector's face, inciting a startled high pitched yelp from the green adult. As soon as the small bee popped his from the wreckage, the fearful croc switched his mood to anger.
"Charmy, quit goofing off! We're gonna be here all day if you can't be serious and search!" chastised Vector, grabbing the tiny bee by his head.
"Now we have to readjust the piles we've been through and the pile's we haven't been through! Child you are making this a lot more tedious than it already is!" the magenta Espio sternly fussed, stiffly pointing at several vaguely distinguishable piles.
"Alright, alright, I'm sorry! Jeez, it's just this was so BOOOOORING I had to do something or my head was gonna explode!" the childish Charmy defended, wriggling out of his stronger companion's grasp.
"Oh, I'll make your head explode, alright! C'mere you little-!" the furious enormous reptile threatened before lunging after the badgering immature insect, who was to fast for the initial lunge. But that just made the emerald powerhouse even more furious. And the chase began.
"Waaaaaah!" howled vulnerable bug, trying desperately to stay out of Vector's wide reach. In the background, the disciplined shinobi tried to resume his assignment. After picking up several pieces of trash, only to look around and see no sign of anything resembling a diamond necklace. With a huff, Espio stood to his feet and closed his eyes in irritation, his teammates still roughhousing behind him.
"What's the point in getting angry with him? This was a futile effort, we're not going to find that diamond necklace here, maybe we should've gone to the junkyard instead..." he reasoned, placing a worrisome hand on his heliotrope shade head. Vector immediately halted his attack on Charmy when he heard Espio's tired comment.
"It's got to be here somewhere, let's just keep looking!" the bulky aquatic reptile shouted, determination in his eyes as he frantically shoveled enormous handfuls of garbage out of the massive hills of trash. Vector just didn't want to give up, he knew the lady's necklace had to be here somewhere, it just had to be! He gave his word that he would find it and a man never let's his word fail! But this was a daunting task... ugh, what he wouldn't give for some kind of clue or someth-
"Hey why don't we just ask the garbage guys for help? They seem to like diamond necklaces and expensive stuff, I think they'd like to help the lady find hers, wouldn't they?" suggested the naive bee youth. Stopping his rushed search job, the colossal scalene man looked quizzically at the boy.
"What're you talkin' about, brat?" the green leader questioned in a smooth baritone voice.
"I just made friends with a garbage guy! He had a diamond necklace and a whole bunch of other fancy jewelry, and I was just thinking maybe he can help us find it. He's got an eye for shiny junk after all!" cheerfully mentioned Charmy, innocently remembering the nice man he met earlier. He didn't notice Vector and Espio exchanging a worried look for a moment, before Espio spoke up about this new development.
"Charmy... where is this man?" the ninja tensely asked his younger companion. The yellow-striped arthropod tilted his head to the side as he gained altitude, turning to the place where he first met the suspicious dump worker. Taking a moment to briefly skim the area, he saw the shining man a couple of feet away from where Vector was standing.
"Ummmm, over there, by that... really cool looking race-car bed!" informed Charmy, pointing in the canine's direction and looking between his legs to make eye contact with his earthbound partners. The large green crocodile rounded a corner and there he was: Charmy's new buddy.
"That guy?" he called up to Charmy, to confirm his target.
"Uh huh. It's funny, his diamond necklace looked just like the picture the lady showed us of her diamond necklace. In fact he said, he got it for a steal" the naive floating boy recalled, ignorant to the fact that he just identified where the old lady's necklace has been the whole time.
"..." Espio and Vector exchanged another look, this time with their mouths agape in shock, their eyes wide with revelation.
"Crazy coincidence, huh?" laughed Charmy, returning to float at Vector's eyelevel. The two experienced reptiles turned their attention to the canine currently glittering with way too much accessories to be innocently possible. They had found a quite obvious thief who had the necklace the whole time.
"... Son of a biscuit..." the emerald robust detective breathed incredulously.
"Uso..." Espio said to himself, disbelief heavy in his tone. Not at the man being a thief, but at the man being so outlandish with it.
"Nice work, kid" Vector quickly complemented the unwittingly brilliant child, rubbing the top of his head with a large hand as he moved to approach the canine. Espio walked briskly behind him, nodding approvingly at the floating bee, who was still confused as to what they were complementing him for, but decided to ignore it so he could see if the race-car bed could actually be driven!
"Hey wiseguy!" the intimidating green beast shouted rudely, causing the canine to turn around. As soon as he looked up at Vector's massive form, he wished he hadn't. With impossibly powerful strength, the emerald crocodile punched the canine in the face/upper body, considering how big Vector's fist was. The canine flew through the air, confident that all of his bones were broken.
"That's for stealing from old ladies, ya bum!" angrily shouted Vector, while Espio slyly met the man halfway in the air and swiped all of his accessories off in one skillful motion. It only took a second to accurately identify the necklace with the photo the old widow gave to them for reference. It took one second more to examine the rest of the jewelry.
"Vector, this man seems to have collected quite a lot of valuables... with other people's names inscribed on them" the colorful chameleon dryly accused.
"I think we just caught a thief! Hey, ya think if he's stolen all this stuff he's got a-" Vector excitedly spoke before Espio continued his thought.
"Bounty? Or at least a warrant for his arrest? My thoughts-" and then Vector chimed back in for the final word.
"Exactly! Ho hooooo, we're getting something out of this, after all!" cheered the kind emerald giant, picking up the unconscious thief.
"Somehow..." he fit reptilian man sarcastically mentioned. If he wasn't so refined, he would have added an eye-roll with it. The two made their way toward the dump's entrance which would be their exit, as Vector leaned down to look at Espio's stoic face.
"Come on, Espio, say it..." teased the larger male. The steel-nerved ninja simply looked at him lazily, took in his smug grin, and uninterestedly turned to his face forward.
"... no" he flatly answered.
"Admit it. I was right for taking this freebee job, you were wrong for giving me crap about it. Admit it, ninja boy" the boisterous reptilian pointed out, before requesting an admission of defeat from the toned passive-aggressive lizard.
"No" Espio responded in the same exact tone of voice as his previous refusal.
"Come on..." provoked the larger Vector.
"No"
"Come on~"
"No"
"You're gonna admit it at some point, might as well get it out now"
"How many times must I say no, before you understand I want you to be silent?" Espio said finally in a different, cold inflection.
"Welp, looks like we ARE getting out of here in 5 minutes!" the familiar high-pitched joyful voice rang out before Charmy flew behind and lightly glomped his matured exasperated comrade.
"Charmy, we were here for about 3 hours" dryly informed Espio, allowing the contact Charmy initiated for a couple moments longer than he would anyone else.
"Okay so I was off by two, big whup, let's go home and never come here again!" countered the loving child, only to be gently shrugged off of Espio. But the boy did manage to incite a soft, restrained laugh from the ninja.
"You don't know what an hour is either, do you?" he asked smirking, knowing the answer already. With an innocent grin plastered on his face, Charmy shook his head ignorantly.
"NOPE!" was his glad, honest response.
"Who cares?! We might actually get paid today! Just focus on that, boys!" Vector reminded happily, nudging the less stoic than usual shinobi at his side, his youngest member shifted to his other shoulder.
"Yay, money!" mimicked the cute little bee, throwing his arms and legs out for emphasis on his excitement.
"Hmph, finally. Now we can start saving up for a car"
"DON'T YOU START THAT UP AGAIN, ESPIO!"
(Author's note: If it wasn't clear, the list of random items that Charmy finds in the dump are: dash pad from Sonic Adventure, Lampposts from Sonic 1, casino barrel from Sonic 3, catapult from Sonic 2, target switch from Heroes, rails from all games following Sonic Adventure 2, hint box from Sonic Adventure 2, hint ring from Sonic Heroes, Spinning Top from Sonic Generations, and Omochao from the lesser known 10th ring of Hell: the Annoyance ring. screwOmochaoIhavenoregrets
Also, one of the messages from the hint box is a phrase backwards. See if you can figure out what it says ;D)
