Chapter 6
Blended Red
Author's Note:
Just a heads up to anyone who's really queasy when it comes to any ounce of blood. There's a tiny gruesome moment towards the end of this chapter, but it isn't gory. I'll put this / for when it starts and when it ends. Also, there will be more gruesome moments that may or may not involve wounds and such—but don't worry, it won't be like Alien gore. Alien's like a next level gore compared to The Walking Dead. Those movies freak the hell out of me anyway XD
Also, really sorry for the year-long wait. TTnTT (Please forgiveeeeeee!)
I love writing this fanfic and now there are even more ideas I'd like to share with you guys! So I'll try to make an effort to post at least one chapter per week every Sunday! Unless writer's block suddenly materializes into an entity again and breaks the creative flow o.0
No promises when summer's over though! ewe
Oh, one more thing! Thank you so much for the reviews!
All of these questions you guys are asking are pretty good *wink-wink-nudge-nudge* (if you know what I mean) ewe
Imma gonna make youz guys confused asfffff!
Alrighty, I'm going to go eat some bark off that tree now.
"OH, HO, HO, HO," chortled none other than Möbius' most well-known villain, Dr. Eggman—or at least he tried to before a fly decided to go down his throat, like a kid on a waterslide.
His hacking coughs were too loud for him to hear the plane approaching in the distance, and even when the duo asserted their presence to him he could only hear the melodic sounds of himself dying.
"Uhh…"
"I think that whatever caused this has it covered Tails, we should just head into the house instead," suggested the not-so-surprised pink hedgehog.
However, before the Tornado advanced towards the house below, the mad scientist was able to relieve himself of the pesky little fly.
"S-*cough* Stupid fly!"
Seeing as their enemy was now able to speak-they chose to listen. After all, Eggman was typically known to spill the beans of his plans before they even began…
"So, Sonic's been reckless without me-*cough*- hasn't he," sneered Eggman.
Not what was expected...
If Sonic had been asked that question personally, he would have gapped at the fact that Eggman watches the local news, but—since Amy couldn't care any less-she ignored the question.
"Quit the chit-chat Eggman-where are they," demanded the fired-up pink-head.
"Now that's not the way a girl should talk—aren't you more worried about your completely useless crush?"
The human shook his head in mock-disappointment as the offended girl nearly broke the Tornado's right wing while hurling herself towards him. The power from her rage was able to give her the strength to swing her hammer, almost as fast as Sonic would run, but it did absolutely nothing to the dodging Eggmobile.
"You may be intimidatingly strong, Rose, but you can't do anything without the ability to move fast on your feet—OH, HO, HO," commented the former winning dictator.
Suddenly the Eggman's vision lurched to the side as one of the Egg-mobile's engines was replaced by Amy's hammer…
"-ERR!"
"Can't do anything, huh," retorted Amy who landed perfectly on the left wing of the Tornado.
"Nice," praised the fox who had seen the pink hedgie flick her hammer towards Eggman at the last minute.
Before Eggman could counter Amy with another reply, Tails blasted him out of the sky.
To their surprise, however, the unfit scientist flew out of his cockpit and stuck an Olympic award-winning landing that almost blew the airborne möbians out of the sky—almost. If it was not for the jetpack that was hidden behind his back they would have questioned all of their sanity…
"OH, HO, HO, HO—didn't expect that now did we?!"
He didn't wait for a response for he had a more pressing matter to attend to. Pulling out a device from his pant-pocket, Eggman brought all attention to the big—not-so-conspicuous—red button. Before they could even reach the ground eighty feet below, an explosion on the left side of the house erupted—toppling half the roof…
"EGGMAN," roared Amy and Tails as they nearly nose dipped towards the destruction where Dr. Quack was trying to gather up his panicked family.
They could hear Dr. Quack trying to calm his wife and daughter...
"Continue your decent, Tails, and I won't hesitate to blow the place up sky-high," cautioned the now-insane scientist—this froze the kitsune's attempt...
"Y-you wouldn't—there're kids down there!"
"Would I," questionably mocked the Eggman as his fingers graced the device's trigger.
They were shocked into silence.
Tails knew that Eggman would back away from killing living-breathing creatures… he knew that the mad human had his limits and morals-or at least some shred of them. Even when he used flickies to power his army—heck, even when Tails was practically a cyborg during their visit to the Lost Hex—Eggman had at least something holding him back, so this new development was startling…
"And here I thought he'd just blabber on about his plan…" Amy barely said over a whisper to Tails.
"Now… hand over the Chaos Emerald," commanded the former dictator who stuck his hand out towards them.
"W-what?"
"Don't think I don't know, fox," he exclaimed as he brought out a yellow Chaos Emerald and stared at it.
"Wha-"
"How did h-"
"Chaos energy only reacts to either a user or another Chaos Emerald," said the human as he rose his gaze back to the duo.
"And seeing as neither one of you are able to wield it…" Eggman glanced towards the burning house where Dr. Quack had finally brought his wife, eldest and youngest out of danger… all except for his son who was still up on the second floor.
Eggman signaled them to give up their possession by slowly pushing the trigger…
"Okay! Okay, here," succumbed Tails as he took the blue emerald out of its compartment in the Tornado. It had been an extra power source for the plane for nearly a whole month until now.
Grinning even wider, Eggman caught the mystical gem as he spoke.
"Is it just me or do you feel a sense of déjà vu?"
The kitsune growled and watch as he had made enough time for Sonic's doctor to reach the second floor and climb out the window with his middle child. Tails and Amy silently sighed when the family was reunited a few minutes later.
"Oh, don't be too relieved just yet…" warned the evil genius as he pressed the button down with a smirk.
Their eyes widened as they watched the house become nothing more than a stark-contrast of flames against the royal blue sky—turning the surrounding atmosphere into a yellow hue. The duo acted quickly as they tried to reach the family, and—just when they were so close—Dr. Quack was yanked out of their grasp.
"HORATIO," screamed Dr. Quack's wife—Elizabeth—as she watched her husband get taken away by a fast blue being.
***Mystic Ruins Market***
Silence befell the store as its customers watched Sonic's counterpart grab a pair of hot-pink high heels. The shopping duo had finally found a clothing section for a woman that seemed to have some clothes of Rouge's style. Rouge was one of the few female möbians that would typically wear very tight… very expressive clothes, and—since most möbian females were usually modest with their attire— it had given them hell to find a clothing shop with her taste.
Inspecting the high heels, with little awareness of the female möbians silently gathered around them—watching—Shadow tilted his head towards the Rookie who was right beside him.
"Do you think this is a good gift? Or maybe she already has a pair of these—the bat typically shops with faker's girlfriend..."
The contemplating hedgie waited for the slow reply of the red wolf who was paying little attention to Shadow's selection of clothing. The Rookie had been fully aware of all the attention that they were receiving from the customers around them, and this attention only made it harder for him to breathe. He could have sworn everyone in the store heard him swallowing his own spit—he began to wish that he was not standing as one of the elite heroes of the planet. There were times where the wolf missed being just a civilian rather than being a known hero. Maybe if he asked Sonic for advice on dealing with all this attention… nah, as many of his friends would say, Sonic was basically born an attention hog. Plus, the Rookie did not want to bother the blue blur as of late—although he did not know Sonic personally before the war, Amy and a few others had told him that Sonic was more tired than his normal self. Which would explain his absent-minded nature at the party they had earlier this week—or the fact that he hadn't appeared on the news as often as he used to before Infinite had made himself known.
"Hey! I did not invite you to come with me to simply watch the struggles of choosing out a perfect gift! You came along to struggle with me!"
The Rookie, who was getting used to Shadow's sharp edges, wasn't as frightened as he would have been before the conversation that they had this morning. The wolf merely swayed his head sideways—indicating that the high heels that Shadow was holding were not the best gift he could buy her. With a slight pout, the red-striped hedgie dropped the heels back into their respective box and watched as Sonic's buddy pointed towards the bikini aisle… Shadow's mussel nearly matched the color of his stripes as he now acknowledged the surrounding customers due to their loud gasps. Before one of said customers even peeped in outrage, the cherry-faced hedgie grabbed his companion and vanished in a flash of green...
***Tails' House***
Sonic found himself sighing in relief once the purple bird had reassured him that nothing of the sort had happened. Whoever this purple bird was, he probably thought that he was crazy—or perverted—for even thinking such a thing. Yet let's be honest here, after having one too many obsessed fangirls—excluding Amy—sneak into his previous room late at night, was he really being over-dramatic?
'Glad Tails and I decided to get a new house in such a secretive spot, but…"
Rubbing his forehead, Sonic hopped off of the bed in an attempt to go to the kitchen for a snack.
"...how did he manage to find our house though," wondered Sonic as he glanced at the purple bird standing across the bed. He wasn't exactly satisfied when the bird had told him that he was told—by a store owner a few miles where a small town resided—that Tails and Sonic lived here.
"... So what's your name again" questioned the hedgie as he focused on balancing his legs before he let go of the bedside.
"My name's Melts—Tails saved my life the other day, so I thought I could repay him by watching over you while you recover," replied the feathered möbian.
"Huh... and where is he and Amy right now?"
Sonic couldn't help it but feel slightly off around this newcomer—he wasn't used to having to meet a stranger inside their house without any background context, or without any of his other friends inviting said stranger… that's probably why he currently felt a bit eerie…
"Oh, they left to go run some urgent errand after I came to thank Tails."
The blue blur silently scoffed at this.
The last time someone had lied to him, or kept information from him, was after Shadow had knocked out a young blonde girl during one of their G.U.N. missions. Sonic wasn't an agent of G.U.N., but he thought it'd be nice to tag along and see what his counterpart's job was like—maybe have a few races here and there. To be honest, he would just tag along more so for the races than anything else—even though Shadow specifically told him that Sonic would be compromising his missions just by being present with Team Dark. Nonetheless, Sonic joined them—or more specifically Shadow since the rest of Team Dark was on a vacation.
It didn't take too long for Sonic to understand what Shadow meant by him compromising their missions for a civilian—during an assumed biological weapons deal between two of the most wanted criminals—had been playing near the shipyard where the two criminals where. She looked to be about nine years old and was leaping on top of cargo boxes—he didn't know why but the girl had found her little game to be amusing, and somehow the criminals hadn't noticed her yet. Sonic was the only one, in the entire group of G.U.N. agents, to actually consider taking her out of there first.
Apparently, in doing so, it would risk the chance to capture G.U.N.'s most wanted—but Sonic didn't care. The blue blur was about to do what he thought was right before a white-gloved hand had gotten in his way. He wasn't the only one who had seen her…
At first, Shadow nearly had to punch Sonic into silence for almost raising his voice in anger at Shadow's refusal to help. Shadow even had to grab Sonic's arm to stop him from leaping down there.
But when Shadow saw the look of worry, fear, and despair on the other's face—a look he was only ever given before his long 35 years of slumber—he knew he was doing wrong. Looking at the young girl in the distance, Shadow made up his mind.
Green orbs meet crimson and a mutual agreement was made before the red striped möbian disappeared. When he came back, however, the little girl had been struggling to get out of his grasp. She had punched, kick, and tried to yell at him to let her go—if it wasn't for Shadow's hand the two criminals would have noticed the commotion.
"The girl has been removed," reported the second fasted being alive.
"That was unnecessary, Agent Shadow, we will talk about this later. For now, focus on the task at hand," commanded Tower—the chief commander of G.U.N..
Shadow turned towards his look-alike who was sheepishly and uneasily smiling while raising his hands up in an apology. Instead of forgiveness, Sonic received nothing but an eye roll—which was weird because he was expecting the top G.U.N. agent to throw daggers at him or pumble him into a soup.
All was now going according to plan as the G.U.N. agents pulled out their tranquilizing guns—including real guns if needed for there were more than twenty henchmen down there. All they needed to do was wait for the criminals to present the biological weapon so that they wouldn't accidentally rupture its canister.
Suddenly, Shadow gave out a small yelp—the little girl tried to bite a chunk out of his hand. Sonic had the urge to laugh his socks off at the black hedgie's pained yet surprised face if it hadn't been for Shadow's quick hand chop to the blondie's neck—which promptly knocked her out cold.
The blue blur was completely enraged at this sudden action—sure she would have ruined their operation through her yelling—but was knocking her out necessary?
The hero of Mobius was about to reprimand him of his violence, but his words died in his mouth at the subtle new expression written on the other's visage. Usually his counterpart would appear completely apathetic to everything and everyone—and of course Sonic, and Shadow's closer friends like Rouge and Omega, knew he was anything but apathetic deep down—yet this time the Ultimate Life Form had let some of his emotions show.
It was only for a second but Sonic could see the disconsolate remorse, nostalgia, and… a bit of anger? Was it towards the child?
"Hey, Shadow? Shadow, you alright pal," whispered the blue blur.
"I'm fine," quietly replied the red striped hedgie as he swatted away the other's approaching hand.
"I wasn't born yesterday—I know when someone is lying or not," irritatingly stated the usually cheerful hedgie as he watched Shadow pick up the young human. It bothered Sonic to know that one of his friends was in pain—whether physically or emotionally—but it just irked him even more when he found one of them straight up lying to his face. He understood that they needed their privacy, but to have Shadow—who barely let anything crack his mask of insensitivity— actually show emotions and then say that he's fine? There was definitely something up with his counterpart.
"It's none of your business, Faker."
"Are you sure your alright?"
"Positive."
"..."
"..."
"... sigh, well at least talk to Rouge about it—keeping things pent up isn't good for anyone's health."
"..."
It seemed like the red and black hedgie was about to say something back, but his attention was back on their mission as one of the G.U.N. agents—a sniper—opened fire.
It had only been two months before the war started when that mission had happened, and Sonic's detection for lies—or the holding of information—was still as sharp as ever.
"What kind of errand," inquired the blue hedgie while he wobbly made his way out of his room and into the hallway—bird in tow.
'Well, he's more perceptive than I thought he was…'
"Oh, they headed off towards Angel Island—a friend of yours needed help finding the shards of the Master Emerald. They'll be back sooner or later," smiled the purple möbian.
'Okay… he's definitely telling me a lie right there..."
Sonic was about to confront the lying bird, but thought better of it...
"Okay, well I don't know about you but I'm starving right now," asked the nearly sober-of-anesthesia hedgehog.
'Two can play dumb, bud, for now, let's keep an eye on ya...' thought the hungry hero as he finally arrived at the kitchen.
"I already ate before I got here, so I'll just watch some TV," responded Melts who sat on the couch in the living room.
"Alright," said Sonic who was abut to go and follow the bird, but then he glanced at the clock on the stove.
'Holy crude?! I've been knocked out for more than eight hours?! Ohhh geez… Well, that explains why I'm freaking starving! Next time I see him, I'm definitely going to give Dr. Quake an ear full for using strong anesthesia on me!'
As he prepared a sandwich—rather than a chili dog since they ran out of those a week ago—he tried not to think back to his sleep-terror.
Sonic had tried to cover his slightly red cheeks after he had awoken from the sleep paralyzes that came after the sleep-terror. It had been awkward to be in a vulnerable state in front of a stranger. It wasn't even like him to have those types of dreams, typically it had been Tails when they were younger. However, it did make sense for him to have them now considering—
'-Okay Sonic, don't think about that—just don't. You're just freaking out over nothing because it isn't—'
'-real...'
He froze.
He turned towards the squeaky-clean, shiny refrigerator.
And sighed when he found nothing…
'...I'll ask Knuckles to knock me out again when I see him,' Sonic mentally noted while rubbing his face.
Unbeknownst to the hedgie, Melts had been watching Sonic's subtle behavior…
****Angel Island****
Knuckles had never thought he would be happy that Sonic had broken his only radio. Well—in general—Knuckles was satisfied with the radio-headphones that he gotten in return because without it he'd probably be eating his own quills off right now.
It had been right after the party that the Chaotix decided to leave their youngest, Charmy, with him. Obviously, Victor had heard him wrong when Knuckles had mentioned that babysitting was a piece of cake—babysitting the Master Emerald was! Not a petulant child!
From where he was sitting aside the Master Emerald, he could see the bee chewing grass on the ground. Charmy was truly bored out of his mind—like a parrot eating its own crap in order to get attention—but, see, Knuckles was perfectly fine with that. The only thing he wasn't fine with was Charmy's sporadically loud mooing that somehow he could hear even with noise-canceling headphones on!
The kid was a non-stop, hyperactive ringtone that just would. NOT.
"STOP," shouted the echidna as he desperately flung his limbs out in all directions—Knuckles didn't know where he learned to do this, but it seems to shut people up quite quickly. The honey bee merely stared at him for half a minute and then choose to speak.
"..." which is what came out of the bee's moving lips.
He must have broken his vocal cords while mooing because Knuckles could not hear shat. Oh, wait… his headphones were still on.
Reluctantly, while staring at the kid, the guardian of the Master Emerald took his new music system off his head. What met his ears was utterly horrendous.
And words could not describe it…
"What in the life span of sweat Chaos was that?!"
"It's a language I learned from one of the Special Zones that Victor threw me in," cheekily stated the black and yellow nuisance.
"Since when do the Special Zones have inhabitants?"
"I don't know, but Victor likes to call them a figment of the mind… whatever that means…" merely replied the younger one as he shrugged.
'Before I witness anymore 'hidden talents,' the Chaotix better rid me of this nightmare…' thought Knuckles as his eyes slowly half-lidded…
Suddenly, a sound—almost like hissing—was heard behind the guardian and was accompanied by a growing bright light. Knowing the familiar sound, the echidna quickly turned around to give all of his attention to the massive gem.
"What is it Master Emerald? What are you trying to tell me," said Knuckles in an assertive and nearly desperate tone. After all of the years he spent protecting the huge object, he learned one thing. Whenever the gem would make noises and illuminate it was—almost always—an ominous sign.
Knuckles held his breath in slight anticipation as the Master Emerald increased its blinding glow.
A child-like giggle was heard from behind him—Knuckles couldn't even form a sentence before the Master Emerald exploded.
A few shards of the Master Emerald followed it's protector to the ground below. The bone-crushing impact was not enough to wipe the deep frown off the redhead's face—especially not when spluttering laughter emanated from above.
As if what he did wasn't enough, the chortling bee sat right on top of Knuckle's face-planted head—basically stabbing the echidna in the process.
All Knuckles saw was red as his head violently erupted out of the dirt like a volcano—promptly chucking the now hysterically fearful child into the sky. Foam-like-magma came out of the crushing gritted teeth of the echidna when he got off the ground.
Charmy knew he had death written on his face because Knuckles' scrunched up eyebrows, more or less, broke the guardian's face.
"Ho-hold on Knucky-"
A bass-sounding blast of a growl.
"-I MEAN KNUCKLES—Knuckles! W-what if I told you that th-that Master Emerald was F-FAKE," screeched the kid while his babysitter's quills somehow rose alongside his skyrocketing rage. Kinda like how Broly's hair was when he went Super Saiyan in DB's latest Broly movie.
"Blender…" quietly stated the echidna.
"Huh," questionably gulped the not so charmy bee.
Before Knuckles could answer, he heard the hissing sound again. Triggered, he pulled out a blender from who-knows-where and was about to answer Charmy's question with it until his eye caught something.
This time the Master Em- well, the shards, were glowing. It wasn't a fluke this time as images seemed to flash across what was left of the gem. This lead him to dismiss the lucky bee's actions.
Leaving the pale nuisance to recuperate in silence, Knuckles approached pieces of what gave him purpose.
Pieces of what warned him of what was to come…
More of the sclera of his eyes could be seen as his eyelids parted further. He'd seen prophetic images of Eggman in the E-99 Eggsterminator, he'd seen Perfect Chaos wreak Station Square, heck, he'd even seen Nazo's elimination of an entire city! Nothing, however, compared to this…
There were billions.
/
Billions of Möbians, just lying motionlessly on top of one another. The white pristine buildings of Metropolis now tattered, destroyed, smeared and tainted with red. Fumes of the fire that licked almost every ally way, every street, and structure, stained the misty blue night of the city into a smothering black.
And in the middle of it all—a silhouette of a young boy…
Staring at everything around him—underneath him and on his hands.
Knuckles didn't dare breath as the youth began to shake—almost like he was… laughing? The figure shakily tried to wipe the tears from his eyes but stopped as if doing so would smear the dripping liquid, on his hands, across his already dripping visage.
/
Willing himself to ignore the scene, the echidna focused on identifying the child—but he knew no one that wore what seemed to be a bit messy, and slightly pulled back hair-do.
He tried looking at the shape of the kid in general to see if that would ring any bells, but the figure suddenly, quickly hugged itself. Knuckles didn't have the chance to figure out why since his attention zoned in on the kid's left eye—now only slightly open.
But just enough to see the red showing through.
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Thank you!