Super Sonic Squad
Season Four, Episode Seven
Winners of the West
By Cole Bezotte
Before we begin, I have a message for the howling fan ChristianWolf/ChristianApe:
I completely understand your decision and respect it fully. I know how hard it was for me to get a full FanFiction account in the first place; they now require you to punch in the code of numbers, even when you're posting a new story. As for setting an account on YouTube (requires Google), there's a catch: they require you to use your full name. But I have a technique to get past that: instead, I use my childhood nickname "Coleiosis Delose", and it actually works! In your case, you would set it as "Christian Wolf" or something like that. Thanks for reading anyway. I'm currently seventeen years old, and I (along with many other people) find it hard to get noticed anywhere. Soon, I'll post a video about the various designs for Courtney I drew. Thank you in advance.
Sincerely,
Coleiosis
This story goes out to all my friends, fans, and writing partners. This is a Super Sonic Squad SPECIAL that takes place in western cowboy times. Inspirations came from "Magnificent Sonic" (from "The Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog") and "Butch Mario and the Luigi Kid" (from "The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!")
Winners of the West
Who knew that Mobius had one of most beautiful beaches to explore? Some people did not, apparently. But in the case of Miles Prower, he needed only a place to forget all about what happened the other day. Now that his duplicate was dead, he could relax and release all the pain that he had foolishly kept to himself that day.
He did enjoy the time that he spent here in this wonderful scenery. But right where he lied, upon the dry sand, he began to feel very drowsy. As his eyes slowly closed, all he could hear was the water rushing upon the shore, and his friends talking in the background. Tails still felt the sunlight beat down upon him, but he right then felt something very different.
A small wind picked some of the grains up off the ground and brushed them across his face. Tails woke up to see that he was lying upon a dirty road which led to something very different. Right before his eyes stood a very old town: jails, bars, saloons, and small houses. He saw no electricity poles anywhere, which could only mean one thing to him.
"Wow!" he thought as he stood up. "Look at this! I'm here in an old western town! This is exciting! I can't wait to dig right into the action! I'll be a hero in this town, fighting off whatever outlaws that come after me! I better prepare myself!"
Tails started to head towards the saloon, ready to see what fantastic danger he could find. He also split his legs apart from each other, in the style of a cowboy, and bore a tough expression upon his face. But the second that he stepped inside, he was immediately pushed out.
"We don't serve those who are not dressed properly!" the bartender exclaimed as he kicked Tails out. "You can run home naked for all I care, but you are not stepping back in here!"
"Gee whiz!" Tails thought as he brushed the dust off his chest. "Don't they know what a fox looks like? But maybe he's right… I DO need some stylish clothing."
He walked slowly around the small town, excitedly observing all that caught his big eyes. Never before had he seen such style like this in real life. What he needed now was a place to find the proper clothing for admittance in many places.
Finally, Tails saw someone sitting on the front porch of a small house. There was Courtney, garbed in a casual cowgirl uniform, but with the front of her slacks given a coat of fox fur (the fur pattern of Tails). Her hat was not tipped in any angle at all; it stood perfectly straight up on her head.
"Courtney?" Tails spoke to her. "You're here too?"
"Why do you ask?" Courtney chuckled in reply. "EVERYONE's here! I already have a good uniform prepared for you."
Within about three minutes, Tails had already donned a brown vest with brass buttons on the right side. He wore jeans with a deep blue hue, perhaps merely recently sewn (though it was difficult to fit his two tails through the holes that were cut in the rear). On his feet were heavy brown boots with golden spurs, shining brightly in the wild sunlight. And finally, on his head was a tan hat, given two flat holes to stick his big ears through. Now he was ready to venture through one of the smallest towns he has ever seen.
Courtney led Tails into the same saloon as earlier. In style, he waltzed inside and looked all around. Already, he recognized a lot of the people inside: many of his friends and foes gambled amongst each other, or just sat and drank.
At the counter, Luigi and his older brother Mario paid for what was called a "tin roof". The bartender, Antoine D'Coolette, was not sure about what it was; but from the way he fidgeted with the combinations of drinks, it almost sounded unpleasant. After attempting to satisfy the Mario Brothers, the nervous coyote watched as Luigi gulped down his drink. Antoine was right about his guess when the side-effects happened: steam began to billow from Luigi's ears as his hat blew right off his head.
"Zat is strange…" Antoine said. "But you owe me now… Pay off!"
"We don't pay for a tin roof!" Luigi replied.
"Why not?"
"Because…" Mario teased, "…a tin roof is on the house! Get it?"
He turned to leave the bar, but not before running right into one of the tallest gangsters in the west: Waluigi. "Where do you think you're going, stranger?" the villain spoke up.
"Why do you need to ask, licorice stick?" Mario replied.
"I won't leave this place without at least one beer! Apparently, I can't afford it; so I need YOU to pay off!"
"Nobody here is particularly rich, but if you insist…"
Mario pulled a silver coin out of his pocket and flipped it into the air. But right then, he shouted: "HOLD IT!" Right there in midair, the coin stopped. Mario pointed a pistol at it and fired. A pile of miniature coins rained upon Waluigi's head for teasing. "Keep the change…" Mario muttered as he walked away.
Tails was impressed with Mario's trick, but he right then noticed from the corner of the room a familiar-looking blue hedgehog, sitting at a lonely table and having his hat tilted in the front. He walked over to him excitedly and pulled his hat off his head in greeting. "Nice to see you here, Sonic!" he said to the hedgehog. "You must be as excited as I am!"
"I sure am…" Sonic replied as he took off his own hat. "It was very difficult for me to walk in here without any pants on. I don't really like the slacks that they offered me; they were way too big for me."
"So what should we do first? We can't just stand around here…"
"I'm ALREADY doing something: I'm looking at that nasty egghead over there!"
Tails turned to see Dr. Eggman wearing a black top hat, at the counter demanding money from Antoine's cash register. He may not have looked very evil than he did back at Mobius, but he still had the same evil heart of a madman.
(Note: Wait a minute! I'm saying it wrong! It was in the cartoon show when he said "I have no heart!")
"Come on, you idiot!" he demanded. "If you won't hurry it up, this bullet will be lodged in your skull!"
"Sacre bleu!" Antoine exclaimed. "Zere is no need to shout!"
"Thank you for your cooperation. I'll just take your precious money and leave you with my trusty rusty knife!" With that, Eggman drew a dagger from his belt and threw it straight at the chandelier. The rope that held it was sliced in half by the knife, causing the whole chandelier to drop to the floor with a loud crash.
"We are NOT gonna let him get away with that!" Mario exclaimed. "We've got to do something fast!"
"Like what?" Sonic replied. "I've never used a gun in my entire life! Except when I was driving a Twisted Metal vehicle…"
(Note: "The Key to Freedom" explains it all. I hope I'm not disturbing you with my constant notes. I just want you to understand.)
"But that guy will be robbing bank after bank if he isn't stopped!" Luigi said. "We gotta take arms and give him the works!"
"I HEARD that!" Eggman shouted as he stepped back inside the saloon. "For that, I shall challenge you all, and you better accept it! Meet me in the middle of the town, at exactly twelve o'clock midnight! High noon will not work because this town already has a sheriff. When he is asleep tonight, we fight! I hope you heard me perfectly!" After all that was said, he stepped back out and disappeared.
"But we don't have any horses!" Tails exclaimed. "How are we to charge?"
"We don't need any horses, little buddy," Sonic replied. "We'll just have to put our guts into it! We'll each only have to equip ourselves with at least one gun. Come on, let's go find a place to hide until the time is right."
Sonic led Tails, Courtney, Antoine, Luigi, and Mario out into the dusty roads of the small town. But along the way, Luigi noticed a rabbit sitting on a rocking chair outside the bar. "Good lady…" he spoke to her, taking off his hat in respect, "…I hope you are in good health!"
"I AM healthy…" Bunnie Rabbot replied. "I just can't get up off of this crazy thing! It's so dry out here, my cybernetic limbs are rusted! I need some oil to get out of here…"
"I do have some coffee with me, and I hope it's still hot. It might be useful…"
"Are you crazy, sugar? Coffee will make me short-circuit like a psychedelic drug!"
"I made sure that the coffee was caffeine-free and not too trippy. But I'll find something… In the meantime, why don't you come with us, and I'll find a cure for you."
"Thanks, sugar! I really need it!"
Luigi held Bunnie up onto his shoulders as she hung on tight with her right flesh arm. They then caught up with the rest of the gang as they all completely left the town.
"Why are we leaving, Sonic?" Tails asked as he looked back.
"It's for the best…" Sonic replied calmly. "I can't allow us all to be noticed too soon, or we'll be shot before the sun even sets."
The gang finally settled in an empty desert land, miles away from the town. Thanks to Mario's skills in building a fire, the hot steam created damp moisture which fixed Bunnie's limbs and made them mobile again. "I feel like myself again!" she exclaimed excitedly. "Now I'm back in action!"
"But the action doesn't start yet," Courtney replied. "It's only 8:30 now. We still have about three and a half hours until we return to town."
Mario turned and saw that Sonic did not look very determined to go up against the outlaw Eggman and his gun fighting skills. "You look so uneasy, Sonic," Mario said to him. "What's wrong?"
"I can't stop thinking about those whom I had let down in the past," Sonic openly replied. "They were my friends; they were very dear to me. But I wasn't fast enough to save them, and I still count it as my fault. Friends like Cat, Tommy the Turtle, and Uncle Chuck. They were great friends of mine, and I let them all down. Now I'm beginning to wonder why I perfectly save people today if I didn't succeed back then. It's a feeling I just can't get rid of… Can I honestly win this challenge and save this town?"
"But remember what you said earlier?" Tails said to him. "We'll have to put our hearts into it! We save people with all we have; we don't need any special powers to do so."
"The question is…are we all right? Are we correct about what we say, and that we can do our hardest to win?"
Sighing, Sonic tuned a tan acoustic guitar, and began strum various notes for what he was to say next:
Will you walk me to the edge again?
Shaking, lonely, and I am drinking again
Woke up tonight, and no one's here with me
I'm giving in to you
Take me under
I'm giving in to you
I'm dying tonight
I'm giving in to you
Watch me crumble
I'm giving in to you
I'm crying tonight
I'm giving in to you
Caught up in life, losing all my friends
Family has tried to heal all my addictions
Tragic it seems to be alone again
I'm giving in to you
Take me under
I'm giving in to you
I'm dying tonight
I'm giving in to you
Watch me crumble
I'm giving in to you
I'm crying tonight
I'm giving in to you
I look forward to dying tonight
Drink till I'm myself, life's harder every day
The stress has got me, I'm giving in
Giving in, giving in, NO!
Take me under
I'm killing all the pain
I'm dying tonight
I'm sick of all this pain
Watch me crumble
I'm killing all the pain
I'm crying tonight
I'm giving in to you
Take me under
I'm giving in to you
I'm dying tonight
I'm giving in to you
Watch me crumble
I'm giving in to you
I'm crying tonight
I'm giving in to you
Take me under
I'm giving in to you
I'm dying tonight
I'm giving in to you
As Sonic sang those very words, Tails began to remember everything that had happened throughout the years that he fought alongside with him. From the time when their fellow Freedom Fighters had disappeared to the Chaos Control that brought Sonic's friends and foes to Earth. From Christopher Thorndyke's farewell to the construction of Eggman's island fortress. From the peace made between Mario and Sonic to Tails taking Courtney in with the regrouped Freedom Fighters. From the new world created by Master Hand to the time right now.
"My friends…" Sonic spoke once his song was finished. "Everything should make sense to us now. There were and will be many trials that we have to face, and there is no point in escaping them. It's time that we all take a stand and face all the obstacles as best as we can. There are many difficult times that we had faced in the past, but we can't let them slow us down even now…"
Eggman impatiently waited right in the middle of the town for his opponents to come at him. He looked at his miniature fob-watch, seeing that it was exactly thirty seconds until midnight. "What's taking them so long?!" he thought. "Years ago, I swore with my whole heart that I would personally KILL those heroes! Wait a minute! I HAVE NO HEART!"
Then, right when the clock struck 12:00 a.m., Eggman saw Sonic and his gang come right around the corner and walk right towards him. This time, they were more than ready to take him on.
"Glad to see that you're finally here!" Eggman exclaimed as he prepared to draw out his two pistols. "I hope the moon shines down upon your rotting corpses once I'm finished with you all!"
"This is it, gang…" Sonic whispered to the others. "No turning back…"
The whole town's population hid in the darkened shadows and watched in fear at what looks like the Freedom Fighters' next trial.
Eggman was the first to fire his right gun, aiming it directly at the saloon's sign above the door. Luigi did not know that he stood right underneath it, and so he was hit hard on the head with it.
"Wake up, Luigi!" Mario exclaimed at him, pulling him into the road. "The only time plumbers need to sleep is when they're working by the hour!"
"This cowboy business is so different," Luigi dizzily replied. "I'm a gondola!"
"That's a GONER, spaghetti-head!" Eggman barked at him as he fired his second shot.
The bullet was headed straight for Luigi rather than above him, but Bunnie quickly got in the way and deflected the shell of her robotic arm.
Angered, the villain fired a shot from his left pistol, attempting to shoot directly at Courtney. She did see it coming and tried to duck underneath the shell, but her slacks were too tight for her to crouch down. Tails, however, helped Courtney by taking her by her left arm and bringing her straight down to the ground. Just one look at her pretty face made him glad that he was friends with her in the first place.
"You're really making me upset!" Eggman shouted. "I'll make sure you frustrate me no more!"
The villain again fired from his left gun, this time hoping to bring down the cowardly Antoine. But right when the shell was about to land upon the coyote's head, Sonic quickly ran around and pushed him out of the way.
"That's enough playing dirty, egg face!" Sonic shouted at the madman. "I'll make sure you don't lay a finger on my friends!"
"But what about YOU?" Eggman replied. "I bet I can take you down with what I have left. This is my last bullet, so I won't waste it on anyone else but YOU!"
"You just try it!"
"Fine… I will… But you'll be sorry if you lose…!"
Then, with one squeeze of the trigger, Eggman fired his final shell. At first, there was nothing but a thick cloud of smoke; nobody could see a thing. Sonic and his rival were completely coated, there was no telling what had happened.
Finally, once the smoke cleared, everyone saw that Sonic stood exactly where he was seconds ago. They began to wonder: "Is he dead?"
But Sonic was not dead; he opened his eyes and smiled, then turned to see a metal pan hanging from the house behind him. Sonic used his speed while the smoke began to cover him, everyone could hardly tell that he moved at all. Eggman's bullet ended up missing him and hit the pan instead, which made the shell reflect back and knock off his robotic left arm. The arm completely fell off and stumbled to the ground, which meant that the heroes had won the battle.
Though the town was happy for the heroes to be the victors of the battle, Sonic kindly refused to be given the position of sheriff. He said that what he and his gang did was merely a good deed, saving not the town but the people. Everyone watched as the gang walked out of the town, happy to have passed their new trial.
After hours had gone by, Tails woke up and found himself in his bedroom, with Sonic looking out the nearby window. "Wow!" Tails exclaimed after rubbing his eyes. "That was some wild adventure! It may have only been a dream, but it was totally crazy!"
"Really?" Sonic replied. "What was your dream about?"
"I dreamt that we were cowboys saving the town from Dr. Eggman! Boy, was he furious with those guns of his!"
"Tails! You didn't realize that we were actually making a cowboy movie?"
"We WERE!?"
"While you were asleep on the beach's sand, we right away set up the town and started filming right when you woke up."
"Did you actually write a script for all that?"
"No, apparently… But we DID get great story! Your costume and props are in your closet, by the way."
"Wow! I thought I was dreaming! I must have gone to bed right after the final part was filmed! If only an adventure like that could happen for real!"
WHAT A CUTIE TAILS IS! I HOPE YOU ENJOYED THIS MASTERPIECE! UP NEXT WILL BE IN A DIFFERENT STYLE, AND I HOPE YOU LOOK FORWARD TO IT.
BY THE WAY, THAT SONG SONIC SANG EARLIER MUST BE FAMILIAR TO YOU. "GIVING IN" BY ADEMA IS POSSIBLY ONE OF MY FAVORITE SONGS. LISTENING TO THE ACOUSTIC VERSION WILL GIVE A BETTER FEEL. BUT WHEN I SEE THAT A SONG IS EXPLICIT, I WALK AWAY!
ANYWAY, WE SHALL SEE YOU SOON!
