§ Chapter 8: The Clock is Ticking §
Amy finally parked at her house. It was rather small and away from the livelier parts of the city. In fact, the area was quiet. Sonic got out of the car slowly. Here he was safe from the police, but certainly not from his friend's wrath, which she was probably having a hard time holding in.
Zoran, offered to stay in the car. "They won't find me if I'm hiding under the seats." He pointed out. Amy sighed, and told him to come in the house now. Zoran couldn't hide from his demons. It would just make it worse.
When they got in the house, Shadow, Sonic, and Zoran sat on the sofa, tired from their encounter. Cream refused to look at any of them, though she did flash Sonic a few looks of pity. She never really liked Shadow, and she was quite angry at Zoran right now.
Sonic sighed. "It's a long story. Basically I was trying to steal something that would help make me a better her, something that would make me become Super Sonic again. Now I'm a… a villain. The city is completely without electricity now… wait, why is this house lit."
Amy beamed. "Tails gave me an electric power generator that I could use. Quite useful, isn't it?" Sonic didn't reply.
"The Prower family does like to help people." Zoran responded, somewhat lightly
"Really?" Cream said spitefully. "I haven't heard anything about you helping anyone lately."
"Actually, I have. In my home world I helped people quite often, trying to save the world there. Didn't get much thanks in return though. Humph."
Cream was about to reply with a nasty retort when Amy cut in. "Come on guys, you can argue later. Right now, we need to sort things out."
"We?" Shadow said incredulously. "You're not even a part of this! It's the three of us who needs to sort things out here. Oh darn it all, we don't even know where to start!"
They all thought for a moment. "We could always run out of town. We have speed."
"You mean you two have speed." Zoran pointed out. "I don't run at the speed of sound, you know. And besides, there's a storm out there. We have less than a day left. Couldn't you feel the humidity outside? Did you see how much worse the winds were, how much darker the sky was?"
They nodded, rather gloomily. "So great, we're stuck in the city. But we can't hide here, can we?" Shadow asked. Everyone turned to Amy.
Amy was shocked. "Hide here? I can't hide a bunch of highly wanted people! What if they come here, looking for you? What am I supposed to do?"
Zoran laughed. "I'm great at disappearing, and I'm quite sure that you should be able to hide the other two fine."
Amy nodded. "Alright, alright, you can stay."
Cream looked exasperated. "But what about me, Amy?" Amy smiled happily at her.
"You can stay here, as my personal guest. You'll not have to hide, like the other three, whenever there's a…"
Someone knocked on the door. Shadow and Sonic quickly ran to separate closets, Cream looked somewhat worried, and Zoran just… disappeared. "He's certainly good at disappearing alright."
Amy opened the door, and standing on her porch was Tails, looking happy. He had some sort of device on his hand. "Hey there, Amy! I just came to give you this recharger for the electric power generator. It has instructions on the side, if you don't know how the recharger works."
Amy smiled. "Thank you, Tails!" Tails beamed at her.
"The storm is going to hit in 18 hours. I'd secure everything in your yard if I were you." He waved to her goodbye, and then walked to her car. Amy waited for him to be off in the distance before telling everyone they could come out. Sonic and Shadow appeared from the closets, their eyes adjusting to the light once more.
"Where's Zoran?" Amy asked, and Cream looked around. She turned to Amy. "Perhaps he disappeared again." She said bitterly.
(Meanwhile…)
Tails had driven to the governor's building, and was standing in his office, hearing the governor's report on the power. "Your electric power generator won't be enough to light the entire city, hardly any of it, really, but it is enough to keep the important buildings lit." Tails nodded.
"Governor, I think I know where Sonic and his friends are hiding… but it is only a guess. Here, I have a key…" Tails handed him Amy's spare key, which he had taken from under her doormat before he had knocked on her door.
"Good, good. Something tells me that your instincts are right, Tails."
"It is not my instincts that are think are right. I think it is my sense of smell."
(At Amy's house…)
Amy was slowly counting the time left. She had no idea what the storm would be like, but to everyone's surprise… it was snowing. Snowing right before the storm was supposed to hit. Was it a blizzard? It was too humid for snow. Was it a typhoon? It was too cold for a typhoon. Nothing made sense.
Sonic was muttering to himself about being stuck indoors. He went outside, standing next to Amy, looking at the falling snow.
"Thanks for protecting us, Amy." He told her. Amy smiled and blushed at his compliment.
"It's nothing really." She told him. "I'm just helping out friends in need." Sonic took her hand, and noticed how much warmer it seemed all of a sudden. Suddenly, he tensed, hearing a noise from the back. "They're here." He told her. Amy panicked, and ran inside, and Sonic quickly locked the door as he followed her indoors.
"Shadow, Zoran, Cream, they're here!" He yelled, and they all ran toward him, trying to figure out what was going on, when the door was smashed opened, and armed humanoid animals were pouring into the room.
Cream ran behind the couch, very, very afraid, Zoran was nowhere in sight, and Shadow, Amy, and Sonic were battling the armed men and women with all the force they could muster.
Their lasers were no match for Sonic and Shadow's speed, but they were pushing them back, and tearing down Amy's house at the same time. Seeing that blasters would fare poorly in close combat, they resorted to hand-to-hand. That proved to have better results. Or at least, 1 better.
Amy was whacking as many as she could with her hammer, but one of them managed to take it away from her and throw it out the door. Shadow was crushing them all with his chaos control, and Sonic was taking a few blows, barely able to shrug them off. In a few seconds, all but two of the agents were on the ground, knocked out. The two remaining agents ran to the couch, guns out.
When they saw Cream, they pointed their guns at her. "If you move any closer, we'll shoot!" One of them ordered her. They had there guns out. "Now, let's settle this as civilized people!"
Sonic knew that if he moved closer they would fire at her. He looked helplessly at Amy and Shadow. One of the agents, seeing that it was four against two, quickly pointed his other gun at the other three.
However, that agent had miscounted. Sure, there were only four people in the room he could see. The other one was invisible.
In a single stroke, Zoran knocked him out with a single blow. Then he picked up the other surprised agent, and threw her against the wall. No longer invisible, he offered his hand to Cream, and she gladly took it, happy that he hadn't disappeared for a second time, forgetting to be angry at him for disappearing in the first place.
"I never did forget my friends when I left." He told her. "And I did not forget them today. Heck, I never even left the room. You didn't really think I left the room, did you?"
They all laughed. In fact, every single on them did think he had left.
(Elsewhere…)
Tails looked outside, and several others had gone outside as well. The wind was getting stronger, the snow was getting heavier, the humidity was getting worse and most surprising of all, and the temperature was hardly changing. They had six hours left now, and he could already see lightning flashing in the sky.
He knew Sonic had evaded capture, and knew he hadn't tried to run. Cosmo was behind him, and she already knew what he was thinking. "Let's go together." She told him. "I do not think you will be able to handle them alone."
Tails did not argue with her statement, just merely nodded. Cosmo would support him in this, because she loved him. That strength alone might help. "He's going to face justice, and I'll make sure that happens." He had been foolish to rely on the government to defeat Sonic. He knew only he would be able to defeat Sonic. Yet he had to do this now, before the storm ironically protected him from justice's grasp.
A/N: The Ordeal is about to come! What will happen when these two finally meet? Stay tuned!
