CHAPTER 9: COCHISE
Sonic slowly opened his eyes, straight at the charred wood in the fireplace. There was a bit of fire there, but it was dying. Sonic laid there, watching the fire until it went out. When it did, he stood up, and began cracking his body.
"Good mornin', Smithy, Caliburn." Sonic said, cracking his neck.
Caliburn smiled. "Good morning. The Blacksmith is not up yet. Any nightmares this time?"
Sonic began swinging his arms around, managing to crack his back. "Not this time."
"Good. I am surprised, with what you went through yesterday..."
"Yeah. That day was full of two things I hate, gore and drama."
"Hm."
"Anyway, are the mercs downstairs or did they get going?"
"They left half an hour ago."
Al and Degroot were running around smashing all the pottery they could find in search of rings and yellow fairies. It looked comical, a large bear and a green duck running around smashing pots on the ground, picking up rings and bottling fairies left and right. Up the street, Saxton and Rachel were trying to find people to give it to.
"Do you need any rings? I got plenty to spare." Saxton asked with pleasure.
The civilian sighed. "No thanks, I'm-"
"Shut up and take my money!" Saxton tossed a small bag filled with twenty rings at the civilian, who caught it, unsure what to do with it.
"Do you think they are successful so far?" Caliburn wondered.
"Yeah, knowing them, they're probably at the limit already." Sonic joked. "They won't know when to stop."
"Maybe that's for the better. But shouldn't you be doing the tasks?"
"I'm using them to give money to the poor, like I use you to slay the knights of the underworld. It is my doing that they are giving to the poor, no? It is of my doing the knights of the underworld were slain, no? They both happened because of me."
Caliburn rolled his eyes. "That would have been true if you had gotten them to free the captives, but don't you think she meant giving your own wealth you earned...?"
"I'm piss poor now." Sonic answered with a chuckle.
Caliburn scoffed. "Well, I hope she understands your way of dealing with things."
"She admitted it herself." Sonic began, stretching. "She said it's her fault the world is being taken over when she only gave the Scabbard to Arthur. I'm sure she'll have to agree it's because of my doing people are getting money when I only told them to."
"True, true. Anyway, business. The castle in the center of town is holding prisoners, and we need to break them out."
"How much resistance do you think we'll get?" Sonic asked, looking at what was on the Blacksmith's table. The 'boomstick' was done, but he wasn't looking at that. He was looking at the next item on the list. It was a retractable blade, hidden in a vambrace. -Oh boy I bet you can't guess where I got that from.-
"Not too many, we have no clue how many underworld beings are in the city, let alone how many could be in the castle."
"So we skip everything else and go straight to the cellar."
"If we can, that'd be great. But let's get on with it, shall we?"
Sonic made a noise as he shrugged. He grabbed Calibun and walked through the door. He began dashing toward the center of the city.
"It seems pretty clear today." Sonic pointed out, noticing the lack of enemies. "Maybe they're all in the castle."
"Don't be so sure! They could come out of anywhere to strike!" Caliburn reminded.
Sonic dashed along and noticed bridges. -If memory serves right, there should be a giant crossbow just ahead.-
Sonic smirked as he was correct. He ran up to it, and smacked the wooden blockade stopping the oversized bolt from being launched. It shot across the crystal clear lake of the city, -which you have to know looks sweet.- and was lodged in a statue in the forehead. The force caused an already cripple base for the statue to crumble , and it fell toward the castle, crashing through the wall. It sounded like a continuous explosion, the statue destroying the wall.
Caliburn stared at the mess Sonic had created. "The word 'stealth' doesn't have any meaning to you now does it?"
Sonic chuckled as he jumped onto the rope and began to grind there. "Heheh, I guess you could say I lead a charmed life."
"You lead a charmed life indeed, Sir Sonic. Now I hope you can slay all the enemies whose attention was attracted by the HUGE ENTRANCE YOU JUST MADE FOR YOURSELF." -That's weird, hearing him yell. He's used to keeping his cool, but he just blew it. I think ever since I fought King Arthur on the road, the course of the story has changed. Will that change the events I have to do? Whatever, it's time to kick some ass.-
As he got closer to the bolt, he jumped off into the waterway underneath the castle. He saw a wooden gate closed. He instinctively ran over to it and started slashing at it. A couple slashes through, he realized he could just jump and slash his way through the wooden bars, but, seeing his progress on it, he decided to finish it up. He saw two enemies waiting behind the gate, like last time, and he knew two more were going to drop behind him.
The moment he destroyed the gate he did a backflip out of the square of enemies. He then leaped forward, and kicked one with amazing force, sending it flying into another, an down the small stream. He then slashed the other enemy beside him in the gut, and spun the other way and chopped him in half. He looked at the lone straggler as it tried to stab him with his lance.
It almost hit, to Sonic's surprise. He didn't remember them being so accurate. -I seem to be noticing that I am now noticing what I didn't notice before. Hm. Notice to self; use the word 'notice' less.- Sonic followed up with his own jab. This one was successful, going straight through the underworld creature. Sonic flung it off and dashed onward.
He saw a group of prisoners. He slowed down to a halt and he patted a cellar dweller on the shoulder. The moping thing turned to look at Sonic, who was pointing behind him. He turned around to see that the gate was gone. The civilian looked at Sonic, at a loss of words, when Sonic decided to jet off and save the others.
After a minute or two of gate busting, fighting, and rescuing, Sonic dashed out into a tunnel. It took him up to the streets.
"Well, that's that." Sonic said, sounding relieved. "We should go get the Saxton and the mercenaries now."
"Saxton?" Caliburn asked.
Sonic realized he didn't tell him. "Oh, it's the leader of the mercenaries I got."
Caliburn did his best to imitate a nod. "Right. Let's get them."
And so they set off to find them. It took plenty of running and some fighting, but Sonic had found them on a long bridge.
'That's enough guys, go back to the Smithy's. I have to go see Nimue now." Sonic ordered.
"A'ight." Saxton answered as he turned to his comrades. "Pack up the stuff guys, we're going back to the shop!"
The bear and duck slung a huge bag of rings over their shoulders, the cat merely followed, and the weasel rushed up to catch them.
"And hopefully you'll be less of an ass." Caliburn commented. -Look who's talking.-
Making no verbal comeback, Sonic dashed off out of the city, and toward the lake.
"The time which you completed all those tasks was remarkably fast." Caliburn complimented.
"Remember who you're talking to!" Sonic replied as he normally would, with his signature smirk to follow. -To stay me, y'know. I've heard a lot of things like having to lie so much about yourself and how you act that over time you think that's how it is. This should only take a week though... whatever sometimes I just can't help but feel like I'm acting too gritty for a guy like me, y'know what I'm saying?-
"I just hope she'll let your mercenary thing slide." The talking sword said, sounding not the slightest bit worried.
"Oh I'm sure she'll-" Sonic began to skid to a halt. -There's that kid again. I WANT TRANSFORMATION POWERS EEEEHHHH.-
On the road ahead, was a girl, wailing and howling in sadness. -How come I didn't realize that's Amy/Nimue's voice the first time, whatever.- She took her hands away from her eyes as they drew closer.
"Hey, what's wrong? Anything I can help with?"
The girl looked at Sonic, and took a deep breath. "A great big dragon attacked my village!"
-Gotta act surprised.-"WHAT?"
"It took my mommy," she paused mid-sentence to breathe in. "and my daddy, and everybody away!" She went back to wailing and rubbing her eyes.
"D'ya know where it is?"
"It's in the big cave, at the bottom of that mountain!"
"Alright, a village, some parents, and one giant serving of" -Kalamari *WHACK* NO. THEY DON'T EVEN LOOK LIKE OCTOPUSSES WHAT THE HELL AM I THINKING.- "salamander coming right up!" Sonic said cheerfully.
"Wait! Don't tell me you're going off to slay a dragon now!" Caliburn interjected. -Wait, what's the plural for Octopus? Octopusses? Octopi? Octopussi-YOU KNOW WHAT FUCK THAT-
"Yeah, why?" -WAIT KALAMARI IS SQUID DAMN IT.-
"What of the Lady's tests? You'll never make it in time! It won't take just an hour to free them, it'll take days!"
"For the second time," Sonic began as he grabbed Caliburn. "Remember who you're talking to!"
Sonic waved goodbye to the small -...Whatever it is- child and dashed off down the road into the Titanic Plains.
"You fool..." Caliburn said, speechless.
"You don't have any parents to lose, so you wouldn't understand." Sonic replied.
Caliburn scoffed, as Sonic dragged him into the wide open field. Sonic dashed along, slowing down to get a view at the landscape every now and then. -I can't help myself. Normally, I would go back and take another look at places I've been. This is my second time here, and the first time I completely disregarded what this world looked like. I like taking a second, longer look at places I've been.-
Sonic's sight-seeing was interrupted by a giant enemy. His mace was the size of Sonic.
"YOU ARE HUGE." -THAT MEANS YOU HAVE HUGE GUTS no shut up I do not need twenty more references that no one will get. Besides, that'd only be funny if I didn't have Caliburn and proceeded to try to rip out his intestines with my hand through his armor.- Sonic shouted as he looked up at the behemoth of an enemy.
"That means he has huge guts." Caliburn went on. -There is no single word that can explain my emotion.- "It's going to take a lot to scare this soldier of the underworld."
Sonic did not say a word as he jumped up to his head a slashed at the eye slits. Doing so made him turn around from momentum, and he used this to get another slash through his breastplate. He landed on the ground, and rolled to the side. Before the monster could turn around, Sonic jumped again and stabbed it in the already slashed helmet. With that hit, it shattered into oblivion.
Sonic dashed onward through the field. Along the path he saw underworld knights with outrageously long lances. Sonic thought about attacking head on, but Sonic saw a simpler answer.
As they drew closer, Sonic leaped to the left.
"What are you gonna do about that, huh?" Sonic mocked as he raced by the slow reacting enemies. By the time they all turned around Sonic was past them all.
Sonic curved away from them and past the spears and large spiked balls, and back onto the normal route.
"Well, isn't this a nice view?" Caliburn said, referring to the stone pillars and the landscape they were placed on.
"You didn't notice I was just doing some sight seeing earlier?" Sonic asked.
"Well it wasn't my fault it didn't look that great."
"I have better things to do that argue over whose opinion is right, so you know."
Caliburn gave a smirk as he opened his mouth. "I don't, so you lose." -Fucker.-
"Fuckin'- Oh, Woah!" Sonic yelped as two large enemies came out of the ground to intercept him. Sonic backed up a couple yards, and began to twirl Caliburn around his hand.
"Tell your friends in the underworld not to get in my way!" Sonic shouted as he dashed toward the one closest to him. He made three fast swipes across the large enemy, and landed. Sonic looked up to see that it was swinging its huge mace at him. Sonic barely hopped back in time to avoid it, and did a jumping slash to finish off the foe.
"Fe Fi Fo Fum, you're as big as you are dumb." Sonic muttered to himself jokingly as he began to slash and hack at the large monster of an enemy.
When they were killed, Sonic dashed on. Five more enemies appeared, and the hero made short work of them. Sonic raced on, and began to slide down a hill. After collecting a few fairies, he veered left, into an ambush. Sonic did not stop for these enemies, however. He slashed right through them, only stopping for the behemoth in the back.
Caliburn examined their next obstacle. "Hm. A wall. You can climb up it by stabbing me into the wall and-"
Sonic had began to sprint up the wall at his signature speed. As he soared into the sky, he heard an enemy crawling out of the wall he just ran off of. He landed on the ground with a roll and raced on, dodging the large metal spiked balls, and into a tunnel, where civilians walked around, talking.
"How did you do that?" Caliburn asked curiously. He knew Sonic could traverse a wall without his help but he was surprised Sonic could do it that quickly.
Sonic grinned as he entered the sunlight once more. "A little practice."
Sonic raced out into the ruins, jumping into holes in stone structures, kicking off them to leap over the giant spiked balls below. He smashed through stone pillars blocking his way, and continued to see more enemies in his way.
"Would you like to see my skill again?" Sonic asked Caliburn, feeling like gloating.
"I don't see what harm it would do. It is a useful skill, after all." Caliburn answered.
Sonic charged toward the first wave of enemies, slaughtering them as he went by. Then, as he saw the second wave coming in, he jumped on the wall and ran along it. He skipped a couple of groups, and he jumped off the wall to turn a corner. He did this again, but on the last row he slashed Caliburn across the torso of an enemy from above, to switch back to the ground. He knew there was a staircase up ahead, if he kept on running he'd miss it and fly.
Sonic began to run up the staircase and, once more, avoided combat by running along the wall.
As the staircase began to reach the top, he rolled back onto the ground, underneath an enemy's legs, and slowed down as he reached an altar of some sort. -What does Stonehenge have to do with King Arthur, anyway? And why would Gawain be waiting here of all place- oh HELLLOOOO, what do we have here?-
Sonic, trying to be quiet, looked around the corner of a pillar to find Gawain and Percival. -Must have come early. Sweet.- Percival looked as if she was getting ready to leave, Gawain didn't look so happy about that.
"But Percival, please tell me you at least heard what he did to our friend Lancelot!" Gawain argued.
"I know, Gawain... I know..." Percival assured her friend as she looked at the ground. After a moment she looked back up. "That's why I'm telling you to suck it up and kill him. Complaining won't do anything, neither will running away. Stand and fight for yourself. For Lancelot..." Percival put a hand on Gawain's shoulder. "For all of us."
"Yes, but did you get any details on what he did?"
"Does it matter?"
"His head was BROKEN!"
Percival took her hand away from him, no longer showing sympathy. "His helmet wasn't on, unless his killer took it. That shouldn't happen if you don't take your helmet off."
"The guy probably collects trophies and shit." Gawain began. "Some people hang heads of dragons and such on their walls. I bet he'd keep helmets of those he's defeated."
"Will you just shut up and deal with it already? You sound more of a girl than I do." -You guys will never understand how much I wanted to say "OH SNAP" at that moment.- "You look pathetic, crying to me over this."
"Shut up!" Gawain shouted as he pushed her away, his hand resting on the hilt of one of his axes. "Don't you have things to do? Like find out where he'll go next and intercept him, like we have been doing?"
With a growl, the cat turned her back to Gawain, and ran off. Likewise, Gawain turned around and began to stomp toward the center of the altar. -Unintentional scare tactic. Hmm. Note to self, Percival might try something new.- Sonic barely stayed out of sight by shimmying around the pillar as the big angry red knight cursed and damned everything he could think of his way to the center where, where he would just stand there, staring at the stairway exit, waiting for his foe to come.
Sonic stared at the unknowing echidna, smirking a mischievous smile as he reached behind him. He pulled out a bow, and a single arrow. He pulled the string back, lined up the arrow, and squinted in one eye. He began to wonder what to say before he fired the shot.
"Well I've been watchin', while you've been coughin', I've been dreamin' life, while you've been nauseous..." Sonic said, loud enough for Gawain to hear.
As Gawain turned around with the rage of a bull in his eyes, he saw an arrow soaring straight to his stomach. Taking the hit, Gawain curled up, grunting, cradling the wound, but he straightened up, and began stomping his way over to Sonic.
"You sneaky little FUCKER." The Red Knight boomed as he tore the arrow from his stomach, without slowing his pace or a trace of pain on his face. -Holy shit that's hardcore.- He tossed aside the arrow and drew both his axes. "Say your prayers, you thieving rat."
Gawain had dashed forward suddenly and slashed at Sonic. It had almost gotten him. Sonic used Caliburn to block his second strike, and then Sonic rolled back before a third could come. Just as quickly, Sonic rolled forward and slashed at Gawain. It was a head hit, but his helmet protected him well enough. -Thank God.-
Gawain rolled back, and his head shook as he got back up. After shaking himself a bit, he was back to combat condition. He quickly did a couple strikes to fend Sonic away. Gawain continued to do this and turned into an aggressive attack. Sonic jumped over Gawain and turned around to attack from behind. As he did, Gawain turned around to clash weapons. Immediately after this, Gawain lunged himself at Sonic, slashing at him.
Doing his best to avoid getting hit, Sonic forgot that his enemy had two weapons. During a flurry of slashes and attacks, Sonic got a cut on his thigh. Sonic slashed Gawain across his armored chest twice as soon as possible to make him back off, and put a hand over his wound and began to shout. "FUCK. FUCK. FUUUUUUUUUUUCK." -I REALLY could have used that armor.-
Sonic looked up up at his enemy, as red as the blood that dripped from his leg, quickly make his way back over to attack. Sonic raised his hand, and loosened his grip on Caliburn.
"Sonic, what are you doing?" Caliburn outbursted.
Gawain stomped over and raised his axe to chop off Sonic's hand.
Sonic dropped Caliburn and pulled his hand to the side of his chop. Sonic then grabbed Gawain's arm, and used his other hand to grab his other arm. He slid his hands down his arms and yanked the axes away from Gawain, while ramming him away. Sonic leaped back and twirled the axes a bit, and smirked. Gawain surprisingly stood his ground.
"You're good." Sonic complimented his enemy, "First one to hit me that hard. Congratulations, I'll make sure when I'm a king to give you a prize of some sort."
"Oh, don't be saying you've won when I don't have a weapon. My fists are still lethal!" Gawain assured his enemy. -Oh I am sure they are. That's why I'm not going anywhere near you.-
Sonic stopped twirling them, took a few steps backward. He let the blades of the axes fall so that he was just barely holding on to the tip of the handles.
Gawain looked confused, but still on edge. "What are you planning on doing?"
Sonic twirled the axe in his right hand once more as he raised it and reared his hand back.
"I'm curious, have you ever tried this?"
Gawain continued to look confused, but then with a gasp of realization, he turned and ran.
Sonic reared his hand back a bit more and then threw the axe at Gawain's back. With a loud WHICCHHKT, the axe was implanted in the back of Gawain's obviously very thick armor. The force of the impact made him stumble. Sonic raised an eyebrow at the sight of this. -Holy cow that armor is deeper than Shadow's past.- "Holy dooley, you're a fucking juggernaut." Sonic switched the axe from his left hand to his right hand and prepared to throw it again. -Then again his skull is thicker.-
Gawain regained his footing, and was almost past a stone pillar he could use for cover. He heard the axe whistle through the air behind him. He knew that it was going for his head. Quickly Gawain slid and turned, using his hands to swing himself behind cover. Gawain saw the axe hit the gravel feet away from him.
With a sigh of relief, he ripped the axe out of his back and stared at it for a moment. Not a trace of blood. Good. He felt blessed that it hadn't killed him. He dashed onto the gravel walkway and rolled over his other axe. He got back into fighting stance, to see Sonic had other plans.
Sonic was holding the weapon Gawain knew blew a hole in Sir Lancelot's face.
Gawain gasped through clenched teeth. He was on the verge of running away, when Sonic opened his mouth.
"We can do this the easy way or the hard way." Sonic said, not having the rifle pointed at Gawain.
Gawain pulled down his thick red visor. He nodded.
"The easy way is to toss me your axes." Sonic began. "The hard way is me killing you for it, or you killing yourself for it."
Gawain lowered one of his arms. "... Why would I kill myself?"
"A lot of reasons. You do realize I was listening in earlier?" Sonic explained. "Stress, guilt, humiliation, fear. It was all spewing out of your mouth talking to Percival."
Gawain opened his mouth and let out a war cry the loudest Sonic's ever heard something come out of a person's mouth naturally as he dashed toward Sonic, his arm muscles twitching as they are raised above his head. In Gawain's mind, there was only one word repeating through his head. 'Kill'.
-Welp, hope I'm a good shot.-
Sonic raised his rifle and aimed it at the enraged echidna's head. It didn't stop. So, Sonic pulled the trigger.
PAK-KOOHHHH...
-Different sound. That's good to hear.-
Sonic looked at what happened. Gawain's visor flew up, his head just barely stopped it from popping off, revealing shocked eyes. The pupils shrunk until they were the size of pebbles, and Gawain froze in his tracks. The axes flew from his hands and landed at Sonic's feet. Gawain's head swung back, with just enough force to make Gawain fall backward. On the gravel, he made no attempt to get up. He laid there, shell shocked.
Sonic smiled. -I'd like to take this moment to thank video games.- He walked over to his apparently defeated enemy, happy to see not a single drop of blood coming from his head. He straightened Gawain's head, who did not care about his enemy inspecting him, and pulled his visor back down. After a moment of examination, Sonic chuckled, and plucked something out of Gawain's helmet. -Holy crap, his armor is about as big and thick as my ego right now.-
"Jesus!" Sonic chuckled as he shut Gawain's visor and placed the hot metal ball on one of its gaps. "You lucky bastard."
Gawain stared at the metal pellet Sonic had placed on his visor, not saying a thing.
".. And so I dream to help, while you kill yourself, and I just got one thing that I can offer." Sonic said. "Go on and save yourself, or take it out on me."
Sonic walked back to where he had dropped Caliburn. He picked up the two axes and put them away, and then he picked up Caliburn, who was delighted to see him.
"Well, how'd that shot go?"
"His day just got turned around, man." Sonic said, walking back over to him. "His armor is so thick, stopped the bullet. He's right now paralyzed from shock."
"Were you planning on killing him with the shot?" Caliburn asked.
Sonic shrugged, stopping over Gawain. "No."
Sonic stuck Caliburn in the ground, and scrunched down.
"Drown, if you want." Sonic began. "And I'll see you in the bottom, where you'll crawl, on my skin, and put the blame on me so you don't feel a thing..."
The echidna took a breath in through his open mouth. He looked like a vegetable on a hospital bed.
Sonic stood up, grabbed Caliburn, and and said again. "Go on and save yourself, or take it out on me, yeah..."
-Forget every other reference, I've done a lot of music references already. Hell, the beginning of the book, no matter what I do, sounds a lot like Painkiller. 'PLANET'S DEVASTED. MANKIND'S ON ITS KNEES. A SAVIOR COMES FROM OUT OF THE SKIES IN ANSWER TO THEIR PLEAS.' Why does it occur to me now that the 90's had awesomely corny music.-
Sonic got up, grabbed Caliburn, and yanked him out of the ground. He ran off toward the direction of the mountain.
-Oh, and I swear if I see that guy with the shot gun named "Kurt Cobain's Microphone" again I am going to STAB HIM.-
Sonic left Gawain, alone, at the stone circle, laying on the ground, his mind empty. It was then he was able to conjure some words.
"What. The. Fuck."