Love In The Open: Infinity Rising
Chapter 11: The Armory
Let's first turn our attention to Sonic, Gazelle and company. And to provide you guys with a
little update, Nick was able to convince Shadow and Chief Bogo that Silver and Judy should
stay together during the fight while he stayed in Zootopia.
Although Judy was initially hesitant and
very emotional of letting his friend stay around during a potentially apocalyptic event such as
this one, Nick and Silver eventually convinced her that it was for the best. The three offered a
farewell hug before Silver and Judy left with Sonic, Gazelle, Blaze, Amy, Charmy and the
mysterious wolf they all heard in Chapter 4 (who was with everyone but didn't want to be too
obviously seen amongst the group) towards the grassy nole near Thumper Mountain in
Bunnyborrow, where Tails set the X-Hurricane to fly on autopilot after landing to announce
Infinite's war on Mobius when he crashed Silver and Judy's wedding.
As they exited the hospital
however, they saw that Infinite's forces were scattered all over the place. Most of them looked
like they were just out on routine patrol while some of them also were chasing civilians around
the city. Sonic couldn't take it anymore. "We need to get him away from those civilians, fast!"
he said, "Sonic, wait?" Gazelle said in concern as she raised up her hoof to try and stop him, but
he didn't pay attention as he found Infinite and spin-dashed into him in rage.
Infinite, however, didn't even flinch. In fact, he didn't even look like he was caught off guard.
"Ah, Sonic the Hedgehog and…" he paused, turned as he was levitating and found Sonic's
friends who were peeking out the doorway. ". . .well whatever they are to you now, they are
never going to be the same after." It was then Gazelle ran out next to Sonic's side, then
stood next to him to face Infinite with sheer determination on her face. "The same, how?"
Gazelle asked, with a bold, scolding toughness in her voice. Infinite smirked. "Oh. Ways."
He said, as he hovered around the pair for a bit with the two watching him and then he landed
smoothly in front of them. "But those are things you will find out in time." he started to speak, in
the tone a grandfather would use to speak to his children when he would tell then a bedtime
story. "In the meantime however, remember that the only way to stop me is to find all 7 of the
Infinity Scrolls I have hidden throughout the universe." he said. Sonic looked at Infinite in
confusion, but knowing he had to at least act brave, put on a smirk and said, "How do I know
that when we give them to you, half the universe won't disappear into thin air?" Infinite chuckled.
"You are so naive, Silver." Sonic just snickered back at him. "You're crazy, I'm not Silver, I'm…"
he cockily spoke before being cut off by Infinite. "The worthless blue hedgehog who, by the end
of this quest, will have been forgotten by all of history?" As he said that, Sonic's countenance
dropped and he found himself looking down at the ground. A very concerned Gazelle knelt down
next to him with empathetic eyes and her being nearly choked up by emotion.
"No Sonic, whatever this creature is saying, he's lying to you." she said, but to no avail as Sonic
was still caught up in his own despair. "Yes," Infinite said, smiling, pretending for a moment that
Gazelle wasn't here. "I'll remember you; even when no one else will." That statement made
her turn from kneeling down in pity next to Sonic and turn around like a whip in an alert, fearless
manner as she eyed down Infinite as an archer would narrow and narrow their gaze until only
the target, the thing that they are trying to kill, remained. "I will!" Gazelle spoke out loudly and
with courage seeming to animate purely from within her very being. Infinite, was still unphased.
"In time, you will. But for now; find the 7 scrolls that will be the key to my purpose for you all
being here." He paused for a brief moment before retrieving something. "Take this." he said,
tossing 8 glowing, black spherical objects that were about the size of the Chaos Emeralds but
a little bit bigger than that. Gazelle caught two of them while Silver ran out from the door and
caught the rest with his telekinesis, which prompted the rest of Sonic's 'friends' out of their
hiding places. "These are kind of like your world's 'filters' for your 'phones' in a way, but the way
these work is that when you hold them over the naturally clear, white, wordless scrolls
underneath any light…" he said, as he took a piece of paper from his realm and handed it to
Sonic. Sonic then put the orb above the paper and sure enough, when he looked into the orb;
the paper turned black and bright, white lettering reappeared on the paper. "Writing then
appears." Infinite explained, he then flew near to Sonic and then whispered in his ear; "I would
keep the sample note I gave you a secret, Sonic. You'll see why when you read it." Infinite then
flew away from Sonic, leaving him feel worried and uncertain. Exactly what he wanted. "Well, we
gotta speed things along here… " he said, levitating all of Sonic's team up in the air with his
the telekinetic portion of his energy powers, "In one week, I will absorb Zootopia and about ¾ of
the rest of the universe. The rest, well you know that I intend to rule over all of it unless you
bring me all of the scrolls by that time, so goodbye…" he said, as he snapped his fingers as he
made the rest of Sonic's friends vanish into thin air. "Besides," Infinite said with a smirk, "Just
like all of you, I can't wait to find out what happens next."
Hang on there buddy, I wasn't planning on ending this one with a cliffhanger; so let's see what
actually happens next…
The gang, as it turns out, were teleported to Gazelle's mansion back in Sahara Square. Silver,
Judy, Blaze, Amy, Charmy and the mysterious wolf looked at the beautiful, dazzling mansion in
awe. "This looks so beautiful!" Amy said, just in awe of the space around her. "These floors,"
she said, rubbing her hand on them. "It's like they were made of pearls, and the walls, eeek, this
better not be painted gold, this better not be painted gold!" she said as she ran over to the
walls to give them a stroke of her fingers. Sonic and Gazelle caught up to their friend quickly,
"Yes Amy, they're real." she said, "Every metal or ruby that you have ever seen in here, is real."
Amy happily leapt over to the rest of her teammates, who were also taking in all of the majesty
of the area. "Feel free to give yourselves a tour, I have to show Sonic something; but I'll be more
than happy to answer all of your questions later." Everyone proceeded to do so; except Gazelle
and Sonic. Sonic was gazing outside the window looking at the sunset. He saw some buildings
of Sahara Square end up almost demolished, and some of Infinite's cronies going head-to-head
with Zootopian aerial soldiers. He wished that his time here with Gazelle wasn't forced by such
circumstances as these ones. "You seemed rather worried today, Sonic." Sonic knew that he
couldn't lie, but at the same time; how was he to know whether Infinite could be right or not?
So he decided to smile and place it safe, put on a brave face. "Well, wouldn't anybody be
when their world's destroyed?" he said in his usual confident tone. Gazelle knew that this
persona Sonic was showing wasn't exactly his pure, natural confidence he showed the first
time they had met either. She knew that there was something off about him when he
crash-landed near Thumper Mountain but it was a bit more when they were in the hospital
together when she first noticed it. Sonic seemed to have been shaken more and it seemed
that he was attempting to mask his fear with confidence. But she knew the real Sonic the
Hedgehog long enough to know that this confidence was all fake, even though she knew he
was not. "I see your point, Sonic." she said sympathetically, then put her hoof on his shoulder
to get his attention. Sonic then turned to her to look her in the eyes. "It's alright to feel scared
Sonic, ok?" she said, tenderly. Sonic was taken aback for a second. He knew deep down that
Gazelle was right; but was equally concerned about whether or not Infinite was right about his
friends eventually leaving him when he needed them the most. "Me, scared?" Sonic asked.
Gazelle nodded with a sly smile forming across her face. "Are you talking about that whole
seizure episode, I honestly didn't know what ended up happening there. Could've been some
bad chilli-dogs up in space or something." Sonic stammered.
Gazelle laughed at Sonic's small fib, "Yeah, sure, chilli-dogs, uh-huh…" she said, as she
leaned closer towards him, lovingly. "From another dimension…" Sonic continued, awkwardly.
"Mhm…" Gazelle continued, now caressing her friend in his arms. "I'm pretty sure you know
they taste better here anyway, right?" she said, more in a flirtatious, reel-'em-in sort of way.
Sonic now just gazed into her beautiful brown eyes. No longer in confusion, or in fear, but
rather in peace and security as he stared into her loving gaze. Even though he didn't know
what was going to happen next, he chose to bask in what was in front of him right now. "You
know, Gazelle…" he said, in more of a relaxed, truly confident, and a bit more of a flirty tone,
"The chilli-dogs aren't the only things that are better in Zootopia." As his gaze appeared to be
more relaxed now. "Oh?" Gazelle asked him, "Like what?" The two finally decided that the
time for talking was over, and decided to pull each other in for a kiss. Their arms gripping
firmly yet gently around each other's backs and their lips pressing firmly into each other. The
two were so enthralled, so deep, so rooted into their love; that they didn't notice the others
meet back in the room where they were at and were standing huddled right next to them. "Do
you think we should break them up?" Judy whispered. "What, no; are you crazy?" Amy
shriek-whispered, "He hasn't had good luck finding a partner in years and…", "No, not that;"
Judy interrupted, trying to make herself clear. "The kiss…" she continued, rather impatiently,
"because… you know… we have a universe to save here!" "We know that, Judy;" Silver
replied, attempting to calm down his aggravated fiancee, "Besides, they're probably gonna
unlock in 3, 2, 1." Silver said, perfectly timing when Sonic and Gazelle were going to break from
their kiss and embrace. Gazelle then jumped up and down like a giddy schoolgirl. "Come on;"
she said, eagerly holding onto Sonic's left hand, "Real quick, before we have to go… I wanna
show you my armory!" Sonic just looked at her in confusion. "Your armory?!" He responded.
"Your armory?!" everyone else responded after him.
Gazelle just giggled, pulled out a
remote, pushed a button, then spoke into it;
"Open Gazelle Battle Armory 2.0., Allies Entry: 7" At
those words, a section of the floor opened up and then below the floor, lights shown. Sonic was
about to follow Gazelle down there but then stopped him. "It's a facial, body and gait tracker,
Sonic," she explained, "I have to walk down first for it to confirm who I am for security reasons."
Sonic nodded, understandingly. Gazelle walked slowly down the ramp and ducked her head
down to get underneath the floor. Sonic thought he saw Gazelle's horns slightly move, as if they
were retractable, as she went down; but he decided to shrug it off for now. They all then heard
the sound of quick tapping right below the floor right before Gazelle shouted, "It's alright now,
everyone; come on down." Everyone followed Sonic down the wide ramp that had glowing LED
arrows pointing downward on the side as to guide them safely downward. Once they went down
into the room, Gazelle gave their friends a brief tour around the armory. The crew was
immediately impressed with how compact, yet spacious it was. Everyone was now looking at
some of the various weaponry around the room. It was very well organized; with a place for
everything and everything in its place. Silver put his hand on the glass, but weirdly enough, his
hand went right through it. "Oh yeah, the glass is a high-tech plasma screen…" Gazelle called
out to everyone. "It isn't plasma to any enemy that comes in. If someone bad somehow found a
way to get in here, the plasma would turn into unbreakable glass." Everyone "whoa"ed at that
statement. Sonic then attempted to grab some body armor out of one of the weapons cabinets;
but when he tried to grab it, he noticed that it faded into pixels (think Infinity War to know what
that's like) and then regenerated again. Sonic then turned and noticed that everyone had the
same issue when they were trying to get equipment to see for themselves. "Hey, is this some
sort of trick?!" Sonic shouted, angrily turning towards Gazelle. He stopped and calmed down
when he realized that everyone else around him was staring. Gazelle, however, seemed to be
the only one in the group who didn't seem to be offended. "It's alright Sonic; that was actually
my fault. I forgot to turn off the virtual reality composite on my weapons." she said, calmly. She
then pulled out a Zoogle touchscreen and then adjusted the settings so that Sonic and friends
could have true access to the weapons. "You see Sonic," she said in her gentler, calmer
demeanor again, "I've prepared a lot ever since our special adventure last time, so I have really
gone all in on preparing for next time." she said, earning a smile from Sonic. "Yeah, you really
outdid yourself preparing all this. Nice work." Gazelle ended up dropping a coin on the floor and
looked down to pick it up; Sonic misunderstood that as her feeling offended and quickly
apologized. "I'm sorry Gazelle. I know I've been under a lot of stress lately, but I shouldn't be
letting this stuff get to me." he then sighed and looked dejectedly down at the ground. Gazelle
then put a hoof on her friend's shoulder and looked on him compassionately. "It's alright, Sonic. I
think we both understand what Infinite's capable of." She then smiled at Sonic. "Besides, with
you leading us; I'm sure this will be a piece of cake." Sonic and Gazelle both couldn't help but
laugh a little at that statement. While Gazelle told everyone that she turned on the weapons
access so that everyone can hold the real weapons; Sonic's mind wandered back to what
Infinite was saying about how he needed to keep an eye on every one of his friends. He knew
that Infinite didn't say how they would abandon him or what inner desires that their friends
would possess them to abandon him at a moments notice. Just that they would. He would need
to a close observation of him and his 'friends' (if he should even call them that anymore) over
the next week. (If the mission would even be that long). He watched everyone gather around
and hold various weapons from the cabinets and wonder, "If I don't know how they'll leave, when? And if not when,
why?"
Alright then everyone, I'm gonna leave this chapter of "Love In The Open: Infinity Rising" here.
Next chapter, the adventure begins as Sonic, Gazelle and their crew take off to find the Infinity
Scrolls. Next story that is going to be updated is "Determination of the Strong" and as always,
Keep Loving, Keep Edifying, Keep LoveandEdifying! :-D
Time to make like a singer and Sia (See ya!)