Lauren the Echidna Volume 3
Chapter 14
Psychic Reset
Her long black hair had flown through the winds of Japan. Looking around all the small huts and buildings of Tokyo, Ashleigh had walked past many people. Most had looked to her with disgust, since they knew she was a friend of mine, and was already known around the world. She knew she had to ignore it, but with her own nature, it was hard too forget the people who insulted her. With all these people around, there were still a few who didn't see her as a threat. A few younger kids with paper, notepads and pens ran up to her with delight, hoping to get her autograph for what they saw in the news against Weed.
She was a bit shocked. Ashleigh didn't ever think that kids would even ask for her autograph, due to her belief that her power was more dangerous than she thought. If she had fought Weed any longer, her power would've been hard to stop. Good thing she had gotten distracted from it by helping me out or things would've gotten horrible.
Ashleigh told the children she'd be happy to sign their notepads and papers, then sent them on their way, watching as they showed their parents and friends what they had just gotten. This made Ashleigh smile proudly. Why would most people think that she was a threat? It wasn't like... well yes it could be, since she had been hanging around a being that could hold a god inside them. She really had no choice but to ignore the threats and take in the positive energy around her, since it was also her specialty.
A few blocks down from the scene was a group of people gathered around a small site of what looked like construction. Ashleigh noticed this in an instant and also saw that it wasn't going to be easy trying to see from the back of the crowd. She quickly ran into the shadows, transformed to her white cat self and sprang up to the top of a tall building with intense silence, finally able to see what the commotion was all about. The locals had spotted someone lying on the ground, seeming to have a faint aura seeping around them. Ashleigh looked closer and her eyes slightly widened to the sight.
That "creature" laying on the ground was a small cat, adorned with a beautiful ocean blue color, which was odd for the average cat, and behind its ears looked like small horns that were a pale pink color. Ashleigh blinked for a moment, then narrowed her eyes, sensing something from the future before it was able to happen.
Screaming was seen in her vision, screaming and running from all the locals around the country. Ashleigh's eyes quickly opened after seeing a faint image of the enemy that was to come. She was going to be attacked soon and she had to get everyone away from that cat. Ashleigh's quick cat reflexes caused her to land perfectly onto her feet as she startled everyone that was around the site. Everyone stood back after seeing the odd anthropomorphic creature with their own eyes, but soon came to disgust as most of them weren't the biggest fans of what has been happening all over the world the past few weeks. Ashleigh stood her ground as she spoke loud enough for them to hear,
"Listen everybody! You have to leave this place NOW! It's not safe for you!"
There was silence. At first no one had believed her, knowing it was just a cat lying there, so it couldn't have done anything. Ashleigh then glared at them, letting them know that she meant business. They finally scurried away, at the very moment that a huge burst of blue light had shown behind Ashleigh from the cat that was alone on the ground. Her eyes widened, but with her quick reflexes she backflipped onto a nearby street sign, having complete and easy balance as she stood upon it with the help of her tail.
The aura of blue had formed into a hedgehog, but this time, the form was...different. This was once again a clone of Mephiles, but it was the only female clone from the entire group. Her spines were floating backward like Mephiles', but was pulled back into a ponytail, with two quills hanging down on both sides of her face, dark blue stripes had been seen on her quills, the edges of them glowing like the ocean on a summer night and her gloves were glowing white continuously. Her eyes were the same dark blue, as well as the outfit she wore on her hedgehog body. The outfit was nothing but a hooker look, two piece leather suit, the top piece looked as if it was tied together toward the front, so if untied, cleavage would be seen clearly, and the bottom piece were cut off up to the rim of her hip. This outlook was very skimpy for a hedgehog like her, but apparently she did not care. Ashleigh's eyes blinked, looking toward the outfit in disgust.
The enemy in front of her laughed out loud, seeing the sudden judgement in her eyes.
"Ahahahaha! My my... if it isn't the little pipsqueak kitty cat. You saved me the trouble of looking for you, my dear." She smirked, waving a hand in front of her and onto her chin. "Looks like this will be quite the challenge."
"What do you want from me?" Ashleigh shouted in anger.
"Don't you know by now? Master Mephy wants the Chaos Emeralds that your little pathetic group has. Only two left, my dear." She smirked more, hands beginning to cover in water.
This alone was enough for Ashleigh to think up a plan, knowing that her enemy was using water, she could hone her psychic power to turn it against her.
"Oh forgive me for being rude, my dear, but I haven't even told you my name. Hmhmhm..."
"Then what is it..."
"Hmhm... my name.. is TORRENT!"
Torrent quickly raised her hands to the sky. The ground began to shake hard enough to where Ashleigh would lose her balance, followed by several jets of water bursting forth from the ground that were being pulled up from the sewers below the surface. The jets formed around Torrent, seeming to create a large water barrier around each part of her body. Ashleigh was stunned, having been too shocked to even see the next attack coming. Torrent smirked and laughed evilly, thrusting her arms forward as many tendrils of water that seemed sharper than the sharpest glass had fired toward her.
Even Ashleigh's cat like reflexes hadn't been enough for this move. The first few were easy to dodge, since there were only smaller in number, but as she back flipped onto another street sign, many more that were behind the first assault had come her way. Ashleigh placed her hands apart and slammed them together in a clap, emitting a huge psychic wave of energy to rid her being of the next few tendrils. But it seemed as if she had missed one. One last, but big tendril that she overlooked had nicked her right across her left hip, leaving a gash beneath her skirt. She grunted from the gash, holding her hip as she stepped back a bit to pay attention to Torrent's next move.
"I assumed you'd be a lot tougher than this, kitty cat! Oh.. but you're not just a kitty cat are you? You're just a pathetic human! Ahahahaha!" She laughed proudly with a hand under her chin. As she spoke, Ashleigh was only getting even angrier by the second. Torrent held her hand forward, forming yet another powerful attack in her hand, but this time it was just an orb. But this wasn't ordinary. The orb began to absorb the water around them... from the air! Since she had this advantage, Torrent knew this was her time to finish Ashleigh off.
Torrent threw the small orb toward Ashleigh with so much speed and force, it was hard for Ashleigh to even bring up a barrier, but did it just in time to block the orb from hitting its target. She knew it was too much, so she flipped to her left, but upon her landing, she flinched. That wound on her hip was still giving her pain that she could hardly handle. Ashleigh wasn't ready to give it up yet.
She thrusts her arms forward once again, but this time, the sleeves on her arms had extended slightly, enough for objects to be placed inside. The objects that were thrown were none other than the average psychic's fortune cards, their edges as sharp as the tendrils that were thrown earlier. Torrent only smirked to this,
"You must be joking.. those puny cards of yours cannot harm me!" She laughed and waved her hand across the barrier, watching as the cards stopped only a foot into the barrier and dropping to the ground, dead in their tracks. Ashleigh was shocked once again, holding her hip as she stood to her feet. How could she defeat this enemy? There was no way she could even weaken her. But as she was thinking about her own fate away from the world, a sudden blur of bright teal green had flown past her.
His spines flew from side to side as the wind blew against him, and his two back quills flew upwards and he came to a stop in front of an electric sign that spelled the words 'Tokyo Cafe.' It was none other than Silver the Hedgehog, coming to aid Ashleigh in her lost hope of defeating Torrent. Silver smirked as he pulled the sign from its post, circuits from the plugging, giving anything a small shock as the sparks flew, and chucked it with all his telekinetic might into the barrier of Torrent's barrier. The shock was even greater, but enough to get Torrent onto the ground, the barrier still intact.
"Ngh... Silver! Now's your chance! Weaken that barrier with those!" She pointed toward a nearby spa, as there were pieces of coal that had just been placed into the hot springs around the building. Silver smirked to this and raised as many pieces of the coal as he could, tossing them one by one, having the steamy hot surface of them heating up the water and weakening Torrent's power and being. She hit the ground onto her knees and growled fiercely, the heat starting to get to the leather clothing she had on, burning off one of the straps, making it hang down showing a bit of cleavage.
"GAH! YOU LITTLE BASTARDS! THIS WAS MY FAVORITE OUTFIT!" Her glare got even darker as she felt several more psychic fortune cards sweeping by her even quicker, nicking her here and there, leaving smaller gashes but ones that stung more than a paper cut.
Torrent then smirked once more, raising her hands to the skies around Tokyo, forming more water from both the air and the sewers, suddenly shaping the liquids into one of Sonic's greatest enemies.. Perfect Chaos. Its watery tentacles were then raised even higher, causing it to block out the sunlight above and the shape changed again, but this time into a giant mace. Torrent smirked as she snapped, forcing the artificial monster to swing down onto Ashleigh. She screamed in horror, but was quickly swept up by Silver's arms and holding her bridal style. Silver finally set her down where she would be safe, looking back toward Torrent with a frown on his face, teeth grit.
"Damn... we're gonna need an extra hand.." He reached into the cloak pocket that was still on him, and pulled out a golden and sparkling ring, tossing it upward and opening a portal. What flew in from the ring was nothing Ashleigh would've expected in this time of need, but remembered his power after seeing his outlook.
This anthropomorphic creature was a monkey. His brown hair was hanging over his two blue eyes and being held up by a golden ring around his forehead. With his trusty cloud to ride around on and his long red cape flowing in the wind, Ashleigh knew exactly who it was.
"Monkey Kahn!" Her smile went wide. Glad to see someone from her favorite comics during her past times was indeed an honor other than Silver.
Kahn had looked back to her, blinking to see an anthropomorphic creature like him, but looked again to see Silver the Hedgehog, the Time Traveler, and Torrent, ready to strike again. Kahn smirked, knowing where he stood in this battle, and spoke,
"I'm normally far too chivalrous to hit a girl, but I'm not quite sure you count." Monkey Kahn's held up his staff, both ends with a diamond shaped object on the ends, and conjured up loads of electricity that he got from electric signs around the town and held it toward Torrent with confidence. Torrent wasn't pleased, with another swing of the mace, she had barely missed Kahn as he dove down at the barrier, having supercharged his staff to its fullest.
"What? No... NO NO NO! AAAAAGH!" The shock was even greater than what Silver had tried, leaving Torrent hitting the ground, powerless and paralyzed. Monkey Kahn landed on his two feet and slammed his staff beside him, smirking from a job well done. Torrent grunted, attempting to move her head up to Kahn,
"Y-Y-You... you'll... p-pay... for this... all of you will... and that girl.. will belong to Master Mephiles... F-FOREVER!" She smirked again, dissipating into water drops on the ground, them soon drying up after.
At first they were worried, but Ashleigh stood to her feet, after letting the gash heal a bit, and smirked.
"If she thinks that there's gonna be trouble with Lauren... she has another thing comin'." Ashleigh looked to Silver and Monkey Kahn and her smirk turned into a smile. "So.. thank you guys for helping me out."
"It was my pleasure, m'lady." Said Kahn with a bow, being polite as a king would be. Silver nodded and put a hand on her shoulder,
"Yeah.. if we're to be prepared for this last battle with Mephiles, we should just be prepared for the worst. I don't think that will be a problem, though. With each of us at Lauren's side, we'll defeat him no problem." Silver replied.
"Just fill me in on who that is and what's been going on before I was so interrupted in fighting the Iron Dominion." Kahn's eyebrow raised on one side and Silver chuckled nervously, placing a hand behind his head.
The explanation went on to help Monkey Kahn catch up with all the problems at hand. But what was to come with the other team members? What will they have to face against to get closer to getting to me and Mephiles? Only time would tell...