Sarah woke up four hours later than normal; the alarm clock had been shut off long ago. Oddly, she didn't even remember turning it off. She sat up groggily, trying to remember when she fell asleep, but, once the covers fell off her, revealing her bare breasts, she was instantly reminded of the previous night.
She grabbed the covers and covered herself quickly, blushing wildly.
"D-did that happen?" Sarah remembered the feelings all too well and shivered pleasantly.
She looked around for Stephen, only to find a clean, empty room. She found it a little odd that Stephen wasn't there, and that the room, which had been completely trashed in their all night escapade, looked brand new. Thinking it over, she decided that Stephen had things that needed to be done for the people, and that before she woke up, he had the room cleaned and repaired.
Sorely, she got out of bed, and immediately fell to the ground. She had no control over her legs whatsoever.
With no other way to move, she crawled to her dresser, and pulled out a single, long dress, a little out of style for her, but it was easy, and might be able to hide her wobbly legs.
Sliding on a pair of panties and hooking up a bra, she was ready to face the day's challenges. Using the dresser as a ladder, she climbed up to a standing position, and tried to walk towards the bed.
With two steps, she fell forwards, and landed on her back on the bed, grinning wickedly.
"I had sex with Stephen!" She cheered; a life goal had been completed that night.
"I am a woman now! Yippee!" She rolled off the bed and attempted to run around the room, only stumbling in joy, and landing on the floor.
Hopping back onto her feet, debatably the happiest she'd been in her whole life, she tried to walk through the door. She made it, but, in order to walk, she needed the aid of a wall.
Being in public was awkward for her. She could not help the most bizarre feeling that there was some giant, protruding message from her lower abdomen, screaming to everyone what she had done. She felt partially guilty, but of what crime? She finished her thoughts gleefully.
"Hey, do you know where Stephen is?" She asked a passerby in hopes of proclaiming her love to Stephen in a sober state of mind.
"He's in the workshop, he is making some new stuff I've been told…" The young cat girl spoke quietly.
"Thank you so much!" Sarah began hobbling her way over to the workshop with the widest grin on her face.
Brian was in the lab, working furiously. Testing his own DNA was important to him. He figured that, being a plant, some of the chemical properties in the flowers over his body may be able to be extracted in order to lighten the curse of AIDS and Luna. So far, he'd had no luck.
Luna had little to no immune system at this point. For 7 years, the virus had consumed her bodies T-cells, and ruined her ability to fight disease and stay healthy. With Stephen's technology, and the efforts of common medical technology, Luna could live, but she'd have to spend her life literally in a bubble, devoid from hand to hand contact with anyone, or the ability to hug or kiss Brian himself ever again.
Damit… I should've let her sleep with me that night… then none of this may never have happened… she would've stayed in the sleeping bag, and not gotten bitten… Though he realized that something, eventually, would've gotten her sick, he still wished that someone was to blame.
It made things easier to be upset about.
Though, in all of his testing, something befuddled him. He had attempted to infect his isolated cells for a long while, but nothing ever really worked. It was as if something was preventing the virus from latching.
"That is so messed up…" He sighed, throwing his work on the table. "The virus won't even latch to me!" Then it hit him, the virus wasn't latching. Why isn't it working on me?
For awhile, he pondered this, starting up many more tests.
Stephen was tampering with a new project, a sleek, silver extreme gear that looked almost liquid it was so smooth. The holes on the bottom were only barely visible, and the back end contained two large nozzles, reading to burst into speed.
"Stephen!!!" A voice called from the hallway. A few of the workers in the workshop looked up as Stephen pulled up his facemask.
"Sarah, you should be asleep for another hour… I was going to wake you... but-"
"Shut up you fool!" She sung melodically, and staggered over to him, latching on the way only a Rose knew how. "I love you…"
"Why the suddenly peppy mood?"
"My dad is gone…" she looked down sadly with hurtful memory, "but there is nothing that anyone can do to change that. Last night was a glimpse into the future… I can be happy the rest of my life, knowing that that kind of pleasure is possible…" She kissed him passionately. "I love you with every ounce of my body… I only wish I could show you…"
Stephen's face turned beat red, originally, he wanted to keep this event relatively under the weather, but the guys and girls in the workshop looked at the couple partially snickering, Sarah had other plans with their escapade.
"Never let me go honey… I love you…" Sarah snuck her way into his chest and began squeezing the life out of him.
"Ok, Sarah… I love you, I really do, but we have a job to do around here!" He said in mock excitement. "Listen, now that you're up, I've got a special mission for you, ok? Can you go talk to your mother, and have her help you gather people for another meeting… the intercom is being shut down…"
"Anything for you, my lovely, sexy Stephen…" She cooed before leaving.
"That girl is something else." Stephen chuckled, working on his board again. "And, assuming that none of you have the audacity to ask about details, please get back to work on these tasks I've assigned you, we must get done soon… this ship isn't going to build itself you know…"
"Actually, I've got the audacity." A male leopard asked him.
"Ok, then I'll answer your question with one of my own; I can stretch every aspect of my anatomy, and make limbs up at will, can you see why she limps, and why she's so tired?" Stephen laughed wildly, and the others looked at each other in awe, jealousy, and envy.
Where I am? Luna groaned, struggling to open her eyes.
About her head, a bright light, with many masked figures all hovering over her head, alien at first glance.
"… Tragic… hope gone… future…"
"Isolation… disease…"
"Any contagiousness… worry…"
She only heard fragments, but she began to worry horribly.
"Unggh…" She moaned, trying to speak through the anesthesia.
"She's coming about…"
"Everyone, watch your masks, we don't want germs to spread."
"Wha…?"
"Luna… you must remain here, ok? You're in peril of death."
"What? What… happened?"
Luna struggled to keep her eyes open as the doctors and nurses began to exit the room.
"The more you breathe, the more likely the germs can be spread… we've got to get out of here…"
And they left her. Luna opened her eyes fully, and sat up.
"What the hell? Am I… infected with something? I remember… passing out… the bug bites? Did I get something from them?"
Luna sat on her bed holding her head, panicking as she looked over her body for any abnormalities.
"Your miserable machine! You killed Damian! Explain yourself at once!" Omen growled as their pet robot proudly strode into the command center after entering the hole in the bottom.
The robot blinked, possibly confused. "Mission was to destroy Sonic. Sonic was already destroyed. By means of a rank system, I deduced that the new target was the object known as Fat Man, the one responsible for Sonic's death. He bested Sonic, and therefore, assumed the title of Sonic. By killing Fat Man, I killed Sonic, just as the General had asked."
Omen paused for a moment.
This is actually very nice… Damian was always a pain in my ass anyways, making radical new machines and always obsessed with killing Sonic, always losing the main goal in this war, to get rid of these horrible creatures… This robot shouldn't be punished, it should be congratulated…
Slowly, Omen began to clap. "Very good. You have completed your mission. Now, your new mission is to wait here. The rebels have a dangerous weapon, one that I fear we cannot defeat. Stay here for your protection and wait."
"Affirmative." It responded, and then it stopped all physical actions as its eyes dimmed to a powered down mode, storing energy.
"Now, my dearest and most loyal group. The moment we get back at base, we must build something important. One of those blasted hedgehogs, Sarah, I think her name is, has the ability to have a super form, just like her father Sonic. That creature will be the end of us, unless we can find a way to beat it. If memory serves, Damian's creator Dr. Ivo Robotnik invented a machine that, at one point, pulled Sonic out of his super form, and into a normal state."
"Sir, I do remember this… you speak of the ray that split the world into pieces so long ago… the one that Dark Gaia was summoned with…"
"Yes, we must replicate the technology that removed the Chaos Emeralds from Sonic's body… it should work the same on Sarah, and until it is built, we cannot make a frontal assault… she can rip through our ships like tin foil… we must lure her to us…"
The men and women around the station looked cautiously at Omen as they shifted in their seats.
"What, cowards? Are we going to let the LAST of these animals get the better of us? I think not! Let us strive for this goal and show them how the Human Race is supreme!"
Omen cackled as the ship's crew roared with him, the brightest minds hacking into the old files in Damian's computer, attempting to plan out the Chaos Extraction machine.
Sarah stood in a crowd of people in the remains of the main lobby, watching the middle podium for a sign of Stephen. Obediently, she fulfilled her lover's wishes, and now wished to know what was going on.
"Ok, everyone, everyone, calm down…" Stephen begged as he swooped in from above on his wings.
Stephen stood on the stage and looked down at the people he had so long protected. Individually, he locked eyes with each one, silencing them in an aura of awe, fear, and gravity.
"Now… last night… some things happened to me… I… I came up with a way to stop GUN." Stephen's face pulled forwards at a simultaneous intake of air, "We are few now… and we are tired. We've lost good men and women… and we've lost ones dear to our hearts. Why should we have to do this? Suffer… like… mindless creatures? Did we ever once think to talk this over?"
"They would never listen!" One cried out.
"Aye Stephen, we have tried, and they always ignored us, shot at us instead!" Another agreed.
"Now, now… what if we spoke with big words… with some backup? I mean… think about it… we are tired of fighting… and of losing lives. We're done running… at least, I am. I don't know about all of you, but I'm sick and tired of these forsaken humans hunting us down and cornering us into the pits of extinction!" Stephen grit his teeth, "But we cannot fight them… we cannot stoop to their level…"
"So what, are we to just march in and beg for peace?"
"Exactly." Stephen exclaimed, enlightened at their realization. "We're done with fighting, it gets us nothing but pain and loss… I say, we march right up to Omen's base, and declare a moment of truce. If they choose to ignore us, and shoot at us, we will fight like the feral creatures they think us to be. But if they wish to talk, perhaps in fear of us, or maybe, out of what little passion they may hold in their hearts… then maybe… just maybe… we have a shot at peace. I mean, what have we got to lose?"
"OUR LIVES!" An old male shouted.
"Look at yourself, sir! Are you living? Is this life of secrecy and espionage a life worth living? Pull yourself together! We're already as good as dead, I cannot protect you as long as XT is alive… if GUN agrees with us… we can live again… and slowly, but definitely over time… regain the rights that were taken from us. Who is with me on this?"
Hesitance followed.
"Do we have a choice?" One woman asked at last.
"You do." Stephen answered, "You can follow me into the fire, in any vain hope of smothering it, or you can remain in the frying pan, at the mercy of the fire." Stephen concluded. (A/N: Most epic quote I've ever come up with, I think...)
That did it for the most of them.
"Ok. Let's do this. This is the final straw. Either they'll accept our demands for freedom, or we're going to die fighting for them. LET'S DO THIS!" Another figure shouted out.
"AYE!" THe rest of the group shouted in adrenaline-spiked vigor.
"Very good." Stephen smiled victoriously, "Now, let's get down to business…"
The clamor began to die down as Stephen held his arms in the air, begging for a lower decibel level.
"So, now we've got a decent amount of people that want to follow me into GUN's headquarters, but now the question is, how do we get there?" Stephen looked around for attention of his crowd, "Well, look around you. We have everything we need to survive a few more weeks, and enough building materials to comfortably build a new ship. Albeit, it won't be able to fly, only the Master Emerald's unique set up in addition to the gravity wells beneath Laputa could've done that, both are damaged and unsalvageable, as far as I know. So, the idea is that we are to build a massive ship on land, like a train, and that will take us straight to GUN.
"There is one catch, however… I cannot do this alone. To build a ship to house 300 and maybe more would take weeks by myself… we don't have weeks. We have days. I know how to build this train, but I need your help. Does everyone here agree to making a ship capable of moving us, and providing shelter once we get there, to GUN?"
"What would you have us do?" The woman asking for the choice now asked.
"It is very simple… really…" Stephen smiled once more as he uttered to the people. "Follow me!"
The crowd gasped as they entered the cavity in the ship. Its spacious halls brought in light from above through holes in the roof, and lightened the smoky air with fresh, natural, authentic air.
"Amazing what can happen in a crash, right? This hall was created from the fall. It used to be between the medical and industrial halls... Now, it is neighboring the workshop, and is ready to produce some big things for us. We are going to take apart Laputa, and remodel it into a mobile, land base in the shape of a long train, or a series of cabs that will be linked together somehow. This is easy to mass produce, and will allow us to work on similar projects for awhile. We don't have much time… so we must work fast." Stephen began slowly.
"So, we're working fast, but on what?"
"Simple. I need a group of people, big strong ones, to cut sections of Laputa up, and send them to another group of extremely intuitive ones who will separate them into metal types. From there, I need some of our brighter minds to come together to start working on how each metal can be applied to the cab design, meaning improvisation, because I know we do not have the same metals I want for this train… Then, I need everyone else, preferably skilled with their hands, to fuse together the pieces of each cab together. Ladies who want to help with this, this is probably something that you will find extraordinarily easy to accomplish, as you are keen with your eyes and hands. Now people, do what you think you can; here are the plans, I've two copies, one for you and one for me. I'll copy these and send them out to each station for manufacturing. Let's get started right away, ok?"
"What about food? Who will help us with that?"
"I don't want anyone breaking if they can help it. If you think you're not fit for any other job, please, cater food and drinks to anyone who requires it. Our resources are beginning to dwindle though, remember that…" With that, Stephen walked away into the lab next door, fixating his mind on other projects of dire importance.
"Ok guys! Let's get chopping!" A group of men cheered as they ran to the weapons provided for them to start hacking down sections of the felled base.
Brian carried with him a single tray of food, packaged into a sterile compartment. As he approached Luna's room, he let the machines shower him down heavily, and got into a medical suit, not wanting to infect Luna with anything.
The moment the door opened, Luna looked up. Her eyes were stained red with tears and her body looked impossibly frailer than normal.
"Stay away from me! I'm going to die…" She whimpered at the uniform making its way to her with food.
"No honey… you're not going to die," said a familiar voice.
"Br-Brian?" She trembled.
"Hello Luna." He answered her call calmly.
"Brian what is wrong with me? Everyone is worried about getting some virus from me! I'm so scared… I don't want you to get it either…"
"Oh Luna… AIDS can't be spread to other people! It only allows things to be spread to you so easily, that's why those bug bites hurt you so much… you had no-"
"AIDS? I have… AIDS?"
"Yes you do, you must've gotten it-"
"What is that? It sounds so familiar…"
"Luna, long ago, Mobians and Humans alike were highly prone to get the AIDS virus, but after a long period of losing proper hosts for it, the virus died out, as we began to grow immunities. The AIDS virus slowly eats away at your immune system, blocking your body's ability to stop other viruses and bacterial infections. Unfortunately, the virus really only died down, the immunities we obtained prevented us from the more general forms of getting it. We know it can still easily be passed on once obtained though… the problem is finding someone who has it anymore."
"So… how do I pass it to you?" Luna asked faintly.
"Sharing bodily fluids."
"So… like kissing?"
"Nah, that's fine. But sex ought to be out of the question. Anyone who sleeps with you risks getting that infection from you."
"No… that is… so unfair!" Luna threw her head down and groaned as she wrapped it around her face.
Brian sat down on the bed.
"You still want to have sex with me?" Brian asked, looking at her as he grabbed her hand.
"Or at least someone! But… ugh!" She groaned yet again.
"Well I've got some good news… kind of…" Brian spoke through the mask.
"What?" Luna perked up.
"I can't get AIDS. Neither can Cosmo. Seedrian Blood is incompatible with the virus. And I have it in my veins."
"So… I can have sex with you?"
"No. I can have sex with you though." Brian smiled through his mask as he held her hand.
"Take that damn thing off then and take me! Please!" She demanded.
"No. Not yet… there is still a problem with it… I don't know how your body would react to my semen in you, or my saliva in your mouth… I just don't know… I'm… working on a cure… maybe my blood can grant you some temporary immunity, I don't know. But know that there is a chance that we can have sex sometime…"
"Hug me please? I don't give a damn about the food." Luna outstretched her arms to Brian. The brainy plant-fox took the diminutive wolf in his arms and lifted his mask, giving her a kiss on the forehead, chaste and terse, but with as much emotion as he could pour in.
"Now, I've got to go, ok? Stephen is bringing us all into the GUN base to demand our freedom, and we're building a giant train like vehicle to get us all there. I think he's taking the sick too." Brian smiled at her.
"Before… before that night then… can we do that? I mean, if we're going to die, I'd rather die with a grin on my face than regret."
"We'll see. I'd personally rather die an unmarried virgin, but we'll see… You're so cute you may just be worth it." He smiled as he closed his mask and exited the room while waving goodbye.
Luna pulled the covers close to her heart. Suddenly, her future became a hell of a lot brighter.
Over the course of the next few days, little happened. Each day, the group was capable of dishing out three cabs, each being one story high, 30 feet by 60 feet. Each was supposed to be a small house, with one room for quite a few people, minimal storage for anything they'd like to take with them to the other world. The other world, to them at least, was either a world without GUN, or a world where the living were not present, in each they'd find solace, that soothed many. Also in each cabin, windows to view outside, small shields, and even some of the pen lasers that Stephen had a secret cache of. With each one able to fire ten shots, they had a small chance to survive.
Lucien, Sylvia, and Stephen oversaw each cab as they were produced. Stephen, in his spare time, would sneak over to the lab next door and keep working on his private projects, the likes of which had not yet been revealed. Everyone was so busy they hardly cared what he was doing in that room, so long as they finished their cabs.
As far as morale went, however, people were at some of the lowest yet. It was morbid work, building something that very likely could be your own tomb. Stephen knew this, but spurred them on with insightful messages, promises of a better life, and of peace, prosperity, but no one ever seemed to believe him. Either way, productivity stayed up, so Stephen was still happy with that.
But, for the grey experiment, a new mission he had on his mind.
Of all of the people in the base, a single one contributed no support nor provide help to the goal; Knuckles the Echidna. Stephen wanted to change that.
"Hey Knuckles! Everyone else need as much help as they can get, surely you can put your old strong muscles to good use and help us!"
"No. They'll all die eventually. Why would I bother helping the inevitable? Besides, I have to protect the Master Emerald. No matter how few anthropomorphic creatures died or live, this Jewel will need a guardian, and I am the last fit enough to do so. I cannot leave its side in fear of being stolen, broken, or damaged."
"I see… well, I'll be back if you change your mind." Stephen replied cheerfully, turning about and exiting the chamber to the workplace.
The moment the door shut, Knuckles sighed. No one is to be trusted around the Emerald. It MUST be protected.
Then, seemingly out of nowhere, Knuckles felt a phenomenal pain in the left side of his head, and his vision began to blur. As he fell to the ground, he caught a glimpse of a shadowy figure slinking to the base of the Master Emerald. That was the last thing he saw that day.
A few minutes later, Stephen speedily checked off everyone daily progress, and locked himself into his lab once more. Sheepishly feeling the shrunken jewel in a pocket in his body, he armed himself into his latest invention, a small rocket.
The moment he was inside this puny, hardly one man creation, he began typing away at a small robot's computer brain. As he tapped a final button, a slot opened on the back of its neck, and he slid a sample of Knuckles DNA onto it.
"I'm so sorry Knuckles… you have the rest of your life to be angry at me…" Stephen apologized as the rocket launched him up into space rapidly to complete his secret business.
"Hey Sylvia, where is Stephen?" Sarah asked cutely.
"Away on a quick errand, that's what he told me at least." Sylvia's tone was a bit abnormal, not as peppy.
"Oh… do you know when he'll be back? I want to snuggle with him!" She giggled.
"Not really Sarah, he does whatever it is he has to do, I think he's trying to keep me out of the loop…" Sylvia's avatar's eyes squinted as if to be scrupulous.
Sarah dejectedly walked away, but a smile remained on her face, however faint. As she worked at piecing together the metals and gizmos that she was instructed to combine, her mother came over carrying form food for lunch.
"You know, I've only just realized it, but you've been happy recently." Amy remarked.
Sarah blushed wildly. "Yeah, I have…"
"So, why is this?"
"Please don't get mad at me mom… Stephen and I… we made love, ok? I don't know, a few days ago, he just burst into my room crying, it must have been an emotional breakthrough on his part. Well, from there, he kissed me, I kissed back, and he started kissing my neck, and then… you draw it out from there… I always wanted to, so, I'm very happy about it. I don't care if I'm not married to him…"
"He's such a good kid… I mean, if it were anyone else, it would almost seem like rape. I mean, he comes into your room, unclothes you, and then basically demands it from you… but, we know the scenario a bit better… my bet is that he wanted to make you happy again, so he did the one thing he hadn't done yet."
"I love him so much, mom…" Sarah sighed dreamily.
"And he loves you, probably more than you realize. That's why I'm so confident in his leadership. He'll do anything to keep you alive and safe, and to give you a future you deserve."
Sarah blushed as warm feelings entered her heart, her emotions bubbling to the brim. "I'm just so glad that I get to spend the rest of my life with… that."
"It is always so magical the first time." Amy chuckled in amusement.
"No mom, you don't understand… it was something else…" Sarah gawked with her eyes agape.
"I think this is going to get a little awkward…" Amy noted, and left Sarah with her food.
"LISTEN UP YOU MORONS!" Omen shouted through a megaphone, "IF THAT THING ISN'T COMPLETE SOON, THEY WILL COME IN WITH SARAH AND OBLITERATE US! WORK FASTER!"
Omen had been screaming at them for days. Night and day, they worked nonstop trying to build the machine they had stolen from Damian's secret files. If it worked, it would take the power of the Chaos Emeralds forcibly from a Super and remove their powers. The only real problem is that they had no outlet for energy. In the original design, a massive gun unleashed the near infinite powers used in extracting the Chaos Emeralds and their extraordinary radiation towards the planet, splitting it into various floating segments.
The researchers weren't sure what kind of an outlet they should use, but they knew it was best to have one, even if it were some form of a capacitor.
The machine, at the rate it was being built, ought to be done in ten day's time.
"Hey Sarah?" Stephen asked cautiously as he entered her room as the clock struck a minute past 22:14.
"Hey sweetie!" Her head tilted slightly in awe of every aspect of him. It was like falling in love all over again.
"I just wanted to let you know something… ok? I don't want you to worry, or panic when you can't find me, but, I'm not going to be here for much of the night… I have to talk to an important person outside our base…"
"Who is our ally outside of here?"
"We don't have any, as far as we know. I was trying to keep that from you…" Stephen sighed, feeling the growing worry in Sarah's face.
"No. Please, I need you alive and well, don't go where you're not wanted… please…" Sarah began to tremble as tears formed in her eyes.
"Sarah… for starters, as far as we know, I can't die. Secondly, I'm a master of disguise, and can sneak in anywhere as anyone. Another thing is that no matter what happens to me, even if I do get killed, even if all this stuff you've told me about heaven is a great big lie, I'll always love you, remember that. Ok? I'll be back before… before your desire to have me like you did the other day diminishes." He smirked evilly.
Suddenly, a grin appeared on her face, "you mean that, don't you?"
"Anything for my beloved. I'll be back, I promise." Stephen pulled her close and let his tongue completely envelope her own.
A moan later, Stephen let her go, and dashed off through the halls.
"Be careful…" the light blue hedgehog whispered.
In the lab, about a minute later, Stephen began typing on the computer in the lab few frequently entered. He had claimed dominion upon this lab, and already it contained a vast amount of secrets, the first of which revealed itself upon the final tapping of the keyboard.
Behind Stephen, a large table elevated itself a foot or so, and then began to tilt, as if opening a large box. Encased within this box, seven bright jewels were encased within dark blocks on anti-radiation material, stopping any signal between the Emeralds. The queer thing about it was that beyond these seven, many dimmer lights flickered within similar cases. Stephen's face was illuminated by the combined sparkle as he lifted a dim, clear crystal from a block, making sure to shut the giant stash carefully as it left that section of the lab.
Silently, he stiffly strode towards another side of the room. Once he got towards the wall on the far side, vast and bare to the naked eye, he waved the jewel over the expanse, and things began to change.
From the wall, a single panel fell, falling off of the wall and onto the floor smoothly. Embedded in the wall, a strange device was located. With a single hand, Stephen pulled the long, two wheeled device from the wall, and rested it on the ground besides him, standing it upright.
"My precious little bike… we've got one more errand to run…" Before, it ran on artificial Chaos Drives. Now, Stephen had a little more juice to place into it.
Upon inserting the False Emerald into the engine, the machine purred loudly, more than it ever had. Stephen mounted the sides, shrinking to his natural, child-like body, and gave the handlebar a squeeze.
The machine jerked forwards, trigger-happy. Stephen smiled as he used his legs to waddle the device to an exit of the base, not too far out of the lab.
The moment the motorcycle touched the ground, Stephen sighed. He used to joyride his invention all of the time before the war. Secretly, he kept it, waiting to race Sarah again. The bike had the capability of moving about as fast as Sonic could, on land, but once Stephen hit the air, which was unavoidable, as the drag from the speed often triggered his wings to bulge out, the bike's speed dropped.
Stephen built it with the design flaw in mind, and made it fairly light, so it was easy and limber in the air. Tapping his wrist and holding it to his face, he left only a single message.
"Sylvia, Lucien, take care of the base. I'll be back in no time." Stephen strapped on the backpack he'd been carrying, thick and heavy containing a case of some strange device.
Ready to roll, he sped off at the speed of sound, whirring across the plains straight to a single, faraway town; Station Square. The moment he reached mach 2, his wings spread and the bike gracefully soared into the night above, vanishing without a trace.
Once a metropolis of peace and prosperity between humans and animals, Station square had become a thriving human utopia, complete with the same problems that riddled it before, all of which, were blamed on nonexistent animals who couldn't get into the city gates.
It was Stephen's sole job at the moment to rig up the city to his needs.
The moment the lights of the city could be seen in the nightscape above, Stephen made a sharp nosedive from the sky and folded his wings. Cruising at a brisk speed, he loosened his backpack, and opened the case within. Small, long rods with faint glowing embers within them were pulled out, and one by one, as Stephen curved around the outskirts of the city, he buried them into the ground at an acute angle.
The moment the task was done, he hid the sack in a compartment in his bike, and zoomed into the city, taking the guise of a helmet wearing human.
Streets blurred by as Stephen roared into town. He only made a single, brief stop, and once there, he dismounted, and locked his bike up nice and tight near the stairwell of the city's main hall.
A town meeting was in session, he knew this from an intercepted email chain that he'd been watching for the past few days. He had one mission, and that was to intrude.
"Uh, sir, there is a meeting in session, you can't go through there." The petite secretary alerted him.
"Ma'am… I've traveled far, and gone through hell, this is one of my last stops before the climax, and I'm not going to be stopped by your laws. Besides," Stephen reverted back into his childish form for a moment, "I don't apply to them."
Assuming the form of a human biker, he left the secretary agape as he marched through the doors, and into the small meeting.
"These halls are off limits. A meeting is in session, please leave."
"I've not come this far to turn back now." Stephen exclaimed, stepping into the light in front of the Mayor and resuming his true form. A gasp overcame the whole group of people, and the Mayor himself gripped the podium in pure terror.
"Guards!" The Mayor shouted.
"Now, now, I mean you no harm at all. Lower your weapons, and please, let me speak. When I am done, you may do with me as you wish. Deal?" Stephen offered.
A few moments of silence, and the Mayor nodded, "Ok, speak, creature."
"I love it how you treat something you don't even know…" Stephen sighed, "Sir, I'm just going to tell you how it is, and I make no threat to you or your people. GUN has hunted a pocket of animals under my careful guidance, all of which have survived in Tails workshop for the past four years, back down to the ground, and is probably preparing a strike force to kill us all in the upcoming week. Now I don't mean to be rude, but in a week's time, things are going to change around Station Square… I promise you, when the time comes, you'll understand. I just want to make sure that… when that situation comes around… that you will make the right decision and spare life where you can…"
"What do you mean? Who are you?"
"I am Stephen, Stephen the Deviant. I am a genetic experiment designed to be the world's second Ultimate Lifeform. My powers have proven a match for the Great Shadow since infancy, and have only been honed since. GUN is threatening my girlfriend, and other's very close to me… because of this constant threat, I'm going remove them from the picture, get rid of the combatant all together. I only ask that you don't panic when this happens, and realize that the only person who is left with energy to fight, amidst that entire group of 300 plus animals, is me. Please, don't be to the rest of them… I'm the only one with a will to fight anymore… I've spurred them forwards on the basis of survival and hope… for too long… for little longer will they follow me, and I know it is too much to ask of them anyways. Please sir, it is all I ask… when the time comes… make the right decision… just think what you would do in my situation, as a person, not an animal."
The Mayor stood there, taking it all in for the longest time, and then let loose a long, drawn out breath.
"I'll make you a deal, only because I'm feeling a bit sympathetic for you. I would have my agents kill you and take you in, but I'm going to let you go, or at least, give you a minute head start before I let them loose."
"Sir, I couldn't agree more. And believe it or not, I'm glad. This is progress to the goal. Adieu." With a bow, Stephen walked out of the hall, and back towards his bike outside.
The moment the door shut, he heard the clanking of feet, a bit slower than a run, chasing after him. By the time he was on the bike, the men had come outside the door, looking at him suspiciously as he waved farewell from his bike. The next moment, he was gone in a burst of wind.
Ok... I'm not so sure this one was rushed as I am pretty sure that it was choppy... a LOT was going on at different times, and I'm not all too sure I like that... please, bear with me, I'm trying to get this done soon, but I can't make any promises. My exgirlfriend is wreaking havoc on my state of mind by going out with another Junior in HER area... I'm starting to loath love like a heartstruck teenager, oop! I am one...
More coming soon...