Chapter 26: Back on a Mad Track

Thanks for all the people that has been reading this story. And since it is 1 year old, why not update already? I owe you guys, and sorry for the incredibly long wait.

/-/-/

"Ok, explain slowly and concisely, what the heck happened?" Sonic asked Fioso.

Sonic was in the shopping mall with his sister, Sonia, and his female counterpart which was made by a machine of Tails, Sarah, which also happened to have most of Sonic's memories when he was Sarah, although she didn't seem to know, nor care about, who she really was. After enjoying a little moment for themselves, Fioso the wolf, Syra's italian friend, had collapsed to the floor while trying to catch up with Syra, which seemed to be a little off considering she was happily running around wearing a long skirt and a blouse, both pink, a color that she hated with all her heart and soul because she considered it too "girly" for the likes of her.

"I really don't know, man, Rae told me that she bought those clothes for HER in the store, and when I went to ask her about it, she was arguing with that woman who looked really hot, and she bet her dojo that she would win a beauty contest against her. It is hard for me to comprehend or even process this..." He explained.

"Tell me about it, I was just minding my business 10 seconds ago. And now you come here to tell me that the psycho lynx that practices martial arts and also tried to kill me at one point, its now trying to win a beauty contest, betting her dojo for it. What is wrong with her...?" Sonic said.

"Maybe we should chase her and ask her for an explanation?" Sonia asked.

"We have to be fast then, she might be really far away now, I'll not let her escape!" Sarah said before speeding away.

"Sonic, how the hell did your curse took a body for itself?" Fioso asked.

"What are you talking about?" Sonia asked.

But before anyone could say anything else, Sonic interrupted them. "Less talk, more chase. Sarah is going to leave us behind!" He grabbed Fioso by the arm and sped away.

"Hey! Don't leave me hanging!" Sonia sped up behind them.

Syra had ran out of the mall, happily giggling, for reasons that were only known to her, and other person which was hiding from her just right now.

As Sarah also exited the mall, she didn't managed to see where Syra was headed, much to her dismay.

"Where did she..." Sarah's thoughts got interrupted as Sonic, Fioso and Sonia crashed with her, falling to the floor. And Sarah got the most punishment as both her face and chest went straight into the floor, while the others ended up falling on top of her.

The others quickly realized and tried to stand up as fast as they could. But poor Sarah had gotten rammed to heavily into the floor that she wasn't able to stand up, or at least not by herself.

"Sarah! Are you okay?" Sonic asked her, helping her to stand up.

"Barely alive..." She said groaning as Sonic pulled her by the hand, allowing her to stand up.

"Where did Syra went?" Fioso asked while removing the dust from his clothes.

"I have no idea, I wasn't even able to take a glimpse of her." Sarah answered.

"I don't think searching for her in the city might be a good idea, after all, the city is pretty big. And finding her is not going to be a piece of cake." Sonic complained.

"C'mon, we are talking about a martial artist lynx in a pink attire with a seemingly mental disorder, how hard could it be?" Fioso reassured him.

"He is right, it may be pretty easy, and afterwards we can discover why is she doing all of this" Sonia said.

Everybody nodded and went to a different part of the city, but what they didn't noticed was that Syra was hiding in a nearby bush all of this time! Quite clever.

"Phew, almost got me!" She said "But they ain't going to get me, no sir! I should find Cross, yes! He will help me, and I know where to find him..." And she strolled away.

(-/-) You guys are pretty confused, aren't you?

"What a day..." Ralik sighed. He was staring at the ceiling while laying on his sofa. "First time I try to spend time with someone in the story maker and look what happened, and it was going so well before that..."

(-/-) *Earlier that day*

"Hey Ralik! Nice to see you."

"Sean! What's up man?"

Ralik decided to pay a visit to one of his friends from the school he attended, Sean, a yellow mobian dog with a slim body and green eyes. He was also incredibly smart, very open minded and creative, and that led to him being friends with almost anybody he met. He also had a very curious nature, which led him to ask a lot of questions about almost anything, and although that sometimes ended up being annoying, it sometimes helped people wonder about their habits.

As of right now they were in his waiting room, which was just after the entrance. There where some black comfortable sofas where they where sitted in. There was a clock on the wall and in front of the entrance was another door.

"Nothing new really, I barely have any new clients aside from some of the guys back at school, and you of course, by the way, may I know who is the lady besides you?"

He was talking about Syra, who came along with Ralik because he wanted to show her one of Sean's greatest inventions, the Story Maker, which was basically a machine that would link to various people's heads and make them literally live a story, it was a little complicated for him to explain so he told her that Sean would explain her, and that thing abour living a story was interesting and she wanted to try it out.

"Syra, nice manners by the way." She said.

"Thanks, so you came here with her to show her the Story Maker, I pressume?"

"Yes, I wanted to drag my other friends here too, but I had no means of reaching them because they don't have cellphones, and some of them weren't even at home, so I only managed to bring her."

"Oh well, it doesn't matter. Come on" He walked into the door behind him, with Ralik and Syra behind.

The room they just entered was a white middle sized room with a strange machine in the center. The machine had lots of cables sticking out of holes from it and each cable led to a white helmet that looked very plain, there where also plastic chairs used to sit near the Story Maker and some cables in the floor that where connected from the machine to a nearby computer.

"Just grab a chair and a helmet, sit down, put it in your head, and you are ready to go!" Sean said

"Seems simple enough." Syra grabbed a plastic chair and put it facing the Story Maker, then she grabbed a helmet, put it onto her head and sat down. Ralik did the same.

"What kind of story you would like?" Sean asked.

"Something common, it is Syra's first time here so I don't want her to see something strange."

"Like what?" She said in a defiant tone.

"You don't want to know, girl, you really don't want to know..." He said while writting some commands into the computer. After a few seconds, the machine started whirring, giving the signal that it was on.

"Ok, a little tutorial for the newcomer here, the Story Maker will pick one of you as the "protagonist" of the story that it will create, and only the protagonist will know that he is actually in a story, the other ones' minds will be "reprogrammed" for them to act like the characters in the story until the story ends." He said. "And while you be able to feel pain, erosion, hunger and some other things that would actually affect yourself in the physical world, it actually only happens in the story and your body remains unscathed, so don't be afraid if you get your head blown off, get eaten by a shark, or if you accidentally from that hole that didn't seemed so deep."

"Wait, wha..." Before Syra could finish the sentence though, she felt a shock in her neck that rendered her unconscious.

(-/-)

Syra slowly woke up from her unconsciousness, regaining her vision and senses slowly.

"Ugh... What happenned? Wait, where am I?" She noticed that she wasn't in a closed white room anymore, but on an open field. The skies where grey and the terrain was not covered in grass, but in sand, and lots of corpses. Also, her attire was now some kind of grey combat armor that covered her almost entirely and which seemed to be sturdy enough to withstand a missile from a rocket launcher. There was also a helmet and a light automatic gun lying near her. She picked the helmet instinctively, putting it on, and left the gun in the ground. The helmet fitted on her head perfectly.

"Real fighters use the hands." She said "Although I wonder where is everybo..."

Before she could end that sentence, a hand emerged from the ground and grabbed her leg.

"What the f*ck!?" She pulled her leg in an attempt to free it from the thing, and it seemed that what was attached to the hand surfaced. It was a mobian zombie fox!

Syra punched the zombie in the face, making it release her leg. But other zombies, both mobians and humans, started emerging from the ground.

"Great story to start with! A zombie apocalypse, wait, if I know this is a story, that means..."

As if on cue, Syra heard gunshots coming from nearby. They were other people shooting at the zombies! Although they were wearing simple clothes like jeans, shirts, sneakers and shorts, unlike the armor Syra was wearing. They managed to drive back the zombies, although they kept popping out of the ground

"Hey, you!" One of the rebels stopped next to Syra, and he was very familiar indeed, it was Ralik! "You gonna stay there derping or you gonna kill the bastards who are trying to eat us?" Syra was surprised, this wasn't the way Ralik behaved. Most of the time HE was the one derping and making the lame puns, but now he seemed to be like your average survivor group leader who shoots monsters for a living and always has a serious attitude, although it didn't impede him from having humor.

"Sorry, I was just a little dazed. Let's kill them zombies!" Just as she clenched her fists, two saw-blades drew out of her hands. "Wohohoho, this is going to be lots of fun!" She grinned sadistically as she launched herself at the zombies, impaling, desecrating and splitting zombies in a half. The humans and mobians who were shooting just as of right now stopped as they didn't deemed it necesary since the lynx seemed to have everything under control.

One of them approached Ralik "Hey Adam, do you think she IS an elite soldier from the Red Army? Because she doesn't seem to be acting like one"

Ralik, whose name seemed to be Adam in the story, replied back "She might not behave like one, but she sure as hell kills like one!"

After ending with the last of the zombies with her laser saw-blades, Syra came back to Adam.

"That was fun, I'm really starting to like this story" She muttered.

"Good job there, name is Adam." He extended his hand to her.

Syra was going to ask about it, but then she remembered that this was a story, and thus it was normal that Ralik had his name changed to a name of a character from the story.

"Syra." She said grabbing his hand.

"Good, since you are here in the middle of this hell instead of being defending Frontier City I suppose you were left here to die, don't you?"

"I don't... quite remember what happened, or what was I doing before being stranded in here" She made up an excuse to make up for the lack of memories that she had never had before.

"Maybe you have amnesia. Whatever, if you were lying around here means that whoever sent left you here, wanted to leave you for dead. Guess it didn't worked out well." He said.

Syra wondered, how many things happened to her character for her to end up like this? She will have to keep playing along and see where the story takes her...

"Hello? Are you coming?" Adam shouted at her from very far away, snapping Syra from her thoughts.

"Yeah, I'm coming!" She shouted back "This guy doesn't likes to lose time, doesn't he?" She muttered to herself before going with Ra... ahem, Adam, to wherever the hell he was going.

(-/-) *One heck of an epic and long story later*

Syra had snapped back to reality with her eyes glowing of the excitement, and she was barely able to control the adrenaline that flowed through her body after ending with the life of a tyrant and saving lots of people from being left out of the only safe heaven in a world that succumbed to a zombie apocalypse, with the help of a group of rebels and other strange creatures. And though the odyssey went on for weeks, she had felt as it began only 10 minutes ago.

"That. Was. AMAZING!" She said "I have always dreamed about what would it be like to actually live a story instead of reading it, and boy, does it feel awesome!"

"Yeah, speak for yourself, I got killed near the end trying to save your butt, can't say I regret it since you gave that scumbag of a general one hell of a beatdown." Ralik said, although he was already standing, mainly because he got killed in the story before it ended, and so he recovered consciousness.

"I see you had a lot of fun, wanna try another one?" Sean asked.

"I don't know, how much time has passed since we got in the story?" Syra asked. After all, she had a dojo to look out for. Not mentioning she also had to take care of the evil spirits that once tried to take over her entire clan.

"Like, 10 minutes." Ralik said

"WHAT? But, but we took almost a month in there!"

"You just said it, "in there"" Sean started explaining. "While in the story, your body does almost no activity. Like being in a comatose state, only thing is that your brain operates at a much faster speed, which means the story time will progress much faster."

"And you did this machine yourself? I bet Tails would die to meet someone like you."

"Yeah, so, we do another one?" Ralik asked.

"Do you even have to ask? Of course!" She said putting the helmet back on. Ralik sat down on one of the chairs and did the same.

"This time add some randomness, I want to see where we land in." Syra said "I hope it has action, and a lot of fights."

Sean introduced the commands on the computer once again, adding numbers so there can be more possibilities in the stories. After a few seconds or so, both Syra and Ralik got a shock in the neck that knocked them out both.

"Hmm, I wonder what kind of story are they going to land on..." Before he could say anything else, though, all of the lights suddenly turned off, along with the machine and the computer. It was a blackout.

"Uh oh, another blackout..." As soon as everything lit up, both Ralik and Syra woke up.

"I can't believe we actually ended on a love novel!" Ralik said "Such a good luck I got to be the protagonist, that, and the story ended in a cliffhanger..."

"Ahem, it didn't ended in a cliffhanger, there was a blackout and..." Sean got interrupted, by Syra nonetheless.

"Oh Cross!" She pounced over Ralik and hugged him "Everything went black for a while, and I was scared, but at least I finally have you with me!"

"There she goes again..." Ralik sighed. He was kinda used to it since 3 days had passed in the story. "Sean, I need a solution, and I need it NOW!"

"Well, the mind reprogramming is temporary since she isn't in the story anymore, so her memories will start to come back little by little. She will start mixing the memories from the story with those from reality until she recovers her full memory and forgets about her character."

"And how much time will it take?" Ralik asked still lying on the floor with Syra on top of him.

"Enough for her to try and steal some kisses from you" He said chuckling.

"Not funny, the last time that happened I had to hold her with a leash to prevent her from physically and mentally abusing a kid."

"Don't worry, she will forget about every thing her character does, I bet you don't remember anything from Adam as of right now, do you?"

"Adam? What are you... Oh, right, Syra was the protagonist there." He didn't remembered anything about the story, but he DID remembered that he was on another story before the last one, which was probably much better. "Ok, that means that whatever she does at me while in character will not stay in her memories, right?"

"Even if she married to you and had a kid, she wouldn't be able to remember 1 thing."

"That's really reassuring, you know..."

Syra had seemed to have ignored everything they said altogether, it was a good thing though. She stood up after a few seconds, helping her "boyfriend" to stand up.

"I don't know how or who changes my clothes without me noticing..." Syra said looking at her clothes, as she was supposedly wearing a blue dress, cyan shoes and green headband. "...but whatever, Cross, can you come with me to the mall so I can get some clothes, please?"

"You know my answer to that, you always know my answer to that yet you always ask."

"Pwease!?" She made a puppy dog face, trying to convince him.

"Psst, Ralik" Sean signaled him to come closer "I think you should try and go with her..."

"What? No way! I wouldn't even do that for my sister, and he is really persistent... Elise, of course, not Lightess."

"Yet she managed to persuades you to be a judge for her annual beauty contest that she uses to promote her store."

"Ugh, don't even speak about it... It's today, and it's late in the night, and sadly I'm not racing either so I have no excuses. Anyway, I'm not going to help Syra with shopping, never."

"Well, I have to warn you. When the mind reprogramming is on effect, I put a little command in there in case someone wants to tamper with the stories, it's like an order that makes a character be in denial while they begin to question their existence."

"In English please?"

"The more you make her feel out of character, the more she will think that she IS that character, and thus making the memory restoring process to last much much longer, and if you get her out of character enough times, he might as well stay in denial forever, thus making her character the real 'her' " He finished.

"You are meaning to tell me that I must also act like my character so she can recover her memories?"

"Not exactly, you only have to make her feel comfortable, and as time passes by, you will notice she will start to regain memories and abilities unconsciously, until her mind returns to her original state, then she will go unconscious for a while, and then she will be herself."

Ralik stared yet again at Syra and her puppy dog face, letting out a sigh.

"Fine..."

"YAY! I knew you'll do it for your dear Laura!" She shouted excitedly while pulling him outside of the place.

"Oh my, that character seems to have a very energical personality, I hope Ralik will be okay after all of this..."

(-/-)

Syra, which character's name seemed to be Laura, was strolling happily around the mall looking for a clothing store with his "boyfriend" Cross, which was actually Ralik's character's name, and he would have to get used to it for a while. They stopped in-front of Rae's store, much to Ralik's dismay, as he didn"t wanted Syra to draw to much attention since, in her current state, it could ruin her image.

"Hey Sy-ahem, Laura! What about checking out some other store?"

"No, I like this one." She was going to enter but he pulled her back.

"There are better stores than this one..." He insisted.

"But I want to go to this one." She tried to walk in again, but Ralik pulled her back again. This ticked Laura a little bit off.

"Let me enter!" She round-house-kicked Ralik in the face, leaving him dazing for a few moments before falling to the floor. Laura shrieked and went to his aid.

"Oh Cross! Are you okay? I'm so, so, sorry! I didn't mean to do that to you it was just..."

"Don't... worry." He said rubbing his face "I shoulda have just let you go into the store." He stood up.

"Well, thank you." She said before entering the store with no problems.

"Seems that she at least is regaining her martial art skills... And damn, did that kick hurt!" He said rubbing his cheek a little more.

"My dear Ralik!" Someone shouted from not to far.

Ralik stayed cold "Oh my god, of all of the days that she can appear, why TODAY!?" He said before being pounces on by someone, someone who he knew very well.

It was a human girl with long blonde hair, blue eyes and white skin that appeared to be from eighteen to twenty one, she was wearing a red blouse and skinny jeans, and boy, was she beautiful.

"I knew that I would find you once again!" She said while on top of him hugging his neck.

"Amanda... not... now..." he said gasping for air. Amanda shortly released him and stood up.

"What are you doing here anyway?" He asked her "Elise's beauty contest is in about 6 hours."

"I have to prepare myself, I can't walk on stage wearing anything if I want to win, you know?"

Amanda was a regular participant of Elise's annual beauty contest. She managed to win some, although some others were snatched from her by other women. She had been kind-of attracted to Ralik since, aside from being one of the judges, he was handsome, and also managed to make her laugh sometimes. She had managed to be friends with Ralik, as he enjoyed her company sometimes. But after trying to get on a date with him, and doing some damage to any girl passing by his side, lets just sat it has never been the same.

"Well, look, I'm in no mood for your games as of right now, I am doing something very important and..."

"Who is that girl, dear?" He got interrupted, by Laura nonetheless! Which had just finished buying her new clothes.

"Oh dear..." He sighed.

"And who are you supossed to be?" Amanda asked.

"I am Laura and my boyfriend here was accompanying me" Laura said hugging Ralik's arm, making Amanda turn green out of envy.

"This isn't ending well for me..." He thought to himself.

"How can you be dating such a piece of filth like her?"

"Oh no! You just didn't said that!" Laura dropped Ralik's arm and was now just facing Amanda, face-to-face

"I did said it! And I will say it whatever and however I like!" Amanda shouted back.

Laura rubbed her face "Eww, stop talking, you seem to be spiting sh*t every time you do."

Ralik, not wanting to be in the middle of a love triangle, backed away and ignored the two girls throwing insults at each other, which in some point seemed to have escalated into a little riot made by the crowd around them. He couldn't really tell because he was running as fast as he could, out of the place.

(-/-) *Present time*

And what a start of a day had been for the poor Ralik. God knows what may have happened with Syra, maybe she ended up injuring Amanda badly? Maybe she killed her? Or maybe she didn't recovered much of her skills and was getting whacked? Whatever happened, Ralik was now worried.

"I shouldn't have let her alone, not like that..." But his thinking was interrupted as a cold wind passed through his body making him shiver. He lowered his gaze to the window which was open. He stood up and closed it, suddenly, Ralik heard someone approaching him, and just as he was turning around to see who it was, it stole a kiss from his lips.

"Surprise!" Laura said hugging him afterwards.

"Wait... why, how, when, where, WHAT!? How did you managed to sneak into my house, or for that matter, how the heck did you know where is my house?"

"Shh, just answer your phone."

Just as she said that, Ralik's phone started ringing. This was not bound to be good news.

"Hello?" Ralik answered the phone.

"Hey Ralik, it's me Elise. I was calling to tell you Syra had just entered the beauty contest, and also she is calling herself Laura and wearing pretty cute clothes. Also, Amanda just passed by and said that after winning the contest, she was going to make her own school of models or something... Is there something I should know?" She asked trying to preserve a calm tone.

"I'll explain later... Let's just say I payed a visit to Sean." He said before hanging up. Ralik slowly drifted his view to Laura, which seemed to be exploding of excitement.

"No..."

"Yes! I'll be participating in the beauty contest, I'm going to prove that witch that I am much more beautiful than her, but I must get prepared. Where can I change my clothes?"

Ralik, not being able to say a thing, pointed to a set of stairs that led to his room.

"Thanks! And don't worry about me losing, I'm a great model and a martial artist, what could go wrong?" She reassured him as she ran upstairs.

Ralik slowly sat down on his couch and sighed. "I just hope I don't have to wait another 8 months for this to end..."

That's it for now guys! Phew, that chapter was LONG. I was going to release it yesterday, but it was already 2:30 AM in the morning and I was working until very late. However, I hope this chapter has calmed part of your anxiety for this story to be updated (although Ralik and Syra were the focus of this chapter, and I hope it is not a problem for you)

*Announcer voice* So Syra is now Laura, a joyful and energic woman who likes to spend time with his boyfriend Cross, which is actually Ralik. And she has just bet her dojo that she would win a beauty contest against Ralik's ex-friend Amanda. Will she be able to make it? Will she lose? Will Sonic and the gang find out what happened? Am I going to update soon?

All of the questions will be answered, in the next chapter! Have a nice day!