Tails losing his memory by some unknown force? Mario brothers kicking ass? What will become of the Sonic heroes of these incidents? And just what the hell is wrong with Lamia? Okay, I guess that last one wasn't a point...
But before I can tell you that story, I have to tell you this one.
Episode 29: Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No! It's...something...looks like a guy in a red cape...what's his name...oh yeah! El Matador!
Please note: The following contains a guest character. Should be pretty obvious who THAT is.
Silver laid down on a patch of grass not too deep into a playground near Stark Tower. Nothing was happening, now that Eggy had hit the space ways with his villainy cohorts. And all the people that he recently met--and now apparently forced to work with--were all well over his age. While he found it easy to make friends with Xavier and Hank, the others either seemed too busy or too unlikeable (Peter usually never being around, he doesn't count).
It's been a few days. He wondered how much time they had left. Not much. Silver remembered when Sonic told him about how the Emeralds almost made time for Station Square relive the same day. How that would've been terrible. Sonic said it was around a few weeks to a few months (the blue guy had admitted he wasn't counting), but it was long enough to solve the problem.
"How's the sun, Silver?"
"It's warm enough,'
'It is the first week of summer,' 'say, do you have any plans today?' 'Need help?' 'No, not really. I do, however, have a few papers I'd like to give you. Step into Stark Tower for a second.' 'Okay,' But I'm not taking your garbage out.'
.(Minutes later...)
As Silver was walking down the hallway, about to enter the elevator, when to his surprise an individual ran out. He cocked an eyebrow as the youth made quick work of escaping. A few security guards came out of the other elevator and chased after him, calling out "Hey you! Stop!" and similar phrases.
This individual was a young looking bat, probably around Silver's age. The only other chiropteran Silver knew was Rouge, but she was deceitful and not the kind of person Silver would find to be very friendly towards him. Thinking the Professor could wait a while, Silver hit the road towards the bat.
(Outside, back at the park...)
Silver looked from right to left, looking to where the boy had gone. If he'd stolen something, he'd have to take it back. Either way, the cops were after him, so Silver was going to have to take him in as well. Finding someone dressed like that shouldn't be too hard to find, right?
No, it was hard.
It felt like forever and three-quarters had passed until Silver finally figured where the youth had gone. Since he wasn't ABOVE ground, there was definently a possibility that he was hiding below ground somewhere. He backtracked to a suspicious looking log. Strangely, it only had one branch. What was stranger was that the branch looked like it could come right off at any minute. Silver tugged on it and thus triggered some sort of movement from the log.
And by "movement", I mean, the branch was a knob as part of the log was a door.
.(Underground...)
The log led to a network of caves and tunnels. Either that, or Silver was just lost in a small underground house. Silver heard the sound of voices and tried to follow, but it was like the voices were coming from everywhere. One voice he was sure was the youth's earlier, but another voice was also heard, only it was higher in pitch. Must be a little boy.
Finally, he reached another door and took a peek inside. Sure enough, the youth was there with a little raccoon boy, much younger then either of them.
"There we go," the bat gave the boy a rabbit, "try to keep him out of trouble this time." The boy nodded and put the rabbit in a cage and locked it.
A rabbit?...was that it?
"Thanks, Dan!" said the boy.
So that was his name, thought Silver. He'd never heard of this guy before.
Dan noticed Silver at the door and put the boy, whom Dan referred to as "Jack" and said "Come on out, whoever you are!" Silver did so, and Dan recognized him for who he was.
"You're...Sliver?"
Mortified, Silver said, "That's 'Silver'! And what exactly were you doing in Stark Tower that would cause security guards to chase you?!"
Danny made sure Jack was behind him. "Because that's where Jack's rabbit was hiding!"
Unbelievable, thought Silver, who said, "An UNlikely story! How would a rabbit get into Stark Tower? They wouldn't let an ant into there! I bet you were trying to take something!" "Why you--!" Just as Danny took three steps, Silver had lifted him into the air. Danny struggled in vain, suspended above the air by the bluish glow of Silver's telekinesis.
"Let me go! Let me go!" he said, struggling. Jack ran up to Silver and tugged on him. "Let him go!"
"Get out of here, kid!" he said to Jack, "You're not the one I want!"
"But he didn't do anything! I promise!"
Silver looked at him for a bit and couldn't help but give him a chance. "Alright...but you have to find me the evidence that he's innocent of...whatever."
The raccoon nodded. He left, but before he did, he looked back and said, "Just don't hurt him!"
.(Somewhere in the European Balkan Region...)
A dark castle nestled in at the top of a jagged, strong mountain of a hill. Green lights sometimes spewed forth from the windows. As it is Europe, thousands of miles from Central City, it is still around midnight.
The lord of the castle had sent his robots to the far corners of the planet to retrieve what he understood to be "it's heroes". He anxiously awaited their arrival, though even if his mask didn't hide his face, you wouldn't be able to tell if he was or not. Soon enough, 5 of the 6 robots had returned...with less then acceptable results. The lord stood up and inspected each of the "prisoners".
"What's...THIS!?" he grabbed the first captive--an ordinary hedgehog. It sniffled everywhere around itself in the firm, iron grip of the lord as he looked at it. "I ask for the Heroes...and you bring me...ANIMALS!?" The lord's free hand glowed green and he fired a blast from it that blew off the robot's head and without it the robot fell to the ground in a loud clank. The hedgehog in his hand freaked out a little from the noise and tried to bite him, but teeth on armor was not working.
Two human servants brought it several cages which to put the animals in. The lord put the hedgehog in one and instructed to put the other two hedgehogs in, but to also separate the female from the other two. The fox was put in the largest cage. What irritated the lord the most was that the last robot brought in a crab, something he'd not asked for.
But, holding the crab to the light, he got a wonderful idea. The crab was not afraid of the lord while he firmly held it, barely moving it's six legs in the air. He put the crab on a table and aimed a massive laser cannon and pointed it directly at the crab that was on the table. The lord went to a control panel and pushed a few buttons and the machine made a humming noise. The crab scuttled around the table but could not find an exit.
The machine charged to full power and bombarded the crab with an unknown, malevolent energy. The crab grew in size and started to gain human like qualities. Well, more like humanoid qualities. It's six legs turned into two pairs of three legs, connected to a muscular looking carapace. It's claws were still claws, but now looked more like clubs for hands. It's head was like it was before, save for the lack of legs and claws on it, but it's body became it's head as well as it growing a more noticeable mouth with rows of sharp teeth. The monster was around 6 feet tall before the machine stopped and it had stopped growing.
Looking up and down the new creature, the lord muttered to himself, "I need to give that machine a serious upgrade..."
The crab creature scuttled around and actually had the ability of speech, talking about how "wonderful" a place the castle was.
Minutes later, the lord had taken the crab creature into his throne room and turned on several screens that had appeared from the ceiling. "Who's dat?" the creature had constantly said, usually looking at the person or robot he was talking about. The lord walked behind the creature and said, "Later. Your name will be...Crustacio."
"Ohhh! Dat's REAAAL good! What's YOUR name!?" Crustatio's voice was like taking that of an excited child and then giving that child the body of a 32 year old man. His voice also sounded quite inhuman as well. "My name, later..."
"Okey-Dokey!"
"First of all..." the lord pushed a button on a remote. There were five screens. One showed Sonic, the other, Tails, another was Silver, another was Rouge, and another was Cosmo. "It is of my attention that these...these, 'heroes' have left the planet. I'm not sure which ones left, frankly, I don't care. However, I do know that at least one of them stayed behind; I just don't know whom. Take a good look at them, Crustatio, for I'm not giving you photos."
The crab creature looked at all of them with it's dark, beady eyestalks. "Got 'em memorized, boss!" he said and clapped his claws together. The lord nodded off and said, "Good, good. Now, go to Central City and find one of those heroes! Bring them back, as long as they're alive. Oh, and if you find yourself getting bored...go ahead and break some things."
"But...Where's Central City?"
"I have remedied that. You'll be there shortly, and when you have one of them, simply call it out and you'll be back here before you know it."
Crustatio nodded his head in a ridiculous way and scuttled around saying, "Break stuff, break stuff!"
.(Central City...)
In keeping with the fact he was only nine years old, coupled with the fact he was not allowed into Stark Tower, he was at a loss for options. The only thing being that he hoped the security guards would vouch for Danny as his only real offense was coming into the building, unauthorized.
He'd even asked a guard to do so, only for the man to say "Get lost, kid," in response. Almost knowing this, Silver showed up with Danny flailing and floating around behind him, not waiting any longer. "Well, I didn't think you would..." he said to Jack. Jack looked down, thinking he failed Danny.
It was seconds later.
Sometimes when you get into some big moment, whether it's catching an unbelievable pop fly ball in a Major Leagues baseball game or about to jump off the highboard for the first time at a swimming pool, time seems to freeze over. That happened to Silver right at that moment. It was an instinctual feeling he got when something bad was happening, although he was sure everyone had it and it wasn't some power.
He got the feeling whenever a car was flying over the air above him, spiraling until it crashed onto the ground. A hideous crab monster was making a huge ruckus, apparently, as people were running away from it, screaming. The creature easily tossed around cars, sometimes just snapping them in half and tearing down trees like they were made out of soft talc. The security guards shot at it, but it's carapace was harder then perhaps even chromed steel, as the bullets just reflected off it's body. The guards were caught in the beast's claws and he through them around the place.
Silver let Danny go, who fell the ground flat on his face (lucky that wasn't pavement) and Jack ran to him. "What the hell?..." Silver said as the monster raided a nearby sushi shop, eating all the chum it could get it's claws on. Like a regular crab, it also walked sideways.
"Mmm...I didn' know how could they tasted cooked!" Crustatio said to no one in particular as he scarfed down a whole bucket full of cooked eel. Suddenly a part of the car he had tossed earlier was hurled back at him and crashed him right into the road. The monster threw it off easily and said, "Who threw dat?" his eyestalks turned towards Silver. "I did, ya glutton! If you're going to cause some damage, you better be ready to pay for it!"
"Ohhhhhhhhh!!" he said as he gave Silver his full attention, "you're one o' them amnimal thingies I'm supposed to capture! But oohhh, I could use something hard. Didn't say you'd have to come in one piece!"
"His agents are there, trying to hinder your progress. You can't see them, but they're there. They'll show themselves soon enough."
"Why!?"
"Cuz...well, I dunno, but the boss said I could get to break stuff!" he said as he clipped off a headlight with it's bare claws and then bent it in half. "But now, I guess I gotta bring ya home!" The headlight in it's claws glowed an eerie bluish color as it ripped itself from it's claws and banged him over the head repeatedly until he grabbed it again and snipped it to pieces. It looked around, wondering what happened and who did it before setting his eyes back on Silver.
Crustatio got angry as he suddenly thought that it was that hedgehog. "I'm gonna getcha!" it suddenly yelled and it's eyes looked angry and it scuttled quickly through the streets, anything getting in it's way was crushed and/or rammed to the side. Silver thought it was a good time to RUN. Silver hopped over upturned cars and a fire hydrant as the gap between him and the crab creature was slowly getting smaller.
Now was not the time, but Silver had suddenly tripped over something during his little mad dash and fell to the ground, hard. He got up fine, but the monster already had it. Before the monster could grab him (and then probably snip his arm off and then eat it), however, something sent Silver off to the side and the monster had Danny in it's claws and not Silver!
"Danny!!" exclaimed his nine year old friend Jack. "He saved me..." was the only sentence he could muster up to say, albeit quietly. Jack had grabbed hold of the monster's leg to get it to let go, but he too was tossed aside, lucky enough to have hit a tree and not something of a harder substance. Silver's eyes glowed as he started up his telekinesis and floated into the air. "That's not very nice..." he said with clenched teeth."
"So what?"
Silver lifted an oil tanker that was aside from him and flung it towards the monster and it crushed it. Knowing that if bullets couldn't harm it, neither could an oil truck. Silver was no pyrokinetic, but he knew how to start a fire. He took a match from under his glove (which he keeps in case of emergencies) and lit it and tossed it behind him as he turned the other way. Danny had just gotten loose from the monster and grabbed Jack and hid themselves from behind the tree as the explosion occurred.
The explosion was noticeable from the other side of the park, and had engulfed a portion of it in the explosion. Silver looked back at the ruins of the explosion, thinking it couldn't have survived that. Iron Man and Professor Xavier had entered the premises on the onset of the big kaboom. Silver told them of what had occured, leaving out Danny's intrusion, though he was certain they knew about it.
Danny and Jack came from behind their hiding spot to discover that the monster had broken Danny's arm when he was grabbed.
.(Hospital...)
"How's the arm?" Silver asked Danny. His eyes closed halfway at this question. "Oh, gee, it's definently NOT broken if that's what you're implying," he said. They both laughed. Silver stopped and said, "Listen, thanks for saving me. Who knows why that thing wanted me."
"Forget about it. This bed here, this cast AND the fact that you let me go afterwards is thanks enough."
After a little bit, Jack said, "What happened to the crab monster?"
Silver shook his head. "Wish I could say...turns out he actually survived that explosion. Somehow, anyway. They're keeping it locked up somewhere, until Richard Reed can develop a device that can turn him back into a crab. As far as this is going, however, it's not talking."
"Tch. He really is a crab, huh?" They both laughed again, joined by Jack.
.(Tony Stark's office...)
"So...Charles, how is the bat?" asked Tony at his desk. "He's doing fine. Just a minor fracture. He'll be out in a few days, thanks to you."
Tony wrote something on a piece of paper and gave it to his butler, Jarvis. "Jarvis," he said, "see to it this gets to Danny. I could use his help with a few things." Jarvis bowed and left. Tony then twiddled his pen in his hand and finally asked, "So...what about those papers?" as he eyed Charles. The professor laughed and said, "Oh, what papers?"
Putting 2 and 2 together, Tony just found himself bursting out laughing. "Amazing at what Silver's gonna think when he finds out about this?" said Tony, "but I think they'll be great friends, anyway!"
END OF EPISODE 29!
(Note: Danny and Jack, belong to Danny the Bat. Crustatio?...naw, I made him up on the spot.)
