August 6th, 5:03pm
Location: Unknown
(Mood Music - The Singing Sea II ~ The Seatbelts)
In a building deep within the skyscraper section of the city, in a business room blanketed in darkness save for the pale blue glow of the enormous widescreen television at one end of the room, six important looking men sit at a long table that stretches out to twenty foot or thereabouts, all of their glances directed towards the TV. On the large screen played footage of two crocodiles going up against each other inside a caged arena as a voice played over the background.
"As was expected by the general public, along with yours truly," the male voice explained as the taller of the green reptiles delivered a powerful upside his opponent's jaw, "the reigning MMA champion of Emerald Coast, the great Razter the Crocodile, defeated his mysterious challenger, appropriately titled Captain Catastrophe within the first two rounds."
While the TV screen displayed the great Raztor's victory punch to Captain Catastrophe's gut and the voice went on indiscreetly, one of the men, a large man dressed in an all-black suit and wearing sunglasses…in darkness, mind you, laughed out loud in joy as he proclaimed "What I tell you lot? One of you really thought my boy Razzers would lose to some random chump, just because he trained with a music montage?" Another large man sitting opposite bit into his cigar nervously as the black-suited manager leaned forward and cheekily answered "Well, you were wrong, wrong wrrrong!" rolling his rs at the final word to deliberately annoy the white-suited cigar smoker.
This clearly worked as the all-white man grimaced through his cigar at Razter's manager, who sat back into his chair with smugly folded arms and a very satisfied look upon his fat face. Meanwhile, the footage on the TV switched over at this point to stock footage of a large panda coloured a bewilderingly bizarre mixture of gold, purple and orange taking down many opponents in a similar fighting arena as the voice-over played once more "On a related note, the former champion Noah 'The Killer' Thompson has been released from hospital this morning, two weeks after being discovered with grave injuries on his torso and head. He does not wish to be shown on camera, hence the stock footage, but with regards as to what the police intend to do with this situation, the mayor of the city had this to say:"
And with that, the TV quickly switched over to live feed that featured a tall male squirrel-chipmunk hybrid standing tall in front of a booth decorated with microphones, as text underneath appeared that said Mayor of Emerald Coast: Max Acorn. Max took a deep breath and spoke sternly, though his voice strangely contained a hint of fear, "I have decided to call off the investigation into Thompson's assault. We simply haven't found enough evidence to prove what the cause was. I apologize for the inconvenience…"
As cameras flashed around the mayor and he was battered by questions from the local press regarding the matter, the door behind the six men opened as a gentle, albeit emotionless manner, voice greeted "Apologies for the inconvenience, gentlemen." The men looked behind them to finda seventh man entering the room as he placed his phone into his pocket. It was hard to tell exactly what he looked like in the shining yellow light from outside but what could be discerned was that he had the distinct outline of a chameleon. The mysterious chameleon found his way to a seat as he calmly explained "I had some important business to attend to before I came here…"
When he sat down on a chair, upon which the faint glow of the television revealed him to be coloured a dark shade of purple, he noticed that with the exception of two men at the far end, every other patron at the table was glaring at him in mild apprehension. The chameleon raised a slight eyebrow as he questioned in a patronising tone "Is something the matter?"
(Mood Music II - Solitary Cell 13/Darkness Theme ~ Toshihiko Horiyama)
The man sitting next to him, a dark brown coyote dressed in a cobalt suit with a vindictive look on his face, answered "That you came in here just after that particular news report seems pretty suspicious…"
The purple chameleon clasped his hands together as he folded one leg over the other and played along, cheerfully suggesting "You mean the one regarding Mr Thompson's release? I was just watching it there on my phone before I came in. After all, one must pay attention to the activity related to a gathering such as this, even if they have no real connection to the activity in question."
"No real connection…" the coyote bitterly repeated. Suddenly he went right up into the chameleon's face and accused "That is except for Noah's assault!" grasping the purple Mobian's suit by the collar. The rest of the men at the table gasped in shock, though the chameleon himself remained calm as the coyote went on "I inspected his medical records while he was hospitalized ad found that his injuries had been caused by some kind of machinery. Does that sound familiar to you?"
Paying no attention to the vengeful glare directed at him, the chameleon smiled aloofly as he suggested "Not really. I've only ever heard that Mr Thompson's injuries were delivered by some random punk pumped up on steroids. Say Mr Sterling," as he looked over to the black-suited fat man close by, "Wasn't your Razzers accused of taking steroids?"
A livid look crossed the manager's face and he opened his mouth to refute that claim when the coyote angrily warned "Don't ignore the question, Belwork! The day Noah was assaulted, there was also a report from some construction workers about one of their green industrial robots going berserk and escaping onto the streets. Do you want to know where that robot was captured, and more to the point, who created it?" The non-chalant look on Belwork's face stayed much the same as the coyote answered for him "It was found on Raymond Avenue, the same street where Noah was found, and the mech was created by Verrat Enterprises. In other words, your company was the one that injured Noah!"
The coyote's grip tightened on the chameleon's suit, causing him to glare coldly into the brown Mobian's eyes as he ordered "Let go of my suit. Now." Belwork grabbed the coyote's hands and quickly pulled them away from his suit before he pushed the accusing man back into his chair. Paralysed with fear, the coyote stared mouth-agape as Belwork questioned "If I can get this straight, you're accusing me of somehow causing a robot to malfunction, go berserk and deliberately attack your prized fighter, for reasons unknown to me." A cruel smile formed on his muzzle as he asked "You sure you want to stand by that claim, Ricardo?" all the while inserting his hand into his pocket and discreetly tapping his phone keys.
The coyote's widened subtly on shock as he asked with a grim look upon his face "Ricardo? How'd you know my name?"
"I suppose it was just a lucky guess…" Belwork cheerfully replied with a casual shrug, much to the confusion of the other businessmen at the table. Just then, a loud vibration could be heard coming from the chameleon's pants and with an apologetic wave, he explained "Oh, excuse me a minute." He pulled the phone out of his pocket and held it up to his face as he said with an air of faux-obliviousness "Hello? Yes, this is Mr Smith. Who is this? The Emerald Cavers insurance company?…Oh yes, you people."
As an indecipherable yet confused sounding buzz of replies emerged from the receiver, Belwork continued his charade "And you're looking for evidence to support your claims of Daniel Ricardo committing insurance fraud?" At that moment, Ricardo began to twitch and his breathing grew quicker and quicker with each passing moment as the chameleon answered into the phone "Well, you'll be glad to know that…" He was suddenly interrupted by Ricardo grabbing onto his collar with hands shaking with desperation and silently begging him not to go through with it. After a short pause, Belwork cleared his throat and concluded "I have no updates in that regard…as of yet, anyhow." as he glared disdainfully at the coyote now letting go of his collar.
"Have a good day." He said before he hung up the phone and placed it back into his pocket. Clasping his hands once more, Belwork leaned looked at the rest of the businessmen at the table and asked in a jolly voice "Any final words before we wrap up?" The shocked faces of the rest of the businessmen seemed to answer his question as he suggested after a short period of time "Good. You best be on your way, gentlemen. Wouldn't want to get into any kind of trouble with your superiors…if you know what I mean."
(Mood Music III - The Singing Sea II - The Seatbelts)
And with that, Ricardo, the black and white suited rivals and another unknown businessman got up from their seats and silently walked out of the room with a fearful, bitter feeling in their step. Smirking at this, Belwork turned to the other two men at the far end of the table and asked "So, how'd that distraction of yours go about?"
"Without a hitch, sir," the one on the left gladly replied, "We found Razter's locker in the shower room and placed the bottle in it just like you suggested. Just curious, sir, why did you have us do that?"
"Sometimes," the chameleon remarked as the clasp of his hands loosened slightly, "people start to think that they can bet all they want on some dull fighting match and not have any repercussions, be it losing all their money or giving away vital information. This is simply just to show them otherwise, for both sides of the coin. Did anything else happen to occur?"
"Well, there was one other thing, s-sir," the one on the right replied with a tone of fearful trepidation, "The day of the fight between Razter and that other guy, Mr Thompson arrived at the arena and he was interviewed by a couple of detectives. An armadillo and a chameleon, or something like that."
Belwork raised a slight eyebrow and his clasp suddenly tightened up as he commented "…Interesting. Did they manage to get anything out of him?"
"Not beyond what he was told at the hospital, sir," the left man answered confidently, "so you have nothing to worry about."
The smirk on Belwork's muzzle grew slightly wider and he affirmed "Good. You two can go now. And don't worry, you'll get a pay bonus for this." The two men stood up and thanked him for this before they made their way out of the room, revealing their nicely toned, muscular bodies. Alone in the dark room, Belwork contemplated a number of things, all of which he asked softly with a single question.
"An armadillo and a chameleon…Where have I heard that before?"
The End…
Message from the Author - 18/Sep/2013
(Did you guys know that it's the 20th anniversary of Sonic the Hedgehog SatAM today? Bloody hell, that's a long time! While I'm remarking this, I'll recommend y'all check out my review for the series on YouTube (just look up Sonic the Hedgehog SatAM Animated Series Review FrDougal9000 and you should find it) but nonetheless, happy 20th anniversary to the series and its incredibly loyal fan base! You guys rock!
Anyway, time to talk about the intermission. Yeah, there were certain things that happened in Episode 06 that I didn't explain for whatever reason (coughcoughI'mahackwritercoughcough) so I decided I'd clear 'em up in this little intermission. And if there are certain things that don't exactly make sense, read through chapters 30-35 again and pay attention to the details, even if they're throwaway lines of exposition, dialogue or what have you. It's like a Dirk Gently story, only the ending doesn't seem so utterly insane the first time through…
And to make an announcement, I'll be taking three weeks holiday from uploading new chapters for now, mainly so I can get that rewrite for chapters 1 to 22 done and over with. Don't worry, when I've finished most of it, I'll post up a little chapter to let you guys check it out and I'll start getting to work on Episode 07, which is gonna be pretty interestin', just so you know. As usual, tell me what you think of this chapter and the whole general fanfic ever since I put in those new changes back in Episode 05 and if I can make any improvements to my writing style. I hope you've all enjoyed reading this and until we meet again in three weeks' time, have a great month y'all! J -FrDougal9000)