With a sense of tremendous anticipation, he leaned towards those sweet, promising lips, feeling the quickening breath of another…
As their eyes met, reigniting the burning fire that led to this moment, he lunged forward and their lips clashed in passionate fury. Tongues explored foreign, yet extravagant caverns as the two collapsed onto the bed…
While the young man wrapped his arms round his lover's neck, he could feel hands explore his bare body, caressing with a firm but gentle touch that spoke a thousand words about the nature of their relationship, and ultimately, their amorous desires…
Soon, the hands found a very delicate region desiring affection and began their work on it. He started to tremble wildly at the wondrous feeling, as if he was about to go made with ecstasy, and broke the kiss to shudder in delight…
He felt guilty about falling so easily at this, but once he saw the content, loving smile of his partner, all of his worries were washed away. He smiled back and nuzzled into their shoulder, softly stroking the one thing that stayed on during the course of this event…
A bright red shell…
October 21st, 9am
Room No. 13, Bergstrom Block
"Good morning everyone!", the clock radio next to the bed blared incessantly, forcing Ray to jolt awake with a gasp, "This is Noise FM, the station dedicated to disturbing your tranquil day on the hour, every hour, with a smile on our face that's as happy as the trumpets we play non-stop! To take in a viewer's request, it's time to go to the flying circus folks 'cause we're playing the classic 'Liberty Bell' by John Phillip Sousa!"
(Mood Music I - What else but the above track?!)
As the announcement immediately gave way to a ear-piercingly obnoxious cacophony of trumpets and strings, the young squirrel sat up in his bed and rubbed his groggy eyes with the back of his hand. Having dreams like that always did leave him in a fussy state, if only because it wasn't actually reality. "Still," he muttered to himself as he stretched his arms with a yawn, "maybe it won't be a dream for much longer…hopefully…" He tossed the blanket aside and slowly got up, ignoring the sticky stain that had appeared on the mattress overnight. Stumbling towards the small coat rack he hung all of his shirts from, he tiredly glanced back and forth between the few that were there until eventually, he picked out a nice denim jacket.
As he stepped out from his room and wandered down the hall towards the small living room, he rolled up the jacket's sleeves and left it unbuttoned, revealing a fairly attractive, by any reasonable standard at least, peach torso. Passing by a small mirror, he stopped to take a quick look and upon seeing his reflection, an eager smile formed on his muzzle as he felt just a bit more confident in himself. And with that, he walked into the living room, half-expecting a certain raccoon to be lying down on the couch, watching the latest instalment of Teikoku Sentai Sakuranger and complaining about how the cinematography has gotten worse as of late.
However, as he found the room was actually in a rather clean state, and especially no pizza leftovers to be found on either the small leather couch or the coffee table, he knew this wasn't the case. The young lad looked round the room to see if anything had been left behind when he noticed a tiny post-it note on the fridge with some sort of strange looking scribble. There was a reason his friend went for photography, you know. So, he checked out the note, reading the contents of it, and after a few seconds, he chuckled to himself as he mumbled "That's right. The Sparkling Gem or whatever's open round this, right? Man, I guess he really is into her."
Her…
With a sigh, he remorsefully gazed towards a photo taped onto the miniature fridge that had him, his raccoon pal and a third dear friend, one that he had lost recently, smiling at the camera in joy. Tiara Boobowski. Maybe things between them weren't going as well as they used to be, but she didn't deserve to die the way she did. Truth be told, he couldn't help but feel guilty over what happened. He hadn't killed her, but he did play a vital part as to how the tragic, cruel circumstances came about. As he opened up the door and took out a milk carton to make himself some breakfast, he silently vowed to himself not to let the past get in the way today. After all, he'd been told not to keep feeling so hung up over everything. And by the same friend he was planning to meet today as well, chuckling to himself at the fact as he swiped the wallet lying on the counter and put it into one of his leg pockets.
October 21st, 10:23am
Prison Block C9, Terran Terrace
(Mood Music II - Spokey Dokey ~ The Seatbelts)
The faint droning of a harmonica woke Mighty up from his sleep. As he sat up from his bed, ducking his head just in time to stop himself from hitting the frame of the top bunk again, he looked towards the source of the folk blues. A lone man stood at the edge of the jail cell, leaning on the bars, as he played a soulful tune that echoed throughout the hall. There wasn't much to say of him; a bull with a large, muscular frame and fur painted in a red darker than the sleeveless prison uniforms both he and Mighty were wearing, one of his horns was chipped at the edge while the other had some sort of dried crimson stain on the tip and a content, though not happy, expression on his face.
Scratching his cheek, which felt a bit fuzzier than usual from the lack of any razors around, the armadillo stood up from the creaky bunk-bed and walked towards the bull as he greeted with a small yawn "Mornin', Buster! What's up with you? Practicing for the blues recital later?"
Continuing to play the sad instrument, Buster nodded silently as Mighty dropped to the ground and started doing push-ups. Officially, Buster was known round these parts as General Buster, a nickname earned from, among other things, his love of old war movies. Unfortunately, it took on a different meaning altogether after a bar brawl that ended quite badly…at least for anyone who didn't feel like getting impaled with a set of bull horns that day. While the young detective switched from arm to arm for his one-hand push-ups rather gracefully, Buster paused in his melody as he asked "What about you, kid? Anything croppin' up today?"
"I think so," Mighty replied as he quickly went back to the classic two-hand push-ups, "I heard the guys were gonna come in and see me. Oh, I can't wait to tell them the good news!"
"What?", Buster asked with a bemused smirk, "You're pregnant?" The two cellmates chuckled between themselves for a few seconds before the bull sighed wistfully, remarking "Ya know, you're really lucky kid. At least you've got someone willin' to try and get you outta jail."
A frown creasing his tanned lips, Mighty stood up and started stretching his legs as he asked in concern "What about you? Isn't someone gonna come and get you too?"
"Nah," Buster answered with a wave of his hand, "I've been here too long. Anyone who did care to bail me out's probably long gone by now…not that I mind. I've heard of worse ways to spend your days than 25-to-life." before he resumed playing his sorrowful song.
As he breathed out through his nose, the armadillo advised with a small, hopeful smile on his face "It'll be okay, Buster. Someone'll get you out eventually, even if it doesn't seem so obvious. It may be hard but just…hope for the best, okay?" He looked to Buster for an answer, but all he got back was a weary shrug.
With a defeated sigh, Mighty soon stopped his morning exercises as a guard walked up to the cell and requested "Mighty the Armadillo. There's a visitor here to see you." The singular use of that word meant that the Chaotix likely weren't there…
His arms drooping to his sides, the young prisoner nodded calmly and walked towards the small opening in the door, sticking his hands out through it. Within a matter of seconds, the guard pulled out a set of handcuffs and locked them around Mighty's wrists. As the door opened up, he smiled at Buster one last time and commented "Nice tune. Hope you use it at the recital later." before he was lead out of the cell and down the hall with the guard just behind him.
Passing the other jail cells in that block on the way to the visitor's room, Mighty wondered what the Chaotix would be up to right now. Hopefully, they'd be out trying to do work to earn enough bail money so he could get out and life could return to normal…maybe. There was still the matter that had been building up in his head the last few weeks concerning something very peculiar that happened during the courtroom trial that landed him in there to begin with that.
That kiss…Honey…what did it mean?
With a thoughtful hum, he mumbled to himself "I wonder if she's thinking about that too…"
October 21st, 12:56pm
Sparkling Emerald
(Mood Music III - Asuka Strikes! ~ Shiro Saigsu)
"For the last time, Colin," Honey yelled as she leaned towards the sheepishly grinning raccoon in question sitting at the counter, "I'm not going to take off my shirt for you! I may be a waitress, but not that kind!"
Honey had been having a rather dreadful morning, as had been the case for the last number of weeks. Ever since she made the unfortunate mistake of giving Colin her number after 'promising', and that word is being used in the most tenuous fashion known to man, to do so during the courtroom trial where they'd first met, he's become a regular at the Sparkling Emerald, much to her annoyance. Every single day, he shows up and constantly flirts with her in front of the entire café in the least subtle ways imaginable, one of which being the demand mentioned up above. Speaking of which…
"Aw, what's the problem, Hons?", Colin obliviously asked with a small sip of his coffee cup, "I just happen to think that you're hot enough that no-one would mind a little fan service!"
"Not in a café, you dope!", she pointed out, steam furiously blaring from her nose by this point, "If you want to see that kind of crap, then go to Hooters!"
"Honey," her father Kyle advised with a chuckle as he stepped out from the kitchen, "What have I told you about telling people to eat somewhere else?"
"But dad, I-" she tried her best to explain before getting cut off in the worst manner possible.
"Don't worry, Kyle," Colin assured with a wave of his hand and another one of his rather creepy looking eyebrow wiggles, "Hooters has nothing compared to Hons!"
Doing all she could but failing horribly to ignore the blush on her cheeks thanks to what could technically be considered a compliment, Honey folded her arms and looked away with a pout as she retorted "I'm still not taking my shirt off, for you or any random guy! And stop calling me Hons!"
Sniggering to himself, the cheeky raccoon clasped his hands together into a finger pyramid of diabolical contemplation and asked "So then who's special enough to see what you've got? That shelled guy you keep calling Chicky?"
"That shelled guy happened to save your butt in court, remember?", she reminded him with a vicious, flaming glare, "You could at least be a little more respectful."
As he rolled his eyes, Kyle stacked a number of used dishes onto a pile while explaining "Give him a break, Hons. He's a teenager; everyone's like that at some point."
With an irritated shudder, Honey glanced at her dad as she demanded "Don't you start calling me Hons too, dad. Anyways," looking back at Colin, "it can't be that hard to remember the guy's name."
"Maybe," the raccoon remarked as he scratched his chin while Kyle carried the dishes back into the kitchen, "but the problem is just I've a couple of really important things on my mind at the moment," bending sideways to get a better angle at these couple of things.
That was pretty much the breaking point for Honey. Partially glad that she'd chosen to wear a sweater that day, she slammed her hands on the counter and lividly threatened "Look here, Horny McBoner! I-"
"I thought his name was Colin." a young, whinyish sounding, familiar voice interrupted.
The two teens looked towards the door and found a trio of detectives walking up to the counter, with the purple chameleon smirking as he remarked "Actually, I quite prefer the new name; it's certainly better than that awful pun of a name he already has. Though I can't help but wonder if Vector's more deserving of that title…"
Laughing sarcastically, Vector leaned on the counter while stating with a wave of his hand "Yeah, yeah. Like I'm basically da same as dis kid." as he thumbed at the suddenly annoyed raccoon in question.
"…Come to think of it, you're right," Espio agreed as he sat down on one of the swivel chairs next to the counter and briefly ordered a small set of drinks for the trio, "At least Colin's dedicated to one particular person and not trying to jump onto any woman that looks even remotely attractive."
"H-hey," the Chaotix's grand leader pointed out as he folded his arms, "what about Miss Vanilla?"
Rolling his eyes with a derisive scoff, the young ninja leaned on a bored hand as he suggested "Tell that to the divorced mother you wasted your time chatting up when we were supposed to be looking for her son…in front of her boyfriend."
As she gave out the ordered drinks to the three detectives, Honey groaned wearily before commenting "What I wouldn't give for him to be scatterbrained enough to leave me alone!"
"Hey, I'm right here!" Colin reminded her with an annoyed voice as his hand pyramid fell apart.
"I know." she assured with a cruel smile on her face. As the scruffy raccoon looked away with a pout, she looked back at the Chaotix and asked "So, how's your bail fund work going?"
"Not too shabby," Vector confidently replied with one of his cocky grins showing up again and instantly terrifying the denizens of the Sparkling Emerald far more than if they were suddenly shown a lemon fanfic involving both Sonic and Chaos, "We've been tackling whatever pays enough moolah to get Mighty outta jail ASAP. And dis is what we've gotten over da last week. Bam!" as he slammed down a pile of notes that amounted to just about…75 Mobucks.
Her face falling a bit in the light of this new discovery, Honey narrowed her twitching eyes at the pile and stated flatly "…Huh. I was expecting…a bit more."
As he sipped out of his usual cup of bitter coffee, Espio remarked "That's what you get when you charge more than fifty Mobucks per job."
"Espio…" the annoyed crocodile warned as he shook his fist at the younger reptile.
"That's not all we got!" Charmy eagerly pointed out with a jolly grin on his face as he gulped down his favourite can of Chaos Soda.
Staring back at the cheery bee in confusion, both Vector and Espio asked in dull surprise "What?"
"Yeah!", the youngest of the three happily explained as he started opening up the pockets of his jacket and pulling out Mobuck notes of all sorts of colours, "There was all this stuff too!" Eventually, he'd completely emptied his pockets and there was a decent amount of money lying on the counter.
Doing his best not to have dollar signs burst out of his eyes as usual, Vector picked up the notes and counted through each and every one until he reached a final total of 523 Mobucks. Raising an eyebrow, he looked at Charmy and asked "…How'd you find dat much moolah?"
"Well, I was flyin' round town this mornin' before work started," the young bee explained as he briefly flew around the counter to emphasize his point, "and I saw this trail of free money on the ground. I think it was being dumped by some kind of fancy lookin' truck or something' like that," stopping in his great flight with a stumped shrug.
"So basically," Espio answered as he scratched his forehead, "you…somewhat robbed from a security van."
"Yep!", Charmy joyfully replied with no irony whatsoever, "And now we can pay off the bail and get Mighty outta jail!" as he punched the air triumphantly with a cheer. However, it wasn't long before he noticed the blank stares everyone was giving him, which lead to him asking with an annoyed look on his face "…What?"
"Sorry Charmy," Honey softly explained with a weak, sheepish smile, "but I think if you walked in with that much, you'd probably be arrested for armed robbery."
"Armed robbery?!", he repeated with a confident smirk as he dismissed that point with a wave of his hand and a raspberry sound, "Then I'll just have to use the dangerous weapon to get Mighty out myself!", proudly pointing at his prominent stinger that he started showing off to the whole establishment. Incidentally, about 95% of the people who were dining there that day have since gained a repulsion towards honey, not just as food but as a general concept.
"Exactly," Colin irritably pointed out as he tapped his fingers on the counter, "And could you please move that thing? There's only one butt I wouldn't mind looking at and it's not yours," grinning cheekily as he clearly showed that he still had a thing for honey…in a manner of speaking, of course.
As she folded her arms and glared at him once again, Honey tiredly asked "You're really gonna milk this thing for all it's worth, aren't you?" While the gleeful raccoon nodded eagerly, she shook her head with a soft groan before she smiled at the trio of detectives and said "Anyways, don't tell dad or anything but here's an extra bit of bail money, just in case." And with that, she took out around 15 Mobucks from the cash register and handed it to Espio discreetly, giving him a trusting wink.
Not noticing the furiously jealous glare Colin was giving him just them, the chameleon detective placed the extra funds into what they'd originally had and inserted it into one of his leg pockets as he replied "Thank you. It's very much appreciated and I'll make sure it'll go to good use."
Her smile growing even wider, Honey chuckled to herself as she got back to work, feeling far better than she had the last few hours. In the meantime, Vector nudged the young reptile and remarked "Y'know, if you weren't keepin' an eye on Mighty, you'd be quite da hit with da ladies."
"Uh-huh," Espio remarked in a deadpan voice as a smirk formed on his muzzle, deciding to ignore the tease for once, "Problem is I'd probably be murdered by horny gits like you and McBoner here for giving you nothing to work with."
Almost snarling at Espio, Colin folded his arms and spitefully asked "Are you seriously calling me that?! I don't wanna get a bad reputation from that, y'know."
"And you've spent the last hour trying to see my naughty bits…" Honey pointed out with a quiet fury in her voice as she froze in her tracks. A few seconds passed before she sighed and looked back at the Chaotix, pointing at the annoyed raccoon as she ordered "Right, you're taking him with you to see Mighty. That's the catch for getting an extra 15 Mobucks."
"So that's his name…", Colin remarked in a suddenly strange tone of voice as he scratched his fuzzy cheek in thought, "I feel like I've heard that name before, but I'm not sure where…"
"Finally," she pointed out in relief as she put her hands on her hips, "You've actually managed to say something that didn't make me wanna throw you out."
"On second thought, I think I'll stay here," he then stated as a cheeky grin grew on his face just then, "The view in jail's nothing compared to what I'm seeing right now…"
"Oh, for the love of…", Honey said to herself as she practically blew up, leaning towards Colin with a murderous look on her face, "WHERE DO YOU GET OFF?!"
"Living room, usually." the raccoon bluntly answered as he lifted his head, trying to see if he could get at least one glimpse of those mythical naughty bits through the neck of her sweater.
Within five seconds later, Honey had grabbed him by the tail, spun him around the Sparkling Emerald at least six and a half times and before he had time to even think about how great she could be in bed, she screamed at the top of her lungs "GET OUT!" before she threw him at the door, bursting its hinges as he flew out from the café by about three feet.
As he picked himself up from the shattered door and brushed the glass and dirt down off his fur, Colin stumbled back to the sidewalk while remarking to himself "Man, she sure is a fiery one." While the three detectives stepped out from where the door used to be, the stubborn raccoon chuckled with a sly grin "Just my type!"
"So," Espio sighed as he shook his head and folded his arms, "do you want to come with us to the detention center or not?"
A short period of silence passed as Colin scratched his chin in thought, after which he shrugged and simply replied "…Eh. What the heck. Ray's probably down there too."
A strangely irritated look crossed the chameleon's face for a second before he blinked, completely erasing the expression in place of his normal bored one, he stated "…Alright. Let's go." And on that note, the four Mobians started to walk up the hill next to the Sparkling Emerald, heading for the bus station that would quickly take them to their destination.
On the way up, Vector couldn't help but ask the younger reptile, who had been leading for the entire time weirdly enough, "Hey Esp, how come you don't complain about Colin bein' all desperate like ya do to me?"
With a small smirk, Espio pointed in a weary tone that spoke of a great deal of experience in the matter "He's a teenager, that's understandable. You're 23, that isn't."
While Charmy and Colin started laughing out loud to this, much to Vector's pouting annoyance, Espio felt oddly angered. Why that was the case, he wasn't too sure. He was going to see Mighty; how could that bother him, especially after all they'd been through? Was it something that the raccoon had said that sparked something off? Or was he just simply was too exhausted to be thinking straight? Honestly, and this didn't happen too often, he wasn't actually sure. But, he'd probably manage to figure it out either by the time they got there or the answer will be right at that detention center.
At least, he hoped that he could figure it out at any point…
To be continued…
Message from the Author - 27/Feb/2014
(Good evening, all you crazy but wonderful people! I'm back with the first part of Episode 09, an episode that I'm sure is going to irritate at least one person. I'm not going to say why, and I know it doesn't really give much reason to want to murder me so far, but by the time we get to the end of this episode, you'll know exactly what I mean…and subsequently, you can also prove an understandable motive for the person who ends up killing me by stuffing Fang the Sniper plushies into my mouth!
That reminds me; there's a special celebration with this particular chapter. Why? Because it's the 50th chapter of the World's Greatest Detectives! Hurrah! Good God, it's weird to think we've already gotten to this many chapters, and with over 130 reviews and 8000+ views in total, but all the same, thank you all for your support on this fanfic! I certainly hope you enjoy reading these things as much as I do writing them!
In any case, tell me what you think of this chapter, the episode so far, the fanfic in general and if I can make any improvements to my writing style in the future; any advice/comment is appreciated! Now, I'll be off to watch a bit of Evangelion Abridged for some inspiration while listening to some good ol' Stewart Copeland tunes! I hope you enjoyed reading this chapter and until we meet again, probably in the next chapter where things start to get pretty bloody suspicious, have a great day y'all! - FrDougal9000)
