Chapter Eighteen: A Most Dangerous Game
The village was quieter than it had been in quite some time.
Part of that came from the villagers' shock, of course. But the sheer weight of what had just happened played a part as well. Even Sticks, ever the one to launch into a conspiracy theory, remained silent.
After an extended stretch of this, Shadow was the one to end it. "Everyone, come on! We have a global threat on our hands that's just taken almost every computer in the village, and all we're doing is standing around like idiots!" Then, he started shouting orders. "Tails, get all your inventions that might help us take this bastard down. Knuckles, help Tails carry everything! Amy, start searching Sonic's cottage to make sure that nothing else got taken. Sticks, Eggman, you search everywhere else! I'll try to keep the villagers calm, and Rouge, do you have any of that really strong coffee you use to get through extra-long stakeouts?"
Rouge yelled, "I have a few bags!"
"Well, then make it all! Something tells me we're going to need it!"
Everyone scurried off to perform their respective duties. Tails could barely take off, he was so exhausted, but he managed it somehow. The others looked like they were burning the midnight oil, but they pushed through their exhaustion to assess the damage.
While none of them had a clear view of what truly happened, all of them probably held the idea that it was not going to be pretty.
Sticks' mood soured further with every cottage she entered.
In each one, she'd come across cowering villagers, smashed furniture, broken windows. That she'd come prepared for. However, nothing could prepare her for the blood splatters that stained some cottages red, the surviving villagers sporting horrific injuries that made Amy's crippled leg look like a minor inconvenience, and even the occasional body.
After she noticed one villager missing an arm, she staggered out of the cottage to do two things. One, dry-heave until her stomach stopped tossing, and two, shout out (between heaves), "Did you guys bring any medical supplies? 'Cause a couple of people here look like they might really need them!"
Shadow responded, "we brought gauze and antiseptic, not sure what else, though! Also, none of us are real doctors, so we might have to improvise if it's that horrible!"
"Well, do it fast," Sticks shouted. "Some of these folks look like they're going to bleed out!"
Shadow yelled, "I'll go look for them! However, I can't apply first aid to save my life, so you'll probably have to do this yourself!"
Sticks dashed around like crazy for the next few minutes, trying to assure the injured that everything would be alright if they just stayed still, and eventually having all the medical supplies Shadow and Rouge had brought thrown at her. Sure enough, there wasn't that much beyond what they thought they had- most of it was gauze and antiseptic.
Most people would have been hopelessly confused. Sticks, however, was not most people. Years of roughing it in the woods and having her brain filled with conspiracies had left her with quite a bit of skill in terms of addressing injuries without proper medical supplies. Her hands were a blur as she poured antiseptic into anything open, and strategically utilized the gauze to fix or bandage the wounds to the best of her ability. Unfortunately for the suffering, the lack of a hospital on the island meant that Sticks couldn't find any painkillers besides a generic brand of aspirin. Those that needed it took some regardless- if they were conscious, of course.
Sticks had to stop and dry-heave again in the middle of trying to patch up one villager's missing arm but otherwise was pretty effective. Within fifteen minutes, every villager that had injuries severe enough to merit attention had been accounted for.
During that time frame, Tails and Knuckles had returned with quite a few freaky inventions (a stun gun that shot pale blue bolts of energy whenever it was fired, his last flash grenade, the ray gun that transported the user inside someone's mind, a box covered in sharp edges that contained something Tails wouldn't discuss, and some kind of pale blue powder that Tails claimed could knock anyone out cold) and Eggman had provided minimal medical assistance (ironic considering he'd taken the title of Doctor Eggman, but that was beside the point) but what he had done was complete. Metal Sonic had returned, his chasing of Sonic proving fruitless. Rouge had arrived on the scene with several pots of strong-smelling coffee. Amy had noticed nothing else missing, but she stayed in the cottage, not wanting to put extra strain on her leg. Shadow had calmed the villagers down enough that he risked slipping away for a second to join the rest of them.
Rouge put on a winning smile. "Coffee, anyone?"
Knuckles didn't bother with subtlety, taking his first sip straight out of one of the pots. Unfortunately for him, he also spilled quite a bit of it on himself, leaving him hopping up and down, gritting his teeth, and yelling, "Ow! Hot! So hot!" at the top of his lungs. The others merely shrugged, having gotten used to this by now.
"Let's just get cups," Rouge said, laced with obvious amusement. Everyone else merely nodded.
They'd need to be at their best to face the threat looming ahead.
The coffee was gone in less than fifteen minutes.
Tails felt like something was burning inside his stomach, but his eyes, which had been sagging and exhausted before the coffee, were bright and alert. At the moment, he was staring a hole in one of the things he'd brought that was not oriented towards combat- a simple monitor with a flame-orange case and a blank screen.
"It's a tracker," Tails said when the others asked. "With this, I can pinpoint the location of my computer with a margin of error of fewer than two feet. I just need to wait for it to finish calibrating- it gets data from satellites, so that takes time-
"Wait, how did you get it to do that?" Shadow interjected.
"I could go on a half-hour long tangent explaining that, but we don't have time," Tails said. "The point is, soon I'll be able to locate the computer, and wherever it is, Sonic's probably there as well."
"That seems like sound logic," Eggman said. "He wouldn't just leave it, it's too valuable."
He probably would have said more, but a sudden screeching beep drowned out whatever he was trying to say.
Tails swept up the tracker, saying, "it found the location! Now, I just need to make sure it's not changing, just in case Sonic's on the move."
He waited for a few seconds. When the coordinates remained the same, Tails then said, "Now, we need to go to the coordinates the tracker's given us, and we'll find my computer. It's saying those coordinates are 31.76 degrees latitude, 60.25 degrees longitude. That's only a few miles from here!"
Eggman seemed suspicious about this. "Shouldn't we match that up with an actual map to make sure it's not some kind of trap? Just saying, that sounds exactly like something I'd pull on you."
"Don't worry, doing that already," Rouge said. The map she produced was zoomed in close on the island, highlighting different features that intrepid tourists might care to see- the ruins of the Buddy Buddy Temple, the cliffs that opened to picturesque views, the Unnamed Village (obviously) and a few others. "Based on this map, the computer is located right outside the Buddy Buddy Temple," Rouge finished.
"Well, then what are we waiting for? Let's go!" Tails was already halfway out the door, several inventions strapped to his back, when he finished that sentence. The others, save Amy hurriedly followed in his wake, carrying everything Tails had brought.
Before he left, Shadow said, "Amy, stay in the village. Out of all of us, you're the most vulnerable, so we don't want you in harm's way if he attacks. You have a way to communicate with the others, right?"
"Yes," she said, "We still have those communicators Tails made for us a while back."
"If anything in the village feels even slightly wrong, tell us. We've lost too many people as it is. Nobody else dies today."
"You got it, Shadow," Amy said.
However, by the time she finished, she was talking to air.
"It's got to be around here somewhere…"
Tails had reached the coordinates that his tracker had displayed. They were still the same and he was right there, but lo and behold, no computers in sight.
"Maybe I need to get this thing fixed…" Tails trailed off. That was a problem for another time.
The others arrived in staggered waves, turning the grassy field upside down in an effort to locate Tails' computer. Not far away, the entrance to the Buddy Buddy Temple loomed, partially caved in due to the fiasco they'd been part of not long ago. None of them wanted to go inside, but with every passing second, that outcome seemed more and more likely.
Until, that is, Sticks saw something.
"Tails!" Sticks yelled. "I think this might be it!"
Tails bulleted towards Sticks as fast as his namesakes would allow. "Coming!"
Tails got there first, but soon, the others were also crowding around an incredibly ordinary bush, peeking at an object the little branches of said bush partially concealed. It was Tails' computer, no doubt about it, but there was one odd thing about all this that dampened the mood a little.
"Tails," asked Knuckles, "Why is the computer turned on?"
"I don't know," Tails admitted, "but it doesn't really matter. Now we can kill this monster for good!"
"Oh, really?" A piercing voice from inside the bush interrupted their rejoicing.
The smiles fell off of everyone's faces at the same time. Well, everyone except for Sonic, whose face dominated the computer monitor as he broke every single rule of online chatting etiquette you could think of (plus a couple that probably went unsaid).
"You think I'd be so stupid as to carry something I knew you could track me with to my hiding place?" He sneered, dried blood and even a bit of fur revealing to be caking his teeth. "I might not be you, Tails, but my intellect is still far superior to average cretins like your friends!"
Shadow shot off an indignant "Hey!" Eggman swore under his breath. And Knuckles-
Well, he just looked kind of confused. All he said was "wait, what's a cretin?"
"Thanks for proving my point, Knuckles," Sonic said, smirking. "Now, what was I about to say?" He paused for a few seconds, then his grin stretched from ear to ear and his eyes lit up. "Oh! I was just about to tell you that I have the entire village in the palm of my hand!"
Sticks glared at the screen. "Don't waste your breath on empty threats, you digital freak."
Sonic's cool expression vanished in an instant, replaced with a blood-marked snarl, before changing back just as quickly. Then, the video feed on the computer changed to reveal the barren plot of land that had once been the main plaza of the Unnamed Village.
However, Sonic was still able to talk to them through the monitor, and he wasted no time doing just that. And that was when things spiraled completely out of control.
"In a moment, you'll see," he hissed, "that my threats are anything but empty."
Elise hadn't left Aunt Lina's cottage since the announcement had been made that the flights were being stopped for a time.
She'd been lucky on all accounts thus far. First, she'd been one of the few to initially return to her cottage, sparing her from witnessing the destruction Sonic wrought on them with his second ambush. Second, the location of Aunt Lina's cottage, well away from the village center, had spared her from the brunt of the laser attacks.
The screams, however, weren't going to leave her for as long as she lived- a terrible thing, but it took backstage to her life having a significant chance of not lasting much longer.
Every single light in the house was on, even though she was lying on the sofa, desperately trying to get something resembling sleep. She hadn't been afraid of the dark in years, but something about the trauma of the thing that had killed her mother attacking again had sent her into a relapse of sorts, regressing her back to the scared little child she'd tried so hard to outgrow.
Right when she was finally about to drift off to sleep, a chorus of screams made her jolt awake and dive behind the sofa.
"What's happening?" She said this to herself, curled up in the fetal position and rocking back and forth. "What's going-"
Suddenly, her surroundings changed. One second, she was in Aunt Lina's cottage. The next, she had fallen on her back, staring up into a starless black sky tinged with bloody red.
She stood up, clutching herself tightly. That's when she noticed everyone else.
Every villager she'd seen, and quite a few more that she hadn't, had been transported to this mysterious place as well. Some were screaming their lungs out, others muttering unintelligible gibberish. A handful were crying, and a select few were laughing like this was some kind of twisted joke. All of them- children and adults, male and female, terrified and very terrified- tried to find some way to make sense of this.
But then, all the explanation they needed appeared in the sky. Firstly, an image of the wreck Sonic had become filling the sky. And secondly, the words that appeared next to it.
Three words were all it took. Just three.
I AM GOD.
Author's Notes:
-Sorry for taking so long with with this chapter. You and I both know this one is long overdue.
-Originally, I had this done in a week, but I disliked the original draft because of how little actually happened in it, and got rid of the whole thing to start from scratch. Combine that with doing that same thing again after the second draft, midterms hitting and leaving me with little time to write, my other big project moving forward, and a bit of writers block, and now I've taken a month to finish a 2.5k word chapter.
-I know I've just gone on and on about this. I'll just say I'm sorry for the wait. Just as a fun fact, this is the exact point the original fizzled out. Don't worry, I'm not going to let that happen with this one.
-Hope you enjoyed this chapter, and see you next chapter!
Review Zone, Act XVII:
-Linz2: Thanks, as always, for taking the time to leave a review! Yeah, that reaction seems pretty accurate.
-Saul'keth: Thanks for taking the time to leave a review! I'm not sure if this was what you expected or not, but either way, I hope it ratchets things up a bit.