Information on legalities for almost all characters in this story: Sonic, Knuckles, Tails, and all other related characters are © SEGA. Anna Rose is © me, I suppose. The policemen are © themselves :P
(Authors' Note: I COMPLETELY forgot that Tails and Knuckles live in their own separate homes while I was writing this story. Will you people ever let up on me?!)
(Another Note: In this story I call Tails' vehicle the Tornado, because on the inside of the SA2Battle/Sonic Advance guide, if you look close enough, you can see script painted on that says 'Tornado III'.)
Holes and Tricks
An Adventure with Knuckles the Echidna
Part 1
It was just a few weeks after the incident aboard the space colony ARK, and Sonic was still moping around the apartment about Shadow. I was trying to cheer him up.
"Hey, come on, Sonic. Don't be so blue." I walked over towards where the hedgehog was sitting as I said this.
"I don't think that's really possible, seeing as how I was born this color." The sulking animal that was my best friend looked up at me with an unusually large scowl on his face.
I frowned right back at Sonic as I responded to his statement. "You know what I meant. But, you can't blame yourself for what happened to Shadow. We don't even know if he's gone. We're all just assuming that the worst has happened."
"Yeah, he probably just landed on a soft pile of grass and leaves after falling through the atmosphere, right?" The hedgehog's voice was dripping with sarcasm as he glared up at me.
Tails looked up from something he was tinkering with on the kitchen table and softly stated, "Sonic, don't be that way. Knuckles is just trying to help."
The literally blue hedgehog quickly stood up from his seat on the couch and shouted, "Well, I don't need your help! Just leave me alone!" The now-furious Sonic stormed down the hallway to his bedroom (which is right in between Tails' and my room) and slammed the door shut, causing the picture taped up on his door to fall to the floor.
It was the picture that was taken of Amy, Sonic, Tails, and me when we got caught out in a rainstorm with Big the Cat. Big had taken the picture when we all were attempting to dry ourselves off with Amy's hairdryer. The enormous, blue cat caught us off guard as Sonic was passing the dryer on to Tails and snapped the photo right as Sonic noticed we were in Big's presence. The photograph ended up with Tails' whiskers being blown back by the appliance in his hands, Amy stood in the doorway of the bathroom soaking wet, and Sonic and I stood in the actual bathroom with half-closed eyes while we began to laugh at the sight of Amy when she realized she would be last to use her own hairdryer.
Now, it had seemed like Sonic was always in a grumpy mood. He would yell at us out of the blue, to the point that I actually made Amy move out of the apartment so she wouldn't have to be sent to her room to avoid hearing the irate hedgehog and I fight. She ended up at her sister Anna Rose's house, which was where she stayed for quite a while. The four of us live in the same apartment, if you hadn't already figured that out.
That said, the picture flopped down to the carpeted floor of our apartment. After seeing it glide gently down to the floor, I quietly tiptoed through the hallway and picked up the photograph that was laying face-down on the floor. I studied it for a moment, and then walked out to the kitchen, where the orange fox still sat. I sat down across from him, and then set the picture down in front of the gadget that was dismantled by our friend, the mechanic, and asked, "When was the last time you saw him looking like this? Happy, I mean."
The two-tailed fox examined the photo on the table and sadly replied, saying, "I don't remember. It's been too long since I've even seen Sonic smile with the whole occurrence of the space colony ARK."
There was a silence between us, but in the background, we could faintly hear the hedgehog's electric guitar playing out his favorite song. After what seemed to be a minute, I stood up and stated, "I'm going over to Anna's house. I've got to talk to Amy. …I'll have my cell phone on if you need me."
I headed towards the chair that my leather jacket laid on and put my hand in the right pocket to make sure my sporty red cellular phone was present.
I quietly shut the front door so as not to disturb Sonic's 'meditation'. While walking down the hall towards the elevators (Sonic, Tails, Amy, and I live on the eighth of ten floors in our building), I felt as if something odd was going on that concerned Amy and Anna. Unfortunately, my suspicions were correct.
When I got to Anna's home, the front door was opened slightly and as far as I could see there wasn't any light in the house that was on. I cautiously walked through the door to find some furniture looking as if a struggle between a few people had occurred.
"Hello? Is anyone home?" I called out into the darkened living room as I stepped slowly deeper into Anna Rose's residence. "Anna? Amy? Are you… Oh my God!" I ran through the mess of pillows scattered across the floor towards the spot where the older pink hedgehog's body laid. I carefully turned the body over to see if Anna was breathing. I saw her closed eyelids flutter slightly, then fully open to reveal a worried look in her eyes, which were staring straight into mine.
"Knu-Knuckles? … Oh my God, Knuckles, I'm so glad you're here!" The female hedgehog quickly leaned up from her 'resting' spot on the floor and sobbed into my shoulder, practically defining the phrase "A shoulder to cry on". Anna then clenched her hand into a fist and lightly pounded on my chest while managing to get out, "I'm so sorry… I couldn't do anything to help her…"
"Wait… what do you mean by, 'couldn't do anything to help her' … Did something happen to Amy?" I was horrified about even thinking that the evil Dr. Eggman had found out where one of my closest friends was living. 'If that sick genius has kidnapped her, he could find out where everyone else that I care about lived and even launch some sort of surprise attack.' I thought long and hard about what Anna could have meant while she still sat there, crying into my fur, thus making one spot in my red coat wet down to my skin.
All the sudden, there was a slight knocking on the door that startled both Anna and I, and a few men in blue uniforms walked in through the door. They were, of course, police, and they began to question what was going on and that a neighbor had called a few minutes ago claimed they heard sounds of a struggle going on in this house. "Exactly what happened here, ma'am?" The tallest man stepped forward as he asked Anna this.
"Well, A-Amy and I were… talking… and we heard a knock on the door… I-I thought it was Knuckles here, so I went to open the door… then, when I opened the door, a dark colored animal, I think it might have been a hedgehog, slammed past me and ran straight towards Amy… I tried to stop him; b-but he knocked me down to the floor and Amy… Amy tried to defend herself, but I passed out before I knew what was happening… and when I woke up, Knuckles really was here…" Anna struggled to try not to cry, but failed in the end.
The same policeman inquired who Amy and Knuckles were. Since the pink hedgehog was so choked up, I answered his questions even though I was shocked to find out what had happened. "I am Knuckles, and Amy is her younger sister." The other three policemen who were with the questioning officer had followed the trail of destruction seemingly left behind by Amy and the mystery attacker into the kitchen. The questioning was cut off by one of the other officers with a shout of, "Sir, there's something in here you all should see."
We all followed the man's voice into the kitchen to find evidence that whoever was targeting Amy knew what they were dealing with. A small portion of the handle on the younger pink hedgehog's hammer lay on the vinyl floor along with a barely significant amount of white cloth that had a small amount of what seemed to be blood stained on not only the cloth-like material, but also on the floor and the handle segment that had broken off of the young female hedgehog's Piko Piko Hammer. Next to the various items scattered on the kitchen floor, a small piece of paper laid on the kitchen floor. I looked over at the policemen to ensure that it was safe to pick up the note. After receiving silent approval from the officers, I picked up the paper and read it aloud:
"Dearest Knucklehead,
I have taken Amy Rose the Hedgehog hostage. If you or anyone else wish to see her ever again, come with Sonic and Tails to the beginning of Radical Highway on Saturday at four p.m.
If you are late or bring any police agents with you, Amy will have a permanent residence in the Pumpkin Hill Cemetery.
Sincerely,
Shadow the Hedgehog"
************************************************************************
"Oh my gosh! Are you kidding?" gasped the two-tailed fox. Right after the policemen had found the evidence of a struggle between Amy and who we thought was Shadow, I called the apartment to inform my fox friend what had happened.
"Would I joke about something this serious? … I'm at Anna's house right now.
When I got here, the door was open and there weren't any lights on. I walked in to see what was going on and found Anna unconscious on the floor, face down. When she woke up, she started crying her eyes out and kept saying that she 'couldn't do anything to help her'. When I asked what she meant, the police had arrived and more than one person found out what happened just a few minutes before I got there… Oh, God, this is partly my fault! If I had left just two minutes earlier none of this would have happened!" I suddenly realized that if I had been there when Shadow had supposedly came in; he wouldn't have stood a chance of getting Amy farther than the back door. I felt like beating myself up for letting this happen to one of my friends.
"Come on, Knuckles, even if you did happen to be at Anna's, Shadow would have just used Chaos Control… Come to think of it, I wonder if he even thought of using it at all!" Tails had awakened a suspicion in my mind that I wondered about aloud; "You know, if he wanted to kidnap Amy on his own will, I think Shadow would have just used it in the first place."
"Are you saying you think somebody, or something, might be controlling Shadow?" My orange-furred friend seemingly tapped into my brainwaves to discover what I was thinking.
"It's a definite possibility, Tails… I'm coming back to the apartment. I'm getting a copy made of a letter that's supposed to be written by Shadow. Don't tell Sonic about any of this until I get back, okay?" I wanted to make sure the fox didn't do something he'd regret.
"Got it, Knux. See you in a few minutes." The two-tailed fox hung up the apartment phone just as the battery on my cell phone went dead.
"Stupid piece of scrap metal…" I muttered as I dropped the item into my pocket again. I then walked over to the officer nearest me and asked if the copy was done yet.
"Yeah, it is. If you wanted to leave soon or something like that, it's out on the kitchen table." The policeman seemed friendly in his response. I shook his hand for all the cooperation we had given each other and walked inside and picked up the copy of the letter.
When I got home, Tails was watching a mechanics show and seemed to be zoning out. I shut the front door to the apartment as quietly as possible, but the orange fox jumped and immediately looked up at me with worried eyes as he softly asked, "Is Anna okay with all of this going on?"
"She's a little bit shaken up, but she'll be fine except for the fact that Amy won't be there for a while." I sighed and tossed my jacket on the empty coat rack by the front door. After what seemed to be a minute, I added, "Has Sonic came out of his room at all?"
The fox laughed slightly as he replied, saying, "Only to get some chilidogs to eat." A short silence occurred between the two of us, then the two-tailed animal looked sternly up at me and said, "Do you think it's time we tell Sonic?"
"It should be safe to break the news to him now. But, you can't blame me if he goes mental when we tell him." The small fox's eyes widened slightly and I laughed as I quickly added, "Don't worry, Tails. I was only joking!"
The two of us then walked silently down the hallway towards Sonic's bedroom. When we reached the door, Tails knocked on it and softly called out, "Sonic, can Knux and I talk to you for a minute?"
"Yeah, come in." The blue hedgehog said loud enough for Tails and I to hear.
Heeding his response, I opened the door to see him lying on his back on the floor, throwing a tennis ball against the wall and quickly catching it before it smashed into his face.
"We've got some sort of good news and bad news. … Uhh, we'll start with the 'good' news." I shifted uneasily and glanced over at the orange fox.
"Shadow is still alive, Sonic." Tails bit his lower lip as he stated this.
The blue animal swiftly leaned up with a shocked expression spread across his face, forgetting that he was still throwing the small ball until it hit him in the side of the head. This happening, Sonic let out a loud phrase that shocked Tails and me and made me wonder where he had picked it up. After a moment spent rubbing the impact site, the blue animal turned to our orange friend and said, "Are you sure? Did somebody see him?"
Taking it upon myself to answer his inquiries, I let out a soft sigh and began.
"Well, there's a rather large chance he was at Amy's older sister's house. That leads to the bad news… Apparently, Shadow's kidnapped Amy." I looked sympathetically at my stunned blue friend as I handed him the copy of the letter.
Sonic studied the small piece of paper in his hand for a moment, and then looked up at me with wide and worried eyes as he managed to squeak, "Why would he do something like this?"
"We don't know yet, but I've got a feeling that something, or someone, is controlling him… We'll find out if that's true or not on Saturday." I sighed heavily as I told my hedgehog friend how I had discovered Amy was missing.
"Sonic, I'm sure…" Tails began to say something, but trailed off when the blue animal left his room and headed out towards the kitchen. When he got there, the picture was still laying out on the table. Sonic sat down in front of the photo and stared at it until I sat down next to him.
"Don't worry, Sonic. We'll get Amy back no matter what it takes." I grinned at the hedgehog as he lifted his eyes from the somewhat wrinkled picture.
My blue friend then lightly slammed his fist down on the table and exclaimed, "Yeah, and we're going to find out what's going on with Shadow!" Sonic grinned right back at Tails and me as we all stood up from our spots at the table.
"Now there's the Sonic we all know!" I exclaimed as I gave my best friends a high five.
(Authors' Note: I COMPLETELY forgot that Tails and Knuckles live in their own separate homes while I was writing this story. Will you people ever let up on me?!)
(Another Note: In this story I call Tails' vehicle the Tornado, because on the inside of the SA2Battle/Sonic Advance guide, if you look close enough, you can see script painted on that says 'Tornado III'.)
Holes and Tricks
An Adventure with Knuckles the Echidna
Part 1
It was just a few weeks after the incident aboard the space colony ARK, and Sonic was still moping around the apartment about Shadow. I was trying to cheer him up.
"Hey, come on, Sonic. Don't be so blue." I walked over towards where the hedgehog was sitting as I said this.
"I don't think that's really possible, seeing as how I was born this color." The sulking animal that was my best friend looked up at me with an unusually large scowl on his face.
I frowned right back at Sonic as I responded to his statement. "You know what I meant. But, you can't blame yourself for what happened to Shadow. We don't even know if he's gone. We're all just assuming that the worst has happened."
"Yeah, he probably just landed on a soft pile of grass and leaves after falling through the atmosphere, right?" The hedgehog's voice was dripping with sarcasm as he glared up at me.
Tails looked up from something he was tinkering with on the kitchen table and softly stated, "Sonic, don't be that way. Knuckles is just trying to help."
The literally blue hedgehog quickly stood up from his seat on the couch and shouted, "Well, I don't need your help! Just leave me alone!" The now-furious Sonic stormed down the hallway to his bedroom (which is right in between Tails' and my room) and slammed the door shut, causing the picture taped up on his door to fall to the floor.
It was the picture that was taken of Amy, Sonic, Tails, and me when we got caught out in a rainstorm with Big the Cat. Big had taken the picture when we all were attempting to dry ourselves off with Amy's hairdryer. The enormous, blue cat caught us off guard as Sonic was passing the dryer on to Tails and snapped the photo right as Sonic noticed we were in Big's presence. The photograph ended up with Tails' whiskers being blown back by the appliance in his hands, Amy stood in the doorway of the bathroom soaking wet, and Sonic and I stood in the actual bathroom with half-closed eyes while we began to laugh at the sight of Amy when she realized she would be last to use her own hairdryer.
Now, it had seemed like Sonic was always in a grumpy mood. He would yell at us out of the blue, to the point that I actually made Amy move out of the apartment so she wouldn't have to be sent to her room to avoid hearing the irate hedgehog and I fight. She ended up at her sister Anna Rose's house, which was where she stayed for quite a while. The four of us live in the same apartment, if you hadn't already figured that out.
That said, the picture flopped down to the carpeted floor of our apartment. After seeing it glide gently down to the floor, I quietly tiptoed through the hallway and picked up the photograph that was laying face-down on the floor. I studied it for a moment, and then walked out to the kitchen, where the orange fox still sat. I sat down across from him, and then set the picture down in front of the gadget that was dismantled by our friend, the mechanic, and asked, "When was the last time you saw him looking like this? Happy, I mean."
The two-tailed fox examined the photo on the table and sadly replied, saying, "I don't remember. It's been too long since I've even seen Sonic smile with the whole occurrence of the space colony ARK."
There was a silence between us, but in the background, we could faintly hear the hedgehog's electric guitar playing out his favorite song. After what seemed to be a minute, I stood up and stated, "I'm going over to Anna's house. I've got to talk to Amy. …I'll have my cell phone on if you need me."
I headed towards the chair that my leather jacket laid on and put my hand in the right pocket to make sure my sporty red cellular phone was present.
I quietly shut the front door so as not to disturb Sonic's 'meditation'. While walking down the hall towards the elevators (Sonic, Tails, Amy, and I live on the eighth of ten floors in our building), I felt as if something odd was going on that concerned Amy and Anna. Unfortunately, my suspicions were correct.
When I got to Anna's home, the front door was opened slightly and as far as I could see there wasn't any light in the house that was on. I cautiously walked through the door to find some furniture looking as if a struggle between a few people had occurred.
"Hello? Is anyone home?" I called out into the darkened living room as I stepped slowly deeper into Anna Rose's residence. "Anna? Amy? Are you… Oh my God!" I ran through the mess of pillows scattered across the floor towards the spot where the older pink hedgehog's body laid. I carefully turned the body over to see if Anna was breathing. I saw her closed eyelids flutter slightly, then fully open to reveal a worried look in her eyes, which were staring straight into mine.
"Knu-Knuckles? … Oh my God, Knuckles, I'm so glad you're here!" The female hedgehog quickly leaned up from her 'resting' spot on the floor and sobbed into my shoulder, practically defining the phrase "A shoulder to cry on". Anna then clenched her hand into a fist and lightly pounded on my chest while managing to get out, "I'm so sorry… I couldn't do anything to help her…"
"Wait… what do you mean by, 'couldn't do anything to help her' … Did something happen to Amy?" I was horrified about even thinking that the evil Dr. Eggman had found out where one of my closest friends was living. 'If that sick genius has kidnapped her, he could find out where everyone else that I care about lived and even launch some sort of surprise attack.' I thought long and hard about what Anna could have meant while she still sat there, crying into my fur, thus making one spot in my red coat wet down to my skin.
All the sudden, there was a slight knocking on the door that startled both Anna and I, and a few men in blue uniforms walked in through the door. They were, of course, police, and they began to question what was going on and that a neighbor had called a few minutes ago claimed they heard sounds of a struggle going on in this house. "Exactly what happened here, ma'am?" The tallest man stepped forward as he asked Anna this.
"Well, A-Amy and I were… talking… and we heard a knock on the door… I-I thought it was Knuckles here, so I went to open the door… then, when I opened the door, a dark colored animal, I think it might have been a hedgehog, slammed past me and ran straight towards Amy… I tried to stop him; b-but he knocked me down to the floor and Amy… Amy tried to defend herself, but I passed out before I knew what was happening… and when I woke up, Knuckles really was here…" Anna struggled to try not to cry, but failed in the end.
The same policeman inquired who Amy and Knuckles were. Since the pink hedgehog was so choked up, I answered his questions even though I was shocked to find out what had happened. "I am Knuckles, and Amy is her younger sister." The other three policemen who were with the questioning officer had followed the trail of destruction seemingly left behind by Amy and the mystery attacker into the kitchen. The questioning was cut off by one of the other officers with a shout of, "Sir, there's something in here you all should see."
We all followed the man's voice into the kitchen to find evidence that whoever was targeting Amy knew what they were dealing with. A small portion of the handle on the younger pink hedgehog's hammer lay on the vinyl floor along with a barely significant amount of white cloth that had a small amount of what seemed to be blood stained on not only the cloth-like material, but also on the floor and the handle segment that had broken off of the young female hedgehog's Piko Piko Hammer. Next to the various items scattered on the kitchen floor, a small piece of paper laid on the kitchen floor. I looked over at the policemen to ensure that it was safe to pick up the note. After receiving silent approval from the officers, I picked up the paper and read it aloud:
"Dearest Knucklehead,
I have taken Amy Rose the Hedgehog hostage. If you or anyone else wish to see her ever again, come with Sonic and Tails to the beginning of Radical Highway on Saturday at four p.m.
If you are late or bring any police agents with you, Amy will have a permanent residence in the Pumpkin Hill Cemetery.
Sincerely,
Shadow the Hedgehog"
************************************************************************
"Oh my gosh! Are you kidding?" gasped the two-tailed fox. Right after the policemen had found the evidence of a struggle between Amy and who we thought was Shadow, I called the apartment to inform my fox friend what had happened.
"Would I joke about something this serious? … I'm at Anna's house right now.
When I got here, the door was open and there weren't any lights on. I walked in to see what was going on and found Anna unconscious on the floor, face down. When she woke up, she started crying her eyes out and kept saying that she 'couldn't do anything to help her'. When I asked what she meant, the police had arrived and more than one person found out what happened just a few minutes before I got there… Oh, God, this is partly my fault! If I had left just two minutes earlier none of this would have happened!" I suddenly realized that if I had been there when Shadow had supposedly came in; he wouldn't have stood a chance of getting Amy farther than the back door. I felt like beating myself up for letting this happen to one of my friends.
"Come on, Knuckles, even if you did happen to be at Anna's, Shadow would have just used Chaos Control… Come to think of it, I wonder if he even thought of using it at all!" Tails had awakened a suspicion in my mind that I wondered about aloud; "You know, if he wanted to kidnap Amy on his own will, I think Shadow would have just used it in the first place."
"Are you saying you think somebody, or something, might be controlling Shadow?" My orange-furred friend seemingly tapped into my brainwaves to discover what I was thinking.
"It's a definite possibility, Tails… I'm coming back to the apartment. I'm getting a copy made of a letter that's supposed to be written by Shadow. Don't tell Sonic about any of this until I get back, okay?" I wanted to make sure the fox didn't do something he'd regret.
"Got it, Knux. See you in a few minutes." The two-tailed fox hung up the apartment phone just as the battery on my cell phone went dead.
"Stupid piece of scrap metal…" I muttered as I dropped the item into my pocket again. I then walked over to the officer nearest me and asked if the copy was done yet.
"Yeah, it is. If you wanted to leave soon or something like that, it's out on the kitchen table." The policeman seemed friendly in his response. I shook his hand for all the cooperation we had given each other and walked inside and picked up the copy of the letter.
When I got home, Tails was watching a mechanics show and seemed to be zoning out. I shut the front door to the apartment as quietly as possible, but the orange fox jumped and immediately looked up at me with worried eyes as he softly asked, "Is Anna okay with all of this going on?"
"She's a little bit shaken up, but she'll be fine except for the fact that Amy won't be there for a while." I sighed and tossed my jacket on the empty coat rack by the front door. After what seemed to be a minute, I added, "Has Sonic came out of his room at all?"
The fox laughed slightly as he replied, saying, "Only to get some chilidogs to eat." A short silence occurred between the two of us, then the two-tailed animal looked sternly up at me and said, "Do you think it's time we tell Sonic?"
"It should be safe to break the news to him now. But, you can't blame me if he goes mental when we tell him." The small fox's eyes widened slightly and I laughed as I quickly added, "Don't worry, Tails. I was only joking!"
The two of us then walked silently down the hallway towards Sonic's bedroom. When we reached the door, Tails knocked on it and softly called out, "Sonic, can Knux and I talk to you for a minute?"
"Yeah, come in." The blue hedgehog said loud enough for Tails and I to hear.
Heeding his response, I opened the door to see him lying on his back on the floor, throwing a tennis ball against the wall and quickly catching it before it smashed into his face.
"We've got some sort of good news and bad news. … Uhh, we'll start with the 'good' news." I shifted uneasily and glanced over at the orange fox.
"Shadow is still alive, Sonic." Tails bit his lower lip as he stated this.
The blue animal swiftly leaned up with a shocked expression spread across his face, forgetting that he was still throwing the small ball until it hit him in the side of the head. This happening, Sonic let out a loud phrase that shocked Tails and me and made me wonder where he had picked it up. After a moment spent rubbing the impact site, the blue animal turned to our orange friend and said, "Are you sure? Did somebody see him?"
Taking it upon myself to answer his inquiries, I let out a soft sigh and began.
"Well, there's a rather large chance he was at Amy's older sister's house. That leads to the bad news… Apparently, Shadow's kidnapped Amy." I looked sympathetically at my stunned blue friend as I handed him the copy of the letter.
Sonic studied the small piece of paper in his hand for a moment, and then looked up at me with wide and worried eyes as he managed to squeak, "Why would he do something like this?"
"We don't know yet, but I've got a feeling that something, or someone, is controlling him… We'll find out if that's true or not on Saturday." I sighed heavily as I told my hedgehog friend how I had discovered Amy was missing.
"Sonic, I'm sure…" Tails began to say something, but trailed off when the blue animal left his room and headed out towards the kitchen. When he got there, the picture was still laying out on the table. Sonic sat down in front of the photo and stared at it until I sat down next to him.
"Don't worry, Sonic. We'll get Amy back no matter what it takes." I grinned at the hedgehog as he lifted his eyes from the somewhat wrinkled picture.
My blue friend then lightly slammed his fist down on the table and exclaimed, "Yeah, and we're going to find out what's going on with Shadow!" Sonic grinned right back at Tails and me as we all stood up from our spots at the table.
"Now there's the Sonic we all know!" I exclaimed as I gave my best friends a high five.