Chapter 8: Exhibition Match
March 6th, 2314 – 7:00 PM – Baca Park, Rotisiv, Tneicna
Sonic ran back across town and finally arrived at the tent in Baca Park. Carrie and Tails hadn't come back yet, so he decided he'd take a few exercise runs around the park while he waited for them. After about 30 minutes of running, he finally saw Carrie and Tails appear near the tent. He ran right over to them and screeched to a halt, tearing up grass from the ground in two streaks.
"Hey guys! You finally made it back!" Sonic said. "I almost thought you got mugged!"
"It's funny you should mention that Sonic," Carrie said, a worried tone in her voice. "I think I sensed the assassins again in this city. The feeling was weak before though, and right now I can't feel them."
"Do you think they left the city, since the signal is gone?" Tails asked.
"Maybe, maybe not," Carrie said. "Since there's a lot more criminals in big cities, it's harder to pinpoint the suits that are chasing me. They might not even be the killers at all for all I know."
"Why didn't you tell us this before?" Sonic said. "We could have set up camp outside the city then."
"We did turn them over to the soldiers in Erople, so I didn't think we'd have to worry about them anymore."
"I think we should get out of here anyway. You never know. Have you heard anything from the airport about getting our fuel for our plane?"
"The airport people called us on her cell phone," Tails said. "And they told us that there would be fuel ready for the Tornado tomorrow."
"That's good," Sonic nodded. "Right now, I think we should move our camp out of town."
"HOLD IT RIGHT THERE!" a voice screamed.
Sonic, Tails, and Carrie turned to face the owner of the voice. It was Knuckles.
"Knuckles!" Sonic said, surprised by his sudden appearance. "So...uh...did you come here for that match?"
"You shut up about that stupid match!" Knuckles said. "I know what you're really after! You want my backpack with all of my prize money in it!"
"What?" Sonic said, widening his eyes in surprise. "What are you talking about?"
"Quit playing dumb!" Knuckles bellowed. "I can sense my backpack inside your tent! I'll prove it to you right now that you have it!"
With those words, Knuckles stormed into the tent. A few seconds later, he gave a triumphant cry of success, and climbed out of the tent with a brown backpack in hand. He opened it up, and inside was the envelope holding the prize money.
"Told you that you had my backpack, you little liar!"
"But...Knuckles," Sonic started. "I don't have any idea how it got in there."
"You know perfectly well how it got in there!" Knuckles shouted. "You had a friend steal it for you while I was eating, because you knew I'd recognize you if you did it yourself! It's lucky somebody told me where your buddy was running to when I left the restaurant!"
"...Friend?" Sonic asked. "What did this 'friend' look like? And what about that guy who told you to come here?"
However, Knuckles seemed to be so enraged that he completely ignored the questions.
"You robbed me, and now you gotta pay!" Knuckles said, as he put the backpack down and assumed a fighting stance.
"Can't you just go?" Carrie interjected. "I mean you did get your bag back, so there's no need to fight."
"No way!" Knuckles bellowed. "When you rob me, you don't get off that easy! The only way to settle this is with a fight!"
"Knuckles, please tell me what the guys you saw looked like," Sonic said.
"Enough talking!" Knuckles shouted, before he charged straight at Sonic.
Great... Sonic thought, watching his oncoming attacker. Knuckles wants to do things the hard way. I got no choice but to fight if I wanna find out who set him up to come here.
Knuckles threw one punch lightning quick at Sonic's face. Sonic was able to just barely able to sidestep the punch. If he had been a quarter second slower, he would have been hit. Knuckles stumbled as he tried to stop, the inertia of his failed attack still carrying him forward. Finally, he screeched to a halt, tearing up streaks of the neatly trimmed grass.
I'll try my rolling attack. That'll knock him out fast.
Sonic peeled out with his feet where he was standing, and rushed straight at Knuckles. He curled into a roll, and was flying towards Knuckles like a boulder. However, just as he was about to reach Knuckles, the echidna hit him with a punch. Sonic cried out in pain. Not only did the attack really hurt, it also deflected him into a nearby tree trunk. Sonic smacked into the tree at full speed, tearing a gash in the wood and causing the tree to collapse. Sonic rolled to a stop, nursing his head to get rid of the pain.
Whoa...he's strong! That's the first time anyone's been able to deflect my rolling attack! No wonder he won the tournament so easily!
He clumsily started to climb to his feet, and looked in Knuckles general direction. However, the fallen tree was blocking his view of the echidna. He then looked up, and saw that Knuckles was gliding straight towards him. Sonic struggled to get up faster, but Knuckles was too close. Knuckles cleanly socked Sonic in the face with his fist as he flew by. The hedgehog was sent spinning through the air, before slamming down onto the grass again.
"Is that it?" Knuckles said, an angry tone in his voice. "I was hoping for a lot more from you! Come on! I know you can do better than that!"
"I've only started!" Sonic said. "You just caught me by surprise. You're the first person to block that attack. I'm not done yet!"
"You better not be bluffing!" Knuckles said. "I'm far from finished too!"
I guess I'll try that teleportation trick I showed him at the fighter's tent.
He started running straight for Knuckles, and curled into a ball, just like his last attack.
"Idiot," he heard Knuckles say.
Sonic smirked as he rolled along the ground.
You think I'm going to try the same attack again. You think wrong.
Sonic suddenly put on a burst of speed as he rolled, and then went out of the roll and leaped over Knuckles. He hit the ground behind Knuckles' back. However, he had done all of this so fast that Knuckles hadn't seen it happening. It was like he had just teleported.
"Where'd you go?" Knuckles said.
"Idiot," Sonic said, playfully imitating Knuckles' voice.
Before Knuckles could turn around to face Sonic, he got a hard kick in the back of the head. Since Sonic was such a fast runner, his legs were extremely strong. That made his kick a very damaging attack. Knuckles was sent reeling from the impact. While Sonic's kick would have probably knocked most people unconscious with one hit, it wasn't so for Knuckles. He regained his composure quite quickly.
"Heh...you can't remember the trick I showed you before, back at the fighter's tent," Sonic said, smirking.
Knuckles nursed the blow on the back of his head, and turned to face Sonic, anger in his eyes.
"I'll beat that smile off your face, you damn hedgehog!" Knuckles screamed.
He charged towards Knuckles for his next attack.
---
Carrie and Tails watched the fight from the sidelines.
"Should we try to stop them?" Carrie said.
"No," Tails said. "It's too dangerous. They look like they could really hurt you if they're fighting like that. Sonic looks like he's handling Knuckles okay anyway."
"I guess you're right," Carrie said. "But I don't like just sitting here. We know that we didn't steal his bag, so this fight is pointless. Boys will look for any reason to fight..."
"Speaking of the bag," Tails said. "Why would somebody put it in our tent? Oh yeah, and how come they left the prize money in the bag too?"
"No idea Tails," Carrie said with a sigh. "It doesn't make much sense, does it?"
Tails sat down on the grass to watch the fight, since he was tired of standing up. He looked down at the ground at his feet, watching as a light breeze made the blades of grass sway. They also carried the distant scents of foods being prepared for dinner in restaurants, and the faraway calls of the local denizens. Tails wasn't too worried about Sonic right now. If Sonic could take two guys with guns, he could surely handle one crazy echidna.
Wait...the two guys with guns...
He suddenly leaped to his feet, and said, "Carrie, I thought of something."
"What is it Tails?" Carrie asked.
"Maybe the people who are after you set this up," Tails said. "You did feel them running around in the city, right?"
"Yeah, that's right," Carrie said. Suddenly, she gasped and said, "I can feel them getting closer right now, as a matter of fact."
"Really?" Tails said. "Where are they?"
"I don't know. Knuckles' violent emotions are interfering with their signal."
Tails looked all around the park, and saw a few people walking around. None of them looked like the people Sonic had knocked out in Erople.
"I guess they really did get away from the soldiers before," Carrie said. "We should have taken them to the authorities ourselves."
Carrie closed her eyes, apparently trying hard to concentrate on the killers' signal. Suddenly, she cocked her head to the left. Tails turned his head to see what Carrie was looking at. He saw a black SUV parked on a dirt road that went through the park. Two figures were visible standing next to the truck, and one of them was holding a long, slender object...
"It's them!" Carrie gasped. "We have to go!"
"GET DOWN!" Tails screamed, tackling Carrie from behind as she started to run.
As Carrie fell face first to the ground, catching a mouthful of grass and dirt, a loud gunshot rang out. Tails could actually hear the whistle of the high caliber rifle round as it flew past. The bullet soared through the space that Carrie's head had occupied a second earlier.
"Was that a gunshot?" Knuckles said.
Tails got up off of the ground, and looked to see that Sonic and Knuckles were facing the two assassins next to their car.
"Did I get her?" he heard one of the assassins call out.
"Bloody hell!" the other one said. "You missed and now they know we're here! Let's get out of here!"
"You're not going anywhere!" Sonic said.
He ran straight towards the assassins and their car, going so fast that he left a trail of fire on the grass. He curled up into a ball as he got close to them, and plowed right through their truck. The black SUV was split into two halves from the impact, and the pieces fell over onto the ground with a mighty crash. Sonic quickly screeched to a halt after going right through the car. He stuck out his tongue at them, and pulled down one eyelid, mocking them.
---
"Damn that hedgehog!" John said. "Shoot him Wallace!"
"Right mate!" Wallace said, raising the sniper rifle to his shoulder.
"I recognize you two!" a loud voice said behind them.
John and Wallace turned around. Standing behind them was Knuckles, the echidna they had tricked into attacking Carrie's new little bodyguards.
"You're the one that stole my bag!" Knuckle said, pointing at Wallace. He then jerked his finger at John. "And you're the one who told me to look for it here!"
"Uhh...umm...we-"Wallace started.
"SHUT UP!" Knuckles said, causing both of them to jump back in fear.
Wallace started to aim the rifle at Knuckles. However, Knuckles saw what he was doing, and leaped right at Wallace. Even though the tiger was twice as tall as the echidna, he was scared to death of him. Wallace gasped in fright and fell down backwards, dropping his sniper rifle. Knuckles picked up the gun, and calmly bent the metal barrel with only his bare hands. He did it almost as easily as if it was made of soft clay.
"Cripes!" John screamed. "He bent your rifle like it was nothing!"
"If I can do that to metal..." Knuckles said with an evil grin. "Just think of what I can do to your neck..."
Wallace scrambled to his feet as fast as he could, and took off running across the park grass. He heard John gasping as he ran to catch up with him. Suddenly, a fist as hard as a cannonball slammed into Wallace from the back, and he was sent flying, the extra momentum from his running pushing him into the air. He crashed to the ground hard, and the wind was knocked out of him. He also heard a thump to his left, and painfully turned his head to see what it was. The blue hedgehog had taken down John, like the red echidna had taken down Wallace. Suddenly, a strong hand flipped him onto his back, and pulled him up by his shirt collar. He was looking at Knuckles.
"Tell me now!" the echidna yelled in his face. "Why did you steal my bag and put it in their tent?!"
"W-w-we..." Wallace started. "We wanted to get you to fight that blue hedgehog and his mutant fox friend."
"Don't you dare call him a mutant!" he heard Carrie say. Carrie walked up to him and slapped him across the face.
Un...believable... We're supposed to be killing her, and instead she's slapping us in the face while this echidna is about to kill us.
"Why'd you need Knuckles to fight?" the blue hedgehog said, walking over to Wallace while dragging John behind him. Fortunately though, the kid didn't do anything to hurt him like the other two.
"You're really tough, that's why..." Wallace mumbled. "You beat us half to death the last time we met, so we had to try to get to you another way. We saw Knuckles in the tournament, so we got the idea to put him to use. After Knuckles here took you and the fox out, we planned to kill Carrie."
"You bastards you..." Knuckles said. "You were using me to help kill an innocent girl!"
"How'd you get away from the soldiers before?" the fox asked, his creepy two tails absent-mindedly swinging back and forth behind him.
"We, uh...shot them..." John stammered, sitting a few feet away from Wallace. "Heh heh...we weren't as knocked out as you thought... And we had more guns than just the revolvers..."
"You sicko!" Carrie said, slapping John in the face this time. "How can you think that's funny?"
"How did you find us again?" Sonic said.
Wallace remained silent. He didn't want them to take away what they used to find her. That device was really expensive, and his boss would have his head if it wound up missing.
"Tell Sonic or I'll hit you!" Knuckles said, drawing his fist back.
"We tracked her cell phone signal!" Wallace said quickly. "The radar is in the car! Just don't hurt me!"
"Tails, go get it," Sonic said.
The fox ran to the destroyed truck. Wallace heard the noise of him poking around in their gear, and finally he returned with the radar. It was a small metal rectangle, about a foot long and a half wide. There was a radar screen on one side, and a small satellite dish stuck out of one end of the box.
"I think this is it," Tails said. "My mom showed me some machines like this before."
"Let me see that thing," Knuckles said. He took the radar and held it up in front of Wallace and John. Knuckles got a devilish grin on his face. He then crushed the radar into a ball between his two hands. After scrunching up the metal ball some more, he opened his hands, to allow the pieces of the radar to clatter to the ground.
"Looks like you won't be chasing her anymore!" he said, as he stood up.
Wallace almost felt like crying with how humiliating this was. Four little kids had defeated them, their car had been destroyed, and they no longer had their tracking device that allowed them to follow Carrie's movements. What made it all the more insulting was the fact that the person they had to kill was mere yards away, and they couldn't do anything to get to her with Red and Blue standing here.
Knuckles then out of nowhere punched Wallace on the side of his face. The punch knocked him from his sitting position down to the ground. He could feel a massive bruise welling up from where Knuckles had hit him. Wallace fearfully stared up at Knuckles, afraid he might punch him again.
Damn! Who knew a kid like him could be so strong!
"If you do try to chase her again," Knuckles said while holding up a fist to his face. "I'll plant this in your face again!"
"Alright! Alright!" Wallace said out of fear. "Just don't hit me again!"
All of a sudden, all of them could hear bells ringing, and whistles being blown in the distance. That would probably be the local law enforcement stationed in this city. All of a sudden, about a dozen soldiers came running up the gravel path they were next to, and came to a halt as they approached. Wallace never thought he'd be happy to see law enforcement in his whole career as a hit man.
One of the soldiers stepped forward and said, "We got a report of a fight in this park! Are you the ones responsible for it?"
"Yes, we started it!" Wallace said, quickly stepping forward. He wanted to get away from Knuckles as fast as possible. "Take us in please!"
"I helped him too!" John said beside him. It looked like he wanted to get away from the kids too. "Please take us back to your station! We caused all of this!"
"You two criminals sure are eager to get thrown in jail, aren't you?" the soldier asked. "Very unusual... All right men, arrest them and take them away."
As the soldiers put cuffs on their hands, the leader turned to Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, and Carrie. "As for you four, come with us back to the station. We need to question you too."
The kids, the soldiers, and the assassins walked out of the park, back to the guard station. As Wallace walked out of the park, he saw Knuckles slamming one of his fists into an open palm. He had that same grin on his face as before. Wallace quickly turned away, afraid that Knuckles might attack him again. They finally arrived at the local jail. Wallace was surprised that he actually felt good about arriving here.
Finally, I'll be safe in here from that wild echidna. After this botched mission, it's the safest place I could ever be.