Chapter 4: New Beginnings?
(A/N: I know that most people would probably like to give me a kick in the teeth and truthfully I think I deserve it, I am really sorry for not updating for so long and, like before, have no real excuse. I hope that this chapter can make it up to you and again I am really sorry, especially to Playstation14 who I really hope hasn't committed suicide as he threatened to. Anyway I hope you enjoy chapter 4. please review!)
"DR ROBOTNIK!" came a small metallic voice. The evil Genius looked up from his work to see the scouter robot he had sent after those teenagers flying towards him.
"what is it? did you find those annoying brats?" he questioned the flying tracker. If fear or apprehension could be shown on the robots technical face then it would
"NOT QUITE, THE FOUR NEAR THE SHOPPING CENTER HAVE BEEN LOCATED BUT THE OTHER TWO ARE STILL YET TO BE FOUND." Robotnik gripped his wrench so hard that his hand shook
"very well then were are the ones you HAVE found? They shall be the first on my list," he told the robot.
"THE FOUR ENTITIES ARE IN A LOCAL HOSPITAL DUE TO FATIGUE AND WOUNDS, THE OTHER TWO WILL LIKELY BE IN A HOSPITAL ALSO BUT THE LOCATION IS UNDETERMINED," the robot reported, a slight hint of relief and pride in it's voice now, relief that Robotnik hadn't destroyed it for failing to find two of the targets and pride because it knew exactly where the hospital was.
"good now, which hospital?" Robotnik asked. This was where the robot started to almost visibly quake because it had other information besides the location. "Well?" Robotnik asked, growing impatient.
"THE HOSPITAL IS SEATTLE STATE HOSPITAL… BUT I THINK YOU MIGHT WANT TO SEE THE RECORDINGS OF THE ENTITIES," the robot stated.
"Very well but go and find the other two once you have finished downloading the videos," Robotnik ordered. The robots quaking stopped and it flew over to a data port, linking up quickly it downloaded the necessary files and flew off without a word, not wanting to be in the doctors vicinity when he watched the files. Robotnik sighed and left his work to sit at his desk, he opened the files and played the recordings. He sat for five minutes watching a nurse and two doctors converse by a door while a second nurse walked along the room and tended to the patients who were concealed by a curtain. Robotnik frowned, if this is what that robot wanted him to see then he would have to replace it soon, he was about to end the recording when the curtain was removed. The doctor instantly hit the pause button and stared at the screen not wanting to believe his eyes. "No… that can't be… NO! THEY CAN'T BE! IT'S NOT POSSIBLE! ARRGGGHHH!" the doctor screamed and smashed his fist through his computer, quaking with anger. He stormed round the room smashing everything he could, constantly screaming and ranting about those bloody heroes.
In the aforementioned Seattle State Hospital another group of doctors were standing by the door in a three bed ward, conversing quietly about the patients in the room.
"I just don't see how anything like this is possible," one of them announced in disbelief "the three of them plus the girl in the other room, their physical readouts are through the roof, especially the two from the Mall," he told them with wide eyes "plus their physical changes… I've never seen anything like it" he finished. The other three doctors, two men and a woman, stood silently contemplating the facts they had found. It was true nothing like this had ever occurred in medical history and, while it was an amazing experience for the doctors and probably the kids, they were very worried about who was going to tell them and the parents. The doctors talked for a few more minutes, not noticing that the boy on the far end was starting to wake up.
Jake slowly opened his eyes, he could hear a group of voices but he was so groggy that he only caught a few words.
"…can't keep them here…"
"…have to tell them…"
"…how exactly…"
The voices faded and there was the sound of a door closing, Jake lay still for a few more minutes gathering his thoughts and strength then sat up and looked around. He was in a hospital ward and his curtain was pulled round his bed, he could tell James was in the bed next to him because he could hear his signature snore. A sound that almost resembled a rolling thunder storm and at the same time sounded like a yawn, it was really odd now that he thought about it, Jake had never really noticed just how LOUD he was, was his hearing getting better or was James getting noisier? Then Jake realized that he definitely was hearing better, he could hear Alex mumbling in his sleep on the other side of the room.
Jake moved to the edge of the bed and hopped off, expecting his feet to make contact with the floor almost instantly, the fact that he fell through the air for a second longer than he expected told him two things. 1. That something was definitely wrong and 2. The ground was not a good kisser. With a quick shake of his head he picked himself up from the floor and froze. His eyes had caught sight of his arms as he was standing up, where they should have been slightly tanned skin they were now covered in black fur with a red patch running along each one from elbow to hand. Jake, his eyes wide, raced out of his curtained area and shot into the bathroom, it was then he noticed that he had also shrunk as he had suspected, he had to stand on the toilet seat to see into the mirror. In place of the familiar face that greeted him whenever he looked in a mirror this time he saw something he could only describe as a mutant, the black and red hair on his head had grown long and harder forming three rows of spikes on the back of his head, the middle row pointing downwards in a smooth curve while the two outer lines went up and then had sharper points that were bent even further up, all looked incredibly sharp. The black and red fur had spread across the rest of his body as well, the fur on his back having mimicked the hair on his head but the spikes were smaller. A small black tail was starting to poke through the boxer shorts he was wearing. Jakes eyes travelled back up to his face, his eyes had grown larger and not figuratively, they were at least 3 times the size they normally were and his eyes were still the blood red he had had since waking up from that dream with the hedgehog in. His ears had slid up to the top of his head and changed into a triangular shape, also his nose had got smaller and black.
Thinking about the dream suddenly made him realise what he know looked like, the hedgehog! It was weird and should be impossible but it had happened, he had turned into a giant mutant hedgehog…no wait a second he thought the hedgehog was a bit shorter than this and he had a full tail oh! And that patch of white fur on his chest!
"so I'm turning into a hedgehog but haven't fully yet," he thought out loud "wait…what am I saying? I'M TUNING INTO A FING HEDGEHOG!" Jake yelled, he turned to run, to try and get away from this occurrence and get back his body. Unfortunately this dramatic scene was devastated by him slipping on the toilet seat and sailing head first into the sink, where he lay groaning and cursing the fact that he was now only 4 and half feet tall and that fur did not give very good traction on porcelain. Soon Jake's rational mind took back charge and he conceded that it would be very unlikely he would turn back right now seeing as he was so far transformed, he slowly walked back into the room, wondering how he was going to tell James and Alex and what about Calli? he wondered what would she think? He walked over to James' curtain and reached to pull it aside. The sight he was greeted with was a lump in the beds quilt, steadily rising with each one of James' breaths
"okay so they're actually more like Jackhammer drills but who cares?" Jake thought. He reached up and daringly poked his friend in the side, James was know to be a little bit…eccentric after being woken up.
"uuuuuuhh…go'way mum just five more minutes," came the groggy reply, Jake reached up and poked again this time in a nerve causing James to leap in shock "AIAIAIAI! WHO DID THAT? WHERE ARE YOU? SHOW YOUSELF!"
"uhh James? You can't see because you still have the cover over your head," Jake pointed out calmly, noticing at the same time that his voice had also changed, it had got deeper and sounded slightly chilly. Two arms reached out from under the white sheet and yanked at it
"agh! I can't get it off!" James grunted when there was a sudden ripping sound and three rows of blue downwards curving quills went through the thin material. Jake did a classic double take at this, glancing at the sets of spikes, then moving to help his friend and suddenly freezing and slowly backing away to look again.
"well…" Jake said slowly "I didn't quite expect that," meanwhile James had managed to throw the tattered cover off his head at last and proceeded to scan the room for his tormenter
"Where are you Jake? Where are you…" James suddenly noticed where he was "Wait why am I in a hospital? And…why is there a black and red hedgehog by my bed?" he wondered dully.
Jake was staring at his best friend like a brain dead moron, having seen the spikes poking through the sheet he had been expecting something along these lines but he still wasn't prepared to see his friend mostly transformed into a blue hedgehog quite similar to himself except with green eyes and no fur on his chest or arms.
"uhh James…"
"hey guys what's all the noise about?" came another voice from around the corner as a orange Kitsun with two tails hovering almost unconcioulsy behind his back, walked into view. The entire scene froze, James staring at Jake wondering how a hedgehog spoke, Jake staring at the orange fox who just walked in and our beloved kitsun almost having a heart attack from seeing two oversized talking hedgehogs. The screams and yelps of surprise that followed from the blue and orange furballs a second later were enough to make Jake wince in pain and clap his hands over his ears.
"WILL YOU TWO SHUT UP!" he yelled silencing the screaming animals "that's better" he continued. James had a look of terror on his face and the fox, whom Jake believed to be Alex, looked as though he was frozen in the middle of a heart attack, well on second thought he probably was.
James was the first to speak
"J, Jake?" he asked, the ebony hedgehog nodded and looked over at the fox
"that's you right Alex?" he asked. The boy raised an eyebrow at this question
"of course can't you tell?" he asked back causing Jake to give him a sarcastic smile and say
"can't you tell that you've got two orange tails sticking out of your butt?" there were more wide eyes and before the two could launch into a torrent of questions he had dragged them to the toilet to let them look in the mirror, then dragged then back out again and dropped them in the visitor seats.
"okay what is going on here?" James asked as calmly as he could, Jake opened his mouth to try and answer when he heard a shouting from outside and a pink hedgehog with floppy quills barged through the door slamming, and locking it before those chasing her could get in. she stood up after having collapsed against the cool wood and walked over to the trio of mismatched animal/humans
"Whew I found you" was the first thing that came out of her mouth, the second was "thank God!" as she ran over to Jake and hugged him tightly then moved to hug James and then Alex. Somewhere something clicked inside Jakes head
"Calli? Is that you?" he asked in surprise
"yup1 who did you think it was?" she shot back, a grin playing over her face.
Jake scanned her up and down her body, her huge emerald green eyes were instantly the most noticeable thing about her, the second being the bubblegum pink quills and fur covering her body. She was wearing the clothes she had on when they first met but it looked like she had cut them down a bit and the t-shirt she was wearing was a bit too big for her, well it's not like that wasn't expected seeing as she was now a foot shorter than she had been.
"uhh what happened to you?" Alex asked in a child's voice, he still had his air of genius around him, in fact it seemed a whole lot stronger now.
"don't know I woke up looked in the mirror and saw this" Calli replied happily.
"and you're not freaked out in the slightest?" James continued
"nope this body is so cool! And now I can wear those clothes I wanted to get last week!" she giggled "although…I do wonder how it happened, I look like that hedgehog from my dream" she murmered
"hey now that I think about I look like that fox!" Alex announced
"and I know I look like that hedgehog, there's no way you can mistake those blue quills" James said. "hey Jake didn't you have a red and black hedgehog in your dream?" he asked. Jake was about to answer when Calli cocked her head and looked at the door
"hmm? Hey weren't those guys banging on the door just a second ago?" she asked as they all noticed the sound of pounding fists had receded. Jake opened his mouth to say something again when there was an almighty crash outside the hospital, he whipped round to see a massive robot with a claw on one arm and a minigun on the other, landing in the carpark, a swarm of eggbots following it.
Perched on top of the giant machine was a rather fat man who held a megaphone out as he started talking.
"I KNOW WHERE YOU ARE YOU LITTLE PESTS SO WHY DON'TYOU COME OUT HERE AND JUST DIE ALREADY!" he yelled into the megaphone. Looking up he saw Jake standing on the windowsill of their room as hundreds of civilians ran en-mass around him. Jake sighed
"What is it with people and interrupting me today?" The figure raised the megaphone once again and said one said one sentence.
"COME ON DOWN HERE AND PLAY…SHADOW THE HEDGEHOG!"