Chapter 6: Subplot! The Search for the Mascara!
Cool Fact #6: (Yeah, I know the last chapter says that it has the cool fact #6. But be fooled not! For this is the real cool fact $6--oops, dollar sign. Not that you give a hoot, anyway.) It is illegal to pee on the Alamo. This law was put in place because Ozzy Osbourne did it. --;; Go him… I guess. Ugh. If it had been some regular drunken Joe, I doubt we would have this law down here.
Now our blue blur, the apotheosis of aplomb, was screaming, scared out of his mind, thinking that his crush was now just a stump of smoldering cinders and burnt hair for physical anthropologists to study. But after a moment or two the gray smoke that had emanated from what he had assumed was Amy's flaming body cleared enough so that he would tell it was just a wooden scarecrow made out of popsicle sticks. He could still make out the smudged remains of some of the jokes written on some of the wooden sticks and wondered why they tried to make the youth of (insert country here) eat ink with their popsicles before the flames licked them away, and the whole ensemble collapsed. Amy herself was sprawled on the floor just a few feet away.
"In retrospect," she coughed, "I probably should have run away while you were distracted, and not breathed in so many fumes."
"Amy!" Sonic fled to his forsaken love's side. "What happened? Where did you get so many popsicle sticks?"
"Your mom," joked Amy. Sonic glared. "Alright, alright… so I got them from the plothole fairy."
"Plothole fairies like popsicles?" Sonic wondered in amazement. "I thought that plothole fairies, being small mammals, dined mostly on bugs such as beetles, and donned the beetle shells as spiffy hats."
"Those are African plothole fairies. We're talking about Asian plothole fairies." Amy glared. "Everyone knows that Asian plothole fairies adore popsicles!"
"But what does that have to do with the price of tea in China?" Sonic pondered. "And how much does tea in China cost, anyway? And how does it compare economically to the price of tea in the U.K.? And if a ninja falls in a forest, does he make a sound?"
"I think the readers are getting annoyed that we're off topic."
"Right then." Amy stood up. "You never saw me, okay?"
"But Amy…" Sonic's green eyes shone with concern. "I… I love you."
Amy shrugged this declaration of inFATuation off. "Sorry, Sonic." The pink hedgehog smiled. "A year ago, I probably would've been thrilled. But now… well, I'm engaged."
"But we're in our teens. How can you be engaged?"
Amy shrugged again. "It's a medieval thing," she stated simply, as if that explained everything. "I've got to go." Amy touched Sonic's cheek with her hand affectionately.
"…Why are you touching my cheek?" Sonic wanted to know.
"Eh, Iunno." Amy shrugged. "Sayonara… Sonic… the—"
"Don't you even quote that, girl," Sonic said, glaring. "You come up with your own original stuff, y'hear?"
Amy rolled her eyes. "Ok. …Bye."
"Ooh," Sonic taunted, "that's fresh material!"
Amy rolled her eyes again. The pink hedgehog then started to do back handsprings. Sonic watched her. She was headed towards a wall. Suddenly, she twisted around, and started running as fast as she could. She ran straight up the wall to a high window, which she grabbed and jumped out, screaming,
"I forgot to install the trampoliiiiiine!"
Sonic shrugged again. He turned to leave, but suddenly he was facing off against a bat.
-
"I miss Sonic," Tails complained.
"We all do, Tails, we all do," Shadow assured him, patting his friend on the back, repulsed by the whole situation. Tails was so distressed that his idol hadn't returned yet, that he had collapsed on the couch, placed his head against Shadow's shoulder, and started to cry. And so Shadow was stuck there, unable to reach the popcorn he had been munching on. The whole thing was unmanly. This was disgusting.
"He'll never come baaaaaaack!" Tails wailed.
"Oh, he will…" He better. Shadow said a silent prayer, his hands sticking together because of the bubblegum that had gotten caught on his fur when he'd dug through the sofa's filthy cushions to find the remote. (Deep breath.)
-
Rouge was in the machinery complex. Here, large titans made of screws and gears clinked, clanked, and clunked while making robotic parts. Right now, the machine's functions were to make the commonplace droids that frequented Eggman's hideouts. Since DELTA and OMEGA were seemingly nowhere to be found, Eggman had sent her to check out a small blip in the mechanization, a small failure occurring somewhere in the large, large room, that she was supposed to find.
"I don't understand anything in this room," she groused. "I have no idea what's goin' on here…"
All of the machines were the same metallic blue color, polished so much by the lowly drudgery-bots that Rouge could see her reflection in the machines. Dang. She should've worn more make-up. Her fur was getting a bit off-white; she probably needed a bath. But the leg hairs Eggman left in the shower… eeeeeew. Maybe she could cover it up with a little base.
The machines were spaced close together, with only enough room in-between from one Eggman-sized person. Rouge was skipping down these "hallways" like a ninny, when suddenly she stopped short, turned, and began speaking into a speaker hung on the side of a large machine made of bathroom tiles.
"Patty cake, patty cake, baker's man… bake me a cake as fast as you can!" she recited. Ding. A dark chocolate cake fell into a slot in the machine, packaged in plastic and cardboard. Rouge licked her lips and grabbed it.
-
"Rouge?" Sonic assumed, although the blue blur was definitely confused. It looked like Rouge… same cheeky grin, same facial structure. But this bat's wings were a light blue color, and her eyes were an eery red color—not crimson, but more the color of a dark blood puddle.
"Hiya!" The bat flapped her wings. A powder blue fanny pack bumped against her side with every flap of her wings. Soon she was hovering a foot of the ground. "I'm Bleue!"
"Who?"
"Mike Jones!" squeaked the bat. "I mean—my name is Bleue. I'm a cousin of your friend Rouge's, and I need to tell you something important."
Sonic stepped back instinctively. The bat had a horribly insane look on her face. She was… dare we say it… batty. Sonic wasn't even sure he'd ever seen Rouge's mouth stretch that far (except for the time she ate a triple hamburger at that fast food joint).
"What is it?" the fastest animal alive asked. "Is Rouge okay?"
"No," Bleue said. "She's been kidnapped by Eggman and forced to marry him!"
"Ew. Well, don't worry. I'll stop the wedding!" Sonic said, pointing a gloved finger in the air with resolve.
"They alright got married," Bleue replied patiently.
"Double ew! Married?" Sonic spat on the ground, trying to get the taste of the m-word out of his mouth. "Well… I'll find a good divorce lawyer!"
"I think she's been brainwashed," Bleue said. "Also, Rouge sent me a Neomail from Eggman's Neopets account, and she sad that one of her friends had… died."
Sonic stopped short. "D…Died?" he whispered.
Bleue nodded. "So to speak, it said. 'Someone dear to me just died, so to speak.' So I'm assuming that means they're dead and that there's no hope of saving anyone."
Sonic just stared at this strange girl. He was silent for a very long time.
"…You have a zit on your ear," he said finally.
"…Shut up spiky boy," the bat retorted. "Anyway, there's an Oprah special on tomorrow, so I can't save her. So I leave it up to you…" the bat let her voice trail off. "Will you save her?"
"…Can I have some of your mascara first?" Sonic asked. Bleue gave him an odd look. "It's not for me," he added hastily, "but it's for a friend of mine who's into that goth stuff."
"…Weirdo," Bleue said accusingly, obviously not believing him, even as she revealed a small black container of the O-so-holy mascara.
"Thanks," Sonic said. "I'll return this to you when I save Rouge."
Bleue glared at him. "You better save her fast, then, buddy, 'cuz that's the only mascara I got. …I guess I could just borrow from a friend, but they'd get annoyed with me after a while," she added thoughtfully.
"That's the ticket," Sonic encouraged. He turned around, took a few steps away from the bat girl, soaked in what he'd just learned. A second later, he spun around, a large grin on his face.
"Don't worry! I'll save Rouge!" Sonic declared triumphantly, before speeding off like a beam of light out of the warehouse and down the dusty streets.
"Wait," Bleue called softly, "I didn't tell you where Eggman is…"