I realize that several of you have told me to hurry and get this one up, but you must understand the rules I have set forth. I NEVER, EVER, use a character without permission from the owner first. As a result, my delays are not always my fault. Sometimes it's hard getting a yes or no out of these people... >.

Chapter 5- Mother Earth of Dishonesty

The HUmar known as Sonic sat down in a large chair that looked like it was formed from something of a yellow goo. His long black legs stretched out with his arms, the entirely black uniform (save the silver shoulder pads) fitting his body nicely even with the stretch. The only offset to his black uniform was in fact the small ID emblem in the center, of which gave him the ID of a Yellowbooze.

Light, ice blue eyes gave a scan around the small room as a black gloved hand ran through his blond spiked hair. His room was nothing special to many. It was like many other apartments of the poor section in Pioneer 2. Basically from the entrance, there was a bathroom to the left, a kitchen to the right, a living room straight ahead, and to the right of that, a single bedroom. All in all, the place was small enough for maybe a single person to live in well, with the possibility of two. Three was pushing it, and four was out of the question.

However, Sonic cared nothing about any of this. He considered the fact that it lay extremely close to a practicing arena for Hunters, soldiers, and any who may want to do so, a necessity. Long before he had become a Hunter, people in the practice arenas knew him. Even during the time before he had came aboard Pioneer 2, he still had practiced. If anything, that was a key factor as why he was one of those selected to go aboard the Pioneer project's second wave.

After passing the Hunter's exam, Sonic had originally intended to just continue his practice and possibly do a few missions here and there for the guild. In fact, he wanted to practice at the very time he was sitting down as he was, but before he could leave, he received the e-mail from the Principle. The council had decided to actually send down Hunters to investigate what happened on Ragol. Most of the time Sonic did not like to involve himself with the government, but after he saw the explosion, little else occupied his mind. He, like so many others, wanted to know what was going on.

So he sat in his small bedroom in thought, and looked past his bed to the weapons mounted on the wall. They were two old-style metal katanas, far more rare than the blades used now. Sonic never really liked the photon weaponry much. The feel of a metal blade just suited him much.

That, in fact, was one of the reasons why Sonic lived in such a place, besides it's placement. Sonic was hardly a big spender, but it did not mean he did not have money. After several spars and bets from the practice arena, Sonic had come out with quite a bit of fortune. Despite so much available, Sonic used it for only what he deemed important. One of these was the creation of his two swords. There were several weapons makers on Pioneer 2, but to find one who made weapons out of metal was expensive itself, and having the weapons made was even more so. Nevertheless, Sonic did indeed deem it 'important.'

He stood from the chair and picked up the blades from the wall mounts. Both was about a meter in length, which gave him ample ability for control as well as power. They were indeed far less powerful as those carried by the Great Sword Zoke, but Sonic well knew that it wasn't a blade that made someone powerful, it was the user.

The long, athletic form turned toward the exit as the two arms reached to his sides and set the blades in respective leather straps about an inch in width and small enough to hold the blades up to the hilt. The blades hung somewhat loosely at his side, and this made him a prime thieving target; this only proved true with the 'beginner' thieves who thought something held so loosely would be easily grasped. What they failed to realize so often was that the leather held strong toward the hilt of the blade, and by the time they could even hope to pull it out the only way they could, his arms would already be in the process of breaking there's.

Sonic could not help but smirk at that. He had a couple of rewards for those too. Nothing big really, but a couple of thieves had small bounties on their heads of fifty meseta a piece for doing small burglar jobs. It was hardly what Sonic called a challenge, and that was what disappointed him the most.

That was another reason why he became a Hunter. So many times he had heard several stories in the practice arena. More often, he found several Hunters would come and boast about how they were hot stuff. Sonic always looked for a good opponent, so naturally, he would go up and challenge one of these 'great' Hunters. Arrogance of the group led them almost always to accept. Thus, was often their downfall and disgrace by one who was not even a Hunter.

Sonic knew better than to let this go the other way though. Awhile back, before the Pioneer projects had even began, Sonic had been practicing in his areas as always. That particular day, a stranger with long, dirty blond hair, and in a black mask, asked to have a sparring match with Sonic. The match was hardly a match at all, as the man had easily fended off Sonic's attacks and was able to down him rather quickly; thanks to a slash from Sonic's blade, however, it had revealed that he was fighting none other than the Great Sword Zoke.

This passed all through his mind as he exited the small apartment and turned down a narrow hall toward a set of stairs. Several other people were wandering through the halls, some Hunter, others civilian, and yet more military. The explosion on Ragol had caused one heck of a stir on Pioneer 2, so Sonic hardly saw this as surprising. Squeezing in between bodies, he finally reached the set of stairs and started his descent; a descent that happened to be a long one too, since he lived on the top floor of the apartment.

Walking down them was good exercise, and if it had been a different day, Sonic would have enjoyed the exercise. However, time waited for no one, and Sonic had no intention of being left behind. After two running steps, Sonic sprang into the air and planted his feet on the external rail of the steps. The metallic strips on the bottom of his shoes allowed for a limited amount of friction, thus allowed Sonic to slide down the rails at an extremely rapid rate. Since the shaft was square, he had to repeatedly jump from one set of rail to the next to avoid a collision into a wall.

At reaching the bottom, Sonic used the speed and momentum to push off of the end of the rail and spring through the doorway. This projected him up and over several heads of people within the next hall, but luckily he looked to have a clear landing. Of course that was before the woman pushing a cart of various items stepped into view. In a quick-as-possible reaction, Sonic drew his sword, stuck it in the floor, pushed himself off with his arms to fly up and over the woman, and finally, he collided with the cart in an effective force to knock over all of it's materials and give Sonic one heck of a pain he wouldn't forget soon.

"Oh my god! Are you alright?" asked the woman as she pushed some boxes off of him.

"I'm alive, if that's what you're looking for," Sonic said in a groaning response.

"You could have been hurt! How the heck did you manage to hit the cart and miss me," Sonic simply pointed to the direction sword down the hall, his vision still a bit blurry, "Eh? What do you mean?"

"Ugh...nevermind."

His vision started to clear, and Sonic slowly saw that the woman he almost hit was a FOmarl. Shoulder length blue hair fell down over her face as the small, petit arms, easily seen by the tight clothes on her biceps, reached out and pushed a couple of boxes off of him. This was offset by the large, baggy openings around her forearms. This yellow piece of clothing was a separate part of the outfit, as partially visible within was a long, white part of her dress that extended the length of her arm to about the wrist. The external layer on the arm was yellow for the most part, save a pink symbol that looked like a seed sprouting three leaves to the sky, a white semi-circle with a black outline surrounding it, and a single black line connected from the semi-circle down to her elbow.

Sonic stood finally and brushed himself off, while his eyes took a better look at the woman with whom he nearly collided. Blue eyes stared back at him with concern, and a hand reached to her face and brushed a bit of her long, wavy, black hair out of them. The hand also adjusted the hat she wore, of which was yellow on it's inner part, and folded up and around from the bottom was grey rims of the hat with black trimming, and directly on the front of the hat was a large yellow diamond with a smaller red one inside of it. The hat rose up a good foot or so from it's bottom.

After she saw Sonic was okay, she moved to brush her own dress off; a three part dress draped around her. As her arms, a secondary part of her dress, it's color black with a white trim, surrounded her thin frame from just over her stomach area to about halfway down her thigh. The central part of the dress was primarily yellow. From her waist and above, her left and right sides were white, and the center front to halfway down her back were yellow with black edges to separate the two colors. Right underneath he small slot that contained her section I.D. was a purple symbol that matched the ones on her arms. Below the waist was a simple design, with white down the middle and back, and yellow on the sides.

"Are you staring at me for a reason?" she asked with an annoyed look that finally brought Sonic's dazed mind back to reality.

"Oh, umm, having a special occasion I guess?" Sonic asked, though he couldn't help but smirk a little, for he knew the answer that was to come.

In a response much as Sonic expected, the female sighed and shook her head, "No, I'm a force. This is my battle outfit."

"Yeah, I would think dresses would be a bit counter-productive for that... but I'm a hunter, not a force, so who am I to say? Oh, forgive my manners," Sonic made a slight bow with his right arm in front of him, "the name is Sonic."

The female could not help but smile slightly at his demeanor, so she gave him a nod, "Nice to meet you then Sonic. I am Alyseia. Sorry that I was in your way, but I've kind of got collect my..."

She cut herself off when Sonic pulled all of the boxes from the floor and back on to the cart, of which he put back upright as well. In a matter of a few seconds he had put all of the boxes back on the cart. Finally, he turned and moved down the hall, picked up his sword, and faced her as he put the sword back to his waist's holder.

"Yeah, I couldn't exactly let you pick up after a cart that I wrecked. That would just be laziness on my part."

"Um, thanks," she said a bit surprised at the rapid aid.

"Not a problem miss. Now, pardon me, but I am in a bit of a hurry. I must be off now. See ya."

Before there was a chance to even respond, Sonic ran past her and down the hall. Time would not wait, and he had so much to do.

After that incident, things had gone fairly uneventful. A quick run through the streets and the use of a couple of elevators was all it took to have him in front of the receptionist of the Hunter's Guild, which was where he stood now.

The woman feverishly typed away at the holo-keyboard while her eyes scanned the holo-screen in front of her. Sonic simply stood on the other side of the counter with his arms crossed. It was not exactly like he had a mission to fulfill in a certain amount of time, but Ragol still called to him. The Hunter's Guild still needed to verify his I.D. so he could get clearance to go to Ragol, as well as inspect the 'official' document sent by the principle that was not really. Likely, it was just an automated machine that sent out a request to explore Ragol by Hunters. Either way, it got the job done.

"Okay Mr. Sonic, your mail's location and your Yellowboze section I.D. have been confirmed. I wish you the best of luck. Please come to the Hunter's Guild again. We help to enrich your life."

Sonic stopped paying attention around the word 'confirmed.' Even as he walked away, thoughts of what awaited him on Ragol covered anything else. Well, they did until he moved through the streets and to the large teleporter. There in front of him and being checked by one of the military personnel was the very woman he had ran into before.

This would have normally ment a whole lot of nothing to Sonic, but one of the guards was attempting to become more friendly than he should have, and it did not take a photon engineer to see that the woman, Alyseia, did not like the advances.

"So there, pretty thing, what's the chances of you and I hooking up?"

"Um, somewhere around slim and none."

"Oh, a feisty one eh? I like things when they get hot and fiery."

"How's about you leave me alone before I really make you fiery?"

"Excuse me? That's no way to talk to a-"

The soldier did not get a chance to finish the sentence, as the black-clothed arm of Sonic forcefully pulled the man aside, "Is there a problem here my good man?"

"But out, boy, before you get yourself hurt."

"Fine, I'll be more direct then. How about you leave her alone before I start breaking body parts?" Sonic said as he gave a large pinch to the pressure point at the shoulders, causing the man to drop his gun and clench up in pain.

Sonic next jerked the man aside and into a wall, moved inside the teleporter, and turned around to face them, "Well then sirs, good day to you."

The world of Ragol opened up soon before him and revealed the lush vegetation of the forest. Sonic gave a slight sniff to the air and smirked a little bit. After being on a ship such as Pioneer 2 for so long, one got pretty used to the smell of a large city with thousands of people. This gave him quite a bit of relief to finally be away from all of that. Sonic always preferred the calmness of solitude in places like these.

"Except, there shouldn't be any yet. I've teleported into the residential district of Pioneer 1. What happened?"

Sonic flipped open a small silver panel on his black armor's arm and revealed a map of the area. The teleporter had switched spots recently apparently. Sonic ended up in an area that overlooked a large room with two doors to the left, one past a big tree, and the other across a small stream, an another door further to the right. The teleporter had moved apparently for security reasons, according to what he had heard from Pioneer 2 personnel. He did not care much about that anyway, because he was still supposed to be in the residential district.

About the time he finished that thought, Sonic heard the sound of someone teleporting in behind him. He smirked because he knew whom it was already and folded his arms over the front of his chest.

"So Miss Alyseia, I hope they did not give you a hard time afterward?"

A slight chuckle came from her, and she shook her head, "No. Actually, when you left, the guy just kind of stayed there on the wall and did not even so much as look at me," She paused for a minute when she looked around, "Um...where are all the houses or something? Shouldn't there at least be a scorch mark or two? There was an explosion, right?"

"Indeed so, and that's exactly what I'm here to find out," Sonic said even as he ran forward and jumped off of the ledge to the room he had been overlooking before.

Within it happened to be a large creature, a Booma, if he was not mistaken. Sonic had taken good precaution to study on the native species that Ragol had when on Pioneer 2. Pioneer 1 had sent much of it during the trip. The indications from before stated that the creatures of the planet Ragol were not hostile, yet Sonic could see the hostility in the eyes of the creature that approached him. It was a look he had faced all to often by those who attack out of simple instinct or anger, but magnified on a much higher scale in this case.

Sonic drew out his two swords and held them at the ready. Only a moment later the creature swiped an enormous claw at Sonic's head. Sonic promptly blocked the swipe with his right sword and stabbed the creature with his left. Immediately after he did that, his blade in the right hand swiped across the creature's chest, and his left hand pulled the sword out, then both the left and right blades sliced at an upward vertical angle to the creature's head. The creature let out a dying roar before it fell over.

It was possible that some animals of Ragol were hostile after all. Sonic would not have been bothered much by that occurrence though if it were not for what happened after it died. As soon as the creature hit the ground, it seemed to dissolve into nothing but a pool of blood. Sonic peered at it for a moment and wondered what could possibly have done such. He doubted it was a natural thing such as a natural napalm because if it had been, the creature would probably have used such against him. Natural napalms tended to be for defensive purposes.

Those thoughts went to the back of his mind when he saw the shadow move over his own. Sonic turned around in time to see a Booma right in his face and ready to strike.

"Not enough time..."

Just as quickly as it came, fire enveloped the creature and it melted into a pool with a dying roar, much like the last one. The fire was not from the creature though. Sonic's eyes shot up just in time to see the hand of Alyseia lower a small stick with a gray sphere on the tip of it, save a small end part of the sphere was cut off and a green light emitted from it. A Force's cane, if Sonic was right.

"You really should be careful down there Sonic! These creatures are obviously not friendly," Alyseia climbed down the small ledge and moved over to him, "I'm so confused though. They said this was supposed to be the residential district of Ragol. Where are the people? The bodies even."

"More than that, what is up with the creatures," Sonic added, "You saw what happened when they died. Have you ever seen anything like it before?"

Alyseia shook her head, "No, I can't say I have. It is so odd."

A moment of silence took place as the two looked around, and finally Sonic started moving forward toward a part of the wall on the opposite end. With a couple of running steps, he jumped up and onto the top of the wall, and his swords planted into the soft mossy side so he would not slip off because of it. After he accomplished that he turned around and held out his hand.

"Well, you are coming too aren't you? The only way we're gonna find out what happened here is to explore more. Maybe we can find a survivor or two to let us know what exactly happened."

Alyseia nodded, moved over to where Sonic was, and allowed him to help her climb up. The large rock was actually more of a plateau, and ahead lay several areas of trees and tall grasses. Virtually untouched nature, save the occasional insert of a light or something by the Pioneer 1 crew.

"Try to stay close, and I'll keep you guarded as best as I can," Sonic spoke up to her.

Alyseia nodded and smiled slightly, "Likewise for you. Shall we?"

The two of them started to walk forward. Neither of them knew what lie in store for them, but both of them had the feeling that what did would prove to be unpleasant at best.

Okay, there are some very important things to address right now. FIrst of all, due to future content, I shall be changing the story's rating to M. No, this does not mean that it will become a smut story, but I do like to play it on the safe side anyhow, and there will be explicet content. Second, and part of the cause for the first, is soon I am going to be doing a sort of dual-authored project on this story. This story will become a joint project between myself and another. It won't happen for another chapter or so, but be ready to see a possible difference in style.