CHAPTER VI – HELLO DARKNESS, MY OLD FRIEND
It was all white noise to him. He couldn't pay attention to Sally's words much less understand them. Even the disheartening visuals accompanied by Amy's reporting at Mitchell International couldn't get him to move or react. Chaos, how could he react? Should he have been happy that he was miraculously alive? Should he be skeptical if he really was his brother? Should he have been angry that he lost his best chance at Fox? Should he be heartbroken that his own brother had clobbered the hell out of hell six ways from Sunday?
The nurse from around the door held a long face for too long. It was long enough for her boss, his doctor, to nonverbally tell her go let him have his space. He was too far gone, at least for the moment, for any further kind of medical treatment.
Eventually, Sonic returned to the land of the living just as Sally was finishing up her spiel. "… In short, a clone of Sonic's brother Green, and regrettably the younger son of AMG co-founders Bernadette and Jules Hedgehog, is at large. The Mobotropolis Police Department has issued a warning to all citizens that if you see the clone of Green, call the police immediately and do not engage the clone. No one knows what may happen."
"And that ends the 9 o'clock news," Monkey Khan said to the camera. "From all of us at the AMG, we wish you a good night. And to Sonic, who is currently recuperating in a hospital right now, if you can hear us, we wish you a swift recovery. Have a nice evening, Mobotropolis. And please be safe."
Sonic sighed loudly as he clenched his face with his fists. His breathing was pained, though not from the physical abuse. He suddenly slammed his right fist into the mattress and yelled in frustration. He then winced mightily as his hand was now a throbbing mess. He wished they had shot him up with more morphine to kill his aching body… or maybe so it would rest his tortured soul.
She could not get back to her car fast enough. The van-ride back to the AMG was horrendous because of all the other news outlets clogging the streets. They needed their fix on Sonic and were out scrabbling around Knothole like beheaded chickens.
She had gotten the call from CREAM and Tails via the hospital. Same hospital, same room, same bed from a few nights prior. She wished he wasn't so eager to go after Fox only days after almost getting constricted to death. Amy fully respected his attitude for getting shit done in a timely manner. This, on the other hand, was overkill. From her old days as the Rascal, she knew full well what over-working herself could lead. It almost led to her funeral on more than one occasion, much to the horror and concern of Tails.
Despite that, the fact that he was trying too hard to be the hero at times still weighed on her heart. He always did it with such style that made many a female around town swoon. She loved seeing him nail the bad guy and grab headlines all over the city. She loved reporting on his achievements. She was proud to see him do so well given his ghastly past. But now that past had kicked down his door and sucker-punched him. Her feelings for him were sent into a frenzy. It was a miracle that she sounded as impartial as she did when reporting on the scene. It was agonizingly tempting to run away from the cameras and try to comfort him at whichever hospital he was getting treatment from. What kind of anguish could he be feeling? She knew she had to be there for him no matter what.
She had finally gotten to her Camaro and hauled ass out of the parking lot and screaming down the road, nearly taking someone out in the process.
"Sorry!" she yelled before cursing herself. "Amy, you crazy wreck! Look at the fucking road!"
"Amy, stop yelling at yourself," T said sternly. "We've got a problem." She felt a lump get stuck in her throat. She weakly gasped as she slammed on the brakes. "Sonic's not at the hospital anymore."
This part of town was no picnic. They had to have passed dozens of prostitutes on the way through. The only reason they didn't push themselves towards the strong men inside the van was because of the criminal vixen. An evil glare was all it took for them to fuck off and shiver in the cold with their horribly cheap faux fur. And who the hell willingly wears fishnets at night in early November?
The van then peeled off the road and into a seemingly rundown apartment complex where the walls were full of holes and the building itself looked rotted to hell, not unlike a month-old eaten apple. The driver hit the switch for the garage door. As it closed, the team got out, led by Fiona herself. She watched the door shut and then went to a keypad on the near wall.
7-1-9-9-9
With a loud THUNK, the mechanisms around them activated. In short time, the floor descended into the city with her team and van along for the ride. When the platform stopped a full two stories below the surface, she and her team walked back into their lair sans the driver who drove to the right toward the actual garage. Otherwise, the room they were in was boring in terms of wall aesthetics with a pair of double doors a little farther down on the left wall.
Quite the neat little hideaway. Her great-grandfather was not only a competent crime lord, but a fantastic engineer and architect. Michelangelo Jacopo Fox found out on accident that the building he bought was directly above an old war bunker from the city's inception in 1625. The place was like a crypt with the corpses of dead soldiers and Naked Mole Rat warriors. It was part a Naked Mole Rat Tribe tunnel system that used to extend all around present-day South Res, the Industrial District, and southern parts of both North Res and Angel Island. When discovered, Soleannan and Spagonian colonist soldiers had found the tunnel system and decimated the NMR Tribe with their advanced weaponry, and more importantly, their diseases. Since it used to the be the way the old tribe got around, it was no wonder that several NMRs got the likes of smallpox and measles and spread it around like the gospel of St. Matthew. It was actually kind of fitting for a Fox to live here since Fiona's ancestor Mordecai was one of the Soleannan soldiers who lead the first attack underground. Michelangelo then used his knowledge of architecture generations later to renovate this large area and turn it his family's new criminal capital building. He then helped forge and create the same elevator system that his great-granddaughter recently used to hide his men, automobiles, and other assets. Imagine that setup in the 1930s.
She led her team through the double doors and into her organization's main office. The desk and file-filled computers were on the left side of the room while the right side staged like a lobby or de facto living room with a billiards table, a bar, couches and chairs, and a honkin' 70-inch TV hanging from the wall. The walls were adorned with several weapons from the war with the Naked Mole Rat Tribe such as spears, bayonets, and ye olde rifles and pistols with their lead ammunition still nestled inside their chambers. Through the door on that right side was a stairwell that led to her personal quarters a floor up.
Behind the desk was the vixen's main money man. The hawk had been a former air force pilot before getting grounded after a terrible accident overseas. The others in his flight class called him the Predator due to his high kill count in dogfights. That ended when he was shot out of the sky and went AWOL. He found his way to Mobotropolis and worked with one Bean the Dynamite and learned a thing or seven about criminal accounting. He always did have a knack for numbers.
The hawk took one look at his boss's body language and dared to ask the stupid question. "Deal go south?"
The rest of Fiona's group groaned, knowing full well what that meant. The boss herself calmly sighed and motioned one of her boys to hand her a pistol. The simian did so, but not without giving his hawk comrade a gnarly stare.
"Please give the contact information on Mephiles." The now-sweating hawk did so, but he was taking his sweet time. "Now!" That spooked him enough to pull out a binder full of names and locations. In it where addresses of safehouses, banks where their laundered money was being held, and the general whereabouts of past and present business partners. When he reached the section headlined by the letter "M," she cocked the pistol the moment the hawk got to Mephiles. He arranged the binder in a way that had the oversized booklet turned inside out and have the page with his information and picture lay flat on the table. She ripped it out and tossed it into the air.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
Three shots rang out, each piercing the former associate's façade with a .357 SIG cartridge. The hawk quickly policed the brass and tossed them in the trash. After handing the foreign-made gun to the large monkey, she screamed, "WHEN THAT FUCKER GETS OUT OF PRISON, I WILL HANG HIM BY HIS WRINKLY, LITTLE DICK UNTIL IT RIPS OFF AND THEY HAFTA GIVE THAT SHITSTAIN A GODDAMN, FUCKING PUSSY SO ONE OF YOU JACKASSES CAN RAPE THE PISS OUT OF HIM AND SLIT HIM OPEN LIKE A FUCKING TOMATO!" She then violently swiped the binder off the table and slammed her fists down. "That piece of shit tried to rape me?! ME?! Does he know who I am?!" Next, she gave the Predator the evil eye. "And if you ever ask me that dumb of a question again, I'll crucify you with your own feathers. No shit the deal went south, you fucking dimwit! And Sonic nearly got us tonight! We were this close to being put out of business!" She then grabbed the gun again from the simian and hurled it into the drywall.
WHAM!
"Boss, just how did we get away from Sonic?" the dog asked.
Fiona scoffed. "And you call yourself a sleuth," she mocked. "A green hedgehog that can go as fast as Sonic. Sonic's brother could do that too. It was one of those clones of Sonic's brother, you idiot. What was his name? Green?"
"Y'know, I don't go by that name anymore."
The group immediately drew out their weapons and pointed it at the now-open door. There was no mistaking him with his green fur. What was curious was that he was casually propped up against the door like he owned the place and because he had a magnificent piece of tech and engineering on his back.
"What's the matter?" he asked in an arrogant voice. "You all seem a little jumpy."
BANG!
The simian had popped off a warning shot at the hedgehog's feet, slightly annoying the speedster. "You ain't supposed to be here! How'd you get down here?!"
"I hid in the shadows of the garage. Duh!"
"You have until the count of '3' to—."
ZIP!
The giant monkey was suddenly disarmed as were his compadres. Their weapons of choice had now taken residence in the corner of the office, sitting there like a punished child.
"Uh… uhh…," the simian stammered.
The green hedgehog then walked calmly up to the group and got all up in their business. "On '3' you'll do what?" he taunted before turning to Fiona. "Nice digs you got here."
"We manage," Fiona said flatly.
He chuckled. "Not well enough if Sonic almost gotcha."
She rolled her eyes. "You're one of those clones, right? I thought the news said they destroyed all of you."
"They did. But they didn't get me."
Fiona then raised an eyebrow. "I don't follow."
Scourge took in a breath and clasped his hands together. "I'm not one of Robotnik's clones, toots. Yeah, my brother did take down all those clones of him and yours truly, but I was still on the oil rig when it went up."
The vixen continued to study his body language. His constant eye contact dictated that he was telling the truth. His laid-back tone meant he felt comfortable, even with her hired help in the room.
"I heard that Sonic's brother died."
"Eh, I hear that you shouldn't always trust the news. Fell down an elevator shaft to a terrible demise, right?"
"But you didn't die." She nodded her head in surprise. "You really are Sonic's dead twin, Green."
He shook his head, confusing the ensemble of people. "You're half right. Green did die on that oil rig, just like my brother said Blue died there too seeing how he doesn't call himself that anymore. Chaos almighty; what a theatrical prick!" He clicked his tongue. "But I'm getting off-track," he said offering his hand. "Call me 'Scourge,' m'lady."
After a brief hesitation, she accepted his gesture. "Fiona Fox. I suppose I owe you for getting Sonic and the cops off our tail. Don't think I'll just give you a briefcase of cash for doing it."
"Oh, you think I did it for the money?" he said as he laughed. "Fiona, you don't know me. We've only just met."
"Okay, look. I'm getting annoyed that you followed us down here and started waxing poetic. How about we cut to the chase and tell me what you want?"
"Or else what? You'll blow my head off?"
She looked back at the pile of guns and then back to him, still with that cocked eyebrow. "You've proven we can't do that. I'll ask again. What do you want?"
He smiled. "A girl that takes no shit. I like that."
"Fuck off."
He shook his head. "You've got a sharp tongue to boot, I see. In all honesty, Fiona, I sought you out because I figured I could help you."
"That so?"
He nodded. "It's no secret that Sonic's been wiping out your kind out across town. The last of the Fox Family, and the last of the city's biggest bosses. Lyric went down a few days ago, and you nearly went down tonight as well."
"Sonic tends to be a pain in the ass."
"Trust me, I know. I lived with him for years. But thanks to me, you have the chance to fight another day and make another deal. But Sonic won't waste time to get another chance at you. So that's where I come in." Her inquisitive face told him to go on. "Here's what I propose: you want Sonic out of the way like I do. You want the good ol' days of freedom without a stubborn police commissioner sizing up your chest, waist, and panty size for an orange jumpsuit. But more importantly, you want Sonic dead more than anything."
"Are you telling me that you can do that? 'Cause if are, I think you're full of BS. Otherwise, he'd be gone already. And why do you want to kill him anyway? From the way I heard it, your death was the thing that drove him to be a do-gooder."
His face soured as he spat on the carpet. "That bastard left me behind. Because of him, I had to sit in a coma for months! And you want to know what was going through my head all that time? Him running off and leaving me for dead! The same damn scene over and over again! But that damn memory taught me something. He didn't need me anymore, so he cut me loose! My own brother!" He took in a few breaths in an effort to calm down. Unfortunately, it had also given him a massive headache, something that had been driving him crazy for weeks now and was only getting worse. "When I woke up from that… weird hospital bed, I found out that Robotnik died because of him. That fat bastard was mine to kill for what he did to me! It wasn't enough for him to leave me behind, but to end that fat fuck too?!" Scourge had to stop and take a breath again as his headache grew, especially where the scars on his head were that didn't look like they were properly healed given their redness. "But… ever since I… 'woke up,' I've been doing some snooping. He didn't even know I was stalking him for weeks before tonight. I know how to hurt the guy now. He's no godly hero. He's damaged goods, and I'll make sure this whole town sees him for what he really is: weak."
"It doesn't sound like you want to kill him. You want him to suffer more than anything."
"Oh, don't misunderstand. I want to kill him, but I want to humiliate him first. You know, show the people who he really is. Those stupid friends of his? That's a weakness right there. The commissioner is a no-nonsense witch who is due to be sized up for a coffin. His genius friend? I stole his flight suit, and it sits on my back as we speak!"
"Let me see that," she commanded as she got closer to inspect it. The kind of craftsmanship that most inventors would kill for, excellent wiring, stylish and practical at the same time... "Little Tails outdid himself with this one," she said as she shook her head.
"You're familiar with his work?"
"A little birdie at G.U.N. told me he was running a few weapon contracts with them. And yes, I am very familiar with Tails. I was… an acquaintance of his sister's in a past life."
"The lovely Amy Rose?"
The way he said that ticked something off in her. It made her disgusted. She showed it for a second, but almost instantaneously put the look away. She crossed her arms and turned away from him. "Okay, Scourge, I think we can work out some agreement. If you can get Sonic off my case, I'll give you whatever you want. Name it."
He chuckled wickedly. "I don't want any of your money if that's what you're asking. I'm just looking for a partner to help me end Sonic. What I could use is a place to crash, though. And a bottle of ibuprofen for some headaches I've been dealing with recently."
"I can help with that. I've got well-stocked safehouses all over town. We can put you up in one of them."
"Sounds perfect."
"But know this," she said sternly. "You can do whatever you want with Sonic, Rouge, and Tails. Sonic's gotta be dead. Rouge and Tails don't need to die, but if it helps getting to Sonic, I won't shed any tears at their funerals. But… I noticed how your tone changed when you talked about Amy."
"Got a soft spot for the lady?"
Fiona put forth her best poker face, but he was not buying it. She sighed with a noticeable groan. "I already told you that I was an acquaintance of hers. That should be enough for you. Besides, there's no reason to get her involved with this."
"Sure there is! She's close to him, and—."
Fiona swiftly grabbed the inside of his jacket and pulled him in close with venom in her eyes. "Listen again, fuckwit. Amy is off-limits. Gut Sonic, Tails, and Rouge for if need be, but if you touch Amy, I will skin you alive and toss you out to sea. Sharks lovea warm, bloody meal. Understand?"
Scourge's face changed. "Methinks you're hiding something," he replied stating the magnificently obvious. "I don't get why you don't—."
"The first rule of how I do business is if I accept any services, that person will do it the way I want it done. You offered your help, I agreed. That means you work for me now. If you like, you can call yourself a contractor or vendor for my organization. And I will gladly make it crystal clear one more time: do not touch Amy Rose! Capiche?"
He had to respect her tone and willingness to keep Amy out of trouble. This chick was not kidding around. She didn't care if he could break the sound barrier. By the way she talked, it sounded like she really could skin him alive. It was a morbidly respectable quality.
Then again… toying with Amy would just make Sonic all the angrier. Oh, what to do? What to do?
Scourge sighed and mentally crossed his fingers at the whole situation. "Have it your way, boss," he said.
"Glad we understand each other," she said as she threw him off. "Now, if you want Sonic, the easiest thing we can do is set up a trap. The fact that he went after me tonight so soon after ending Lyric tells me he's impatient. And… since we were talking about Tails—."
"I think I see what you're goin' for," he said with a growing smile. "What've you got in mind?"
She smiled. "We'll talk about that tomorrow. But before you so, you wanna tell me how you survived that night?"
It was all a blur. One moment he was recuperating in a sterile bed in a heated room in another part of town. Now he was freezing his tail off thanks to fierce winds that were kicking in from the mountains to the city's northwest. He didn't even remember fleeing the hospital, let alone the run here. But against all odds, he had soberly blacked out and found himself at a grave where he dropped off three dozen roses every month. In light of recent events, he'd only have to deliver two.
An unearthly, lifeless look resonated from his emerald green eyes. He looked like he had lost everything happy and good in his life. All he did was stare absentmindedly without blinking. He wasn't looking at his father's name nor his mother's. He gazed solemnly at a grave plot and headstone that had recently been rectified accurately. Well, accurately at the time. Now they'd have to bring in a specialist to fix the error… again.
ELI CHARLES HEDGEHOG
Cherished Son
June 23, 1991 – June 24, 2016
All the pain he was suffering from flushed out of his system as he continued to read it over and over again as if waiting for it magically change before his eyes. Sooner or later, it might drive him insane.
Not even paying attention to his surroundings, he never heard her small, ballerina feet crush the tumbling maple leaves. He didn't react when she knelt down beside him. He didn't acknowledge her presence period.
"Hey," Amy said softly as she knelt down and put a hand on his shoulder, trying to share some comfort and warmth to his cold body. "Sonic, come on. We should go." Silence. "Sonic, seriously. Tails and CREAM are worried sick." But her words fell like raindrops and echoed in the wells of silence. That was also when she took a better look at him. Chaos almighty, he was painted in bruises and subtle red stains where his blood had caked on his skin from the earlier brawl. Heavily bandaged arms with red splotches underneath them made him out to be a kid that routinely got physically abused by high school bullies. Even after all they had been through, she had never seen Sonic this beaten up. And that was just his body. "Please, Sonic," she almost begged, "look at me." Chaos, she couldn't take any more of the cancerous reticence. Amy had to get up and stand in front of him, getting in between the tombstone and his lifeless eyes. She knew that look all too well. He was staring directly into the abyss, longing for something, anything, to tell him what to do next. If she had to do it for him, she would.
In an act of kindness, she knelt down again, slung her arms around him, and took him in tightly. She tried so hard to give him the kind of love and compassion that he so desperately needed right then and there. He had suffered so much in his young life, even more than anyone had the right to. Even if he didn't react to her actions, she at least wanted to get across that she cared for him and she would always be there.
It was exactly what he needed.
She was a little surprised to feel his strong arms wrap around her frame and let out all the grief from that night. He buried his face into her shoulder and nearly shed more tears, but he tried his hardest to try and be strong for Amy.
He knew that she cared for him deeply. He knew that she had serious feelings for him. He couldn't bullshit himself and say that the feeling wasn't mutual, but he couldn't bring himself to admit it. Aside from CREAM, there wasn't another woman who cherished him as much as she did. How could Amy not love him when he had saved her life more than once and doing it so effortlessly and with such powerful emotions?
"Thank you," he forced out.
She pulled away, but she only did it so he could see her understanding, nigh angelic smile. It melted away a layer of raw emotion that dwelled in his heart, but not enough for him to forget what Green had done to him. That smile of hers was telling him that she would always be there for him.
"Until death do us part," he mentally jested.
Amy helped him up and began walking slowly with him out of the cemetery. The wind had picked up and again and blew an uncomfortable zephyr into her face along with an ensemble of dead leaves, accentuating the physical trauma he was trying to stomach. Eventually, they reached her car without speaking a word. They got in quickly, and she began driving them home. As she hopped on Interstate 76-southbound, she saw how he sat quietly in the shotgun seat as he stared at his folded hands.
"How'd you find me?" he whispered, barely breaking the silence.
"We got an alert that you ditched the hospital. I figured you'd go somewhere to be alone. Your parents' grave was… well, it was my best guess."
He sighed. "I wasn't looking at their graves."
She sighed too "Your brother's. Look, Sonic…," she reached out and grasped his hands, "don't forget that all of us are here for you. We're your friends. We're your family. You can come to us about anything, even if you need a little comfort."
"I know," he said as he sulked further into his seat. "I know. It's… it's… I had a bad night."
His companion was about to say something else, but seeing his downtrodden face made her think again. Maybe it would be better for him if she were quiet as well until they got home.
Zzzzt. Zzzzt. Zzzzt. Zzzzt. Zzzzt. Zzzzt. Zzzzt. Zzzzt.
He put his mask away and set his air gun away before turning off the air tank. All of its screws were snugly applied without compromising the rest of the body.
"Okay, I think we're ready for a test," Tails said.
"Great…," CREAM replied.
He didn't think they might complete her body tonight, but Tails needed to get her mind off of Green. Okay, maybe he was doing most of the work because she was understandably quiet. Yes, he may have been Sonic's brother, but CREAM was the one to raise him.
He exhaled loudly, knowing exactly what she was thinking about. "CREAM, there's nothing we can do about Green tonight. I know you were his—."
"He was more than that, Miles," she spat, though it sounded more like a hiss. "He was... He is family. And don't you forget it!" From her camera, she saw the twin-tailed man lower his ears in regret. That, in turn, made her reflect on her most recent words. "That came out wrong," she said regretfully. "I shouldn't have lashed out like that. I'm—." She saw how Tails put his hand on the computer as if he had his hand on her shoulder. Chaos, she wanted to get into her new body so badly if it meant Mr. Prower being this gentle with her.
"I get it," he said with a nod. "I get it. Now… let's try it." The door for the secret lab then opened. Amy and Sonic had arrived home, and that made Tails groan. Whether it was for the interruption or because the scene in the laboratory was going to get even more depressing, it did not really matter. "We'll pick this up later, CREAM."
"I agree."
The battered hedgehog was getting helped down the stairs, no doubt still sore from his fight. The robo-rabbit wished deeply that her new body was complete so that she could hug her pseudo-son as he cried his soul into her shoulder, exactly what he would do when he and Green were young.
Green.
It wasn't all bad back when they were kids, even if they were unwilling test subjects for some madman. It wasn't all bad when she would love them through their adolescent tears. She missed those days.
Amy finally helped him to one of the benches in the lab where he nodded in appreciation for her help. She then eyed her brother and guided him to a spot on the floor. Tails followed her eyes with a cocked brow and got what she insinuated. He couldn't agree more. Sonic needed one badly.
Tails pressed a button and out came a modestly sized cube from the floor. He quickly opened the contraption and pulled out a cold glass and a chilled bottle of Jack Daniel's.
"Make it a double," Amy requested.
"Triple," Sonic said lowly. The fox nodded and did what was told. He quickly got up with the glass and the bottle and handed it to his sullen friend. Sonic took both of them and slammed his extra-large drink without a problem. The rest of whiskey was on stand-by, ready for another round when Sonic would inevitably need another. The hero took in a sharp breath and said, "Sometimes… you need to get drunk."
"Sonic, I'm sorry," Tails said.
The hero looked up to his friend. "I'm sorry I'm Sonic too." Jesting through the pain. Yep, that was Sonic.
Sonic quickly poured himself another tall drink as he sulked.
"If there's anything you need, we're here for you," Tails offered.
After downing his second triple shot, he said, "Could you… give CREAM and me a minute?"
"Of course," Amy said. "Come on, Tails."
He obeyed and followed his sister out but not without keeping an eye on his distressed friend. Some motley crew they were. Tragedy seemed to follow everyone in that room like a shadow.
RING! RING!
Amy scoffed and pulled out her phone. A certain police commissioner was on the other end of the line as they exited the lab.
Sonic started to pour another drink, but he shook his head and put the liquid back in the black-labeled bottle and put it and the glass aside. He then buried his face into his aching hands. CREAM took control of the camera and pointed it at Sonic, focusing on the poor man. Never had she seen him this upset, even if it was for a good reason.
"Blue," she said, calling by the name she's known him as for years, "I'm here for you."
"I know," he said lowly as he looked at the camera. His tear-soaked eyes and his mild panting… it just broke her heart.
"Come here," she said.
As he began to sniffle, he did as he was told and walked to Tails's seat. He quickly sat down and moved it closer to the computer and CREAM with the press of a button until there was less than a foot between them.
"Why?" he asked her with nothing but heartbreak his voice. "J-Just… why, CREAM?"
"If you need to cry, Blue," she began trying to hold down her own emotions, "then cry."
He was back to being a 6-year-old kid who needed someone to cry on and make the pain go away. Sonic let his emotions out right there as he folded his arms and rested his head on them, agonizingly bawling onto the keyboard, each tear worse than the last. What she wouldn't have given for her new body to be ready to hug him and love him through the pain like a good mother does.
"It's alright," she tried to comfort as her voice broke. "W-We'll be alright."
AUTHOR'S NOTE:
I like to think that there isn't a bottle of Jack Daniel's large enough for Sonic to drown his sorrows. And good on him for thinking that downing a $50 bottle of Tennessee whiskey in one night was a bad idea. I mean, why waste that much money on drinking the pain away when a $12 takeout pizza would be so much cheaper and better for you?
So, the chapter is out slightly early on account of my dad needing help with moving furniture (a showcase for him and a filing cabinet for my sister), so you probably wouldn't have gotten this chapter until... about 24 hours from the time this chapter is going live on 3-12-2021 at 8:45 CST. Being an adult is the fucking worst. But enough about my life. It's time to talk about Sonic's life because his is loads more interesting.
I know some of you aren't the most receptive about the language used in this story and SP1, and that's perfectly fine. Your criticism is perfectly fair, and I do agree with you to a certain extent. In fact, when editing I've been cutting down on using it. However, it's just the way I'm writing this AU. It's more adult-oriented. That mature rating isn't because I enjoying messing with people. This is an AU where thousands of babies were abducted, experimented on, and killed without most of the affected families getting any kind of closure. The chance for a PG-13 rating went out the window a LONG time ago. Again, you're not wrong for saying that my style of writing is wrong, it's just that I'm committing to this because I believe it fits the tone I'm trying to set.
Okay, rant over. Now let's really get to business. Despite what I just said in the paragraph above, I think we can all agree that Fiona's uncensored and uncut tirade on what Mephiles was going to do to her was completely validated. She needed to get those raw emotions out in the open because Mephiles was just that much of a sick bastard. Oh, and Scourge and Fiona have officially teamed up. And Sonic's friends are most likely in grave danger. Just like always. But what about Fiona's relationships with Amy and Tails? Hopefully Scourge is wise enough to not poke that bear?
Anyway, special thanks this time around go out to jurrassicdinodrew, 000Marie198, and FlameShadowDragon for dropping reviews for chapter 5! Also thanks to S.T.H. Polly for leaving a review on SP1. Hopefully you've been enjoying the story! Chapter 7 will be up on 3/23, and chapter will be on 4/3.
As always, the characters used in this story are the property of SEGA, Sonic Team, and Archie Comics. Everything in the story is being used strictly for entertainment purposes. And as always, I will talk to y'all later.