CHAPTER XVI – THE SETUP
It felt strange for Sonic to be back so soon. Come to think of it, 'awkward' was a more fitting term. He felt gauche and uneasy, and he'd only been gone a little more than 12 hours. He had figured their hiatus might last a few days. Whatever he felt, he painfully swallowed his pride and made his way to the grandfather clock, opening up it, and punching in the code. 4-6-8-9 with an optical scan to match it.
The bookcase made its usual noises and opened for him. He quickly shuffled down the staircase to gaze upon the computer and workbench for the umpteenth time. He wasn't hurrying to Tails or CREAM, making him tense up even further. What made him stressed him out more was that Tails was stirring from his chair. The poor man still looked like a wreck, but at least he looked a tad better with a few hours' sleep in his system (at least, according to CREAM).
The fox then got up and stretched his body, garnering a loud CRACK from his lower spine. He hunched over in pain saying, "I have got to get a comfier chair."
"I can attest to that," Sonic replied, getting his and CREAM's attention. The fox eyed the hero as he got up to him, an undeniable wall of tension between the young men as they met face-to-face.
Sonic let out a pained breath of air being the first one to speak. "Look, Tails…, I'm sorry—."
Tails shook his head and raised his left hand. "No. I'm the one that needs to apologize. I'm sorry. Amy and I shouldn't have kept that from you." The fox's words seemed to be honest enough. The same went for his body language, specifically his blue eyes never once breaking with Sonic's. "It was wrong, and I can't say enough how badly I feel," the fox said as his voice and ears lowered. "I'm sorry, Sonic."
The hero was briefly silent taking it all in. With a simple nod, he told his friend that his apology was had been accepted. "Let's move on," Sonic said as he offered his hand.
Tails briefly glanced at the outstretched appendage and smiled. "Let's."
The two then grabbed and shook firmly, a huge obstacle they had overcome. However, it wasn't enough for Sonic as he leaned in and hugged his dear friend. Miles was taken back for a second but accepted the gesture and patted him on the back.
They then broke only for Tails to say, "I was the easy one. Amy won't be."
Sonic chuckled. "Good thing I've started rebuilding that bridge. But enough sappy talk."
"Right," Tails said as he and Sonic looked up to the screen. "CREAM brought me up to speed while you were on your way, and then I crashed out again…." There was more than little embarrassment in the fox's voice before he cleared his throat. "Anyway, the Union Times actually was one Amy's biggest busts when she started out as the 'Rascal.'"
Sonic raised an eyebrow. "Really?"
"Oh, yeah. See, when the old facility transformed into printing press storage, the entire back lot of the building, the south end to be exact, was boarded off to the public."
Sonic knew better. "It wasn't because it was condemned, was it?"
"Amy got a lead on that section of the building about two years ago. She snuck in and followed the stairs down to find boatloads of phenylacetone and methylamine."
"She stumbled onto a meth factory," Sonic surmised given the latter word.
"Of course, she videotaped the entire experience. Amy was in-and-out before she could be spotted. One of the few times where Amy's antics didn't lead to a life-or-death situation." Tails's face turned as he rubbed the bridge of his nose and groaned. "If only they all that easy. At any rate, she turned in the video evidence to the Acorns, and rest was history."
"I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that's why the Union Times closed down?"
"Yes. Turns out it was one of Eggman's biggest methods of drug trading. He had the city's waste and disposal plant—where you bashed in the Iron King's brains—but the plant was his secondary means of drug transport. Well, at that time. That became his first choice after the bad press caused the Union Times to shut down."
"Well done, Amy," Sonic complemented. "Should I expect to get a contact-high walking in there?"
"Forgive the expression, but I highly doubt it. Fiona may push drugs, but she doesn't use 'em. Hell, she didn't even touch cigarettes in high school. She personally wouldn't go somewhere that'd get her a chance to get hooked."
"Good to know." Sonic then went away for a moment to get his stuff. He already had most of his gear, but he still needed a change of contact lenses and some earpieces. "Speak into the comms, Sonic."
"Check, check."
"We hear you clear as day."
Next, Sonic made his way to CREAM's soon-to-be body. Her chest cavity was opened up like she'd been subjected to the spawn of a mechanized xenomorph.
"I heard you got the memory cards or something to complete her new body?" Sonic asked.
Tails then pointed to the far end of the computer where it was also opened up with wiring that only a tech whiz could understand. "All I need to do switch out the memory banks in the computer and the body," Tails said. "I'll be doing that while CREAM has your six in the field."
"Are you sure? I'd rather see you get some rest than labor over her body."
"Sonic," CREAM said, "he knows what he's doing. I'll be watching over him too. Besides, he's had enough rest."
Sonic raised his hands in defense. "Alright, no need to tell me twice."
"By the say, Sonic," Tails began, "How are the new sneakers working out?"
Sonic looked down and bent his knee upward to get a better look at his new kicks. He found that after his activities at the mall that they weren't looking worn down in the slightest. "They're functional. I'm not sure what to tell you, bud. Oh. The air fluidity feature. How do I activate that?"
"It'll only activate when you're running around at high enough speeds for longer periods of time. I think I set the threshold at 88 mph."
Sonic rolled his eyes at the statistic. "Talk about your 'running' jokes. I guess I wasn't running long enough for it to kick in."
"And drifting doesn't help stopping robbers at a jeweler."
"That too."
RING! RING!
"Commissioner Rouge is calling, boys," CREAM said before putting the bat on. "We hear you, R."
"Is S there?" Rouge asked.
"Yeah, I'm here," Sonic affirmed. "That must've been a brief meeting with Knuckles." Rouge glared at Sonic through the screen, making Sonic feel a little uneasy. "Did I say something wrong?"
"We'll discuss that later," Rouge said with a tone that had a touch of venom in it. "I'm getting my team together. We'll be headed out soon. Remember, Dupree's safety is our top priority. Don't give Fiona a reason to kill him."
"In other words, play it smart. See you in a few, commish." The line went dead as Sonic started to stretch out. It didn't take him long. He was still somewhat limber from the mall episode. And he wasn't feeling anymore discomfort from the reapplied stitches. Chalk that one up to modern medicine for making a suitable painkiller that didn't dull any of the other senses. Actually, it wouldn't be a bad idea to keep one or two of those on standby in case the effects started to fade. "I'm headed out now," Sonic said as he turned tail for the stairwell. "I'll call back in five minutes."
"Be careful, Sonic," Tails and CREAM said in unison.
Sonic chuckled. "You two really were made for each other."
Four was the max that could fit in their rinky-dink sedan. Four fully grown Mobians to be precise, and there were five of them in it. A terrified and anxious Jonah Dupree was sweating bullets as he drove the group of degenerates. A leather-clad hedgehog with his brother's flight suit rode shotgun. A hulking simian dealing with a concussion and friction burns on both his chest and arms was behind the wheelman. An aching amphibian who had not flown into a windshield, but rather was slammed through one, was sitting in the back left. And finally, their lynx cohort with the lightning pattern on his shoes was in the back right still sore from the whiskers he had plucked and the missing fang from being rammed into cement blocks.
To say Scourge wasn't enjoying the ride over was like saying the Titanic sinking was a minor inconvenience. Three guys in the back who hadn't showered in hours (though it smelled like days), grumbling about the injuries Sonic had given them and the notion that something in this car smelled like a dumpster. The car was a rusted winter-beater—so it wasn't eye-candy to start with—but that didn't stop that Dupree kid from turning this car into a dumpster on wheels. Why couldn't they have used one of Fiona's vans? Actually, how could he safely deliver any kind of food when his car was a biohazard on wheels?
"No," Scourge mocked Fiona under his breath. "the car's gotta have the pizza light on the top to fool him." Yeah, a big, honking Domino's sign on the top of the ugly sedan. As if it wasn't a trashy-looking car to begin with. Even the faint smell of the pizza between the lynx and frog wasn't offering much other than a passing distraction.
"What's on the pie?" Scourge asked the peanut gallery behind him.
The frog opened up the top to study it. "Onions, sausage, and extra cheese," the amphibian said before closing it. "Weird combo for toppings. What ever happened to a good veggie pizza?"
"Veggie?" the simian sneered. "Nothing wrong with a lotta meat."
"Yes, we all know how much you love your meat," the lynx shot back. The feline was met with an unimpressed glare from a few seats over. "At least tell me you have anchovies on it?"
The ape shook his head. "What is it with cats and fish?"
"Why is it that you're arguing about toppings?" Scourge barked.
"You were the one that asked!"
Scourge rolled his eyes and focused back on the drive. Well, he was focusing until he saw someone familiar running on the rooftops headed the completely other direction. Scourge followed his brother's movements until the many powerlines and street signs blocked his view. You bet your ass Scourge felt a wicked smile manifest on his face as thoughts of his future exploits bounced in his head.
The former sergeant sure did. "Whatchu smiling at?" the ape asked.
"Oh… nothing."
Angel Island dead ahead. The traffic coming on and off the Governor Thadmann Bridge connecting the isle to North Res was stop-and-go for the next half-mile. Good thing he was taking the scenic route above them. Being the parkour extraordinaire, he effortlessly grappled up the concrete structures with ease. He hopped and leaped from A/C unit to A/C unit. To give the busy people a little show, and to tell them that he was okay, he gracefully dove off one of the local business and shot out grapple after grapple, swinging his way eastward past the light posts on another chilly November night.
Many a child and citizen saw him move without problem, make every swing, and bring out the hope they'd been looking for since he took that terrible swim. They cheered him on, and even kids tried to follow, but where he was going there wouldn't be good times. It was best if they stayed far away.
As he passed the southern tip of Central Park, he put on his game-face. He zipped back to the rooftops and continued his brief journey. A few blocks to go, and he could see Interstate 395 in the distance. And with that, he saw the Union Times. When he reached the highway, he grappled to top of the sign for Exit 13 B-C with Exit 13 A not very far away. At his vantage point, the sounds of honking hours and road rage sped below him.
"D.V. on," Sonic commanded as he stared to the building. The Detection Vision was insightful as per usual. Sonic could see the many high-end vehicles in the large parking lot which used to the be the disgraced newspaper's distribution lot. Where numerous news vans and Peterbilt trucks would've been five years ago was now slowly filling up with Cadillac Escalades and Lincoln Continentals undoubtedly bought with dirty money. Even for those who dabbled in high crime, they knew how to roll. Chaos, the amount of orange skeletons he was seeing on all those armed goons. There had to be at least five dozen people packing heat in addition to the dozen or so unarmed.
"C," Sonic said. "You getting this?" He couldn't make out what CREAM was saying, so he took a few steps back where he could finally hear her. "Can you repeat that?"
"You didn't hear me?"
"No, I ask you to repeat stuff for kicks," Sonic said with sarcasm as smooth as dry wine. "Plenty of firepower in there."
"I count 64 hostiles from where I am."
"62," Sonic corrected. "Dupree and Fiona would be unarmed."
"Right, forgot about that. Be on your toes, Sonic. If things get hairy, just fall back on your training."
"I hope it doesn't for the kid's sake. I'm heading in now." He forced down his uneasiness down into the stomach as Sonic took a few steps back and then hurled himself forward at a blistering pace. One perfectly angled zip got him to the edge of the yard where semis once ran. Those criminals that were running late hurried in. Sonic took it to a jog as he eyed the closing doors. From a distance, he could see one—presumably the rat acting as the doorman—catching his eye and radioing the higher-ups inside. He never broke eye-contact with Sonic as the hero made it to and ran past the six-figure cars finally reaching the doors.
"Uh, hi," said Sonic. "I'm here for the 'Real World' interview?" The doorman chuckled as he gestured Sonic in. The hero complied and was given the butt of a rifle straight in his midsection. He doubled over from the cheap shot as the doors closed and locked... really loudly. Like unusually loud. Not paying that any mind, he looked up to the sneering doorman who struck him: a muscular, albino rat man who had a nice set of biceps and pecs from his two-sizes-too-small shirt. "I know showbiz is cut-throat, *GASP* but that's a little much," he said trying to catch his breath.
"Call it Fiona's way of welcoming you." Sonic was then lucky enough to get the man's rubber rifle butt again, this time on his left temple. What a gentleman and a scholar. "And that's my way."
Sonic rubbed the side of his skull and spat out a small portion of blood. "Wow, momma must be so proud of how you've turned out," Sonic replied flatly.
"Blaine, that's not how we greet our guests," Fiona declared as her face beamed from her position. Sure enough, there she was on the upper level with Mordred in tow. The snake stood there with his cybernetic hands behind him and Fiona resting on the rails with her arms.
Sonic took the quick moment to reevaluate the room. In the distance he was able to spot the presses the Union Times used to print out that day's paper. Closer to Sonic, besides the numerous henchmen, were pallet stacks and forklifts used more for Fiona's not-so-legal extracurriculars these days. The room they stood in was otherwise pretty vacant, par for the course since this was the distribution zone of the warehouse. Also, the plucky goons in question seemed to wait around nervously. Sonic's presence would make any goon uneasy, but they looked like they were waiting for something like a codeword to be spoken or a signal of some variety. Things only got worse when an ominous, low roar of machinery activated from somewhere in the facility. Before Sonic could even think of what the sound might be, he was kneed in the gut and sent to the floor by the rat. As he got up, steel shutters descended from the tops of the windows around the facility, and the loud sounds of heavy locks came from every wall. Why was the security this tight?
"Blaine, if you do that again, I'll shoot you myself," Fiona remarked. "Sonic was going to stay for the kid's safety anyway." She then turned to the hero. "I'm sorry you've been abused, Sonic. Feel free to teach this punk some manners."
The rat's fur was naturally pale to start, but now it was his face's turn to turn flush. He turned back to find Sonic's face, and boy, was he not happy.
"What?" Blaine asked timidly.
"Sonic, I'll let you have him for free," Fiona offered.
The hero cracked a smile. He was so nice to give Blaine a sporting chance by letting him draw his weapon. Sonic stomped on the brute's foot and swiped the firearm away. For his next trick, he disassembled it in world-record time. Only a pile of brass-covered ammo, black steel, and screws were all that was left before Sonic punched Blaine square in the throat. It made Sonic sadistically grin as Blaine gasped and flailed his hands around his gullet like a fish out of water. For the coup de grâce, Sonic grabbed him by his neck one last time and mercilessly choke-slammed the bastard. It was sobering for every other thug as the sound of Blaine's skull bashing on the concrete echoed around them. The term "silent as the grave" did not do their quiet gawking justice.
"Who's next?" Sonic barked.
"Easy, blue butt," Fiona ridiculed. "Take a load off for a minute." Her tone was too relaxed, a stark contrast to her compatriots' faces and body language on the lower level. Add in that the place was seemingly shut tight, and Sonic had a bad feeling he'd walked into a trap, which frankly shouldn't have surprised him as much as it did.
"Where's the kid?" he yelled again.
"What kid?" Okay, now Fiona was asking to get smacked.
He slammed his foot on the suffering Blaine's midsection earning an unholy crunch from his chest. "Jonah! Gimme the kid, Fox!"
"Did you know that Amy was the one responsible for shutting this place down?"
"Yeah, yeah," impatience coating Sonic's every word, "Amy, the Rascal, meth lab, basement, company goes tits-up. Tails told me."
"Ah, he did, did he? How is he? Healthy? Or maybe he's coming down with something right now?"
Oh, Sonic had enough. He hurriedly grappled up to the next level, hopped the guard rail, and sprinted to her face with anxious, tetchy eyes. "Where's Jonah?!"
"Tch, tch," she clicked as she tried to push him away gently. "There's a time and a place for that."
Sonic responded by grabbing her by the coat collar and bringing her in close. "You will bring him out, or so help me—!"
WHAM!
Sonic fell violently to the steel floor as he tried to shake off a metallic blow from Mordred's mechanical hand. He swore he saw stars and at least three Fionas. The cyborg snake followed it up by grabbing Sonic by the leg and hurling over the edge where he fell on an unlucky zebra below. Sonic swiftly elbowed the man and drew heavy fire power aimed for his peach muzzle all while his dizzied head tried to play catch-up.
"Hold your fire!" she proclaimed giving Sonic a moment to get back on his feet, and her lackeys lowered their arms.
"I know he's here!" Sonic yelled. "There's 65 people in here. Me, 61 goons with guns, one goon down for the count, and the last two are unarmed! You never have any guns on you, and I saw the other one up there with you!"
The snake from above began to laugh with an unnerving smirk. "I do not have any pistols on me, Sonic," Mordred hissed.
The hero looked thoroughly confused. "W-What?"
"There's the rub, Sonic," Fiona began, "I can't bring out someone who's already been delivered."
"What are you talking about?!" Sonic screamed. "Where's the kid?!"
"At your house. He's a pizza delivery man, and he's… well, I shouldn't need to spell it out."
"'At my house?'" he echoed. "What i—?" Then he paused. Then his eyes started to widen. "What is he doing at my house?"
Fiona sighed and shook her head. "Maybe I need to spell it out after all. Why don't you call Tails and ask him yourself?"
The gangbangers were all proud witnesses to the moment's Sonic's eyes lose their shine. They could tell the exact moment where Sonic's heart was in his stomach; a certain beautiful look of not knowing what was going to happen next.
"Tuh-tuh-T?" Sonic tensely asked. Static. "T, can you hear me?" A little more panic in his voice to go with the radio silence in his ear and the terrible feeling welling up inside him.
"Can't reach him? Not surprised. There's a radio jammer on the roof of this place. No calls or texts from the outside world when that baby is turned on."
Sonic still tried. "Tails, come in! C? Are you there?! R?! Anyone?!" He then fearfully looked up to Fiona. "What have you done?" he squeaked.
Satan himself couldn't have grinned more sinisterly than the vixen. "The kid's bringing Tails a pizza as we speak… and a few of my best men. And Scourge. Can't forget about him." The look of unbridled horror that was written across Sonic's face was the icing on the cake. "I'm sorry that this has to happen to Tails—he really was sweet and all—but I figure you needed to be taught a lesson." Instinctively, his idle hands balled themselves up. "You never should've crossed me, Sonic. Maybe your brother will actually kill someone this time."
Her words sealed her men's fate. Nothing—nothing—was worse than when you enraged Sonic. Her boys saw Sonic's eyes light back up with a special kind of sinister shine. His entire body started to tremble as the concrete floor around him began to vibrate, his legs ready to strike. The mob of gunmen retrained their semiautomatics on his surging, green eyes. More than a few of them had terrifying flashbacks from their days as S.W.A.T. officers that day at the cemetery. Frightened as they were, they collectively flinched when he turned his eyes to them… and they nearly died on the spot when Sonic spoke.
"Start running."
AUTHOR'S NOTE:
To quote Rorschach from the comic Watchmen, "None of you understand. I'm not locked up in here with you. You're locked up in here with me." In case it wasn't obvious, Watchmen was one of my biggest inspirations for writing this AU in the first place. Easily my favorite graphic novel of all-time.
Oh, and Sonic? You're gonna want to finish this fight and leave fast. Shit is going to hit the fan, and it's starting right now. We're into our final act. And Sonic? I didn't say this earlier when you were with Max and Alicia, so I'll let you know now that this is going to be a long night. Best get to stepping, blue butt. Oh, and happy belated birthday (this chapter is being uploaded the day after Sonic's 30th birthday), you nasty little pincushion!
We'll have to wait and see what happens elsewhere. In case it wasn't obvious, but Sonic's friends are in for rough night too. We'll see how it all unfolds next time around, but I'll say now that next time out will have a sequence you've been waiting patiently for (or not-so-patiently since I've teased it for months now).
Speaking of next time, chapter 17 will be out on 7/6 with #18 tentatively tabbed for 7/17. I will have been fully vaxxed by then (it took waaaaaay to long to finally get the first dose since there wasn't a good time for me to get it for weeks). If you haven't done so (and if you're able to), get the shots because GODDAMMIT ALL MY FAVORITE SPORTS TEAMS FROM THE GREEN BAY PACKERS TO THE WISCONSIN BADGERS ARE FINALLY ALLOWING 100% CAPACITY THIS FALL, AND IF YOU GET IN MY WAY FROM GOING OUT TO LIVE FOOTBALL EVENTS AND SPENDING A SHITLOAD OF MONEY ON OVER-PRICED TICKETS AND $12 MILLER LITES, SO HELP ME GOD-!
PLINK!
THUD!
Uhh... where am I? Oh right. I got carried away and had to have the orderlies give me a sedative. Sorry, I'm going through serious sports withdrawal, especially football. I just want to all to go back to normal with football at full capacity, from high school to the pros. Anyway, where was I? Chapters, that's right!
We're headed back to the usual upload schedule next time out, but you're getting this update two days (or so) early since my Saturday is completely booked. So what about Friday? I've uploaded on Fridays before... but then I remembered not only am I going to have a long day at work tomorrow, but I have to shower and call a local baseball game right after and somehow fit in a Friday Night Fish-fry somewhere in there. So I literally have no other good time to upload than today where I'm already working on less than four hours of sleep. Thank goodness I'm young and can do this now, because in 10 years, I won't be able to. So if there are more grammatical snafus in here than usual (I try my best to edit right before updating, but some mistakes will always fall through the cracks), you at least know why.
Before I crash, let me take the time to thank jurrassicdinodrew, 000Marie198, and FlameShadowDragon (x2) for dropping their reviews in the meantime. There's one more thing I'm forgetting... oh, that. Amy's new earrings are stud earrings, not the ones where they hang from one's earlobes. Amy's cranial anatomy obviously wouldn't allow for that, so I figured I needed to clear that up since there was a question about that and I didn't specify it enough last time. Could I have used a necklace as a better example? Perhaps, but I've already done something with a necklace in one of my SonAmy stories before (the Xmas one), so I needed a change-up.
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.