Death Bologna
WHOA! Another long break! In case you're wondering what's taking so bloody long, my hard drive got fried the second after I posted chapter 10. Heh... fried Death Bologna... but I digress. So, without further ado, and awaiting inevitable impending disaster, HERE'S CHAPTER 11!
-Disco? No... Discovery? No... Discredited? No... Disclimber? Close enough.-
I do not own Sega, Sonic, or-
-Disclaimer! That's it! Continue...-
AS I WAS SAYING... I do not own Sega, Sonic, IHOP, Oreck, Lunchables, Wal-Mart, or anything related. Not that anyone thought I own any of that stuff anyway...
Episode XI-Back To Reality... Dang It
Sonic sat at the kitchen table holding and eating the remainder of his cheese wheel. The rest of the furry ones were scattered around the kitchen, including Atomsk, who was opening and closing the refrigerator door, trying to find out if the little light DID in fact turn off when the door was closed. Eventually, he just became annoyed and sliced the fridge in half with a sword he pulled out of, apparently, the thin air behind his back. "Well, it's off now."
The entire morning had been spent filling Sonic in on the 'true' events of the past couple of days, as Sonic's own story was a bit... on the wibbly side. After the talk was over, it took Sonic a few seconds to take it all in.
"...so, after I was knocked unconscious, I, along with all of you, was put into a virtual reality program which simulated the world in the Lord of the Rings. The program was built by Robotnik, aided by a secret government organization, for the purpose of observing my actions in order to more easily defeat me. During this period of virtual incapacitation, Eggman decided to try a new form of personality alteration using the same machine that, presumably, turned Cheese evil for a brief period of time."
-FLASHBACK-
"Hey, Cheese! I'm HOLY $#&!" Cream looked at her living room, or, at least, what was left of it, in shock. Everything was either in disarray or in pieces. And at the center of the disaster was Cheese, sporting an evil smile and laugh. "What… why… how could you do this?"
"Hahahaha!" Cheese said, in a deep booming voice.
"HOLY $#&!!!"
"Stop that! Now, where was I? Ah, yes. Come to papa!" Cheese said, jumping onto Cream's head.
"HOLY (muffled angry expletives)!!!!!!!!!!!!"
-END FLASHBACK-
"However, fearing that using the machine on me might wake me up from my cybernetic sleep, he decided to test the machine on Shadow first. The result was 'Shandolf', proving that the machine worked, but the end results were generally unexpected. Fearing that the error would damage the system, Eggman immediately came up with a plan to exit us from the virtual reality system. Killing us off in virtual reality seemed to be the easiest way of removing us without damaging the system. However, complications arose when Knuckles awoke from the system prematurely. That explains the two seconds where he mysteriously disappeared."
-FLASHBACK-
"What people?"
"Fourth wall!!! YOU'RE BREAKING THE FOURTH WALL!!!!!"
"Oh, take a pill or something."
"Hey, did Knuckles just disappear for two seconds?"
"Who cares?"
-END FLASHBACK-
"In that brief two seconds, the government agency went into a furious program-fest, creating a new virtual Knuckles from scratch as to not arouse our suspicions. However, the model was not perfectly in tune with our own Knuckles, thus explaining the other discrepancy."
-FLASHBACK-
"Yeah, okay. We get the point. Now go away and play 'Let's Stand In Front of a Moving Bus'."
"You know, come to think of it, we didn't really reach a 'point' of any kind during that last verbal transaction." Sonic pondered Knuckles sudden and odd usage of words longer than one syllable.
"I realize that, but do you really want to stick around listening to him until we do?" Knuckles took a second to think.
"Good point. Well made. Go on."
-END FLASHBACK-
"After Knuckles woke up, he was immediately subdued by several government agents, and moved to an undisclosed location. We think he is now kept as a slave of sorts, being forced to be the perpetual greeter at a Wal-Mart in Wonkie-Tonk, Montana."
-Meanwhile, somewhere in Montana-
"Welcome to Wal-Mart. Get your #$!& and get out!"
-Back with da fuzz-
"So, after we 'died' in the program, we were released into Eggman's custody, to be immediately dispensed with. However, instead of staying unconscious as planned, we all woke up unexpectedly in Eggman's lair, sans me, of course. It was then that a daring escape took place, in which my helpless body had to be carried by you guys while you fought of hordes of killer robots. Running aimlessly into the night, tired and hurt, you managed to escape the waves of robotic death machines, sneaking aboard a passenger train heading to Minnesota. From then on you hitched a few rides, met Elvis, opened up a taco stand on highway 12, released a #1 single (Meat 'N Taters -ThugMastaRemix-), accidentally cloned some dinosaurs..."
Atomsk raised his hand. "Yeah. That one was on me."
"...won the Nobel Peace Prize, taught Twiggy how to samba, made your way back to my house, and brewed a big ol' pot of coffee. Is that pretty much how it went?"
"Yep. That's exactly the kind of plot that would make this story a whole lot more interesting. Alas, reality is reality."
"Yep. Turns out all that happened was some freak in a mask pumped you full of juju juice and you had some kinda freaky-deaky dream sequence."
"Right. But... if that's all that happened, where's Knuckles?" Amy, Rouge, and Atomsk all looked at each other.
"We... think he's the perpetual greeter at a Wal-Mart in Montana." Sonic stared blankly for a second. "We're, uh, not really sure how he got there, either."
"I see... so, what about Shadow? I mean, what was up with him being Shandolf in real life?"
"You talk in your sleep. I assume it was just a practical joke."
"Oh. Well, at least he had it coming."
-Over a pool of piranhas-
"Um, help? Please? I've got candy..."
-Back in da house-
"So that explains Knuckles and Shadow. But... what about the red-eyed rabbit in the fridge?" Amy and Tails looked at each other.
"Um... coincidence?"
"I'll buy that."
"Alrighty. Let's go."
"Go? Go where?"
"To the temple of Balhallazera! To slay the horned demons of Ixphah! That's where we are to go!!!" Everyone turned to face Tails, who was wielding a spatula like Excalibur.
"Yeah... right... probably not gonna do that. Sorry to, uh, burst your bubble." Tails sighed.
"Okay... I guess... well, if anyone needs me, I'll be in my hat." Tails pulled a fedora out of nowhere, placed it gingerly on his head, and stood in the corner of the kitchen, facing the wallpaper. "Mmmm... hat... hat... hat... hat..." Rouge walked over and prepared to tap Tails on the shoulder, before being stopped by Sonic.
"Hey! Don't bother him. He's in his hat. Leave him be." Sonic cracked his knuckles and rolled his neck. "Now, unless anyone has any objections, I say we continue our search for Eggman's base before this thing gets any bigger!" Everyone now noticed that Sonic was holding a weird squid-like creature in his hand. "This thing's gettin' bigger by the minute! Last week it was half this size! It's really starting to creep me out!" Sonic threw the creature into the sink and walked towards the front door.
"What's your plan Sonic?"
"Phase 1: We find Knuckles." Suddenly, the front door burst open, revealing a badly-beaten red echidna with a happy face branded on his forehead.
"OH, GOD!!!! IT WAS HORRIBLE!!!!" Knuckles staggered through the door, leaving a trail of blood and fur behind him. "'Welcome to Wal-Mart!' 'Welcome to Wal-Mart!' Day and night! Night and day! The horrors! THE HORRORS!!!"
"Well, Phase 1 complete!"
"You can't just walk out. They own you! They OWN you! I had to claw my way through hundreds of senior citizens with pricing guns! I BARELY MADE IT OUT ALIVE!!!" Knuckles began sobbing hysterically, while the others attempted to keep their sweet distance. "I bear their mark! Their MARK!" Knuckles pointed to the smiling face burned into his skull. "I'm a wanted man! If I walk outside, I'm dead! DEAD! DO YOU HEAR ME?!?!? DEAD!!!! D-E-D, DEAD!!!!"
"D-E-A-D." Sonic whispered.
"D-E-A-D, DEAD!!!! CURSE YOU, WAL-MART!!!!!!!!!!"
(A.N. It should be noted that I have nothing against Wal-Mart per se. I think it's a lovely place. Wonderful, in fact. It's just a bit of comic license. Bear with me. They know where I live.)
Knuckles crawled into the fetal position and continued bawling as Amy tiptoed over to Sonic. "Um, Sonic? D'ya think he's gonna be okay?"
"Who, Knuckles?"
"No, Abraham Lincoln." A seething aura of sarcasm and anger now surrounded Amy. She hated blatant stupidity laced with transparent heartlessness.
"But I thought he was dead. If you ask me, good ol' Honest Abe's chances of being okay have long since gone down the ol' tubes." Witty comment. Light punch. Sonic's aura was now in the lead.
"Well, why don't you go and take a trip down the ol' tubes? You might come across your personality." Hard body blow. Amy's aura ahead.
"Well, if it was a tube of bleach, maybe after I found my personality I could make that mustache of yours a little less visible." Kill shot. Sonic's aura wins.
"GASP!!!!! THAT'S IT!!!!! MR. WHACK WHACK HAS A HOUSE CALL WITH YOUR SKULL!!!!!" Amy took out her hammer as Sonic let out a loud, squeaky, yelping noise.
"YEEP!"
"YEEP THIS!" The next five minutes, if recorded and played in fast-forward, would have looked like an old Benny Hill skit. Amy chased Sonic around for what seemed like hours, hammer poised, feet unrelenting, and antiperspirant wearing dangerously thin. Then suddenly, with a simple hockey stick, (which was lying on the floor despite the fact that no one in the house played hockey,) it was all over.
Sonic tripped.
And fell.
And falling was the least of his troubles.
Actually, acne was the least of his troubles.
Falling was probably right above acne.
Or, maybe that was osteoporosis.
Ah, screw it. I'm getting confused. ON WITH THE BEATING!!!
"SWEET MOTHER OF TURNIPS!!!!" -WHACK- -SCRUNCH- -SQUISH- -CLOBBER- -SPROING- -WHACKITYWHACKITYBA-ZING- -STOMP- -ANOTHER WHACK- -MORE SQUISHING- -TWEAK- -SPURT- -KABOOM!!!!!-
"And I'm just getting STARTED punk!!!"
-Several minutes... uh, HOURS later-
"...and take some of THIS!" -SNAP- -CRACKLE- -POP- -WHAPWHAPWHAP- -SPROING- -CRUNCH- -HOT BUTTERED TOAST- -FIZZLE- -UNLEASH THE FLAMES OF THE UNDERWORLD- -SMACK- -POW- -SPLASH- -KERSPLAT- -LOUD NOISES- -YEEP- -LARGE FIERY EXPLOSION- "Yeah! Eat it!"
"Um... Amy?"
"EAT IT!!!!" -WHONGO- Amy noticed that she got a kind a bizarre adrenaline rush whenever she beat someone up. She found it comparable to skydiving, only, instead of jumping out of a plane, you were hitting someone over the head repeatedly with a large hammer. Same difference.
"Amy?"
"WHAT?!"
"You realize that you've been beating up a stuffed animal for, say, the last hour-and-a-half?"
"Stuffed... what?!" Amy took a second to notice what she was pounding into the ground. It was a life-size, yet now quite flat, stuffed Sonic doll. It was one of the special ones that said phrases such as 'Pass me that chili dog' or 'How's it hangin', Bernie?' whenever you pushed on it's nose. This, at least, explained why Sonic was referring to Amy as 'Bernie' during the last hour of beating.
"Wha... how... HOW DID HE ESCAPE?!?!" Amy took two steps before realizing that the beating had left her insurmountably tired. "Ugh... oh, fine. He gets of lucky this time. But NEXT time... ohh... next time he's gonna get it."
"Whew! That's a relief."
"Wha-?" Amy turned around and noticed that the real Sonic was standing right behind her.
"How's it hangin', Bernie?"
"What the?! Where were you???"
"Right behind you. I've known you long enough to know that you don't turn around that much."
"But... I just turned around right now." Sonic stopped for a second.
"Fluke."
"Yeah, well... NEXT time..." Amy shoved her forefinger into Sonic's face.
"Yeah, yeah. I know. It's always 'next time'." Sonic walked away, not noticing the hockey stick which sealed his fate last time. He tripped over it, again, and fell down a flight of stairs. At the bottom, he brushed himself off, straightened his quills, and acted as if nothing happened. "Still pimpin'."
"SONIC!" A shrill cry from upstairs stopped Sonic in his tracks. Sonic spun his head around like Linda Blair.
"Yeeees..." Sonic said through clenched teeth.
"WHAT are we going to DO about Knuckles?" Amy pointed to Knuckles, who was still crying his eyes out.
"That's a good question." -Ding- "AHA! I have a plan!"
"Where'd that ding come from?"
"Never mind that! Quickly, to the Hedge-cave!"
-Meanwhile, in a test lab somewhere in Nevada-
"Goggles on."
"Goggles on, boss."
"Goggles on, boss."
"Lower the elevator."
"Lowering elevator, boss."
"Lowering elevator, boss."
"Stop that."
"Stopping that, boss."
"Stopping that, boss."
"Stop talking or you'll both eat lead!"
"Stopping talking, boss." -BLAM-
"Eating lead, boss."
Eggman and his two cronies, Scratch and Grounder, descended into the bowels of his Nevada-side test base. It was here that Eggman would create and test out his new machines, death rays, egg-shaped Sonic-destroying machines, and idiotic sidekicks. "Hmmm... haven't tested a new sidekick in a while." The base itself was divided into three wings. Wing One was a design and creation laboratory, Wing Two was the controlled testing arena and viewing booth, and Wing Three was the cafeteria. As it was designed to serve Eggman and Eggman only, it was consequently much larger than most cafeterias. What did it serve? Anything and everything edible... except bologna.
Everyone remembers the incident on July 22nd when Eggman was served a single bologna sandwich for lunch. Suddenly, all the horrible childhood memories returned. All the wasted lunchtime opportunities. Those sandwiches. Those blasted sandwiches! Everyone else had sloppy joes, Lunchables, or big bags full of candy. And what did Eggman have? Those blasted bologna sandwiches!!! The memories all began springing into Eggman's mind like jackrabbits springing into the blades of an apache helicopter. In a moment of unbridled rage, Eggman slammed the sandwich onto the floor, clamped his hands onto the table, and attempted to tip it over. 12 seconds later he was passed out on the floor from exhaustion, the table still firmly planted on the ground. True, it wasn't the most spectacular of incidents. True, it only further proved that, without machinery, Eggman was about as tough as an overripe banana. However, the point got across.
Eggman unloaded himself and his subordinates into the viewing booth, which was a small area overlooking a large, warehouse-like testing room which was completely empty, except for a single ham sandwich on a steel pedestal in the center. Eggman then moseyed his way over to a control panel and flipped a switch marked 'PA', as hilarious amounts of feedback began spewing out of the base's PA system. "Aye, now that's annoying."
"You're telling me?"
"Oh, shut up." Eggman picked up a microphone and tapped it twice. The taps reverberated throughout the base, causing the ground to shake slightly. Eggman smiled, and put the mic up to his lips. Scratch sighed.
"Here we go again."
"-K-SHOOK- Test one: ham sandwich. Bring in the laser! -K-SHOOK-" The words circulated throughout the building in massive hi-fi, including the mock-static K-SHOOK's that Eggman threw in to make everything he said sound like a walkie-talkie conversation. Within seconds, a machine of epic proportions (at least, in comparison to the sandwich,) was rolled through large steel doors into the testing arena. Eggman immediately turned around to face his underlings. "You two! Did you bring in the scientists I asked you to bring?"
"Yes boss."
"Yes boss."
"Just as you specified, we flew in Herman Danoyse..."
"...and Jerry Defunk. Just as you asked, boss."
"Eeeeeeeeexcellent..." Eggman turned back to the microphone. "-K-SHOOK- Attention! Bring in Danoyse! Bring in Defunk! -K-SHOOK-" The large steel doors remained open as two men in black suits came into view on the testing room floor. "-K-SHOOK- Gentlemen, I thank you for gracing me with your presence. What you are about to witness may possibly be the most important thing you will ever experience. -K-SHOOK-" The two men looked at each other, before a single voice shouted out...
"Who the crap are you?"
Indeed. Who the crap IS he? Coming soon in episode XII-On the road again. They can't stand to be on the road again. Mostly due to Tails. But, alas, evil plans must be foiled! Speaking of which, what does a ham sandwich and a duck have in common? Find out next time! Episode XII-Chainsaw Therapy