Hey everyone. Nope, I'm not dead! =D And, as promised, Chapter 5. Nice long one!
Be patient for Chapter 6... especially 'cause of where this leaves off.... heehee....
Hope y'all had a nice Easter. I did.
Wow, Valentine's Day story at Easter! This is a crazy world XD
Love Struck
Chapter 5
"Can I say, once again, that this is completely insane?" asked Knuckles.
"No," advised Silver.
Vector glared at both of them. "Shut up you two!!! I'm trying to think!"
"We should give you an award," said Knuckles, keeping a straight face.
"Yep. I never would've expected you to say that, Vector," Silver added.
"SHUT UP!!!"
Vector, Knuckles, and Silver were posted at the entrance to Amy's house, as precautionary guards. The girls were inside gathering as much bug spray as possible and Tails was keeping watch (rather reluctantly) over the lovesick victims, as it was a very important, very dangerous job that no one else would do. Really.
Silver remained silent for a moment, and then said, "You know, this isn't exactly how I wanted to spend this holiday. I mean, okay, when you're as busy a guy as me you only get so much time to yourself, you know? So when I bothered to come all the way to your time just to see you guys, I was hoping I wasn't signing up for another life or death mission to try and save my skin and accomplish some random goal at the same time. All I wanted to do was kick back, relax, and maybe spend some time with-"
"If you don't shut up, Silver, your last free time is going to be spent begging for mercy," said Vector.
"Fine, pushy people," grumbled Silver.
Silence.
Silver gave a deep sigh just to break the silence. You know, a big, long, incessant sigh that always annoys everyone around.
Several seconds later he did it again. For the same reason as before.
And then again.
"KNOCK IT OFF!!!" yelled Vector, who was getting seriously ticked.
"What are you thinking so deeply and intently about anyway?!" asked Silver, who disliked sitting still and thus vented his ire by annoying everyone around him.
"Charmy's not gonna come," growled Vector, more to himself than anyone else. "He's just sitting around opportunistically. He'll only come when he sees a chance to shoot someone."
"You're right." Knuckles sighed. "He won't come with us just sitting around like this. Been there, done that."
Silver had a naïve, hopeful expression. "Then why don't we use someone as bait or something so we can get Charmy to come to us?"
"Silver, that's the stupidest-" Knuckles started to yell, but Vector interrupted,
"That's brilliant!"
Thus making Knuckles feel very stupid indeed. "Hmph," he said bitterly. "I believe you are forgetting something, though – who would be thick enough to volunteer himself as bait?"
Silver grinned. "I have an idea."
"Well, that's the kiss of death," Knuckles replied dryly.
"No, just listen! Okay, obviously none of us are going to volunteer ourselves, so why don't we talk someone else - someone who hasn't been helping us - into doing it?"
"And, may I repeat myself, just who?"
"Just follow me."
Silver walked into Amy's house with a slight swagger in his steps, and Vector and Knuckles had no choice but to follow.
"Didn't Amy tell us to stand watch outside her house?" asked Vector, keeping step behind him.
"Yeah, but we'll be right back over there in a sec. It's like we never even left." He waved his hand dismissively. "Over here."
The hedgehog paused beside the couch, where Jet sat completely immersed in his iPod music. "Jet," he said, loud enough to be heard yet nothing more. "I have to talk to you."
The verdant hawk glared at him and grudgingly removed his headphones from his... uh... hawk equivalent of ears. "What do you want?"
Silver quickly thought of something to say. The argent hedgehog, naїve as he was, knew that Jet was weak at two points – excessive self-confidence and personal gain. "Well, you see, Jet, we kinda have this big... problem. But we can't exactly handle it all by ourselves. We need someone who's brave, and strong-willed, and courageous, and who's willing to take risks."
Jet sat up a little straighter. "I'm listening."
"So we were wondering if you could be so kind as to help us."
The hawk crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow. "What exactly do I have to do?"
"Um.... You know Charmy, right? Well he's causing some problems for us, you could say. This is going to sound strange, but he has these arrows, and whenever someone's shot with them they fall in love with whoever they're with. Anyway so Charmy's just flying around shooting people with the arrows and basically making a big dilemma."
"So he's sorta like Cupid gone gangster."
"Uh, sure. What you have to do is get him to come to us. He's been rather elusive and it's hard for us to catch up to him. We were thinking that someone... as, um, brave and strong as you could find him."
"Whatever." The green hawk seemed unfazed by the task that so many hadn't succeeded in. "Wait a second. What's in it for me?"
Silver's ears drooped slightly. "The glory of accomplishing what others couldn't?" he offered hopefully.
"Will I get paid?"
"No, sorry."
Jet scoffed. "Well, then, I'm sure you can find-"
"Sonic couldn't do it," Silver said desperately, remembering their rivalry.
"...in that case I'd be glad to help." As good as the prospect of getting paid was, the hawk could think of no better reward than to brag about how he had done something not even that pesky blue hedgehog could do.
Knuckles grinned at Silver. "Huh. Guess your idea actually worked for once, Silver boy. Didn't think he'd fall for it."
"Fall for what?!" Jet said indignantly, though rather thankfully Tails came over at that moment.
"Hey, Knuckles. Aren't you and everyone else supposed to be outside?" Tails asked, Cream and Sonic and all the rest of them reluctantly following beside him. "Amy just told me to tell you that they found plenty of-" Tails immediately faltered at the sight of Jet's portable music player. "Oooh! What's that?! Can I take a look at it?!" He ran over to Jet and pulled it out of his hands. "Look at this, guys!! Where on Mobius did you get this, Jet?"
"No where on Mobius." Jet seemed to have forgotten instantly about what Knuckles said. "Got it on Earth, Tails."
"Oh, wow!" The yellow fox appeared to be bursting with admiration. "Just look at it! The sleek, seamless design.... The rather inefficient backlight.... The LCD screen appears to be rather capable, however if you replace the crystal display with a high-durability weather-resistant touch-sensitive digital membranous glass, and keep the pixel display yet improve it to be able to broadcast brighter and more vibrant colors, than you could probably enable it to transmit a much clearer visual display. As for the audio projections the headphones appear to be capable yet I'm sure I could improve them to be much clearer and more effervescent when it comes to the sound broadcast. It's a very unfamiliar, primitive style, yet it just makes you wonder, doesn't it? We take things a lot better than this for granted! Many aspects of this device are so archaic that most technicians would take one look at it and deem it as inefficient, however there are some facets of its technology that are rather awing indeed and we could learn so much by studying this!"
Apparently Tails was blind to the extremely astonished stares given by everyone in the vicinity. "...What?" said Knuckles.
"I could make it better," Tails explained. "Hey Jet. What do they call this?"
"Um. An iPod, I think."
"Okay! And so what's its purpose?"
Jet looked completely flummoxed. "It's... um... it's supposed to be used for recreation, I guess. You listen to music on it."
"Really? Wow! That's so cool! I bet that I could improve on this and make it so that-"
"Hey Tails? Not that we don't want to hear your tech-talk, but we're kind of busy right now," said Knuckles.
"Oh. Yeah." The fox scratched the back of his head embarrassedly. "Sorry. I just sorta got carried away."
"Yes, you did," said Silver seriously.
"Ah. Well in any case-"
"Vector! Knuckles! What are you doing in here?"
Amy came striding over to them, Tikal following behind her. "I thought I put you outside! What if Charmy's shot like twenty people while you're in here?"
"Silver made us!" whined Knuckles. "I told him it was wrong!"
Silver glared at him. "Tattletale!" he hissed. Then he turned to Amy. "Look, I just thought that we should try and find someone who would... uh... willingly volunteer to help us find Charmy and stand up to him."
"I know. It's stupid, right?" said Knuckles, crossing his arms and leering at Silver.
"No," said Amy. "That's brilliant!"
Knuckles growled angrily. He felt like smashing Silver through the nearest car door, but naturally couldn't – not because he physically couldn't, of course he could – but because there were more important things going on.
"We'll have to get on it right away," said Amy. "I have the perfect idea. Okay. Are you all ready?"
"Wait a second!" said Jet. "What am I going to be doing anyway?"
Amy smiled smugly. "Oh, you'll find out. Just stand by for a moment."
* * *
"Are you kidding me?!" Jet nearly yelled at Amy as she shoved him out her door.
"Nope. Now get out there and be the... um... brave, valiant hawk you are!"
Jet hissed angrily, an eerie, frightening sound. "You didn't tell me I have to do... this. I can refuse if I want to!"
Amy looked at him pleadingly. "Come on Jet! Pleeaase? If all goes as planned than nothing should really happen anyway!"
The green hawk glared at her and then sighed. "Fine. But if anything goes wrong, I'm warning you-"
"Yeah, yeah, I'm so terrified of you. Now get out there!"
As tactics go, Amy's was fairly simple. Jet – and the rest of the Babylon Rogues – would be used as "bait", as Charmy would most likely be unable to resist the prospect of such vulnerable prey. He would post himself somewhere nearby to get a clear shot of them, and Knuckles, Tails, and Vector would be in charge of locating him, hopefully before he got the opportunity to fire any arrows. When located, the bee would have to be stealthily captured, and then Amy and Silver (much to Knuckles and Vector's dismay) would be given the job of threatening the sacred information of how to cure the lovesick victims out of him. There would be many risks taken, and so much could go wrong, but it was their only chance, and thus had to work.
Jet gave Amy one last glare, and traipsed out into the small yard in front of Amy's house, Wave and Storm following loyally behind him. Wave, being the only female, naturally had slight misgivings about the whole operation, but in the end grudgingly gave in to Amy. Storm, on the other hand, was all too eager to do whatever Jet said. Of course, it was likely he didn't understand what was going on, so that's that.
"Knuckles, Vector, Tails! Go, go, go!" Amy whispered to them. They nodded and slunk to the side, concealing themselves in the shrubbery.
"Tails, do you see him?" whispered Knuckles.
The fox quickly pulled out the small binoculars Amy had lent him and peered around the edges of the yard. "No, I don't! He has to be close by, though! Where could he be?"
Vector looked at each of them in turn. "No. That's not where he'd be. You saw what he was like, right? He wouldn't be out in the open; he was taught concealment by the best of the best, AKA Espio. Plus, he has those wings, which means he could... be..."
"...on the roof!" Tails finished, excitement in his clear blue eyes.
"He has to be!" Knuckles said, never considering for a moment he was wrong. "Tails, you know what this means, don't you? You're the only one who can get up there."
"Heh, you don't even have to worry, Knuckles," the fox said, grinning. "I'm on it." In one fluid motion, his twin tails whipped at the air like a helicopter's blades, however with the exception of being notably quieter and furrier. He rose into the air, nearly silent, and was on the roof of Amy's house in a flash. Their hypothesis was right; hovering near the edge of the roof, arrow cocked and ready, was Charmy Bee.
Tails grinned triumphantly to himself. Okay, he'd have to move fast, before Charmy had a chance to fire his arrow. What to do? How to stop him?"
The answer rose easily to his head – frighten him. Startle him enough to forget all about shooting anyone for the moment. Charmy's panic would give them enough time to capture him... with a bit of luck. But how? How to scare him enough to be that easy to capture?
Tails' hand reached instinctively into his pocket; there might be something of use in there.... He felt the... what did Jet call it? iPod? Anyway, Tails pulled out the small music player. He must have forgotten to give it back to Jet during the whole commotion of trying to convince him to be their bait.
As he stared at the smooth, seamless white machine, a sly thought crossed his mind. Hmm... that could definitely work.... And no doubt be rather entertaining. But he'd have to act fast, before Charmy could....
Tails turned up the iPod's volume as much as possible. Oh yes. This would be very, very fun.
He crept over to Charmy, his heart hammering so loud he was relieved that the bee couldn't hear it. Closer... closer....
The fox took out the headphones and – holding his breath – gently, gently slipped them over the bee's antennas. Thankfully, oh so thankfully, the bee was too attentive to the scene unfolding below to even notice Tails.
Grinning to himself, Tails pressed the PLAY button.
The effect was instantaneous.
"AAAAAAAAGGGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!" Charmy screamed. To say he was frightened would be much too small a word. He was in such utter panic you'd have to invent a new word to describe how the young bee felt. A word I will call... Horrifrightenedpanic-filledterrordread. Because, quite simply, that was exactly his thoughts – a jumbled blur.
However, his actions weren't exactly what Tails was counting on. As soon as he saw a glimpse of Tails, Charmy took to the skies in fright, and left Tails fruitlessly snatching at thin air.
"He's getting away!!! What do I do?!" Tails yelled down to Knuckles.
"FLY AFTER HIM, YOU MORON!!!!" Knuckles roared back at him.
"Uh- yeah! Right!" Tails said, rotating his fuzzy appendages and taking flight, though I'm sorry to say he was a little late, and Charmy was already a good way away from him, having gotten relatively skilled at speed flying and driven by extreme panic to speeds unknowns to bees. In fact, he might've gotten away again if it wasn't for a little luck, and a particularly heroic chao.
"Chao! Chaochaochaochaochaochao!" Cheese yelled, ferociously assaulting the bee and forcing him back to the ground.
"Acckk!! Get this stupid chao OFF OF ME!!!" yelled Charmy, changing direction and flying frantically back to the ground, desperately trying to escape the vicious yet valiant actions of Cheese.
"Yeeaah!" Knuckles yelled. "Good going, Cheese!"
"Chao," he said modestly.
"I got him!" Silver announced, psychokinetically dragging a struggling Charmy over to Knuckles and Vector.
Vector stepped one foot on Charmy, pinning him down none too gently. "Alright, Charmy," Vector snarled, "you better tell us how to cure everyone now, or else!"
"Or else what?" Charmy had the gall to ask.
"Or else Amy here is gonna get fierce with her bug spray!"
It was a rather meager insult that usually would've caused the person being threatened to roll their eyes, but under the circumstances here it was much more threatening.
"I-I'm not s-scared of you, A-Amy," said Charmy, trembling.
"Yes you are. You're trembling," Silver pointed out.
Charmy gave him an angry glare, and then said, "I don't know what you're talking about. I already told Blaze I don't know how to cure the shot people and I don't know now. You're wasting your time."
"Stop lying," Vector said, pressing down harder with his boot. It pained him to hurt his co-worker like this, but Charmy.... The mischievous fellow is always up to schemes like this, and he needed to be shown who the boss is. Besides, hadn't Vector once told him awhile back that the croc's word was law and if he went against it he'd end up with his face in the dirt? Or something along those lines.
"I'm telling the truth!" Charmy meekly insisted.
Vector looked over to the pink hedgehog standing beside him and nodded. "Go nuts, Pinky."
Amy grinned manically and pulled out the bug spray. Tikal was quite firm in telling her that she shouldn't – couldn't - use her hammer to get the information out of Charmy, and using this interesting liquid that was for some reason extremely repugnant to insects was the next best thing.
"Ahh!!" Charmy shouted as soon as he saw the packaging. He remembered the horrible, horrible days he spent fleeing from gardens sprayed with the vile, repulsive-smelling liquid, the irritating stinging and burning; the evil insect repellant that's any well-mannered bee's worst bugbear. "Okay! Okay! I'll tell you everything I know! It's heartbreak! I heard the bunny talking about it to the chao!"
"What do you mean, 'heartbreak'?" said Amy, hesitating, finger resting on the spray-type thing.
"I- I just heard Cream talking about it! She said she... thought she found out how to cure the raccoon, and then they did!" He sighed to himself. "Just my luck that the rabbit would find out the cure when I was this far into my game. Hmph. That silly bunny figured out what none of you could. If it wasn't for her-"
"Yeah, we don't care," said Tails. "Just tell us how they did it."
"Hmph. The chao broke Marine's heart. It was relatively simple."
Amy looked questioningly at Tails, who shrugged. " That's... it?" she asked the bee, surprised.
He glared at her. "Did you expect fanfare and confetti?"
"Don't you be smart with her!" growled Knuckles. "You better remember your life rests on our mercy, Charmy!"
"Don't overdue it," said Vector.
Charmy looked relieved. "Thanks, Vect-"
"No, it's just that it's my job to overdue it," the crocodile grinned. "Ah well. We know how to cure them, more or less."
Amy grinned, flooded with fresh excitement. "Heartbreak. I can't believe I didn't figure it out before this!" She paused and glanced at the mischievous bee, the one who had caused all this trouble, the one who caused her dear Sonikku to fall for someone else....
"Alright. So we know how to cure everyone from what Cream did," said Silver. "But that doesn't tell us how we're going to do it. Or what we're going to do with the bee now that he's served his purpose."
"Can't we threaten him some more?" Amy asked hopefully.
"Why are you all so intent on hurting me?!" yelled Charmy.
"Because you hurt us," said Tails quietly.
There was silence from the bee, and when he said no reply, Tails said, "We'll have to think of another type of plan, one to use for the victims this time. We need to find out how to... break their hearts." It was only obvious the young fox was scared to pieces about how on Mobius he'd break Rouge's heart.
"You should go first, Tails!" said Knuckles brightly. "I'm sure that would be entertaining!"
"Ah... I'll pass. How 'bout you, Silver?"
After approximately four minutes wasted on trivial discussion and arguing, our heroes were forced to conclude that no one was anxious to break their lover's heart first.
"Okay, how about this?" said Amy. "We go in order of who got shot. But 'cause Blaze got shot too, it means Silver has to go first, and then Tails, and so on and so on."
"What?!" Silver cried in horror. "I have to go first?! Blaze's gonna KILL me!!" He looked somewhere around how scared Charmy was earlier.
"Yeah, well you should've thought about that before you let her fall in love with you!" Knuckles chided.
"How is it my fault?!"
"IT JUST IS!!"
"That's not a very good reason!"
"Shut up!" yelled Vector. "You're going first, Silver, and it's your problem how you're gonna do it. Amy, go get Blaze. Tikal, please watch over the rest of them, since you're the only one I can trust."
"With pleasure," Amy said, grinning maliciously at Silver. She handed over the bug spray to Tails. "If Charmy tries anything, go nuts with this."
"Please don't, Tails," said Tikal, following Amy.
"Hey, wait a minute!" spoke up Jet. "What am I supposed to do?"
"Stay out of our way," said Knuckles.
"That's all you needed my for?!" Jet said angrily. "As bait?!"
Knuckles sighed. "Pretty much."
Jet looked very, very irritated. "You do realize that if you had just ASKED us to help you we would?! We wouldn't just refuse simply 'cause you needed our help! And we would've been a GIANT help to you guys! I'm sure we could've captured Charmy a lot sooner than you guys!"
Knuckles sighed again. "It didn't occur to us that you'd help. We were all in a rather frantic mood, and-"
"I'm baaaack!" announced Amy, leading a battered and dreamy Blaze over to the throng of Mobians. "She was hard to catch, but I did it!"
No one even wanted to know what she meant by that.
"Where's Silver?" asked Blaze distantly. "You said he'd be here?"
"Yup! He is! And he has something real important to say to you!"
"Very important," added Knuckles spitefully.
Of course, it wasn't very kind of them to take so much joy into humiliating Silver, but you must realize they were all anxious and worried. When you're anxious and worried, you try to feel less anxious and worried by trying to convince the people around you you're not anxious and worried but when they're anxious and worried as well, it can turn into one big ball of spite.
Silver stared uncomfortably at the lavender cat, his mind racing and heart thumping. Oh, man.
Oh, man....