Alright so I felt kinda bad about the intro being so short so you know what? Here's another chapter. I'm still accepting OC's they just have to be sent to me via pm. And sorry if you guys are getting updates like mad. I've been going back and editing things as I notice them. ^^'
Disclaimer: I in no way own the Sonic gang, nor am I gaining any money from doing this. The purpose for this work of fanfiction is for entertainment only.
I own Tamashii, Celro and Kiri.
Nate the Werehog belongs to Nate the Werehog.
Icee and Shayden belong to Rehannon314
Mimi belongs to Story telling-talent fairy
I apologize if any canon characters are wildly out of character, I'm sort of going off of my head cannon for their personalities at certain points. If any OC's are out of character please let me know right away. I'll try to fix it next chapter.
As the sun rose across the land and alarms began to blare in encouragement to start the day, it was quickly discovered that Sonic and Tails were not the only ones to win a prize that day. Several mobians and humans were opening their mailboxes to find their own copy of the letter. Some simply dismissed it as a joke while others began packing immediately. After all, it wasn't every day you won a free month at a brand new hotel.
Knuckles growled to himself as he marched up the stairs leading to Tails' workshop. He here was, the Guardian of the Master Emerald, taking time out of his day to confront Sonic about a stupid joke letter. Oh this wasn't the first time Sonic had pulled something like this on him. He'd fallen for it before but not this time. The fact that Sonic thought he would leave the master emerald alone for a month for some little vacation was ridiculous.
'Sure a vacation would be nice but not for a month. Guarding the master emerald is important, I just can't stop doing it on a whim. Hell, it's bad enough that I came down here in the first place.' He really shouldn't have come down but he was running out of supplies up on Angel Island and had to pick them up anyways. It just so happened that he had enough spare time before everything was ready that he could stop in and confront Sonic. How convenient.
Reaching the top of the stairs Knuckles quickly rang the doorbell, wincing as a loud siren sounded in response. Seeing as Tails was often elbows deep in a project with several large machines running at the same time he had installed an extra loud doorbell in hopes that when someone stopped by he would actually hear them. Needless to say it hadn't failed yet.
A startled yelp and the sound of something shattering made Knuckles wince once more, this time in guilt. Sounded like he had caused Tails to break something which wasn't what he had been intending to do. Now if it had been Sonic he had startled he would have been fine with it. Oh well he'd just have to apologize when the fox opened the door.
The sound of footsteps drew Knuckles out of his musings, the echidna tapping his foot semi impatiently as he waited for the door to open. He tried to school his features into something less then annoyed but by the time Tails got the door unlocked and went to greet his guest he was still greeted by an annoyed echidna.
"Knuckles! What are you doing here?" Tails stepped back to allow the guardian to enter, smiling slightly nervously. An annoyed Knuckles was not something you wanted to see first thing in the morning. 'Oh I hope Rouge hasn't tried to steal the Master Emerald again…As funny as the rants about her are I have things I need to get done today.'
"Where's Sonic?" Nodding to the fox Knuckles walked into the workshop and glanced around. No blue blur in sight but that didn't mean much. Sonic didn't hang around the front of the workshop unless Tails needed him for something anyways. "Oh, and sorry for startling you…Didn't mean for you to break something." Knuckles muttered, slightly embarrassed.
"Oh it's alright." Tails shrugged shutting the door behind him. "Didn't really care for that bowl anyways." 'The breakfast in the bowl on the other hand however…' Shaking his head the fox continued on. "Sonic is upstairs in the living room. If you don't mind me asking, why do you need him anyways Knuckles?"
"Blue boy played a prank on me. I'm here to…talk about it." Knuckles smirked slightly. Talk, fight it didn't matter to Knuckles. So long as Sonic got the message that he didn't appreciate being played with everything would be fine. Granted if they were to fight it'd be outside the house. The one time they had fought within the workshop Tails had promptly kicked both of their asses and forced them to clean up the mess they had made in the process. Knuckles had never seen the fox so mad and quite frankly he never wanted to again.
"Huh, Sonic didn't mention he was planning a prank on you anytime soon. What was it?" Tails blinked at Knuckles' admission. Usually Sonic shared when he was going to play a prank on someone, well so long as the prank wasn't on him. Actually after that incident with Shadow and the cookie dough Tails had assumed Sonic was going to take a break from pranks. Apparently the pranks were back on once more.
"Yeah, he sent me a bogus letter." Knuckles handed said letter over to Tails, as he had been holding onto it this whole time, just as he spotted Sonic lounging on the couch watching TV. "Oi Sonic! What the hell?"
"Sup Knuckles? Whatcha doing down here? Thought you were too busy guarding the Master Emerald to care about the rest of us. Somethin' happen or did you just need to see little ole me so bad?" Sonic grinned as his words instantly wound his friendly rival up. Knuckles was so easy to piss off that it was too much fun not to do it. Granted he didn't do it all the time, but it had been so long since he had last seen the guy that he just couldn't resist baiting him.
"What's up? What's up is I told you to leave me out of your pranks. Is it that hard for you to understand that if I leave the master emerald unguarded and Eggman gets hold of it we will be in trouble? Or hell, if that damn bat or someone else in general steals it there will still be issues!" Knuckles threw his hands up in the air as Sonic stared back at him blankly. "Are you even listening to me?!"
"What the hell are you talking about Knucklehead? I haven't pranked anyone for weeks. Besides, if I really wanted to bother you I would just head up to Angel Island myself. Don't need you to come down here for me to do it." Sonic's ears flipped back at the accusation. This was the reason why he had stopped pranking Knuckles in general. The reactions were amusing but the yelling and fighting afterwards got boring after a while. Granted he had been wishing for something to happen and this did count as something.
"Hah, then how do you explain the letter I got today? It's got your handwork written all over it and I'm tired of your bullshit!"
"My bullshit? I didn't even send you a letter dude!"
"Well who else could it have been?"
Tails began to tune the bickering out as he inspected the envelope in his hand. As he had begun to expect, the letter was exactly like the one he and Sonic had received. Interesting…What were the odds that not only he and Sonic won, but so did Knuckles? Tails was beginning to think that just maybe things weren't as they seemed.
As the arguing began to escalate Tails knew he had to do something quickly unless he wanted his living room trashed again.
"Hey guys." Nope, still fighting.
"Guys!" Still nothing.
"GUYS!" Ah there we go; Sonic and Knuckles finally stopped yelling long enough to look over at him. At least he had their attention for now. "Are we done yet?" A nod from both encouraged him to continue. "As I have been trying to say…Knuckles this isn't a prank. Well at least one Sonic did. Sonic and I both got letters like this and I checked it out, it's completely legit as far as I can tell."
"Well how did I win? I never entered any contest." Knuckles growled and crossed his arms. While his temper was cooling at the explanation, it didn't change the fact that he was annoyed.
"Neither did we." Tails shrugged and looked over the letter in his hands once more. "Honestly I'm starting to think something is up."
"Most likely. I mean come on, it's way too convenient."Sonic smoothed down his quills that had gotten stirred up in the fight, stretching quickly once he was done to check for any serious damage. It was rare that it happened but Knuckles had managed to almost seriously injure him during their fights before.
"Hrmp, well I'm still not going. I can't leave the master emerald." Snorting Knuckles shook his head at the idea.
"Well…what if you just took the emerald with you?" Tails cocked his head to the side. "I know at the moment Angel Island isn't hovering over anywhere that it would cause damage if you removed the emerald. Plus you deserve a break Knuckles, when was the last time you really got to have fun?"
"I don't have time for fun Tails, I have a job to do." Knuckles sighed.
"Well now I'm offering a way to do your job and still have fun at the same time." Tails retorted, crossing his arms.
"You were just saying earlier you thought something was up with this whole thing and now you want me to walk right into possible danger?" What was Tails thinking?!
"Trap or not you need a vacation! You came storming over here about a letter of all things! If a letter causes you to freak out then I don't want to see how you're going to react when something goes wrong!" Tails snapped back, his namesake tails twitching in irritation. Honestly Knuckles pushed himself too far sometimes. A break now and then, especially if he took the emerald with him, wouldn't destroy the world.
Sonic watched the developing argument in mild amusement. It was hard to believe it but watching Tails argue with Knuckles was reminding him of the fact that Tails was growing up. Once the little fox would have tried to avoid a fight, simply folding when Knuckles said no but now he was standing up to the fiery echidna without batting an eyelash.
It was odd to think that his little buddy wasn't so little anymore.
-~Line Break~-
"I'll get the mail!"
"No, I'll get it!"
"No!"
"Hah- Owww! Leggo my ear! Moooooom!"
"I'm getting the mail!"
Groaning lightly the 'mom' in question glanced pleadingly at the coffee pot and sighed as she realized her much needed caffeine wasn't ready yet. Being a night owl and occasional insomniac was not a good thing when one lived with hyperactive early bird twins. Well, looked like she would have to solve this one half asleep. Turning to look at the fighting cats, she took a moment to figure out how to deal with them. Really with half their antics one would think they were seven or something, not thirteen.
"Kiri let your brother go, Celro stop shoving Kiri into things. Both of you can get the mail, Kiri will get the packages today and Celro you can get the letters. And stop calling me mom; you know how I feel about that." Sighing to herself the half-asleep hedgebat turned back to staring at the coffee pot. Why did she adopt those two again? Oh right…she could never say no to Aria.
"Okay mom!" The two chirped happily, prompting the Hedgebat's ears to flip back from the volume. They broke apart and took off out the door, dashing down the path that lead to the mailbox. Living in the jungle had its advantages but at the same time they only got mail once a week and considering Tamashii's two jobs she ended up with a lot of packages that needed to get back to the house right away.
Luckily for Tamashii by the time the two hyperactive felines returned the coffee was done and she had already downed her first cup. So she was considerably more awake as they came dashing back in, Kiri holding two packages and Celro with a stack of letters. Probably more orders for a few of her rarer herbs.
"Hey mom, I think you won something." Celro fished an envelope out of the pile and handed it over to the hedgebat, red ears twitching. His job done he put the rest of the letters on the counter to be looked over later and set about dishing himself up some breakfast. Kiri joined him a minute later after she had dropped the packages off in Tamashii's office. The two quickly fell into a quiet chatter as they ate, their previous energy having been worked off on the run for mail.
As the two ate Tamashii glanced over the letter, idly munching on a piece of bacon as she did so. A free month at a hotel eh? Well, it wasn't like she didn't have any work that couldn't be done somewhere else or put off for a month.
'And besides…' Tamashii mused, looking over at the twins. 'After everything they've been through a vacation would probably be the best thing.' Glancing at the date the free month started she nodded to herself. 'I'll tell them after they do their chores.'
-~Line Break~-
Grumbling lightly as a band of sunlight managed to shine directly into his eyes a lump of brown fur rolled out of the way and, inadvertently, off the bed. He landed with a thump and cracked an eye open, his sleep fogged brain trying to register why he was on the floor. Once he came to the conclusion that he'd fallen out of bed he simply sighed and got to his feet, fur and spines disappearing and being replaced by skin. After all skin was far easier to clean then fur was.
"Come on Nate, you need to stop rolling off the bed. One of these days you're going to crack your head on something and then someone is going to find you out cold on the floor." He mumbled to himself. The now human grabbed his usual outfit and headed for the shower, reemerging five minutes later and toweling his hair dry. He was wearing his brown t-shirt and camo shorts, while his black leather gloves were sticking out of a pocket in his shorts.
"Looks like I'm the first one up." He mused as he headed downstairs. Not the most common occurrence but it didn't bother him. Sometimes he preferred it seeing as it gave him time to himself he didn't always get. He didn't mind attention but some days he just needed a chance to relax on his own.
A quick journey outside resulted in the mail being fetched and to his surprise there was a letter addressed to him. A bit confused as to why he received a letter from the Red Sand Hotel Nate cracked the letter open.
"Oh wow, I can't believe I won. What are the odds of that?" He mused, smiling lightly. He had entered the contest on a whim, figuring that he'd give it a go. He'd never thought he would have won but it seemed that he was wrong. "Huh…'you and several other lucky winners'. I wonder how many more people they're talking about. They never did mention how many winners would be drawn." Shrugging lightly he tossed the letter on the table.
"Guess I'll just have to wait and see."
-~Line Break~-
"So, what do you think of this Shayden?" Holding up a purple tank top for inspection, an icy blue hedgehog waited for her cousin's opinion. She was attempting to pack for their upcoming vacation, which they had won for free mind you, but the issue was she had too many clothes and too few bags to put them in.
"I think that's good Icee. Come on now, we don't need you taking your whole closet. Besides, we get spending money for this as well, don't you remember?" Chuckling quietly to herself Shayden watched as Icee's eyes lit up as a reminder. The white and greed 'hog was just as excited as her older cousin about their free vacation but unlike Icee she was already packed. The next month was looking like it would be one of the best months of her life.
Not only had they won a whole month of staying in a hotel for free, they were also getting a sizeable chunk of spending money for said month and the hotel had promised several exclusive events for the winners to participate in. Stuff like scavenger hunts, lax rules in most cases, pool access whenever they wanted, movie nights every Wednesday and Friday, parties every Saturday…those were all she could remember at the moment but Shayden knew for a fact there was a lot more they were promised.
Those extra events were the reason she was so excited. The month stay and spending money was awesome, don't get her wrong, but if the hotel kept their end of the bargain then her month was going to be nonstop fun.
"Hey, who else do you think won?" Icee asked suddenly, drawing Shayden out of her plans for the month. "Wouldn't it be awesome if someone we know did?"
"Yeah, that really would be awesome." Shayden nodded in reply, smiling lightly. Oh she knew who Icee was really talking about, she had the same look in her eyes as she always did when she was talking about him, and while Shayden was hoping he wouldn't win she wasn't going to let it ruin her vacation. Besides, what were the chances of that happening?
-~Line Break~-
"Well what do you know…" A white furred mouse hummed to herself as she skimmed the web page before her. The letter she had received in the mail was telling the truth. The month long hotel stay was actually something real and not some cruel prank. That was good, she really didn't want to open herself up to more teasing if people had found out she had been wrong.
She quickly typed a reply to 'TechFox101' in thanks for the quality information and signed off of the forum she had been using to get her info. Her time was running out in the library and she had gotten what she came here for. She wasn't all that eager to head home but it was starting to get late and she was hungry so it was a smart idea to head back.
Besides, she couldn't wait to tell her siblings that it wasn't a hoax. Too bad none of them could come with her. Oh well, she was sure she'd still have fun.
Well there's the last of the introduction chapters. Next time it'll be the first day of the month. :3
Any characters not fully described will be in the next chapter, so don't worry. This was more to make up for the first chapter being so short and introduce those who have already been submitted then to describe everyone. (Plus a bit of a test to see how well I can write everyone's characters. If I messed up, please let me know how.)
I'm still taking OC's via pm, just don't expect yours to show up right away. I'm trying to keep appearances in the order that I receive them for the sake of keeping track of who I have already written and who I haven't. Trust me, I will lose track very easily.
Anyways, let me if you noticed any issues this chapter or if you have any ideas for some events the hotel can hold. I've got a few ideas but I'd love to hear what everyone else can come up with.