Disclaimer: This chapter contains inane (yes, inane is a word) amounts of battling, circuit breakers, cataclysmic events, an emotional catharsis, conflicts of vengeance and utter randomness, and total frustration with just about everything. The following may also not be suitable if you have a history of idiocy, lack of humor, general boredom, attention deficit disorder, a hatred of fictional characters, and/or kidney and liver problems. Do not read more than twice a day. Side effects include crying, despair, insanity, being hated by all your friends when you can't shut up after reading this, death, stroke, coma, and other possible side effects. PM you local fan-fiction write for more details. Always have at least 6 hours of school before becoming imbibed in awesomness, as lack of school may mean you will not be suppressed by the previous boredom of school and be overly active. Read at your own risk.

Chapter 8

Sonic and Tails locked eyes with there nemesis, Arthur. Mr. Wood started to have a little voice speak inside of his head, Shadow slowly, but still dazedly stepped down in the middle of the confrontation. The judge looked around frantically in Tails's briefcase in order to see if he had brought some tools to help. The judge instead found a picture of Sonic, Tails, Tails's house, the doorstep, and a pile…

The judge called court to order, and gave himself a recess. He then ran as fast as he can out of the courtroom.

Sonic and Tails redirected their attention to Arthur, who was chuckling now, much to the surprise of everyone. Amy took out a camera phone and prepared to take some pictures…

"Alright…you've got me!" Arthur was suddenly stern and closed his eyes. A strange aura started glowing around him as he breathed deeply and sharply. The courtroom started to shake and Shadow started to reread the last page of his book.

"Hey Tails bro…you think you can analyze what's going on?"

"Uh, well…yeah." Tails stuttered a bit, staring at the sight before him. He pulled out a strange looking visor and put it on.

Arthur shouted louder.

"Sonic…this…his power level is…over 6…7…8!"

"What?!?" Sonic started to yell over the wind whistling around everywhere. The newly constructed rafters though did not fall over. Hooray. A side wall fell instead.

*BOOM*

"Kyaaaaaaa!!!!!!" Arthur continued to shout…

And then it stopped. As suddenly as it started. With bad descriptions both ways by the author.

"Tails!? What does the scouter say about his power level?!"

Tails, ripped his glasses off and crushed them as he screamed.

"IT'S OVER 9!!!!!!!!!!!!"

*cricket*

Everyone in the room blinked. Shadow only did it because he got something in his eye and had to turn away. *cough*

"What? 9? There's no way that can be right." Sonic replied in a much more disdainful manner as he looked at a confused Tails. The internet meme was ruined, but that was the point of the author…

Tails thought for a second, then looked up and smiled. Sonic and Tails burst out in laughter. Arthur was steaming.

"Hey! Stop laughing at me! I will defeat you and get my revenge! You cut me in line, and you must suffer the consequences! Prepare to die!"

They only started to laugh more.

Arthur pulled out a gun and pointed it at Sonic first. Shadow didn't notice, as his "allergies" were acting up and more stuff kept getting into his eyes. Of course he couldn't let anyone see what was going on. Mr. Wood then looked up and saw the gun. A trace of sanity and a flashback trickled into his mind…

Arthur took aim, clicked the bolt, and—

"HA!"

Arthur looked at the judge and his jaw dropped.

Mr. Dix was no longer the judge in a long flowing robe. He was a slightly greasy, calloused man with a good sense of humor and loud voice. Behind him was an arsenal of wrenches, socket sets, screwdrivers, buzz saws, drills and other variety of workshop tools all wrapped up in pretty bows. Shadow's gifts were now weapons for Mr. Dix's robotics team!

"We're not dead yet! It's only a short circuit!" the robotics team shouted in unison their catchphrase for the team. As the author started rotflol-ing at the old robotics team and Monty Python reference, their mascot, the Black Knight, charged in with a huge arc welder.

Arthur shot his arm off.

"Ha! I have a gun, you guys have some scrap metal."

"Oh yeah? Well I'm invincible!!!"

"I just blasted your arm off! Don't you know this is a bolt-action rifle here?"

"…It's only a flesh wound."

"Gadhafvomiewr…WHAT?!?!"

Before Arthur could say anything else, a monkey wrench knocked the gun out of his hand and before you know it, a rain of "scrap metal" delicately pitter pattered on Arthur's head like a small rain shower.

You can guess what happens. No Jeopardy theme here, just your imagination. Take your time, I'll wait…

1 minute later…

"Oowww…"

As the robotics team led by Mr. Dix began figuring out how to fix the microwave, Sonic and Tails redirected their attention to Arthur. May large welts had appeared everywhere on his body and face, and he looked quite—

"Hey Tom! Make yourself useful and quickly get a fuse from the inside world!" Mr. Dix stared up through the computer screen.

"Mr. Dix, I'm not sure it works like—"

"Just do it!"

"Fine…"

As the author went away to find a fuse, the computer mysteriously kept typing by itself and the story continued, rather than having a non-painful one minute later. Mr. Wood in the meantime, looked up at his cousin, then the gun that was on the floor, then back to his cousin, then to the gun. As Mr. Wood slowly crept towards the gun in a painful one-minute session, Shadow turned around to stare, seemingly at him. Mr. Wood froze, but then realized that something was wrong with Shadow…there was "water" all over his face. Suddenly the computer started to glitch and there were 67 weather conditions raging on outside. As the courthouse started to creak under all the pressure, Sonic and Tails simply faced Arthur, who had brushed himself off and SUDDENLY TOOK ALL OF THE WRENCHES ON THE GROUND AND THREW IT AT THEM!

They all missed of course. Sonic was too fast, and Tails had mad dodging skills.

"You can't throw wrenches at them to defeat them…Tails has crazy reflexes and Sonic is too fast." Mr. Wood began to tell Arthur in a barely audible voice.

"SHUT UP! No, I will have my revenge no matter what!" Arthur was filled with absolute rage. Nothing was going as planned and it seemed that he was doomed.

Suddenly, an electrical spark from the microwave gave Sonic a small electrical shock.

*faint*

"Sonic!"

Then rain came in through one of the windows as Sonic was still being shocked. Sonic got a seizure.

"I-I-I'm drowning! There's water! Agh-pppppppppppfffffttttttt…"

As Tails leaned down to his incoherent friend, Arthur saw his chance…and took out a super high powered LASER out!

And Shadow turned his head slightly. As the laser charged, Shadow closed his eyes for a moment and looked back at his book. Mr. Wood became one of the people thinking straight for once. And Amy bit her fingernails…again. Tails started to cry, oblivious to his surroundings.

He didn't notice that death was coming…

"Hey guys, what'd I miss?" the author then came back, only to find his keyboard was typing by itself, the story was almost at the climax, the robotics team couldn't fix the microwave, Shadow was in deep thought, Mr. Wood was rational, Sonic was half crazy, Tails was hyperventilating, the weather was crazy—ok so the crazy weather wasn't a surprise to the author, but there was also a GIANT, HUGE LASER ABOUT TO—"

"HEY! WHERE'S THE FUSE?!"

"…" No response from the author.

"…I'm going to haunt your dreams now." Mr. Dix said with a half-joking, half-irritated voice.

"Uhh, erm, no I'll go back, I got sidetracked from something…"

Flashback!...

The author saw a box of cookies. He proceeded to eat all the cookies. He then needed more cookies. So he went to the grocery store, got a whole bunch of cookies, ate some, was chased down by homeless people, and then went off into a rocket ship to escape, landed in the middle of a cannibalistic tribe, and then—

Suddenly Kanye West interrupted the flashback.

End Flashback

"Now, I'm real happy for you, though I'm not really going to let you finish, but Quaker Oatmeal Raisin cookies are the best cookies of all time!"

And just like Barack Obama, I muted out Kanye West and went for the fuse. The keyboard started to mysteriously type again…

Mr. Wood then had an interesting flashback.

Flashback!...

Mr. Wood was swinging in the park. A bit lonely at the park, since everyone in the neighborhood made a pact to stay out of a 300 ft radius of Mr. Wood. Everyone except for one little girl who was with him…

"Aww…these swings are too hard." The girl tried to move her legs to swing like the others, but ended up flailing around.

"Here, umm, maybe…I could…help?" the younger Mr. Wood skidded to a stop and stood up tentatively.

"Really? Thanks! I'd really like that…"

Mr. Wood then began to push the little girl on the swing. Higher and higher she went until she could swing by herself…

"Hey! You're really helpful mister."

Mr. Wood, for the first time all day, smiled…

Back to reality...briefly…

The laser was changing colors as fast as someone on and acid trip would see it as. Shadow opened his eyes again and stared at the book, then his new best friend, and back at the book. The laser started to countdown. 30 seconds remaining.

Shadow then gave a yell as he tried to tackle Arthur. He was repelled by a force field that became visible for a split second, and then flickered away. There was no getting to Arthur…

Mr. Wood again…

The little girl laughed at his joke? It'd never happened before. Never. Not even his parents. Everyone but this girl would tell him to shut up. Always. Except now. The keyboard saw it was making too many sentence fragments and made a note to itself…

A figure walked over and Mr. Wood caught sight of him. A masked figure. The same one as always. Really? His only friend, taken away? Mr. Wood cowered. A smile from behind the mask? Arthur couldn't tell.

Who was he? Why was that person in his life? Why did he come everyday to make his life miserable? And most importantly, why was the keyboard still using sentence fragments?

A gun. A sentence fragment. A shot. And a thud. More sentence fragments as Mr. Wood painfully remembered…

Back…

Arthur was laughing too maniacally to care that Shadow was slowly walking in front of Tails. Tails was too worried to care.

Back…

Mr. Wood was shocked. Never before did the masked man ever resort to killing! He cried and cried. And the figure laughed as he poured kerosene on the body.

Suddenly, the author walked in.

Mr. Wood exclaimed. What was he doing in a memory?

"Mr. Wood, I have been awfully mean to you this whole time in the story, but I am finally revealing to the readers what happened and I promise a good ending for you after this. Also, I am going to reveal the truth to your eyes by interrupting this flashback like Kanye West."

"B-b-but—"

"Mr. Wood! Do you not know? The whole "keyboard is typing by itself" is all a ruse to keep the story going. I was here the whole time and was waiting for this flashback…Mr. Dix knows too, but he played along. Mr. Wood, did you ever know who was behind the mask?"

The author stepped over to the now frozen masked figure. Time and space were still. The mask was taken off and Mr. Wood almost died of a heart attack.

He gaped.

"And now Mr. Wood, you have the choice…what will be the outcome of this story? I tell you the truth, you can be the solution to all the problems in the story, or commit a tragic thing…choose now."

Back!!!

After the surreal parallel relating to higher beings, though the author is merely human, Mr. Wood jolted back and breathed heavily at the crazy scene inside of his head. He laid on the floor, trying to calm down as everything around him whizzed by. He was lost and as he turned his head, he could not see anything, hear anything, or feel anything.

Except for the gun that lay by his hand.

Mr. Wood stared at the treacherous weapon and looked closer. It was that same gun. The one from years ago.

And for the first time ever, Mr. Wood was not angered at some trivial thing. He HATED.

As Shadow then spread out his arms and closed his eyes, as Tails just started to realize what was going on, as the robotics team was getting nowhere with that microwave, as the author stared and wondered how he would end the story, and pondered his power as author over the characters in the story…

"Shadow!!!" Tails cried out.

Mr. Wood stood up. With the gun. He turned towards his insane cousin, pointed the gun, and…

The chapter ended.

----------

And now it's time for the ending author's questioning section, the part of the story where the author goes, and types a question section.

Can you see the parallel between the author and the characters with, I'll say it, Christianity? And of course, how should I end the story? This is probably the weirdest chapter ever, but that is fitting as it's almost the climax. Even though there is a very morbid feel to the chapter, I tried to keep the humor running, though it is very random humor. As usual. Obviously. Oh there goes the sentence fragments again.

The next chapter is the last (that doesn't mean there won't be an epilogue though :P). Hope you enjoyed reading, and make sure you look out for the last installment of "Tails the Lawyer". That is all…for now.