Sonic Insanity

OK, this time I mean it. I have not had much time to devote to this fic, so expect very slow updates (maybe one every week or two weeks). I have a lot to do.

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"I knew it!" bellowed Shadow, gesturing meaningfully at their box of video games. "This is the worst collection of video games I've seen outside of Sears! This is ridiculous! Unheard of!" Shadow began to foam at the mouth like some sort of black, spiky suds blaster with red quills. "How could we… this is ridiculous!"

"What are you talking about?" asked Sonic, playing Sonic Heroes. "There's so much variety! And so many!"

"Sonic, every single title in this whole gaming library has the word SONIC IN IT!" roared Knuckles. "Well, except for Knuckles and Chaotix, and Shadow the Hedgehog when it comes out. But this is bad!"

"We need more!" shouted Tails.

"Never! Give our cash to other gaming mascots? I'd rather die!" yelled Sonic, the controller mashing under his hands.

"Come on, faker-boy, time to go get some REAL games," said Shadow.

"But where?" asked Sonic as the black hedgehog dragged him off the couch. "There's nowhere for us to get any!"

Tails threw a phone book at him. "Read the Yellow Pages!"

Sonic's eyes darted around the pages. "Hmm… there's one right near here, on the corner of Harris and Oakwood Street… let's go!"

So they piled into Shadow's car and zoomed off. Knuckles, riding shotgun, turned on the radio. Everyone cringed as an enormous blast of rap music shot through the car, somehow blasting the doors open and almost cracking the windows. Sonic's quills were blasted backward by the force of the sound. Knuckles smiled and bobbed his head.

"I ain't saying she a gold digger, but she ain't messing with no broke echidnas," he rapped. "If you ain't no punk, holler we want prenupt, WE WANT PRENUPT-" Tails began to convulse and jitter- "yeah, it's just something that ya need-"

Sonic kicked the radio so hard that it came crashing out through the hood. Knuckles continued obliviously. "-to have, cause when she leave you, she gon' leave wit' half, 18-"

"KNUCKLES!" roared Sonic, his voice somehow rising oven even Knuckles. "Shut up, and put on your headset! Stop the singing too!"

They pulled into the video game station and walked in.

"Hello! How-a are you-a doing?" asked the Italian clerk.

"Yeah, fine," said Sonic. "They seem to have a lot of Nintendo games…"

"Can we get Luigi's Mansion?" asked Tails.

"NO!" roared Sonic, kicking it away. "You can't give in, Tails! I know the lure of fighting ghosts in video games is great… lord knows Knuckles already gave in… but don't do it!"

"Jeez… how about Super Mario Sun-"

"NO!" shouted Sonic. "I know the lure of blasting stuff with water in video games is great… lord knows Amy already gave in… but don't do it!"

"When did she-" asked Shadow, but he decided not to ask.

"Well, then, how about Mario Kart: Double Dash?"

"NO!" yelled Sonic. "Don't fail me now, Tails! I know the lure of racing vehicles with two people is great… lord knows that Big already gave in… but don't do it!"

"All right, Sonic, that's getting really old," said Tails, pissed.

"NO!" yelled Sonic. "I know the lure of saying I'm not funny is great… lord knows the author gave in enough times… but don't do it!"

"They do have a lot of Mario games here," observed Shadow wisely.

"A lot?" seethed Knuckles. "I haven't seen one non-Mario game yet!"

Sonic looked around in panic. The walls were painted with Mario's face. There were thousands of cardboard Mario displays. All the demos were of Mario games. The only non-Mario game, as far as he could tell, was a small, dusty copy of Pokemon XD whatever it is that someone had tracked in on his or her shoe.

"Security alert-a!" yelled the Italian clerk, who they realized was Luigi. He jumped forward, pressed a panic button, and ducked for cover. A team of security specialists vaporized the Pokemon disk and ran out.

"All right, Luigi," hissed Knuckles, hopping over the counter and throttling the unfortunate employee, "what's all this about? We know your racket!"

"Fools-a!" choked the green plumber. "This is-a a Nintendo-owned store-a! You're-a surrounded!"

"But why the emphasis on Mario?" asked Shadow. "That Pokemon disc got shot up."

"You see-a," said Luigi, "we are trying-a to ditch those losers… Geist-a didn't work-a, Battalion Wars-a didn't work-a, and Resident-a Evil's moving-a to the PS2-a! We need to narrow the focus-a, so to speak-a!"

Suddenly, Link barged in, looking very pissed. While he proceeded to beat Luigi up and down the Mario-centric aisles, our four heroes escaped.

"You know, I think we should stop using 'four heroes," said Shadow. "How about, 'the three cool guys and faker."

"Why don't you just say the three cool guys and Shadow, it saves breath and it's the same thing," hissed Sonic.

"How does that save breath? It's the same number of syllables," said Tails.

"Shut up, you two," said Knuckles. "If anything, it will be 'Knuckles and his entourage that he allows to exist in the third dimension out of pity.' But listen up, there's another games store over there. Let's go!"

So they piled in the car and drove off. It was several hours before Knuckles realized something.

"Shadow," he hissed malevolently, "when I said over there, I meant in the state…"

"Oh, sorry," said Shadow sheepishly, turning around. "But you said on Richardson Street, which could have been any-"

"I don't care, just go!" hissed Knuckles.

So they ended up in some store some place. Sonic did a thorough check to make sure it was no Nintendo hideout. It wasn't, and they began to look around.

"No Harvest Moon," said Sonic before Tails had even taken the game off the shelf. "That series is terrible!"

"How about Kingdom Hearts?" asked Shadow. "With some… editing… I could make it a Game Cube game!"

"That game's the pits too!" roared Sonic.

Ten minutes later, Sonic was not anywhere close to allowing any new games.

"No! No games starting with the letter T in the title! That includes the word the!" he snapped.

"Sonic, this is ridiculous!" bellowed Knuckles finally. "Basically the only game you haven't outlawed is games of yours!"

"Nonsense! I also allowed Sonic Mega Collection!" shouted the blue fur ball.

"You know what, screw this, I'm checking out what I please," said Shadow. He ushered to Knuckles and Tails. "Come on, guys. Get what you want."

Tails got Star Fox Assault. Sonic was furious.

"Tails!" he exploded. "That's a Nintendo game!"

"Oh shut up, Sonic, the only console we have that doesn't have your toast jammed in the disk drive is a Game Cube!" yelled Tails petulantly. Sonic began devising a plan on how to best clog a Game Cube with toast. "That's Nintendo! Plus," Tails continued, "I like this game!"

"Tails, it's about a fox using all sorts of highly complex inventions, how is that any different from what you do every day?" asked Sonic.

"He goes into space!" Tails said. Sonic snarled but turned away. Knuckles was running down an aisle.

"Heh, hope he crashes into a wall," Sonic snickered.

Knuckles was diving for the last copy of Tomb Raider… which was somehow for Game Cube. Also dashing for it was an unidentified person, his face carefully hidden. They lunged at it. Knuckles' hand grabbed it, and so did the other man's. But his fist went right through it… a spiky gloved fist…

"It's the echidna elder!" yelled Knuckles. "Oh great one, why are you here?"

"Knuckles…" said the guy. "I have something to tell you. Do not be misled by Sonic! Material possessions are not for you. You should be searching for the Master Emerald!"

"Well, I… put an ad… in the classified section," Knuckles squirmed. "But I'll get it back! Honest!"

"Good," the elder said suspiciously. "But now, go to Sonic, and tell him that you must go in search of it!"

"How come? I don't want to," whined Knuckles.

"Why, you blasphemous dog! Take this!" The elder hit him with some sort of curse that left Knuckles on the floor.

"Agh!" Then he stood up. "Hey, this isn't that-" A pie hit him in the face.

"Okay! Okay! I'll do-" Another pie hit him in the face.

"Knuckles," the elder said, "this curse will be upon you until the end of the day for your insolence. If you try to say more than four words at a time, a pie will hit you in the face. Got it?"

"Yes," said Knuckles, and ran off.

The elder laughed, picking up Tomb Raider. "Sucker." He floated away.

Knuckles heard that. "That son of a-" A pie hit him in the face. "Great! It censors my swearing!" Knuckles licked pie crumbs from his face. "Better find Sonic and-" He guarded in front of his face just in time. A pie hit him in the back of the head, sending him sprawling.

Great, he thought to himself. Not only do- An imaginary pie hit him in the brain. I hate this!

Luckily for poor Knuckles, it was late (9:00) and almost the next day, so he bought one of thousands of Tomb Raider games on a shelf and ran to Sonic.

"OK, Sonic, I'm ready," said Knuckles, cringing.

"Good, let's go," said Sonic, eying Knuckles suspiciously.

Shadow had decided to buy Kingdom Hearts. He was arguing with the store clerk.

"I'm sorry, sir, but we have laws against allowing animals to buy our prod-"

"Do you?" inquired Shadow softly. "Well, I'm sure that an exception will be easily made."

"I can't, sir."

"Oh, can't you?" hissed Shadow. "Well, perhaps I can persuade you with an offer. You can let us get these games… for free," he added, just for fun, "or you can go on a once-in-a-lifetime cruise… TO PLUTO! Chaos Contr-"

"No! No!" shrieked the clerk. "Have them! Have them! I don't need the money!" He shook with uncontrolled fear.

"Right-o, let's leave," said Shadow, turning around. Knuckles offered some apologies to the clerk, but had to stop when a pie blasted him full in the face and straight out the door.

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Please review, and keep in mind my lack of time to work on these.