Sonic Insanity

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

After multiple days of intensive shock therapy, mountains of prescription medication, and many anger management seminars, Knuckles was finally in a fit state to discuss the problem with Shadow.

"The problem," he spat, "is that you've embarrassed me beyond all belief! Disgraced my name! Sullied my reputation! Oh, and Sonic and Rouge got bummed out too."

"Oh, thanks," they snarled.

"All in good fun," reminded Shadow caustically, smiling.

"I was RUINED!" howled Knuckles. "It was more embarrassing than that one time when…" There was a flashback.

Knuckles stood on the stage, in front of an audience of thousands. He never thought he would live to see his dream come true. Well, actually, he didn't, but he never thought he would live to see this particular thing that sounded sort of nifty come true. To perform on Broadway… He quickly scanned the cue card, which was cleverly hidden behind a pane of glass, and recited his lines.

"So it must be, Monteroy," he declared somberly, drawing his fencing saber with a flourish. "You have spoken against me and mine, and now the day of reckoning has come. We must fence with swords, to end this bloody and terrible conflict that has raged between our families for so long!" He made an elegant gesture with his sword. All the theater critics were enraptured and tearful. Knuckles snuck a sidelong glance at the actor playing Monteroy.

"I accept your challenge, Lord Pendleton," vowed Monteroy wrathfully. "I will fight until the background scenery itself turns red with blood. My sword will sing for the rights of my family! You will oppress us no more!" Everyone ooh-ed.

Knuckles came in with the first strike, but Monteroy blocked it with lightning speed, scoring a thick gash on Knuckles' waist. It wasn't real, obviously, but… anyway, they battled back and forth. Toward the end, both were on the edge of death. With a vicious cry, Monteroy drove the sword into Knuckles' chest.

The music trailed off. Everyone gasped. Knuckles began to deliver his final speech.

"Forsooth, for I had not anticipated the day I might fall by a Monteroy sword," he cried woefully. "But as I lay dying, shamed eternally, something happened I could not have known…"

And the doors of the theater burst open. In dashed a beautiful woman, her dress trailing behind her. She ran onto the stage and enveloped Knuckles in a warm embrace. Everyone in the theater fell silent, breathlessly waiting for what would come next. And in the deep silence, Knuckles said one word…

"Mom?" he muttered.

"I forgot to give my boy his good-luck hug," she explained to the stupefied theatergoers. "This is just the dress rehearsal, right?"

And as everyone laughed twice as much as they had during the last three comedies of the season, Knuckles vowed that he would never forgive his mother.

End flashback…

"And that's how I started my travel agency," Knuckles groaned.

Shadow was furious at how irrelevant this was. "Cry me a river! I figured that you all deserved it. Knuckles, you lost the Master Emerald too many times. Sonic, all the games are named after you. And Rouge gets pregnant too much!"

"She's never been pregnant!" shrieked Knuckles and Rouge at the same time. Yes, Rouge, for whatever reason, referred to herself as "she."

"Shut up, preggers," Shadow spat in the direction of Rouge. "Yeah, she's been cheating on you, Knuckles, everyone from me to Eggman to Omochao to Sonic to Sally!"

"How could you do this to- wait, girls?" said Knuckles, interested despite his rage. She slapped him.

"I NEVER cheated on you! Your friend over there is just lying!" she sniped.

"Yeah, I was just hoping that you would argue amongst yourselves and forget I did anything," Shadow said sheepishly, flouncing around the room. Or is it sashayed? I can never remember.

"So, to clarify," Knuckles said, in order to clarify. "Rouge is not cheating on me?" He asked this to figure out if Rouge was cheating on him or not.

"No, I am not," Rouge told him angrily, trying to tell him that she had never cheated on him in response to his question.

"Oh, good," Knuckles said, relieved that she had told him that she wasn't cheating on him in response to his question. "Oh, and stop all this reiterating, author, it's annoying!" he said in order to tell the author that he… oh, fine.

"Shadow! Pay attention!" snapped Sonic. Shadow was crouched under a bed and was roasting marshmallows over a campfire he had built there. The mattress was sizzling ominously.

"Oh, sorry," he said, not appearing sorry at all. "But I'm deeply engaged in a high-stakes game of the sport of kings with my friend here and I don't want to forfeit. You see, he's a grandmaster!"

"What is the sport of kings?" inquired Sonic solicitously.

"Go-fish," Shadow said. "My friend here is a go-fish grandmaster and I can't lose!"

"Your friend," hissed Knuckles darkly, "is a two-week-old camel…"

"No, he's not!" Shadow snarled.

"Yeah, you tell him, Knucklehead!" cheered Rouge.

"…Compared to me at go-fish! I'm the world's grandmaster!" declared Knuckles extravagantly, brandishing his many trophies, which included the Ace of Spades 2005 Tournament and the Silver Doohickey Championship of 1983.

"Grandmasters are only at chess!" spat Sonic through clenched teeth. "You can't be the grandmaster of go-fish! Partly because there are many! It's like being a member of Congress as opposed to being the President of the U.S.A!"

"Born… in the USA!" sang Knuckles irritatingly.

Rouge hit him angrily, starting to sing herself. "We're kids in America!" she crooned. Knuckles hit her.

"Interesting how a man is supposed to be cute when a woman hits him, but when he hits her, it's domestic abuse," commented Shadow dryly.

"Also," rasped Sonic wrathfully, "grandmasters… er… well… um." A deep silence fell over everyone, and they all looked around for something to talk about.

"So how's the weather?" they all said at exactly the same time. "Your mom might know," they all replied in unison.

"What would you know about my mother?" all of them asked Shadow. He had not joined in because he didn't actually have a mother. Shadow, in response to this question, chuckled and coughed and flailed his extremities in a disconcerting manner. Sonic almost went into a psychotic coma at this, but they wrestled him to the ground. Shadow announced that he had wrestled Sonic's mother to the ground and was planning on doing so twice tonight, which made Sonic burst free with the strength of a thousand hat racks and two gerbils in order to beat Shadow's face in.

After evading the attack, Shadow chuckled that he was going to beat Sonic's dad's face in while wrestling Sonic's mother to the ground, or was that the other way around? Sonic nearly became diabetic in his rage, but any fighting was forestalled by Tails' arrival.

"Sonic Trotsky Daniels Elijah Hedgehog!" he declared angrily at the sight of all the fighting. "Shadow William Kirk Lorenzo Hedgehog! Knuckles Benson… er…" He was obviously losing momentum. "Er… Knuckles Benson Harley Fitzgerald Echidna! Rouge… sigh…"

"Go on," Sonic prompted.

"Rouge Matilda Henrietta Shanaynay Bat," he recited in a dull monotone. "How could you be so foolish bla blah bla. If you ever fight so on and so forth go straight to your rooms."

"Great insulting skills, Tails," sniped Shadow.

"Shadow," Tails went to great lengths to explain, "making a good insult is like a great sports play. You can't-"

"Oh, shut up, why don't you," snarled Shadow. "I've still got what it takes when it comes to the I to the Nizzo, S to the… um… Uizzo, L to the Tizzo… I-N-G!"

"Uizzo?" Knuckles grumbled skeptically.

"Shut up," Shadow sulked truculently.

As everyone was clearly very angry, Rouge approached the situation with Extreme Caution. And no, I don't mean that a person named Extreme Caution helped her. The bat took out a can of Extreme Caution, shook it up, and sprayed it over her surroundings in a useless manner.

"So, should we go to a restaurant today?" she asked.

"What?" Sonic asked.

"Should we go to a restaurant today?" she repeated.

"What restaurant?"

"Um… maybe Steak and Bake on the corner of Avenue Road and Street Drive."

"What about it?"

"Do you think we should go to it?"

"Go to what?"

"Steak and Bake!"

"What?"

"Should we go to it?"

"Where?"

"Should we go to Steak and Bake, on the corner of Avenue and Street, so we can eat dinner there?" shrieked Rouge furiously.

"Oh… well, why didn't you say so?" Sonic said obliviously.

While Rouge proceeded to thrash Sonic within an inch of his life, Shadow turned to Tails. "What do you think they're on about?"

"Something about going out to dinner," Tails shrugged.

"I'VE HAD ENOUGH OF NOBODY PAYING ATTENTION TO ME!" shrieked Rouge. "And no, I don't want any fanboys to "pay attention to me" either!" she informed the legions of dismayed geeks. "Why don't you listen? First Sonic completely ignores me, now you guys!"

"You thought I wasn't paying attention?" demanded Sonic hoarsely. "I've never been so insulted in my life!"

"You weren't paying any attention!" Rouge yelped frenetically. "How can you POSSIBLY say that you were paying any attention whatsoever after that little display!"

"Rouge Matilda Whatever Tails Said For Two Hours Bat, I am insulted!" Sonic stated firmly. "First you go batsh… er, guano crazy over a lighthearted prank that my good friend-slash-most hated nemesis Shadow pulled, and now you make these ridiculous assumptions! You know what they say about assuming. To assume is to make an ass out of u and me!"

"Hah haaaaaah!" screeched Shadow raucously. "Get it! The words ass, u, and me in order all spell assume! Very clever, Sonic!" He began to slap his knees in fake hilarity.

"You isn't even spelled that way," observed Tails astutely, making an astute observation by observing the matter astute… OK, fine, I'll stop.

"It's an expression," humphed Sonic.

"Yeah, but you used it, and it's a terrible stupid expression that only makes any sense due to misspelling the simplest of words and the absurdity of the English language," Charmy the Bee said kindly, reclining on the keys of a piano with all the grace of a chicken with its head cut off.

They all stared at him silently.

"What? Am I supposed to say, 'Oh, sorry,' and leave with embarrassment?" Charmy growled, resplendent in a mink fur coat. "That's stupid! I want to be in the story for a while!"

Knuckles threw a zucchini-and-ham quiche at the irritating young bee, hitting him square in the kisser, or at least what Charmy would like to think he would ever kiss someone with. Which would be the mouth, for all you perverts. "Get out of here, Charmy. Cause you're…" He waved his hands in the air dashingly. "Cramping my style!"

Everyone said 'wow' in subdued tones.

"Fine," grumbled Charmy, vacating the premises.

"Let's check the old calendar and see if we have anything to do this week," Shadow observed. He trotted out of the room, returning with a glossy Shadow the Hedgehog calendar. Each page had Shadow in a different pose. He flipped to the right month, looking at the week. Then Shadow turned pale.

"What?" asked Knuckles.

"Er… we don't have anything planned," said Shadow. He dithered for a moment, not wanting to destroy the calendar as it had pictures of him on it. He eventually settled for hiding it under a couch. "Oh, now it looks like everyone will have to take my word for it that we have nothing to do. Bye!" He tried to dash from the room, but Tails blocked his progress.

"Easy does it, homie," he grinned as Knuckles retrieved the calendar. Sonic and Rouge just looked confused.

"Tuesday," he grinned. "Take Sonic and Shadow for haircuts."

A bloodcurdling screech rang around the house from the two hedgehogs.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Review!