Sonic Insanity

Here's a little poem:

75th chapter,

You know what to do,

Ar-ee-vee-eye

Ee-double-you! (That spells REVIEW.)

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It was a time of immense celebration in Sonic's house. The Democrats winning back the legislative system, coupled with Donald Rumsfeld's resignation, had been greeted with cries of "PRAISE ALLAH," "Who ate my pizza?" and "So that's what she does in her spare time!" Shadow and Sonic, for once not at each other's throats, were the spirits of cordiality, conviviality, cooperation and other co words. They had decked the halls with Democratic signs and were currently making up unfortunate demises for Karl Rove.

Tails was not really old enough to be affected much by politics, but he was so happy that Sonic and Shadow were getting along that he also participated in the festivities. Indeed, there was only one person in the world who seemed upset by this news, and that was Knuckles. The echidna had sat in an armchair all weekend, perfecting his gangsta scowl while staring into space and listening to Trick Daddy.

"Knuckles, Donald Rumsfeld had nothing to do with your right to have guns!" Sonic explained for the eight hundredth time. "You won't have any more of a chance with whatever new guy they get!"

"He's the Secretary of Defense!" argued Knuckles. "They'll just make a concession to dem Dems and get some liberal pansy who sends his daughter to therapy for playing with Barbie dolls!"

"It's the defense of our country against foreign nations, and it has nada to do with the 2nd Amendment!" Shadow grumbled.

"Right! Wouldn't we be better defended against other countries if we were all carrying guns?" Knuckles demanded.

"Rumsfeld wasn't doing that anyway! If you have so many bright ideas, why don't you become Secretary of Defense?" snapped Shadow.

Knuckles sat stunned for a moment, puzzling over this in his mind. He leaped up after ten minutes. "I'VE GOT IT! In my infinite genius-ism, I, Knuckles the Echidna, have composed a daring plan!"

"And?" asked Tails, who was busy coloring in the squares on a Rubix Cube to make it look as if he had gotten it right.

"I will run for Secretary of Defense!" Knuckles bragged.

"Firstly, Knuckles, by the time this chapter is published the guy will almost already have been chosen," explained a lampshade, which was somehow more qualified to talk about politics than anyone else there.

"Secondly," Shadow interjected, inconspicuously stuffing the lampshade down the garbage disposal, "that was our plan."

"Lastly," Sonic began.

"Hey! What if I have something to say after you?" Tails whined.

"You don't count," Sonic said rudely. "Anyway, lastly, you don't run for Secretary of Defense. You get chosen by the President! And believe me, GWB isn't looking for someone involved in black culture!"

"What about Condi Rice?" Knuckles inquired aggressively.

"She's just the token black person, all comedies have one," Sonic explained, subtly inferring that the Bush administration was a joke on the level of most humorous films.

"I don't care," Knuckles replied, "I'll do whatever it takes to become Secretary of Defense! That way, I can help the people get guns!"

"Yeah, but if you give everyone guns, what's to keep them from overthrowing the government?" asked Shadow.

"They'll be grateful to me!" Knuckles defended. "They wouldn't bring me down after what I've done for them!"

"Yes, because we all know how much respect Americans have for systems of authority, and how they would never turn on a person in a position of power if given the right to do so," Tails snorted.

"Did I say you could talk?" Sonic shrieked, kicking over the table and standing up with his fists balled.

"That was pretty intimidating," Tails remarked sarcastically. "Sure you can beat me up? Why don't you just try it and see how far you get?"

"You'd better be careful, Sonic, I gave him fighting lessons," Knuckles commented. "After all, I am the Secretary of Self-Defense."

"OH, SHUT UP!" screamed Sonic, full of rage. He lunged at Tails with a hair-raising screech, but missed by a margin of eight feet and crumpled in a heap.

"That was amazing!" gasped Shadow sarcastically. Sonic calmed down for the reason that there was nothing funny left that would result from him being angry.

"So what should we do now, you guys?" Tails asked. "We could go hang out with the ladies…"

"Nah, they've been acting kind of cold lately," Shadow regretted. Tails hid his grin behind a gloved paw. "So what should we do, then?"

"Let's cook some heavenly gourmet dishes!" screeched Sonic.

"No."

"I was just kidding!" protested Sonic, hiding his plate of crepes Suzette and smoked salmon in the garbage disposal, where the lampshade promptly devoured it.

"Why don't we let Eggman conquer the world?" proposed Knuckles. "You know, just to see what would actually happen."

"I can run it on a probability simulator!" Tails suggested, pulling out a laptop. "That way we'll know what would happen, but without the consequences!"

"I love avoiding responsibility," beamed Sonic like a true American. They all crowded around the lapular top for a view of the simulation.

"Let's see… make a timeline here…" Tails pulled up a timeline of what would happen if Eggman were to take over the world.

"February, 2007. Eggman takes over world, yeah, we figured that out, go on," Shadow declared.

"May 2007, Eggman forces Earth's population to make food for him. No other production of any other resources exists by July," Sonic read in disgust.

"August 2007. The people rise against Eggman, easily defeating his robots as nobody is refining oil to fuel them anymore. However, Eggman is by now so fat that any attack merely rebounds. The people decide to make food for themselves and wait until Eggman is thin enough to be killed," Knuckles read. "Your computer has an odd imagination."

"December 2007. Much rejoicing as Eggman has now reached a mere 450 pounds. They prepare to ritually sacrifice him, dragging him before the world population. The death stroke will occur on the 1st of January 2008 to celebrate the New Year." Excitedly, Tails scrolled down to the next month.

"January 2008… wait, what?" There was dead silence as everyone read the words printed on the screen for that month.

January 2008: Pork.

Tails promptly dropped his computer and fled.

"WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?" gabbled Sonic, ears burning with fury as he booted the laptop across the room. "So they were getting ready to sacrifice Eggman and then… pork? What is going on?"

"Maybe they ate him and pretended it was pork!" Knuckles rationalized.

"OH, SHUT UP! Wouldn't they just say that, then? This computer's worthless!" snarled Shadow, stomping on its remains. "So, what now?"

"Why don't we just end this chapter?" suggested Tails.

"I'd rather die," snarled Shadow. "Although preferably painlessly- these chapters are a little annoying." A voice cleared its throat from the heavens. "I mean," bleated Shadow feebly, "such luxuriant, fine, well-written chapters have surely never been seen…"

"To die painlessly is a fate worse than death," Tails said soberly.

"You idiot! It is death!" whined Sonic, sounding very petulant.

"Looks like we need to call the WHAAAmbulance for this one!" Knuckles grinned oafishly. "We have an EMO-gency on our hands!" Nobody laughed, which was only to be expected.

"Speaking of death and emergencies," Tails said, "I heard the PS3 launched to violent reception."

"I don't hear anybody complaining about the controller the way they were when they saw the Batman boomerang shape," Knuckles blustered, eager to cover up for his mistake. "Does that mean it isn't actually really uncomfortable?"

"No, it's because nobody has actually played the PS3, Tails," explained Sonic. "They're just selling it to each other on eBay for millions of dollars."

"Are there even any games on the PS3 other than Resistance: Fall of Man?" asked Shadow.

"No, the other games that you see in stores don't have discs in them," Knuckles described. "They're just part of a complex plan to make people think that the blue-ray reader wasn't totally worthless."

"Good old Nintendo prevails once again," declared Tails. (Note: This conversation about the superiority of the various consoles does not indicate Mecha Scorpion's personal views, except in all the ways it does.)

"I should release a console," Knuckles declared. "It would be better than blue-ray PS3, or we-have-good-graphics Xbox 360, or kids-should-buy-our-games Nintendo. The selling point would be the unparalleled physics engine, called Gun Simulator 3.0, and the enemy AI would have never-before-seen strategies such as 'avoid getting shot.' The only games would be racing games, shooting games, and racing shooting games. The big launch title would be a first-person shooter version of Grand Theft Auto, called Tom Clancy's Rainbow Ghost Recon Six Advanced Mission Warfighter: Get The Console Or Die Trying, and it would be a huge success! The game would center around the launch of my system, but there would only be one hundred copies available in each store. You would go around to different stores and wantonly slaughter people in an attempt to get all the consoles for yourself, so you could sell them and build a vast eBay empire! And there would be a mini-game where you could actually play games on the consoles you'd stolen!"

"Yeah, but why would they play that mini-game instead of buying other games for the console itself?"

"SHUT UP! NRA gun nuts, rap-culture-obsessed fools and other pathetic scum of society would lap it up like holy water! They'd flock to it in droves, DROVES I say!" shouted Knuckles exuberantly, brandishing the master plot for this disgusting game and console. "The system will be called… Play Cubic Boxes, or WiiStation 360, at least while it was in development. But on the day of the launch, the name will be revealed to be…" Lightning crashed prematurely in the background. "THE SHOOTY MCSHOOTINGTON SHOOTSKY GUNSHOOTER EXPLODE-O-MATIC BOMBTASTIC GRENADE DESTRUCTION DEMOLITION BLAST BAZOOKA GUN FIRING ROCKET LAUNCHING MACHINE GUN SHOOTING DESTROYER BURNINATING DISINTEGRATONIC POW-POW KABLAMMER BOOM TANK MISSILES…"

Eight minutes later…

"…WEAPON ATTACKER THINGY SOMETHING OR OTHER KILLING PEOPLE CONSOLE 8000!" proposed Knuckles at length.

Everybody had left.

"Perhaps an abbreviation will be necessary," concluded Knuckles.

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Later, and review.