AN: Okay, here's the next part of the story. I'm thinking about bringing Tikal into the story, I want y'alls opinions on that though. Remember, I'm always looking for suggestions, Kapiche? (I think that's how it's spelled, it sounds like Quiche) Whatever. Quiche aside, here is chapter 8!
(oh, and by the way I do not own BBC radio in any way, shape, or form. That would be AA TOTAL disaster. O_o)
Chapter 8- The Beast (yet another unimaginative title -_-)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Mobian citizen (young male)
"You can't catch me! I'm Sonic the Hedgehog! I'm too fast for you!" I yelled in a sing-song voice to my friend behind me, we were playing a game of tag where whoever is 'it' is Doctor Eggman, the bad guy, and the people being chased are whichever of the Sonic heroes that they want to be. I always pick Sonic, he's my hero. He rescued my family one time from a fire. We were all trapped in the blaze, trying to keep it at bay when a sudden blue flash swept around the whole house and all the fire was blown out. If it weren't for him, my family and I wouldn't be around.
"You can't run forever, hedgehog!" My friend shrieked behind me. She loved to be the bad guy, she usually let me get away on purpose just so she could pretend to be Eggman for a little longer. She was great at being a bad guy too. She loved to come up with stuff to yell at me and anybody else we were playing with. Today it was just Emily and myself. We weren't supposed to be outside, actually. Our parents had made us stay in the house because of the big monster that was causing lots of trouble. We had managed to sneak out early in the morning while it was still dark outside so we could play tag in the woods.
I made it to a small clearing and stopped to hide behind a tree to catch my breath. Emily must have heard me heavily breathing because she jumped out and tackled me.
"I got you Torrin! That means that you're Eggman now." She told me, her hands on her hips.
"Okay, who are you gonna be?" I asked.
"Shadow, duh! Who else?" She exclaimed like it was obvious.
I rolled my eyes. "All right, Ultimate Life Form, you better run cuz' I'm gonna catch you!" I shouted as I got up to start running after her.
CRACK! We heard a tree snap from somewhere far off to our left. Both of us stood stock still.
SNAP! CRACK! CRUNCH! The sounds were getting louder, closer.
Neither of us dared make a move. The sounds of cracking trees and snapping branches were soon very close, and we could hear the thumping of heavy, fast stomping coming in our direction. I looked at Emily. She was standing straight up, staring in the direction of the noises. She was shaking in terror. I wanted to grab her and start running in the opposite direction, but I was petrified where I stood. She looked at me and I saw her eyes wide in fear. Mine were probably similar.
What is it? She mouthed to me.
I don't know, should we run? I mouthed back, but she just looked at me quizzically, I was never very good at mouthing things, but my throat was too dry to make any sound. I shrugged and she got the message.
Run? She mouthed to me. I nodded my head vigorously, but we were to late. The doomsday beast was upon us.
CRASH! The doomsday beast burst into the clearing, then skidded to a halt with a howl of surprise as it saw us. Emily and I shrieked and jumped back as it nearly ran into us. A few leaves flew up and some dirt flew in our direction; but other than being scared out of our minds, Emily and I were fine. There was a tense moment as we stared at the huge black monster as it rubbed its snout from the nose plant it just performed.
Emily and I were near the edge of the trees huddling together and shivering in fear while staring at the beast before us. The doomsday monster finished rubbing his muzzle, and then looked the two of us over hungrily. It seemed confused for a second as it stared at us shivering in fear. I dared to look at its eyes and saw that they were green, and there was a certain suppressed intelligence in them. The creature reached out a massive paw like it wanted to shake hands or something, but Emily let loose a high-pitched shriek of terror next to me. The beast's eyes immediately dilated and he howled like he was about to attack. He started to charge forward, but at the last second, he seemed to hold himself back and tore off into the trees to the right, deeper into the forest.
Emily fainted and thumped to the ground next to me. I had stopped shaking, and only my hands and knees were still a bit jittery. My knees buckled under me and I plopped to the ground next to my unconscious friend.
We weren't that far from my house, and somebody must have heard us scream, because five minutes later, my dad and older brother came running into the clearing to find us. Emily was still unconscious, so as my dad carried us back to the house, I told them what happened. They were amazed that we hadn't been hurt by the creature. My parents were furious that we had snuck away, and called Emily's parents as well to tell them what had happened. We were both grounded for a month.
I will never forget that look in the beast's eyes though. For a second, he didn't seem to be a monster, he looked more like a victim.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Miles "Tails" Prower
"So how are we going to get through to him?" Amy asked me. We had just huddled up, and now we needed to work on a plan of action.
"Before we do anything, we need to get rid of those reporters." Chris reminded us.
"You're right, Chris! We don't want any of them to get hurt if things get ugly." I said. "I'll take care of that, lets come up with a plan for once we get to Sonic first."
"All right, what do you think, Knuckles?" The human asked.
"Well," the echidna looked to the news reports on the screens. "I don't think Sonic will listen to us right away. We need to find a way to get through to him. I think we should surround him and just try to force him to calm down."
"How are we gonna make him calm down by surrounding him? That'll just make him more frustrated!" Amy exclaimed.
"We knock him down, and don't let him back up until he does what we want." Knuckles told her.
I put my hand on my head exasperatedly. "And how do you suppose we do that? If you haven't noticed, Sonic has enough power to take down entire cities. We don't have enough strength." I sighed. "Lets just take care of the media for now, I'm sure something will come to us." I assured them.
"All right, I'll come with you Tails." Amy volunteered.
"Okay, thanks, I could use the help." I said gratefully.
We walked over to the main screen and control panel. I typed a few codes in, and started communications. I typed in the news hotline to reach the news crew.
"Hello, this is MBC 1 radio! The most watched news station in all of Mobius! Bringing the news to you." The recording of the Mobian broadcasting corporation channel 1 radio's title and slogan ended.
(its supposed to be like BBC 1 radio, but I guess only those British Folks out there would know what that is...)
"Hello, Sadie Sanders speaking, how may I be of assistance?" A woman's voice answered the call.
"Hi, this is Miles Prower speaking." I responded.
"And I'm Amy Rose!" The pink hedgehog added excitedly.
"We are friends of Sonic the Hedgehog, and we need to get a message to all the news reporters following the doomsday beast." I cringed at the last part.
"Friends of Sonic's!?" She exclaimed. "No way! He's my hero! Can I talk to him?" Sadie asked.
"Ummm, sorry, but he's really busy right now. He asked me to tell all the reporters that they need to stay away from the creature. We're getting ready to take it on and we don't want anyone around in case it gets violent. We hope to keep this mission clean and fast, but in case it doesn't work out that way, it would be best not to have anyone in the area." I explained.
"Awww, well all right, I'll alert our reporters." She sounded disappointed. "We got a tip about some civilians who ran into the beast, so I'll send them to that story. Don't worry about the other stations, I'll take care of them too. Anything for the heroes of Mobius!" She finished excitedly.
"Thank you so much, ma'am! We really appreciate the cooperation!" Amy said happily.
"No problem! Bye!" Sadie said as she hung up the phone.
"That's really nice of her to inform the other stations. It makes our job a whole lot easier." I mused out loud.
"Yeah," Knuckles said. "But now we're expected to get down to Mobius even faster than before."
"True, so what are we going to do?" I asked the group.
"We should just get down to him before he gets to another city. Let's just stop him for now, and then we can figure out what we'll do. Sonic would just go with his gut." Amy said.
"Yeah, he would. Anyways, there is no guessing how he'll react until we're right in front of him, so all we really can do is get to him and stop him." Chris stated.
"All right, then that's what we'll do." I decided.
"Okay, so should we go now?" Amy asked me.
"The sooner the better," I responded, "everybody should get ready quickly, and then we'll go. I'll get the X-Tornado ready, see you guys at the hangar in five minutes!" I started to jog down to the ship hangar.
"All right!" Knuckles fist-pumped. "Finally, Some action!" He sprinted to his room to get ready.
I shook my head in amusement. "Oh, Knuckles..."
I continued towards my plane. Amy was already dressed and had her hammer, so she followed behind me.
We arrived at my extraordinary aircraft very quickly. I hopped into the pilot's seat and pushed the button that extends the seating so that four people can ride. The plane stretched in the middle about three metres, and two seats popped up behind the already existing seats. It was much slower and harder to steer the plane in this mode, but we all needed to make it to Mobius, and that meant I needed four seats. Amy hopped into the seat behind mine.
"Do you think this is a good idea?" She asked me.
"No, generally anything that makes Knuckles fist-pump like that isn't a great idea, but we don't have that many options, so I'll go with it." I responded, making Amy laugh a little.
"Do you think we can stop Sonic and get him back alright?" She inquired, suddenly dead serious. She looked pained, like she really didn't want to do what she knew she was going to end up having to do. Her expression reflected my own feelings exactly.
"I'm sure nothing bad will happen, Sonic will recognise us, and it won't come to... An incident."
"You're probably right;" Amy acknowledged, "but I'm just so worried! What if he doesn't recognise us? Then what do we do?"
"Then... We have to use Eggman's plan. He's making a cage right now. One thats made out of some special material that he thinks will be able to restrain Sonic. Y'know, just in case..." I replied.
"I really don't want to end up putting him a cage, that would be horrible." Amy told me. "The one thing that Sonic lives for is his freedom, and he would be so unhappy if he was stuck behind bars. I don't know if I could live with myself if that happened."
I was about to agree with her when Chris came running in, out of breath and clutching some tools and gadgets. "I'm here! Are we ready to go?" He looked at my plane. "Whoa! Since when can it do that?" He exclaimed as he hopped into the third seat
I grinned at his impressed expression. "We're just waiting on Knuckles now. I added this function to the plane after we left your planet. I was bored and decided that it might be a good idea to add a few extra seats since we've had some issues with not enough seats before." I explained.
Knuckles came in just then, his shovel claws tucked under one arm. "Okay, I'm here! Are we ready to leave?"
"Yeah, we were just waiting for you, hop in and we'll go." I told him.
"Great!" He said excitedly as he jumped into the last seat.
"Okay, ready for takeoff!" I said as the bay doors slid open.
The cockpit glass thumped into place above our heads. Everyone finished strapping in and I started the engine. There was a satisfying hum as the engine fired up. I always liked to do a countdown before I took to the air, so I started. "Five, four, three, two, one... Zero! And we have liftoff!" I shouted over the sound of the airplane shooting out of the bay. The start was rougher than usual because of the extra weight, but other than that it took off just fine.
I plugged in the coordinates for the forest Sonic was currently rampaging through and the plane began its descent. In a few minutes we were within a mile of the forest. In another minute we were skimming the trees looking for the trail of destruction.
"There!" Amy shouted, pointing ahead to our right. Sure enough, there was a big gap through the foliage that seemed to be in a more or less straight line. It was fairly long, and we followed the path for another long fifteen minutes of silence before finally getting to the front of it. The front of the path of destruction was extending ahead incredibly quickly. It was terrifying watching the huge, strong trees falling over and snapping in half; leaving behind an ugly gash in the forest. We increased our speed so as to catch up to the front of it, and within seconds, we were flying directly above it. It was then that we finally saw Sonic.
It was difficult from my angle to spot him, but the other people in my plane could see him just fine if they looked to their right and down through the cockpit dome's glass. At the source of the cracking and crashing trees, was the beast. He was enormous and a shade of blue that could be mistaken for pitch-black in the dark. He was running on all fours through the trees, not bothering to dodge or even swat away the trees in his way. Anything that he hit on his one-hedgehog stampede was immediately demolished. Nothing stood a chance. Even a boulder that he came a cross only delayed him for a fraction of a second before it was smashed to bits in his wake.
"How on earth are we supposed to stop... That?" Amy asked with obvious worry.
"I'm suddenly not so confident that surrounding him is a good idea..." Knuckles admitted, much to my amusement, even though the situation was anything but funny. I couldn't help myself, I laughed. Everyone looked at me like I was nuts, which just succeeded in making me laugh harder.
"Tails?... Umm, are you okay?" Knuckles asked me. Which made me think of Shadow's response to that same question, and sent me into a whole new fit of laughter. I managed to flip the autopilot on before I doubled over. Now people were looking at me with genuine worry etched on their faces.
I tried to stop laughing, I really did. No matter what I told myself, what I thought of, I literally could not stop laughing. The thing was, I wasn't laughing because I found something funny, it was quite the opposite. This situation was so awful and scary, that the only thing I could do to keep myself from screaming and crying was choose any other emotion. Considering Knuckles' somewhat ironic and humorous statement, the obvious and immediate choice for my mind was laughter. It's like that old saying, 'sometimes all you can do is laugh to keep yourself from crying'.
"Tails, what's so funny?" Chris asked me after a minute.
I tried to answer him through my laughter, "n-n-n-noth-th-thing" I stuttered, "i-i-I c-can't st-s-stop!" I explained.
Then Amy started laughing too. Knuckles and Chris watched the two of us like we were insane, and Amy started snorting from laughing too hard. It sounded really funny, and soon Knuckles and Chris joined in too. The four of us were just sitting in the X-tornado, laughing our heads off. We were supposed to be chasing Sonic and bringing the "doomsday beast's" reign of terror to an end, but instead we were laughing from a mixture of stress, worry, and above all, dread. I don't remember exactly what finally got us all to stop, but eventually we hiccuped ourselves into silence.
"Well, I don't know about you guys, but I feel a whole lot better." Knuckles interrupted the quiet.
"Now that you mention it, I feel a whole lot less worried as well." Amy mused.
I thought about it for a second before responding. "Me too, I guess we're all just tired. It is almost five in the morning, and we haven't had any sleep."
"Right, we should get a move on." Chris suggested.
"Of course, are we all ready?" I asked.
"Ready as I'll ever be." Said Amy.
"I'm ready for anything!" Exclaimed Knuckles.
"Lets go save our friend." Chris said with determination.
"Then lets go get Sonic!" I shouted as I flipped off auto pilot and took the plane into a dive for a large clearing a little bit ahead of the path.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Amy Rose
Our landing was more than a little nerve-wracking. First of all, the dive was rough, and we were all shaken up a lot on the way down. Then we found out that the clearing wasn't as large as Tails had thought, and he barely managed to land the ship without crashing into the trees. Everybody was still gripping their armrests when the plane finally shuddered to a stop.
"Is it over?" Chris asked.
"It wasn't that bad... But yeah, it's over." Tails responded.
We all got out of the ship as quickly as possible, and we started to get ready to take on Sonic. We could already hear him, his heavy foot-falls were coming closer and closer.
"Any second now..." Tails whispered. We were all in defence positions, spread out in front of the plane so that Sonic would have no place to run when he arrived. Chris was holding some special gadget he'd invented. It looked like a pair of handcuffs, but they were much larger, and they were meant mostly to trip a person by clasping on and then retracting that cord in the middle. He was going to throw them at Sonic as soon as he showed up. In theory, that would slow him down enough for us to surround him and try to calm him down.
I still wasn't sure exactly how surrounding Sonic would help us calm him down at all, but that's all we had for a plan, so that's what we had to work with. The rhythmic thumping of Sonic's stampede and the accompanying staccato of snapping trees and branches became louder and louder until it was the only sound we could hear. It was like a drumroll at a funeral, foreboding and frightening. When the sound got to be so deafening that he had to be almost on top of us, it stopped. Everything was silent, then we heard a low, menacing growl, and the doomsday beast revealed himself.
He slowly entered the clearing. The first part of him we saw was his massive paw taking a slow step into the fading moonlight. Then we saw his eyes in the shadows. They glowed in the darkness, like miniature lighthouses in the fog. He approached slowly. He had obviously been aware of us before reaching the clearing. Perhaps he had seen our plane, or heard our crash, or even just smelled us. He was very much on the defence, but he seemed almost curious about us. Maybe he recognised us on some level. That thought made me hopeful.
Sonic took another step forward, and we could see his face and shoulders. He had twigs and leaves stuck in his fur, and streaks of mud as well. The look on his face was very strange. It was hard to read his expression, because his face was so different than usual, and there was a lot of mud on it, like he'd rubbed his face in the dirt. But through the strange features, there were many emotions that I could detect. The main expression I was seeing was curiosity. He could tell that we planned to stop him, but I think he recognised us somewhat, so he was confused as to why we were opposing him. I think he wanted to know why he recognised us and why we wanted to stop him. I was sure that he had realised that we were waiting for him, but he had come to check us out anyways. If he wasn't curious, he could have easily gone around us, but instead he came. I carefully began put my hammer down. He immediately sensed the motion and turned his head in my direction. He snarled when he saw the weapon, and his ears went flat behind his head. His quills bristled up and all of a sudden, he seemed much less curious and much more fearsome.
I dropped my hammer in my surprise. It made a dull thunk when it hit the ground. Sonic took another step in my direction, and he looked ready to attack. I took a step back and he sensed my fear. He saw that I had dropped my hammer, and determined that the weapon was no longer a threat. His ears perked up again, and he backed off a little. He looked curious again. If I had to put his expression into a thought then it would be: "Who is this person who carries a large weapon, then drops it? What is she doing?" I had managed to make him look even more curious and confused. Obviously he didn't want to hurt anything that wasn't a threat, so he wasn't trying to attack me, it was my hammer that had made him upset.
He seemed to have calmed down quite a bit now, so I took a step forward. Sonic gave a warning growl, but didn't stop me or freak out, so I took another step. Again, he looked displeased, but did not attack me.
"Amy, what are you doing?" Tails whispered to me.
"Shhh, I'm trying to calm him down. No. Sudden. Moves." I replied at the same volume.
Tails nodded and I took another step forward. This time Sonic looked uncomfortable. I was getting too close. He growled louder, and took a step back, away from me. He showed his teeth as a warning, but I could tell that no matter how close I got, he wouldn't attack me as long as I didn't have my hammer.
I didn't want him running away though, so I put my hands up in a calming gesture. "Sonic, calm down, we're your friends, we want to help you." I said in as soothing a voice as I could manage. Sonic seemed to calm down a bit and leaned forward so he could see me better.
I looked him in the eyes, and as slowly and openly as I could, took another step. This time, he kept watching me, but didn't growl at me or move away. Now we were just a few feet apart. I stopped. I knew that to earn the trust of Sonic, he had to make the last step. The pupils of his eyes, which at the beginning of the encounter had been dilated and nearly completely black, were now round and emerald green as they usually were.
(Sonic, what big eyes you have! All the better to see you with, Amy... *shiver* jeeze, I just creeped myself out O.o)
We locked eyes for a while. Then Sonic suddenly had an expression like he'd been hit in the face with a pan and then gave a wide, lopsided smile before closing the distance between us. He must have finally remembered me! I put my hand on his head, and he nuzzled into it happily. He looked like an excited puppy for a moment before he realised what he was doing and immediately stopped, looking a bit embarrassed. His fur was coarse and thick, while also being soft and fluffy. He seemed content to just let me rub his head and scratch behind his ears while he looked around at the other people in our group. His excitement just seemed to grow. His fur seemed to become a shade lighter than before, but still remained an extremely dark shade of his usual blue.
He seemed really happy to see us all. He must have finally remembered how he recognised us. It seemed to be a pretty simple happiness, so I wasn't sure exactly how much he remembered about us, but he appeared to realise that we were his friends, and that's what mattered. It made me glad to see him happy and relaxed, and I knew everything was gonna work out okay.
"Sonic, do you remember who I am? Do you know our names?" I asked, just to make sure. Sonic gave me an annoyed expression, like he was saying 'no duh, of course I do', and then he tried to tell me so.
All that came out was a barking noise. It sounded vaguely like language in the way that he emphasised certain sounds and paused in places, but it certainly wasn't any language that I spoke. Halfway through his sentence he realised that he wasn't speaking Mobian, and got upset. He frustratedly tried to form words, but it was all in vain, he could only bark and growl. And all this frustration led to his fur growing darker and darker, and he forgot about the rest of us for a moment.
Sonic became so upset, that I think he forgot exactly what he was upset about, and just reacted to his anger. His eyes dilated again, and he ferociously tore at the ground. I knew he was prone to anger as dark super sonic, but this was getting almost ridiculous. But I guess I'd get pretty frustrated if I couldn't talk to my friends either.
I took a few steps back, Sonic was out of my range of control. It looked like we were going to have to use force after all. Sonic was howling and throwing a fit in front of us all, we needed to get him under control before Eggman decided to pull us out and put him in a cage.
I picked up my hammer and hefted it onto my shoulder. As soon as I swung it up, Sonic stopped and froze, staring in my direction. He sunk low on all fours, in a defensive stance. His quills bristled, and his ears went flat again. His eyes were dilated, and he was glaring at my hammer, not at me, though. A low snarl built up in his throat, and he looked terrifying.
I nearly ran for it right then. I twirled my hammer to get his attention, and he made a sound somewhere between a growl and a roar. His muscles tensed up and he leaned back. He was about to make a jump at the hammer and knock it out of my hands.
There was a tense couple of seconds as I realised this and drew my hammer back. His muscles all released at once, and he launched forward. I didn't mean to, it was just a reflex, but as he sprung, I swung my hammer around and hit him in the jaw with enough force to knock him off to the side. He yelped as he was forced to the ground. He had been pushed about ten meters away, so we were safe for the moment.
"Ohmygosh! Sonic, I'm sorry! Are you okay?" I asked, worried that I'd actually hurt him. My question was answered when he sprung back to his feet with a howl as soon as he had landed.
He started to run back at me for round two when he was suddenly tripped by the special cuffs that Chris had invented. I'd almost forgotten that he and the others were behind me, but it was good to know that they all had my back.
Sonic skidded to a halt on his face. The cuffs had clasped onto his front right foot and his back left foot, and they had been pulled together. He was having a lot trouble trying to get up, and was not succeeding. The cuffs had been lucky enough to grab on to just the right two feet, and were more effective than we had hoped for. Sonic roared in frustration and twisted and turned, trying to break the cuffs. Even though he was trapped for the moment, he still looked formidable and deadly.
The four of us regrouped as Sonic attempted to break free from the trap. It wasn't long before he figured out how the break the chain. He eventually made himself stop thrashing and got his head down where his trapped feet were. He saw the problem, and with one swift bite, he snapped one of the cuffs to pieces.
He jumped back to his feet and tensed up again. This time he was more cautious, and made sure to keep an eye on all of us. A thousand details seemed to go through his head all at once. Suddenly, he seemed to decide that he wasn't going to get anywhere by fighting us, and so he turned around and started to run back to the forest to get away.
"Oh no you don't!" Knuckled exclaimed, and ran after him.
Sonic looked surprised, and half-turned back to the echidna who was charging at him. Knuckles took advantage of his surprise and attacked. He feinted to Sonic's head, then landed a punch in his stomach. Knuckles must have hit him pretty hard, because he doubled over, gasping for breath. When he had caught his breath, he turned back to Knuckles, who was standing off to the side waiting for Sonic to get back up. He got back on his feet and glared maliciously at the red echidna. With a howl, he charged at Knuckles, but he never made it.
Just at that moment, something strange happened. It was about 5:45 in the morning, and the sun began to rise. Sonic halted mid-run, and stared into the sudden bright light. He threw his head back in a pained howl, and he was enveloped in a glowing black-purple aura. We couldn't see exactly what was going on, but somewhere in the middle of whatever was happening, the howl turned into a more Mobian-sounding scream.
All at once, the aura disappeared, and Sonic was left lying out cold on the ground, completely back to normal.
AN: yeah, I was thinking about having Tikal in the story, but I'm not sure if you guys consider her a legit Sonic character or not, so let me know, 'kay?
And as you guys can see, I'm not really sticking to my word limit, so I've pretty much given up on that, the chapters will be as long as they want to be.
-Kthxbai, Silverfangirl96