Hi!

I would like to point out that this is not a true episode, it was written to simply thicken the plot, and to give me something to do.

I tried to write a proper episode, but after I wrote a serious section, I just went random on the story.

Sorry if anyone was expecting something big.

Disclaimer: Any character, company, object or logos mentioned are property of their companies. I own nothing in the story. All OC's belong to their owners.

Tuesday, May 18th.

23:43 hrs

6 days until next episode

The stage is dark; it's polished floor gleaming in the little light given by the exit sign placed over the door. The cleaning team has been here already many times, cleaning it in preparation for the next episode of So You Think You Can Dance Mobius.

However, the blessed rest of the fiberglass stage is interrupted by the sounds of a door opening cautiously. Knuckles cautiously peeks his head around the doorframe to check for unwanted individuals, before stepping out with equal caution out on the stage, trying to be as stealthy as possible.

The echidna quietly shuffles across the floor to the center of the stage and stands looking around in alert caution, looking for both stalkers and the figure he was told to meet.

However, the figure does not appear to his violet eyes.

Something rustles, and he jerks around and looks up at the lighting section of the stage, but can't see or hear anything else.

He growls, believing himself to be duped into a prank, when, all of a sudden, one of the military-grade spotlights shines into his eyes.

"What the?" Knuckles yells, shielding his eyes from the harsh white light, "Who's there? Show yourself!"

A cold, metallic laugh is his reply, coming through the speaker systems, "My, my. Knuckles the Echidna, treasure hunter extraordinaire and guardian of the Master Emerald, losing a fight to a spotlight. How pathetic."

Knuckles' temper flares, "Just who do you think you are?"

The voice laughs again, "I am the true master behind the game, the one who controls the outcome and the fate of the contestants. I am The Director!"

'Cruddy name' Knuckles thinks to himself, "What do you want with me?"

"Why, my little echidna friend, you are to be my pawn in this show. You are to follow my commands without question, or suffer the consequences." The Director answerers with glee.

"Your crazy!" Knuckles yells, making a break for the door.

However, before he even takes a step, sharp pains erupt from the back of his neck.

He stumbles, falls to his knees, and collapses. Visions of flames fill his head before a unbroken darkness takes over.

A robed figure walks out of the shadows, dart gun in hand. Nearing the K.O'd echidna; he smirks to himself, knowing that even now, the nanomite technology that he invented was hard at work taking over the mind of his pawn. Reaching down to remove the dart from the muscled neck of Knuckles, his hood falls off to reveal brown and black hedgehog spines.

The right side of his face is robotic, with a glaring yellow eye that seems to see everything in its view.

Pulling the dart out of his target's neck, he replaces it on a belt underneath his robe, before flipping up his hood to conceal his true face and disappearing into the shadows.

The light is turned off, and Knuckles is left lying in darkness.

~0~0~0~0~0~

Charge sat in a massive office chair, feet up on his desk. The office he was occupying was complementary of the author for participating in the story. It was spacious, well furnished with modern art and comfortable seating. He also received a 2000-ring MacBook out of the deal, along with ILife 2010 loaded on and a free Itunes account with 1000 dollars pre-loaded. Heck, there was even a snack bar in the corner for when he was hungry.

Since the next episode was still a few days away, he was simply sitting around bored, looking for something to do.

He sighed, leaning back harder on the chair, stressing the back to the point of serious strain.

"I wish I had a PS3 or something. The fact that there's nothing going on is killing me." he complained out loud, a look of extreme boredom on his usually excited face.

Fine. Have it you way, just shut up.

He started up, looking around quickly, "Who's that?"

Uh…the author and your creator? You do know that I exist, right?

"Ugh, it's you." he complained, "And for a second I thought I was going to have a normal day of glorious boredom."

Well, I'm here, typing this from the real world, and I can easily just replace your name with my backup name.

Charge's eyes narrow, "What's the backup?"

Cuddles.

"Oh," Cuddles replied, settling back into his chair for a few seconds before snapping straight back up, "WAIT A SEC! CHANGE IT BACK!"

Only if you stop complaining.

"Fine, fine, whatever." Charge dismisses with a wave of his hand, leaning back hard on his chair again, "Now, about that PS3?"

After a few seconds, a portal opens up and out drops a Sony Bravia and a PS3.

There. Happy now, Mr. ICan'tStopComplaining?

"Sure." shrugs Mr. ICan'tStopComplaining.

A few minutes pass before Mr. ICan'tStopComplaining suddenly jumps up, "VERY FUNNY! NOW CHANGE IT BACK!"

Sheesh. Fine. You need to learn to calm down a bit, dude.

Charge rolls his eyes and sighs.

Ah, the eye roll and sigh combo. I love to use that one

"Just let me play my Ace Combat, will you?" the feline says, exasperated.

Fine, go ahead and ruin my perfectly harmless fun.

A few minutes pass, where the only sound is of Charge's gloved fingers mashing the controller, and of the sounds coming form the game.

Then, out of the blue, Numb/Encore by Jay-Z and Linkin Park starts to play.

Charge grins, "Yeah, this is an awesome mix!"

He gets up and starts to rap like Jay-Z, "Can I get an encore, do you want more? Cook and roar with the Brooklyn boys, so for one last time I need y'all to roar! Uh, Uh, Uh, Uh! Yeah!"

His voice suddenly changes to that of Chester Bennington, "So what the heck are you waiting foooorrrrr?"

Then, his voice is Jay-Z once again, "After me, there should be no more. So for one last time y'better make some noise!"

Before the song could proceed further, it is suddenly and randomly stopped before Jay-Z's rap.

"Hey, that's the good part!" Charge yells, sulking.

That was enough of a demo of your rapping skills for now, although both you and I know Adam is a way better rapper.

Charge growls and sits down hard on his chair, continuing his massacre of opposing aircraft.

After a few minutes, Charge gets up and puts in the 2010 FIFA World Cup game.

Another 20 minutes later, and the green cat is up 5-0 over Australia with South Africa.

Charge sends his forward Benni McCarthy up the centre, and drilled a hard shot past Mark Schwarzer for goal number 6.

As McCarthy back flipped across the field in celebration, Charge leaned back and sighed.

If your think your ready for something interesting, I would advise checking your e-mail.

"Why?" Charge snorts at the unseen author, "What possible reason?"

Would you rather have your office here, or in the bottom of the sewer? Your choice, my friend.

"Fine, I'll check my freaking e-mail, you nutcase." a ticked-off Charge grumbles.

Opening his account, he sees that he has three e-mails.

One is the monthly Top Gear newsletter, which he doesn't even bother to open.

The next is from BBC news, with the daily update on news.

He briefly skims through this, not really paying attention. "Violence in Thailand, G-20 meeting in Toronto and Oil Crisis in the Gulf of Mexico" are the only things he bothers to even glance at. Assuring himself that there is nothing wrong in the world that BBC knows about, he scrolls up through his mailbox to look at the last new message.

The first thing that catches his attention is the subject:

Strange Footage from SYTYCD set.

From: Unknown address.

Opening the e-mail, he sees the attachment is a video clip that is a few hundred megabytes.

After he clicks it, the loading bar appears. Charge puts his head in his hands as he waits.

Once he hears the familiar 'pop' of the file finished downloading, he looks up and presses the play button.

At first, he is uninterested in the video, but then something catches his eye. Looking closer with renewed interest, his face slowly morphs into one of absolute shock, astonishment and horror.

After less than two minutes of footage, the video suddenly ends.

Slamming his laptop closed, he leans back with a look of absolute horror on his face, "Okay, that's creepy. I swear I killed that guy years ago. A perfect blade throw to the head should have killed him instantly."

Apparently not.

Charge glared at nothing, "Shut it. I need to get over there and investigate."

Take a car, especially a nice one. You'll command more respect if you do.

"Well, whoop de doo, let's see. " Charge replies sarcastically, "Do I have a have a supercharged V-10, 300,000-ring Italian, German, English or American supercar? Uh, NO!"

Did I say it had to be Italian, German, English or American?

"Well, I'd assume that those would be the places they would come from, being they are the only countries who actually make supercars!" Charge snaps.

How about Japan, Canada, Australia and the Middle East?

Charge looked confused, "They make supercars?"

Yes. For Japan, they have the Lexus LFA, Canada has the HTT Locus Pléthore, Australia has the HST GTO and Morocco has the Laraki Fulgura.

"Wow, so the supercar exists elsewhere." Charge says, impressed, "Who would've known?"

Anyways, the mentioned cars are down in the parking lot. If you want one, you'd better get down there ASAP.

Charge sprints off to the parking lot, arriving there a few minutes later. The four cars are lined up, shining in the bright sunlight.

"Whoa." he says, obviously impressed, "Those are some nice pieces of work."

Stop gawking at them and actually choose one, how about?

"Fine, you impatient lunatic." Charge yells to the air, drawing a few questioning stares from others in the lot.

After a few minutes looking over the cars, Charge selects the Fulgura.

As he settles himself into it, it suddenly breaks into pieces and he is left sitting in a pile of metal doohickeys, holding the steering wheel.

He hears the author laugh, and snarls, "What the heck was that for?"

That's not the car I want you to take.

"But you said that I could choose any car I wanted!" Charge moans.

Too bad, so sad, sucking a lollipop. Get off your butt and find a good car.

Charge tries out the GTO and the LFA, with similar results to the Moroccan supercar.

However, once he gets into the central driving seat of the Pléthore, it doesn't collapse outwards like the other three.

"So, in other words, your just a patriotic Canadian who only wanted me to get into a French-Canadian piece of engineering." Charge notes.

Turn on the engine, and you'll see what French-Canadians are capable of producing.

Charge complies, and the engine roared to life like a lion.

Charge removed his hands from his ears, "How many horsepower does that thing have?"

That 6.2 L V-8 has exactly 750 hp to its name. Convinced that Canada can make a good car?

Charge nodded slowly, "Yep."

Okay, and a few other things. Naturally, being a James Bond fan, I added a few…uh…extras to it. Press the big red button.

After said button was pressed, the car suddenly transformed. Two chain guns popped out of the headlights, a targeting device appeared out of the steering wheel, and a system of missiles popped out of the rear engine cover.

It's helpful for when you need get through a roadblock. Take 'er for a spin, why don't ya?

In Charge's expert driving hands, the Pléthore cornered like it wasfighter jet.

Once he had finished a lap of the parking lot, he stepped out and mopped his forehead.

"And to think I can drive like that when I'm 15." Charge breathed.

See? I can make good things happen to you if I feel like it.

An awkward silence lasted for a few seconds.

"I guess thanks, then…" muttered Charge.

You're welcome. Now get that hulk of stylized carbon fibre over to the studio, and watch out for the tanks and choppers.

Charge rolled his eyes, "Okay, if you say…wait, what was that about tanks and helicopters?"

I need to make this interesting for the reader, don't I?

"Rrrr." Charge growled, getting back into the driver's seat.

He gunned the V-8, and the Pléthore roared off to its destination.

One violent, high-speed, armor-bashing freeway journey later:

The supercar drew itself smoothly over the tar road, engine purring contentedly, drawing the gaze of anyone within eye or earshot. The black paint job (with big green stripe in the centre!) was unscratched, there was no sign of any damage to the body and the weapon systems were all packed away cleverly within the body. One would not know that the car had just been shot at by tanks, strafed by attack helicopters and had driven over more mines than there are around the Korean peninsula.

That is, you wouldn't know until you saw the driver.

Charge looked like he had just drunk a thousand cups of coffee, and then made to sit still to watch soap operas for two months straight. His eyes stared blankly ahead, seeing little. His movements were stiff, almost wooden. His normally carefully styled hair was sitting in a knot in his face.

He pulled up outside the studio, set the transmission into park, and turned off the ignition. The purrs of the V-8 suddenly, like a housecat after you take away its food.

This is AuthorStar. You have arrived at your intended destination.

Charge glared at the roof of the car, "Just keep your mouth shut for a while, how about?"

Y'know, I can take you to this great anger rehabilitation centre. I think you'd fit right in.

Charge sighed and slid out of the car.

However, as he passed through the car door, a strange transformation happened.

His hair re-arranged itself into a short, Daniel Craig-style cut, a 9mm Glock appeared at his hip, his hand suddenly clutched an OC Secret Service badge and a pair of spy sunglasses suddenly covered his eyes.

You like?

Charge surveyed his new outfit, before breaking into a massive grin, "I Love!"

Good. I figured that seeing that you have a secret agent car, might as well give you a secret service look.

"Cool!" Charge exclaimed, "Anything else new?"

Hmm…nope.

Charge's ears drooped, "Dang. I wanted a cool military outfit."

Technically, you have one. Get in there and start investigating!

"Sheesh, you really have no patience." Charge mumbled, turning and walking straight into a pole.

Clutching his now-throbbing head and dropping cusses that should not be repeated for fear of a rating increase, Charge staggered backwards and fell into a trashcan.

Struggling to get out, Charge ended up with a sore forehead and a wounded pride.

Now, remember. I am the author, and more painful events will follow if you keep calling me impatient. Got it?

"Yes, you freaking nutcase." Charge muttered.

He was then hit on the head with a cricket ball.

(A.N: For the people who don't know what I'm talking about: The ball is from the game cricket, not an insect-sized ball. A cricket ball is heavy rubber surrounded by thick leather. It hurts anywhere you get hit by it. I can attest to that fact)

Once, he came to a few minutes later, his entire head now hurt and he had lost nearly all of his secret service look, including the Glock.

I warned you, didn't I?

Charge growled, "Just get me my Secret Service look back, keep your mouth shut, and I'll let it slide."

Done.

Charge was soon back into his James Bond-style attire, complete with glasses, badge, 9mm and haircut.

He turned slowly to the studio building and walked to the door. Grabbing the door handle, he turned to the plant beside him

"Okay, I'm going in." Charge began to dramatize, "I may come back, but in the event I don't, give my love and loyalty to the…"

GO IN, FOR THE LOVE OF CHAOS!

"ALRIGHT, ALRIGHT!" Charge shouted, opening the door and stepping into the cool, dark building.

Standing in the entry hall, he drew the Glock from its holster, and darted across the hall to a steel pillar across the hallway. Holding the pistol in his right hand, he cautiously peeked around the pillar to see…

…nothing.

There was nothing out of the ordinary in the building that Charge could see. He stepped cautiously around the pillar and when there was still not a movement, lowered the pistol.

"Huh." he snorted, "There's nothing here. Not even a few goons to shoot."

You wish is my command.

Two projectiles suddenly whizzed past his ear and splattered against the glass wall behind him, creating a mess of red and blue paint.

He dove for cover behind the pillar as more shots meant for him found the wall.

He leaned hard against the wall, and quickly checked the cartridge on his pistol.

It was filled with green paintball pellets.

"Paintballs." he breathed, "Seriously?"

I can't raise the rating with live ammunition, now, can I?

Charge growled, but ducked as anther round of paintballs came out of nowhere.

Once the onslaught of artwork was over, Charge cautiously peeked around the pillar.

He saw six black-clad Mobians standing with paintball M4's and another two with lying prone with M249's.

"Great, I'm facing a freaking paintball army squad, with no backup, and only a 9mm to fight them with." Charge groaned, "How could it get any worse?"

You want me to add a paintball tank to the mix?

"Just keep out of it!" Charge snapped.

I can bring backup into play if you want.

Charge sighed and let his head thump back on the steel, "Fine, give me some cover. But they better be well trained."

One piping hot highly trained commando unit, coming right up! You want fries with that?

"JUST GET ME MY SOLDIERS!" Charge yelled.

A sudden burst of automatic paintball gunfire interrupted his thoughts.

The enemy soldiers yelled in surprise as they were hit by multiple shots, and dove for cover among the potted plants and pillars.

Charge used the distraction to jump out of hiding and fire off four shots at the enemy soldiers.

One found a target, and the soldier, a burly husky, yelped in pain as the paintball stung his ear and paint dripped over the side of his head.

Charge turned to see what his commando unit looked like, to be greeted by Shadow, Cory and Enzan dressed in camouflage and holding M-4's.

Charge's hand systematically flew to meet his face.

"I should have figured," he groaned.

You wanted the best that I had, and I gave it to you. I never said I would give you a U.S Ranger unit.

The three hedgehogs looked around in confusion.

"Who was that?" Cory asked suspiciously.

"A complete blathering idiot who keeps following m-SPLAT!" Charge couldn't finish, due to a perfect headshot from one of the enemy soldiers that knocked him down.

He lay on his face, before standing up, muttering "Ow."

The three hedgehogs emptied a round at the opposing soldiers, who started to retreat.

Charge, in an attempt to save face, turned and managed to hit all of the retreating soldiers in the tail, which caused a howling to rise among them.

Lowering the Glock, he passed a hair through his hair and sighed.

"Well, that was a complete waste of a chapter." Shadow interjected.

"Shut it." Charge growled, turning and shooting the Ultimate Lifeform in the foot.

As Shadow collapsed shrieking like a girl, clutching his smarting foot, Cory and Enzan burst out laughing and Charge turned and folded his arms, watching the black figures retreat.

He then remembered the footage.

Why was his former rival alive?

Where was he?

What was his purpose?

And because he was also hungry:

Where was the nearest 5-star restaurant?

Okay, done! I wrote this, originally expecting a plot to come from it, but, alas, my hopes were dashed, so instead I went random on it.

The whole author-talk thing was a combination of ideas from StarVix and JoAnne the Fox. Thanks to them both.

Ahem, I should be ready with another episode soon!

Cheers,

Charge