"Look around, kiddo!"
Sonic followed his father's wide sweeping gesture.
"This is what's 'up'! This is the surface!"
The young blue hedgehog looked this way and that. All he saw was a very red ceiling overhead with weird puffy white stuff floating around in it, and lots of dirt going much further in every direction than was possible back in Knothole. There were a couple really big piles of dirt way, way off in the distance, but all in all, Sonic summed up his thoughts on the surface in three words:
"There's nothing here."
His father nodded.
"Nope. Not a thing."
Sonic looked up, confused.
"Huh?"
"That's why I like it."
How could his father like this?
"There are no walls and no ceilings. This is truly a man's world!" He turned to his son and held out his hand. "Ready to go?"
This world is so big, thought Sonic. And I don't wanna go where there isn't a lot to find.
He took a step back.
"I see," said his father. He did not sound disappointed, but more resigned. He was accepting the fact that Sonic did not want to come to the surface.
His father ruffled his hair. Sonic could see his father's skull-pendant dangling from a chain attached to his bracelet.
"Well, when you're ready, come up here to be with me," his father's voice said.
His father's smiling face.
"Until then..."
His father's back. His father's red cape, with its flaming-skull-with-pointed-shades emblem.
"Farewell, Sonic!"
CHAPTER FOUR:
I Said I'm Gonna Pilot That Thing!
The thundering crash was what woke up the two-tailed fox and the blue hedgehog.
With a start.
"Wh-what the hell?"
The next thing Sally knew, Sonic and Tails had bolted out of the side room that Sally had moved them while they slept and were freaking out in general, shouting at each other that they had no idea what was going on and loudly asking no one in particular what that crash was.
"Morning," said Sally casually, reloading her rifle.
Sonic and Tails bolted up to her as soon as she opened her mouth. They both looked quite alarmed, but Tails appeared more frantic.
"What the hell was that?" Sonic asked.
Rotor emerged from a side room with a cup of hot coffee.
"Mornings on the surface start with Gizoids," he said calmly. "Care for a cup of morning coffee, Sonic?"
"What's that? Dirty water?" asked Sonic, looking at the brown liquid in the cup.
Sally had to suppress a small chuckle at Sonic's social ineptitudes.
Clack. Clack. Clack.
Sally and Rotor paused. Three strikes on a metal plate meant one thing...
Don't tell me, she thought.
Clack. Clack. Clack.
Yep. That's it.
"Here comes another one," said Rotor.
Sonic stood there, looking confused, holding the cup of coffee. Tails looked befuddled as well.
The second Gizoid landed somewhere outside of Acorn Village, and the aftershock was powerful enough to knock the coffee cup out of Sonic's hand and spilling all over the blue hedgehog.
"Hot, hot, hot, hot...!" He ran around for a minute or so.
"That's..." Tails said.
He seems familiar with the shaking caused by Gizoid battles, Sally thought.
Elias entered the old hangar.
"Two raids in two days," he said wearily. "That's pretty rough."
Sally hoisted her rifle up onto her shoulder.
"It's probably payback for yesterday," she said.
Rotor was pouring cold water onto Sonic to cool off his coffee burns.
"It doesn't matter why they're here; we're gonna take 'em out just the same!" he shouted.
He seemed to shout a lot. Sally wondered if he was always like this.
"Well, I'm sorry to say that I didn't ask your opinion, Sonic," Sally said, picking up a pistol from a nearby table and holding it out to him. "You do know how to use a gun, right?"
Sonic let out a 'heh!'. "Of course! Who the hell do you think I am?"
Then promptly holstered the pistol down the front of his pants.
Sally put her face in her hand. This man was hopeless. She'd have preferred it if he said he wouldn't be caught dead using one.
Sonic smacked Tails's back.
"Tails, you're in Emerl," he said, smirking at Tails again.
"No, Sonic. You do it. I'll just-..."
"C'mon, Tails, I know you can do this."
"But..." Tails trailed off.
Sonic smacked his back again, this time hard enough to make Tails wheeze.
"We're counting on you!"
Then he ran off with the other Acorn villagers, his sword slung over his back and the pistol still in his pants. Tails could hear one of the villagers calling back, "Don't let them get near the village! Take them out before they can get a foothold!"
Suddenly, Tails said, "Hey, where is Emerl?"
"Come this way," said Rotor.
In the side room that Rotor led him to, Tails saw Emerl. Much shinier than he remembered. Emerl was covered in the dirt and grit of having been buried underground for goodness knew how many years. Now, it wasn't.
"How did...?"
"I was up all night polishing it," said Rotor, beaming. "What do you think?"
"He looks like he was built yesterday," Tails smiled at Rotor. "Thanks."
Rotor gave him a thumbs-up.
"Now, just insert your Core Drill and give the 'Spin Start' order."
Tails froze at this wall of unfamiliar terms.
"'Spin Start'? 'Core Drill'?"
"The Core Drill is that thing you're wearing on your neck," explain Rotor, indicating Tails's drill pendant. "Spin Start is how to start it up, apparently. At least, according to its internal memory banks."
Tails nodded uncertainly, before hopping into Emerl and placing the Core Drill in the slot in Emerl's central display...
"Spin Start."
And turned it.
Nothing happened.
What? Tails thought.
"Problems again?" asked Rotor.
I knew it, Tails thought. I knew I'm useless.
raw! raw! fight the power!
"Alright, you uppity Möbian filth!" shouted the surviving Gizoid from the day before.
"It's time to take out the trash!" said the new one, a frog-like Gizoid.
Then they began doing squats and stretch exercises, chanting "One-two..." over and over.
"Look at 'em, thinking they're so tough," Sonic snarked.
"Don't get cocky, Sonic," warned Elias.
"Whatever," he said, reaching for his katana. "Time to rock and roll!"
Clack. Clack. Clack.
Everyone turned.
Clack. Clack. Clack.
"Another one?" said Elias. "Three Gizoids in one day?"
"You might want to cover your ears, Sonic Hedgehog," warned Sally.
After a moment's silence - apart from the two Gizoids' "One-two..." - a silvery shape descended to the earth.
And the earth shook.
"Wh-what the hell...?" Sonic shouted.
When the dust cleared, a silver Gizoid was half-buried in the impact zone. It had a pointed nose, a snarling lion's maw, and a pair of transparent-red blades on its back, intersecting many long spines.
A pair of cobalt-blue eyes opened.
Arms and legs extended out from its ovoid body.
And Giznaur let out a roar.
raw! raw! fight the power!
Tails crouched as low as he could in the inert Emerl's cockpit, trying to keep himself from getting harmed by the potentially falling rocks.
This was just like...
Tails's eyes opened wide in realisation.
And horror.
It was them! he thought. The Gizoids...!
"Tails! GO!"
"Sweetie, stay back!"
"Mom! Dad! NOOOoooo...!"
The sound of falling rocks... The crunch of cracking bones...
"They caused them...!" Tails growled, gripping Emerl's controls. Emerl's display lit up with emerald light.
Rotor backed away from Emerl with a start.
"All those earthquakes were their fault!" There was something primal in Tails's eyes now.
Emerl's eyes lit up green for a moment.
"It's their fault that my mom and dad are...!"
The two plates under Emerl's eyes parted, revealing a mouth.
And Tails and Emerl let out a roar.
raw! raw! fight the power!
The trio of hostile Gizoids advanced towards Acorn Village, but it was clear that the first two arrivals were just flunkies, given that bullets actually seemed to leave dents in their armor, and were able to be deterred at least a little. The silver one was not even phased by the villagers' gunfire, and tore into the areas where bullets came from with its twin crimson blades.
"That one's tough..." Sonic noted, awe in his tone. He'd stopped smiling.
It's good to know he knows when things have gotten serious. "I've never seen that Gizoid before," Sally said.
Sonic smiled. "I like the face on that one. It looks pretty cool!"
Sally sighed inside.
The silver Gizoid had reached the valley leading up to the main entrance to Acorn Village. Elias and his corps opened fire from behind a rock that, from outside the valley, looked to be just a part of the valley wall. And then, just as the silver Gizoid turned to face them...
Come on, Bunnie! Sally thought. What's the hold-up?
Then the valley wall over the silver Gizoid exploded, burying it in rubble.
"What the...?" Sonic asked.
"Bunnie loaded up the valley cliffs with explosives," Sally said, a relieved smile on her face because she would not have to bury her brother today. "That worked beautifully!"
She gave a thumbs-up to the rabbit girl on top of the valley wall, who returned it with her cyborg left arm.
"What happened to her...?" Sonic asked.
"Gizoid attack; what else?" Sally replied, taking this opportunity to reload. "A Gizoid smashed the rock wall and the boulders crushed her legs and left arm. She had to have them replaced, because we don't have the proper equipment to-..."
A roar from the fallen rocks gave Sonic and Sally a start.
In a flash of red light, the silver Gizoid leapt out, slicing through the stones as though they were wet paper with now-glowing swords.
"That one's persistent!" Sally cried out.
"That's alright!" Sonic smirked, a determined glint visible behind his shades. "That thing's giving me the chills just looking at it!"
Then he said the eight words that firmly cemented Sonic in Sally's mind as being completely out of his.
"That settles it! I'm gonna steal that Gizoid!"
Sally prided herself on being rather intelligent. From that day to her dying moments, she wished she could have said something more intellectual than this:
"What did you say?"
Sonic kept on smirking.
"I said I'm gonna pilot that thing!" he reiterated. "Those Black Hands, or whatever they're called, pilot those things no problem, right? So, there's nothing to say that I can't, either!"
"I have no idea where you get your confidence from," Sally muttered to herself. "Can't you act like an adult in this situation?"
Sonic heard her. "I'm not an adult; I'm a man! And with men, all that matters is actions, not words!"
"Just because you seem to keep forgetting it, I'm a woman!" This man was so infuriating sometimes. Sally barely knew him a day and already he was making her think he wasn't there when the brains were handed out.
A yellow flash emerged from Acorn's hangar.
"Sonic!" came Tails's yell from Emerl.
"You showed up just in time, little bro!" Sonic leapt into the air, landing just behind Tails, on top of Emerl.
Elias watched as Sonic landed in Emerl, which then, after a minute or two, made a bee-line for the silver Gizoid.
"What's with that guy...?" he asked himself.
"Sonic, it was them!" Tails shouted over Emerl's footfalls. "The tremors they cause in their battles up here end up as earthquakes down below!"
"Oh, so that's-..." then Sonic realized what this meant to Tails. "Ohhh..."
"Those bastards murdered my mom and dad!" Tails yelled.
Sonic didn't like that scary look in Tails's eyes. It didn't suit him.
"Tails, I'm glad to see you worked up into a battle frenzy, but calm down," Sonic said, loosening his smile a little. Just a little. "In battle, it's good to get fired up, but you gotta keep cool up here," tapping his forehead.
Then he hitched his grin back.
"Listen up, Tails! I'm gonna help myself out to that shiny one over there."
This snapped Tails out of his berserker mindset, and brought him a few pegs further down to his normal behavior.
"I think I can take control of it by getting into the cockpit in its mouth."
"But how will you control it?"
"How did you know how to pilot Emerl?"
"It's just like..." Tails gripped the controls tighter. "...the knowledge came flowing into me when I grabbed the controls."
That easy, huh? Cool! "That's what I'll do, then! That means that fighting spirit is what's really important with the Gizoids!"
"I think there might be more to it than that..." Tails muttered.
"Whatever, just take us in!" shouted Sonic.
"That doesn't sound very cool-headed to me!" Tails shouted, but turned to the silver Gizoid anyway.
The frog Gizoid came from out of nowhere and swung its fist at them.
Emerl leapt up its arm and off of its head to try to reach the silver Gizoid.
The frog Gizoid spun around and swung its other fist at Emerl.
Under the circumstances of a fist large enough to crush him in its grip coming at him, Sonic figured it was excusable for a man like himself to scream.
Apparently, so did Tails as the canopy closed around them.
A blast of blue knocked the arm just a nudge further to the right, and it grazed Emerl's left side such that the small Gizoid began to spin rapidly.
Sonic and Tails screamed in dizziness and belated fright.
"Geez, why do I need to keep backing that guy up?" Sally asked as she drew the sniper rifle to point back at yesterday's Gizoid. Meanwhile, the frog Gizoid's fist accidentally sent the silver one falling backwards; the frog Gizoid's pilot growled hastily, "I-I'm sorry, sir!"
Emerl's canopy opened again, and Sonic leapt out onto the now-fallen silver Gizoid.
"You're mine!" he shouted as he landed on its face. "That body gives me the chills every time I look at it!"
Chuckling to himself, he pulled out the gun.
And began slamming it against the cockpit door.
Sonic kept slamming the gun against the cockpit door, woefully unaware of the fact that, typically, one did not hold a gun upside-down. Or pointing at oneself.
BANG!
The bullet shot between Sonic's legs with enough closeness to his manhood that he broke out into a sweat.
Did guns work like this?
"Wh-what the-...?"
The frog Gizoid was back. "Get off of Commander Nebgras's head, Möbian!" its pilot shouted from inside.
Emerl's fists stopped it.
"Tails! Good timing!" Sonic said.
"You won't lay a hand on my brother!" he shouted, and Emerl's crest sprouted a drill the size of Emerl itself that shattered the frog Gizoid's arm. The frog Gizoid, sensing its efforts to be futile, retreated to aid its other comrade. Emerl's drill turned to green light and dissipated.
Tails guided Emerl's hands to pry at the silver Gizoid's inner jaws.
"Just... give me a minute... Sonic!"
Eventually, Emerl had pried open the Gizoid's jaws, revealing a very shocked Black Arms inside. This one had black fur all over and red fur on its hands and feet. Its yellow eyes were wide with fear. Sonic pointed his pistol at the Black Arms - still holding it upside down, but at least not at himself.
"Get out," he smirked. "I'm taking over."
With a gun to his head, the Gizoid operator didn't need telling twice; he bounded out without a second thought. Sonic leapt in and took the controls even before the cockpit doors closed fully.
"Oh yeah!" he yelled triumphantly. "It's all about the fighting spirit!"
And then, Sonic realized something.
Apparently, red flashing lights meant that this Gizoid would not accept him as a pilot.
"They stole the Giznaur!" shouted the Gizoid from the day before. "And they killed Commander Nebgras!"
"Stinking Möbians!" said the now-one-armed frog Gizoid. "You'll pay for this!"
A small black-and-red shape was hopping up and down in fury.
"You fracking idiots!" Nebgras shouted. "I'm not dead yet!"
That's when the frog Gizoid, not noticing him, stepped on his foot.
"How dare you kill Commander Nebgras!" it said, kicking the immobile Giznaur.
"This is for the Commander!" shouted the other Gizoid, punching Giznaur.
"Sonic!" shouted Tails. But before he could go to help Sonic...
"I'm sending you to Hell, too, pipsqueak!" shouted the frog Gizoid, grabbing Emerl and tossing it at Giznaur.
Emerl bounced off and left an impact crater in the earth when it landed.
Giznaur landed, by bizarre coincidence, on top of the grave dug just the previous night.
Sally watched from her sniper position, stunned. Sonic had managed to steal that Gizoid, but couldn't get it to work for some reason. Now, with the silver Gizoid fallen, it was just a matter of time until its former pilot got it back... and Sonic would not likely survive that.
合体なんてクソくらえ!
"Damn it, Sonic..." Sonic muttered to himself. "What's slowing you down?"
He glowered at the computer screens that lined the walls of the cockpit. "Let's see some fighting spirit!"
He slammed his fist against the back of screens on his left.
The screens showed a skull.
Not just any skull.
The skull of the poor bastard's skeleton they found the previous night.
Sonic's heart caught in his chest; that skull's shape...
It was a hedgehog's skull!
So... someone like me died out here? he thought. His heart pounded in his ears as his own mortality flashed up on the screen in front of him.
No.
No. I won't let something like death slow me down. I won't let this happen to me! I'm not gonna die! I'm gonna LIVE!
The Gizoid's fist slammed down on the grave, and the red lights and alarms gave way to green lights, affirmative pings, and finally, finally, visuals of the battlefield.
"Don't fuck with me... you Gizoid bastards!" Sonic growled.
And Giznaur stood, under the command of the Freedom Fighters.
"WHO THE HELL DO YOU THINK I AM?"
俺を誰だと思ってやがるキック
Tails couldn't move Emerl. He was scared, and it wasn't moving for some reason. Now the two other Gizoids stood overhead, and he was almost certainly dead.
He passed out.
"It's all over for you, runt!" said the frog Gizoid, lifting its foot.
Then the air outside Acorn Village was rent with an echoing battle cry that struck everyone with such shock and awe that, against their greater instincts, turned to witness the attack.
"'WHO THE HELL DO YOU THINK I AM' KIII~ICK!"
The silver Gizoid let out a yell in Sonic's voice, slamming its feet into the frog Gizoid with such force that its legs collapsed into themselves.
Evidently undaunted, the silver Gizoid pulled back its green-glowing left fist to strike the frog Gizoid which had fallen backwards into its battle companion.
"'YOU WON'T LAY A FINGER ON MY LITTLE BROTHER' PUUU~UNCH!"
The fist hit so hard that the arm behind it shatrered and both the enemy Gizoids were sent flying into the valley wall, flying past several stunned Acorn villagers, disappearing into a cloud of dust.
Then the remnants of the silver Gizoid - its right arm its only intact appendage - knelt to face the immobile Emerl.
"Tails? Tails!" shouted Sonic's voice.
よくも俺の可愛い子分をパンチ
Tails opened his eyes slowly, and saw the silver Gizoid - the other two called it Giznaur - looming over him.
"S-Sonic?" he said groggily.
"Sorry about that, big guy," said Sonic's voice from Giznaur. "Got a bit held up back there." Giznaur picked up Emerl in its remaining hand. "Let's take 'em out together, Tails."
"Right!" smiled Tails.
Then Sonic clenched Giznaur's fist around Emerl.
"Wai- What?"
"You're gonna deliver the killing blow, Tails! Let's do it to it!"
Giznaur brought its fist back, like a pitcher at the plate.
"Take this! Finishing Move! Perfect Combustion of the Souls of Men! CANNONBALL ATTACK!"
And with that, Giznaur hurled Emerl at their still-recovering enemies.
Tears of fright poured down Tails's face.
"This is so messed up!" he yelled.
Even so, Emerl spun around, a drill encompassing the lower half of its body and pointing towards the enemy Gizoids.
The clouds of kicked-up dirt were split in a spiral and parted with Emerl's passing. Acorn's villagers covered their heads.
The frog Gizoid ducked Emerl; the other hopped it.
Emerl burrowed a tunnel into the wall.
"Ha!" shouted the Gizoid from yesterday.
"You missed!" the frog Gizoid added.
"Oh, did we?" smirked Sonic.
男の魂完全燃焼キャノンボールアタック
Inside Emerl, Tails gritted his teeth, "I guess I have to do it!"
Spinning Emerl around, Tails launched Emerl out of the wall he'd burrowed into in the first place, and before the enemy Gizoids could even realize that they had been suckered, they had been drilled straight through. All that remained after the ensuing double explosion were their arms and legs.
Giznaur caught Emerl in its hand.
"G-give me a break, Sonic," Tails murmured in the cockpit.
Kukku emerged and hugged Tails, the ball over his head turning into a heart. "Chao..."
Tails smiled.
raw! raw! fight the power!
Nebgras lay stunned on the ground.
"Th-th-they're all dead!" he stammered, before running away... as quickly as he could with one foot crushed into pulp.
He would have to find the base and tell the General of this development.
He was going to be furious.
raw! raw! fight the power!
"Wow..." said Elias.
Sally's jaw had dropped. Then she smiled. "That was actually pretty cool."
Rotor appeared at her side. "Oh, so he's your type, huh?" he said with a sly smile.
"What are you talking about?" she glared.
Rotor ignored this, and looked at Giznaur and Emerl with admiration. "Well, I gotta admit, this is pretty interesting. Hijacking a Gizoid isn't something that ever occured to us. These kids will make a good addition to our resistance."
raw! raw! fight the power!
That evening, the wounded patched up, the remains of the Gizoids gathered into the hangar, Sonic and Tails stood before their two Gizoids.
"I've decided," said Sonic, pushing up his shades. "I'm naming it Freedom."
Tails nodded, smiling. This was a scary day, but thanks to Sonic capturing that Gizoid, the day was theirs.
"Together, with me in my Freedom and you in your Emerl, Tails, there's nothing and nobody who can stand in our way!"
Sonic looked up at the emerging Moon, and Tails heard Sonic mutter under his breath four words:
"Wait for me, Dad..."
raw! raw! fight the power!
That night, Sonic had told Sally that the skeleton they'd buried nearly twenty-four hours before had been unearthed in his hijacking of Freedom. She was slightly irritated, but agreed to help him set things to right.
"Hey, pal. It's me again," Sonic said, standing over the hedgehog skeleton, a shovel over his shoulder. "Sorry to wake you from your eternal rest earlier today. I guess I got a little wild, but don't go holding it against me, okay?"
Moonlight glinted off of something on the skeleton's wrist.
Sonic's eyes were drawn to it.
A bracelet...
With a chain attached to it...
Leading to a small skull-pendant.
Sonic's heart stopped.
The shovel dropped.
"No way! It can't be!" Sonic swept the dirt away from the skeleton, pulling it out of the dirt. The feeling of touching a skeleton was atrocious, but... he had to know.
"It's impossible!"
It wasn't impossible, it turned out. Unearthed, Sonic saw, fastened around the hedgehog skeleton's thin neck, the tattered remnants of a red cape with a flaming-skull-with-pointed-shades sewn onto the back.
Sonic's eyes burned.
Images of an older blue hedgehog ruffling his hair, then disappearing into the sunset, appeared in his mind.
"Dad..."
Behind him, everyone's eyes widened in horror.
Tears streamed down Sonic's face.
"You bought it out here?"
He was a man. He wasn't supposed to cry. But... his dad... his dad was supposed to wait for him... to come to the surface... but now... but now...
"You didn't wait... You died too soon!"
He screamed to the heavens.
"DAAA~AD!"
つづく
To be continued...
次回予告
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This face of mine is the only advertisement I need! What the hell kinda person wants to pick a fight with someone as noble as me?
Next time on Tengen Toppa Freedom Emerl: "You're One Cocky Bastard, With Those Two Faces of Yours!"