CHAPTER 22: IN YOUR DREAMS
Sonic stood on the forward bow of the Ocean Tornado, smiling like a pirate with his foot on the bowsprit. He had gotten into the pirate look, with a bandanna and ponytail. -Looks good, actually.- After the fairly recent discovery of a third dimension, Sonic organized a pioneering party to explore this new world. They weren't the first civilized beings in the world; there were many people, although they were spread apart vast and far, and built everything they had from scratch. They manage to fair against the monsters that come from nowhere at night.
It was sunset when they saw a huge tower made of stone in the distance. Interested, he brought it to Tails' attention. Tails was wearing goggles, and shared the same attire as his Arthurian Tale counterpart.
"Tails, please tell me you see the tower." Sonic ordered.
"Who couldn't?" Tails replied.
"Do you think it's set up by water?"
"Most of the people that live here do, if they are not living on a castle on the side of an overhanging cliff."
"Alrighty then, set sail for there."
Tails turned away from Sonic, and began to shout orders. "ALRIGHT EVERYBODY, WE'RE GOING TO THAT TOWER OVER THERE, Marine, turn the ship left..."
In a minute or two, as the large battleship began to turn into the bay the tower was located by, the ships horn blew, attracting the attention of any settler there.
There seemed to be, not a hut, or just the tower, but a small recreational area, by the looks of it. Sonic took out a telescope to examine it further.
On a pier that stretched into the bay, there were beds placed across it military cot style. Next to those was a shack with its back to the water, with a person fishing from it. There was a man climbing up a ladder on the very tall but thin tower, with a bow and arrow on his back, and several people were surrounding a large square hole in the beach, tossing things into it. As the horn blew, they slowed down whatever they were doing to look to the cause. Most waved back, and went back to what they were doing.
"Hey! It's an actual town or somethin'!" Sonic announced to the ship. A small round of cheers came from those on board, before they docked, and walked onto the pier.
A man walked up to them, his arms in the air.
"Welcome to our wonderful settlement! Here, simply put, we just don't care." The smiling local greeted. -Awesome.- "What brings you to our humble community?"
Sonic a lot of talking in the background, probably about him but disregarded it. "Well, we saw the tower, and we thought someone was living here."
"Oh, An Hero Point? Yes, it has quite a history with this settlement." The greeter began, crossing his arms. "You see, one of the less favored characters who traveled with us, did not understand the fact that our manners tend to get forgotten sometimes, although we are all friends here. So, he built a pillar, from the ground up, from on top of it, as he went."
"Because we believe in survival of the fittest and respect, if he was so willing to take his life from himself in order to avoid us, we took it as an insult. Since we couldn't do anything to stop or harm him at the point where we all figured out what he was doing, a chant began. They chanted 'do it, faggot', over and over again. When the pillar reached above the clouds, he jumped. As we were digging his grave at the spot he landed on, we struck coal. And then we fell into a small cave, where we found more coal, iron, and even gold!"
"The spot where he fell led us into our next mine. Instead of burying him where he fell, we began excavating the area. Some of us pointed out how he helped us in his death. Most of those people were drunk at the time. Instead of being grammatically correct, they all referred to him as 'an hero'. This joke caught on pretty fast, and eventually, we built a ladder reaching the top of the pillar, and built a platform there, with two diving boards: One into the ocean, for fun, and the other into the mine, in honor of what he led us to with his death."
"Cool story bro." Sonic commented.
"Oh well that's delightful." Knuckles remarked.
The man laughed. "Yes yes, indeed, right? Despite our somewhat barbaric and seemingly hateful ways of expressing our feelings, we don't really hate each other. We-"
"Who's the blue rat?" A brown bear who ran the fishery asked, peeking out from the corner of the shack.
Another man wearing dark green robes was limping to the store shouted at the bear. He was covered in soot. "Shut the fuck up and get fishing, you pedophile. A creep got me recently, and I swear if I fall three more feet, I'm DEAD. I need FOOD."
With a glare, the bear slowly moved behind the corner of the building. The man chuckled.
"We're just impolite, is all."
Sonic, followed by Tails, Knuckles, began walking over to the hole. There was a sign on the side of An Hero point. It read "An Hero Point. Do it faggot." People in the outdoor barracks looked at him as he passed.
"If I were you, I would not park the boat there..." A shirtless bald man said, trying to sound concerned, but Sonic could tell he was holding back a laugh.
"Why's that?"
"... do it faggot, do it faggot, do it faggot, DO IT FAGGOT!"
"Take a look at what we're mining with," the man replied before sinking his head into his hands, stretching his face to wipe off the silly look he had.
Sonic began to jog over to the edge of the perfectly square hole down. When he finally got to the edge, he let out a curse in surprise.
At ten feet down, there was TNT. TNT all across the ground of the pit, and Sonic was sure it went down to at least thirty more feet. He looked up to An Hero Point, where the chant was being shot at, and saw the man he saw climbing the tower earlier with the bow and arrow.
"Just what the fuck is he doing?" Sonic asked aloud, hoping the crowd would answer.
One of them did. "This guy made some device that allows us to respawn, and he's testing it, and if it doesn't work, we at least have something to remember him by. DO IT FAGGOT..."
Sonic's jaw was dropped down, as he looked back at the pit, which had to be half a kiloton, and back up to the suicidal man. He had no trouble jumping off, and was readying his bow.
"GET BACK GET BACK GET BACK!" Sonic shouted, backpedaling and throwing his friends away from the pit.
As Sonic was creating a scene with his friends, several people looked back at him, some laughing.
"GET OUTTA THERE IT'S GONNA BLO-"
"GAAAGHHHFUCK!" One of the watchers screamed in pain. Sonic turned to see the cause, and saw an arrow sticking out of his chest, the shaft standing out vertically. -Did he just...-
A strange sound silenced the crowd.
The falling man hit the ground, and let out a disgusting sound upon landing. It was mixed with a thud, when his flesh hit the ground, cracking, as his bones had broken, and a splat, as the landing was so harsh, the bits of broken bones tore the muscle and skin, allowing blood to fly high. -~Gooory, gory, what a hell of a way to die...~- Except for the arrowed man screaming in pain, they all remained silent. But not for the pathetic heap of matter that was once a man. They all turned their heads, and Sonic turned his as well.
A tall, green abomination began walking with its four legs across the platform of TNT crates that were nailed together, to the man who had fell. He barely looked like a man, now, his intestines were coming out, his humerus can be found beside his head, his left leg looked like a musical note on paper, all while sitting in the welter of his gore.
As the green abomination reached the man, it sat down, and looked at him. He noticed that his eyes still worked, and were looking around. The creature had a frown that stretched across his face. It looked sorry for the man. With an intake that would remind one of a hospital vegetable, the thing spoke.
"KTSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS-"
It exploded, igniting the TNT, sending several boxes flying into the air, killing several settlers, and shaking the ground severely. There was so much going on, so much damage being inflicted on their heads, they could only get pictures of what was happening. Pictures of destruction, once every second.
Twenty seconds after the chaos had ended, Sonic picked himself up. Smoke filled the area, and people were in the water.
"FUCK!" The bear from the fishery shouted, swinging his door open. "I MISSED THAT?"
Sonic checked his friends, and responded to the bear. "I don't know what happened, but whatever it was, you missed it." Tails had fainted, but Knuckles was just shocked. In the background, he could hear Qom Nasheed playing in the background, but not sure from where.
"SONIC!" A shrill cry came from beyond the smoke.
As Sonic guessed who it was, Amy came up and hugged the poor hedgehog.
"Oh Sonic, I was so worried you were hurt! An-"
"Ames," Sonic cut off. "I'm alright. And I'm glad you care and all, but can you give me a moment to marvel at how I'm still alive? Give me space to breathe?"
Knuckles rolled onto his back, gasping. "He's got a point."
She let go of her love and walked over to the pillar, still worried.
Sonic slowly stood up, and stretched his back. He walked over to the side of the now enormous crater, looking at the hole through the slowly clearing smoke.
"WOO!" Sonic cheered. "I SURVIVED THAT! ANYONE ELSE?"
"I was blown into the water, but I'm okay..." One replied, splashing in the shallow waters.
"I'm not so fine, but-FUCK MY PYRAMID!" A second answered.
A third shouted from the epicenter of the blast. "I'm not sure how I survived that... I was underground, too, I dug into some rocks after you guys ABANDONED ME BEHIND TNT AN-"
"Embrace the suck, Sweets. Embrace the suck." A fourth shushed his friend.
Shadow commented on the joking survivors. "I love how you guys are saying it's a matter of who's left alive, not who's dead..."
"LOOK AT THAT, LOOK AT THAT, YOU CAN SEE STRAIGHT INTO BEDROCK, RIGHT THERE." A survivor on the edge of the blast site spoke quickly, followed by reactions of others by him.
Everyone was off the ship by now, and was surrounding Sonic and his friends. The smoke was lifting, and the observant survivor that spotted bedrock began pointing out other things.
"And look, you can see shreds of peoples' clothes all over the place, you got a fuckton of coal right there, some steel there, some nice gold and red shit there, and... holy shit... DIAMONDS!"
"DIAMONDS?" Asked those around the blast.
"DIAMONDS?" The bear, the robed man, and the man who greeted the heroes said in unison.
"A CELEBRATION I SAY!" The greeter shouted from behind Sonic. He suddenly sounded so familiar, and when he turned around, he noticed it. Blue hair, yellow shirt, overalls, and an floppy shoes. Sonic was convinced that it was an older version of Rolf from Ed, Edd, 'n' Eddy. With a gasp of delight, Sonic threw his arms into the air.
As the celebrations began, the survivors began tossing torches into and around the hole. One man went into the forest, armed with nothing but flint and steel. Others began setting up games. The bear began serving all the fish he had caught. The sound of eerie death was replaced with the ambient sounds of chattering people, laughs, and an instrument here and there.
Sonic was slowly walking around the pit. In the blast site, many joyful miners gathered the resources that they had mined very carelessly, with great joy. On the shore, there gathered people around a camp fire. One of them, a person wearing a gas mask, sweat shirt and snow pants, was playing a simple guitar tune.
"~What a beautiful face I have found in this place that is cirrclliing allll aaround the suun...~" The man next to the guitarist sang to the tune.
"Fucking hipster." One of those around the campfire whispered to another, who began chuckling.
Sonic noticed a flash from behind him, and turned to see Amy, taking a picture of the ludicrously large hole in the ground. Sonic walked up to her.
"Hey Amy, can I have the camera? I want to take some shots."
Amy turned, and smiled. "Sure."
Sonic took the camera she held out and began dashed off, ready to take pictures of funny moments.
Sonic had organized a race, where contestants had to dig through sand, dirt, and eventually rock, to reach the prize room, all with glass walls so people could see how they were doing. As the leader of the race, Knuckles, reached the halfway point, someone tore out a layer of stone from everyone's pile of earth and placed TNT in its place. Sonic took a snapshot of Knuckles' race progress, just before he was about to reach the TNT. -Owned.-
Explosions shook the ground as Sonic walked over to the ship, and Tails and Marine was giving some curious locals a class on how to make boats as big and strong as theirs. Sonic snapped a picture of the stupefied miners as they realized they could make a boat out of four materials, and not a large amount of wood like they thought they needed. -I'm not taking pictures because they're stupid. Hell, Tails might as well said "IT'S FUCKING MAGIC, I AIN'T GOTTA EXPLAIN THIS SHIT". I'm taking pictures because they make funny faces.-
After the shooting of said funny faces, Sonic walked along the side of the hole, he glanced around toward the ocean. It was nice out tonight, the moon was reflected along the water, the festivities by the hole in the ground was surreal, and it all fit into place.
Sonic sighed. "Man, this place can't get any better."
Sonic turned to see that the whole forest was set on fire. His jaw dropped in shock by the fact that hardly anyone noticed or cared. Out of the forest came a man wearing a rubber suit and a gas mask, with an axe. He stood on the ledge of the steep hill that led to the forest, back to the fire, and whipped his axe around. He began strumming it like a guitar, trying to make guitar noises through the sound-muffling gas mask. Sonic snatched a picture of that, too.
"Cunt." Knuckles groaned at Sonic as he passed by, half of his body covered in bandages.
"What did I do?" Sonic shouted back.
"Nothing, that's what you did. You just took pictures while I was about an inch away from getting blown to bits." Knuckles spat back.
"Oh well EXCUUUUSE ME, I'm not the one challenging people to races because I know I-"
WHACK