Monkeyboyinc, I said 50K, not 100K. You made me spend thirty minutes just to check. And it's not even right. Close... but not right. At least this site's word counter and me adding up thirty five numbers think so.
In other news, I'm getting to the point where I'm having trouble being ahead again, on top of that, I'm not entirely sure how to approach the things I want to implement in the story with the things I have. I know where I'm going, I just don't know how to get there. It's like I have a motor boat, but instead of the motor in the back I have a motorcycle engine, an extension cord plugged into itself, a bladeless fan, and some plumbing pipes. This might take a while. In the meantime, try to enjoy the rather pointless chapter with a fitting name.
CHAPTER 38: PROCRASTINATION
Sonic shut the door behind him, and looked at his guests. They seemed as alienated as... well, a bunch of Medieval Knights watching modern television.
"Okay Kari, what do you got for us?" Grant Imahara said from the Mythbusters show playing on the TV. -Oh God, they've been watching MYTHBUSTERS this whole time! Fuck, even I'M still bamboozled after watching that.-
"I've got this historical myth, and I love this one." The lone woman on the show, Kari Byron said. "Now, in ancient times, even up to the 1800's, some armies in China actually made armor, out of paper."
Sonic blinked in awe as their faces refused to change. They were watching the TV with thousand yard stares. -... I'm not sure what to call this, but they've seem... broken, now. Like they don't care they're about fifteen hundred years into the future.-
"Paper armor? That is cool, I mean paper is the last thing you would think of to make armor, I like this one." Tori Belachi said.
"And the cool thing is, the paper armor was supposed to perform as well as steel."
"I bet this one is just a myth." Gawain broke the silence.
"I HOPE it's just a myth!" Lamorak groaned. "If all this time, we could make armor out of paper, and I HAD TO BE WEIGHED DOWN WITH STEEL, I'm going to go back and kill that blacksmith that made us our armor."
"Guys." Sonic said, making them aware of his presence.
"Oh, hello." Galahad said.
"... You didn't turn off the TV from shock, or anything?" Sonic asked, expecting them to be scattered across the room in separate corners asking themselves why everything they knew was wrong.
"No. We figured we might as well start learning about this strange new world." Bors answered.
"And isn't it strange? Christ." Lamorak added.
"Look, what you guys pretty much did, was went into the future about fifteen hundred years. Welcome to the twenty first century." Sonic explained. "Anyway, I got some answers from the lady who went all magic and stuff on the book. Now, to inform you of your job here in my world."
Sonic went up and turned the TV off to ensure their attention was on him. The Mythbusters show was a rerun of the episode, and he knew how it end. Lamorak would not be happy. He quickly made his way over to the computer, turning it on.
"You are now my little secret service. If I nor my friends can step up to a threat, you guys will come in and deal with the problem." Sonic said, spinning the swivel chair to face them. "Soon, you all will have new looks, new identities, and new lives. New personalities too, if you're dedicated enough. Let me get on with the biggest problem at the moment; getting you out of my apartment and outside without anyone noticing. I'm pretty sure I'll settle with putting you all in boxes, loading you onto a big truck and unloading you in Green Hill or some other place, where we'll begin making a hideout. But, I'm not entirely sure how to cover that up, though."
Sonic took a breath in. "So, instead of trying to ask you about how I should transport you out of my small apartment, I'll switch to a different topic."
Sonic swiveled the chair back around to see the computer fully operational. He opened up an internet browser and went straight to Youtube, and began typing in the search bar.
"Come. This is what two desperate men and a couple thousand dollars of funding can do in this world."
The knights soon huddled around the hedgehog in the chair, and they watched the moderately long intro play out. The background was cluttered with distorted words, and instruments none of the knights could make out. While the intro was playing, Sonic thought it would be good to explain a couple things that may bother them while watching.
"You won't be called out to deal with situations like this. These guys are armored. The things they're holding are like the Moist Nugget, except fire seven hundred rounds a minute. The police force standard issue weapons weren't enough to break their armor. And this happened."
They both sported masks, thick jackets, gloves, and plenty of pockets. They entered the building, seen walking toward a group of civilians on a line. They pointed his gun at the ceiling, and let loose.
"~It was a cool winter's morning, somewhere shortly past nine AM." A growling voice in the background narrated. "The armored car they wanted to heist wasn't coming, so instead they went for the bank.~"
The two masked robbers filled a bag with money and went out into the parking lot, shooting at dark-dressed men who looked more 'official', to speak, and civilians dressed casually. Despite their numbers, they seemed to be panicking.
~Baptized in a firefight,
Hot blood running cold as ice.
Forty-four minutes of target practice,
All hell's breaking loose
OUTGUNNED, watching the force
Come to a firefight
With a pocket knife.
Getting schooled
UNTIL they shot Achilles heel,
AND BROUGHT DOWN THE BEEEAST~
The music was not like anything they've heard before. That said they didn't necessarily like it, but the video they were seeing was atrocious. People of all kinds, excluding the robbers, receiving wounds, seemingly ineffective weapons which did nothing against the armored thieves, and all for what looked like a couple piles of money. Later on in the video, one of them got into a strange machine, which moved in front of his companion. He tossed the money in the back, and they drove their way out of there, slowly. One of them was walking, for some reason. Possibly to protect the car. He got into a short firefight, the car ultimately leaving him behind, and with some dust kicking up around him, fell to the ground almost comically. The other, further down the road, trying to switch to a different machine, saw another vehicle speeding down the road toward him. He ran over to behind his original machine for protection, and exchanged fire with those inside the vehicle. After a few seconds of tossing shots back and forth, one of those from the vehicle, who appeared much differently from those earlier in the video, shot at him from beneath the machines, knocking out his legs from underneath him. Soon, he lay there, with his back against the machine, dead.
"And that's the simple stuff G.U.N. deals with. That was just to get Gawain shaking in his shoes." Sonic said. "You will be facing much worse."
"How much worse?" Gawain asked, trying to sound like he was listening to Sonic explain a challenge.
Sonic moved his mouth to the top of the search bar and began to type:
"Space Colony ARK shoots the Moon"
Before he hit enter, he clicked the Youtube logo with his scroll wheel three times, opening three new tabs. He then typed in the new search bars:
"Black Arms Invasion footage"
"Chaos Incident"
"Interstellar Amusement Park Black Hole"
When the videos ended, Sonic turned around to see them all equally shocked and terrified at the amount of destruction they witnessed. Even Lamorak was surprised at how one would get a base up in the atmosphere, let alone how it was able to blow a good portion of the moon off. He was to busy reacting to the Eclipse Cannon to even comprehend what the Black Hole even did.
"Luckily, we were able to rebuild the surface of the Moon." Sonic said. "G.U.N. responds to these incidents, but me and my friends are the ones who get anything productive done."
Sonic paused, awaiting a response. There was none, as the knights began to disperse, to recollect their thoughts and their minds that were just blown just moments ago. "But, you guys won't be alone in this case. I plan on returning to the book, doing more runs, and recruiting more of you. It's essential that you create a decent functioning system to specifically identify yourselves before then so I don't have to ask "Which one of you did I meet first?" whenever I want to call out to a specific person."
"Indeed," Bors began, proceeding to shake his face like a wet dog, wiping the thought to the back of his mind. "We need color coated armor, perhaps. The group color being signified by the color of the decals."
Sonic nodded, thinking it is a good start. "You guys wouldn't have to do that, because you're the first of my knights. I'm going to plot how you get out of here."
About an hour passed. Sonic was still trying to find their way out. To think with all of the memorizing of all the weapons and designs he did before entering the book, he couldn't conduct a decent stealth plan to get them out unnoticed. -Perhaps through the book? They might fuck up though. Or worse, I could fuck up, getting sidetracked by someone or something and then suddenly BOOK RUPTURES OPEN, AND OUT COMES SIX MEDIEVAL KNIGHTS COMPLAINING ABOUT HOW THEY GOT STABBED IN THE DICK. I'd rather keep the box idea. Box 'em up, hire some trucker, load them in, ship them off, and drop them off, opening when he's away. I mean, works for snakes, why not?-
-... Okay, that's how I get them OUT, but I still need a decent false reason to. And what I do with them when I get there.-
It would have to take a few days. He wondered how complex or simple his cover-up would be, when the time came he found out about it. Probably very simple, unfortunately he's not that good at making stuff up. And, he was prone to a little malfunction in his head he has taken to calling "brain farts". Finding a decent and believable story to tell to an intrigued trucker suddenly pack things up from his crammed apartment to ship them off to someplace he didn't even know yet to do something with them would be hard to do. Some ambient tune began playing in his head as he realized how much perfection he needed to pull off. He quickly tried picking at some elements in the song, comparing to the thousands of songs he knew. Quickly, he found it. The song he had on his mind was Fitter Happier. His thought process then began bouncing back and forth between wanting to listen to the song or something else.
-~Fitter.
Happier.
More productive.
Comfortable~
STOP. I need to actually THINK about something that will help me. Radiohead is good, but not right now, god dammit.-
Sonic got up from his chair, and began to pace.
-~No paranoia.
Careful to all animals.
(never washing spiders down plughole)
Keep in contact with old friends.
(enjoy a drink now and then)~
Will you be quiet? I'm trying to think here.-
Garnering the attention of his new friends with his troubled and aimless walking, Sonic was getting more frustrated at the song stuck in his head, wondering why he thought of it.
-~Favors for favors.
Fond but not in~*THWACK*
SHUT UP OK COMPUTER WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU EVEN PLAYING THIS ISN'T EVEN FITTING BACKGROUND MUSIC GOD DAMN GO DICK A SUCK OF BAGS-
Sonic decided to play a video game, now ignoring the robotic voice and the piano tune in his head that persisted. He panned through his collection of game cases for his many consoles, searching for one that would get him immersed, and yet not further alienate his new friends who he had almost forgot were feet away from him. As he eyed the covers of his games, it came to him that he could enter any one of them, as if it were reality, and experience it first hand. It filled his mind with delight as he grabbed a copy of Mirror's Edge. He could see all the beauty of the stylistic city firsthand, and he could use his natural super speed. -That would be sweet.- Sonic looked at other games he had, namely Super Mario Galaxy, Rock Band 3, LittleBigPlanet, Kamatari Damacy -oh boy oh boy oh boy-, not to mention all of the games based off his adventures (every time he saves the world, he tells his personal reports of the action through his perspective to the world, although once in a while, SEGA was allowed to get creative license) with the same, great delight, anticipating all the things he would do, the experiments would conduct, the things he'll take out, and, oh, the fun he'll have with all these games he found so enjoyable. He smiled like a child on Christmas morning, flipping through game cases.
It was then he found the case of American McGee's Alice: Madness Returns.
His face froze in the delighted grin he had.
Sonic had played through the game only the first two chapters, which was a few hours into the game. It was not even a horror game, or even scary, and it had been enough for him to say that insanity is like a blender stuck somewhere inside his stomach. Always wrenching and tearing stuff up and it can't be stopped removed unless they want all of it coming out, and then they're on the floor, crawling around in their own twisted insides. And, to make it worse, it also seemed like a spreading disease. Anyone could get insane, if they interact with an insane person long enough. And in mental hospitals, anyone could feel it in the air. It could only get worse in there, he assumed. A melting pot of mental illness. But thankfully, the hero of the game, Alice, has already been through a mental hospital in the previous game, and in the reality of the game, currently resides in an orphanage.
It had dawned him that the possibility of him having to endure the game personally actually existed.
He was not in the mood for video games anymore.
The flimsy plastic case flew out the window at remarkable speed, over the noisy, busy streets of Station Square, smashing into the brick building opposite of his apartment building. The case bent to fill the gaps left by the cement in the brick wall, but due to a lack of support it fell off and landed on the street.
Sonic dusted his hands, turning his back from the window.
-If a nurse told me I would be going to a mental hospital, I would STAB the NURSE in the NECK with a NEEDLE. Then I'd probably hum 'Sanitarium' in a strait jacket for the rest of my life.-
"What was that for?" Percival asked, confused as to why he chucked the case so fast it she could hear the wind as it sped by it when it was across the street.
"Oh," Sonic said, trying to find an excuse out of explaining the plot of American McGee's Alice. "I just... didn't..."
To answer his prayers, Galahad's stomach growled.
"I'm hungry." The White Knight explained.
Sonic leaped to the opportunity. "Oh. Anyone else? I can get food here quick, give you a taste of your new world."
Gawain nodded. "Sure, that sandwich didn't fill me up at all."
"Why not?" Bors shrugged.
"I WILL NEVER UNDERSTAND HUNGER." The large knight stated.
Sonic smiled as he reached for the phone. This will take a few days, he knew, but he might like it that way. Hopefully he gets no unexpected visitors while his knights. He gets to spend some time with a lot of people he doesn't usually meet as often as he does Tails or Amy. -WEEK LONG MEDIEVAL SLUMBER PARTY! WOO WOO WOO WOO-
Just before he pressed the first number, however, the thought came to his mind that Caliburn suddenly went missing. And that he was placed in the Scabbard the last time he saw him. Sonic, now worried, had to ask. "Percival, what did you do with the Scabbard?"
Percival shrugged, her emotions neutral. "It was putting me in an off mood, much like it had done to yourself. So before I had an episode or some such reaction, I put it in the closet."
"And Caliburn?" Sonic inquired.
Percival slowly rose an eyebrow. "Where is he?"
"He was sheathed inside the Scabbard." Sonic said.
"... Oh."
It was then they heard the almost comical growling from the closet.
So yeah there's my shitty excuse for a chapter. Sorry, but this is coming to the end sooner or later, and like I said, I got the boat, I know where to go, but I can't figure out how to get there with what I have. It might take a little longer than a week to get this next one out. Again, sorry, but I never really thought of HOW the story would get to its end. I know what it will be like, but just I'M NOT THERE YET.