Chapter 49: A Hunt for the Dead:
A week had passed since last chapter. In the alleys of City Escape, there was a trap door in the side of one of the buildings. This building was abandoned, but it was clear that somebody was inside there. And these unknown beings turned out to be Orbot, Cubot, Tribot and Hexbot, who had been hiding out here since arriving in the city. Inside the room (which happened to be where Eggman Nega had built his final contraptions), Orbot was seen repairing the voice chip of an unconscious Cubot while Tribot was casually standing against the wall and not paying attention.
Soon, the almost complete silence of the room was interrupted as the trap door opened. In stepped who appeared to be a diminutive man in a business suit with bushy facial hair and a bowler hat. Orbot (having just finished fixing Cubot as this happened) immediately grabbed a large faucet wrench and held it up like a baseball bat. However, the supposed man ripped off his disguise and turned out to only be Hexbot, having arrived back after an outing.
"Oh, it's just you." Orbot said, giving a sigh of relief as he lowered the wrench.
"Anything new?" Cubot asked, his consciousness restored and his voice back to normal.
"As a matter of fact, yes." Hexbot replied, "I've been scouting around town in disguise, gathering information on the two doctors. Turns out that Eggman was declared dead and buried almost two years ago, and Eggman Nega was last seen flying out to the west of this city. Not only that, but he was reportedly being followed by a group of talking animals, including our nemesis Blaze the Cat. And according to the townspeople, he never came back."
There was complete silence for a few seconds.
"...But on another note, I managed to swipe us a few drinks." Hexbot finished, pulling several cans of oil, lubricant, and gasoline out of the pockets of the sports coat he had been wearing as a disguise.
"I dunno about you guys, but I call dibs on the premium!" Cubot said, greedily snatching the only can of that type of gas from the pile and failing to acknowledge what had just been said.
"It can't be!" Orbot moaned, grabbing a can of 89-octane gasoline.
"Well regardless, we'll be able to save them both." Hexbot replied.
"That's great, but we seriously need to stop wasting our time hanging around here. If we know what to do, then why wait?" Tribot asked impatiently.
"Well luckily for us, I've finally gathered all the information we need, so we can start our search whenever we want. But we'll have to be careful. If anyone sees a group of robots hanging around like this, they'll call that hedgehog you've warned us about and we'll be goners in one swift blow." Hexbot explained.
"Then I guess night traveling will be the better option?" Orbot suggested.
"Seems like it, but no matter the time of day, it'll take forever to get to them on foot. ...How about this? After lunch, we'll work on fixing up this vehicle over here." Hexbot explained, pointing to an old, wheel-less, junked car that was sitting next to the wall on the far end of the room.
"Agreed." Cubot replied, his words drowned in gasoline.
My name is Miles Prower! But everyone calls me Tails!
As for me, I haven't had to put up with much since the last time
we got some action around here! All I had to do was repair the
propeller on the Tornado and scrub some of that sticky goop
off its tires! However, it seems Sonic hasn't gotten off too easily!
He's depressed beyond belief, he's overweight, and he apparently
can't feel pleasure anymore! Being the youngest guy in this house, I
WOULD say that I don't know what it feels like, but given that night I
spent with Cream, I have to say I'd hate to be in his shoes! I mean, not
being able to enjoy one of the biggest parts of society?! That shit's fucked
up! Anyway, I really hope he gets over this soon! Maybe losing the last of
his weight will cure him?
Back at the house, the sun was in its early stages of setting. And Sonic, still depressed over his current health issues was holding a can of beer as he lamented to Tails and Knuckles in the living room. Each of them was sitting on the sofa with the TV turned off.
"I'm telling you guys! Life doesn't get any worse than this! I'm still overweight by ten pounds, and trying to lose them is such a pain in the ass, I have back pain, I can't pleasure my wife..." He said, only to be cut off by Knuckles.
"SHUT THE FUCK UP!" Knuckles yelled in irritation.
"Hey Knuckles! How many times do I have to tell you? Stop interrupting my drunk rants which I've been doing everyday for the past week and a half!" Sonic replied, his speech slightly slurred due to the effects of the alcohol.
He took another sip.
"Now as I was saying..." Sonic started again.
"Let's go." Tails suggested with an eye-roll, before he and Knuckles left the room.
"Fine! Be that way! See what I care!" Sonic yelled after them as they shut the living room door.
With no one else to talk to, Sonic eventually got bored and after finishing the last few drops of his beer, fell asleep. When he eventually woke back up, the effects of the alcohol had worn off completely, and it was dinnertime, as he could tell from the pungent smells coming from the hallway.
Upon reaching the kitchen, Sonic saw the table crammed with plates of cornbread, fried jalapeños and green tomatoes, and a large, steaming slow-cooker full of crawfish etoufee. Everyone was sitting around it, waiting for him so they could eat. The trouble began as soon as he sat down. With a slight grin on his face, Silver gently placed a Cialis tablet on Sonic's napkin.
"The hell is that?" Sonic asked, not making eye contact.
"Oh, nothing really. You've been pretty down in the dumps lately, so this is a way to...ahem...perk you up." Silver explained, followed by a brief and quiet snort as he tried to hold back a laugh.
"Well, thank you Silver, but...wait! That's for erectile dysfunction! Are you trying to tell me something?!" Sonic replied.
Soon, various other members of the household started to get the giggles.
"Just what is so goddamn funny?!" Sonic demanded.
Immediately, everyone cracked up, including Tails, Knuckles and Amy, who had been showing sympathy for Sonic up until now. Even Sonic Jr. was laughing, (though this was because he was at the development stage where he would repeat what older people say).
"Hahaha, you can't get a boner! You're an insult to men everywhere!" Shadow teased, jokingly punching Sonic in the arm.
"Hey! Since you have an incompetent thing now, here's a new one!" Knuckles teased, picking a large chunk of andouille sausage out of the etoufee and tossing it at Sonic, who caught it, only to start fumbling with it upon realizing how hot it was, as red stains started to spread all over his gloves.
He ended up stuffing it into his mouth, but then both the temperature and the spiciness started to get to him. Sweat and tears began to profusely leak from his face as his muzzle turned bright red and the whites of his eyes turned pink, with his irises being replaced with circular thermometers. Letting out a high-pitched closed-mouthed scream, he dashed out of the room, now at the speed he had not been capable of running at for a long time, though he did not notice. Nobody tried to chase after him, but they all continued to laugh.
"Hahaha! What a chump!" Blaze jeered.
"Heh, I'm just surprised that Sonic knew the real purpose of that tablet! Turns out that the medical industry's been giving those out as anti-depressants for years! I wonder when they'll finally get the news." Tails replied.
{A cutaway began, showing Zor from the Deadly Six slouching in a chair. He was sitting at a table with a pill bottle full of Cialis and a glass of orange juice on top of it. "Those quacks!" He whined, "This isn't making me happy! It's just making everything harder and harder!"}
"Hey, hey, hey! What did we say about making that kind of reference?!" Rouge asked, "It was clearly established that we're not in the same timeline as that, and discussing it could lead to disaster!"
Meanwhile, Sonic, without even bothering to look behind him, darted out into the now dark backyard and bolted for the birdbath. Having swallowed the spicy morsel of food that had been thrown at him, he dunked his head into the water, which almost instantly took effect. After a sigh of relief, Sonic climbed into the nearby tree, and sat on a thick branch, embarrassed and ashamed of his erectile dysfunction, and the fact that even his best friends were making fun of him.
"How could they do this to me? This is worse than all those Pizza Hut jokes that all the fans make about me!" Sonic groaned.
Too tired and depressed to consider anything else, Sonic went to sleep, and did not reenter the house for several days.
Back in the alleys of City Escape, the four robotic henchmen were busy reconstructing the car that they had found in their hideout. While Tribot and Cubot were doing the dirty work (such as reconnecting wires, tightening bolts, and repairing the engine and transmission), Orbot and Hexbot were doing the more mundane jobs (such as waxing the hood and scrubbing the seats).
Within the next hour or so, the four attempted to lift the car out of the trap door, but to no avail. While everyone else pondered over how to get the car onto the road, Cubot started to move around the edges of the room, callously fiddling with things and rummaging through drawers. By complete luck, he flipped a switch that opened a garage door, plenty large enough to fit the car through.
"Well whaddaya know?" Tribot asked in awe.
"Oh, it was nothing." Cubot replied sheepishly.
The four got into the car and pulled out onto the now deserted streets as the midnight moon shone down on the whole area. Now that the car that they were using had been fixed and cleaned, the four robots could now tell what it was. The car turned out to be a bright red 1961 Chrysler 300G with white horizontal stripes along the sides and vertical ones on the back end and down the hood, with each stripe being outlined in black on top and silver on the bottom. The five seats were covered in very shiny leather, and were white with red headrests, and the steering wheel had a cover on it that was made from a deflated American football. The car itself was complete with whitewall tires as well as large shiny hubcaps with black, white and silver rings on them that obscured the bolts in the wheels.
"Alright, so according to my data, Eggman's grave is in Station Square Cemetary on the outskirts of town." Hexbot explained, looking through a stack of papers that contained all the information he had previously gathered, "And I've got a GPS here, so we're good to go."
"I sure hope we packed the oil cans!" Cubot said.
"Don't worry, we didn't forget a thing." Hexbot reassured him.
"I think we all know what this calls for!" Tribot said, reaching forward from the backseat and pressing a button on the control pad, which turned on the stereo.
Soon the group of robots drove off in their sweet new ride, blasting the theme music from Terminal Velocity Act 1 on the radio as they began their mission.