A/N: I don't have much to say, except this prompt is an alternate ending to my oneshot Proving Innocence!
Without further ado, let's move on to the reviews and what matters most: the prompt!
4 Reviews
Guest
Step 5: Repeat for each day of Whumptober (not that I'm complaining!)
thor94
I have yet to have Shadow appear so far, but I wouldn't rule it out just yet!
CreativeKitty975 (Day 1)
Even though it didn't have dialogue, it didn't need any to convey exactly what Chris was going through aboard the ARK. I can't imagine what it's like to be in his shoes either.
CreativeKitty975
Absolutely! There's always a catch when it comes to Eggmanland!
Day Three: Set Up For Failure
Prompts: Wrongfully Arrested + "I warned you"
There was a sudden spray of bullets from the helicopters hovering next to the mountain, and the bullets riddled the ground, rocks, and trees between me and my friends. Chris didn't realize how much danger he was in right now, since he was standing only ten feet away from the rest of his friends. Tails, Amy, and Chris yelped in fright, and Chris was most scared out of all of them, because he found himself starting to sprint back down the hill, the direction he had come from.
"Chris! Stop!" Sonic called from behind me. "You're the one they want!"
But he was too afraid to listen, as total fear was taking control of his mind. The only thing he could think of was to get away from the bullets and run away from everything.
Running away from everything was the only thing that he had been doing for the past four days. He had been exposed by GUN for hacking into Area 99, even though he profusely claimed to have done nothing of the sort. When the GUN soldiers raided his home, Sonic helped him to escape, and he was quickly joined by Tails and Amy.
He had missed a few days of school, and he didn't want to imagine what Danny, Frances, and Helen would think that their own beloved classmate possibly hacked into a top-secret government facility.
They had since been joined by Knuckles, and now the five of them were hiking deep into the Rocky Mountains in Colorado. They were at a lower altitude, which meant they fortunately weren't dealing with snow, but it was still chilly. They knew sooner or later that they had to make a last stand against GUN.
As Chris ran away, he wanted nothing more than to not be captured again. He was still on the mend from when Eggman held him in a prison cell a week ago. He hated confinement so much. And now the threat of confinement was hanging over his head once again.
He finally reached the bottom of the hill, and he happened to see something yellow lying in the underbrush just ahead of me. Distracted, he ran over to it, and he was delighted to see that it was Tails' laptop! He had accidentally dropped it on the way up the hill, and didn't realize it until moments ago. When Chris inspected it, he saw that there was no damage to it, since it landed in the soft bushes and grass.
But when he looked up, he suddenly realized that he was in the direct line of sight of both helicopters. He had completely exposed himself to GUN, and he was sure they took it as a sign that he was going to surrender, because the pilot said into his bullhorn:
"Christopher Thorndyke, come down from the mountain and put your hands up where I can see them!"
He wasn't going to do that for anything, especially since four of his closest friends were right there. However, he stood there rooted to the spot in fear. If he ran, the choppers would surely shoot at him.
However, he didn't have much of a choice, because in that moment, he felt a pair of arms holding him against a furry chest and running back up the mountain.
"Surrender immediately or we will deploy probes and ground troops!"
"We already got enough company up here!" Sonic sassed as he ran. The GUN pilots seemed to detect his resistance, because they immediately opened fire on Sonic, forcing him to dodge and weave his way up the mountain.
"You gotta be more careful, Chris," Sonic told him as he set him down.
"S-Sorry…" Chris apologized, looking down at the ground. "I was just… r-really scared... And I also wanted to get the laptop."
"Wait, Chris, you found my laptop?" Tails exclaimed. He immediately brightened up when he saw his beloved yellow laptop in my hands. I managed to crack a smile as I handed it to him.
"Thank you, Chris!" he smiled before giving me a quick fluffy hug.
"Y'know, I could have gotten it for you," Sonic volunteered, "but it is what it is, I guess."
"Well, now that I have it back, I kinda wanna try something," said Tails. "I know it's pretty risky, but I still wanna do it."
Sonic looked interested. "What do you have in mind, buddy?"
But as Tails was relaying his plan to Sonic, Chris was distracted by another sound in the distance. The engine sounds were changing, and in addition to the pair of rotors beating the air, he could now hear dozens of tiny jets, and they were all getting closer to his location.
"Guys…" Chris whimpered, looking up at the sky.
"What is that…?" Amy asked nervously.
Now everyone could hear the engines. And within seconds, the five friends could see dozens, perhaps hundreds of robots flying over the trees. They stood their ground, making sure Chris was safely behind them… except the robots were landing behind them, as well as in front of them and all around them. There were Laser Hunters, Hot Shots, Flying Dogs, and Beetles everywhere. And on top of it all, they could hear the helicopters starting to get closer.
"You guys aren't making this easy for us, huh?" Sonic said, balling his hands into fists. "If you didn't want us hiking, you could have said so!"
Amy pulled out her hammer, and Tails and Knuckles got ready to fight too. As fists, feet, and Amy's hammer smashed against the robots that were arriving en masse, Chris couldn't help but feel trapped. Not only were all the clangs and explosions causing a sensory overload for him, but he never liked being in the middle of a huge battle like this. It made him want to run away again.
However, Tails called out to the group from the air above him:
"They're coming! They're sending a whole bunch of soldiers this way!"
Sonic gritted his teeth, but he didn't have time to react when more bullets rang out from the path below them. The soldiers were coming fast, and Knuckles turned and ran straight toward them, but one of the bullets struck him in the side. It was evident that they were tranquilizer bullets, because Knuckles fell over, his senses dulled and his consciousness dropping out.
"Knuckles!" Chris and Tails exclaimed at the same time.
"All of you, surrender immediately!" came a voice that Sonic knew all too well. "You, drop your hammer!"
"Captain Westwood…" Sonic said between gritted teeth.
"Make me," Amy challenged, gripping the handle of her weapon tighter.
"All right, I'll add resisting arrest to your charges…" Westwood said, before glaring daggers at Sonic and Chris. "Troops, you may fire when ready. Shoot to stun, but leave Chris for me."
Chris was rooted to the spot in horror as the dozen troops advanced forward, guns trained on his friends.
"Don't shoot!" he shouted to no avail.
Sonic was the first to run forward, and he kicked the gun out of one of the soldier's hands and punched another to the ground, but he was quickly stunned by a third and fourth. Several of the remaining soldiers stunned Amy and Tails seconds later as they too ran forward to attack.
Chris staggered backwards. His chest felt heavy and full of dread. All four of his friends were unconscious, and there was no one to stop him from getting arrested.
Chris looked like he was about to try and run, but before he could, Westwood grabbed his wrist and snapped handcuffs on him.
"You, Christopher Thorndyke, are under arrest for hacking into classified intel, gaining unaothorized access to said intel, and resisting arrest. As for your accomplices…" He nudged Sonic with his boot. "We'll take them with us on a different chopper. We don't tolerate people who aid others in crime, even if it's for a good cause."
"But… I-I didn't do it, honest!" Chris protested as he was guided down the mountain, away from his friends. "You gotta believe me, please!"
"What kind of fool do you take me to be?" Westwood told him. "The evidence doesn't lie. That was clearly you sitting at your desk hacking into Area 99. Who else matches the DNA tests we did at your house?" He spat on the ground in disdain. "Look, I don't care if you're 12. I don't care if you're still in middle school or surfing TikTok or whatever. Crime is crime."
Chris felt his whole world falling out from under him as the helicopter got closer and closer. He hesitated for a moment, hoping for a second that Sonic or anyone else would come to his rescue at the last possible motion.
"I… I-I have to go in there?"
"Yes, what part of 'you're under arrest' don't you get? Look, I warned you this would happen. You play stupid games, you win stupid prizes. Simple. Now move."
He was practically pushed into the helicopter, and Westwood stepped in after him. The door sealed, the chopper moved away from the mountain.
Unbeknownst to Westwood, Sonic's eyes were slowly opening, and he caught sight of the chopper that was slowly making its departure…
A/N: That concludes day 3! When I saw "Wrongfully arrested", I knew right away what I wanted to write! I also managed to pair it with "I warned you" at the end. The title prompt "Set Up For Failure" was a bit tricky, and "Fingerprints" implied that I could use the Chaotix, who I'm not that good at writing, although I do want to have them appear eventually.
Tomorrow's theme is "Hallucinations!"
