Hunting With My Brother
A Metroid/Sonic The Hedgehog Crossover Fan Fiction
by Derald Snyder
Chapter 3: Bailed Out, Hushed Up
Police Station, Interrogation Room
"...so let me get this straight," the interrogating officer began, Daniel sitting across the table from him, stripped of his armor suit with a pair of handcuffs on his wrists. "You're saying you and your brother are bounty hunters hired by GUN to track down a thief and retrieve the gem he stole from them, only for that egg-shaped robot to kill the thief and take the gem for itself, only for your ship to shoot it down; then the two of you destroy the robot and find the gem, only for some stranger to attack and steal the gem for himself?!"
"That's about the gist of it, sir," Danny nodded. "Don't ask me why everyone and their mother wanted that gem so bad; the major said it was classified."
"Really," the officer said with a look of disbelief. "And how do we know you didn't send that robot to kill the Black Phantom and then destroyed it to make yourselves look like heroes?"
"With all due respect, why would we do something crazy like that, sir?!" Danny protested.
"You were crazy enough to make a robot crash in a civilian-populated area!"
"At nighttime, when not as many people are out and about!" Danny shot back. "My brother already yelled at me for that anyway! And if it wasn't for Major Torres wanting that gem back, I probably would've let the robot go!"
"And why would an army major want a precious gem do badly? To make a ring for his wife?!"
"I don't know! I told you, he wouldn't tell us why!" Danny reiterated in frustration.
"Isn't that convenient," the officer snorted. "Especially when there's no proof this special gem exists to begin with-!"
At that moment, the speaker came on. "Excuse me, officer, Major Forte Torres is here, and he corroborates the suspect's account..."
"About time he showed up," Daniel grunted in relief.
"Well, I guess it's your lucky day, isn't it," the officer said as he stood up, pulling Danny to his feet and escorting him out...
A few minutes later...
"I really appreciate your coming to bail us out, sir," Danny said as he got his armor suit back on, Donald sitting nearby with a cold compress on his head.
"Well, you mind telling me what the hell happened out there?!" Major Torres demanded. "I hired you to catch a thief, not fight killer robots in civilian neighborhoods!"
"That killer robot killed our quarry before we could capture him!" Daniel shot back. "And then tried to make off with that purple gem you wanted so badly!"
"And we would've gotten it back to you if we hadn't been ambushed," Donald added.
"Ambushed by who?" Torres asked curiously.
"I didn't get a good look, but he sounded like a male," Daniel began, "and I don't think he was human. I saw his shoes, they were worn by black legs..."
"Describe the shoes," Torres requested, Danny promptly doing so. "So what did he say?"
"He said that we didn't need the emerald, and thanked us for destroying the robot for him," Danny recounted. "Then he said 'Chaos Control' and vanished..."
"Son of a bitch." Torres averted his gaze from the engineer, his mind clearly racing.
"Do you know who he is?" Donald pressed.
"Not here. Righteous Ice, can you stand? If so we'll continue this discussion outside."
"Yeah, I think so," Donny grunted as he rose to his feet. "Nope, don't feel dizzy. Let's go..." He set the compress down on the bench he'd been sitting on, making his way for the door...
Once the trio was outside, Torres brought the brothers in close, keeping his voice to a whisper. "That person who attacked you, his very existence is highly classified. Let's just say he's not somebody you want to mess with."
"Yeah, we got that impression all right," Donny snarked. "So what now?"
"Now you two get in your ship and leave quietly," the major stated bluntly. "You get half payment since you made a mess of things..."
"Excuse me?!" Daniel turned on the army officer. "There was no way we could've anticipated a killer robot coming outta nowhere! And even if we didn't bring the Phantom in alive, we did find his hideout!"
"Easy, Soldier Fire," Donald cut in. "For what it's worth, I agree, but let's turn the temperature down." Turning to Torres, he then said, "Now look, since my brother found the dirtbag's hideout, the police can get back the things he stole, or find clues to where he stashed it. That has to count for something, Major."
Torres sighed as he bowed his head and clasped his hands briefly. "...all right, I'll pay you 75% of what was originally agreed to. Is that fair?"
"It's better. What do you think?" Daniel deferred to his brother.
"We'll take it," Donald agreed. "We'll be expecting the payment in our account by week's end. Let's go, Fire." He took Daniel by the shoulder as they walked off together, heading back to their starship.
Donald's Starship
"...so that's it? We get bailed out, then hushed up and told to leave?!" Danny protested once they were on board, removing his helmet and hurling it aside in disgust. "Something about this stinks to high heaven and you know it, Donny!"
"It does stink," Donny responded calmly. "But did you see the major's reaction when you said 'Chaos Control'? It was abject fear. Whoever that person attacked us was, it scared him to the point that he felt the best course of action was to shut down any investigation and cover the whole thing up. And Major Torres doesn't strike me as a man that scares easily..."
"What are you getting at?" Danny pressed.
"I may be a half-decent hunter, but I'm no Samus Aran, and neither are you," Donny pointed out. "There's a very good chance that this stranger is way out of our league, and that the major is forcing us to leave for our own safety..."
"Even if that's true, what about whoever built that killer robot in the first place?" Danny countered. "If this person was willing to kill a guy just to get their hands on that gem... and what if said gem isn't the only one of it's kind?"
"That is concerning, but we have no idea about what's going on here," Donald mused. "Even if we tried to investigate, we'd be effectively stumbling around in the dark..."
"...maybe not," Daniel said, getting an idea. "I scanned that gem just before we got ambushed, and while the analysis was inconclusive..." He went to the ship's helm, bringing up a virtual keyboard and typing away. "The scanner still should have found out something... aha!" Bringing up the most recent scan, he began perusing the file... "Gemstone appears to be composed of beryl mineral in a cyclosilicate structure, almost exactly similar to the emerald gemstones mined on planet Earth..."
"But that gem was purple; emeralds are green," Donald spoke up, befuddled.
"Well, apparently the energy contained in that emerald had a chaotic wavelength, it's possible said energy is responsible for the alternate color," Daniel pondered. "It's possible this gem is actually a storage medium of sorts, like an ancient battery or something..."
"So it could be used as a power source?"
"Possibly. Might explain why whoever sent that killer robot wanted it..." Danny then snapped his fingers as he recalled something. "Wait, when I was searching that apartment building, I saw a drone that was the same color and shape as the big robot; that's how I found the Black Phantom. Maybe it was actually scanning for the emerald's location instead?"
"Did you destroy the drone?" Donny pressed.
"I did, because it had a laser equipped, though I used my Grapple Beam to bring it closer to me so its destruction wouldn't alert our quarry," Danny elaborated. "...crap, doing that probably sent a signal to the killer robot to move in! Which means it's MY fault the thief was killed...!"
"You had no way of knowing that," Donald disagreed. "If I'd been in your position, I would've done the same thing. The one at fault is the dirtbag who built that robot to begin with!"
"...so what do we do now?" Danny asked. "I might be able to calibrate the ship's scanners to search for that erratic wavelength, but..."
"Well, first things first. Major Torres ordered us to leave, so we should act like we're leaving," Donald said as he sat in the pilot's seat. "Go strap in. We'll fly into low orbit, then engage the cloaking device and re-insert at a different continent; then we'll trying scanning for that wavelength and see if we come up with anything."
"Roger that," Daniel nodded, going to retrieve his helmet before heading to the back...
Elsewhere...
"A Federation soldier?" asked a female mammal with white fur and large blue eyes with light blue eyeshadow, her unique ears and the pair of leathery wings emerging from her back indicating that she was an anthropomorphic bat. "What would one of them be doing here?"
"Likely hired by GUN to retrieve the Chaos Emerald and bring in that Black Phantom thief," said her companion, a black male mammal with upturned spike highlighted with red, a white patch of fur on his chest and seemingly-conjoined eyes with red irises, also wearing white gloves with yellow rings on the wrists. "That thief was killed by the Eggman robot before the soldier and his companion took it out. Then I took them out and took the Emerald for myself..."
"I hope you mean you just knocked them unconscious, Shadow," the bat sighed.
"Of course. Mooks like them aren't worth killing anyway; no better than GUN soldiers," Shadow affirmed.
"Well, they must be a little better if they were able to destroy an Eggman robot on their own," the bat pointed out. "It's too bad about the Phantom, though; I was starting to think he might be good competition for yours truly..."
"Nobody could compare to your thieving skills, Rouge," Shadow said matter-of-factly. "But enough about him. What we should focus on now is what the good doctor is up to this time..."
"Clearly he's trying to gather the emeralds for some reason," Rouge mused. "I've already sent Omega to search for any others out in the wilderness..."
"That's not a bad idea," Shadow nodded. "Let's just hope those Federation mooks get the hint and stay out of this..."
"If they don't decide to come after you for revenge instead," Rouge said facetiously, her companion just snorting in response.
To be continued...