Changes Are No Good
By: Chibi
Chapter 3: “Strike the Fucking Match”
*
4AM
While
the city slept, the gears of vengeance turned.
Round, insectoid robots emerged from a secret
hatch in uptown
Central City was burning, and St. Jimmy had struck the
match.
* * *
4:15AM
GUN
Central Command was a maelstrom of activity when Commander Sonic had arrived,
panting and wearing his uniform jacket, a worn Ramones
shirt, and a pair of red and pink plaid flannel pajama pants. “I came as soon as I could. Sorry ‘bout my appearance; I just grabbed the
jacket and took off, then I had to fight my way past some ‘bots,” he
apologized. He turned to the
sleepy-looking blue cat. “Status, Eddie?”
“The city’s on fire, and we’re
getting our asses kicked,”
Sonic swore.
“Where’s Lieutenant Saunders?”
“Currently en route, but she says it’s slow-going,” the
cat told him. “She said she’s trying to
pass the Robotnik Corp. building, but there’s a high concentration of Jimmy’s
‘bots there.” She paused and pressed her
headset to her ear. “She also says the
security ‘bots for the building have been deployed and… Shadow?! What the hell is Shadow doing there?!”
With a burst of light, a disoriented
Saffron appeared in the commander’s chair, dropping a cell phone on the floor
in surprise. She got up, adjusted her
glasses, smoothed out her uniform, made a half-hearted attempt to hide she was
wearing a nightshirt under it, and picked up the phone. “Well,” she finally said, “I was unaware he
could use Chaos Control in this manner.”
She looked around. “Or with this degree of accuracy. I’m impressed.”
The commander smiled.
“He’s had years of practice. Glad
to see you’re all right, Saff. What’s it
like out there?”
“Like Westopolis all over again,” the hare said with a
shudder. “Dr. Robotnik has begun
activating security robots, so we should have back-up in that area
shortly.” She shook her head. “Believe me, it needs it too. It’s like they want something from him…”
Sonic patted her shoulder. “Thanks, Saff. Take your post.” He turned to face the rest in the
station. “All right, everyone, let’s—“
“Sir!” Horrocks interrupted,
looking at his monitor. “There’s a large
contingent of robots headed straight our way!”
“So he is after us,” the commander mused. “All right, the doc should be able to handle
himself out there, so…” He made a wide,
sweeping gesture out in front of him.
“Whoever’s out in the city is to stay there and defend the
civilians! Everyone else, prepare to
defend Central Command! Let’s show this
guy what we’re made of!”
* * *
4:21AM
Secretary of State Jason Emyr had woken up to many
strange things during his years in politics.
He had been in office as the President of the United Federation during
the Chaos incident in
However, all this still failed to prepare him for the
surprise of a giant, shiny, black beetle-like robot crashing through his
bedroom wall. He did what any reasonably
sane person would do in a time like this: he yelped and threw his alarm clock
at the robot.
The robot paused as if it was dumbfounded by the human’s
actions and quietly beeped. A muffled
male voice exclaimed, “GANGWAY!”, barely giving Jason
enough time to jump out of bed and hug the wall before the robot went flying
across the room. A large gray albatross
smelling of booze, smoke, and God-knows-what else came in through the hole in
the wall, holding a rolled-out ladder. “You Mr. Emyr?” Stupified, the human nodded. “Good, the boss is waitin’
for ya.” He paused and made a Winnie the Pooh-esqe thinking pose.
“Oh, and what was it he said to say?
Batman?
No, it was a girl… Batgirl?” He snapped
his fingers. “Oh, right! ‘Rouge sent us’!”
“Rouge?” Jason repeated, still
in an adrenaline and half-awake daze. Rouge good, the back of his mind noted, Rouge help when me President.
“The boss is waitin’,” the
albatross said, gesturing to the ladder.
“R-right,” Jason said.
* * *
4:30AM
At the surprisingly modest two-floor home of Ivo Robotnik
in north Central City, a valiant fight was underway. Former Commander Ansem was
pegging robots from an upstairs window with a shotgun nabbed from what Shadow
brought of his collection, as Amy fought them on the ground outside. Maury, having no fighting ability whatsoever,
was left with the ex-commander, a fact that Gordon was silently cursing.
“Ooo! There’s another one coming!” the hedgehog boy
exclaimed as he looked out one of the windows.
“I can’t believe this is happening again! This is so exciting!”
Gordon sighed irritatedly. At the rate things were going, he’d be out another
home because of St. Jimmy, and this child was bouncing around like it
was some damned TV show. “This isn’t a
game, kid, and stay out of the windows!
You’ll attract their attention!”
“And mom smashing things in a nightgown won’t
attract attention?” Maury said, watching
a pair of robots appear to flee from his mother.
The former soldier stopped for a second, looked at the
boy, then turned his attention to reloading the shotgun. “Good point.”
He paused. “Your father’s a lucky
man.”
It took Maury a second to put two and two together. He scrunched up his face and stuck out his
tongue upon realization. “Ew, that’s my mom
you were ogling!”
Gordon shrugged.
“So?” He scanned the skies for
any more invaders. “Looks
like they’re clearing out. Don’t
let your guard down yet, though.” The
boy’s only reply was a strange, strained noise, setting off alarms in the older
man’s head. He turned to look to see
Maury staring straight at a robot on the other side of the window. One motorized arm of the machine had made its
way inside the open window and was reaching out for the boy.
As Gordon started to aim, a strange thing happened. Several points of green light appeared before
the stammering young man, getting brighter and multiplying until he finally
shouted, “GET AWAY FROM ME!” Needle-thin
darts of green light passed seemingly harmlessly through the window and the
machine. Then, without warning, the
machine exploded, shattering the window and scorching the building’s
siding. Maury brought an arm up to
shield his face from the explosion, then lowered it to
see just what he had done.
The ex-commander and young hedgehog looked on in surprise
and confusion for several long moments, until the latter threw his fists in the
air and exclaimed, “YES! I have freaky
alien powers too! COOL!” The boy then proceeded to do a spastic little
victory dance.
Gordon put a hand over his face. So much
for finally getting away from weird hedgehogs after retirement, he thought.
* * *
4:47AM
“Status report!” Sonic ordered, pointing to the blue cat with one hand and bringing his
other hand down hard on the flat surface before him.
“We’re all going to die,”
“Oh, we are not all going to die!” Saffron
countered hotly. “Their numbers are
thinning!”
“Not fast enough,” the cat replied. She glanced at the screen before her. “And apparently Dr. Prower wants to go down
fighting. I heard stories about his
skill with a turret, but honestly…”
“Tails?!” the commander squeaked. “Saff, take command! I’m going out!” he ordered before breaking
into a run out of the command center.”
“Sir! Wait!” Saffron called out after him.
Saffron nodded. “Right.” She turned
to the skinny human next to her.
“Horrocks, try to contact Dr. Robotnik.
I have a plan…”
* * *
4:48AM
“All right, start falling back. They live for today,” St. Jimmy commanded.
* * *
4:49AM
“Put me down, Sonic!
I can fight just as well as anyone else!
You know that!” the fox yelled, freshly pulled away from the turret and
being carried away by the commander.
“You’re not a combatant!” Sonic yelled back, “And I am not
letting you get hurt or worse by being somewhere you shouldn’t be! Especially when you have a
little girl to look after!”
“I’ve been a combatant since I was a kid! You should know; you were there!” Tails
countered, trying to wrest himself free from the speeding hedgehog’s
grasp. “I can handle myself!”
The doors shut heavily behind them. Sonic set him down. “I know that!” he shouted, then
repeated softly, “I know that, Tails.
It’s just…” He pulled the fox
into a tight hug and said, voice high and strained, “I
almost lost you once, kid. I don’t want
anything to…”
Tails hesitantly hugged back. “You never really got over that, did
you?” A soft shake of
the hedgehog’s head. “But I got
not only myself, but Knuckles out of there too.
Sonic, the situation’s desperate out there; you need all the help you
can get out there. I’ll be OK.”
The engineer tried to pull away, but Sonic wasn’t
budging. “No.”
“But GUN…”
“Fuck GUN. I’m
not…” The explosions outside got louder
and more frequent. The commander let go
and turned to the door. “What the hell?!”
* * *
4:52AM
“Fly! Fly, my pretties! Ohohoho!”
Ivo exclaimed to his robots from his trademark hovering vehicle.
Shadow resisted the urge to facepalm
and continued reloading his firearm.
“You are never allowed to be within 20 feet of ‘The Wizard of Oz’ again,
doctor.”
* * *
4:53AM
Saffron cackled madly at the news. “Reinforcements are here! Hit those fuckers with everything we’ve got,
people! This one’s for the home team!”
* * *
6:00AM
Back in north Central City, Dr. Robotnik finally returned
home with his hedgehog cousin of sorts leaning heavily on him. Gordon immediately set aside the gun he was
cleaning and Amy rushed forward to meet her husband. “Shadow! Are you all right?” the woman asked.
“Just fine,” Shadow replied. He let go of the doctor, took a few steps,
and fell into her arms. “Or will be as
soon as the room stops spinning.”
Ivo looked down at the hedgehogs. “I’m amazed you were capable of walking, with
what you did out there.”
The pink hedgehog looked at Ivo and hugged her husband
tighter. “What exactly did he do?”
Ivo said, counting each item off on his fingers. “First, he brought the both of us to my
corporate headquarters, teleports—from what I could tell—a fairly high-ranking
GUN officer to presumably Central Command, guarded the building while I was
getting the Eggknights online when it was being
overrun by those inferior models, then after we were contacted by GUN for
assistance there, he—“
Shadow raised a hand and weakly laughed. “I tried to see how many of those bugs I
could take out in one go without hurting the GUN soldiers. Turns out it’s a lot.”
“He dropped like a rock after that, however,” the doctor
added.
“Desperate times, doctor…” the dark hedgehog
countered. He steadied himself and tried
to walk away. “Now, if you’ll excuse me,
I need to get ready for work.”
He found himself grabbed by his wife and the doctor, who
respectively said “Like hell!” and “Absolutely not!” at the same time.
“But
the children…” Shadow tried to explain.
“The
people at the
Shadow
sighed and leaned against her. “I’m not
going to win here, am I?”
His
wife smiled sweetly and stroked his quills.
“Have you ever won against me, Cupcake?”
Ivo couldn’t
help but chuckle at the pair as they started up the stairs. “Good, then that’s settled.” His eyes went to the ex-commander. “Gordon.”
Gordon
nodded. “I’ll get on it soon. I’ll need a little time; if that’s,”—(he
gestured to the footage playing on TV)—“any indication, my contact will be busy
for a while.” He paused. “Are you going to contact Rouge, or should
I?”
“You
do it,” the doctor said. “I’m going to
put some proper pants on and continue assisting the clean-up effort.” He muttered under his breath, “To think I’m
going to be on the 7’oclock news in an old bathrobe…”
Gordon
gave him a look. “You can’t let your
robots handle things on their own?”
Ivo
shook his head. “Whenever I make an AI
that sophisticated, they either try to kill me, lock me up and try to take over
the world in my place, or inexplicably fall in love with the enemy and side
against me. I’m in no rush to try making
one again.”
The
ex-commander reached for the gun he had set aside. “Then you’re not going alone.”
Ivo
took off his glasses, pressed two fingers just above his nose in between his
eyes, and sighed heavily. “Yes, I
am. You’re staying here. You’re a target, remember?”
The
ex-commander walked around the couch and to the doctor. “I’m not here to hide, and, considering what
went on today, you look like you’re a target yourself.”
The
doctor replaced his glasses and poked the former commander in the chest with
his index finger. “Don’t let yourself be
fooled by all this commotion. His goal
wasn’t to harm me, or this house and my company
headquarters would be rubble instead of mildly singed. You’re the one in any real danger at
the moment.”
Gordon
pushed the doctor’s finger away with the back of his hand. “And just what was the point of
attacking those two places then?”
“I
suspect these are why,” Ivo replied. He
produced a dark blue gem, a purple gem, and a clear gem, which gently levitated
for a moment before going back where they came from.
Gordon
blinked his mismatched eyes. “Are
those…?”
“Chaos Emeralds. Correct,” the doctor said with
a nod. “I believe these are the reason
for the attacks on my property.”
The
former commander crossed his arms.
“First, you say there’s a tie into all this that could get you arrested,
and now you reveal you have Chaos Emeralds.
What else are you hiding, Ivo?”
“Who’s
hiding what?” All eyes looked to the
doorway connecting the room to the kitchen, where a very pink hedgehog boy in
an apron several sizes too large looked up at them. “Does anyone want breakfast? I know I can’t get to sleep now.”
“I’m
not hungry,” Gordon replied, “Secrets make me lose my—Ivo?” He looked around the room to find that in the
brief distraction, the doctor had up and gotten away. “How? When did he…?”
Maury
tilted his head to one side. “Your Ivo? You
mean dad’s right and you two are dating?”
The
ex-commander turned back to the hedgehog and gawked. “Your father thinks WHAT?!”
* * *
9:00AM
Commander
Sonic returned to his apartment in east Central City. The day had barely started and already it was
a circus. He had managed to escape by
saying he wanted to get the rest of his uniform and ran as fast as his legs
would carry him. He absently tossed his
jacket on the loveseat and started taking off the pajama bottoms he had worn to
work.
A
muffled grunt was heard from the loveseat.
A red echidna pulled the jacket off of his head, sat up, and blinked
wearily. “Back so soon?” he asked. He watched the hedgehog for a moment. “Nice show.”
Sonic
froze for a moment, then finished taking off the pants and hugged the
echidna. “Red! When did you get here?” A thought struck him. The attack. “Are you all right? You weren’t attacked on the way here, were
you?”
The
echidna shook his head. “No, but I saw
some of the fires.” He thought he
smelled smoke and oil on Sonic’s shirt. “Were you attacked? You smell like you slept in a factory.”
Knuckles
could have sworn the hedgehog squeaked at that.
Sonic ran a hand through his quills and said nervously, “Heheh, I had a little fight on the way to Central
Command. Nothing to
worry about, really.” The echidna
didn’t look convinced. Sonic pressed his
index finger to the end of the echidna’s nose and smiled. “I’m all right. Nothing hurt, ‘cept
for maybe GUN’s public image.” The echidna relaxed a little. “Now,” said the hedgehog, “did you bring it?”
“The emerald?” Knuckles asked. “Yeah, it’s in
my bag. What’s going on, Sonic?”
Sonic
lightly kissed him, then pulled away and tugged the shirt off. “Too much to explain now. I’ll tell you when I can finally get away
from there for the day. Right now, I
need to get my uniform and go.” He
tossed aside the shirt and went to the bedroom.
“So, how long you sticking around?” he called out while rummaging
through his closet.
“Until Elly’s ready to go
back. I get the feeling it’s not safe for her to
travel alone right now.” the echidna answered, picking up the uniform
jacket. He gave it a funny look. Weird,
he thought, It smells clean…
Sonic
chuckled. “Not safe for the guy
attacking the Federation,” he said, emerging from the room buttoning his
shirt. “You shoulda
seen what the girl did to a ‘bot in Rosetta. Tails is grateful she at least left a few
identifying pieces unbroken, unlike the one Amy got to.” He took the gray jacket and put it on,
leaving it open.
“I gotta get going. If you go anywhere while I’m out, be careful
and remember to lock the door.” He
lightly tugged on a beaded dreadlock and grinned. “Later, Red!”
The
echidna watched the hedgehog leave and picked up the clothes same hedgehog
carelessly left on the floor. Something’s wrong… But he can fix it, right? He looked at the smoky clothing in his
hands. Right…?
*
End Chapter 3
Chibi’s notes:
Something’s rotten in
Subtext is fun.
Flat out text is fun too. Storm
as a strip club bouncer entertains me.
And Maury and
And no, the last bit about Eggman’s
failed AIs isn’t game canon; I just thought it was
funny.