Chapitre 2: Friends to Deserters
A/N: Credit to kalculusart for helping with the story dialogue on.
✶━━━❝Ｉ ＡＭ ＧＯＤ❞✶❝ᗡO⅁ W∀ I❞━━━✶
✩━━Third Omniscient POV━━✩
Mouth agape, Tails watches in horror as Sonic laughs at Amy's mutilated corpse. He immediately turns around in his plane and starts beelining back to the city. He couldn't believe what he just saw. Why would Sonic do that to Amy?? Why did Sonic look like that??? Why did Sonic sound like that?? Was any of that actually real?? Is Amy truly dead?? This can't be real!
Tails' mind is racing, he didn't know what to do or think. Who does he tell? What does he do? Nothing about what he saw exists within Tails' reality. It broke his very mind, how he saw the world, how he saw his best friend that's been with him for over 10 years!!! What are you suppose to do when you see your big brother figure murder his unrequited love interest? Tails felt numb in his body, tensing without thought in his seat. His ears twitch when he hears the same demonic laughter from before, but this time it seemed to coming from behind him. Turning his head, Tails' pupils shrink at the sight of his use to be best friend.
Bloodied with Amy and covered in some of her guts, the demon flies after him with his hand outstretched, a murderous and sadistic smile stretched across his face. He is slowly getting closer, being faster then his airplane. "Better come back here fox! It's time to play~" Sonic said in his deep demonic voice. Tails felt his lip quiver in fear, he felt fear pumping through his veins, panting hard from the life or death situation and adrenaline rushing through his body. He presses a button, causing his airplane to boost forward, the thrusters spray fire onto Sonic and he stops midair. Tails waits for a few moments before looking back.
He sees smoke from the thrusters surrounding where Sonic was. He looks forward, trying to calm his body down with the idea that he has escaped the claws of death. He shakily inhales and exhales several times, unconsciously gulping at the thought of Sonic still behind him. Needing to know for certainty, he looks back again. Tails' horrified expression returns when the smoke entirely clears up. No one is there. Panicked, his eyes searched all around the sky. The sky is clear, but it didn't give Tails comfort. Something about this only made him anxious. His eyes wander down, assuming Sonic retreated after being set on fire but, he saw nothing. Suddenly, the airplane jolts before it stops moving. Tails looks forward to see what's blocking the way, only to scream in shock when he sees Sonic flying there, holding the front of the airplane to make him stop. How did he have so much strength!? "You...are....finished." The demon uttered.
Tails looks down at his airplane interface, pressing a button out of panic. The button activates a machine gun attached to the airplane, and it sprays a barrage of bullets into Sonic's torso. Sonic stumbles back mid air, blood spraying as his torso began to look like swiss cheese. Horrified by the sight, Tails covers his eyes. He trembles, contemplating how to feel about murdering his best friend. He was going to kill me! Just like how he killed Amy! He was going to hurt and kill the rest of our friends! Doesn't that mean I did the right thing...?
He isn't sure, everything over the past ten minutes broke his perfect world, and with this overstimulation of fear, thinking rationally is practically impossible. Tails could hear the machine gun slowing down before ceasing it's endless firing. Most likely either out of ammo or it's overwhelmed by shooting so much in short period of time. Hoping for the best, Tails slowly lowers his hands, his dilated pupils looking forward to where Sonic last was. Sonic is flying there, his head hung down as his stomach bled endlessly from the countless amount of bullet wounds. Tails' twitching mouth let out a held in breath, a heavy exhale coming out. A smile slowly grew across his face as tears came down his cheeks from shock.
"That monster is gone!" His voice shook, but he sounded so relieved. He looked so relieved. He felt proud of himself for avenging Amy. But then a feeling of dread settled on his shoulders and he instinctively gulps. Is it possible that...this monster is still alive? Tails thought. Is it possible he survived the bullet barrage? No, that's not possible..No creature can outlive after sustaining so many injuries. Tails tried to convince himself but, his paranoia is calling out to him. It causes his smile to falter. "...At least I hope so..." Then the Fox shrieks, jumping in his chair when he sees Sonic raise his head, tilting it as a humorous toothy smirk grew and stretched across his face. It's as if Sonic found Tails' attempt funny.
"Pathetic fox. Now you will feel true pain." He raises his claw, moving to slash Tails. Tails shuts his eyes as he slams his foot down, causing the airplane to burst toward and there's a loud THUD as the airplane comes in contact with a hill. Tails is protected from being thrown out thanks to his seat belt. Hyperventilating, the fox trembled in his seat while his eyes slowly open. Tails saw Sonic's head face down and still on the front of the airplane. The vehicle has Sonic pinned to the hill. Sonic's blood is splattered on the airplane and the hill behind him. Because of the speed prior to the crash, the airplane is not only stuck in it's spot but it's completely totaled and can't function, plus Sonic has an imprint of himself within the hill's side.
This time, Tails doesn't count his chickens. He intently stares at Sonic to see if there's any movement before making any assumptions or actions. The demon laid still for several moments and Tails felt his breath catching in his throat. He wondered if somehow, this creature looking like his best friend is still alive. His right hand slowly reaches forward, trembling in fear. The idea that this creature isn't dead and suddenly attacks him terrifies Tails to his core, but the smart thing to do is confirm it, isn't it?
Sonic jerks his head up, moving quicker then Tails can react and biting down on his extended arm. The fox shrieks in pain as Sonic's teeth sink in like a predator trying to prevent his prey from escaping. Blood leaked from the penetration and Tails feverishly cries in pain. He grabs Sonic's head with his other hand, slamming his fist onto his face repeatedly in hopes to make him let go. But, Tails is too weak to even make him flinch, and the hedgehog's teeth only sunk deeper with every fruitless attempt. Tails screams at the demon. "Let me go!!" He's pleading while feverishly crying and struggling, but it's all fruitless. In one swift motion, Sonic violently pulls his head back, causing Tails' forearm to be violently teared from his body. An ear piercing cry escapes the fox.
Once being freed, Tails stood up as his blood spurted out of his wound and all over Sonic's face. Tails' fight or flight response kicked him and he turns around, stumbling to the other side of the airplane so he can fly away. Behind him, Sonic spits out the arm and looks up. Miles' tails start spinning, causing him to begin ascending. Sonic knew that once again, he should crush any sense of hope the fox has. Loud cracks are heard as Sonic's neck lengthens, and his jaw dislocates before expanding. He chomps down, ripping off an entire tail from Tails' body. The sudden pain combined with the loss of his tail, causes Tails to scream and start uncontrollably moving airborne, blood pouring out of his wounds as he unstably starts descending head first into the dirt.
Sonic drops the tail before his claws dig into the machine. The sound of metal bending fills his ears as he pulls it off of his body and throws it into the red water below. Sonic's previous injuries that consisted of mostly bullet wounds had been gone. It's almost as if he was never shot, like he's a bullet sponge. The hedgehog moves off of the hill, looking in the direction that Tails went. He laughs maniacally once he sees the animal crying and bleeding out on the ground. Nothing satisfies the demon more then the tangible despair and hopelessness his victims feel.
Using his working hand, Tails shakily grabs at the ground, trying to pull himself up to his feet. But upon standing, he stops. Where...is he? Before, he laid up on red stained grass in an ominous and dark Green Hills, but now...he's by a waterfall? It's as if he was taken to a different location in an instant. He looks around, clutching his wound with his free hand as his dilated eyes looked around in a panic. He could hear his heartbeat in his ears. The place looked normal but, Tails couldn't calm down. And rightfully so. "Let's play a game..." Tails heard in his head, the voice belonging to the demonic entity. The fox jumps and turns, rapidly looking around his surroundings to make sure Sonic isn't around him. Weirdly enough...he's not.
Tails wondered if he was hearing things, and spun in place a few more times in an attempt to find this murderer. "Hide and Seek..." Chills ran up the Fox's spine upon hearing that. Where would he hide, there's no where to go! He let out a heavy exhale as he felt as if he was being watched. But he didn't know from where. "I'm...'it'." Tails immediately understood the demon's intentions. Tails is the hider and he could only assume being found is game over. He begins running down the only path he could see. The problem is, most of his speed came from his tails projecting force behind him, without one of his tails, he's significantly slower. Realizing this, the fox began to panic as the adrenaline in his body pushes him to break his limits to run faster.
As Tails ran, he heard the pained screams of Amy, recalling how he just watched her die and was too fear stricken to save her. The guilt weighed heavy on his heart. He could hear his friends blaming him. Cream, Knuckles, Amy...all shouting at him that it's his fault. They're right. Tails thought to himself. If I never told Amy Sonic is missing, she would have never went out here, and she would still be alive!
Tails' vision grew blurry with tears as they welled up and went down his cheeks. He kept wondering what happened to Sonic and why all this happened. "Aw, Tails." Sonic's normal heroic voice rang in Miles' head. The Fox's ears perk. "You think it's your fault Amy died? Heh," the voice pauses. "Sounds about right!" Tails felt his heart shatter. "Even if you acted, what were you going to do? You're completely useless!" Tails tried to shake this voice away. This voice isn't Sonic. Sonic would never say these things! Ever!...Right? "Don't worry buddy! I'll make sure you join Amy!" Sonic says cheerfully before his voice turned into the demonic one Tails has grown to fear. "Indefinitely..." Tails felt his spine and shoulders tense. It caused his body to freeze up. It felt like something is behind him. Slowly, he turns his head, looking over his shoulder.
In the distant, he saw the entity of nightmares hovering there, still with their head tilted in the distance. The two locked eye contact for several seconds before the demon sang out "Found you~" Before pushing his feet off the ground, hovering toward Tails with an outstretched hand and hunger in his hollow black eyes. Tails felt paralyzed by fear but his brain kicked his body to move, to stop being in shock and run! He felt numb all over but the need to survive pushed the Fox and he swiftly turns around, running down the single path. His eyes frantically look around for a way to escape, and he noticed how the area around him changed.
The waterfall is now red and instead of it being water, it's endless waves of blood. A familiar yet disgusting smell fills Tails' nose. Turning his head, he notices he's running past the dead critters from before as well as Amy's mutilated corpse. The demon is reminding Tails of who he failed to save, so he can drown the poor fox in endless despair and trauma. Luckily for Tails, the demon is much slower then Sonic and isn't instantly catching up with him. Tails' mind rapidly wandered to possible solutions to his problem, but then the real problem struck, one his body couldn't ignore: the blood loss. Tails' accelerated heart beat from intense fear puts him into a compromising position, he's pouring blood from both of his wounds, and it's not without a cost.
Miles felt his head grow light as he continued, a trail of blood following behind him. All while, his body started to slowly be overtaken by weakness. His limbs started to feel weaker, causing him to slow down. Tails' vision started to go black and shaky, his eyelids heavy as he fights to stay conscious. There was only so much Tails could handle before collapsing onto his knees, his vision repeatedly blackening. He looks behind him, trying to gauge how far away Sonic is. In which, he's practically right next to Miles. His claws almost touched Tails' face just as Tails' vision started to blacken. His eyes close, but he then shakes his head to keep himself conscious. He opens his eyes once more, and Sonic is nowhere to be found.
Feeling too weak to try to escape, too weak to look around in fear, too weak to stand, he lays on his back. He looks up at the red sky, tears pouring down his cheeks from the immense psychological torment that Sonic is doing to him. It all felt so hopeless and endless. Tails doesn't want to give up, but he desperately needs to rest...maybe for just 5 minutes... Tails slowly blinks again, and opens his eyes to see Sonic above him, looking down at him with his hands covering his eyes. It's like when Sonic use to do peek-a-boo with Tails. "Huh...?" Tails said in confusion and disbelief. In a swift motion, Sonic moves his hands out of the way of his face, revealing his demonic and monstrous face before swiping his claws down. The loud shriek of Tails echoes the plains.
✩━━𝕊𝔼𝔾𝔸™━━✩
✩━━That Night━━✩
Knuckles walks to the front door, smirking some at the prospect of seeing his friends again, even if they can be annoying, dumb, or a mixture of the two. His friends proposed the idea of anniversary dinners which are yearly meals which the group gets together in a small party to celebrate being friends for as long as they have and to make sure their bonds stay solid even when everyone is living their own life. Knuckles expected Sonic, Sally, Amy, Tails, Cream, Shadow, and Rouge to arrive. There might be other surprise guests like Big the Cat but those were the main ones who have been invited and are supposed to be here.
When he could see the front door, he sees Cream and Sally already waiting there. Cream looked anxious and a bit worried while Sally looked confused. Sally looks over at Knuckles as he approaches. "Oh hey Knuckles." Cream turns, looking at Knuckles.
"Oh..Evening Knuckles." She says in a quieter but sweet voice.
"Hey Sally, Hey Cream." Knuckles gives them a soft smile since he feels he can be himself in friends' company.
"At least you showed up." Sally says in a smart ass kind of way, which got Knuckles attention. His smile faded quicker then it rose.
"What? Did no one else come?" He asks.
"No, we've been out here, waiting for Tails to answer the door. It's not like him to be late.." Cream replies.
"And I've been calling Sonic for the last half an hour, waiting for him to pick me up. I only decided to walk here since it didn't seem like he'd show." Sally replies, a bit upset Sonic didn't keep his promise to pick her up. Knuckles found all of this weird, but found it even weirder that Amy isn't with Cream. They're practically best friends.
"Where's Amy?" Knuckles inquired.
"I don't know...we agreed to go shopping together but she didn't show..." Cream replies, her fingers nervously fiddling with her dress. Knuckles quirked an eyebrow, too much about this is weird. It'd be one thing if just one of them didn't show- the group could just think they're late, but it's three of their friends, all of which mysteriously disappeared? It can't be a coincidence.
"You didn't hear anything from any of them?" Sally asks Knuckles, who shook his head.
"No I didn't." Knuckles crosses his arms. Sally seemed quizzical. She knows Sonic wouldn't just up and go.
"I guess I'll stop by Sonic's and see if everything is okay." Sally says, stepping past Knuckles to leave Tails' front yard. Knuckles and Cream looks back at Sally.
"I should check Amy's house then..." Cream steps down to follow Sally, but the girls stop when they see Rouge and Shadow approaching.
"Hey, guys!" The trio had perked to an alluring white bat approaching them.
"Hello, Rouge," Knuckles greeted her smoothly, "Have you come to steal jewels from someone?" Rouge chuckled while poking his cheek.
"You know me too well, Knuckie. But, no, I'm here to celebrate the anniversary!" Knuckles scoffed, brushing her hand away. She rolled her eyes playfully, "Aw, don't be like that, Knuckie," she then turned to the others and asked curiously, "By the way, why are you guys away from the others?"
"We don't know, it's like Sonic, Tails, and Amy suddenly disappeared." The echidna replies, Rouge gives Knuckles a surprised look.
"That's... odd," The charming tone in her voice drops, "If Big Blue is also gone, something must have happened." Sally nods at the bat.
"Which is why Cream and I were going to search for Sonic and Amy ourselves." Sally explains. Rouge slips out her phone, tapping on the screen.
"I'm contacting G.U.N. on the entire situation, the more who can search, the merrier." Rouge informs the group before she glances curiously at a dark hedgehog observing the group from the sidelines, "What do you think, Shadow?" Shadow's gaze suggests he wasn't too interested with the entire ordeal. He has been one of Sonic's most formidable rivals for years. While the two have allied themselves with each other at their more dire moments, they usually engaged in sour bickering or competitions. He lifts a brow at the white bat and sighs.
"I'm going to search tonight." Shadow rumbled bluntly. Rouge blinks, a little taken aback.
"My, I'm surprised you want to help Sonic this bad." The Bat replies.
"I don't," Shadow snorts, already making his way out, "If something has managed to keep Sonic contained, it poses a threat I cannot ignore. I'm not going to let Mobius be crushed because its 'hero' is suddenly gone."
"Don't be too brash, handsome," Rouge grabs Shadow by the hand, "You don't even know where any of them are." The hedgehog jerks out of her grasp and stubbornly continues without another word. Sally facepalms while Shadow teleports away.
"That's Shadow for you." She says, not sounding surprised. "But, he does have a point. Out of all our friends, if Sonic disappeared, then we could be in massive trouble." The chipmunk softly tugs on Cream's hand and says gently, "Let's go, Cream." Cream gives a small nod and she follows Sally while waving.
"Goodbye Rouge, Knuckles." Were Cream's parting words. Knuckles looks over at Rouge as she starts contacting G.U.N.
"I'm going to go on the search for Tails." Knuckles announced before stepping away. Rouge looks over, smirking some at the red echidna.
"Good luck Knuckie." Rouge waves some to her friend before he picks up his speed into a light jog, on the search for his fox friend.
•●•●✧𝕋𝕪𝕡𝕚𝕟𝕘✧𝕊𝕔𝕒𝕟𝕟𝕚𝕟𝕘✧●•●•
The scientist waves her client goodbye, saying parting words. "I hope you enjoy it, order again soon!" After, she shuts the door and floats to the kitchen. Humming to herself whilst she reaches into the fridge and takes a carrot from it. Her mind wanders to the tasks she has to do before she goes to bed while her hands rinse the carrot. Wanting do this in a comfortable spot, she flies upstairs and to her bedroom. Once inside, She criss-crosses mid air above her bed and she nibbles on the end of the carrot, her free hand tapping the blue screens circling around her. "Okay, first I need to organize the information I got from the client then I need to organize it across the more general entries then- Hm?" The scientist stops her train of thought when she notices her wrist, which is covered in robotic buttons and a screen, is blinking white.
This got the scientist's attention since it only does that when one of her machines are reporting back to her. This is usually her robots saying something within them broke, or they finished their given duty. Basically it helps the scientist keep watch over them. With this in mind, she taps a button on her wrist to further inspect what the alert is about. One of the circulating screens stop in front of her, and she looks into what seems to be pre-recorded footage. "Oh, it's one of my surveillance bots!" This is confirmed by the recording being from earlier that afternoon and there were words above the footage that read 'Connection to Blue Bird Observer Lost.' This scientist owns various surveillance bots across the country, mostly to learn things from the comfort of her home. These bots mostly just watch and collect resources that she can use to further expand her knowledge of the world.
Seeing these words struck her as odd. Why did she lose connection? She taps to learn further about the bot and it's reported to be destroyed. By the report she's looking at, something or someone made a large wound in the bot's torso region and also removed it's head. This put the scientist on edge. Whether the person knows it's a robot or not, why destroy an animal like that? It didn't really make sense. She decided to look at the last footage the animal collected to get an idea of who could've done it.
After tapping the screen, She saw through the eyes of her robot who is watching the animals of Green Hill. She multiplies the speed of the video, looking at the footage throughout the day. Her robot is programmed to look and act like an animal in order to get a more in depth analysis on how they operate in the wild. She slows down the footage to normal speed minutes prior to it getting destroyed. That's when she heard an odd demonic voice. "Where are you~? Come out and play~" The voice sang. This made her quizzical. Her robot, presumably following it's programming, turns around and looks toward the source of the voice. When the scientist saw the source, her breath got caught in her throat.
"What...is that thing!?" She asks herself, panicked by it going on a murder spree on the small critters around. The scientist notices the monster looking at her robot, and she narrows her eyes. That face- it's familiar! But, why is it familiar? Her robot tries to escape from the possible threat, but that didn't last long. Her robot was airborne for a couple of seconds before the screen gets overrun by static, causing the scientist to jolt. Shortly after, demonic laughter is heard again before the robot is dropped and face to face with a bloodstained ground.
Seeing this sadistic genocide made the scientist gulp. She felt fear, but also a sense of responsibility. She doesn't know what that thing is, but what she does know is that she has to stop it, no matter what. Whatever she saw, she can say with absolute certainty that it's not alive. Something alive wouldn't look like...that. It's skin seemed to stretch over it's shoes and gloves, and even it's size...Everything about it is abnormal. What kind of creature would kill innocent critters like that? What if they found a person instead? Would it kill them too? She can't risk that possibility!
She shakily exhales to release this fear from her body. She's confident that thing can't track her down, so she decides to plan her attack. She taps some screens, ordering her other robots to head straight to Green Hill and supervise what that hedgehog is doing. But they have to not be seen. "It's bloodlust seems to urge him to kill anything he sees..." She mutters to herself, taking note. She rewinds the footage, pauses, and zooms in on the best and most clear sight of the murderer's face. The scientist mentally kicks herself for not being able to scan the creature, so she makes note to when her other robots find him.
For now, she started to do a wide search across her database, looking to see if this face matched anyone by looking out for it's main traits: red shoes, white gloves, and blue hedgehog. She immediately came up with a match that made her jaw tense. "Sonic!?" She pulls up Sonic's file, shaking her head to herself. While the monster had all of Sonic's iconic traits, their physical bodies didn't match up. The monster had eyes melted inward, is over 3ft taller, and lacked proportion unlike Sonic. Something is amiss. This scientist knew it had a lot of work to do. She pulls up 3 different screens, each of which are her robots' vision. They're heading to Green Hills. I just need to watch it, thought the scientist. And when I find out it's weakness, I'll hurry to exploit it. I have to.
État de l’alimentation hebdomadaire
-- Classement
Power Stone 
-- Power
stone