AFTER THE METAREX: SONIC'S STORY

Chapter One

"Old Friends and Foes"

Sonic the Hedgehog seemed to fly across the face of Mobius. For months, he'd been struggling to help his best friend, Miles "Tails" Prower, deal with the death of Tails' lost love, Cosmo. Tails seemed to just keep getting worse, though, and Sonic realized he needed some time away from the problem. It felt good to be able to run all out again.

As sonic booms followed the hedgehog, Sonic thought about what he'd be running into ahead. It had been more than a year since he'd worked with Bunny and Antoine, and he and St. John had never gotten along too well. He didn't really know St. John's wife, Hershey.

Sonic came to a chasm. He ran alongside it for a ways, trying to find the narrowest point. When he located a gap that seemed easily jumpable, he ran backwards. He crouched, started spinning, then rushed the chasm.

"WOO-HOO-HOO-HOO-HOOOOO!!!" Sonic yelled as he made his leap. It had to be hundreds of feet down, but Sonic took the leap easily.

"Man, if I thought about stuff like this, I'd probably have just scared myself halfway out of my mind!" Sonic said to himself. But Sonic rarely allowed himself to think that way. The one time he had paused, an innocent had died because of his indecision. He swore that wouldn't happen again.

"So, I'm supposed to work with St. John and 'Toine," Sonic mused. "Two of my least popular fellow Freedom Fighters! Oh well. It's been much too long since I messed with 'Toine's mind! What little there is of it, anyway!"

"Sonic?" That came from his phone. A small 3-D image of Nicole appeared. "You're veering off too far to the left. Go approximately ten degrees to the right."

"Uh…Tails isn't here with me," Sonic pointed out. "Could you repeat that again in Mobian?"

Nicole sighed. "Go right," she said. "A little more. A little…too much! There! That's it! Nicole out!"

"Boy, that Nicole sure is a stickler for details," Sonic said to himself. "Oh well. Any problem they'd send Antoine out to can't be a problem for Sonic the Hedgehog!"

Many miles away, at the quarry...

"Haha haha!" came the infuriating laugh of a fool. The hedgehog gritted her teeth. One day, she'd knock that robot chicken's head off his shoulders. "Get to work, you goldbricks! The doctor wants gold, not excuses!" He cracked his whip. Since he was very bad at it, even after years of practice, the whip hit his "brother."

"Ow!" Grounder yelled. "Hey, watch it!" The robot resembled some demented nightmare of a lawn mower with drills for hands. Eggman must have built him after being up all night, the hedgehog thought. Between them, and the monkey with the light bulb on his head, it should have been easy to escape this place. But it wasn't. Because no one ever knew when he would show up.

"Here," the girl said, giving water to an old duck. His eyes were sunken in his head, and his beak was cracked in several places. She realized he wouldn't survive long. He was the only adult among the miners. Too old and infirm to be used elsewhere by the madman, the duck took the ore the others dug up and sifted through it for the gold.

"Bless you, child!" he moaned. He coughed.

"Hey!" Scratch yelled. "Quit goofing off!"

"He's sick!" the hedgehog cried. "He needs a doctor!"

"Aw, he's faking it!" Grounder said. "I'll bet he'd jump to his feet if we caught and brought Mina Mongoose in here!"

"Who the heck is that?" the girl demanded.

"Big rock singer," Scratch said. "You should know about her. Your big bro used to go out with her!"

"Say what?" the girl said. "I don't think your head is screwed on quite right." She shook her head. "It doesn't matter. Mister Plume needs a doctor!"

"No, no, I can work!" the duck moaned. He struggled back to his job.

"Don't you two have any hearts?" the hedgehog girl demanded. "No, of course not! You're just soulless machines!"
"Duh, you'll pay for that remark, girlie!" Grounder said.

"Lock her up in the stockade!" Scratch said.

"She's my prisoner!" Grounder insisted. "I'll decide what to do with her!"

"Well? What are you going to do with her?" Scratch demanded.

Grounder seemed to concentrate. You could hear the gears in his head working. They needed oiling. "Oh, I know!" he said at last. "I'll put her in the stockade!"

"Brilliant deduction, old boy!" Scratch said sarcastically as Grounder dragged the girl away.

"Hey!" Coconuts yelled at Scratch. "I've been working in the kitchen all day! How much do we actually have to feed slaves, anyway?"

"Well, let's see…" Scratch said. "No food means slaves die. Dead slaves don't work. So…more than nothing?"

"Wow," Coconuts said. "You're…an idiot. Seriously."

"Listen, shorty, the doctor put me in charge of this place! Haha haha!"
"Oh please," Coconuts said. "He dumped us all half way around the world when he made those lousy new guys, Bocoe, Decoe, and that little freak, Bokkun!" The monkey pointed out. "Besides, we're just flunkies of the doctor's most dangerous creation!"

Scratch grabbed the monkey, placing a hand over his mouth. "Don't say his name!" Scratch hissed, looking around. "Whenever he shows up, he makes us work extra shifts!"

"Unhand me!" Coconuts said, hitting Scratch with the frying pan he was carrying.

"That's it!" Scratch yelled. "You want a piece of me, you little freak!"

"Just don't give me a piece of your mind!" Coconuts said. "You can't spare any!"

Meanwhile, Grounder was having troubles of his own.

"I'm not going in there, you mechanical mistake of nature!" the hedgehog girl screamed. She was pounding Grounder right in his audio servors.

"Hey, stop that!" Grounder yelled. "I'm getting some killer feedback!"

"When my brother finds out what you're doing, you and your crazy friends are all toast!" she cried as Grounder threw her in and slammed the steel bars down into place.

"Duh, you stay there until you learn how to behave yourself!" Grounder said. "Ow! Sounds like a washing machine going on inside my noggin!"

"I hope I damaged something serious!" the girl cried. "I hope your ugly head falls right off! I hope…" But Grounder was already gone. The hedgehog sank down to the floor of the cell. It was eight by ten, with no roof. The Mobian sun beat down on her. It was the end of summer, but still very hot.

"Where are you, big brother?" she sobbed. "You promised Mom and Dad you'd always look out for me! I've been working for that stupid bald jerk for…I don't know how long I've been here! Years, I guess!"

Sonic at last managed to locate the Freedom Fighter base. He found it by having a gun pointed at him.

"Halt and give ze password, monsieur!"

Sonic rolled his eyes. "Hey, 'Toine!" he said, suddenly behind the coyote, his gun in the hedgehog's hands. "How are tricks!"

"Sacre bleu!" Antoine Du'Cullotte cried. "'ow dare you embarrass me like zis! You, sir are not a gentleman!" He stuck his tongue out at Sonic.

"Oh yeah," Sonic said, rolling his eyes. "That's sure mature!"

"What's all the hoohah?" came a drawl. "Well ah do declare! Sonic! Been ages, sugahhog!" The half-robot rabbit gave Sonic a hug, which annoyed her husband.

"Hey, Bunny!" Sonic said. "Better quit that! Your hubby's liable to beat me up!"

"And do not zink I cannot, monsieur!" Antoine said. "Zat is, as soon as you give me back my sword!"

"Don't pick on mah husband, Sonic!" Bunny said. "Come on! Geoffrey wanted to see y'all as soon as y'all arrived, sugah!"

"Oh joy!" Sonic said as he followed them to a tree stump.

"Please to be turning ze head, oui?" Antoine said.

"Why would I want to do that?" Sonic demanded.

"Ze entrance to our headquarters is secret!" Antoine said. Sonic rolled his eyes.

"Okay," Sonic said, putting his hand over his face. "I'm waiting!"

"Oh, sugah, we can trust li'l ol' Sonic!" Bunny said, flipping the switch. The tree stump opened, and Sonic followed Bunny and Antoine down a dimly lit tunnel.

"Reminds me of our days in Knothole Tunnels," Sonic said. "So, how you been, Bunny?"

"Can't complain, sugah!" Bunny said. "Guess these places are borin' to y'all after your trip to Earth and through the galaxy."

"Yeah, well, there's no place like home," Sonic said.

They finally reached a large warehouse-like building. Steel tubes ran along the walls high overhead. A catwalk led through a door into another area. Their footsteps echoed in the large, empty structure.

"Quite a place you got here," Sonic said, looking around.

"This was apparently some sort of scientific observation place once, sugah," Bunny said. "Least, that's what St. John says. Ah only know fighting and cosmetology." It was strange, looking at the rabbit, who was half machine, to think that she was a hairdresser by trade.

"Well, there you are," Hershey said. "Hello, Sonic. Geoffrey's in the observation room. I'm afraid he's not too happy, hearing that Princess Sally sent you."

"He's still mad that I technically outrank him, even though he's some sort of aristocrat?" Sonic asked. "Come on, Hershey. My uncle was Sir Charles the Hedgehog. He was the biggest hero of the last war."

"My husband is a proud man," Hershey said.

"Yeah, well I've had all I can take of snooty aristocrats!" Sonic said. "I take it from Amadeus Prower for Tails' sake, I'm not taking it from anybody else!"

"Then you can just turn and go your own way!" Geoffrey St. John said, striding into the room.

"Now, Geoffrey…" Hershey said, placing her hand on his shoulder.

"You're alone?" St. John said. "Don't think you need any bloke but yourself, eh?"

"Tails couldn't make it," Sonic said. "I don't need Amy chasing me all through this mission. And none of that is any of your business!"

"Now listen here, gov'nor," St. John said, "I'm in charge here, and I don't need no show boaters gumming up the works!"

"Men!" Bunny said. "Y'all ain't happy 'less y'all fightin'!"

That stopped Sonic. Hadn't that been how the whole horrible Metarex thing had begun? "Have you been able to get a message through to anybody inside the quarry?" he asked St. John.

"There's an old duck name of Plume we've been talking to ," St. John said. "But he's been sick lately. There's also a masked girl who's been running wild, wrecking things. We can't get a straight answer from her, though. She could ruin everything if we can't get her under control!"

"And you want me to get in there, and rein in this little wild filly, is that it?" Sonic said. "No problem! There isn't a stronghold I can't get in and out of! So, what do you have on our enemies?"

"It's mostly our old friends, Scratch, Grounder, and Coconuts," Bunny said.

"It's…who?" Sonic asked. He placed his hand over his mouth. The others could hear snorting sounds.

'It's not funny!" St. John said.

"Scratch, Grounder, and Coconuts?!?" Sonic repeated. "I beat those guys up when I was eleven!"

"Yeah, well, they seem to have some help this time," St. John said. "We don't know how he survived, but take a look at this!" He led Sonic to a digital screen. He tried turning a few switches. The machine made weird noises and showed psychedelic color patterns.

"Here, hon," Hershey said. She soon had a clear picture.

Sonic had just started to laugh again when he saw the scene. A large, barn-like building had been smashed to pieces on one side. The ground there was burned. There were bodies. Sonic looked away in horror.

"What did this?" he demanded.

"Doctor Eggman's greatest creation," Bunny said softly. "The one that it took y'all everythin' you had to beat before, sugah!"

Hershey turned the controls again. An image appeared. It looked vaguely like Sonic, but it was mechanical. Sonic moaned.

"Metal Sonic!"