FoxFire Studios Present A Sonic the Hedgehog--Blood and Metal story Haunted Fantasies--Part Four By David Gonterman [mailto:dgonterman@aol.com] http://users.aol.com/dgonterman<---The FoxFire Web Site---Smut-Free "I stand unafraid of a group of congressmen mucking around the Net with children's safety in their minds; I don't think you should either..." Sonic the Hedgehog by Sega of America [http://www.segaoa.com] David "Davey Crockett" Kintobor by David Gonterman Kickaha and some or his dialog by Edward Becerra [mailto:edward@genesis.org] MechTail and some of his dialog by Paul Lapensee [mailto:butcher@iaw.on.ca] ________________________________ "I take it you've caught wood before." "huh?" Davey pointed below his morpher belt buckle. "Oh." Tails looks down at Davey's feet, who placed an arm on Tails' shoulder. "Hey, I expected this to happen to you sooner or later, bub. You're hitting puberty; and hard too, I see. You're entering a part in your life that's brand spanking new to you, and it's both exciting you and frightening you at the same time. I've seen something like this before on Sonia, especially after I set her cyborg half free. Later on, as we were cloud gazing one day, she up and asked me about the subject, just like you're doing right now." "What did you say to her?" "The exact same thing I'm telling you: You're budding sexuality is not something that you should be afraid of, but you also shouldn't let it control your life. It's just another part of living. That's my sex education course in a nutshell, Tails Prower." "That's *it*?" "Not quite." Davey hands Tails a computer disk. "Put this in that wrist computer of yours." "What is it?" "Everything your ever want to know about the ins and outs on the topic in HTML glory. And don't worry, the graphics are purely technical; nothing you would find in any of them smut mags you'd run into on occasion. It'll answer your questions without stammering up a storm first." "Thanks, Uncle David." As Tails turned to leave, noticeably taller than last time David Kintobor saw him--cramned growth spurts, along with the annoying automatic stiffies and dark wild mood swings that comes with a boy's puberty--when a raven flew in and landed on his shoulder. With it's large flapping of its wings, the bird appeared to be talking to Davey. It wasn't known in he talked back, until. . . "Tails! TAILS!! Come back here, if you mind?" He turned around and helicoptered back to Davey. "How'd you like to go on an adventure with me? Something to keep your mind off your hormones." "Would I?" Tails has never been asked to go on enough missions. "Sure! Where're we going?" "To that mansion that popped up when I got in the way of a falling chaos emerald. Liz and company are in a jam and I volunteered to pull them out." "You? But what about your--" "All my systems are running in the green zone on their status reports. Be that as it may, my chest is still so wrapped up in gauge I can't breathe straight. But, this is something I've got to do personally, my friend." "How come?" "Tails, my man, if you think that growing up is such a pain in the brushes, I want this run to remind you of one thing." "And that is?" "Consider the alternative." ___________________________ David told Tails about Pippkin as they walked over to the strike team Davey selected. Apparently, David didn't exactly have the best childhood on record at Earth, or so Tails noted. The allegory of a trial was used where a young, insecure, and constantly bullied David Kintobor had to prove his right to exist to a jury of his peers. He lost that trial, of course. "When I was 14, Tails, I wasn't going on cool adventures with someone like Sonic to look up to as a mentor. No, From Ages 8 to 16 I stayed in my room all the time, letting the world to just pass me by. I had no friends like I do now, no aspirations, social life . . . no life in general. I just stayed in my little jail cell serving a life sentence of isolation for being a loser." "Whoa. I would go nuts if I weren't doing something outside for more than an half hour." "Yeah, and some say that's what's happened to me. I kinda drifted into a fantasy world; my own little Never-Never Land. In that world lived the guy we're about to fight with. Did you ever had a Halloween costume that you just plain love." "No, Not really, but I had some really cool ones." "Well then, you'll probably won't know how to answer this one: Did you ever dreamed that costume that you really loved had a life of its own, with a heart, mind, and soul, and that it would allow you to put it on and you can become that costume." Tails laughed out loud. "I never believed in that!!" "I did, and that's where Pippkin came from, and because of a close encounter of the third kind I had with a chaos emerald, Pippkin is mucking around here on Mobius. Julian here has come clips of him in action." David activated Julian's holographic projector. Images of Elizabeth, Vixie, Kickaha, and a few others being greeted by a white rabbit in a black tux ["That's Pippkin"]. He shows them around the mansion and performs a few Magic tricks a la David Copperfield ["His profession. I know several that are like that."] David then fast forwards a bit . . . An intimate moment. Pippkin detects a strong power in Liz, and tells her that he can unlock that power. He does so by making her put him on; by now Pippkin tells Elizabeth that he's really an bunny costume. He starts with just her right arm. Telling Liz to set her gaze on the moon outside the window, she allows Pippkin to move her arm that's in the costume at that time. The glowing power is shown. Gradually, Liz puts on all of him; being told to close her eyes and keep the image of that moon in her mind as she puts on Pippkin's head. He--'He,' now--begins to bask in that same glow. Another fast forward. A scream. Vixie being chased by a couple of clowns. ["She's always been scared of clowns."] She's trapped in a corner, face in horror. Pippkin shows up with a glowing medallion, asking her why she's so scared of those clowns. While the magical rabbit gives her the lecture on what clowns are all about, Vixie gaze was locked on that medallion. Her face relaxes; her breathing slows. She seemed to be at a daze as the clown took her by the arms and put a overly colorful clown costume on her. As they were putting make-up on her, the corners of Vixie's mouth began to pull up to form a fixed grin. She even began to giggle . . . "That's Pippkin's method of operation, Heartbreak Kit," Davey said as he and Tails finally met with the others--Kickaha, MechTail, and Sonia. "He plans to make them part of his little corner in Never-Never Land; A place of Fairy Tails and Dreams that have no link in reality. I reckon that he nabbed several others-mostly critters that got too burned by Ro-Butt-Nik to say 'no.' I would've stayed with him too, but I finally got rescued from his clutches by counselors. I got back here in the real world. Whatever that is here, be it good or bad." "Why didn't he take you too, Kickaha? You were with them too." "Because all he offered me was freedom from the pain, Tails. And that was his first mistake. Pain and guilt can't be dispelled with the wave of a magic wand. They are things we carry with us. The things that make us who and what we are. They shape us, and change us, forcing us to grow to meet their challenge. If we lose them, we lose _ourselves_. I don't _want_ my pain taken away. I don't _want_ to forget. I know what my weaknesses are. I remember all my mistakes. I _need_ my pain. No matter how much it hurts." "His _first_ mistake?" Kickaha looked away nervously and refused to meet Tails' gaze. "Let's just say that there was a _reason_ for my having the name of Edward Two Lives, Tails. And Pippkin found out why. The hard way. That's why he threw me back. This fish was a little bigger than he expected." Davey peered out in the distance, finally making out that mansion. "We'll wait til dawn to strike. He'll be expecting us now, I think procrastination will throw Pippkin off his game plan a bit. I also want to be well-rested. With Pippkin's occasional mind games, it's best to have a clear head." "Good Idea." _______________________________ Sonia and Tails were already in their tents. MechTail used his little finger trick to light a fire. "Ain't he a show-off, Kicker?" "You're not kidding. . ." The three were keeping warm by the fire while Kickaha look like he had something *major* on his mind. "Hey, guys? You two are from Earth, right?" "Yeah." "So?" "Ever heard of this place called "Germany?" "Yeah." "So?" "Never mind. It's just that. I kept seeing a certain barbed wire fence there, in that Germany, whenever I look back to my last encounter with that rabbit. I'm trying to look for clues." "So?" "What's with the barbed wire?" "Oh, it's nothing. I keep thinking that I was sent there to help pull out some War Veteran out of a catatonic stupor because of what happened to him there. I don't know all of the details now. The next thing I knew, I was dumped onto your feet, Dave." He shook his head. "Why that, I wonder?" "It's probably nothing to do with the here and now, Kickaha." "Kicker's has a point, Mech. Apparently Pipkie's trying to use what happened to us in the past as a sign of how rotten reality is. I thought it had something to do with how you got booted out of your original tribe, Kickaha. This Germany stuff's really deep right field. You had a *ton* of guilt over being a WorkerBot, Mech. I've seen it before on dozens of people here." "I don't regret the ghIm'ghach, the... exile, Dave. What the Elders wanted from me was wrong, evil. I did what was right. I don't regret the price I paid. It still hurts, though. Yeah. Good thing you've got that bat of your's, Mech. A woman's love is a sure cure for what ails one spiritually. Think of what Sonia did for Davey." He sighed. If Davey had listened closely, the sigh would have sounded like "Nightsky..." "You got it, Kickaha. I can't imagine the good She's done on ya. And I suspect that everybody knows your past; being Robotnik's son and all." "I'm afraid not, Mech. Not many of them knows of my past on Earth. I must say that the baggage I brought with me is really two notches below lame when I compare it with others. Each one's really small, easily glanced over and forgotten. I have nothing like getting kicked out of my family or being forced to do bad things, and all . . . but . . ." Davey can still see the scars on himself. The near-constant taunts and teasings, the often times that everything he did or say was met with sneers and laughing, the naggings and shouts from an over-harried mother who refuses to understand why the only thing she has left in her life is no damned low in the social pecking order. Each and every one of them *is* small, but add them up over two decades, and they can really wear a person down. ". . . I don't expect you can have all those discouraging events hitting you one after another in windmill fashion and not have it dampen down your spirit. Sometimes, I think I've *become* a WorkerBot; I really had no reason to go on until I found myself in that tube, with some machines inside me *making* me get up and try it one more time. All those constant failures. They kept reminding me every time I tried again." "What's the alternative, David? Crawling in some foxhole with the covers over your head? You were like that for a while not too long ago, if I'm not mistaken." That made David blush so much, his face was glowing as red as his eyes. "I my self have giving up on a lot of things and I still regret a lot of my decisions. Like I told you, I was once human, myself. I gave up hope on my future and ending up tagging along with a alien named Todd. There was an accident and I ending up here. . . I also almost gave up on this world to. But Sally and the rest of the freedom fighters helped me to snap out off it. I know now that I can help to make a difference." MechTail stop's talking and rolls his eyes and the starts giggling. Then he shakes his head. "Houston, we have a problem." "Ground Control to Major Paul, what is going on up there?" "It's Foxglove's doing, she is telepathic. She is having one of dreams again and I'm in it. It's something I wouldn't recommend anyone seeing under the age of 18. Oh boy, oh man, I never knew that a girl would have such thoughts. She will be all over me when I get back, that's for sure." Kickaha started to head for his tent, then looked back at Dave. "Walks with Stars told me this, once. Maybe it might help you, David. When you get to the other side, and you stand before the Great Spirit, he won't look at rich trappings or flowery words. He'll look for scars. Think about it, my friend." ________________________ "Get yer phrackin' minds outta the gutter, guys!" Davey yelled back to MechTail and Kickaha as they approached the mansion. "I'm a strictly fluffer!" Tails would later find the definition to "fluffing" as merely cuddling up and being close, rarely moving farther than that. It was defined by Davey's 'sex manual' as "Mostly Harmless." It was book-marked right after "condoms" ["A over-glorified water balloon used during intercourse to avoid diseases and pregnancy during sex. Has a 10% failure rate at the least. That's barely above crappy as odds go, according to the manual, which suggests abstinence and monogamy as the best ways to go to avoid the above.] Kickaha put a paw on Davey's shoulder. "Davey, there's something you should remember when you take on Pippkin." "What's that, Kicker?" "Just this, Dave: `To know the Way, We _go_ the Way; We _do_ the Way The way we do The things we do. It's all there in front of you, But if you try too hard to see it, You'll only become Confused. I am me, And you are you, As you can see; But when you do The things that _you_ can do, You will find the Way, And the Way will follow you.' Follow the Way, Davey. Don't let him anger you. Revenge isn't the way. You're trying to defend our friends, not to avenge yourself upon Pippkin. Remember that, and you _will_ win. Control your rage. If you let the rage control you, he has already won. In the end, Pippkin is nothing more than a part of _you_, my friend. And he can only do what you let him do." Kickaha smiled. "That's enough philosophy for now. Been a while since I had a just cause to do battle for." He spun his bat'leth through the chill dawn air. "Let's go pick a fight and kick some butt." ___________________________________________ They arrived at the mansion front door, which glimmered in the morning sunrise. It was too quiet for words. "Maybe they aren't up yet." "Maybe we should wait for a bit for them to--" "Not me, Tails. Pippkin's in deeper trouble than you *or* me have ever been. I'm gonna give him a severe talking to." "Yeah, Hon, you tell him!!" "I suppose I'll knock." MechTail approached the door. CRACK!!! MechTail's knock just happened to blow the front door in." "oops . . . [MechTail grins] . . . Door's open. Me might as well go in." "Allow me, Paul," Davey stepped in front of MechTail. "If something's going to happen, it's going to happen to me first." Tails was the last person in that door, which flew back on it's hinges and locked himself shut. The noise made Tails jump 10 feet straight up. Davey caught him. "I guess he wants us to stay." "weeeeelllllll . . ." Everybody turned to a life size velveteen rabbit leaning on a mantle by the fireplace. ". . . It's actually been a looooong time, David. You didn't write. You didn't call. You didn't even try to visit . I thought that you plum forgot all about me. By the way, nice fur coat you've got there. How'd you get the blood out?" "Hello, Pippkin. What on Mobius are you doing outside my head?" "Just surveying the wreckage this little war you're having has created. Scrapping off the casualties that unfortunately have yet to die." "You're not their savior." MechTail and Kickaha were crackling their knuckles. "That's a nasty habit, guys." "So's stealing several friends of ours away in the middle of the night." "I don't think that keeping that unfortunate soul in a straight jacket's gonna help--" "I'm not interested in Sammi right now." "But, Davey, she's *family*. . ." "Pippkie's got a point, Suni. Right now I'm interested in people he's got no right to: Bunnie. Vixie. Mighty. Elizabeth. *Especially* Elizabeth, since she's the one in you right now. I've come to get them outta here." "Ohhhhh, the direct approach. I admire that in a man with a tail." Davey and Pippkin got up close, mussle to mussle. "You don't really think you'll win them, do you?" "You're not dealing with a scared child anymore, Pippkin." Red glowing eyes reflected off a cheap plastic nose. Davey was amazed that his adversary of the day has kept himself in such good condition. "You're not dealing with a Halloween costume with two bit magic tricks either, David Kintobor." Pippkin's hands began to glow a bright light. Davey registered them as off-the-phracking-scale on his HUD's . . . _______________________ The next thing Davey and Tails knew, both of them were being blown straight up on a pillar of air. The other fell threw trap doors; it was only by hanging on for dear life by Davey's pant leg was he able to stay with Davey. They were going up more floors on the inside then both of them would count on the outside. They would've been cut to ribbons on the looming chandelier above them had not a black arm with a white-gloved, four-fingered hand reached out and grabbed the other pant leg. There was a high-pitched grunt as Davey managed to flip safely on the top balcony. Davey managed to say a "Holy Phr--" before the landing knocked him out. Tails was left to see the one who saved them both. His jaw was hanging wide. Davey told him about this one during a field trip with MechTail, but never in his wildest dreams he'd-- "*You're* jaw's hanging?" The hero of the day said, in a squeaky falsetto voice that would have anybody else but him get pummeled to bits, "What about *me?* Heh-heh. A fox with two tails. I *especially* took a wrong turn at Duckburg! Wait til I tell Bugs about this . . . Ha! By the way, what's your name." "Miles. Miles Prower. Everybody calls me 'Tails'." "'Tails,' huh? It fits, heh-heh. I'm Mickey Mouse. I don't think you've heard of me. . . y-you *have*? . . . This guy here [Mickey points to the still-unconscious Davey] told you? . . . Hmmmm." "Help me drag this guy in here, before that rabbit costume sees us." They both grab a arm and heaved into a room. "He might be of some help . . ." _______________________________________ "What can I say? Where [we] come from, we *earn* our canings." ---David Kintobor Kinto's roboticized the Disney Lawyers. He hacked into their computer systems and captured the "Uncle Walt" ROM Construct. He's got Cartoondom's living legend on his shoulder doing his best Phantom Blot impersonation: And now . . . . -------------Promo---------------Cue 'Killer Instinct' Theme....................... "The magical world of Disney is at a crossroads. Michael Eisner, the man who brought the company up from near-bankruptcy is at the last days of his life. Soon, he will retire, and another will he called to take his place. What happens here will have an immense impact on The Walt Disney Company's future well through the next millennium. The Magic Kingdom's greatest challenge lies ahead . . . " * Take every cartoon and movie ever created by Disney * From "Steamboat Willie" to "Pocahontas" and beyond * Cram them all into one single universe * And send it full-tilt into not even Walt knows what * And to Heck with what the company heads want * AVAILABLE FROM THE DISNEY AFTERNOON FILE TIME MAILING LIST IN 1996 ONLY FROM THE FOXFIRE STUDIOS DISNEY MAGIC WITH AN ATTITUDE [[[[[[[[[[[[FIRESTORM]]]]]]]]]]]]