FicWad

Changes Are No Good
By: Chibi
Chapter 6: "Faith and Misery"

*

When Rouge finally returned to her south Central City apartment, she found a slouching echidna on her couch waiting for her. "Well, you're up early."

Knuckles studied the wood floor at his feet like the secrets of the universe were hidden within it. "Sonic would always wake up around this time for work. I never thought I'd miss his snoring..." He put a hand on the top of his head. "Rouge? I... I want to ask your honest opinion about something."

The bat sat down next to her ex and put an arm around his shoulders. "It's about Sonic, isn't it?"

He nodded, making the beads on his dreadlocks softly clack. "Yeah. He's... I don't know what's going on, but I know it's bad and he needs help." He leaned against the bat. "You know people better than I do; what do you suggest I do now?"

Rouge was silent for several moments. "I think," she said, "that it's high time you talk to someone else who wants to help him. You of all people should be part of this."

Knuckles blinked and tilted his head to one side. "Part of what? Rouge, what's going on?"

"It's a long story," she said, absently stroking his dreadlocks, "All about the rise and fall of a hero..."

*

All the way across the city in the north side home of Ivo Robotnik, a black hedgehog had nodded off on the living room couch, the cheerful strains of the Mini Mango Bunch theme song from the television not fazing him in the least. To one side of him was a barely-touched graphic novel, to the other the TV remote. His human cousin of sorts was wide awake and pacing the room, a phone in his hand. "You're breaking up, Gordon! I said you have to light the giant stone lanterns. The-THE LANTERNS, GORDON. LIGHT THE-Oh, just call back when you get there. I SAID, CALL BACK WHEN YOU GET THERE."

There was a knock at the front door. The black hedgehog's eyes snapped open and he exclaimed, "CHECKMATE!" He rubbed his eyes. "Huh? Must've fallen asleep..."

"I'll have to get back to you, Gor-I SAID, I'LL GET BACK TO YOU," the doctor said before pressing "end" on the phone. He unlocked and opened the front door to find a pink hedgehog waiting on the other side. "Ah, Maury. We've been wondering where you were."

"Good thing you were awake, Uncle Ivo," the boy sidestepped. "I wasn't looking forward to waiting at the door until you or dad had to go to work. I'll be going upstairs now..."

The boy brushed past the human only to be blocked by a scowling black hedgehog at the bottom of the stairs. The black hedgehog crossed his arms. "Like hell you are. You're not going anywhere until you tell me just where the hell you were last night."

Maury crossed his arms. "I don't have to tell you anything. What I do is my business, not yours."

Shadow mirrored his pose. "I'm your father, Maury. It is my business."

The boy jumped at a sudden large hand on his shoulder. "Maury," Ivo said, "What I am about to ask you is very important. What you did or did not do last night is unimportant..." The older hedgehog snorted. The doctor shot him a look and continued. "But there is one thing I absolutely need to know: Did you take the Chaos Emeralds?"

Maury flinched and stepped away from the doctor. "Why's it so important?"

The human sighed heavily, took off his glasses, and closed his eyes. "It's because..."

"It's because Sonic's that 'St. Jimmy' asshole and he's planning to use the emeralds in his plan to destroy GUN," Shadow said, leaning back against the bottom railing support.

The boy blinked. "What? That... No, that can't..." he said, stepping away from his elders and towards the living room.

"I'm afraid it is," Ivo replied. "Maury, please answer..."

Maury continued on to the living room, followed by the older men, and climbed into the recliner. "Yeah, so I brought him the emeralds. So what? He can't be what you say he is," he said. "Guys like that would just take what they want and turn you out. Guys like that..." He rubbed his upper arm and dropped his voice. "Guys like that wouldn't be gentle, or make you chocolate chip pancakes in the morning, or pay for your cab back home..."

The black hedgehog looked at him funny. "I beg your pardon?"

Ivo scoffed and told his cousin, "You can't possibly be that naïve. What do you think he was doing all night, playing Go Fish?"

Shadow fell silent for several seconds, then abruptly turned and stated, "I'm getting my shotgun," before starting out of the room.

Maury brought his hand to his face. "Damn it, dad, I'm nineteen! I can have sex if I want to!" He leaned back and scowled. "God, you act like I was some pathetic, helpless virgin."

The dark hedgehog stopped dead in his tracks. "What?! Who?! When was this going on?!"

The boy smirked. "Why, you wanna know who else to shoot while you got the shotgun out?"

The doctor covered his mouth and fought the urge to laugh at the family drama before him. "Is this really the time to be discussing such matters? There're more important things to worry about," he said, slightly muffled by his hand.

"There won't be for long," Shadow said darkly before heading up the stairs.

"Dad, damn it! Will you...?" the pink hedgehog started, trailing off as he heard the footsteps up the stairs. He let out an exasperated sigh. "Damned overprotective..."

"For what it's worth, it isn't all about you," Ivo said. "We had quite a conversation while you were out, all about Sonic's plans and what he's done to our little extended family here. It was all we could do to make him keep his temper then. Rouge encouraging him didn't help, either."

Maury's ears twitched. "Aunt Rouge was encouraging him to break out the shotgun? Why would she do that?"

The doctor removed his glasses and looked the boy in the eye. "Yesterday morning, Sonic killed her boyfriend with a single gunshot."

Maury jumped out of the chair. "What?! But why-?!"

Any further inquiries were cut off by heavy footsteps down the stairs, the sound of a couple arguing, and the phone in Ivo's hand ringing. "Honey, come back upstairs and put that away! You can't just shoot him!" Amy said.

"Why not? It'll save lives in the long run," Shadow replied, shotgun in hand. He stopped at the bottom of the stairs and did a half-turn. "He's killed countless people with his hijacked robots. He personally killed one of his exes in his office. Eris-only-knows what he was planning on doing to Gordon after he brought him in. And that's only part of the hell he's been putting everyone through. We'll all be safer with him dead."

"Not you! You think GUN'll just ignore the fact you offed their leader?" Amy countered. "They'd chase you down and lock you up, or worse!"

The black hedgehog snorted. "They'd never be able to catch me."

The novelist frowned. "So you're willing to abandon your wife and children for some misguided attempt to protect us?"

"Amy, I-" Shadow began. "Wait, 'children'? As in more than one?"

His wife patted her stomach. "Yeah, as in 'more than one'. I was going to tell you once all this had settled down, but I guess the cat's out of the bag now."

"Amy..." Shadow murmured. He carefully set the firearm aside, then went up a step to hug and kiss her. "All right, I won't do it. For little Jeanne."

Amy smirked. "What if it's another boy?"

"He'll get a sex change. I want a girl," the dark hedgehog said. The sound of evil laughter could be heard coming from the living room. "What is the doctor going on about in there?"

Amy shrugged. "I don't know, but I have the feeling we're going to find out very soon..."

*

Later, in a non-descript blue car heading west, the cell phone of one Patterson Horrocks cheerfully chirped a fabulous midi version of "Tales from Another Broken Home". The older man in the passenger seat picked it up and answered the call. "Hello?"

"Patterson James Horrocks, what the screaming blue hell is going on?!" a female voice yelled, causing Gordon to jerk the phone away from his ear. "First I hear you're in league with a man who tried to kill our commander. Then I hear whisperings that you might be St. Jimmy-which is absolutely ridiculous; you still have problems organizing your Pokemon! Now they're interrogating your fiancée to find out where the hell you are! Explain this instant, young man!"

Gordon held the phone out to the driver. "It's for you."

Horrocks pushed the phone towards the ex-commander. "It's not safe to talk on a phone and drive at the same time," he said. He paused for a moment and added, "You might not wanna go into detail with Edina. She's like family and all, but she's kind of a gossip."

"I heard that!" could be heard from the phone. A softer woman's voice could barely be heard saying something, then Edina suddenly yelled into the phone, "And next time, young lady, don't hide the burnt pan!" and hung up.

The older man blinked at the phone. "The hell?"

"She got caught?" the driver asked.

"That's my only explanation," Gordon said with a nod.

Horrocks adjusted his grip on the wheel and frowned. "I hope she's all right."

Before Gordon could answer, Horrocks's cell phone rang again. The ex-commander hesitated a second before answering. "Hello?" He suddenly leaned forward in his seat. "You!"

"What's wrong?" Horrocks asked.

"Whatsername," Gordon answered.

"Bless you," the captain said.

Gordon rubbed the bridge of his nose. "No, she's called 'Whatsername'. She picked that name to protect her identity."

"Oh," Horrocks said. Then it clicked. "Oh! Like from the... Oh!"

"Exactly," Gordon said. "Now if you don't mind, I'm trying to-"

"Can I have a cool code name too?" the younger man asked brightly. "Like... Oh, I know! I can be the Jesus of Suburbia! Can I be the Jesus of Suburbia, General Ansem, sir? Can I? Please?"

Gordon waved a hand at him. "Yes, yes, fine, just let me talk to my contact." Satisfied, the captain played around with the car radio. The ex-commander just rolled his eyes and spoke into the phone. "All right, now what was it you-"

The radio suddenly came to life, blaring the song from which the captain picked his shiny new codename. The general let out a dissatisfied snort and turned the volume up on the phone. The long trip just got a whole lot longer.

*

Back at Central City, in the GUN base, the commander leaned against the back wall of Dr. Prower's work area. "Kid," Sonic began, not looking at the engineer, "You're not stupid. You're one of the best-possibly the best-in your field. You have to know something by now."

The fox wasn't even attempting to look at the hedgehog either. The engineer pulled his goggles up. "I don't know how to say this, but..." He started to reach for something in the inside pocket of his green tweed jacket, but thought better of it and pulled his hand back. "It's obviously an inside job, Sonic. The serial numbers on the parts trace back to people who prove parts for GUN machinery, and they're powered by chaos drives. How often do you find chaos drives outside of GUN tech or the odd high-end backup generator? And even then, the generator ones run half the size of these."

Sonic still wouldn't look at his friend; instead, his gaze was locked on the doorway. "I see. Does the evidence point to anyone? I'd hate to have to do that press conference with just 'It's an inside job.'" He ran a hand through his quills. "Can you just see it? 'Oh yeah, we know it's an inside job now. No, we don't know who's behind it yet, because we SUCK.'"

Miles repeated the motion to his pocket and decided yet again to leave its contents undisturbed. "No, it doesn't. But there is one telling thing about his methods," he said. He pulled a white glove out of a table drawer and put it on over one of his normal red fingerless ones, then carefully wiped the inside of a disassembled robot's casing. He turned around and held his hand up. The part of the glove he wiped the casing with was now black. "Wherever this guy has been building these things has a lot of pollution floating around that gets trapped in the 'bots during manufacturing and pulled into its cooling vents. The analysis isn't complete on it, but it looks an awful lot like something I saw a lot of as a kid."

The commander glanced at the dirty glove. "The doc's old 'bots, right? I remember having to wash, like, five times to get that crap off and I still smelled like a factory."

Miles nodded and pulled the white glove off. "I wouldn't be surprised if he set up camp in one of his old bases. If the machinery still worked, it'd be nothing to get the assembly lines to build his mech." He turned back around and absently tapped the glowing purple chaos drive. "After all, he was smart enough come up with a couple good mech designs. It's funny, though. On the outside, they look kind of like Eggman's style. These beetles have the same high-tech Pokemon look."

Sonic weakly laughed. "Anything else to report, kiddo?"

The engineer tapped the tube one last time and reached for the pocket again, once more deciding against taking anything out. "No. Nothing, Sonic."

"All right. Keep me posted," the hedgehog said.

"Right," Miles said. As soon as he was sure his friend was gone, he pulled down his goggles and headed to where the hedgehog had been standing. With sudden violence, he whipped around, pulled a pistol out of the inside pocket, and fired at the metal casing on the table. "GODDAMMIT!" he snarled. "Why are you doing this?" Another shot, this time hitting the wall. "Why couldn't I say anything?! Why couldn't I do anything?!" Two more shots, one to each side of the chaos drive. He took a couple deep breaths and lowered the firearm. "Stick to the plan, Miles," he muttered to himself. "A one-on-one confrontation could've gone bad quickly. Wait for her..."

The fox started to leave. About a foot from the door, he turned around and fired one final shot, this time scoring a direct hit on the chaos drive. It exploded magnificently, showering glass and purple "flames" over the table and floor. "I always wanted to see what'd happen if I did that," Miles said as the fire alarm and emergency sprinklers came on.

"Dr. Prower, what part of 'keep your bloody head down' don't you bloody get?!" Whatsername could be heard shouting from the other side of the door.

Dr. Prower winced. "Oops?"

*

Back at the Robotnik home in north Central...

Maury Rose sat on the back steps, knees close to his chest. He stared out into the yard and vacantly assessed the damage from the most recent attack. Most of the shrubs had been trashed and parts of the fence had been knocked down. Somehow, however, a large oak tree managed to escape the chaos more or less intact. The porch itself was broken in places, but still standing. "Way to go, genius," he muttered to himself. "Now even bigger shit is gonna go down."

A hand rested itself between his ears. "Maury..." a soft male voice said.

"If you're here to yell at me for being an idiot, dad, you'd better just turn around right now. I know," the boy said.

Shadow shook his head. "No, of course not. You should know damned well by now I don't believe in calling children names."

"I'm not a child," Maury grumbled.

The older hedgehog sat next to him. "Then stop acting like one." His son scowled and scooted away from him. Shadow sighed and closed his eyes. "I know you've always had this little dream about being a hero like he was, Maury-"

"Is," Maury corrected. "He just... um..."

"Didn't know when to go into fucking therapy," Shadow finished. "Discord knows we tried to nudge him to it. Hell, the echidna finally did convince him to go for a little while. I wonder what happened with that..." He waved a hand. "But that's beside the point."

"The point being, 'don't try to be a hero; it'll fuck you up for life,' right?" Maury said.

"Maury..." the dark hedgehog started. He covered his eyes for a moment, then began again. "Maury, what is it you hope to accomplish? Why do you want to put your life on the line to be a 'hero'?"

Maury blinked and looked at him. "'Why'? Isn't it obvious?"

"Obviously not," Shadow answered. "Enlighten me."

The boy stood up. "You've always protected me, dad. Always. And if it wasn't you, it was mom, or Aunt Rouge, or Uncle Ivo, and in the past couple days, it was Elly and General Ansem too. I'm tired of being the one who needs protecting. I want to be able to protect too, like I did the day I got this," he said, summoning what appeared to be a stylized croquet mallet into his outstretched hand.

Shadow looked up at his son. "And just what is it you want to protect?"

"You," Maury said, "Mom. Everyone. ... him." He rested part of the mallet on his shoulder. "I heard all the stories about him when I was little. How when he was younger, he was off saving the world from Earth-shattering space stations and giant supernatural and robotic monsters. He wanted to make the world a safer place, even if he had to put himself at risk to do it!" He turned to his father. "You said it yourself, he needs help. I don't want to sit and watch my hero self-destruct if there's something I can do!"

Shadow softly chuckled, stood up, and patted his son on the back. "I doubt anything short of a nice, long stay with the men in white coats would do him any good at this point. Not to mention it'd be insanity to go up against him without knowing the first thing about controlling the powers you only just found out you had."

Maury drooped. "I know, but..."

The dark hedgehog started down the steps into the yard. "But that just means I'll have to try to teach you."

"Yeah, that..." the pink hedgehog started. "Wait, WHAT?! Seriously?!"

Shadow stopped in the middle of the yard, turned around, and smirked. "When am I not serious?"

"When you watch your New Generation Moon Soldier fansubs," Maury replied, mirroring his father's expression.

"Don't you know? Fandom is serious business," the dark hedgehog countered. "Now come on, we don't have all day." He paused briefly, then added, "It's really too bad we don't have an emerald to practice with..."

Maury caught up to his father, then pulled out a dazzling red gem. "We don't? Then what did I steal from his closet?"

Shadow's eyes bulged at the Chaos Emerald. "Maury, why...?"

The boy looked up and decided a passing cloud looked like a bunny. "Round two?"

Shadow's hand swiftly met his own face. "You're a Robotnik-Rose, all right. Equal parts intelligent and crazy, with a dash of screaming pervert."

"At least I don't write porn like mom?" Maury said.

The dark hedgehog crossed his arms. "No, but don't think I don't know about those pictures you were working on in Flash. Save and exit next time, Maury. Other people have to use that computer, you know."

Maury colored and mumbled, "Right, dad. Can we change the subject back to freaky alien powers?"

Shadow nodded. "Yes, we can. Now, the first thing you need to keep in mind..."

*

"Sir, is everything prepared for the press conference?"

"Of course, Saff. Everything's on schedule..."

*
End Chapter 6


Chibi's notes:

The Rose Family is good for over-sharing. XD

I have no idea if chaos drives really do explode if you shoot them.

One more chapter to go. Dance, puppets! Dance!

Sonic et. al. are owned by Sega. I'm just borrowing them.