First of all, if you're reading this, thank you. I need your reviews and opinions and not like mindless people on other forums. I've always had a bad experience with Sonic the Hedgehog fanfictions, so writing my own (even if it's like a short story) feels kinda weird. It took me a long time to write this story. I'm not exactly sure why, but I think it's because I think it's boring. Well, maybe it is, maybe it isn't. It also has a lot of relationship bends. Another thing, you will have had to have played Sonic Adventure 2 (or Battle) to know the characters. So...enjoy?
Note: There are some images in here to enhance the story. Modem users, wait until they load, otherwise the story won't make sense! Also, don't scroll down very much past the part that you're reading. When I'm reading books, my eyes are usually caught by caps, italics, etc, and so I skip what I'm reading and read that sentence, then go back. If you're like me and you do that, some parts will be spoiled if you look ahead!
Title: Never Again
Game: Sonic the Hedgehog (specifically Sonic Adventure 2)
Rating: PG (possibly some PG-13 parts)
Date started: Feburary 17th, 2003
Date finished: September 14th, 2003
Theme song: Uh....... ^^ (anyone have any ideas after they finish reading it?)
Relationship changes: Knuckles/Rouge=married~
As we all know, Knuckles and Rouge discovered their love for each other early on, but both of them were too stubborn to say anything about it. It was Rouge who stepped up first, asking Knuckles out after her mysterious two month disappearance. They dated for a short time before they were sure they wanted to be married. But they're perfect for each other, no?
Amy/Rouge=best friends~
When Rouge first met Amy, she saw her as most do: an overenergetic and annoying pink hedgehog. But, later on, Rouge saw something she couldn't quite explain, and figured it would be to her advantage to befriend Amy. Rouge really got to know what kind of person Amy was (after get past her Sonic rants and pure annoyingness), and wanted to be her friend regardless if there really was something in Amy. Of course, Amy accepted the invitation, and they have been great friends since.
Rouge sat down at the table in her flowing lilac bathrobe. Her bright face smiled tenderly. She relaxed her jet black wings and rested her chin on her hands.
“Good morning, honey,” Knuckles said, sitting across from her. He slid her a white mug like the one already in front of him. She took her chin off her hands and took a sip off coffee.
“Good morning,” Rouge replied. She smiled warmly again. “I can see how you come from the heavens,” she complimented him.
“And words cannot describe your beauty,” he complimented back. She blushed, but soon her face softened again. She drank some more coffee and pushed the mug aside, then returned to her original position of chin on hands.
Knuckles’s scorching red fur was brighter than the sun on the summer morning. He poured some cream in his mocha and drank the rest. “I’m going to see if any mail came in the early post,” he announced. “Perhaps I got a letter from old Tikal, I haven’t heard from her in a while.”
He set his empty mug in the sink and stepped outside. In the mailbox, there were some things, so picked them up, went back inside, and stood next to the table.
“Let’s see what we got today…” Knuckles began as flipped through the mail.
“Bill, bill, bill…” He scrunched up his face. “A pink flower-printed bill…Oh! Here’s a letter addressed to us both!”
“Let’s open it!” Rouge exclaimed. Knuckles put aside the bills on the table and sat down. Rouge got up and sat at the chair next to the echidna. He got the letter opener from the drawer and opened the envelope. Rouge scooted her seat closer to him and looked on.
Knuckles unfolded the letter. It was written in Old English calligraphy on thick, yellowed parchment. It read:
“Oh my g-“ gasped Rouge. She began sobbing uncontrollably, and buried her face in her palms. Knuckles hugged her to his body.
“Don’t worry,” he consoled her.
“Why not?” she asked between sobs. Knuckles had a look of determination on his face.
“We’ll find that murderer, and punish him, too!” Rouge gave a half-hearted smile. She knew what her husband could do.
“Of course,” she said, her tears lessening. She keened her head on Knuckles’s shoulder.
She shifted her gaze to the letter, which was now lying on the table. She squinted and craned her neck to get a better look.
“Look somebody started to sign it…” she pointed out.
“You’re right…” Knuckles acknowledged, his voice trailing. Rouge shrugged in puzzlement, but left it at that.
“I have to make breakfast now. You should get some rest, honey. I’ll bring breakfast up and we can eat together,” he suggested. She headed upstairs while Knuckles began frying some eggs.
“Wake up, sweetling,” Knuckles said softly as he gently aroused her. “We should eat lunch, then be on our way.”
Rouge sat up and rubbed her eyes. She recollected the morning’s events, and gave a nod of understanding.
“I’ll prepare lunch,” she offered. They both went downstairs. Knuckles sat down at the table, and appeared to go into deep thought. Rouge pulled some food out of the refrigerator and made two sub sandwiches. They ate lunch in renounced silence. The humming of the refrigerator and ticking of the clock prevented the silence from becoming too uncanny.
When they finished, Knuckles cleared the dishes and Rouge went upstairs to change into her blackest outfit. He was waiting for her by the door was she came back downstairs.
“You could pick some roses from the garden, if you want.” Knuckles groped for words.
She nodded as a tear sprung to her eye. She went into the backyard and picked a single rose. The thorns cut her and blood trickled down her fingers, she didn’t care.
Knuckles was waiting for her on the front porch. Together they walked to Sega Funeral Home.
The walk there was fairly uneventful. Birds chirped and the sun shined, but that did not cheer Rouge up. Knuckles took a deep breath and led her into the door. The lobby has seemingly endless ceiling with a crystal chandelier at the top. She nudged her foot into the thick, velvety carpet. It was the colour of blood, stained red blood. Rouge flinched and stabbed the toe of her boot into the floor. She looked up and the light from the chandelier was blurred by the water in her eyes. –Why are funeral homes so fancy? she thought. –And how are they homes? Blissful flowers were all over the lobby, but they weren’t delighting, they were ugly. Rouge would burn down the funeral home at that moment if she could.
An usher recognized them and pointed to the left hallway. Knuckles put an arm around her shoulder and led her down the corridor. They soon reached a large and nearly empty room except for a black casket a little left of centre.
The room seemed too spacious for their needs. It was cold and standoffish feeling, rather than cozy and comforting. Rouge’s bottom lip quivered and she burst into sobs as they neared the casket. She clutched the rose ever so tightly.
The lid lay to the side of the open casket. The corpse of Amy was laying flat on its stomach, and the knife was still in her back. Her head was turned so her cheek was against the bottom of the casket. There seemed to be words on her lips, but Rouge couldn’t figure them out.
Knuckles walked closer to the casket, and Rouge continued weeping. As Knuckles seemed to be examining the body, she stopped for a moment to see what he was doing.
He yanked the knife out of Amy’s back. Rouge winced. It was fairly short and caked with blood.
“What foolery of the murderer to leave the weapon in the body,” he commented. She managed a small, quick smile, but couldn’t keep it.
There was a note taped to the casket. It was of the same parchment and written in the same calligraphy as the original one.
Rouge finished reading the letter and changed her state of mind. She had a mission to complete!
“Are you ready to solve this?” Knuckles asked. She gave a strong and resolute nod. “C’mon, then!” Rouge began walking, he a few steps behind her. She quickly whirled around.
“Grab the note,” she ordered.
“Good thinking.” He dashed back a plucked the paper from the casket, then caught up with her. Rouge knew it was time to find the murderer.
“Okay, this is harder than I thought,” Rouge admitted as she scoped the ground for clues with a magnifying glass. Knuckles looked up to see kids laughing while riding a Ferris wheel.
“Well, I thought you said Amy’s place was the carnival,” he replied. She gave him a yeah-right look.
“No, honey, I never said that.”
“Well then where is Amy’s favourite place?” he asked, bewildered.
“Well, her favourite place would be wherever Sonic is…”
“Not helping!”
“But he other favourite place would probably be the mall!”
“Then let’s ditch this popsicle stand!” he boomed. The two walked the short way to the mall.
They walked through the big double doors to the mall. Immediately, they began scanning it for clues. They knew a murder couldn’t happen in the middle of the mall where all the kiosks and people were (without there being many witnesses, anyhow), so they searched the boring stores that almost nobody went into. Then Rouge remembered something. “Why would Amy want to shop in any of these dumb shops?” She would want to go clothes shopping, of course. But I don’t get why; she wears the same clothes every day.”
“Well, so do you,” Knuckles said in a who’s-talking voice.
“Well, so – um.........um,” she hesitated.
“Oh, right,” he said. They went into the department store and into the teen girls’ area. The two passed through clothes racks and searched the empty dressing rooms for blood and suspicious fingerprints.
At first they couldn’t find anything, but continued looking. Even when they split up and double checked the whole department store and ALL the clothes stores in the mall, they found nothing.
“Knuckles, honey,” Rouge said softly, “I don’t anybody would murder Amy in the open; maybe she was murdered outside the mall.”
“That’s a good idea, sweetling,” he replied, his voice fading in wonder of the fact that he didn’t think of it. They left the inside of the mall and went into a dark alley between the mall and a towering office building. The damp and melancholy alley made everything seem so overwhelming.
“This is very confusing,” Rouge said, shadowed by the dark corners of the alley.
“Wait! Come look over here.” Knuckles beckoned her to come as he stooped looking at the ground. There was a message scribed in the caked, dry mud. It read:
There were a few red dots within and to the right of the message. Knuckles looked at it in puzzlement. “I wonder what that means?”
Rouge studied the writing, trying to make sense of it. She was pointing at the words as she was hearing the syllables in her head. “I think I got it!” she cried. “This is the place where Amy was murdered,” a chill ran down her spine just saying it, “we have found the spot, but the message is saying we won’t find the murderer.”
“Oh!” he exclaimed, agreeing with Rouge.
“Wow, I wonder why the writing is all shaky,” she thought out loud. The little light bulb in Knuckles’s head went off. He withdrew a knife from his pocket (his pocket?) and studied the blade. Then he traced the letters of the message with the knife.
“Exactly!” Knuckles cried. “The murderer wrote this message with the murder weapon, this knife,” he said, holding up and pointing to the knife. “And you can see the blood by the letters, trailing off. If we follow the blood, we’ll find the murderer!” He put the knife back in his pocket. “You follow the trail with your magnifying glass, and I’ll keep a lookout for danger.”
Rouge started crawling along, scanning every inch in front of her with the magnifying glass. Knuckles walked backwards, careful not to step on her feet. She followed the continuing spots of blood, which were heavier in some areas than others. They went through more allies, crossed a couple streets (look both ways first!), and finally followed the blood to an empty lot with most of the grass dead, to come to a complete change of scenery.
Rouge had never remembered the urbanity changing so quickly and dramatically to surrounding towns. They were in a suburb of the city, on a quaint little street. And they found themselves in front of none other than the humble of abode of Tails.
“Look! It’s Tails’s house!” Knuckles said, turning around for the first time.
Rouge’s eyes lit up. “Of course!” she exclaimed, like she had just pieced it together. “Note, please,” she instructed, as Knuckles handed her the parchment. She quickly skimmed it then said, “Yes! The note says that the body was taken to some bushes outside Tails’s house. We should’ve come here first, and looked for things the murderer left behind!” Knuckles shrugged as to say, “It’s too late now.” Rouge lifter her eyes from the letter. There were tall hedges to the left and right of the driveway (but Rouge was looking at the left one). They were large and rectangular, not like the kind of hedges that are long and short and go all the way down the driveway. “The trail of blood goes into that hedge. We should check it out.”
When the coast was clear, they dove into the oversized bush. It was actually quite roomy and hollow; the only fairly thin truck was taking up room, but it was easily avoidable. Towards the back of the hedge, it was more muddy. Two footprints, belonging to the same person, were impressed in the mud.
“Hmm,” Rouge said as she examined the prints with her magnifying glass. She looked at them for about a dozen seconds. “Whoa! These look like Amy’s footprints!” she exclaimed, confused and surprised.
“How so?” Knuckles asked, peering over her shoulder in order to get a closer look.
“They’re Adidas – you know, All Day I Dream About Sonic – and they’re her size, too!”
Knuckles showed his agreement by giving a resolute nod. Then he parted some of the hedge’s branches to look up the driveway.
“The footprints go up Tails’s driveway. You should follow them with your magnifying glass, and I’ll stand by the sidewalk and cover for you,” he explained the plan. Rouge leaned over to see out of the opening Knuckles had made. Then she nodded in agreement; if one of the neighbours saw a bat creeping up the fox boy’s driveway, it would look a little suspicious.
She climbed out of the back of the hedge and began to crawl along the ground, looking at the prints with her magnifying glass, just as she had done with the trail of blood. It seemed like déjà-vu to her, including how Knuckles had explained a plan to her. She started scanning the ground directly in front of her.
The footprints didn’t change at all. Rouge couldn’t find a single clue. No blood. No fingerprints. Not even a lone strand of fur. It was all the same: right, left, right, left, right, left, right, left, right, left, right, left, right, left…suddenly Rouge’s forehead bumped against something. When she looked up, a very pink face was staring down at her.
“AAAAAAAAAAAH! IT’S THE EVIL ZOMBIE CORPSE OF AMY ROOOOSE!” Rouge shrieked, but half moaned the “Rose” part. She crab-walked on the very tips of her fingers and toes faster than she had ever moved before, until she got to Knuckles, who turned around just in time for her to jump into his arms.
With one eye wider than the other, Rouge looked like she had just seen a ghost…well, she had.
“Now, Rouge,” he said, looking into her teal eyes, gently petting her on the forehead. He looked up, and suddenly his expression changed to the just-seen-a-ghost-face. It took every nerve in his body to keep from dropping her.
Then Knuckles thought there must be a logical explanation to this. He noticed Tails standing there, a few feet behind Amy. He met eyes with Tails for a moment, and then looked back at Amy. She didn’t look as semi-transparent as a ghost would. So instead, he asked her e very simple question.
“Amy, who murdered you?”
“Well, you could say that Tails was my murderer…” she replied.
“Tails! I thought you knew be-“
“Yeah, the murderer of my hologram!” Amy added. With that, both she and Tails doubled over with laughter. Rouge hopped out of his arms, her eyes moving slowly from Amy to Tails giggling their heads off, and a stone expression on her face. Knuckles just stood there, dumbfounded. Amy was rolling on the ground, pounding her fists, and Tails was clutching his sides they hurt so much.
“That’s right, it was me, all me,” Tails said, trying to stifle his laughter. “I rented out the room in the funeral home and put a hologram in the casket. It was me who wrote the anonymous letters, engineered that knife to stick out of the hologram, scribed to message in the alleyway… Amy and I…we planned it all…” He couldn’t continue he needed to laugh so badly, so once again he grabbed at his sides. Tears began to stream down his fox-complexion face.
“Yeah, and you two so fell for it!” Amy cried. She tried to stand up, but immediately fell on her back, goggling like there was no tomorrow.
“Wow, Tails, you have good handwriting,” Knuckles mused quietly, for lack of something better to say. They continued to laugh for what seemed like hours. Slowly it seemed to fade, but never cease entirely.
“Well, what about the blood?” Rouge asked. Although she should be overjoyed by the news, it was like she refused to believe it. “It looked real, and trust me; I’ve seen a lot of blood before.”
“Ever read 1001 Uses for Ketchup?” Tails said, holding up a thick and boring-looking grey book. He and Amy burst out laughing again, and Rouge rolled her eyes. Tails had dropped the book, so Knuckles stepped over and picked it up. He opened it to a spot in the middle and began to read. “Number 534,” the echidna mumbled, “dye your fur. Chicks dig flaming red fur. Use liquid nitrogen to make the dye permanent.” Wow, what a wonderful gift he was naturally born with.
Tails’s and Amy’s laughter began to die down. “Well, I’m off to look for Sonic,” she said.
“And I have a meeting with the President,” Tails said as he pushed a black button on a remote to open the garage. Amy, Knuckles, and Rouge stepped onto the other half of the driveway. “See you three later!” He climbed into the slick, blue Tornado, then pulled out of the driveway and drove down the street towards Route 101.
Amy began to walk down the driveway, but Rouge stepped in her path and held up her hand to stop her. “Amy, listen to me. Never…do that…again.”
The End
Yeah, I know Tails is supposed to live in the Mystic Ruins...well, I CHANGED IT! MWAHAHAHA! Ah, the power of plot bending! I tried to make the ending a surprise-ending....oh well. I am already planning a sequel to this story, which will be much longer like a regular fiction, but have parts rather than chapters. Maybe then I can explain why Tails isn't living in Mystic Ruins anymore. Even if I do write the sequel, it will be very shippy. And it won't exactly be a sequel, just the events from this story will affect the "sequel." And please, if you see any major gramatical errors or typos, tell me! Um...what else was I going to say... argh, I can't remember now, but if I do, I'll reply if someone else has replied or I'll edit this post if no one has.
~The Mixed-up One
Note: There are some images in here to enhance the story. Modem users, wait until they load, otherwise the story won't make sense! Also, don't scroll down very much past the part that you're reading. When I'm reading books, my eyes are usually caught by caps, italics, etc, and so I skip what I'm reading and read that sentence, then go back. If you're like me and you do that, some parts will be spoiled if you look ahead!
Title: Never Again
Game: Sonic the Hedgehog (specifically Sonic Adventure 2)
Rating: PG (possibly some PG-13 parts)
Date started: Feburary 17th, 2003
Date finished: September 14th, 2003
Theme song: Uh....... ^^ (anyone have any ideas after they finish reading it?)
Relationship changes: Knuckles/Rouge=married~
As we all know, Knuckles and Rouge discovered their love for each other early on, but both of them were too stubborn to say anything about it. It was Rouge who stepped up first, asking Knuckles out after her mysterious two month disappearance. They dated for a short time before they were sure they wanted to be married. But they're perfect for each other, no?
Amy/Rouge=best friends~
When Rouge first met Amy, she saw her as most do: an overenergetic and annoying pink hedgehog. But, later on, Rouge saw something she couldn't quite explain, and figured it would be to her advantage to befriend Amy. Rouge really got to know what kind of person Amy was (after get past her Sonic rants and pure annoyingness), and wanted to be her friend regardless if there really was something in Amy. Of course, Amy accepted the invitation, and they have been great friends since.
Never Again
Rouge sat down at the table in her flowing lilac bathrobe. Her bright face smiled tenderly. She relaxed her jet black wings and rested her chin on her hands.
“Good morning, honey,” Knuckles said, sitting across from her. He slid her a white mug like the one already in front of him. She took her chin off her hands and took a sip off coffee.
“Good morning,” Rouge replied. She smiled warmly again. “I can see how you come from the heavens,” she complimented him.
“And words cannot describe your beauty,” he complimented back. She blushed, but soon her face softened again. She drank some more coffee and pushed the mug aside, then returned to her original position of chin on hands.
Knuckles’s scorching red fur was brighter than the sun on the summer morning. He poured some cream in his mocha and drank the rest. “I’m going to see if any mail came in the early post,” he announced. “Perhaps I got a letter from old Tikal, I haven’t heard from her in a while.”
He set his empty mug in the sink and stepped outside. In the mailbox, there were some things, so picked them up, went back inside, and stood next to the table.
“Let’s see what we got today…” Knuckles began as flipped through the mail.
“Bill, bill, bill…” He scrunched up his face. “A pink flower-printed bill…Oh! Here’s a letter addressed to us both!”
“Let’s open it!” Rouge exclaimed. Knuckles put aside the bills on the table and sat down. Rouge got up and sat at the chair next to the echidna. He got the letter opener from the drawer and opened the envelope. Rouge scooted her seat closer to him and looked on.
Knuckles unfolded the letter. It was written in Old English calligraphy on thick, yellowed parchment. It read:
“Oh my g-“ gasped Rouge. She began sobbing uncontrollably, and buried her face in her palms. Knuckles hugged her to his body.
“Don’t worry,” he consoled her.
“Why not?” she asked between sobs. Knuckles had a look of determination on his face.
“We’ll find that murderer, and punish him, too!” Rouge gave a half-hearted smile. She knew what her husband could do.
“Of course,” she said, her tears lessening. She keened her head on Knuckles’s shoulder.
She shifted her gaze to the letter, which was now lying on the table. She squinted and craned her neck to get a better look.
“Look somebody started to sign it…” she pointed out.
“You’re right…” Knuckles acknowledged, his voice trailing. Rouge shrugged in puzzlement, but left it at that.
“I have to make breakfast now. You should get some rest, honey. I’ll bring breakfast up and we can eat together,” he suggested. She headed upstairs while Knuckles began frying some eggs.
* * *
“Wake up, sweetling,” Knuckles said softly as he gently aroused her. “We should eat lunch, then be on our way.”
Rouge sat up and rubbed her eyes. She recollected the morning’s events, and gave a nod of understanding.
“I’ll prepare lunch,” she offered. They both went downstairs. Knuckles sat down at the table, and appeared to go into deep thought. Rouge pulled some food out of the refrigerator and made two sub sandwiches. They ate lunch in renounced silence. The humming of the refrigerator and ticking of the clock prevented the silence from becoming too uncanny.
When they finished, Knuckles cleared the dishes and Rouge went upstairs to change into her blackest outfit. He was waiting for her by the door was she came back downstairs.
“You could pick some roses from the garden, if you want.” Knuckles groped for words.
She nodded as a tear sprung to her eye. She went into the backyard and picked a single rose. The thorns cut her and blood trickled down her fingers, she didn’t care.
Knuckles was waiting for her on the front porch. Together they walked to Sega Funeral Home.
The walk there was fairly uneventful. Birds chirped and the sun shined, but that did not cheer Rouge up. Knuckles took a deep breath and led her into the door. The lobby has seemingly endless ceiling with a crystal chandelier at the top. She nudged her foot into the thick, velvety carpet. It was the colour of blood, stained red blood. Rouge flinched and stabbed the toe of her boot into the floor. She looked up and the light from the chandelier was blurred by the water in her eyes. –Why are funeral homes so fancy? she thought. –And how are they homes? Blissful flowers were all over the lobby, but they weren’t delighting, they were ugly. Rouge would burn down the funeral home at that moment if she could.
An usher recognized them and pointed to the left hallway. Knuckles put an arm around her shoulder and led her down the corridor. They soon reached a large and nearly empty room except for a black casket a little left of centre.
The room seemed too spacious for their needs. It was cold and standoffish feeling, rather than cozy and comforting. Rouge’s bottom lip quivered and she burst into sobs as they neared the casket. She clutched the rose ever so tightly.
The lid lay to the side of the open casket. The corpse of Amy was laying flat on its stomach, and the knife was still in her back. Her head was turned so her cheek was against the bottom of the casket. There seemed to be words on her lips, but Rouge couldn’t figure them out.
Knuckles walked closer to the casket, and Rouge continued weeping. As Knuckles seemed to be examining the body, she stopped for a moment to see what he was doing.
He yanked the knife out of Amy’s back. Rouge winced. It was fairly short and caked with blood.
“What foolery of the murderer to leave the weapon in the body,” he commented. She managed a small, quick smile, but couldn’t keep it.
There was a note taped to the casket. It was of the same parchment and written in the same calligraphy as the original one.
Rouge finished reading the letter and changed her state of mind. She had a mission to complete!
“Are you ready to solve this?” Knuckles asked. She gave a strong and resolute nod. “C’mon, then!” Rouge began walking, he a few steps behind her. She quickly whirled around.
“Grab the note,” she ordered.
“Good thinking.” He dashed back a plucked the paper from the casket, then caught up with her. Rouge knew it was time to find the murderer.
“Okay, this is harder than I thought,” Rouge admitted as she scoped the ground for clues with a magnifying glass. Knuckles looked up to see kids laughing while riding a Ferris wheel.
“Well, I thought you said Amy’s place was the carnival,” he replied. She gave him a yeah-right look.
“No, honey, I never said that.”
“Well then where is Amy’s favourite place?” he asked, bewildered.
“Well, her favourite place would be wherever Sonic is…”
“Not helping!”
“But he other favourite place would probably be the mall!”
“Then let’s ditch this popsicle stand!” he boomed. The two walked the short way to the mall.
They walked through the big double doors to the mall. Immediately, they began scanning it for clues. They knew a murder couldn’t happen in the middle of the mall where all the kiosks and people were (without there being many witnesses, anyhow), so they searched the boring stores that almost nobody went into. Then Rouge remembered something. “Why would Amy want to shop in any of these dumb shops?” She would want to go clothes shopping, of course. But I don’t get why; she wears the same clothes every day.”
“Well, so do you,” Knuckles said in a who’s-talking voice.
“Well, so – um.........um,” she hesitated.
“Oh, right,” he said. They went into the department store and into the teen girls’ area. The two passed through clothes racks and searched the empty dressing rooms for blood and suspicious fingerprints.
At first they couldn’t find anything, but continued looking. Even when they split up and double checked the whole department store and ALL the clothes stores in the mall, they found nothing.
“Knuckles, honey,” Rouge said softly, “I don’t anybody would murder Amy in the open; maybe she was murdered outside the mall.”
“That’s a good idea, sweetling,” he replied, his voice fading in wonder of the fact that he didn’t think of it. They left the inside of the mall and went into a dark alley between the mall and a towering office building. The damp and melancholy alley made everything seem so overwhelming.
“This is very confusing,” Rouge said, shadowed by the dark corners of the alley.
“Wait! Come look over here.” Knuckles beckoned her to come as he stooped looking at the ground. There was a message scribed in the caked, dry mud. It read:
There were a few red dots within and to the right of the message. Knuckles looked at it in puzzlement. “I wonder what that means?”
Rouge studied the writing, trying to make sense of it. She was pointing at the words as she was hearing the syllables in her head. “I think I got it!” she cried. “This is the place where Amy was murdered,” a chill ran down her spine just saying it, “we have found the spot, but the message is saying we won’t find the murderer.”
“Oh!” he exclaimed, agreeing with Rouge.
“Wow, I wonder why the writing is all shaky,” she thought out loud. The little light bulb in Knuckles’s head went off. He withdrew a knife from his pocket (his pocket?) and studied the blade. Then he traced the letters of the message with the knife.
“Exactly!” Knuckles cried. “The murderer wrote this message with the murder weapon, this knife,” he said, holding up and pointing to the knife. “And you can see the blood by the letters, trailing off. If we follow the blood, we’ll find the murderer!” He put the knife back in his pocket. “You follow the trail with your magnifying glass, and I’ll keep a lookout for danger.”
Rouge started crawling along, scanning every inch in front of her with the magnifying glass. Knuckles walked backwards, careful not to step on her feet. She followed the continuing spots of blood, which were heavier in some areas than others. They went through more allies, crossed a couple streets (look both ways first!), and finally followed the blood to an empty lot with most of the grass dead, to come to a complete change of scenery.
Rouge had never remembered the urbanity changing so quickly and dramatically to surrounding towns. They were in a suburb of the city, on a quaint little street. And they found themselves in front of none other than the humble of abode of Tails.
“Look! It’s Tails’s house!” Knuckles said, turning around for the first time.
Rouge’s eyes lit up. “Of course!” she exclaimed, like she had just pieced it together. “Note, please,” she instructed, as Knuckles handed her the parchment. She quickly skimmed it then said, “Yes! The note says that the body was taken to some bushes outside Tails’s house. We should’ve come here first, and looked for things the murderer left behind!” Knuckles shrugged as to say, “It’s too late now.” Rouge lifter her eyes from the letter. There were tall hedges to the left and right of the driveway (but Rouge was looking at the left one). They were large and rectangular, not like the kind of hedges that are long and short and go all the way down the driveway. “The trail of blood goes into that hedge. We should check it out.”
When the coast was clear, they dove into the oversized bush. It was actually quite roomy and hollow; the only fairly thin truck was taking up room, but it was easily avoidable. Towards the back of the hedge, it was more muddy. Two footprints, belonging to the same person, were impressed in the mud.
“Hmm,” Rouge said as she examined the prints with her magnifying glass. She looked at them for about a dozen seconds. “Whoa! These look like Amy’s footprints!” she exclaimed, confused and surprised.
“How so?” Knuckles asked, peering over her shoulder in order to get a closer look.
“They’re Adidas – you know, All Day I Dream About Sonic – and they’re her size, too!”
Knuckles showed his agreement by giving a resolute nod. Then he parted some of the hedge’s branches to look up the driveway.
“The footprints go up Tails’s driveway. You should follow them with your magnifying glass, and I’ll stand by the sidewalk and cover for you,” he explained the plan. Rouge leaned over to see out of the opening Knuckles had made. Then she nodded in agreement; if one of the neighbours saw a bat creeping up the fox boy’s driveway, it would look a little suspicious.
She climbed out of the back of the hedge and began to crawl along the ground, looking at the prints with her magnifying glass, just as she had done with the trail of blood. It seemed like déjà-vu to her, including how Knuckles had explained a plan to her. She started scanning the ground directly in front of her.
The footprints didn’t change at all. Rouge couldn’t find a single clue. No blood. No fingerprints. Not even a lone strand of fur. It was all the same: right, left, right, left, right, left, right, left, right, left, right, left, right, left…suddenly Rouge’s forehead bumped against something. When she looked up, a very pink face was staring down at her.
“AAAAAAAAAAAH! IT’S THE EVIL ZOMBIE CORPSE OF AMY ROOOOSE!” Rouge shrieked, but half moaned the “Rose” part. She crab-walked on the very tips of her fingers and toes faster than she had ever moved before, until she got to Knuckles, who turned around just in time for her to jump into his arms.
With one eye wider than the other, Rouge looked like she had just seen a ghost…well, she had.
“Now, Rouge,” he said, looking into her teal eyes, gently petting her on the forehead. He looked up, and suddenly his expression changed to the just-seen-a-ghost-face. It took every nerve in his body to keep from dropping her.
Then Knuckles thought there must be a logical explanation to this. He noticed Tails standing there, a few feet behind Amy. He met eyes with Tails for a moment, and then looked back at Amy. She didn’t look as semi-transparent as a ghost would. So instead, he asked her e very simple question.
“Amy, who murdered you?”
“Well, you could say that Tails was my murderer…” she replied.
“Tails! I thought you knew be-“
“Yeah, the murderer of my hologram!” Amy added. With that, both she and Tails doubled over with laughter. Rouge hopped out of his arms, her eyes moving slowly from Amy to Tails giggling their heads off, and a stone expression on her face. Knuckles just stood there, dumbfounded. Amy was rolling on the ground, pounding her fists, and Tails was clutching his sides they hurt so much.
“That’s right, it was me, all me,” Tails said, trying to stifle his laughter. “I rented out the room in the funeral home and put a hologram in the casket. It was me who wrote the anonymous letters, engineered that knife to stick out of the hologram, scribed to message in the alleyway… Amy and I…we planned it all…” He couldn’t continue he needed to laugh so badly, so once again he grabbed at his sides. Tears began to stream down his fox-complexion face.
“Yeah, and you two so fell for it!” Amy cried. She tried to stand up, but immediately fell on her back, goggling like there was no tomorrow.
“Wow, Tails, you have good handwriting,” Knuckles mused quietly, for lack of something better to say. They continued to laugh for what seemed like hours. Slowly it seemed to fade, but never cease entirely.
“Well, what about the blood?” Rouge asked. Although she should be overjoyed by the news, it was like she refused to believe it. “It looked real, and trust me; I’ve seen a lot of blood before.”
“Ever read 1001 Uses for Ketchup?” Tails said, holding up a thick and boring-looking grey book. He and Amy burst out laughing again, and Rouge rolled her eyes. Tails had dropped the book, so Knuckles stepped over and picked it up. He opened it to a spot in the middle and began to read. “Number 534,” the echidna mumbled, “dye your fur. Chicks dig flaming red fur. Use liquid nitrogen to make the dye permanent.” Wow, what a wonderful gift he was naturally born with.
Tails’s and Amy’s laughter began to die down. “Well, I’m off to look for Sonic,” she said.
“And I have a meeting with the President,” Tails said as he pushed a black button on a remote to open the garage. Amy, Knuckles, and Rouge stepped onto the other half of the driveway. “See you three later!” He climbed into the slick, blue Tornado, then pulled out of the driveway and drove down the street towards Route 101.
Amy began to walk down the driveway, but Rouge stepped in her path and held up her hand to stop her. “Amy, listen to me. Never…do that…again.”
The End
Yeah, I know Tails is supposed to live in the Mystic Ruins...well, I CHANGED IT! MWAHAHAHA! Ah, the power of plot bending! I tried to make the ending a surprise-ending....oh well. I am already planning a sequel to this story, which will be much longer like a regular fiction, but have parts rather than chapters. Maybe then I can explain why Tails isn't living in Mystic Ruins anymore. Even if I do write the sequel, it will be very shippy. And it won't exactly be a sequel, just the events from this story will affect the "sequel." And please, if you see any major gramatical errors or typos, tell me! Um...what else was I going to say... argh, I can't remember now, but if I do, I'll reply if someone else has replied or I'll edit this post if no one has.
~The Mixed-up One
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