Through the Looking Glass: Chapter 11
Chapter 11
Banjo and Rouge were the last to walk out of the base. Knuckles had taken the liberty to carry Sonic's dead body back to Angel Island. All the while, Amy was sobbing on the echidna's shoulder, Shadow and Cream following close behind as Silver lead the rabbit girl forward. The only reason Tails was moving was because he was draped over Shade's shoulder. The fox had gone into some kind of catatonic state; nothing anybody was saying to him was registering. And since Eggman was giggling and muttering madly as he was dragged along, he was not exactly up to replying either.
As they exited, Rouge shook her head as she felt Banjo's arm draped over her being.
"My..." said the bat as she walked with the remains of L.O.G.'s head in her arms. "I wish things didn't have to end up like this."
The honey bear shook his own head. "I can't believe that..."
"Well, at least we saved everybody else before lard tub could do much else," said Kazooie with a wave of her wing. "At least there's that."
"Yeah, that's true," replied Rouge. "But... if you guys had arrived sooner... then none of this would've happened... I mean, look at Amy!"
Bear and bird both looked at the pink hedgehog, who was still crying over the hedgehog.
"Yeah, I know why she'd do that," said Banjo. "Rouge... I don't think anything's gonna be the same..."
The bat shook her head. "Of course it isn't," she said softly.
"Wow, what a way to spoil a meeting party, eh?" asked Kazooie morosely.
The bat nodded. "Yeah," she said, feeling a little better. "What a way to spoil it. But still, I guess it's nice to finally meet the person I've always talked to in my dreams in real life."
"Yeah," said Banjo as the group halted. "And I think I should say you look better here than you do in the dream world.
Rouge blushed a little as Knuckles turned to Shadow.
"Okay, Shadow, you ready?" asked the red-furred echidna solemnly.
The black hedgehog nodded as all seven of the emeralds levitated around him. Slowly, he opened his eyes and looked at Angel Island.
"Chaos Control!" cried the black hedgehog.
And in a white flash of light, the group had dissapeared. Mere seconds later, they reappeared at the shrine on which the Chaos Emerald sat. There, they noticed Humba and Mumbo both standing there, their heads turning when they felt the first traces of Chaos Control. Tooty was the first one to notice everybody that had been at the base. However, she glanced uneasily at the body of Sonic lying in Knuckles' arms. As Trophy Thomas turned around and looked, the she-bear ran over to the blue hedgehog and looked down.
"Eggman caused this, didn't he?" she asked, guessing what had happened instantly.
Knuckles nodded solemnly. "He did, Tooty," replied the echidna.
The bear shook her head softly. "And to think it would've happened to me..." she muttered under her breath as Banjo and Rouge came forward.
Tooty and Rouge connected eyes for a brief second before the bear jumped on her.
"You're okay!" said Tooty softly.
"Of course I am," replied the bat softly. "You know I'm more versatile than that."
The other three occupants of the space around them nodded.
"At least he didn't mess up my hair..." muttered Trophy Thomas.
To this, he got a harsh slap to the back of his head from Humba, who glared at him icily before turning her attention back to Sonic and nodding.
The Next Day...
Shadow had moved the island close to where the city of Station Square was. They had stayed in a small hotel for the night, but not before turning Sonic in to the mortuary. Before anybody had known what had happened, the death of Sonic the Hedgehog had made front page news everywhere. Earlier that morning, reporters had made an assault on the hotel where everybody was staying to arrange Sonic's funeral. So far, Amy and Rouge were the only ones that had been interviewed. And even then, they dared not spill everything about his death; they only said that Eggman had used mind control on one of them and that was all they spilled about that. The rescue was of course talked about, but otherwise they barely said all of the details.
The bat had returned from her inteview about ten minutes ago. Rouge was laying in Banjo's arms as the two of them were flicking through channels. Kazooie groaned from where she was hanging on the chair of the hotel room's desk as she watched the pictures flash by.
"Romance flicks are still ridiculously crummy, you know?" she asked flatly.
"Yeah," said Rouge as she felt Banjo tug on her. "I honestly think those people are out of their minds when they blindly go after love for people they've known for a few days."
"Hey!" protested Banjo. "You forget that's what we did!"
Rouge chuckled slightly as she traced her finger suggestively under his chin. "That's different," she said. "We got to know a whole lot about each other during those past few days."
"My God, you have no idea how suggestive that sounds, slut face," added the breegull as she turned to look outside the window.
Frowning, the former G.U.N. agent looked at the bird with a sour look on her face. "What's up with that name anyway?" she asked. "'Slut face'? I'm not a slut, you know."
"Well, ya look like one!" retorted the breegull, her feathers seeming to flare out as she spoke.
"Kazooie, enough," said Banjo assertively. "Rouge is fine the way she is, okay? So please, don't try to insult her."
Cooing under her breath, Kazooie crossed her wigs in front of her. "Fine," she said. "But only because you say so!"
"Thanks, Banjo," replied the bat softly.
"Don't mention it, Rouge," said Banjo, smiling softly.
The bat nodded as her thoughts got more morose. "You know, Banjo, I think it's also wierd how fast I've gotten over Sonic's death..." she said. "I got over it so fast... it was... oh..."
The bear hugged Rouge to his person closer. "I think you know why that happened," he said, resting his head on her shoulders. "It's always nice to have someone you love by your side when the worst goes by."
Rouge nodded as she put her hand up to Banjo's cheek. "That is always true," she said as she turned to face Banjo. "And that's always welcome." The bat then dropped a chaste kiss on the bear's cheek, smiling happily as she did.
Kazooie shook her head, cooing softly. "I wonder when Tooty's going to be back from Cream's room..."
"I'd imagine they're still going through contacts trying to tell everybody that isn't in the know yet about Sonic's death..." replied Rouge. "He had a lot of friends in his life."
"I'm jealous of him like that, really," said Kazooie flatly. "I mean, he got to hang out with those guys at Smash Brothers, for crying out loud! You think any of them are gonna show up to the funeral?"
Rouge nodded uncertainly. "I know Falco Lombardi's going to show up, whether or not he's on a mission," replied the bat. "The two of them were best friends during the Brawl tournament; if I didn't know any better I'd say they were brothers! And plus, Falco's too brash to be held down, so I know that he'll be going straight here the next chance he gets."
"And other than him?" asked Banjo softly.
"I don't know," said Rouge. "I wouldn't be surprised if some members of the roster didn't show up due to being in a time period that's slightly behind us..."
"Bah," said Kazooie with a wave of her wing. "I just hope those that do come end up being good friends of his!"
The phone on the desk started ringing loudly at this point. Groaning, Rouge shifted so she was off of Banjo's lap. "I'll get it!"
She promptly picked up the reciever, and no sooner had she brought it to her ear when suddenly a very loud chattering was heard. Shocked, Rouge pulled her head back.
"Amy, Amy, you sound pretty pissy right now!" she said into the phone. The person on the other line said some more things before Rouge held her hand in front of her in a soothing gesture "Okay, okay. Just calm down and tell me what happened."
There were a series of electronic little sounds coming from the reciever as Rouge listened to the voice. However, as he went on, Rouge's voice seemed to be full of shock.
"No way!" she said. "But he's not... He's smart, but he's no G.U.N. agent, I can tell you that much. How the hell did he get out of here without anybody noticing? Somebody had to have noticed!"
Some more electronic speech came from the reciever. "Okay, that's not good. So, what should we do?"
And then the voice drawled on. "Well, okay, I'll look for him with Banjo and Kazooie. I'll let you know if we turn up with anything. And be sure to hang on to that cell phone that Shade made for you; that'll help things a lot. All right. Goodbye."
The bat hung up the phone, and promptly jumped out of bed. She ran straight for her boots as she adjusted her body suit.
"What happened?" asked Banjo as he got out of bed, pulling his shorts up as he stood up.
"Tails disappeared, apparently," said the bat. "And now Amy is asking for us to find him."
"Oh, dear." said Banjo as he pulled the backpack that had Kazooie in it from the desk and put the straps around his shoulders.
Kazooie shook her head. "Oh, dear indeed..." she said with an unamused expression on her face. "You think he's out on the town?"
"That's where we're going to look, actually," said the bat. "Let's get moving; it won't be long before we lose track of him!"
The bear and the bird nodded, and then the three of them exited the hotel room, Rouge making sure to take her key card with her.
"Tails? Tails, where are you?"
Amy had just gotten back from her interview. Finding the room she shared with Tails to be empty, she had looked all around the place in every concievable hiding spot. She had even checked the bathroom, but no matter where she looked she was unable to find the kitsune anywhere. It was then that she noticed that the keycard she had given Tails was in the little slot that was handed to her at check-in into the hotel.
Panicking, the pink hedgehog ran over to the other rooms on her floor, knocking on Knuckles and Shade's room first. When the red echidna opened the door, he was surprised by how much Amy was panicking.
"Knuckles, have you seen Tails anywhere?" asked the pink hedgehog quickly.
"No," replied the echidna. "Why?"
"He's not in our room," she said.
The red echidna's eyes widened, and just as quickly as Knuckles had heard this he closed the door, only to open it a few seconds later with his shoes on.
"Oh, boy," said Knuckles. "That can't be a good thing... Have you checked anywhere else yet?"
"No," said Amy. "But I didn't see him at the restaurant as I was leaving the interview, and I didn't pass him in the hallway! And on top of that, the ice thing was still in the room and his keycard was in the little paper pouch!"
Knuckles' eyes widened at this. "Oh, dear," he said. "He must have run away right under our noses... but why?"
"Forget about why!" replied Amy, beginning to look more distraught than she had any right to be. "We need to find him, and now!"
"Okay, okay, calm down," he said. "I'm going to call Rouge to get her, Banjo, and Kazooie searching outside, and we can look around in the hotel, okay?"
"Okay, okay," said the pink hedgehog as she breathed in and out quite frightenedly.
Banjo, Kazooie, and Rouge were all out of the hotel. They had been running around Station Square for at least an hour trying to find the kitsune. They had asked as many passers-by as they had cared to think about, they had gone through every single alley, they had gone absolutely everywhere in the city.
And there was still no sign of Tails. As they sat on a bench in a nearby park, the trio shook their heads.
"Well, we can't find him anywhere," said Banjo, shaking his head. "Unless we're just not looking in the right spots."
"I think that might be it," said Rouge with a shrug. "Eh, I just hope we find him in time before something bad happens to him.
The breegull had ignored this conversation, instead looking out to see if she could see the kitsune from where she was. It was in the ferry docks right by where she was that she suddenly noticed something. Squinting, she suddenly realized a familiar patch of orange fur on the ferry ship as it was getting prepared to leave.
"Wait a minute..." said the breegull, squinting hard as she suddenly realized who it was.
"Holy crap!" Kazooie cried, jumping straight out of Banjo's backpack and surprising both bear and bat as she rushed to the ferry docks. "He's getting away!"
The breegull ran as fast as she could, Banjo and Rouge both standing up from the fountain and instantly seeing what Kazooie had seen. They both chased after the bird, all of it seeming rather futile as the boat had started sailing away.
"Hey, wait!" cried Kazooie at Tails as she ran onto the docks. "You're making a big mistake here! Get back here!"
But the fox dared not budge from where he stood on the ferry's deck as the boat pulled away from the dock. In fact, he retreated back into the boat where he was in safety.
"Hey!" cried the breegull as she leapt into the air. "Get back here!"
But the boat was already moving far away from the pier, and before Kazooie could glide after the boat to get Tails off of it, Banjo had grabbed Kazooie's foot quickly, thus causing her to get flipped upside down so that she looked up at Banjo's face from an odd angle. Turning to see Banjo nodding sadly, the breegull was about to speak up when Banjo patted her foot.
"Forget it, Kaz," he said softly. "I don't think there's anything we can do."
Kazooie was about to protest when Rouge shook her head. "And even if you had gotten onto the boat, I don't think there's anything you could've said that would have changed his mind," she said. "Just... We'll find him eventually."
The bird was still not convinced, and she ruffled her feathers slightly before letting out a sound of defeat.