- Location
- The Citadel
Hearing Mr. Satan yell about explosions and badasses and calling people rude words makes me strangely happy for reasons I can't describe, lol
DeviantArt on Ice! [Sonic Boom SI]
- Thread starter AtriumCarceris
- Start date
Hearing Mr. Satan yell about explosions and badasses and calling people rude words makes me strangely happy for reasons I can't describe, lol
Mgunh1
Not an AI, honest!
- Location
- Northern Luna Base, Module 5, Sublevel 15
Thank you. I didn't realise that before, but now it is stick in my head.
Cooking Good Burgers
A/N:
This might be the last of the regularly updated chapters. Work is really picking up, and if my job starts offering a lot of overtime, which it might, then I just won't have any time to write. But we'll see.
_____________________________
Vanilla was in the middle of a coughing fit. Hacking, long, sometimes painful coughs. Tails patted her back as she hunched over and continued coughing.
Eventually she stopped, took a deep breath, and sat back up.
"So," she said, taking another breath. "Doc. What's the prognosis? Negative?"
The wolf shook his head. "I'm afraid I haven't seen that movie. But it's just Autonomic Pulmonary Spasmosis. You have maybe four to six more days, and then it's all over."
Vanilla assumed he meant the coughing would be over, not that she'd be over.
"That's a relief," said Tails, now grabbing hold of Vanilla's hand. She squeezed it. "Assuming you mean the coughing will be over, not Vanilla."
Doc chuckled and shook his head. "Of course."
That just made it even more confusing. Still, she paid and left with Tails, frowning at the newly minted lack of money in her wallet.
"At least it's not cancer," said Tails. She thought it might be. Or worse.
"Or Lupus," she said. "It could have been Lupus."
She was glad he went with her to the doctors for this. She didn't like going to the doctors on her own. But when Vanilla tried to follow Tails back to the workshop, he stopped her.
"You should go home and rest," he said, looking concerned.
"I'm fine, I –" she was untimely cut off by a coughing fit, leaving Tails to look at her half sympathetically, half "I-told-you-so." But Vanilla didn't care, and when she was done coughing she took a deep breath and continued, "I'm fine. I need to make some more money."
"It's okay, I'll work for you," said Tails. "Don't worry about it. It's not like we have a lot of items to repair today anyway."
Vanilla sighed, and then nodded. It was true, their work load was getting a bit sparse lately. Tails thought it was because they fixed everything so well nobody had anything else left to send.
They said goodbye and Vanilla slowly made her way back to her house.
It'd been long since she started thinking of Amy's house as part her house too. Even Amy thought of it that way now. She still wanted to move out, but no matter how much Vanilla tried to save money, things would happen that would eat up a lot of her earnings. Some of it was her own fault, but other times it was like this, where she just got sick unexpectedly.
Vanilla returned home just in time to see Amy begin lunch.
"Hey Vanilla," she said brightly as Vanilla shuffled inside. "What's the prognosis?"
"I'm not sure," came the reply. Vanilla went over and sat wheezily on the couch. "I'll either be perfectly fine, or die, soon."
"Well that's good," said Amy, now humming to herself as she set a pan on the stove. "I'm making some BLT sandwiches. Do you want some?"
"Sure," said Vanilla, turning on the TV and laying down.
"Dangit Jeremy, we've got to bake!" said an old white squirrel with glasses on the TV. He was talking to a male pink fox who looked too thin and a bit twitchy.
"Alright, Mr. Quiet!" replied the fox. "Yeah, baking, losers!"
Vanilla yawned and changed the channel just as she heard the sizzling of bacon hitting Amy's frying pan. Vanilla mindlessly channel hunted, wishing she could have stayed with Tails, until finally settling on a children's show adaptation of the famous-in-this-world video game, Super Plumber Brothers. No bonus points for guessing what that basically was, thought Vanilla.
When Amy finished the sandwiches she set two plates down on the kitchen table and called Vanilla over. Turning the TV off, Vanilla went to the kitchen and sat down, then grabbed one of the sandwiches and bit down.
Vanilla frowned.
"This isn't real bacon," she said, swallowing.
"Of course it's real," said Amy, taking her own sandwich. "It's real Turkey Bacon. We're watching our figure."
"You can watch your figure, I'm still young," said Vanilla before she could stop herself.
"Wow," said Amy, sounding surprised.
"Sorry," said Vanilla. "I'm sick and confused! I meant to say that you can watch your figure, and Tails can watch mine."
"Do you spend a lot of time coming up with ways to insult your friends, or does it come naturally?"
Vanilla's mouth twitched in a suppressed smile. "It's a coping mechanism. Also that second one wasn't meant to be an insult, just funny."
"I'm rolling," said Amy, her eyes narrowing.
"Sorry," said Vanilla again. She stuffed the sandwich in her mouth without another word, and halfway into chewing them had another coughing fit, spraying bits of chewed sandwich all over the table. Amy sighed and covered her own plate while Vanilla focused on not choking to death.
Eating the second sandwich went without incident, and Vanilla helped Amy clean up afterwards, thanking her again for the sandwiches, even if they weren't real bacon.
"Well next time you can make them," came the reply.
"Maybe I will!" Vanilla said. "But more likely I'd want burgers. I like burgers."
"If you like burgers then why don't you ever eat with us at Meh Burger?" asked Amy as they sat down on the couch.
"Those burgers don't even count," said Vanilla. "They're not the worst things I've ever eaten or anything, but it's the overall atmosphere. The awful customer service."
"Can't say I disagree with you," said Amy. She sighed, wistfully as she turned on the TV. "If only Chez Amy's worked out."
While Amy flipped through the channels, Vanilla had a sudden thought. She'd almost forgotten that Amy had tried to make her own restaurant before.
"How much money did you make from that?" asked Vanilla.
"A lot," said Amy. "But it's not worth it. Dave was tenacious, and worked very hard to keep his job where he didn't have to work. Why do you ask?"
"No… reason," said Vanilla. It was true. Those events happened before Vanilla washed up on the beach, but she knew them. And Dave was very good at keeping his costumers despite his terrible service and food. The entirety of Meh Burger had to be destroyed before he finally let up.
Amy looked at her suspiciously, stopping the channel surfing temporarily. "I forbid you from trying to compete with him," she said. "Not while you're still sick. You need to focus on getting better! Besides, there really does seem to be only enough room for one burger place in this village. As soon as you opened a storefront Dave would be out to get it shut down."
And that was the key to Vanilla's success.
Knuckles was by himself on the beach, having decided to take a burger and eat it with a view of the big water for a change. Taking it out of its greasy greasy brown bag and unwrapping it, he sat down on the sand and was just about to take a bite when he heard a voice call it, startling him and causing him to miss, shoving the burger into his eyes instead of his mouth. He hissed in pain.
"Knuckles!" called Vanilla, running over. Knuckles turned and wiped the grease out of his eyes, setting the burger down in the sand. Once Vanilla got to him she started coughing, and Knuckles thought she might be choking and stood up.
"Are you alright?" he asked, prepared to help if she needed it.
"Fine!" she managed to say in between her coughs. Finally she stopped and stood up, wiping her mouth. "It's nothing. But I wanted to ask you something."
"What is it?" asked Knuckles, sitting back down. He grabbed his burger again and bit into it right this time, enjoying the familiar crunchy texture.
"You like burgers right?" she asked.
"Are you kidding?" asked Knuckles, his mouth full of burger. "I love them!"
"I bet you know everyone in the whole village who loves burgers too, right?"
Knuckles swallowed and took another bite, finishing his burger. Somewhere in there he heard a loud crunch in his mouth, followed by pain. He ignored it and kept chewing, a new large piece of sand in his mouth. "I don't know about everyone. But yeah I have other friends who like burgers."
Vanilla smiled.
"Want to help me sell burgers?" she asked.
"Sure!" said Knuckles, swallowing again and standing up. "I have a special recipe, extra blackened, with hot sauce."
Vanilla frowned then shook her head.
"I was thinking I cook the burgers. You sell them. And we split the profits fifty fifty."
"Oh," said Knuckles, trying to figure out what that meant. "I think that's a little too much money to charge for a hamburger, even if it's really good."
"I mean I'll get half the money and you get half."
"Oh," said Knuckles. Feeling that annoying large piece of sand still in his mouth, he spit it out, a white piece of something landing in the sand nearby. Vanilla looked at it oddly, then took a deep breath and looked back at him.
"The deal is though, I need you to sell these burgers in secret. Don't let anybody know what you're doing."
"Uh, how will the customers know to buy the burgers if I don't tell them I'm selling?"
Vanilla sighed.
"I mean, you can tell the potential customers! Just… keep it on the down low, know what I mean? Don't shout out that you're selling burgers, just… go to your trustworthy friends and sell them. Heck, get your friends to help you sell them! And make sure your friends know to keep quiet too. I want it to be a secret that I'm making the burgers, especially from Dave."
"Why?" asked Knuckles, not getting it.
"Because Dave will stop at nothing to keep his monopoly on the burger market!" said Vanilla, pounding her fist into her other hand. She then started coughing again, but it didn't last as long as the last one.
"Are you sure you're alright?" asked Knuckles. "Are you sick?"
"I'm fine! Or I will be in a few days."
Knuckles eyes widened in recognition. "You have Autonomic Pulmonary Spasmosis, don't you?"
Vanilla looked surprised.
"How'd you know?" she asked.
"I don't know," said Knuckles truthfully. He vaguely remembered somebody he knew once had it. "How long do you have?"
"Four to six days," said Vanilla. Knuckles shook his head sadly. It was so sad. "Wait, what do you mean how long do I have?!"
"We better not think about it too hard," said Knuckles. "I'll help you with this burger thing, even if you want to pretend to be a spy."
Vanilla smiled again. "Great! So, Knuckles, we've got to cook. But we mustn't be seen. Where could we go that I could cook a whole bunch of burgers and nobody would find out?"
Knuckles used his brain smartness to find a place deep in his memory banks.
"Hmm," he said. "I think I know a place. Nobody is ever in that snowy pine forest!"
"Great!" said Vanilla, clapping her hands together. "So listen, you grab your jacket and as many grills as you can. I'll go shopping for ingredients and brown bags."
"At your service, your majesty!" said Knuckles, bowing. He turned and ran, knowing that Sonic had a grill he could take. There was also a grill at his own hang out. And Tails had one.
"Remember to keep what you're doing a secret!" Vanilla called out from behind him.
Tails finished the last of the repair work and was starving. He walked outside of the workshop and into his house, intent on washing up before maybe calling Sonic, Sticksc or Knuckles and asking them if they wanted to get something to eat. He'd call Amy but he didn't want to take her away from Vanilla, who probably needed company as she recovered from her minor cough problem.
After washing up he walked back outside. He was about to make the call on his communicator when he saw Knuckles holding up his grill and walking away.
"Knuckles, what are you doing?" called out Tails. Knuckles jumped and dropped the grill into the ground. Tails winced, hoping he didn't dent it.
"Uh, nothing!" said Knuckles. "I just need to borrow this for things that aren't secret at all!"
"Um… okay?" said Tails. Tails was really curious, but he hardly used the thing and what mischief could Knuckles possibly get into with a grill? On second thought, he was about to say no but Knuckles was too fast.
"Great see you!" he said quickly, picking up the grill over his head and running down the road and out of sight.
Tails sighed. Well, there was one person who wouldn't be joining him for lunch.
Pushing that to the back of his mind Tails instead called Sonic, and re-started his journey to Meh Burger.
"Hey Tails, kind of busy here," said Sonic after a few moments.
"Oh," said Tails, disappointed, but trying not to show it. "I was wondering if you wanted to go to Meh Burger with me."
"I'd like to Tails, but me and Sticks are skipping stones over the lava pools in Crater Lake. She's winning now, but I've got her number!"
"Okay, well, have fun!" said Tails, trying to sound chipper. He didn't like eating alone in public, something he shared with Vanilla.
That was everybody, so, still hungry and not willing to turn around and just make himself something to eat at home, he pressed on.
About halfway there, near the village center, he found Vanilla. Normally he'd have been happy to see her, but he didn't like seeing her out in the village when she should be resting. She wasn't alone either, with Zooey and that Rabbit Girl she tried to take to the dance both with her. All three girls were struggling to carry large bags of groceries.
"Vanilla!" he called out, rushing up to her. She looked startled, and jerked her head in his direction. He could tell she was surprised to be caught. "What are you doing out here!" Tails continued. "Shouldn't you be at home? Did Amy send you to buy a bunch of groceries even though you're sick?"
"No!" said Vanilla. Zooey and the Rabbit Girl looked at her, uncertain. "I'm just doing a little necessary shopping for perfectly normal reasons!"
Just then she got a call on her communicator. She struggled with the bags, but managed to press it, and Knuckles's voice rang out loud and clear. Too loud, in fact, and Vanilla folded her ear down as as spoke.
"Vanilla! I'm almost done getting all the grills for our super-secret not normal thing we're doing! Also the volume on my wrist phone is broken, I can't turn it down!"
Vanilla looked at Tails, who narrowed his eyes at her. She chuckled nervously and looked around.
"Sorry Knuckles, I'll help fix your communicator when I see you, bye!" she struggled again to press her communicator, finally resorting to just rubbing it on her side until it turned off. "Let's go," she then said to her friends, and led the way. Tails watched her leave in the direction of Amy's house, but he suspected she wasn't going there.
For now, he thought, he wouldn't follow her. That wasn't the nicest thing to do. If she was in some kind of trouble, she'd tell him. And probably she'd be fine. It was just a cough, after all, and maybe he really was being a bit too coddling when he worried about her being sick.
He resumed his walk to Meh Burger, alone, but then realised if Vanilla was out of the house, Amy could go with him. He would call her to join him.
Amy wasn't really hungry when Tails called, but she was bored watching TV and was all too willing to get out of the house for a while. Meeting Tails at Meh Burger, she got a cup of soda, which of course was flat, and sat with Tails as he bought a Meh Burger with fries
"So, do you happen to know what Vanilla is up to?" he asked.
Amy sighed. She hoped he wasn't going to talk about her this whole time. "No idea. I tried to get her to stay inside to recover, but she just ran out of the house anyway. Haven't seen her since."
"So you didn't see her and some of her other friends carrying bags of groceries off towards your house?"
"No…." said Amy. "That… sounds worrying. But you know what, I'm done worrying about her for today. Let's talk about something else."
Tails coughed and pointed to Knuckles, who'd just walked into Meh Burger and towards the counter. Amy smiled and waved at him, but he completely ignored her as he without word, walked behind the counter, ignoring Dave's protests.
"You can't be back here," Amy heard Dave say in his wheezy voice. "Hey, you need a permit for that!"
Amy watched in shock and horror as Knuckles pulled the grill out of the wall, rupturing the gas line.
"Um, should we try stop that?" asked Tails. "Or get everybody to safety, because I'm pretty sure the gas tank is going to –"
He didn't finish his sentence as Amy covered her eyes to protect them from the massive fiery explosion.
"Looks like we're ready," said Vanilla, looking over the ingredients. To keep her friends as in the dark as possible, she had them drop the ingredients down at the edge of the pine forest, before getting Knuckles to come and take them the rest of the way. It was a long and annoying journey, but they made it. "And great job with the grills. I didn't think you'd find so many."
"Thanks," said Knuckles, nursing his burns. "That last one was a bit of a doozy, but everything was fine! I got out of there without anybody knowing where I went!"
"Still," said Vanilla, thinking. "That'll probably have to come out of your half of the pay. I didn't mean for you to take every grill in the entire village."
"Aww," said Knuckles.
"I also can't use it because we don't have a gas tank. But whatever, it's fine. Let's just get to cooking."
For the most part, Knuckles stood back and let Vanilla handle the burgers. She's carefully assemble them one by one, wrapped them in wax paper, and put them in a brown paper bag, then set them aside on a cart she quickly made from random things she found. But sometimes she had to stop Knuckles from adding hot sauce or trying to juggle the hamburger buns, or burning himself again by trying to lean on an active grill. It was pretty hard to cook so many burgers at once, but she was getting the hang of it. She was especially thankful they were in a cold area. She felt hot so close to the grills, but the area was overall cold so whenever she had a chance she'd step aside and cool down. She also had to be careful to cough into her shoulder and not on the burgers.
When she was done and all the burgers were made and neatly packed into the cart, she took a step back and admired her work. It was just in time for dinner too.
"These all look amazing," said Knuckles. "I've got to try one!" He reached over and grabbed a bag out of the cart, and Vanilla had to rush over and push his hand away.
"If you eat one you have to pay for it!" she said. "I'm trying to make money so I can get out of Amy's house! Do you know how much I already spent just buying these ingredients!"
"Oh," said Knuckles, looking sad. "Sorry. But can I buy these burgers with my half of the money I make selling them?"
Vanilla shrugged.
"If that's how you want to spend it," she said.
"All right!" said Knuckles.
"But now it's your turn to get to work. You can push this cart near the village, but you can't take it into it! Take the burgers a few at a time and sell them! Or get your friends to help you, but just don't get caught!"
"I get it," said Knuckles. "How many can my friends eat?"
"They can eat them all so long as they pay," said Vanilla. Trying to hold off another coughing fit. "Also if they help you sell, get their money up front. Don't just give them burgers for free."
"I don't understand," said Knuckles. He looked like he as thinking harder than he ever had before, so Vanilla tried to be patient as she explained how this would work. When she was sure he finally got it, she watched as he took the cart and awkwardly pushed it through the snow and towards the village.
Their only problem was going to be that the burgers wouldn't stay hot for long. She'd have to do something about that once the money started to come in.
Knuckle walked through the village with his brown trench coat on. He also wore a hat and sunglasses. It was the stealthiest clothing he had, and judging by the odd looks he kept getting as he walked through the streets, it was working perfectly. Nobody would suspect a single thing.
Casually he found his friend Mike the Ox standing beside the blue ice cream cart vendor.
"Hello friend," said Knuckles, waving. "Can I interest you in some illicit but well-paying activities?"
Mike looked a little worried and scratched his head in confusion.
"Are you feeling alright Knuckles?" he asked.
"Never better," said Knuckles, grinning inconspicuously. "So, about that offer. How would you like to make a bunch of money helping me, your friend, out?"
Again Mike scratched his head.
"I am a little short on money. What do you have in mind?"
Knuckles eyed the ice cream cart vendor suspiciously. He didn't know the guy well, didn't even know his name. But he seemed like the trustworthy sort, and he already sold food. He'd probably be interested in helping.
"You could help too, ice cream cat," said Knuckles, gesturing for them both to lean in. They looked at each other, and looked a bit scared, but they both came closer.
"I have these hamburgers cooked by my sick fox friend," said Knuckles, opening up his trench coat and showing the inside, which was layered with burgers. "If you buy them now, you can sell them for more money and keep the difference. But you can't tell anybody where you're getting them."
"That sounds ridiculous," said the ice cream cat. "Nobody would buy street hamburgers when Meh Burger is in the village!"
Knuckled shook his head and chuckled. "That's because you haven't tried one yet. Trust me, these are the best burgers around. Here, taste one. Both of you."
He handed each of them a burger from his coat.
"Huh, they're still warm," said Mike, unwrapping it. He looked at it cautiously, and sniffed it. Shrugging his shoulders, he bit into it and his eyes widened. He took another bite, then another, and soon the whole thing was gone. The ice cream cat watched on, surprise on his face. He then unwrapped his own and took a bite. He too, looked amazed.
"This is good stuff," he said, taking another bite. "A fine product I'd be happy to sell!"
"Great," said Knuckles. "What about you Mike?"
"Sure," he said. "Can I have another one?"
"You can have as many as you can afford!" said Knuckles. "By the way you both owe me for those burgers you just ate. Also my supplier wants everyone to keep this on the down low. You understand, right? We can't let anybody know the burgers are coming from me, and that I 'm getting them from my sick friend."
"That's… weird," said Mike. "But okay."
"Have you guys noticed anything… strange lately?" asked Sonic. They were all at Meh Burger, except for Knuckles and Vanilla who'd been oddly absent lately.
"Yes," replied Amy.
Amy was noticing it most of all. Vanilla was still coughing up a storm at random intervals, but she didn't seem interested in resting. Instead she would just comment that she only had a few days left, and then rush out of the house.
"I know Vanilla and Knuckles are up to something," said Tails. "But I don't know what it is."
"I was thinking more about, you know… here." Sonic gestured around them at Meh Burger in general. "We're the only ones here. The only time I ever see anybody now is when they come for a chilidog."
"Hmm," said Amy, thinking. "Are you sure it's not just lost business from the exploding gas tank? It took a few hours to get that repaired."
"It's not that," said Sonic. "Meh Burger has recovered from much worse than a minor explosion."
"You know what I think," said Sticks. Amy pre-emptively rolled her eyes. "I think it's a conspiracy to sell elicit food behind everyone's backs. Probably somebody's trying to cook without a license. I approve, I just wish I could find one of the sellers."
Amy blinked. That… actually made some sense. She had to get a license to open up Chez Amy, so maybe somebody didn't want to pay the fees for that?
"That's it!" said Tails, pounding the table with his fist. "It makes sense!"
"What does?" asked Sonic.
"Uh…," said Tails. "Nevermind. Forget I said anything."
Amy stared at him, coming pinging in the back of her mind. But she couldn't quite place it. It was like she was forgetting something obvious, but she couldn't think of what it could be.
She kept thinking about it all the way through lunch. When they were done they threw their trash away and started towards her house, but stopped when they saw a crowd gathering at the village center.
"Everyone, gather round!" they heard the amplified voice of the mayor. "I have an announcement to make."
Curious, they joined the crowd, finding both Vanilla and Knuckles there, along with some of their other friends. Amy recognise Mike the Ox, and that Rabbit Girl, and of course Zooey.
"Hey guys," said Sonic, looking at Knuckles and Vanilla. "Another announcement huh? You guys don't think it's a dance do you?"
Everyone groaned at the suggestion.
"I hope not," said Vanilla. "But it couldn't be that, we just had one."
"No no," came the still amplified voice of the mayor. They couldn't see him through the crowd, but they could hear him clearly. "This is just a quick announcement. It's recently come to my attention that the village is being flooded with elicit hamburgers. As tasty as you might think they are, it is illegal to sell food without a permit. Anybody caught in position of an illegal hamburger will be subject to the full force of the law. In this case, I mandatory slap on the wrist."
There gasps, and cries of outrage.
"Now now," said the mayor in response. "I know it's harsh, but it's for your own safety. Elicit food products can ruin lives, probably. Here's our local Beaver Policeman to inform everyone of the dangers of illicit burger conception! In the meantime, Sonic and friends? If you're in the crowd, please see me in my office."
Amy and her friends all looked at each other, frowning. Suddenly Sonic smirked.
"Heh, must want us to catch the culprit," he said. "I guess if we have to. We can't let people think crime pays."
"If you say so Sonic," said Knuckles.
They all made their way inside City Hall, ignoring the droning voice of the policeman who was now with the megaphone, talking to a quickly dispersing crowd. Inside they were directed by the secretary to the mayor's office, and silently entered as a group.
It looked like the mayor had himself only just entered , sitting down as they closed the door behind them. He looked at them for a few moments before speaking.
"You're our resident heroes," he said. "If you find out who's doing this, you need to put a stop to it. There's no such thing as excessive force in this case, it's for the good of the entire village!"
"Oh, pick me!" said Knuckles, raising his hand. "I know who's doing it!"
Oddly, Vanilla nudged him hard in the stomach, and he put his hand down, looking confused.
"You do?!" asked the Mayor. "Who?"
"It's obviously Eggman!" said Vanilla. "We better stop him!"
"Hmm," said Sonic, speaking up. "Eggman has fooled us with food before…. We'll go talk to him."
"No need!" said Vanilla. "Me and Knuckles will do it. I have a decent dynamic with Eggman already, he might listen to me, and Knuckles can –" she was cut off by sudden hacking coughs. She hunched over, grabbing her chest, and Amy stepped forward to help her but was beaten to it by Tails, how'd rushed over and began softly patting her back. After what felt like an eternity, everybody's faces growing more concerned, she stopped.
"I'm fine," she said, taking several deep breaths. "This should be over soon."
"Vanilla, if you can't stop Eggman because you're ill, somebody else should go," said the Mayor. "This task is too important."
"I'm fine," Vanilla repeated. I just need a couple of minutes. Then me and Knuckles will be on our way. We'll put a stop to this."
"Then it's settled," said the Mayor. "Good work Team Sonic."
As they walked out of the office, there was still something bothering Amy about all this. But in the end, it was only important that Eggman be brought to justice. If she had to get a license, so should he.
Amy and Sonic both left for her house, while unfortunately both Sticks and Tails decided to stay behind.
"We can handle it alone," Vanilla insisted.
"I just want to talk," said Tails.
"It's you two isn't it?" said Sticks, pointing. She had an odd gleam in her eye. "How could you do this without telling me?!"
"Uh," said Vanilla. This was it, it was over. Vanilla had completely forgotten about Sticks. Sticks was always figuring too many things out. If Vanilla had wanted their operation to stay secret, she should have done something to keep Sticks from finding out.
"Don't bother denying it, it's written all over your faces!" she continued.
"It is?!" said Knuckles, looking worried. He grabbed his face and started rubbing furiously. "Is it off yet!? What's it say exactly!?"
Vanilla ignored him. "Just give us a few more days!" she said. "I'm just trying to make a bit of extra cash!"
"What are you talking about!" said Sticks. "I'm not mad you're doing this, I'm mad you didn't tell me! Sticking it to the man in the most delicious way possible! Let me get some of your product at a discount and we're even!"
Relief washed over Vanilla, and she smiled.
"That we can do," she said.
"Wait, really?" said Tails, looking at Sticks. He turned to look at Vanilla. "Look, I don't want to get you into trouble but if you get caught the punishment is severe!"
"Well I'm not going to get caught, right?" asked Vanilla. She tried batting her eyelashes at him, but she didn't think it was working. "You could help me, if you wanted."
Tails looked taken aback. And yet, slowly, he started to look curious.
"You're trying to get money to move out of Amy's house?" he asked, slowly.
Vanilla nodded. "Yep."
"Then… okay," he said. "I'll help."
Vanilla was surprised, but pleased that her friends were willing to join her in breaking the law, even if it was minor.
Together, her and Tails flew Sticks and Knuckles to Eggman's lair. She wasn't exactly sure what she was going to say to him, but she figured she could manipulate him into helping. That was the plan anyway.
Vanilla was familiar enough with Eggman's lair to not bother breaking into it. Instead she just went through the secret entrance on the side, leading her friends directly into Eggman's living room, popping out from under a potted plant.
"Gah!" came the voice of Eggman, who was in an apron, holding a feather duster. "Get out of my plants!" To oblige, Vanilla got out, quickly followed by her three friends. "Great, now I'm going to have to move the secret entrance, and have my plants sprayed with pesticide!"
Vanilla ignored him.
"We're here to put a stop to your evil ways, Eggman!" said Vanilla, pointing.
"My evil ways?!" said Eggman incredulously. "You're the one flooding the village with elicit foodstuffs!" Oh. Vanilla hadn't counted on Eggman knowing beforehand. But in hindsight she should have realised. He had his flybots everywhere. "But it's no matter, soon my robots will begin delivering elicit pizzas to hungry villagers, driving you out of business!"
That… was a good idea. Vanilla liked pizza better than hamburgers. "Why don't we join forces then?"
"Hah! You don't get it, I'm going to defeat you at your own game! This isn't to make money, I have all the money I need!"
"Was this the plan?" asked Tails, sounding confused. "What are we doing here?"
"Yeah, I don't really care if there's competition here," said Sticks. "I just want more food choices."
"Nevermind that, this is about winning!" said Eggman. "Robots, attack!"
Instantly everybody went on the defensive as robots suddenly piled into the room. Vanilla herself pulled out her staff, and extended it, but quickly launched into a coughing fit, pain wracking her chest and throat. It'd been getting more and more sore from all the coughing, and she really hoped it would stop soon.
"What's this?" asked Eggman, as Vanilla's friends battled Eggman's robots in the background. "Is that Autonomic Pulmonary Spasmosis?"
Vanilla nodded, still coughing. She hunched over, leaning on her knees.
"That's too bad," he continued. "I guess your little stunt makes sense then. Trying to save up some money before it's all over, eh?"
More and more Vanilla wondered if she was actually dying. But that would be a stupid way to die, plus, this world was always so overdramatic about everything.
"Hah!" said Sticks, slamming her boomerang into the last Motobug.
Vanilla finally straightened up, her coughs lessening. Looking around the battle was over, and they had won. As usual.
"No fair!" said Eggman. "I was distracted by your sick friend, and you came in unannounced!"
"We still won Eggman!" said Knuckles. "That means you stay out of our way!"
Vanilla heard through her wheezes, Eggman mumble something, but he otherwise didn't object. They'd succeeded in getting Eggman out of the way.
Leaving the lair, Vanilla said, "thanks you guys. By the way, Sticks, want to help me distribute my burgers? And Tails, you can help me and Knuckles cook more. You're not that bad of a cook and I could use the help."
"Sure," said Tails and Sticks at the same time. Vanilla smiled. Things were coming up her way, and she was glad to increase operations. They were already making a killing.
Amy was bored. So was Sonic. Both of them were at her house, alone, and while normally Amy would have been excited at the thought, there was something going on. The rest of their friends had said Eggman was stopped, but according to the Mayor, the elicit burgers were still flooding the streets. Dave was getting desperate, but without any idea of what exactly he was up against, he couldn't fight back.
"Pawn to queen's bishop four," said Sonic in a bored voice.
Amy sighed. "You sunk my battleship."
"Where is everyone?" asked Sonic, not interested in his victory. "Why aren't they here, it's raining outside! Even Eggman is laying low."
Suddenly the front door swung open. Amy, startled, stood up from her chair and ended up knocking over their game, the pieces clattering to the floor. Stepping inside was Dave, lightning striking in the background as he closed the door behind him.
"I'll tell you where they are," he said.
"I didn't invite you into my house Dave," said Amy, reaching down to pick up the fallen game pieces. "And you better not track mud on the floor."
"Sorry," said Dave, bending down to take off his shoes. "But yeah, I know where they are."
"Where?" asked Sonic, not bothering to help pick anything up.
"They're out there pushing their illegal business stealing hamburgers!" said Dave, mustering up as much menace as he could with his voice. "I finally got Lady Walrus to tell me. She bought her burgers from Mike the Ox, who bought them from Knuckles, who got them from Vanilla." He nearly scowled that last name.
"Wait, really?" asked Sonic, now standing up just as Amy was putting the pieces back on the table.
Again the door swung open.
"Really," said Vanilla, more lightning striking as she walked in. Closing the door behind her she shook herself dry, much to Amy's annoyance.
"How embarrassing," said Dave, narrowing his eyes.
"What was that Dave," said Vanilla, walking forward. "I couldn't hear your insult over your lost business."
"Yeah, um, Vanilla," said Sonic, walking forward. Amy joined him, ignoring the game pieces now. "We've got to turn you in. We agreed with the Mayor."
"Yessss," said Dave. "Finally, justice will be served."
"Unlike your Meh Burgers," said Vanilla, slowly pulling out her collapsible staff from her pocket. She extended it.
"Seriously?" asked Sonic. "Are you really going to fight us over this?"
"Not seriously, no," said Vanilla, twirling the staff. "But I've got to keep up appearances right? If we win, maybe don't turn us in?"
"We?" asked Sonic.
At the same time Dave said, "Heh, you can't defeat the combined might of me and Sonic."
"You stay out of this," said Amy, jumping in, grabbing her hammer.
"And yes, Sonic," said Vanilla. "I said we."
Again the door swung open, and for the third time lightning struck in the background. There was Tails, wielding some kind of kooky invention. Knuckles was beside him, flexing his muscles menacingly. And then the window broke, as Sticks burst through it screaming her battle cry.
"Seriously!?" yelled Amy, swinging her hammer at the approaching Sticks. The wind and rain were now getting into the house.
"I'm running out of time!" said Vanilla, casually knocking Dave over as he tried to rush her. "It's day six! I'm at the end of my rope!"
"Okay, I can get Vanilla, but why are you guys joining in on this?" asked Sonic, avoiding Tails's darts he was shooting at him. Amy sighed and shook her head in the middle of her swings against Sticks. They were ended with suction cups. So this was all a game to them. A game that was ruining her house!
"I have so much money now!" said Knuckles, rushing towards Sonic. He yawned and ran to the side, completely dodging both Knuckles and Tails's renewed fire, which then hit Knuckles in the back.
"Hey!" said Knuckles. He reached behind him and brushed the darts off. Amy managed to push Sticks away just in time for Vanilla to step over Dave's fallen body, coming over with her own staff.
"Sorry!" said Tails. "And I'm doing it for love!"
"Lame," said Sonic, zooming over and tearing Tails's dart gun away from him. He then shot Tails in the face.
"I'm sticking it to the man," said Sticks, moving back forward. Amy was now on the complete defensive, trying to block and dodge both Sticks and Vanilla's attacks. Just as Amy thought she couldn't hold them both off for much longer, Vanilla stopped, grabbing her chest.
"Wait, hold on!" said Amy, worried. Vanilla had collapsed in a renewed fit of coughing. They were loud, and sounded painful, and instead of the usual where she just hunched over, she'd fallen to the floor and was curled into a ball.
Sticks immediately stopped her attack and, along with Amy, helped Vanilla to sit up. Still she kept coughing.
"Think we should call somebody?" asked Amy.
"She's been to the doctor," said Tails, looking worried. He pushed past sticks and grabbed Vanilla's hand in both of his. "It's her last day. We knew this was coming."
"Guys," wheezed Dave. "I've fallen and I can't get up." Everybody ignored him, Knuckles and Sonic coming over to help pick up Vanilla and move her to her bed.
She'd stopped coughing, but she'd fainted.
Vanilla woke up the next day in bed, her throat sore but her chest feeling better. Checking her bedside clock, it was day seven, and she wasn't dead. That meant she was healed!
Jumping out of bed, she yawned and stretched, and ran out of her room.
Amy was waiting for her. And she wasn't alone.
"Oh good, you're awake," she said. "Our good Beaver Policeman is here to give you your mandatory slap on the wrist for breaking the law."
"You do the crime, you do the time," said the cop, stepping forward.
"Everybody else already got their punishment. Also you owe me for the window Sticks broke. And for all the water damage the rain caused."
"Aww," said Vanilla, holding out her hands. She expected to be handcuffed, but instead the cop just literally slapped her on her right wrist. It stung, but not that badly. She rubbed it slightly afterwards, and she thought about how it was worth it.
"Welp, my work here is done," said the cop. "But keep in mind, second offence for this is much worse than even a slap on the wrist. A fine of forty thousand dollars."
Vanilla's eyes widened. That was a lot of money.
"I'll keep that in mind, officer," said Vanilla. He nodded and she watched as he turned around and left. Looking around afterwards, Vanilla noticed the boarded up window, and the broom next to the trash can. Hopefully it wouldn't cost too much to fix and replace everything.
Because if it didn't, she finally had her money. She could finally start working on constructing a house.
"So, did you learn your lesson?" asked Amy, her hands on her hips.
"Yes," said Vanilla. "Don't drag my friends into my criminal activities. Also, avoid criminal activities."
Amy nodded.
"Good. Now if you're feeling better, you're coming with me while we go window shopping."
"I have a lot of money now," said Vanilla. "We don't have to window shop."
Amy shook her head. "I know you have a lot of money. I mean we're shopping for a replacement window for me."
Vanilla sighed. "Oh yeah. Right."
This might be the last of the regularly updated chapters. Work is really picking up, and if my job starts offering a lot of overtime, which it might, then I just won't have any time to write. But we'll see.
_____________________________
Vanilla was in the middle of a coughing fit. Hacking, long, sometimes painful coughs. Tails patted her back as she hunched over and continued coughing.
Eventually she stopped, took a deep breath, and sat back up.
"So," she said, taking another breath. "Doc. What's the prognosis? Negative?"
The wolf shook his head. "I'm afraid I haven't seen that movie. But it's just Autonomic Pulmonary Spasmosis. You have maybe four to six more days, and then it's all over."
Vanilla assumed he meant the coughing would be over, not that she'd be over.
"That's a relief," said Tails, now grabbing hold of Vanilla's hand. She squeezed it. "Assuming you mean the coughing will be over, not Vanilla."
Doc chuckled and shook his head. "Of course."
That just made it even more confusing. Still, she paid and left with Tails, frowning at the newly minted lack of money in her wallet.
"At least it's not cancer," said Tails. She thought it might be. Or worse.
"Or Lupus," she said. "It could have been Lupus."
She was glad he went with her to the doctors for this. She didn't like going to the doctors on her own. But when Vanilla tried to follow Tails back to the workshop, he stopped her.
"You should go home and rest," he said, looking concerned.
"I'm fine, I –" she was untimely cut off by a coughing fit, leaving Tails to look at her half sympathetically, half "I-told-you-so." But Vanilla didn't care, and when she was done coughing she took a deep breath and continued, "I'm fine. I need to make some more money."
"It's okay, I'll work for you," said Tails. "Don't worry about it. It's not like we have a lot of items to repair today anyway."
Vanilla sighed, and then nodded. It was true, their work load was getting a bit sparse lately. Tails thought it was because they fixed everything so well nobody had anything else left to send.
They said goodbye and Vanilla slowly made her way back to her house.
It'd been long since she started thinking of Amy's house as part her house too. Even Amy thought of it that way now. She still wanted to move out, but no matter how much Vanilla tried to save money, things would happen that would eat up a lot of her earnings. Some of it was her own fault, but other times it was like this, where she just got sick unexpectedly.
Vanilla returned home just in time to see Amy begin lunch.
"Hey Vanilla," she said brightly as Vanilla shuffled inside. "What's the prognosis?"
"I'm not sure," came the reply. Vanilla went over and sat wheezily on the couch. "I'll either be perfectly fine, or die, soon."
"Well that's good," said Amy, now humming to herself as she set a pan on the stove. "I'm making some BLT sandwiches. Do you want some?"
"Sure," said Vanilla, turning on the TV and laying down.
"Dangit Jeremy, we've got to bake!" said an old white squirrel with glasses on the TV. He was talking to a male pink fox who looked too thin and a bit twitchy.
"Alright, Mr. Quiet!" replied the fox. "Yeah, baking, losers!"
Vanilla yawned and changed the channel just as she heard the sizzling of bacon hitting Amy's frying pan. Vanilla mindlessly channel hunted, wishing she could have stayed with Tails, until finally settling on a children's show adaptation of the famous-in-this-world video game, Super Plumber Brothers. No bonus points for guessing what that basically was, thought Vanilla.
When Amy finished the sandwiches she set two plates down on the kitchen table and called Vanilla over. Turning the TV off, Vanilla went to the kitchen and sat down, then grabbed one of the sandwiches and bit down.
Vanilla frowned.
"This isn't real bacon," she said, swallowing.
"Of course it's real," said Amy, taking her own sandwich. "It's real Turkey Bacon. We're watching our figure."
"You can watch your figure, I'm still young," said Vanilla before she could stop herself.
"Wow," said Amy, sounding surprised.
"Sorry," said Vanilla. "I'm sick and confused! I meant to say that you can watch your figure, and Tails can watch mine."
"Do you spend a lot of time coming up with ways to insult your friends, or does it come naturally?"
Vanilla's mouth twitched in a suppressed smile. "It's a coping mechanism. Also that second one wasn't meant to be an insult, just funny."
"I'm rolling," said Amy, her eyes narrowing.
"Sorry," said Vanilla again. She stuffed the sandwich in her mouth without another word, and halfway into chewing them had another coughing fit, spraying bits of chewed sandwich all over the table. Amy sighed and covered her own plate while Vanilla focused on not choking to death.
Eating the second sandwich went without incident, and Vanilla helped Amy clean up afterwards, thanking her again for the sandwiches, even if they weren't real bacon.
"Well next time you can make them," came the reply.
"Maybe I will!" Vanilla said. "But more likely I'd want burgers. I like burgers."
"If you like burgers then why don't you ever eat with us at Meh Burger?" asked Amy as they sat down on the couch.
"Those burgers don't even count," said Vanilla. "They're not the worst things I've ever eaten or anything, but it's the overall atmosphere. The awful customer service."
"Can't say I disagree with you," said Amy. She sighed, wistfully as she turned on the TV. "If only Chez Amy's worked out."
While Amy flipped through the channels, Vanilla had a sudden thought. She'd almost forgotten that Amy had tried to make her own restaurant before.
"How much money did you make from that?" asked Vanilla.
"A lot," said Amy. "But it's not worth it. Dave was tenacious, and worked very hard to keep his job where he didn't have to work. Why do you ask?"
"No… reason," said Vanilla. It was true. Those events happened before Vanilla washed up on the beach, but she knew them. And Dave was very good at keeping his costumers despite his terrible service and food. The entirety of Meh Burger had to be destroyed before he finally let up.
Amy looked at her suspiciously, stopping the channel surfing temporarily. "I forbid you from trying to compete with him," she said. "Not while you're still sick. You need to focus on getting better! Besides, there really does seem to be only enough room for one burger place in this village. As soon as you opened a storefront Dave would be out to get it shut down."
And that was the key to Vanilla's success.
Knuckles was by himself on the beach, having decided to take a burger and eat it with a view of the big water for a change. Taking it out of its greasy greasy brown bag and unwrapping it, he sat down on the sand and was just about to take a bite when he heard a voice call it, startling him and causing him to miss, shoving the burger into his eyes instead of his mouth. He hissed in pain.
"Knuckles!" called Vanilla, running over. Knuckles turned and wiped the grease out of his eyes, setting the burger down in the sand. Once Vanilla got to him she started coughing, and Knuckles thought she might be choking and stood up.
"Are you alright?" he asked, prepared to help if she needed it.
"Fine!" she managed to say in between her coughs. Finally she stopped and stood up, wiping her mouth. "It's nothing. But I wanted to ask you something."
"What is it?" asked Knuckles, sitting back down. He grabbed his burger again and bit into it right this time, enjoying the familiar crunchy texture.
"You like burgers right?" she asked.
"Are you kidding?" asked Knuckles, his mouth full of burger. "I love them!"
"I bet you know everyone in the whole village who loves burgers too, right?"
Knuckles swallowed and took another bite, finishing his burger. Somewhere in there he heard a loud crunch in his mouth, followed by pain. He ignored it and kept chewing, a new large piece of sand in his mouth. "I don't know about everyone. But yeah I have other friends who like burgers."
Vanilla smiled.
"Want to help me sell burgers?" she asked.
"Sure!" said Knuckles, swallowing again and standing up. "I have a special recipe, extra blackened, with hot sauce."
Vanilla frowned then shook her head.
"I was thinking I cook the burgers. You sell them. And we split the profits fifty fifty."
"Oh," said Knuckles, trying to figure out what that meant. "I think that's a little too much money to charge for a hamburger, even if it's really good."
"I mean I'll get half the money and you get half."
"Oh," said Knuckles. Feeling that annoying large piece of sand still in his mouth, he spit it out, a white piece of something landing in the sand nearby. Vanilla looked at it oddly, then took a deep breath and looked back at him.
"The deal is though, I need you to sell these burgers in secret. Don't let anybody know what you're doing."
"Uh, how will the customers know to buy the burgers if I don't tell them I'm selling?"
Vanilla sighed.
"I mean, you can tell the potential customers! Just… keep it on the down low, know what I mean? Don't shout out that you're selling burgers, just… go to your trustworthy friends and sell them. Heck, get your friends to help you sell them! And make sure your friends know to keep quiet too. I want it to be a secret that I'm making the burgers, especially from Dave."
"Why?" asked Knuckles, not getting it.
"Because Dave will stop at nothing to keep his monopoly on the burger market!" said Vanilla, pounding her fist into her other hand. She then started coughing again, but it didn't last as long as the last one.
"Are you sure you're alright?" asked Knuckles. "Are you sick?"
"I'm fine! Or I will be in a few days."
Knuckles eyes widened in recognition. "You have Autonomic Pulmonary Spasmosis, don't you?"
Vanilla looked surprised.
"How'd you know?" she asked.
"I don't know," said Knuckles truthfully. He vaguely remembered somebody he knew once had it. "How long do you have?"
"Four to six days," said Vanilla. Knuckles shook his head sadly. It was so sad. "Wait, what do you mean how long do I have?!"
"We better not think about it too hard," said Knuckles. "I'll help you with this burger thing, even if you want to pretend to be a spy."
Vanilla smiled again. "Great! So, Knuckles, we've got to cook. But we mustn't be seen. Where could we go that I could cook a whole bunch of burgers and nobody would find out?"
Knuckles used his brain smartness to find a place deep in his memory banks.
"Hmm," he said. "I think I know a place. Nobody is ever in that snowy pine forest!"
"Great!" said Vanilla, clapping her hands together. "So listen, you grab your jacket and as many grills as you can. I'll go shopping for ingredients and brown bags."
"At your service, your majesty!" said Knuckles, bowing. He turned and ran, knowing that Sonic had a grill he could take. There was also a grill at his own hang out. And Tails had one.
"Remember to keep what you're doing a secret!" Vanilla called out from behind him.
Tails finished the last of the repair work and was starving. He walked outside of the workshop and into his house, intent on washing up before maybe calling Sonic, Sticksc or Knuckles and asking them if they wanted to get something to eat. He'd call Amy but he didn't want to take her away from Vanilla, who probably needed company as she recovered from her minor cough problem.
After washing up he walked back outside. He was about to make the call on his communicator when he saw Knuckles holding up his grill and walking away.
"Knuckles, what are you doing?" called out Tails. Knuckles jumped and dropped the grill into the ground. Tails winced, hoping he didn't dent it.
"Uh, nothing!" said Knuckles. "I just need to borrow this for things that aren't secret at all!"
"Um… okay?" said Tails. Tails was really curious, but he hardly used the thing and what mischief could Knuckles possibly get into with a grill? On second thought, he was about to say no but Knuckles was too fast.
"Great see you!" he said quickly, picking up the grill over his head and running down the road and out of sight.
Tails sighed. Well, there was one person who wouldn't be joining him for lunch.
Pushing that to the back of his mind Tails instead called Sonic, and re-started his journey to Meh Burger.
"Hey Tails, kind of busy here," said Sonic after a few moments.
"Oh," said Tails, disappointed, but trying not to show it. "I was wondering if you wanted to go to Meh Burger with me."
"I'd like to Tails, but me and Sticks are skipping stones over the lava pools in Crater Lake. She's winning now, but I've got her number!"
"Okay, well, have fun!" said Tails, trying to sound chipper. He didn't like eating alone in public, something he shared with Vanilla.
That was everybody, so, still hungry and not willing to turn around and just make himself something to eat at home, he pressed on.
About halfway there, near the village center, he found Vanilla. Normally he'd have been happy to see her, but he didn't like seeing her out in the village when she should be resting. She wasn't alone either, with Zooey and that Rabbit Girl she tried to take to the dance both with her. All three girls were struggling to carry large bags of groceries.
"Vanilla!" he called out, rushing up to her. She looked startled, and jerked her head in his direction. He could tell she was surprised to be caught. "What are you doing out here!" Tails continued. "Shouldn't you be at home? Did Amy send you to buy a bunch of groceries even though you're sick?"
"No!" said Vanilla. Zooey and the Rabbit Girl looked at her, uncertain. "I'm just doing a little necessary shopping for perfectly normal reasons!"
Just then she got a call on her communicator. She struggled with the bags, but managed to press it, and Knuckles's voice rang out loud and clear. Too loud, in fact, and Vanilla folded her ear down as as spoke.
"Vanilla! I'm almost done getting all the grills for our super-secret not normal thing we're doing! Also the volume on my wrist phone is broken, I can't turn it down!"
Vanilla looked at Tails, who narrowed his eyes at her. She chuckled nervously and looked around.
"Sorry Knuckles, I'll help fix your communicator when I see you, bye!" she struggled again to press her communicator, finally resorting to just rubbing it on her side until it turned off. "Let's go," she then said to her friends, and led the way. Tails watched her leave in the direction of Amy's house, but he suspected she wasn't going there.
For now, he thought, he wouldn't follow her. That wasn't the nicest thing to do. If she was in some kind of trouble, she'd tell him. And probably she'd be fine. It was just a cough, after all, and maybe he really was being a bit too coddling when he worried about her being sick.
He resumed his walk to Meh Burger, alone, but then realised if Vanilla was out of the house, Amy could go with him. He would call her to join him.
Amy wasn't really hungry when Tails called, but she was bored watching TV and was all too willing to get out of the house for a while. Meeting Tails at Meh Burger, she got a cup of soda, which of course was flat, and sat with Tails as he bought a Meh Burger with fries
"So, do you happen to know what Vanilla is up to?" he asked.
Amy sighed. She hoped he wasn't going to talk about her this whole time. "No idea. I tried to get her to stay inside to recover, but she just ran out of the house anyway. Haven't seen her since."
"So you didn't see her and some of her other friends carrying bags of groceries off towards your house?"
"No…." said Amy. "That… sounds worrying. But you know what, I'm done worrying about her for today. Let's talk about something else."
Tails coughed and pointed to Knuckles, who'd just walked into Meh Burger and towards the counter. Amy smiled and waved at him, but he completely ignored her as he without word, walked behind the counter, ignoring Dave's protests.
"You can't be back here," Amy heard Dave say in his wheezy voice. "Hey, you need a permit for that!"
Amy watched in shock and horror as Knuckles pulled the grill out of the wall, rupturing the gas line.
"Um, should we try stop that?" asked Tails. "Or get everybody to safety, because I'm pretty sure the gas tank is going to –"
He didn't finish his sentence as Amy covered her eyes to protect them from the massive fiery explosion.
"Looks like we're ready," said Vanilla, looking over the ingredients. To keep her friends as in the dark as possible, she had them drop the ingredients down at the edge of the pine forest, before getting Knuckles to come and take them the rest of the way. It was a long and annoying journey, but they made it. "And great job with the grills. I didn't think you'd find so many."
"Thanks," said Knuckles, nursing his burns. "That last one was a bit of a doozy, but everything was fine! I got out of there without anybody knowing where I went!"
"Still," said Vanilla, thinking. "That'll probably have to come out of your half of the pay. I didn't mean for you to take every grill in the entire village."
"Aww," said Knuckles.
"I also can't use it because we don't have a gas tank. But whatever, it's fine. Let's just get to cooking."
For the most part, Knuckles stood back and let Vanilla handle the burgers. She's carefully assemble them one by one, wrapped them in wax paper, and put them in a brown paper bag, then set them aside on a cart she quickly made from random things she found. But sometimes she had to stop Knuckles from adding hot sauce or trying to juggle the hamburger buns, or burning himself again by trying to lean on an active grill. It was pretty hard to cook so many burgers at once, but she was getting the hang of it. She was especially thankful they were in a cold area. She felt hot so close to the grills, but the area was overall cold so whenever she had a chance she'd step aside and cool down. She also had to be careful to cough into her shoulder and not on the burgers.
When she was done and all the burgers were made and neatly packed into the cart, she took a step back and admired her work. It was just in time for dinner too.
"These all look amazing," said Knuckles. "I've got to try one!" He reached over and grabbed a bag out of the cart, and Vanilla had to rush over and push his hand away.
"If you eat one you have to pay for it!" she said. "I'm trying to make money so I can get out of Amy's house! Do you know how much I already spent just buying these ingredients!"
"Oh," said Knuckles, looking sad. "Sorry. But can I buy these burgers with my half of the money I make selling them?"
Vanilla shrugged.
"If that's how you want to spend it," she said.
"All right!" said Knuckles.
"But now it's your turn to get to work. You can push this cart near the village, but you can't take it into it! Take the burgers a few at a time and sell them! Or get your friends to help you, but just don't get caught!"
"I get it," said Knuckles. "How many can my friends eat?"
"They can eat them all so long as they pay," said Vanilla. Trying to hold off another coughing fit. "Also if they help you sell, get their money up front. Don't just give them burgers for free."
"I don't understand," said Knuckles. He looked like he as thinking harder than he ever had before, so Vanilla tried to be patient as she explained how this would work. When she was sure he finally got it, she watched as he took the cart and awkwardly pushed it through the snow and towards the village.
Their only problem was going to be that the burgers wouldn't stay hot for long. She'd have to do something about that once the money started to come in.
Knuckle walked through the village with his brown trench coat on. He also wore a hat and sunglasses. It was the stealthiest clothing he had, and judging by the odd looks he kept getting as he walked through the streets, it was working perfectly. Nobody would suspect a single thing.
Casually he found his friend Mike the Ox standing beside the blue ice cream cart vendor.
"Hello friend," said Knuckles, waving. "Can I interest you in some illicit but well-paying activities?"
Mike looked a little worried and scratched his head in confusion.
"Are you feeling alright Knuckles?" he asked.
"Never better," said Knuckles, grinning inconspicuously. "So, about that offer. How would you like to make a bunch of money helping me, your friend, out?"
Again Mike scratched his head.
"I am a little short on money. What do you have in mind?"
Knuckles eyed the ice cream cart vendor suspiciously. He didn't know the guy well, didn't even know his name. But he seemed like the trustworthy sort, and he already sold food. He'd probably be interested in helping.
"You could help too, ice cream cat," said Knuckles, gesturing for them both to lean in. They looked at each other, and looked a bit scared, but they both came closer.
"I have these hamburgers cooked by my sick fox friend," said Knuckles, opening up his trench coat and showing the inside, which was layered with burgers. "If you buy them now, you can sell them for more money and keep the difference. But you can't tell anybody where you're getting them."
"That sounds ridiculous," said the ice cream cat. "Nobody would buy street hamburgers when Meh Burger is in the village!"
Knuckled shook his head and chuckled. "That's because you haven't tried one yet. Trust me, these are the best burgers around. Here, taste one. Both of you."
He handed each of them a burger from his coat.
"Huh, they're still warm," said Mike, unwrapping it. He looked at it cautiously, and sniffed it. Shrugging his shoulders, he bit into it and his eyes widened. He took another bite, then another, and soon the whole thing was gone. The ice cream cat watched on, surprise on his face. He then unwrapped his own and took a bite. He too, looked amazed.
"This is good stuff," he said, taking another bite. "A fine product I'd be happy to sell!"
"Great," said Knuckles. "What about you Mike?"
"Sure," he said. "Can I have another one?"
"You can have as many as you can afford!" said Knuckles. "By the way you both owe me for those burgers you just ate. Also my supplier wants everyone to keep this on the down low. You understand, right? We can't let anybody know the burgers are coming from me, and that I 'm getting them from my sick friend."
"That's… weird," said Mike. "But okay."
"Have you guys noticed anything… strange lately?" asked Sonic. They were all at Meh Burger, except for Knuckles and Vanilla who'd been oddly absent lately.
"Yes," replied Amy.
Amy was noticing it most of all. Vanilla was still coughing up a storm at random intervals, but she didn't seem interested in resting. Instead she would just comment that she only had a few days left, and then rush out of the house.
"I know Vanilla and Knuckles are up to something," said Tails. "But I don't know what it is."
"I was thinking more about, you know… here." Sonic gestured around them at Meh Burger in general. "We're the only ones here. The only time I ever see anybody now is when they come for a chilidog."
"Hmm," said Amy, thinking. "Are you sure it's not just lost business from the exploding gas tank? It took a few hours to get that repaired."
"It's not that," said Sonic. "Meh Burger has recovered from much worse than a minor explosion."
"You know what I think," said Sticks. Amy pre-emptively rolled her eyes. "I think it's a conspiracy to sell elicit food behind everyone's backs. Probably somebody's trying to cook without a license. I approve, I just wish I could find one of the sellers."
Amy blinked. That… actually made some sense. She had to get a license to open up Chez Amy, so maybe somebody didn't want to pay the fees for that?
"That's it!" said Tails, pounding the table with his fist. "It makes sense!"
"What does?" asked Sonic.
"Uh…," said Tails. "Nevermind. Forget I said anything."
Amy stared at him, coming pinging in the back of her mind. But she couldn't quite place it. It was like she was forgetting something obvious, but she couldn't think of what it could be.
She kept thinking about it all the way through lunch. When they were done they threw their trash away and started towards her house, but stopped when they saw a crowd gathering at the village center.
"Everyone, gather round!" they heard the amplified voice of the mayor. "I have an announcement to make."
Curious, they joined the crowd, finding both Vanilla and Knuckles there, along with some of their other friends. Amy recognise Mike the Ox, and that Rabbit Girl, and of course Zooey.
"Hey guys," said Sonic, looking at Knuckles and Vanilla. "Another announcement huh? You guys don't think it's a dance do you?"
Everyone groaned at the suggestion.
"I hope not," said Vanilla. "But it couldn't be that, we just had one."
"No no," came the still amplified voice of the mayor. They couldn't see him through the crowd, but they could hear him clearly. "This is just a quick announcement. It's recently come to my attention that the village is being flooded with elicit hamburgers. As tasty as you might think they are, it is illegal to sell food without a permit. Anybody caught in position of an illegal hamburger will be subject to the full force of the law. In this case, I mandatory slap on the wrist."
There gasps, and cries of outrage.
"Now now," said the mayor in response. "I know it's harsh, but it's for your own safety. Elicit food products can ruin lives, probably. Here's our local Beaver Policeman to inform everyone of the dangers of illicit burger conception! In the meantime, Sonic and friends? If you're in the crowd, please see me in my office."
Amy and her friends all looked at each other, frowning. Suddenly Sonic smirked.
"Heh, must want us to catch the culprit," he said. "I guess if we have to. We can't let people think crime pays."
"If you say so Sonic," said Knuckles.
They all made their way inside City Hall, ignoring the droning voice of the policeman who was now with the megaphone, talking to a quickly dispersing crowd. Inside they were directed by the secretary to the mayor's office, and silently entered as a group.
It looked like the mayor had himself only just entered , sitting down as they closed the door behind them. He looked at them for a few moments before speaking.
"You're our resident heroes," he said. "If you find out who's doing this, you need to put a stop to it. There's no such thing as excessive force in this case, it's for the good of the entire village!"
"Oh, pick me!" said Knuckles, raising his hand. "I know who's doing it!"
Oddly, Vanilla nudged him hard in the stomach, and he put his hand down, looking confused.
"You do?!" asked the Mayor. "Who?"
"It's obviously Eggman!" said Vanilla. "We better stop him!"
"Hmm," said Sonic, speaking up. "Eggman has fooled us with food before…. We'll go talk to him."
"No need!" said Vanilla. "Me and Knuckles will do it. I have a decent dynamic with Eggman already, he might listen to me, and Knuckles can –" she was cut off by sudden hacking coughs. She hunched over, grabbing her chest, and Amy stepped forward to help her but was beaten to it by Tails, how'd rushed over and began softly patting her back. After what felt like an eternity, everybody's faces growing more concerned, she stopped.
"I'm fine," she said, taking several deep breaths. "This should be over soon."
"Vanilla, if you can't stop Eggman because you're ill, somebody else should go," said the Mayor. "This task is too important."
"I'm fine," Vanilla repeated. I just need a couple of minutes. Then me and Knuckles will be on our way. We'll put a stop to this."
"Then it's settled," said the Mayor. "Good work Team Sonic."
As they walked out of the office, there was still something bothering Amy about all this. But in the end, it was only important that Eggman be brought to justice. If she had to get a license, so should he.
Amy and Sonic both left for her house, while unfortunately both Sticks and Tails decided to stay behind.
"We can handle it alone," Vanilla insisted.
"I just want to talk," said Tails.
"It's you two isn't it?" said Sticks, pointing. She had an odd gleam in her eye. "How could you do this without telling me?!"
"Uh," said Vanilla. This was it, it was over. Vanilla had completely forgotten about Sticks. Sticks was always figuring too many things out. If Vanilla had wanted their operation to stay secret, she should have done something to keep Sticks from finding out.
"Don't bother denying it, it's written all over your faces!" she continued.
"It is?!" said Knuckles, looking worried. He grabbed his face and started rubbing furiously. "Is it off yet!? What's it say exactly!?"
Vanilla ignored him. "Just give us a few more days!" she said. "I'm just trying to make a bit of extra cash!"
"What are you talking about!" said Sticks. "I'm not mad you're doing this, I'm mad you didn't tell me! Sticking it to the man in the most delicious way possible! Let me get some of your product at a discount and we're even!"
Relief washed over Vanilla, and she smiled.
"That we can do," she said.
"Wait, really?" said Tails, looking at Sticks. He turned to look at Vanilla. "Look, I don't want to get you into trouble but if you get caught the punishment is severe!"
"Well I'm not going to get caught, right?" asked Vanilla. She tried batting her eyelashes at him, but she didn't think it was working. "You could help me, if you wanted."
Tails looked taken aback. And yet, slowly, he started to look curious.
"You're trying to get money to move out of Amy's house?" he asked, slowly.
Vanilla nodded. "Yep."
"Then… okay," he said. "I'll help."
Vanilla was surprised, but pleased that her friends were willing to join her in breaking the law, even if it was minor.
Together, her and Tails flew Sticks and Knuckles to Eggman's lair. She wasn't exactly sure what she was going to say to him, but she figured she could manipulate him into helping. That was the plan anyway.
Vanilla was familiar enough with Eggman's lair to not bother breaking into it. Instead she just went through the secret entrance on the side, leading her friends directly into Eggman's living room, popping out from under a potted plant.
"Gah!" came the voice of Eggman, who was in an apron, holding a feather duster. "Get out of my plants!" To oblige, Vanilla got out, quickly followed by her three friends. "Great, now I'm going to have to move the secret entrance, and have my plants sprayed with pesticide!"
Vanilla ignored him.
"We're here to put a stop to your evil ways, Eggman!" said Vanilla, pointing.
"My evil ways?!" said Eggman incredulously. "You're the one flooding the village with elicit foodstuffs!" Oh. Vanilla hadn't counted on Eggman knowing beforehand. But in hindsight she should have realised. He had his flybots everywhere. "But it's no matter, soon my robots will begin delivering elicit pizzas to hungry villagers, driving you out of business!"
That… was a good idea. Vanilla liked pizza better than hamburgers. "Why don't we join forces then?"
"Hah! You don't get it, I'm going to defeat you at your own game! This isn't to make money, I have all the money I need!"
"Was this the plan?" asked Tails, sounding confused. "What are we doing here?"
"Yeah, I don't really care if there's competition here," said Sticks. "I just want more food choices."
"Nevermind that, this is about winning!" said Eggman. "Robots, attack!"
Instantly everybody went on the defensive as robots suddenly piled into the room. Vanilla herself pulled out her staff, and extended it, but quickly launched into a coughing fit, pain wracking her chest and throat. It'd been getting more and more sore from all the coughing, and she really hoped it would stop soon.
"What's this?" asked Eggman, as Vanilla's friends battled Eggman's robots in the background. "Is that Autonomic Pulmonary Spasmosis?"
Vanilla nodded, still coughing. She hunched over, leaning on her knees.
"That's too bad," he continued. "I guess your little stunt makes sense then. Trying to save up some money before it's all over, eh?"
More and more Vanilla wondered if she was actually dying. But that would be a stupid way to die, plus, this world was always so overdramatic about everything.
"Hah!" said Sticks, slamming her boomerang into the last Motobug.
Vanilla finally straightened up, her coughs lessening. Looking around the battle was over, and they had won. As usual.
"No fair!" said Eggman. "I was distracted by your sick friend, and you came in unannounced!"
"We still won Eggman!" said Knuckles. "That means you stay out of our way!"
Vanilla heard through her wheezes, Eggman mumble something, but he otherwise didn't object. They'd succeeded in getting Eggman out of the way.
Leaving the lair, Vanilla said, "thanks you guys. By the way, Sticks, want to help me distribute my burgers? And Tails, you can help me and Knuckles cook more. You're not that bad of a cook and I could use the help."
"Sure," said Tails and Sticks at the same time. Vanilla smiled. Things were coming up her way, and she was glad to increase operations. They were already making a killing.
Amy was bored. So was Sonic. Both of them were at her house, alone, and while normally Amy would have been excited at the thought, there was something going on. The rest of their friends had said Eggman was stopped, but according to the Mayor, the elicit burgers were still flooding the streets. Dave was getting desperate, but without any idea of what exactly he was up against, he couldn't fight back.
"Pawn to queen's bishop four," said Sonic in a bored voice.
Amy sighed. "You sunk my battleship."
"Where is everyone?" asked Sonic, not interested in his victory. "Why aren't they here, it's raining outside! Even Eggman is laying low."
Suddenly the front door swung open. Amy, startled, stood up from her chair and ended up knocking over their game, the pieces clattering to the floor. Stepping inside was Dave, lightning striking in the background as he closed the door behind him.
"I'll tell you where they are," he said.
"I didn't invite you into my house Dave," said Amy, reaching down to pick up the fallen game pieces. "And you better not track mud on the floor."
"Sorry," said Dave, bending down to take off his shoes. "But yeah, I know where they are."
"Where?" asked Sonic, not bothering to help pick anything up.
"They're out there pushing their illegal business stealing hamburgers!" said Dave, mustering up as much menace as he could with his voice. "I finally got Lady Walrus to tell me. She bought her burgers from Mike the Ox, who bought them from Knuckles, who got them from Vanilla." He nearly scowled that last name.
"Wait, really?" asked Sonic, now standing up just as Amy was putting the pieces back on the table.
Again the door swung open.
"Really," said Vanilla, more lightning striking as she walked in. Closing the door behind her she shook herself dry, much to Amy's annoyance.
"How embarrassing," said Dave, narrowing his eyes.
"What was that Dave," said Vanilla, walking forward. "I couldn't hear your insult over your lost business."
"Yeah, um, Vanilla," said Sonic, walking forward. Amy joined him, ignoring the game pieces now. "We've got to turn you in. We agreed with the Mayor."
"Yessss," said Dave. "Finally, justice will be served."
"Unlike your Meh Burgers," said Vanilla, slowly pulling out her collapsible staff from her pocket. She extended it.
"Seriously?" asked Sonic. "Are you really going to fight us over this?"
"Not seriously, no," said Vanilla, twirling the staff. "But I've got to keep up appearances right? If we win, maybe don't turn us in?"
"We?" asked Sonic.
At the same time Dave said, "Heh, you can't defeat the combined might of me and Sonic."
"You stay out of this," said Amy, jumping in, grabbing her hammer.
"And yes, Sonic," said Vanilla. "I said we."
Again the door swung open, and for the third time lightning struck in the background. There was Tails, wielding some kind of kooky invention. Knuckles was beside him, flexing his muscles menacingly. And then the window broke, as Sticks burst through it screaming her battle cry.
"Seriously!?" yelled Amy, swinging her hammer at the approaching Sticks. The wind and rain were now getting into the house.
"I'm running out of time!" said Vanilla, casually knocking Dave over as he tried to rush her. "It's day six! I'm at the end of my rope!"
"Okay, I can get Vanilla, but why are you guys joining in on this?" asked Sonic, avoiding Tails's darts he was shooting at him. Amy sighed and shook her head in the middle of her swings against Sticks. They were ended with suction cups. So this was all a game to them. A game that was ruining her house!
"I have so much money now!" said Knuckles, rushing towards Sonic. He yawned and ran to the side, completely dodging both Knuckles and Tails's renewed fire, which then hit Knuckles in the back.
"Hey!" said Knuckles. He reached behind him and brushed the darts off. Amy managed to push Sticks away just in time for Vanilla to step over Dave's fallen body, coming over with her own staff.
"Sorry!" said Tails. "And I'm doing it for love!"
"Lame," said Sonic, zooming over and tearing Tails's dart gun away from him. He then shot Tails in the face.
"I'm sticking it to the man," said Sticks, moving back forward. Amy was now on the complete defensive, trying to block and dodge both Sticks and Vanilla's attacks. Just as Amy thought she couldn't hold them both off for much longer, Vanilla stopped, grabbing her chest.
"Wait, hold on!" said Amy, worried. Vanilla had collapsed in a renewed fit of coughing. They were loud, and sounded painful, and instead of the usual where she just hunched over, she'd fallen to the floor and was curled into a ball.
Sticks immediately stopped her attack and, along with Amy, helped Vanilla to sit up. Still she kept coughing.
"Think we should call somebody?" asked Amy.
"She's been to the doctor," said Tails, looking worried. He pushed past sticks and grabbed Vanilla's hand in both of his. "It's her last day. We knew this was coming."
"Guys," wheezed Dave. "I've fallen and I can't get up." Everybody ignored him, Knuckles and Sonic coming over to help pick up Vanilla and move her to her bed.
She'd stopped coughing, but she'd fainted.
Vanilla woke up the next day in bed, her throat sore but her chest feeling better. Checking her bedside clock, it was day seven, and she wasn't dead. That meant she was healed!
Jumping out of bed, she yawned and stretched, and ran out of her room.
Amy was waiting for her. And she wasn't alone.
"Oh good, you're awake," she said. "Our good Beaver Policeman is here to give you your mandatory slap on the wrist for breaking the law."
"You do the crime, you do the time," said the cop, stepping forward.
"Everybody else already got their punishment. Also you owe me for the window Sticks broke. And for all the water damage the rain caused."
"Aww," said Vanilla, holding out her hands. She expected to be handcuffed, but instead the cop just literally slapped her on her right wrist. It stung, but not that badly. She rubbed it slightly afterwards, and she thought about how it was worth it.
"Welp, my work here is done," said the cop. "But keep in mind, second offence for this is much worse than even a slap on the wrist. A fine of forty thousand dollars."
Vanilla's eyes widened. That was a lot of money.
"I'll keep that in mind, officer," said Vanilla. He nodded and she watched as he turned around and left. Looking around afterwards, Vanilla noticed the boarded up window, and the broom next to the trash can. Hopefully it wouldn't cost too much to fix and replace everything.
Because if it didn't, she finally had her money. She could finally start working on constructing a house.
"So, did you learn your lesson?" asked Amy, her hands on her hips.
"Yes," said Vanilla. "Don't drag my friends into my criminal activities. Also, avoid criminal activities."
Amy nodded.
"Good. Now if you're feeling better, you're coming with me while we go window shopping."
"I have a lot of money now," said Vanilla. "We don't have to window shop."
Amy shook her head. "I know you have a lot of money. I mean we're shopping for a replacement window for me."
Vanilla sighed. "Oh yeah. Right."
- Location
- In a Fantasy
I think its both
Malbutorius
C'est le bien qui fait mal
You know, I'm still expecting her to find a Chaos Emerald and start evilly cackling before snapping out of it and hiding it inside of her bed stuffing to keep the setting from escalating.
SmashQueen
Professional duck-cat.
Pst. Stick a turbine or five by the beach and run the wiring up to Vanilla's new place of residence when it's built. Free electricity. Also she'll totally need an unnecessary way to get back to her new abode. Maybe a cannon? Or a rocket-powered roller coaster? Jump panels? 
Hi guys. Contrary to what the lack of updates may say, this fic is not dead. I have eight more chapters planned before I consider the fic "complete" and set it aside for a while while I think about stuff for a season 2, which I'll probably do but am also not making promises for right now.
The issue is just that I'm just swamped for time and can only juggle one fic right now, and even then, only with biweekly updates. And that fic is my current Star Wars SI. I do occasionally plug away at the next update to this fic, currently sitting at four thousand words, so progress is happening, just slower than I'd like. I might at some point decide to reverse course and hiatus the Star Wars and focus on this again, but maybe not. At worst, I'll be able to resume updates around November I guess, for sure. That's worst case scenario.
In the meantime, I asked a buddy of mine to draw something for y'all. I'd love to ink and colour it myself, but uh, that's not happening within this year. I'm a slower artist than I am writer. So I'll just leave it here in its sketch format. I hope it at least answers the question clearly of what Vanilla is supposed to look like.
This depicts a scene from Chapter 13, Convenient Spring Dance, at the line "Hey girl. What's up?" Got to say, I thought most of this scene was funny, so I'm glad I was able to get it immortalised.
The issue is just that I'm just swamped for time and can only juggle one fic right now, and even then, only with biweekly updates. And that fic is my current Star Wars SI. I do occasionally plug away at the next update to this fic, currently sitting at four thousand words, so progress is happening, just slower than I'd like. I might at some point decide to reverse course and hiatus the Star Wars and focus on this again, but maybe not. At worst, I'll be able to resume updates around November I guess, for sure. That's worst case scenario.
In the meantime, I asked a buddy of mine to draw something for y'all. I'd love to ink and colour it myself, but uh, that's not happening within this year. I'm a slower artist than I am writer. So I'll just leave it here in its sketch format. I hope it at least answers the question clearly of what Vanilla is supposed to look like.
This depicts a scene from Chapter 13, Convenient Spring Dance, at the line "Hey girl. What's up?" Got to say, I thought most of this scene was funny, so I'm glad I was able to get it immortalised.
- Location
- Just passing through.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Wow that's an awesome draw, it really feels like the comics style.
The Return...s
A/N:
This is the longest Author's Notes I've ever written! I think.
But wow, guess what it is! An actual real update to this fic, after six years. I can't believe it's been so long. Seriously, it doesn't feel like it. Obviously I never intended a pause to go on this long. After so long, I have good news and bad news.
The good news is I have a backlog of chapters for this fic already done, and I want to put all my focus into finishing this fic in a timely manner from here on out. In addition to that, this fic was intended to finish its first "season" with 26 chapters, and I have settled on what all the chapters are going to be and in what order. Of course, the final chapter was conceived way back when I started this, so that one was always a given. And depending on how long it goes I might break it into two chapters, bringing the total to 27.
The bad news is that I have a bunch of other ideas for this fic. I'd always considered the option of doing a "second season", another 26 chapters. On one hand, I have a bunch of ideas I want to do that I don't have enough room for in this season. There's also some ideas that depend on plotlines from season 2, and not just alternate takes of season 2 episodes. But there's the problem that this fic, if I finish it this year, would have taken me seven years to finish. It would be pretty lame if people had to wait seven years to finish a second season. I'll have to think more on if I want to commit to doing it.
I also have some actual notes for this chapter I want to mention. Despite being the next chapter I am currently posting, this was finished only yesterday. I have a half written chapter from years ago I planned to be next, but it wasn't working out like I wanted, plus I didn't like how it flowed from preceeding chapters. Then I tried going for what I planned for after that, and I finished it, but decided it was so insane it wouldn't make a good comeback chapter after all this time. So I decided to finish another chapter that was a bit more grounded, but decided that another planned idea would make sense before it, and here we are.
The idea for this chapter comes courtesy of Sonic Boom writers, Alec Denton and Greg Hahn. Alec Denton mentioned years ago on twitter about a joke episode idea for Sonic Boom, featuring
I've always thought this was actually funny, so here we are. Though I make no claim on being able to do it justice.
And finally, I have some fanfic recs! First, by complete coincidence, I saw another Sonic Boom fic, A Young Girl's Quilly Nemesis was created last week by user FFSCCFragReturns and updated today. It's pretty strong already, and it gave me a few laughs.
erutcarF over on SpaceBattles, by user Sora Neki isn't a comedy, and isn't Sonic Boom outside of being everything else, but it is a fantastic story for a Sonic Insane Person like me.
Finally, this isn't really a recomendation, so much as it's just a mentioning of a fic I didn't know existed until a few months back. Sonic Boom Legends was written a long time ago on DeviantArt and I feel is worth mentioning simply because there aren't that many Sonic Boom fics to mention at all, and I now know it exists. It's what I would call, perfectly servicable for its context. To that end, I did put a small reference to it in this chapter. Call it an easter egg.
Anyway, on to the chapter.
_____________________________
They all stood in Amy and Vanilla's house. Sonic in the centre, paced in front of the couch, trying to boost moral for their biggest challenge yet.
"This is our biggest challenge yet," said Sonic, punching a fist into his other palm. "So may things could go wrong. That's why we've all got to have each other's back for this. No fooling around. No goofing off. We really need to buckle down and focus."
"Right," said Knuckles, understanding the mood. Everybody had grim determined faces. Even Vanilla, who normally blew everything off.
"With focus, wits, the right equipment, and a little luck, we can pull through this with minimal casualties," continued Sonic. "Now, let's do this."
Everybody cheered, than broke off to settle in different areas of the house. Sonic decided to stay at the couch. The large coffee table in front was stacked with papers, with sharpened pencils laid out for them along with pencil sharpeners, blue pens, calculators, and a printer hooked up to Tails' laptop. Sonic picked up a Form S-1991, along with a pencil. He hoped he could get through Tax Day as fast as possible.
"I've decided to do my taxes online this time," said Tails. He tilted his laptop so that Vanilla could see it. They weren't the only two working together, and with Vanilla new to the village, she had never done taxes before. She needed to be shown the ropes, and Tails was as good a choice to do that as any of their friends. "I think you should too. I got a subscription to this tax filing service, it just asks questions and fills out the forms for us."
"Sounds simple enough," said Vanilla, setting aside the blank forms she'd brought from the coffee table. "So do I do mine after yours or…?"
"We can do both of ours at the same time!" said Tails, opening another browser window. "I just got to set up your account! So, name?"
"Vanilla the Fox," said Vanilla. Tails looked at her, confused.
"You didn't file the paperwork to get your name changed?"
"Name changed to what?" she asked.
"Vanilla the Arctic Fox," said Tails. "I gave you the forms to fill out ages ago."
"Uhhh," said Vanilla, and Tails could tell she was only then remembering this ever happened. "Is it important?"
"I guess not," said Tails, typing in her name. "It'll make filing next time harder though. I'll print out the forms for your name change today, and you can fill them out and submit them later."
"I love filling out forms," said Vanilla, and Tails didn't have to be a genius to tell she was being sarcastic.
"What about your name?" asked Vanilla, as he typed in her incorrect name.
"What about it?" asked Tails.
"I've heard Mayor Fink call you Tails the Fox," she said. "Never Miles Prower. Which do you file under?"
"I have to file under Miles since it's my legal name," said Tails, his voice lowered due to the subject. "But I include Tails the Fox as an AKA."
"You know they don't care about that," shouted Amy at the other side of the counter. She'd just walked back from her closet, carrying a large box filled with papers. "They ignore your AKA every year. It's just a waste of their time."
"Who cares about wasting the government's time?" Vanilla shouted back. She was too close to Tails and his ears swivelled back to try to dampen the sound.
"What's this about wasting the government's time?!" shouted Sticks, in the middle of the house, with Knuckles. "Can I help?!"
"You know what they say," said Knuckles. "Time is money, and nothing is certain except death and taxes. Time heals all wounds, but if you've got time to kill, the best things in life are free."
"Can you guy's stop talking, I need to focus!" shouted Sonic.
"Okay, I've got my forms," said Amy to herself, ignoring the nonsense about time and money going on behind her. She was at the kitchen counter, near Vanilla and Tails, but far enough away that she could still focus on her own space. "Pencils." She looked at the pencils, all neatly placed inside of a cute pencil holder. "An escape plan." She looked at her escape plan, to be used in a scenario where she decided to give up and flee to another island with an assumed name.
"Yep, I think I've got everything," she said to herself. There was a calculator. Check. Several brand new blue pens. Check. A bottle of pain killers. Check.
"Maybe one more look through."
There was a stress ball, to try and prevent the escape plan scenario. She also had a crystal ball, to check periodically if she was going to get a refund or a letter from the tax office. Plus her bag of receipts and invoices she'd kept.
"I think I'm all set," she repeated to herself. She looked around. "But just to be safe, I should probably do another check."
"Knuckles the Echidna," said Sticks, as she scribbled indecipherably on the form. They were on the couch opposite Sonic.
"Hey, that's my name!" said Knuckles. But then he thought about that. "Wait, isn't it?"
"I'm doing your taxes because you can't read!" said Sticks. "That's the premise we're working with for now."
"I can read!" said Knuckles. Tails had been teaching him. He was all the way up to the letter "A"!
"Oh yeah?" asked Sticks. "Read this." She held out a sheet of paper she'd just been writing on. Knuckles put on his reading glasses before grabbing the sheet of paper with both hands and examining it.
"Aaaaaaaa," he said, finally. Sticks snatched the form back from him.
"Occupation?" Sticks asked.
"Professional trainer," replied Knuckles. He even had paying customers!
"Since when?"
"I dunno."
Sticks growled in frustration, when Knuckles finally realised something.
"Hey wait a minute, if you're doing my taxes, does that mean I have to do yours?"
"You stay away from my taxes!" she shouted, jumping back on top of the back of the couch. "I wouldn't even be doing this if it wasn't for the government! I don't pay taxes, but I still have to file! It's outrageous I tells ya!"
"Hey!" yelled Vanilla from the other side of the house. "Don't think I've forgotten you denied me and Tails use of your tax shelter!"
"Focus on your side of the house, you corporate fat cats!"
"I'm not fat!"
"And we're not cats!" said Tails.
"Okay wait a second," said Sonic, loudly enough to interrupt whatever argument was brewing between Sticks and Vanilla. "Where's a Form C-40?"
"Oh, I have one!" said Amy, and Sonic zipped over to her. To his surprise she covered her forms with her arms as if to save them from getting hurt.
"They're mine I need them!" She snarled.
"Okay okay," said Sonic, backing away. He turned to Tails and Vanilla.
"Hey Tails, can-"
"Second question, filing single or jointly?" asked Tails, causing Sonic to stop mid sentence.
Vanilla blinked at him. "We're not married."
"Woah, slow down a minute there," said Sonic, even though it pained him to say something so vulgar. "Tails, I need you to print me out a Form C-40. Amy's in her 'I've got to make sure I'm organised' phase, before she starts doing anything. You know how she gets."
"In a minute Sonic, first I want to get through this question," said Tails, not looking at him. Instead he turned to look at Vanilla. "Even though we're not married, we can still file jointly because we work together and have a lot of the same income streams."
"Is that how filing works in this crazy world, or is this some really strange lie meant to make me more invested in you?" asked Vanilla.
"You also have to be in a relationship," added Sonic. Vanilla just narrowed her eyes at Tails.
"If you file single, my crystal ball says you're getting a tax letter, Vanilla!" shouted Amy.
"Jointly it is then," said Vanilla instantly. Sonic groaned and started tapping his foot while Tails typed the answer into his laptop.
"If you file jointly, my crystal ball says you're getting a tax letter, Tails!" repeated Amy.
Tails groaned, but didn't go back and change his question. "Crystal balls aren't real, Amy. You're just worrying me."
"There is literally a crystal ball in front of her," said Vanilla.
"Tails, can you print that form for me now?" said Sonic, cutting through the nonsense.
"Sure, Sonic," said Tails as he pressed a button. Sonic ran away from the crazy gang back to the printer.
Instead of a Form C-40, there was a name change request form. Sonic waited a few seconds before finally, the printer warmed up. But instead of printing a Form C-40, Sonic heard a horrible crunching sound as paper started getting ground up in the machinery of the printer.
"Tails, the printer's jammed!" he called out. But Tails wasn't listening. Sighing to himself, he threw the name change forms off to the side and tried to pull the jammed paper out, but doing so seemed to only make the printer more stuck, somehow. Since obviously everything would be solved by forcing it, he forced it, tearing out strips of paper and losing any leverage he had with the greater paper jam. He groaned again, and zoomed towards Amy's closet to try and find a screwdriver. Unfortunately all that was in there was clothes, cardboard boxes, and an endless number of shoeboxes, which fell over as he tried to look for a screwdriver.
"Doing your taxes in tallies is going to take forever," said Sticks, ignoring the rush of wind as Sonic fled the scene of his crimes.
"One, one, one, one," said Knuckles, remembering the money he made for the year from his business. "One, one, one, one, and done."
"Really?" asked Sticks. "Are we finally finished!?"
"Well yeah," said Knuckles. "That's all the money I made from Lady Goat. But I remember helping Lady Walrus too…"
"No, we're not doing this any more!" screamed Sticks, and Knuckles toppled over as he tried to push himself away as the crazy insane girl jumped on him, trying to attack his soft head.
"Guys!" Knuckles called out. "A little help here?!"
He held her arms as she snarled and spat at him, but luckily she couldn't get leverage to hurt him.
"Guys?" Knuckles tried again. He couldn't understand why nobody was helping!
"Okay, we're at dependants," said Tails, pointedly ignoring the commotion going on in the living room.
"You're not going to convince me I have any dependants," said Vanilla, crossing her arms and glaring in a way Tails found kind of cute.
"Well, I was thinking more along the lines of Amy."
"Amy isn't my dependant, though I can understand why you'd think that."
"I heard that!" yelled Amy from across the counter.
"No! I mean, is Amy counting you as a dependant?"
"Amy, are you counting me as a dependant?" yelled Vanilla.
Amy looked over, her eyes widening in shock.
"Oh no, I forgot my tarot cards!" she said, standing up from her seat and running off to the other end of the house, sidestepping Sticks and Knuckles, and rummage through a storage closet.
"Can't we move on to the next question and come back to this one later?" asked Vanilla.
"Sure, I guess," said Tails, putting in "no" for the time being. "Okay, occupation! This one's easy!"
"Finally," said Vanilla. "I feel like all these questions have been much harder than they have to be."
"Well this one's a piece of cake," said Tails, feeling relieved. He started typing. "Self-Employed, TwinTails Repair Shop, and Hero, Team Sonic." Tails finished typing and was about to press the enter key.
"Wait," said Vanilla, putting her hand in between his and the keyboard. "I had lots of income from Doctor Eggman. Plus all those odd jobs I did. And what about that burger scam I ran with Knuckles when I thought it was all going to be over? Should I declare that or is that a bad idea?"
"Uh oh," said Tails, thinking of how much that was going to complicate things.
"I have all the invoices if it'll stop you from being crazy!" said Knuckles, still fending off Sticks.
"Crazy?!" shouted Sticks, not letting up. "I'll show you crazy!"
Just then Amy tried to step over Sticks on her way back to the counter, holding small pieces of paper with designs on one side and pictures on the other. Knuckles was pretty sure they were called "cards". But just as Amy was halfway over Sticks, Sticks reared back, causing Amy to fall over, her "cards" spilling all over the table and floor.
"Sticks!" said Amy. "Now I'll have to count every card to make sure I got them all."
Finally Sticks stopped trying to attack him, and Knuckles breathed a sigh of relief.
"What are you, a vampire?" asked Sticks, turning to face Amy, who was now bent down on the floor. "I am so sick of counting." She then turned back to Knuckles. "Where are these invoices?"
"Right here," said Knuckles, pulling a few waded up balls of paper out and dropping them onto the table. They bounced off and rolled onto the floor, where Amy saw them and growled like a feral Sticks.
"Oy," sighed Sticks, bending over to pick them up. She unfurled them, and sighed again, showing them to Knuckles.
"Knuckles, these aren't invoices, this is just money," she said.
Knuckles nodded. "Yep, that's what I got from my business!"
Sticks looked at the money and then seemed to shiver in what was probably uncontrollable happiness. Still, Knuckles braced for another attack.
"Okay, I think we got it," said Tails, as Amy sat down in her spot on the other end of the counter, setting aside her deck of useless tarot cards. "Self-Employed, Twintails Repair Shop. Hero, Team Sonic. Hero, Solo. Villain, Team Eggman. Villain, Solo. Villain, Team Hamburger. You'll have to remember to give Knuckles an invoice for his pay for that by the way. Plus Sticks if you gave her any." He'd "worked with" Vanilla on that scheme because Vanilla was his girlfriend, but in hindsight he was just glad it made his taxes simpler since she hadn't paid him for it. Vanilla turned to look at Knuckles, who was arguing with Sticks again. "Next we have Assistant to the Junior Chef Manager, Meh Burger. Assistant Ice Cream, Ice Cream Cat. Assistant Handyman, Wild Cat. Celebrity Villain Model, Number 2 Magazine. Now think, is that everything?"
Vanilla scratched her muzzle in thought. "There was that one job I did for Mr. Slate, but I never knew what that job was. Or how much I made from it. Or where the money is. Or if I even got it. All I know I got was a wheel of cheese as a severance package."
"Well I'm sure it won't come back to haunt you if we just ignore that one," said Tails. "After all, if you never got any money, it doesn't count."
"Wait, if I have to account for Knuckles for that burger thing, does that mean I have to contact every single -"
She was cut off as her communicator beeped. She looked down at who it was, rolled her head back, partially flattened her ears, and groaned dramatically.
"Yeah, tax day can be a real pain," said Tails, moving back to his own return while she sorted that out. He remembered she never told her other friends what exactly they were helping with, either. Well, it always comes out in the end.
Amy's tarot card reading wasn't going well. The Fool, The Tower, and Death. Who was the Fool? Was it her? If so, that meant she probably shouldn't start yet, or else disaster would strike and nothing would ever be the same. Or maybe she should, and her completely reasonable preparedness would cause the problem somehow. No, that couldn't be it.
In most situations Sonic was the Fool. Amy turned around to look at Sonic, who was breaking apart the printer for some reason. Whatever disaster he was going through had clearly already struck.
She looked over and saw Tails typing away at his computer, with Vanilla talking loudly into her communicator.
It all clicked. Vanilla was the Fool. Should she be warned?
"Vanilla!" shouted Amy, trying to get the girl's attention. She got shushed for her trouble.
"Well fine," said Amy. "I guess you don't want to know what the cards say! You really are the fool!"
Somehow, Sticks heard that.
"We're all fools!" she screamed, tearing up the paper she was working on as Knuckles looked down sadly into his hands.
Wait. That was it! They weren't doing this right!
Just as Amy had that thought, the door burst open revealing a large egg-like figure. Before Amy could grab her hammer, a load of Motobugs flooded into her house.
"I've come to demand you surrender!" shouted Eggman, slowly walking into the room as the motobugs spread out to cover them. Amy had her trusty hammer, Sonic was done breaking the printer, Sticks and Knuckles weren't fighting any more, Tails had a wrench in hand, and Vanilla took the opportunity to hang up on whoever was talking to her.
They were all ready, the Motobugs now slowly circling, Bee Bots coming in to cover Eggman's flank, and Eggman himself scowling menacingly.
"I demand…," repeated Eggman, raising his hand. Then he pointed at Vanilla and Tails and said, "You surrender copies of your S-2 wage statements!" Everybody looked at each other in confusion even as Eggman continued. "I seem to have misplaced them, most likely due to Orbot and Cubot's sheer incompetence, and I need accurate numbers if I'm to make sure I don't pay any taxes this year!"
Amy turned back to look at Vanilla and Tails. Tails was at his laptop, typing, strings of green code flashing across the screen.
"You sent them online, didn't you?" asked Tails. "We haven't gotten that far in the tax software yet. And even if you didn't, the software should be able to grab them from your business' database."
"Software can't find what isn't there!" said Eggman, walking into the house like he hadn't just knocked the door down. Amy almost said something until the bee-bots and motobugs started to work together to fix it.
"If there's no record…." said Vanilla, slowly.
"I have them," said Amy. All eyes turned to her. "Eggman mailed them out and I put them in a shoebox with all the other important forms."
"Uh, do you have mine too?" asked Tails. "From when I worked for Eggman that one time?"
"Do you have Knuckles' invoices!" shrieked Sticks, scrambling towards her. Amy raised her hands trying to calm her friend down.
"Yes, I keep copies of everyone's forms! After all, it's not like anybody else is organised around here."
"I'm organised!" said everyone except Knuckles, who instead said, "I'm organ eyed!"
"Besides, isn't that illegal?" asked Vanilla. "On several levels?"
"Not when you live with me," said Amy, not growling as she spoke. "Or agreed a long time ago to send those kind of things here." She glared at Sonic, then Knuckles, and then Tails.
"I don't remember this," said Tails. But then his eyes widened and he frowned. "Oh. Yeah, because I was getting all my S-2's online, you told me it was good to have paper copies and you'd take care of it for me. You were the one who brought it up."
"And it looks like I was right," said Amy, before glancing at her tarot cards. It was always a good idea to keep organised. And to take a peak into the future, at least when taxes were concerned. She stood up, ready to address everybody in the room. "Everyone, can I have your attention!" she called out.
Sonic was on the floor trying to figure out how the printer had broken into about a bazillion pieces. It maybe had something to do with the screwdriver still in his hand, or it was Eggman. Since Eggman was still in Amy's house as if he wasn't a villain, it was probably Eggman.
"Everyone, can I have your attention!" called out Amy. Sonic looked up, but couldn't see past the table. Getting up to his feet in the blink of an eye, he watched Amy walk to the centre of the room, stopping next to the table around which Sticks and Knuckles still sat.
"We've been following Sonic's plan to do our taxes, except for one important detail," she said.
"That's why we need to follow my plan, which is destroy Sonic!" said Eggman, and again his robots appeared to get into battle formation. Sonic readied a spindash, but Amy just glared at him and he looked oddly sheepish. "Sorry, force of habit. You were saying?"
"I was saying," continued Amy, "That we forgot one important detail. We need to have each other's backs for this. And while Eggman wasn't initially included in that, I suppose so long as he remembers to stop trying to destroy us, we can include him and finally get this done."
"Don't worry about him," said Vanilla. Because of course it'd be Vanilla vouching for him. "The Tax Man is today's villain. An inevitable villain none of us can escape from." She jerked her thumb at Eggman. "If he tries to betray us here, it'll only mean more taxes for him later on."
"I hate to say it, but Vanilla has a point," said Sticks.
"What do you mean you hate to say it?!" shrieked Vanilla, her voice oddly high pitched. "We agree on ninety percent of everything!"
"No, you agree with me," replied Sticks, and Sonic could see Vanilla practically smouldering in a way that got Tails looking worried for her health. "Anyway, Eggman's not the problem here. We should focus on the real enemy, the government!"
"This is my rousing speech guys!" said Amy. "Stop agreeing and just listen!"
"Since we've remembered to work together," said Sonic, moving towards the counter while Amy glared, "Tails, can you fix the printer. It seems to have strangely come apart at the screws. I think maybe your Unbolterizer hit it somehow."
"Sure thing, Sonic," said Tails, while Amy growled.
"I will give you one of my Form C-40's" said Amy, through clenched teeth. He grabbed it from her and returned to his spot at the table.
"Doctor Eggman, let's find those S-2's," said Vanilla. "Me and Tails will never be able to file our taxes without them."
Tails was pretty sure that Sonic had taken the printer apart, not his Unbolterizer, but in the spirit of working together, he didn't mention it. Vanilla and Eggman walked past him to Amy's closet, before digging inside and pulling out empty shoeboxes and stacks of papers that had somehow spilled out of them.
"Tails, you're supposed to be smart, right?" asked Sticks as she neared him. Tails tightened the last screw on the printer, and watched as it printed out a clean form C-40, just as it should have.
"I hope so," said Tails. "Why?"
"Why don't you help Knuckles with his taxes instead of me?" she leaned in and continued in a whisper. "He is driving me crazy."
Oh, he's the reason, huh? He thought that but absolutely did not say it.
"What did you just say?" asked Sticks with barely restrained anger. Tails felt himself go pale.
Did I say that out loud? He thought to himself.
"Yes," said Sticks. "Either that or I've suddenly developed mind powers."
Tails sighed. "Mind powers aren't real, Sticks. I think I'm just kinda stressed out."
"How do you think I feel!?" asked Sticks, waving her arms around like a lunatic. "Please, let me finish my taxes on my own and take over for me with Knuckles, alright?"
"But who will help Vanilla?"
"Finally!" shouted Eggman, standing up from the floor. There was a loud crack as his back straightened out, and he winced. He held a few sheets of paper, waving them triumphantly. "This is excellent, now I can finally finish my Evil Taxes."
"Are Evil Taxes different from regular taxes?" asked Vanilla.
"Evil Income has its own series of forms, E-100 through E-123. Don't you know anything?"
"Evidently, not about taxes," said Vanilla. Still on the floor, she turned her head to look up at him. "Did you know about this Tails?"
"Uh, I didn't," admitted Tails. "But surely it'd come up on the software."
"What software are you using?" asked Eggman.
"Y-Me Books," said Tails.
Eggman sputtered indignantly. "That load of garbage?!" he said. "They're practically pirates! I use Shell-Out, all the best villains use it."
"I thought that was a scam," admitted Tails.
"Shell-Out helps you find loopholes, not commit fraud. They use very concise questions and advanced algorithms to make you shell out the least amount of money to the government possible."
"Is this your software, Doctor Eggman, or are you just advertising it for no reason?" asked Vanilla, finally standing up. For some strange reason, Tails wished she'd have stayed on the floor for a little while longer.
"No, why would you think that?" asked Eggman. "Do you know how insane it is to get a license to design public tax software? Even I'm not that evil."
"Okay, fine," said Tails, looking back at Sticks. "I'll do Knuckles' taxes, you do your own, and Eggman, you help Vanilla with her taxes. Is that good?"
"Great!" said Knuckles, walking up. He put a heavy knuckled hand on Tails' shoulder. "So uh, how much money did I make this year?" Tails groaned as Vanilla and Eggman walked off.
Amy managed to wrangle Sonic into helping her organise and distribute everybody's tax forms. She'd managed to find Knuckles' invoices, with the help of Eggman's badnicks, along with all the C-2's Vanilla had forgotten to send out to her then-criminal friends.
"Yeah, he's on his way," said Vanilla through her communicator. Eggman sat next to her, typing on Tails' computer. "What, already? Well that's good then, right? Okay, thanks, never call me again Mike, bye." She sighed.
"Who's Mike?" asked Amy as she worked, and Sonic zoomed back inside.
"You know, Mike the Ox?" said Vanilla, now staring at Tails' laptop screen along with Eggman. "He's friends with Knuckles. I don't know how he got my number, but if he ever calls me again, I'm going to move him into the enemy category with Dave and Mark."
"Where am I on this enemy list?" asked Eggman, still typing.
Vanilla's face scrunched up in an odd way. But they'd been living together long enough that Amy was pretty sure she was feeling both embarrassed and annoyed by the question.
"You're on a different list," she said, after a moment. Eggman didn't notice.
"Ah, nemesis," said Eggman, nodding to himself. Amy had to assume Vanilla had Eggman on either a friend list, hopefully ranked low, or a hit list… hopefully also ranked low. If only Vanilla's room wasn't below freezing, she'd sneak into it and check her lists. Then again, she didn't want to be like that crimson fat man Vanilla and Knuckles talked about.
"How do you even read this software?" asked Amy, trying to change the subject. It looked just like the last one Tails was using, a cascading sequence of green symbols and numbers. "It just looks like code."
"You stare long enough and you don't even see the code any more," said Vanilla, her eyes appropriately glazed over.
"All I see is deduction, expense, write-off," said Eggman, gesturing at the screen as if it didn't all just look like a bunch of numbers.
With all necessary forms in hand, and the printer working, Sonic was finally able to blaze through his taxes. And just to be safe, he double checked everything, then triple checked. By the time he was done, he looked around and saw that he wasn't the only one who'd finished.
Sticks was lounging on the couch, while Tails was playing a game of peek-a-boo with Knuckles. He was surprised every time.
Eggman, Amy, and Vanilla were all chatting, while Eggman's robots were spinning in circles, clearly unsure of what to do now.
"Alright gang!" said Sonic, getting everyone's attention. "Is everyone done?"
There was generally signs of agreement.
"Then we just have one final step. We've got to take our taxes to the post office."
"Me, Tails, and Doctor Eggman filed online!" said Vanilla.
"We could print out copies and file those too?" suggested Tails.
"That'll cause problems," said Eggman. "Don't you know anything, Tails?"
"Don't talk to him like that!" said Vanilla, standing up. Eggman followed, towering over her.
"Woah, easy guys," said Sonic, zipping over and getting between them. "Even if some of us files online, the rest of us have to go to the post office. And if there's anything we've learned today, it's that we can accomplish anything if we work together."
"So what, you want us to come along just for the moral support?" asked Eggman. Sonic didn't want him to come along, but it was probably not the best thing to say at the moment.
"We can do that," said Vanilla, making for the door. The others followed her lead.
It had somehow gotten dark, after the hours of tax work they'd done. But luckily you could always drop something off at the post office box.
"I'm so glad I managed to save the day," said Amy.
"How do you figure?" asked Sonic. "It was my rousing speech that included the line about having each other's backs."
"I read it in my cards!" said Amy.
"Amy," said Vanilla, her voice unimpressed. "You read in the cards last week that I would die from cereal poisoning. I don't even eat cereal, not since that vow."
"And you didn't die," said Amy, holding her head high as if she'd acomplished something. "Looks like you owe me for saving your life."
Vanilla looked oddly conflicted at that nonsense statement.
"So, what do we do after we finish this?" asked Amy, changing the subject. "It's Meh Burger Open Mic Night. We could go there?"
"Oh, that sounds like fun," said Vanilla. Everybody stopped, and stared. "What? I don't have to eat there to enjoy the comedy."
"But nobody is funny at those open mics," said Sonic.
"Old Monkey is hilarious!" said Vanilla.
"Pass," said Knuckles. "I hate that Old Monkey. If I have to listen to him ramble about that time he visited his brother, Older Monkey on Forgone Island again...."
Vanilla burst out laughing. Through her laughs, she spoke. "That was the one where he met those two foxes, right, and then started telling a completely different story about how he met two other foxes who were clearly just me and Tails? As if we weren't right there, and also not in the distant past?"
"Well I had a different idea," said Eggman, thankfully ignoring that burgeoning story, and they continued on their way while Vanilla wiped away tears. They were only a few feet from the post office.
"Attack us with your robot goons?" asked Sticks, as they arrived.
"What, who told you!?" said Eggman. "It was supposed to be a surprise! You know, a celebratory victory after tax filing."
"Victory of what?" asked Tails, as one by one, they dropped their taxes into the box. Sonic felt a huge weight lift off his shoulders as his taxes made a loud thunk at the bottom of the box.
"Of defeating you of course!" said Eggman, who pressed a button on his wrist controller.
"Pass," said Sonic, holding up his hand.
"Well fine, what do you want to do!?" asked Eggman.
"Amy, does your escape plan still work, or is it a tax only thing?" asked Sonic.
Amy sighed, rubbing her temple. "It doesn't work for six people."
"Compromise!" said Eggman. "We'll go to Meh Burger, and I'll attack you there! Pretend to be surprised when it happens."
Everyone groaned, but without any other ideas, they headed to Meh Burger.
This is the longest Author's Notes I've ever written! I think.
But wow, guess what it is! An actual real update to this fic, after six years. I can't believe it's been so long. Seriously, it doesn't feel like it. Obviously I never intended a pause to go on this long. After so long, I have good news and bad news.
The good news is I have a backlog of chapters for this fic already done, and I want to put all my focus into finishing this fic in a timely manner from here on out. In addition to that, this fic was intended to finish its first "season" with 26 chapters, and I have settled on what all the chapters are going to be and in what order. Of course, the final chapter was conceived way back when I started this, so that one was always a given. And depending on how long it goes I might break it into two chapters, bringing the total to 27.
The bad news is that I have a bunch of other ideas for this fic. I'd always considered the option of doing a "second season", another 26 chapters. On one hand, I have a bunch of ideas I want to do that I don't have enough room for in this season. There's also some ideas that depend on plotlines from season 2, and not just alternate takes of season 2 episodes. But there's the problem that this fic, if I finish it this year, would have taken me seven years to finish. It would be pretty lame if people had to wait seven years to finish a second season. I'll have to think more on if I want to commit to doing it.
I also have some actual notes for this chapter I want to mention. Despite being the next chapter I am currently posting, this was finished only yesterday. I have a half written chapter from years ago I planned to be next, but it wasn't working out like I wanted, plus I didn't like how it flowed from preceeding chapters. Then I tried going for what I planned for after that, and I finished it, but decided it was so insane it wouldn't make a good comeback chapter after all this time. So I decided to finish another chapter that was a bit more grounded, but decided that another planned idea would make sense before it, and here we are.
The idea for this chapter comes courtesy of Sonic Boom writers, Alec Denton and Greg Hahn. Alec Denton mentioned years ago on twitter about a joke episode idea for Sonic Boom, featuring
the gang doing their taxes for eleven minutes
And finally, I have some fanfic recs! First, by complete coincidence, I saw another Sonic Boom fic, A Young Girl's Quilly Nemesis was created last week by user FFSCCFragReturns and updated today. It's pretty strong already, and it gave me a few laughs.
erutcarF over on SpaceBattles, by user Sora Neki isn't a comedy, and isn't Sonic Boom outside of being everything else, but it is a fantastic story for a Sonic Insane Person like me.
Finally, this isn't really a recomendation, so much as it's just a mentioning of a fic I didn't know existed until a few months back. Sonic Boom Legends was written a long time ago on DeviantArt and I feel is worth mentioning simply because there aren't that many Sonic Boom fics to mention at all, and I now know it exists. It's what I would call, perfectly servicable for its context. To that end, I did put a small reference to it in this chapter. Call it an easter egg.
Anyway, on to the chapter.
_____________________________
They all stood in Amy and Vanilla's house. Sonic in the centre, paced in front of the couch, trying to boost moral for their biggest challenge yet.
"This is our biggest challenge yet," said Sonic, punching a fist into his other palm. "So may things could go wrong. That's why we've all got to have each other's back for this. No fooling around. No goofing off. We really need to buckle down and focus."
"Right," said Knuckles, understanding the mood. Everybody had grim determined faces. Even Vanilla, who normally blew everything off.
"With focus, wits, the right equipment, and a little luck, we can pull through this with minimal casualties," continued Sonic. "Now, let's do this."
Everybody cheered, than broke off to settle in different areas of the house. Sonic decided to stay at the couch. The large coffee table in front was stacked with papers, with sharpened pencils laid out for them along with pencil sharpeners, blue pens, calculators, and a printer hooked up to Tails' laptop. Sonic picked up a Form S-1991, along with a pencil. He hoped he could get through Tax Day as fast as possible.
"I've decided to do my taxes online this time," said Tails. He tilted his laptop so that Vanilla could see it. They weren't the only two working together, and with Vanilla new to the village, she had never done taxes before. She needed to be shown the ropes, and Tails was as good a choice to do that as any of their friends. "I think you should too. I got a subscription to this tax filing service, it just asks questions and fills out the forms for us."
"Sounds simple enough," said Vanilla, setting aside the blank forms she'd brought from the coffee table. "So do I do mine after yours or…?"
"We can do both of ours at the same time!" said Tails, opening another browser window. "I just got to set up your account! So, name?"
"Vanilla the Fox," said Vanilla. Tails looked at her, confused.
"You didn't file the paperwork to get your name changed?"
"Name changed to what?" she asked.
"Vanilla the Arctic Fox," said Tails. "I gave you the forms to fill out ages ago."
"Uhhh," said Vanilla, and Tails could tell she was only then remembering this ever happened. "Is it important?"
"I guess not," said Tails, typing in her name. "It'll make filing next time harder though. I'll print out the forms for your name change today, and you can fill them out and submit them later."
"I love filling out forms," said Vanilla, and Tails didn't have to be a genius to tell she was being sarcastic.
"What about your name?" asked Vanilla, as he typed in her incorrect name.
"What about it?" asked Tails.
"I've heard Mayor Fink call you Tails the Fox," she said. "Never Miles Prower. Which do you file under?"
"I have to file under Miles since it's my legal name," said Tails, his voice lowered due to the subject. "But I include Tails the Fox as an AKA."
"You know they don't care about that," shouted Amy at the other side of the counter. She'd just walked back from her closet, carrying a large box filled with papers. "They ignore your AKA every year. It's just a waste of their time."
"Who cares about wasting the government's time?" Vanilla shouted back. She was too close to Tails and his ears swivelled back to try to dampen the sound.
"What's this about wasting the government's time?!" shouted Sticks, in the middle of the house, with Knuckles. "Can I help?!"
"You know what they say," said Knuckles. "Time is money, and nothing is certain except death and taxes. Time heals all wounds, but if you've got time to kill, the best things in life are free."
"Can you guy's stop talking, I need to focus!" shouted Sonic.
"Okay, I've got my forms," said Amy to herself, ignoring the nonsense about time and money going on behind her. She was at the kitchen counter, near Vanilla and Tails, but far enough away that she could still focus on her own space. "Pencils." She looked at the pencils, all neatly placed inside of a cute pencil holder. "An escape plan." She looked at her escape plan, to be used in a scenario where she decided to give up and flee to another island with an assumed name.
"Yep, I think I've got everything," she said to herself. There was a calculator. Check. Several brand new blue pens. Check. A bottle of pain killers. Check.
"Maybe one more look through."
There was a stress ball, to try and prevent the escape plan scenario. She also had a crystal ball, to check periodically if she was going to get a refund or a letter from the tax office. Plus her bag of receipts and invoices she'd kept.
"I think I'm all set," she repeated to herself. She looked around. "But just to be safe, I should probably do another check."
"Knuckles the Echidna," said Sticks, as she scribbled indecipherably on the form. They were on the couch opposite Sonic.
"Hey, that's my name!" said Knuckles. But then he thought about that. "Wait, isn't it?"
"I'm doing your taxes because you can't read!" said Sticks. "That's the premise we're working with for now."
"I can read!" said Knuckles. Tails had been teaching him. He was all the way up to the letter "A"!
"Oh yeah?" asked Sticks. "Read this." She held out a sheet of paper she'd just been writing on. Knuckles put on his reading glasses before grabbing the sheet of paper with both hands and examining it.
"Aaaaaaaa," he said, finally. Sticks snatched the form back from him.
"Occupation?" Sticks asked.
"Professional trainer," replied Knuckles. He even had paying customers!
"Since when?"
"I dunno."
Sticks growled in frustration, when Knuckles finally realised something.
"Hey wait a minute, if you're doing my taxes, does that mean I have to do yours?"
"You stay away from my taxes!" she shouted, jumping back on top of the back of the couch. "I wouldn't even be doing this if it wasn't for the government! I don't pay taxes, but I still have to file! It's outrageous I tells ya!"
"Hey!" yelled Vanilla from the other side of the house. "Don't think I've forgotten you denied me and Tails use of your tax shelter!"
"Focus on your side of the house, you corporate fat cats!"
"I'm not fat!"
"And we're not cats!" said Tails.
"Okay wait a second," said Sonic, loudly enough to interrupt whatever argument was brewing between Sticks and Vanilla. "Where's a Form C-40?"
"Oh, I have one!" said Amy, and Sonic zipped over to her. To his surprise she covered her forms with her arms as if to save them from getting hurt.
"They're mine I need them!" She snarled.
"Okay okay," said Sonic, backing away. He turned to Tails and Vanilla.
"Hey Tails, can-"
"Second question, filing single or jointly?" asked Tails, causing Sonic to stop mid sentence.
Vanilla blinked at him. "We're not married."
"Woah, slow down a minute there," said Sonic, even though it pained him to say something so vulgar. "Tails, I need you to print me out a Form C-40. Amy's in her 'I've got to make sure I'm organised' phase, before she starts doing anything. You know how she gets."
"In a minute Sonic, first I want to get through this question," said Tails, not looking at him. Instead he turned to look at Vanilla. "Even though we're not married, we can still file jointly because we work together and have a lot of the same income streams."
"Is that how filing works in this crazy world, or is this some really strange lie meant to make me more invested in you?" asked Vanilla.
"You also have to be in a relationship," added Sonic. Vanilla just narrowed her eyes at Tails.
"If you file single, my crystal ball says you're getting a tax letter, Vanilla!" shouted Amy.
"Jointly it is then," said Vanilla instantly. Sonic groaned and started tapping his foot while Tails typed the answer into his laptop.
"If you file jointly, my crystal ball says you're getting a tax letter, Tails!" repeated Amy.
Tails groaned, but didn't go back and change his question. "Crystal balls aren't real, Amy. You're just worrying me."
"There is literally a crystal ball in front of her," said Vanilla.
"Tails, can you print that form for me now?" said Sonic, cutting through the nonsense.
"Sure, Sonic," said Tails as he pressed a button. Sonic ran away from the crazy gang back to the printer.
Instead of a Form C-40, there was a name change request form. Sonic waited a few seconds before finally, the printer warmed up. But instead of printing a Form C-40, Sonic heard a horrible crunching sound as paper started getting ground up in the machinery of the printer.
"Tails, the printer's jammed!" he called out. But Tails wasn't listening. Sighing to himself, he threw the name change forms off to the side and tried to pull the jammed paper out, but doing so seemed to only make the printer more stuck, somehow. Since obviously everything would be solved by forcing it, he forced it, tearing out strips of paper and losing any leverage he had with the greater paper jam. He groaned again, and zoomed towards Amy's closet to try and find a screwdriver. Unfortunately all that was in there was clothes, cardboard boxes, and an endless number of shoeboxes, which fell over as he tried to look for a screwdriver.
"Doing your taxes in tallies is going to take forever," said Sticks, ignoring the rush of wind as Sonic fled the scene of his crimes.
"One, one, one, one," said Knuckles, remembering the money he made for the year from his business. "One, one, one, one, and done."
"Really?" asked Sticks. "Are we finally finished!?"
"Well yeah," said Knuckles. "That's all the money I made from Lady Goat. But I remember helping Lady Walrus too…"
"No, we're not doing this any more!" screamed Sticks, and Knuckles toppled over as he tried to push himself away as the crazy insane girl jumped on him, trying to attack his soft head.
"Guys!" Knuckles called out. "A little help here?!"
He held her arms as she snarled and spat at him, but luckily she couldn't get leverage to hurt him.
"Guys?" Knuckles tried again. He couldn't understand why nobody was helping!
"Okay, we're at dependants," said Tails, pointedly ignoring the commotion going on in the living room.
"You're not going to convince me I have any dependants," said Vanilla, crossing her arms and glaring in a way Tails found kind of cute.
"Well, I was thinking more along the lines of Amy."
"Amy isn't my dependant, though I can understand why you'd think that."
"I heard that!" yelled Amy from across the counter.
"No! I mean, is Amy counting you as a dependant?"
"Amy, are you counting me as a dependant?" yelled Vanilla.
Amy looked over, her eyes widening in shock.
"Oh no, I forgot my tarot cards!" she said, standing up from her seat and running off to the other end of the house, sidestepping Sticks and Knuckles, and rummage through a storage closet.
"Can't we move on to the next question and come back to this one later?" asked Vanilla.
"Sure, I guess," said Tails, putting in "no" for the time being. "Okay, occupation! This one's easy!"
"Finally," said Vanilla. "I feel like all these questions have been much harder than they have to be."
"Well this one's a piece of cake," said Tails, feeling relieved. He started typing. "Self-Employed, TwinTails Repair Shop, and Hero, Team Sonic." Tails finished typing and was about to press the enter key.
"Wait," said Vanilla, putting her hand in between his and the keyboard. "I had lots of income from Doctor Eggman. Plus all those odd jobs I did. And what about that burger scam I ran with Knuckles when I thought it was all going to be over? Should I declare that or is that a bad idea?"
"Uh oh," said Tails, thinking of how much that was going to complicate things.
"I have all the invoices if it'll stop you from being crazy!" said Knuckles, still fending off Sticks.
"Crazy?!" shouted Sticks, not letting up. "I'll show you crazy!"
Just then Amy tried to step over Sticks on her way back to the counter, holding small pieces of paper with designs on one side and pictures on the other. Knuckles was pretty sure they were called "cards". But just as Amy was halfway over Sticks, Sticks reared back, causing Amy to fall over, her "cards" spilling all over the table and floor.
"Sticks!" said Amy. "Now I'll have to count every card to make sure I got them all."
Finally Sticks stopped trying to attack him, and Knuckles breathed a sigh of relief.
"What are you, a vampire?" asked Sticks, turning to face Amy, who was now bent down on the floor. "I am so sick of counting." She then turned back to Knuckles. "Where are these invoices?"
"Right here," said Knuckles, pulling a few waded up balls of paper out and dropping them onto the table. They bounced off and rolled onto the floor, where Amy saw them and growled like a feral Sticks.
"Oy," sighed Sticks, bending over to pick them up. She unfurled them, and sighed again, showing them to Knuckles.
"Knuckles, these aren't invoices, this is just money," she said.
Knuckles nodded. "Yep, that's what I got from my business!"
Sticks looked at the money and then seemed to shiver in what was probably uncontrollable happiness. Still, Knuckles braced for another attack.
"Okay, I think we got it," said Tails, as Amy sat down in her spot on the other end of the counter, setting aside her deck of useless tarot cards. "Self-Employed, Twintails Repair Shop. Hero, Team Sonic. Hero, Solo. Villain, Team Eggman. Villain, Solo. Villain, Team Hamburger. You'll have to remember to give Knuckles an invoice for his pay for that by the way. Plus Sticks if you gave her any." He'd "worked with" Vanilla on that scheme because Vanilla was his girlfriend, but in hindsight he was just glad it made his taxes simpler since she hadn't paid him for it. Vanilla turned to look at Knuckles, who was arguing with Sticks again. "Next we have Assistant to the Junior Chef Manager, Meh Burger. Assistant Ice Cream, Ice Cream Cat. Assistant Handyman, Wild Cat. Celebrity Villain Model, Number 2 Magazine. Now think, is that everything?"
Vanilla scratched her muzzle in thought. "There was that one job I did for Mr. Slate, but I never knew what that job was. Or how much I made from it. Or where the money is. Or if I even got it. All I know I got was a wheel of cheese as a severance package."
"Well I'm sure it won't come back to haunt you if we just ignore that one," said Tails. "After all, if you never got any money, it doesn't count."
"Wait, if I have to account for Knuckles for that burger thing, does that mean I have to contact every single -"
She was cut off as her communicator beeped. She looked down at who it was, rolled her head back, partially flattened her ears, and groaned dramatically.
"Yeah, tax day can be a real pain," said Tails, moving back to his own return while she sorted that out. He remembered she never told her other friends what exactly they were helping with, either. Well, it always comes out in the end.
Amy's tarot card reading wasn't going well. The Fool, The Tower, and Death. Who was the Fool? Was it her? If so, that meant she probably shouldn't start yet, or else disaster would strike and nothing would ever be the same. Or maybe she should, and her completely reasonable preparedness would cause the problem somehow. No, that couldn't be it.
In most situations Sonic was the Fool. Amy turned around to look at Sonic, who was breaking apart the printer for some reason. Whatever disaster he was going through had clearly already struck.
She looked over and saw Tails typing away at his computer, with Vanilla talking loudly into her communicator.
It all clicked. Vanilla was the Fool. Should she be warned?
"Vanilla!" shouted Amy, trying to get the girl's attention. She got shushed for her trouble.
"Well fine," said Amy. "I guess you don't want to know what the cards say! You really are the fool!"
Somehow, Sticks heard that.
"We're all fools!" she screamed, tearing up the paper she was working on as Knuckles looked down sadly into his hands.
Wait. That was it! They weren't doing this right!
Just as Amy had that thought, the door burst open revealing a large egg-like figure. Before Amy could grab her hammer, a load of Motobugs flooded into her house.
"I've come to demand you surrender!" shouted Eggman, slowly walking into the room as the motobugs spread out to cover them. Amy had her trusty hammer, Sonic was done breaking the printer, Sticks and Knuckles weren't fighting any more, Tails had a wrench in hand, and Vanilla took the opportunity to hang up on whoever was talking to her.
They were all ready, the Motobugs now slowly circling, Bee Bots coming in to cover Eggman's flank, and Eggman himself scowling menacingly.
"I demand…," repeated Eggman, raising his hand. Then he pointed at Vanilla and Tails and said, "You surrender copies of your S-2 wage statements!" Everybody looked at each other in confusion even as Eggman continued. "I seem to have misplaced them, most likely due to Orbot and Cubot's sheer incompetence, and I need accurate numbers if I'm to make sure I don't pay any taxes this year!"
Amy turned back to look at Vanilla and Tails. Tails was at his laptop, typing, strings of green code flashing across the screen.
"You sent them online, didn't you?" asked Tails. "We haven't gotten that far in the tax software yet. And even if you didn't, the software should be able to grab them from your business' database."
"Software can't find what isn't there!" said Eggman, walking into the house like he hadn't just knocked the door down. Amy almost said something until the bee-bots and motobugs started to work together to fix it.
"If there's no record…." said Vanilla, slowly.
"I have them," said Amy. All eyes turned to her. "Eggman mailed them out and I put them in a shoebox with all the other important forms."
"Uh, do you have mine too?" asked Tails. "From when I worked for Eggman that one time?"
"Do you have Knuckles' invoices!" shrieked Sticks, scrambling towards her. Amy raised her hands trying to calm her friend down.
"Yes, I keep copies of everyone's forms! After all, it's not like anybody else is organised around here."
"I'm organised!" said everyone except Knuckles, who instead said, "I'm organ eyed!"
"Besides, isn't that illegal?" asked Vanilla. "On several levels?"
"Not when you live with me," said Amy, not growling as she spoke. "Or agreed a long time ago to send those kind of things here." She glared at Sonic, then Knuckles, and then Tails.
"I don't remember this," said Tails. But then his eyes widened and he frowned. "Oh. Yeah, because I was getting all my S-2's online, you told me it was good to have paper copies and you'd take care of it for me. You were the one who brought it up."
"And it looks like I was right," said Amy, before glancing at her tarot cards. It was always a good idea to keep organised. And to take a peak into the future, at least when taxes were concerned. She stood up, ready to address everybody in the room. "Everyone, can I have your attention!" she called out.
Sonic was on the floor trying to figure out how the printer had broken into about a bazillion pieces. It maybe had something to do with the screwdriver still in his hand, or it was Eggman. Since Eggman was still in Amy's house as if he wasn't a villain, it was probably Eggman.
"Everyone, can I have your attention!" called out Amy. Sonic looked up, but couldn't see past the table. Getting up to his feet in the blink of an eye, he watched Amy walk to the centre of the room, stopping next to the table around which Sticks and Knuckles still sat.
"We've been following Sonic's plan to do our taxes, except for one important detail," she said.
"That's why we need to follow my plan, which is destroy Sonic!" said Eggman, and again his robots appeared to get into battle formation. Sonic readied a spindash, but Amy just glared at him and he looked oddly sheepish. "Sorry, force of habit. You were saying?"
"I was saying," continued Amy, "That we forgot one important detail. We need to have each other's backs for this. And while Eggman wasn't initially included in that, I suppose so long as he remembers to stop trying to destroy us, we can include him and finally get this done."
"Don't worry about him," said Vanilla. Because of course it'd be Vanilla vouching for him. "The Tax Man is today's villain. An inevitable villain none of us can escape from." She jerked her thumb at Eggman. "If he tries to betray us here, it'll only mean more taxes for him later on."
"I hate to say it, but Vanilla has a point," said Sticks.
"What do you mean you hate to say it?!" shrieked Vanilla, her voice oddly high pitched. "We agree on ninety percent of everything!"
"No, you agree with me," replied Sticks, and Sonic could see Vanilla practically smouldering in a way that got Tails looking worried for her health. "Anyway, Eggman's not the problem here. We should focus on the real enemy, the government!"
"This is my rousing speech guys!" said Amy. "Stop agreeing and just listen!"
"Since we've remembered to work together," said Sonic, moving towards the counter while Amy glared, "Tails, can you fix the printer. It seems to have strangely come apart at the screws. I think maybe your Unbolterizer hit it somehow."
"Sure thing, Sonic," said Tails, while Amy growled.
"I will give you one of my Form C-40's" said Amy, through clenched teeth. He grabbed it from her and returned to his spot at the table.
"Doctor Eggman, let's find those S-2's," said Vanilla. "Me and Tails will never be able to file our taxes without them."
Tails was pretty sure that Sonic had taken the printer apart, not his Unbolterizer, but in the spirit of working together, he didn't mention it. Vanilla and Eggman walked past him to Amy's closet, before digging inside and pulling out empty shoeboxes and stacks of papers that had somehow spilled out of them.
"Tails, you're supposed to be smart, right?" asked Sticks as she neared him. Tails tightened the last screw on the printer, and watched as it printed out a clean form C-40, just as it should have.
"I hope so," said Tails. "Why?"
"Why don't you help Knuckles with his taxes instead of me?" she leaned in and continued in a whisper. "He is driving me crazy."
Oh, he's the reason, huh? He thought that but absolutely did not say it.
"What did you just say?" asked Sticks with barely restrained anger. Tails felt himself go pale.
Did I say that out loud? He thought to himself.
"Yes," said Sticks. "Either that or I've suddenly developed mind powers."
Tails sighed. "Mind powers aren't real, Sticks. I think I'm just kinda stressed out."
"How do you think I feel!?" asked Sticks, waving her arms around like a lunatic. "Please, let me finish my taxes on my own and take over for me with Knuckles, alright?"
"But who will help Vanilla?"
"Finally!" shouted Eggman, standing up from the floor. There was a loud crack as his back straightened out, and he winced. He held a few sheets of paper, waving them triumphantly. "This is excellent, now I can finally finish my Evil Taxes."
"Are Evil Taxes different from regular taxes?" asked Vanilla.
"Evil Income has its own series of forms, E-100 through E-123. Don't you know anything?"
"Evidently, not about taxes," said Vanilla. Still on the floor, she turned her head to look up at him. "Did you know about this Tails?"
"Uh, I didn't," admitted Tails. "But surely it'd come up on the software."
"What software are you using?" asked Eggman.
"Y-Me Books," said Tails.
Eggman sputtered indignantly. "That load of garbage?!" he said. "They're practically pirates! I use Shell-Out, all the best villains use it."
"I thought that was a scam," admitted Tails.
"Shell-Out helps you find loopholes, not commit fraud. They use very concise questions and advanced algorithms to make you shell out the least amount of money to the government possible."
"Is this your software, Doctor Eggman, or are you just advertising it for no reason?" asked Vanilla, finally standing up. For some strange reason, Tails wished she'd have stayed on the floor for a little while longer.
"No, why would you think that?" asked Eggman. "Do you know how insane it is to get a license to design public tax software? Even I'm not that evil."
"Okay, fine," said Tails, looking back at Sticks. "I'll do Knuckles' taxes, you do your own, and Eggman, you help Vanilla with her taxes. Is that good?"
"Great!" said Knuckles, walking up. He put a heavy knuckled hand on Tails' shoulder. "So uh, how much money did I make this year?" Tails groaned as Vanilla and Eggman walked off.
Amy managed to wrangle Sonic into helping her organise and distribute everybody's tax forms. She'd managed to find Knuckles' invoices, with the help of Eggman's badnicks, along with all the C-2's Vanilla had forgotten to send out to her then-criminal friends.
"Yeah, he's on his way," said Vanilla through her communicator. Eggman sat next to her, typing on Tails' computer. "What, already? Well that's good then, right? Okay, thanks, never call me again Mike, bye." She sighed.
"Who's Mike?" asked Amy as she worked, and Sonic zoomed back inside.
"You know, Mike the Ox?" said Vanilla, now staring at Tails' laptop screen along with Eggman. "He's friends with Knuckles. I don't know how he got my number, but if he ever calls me again, I'm going to move him into the enemy category with Dave and Mark."
"Where am I on this enemy list?" asked Eggman, still typing.
Vanilla's face scrunched up in an odd way. But they'd been living together long enough that Amy was pretty sure she was feeling both embarrassed and annoyed by the question.
"You're on a different list," she said, after a moment. Eggman didn't notice.
"Ah, nemesis," said Eggman, nodding to himself. Amy had to assume Vanilla had Eggman on either a friend list, hopefully ranked low, or a hit list… hopefully also ranked low. If only Vanilla's room wasn't below freezing, she'd sneak into it and check her lists. Then again, she didn't want to be like that crimson fat man Vanilla and Knuckles talked about.
"How do you even read this software?" asked Amy, trying to change the subject. It looked just like the last one Tails was using, a cascading sequence of green symbols and numbers. "It just looks like code."
"You stare long enough and you don't even see the code any more," said Vanilla, her eyes appropriately glazed over.
"All I see is deduction, expense, write-off," said Eggman, gesturing at the screen as if it didn't all just look like a bunch of numbers.
With all necessary forms in hand, and the printer working, Sonic was finally able to blaze through his taxes. And just to be safe, he double checked everything, then triple checked. By the time he was done, he looked around and saw that he wasn't the only one who'd finished.
Sticks was lounging on the couch, while Tails was playing a game of peek-a-boo with Knuckles. He was surprised every time.
Eggman, Amy, and Vanilla were all chatting, while Eggman's robots were spinning in circles, clearly unsure of what to do now.
"Alright gang!" said Sonic, getting everyone's attention. "Is everyone done?"
There was generally signs of agreement.
"Then we just have one final step. We've got to take our taxes to the post office."
"Me, Tails, and Doctor Eggman filed online!" said Vanilla.
"We could print out copies and file those too?" suggested Tails.
"That'll cause problems," said Eggman. "Don't you know anything, Tails?"
"Don't talk to him like that!" said Vanilla, standing up. Eggman followed, towering over her.
"Woah, easy guys," said Sonic, zipping over and getting between them. "Even if some of us files online, the rest of us have to go to the post office. And if there's anything we've learned today, it's that we can accomplish anything if we work together."
"So what, you want us to come along just for the moral support?" asked Eggman. Sonic didn't want him to come along, but it was probably not the best thing to say at the moment.
"We can do that," said Vanilla, making for the door. The others followed her lead.
It had somehow gotten dark, after the hours of tax work they'd done. But luckily you could always drop something off at the post office box.
"I'm so glad I managed to save the day," said Amy.
"How do you figure?" asked Sonic. "It was my rousing speech that included the line about having each other's backs."
"I read it in my cards!" said Amy.
"Amy," said Vanilla, her voice unimpressed. "You read in the cards last week that I would die from cereal poisoning. I don't even eat cereal, not since that vow."
"And you didn't die," said Amy, holding her head high as if she'd acomplished something. "Looks like you owe me for saving your life."
Vanilla looked oddly conflicted at that nonsense statement.
"So, what do we do after we finish this?" asked Amy, changing the subject. "It's Meh Burger Open Mic Night. We could go there?"
"Oh, that sounds like fun," said Vanilla. Everybody stopped, and stared. "What? I don't have to eat there to enjoy the comedy."
"But nobody is funny at those open mics," said Sonic.
"Old Monkey is hilarious!" said Vanilla.
"Pass," said Knuckles. "I hate that Old Monkey. If I have to listen to him ramble about that time he visited his brother, Older Monkey on Forgone Island again...."
Vanilla burst out laughing. Through her laughs, she spoke. "That was the one where he met those two foxes, right, and then started telling a completely different story about how he met two other foxes who were clearly just me and Tails? As if we weren't right there, and also not in the distant past?"
"Well I had a different idea," said Eggman, thankfully ignoring that burgeoning story, and they continued on their way while Vanilla wiped away tears. They were only a few feet from the post office.
"Attack us with your robot goons?" asked Sticks, as they arrived.
"What, who told you!?" said Eggman. "It was supposed to be a surprise! You know, a celebratory victory after tax filing."
"Victory of what?" asked Tails, as one by one, they dropped their taxes into the box. Sonic felt a huge weight lift off his shoulders as his taxes made a loud thunk at the bottom of the box.
"Of defeating you of course!" said Eggman, who pressed a button on his wrist controller.
"Pass," said Sonic, holding up his hand.
"Well fine, what do you want to do!?" asked Eggman.
"Amy, does your escape plan still work, or is it a tax only thing?" asked Sonic.
Amy sighed, rubbing her temple. "It doesn't work for six people."
"Compromise!" said Eggman. "We'll go to Meh Burger, and I'll attack you there! Pretend to be surprised when it happens."
Everyone groaned, but without any other ideas, they headed to Meh Burger.
- Location
- Argentina
Well, I keep writing Sonic fanfics and never finishing them so congrats on picking this back up.
THIS IS BACK?! YYYYEEEESSSSSS!!!! Such a good story
Ozymandias
I HATE
Oh sweet, this story's alive again.
Welcome back, Prison Hall!
Welcome back, Prison Hall!
Game Showdown
A/N:
Here's our next chapter! I came up with this idea about two years ago, and finished this chapter not quite that long ago, but still a while back. But I figured, the tax thing had to go first. I'm glad to see some familiar faces in the thread, I hope everyone who used to follow the story eventually finds their way back. I'm also happy to see new people, of course. Tell your friends!
Oh, and apologies in advance, I didn't know exactly how to format some parts, so just let your eyes glaze over like the joke that it's intended to be.
_____________________________
"Ugh!" I grunted, my voice loud and forced. I clenched my teeth at the intensity. "It's not going to fit!" I shouted.
Me and Tails were alone in his house, and had been going at it for a while but were having trouble towards the end. The effort was difficult, and Tails' house had gotten hot and I was tired and sweaty from the work. And there was still no end in sight.
"I just need to get a better angle," said Tails, his voice slightly strained as he continued to slam it into the side, missing repeatedly. "If I can just-"
"Let me do the work!" I replied. "I can help guide it in, If you keep trying to force it, you're going to-"
"Just relax!" said Tails, sounding like he was getting annoyed. As if he had the right to be annoyed in this situation!
"How am I supposed to relax when you keep – ugh!"
I slammed my fists on the table. "The sandwich is ruined!" Tails just wouldn't listen, and now the sandwich had exploded. After all that work to get all that ham in there!
"GAME OVER," covered the screen of Tails' laptop.
"Well if you'd just listened to me," began Tails, before the game crashed.
I scoffed, and gestured to the laptop. Our game, Simple Sandwich Maker, or SSM for short, had crashed, and we still didn't know where the bug was.
"Wait, there it is!" said Tails, pointing behind the laptop on the other side of the table. The robotic bug's antennae were just visible, wiggling over the edge. It was one of Eggman's robots, and it was proving really hard to catch, as it seemed to only be attracted to digital commodities in video games.
Slowly and quietly Tails grabbed his wrench and walked over to the other side of the table. I nodded in confirmation that the Bug-bot was still there. Once in range, Tails nodded back and eased forward, before finally slamming his wrench into the Bug-bot so hard it broke a chunk off the table. And yet, the Bug-bot remained, somehow hovering in place in clear view. Then it glitched, revealing itself to be a hologram of some kind.
"Wow, there's a lot of layers to this," I said.
Tails groaned uncharacteristicly loudly. "Does that mean we have to find a projector somewhere in this house?"
"I think this is Eggman's plan," I said, thinking it over. "This is some kind of… busywork scheme. Keep us on our toes, making it unclear what we're doing."
There was a knock on the door, and we both turned our heads. I decided I should answer it, while Tails went to rummage through his toolbox for some glue to fix his table.
"So help me if this is a Projector-Bot that's pretending to be a salesman…," I grumbled as I opened the door. To my surprise it wasn't a continuation of the weird fake-out plot I'd been undergoing with Tails, nor was it one of our friends, or even Doctor Eggman. It was Mayor Fink of all people.
"Uh," I said. "Mayor? Is there a problem?" Tails heard me and stopped working on the desk, putting the broken piece and the glue bottle down and making his way to join me at the door.
"Miss the Fox," began the mayor. "I regret to inform you that we've found a serious irregularity with your finances."
I stiffened. Had he found out about how long my illicit burger business went on for? Should I have laundered my money?
"What's this about?" asked Tails, folding his arms.
Mayor Fink coughed into his curled hand, before putting both behind his back in some attempt to appear formal, but he was so wide I was surprised he could pull it off physically. Still, I didn't know how worried I should be, so I tried to keep a calm demeanour.
"We've found that you have a second bank account with an incredibly large amount of income that went undeclared on your taxes."
My eyes widened, fear replaced by hope. They'd found my "account"? The one that I had when I worked for Mr. Slate? That was great news!
"Due to this irregularity, I'm afraid you have to run a game show to distribute it."
"Wait, what?" I asked. "That doesn't make any sense!"
"It's only fair," replied the mayor. "The village can't allow you to keep potentially ill-gotten gains, especially when they went unreported for so long. And the amount hidden passes our 'fairness threshold'. Due to this, everybody in the village has to have a chance to win the money, after the village takes its cut of course."
"That proposition passed?," asked Tails, but I could barely hear him while my brain rebooted from the stupidity. "Everyone I know voted against it!"
"Eggman's lair district supported the bill by 285%," said the mayor.
"Plus," Tails continued, as if he didn't hear that blatant cheating, probably from Ballot-Stuffer bot, "Some of our team has already done a game show. Don't you remember Mayor, Sonic and Knuckles went on Bro-Down Showdown to win a new couch, though oddly they weren't on the same team, and Eggman was there too." Tails scratched his chin in thought. "Now that I think about it, Sonic and Eggman were on the same team for that one. They did get disqualified for fighting, but me and Sonic fight sometimes too, and I wasn't involved at all, Sonic never even told me he was on that show, I had to watch it in syndication. Now I'm starting to wonder if me and Sonic are really bros. He could have gotten me to go with him! What do you think, Vanilla? Should I confront Sonic about this?"
I sighed while slamming my palm into my face.
"That was completely unrelated to the current situation," replied the Mayor. "And meandering. This game show is legally required and you must follow the law! Besides, Vanilla has to make the questions and host the show. And no potential contestants can help her."
My mind flashed bright with an idea. The perfect idea! I whirled around to face Tails, and grabbed his shoulders. "You've got to enter that game show and win the money!" I said, shaking him. It was my money! I worked hard for it!
"Wha-te-ver you-ou-ou say-ay-ay," he said, his voice modulated from the shaking.
"Glad we agree," said the mayor. He suddenly puled a briefcase out from seemingly nowhere, and opened it, pulling out a thick stack of paper tied together with string into a book. "Here are the rules and regulations you must follow Vanilla. I look forward to seeing the show live on air later today."
He closed the door in their faces, as if it was his house and he wasn't outside. It was even weirder because the door swung in, not out.
"Today!?" I shouted. I was supposed to put on an entire game show in a day? What about the stupid hologram robot bug game sandwich plot or whatever it was? I sighed, guessing that would have to wait. Or maybe it'd just solve itself if we ignored it long enough, like the McPuffin File that started this mess.
"I can't believe that stupid proposition passed," said Tails, following me to the couch as I started to skim over the regulations. Most of it was obvious stuff like "don't cheat," or, "the penalty for failure can't be death." Pretty typical for game shows. The bigger problem was that there were actual rules to follow for setting up the show.
"It says here the contestants have to work in teams of three," I said, accepting the absurdity of the situation. It was more important to get my money back than complain about how it was happening. We sat down together on the couch. "Darn, if I didn't have to host, we could have two teams of three."
"But this is really dumb," said Tails. I looked at him and narrowed my eyes, and Tails held up his hands defensively. "I'm not saying I won't help, I just don't really get it. Why would you want to play?"
I gave him an exasperated look.
"Because, this money is my money! If a team of my friends win, they'll give me back my own money, won't they?"
"Sure," said Tails. He held up his hand and started counting points off his fingers as he spoke. "But you gotta think about it. The village is going to take a cut upfront. Then it counts as income, so the village takes another cut. And then it gets taxed when we transfer it to you. And then it's income again when it gets to you. Plus, since it'll be split three ways, each step happens three times. That's a lot of loss."
I blinked at him. There was a point to that. "So what would you suggest?"
He shrugged. "Don't worry about the money and do the bare minimum for the game show?"
I didn't know what to think about that. Normally I was the one trying to cut across shenanigans. But this time, serious amounts of money were involved. Even if most of it got eaten up in taxes, it was my money.
We called everybody to Tails' house, right after Tails finished fixing the table, the holographic robot bug having since disappeared. Tails had made some real sandwiches for everyone so they wouldn't complain, and everybody ate while I explained the situation, pacing in front of the group, a whiteboard behind me.
"I don't want to do another game show," said Sonic.
"Well this isn't about you!" I said. "This is about crafting the perfect team to beat the government at its own game!"
"I'm in," said Sticks.
"Great, because I think the best team is obviously Tails, Knuckles, and Sticks."
"But if it was Tails, Amy, and Sticks, then everybody on the team would have had the experience of being on a game show," said Amy. "But if Knuckles does it again he'd have been on one twice."
"So long as we work together, any team could work!" said Tails.
"No!" I said, along with everyone else. Tails slumped back into the sofa. I felt kind of bad for shutting him down along with everyone else, but I could make it up to him later.
"If we're going to do this we need a wide array of mental skills," said Amy. "Tails I understand, he has the brains. And if you're making the questions, I see what Sticks offers. You're both crazy."
"Hey!" I said at the same times as Sticks, but Amy just ignored us both.
"But I don't see what Knuckles brings to the table," finished Amy.
I made a displeased noise before looking at Knuckles. "Fine," I said. "Amy, Knuckles, here's a question for you. What has keys but can't open locks?"
They both thought about it for a second before Knuckles responded, "You know, I don't really want to be on a game show again. I'd rather stay home and play the piano."
"A piano is correct," I said, gesturing to Knuckles.
"But he just said he doesn't want to do this again," said Amy. "Just don't put riddles in the show and replace him with me."
"Riddles are an easy way to filter out the unwashed masses who want my money!" I said. Didn't they understand? This wasn't about a TV spot and getting them exposure, and this wasn't about fun with your friends, this was about getting that bag!
"Just replace the riddles with questions about things I'm good at!" said Amy.
"Such as?" I asked, my hands on my hips. I raised a single eyebrow. This should be good
"So many things," said Amy, almost wistfully. "Writing, poetry, cooking, gardening, counselling, leading, teaching, dancing, singing, improv, making long lists, being a clown -"
"You got that one right at least," I said. To Amy's obvious chagrin, everyone laughed.
"See?" said Amy, trying to salvage the situation.
"No more negotiating, the decision has been made!" I said. I took out a pointer from my pocket and struck the whiteboard with it, pointing at a crude drawing of three anonymous blobs that were meant to represent people. "Here's the plan. Tails, Knuckles, and Sticks will submit themselves to the game show once I announce later today. Then -" I hit the only other drawing on the white board, which was a large dollar sign over bags of money. "They win. Any questions?"
"Why are me and Amy here?" asked Sonic, leaning back, obviously bored with my presentation.
"I had to weigh my options," I said, closing my pointer and putting it back in my pocket. "Plus I want you two to stop other people from submitting themselves."
"Yeah we're not doing that," said Sonic. "Sounds a bit too villainous for us."
"Maybe Knuckles would be better at that," suggested Amy. "If we switched -"
"No!" I interrupted, along with everybody else, including Knuckles. Amy slumped back into the sofa. I felt kind of bad for shutting her down along with everyone else, but I ignored that and focused on her being really annoying. "Alright, everybody has their part to play. Tails, Sticks, Knuckles, start studying! Sonic and Amy, get out there and stop people from submitting their teams!"
"I said we weren't going to -" began Sonic, but I cut him off.
"Dismissed!"
I kicked Tails out of his own house along with everyone else, as I picked up the game show rule book the mayor gave me. I had no idea how to run a game show. Luckily, it was all in the rules. I just needed to announce, come up with questions, build a set, set up cameras, and… this was going to be difficult. I flipped through the rulebook and looked at what I needed to do to announce. I quickly realised I needed more friends in on this.
Quickly drawing up a flyer, I scanned it with my communicator, took a picture of one of the half eaten sandwiches that Tails made, and sent it to my friend, Rabbit Girl on SnarkChat. Also there was a message sent with it.
Send this to all your friends in the village
I waited a few moments, and got back a picture of a single cloud in the sky, off centre and partially blocked by a random passerby's head in the shot. With it was a message.
I sent your sandwich to everyone like you asked
I growled to myself. I was only on SnarkChat for simple communication with my friends who didn't have communicators, and it was for reasons like this! Now the sandwich was trending, but not in a good way.
Looking around, I snapped a picture of Tails' repaired table, ignoring my thumb in the picture, and sent another message.
I meant the flier
I waited a few moments and got another image, this time a blurry picture of Sticks, looking extremely angry, her hand half covering the camera.
You didn't send a selfie. And your friend is crazy.
I groaned to myself, looking around for something to take a picture of. I settled on the whiteboard, but turning it around so I didn't show off my intricately detailed and well drawn plan.
I meant flyer!
Finally she sent me another picture, this time of a selfie with a black eye.
Sent, and you owe me.
Everything was coming together! I'd send Rabbit Girl a nice salve for her eye and tell Sticks to apologise later.
Coming up with questions was a lot easier than I expected. It helped that I had a plan, and could organise the questions into three groups. Tails questions, which were deliberately complicated scientific or mechanical questions. Knuckles questions, which were basically riddles and jokes that were pretending to be questions, but weren't banned by the rules. And finally Sticks questions, which were trivia, news, and current events.
When all was said and done I had an absolutely massive number of questions across all three groups, and with an hour to spare! That was plenty of time to build a stage and set up cameras.
Cameras were easy, if a bit worrying. I still had my Shutterbugs keeping tabs on a certain someone, but I decided I could spare four of them. I redirected those four to gather near the village centre, where I'd construct my stage with the help of a few of my decommissioned robots I could bring back on line.
Leaving Tails' house and entering his workshop, and I ran to the garbage pile where my broken robots had been stored, and started pulling parts out and fitting them into a few of the better looking, less dented, casings.
In the end I had three Bubbles, a Shellcracker, two Splats, and a Slicer for a total of seven bots. They were all dented, a few with frayed wires poking out, but I didn't have time to make them pretty.
"It's not like I'm entering you into any beauty pageants," I said, more to myself. The bots heard me though, looked at each other, then cast their glitchy eyes downwards in shame.
"Okay guys, quit moping!" I said, clapping my hands together to get their attention. One of the Splats' eyes fizzled out, and when it came back online it'd turned from blue to red. Still, it stood on its spring while looking at me, so probably that wasn't something to worry about. "I need you to take some of the lumber and nails from there," I pointed to the corner of the workshop, "And bring everything to the designated coordinates. Once there I need you to build a stage for a game show that can hold three teams plus myself as host. Think you can manage that?"
They looked at me, then at each other. One of the Bubbles' anti-gravity engines sputtered and started smoking, and it started to slowly twirl around lazily.
"Good," I said, and made for the door as I uploaded the coordinates to them. "Better get a move on, you have less than half an hour!"
By the time I finished blocking off the set area with rope, a sizeable crowd had formed to watch. My robots were still busy assembling the stage, to the consternation of the crowd. They seemed wary for some reason.
"Where is the audience area?" came a voice next to me. I nearly jumped in surprise.
"Mayor!" I said. "What are you doing here?"
"Well I have to make sure all the procedures are being followed," he said, looking around. "There's supposed to be an audience area."
I gestured behind him. "You're in it," I said. "Everybody can see just fine standing up. It's not like I'm building a tall stage."
"Disappointing," said Mayor Fink. "The ratings won't be very high at this rate."
I wanted to tell him just where he could shove his ratings, when some of my friends, Rabbit Girl, Zooey, and Belinda came up behind him. I waved them over, happy to see them, and was even happier when the mayor took the hint and waddled away to bother somebody else.
"Hey," I said, once they were close enough to hear me. "I didn't know all three of you knew each other."
"We didn't," said Belinda, smiling. But there was something I didn't like about that smile. "But when I was sent that picture of your sandwich, I realised the sender was your friend, and through her I met this other one." Belinda gestured at Zooey, who waved as if I didn't know who she was. "More importantly, we want to sign up for your game show."
I frowned. "I uh, would rather you didn't," I said.
"Ah, ah, ah," said Belinda, wagging her finger at me. "This game show is open to all villagers. It's in your flyer." She pulled out her phone and showed me the picture of my sandwich. I was never going to live that down! She then put her phone away. "And of course, there's the cash prize."
"There's no reason we can't join, right, Vanilla?" asked Zooey. I inwardly groaned. The girl was too cute for her own good sometimes.
"I could use a sizeable amount of money," said Rabbit Girl.
Oh no, this wasn't happening. Where were Sonic and Amy? They were supposed to keep this from happening!
"Hey Vanilla," said Sonic, speeding up next to me. I nearly jumped out of my skin, but quickly recovered enough to glare at him. "This thing's about to start, and you've got a bunch of teams who need to register."
I then realised Knuckles was next to him.
"Knuckles," I said, through gritted teeth. "Why aren't you with Sticks and Tails?"
"Oh yeah," said Sonic. "Amy convinced Knuckles to switch."
"And why are you standing here instead of doing what I told you to do!" I asked Sonic, turning to him.
"I said I didn't want to do that," he replied, folding his arms. "You're not my boss. Besides, it's not like it'll really be a problem."
"So where do we sign up?" asked Belinda, tapping her foot.
I gave one long dramatic sigh, and hung my head in defeat.
"With me," I said. I picked my head up and looked at Sonic. "Sometimes Sonic, I really see why Doctor Eggman wants to destroy you."
"He can be quite the obstacle," agreed Belinda, as I took a folded up sheet of paper out of my back pocket and wrote her team down.
"Hey, you're the one trying to do something shady, not me," said Sonic.
"Shady?" asked Zooey as I finished taking down their names. "What does he mean, Vanilla?"
"Don't worry about it," I said. Glancing at Rabbit Girl I continued, "By the way, nice job masking the black eye." She glared at me for a moment, which I ignored. I turned to Sonic. "Can you at least find Amy, Tails, and Sticks, and bring them here? Or is that too evil for you too?"
Sonic zipped away, and zipped back in about three seconds. "They're on their way. Along with all the other teams."
"Hey Sonic, we better get a seat before all the good ones are taken," said Knuckles.
"Knuckles, there are no seats in the audience," he replied, but nevertheless walked off with Knuckles, leaving me alone with my so called friends.
I wanted to ask Belinda to drop out, but there was no way she'd agree. And Rabbit Girl and Zooey would need reasons I couldn't give, if I asked them. So instead I gestured past the rope I'd set up, towards the set my robots had finally finished building.
"Please take Station Two," I said, gesturing at said station. A Bubbles was hovering above it, and suddenly exploded. My ears flattened in reflex and I ducked down slightly as metal shot across the set. "Don't mind them," I continued. "They're just leaving."
I directed the remaining robots to leave while Belinda's team went to their designated station, just in time for Tails, Amy, and Sticks to arrive.
"Amy!" I shouted even though they were right in front of me. "I said I wanted Knuckles!"
"Game shows are supposed to be fun," said Amy, somehow sounding like she was scolding me. "I'm not the bad guy here just because I wanted to play a game with my friends. Maybe you should remember what's really important here."
"My money!" I said, and Amy just growled at me. But I wasn't willing to back down. "Just get to stupid Station One," I said, pointing. I wrote down the team and continued to grumble as they crossed the rope.
"That pink demon," I said to myself as I shoved the paper back into my pocket while watching them go. "She'll be the death of me." I barely noticed yet another group of three approach.
"Oh, joy," I said, as Dave, Lady Walrus, and Mortimer walked up.
"Hey V-sauce!" said Mortimer, and I shoved my palm into my face in a combination of embarrassment and frustration. Why did he insist on calling me that. "We thought it'd be fun to join your little project here!"
"Yes," said Dave in his wheezy voice. "Fun." He clasped his hands together in a way that told me he knew exactly what he was doing.
Mortimer continued as if there'd been no interruption. "The McPuffin File, Number 2 in Sidekick Magazine, and now your own game show! Why, I bet soon I'll be voting for you for mayor!"
"Not if I can help it!" yelled the mayor from somewhere in the back.
"Maybe we'll save that idea for later," I said, trying to keep my voice level. "Lady Walrus, Dave," I continued, looking at them in turn. I pulled the paper back out of my pocket and wrote them down. Then I sighed. "Station Four." Might as well accept the inevitable.
And right as the three of them crossed the rope, up waltzed Doctor Eggman, along with Orbot and Cubot. I just wrote their names down and said, "Station Three," as soon as they got to me.
"What, are you too good to greet me like a civilised rodent?" asked Doctor Eggman.
"What Doctor Eggman means to say is -"
"That he'll win, and destroy us all, blah blah," I said, gesturing to Station Three while I glared at them. At the very least I wasn't required to host more than four teams, so this was the last one.
"Wow, what crawled into your bed and died?" asked Doctor Eggman, lifting the rope so Orbot and Cubot could pass through.
I frowned at that. Maybe I really was letting this go to my head, if even Doctor Eggman felt the need to say something. Just yesterday I'd had never considered getting this money. But now, it was practically all I could think about. And I didn't even know how much it was exactly.
"Sorry, Doctor Eggman," I said, shaking my head. "I think this game show thing is getting the better of me."
"Apology accepted," he said, moving past the rope himself. "Can't have the game show getting the better of you when that's my job."
"Pfft," I said in reply.
Once Doctor Eggman's team was seated at their station, the mayor popped up holding a large law book. "Looks like you've got everything set up," he said. "Down to the letter. Except for one thing." He looked around. "Where are the cameras?"
"Oh, yeah," I said, looking down and selecting my Shutterbugs with my communicator. I directed them to set up around the set, a simple three camera setup, plus one in front of me. A few moments later the four arrived, split up, and several of the villagers gasped in horror.
"You stole my Fly Bot design!" yelled Eggman, standing up from his seat at Station Three.
"I thought you dismantled them?" asked Tails from his seat at Station One.
"Are you spying on me?" screamed Sticks, blocking her face from the Shutterbugs.
"This will be on television!" I said, shouting at Sticks. I didn't blame her, I wouldn't want to be filmed either. I gestured wildly around at the Shutterbugs. "There you go mayor, cameras. Is everything good?"
"Hmm," said the Mayor, tapping his chin. He looked around, then a this big book of laws. "Are your Shutterbugs part of a union?"
"No," I said. "My robots are all non-unionised." I couldn't remember if Doctor Eggman's robots were part of a union or not, but I hoped they wouldn't get together and try to form one against me.
"Very well," said the Mayor, running his finger along a page of his book. "That simplifies things. Alright, you may begin when ready, Vanilla. Remember the rules!"
I moved past the rope and took my spot at the host's podium. The fourth Shutterbug took its place a distance in front of me. I took out my questions, shuffled them then held out my hand to show three fingers. I counted down silently until I hit one and we went live.
"Live from about two minutes away from Meh Burger, welcome to the new hit game show, 'The Government is Stealing My Money', the show where teams of three play for a chance to win the money I worked hard for, because I am mandated to do this by village law!" I said in my best announcer voice. The audience clapped and cheered. "Let's meet our teams!"
I moved past the podium and stood in front of team one, gesturing behind me. "Team One is composed of Tails, Sticks, and Amy. Now, have you all decided on a team name?"
"I didn't realise we were supposed to," said Tails.
"You have to buzz in before answering a question!" I said, and then fake chuckled while the audience laughed, as directed by the sign I'd installed. "But don't worry, that wasn't a real question." I moved to the next station.
"Team Two, composed of Zooey, Rabbit Girl, and Belinda! Rabbit Girl, you can't phone a friend until you've been asked a question."
She scoffed, and put away her phone.
"Next up is Team Three, Doctor Eggman, Orbot, and Cubot. Doctor Eggman, if you win, what are you planning to do with the money?"
He hit the buzzer and then said, "Destroy Sonic and his friends!"
"That's correct!" I answered, and the audience cheered. "But unfortunately that question was worth zero points as we're still in the introductory stage. I hope your correct answer was a fluke rather than an omen of what's to come."
Finally I moved to the final station. "Team Four is composed of Dave, Lady Walrus, and Mortimer. Now, Team Four, will I have fries with that?"
Dave hit the buzzer and said, "Yes." The audience gave a dramatic sound of disappointment.
"Oh I'm afraid that's incorrect."
"Those are our teams, and now that introductions have finished, let's get this show started! For those of you new to the show, which is everyone, this show consists of three rounds! First round, anybody from any team can buzz in and attempt to answer the question. So, remember to buzz in, and answer quickly there's a time limit!Correct answers are worth ten points." I returned to the podium and grabbed the first question.
"Question one. What is the gravitational potential energy of a particle with mass m, located at a distance r from a spherically symmetric mass distribution with total mass M and radius R, assuming that the particle is located outside of the mass distribution?"
Both Tails and Doctor Eggman hit the buzzer near the same time. I frowned, and had to look at the tiny display I'd set up to catch who buzzed in first.
"Doctor Eggman!" I said, not letting the annoyance show on my voice.
"It's a simple formula really, U = - G M m / r. Even an imbecilic baby knows that."
"Correct," I said, and the crowd cheered.
"I hope all the questions aren't so easy," said Doctor Eggman, lightly twirling his moustache.
"Question Two," I said, hoping Tails could be faster on the buzzer next time one of his questions showed up. "How many aliens are living amongst us right now?"
Sticks and Mortimer hit the buzzer at the same time. I sighed.
"Mortimer!"
"Uh…," he said, scratching his head. "I know you wouldn't ask the question if it was zero, V-sauce. You're too much of a high-flyer, a real whizz-kit, a rising star. Someone like you could never answer with a zero. So I'm gonna go with, one?" he guessed.
"Correct," I said, with little enthusiasm left my voice. "This isn't going well for Team One." I gave them a slight glare. Tails seemed to wilt under my gaze, though both Sticks and Amy looked more irritated at me than themselves.
"Fine, we'll get the next one for sure!" said Amy.
"Question Three," I began, drawing another card. "You see me once in June, twice in November, but not at all in May. What am I?"
Both Amy and Zooey hit the button, but Amy was first. I looked at her expectantly.
"Uhhh," she said, and I had to facepalm.
"Come on Amy, this is Eaaaaasy." There was a wrong answer sound as they hit the time limit, and the crowd booed.
"Since Team Two also hit the button, I'll give them a shot. Zooey, do you know the answer?"
"It's the letter E," she said, smiling happily.
The crowd cheered.
"Oh boy," I muttered.
"Question four, when recalibrating the flux capacitor in a time-travel device, what critical component must be calibrated correctly to prevent temporal evaporation, which also prevents turning the device into a humidifier?"
Tails cleanly buzzed in first and said, "The Historical Heterodyne-Oscillation Mapping Grid circuit!"
"Correct," I said. "Finally, Team One is in the game. For future reference, I would have accepted the H2-OMG circuit, which would have been shorter and easier to say."
"Removing your commentary would also speed this along," said Doctor Eggman, and I stuck my tongue out at him before getting back to the questions.
"Question five, what comes once in a minute, twice in a moment, but never in a thousand years?"
Zooey and Cubot hit the buzzer near the same time, with Cubot the victor.
"Let me think," said Cubot. "Mmmm…."
"Correct!" The crowd went wild, and Team Three was in the lead. Of course.
"Question six, how many natural satellites does this planet have?"
"Oh, I know this one!" shouted Amy, at the same time Orbot buzzed in.
"Two," said Orbot, holding two fingers. He ticked off one, "The moon," then the other, "And the Miracle Planet."
"Next time, just hit the buzzer Amy," I said.
"Was I right?" asked Orbot.
"Yes," I said. "You're at thirty points, Team Three. You are in the lead."
"Next question, what is Justin Beaver's number one selling secret song that nobody knows about?"
Sticks went for the buzzer, but was too slow for… Lady Walrus.
"My Baby!" she said, after hitting the buzzer. I had to slam my palm into my face again. I should have seen that one coming.
I tried to speed things up after that, asking questions at a quick pace in hopes that the friends I was counting on would learn how to hit a button and things would even out. It didn't quite work out that way.
"Well that's the end of round one!" I said. "Team One is still at only ten points, with Team Two at forty, Team Four at fifty, and Team Three in the lead with five thousand eight hundred!"
The crowd went wild, and my face hurt from the forced smiling. "We'll be back for round two after a message from our sponsor!" I gave my Shutterbugs a cut motion, and finally let my smile fall into the scowl it'd been threatening to turn into ever since this stupid thing started.
"This show has sponsors?" asked Amy.
"Yes, me," I said, whirling on Amy. "Since all your arms are tragically broken, at least I could try and make up some losses by airing a TwinTails Repair Shop ad during break."
"I'm trying my best," said Tails.
"I still say I got that question about clones right," said Sticks.
"Who's the clone then, Sticks?" I asked.
"You are!" she screamed.
"I'm not a clone!" I said. "Literally the first thing I was tested for was being a clone!"
"Actually it was being a robot," said Tails. "And come to think of it, we were thinking you might be a clone of me. You're not, but that doesn't mean you're not a clone of someone else out there."
The Shutterbug in front of me flashed, indicating break was about to end. I plastered a grin back on to my face and returned to my podium.
"Welcome back everyone to your new favourite game show, 'The Government is Stealing My Money'! We're ramping up with round two. This time, there'll be no buzzing in."
All three of my friends on Team One breathed an audible sigh of relief.
"Instead, each team will be asked a question, starting with Team One. They may choose to pass it, and the next team in line with have a chance to answer, and so on. If any team gets a question wrong, they will lose ten points!
"Team One, of the members of Team Sonic who have life sized dolls made of them, which doll is the most evil?"
The group huddled together for a moment, whispering. They broke apart and Sticks answered, "That would be Tails."
"Correct!" I said. "Team One now has twenty points. Could this be the comeback of the century?"
"Probably not!" shouted somebody in the audience. If I didn't know any better I'd have thought it was Knuckles.
"Well, anyway. Team Two, in Quantum Chromodynamics, the running coupling constant, αs(Q^2), characterises the strength of the strong interaction between quarks and gluons as a function of the momentum transfer Q. Using the Renormalisation Group Equation, RGE, derive the expression for the running coupling constant αs(Q^2) at one-loop level in QCD, assuming the number of active quark flavours is nf and considering the energy scale Q much larger than the Quantum Chromodynamics scale, ΛQCD."
"Uhhh," said Zooey.
"Can we phone a friend now?" asked Rabbit Girl, holding up her cell phone.
I rubbed my forehead for a moment. "Yes, you can phone a friend."
"Cool," said Rabbit Girl, and she pressed a button on her phone.
Immediately my communicator beeped. I looked down and saw that Rabbit Girl was calling. I answered. "I'm kind of in the middle of something, is this important?"
"Me, Zooey, and your friend Belinda are on this game show, and we need help with a question."
"Sure," I said, grinning genuinely this time. "What's the question?"
Everyone paused. "Uhhh," said Rabbit Girl.
"Ohh, I'm sorry," I said, away from my communicator. "Looks like you wasted your Lifeline since you couldn't relay the question to your friend."
"Your kind of being a jerk right now," said Rabbit Girl. "Again."
"That's true, and I apologise," I said. "Unfortunately, that wasn't the correct answer for the question asked, and so your team loses ten points."
"Hey, that simple baby question was supposed to go to my team!" said Doctor Eggman.
"Vanilla, you're being really mean," said Zooey, and I couldn't help but feel guilty again. Being told off by Amy was water off a duck's back. Even though I wasn't a duck. But being told off by Zooey? I was like being scolded by a puppy. "You know that wasn't our team's answer."
"Judges, what say you?" I said, looking to Mayor Fink, the sole judge. The Shutterbug in front of me turned and quickly found him at the front of the audience, still holding his stupid book. "Should I let Team Two have the points?"
"Uh, I dunno," he said. "The whole situation did seem pretty unfair to Team Two."
"That's not fair!" repeated Doctor Eggman. "Those points are mine!"
"Due to a fault on my part, I'll be awarding Team Two ten points!" I said, as their score went up twenty points. "Team Three, it's now your turn. I'm light as a feather, yet the strongest person can't hold me for much more than a minute. What am I?"
"These questions are getting real complicated," said Cubot. "I really need to catch my breath."
"Correct," I said.
"How in the world did you get that?" asked Doctor Eggman. "You don't even breath!"
"Team Four," I said. "What's the primary mode of surveillance used by the government to monitor our thoughts?"
Dave, Lady Walrus, and Mortimer huddled together for a few moments before breaking apart.
"Birds," said Mortimer. My jaw dropped.
"Correct, but I have to ask, how did you know?"
"Because you're such a high-flyer," answered Mortimer.
I groaned.
"Welcome back to the final round of the new hit game show, 'The Government is Stealing My Money'! This round will only have one question. Each team will write their answer on the small white board in front of them, along with any number of points as a wager. If they get the answer right, that many points are added to their total. If they get the answer wrong, the number is subtracted. Any questions?"
"How many points can we wager, exactly?" asked Tails.
"Any number you like, now moving on!" I said quickly. "Here is your final question. Pay attention now, this could make or break your victory. Now, what breaks yet never falls, and what falls yet never breaks? Write your answers and your wagers now."
I waited patiently as the teams huddled together to discuss, an ominous yet unassuming song playing as they began writing on their boards.
"Is everyone ready?" I asked. There were nods all around. "We'll start with Team Four and work our way up. Team Four, what is your answer, and what did you wager?"
Lady Walrus showed her board. "The answer is day, and night. And we wagered all our points!"
"Correct!" I said, as the crowd went wild. "You now have three hundred twenty points. Now, Team Three. What is your answer, and what did you wager?"
"Same thing," said Doctor Eggman, flipping the board over.
"Wow, that's a lot of points!" I said, and the audience was even louder that before. Doctor Eggman was really soaking it in "Twelve thousand four hundred! Team Two, it's your turn. What have you got?"
Belinda revealed her board. "Same," she said.
I nodded at her. "Incredible! Maybe this question was too easy! You now have six hundred points! Now finally, Team One. What have you got for me? Sudden victory? Or complete ignoble pathetic defeat?"
The tension was thick in the air as slowly, Amy turned her whiteboard over. The crowd gasped.
"Oh, sorry," I said. "The answer is not 'a pie'. But what's this?" I grinned, so happy that Tails caught it. "You wagered negative eight billion points! Thankfully you didn't go for negative infinity, because that's not a number!"
"Obviously," said Tails, chuckling. I was so going to find a way to reward him for this. Maybe mint chocolate chip ice cream bought with the winnings!
The audience however sounded confused, muttering to each other.
"For the folks at home, they got the answer wrong and their wager was subtracted from the total! But their wager was negative, and if you subtract a negative you add. Team One wins the show with eight billion and twenty points! It's basic mathematics!"
"That is completely unfair!" said Doctor Eggman, slamming his fists against the station. "I demand a do over! What was the point of rigging that referendum if I don't get any money out of it!?"
"And here's the mayor with the giant cheque now!" I said, ignoring Doctor Eggman. The mayor waddled over past the rope, and was indeed holding a comically large giant cheque. The audience was cheering now, probably because the light was telling them to. "Team One, why don't you come on over to the front with me and claim your prize!" I left the podium and joined them, meeting the mayor in front of the Shutterbugs that were now swirling around us to get all the good angles of our victory.
"As mayor of this village and keeper of the giant cheques and villiage coupons, I hereby award Team One, consisting of Tails the Fox, Amy Rose, and Sticks the Badger, this giant cheque totalling fifteen dollars in recognition of their victory in the legally mandated game show."
The cheers from the audience got louder as my face fell. My friends' faces fell too. Even the other teams were in various states of confusion and anger.
"Fifteen bucks?" said Doctor Eggman, outraged. "I went through all this trouble just to not win fifteen bucks!? I thought this was for a substantial amount of money!"
"Well you see," said Mayor Fink, "Vanilla was fined for not declaring the full sum on her taxes, and the fine was taken out of the sum. Then when the money was transferred from the account to the giant cheque writer, it was taxed. And just so there wouldn't be any mistakes, it was pre-emptively taxed three times for the winning team. For your convenience of course."
I looked at one of the Shutterbugs, completely un-enthused and unwilling to fake it. "Thank you for watching this stupid ridiculous game show, 'The Government is Stealing my Money', the Game Show where my money is stolen by the government in real time. I hope you never join us again." I gestured for the Shutterbugs to cut the broadcast, and end my misery. Unfortunately they couldn't go that far.
"I knew this whole thing was just a giant set up!" said Sticks, letting go of the giant cheque as the mayor waddled off. The audience was dispersing, and even the other teams were leaving without saying goodbye. Looked like low prize was a real downer for everyone. "All we've done is provide free entertainment to brainwash the masses into thinking the government isn't out to get them!"
"Giant cheques are so inconvenient," said Tails as I helped him carry said cheque into his house. Fifteen bucks wasn't enough to bother fighting over who would get to keep it, so in the end I agreed to help Tails fly it over to his house. It looked like I'd have to find another way to show Tails my appreciation. Fifteen dollars couldn't buy that much ice cream, and somehow I felt like if Tails gave the cheque to me, the government would pop out to get me.
We opened the door to his house and carried the cheque in, laying it against the far wall. I wiped my forehead, sweating from all the work and wishing I could spend some time in my room to cool off.
"Fools!" came a voice, and Tails whirled around as my head snapped to the direction of the voice. It was coming from Tails' laptop, still left on the table where we'd left it. It was open, and the screen showed a pixelated fiery red and black being with horns laughing maniacally. "You two fell right into my trap! The holographic robot bug was just a distraction so that I, Nominatus, could gain access to Tails' laptop, and through it, all his machines! Prepare to be destroyed you disgusting fur bags!"
I yawned, and slowly walked over to the laptop.
"Hey, wait, what are you -"
I closed the laptop, unplugged it, and popped out the wireless module, disconnecting it from any and all outside technology. I tossed the laptop to Tails, who grabbed it out of the air.
"Shame all that work with the holographic robot bug was a waste of time. And we'll lose all that progress debugging our video game," I said. "But I guess it's worth it to make sure Nominatus is trapped."
"We could work on the game using another laptop?" suggested Tails, setting the laptop he was holding down next to the giant cheque. "Or I could make some real sandwiches for dinner."
I grinned as I slowly walked towards him. I did need to thank him for winning the game show, against all odds. "Or we could do something else."
"You ready for another one, Tails?" I said, flipping a burger patty. I'd organised a cook out for dinner with all my friends, and at least one of my enemies, which included everyone who participated in the game show. Spending that cheque for a party, now that was actually fair to everyone who participated in the game show. Except me. I still didn't know how much I made from the McPuffin file. Plus fifteen bucks wasn't enough for a party so I had to make up the difference anyway.
"There's Eggman!" shouted Amy, pointing at the sky. Behind her Belinda was eating a chilli dog, looking annoyed at the sudden arrival.
"It looks like he's attacking," said Sonic, who was holding an entire plate full of chilli dogs.
"Eggman attacks?" asked Sticks. "In this economy?"
"Amy, can you please take over for me?" I asked, as I started to see my sweat drop into the grill, sizzling as they landed. "I suddenly feel like I'm gonna pass out."
"Sure thing," said Amy, taking the spatula as Zooey helped me walk to the nearest shaded seat.
"Why would Eggman attack a party he's invited to?" asked Knuckles, sitting next to Rabbit Girl who was completely ignoring him. "Unless… he's a supervillain!"
"Just tell him he's uninvited if he attacks," I said, sitting up as Zooey patted me on the back. I appreciated the gesture but it didn't help at all with the heat.
"These burgers are too good," said Dave, holding one of said burgers. "You'd never make it at Meh Burger."
"You're right I'd never make a burger at Meh Burger," I said. I didn't really want to invite Team Four, but I was sure everyone else would scold me if I tried not to. Except Doctor Eggman. He probably didn't care either way.
Here's our next chapter! I came up with this idea about two years ago, and finished this chapter not quite that long ago, but still a while back. But I figured, the tax thing had to go first. I'm glad to see some familiar faces in the thread, I hope everyone who used to follow the story eventually finds their way back. I'm also happy to see new people, of course. Tell your friends!
Oh, and apologies in advance, I didn't know exactly how to format some parts, so just let your eyes glaze over like the joke that it's intended to be.
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"Ugh!" I grunted, my voice loud and forced. I clenched my teeth at the intensity. "It's not going to fit!" I shouted.
Me and Tails were alone in his house, and had been going at it for a while but were having trouble towards the end. The effort was difficult, and Tails' house had gotten hot and I was tired and sweaty from the work. And there was still no end in sight.
"I just need to get a better angle," said Tails, his voice slightly strained as he continued to slam it into the side, missing repeatedly. "If I can just-"
"Let me do the work!" I replied. "I can help guide it in, If you keep trying to force it, you're going to-"
"Just relax!" said Tails, sounding like he was getting annoyed. As if he had the right to be annoyed in this situation!
"How am I supposed to relax when you keep – ugh!"
I slammed my fists on the table. "The sandwich is ruined!" Tails just wouldn't listen, and now the sandwich had exploded. After all that work to get all that ham in there!
"GAME OVER," covered the screen of Tails' laptop.
"Well if you'd just listened to me," began Tails, before the game crashed.
I scoffed, and gestured to the laptop. Our game, Simple Sandwich Maker, or SSM for short, had crashed, and we still didn't know where the bug was.
"Wait, there it is!" said Tails, pointing behind the laptop on the other side of the table. The robotic bug's antennae were just visible, wiggling over the edge. It was one of Eggman's robots, and it was proving really hard to catch, as it seemed to only be attracted to digital commodities in video games.
Slowly and quietly Tails grabbed his wrench and walked over to the other side of the table. I nodded in confirmation that the Bug-bot was still there. Once in range, Tails nodded back and eased forward, before finally slamming his wrench into the Bug-bot so hard it broke a chunk off the table. And yet, the Bug-bot remained, somehow hovering in place in clear view. Then it glitched, revealing itself to be a hologram of some kind.
"Wow, there's a lot of layers to this," I said.
Tails groaned uncharacteristicly loudly. "Does that mean we have to find a projector somewhere in this house?"
"I think this is Eggman's plan," I said, thinking it over. "This is some kind of… busywork scheme. Keep us on our toes, making it unclear what we're doing."
There was a knock on the door, and we both turned our heads. I decided I should answer it, while Tails went to rummage through his toolbox for some glue to fix his table.
"So help me if this is a Projector-Bot that's pretending to be a salesman…," I grumbled as I opened the door. To my surprise it wasn't a continuation of the weird fake-out plot I'd been undergoing with Tails, nor was it one of our friends, or even Doctor Eggman. It was Mayor Fink of all people.
"Uh," I said. "Mayor? Is there a problem?" Tails heard me and stopped working on the desk, putting the broken piece and the glue bottle down and making his way to join me at the door.
"Miss the Fox," began the mayor. "I regret to inform you that we've found a serious irregularity with your finances."
I stiffened. Had he found out about how long my illicit burger business went on for? Should I have laundered my money?
"What's this about?" asked Tails, folding his arms.
Mayor Fink coughed into his curled hand, before putting both behind his back in some attempt to appear formal, but he was so wide I was surprised he could pull it off physically. Still, I didn't know how worried I should be, so I tried to keep a calm demeanour.
"We've found that you have a second bank account with an incredibly large amount of income that went undeclared on your taxes."
My eyes widened, fear replaced by hope. They'd found my "account"? The one that I had when I worked for Mr. Slate? That was great news!
"Due to this irregularity, I'm afraid you have to run a game show to distribute it."
"Wait, what?" I asked. "That doesn't make any sense!"
"It's only fair," replied the mayor. "The village can't allow you to keep potentially ill-gotten gains, especially when they went unreported for so long. And the amount hidden passes our 'fairness threshold'. Due to this, everybody in the village has to have a chance to win the money, after the village takes its cut of course."
"That proposition passed?," asked Tails, but I could barely hear him while my brain rebooted from the stupidity. "Everyone I know voted against it!"
"Eggman's lair district supported the bill by 285%," said the mayor.
"Plus," Tails continued, as if he didn't hear that blatant cheating, probably from Ballot-Stuffer bot, "Some of our team has already done a game show. Don't you remember Mayor, Sonic and Knuckles went on Bro-Down Showdown to win a new couch, though oddly they weren't on the same team, and Eggman was there too." Tails scratched his chin in thought. "Now that I think about it, Sonic and Eggman were on the same team for that one. They did get disqualified for fighting, but me and Sonic fight sometimes too, and I wasn't involved at all, Sonic never even told me he was on that show, I had to watch it in syndication. Now I'm starting to wonder if me and Sonic are really bros. He could have gotten me to go with him! What do you think, Vanilla? Should I confront Sonic about this?"
I sighed while slamming my palm into my face.
"That was completely unrelated to the current situation," replied the Mayor. "And meandering. This game show is legally required and you must follow the law! Besides, Vanilla has to make the questions and host the show. And no potential contestants can help her."
My mind flashed bright with an idea. The perfect idea! I whirled around to face Tails, and grabbed his shoulders. "You've got to enter that game show and win the money!" I said, shaking him. It was my money! I worked hard for it!
"Wha-te-ver you-ou-ou say-ay-ay," he said, his voice modulated from the shaking.
"Glad we agree," said the mayor. He suddenly puled a briefcase out from seemingly nowhere, and opened it, pulling out a thick stack of paper tied together with string into a book. "Here are the rules and regulations you must follow Vanilla. I look forward to seeing the show live on air later today."
He closed the door in their faces, as if it was his house and he wasn't outside. It was even weirder because the door swung in, not out.
"Today!?" I shouted. I was supposed to put on an entire game show in a day? What about the stupid hologram robot bug game sandwich plot or whatever it was? I sighed, guessing that would have to wait. Or maybe it'd just solve itself if we ignored it long enough, like the McPuffin File that started this mess.
"I can't believe that stupid proposition passed," said Tails, following me to the couch as I started to skim over the regulations. Most of it was obvious stuff like "don't cheat," or, "the penalty for failure can't be death." Pretty typical for game shows. The bigger problem was that there were actual rules to follow for setting up the show.
"It says here the contestants have to work in teams of three," I said, accepting the absurdity of the situation. It was more important to get my money back than complain about how it was happening. We sat down together on the couch. "Darn, if I didn't have to host, we could have two teams of three."
"But this is really dumb," said Tails. I looked at him and narrowed my eyes, and Tails held up his hands defensively. "I'm not saying I won't help, I just don't really get it. Why would you want to play?"
I gave him an exasperated look.
"Because, this money is my money! If a team of my friends win, they'll give me back my own money, won't they?"
"Sure," said Tails. He held up his hand and started counting points off his fingers as he spoke. "But you gotta think about it. The village is going to take a cut upfront. Then it counts as income, so the village takes another cut. And then it gets taxed when we transfer it to you. And then it's income again when it gets to you. Plus, since it'll be split three ways, each step happens three times. That's a lot of loss."
I blinked at him. There was a point to that. "So what would you suggest?"
He shrugged. "Don't worry about the money and do the bare minimum for the game show?"
I didn't know what to think about that. Normally I was the one trying to cut across shenanigans. But this time, serious amounts of money were involved. Even if most of it got eaten up in taxes, it was my money.
We called everybody to Tails' house, right after Tails finished fixing the table, the holographic robot bug having since disappeared. Tails had made some real sandwiches for everyone so they wouldn't complain, and everybody ate while I explained the situation, pacing in front of the group, a whiteboard behind me.
"I don't want to do another game show," said Sonic.
"Well this isn't about you!" I said. "This is about crafting the perfect team to beat the government at its own game!"
"I'm in," said Sticks.
"Great, because I think the best team is obviously Tails, Knuckles, and Sticks."
"But if it was Tails, Amy, and Sticks, then everybody on the team would have had the experience of being on a game show," said Amy. "But if Knuckles does it again he'd have been on one twice."
"So long as we work together, any team could work!" said Tails.
"No!" I said, along with everyone else. Tails slumped back into the sofa. I felt kind of bad for shutting him down along with everyone else, but I could make it up to him later.
"If we're going to do this we need a wide array of mental skills," said Amy. "Tails I understand, he has the brains. And if you're making the questions, I see what Sticks offers. You're both crazy."
"Hey!" I said at the same times as Sticks, but Amy just ignored us both.
"But I don't see what Knuckles brings to the table," finished Amy.
I made a displeased noise before looking at Knuckles. "Fine," I said. "Amy, Knuckles, here's a question for you. What has keys but can't open locks?"
They both thought about it for a second before Knuckles responded, "You know, I don't really want to be on a game show again. I'd rather stay home and play the piano."
"A piano is correct," I said, gesturing to Knuckles.
"But he just said he doesn't want to do this again," said Amy. "Just don't put riddles in the show and replace him with me."
"Riddles are an easy way to filter out the unwashed masses who want my money!" I said. Didn't they understand? This wasn't about a TV spot and getting them exposure, and this wasn't about fun with your friends, this was about getting that bag!
"Just replace the riddles with questions about things I'm good at!" said Amy.
"Such as?" I asked, my hands on my hips. I raised a single eyebrow. This should be good
"So many things," said Amy, almost wistfully. "Writing, poetry, cooking, gardening, counselling, leading, teaching, dancing, singing, improv, making long lists, being a clown -"
"You got that one right at least," I said. To Amy's obvious chagrin, everyone laughed.
"See?" said Amy, trying to salvage the situation.
"No more negotiating, the decision has been made!" I said. I took out a pointer from my pocket and struck the whiteboard with it, pointing at a crude drawing of three anonymous blobs that were meant to represent people. "Here's the plan. Tails, Knuckles, and Sticks will submit themselves to the game show once I announce later today. Then -" I hit the only other drawing on the white board, which was a large dollar sign over bags of money. "They win. Any questions?"
"Why are me and Amy here?" asked Sonic, leaning back, obviously bored with my presentation.
"I had to weigh my options," I said, closing my pointer and putting it back in my pocket. "Plus I want you two to stop other people from submitting themselves."
"Yeah we're not doing that," said Sonic. "Sounds a bit too villainous for us."
"Maybe Knuckles would be better at that," suggested Amy. "If we switched -"
"No!" I interrupted, along with everybody else, including Knuckles. Amy slumped back into the sofa. I felt kind of bad for shutting her down along with everyone else, but I ignored that and focused on her being really annoying. "Alright, everybody has their part to play. Tails, Sticks, Knuckles, start studying! Sonic and Amy, get out there and stop people from submitting their teams!"
"I said we weren't going to -" began Sonic, but I cut him off.
"Dismissed!"
I kicked Tails out of his own house along with everyone else, as I picked up the game show rule book the mayor gave me. I had no idea how to run a game show. Luckily, it was all in the rules. I just needed to announce, come up with questions, build a set, set up cameras, and… this was going to be difficult. I flipped through the rulebook and looked at what I needed to do to announce. I quickly realised I needed more friends in on this.
Quickly drawing up a flyer, I scanned it with my communicator, took a picture of one of the half eaten sandwiches that Tails made, and sent it to my friend, Rabbit Girl on SnarkChat. Also there was a message sent with it.
Send this to all your friends in the village
I waited a few moments, and got back a picture of a single cloud in the sky, off centre and partially blocked by a random passerby's head in the shot. With it was a message.
I sent your sandwich to everyone like you asked
I growled to myself. I was only on SnarkChat for simple communication with my friends who didn't have communicators, and it was for reasons like this! Now the sandwich was trending, but not in a good way.
Looking around, I snapped a picture of Tails' repaired table, ignoring my thumb in the picture, and sent another message.
I meant the flier
I waited a few moments and got another image, this time a blurry picture of Sticks, looking extremely angry, her hand half covering the camera.
You didn't send a selfie. And your friend is crazy.
I groaned to myself, looking around for something to take a picture of. I settled on the whiteboard, but turning it around so I didn't show off my intricately detailed and well drawn plan.
I meant flyer!
Finally she sent me another picture, this time of a selfie with a black eye.
Sent, and you owe me.
Everything was coming together! I'd send Rabbit Girl a nice salve for her eye and tell Sticks to apologise later.
Coming up with questions was a lot easier than I expected. It helped that I had a plan, and could organise the questions into three groups. Tails questions, which were deliberately complicated scientific or mechanical questions. Knuckles questions, which were basically riddles and jokes that were pretending to be questions, but weren't banned by the rules. And finally Sticks questions, which were trivia, news, and current events.
When all was said and done I had an absolutely massive number of questions across all three groups, and with an hour to spare! That was plenty of time to build a stage and set up cameras.
Cameras were easy, if a bit worrying. I still had my Shutterbugs keeping tabs on a certain someone, but I decided I could spare four of them. I redirected those four to gather near the village centre, where I'd construct my stage with the help of a few of my decommissioned robots I could bring back on line.
Leaving Tails' house and entering his workshop, and I ran to the garbage pile where my broken robots had been stored, and started pulling parts out and fitting them into a few of the better looking, less dented, casings.
In the end I had three Bubbles, a Shellcracker, two Splats, and a Slicer for a total of seven bots. They were all dented, a few with frayed wires poking out, but I didn't have time to make them pretty.
"It's not like I'm entering you into any beauty pageants," I said, more to myself. The bots heard me though, looked at each other, then cast their glitchy eyes downwards in shame.
"Okay guys, quit moping!" I said, clapping my hands together to get their attention. One of the Splats' eyes fizzled out, and when it came back online it'd turned from blue to red. Still, it stood on its spring while looking at me, so probably that wasn't something to worry about. "I need you to take some of the lumber and nails from there," I pointed to the corner of the workshop, "And bring everything to the designated coordinates. Once there I need you to build a stage for a game show that can hold three teams plus myself as host. Think you can manage that?"
They looked at me, then at each other. One of the Bubbles' anti-gravity engines sputtered and started smoking, and it started to slowly twirl around lazily.
"Good," I said, and made for the door as I uploaded the coordinates to them. "Better get a move on, you have less than half an hour!"
By the time I finished blocking off the set area with rope, a sizeable crowd had formed to watch. My robots were still busy assembling the stage, to the consternation of the crowd. They seemed wary for some reason.
"Where is the audience area?" came a voice next to me. I nearly jumped in surprise.
"Mayor!" I said. "What are you doing here?"
"Well I have to make sure all the procedures are being followed," he said, looking around. "There's supposed to be an audience area."
I gestured behind him. "You're in it," I said. "Everybody can see just fine standing up. It's not like I'm building a tall stage."
"Disappointing," said Mayor Fink. "The ratings won't be very high at this rate."
I wanted to tell him just where he could shove his ratings, when some of my friends, Rabbit Girl, Zooey, and Belinda came up behind him. I waved them over, happy to see them, and was even happier when the mayor took the hint and waddled away to bother somebody else.
"Hey," I said, once they were close enough to hear me. "I didn't know all three of you knew each other."
"We didn't," said Belinda, smiling. But there was something I didn't like about that smile. "But when I was sent that picture of your sandwich, I realised the sender was your friend, and through her I met this other one." Belinda gestured at Zooey, who waved as if I didn't know who she was. "More importantly, we want to sign up for your game show."
I frowned. "I uh, would rather you didn't," I said.
"Ah, ah, ah," said Belinda, wagging her finger at me. "This game show is open to all villagers. It's in your flyer." She pulled out her phone and showed me the picture of my sandwich. I was never going to live that down! She then put her phone away. "And of course, there's the cash prize."
"There's no reason we can't join, right, Vanilla?" asked Zooey. I inwardly groaned. The girl was too cute for her own good sometimes.
"I could use a sizeable amount of money," said Rabbit Girl.
Oh no, this wasn't happening. Where were Sonic and Amy? They were supposed to keep this from happening!
"Hey Vanilla," said Sonic, speeding up next to me. I nearly jumped out of my skin, but quickly recovered enough to glare at him. "This thing's about to start, and you've got a bunch of teams who need to register."
I then realised Knuckles was next to him.
"Knuckles," I said, through gritted teeth. "Why aren't you with Sticks and Tails?"
"Oh yeah," said Sonic. "Amy convinced Knuckles to switch."
"And why are you standing here instead of doing what I told you to do!" I asked Sonic, turning to him.
"I said I didn't want to do that," he replied, folding his arms. "You're not my boss. Besides, it's not like it'll really be a problem."
"So where do we sign up?" asked Belinda, tapping her foot.
I gave one long dramatic sigh, and hung my head in defeat.
"With me," I said. I picked my head up and looked at Sonic. "Sometimes Sonic, I really see why Doctor Eggman wants to destroy you."
"He can be quite the obstacle," agreed Belinda, as I took a folded up sheet of paper out of my back pocket and wrote her team down.
"Hey, you're the one trying to do something shady, not me," said Sonic.
"Shady?" asked Zooey as I finished taking down their names. "What does he mean, Vanilla?"
"Don't worry about it," I said. Glancing at Rabbit Girl I continued, "By the way, nice job masking the black eye." She glared at me for a moment, which I ignored. I turned to Sonic. "Can you at least find Amy, Tails, and Sticks, and bring them here? Or is that too evil for you too?"
Sonic zipped away, and zipped back in about three seconds. "They're on their way. Along with all the other teams."
"Hey Sonic, we better get a seat before all the good ones are taken," said Knuckles.
"Knuckles, there are no seats in the audience," he replied, but nevertheless walked off with Knuckles, leaving me alone with my so called friends.
I wanted to ask Belinda to drop out, but there was no way she'd agree. And Rabbit Girl and Zooey would need reasons I couldn't give, if I asked them. So instead I gestured past the rope I'd set up, towards the set my robots had finally finished building.
"Please take Station Two," I said, gesturing at said station. A Bubbles was hovering above it, and suddenly exploded. My ears flattened in reflex and I ducked down slightly as metal shot across the set. "Don't mind them," I continued. "They're just leaving."
I directed the remaining robots to leave while Belinda's team went to their designated station, just in time for Tails, Amy, and Sticks to arrive.
"Amy!" I shouted even though they were right in front of me. "I said I wanted Knuckles!"
"Game shows are supposed to be fun," said Amy, somehow sounding like she was scolding me. "I'm not the bad guy here just because I wanted to play a game with my friends. Maybe you should remember what's really important here."
"My money!" I said, and Amy just growled at me. But I wasn't willing to back down. "Just get to stupid Station One," I said, pointing. I wrote down the team and continued to grumble as they crossed the rope.
"That pink demon," I said to myself as I shoved the paper back into my pocket while watching them go. "She'll be the death of me." I barely noticed yet another group of three approach.
"Oh, joy," I said, as Dave, Lady Walrus, and Mortimer walked up.
"Hey V-sauce!" said Mortimer, and I shoved my palm into my face in a combination of embarrassment and frustration. Why did he insist on calling me that. "We thought it'd be fun to join your little project here!"
"Yes," said Dave in his wheezy voice. "Fun." He clasped his hands together in a way that told me he knew exactly what he was doing.
Mortimer continued as if there'd been no interruption. "The McPuffin File, Number 2 in Sidekick Magazine, and now your own game show! Why, I bet soon I'll be voting for you for mayor!"
"Not if I can help it!" yelled the mayor from somewhere in the back.
"Maybe we'll save that idea for later," I said, trying to keep my voice level. "Lady Walrus, Dave," I continued, looking at them in turn. I pulled the paper back out of my pocket and wrote them down. Then I sighed. "Station Four." Might as well accept the inevitable.
And right as the three of them crossed the rope, up waltzed Doctor Eggman, along with Orbot and Cubot. I just wrote their names down and said, "Station Three," as soon as they got to me.
"What, are you too good to greet me like a civilised rodent?" asked Doctor Eggman.
"What Doctor Eggman means to say is -"
"That he'll win, and destroy us all, blah blah," I said, gesturing to Station Three while I glared at them. At the very least I wasn't required to host more than four teams, so this was the last one.
"Wow, what crawled into your bed and died?" asked Doctor Eggman, lifting the rope so Orbot and Cubot could pass through.
I frowned at that. Maybe I really was letting this go to my head, if even Doctor Eggman felt the need to say something. Just yesterday I'd had never considered getting this money. But now, it was practically all I could think about. And I didn't even know how much it was exactly.
"Sorry, Doctor Eggman," I said, shaking my head. "I think this game show thing is getting the better of me."
"Apology accepted," he said, moving past the rope himself. "Can't have the game show getting the better of you when that's my job."
"Pfft," I said in reply.
Once Doctor Eggman's team was seated at their station, the mayor popped up holding a large law book. "Looks like you've got everything set up," he said. "Down to the letter. Except for one thing." He looked around. "Where are the cameras?"
"Oh, yeah," I said, looking down and selecting my Shutterbugs with my communicator. I directed them to set up around the set, a simple three camera setup, plus one in front of me. A few moments later the four arrived, split up, and several of the villagers gasped in horror.
"You stole my Fly Bot design!" yelled Eggman, standing up from his seat at Station Three.
"I thought you dismantled them?" asked Tails from his seat at Station One.
"Are you spying on me?" screamed Sticks, blocking her face from the Shutterbugs.
"This will be on television!" I said, shouting at Sticks. I didn't blame her, I wouldn't want to be filmed either. I gestured wildly around at the Shutterbugs. "There you go mayor, cameras. Is everything good?"
"Hmm," said the Mayor, tapping his chin. He looked around, then a this big book of laws. "Are your Shutterbugs part of a union?"
"No," I said. "My robots are all non-unionised." I couldn't remember if Doctor Eggman's robots were part of a union or not, but I hoped they wouldn't get together and try to form one against me.
"Very well," said the Mayor, running his finger along a page of his book. "That simplifies things. Alright, you may begin when ready, Vanilla. Remember the rules!"
I moved past the rope and took my spot at the host's podium. The fourth Shutterbug took its place a distance in front of me. I took out my questions, shuffled them then held out my hand to show three fingers. I counted down silently until I hit one and we went live.
"Live from about two minutes away from Meh Burger, welcome to the new hit game show, 'The Government is Stealing My Money', the show where teams of three play for a chance to win the money I worked hard for, because I am mandated to do this by village law!" I said in my best announcer voice. The audience clapped and cheered. "Let's meet our teams!"
I moved past the podium and stood in front of team one, gesturing behind me. "Team One is composed of Tails, Sticks, and Amy. Now, have you all decided on a team name?"
"I didn't realise we were supposed to," said Tails.
"You have to buzz in before answering a question!" I said, and then fake chuckled while the audience laughed, as directed by the sign I'd installed. "But don't worry, that wasn't a real question." I moved to the next station.
"Team Two, composed of Zooey, Rabbit Girl, and Belinda! Rabbit Girl, you can't phone a friend until you've been asked a question."
She scoffed, and put away her phone.
"Next up is Team Three, Doctor Eggman, Orbot, and Cubot. Doctor Eggman, if you win, what are you planning to do with the money?"
He hit the buzzer and then said, "Destroy Sonic and his friends!"
"That's correct!" I answered, and the audience cheered. "But unfortunately that question was worth zero points as we're still in the introductory stage. I hope your correct answer was a fluke rather than an omen of what's to come."
Finally I moved to the final station. "Team Four is composed of Dave, Lady Walrus, and Mortimer. Now, Team Four, will I have fries with that?"
Dave hit the buzzer and said, "Yes." The audience gave a dramatic sound of disappointment.
"Oh I'm afraid that's incorrect."
"Those are our teams, and now that introductions have finished, let's get this show started! For those of you new to the show, which is everyone, this show consists of three rounds! First round, anybody from any team can buzz in and attempt to answer the question. So, remember to buzz in, and answer quickly there's a time limit!Correct answers are worth ten points." I returned to the podium and grabbed the first question.
"Question one. What is the gravitational potential energy of a particle with mass m, located at a distance r from a spherically symmetric mass distribution with total mass M and radius R, assuming that the particle is located outside of the mass distribution?"
Both Tails and Doctor Eggman hit the buzzer near the same time. I frowned, and had to look at the tiny display I'd set up to catch who buzzed in first.
"Doctor Eggman!" I said, not letting the annoyance show on my voice.
"It's a simple formula really, U = - G M m / r. Even an imbecilic baby knows that."
"Correct," I said, and the crowd cheered.
"I hope all the questions aren't so easy," said Doctor Eggman, lightly twirling his moustache.
"Question Two," I said, hoping Tails could be faster on the buzzer next time one of his questions showed up. "How many aliens are living amongst us right now?"
Sticks and Mortimer hit the buzzer at the same time. I sighed.
"Mortimer!"
"Uh…," he said, scratching his head. "I know you wouldn't ask the question if it was zero, V-sauce. You're too much of a high-flyer, a real whizz-kit, a rising star. Someone like you could never answer with a zero. So I'm gonna go with, one?" he guessed.
"Correct," I said, with little enthusiasm left my voice. "This isn't going well for Team One." I gave them a slight glare. Tails seemed to wilt under my gaze, though both Sticks and Amy looked more irritated at me than themselves.
"Fine, we'll get the next one for sure!" said Amy.
"Question Three," I began, drawing another card. "You see me once in June, twice in November, but not at all in May. What am I?"
Both Amy and Zooey hit the button, but Amy was first. I looked at her expectantly.
"Uhhh," she said, and I had to facepalm.
"Come on Amy, this is Eaaaaasy." There was a wrong answer sound as they hit the time limit, and the crowd booed.
"Since Team Two also hit the button, I'll give them a shot. Zooey, do you know the answer?"
"It's the letter E," she said, smiling happily.
The crowd cheered.
"Oh boy," I muttered.
"Question four, when recalibrating the flux capacitor in a time-travel device, what critical component must be calibrated correctly to prevent temporal evaporation, which also prevents turning the device into a humidifier?"
Tails cleanly buzzed in first and said, "The Historical Heterodyne-Oscillation Mapping Grid circuit!"
"Correct," I said. "Finally, Team One is in the game. For future reference, I would have accepted the H2-OMG circuit, which would have been shorter and easier to say."
"Removing your commentary would also speed this along," said Doctor Eggman, and I stuck my tongue out at him before getting back to the questions.
"Question five, what comes once in a minute, twice in a moment, but never in a thousand years?"
Zooey and Cubot hit the buzzer near the same time, with Cubot the victor.
"Let me think," said Cubot. "Mmmm…."
"Correct!" The crowd went wild, and Team Three was in the lead. Of course.
"Question six, how many natural satellites does this planet have?"
"Oh, I know this one!" shouted Amy, at the same time Orbot buzzed in.
"Two," said Orbot, holding two fingers. He ticked off one, "The moon," then the other, "And the Miracle Planet."
"Next time, just hit the buzzer Amy," I said.
"Was I right?" asked Orbot.
"Yes," I said. "You're at thirty points, Team Three. You are in the lead."
"Next question, what is Justin Beaver's number one selling secret song that nobody knows about?"
Sticks went for the buzzer, but was too slow for… Lady Walrus.
"My Baby!" she said, after hitting the buzzer. I had to slam my palm into my face again. I should have seen that one coming.
I tried to speed things up after that, asking questions at a quick pace in hopes that the friends I was counting on would learn how to hit a button and things would even out. It didn't quite work out that way.
"Well that's the end of round one!" I said. "Team One is still at only ten points, with Team Two at forty, Team Four at fifty, and Team Three in the lead with five thousand eight hundred!"
The crowd went wild, and my face hurt from the forced smiling. "We'll be back for round two after a message from our sponsor!" I gave my Shutterbugs a cut motion, and finally let my smile fall into the scowl it'd been threatening to turn into ever since this stupid thing started.
"This show has sponsors?" asked Amy.
"Yes, me," I said, whirling on Amy. "Since all your arms are tragically broken, at least I could try and make up some losses by airing a TwinTails Repair Shop ad during break."
"I'm trying my best," said Tails.
"I still say I got that question about clones right," said Sticks.
"Who's the clone then, Sticks?" I asked.
"You are!" she screamed.
"I'm not a clone!" I said. "Literally the first thing I was tested for was being a clone!"
"Actually it was being a robot," said Tails. "And come to think of it, we were thinking you might be a clone of me. You're not, but that doesn't mean you're not a clone of someone else out there."
The Shutterbug in front of me flashed, indicating break was about to end. I plastered a grin back on to my face and returned to my podium.
"Welcome back everyone to your new favourite game show, 'The Government is Stealing My Money'! We're ramping up with round two. This time, there'll be no buzzing in."
All three of my friends on Team One breathed an audible sigh of relief.
"Instead, each team will be asked a question, starting with Team One. They may choose to pass it, and the next team in line with have a chance to answer, and so on. If any team gets a question wrong, they will lose ten points!
"Team One, of the members of Team Sonic who have life sized dolls made of them, which doll is the most evil?"
The group huddled together for a moment, whispering. They broke apart and Sticks answered, "That would be Tails."
"Correct!" I said. "Team One now has twenty points. Could this be the comeback of the century?"
"Probably not!" shouted somebody in the audience. If I didn't know any better I'd have thought it was Knuckles.
"Well, anyway. Team Two, in Quantum Chromodynamics, the running coupling constant, αs(Q^2), characterises the strength of the strong interaction between quarks and gluons as a function of the momentum transfer Q. Using the Renormalisation Group Equation, RGE, derive the expression for the running coupling constant αs(Q^2) at one-loop level in QCD, assuming the number of active quark flavours is nf and considering the energy scale Q much larger than the Quantum Chromodynamics scale, ΛQCD."
"Uhhh," said Zooey.
"Can we phone a friend now?" asked Rabbit Girl, holding up her cell phone.
I rubbed my forehead for a moment. "Yes, you can phone a friend."
"Cool," said Rabbit Girl, and she pressed a button on her phone.
Immediately my communicator beeped. I looked down and saw that Rabbit Girl was calling. I answered. "I'm kind of in the middle of something, is this important?"
"Me, Zooey, and your friend Belinda are on this game show, and we need help with a question."
"Sure," I said, grinning genuinely this time. "What's the question?"
Everyone paused. "Uhhh," said Rabbit Girl.
"Ohh, I'm sorry," I said, away from my communicator. "Looks like you wasted your Lifeline since you couldn't relay the question to your friend."
"Your kind of being a jerk right now," said Rabbit Girl. "Again."
"That's true, and I apologise," I said. "Unfortunately, that wasn't the correct answer for the question asked, and so your team loses ten points."
"Hey, that simple baby question was supposed to go to my team!" said Doctor Eggman.
"Vanilla, you're being really mean," said Zooey, and I couldn't help but feel guilty again. Being told off by Amy was water off a duck's back. Even though I wasn't a duck. But being told off by Zooey? I was like being scolded by a puppy. "You know that wasn't our team's answer."
"Judges, what say you?" I said, looking to Mayor Fink, the sole judge. The Shutterbug in front of me turned and quickly found him at the front of the audience, still holding his stupid book. "Should I let Team Two have the points?"
"Uh, I dunno," he said. "The whole situation did seem pretty unfair to Team Two."
"That's not fair!" repeated Doctor Eggman. "Those points are mine!"
"Due to a fault on my part, I'll be awarding Team Two ten points!" I said, as their score went up twenty points. "Team Three, it's now your turn. I'm light as a feather, yet the strongest person can't hold me for much more than a minute. What am I?"
"These questions are getting real complicated," said Cubot. "I really need to catch my breath."
"Correct," I said.
"How in the world did you get that?" asked Doctor Eggman. "You don't even breath!"
"Team Four," I said. "What's the primary mode of surveillance used by the government to monitor our thoughts?"
Dave, Lady Walrus, and Mortimer huddled together for a few moments before breaking apart.
"Birds," said Mortimer. My jaw dropped.
"Correct, but I have to ask, how did you know?"
"Because you're such a high-flyer," answered Mortimer.
I groaned.
"Welcome back to the final round of the new hit game show, 'The Government is Stealing My Money'! This round will only have one question. Each team will write their answer on the small white board in front of them, along with any number of points as a wager. If they get the answer right, that many points are added to their total. If they get the answer wrong, the number is subtracted. Any questions?"
"How many points can we wager, exactly?" asked Tails.
"Any number you like, now moving on!" I said quickly. "Here is your final question. Pay attention now, this could make or break your victory. Now, what breaks yet never falls, and what falls yet never breaks? Write your answers and your wagers now."
I waited patiently as the teams huddled together to discuss, an ominous yet unassuming song playing as they began writing on their boards.
"Is everyone ready?" I asked. There were nods all around. "We'll start with Team Four and work our way up. Team Four, what is your answer, and what did you wager?"
Lady Walrus showed her board. "The answer is day, and night. And we wagered all our points!"
"Correct!" I said, as the crowd went wild. "You now have three hundred twenty points. Now, Team Three. What is your answer, and what did you wager?"
"Same thing," said Doctor Eggman, flipping the board over.
"Wow, that's a lot of points!" I said, and the audience was even louder that before. Doctor Eggman was really soaking it in "Twelve thousand four hundred! Team Two, it's your turn. What have you got?"
Belinda revealed her board. "Same," she said.
I nodded at her. "Incredible! Maybe this question was too easy! You now have six hundred points! Now finally, Team One. What have you got for me? Sudden victory? Or complete ignoble pathetic defeat?"
The tension was thick in the air as slowly, Amy turned her whiteboard over. The crowd gasped.
"Oh, sorry," I said. "The answer is not 'a pie'. But what's this?" I grinned, so happy that Tails caught it. "You wagered negative eight billion points! Thankfully you didn't go for negative infinity, because that's not a number!"
"Obviously," said Tails, chuckling. I was so going to find a way to reward him for this. Maybe mint chocolate chip ice cream bought with the winnings!
The audience however sounded confused, muttering to each other.
"For the folks at home, they got the answer wrong and their wager was subtracted from the total! But their wager was negative, and if you subtract a negative you add. Team One wins the show with eight billion and twenty points! It's basic mathematics!"
"That is completely unfair!" said Doctor Eggman, slamming his fists against the station. "I demand a do over! What was the point of rigging that referendum if I don't get any money out of it!?"
"And here's the mayor with the giant cheque now!" I said, ignoring Doctor Eggman. The mayor waddled over past the rope, and was indeed holding a comically large giant cheque. The audience was cheering now, probably because the light was telling them to. "Team One, why don't you come on over to the front with me and claim your prize!" I left the podium and joined them, meeting the mayor in front of the Shutterbugs that were now swirling around us to get all the good angles of our victory.
"As mayor of this village and keeper of the giant cheques and villiage coupons, I hereby award Team One, consisting of Tails the Fox, Amy Rose, and Sticks the Badger, this giant cheque totalling fifteen dollars in recognition of their victory in the legally mandated game show."
The cheers from the audience got louder as my face fell. My friends' faces fell too. Even the other teams were in various states of confusion and anger.
"Fifteen bucks?" said Doctor Eggman, outraged. "I went through all this trouble just to not win fifteen bucks!? I thought this was for a substantial amount of money!"
"Well you see," said Mayor Fink, "Vanilla was fined for not declaring the full sum on her taxes, and the fine was taken out of the sum. Then when the money was transferred from the account to the giant cheque writer, it was taxed. And just so there wouldn't be any mistakes, it was pre-emptively taxed three times for the winning team. For your convenience of course."
I looked at one of the Shutterbugs, completely un-enthused and unwilling to fake it. "Thank you for watching this stupid ridiculous game show, 'The Government is Stealing my Money', the Game Show where my money is stolen by the government in real time. I hope you never join us again." I gestured for the Shutterbugs to cut the broadcast, and end my misery. Unfortunately they couldn't go that far.
"I knew this whole thing was just a giant set up!" said Sticks, letting go of the giant cheque as the mayor waddled off. The audience was dispersing, and even the other teams were leaving without saying goodbye. Looked like low prize was a real downer for everyone. "All we've done is provide free entertainment to brainwash the masses into thinking the government isn't out to get them!"
"Giant cheques are so inconvenient," said Tails as I helped him carry said cheque into his house. Fifteen bucks wasn't enough to bother fighting over who would get to keep it, so in the end I agreed to help Tails fly it over to his house. It looked like I'd have to find another way to show Tails my appreciation. Fifteen dollars couldn't buy that much ice cream, and somehow I felt like if Tails gave the cheque to me, the government would pop out to get me.
We opened the door to his house and carried the cheque in, laying it against the far wall. I wiped my forehead, sweating from all the work and wishing I could spend some time in my room to cool off.
"Fools!" came a voice, and Tails whirled around as my head snapped to the direction of the voice. It was coming from Tails' laptop, still left on the table where we'd left it. It was open, and the screen showed a pixelated fiery red and black being with horns laughing maniacally. "You two fell right into my trap! The holographic robot bug was just a distraction so that I, Nominatus, could gain access to Tails' laptop, and through it, all his machines! Prepare to be destroyed you disgusting fur bags!"
I yawned, and slowly walked over to the laptop.
"Hey, wait, what are you -"
I closed the laptop, unplugged it, and popped out the wireless module, disconnecting it from any and all outside technology. I tossed the laptop to Tails, who grabbed it out of the air.
"Shame all that work with the holographic robot bug was a waste of time. And we'll lose all that progress debugging our video game," I said. "But I guess it's worth it to make sure Nominatus is trapped."
"We could work on the game using another laptop?" suggested Tails, setting the laptop he was holding down next to the giant cheque. "Or I could make some real sandwiches for dinner."
I grinned as I slowly walked towards him. I did need to thank him for winning the game show, against all odds. "Or we could do something else."
"You ready for another one, Tails?" I said, flipping a burger patty. I'd organised a cook out for dinner with all my friends, and at least one of my enemies, which included everyone who participated in the game show. Spending that cheque for a party, now that was actually fair to everyone who participated in the game show. Except me. I still didn't know how much I made from the McPuffin file. Plus fifteen bucks wasn't enough for a party so I had to make up the difference anyway.
"There's Eggman!" shouted Amy, pointing at the sky. Behind her Belinda was eating a chilli dog, looking annoyed at the sudden arrival.
"It looks like he's attacking," said Sonic, who was holding an entire plate full of chilli dogs.
"Eggman attacks?" asked Sticks. "In this economy?"
"Amy, can you please take over for me?" I asked, as I started to see my sweat drop into the grill, sizzling as they landed. "I suddenly feel like I'm gonna pass out."
"Sure thing," said Amy, taking the spatula as Zooey helped me walk to the nearest shaded seat.
"Why would Eggman attack a party he's invited to?" asked Knuckles, sitting next to Rabbit Girl who was completely ignoring him. "Unless… he's a supervillain!"
"Just tell him he's uninvited if he attacks," I said, sitting up as Zooey patted me on the back. I appreciated the gesture but it didn't help at all with the heat.
"These burgers are too good," said Dave, holding one of said burgers. "You'd never make it at Meh Burger."
"You're right I'd never make a burger at Meh Burger," I said. I didn't really want to invite Team Four, but I was sure everyone else would scold me if I tried not to. Except Doctor Eggman. He probably didn't care either way.
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- Location
- Argentina
What's this? Character development? In Sonic Boom? Is a miracle!
In the world of Sonic Boom, laws are more powerful than villainy, and villainy looks like a perfectly normal career choice which can be regulated by laws.
Ironically, Vanilla's illicit burger scam was one of the most evil things ever done, as it explicitly violated a law. Lucky for her, punishment for first offence was a slap on the wrist.
Ironically, Vanilla's illicit burger scam was one of the most evil things ever done, as it explicitly violated a law. Lucky for her, punishment for first offence was a slap on the wrist.
- Location
- United States
I've recently came across this and read through it. This is great.
On another note, remembered that whole other dimension clone thing and then randomly started thinking of Sonic Prime I think it was. Now just thinking what a hypothetical dimension she could be from. Somehow lead to a Ice Age and mobians dressed like they were in GUN. Probably shouldn't say more beyond this...
- Location
- Canada
So did the Mayor Fink's administration compound tax the 'winnings' two extra times, or went