Jump to content

A Very Merry Perry Christmas!


WarTraveller

Recommended Posts

ERMAGERD it's Christmas again! Guess that means I have to celebrate it! And I will do so, with this rather neat little story I cooked up. I apologise if it's a little...rushed, but I didn't start it until the first of this month, so...yeah, didn't have a lot of time. We'll be doing this by chapter, one a day, until Christmas Eve. Ready? Here we go!

This Story will Contain:

  • Scenes of Violence
  • Some scenes of a somewhat sexualised nature
  • A plot taken mostly cribbed from Payday 2
  • And a lot of Anvilicious Crimbo warbling

Chapter 1: HudHox

Perry Martin Presents...

A Very Merry Perry Christmas!
Chapter 1 - HoxHud


"Your contact will be with you shortly. Whatever you plan within him, we WILL know. So don't try anything clever...alright. SH-XXX Meeting Room 024 - Warmongers. Just the sorta place for people like you."

"What, you mean upstanding members of society?"

"Funny. Now get in there before you meet my telescopic baton. These things hurt a lot more since last time you were here."

"Alright, alright. Geez. The only version of Sonic that can't take a joke."

The dirty-brown hedgehog grunted softly as he thrust into the room, falling to his knees and emitting a louder and more pained grunt as he fell. There was an eerie creak as the door to the questioning room was slammed shut behind him, rippling the folds in his prison jumpsuit. War Master got back to his feet, trying to struggle out of the handcuffs his hands had been put on and around his wrists. To no avail, of course; even he knew exactly what they were made out of. Even the most powerful Warmonger in the multiverse like him could not break out of handcuffs made out of cable ties. Growling, he tussled at the power-limiting ring clamped around his neck; how could he - War Master, the Warmonger that made those craved violence tremble - be captured in such a miserable manner? On the road to Christmas, of all things! The one time he probably could have cracked a smile, let alone be nicer to people for a change!

He sighed, walking around the tiny room and listening to his own loafer-enhanced footsteps clonk and echo against the hollow walls and floor. It was what the No-Zone laughably called a "questioning room", but War Master himself knew exactly what is was. An interrogation room. One designed to break the spirit and the will of anyone who would enter it. Not War Master, though. Not him. He had been broken long, long before. He finally took his place within the room, setting himself down at the chair that gave him a view of the doorway, still locked tight and shut, with another chair and the table between them the only other thing in the room. Well, aside from the photo frame. War Master scowled at the photo within it; it had clearly been put in there to mock him and tank his morale. It was him, well the younger him before all this started, and his ex-sister Amber. The two were cuddling together in the image, an ornately decorated Christmas tree behind them, with Amber in a purple jumper and Master in his old black jacket. War Master stared at the picture, a tear or two in his eyes.

"H-Hey, Amber..." he whispered, his voice already cracking under the feelings, "I...hey, it's Crimbo again, eh? Merry...merry chri..." he sunk into his arms and sobbed, "I'm sorry...I'm so sorry..."

There was a powerful thud of a knock at the door and War Master instantly bolted upright. It seemed like his "contact", whoever that may be, was about to enter the room. Lord knows no-one could see War Master like this, so he brushed himself off and set the photo face-down so he wouldn't have to see it. There was a buzzing noise as the locks disengaged and the door opened with a silent slither. In stepped someone somehow very familiar but also quite different at the same time. It was that Half-Zeti again, all distinguishable features buried under a ton of black fur, including his purple skin and the three scars that were doubtlessly across his chest. He looked a lot less...feral than the Half-Zeti War Master remembered, though. This one had his horn, but it was not cracked or wrapped in gaffer tape, nor was he naked aside - instead wearing a rather fetching two-piece suit. He strode into the room, red eyes focusing on the maniac in front of him, before he put his briefcase down and sat on the chair opposite him. He spoke up, clearing his throat with a cough, "So, Mr...Mr Pederso-"

"It's WAR MASTER, ta," War Master sighed, "So...Franky, I presume? The one dating one of my creations? Or perhaps the one whose world I completely decimated, killing off all your little friends?"

"Not your Franky, no," the Half-Zeti crowed in an unusual accent that somewhere in the multiverse would be called 'Canadian'. He straightened his tie and spoke up again, "Zanky the Zeti, No-Zone Attorney at Law."

"Well that's...interesting," War Master hummed, pulling at his orange jumpsuit, "Shame about the name, though. Still, can't exactly win them all with the naming conventions of this shi-"

"Mr Master, Sir..." Zanky spoke up, "I'd much rather you keep the profanity to a minimum. For once. I have been your contact for the last few days, as well as whatever can really pass for your lawyer. I mean, with your credentials no-one else in the whole No-Zone really wants to step up, ya know? So, how'd you get caught?"

"You don't know?" War Master asked, to which Zanky shook his head. War Master sighed, "It's...sort of a long story. Not one I really like to talk about. It wasn't...daring, or anything."

"Oh? They told me it was," Zanky nodded, "They said you went down in a blaze of glory robbing the Second World Bank, but you got caught in the crossfire and your teammates had to leave you behind!"

War Master sighed, "Is THAT what they told you? It was Amelia who said it, wasn't it?" Zanky nodded again, "'Course she would. The truth is a little bit...well, I was asleep in one of my safe houses and they just showed up and arrested me. Straight up dragged me out of bed and into a sodding prison cell. Didn't even wake me up," he sighed, "Anyway, never mind about me. Why are YOU here?"

"Hmm? Oh!" Zanky said quickly. He grabbed his briefcase and opened it up on the table. He grabbed something small and flat out of it, then gave it to War Master. It was...him, wearing an unusual mask and a black suit, holding a sub-machine gun while burning money bills surrounded him, "Your Christmas Album. Exactly how you managed to convince Amelia and the guards to even let you do this, I don't know. And considering how you work, I'm not even sure I WANNA know. Good songs, though," Zanky cracked a smile, "The lyrics are genius. Did you come up with them?"

"I did..." War Master paused, "...OR I cribbed them from this universe where there're these guys in masks and suits and they go robbing places. Can't remember, pretty sure it's the same thing."

"Oh. Guess that explains some of the, uh...choice lyrics, then."

"Well, the satire behind those words bite harder than my Hellblood creations ever could," War Master looked just a little bit smug, "As the song says, if it has to be Christmas for you to be nice, you're an arsehole. Anyway, I suppose I should thank you in some...reasonable manner, if you're really my contact. I couldn't have gotten those musical whatsits across security without your legal skills."

"Well, I do my best," Zanky chuckled, "...Though for the record, we DID find your Staff of Chaos in the piano. It's currents in pieces and in the science lab for testing purposes. AND we moved your Blade thing to about half a mile away from both your cell and the recording studio. Nice try, buddy."

"Eh, worth a shot," War Master shrugged, "Anyway. That's all good. That means you're the right kind of guy to bust me out of here."

"What?" Zanky gulped, twiddling with his glasses, "Mr Master, you DO know you're here for a reason, right? Besides, I'd think you like this place, from what I've heard. The fights, the madmen, they're all here."

"And what, you think I'll just fit right on it 'cause of what I am?" War Master rolled his eyes and leaned back in his chair, "I suppose you've got a point. I mean it's not like I can't handle this place, far from it. But, y'know, a bird's gotta fly. I mean it's not much of a help that all sorts of worlds are out there that might have a way to get my...my sister back..." he went silent for a while, then cleared his throat, "Sorry. Emotional baggage. And I know that someone out there is going around as me, leading my crew with my freaking name."

"That's all fine and dandy, Mr Master," Zanky sighed, "But...well, the No-Zone got you good this time. Even you can't deny that. Lord knows the CCTV footage from countless labs and military outposts across the multiverse as you searched for weapons of mass destruction."

"Yeah, but-"

"You left witnesses all over the Autoverse as you found that Genesis Device. And honestly, do I really need to mention the sort of evidence from the Fall of the Primeverse?"

"And HOW would you get some of that?" War Master accused, "That whole universe was wiped clean off the maps! How on earth did you know I was behind it and not one of those God-Mode Eggmen?"

"You told us."

"Oh yes..." War Master sighed, "I did. Alright then. Anything else to get me locked up here for good?"

"Well THEN..." Zanky shifted a bit, "You decided to beat the stuffing out of that green hedgehog, Scourge I think. How many times did you do THAT?"

"Twenty seven," War Master looked incredibly smug now, "That backstabbing son of a female canine..." he shrugged, "I guess it's a good deal of karma. Of all the cell blocks in this limitless world, they put me in the exact same one as the specific Scourge from the old Primeverse. Guess it was a Elder Master given sign that I should just give the guy a few less teeth every once in a while. That two-timing, corrupting, womanising sleezebag deserves much worse, even IF they throw me into isolation every time I do it. They must find it amusing though; they keep putting me back in the same cell block, every time."

"Then why do you want to get out?"

"..." War Master shrugged, "I got bored. I'm restless. I want to get out there and make my sister proud...and alive again. Oh, and train my student to take over when I inevitably become that overly altruistic Traveller git. That bit's important, alright? Get me out of here."

"...I'm not sure I can. I'm not too sure how you're own world sees you, but the No-Zone don't take kindly to this sort of thing. You do this, you get locked up a long time, simple as."

War Master was clearly getting impatient, "Oh for fu-you're a lawyer, aren't you? Work your magic!"

"Sorry, friend. Out of mana."

"...Mana?" War Master tilted his head to the side like a child, "Does that mean you require...economic motivation?"

Zanky looked disgusted, "I'm...going to pretend I didn't hear that."

War Master looked smug again, "I see, so you prefer a whip to a carrot!"

Zanky sighed and got up out of his chair, "Right, we're getting nowhere. Mr Master, this conversation is over."

As Zanky turned to leave, he heard a loud, ear-splitting thumping followed by a splintering sound as the table crumbled into fragments behind him. He turned in fear to see War Master standing over the shattered remains of the table, brows furrowed in fury and his hand encased in a powerful green aura. Somehow War Master had managed to defy the limiter around his neck and was using the sheer power in his being to destroy the table and even snap the cable ties wrapped around his wrists. He glared at Zanky, shaking under his infamous temperament, "THIS CONVERSATION IS OVER WHEN I SAY IT IS. STAY. WHERE. YOU. ARE."

Zanky gulped, fearing for his life, but remained calm and stayed in the room. He had been told about the device around War Master's neck by Amelia, which even now was emitting a silent red light as it seemed to charge something; once any trace of extreme power was used, the collar would charge up and floor the attacker with a single, powerful and well-aimed shock. So Zanky knew that all he needed to do was keep talking. He did so, "Well...uh, wh-what do you want me to do about it? A-any questions?"

"Yes," War Master growled, "So, are you saying that the only way to get out of here...is to break out?"

"Mr Master, sir..." Zanky stammered, "As your lawyer and contact, I cannot suggest or condone such actions on your behalf. I find it...unlikely you will just escape. Your powers are inhibited by that collar and your staff is in the science labs!"

"Yeah, yeah..." War Master sighed, as the collar around his neck began to crackle, "Well, there goes Plan A. I tried to be nice, but the door got slammed in my face. I guess I'll have to leave this to my...associate. And that gem in my staff."

Zanky looked confused, "Who? Who's your associate? And...what gem?"

War Master smirked, "...This conversation IS over."

And with that, the collar released a powerful shock directly to his neck, sending lord knows how many volts through him and causing purple sparks to emit from his person. He grunted momentarily, then went limp and collapsed to the floor. Zanky breathed a sigh of relief and he sunk into the corner of the room, trying to catch what breath he had lost from the ordeal. There was a thumping sound as the zone cop from last time bust into the room, being a blue hedgehog wearing the standard red suit and green armour of the No-Zone cops. 

"That maniac's always fulla surprises..." Zonic growled, "I'll have to get the others to haul him back into the prison. Let's see how he likes a full week in isolation for this sorta thing," he turned to Zanky, "You okay?"

"I am, thank you..." Zanky sighed as Zonic pulled him to his feet, "What was, uh...what was he talking about? What about that gem?"

"I have no idea..." Zonic mused, "MasterSelves are incapable of interacting with any other type of energy outside of their own, unless they train for years on end. Chaos, Sol, Chronos, Crisis, none of them are usable to him. So it can't be them. So..."

There was an odd ringing filling the room soon after, coming from Zonic's utility belt. Zonic himself looked a small fraction unnerved at the prospect, for he recognised that tone with a specific fear; it was his otherwise rarely used Emergency Contact Device, used for the really big emergencies. The last time it sounded off, it sparked the chain of events leading to the destruction of the Primeverse at War Master's own hands. Only he would know exactly what would happen this time. He sighed and reached for the device, plugging it directly into his helmet, "Yes?"

"Mr Zonic, sir!" came the panicked voice on the other side. It belonged to Zilac, and she seemed to be fearing for something very important, "Th-the gem! The gem from the staff! It's going haywire! We've got three No-Zone Cops knocked out already! GET DOWN!" There was a crashing sound, followed by a few more, then the unmistakable sound of the fabric of reality itself tearing at the seams. Zilac spoke up again, "It's gone! Zonic, the gem from that staff is gone!"

"Damn it!" Zonic growled, "War Master's tricked us again! I'll be there as soon as possible. Get Ziona on the scene to take care of the fallen!" He didn't even wait for 'yes sir' that Zilac would inevitably give him and disconnected the device from his helmet, "Looks like War Master tampered with the gem he built into the Staff of Chaos."

"Uh...what IS this staff?" Zanky asked.

"One of his most powerful creations, is what it is," Zonic sighed, "One of the first things he created, and whatever that gem is it gives that staff the power to split worlds directly in two. He had it on him during the Fall of the Primeverse and...well, now there isn't a Primeverse. That dang thing should have been destroyed by now...but it seems it held so much power that he could control it subconsciously."

"You mean it's travelled dimensions?!" Zanky asked, to which a sour Zonic nodded, "Oh no! Where's it gone?"

"Best guess? He probably sent it homing in on his associate for further instructions," Zonic sighed, looking at the Emergency Contact Device again. The device was shaped like a rather large stopwatch, with a decently-sized screen built into it. It showed an image of War Master's 'pupil', his supposed associate; a purple dragon with those same damning black and red eyes.

"And I think I know exactly where that is..."

==Meanwhile, in Another World Entirely==
The sound of wood splintering at the basic material level rang out throughout the forest as War Lilac plunged her bleeding dagger over and over into the log. She was tired, bored and ready to fall asleep at any possible time, but she couldn't. She had to keep going, for whatever reason she didn't even remember anymore. She just had to keep training, keep getting stronger, keep working towards...whatever she was even hoping to accomplish. Hell, even now she couldn't even remember what she was supposed to do. Outside of try to get her Milla back, of course. That bit was ESSENTIAL. But otherwise? She still didn't know, and it was driving her even-more nuts with the stress of it all.

Finally, she called it quits and stabbed the Blade directly into the ground by the side of her, the the green poison-blood from it slowly bleeding pooling around it on the ground. She shambled a few steps forward and slammed down onto the sleeping bag she had set up only a few hours before, tussling and wrestling with it until she was finally within it. It had long turned night in the Dragon Valley, and War Lilac had settled down within the creek area lower down in the valley. She had thoroughly wished she hadn't as she shivered even with the relative comfort of the sleeping bag, as thin and as cheap as it was. It was December...or whatever passed for December on Planet Avalice, War Lilac just couldn't remember, and the temperature had plummeted accordingly. She grabbed the nearby digi-clock she had set up and checked its lower corners to see what the temperature was; -2 degrees Celsius, or 28.4 degrees Fahrenheit...whatever THAT was. She growled and set the clock down, shivering in the sheer cold and only listening to the winds that seemed to drop the temperature further. She couldn't even listen to the relative peace of the running water within the lakeside she was by, as the water had long frozen into a bed of ice, something even that idiotic Neera couldn't stay near for long. 

War Lilac turned over, a frozen tear racing across her sideways face; even for her standards, this was a low point in her life. Alone, unloved, an exile across the multiverse and positively freezing to boot. Nothing to think of, no-one to care for (or care for her, at least) and no way to keep warm outside of this rubbish sleeping bag. She bunched herself up in the sleeping bag in a desperate attempt to keep warm, but nothing came of it. She gave up and stared at the moon peaking out of the trees instead, shivering and sniffling and suffering silently. She was hoping, pleading, praying even. for something or someone to come along. Even if it was an enemy, just SOMEONE to pass the time and give her some semblance of warmth. She sighed, knowing the truth; she had alienated pretty much everyone. So that was never going to happen.

"W-Well..." War Lilac sighed to herself, "A-At least this is better than spending your end-year months in that No-Zone jailhouse..."

"I would...disagree with that..." came a ghostly, ethereal but almost certainly familiar voice. 

War Lilac perked up almost instantly and looked up to find the source of the voice. To her surprise and joy, it was indeed War Master, looming over her in his blue jacket and black-red eyes. He seemed to be...somewhat amused for once, staring over War Lilac like a mentor probably should. War Lilac scrambled out of the sleeping bag - it wasn't like it was keeping her THAT warm anyway - and saluted, "Master! You came back!"

"WAR Master, Lilith," War Master reminded, "And I...haven't come back per se..." War Lilac looked confused until she looked closer at his form; he was transparent, a bit like a ghost, and floating like some sort of projection, "You know I told you of Astral Projection? Emitting a somewhat subconcious form of yourself when your real body is UNconscious? Yes, that is what I'm doing. I'm trapped in the No-Zone Jail and I'm finding it hard to...get out."

"You are?" War Lilac asked, "They just let me out after about a week of being there. They kinda have to. Why not you?"

"Because that wroughtful little creation Amelia has managed to find a way to keep me locked up until Traveller emerges himself," War Master sighed, "Without screwing up the timeline, of course. So unlike you, they run no risk of creating paradoxes if they keep me locked away. They even put this stupid little collar around my neck that shocks me into submission if I use my powers. Heck, how do you think I'm talking to you right now? I tried to be nice, myself knows I tried. But they just rejected my Plan A. I wanted to do it logically, legally, something that would keep me OUT of the No-Zone for good. But they didn't buy it. Said I left too much evidence. So now I have to move on to Plan B."

War Lilac looked confused, "Hang on. What about Blade?"

"In quarantine."

"And the Staff?"

"Taken apart and tested it in the Science Labs."

"Dang..." War Lilac scratched her head, "They've been pretty thorough, haven't they?"

"Well..." War Master looked just a little smug, "That's what I wanted them to do. Because I've got plans with the gem I put on the end. You know, the Chaos part of the Staff of Chaos."

War Lilac was about to ask about this, before a loud noise split through the air and War Lilac covered what passed for her ears until it passed. She arched her head upwards to look at what caused the noise, and her jaw dropped in response. It almost looked familiar, being a purple orb with a ring of eeriness towards it. War Lilac took the orb in her hands; she felt a warm, somewhat pleasant feeling as the orb resonated within her cupped grasp, emitting an aura of purple energy that she swore was intertwined with that of a skull and crossbones. It positively reeked of something...but War Lilac could not for the life of her figure out what that was. She turned to War Master, "Uh...I don't quite follow."

"Of course not," War Master said, his face unchanging, "You lack vision. For the moment, at least. All you need to know is that it will guide you on your quest. That is, your quest to set me free. That bit's important. You know where your alternate lives, right?" War Lilac nodded, "Good girl. Now, your task is incredibly simple, alright? All you have to do is go over to your alternate and...live with her. Celebrate the season with her. And then show her the gem as a sort of present from...an anonymous donor, shall we say. Only then shall she see the light, and we will become truly strong!" he arched closer, "Any questions?"

"Yes, Master," War Lilac stuttered, juggling the gem in her hands, "One...what do you mean by 'celebrating the season'?"

"What do you mean, what do I mean?" War Master cocked his head to the side, "Have your people ever heard of Christmas?" War Lilac paused for a second, then shook her head. War Master looked a tad unimpressed, "Bah. You Avalice natives are as hopelessly uncultured as you are brainless. Right then, I don't suppose you have the time for me to explain it to you..."

"Oh no," War Lilac shivered audibly, "I can sit here, freezing my butt off while you lecture me. Go right ahead!"

"Well..." War Master had a smug look on his face, "If you say so."

War Lilac gulped, "Oh nice going, Lilith..."

==============

DA Link: http://fav.me/das5vqv

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Chapter 2: Crimbo Corruption

== Dragon Valley, Shang Tu territory, Planet Avalice (FP-001)==
Lilac the Half-Dragon smiled lovingly as she placed the last of the ornaments on the tree, stepping back and staring at the creation in all of its glory. She was proud of her work, the finishing touch to the slew of decor littering her treehouse. A quiet place at heart, being a small shed-like construct with wooden floors, rugs everywhere and only a few accessories and objects to its (and her) name. She breathed a sigh of relief with the work over, instead sitting down on her plush red sofa and looking at her two bestest friends do their work; Carol the Wildcat, ex-Red Scarf and Lilac's soulmate in everything but name, was still putting the finishing touches on the tinsel that lined the sofas themselves (as well as the frames around the doorways and windows) while Milla had long finished applying the fake snow and baubles to the rest of the treehouse and was nowhere to be seen. And all around came the noise of a song from the TV, one that conveyed joy and cheer to anyone.

"Alright guys..." Lilac sighed, pulling the Santa hat off her head, "I think we're about done."

"Almost..." Carol said, "Just gotta..." with a flourish, she pinned the last bit of tinsel to the wall and jumped off the stepladder with joy, "Alright! We're all ready for Christmas! I think we cleaned this place up nicely, if I do say so myself."

"And you would," Lilac chuckled, "To think, I didn't know if you would want to celebrate this sort of thing at all. I mean, we only recognised this as a thing about...what, a year ago? Slightly embarrassing. I mean the rest of the planet did..." 

"Yeah..." Carol sighed, looking around, "Where's Milla? Did she find the clothes you got her in Shang Mu?"

"YAY!" came Milla's adorable voice, bursting out of a pile of tinsel by Carol's side, who yelped in shock and scooted behind Lilac instinctively. Lilac chuckled at this. After all, it was nice that both girls were happily wearing the clothes that Lilac had bought for the two of them, indeed in Shang Mu. Carol's clothes Lilac bought to specifically complement her ruby-green fur with a slew of darker greens pasted across her body, wearing a red t-shirt that had white trim and accents, alongside puffy and proper trousers that even covered her otherwise unchanged boots so she wouldn't catch a cold. She even traded her neckerchief for an actual scarf, an adorable red one with white ends at that. Carol seemed to like it, at least as far as Lilac knew...though she DID say no to the dress as expected. Milla's was mainly bought because it was adorable, and for little other reason, with her clothes being a white shirt and skirt with red insulated leggings and a shawl draped over her shoulders. Both wore Christmas hats and accompanying jewellery and seemed to be smiling brighter than ever before.

Milla jumped out of the bundle of tinsel and playfully wrestled with Lilac, giggling all of the way, "I'm gonna get you, Lilac! Rawr!"

"Oh really?" Lilac laughed playfully too, managing to twist herself around so that she was on top of Milla, "Got ya, kiddo. Merry sorta Christmas!"

"Merry Christmas, Lilac!" Milla squeaked, "Isn't this all just so...so amazing?"

"Yeah, it's alright isn't it?" Carol said, taking a sip of her bottle of water while silently calming her frazzled nerves, "Can't remember the last time we got a moment's peace. I mean it's been about two or so years on since we defeated Lord Breadbasket and it's been nothing but extra adventures, celebrity status and visits to the psychiatrist ever since. It's nice to kick back and enjoy something for once, you know?"

"That IS the idea, isn't it?" Milla asked. 

Lilac sighed, "Or at least that's what Sonic told me. It's all about celebrating the last few months of the year, thanking our friends and family by sticking by their sides and rewarding their acts of kindness with gifts and treats."

"And also celebrating the birth of someone," Carol snarked, "But we forget that part."

"I's a time for love and joy and cheer. That's what we're trying to do. I remember Sonic being so a bit pessimistic about it though. One of him, anyway. But I guess that's his problem at this point. Christmas is a time to be happy and joyous towards everyone! I mean, I can't exactly imagine a me who would be callous and uncaring around this time of year!"

Lilac's stream of consciousness was quickly interrupted by a heavy-yet-weak set of bashing noises on the door to the treehouse. Carol turned to look at the closed door, then to Lilac, "Uh...are we expecting anyone?"

"I don't know..." Lilac said, somewhat bemused. The banging happened again, much weaker this time, and Lilac decided it would be cruel to keep them out in the cold. She jumped to her feet, walking towards the door with brisk strides, before grabbing the handle and opening the door. She put on a happy smiling face and chirped, "Hey there! Merry Christm-AARGH!"

Carol broke out in a little bit of panic from Lilac's shriek and bolted to her side to try and protect her. She stopped the moment she got to her side, mouth agape at the sight in front of her. It was Lilac herself! Well, sort of. It seemed to be a darker, more twisted version with darker scales and paler skin. There seemed to be dried blood caking almost every corner of her skin and scales as well as her clothes, which were patchy and little more than a version of Lilac's standard outfit reduced to nothing but rags. Her horns were black, her eyes the same with red pupils and a single stuffed tendril hanging out of the back of her head. She was in a dreadful state even with the rest of the her looks; she was shivering heavily, clearly freezing half to death, and her face was twisted into one of relative agony. Lilac could only stare in fearful shock, her face blank but her mind clearly racing.

"P-Please..." the visitor whimpered, "S-So cold..."

And with that, she twisted her body and slammed onto the floor face-first. Lilac stared down at her; she was clearly breathing, but not even close to conscious and still shivering like a leaf. Lilac had that look on her face, staring off into the void; this hadn't been the first time she had encountered this version of her, and her arrival almost always meant bad news. But the others didn't know that. And they seemed to be just as confused as she was. Milla spoke up first, "Lilac...is that you? Like, a really dirty version of you?"

"Y-Yes," Lilac mumbled, dragging her body inside and closing the door behind her, "Milla, could you return to the bedroom for a bit? I'm not too sure you'd want to see something like this..." Milla whined in disapproval, but she nevertheless did as she was told, walking through the doorframe and closing the door behind her as well. Lilac knew she would disobey at this point and listen just outside the door, but this would just have to do.

Carol spoke up, "Lilac? Do you know this girl? ...Is there something you're not telling us?"

"Sorta," Lilac sounded a bit hollow, "This is something that's gonna take some time to explain. Get some really warm blankets and a bucket of hot water. We don't want her freezing to death."

Carol nodded as she went off to fetch the water. Looking on silently as Lilac hauled her duplicate onto the sofa, she could only whisper, "Dead? Looks like she already is..." under her breath.

==Another Ten Minutes Later== 
Light flooded back into War Lilac's eyes as she slowly came to, a light groan escaping her throat and her vision bleery and unstable. Finally she came to completely, the bright light in her eyes vanishing to be replaced with the warm tones of the room she was in. From the comforting sensation under her back and the warm feeling in her toes, she assumed that she was on a sofa, standing upright, with a blanket draped over her slim frame and her feet placed in a bucket of warm water. She looked down and around herself to find that such a thing was indeed the case. It was a cheery white and red blanket too, with pictures of trees and reindeer and a strange fat man with a white beard and red clothes. The numbing, deathly cold she was experiencing was no longer with her, and a sense of warmth and strange amusement filled her being instead - it hadn't been like that for a long, long time. 

As she arched her head around a few times, looking at the room she was in and admiring its main decor, she suddenly noticed the two girls in front of her. Both were familiar to her, one being a happier and saner version of herself and the other being a green wildcat with rather festive clothes. Both stared at War Lilac, one with a look of bemusement and the other with a look of annoyance, but War Lilac couldn't tell which was what. She sighed and slowly raised her gnarled hand out from under the blanket that had indeed been placed over her body, "Uh...hi?"

"What are you doing here?" Lilac growled, "You know what those No-Zone people said. You're not allowed in the main universe. EVER."

"Well YES, but..." War Lilac flashed a coy smile to her sister, "When was the last time we ever listened to those in charge, huh?"

"Lilac, can you please tell me..." Carol remained calm, but then broke out in hysterics, "What the hell is going on?!"

"It's...complicated..." Lilac sighed, "Basically, after we kicked Lord Breadbasket out of the system, we got approached by another set of planet-protecting people, yeah?"

"We did," Carol nodded.

"Turns out they go beyond planets," Lilac shrugged, "The No-Zone Police keep control across not only our universe but many other universes too."

"I...uh..." Carol was clearly having a poor time trying to comprehend that, her head tilted to the side in a quizzical manner.

"Look," War Lilac spoke up, "There are beyond a trillion universes across what we call the Multiverse. Beyond a trillion of me and trillion of you, all milling around in our little worlds, all affected by our actions each and every day. Like me, for example. I turned out so different 'cause I decided to listen to my ego instead of my instincts when this warmonger prick came 'round. And look at me now!"

Carol remained stubborn, "I don't believe you."

"Y'all don't have to believe me, Carol-girl," War Lilac cackled, "Doesn't change the fact that it's real!"

Lilac growled, "I'm gonna ask you again, why are you here? You know you're not allowed to set foot in this universe anymore. So what's keeping you here?"

"Well..." War Lilac sighed, "I didn't have a place to stay for Christmas. I didn't even know what Christmas even was until...what, five minutes ago? And even then I still don't know all the details. I hear it's a time to spend with family and friends, to revel in the joy of companionship! And...I don't have any friends. Nor any family."

"After what we saw with that other Lilac," Lilac shrugged, "Shouldn't we be a little bit grateful for that?"

"I suppose..." War Lilac shrugged, "But you know what I mean. I don't have my Carol, she's part of this resistance against me. And I have no Milla because...well, I don't talk about my Milla anymore. REGARDLESS, I have nowhere to stay and no-one to stay with. I was freezing to death out there..." she shivered at the mere thought of the cold wracking her frail and thin body, "If I still had my tendrils, they probably would've fallen off, it was so cold!"

"And what, you just want us to give you shelter?" Carol asked, to which War Lilac sheepishly nodded. Carol looked a bit sour, "Guessed so. How do we know we can trust you?"

"She's got a point," Lilac shrugged, "I mean, how do we know this isn't just another attempt to try and steal OUR Milla? Again? You're a psychopath of the highest level, a killer without mercy! You don't care what gets in your way, and you'll strike down anyone who tries!"

"I KNOW!" War Lilac screamed, "That's what makes it so fu-" she stopped herself and sighed heavily, hugging the blanket close, "I'm sorry, Lilac. Really, I am. You think I like being a hopeless murderer? Do you think it's EASY? Do you think just because I skipped those idiotic healing baths, but you did, I have NO excuse?!" Lilac looked forlorn, while Carol remained confused. War Lilac arched her head downwards, "Just please...can I stay? Even if it's just for ONE night?"

Lilac mulled it over in her head, then sighed, "But how do I know I...urgh. Alright. I'm not cruel enough to leave someone out in the cold like that. Yes, you can stay. Just DON'T do anything evil or violent. And stay from Milla. Otherwise I'll sic Carol on you. And she can be VERY wild kitty when she's roused."

Carol quickly stared at her in confusion, but then decided to go along with it, "Rawr."

"I will, I will!" War Lilac said, "You won't even know I'm here! I even got you a present! Look!"

And with that, she pulled something out of a place Lilac wasn't sure of but sure as heck didn't want to know. It was an impressive purple orb, something clearly not from this world even WITH the Kingdom Stone, with an unusual pattern slowly making its way across its surface and various clouds billowing within the orb like a storm. It let off a small amount of warmth and energy, while a bright light and an eerie hum filled the air. Lilac could feel that something was off with the orb, however. She felt that something was just...off about it. Like it should be locked away and never looked at again. She opened her mouth to speak, "What is that? How is it going to kill us? Where did you even get that thing?"

"Got it..." War Lilac stammered, "From a friend. Said it'd help you down the line. Said it'd unlock your true potential and make you REALLY powerful! It'd make you a proper hero to the people again!"

"...Nice try," Lilac sighed, "After what happened with Brevon, I'm in no position to fall for that 'hero' shtick again. What is that thing REALLY?"

"I...don't know," War Lilac shrugged, "In fact, the only thing I do know is that it's probably not supposed to make that noise..."

Lilac was confused at her War version's seemingly random statement, but her face changed from that to sheer terror when she looked down at the gem. It seemed to have reacted to her presence, like an evil force searching for something to very much call its own. The second it had seen Lilac, the gem began to charge something up, getting brighter and louder with every passing second before finally, it let forth an unearthly howl and lunged for Lilac herself. It hit her square in the chest, causing six main white...tubes made out of light to emit from it, rushing forward and meeting Lilac head-on. The tubes, each resembling long ghostly fingers, each phased into a specific part of her body; two in her arms, two in her thighs, one in her chest and one in her forehead, making it look like she was shackled to the gem by these ghostly creations. A humming sound filled the room and Lilac's scared face instantly changed to one of shock and pain. 

She yelled out, grabbing her head and buckling slightly under the strain as the fingers appeared to fill her with some sort of energy. As Lilac continued her cries of pain and fear, her entire body bulged under the strain of the energy, filling out with a rather...unusual set of curves. Her thighs bulged out, becoming surprisingly thick and giving her wide hips in the process, while her arms seemed to tense up and gain a not-unnoticeable amount of muscle mass to them, making them look quite strong. There seemed to be no changes to her stomach, but her chest responded wildly, filling out her shirt in impressive form and ripping the front of it in the process. Her screams turned to fearful grunts as the changes continued, changing her clothes from a light blue to a very dark shade of navy blue and causing her galutes to...balance out with the rest of her new form, culminating with a stretch of her physique until she was as tall as the older War Lilac. Finally, the clearly-aged dragon could only shiver in place as the final changes occurred inside of her head. Her grunts intensified into screams again as Lilac could feel her entire head catch ablaze, consciousness and memories being replaced by purely powerful dark thoughts. Slowly, she lost control to whatever was in the gem and at last she threw out her arms and screamed for the final time as a powerful dark purple aura exploded into life around her and she almost instantly fell to her hands and knees.

Carol was now almost completely lost by the events of the day, her eye twitching as she struggled to comprehend just what sort of scene had taken place before her. Sash Lilac, heroine of Planet Avalice and one of the nicest people she knew, had seemingly become corrupted right in front of her face, aged from 15 to around 21 and given a set of curves that even the supermodels of Shang Mu (even those twice her age) would have been incredibly jealous of. She was still on the floor, panting and wheezing from the strain of the transformation, slowly grasping at the ground while the gem that caused all of this simply sat on the floor, seemingly deactivated. War Lilac, Carol noticed, had gone very quiet and was now blushing incredibly heavily at the new form Lilac had taken. Carol could only guess what sort of emotions she was experiencing at the moment; and none of them seemed to be pure at all.

Lilac got to her feet, rising up unnaturally and speaking with a deranged tint to her voice that wouldn't seem out of place for a Saturday Morning Cartoon villainess, "Aaah! Oh my! What a sensation that was! It was like, I had a million nozzles hooked up to me and they were all filling with with the Kingdom Stone's energy. What a rush!"

"L-Lilac?" Carol asked, "A-Are you okay?"

"Okay?" Lilac asked, head titled to the side. She gained a wide grin and ran her hands down her body, "Okay?! Of course I'm okay! Look at me! I don't know what was in that gem but OOOOOOOH it feels so good!"

Carol turned to War Lilac in rage, "What did you do? WHAT DID YOU DO TO HER?!"

"I don't know!" War Lilac cried out defensively, "I was just told to give the gem to her and await further instructions!" 

"From WHO?!"

"Well..." Lilac cackled, walking up to Carol and playfully wiping at her cheek, "Ever heard of this fellow called 'War Master'?"

"Lilac, that was just a scary story, wasn't it?" Carol gulped, creeped out by Lilac's new form, "Something we were told when we were kids."

"Well let's just say...he exists, he's this really evil piece of work," Lilac cackled, "And he's my master now! With this gem, everything's so clear to me! I know what I've gotta do and what I CAN do! And this BODY!" Lilac looked down at the body in question, "I mean...well, look at it!" She pulled what was supposed to be a pose of some kind, "Do I fill out well or what?"

"Well, I uh..." War Lilac tried to say, the blush still crossing her face. Lilac chuckled, waltzing up to War Lilac and embracing her, snuggling her within her curves.

"Oh, don't worry, War Lilly..." Lilac smiled, "You did a great job, as you were supposed to. You...created me! And trust me..." she arched forward and planted a big kiss on War Lilac's face, "I'm VERY grateful..." War Lilac's face showed a myriad of emotions, ranging from fear to happiness and everything inbetween, before she finally gasped for air and fainted, falling to the floor with a slam. Lilac shrugged and hauled her over her shoulder, "Oh well. Happens, doesn't it? She'll come back 'round in time. All I gotta do is wake her up again and find someone else to be part of our little group. And then all we need to do is break our beloved warmonger out of his little cardboard prison..."

"What're you even saying?!" Carol screamed out, "Lilac, you're being controlled! Get a hold of yourself, please!"

"I'd love to, but..." Lilac chuckled, aiming her hand behind her and concentrating. Without warning, a massive beam of purple energy fired out of her hand and screamed through the air with full force, destroying the door to the treehouse and leaving a large circular hole where it used to be. She turned back to Carol, War Lilac now slung over her shoulder, "I've got things to go and do. All this energy coursing through my body, it's making me feel like a GOD! And don't call me just Lilac, 'kay? Now the whole of Planet Avalice will tremble before...CHAOS LILAC! MWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!"

And with that, she turned and dashed out of the hole in the front of the treehouse, moving incredibly fast and leaving only an aftereffect of her and the still unconscious War Lilac in the room - before that dissipated too. Carol could only continue her stare out of the hole in the wall, beginning to shiver from the invading cold winds leaking through the walls, watching a purple streak of energy jumping up and down within the forest and escaping into the valley. A million questions entered Carol's head, screaming in full force, and none of them had answers. Heck, none of them really could. It all happened so fast and in such an insane manner that Carol could not even comprehend what had just happened to her very best friend. The only thing she DID know, however, was that this 'War Master' was going to pay for what he did to her.

"Carol?" came Milla's timid voice. Carol was snapped out of her trance and turned back to Milla. Surprise, she was in the doorway, having seemingly watched the whole thing, her mouth agape and tears in her eyes. It was clear she was just as lost as Carol, perhaps even more so. She spoke, her voice completely broken and her composure a shambles, "Wh-wh-what happened t-to Lilac? What are we g-gonna do?"

"I don't know..." Carol whispered, looking into the distance. Her hands clenched into fists, "But I know exactly where we're going. It's time to pay those 'No-Zone' Bozos a little visit..."

==============

DA Link: http://fav.me/dasa8dv

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Chapter 3: Unscheduled Shift

== Dragon Valley, Shang Mu Territory, Planet Avalice (FP-001)==
==Two Years Previous==

The snow made a soft crunching sound under the young dragon girl's feet as she slowly made her way through the meadows of Dragon Valley's upper pastures, huddled up for warmth in her coat. It had only been a few months since she and her friends had managed to defeat Lord Arktivus Brevon, sending the maniacal warlord packing - off of her planet, out of her solar system...but not out of her mind. The scars he had left might have healed on the outside, but the ones inside would never heal. They couldn't. How could she heal a memory? Even now, many moons on from when he had strapped her to a glorified lightning rod and shocked the living daylights out of her, from him cutting her tendrils off, from when he had mutated Milla and sicced the result on her and Carol...everything remained. She had lost count of just how many times she had woken up screaming, in tears from the stress of those nightmares. Carol's comfort and Milla's happy warm face could only help keep at them at bay for so long.

The months after that had been interesting, to say the least. Specifically, she was approached by what they called the No-Zone Cops. At the time they had claimed to have been a subsidiary of the Coalition of Planets, helping to keep the myriad of planets across the galaxy safe. But the truth was...somehow more outlandish. They were far beyond just planets. Oh no, they looked out for ENTIRE UNIVERSES. They told her what they referred to as "the truth"; she was only one of an uncountable amount of Lilacs across an infinite number of universes, special and unique in that she was the very first recorded one (FP-001, to be exact), but one of literal trillions nonetheless. Lilac...still couldn't wrap her head around that. And considering her own personal problems, it was perhaps best not to try to figure it out, at least not at the moment.

Nevertheless, with this revelation they did indeed have someone for her to meet. Someone they said would help quell those painful memories before they overtook her entire being. And that someone was a lanky blue hedgehog, roughly Lilac's height, calling himself Sonic. Not the original (which Lilac thought was a shame; it would only be fitting), but one that they deemed to be one of the better examples across the multiverse. Though his relative bitter nature did suggest to Lilac that the others must have been pretty poor in the personality department. Regardless, the two bonded fairly quickly, visiting each other's worlds, playing games and meeting their friends, generally becoming friends-but-no-further kinds of close. Lilac sighed at the amusing memories and continued her waltz through the forest, her path linear and lined with snow-capped trees and a few errant twigs and birds littering the ground. The Dragon Valley NEVER got this kind of snow in the past, and it never looked this pretty as a result. Maybe it as a result of the Kingdom Stone's energies melding into the atmosphere when it broke up. Lilac couldn't tell. But she could tell it was a wonderful day because of it.

"Right..." Lilac sighed, checking the map in her hands, "Where did Sonic tell me to meet him again? It was...by the lake, I'm sure. Right here. So where is he?"

"Yoo hoo! Lilly girl!" came a very familiar voice behind her. She turned quickly to see him, and Sonic the Hedgehog himself was indeed there. As stated before he was a blue anthro hedgehog, his fur an incredibly dark shade of the colour that contrasted in an odd manner with his pale skin and his light green eyes. Normally he wore what he deemed the essentials; that being red fingerless gloves, white shoes with red socks and straps with a buckle on either end, a belt with matching bandoleer and a most unusual set of red sleeves that clipped to the area below his shoulders and were cone-like in their shape and construction. Coupled with the braces attached to his knees and lower legs, his outward appearance was not standard by any manner. This time, however, he had dressed a bit more smartly, with a dark green coat replacing the bandobelt and sleeves along with proper gloves and puffy knee-high socks. Still no pants, though. Lilac could never understand that.

"Sonic!" Lilac yelled, skipping through the snow to get to him and shaking his hand when she got there, "Nice to see you again! I, uh, see you're still enforcing your 'no pants' policy."

"Wha..." Sonic looked confused, though he quickly looked down at his bare blue legs, "Oh yes! Well, that's kinda because I couldn't find any in time. Trust me, I'm freezing my spinballs off out here..."

"...Too much info," Lilac mumbled, to which Sonic quickly apologised, "Right. Why did you invite me out here? Why here? And why now?"

Sonic scratched his head, "Well near the end of the year, we kinda have this gift-related tradition that everyone loves to partake in!" He sighed harshly, "Or at least they DID. So I thought I'd see if you'd like to be a part of it! Come with me. And try to keep up this time, ya know?"

Sonic turned and ran away from Lilac, speeding off into the distance with a blue trail. Lilac sighed - he always liked to rush off into things, kind of reminded her of someone - and Dragon Boosted after him, leaving a long snowless trail from her starting point. She exited the boost and gave chase, managing to keep a steady pace after the cobalt hedgehog who even now was swinging off of tree branches and bouncing over stones. The two continued to amble their way through the forest, enjoying the pleasant colours around them. It was not long, however, until Sonic finally stopped. He skidded to a stop, the heels of his shoes digging into the snow and leaving two trails behind him, while Lilac simply came to a slower stop by his side.

Sonic turned to Lilac, "Well, we're here. Wherever that really is."

Lilac looked a bit miffed, "So, you're saying my gifts are out here, Sonic?"

"Yeah!" Sonic replied, "I figured that, considering we're sorta friends now and my role here is to help you keep everything...in control," he trailed off, then quickly resumed with a clearing of his throat, "I thought I should get you something special. Me and the rest of the team have been working on it all day, and I'm pretty sure you'd love it."

Lilac now looked incredibly touched, "Oh, how sweet of you! Ooh, I can't wait to see what it is!"

Sonic chuckled, taking Lilac for one final quiet walk around the third tree from where they were, coming out into a rather spacious clearing. There, situated in the middle, was a tree. Specifically a pine tree, long and with thin green needles growing out of it, encased in a massive glass orb. The tree was ornately decorated, covered with red glass balls and a number of other trinkets, while a string of blinking lights and some odd mass of light blue foil were wrapped around it. Completing the look was a massive blue star on the very top of the tree and red and gold carpeting around the bottom of the trunk. Sonic shifted both his arms in its direction, seemingly rather pleased with the result, unaware of the look of sheer terror on Lilac's face, "Well, here it is, Lilac! Merry Chri-"

"OHMYGOSH!" Lilac screamed, "THE TREE'S ON FIRE!" 

"Yeah, I know!" Sonic said, unaware of her response, "Like the tinsel? Tails made it herself out of...wait, what?"

Lilac had already began digging her heels into the snow, clutching at something within her hands. Sonic was sure she had on her person before; she said it was part of what they called Kingdom Stone (basically a watered-down Master Emerald, to his understanding) and she had kept it on her ever since the full thing had shattered a few months previous. Apparently it helped that Dragon Boost thing she could use, which Sonic was a little impressed by; that move (basically firing oneself through the air at high speeds) was already more impressive than his Spin Dash at the best of times, but with that it was something else.

The snow around Lilac began to float up and around her as particles, rising in tune to the charge of this devastating move. Lilac spoke out over the inferno, "Don't worry, Sonic! I'll put it out! DRAGON..."

Sonic screamed towards Lilac in both senses of the word, "Lilac, wait! Don't do i-"

"BOOST!"

The scream from Lilac's mouth was titanic, as was the noise that erupted from her location. Sonic vision, already blurred by the immense shockwave from the move, was totally whited out by the sheer mass of snow that slammed into him like a barge ship. Lilac's powerful Dragon Boost, apart from generating a massive amount of energy and wind, had also thrown a large (and quickly melting) amount of snow in the general direction of the tree, obviously with the intent of covering the tree with water as quickly as possible. Thankfully the hedgehog had not been buried under that much of the snow and managed to quickly dig his way to the surface. Lilac was clear on the other side of the tree, having narrowly avoided the avalanche she had created, admiring her "work". The glass covering had shattered, leaving only the soaking wet tree - which promptly sparked and set itself ablaze.

Sonic stared at the tree for a bit, then turned to Lilac and fumed, "DANG IT, LILAC! Haven't you ever seen a Christmas tree before?!"

Lilac looked confused, "...Christmas who?"

"Christmas!" Sonic yelped, "You know, Christmas! CHRIST! MAS! Crimbo, Crickety Mass! The 25th of the last month! Partridges in pear trees, I-"

"Have NO idea what you're talking about," Lilac sighed, completing Sonic's sentence.

Sonic sighed, "So...you haven't heard of Christmas."

Lilac shook her head.

"Has Carol?"

Lilac shook her head again.

"Milla?"

Another shake. Sonic sighed and managed to get himself out of the snow completely, before setting himself down by the ruined remains of the slowly withering tree, "Right, I guess that explains everything. Christmas doesn't exist here. I guess that's why I got so much resistance from that rabbit. That guy was NOT cooperative..."

"Well..." Lilac stumbled over to Sonic and sat down beside him, "Perhaps you could tell me what it is?"

"...Alright," Sonic's perky nature returned to him and he turned to Lilac fully. He pulled a cup of hot coffee out of what Lilac could only assume was hammerspace behind his back and offered one to Lilac. As they both sat there, drinking their coffee, Sonic began his explanation, "Christmas is...argh, where do I even start? Well, centuries ago, back in my world, the humans that resided on it reportedly had what they called a virgin birth - that is, a woman giving birth to a son through deity-related intervention. Ever since then, people have celebrated the birthday of this by being extra nice to each other for a change."

"...Sounds a bit...religious," Lilac said, to which Sonic sighed.

"That was kinda the problem. The whole religious part of it kind of...limited its appeal. I think it's what they call Christianity or something. I wouldn't know - we Mobians aren't allowed by law to practice it and the one time we tried to, it didn't go right at all. A few wires got crossed and then you've got this kid called Eric with too much sugar in this system saying heaven is a planet and the angels are a super intelligent race of angels and the virgin birth was using their technology to..." he sighed hastily, "Sorry, got sidetracked. Point is, we don't follow the religious part of it. In fact, due to the fact humans think of us as inferior - what a shock - we weren't even allowed to celebrate Christmas until just after I was born. Hence why I was born on Christmas Island. It was just called the 25th of December Island before that."

"Well, what about the other things, then?" Lilac asked like a child, "The tree and the snow and these things you call candy canes and Santa."

"Well, for most humans, those who don't take all that stuff word-for-word, they celebrate it as a time for general kindness. Giving each other gifts and enjoying each other's company, that sorta thing. You'll get a lotta people who will happily complain it's too commercialised, that all we do is buy lots of stuff we don't want or need, because we're told to do so. I..." he sighed, "Look, that has crept in over the years. But that's not why we celebrate it. We celebrate it 'cause we like the people around us, it's being thankful that they're still around to pick you up off the ground and dust you off when you fall. That, to us..." Sonic scooted closer to Lilac and put his arm around her, "Is what Christmas really means. It isn't giving gifts, or donating to charities because the atmosphere of the thing tells ya to. It's about friends and families, and lettin' them know how much you care."

"...But I don't have family," Lilac sighed, "I barely have any friends. I have Carol, and Milla and...that's it."

"Neither do I..." Sonic said, looking out amongst the trees, "All my family are dead, insane or I can't see 'em anymore. And most of my friends just sorta hang on for their own reasons, I gotta admit. All I really have is Tails, Kate, Lowell I guess, Frost...and you, of course."

"Oh Sonic..." Lilac blushed, "...Wait, isn't Frost your girlfriend?"

"...OH!" Sonic realised the implications of what Lilac said and whisked his hand away, "Y-Yeah! It's not like I was putting the moves on...ya know, I-I was..." he trailed off, eventually stopping, "Look, we're kinda just friends. And I think it'd only be easy to explain this whole holiday if you experienced it first-hand instead of me telling ya. Tell ya what; how 'bout you celebrate this year's Christmas with me and the team? I'm sure Lowell can spare you a room. You can even bring those other two if you'd like..."

"I'd love it!" Lilac cried out, hugging Sonic, "I'll get the Red Scarves to clean this up, though. I kinda have a few of them wrapped around my finger ever since I kicked Prince Dail back into shape. Thanks, dude!"

"Y-your welcome..." Sonic chuckled. And with that, the two got to their feet, dusted the snow off of their backsides and sped off into the slowly approaching night.

==Shopping District #3, New Hiroizumu, United Federation, Terra (SH-123)==
=resent Day (21st December, 20XX, 1:31PM)==

"Come on, Candy Cane!" Sonic yelled, dancing around the 'bot with that same smirk on his face, "That all ya got? Get ready for a festive freakdown!"

Katie-Ka sighed, pulling her fist out of the robot she had just made a hole in, tossing the body to one side and sprinting after the next one in front of her. She growled as she rushed towards it; how could The Trickster invade the city now? So close to this celebration...whatever it was? Even to her...loose understanding of the various celebrations of this world, she could get it into her head that this was what Sonic would consider "tasteless". Trying to enslave the people on such a happy holiday. There mere cheek of it! Katie-Ka's growl became a scream as she swung her mighty fists straight into the next robot's head, spreading wires all around the exit wounds. The robots were designed in very much the only way The Trickster could really design them around this time of year; already merely yellow-and-purple recolours of stolen "Egg Pawns" (or at least that's what Tails told her), the robots had been given a more festive look with a white and red paintjob, as well as brown arms and an orange "carrot" nose vaguely stuck to each one. Katie-Ka didn't care at all, in fact if anything it sort of annoyed her; made them harder to see amongst the white snow in the district.

She continued her assault, pulling her fist out of this husk and grabbing it by the ankles. Narrowly missing a swing from another robot's candy cane bludgeon, Katie-Ka swung the broken robot around like a proper plumber, smashing the attacker to pieces and knocking down several more of the beasts surrounding her. Finally, she let the robot go, watching it sail through the air and crash into a group of other robots like bowling pins. Satisfied with her work, she continued onwards, fighting her way through the vast army of the robots between her and The Trickster. The guy certainly knew how to get on their nerves and slow them down; a number of the more elite robots (elite in this case meaning slightly better weapons and antlers glued to their heads) had taken hostages that had been shopping a few minutes previous. Katie-Ka pressed onwards, closing in on one of the hostages and delivering a brutal haymaker to the creature holding her up. It toppled, flooring both it and the person it was holding; a pale-pink female hedgehog wearing goth clothes.

Katie-Ka was surprised, talking over the noise of the battle, "Miss Rose? How did you get captured by the enemy?"

"Off day, rookie!" Thorn said, grabbing her dark green hammer from the ground, "Everyone has 'em! How 'bout I make up for it?"

"Go ahead," Katie-Ka said extra seriously, "Just get us to The Trickster so we can shut his robots down for good!"

Thorn nodded and charged forward with the echidna girl, swinging her hammer into the head of the nearest robot - and crushing it on impact. As the two charged headfirst into the fray, however, Tails and Sonic were still further back in the fray, fighting with the robots in the back and trying their best to save more of the hostages. Tails in particular was using her technology to the best of her abilities; while she was not averse to knocking a robot's midsection off with a spin of her tails, she was more at home with shocking them into submission if the need came. Now, however, she was jamming creations into their heads, scrambling their inner circuits and forcing them to fight their contemporaries, as well as blasting the odd robot away with her trusty arm cannon. But Tails sadly wasn't much of a fighter, let alone in her natural habitat, and it wasn't long before she seemed to be overwhelmed. Even then she did not buckle, firing into the crowd with her cannon, but alas it seemed she was just surrounded. She called out amongst their incessant beeping, "Uh, Bro? Could do with some help here!"

"Got it! CHAOS CONTROL!"

A wide green pulse rang out amongst the robots, passing through Tails with a strange sensation but otherwise leaving her unharmed. The robots that had closed in around Tails had now completely frozen; not just paralysed, completely still like their time had stopped. As it indeed had. Before long, each robot around Tails was lifted into the air with a loud and painful sounding clang, before each exploded with only a trail of blue energy between each one to show what exactly was attacking them. Soon, time resumed and the parts of each robot slammed into the ground, with a very familiar hedgehog standing triumphantly on top of the biggest pile.

Tails smirked, "Thanks, bro."

"Welcome," Sonic gave her a thumbs-up, "Now come on! We've got a Trickster to pull off stage!"

Tails nodded in agreement and, taking Sonic's hand in her own, started twisting her tails and flying right over the robots towards the middle of the courtyard this whole battle was taking place within. Sonic had grabbed Tails' arm cannon on takeoff and was already blasting random robots below the two, managing to free at least two of the hostages in the process, looking at both Katie-Ka and Thorn smash their way through the crowd and saving the rest with a goofy smile on his face. Eventually the four regrouped right in the middle, surrounded by robots but nevertheless ready to take on as many as needed. And there, in his carnival themed Egg-o-Matic, was The Trickster himself. A strange man, clad in a business suit garishly coloured in a striped yellow and purple pattern (complete with waistcoat and bowtie) and a large headdress that exploded into many "spines" with bells on them. He grimaced at the group under his domino mask and spoke up, his voice a tinged cackle more than anything, "No, no, no! You weren't even supposed to be in town today!"

"Sorry to rain on your parade, Tricky Dick!" Sonic chuckled back, "But we don't take kindly to your yuletide traditions!"

"Yeah, attacking us and trying to blow us up with explosive presents near Christmas?!" Thorn smirked, "For shame."

"WHAT?!" Trickster sounded truly offended, "It's the perfect time to pull this stuff! I mean, come on...is ANYONE really happy at this point anymore? They just keep dreading this month because of how expensive it all gets! All the presents, all the turkey and the stuffing and the decor and all that garbage! I don't think I've seen a SINGLE happy person around Christmas time!"

"Well, they probably WON'T be happy when you strap them to bauble bombs," Tails shrugged.

"...Okay, I'll giva ya that one," Trickster sighed, "But still! Think of it; there ARE people who hate this time of year. Fulla kitsch and overeating and expenses up the whazoo! No time for smiles. So I thought I'd just pop down and give them something to smile about! Come on, I even painted all my robots to look like snowmen! Do you realise just how long that took me, especially with my sidekick in prison?!"

"Yeah..." Sonic said with a sort of glee, "Why d'ya think it's fun when we trash 'em? Katie, Thorn, if you could do the honours..."

The two nodded silently. Katie-Ka grabbed Thorn and, with the same motion she threw the robot, launched Thorn towards the Trickster. He could only scream like a little girl as Thorn raised her pneumatic hammer and brought it down directly on his ship, completely caving the front of it in and bringing it to earth with a firey crash. The signal is sent out slowly stopped and the various snow robots across the plaza simply dropped like stones, unmoving and deactivated. Trickster whined another, "Noooooo..." as his Trickster-Mobile sparked its last and went totally silent.

"Wow, Trickster," Sonic chuckled, "Even by your standards you went down easy this time. Ever think you should probably give up for a bit? Give us some time off? Perhaps team up with Dr Wiley?"

"Oh yes, because that went SO well for that other Eggman, didn't it?!" Trickster snarled in response, before he stopped, "Oh wait...he managed to reboot the whole universe and got plot armour for his troubles. Hey, thanks for the idea, chump!" Trickster jumped out of what remained of his machine and ran off, "This isn't the last you'll see of me! The Trickster will have his-OOF!"

In a move that caught pretty much everyone by surprise, The Trickster collapsed to the floor mid-run. The four quickly approached his body, which had a smoking purple orb nearby. Tails checked him over, "He's alive. Just knocked out. Some sorta impact wound on his head, nothing fatal but more than enough for a concussion."

"That is...unusual," Katie-Ka said in her robotic tone, "Whatever hit him. Was it this thing?"

Tails looked at the purple orb that was a few feet away from Trickster's body. It was of medium size, clearly chipped into a rough orb-like shape. Gases swirled around inside it and the whole thing gave off an aura. Tails gulped, "The heck's this thing?"

"I dunno..." Sonic said, shivering a bit, "But it's giving me the willies just looking at it."

"I hear ya," Tails gulped, "Makes you wanna run, like it's forbidden. And I can't quite shake the feeling that I've seen it before..."

"Hmm..." Katie-Ka hummed. She reached to the side of her sunglasses and pressed a button on the side of them. the two projectors on either side blanketed the orb in a purple grid, scanning the orb before the grid was retracted, "Well, I have no idea what the orb is. It is not showing up in any of our databases - it is a foreign object from beyond this world."

"Well..." Thorn sighed, "Should we leave it alone? Just in case? I mean, uh...it probably shouldn't do that..."

The team all turned to look at the orb as Thorn was speaking, each one of them slowly backing away from it in caution. The orb had began to glow even brighter, and now was slowly rising into the air with a powerful wail emitting across the courtyard. The sound was deafening, with Sonic just barely hearing someone shout "Hey! HEY!" in his voice. It was Zonic, rushing towards the team with his hand outstretched, "Don't touch the orb! It'll-"

Too late. The orb let out an ear-splitting shriek and fired a beam of energy in Thorn's general direction. She was not fast enough to dodge the bean and, struck in the chest, was slowly dragged into the air by whatever force resided within the orb. The energies were surrounding her, forming long serpents of energy that burrowed into her various appendages and seemed to fill her full of energy, causing her body to fill out and become engorged with muscle. Thorn was grunting in pain, staring at the gem in fear as it slowly formed a dark purple aura around her and continued the bulging of her body. Her fur darkened to a near purple, as it had once been, while her clothes got even darker in their shades of black while metallic spikes formed wherever they possibly could. Throwing her arms out and managing to let go of the gem, Thorn let out an unearthly howl, followed by maniacal cackling, "Rhahahaha! Oh, that felt good! Thanks for the distraction, kiddos! It was just enough to set me free! I mean, look at me now! I was some ugly pink brat and now? I've got the body of a god!"

"Thorn?!" Sonic cried out, "What's going on?!"

"Mere Thorn no longer..." Thorn smirked, her eyes glowing green and her hands balling into fists, "Say hello to CHAOS THORN! And I'm afraid my new role is far more important than any of you. I wish I had the time to kill you all for the glory of my new master...but I don't. Gotta go! Got a War Master to break free!"

And with that, there was a thunderclap in the air as Thorn vanished in a puff of smoke and a rigorous amount of light. All that was left was the orb itself, falling to earth with a slight clinking sound before it eventually came to rest. The group stood there in total silence, trying their very best to process what exactly had just happened. Katie-Ka, after a while, stepped forwards and pressed the button on the side of her sunglasses and scanned it again, before it was retracted and she turned to the others, "There's no energy left in it. It should be safe to handle now."

"Good," Tails said, flying over to the orb and poking it with a stick, before grabbing it and holding it in both hands, "It looks like I've got a million scans to run on this thing..." She turned to Sonic, who had gone slightly pale, "You okay, bro?"

"Y-Yeah..." Sonic said, shaken, "It's just...ya know, War Master."

"Oh..." Katie-Ka said, turning the breathless Zonic, "Has he returned, Sir?"

"I'm afraid he has," Zonic panted, hands on his knees and trying to catch his breath, "I don't think he took too kindly to the idea of being stuck in the No-Zone Prison in Christmas. He's still there, but he said some...cryptic things. Said the gem in his Staff was going to help get him out. I followed it to his student, but all I found there was a broken treehouse and a very confused and angry Carol. Said the gem was brought in by the student and corrupted her Lilac into something...mature. I followed the energy trail to this universe, but it looks like I was too late. It seems War Master is putting together a powerful team, using the energies of the gem to corrupt them. And...fill them out. That's a bit creepy."

"Right..." Sonic hummed, "Looks like we've got a little Crimbo mystery on our hands! Tails, get that orb down to your lab and scan it for anything we can use to identify it."

"On it!" Tails said, grabbing the orb and rushing off towards the Mystic Ruins with it.

"Kate," Sonic turned to Katie-Ka next, "Go check with your superiors. We need to be ready if War Master does make a return."

"Count on it."

Katie-Ka turned to walk towards her base of operations, while Zonic turned to his SH-123 counterpart, "Well? What're you gonna do?"

"What do ya think I'm gonna do?" Sonic sighed, lifting The Trickster's unconscious body onto his shoulder, "Someone's gotta clean this place up!"

"Nah, leave it," Zonic said, reaching for his communication device, "I need to get some No-Zoners down here anyway, to help scout out the area. They can help clean them away."

"Uh, shouldn't you be in the No-Zone?" Sonic asked, "Making sure War Master doesn't escape?"

"Most likely," Zonic sighed, "But that darn Trickster sicced some of his robots on me before I got here. I'm not used to one-on-many combat like you are. Blasted things busted my dimension travelling device, so I'm not going anywhere..." he quickly sighed, "And, well, I've never really gotten the time to explore this place, considering the amount of trouble you put us through, never mind around the holidays. If I'm stuck here, I might as well use the downtime to...look around, you know? We don't tend to have the time to celebrate these sorts of holidays."

"WELL, why didn't you say so?" Sonic asked, really excited, "I can show you around, maybe see if anyone knows of the gem or if anyone's seen this associate of his. Come on, and we might just be able to get some candy canes!"

"Candy canes?" Zonic asked, "...What're those?"

Sonic stopped his skipping away into the town, turning to Zonic mid-stride, "Uh...quick question. How knowledgeable are you about Crimbo? ...Not very?" Zonic shook his head, to which Sonic looked somewhat amused, but mostly annoyed. He sighed, "Well then...here we go again."

===============

DA Link: http://fav.me/dasecmt

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Chapter 4: Day of Payment

"Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to the No-Zone Police Zone Radio...uh, Zone! With your host, the lovable Zanilla. Today, we have a very special request indeed. Yes, friends, we have a request straight from the mouth of the devil himself - War Master! This is pretty much the first time we've ever had a request from a psychopath, but oh well! He requested a...rather surprising tune from him. The song he would like us to play is This is Our Time by Miles Malone. He said it was a very good tune, and it fit his actions quite well."

"Oh, don't I know it, kiddo. Play the music."

The first opening bars of the song began to ring out amongst the prison speakers as War Master began his long, shuffling trek down the corridor. This was it, the day he was to be locked in that infernal rubber room for a week. As much as War Master had visited the place over the months he had been in and out of the No-Zone, each time felt like a fresh new hell all over again. That was the point of them, after all. To break the broken, though the disturbing silence and the sheer loneliness. No person. No sound. Just YOU. War Master was being marched down the corridor to the room, with no less than three No-Zone guards surrounding his handcuffed and shock-collared form - Zilac and Zhianna in the front, and the much despised Zhris in the back. He was really only picked because, much like the deal with Zanky, no-one else wanted to guard him. But even then, the insufferable child was looking smug as War Master turned to look at him. He thought War Master was totally incapable of escaping this time.

"~Babe you know about the autumn...when the leaves are falling down...yeah~"

But he thought wrong. War Master knew what was waiting for him. His contact with War Lilac via astral projection had told him everything. The plan had been a success of the highest order; not only was War Lilac's own powers slightly amplified by the swirling powers within the gem, not only had she managed to corrupt the other Lilac as he had asked, but one of his own creations had been warped and was now happily along for the line. Even now, as War Master and the guards plodded down the poorly lit green corridor, the group he had managed to create was now drilling straight through the walls on the opposite side, planting all manner of explosives. Waiting for just the correct time.

"~Oh and all the pretty flowers...slowly wither to the ground.~"

Finally, War Master saw the sign that the whole plan was ready to be executed; with a clanging noise, a single golden ring was pushed through a gap in the wall and it fell to the ground. The guards looked surprised at the event, but War Master's frown turned to that of a rather perturbed smile. He dove for the ring, arms outstretched, and he caught it as he slid across the floor. As he came to a stop on the ground, body facing the confused guards, Zhris took the opportunity to quickly run up and kick the smiling War Master in the stomach. He grunted in pain, sighing as he cradled his aching stomach with the ring in hand, while Zhris looked over him with a sneer on his face. He barked, in a not-at-all-intimidating voice, "Get up, crimi scum. Stop playing around!"

"Me? Playing around?" War Master cackled silently, "Cobblers. I've got a reason to be jolly. Look at this!" he held up the ring, "One crisp, golden ring straight from SH-001! I could get...ooh, about seventy two packs of ciggies with this bad boy! That's about...let's see...about twenty escape attempts. I'm rich!" he arched his head to the wall, "It's Payday, kiddos!"

Nothing. There was an eerie and awkward stretch of silence with War Master's last statement. They looked around, clearly expecting something or someone to burst out of the walls and attack them. But nothing. Zhis looked at the other two, then sighed and reached for his baton. A nasty one, War Master noted, and one of Zhris' own making, made of wood and with nails pounded into its head. War Master gulped as Zhris slowly approached him, baton in tow. He scrambled backwards in genuine fear, screaming at the top of his lungs; "I SAID IT'S PAYDAY YOU FU-"

*KA-BLOOEY!*

War Master could only ignore the sharp pain in his leg as he tumbled head over heels, thrown into the opposite wall by the explosion that flashed in front of his eyes like a burst of fire. As he got up into a sitting position, too pained to stand, he could see the guards scattered across the room. Zilac was basically out of sight, and thus safe as far as he was concerned, while Zhianna was knocked to her knees by the explosion and Zhris has been bowled completely over, but still scrabbling for his baton. To War Master's repressed delight, a four-man group came streaming out of the new gap in the wall and began approaching War Master with relative speed.

In front was War Lilac, his greatest student. She seemed to be leading the pack, gunning after Zhris with the sort of savagery that War Master had installed into her, wildly slashing at his form with her knife as he rolled out of the way and dashed for cover. After her was the corrupted Lilac he had set War Lilly out to convert, as it were, with her assets and the very power of the gem emitting from her body. She was busy holding back Zilac via projecting a shield with one hand and blasting her with a laser with the other, all with a smug grin on her face. Third was one he recognised very much, a corrupted version of Amy Rose. Well, a further corrupted version, as far as he remembered, who was busy driving her pneumatic hammer into Zhianna's stomach, quickly taking her out of the fight. Finally, obscured in the smoke of the explosion, seemed to be a fourth person, a hedgehog in a jacket, brandishing what seemed to be a AR pattern rifle with a double drum mag. Whoever he was, he seemed to mean business.

The fight continued quickly, almost without any pause for tactic; Chaos Thorn and Chaos Lilac were ensuring Zilac and Zhianna stayed out of the fight, while War Lilac and the unknown hedgehog were trying to keep the troublesome Zhris down. Zhris had managed to grab a laser rifle from one of his colleagues and was now firing on the two from behind cover. War Lilac's limited range weapon (as in, a knife) kept her behind cover, while the fourth member of the group kept him suppressed with bursts from his own rifle. Finally, Zhris has to reload his weapon, jumping behind cover to do so, and War Lilac took the chance as she always did. Screaming towards the hated No-Zone member, she acted without hesitation and slashed at his gun-toting arm, sending it flying. Another quick slash later and Zhris' headless body slumped to the floor, leaving the group alone.

"Heh, not the most festive thing I've ever done..." Chaos Lilac said, still keeping her grin, "But it wasn't half fun!"

"Well, butter my biscuits and pardon my Klingon," War Master said, "If it isn't my brand new crew! A little help, please?"

"Ya could've said thanks, you know..." War Lilac sighed, cleaning the red blood off of her knife and tending to War Master. She grabbed him by the shoulders and attempted to hoist him to his feet, but he screamed out in pain and War Lilac had to set him down again. She quickly looked down to see the cause of the problem, specifically seeing it just painfully out of his left thigh, "Dang it! A bit of the metal wall support's gotten stuck in his leg! Someone help keep it down so I can get it out!"

"Got it," Chaos Thorn said quickly, leaving the heavily wounded Zhianna to suffer silently. She ran up to War Master and held his leg down straight. With a single, fast and vicious movement, War Lilac ripped the fragment out with a spurt of blood and a sort of squelching sound - not that anyone could hear it over War Master screaming again and swearing up a storm. Chaos Thorn sighed, digging out some bandages from somewhere on her person and wrapping them around the wound, while War Lilac kept pressure on it. Chaos Thorn spoke quickly, "Look, you're gonna be fine, okay?" she turned to War Lilac, "I told you we shouldn't have let him measure the C4..."

"What?!" War Lilac said, "I didn't know he was a scumbag! Even War Master didn't tell me about him."

"Pardon?" War Master asked, looking angry, "Who measured the C4?!"

War Lilac sighed, then moved out of the way so War Master had a better view of the hedgehog with the rifle. With the smoke clearing, he could finally see exactly who it was..and he hated it. It was indeed a hedgehog, one a sickly green in colour and shade, with hideous red sunglasses and a white vice suit to call his own. He wore black shoes, boots and - even though he wore a red shirt - War Master knew he had two lightning-like scars on his chest. War Master growled, "Had to be YOU, Scourge..." Scourge took a single look at War Master, then scoffed and around to look down the corridor.

"Master, relax!" War Lilac said quickly, brandishing her knife, "And keep still. I gotta get this thing off if we wanna go anywhere..."

There was a click as the bulky shock collar around War Master's neck dropped to the ground. War Master sighed, feeling the repressed energies of his kind well up inside of him again. It truly, to him, felt like he was a god once more. As he rubbed the sore area around his (lack of a) neck, there was a blaring sound that drowned out the song on the speakers and was followed by an urgent voice, "ALERT. ALERT. WAR MASTER IS ESCAPING, I REPEAT, WAR MASTER IS ESCAPING. ALL NO-ZONE ANTI-MASTERSELF GUARDS DOWN TO CORRIDOR A23 ASAP!"

"Ahh, brilliant," Chaos Thorn sighed, "Come on, we have to leave!"

"Aww..." Chaos Lilac sighed, "I wanted to see the No-Zone look at my body. I mean, it'd distract them, right?"

"Now, Lilly!" War Lilac growled, before she stopped, "Ooh, I got to use that name for once! Come on, let's go!"

"Urgh, fine!" Chaos Lilac said, heading for the hole in the wall, "Scourge, cover us!"

Scourge was the next in line to sigh, but he did as he was told and threw a smoke grenade down just as the extra guards came storming down the corridor. The smoke bellowed out, covering their escape as they hauled an endlessly complaining War Master through the wall and out of the building. They kept going, running through the various corridors and weaving their way through confused No-Zone guards, zapping those who tried to intervene into submission. Chaos Lilac led this time, blasting at the No-Zone guards with a playful smirk on her face, while Scourge was in the back firing at the remnants with his rifle and War Lilac carried War Master with Chaos Thorn grabbing his other arm. The group advanced, down into the vehicle station, where they broke into a sprint towards the higher levels. There, sitting hidden amongst a number of No-Zone support carriers, was what could only be a open-top sports car, black in colour and with thick panels bolted to the sides.

"Blimey!" War Master cried out, "Where did you find this?!"

"I dunno," War Lilac shrugged, "The head of the No-Zone just sorta had this. One hotwire later, and it's ours. Let's face it, it's pretty much the only way we're gonna make a speedy getaway."

"Clever girl!" War Master smirked, "But I have a better idea. Now I have that infernal collar off...well, get me in the car."

The group complied, putting him in the backseats with Chaos Lilac while Chaos Thorn and War Lilac manned the front seats. Scourge also clambered into the back, setting the bipod on his rifle down so he was resting the gun on the boot lid. War Lilac fiddled with the switches and keys, to little success. She finally stopped, "Ah yes, uh...does anyone know how to drive a car?"

War Master looked blank, "...You got a car when you can't drive one?"

"N-No!" War Lilac whined, pointing to Chaos Lilac, "I thought SHE would know!"

"Honey, you know cars don't exist in our 'verse," Chaos Lilac sighed.

"And I haven't passed my test yet!" Chaos Thorn called out, "Who among us can drive?"

Another sigh escaped Scourge's throat and he jumped out of the back of the car. He walked briskly to the front, jabbing War Lilac's shoulder with the barrel of his gun, then signalling her to get out of the driver's seat. War Lilac did so, and Scourge responded by shoving his rifle into her own hands and jumping into the driver's seat. He turned the key once and stepped on the clutch, and the car roared into life with a chugging sound. War Lilac sounded satisfied, jumping into the back of the car, "Oh yeah, I remember why we hired him, now!"

"'Least he isn't completely useless..." War Master sighed, focusing a green orb in his hand and then aiming it behind him, "Right, Green Goblin, I'm gonna need you to keep this chariot straight the moment we hit 30MPH. I'm gonna make sure we'll get out of this in one fragment. Seatbelts on, everybody! GO!"

Scourge did as he was told, slamming his foot into the gas pedal. The car responded with a lurch, then moves forwards as quickly as it could, gaining speed as it went. Then, as the speedometer clicked over to 30, War Master focused a final time, the orb in his hand getting bigger and bigger. Finally, his eyes shot open, now nothing but a green glow, and the orb was activated. The sheer speed that was given off was immeasurable as the orb turned into a massive laser, completely shattering the laws of physics and propelling them straight through the air. They dashed through the garage doors, which merely flew off its hinges, and straight into the sky above a massive number of No-Zone Guards. They could only stare on in confusion and fear as the car soared above them, the rushing sound and the shockwave knocking most of them off of their feet. Chaos Thorn, while otherwise pinned to her seat by the force, managed to throw her left hand forward and fire a sort of signal forwards. 

On her command, a portal opened up, blue in colour, and the crew sailed right on through it with War Master screaming at the top of his lungs; "YEEEEEEEEEEE-HAAAAAAAAAAAA!"

And with that, the portal closed. The No-Zone guards below could only stare up in a sort of horror; they knew full well exactly who that voice belonged to. And it was never a good sign. One of them turned to her superior, "Zarol? Was that..."

"Yes Zilla, it was," Zarol sighed, "This can't be good..." 

==War Master's Hideout, The Void==
==Seven Minutes Later==

War Master's hideout was in no mere dimension. It didn't inhabit anything that the No-Zone could repeatedly, reliably track him down to. Oh no, he knew it would have to be somewhere where they COULD do...but they never liked to. The Void. The space between universes. Thankfully not infinite, but rather large. There was almost nothing there. No up, no down, no space or time. The Time Lords called it The Void, the Eternals called it the howling. Some even called it Hell. But War Master called it home.

There were a few asteroids and planets within the void, ones mostly brought in from destroyed or decaying universes where they had just leaked out and into the Void. Pretty lucky for War Master that his destruction of the Primeverse had knocked the shattered remains of Knothole to the space between the No-Zone and Universe SH-666; even the strongest No-Zone Guard, including the ever-troublesome Zonic, would rather not visit a whole universe that was literally demonic. A few coats of paint (and an oxygen bubble to breath in) and it was his to call his own. War Master had done quite the renovation, to the point it resembled little of the original outlook. Now it was all one giant room, more industrial to suit his style and painted black with a grey carpet and white lines painted into patterns on the walls. The group he had put together were sitting around the coffee table in the middle of the room, each on four sofas dotting the room, doing their own things. War Lilac was lying on her side, her arms wrapped around Chaos Lilac and her head snuggled on the latter's assets, to which Chaos Lilac looked elsewhere while slowly stroking War Lilac's ruined hair. She was talking with Chaos Thorn, who was lying on the second sofa while her hammer took up the third. On the fourth was Scourge, who had set his rifle down and was slowly cleaning it.

War Master entered the room through the door to the Master Bedroom, back in his old clothes and his wound properly bandaged. He inhaled sharply and let out a sigh, walking towards the group and beginning to speak, "Well...I suppose I should thank you all, eh? For saving my skin. Though I must say..." he looked at Scourge and grimaced, "For the record, this does NOT make us even." Scourge scoffed again and turned back to his rifle, while War Master straightened his bandoleer and cleared his throat, "Look, I wasn't just in there for no reason...well actually yes I was but that's besides the point. I didn't end up in there from some daring battle, someone just knew where I was laying low. SOMEONE screwed me over. And I'm going to make sure I find out who ratted me. Get some sleep, all of you. I'll find out and drum up a plan in about...twelve hours."

"Twelve hours?" Chaos Lilac asked, "Why not take a break, dear?"

"Because SOMEONE has to pay for locking me up!" War Master bellowed, "Even if I have to steamroll another universe to do so. Why else would I give you all the time to relax. I don't want tired gang members on my roaring rampage of revenge, alright? So...use these twelve hours well..."

He turned, storming out of the room and slowly closing the door behind him. The other three sighed in relief, Chaos Thorn among them, "Well, that's that done. What're we gonna do the next twelve hours?"

"Sleep?" Chaos Lilac yawned, "You don't look this good without a good amount of shuteye, ya know?"

"Really? You're STILL going on about your looks?" Chaos Thorn sighed, "Couldn't you give it a rest already? I mean, I got the muscles outta this. YOU look like you're half-made out of silicon!"

"Well I don't mind..." War Lilac murmured, "And going by what I read in your No-Zone bio, you shouldn't mind. And I very much doubt HE..." she pointed to the ever-silent Scourge, "Doesn't mind either. I get the impression he's like that because he's too stunned by your...physiques. Or Master scooped his vocal chords out in prison, I forgot what he told me about that..."

War Lilac sighed, and released herself from Chaos Lilac's grasp. She got a burst of energy, zipping around the room while humming a broken tune to herself, sliding to her knees in front of a cupboard in the base. She opened it, taking out a cardboard box full of what seemed to be shiny trinkets, and started busying herself hanging them around the room and a large green tree she had set up. The tree, a green pine-cone one at that, seemed to be coming along nicely, with decor ranging from shiny glass balls to a shiny foil wrapping around it and even blinking lights around it and the room as well. Chaos Thorn was the first to speak up, "Uh, what're you doing?"

"I'm decorating the tree," War Lilac said, "I mean it's still Christmas, isn't it?"

"Crimbo?" Chaos Lilac sighed, "Why're you celebrating that?"

"Why not?" War Lilac said happily, "From what I saw, you and the others LOVED Crimbo! You decorated your own treehouse with all this sparkly spangly stuff!"

"Yeah, that was the old me," Chaos Lilac croaked, "The stupid me, the too happy me. The me that got a million volts up her...well, ya know. Now ME, I don't have the time to celebrate that nonsense."

"Blimey, that gem really DID warp your mind..." War Lilac sighed, finishing with the decor, "Just wanted to do something a little different, ya know? War Master told me all about Crimbo. Even he loves this time of year, ya know! He says he is only on his best behaviour around this time of year."

"Oh yeah?" Chaos Lilac grumbled, "And what did he tell you?"

"He told me that Christmas was a time where everyone could and should be happy," War Lilac chimed, "For people to enjoy their time with their families and reward them with gifts!"

"Urgh, I feel like I've heard that a million times already!" Chaos Lilac growled, "And it's all trash anyway. Christmas is a time for shop-owners and company CEO's to get rich, end of. I dread to think how much that little fox gremlin Mayor Zao profits from it now that it's officially a thing on Planet Avalice. Did you know he rigged the votes to get in power and then abolished voting afterwards?"

"'Course I do..." War Lilac sighed, "Well, I didn't know such miserable feelings were buried under all that happy crappy stuff."

"'Course it was!" Chaos Lilac said, "You know what it was like going up against Brevon. You think I just FORGOT that? All that stuff was a coping mechanism. The moment I let it drop, I'd drop into a bawling fetal position before you can say 'The Majister is not a nice guy!'. Not like I need that anymore, though. I've got my chest of drawers right here!"

"Was that...War Master's idea, by any chance?" Chaos Thorn asked, to which Chaos Lilac responded with a shrug, "Well if he did then he's got issues he REALLY needs to work out. Well. if we're sharing thoughts on Christmas without inhibition, I USED to like it. I mean, I loved it back in the day. I saw it as the best time to get Sonic to go on a date with me. Hell, in hindsight I kinda see it as giving to the needy, you know?" The group chuckled, then she continued, "But as the years went on, and I ended up in this new persona of mine, I grew to loathe it. It just reminded me of the sheer expense of all my plans - and how they all failed. It all reeked of financial waste and my endless failures. I kept celebrating it, though. Perhaps I was hoping that one day someone would show me the proper meaning of this little time waster again."

"Yeah..." War Lilac sighed, "I guess that's a good way to think about it. Hey, you!" Scourge turned to face her, still cleaning his gun, "What about you, Limeade? How do you feel about Crimbo?" Scourge stared at her for a while, with a look on his face like she had just spilt his beer on the floor, then shrugged and turned back to polishing his rifle, "Okay...good talk..." War Lilac sighed, walking back to her spot and sitting next to Chaos Lilac again, "I...I just wanted to have some happiness in my life, you know? My own world back home's a massive hellhole, I killed all my friends and even four years on from that event I can't stop killing people. I LIKE the feeling of killing people, but..." War Lilac began to tear up, "B-But..."

"Oh, it's okay..." Chaos Lilac sighed, "Not everyone thinks the same about this holiday. I mean, why should they? If it makes you happy...why not? I mean that, too. Even though I hate it."

"No, that's not right..." War Lilac said, cuddling up to her alternate again, "I know you. The real you. You were never like this when I came to visit. What did that gem do to you?"

"You know darn well what it did to me," Chaos Lilac giggled, "Now come on, we better get some sleep. Don't wanna be tired for Master's great plan tomorrow, do we? Miss Thorn, could you..."

"I guess," Chaos Thorn sighed, getting up and turning the light out. Scourge did not object - he had finished cleaning his rifle anyway - and turned in for the night as well. Chaos Thorn was soon out as well, stretched out on her sofa and snoring. Finally, it was Chaos Lilac and War Lilac to try and get some sleep, curled up in each other's arms and smiling at the warm embrace. War Lilac, snuggled into her alternate's upper body, thought one final thing;

"I wish my Milla lived to see Christmas..."

And she was out like a light.

===============

DA Link: http://fav.me/dasi3zz

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Chapter 5: The Nega Gem

==New Hiroizumu, United Federation, Terra (SH-123)==
==Half an Hour later==

"So, think you've got it now?"

Zonic sighed, scratching the back of his head in response to his alternate self's question. It had been some time since they walked around the city, under the guise if questioning people about War Master. Not that it really would have helped much even IF that was what they were truly doing; no-one in the city really knew much of War Master, outside of a few attacks some months ago that left emerald guardian Knuckles dead and Blaze severely weakened. Heck, why else was she called Frost now? Still, that meant that War Master just wasn't here, he didn't return to the scene of the crime, as it were. Instead, Zonic had just played along with his alternate and decided to see what Christmas meant to this universe. It had been quite a journey, actually; from the various sales in the shops to the street vendors selling "candy cane milkshakes" on the side, it seemed to Zonic that these people had a very romantic view of the holidays, well divorced from that of other worlds and their more...pessimistic view on the whole thing, but they seemed to be enjoying themselves very much. And, he hated to admit it, so was he.

"Y-Yes, I think I get it," Zonic said, nibbling on the last of his candy cane, "It seems clear to me that you people treat this as some sort of mystical event more than anything. I'm not seeing any of the whole...didn't you say it was religious?"

"At first," Sonic shrugged, wrapping a scarf around his neck, "But, you know, even the humans forgot about that after a while. No-one seems to mind. It's just sorta the joy these days, you know?"

"Interesting way of putting it," Zonic said, "Well, what about the whole commercialisation? The sales, the greed, the...you know."

"I do know," Sonic sighed, "And it feels like I have to be reminded of that every year. Every time this month comes around, someone complains about that, the anvil is dropped yet again. I feel like all I do is explain why Christmas is a lot better than people give it credit for."

"It certainly felt like that over the last four chapters..." Zonic grumbled.

"What was that?"

"Uh, nothing," Zonic said, "Well, what DO you think about it?"

"It...well, it happens," Sonic said back, "That HAS crept in over the years. But I'm a personal believer in that the vast majority of people celebrate it for the feeling of family. Not the gifts, not the charity aspect - that DOES help, don't get me wrong - but for knowing your family will always support you."

"Well, doesn't that bother you?" Zonic asked, "What about the money side of it? Don't you still live with that Lowell guy, paying him rent?"

"Yeah," Sonic shrugged, "But my situation's kinda improved lately. Lowell and his own team are off celebrating Crimbo elsewhere, in another universe. Apparently he accidentally helped put another Lilac into a wheelchair - paraplegic, he told me - and he's kind of been ridden with guilt over it, so he's helping to make it up to her. I don't mind. It means I get the house to myself and can host a proper Crimbo party! Added in Tails selling some of her work on the side, Katie being paid by her organisation and...well, me saving the world all the dang time, we're not really aching much for money at the moment."

"Huh," Zonic said, "Aren't you supposed to be the bitter Sonic?"

"Yeah," Sonic chuckled, "But that's only because my alternates have dragged my name through the mud. Nah, I love Crimbo. One of the few times I can crack a smile behind closed doors, you know? OOH, over there!"

Sonic quickly ran off like a little child, to which Zonic sighed and gave chase to the best of his abilities. They stopped outside of what seemed to be a well-made (but obviously synthetic) wooden shack with the window open. A bunch of people were crowded around it, all seemingly holding hot dogs, while inside the shack seemed to be an older, grey-furred wolf in a somewhat outdated festive jumper handing them out. A sign above the shack read "Ebony's Bratwurst", which Sonic seemed to admire as he approached.

"Hey, Ebony!" Sonic said happily, "How's it hanging?"

"Oh hello, hedgehog," Ebony chuckled in a strange Germanic accent, "That time of year again, is it? I can see you brought one of your relatives along, ja?"

"Hmm?" Zonic said as he approached, "Oh no, I'm not a relative of his. It's...complicated."

"Oh ja, I think I know what you are," Ebony said, "You're one of those No-Zoners, yes? I believe a friend of mine has met your kind before."

"Possible," Zonic sighed, "This universe tends to need us...quite a bit."

"With zhat War Master, I cannot blame you," Ebony sighed, "So! Another usual, hedgehog? Perhaps one for your friend here?"

"That sounds nice," Sonic grinned, "You want a chilli bratwurst, me?"

"I, uh...don't eat spicy foods," Zonic sighed, "If I could have a normal one, though, that would be appreciated. Hey..." Ebony perked his ears up as he prepared the dogs, "Uh, do you know much of War Master?"

"I do, yes," Ebony said, "I have a history with him. When one of his own creations ditched his command, I was called forward to replace him. I am a doctor, you see. He thought I would be useful to patch up his wounds. I defected in the end; I couldn't handle the sights I had seen. So I decided to tell the No-Zone exactly where he was. Last thing I heard, he was carted off to the No-Zone prison. Serves him right, I say."

"Well, thank you for your help," Zonic said honestly, "But I am afraid he is planning his escape as we speak."

"I know..." Ebony sighed, bringing the two dogs forward, "I saw what happened with zhat poor goth girl. Zhat gem was something War Master held VERY close to himself."

"Well don't worry," Zonic said, "War Master's being carted off to isolation as we speak. And he won't be coming back out 'till he's sane."

"Thank Chaos," Ebony sighed, "You have my deepest gratitude...still have to pay for zhe sausages, though. 12 Rings, please."

Sonic paid and the two said goodbye to Ebony as they walked away, slowly nibbling at their hot dogs. Zonic had to admit, they were pretty dang good. Tasted a lot better than the rations he had on the job, at the very least. As the two walked along, enjoying their food, a ringing sound came from one of the many pockets on Sonic's bandobelt. He reached into the pocket, one that had a LOT of protection around it, and pulled out his smartphone. It was a text from Tails;

'SONIC. Finished the scans on the gem, found something rather shocking. Then bumped into...uh, old friends. Come quickly - Shopping District #3 again, if possible.'

Sonic texted 'got it' back, then he and Zonic began the rush back to the shopping district.

==Shopping District #3==
==Two Minutes Later==

The chilli dogs were still warm as Sonic and his alternate skidded to a stop just outside the shopping district. Tails and Katie-Ka were there as expected, Tails holding the purple gem in her hands and Katie-Ka was holding a laser rifle of some kind. Tails turned to see the two approach them, "There you are. You two are late."

"Yeah, but we're fashionably late," Sonic chuckled, "Well, the gem? Ebony said it was very close to War Master. What is it?"

"It's not his, that's for certain," Tails said, with a sort of shocked look on her face, "It's not even MasterSelf technology, if you can believe that. It's actually from another world entirely. You know. THAT world."

Sonic cringed, "Oh no, not the one with the bandages..."

"Yes, that one," Tails sighed, "Universe SB-001. Straight from the Time of the Ancients. Yep, this is Ancient technology."

"But didn't they fall long before present day?" Katie-Ka asked, "The MasterSelves came in and wiped them off of the map once that snake being went rogue."

"Well, yes..." Tails said, "But guess who was leading that squad?"

Sonic looked serious for a second, "War Master." 

"Exactly. He even scouted the place out a few months before, looking at their technology and seeing if any of it was worth scavenging. And he found something, alright. This..." Tails held the gem, which was still deactivated, into the air, "The Nega Gem. Created by the Boomiverse version of Master himself, it AND the Staff were created by him and him as per requests from the Elder Ancients for weapons of war. When that other version of Sonic sealed up Lyric, War Master sealed his alternate up alongside him and stole the staff for himself. Why do you think he got so powerful all of a sudden?"

"That's odd," Zonic murmured, "He told us he made it himself."

"Well he would, would he not?" Katie-Ka mentioned, "Ego size of a planet and all of that."

"HEY!" came a scream from outside of the group. Sonic's ears perked up and he turned his head to see exactly who was calling them. To his surprise, it was people he sort of knew; a green wildcat and a cream-furred basset hound were stomping and bounding towards them respectively. Zonic turned to look at them, and he growled.

"Oh no..."

"Carol? Milla?" Sonic asked, "What're you two doing here?"

"What do you think?" Carol asked in a huff, "I followed pretty boy here! I want some answers, dang it, and WE want 'em now! Otherwise I'm gonna sic Milla on you! And you're not gonna like her when she's angry!"

The team looked at Milla, who was sniffing the ground before she looked up at them. She made a playful, "Rawr..."

"Oh, she's adorable!" Tails squealed.

"So, what happened to your Lilac?" Sonic asked, "Was it the same thing that happened to our Amy, by any chance?"

"You mean she held this gem, it filled her full of energy and turned her into this bulgy insane freak?" Carol asked, to which Sonic nodded, "Yeah, that's what happened. We have this ravaged duplicate of her's turn up, she weasels her way into the treehouse, shows us this gem and BAM! Lilac's suddenly this evil supermodel. It was..." she slowed, then erupted into fresh fury at the sight of the gem in Tails' hands, "It was THAT gem! Let me at it, I'm gonna bust it up!"

"Carol, wait!" Sonic yelled, grabbing her arm, "You don't wanna do that. You might end up corrupted too!"

"No, it is still perfectly safe," Katie-Ka said dryly, "It is disabled for the moment. I recommend you stay away, however. We do not know when it might reactivate."

"The Nega Gem is a strange thing," Tails said, slightly frustrated, "I ran every test I could on it, wouldn't respond to half of them. Even to the technology I cribbed from the Dark Brotherhood, this thing is as alien as it gets. Though considering it came from the world of bandages, that's not MUCH of a surprise. Still, this thing gives off energy readings around the level of the Master Emerald! It's THAT powerful. But of course the Master Emerald is a lot bigger than this thing, it has the space to hold all that power. THIS doesn't, and it's very unstable because of it. The Staff keeps it under control, but without it it's a time bomb. Hence why Thorn became that beefcake and Lilac became...whatever that was; it just filled them with excess energy to prevent itself from exploding and they both went mad from the power in about three seconds."

"So that was it..." Carol sighed, "Can it be reversed?"

"I don't know," Tails said back, "Katie?"

"That depends on the energies of the gem," Katie-Ka explained, "Normally the energies run out on their own, as with most super transformations. But sometimes, it can only be purged with energies of the opposite kind. For example, Chaos energy would need to be replaced with something more balanced, like Hyper Go-On or the Order Emeralds from the Mirrorverse."

"But I don't know what's in this," Tails said, "The scanners just won't pick it up."

"But..." Milla began to tear up, "I want Lilac back. I don't want that lumpy...thing to take her place!"

"It's okay, Milly-girl," Sonic sighed, stroking her head, "We'll think of something. First things first, we need to hide that gem before-"

But before Sonic could finish his sentence, Tails let out a quick squeal as the gem suddenly reactivated all on its own, flinging itself into the air and wrenching itself out of Tails' grasp. It sailed through the air, its purple glow returning to it, before it landed in the hands of someone very familar indeed. One clad in a blue jacket and black trousers with a muddy green bandoleer slung around his torso. One with a long brass rod in his off hand and the Blade of Hysteria in his holster. One with two corrupted dragon girls, a corrupted pale pink hedgehog and a green hedgehog with a rife by his side. One that struck fear into Sonic's heart.

"War Master!" Sonic cried out, "No!"

"Yes..." War Master cackled, "Merry Christmas, kiddos! War Master is back in the building. Did you miss me?"

"So it was YOU!" Carol yelled, baring her claws, "It was YOU who turned our Lilac into a freak!"

"They very same," War Master said, "Chaos Lilly, if you could..."

"Yes, Master," Chaos Lilac mumbled. She stepped forward, posing in Carol and Milla's direction, "Oh hey, it's the wildcat and the puppy-dog! How's it going, girls? Come to join us? I'm sure you'll just LOOOVE serving under this guy. He does the most excellent slices of red velvet cake."

"Oh yes..." War Master said, staring at Chaos Lilac as she danced, "And I can give you the perfect kind of body, too."

"Urgh!" Carol cried out in disgust, "You're a sick, twisted piece of work, you know that don't you?!"

"I try me best, heh heh," War Master chuckled, "Now then, hedgehog. Do you know why I'm here? Why I wanted to come visit you the moment I was out of that hellhole?"

"I think I can guess," Sonic sighed, "You're here for an old accomplice, aren't you?"

"I am indeed! I managed to figure out that twisted Germanic rat Ebony sold me out to save his own skin. Well that was nice of him, wasn't it? It's just nature's way of telling him he deserves one less head for his troubles."

"Back off it!" Tails growled, "You wanna get him, you've gotta get through us! Isn't that right!"

"Absolutely!" Katie-Ka said, assuming her battle stance.

"Too right, fox girl!" Carol growled.

"I won't let you own Lilac like a pet!" Milla yelled defiantly.

"Y-Yeah!" Sonic said quickly, "You've terrorised us for too long!"

"You're not going anywhere, you sister-loving scumbag!" Zonic snarled brutally, "There's six of us and only five of you!"

"Oh, I concur, you insensitive animal!" War Master growled back, clearly rattled. He shoved the gem into the head of his Staff and tapped the end of the staff on the ground to lock it into place. The gem responded with a whirring noise, and it was soon at full capacity and shining brightly. War Master cackled. "Hey, remember Halloween? Remember you all turned into clones of that Traveller git? The TravellerSelves? All Trickster's doing, what with those cookies and all, but who do you think he got that DNA from?"

War Master laughed evilly as the gem sparked and suddenly sent out about a hundred chains of lightning across the crowd, that had formed behind the team. It shocked them, their cries of agony filling the air as they all began to glow a strange purple colour and transformed. They still looked the same as they normally did, only now they each sported darker colours, angry sneers and big red scarves wrapped around their faces and torsos. War Master cackled as they slowly rose up from the ground and angrily stared at the group, surrounding them.

"Well, look at that!" War Master grinned, "It's a Crimbo miracle! The Return of the MasterSelves! Now let's see who is truly outnumbered..."

===============

DA Link: http://fav.me/dasmewi

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Final Chapter: The Christmas That Very Much Was

The situation looked almost impressively bleak now, and Sonic could only gulp as he looked at the somewhat terrifying scene in front of him. And behind him. And all around him, frankly. Those accursed TravellerSelves, so sneery but so violent, surrounded the group with their scarves and their snarls. In front of him and his group was the similarly accursed War Master, his form thin but imposing, with his Staff of Chaos in one hand and his Blade of Hysteria in the other. To his sides were a number of his own servants, corrupted or otherwise working for him; War Lilac and Chaos Lilac were the closest to him, the two looking positively savage in very different ways, while next to those were Chaos Thorn and Scourge, respectively. This group of five, were their odd looks, were a formidable force.

The others in the group were at least a bit more confident. Apart from Sonic, there were both Tails and Katie-Ka by either of his sides. Next to Tails was Carol, who was already baring her fangs and claws and snarling in War Lilac's general direction, while Milla was hiding behind Katie-Ka and shivering in a sort of nervous fear. Beyond that, Zonic the Zone Cop was standing behind Sonic, towering almost a full foot taller than him, and was staring at War Master with a snarl while Sonic's own face held a look of fear; he knew exactly what kind of man War Master was; competent. Stronger than any Knuckles, smarter than any Eggman, matching almost Mephiles in sheer cruelty and cunning. Sure he may have lost some of that in recent years, but he was still a man he feared. At least, for now.

"...Hmm. What's wrong?" War Master chuckled, "Too scared to speak? Any of you?"

"N-No!" Sonic growled, "We're gonna get you this time! You hear me?! I'm not scared of you anymore!"

"Nice try," War Master growled, "You don't think I don't read the descriptions to these things? I know you're still scared of me, boy! And why not? I killed your friends in the past, I helped ruin your family's name, I helped Shadow kill your brother...then I killed Shadow...I made your life hell! And now, here we are, surrounded by a team of my corruption and unbound by any of your cheap No-Zone tricks, and all you can do is buck up and stand your ground? I don't know if I should be impressed...or annoyed."

"Can it!" Carol yelled, "You took our Lilac away from us! Now we're gonna take her back! AND IF I HAVE TO CAVE IN YOUR FACE TO DO IT, I'LL DO IT!" Carol was foaming at the mouth, rushing towards War Master faster than even Sonic could even react. All he could do was stretch out of his hand and try to stop her before she was out of his reach and screaming towards War Master. War Master did not look surprised, instead having a smiling look on his face, as he waved his Staff around in front of him and silently chanted something under his breath. Without any warning bar a loud scream, a powerful wave of lightning screamed its way out of the gem and towards Carol, striking her straight on in the chest. She screamed at the pain and was tossed backwards, skidding to a pained stop just before team again. She panted, looking back up at the worried faces above her, "Well...I guess that's what Lilac felt, then."

"Yep! In more ways than one," War Master cackled, "You ran right into that one just like she did against Brevon. I mean, I guess it runs in the sisterhood, but come on...even sisterhoods aren't this dumb," War Master stopped as he heard two rather loud *AHEM*s from two of his team. He turned to look at War Lilac and Chaos Lilac, both of them with pouty faces and tapping their feet on the ground in annoyance. War Master simply shrugged, "What? It's true!" He turned back to Sonic and Co, "So, shall we do this?"

"You kidding?" Katie-Ka asked, "I think we have all been waiting for this kind of thing!"

"Well then..." War Master grinned, "Alright, people! This is how it's going to go down. Everyone's going to fight each other, one-on-one, until only one side remains. Keep it fair. No team-ups, no biting, no punching the spinballs and goalpost, no kicking while down and NO WAVEDASHING. Understand?!" Everyone nodded, "Good. Now, as we know, it's Crimbo. It would be cruel if I couldn't be nice. So I have an idea; if you have two of your people step down, I will step down one of mine and we will have an nice, clean, equal numbers fight. Deal?"

"Seriously?!" Sonic asked, "And how exactly can we believe you on this?"

"Oh come on, hedgehog. You know who I am," War Master held his hand to his heart, "I'm a man of my word. And...well, it's not exactly like you can just refuse, can you?"

Sonic gulped and looked around at the mass of TravellerSelves surrounding him; quiet and unmoving at the moment, but War Master could sic them on them at any moment. He sighed, "...Alright. Who's gonna go?"

"I will," Tails sighed, "I'd love to I'm...not as good in a fight as the rest of you. Who else?"

"...Milla," Zonic said dryly, "Tails, keep Milla on the sidelines."

"Wh-WHAT?!" Milla cried out, "But I wanna make him pay!"

"I know," Zonic growled, "But I don't want you anywhere near War Lilac OR War Master. Not with what happened to you when you went up against Brevon...or the you who ended up with what would become War Lilac..."

Carol's eyelids fluttered as her mind recalled those terrible events. How Brevon had turned Milla into a horrific beast and was forced to fight the two head-on. How both she and Lilac were terrified they had killed Milla. How she barely pulled through. And what DID happen to that fallen Milla under War Lilac when was scouting the No-Zone's files on them. She too turned dry, "Milla, he's right. Stay with the fox. I've got this one."

"Alright..." Milla sighed. She ran up to Tails and, grabbing her hand tightly, they walked backwards away from the group, sitting on the one bench not swarmed by TravellerSelves. Tails sat down on the left side, allowing Milla to sit on the right, and she wrapped her tails around the precious puppy's tiny body for warmth and comfort. This left it four on five, with Team Sonic (Sonic, Katie-Ka, Carol and Zonic) on one side, and War Master's group of loonies (War Master himself, War Lilac, Chaos Lilac, Chaos Thorn and Scourge) on the other. 

"Okay..." Zonic growled, "We kept our end of the bargain, War Master. Now you keep YOURS. Remove one of your cards from your deck."

"Well, I AM a man of my word!" War Master cackled, digging his Desert Eagle out of his handgun. There was a split second where he aimed it at the head of the hateful green hedgehog and a powerful crack of air whipped around the area. Everyone screamed, with Tails covering Milla's eyes in reflex, while the puppy began to cry in fear. The blood splatter slammed into the paved ground almost as hard as the green hedgehog's quickly lifeless body, even more of the life-giving fluid pouring out of the massive hole between his eyes. Even War Lilac seemed to be a little creeped out by it, but everyone else said nothing. Sonic could only stare in horror as War Master quickly kicked the rifle away and turned back to the group, "There you are. Ta for co-operating, by the way. I was looking for a an excuse to blow his head off all day. I mean, it's not like anyone's going to miss him, no? It's practical."

"It doesn't make it right!" Carol screamed, "You're an animal!"

"And you're welcome. Anyway, let's settle things once and for all, yes? If you win, I'll leave you people alone, revert your friends, and hand War Lilac over to the No-Zone."

War Lilac began to panic, "Hey, wait a second!"

"And if I win..." War Master chuckled, pointing to Scourge and raising the staff, "You will ALL end up like him...readygo."

With that, something that could have been a total blur were it not for Carol's slightly better eyesight, War Master slammed the tip of the staff into the ground, sending a powerful resonating shockwave not unlike that of a massive bell tolling, sending a wave of energy sweeping across the floor and striking each of the team on either side, propelling them this way and that across the area. Carol herself slammed down onto the stone floor, in the middle of the area, a crumpled heap of a wildcat still disorientated from the impact of the fall. The others were also scattered in a neat pattern in the area, a thick purple line spreading from the impact point of the staff and separating the various members into segments. Then, just to ensure those one-on-one fights, large purple walls sprouted up on the lines, each emitting powerful energy and the feeling it would shock you to within an inch of your life if you ever tried to go near it. Soon, the various members of War Master's team were pouring into the sections and beginning to fight the others; Zonic vs War Master, Sonic vs Chaos Thorn and so on. Carol's eyesight was still blurry as she saw her opponent drop down into the "arena"; it was a dragon of SOME sort, but which one Carol couldn't be sure.

"Li-Lilac?" Carol asked, hoping it was her own, "Lilac! We can stop this now! I can help you!"

"Heh heh, no... the dragon cackled, "I'm afraid I won't be doing ANY of that!" The smoke finally cleared from Carol's eyes and the dragon in front of her was revealed, in her dark-scaled and red-eyed glory.

"Dang it! Wrong one! So..." Carol growled getting to her feet, "You're War Lilac. You're this War bozo's little puppy dragon, are you?"

"On the weekends!" War Lilac giggled, but she stopped when she noticed Carol's snarling face. She sighed, "Look, I...have my reasons for working under him. He's giving me training, he says I have something I want."

"Is it your Milla?" Carol asked, to which War Lilac responded with a pained nod. Carol sighed, "Look, I know what happened to your Milla. I'm...sorry for your loss. But that's no excuse to follow this guy, and no excuse for the things you've done!"

"I know the changes to your Lilac have been...shocking," War Lilac retorted, "And I know she's not the dragon I know and torment. If you think I'm any happy about it, then you're sorta mistaken. I don't think this is right either. BUT, I can't exactly just let you go after her...and I very much doubt you're just gonna let me walk."

"When I'm through with you," Carol threatened, "You won't be able to slither across the ground on your backside. You'll be LUCKY if you can walk again!"

"Ahh, there's the sort of anger I'm used to!" War Lilac cackled, "Try me, wildcat! I fought my own Carol in her natural habitat and I kicked the shibbles out of her! AND I cut off her hand!"

"Then I'll cut off your HEAD!" Carol foamed, "Let's go!"

War Lilac was the first to attack, rushing towards Carol while screaming at the top of her lungs and swinging her blade around wildly. Carol dodged at just the right time, feeling the liquid of War Lilac's blade splash on her fur with the blade itself barely missing her neck, and responded with a slash of her claws at the deranged dragon's face. War Lilac saw this coming, however, and countered with her her blade, sending green sparks flying into the air and throwing Carol off of her guard. War Lilac took the oppertunity, charging into Carol's chest and pushing her to the floor. She got up, blade in hand and aimed at Carol's chest, but Carol was lucky and managed to roll out of the way before she brought the blade down. She kicked at War Lilac's shins, flooring her, and they both managed to get up at the same time. From there they attacked each other violently, slashing at each other with claws and blades, managing to strike each others weapons and nicking their sides the odd times, but neither was able to bring the other down. Carol was even beginning to get worried; she was getting tired, and it was somewhat unlikely that War Lilac was to do the same. Monster or not, having to fight her friend was something that sapped her morale, slowly and surely, and she would have to end the fight as soon as she possibly could. And that wall...the energy from that wall...Carol quickly shouted out in surprise. She had an idea! 

War Lilac had gotten impatient, and took this in earnest. She grabbed Carol's neck with her off hand and, while also strangling the life out of her slowly brought the blade to her stomach. She cackled, but Carol knew exactly what to do now. With a swift hand movement, she grabbed the nunchucks in her back pocket and swung with all of her might, smacking War Lilac in the hand and sending her blade flying. And, with a final two-footed kick to the chest, War Lilac was sent spiralling into the wall of energy behind, and it shocked her to her core. She screamed, partly from the electricity coursing through her body and partly because of the memories flooding back to her, and she soon collapsed to the ground, defeated.

Carol wiped the sweat off of her hands and sighed, "Huh. My Carol must have been a bit weak, then, if that was all you put up."

"Well..." War Lilac whimpered before falling unconscious, "She wasn't as butch as you..."

Carol growled and ran forwards to the edge of the wall she had just shocked her opponent on. There was no way she could climb the wall, even less way she could jump over it, so all she could see was the first directly in front of her. All around her the battles raged on, some winning and some losing, but none of them had truly fallen yet. Sonic was fighting Chaos Thorn, dodging her hammer blows and getting in a few swift kicks, but it was clear he was losing steam and it would not be long before he faltered. Katie-Ka was fighting Chaos Lilac, and it seems that even being the Guardian of the Master Emerald (or whatever the databases meant by that) still weren't enough for this sort of energy, and she was already on the floor as a result. And finally, at the front end of the area, was Zonic and War Master duking it out. They were still going strong, with Zonic swinging at War Master with a baton of some kind and missing by inches. War Master had attached the Staff to his back and was attacking with his Blade of Hysteria, also missing Zonic by a few inches, but it was clear that that was not what he was aiming for. He ducked under Zonic's arm and slashed at the prong, splitting it in two and throwing it across the arena. Zonic, however, took this in stride and punched War Master right in his face, causing his Blade to fly straight out of his hands and sail over the wall of the arena, leaving the two without their weapons. They retreated, standing a good distance from each other and panting.

"You enjoying this, Zonic?!" War Master said, keeping his composure this time, "This is a real Crimbo, isn't it? Everyone's fighting each other!"

"I'm tired of dealing with your kind, Warmonger!" Zonic growled, brandishing the two-pronged stun prod on the wrist compartment of his armour and pointing it towards War Master, "Back to the No-Zone!"

War Master brandished his Staff, now glowing with its purple energy, "NEVER AGAIN!"

The two screamed towards each other, weapons aimed high and at each other's faces. Carol could feel the tension build as the two closed in, their weapons coming ever closer to meeting before finally, they reared up their weapons and struck each other in blazing furies. The resultant mix of that infernal gem and even more energy ended in more or less the only way it could; a supernova. Carol's vision instantly became white as she could feel her body being thrown backwards with all the force of a thousand horses slamming into her thin frame at full pelt. The walls had long shorted out by the explosion and Carol eventually came to a hard landing, before she could feel a few more of her team land right on top of her, almost crushing her with the weight. "Digging" her way out of the pile of dazed and disabled bodies, she slowly got to her feet and tried to look around her. The TravellerSelves had all been blown over and they too were unconscious, the walls of the buildings were fine but the glass was shattered and the decor was scattered over the entire area. Carol whined, her entire body screaming out in pain and with several burns across the midsection, before she finally relented and dropped to her knees in the middle of the area. She slowly looked up, head ablaze, only to see War Master and Chaos Lilac slowly closing in on her.

"No..." Carol said quietly, before she broke out screaming, "No! NO! How did you survive that?!"

"...I dunno," War Master shrugged, "I guess I was just as the eye of the storm. But I had to keep ONE of these people upright. I have to give her a proper Crimbo present, don't I? Oh Lilly!"

"Yes, Master?" Chaos Lilac asked in a sultry way.

War Master gave the Staff of Chaos to her and pointed to Carol, "Make her one of us..."

"Certainly, my Master..." Chaos Lilac chuckled. She walked over to Carol and, much like War Lilac before her, grabbed her by the throat and aimed the staff at her stomach.

"Lilac..." Carol wheezed, coughing as well, "P-Please. You're better than this. Stop this now, I know you can!"

"Bleh!" Chaos Lilac made a sort of mocking gagging noise, "You've really become more of a chump since I last saw you. Don't you get it? I LOVE being like this! With this body, this wonderful-"

"SHUT UP ABOUT YOUR BODY!" Carol seethed, "YOU LOOK LIKE A FREAK!"

"...Well, if you say so," Chaos Lilac growled, throwing Carol over her shoulder and slamming her into the concrete. She aimed the staff at her broken body again, "Get ready to look like a freak, to put it yourself!"

"LILAC STOP IT!" came another scream from the other side of the arena. Chaos Lilac stopped, looking behind to see someone run out amongst the various dazed bodies. It was Milla, running on all fours and seemingly unharmed by the blast, stopping just before Chaos Lilac and wrapping her arms around her. Chaos Lilac, even in her vaguely delirious state, could hear her crying, "Please, stop! You're not like this, Lilac! You're not like that monster you over there! This isn't you!"

"Get off me, pipsqueak!" Chaos Lilac growled, "Mommy's working!"

"But..." Milla whined, still tearing up, "I wanted to give something to you. Something that might help."

Chaos Lilac was about to object again, but Milla seemingly had a surprisingly amount of strength; she had ripped the staff out of her hands and replaced it with a box of some sort. It was red, with a yellow ribbon wrapped around it, and Milla quietly motioned to open it. Unable to move from Milla's hug, Chaos Lilac sighed and did as she was told, despite War Master's commands to stop. The lid came tumbling off in short order and, with a swift movement, Chaos Lilac took the item out of it; it was a photo frame, seemingly made out of a glowing green liquid-like rock with extra gems embedded in it, while the photo itself was of the un-corrupted Lilac, Carol, Milla and even Torque and Spade posing in front the remains of Brevon's defeated and dazed body."

"Milla?" Chaos Lilac asked, the deranged tint slowly vanishing from her voice, "This is..."

"Yeah, i-it's the first picture we ever took as a team, Lilac," Milla sighed, "When that Strife guy was spreading those rumours about it only being you defeating Brevon, and we had no part in your adventure. Remember? He said it was ALL you." 

"Oh yeah..." Chaos Lilac sighed, "Guy played me up like a goddess of some sort."

Milla nodded, "You showed him this image to prove him wrong, that we all teamed up to take him down. And what did he do?"

"He..." Chaos Lilac looked a bit sad, "He got really mad and tore the thing to shreds. Said it wasn't canon, and he was going to go off and prove it. Never saw him again."

"Yeah..." War Master chuckled, "I wonder why..."

"You put the thing back together...and made a frame for it?"

"Yes," Milla sighed, "It...took me all year. I had to sculpt one of my blocks and make sure it won't explode. It won't, it's just..."

"And this is a Christmas present?"

"Yes," Milla whimpered, "I was going to save it for Christmas, but...if you're gonna kill us all for that meanie, I want to at least get it out..." she sobbed, and wrapped herself around Chaos Lilac tighter, "Merry Christmas..."

"Milla...I...I don't know..."

Chaos Lilac was stunned, she didn't know what to do in the slightest. She felt so incredibly touched by the sheer effort of the gift, the sheer emotion put into it. It was doing...something inside her. Emotions that she felt had been suppressed began to bloom back into life; happiness, sadness, kindness and a sense of warmth that almost set her very soul on fire. The energies welling within her from the gem, those who told her nothing but dark thoughts, was slowly flushed from her system, welling up around her face, and whatever was left of Chaos Lilac was thrashing to stay in control, but to no avail!

"Milla..." she whimpered, before she started to thrash, "N-No! NO! I will not leave this body! I don't want it to go away! I was going to have so much fun with it!" Carol and War Master began to lean forward from where they were, confused looks on their faces, as Chaos Lilac's own began to glow purple and get brighter with every second, "Drat! I've been fooled by the power of LOVE! AAAAAAAAAAAAH!"

And with that, Chaos Lilac thrust her arms out and huge mists of purple energy began to flood out of her arms, eyes and mouth as she continued to scream. The dark, black fog that had more or less possessed her was freed from her system, and her body began to finally deflate without the energy within her to keep it stable. She shrunk, her form returning to normal and her dark blue clothes returning to their standard light blue, as the density of the fog began to finally wither. With a sound not unlike air being let out of a balloon, as the last of Chaos Lilac's impressive chest vanished into the ether, Milla quickly let go of the dragon and, returned to normal, Lilac collapsed to the floor. War Master was incredulous at the sight of it all, his face fallen like a bungee-jumper, while Carol looked both relieved and excited.

Lilac got to her knees, weary and confused. She looked at herself, looking at her gloved hands and running them across her thin body, before she looked at Milla, "M-Milla?"

"Lilac?" Milla asked, tears in her eyes. She rushed forwards, overjoyed at this turn of events, and hugged Lilac the very hardest she could. She began sobbing in joy, "LILAC!"

"Milla!" Lilac cried out back, hugging the little puppy, "Oh, I thought I'd never get out of that horrible body! You saved me, Milla!"

"HOW?!" War Master was dancing around the area, "HOW?! HOW HOW HOW HOW HOW HOW?! DON'T YOU DARE TOLD ME I WAS BEATEN BY THE POWER OF LOVE!"

"You were not," came a Germanic voice from elsewhere. War Master turned to the very back of the arena to see the fox girl and a black wolf in a lumpy jumper, "You were a victim of your own hubris and anger...". 

War Master's brow furrowed in rage, "YOU..."

Ebony straightened his glasses, "Did you not know what sort of energy was within zhe Nega Gem, Warmonger? After all this time? Negative energy! Negativity! Violence! Vices like sexual body forms! You had infected your teammates with all of that. It is all in the name! So all we needed to reverse the spell..."

"Was to be nice for a change!" Tails cried out in joy, then looked at War Master with a smug look, "I guess forcing us to take out two of our teammates and then getting rid of your own TravellerSelves was a bit of a dumb move, no?"

"But, doesn't this guy want to kill you?" Carol wheezed as Lilac tended to her wounds, "Why're you here?"

"I caused this," Ebony sighed, stepping forward in front of the heroines, "This is MY problem. And I will fix it. I promise to you, War Master, you will not kill one of these innocent souls. Not on my watch!"

"FINE!" War Master bellowed, whipping his gun out of his holster, "THEN I'LL KILL YOU!"

War Master pulled the trigger, but the shot never came out. Another shot pierced the gun just as the bullet went off and it exploded in War Master's hand, shredding and causing him to yell out in pain and drop the wreckage of the gun to the floor. Ebony smiled, blowing the smoke from the barrel of his own gun, "Custom-Made Korth Combat Magnum. Six rounds of .44 magnum."

War Master was confused through the pain, "Didn't they only go up to .357?"

"CUSTOM-MADE. You are not the only one around here with a big scary pistol to wave around, you savage. Now then, I think we should just go ahead and do what we all should have. Lilac, you know zhat Dragon Boost zhing?"

"Ja!" Lilac said in her best German accent.

"Zhen let it have it!" Ebony cried, grabbing the Staff of Chaos and throwing it into the air. Lilac took the opportunity and, to War Master screaming, "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!", Dragon Boosted straight into the Staff. And an ethereal sound and a loud snapping sound, the Staff buckled and then snapped into two pieces. The gem inside no longer had any real restraint to it and it overloaded, exploding soon after and landing to the floor as nothing more but a small pile of purple dust. War Master could no longer speak of it, instead staying silent with a look of pure shock on his face. The others around him also convulsed and collapsed, the energies flowing out of their bodies and reverting them all to to normal. Thorn slowly got to her feet, now back to her normal self, and looked around, dazed and confused.

War Master continued his silence for a few more seconds, "...Well, that didn't exactly go as planned."

His face quickly twisted into pain and shock was he was consumed by jolts of electricity. He groaned and fell to the floor, unconscious, with a recovered Zonic standing over him, shock device in hand. Zonic huff and puffed, but he was smiling under his helmet nevertheless.

"Well...you can sure say that again."

"Did..." Sonic sighed, coming to, "Did we win?"

"Yes, hedgehog," Ebony said happily, helping the hedgehog to his feet, "We have won. War Master will never bother us again. And I will work with the No-Zone to make sure of that."

"Yay..." Sonic cheered weakly, "We won..."

==Lilac's Treehouse, Planet Avalice, 25th Deceb==
==A Few Days Later==

"Merry Christmas, Lilac!!!" Milla squealed like the playful little puppy she was, as she playfully wrestled with Lilac. It had already been a few days since War Master's attack on New Hiroizumu, and things had already managed to get back to a relative form of order. The town had been repaired, most of the TravellerSelves had been reverted once again with no real idea of what happened to them (Sonic chalked it up to another attack from The Trickster instead, which they seemed to buy), while Lilac and Co had gone back home. Lilac was, with Milla having jumped off, now reaching for one of the presents under the tree, while pulling Milla back in for another hug.

"Merry Christmas to you too, Milla!" Lilac chuckled, playing with the puppy's orange hair, "Oh, you're such a good girl, aren't you?"

"So, you okay now, Lilly?" Carol asked, who was sitting in the corner of the room, "You're not just suddenly gonna turn again, are you?"

"No, don't think she will..." Zonic said, who was sitting besides her in one of the comfy chairs, "With the energies of the gem scattered across the wastes, it's very unlikely that that will ever happen. That said, however..."

"What do you mean by that?" Lilac asked, "You trying to say I might have some residue left in me?"

"Well..." Zonic said, "I actually looked into this. Turns out there IS some residue in your system. Not enough to take you over like last time, but enough to make some...changes to your body again. The energies of the gem were similar to those from both the Master Emerald AND the Kingdom Stone. So if you come across any Kingdom Stone energy, you might be able to use it to reawaken that negative energy and transform back - temporarily, of course."

"And why would she do that?" Carol asked in a sort of a huff, "She became a freak!"

"Yes, but a very powerful freak," Zonic said, "I went through the tapes for War Master's escape. Lasers, explosions, energy fields. It could've kicked the quote-quote "stuffing" out of that Brevon individual many times over."

"Oooooh," Lilac said, looking down at her body, "Then that might be worth keeping around. I just wish I could do something about the appearance. But I guess as I grow older, it'll look more natural, right?"

"If you grow up into a 21 year old stunner, I suppose so," Zonic chuckled, "And after all the luck you've had over the last year, that alone would prove you've got more than just angels watching over you."

"Heh heh..." Lilac chuckled, "Hey, how're the others?" 

"They're good. Team Sonic are back home celebrating their wares, and they've even invited Ebony and his wife to spend Christmas or Crimbo with them, a sorta thanks for saving the day. War Master is back in the No-Zone Prison - and trust me, it will be a long time until he comes out again - and while we lost a couple of our members, we've been rebuilding and we are now stronger than ever."

"Alright! So everything's cool again..." Carol said, but she pointed to the other sofa, "I mean, apart from that."

"Oh, come on!" War Lilac cried out as she thrashed underneath the chains, "I just wanted to see Milla again! That's all I wanted to see!"

"Quiet, you!" Carol hissed, "You're nothing like Lilac! And Milla's terrified of you!"

"...I'm not," Milla said as Lilac continued to hug her, "Well, even I've seen worse, haven't I?"

"Yeah, she's had to see you in the morning!" Lilac giggled, leaving the rest of the treehouse's occupants to chuckle alongside her.

"Oi, you take that back!" Carol said playfully.

"Ooh, that was a bit savage..." Zonic sighed, before he got up and walked over to War Lilac, who as stated before was wrapped up in chains and had a portal to the side of her, "Alright, you. Back to the No-Zone. You're going straight into isolation like your master, where you belong."

"No, wait, please!" War Lilac cried out, "I don't wanna go back, I swear I'll be good I SWEAR!"

"Yeah, she's right, leave her here..." Lilac sighed, "We'll take care of her."

"...You serious?" Zonic asked somewhat incredulously, "She's a killer. Literally insane."

"And broken like a china plate," Carol sighed, "When I raided your base for a way to find where they went, I read all about what SHE..." she pointed to War Lilac, "Went through. Lilac knew, now I know...not too sure about Milla. She should really have a break, you know?"

"Well, if you say so," Zonic sighed, "You three are registered with the No-Zone, so this sort of thing is allowed. Just make sure she doesn't really destroy anything, okay?"

"Okay!" The three said.

"Okay. I better get back to the No-Zone, then," Zonic said, walking into the portal, "Merry Christmas, girls."

"Goodbye! And Merry Christmas!" Milla cheered as the portal finally vanished from the ether. The three girls looked War Lilac, who shrugged sheepishly, "Well...what're we going to do with her?"

"Release me?" War Lilac asked.

"No," Lilac sighed, "Not at this point, anyway. We'll release you for Christmas dinner, then you're going back into the chains."

"Ooh," War Lilac giggled, "I didn't know you were into this sorta stuff? Got a bauble ball gag too?"

"I WILL do that if you say that sort of thing in front of Milla!" Lilac growled.

"Alright, Alright, I'm..." War Lilac sighed, "I'm sorry."

"It's okay, Miss War..." Milla panted, grabbing one of the presents from under the tree and giving it to her, "I got you something!"

"You did?" War Lilac asked, "Where did this come from?"

"Well, when we were looking around the multiverse, we ran into someone," Carol explained, "Someone who said that they missed you, and were sorry for the things they did to you in the past. Something about...a red scarf or something?"

"..." War Lilac went silent, "Open the box, puppy dog."

Milla did so, pulling a sort of small device out of it, as well as something most unusual; a plush toy. Specifically one of Milla, with button eyes and a stitched-on smile. It was clearly handmade, and wrapped around its neck was a big red scarf with a very familiar pattern. War Lilac couldn't believe her eyes, "Did...did he..."

Milla looked confused, so she pushed the button on the device and set it down on the table. It played a voice, one that was hard to identify that much through the crackle of the cheap speaker, but War Lilac knew exactly who it was. It was an old friend of hers alright, his voice deep and teen-ish and laden with a British accent. The voice spoke;

'Hey War Lilac. It's, uh...it's Traveller here. We haven't talked much, have we? Not since, I uh...shot you in the head and left you for dead. Thought it might cleanse you from my memory, but...yeah, that didn't help as much as I thought it would. I've just sort of spent the last year wandering the multiverse. Your death did little to help me come to terms with the fact I...created you. I got so distressed and depressed I decided to go the final mile. The final part of my whole journey. I met with the guy who created us. The Author. He told me everything. He told me what was going to happen. I don't want to go over it, but...well, let's just say we'll all escape this hell soon. Until then I decided to be nice and get you a present. Something you'd truly love. Something to let you know...I forgive you. And I can only hope you can forgive me. Everything I did to you will be rectified and everyone will become happy again. I promise. This is Traveller of Universe SH-123, signing off. Merry Christmas, Lilly.'

"What the heck was all about?" Lilac asked, confused, "What was he talking about?"

"Aww, look at that!" Milla cried out, hugging War Lilac's chained body, "Looks like you got a present after all!"

"Well?" Carol asked, looking at War Lilac, "What did you think? He seemed to be pretty glad to know you'd get it."

"It's..." War Lilac sqeaked, before she cried tears of joy, "This is the best Christmas I've ever had! Aww, Merry Christmas, you guys!"

"...Heh, Merry Christmas, me," Lilac sighed, "Now, shall we open these presents and watch some Crimbo movies?"

"YEAH!" The others cheered.

And so, with War Lilac free of her chains and the group all sat on the sofa, they began to unwrap their gifts and enjoy themselves. It would not be long before they would finish all of that and go out into the Dragon Valley itself, playing in the pure white snow, throwing snowballs and making snowdragons. And it would not be long before Sonic and Co would do so many worlds over. And it would also not be long until the No-Zone would be holding their party, knowingly taunting War Master as he sobbed in the cold silence of the isolation room. He was going to be there for a long time - two months, to be precise - but the others did not care. They were too busy having - what else - A Very Merry Perry Christmas.

===============

DA Link: http://fav.me/dasw3k8

Well, I hope you enjoyed this little ditty from me. I enjoyed writing, I sure hope you enjoyed reading it. 2017 is going to be a brand new, fresh-faced start for Traveller and the crew, so this will hopefully be enough for them to go out in style. This is Perry "WarTraveller" Martin signing off, wishing you all a Very Merry (Perry) Christmas and a Happy New Year. :D

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...