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Post by Jamie Lee on Feb 27, 2007 3:41:40 GMT -5
Rob flailed upward as he desperately reached for anything solid in the few seconds he felt weightless. Brilliant and blinding colors danced all around him and his heart raced as his mouth remained opened from his initial surprised yelp. Then instantly the falling had stopped and solid ground was beneath him again. The shift was as instant and unexpected as it was when the floor first gave out, and his legs buckled, causing him him to lurch, stumbling forward and slamming himself hard into a desk. He whooped as the wind was suddenly forcefully knocked out of him and motioned to pull himself back up. Unfortunately, his hand slipped out from under him on a loose paper and caused him to careen into a haphazardly stacked pile beside him, sending the whole lot flying into every direction and hitting his shoulder on the side of the desk in the process. He slide off the edge of the desk and plopped into a mess on the floor, then just sat there for a moment as his bearings worked to regain themselves, his hood sitting askew on his head. "Urrgg.."
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Post by Leedzie on Feb 27, 2007 3:48:26 GMT -5
"Y'know those old classics, like 'Hello' or 'Good morning'? They still work." The voice most definitely came from the room, but no one appeared to be there. The sound of footsteps soon followed, except that the echoes apparently originated from the ceiling. Suddenly there was a loud thump near the hedgehog and the floor shuddered slightly. Slowly, bit by bit, a chameleon kaleidoscoped into view. His expression was one of grim disapproval, but Espio held his tongue and instead helped Rob to his feet. "Are you okay?"
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Post by Jamie Lee on Feb 27, 2007 4:03:32 GMT -5
"I feel like a SWATbot just kicked me in the gut," he grimaced as he held his midsection. Sucking in a deep breath he forced himself to righten his posture and took to dusting off his cloak as well as fixing his hood to it's rightful place over his brow. Then his eyes widened in alarm as he looked around "Where in the world am I?" his attention snapped over to Espio "Where's Rouge and that bloke who was with Chrono?!"
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Post by Leedzie on Feb 27, 2007 10:50:14 GMT -5
What the hell is a Swatbot? Espio kept ahold of one of Rob's arms, not fully trusting him to keep his balance, and guided him over to the client chair by the desk. "Why don't you take a seat? It sounds like you took a bad blow to the head. I'll get you something to dull the pain." Nudging Rob into the seat, Espio shuffled off into the cramped HQ, thinking once again how much he hated just how confined his surroundings were. Can't worry about that now, though; got a crazy walk-in on my hands.As he passed the front door, however, the chameleon was surprised to see it closed. While he did miss a lot of what was going on while he was meditating, the sound of the door opening or closing was usually able to get his attention. Shrugging it off, Espio went ahead with retreiving a couple painkillers and a cup of water for Rob. Guess I just missed it this time.
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Post by Jamie Lee on Feb 27, 2007 15:22:34 GMT -5
Rob blinked at the chameleon. When did he get hit in the head? It didn't feel like it was hurting... He raised a hand and pulled back his hood, feeling around for any signs of injury. Nothing. He didn't remember any actual fight, either... Though it certainly did explain why the world had suddenly taken to spinning around him and he was now somewhere other than Rouge's lodge. Though the small little office really didn't remind him of anywhere in Meadowood, actually. "Espio, where am I?" he asked again with more firmness in his voice, "And more important than that, where's Rouge? Is she alright? I--I don't even remember there being a fight, much less being hurt. What the bloody hell happened to that robot?!"
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Post by Leedzie on Feb 27, 2007 15:54:12 GMT -5
Again Espio had to stop and stare. Yeah, definitely a blow to the head. "You're at the Chaotix Detective Agency," he replied, setting the pills and water on the desk in front of his guest. "I can't testify to any fighting or robots, since I wasn't paying attention when you arrived, but you did quite a bit a flailing once you got into my office." The chameleon rounded the desk and took a seat in his chair, tipping backwards slightly with one foot propped against the desk. "As to Rouge, she could be anywhere for all I know. Why, did she steal something of yours, and you want us to track her down and get it back?"
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Post by Jamie Lee on Feb 27, 2007 17:49:19 GMT -5
Rob blinked, just staring at the chameleon for a long moment as he spoke. His expression grew intense. "Are you daft, Espio? I'm not in the mood for your games!" he stated bluntly, pulling himself up from his seat. He quickly spotted the door and began to march toward it.
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Post by Leedzie on Feb 27, 2007 18:40:26 GMT -5
Espio just rolled his eyes and shook his head; as if he didn't have to deal with enough crazy from his partners. " If I'm so daft, you shouldn't have picked this detective agency," he mumbled under his breath as he began to clean up the mess.
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Post by Jamie Lee on Feb 27, 2007 19:15:56 GMT -5
The door opened and in one swift motion Rob was standing outside, thankful to leave that screwy chameleon behind and find just what was going on. His eyes widened in considerable shock however. He had been expecting to walk out the door and find himself in the peaceful and quiet shady treetop village that was Meadowood. Instead, he found himself standing on the noisy sidewalk of a bustling city. Cars drove along up and down the street and the occasional person on the sidewalk pushed past him. A barrage of foreign scents hit him, many of which coming from a coffee shop just a couple doors down, and he stumbled as he struggled to take in and comprehend all the sights. However, when he heard a feint sound of sirens coming from just a few blocks away, Rob gasped, snapping back to his senses as his quills began bristling, and quickly he raced back into the only building he knew had someone he recognized. The door closed behind him with a minor slam, and the hedgehog stood there gasping in shock as he leaned himself heavily against it. His eyes darted around until they'd locked themselves onto the chameleon "Hellfire, where am I?!" he demanded.
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Post by Leedzie on Feb 27, 2007 19:23:12 GMT -5
Espio sighed exasperatedly as he turned to the hedgehog that'd re-entered his home. He really did hate living in the city. "Wow. Crazy AND senile."
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Post by Jamie Lee on Feb 28, 2007 2:23:41 GMT -5
The hedgehog groaned and rubbed at his temple "I'm getting quite tired of being called an old man. I'm only seven years older than you, and you know it!" He stepped away from the door, pointing an accusing finger at it "That! Outside! Where the blazes are we? Why aren't we in Meadowood?!"
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Post by Leedzie on Feb 28, 2007 2:40:15 GMT -5
"How the hell am I supposed to know how old you are? We've never met," Espio snorted as he organized his desk; he'd almost finished repairing the damage Rob had unwittingly done. At the hedgehog's sudden outburst, the ninja folded his arms impatiently. "Where do you THINK we are?! Central City isn't exactly a one-horse town! And I've never heard of Meadowood, but I'd think that you're not there because you came here." Taking a seat at his desk once more, Espio sighed shortly and asked, "Are you even remotely interested in our services? Because if you're not, I'll have to ask you to leave; I've got a lot of work I ought to get done before my partners get back and I can't think anymore." The chameleon shook his head and scribbled himself a reminder on a sticky note. WHY do I always get the crazy clients?!
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Post by Jamie Lee on Feb 28, 2007 3:25:36 GMT -5
"Oh bollocks about your sleuthing services or whatever they are. The only thing you're good at finding is trouble," he paused for a moment in surprise, grimacing and placing his face into his palm "... Sorry. I'm on edge at the moment, alright?" he sighed, walking back into the room and taking the seat Espio had lead him too earlier, massaging his forehead and thinking. "Central City?" the hedgehog gave a bizzare look "The only city I know of is Mercia... and... I did not come here myself!" he sat up suddenly and glared at the chameleon "I was... carried or something? I don't remember! The last thing I remember was standing in Rouge's lodge speaking to that robot! It said it was connected to Robotnik somehow... But for some strange reason it wasn't attacking anyone. It said it wanted to connect to a satellite system. Knew more about Rouge than either of us were comfortable with either..." his mouth spread into a worried frown with concern over the bat.
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Post by Leedzie on Feb 28, 2007 3:32:08 GMT -5
" 'Robotnik'?" Espio's expression suddenly twisted into a glare. This guy was hanging out with Rouge, a known theif and flip-flopper, and a servant of Eggman?! A non-aggressive Eggman robot... Probably Bokkun, he thought. But that was irrelevant at the moment. His seething anger easily apparently, Espio rose from his seat and pointed at the door. "Get out of my office," he hissed. "I don't work for Eggman's associates."
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Post by Jamie Lee on Feb 28, 2007 3:40:43 GMT -5
Rob blinked in surprise at the chameleon's sudden tone. At first he was irritated, the urge to snap at Espio bubbling in the back of his throat. But, he began to remind himself, getting angry wasn't going to solve anything. So instead, he pulled a deep breath in through his nostrils and slowly exhaled it through his mouth in an effort to calm the surge of adrenaline. He cocked his head and gave the chameleon a baffled look "Who on Mobius is Eggman supposed to be?"
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Post by Leedzie on Feb 28, 2007 3:42:58 GMT -5
"Who is Eggman?! Eggman is--" Suddenly the chameleon stopped, and blinked. "...What the heck is Mobius?"
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Post by Jamie Lee on Feb 28, 2007 3:45:02 GMT -5
And now it was Rob's turn to blink "... Are you sure I'm the one who hit my head?"
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Post by Leedzie on Feb 28, 2007 3:50:03 GMT -5
"...." Espio sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. Getting worked up wasn't going to get him anywhere, especially when the other party was clearly ill. Slowly sitting back in his seat, the chameleon turned to his computer to consult the electronic phone book. "Look, I don't think I have the adequate skills to provide you with the... help you clearly need," he said carefully. "Let me look up a hospital for you to try." His brow lowered. A MENTAL hospital, that is.
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Post by Jamie Lee on Feb 28, 2007 4:13:33 GMT -5
"I'm fine," Rob said with an arch of his brow "Honestly, running into a desk is hardly life threatening..." he trailed off, beginning to frown. He turned to give a sideways glance at Espio as he looked at him intently, realizing the look of seriousness on the chameleon's face "You're... honestly not kidding, are you? You honestly don't know what Mobius is?" he turned away, a look of contemplation on his face.
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Post by Leedzie on Feb 28, 2007 10:53:25 GMT -5
The chameleon's eyes flashed over to Rob briefly. "I could Google it if you want," he replied flatly.
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Post by Jamie Lee on Feb 28, 2007 13:37:57 GMT -5
"Er... what's a goodle?"
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Post by Leedzie on Feb 28, 2007 14:24:56 GMT -5
"....Wow. Just wow." No one is THAT out of the loop, he thought. Even KNUCKLES has heard of Google, I'm sure. Something really strange is going on...Espio sat back in his chair and peered at the hedgehog carefully, leaning his chin into one hand. His breathing is normal. His eyes are intelligent. He carries himself well when he's not freaking out. The chameleon's eyes narrowed a bit. As far as I can tell, he presents himself to be perfectly sane; it's just his words that are in left field. So the question becomes, what would incite him to say those things...The ninja's eyes moved from Rob's face to his hood. Espio had seen some unusual clothing choices among his peers and clients, but the hooded cloak was extraordinarily uncommon. His eyes traveled down to the tough, weather-worn, scuffed and dirty brown leather gloves, and in his mind's eye he recalled the matching boots; they had shown traces dust, caked-on mud, and most notably, grass stains. The mud and dust I can see coming from anywhere, but those grass stains... The volume of green scuffs imply extensive time in the wilderness. Aside from the occasional grassy knoll in a courtyard, Central City does not have one iota of unpaved space.Something bizarre was going on, indeed. "You're definitely not where you belong," Espio finally said after his intuitive examination. "Why don't you start by telling me how you ended up here; I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that you weren't actually looking for a detective. Although if that's the case I'm impressed you already knew my name."
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Post by Jamie Lee on Mar 1, 2007 5:12:03 GMT -5
While Espio was studying the hedgehog, Rob was studying him, his eyes intense as he looked the chameleon over several times. Something wasn't right here. While he didn't doubt Espio to put on a charade for his personal amusement, his demeanor was far too serious. There was no way the Espio he knew could have kept such an act up so long without even so much as cracking a smile at him. And where WAS he? The room he was in as he concluded before was nothing like anything in Mercia... the chameleon currently sat at a desk, all around the floor was littered with stacks of cardboard boxes. In the corner sat a water cooler, and behind him was a set of lockers and a mahogany leather couch. The walls were plastered and painted a slate grey that was cracking and peeling in several places. Along the walls various papers and news article were hung. What was perhaps the most perplexing feature of all to him in the room was, glancing upward, a motorized fan that hung from the ceiling providing a cool breeze in the room. Definitely not the typical treehouses made of wood, sticks and leaves he was familiar with in Meadowood. And that city outside. While he had been in Mercia after it's takeover, he only had vague memories of the rare occasions him and his family had traveled there when it wasn't crawling with filth and SWATbots. The chameleon had said it was called Central City, but it was no place he'd ever heard of. There was no way Espio could have faked any of that. The hedgehog leaned back, throwing a hand up to his forehead as he exhaled in exasperation. A nauseated pit was beginning to twist uncomfortably in his stomach and he was beginning to feel slightly dizzy. "I'm having a dream," he said finally, leaning forward and clutching his head in his hands "Yes, that must be it. This is all just some daft dream I'm having, and when I wake up it'll be morning and I'll be in my bed and everything will be sane..." Funny. He never remembered ever experiencing pain in his dreams before.
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Post by Leedzie on Mar 1, 2007 23:10:02 GMT -5
Espio continued to peer unblinkingly at his guest. The guy was obviously confused, there was no mistaking that. Espio intended on helping him, but there was nothing he could do if he couldn't get the hedgehog to explain his experience. And now the guy thought he was dreaming. Only one thing to do, then, the ninja thought to himself. Gotta snap him back into reality. In a blur Espio's free hand had snatched a kunai from his glove and whipped it through the air, sending it whizzing over Rob's head, through the tip of his hood and pulling off his head as it was pinned to the back of the chair. "I can assure you that you're not asleep," Espio announced casually. He still slouched sideways onto one hand. "I'm willing to help you, but I can't do that if you won't help yourself." The chameleon paused, then straightened his posture. "Why don't you at least start with telling me your name?"
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Post by Jamie Lee on Mar 2, 2007 3:13:24 GMT -5
Rob's eyes flew open wide when his hood had suddenly flown off his head, causing him to jerk to the side and look at what had just been thrown at him. He removed the kunai from the back of the seat and puzzled at it for a moment, then examined the hood itself. Luckily, there hadn't been a hole put in it. The material was tough after all, tough enough to withstand being in constant contact with his sharp quills. He glanced at the kunai again, then over to the person that'd thrown it as he spoke to him " If only you were that good a shot with a bow and arrow..." he muttered, then sighed heavily in disappointment at the chameleon's statement as he pulled the hood back up where it belonged "Robert. Robert Hedge. And you'd apparently not be the Espio I'm familiar with."
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Post by Leedzie on Mar 2, 2007 13:47:54 GMT -5
"You're obviously familiar with me in some way," the chameleon replied, "or you wouldn't have already known my name. In any case, it's nice to meet you." Espio leaned forward onto his cluttered desk, alert and prepared to listen. "So... What's your story?"
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Post by Jamie Lee on Mar 6, 2007 2:30:29 GMT -5
"Well I... I don't really know," he said, leaning forward, resting his elbow on the desk and his head in his hand with a look of contemplation "I was in Rouge's lodge with her when this hedgehog looking robot came out of nowhere knocking on her door... Thought he might have been a roboticized, though he was acting quite strangely. Said he was working for Robotnik, so couldn't have had a free will, yet he didn't present himself as hostile... I believe he called himself... Silver Sonic? Something or the other. Anyway, he seemed to be somehow familiar with Rouge, even though hardly anything he was saying about her sounded right. And of all things he was asking for directions. Said his GPA or whatever he called it was on the fritz. I told him he'd best be finding help in Mercia... then the strangest thing happened," He face took on a worried expression as he thought about it "The bloody floor seemed to give out from under me. There were these... these... bright flashing colors and then... I somehow came to be here." The worry deepened slightly "I do hope Rouge is alright... Don't know what I'd do if she were hurt..."
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Post by Leedzie on Mar 6, 2007 10:59:43 GMT -5
"I'm sorry for your misfortune," Espio replied, sitting back again and holding his chin with thought. "From the sound of it, you're in the wrong dimension, but... I never really heard of the Sol world having alternate copies of ourselves, but, I suppose it's in the realm of possibility. It's an entire dimension, we can't have met everybody." The chameleon folded his arms and tipped backwards a bit in his chair. "Mr. Hedge, I'm gonna take a stab in the dark here and guess that you live in more of a country setting; your clothing and your reaction to the city outside are more than enough to tell me that, but you also seem ignorant of the existance of separate realities." Espio paused and looked at the ceiling, taking a moment to plan his next explanation. "I guess you could say, the world you're in right now is the same as yours, but with a massive makeover. It's like being on another planet, even though it's actually the same one, just at a different space-time location. "That experience of falling through the floor, and seeing the bright flashing lights? That was the middleground between the dimensions; it's called the Special Zone. It's a bad acid trip nonsensical reality that can actually be a little dangerous if you don't know how to navigate it. Normally holes in a dimension only go as far as the Special Zone, but once in a while they're deep enough to punch all the way through to the neighboring dimension." The ninja rolled his eyes. "We've recently had a lot of problems with crossovers between Chaos and Sol. "As for you," Espio continued, "my guess is that you're from the Sol Dimension, since that's the running track record for crossovers, but we can't know that for sure. I can't very well retrace your footsteps to see where you came from, and with you living away from civilization, you're probably largely out of the gossip loop. All I can really do for you is try to track down one of the rips in the dimension that'll lead you back home... Although even I don't know where we'd even start with that."
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Post by Jamie Lee on Mar 7, 2007 1:40:58 GMT -5
Alternate dimensions? Rob leaned back in his chair with one brow arched, listening intently as Espio explained everything to him. He folded his arms, his gaze shifting toward the desk as he thought it over. "It's true I am country bred, but most of the blokes from the village I came from were city-dwellers before the war. I've... never heard anything about a 'Sol' or other dimensions from any of them... And I can tell you that the name of the planet I come from is called Mobius."
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Post by Leedzie on Mar 7, 2007 1:50:14 GMT -5
"Well that makes my life harder," Espio muttered with a snort. "I've never even heard of Mobius before. Finding a portal to there will probably be exponentially more difficult than finding one that leads to the Sol world." The chameleon sighed and ran his hands over his face, his scaley hide sluggishly kaleidoscoping through an array of murkey colours. "I'm a little out of my league at my current information level, so the first thing we have to do is a bit of research. I know a handful of people that might be able to help us out." Espio stood up and cracked his back. "Up for a field trip, Mr. Hedge?"
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