Confusion

Chapter One

Me: So I'm making this story as my first. Not the first I've ever written, just the first that ever made its way off the paper. I'm not entirely sure where this story will go, I'm just going to follow my crazy brain process. I got my idea from The Mouse of Anon. Their Kleptomaniac series fascinates me, so the strangest plot bunny started to hang about. I know, I don't make sense. Alright Manic, DO THE DISCLAIMER!

Manic: Over dramatic much?

Me: o.0

Manic: Alright! I'll do it! Just stop giving me the crazy eyes!

Me: *smirk*

Manic: She owns nothing except the crazy plot and a few OC's that may pop in here and there. All Sonic characters belong to SEGA, and Kleptomaniac belongs to The Mouse of Anon. Can we please start the story? She's getting those EYES again...

Me: If I didn't give credit to anybody who deserves it please tell me so I can fix the problem. o.0

Manic's P.o.V.

I finished the song we had just been playing with a few final beats and twirled my drumsticks. The crowd cheered as we all took a bow. There was me at the drums, my sister Sonia at the keyboard, and my friend Flip on the guitar.

"Yo Manic!" Flip called. "Feel like doin' another encore?"

I laughed as my sister rolled her eyes at the tired, but happy, hedgehog. "Na, I can tell ya don't really wanna do another. Besides, that was like, what? The fourth one?"

"No way dude! That couldn't've been the fourth! We're like, on the second!" Flip frowned in thought as he pushed his bangs out of his face for the umpteenth time that night.

My sister suddenly decided to butt in. "Actually, it was the fifth. If we don't leave now, Manic and I will have to carry you out!" That said, her keyboard turned into a swirl of pink light that settled on her neck and turned into a silver medallion.

Flip sighed in defeat and walked offstage carrying his guitar. My drums turned into bright green light and ended up as my medallion. After a quick cleanup and dinner at the bar, we left the underground pub and headed back to our van.

Once we got there Flip passed out on the couch. He was a hedgehog like my sister and me. He was black with brown covering his arms, stomach, and muzzle. A patch of white fur covered his chest. The tips of his quills were a bright green, while his two bangs that forever fell in his face were fire truck red. I laughed as his bangs tickled his nose and his snout twitched. When his eyes were open they were a dark brown. He wore a light brown vest much like my own and a pair of blue jean shorts. His shoes weren't too special, they were red and white with a spike extending off the back.

My examination of my friend led me to thinking of my appearance. I was green all over with my arms, snout, chest and stomach being tan. I had a giant mess of bangs on my forehead and two brass piercings on my left ear. My eyes were a golden brown. I wore a light brown vest that was just a little darker and three inches longer than Flip's. Around my ankles and wrists were my black bracelets with spikes on them. My shoes were just like Flip's, minus the spikes.

My attention wandered over to my sister as I heard the shower turn on. I snickered, typical Sonia! She was a neat freak, and she kept her violet fur and pink spines in perfect condition. She usually wears a red leotard and a purple skirt, along with matching purple boots and gloves. Her eyes were a dark red and when she was mad, those eyes were scary! That was the reason Flip hadn't bothered to argue with her earlier. When she got angry, Sonia could bring anyone to their knees with a single glare.

I laughed as I 'heard' Flip's dream. My empathetic abilities allowed me to feel other's emotions, and right now Flip was dreaming about how annoyed he was at his insomnia. I shook my head at the pure irony of it.

I sent out a random scan to check for any unknown visitors lurking around. With the assurance that nothing was going to sneak up on my sister and my friend, I got up to go to bed.

"Hey sis!" I called out as I passed the bathroom. "Don't forget to wash behind the ears!" I rolled my eyes as my sister thought up the image of her shoving my face into the sink specially for me.

As I laid there in my bed, I couldn't help but think of Him. I fingered my medallion and felt the thrum of energy as it responded to my touch.

I could feel my sister Sonia through it and she could feel me, as long as we were both wearing our medallions.

The question was; did we not feel him because he wasn't wearing his? Or did something else happen?

As these thoughts and more ran through my head, I yawned and blinked sleepily. No sense of staying up late, worrying myself to death over a problem several years old. I rolled over onto my side and slowly drifted off to sleep.

I was walking through the streets. It was late at night, and I knew I shouldn't be out here. Especially in this part of the city.

I took out the note that I had found on my doorstep, leading me to this stupid stunt.

"Meet me in the alley behind The Starlight Bar in downtown, at midnight,"

I sighed. "Why do these things always have to be at midnight?" I knew I should've at least left the note behind, that way if anything happened anyone searching for me would find it.

I should've, but I didn't. I was pretty sure that the note was from my boyfriend. But, still. I shook my head at my own stupidity.

It was too late to turn back now, I was here. I heard a few whoops and whistles as I passed the open doorway of the bar. I shivered and hurried past.

As I waited in the dark alley I checked my watch: 12:28. I stayed for five more minutes.

"Stupid, stupid, stupid!" I growled to myself. I got to the entrance to the alley when someone grabbed me and threw a bag over my head. I struggled as I heard the sounds of a vehicle pulling up.

I heard the sound of doors opening and I was pushed forwards. I landed on the floor, presumably in a van. Somebody grabbed my hands and wrestled them behind my back. A few minutes later I was tied hand and feet. More like duct taped, actually.

"Hey, who are you? Where am I?" I received a blow to the back of the head as an answer and bit my lip to keep from crying out.

What seemed like five hours later, but was probably only twenty minutes, I was picked up and carried out of the now stationary van. I struggled, not caring if I was dropped.

"Hey, I'm not baggage! Put me down!" Suddenly, a brief moment of weightlessness and impact with a cold, hard surface. On second thought, maybe I did care.

The bag was ripped off of my head. I was in a dark room... with somebody else.

"I... who are you? Why'd you kidnap me? Where am I?" The other person was in a shadow and I couldn't make out any features. I began to panic, and started to babble. "My family doesn't have any money, we're actually kind of poor. I don't carry more than ten bucks at a time-"

"I'm not interested in money, yet." The stranger was a male, and there was a certain tone to his voice that I couldn't make out.

"Umm... uh.." I gulped, fear slowly taking over. "What do you mean by uh... yet?" I flinched as he laughed a dark, creepy laugh.

"Oh I plan on having lots of fun before sending the ransom note." He walked out of the shadows. I gasped as I saw his face, and then screamed when I saw the knife in his hand.

He closed in on me, and I couldn't move tied up. I heard his insane, maniacal laugh before my life went to spraint.

I screamed as I woke up from the 'dream'. I bolted from my bedroom to the bathroom in time to puke my guts out in the toilet.

After throwing up for ten and dry-heaving for fifteen minutes I had to take a shower. After experiencing what that girl had been going through... I would have thrown up again at the thought if there'd been anything to come up.

I eventually heard the sounds of somebody waking up and stumbling around over the running water. It was probably Flip. Even when he managed to get some sleep, his stubborn insomnia would wake him up.

I touched his mind, definitely him. Nobody else had such an open mind, yet so many secrets. Whenever I 'felt' his mind it was just like mine would be. If my surfer accent and 'not-exactly-sharpest-knife-in-the-kitchen' act was real.

But underneath that goofy exterior, Flip's mind held dark traces of secrets, lies, and pain. Even I could never figure out all that was going on in there.

I quickly brushed all thoughts of figuring out what was up out of my mind. If Flip needed to tell us, he would. Besides, I knew better than anybody else what it was like to have dangerous secrets. After all, I kept one of the most deadly secrets in Mobodeen.

As I turned the water off, memories came rushing back to me. The attack of empathy I had gone through, then having my sister kidnapped while I was still recovering and weak.

Being forced to tell my secret to my brother, and expecting him to hate me for it...

"I'm a monster! I'M the murderer Kleptomaniac! I've killed people! People that deserved it, but I still killed them! And I felt it as they died, felt it as if it was ME dying instead of them! AND I STILL DON'T REGRET DOING IT!" I was sitting on the ground hugging my knees, sobbing.

"Manic..." My brother looked at me with those green eyes of his. Then he shocked me.

I felt my big brother hugging me. I looked at him, confused. "But... but I'm..."

"You're my brother." He smiled warmly at me. "We haven't known each other for very long, but you're family. Why would I hate you? I love you little bro, always will." His smile wavered a little. "I might not really understand why you do those things, but I'd like to think I have a pretty good idea. Because you don't just feel the bad guys when you kill them.. You feel the victims when they're hurt, or... worse. So you can't just stand by and let those guys go out and do it over again... That's it, right bro?"

I nodded and sniffed, a grateful smile on my face for him understanding me where others never would. His soft smile turned into his trademark smirk. "Now what's say you quit with the waterworks and we go rescue our sister?"

At that I broke down again. But this time, I was happy.

After I had gotten a hold of my emotions we had gone and rescued Sonia. Then we had to tell my sister... Yea, I STILL don't like remembering that... interesting conversation.

Sonia's P.o.V.

I woke up hearing a small crash. I concentrated for a moment on a feeling, basically amounting to: 'Manic?'

In response I saw an image of my brother wrapped in a towel watching as Flip tried to pick up a mess consisting of different foods.

One quick glance at the clock and I stormed out of my room. "Do you two have ANY idea what time it is? It's three o'clock in the morning!"

"Oh gee, Sonia, Ah didn' know it was tha' early!" Flip lowered his eyes and picked up a piece of toast. "Ah jus' woke up, and Ah couldn't sleep. Then Ah got hungry! Then Manic came outta tha shower, and Ah asked 'im what 'e was doin' up so early and then Ah tripped!" Flip gave me an apologetic look before standing and heading to our 'kitchen', which was actually just a sink, a few cupboards, and a small fridge, with the ruined food.

While he was distracted a worried thought ran through my mind.

Manic rolled his eyes. "Cummon sis, I'm fine. It was just a little bad dream. Nothin' ta worry 'bout, I'll be OK." He gave me a smile to reassure me.

I was still worried, but I accepted his words with a nod of my head. He headed back to his room to get dressed as I went back to mine. There wasn't any point in going back to sleep, so I brushed my quills and got ready for the day.

Flip was packing his guitar into its case. He had a troubled look on his face.

"Flip, what's wrong?" I asked. He sighed and scowled.

"Ah've got like, no place ta stash Tha Zipper." He replied, using the name he had given his instrument. "Ah can't bring it with me, tha place that I'm goin' ta doesn't exactly like music if ya get ma drift."

I nodded as Manic walked in the room in time to hear his words. "Ya know, Flip, you can jus' leave The Zipper with us." Flip looked up as I agreed with my brother.

"Yeah, what better place to hide it then with the Sonic Underground?" I smiled at the look of relief on his face.

"Uh, thanks guys! Ah was actually tryin' ta come up with a way ta ask you two ta hold onta it." He smiled back, a little embarrassed. A thoughtful look crossed his face as he absent-mindedly brushed his bangs out of his eyes.

"Ya know, Ah jus' thought of somethin'." The look on Manic's face as Flip said that, which Flip seemed to miss completely, worried me. "You two are named Sonic Underground, and Ah know that you guys used ta have a guitar player, and everyone always talks 'bout the royal triplets. So..." Suddenly Flip saw the troubled look on our faces and got worried. "Umm... so... What happened to 'im?"

Seeing the sad looks on our faces Flip started to panic. "But, ya guys don't have ta tell me. Ah mean, i''s family stuff... In fact, Ah shouldn't even've asked-"

Manic cut him off. "Na Flip, it's not your fault. Besides, we would've told you eventually." Flip visibly relaxed as I started to talk.

"You're right about Sonic Underground, we named it after our brother." Flip and Manic sat down on opposite ends of the couch and I sat in my chair. "He was bright blue, with tan on his arms, muzzle, and stomach. His eyes were a real vibrant green..." I trailed off, lost in memory.

My brother picked up for me. "Ya know the story of how we all got together." He laughed. "Every Resistance member there IS knows it. Well, three years ago we kinda got in a real bad fight, and Sonic went after Robotnik by 'imself..." I knew Manic felt most responsible for the fight so I continued.

"We waited for him to come back, but he never did. We then received word that Robotnik had left the country, and Snively was put in charge."

Flip blew at his bangs. "So THA'S why SWATbots took over all of a sudden."

I nodded. "We think that Robotnik is trying to take over neighboring countries, but the security on the border is so tight nobody can get through to figure out what's going on."

"Well, Ah'm sorry that he disappeared like that. Knowin' you two he's probably been tryin' ta come back." Flip's face fell as a few tears fell from my eyes.

"That, or he can't come back at all..."

Me: Mwahaha! Cliffy! Sort of... Hey Manic, how'd your alter ego like how I made you guys upset?

Manic: You do realize I'm technically HIS alter ego, right?

Me: What?

Manic: Yeah. Ya see-

Kleptomaniac: YARGH! YOU MADE ME CRY! WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT TO ME?!

Me *slaps Kleptomaniac* One: Snap out of it. Two: I didn't make you cry, just your sister. Three: Cuz I could!

Manic: I hate it when this happens.

Me and Kleptomaniac: *suddenly get in a cat fight*

Manic: Please read and review so these two will stop fighting each other.

PS: If you guys haven't figured out who their brother is by now... Just.. Really?