Author's note: I blame this one on Detective Conan. I started watching the anime about a week ago, and it inspired me to write a Sonic detective fanfic. Just a head's up, I decided to give Station Square a corrupted-city atmosphere (think Gotham City) since I'm trying to convey a dark tone. The story will mostly, if not completely, be told in first person. The narrator will be indicated by the character name in bold at the beginning of each section. I do not own these characters... enjoy!
Chapter 1 No Time for Grieving
. . . Vector . . .
I flinched again as I heard Espio thrust his throwing knife into the desk. I was beyond irritated by the constant thumping of the wood every five seconds, but I was in no mood to be yelling at anyone. The chameleon did this whenever something was on his mind or if he felt troubled. Needless to say, something big was definitely on his mind. Therefore I felt inclined to allow him to carry on with his stress-relieving activity, though I wasn't too thrilled about how he was destroying my desk.
Neither one of us spoke; neither one of us had to. There was nothing to be said about the current situation that we didn't already know or comprehend. We had unplugged the company phone in order to keep our peace from being penetrated. We didn't feel like having the phone ring every few minutes just to hear someone asking us to solve another case of murder or a missing child. We knew what our next case was going to be, and we weren't gonna let any other jobs get in the way.
Espio turned his head toward the door; his hearing allowed him to sense people approaching the door well before I could. It made the bell hanging over the door seem kind of pointless. Sure enough, the bell rang as the door swung open, revealing a drenched red echidna by the name of Knuckles.
"Vector, Espio," he said as he took off his soaked overcoat and hung it on the nearby coatrack. He swore as his badge fell from his coat pocket and landed on the floor. Lieutenant Knuckles was a very common guest at our office, so we had gotten used to seeing him nonchalantly walk in without any warning. Unless he asked us to do otherwise, we just referred to him informally as Knuckles. We had known each other for so long; I think he understood the difficulty in suddenly having to refer to him by a rank.
"Knuckles." The name escaped Espio and me simultaneously in the same melancholy tone. It was always good to see a friend on a gloomy day, especially today. However, the police officer's appearance wasn't always the cause for jubilation; it was actually quite the opposite. Knuckles usually came by when he was too stressed out from work, and usually had a depressing story or two to tell us regarding the day's casualties. At first, I thought it a bit inappropriate and rude to come by and spout the daily events of the hellhole city known as Station Square. It's not like we didn't already have our share of the city's trash on our hands. But as the visits continued, I slowly started to understand what was going on; Knuckles needed this. Every day he was knee-deep in the city's filth, trying to keep the citizens safe from the crime and corruption that had destroyed Station Square from the inside out. The guy needed an outlet; someone to talk to about the crazy shit he encountered every day on the job. I think he felt it was his only way of staying sane; the only way of keeping himself from being consumed by the rotten corruption of the city.
And it showed, too. I wasn't too familiar with the police force, but I could tell Knuckles was one of the only good cops on it. The same certainly couldn't be said for his weasel of a partner, Fang. It was almost laughable how deep he was entrenched in almost every drug deal. The only plausible explanation for how he was still on the force was that he was bribing the chief with the fruits of his drug trafficking. The echidna's trust was wasted on that low-life.
Without having to be asked, the echidna pulled a chair up to the desk and fell back in it, landing with a rough "thud." He breathed a heavy sigh as he took out a lighter and a packet of cigarettes. "You mind?" he asked, already with the cigarette in his mouth and the lighter open. I sure as hell didn't care, but I knew Espio wasn't crazy about the smell. I looked over at him and he simply gave me a look. Espio and I had now spent five years working together; that time allowed me to become an expert at interpreting his various looks. It was a look that said, "I don't want him to smoke, but I don't want to tell him no." Espio was often quite blunt when it came to talking, so I understood that he didn't want to come off as hostile.
"Hey, Knuckles, why don't you lay off the smokes for now? You've spent the whole day in that putrid city. Might as well take in the fresh air when you can get it, right?" He looked at me puzzled for a few seconds, and then caught my drift as I discreetly nodded towards Espio.
"Good idea," he nodded, closing the lighter and placing it under the desk. He plucked the cigarette from his teeth and placed it back in the box, which also made its way under the desk.
The three of us sat there in silence; everyone had the same thing on their mind, but no one wanted to be the first one to talk. I clumsily fiddled with my chain to add a little noise to the room. I was hoping Espio would return to his stabbing of the desk to help make this less comfortable, but he had stopped ever since Knuckles walked in. I looked over at the echidna, who knew perfectly well what we were waiting to hear. I figured he didn't want to walk in and just drop a bomb on us like that.
"So, Knuckles." I was embarrassed to hear my voice crack the way it did. I roughly coughed a couple times before trying again. "So, Knuckles, how have things been goin' off the job? You're always talking about your daily routine and what goes on during hours. Hope you're finding some time to relax or catch up with some familiar faces." I knew it was a silly question to ask, but it was the best I could come up with. We just needed something, anything, to kick off conversation; from there, we could gradually get down to business.
The look Knuckles gave me also suggested he thought it was a silly question, but he knew what I was trying to do. "Relax?" he asked while doing his usual practice of cracking his knuckles. "That word hasn't existed in my vocabulary in a long time. When I'm not on the job down here, I'm up on Angel Island protecting the Master Emerald."
Ah, the Master Emerald; I had almost forgotten about that giant green gem the echidna cared so much about. It was amazing thinking how much he had changed since I first met him. That emerald used to be the only thing he cared about; he protected it day and night and refused to let anything keep him away from it. Now, in terms of the echidna's priorities, it had taken a back seat to his job as a police officer. Knuckles would never admit it, but I truly think he was more worried about the safety of the civilians of Station Square than the safety of his emerald.
"You still get a ride from Tails to go up to your island, right? How's the little guy doing?"
Knuckles let out a long chuckle before straightening himself up again. "For starters, he wouldn't be too thrilled to hear you call him little. Being alone in the ruins has forced him to become more independent, whether he wanted to or not. I think we're actually starting to enjoy each other's company." He paused for a moment with a smile on his face; it was the first time in a long while I can remember him smiling. I figured him talking about the young fox growing up had aroused memories of when the two first met.
"He's a good kid," I said, putting my two cents into the conversation. "It's good he got out of this city when he did. Station Square is no place for innocent youths like him."
"Sonic and I would never allow anything to happen to him." He looked at me as if my comment had questioned his ability to protect the kid. I hadn't even thought about it in that context; I was just trying to keep up the small talk. However, Knuckles had a tendency to take things the wrong way. Luckily, this small show of anger didn't last, as he relaxed back into his chair and carried on. "But it was for the best that he moved out to the Mystic Ruins away from this city. Cream went with him, didn't she?"
Upon hearing that name I pushed my weight forward, sending the forelegs of my leaned-back chair towards the floor with a hard "thud." And I had been doing so well with pushing those memories out of my head.
It took Knuckles a few seconds to realize what he had said, but the damage had already been done. Images of her beautiful face were swimming around my mind; her gentle voice, calling my name.
"Vector, shit, I'm sorry." Knuckles was spilling out words, trying to connect them and make a sentence to recover from his blunder.
"It's alright," I interrupted, just to hear him stop hurting himself trying to apologize. I let out a deep sigh, trying to make the memories of her face stop spinning through my mind. "I know that's not the only bad news I'll be hearing today, so I might as well be in the right mental state to take it. Yes, to answer your question, Cream went with Tails to the Mystic Ruins as soon as she heard he was leaving. She had previously been staying at Amy's following the death of her mother, but she was waiting for any chance she got to leave."
Awkward silence once again infiltrated the room, and I noticed that Espio had gone back to stabbing the desk with his throwing knife. I had not expected conversation to drift over to the death of Vanilla; it was still a subject I tried to avoid at all costs. So I figured I'd try to get back to talking about Tails.
"But it's good to hear the young fox is doing alright. He's been by himself for what, almost a year now?"
Knuckles stared up at the dirty ceiling (Espio and I really should clean up around here) as he counted backwards in his head. "About eleven months, I think," he concluded, running the numbers through his head again. "I was impressed; I thought he'd be pretty down when Sonic left, but he took it rather well. Too well, almost."
I could see in the echidna's eyes that he was now thinking about his friendly rival, Sonic the Hedgehog. He unexpectedly left town six months ago and we hadn't heard from him since. No one knows where he went or why he left; all we know is that he's gone at a time where we need him most. Knuckles knew it too. Sure, he'd always put on a show of arguing and frustration whenever Sonic was around, but he knew the hedgehog was someone the city needed. He was a true hero; something that most people in Station Square forgot existed.
"What do you think he's doing right now, Vector?" I sure as hell hoped that was a rhetorical question, cause I probably knew as little about Sonic's whereabouts as he did. He looked at me with an open-minded sort of expression on his face. He knew I didn't have the answers; he just wanted to know what I thought about the whole situation.
"I just don't get it," he continued, turning his head so he was staring out the window. "Why would he leave us in a time like this? Things were already pretty bad around here; didn't he realize it was just gonna get worse once he left?"
These were questions that everyone had been constantly asking ever since Sonic left. "Knuckles," I started, trying to think of something that was accurate, but would also calm him down. "You've known him for longer than I have. You of all people should know that Sonic lives by his own agenda. We all look at it as him abandoning Station Square; he may see it in a whole different light. What he did may not make sense to us, but it made sense to him. Plus, you have to admit it's a bit unfair to chastise him for leaving when anyone in their right mind would want to get out of here."
Knuckles turned his head back towards me, and let out what felt like a nervous chuckle. "Then I guess the three of us aren't in our right minds, are we?" I smiled wryly in response to his comment; he seemed to say weird stuff like that every time he dropped by.
I almost fell over in my chair when I saw Espio suddenly stand up and forcefully stab the desk. "Have you guys reminisced enough, yet?" There was no mistaking the impatience in his voice. He was ready to hear the news the echidna had come to give; he had been ready since before he arrived. He was probably just being polite by allowing Knuckles and me to delay the conversation, but he was tired of waiting.
"I guess we should get to talking about Charmy, shouldn't we?" Knuckles looked at me as if waiting for me to give the okay to change topics. He stood up and started pacing around in a small circle; he tended to do this whenever he was reporting grim news.
"Just cut to the chase," said Espio in his usual blunt style. "Did you find him or not?"
It was like not wanting to know if you got the million dollar question right or not, in fear that you answered incorrectly. I wanted to just tune out the world and skip forward to a time where I already knew what happened to Charmy. Or maybe that was the worst part. I already knew what Knuckles was going to tell us before it even left his mouth.
"Yeah, we found him," said the echidna, reaching into one of the pockets of his trench coat. There was no happiness or excitement anywhere in his voice, and therefore Espio and I showed no signs of happiness either. He dug out a file and threw it on the desk, blandly adding, "But I really wish we hadn't."
I quickly opened the file up to the bookmarked page and realized what he was talking about. I wanted to grab the echidna's lighter and burn all the pictures immediately; I couldn't stand to see my friend like this. I looked to my right and assumed Espio had similar thoughts, judging by the look of horror on his face.
"Is he still there? Did you move him?" Espio briskly asked without taking a breath. I put my right hand on his shoulder in order to keep him calm. He usually didn't need help in doing that, but then again he had never seen one of his best friends cut up into pieces.
"Easy there, buddy." Knuckles could sense the anxiety in Espio's voice as well. "They wanted to clean it up, but I convinced them to keep the body there. I knew you'd want to check out the scene. Plus, with you guys, there's always a good chance you'll see something we missed. There's a reason you guys are the best detective agency around, after all."
I appreciated the flattery by Knuckles, but this really wasn't the time for it. I looked over at Espio, and he nodded back. Without any more words being said, we got up and started gathering our usual attire for when we were on the job. Knuckles flung on his jacket, grabbed his pack of smokes and lighter from under the desk, and headed out into the rainy night.
That was the situation Espio and I found ourselves in as we headed out back to climb into the car. Someone had murdered our best friend; someone was going to pay. And nothing was gonna keep us from making sure they did.
To be continued...
So that was the first chapter; I hope you all enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. Ideas for this story are constantly flying around my head, so I'm probably gonna make this my main fanfic to work on. Later chapters will definitely be more eventful; this one was meant to introduce the basis for the plot and to give you a background for the setting. Please R&R (heavy emphasis on the second one) because reading comments makes me churn these out quicker.
