I can't believe it! Two weeks off and only three updates! THREE!

Chapter 6: Strange and Busted

Waffle paced to floor of the Chaotix Detective Agency worriedly. "Do you think Kaity's alright?" the female fox asked Snow, who was sitting at Vector's desk.

"She's probably fine, just taunting Eggman." Snow shrugged.

"I don't think she'd stick around for this long, she's been gone all day."

"Maybe she got lost."

"Eggman's bases are all the same."

"She could be on her way right now." Snow shrugged, "In the mean time, we've gotta look more into this 'shrinking Espio' thing." The white tiger sat up in the chair and busied herself with looking into the computer files. Hours dragged by and still no sign of their chameleon friend.

"I'm gonna go look for 'er." Waffle said finally, walking towards the door. "Watch the agency, if Kaity comes back, call me." As Waffle reached for the door knob, it burst open and Kaity stood there, a smug grin on her face and a disk in her hand.

"I'm back." She stated. Snow got up from her place to greet her friend.

"How'd it go?" she asked.

"Smoothly, a couple guard 'bots, but nothing too serious, Waffle" Kaity shrugged, scanning Snow's face, and then Waffle's. "By the way, got what we needed." The chameleon handed Snow the disk. Snow took the disk and put it in the computer, and started her search.

"Kaity, you've been gone all day, are you sure it wasn't serious?" Waffle asked concern in her voice. Kaity stared blankly at her before answering.

"Yes, everything went fine, Waffle." The purple reptile headed toward Espio's room, "I'm gonna go sleep for a little bit, is that okay? Let me know if you find anything." She said.

"Um, Kaity, that's Espio's room." Waffle said. Kaity stopped, and stared at the door for a second.

"Oh, right, guess I wasn't paying attention." Kaity shrugged and walked over to the next room.

"That's Charmy's."

"Is there somethin' wrong, Kaity?" Snow asked, looking up from the computer. Again, Kaity stared blankly before answering.

"No, Snow, just had a little trouble getting the data and everything." Kaity said. "I guess something's just went blank." With that, she headed up the stairs in a hurry. Snow turned back to her work, but Waffle stood in her place, staring suspiciously at the stair way her friend had gone up. Without saying a word, Waffle snuck up the stairs and watched her friend stare at each door, open one, then close it, and she did this until she found the room the three girl's traditionally stay in while sleeping at the Chaotix's agency. 'I know that looked like Kaity, but it didn't seem like Kaity.' Waffle thought. 'Better talk to the Chaotix about it.'

OoOoO

Meanwhile, at the Apartment, Espio had long-since trapped Vector behind a locked door. He and Charmy now had free rule of the apartment. At the moment, Espio was firing the contents of a fire extinguisher at Charmy, who also found one and fired back. Charmy flew away from Espio's blast of foam, and stood ready in front of the door. The now 6-year-old chameleon open fired at the bee, who jumped away from the door just as it opened. A loud screech came from the direction of the door. Espio, recognizing the voice, took pressure off the extinguisher's handle and looked at the Mobian in the doorway in shock.

"Oh man...busted..." Espio winced.

The foam stuck to Waffle's pink t-shirt like glue. Charmy fought the urge to laugh at the sight of the tan vixen. "What happened in here?" Waffle asked in shock and anger, looking around the foam-covered room.

"Um...Charmy did it!" Espio exclaimed, trying to hide the extinguisher he'd shot Waffle with. But being only a little taller than it showed to be a problem.

"But Espio helped!" Charmy said, pointing to Espio and throwing his extinguisher to the ground. "He said it'd be fun...and it was!"

"He's lying, Waffle! This was all his idea!" Espio protested.

"Where's Vector?" Waffle asked, noticing that Vector was nowhere in sight.

"That you Waffle? Thank chaos! Get me out!" Vector called from his prison. Waffle unlocked the door that held Vector and let him out into the foamy room.

"Vector, what happened?" Waffle demanded.

"Espio and Charmy tied me up and locked me in there." Vector explained.

"...So, you were over-powered by a couple of six-year-olds?" Waffle asked, resisting her urge to giggle.

"Um...Yeah." Vector admitted, a deep blush went over his face.

"Espio! Charmy! Clean this place up!" Waffle said, turning from her crocodile friend and towards the bee and chameleon. "We'll talk while you're cleaning." Both groaned, but started cleaning while Waffle explained what had happened at the agency.

"Maybe something did happen, and she doesn't wanna talk about it." Espio shrugged, wiping a small table clean of foam.

"That's what I thought at first, but she was acting...different." Waffle said.

"Define 'different'." Vector said a thoughtful look on his face.

"As in 'not acting how she usually does'." Waffle answered.

"I mean, different how?"

"There was something about her eyes..."

"Her eyes?" Espio laughed, "Are you sayin' it's just a 'look into their eyes and know something's wrong' type of thing?"

"Well, no, not exactly, when she stared at me, her eyes seemed...dead. Her eyes normally looked livelier."

"And that's a reason to be suspicious?"

"Yeah, and the way she spoke, she didn't say 'nothin' like she usually does, she said 'nothing'. And every answer had a name in it; like she wasn't sure it was us."

"Well, did she have a hard time on the job?" Charmy asked.

"No, she said it went smoothly...But after that, she said she had a hard time." Waffle realized.

"Maybe something did happen to her." Espio said, staring thoughtfully at the wall, "Maybe an Egg-bot got a hold of her for a while."

"That's what worries me."

"Anything else?" Vector asked.

"Um...Oh! She almost went into Espio's room to go to sleep, then Charmy's. Then I followed 'er upstairs and it took her five minutes to find our room." Waffle remembered.

"Should we look into it?"

"No, don't let on about anything," Espio said, "If she even thinks we know something we aren't supposed to, who knows what'll happen." He threw a bit of the fire extinguisher foam back at Charmy, "Let it all play out, but watch her carefully, anything weird gets reported to us, okay?" Espio instructed Waffle.

She nodded, "Should I tell Snow too?"

"If you think we should, yes." The room was finally clean and Waffle left, a mission in mind. "So...I guess we'll have to find some other way to entertain ourselves." Espio said quietly to Charmy.

Only three updates! What's wrong with me!?!?