I DO NOT OWN ANY SONIC CHARACTERS AS THEY BELONG TO SEGA, ARCHIE, SATam, AND ALL WHO CREATED THEM. I ONLY OWN MY OCs, WHICH WILL NOT BE MANY IN THIS CHAPTER. THANK YOU.

Chapter 13: Reliving the Past

Vector opened the old doors to the Chaotix Cafe to just... look around, relive old memories. When he pushed open the door, he was instantly greeted by the gagging smell of dust and the sight of it too, as well as the covered tables, and his beloved piano that layed erect in honor, as if awaiting for it's owner to return. Cobwebs littered the place, and the stink of vandalism had layered thinly over the abode. The wallpaper and floorboards looked ancient, and the pictures of the Chaotix when they were younger that was planted all over the place had sprouted a new habitat for the dustbunnies and birds' nests that had overtaken the view.

Then he turned his attention to a special place in the room; the middle of the room that was destroyed in a fit of rage that layed frozen in time like statuettes, the sight still swarming his memory every time he closed his eyes.

Flashback

He had been having a miserable day. Charmy wouldn't stop throwing a tantrum so he sent him outside to get out of his hair, the sink was broken, they could barely afford to eat, he and Espio had a chilled relationship with one another that were always resulting in fights, he had to clean up Espio's "boy stuff" from off of his bedsheets, found his porn just laying in reach of Charmy's grasp, Vanilla had taken him to court, Cream hated him, Sonic wouldn't stop threatening him, a fly landed on an important critic's hamburger, making him declare this place unsanitary, sending his customers whirling out of here in spirals of insanity, Shadow visited today and shot a hole through their window, Antoine visited, screaming out, "Putain! Putain!", and on top of that, he had the stomach virus.

And then Espio crashes through the broken window, setting off that damned alarm for the 10th time that day, with Sonic hot on his heels, screaming about condoms.

"What the hell!" he recalled himself screaming loudly. Sonic and Espio stop in their tracks, but they don't look at him, growling at each other. "This little fuck right here impregnated my sister." Sonic garbled evilly. "What?" he asked in alarm, feeling the heat of anger rising in his gut.

Vector had told Espio multiple times to wear a condom, and he refused to do so, so now look at what he's done! And now look at the mess that Vector will have to clean up. He knew that girl was trouble the moment Espio started to date her. Hell, he knew she was trouble when she said birth control was for dorks and threesomes are for real men, now look what's happened.

"Why, I didn't know." Espio answers. And then he lost his cool, shouting angrily, "Didn't know!" He had had it up to here with Espio's antics, and he found himself, on impulse, shoving Sonic out of the way, and using his brute force to tackle Espio to the floor and hold him there.

, even Eggman and Lightning, as well as everybody else around you, has told you multiple times that unprotected sex means babies, and babies are trouble. We can't even afford to feed ourselves, and you go out and pull this stunt! Dammit Espio! You are officially no longer a member of the Chaotix! Have at him Sonic!" Vector recalled himself shouting.

All this noise had attracted Charmy, who had just turned 8 a month ago, and Vector, 22 as February 28th, this was August, and the heat was sweltering outside, and you could see it on Charmy's face as he walked in, tired, but curious as to what was going on.

"What's amatter Vector?" Charmy asks innocently. Then he looks into his probably red eyes, Espio's bulging face filled with sneers, and Sonic's crazed eyes and shivers in fear. Seeing him in fear made Vector very sick to his stomach because he loved that little bee with all his heart, and now he'll have to deal with Espio's new baby and a bitch who'll cost money and take food out of his little, hungry mouth.

Sonic, with him being the poster child for impulsitivity, punches Charmy in the gut before howling, "Forget you bastard! Forget! Keep your innocence!" And at the snap of a finger, Sonic had ran out of there.

"And take your whore with you!" Espio shouts after Sonic, throwing his shoe at him. Vector looked at Espio and goes, "So you did didn't you?" Espio waves it away saying, "Yeah, yeah. We fucked, she got pregnant, but I'm not claiming the baby. I saw a pretty chameleon with a nice bust move in down the block and I'm gonna go say hi to her, she means a lot more than that fuckbag of a girlfriend I have."

And the fight was on as soon as that sentence was completed, and they had totalled the place, the carnage sprawled everywhere, and Espio had vanished, and so had Charmy, after he, in a fit of rage, had hit the little boy.

He called his younger brother Victor, a successful birthday party magician, and asked him if he and Charmy could come stay with him for awhile, and his brother, the bubbly one of the family, had said yes.

Vector and Charmy had nothing to pack, that's how broke they were, and Espio was gone, and the team had been torn all to hell. Vector didn't know what to do next, he was so lost. He could recall himself vomitting outside the window, accidently sending glass through his hands, turning them crimson red. Then he covered all the tables with sheets and waited for Victor to arrive.

The only other thing good that had happened that day was Flying visiting him with a wagon full of groceries, stomach nuetralizer, and a few extra necessities, rambling on to himself to the point his conversation was more like this:
"Hey Vector, the voices told me that you were having troubles, and I thought that it would be a great idea to visit you, even though the voices wanted me to kill you instead. I also watched you throw up last night from your window and knew immediately that you were having stomach troubles. The voices are reminding me right now to tell you that the Destructix are coming, and we need to speak with you. Also, the voices say that they hate you. They hate you tons."

Flying stared at Vector for a moment, pulling at his clothes, then ripped his cap in front of his eyes (Vector was too afraid to touch him), walked away, and threw the wagon at the remainder of his glass window, setting off the alarm again.

End Flashback

Wow, Vector thought to himself, letting out a whistle into the ghost house. Esp and I really did a number here.

He could still see the bloody handprints on the sheets where he placed them that had turned brown with time. He stepped further in, the dust hugging his feet as his shoes clattered against the floor. Vector couldn't stand the smell of the dust anymore, so he pulled out a cigarette, lit it up, and smoked it, knocking some of the ash onto the ruined floor.

When he looked at the holes in the walls, he was appalled. A reminder of just how quickly his temper had gotten away from him. Vector jerked his head away, and ran his hand against the spine of his piano, the only thing that he didn't cover.

He remembered the long nights of playing the piano as Espio worked the bar and Charmy served the people their food and drinks. He could play quite a tune back then, but now it stands as a relic of his youth and what was tranquile and lively. Curious, Vector touched a few keys.

The piano sprang alive with dust as the first keys were pressed. They didn't make lively music, instead, it made an awful squeak as the keys fell down into their chambers. Vector thought that he was going to cry at the noise his beloved piano was making, but then he remembered that if is was so important to him he should've came back for it instead of allowing it to rot in this tomb of ghastly memories.

He turned his attention to the stairwell, looking at how weak it looked. He wondered if he should attempt to go up the steps, but then he remembered that he had fulfilled his dream of becoming a detective, and he knew that his job took him to strange and dangerous places looking for clues, sadly, it just wasn't as awe-inspiring as he had hoped it to be.

The stairs groaned under his weight, complaining as he climbed the steps and collected the frames from the wall, which were many. He stepped off of the final step, it sassing him back, and then he felt a tickle on his bare hands. Vector looked to see a Grand Daddy Longlegs crawling on the tips of his fingers, making him shriek and drop the photos, the glass frames smashing into a hundred pieces.

"Dammit!" Vector stamped. He looked down at the broken mess and cautiously picked the images up from the frames, avoiding the glass. Luckily for him, nothing lodged itself in his body, so he was alright. He looked at the picture on top- A picture of Espio holding Charmy as they went down the waterslide- a picture that was taken on the first few days that the team had formed.

Flashback

It was a beautiful summer, and Charmy had only been 4 years old, Espio, 14, him, 18, with the birds chirping, the nonMobian bees buzzing merrily from flower to flower, the crisp air being a willing invader of his nostrils, the peacefullness of the days as they lulled into the nighttime, wonderous music being sang between the three of them, peaceful, but the summer hadn't started out that way.

Tired of standing in his younger brother's "amazing" shadow, Vector had left his home to seek his fortune elsewhere, when he met Espio, who had run away from home because he wanted adventure, ambling along the rooftops.
"Hey," he recalled himself calling out to the boy. "Aren't you gonna get hurt?" The young chameleon cried, "Oh shit, the cops!" and took off running, flinging himself from rooftop to rooftop. Vector remembered himself just shrugging and moving along with his life, until the same boy had called back out to him moments later, asking, "Do you got room for another?"

"Yeah Dawg, I got room fer you Dawg." Vector said all jazzy like. Espio had giggled and mimicked his tone as he asked, "Why do you talk like that, Dawg?" "Because I'm gonna become a famous rapper, and a detective yo." Vector recalled himself replying to Espio.

Espio smiled and said, "That sounds fun, can I join?" Vector stared at him for a moment, Espio's smile shrinking off of his face. "My name is Espio," he said. "And I'm a ninja. I won't be of no trouble to you sir." He looked so promising back then, he just had to take him in, but not without a, "Are ya sure your family won't mind?" "No, they won't."

And then sometime later, they found themselves on a mission to save a hive of bees from Eggman, who's lackeys at the time, Conquering Storm and Drago, had burned down, killing everyone in sight but Charmy and his baby sister, who was still asleep as Charmy cried, confused and innocent at the evil that had happened.

Charmy joined after that, because they didn't want him in an orphanage where he could continue to live in pain. Charmy's little sister went to live with Vector's parents, and then all 3 of them found this house and moved into it.

End Flashback

That had also been their first mission, and the waterslide was their reward, as well as something to help take their mind off of the mass murder that had taken place.

Vector sighed and marched on walking into the first room, his room. The upstairs rooms will look more horrible than the downstairs because he didn't even bother to cover anything up here at all. So he was guessing that his wardrobe had been eaten up by moths, his posters were probably shredded, his gold chains were likely stolen, as well as his "lady magazines," and the room is most likely buried under a few feet of dust.

Well, he was right about most of it. His bed had been torn apart by knives, there was food wrappers that weren't there before, someone had taken a big shit in his ashtray beside his bed, nasty condoms were everywhere, moths had taken his clothes, his shoes looked dingy, but perfect, "Go fuck the world" was painted across his room, someone had thrown the items from his shelves onto the floor, a few windows were broken to the point a Non-Mobian hawk had made a nest there and was squawking at him, spiders had roosted in every corner they could find, dirt had made it's home there, the mirror was shattered, the drawers were open, and all his gold chains had been stolen.
His pictures were still hung on the wall and dustfree, as if someone had recently came in and polished them, to make them illuminate more in the dead house, and this illumination had given it a creepy glow. Vector looked at the pictures, pulled them down, and sat them on the bed, placing the unframed pictures on top of them.

He made his way to the drawers to give them a glance, to see if anything worth salvaging, other than pictures, was in there. Nothing. Nothing but rat feces and a snowglobe, and more person shit in the bottom drawer, ruining Charmy's drawings. Vector slammed the drawers shut and walked out the room.

He looked to his right, and there he saw a photo that looked out of place in their house, and it was in eye-view of everyone to see. What is that doing there? As a detective, his job required him to ask as many questions as possible, and even though that he is retired, he is still asking those same questions today. He walked over, sat down the pictures he had, and picked the frame up off the wall.

For some reason they had a picture of the Destructix as young teenagers in their swim trunks just looking at the camera, in thier house. Flying was sitting on the ground, Predator and Lightning sat on the log in mirror form, Simian standing behind them all, though none of them were smiling, not even Flying, with a waterfall pouring behind them, and this picture was hanging up in a place on the wall that you'd have to be blind to miss.

This was either a pretty lame joke the Destructix had pulled on them, or somebody just wanted a neutral picture to hang on a blank wall, but either way, this picture has sat here for a long time as he had guessed, but why? Either way, it creeped him out as much as the reflection of a certain frog standing behind him, looking at the photo with longing. He allowed the ghost to see it.

He knew this ghost very well, and he knew that this ghost had no qualms with him, but he figured that he didn't want to move on into the afterlife until he was sure that Vector had let go of the incident that had killed him 20 years ago.

This ghost was that of Flying Frog, who's face spoke of torture, from the ripped up face, to the bloody teeth and hair, the bloody tears dropping out of his eyes, the ribs jutting out of his body, his ribbed clothes, the warm smile that didn't have a place on his bloody lips, and the crazed look in his eye that he had long before he had recieved any help.

Flying was a quiet ghost that followed him everywhere, appearing in reflections and behind him, sighing loudly from time to time, maybe moving things around a bit, but never leaving his side. If he turned to look at the frog, he vanished into a puff of white smoke. If he said something to Flying about appearing in front of him, Flying would laugh instead. He's made wonderful conversations with the dead frog, but he also knew that he had been cursed by Lightning, who used to be a monk for the Lotus Flower Goddess when he was a kid.

He could only see Flying in reflections, but he was never hostile, though he did recieve a dream once that Simian had came to him and had told him that it was okay that Flying had taken residence in his house, and that no harm will come to him, or his family, just so long as he respected him on the same token, and he was waiting to guide him to a happy afterlife when he had died, plus, Flying's mentality had returned back to insanity, so a lot of weird stuff might happen to him.

Some wierd things has happened, but other than that, it was still quietness, almost as if Flying had really died and never came back, but he knew that Flying knew that he had encompassed a lot of guilt about killing him, and knew that he'd never forgive himself until the day that he died, and with he and Flying having the same age, it was a frustrating torture. He was 75.

To make matters worse, Flying was a construction foreman who had helped him build his house, for half off and had helped him raise Agryle when nobody else would. Sometimes, he stole food from people's houses and gave it to him when the Destructix had nothing themselves because he didn't believe in starving children. He really was a nice man once you looked past the crazed hostility and it always made Vector sick to his stomach whenever he thought about all the hate he held for that one crazed frog and his friends who put clothes on their rival's back and placed food on their table.

Vector let out a few tears and felt hands wipe them away, he still kept his head down as he peered into Charmy's room, his things frozen in time, but his bed ransacked by the skeleton of a dead person, blood all over the floor. He didn't call anybody because he was feeling too dreary to do anything, but he did visit Espio's room.

Vector remembered that he had taken the sheets off of the bed, but somebody had put them back on again. His drawers were ransancked too; random ninja tools scattered everywhere, his kickboxing dummy had been dismantled, somebody must have liked his socks because someone had attempted to make off with the lot through a window, dropping a few in the process, but thank goodness someone had taken down that poster of the scantily clad girl off of his wall, for Vector was tempted to throw shurikans at it if it was still around. He didn't attempt to gather the pictures from his room because he was afraid of the nastiness he might find behind them.

He decided to visit their bathroom, not because had had to pee, but because somebody had left a freshly made sandwich -crawling with maggots- in there. The water in the bathtub was black and the shower head was bludgereoned from it's holder. The shower rod layed pressed against the toilet, and a few tiles had been ripped up from the floor. A few rings layed scattered around; but money is dirty, and who knows where that's been and who it came from.

There was no pictures in here, but he decided to collect the ones from his room and leave. Nobody had been in this house for more than 50 years, and well, based on the damage of what he has seen, he was afraid to visit the kitchen, but amazingly, he found himself doing so. He flicked his cigarrette out of his mouth, stamped on it, retrieved the pictures, and left downstairs to investigate the kitchen.

They didn't serve alcohol, but by damn did someone ever try to find it. Food that had been overtaken by mold layed all over the floor, pots and pans were scattered everywhere, and someone had tried to steal the stove that Espio cooked on. Overall, the area just looked like a disaster. Vector just nodded his head towards the ruckus and decided to walk outside.

Vector walked outside and set the pictures in his car. He lit up another cigarette and stared at the house until it had burned out. He looked at the yard that was overtaken by weeds, the backyard looking like a jungle, and the moss that had climbed up the building. When his cigarette had fizzled out, he hopped back into his car, took a photo of it from the vehicle, and sighed.

"Ok Flying," he said to the ghost in the back seat just looking at him. "Let's go home."

End of Chapter 13