The Nightmaren siblings glided down to the sidewalk below, momentarily circling the now six foot crater before them. The crater was littered with shards of glass, all varying in size. Two of the missing chairs from the meeting room were scattered about the street, no nothing more than parts. One car had swerved from the debris and crashed into a nearby fire hydrant. Now, they were cursing into their phone while waving their free arm around wildly like a madman. If Reala wasn't focused on the task at hand, he would've found the small scene amusing.

He landed on the concrete ground and knelt down, staring at a body in the middle of the crater. NiGHTS knelt down beside him. Before they could get a good look, however, Reala covered their face.

"What-?!"

"Don't look."

"Why not?"

"Because even though you've been around for over twenty years, you're still nothing more than a child," Reala stated, "And you're squeamish."

"I am NOT!"

To prove they weren't, NiGHTS forcefully pushed Reala's hand down and looked at the crater. The second they did they shrieked and pulled their brother's hand back up over their eyes.

"See?"

Before them laid what was most definitely the other party that Sonic and his crew were meeting. However, their face was smashed into the ground, body covered in bits of rubble and glass. Multiple bruises could be made out from the skin not protected by their clothing. Speaking of which, they appeared to be wearing a blue shirt with rolled up sleeves; a shirt that was now tattered and torn, exposing bear skin underneath. Their pants were a clay yellow, and the sleeve parts appeared to have been ripped in half. One black shoe was missing, exposing their twisted foot. Their limbs were sprawled out and contorted in all sorts of ways, and neither could tell if they were still breathing.

"I didn't even know limbs could bend that way!" NiGHTS exclaimed, still not looking at the body.

"Not unless you're a toon with miraculous healing abilities," Reala said, "I've heard of a coyote who could survive having all his limbs bent backwards, forwards, and sideways and just brush it off within seconds. Even after falling off a cliff.

Again, his sibling shivered.

"Please don't give me that mental image…!" NiGHTS whimpered.

"God you are an embarrassment sometimes…" he groaned, facepalming.

"And you can be very mean!" NiGHTS pouted, crossing their arms.

Reluctantly, they peeked over Reala's outstretched arm to get a glimpse of the body.

"He looks… familiar."

"Tod Goldman," their brother stated, "One of the few toon humans to make it big in the filming industry, and also one of the most hated directors in all of Toontown."

"If he's so hated, then why do they keep hiring him?"

"Because humans can be blind and stupid sometimes," Reala said, though in his mind he admitted there were a… few exceptions.

"Anyway, this guy has connections all around, so it'd take a miracle to get him out of the filming business for good. Still, he gets good results at the cost of not being in a lot of toons' good graces. Heard he worked at Warner Bros. for a while before switching to SEGA. Don't know why. His paycheck was fat enough."

"How come they're so hated anyway?"

"The rumors keep changing, but the main gist seems to be he doesn't give a damn about a toon's personal well-being. More focused on image rather than good working conditions. Be thankful he didn't direct us back in the day…"

NiGHTS nodded before leaning over their brother's shoulder.

"...Are they…?"

Reala lowered his arm and leaned in closer, trying to look for any signs of life. Before he could get close, the man let out a low, pained mumble and twitched his limbs. NiGHTS yelped in surprise and leaned back, as did their brother (minus the yelping part).

"He's alive!?" NiGHTS exclaimed.

"...Kill… me…"

"Unfortunately," Reala said with a hint of disappointment.

It's times like these where I wish toons weren't so invulnerable to stuff like this…

After a quick call to 911, and seeing the ambulance arrive to pick up the severely wounded director, NiGHTS and Reala headed back into the SEGA headquarters. It was apparent they weren't getting answers out of Tod, so NiGHTS suggested they ask some of the staff. In fact, as they walked in the Nightmaren had taken out a pencil and notepad.

"Best if we keep notes of what we hear," they said as they stepped into the elevator.

"How long have you been holding onto that?" Reala asked.

"Actually this was leftover from when Will invited me over to his house for Game Night last week. I like to keep it in my hammerspace for when I go back."

"..." Reala didn't say a word. Instead he focused on fighting the urge to punch his dear, sweet sibling through the elevator shaft.

"There were tons of people in the office today," NiGHTS said thoughtfully, "so someone has to know something. We just need to talk to the right person."

"First intelligent thing you've said all day."

As soon as they were on the floor, the two stepped out. NiGHTS then handed an extra notepad to Reala, who just stared at it in confusion.

"I may have accidentally borrowed more than one notepad," they stated sheepishly, "here. It might be best if we split up. Cover a bit more ground that way."

Reala stared at the notepad before reluctantly taking it from their partner's hand.

"Fine. Just stay where I can see you."

"Alright," NiGHTS sighed.

The Nightmarens split up, heading in two different directions. Most of the employees had already started packing their things and called in sick, while others were cowering in their offices. That's how NiGHTS found their first person to interview.

"I-I-I-I d-don't know exactly when it started," the woman began timidly, "but it was definitely before I came in today!"

"And what time was that?" NiGHTS asked, floating just a centimeter above the floor with their legs criss-crossed.

"Maybe… some time after nine…?"

"I don't know what the hell they were going on about, but they were at it all morning!" a guy complained, clicking on a file on his computer that Reala could've cared less about.

"And you couldn't make out what it was they were yelling about?"

"Not a damn thing," the man grumbled, "multi-colored bitches just waltzed in there with some guy, and not ten seconds later it sounds like they're at war! Made me drop my coffee all over my shirt!"

He turned around and showed off the rather large brown stain that decorated the middle of his Mickey Mouse shirt.

"You do know that you work in the same building as those 'multi-colored bitches' on a daily basis, right?" Reala asked with a raised eyebrow, "the same ones who still keep this company afloat?"

"Ah fuck those furries," the man retorted, "I'm surprised the head-honchos haven't done anything to discipline them after all these years. You hear about those Helluva Boss newbies?"

"No and why should I care?"

"Some dickweed demon pissed them off something fierce. Don't know what they said, but they were found hanging upside down over a fire. Guy had cuts, bruises and everything."

"Really now?"

"Yeah," he nodded, "I'm tellin' you, ever since those Demented fucks showed up, these guys have become a bigger pain in the ass to work with."

That last bit caught Reala's attention.

"'Demented… fucks?'"

"A bunch of toon rejects who belong in a mental asylum on Mars," the man responded in disgust, "heard a rumor that they came from Wasteland. Certainly explains a couple of things… Everyone and their grandma knows that any toon coming from that backwater shithole has SOME mental issues-"

"Is that all you know about them?" Reala asked, trying to hurry this conversation along. He knew what kind of person he was dealing with the moment they opened their mouth, and he was this close to strangling them.

The man narrowed his eyes.

"Fortunately, yes. An old bud of mine did one Google search of them and wouldn't talk for a week."

"Interesting…" Reala muttered thoughtfully.

"If you're thinking of looking them up, forget it. I don't need to deal with any other unhinged dumb-fucks waltzing around this office at nine in the morning. You and that gay-clown-boy may be has-beens, but at least you never ruined a high quality Disney product, or a caffeinated beverage for that matter!"

That might change in the next five seconds… the Nightmaren thought bitterly.

"Is there anything else you can remember?"

"What is this, twenty questions from the Joker's edgy cousin?!" he spat, "Go bother someone else circus reject! I'm busy."

With that, the man spun around and went back to work. Reala let out a low snarl and narrowed his eyes. He took note of the man's appearance, voice, hair color, office location, and most importantly, nametag. Since he couldn't do anything right now, he'd let the higher ups deal with this human.

"I bet that dude finally chewed them out about those furries," another male staff member stated.

"Furries?" NiGHTS inquired.

"Yeah. I see them during the filming sessions. One of them keeps wrecking the damn coffee machine, and the rest keep nitpicking the scripts," he then chuckled, pointing a pencil he picked off the floor at the Nightmaren.

"I bet you anything ol' Goldman finally had enough and called them out on it. Guy's deal with them for over two years. Any other director would've cracked."

"Why's that?"

The employee chuckled darkly, looking at the SEGA star with a mysterious gleam in his eyes.

"I wasn't always there," he began slowly, "but my buddy Rick was. Oh, the stories he could tell…" he sighed wistfully for a moment.

"Those guys… those are guys are messed up. Like. SERIOUSLY. Maybe on the level of someone like Daffy Duck. I guess some of that finally rubbed off on Sonic. Hence why SEGA's gonna have to shed out a few extra dollars for their so called 'Golden Boy.'"

"Yeah well… not all toons are saints," NiGHTS pointed out uneasily, thinking back to a few times where their pranks got out of hand. And when they finally had a serious, semi-non-life-threatening talk with their… creator.

"Yeah. I know. Same goes for humans. Because if that were true, the internet would NOT be as chaotic as it is these days. But hey," he leaned down slightly, "I'm serious. That blue hedgehog's been hanging around some of the most demented toons I've met. And I bet my lucky shorts that they're part of the reason why Goldman had a chat with them earlier."

Now NiGHTS' curiosity was peaked, as were their worries. Was Sonic hanging round some rogue group of bad toons? What did they have to do with the meeting? But most of all…

"Who are these… demented furries?"

The man looked left to right before leaning down and whispering close to NiGHTS' ear.

"They call themselves… the Demented Squad."

A few more interviews later, the two finally called it quits. Clearly, much of the building was still shaken up from Sonic's little storm, and most were not willing to talk about it. They met up back at the elevator and pressed the button. Once they were in, the two began to compare notes.

"So, what'd you find?" NiGHTS asked, looking at their brother.

"Not much," he admitted, "a lot of the people here are being cryptic about it, or just have genuinely no idea what was going down. They did, however, mention something that could be a potential lead. Apparently Sonic's made friends with some rogue group of toons called-"

"The Demented Squad."

"Hmph. So you heard."

"Yeah," NiGHTS nodded, "although no one told me who they were. Just that they seem to hang around Sonic and his friends. Oh, and that they might be insane."

"That checks out with what I learned," Reala said, putting his pad away and crossing his arms, "I also learned that yesterday Goldman was assisting with a scene for Sonic's little 'Open Zone' project. And one person I interviewed said they caught a glimpse of them."

"Wow, really?"

"They seem to attend filmings on rare occasions, and yesterday just so happened to be that occasion."

"Did they say anything else?"

"Unfortunately no. The idiot went home due to bad tofu," Reala huffed.

"Too bad," NiGHTS sighed, leaning back and looking down at their notepad.

On it was a list of a few words, some of which were circled, such as "Demented Squad" and the question "connected to Sonic?" There was also a line connecting Sonic's name to the mysterious group.

"I wonder what these guys have to do with Sonic."

"That is a good question," Reala nodded, "could be anything. We have too little to work on right now. We need more information."

"Yeah…"

The two siblings floated by the elevators and thought over their predicament. Not even three seconds later NiGHTS flew up and slammed their fist into the palm of their hand.

"I've got it!" they shouted, beaming from non-visible ear to non-visible ear.

"Care to fill me in, sibling?" Reala asked flatly.

The purple Nightmaren whirled around and floated back down to face their brother.

"These Demented Squad folks are close to Sonic, right?"

"Yes," he replied, "but while that may be true, I doubt we could talk with him right now."

"We don't have to ask Sonic," NiGHTS explained, "at least not right now. If they're close with him, then they must be close with a lot of his friends! We just gotta ask one of them!"

"In case you've forgotten sibling, they all looked like they were on the verge of murdering someone if they so much as looked in their direction. The chances f them talking to us about this matter are incredibly slim."

NiGHTS just smirked at his dark brother, crossing their arms confidently.

"Dear brother, I think you forget just how big Sonic the Hedgehog's roster truly is."

A little over a week ago, I finally looked into what the heck NiGHTS was. And now I'm intrigued. I love the designs, I love the characters, and to some extent, I like the voices.

So now I'm tossing my hat in the ring and writing a story with NiGHTS characters in it for the first time. I did my best to make sure I stayed true to their personalities (although I may have bent them a little), so let me know if I somehow butchered your favorite magic dream jesters.