(I do not on Sonic X..etc. Sorry this chapter is shorter than the others.)

Flip card 1

Name: Charmee

Age: 6

Sex: male

Speics: Honey bee

Description: A member of the Chaotix detective agency

"Attention unregistered Yahger." A com-line from one of the new Walkers announced. Okida blinked and looked around, trying to see which one of the three of speaking to him. "You will surrender at once or you will be destroyed. You have three seconds to comply."

"Comply this!" The bat yelled, slamming his fist down on the missile fire button, the two pads on either side of the machine flying open, five missiles launching forth in a spray of fire. Amazing, these new red walkers seemed agile and fast enough to simply out run them, scattering like cockroaches one a kitchen floor darting past the fire, two machine guns on their underside spinning to the side, riddling the side of the Yahger with bullets. Its left leg buckled and it tilted forward, the Walker nearly falling over.

"Move it!" Vector cried as Chaotix raced away from the battle field, the sounds of battle in the distance. As much as the crocodile hated to give up a case when they were so close to capturing their target, getting killed in the process was not a good idea. "Wait, where's Rei?" He suddenly asked, realizing that the flying Squirrel was suddenly not around. Looking back, Espio could see their newest recruit simply standing there, staring up at the battling Mech's just beyond the sand ridge.

The Yahger had the advantage on armour, but these new red ones were much faster and could bring just as much fire power to bear. Which they were using to their full advantage, blasting the large Mech with their ammunition before treating to a safe distance, leaving the Yahger with hardly sufficient time to turn around and blast them

In the cockpit, Okida was being thrown around by the force of the shockwaves on the armour. His Mech's left arm was still offline and these new Walkers were taking chunks out of the armour, encircling like a school of sharks, sending themselves in one at a time to pick at him. Without saying a word, Rei simply began walking forwards down the sand dune towards the Walker's battle.

"REI!" Espio yelled after him. "ARE YOU OUT OF YOU'RE MIND?!" When Rei didn't reply, he simply kept walking, Cursing, Espio turned back and ran after him.

"Espio!" Vector and went after them. Charmee just hung in the air, watching with intense curiosity.

Okida' slammed his Mech's foot down, sinking it into the sand on purpose. The bat was well advised in all battle tactics, the one they were employing against him was pretty efficient, but it had one weakness. With his walker trapped in the sand, he turned his missile launchers straight upward and fired every last one of the all at once, filling the air above with a deadly rain. The red walkers turned to see what he was doing and that was their mistake as according to the laws of gravity, what goes up, must come down. The missiles spiralling high in the air before falling back down towards the ground as deadly shells and not even these Red Walkers could move fast enough to avoid being hit by at least three. As it turned out, these Mech's did not have proper armour placed on their frames, probably why they could go so fast. That meant that when the missiles struck, it did a whole lot more damage than Okida had imagined, one of them rendered completely inoperable.

"What the hell are you doing?" Espio demanded, finally coming level with Rei. The squirrel paused and then pointed directly to the left arm of the Yahger Walker, a dark burnt patch showing clearly where it had taken a direct hit.

"He's going to need that fixed, and as luck would have it, I know a thing or two about machinery." Espio narrowed his eyes.

"Alright, that's it." He snarled, stepping in front of the squirrel putting his arms out to point out that he was not going to let him pass. "How do you do that? I know you've got a keen eye, but I've seen you know things without even looking at them. I want to know how you're able to do this?!" Rei; despite the heat of the desert and the chaos battle ragging not to far away, just looking up calmly contemplating the question, looking thoughtful as he tapped his finger on the tip of his chin.

"Sometimes I just know things, things I really shouldn't know but I end up knowing all the same." He blinked, before a goofy grin spread over his face. "That probably doesn't make much sense."

"You bet it damn well doesn't!" by now Vector managed to catch up, pausing to catch his breath, intense frustration in his eyes.

"What are you still doing here, let's go!" Rei simply ignored them pushed past Espio and began spiriting towards the Yehger Mech. By now, the other two Red Walkers had pulled themselves up having full recovered from their shelling. The other, who had been downed, was pushed itself as far away at it could either to cease being a burden to its comrades or to avoid being hit by stray missile fire.

Employing their speed, the remaining two began circling the Yahger again and now Okida found himself in a jam as he wrenched his Mech's leg free. He had used up all his missile ammunition, which meant he'd have to get by with just the machine gun turrets. As his walker began to move, he didn't notice Rei hope on the foot, using it's momentum to propel himself up through the air. Catching onto the side, the flying squirrel began climbing upwards towards the arm which he had seen, or to be more precise, sensed had been damaged. Finally getting to the top, he found that there had been more extensive damage than he'd realized. A couple of cables had been burnt right through, repairing it was going to take a little time, and it wasn't as if he could ask the pilot to stop while he worked. Not with those two other Walker's blasting him.

Espio tossed his chain up towards the Mech, latched onto a protruding turret before swinging his way upward.

"Rei, get back here!" he cried up, but the squirrel didn't pay him any attention, he simply dropped down into the side arm of the Walker and began his work. Espio cursed into the air and began climbing, more determined than ever to make that Squirrel see sense.

Okida was trying his best to avoid being hit when all of a sudden, his sensors showed Vector and Charmee down on the sand below. They were directly in the line of fire and a stray missle from one of the Red Walkers was heading right for them. Vector looked up to stare death in the face, when the Yahger Mech placed itself between them and the missile, taking the fall blast. The entire machine shook and Okida braced himself, forging the Walker to move against it, opening fire at the aggressive Mech's. Suddenly, his sensors now registered that his left arm had become operational again and with it he discovered a new weapon. It seemed the arm not only housed a gun turret, but a laser rifle generator. Now this was a god send.

Swinging the entire Mech around, he threw the left arm towards one of the Red Walkers and a large latch on the front of it swung open, a silver barrel protruding from within. There was a loud buzzing sound as energy built up, before a single beam of green light lanced outward, sparking with blue lightning. It flew straight through the air and impaled itself through the Red Walker, tearing one of its legs clean off in the process. The machine staggered for a second, twisting violently before it collapsed back to the ground with a loud thud. There was a short hissing, before the energy chamber inside the machine was breeched and the machine exploded into a firestorm.

With two down now, the third stopped still. The Yahger Mech turned to face, him, its smoking rifle still held out. After a moment of utter silence between the two of them, the wind blowing up thin trailing of sand, the walker about faced and ran for the horizon, disappearing in a cloud of dust. The other downed Red Walker activated its jets and propelled itself off the ground following the retreat as closely as it could.

"Yeah you'd better run!" Okida called after him with a wide grin, the glass lid of the cockpit sliding open.

Rei poked his head out of the wound on the metal arm to see if his handy work had paid off. Apparently it had, as the two other Walkers he could see, were running for it becoming small dots on the horizon. Without warning, Espio grabbed him by the collar and pulled him roughly upward.

"Precisely what metal hospital did you escape from?" He asked him face to face. Rei looked like he was about to reply before the chameleon tugged him down the side of the Mech. Hearing their scrabbling, Okida pocked his head around to see the two of them climbing down. So that was why his left arm had suddenly become operational again. He slid out of the cockpit and fell back to the ground, using his wings to slow his decent. Vector and Charmee were already there, waiting for him.

"Look, before we jump at each other, maybe we should talk." The bat began before any of them could say anything.

"What's there to talk about?" Vector asked. "You just saved our lives, I owe you one." A smile forged its way onto his face. "We'll just say we were looking the other way." Okida's grin widened.

"You know, something, you're alright." The two of them tapped fists.

"But Vector…" Charmee began. "Isn't this guy a crook?" The bat shook his head and crossed his arms.

"The real crooks are the ones who've been shooting at us. They're part of an aggressive group with very real political agendas that have to be stopped. I have evidence that they've been hording Eggman Empire technology to build their own Walkers." He gestured behind him to the Yahger Mech standing over them as Espio and Rei climbed off it. "Before I could get it to the authorities however, they set me up." Vector narrowed an eye, sceptically.

"You mean you didn't steal a Dead Shot Walker?" Okida hesitated, rolling his eyes up towards the sky

"Well, that part was true. But only to make my escape from the base, I was going to return it once I exposed them, but in order to elude their forces I had to self destruct the thing." He blinked, suddenly remembering that he was on a very, very tight time schedule. "Look I'd like to stay and chat, but I should probably get going. They'll be sending more Walkers after me soon." He spread his wings again and caught a hot updraft, souring into the air. "You should probably get going as well. You don't want to get too involved in this, believe me." He landed back in the cockpit and began strapping himself in. "Oh, and thanks for the repairs." He called before the glass pane swung down. The Yahger hummed, its engine coming back online. The jets at the back of the machine blared into life, propelling it into the air.

Vector and the rest of Chaotix watched from the ground below as the Mech quickly began to disappear through the thick desert air, heading in the opposite direction from the way those Red Walkers had fled. Surprisingly, the crocodile found that he didn't feel as disheartened as he should be about letting the Captain slip from between their fingers. Chaotix only went after real criminals, and he could tell that this bat was a good guy really.

"Vector…" Espio began, nudging the crocodile's side, pulling him away from the others so that they could have a private conversation. "I think Rei might be physic." Vector blinked and star down at him with one eyebrow raised sceptically.

"Pull the other one...." He began with a wide grin as the chameleon raised his hands in front of himself.

"Look I know it sounds unlikely, but it's the only way he could know some of the things he'd able to know. I think his keen detective skills come from the ability to read things other people can't."

"Espio I'm really not in the mood for jokes."

"I'm not joking!"

"Come on, a physic Squirrel? How likely is that?" Espio folded his arms stubbornly.

"As a Ninja, I have to keep an open mind about things, and I truly believe Rei possesses precognition."

"Precog-wha?"

"The ability to see and sense things before they happen."

"Oh." The two of them turned to give Rei and glance. The Squirrel was talking to Charmee, trying to explain why they didn't need to chase after the Walker that was disappearing on the horizon. "Seriously Espio, I think you've been out in the sun too long. Let's go back to Station Square where I can remind myself it's nearly Christmas."

"So, do I make the team?" Rei asked as he saw Vector approach. The crocodile paused, smiled and extend a hand for the Squirrel to shake.

"Welcome to Chaotix, Rei."

"I'll take that as a yes then."

Okida flipped the com device on and put in a scrambled code, this would keep the line he was trying to connect secure from ease droppers. There was a brief period of static before a line was finally established.

"Report Captain." A voice simply stated.

"Mission successful thus far. I still have the data tapes." Okida replied, tapping the pocket in a gesture. "And a new Mech type." There was a pause on the other end.

"A new Mech type?" The voice replied. "Then they do have their own technological capabilities." Okida nodded with a frown.

"Afraid so and it seems far more advanced than ours, but luckily it seems I have quite a beauty in my hands here. I'll contact you again once I reach my next destination."

"Understood." The voice replied simply. "Good luck Captain." It added before the line dissipated and fizzled out.

General Saddler was absolutely silent as he entered the secret chamber underneath Area 99. Not even the Presidential Government knew about this chamber for it was where he and others who shared his political views came to plan and prepare their forces. The time was close now, and the biggest liability to their cause was still on the loose with the most incriminating evidence against them. If it was given to the authorities then their entire secret group would be uncovered and they were running out of time as it was.

"Sir!" A scientist in a white laboratory coat announced, saluting as he saw the General approach. The rest of the staff in the separate room turned and saluted at the same time.

"At ease." The general replied. "Is Operation AC one hundred percent operational yet?" The scientist gestured behind him through a single pane of glass that separated them from a very long drop. The chamber they were inside was a colossal shaft that stretched over on hundred feet in length and width, cat walks and metal scaffolding spanned the distance in-between the walls. At the far end of the chamber was a giant glass tank full of a green liquid, the tank itself being well over fifty feet high. Bathing inside it was a dark silhouette about the size of several tanks, thick cables leading in through the top of the tank to its back.

"Another few hours sir and it'll be ready." The general nodded in satisfaction.

"Good. Inform me when it's finished, I will to be there for it's re-birth." The scientist paused for a brief moment.

"Is something the matter General?" Saddler gave him a long side glance.

"Our glorious furture may be in jeopardy, which is why our plans have been accelerated. The operation will begin in four days.

On the day the Christian saviour was born, our new rule will rise into existence. The birth of Christ, will mark the birth of our empire."

(In Chris voice)

Chaotix may not have their dangerous criminal to show for their efforts, but fatal events are now in motion. Sonic the others face an old enemy from the grave, returning to finish what it started over two years ago. Find out what happens next time at the start of the Artificial Chaos Saga. It's the series finale next time on Sonic X: Don't miss it!

(R&R)