Chapter 6: The Chase

September 2nd, 2316 – 6:30 PM – Nedlo, Tneicna

The purple Sconocea gas continued to ooze into Carrie's room from its container. Instinctively, Knuckles, Tails, and Mr. Olandra backed out of the room and into the hallway. At the same time, they kept their eyes on the window, in case the thrower decided to jump through it to follow up on his surprise attack. However, the opening rapidly disappeared behind the gas. At the same time, they could hear footsteps coming from downstairs. Those would be the guards, so help was on the way most likely.

"Wait!" Mr. Olandra yelled. "What about Carrie?"

Tails gasped. Who knew what could happen to Carrie if she got hit with a second dose of the gas? He started to head inside the room, but an arm latched around his shoulder.

"Don't do it Tails!" Knuckles said. "The gas is too strong!"

"Carrie's in there!" Tails shouted, struggling to break free. "What if getting more of that gasputs her in a coma or something?"

"But how are you gonna get through that stuff to save her?"

That was a good question. How would he get past the gas? Suddenly, an idea hit him.

"Hold on Knuckles," Tails said, looking up at him. "Let me try something."

"Well, okay then..." Knuckles said, letting him go.

Tails walked over to the doorway and stood with his back facing to the inside of the room. Then he grabbed onto both sides of the doorframe, and began to spin his tails like a fan. Holding onto the doorframe allowed him to whirl his tails continuously without moving forward. Within seconds, all the gas had been blasted back out of the room through the window.

"Good work Tails!" Knuckles shouted.

Meanwhile, the guards had made it upstairs.

"What's going on here?" a koala guard shouted.

"Someone just threw a can of sleeping gas through the window!" Mr. Olandra cried, pointing to the window inside Carrie's room.

The guard ran to the window and looked outside, then he turned around.

"I don't see anyone out there. By the way, Nack was downstairs just now and he tried to capture Sonic."

"What?" Tails said with shock. "Really?"

"Yeah," the koala said. "But he didn't get Sonic and ran away instead. Still, we better watch out for this gas attacker. He might be backing up Nack. I'm going to go up to the roof to try to get a better view of the surroundings."

The koala rushed back to the stairwell and headed for the roof. Tails and Knuckles followed after him. The sun had nearly set behind the mountains in the distance, and visibility was fading fast. If they didn't find the gas attacker soon, he'd slip away in the dark. The fox began scanning his eyes across the windows in the nearby buildings, and followed up by moving his eyes to look across the rooftops.

Then he saw something. A figure dressed in a dark black jumpsuit was leaping across the rooftops to the west, straight towards the setting sun. Tails almost missed him, because of the bright light coming from that direction.

"Over there!" he shouted, pointing a finger towards the runner.

Knuckles and the koala whirled around to see the fleeing figure.

"Let's go get him Tails!" Knuckles shouted beside him.

While Tails leapt into the air and started spinning his tails, Knuckles jumped upwards and fanned out his dreadlocks to glide. The two of them were definitely moving faster than the mysterious attacker, owing to the fact that he had to run around obstacles that they could easily fly over. He had to jump from building to building, and waste time getting past things on the rooftops like clotheslines and other clutter. However, while Black Jumpsuit Boy was no Sonic, he was definitely an above average runner. Tails and Knuckles were being given a run for their money to keep up.

As Knuckles and Tails got closer, they could see that he seemed to actually be a she. The skin-tight outfit revealed a figure that was definitely not a male's. She looked to be a fox, judging from her purple foxtail and pointy ears.

That doesn't matter right now though. We've nearly got her...

Tails swooped down to grab the vixen from behind. She turned back a moment, looking panicked, and then glanced forward again. Tails hovered just ten feet behind her, and he gained fast. Tails reached out with his arms to grab the vixen, but at the last second she jumped down into a gap between the roofs.

"Argh!" Tails screamed.

He looped around and headed back for the gap in the buildings. Knuckles turned around as well. Tails dived down into the alleyway she'd jumped into, and landed with a thump on the cobblestone ground. Looking around, he saw that he'd landed in a dead end alleyway, with only one way to reach the street from here. The street ahead of him was thronging with people. Knuckles landed with a thump beside him, and started running into the crowd.

"Hurry up Tails!" the echidna shouted. "She's getting away!"

Tails dashed after Knuckles, jumping into the crowd with him. Within seconds though, he realized that this would be a fruitless search. This place was teeming with so many people that it was almost impossible to move. Picking out one specific person in this mess of people would be all but impossible in these conditions, especially with the fading light. As Knuckles continued to shoulder his way through the crowd, Tails tugged him on the arm.

"What is it Tails?" he asked as he turned around, looking furious.

"Knuckles, I think we've lost her," Tails answered, sounding sad. "We're not going to be able to find her with this many people around."

Knuckles turned to face the crowd again, and let out a sigh.

"I suppose you're right..."

The two of them walked back to the alley they'd been in before, and sat down on a discarded wooden crate.

"So...what do we do now?" Knuckles asked.

"I dunno... We could go back to the hotel?" Tails answered.

He looked down at the ground, wondering who that mysterious vixen was. Was she in league with Nack? Or was she a totally different bounty hunter? Whatever the answers were, they weren't going to be getting them now.

His gaze then fell upon a folded-up piece of paper on the ground at his feet. He picked it up, and opened the paper. On it there was a quick note jotted down:

"Arthara T."

"What you got there, Tails?" Knuckles asked, looking over to see what it was.

"Some kind of note. I think that fox dropped it. It says 'Arthara T.'. Who's that?"

"No idea," Knuckles replied. "Anyway, what's say we head back for the hotel now? Maybe the soldiers know what it means."

"I guess you're right," Tails said, folding up the paper again. "Let's get going."

The two of them took to the air and were soon on their way back to the hotel. By this time, the sun had set below the horizon. Lit candles and oil lamps could be seen in windows, in addition to larger torches being lit here and there outside to help visibility in the streets. However, they hardly helped chase the shadows away. Tails wanted to get back to the hotel as fast as possible, before it got too dark to see.

Fortunately though, they managed to reach their destination quickly. A group of guards stood waiting outside the front door, and looked up as they saw Tails and Knuckles coming in for a landing. Once they were on the ground, Captain Relis, the pig who'd set up the security detail, came over to talk.

"Are you two all right?" he asked.

"We're fine," Knuckles asked. "How's Sonic?"

Relis winced a bit, like someone had just pinched him.

"He's not here."

"What?" Tails said. "Sonic's gone?"

Captain Relis shook his head slowly, as his helmet was cradled at his side.

"I'm sorry Tails, but we've checked the entire neighborhood. He's not here."

Tails just stared at him in shock, not knowing what to say. He knew Sonic wouldn't just vanish without warning them first, if he could help it. The only other possibility was that he'd been captured, or hurt badly, or even killed. But how could that happen? He was able to beat Metal Sonic! A few regular people shouldn't be able to take him out just like that!

"But I thought you said before that Nack didn't capture Sonic," Knuckles said back, before Tails could say something. "And we saw the other attacker get away."

"I don't know what's going on, Knuckles," Relis answered. "But I do remember one strange thing my troops mentioned."

"What's that?" Tails asked, stepping closer to hear.

"After Nack ran away, my men say they went upstairs to see if Tails and Knuckles were all right. Sonic was following them at first, some said, but one of the guards stopped him."

"What did this guard look like?" Tails asked.

"Well, nobody bothered to take a good look at him, I'm afraid."

"Argh!" Tails growled, in frustration. He was hoping they'd get a new lead as to where Sonic was.

"He's gotta be the one who captured Sonic," Knuckles said. "This is strange though. First there was Nack wanting to capture us, and then that ninja girl on the rooftops, and now this guy in disguise as a soldier. What's going on?"

"You two and Sonic must have bounties on your heads or something," Relis answered, pointing a finger at Tails and Knuckles.

"Yeah...that's what we guessed earlier..." Knuckles groaned. "Couldn't they have waited till our vacation is over?"

"You know, if there's already three people after you, who knows how many more bounty hunters are out there?" Relis said. "We need to get you somewhere safer, where you can hide out until we figure out what's going on."

"I don't wanna sit around and do nothing!" Knuckles screamed. Everyone was startled into stepping back a little. "I want to go hunt these people down! How about you Tails?"

Tails was about to say yes, but then he thought more about the situation they were in. It wouldn't be the same as fighting Robotnik. With the mad doctor, they knew exactly who was against them, and exactly what to attack. This time though, almost anyone could be a potential enemy. Even worse, Tails probably wouldn't know who the bad guy really was until it was too late.

On the other hand, Tails did not like the idea at all of just waiting inside a bunker or something for the whole thing to blow over. He wanted to be out there, and do something to help, to change what was happening. Tails did not want to just wait around for the news that Sonic was dead or being held hostage somewhere. His bond with the hedgehog ran deeper than that of a blood brother, and he didn't want anything terrible to happen to him.

That decided it for him.

"I wanna go too," Tails said, choosing to side with Knuckles.

Captain Relis smiled a little, although it faded away after a moment.

"Well, sorry to burst your bubble," he started. "But you don't have the faintest idea what these bounty hunters are up to, or where they are, or anything. How are you gonna chase after them?"

Tails frowned. He hated to admit it, but Captain Relis was right. It would be like looking for a needle in a haystack to find the mercenaries without any clues. They'd need pure luck if they were going to just stumble across them...

He then remembered the piece of paper that they'd found after they'd lost the mercenary who'd escaped them via the rooftops. Unfurling it, he once again read the enigmatic words written there: "Athara T." It wasn't much, but it was something. At least they had one lead.

"What do you have there Tails?" Captain Relis said, squatting down to get a better look.

Tails handed the paper to the pig, and he glanced at it thoughtfully for a few seconds.

"Do you know what this means?" Tails asked.

"Oh yes, I do," Relis replied. "Where'd you get it?"

"We found this right after the attacker we were chasing on the rooftops got away," Knuckles said. "I think she may have dropped this by mistake. Anyway, who is this 'Athara T." person?"

"It's not a person," Relis said, looking at Knuckles. "It's a place: Athara's Tavern."

"You know it?" Tails asked.

"Of course I do," Relis answered with a grim look. "It's only the seediest bar in this entire city. We've had lots of trouble with the neighborhood around there. Drugs, excess alcohol, brawling, that sort of thing... I can take you there if you like. Maybe we can find more clues there."

"Sure!" Tails replied, a grin crossing his face. "That would be great!"

"Well, come on then," Relis said, as he walked down the street. He pulled out a torch from his utility belt and lit it by using a torch hanging from the Brenbar Inn's wall. "We better hurry. It's getting dark, and fast."

He walked at a brisk pace down the street, as Tails and Knuckles followed after him.