"They're on the move," Tails had caught up to Knuckles and the two backtracked along their retreat path from earlier. "Judging by the tracker's speed, I'd say he's in a car."

"We better speed up," Knuckles led Tails down the street until they had reached a busier part of the city. More and more people were entering the streets as the day entered the later hours of two ran up to a bridge overlooking a four lane highway. Eyeing an approaching bus, Knuckles pointed and Tails nodded.

Knuckles jumped first while the bus was still a fair distance away. He gilded along the air quickly while descending slowly. Despite being able to fly himself, Tails was impressed by Knuckles ability to use his soul wavelength to glide through the air. All tails could do was hover; he couldn't move vertically or horizontally particularly fast. Upon seeing his partner land atop the bus, Tails began to float underneath the bridge using his tails as propellers. Knuckles reached up and grabbed his partner's hand before the bus went by.

"If he changes directions, we'll have to come up with a new plan," Now that the two were perched atop the bus, Tails peered at his device with concern. "Looks like he's still heading north, probably looking to leave town. We're a few minutes behind him,"

"Look, could that be them?" Knuckles pointed toward the coast. A group of distant black vehicles had exited off the highway and were driving up towards a lighthouse that overlooked the cliffside.

"Yeah it's them. We'll pass by them at this rate," Tails put away his device and zipped up his backpack.

"Grab on,"

Tails grabbed onto Knuckles' shoulders before he leapt off of the bus with great strength. The speed of the bus carried into Knuckles' glide as he steered away from the road and moved towards the coast.

Knuckles floated over the beach before landing at the foot of the cliff underneath the lighthouse. The cars had arrived just a bit ago. Despite the distant noise of clashing metal coming from up top, Tails couldn't tell what was going on up there.

"I'll climb us up. Be ready to fight," Knuckles dug his spiked fists into the rocky cliffside to begin climbing upward with Tails still on his back. Any sounds of fighting were drowned out by the sound of fists smashing into rock. Tails grew more anxious as their elevation increased. He didn't want to know what was waiting for them at the top.

With a leap, Knuckles brought the two above the cliff's edge and onto solid ground. The first thing that Tails noticed was that it was eerily quiet. They had landed amongst the various cars driven by Billy's crew. Each of the cars were parked sporadically, sitting in the grass at different angles. Some doors had been left ajar and none of the vehicles had passengers. Tails peered over the front of a nearby car.

"What happened here?" Tails breathed. He walked with Knuckles up to the front of the lighthouse.

Dozens of souls were littered about, floating around the weapon and meister as they went. Muddy black splotches gave the souls an unpleasant look, but there was a feeling of serenity that distracted Tails. One soul in particular stood out to the meister. Tails look over to a pair of bedazzled jeans that had a plump, blackened soul clinging to them.

"Look out!"

Knuckles pulled Tails out of the way to stop him from getting hit by a massive club weapon. It hit the earth with a loud crash. Vibrations rang out and shook the ground, stunning Tails further. He only had a moment to gather himself before Knuckles switched to a gauntlet. While Tails armed himself, he looked over to see who had attacked him.

A purple chameleon man stood at the point of impact, brandishing a massive green club that was taller than he was. It was covered with orange spiked ridges protruding in a line down each side. Eyes with a cold expression of killing intent stared back at Tails. Fear began to set in once again. This meister had defeated Billy and his forces with the help of just one weapon. They must have wanted the Witch's power just like Billy. Tails thought back to how much he'd struggled against Billy alone. He froze up.

The enemy charged forward, then threw out another club swing. Tails managed to dodge, but wasn't expecting his enemy to suddenly come somersaulting through the air. He kicked Tails square in the chest, knocking him backward. With a bit of propeller movement from his two tails, he was able to stop from falling over completely. The chameleon had moved back to retrieve his club, and was advancing at Tails once again.

Tails reached into his backpack and threw a few of his stun pellets forward, then leapt in to attack with a jump boosted by his tails. They popped loudly and let out flashes of light. The chameleon barely flinched in response to the diversion, He was ready to meet Tails's attack head on. He knocked Tails out of the air with an alarmingly fast club swing. Tails barely managed to use Knuckles's gauntlet form to block before he was sent rolling across the ground.

"Ow!" Knuckles had exclaimed at the point of impact. Tails knew that was a bad sign. His weapon rarely showed signs of weakness during battle.

Stinging pain radiated from his right arm once he got up. He could still move it just fine, but neither he nor Knuckles could block another hit like that. It was time to attack. Approaching yet again, their opponent readied a swing.

Tails knew the club swings were fast, but the sheer size and weight of the weapon was still limiting. He looked to predict the swing direction as his opponent shifted his weight drastically to wind up. Tails used another boosted jump to float over the attack. He was ready to line up a hit of his own.

The spiked club crashed into the ground after missing its target, so Tails swung at his opponent right as he landed. Expecting to hit the soft body of his opponent, he was surprised to hear crashing metal instead. The chameleon had lined up the handle of his club to block. Knuckle's gauntlet was locked from moving forward thanks to the handle being stuck between each spike.

"No way!" Tails yelled.

His opponent replied with another kick followed by a punch to the face. Tails backpedaled using a propelled jump to gain some distance. His opponent had to re-align his club before attacking. Tails only had a few moments. Pain radiated from all over his body.

"Knuckles, I have a desperation plan," Tails whispered.

"Good, let's do it,"

Fear faded from Tails's mind in response to Knuckle's confidence in him. He hadn't even told him the plan and he trusted Tails regardless. Now was the time to reward that trust.

"Grab the club!" Tails wound up a punch while running.

The final club swing came at full force. Tails threw out an attack of his own directly at the large weapon that threatened his life. Sparks shot out into the air as the soul wavelengths of each weapon collided. The impact wasn't negated, but it slowed in the moment before Knuckles shifted out of his weapon form. Pain shot through his body once the hit landed.

The chameleon expected Knuckles to crumble, but at the last second the echidna's spiked hands grabbed hold of the club. Unable to regain control of his weapon, the chameleon let go and reacted to Tails, who was now running directly at him. He raised his hands to block another blow as he had so easily before. Something was wrong though. The fox wasn't readying a strike, here merely held out his hands after getting close.

"Miles Shockwave!"

A thunderous crash rang out as Tails fired his soul wavelength directly through the air. The chameleon yelled as the shockwave filled his body with burning electricity. He collapsed to the ground in no time.

"Espio!" The spiked club had shifted into the form of a crocodile now moving towards his meister.

"I'm not done!" Knuckles fought through the pain. He threw out a blow that launched the crocodile onto the ground to join his partner. The defeated pair groaned and made no attempt to get up. Tails and Knuckles paused a moment then reunited. The two were shocked to find that they'd won.

"Wow Tails, I didn't think you could attack like that!"

"I've never used it against an opponent before so it was pretty risky," Tails rubbed his sore cheek.

"Big risk, big reward," Knuckles concluded with pride.

Tails looked around at all the souls still hanging about.

"What do we do know?"

"We better get some info from those two," Knuckles looked toward the weapon and meister they'd just defeated.

"Get away, jerks!" An unknown voice came from the lighthouse. A bee child, more petit than Tails, came flying through the air. He soared over to Knuckles and began hitting him on the head with his bare hands. "Die,die,die!"

"Ow! You little!" Knuckles swatted at the newcomer.

"Vector, help!" The bee flew over to the weapon in crocodile form.

"If you want to get to Charmy, you'll have to kill us first," Vector sneered.

"Who's Charmy?" Tails and Knuckles said in unison.

"You're not here for Charmy's soul?" Espio got up after a fair amount of effort then raised an eyebrow.

"Why would we hunt his soul?" Tails asked.

Vector, Espio, and Charmy watched their former enemies with befuddlement.

"Why did you come here if not for Charmy's soul?" Espio asked.

"We heard Billy the Jeans was hunting a witch and had to stop him from becoming a kishin," Tails exhaled after a realization. "He wanted Charmy?"

"I'm Charmy the Bee-witched," The bee witch proclaimed with confidence. He floated in the air with his hands on his hips.

"I'm Vector, and this is Espio. We've been looking after Charmy for a while now. All three of us together make up Team Chaotix. We usually move from place to place doing detective work, but squatting in a lighthouse is new for us," Vector explained

"We understand that there are many dangerous witches who threaten the innocent. Charmy isn't one of them. We won't let him be food for any demon weapon!" Espio's cold expression returned to reinforce his statement.

Tails held up his hands defensively. "We don't even have clearance to hunt witches. I had assumed you guys were here to try and make a death scythe yourselves,"

"We'll collect corrupted souls, but no witches," Vector replied.

"You might as well take all these," Espio gestured at the souls floating in the air. "You're the victor after all,"

"I'll be close to a death scythe if we do," Knuckles pondered. He gave Tails a look, then walked over to a certain pair of bedazzled jeans and plucked the soul off of them. "Let's just take this one,"

"You don't want the rest?" Vector asked with surprise.

"You guys are the ones that did all the fighting. The only thing we missed out on was a rematch with Billy the Jeans. I'm not looking for the easy route to becoming a death scythe. Just one is fine," Knuckles chowed down on the soul and it was gone. "Besides, you guys need them to help protect Charmy, right?"

Espio looked to Vector, who shrugged in response. The chameleon turned back to Tails.

"It's not my place to ask, but you'd be doing us a favor by not alerting the DWMA of Charmy's existence," Espio's expression had softened.

"I'll leave it out of the report," Tails waved as he walked away with Knuckles. They left the odd trio at the lighthouse and headed back towards the city.

"I'm glad we nabbed our first soul. When's the next mission?" Knuckles wondered.

"Why are you asking me? You're the one who accepted a high level mission so casually. Plus, you told me after the fact," Tails countered.

"The DWMA didn't seem to mind. Overcoming challenges makes us stronger!"

Tails sighed. Knuckles looked at the cluster of unmanned vehicles.

"Let's steal one of these cars to get back to DWMA." Without missing a beat, the echidna hopped into a black SUV that had the keys in the cupholder. "Ooh, it has push-to-start,"

"I guess they won't be missing them. Plus, they were violent criminals," Tails rationalized as he hopped into the passenger's seat. Knuckles started the car and the two were off.