Chapter 2: Vigilante Justice and Novice Investigations

As promised, Lux explained everything to Whisper and Jewel just as she had to Tangle.

"Ya know, I watch the news sometimes, right? I see her a lot there, I always wonder like "How in the world does she keep getting involved in these cases?", and she never seems to have any evidence tying her to the case other than being that she was the last person seen with all of the victims. She's TOTALLY guilty!" Jewel rambled.

"We have to do something..! We have to make sure that no one else gets hurt!" Whisper declared, feeling a sense of agency in her words.

"Yeah! We need to go find her and kick her ass!" Tangle butted in, ready for the action to begin.

"Hold on!" Lux interjected, trying to calm Tangle down a bit. "As much as I would love to do that, we gotta save it for if she attacks first, otherwise we'll be in big trouble! We have to gather evidence first before we do anything drastic!"

"How are we gonna do that?" Jewel asked.

"Find her… and stalk her?" Whisper suggested.

"That's still not that legal…" Tangle pointed out.

"Fair enough, but what else should we do? It's legally grey, but we have nothing else." Lux explained.

"Even with all the chances Wilma's got, she probably still wants to avoid the police if she can, so I don't think we need to worry that much about the law, even if she catches us!" Tangle theroized. Everyone nodded in agreement.

"You guys keep talking, let me do a quick background check on Lux." Jewel said as she walked off to her little office.

"Okay!" Tangle responded.

"Anyway… I agree that Wilma herself probably won't call the police on us if she sees us following her… I think… that if we aren't careful… other people will..." Whisper said.

"Yeah, that's actually a good point ya got there. Do you know what we could do to prevent that? I mean, you're the one who brought up the stalking idea in the first place… No pressure of course, though!" Lux asked.

"No no, I get your train of thought…" Whisper responded.

"Hey! I just realized! Why don't we try to see if the Chaotix could help? They're like... experts at this kind of thing, aren't they?" Tangle suggested.

"I tried to get in contact with them before, but they haven't responded…" Lux answered.

"Oh."

"Weird… The Chaotix usually take any kind of money they can get!" Tangle noted.

"I GOT IT!" Whisper suddenly interrupted.

"What is it, Whisp?" Tangle responded quickly. Whisper giggled awkwardly in embarrassment.

"Maybe it's a silly thought… But, what if we did things while we followed her around, to look more normal…? Like shopping… and stuff…?" She suggested.

"Sounds like a good plan to me!" Lux said excitedly, which made Whisper feel better.

"Agreed! How much money do we have? I know we don't have to buy something from every shop we go to, but it would also be weird to not buy ANYTHING, despite visiting a lot of shops, right?" Tangle added.

"I think Jewel has a few hundred dollars in her checking… maybe we can ask her for some?" Whisper said.

"I have a 50." Lux pitched in.

"Hmm?" Jewel got curious, hearing them talk as she came back into the living room.

"Oh! Jewel, can we borrow some cash? 50 bucks, maybe 100?" Tangle asked her.

"What do you need it for?" Jewel responded, confused.

"Oh, well, we're gonna go find that Wilma chick and keep an eye on her… But we also wanna buy some stuff from some shops around town as we do it, ya know, to not look weird!" Tangle explained in response to Jewel's question. She paused to think.

"I'll give you some money… But you have to do something for it."

"Oh! What is it?" Tangle asked.

"Let me come!" Jewel demanded. Tangle smiled.

"Of course!"

Jewel grabbed her purse and off the four went once again.

For the first 30 or so minutes, the four just walked aimlessly around downtown, keeping a lookout for the allusive purple fox. Eventually, they caught sight of her, seemingly out to buy some things with her son, named "Garrick", according to the files on Wilma that Lux had.

"There she is..!" Lux said quietly.

"Man… I feel bad for that kid…" Whisper softly spoke out. Everyone nodded, sharing her sentiment.

They continued to walk, following Wilma and Garrick, but not too closely, as to not be caught. When Wilma stopped in one shop, they went into a different one close by. One store clerk looked at Lux funny, but everyone else seemingly chalked it all up to coincidences. The only time the group of girls followed Wilma into a store was into a games shop. There, Wilma grabbed two games, both M-rated, quite violent from the looks of it. Nothing strange, right? She'll probably also grab something for Garrick, right?

"You stay right here, Garrick. I don't wanna deal with the cashier getting onto me again." She told him quietly. Garrick nodded in response. The girls kept watching, intrigued. Wilma went to the check out, everything transpired as it should, and then Wilma called Garrick over and walked out with him, handing both games to Garrick.

"Thank you so much Mommy!"

The girls looked at each other, bewildered.
"Oh, by the way, can I help you ladies?" Wilma asked them suddenly. She acted like she just noticed them, but there was a bad vibe; she knew they had been following her.

After that, they decided to retreat back home. They talked over some late lunch.

"Well… Not much was gotten from that.." Whisper lamented.

"I mean, we did get some nice clothes out of it!" Tangle said.

"Yes, but we didn't really learn much about Wilma… Other than that she's… a bit of an irresponsible mom." Lux explained.

"I mean, we aren't expert detectives or anything.." Jewel sighed.

"If only the Chaotix responded to me, that probably wouldn't have gone so badly..." Lux pouted.

"Well, it is what it is… We just gotta keep trying! I believe in all of us!" Tangle said with pride.

"Tangle's right. We'll have to be more sneaky next time. But if we keep trying, eventually we'll get somewhere." Lux added.

The rest of the day was spent normally, Lux getting further acquainted with everyone else, among other things.

"You know, there's a rumor going around about the Freedom Fighters lately…" Tangle eventually said to Lux.

"Huh? Really? I haven't been paying attention to things outside of the stuff with Wilma lately…" Lux said back.

"Yeah. People who were VIPed into Amy Rose's Sweet Sixteen have said that during the party, her and another Freedom Fighter, Knuckles, went behind the building, and afterwards, they saw Amy leave the party in tears! Some people have been taking it WAY too far, accusing Knuckles of assaulting her or some shit… But others are suggesting that someone close to Amy may have died or turned evil… That's what I believe." She explained.

"Oh goodness.. That is strange. The latest victim of these disappearances, murders, in my opinion, happened two days before her birthday, but it was just some common citizen… Could he have really been close to Amy Rose of all people? Do they know of Wilma's connection to him? Do they know it was a murder and not a dissaperance somehow? … Thanks for that, I'll see if that rumor could be connected to the stuff with Wilma." Tangle was taken aback.

"Dang, glad I could help! I was just hoping to make small talk, but here we are, with more to work off of!"

Tangle and Lux discussed their new ideas with Whisper and Jewel.

"Yeah, I heard about that rumor too! Hopefully, if it is from Wilma killing someone close to Amy, that'll finally end her up in jail!" Jewel said.

"Yeah… Though if we ever decide to ask her on the matter, we should message her like… in a week or so… She's probably still grieving…" Whisper pointed out.

"Fair enough. But for now, I'll do some research on the latest victim and see if he had any ties to Amy." Lux said.

Soon enough, the sun set, and everyone went to bed, with a big day ahead of them.

Late into the night, around 1 in the morning, a small beep rang downstairs. It wasn't much, but it managed to wake up the restless Whisper.

She made her way downstairs, and noticed that it was from their landline phone, the business phone for the Freedom Trainees.

Whisper picked it up, it had one new voicemail on it.

"Who… Who's calling us this late…?" She muttered to herself. She clicked on the voicemail.

"Hello. Sorry about calling so late, and if any of the other three are listening to this, I'd rather it be Whisper hearing this…"

"Me?" She muttered, taken aback.

"This is Doctor Clysdale… Your wisps will be ready to be picked up tomorrow… You know, you're such a nice girl, Whisper… I can tell, even though we've only met once. Such a shame that you're hanging around a group of stalkers…" Whisper dropped the phone in shock.

"H-How did th-they know..?"

"Please come by the clinic alone… Not to baby you, but I do have parental experience.. Perhaps.. I can set you onto the correct path?"

"Anyway, please arrive at 6am sharp, and come hungry, I'll provide you breakfast. I'm looking forward to seeing you Whisper…"

"You better be listening."