Hello all! It's me, Runner Rings! I'm back with a new chapter as always, and no, I'm not planning on quitting. I know, it's late again, but I at least wanna get these out a week at a time.

A few days ago, I received a question from a user, and I encourage you all to ask questions because feedback does help me consider things for the stories I make, as well as helps me provide you with little hints within the story that you should expect.

A Guest Asked:

Will you ever remake chapter 5 because I am curious on how they met scourge and what they thought

My Response: I think the idea of meeting Scourge was definitely a good idea that could've been implemented. I actually did think about it at the time when I wrote the beginning of the story. The only reason I failed to include it was due to the fact that I kind of forgot most of the plot for the story. Being gone for close to 5 years hasn't been kind to any of us. Because I forgot, I honestly just wanted to take the story in a whole new direction. As far as remaking Chapter 5, it's a possibility I may rewrite the whole beginning arc at some point. However, right now, I just want to do things one step at a time and continue writing the story as it is now. Maybe before it ends, I may rewrite and add it in. But for now, no. But because I forgot, you may actually see Scourge at some point if you don't mind following us along in the story. Thank you for asking such questions!

I really do wish I hadn't forgotten the original plot, but I am trying my best with what I have. But let's not pry on olden times. Those dark ages are over. Let's look to the future!

Chapter 15:

Sunlight flickers through the claws of the trees, dressing the face of trees and grass that make up the forest, as well as the trickling water that slides between the crevices of pebbles and grains like a million ninjas flooding into a secret territory. Like water leaking from a faucet, the water makes the most soothing sound. It moves forward like the endless flow of time, an inevitable motion that knows no bounds.

The birds sing a signal that wakes most mammals, rather than the caw of a Rooster in the morning. In the midst of whistling a tune, though, it starts to break down. A few low tweets with the wings making a beat, and sucking its teeth with a snare while the other birds glare. "Sorry..." It says, stopping it's tune.

And near the top of the woods are a Ring-tailed Lemur and an Indian Fox Bat that lie at the foot of a small mound. It wasn't anything new for them. In fact, they've done it several times due to not having any settled place to go. Logically, they sleep soundly in the dim light, covered by something of a natural canopy made by the rock itself.

Yet, just like always, nature calls. Driven by the usual urge to clean out his system, Runner wakes up from his slumber.

"Aaahhh..." He yawns while he stretches his stiff muscles. "Prix, I'll be back. Just gotta pee." The little cave entrance was too long, as it only took a few seconds and a scratch on his ass for him to emerge into the blinding light. He responds with his hand covering the sun and a strong squint to see through the light.

He doesn't go too far. Just far enough to pee somewhere where water is. A small stream of water nearby acts as a point of interest. Quickly, he lets loose and as far as he knows, Prix is still sleeping.

Soon after, he walks himself over to a nearby river to wipe his face clean and wake up a little more. It's cold. He favors the cold. He's happy he's getting it as the blistering sun beats down on him. Rising, his face starts to freeze even more, calming him and keeping him focused like the first sip of hot coffee.

Walking back, he wonders about the status of the water. "Hm...I forgot I pissed near a stream. I wonder if it led to that river," He thinks. "Dang, that'd be mondo awkward. Like that weird dream I had earlier... I wasn't even thinking. But I just walked away so I don't feel like rewashing...uuugghh."

He then sees the large odd looking boulder up ahead, and under a well-darkened shadow, Prix could be seen lying down. Runner smiles, forgetting all about his worries. "Nah, I'll just sleep a bit more until I forget."

WHACK!

"Ack!" Runner falls back after receiving a hit to the fact by some kind of inanimate object, landing straight on his back. Whatever it was, it quickly snapped in two as he recoiled. However, it doesn't stop there, even though it should've. As he tries getting back up, another body gets on top of him and starts pummeling him. It couldn't be one of those Alligators from earlier, could it? No, the fists were too small. Then who?

As they attack, they start shrieking with an ear-ringing warrior cry that hurts him more than the punches do. "Ya-ya-ya-ya-yahhh!" She cries because, from the sound of it, it must be a girl. Being the equal rights activist himself, Runner decides he's not gonna take it, nor will he fake it (idk I've never heard the song before) and slams his sole into her face. "Get your...coocoo crazy ass offa me!" He says in a series of grunts, prying her off of his body with his foot. He prevails as she falls back a few feet.

Quickly, he gets up and brushes himself off. It's waayy too early for him to do anything without anything to eat first. Looking at her closely though, she looks like a Badger with blue eyes, like him, and if that weren't the craziest thing about her, she was entirely naked, growling at him with this crazy look on his face. Embarrassed, he looks away. He's all for equal rights, but he's no pervert. Though, peering through his hands, her body's not half bad...IT'S NOT TIME FOR THAT! "What's your problem, freak?" He agitatedly asks her.

Luckily, she knows how to speak. "You're in my territory. MY territory! No one comes into MY territory, got it?!" She rants. "Seriously, what's with you people?! You civilians always come out here taking things you don't need. But I won't stand for it!"

"Well I guess not, because you're crouching," he points out. "What exactly are you talking about? The woods are like...free reign dude..."

She begins to stand up a bit more, exposing herself even more and making it even harder for Runner not to stare at her. "Sure, you can venture the forest at your own leisure. I don't care about that. But that cave over there is MINE! M-I-E-N! MINE!"

Runner looks over her shoulder in confusion. There's nothing indicating it belongs to her specifically. Is there something these woodland weirdos do to claim their things? "Uh...isn't that just another part of the woods?"

She shakes her head. "No. I own it. It's my own rock. I even put my name on it!" She points to the top of the cave that makes a little canopy. On it's front are some small, blue markings that are barely hard to see, let alone make out.

Squinting, Runner could hardly understand what it's even saying. "Um...what's your name again?"

She crosses her arms and grits her teeth. "The name's Sticks. Sticks the Badger."

Looking back at it, he did get hit with something. Upon closer inspection, not too far from the both of them was a broken stick on the ground that Runner had never seen before. "Ah, I see," he says. "Ya hit me with a stick. I guess sticks are your Schtick, huh?"

If him being there wasn't enough, his joking was annoying the hell out of her. She grumbled and mumbled to herself. "Look, whateva. Are you gonna go or what? And why aren't you lookin at me?!" She asks, inching closer.

Runner backs up, trying to not get distracted by her. "H-hey back up! You're not exactly wearing clothes you know..."

Sticks looks down at herself then back at Runner. She thinks she's got it all figured out. Of course, she's way off. "You're scared of my body, eh?" She steps close, jumping at Runner, and he jumps back in response.

"Ya want this?!" She yells, stepping closer into Runner's personal space. "How about this?!"

Runner keeps trying to look away. It'd be nice to get a peak but the circumstances are kind of odd, and she doesn't seem like the type to be clean. Just then, he sees Prix in the entrance to the cave Sticks had talked about. Could she have just woken up? For a moment, he hopes that she could help him out of this predicament.

A second goes by before she turns her board around though, which he hadn't noticed she was holding before. She looks annoyed as well, especially for someone who has just gotten up. Runner squints, trying to read what it says. "Perv."

Like a dagger struck his backside, Runner keels over in embarrassment and drops dead. Or rather, just lays in defeat. "Fine, just go ahead and kill me. My life's over anyhow..." he mumbles through his misery.

Sticks turn to Prix, yet another she hasn't seen before. Unlike the taller one though, this one looks younger and highly unlikely to be a threat to her. She couldn't just up and harm a kid. Well she could, but it wouldn't look good on her conscience. "Ok, ok, get up already," she orders Runner.

Snapping out of his depression, Runner wakes up and climbs to his feet with ease. He was getting tired of looking at bugs crawl around him anyway. "Hey, what's the deal? I thought you were gonna clobber me?" He teases.

"I would," Sticks replies, looking at Prix from afar. "But I'm a pacifist. So I won't kick you out of my home."

"A pacifist? You tried to kill me?"

"I'm also a survivalist."

Runner facepalms. "You're crazy."

"No, I'm Sticks," she says, crossing her arms. Not that's she's dumb, obviously. But she's not the type to just let anyone push her around. And this guy definitely isn't the kind she let's disrespect her. "If you're gonna stay in my neck of the woods, that's fine. But that also means you've gotta do what I ask of you. Got that?"

Runner holds out his hand, shaking his head in refusal. "No thanks. You can stay out in the jungle all ya like, but I'm more of a party guy. Ain't that right, Prix?" She nods, giving him a salute. Runner walks past Sticks with his ego showing. "Besides, I've got enough gold to build three vacation homes around this dinky little cave you call home!" He gloats.

"Oh yeah, and where is all this gold?" Sticks asks, totally not impressed. Runner gives Sticks a big smile. She doesn't know that she's dealing with a couple of con artists or part-time treasure hunters that won't let anyone stop their shenanigans. She hasn't seen the amount of gold they had last night, especially the ones they were wearing. All giddy and cocky-like, Runner goes to the cave and pulls out the heavy duffel bag they had last night.

Sticks is surprised by its size and how heavy it seems based on how Runner drags it out of the cave. In the daylight, it's a dark brown, with black outlines and two zippers that close two different compartments. With a 'prepare to be amazed' look he gives Sticks, he rips open the top compartment and tosses the flap over.

Bricks. Nothing but red bricks fill the bag from top to bottom and side to side. Prix holds her hand over her mouth in shock, despite that she can't speak to begin with. Runner sits cluelessly, wondering if he woke up in some other world. That shouldn't be the case though. "What? But...we had tons in here last night. It wasn't just a fever dream..."

A few feet away, Sticks still stands there feeling pitiful for the two thieves. Whether they were honest in their thoughts of gold or not, the big reveal they had planned wasn't all thought out. It was almost comical enough to make her laugh. But that's exactly why she doesn't go out into society; the greediness and heartlessness of it all. She saved herself from it long ago. She probably couldn't do the same for him. The little bat is a different story. "You were saying?"

He stays silent, not because it's probably the right move, but because he is honestly speechless. He can't figure out what happened to their riches. And with Prix not writing anything on her board about ideas of what could've happened to the gold, his guess that she's probably broken up about it, there's nothing they can really do about it. They're broke...again... He looks at Prix from his side. She's almost helpless. He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. Sticks thinks he might cry, or run, or even curse. Tempted to kick him out, she prepares herself for the worse.

With his teeth clenched together, his head spins around and the words finally come out. Sticks eyes widen in terror. Prix doesn't want to hear anything bad. The brace themselves. Runner lets it out, finally. "So, what's for dinner? ~"

XXX~Somewhere in the middle of a ghost town far away from where our protagonists are~

Somewhere in a big deserted city, the overcast makes what used to be a beautiful metropolis into a town of ruins. The rain gives it more gloom than ever, and the only sign of animal life are those who can live in such wet, dark environments. Above the city in the largest tower, the only inhabitants sit in silence.

A man appears in the center of a platform at the top of said tower, holding a dark tone duffel bag. He wears a dark cloak, shadowing his appearance even more than what the canopy makes him. He walks into the darkness of the seemingly vacant building where even as hollow as it is, the void makes the air thick and heavy. Luckily, even this man can see in there.

"Oh~ You're back~," someone says in the intense darkness. Through the rod of his eye, this man can see it's a cat, one with its eyes closed. "How was your trip, your Highness?"

The man doesn't answer. Instead, he tosses the duffel bag to the floor beside the cat and sits on a throne to rest. "Put that with the other equipment," The man says, his voice thundering through the room. "It's the Thoramin. And a little extra for you, Pharaoh."

"My, my~ Gold, is it?~" He says, picking up the bag and carrying it to another room. The man rests his head on the back of his hand and closes his eyes.

"360, how's our status?" He asks an Owl to his left. The Owl, tall and quiet, but super observant looks through some paper on a clipboard. It's pretty thick in form but short in space on the page.

"We're on the right track, so it seems. If we're quick about it, the stone may drop into our clutches soon. I'd say if we moved on our plans, the gem will drop as predicted. We're looking at the end of May."

"Splendid..." The man says before falling to sleep. "Send forces 7 and 8 to find the Chaos Emeralds... We've no time to lose..."

XXX~Back with the others, 3 hours later~

"I still don't see what was with you forcing me to wear clothes." Sticks says, sitting at a fire besides Runner and Prix. Above the fire is a log with a few dead animals on it, skinned and cleaned, and penetrated through the center. Sticks did the hunt herself, leaving Runner to do the rotisserie. But he doesn't respond right away because he's trying to focus on cooking.

Prix writes on her board for a few seconds then shows Sticks her writing. "I hope you like it. It's composed of some of the cloth I cut from our duffel bag." Sticks tilts her head to the side and shrugs.

"It's fine I guess. I'm just not a huge can of wearing clothes. I like to be free, you know?" She says as she plays with the rocks on the ground. They make a little circular indentation in the dirt, which interests her. She puts a twig in the center. Now it looks like a plant. "Plus, I can get around quicker."

Prix nods, not completely getting it. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense to her, but it doesn't not make sense either. Runner keeps rotating the meal for Sticks, not really paying attention. He's still trying to figure out what happened to the gold. There was that man last night and the other dude, but neither one of them couldn't have taken it. At least the man was close to them, but he couldn't have taken all the gold out that fast. And what was with that dream last night?

"Hey, that's enough!" Sticks tells him. "It's done. Anymore cooking, and it'll have to go in the garbage." Runner stops and takes the stick off of the other sticks, sitting it up in the ground, twisting it in to keep it still.

"The fact you have garbage at least makes you somewhat normal." He says, brushing his hands off. Sticks laughs in return, unnecessarily loudly that is. "You city types are all the same," she says through laughter.

"And what does that mean?" Runner says as he leans against a tree. But Sticks ignores his question, debunking his previous statement.

"I'm just as normal as you are, obviously. I'm just living better." Runner raises his eyebrows and shrugs and starts to walk away. The way he sees it, if living in the wilderness, broke and always hungry is normal, he'd rather be the way he's always been. He waves to Prix, who gets up and walks with him, totting her board with her. "Hey, where are you guys goin?"

Runner looks over his shoulder as he walks away. "I'm not eatin that crap, I'd rather go steal something."

"With the little girl?" Sticks asks. According to her, Prix looks no younger than six. Even though she's a survivalist, the thought of someone so young doing something goes against her moral beliefs.

"Relax. She's my partner in crime."

XXX

Somewhere in the nearby town, there's actually a convenient store sitting somewhere near the outskirts. It's not a big building, but inside, there can be tons of candy and chips and soda seen from the outside windows. Just the type of junk food Runner and Prix are looking for, for their midday snack.

Prix enters the shop alone though, opening the door to the sound of a chime and the spotting of the guys behind the counter reading a magazine.

"Welcome to QikSnaq, here for all your random cravings and stuff..." He seems like the typical teenager just looking after the shop for the day. Not as expected, but good for their heist. As silent as always, she searches the isles for chocolates, sour straws, packs of gum, anything small they could nibble on for a while. She notices a few packs of table-flat chocolate bars in a section to her right and picks them up for a closer inspection. About 280 calories, which is enough to fill them for about 30 minutes to an hour.

She checks behind her to see if the guy is watching her. The way the isles are made, the diagonal walls block him from her view, and considering how short she is, she can't be seen over them either. To be sure, she drags her feet over to the edge of the aisle and looks over at him from afar. He's still looking at the book, with the camera's surveillance being shown behind him. She lets out a sigh of relief and walks further down the aisle and over a sewer vent, dropping the candy in as she continues to walk around the store.

On the next aisle over, she finds a few decent looking bags of chips, like Flavored Nachos and Potato Bits which may be the stores' knock-off brands since originality isn't the hype anymore. Though, maybe they're more healthy than the actual brands they're based on due to the lack of sugar and fat in them. But honestly, who cares? As long as they can fill you up, you'd pick up about anything. Prix desperately wanted the Canned Ringles though, but they couldn't fit through the sewer drain. Whatever, she'd figure it out.

She continued over to the freezer where the drinks were. She was instructed to only get two of them as to not draw too much attention. Runner wanted the Sparkling Lime in the fourth row, right near her foot. She wanted the Dark Chao Cola, which is everyone's favorite, sponsored by Chao in Space 4: Return of the Hero Chao. She collected them and put them on the lowest row, along with the Ringles, and shut the door. But what of the chips?

Having everything they wanted, Prix took the chips to the counter and placed them on top to show the teen sitting in the chair. He's still staring at the book, but from up close and below the counter, he looks so dead inside. She hit the bell next to the chips on the counter, trying to get his attention. Appropriately, he looks up from the book and sees the chips. Then he looks at Prix. Prix smiles and points to the back. She must need one more thing, at least that's his guess. He gets up, groaning like a stereotypical teen, and follows her to the back of the store and to one of the freezers.

Runner's POV (3 minutes before)~

Underneath the building, in the sewer network that worlds all the dirty water and spiderwebs, Runner walks along the walls as he breathes through his mouth. It's definitely not his favorite place to be, but there are ways to get around it.

Underneath the Candy Isle, where he sees a relatively large and circular vent, he holds open Prix's bag and whistles quietly. To most it's barely even hearable, but for Prix and her incredible hearing, even the slightest noise can be heard if focused on. And living with Runner as long as she has, she most definitely has grown accustomed to these methods. Before he knew it, several bars fell into the bag.

"Nice." Good, but they weren't done. While Prix made her rounds to the chips, Runner took his time making it over to the bottom of the freezer section and climbing up to the vent he asked her to choose from outside. Eventually, her hand could be seen fumbling through rows of drinks and the setting down three items near the vent before closing the freezer. "Damn it Prix, the Ringles again?" He whispers to himself.

Runner goes ahead and lifts the vent, grabbing the drinks and chips and closing it again, descending and going on over to the front of the store. It's around now that the guy and Prix go on to the back of the store.

A vent from behind the counter ascends from the ground and is slid to the side. From inside, Runner emerges to the surface with Prix's bag that she normally keeps her board in, sliding the vent back and in place slowly. He then sneaks over to the counter, sliding the chips into the pack slowly and quietly.

Normal POV~

"Sorry little lady, but I can't sell that to you," the teen says as he walks up to the front with Prix. She looks sad and disappointed, the best acting face she could muster.

"Sis, there you are," Runner says as they come to the front. He stands at the counter with his arms folded like he means business. "I've been looking all over for you. Come on, let's go home. Mom made lunch." Prix perks up like a little kid being told they're going to Chao World and takes Runner's hand, pulling him out of the store. The teen looks confused but shrugs, going back behind the counter and reading his book once more.

Once outside, the two walk further down the street before bothering to check the bag, not that they need to. But Prix has been patient enough, pulling out the Ringles and the Chao Cola. "Hey! Can't you hold it until we get back to Sticks place?"

Prix shakes her head and continues to open the canister and chow down on the chips with glee. Runner shakes his head in disappointment, but could he really blame her? He was starving as well. He continued to walk alongside her and into the forest, paying her no mind other than the one to watch over. For them, this was no misery business.

Oi. I know, this chapter is shorter than the last, but I've been tired lately. It's my first time having an actual job so it took a lot out of me for this past week. Maybe I'll get better? Hopefully. But honestly, you guys should lookout for the next chapter. You'll probably like it. Just to let you know, I'm not half doing these.