Sonic and his group had reached a stalemate. They kept their guns pointed at the thieves, but they knew that they couldn't do too much lest any of the civilians wind up being hurt, and they also couldn't risk going too far ahead with Vector and Espio's plan.

"Well?" the lead robber said. "Are you going to actually do anything, or are you just going to let me shoot this poor girl?"

Sonic smiled and put his hands up. "You know, you're right. You guys don't need any more casualties."

"I don't think that you quite get it," replied the leader. "If cops show up, people get killed. That's what happened to fatso over there, and it's what'll happen to this hot little piece if you don't turn and leave us alone."

The blue hedgehog nodded. "I completely agree. You were just trying to go about your day, and we got in the way of that. You know, we shouldn't have gotten in the way when you had a clear shot."

With that, Sonic grinned and ducked quickly, allowing Shadow to turn fast and fire a bullet at the leading robber, hitting him in the arm. It didn't kill him, but since the arms of the robbers weren't armoured and taking a chance at a head-shot would have taken too long, Shadow took the best option.

The lead robber backed away, but still kept a loose grip on Amy. Sonic moved quickly and separated the two from each other, quickly pushing Amy down onto the ground to avoid any possible gunfire before taking the lead robber down, mounting him and landing several punches on his face.

Outside, after Shadow had landed his shot, he, Knuckles, and Tails managed to sneak around to the side of the building, narrowly avoiding any bullets headed their way. They used the side of the building for cover as the bad guys hid behind the other side of the building, taking a few potshots.

As they waited, Espio and Vector soon heard the sound of gunfire. Not needing to wait any further, they drove around from the alleyway that they were hiding behind, soon coming around to the front of the Emerald Gem.

Before either of the two could get out of their car, however, another vehicle was making its way down the street. It was a large black car, and the driver of it honked twice on the horn before calling out.

"Come on! We've got to book it!"

"We're on our way!" shouted one of the robbers behind the building.

The group of bad guys quickly turned to head for their car. One of them stayed behind briefly and fired into the building, hoping to hit Sonic. The blue hedgehog ducked, feeling the whizz of the bullet as it passed his left ear, but the distraction was enough for the man underneath him.

Quickly, the leader scooted back on his butt before twisting his hips to free his arms. As they came free, he reached up to grab at Sonic's face, pushing him away before kicking him in the stomach to finally get him off, knocking him on his back.

The leader picked up his gun and aimed it at Sonic briefly before grunting. "I ain't got time for this." He quickly ran for the door. "I'll kill your ass later, blue boy! But this ain't over!"

Sonic got back up to his feet as the getaway car started heading off. The blue hedgehog quickly picked up his gun before turning to face Amy. "Sorry that I can't stick around for a bit longer."

"It's fine," Amy said, smiling. "Now go beat the bad guys and save the day."

Sonic grinned and headed outside, hopping into the car with his friends before Vector began driving off. The police car soon caught up with the robbers' car, staying a fair distance away, but how much of on advantage that was was kind of up for debate as some of the bad guys turned popped out of the windows and began firing.

"It's going to pretty hard to kill these guys!" Sonic said. "Their body armour is tough, and we can't get a good enough shot on their unarmoured parts from back here!"

"Then we'll just need to chase them down!" Vector said. "Keep shooting to keep them busy! But we need to play it safe! We can find out where they're going, and try to put a stop to it!"

"What's worse is that they could be all human!" Shadow said, also firing. "When I shot the leader, he didn't look stunned, so it's safe to say that none of them have any cybernetics among them!"

"Then we'll just have to wing it!" Sonic said, poking his head out to fire again.

The bad guys kept driving, and the leader quickly noticed that they were coming up to a turn. On the right path of the turn were a few lampposts. The leader got an idea and turned to his men.

"Take out the light posts! We've got to try and block them off!"

Nodding, his henchmen turned and focused their aim on the lampposts, shooting through one of them before the car itself crashing into it to give it that one final push. Creaking heavily, the lamppost wobbled before falling straight down, narrowly missing the bad guys' car as it landed.

"Fuck!" Vector yelled, slamming the breaks of the police car in the hopes that they'd stop.

"We might not make it in time!" warned Espio.

Vector kept slamming, but the car showed no signs of slowing down. "Then we've got to jump!"

The others all agreed, and just as the car was coming into contact with the fallen light post, the six of them all jumped out, landing into rolls on the ground as the car crashed into the lamppost. A loud metallic crunch was heard as the two objects made contact, and there was no doubt that the front of the car was severely damaged by now.

The six officers stood back up after landing, easily frustrated at what had just happened, with Vector being the first to speak. "They got away! Dammit!"

"Hey, we'll find them," said Espio.

"We could try to take a civilian vehicle to catch up with them," Tails suggested.

"Nah, those guys are too far away to catch up with now," Knuckles growled, walking over to the car. He then grunted and punched the car hard in the side, unexpectedly causing it to move an inch or two.

"What the heck was that about?" Vector asked. "I get that you're pissed, but that's no reason to bust up my car even further!"

"I didn't even put a dent in it!" Knuckles replied. "Besides, it's fucked up enough anyways. Didn't need my help."

"Actually," Tails said, "you did put a dent in it."

Knuckles was about to reply before he registered the yellow fox's words. Curiously, the red echidna looked to the space where he'd punched the car, seeing that there was a decent enough sized dent in it, and then he looked over his hands.

"You don't think that..." he started.

"Probably just the adrenaline," Sonic said. "Makes people crazy strong sometimes."

"Or it could be the implant," Shadow replied.

"Or it could be the implant," Sonic repeated.

"Well, whatever it is will have to wait," Espio said. "We should get back to the Emerald Gem Jewellers and make sure that everyone's okay."

"Does our car still work?" asked Knuckles.

"Maybe so, but after your punch there, who knows?" Vector smirked.

Espio shook his head and hopped into the driver's seat, pressing on the pedals to make sure, and smiling as he heard the engine rumble without any issues. "Yeah, it looks like we're good to go!"

"Engine still sounds fine," Sonic noted as he went in.

"In all honesty, the crash wasn't that bad," shrugged Tails. "We had lost enough forward momentum by that time to not risk a huge explosion."

"What about the damage on the front?" Espio asked. "Wouldn't that be enough to hurt the engine or loosen something?"

"It is possible that that could have happened," Tails said. "As I mentioned, we'd lost enough forward momentum so as not to warrant a death by a flaming ball of car, but the engine sounds fine as you mentioned. You want me to check anyway?"

"Just a quick once over, at least," Espio said.

The yellow fox nodded, walking around to the front of the car. He didn't have to worry about opening the hood since the crash had loosened it enough, and he looked at the engine, going over it a few times with his eyes.

"It seems fine. A couple of the valves are bent a bit, but they'll work just fine," Tails said, walking back around to sit in the car with the others.

"Good thing that the station pays to fix it themselves," Vector smiled.

"That's typical," Knuckles moaned as the car started moving. "The station doesn't have to pay a dime for their own vehicles, but if I crash my car again I have to pay in full?"

"Hey, you should count yourself lucky that you even got that freebie in the first place," Sonic said. "And besides, who knows? It might be all okay by the time we get back to the station."

"Speaking of which," said Espio, "I'd best call up HQ and see if we can't get an ambulance. Maybe even a coroner for that one innocent who got killed."

Sonic sighed. "It's just a sad truth, man: we can't save everybody."

The others all murmured or nodded in agreement as the car made a U-turn, finally managing to pull itself around before driving back down the road that it came up from. During the drive, Espio sent in the call for help, and by the time he was finished, they'd all reached the Emerald Gem Jewellers.

"Want to check up on your girlfriend?" Tails asked as he left the car.

"Are you asking me or Shadow?" Sonic grinned, also getting out of the car.

The others joined in, and Espio heard sirens in the far distance. "Huh. They're a lot closer than I expected."

The group of officers saw the civilians all helping each other, making sure that everyone else was okay as some began sweeping up the glass from the windows and some of the cases that contained the jewellery in them.

They all walked into the shop, and Sonic walked over to Amy. "Hey there... again."

Amy smiled. "Oh, it's my hero. He came back for me." Her tone then softened. "You know, we've really got to stop meeting like this. People will talk."

Sonic couldn't help his own grin, but his expression soon turned serious. "Are you all right?"

She nodded. "I'll be okay. I wasn't seriously injured. I think that the most hurt I got was after I fell from that prick's grip on me."

Sonic looked around, seeing a light cut on her arm from some glass. "You've got a little nick there on your arm."

Amy turned and looked at it, shrugging. "Eh, it's not the worst thing. Besides, it's not bleeding that badly."

The blue hedgehog laughed a bit. "Do you even need my help? Both times that we've met, you've been completely fine."

"I'd probably feel better if my money hadn't gotten taken, not to mention everybody else getting robbed here." Amy then opened up her bag, smiling. "I still have my most important thing, though."

Sonic dared a look inside, and raised an eyebrow at what he saw. "What are the pills for?" he questioned.

"My heart condition," Amy replied. "I was born with it. It wasn't an issue for a while, but then it started getting worse in my teens. I've been on medication for it ever since."

"What about Rosy?" Sonic asked. "Does she have something similar?"

"Oddly, no," Amy said. "Our mother was completely fine during the pregnancy, and did everything right. No drinking, no drugs, no smoking or caffeine... everything went perfectly. Well... except for me..."

"What do you mean?" Sonic wondered. "You look fine to me."

"Oh, do I?" Amy teased, catching on to his double meaning.

Playing her game, Sonic smirked. "Yeah. Your arm looks good too." He then shook it off. "In all seriousness, you don't look too bad about it."

"I'm even luckier with how often I take them," Amy replied. "Two of each at morning, noon, then night before I go to bed."

"How's that lucky?"

"Well, I used to have to take them once every four hours. I also needed more pills at certain points because there were some medications that weren't working so well for me."

Sonic smiled. "I'm just glad that this process of elimination didn't wind up eliminating you."

Amy shrugged. "There were some close calls. A trip to the hospital here and there... no big deal."

"Yeah. The important thing is that you're getting better," Sonic said. "Does Rosy look after you well?"

"She's my sister, not a carer," Amy giggled. "But she tries. I even told her a bit about you."

"Ooh, now I'm intrigued," Sonic smirked. "Was it a good bit or a bad bit?"

"It was a good bit," the pink hedgehog answered. "I told her that you were cute, and that you seemed pretty cool."

"Are you trying to set me up with her?" the blue one replied, grinning widely.

"She's the type that'll more likely try to set people up with each other, and that includes me," Amy replied. "But if you want to give it a shot, then go ahead."

"I'll have to meet her before I can judge whether or not I want to ask her out," Sonic smiled. "But I will say that meeting you, despite the circumstances, has been rather enjoyable. You know, minus the parts about you almost getting sold into the sex trade and almost getting shot."

"And getting my money taken," Amy added. "Are you going to go get those ass-holes at some point?"

"Wow," Sonic chuckled. "Fine and has the mouth of a trucker... how did I get so lucky?"

"Hey, you haven't gotten lucky with me," Amy winked. "If you had, you'd know. Trust me."

Sonic nodded, applauding the pink hedgehog before speaking. "All right, I'll play your game. You and me, this Sunday."

"Don't you have your trial on Sunday?" Amy asked.

"We would, but one of the judges for that one got sick, so we had to have it moved forward to tomorrow."

Amy nodded. "That's fair. The you asking for a date thing, I mean. Not the court date being moved forward."

"You know, you still haven't answered me," Sonic said.

Amy smirked. "What time?"

"5:00 pm good? I might not have a job by then, but I can still take you out somewhere," Sonic smiled.

"Hmm... it's not a bad idea. You got a place in mind?"

"Ever heard of Jade Mountain?"

"Wasn't that the first place that I was taken to after getting knocked out by Nack's men?" Amy chuckled.

"Sure, if you want to look at it in the negative way," Sonic chided.

The pink hedgehog giggled. "Fair enough. You know, I've heard that the ribs there are pretty good."

"Yeah, I can attest to that. They're pretty great," Sonic said. "They use this sweet and sour sauce within the meat that just tastes so damn good."

"Well, I certainly can't wait to find out," Amy replied, smiling.

At the other side of the shop, Shadow was talking with Rouge. The other officers had found civilians to talk to, and thus that left Shadow alone with the white bat, who leaned against an undamaged wall as they spoke.

"So, are you all right?" Shadow asked.

Rouge nodded. "You've saved me twice over the span of a day or so," she said, reaching a hand out to touch his face. "I feel as though I should repay you somehow..."

"You can start by telling me where those bad guys might have went," Shadow said, pulling away from her hand.

"They didn't tell anybody anything," Rouge shrugged. "They showed up, ransacked the place, stole some jewels and cash, then you guys showed up and... well, you know the rest."

"Another question," Shadow smiled.

"Shoot," Rouge replied, cocking an eyebrow at the black and red hedgehog's uncharacteristic grin.

"Do you work here?"

The white bat giggled and nodded. "I do indeed. I'm a price checker for the jewellery here."

"You haven't stolen any of these, have you?" Shadow asked.

Rouge looked offended. "I might have in the old days when we were still partners in crime, but I haven't. Believe it or not, I did get a legitimate job after we split up."

"You almost make it sound like we were in a relationship," Shadow smiled. "We stole food and cash because we were poor and hungry."

"Aw, come on now," Rouge replied, tracing a finger over Shadow's shirt. "You didn't feel at least a little something while we were still adorable little ragamuffins?"

"I mostly felt hungry from lack of food and cold from what little clothes we had," Shadow said, pulling away from the bat's finger again. "But I guess that I might have felt something more."

"Like anger towards that cop that you beat up?"

"Hey, he was a dick," Shadow defended. "And not just to me or Maria. He was just a dick in general."

Rouge grinned. "Calm down now. I was just pushing your buttons."

"That's a nasty habit that you really need to break," Shadow smiled.

Rouge shrugged. "Hey, it beats drugs any day of the week. I've never tried drugs, but I'm just assuming."

The black and red hedgehog smiled as he turned around, hearing the sirens come closer before turning back to Rouge. "There's your ride."

The white bat pouted playfully. "Aw... no limousine? You're getting sloppy, Shadow."

"Did I or did I not save your life again?" Shadow chuckled.

"You're damn right you did," Rouge replied. "But you need to work on your taxi service. All the drivers do for police cars is ask me if I stole anything."

"They do that last night?" Shadow asked.

"They did in the last few cities I worked at," Rouge replied. "Same job. But I kept getting asked over and over, so I moved from place to place before I landed here. Who would have thought that we'd end up working in the same city, eh?"

"Yeah, it's not like you could write this stuff," Shadow grinned. "Come on, I'll walk you to your car."

Rouge nodded, then looked to see Sonic walking Amy to her car also. The white bat grinned as she watched over the two, and kept her attention on them until Shadow cleared his throat, causing her to look at him.

"Your chariot awaits," he said, opening the door for her.

Rouge smiled, then gestured to Sonic and Amy. "Is there anything going on between those two?"

"I'm not completely sure," Shadow shrugged. "Why?"

Rouge pursed her lips. "They just look like they've known each other for their whole lives. They only met the other night, and they're talking to each other like teenagers."

"What can you expect?" Shadow said. "He saved her life."

The white bat shrugged. "It's just a little bit unexpected, I guess."

Shadow nodded. "I guess you're right. Now, go onward in style."

"You know how to spoil a girl," Rouge winked as the car started driving off.

Shadow shook his head and walked over to see Sonic still talking to Amy. Sighing, he walked over to them. "You guys just about done here?" he asked. "The other cars already took off with the civilians."

"I've been meaning to ask, why are you evacuating the people that work at Emerald Gem?" asked Amy.

"Their shop was shot to shit," shrugged Sonic. "Our station is going to try and help to patch it back up."

"Does that include you guys?"

Shadow chuckled. "We don't know yet. It depends on whether or not anything pops up on the robbers from earlier."

Sonic nodded, turning to Amy. "You'd better get back home now."

Amy smiled. "I'll try to not get kidnapped on the way there."

"If you do, I'd get a hat trick of saving barely within a day," Sonic grinned. "Remember, Sunday at 5."

"I'll remember." The pink hedgehog giggled as the car started up, and she quickly poked her hands out the window, holding a pen out. "Give me your arm."

Sonic looked confused, but did it anyway. He held out his right arm, and Amy wrote something on the inside of his wrist. After she was finished, she withdrew her hands back into the police car as the window closed, fluttering a goodbye wave to Sonic.

The blue hedgehog looked at the writing on his wrist and chuckled. "Her phone number..."

"I'm just glad that she didn't use blue ink," Shadow chided. "That would have been difficult to make out."

Sonic shrugged. "Eh, Tails would find a way. The dude could find a drawing pin in a haystack."

"You flatter me too much," the yellow fox replied from inside the car. "Come on, let's get our asses on out of here."

Sonic and Shadow shrugged in agreement and got into the car, joined by the others. As Sonic went about typing the phone number written on his wrist into his phone, he noticed Vector and Espio still talking to some cops, and they walked back to their car smiling.

"What are you two so happy about?" Sonic asked as they got into the car.

"We got a lead on where those ass-holes were headed off to," said Vector.

"Northwest side of the city," added Espio. "Pretty far away from the centre where we are."

"That's kind of a dumb idea, isn't it?" Knuckles pondered. "Why would their hideout be so far away if all they did was come to the centre to steal some jewels?"

"You've got to remember that we aren't exactly dealing with Mobius's most intelligent people," Tails chuckled.

"Well, we can't stay around here too long," Vector said, starting the car. "As good as the lead is, it could go cold at any moment."

"Did we get any specifics on where they might be?" asked Shadow.

"All we got was the northwest part of the city," Espio said.

"Great. The only thing that's worse than a cold lead is a cold lead that's vague," Knuckles grumbled.

"A cold lead is better than no lead," said Sonic. "Did all the civilians make it back okay?"

"All but one..." Vector said, seeing the large black coroner van roll in.

"I still can't believe that that one guy had to die... and all for nothing..." Sonic said as the coroner got a body bag for the murdered civilian.

"It pains me to admit it," Vector said, "but you can't save everybody around here, man. There's only so much that a cop can do in a day."

"I still wish we could have done more," the blue hedgehog shrugged.

"Dude, cheer up," Knuckles said. "At least you got a girl's number. That's got to be a little bit of a win, right?"

"Yeah," Tails added. "Plus, we saved everyone else there."

"I know, I know," Sonic sighed. "Needs of the many and all that. It just sucks that we can't do more sometimes."

"Wow," Vector smirked. "A cop for just about a day, and you're already realising that you can't help everybody."

"I guess that the accident opened my eyes to the world a little bit more," Sonic chuckled. "The best that we can do is help people, no matter how small that help is. Now let's get after those jewel thieves."

"Way ahead of you."

Elsewhere, the jewellery store thieves were just pulling into a wide alleyway. They knew that they had lost the police a while ago, but they still rushed to get out of their car and made a mad dash down the alleyway.

"You don't think that we were still followed, do you?" a robber asked.

"Nah, we lost those cops a while back," said another robber. "We gave them a fender bender. Didn't kill them, sure, but it stopped them from following us."

"What's our next step, boss?" asked the first robber, turning to their leader.

"Our next step is that we try to sell all this jewellery to somebody," the leader replied. "Anybody got Nack's number?"

"There'd be no point," said a robber. "Last I heard, he left Green Hill. I don't know where he went, but we sure as shit won't find him here."

"So, that leaves him out," said the leader. "Eh, it's not like he'd be bothered with us anyway. He's got too much focus on the higher class types of criminals. If we sided with him, we'd be dead inside a week. Fuck, we'd be lucky to make it even that far."

"How's the arm?" asked a robber.

"It'll be fine," the leader said. "Come on, let's get inside."

"I still can't believe that we picked an old library as our hideout," said a robber as they started moving inside.

"Hey, not a lot of people come here any more. And if it weren't for us, then the old dude running the place wouldn't have it at all," said the leader.

"Under other circumstances, that would sound nice. But all we do is bribe the guy. With cash that we still owe him."

"Yeah," added another robber. "I swear, the only reason the owner's still alive is because we haven't put him down just yet."

"We'll only do it if he gives us a reason to," the leader shrugged.

The others all agreed, heading around to the back door of the library with their bags of jewels in hand. They made it through the back entrance and found themselves in the far corner of the shop, turning and making a move for the counter where the owner, an elderly man, was.

"Oh, you all finally got back," the owner said, checking through some books. "How was the robbery?"

"It went off pretty well," said the leader.

"Any cops?"

"Some did get in the way, but we lost them."

The librarian chuckled. "If they show up and I wind up getting shot, I'm coming back for you guys."

The leader shook his head. "Why do you always talk like that?"

"Talk like what? Like what you're doing doesn't matter?"

One of the other robbers rested his hand on his gun. "Keep on talking, you old fuck, and you'll be the one that won't matter."

The librarian smiled. "It's not me that you have to be concerned around. It's the cops possibly on their way to track you dip-shits down and take you out."

"You are aware that you're expendable, right?" the leader said.

The librarian shrugged. "So are you."

The leader shook his head. "We don't have the time for this shit. We've got to make some calls and find out how much these rocks are worth." He turned to the old man. "If the cops come, try to get them out of here."

"Why? I thought that you lost them?" the librarian asked, a grin on his face.

The leader scowled and turned with some of the other bad guys to head to the upstairs portion of the library, whilst a couple more of them stayed on the lower floor, keeping themselves ready and covered for in case the cops showed up.

Just outside and a little while down the road, Vector was talking into his car's radio. "This is Vector here. We're up on the high street, searching for the robbers. You got anything for us?"

"Negative, Vector," said dispatch. "The best we have is that they're on the same street as you. We'll keep you posted."

"Likewise," Espio said. "Over and out."

Sonic looked outside his window as Espio and Vector hung up the radio, and noticed a Mobian rottweiler stood on the side of the road, waving his hands at the cop car. Sonic reached a hand over and pointed.

"That guy might know something," he said.

"Then let's go say hi," replied Vector.

The car pulled up close to the Mobian, and Espio lowered down his window before poking his head outside the car. "Hello?"

"Hey, you guys are cops, right?" asked the rottweiler.

"We are indeed," Espio replied. "Did you see something around here?"

The rottweiler nodded. "I saw a bunch of guys heading up the street, right around the library. They were wearing masks, so I didn't get a good look at them. Plus, I was watching them from my window."

"How'd you know it was them?" asked Sonic.

"I was watching the news and saw a group of guys rob a jewellery store. I kinda put two and two together from there."

Vector smiled. "You did a good job, man. And don't worry, okay? We'll take care of those clowns."

The dog nodded, turning to head back into his house as Vector drove on, soon reaching the end of the street. He thought about parking at the end, then reversed a bit to pull over onto a nearby path.

"All right, the plan is to scout the area out," Espio said as they all got out of the car. "If you see or hear anything weird, tell the others, and we'll reach you as soon as we can."

"Will do," said Sonic. "All right, let's spread out."

The others nodded, scanning up and down the streets they were on and keeping their eyes peeled. Tails was walking down the middle part of the street and looked to see a small alleyway down the side. He raised an eyebrow and stood back to look up at the building.

"Hey, I think I found something!" said Tails.

The others walked over to join him, and Sonic looked up. "Green Hill Library?"

"Why would there be a bunch of jewel thieves cooped up in a place of knowledge?" asked Knuckles.

"We don't know that they're here," said Espio.

Tails walked over to the alleyway, and grinned as he noticed the back of a car parked just around a corner. "We do now."

The others walked around, and Vector smiled. "Good find, fox man."

"Oh, so I've been upgraded from fox boy?" Tails teased.

"Maybe when you get your first kill," replied Espio, smirking.

Sonic shook his head and smiled before turning serious. "So, what's the game plan?"

"If this alleyway goes where I think it goes," said Espio, "then it should lead to the back of the library. But we can't all go back there at once, so we'll need to split up into two groups of three."

"Who goes with who?" asked Shadow.

"Knuckles and Sonic will come with me to handle the back entrance," said Vector. "Shadow and Tails are with Espio at the front."

"No arguments here," said Sonic.

"Let's keep radio silence too. We can't give ourselves away," said Espio. "All right, let's split up."

They all nodded, drawing their guns as they separated. As Espio, Shadow, and Tails made their way to the front entrance, the other three soon approached the car around the back entrance, keeping their heads low.

"Do you think they might have left anything in the car?" Sonic asked.

"If these criminals were smart enough, then probably not," replied Vector. "We should check anyway."

"But how?" Knuckles asked. "We don't have any keys to unlock the car, unless they stuck them in the ignition."

Sonic stood up and looked over to see that the keys were still in there. "Guess that they're not all that smart after all."

"We've got to be careful," said Knuckles. "We can't alert them."

They then heard a voice speaking. "I left the keys in the car, I think. I'll go get them."

Sonic and Knuckles made a mad dash for the side of the alleyway where they wouldn't get seen whilst Vector waited down near the car, keeping his head low. The robber was forced to break the window to the car, reaching in to grab the keys.

"There we go," he said.

As the bad guy started to walk out from the side of the car, Vector appeared from behind, grabbing the robber in a choke-hold and keeping it tight until the robber fell limp in his arms. Carefully, Vector laid him down on the floor.

"That takes care of that," he muttered to himself, grabbing the keys from the robber's hand.

"Nice work," said Sonic.

Vector tossed the blue hedgehog the keys. "Scope out the car. See what you can find."

Sonic nodded, opening one of the car doors and quickly crawling inside, looking around. "Nothing much here," he said, soon checking the back of the car, once again finding nothing. "I can't see a damn thing."

"Let's check out the trunk," Knuckles suggested.

Sonic nodded as he got out of the car, handing Knuckles the keys. "You do it. It was your idea."

The red echidna shrugged, walking around to open up the trunk of the car, and looking around. "There's nothing inside..."

Sonic came around to join him, looking briefly before seeing something on the side. "You see that?"

Knuckles nodded, and reached to touch whatever it was that Sonic pointed out. He turned to his blue hedgehog friend with a shrug before pulling up, grabbing the floor of the trunk and lifting it upwards.

"What the hell?" he said. "Is this Fokus?"

"And about a shit-load of other drugs," Vector added, coming around to check. "Come on, we'd better head inside before someone comes to check on their pal."

The other two nodded, and Knuckles quickly shut the floor of the trunk before shutting the trunk itself, locking it. He then placed the keys back in the car, having thrown them through the broken window to land on the seat.

Vector took to one side of the back entrance of the library as Sonic and Knuckles took the other. Both sides nodded at each other before carefully sneaking in through the back door. They found themselves in a corner of the shop.

"We've got to be careful here," whispered Sonic. "Those dicks could be anywhere."

"Are you whispering because we're in a library or because you don't want us to get caught?" Knuckles joked, also whispering.

"A little bit of both," Sonic shrugged. "But I have the feeling that it's about to get really loud, really soon." He then turned to see an old man ducking next to the counter.

"Let's go over to him," said Vector.

The others nodded, but before they could move much, a few bullets pinged against the wall next to them. Quickly, the three of them dived out of where they were to find some cover, hiding behind one of the bookshelves.

"Nice of you to stop by!" said the leader, looking down over the railing. "So, how'd you find us out?"

"Policeman's instinct," replied Vector. "That, and you really suck at hiding your getaway vehicles, apparently."

"What do you want while you're here?" the leader asked. "Looking for a good book? Because I don't think this place sells bibles. I wonder if they'd be in the fiction or non-fiction section..."

"Stop your stalling and hand over the jewels that you stole."

"Or else what?"

Sonic grinned. "Or else we'll burn up all your hard-earned drugs in a huge fire and make you watch."

"Ah, well, that explains what happened to him," the leader shrugged.

"What are you doing hauling around all that stuff?" Vector asked. "More importantly, why do you have Fokus in the back of your car?"

"If you want a confession, then you'll have to beat it out of me," the leader said, looking down to one of his men who had a clear shot. He then looked past him to see movement from outside the front, and grinned. "Say, did you three come here all your own?"

"We've got some backup handy," replied Vector. "Why?"

"Because when you try to stage a two-pronged attack, you've got to make the bad guys look at one prong whilst the other one sneaks up on them. You guys are really bad at this, you know that?"

"He must have spotted the others," Knuckles whispered.

"Yeah, no shit," Vector said.

"What's the plan?" Sonic asked.

"Covering fire. We need to get behind something and keep the bad guys ducking so that the others can get inside."

"You know, this place is a library," said the leader. "While a do appreciate your whispering, you forget that there's others that can hear you even when you try not to make noise. What was it that one of you said? You were worried it's about to get loud?" He smiled as he saw another one of his men aim a gun at where Vector's group were. "Being right is a bitch sometimes, ain't it?"

Then the gunfire began. Vector called to the others to move, and they quickly hid behind another book shelf to avoid the line of sight of the robbers on the ground floor with them. Carefully, Sonic and Vector provided covering fire, not really hitting anything, but not needing to.

"We've got to get around these guys!" said Sonic, popping out to fire off a few shots. "The others might not be able to get in otherwise!"

Knuckles smiled. "I think I've got an idea!" He stood up and pushed against the bookshelf. "Give me a hand with this!"

The other two nodded, standing up with their friend and pushing hard on the large bookshelf. Sooner than they had thought, it began to teeter over, falling and collapsing on a couple of the robbers.

Since the library itself was small, there weren't many other bookshelves, so they didn't have to worry about too much of a domino effect happening. But they didn't need to, as they got their desired result from just knocking over a couple after one push.

"That should be good!" Vector said as they went to hide near the next bookshelf.

Sonic turned his head to see Espio and the others entering, and he waved his hands towards himself, indicating that it was safe. Quickly, Shadow, Espio, and Tails entered through the front, taking a few shots at whatever robbers were still on the ground level before rejoining the others.

"So, what's the game-plan now?" asked Tails.

"We've got to slowly push forward," said Espio. "Take care of whoever's left on the bottom floor, then work our way up the stairs."

"That could be risky," said Shadow. "There isn't any cover to move up there with. If we try getting up to the top floor, we won't get very far."

Sonic looked around his belt. "Anybody bring any grenades?"

The others looked, and shook their heads as Tails spoke. "Nothing. I do have an idea, though."

"Hey, anything could help at this point," said Vector.

Tails smiled. "Espio, you can turn invisible, right?"

"I showed you that in an elevator on your first day, so... yeah," Espio nodded. "Why?"

"I'm thinking that we distract the bad guys upstairs and you go invisible and go up there," the yellow fox said.

"Not a bad plan," the purple chameleon admitted. "One slight issue, though; I can turn invisible, not intangible. If a bullet hits me, then I'm going to feel it."

Vector smiled and turned to his side. "Good thing we have all these books with us. Given enough time, they could distract anybody, not to mention save on bullets."

"Knowledge is power, after all," Sonic chuckled. "So, we all good with the plan?"

"As long as I don't get shot, then yeah," Espio nodded. "I'm good with it."

"I'm getting kind of antsy up here!" the leader said, smirking. "You cops going to send me somebody to keep me company?"

Vector shook his head. "All right, let's do this."

Espio nodded, turning invisible. Quickly, he moved from behind the cover, rushing up the stairs as quickly as he could, the gunfire masking the sounds of his steps. He stopped briefly as he saw a book fly past him.

"Hey, are you a fan of romance novels?" Knuckles asked as he threw the next book.

"This is a cook book," the leader replied. "But I don't mind. It might give me some good reading whilst I wait this out."

"What makes you so confident about that?" Sonic asked, firing some shots.

"Well, I know that you guys all came here alone," the leader said. "I also know that you didn't call for backup. You didn't bring any grenades of any sort, so you have nothing to throw up here to take me or my men out."

"That reminds me," said Sonic, "how many men are up there with you?"

"Three," the leader replied, turning to his side as he noticed movement out of the corner of his eye.

He looked as he saw one of his men get his gun taken away, and it hovered in midair before switching so that the butt of the gun could the former wielder of the weapon across the face, knocking him unconscious.

"Now two."

Another sign of movement as another robber began moving about strangely. He stood up and his body jerked from left to right in short spasms before finally being thrown upside down, landing on his head. A few moments later, the head of the robber snapped back from a few punches before also falling asleep.

"One guy left," said the leader, turning his attention to aim at the invisible force whilst the last robber ducked down.

"Whoa, hold it, dude!" the robber said.

"It's not you I'm trying to shoot!" the leader said.

"Then, who is it?"

Before the leader could reply, he felt his gun suddenly being jerked away from him. He went to strike back, but hit nothing but dead air. He refocused his attention on his last man, whom was tripped up and picked up, being tossed over the balcony and landing on a fallen bookshelf to break his fall.

"Okay, what the fuck just happened?" the leader asked.

He got his response when Espio became visible again. The leader tried to back away, but Espio caught up with him and smiled. "Sometimes, it's the things you don't see that'll knock you through a loop." The chameleon then reached behind his back to pull out a pair of handcuffs. "You're under arrest."

"You're a cyber cop?" the leader questioned as he was forced to stand up. "That's new."

Espio turned the robber around and placed the cuffs on him, waiting as the electricity lit up around the man's wrists. "All right, you're going to sit tight with your friends while we call for backup."

Before the leader could reply, he found himself being pushed down the stairs, looking to see the rest of his men being bound in handcuffs of their own. As they reached the bottom of the stairs, Sonic took note of the leader's arm.

"How is that, by the way?" he asked as Espio left the man alone to go outside and make the backup call.

"Not too painful," the robber shrugged. "I don't think it hit anything important."

Knuckles looked a little closer and see a cut across the robber's arm. "Shadow's bullet must have grazed you."

"Yeah, lucky me, huh?" The robber began chuckling a little bit.

The red echidna grinned before punching the man hard in the stomach, causing him to keel over and land on his knees. "Yeah, lucky you."

"Fuck, that hurt..." the robber gasped. "I felt that through my body armour..."

Sonic cocked an eyebrow. "Hey, lift up his shirt," he said to the robber.

"Whoa, whoa, I'm fine with just being arrested," the leader said.

"Just do it."

Shrugging, the thief stayed still as Knuckles lifted up the man's shirt. Surprised, they saw a dent in the body armour. Curious, Knuckles lifted the armour also, seeing the man's bare stomach and growing a little bit more surprised as he saw a huge bruise there.

"Christ, man," Tails said to Knuckles. "How'd you hit him that hard?"

"And you can't blame the adrenaline this time," Vector added.

"So... implant?" Sonic asked.

"Implant," Tails nodded. "Probably. There's got to be a way to test this out, and not just for Knuckles, but for all of us."

"True," said Espio, walking back into the library. "But in the meantime, we've got backup on the way."

"Why do you need extra cops?" the robber asked.

"Well, they did just kick a lot of asses," the librarian said, smiling from behind his desk. "They need more than just their one car if they want to take you all down to the station."

"See?" Knuckles said. "I don't even know this guy, but he gets it!"

Sonic chuckled then turned to the old man. "Sorry about your place, by the way. We'll get it fixed up."

"I hope so," the librarian said. "I've got a new line of audio and visual books coming soon, and I need the place clean."

"You make visual books?" asked Tails.

"Aren't all books things you have to look at?" Knuckles asked.

The librarian chuckled. "It's a new technology, in a way. It's a step up from audio books. Basically, any book you want to read, you can watch as it all happens."

"So, kind of like when they turned it into a movie or TV show, but without cutting out important stuff?" Sonic asked.

"Pretty much," Tails smiled.

"Destruction aside," the librarian said, "I might give you boys a discount."

"We're just doing our job, sir," said Vector. "But thanks."

"Well, if you're ever interested, just let me know," replied the librarian, smiling.

The others nodded, and Espio spoke. "Got a long while to wait before backup gets here."

Tails shrugged. "Maybe just a sample?"

The librarian laughed, putting an arm around the two-tailed fox's shoulders. "Come with me. Luckily, it's in a room that isn't riddled with bullets."

Sorry that it's been a bit longer than usual since I last posted! There's just been a lot of family stuff going on, and I got lazy from time to time... I apologise. Hopefully the next one will come around a lot sooner. I will say that I'd like to get at least ten chapters done before the year ends, but for now, I hope you enjoy what I'm putting out. Take care, stay tuned, and I'll see you all later.