Here's where the fun begins.

THE ENCOUNTER

Chapter Theme: Nowhere to Go by Mushroomhead

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"Thank you, come again!" said the clerk as he handed Arieal her Gatorade bottle. The Freedom Fighter nodded with a smile and turned to walk out. She exited the small store and entered the streets of the town of Oak. This town was about twenty miles southwest of Knothole, and was pretty peaceful, besides the occasional wannabe thugs that showed up in 'gangs' for the sole purpose to get laid and sell drugs. The town was about two miles in radius, or 2.3 square miles, whichever proportion of measurement you may prefer, and had a decent population. There weren't too many people, as the same for lack thereof, but there was enough business and residency all-around to satisfy someone searching for a new, decent, low-priced but not cheap, home.

She took a right turn and immediately met with Amy, who had posted up on the wall while Arieal got refreshments from the store. She was messing with her planner when Arieal walked up to her. "Hey, you ready?"

Amy looked up. "Yeah." She put her planner away, but not without turning it off, and started walking.

The two had been sent on an assignment; which called for transportation to Oak, and to lock up a group of thugs- The Blood- that had murdered the mayor of Flint. Apparently, according to the group of witnesses that came to Knothole for help, the gang had transported to Oak.

The two Freedom Fighters were to stay in Oak until the gang was behind bars, no exceptions. So far, they had been there two days, and no sign of the thugs. This slightly angered the two, for they both had better things to do. Especially with the war going on.

Ahh, the war.

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QUE: Tentative by System of a Down

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About eight years ago, four short years after the exile of the Freedom Fighters' beloved friend, Tails, Knothole was attacked. The threat was eliminated in a matter of ten minutes. But the leader of the assault, apparently one of Robotnik's majors, had fled within the first three minutes of the attack. Nobody knew that it had happened in that time limit for sure, but they knew he had fled. The people in Knothole suspect that he did this on purpose, and he wasn't meaning to accomplish anything extremely important. But they were ignorant, and lack of minds...

Throughout the rest of the time up to now, nothing had happened except slight changes in climate, a few buildings here and there throughout the planet torn down, and small waves of swatbots that attacked Knothole in very small spurts; but not under the order of the usual leader, Robotnik. But nobody knew this. There was something exceptionally different, and they had a partial idea of what had happened. But as stated earlier, no one knows what they think they know, do they?

Since four years ago, Robotnik had not been around; apparently and suspected to be in hiding. There had been no signs of his presence (except the swatbots), and nothing potentially mastermind had happened.

And Tails...

No one had seen shit for Tails since the exact day that he was kicked out. But of course, he said he didn't care for them anymore on his way out- or so his tone of voice towards Sonic implied.

Everyone missed him dearly. They all cared for and loved him- at least all the higher-ups. In fact, in case he may ever return to the town he once loved, the Freedom Fighters made a uniform especially for him- right around the time Arieal and Amy joined. But there was nothing they could do to stop the justice from taking its toll again. Their emotions and guilt towards him was amplified by twenty times once they found out that it wasn't he who had killed, though.

He looked exactly like Tails, only he was much... darker. The look in his eye was that of pure evil- something Tails wasn't capable of. As for looks, his fur was slightly darker, and the blue in the eyes was noticeably darker. Whenever he was spotted during nightfall and night itself, they flashed light red when light hit them. He was also about ten inches taller than Tails.

So much did it seem to be Tails, they figured it was a twin. But the clone was only sighted a total of 20 times throughout twelve years, clouding his image over with confusion.

But over the years, the loved Kitsune's image slowly faded, not to mere image, in fact it barely faded; but the feeling and knowledge of it was known by almost everyone. The attention, when the kitsune came to mind, was more on the clone. He was especially not forgotten by his friends and sister.

But as much as everyone would like to, for apologizing and guilt's sake, no one knew where he was...

And Kari...

No one had seen Kari for a while, either. She had left four days after Tails did, and she didn't come back. No one knew what to think of it- they think she might have found Tails and stayed with him, knowing he wasn't to return to Knothole. But then some thought she was captured or killed by Robotnik. No one knew...

The two women walked down the street with a generic stride, instead of the usual walking formation they had to assume during Freedom Fighter-related stuff. It felt good to walk like normal people once again. They just strolled along, no intention in finding something to do. There really was nothing to do but wait for the thugs, or go to a bar, or go shopping, but the thugs were nowhere around; they didn't feel like getting hit on; and shopping wasn't really a thing they liked to do.

It wasn't so much of the 'how', 'what', 'who', or 'where'- it was more of the 'when' they saw him.

This, because it had been twelve years- long enough for the majority of their opinion. No, it was their opinion. But apparently not his.

It had been an estimated seven minutes after the small store. Aerial and Amy had turned down an alley, just for the hell of it. The alley split into four different directions; one down at the end of the current alley, another across from that, one a little ahead of them to their to their right, and one coming up on their left. When they passed this, they noticed a group of people way at the end. One of them were shouting, and boy did he sound pissed.

Curious, the two women turned down the alley, inching closer to the others. Upon inspection, it looked like they were at a dead end of the alley. It was rounded and larger than the alley itself.

Amy and Arieal found two more alleys to their left and right; Amy went right, and Arieal left. The two peeked around the corner, so that they would not be spotted, but still be able to see the current situation.

The first group they saw was that of four chinchillas, each with black leather jackets and blue jeans. The second was that of two; a fox, and something that resembled a hedgehog. Amy knew it was an echidna, but Arieal had never seen the like. One of the chinchillas spoke.

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QUE: Hey, Loser by Magna-Fi

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"That doesn't matter. You pay, because you stole it."

The echidna lowered his head a little. "You know, no one stole shit. If you didn't leave shit laying around, you wouldn't get it taken."

Another chinchilla spoke. "It wasn't laying around! It was in the hole in the wall by the window!"

"Then don't put it by the window, dumbass. Besides, that's nowhere to hide a drug like that anyways." the fox said blatantly.

Amy and Arieal listened a little closer upon that sentence. Drugs? Ok, so now they had a drug bust. And The Blood, all in one place!

One of the chinchillas got into a slight fighting position. "So, you're not gonna give us our money?"

The fox slouched a little, apparently totally relaxed. "Your money? There's money involved?"

This did it in for the chinchilla in fighting stance. He lunged at the fox, but to no avail. The fox dodged to his right, letting his back face the two women. His tails waved around before settling slightly in the air. That's when it hit them. Two tails!

The fox threw a punch, immediately followed by an elbow, which sent the chinchilla stumbling back into the echidna. The red hedgehog-look-alike grabbed the back of the chinchilla's shirt and threw him backwards into the wall.

By the look of it, this echidna was strong.

The action committed by the two provoked the others to gang up on them. They reached into their pockets and grabbed their handguns. When he noticed this, Tails jerked his right arm a little, and a blade extruded. The two women stood dumbfounded.

One chinchilla swung a punch at the fox after failing to shoot him, but Tails sidestepped, landed a back chop to his neck with his left hand, and kicked him in the back. He then ran over to the chinchilla, who was now bent over from the kick, picked him up, and punched him with his left. Then, he shoved the blade of his right arm completely through the chinchilla's abdomen area. He removed the blade, and the now dead animal fell to the ground. He turned around to find another Blood's fist connecting with his nose, sending him back a little. The guy shot at him, but somehow Tails flipped over it. This made the gang member run at him. While the dude ran at him, he ducked, making the guy start to trip as he tried to stop. He stopped a little too much, for he started to fly over Tails. As he did, Tails turned onto his back and thrusted the blade through the guy's stomach as he got directly adjacent to Tails. Tails let his arm fall to the ground and pushed the body off of the blade. He stood up and turned towards the other chinchilla and his friend, who was getting shot at by the thug. The fox ran at the gangster, but the guy caught sight of this, and pulled two shots off- enough for the echidna to land a punch to the chinchilla's face, sending him back into the far wall. "Don't lose one focus, or the other will nail you in the ass." He then ran over to the thug and picked his head up, smashing it at least six times into the wall. He then turned the head to face his, and sent a fatal swing to the face.

He looked over to Tails, knowing the job was done. Tails was standing about ten feet back from him, holding his shoulder. The echidna walked over to the fox and moved his hand. Two bullet wounds, with the bullets still in them, in his right shoulder. The fox looked at him. "Dammit, Knuckles, that bitch nailed a good one. We better get this shit out, or the skin will grow back over them."

The echidna nodded. "Right. Let's get outta here."

"TAILS!" They turned and noticed two females running at them.

"Oh... shit! GO!" The fox ran towards the two and jumped onto the wall beside Arieal, jumping over them and continuing on his way. Knuckles did the same.

"What..? Tails?" Amy frowned at the fact that Tails seemed intent on not seeing them. The reason it confused her so much is because she figured he'd want to have seen them after all these years. But something told her that he didn't have that big of an interest- she didn't know what.

"Wait! Come on, Amy!" The pale fox started chasing after the two, who had rounded the corner now. The two females chased after them, and turned left when they got to the main road.

They followed the targets for about thirty minutes, until reaching a town that looked like the ghetto.

Tails grabbed Knuckles and stopped, twisting his two tails. He then let them go, giving him a large blast in another direction, and after flying for a few seconds, were out of sight. The two females didn't know where they went.

"DAMMIT!" Arieal cursed.

Amy held her head. "Why was he running away from us?" The two thought for a minute, and decided that it was the uniforms, and the situation in which they saw them. Then they continued on their way, in the direction that the echidna and long lost fox had gone.