Chapter 3: Everyone's Watching

Where am I? Sonic found himself in a cave, its surfaces gray and jagged, like the ones he'd seen in Mazuri and Adabat. Even though there were no obvious light sources, he could still see, somehow.

The cave was in the shape of a large, almost perfectly straight tunnel, though Sonic realized that he couldn't see either end of it. They seemed really far away, almost infinitely so. The hedgehog was getting tired of tunnels, and he knew there was no way to answer his question unless he got out of here. He was prepared to sprint down one direction when he heard a sound from the other, from behind.

When Sonic turned around, he saw something that he didn't remember seeing. The cries were coming from a small group of children in the distance who were crouched on the chalky ground, cowering in fear from some unseen terror.

Without a second thought, Sonic turned around and zoomed towards the kids. They were in trouble, needed help…maybe he could help bring them out of this tunnel. From where he began, the kids were only a few seconds away. He would reach them really soon.

But as he continued running, Sonic began to notice that he was not getting any closer to the children, who seemed to be just as far away as when he started. It were as if the tunnel were stretching at the same speed as he was running, preventing him from ever getting close. No matter how much faster he tried to go, the distance simply did not shrink.

Just before he could consider giving up and slowing down, there was a sudden bright flash down the tunnel, and soon after that, a large fireball emerged, menacingly and quickly making its way towards the children who were now screaming loudly.

His heartbeat racing, Sonic pushed himself right up to and beyond the sound barrier, doing his best to reach the kids in time…but he couldn't even get close. Worse yet, this same mysterious and now malevolent force that was preventing him from reaching the kids did not do the same for the fire. As a last ditch effort, he tried to jump and even extend his hand towards them, to no avail. He watched in agony as the wall of fire raced into the kids, consuming them entirely, and then past them as their silhouettes were seen, their awful cries heard, for the last time.

The fire was still advancing without slowing down, the hedgehog now in its sights. Sonic had to force himself to ignore the heartbreak inside him and turn around to save his own life. He ran in the opposite direction, no matter how much it tore him apart to do so, since it would happen literally if he didn't.

But once again, it wasn't working. When he looked back, he saw that the fire continued to come closer, while he was getting no further away from it. Before it could swallow him whole the same way as it did the children, the hedgehog only had a few short thoughts. Was the tunnel truly stretching to not let him come close? Or was he simply actually stuck in one place? Had he tried hard enough to rescue the kids? If he hadn't, did he deserve to get out of here?

"Sonic?" an echoing voice called out from the other end of the tunnel, the one Sonic was trying to get to in order to escape. It took a moment, but he immediately recognized it.

"Hey, help me out here!" the hedgehog shouted back, voice cracking and arms stretched forward, "I think I'm stuck!"

"Sonic, are you okay?" the invisible speaker simply asked, the voice echoing, hollow, and not exactly helpful.

"Help me!" he called out again, tears now running down his face as the fire finally closed in, effortlessly reaching him as if he had been standing still the whole time, and for all he knew, maybe he had been. "Help-"

"-me?" Sonic the Hedgehog opened his eyes, shaking his head wildly right after that. He looked around, seeing that he was back in the plane, on his first class seat, the bright blue sky outside the window to his right…

"Sonic, are you okay?" And a concerned two-tailed fox to his left, looking at him with soft, friendly eyes, while placing a gloved hand on Sonic's shoulder.

"I'm…I'm fine," he replied before taking in a few deep breaths, "just a nightmare. Or daymare. Whatever."

"The same one as last night?" Tails asked quietly.

Sonic slouched on the soft leather seat, head looking downwards as if in shame. "Yeah."

After a pause of a few seconds, the kit sighed before speaking spoke again. "I'm sorry, Sonic."

The hedgehog blinked at his friend. "What for?"

"I mean, I'd like to be able to help you out, but nightmares…I really don't know what I can do about that."

"Well…" Sonic took a moment to think of any suggestions. There was only one. "It's okay. We just have to get to bottom of this whole thing, find whoever we need to talk to, and find Robotnik. It's that simple. Maybe then…my nightmares will end." Despite not really being in the mood to produce a smile, he still managed one at Tails anyway.

Now relieved, Tails simply smiled back. "I'll be with you the whole time, no matter what," he said, "we can get started soon enough. We'll be landing in Hong Kong in about twenty minutes."

It took that amount of time for the 767 to land, plus another twenty minutes to be processed through customs, but after that they were finally here, in the Fragrant Harbour. "Welcome to Hong Kong International Airport. 欢迎来到香港国际机场…" the speakers blared as the duo crossed the terminal over to the exit, luggage bags in hand. Needless to say, nearly everybody in the area were looking at them and taking photos, and remembering that they were officially just here as tourists, they waved back at them.

Sonic and Tails were able to grab a taxi, one of the many ubiquitous red and white ones in the city, after signing only two autographs. The driver seemed to have driven up to them very enthusiastically after seeing them. "Uh, this address, please," Sonic said, handing the slip of paper to the smiling man in front.

"Of course!" he replied joyfully with an accent, "right away!" The vehicle zoomed off just as quickly as it had stopped as the driver began his duty of being the first person in Asia to chauffeur his special guests around.

The two remained quiet for the first few minutes of the ride, having said quite a bit to each other on their flight here. The only voices heard in the car were coming from the radio. The broadcast, of course, was not in English, although it sounded like a news report. "Hehe, they're talking about you now," the driver said with a giggle.

"Oh?" Sonic had to admit he was intrigued by how quick the local news had picked this up, seemingly faster than in Europe. "What're they saying?"

"Just you landing, and speculation. Local reporters very nosy, nothing to worry about."

Tails simply smiled in return. "I guess so. Just really have to get used to being watched, that's all." Which would have been a good suggestion if not for the fact that there were more than just nosy reporters watching them.

"Boss, Sonic and Tails have arrived in Hong Kong. They left the airport a few minutes ago," the young man in a suit told his boss, who was at his desk.

Yeung Chiu-wah looked away from his computer monitor and at the lackey. There was a frown on his aged features, but his overall expression was not that of indecision. Concern, perhaps, but not indecision. "Is it ready?" he asked quietly.

"Yes, sir."

"Keep close watch on them. If they do what I think they'll do…you know the plan."

A hasty nod. "Hai."

Tsim Sha Tsui Police Station

"Alright, everyone listen up," Superintendent Chow Tak-yin said to the office full of cops, both the away-from- and behind-a-desk kind. "We have just heard that Sonic and Tails have landed in Hong Kong. Normally this wouldn't concern us, but a week ago, the FBI contacted us for information on a known Triad member, Wong Heng, and it is known that Sonic and Tails' guardian is an FBI agent."

"What is the problem, sir?" one of the men asked.

The middle-aged police chief rubbed his frowning forehead before continuing. "We've seen the video, right? We also know that Sonic and Tails went to Africa during that time, and had a…difficult experience there. Sonic is well-known to be quite reckless, especially when he is emotional. Because of that, the possibility of them causing a situation here can't be excluded."

The audience simply looked at each other, mostly puzzled and unsure what to think. The people in the room were part of a select few the FBI had allowed to see the video recording taken from Tails' camera in Mazuri in exchange for information on Wong Heng. It was indeed rather shocking and tragic to watch, but would the horrors contained in it really push Sonic to become a menace? Considering the pacifist values the hedgehog had publicly espoused?

One woman amongst the crowd who raised her hand seemed to think so. "Sir, Sonic is known to be opposed to violence, and has no record of killing anyone, even in combat. The contents of the video are indeed horrifying, but it isn't that much worse than his experiences in Adabat and elsewhere. It's hard to conclude that he will start now."

"I haven't concluded anything, Detective Cheuk," Chow replied flatly, "and being pacifist doesn't mean he wouldn't leave a mess behind, as you have already seen in the places he's been. And anyway, this isn't a debate. I'm merely suggesting keeping a close watch on where Sonic is likely to go to next."

"The Heart of Asia, right?" Rebecca Cheuk asked, but didn't wait for a reply. "I'll go, sir. I know that place."

"You were the one that collected evidence on one of their managers involved in the Triads years ago, right?"

"Yes."

"And you are confident they won't recognize you there?"

"The ones that do no longer work there."

Chow paused for a moment to consider it, eyes narrowing and looking away in the process. A few seconds later, he nodded. "Very well, you'll go in then. Everyone else will be in the support team. Let's try and get everything prepared within an hour."

The Heart of Asia was located at the corner of a cramped, rustic two-lane road that, without the various smartphone and electronics stores, wouldn't have looked out of place in the 1980s. As night approached, the plethora of neon lights in the area began to light up, bathing it in shiny colors. Underneath the sign, waves of customers were flooding into the entrance, hoping to satisfy their hunger, thirst, or other desires.

Of course, Sonic and Tails had come for none of those, having had dinner at somewhere cheaper before arriving. Despite the hedgehog's impatience, the fox had suggested that they at least look around the city a bit before going straight to business. Deep down, after all, they really did want to travel too. They'd taken several hours to tour the city on foot after setting down at the hotel, and Sonic had to admit that he did enjoy it, even if he felt like he shouldn't. Not after seeing what happened to those kids.

The two stepped up to the double doors, giving a few waves but otherwise ignoring the attention they were getting. The autographs were going to have to wait. Neither Sonic nor Tails had ever stepped foot into a nightclub before, and so everyone looked on curiously, wondering what they had come here for. The hedgehog hoped that he could keep their investigation relatively hush-hush from the public, at least until they'd gotten to the bottom of the whole thing.

The first thing they had to do was find the right person to talk to, someone that would lead them to Wong Heng. The Triad boss, they'd learned, usually preferred to stay out of public eyes. Fortunately, it seemed like they didn't have to search for long as the bouncer came up to them. "Excuse me, Mr. Sonic and Tails," the large-framed six-footer said with an accent, "you need to either pay a fee or show a form of invitation to enter." He did not address the fact the two were technically below the minimum age required for entry.

Sonic pointed one hand at his own ear while gesturing to the bouncer with the other, asking him to come closer. The man got the message and awkwardly knelt down so that hedgehog could whisper into his ear. Meanwhile, everyone nearby was staring at just what was going on. Sonic was fully aware of this, and for the first time it was making him nervous, less out of self-consciousness and more out of the potential that what they were doing could get compromised by the public. "I need to see Wong Heng," he said into the man's ear quietly.

The bouncer looked back at them, his sunglasses masking any confusion or surprise. "Do you have an invite?" he asked flatly.

Hell yeah I do. The hedgehog handed him a few rolled pieces of paper, glad that the guy didn't say anything that would reveal their intention for coming here. The fact that he didn't question who Wong was either meant that they had come to the right place.

The bouncer, making sure nobody nearby could sneak up on him, unrolled the papers. Seeing the contents actually caused his mouth to open abruptly. He glanced back at the hedgehog and fox, both of whom were glancing back, showing uncharacteristically serious expressions, with their arms crossed and lips straight. It was quite obvious they weren't here to play around. "Please wait a moment," the man responded silently before pocketing their 'invitation' and turning around, heading through the double doors, walking rather briskly in the process.

Knowing that it could be a while before they could go in, Sonic decided to address the crowd. "Hey, uh, want some autographs?" he said, putting on a cheeky smile, hoping that this would be enough to make them not ask too many questions, if any.

Fortunately it seemed to work as everyone simply rushed up to the duo excitedly, more concerned with the fact that this was their first time ever getting a face-to-face them, and not knowing when they would get the chance again. Two minutes later, the same bouncer came back out to inform them that they could finally enter, and by then they'd already handed out dozens of autographs and received just as many hugs, one of which was tight enough that it almost crushed the poor fox.

The interior of The Heart of Asia, as expected, was mostly dark, illuminated and accented by several rapid color-changing lights running along where the walls and ceiling met, as well a few smaller, more conventional ones over the tables, nearly of which were occupied by drinks and drunks. The bass of loud house music could not merely be heard, but felt, everywhere inside, originating from the dance floor in the lower level. There was enough noise and activity that most of the guests didn't even notice the famous mobian duo coming in.

One of them, however, did. "Sir, it's Rebecca," the detective reported, having come early enough to select a seat that allowed for a decent view of the entrance, despite the amount of people and lack of light, "Sonic and Tails just arrived."

"What are they doing?" her boss asked in response.

"They are…they're not sitting down. It looks like they're going to the back. I'll follow them."

"Really?" Chow sounded quiet surprised, though he managed to calm down considerably when he next spoke. "Okay, see where they're going."

"Yes, sir."

The bouncer led Sonic and Tails to a back corridor, beyond the bathrooms. Cheuk followed slowly from behind, her black blazers, trousers and shoes hiding her slender form nicely in the club's darkness, and watched as they disappeared behind a door, next to another tall, muscular bouncer. "Sir, I can't follow them any further. But I have a good idea what they're doing here," she said into her cellphone.

"What is that?"

Rebecca looked back at the door to get her final confirmation. She had no doubt now. "They're here to meet the boss."

Sonic and Tails found themselves in a small, neat room with some couches and a glass coffee table. It was plain, but to the hedgehog, also rather welcoming, mainly because it wasn't flashing rainbows in here every one-tenth of a second, lit up instead by simple fluorescent lamps. There was still the smell of booze, but he supposed it would be stranger for that to be absent anywhere in this place.

The bouncer gestured for them to sit down, which they did, before he headed into the adjacent room through a doorless frame and calling out to someone inside. A few footsteps later, the someone came out with the bouncer and sat down opposite of the mobians, dusting off his black suit.

"You two have certainly gotten my attention," Wong Heng stated with a stony voice while giving a stony stare, dropping the papers he'd been handed just now onto the coffee table, which were in fact photographs of the dead Chinese men in the Mazuri base, as well as stills showing the imprisoned children there. "Before we talk what you came here for, I'd like to know what happened to my boys." Something about his tone suggested that that if his guests weren't a pair of robot-smashing, bad guy-whooping speedsters from another planet, he wouldn't be as restrained as he was now in his speech.

Sonic, on the other hand, was free to speak however he wanted. "And before we talk about your boys," the hedgehog immediately said back, eyes narrowing, spitting the words out like bullets from a gun muzzle, not trying to hide his suspicion about what this fat guy may have done, "I'd like to know what was up with the ones they were handling."

The reaction caught Wong off-guard as he blinked and jerked backward slightly. He seemed genuinely confused – either that or he was more used to himself speaking that way to others, not the other way around. "What?"

"Your men were helping a bunch of child slavers, weren't they?" Sonic continued, trying quite hard not to raise his voice, "or maybe even doing it themselves."

"Child slavers?" The man looked back down at the picture of the kids in cages. "I was wondering what this picture had to do with my men. They're connected?"

The hedgehog almost slapped his own forehead hearing that. "We found them in the same place where they died."

Wong's eyes narrowed. "You killed them?"

"No, no, no," Sonic said rapidly, shaking his head and hands in the process, frustrated at having just realized that he was not communicating this properly because of his emotions. "We…we found the kids only after your men got gunned down by the ones running the place. One of them mentioned your name before he died, which is why we've come here."

Silence followed. Wong looked around, frowning, eyebrows raised and hands clenched into fists on his thighs. "I had no idea what those people were up to," he said, flatly rather than defensively, while gazing back at Sonic, "nor was it my business to ask. The deal was simply to ship them cargo, and in return I get paid." His gaze now turned toward the floor. "But it appears that has fallen apart, and I wasn't even told about it. I was wondering why they hadn't contacted me for a week. Now I know."

"Paid?" Tails spoke up for the first time sounding curious, "by who?"

"The person we were dealing with kept himself anonymous. No names, no faces…at least that's how he planned it." A smile crept onto Wong's face for the first time, even if it was the creepy, sinister, I-have-tricks-up-my-sleeve kind. "But I already knew something like this could happen, and had to make preparations, just in case. I had my men follow the representatives we were dealing with, to spy on them."

Sonic leaned forwards, his gaze softening slightly. "What did you find out?"

"They say they got some info, but I haven't seen it. I'm quite busy, and frankly, I don't think I would have wanted to know anyway at the time. Just in case. The people I made the deal with, I can tell they won't like it if I knew too much about them. If any one of them thought I knew anything about this…"

Tails frowned slightly. "That seems kinda paranoid."

"Paranoia is what has kept me alive in this career for years," Wong simply proclaimed, "and it's the only reason I even have anything for you. I can call one of my men and have him bring it here now to show you."

"You don't have it with you?" the hedgehog asked, confused.

"Of course not. Why would I want to keep something sensitive like that so close to me all the time?"

Sonic was annoyed at how the man couldn't just tell what he found out directly, but he didn't really have a choice here. "Fine, go ahead."

Wong quickly whipped out a cellphone and made a call, saying only a few short sentences in Cantonese before hanging up. "He says he can bring it here in five minutes," he told Sonic, sounding pleased for once, since he was as curious about what he would learn as the duo were.

Sonic figured that if they were going to wait here, might as well not wait in silence. "So only now do you want to know what your guy discovered?"

"Yes."

"You said you think knowing the information could put your life at risk. So why now?"

Wong shrugged. "You're the fastest guy in the world, your friend the second fastest. I figure you would be able to get the guys that got mine killed before anything happens to me."

"Hmm…thanks, I guess," Sonic replied, looking away and shifting in his seat. He tried thinking of what else he could say to pass the time, but his lack of experience in talking to Triad crime bosses made it a bit difficult.

It was therefore Wong's turn to make conversation. The man leaned backwards in his seat casually before asking, "So…how's it like?"

The hedgehog looked forwards to see Wong smiling smugly. "What's what like?"

"Being the hero. Guy that tries to save the world every day. I saw your interview that day, you know."

"Well, if you did, you know what I said already, right? I don't really feel like repeating the same answers."

After a short while, Wong unexpectedly let out a short laugh, which to Sonic's ears felt like a mix between the amused and evil kind. "What?" he asked, sounding a bit sharper than he'd intended, the annoyance getting to him.

"It's funny, because it reminded me of something. A lot of policemen here…they seem to believe the same thing. They want to wipe out all crime, at least all organized crime, in Hong Kong. That's how they start off. Then years later, they begin to realize just how difficult it is, maybe even futile, and some of them just give up. Others just wish they could just come at us like vigilantes without evidence, giving up all their compliance to rules and regulations.

"So you are simply doing the same thing, but on a global scale…the pressure must really be something. You really believe you can stay true to the principles you said on TV forever?"

The comparison and question made Sonic distinctly uncomfortable, which he tried not to show, with limited success. "Pretty sure I will," the hedgehog replied, in defiance not just to Wong's words but to his own doubts inside.

"Your confidence is inspiring," Wong said with a grin, "I just couldn't help but wonder, that's all. We'll see."

"There's someone else coming to the door," Cheuk reported while looking at the person coming to the office door from the shadows, "Chinese male, five feet six, wearing a cap, pullover and jeans…his hand is holding his pocket."

"Okay, good job. Continue observing. Watch your surroundings."

The door opened, letting a short, skinny man in a cap and sweater walk in, as well as ending their chat, to Sonic's relief. Without saying a word, the guy took a small object, a USB drive, out of his pocket and handed it over to Wong. After a nod and a grunt, the short man simply walked back out.

Wong stared at the object in his hand, examining it like it was a piece of gold. "Finally…I have a computer at the back. Let's unravel this once and for all."

All three of them got up from the couches, ready to head into Wong's office, but stopped completely when loud sounds came in from outside, interrupting them bluntly. The gunshots and screams caused the mobian duo to gasp, while Wong simply froze. "Hum ga ling," the Triad boss cursed, then turned to the two bouncers nearby who were now alert and ready, "Nei, nei choot hui tai!" he shouted to one of them, and to the other, "nei, nei lau dai bou wu ngo!"

"Wait, wait," Sonic said quickly, heading to the door while Tails followed closely behind, "leave this to us, you stay in this room and lock the door. Don't open except for us or the police!"

"Fine," Wong said angrily and uneasily before the two rushed out, "they're coming for me, Sonic! I know it!"

BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! "Everyone squat down! Now!" the muscular tattooed man shouted while firing his pistol into the ceiling. Everyone instantly complied, cowering in fear on the floor. Soon enough, nobody was still standing up, except for the other armed muscular tattooed men. "Bring them upstairs!" he commanded them. He would have preferred taking them to the dance floor downstairs, but going upstairs was faster. Time was of absolutely critical importance here.

The gunmen quickly forced the guests up the metal stairs at gunpoint, unaware that they had missed one of them. In a dark, hidden alcove in the corner, Rebecca Cheuk was observing the situation while crouching, keeping herself hidden even more than before. "Rebecca! What happened? Are you alright?" Chow asked hurriedly over the phone.

"I'm fine, I managed to hide myself just in time," she whispered, keeping her eyes open on the now vacated room. "There are at least four gunmen, they look like 16K Triad members, rounding up the guests upstairs – I can't take on them now, I need back-"

Fortunately, backup did arrive, not in the form of her colleagues, but the mobian pair of heroes, who zoomed across the room so quickly that she would have missed them if she had blinked.

"Upstairs, come on!" Sonic shouted to Tails without looking back toward him. The stairs were narrow and full of belongings that had been dropped by the frightened guests, hindering them from going upstairs as fast as they could.

Eventually they emerged from the stairwell to find themselves in another drinking lounge. The guests from downstairs were all up here, whimpering in fear, though a few of them did seem to calm down when they saw the hedgehog and fox approach. Their eyes scanned the floor alertly before they realized something. Where are the gunmen?

A swinging door at the opposite end of the stairwell, marked 'Fire Escape', caught his attention. "Tails, over there!" he called out before rushing over, taking only three seconds. But when he reached the door and opened it, it became clear that it wasn't fast enough.

Before they could head downstairs, the gunmen below suddenly threw glass bottles with a burning piece of cloth at the mouth up at them. Their reflexes had them jerk back into the lounge before the bottles smashed against the wall, instantly covering it and the concrete floor with fire.

Thinking and acting quickly, Sonic and Tails headed back to where they had come from, only to hear more bottles smashing, and when they got to the top of the stairs they had used, they were greeted by another set of flames blocking them off.

Instantly the guests were screaming again. Sonic turned around, knowing that he had to get things under control. "Guys, calm down," he said loudly to the crowd in the calmest voice possible, something he'd learned from Alan, "we're gonna get you outta here!"

"I'll get the extinguisher!" Tails said to him before getting to the back of the bar counter to look for it, all while wondering in confusion and frustration, what the heck's going on?

"There was another guy hiding there!" Rebecca said in disbelief as he watched the gunman who had come out of another dark alcove to throw a few Molotov cocktails up the stairs run away from it – in the direction of Wong Heng's office. "Damn it, I have to act now!"

"Rebecca, wait!" Chow said in surprise, but she had already put down her phone and gotten out her Glock pistol.

Scanning the entrance and stairwell to ensure that no more hostiles were there, she got up and headed to the corridor where Wong's office was, but quickly stood against the wall when she heard multiple gunshots coming from there.

Rebecca approached slowly before taking a peak, and saw that the gunmen were already running off towards the rear exit. She ran forwards to follow, but as she passed by the still open office door, she couldn't help but take a quick look inside. Sure enough, Wong Heng and the two bouncers were already dead from multiple well-placed shots, with no apparent misses – these guys were professionals!

Hoping that Sonic and Tails could help the people upstairs, Cheuk ran down to the rear exit, pushing through the swinging door, pistol up and ready. She glanced down the alleyway in both directions and saw the men running towards a white van waiting there. "Stop!" she shouted, "police! Stand still and don't move-"

Without slowing down or flinching even a bit, the gunmen turned around and opened fire, forcing her to dive out of the way behind a steel trash container. Immediately her suspicions were running high. She had never known of any Triad gang members that reacted so quickly with guns before.

When the gunshots ended, all of the shooters had already gotten onboard the van. Its tires screeched loudly against the tarmac as it lurched forward and picked up speed. Behind, Rebecca finally fired several shots of her own, but they were already getting further and further away…

Tails' sensitive ears had picked up the shooting despite the noise from the panicking guests and the fires. Having put out most of the flames in the fire exit, the fox set the fire extinguisher down and got up to the short window on the wall. It was rather small, certainly not big enough for a human adult to fit through, but it barely allowed him to see what was outside below, where the shots had come from.

Down in the alleyway, Tails saw that the gunmen who had attacked this place firing their weapons at something, or someone, before getting onto a white van. Considering how quickly they had performed earlier, it wouldn't be a stretch to imagine that they could somehow outrun or outmaneuver the police and disappear into the night. He had to do something.

Fortunately, he had just the right thing to use. The fox had toyed around with his WRID in the last several months, adding a few new features that he'd kept secret from the public, and sometimes it would take a while before he would even tell Sonic or Alan about them. One of them would come in handy right at this instant.

Standing up on the seat against the wall, Tails pushed the window open and quickly aimed the wrist device out towards the van, which was about to leave the alley and turn onto the street. A press of a switch deployed a crosshair on his display, and the vehicle slowed down just long enough for him to push the 'launch' button. Seeing that it had worked made him feel much more relieved. Excellent.

"Tails!" Sonic called from the other side of the room, still spraying the stairs with the extinguisher, "what are you doing?"

"I'll explain later, but trust me, it'll help us," Tails replied before picking the fire extinguisher back up, "come on, we need to get back to Wong! How's the fire there?"

"It's almost out!" The hedgehog squeezed the lever as hard as he could, impatient and worried over what may have happened to the boss below. "Come on, come on!"

After what seemed like a full minute, Tails let out a huge sigh of relief. "Okay, clear!" he declared before putting the extinguisher away. The thing was heavy, but at least the fire exit was no longer blocked by the same hazard it was supposed to help people escape from.

"Alright, same here!" Sonic threw his extinguisher to the side, glad that it was finally done but still not at ease yet, "let's go! Remember to hold your breath, there's still tons of smoke!"

"Okay!"

The two made their way down the charred and barely usable stairs to the main floor, heading straight for the office with their hearts racing. But they were too late. The door had been forced open, and all three men inside were laying dead on the ground. Both simply stood there, breathless and wordless.

Sonic stepped unsteadily over to Wong's bullet-riddled corpse. His bloody hands were placed near one of his pockets, their positions suggesting that in his last moments, he had been trying to protect something that could fit in there, like the USB drive that he got right before this attack. The hedgehog checked the pocket, and found, to his displeasure but not his surprise, that there was nothing in there. The information they wanted to get was gone. Immediately it was clear to Sonic what the attackers had planned – to trap the fastest things alive upstairs with fire and then using the chance to silence Wong and take what he had.

Behind him, Tails was handling his WRID attentively, a look of concern on his face. "It's gone," Sonic said weakly, shaking his head, "those bas…guys took it. What are you doing anyway? What did you do upstairs?"

"It's a tracker-launching module I'd installed about a month ago," the fox explained, "I saw that the shooters were getting away in a van outside, so I launched a tracker onto it."

"So we can go after them now?" Sonic sounded hopeful, even excited.

"Well…" Tails rubbed the back of his uncomfortably, "it did stick to the vehicle, I saw it…but it's not showing up on the map yet. There must be a glitch or something, I need a few minutes to fix or reconfigure it." He let out another sigh, one of regret this time. "I'm sorry, Sonic."

Sonic the Hedgehog, who realized that he and his brother had just been outsmarted by a mere bunch of armed thugs and robbed of the clues they were so close to knowing, was unable to describe his emotions. Anger, confusion, frustration, worry…they were all there in one big mixture. He was close to snapping at Tails before pulling himself back sharply, and snapped at himself instead for thinking of doing so. The fox had pulled a smart move Sonic wouldn't even have thought of despite how fast the situation had gone, and this was really just a minor setback in the grand scheme of things. "It's okay, bud," he found himself saying to him silently, "you did good. Just calm down and fix the thing, alright?"

Their eyes met briefly, and through that, each could tell that the other was sincere. Tails nodded. "R-right."

Until then, however, the fact remained that they weren't really able to do anything to go after the perpetrators. Turning away, Sonic went up to and kicked a bottle on the carpeted floor away with a grunt. Damn it.

"I'm with the police. Are you alright?" Rebecca asked the mobian duo, her tone calm and professional, her accent British-influenced. They were standing outside the entrance to The Heart of Asia, which was now barred and surrounded by police officers. Around them, lights were flashing from both reporters' cameras and emergency vehicles.

"Okay, I guess," Sonic replied, not very enthusiastically.

"Yeah," Tails answered the same way.

"Could you tell me what happened in there?"

"Hate to say it, but I guess things…happened faster than I could manage," the hedgehog reluctantly said, "we heard gunshots, and then when we went to go and help those folks, the attackers trapped us upstairs with, uh, Molotov cocktails, is that what they're called? Took us a few minutes to put the fire out, but we did, so we were able to save the people there…not the ones downstairs though."

"The club manager and his bouncers," Rebecca said with a nod. "Could I ask what did you come here for, originally?"

"Uh…" Sonic uncomfortably checked his surroundings. There were quite a few police officers, investigators, firefighters, paramedics, reporters and the like on the scene, but none of them were within hearing range. "Hey, uh, just asking, you reporting everything I say to your bosses or what?"

"That is what I'm supposed to do," she admitted.

"Well, uh, we were just following a lead from something we found in Mazuri a week ago, it brought us here. Then, I dunno, those shooters came to shoot up the place before we could find out anything. Not sure I can tell you more than that, really."

A few more minor questions later, Cheuk, who seemed deep in thought throughout the little Q&A, was ready to wrap it up. "Alright, I have enough for my bosses. Thank you for your co-operation and saving those people," she said, extending a hand.

"No problem. I was just doing what others would have done," Sonic replied as his hand took hers, before Tails did the same.

"Have a good night, both of you," she wished them before turning around and walking off.

"You too."

As she left them, Sonic turned to Tails, an odd look on his face. "Hey, bud, check this out," he told him as he opened up his palm, "she handed me this when we shook hands."

"Huh?" Tails saw that it was a small piece of scrap paper, a message scrawled over it in pen: Meet me in the alleyway behind your hotel in ten minutes. "That's weird."

"Looks like she wants to talk to us in private. Maybe she can help?"

The two looked back at Rebecca walking off into the crowd of police officers, speaking on her phone, giving no other hint of wanting to communicate. And yet…"Hopefully."

Author's Note: As always, thank you for your patience while waiting for each next chapter.