I own nothing. Enjoy. R.I.P Prince

"My superiors are flying in from DC day after tomorrow. I want something to show. Now, we have a guy with a lube hose in his mouth, automatic weapons, a jacket full of priors on every one of these punks, a garage full of DVD players and generally psychotic behavior. Now tell me why we shouldn't move on Mephiles and Iblis right now and see where we are when the dust settles?" Rotor asked dropping a manila folder onto the counter.

Sonic, leaning against the opposite counter, ran a hand over his head, trying to get passed the headache that came with the shotgun blow to his head. "Because all we have is behavior. Just let me get some hard evidence, because what we have now is just circumstantial."

"What we have is probable cause and truckers arming themselves for some good old-fashioned vigilante mayhem."

Towers, the voice of reason, pushed his way through the room. "Tell us about Espio, Sonic."

". Give me a break, he couldn't pull it off if his life depended on it," Jet said sarcastically.

"No, Espio is still working on the engines for the cars, but the tires don't match. Will some...will someone just give me a cigarette?" Sonic asked, looking around.

Rotor turned to Jet: Get him a cigarette."

Towers stopped him, "Don't get him a cigarette. I thought you quit?"

With a sigh, Sonic nodded. "Yeah, I did quit. Just give me a cigarette."

The Walrus raised his voice. "Get him a cigarette."

"No! Tell me about Robotnik," Towers ordered.

"Well, I told you, I think he's too controlled for this. I mean what? Going suicidal on semi-trucks? No way. I mean, maybe his buddy, Knuckles, but he's too stupid to pull it off."

Towards the back of the room, Jet spoke up: "I think the Shadows half sister's blurring your vision."

"What did you say?"

"I don't blame you. I'd get off on her surveillance photo's too, buddy." Before he could even finish the statement, Sonic flew across the room, attacking him with a wild punch.

Immediately Towers was there pulling the two apart. "Knock it off! What? Are you going native on me, Sonic? Have you read Robotnik's file lately?"

"Yeah, I memorized that file."

"Yeah, well read it again. No, better still, take a look at these." Another folder was thrown onto the counter, which Towers opened, tossing pictures around. "Remember I told you about the guy he nearly beat to death? Shadow did this with a three-quarter inch torque wrench. He's a model of self-control."

"I need a few more days." With a shake of his head Brian turned to Bilkins before walking out. "I need a few more days."

A Hour Later

"Got a T.R.-seven here with a ball bearing upgrade. What it's gonna do is, it's gonna spool up really quick," Tails said, leaning over the engine that sat suspended in the air.

"I got this set up for twenty-four P.S.I," Blaze informed him.

Shadow walked up to see Sonic working on the wiring of the Supra. "So, you got big plans tonight?"

"Yeah, We're going out to dinner," Sonic replied, looking up.

"You break her heart, I'll break your neck."

"That's not gonna happen," was his answer.

"I wanna show you something," Shadow said.

They spent the next ten minutes in silence as Robotnik-Rose drove them back to the house. Brian followed him quietly out of the car and into the back yard, before the other man opened a garage door. "Wow," was all he was able to say when he saw a 1970 Dodge Charger, and next to it was a a 1970 Plymouth Road Runner.

Shadow, pointing to Charger while saying "Me and Maria, my first girlfriend, built her. Nine hundred horses of Detroit muscle. It's a beast. Know what she ran in Palmdale?" Shadow asked as he ran his hands over the exterior.

"No. What did she run?"

"Nine seconds flat. Maria was driving. So much torque, the chassis twisted coming off the line. Barely kept her on the track."

"So, what's your best time?"

A few moments of silence, then: "I've never driven her."

"Why not?"

"It scares the shit out of me. That's Maria" He said while pointing to a picture of a golden hedgehog in a blue racing suit was "Our team was comin' up in the pro stock car circuit. Last race of the season. Ah, a guy named Kenny Linder came up from inside, in the final turn. He clipped her bumper and put her into the wall at 120. Um, I watched my Girlfriend burn to death. I remembered hearing her scream. But the people that were there said that he had died before the tanks blew. They said it was me who was screaming."

"I saw Linder about a week later. I had a wrench and I hit him. And I didn't intend to keep hitting him, but by the time I was done, I couldn't lift my arm." Shadow flexed his arms, as if remembering the pain. Then he looked up at the other man in the garage. "He's a janitor at a high school. Has to take the bus to work everyday. And they banned me from the tracks for life. I live my life a quarter mile atht a time. Nothing else matters. Not the mortgage, not the store, not my team and all their bullshit. For those ten seconds or less, I'm free."

"How about the Road Runner?"

"I won that car a while back at Race Wars. The Driver, Mighty Armadillo was my friend who is currently over seas in Tokyo. There were 2 people in the Charger when it burned… Mighty was the other one. He was thrown out when the car exploded. He suffered from Amnesia and decided to move to Tokyo, he currently runs a garage over there, he visits time to time."

Later that night, Sonic sat with Amy at a little table in Cha Cha Cha. "So,um how is it, anyways, that the...the gang came to be?" he asked, taking a sip of his soda.

"The what?"

"The gang."

Amy laughed at the use of the word. Gang? "The gang? No, they don't call themselves a gang."

"Well, what do they call themselves then?"

"They're a team. They call themselves a team."

"All right, so how is it that the team came to be?"

"Well, that's...that's...that's a whole lot of history."

He leaned his elbows on the table, smiling over at her. "I've got time."

With a nodded, she spoke: "Ok. Knuckles grew up with my brother. Actually, he didn't ever actually grow up. As you can tell. Uh, but they were friends as kids. And Blaze, she just, lived down the street. Always into cars, though. Ever since she was, like, ten years old. So, naturally, you know, my brother always had her attention and then she turned sixteen."

Sonic moved back in his chair. "And then she had Shadow's attention."

"Yeah. Yeah, it's was more of her best friend Maria… Shadow and Maria were the closest couple I've ever seen. They were friends since they were 7, It was when Shadow saw her sitting alone in the pouring rain, he took her in and the rest is history." She smiled at him.

"How is it that Silver and Tails fits into the whole thing?"

"Tails? Well, His dad used to be Shadow's cell mate and we took him away from his abusive uncle, and Silver just sort of showed up one night and never, ever left. Well, it's just the way my half brother is, though, you know? Shadow's like, he's...he's like gravity. You know, everything just gets pulled to him. Even you."

He shook his head. "Hm-mn. No. No. The only thing that pulled me in was you. Being friends with your Shadow is just a bonus."

Amy smiled widely, nodding in approval. "That - that's good. That's good. It's nice to come first every once in a while. Want to go for a drive?"

"Yeah."