Hello there. I'm back with another chapter. Thanks to all those users who have left reviews. This chapter's a bit long. I hope it won't bore you, and again, I apologize for any crappy grammar and/or vocabulary. I'm trying to improve.

To Jonny2b: Good guess. I think this will become one of your favorite chapters. Oh, and thanks for pointing out that mistake. I made sure to correct it.

To Comrade: Thanks for all your positive feedback. I intend to make this one heck of an epic story. Stay tuned for more chapters.

Chapter 2: On The Run

"So you asked for a classic American muscle car and your parents gave you a sporty vintage European car," Alex said as he munched on some potato chips he had brought with him. "I like it. A lot."

"So do I," Nick didn't turn around because he was busy paying attention to the road so he had to use his voice more loudly to reply. "It's had some problems, though. Something was wrong with the ignition yesterday and last week the engine just kept randomly dying on me. I'm considering taking it to my cousin's workshop. If your ride's broken, he'll be more than glad to fix it."

The group was now very far from the school and now, the urban scene of Downtown Fairport was just coming into sight from afar. Nick lived with his family in a penthouse right in the heart of the city where people would eternally be in a rush, running from one side of the city to the other living their busy lives. Slowly, the suburban architecture was replaced by malls, supermarkets, and different kinds of buildings and skyscrapers as Nick's car ventured deeper into the city. Most of the buildings that Nick drove past were either apartment complexes or corporative strongholds. The amount of traffic on the road also changed like the scenery did. Now it was more difficult to drive fast, mainly because of the presence of several buses and cabs, along with a wide variety of cars on Fairport's busy road network. Fortunately, Nick wasn't stuck in the traffic.

However, the black car that had been tailing them since they left the school still lurked behind them as it kept its distance. Inside of the car, the driver paid attention to Nick's vehicle as carefully as possible, from behind of the safety of his black-tinted windows. Then he looked at the cars that surrounded him. In this environment, his unmarked car looked rather suspicious. He hesitated a bit, but the driver pushed a button on his steering wheel and established a communication channel with an individual in a remote location.

"Any updates on the mission's status?" Asked a young male voice from the other side of the line.

"There are slight complications. They might suspect something's wrong if I keep stalking them with this vehicle. We need a plan B," what the driver didn't know was that Nick was already too busy looking at the vehicles in front of his to pay heed to his back. Besides, much to the mysterious driver's convenience, Nick didn't really mind when he saw the matte black car behind him the one time that he peeked into his rearview mirror. He'd gotten used to the sensation of being tailed because of all the times he had driven home after school.

"Remember the system we had installed on the car a while ago? Well, it's time to use it."

The driver obeyed and pulled over to the sidewalk, pushing another button on his wheel after doing so. In response to this, a holographic screen appeared on the dashboard. The blue screen had a message written on it with red letters that read 'Searching for similar vehicles'. An instant later, two images of two cars with different paint jobs and looks were displayed on the screen. One was a police car and the other one was a cab. The driver touched the image of the cab and shortly after, his car began to shift its color from matte black to a glossy yellow, while several black spots that had remained on the sides of the vehicle began to morph into the decals a real cab would have. When the system got the desired paint job, a small 'Taxi' sign popped from the roof of the car. Reassured, the driver resumed his task in his new disguise and got directly behind Nick's car again, which hadn't moved much. Definitely, this was the best approach to avoid producing suspicion on the driver's target. "Resuming mission, I'm close to them," the taxi switched lanes and positioned itself right next to Nick's retro beauty.

"Um, Nick?" Eric felt the same thing he'd felt in the morning in the dark hallway as he looked out the rear windshield. "I think that cab's following us."

Nick scoffed gently as he tapped his fingers on the wheel. "You're just paranoid, bro. There's always people who don't watch their distance when you're driving in this busy place."

As plausible as it sounded, Nick's reply didn't help Eric relax at all. As a small precaution, Eric kept an eye on the cab for the rest of the way to Nick's house. Maybe he was paranoid after all.

When they finally arrived at their destination, Nick parked his car in the garage below the condo tower, whilst the vehicle that had been stalking them parked by the sidewalk on the opposite side of the street. Meanwhile, the four teens got out of the car once Nick turned it off and went into the building's lobby. The place seemed very luxurious due to its decorations. A rectangular crimson carpet covered part of the white marble floor. There were also a few couches here and there, probably meant to be used by the people who lived there whenever they felt like having a calm chat with other inhabitants or their guests. One thing that caught the eye of Nick's friends was the enormous, yet elegant chandelier that hung several feet above their heads, which provided a warm shade of light to the room. Then, they got in an elevator that resembled the ones used in the early 20th Century. After climbing several stories, the elevator finally got to the twentieth floor, namely, Nick's penthouse. After they got out, they were welcomed by a small waiting area and a dark brown wooden door. Nick pulled out his keys from his pocket and opened the door to let his guests in.

"Wow, you and your family have a fantastic place Nick," said Alex with amazement in his eyes. He had never been to Nick's place before.

Literally, the penthouse was like a materialized dream. It had a very modern-looking decoration as opposed to the old style that ruled the hall downstairs. There were expensive cutting-edge appliances all over the place and the brown carpet that covered the entire floor was a perfect finishing touch. In addition to that, the walls were completely made of glass, providing a fantastic view of the city and, according to Nick, it was the perfect location to watch the always majestic sunrises that gave Fairport an overwhelmingly positive reputation elsewhere in the state. This seemed to be the ideal place to live in the city, although Eric was fonder of his family's house back in the suburbs.

"My parents aren't home," said Nick as he got comfortable on a black leather couch. "Dad's got too much work at the casino and mom left for New York in the morning. I think she was going to take some interior decoration course or something. That stuff fascinates her."

"But you said your dad was the boss there when we met you," Eric objected, while he admired the enormous size of the windows for the hundredth time or so.

"I know Gal," Nick got up from the couch and went into the kitchen. "But most of the time bosses have the same amount of work as their employees, if not more at certain times of the year."

"Ah."

"The way I see it, they won't be coming out until later," the mysterious driver warned the person he was talking to via a holographic screen.

"It doesn't matter; our employers just want us to get the kid. Remember that our mission depends on us and him, especially him," the young person said before clearing his throat. "By the way, are you hiding in a proper place?" the driver's contact asked with a concerned tone.

"I got that covered. I'll call you back soon."

After their conversation ended, the cab changed its appearance again; this time masquerading as a Fairport Police Department cruiser, generating its own police light bar and a set of bull bars. The driver proceeded to hide in an alley next to the building, readying himself for the upcoming action.

"Darn! This homework has been an absolute nightmare," Laura protested, letting her pencil fall off of the table.

Alex chuckled. "As if chemistry was difficult, Laura," he said as he rose from his chair. Physics was his favorite subject.

"Look at the bright side of this," Eric intervened and finished a slice of pizza he had on a plate next to him. "At least we're finally done with this. If there's something that would screw us over, I guess it'd be work handed in late," he said as he put his stuff away.

"Hmph! If Professor Swire didn't give us such a hard time, I would be the happiest guy on Earth!" exclaimed Nick, whose weakness was a nasty habit of always turning in his schoolwork after the due date. This always had a very strong impact on his grades. "Alright, now that we're done with the boring stuff; what should we do next?"

"Well," a meditating Eric began to talk. He was an avid gamer; he wasn't used to playing for hours like some e-sports players, but he did enjoy playing them. "Do you have any new games?"

When he heard his friend's question, Nick jumped out of his chair and headed to his room. Meanwhile, Eric, Laura, and Alex cleaned up the dining room and sat in the living room when they finished. A few minutes passed and Nick walked into the room carrying a rather large cardboard box. His friends gave him a questioning look. In response, Nick smiled slyly and placed the box on the glass table in the center of the room.

"Here are my latest purchases," Nick said with a proud-sounding voice, opening the box at the same time. Inside, there were several Gamecube games, that old console that had replaced the Nintendo 64 back in 2001, which was quite a popular object among collectors living in Fairport. Laura, Eric, and Alex were surprised by Nick's little treasure. In fact, it was somewhat crazy to think that the system was 11 years old already. There had even been an announcement the previous year, indicating that Nintendo was already working on a successor to the Nintendo Wii.

"Unbelievable," Alex murmured.

"How the hell did you get all of these?" asked Laura, intrigued.

"Well," Nick sat on the floor to tell his friends his story although it wasn't a very long one. "I spent hours in front of the computer looking for them on every single online store. It was overwhelming but in the end it was worth it."

"These must've been expensive back in their heyday," Eric exclaimed, his eyes still fixed on the box.

"I know right? It's nice to collect them now," Nick let a sigh come out of his mouth. "Plus, some things are cheaper when you look for them on the Internet. A bargain, eh?"

"You're absolutely right."

After a few minutes of silence, they started to pull games out of the box to get a good look at them. There were titles that they would consider classics from their childhood. Eventually they had to sell them for spare cash but now they had them in their hands once again. These classics included Mario Kart: Double Dash, the first two Metroid Primes, Super Smash Bros. Melee and many others, but something right at the bottom of the box caught Eric's attention. His hand made its way to the hard plastic case and picked it up. It was called Star Fox: Assault. According to the back of the box, it was a third-person shooter that included both on-foot and aircraft modes. Then he proceeded to look at the cover. It featured several fighter spaceships flying out of an explosion. Below, there was a tank-like futuristic vehicle tearing a rock apart and right next to the explosion there was a brown-furred fox with some white markings on his face and head who was aiming a gun. 'Fox McCloud,' Eric thought. He had played one of Assault's predecessors, Star Fox 64, back when he was just a child, but he had never heard about another Star Fox installment. Eric looked at the blue letters that spelled out the words "Star Fox" for a second time. 'I've got to play this.'

"Nick!"

Nick returned a copy of Super Monkey Ball into the cardboard box and looked at his friend. Eric tossed the game to him. Nick caught it and looked at the cover. "Mind if we play that?"

"Sure, let's do it."

"What a funny coincidence. I find out that there was another Star Fox game besides the 64 one and the original at a friend's house. I always thought it was just a one-off game idea," Nick lifted an eyebrow when he heard Eric's words.

"Dude, where have you been for the last twelve years? It wasn't just one, there have been three more Star Fox games after the 64 game!"

This piqued Eric's interest in no time. So, while the game loaded on Nick's Wii, Eric was told the plot of all three games. He learned many new things about Star Fox such as how Fox saved planet Sauria and a mysterious blue-furred vixen called Krystal from their demise in Adventures, the salvation of Lylat from an invasion by the Aparoid race (alien organisms that were capable of infecting and controlling machines and living beings) in Assault, and then the crisis that team Star Fox went through while fighting the Anglar Empire in Command. While Nick had mentioned that the game had been unpopular with fans back in the day, Eric thought that the idea of having several endings for the game was somewhat interesting. All in all, it felt as if he had caught up with his favorite TV show.

One the game had loaded up, Nick chose the story mode on the most neutral difficulty the game had to offer and began to play. The group of friends spent the following three hours playing by turns. Every time someone completed a level or died, the controller was passed on to the next player. During their gaming session they traveled across the Lylat System, admiring every level that the game offered, such as the blizzard-stricken Fichina, the exotic jungle of Sauria, the Sargasso Space hideout and many others but the last level, the Aparoid Homeworld, was the best looking one. The levels Eric enjoyed the most were the ones that put him behind the dashboard of Fox's Arwing starfighter.

Of course, Alex and Laura thanked Nick for inviting them over and left the apartment after the credits rolled, but Eric stayed due to Nick's pleads. They chatted for a little longer about their favorite games and what they would like in possible sequels to all of them. When Eric decided to leave, the two friends went back to the parking garage to retrieve Eric's bike from the trunk of Nick's car. After re-attaching the front wheel to the frame, they bade farewell to each other and Eric went outside. The environment had changed a lot since all the traffic from earlier was gone and the lack of sunlight was now casting a blue shadow over the city. As time went by, Eric rode his bike to the nearest subway station. Unfortunately, when he was halfway through the trek, it began to rain. Eric figured out that he could risk losing grip on the wet and falling off his bike so he stopped riding, choosing instead to walk with it. 'I wonder if it's also raining at the outskirts of the city,' he thought, passing right in front of an alley that was next to the building he had just left.

"The kid's out of the building! I repeat, the kid's out of the building!" the driver informed to his contact when he saw Eric walking right in front of his hiding spot.

"Follow him but be discrete. If you get the opportunity, corner him before he leaves the city. Got it?"

"10-4."

Eric only had three more blocks to go as the sounds of the trains that came and went below the concrete emanated from the staircase that descended into the subway station. The rain hadn't stopped falling yet and the blue sky was getting darker but, out of nowhere, a pair of strong hands grabbed Eric from the neck of his jacket and dragged him down into a dark alley, in which Eric took a fierce punch to the face; a fierce punch seeking for revenge.

Eric spat out some blood and let out a loud: "What the hell?!" The strength of the punch sent him down to the hard asphalt. Then he contemplated in horror and shock the figures of Benny Madsen, Daniel Finch, and Calvin Garrett coming out of the darkness. Garrett had an evil grin plastered on his face.

'Shit, it's a trap,' Garrett and his friends had him cornered in that alley.

"Greetings, Gallow."

The now empty streets made the driver's task easier since he now had Eric in plain sight and alone but what the mysterious driver never expected was that his target had just gotten swallowed by an alley in less than a second, right in front of his eyes. The driver did a 180-degree turn and stopped to see what was going on back there. Eric had been knocked down to the ground but now he was getting back up.

"Come on, Calvin," Eric clutched his fists to at least try to defeat Calvin. He spat blood out again.

"Ha! Don't make me laugh, you little shit," said Garrett sarcastically a second before he struck Eric a second time, using a kick directed at his chest, sending him back to the ground. Garrett kneeled over and whispered something in Eric's ear. "I bet that now you regret throwing that book at me."

He picked Eric up and slammed him against a brick wall. Eric leaned against it to catch his breath. Garrett took advantage of this and sent a hook right into Eric's stomach, expelling all the air out of his body. Then, he pushed Eric further into the alley. The sky was now pitch black.

The driver saw it all. He called his contact again.

"Are you sure that this is our guy?"

"Why do you ask?"

"He's taking a beating from some thugs in there."

"That doesn't matter. Bring him in."

The driver shook his head in confusion and started the engine again.

"HOW DO YOU LIKE ME NOW, HUH?" Garrett was fuming, just about ready to swing Eric's bike into its owner's face. Suddenly, a patrol car from the FPD drove into the alley with its red, blue, and white lights flickering on and off, its siren blaring into the night. It was heading right towards the fight!

"Dammit, it's the cops," Garrett muttered. "Let's get out of here! I'm gonna make your life a living hell, Gallow," Garrett threw Eric's bike into a dumpster and fled the scene with his gang. Eric was struggling to stay on his feet so he rested against the wall to recover from the beating, now he had bruises on his face and both his nose and mouth were bleeding.

He moved to the middle of the alley and called for help, but something strange happened. The patrol car didn't lower its speed, it looked like it was increasing it! Eric became paranoid again and took off through the alley, fearing that he may get hit. His hair and the rest of his body were now drenched in rainwater. This was more evident as Eric splashed water in every direction possible with his running. The terrified young man made a turn to the right and got into another alley that connected with many others. It was like being a rat in a brick and concrete labyrinth, trying to find a way to escape. Eric looked back and noticed the patrol car getting smaller in the distance. He began to make turns on every alley he came across until he reached one that connected with a main avenue, but he wasn't safe yet because the patrol car was still hot on his trail.

Eric looked at his surroundings and spotted a scaffolding lined up against a restaurant in the middle of a renovation. It had many buckets and small crates on it. Desperately, Eric began to look at each bucket's content, in a desperate attempt to find anything that could help him get out of this situation. Just as he was about to give up on his idea, he came across one that was filled to the brim with sharp nails. He took it and spilled its content all over the alley's width. The patrol car was closing in on him, but its driver slammed on the brakes as soon as he saw the nails. He didn't run the nails over, but got close to doing so. Eric's intention was to blow its tires and render them useless, but his trap had worked just fine. The driver revved the engine a couple of times before reversing and leaving through another alley. Eric was close to passing out but the need to get somewhere safe kept him awake.

The boy got on the avenue and tried to call a taxi but he didn't find his cellphone. Then he realized he had lost his bag in the alley. Much to his dismay, he heard a siren in the distance. The same patrol car was now heading towards him from the right at who-knows-what speed, like a train that's out of control, and to make things worse, it was on the wrong side of the road. Eric knew it would kill him if it hit him, so he traced out another plan. As quickly as he could, he went back to the alley and used the restaurant's scaffolding to climb all the way up to the roof of the six-story building. As physically demanding as this was, he couldn't give up. The rain and the wind were against him, which made it hard for him to see where he was going, but he kept on climbing. When he got to the roof of the building, he hid behind a large TV antenna, panting on the brink of collapse. This, however, didn't stop the driver nor his partner.

Yes, his partner. Eric could barely hear the voices of his pursuers because of the rain, but he'd heard them step out of their vehicle and climbing up the staircase.

"He's up there!" It was the voice of a female with an accent that Eric couldn't pinpoint.

"He's on the roof at the following coordinates. I'm sending them over," said the man.

Eric felt extremely frightened. He began to plan his next movement but then, a giant green circle of light appeared in the air 40 feet away from the building. Eric stopped thinking and fixed his eyes on the circle's phantasmagoric glow. "This can't be happening! THIS CAN'T BE HAPPENING!" The situation got even more surreal when a helicopter painted in matte black came out of the circle, nearly colliding with Eric's cover. The helicopter began to fly in circles around the building. Eric stopped screaming and stood in the middle of the rooftop. He stared at the helicopter and the portal thing from which it had emerged as if he was in a trance. Whoever was flying the helicopter turned on a spotlight and pointed it towards Eric. The rain hit the boy in the face violently, his now soaked clothes leaking water. This was all nonsense.

As Eric broke out of his trance, he saw a gun being aimed at him from an opening in the side of the helicopter. Terrorized, Eric ran away in an effort to reach an A/C unit but it was already too late. A shot was heard in the middle of the urban noises and the rain. Eric felt a sting in his neck. Confused, he felt around his neck with clumsy movements until his left hand found it. He slowly removed the thin dart and looked at it before dropping it due to the numbing sensation in his hands. His vision turned foggy; things became blurry all around him, his limbs wouldn't respond to any of his brain's commands. Eric looked at the helicopter spraying water around one last time before he fell to the roof's surface with his consciousness gone.

"Mission complete."

Dang, I almost broke the 4k word mark here. The total word count for this chapter is 3,913 words. Eh, oh well; I'll try to beat that in other chapters. Remember to leave a review, guys. See ya! Thanks for all your feedback.

Updated on 10/05/2016: Minor fixes, 4k word mark broken.

Updated on 03/31/2021: More fixes to improve readability.