Authors Note: It's been a long time, I'm sorry :( But other than being busy with other things I was also perfecting the plot as a whole just for you guys! I still love all of you great readers and even better reviewers! ^_^ Yes I play favorites ;)

I'm super psyched it's the weekend and I finally have this chapter finished! Not to mention I already have a full bulky outline for the next one this time! :D

I've never played Knuckles' Chaotix but I know quite a bit about it. As far as this story goes the events of that game took place in some form- mostly for reference purposes. Anyway if I made any mistakes feel free to point that out so I can fix it. Read, Review, tell me what ya think.

Side Note: I don't own these guys Sega does. (Are these really even necessary? Eh, either way writing it makes me feel more fanfic author official XD)

Chapter 6: Combination

"Lucky for you guys, it's not really a long story." Vector smiled.

"And it sounds really cool too!" Charmy nearly sung with glee.

"They know about it too obviously." The crocodile argued.

"Yeah but they don't know what we know, right?" He turned to Sonic's team who seemed to be confused.

Knuckles groaned, "Can you guys just tell us whatever it was that you heard?"

Espio stepped foreword, "It's about what's inside this," He lifted the briefcase.

"Manuscripts," Vector nodded. "Ya see, earlier this morning I got a call from a new client. Told me his name was Cat. He said that someone stole his briefcase. A matter of life and death he called it."

Sonic tilted his head in feigned curiosity and a chuckle, "This Cat... He wasn't purple was he?"

Espio shook his head, "From his voice we know that it's not anybody we've ever met before."

Vector laughed, "Especially not Big, if that's what yur tryin' ta say."

"That's for sure." Charmy nodded. "This guy was tall and thin and sounded really creepy."

Espio continued, "We never saw his face. It was covered by his hat." He motioned to his head as if he were slyly tipping an invisible fedora to cover his eyes.

"Okay so what exactly did he say to you guys?" Sonic asked the crocodile.

"He said that we were the only ones who could help him. When he told me about the 'scripts he mentioned that there were ancient writings about the chaos emeralds on 'em and right then I knew he was lyin'."

The crocodile laughed as he crossed his arms, "Even Charmy knows that the legend of Chaos was passed down by word-of-mouth, along with the actual emeralds themselves. There's no manuscripts for those." He looked to Knuckles who nodded.

"But I was curious so I took the case and played dumb anyway." he paused and turned to Charmy, "Don't say a word."

The bee covered his mouth with both hands and shook his head.

Vector continued, "After we gave 'im the case he told us that the manuscripts would lead us to the location of some new kinda emeralds that we need to find and bring together. He made it sound like these things could tear straight through the universe." He chuckled with doubt.

"Yeah," Tails smiled, "The Primordial Chaos Spheres, right?"

Sonic shook his head, "Can we just stick to callin' 'em the Chaos Spheres for convenience?"

"Fine, the Chaos Spheres... But they shouldn't be brought together, just kept out of Eggman's hands." The fox nodded.

Espio looked to Vector, "You don't think Cat was lying to us, do you?"

"Hm," The crocodile held his head in thought.

Tails smiled, "Don't worry, it doesn't matter right now, as long as we get to those Chaos Spheres first. There should be either three or four of them I think," he looked to his handheld device and gave it a soft shake, "No...maybe five... Uh..."

"What's going on now?" Knuckles held his head in annoyance.

"I-I don't know," He gently hit the gadget and finally it squeaked with glee, "Ah, okay...so there's...an...indefinite amount." He gave a sheepish grin as he rubbed the back of his head.

"Shoot," Sonic sighed, "If there's a lot- then maybe this was what Eggman was doing with all of that free time, collecting."

"But that's not right," Vector waved his hand, "Cat told us that they were buried in five different countries and that there were ten of 'em."

"He may have deceived you more than just a little-" Tails froze at the sight of his translators screen then lowered his voice in innocent defeat. "No way, I-I can't believe this."

He frowned as he shook his head. "Even my own creation is on your side." He held up the gadget, "Then again, it's kind of all over the place."

Sonic walked over to his friend and glanced at the handheld device. "I know that only a few of your machines have the tendency to have small flaws Tails, but this one is getting a little redundant."

The fox ignored his friend and looked to Vector, "Well, looks like you guys are our best bet now."

Knuckles raised an eyebrow, "Your just gonna let them take the lead?"

"Knuckles," Tails began, "When we first started this adventure Sonic and I thought that there was a small stash of very important treasure somewhere in this city beneath the ground. How much of that is accurate right now according to this?"

He showed the echidna how his electronic device now stated that there were an indefinite number of Spheres hidden throughout the world.

He continued, "This is all gibberish, the only thing we all are sure of is that there was something strange about the man the Chaotix met with and usually the strange path leads us straight to the the goal post. I think we should check out these other countries. Maybe this will end up like just another chaos emerald search."

Knuckles shook his head. "I seriously doubt that."

"We should split up," Espio looked around the group. "In pairs of two. And each pair should be assigned a country."

"Okay," Tails nodded, "Great idea. I'll go with Sonic." He smiled as he looked to his friend, who gave an affectionate ruffle to the fox's hair.

Vector brightly agreed to the idea, "Alright... Espio and me can be a team." He turned to see Knuckles, "That leaves you with our pal Charmy." He grabbed the bee floating next to him in a one arm hug. An almost taunting grin laced his cheer.

Charmy laughed with glee, "Awesome! This'll be just like that other time when we helped Knuckles!"

Vector let go of his comrade and nodded, "That was a pretty long time ago Charmy."

"Hey!" Knuckles shouted, "I helped you guys, you didn't-"

"-Yeah! Only Mighty isn't here this time." The bee interrupted as he grimly looked at the ground, "...I wonder what happened to him."

"Don't you remember?" Vector smiled, "Mighty said that he was going to-"

Charmy quickly cut him off, "Yeah yeah yeah! I remember now! Don't start telling me a story, it's not my bedtime yet."

The crocodile laughed. "...Boy we sure got some good publicity out of that mess didn't we?"

Espio agreed, "Let's hope we can get more business again once we solve this case." He held up the briefcase.

"Haha!" Charmy giggled as he needlessly explained, "I get it! It's two different kinds of cases!"

Espio's eyes widened from the realization of his unintended pun.

Vector grinned, "Hey, no sayin' that you're sixteen to the reporters again Charmy. Those morons 'ill believe anything!"

"Hahaha! I still can't believe that they bought it! ...I'm just an abnormally short teenager!" He shouted as he laughed some more.

Espio sighed, "Why would you tell them that?"

"Because it was funny!"

In the background of the ongoing madness Sonic whispered to Tails, "When did this show turn into the Crazy Chaotix Hour?"

The young fox shook his head with a bland shrug.

Chewing on his gum, Vector blew a bubble with it in amusement, watching as it popped at the softest touch of his sharp teeth, "Where did you here a word like abnormally anyway?" He lazily asked.

"I heard Espio say it once I think."

"Yeah, ya probably don't even know what it means."

"Oh and you do?" Charmy crossed his arms.

Espio shook his head at his now bickering friends.

"Uh," Knuckles looked to Sonic and Tails, "I think we should really just keep it as two teams of three."

Upon hearing Knuckles suggestion the young bee smiled brightly as he flew over to his grumpy friend, "Remember Knuckles, there's no 'I' in team!" He lightly scolded.

Vector pushed the honey bee out of the way and nodded, "Yeah, but there's an I in Chaotix and I'm the leader of the group so what I say goes." He gave an authoritative wink. "Espio's idea was perfect so were splitin' in teams of two, got it?"

The red echidna sighed and sank in his doubts as he calmly whispered to himself, "I should just go back to the Island now."