Chapter Three

We're In The Money

"I'm glad that you called me, really, I am, but I'm starting to wonder if this is actually going to work out." The purple haired celebutante huffed as she dropped a stack of books in front of the two foxes. Unsurprisingly her protest went ignored. Tails reached out and carefully snagged the tome from the top of the pile to pop open, finger pressed against the old parchment and nose nearly touching the pages. The sight of Tails with his nose literally stuck in a book was pretty comical to Mina, but she held back her chuckles and turned to crouch next to Stella.

The strange girl who had been part of one of the odder segments of her life had called Mina up only a month prior. She wasn't sure how the little girl had gotten her private line—she wasn't sure she wanted to know, really. All she knew was that Stella was not calling her fawn over songs or preen over stage costumes. She had contacted Mina for the sole reason that she was in great need of the popstar's help.

Many things had crossed the mongoose's mind at that point in time. That the girl was lost, that she was trapped, that she was injured, that one of her criminal friends were lost or trapped or injured…in recollection it had all seemed like a bit of an overreaction and thankfully she had been wrong. No, instead Stella had contacted with a desperate plea: to let her speak with the hedgehog and fox that had shown up to save Mina when she was kidnapped.

She couldn't much say no. Not with the desperation in Stella's voice.

Nonetheless she had been surprised when she showed up to meet with Stella, with the man behind her being the fox's strange uncle that Mina had only met through video messaging during her kidnapping. Not a single member of the Hooligans were to be seen—even as her green eyes traced the restaurant Stella had asked to meet her at, she ended up drawing a blank. It had been even more shocking when minutes later Stella explained she was taking a break from them.

It didn't feel right, somehow. But Mina didn't really think it was her place to question it, either. She brought Sonic and Tails to meet with Stella and they had discussed the details of the problem at hand. Files, she said, she had found a whole lot of strange files and information. Things no one in her family could decipher. Things she believed may only be possible to understand with a more worldly and calculating brain. She needed the Freedom Fighters.

Stella Frost needed the help of Sonic and Tails.

She had been quick to stipulate, of course, that she would be bringing the Hooligans back on board for the job as soon as possible. That, in fact, they could be called back at any time while the pair of heroes were helping her. The faces that Sonic and Tails had made had been priceless, so much so that Mina had to stop and remind herself that she should probably be making the same face. All this meant was that if she stuck around she would have to deal with the explosive bird, the silent bruiser, and the ill tempered weasel full of sass and lacking any class.

Yet here she was, still at the manor, still carting books from the deliveries of valuable books send over to be explicitly watched over by herself and Tails.

And here she had thought books were useful. A full month had passed with no new information gleaned from the various ancient texts. It was starting to get so bad that Tails had ended up pulling out a few language books to cross-reference so he could skim the volumes that were so far gone that they weren't even in a modern language. And all any of them had found was a passing reference to the word that seemed to dog all of Genevieve and Paul's research notes.

Lind. She'd never heard it before. Tails had explained it was an older, out of use last name that meant something to do with a fruit tree. Yet the 'Lind' referred to in the notes didn't seem to be surname of any sort—having checked all the notes over, the tech wizard confirmed that the word had been consistently referred to as if it were a living entity, and had been referred to multiple times in the plural.

"This is the last shipment of books that they'll send us, isn't it?" Mina attempted to spark a conversation again; Tails only grunted in response, burying his face deeper in the book he had picked up. At his side sat a small notebook jotted full of notes on a bevy of dead languages. "According to the Acorn royal family, there isn't anything else left in the library that could possibly warrant being dragged out here. Honestly we're lucky they're letting us do this as all."

"Sonic talked to them." Was the only response Tails had for her.

"Well gosh, I'd imagine he did. Sonic's a convincing sort. And he's done enough good deeds to get a favor here and there. That's just the kind of guy he is." Mina smiled, a tinge of nostalgia in her voice as she stretched out her back. Stella fixed her with a confused look—no doubt unsure of the source of her wistful tone. The mongoose wasn't keen on explaining it. "Still, what're we going to do? If there's nothing in this pile then we—"

"Stella." Tails interrupted Mina's awkward ramblings, finally pulling his face away from the thick book to point in the direction of the staircase. "I kept a book from the last haul, its called 'Portrait of a Planet: the Rubble of Mobius'. Do me a favor and go grab it. I gotta check this and see if it actually means anything useful."

Stella jumped to her feet, turning tail to dash up the stairs. Mina quickly followed suit, giving the yellow fox a sideways glance; it wouldn't do much good to stay down here with him. She tended to become talkative in the absence of conversation and it seemed obvious that Tails needed a bit of silence to work. But before she could even begin to ascend the stairs, Stella came sliding down the banister at top speed to topple into the pile of books in front of the other fox. In her hands she held up a book so thick it could barely fit in her young hands; Tails plucked it from her fingers and let it fall open to a middle section full of glossy photos marked by a satin sash.

His fingers traced the photo on the left that took up the entire page—what looked to be the foundation of a building, buried halfway in snow. Stella nosed further in to get a closer look while Mina tried to resist her curiosity. Soon enough it bettered her and she went to crouch down by the pair of children. Tails was comparing his notes with what looked to be the only standing wall in the picture.

"It's here." He said finally. "The same text."

"What?" Both girls immediately asked, eagerness apparent in both their faces. The entire group had been working for just a little too long.

Tails held up the heavy tome he had been so invested in; to both their surprise, it seemed to be a rather sizeable book of fantasy written in a long dead language. It seemed to match the lettering on the side of the ruins—with a start, Mina noted that those two examples were the only books she had seen such text in. She shook her head out; that couldn't be possible. She had just looked at too many weird letters from old languages that no one spoke anymore.

"This is the only place I've ever seen this text before."

Well so much for that, then.

"I'm not even really sure what language this book is in," Tails observed carefully. "But we're not the first people to look at it, not even recently. There are notes written all over it. I'm seeing at least five different handwriting styles here but only one of them is using modern slang and modern language structure. Someone's had this book in the last…oh, I'd say at least fifty or so years. Maybe less."

"How's that even possible?" Mina gaped. "I thought the Acorn library was private to the royal family. Give or take a few exceptions like us, I guess."

"Well, with the hostile takeover that Robotnik staged way back when…" Tails shook his head. "…a lot of the Acorn family belongings are just now being recovered. A lot of them were just plain destroyed. Others were sold off to collectors, or snuck out in covert missions, and made their way around the world and back again. I'd say it's a dang miracle that we're even holding this book right now."

"So what did they write?" Stella demanded, grabbed one side of the novel to push next to the other fox. Her eyes widened in shock, hand on the cover shaking lightly at the clear cursive penned down. "This…this is my…"

"Yeah…I was gonna try and say, but, well…" Tails said nervously, scooting away from the other fox. Mina craned her neck to look between the two. She couldn't understand what was putting Stella so on edge. "It…it looks like it matches the handwriting of Genevieve Frost from the notes that Dr. Piniford gave you. There's handwriting in other places that's pretty similar to the notes from your dad, too. Both of them…it looks like this book fell into their care at some point."

"I…I…what does it say?" Stella's entire body was trembling now; the other two watched her with concern in their eyes.

"Are you sure? Maybe we should wait—"

"I want to know now!"

"O-okay. She underlined this…." Tail's finger glided across the page as he spoke. "…and this. Her notes translate it as 'a land within a land for those who are landless' and 'the land cared for by that which has always been landless'. Both versions of this seem to match up the word 'land' with 'lind', like here. Unt lind wasna unt lind—a land within a land."

"B…but what does that mean?" Stella asked, concern seeping from her every word. Tailed pulled the geology book back into his lap, placing the tome of fantasy stories in Stella's arms. Displayed in front of them was a ruin that barely even continued a ruin, clattered into disaster under centuries of wear and tear from the merciless winter snow. The book itself only clarified it as an unknown ruin from deep within the Aurora Ice Fields.

"Do you know where this is?"

"I…" She paused, staring at it. "….I think so? I think, when I was really little, I went here with my mom when it wasn't snowing. I think I remember that we weren't supposed to be there, though, and that's why we never went back."

"Why?" Mina finally asked. "Is it sacred?"

"No." Stella said flatly. "It's dangerous. It's almost right in front of a cave that a bunch of criminals hang around."

"That's no good. Because I'm pretty sure wherever this place is, that's where we need to be." Tails flipped through a few of the fantasy book's pages again, observing Genevieve's notes. "I need more time to look at this and figure the language out but, if I had to say right now? That one standing wall wasn't a wall at all. It was a sign, and its pointing to a place."

"A place? What place could it possibly be pointing?"

"I'm not sure." Tails hesitated, checking Genevieve's notes again. "Maybe…a land within a land for the landless?"

"So ya found a clue in some dingy ass book…and ya built this monstrosity."

Nack scoffed, almost to himself, as they all stood in the darkened compound underneath the Frost Manor. He hadn't even known this place existed—would have to take it into account later on, for hideout purposes. It was a huge granite garage, complete with flickering lights and what appeared to be some kind of getaway car in the corner equipped with heavy snow tires and chains. But it was simple and mundane compared to the hunk of metal towering in front of them.

Nearly pushing twelve feet with six thick wheels mounted on a continuous track, the homemade vehicle was covered in tubes welded to the thick bluish-green uranium body. Each wheel had the word Sonic Quake etched into round side facing its audience. The back spiraled into what looked like a glowing, bright blue core attached to the car by thick metal and a rubber pump so thick it felt like stone to the touch. Atop it all was a ladder leading to a sturdy fiberglass; within the front of the shell was what looked to be a selection of extremely complex driving tools and a comfortable seat from which to use them. Behind that seat were six plush airliner seats.

This of course meant nothing in comparison to the fifteen-foot long drill firmly attached to the nose of the homemade tank.

"Are ya goin' to war, short stuff?" Nack questioned, looking down at Stella. She only giggled. "'Cause I'm not gonna lie, this seems a little bit like overkill. Just sayin'. Don't take my word for it."

"We won't. It took months to build this machine." Tails sniffed delicately, almost as if offended. Nack wasn't surprised. The massive drill had no doubt been built by the technological child genius that hovered over their heads. "And we aren't going to war. We're going down."

"Down?"
"Way down." Tails clarified, landing atop the massive drill delicately. "It took almost three months to translate everything from the sections outlined by Mrs. Frost, but it all pointed to a cave north of here by some old ruins. Based on what her parents wrote in the book, well…"

"They were planning on going through the cave." Stella stepped forward, holding a notebook out. "And the date they had planned to go through the cave was the day they disappeared."

"Okay. So why do we need the wartank here? Are you gonna mow the damn mountain down or somethin'?" Nack scratched his head in confusion as his teammates pushed past to examine the vehicle. Bark pushed against the hard metal shell, looking surprised when it wouldn't even budge. Bean, meanwhile, scurried up the side to sit at the top. The bird whistled as he pressed his beak against the glass, looking in on the advanced tech.

"It's a lot fancier than your bike, that's for sure."

"Shut up, Bean." Nack snapped. He turned down to the little fox girl, notebook in hand and eyes wide with anticipation. "Kid….er, Stella…your aunt, and the brake lines…this seems like a lot to do for a maybe, are ya gettin' me here? Are you sure that this is gonna, y'know…not be a dead ass end?"

"Hey, I wrote you a check. You can't back out on me now." Stella's blue eyes steeled, lip jutting out as she stepped back from the weasel. "Besides, I've been getting information in from one of the criminal types that hang around the cave. She told me that there's a section in the far back that was blocked off by some sort of avalanche a few years back. But even before then the people who own the cave wouldn't let them go back there. Said it was too dangerous even for dangerous types. Also that the owner would shoot 'em if they tried to go back there."

"We'll need the Sonic Quake to get through the avalanche, and maybe more on the way through." Tails patted the drill lovingly; Nack's nose scrunched up at the name. Couldn't the kid name it after ANYTHING else? Of course he couldn't, the weasel thought inwardly, and he was a fool to think otherwise. "Then we'll see what's down there. It's only a preliminary thing, really, to see if there's any clues down there about the targets."

"Geez, how big of a check did she write to YOU?" Bean popped up by the mechanic, head tilted quizzically to the side. Tails flushed in irritation. The back of his foot thumped impatiently against the metal below them both.

"The Frost family made some, uh, sizely contributions. Donations. And, well…" Tails went silent, twiddling his fingers. Nack dipped his neck down to take in the embarrassment on the young genius' face; it didn't take long to process what was going on. A gnarly sneer broke across his muzzle as he stepped forward to lean against the Sonic Quake, lighting a cigarette behind a cupped hand. A long trail of smoke blew up into Tails' face.

"You and yer people wouldn't happen to be a bit…oh, I dunno…embarrassed about the incident last year with yer precious little popstar, would'ya?" The radiating red glow from the hero boy's face was all the answer Nack needed, not that it was enough to stop him. "That's why yer helpin', ain't it? To make up for screwing the pooch so bad that a bunch of yer enemies ended up havin' to do yer job for you?"

"You STARTED the problem in the first place!"

"Yeah, we started it, and we finished it. And you and yer buddy got in the way and almost got Popcorn and a helpless wittle girly killed." Nack cooed mockingly. Tails balled up his fists in frustration. "So you took a bunch of donations from the helpless wittle girly when the stupid little popstar asked you to, so everyone would be quiet and the problem would go away? I have to say, that's very underhanded. I'm almost impressed by such rowdy, delinquent behavior. And here I didn't think that the royal family and their little task force had it in them."

"I'M here as a favor to my friends, and so was Sonic!" The little pilot was really getting worked up now. Inadvertently he had lifted off the ground to hover above the unfazed weasel. Nack just blew smoke up the boy's nose. Tails fell back a bit, coughing loudly, but quickly spun back around to shove himself in the sniper's face. He was greeted only with a smug, toothy grin. "Ugh! I don't get WHY you and your crime buddies just NEED to be on this job! You just make everything more difficult for everyon—"

"Stop it. Right now."

The white fox had stepped between the arguing pair, planting herself firmly in front of Nack with her fists balled at her side. He raised a questioning brow as she stared firmly back at the other child, as if they were having some sort of wordless argument. Slowly Tails lowered from his hover above them all, feet touching down on the ground but obstinate expression not leaving his face. Looking at the back of the girl's neck, Nack could almost see her thick white fur bristling at the sight.

"Sonic can—" Tails began. With that, Stella snapped, stepping forward to thrust her finger in the boy's face.

"I told you before and I will DAMN well tell you again. I started this with Nack, Bean, and Bark! And I'm gonna END it with Nack, Bean, and Bark! Just because you and your friends made yourself look dopey doesn't mean you get to take the reigns here!" She snapped. All of the Hooligans set their eyes on her, Nack snuffing out the smoke of his cigarette on the metal alloy of the tank and Bark pulling Bean off the top to rest back on his shoulder. It was hard to miss the glowing grin on the bird's face, even bigger than usual. "We started this. We're gonna finish it. Got it?!"

"….Fine." Tails deflated a bit, but still glared up at the weasel leaning behind Stella. "But just for the record? Neither Sonic or I would've helped you out if we didn't think you were doing this for a good cause. Even if you DID present your case in a really scummy way."

"Scummy way?" Nack inquired. Stella shrugged.

"I asked Mina to get me in contact with them and brought up the mess up with the whole kidnapping thing. All I said…" She replied, tone innocent and blue eyes big as she looked over her shoulder. "…was that a few well placed donations could be good for the world, right? And I explained my situation."

"She's a terror." Tails said glumly, popping the hatch of the Sonic Quake to shuffle inside. "It's all your fault."

"Oh, stop being such a no-fun spoilsport." Stella admonished, spinning on her heels to fix the Hooligan leader with a bright smile. "The only question now is if you guys are prepare to head out tomorrow morning."

Nack flicked his cigar to the side and slapped his hand over Bean's mouth before the bird could reply. Scratching his white muzzle, he looked to the side, making as lazy an effort as he could to draw out his answer. Then, he sent a sly smirk down to the little girl, lasting only a few seconds before Bean slobbered all over his hand. With a shriek he grabbed his gun to aim it at the bird. Bark immediately pulled his smaller companion above his head and out of Nack's reach, sternly glaring down at their leader and the string of explicates pouring out his mouth.

Stella clapped happily.

"Glad you're all ready!"

Tails shot her a disbelieving look.