Chapter Five

En Route to Spagonia

Mina could not believe herself.

She had woke up this morning afraid and uncertain, and now she was sitting in the sidecar of the Marvelous Queen feeling like an idiot. Mina had never considered that anyone COULD feel ridiculous while being kidnapped but here she was. Sitting right here wearing an oversized flowery pink head kerchief with her hair tied sloppily underneath it. Sitting right here wearing a pair of oversized, white rimmed sunglasses over her entire face. Sitting here with her muzzle wrapped tightly in a green scarf that leaked over her shoulders and covered half her upper torso. Sitting here wearing the ugliest gray muumuu in existence.

Her teeth grit. She would've THOUGHT that professional bounty hunters would have been able to do a little better work than this. If the sheer ugliness of the outfit they had crammed her in didn't draw attention, the massive mop of purple hair crammed underneath a neon pink kerchief would. It wasn't staying under it very well, either; the wind was pulling large chunks of it out from its confinement.

Her uneasiness was being washed out by annoyance. If it wasn't for the bear she had been sitting on top of, she wouldn't feel any fear at all. Muscles ripped through the pudge and yellow fur; the sheer size of the beast alone was enough to keep her from trying to escape. That and the gun that still lay on the hip of the driving weasel. Guns and muscle would dissuade anyone from fleeing.

Still, it wasn't hard to not be annoyed right now. Scared, but annoyed. Especially with the bird climbing over the bear's shoulder to tug playfully at her kerchief.

"Bean, fer god's sake, leave that damn thing alone." The weasel groused. Flicking his heel slightly and tightening his grip, he pulled to the left to turn further into the span of desert before them. Not that Mina had any idea how he knew where to drive—the road had petered out aged ago. All they could see ahead of them was sand, sand, and more sand. A rock sometimes if they were lucky. "We went over this. Popcorn here keeps the mask on because…?"

"Because she needs to stay hidden so we don't end up arrested, beaten up, and penniless." Bean recited robotically, rolling his eyes with a smile. Mina wasn't quite as amused by it all. She slapped Bean's hand away from her head.

"Well, I can tell you this, weasel: it's not going to DETRACT attention." She grumbled. He ignored her, simply twisted the right handle of the Marvelous Queen. The bike revved and they pulled forward faster. Mina was quiet for a moment, staring at the weasel with a knitted brow. "…You know, you won't get away with this. Sonic is going to come for me. I bet he's already on his way."

The bike sputtered for a moment as Nack gripped on the brake tightly; quickly he released it and they settled back into their speed. "He didn't show up to help you at the intersection. We're ahead of him."

"You can't be 'ahead' of the fastest thing alive."

Nack cringed. She wasn't WRONG, per se…

"Shut up." Was all he could manage. She snorted and crossed her arms, scrunching up her nose. The dust in the air was really beginning to irritate her sinuses. Still, Spagonia was ahead…there were people in Spagonia. At this point a city the size of Spagonia was Mina's best chance to get out of this mess. God knew she couldn't go anywhere stuffed in this sidecar with the team muscle…

Her ears perked up when Nack flipped on a song. Peering at it closely she could see it was a very, very outdated mp3 player system that had been crudely shoved underneath the ignition switch. It looked to be at least ten years old. The sound that came out from it was tinny and scratchy as if the machine was on its last leg. She couldn't recognize the song, only catch some of the lyrics that managed to come out clearly through the singer's quick voice and the player's poor quality.

"Hey brother, what you thinking? Leave that old record spinning. You feel the rhythm going…they call it lonely digging." Nack absentmindedly reached down to crank up the player loud enough to make out the lyrics. "Hey mama, how you doing? Can't see your body moving. Don't leave the party dying…they call it lonely digging."

Mina scrunched up her nose. "How tasteless."

"It has a lot more taste than you're probably used to, Popstar."

"What's that supposed to be mean?" She snapped, ignoring the massive paw that wrapped around her arm to keep her from jumping out at the weasel. "Are you trying to say something about my music, huh, crook?"

"Baby, can you move it round the rhythm so we can get with 'em, to the ground and get us a rock and roll round?" Nack's only reply was to turn his music up louder and revv the bike's engine. Mina glared openly but stayed her place on top of the bear's stomach. "Hey brother, what you thinking? That good ol' sound is ringing. They don't know what they're missing…they call it lonely digging! Let's end your time to lay low, you're knees a bending so it's time to get up and let go."

Mina puffed up her cheeks.

"Welllll, my heart knows me better than I know myself, so I'm gonna let it do all the talking!" She belted out in song, finally getting the smug weasel to look away from the road and music player. "I came across a place in the middle of nowhere with a big black horse and a cherry tree!"

"Ooh, she's good." Bean commented with a loud whistle. Nack shot the duck a silencing glare. Quickly, he played with the dials of the old music player and turned his song up. "Heh, you're so fun, Snaggletooth."

"Baby can you move it round the rhythm so we can get with 'em to the ground and get us a rock and roll sound, just a downtown body coming with a super hottie. Let's go, yes, no, hell no! Baby can you move it round the rhythm cause you know we're livin' in the fast lane—"

"I felt a little fear upon my back! He said don't look back, just keep on walking!" Mina sang louder over his tunes. It was no challenge with her professional pipes. "When the big black horse said look this way, he said hey lady will you marry me? But I said no, no, no, no—I said no! You're not the one for me!"

"Baby can you move it round the rhythm—"

"Well my heart hit a problem in the early hours so I stopped it dead for a beat or two—"

"So we can get with 'em—"

"But I cut some cord and I shouldn't have done it—"

"To the ground and get us a rock and roll sound—"

"And it won't forgive me after all these years!"

Bark had given up on holding the singer against his stomach; Mina was now holding her body over the side of the compartment to sing as loudly as she could in Nack's ear. The weasel's eye was twitching periodically as her smooth voice drowned out his rotation of music. No amount of twisted dials could overpower the power and pitch of a regularly used voice from a professional singer. Even if the volume was turned up as high as possible.

Not that Nack wasn't going to still keep trying and pretend he couldn't hear the stupid captive. God, it was the feisty ones who were always the biggest pain in the butt when it came to kidnapping…

Bean watched with a snicker at the conflict of wills. Turning to the little girl in the sidecar with him, he jutted his thumb out at the all-out musical war that was being waged besides them. "Its like a jamboree over there. A full blown jamboree of idiots."

"Yeah, but at least we get to hear Ms. Mina sing. I thought since she was so upset that we wouldn't get to hear it all." Stella replied cheerfully. "They're being silly anyways. I like BOTH their songs."

"At least it isn't Nack who's singin' his." Bean muttered.

Stella chuckled at that. All three of the Hooligans knew that their weasel leader liked his swing and country music (and electro versions of such, if need be) but he had a singing voice like a dying cat. The few occasions she had been subjected to him singing along with any given song, it had stuck in the back of her head like nails on a chalkboard. Liking music apparently didn't translate well into MAKING music. She could only thank God that he wasn't trying to show the Songoose up musically—then they'd ALL be suffering right now.

At this point, she could just be happy that Mina Mongoose's little sing-off seemed to be calming the pop stat down…even if it was through yelling songs in the driver's ear. Stella had tried to play nice and pretend that everything was sunshine and flowers for Mina's good. It had been an effort to show her best face to the mongoose and hopefully cheer her up a bit. Although Stella was pretty aware that it hadn't worked, as well as WHY it didn't work. It simply was difficult to be happy in the situation that the mongoose was in.

Watching the weasel and mongoose break out into an argument, Stella mused that maybe a nice stress reliever was what Mina had ACTUALLY needed.

"You're awfully self righteous for an admitted criminal!"

"Bark, will you sit her down and shut her up?! I'm tryin' to drive here!"

The bear tore his gaze away from the desert flashing by. With a groan, he scooped the mongoose away from her furor at the side of the add on and stuffed her on the other side, with his large frame blocking her out from seeing any of the rest of the Hooligans. One hard paw kept a keen grip on her arm, keeping the popstar from jumping out and demonstrating her own speed against the airbike.

Silence overtook them as they drove through the featureless desert, Mina's arms crossed over her chest and pure annoyance painted all over Nack's features as he tightly gripped the handles of the Marvelous Queen. The only sound that rang across the hills of sand was the tinny music ringing out from the ancient music player as it switched to another song. Like the last one, the lyrics were hard to understand through the poor quality speakers—probably stolen or bought from some crapshoot pawn shop. Nack had a fondness for those seedy little joints.

"If ya just sung some GOOD SONGS ya wouldn't be wastin' that voice." He muttered almost inaudibly. Mina lowered her glasses a bit to shoot the weasel an incredulous stare. "Course, you'd never sound as good as Zoey but Christ, what a waste."

"Never sound as good?!" Mina shot up again; Bear placed a hand on the top her head and forcibly shoved her back down into the seat. "That's stupid! Every singer has a voice and tone they're best suited for! Obviously she's better in a genre that I'm not in tune with!"

"Sounds like an excuse to me." Nack snorted. "Real singers, they go outside of their comfort zone instead of making the same tune every time."

"Oh, Nack, stop picking on her already…" Stella groaned, pulling her large ears down against her cheeks. The weasel rolled his eyes but went quiet even as the mongoose glared daggers at him from Bark's side. Ahead of them, the vague outlines of carefully carved stone buildings were appearing on the horizon; the sound of a horn blaring from the road interrupted their reverie as the Marvelous Queen skidded back onto pavement. They were back on the road that they had jumped off of to avoid detection.

As Nack merged into the light traffic going into the ancient city construct of red stone, Mina spoke up again. "I can do it."

"Not right now, I'm tryin' to drive." Nack snapped.

"I can do it. I'll show you." Mina pointedly ignored him and the weasel sighed in irritation. "Before I get away from you and by the way, I WILL…I'll show you. I'll learn your stupid song and I'll perform it ten times better."

"Yeah, yeah, good luck with that." Nack muttered absently, giving the guard at the gate a cautious wave. Both guards were eyeballing them intensely. Mina made to call to them, but Bean darted across the bike to pull her scarf up over her mouth and tie it securely behind her muzzle.

"There ya go, pretty pretty lady! Fixed up your scarf there! Looks real nice, huh, Bark?" Bean leaned back to examine his handiwork—an annoyed mongoose with an ugly scarf tied around her mouth—while Nack eyed the guards suspiciously as they passed into the town. The news about the kidnap must not have reached Spagonia yet, he decided, or they would've jumped down his throat the second he breeched the horizon. It wasn't like the faces of the Hooligans were particularly unknown, nor were their exploits. But Spagonia was difficult to get news to at times.

As he twisted through the tight cobblestone streets of the city, he considered that maybe using a disguise now and then probably wouldn't be a bad idea…while they had got their target, they had made their identities pretty obvious. The Hooligan team as a whole was going to have to keep an eye out. The only one of them who wasn't wholly recognizable was Stella and even that was likely to not be the case after this job.

He regretted that, somehow.

As they took the turn towards the docks, the weasel contemplated how the media would take the fact that a little kid had helped the Hooligans. Would they think she was some street brat that they gave a free meal to in order to put together their heist? Unlikely, considering Stella's expensive jacket and the even more expensive purple dress underneath it. Those Frost foxes really didn't spare any expense—they had sent Nack money, clothes, and even toys for the child. The only other option that he could see the media turning towards was the belief that the Hooligans had kidnapped the girl. Which bothered him a lot less than it probably should have. It wasn't like Stella's uncle was going to tell anyone what was really happening after what the Hooligans had done for the Frost family.

Of course, she could've stayed a media secret if it wasn't for the obvious loudmouth celebrity they had to screw around with right now, but there wasn't really anything he could do to change that.

With a grunt he pulled the bike to a stop in a parking lot near the dock and gestured at Bark to keep the other three back with the Marvelous Queen. He managed to restrain Stella and Mina—not as much so with Bean, who bounced excitedly after their criminal leader. The weasel rolled his eyes and pulled out his gun as shushed the obnoxious duck. Quickly, he peeked around the corner to where they were keeping the boats.

And just as quickly, he slapped himself back against the hard stone of the building they were at. Bean climbed his body and perched on top of the weasel's head to peer around as well, and let out an amused chortle.

That damn hedgehog and his damn pet fox. Sitting at the docks with the dock manager. Laughing it up and waiting right there at the only place they could book or steal a boat to ship out on.