Chapter Twelve

The Nature of Rats

Silence had prevailed over the Marvelous Queen ever since it had dismounted from the strait freighter. No one had bothered with speaking; the only thing that could be heard was the rumbling of the ancient engine. Mina was staring ahead to the city cresting the horizon with eyes lidded and face blank. Her hair fluttered erratically against the bear sitting behind her, although Bark had made no move to restrain her—the girl had gone into a near motionless, unreactive state that was getting worse as they got closer to Station Square.

From the other sidecar, the young fox girl watched the pop singer with worry in her eyes. Slowly she shifted her attention to the driver. Nack had a nasty scowl painted across his feature, his tooth jutting out visibly as his smaller fangs chewed at his lip. His hat was pulled low against his face to blow out the sun of his blue eyes, but Stella could see that they had narrowed into sharp slits. Just like they had been all morning, really…just like they all had been this morning. Even Bean was silent, watching the other Hooligans contemplatively as gloved feathers drummed impatiently against his stomach.

Stella sighed in defeat, sinking down against the metal casing. It wasn't as if she was expecting things to go well after the previous night. Even as they passed into the boundaries of town, she still couldn't get her mood up—memories of Twinkle Park and glorious battles flitted through her mind trying to cheer her up. But the past couldn't seem to trump the disappointment and scorn that was gripping at her heart so tightly. She supposed there was some grand irony in the fact that both feelings, the joy and the sorrow, were both from the same source.

She glanced back up at Nack.

He still wasn't making eye contact, of course—the small fox had long since learned that when Nack wasn't one hundred percent sure he was in the right, he would avoid eye contact and just keep doing whatever he wanted anyways. Didn't want to hear Bean joke about him being a gung-ho hothead, didn't want to look at Bark's reprimanding glares, didn't want to see the devastation on Stella's face. He simply would shut it all out at that point and go forward.

Right down the darker lanes of Station Square.

Stella looked around; her ears perked up, jerking back and forth carefully to catch the sounds around her. This place was not like the Station Square she had seen before—this place was darker, seedier, more unpleasant. It let off a subtle smell that, while it wasn't quite disgusting, was far from pleasing. Like the smell of copper, steam, and gunpowder. Looking to her side, she noticed that both Bark and Bean had perked to attention as well. They both were now steadily watching out the side of the Marvelous Queen with their eyes running across the denizens of this side street with an almost accusatory tone. Like predators guarding their kill.

"Bean." Stella started at the sound of the rough Australian accent—she hadn't heard Nack talk in hours. The bird aside her looked back at the weasel with a similarly surprised expression. "We're almost there. Be at the ready. And Bark. Guard the girl. Make sure she doesn't run or anything. I ain't got any goddamn time to chase some bratty rich girl through the backstreets of Station Square, especially when we've almost got this job done."

Mina stiffened and shot the weasel a glare; it went ignored.

"This seems like a bad place for an…organization." Stella managed. She had to try one more time, at the very least. "Really, I don't think this is a place any trustworthy type would be."

"We already know they ain't trustworthy. They wouldn't have hired us if they were." Nack grunted.

Well, so much for that. It wasn't like he was wrong.

They all let out a gasp as the bike came to a screeching halt aside the opening of what looked to be a dull yellow and very unassuming building. For this area of town, anyways. It didn't even seem occupied—the windows were covered in dirt and the sign looked like it was about to fall off its hinges. The door was riddled with old bulletholes and claw marks. Just looking at it sent shivers down Stella's spine. This place wasn't safe. Normally Nack didn't bring her to places like this, opting to leave her at the hotel and ignore her complaints at being left out.

Now she wished she hadn't said anything in the first place. A comfortable hotel room seemed far preferable to the near condemned building that Nack was dismounting the Marvelous Queen to go into. Bark and Bean seemed just as skeptical as the young fox, but they carefully fell out of the sidecar with Mina tucked carefully and protectively under the muscled arms of the polar bear. The pop singer, for her part, seemed to have been brought out of her angry reverie with her eyes darting back and forth rapidly. No doubt that she hadn't been many places like this either.

"Not to question you, O great lord of stupid deals, but y'sure this is the right place?" Bean asked casually, flinging his arms behind his head to stretch them out. "Because it looks like there hasn't been anyone near this place for years. At least not for any reason other than to shoot it up."

"Ain't no reason to shoot up something that doesn't have anything inside." Was Nack's only clipped reply as his knuckles rapped hard against the worn down wood door. Stella inched forward to stand next to Bean, peeking over the duck's should cautiously. The dynamo let out a nervous chuckle—but kept the small girl behind him none the less. They both knew that Nack had been teaching her to shoot, but she was nowhere near close enough to a point of genuine self-defense. It hadn't meant much to the girl at the time but right here and now she was wishing she had paid more attention. Grabbed one of Nack's extra pistols or SOMETHING.

As the door opened with a loud slam, a sense of dread passed through the kit that told her that it didn't matter anyways.

"Ah, Nack, my good friend. Come inside, do come instead." The large capybara towered above Nack, Bean, Mina, and Stella—he looked Bark right in the eyes with a knowing yet secretive glance. Bark tensed and automatically held the kidnapped girl back away from the man; he didn't know what this man was playing at and he didn't know the capabilities of him either. Taking chances, he knew, led to ruination. Though as a Hooligan he had only learned this through experience.

The capybara rumbled with laughter. "Your co-workers are still just as amusing as ever. And you brought you little not-daughter with you too, how charming. More importantly, though…the charge. You've recovered her. I could not be more pleased; she is even in peak condition aside from some dirt here and there. How wonderful, how very wonderful. This will make everything much easier."

Mina bristled at the comment, backing further into Bark's arm.

Nack pushed his hat up curiously, his earlier anger fading away into something akin to confusion. Thaddeus had not been anywhere near this jovial when the weasel had first met with him. If anything the capybara had seemed almost sickly and unassuming in the bar, if not a little unnerving and weird. But now he stood with a full posture and an enthusiasm that he had yet to display. If he didn't know better, the Hooligan ringleader would've chalked it up to Thaddeus finally getting what he wanted, but something seemed…off. Very off. Almost as if…

…as if the hulking beast knew something that they didn't.

"So will you be joining us?"

"Huh? Oh, yeah. Sure." Nack gestured at Bark and Bean to follow him—Bark pushed Mina forward while Stella clung desperately to Bean's arm. All of the weasel's team seemed to be just as unnerved by Thaddeus's seemingly new cheer. "Uh, so about the fees, I prefer to be paid in cash…"

"Of course you do." Thaddeus chuckled darkly. Nack raised a brow and took a quick glance around the darkened room that they were entering—a crew of rats, all in robes similar to Thaddeus, stood around the group chatting to themselves. At the far end of the room was a closed door guarded by two bulkier looking members of the cult. Both guards eyed the bounty hunters carefully; one jabbed the other in the elbow and gestured at Mina while whispering from behind clawed hands. Both rats snickered.

In fact, Nack was unnerved to find that most of the eyes in the room were on him and his crew—and all the members of the cult seemed to be in on some massive joke that they weren't in on. He tried to tell himself that it was just because these cult idiots were happy to see what they needed. At the same time, the back of his mind echoed the thought that he was being a fool and these rats were just acting too strangely for his comfort. It was only the thought of the paycheck behind that door, and the possible information he could get out of Thaddeus that kept Nack's stride firm.

But it stopped short when the guarded door swung open.

"GET THEM!"

His arms were behind his back immediately, held back by the guard rats. He could hear the sounds of Bark punching one of the other cultists into the wall, an explosion going off in tandem with the polar bear's strikes, and a chilling shriek of fear from the fox kit. But Nack couldn't even think to reach for his gun; he could just stare ahead stupidly at the scene in front of him as blood rushed to his ears to pound furiously at his head.

A small circular table, the two Freedom Fighters in pursuit of them, and a woman much too familiar with him. A woman with a crooked smile, lidded eyes, and a sharp resemblance to her niece.

"Vanessa." He breathed, dumbfounded.

"It's good to see you again too, darling." She smiled—a false smile, clearly a charm that she had used to lure in the hedgehog and fox standing aside her in this dump. "So glad that my group was able to head you off at this meeting place of yours. Who KNOWS what could've happened to dear Miss Mitzy if we hadn't? Goodness, she could've gone to some of the craziest and least reputable folks. It's a good thing that Thaddeus knows where all the deals in this area take place…so he can intercept them and convince them of the error of their ways, of course."

That crooked, lying smile. Perfectly in place even as she spouts nonsense.

"What…are you doing out of jail?" He managed to cough out. She laughed as the hedgehog and the fox moved in towards him. Nack couldn't even be bothered with his weapon anymore—his mind was too busy trying to find a way that Vanessa Frost had outsmarted them this much. "How…HOW? You got…a life's sentence…"

"I'm out to help investigate a case. Being escorted by only those that the police would trust, after all." Vanessa chuckled, gesturing towards Sonic and Tails. The hedgehog nodded firmly; the fox just shot her an uneasy glance. "I told them to go find my good friends here, but my dearest group just wouldn't cooperate without me being out of jail! It would've been just a travesty to leave them without any help at all so I got some escorts so I could come…help out."

"LIAR!" Stella pushed past Nack to screech at her aunt. The older woman's eyes narrowed. "YOU'RE LYING TO THEM! DON'T…DON'T BELIEVE…!"

"Oh, my darling niece! It's so true! So true that they've been pumping such lies into your poor little head." Vanessa stood up dramatically, her face falling as one of her hands reached out to the girl. Stella stepped backwards fretfully, yanking the pistol out of Nack's gun hostler to point shakily at the woman. "Oh dear God, they've even introduced you to degeneracy! Thank god I can finally save you from them."

With a quick blue flash, the gun in Stella's hand was knocked out of her hand. She stared in blank astonishment at it but snapped back to attention as the yellow two tailed fox took her arm to pull her over to the table. With a hiss she yanked against Tails' tight grasp. But with Sonic coming up behind her, she had no choice but to go over to her aunt with contempt in her eyes. Her entire body froze up as Vanessa wrapped arms around her to pull her close.

"Cripes!" Nack turned back as he heard Bean let out a hectic shout; one of the rats had him pinned to the ground with his arms behind his back. Fury burned in Bark's eyes as he focused a punch in towards the cultist, but it was in vain—the spare members had all dogpiled onto him. The bear was pulled to the ground by the sheer amount of animals running around his large frame. Nack's ears flattened and his eyes widened as he watched his muscle and his dynamite quickly become restrained by the sheer hoards of rats that seemed to be piling out from the darkness.

Quickly he threw off one of the guards and reached for his gun.

Then his blood ran cold, remembering that Stella had taken it and the firearm was across the room now.

Nack knew even as he fumbled for his other gun that he was too late. He wasn't fast enough to draw out his weapon in time to beat what he was against. Even if he was, the sheer amount of rats would outmatch his single gun. It didn't matter though. The second gun was already on the floor, his arms already pinned behind his back by the infamous blue Freedom Fighter. It was over, over before it had even started, and his team had lost the entire gamble.

He felt his mind blurring as everything began to mix together—a grinning Vanessa holding a struggling Stella against her, Sonic yelling something about jail, Bean and Bark immobilized against the floor, Thaddeus grinning darkly at them from under his hood, and Tails hovering above Vanessa with a look of concern on his face as he exchanged glances between the woman and her niece. Everything was happening so quickly. The situation was going beyond him so quickly. He could barely understand a word that Sonic was saying to him anymore as his head screaming at him desperately to come up with an idea.

But there was nothing there.

The last thing he heard was a scream before he fell to the ground, eyesight blurring as a rat alongside Sonic punched the weasel right in the jaw. Right before his consciousness could slip away, the very last thing could see in his messy vision was a blur of purple and yellow hovering above him and speaking frantically while shaking his arm. He couldn't decipher any of it.

Not a damn thing. They had lost.

"Nack, NO! You can't—not here—STELLA!"

With that, he was out.