Chapter Fifteen

Lone Digger

"There they are, there they are!" Bean chattered excitedly. Nack grabbed his beak in frustration to drag him behind the curtain display while striking a slash across his neck. The dynamo went silent but a stupid smile stayed plastered on his face. Their leader gestured at Bark to take charge of his teammate; the polar bear obligated but his discomfort was palatable. All of theirs was, really—none of them were used to dressing so elaborately.

Once Tails had forcefully pulled the window off the cell, the Hooligans had to act fast. With the speedy Tornado they had managed to get over to the concert hall and land in a cove nearby the ocean side stage setup. It was still early on in their farce of an operation and Nack had to admit he was already faltering on how to go forward in it. But the clever little fox had quickly butted in with a suggestion of sneaking in as security. All they had to do was grab a few of the men patrolling the premise and take their flashy black suits and sunglasses.

And that was when problem one arose.

Bark was huge—his suit barely fit over his torso and threatened to tear in several places around his barrel chest. On the contrariwise, Bean's suit was slightly too big for him. The sleeves hung loosely off the tips of his fingers, with the dark button up jacket pooling around his waist as if it were a dress. It amused Bean but had everyone else at a pause. Nack, for his part, just missed his hat. He couldn't help pawing at those loose chunks of fur at the top of his head that wouldn't settle down. And since there wasn't anything to be done about his trademark fang, he would have to go in with it and hope the sunglasses distracted from it.

All they could do was hope that no one would notice.

They had been slinking around the back of the stage, trying as hard as possible to not get noticed. It was proving to be yet another tough task—the further they got into the stage, the less actual security there was. Most of it was replaced by hooded rats who glared savagely and brandished jagged knives. Definitely worth avoiding, and impossible to blend in with.

It had taken a bit but thankfully they had eventually made it to what seemed like the core of the stage—where Mina Mongoose and Stella Frost were being kept. He couldn't tell the specifics but just from looking, Nack had the feeling that the mongoose had gone through a couple hours of threats and extortion. A cat with a makeup kit was touching up the somber expression on the girl's face. Meanwhile, Stella sat aside her in a huge cage crying. Both were shadowed by the capybara, speaking in a low and incomprehensible voice.

These people were really desperate to bring his piss to a boil, that was for sure.

"Stella's in a cage." Nack whispered urgently into a small microphone attached to the side of his face. "Any advice, genius boy?"

"Please stop calling me that. How thick are the bars? Are they welded onto the top and bottom?" Tails' voice sounded crackled and urgent; Nack couldn't help but flick his ear at the device embedded in it. "Don't do that! You'll knock it out, or worse, you'll break it!"

"Shut up. Bars look fairly thick but they're not as thick as the ones as the jail we came from. I can't tell from here if they're welded on or not, but from a rough guess I'd say that they're not. I think it's a collapsible cage or something." Nack replied irately; the kid may be smart but Tails was proving himself to be an immediate pain in his ass. If it wasn't for the urgency of the situation then Nack would've thrown the kid in the ocean already.

"Makes sense if they're travelling. If that's the case and its collapsible, then Bark should be able to take it down without a problem. If he can take Knuckles on one-on-one and survive then that thing'll be a cakewalk." Bark puffed his chest up proudly; the bear was fairly modest but he couldn't help a little grandstanding when complimented on his abilities. He was proud of what he could do. "This place is swarming with cultists, though. So you can get Stella pretty easily if you collapse the cage but getting Mina and getting out will be a bit more of a challenge."

"We could just leave her ass here." Nack muttered.

"No! This is a trade! I help you get Stella out, and you help me in return!"

"I was kidding, geez. You 'heroics' types can't ever take a freakin' joke." Nack grumbled. "All right, so what's your—hmm."

"What?"

"Thaddeus left. It looks like Popcorn is going on stage." Nack watched suspiciously as the pop star grasped tightly at Stella's hands. From what little of her face that he could see, the purple haired sensation had quite a bit of concern that she was masking. The make up girl has a tight grip on the mongoose's arm as she led the girl out of sight. Nack watched quietly as Thaddeus followed suit, plodding off to more important work. Only a single rat remained at Stella's side, but he was a nasty looking bastard. Certainly not one to get by quickly.

"Maybe we could…"

"Go around the back of the curtain and break the back of the cage?" Tails interrupted. "Be careful. Don't get caught. They'll definitely call reinforcements if you do and I'm not sure just you three alone will be able to get past them. You have your weapons and everything but I really couldn't secure that much of the ammo…I think the handgun you have doesn't even have a full round in it. I have no idea about the one in your sleeve."

"You're so annoying." Nack huffed, not bothering to conceal his irritation at being upstaged and lectured by this stupid kid again. Or genius kid. It was hard to keep any of it straight right now. Instead he gestured at Bark to go around the back and the polar bear slipped back into the red curtains that sloped around the back stage messily. The duck followed in tow, leaving Nack alone to watch for trouble. Instinctively his fingers slid over the handgun strapped under the coattails of the suit, curling around the grip.

As Bark's hands gripped tightly at the rat, knocking him into a quiet unconscious. The bear dropped the limp body aside the makeup chair, turning to break out the bars of the cage containing the little girl; her hands were slapped over her mouth to muffle anything she might say. Nack tipped his head upwards in the meantime; music was playing. Familiar music. A tune he was used to hearing through a worn mp3 player, tinny and barely possible to hear. But a tune he had a certain fondness for anyhow. A bright spotlight shone down on center stage with the glisten of a dark purple dress outlining a yellow furred form. Light purple hair tied up into a heavy bun at the back of the singer's hair.

"Hey brother, what you thinking?

Leave that old record spinning

You feel the rhythm going?

They call it lonely digging."

"RUN FOR IT!"

Nack's attention snapped to the scene behind him—a rat on the floor, Stella in Bark's arms as he tried to punch away an oncoming hoard of new rats that bit and chew at his arms and legs. The weasel's eyes widened as Bean snapped his fingers, a little bomb appearing in his hand. If a bomb went off, they were sure to attract even more attention. But it was far too late. The bomb was already airborne, landing in the crowd of terrified rats as Bark threw the fox kit at Nack as if she were some kind of fuzzy football. With a grunt he fell backwards with the girl in his arms, his free arm snapping forward in a jerking motion to pop out his sleeve gun and fire several well placed shots at the mass of cultists.

And then came the explosion, in almost perfect time with the music on stage.

It rung in Nack's ears loudly—one of Bean's more potently explosive recipes. For a moment he couldn't comprehend that Stella was screaming against his chest, or that the sleeve gun had already run out of ammo and was firing blanks, or that Tails was shouting desperate instructions in his ear. As the ringing died down in his ears he managed to comprehend the screeches that were pouring out of Stella's mouth as she grasped desperately at his suit.

"—DDEUS! WATCH OUT FOR THADDEUS!"

"Run! Go for the light fixture ladders! They won't be able to take his size!"

Nack turned just in time to duck from underneath the hefty arm of the giant capybara. Under the man's enormous form, he could hear the desperate wheezing of the cult leader. Quickly he rolled underneath the upraised arm towards a metal ladder at the far end of the stage. As he pulled himself and the small child towards the stage lights, Bark and Bean had fallen into war with a seemingly endless supply of hooded rats bearing sharp jaws and sharp knifes. He couldn't be bothered to even give them a shout; the capybara had recovered surprisingly fast and was hefting himself to his feet to follow after Nack and Stella.

"Nack if—up ther—he'll break it! He—nuts—I can't—"

Nack grimaced as he lost the connection with Tails; it was just him and Stella now. They both looked fearfully down at the deadly drop below them, with the only thing separating them from the fall being the metal light fixture underneath them. Darkness from the front curtain shadowed them all as the entire frame creaked dangerously. The weight of the overgrown cult leader was too much for it, yet he climbed onto the fixture to follow after them. Nack pulled his gun out of its holster, pushing Stella behind him while pointing at the ladder on the other side. She crawled fearfully in the direction of the finger but shrieked loudly as Thaddeus shook the entire structure.

"Are you a goddamn idiot?!" Nack shouted over the loud music. His pistol trained on the capybara's forehead. Thaddeus didn't respond, only taking another uneven step forward. It shook the entire fixture again; the weasel took a hesitant look downwards. A hard, bright wood floor with the mongoose singing at the very edge of the stage—and if the capybara didn't knock it off, then all three of them would be joining Mina. Except they would just all be piles of blood and broken bone.

"Are you LISTENING, idiot?! Knock it off! You're gonna kill yourself too!" Nack yelled. His arm shook; he only had his gun out for show. If he shot Thaddeus and the man hit the structure they would all be done for. Stella hugged the steel frame tightly. With a slight start, he noticed that she had wound a length of rope from one of the light fixtures around her hand. He slowly crept backwards to hover aside her, panic in both their eyes.

"Knew…you'd be back…Nessa said, she said…." The capybara coughed violently. "Said ya…you needed…to be taken care of…or all the funds would be withdrawn…gotta…"

One more creak sounded from underneath them, this time loud enough to overpower the music. The unseen crowd behind the drawn front curtain had died into murmurs as the music had gone into an electro medley. Mina herself looked around in confusion. Taking a deep breath, Nack grabbed the rope from Stella and hefted the girl under his arm, closing his eyes tightly as he kicked off from the fixture.

All he could think was: Doin' this 'right thing' bullshit is such a pain in the ass.

With that final thought, the rope bounced and snapped as the light fixture above them cracked under Thaddeus' weight. All of it came crashing down behind them as Nack tumbled across the stage to come to a stop aside a stunned yellow mongoose, watching him and Stella as they curled up in abject pain. He groaned, rubbing his arm—definitely sprained at the least. Mere moments later, another explosion sounded and the two remaining Hooligans were blasted through the wooden background. They both hit the stage face first and seemingly unconscious.

"I hate your stupid family, Stella." Nack coughed.

"I'm started to kinda hate them too." The fox child managed through winces of pain.

"Nack?! Stella?! Are you…I mean, how did…what is even…" Mina shouted through the haze of debris, pushing a lighter girder out of her way. She looked thoroughly flummoxed by all of the Hooligans coming smash down behind her in the middle of the concert. The crowd was abuzz with murmurs as she pulled the weasel and the fox to their feet. He nearly fell flat on his face again, only halted by Stella and Mina's arms wrapping around his torso and pushing him upwards.

"Yeah, it's me, I did this with the runt's help, and I don't even know what the hell this is so don't ask me." Nack managed to choke out a reply, though it was with a lopsided grimace. Neither Stella nor Mina replied, staring in horror behind him. The weasel groaned as a massive shadow fell over the three of them and gasped emitted from the watching crowd. "You're gotta be kidding me. You gotta be immortal. There's no way someone could live through that."

Thaddeus merely grunted, licking away stream of blood that was trekking its way down his creased skin. The capybara was covered in cuts, bruises, and what looked to be open wounds from the fall—and yet somehow he had survived. Nack could only assume that his stupid cult encouraged deadly levels of dedication because nothing short of magic could've kept Thaddeus alive after that.

And, he realized, he was the only conscious one ready to fight.

So of course his shooting arm couldn't be convinced to move.

Definitely sprained; the weasel made a weak effort to punch the capybara with his uninjured arm, knowing full well that if Thaddeus could survive that fall than there was nothing his punches could do against the monster of a man. He was surprised to find himself pulled back by Stella and Mina, the latter who had a fierce and vigorous look on her face.

"Hey, Thaddeus? Remember when I said there was nothing I could do?" Mina asked, upper body dipping forward as a mocking smile appear across her features. The capybara only wheezed in return. In a flash of yellow light, so fast that neither Nack nor Stella caught it, the popstar curled into herself and launched upwards into Thaddeus, bouncing off his injured face and toppling the massive beast. With a clack Mina landed on her heels in front of him, delicately reaching into his robes to withdraw the paper she had been given to recite. An unsteady hand rose to try and stop her.

But in a flash it was ripped into pieces, a smug smile in his direction.

"I lied."