Disclaimer: All non-original characters are property of SEGA or their respective creators.
Inescapable Past, Act 32: Don't Go
"Well, that could've gone worse," Mighty murmured to himself as he tested the handle on the Chaotix Detective Agency's front door. It was definitely shut
Whether it needed to be was another question. That stare-off with Vector just now — his first encounter with the crocodile since the Chaotix Crew disbanded — had gone rather less violently than expected. Maybe time really had been a healer for once.
Pushing the thought aside, the armadillo looked around the townhouse's narrow hallway. B bare floorboards, walls covered in faded and peeling wallpaper, with a precariously low ceiling to boot. Could Vector even stand up straight in here? It'd been a recurring issue with the Chaotix Crew's accommodations.
"Nice to see the move worked out," he muttered, making his way to the stairs.
Was this really the best place they were able to get for their money, or had those wannabe private-eyes been pinching pennies as always? He'd heard rents in this town were steep, but based on what he'd seen, it was hard to believe there could be a cheaper neighborhood than Quercusville in all of Station Square.
"Espio?" Mighty called out at the bottom of the stairs.
No reply.
"Have it your way," he groaned, starting his ascent.
Every stair squeaked, creaked, or groaned without fail as he climbed to the second-floor landing. Finding no chameleon and a single closed door, he went to open it. He was about to turn the handle when a distant sound stayed his hand.
A sound like…twanging?
He looked to the stairs up to the third floor and padded on over. At the foot of them, the twangs were fractionally louder. He rushed up to the fourth floor, almost colliding with a ladder in the middle of the landing. He glanced up at the attic hatch. Through it, the twanging could he heard, loud and clear.
Mighty sighed. Espio being in the attic suddenly felt painfully obvious. He'd never taken easily to comfort: one reason the Chaotix Crew had gotten away with staying in some of the places it had.
Climbing the ladder at a leisurely pace, the armadillo found the chameleon kneeling on a woven straw mat in a corner of the loftspace, plucking away on a shamisen. His back was turned, and a futon lay made-up beside him.
Mighty furrowed his brow. Had Espio not heard him, or was he simply being ignored?
Probably the latter, he decided.
Deciding not to announce himself, Mighty ducked under beams and between rafters as he made his way to over to Espio's corner. The attic was lit by whatever sunlight could penetrate the layer of Flicky droppings on the solitary skylight.
Coming to the edge of the woven mat, the armadillo extended a leg and gently kicked the shamisen's headstock. There was a sharp intake of breath as the chameleon dropped the instrument. It landed undamaged on the mat.
"Sorry, scales, but you're not meditating your way through this one," said Mighty levelly, "Wanna tell me what just happened out there?"
"Nothing that concerns you," said Espio without turning his head.
"Oh, I'm concerned, all right," the armadillo countered, "You looked about ready to pummel the big guy."
"So what?" muttered the chameleon.
"Whacking the croc's more my shtick, not yours."
This statement teased out a grunt, but still no eye contact.
"It's what that rabbit said, isn't it?" said Mighty, "You sure you're not taking the kid a little too literally?"
The sharpness of Espio's ensuing glare made the armadillo flinch.
"Do I look like Charmy to you?" he said acidly.
"You're doing a better job of sulking than he ever did," said Mighty.
Espio sighed and looked away.
"Just leave already," he muttered, getting to his feet, "You wouldn't get it, anyway."
"Try me," said Mighty, watching the chameleon pick up the shamisen.
"You've never been on your own long enough to know the meaning of the word 'lonely'," said Espio, placing the shamisen on its stand, "I've been as good as on my own around here since—"
"Since Charmy took off?"
"Yeah," sighed Espio, "Since then."
"Look, no offence, but if the big guy's hardly been here anyway, aren't you taking this just a little too hard?" asked Mighty flatly.
"It wasn't supposed to end like this!" growled Espio, punching the nearest rafter, "We've always stuck together. Always. Before you turned, and after you fucked off. We've always had the other's back. Now…fuck, he's tossing me like a used cigar."
Mighty padded over and placed his hands on the chameleon's slumped shoulders.
"Why aren't you out there telling him all this, scales?"
"To what end?" mumbled Espio, "He's right. This is something he has to do. There's no one on Mobius better-qualified to raise Cream."
"And while he's off playing 'foster daddy', you're just going to hole up here and be miserable?"
"The kid comes first—"
"Fuck the context, scales!" blurted Mighty, shaking the chameleon by the shoulders, "Are you Vector's friend or flunkey?!"
Espio pushed the armadillo away.
"He's more of a friend than you ever were!"
Faced with an incendiary glare, Mighty folded his arms.
"I seem to recall you weren't looking for a friend when we met," he said levelly.
"I wasn't looking for a migraine, either," muttered Espio. The fire in his eyes dwindled as he lowered his gaze, "Would it have killed you to visit before now?"
Mighty sighed. "I…didn't think I'd be welcome."
"Shows how well you knew Vector."
"I almost broke his nose," said the armadillo.
"He almost broke yours," said the chameleon.
"What, so we were even all along?"
"I didn't say that," hissed Espio, "Still, it's not like he's spent the last couple of years waiting for another swing at you."
"You'll excuse me if I go and test that out for myself," said Mighty, turning on his heel.
"Don't go."
Caught in the midst of ducking under a low beam, Mighty bumped his carapaced head as Espio spoke.
"Huh?" he uttered, straightening up.
"Don't go," said Espio quietly.
"What? Outside?"
"Anywhere."
The armadillo cocked an eyebrow.
"Just…don't go," said Espio, "Wherever you planned to drift off to next. Don't go there. Please."
Mighty stood stock-still as the chameleon shuffled across the woven mat and embraced him.
"Please," whispered Espio shakily, "I want my boyfriend back."
"You've got him."
〜
"So…what do you think?" asked Mina, "This one or this one?"
Sonia chewed her lower lip, studying the two hairpieces the mongoose was holding up. In Mina's left hand was a set of a cascading purple braids. In her right, a pale pink beehive updo complete with bangs.
Sonia was itching to mention the third option: the intensively-shampooed honey-yellow fur between the mongoose's round ears. However, how would that sound coming from a hedgehog with a full head of eminently styleable quills?
"That one," she said, pointing at the waist-length purple braids with forced conviction.
Mina welcomed the verdict with a broad smile.
"Thank you, Sonia, you're a lifesaver," she gushed, spinning round to dump the rejected hairpiece in a bag full of the things.
The hedgehog smirked. 'Lifesaver' should've felt like an overstatement, but truth be told, that was the most pressure she'd felt in a while. Who knew deciding how one of Mobius's premier style icons should look for one evening could be such a responsibility?
"Well then, I guess I'll see you later," said Sonia, drifting towards the hotel suite's door.
"Or tomorrow," replied Mina, already hard at work installing the hairpiece, "Thanks again!"
The hedgehog caught the mongoose's gaze in the mirror and flashed a smile. Then, she left her to complete her transformation in private. There was really no other word for the process.
Stripped of her usual adornments, Mina still looked every bit the fresh-faced choirgirl Ash had found singing in the Solarian temple of a Trillium City suburb. Throw on a gaudy hairpiece and a glitzy outfit from a Soleannese fashion house, and the quintessential Mobian-next-door became the Songoose.
Exiting the suite, Sonia proceeded down the hallway to the elevator. The management of the Hotel Soleanna had given them a whole floor to themselves, no doubt expecting a bigger entourage. Mercifully, Sonic and Mina were much too privacy-conscious to tolerate any of Manic's groupies, and they could handle their own security well enough.
"Right, back to work," Sonia sighed as she stepped into the elevator.
Stress aside, playing stylist for Mina had come as a welcome distraction from what she was supposed to be doing. Her brothers were both down at the concert site, going through the tortuous motions of what Cyrus called "pre-soundcheck". What that basically meant was her and Cyrus watching Sonic tune his guitar and Manic tighten his drumskins for three hours.
There was only so much tinkering she could do with her keyboards beyond plugging them in.
Down in the hotel's lobby, Sonia coolly ignored the overeager concierge's attempts to catch her attention. Ash had arranged for a driver to shuttle them around Echo Beach at all hours. As it happened, she felt like a walk. Moreover, she was in a good enough mood to countenance dealing with selfie-hunters.
Only a handful of fans dared approach the hedgehog as she emerged from Hotel Soleanna and crossed the road to the promenade. More Mobians stood back, watching Sonia through their phone screens. Meanwhile, a fair few passersby seemed to be wondering what all the fuss was about.
Not for the first time in her life, Sonia thanked Solaris she wasn't an identical triplet as she reached the promenade's railing. Beyond it, the sandy shore stretched for almost a mile in both directions.
She and her siblings wouldn't have thought twice about performing in this seaside town — roughly halfway between Station Square and Trillium City — if not for a certain cliff looming over the north end of the beach.
Once upon a time, some enterprising locals had reshaped the rockface to resemble the interior of a giant scallop shell. The resulting natural amphitheater had given Echo Beach its name.
Sonia started towards the concave cliff-face with the wind blowing in her vigorously backcombed quills. The further she walked from Hotel Soleanna, the more bystanders she saw pointing their phones at the cliff rather than her.
By the time she reached the concert site, the setting sun had painted the calm sea orange. Moving through a forest of fluttering feather-flags, she could already hear Sonic plucking repeatedly on the same string, in vain pursuit of a perfect G.
"Please tell me he's on the third one," said Sonia, joining Manic at the side of the stage once she'd navigated backstage security.
"You kidding?" said her fractionally-younger brother, "He's still on the first one."
His sister's eyes widened. Manic grinned.
"Oh, c'mon, he's not that rusty," he said, "He's up to the second one."
Sonia scowled, then slapped an unlit cigarette out of the green hedgehog's mouth. While he retrieved it, she turned her attention to Sonic's ongoing struggle to tune his triple-necked guitar. It always made for a surreal spectacle, watching the most impatient Mobian she'd even known lose himself so completely to such a fiddly, time-consuming task.
After a while, her eyes wandered from centerstage to the backdrop behind Manic's drums. The huge rectangular tarp was emblazoned with four huge letters — MSSM — the unpronounceable acronym that'd come out of some tense conversations about what name to tour under.
At first, Ash had pushed for The Forget-Me-Knots. Mina had disagreed, feeling it disrespected the bandmates she'd lost in an assassination attempt that led to her extended stay in Knothole Village during the war. Similarly, the triplets weren't wild about reviving The Sonic Underground — the cover they'd used during their initial insurgency around Tir-na-Hog — in the name of profit.
"Okay, Cyrus, next string," Sonic called out, giving a thumbs-up to the lion behind the mixing desk at the back of the amphitheater's sloping bowl.
Thwop-thwop-thwop-thwop!
Cyrus and the three hedgehogs looked up at once. Hovering high above the amphitheater, Tails waved to them.
〜
"Here's to keepin' our cute butts out of politics, ladies," said Bunnie, raising her bottle of beer in a toast.
Sally and Hershey raised theirs in turn.
"You too, Tangela," said Bunnie, shooting Tangle an encouraging glance.
Haltingly, the lemur raised her bottle of soda and clinked drinks with the former Freedom Fighters. She lowered it just as haltingly as the others drank. Watching them do so, Tangle looked intently at her hand holding the bottle, half-expecting the limb to morph into a Crabmeat's claw.
She thought she'd gotten over the dreamlike sensation that came with being in such exalted company. However, the last few hours had thrown her for a loop.
One moment, she and Amy were leaving that dingy apartment block in Quercusville. The next moment, there was a pickup truck chasing them down the street with Mighty hanging out the window. Then, after a quick stop-off to pick up a bed with a headboard shaped like a Chao, she'd found herself here in the house of Amy's dear departed friend, Vanilla.
The walrus driving the pickup truck — what his name again? Boomer? — hadn't stuck around, but there were plenty other Mobians already here, including the chameleon she'd tussled with in New Tek City. Weirdly, he'd been a whole lot less hostile towards her than Shadow. Maybe she had the beer to thank for that. Even Principal Acorn had had a drink or three by the time the pizza arrived.
The dining table they were sitting at was still strewn with empty pizza boxes. Mighty, his boyfriend and that big friendly crocodile had retired to the loungeroom. She could hear them heckling some sporting event in the other room. As for Amy, she'd long since had vanished upstairs with the yawning Cream. They'd half-heartedly invited to Tangle to join them, but she'd declined.
Instead of a bedtime story, she'd gotten to hear Bunnie and Hershey tipsily commiserate about breaking up with their boyfriends because of their political ambitions. Bunnie also recounted how she and Vector had had to convince a tearful Cream that she wasn't responsible for breaking up Chaotix.
The lemur had but one complaint: everyone but Amy seemed determined to call her Tangela…or Tango, in Mighty's case.
"Oh mah stars, is that the time?!" blurted Bunnie, idly glancing at her phone, "I don't know about y'all but I've got places to be in the morning."
Sally and Hershey's slightly dopy gazes met across the table.
"Time to give a cabbie the shock of his life, I guess," said the chipmunk airily.
Tangle sat up straight as Sally turned to her.
"Tangela, would you be an absolute sweetheart and go fetch Amy down for us?"
"Y-yes, ma'am!" chirped the lemur, jumping to her feet. She barely resisted the urge to salute.
As she made her way around the dining table, she couldn't help tearing up. She'd just been given an order by Sally Acorn of the Knothole Freedom Fighters. This might be the best day of her life.
〜
"Keep the change," said the brown bear, taking the muffin off the countertop.
"Why thank you," said Martha, the proprietor of a patisserie stand on Echo Beach's beachfront.
The bear nodded his thanks to the beaver and trudged off down the promenade, illuminated by strings of lights suspended from the palm trees lining the way. A reflective yellow armband on his bulky right bicep identified him as a security guard for tomorrow evening's MSSM concert…as did the word 'SECURITY' printed on the back of his black polo shirt.
He collapsed onto the first bench he came across. His shift should've ended hours earlier. That interminable soundcheck had somehow snowballed into an impromptu party backstage. Didn't those hedgehogs didn't have a hotel for that very purpose?
He finds a bench and sits… Just got off a longer shift than planned… Interminable soundcheck-turned-social occasion (Didn't these superstars have a hotel they could go to?)
"Diesel?"
The bear groaned, set his half-eaten muffin down on the bench, and peeled back a sweatband on his left wrist. Underneath, a red-eyed lynx's face flickered on the screen of a watch-like device.
"About time you got in touch," he said gruffly.
"Sure, because we've got literally nothing else on our plate right now," said Connie.
"That one's on Axel. I told him that Maw deal was too—"
"Spare me your analysis," the lynx cut in, "How're things at the beach?"
"Sandy," said the bear.
Connie scowled. Diesel winked.
"What can I say? No one's recognized us so far."
"Is it in place yet?" asked Connie pointedly.
Diesel snorted.
"Someone's clearly never done this before. We want them to have as little chance as possible to find—"
"When will it be in place?" snapped the lynx.
The bear shrugged. "Sometime tomorrow, obviously. Feist said something about some news channel dropping in. That ought to keep the right people distracted."
"Good," said Connie, "Don't screw up."
"You mean like you and Axel did?" said Diesel, re-covering the communicator with his sweatband.