Bothswell's, Radical City

Night

With them looking up the directions on where to head to, Sally, Bunnie and Manic would arrive at a nightclub bearing the name. The building visually resembles something straight out of old sci-fi retro-futurism paintings.

There is also a basket crane parked on one side of the building with a man in red window-cleaning gear politely waving to the passing trio who waved back as he headed off on his break.

Making their way inside and looking for a person bearing a yellow tie with orange graphics. A few moments later when they checked the second floor, the trio would find a dark-haired male bearing a tie of that description sitting alone at a table. The man was seated near a window with his back to it.

When they approached his table, he asked Sally a question amongst the music playing. "Do hedgehogs swim?"

"Yes they do." Sally responded. With that reply, he gestured to them to sit down at the table. When a waitress came over, the newcomers just asked for drinks and the cat left after getting their orders.

"You the dude or one of his dudes?" Manic enquired quietly. The man leans forward.

"I'm the dude."

"Then you're the Paine behind the Resort Island Evening Post." Sally surmised based on his response. "You must have known we'd be coming to Radical City."

"When you accepted Boris' invitation, I made a point to inform all of my agents to get you in touch with me whenever you got here."

"One of your wards told us not to trust him or the police. Both seemed like sound advice after meeting both. I take it you know plenty about what's going on around here."

"That I do. Born and raised here. Got to see the World Grand Prix when it was held as a much younger man than I am now, got to see firsthand the economic downturn of the whole island and got to see it come back from its slump. To tell you the truth, I have no formal experience in journalism before I started my outlaw paper to spread the truth of what our administration is secretly doing."

"Well, I had no formal background in guerilla warfare before I took up fighting against the Robotnik Empire. Rebellion is something we both have in common." Sally would start fishing for answers. "What job do you work?"

"I'm a filing clerk and I would handle information from the officials in the administration including the Mayor. Budget reports, analytics, proposals, data and other pieces of paperwork to be filed and recorded."

"Would you have access to some radical top secret documents? For your eyes only kind of thing dude?" Manic asked him. The man shaking his head.

"Not exactly. Whatever paper and data I would get is what they want me to file away in the archives. Nothing quite like you're suggesting." Paine tells him. The bar waitress would return and serve them the drinks; waiting until she was gone to resume the conversation.

"Apparently, your publication started popping up around last month from what we could gather." Sally continued. "What exactly made you start rebelling and what exactly is going on here?"

"And how did Resort Island make a big turnaround like a healthy mule?" Bunnie finished. Thinking what Sally's thinking.

Radical City, Resort Island

Night

"Looks even better at night!" Sonic whistled impressively at the bright neon lights that decorate the many buildings of Radical City. Not having seen the place in a long time and seeing how it looks at night while out on the streets.

If not for the abductions and the offness that the place was giving off, he'd be digging the nightlife style.

"I think it looks excessive." Knuckles wasn't as impressed but he was never one for concrete jungles. "And noisy for my liking."

"You don't enjoy the cities that much?" Gadget turned to his former commander.

"I was raised on Angel Island for most of my life. If you know anything about it besides Echidnaopolis, the Master Emerald and the Knuckles Clan, it's largely full of ancient ruins, forests, deserts, hills and lakes. A wilderness paradise with next to no industrial development besides a few pockets of civilisation."

"Meaning he doesn't have access to wifi or internet and thinks emails are sent in handwritten letters." Sonic interjects cheekily.

Knuckles ignored him.

"I'm not a city person and places like Regal Ruins are more to my liking. Natural vegetation, wildlife creatures running around in peace and full of beauty untarnished by urbanization." The echidna explained to his former charge. "I like all of those over this."

Gadget raised an eyebrow. "That would technically make you a hermit, yes?"

"That would be correct."

"I don't know Bud. He's out there living with his girlfriend Juile-Su in the wilderness but I suppose they can both be considered hermits in a way..." Sonic drawls with a teasing grin, putting an arm around the red wolf's shoulder. "Instead of getting closer to his lord, it's him getting closer to making her go 'Oh my lord!' if you catch my drift~"

"Ugh!" Knuckles restrained himself from giving Sonic a good smacking for that remark. "After half a year of not seeing you, I donotmiss that from you!"

"Hehe, I'm only stating the facts~"

Undeterred and showing himself to be just as capable of verbally jousting with his former rival; Knuckles clapped back at the teasing hedgehog. "Once upon a time at a dark, mechanical underground maze painted in the darkest shade of black imaginable where you got cut off from us for several minutes and in his premature relief—"

"Ignore what Knux is saying!" Sonic answered very quickly, suddenly losing the smug look in his panic. "Nothing embarrassing ever happened!"

"Huh?"

"Remember that story Amy told you about on how her first meeting with Shadow had her hugging him because she mistook him for Sonic?" Knuckles said to Gadget while ignoring Sonic's pleas. "Let's say Sonic had a moment like that with a member of the Royal Acorn family not named Sally for Sally and you can ask her all about it. And that's just one of his less embarrassing blunders."

"OhthanksKnucklehead! Now he'll go around thinking I'm anything but cool after that!" Sonic said indignantly. Looking unamused and like he had just seen a scandalous picture of himself playing tongue hockey dead human princess on the front page of a newspaper from I.G.N.

"That'll teach you to insinuate what you're not privy to." Knuckles smirked smugly at Sonic. Showing the young wolf a taste of what Tails have to put up with the mountain and the wind having a clash together.

"...I still think you're cool." Gadget softly tells the blue hedgehog. Assuring him that he's still cool in his eyes.

"At least I have a red friend here whodoesn'tstake me in the heart." Sonic said in a semi-dramatic tone to Knuckles who just shrugs in response. "Anyways Buddy, what made you move from Golden Bay City to Sunset Heights? That's quite a change going from a U.F citizen to a R.A citizen."

"I had signed up to a foreign student exchange program for overseas education about a year prior if I remember correctly." Gadget tells him, sharing more of his background to Sonic and Knuckles. "Downunda was meant to be where I was to head to but something came up and Sunset Heights University was more than willing to take me in, so I went to South Island instead. Took up work at a computer shop for part time work experience."

"You completed your program before everything went to heck? Heard you mentioned earlier you were trying to stay off the streets."

"I managed to complete a full semester before the war happened but because of the war, I was effectively stranded with everything in a mess and stuck up in the emergency camps for the displaced." The wolf sighed, not fond of those days. "If not for Amy, I'd be homeless right now…"

Sonic smiled to that, knowing his pink friend well. "That's Amy Rose for ya. You'll find very few people in this world like her."

"To the outside world, Resort Island looks like a frontier to the future as the local press would call it with all the new developments made. But for those of us living here a long time in the know and remembering the corruption that had plagued the last administration, it's a dystopian nightmare." Paine clicked his tongue. "The police department employs those faceless officers you see on the streets. We call them Iron Vigiles."

"They're very regimented and formal even for law enforcement." Sally thought back to her earlier encounter with that helmeted enforcer. "Barely behaving like normal people working on the clock."

"I had a friend in the department who said the same thing and that they freak him out. Worse yet, no one in the department has ever seen one of them out of uniform nor know who are actually under those visors and they have their own dedicated place they're not allowed in without security clearance. For every cop that falls in the line of duty, more Iron Vigiles would mysteriously appear to take their place."

"...Wouldn't all of these Iron Vigiles be in the system like the rest of them?" Bunnie questioned.

"I had the same thought and looked into it. These Iron Vigiles aren't in the system despite working for the department and it's almost as if they're ghosts. No social security number, no date of birth and any information they might have on them are restricted to the personnel of the Resort Island Development Institute who introduced them as responses to the high crime rate going on at the time." Paine elaborated more on the Iron Vigiles. "Then a friend in the department found out the truth about an incident involving them. Something he wasn't supposed to know."

Sipping his drink to moisturize his throat. "There was a drug bust that took place involving the late Vastas Gang where a few Iron Vigiles were sent down to make the arrest at one of their safe houses but everyone including them would die at the scene minutes later. The "official" story in the reports is that it was a bust that turned into a fierce shootout and the Iron Vigiles responded accordingly."

Sally has a sinking feeling about where this story is going. "And the "unofficial" story?"

"...According to an eyewitness present at the time of the incident, they tell a very different story of what went down. The Vastas weren't resisting when the Iron Vigiles came in to apprehend them and were actually cooperative."

Paine sips his drink for dramatic effect. "That was until one of the Iron Vigile suddenly turned psychotic and brutally massacred everyone at the den including his own squad before offing themselves afterwards. They heard the Vastas sounding genuinely terrified for their own lives as they tried to escape the massacre and compared the awful wails the officer was making to the screeches of a baboon being taken to a meat grinder before everything went quiet six minutes later."

"Any reason why that officer could have gone rogue?" Sally had her suspicions but kept them to herself. The story sending a chill down her spine.

"No one outside of the R.I.D.I knew what caused it and the administration were quick to cover it all up since such a thing would spark panic. Not long after learning the story, both my friend and the witness would die under "mysterious" circumstances. From there, I learned things were a lot more shady than I had realized. Funds were going towards projects not in the system, documents being altered, some bodies were being buried while the island came back from near bankruptcy and there were very suspicious signs of vote-fixing in the last mayoral election." The file clerk-cum-reporter said with a serious gaze. Clearly affected by the knowledge he's passing down to them.

Letting out a weary sigh. "Resort Island was in a real bad state with corruption at the top, poverty in the middle and crime running amok all over before Boris Speechley came along."

"Go on. Tell us more."

"This place was in a rough state but when he started showing up in the mayoral election, things suddenly took a turn for the better when he came into office. I didn't think too much of it then until I started examining the data more closely and noticed the math wasn't adding up. Suddenly, we're able to have a booming economy again and people can afford food now. Suddenly, the Zoro Mafia that had firm control over our corrupt local government disappears. Suddenly, we're rapidly becoming the new Station Square and have the resources to modernize our once decaying city."

"Does sound rather sussy when you put it that way man." Manic commented on the weirdness of the whole affair. "If Sticks were here, she'd call this a big conspiracy."

"Your friend would be right on that front because that's what I thought and the further I dug into matters, that appeared to be exactly the case. Not even the first to dig into this web of secrets but the longest lasting one that knows about it. All leading back to Boris Speechley himself." Paine clicked his tongue for a second time after saying the name. "I looked into him and boy, talk about sketchy. Guy had some supposed ties with the Zoros as a real estate agent and apparently pocketed some of their money prior to running for mayor."

He mulled over his own thoughts. "The media are all at his beck and call with anyone being critical of him going missing, dying under suspicious causes or suffering "misfortunes" of their own. You couldn't publicly contradict Boris or his administration lest you want ruination upon yourself."

Suburb Alley Street, Radical City

Night

"Ugh… We've been looking around here for ages and the only disturbance we found is some twit dumping his rubbish in his neighbor's bin."

Shortfuse grumbled in a surly mood, itching to smash some Badniks in his iron suit hidden under a trench coat and hat. "Face it. You'd have to be a stupid schmuck to wander out here at night alone."

The three patrolled around the residential block for a bit in silence. The blanket of darkness occasionally broken up by the lights of the street lamps and a few lit-up houses on the streets.

"What do you think of the newbie?" Shortfuse asked Tails a question, walking alongside him. "You think he's team material?"

"Why do you ask?"

"You already saw firsthand what he can do in the war."

"Well, I think he's a good addition to the team and I believe we'll become good friends in time." The fox answered honestly, eyeing the squirrel. "What about you? You're not too fond of him."

"I don't think Four-Eyes has what it takes. Hard to believe he's the one who helped us win the war and rescue Sonic." Shortfuse replied bluntly. "He's probably a future liability with how much of a nervous pushover he is and won't be shocked if he cracks under pressure or be used against us."

"You're a real supportive one, aren't you?" Miraju sarcastically comments.

"Says the hypocrite who put him down in front of the boss." Shortfuse fired back. "He could literally give you his own appendix and you'd still find something about him to pick apart. You think he's a drip who can't cut the mustard in your posh eyes but you don't have the decency to say it to his face."

"Least he wouldn't be leaving a fellow teammate in danger just to pursue his own vendetta and can keep a lid on his fire unlike a certain someone I know..." The raccoon snidely responses in turn. The squirrel got right up in his face before Tails stood between them and broke up the pair.

"Guys. Can we not?" Tails said to them, playing peacemaker with the two. "We have work to do. Also Shorty, please refrained from making disparaging remarks about a fellow teammate like that. It's a bad look for you."

"Fine." Shortfuse concedes to the fox since he'd help out with his armor's maintenance and respects Tails enough to not argue back at him.

The three resumed their walks. Tails glancing at Miraju with a semi-frown. "Why are you hard on him? Do you not like him around?"

"It's not that." Miraju clarifies before continuing on. "It is just that I believe you're all putting him on a pedestal too much and forgetting he's a person too. We're only just rebuilding in the aftermath when you, Amy and Sonic dropped that on his lap. I might be wrong about him now but with what I got off him, we could be setting him up for failure even if it isn't on purpose. Tails, anybody can be a hero and he's a hero for saving the day once but not all can handle the constant pressures of what being a hero entails."

"No one gave me a chance until I met Sonic and Sonic must have seen something in Akira to go for the bat with him."

"He doesn't always get it right. Fiona Fox is one of them." Miraju points out with Tails frowning at that name. "He could be right and Amamiya ends up a fantastic addition to the crew or could be royally wrong and Akira becomes one of our biggest busts in our team's history."

"Not everyday that I actually agree with Poshboy here." Shortfuse snarked. "I don't see what's so special about him that he can do what the rest of you guys can't already do."

"It's not what he can do but what he can contribute and you guys should be more supportive of him than that. Neither of you are helping out in making him feel welcomed with us." Tails pointedly said to the two. "We should all be better than that and just know that he might be one of your lifelines someday. Remember that."

With that, neither Miraju or Shortfuse bother to rebuke his statement. The twin-tailed fox is right and saying otherwise is an admission of prideful stubbornness.

"I had time to speak with him and saw the way he eats. Don't strike me as someone who would know how to tie up his own shoelaces; never mind be head of a shadowy conspiracy." Sally shared her own honest thoughts on Boris. "Corrupt? I'd believe it. Mastermind? Don't get that vibe off him."

"However you may think, the trail leads back to him from my own investigation and the fact there's such secrecy going on is what prompted me to start the paper. Bring the truth to the people about the shady dealings of our own local government."

"Seeing as you're in the know. What's up with people going missing, the sightings at night and why is it all being covered up from the media?"

"After Boris came into office with the Future Initiative Program, it was just the homeless that were disappearing off the streets. Few cared to notice them going missing by the day because they were reminders of grimmer days… And then the streets became utterly devoid of hobos. The media simply said they're all being taken away to a new shelter..." The human file clerk said ominously to the three, sipping his juice. "Once there were no more hobos on the streets, they'd be followed by the vanishing of the social protesters and vocal critics who had fought against the previous regime until they were all gone. The media says that one of them supposedly wrote that they decided to go find new homes and new opportunities on the other islands."

"Sounds like a load of cush to me." Bunnie interjects, brow furrowed. "Don't tell me y'all brought that bundle of yarn when they spun it wild."

"Those who knew them personally said the lies didn't wash with them and had a private investigator go look into it before coming back a few days later to declare no foul play was involved but I think Boris' people had him "persuaded" into backing off from what he was doing. Probably thought killing him or making him vanish would only confirm their suspicions…" Paine remarked to the three before continuing with his tale. "After that, random people start disappearing late at night. Usually one at a time but we do occasionally have two to three folks going missing. Only just a few nights ago, we had a retail assistant by the name of Ian Chester go missing. His co-worker Steven Hartnell who is the last man to see him and currently viewed as a suspect by the police."

"I hear people claim to have sighted unknown and unidentified objects roaming at night." Sally brought that up to Paine. "Is there any truth to it?"

"I've heard about it but no one could ever verify it. No pictures or video and it all started with a guy who was drunk one night. Are you familiar with the concept of suggestibility?"

"You suggest something like an apple pie to someone and they start thinking about it even subconsciously; influencing their thoughts in effect. Based on your question, it appears other people started believing they're also seeing these metallic objects at night because of one man."

"Half-correct and half-wrong. No one could verify the claims because those who can are either the abducted victims themselves, don't live to tell the story or could never get a good look at these things stalking in the night. Plus it's also because of the robotic security sentries roaming around the premises of the yet to be opened Reactive Factory at night and people conflating the two together."

"And what about the factory? I heard it's supposed to be state of the art, uses water for fuel and is supposed to boost the local economy."

"Besides the factory being rebuilt from the ashes of the old factory that Robotnik owned? I've never been to the site and I have tried going to it before opening week but security is really restrictive there. You can't go there unless you have authorized clearance from R.I.D.I and I'm not high up enough to get the okay. I also overheard a supposed rumor that there's a hidden passage to it over at Regal Ruins though I can't verify the claim."

"What of Doctor Tarek Mengele? What do you know of him?"

"All I know is that he was with Boris when he started his whole restoration campaign, he's not a very public person, works for the R.I.D.I and is a scientist from the Great War. Not even a medical record in the system that I could locate. A real mysterious fella he is." The unofficial reporter admitted. "Though, I think he might be secretly supportive towards our cause because some of the real juicy inside info we get tends to indirectly come from him."

'Looks like there's more to Tarek than meets the eye…'Sally took a chance by asking the man an important question of hers'. "By any chance you heard anything concerning Lindsey 'Honey Bunny' Yardley being on the island? She has committed three homicides in relation to a recent theft of government property and we had one of our own left hospitalized by her the night before."

Paine nodded with a knowing gaze. "In fact, I do and suspect that's why you accepted the invitation to come here."

"We came here because we had tracked her movements to this island but lost track of her and are looking for information regarding her whereabouts plus who her client is. What can you tell us?"

"I know a call from this city was made to her a while back because someone happened to intercept the call through means I can't disclose and an unmarked helicopter flew in last night. Another call was also intercepted and this one was to a Doctor Lew Kitching. We don't know who he is other than that Boris apparently knows this guy." Paine sets down a USB stick and slides it over to Sally who pockets it. "The calls and other pieces of info relating to what you're looking for are all on that stick."

With the name drop of Doctor Lew Kitching, Sally is putting it all together. "Anything else?"

"According to an insider of mine, a human woman with a description matching that of Lindsey's was sighted the night prior. Based on what they told me, her and her gang were coming from the outskirts of Radical City around last night."

"So, them good for nothin' bandits have come here and there is that closed-up hanger we saw at the airfield…" Bunnie mused to Manic and Sally before asking Paine. "What would be out around the outskirts?"

"Now that you're asking me that… With what they told me, they would have to be seen coming from the east side of the island which is where Tarek's house would be located just outside of Radical City." Paine's response while he held up his glass had Sally putting two and two together since Regal Ruins is over the east of Resort Island.

As she was in the middle of her musing, she'd notice a red dot on the side of Paine's head. "You know what? Let me call up one of my agents and they can—"

The sound of a window shattering quickly followed by the sounds of glass breaking shot through the volume of the music playing and the screams of nearby club goers rang out when they realized what had just happened before blossoming into a storm of panic.

In a split moment, Manic had seen the half-filled glass in Paine's hand explode and splatters of blood going everywhere before their once-lively informant slumped to the side in his chair. His life extinguished right before their eyes.

Sally snapped her gaze to the broken window, seeing the assassin dressed in the red waterproof suit she saw from earlier jumping off the basket crane. Bunnie's ears could pick up the sounds of two rockets roaring to life and quickly twists the silver wrist bracelet on the left arm that made her nanites form around her legs to cast them both in a metallic sheen; appearing as a pair of metal legs not too dissimilar to the ones from her half-cyborg days.

"Hang on!" Bunnie grabs both Sally and Manic before the jets under her feet fire up to surge forwards out of the empty window. Making it down to the streets below to chase after the gunman who was quickly speeding off from the area in a set of rocket shoes.

"Calling all teams: We're pursuing an assassin down at Sunshine Street!"Sally's urgent voice rang through Sonic's comms with his group listening to the call. "We have a shooter on the run!"

"Where's Sunshine Street at?" Sonic looked at Gadget who quickly pulled up a holomap of Sunshine Street on his comm watch and showed the three dots on it belonging to Sally's team. All from their communicators.

"A few minutes from Takeshi Hotel." The wolf points to the three dots moving on the map. "Assuming the assassin doesn't take any diversion routes or shortcuts, they're heading towards the main roads in roughly three minutes."

"Thanks for the tip!" Sonic said before speeding off. Knowing where to head to.

Knuckles and Gadget both followed suit. The red wolf uses his grappling hook watch to travel quicker than on foot. The red echidna on the other hand uses a nearby sloped surface in the form of a parked car hauler truck set on a curb to quickly get himself some height up in the air and start gliding to keep pace with Gadget's movements.

"...I repeat, we're pursuing an assassin down at Sunshine Street!"

After receiving her call, Tails looked at his two teammates. "Let's go and—"

"AHHH!"

They hear a loud scream coming down the road and the trio all snapped their attention to that one with Tails immediately changing his mind as they hurried after the source. "Nevermind that, someone's in trouble!"

The assassin rocketed down the streets of Radical City, speedily skating through the middle of the road while occasionally swerving in and out of the sidewalks. Trying to use the incoming cars and obstacles on the paths to shake off or lure the pursuing Bunnie into the hazards but she easily evaded his impromptu traps with superior maneuvering skills.

When using the environments against her didn't work and sighting a turn leading to a gap between two buildings with a nearby street lamp lamp up ahead his route, he pulls out a smoke grenade to toss it behind himself as a smokescreen to obscure his next move. Nearing the lamppost, he reached out an arm to grab onto it before swinging him around to face the sharp turn and quickly head through the alleyway to emerge at the other side that led to another street.

Believing he had lost the southerner to the smoke, he kept going on his way. Feeling confident until he heard a whooshing rapidly heading towards him and instinctively reached for his custom-built rifle disguised like a piece of cleaning equipment with a strap on it to swing the barrel over in the direction of the sound before wildly firing off his weapon.

A blue streak zips around the barrage of bullets and quickly draws near the assassin til it comes up alongside him in the form of a smirking Sonic. "You shoot slower than a toddler learning to crawl!"

He immediately pulled back when the assassin adjusted his aim and fired off a few rounds at where the hedgehog was. Sonic charged at the gunman from the back but the human catches him by surprise as he suddenly shifts to the left and smacks the hedgehog with the butt of his rifle that sends him stumbling into a blue mailbox on a street corner that stopped his momentum; the impact knocking it onto its' side.

He's had his odd moments of botches but getting surprised like that by some random goon made him feel more peeved than it should and he hurriedly lifts the metal mailbox back to its' feet with one side having a Sonic-shaped dent on it before resuming his chase. Wanting to pay the assassin back for making him look like a fool.

Quickly reaching the much more quiet part of the suburban area that they heard the scream from, the hud UI in Shortfuse's helmet picked up some movement and the squirrel sped off to chase the unknown movements to an alleyway. Able to sight both the owner of the scream and their abductor through his night vision lens. A limp blue fox being carried by a stocky figure with a metallic surface that has light reflecting off it.

The squirrel deploys one of his blasters to shoot a laser at the abductor, blasting through the left shoulder connected to the arm carrying the blue fox and said shoulder exploding to pieces which caused their unconscious catch to be dropped to the tarmac.

When the silver robotic abductor realizes what happened, Shortfuse would tackle the robot into an alleyway wall and lay into them.

Tails would arrive a moment later to see the commotion and the blue fox on the ground whom he hurried over to. Finding him alive but asleep, likely drugged by the robot. Then he did a Tail Swipe at the blasted off three-digit claw arm when it tried to attack him and knock it to pieces.

"Leave him to me." Miraju said to Tails, coming over and lifting up the blue fox into his arms. "Just keep that thing away from him."

Tails nodded and went to assist Shortfuse against the silver robot that's got a head shaped like a bluejay bird. The robot extended both their legs like a flamingo to boot Shortfuse off it. What struck Tails is how familiar this robot looked as though he's seen a design like it somewhere before.

As the gunman headed up to a turn in his path, he would meet Knuckles who lands ahead of him and he quickly veers right but not before having something latch onto the back of his waterproof suit. He glanced back to see Gadget trailing behind him and reeling himself to close the distance between them while trying to drag him back.

Having looked away for a moment, he'd turned back to see what's ahead just as he comes to a flight of steps with a handle rail in the middle leading downwards and having a split-second to angle himself for it right before heading down. Semi-gliding over the edges.

Gadget had a second to act quick and got on the handle rail, grinding along it like a pro. Jumping off at the end shortly after his source of momentum made it to the bottom. Reeling himself right over to his suspect's back and grabbing onto him, trying to wrestle the man to the ground while trying to not get scraped on the tarmac himself.

The assassin struggled with the red wolf, causing his lines to go all wonky in an unpredictable pattern while trying to continue his momentum, slowing him enough to allow Knuckles time to glide over to get ahead of the man. Coming over to a shopping district.

Once he's in the lead, he drops down like before in front of the rocketeer who just knocked Gadget off his back and strikes the man to halt his momentum but the knockback paired with the boots' strong propulsions instead sends the assassin rocketing upwards like a man heading to the moon.

His hang time wouldn't last for long before Sonic comes in with a Homing Attack like a heat-seeking rocket that sends the gunman crashing through a store window belonging to a tailor shop followed by him going through three more stores. Glass shattering, wood splintered, plaster disintegrating and plenty of goods getting destroyed by the human cannonball until he comes to a stop.

The same time that happened, one of his rocket boots came off; flying right towards Gadget who just recovered from his fall. Sonic quickly pulls him away to safety and the stray rocket boot explodes upon crashing at the spot the wolf had been on. Both he and Sonic stopped a few feet from the impact site, both looking over to where a smoky charred spot lies and some burning shrapnels laying on the street tiles.

"Talk about ending a chase with a bang." Sonic quipped to Gadget, holding him up in his arms bridal style. "He should have brought a crash helmet with him, that's for sure."

"T-Thanks Sonic…" The wolf said a little bashfully with blushing cheeks, seeing the way he was being held up in the hedgehog's arms and gesturing to him to be put down. The hedgehog complies before setting down Gadget right as Bunnie arrives with Sally and Manic.

"Hey, don't sweat it." Sonic gives him his signature thumbs up. Turning his attention over to the crash site.

"What happened here?" Sally asked when she saw the state of the scene.

"Our rocket man went window shopping." Sonic replied, walking over to the convenience store that the assassin had ended up in with himself, Sally and Knuckles heading over to check on him. "You guys okay?"

"All of us are fine but unfortunately our informant Paine was assassinated by that man there." Sally explained with a sigh. "I just hope our suspect is still alive to be questioned."

"If it's any use to you, I think I've seen him somewhere before. Might be one of Lindsey's men who got away from us last time."

"Assuming his face didn't get messed up in the crash thanks to your little stunt Sonic." Knuckles remarks.

The three went to the convenience store and saw the mess the assassin had made inside with a big hole on the wall he came in from. The amount of bagged items, cans and jars knocked everywhere with some jars broken on the floors alongside some broken glass and plasters decorating the crash scene. A few shelves in complete disarray. One of the freezers holding frozen veg has cracked glass on the door's display window caused by a sealed can of beans.

An employee working at the counter would peek his head over the counter to see a blue hedgehog, a red echidna and a brown chipmunk surveying the scene. He'd look over to find a heavily bruised up and dusty man with some cuts on him plus a horribly mangled leg attached to a rocket shoe whose thrust engine peters out due to damage from collision. The store worker thought he was dead but then sees he's unluckily very much alive and groaning in severe pain.

Sally pulled up her wristwatch device to pull up some mugshots before finding one matching their injured suspect. "You're right, Sonic. He's one of her people alright."

"Told ya I saw him somewhere before." Sonic taps his foot before looking over to find Knuckles with the awestruck store employee at the counter and the echidna holding a still-intact box of grapes under his arm while counting up his coins to match the price for the fruit. "Knux, tell him to go ring for an ambulance. Our guy definitely needs it,"

Knuckles nods, not looking up from his palm where he's counting his change and setting them down on the counter. "Do you accept this change or do you only take cards here?"

The coins he sets down in front of the amazed employee were made of gold and found from an old treasure chest he had dug up somewhere a while back. "W-We do take change here sir and uh, feel free to take the rest of the grapes if you want. It's uh… On the house."

That made the echidna smile; thinking it must be one of those lucky store promotions he came across to score a lot of merlot grapes rather than the fact he just inadvertently paid off the worker's entire student loan overnight plus more with his coins. "You are a most generous merchant. Oh and call an ambulance. There's been an accident."

"R-Right." The store employee quickly goes to phone up an emergency line. Leaving Knuckles to go back to Sonic and Sally while munching on a grape.

"I'm actually amazed he survived that crash at the speed he was going at. Good for us since he's got some answering to do." Sally admitted to Sonic, looking over at the badly bruised assassin on the floor. "Once we get him patched up, we're—"

Before she could finish that sentence, two silver robots identical to the one Tails' team are battling appear from the hole in the store's wall and one of them quickly picks up the injured assassin while the other attacks the trio. Taking their fight out into the streets.

The robot carrying the assassin headed in the other direction before encountering Bunnie, Manic and Gadget on the way out who tried to stop it from escaping at inside the secondhand media store but the stocky machine deployed smoke that quickly covered the whole place in seconds. Using the distraction to escape with their prize while the three would-be pursuers tried to figure out where their robot had gone before finding the exit and air out the smoke from the store.

Sonic, Knuckles and Sally were in the middle of battling their robotic opponent when the other three rushed in to join the action. All of them ganging on the silver stocky robot six to one. Unfair odds for their foe.

Then with a combo strike from Knuckles and Bunnie, the robot finds itself getting knocked back followed by a grapple shot from Gadget to swing the machine right into Sally's left Ring-Blade going through where its' powercore is located, deactivating the automaton. Dropping to the curb on the sidewalk once Sally pulls out her blade.

"Tails?" Sally calls up on her device with sounds of sirens in the distance. "What's your status?"

"Status: Good. We had just rescued a civilian and took out a robot trying to abduct him." Tails reported, holding up the head of the silver robot near their battered body and examining it in his hand. "You won't believe it but this robot looks like the RBX-D05 Megabot we had encountered from years ago except it's silver instead of purple with green highlights."

"It just so happens that we fought the same model on our end as you did."Sally told him on the comm. "I'm rather surprised to see this particular Badnik design again."

"Me too." The fox admitted, taking the decapitated Silver Megabot head with him for further examination as he goes to check on Miraju and the blue fox. "Unless this is a stolen design, I think it's clear what we're dealing with here."

"...The other one gave us the slip and got away." Manic told Sonic when he asked about the other robot and let out a sigh. "Sorry."

"They could have just simply killed the assassin." Knuckles questioned, kicking the side of the deactivated silver robot while eating his fruit. "Stop him from talking."

"I'm curious about that one too." Bunnie was equally puzzled at that one.

Gadget held his chin before quietly speaking up. "...Maybe they had to take him alive because if we took him in, they can't deny they are harboring Lindsey and her gang of thieves. They'd have to admit to conspiracy to steal a top secret project."

"That's what I think anyway…" The wolf mumbled, averting his gaze from his peers. A little bashful.

"That would make the most sense based on what we saw." Bunnie said, looking over the robot. "Sugarhog, you said you've seen this one before."

"Megabot. I remember fighting the original in Station Square once. Don't recall if it got destroyed or not." Sonic slowly nods. "This has to be one of Eggman's."

"Or one of Grimer's. He can build robots as good as his'. We haven't heard from him in a while."

"If you can get him home or bring him back with us, we could ask him questions when he comes around."Sally told Tails and Miraju. The latter having the blue fox over his shoulder.

"If me and Manic could hack into this head or its' blackbox, we might know where they're taking their missing off to." Tails looks at the silver Megabot's head. "I just need a laptop and so—"

"Hey, this thing's beeping here!" Shortfuse called out to Tails when he started hearing something from the Megabot. The fox hears two beeping sounds. One from the body and one from the head.

Tails' eyes widened and went to his comms. "Sally! Is your robot making a sound over there by any chance!?"

"As a matter of fact, it is..." Sally looks over to the silver Megabot on the street and hearing a beeping coming from it, it all dawning on her before frantically ordering the fox while the beeping grows faster. "Throw those things away and hurry!"

Tails nodded and flew up to hurl the head somewhere away from the suburban area into a patch of grassy land with Shortfuse following suit. The beeping going faster and faster with each passing second.

Knuckles looked at Sally in confusion. "What's go—"

"It's set to self-destruct!"

Not needing to know anymore than that; the echidna grabs the robot and swings it around before throwing it up high in the air with all of his strength, flying well above the buildings in the area.

A few seconds later while it descended from the highest peak, the Megabot harmlessly exploded in a big ball of fire above the buildings. Letting a loud bang that could be heard from afar including the paramedics and police who just arrived in the district.

When Tails' Megabot went off, it disturbed the entire Suburb Alley Street neighborhood with how loud the explosion was to add salt to injury on the fact any secrets the robot could have held perished in the blast.

Tails beckons Miraju and Shortfuse to hurry on out of the area before they'd meet the wrath of a crowd woken up in the middle of their sleep.

"Oh, that's justgreat…" Knuckles kick away a piece of pebble in annoyance. "We're coming up real empty-handed here with nothing to show for it."

"If it helps, our guy told us enough to give us a lead to work with." Manic assures the echidna.

His half-brother Sonic sighs to himself, sharing Knuckles' sentiments on the loss of their lead. Standing with Sally and Gadget as they inspect the spot the stray rocket boot crashed on while the police closed off the whole area.

"Yeah but we don't have any hard evidence to prove Boris' in on this." Sonic added, the blue hedgehog crossing his arms. "They'll turn around and say we caused this mess. You said it yourself that they can cover this one up and we know we can't trust the police around here."

"I don't know if Boris actually has anything to do with this." Sally tells Sonic, voicing her doubts at Boris being the culprit. "Unless he's really smart, calculated and has an airtight alibi, he wouldn't dare pull a stunt like this when we're here. It's like someone trying to kill you at a birthday party and not expect to be questioned on where they were when the attempt was made."

"You believe it's all an elaborate scheme?" Gadget asked curiously. Sally nodded in response.

"Whoever assigned him the task of killing Paine couldn't get near him themselves and used us to get to him instead, knowing full well he'd speak with us…" Sally looked inside her vest, seeing the USB stick that the late Paine gave her before closing up her vest again and thinking of what he had told her. "What happened just now didn't happen without rhyme or reason. We'll speak more on this when we get back to the hotel…"

Reactive Factory, Resort Island

Night

Under the hi-tech factory lies a hidden underground laboratory where the real scientific experiments take place off the records. In one of the infirmary rooms, the injured assassin lies on a bed hooked up to a machine injecting him with drugs to ease the pain and moaning in agony. A few people stood over him.

"If I knew he wasn't up to the task, I wouldn't have assigned him to do the job nor would I have to act hastily thanks to your own mistake back at Westopolis but nevertheless; your man did what he needed to do." Doctor Tarek Mengele said to Lindsey in a neutral tone. Looking down at the injured man on the table like a dissected frog.

"Why didn't you just kill Paine much earlier if he was that much of a nuisance?" The red haired woman crossed her arms with Jason, Butch and one other goon at her side. "Guy was airing out your Mayor's dirty laundry."

"Information that was provided to him by me and to answer your question; it's because he was a pawn who played his part accordingly until his use ran out. Everyone focuses on what's right in front of their sights and not what goes on behind the red curtain. They think there's a conspiracy to suppress the truth about the administration and Paine was killed because he got too close to the root of the corruption." Tarek responded calmly, wagging his index finger at her and Jason. "The press is a rather powerful weapon if you know how to use it properly and implant suggestions to the public."

"Eh, I'd just point a gun in some brat's face and tell them to do as I say or see what color their own brains look like." Lindsey shrugs. "So what now?"

"Since they now know that you're here, I suggest you and what's left of your crew hang around here for the time being. They'll be assuming that you're the hired guns of Boris Speechley who's secretly working for the Eggman Empire." The jackal tells her. "Wait at least until we're ready to leave tomorrow."

"Why not do it tonight?"

"I have a few remaining matters I must tend to before we can depart here. My time here on Resort Island is coming at an end." The scientist said vaguely. "What you're seeing here is merely preparations for the real science experiment I'll be undertaking elsewhere once I bid my farewells."

A smiling green lanky reptilian wearing a white lab coat with black hair shaped like a spider and some whiskers on his chin would approach Tarek in a weedy voice. "I need a suitable subject for a project I'm doing and I was supposed to get a new specimen tonight but the Darknik assigned to the job failed to return with one from Suburb Alley Street."

"Is the project that important for you Mister Wormtongue that you must have one livestock for it now rather than wait until later?"

"I just need something alive to test out one of my designs. A proof of concept."

"Then take this one. He's served up his use." Tarek gestured to the injured assassin on the table. "Unless his boss here objects."

"Nah, you can do whatever you want with him. Guys like him are expendable and I can recruit replacements anyways. Knock yourself out." Lindsey's indifferent callousness shocked all of her minions barring Jason who doesn't take much issue with what she just said. "I got no use for a cripple in my gang."

Tarek turned to Wormtongue. "You may take Cain with you. I expect he'll be of much better use to you now."

Wormtongue nodded with a grin. Disconnecting the unit next to the bed and happily haul away the weakly protesting Cain out of the infirmary to become his newest guinea pig for his latest project.

"I underestimated your ruthless nature Miss Yardley." The jackal said to the redhead with wry amusement in his voice. "Perhaps you are what I needed for this job after all."

"Pay me well and I'll go bomb an entire Chao Garden if that's what you want me to do." Lindsey chuckled with a smirk. "It's a dog eat dog world and I like to be the one doing the eating. This girl will do what it takes to climb up the ladder in a man's world."

"That much is very evident with your own history of violence and it does speak volumes about your partner here for him to actually love a woman like you. Takes one to love one and love is evidently a blind creature." The scientist remarked coolly. "I'll see you and your crew tomorrow. Goodnight."

The jackal would head off for the night, leaving the four humans alone in the infirmary.

Butch knew Lindsey was ruthless when he first joined up with her but he underestimated how ruthless she actually is and wondered how long he has left until she decides to throw him to the saws. She certainly didn't hesitate to kill Doctor James R. Kirk, an unarmed scientist point blank in the head in cold blood, the way she treated that poor hedgehog after capping her and the people she's murdered paints a portrait of a psychopath who traded compassion for profits.

He wonders how much more can he take with her before he stops playing his role as a henchman and starts taking action against her...

Author's Notes:The silver Megabots seen in the story is based on the Toy Island RBX-D05 figure of the Sonic X Megabot build-a-figure series which of itself is based on Badnik only seen briefly in Sonic X's very first pilot when the show was planned to be set on Mobius/Sonic's World rather than Earth like the eventual series. Said figure being highly sought-after on the secondary market.

More mysteries come to light, the case of the stolen cold fusion project still yet to have a discernible motive or what it's exactly stolen for and good ol' character-focused scenes including our favorite two-tailed fox.

I'll see you another time and be sure to leave a review. Aidos readers.