Hey! This is just a short one. Hope you enjoy.
See chapter one for the disclaimer.
In hindsight Tom should have realised that bringing Knuckles with him on his speed-camera watching was a bad idea. True there was hardly any offenders but when they did offend Tom normally give them a ticket with little to no issues. They were mainly people who had just let their speed creep up a little bit and were mortified. Like the older women they'd stopped today.
It was a 60. She was doing 68. Anything more than 10% of the speed limit and Tom had to go after them and give them a ticket. Knuckles was quite excited by this, rubbing his hands together and saying, with evident glee. "Finally, we can pursue the breakers of the law!"
"We're just giving them a ticket, Buddy. We're not arresting them."
As soon as Tom had gotten the women to pull over, Knuckles got out the car before Tom could stop him and was confidently striding over to the lady's car.
Swearing under his breath Tom undid his seatbelt and hurried after him. By now the echidna was level with the window, saying. "Old women. Lower your window so I may give you the ticket of fines!"
The old lady looked alarmed - as was within her rights, given the circumstances - and Tom put a hand on Knuckles shoulder, giving the lady what he hoped was a reassuring smile. "It's alright, he's with me." He said, before realising that probably didn't help.
The lady was still refusing to put her window down, so Tom sent Knuckles back to the car before talking to the women himself. She put the window down and looked at him with a terrified expression. "What was that?" She asked.
Tom waved a hand. "Nothing you need to be concerned about. Now, I'm willing to let you off the ticket this time-" He said, hoping that this would stop her launching a formal complaint about aliens. "-But you must promise not to speed again."
The women nodded - clearly keen to leave - and sped off. The irony was not lost on Tom, but he had bigger things to worry about. Namely Knuckles. "Ok, we can't do this anymore." Tom said to the young alien.
"Why not?"
"Because you're an alien and people may be scared of you."
"As they should be. I have the strength to destroy this town if needs be."
Tom took a deep breath and counted to ten. "No, what I mean is that they might be so scared of you that they will report us to the authorities."
"That does not matter. We have the chief of army on our side."
Tom briefly didn't know who he was talking about - until he realised the echidna was talking about Commander Walters. "That's true." Tom admitted. "But we don't want to risk it."
Knuckles looked up at him, clearly not getting it, but thankfully didn't argue. Tom sighed and clapped him on the back. "C'mon Buddy. Let's get back."