"So you're from another planet?" Ms. White asked, resting her chin on her hand, gazing at me from across the table, "That's amazing."

"I don't know if I'd call it 'amazing,'" I replied sheepishly, looking back at my cards to remember what I had.

"Quit distracting him Virginia," Mr. Green reprimanded playfully, sitting back down with another drink in hand.

"I'm sorry, it's just not every day you get to meet someone from another planet!" She exclaimed, nudging the badger a bit. "Haven't you had enough to drink?"

"Why bother asking, you know he'll just say 'no,'" Professor Plum teased, crossing his legs and leaning back. He had shed his jacket, draping it over the back of his chair and rolling up the sleeves of his white dress shirt. "And I have to agree," He continued, turning his attention back to me, "I find your story most intriguing. Tell me, what is your planet like?"

"Um... less technologically advanced than this one, I guess...?" I looked over at Sonic for some help, but all he offered me was a shrug.

"Don't look at me, I've never been to your world bud," He said, laughing a bit, "You're on your own here."

"Um... no flying cars for one..." I looked up for a moment, "Our phones aren't made of glass... we use paper money-"

"What?" Ms. White looked shocked, "What happens if you lose it?"

"If you have paper money? Oh, it's gone," I reply, "You can put it in a bank so it's digitally on a card, but it's all based off the physical, actual money you earn."

"That's bizarre..." The wolf shook her head.

"So your economy is based on the scarcity of your currency?" Mr. Green asked.

"Well I mean, I wouldn't call it scarce..." I shrugged.

"Well no, I would hope not," The badger chuckled a bit, "I meant to say that your currency has value because there's a limited amount of it."

"Oh, yes, that's... at least I think that's how it works," I tried to recall my high school economics classes.

"Oh come now, he doesn't want to talk about his economy," Col. Mustard playfully chastised the others, "Tell us about you, your family!" I felt a familiar twist in my gut.

"There's... not much to talk about," I tried to laugh a bit. "Just my mom, dad, little brother and I."

"Do you miss them...?" The Colonel asked, lowering his voice a bit. Everyone at the table looked up at me, various degrees of sadness or sympathy on their faces. I nodded a bit. "Well then, when I win this game, I'll make sure the Chaos Emerald goes to you."

"When you win," Ms. White laughed a bit, "Excuse me, I think you mean when I win, I'll be giving him the Chaos Emerald!"

"Whoever wins," Plum cut in, a grin on his face from his friends' antics, "I'm sure they'll be more than happy to give the Emerald to you."

"Quite right," Mr. Boddy nodded, looking over at me and Sonic. "Had I known I had a Chaos Emerald in my possession, I would have contacted you immediately."

"It's fine Mr. Boddy," Sonic nodded, "Right now... you should all be worried about the two newbies beating all of you," He smirked, flipping over his cards. "Full house." The table went a little crazy, whooping and clapping, before looking at Professor Plum. The fox crossed his arms, leaning back in his chair, and huffing... before grinning mischievously and flipping his cards over.

"Four of a kind," He crooned. Everyone erupted into cheers and laughter as Plum fanned himself with his two cards. Sonic rolled his eyes, smirking. I quickly looked around the table... everyone was so happy, got along so well. No one seemed to be faking it. Did someone here really want to kill Mr. Boddy? Or was it someone else...? My mind wandered to the person Sonic replaced at the table.

"So, can I ask a question?" I asked once everyone had calmed down. "Why isn't Rush here?"

"I think he had a show tonight, didn't he?" Ms. White asked, looking over at Mr. Boddy. The old dog nodded.

"Quite a few actually," Mr. Boddy said, "He's recording a special."

"Oh, good for him!" Ms. White nodded, starting to deal out the cards, "After the year he's had, he deserves some good going his way."

"Year he's had?" Sonic asked, peeking at his cards.

"He was contracted with me last year," Mr. Boddy explained, regret creeping in his voice, "But Casinopolis fell onto some hard times... And my casino saw the worst of it. This place has been around since Casinopolis' inception, the younger generation seems more interested in the newer, flashier places. We had to let many, many people go here... including Rush. He and I tried our best to renegotiate his contract, but in the end, there just wasn't enough in the budget to afford him."

"He wouldn't accept your offer?" I asked.

"No no," Boddy said, "He wanted to, he truly did. But he needed more than I could afford to continue to develop his magic and come up with future shows."

"The Voleur casino snatched him up pretty quickly, and he's... doing ok," Mr. Green continued, "More shows, smaller stage... he's..." The badger sighed. "...We miss him..."

"You all seem close..." I remarked.

"He always had a way of making us smile," Plum chuckled quietly, leaning back in his chair. A somber silence fell over the table.

"But, this story has a silver lining," Mr. Boddy said with a smile, "Rush's contract with Voleur is almost up, and I've made enough to pay him more than double what I was before."

"That's wonderful news John!" Col. Mustard exclaimed, "Have you let him know yet?"

"I can't tell him," Boddy sighed, "His contract prohibits any sort of contract discussions with any other casino owners... you know how Voleur is."

"Slimy little weasels, aren't they..." Prof. Plum grumbled, shaking his head. The others began commenting, but the conversation faded into the background as I looked over at Sonic. He had this... intense look on his face. He was staring at the table, tapping it softly with his finger... I could see the gears in his head turning... I gently touched his arm. He looked over at me.

"...you ok?" I asked quietly. He almost didn't seem to hear me, just staring at me as he nodded.

"...Hey, Mr. Boddy?" He finally said after a few minutes, "Sorry to interrupt, but... do you think we could break for a while?"

"Of course, it's about that time... is everything alright?" The dog asked, watching Sonic stand.

"Mhmmm," Sonic nodded, "I'm just feeling a bit cooped up, gotta stretch my legs," Sonic smiled cordially. "I won't need long."

"Well, you have an hour, I hope that's enough time," Boddy said, standing as well, looking a bit worried. Sonic nodded.

"That'll be perfect," He replied, moving to the door and looking back at me. I quickly stood, doing an odd nod/curtsy combo to everyone at the table, and hurrying after the hedgehog. Sonic was walking quickly through the casino, making his way back towards the entrance. He kept looking back at me, making sure I was with him, that same intense look on his face. I looked up at him worriedly...

"Sonic...?" I probed. He looked back at me and, probably after seeing my expression, relaxed a bit.

"Sorry bud, did I worry ya?" He asked, stopping to let me catch up.

"A little..." I answered, moving to his side, "What's going on?"

"I just do my best thinking on my feet," He said, "That room was getting a bit stuffy."

"You're thinking Rush is somehow involved?" I asked, "You got all... weird when they brought him up." Sonic closed his eyes, untying his bow tie and unbuttoning the top button of his white shirt.

"...let's get outside. I'll let you know what I'm thinking on the way," He said, starting to walk forward again, this time making sure I was at his side.

"...wait, on the way where?" I asked.

"Any fast food joint," Sonic said, holding his stomach, "I need some actual food..."

No more than ten minutes later, Sonic was wolfing down a chili dog, looking like he hadn't eaten in days. I waited patiently for him to get to a point where he could speak.

"I don't think anyone wants to kill Mr. Boddy," He said around a mouthful of food, wiping his mouth with his sleeve.

"Oh?" I handed him a napkin.

"Think about it," Sonic said, swallowing, "All of these machines set up, and so far, all of them have been built with fake weapons, or put in places where they'd be totally ineffective."

"Yeah, it's weird..." I said, "Are you thinking all the prop weapons are from the magician?"

"Exactly. The knives for example probably came from a knife throwing act," Sonic said, pulling his phone out from behind him. He tapped on it a few times, "But there's a problem..."

"Which is?"

"He's filming a special, remember?" He said, bringing the phone up to his ear, "Which means he might have an alibi."

"That better be an impressive alibi," I said, "We've been playing for hours, and setting all those traps up before the game must have taken a good chunk of time..."

"Yeah..." Sonic mumbled, more to himself than to me, before talking to his phone. "Knuckles, where have you been?" I sat up a bit straighter... it'd been a while since we'd heard from the Echidna. Sonic glanced up at me, before setting his phone down and tapping something on it. "You're on speaker Knux, I got Josh here."

"Hey Josh! Doing ok?" Knuckles voice rang out through the phone... almost sounded like he was in the room with us.

"Hey, you... sound like you're doing ok!" I replied. I fully expected Knuckles to be a drunk mess when we finally got ahold of him, but he sounded totally sober. More than that, he sounded elated!

"You'll never guess who I've found!" He almost yelled out, "Rush, the magician! THE Rush!" Sonic and I looked up at each other almost immediately.

"Knux, are you at the Voleur?" Sonic asked, bringing the phone a bit closer to us.

"Uh... yeah, I think so, after I lost you guys in the crowd I just kinda walked into a place..." He was quiet for a few seconds before he spoke again, "Yeah, yeah, Voleur... I wasn't really paying attention, I've just kinda been following Rush around."

"Didn't know you were such a big fan of magic," I said, resting my chin on my fist.

"You get bored guarding the Master Emerald sometimes," Knuckles explained, "He does a lot of cool 'Pay It Forward Pranks' he calls them, he'll use magic to prank someone in a fun way, like they'll pull a leaf off a tree and it turns into money."

"...not much of the killing type, is he?" I replied, feeling myself slump a bit.

"Killing type?" Knuckles repeated, sounding a bit shocked, "Sonic, what the hell have you gotten into?"

"Do you know how long Rush has been there Knux?" Sonic asked, ignoring the question. Knuckles thought for a moment.

"...Well, at least since I've been here... according to his Caro, he's been here... pretty much all day, rehearsing and doing some live streams..."

"Caro?" I asked, looking up at Sonic. The hedgehog picked up his phone and tapped on it a few times while Knuckles explained.

"Caro is a big social media site here," He said, "People can post photos, videos, status updates..." Sonic set the phone down again as the app's logo popped up, a white outline of a carousel. After a brief pause, a light blue background filled the screen, and three rows of white, rounded squares popped up, each one filled with a small thumbnail of a video or photo or a preview of a status update.

"Each of these is a person's feed," Sonic said, pointing to one of the rows, specifically pointing to a smaller, profile picture right above the feed, and a name right above that, " TheTinkerFox." Sonic dragged his finger along the row, cycling through the feed, like little blocky horses on a merry-go-round. Images of little metal inventions, some video thumbnails of a plane, lots of little snippets of text posts talking about some mechanic technique or another.

"Is that Tails'?" I asked, staring at the feed. Sonic smiled and nodded.

"Caro is probably the most popular social media app on Mobius," Sonic said, dragging his finger up to show more feeds, before picking it up and typing on it for a moment. He set it back down after a few seconds. "Here, this one's Rush's."

He tapped the profile picture, and squares grew, one blowing up a little more than the others, taking up the majority of the screen. He swiped backwards through the feed quickly, slowing down as he came to a text post. He pointed to a small line of text at the bottom right hand corner. "This is his first post today, early this morning."

"'Getting ready for my special, can't believe this is happening,'" I read aloud, "'#soexcited, #ALittleBlackMagic, #soti...' wait, 'soti?'"

"S-O-T-I, it means 'Screaming On The Inside,'" Knuckles explained.

"The rest is just hashtags," Sonic said, already scrolling forward to the next post, a selfie the magician took. He was a yellow bat with a triangular black marks above and below each of his eyes. He had at least four piercings in one ear, and a couple of bars in the other, snake bite lip piercings... His tongue was out, a stud embedded in it, and he held up a hand adorned with a black, fingerless glove in a "rock on" sign. His eyes were a piercing red, giving him a punk rock, almost intimidating sort of look.

"This is... not who I had in mind when I thought 'Vegas magician...'" I said, handing Sonic's phone back to him.

"Oh, I've seen this guy, he's the one who jumped into that volcano, right?" Sonic asked.

"Yeah, he pulls off all sorts of crazy stunts every year!" Knuckles gushed.

"Oh, so he's your version of Criss Angel, ok."

"Knux, uh, how popular is this guy?" Sonic asked, scratching the back of his head.

"I mean, you've at least seen him, so pretty popular," Knuckles replied. Sonic shrugged.

"Fair," Sonic nodded, "Alright Knux, we're at the Carnival Nights Casino, can you meet us over there ASAP?"

"Aw, he's gonna come out and sign autographs though!" Knuckles whined.

"You're going to see him soon?" Sonic asked, "Ok, just... hang on for a second," Sonic tapped a button, muting the phone on our end so Knuckles couldn't hear us.

"What's up?" I asked.

"Blitz couldn't have done it... even if he had time, he's too recognizable," Sonic said, crossing his arms on the table, "But someone close to him probably could have,"

"Someone close to him?" I tilted my head.

"Someone who could borrow Rush's equipment without him batting an eye," Sonic nodded.

"...When we ran that facial scan on Blitz, Rush's name came up," I recalled. Sonic nodded, looking at the phone again.

"There's definitely a resemblance..." He said replied, leaning forward.

"...You think Blitz is Rush's-"

"It fits, don't you think?" Sonic leaned toward me as well. "Mr. Boddy hired Blitz, he probably hired Rush to work at Carnival Nights as a normal employee, he can move around the hotel unnoticed, going into rooms with equipment-"

"That he could easily borrow from Blitz-"

"And he probably knows how to set most of it up since he's probably helped Blitz so many times-"

"He might be angry at Mr. Boddy for dropping his brother from the casino, and wants revenge!" I grinned, "We found the killer! ...Well, 'killer.'" I said, making air quotes. Sonic frowned and leaned back.

"Yeah, that's where this gets confusing... What's he trying to do if he doesn't want to kill him?" Sonic asked.

"Maybe it's a threat or a message?" I suggested.

"Pretty lousy message, don't you think?" Sonic asked, before laughing. "It's more obvious to us than it is to Rush's target." I laughed a bit as well before I felt something snap into place in my head.

"He made it more obvious to us," I repeated, "What if... what if that's the point? What if all of this isn't meant for Boddy?" Sonic sat back up.

"You got an idea bud?" He asked.

"Sort of," I admitted, "It's pretty half-baked right now, but what if... what if the Chaotix were the target?"

"...What are you thinking?" Sonic asked, scooting forward in his seat. I took a deep breath, gathering up my thoughts a bit.

"Ok... Rush goes up to the Chaotix with a poster of the poker game, probably knowing they associate with you, telling them one of the prizes is a Chaos Emerald. They'll want to observe the game or try to get one of them in it so they can either win or bribe the winner to give it to them, and while they're researching and getting ready, they find out one of the players isn't who they say they are,"

"They find out Scarlet is there because she got a note saying that Mr. Boddy was going to be killed," Sonic nodded, "It makes the threat seem more credible than if Rush just told them."

"That's when they discover the 'death traps,'" I did air quotes again, "Starting a wild goose chase through the hotel, disabling each one in case one of them might turn out to be a real threat."

"I mean, it's crazy," Sonic said, to which I nodded, "But it... kinda makes a weird amount of sense. He's trying to keep the Chaotix busy by having them run around the hotel. But why?" He scrunched his face a bit, "Why go through all that trouble?"

"...That's where I'm stumped," I admitted, "This probably isn't the answer, I'm just spitballing-"

"No no no, you're on the right track," Sonic said, "Your Creepy Senses didn't go off when you saw everyone in the room, or when you saw Blitz." I sat up. "Only other lead we have is Rush so-"

"Wait, how do you know when my Creepy Senses go off?" I asked.

"You tense up a bit when you get them," Sonic explained, "It's a little obvious."

"Literally only my parents and Jacob were able to see when I had my Creeped Out moments."

"Really?" Sonic sounded almost shocked, frowning slightly. "...well, anyway, you weren't Creeped Out."

Now... let me be real here for a second... finding out Sonic noticed when I was feeling Creepy... felt... odd. Not bad... just... I don't know. Odd.

"...Well..." I shook the feeling off, "You also remember that my Creepy Senses don't work 100% of the time, they could have just... misfired."

"Nah," Sonic waved a hand, "You gotta have more faith in yourself dude." I felt myself almost blush... And, almost by accident, a time I felt Creeped Out today popped up in my head. Sonic smiled, leaning forward. "You just thought of something."

"...When we first went up to the 13th floor, Blitz found me... I felt Creeped Out right before," I said quietly. Sonic clapped and pointed at me.

"See, you had a feeling about Blitz from the very beginning," He said excitedly, a wide grin on his face, "You KNEW it and you didn't even know you knew it!"

"Sonic..." I felt a bit embarrassed... but I couldn't deny it... the praise and affirmation was nice. "Ok, moving past all that, we still don't know WHY Blitz is doing this whole... song and dance... It's so elaborate..." The two of us sat quietly, mulling things over, before Sonic snapped his fingers.

"It's all a magic show!" Sonic exclaimed.

"...It is?" I asked, feeling a touch puzzled.

"Yeah yeah yeah!" Sonic nodded, looking around the table for a second before grabbing a napkin and a salt shaker. He tore off a corner of one of his chili dog wrapper and crumpled it into a small ball, draped the napkin over the salt shaker, and held the napkin covered salt shaker over the ball. "Watch the ball," He instructed, moving the salt shaker away. It was there. He moved it back over... then pulled away. It was still there... I looked back up at Sonic, at the napkin-covered shaker, the ball, and back at Sonic.

"...Is... there supposed to be a trick here?" I asked. He just smiled at me, before crumpling the napkin up and tossing it aside. The salt shaker had vanished! "...ok, very impressive, what are you trying to prove here?"

"While you were looking at the ball, I made the salt shaker disappear. Magicians call that 'misdirection,' making you focus on one thing while the magician secretly does something else," Sonic explained, reaching below the table, out of my view, and bringing up the salt shaker. "What if that's what's going on here?"

"...You think Blitz is making us focus on the traps while he's really planning on doing something else?" I nodded slowly, piecing together Sonic's train of thought.

"Exactly, which means we need to figure out what he's trying to distract us from seeing," Sonic finished.

"...this is crazy..." I said quietly, holding my head, "I mean, what could possibly be worth going through all this trouble, this is ridiculous!"

"He's eccentric..." Sonic agreed with a slight chuckle, "But I think most people in Mobius are, coming up with crazy plans like this isn't all that unusual. I mean, look at Egghead."

"But why though?" I asked, shaking my head. Sonic shrugged.

"Something in the water?" He joked, "What's important right now is figuring out what Blitz is up to."

"Right, well... um..." I tilted my head a bit, staring at the ball and the crumpled napkin, "...whatever Blitz is doing is probably not in the casino, every corner of the place is covered in cameras to keep people from cheating. It'd be stupid to do something there where you could be seen so easily. Do you think he's trying to do something outside of the building?"

"If he was, he wouldn't have bothered trying to distract us," Sonic said, "So it's probably something to do with the hotel."

"What could Blitz possibly want in the hotel?" I wondered, shutting my eyes.

"Hey guys?" Mighty's voice crackled through our earpieces, "Sorry for eavesdropping, but are you guys saying that our culprit isn't trying to kill Mr. Boddy?" He asked.

"I don't think so..." Sonic stood, taking his wrappers to a trash bin, "But keep looking for those little devices. They might help us know where to look."

"Espio's been keeping track of where these things have been, will that help?" Mighty asked.

"Yeah, can you read those off to us?" Sonic asked, motioning me to the door of the restaurant. We walked out onto the street as we listened to Espio's deep voice reading off room numbers.

"803, 1225, 617, 321, 620, 1109..."

"These are all over the place..." I remarked, trying to visualize the rooms in my head.

"Misdirection," Sonic repeated, "He's trying to confuse us. Espio, can you put those in order?"

"One moment..." Espio replied. After a few seconds, he began again. "105, 203, 218..." Espio continued to read off number after number... there seemed to be at least a couple little devices on every floor... "1109, 1112, 1201, 1205, 1225... And that operation Joshua found in the store on the 13th floor."

"...Wait, mine doesn't make sense," I said, looking up at Sonic.

"What do you mean?" He asked.

"Well..." I thought back to the experience in the empty store, "All those other traps have been pretty much the same, some kind of thing on a timer, unguarded, hidden in a hotel room... So why was mine different?"

"Well the boys and I were talking about how people sometimes sneak up there to do... illegal stuff," Vector said, "That might have been something entirely unrelated to this..."

"You let illegal stuff happen near your detective agency?" I asked. I could hear Vector's disappointment in himself in his voice.

"We don't let it happen, we just... aren't exactly always there when it happens," Vector explained grumbled, "And there's no good camera system up there yet, so, we can't always catch them. Even when we do, someone else just comes up later to take their place and finish their business."

"Ah." I thought for a moment, "Well, if we ignore my incident, there is a trap on every floor aside from the 13th. If we're thinking he's trying to misdirect us, does that mean he's planning to do something there?"

"I think so..." Sonic mused, crossing his arms.

"I don't see why," Mighty said, "There's nothing on our floor but our agency."

"And yet this is where this line of logic has taken us," Vector said, starting to sound a little bit like one of those cheesy detectives from old TV shows, "However improbable it may be."

"...yeah... ok, so, we are going to go up there and take a look around," Sonic said, nodding down at me, as if asking for approval. I nodded back. "We might have missed something."

"Good luck," Espio said, "We shall join you just as soon as Charmy leaves the restroom."

"...Right," Sonic said a bit uncomfortably, "See you guys."

The two of us made our way back to the casino, heading directly towards the elevators. Sonic pulled his glass phone out again, checking the time. "Hope they won't be too mad we're gonna be late."

"Shouldn't we go tell them what we're doing?" I asked.

"Not without proof. I don't know how they feel about Blitz, and I don't wanna step on any toes," Sonic pushed the elevator call button, "We'll just need to figure out what he's after and hope we're not too late." We stood quietly for a little while, watching the floor indicator above the elevator entrance slowly tick down.

"...I still don't get it... why go to all this trouble...?" I asked, "All these different little traps...?"

"...my thoughts?" Sonic shook his head a bit, "Whatever Rush is doing up on the 13th floor, it's either time consuming or something that he can only do at a certain time. Either way, he set up all these little props to make sure the Chaotix didn't go back up to their office for a while."

"...but what if they did go back up early?" I asked.

"He'd probably have something set up to stop them from ever making it up there..." He said.

"Like in the elevator?"

The two of us looked at each other.

The elevator dinged, and the doors opened. We looked inside. Sonic squared his shoulders.

"Stay behind me," He said quietly, walking in. I followed, the doors closing behind us. He gently pushed me behind his back, keeping a hand on my arm, as he started the lift in motion. I held my breath, watching the floor numbers climb...

10...

11...

12...

13...

I felt Sonic push me behind him just a bit more, spreading his legs to get in a 'ready' position.

The elevator settled.

And then it settled again.

And again.

And... again...

Then it started to move downward. It stopped on floor 12. The door opened to a hallway lined with rooms, a few members of the cleaning staff walking in and out of them. Sonic slowly peeked out, looking a bit confused, pushing the 13th floor button again. We moved up, the elevator settled... and settled... and again... and again... then back down we went to the 12th floor.

"...ooookay, he's just keeping people from going to the 13th floor..." He said, slowly stepping out, "Let's just... use the stairs..."

We walked out into the hall, the opulent theme from the lobby below continuing here. "Wouldn't... someone else notice the elevator wigging out?" I asked, looking back as the elevator doors slid shut.

"I doubt many people go up to the 13th floor regularly aside from the Chaotix, and... no offense to them, but if they complained about the elevator not working, I doubt anyone would jump on their request to fix it," Sonic grabbed the door handle for the stair entry and threw it open, ushering me inside. He took the stairs two at a time... I struggled to follow.

"Even if... phew... if that were the case... I-I mean, that's gotta be pretty suspicious!" I called out to Sonic, my voice echoing around the stairwell, "Wouldn't someone have noticed him doing... whatever he did to the elevator? Aren't there... there security cameras in there?"

"Not if he didn't do anything to the elevator itself," Sonic called out from above me. I heard him start to come back down the stairs, seeing me huffing and puffing my way up. He smiled apologetically. "Vector said there aren't a lot of working cameras on the 13th floor, remember? Blitz might have messed with something in the shaft that kept the elevator from sensing it was in the right spot."

"Then-" I began to climb the stairs with Sonic- "Wouldn't he have kept us from getting in this way as well?"

"I'm sure he did," He said, matching my pace, "But we gotta at least check, that way I have an excuse for what we're gonna do next." He reached the top and pulled on the door. Locked.

"What, bust the door down?" I asked. He shook his head.

"I'm strong, but I'm not that strong," He said, looking over at me, "We're gonna scale it."

"...scale... it?" I tried to pull some kind of explanation from his words.

"Yup, scale it," He already began to make his way down the stairs, "We're gonna scale the building."

"...Scale as in climb?"

"Yup. That ok?"

"...Sure."

One harrowing trip up the side of a large "circus tent" later, we managed to slip through a window someone had left unlocked in one of the empty shops. Sonic quickly slipped in, keeping a tight grip on my hand as he carefully pulled me through. As soon as my feet touched the ground, my heart pounded, my Creepy Senses kicking in. Sonic looked over at me.

"...He's close..." I whispered, looking up at him. He nodded.

"Don't let go," He whispered back, raising up our conjoined hands. We slowly made our way out of the shop, Sonic going first to check for any potential threats... We stood in the hallway. "Okay... so what's he looking for..." He mumbled. I thought back for a bit.

"...He found me in that abandoned hotel room," I pondered, "Maybe that wasn't a coincidence..."

"You remember where it is?" Sonic asked. I nodded, guiding him toward the room.

"I remember it because I went in there-" I found the door and opened it- "Thinking there was a-"

Blitz stood on the balcony, staring at something in his hands. Something red and glowing.

"...Chaos Emerald."

Blitz looked up at us, pulling the Emerald close to him. His eyes were wide, his breathing quick. Sonic stepped forward slowly, speaking quietly.

"Blitz-" Blitz stepped back, his back bumping against the balcony railing. Sonic brought his hands up. "...Blitz... we don't want to hurt you... we just want the Emerald..." The brown bat shook his head, bringing the Emerald closer to his chest.

"H-He... He hurt Rush!" Blitz's voice wavered a bit, both from fear, and, from what I could pick up, anger. "Do you know what he went through after Boddy fired him? He-He was... he was so depressed Sonic...! And that new casino, they work him to the bone!"

"So your plan is to steal the Chaos Emerald?" Sonic asked, taking a slow step forward, "Take away some of Boddy's fortune?" Blitz stared at Sonic, his chest heaving a bit, before looking down at the Emerald.

"...i-it called out to me..." He mumbled, "It... it looked like it was worth so much... I thought it would hurt him... it would ruin his... his credibility..."

"Blitz, I know you're angry, but hurting Boddy isn't going to make you feel better," Sonic took another step. Blitz narrowed his eyes, baring his fangs.

"Don't come any closer!" The bat growled, his fur standing on end. I watched the Red Emerald in his hands glow a bit brighter.

"Please, just... give us the Emerald," Sonic took another, smaller step forward, holding out his hand, "And let's go down and talk to Boddy."

"I said don't come closer!" Blitz yelled. The Emerald glowed an even brighter red, bright enough that Sonic noticed too.

"Blitz-"

"GO AWAY!"

The Emerald flashed brightly, blinding me for a moment. When I gained my vision back, Blitz wasn't there anymore...

At least, not in any recognizable form.