Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Nicky adjusted her glasses, taking another glance in the little mirror she'd hung in her locker in junior year, she couldn't help but huff as she adjusted her quills for the millionth time.

"Nicky you look fine." A whiny voice came from behind her, turning around she glared at her younger brother Tails.
It was the first day of school, of course Nicky was nervous!
This was her senior year and she wanted to make it her best one yet.

"Maybe you should start caring about how you look," She deadpanned, ruffling his hair while Tails tried to bat her away, "how come you're not nervous?"
Finally letting Tails push her off him, she grabbed the few books she needed from her locker until she caught another glance in the little mirror and going right back to adjusting her quills.

The younger fox behind her sighed. He'd just entered his freshman year, but despite him being new and her returning, he seemed just fine while Nicky was wearing her own nerves thin.
"Well I know I'll be fine, middle school wasn't hard plus I've got Cream; Charmy is joining us next year." Tails slammed Nicky's locker closed, forcing her to just make do with her quills as they were.

"Right and aren't you supposed to join Cream at the freshman ceremony?" Tails' eyes shot to the clock hanging above the lockers, he swore loudly as he grabbed his backpack of the ground and booked it through the halls, waving Nicky goodbye before rounding the corner and disappearing from view. Nicky snickered as she saw him run, the clock above lockers ran ten minutes early, but Tails didn't need to know that yet.

Someone cleared their throat behind Nicky. Turning around, she was met with a very familiar cheer leading uniform worn by one, even more familiar, pink hedgehog. Amy Rose smiled brightly, Nicky opened her arms for Amy to jump her with a hug.

Amy Rose was one of Nicky's best friends, she was also the sole reason Nicky was in the schools occult club. Nicky had no idea why, but Amy was scary good at tarot readings.

"Nicky! How was your summer?!" She squealed as she crushed Nicky in the hug. Letting the cheerleader crush her as she pleased, Nicky waited until Amy loosened up and she could breathe again before she replying.
"You know how my summer was Amy, you visited me at work everyday." The pink hedgehog smiled guiltily. The two talked for a while until the bell rung, they'd found out right there that they had very differing schedules and wouldn't see each other so much outside of club hours.
"At least we have math together?" Amy frowned as she scrutinised the little timetable sheet she held in her hand, Nicky had a similar one in hers but she had history first period, two floors up.
"Not today, not even our lunch periods line up."
"Dang, that sucks… Oh right, I forgot to tell you. First meeting of the occult club is today after school." Amy added, surprising Nicky.

Usually club activities started after the first week, giving the students ample time to settle in before classes got hard. "I've got a little surprise for when you get there." Amy said, sending Nicky a wink.

The cheerleader left for her class before Nicky could even ask what the surprise would be. However, even if she had asked Amy, the pink cheerleader would probably not have said anything. 'It wouldn't be a surprise if I told you' was a definite thing Amy had told her before. Sighing, Nicky decided just to get to her first period, resolving to let the surprise surprise her.

Reaching the history classroom early, Nicky sat down in her seat in the front row. Waiting for the teacher to arrive she pulled out her things and waited with the rest of the class. Mr. Nite had a tendency to be late, but even then the owl was also one of Nicky's favourite teachers, even if he couldn't make history exciting.

The final bell rung as a few people still trickled into class. Nicky was leaning her head on her hend as she watched the door waiting for Mr. Nite to finally arrive. However when the door opened, instead of being met with the friendly owl, Nicky was met with another face. She wore red shoes with knee length white socks, the golden bands she wore on her ankles matched the ones she wore on her wrist and despite the differing colours, Nicky thought that they suited her perfect cheerleader uniform well, with the blue and white accents complimenting her figure as well with the white, ribbon accessory she wore on her head. She had dark quills and red highlights that matched her eyes, eyes that met Nicky's.

Surprised, Nicky felt her face flush red as she averted her eyes away from Shadow. The dark cheerleader made her way to her own seat without so much as sparing her a second glance.

Shadow was a bit of a mystery, she's transferred to Green Hill High in her junior year and just like Nicky, they were both now seniors. Nobody really knew much about her, but she was great in gymnastics and Nicky couldn't deny that she was - objectively - pretty. The white ribbon headband - of which she tied the little white bows in her quills right by her ears - added to her cuteness and the way her cold eyes could send chills down your spine from across the room added to her... everything.

Nicky shook her head trying to clear her mind of anything weird.

Despite her mysterious nature, Shadow had become instantly popular last year and going by the whispers behind Nicky when the dark hedgehog entered the room, she still was.

Nicky tried to keep her mind on the class, twirling her pen in her hand as she and everyone waited.

Five minutes went by.

Ten minutes went by.

By fifteen minutes, people were packing their bags and leaving, realising that Mr. Nite wasn't going to show.

Nicky watched as the classroom ran empty, deciding to wait another couple of minutes before deciding whether to leave or not. A frown fell over her face as she was left the only person in the classroom. It wasn't strange that Mr. Nite was late, but he'd always show up in the first ten minutes.

Nicky's mind drifted with worry. She didn't notice the figure standing next to her desk until she felt a hand grace her shoulder. Her heart jumped into her throat as Nicky whipped around. Loosing her balance, Nicky fell backwards out of her chair. Letting out a small scream, Nicky was cut off as she hit the floor on her back quills.

Standing over her was Shadow, her expression not changing as Nicky quickly collected herself and stood up. Hurriedly patting down her clothes, feeling absolutely mortified of her overreaction she tried not to meet Shadow's eyes.

"You're Nicky right?" Shadow asked, Nicky hands halted as the blue hedgehog looked at Shadow.
"Uh- yeah, that's me." She answered.

Without another word, Shadow eyes took in Nicky's frame before slightly nodding to herself and moving to leave the classroom.
Nicky watched her leave without uttering another word.
That was… weird.

Without much further thought, Nicky packed her bag and left the empty room. Deciding to spend some time in the library before going to her second period.

The rest of the day went off without a hitch, Nicky got to see some of her friends that she hadn't been able to see over the summer. Espio was still leading the journalism club, making Vector proud now that his older brother had become a teacher in the school himself, Vanilla was so excited to have her little girl here to the point that it was the only real thing they discussed for the first twenty minutes of class and Nicky got to say hi to so many more people that she'd missed over the summer months. Deciding to work for most of it at the meh burger was definitely a choice, but she did have some extra savings now that she planned to use during her senior year.

As the final bell rang, Nicky waited for everyone to leave the classroom before getting up herself. There weren't many people lingering in the hallways when she made her way out and towards the usual meet up spot for the occult club.

It might've seemed odd to have an occult club in the school, but Amy was a very passionate club president and, in Nicky's opinion, was also the sole reason for why the club was still standing. Being the one to usually pull in members and keep interest in the club high, she just had that sort of charm to her Nicky thought.

Nicky was still thinking to herself as she rounded a corner, quickly regretting it when she bumped right into someones chest.
What was it today with her and making a fool of herself?

Looking up, she was met with Mr. Don, the concierge.
The purple and black rooster looked at Nicky with a worried expression, but Nicky had the oddest feeling that it wasn't for her.

"Hey Nicky, sorry for bumping into you like that." apologised Mr. Don, his eyes briefly roaming through the hallway behind her before returning when she spoke up.
"Oh it's fine Mr. Don," Nicky replied. Taking in the rooster, he really didn't seem like his usual laid back self. "Sir, are you okay?" She asked worried.

Mr. Don just sighed, rubbing a hand over his temples seemingly trying to push down a headache.
"Bit of an odd question for you Nicky," he started hesitantly, "but have you seen Nite today by any chance?"

The question took Nicky back a little, shaking her head no Mr. Don frowned again.
"I had history with him first period but he didn't show, I guess he forgot to call in sick?" Mr. Don nodded, despite not looking too sure himself.

"I guess you're right, he looked fine this morning though…" Mr. Don trailed off, his mind seemed entirely occupied. When Nicky said her goodbyes and left, all that Mr. Don responded with was a half-hearted goodbye himself.

Brushing off the odd encounter, Nicky reached the occult club classroom. It was really just one of the math classrooms, but Amy always made sure to decorate the room accordingly before each club session. Nicky wasn't sure how she hauled the temporary curtains with her every time, but the pink cheerleader made it work.

"Hey Amy," Nicky called through the door, "what was that surprise you were telling me abou-" she froze as she pushed the door open. The classroom was set up like Amy usually did it. Black out curtains draped along the wall, covering the windows, all the tables moved to the side except for the four that were arranged in the centre, covered to look like one large table that the club president had surrounded with chairs. The room was changed to look like a seance room, they never really did one of those, but Amy had really liked the vibe and Nicky could agree, it did add a certain air to their weekly club meetings.
The room looked exactly the same as any regular club meeting, all except for the person sitting in the chair.

Looking up at her was Shadow, the cheerleader stared at her wordlessly as Nicky froze and stared back in shock. Her throat went dry and whatever she had just been about to ask faltered.

"Hey Nicky!" Nicky's attention snapped back when Amy grabbed her by her arm and dragged her towards the table.
"Meet our new club member." Plopping her in the chair right next to Shadow, Amy went to her own seat across from Nicky. The blue hedgehog tried to breathe as little as possible, hoping that is she moved as little as possible that Shadow would just ignore her. Unfortunately, despite her best efforts, Nicky could feel those ruby eyes stare at her intently.

"Have any fun in class today?" Amy started up conversationally. Taking her tarot deck in her hands, she mindlessly began to shuffle them without any thought. Amy's improved a lot since junior year.
"Yeah, first day you know? Sorry if I came in late, I ran into Mr. Don on the way here." Nicky adjusted her glasses as she spoke, the sudden surprise beginning to wear off as she sent an awkward smile towards Shadow.
"Oh you're fine Nicky, we're still waiting on-"
"Me?" A voice cut Amy off. Standing in the door frame was the final and missing member of the occult club, Knuckles.

The red echidna trudged through the door, letting it fall closed behind her as she dropped into her seat.
"Yeah you! You could at least try to be on time you know?" Amy said sending a glare to Knuckles.

The echidna was a year older than Nicky, but she had to resit a year so she was a senior like her and Shadow.

Knuckles just huffed, ignoring Amy's complaint as she lifted her feat off the ground and rested them on the table. Shadow looked at Knuckles' shoes with disgust as Amy didn't waste a single second to chew Knuckles out.

The two bickered for a while, eventually Shadow leaned over to Nicky without taking her eyes off the two to ask: "What's up with them?"

Nicky's heart began to race at Shadow's proximity, but despite her blood rushing through her head she stammered out a response.
"Oh, they're uhm- siblings."

Shadow looked up at Nicky in surprise, either not noticing or deciding not to comment on her flushed face, she sat back up straight and the two waited patiently for Amy and Knuckles to finish their squabble.

When Knuckles finally relented and put her feet back on the ground, Amy sat up straight. A satisfied smile gracing her face, she looked around the table at each member.

"Well, I'd like to thank all of you for coming here today. As you may have noticed we have a new member joining our club." Amy said pointing at Shadow as if she was a new crystal ball that she'd bought to decorate the classroom for their sessions.
"And in honour of our new member, I thought it'd be fun to do a general reading to open our meeting." Amy spread the cards out like a fan in her hand, hiding half her face to give her a more mysterious or mystique appearance.

Nicky had seen her do the pose a million times, but still she couldn't help but smile at her friends excitement. The cards were backed purple backs with a gold trim, the art on the front was in a simple and line-less cartoon style. Each card was well loved as this was Amy's prized tarot deck.

A mischievous glint shined in her eyes as she theatrically started to shuffle the cards. Knuckles just rolled her eyes as she watched her little sister dramatically throw each card around in the air and between her hands like a magician.
"Can you hurry up?" Knuckles snapped.
"How about you-"

The fire alarm went off, cutting Amy off in the middle of her sentence. The cards flying out of her hands as she froze.
Nicky jumped up, fear crashing against her in one big wave. Shadow clammed her hands over her ears while Amy and Knuckles sent one look at each other before hurrying to grab all the cards from the floor.
Nicky got out of her stupor and helped the two grab the final few cards. Amy and Knuckles made their way out the door, Nicky hot on their tail when the blue hedgehog noticed that Shadow hadn't gotten up.

Turning around she saw the dark cheerleader still clutching her ears, eyes clamped shut as well. Taking a deep breath, Nicky quickly walked back. She hesitated for a moment when reaching out to touch Shadow, but the blaring alarm overhead reminded her that they had to leave now.

Making sure to be careful, Nicky shook Shadow to get her attention. Red eyes landed on her as she motioned to the door, she waited for a moment before Shadow got up and Nicky took her by the arm, leading her through the door and out into the hall, the dark cheerleader still clinging to her ears.

Amy and Knuckles were waiting for them just outside the classroom, Amy sent Nicky a worried glance to which Nicky just responded with a pleading look. Understanding immediately, Amy led the way as the three followed her. The small occult club was joined by a few stragglers that were still lingering around the school and the other few clubs that decided to have an early start this school year.

Reaching the main entrance, Nicky took a breath of fresh air as she stepped through the exit. Still guiding Shadow by her arm, the blue hedgehog looked up at the sky, frowning in confusion as she couldn't see any smoke, had somebody pulled the fire alarm as a prank?

Nicky didn't see Amy stop in front of her until she bumped into the pink cheerleader, grabbing her glasses just in time to save them from hitting the ground, Nicky's was about to apologise, but faltered.

Amy stood frozen in front of her, her tarot deck falling to the ground as she clutched her hands over her mouth. Knuckles stood next to her, eyes and mouth wide open in shock. Confused, Nicky took a step to the side, taking Shadow with her as her eyes finally landed on what Amy and Knuckles were staring at. She glared at the blurry thing in front of her, Shadow stiffened next to her as she too saw what Amy and Knuckles were seeing. Nicky's confusion grew until she decided to put her glasses back on.

Blood rushed to her head as her stomach dropped. Suddenly everything felt cold, the only warmth lingering to Nicky being Shadows arms still threaded with hers.
Bile rose up her throat as Nicky choked, holding her breath trying not to throw up at the sight. Someone behind Nicky did wretch.

Students were either frozen or crowding around to see what everyone was gawking at before freezing up themselves. Distantly, Nicky registered a scream, truthfully Nicky wanted to scream too.

In a moment, it suddenly made a lot of sense for why Mr. Nite had never shown up for his morning class.

Laying in front of the school entrance laid a body, surrounded by a pool of blood.
The blood was staining the light brown and cream feathers of a very familiar owl. One who wore a scarf no matter the weather and loved the headset he'd gotten from his husband, so much to the point that he never really took it off.

"SOMEONE CALL AN AMBULANCE!" Someone screamed.
Nicky briefly thought that Amy was the one to say it, but it didn't matter. Not who said it or whether the ambulance was called. The corpse would still be cold and the scene still as gruesome.

Mr. Nite was dead.
And it was clear as day that he'd been murdered.

Written by a human in Ellipsus.

Chapter Text

A bright lamp was pointed directly onto Nicky's face. Squinting she tried to pull away from the light but the guy holding it to her face followed her, giving her no reprieve. She was in a dark room, one person sat in a chair in front of her while another stood next to the desk. They just pulled her in here and she had half an idea of what was going on.

"Alright, Miss. Nicky right? Your last name is Parlouzer?" The one in the chair asked.
Confused, Nicky just nodded yes.
"Is it true that you sometimes go by 'Sonic', donning a new identity and personality as you do?" The accusatory tone laced her interrogators voice as he leaned on the desk in front of her.
"I wouldn't call it a new ide-"
"You're the third one to come back to school of your associates, is that correct?" He cut her off again.
"Associates?" She questioned. Nodding her interrogator went on.
"Yes, your associates. The other members of the Green Hills High Occult Club." He went on to explain, the light as well as his hat obscuring his face from her view.
"Shadow continued classes the day after the incident, Knuckles following her after 3 days and now so have you, a week after Mr. Nite-" Nicky shrunk back hearing her history teachers name, the image was still fresh in her mind, of what had happened that day. The blood, his body-

Her interrogator, seeing her expression, seemed to sympathise. Leaning back in his chair, he cut off mid-question.
"I shall refrain from using his name." It was a small nicety, but it wouldn't change much.
Still, Nicky nodded in thanks.

They sat in a moment of silence, it lasted a second. The chair guy grabbed the lamp from his associate, slammed his hand on the desk as he fully leaned over the desk. Pressing herself back into the chair as possibly, Nicky squinted at the light being shone practically directly into her face.

"WHERE WERE YOU THE 30 MINUTES PRIOR?!"
"Occult club."
"HAVE YOU SEEN ANY SUSPICIOUS ACTIVITY FROM THE VICTIM PRIOR TO HIS DISCOVERY?!?!"
"He never showed up for our first period class." The chair guys associate snatched the lamp back, taking his place right in Nicky's face.

"WHERE?!?!?!"
"Is that an actual question?"
"DO YOU HAVE ANY LEADS?!?!?!?!"
"GUYS!" Nicky snapped, "can I at least eat my lunch?"

The two looked at each other for a moment, a silent conversation happening between the two of them that Nicky was very privy to by just sitting in front of them.
"Go grab her lunch." The one holding the lamp said, nodding to her bag behind them.
"Hey! That's not in interrogation protocol." His associate protested.

"Nicky are you coming or wha-" Tails opened the door to the darkened classroom, stumbling across the sight of Epsio holding a desk lamp and pointing it at his sisters face while Charmy sat in the chair across from her.
"What are you guys doing?"

The three looked up at him, Espio blanched like he was facing headlights while Nicky had never been so glad to see her younger brother.
"Hey Tails, we're interrogating Nicky." Charmy said happily, tipping his bucket hat to the hedgehog.
Tails took a moment to process that statement, before pointing at Charmy.
"You don't even go here yet."

Now that Nicky thought about it, yeah, Charmy would start highschool next year. He isn't even a part of the journalism club (the very one that Espio swore up and down was more an investigation or detective club) how was he here?

As if reading her mind, Charmy answered Nicky's questions.
"I have my ways."

"Ok Mr. 'Wayhaver' I think I'm going to kidnap my sister back now." Tails said, Espio was about to protest, but Nicky was already pushing her brother out the door and waving to them. Nicky was all too glad to get out of there, Espio was her friend and she knew Charmy well enough, but being investigated by their schools journalism and pseudo detective club? Yeah, she's good.

"You doing okay?" Tails turned his head back to ask, Nicky was still pushing him by the shoulders in front of her as the two walked. Dropping her hands, she opted to walk next to him.
"Yeah it's just-" She hesitated for a moment. She knew that if she needed or wanted it, that she could stay away from school for a little longer. Mom had told her that directly, but she didn't want to miss anymore school and to be honest, she wasn't sure whether she could stand feeling alone at home for much longer.

"New school year!" Nicky tried to force some excitement into her voice. Going by the look of Tails' face, it wasn't exactly a success. "It… certainly started with a bang." Nicky cringed internally as she finished her sentence, Tails cringed externally as he just patted her back with sympathy.

"You know you can take more time right?"
"Yeah I know it's just- thanks for getting me out there." She changed the subject, Tails looked at her unimpressed, but thank Chaos that he let it slide.
"You should be thanking your friend, she told me where you were in the first place. Had no idea you were being interrogated by Chaotix incorporated."

Nicky had to strain to hold her laughter in.
"Chaotix incorporated?"
"Hmm you're right, doesn't have that ring to it." Tails lamented as the two finally reached the outside courtyard.

Taking a seat and finally being able to dig into her lunch. Nicky chowed down until she thought back on what Tails had said.
"Wait, what friend?" She said as she chewed. Tails shot her a disgusted look before replying.
"It was Shadow."

Nicky froze when Tails said her name, Shadow had helped her? That was a surprise, Nicky felt as if Shadow barely even knew she existed. She felt her face flush red, quickly hiding her face in her sandwich she hoped that Tails was looking at literally anywhere else other than her. For once catching a lucky break, her brother seemed rather occupied with his own lunch.

Lunch didn't last long after that, the bell quickly signalling the end of their break and Nicky and Tails said their goodbyes.

Nicky walked into class, usually she'd sit in the front or somewhere in the middle but the moment she stepped through the threshold the room fell silent. Eyes landed on her in the same way as every single class before this one, it made her quills stand on end as she froze in the door frame. She hated this, truthfully she didn't care when she was the centre of attention, but she hated the reason for it.

Nicky's attention was pulled to the back of the class as a hand waved her over, surprised she made her way to where Knuckles was sitting, the echidna pulled the chair back for Nicky to sit in and the hedgehog made herself comfortable.
"Hey." She whispered, glad to be out of the limelight.
"Hey." Knuckles whispered back with a nod, going back to lounging in her chair as they waited for class to start. It didn't take long before the class started up as the teacher walked in.

"Thanks for that." Nicky whispered, Knuckles just hummed.
"Of course, how are you holding up?"
"As best I can, what about you?"

"I'm fine." Knuckles stated, for as long as Nicky has known her she's always been tough, but now Nicky wondered if that was more of a front than actually true. "Amy is…" Knuckles hesitated, but Nicky could hazard a guess.

"Not doing too well?" Knuckles nodded.
"I think she's taking it the hardest out of all of us." Knuckles said, Nicky wouldn't argue with that. It was a pretty shocking sight.

When she'd led Shadow around the others to look at what everyone was gawking at a week ago… It made her skin crawl just thinking about it.

It looked ritualistic. The body wasn't brutalised, it was easy to see it was Mr. Nite, but it was dismembered, shoulders, elbows, wrists.
Waist, knees, ankles.
Neck.

The body was neatly placed, lined up with the school entrance and each part placed like- like it was meant to be stitched back together. Placed like how it would've been attached to Mr. Nite's body when he was alive.

It hadn't taken long before the police showed up and the remaining school staff ushered students back into the building. Everything after that felt like a storm of statements, questions and parents informed. All Nicky remembers clearly is arriving home and running for the bathroom.

Nicky took a deep breath, shaking the memory from her mind, she tried to focus on the class instead. Knuckles shot her a worried look but otherwise didn't ask. Nicky felt grateful for that.

School went by quick and before Nicky knew it it was the end of the day. She packed as many books she could into her bag and walked out with the rest in her hands, Knuckles at her side. The two of them shared a surprising amount of classes for which Nicky was rather grateful for, even if Knuckles was more stand-offish than Amy.

The two walked towards the entrance, Nicky thought that seeing the place like a week ago would trigger something but nothing happened that morning and nothing happened now. She was relieved for it but at the same time couldn't help but feel bad, like she'd moved on so quick from Mr. Nite's death.

Looking around the square, Nicky spotted someone from the corner of her eye. Turning around, Nicky saw Shadow standing by the schools entrance talking with Rouge. Her and the cheer captain seemed to be arguing before Rouge threw her hands up and stormed off. Nicky looked at them for a moment before her attention was snapped back by someone scraping their throat. Knuckles was looking at Nicky questioningly but at that point the blue hedgehog had already made up her mind.

"Gimme a moment, I wanna talk to Shadow real quick." Knuckles seemed to want to say something but Nicky had already run off in the cheerleaders direction, clutching her books to her chest while leaving her bag in Knuckles hands.

"Shadow!" Nicky called out, Shadow whirled around to face her as Nicky reached her. Straightening her glasses, Nicky smiled up at Shadow, the cheerleader just sending a questioning look at her before smirking. Crossing her arms, Shadow leaned against the school building as she looked Nicky up and down.

"Hey Nicky, what's up?"
"Not much, I just wanted to thank you for this morning."

"If you hadn't sent Tails my way then I'm not sure for how long Epsio and Charmy would have kept me in that interrogation." Nicky was hoping to all hells that she wasn't blushing, but going by how her face already felt hot she just hoped that Shadow didn't think she was weird.

"It's no problem, I just thought you'd like less drama on your first day back."
Nicky nodded as Shadow spoke.
The two fell into an awkward silence, Shadow just lounging against the building while Nicky tried to think of what to say.

"uhm. You look really beautiful today Shadow." Nicky averted her eyes as she said it.

She didn't get to catch Shadows reaction when a voice cut through the square.
"NICKY! SHADOW!"

Turning around, Nicky and Shadow saw Amy run towards them. Teens and kids were weaving around her as eyes trailed the panicking hedgehog and truthfully, Nicky was staring too.

Amy looked like a mess, she ran towards them in what was obviously her pyjamas, her quills were pointing every which way and the look of pure panic in her eyes made worry lodge in Nicky's throat.

"Amy?" Shadows voice was laced with confusion as she stepped around Nicky to catch Amy as she tripped. The two huddled around Amy as Shadow held her, Amy gasped for breath as she tried to say something, but she'd either ran all the way here or she was panicking too much to say anything.

Knuckles jogged up to the small group, her worried eyes not straying from her sister for even a moment.
"Amy?" She asked concerned.

Dropping Nicky's bag to the floor she took Amy from Shadow and propped her sister up at her side. Amy finally seemed to catch her breath, pushing herself off of Knuckles she looked at them determined.

"We have to hurry."
"Whoa, Ames slow down. What's going on?"

Amy shook her head, not slowing down for even a moment.
"I can't, we have to- something's happening." She argued. A small crowd had formed around them, staring and whispering but Amy didn't pay them any attention.

Shadow took one look around the crowd before looking back at her friend. In a split moment decision she just nodded and grabbed Amy's wrist, wordlessly she dragged the club president past the school entrance and into the building. Nicky and Knuckles followed them wordlessly.

Inside they found an empty hallway and sat Amy down on one of the benches. Crossing her arms, Shadow straightened up as she looked down at Amy. "Okay. Explain."

"I think another murder is going to happen."

The words stunned Nicky. Amy looked Shadow directly in her eyes - Nicky didn't miss how Shadow squirmed under Amy's intense gaze. Determination etched on her face, she was certain. Another murder would happen and going by how Amy was acting, it was going to be soon.

"Wait Amy what are you talking about?" Knuckles worried voice cut through the tense atmosphere. The red echidna stepped between her and Shadow as she checked her little sister over, "are you doing okay? You were supposed to be-"

"I'm fine Knuckles." Amy cut her sister off, pushing her hand away as she stood up.
"I don't have time to explain."

Knuckles looked as if she was about to dispute that but Amy cut her off. "Somethings happened to Mr. Don."

The way she said it immediately had Shadow and Sonic on high alert, Knuckles being the only one to doubt her then. "Amy. Are you sure? Mr. Don was just fine an hour ago."

Sonic assumed that Knuckles had seen Mr. Don then, the man hadn't been doing well at all since his husbands brutal murder. Nicky was surprised that he'd even returned to work at all within the week, but he had. It made sense that Knuckles had seen him, Mr. Don is responsible for the building and special equipment for gym, Knuckles was in the school's wrestling team.

Despite Knuckles insistence that Mr. Don was fine, Amy nodded. Her entire form screamed 'pretty sure' while her eyes screamed 'we don't have time for this'. Without any warning, Amy walks past Knuckles and deeper into the hall. Bumping shoulders with Knuckles, the three are stunned to see her walk off with tenacity, any other student down the hall that sees her immediately jumps out of her way as if she is an army unto herself. Nicky could believe it.

The three snapped out of it pretty quickly, running after Amy as she continued to part the hallway like Moses in Hello Kitty pyjamas.

Walking after Amy on a warpath was a new experience, Nicky had to say. As Amy violently pushed the fire escape door open that led to the back of the school building, Nicky was sure she never wanted to see the pink hedgehog on another one.

After making sure the club leader hadn't set off the fire alarm, Nicky followed after Shadow and Knuckles as the cheerleader and the wrestler whispered to each other in hushed tones. Amy - without hesitation - walked towards the tool shed at the back of the school.

It was an old dilapidated building, not older than the school but surely looking like it. Made out of wood, it stood apart from the rest of the school building, taking a full minute to march towards it. Finally reaching the door and presumable the location of her concerns, Amy hesitated in front of the door. Either finally snapping out of her warpath or afraid of what lay beyond the green and short door.

"Amy are you sure-"
"Shut up Knuckles" Amy bit back. Nicky felt struck by surprise, She'd almost never seen Amy this high strung and admittedly it was starting to put her on edge too. Emboldened, Amy grabbed the door handle, she roughly pulled at it only to find it locked. Cursing she scrambled to pull something out of her pocket, looking around Amy's shoulder, Nicky saw her holding a bunch of keys in her hand. Opening her mouth to ask where she got those from, Amy put the right key in the door and shoved it open.

The world felt like it was going in slow motion, the first thing that hit Nicky was the overwhelming scent of iron.
The second was red.

Clutching her hand over her nose, someone made a retching noise behind her before getting themselves under control, but Nicky couldn't look back. Freezing up, she felt her quills stand on end at the sight before her.
Amy held the door, one step into the shed straight into a pool of red. The pink hedgehog herself was frozen too, her breathing quickly picking up as the occult club couldn't do anything but stare.

Mr. Don was inside, at least what was left of him.

The room was bathed in blood, splatters on the walls, on the ceiling. A pool formed from Mr. Don's upper body. Everything from the waist and below was nowhere to be seen.

Nicky felt like screaming, it was a miracle that no one in the group was. She just watched as the red pool grew bigger.

"Fuck…" Amy cursed under her breath, the pink hedgehog immediately scrambling to get her phone out of her pocket. Nicky watched breathlessly as she punched in the number, but before Amy could call the police a hand shot out and grabbed her wrist.

Shadow held one hand to her mouth, her other curled around Amy's wrist. The club leader looked at her in shock. Shadow looked like she could throw up any second yet determination filled her frame.
"Amy you cannot call the police"

The group was stunned by Shadows statement, Amy's eyes went from shock to horror as the words hit her.
"What?" She breathed out, stunned.
"I don't think you did it," Shadow explained in a grave voice, slowly pulling Amy away out of the shed entrance as she did. "but think about it."
"Shadow, there's a dead body-"
"A dead body that you knew was there," The dark hedgehog cut her off, her voice serious, bordering on harsh. "in a locked shed that you have the key to."

"Amy how do think this looks? If you call the police, they're going to blame you." Amy wanted to protest, but Shadow cut in again.
"Do you want to be Barry?"

Barry the Quokka was a student who wasn't supposed to be in their year.
Two years ago they'd been accused and locked up for a car theft they never committed. Someone from another county managed to prove their innocence and got them their probation, but it had still shaken the town pretty heavily. Barry had called the car theft in and just like that they'd been both the accused and the culprit in the eyes of the police. After being locked up for two years, Barry kept their head down, just desperate to graduate.

No one, wanted to be Barry.

Nicky could hear Amy's breathing pick up, automatically she stepped forward concerned. Jabbing herself between her pink friend and Shadow, Nicky muttered to give her some space as she turned her full attention to Amy. Doing her absolute best to not look or even think about the sight behind her.

Grabbing her by the shoulders, Nicky could see her eyes dilated as her breathing slowly grew louder.

"Amy, I need you to breathe." She said calmly.
"We don't have time for this." Shadow called out from behind her.
"what do you suggest then?"
"That we get out of here." Nicky glared at Shadow

Looking to Knuckles, Nicky silently begged for some backup. The wrestlers eyes were still glued on the shed, she swallowed nervously and Nicky knew she hadn't found what she had hoped for.
"Lets get out of here."

Taking the keys from Amy's hand, Knuckles locked the door. Turning back to the group, she nodded and the four started to make their way back to the main building.
"Wait." Shadow suddenly called out, turning to Amy and quickly pulling of her shoes.
"Trade with me." Amy looked at her in surprise. "Your shoe is bloody, you'll track blood through the school." She stated and looking down, Nicky couldn't help but curse. It wasn't clear on the grass, but Amy had stepped in the pool back in the shed. There's was a small trail leading to where she stood now.

Pulling off her own shoes, Amy swapped with Shadows. The cheerleader putting on Amy's non-bloody one before getting up.
"I've got another pair in my gym locker, I'll swap them out." A million thoughts were racing through Nicky's mind, maybe a million more were running through Shadows as she looked over the group. There was a silent plea in her eyes, screaming 'tell no one.'

"See you tomorrow?" She asked instead.
"Yeah…" Nicky replied.

Shadow nodded and started the walk around to the outdoor gym entrance. No one would be there, hopefully.

Nicky, Amy, and Knuckles walked through the school hallway back towards the entrance, there weren't any people around anymore, just the cleaners. Walking past the front doors, Nicky said her goodbyes as Knuckles took her place at Amy's side. Wraping an arm around her shoulders, she made sure to wave Nicky goodbye, a grimace etched on her face.

Tails wasn't waiting for her, he'd probably gotten bored and went home on his own.

Getting to her house took less than ten minutes. Nicky let the door fall closed behind her. The days event rushed her mind like a tidal wave, Nicky felt hot all over, cold at the same time and sick.

Rushing into the bathroom, she managed to get to the toilet in time to throw up.

Nicky didn't go to school that next day, or the day after.

Tails had probably seen her in the bathroom at some point and snitched on her to her parents. Her mom had hounded her for all of five minutes the moment she got home and forced her to stay home the next day, the day after that too.

Nicky awaited the announcement anxiously, of Mr. Don's death. However, nothing happened.
The first day she stayed home, she was constantly checking the news and the online school board for even a word about Mr. Don in the shed, but when the day passed and Tails got back home, nothing had happened.

The second day was the same.
Knuckles dropped by her house to deliver Nicky's homework. Tails had let her in and the echidna sat on the edge of her bed. They were plunged into a silence that neither knew how to break, what do you talk about other than the elephant in the room, the body in the shed? Questions burned in the back of Nicky's throat, but before she could ask Knuckles beat her to it.

"We anonymously reported the body yesterday." She whispered, neither of her parents were home and Tails was in his room doing Gaia knows what, but he still had the ears of a fox and Shadows silent plea was burned into her retina's the same way everything else was. Tell no one.
Nicky's eyes rose up to the echidna, a pained look sat on her face as she continued.
"Nothing overt, just some 'rotten smell in the shed'. Shadow's idea."

Nicky mulled the words over in her head. Had the school just not checked the shed
"They wouldn't keep the school open, if they found the body right?" Nicky asked carefully.

Knuckles didn't reply, she didn't know.

Nicky went back to school the next day.

The moment she stepped in her first period class, she got pulled aside by the teacher.
Normally she would've been nervous, Nicky generally wasn't a troublemaker, so any time a teacher pulled her aside when she had no clue as to why would have put her in a nervous sweat.

Vector, however, wasn't just any teacher.
The older crocodile crushed her in a hug before pulling back and worriedly checking her over.
"Nicky I am so glad you're all right." He said the words with pure relief, but Nicky went rigid.

Vector wouldn't know what she'd seen in the shed right?

The teacher didn't note her sudden nervousness, instead opting to give her shoulder a reassuring squeeze and an apologetic smile.
"I heard about Espio and Charmy's interro- interview. Last monday. I'm so sorry, I told them to leave students alone but I should've known how they get."

All of Nicky's worries instantly melted away, like ice cream in the sun. Vector had no idea about the shed, he'd just thought the reason Nicky stayed home was because of Espio and Charmy's detective spiel. Nicky's paranoia was just playing tricks on her now, of course Vector wouldn't know about the shed- about Mr. Don.

Seeing Nicky's relief, Vector went right back to fretting.

The blue hedgehog managed to assure Vector after a while that she was fine, really, just had a bit of a shock on her first day but she's fine now. She'd ask him to not go too hard on Espio and Charmy, but knowing Vector that wouldn't amount to much.

Nicky's attention was caught by someone scraping their throat, turning to look at the person, Nicky was faced with Shadow.
The cheerleader had her arms crossed, she didn't wear her uniform today instead opting for a white skirt and beige sweater combo with her iconic bows in her quills.
Nicky felt herself flush red, Vector just sighed as he excused himself and went into the classroom, making sure he didn't delay the class any further as Nicky just waved hi.

Shadow didn't greet her back, instead opting to give her a look up and down before moving to enter the classroom.

The two girls hadn't spoken over the last two days, at all. The two had barely even known each other, yet… Nicky felt like the need for answers was eating her alive. She's had a week to anguish over Mr. Nite's murder and three nights to freak out over Mr. Don's and there was just something about the whole situation that gnawed at her.

"Wait Shadow." She whispered hurriedly as she caught the cheerleaders wrist.
Shadow looked at her with a raised eyebrow. Nicky wasn't sure what to say, her mouth immediately drying up the moment Shadow looked at her. However, instead of pulling out of Nicky's grasp, Shadow turned around to her - giving the nerd her full attention.

"Nicky?"
"Can- uh-" catching glimpses behind Shadow into the classroom, she could see Vectors eyes on them, this wasn't exactly the best place to ask what she wanted to.
"Can I talk to you after class?" She asked quietly.
Shadow looked at her with reservation, but nodded.

The two went to their desks and there Nicky waited out the entire class, anxiously stealing glances at the clock until the school bell dismissed them. Nicky isn't sure if she'd ever been out of a class that fast before.

Waiting for Shadow to walk out into the hall, Nicky wasted no time pulling her into the nearby bathroom.

Locking the door behind her, the blue hedgehog turned around to a frowning Shadow and just like earlier, every thought she had flew directly out the window.

Shadow stood leaning against the sink, almost leisurely as her full attention laid on Nicky.
Unconsciously - because this could not be a conscious decision, Nicky refused - she fiddled with the hem of her skirt and as loathe as the nerd was to admit it, her eyes were drawn to the movement and her mind was short-circuiting.

"Nicky?"

Like when being caught, Nicky's eyes shot up in panic.
Her face growing hot when she caught Shadow eyeing her curiously. Shaking her head, she tried to knock her brain back on track.
"Did you know about Mr. Don?"

Shadow was struck with shock but her face hardened into something angry.
"What?" Her voice was laced with anger and Nicky immediately knew that she wasn't thinking straight, but she needed answers - any answers - or she was going to break.

"It's just, it's been on my mind for days, you were so collected after- after it," Nicky didn't have the confidence to even say it out loud.
It had been eating at her for days.
It was haunting her nights as much as her waking moments and she knew concealer could only do so much.
"but you just acted." Nicky didn't feel confident in her voice, yet she asked. "Even managed to keep Amy from doing something stupid."

"How?" She asked quietly. Shadow had felt like a rock, in the moment she needed it and even now. As she asked her final question, she looked Shadow directly in the eyes.
Shadow was looking at her, not her eyes but still at her.

There was a tense moment of silence as neither spoke. Nicky waiting for an answer and Shadow seemingly unwilling to answer.

Something churned in Nicky's gut, not anger, but certainly not patience. She took a deep breath trying to calm down. She and all the others had silently agreed to tell no one about what they'd seen, but this wasn't her telling, this was her demanding answers.

A type of confidence swelled in her chest with the thought, she deserved to know and Shadow or not, she wanted to hear it from her directly.
Pulling off her glasses, Nicky hung them from her red sweater. Her face melting from nervous to serious.

"I didn't know about Mr. Don." Shadow eventually snides and pushes off of the sink. Stalking over to Nicky she went to push past her, instead of reaching the door Shadow let out an 'oomph' as her back hit the wall. Her wrist caught by Nicky and pinned to the wall, the blue hedgehogs other hand was pinned beside her head.

"Nicky?"
"Sonic," Sonic corrected as she gazed up at Shadow, "princess." She added.

Shadow looked at her bewildered, taken by complete surprise before managing to steel her face into something more neutral.

Crowding her against the wall, Sonic was face to face with Shadow, making sure that Shadow was only looking at her as she asked again.

"Why didn't you let Amy call in the police?"

Sure, Amy would have seemed suspicious at first, but when accounting for all of their words the police would never be able to pin the blame on her. No matter how much their grubby hands would ache for an easy shut to a murder case, three students vouching for her and all the other students who'd seen her arrive at school and surely her parents who could account for her being home that day would mean that Amy couldn't have done it. Her finding the body would have been save, but Shadow had stopped her.

Why?

At the time Nicky fully believed that Shadow was right, calling in their police department would have put them all in jail and worse. But now Sonic wasn't convinced.

Shadow's glare intensified as Sonic asked, her eyes shortly roaming over Sonic, taking in the sweater she'd usually tie around her waist but forgone that decision right now and the glasses hung from them now.

Sonic leaned in closer, pulling Shadow's attention back to her face. Shadow didn't back down this time, not caught off guard by Sonic as she'd just been. The hand that Sonic had just caught was straining against her as Shadow stubbornly kept her mouth shut.

"You're not convincing me here princess." Sonic lulled, giving Shadow one final look over before falling back. Letting go, Shadow stumbled past Sonic. Sending another glare at her. The nerd just smirked and leaned back, her arms behind her neck as she winked at Shadow.

Shadow just blinked at her for a moment. Straightening up she forced a more neutral expression on her face as she straightened out her skirt, crossed her arms, leaned back against the door and then - only then - did she look Sonic in the eyes.
It looked forced.

"Why should I have to convince you? I didn't know about Mr. Don." She stated.
"Yeah, but that doesn't explain why you stopped Amy from calling the police."

There was another pregnant pause between the two, Shadow didn't budge and Sonic was realising that the hard approach wouldn't work.

Letting out a sigh, she let her hands slip to her sides. Breaking eye contact with Shadow, she opted to look at the tip of her nose instead.

"Please princess," Sonic asked earnestly, Shadow almost looked surprised again.
"Or should I get on my knees to beg you for an answer?"

Red eyes roved Sonic up and down, her eyes lingering on her glasses before falling lower. For a moment, she truly looked like she considered having Sonic beg her on her knees.

"First." She lamented after a moment, Sonic broke out into a grin. "Stop calling me princess."
"Second, the police wouldn't have gone after Amy." Sonic was glad that they were on the same page.
"They would have gone for me and I don't feel like going to jail for something I didn't do." Sonic was lost.

The grin was instantly wiped from her face.
"Wait what's that supposed to mean?"

"Wouldn't you like to know?" Shadow reached next to her and unlocked the door, pulling it open she stepped through, "Sonic."

The door slammed shut with Shadows leave.

Sonic stood there for a moment stunned before jolting forward. Janking the door open, Shadow had disappeared into the crowd still roaming the hallways.

Groaning to herself, Sonic just took the glasses from her sweater and plopped them squarely on her face with frustration.

Nicky left that bathroom with a hurry, hoping she wouldn't be late for her next class. Next time she should question Shadow after school, not first period.

The day went by in a flurry, most of her teachers took the time to say that they were happy to see her back, Vanilla kept her a moment after her economics class to give her a batch of her home-made cookies and fret over her more as if her own parents hadn't been doing that all week.

It was safe to say that at the end of the day, Nicky was feeling more exhausted than usual. Her mind kept falling back to the conversation she's had with Shadow that morning, the cheerleader seemed to keep her distance from her over the remainder of the day and Nicky felt bad for it. Maybe she shouldn't have jumped her like that.

A vibration from her pocket caught her attention, happy for a distraction from her guilt, she grabbed her phone to see she'd received a text message.
Eyes lighting up as she saw who it was from, Nicky quickly clicked on Amy's picture and read through the short message.

Amy was coming to school again tomorrow.

The two shared their first period on Friday so they agreed to meet up beforehand. Nicky pocketed her phone and walked with excitement to her car.
She couldn't wait to see Amy tomorrow, she'd been worried about her friend.

Nicky was waiting outside the school entrance, waiting for a head of pink to pop up in the crowd.
Tails had already headed inside, the pre-teen was grumbling about getting there so early, but Nicky just told him that if he wanted to sleep in a little more than he could have just taken the bus.

"And spend ages getting to school?" He'd said pushing the door open at 07:40. "Yeah, no thanks. I'll just hide your glasses for extra time." Nicky wanted to chew him out, but the younger fox disapeared into the school cackling.

Nicky had wanted to get there early to meet up with Amy. Granted, she might have been a little too excited in getting there on time, but when she heard her best friends voice call out her name she didn't care.

Looking up, Amy waved at her excitedly. The pink hedgehog looked tired, eye bags sat under her eyes as if she'd barely slept in the last two weeks, yet a genuine smile sat on her lips as she ran up to Nicky.
The two girls chatted as they entered the school, classes went by without any issues. Most teachers welcomed Amy back with excitement, Vanilla made sure to give her a tight hug when she saw Amy and just like he'd done with Nicky, Vector had a heart-to-heart with the occult club president.

Before she knew it, lunch time had rolled around and Nicky was sitting at a table with Amy, Tails and Knuckles. Nicky was telling them the story of Espio and Charmy's 'interrogation' that Tails couldn't help but butt into.

"I practically saved her ass you know?"
"Language," Nicky chided him as Tails just rolled his eyes. "Also you didn't save me."
"Uh, I totally did." Tails argued.

The two siblings went back and forth like that, Amy laughed at them while Knuckles just shovelled food into her mouth.

"Oh, hey Shadow." Amy said, looking up from the pair behind Nicky.
Whipping around, Nicky was faced with Shadow in her usual cheerleader uniform.
Food tray in hand, she looked at everybody at the table, her eye lingering a moment longer on Nicky before falling back to Amy, a smile framing her face.

"Hey Amy, just wanted to say I'm happy to see you're back."
An uncomfortable air hung around the table, hearing that from anyone else wouldn't have been strange, but hearing it from Shadow felt strange. Maybe it was just Nicky, but looking up she saw that Knuckles had stopped eating and even Amy had a sour look on her face that she was trying to hide.

Tails sent her a confused look, but Nicky just sent him one back not to ask.
The two hedgehogs went back and forth for a bit, Shadow just asked how she was feeling and whether she'd be at cheer training anytime soon. The cheerleader eventually said her goodbye when Rouge came up to their table to 'steal her away.'

Shadow left with little more than a goodbye. She hadn't even uttered a single word to Nicky, but the blue hedgehog couldn't help but watch her as she went.

Silence fell around the table while Nicky was seemingly distracted, her attention napped back when Amy scrapped her throat, sending a pointed look to Nicky that did nothing but confuse her.

"Well if anyone is interested, I'm joining the yearbook club." Tails threw out as an ice breaker. Nicky looked at him in surprise.
"Wait, what happened with robotics club?" Tails just nodded, taking a bite of food before answering.
"I'm still doing that, I'm just also doing yearbook club. Cream asked me, said they could use a photographer."

"Don't they already have one?" Amy asked puzzled.
"Sort of," Tails answered, "but Elise stepped up as club president so she won't have as much time to take pictures."
Amy nodded along to Tails' answer, a bit absentminded as she did.

Lunch ended and Nicky returned to class wondering.

The day flew by and before Nicky knew it, classes were over. The nerd hurried over to the other side of the school building where Amy would be finishing up her final class.

The club president stood in the hall, waving as she spotted Nicky. The two made their way out of the school together as Amy talked animatedly about her final class and the group project she had.

The two weren't walking towards the main entrance, it would have been swamped by hundreds of students by now, all trying to push through the same pair of doors to get outside and enjoy the weekend. Instead the two opted to go through the back exit, it usually was a lot less visited and it was just plain easier to go there, walk around the school building - past the sports field - and round up to the front of the school.

The hallways here were a lot calmer around this time. In no way desolate, but significantly calmer than the other hallways leading out were.

Someone called out to Amy as Nicky pushed opened the door. The pink hedgehog turned to greet them before following Nicky outside, but the pinkette walking straight into Nicky's back.

"Nicky?" Amy asked surprised, but Nicky did not respond.
Looking over her shoulders, Amy tried to see what was going on but there wasn't anything. Looking around, there were a few students lingering in the backyard of the school building.

It took Amy a few moments to realise what was off.
They were all staring.

Some wide eyes lingered on her and Nicky, but most students were staring up at the school building. Nicky, however, was staring down.

Something fell in front of them, 'falling might be the wrong word,' Amy thought, it plopped to the ground.
Peering confused over Nicky's shoulder, in front of Nicky was a heap.

Amy was confused on why everyone was frozen because of a random pile. Some students in front of them were crying, some were filming, Amy was sure that one of them was hysterically calling someone on the phone.

Amy had no idea why, but Nicky recognised the smell of iron. It paired horribly with the smell of rot.

Nicky breathed carefully, as if breathing too loudly would break her. Amy worriedly stepped around her, shaking her lightly by the shoulder.
Her confusion only grew when Nicky didn't respond.

Looking out over the slowly growing crowd, she felt a block of anxiety grow in the back of her throat.

"Nicky?" She asked again, desperation welling up, she shook her friend harder. Something fell in front of them again and Amy jumped back. Looking down horrified, she saw maggots squirm on the floor. The little bugs were squirming around in whatever had fallen down earlier.
That's when Amy finally heard what that guy was screaming on the phone.

"THERE'S A DEAD BODY NAILED TO THE BUILDING, PLEASE JUST SEND SOMEONE ALREADY!"

Mr. Don's body had been found nailed to the back of the school building.
His arms out like an angel, there was a rope around his neck that was tied through one of the windows, presumably for the killers ease. Beside his body were strange symbols, at first people thought it was in his blood but a later police report would reveal it to be just paint.
Everything from the waist down was still missing, the same as when Nicky, Amy, Shadow and Knuckles had found him in the shed. The pile that had fallen to the floor was his large intestine.

Coincidentally all four were present when the scene was discovered by students leaving through the back exit for the weekend. Amy and Nicky had made use of the backdoor to leave the building while Knuckles and Shadow had seen the commotion from the sports field and, together with some other students, decided to check it out.

Someone had called in the police, all students present at the scene were kept back that day to be questioned. The hall to the principle's office was a sorry sight to see, lines of students were waiting for their statement to be taken by an officer in the office itself, some students were sitting in chairs, most were on the floor.

No teachers were present, there was a separate classroom where they were being questioned.

It reminded Nicky all too much of the day of Mr. Nite's death - of his murder.

Nicky sat huddled on the ground with Amy, Knuckles was standing over them, leaning against the wall. A scowl sat on her face as she watched another student - seemingly still in shock - leave the principles office, motioning for the next to enter.

Amy was hugging her knees, face blank and usually Nicky would try anything to cheer her up, but truthfully the girl wasn't feeling much better herself.

She let out a little yelp as something cold pressed to the back of her neck. Scrambling to look back, Nicky was faced with Shadow leaning down, a cold can of chaos cola in her hand and a snicker escaping her lips.

The small group of students still left waiting looked at them for just a moment before going back to what they were doing. Most just on their phone, others just staring off into space.

Nicky looked hesitantly at Shadow before taking the drink and nodding in thanks. The cheerleader revealed two more cans that she offered to Knuckles and Amy.
Knuckles accepted, Amy refused.
Shadow ended up taking the drink instead.

Nicky stared at the can, Shadow must have gotten them straight from the vending machine if they were this cold. While Nicky just held the can in her hands, Knuckles didn't hesitate to drink hers, but Nicky couldn't help but feel a little bad for how she'd treated Shadow just yesterday when she was being so nice now.

"It's not going to get any colder you know?" Shadow said. Looking up in surprise, Nicky jerked back when Shadow was leaning close to where she was huddled in on herself. The cheerleader was eyeing her with suspicion, as if trying to find something about Nicky that would answer a question she had. Eventually not finding it, she just nodded to the drink and suddenly Nicky remembered that she was holding it.

"Oh- right." Nicky hurriedly opened the can and took a sip. It was sweet.

The four sat there in silence, watching the clock tick by and students walk out of the principles office one by one.

"So…" Shadow started up eventually. "Not the best day to be honest." Nicky couldn't help the giggle that escaped her, that was an insane understatement. The three looked at her weirdly and Nicky couldn't wasn't even sure how to explain herself.

"Sorry, it's just…" She said wiping her face, the cold condensation sticking to her hand was a nice distraction, a short reprieve. "After Mr. Nite- now Mr. Don, it's just…" She couldn't the words for it, but she didn't need to.

Knuckles nodded from where she stood and Shadow looked at her sympathetically, Amy didn't respond. Nicky thought she hadn't heard her, maybe out of shock but that assumption was blown away when she murmured something.

"Did you say something Amy?" Shadow seemed to be the only other one to have noticed. Amy did repeat herself, barely any louder but loud enough for the three to overhear.

"We knew he was dead…" It wasn't biting, but it was calling out the elephant in the room, the body no longer in the shed. Nicky looked around the room, there were barely any students left and none really seemed to be paying attention to the four of them.

Knuckles nodded.
"Are we finally going to talk about it?" She asked. Nicky wasn't sure if she wanted to, but the burning desire for answers was slowly eating away at her, she had to talk about it.

"Amy," She started carefully, "how did you know about-" Nicky felt like throwing up just thinking about the shed now, but going by Amy's deep breath in she was fairly sure that the club leader understood what she meant.

"I got a note." She started slowly. "I woke up after Knuckles had gone to school and it was just there… by the door." Amy took another deep breath, Nicky reached out a hand trying to comfort her. To anyone else they probably looked like a group of friends trying to comfort one of them having a breakdown, a common sight that afternoon. To Nicky, these were questions stacking on answers.

"So… you got a letter, addressed to you, that told you Mr. Don was in the shed?" Knuckles slowly repeated, Amy nodded.
"Basically."

The four were plunged into another pregnant pause.

"That is intentional as fuck."

Everyone looked up at Shadow as if she'd just announced that her favourite tv show was on. "I'm sorry, but it is!" She quickly defended herself, the three immediately started shushing her when her voice rose in volume. Sending them all a look of annoyance, Shadow relented, squatted down and huddled closer to Nicky and Amy. Knuckles soon follower her example as she started to explain further.

"I mean, there are two dead teachers and Amy gets a letter - addressed to her - about the second one. We find him, anonymously report the body-"
"I wouldn't exactly call anonymously telling the school that 'the shed smells weird' 'reporting it'." Nicky couldn't have finished her argument sooner before Shadow had a hand pressed against her mouth.
"We report the body and they don't find it."

"What do you mean they don't find it?" Knuckles inquired stumped.
"Coach was asked to check it out when the school couldn't find Mr. Don, he complained about it during practice." Shadow explained, her hand still covering Nicky's mouth.

"The bodies were also found in similar ways…" Amy piped up quiet but stronger. Nicky looked to her as a frown took over her face. "Both bodies were…" No one was sure which one was worse, Mr. Don or Mr. Nite.

"Mutilated." Amy manages to grit out, "Cut." the words don't come out any easier and with every word that leaves Amy's mouth an image strikes Nicky in the head. Of Mr. Nite's body- of Mr. Don in the shed, on the building. "Displayed."

Each body was surrounded by symbols, put somewhere where people were bound to find them. First with the fire alarm, then with the end of school. Whoever was out there, wanted their work to be seen.

"So… what now?" They had all this info, the four of them probably knew more than the entire school and police department did.

"I think," Amy started and something in her just snapped in place.
Nicky saw the moment it happened. Ever since the death of Mr. Nite, something in Amy Rose had been wrong, off. Right now, Nicky saw how that piece came back with a force of it's own, like light returned to her eyes, like resolve strengthening into steel. It laced her voice, sounding much more certain than Nicky felt about anything in the last three days.
"We should investigate."

Chapter Text

Nicky was running, heaving and gasping she was fleeing as fast she could through the halls of Green Hill High. It was dark outside, nothing beyond the windows except an inky black void, the only thing lighting her way were the lights of the hallway; flickering and shining half dim but nothing slowed Nicky down.

She was being chased, someone behind her laughing as they gave chase, that eerie laugh curling around her mind like daggers and grasping her lungs to squeeze out air. She was running as fast as she could, desperate to get away but no matter what she did, the killer could walk and catch up with her anyway.

She tripped, over her own dress and hit the floor. A dress, why was she wearing a dress?

Falling down, she fell into something wet and sticky. Looking down, Nicky screamed at the blood beginning to soak her clothes and hands. No sound came from her mouth but the killers laugh was louder than ever and right behind her. Throwing herself on her back she saw their shadowed figure, heaving something above their head. Words were leaving her mouth but nothing of what left registered with her, maybe she was begging, maybe she was cursing the killer.
She held out her hand out to protect herself as the murderer slammed it down on her.

Nicky screamed, no actual sound coming from her mouth as she jumped up. Blood rushed from her heart despite her heart pounding in her throat as she looked around confused.
She wasn't in any hallway, she wasn't wearing a bloodied dress, there wasn't anyone here.

She was in bed, the blanket thrown off her and it was still dark outside. The clock read four in the morning and Nicky grasped at her shirt gasping for air. When her heart started to slow down, Nicky took a deep breath, the nerd just shuddered for a moment. The memory of her nightmare slowly etching itself down in her memory as she recalled the events with details slipping her mind. A weapon big enough to slice through bodies coming down at her, the murder she'd walked in on. The dark.

Swallowing heavily, Nicky slowly climbed out of bed, stumbling towards the light switch. The light stung her eyes when she flicked them on, but breathing became a little easier with the darkness driven out.

This wasn't the first nightmare she'd had and surely wouldn't be the last, still Nicky sighed in annoyance as she made her way to her closet. She wouldn't get anymore sleep tonight, she might as well get ready for school.

'It turns out that investigating your teachers murder is easier said than done.' Nicky thought to herself fuzzily.

It's been a month and everything the Green Hill High Occult Club has to show for it is a corkboard with a pathetic lack of red string.
"It's a theory board!" Amy had announced at the grand reveal. It really wasn't.
It was a conspiracy board, maybe the worlds saddest one. Worse, Shadow hadn't even seen the worlds saddest conspiracy board because the one time the club reconvened at Amy and Knuckles' house, the dark hedgehog had opted to show up at the next group meeting.
That was two weeks ago and absolutely nothing had happened since then.

In Nicky's defence, she'd been busy with school.
Everyone had.

After Mr. Don's death, the school had an actual shutdown. It was still the beginning of the school year but with half of that time spent closed for investigation, it meant that the moment the doors opened up again, every single student had to catch up with 3 weeks of schoolwork

Tails joked that this was the hardest that high school would get, Nicky knew he'd be singing a very different tune around exam time, but still. A part of her couldn't help but agree with her little brother.

The school had remained open after Mr. Nite's death, not a lot of students were present when he was found, just the occult club, a few sport clubs and some stragglers had seen him after the fire alarm had been pulled. The police had cornered off the sight, moved the body, questioned people and left, but Mr. Don's death had closed the school for weeks.

Nicky was sure that the police had just done the same. Remove the body, question people, leave. The memory of sitting in that hallway when Amy resolved to investigate the murders of Mr. Nite and Mr. Don was still fresh in her mind.

It was one of those moments where no one had been able to say anything, Nicky knew that the moment Amy had made up her mind she would be on board. Then her name was called from the office.

The interrogation had largely been the same. What did you see? Why were you there, and more. The interrogator was a different one from last time.
It took a while longer, but eventually she was let out and the next student was called in.
Amy and Knuckles fussed over her when she came out, worried because she'd been in there longer than other students had, but Nicky just shrugged her shoulders and said that nothing much happened. She stayed there till Amy and Knuckles were questioned, the three of them waited eventually for Shadow. The cheerleader leaving the principles office a lot more stoic than any of them had.

A month had passed since then, school had been closed for weeks and now Nicky stood in front of the school building again. It was raining in early autumn, but with the warm weather Nicky could close her eyes and be convinced it was just some late summer rain.

She took a deep breath, the rain hit her raincoat in a soft pattern that let her mind wander. There weren't any people around, school was about to start and she was a little late but she couldn't move herself to care. It was peaceful outside.

All of a sudden the soft pattering or rain stopped, confused Nicky looked up. Instead of being met with a grey sky, she was met with the insides of a red umbrella. Turning around she was met with Shadow. The cheerleader holding the umbrella over the two of them.

The two didn't say anything for a moment, Shadow looked her up and down and Nicky felt too stunned to say anything without sounding like an idiot.
"Nicky?" Shadow asked softly.
"Uh, hi Shadow." Nicky responded, finally finding her voice again.

The cheerleader took another moment to take her in and Nicky was sure that if she looked any more intense then her heart would beat right out of her throat.
"You're soaked." Looking down, Nicky wasn't sure how she hadn't noticed before but the clear raincoat she wore was damp, in and out.
"Oh dang it." She muttered under her breath. It was an older jacket from her mom, she should've just gone inside when she got here instead of standing in the rain like an idiot.
"Come on," Shadow took Nicky's hand without hesitation and started leading her inside. Nicky, on her part, offered no resistance.

Shadow led her inside and further, through corridors and hallways until the two arrived at a familiar set of doors. The gyms locker room.

Walking inside, Shadow didn't let go of Nicky's hand until the two stopped at a specific locker. Finally and only then did Shadow let go of her hand to open it.
Nicky quietly mourned the loss of Shadows hand in hers when suddenly the cheerleader started pulling off her sweater.

"WOAH, hey-" Nicky's hands shot over her eyes, turning away to give Shadow some privacy.
"What's wrong?" Shadow asked, mirth in her voice. "You never changed in the locker room before?" She teased as Nicky still averted her eyes.
"I- I have!" Nicky protested over her shoulder, her eyes still shooting everywhere other than Shadow.
"Hmm." The dark hedgehog hummed, "odd way of showing it." she said as she offered the sweater to Nicky.

Nicky looked at the sweater in surprise before looking up to Shadow. The cheerleader was now wearing her uniform, having changed while Nicky was panicking.
"You're going to catch a cold if you keep wearing that." Shadow explained. Hesitantly, Nicky took the sweater.

Pulling off her raincoat, she replaced her own soaked sweater with Shadows warm and dry one. It was the same beige sweater that she'd worn the other day, it smelled of her.

Turning back to Shadow, the cheerleader was giving her a good look over before nodding satisfied.
"I wouldn't have caught a cold you know…" Nicky muttered into the hem of the sweater. It was a bit big on Shadow, but Nicky was engulfed.

"Maybe not." Shadow relented, fixing her little quill-ties in the mirror of her gym locker. "But rather safe than sorry right?" Shadow smiled at her when she finished, straightening up wearing her classical get up.

Nicky felt her face heat up, quickly shaking her head she tried to push forwards.

Be cool Nicky, be cool.
"I- uhm. Sorry, for the other day." Nicky stammered out before she could think better of it. Shadow looked at her confused before realisation crossed her face when she understood what she was talking about.
You're an idiot Nicky, such an idiot.

"I really shouldn't have cornered you like that and- yeah." Nicky relented, scratching the back of her neck, she didn't dare look Shadow in the eyes at that moment.
"I- was desperate to know, not that I think you did anything but, I wasn't thinking clearly and I shouldn't have pushed that onto you." Nicky rambled off, her anxiety sweltering the longer she talked.

The two were plunged in silence when Nicky finished her apology. The only sound in the locker room was the water dripping on the floor from Nicky's soaked clothing. The shorter hedgehog was sure that Shadow was going to ask for her sweater back when the darker hedgehog spoke up.

"It's ok." Surprised, Nicky looked at Shadow. It was okay? Does that mean that Shadow didn't care or she wasn't surprised by it, maybe Nicky could even ask what her meant by 'they would have gone for me.'
The cheerleader stood closer to her than she realised and Nicky startled back. Her back crashing against the wall of lockers behind her. Shadow didn't hesitate to step forward, her hand slamming next to Nicky's head, crowding her against the lockers.

Nicky's heart was beating out her throat again.
"Shadow?" She squeaked, trying to press herself into the lockers as Shadow stared her down. The two now standing in a complete reverse from that day.

"Just don't do it again," The dark hedgehog smiled down at Nicky.
Shadow leaned in until their faces were inches apart, Nicky could feel herself growing redder by the second.
"Alright?" The word took a moment to register with Nicky, but the shorter nerd nodded desperately when she did. Her tongue stuck in her mouth and her mind melting with the seconds that passed.

Shadow looked her over, trying to gauge whether Nicky was telling the truth or not, after a moment the cheerleader seemed satisfied and pulled away.
Cold air seemed to crash over Nicky as Shadow pulled away, closed her locker and turned to smile at her again.

"Alright, well. See you around Nicky."
With that, Shadow grabbed her bag and umbrella and made her way out of the locker room leaving Nicky alone.

Letting out a breath she hadn't realised she was holding, Nicky slid down the lockers until she hit the floor. Staring out in front of her she sat there in a daze.

The sweater pooling around her still had some lingering warmth, taking the hem in her hand, Nicky pulled the fabric to her nose.
It smelled like Shadow, lavender and all.

Realising what she was doing, Nicky groaned. Still holding the sweater, she hid her quickly reddening face in her hands.

Oh Gaia, she's no better than any man.

Taking a deep breath, she pulled her face out of the sweater. Breathing out slowly she resolved herself to never think anything weird about Shadow again. She had to get this silly little crush under control, even more so, she had to let it go.

She knew since her junior year that any feelings she had towards Shadow would be useless. The cheerleader would never look at her like that, especially after Nicky screwed up whatever budding friendship they had in that bathroom weeks ago.
It was best to let it go, before anyone got hurt.

Still, the nerd mulled over the words Shadow had told her then.
'The police wouldn't have gone after Amy. They would have gone for me-'
The cheerleader had sounded so certain when she told Sonic, as if what she was saying just fact. Nicky was missing a page, something that would make that short statement make sense but no matter how she went about it in her mind, she could not think of any reason for why Shadow would have been more suspicious than Amy if she wasn't the killer. Yet, Nicky believed Shadow when she said that it wasn't her. It couldn't have been Shadow, she was with them when the fire alarm went off and she was accounted for with Mr. Don's case. So what was Nicky missing?
Frustration welled up in the shorter hedgehogs mind, eventually just sighing and deciding to put the theory on the back burner for now.

Resolving herself on the locker floor, Nicky pushed herself off. Splashing her face with some cool water, she dried off and headed out.
Maybe she could still make it to her first period class.

The weather didn't let up with the hours and when the final bell rang she was faced with a dilemma, put on her still damp raincoat and brave the rain or wait until the weather let up?
Both would ruin Shadows sweater.

After standing around and moping, Nicky still stood under the schools canopy looking at the sky when someone walked over to her.
"Hello Nicky," Miss. Vanilla smiled at her, "I see you're also waiting for the rain to clear." The student nodded and without a word, Vanilla walked further under the overhang towards a bench and sat down. Silently inviting Nicky to take place next to her, Nicky followed her wordlessly.

The two sat there staring out over the courtyard for a minute, the rain still pattering softly over the desolate space. A few students ran out into the rain trying to get to their cars as fast as possible or to catch up with the bus. Taking a deep breath, Nicky noted it smelled like petrichor and marshes.
Maybe she needed this, just a moment of nothing. With how the last few weeks have gone, exhaustion creeping in on everyday with her shortening nights and now that she's finally caught up to her schoolwork, just having a moment like this feels nice. This was nice.

"You know, I used to sit with your mother like this." Miss. Vanilla eventually broke through the silence. The Rabbit rummaged through her bag, revealing a folded up handkerchief. Pulling it onto her lap she undid the knots and revealed a batch of chocolate cookies. Offering one to Nicky, the hedgehog gladly took one.

Miss. Vanilla and Nicky's mom used to go to high school together, she wasn't sure if they both had gone to Green Hill or somewhere else, but when Nicky was younger she remembered the Rabbits coming over to her house for game nights. Back then it was just Vanilla and her husband, Cream's father, Cake the Rabbit.

Looking at Miss. Vanilla now, the teacher had changed a lot since then.

"Really?" Nicky asked, taking a bite and looking as two students ran hand in hand trying to catch the bus.
"Yup," Vanilla said cheerily. "I remember making sure to bring extra sweets on rainy days. I thought that if I didn't then your mother would somehow burn the school down with her…" Miss. Vanilla searched for the word, "impatience."

"Oh I'm sure it wasn't so bad." commented Nicky. Vanilla levelled her with a stare.

"Nicky, no offence but your mother does not have patience." Hearing how her mother used to be compared to how she was now made Nicky laugh, they certainly felt like worlds apart but at the end of the day they were still the same person.
"I think she's changed." Nicky argued through her snickers. "With Tails almost blowing up the house weekly, she's definitely learned some patience." Nicky took another cookie from Vanilla when offered and the teacher nodded sagely at her reasoning. Nicky has no doubt that her mom had told her teacher in detail about how excited she was for Tails to be in the robotics club so he could blow up their lab instead of their basement.

"Well you do have a point there I guess, I'm honestly surprised he hasn't done anything yet."
"He's waiting for the midpoint of the school year, thinks that it'll be too late to expel him then or something." Nicky informed her casually, a look of deep concern flashed across Vanilla's face before she muttered something about 'giving the robotics teacher a heads up'.

"Anyway enough about Tails." Miss. Vanilla waved the thought from her mind, eager to move past the little terrorist. "How are you doing Nicky?" She asked turning to her student.

Nicky looked at her for a moment before turning back to the rain.
"Oh, you know. I'm good." Going by Miss. Vanilla's raised eyebrow, the rabbit did not believe that for a second.
"Miss Nicky Parlouzer, don't think you can fool me like that. I've known you for your whole life, I can tell that something is bothering you."

"If anyone should ask then it should be me, you knew Mr. Nite and Mr. Don for a lot longer than I have." Nicky argued back, but Miss. Vanilla just raised her eyebrow.
"I did, but I didn't discover both their bodies." And she had Nicky there.

Relenting, the hedgehog looked down at her cookie in defeat. The treats made sense now, bribery in the coat of kindness, the worst. Taking a large bite, Nicky ate the cookie in one.

When Vanilla still looked at her expecting an answer, the hedgehog truly relented.
"Well…" Nicky started, her throat closing up as soon as she started to talk. "It's-" Lying wouldn't work on Vanilla.

Taking a deep breath, Nicky truly relented, "Fine… It's been hard."
She hadn't really talked with it to anyone, not Tails, not Knuckles, not even Amy… Maybe she needed more friends but that was a problem for tomorrow.

"I haven't been sleeping so well and eating- it's been a mixed bag honestly."

"I've been doing better the past few days, but I can still see their bodies in front of me when I close my eyes sometimes." Or what was left at least.
"I can imagine losing your appetite over that, and sleep." Vanilla said gently, Nicky nodded. Staring at nothing in particular, other than the distance.
Vanilla offered the final cookie to her and Nicky took it hesitantly, nibbling on it as Vanilla lightly prodded at her to go on.

"I don't want to worry my mom with this honestly, not dad either and Tails-" Nicky's voice cracked, shutting her mouth, she took a moment to collect herself. She did not want to start crying in front of Vanilla, especially not at school. By Gaia, the last time she'd cried in front of the rabbit was when she was eleven.

Vanilla didn't say anything, instead opting to scoot a little closer and placing a reassuring hand on Nicky's back. Rubbing slow circles in the same way she had when Nicky was younger. It was reassuring.

"But seriously though, how are you holding up?" Nicky turned to Vanilla, wiping her eyes before fully looking to her teacher. She really didn't want to be the only one venting out here today.

"It's been rough. to be honest, I'm mostly worried about Cream, But we've been going strong." Vanilla explained, Nicky just did that thing where when you're not entirely sure what to say, you'd nod. Nodding, she listened to Vanilla until the teacher asked her again.
"Will you be at the funeral?"
"Hasn't that already happened?" Vanilla shook her head.
"No, I got an invitation from their families, but a date hasn't been set yet. They asked me to invite any students that Nite and Don were close to, so consider this your official invitation."

Nicky looked at Vanilla confused before the teacher went on to explain.
"I talked with Nite's sister, they want to hold the funeral with the bodies rather than without." Something must have shown on Nicky's face, because Vanilla quickly added.
"Not on display or anything! But I agree, holding a funeral without their bodies feels a bit empty."

Nicky relaxed a bit, she'd have to look out for an invitation in the mail, but it did strike her as odd that the bodies hadn't been released to the families yet. It made sense that it would take time, especially considering the state of Mr. Nite and Mr. Don, but it had been weeks. Closer to months for Mr. Nite.

Vanilla looked at her, a hint of surprise betraying in her eyes as she did.
"Is that Shadow's sweater?"

"Oh yeah- Shadow lent it to me this morning, I got soaked on my way to school."
"Oh Nicky, that's so sweet. I love that the two of you are still friends after all this time."

Nicky looked at her odd, still being friends after all this time?

Nicky was about to ask her what she meant when she got interrupted by the sound of her own name.
"Nicky!" Looking back, Amy ran up to the blue hedgehog.

"Emergency Occult Club meeting!" Amy announced, rushing past the bench and Vanilla, swiping Nicky's hand and dragging her along. Nicky barely had enough wit to her to grab her bag as Amy yanked her along.
"Uh- Bye Miss. Vanilla!" Nicky yelled back to her teacher before the blue hedgehog got hauled inside the school building.

"Amy what was that?" Nicky asked as soon as the door closed behind the two. Amy didn't stop to answer her, the pink club president dragging her faster through the hallways until they ended up somewhere in the math wing. Still confused, Nicky was pulled into a classroom that she hadn't entered since freshmen year but quickly realised was dressed up in Amy's usual Occult Club get up.

Jumping up when the door was slammed behind her, Nicky saw that they weren't alone in the decorated classroom. Shadow and Knuckles were already sitting at the table placed in the centre, Knuckles waving with her phone when she spotted Amy and Nicky.

"Amy we got your text!" She said sitting back down. Amy nodded and moved to the whiteboard, this silent version of Amy was started to unnerve her when Nicky fully registered what Knuckles has just said.

"Wait why did they get a text while I got kidnapped?!"
"Nicky you're just very kidnappable." Amy retorted while writing on the big board.

Shadow caught Nicky's attention when the cheerleader burst out in snickers, ignoring how her face heating up, Nicky grumbled as she took her seat at the table and waited with the rest for Amy to finish.

After writing down what she wanted, Amy took a step back and looked with satisfaction at her work. Capping the pen she slammed it back on its spot and twirled around. Her hands placed on her hips as she regarded the rest of her club members with a harsh gaze.

"Girls," She announced, making Nicky jump up in her seat when her hand shot out and slammed against the whiteboard. "It's come to my attention that we've achieved absolutely nothing."
The board read: 'WE ARE USELESS.' which, while not untrue, rude.

"I mean, come on it's been a month!" Amy deflated, the gusto that she'd used to drag Nicky through the halls and project her voice leaving quicker than air from a popped balloon as she slinked into a seat and looked exasperated at the others.
"Like, we have to have something by now."

"Nicky?"
"Sorry Amy, I just caught up on schoolwork…" Nicky admitted sheepishly.
"Shadow?"
"Don't look at me, I haven't even seen the pin board yet." Shadow held her hands up defensively.
"Knuckles?" Amy looked desperate.
"Hm, no. Also, what have you done up until now Amy? I know for a fact that that conspiracy-", "theory!" Amy cut in.
"conspiracy board, still looks as sad as last time." Knuckles finished with her arms crossed.

Amy outright pouted at Knuckles, her older sister just sticking out her tongue. While the two sisters were busy arguing, Shadow to Nicky, the cheerleader leaning in a bit to whispers.
"Hey, you don't happen to have Dr. Starline's homework finished, do you?" Nicky just nodded yes, not wanting to interrupt Amy and Knuckles' arguing.
"Think I can copy off of you? If I don't get taken out by this killer then Dr. Starline will do it." Despite Shadows whispering, a beat of silence fell over the table. Looking around confused, Shadow saw that all eyes were staring at her in mute shock. Amy going as far as to slowly shake her head.
"Too soon?"
"Yeah… a bit, anyway."

Amy went limp in her seat again.
"We need to start somewhere…" A frown fell over Amy's face, before Knuckles just audibly sighed. Pushing off from her seat, she stood up and walked over to the whiteboard. Snatching the marker from the little tray, wiped out Amy's writing and turned to the club.
"I think it's best to start with what we know right now."

Writing in clear, bold, letters, Knuckles went about setting up a timeline. Adding the dates of the murders and when they'd found Mr. Don in the shed. To the right of that she added little bits of info that they knew.
"Ok so, Mr. Nite was killed on the first day of school, about a week and a half later someone kills his husband." Shadow was about to pipe up but Knuckles gestured for her not to.
"And we think that they're the same people because of the similar ways the bodies were found. In public, heavily mutilated, and surrounded by symbols." Shadow nodded, leaning back in her chair with her arms crossed.

"The killer left me a letter one time." Amy offered. "No handwriting, just letters pasted in a note and a feather addressed to me." Knuckles wrote it down.
"Both bodies were accompanied by cult-like symbols, although Mr. Don's were written in red paint." Shadow mentioned, Knuckles wrote it down.

"Anything else that we know? We don't have any pictures of the bodies so we can't look into the symbols, but they feel important." Knuckles finished, capping the marker and looking around the room.
"Oh oh! Both bodies were moved after death!" Amy raised her hand high as she answered. Nodding, Knuckles added that to the list.
"The police haven't released either bodies yet." Nicky added, raising her hand a little.

Pausing mid stroke, Knuckles turned to her in surprise.
"Wait how do you know that?" Feeling everyone's eyes on her, Nicky couldn't help but shrink back and swallow.
"Uh- Vanilla told me-"
"When did Vanilla tell you this?"
"Right as you pulled me away from her, Amy." Nicky retorted deadpan.

Amy had at least the decency to look embarrassed.

"Right, well. That's weird."
"Kind of makes sense actually, with how… cut up they were." Shadow piped up.
"Well yeah, but it's been weeks, they've got to hand over the bodies to the families eventually right?" Shadow nodded at Nicky, none of them were sure how long a body could remain in a morgue or police custody, but it had been ages.

Confusion rippled through the group, Amy seemed to contemplate something before turning to Nicky.
"Do you think they're still at the morgue?" Nicky shrugged unsure.
"They have to be, the families want to bury the bodies at the funeral so they're putting everything off until they can."

Amy nodded to Nicky's answer, seemingly deep in thought with that new information. Knuckles carried on.
"Ok so we don't have any pictures of the bodies, we barely have a timeline. Motive? either homophobic or nothing, this is the worst." Slamming the marker into the tray, the red jock groaned, taking a step back from the board to look at everything clearly.

"Maybe someone has a picture? I mean, there were a lot of people who saw Mr. Don so there's got to be pictures of him out there, other than the police ones I mean." Shadow pitched.
Nicky was about to ask if she had anyone in mind when suddenly Amy's hands slammed on the table, cutting her off, the pinkette pushing herself up, exclaimed her idea.
"What if we went to the source?"
"Amy, we're already looking for the killer?"
"Yeah yeah, I don't mean that." The pink cheerleader waved Knuckles off, walking up to the whiteboard she grabbed the marker and moved next to the timeline. "I mean the bodies are still at the morgue." She said while writing.
"Amy, what are you getting at." Shadow asked carefully, not liking where this was going.
"What I'm getting at, is that if we know so little then we should get more information."

"What, like, reach out to the police asking for their notes? Yeah I'm sure that'd go over well." Knuckle said. "Hey mr. police officer, could we please get your notes on the ongoing murder investigation? we think the serial killer is someone we can uncover if we just had a lead." Knuckles mimed in a pretty good Amy impression.
"Well, no, but we certainly should get our hands on their notes." Amy agreed.

Finishing with what she was writing on the board, Nicky wasn't impressed that it turned out to actually be a drawing. What did surprise her though was how badly it was drawn, she couldn't make heads or tails from what Amy's drawing was supposed to be, the pink hedgehog herself didn't seem bothered by it. Tapping the pen on the drawing, she proudly presented her idea.
"Girls, I propose we get our hands on those autopsy reports."
"How?" Knuckles asked.
"…theft?"

Friday.
Somehow, Amy had convinced them to go steal the autopsy reports on a Friday.

Nicky could barely even believe it the next day. Standing awkwardly with a tray in her hand at lunch, she looked around the cafeteria trying to find her friends.
Well, trying was a strong word. She was dully staring out in front of her off to the side of the cafeteria hoping that someone she knew walked by so she could join them. It gave her some space to think, maybe Friday wasn't the worst day to break into the local hospitals morgue to try and steal the physical report of the autopsy, at least she could sleep in the next day.

Someone bumped into Nicky, startling her out of her train of thoughts. Looking around to who'd walked into her, Nicky was faced with a girl a little taller than her. The first thing that jumped out to Nicky was all the studs on her jacket and pants, the second were her eyes.
"uh- Sorry?" Nicky apologised hesitantly, electric blue eyes glared at her.
"Watch where you're going nerd." The girl snarled but didn't move, Nicky hadn't even been walking but she kept that to herself. The girl - a green tenrec? - looked her up and down as if to size her up.
"Can I help you?" Nicky asked slightly uncomfortable, she could feel her quills rise the longer this girl looked at her.

"You look like a pipsqueak." She said non-nonchalantly.
Taken aback, Nicky just gawked for a moment until she gathered her mind again.
"What?"
"You heard me," turning around to someone, Nicky finally noticed that the green tenrec wasn't alone.
"Kit, she looks like a pipsqueak right?"

The shorter guy just glanced at Nicky through his bangs before uttering a "Sure Surge." And going back to looking like he could melt into the floor.
Smirking, the girl - apparently named Surge - put her hands behind her neck.

"Hey, that's not really ni-"
"Oh Gaia, you even sound like a pipsqueak." Surge cut Nicky off, slinging an arm around Nicky's shoulder. "Although I guess you can't help it." Surge lamented, snatching Nicky's apple off her tray and taking a large bite from it before Nicky could even react. Chewing loudly, Nicky could understand why Kit looked like he wanted the ground to swallow him whole, she leaned back as far from Surge as she could while trapped in the tenrec's arm to avoid the bits and juices flying from her mouth.

"Wow," She threw out to Kit, "these apples are shit." She sounded almost disappointed.

"Hey Nicky!" A voice rang out somewhere to her left and Nicky has never felt as relieved and saved as she does now. "Over here." Cream stood up in her seat a few tables down waving to her.
Nicky could cry.

Slipping out of Surge's arm was easier now that her attention had zeroed in on the short rabbit.
"Sorry got to go, friends waiting and stuff." She hastily excused, snatching her apple back without much thought and speed walking over to Cream.

The rabbit smiled sympathetically as Nicky plopped down in the open seat next to her.
"Who was that?" She asked sitting back down.
"I don't know and I don't want to know." Nicky replied sourly as she grimaced at her bitten apple, yeah she was not going to eat that. Putting it far enough away from her on the table, Nicky actually had the chance to look around. The fact that Cream had joined the yearbook club resurfaced in her mind, Tails had told her he'd joined through Cream and apparently the younger rabbit had made a bunch of friends in the club. Sitting at the table were faces that Nicky recognised but not explicitly knew, some were in her year and she'd seen around class, but most she'd just seen around school and not much more.

"Hey, Nicky right?" A tall human girl with short red hair asked her, resting on her elbows as she leaned forward to talk to Nicky. There was a camera sitting beside her tray and a few printed pictures laid out over the table around her. When Nicky nodded, the girl smiled and extended a hand. "I'm Elise, club president."

Shaking her hand, Nicky introduced herself.
"You're Tails' sister right? I'm so glad he joined the club, you have no idea how badly we need photographers right now." Nicky looked at her confused, shooting a look between her and the pictures, wasn't she a photographer herself?

Cream must've seen her confused look, jumping in to explain why.
"Elise is the only photographer the club has but the old club president graduated last year so she stepped in." Nodding along to Cream's explanation, Elise looked down at Nicky's apple, a badly disguised look of disgust crossing her eyes as she grabbed her apple of her own tray and silently offering it to Nicky instead.

"Unfortunately I won't have as much time to take photographs and no one else really has any experience so I'm teaching Tails right now." Taking Elise's offer, Nicky gladly accepted the apple and took a bite.
"Is photography hard?" She asked, Elise's eyes lit up and Elise was off explaining the intricacies and techniques of photography, picture editing and more. Nicky could barely keep up, but Elise was clearly passionate about what she talked about, it was hard to not get sucked into her enthusiasm.
Catching a look from Cream, the rabbit was smiling in a fond way, as if it wasn't unusual for Elise to get caught up in an monologue like this.

"Hey guys." A familiar voice rang out from behind her. Turning around, Nicky was faced with Tails. The fox looked slightly surprised to see her sitting in front of him.
"Hey Nicky, didn't see you there." There was a bit of shuffling around but soon Tails was sitting next to her. The table felt a little crowded but that didn't stop the others from talking and joking around.

Tail's looked around, his eyes soon landing on Nicky's apple that Surge had bitten into. His eyes flitting between the apple in Nicky's hand and the one on the table for a moment before he piped up.
"Really Nicky, two apples? That's awfully greedy of you." He said jokingly, but before Nicky could dig back or explain, the fox swiped the first apple and bit into it.
Tails was chewing away happily, slowly faltering as he noticed the pointed looks of everyone at the table.
"What?" He asked confused.

"Uh… Surge bit into that apple." Nicky explained.

Looking at her dumbfounded, it took Tails a stupid amount of time to realize what she'd said.
As soon as he did though, he was spitting.

The table burst out laughing as Tails was spitting out his bite of apple, Nicky right along with him. Served him right for trying to steal her apple.
When Tails was done, he glared at Nicky murderously while sipping water.

After calming down, Nicky wiped away tears as Elise said something.
"What?" Nicky asked very intelligently, not catching what she said.

"Have you guys heard about the new teachers coming in?" Elise repeated herself.
Shaking her head no, the blue hound next to Elise piped up.
"I heard someones coming in to take over Mr. Nite's class, also another teacher but that's it." A blue hound at the table piped up. The mention of someone coming in to replace Mr. Nite made a sort of stab go right through Nicky's heart. Factually she knew that someone had to, but it still hurt that he was gone.

"Awww, is that all Gala?" Elise tried to ask composed, but her voice still came out with more a whine that sent the yellow short cat at the end of the table into a laugh.
"Oh don't try to act coy Elise, you probably know more than all of us combined."
"I object to that, you guys have no idea how much more you know than me." Elise joked back, poking her elbow into the cats side, hard enough to send her tumbling to the floor with a yelp.

The table burst out laughing, Nicky joined in but it felt more half-hearted than true. At least two new teachers would be coming to Green Hill High, one of them to replace Mr. Nite.
Putting the apple back to her tray, Nicky didn't feel as hungry now.

Nicky fully expected the week to go by without any hassle until Friday, when she, Amy, Knuckles and Shadow would break the law by breaking into a morgue to steal their teachers and concierge autopsy reports. That whole sentence sounded like the beginning of a bad joke, a joke that Nicky could throw out because the hassle started Thursday.

Getting summoned to the principle's office over the schools com system sent a bolt of dread down Nicky. Had they found out about the plan? Would there be cops waiting for her in the office, were Amy and the others already there or was she the first one? Everything felt cold and hot at the same time as she just stared at her open notebook in front of her.
"Nicky," Her math teacher, Dr. Starline, called out from the front of the class. Her head felt like it was underwater as she slowly looked up to them. "You best get going, just make sure to bring in your homework by tomorrow." He said annoyed before turning back to the board. Nodding absentmindedly, Nicky packed her bag, slower than she usually would but nobody commented or seemed to notice.

The trek to the principle's office had never felt so long and so short at the same time. She swore it was a mile away from her classroom but in a blink she was there.
The assistant at the desk looked up at her and motioned for her to come over. Almost in a daze, Nicky shuffled to her doom.

"Miss. Parlouzer-Prower,"
"Just Parlouzer is fine." The correction automatically slipped from her mouth, she wasn't sure if the lady across from her noticed how haunted her voice sounded but she just moved on.
"Right, Miss. Parlouzer, I've already called your parents and they're coming in to pick your brother up, but until they're here could we bother you with looking after him."
"Huh?" Nicky let out like a goldfish.
"Your brother. He blew the science lab. we're not sure how but- oh I don't know. Would you please wait with him until your parents get here and they can talk with the principle?"

One time, Nicky had dreamt of the end of the world. She'd been nine and had just watched a horror movie with her parents. She had no idea why her parents had thought that a movie revolving the nuclear fallout and subsequent death of all of mobian-kind and humanity would be an appropriate Halloween movie for a nine year old, but they had. Her dreams that night were filled with people melting alive and corpses. She'd woken up screaming around two in the morning when her parents burst into her room. She jumped upright in her bed and later her mother told her that the look of horror in her eyes convinced the both of them to never let her watch a scary movie again. You see, Nicky hadn't cried, or screamed for long. Her breathing wasn't ragged and neither did she seem confused about her surroundings. Her mother had described it as seeing someone dying in reverse, one moment she was screaming and the next she was silent, awake, with a look in her eyes that neither parents could meet.

Right at that moment, Nicky was sure she had that same look in her eyes. The secretary awkwardly looked away, not meeting her eyes. Trying to save face, she pointedly looked around to the row of seats. Following her gaze, Nicky's eyes landed on Tails. The young fox sat huddled in on himself, he didn't seemed hurt, just a little charred around the edges.

Taking a deep breath, Nicky turned back to the secretary.
"Right," trying to relax, Nicky sent her a smile and thanked her. Her attempt clearly not working as she'd wished when the secretary just nodded while pretending to be busy with some paperwork. Nicky just decided to cut her loses and drop into the open seat next to Tails.

"I'm sorry." Tails muttered, sounding smaller than Nicky liked and she knew it wasn't because of the blown up lab. Trying to push her whiplash of emotions out of her mind, Nicky pulled on a soft smile and ruffled Tails' hair, for once the fox just let her.
"You should be saving the apologies for mom and dad," she joked, "they're probably worried out of their minds right now." Tails gave her an unimpressed look, finally pushing her hand out of his hair as he inflated in his seat again.

"Hey, I'm not the only one who got into trouble!" Tails protested. Nicky looked at him confused, there wasn't anyone in the seats next to him or across from them so who?

Tails gave her a pointed look before pointing next to her, turning around Nicky was faced with Espio and next to him Charmy, the bee excitedly waving at her as Espio just grinned.
"Hey Nicky." Feeling very stupid for not noticing them before now, Nicky awkwardly replied.
"Hey Espio, hey Charmy."

"I think you should get your glasses checked out, you didn't even look at us until now." Charmy laughed, Espio just poked him in the side with his elbow to shut the bee up.
"Maybe if you got glasses then you wouldn't have gotten caught today." Espio pointed out unimpressed.

"Did he break into high school again?" Nicky asked, Epsio just nodded exasperatedly.
"Vector is dealing with it right now." Espio just pointed his thumb towards the principles office as he said it, but Nicky understood that Vector was in there arguing with the principle from Vector's voice booming through the door alone.
"Wow, he's sure got a lot on his plate." Nicky said before being cut off by another loud yell through the door.

Cringing a little inside, Nicky could just imagine Vector and the principle going head to head.
"Yeah, they've been going like that for twenty minutes now." Charmy said casually, Epsio chewed him out for it and Nicky had to stop herself from snickering at the sight.

It didn't take long for Vector to leave the principles office looking two headaches richer, at the same time Nicky's parents burst into the room. One quick change up later and now it was Nicky's parents with Tails in the principles office shouting the roof off. Vector for all his exhausted face betrayed, just grabbed Charmy by the back of his jacket, bid Nicky a good day and sauntered out into the hall. Charmy's protests falling on deaf ears as the teacher presumably dragged Charmy back to middle school.

The only two left in the hall now were Espio and Nicky. Sure the secretary was also there, but she's not important right now.

Nicky was weighing her choices of going back to class now or waiting on her parents and Tails when Epsio tapped her shoulder.
"Hey Nicky, how are you doing?"
"Uhm- I'm doing fine." Nicky replied surprised by the question.

Espio raised an eyebrow and Nicky knew that he was going to ask.
"Are you sure? You seem pretty stressed." Groaning internally, Nicky was already running through excuses or reasons to leave for class right now, but Espio - having known her for most of high school - stopped any chance she had of escaping dead in its tracks when he placed a solid hand to her shoulder. His eyes softened, really trying to not drive her off.
The hold was there, but at the same time if Nicky really wanted it she could just shrug it off and leave. Nothing truly kept her here except her, this wasn't a trap.
But this was Espio.
She stayed.

Nicky groaned internally and then she broke.
Groaning out loud, she dropped her head in her hands. Pulling on her face until she was sitting back up and slouched right back down. Espio just watched her as unjudging as he could, but even then she heard the laughter he was stifling.
"That bad huh?" He asked and Nicky couldn't help but acknowledge it.
"Yeah, I guess you could say that."

"You want to talk about it?" The offer was put out there and Nicky knew in her bones that she couldn't. The murders? Sure, she wasn't the only one affected by them, but Amy's plan for tomorrow? The occult clubs investigation? The strange message aimed so clearly at her best friend and how Amy herself has been the last few weeks? All of it has been piling up and no matter how much Nicky threw up or paced or worried, none of it made any of this less stressful.

And that wasn't even everything that's been driving up her anxiety in recent times.
But Shadow was definitely not something she wanted to talk about. Not here and preferably, not ever.

"I don't know." Nicky lied with a sigh. She didn't meet Espio's eyes, afraid that if she looked then somehow the detective would just see that she was lying or hiding something.
"I don't know if it's just this or everything." She lamented before Espio could give her a look™ and tell her he was a detective, she could give him a little more than 'I don't know'. In turn, Espio looked at her sympathetically.

"It's like, I wanted this to be a good school year, but now that's feels impossible. With everything that's happened," She couldn't tell Espio of the heist tomorrow that's been haunting her every moment the past week, but she could somewhat talk about it. "I honestly want to scream, but that wouldn't help me even a little. Amy's been going through it and I don't know how to help, I'm not even sure how Knuckles is truly doing, everything feels like it's just been piling up and all I can do is be anxious about it."
"I think I get what you mean." Espio said, Nicky doubted it.
"School is stressful enough on it's own, especially for you Miss. Straight A's." Nicky jabbed him with her elbow, Espio snorted, rubbing his side as he shifted tones.
"Ok ok, but you do have to admit, everything has felt more stressful especially with Mr. Nite and Mr. Don's murders."

Nicky returning to looking down at the ground, nodding to let Espio know she'd heard him.
"Yeah it's just- I don't know." She lamented frustrated.
"Hey, you don't have to," Espio said nudging Nicky with his shoulder reassuringly, "you're not alone, you've got me, your friends, the teachers. You just need to reach out when you need it." Espio said reassuring her, it was so kind, so genuine. It broke Nicky a little, that she couldn't, with literally any other situation she could but not this one.

"Thank Espio." Nicky said anyway. Espio just smiled back, unaware.
"I think I've just been letting all of this get to my head recently." She said leaning back in her chair, face pointed up to the ceiling more so she didn't have to look him in the eyes as she continued to hide things from him.

"Yeah, I've had a lot on my mind too recently." Espio said, something in his voice alluding to more but Nicky didn't ask. Didn't have the energy to despite wanting to offer the chameleon the same thing he had to her, a chance to talk.

The moment moved on, the chance to ask if something was going on with Espio with it.

Espio stood up, slinging his bag over his shoulder he waved to Nicky. Smiling at her reassured, Nicky smiled back. Her heart heavier than before and at the same time, thankful for knowing someone has her back.

"Everything will be fine." Espio said to remind her. "We've just got to make them fine."
He waved as he left.
Nicky waved back until he disappeared, hoping with all her heart that Espio was right.

The next day was Friday, showtime.

Nicky rolled up to Amy and Knuckles' house with Shadow in tow, the cheerleader managing to snag a ride from her. Not that Nicky wasn't easily swayed.

The house looked the same as Nicky remembered it. Two stories, the top one an attic, a small patio surrounded by a flowery front yard, it looked like a typical house for the rest. Kind of like a movie. Ringing the doorbell, it was Knuckles who opened the door and let them in.

Leading them to Amy's room, the three were met with a sight.
Amy's room was chaos compared to its usual tidiness, so many clothes were strewn around that it they piled up to the window.
In the middle of the room sat a desk, a little path free of clothing led up to it and there, facing them, sat Amy who-

Nicky burst out laughing at the sight of Amy. The pink hedgehog sat with her elbows on the table, hands clasped together and back ramrod straight. She looked at them gravely, at least as gravely as someone could while wearing an overly large moustache with glasses. A fake overly large moustache with glasses. It even had a nose.
She looked like a war general with a funny streak.

Doubling over, Nicky held her stomach from laughing. Everyone else in the room, except the funny streak war general, were laughing too. Amy had the stoic patience to wait for the three to tire themselves out. When the laughter died down, Knuckles took a second look at Amy and burst out into another fit of laughter, falling over onto a pile of clothing. Amy's patience ran out at that moment.

"Oh will you finish already?!" She complained, Nicky couldn't help but snicker at that.
"What's with the grandpa cosplay?" Shadow asked, trying to sound as normal as possible.
"Thank you for asking Shadow." Amy said taking the opportunity to move on and ignore the still laughing Knuckles.

"As you are all aware," she began, fully composed as if she was a war general giving a debrief. "We are sort of breaking the law."
"Sort of?" Nicky piped up.
"It's for a good cause, so it's fine."
"I'm fairly sure that's still illegal." Shadow prompted.

"And yet, you're all still here, committing this very illegal act with me because you're the best friends a girl could ask for and we're going to solve Mr. Nite and Don's murder by doing this." Amy reminded them, to which, touché.

Nicky nodded, walking over to the side of the room and rummaging a little through Amy's clothes. "I mean, we are." she said, "but that doesn't exactly explain why you look like you're trying to compete with the principal for 'worst moustache' ever."

"And I would like to add," Knuckles piped up, pulling all the attention in the room to her for a moment, "that I just gotta put up with you cus mom and dad cou-" Knuckles got buried by a ball of clothing, Amy looking both pleased with herself and done with being interrupted. Climbing on top of her desk while Knuckles was busy drowning in t-shirts, the pink hedgehog looked around the room in a serious manner, surveying her soldiers before a trench run, she spoke to them with vigour.

"My friends, tonight we are taking a risk we have never before. But we will persist and in order to help us achieve our goal I had the brilliant idea of disguises!" Amy posed, one fist in the air and determination etched on her face. The moment passed with Nicky clapping and Shadow and Knuckles just kind of looking at her.

"Well, I think disguises are a good idea." Nicky argued against their silent judgement. The silent judgement continued.
"Are you guys against dressing up?"
"I'm against that." Knuckles said pointing at Amy's face.

"Well get over it 'cus now I'm keeping this as my disguise." Amy stated out of pure spite to Knuckles, putting her hands on her hips as the two got into a silent glaring contest. The two stayed like that for a while, eventually Knuckles just threw her arms in the air and stomped off to a corner, looking through the mess to try and find something for herself.

Smiling to herself satisfied with the taste of victory, Amy turned to Shadow and Nicky.
"Alright, well you two can choose what you want from what I have, it'd probably be a good idea to go with something easy to move around in an inconspicuous, but go with what you'd like." She waved around as she walked off to finish her own disguise. The fake glasses and moustache still sitting secure on her face where they'd probably be for the rest of the night.

Turning to Shadow, the nerd was surprised to see the cheerleader already looking at her.

"She's actually going to wear that all night isn't she?" Nicky just nodded yes. A grin broke out over Shadow's face, the cheerleader doing her best to suppress it and failing slowly. Looking at her breaking down, Nicky couldn't help but laugh too.

The two stood there snickering and laughing until Nicky felt like she'd grow bluer than she already was and started gasping for air.
"So," she asked Shadow catching her breath, "do you have anything in mind?"

"I wanna go as Chappell Rats." Shadow said without hesitation.
"…what?"
"Look, Nicky. If I'm about to be arrested, then I'd like to be arrested looking like Chappell Rats." Shadow explained as if it was the most logical thing.

"Well if you're going as Chappell Rats then… I wanna go as Sabeena Carpenter!" Nicky declared, embarrassment settling in the moment she'd announced it and her face glowing red. Shadow was surprised for a moment before she turned to look at her appreciatively.

"Okay Sabeena," she teased, which did nothing to curb stomp Nicky's face from going redder. "Let's see what we can find." Taking Nicky by the arm, Shadow dragged the nerd to the closest clothing pile to start combing through their options.

It took them maybe an hour or two but together Shadow and Nicky had managed to scrounge together some pretty good Sabeena Carpenter and Chappell Rat costumes.
Amy had actually dressed up as Chappell Rats for last years Halloween so she still had a Chappell costume and in Nicky's opinion, it almost wasn't fair how good Shadow pulled it off.
The dress suited her well, extremely well. The red, ankle length, medieval gown fluttered around her figure, sleeves dropping off her arms as did the veil covering her quills and ears; it could also be pulled in a way so that it draped over her face. The veil being tied to a hairband from which Chappell's iconic ears were glued to. The only thing that Shadow still wore of her original outfit were her shoes, socks and bows, the ribbons being fashioned around her waist as a belt.

Nicky couldn't stop looking at her as if she was a star in the sky. Amy didn't have an exact costume for Sabeena Carpenter so Nicky's outfit was a lot more improvised. She'd borrowed a yellow and black dress from Amy, combined with a pair of laced shorts, her quills were tied down and a headband were hiding her ears. A pair of antenna sticking out of them that Nicky and Shadow had painstakingly made out of paper, painted with markers and tacked on for the last 20 minutes so that they'd match with the dress.

Nicky couldn't exactly think of anything to cover her face with, but Shadow had found an old bee striped face mask that Amy still had. So Nicky had taken it and now looked more like Sabeena Carpenter in the pandemic than Sabeena Carpenter had in the pandemic.

"I look ridiculous." She sulked for a moment, frowning at her own get up. Shadow just shook her head, looping her arm through Nicky's she dragged the shorter hedgehog in front of the mirror with her. The two looked mismatched and paired at the same time, Nicky's frown reflecting at her together with Shadow's smile.
"I think we look pretty neat." Shadow said, jumping up and down excited with her own dress.

Nicky couldn't help but smile at their reflection, yeah they looked pretty mismatched, but Amy was right. Dressing up was a good idea, it was fun.
Nicky looked herself over again, it wasn't the best Sabeena Carpenter costume she'd seen but it was fine. Her eye bags were still visible just above her face mask but that was just the lack of sleep, hopefully she could catch up on some despite the nightmares ,but that wouldn't be tonight.

"Wow, you guys went all out." Turning away from the mirror, Knuckles was looking at the two of them in surprise. Neither Nicky or Shadow said anything for a good while as they just ogled Knuckles' outfit.

Amy had said while they were looking for her old Chappell dress to go with something inconspicuous, easy to move around in and something like that. Apparently none of them had really listened.

Knuckles was wearing the weirdest combination between english gentleman and Caribbean pirate that Nicky had ever seen. Throwing together a top hat, monocle, pirate jacket and belts, just belts, into a skirt.
"Knuckles that's…" Nicky trailed off.
"An interesting outfit." Shadow finished when Nicky was floundering for words.

Knuckles shone with pride at her own creation, standing tall and her hands on her hips she started explaining how she'd made the outfit.

Amy walked out of the bathroom at that moment, freezing the moment her eyes landed on Nicky, Shadow, and Knuckles who was still explaining how she'd gotten the monocle to stick to her face using double sided tape and all of Amy's eyelash glue.

Nicky could see the thought of chewing them out passing through Amy's mind before resoundingly being thrown out by the pink cheerleader. She had too many hills to die on and this really wasn't one of them apparently.

"Wait did you say you used all of my eyelash glue?" Amy finally processed Knuckles' story. It was at that moment, that Nicky and Shadow thought to intervene.

Grabbing Amy by one arm each, the two hedgehogs lifted Amy up and out of her room, through the halls of her house and out towards the car. Amy struggling to get to Knuckles the whole way as the echidna happily recounted to her how she's made the belt skirt using all of Amy's belt - that explained why Shadow couldn't find one to use for her own costume.

Reaching the car, Nicky and Shadow opted to load Amy in the backseat between the two of them so Knuckles could drive the car. Amy had calmed down at that point, but Nicky knew better than to trust the pink cheerleader to have let it go - she knew from experience. So assuring Shadow that she wanted reach the hospital whole tonight, having Amy between them was essential. Shadow just shrugged her shoulders and the two got comfortable with Amy in the backseat. Knuckles took the drivers seat and the four were on their way to the hospital's morgue to steal their teachers autopsy report. Were there any steps in between nothing and crime? Probably, but the Green Hill High Occult Club is taking the high road to hell.

They approached the hospital around 2 a.m. The hospital was a bit out of town, being built down a road in a wooded area, the surroundings were supposed to help give patients a restful environment to recover in, but looking out the window Nicky could only frown at the creepy woods. It was almost Halloween and the woods looked more like they'd belong in a budget horror movie rather than somewhere a hospital patient should be.

The hospital was straight down the road, but Knuckles turned in to a small side road a fair bit away. They'd agreed that just parking in the hospitals driveway would get the car tracked so they parked a bit away. Stepping out of the car, Nicky was met with the cold mid-autumn air. The area smelled of dead leaves and damp dirt, wrapping her arms around herself she cursed herself for not thinking of bringing a jacket.
Amy shimmied out of the car after her, there wasn't a lot of light in the area but the pink hedgehog pulled out a small flashlight, Nicky got a chance to see what she was wearing.

Amy was the only one who'd followed her own advice, somewhat. She was still wearing the Groucho glasses but now paired with a black suit, where Amy had gotten a black suit or why she had one, Nicky had no idea. She'd never seen the girl wear anything close to a suit.

"Is that my middle school headband?" Amy's question pulled Nicky from her train of thought, that and the light she was shining into her eyes. Shielding her face, Amy quickly pointed the light away so Nicky could see.
"Uh, yeah. Shadow and I repainted it, sorry." She said as she blinking light spots away. Amy just looked at the hairband before nodding appreciatively.
"Might wear it again after today." She noted before turning to the group.

"Okay, everyone knows the plan right?"
Everyone nodded, they'd made the plan over the week holding a second 'club meeting' on Wednesday to make sure they knew all knew it. Amy had found the hospitals original floor plan online, it should be the same one they had now. There was an emergency door that led outside close to the morgue at the back of the hospital, they'd trek through the woods parallel to the road, enter through the exit, grab the files and leave.
Nothing hard.

Nicky pulled out her phone, it wasn't actually hers but Tails wouldn't miss his old Mokia. Plus it's easier to remove the battery than it is from her smartphone.

With everyone's phone battery removed, the group started to make their way to the hospital. The trek through the woods took longer than Nicky liked, in her mind the distance between the car and the hospital was an hour but in the dark and with only Amy's flashlight lighting the way it felt a lot longer.

Nonetheless, the group arrived at the back of the hospital. Nicky felt as if she was freezing. With her arms slung around her for warmth she and the rest hurried past the treeline to the entrance.

It was easy to find the exit door, it was cartoonishly bright red with bold white letters spelling 'exit' on it. Nicky looked at it for a moment before turning to the group, namely Amy.
"So, how are we going to enter?"

Happily, Amy ruffled around in her pockets.
"Well, I'm so glad you asked, I found this tutorial online on how to-"
"We just walk in." Knuckles cut her off. Confused Amy just looked as her sister as Knuckles stepped up to the door. Opening her mouth to ask what she was doing, everyone - except for Knuckles, who knew what she was doing - watched stupefied as Knuckles stopped in front of the eye-straining red door and with one swift move, kicked it open.

Nicky was left speechless, so was Amy but the pink club leader recovered first.
"What the hell Knuckles?!" She hissed. Knuckles just shrugged her shoulders.
"What? I kick in the door and we just walk in."
"But what if there's an alarm? The police would be on us in ten minutes!"

"Oh please Ames," Knuckles said as she side stepped the door, motioning with her arm for the entrance. "It's an old building, if there is an alarm then I'll eat my sock."

Nothing came from the door other than darkness and quiet. Amy glared at Knuckles for a moment longer before taking her flashlight and shining it down the door.
There was nothing in the hall.

After a moment when the group heard nothing, Knuckles just smiled self-satisfied, there wasn't an alarm. Grumbling, Amy just uttered out a 'fine' before pushing past Knuckles and diving into the building.

Knuckles watched Amy go with a puzzled look, turning back to Nicky and Shadow, Shadow just shrugged her shoulders before following Amy inside.
Worry grew in Nicky's chest, her feet frozen to the floor as she just watched Amy go, the pink hedgehog had been off for a while but it felt more apparent now. Crossing eyes with Knuckles, Nicky knew that she wasn't the only one who'd noticed. But what could she do about it now? They were in the middle of the depths of it; hopefully everything would go back to normal after they'd unmasked the killer.

"Nicky." Knuckles pulled the blue hedgehog back to the now. "You going in?"
They were the only two still out here, Knuckles waiting on her to move inside.
"Right, sorry." Nicky said hurriedly as she walked inside and followed after Amy and Shadow.

Knuckles walked in after her, throwing the door shut behind her.

Walking through the hallway, Nicky turned the corner and found Amy and Shadow huddled together over a map. The two discussing how best to get to the morgue offices.

"Shouldn't you two talk quieter in here?" Knuckles asked walking up from behind Nicky.

"Eh, there's no one on this side of the building. Patients are more to the front so the only thing we really have to look out for are the night guards and the coroners if they're still here."
Looking up, Nicky barely managed to read the clock on the wall with the little light that refracted from Amy's flashlight.
"Yeah I don't think any of the coroners are still here." She said. It was 3 A.M. witching hour and the bedtime for any insomniac who likes to pretend they have healthy sleeping habits.

A door creaked somewhere down the hall, Nicky's blood froze. Looking up from the map, Amy and Nicky looked at the others in horror. Nicky didn't dare turn around to check, but she was sure that Knuckles wore the same expression. Faint footsteps came down the hall and in an instant the group moved. As quietly as they could they sped towards a cabinet, clicking off her flashlight, Amy, Knuckles, Nicky and Shadow huddled low against the wall behind the cabinet opposite from where the footsteps were coming from. Heart running a mile a minute, Nicky tried holding her breath as someone made their way down the hall.

Sitting huddled and frozen behind the cabinet, Nicky watched with wide eyes as a bat wearing a doctors coat shuffled their way down the hallway, using their phone as a flashlight to guide them with earbuds in their ears. Everyone's anxiety and consequent confusion was palpable in the air as they just watched - probably the coroner - shuffle blearily down the hallway, reach the end, try to swipe their hallway pass for four minutes before finally succeeding and shuffling into the patient ward, probably towards their car in the front of the hospital parking lot.

It was quiet for another minute before someone finally made a move, Amy's flashlight soon clicking on and shining a light down the hall to where the bat coroner had left.

Maybe some insomniacs go to sleep at 4 A.M….

Nicky got up and dusted herself off, relief settling in the group as Amy and Shadow went over the map again and Knuckles just stretched the stress out.
After making sure that everyone was fine, the two cheerleaders led the group towards the morgue. Nicky wasn't sure how they were keeping track, but somewhere between the twists, turns and long hallways, the four arrived to a large set of doors.

"This is it?" Knuckles asked beside her. Looking at the sign beside the door, it read 'morgue'.
"Yeah this is it." Amy said, eyes locked on the map in her hand.

Going ahead, Shadow took that as her sign to step forward. Holding her breath, Nicky watched the dark hedgehog push the doors open. Creaking and groaning beneath her hands, they fell back. Whoever that bat was, Nicky thanked them for forgetting to lock the door.

Shadow took a moment to look around, Amy shone into the morgue with her flashlight but Nicky's eyes were glued on the dark hedgehog herself. The light falling on her frame made her look as if she glowed, when she turned back to face the group, Nicky could see past the veil and into her eyes. Brighter than the stars and redder than her gown. Nicky barely registered her telling them that the coast was clear.

Taking her first steps inside the morgue, the first thing that hit Nicky was the cold.
It was mid October, summer was long gone and while the season was getting colder, it did not compare to inside the morgue. Shivering, Nicky wrapped her arms around herself as she followed the group further inside, mentally cursing herself again for not bringing a jacket or anything warm.

She wasn't sure what she'd imagined the morgue was like, it was a relatively open hallway. The interior seemed surprisingly modern compared to the rest of the building, most walls being see-through glass and at the other end of the room was a set of cooler doors, clasped shut but a bit to the right the concrete wall gave way for another glass one. It was dark beyond that but Nicky would hazard a guess that that was where they kept the bodies or did the autopsies themselves. It sent a different shiver down her spine to think that there were corpses on the other side of that glass.

"Okay," Amy said, pulling the attention of the group to her. "We split up, Knuckles you take the far office, Nicky you check the one by the door, Shadow and I will go a bit ahead and look there." Splitting up wasn't something Nicky was keen on, but the quicker they were, the better. She had zero interesting in being here longer than she had to.

Trudging into the small, walled off, office space, Nicky didn't hesitate to turn on the small desk lamp she spotted. The place was a mess, a mug of cold coffee sat situated in the only space not covered in paper. Picking up the closest one to her, it was just some order request, more embalming cream.
Gross... Putting that back, Nicky went back to sifting through the papers on the desk. The place looked more like it belonged to a whirlwind than to a person, but Nicky did her best to look for what they were there for. After nothing on the desk seemed to be worthwhile she switched over to sifting through their filing cabinet.

"You got anything yet?" Knuckles' voice called out to her from the office's entrance.
"No, you?" Nicky said, looking up briefly and turning back to the cabinet at hand. Scoffing, the monocled pirate walked into the room, making her way over to the cabinet at the other side of the desk.

"Chemical cabinets and lint." Knuckles answered and started sifting through the papers there, clearly having as much luck as Nicky did in finding even anything related to the autopsies.

"Do you think Amy and Shadow are having more luck than us?" Nicky threw the question out there as she pushed off of her knees. Knuckles just hummed.
"I hope so, have you checked those cupboards yet?" The echidna pointed to the cupboards above the desk. Shaking her head no, Nicky climbed on the desk chair to get to the small doors. Opening the cabinet revealed stacks upon stacks of files. Nicky died a little inside and at the same time steeled herself to go through every last one of them. Whistling behind her, Knuckles walked up to the chair and held on to steady it, guessing that Nicky was gonna be up there for a while.

Nicky started pulling out, checking, and putting back the files one by one. Sorting the files in a neater way than she found it to keep track of what she'd searched through and what not. It was as tedious as she feared and rather nicely rhythmic at the same time. The only ambient sound in the room was their breathing and Nicky's busywork as she thoroughly went through everything she could get her hands on. Knuckles' boredom became palpable enough that she felt the need to break that ambience.

"So, you and Shadow?" Nicky almost stumbled backwards out of the chair, however Knuckles kept her standing with a strong hand to her back, preventing her from falling. The jock wouldn't let her take the skull-cracking way out of this question.
"I have no idea what you're talking about." Nicky said, almost believably as she went back to paper pushing with renewed interest.

She hoped to great Gaia that she never had to work in an office, this was mind numbing work and not mind numbing enough.

"Oh you don't?" Knuckles asked non-nonchalantly, at any other time Nicky wouldn't have thought anything of it. However, in a cold and dark coroners office at 3 A.M. in the morning at a morgue that they certainly weren't legally in, Nicky certainly thought something of it, who asks questions like these when they're technically heisting?
"Well I can tell you that I've never seen someone wear her clothing before." Knuckles teased.

"Or hold an actual conversation with her," Knuckles added in realisation, "other than that cheer captain, not sure what's up with that."

"Knuckles…" Nicky whined. Hitting her head on the cabinet plank in front of her.
She didn't want to talk about it and she didn't want to talk about it ever.

"You're not going to run from this are you?"
"Knuckles can we please not talk about this," stealing a glance in the direction where Shadow and Amy had disappeared off to, the only hint that Nicky got that the two girls were there was the feint moving light from Amy's flashlight.
"Not here at least." she quietly begged.

Knuckles scrounged her face.
"Fine, but we are talking about this." She held on strong, Nicky just nodded, really anything to not have to talk about her own emotions right now.

The two were plunged into silence after that, the only sound in the room being Nicky's busywork which ended up fruitless. Not even a single mention of Mr. Don or Mr. Nite on any of the papers. Looking in frustration at her neatly organised work, Nicky used Knuckles' shoulder to steadily climb off the chair. Just where were those files being kept?

Right at that moment, Amy and Shadow rushed back from the hallway. Amy practically jumping around with the flashlight as Knuckles and Nicky eyed her confused. Trailing from the pink hedgehog to the darker, Nicky looked at her as if to ask what was up with Amy. Seeing the darker hedgehog smile up at her, realisation struck her the same time it must have for Knuckles.

"You got it?" Letting go of the chair, Knuckles stepped towards them with open arms. Amy nodded excitedly, practically jumping in place. In Shadow hand was a bundle of papers, with a smug smile she flashed them to the other two.
"We got it."

Handing the papers over to Nicky, the blue hedgehog carefully took the stack of papers in her hands. Opening the cover she was met with a report, at the top of the paper sat a name, it was both a happy moment and a painful one.
'Nite the Owl'
Sneaking a glance at the dark glass wall, Nicky imagined that he laid there. No matter how aware she was, she still imagined him as he had been when alive, just still on a table. Maybe under a white sheet.

Turning back to the papers in her hand, she leafed through the stack until she saw another name. 'Don the Rooster', the concierge's name made tears prickle in Nicky's eyes. Quickly wiping them away she handed the papers back to Shadow. The dark cheerleader avoiding her eyes awkwardly, which only made Nicky chuckle.

"Sorry it's just," She took a deep breath, willing the well of emotions back down into something steadier. Pulling the mask down her nose for a moment she smiled at Shadow, her eyes still wet and her voice laced with something deeper, "I'm happy." She said.

Shadows eyes scanned her face, usually Nicky would shy away but as if a switch had been flipped she didn't. Standing a little taller, probably looking ridiculous, but happy. On top of the world.

Shadow smiled back.

"Okay you saps, gimme that." Amy said bursting in from Nicky's side, swooping around the blue hedgehog to make grabby hands at the autopsy reports in Shadow's hand. The dark cheerleader dutifully handed them over and Amy seemed as if she would squeal again when she got cut off.

The door to the hallway opened up.

Time seemed to freeze, instantly Nicky duck behind Amy to pull her face mask back on her face. Everyone whirled around to the door, Nicky quick to peek around Amy to stare frozen at a familiar figure.

The light from the office was still on, casting a weak glow through the area. Amy's flashlight, in turn, was a spotlight.

Standing in Amy's spot was the bat coroner, their eyes squinting as they tried to shield their eyes.
"Hey! What do you guys think you're doing here?"
Flipping over a switch, the lights overhead flicked on. Nicky squeezed her eyes shut blinded, complaints shot into the air as everyone got blinded.

While Nicky was out, Knuckles' reaction was instant.

Not hesitating, Knuckles stormed the bat. Yelling as she bowled her over with her own body, Nicky couldn't see but she heard the bat scream as she got thrown back.

"MOVE! NOW."

Without a single trace of hesitation, Nicky ran for the door. Still blinking away spots in her vision, she felt Knuckles grip her arm and push her through the door. Once out, the group burst into a full sprint and it wasn't long before the fire alarm started blaring overhead. Shadow yelped, hands rushing to cover her ears. Nicky didn't hesitate to shoot back and grab her elbow. Dragging her with the rest of them as the noirette clutched her ears, further and further away from the lit room and into the blaring lights.

Amy was leading them through hallways that Nicky hoped wasn't random, the torch in her hand almost becoming useless with the emergency lights now guiding their way.

Soon a familiar door came into view, Nicky felt relief flood her system as Amy burst through the door.

The relief quickly drowning into horror as police lights flooded the air. Nicky faltered when Amy pushed her and Shadow back and slamming the door behind her.

"There's a car outside." She said gasping for air.
"What do you mean there's a car outside?"
"I mean, there's a police car outside!" Amy yelled, voice teetering on the edge of a freak out.
"And so? We'll just run for the forest, they can't follow past the tree line." Knuckles argued, but Amy just shook her head. Hand grabbing onto her quills , pushing the fake glasses and moustache askew on her face.
In any other situation, Nicky would have laughed.

"We won't make it." Amy said, taking a deep breath and holding it for two seconds before bursting out and taking another. Systematically working back into a sort of calm despite the blaring alarms inside and outside.

Nicky could see a million thoughts race through Amy's head, the autopsy in her hands before she shoved them into Knuckles' hand. Pushing past the group, she stepped out into the hallway for a moment, all eyes following her.

Amy shone the flashlight down the hall, the light barely doing anything to drown out the reds from the flickering lights. Taking a step back, Amy looked back at the group. Determination back in her frame, her eyes focused.

"I have an idea." There were no better words to Nicky than those four.
"Follow me."

Amy led them back into the hospital. Lefts and rights melted together with the headache forming in Nicky's head from the alarm, quickly Amy stopped in front of a wide set of doors, keeping them open until everyone rushed in.

The moment she stepped inside, Nicky realised that they were in the hospitals garage. Two ambulances stood in the centre, their backs facing the door with medical equipment and gurneys thrown haphazardly through the room, the evening crew on call must be helping with patient evacuations.

"Ok, now what?" Knuckles asked scanning the room.

Slamming the door behind her, Amy rushed to the middle of the room. Looking around wildly as if searching for something.

"Uh right, we can hide out in here till everything calms down and we can sneak out safely."
"Gaia damn it Amy, that's your big plan?"
"Oh like you have a better one." Amy bit back and the two sisters dived head first into a shouting match.

Nicky just watched haplessly as the pink hedgehog and the echidna yelled at each other over the blaring alarm. Shadow scowled at them, although that could've been the overstimulation from the fire alarm.

Catching a glimpse in the corner of her eye, Nicky frowned to herself. Stalking up to the double doors, Shadows eyes followed her as she pressed her ear against the door. It could have been a trick of the mind, but she could swear that she saw yellow light pass over the blurred windows. Past the door, the alarms, and the yelling, Nicky heard nothing. At first she thought that it had just been her imagination, then she heard it.

Footsteps and voices. It was hard to hear what exactly they were talking about, but Nicky recognised one of the voices, from the bar coroner.
They were searching the hospital.

"Guys, GUYS!" Nicky hissed, wrenching herself from the door in panic. "Ambulance, NOW!"

Grabbing Shadow's hand, Nicky bolted for the back ambulance door, thanking both Gaia and Chaos that it was unlocked as she pulled Shadow inside.

Knuckles and Amy shot into the ambulance's drivers seats, seeing them there Nicky quickly shut the ambulance doors behind her.
"What the fuck." Shadow hissed between her teeth, while panic broke out in the ambulance.

The ambulance itself seemed quite nice. It had an open design, a large stretcher pushed to the side and no real divider between the front and back. It also meant that everyone could see each other freak out.

Knuckles was yelling as quiet as possible which is quieter than you'd imagine, Amy was physically buzzing in her seat already imagining how she'd spent the night in jail while looking like a dying cat, Nicky was gripping onto Knuckles' seat as if her life depended on it while not trying to get tunnel vision and Shadow was Shadow.
The ambulance abruptly fell silent when the sound of a door opening creaked through the garage. Holding their breaths, the occult club froze in unison.

It was quiet enough to hear a pin drop and with edged on senses the girls listened as careful footsteps echoed through the room.
At least the acoustics were nice.

"We're going to die." Nicky whined under her breath.
"Not yet."

Looking up in surprise at Amy, the club leader shot up in realisation. All eyes fell on the pink hedgehog as her demeanour changed from panic to focused and the fake glasses, nose and moustache turned to the group in determination. No, not the whole group.
Amy's eyes fell on Nicky.

Without a word, Nicky understood.

"Knuckles switch with me." She talked fast, Knuckles looked at her confused.
"What?"
"Knuckles, now." Nicky hissed. The jock jumped into action, squeezing between the chairs to let Nicky take the drivers seat. The blue hedgehog sent a quick glance to her pink best friend, stealing a look past her outside too, she could see the flashlights almost on them.

Nicky took a deep breath.

Pulling off the dress and her glasses in one swift motion, Sonic shoved them in Knuckles' hand. Rapidly she searched the cabin before snatching the keys from the glove box and shoving them in the keyhole.
Engine roaring to life, the flashlights zeroed in on the ambulance, but it was too late.

Sonic put the car in reverse; pulling the horn in warning, she slammed against the back wall. The others in the ambulance screamed, Shadow and Knuckles scrambled to hold on to something. Flooding the room with her headlights, Sonic could see two police pigs and the coroner from earlier shielding their eyes off to the side giving her a clear view of the closed garage door.

Grinning, Sonic hit the gas.

Written by a human in Ellipsus.