Sheriff Fox Episode 14: Investigation

Under the moonlight, Sheriff Fox is riding on her horse, Sonic is running at high speed and Tails is flying with his two tails, trying to keep up with them. They are heading to Dr. Robotnik's old fortress, although the good doctor has passed away, he left a legacy that is causing a lot of problems. So in order to get to the bottom of this matter, they are going to investigate his fortress, perhaps the whole idea of put a reward on Fiona's head have originated from there.

Arriving near to their destination, Fiona comes down her horse and then, she and the boys approach the front gate carefully. “On three.” The sheriff says, she setting up her laser gun to maximum potential.

“Okay” Sonic and Tails agrees.

“One…two…three!” Sheriff Fox shoot a powerful blast that completely destroy the iron gate, next, she and the boys abuts against the walls around of where was the gate, once the smoke clears, they break into the place. “Everyone! Hands up!” She shouts out.

But for their surprise, instead of bump into a bunch of robots wanting to kill them, they bump into no one; the whole place seems to being desert. “Weird.” Sonic comments. “I was crazy to smash some badniks”

“Maybe without Robotnik, the badniks either has left the place or just don't care who break into the fortress.” Tails supposes

“Either the way, be on your guard. Probably there is a trap somewhere.” Sheriff Fox warns, she had a similar experience recently.

The trio walks through the empty hallway, carefully and ready to face anything that comes to attack them. Reaching the end of the hallway, they find a decorated door with Dr. Robotnik's emblem, which of course, was his own face. The sheriff goes ahead and grabs the doorknob, Sonic and Tails nods with their heads saying they are ready for anything that may be behind the door, so, Fiona opens the door, pointing her laser gun.

“Wait! Don't shoot!” Orbot begs. The red sphere-shaped robot is over a desk, probably belonged to Robotnik, with a journal doing crosswords.

“Alright, bucket of bolts! I want some answers! And you are going deliver them! Got it?” Fiona demands as she comes into the room, pointing her laser gun toward Orbot. Sonic and Tails also come in.

“Y-yes…anything you want!” Orbot says scared.

“After the doctor kicked the bucket, someone...or something…” Sheriff Fox begin the interrogation, insinuating that might have been Orbot. “…someone offered a reward for my head, 50.000 dead and 100.000 to bring me alive to some hideout that only Dr. Robotnik's followers know where is. What do you know about it?”

“W-well… Dr. Robotnik truly had some followers...” Orbot confirms

“Is there some kind of file or list with all his followers plus the location of his hideouts” Tails asks

“No. Dr. Robotnik programmed me with a protocol to burn all the files in case of his death” Orbot explains

“How convenient!” Fiona start to get impatient and more tempting to shoot at the robot

“I-It’s true!” Orbot begs. “Go ahead! You can check my memories chip.”

“We can't. Computers haven't been invented yet.” Tails points out

“In this case, either you are useless or the one responsible for the whole bounty for my head story” Fiona is about to shoot Orbot

“No! Wait!”

“Hold on, Fiona.” Sonic prevents Fiona by placing his hand over her shoulder. “We still have to know what happened to all the others badniks”

“They are in the basement, deactivated.” Orbot replies. “You see, we are programmed to serve Dr. Robotnik, and without him, well, we don't have choice but deactivate ourselves.” He explains

“But how about you? You are one of them, right?”Tails points out

“Actually I was created with a high A.I in order to give assistance to Dr. Robotnik.” Orbot explains. “Remember the giant magnet? It was I who told him it was a silly idea.”

“Giant magnet?” Sonic asks confused

“Nevermind!” Fiona says. She doesn't want remember of that event. “Let's go back. There is nothing we want here.” Soon, Sonic, Tails and she walk out the room and close the door when leaving.

“She doesn't know too much, does she?” Orbot receive a communication from someone

“No, but she is trying” Orbot replies

“No matter. When she find out, it will have been too late”
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In the following day, Fiona is at the police station, trying again to get information from Drago. “You know what I don't get, where exactly are you going claim the reward for my head? The poster only says: Bring back to our hideout. And which hideout do you intend of taking me? Dr. Robotnik has a lot of them.” Sheriff Fox is with arms crossed, leaning against the bars of a cell in front of Drago' cell.

“Like I said before: just come with me and I will show you.” Drago is sitting in the bench, attempting to use the same trick from before

Fiona pulls out her laser gun and shows it to Drago. “Do you see this gun? It have many functions, one of them is shoot a ray that paralyze anyone. Do you want to see it in first hand?” She point it to Drago as a way to try to intimidate him

“HAHAHAHA!” Drago laugh instead. “You are nothing like what I had imagined” He gets up and walk to the bars. “I thought you were just a naive goody-two-shoes sheriff, but no. You have claw, when you want something, you are willing to do any sort of dirty trick in order to get it”

“What I want it’s you to tell me the location of these hideouts!” Fiona demands, starting to lose her cool

“So why don't you shoot me? Maybe all I need to talk it's just a little bit of stimulation, don't you think?” Drago mock the sheriff, knowing she is losing her cool

Sheriff Fox soon realize what she was doing and lowers her gun, taking a deep breath. She put her gun back to the belt and goes back to sit in her desk, she return to examine the wanted poster trying to figure out who wants her dead.

Such a difficult task, in her years as treasure hunter, she did a lot of bad stuff, maybe one of her victims were a follower of Dr. Robotnik and it's just using his name to make all the others to come after her. No, how this person learned that Robotnik's death was Fiona's fault?

Hershey mentioned that Drago is member of the Wolf Pack, maybe it was the Grand Chief who offered the reward. No, the Wolf Pack isn't allied of Dr. Robotnik as far as everyone knows.

Speaking of Wolf Pack, what happened to Nic? Is she still locked in that cave? Maybe thinking Fiona abandoned her? No, this whole story started before she arrived in Knothole.

This whole story started after the Pronghorns duo, Clove and Cassia, had showed up. They sure know a lot about what is going on, but the question is: how to make them talk? Clove seems to be very protective toward her cyborg sister, Cassia, maybe Fiona could use this at her favor

Sheriff Fox sighs out of frustration. She gets up and walks out the station
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Fiona goes to the saloon, a good drink may calm down her nerves perhaps. Arriving there, she look around and see that Hershey is sitting in a table in the corner, she remember that she was Drago's girlfriend, maybe she might know about something; and the best part is that she is willing to collaborate.

The sheriff approaches Hershey's table. “Miss. Hershey” She greets her, which surprised her

“S-sheriff…w-what a surprise to see you so soon” Hershey greets the sheriff nervously

“Can I sit here? I need to ask you some questions.” Fiona announces

“S-sure…what is the matter? Hershey allows

“The true reason why I arrested your ex-boyfriend yesterday was...” Fiona makes a pause, look around as she make a sign with her finger to call Hershey closer to her; they approaches their faces to one another. “...there is a reward for my head.” The sheriff whisper.

“Reward?” Hershey asks whisper and confuses

“Yes. I don't know who offered, but Drago want it. That's why I arrested him” Sheriff Fox explains as she remains whispering. “Now I need you to be honest with me, did Drago talk with someone you could consider suspect?”

“Well…” Hershey scratches her face, trying to remember any important fact. “…there was that one time I saw Drago talking with a big and scary cat”

“I'm not sure. I was making dinner when I overheard them, something about 'I know it going to work'” Hershey reveals

“Anything else?”

“Sorry, I couldn't hear anything else.” Hershey replies apologetically. “When I asked what they were talking about Drago slapped me and yelled at me to not meddle in his affairs.”  Tears began to form in her eyes

“I'm so sorry for bring this up.” Fiona apologizes for made Hershey remember that. “But don't know, Drago is behind bars and unable to hurt you ever again.” She tries to comfort her smiling, which work.

“You know, Drago wasn't always like this.” Hershey comments smiling as she cleans her tears. “We used to come to saloons like this to drink, talk, laugh...”

“I assume it have been wonderful times.” Fiona comments

“And the best part was when he slipped his hand to hold mine…like this…” Hershey slips her hand toward Fiona's.

“Wow! Miss!” Fiona quickly pulls her hands back. “I think you already drank a little more than you should!”

“Sorry!” Hershey pulls her hands back embarrassed of what she did. “I-I didn’t mean…”

“It’s okay” Fiona forgiving her. “If you remember something important, anything, I'll be at the station. Okay?”

“Okay” Hershey gets it. The sheriff gets up and goes to balcony to order a drink. “She's so nice. And I will hate do that with her, but I have no choice.” She thought to herself.