The Chao Hunter- a despicable waste of life. Stylus remembered him well. A major prick who found game potential in many things- though found the little ones so satisfying.

It was not dignified, even by Stylus' standards. He's built and designed to bring down targets that have proven to be difficult to bring down. Chao? They're foot-tall critters with basic sentience, the most intelligent kind of pet. Not even those who trained to be runners could outrun any organic Stylus' size.

This Hunter character... He tried to kill Patrick. Stylus was not happy about that.

During the chaos, Stylus turned his glance to where the shot came from. A few hundred yards away stood the Chao Hunter himself.

He was one of those half-robots, a cyborg. Stylus gritted his teeth. He was not planning on letting this... thing... get away.

Stylus charged.

The Hunter finally noticed that he pissed off the wrong guy and attempted to pack up the vintage-looking hunting rifle he had set up.

The robot closed the distance. The cyborg dropped the rifle, deciding to book it without the weapon. The cyborg started running into the forest in a mad attempt to get away from Stylus' wrath.

Too late. Stylus dug an armoured fist into the cyborg's still-organic left shoulder blade. A sickening crunch was heard and the cyborg dropped.

Stylus grabbed the Chao Hunter by his lion ear and spun him onto his back. Stylus continued whaling on the Hunter with a clenched fist. The multiple impacts didn't faze Stylus. The lion's divided face was drenched.

The Chao Hunter spat a fang at Stylus, spattering droplets of blood onto his visor, following with a swing with his mechanized arm. The impact scrambled Stylus' balance sensors. It was a decent right hook, considering the cyborg was on the ground.

Stylus dropped off of the lion- whom started to produce a pistol. Before Stylus could react, shots rang out.

Four of them embedded themselves into Stylus' chest. His HUD flooded with damage reports. The robot ignored them, as none of them affected motor functions.

In this fight, that was all he was going to need.

The robot advanced as the cyborg attempted to step backwards over exposed roots and rocks.

"You can't stop me, man! I'm built to do this! " The lion shouted.

"You're built to kill Chao? Pretty specific directive," Stylus retorted as he lunged at the Chao Hunter."

"No, man! I'm built to kill! That's my purpose in life! You planning to deny me my purpose?"

Stylus punched the lion in the jaw. Another sickening crack.

"Moher Fuher!" Chao Hunter whined. He dropped the pistol and felt at his busted jaw. Stylus took the chance by grabbing at the Hunter's arm. Stylus yanked it back while thrusting a boot into the Hunter's gut. The Chao Hunter coughed up blood. Stylus didn't take the opportunity to let the Hunter finish choking, swinging his boot up high- into the Hunter's face.

The lion slumped onto the ground, whimpering. Stylus picked up the pistol from the ground.

"What about you?" The Hunter shouted "I know what you are, Stylus. You're built to kill as well."

"How did your life go so wrong?" Stylus asked as he approached the Hunter. The Hunter tried to push himself away with his mechanized arm. The organic left arm hanged limp on account of its respective shoulder being dust at this point.

After second thought, Stylus pondered how the Chao Hunter was still alive at this point. Then he noticed that the organic side of the lion was actually dead. It was just the machine that still functioned. Stylus didn't react in a horrified fashion as most people would. He knew of sentient intelligence being integrated into cyborg troopers- practically all of them turned out mentally unstable and therefore inefficient for field duty.

Even Robotnik didn't approve of their erratic behaviour. Contrary to popular belief, it was not effective for... well, anything.

Until now, however, Stylus just assumed this Chao Hunter fellow was just another cyborg. After all, Robotnik discontinued the dual-personality cyborgs a while ago. As far as anyone knew, those cyborgs were extinct and dismantled.

"My life never went wrong. It only got right. It was a simple life, killing, making others suffer, My "partner" if you could call him that, was a deep-down sadist... Like myself."

Stylus checked the magazine of the pistol. Four shots left. "Keep talking."

"You know the legends, man. Everybody knows them!"

Ignoring the AI, Stylus said "Not interested in the legends. I'm interested in why you thought coming to my home town to try to kill my son was such a good idea."

"Aw damn, that was your chao?"

Stylus pistol-whipped the plating, leaving a major dent. The AI spouted gibberish for a second before continuing.

"Yeah, I never bagged myself a Champion Swimmer. Hell, nobody else has- Oh crap."

Stylus pulled back the hammer. "There are others?"

The Hunter cursed. Stylus took that response as a "Yes, but I wasn't supposed to say that."

Stylus slowly crouched in front of the AI. "You're not a Stylus trooper. You don't have the kind of firewalls we Stylus troopers get. I could do so many things to your memory core... Salvage information, change details, make you... forget things... Forget things you don't want to forget."

"Hah! As if you got the balls to do it! You're a sof-"

Stylus thrust the barrel of the pistol into the cyborg eye and pulled the trigger four times. It was a time like this he wished Stella were around. She was amazing at one-liners.

Still, the "Others" line could've been an effort to delay the inevitable. Stylus stood from the cyborg carcass. The mechanized eye busted in and smoking. Stylus dropped the empty pistol and left the forest.

Other chao hunters? Let them come if they actually exist.