Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Processing complete. Please enter to be transported to the gateway terminal.”

An automated-sounding voice came out of the cuboid craft. A soft hiss escaped the vessel and an unseen door slid open, revealing its interior. It was metallic and featureless without even so much as seats, not unlike the staging area they waited in earlier. Except much smaller. Almost like a cage.

“Oh, hell with that,” Nine was the first to start backing away. His metal tails were held up around him in a defensive position, ready for anything.

“Yeah… Do you maybe have any transportation that doesn’t look like an obvious trap? No offense,” Tails tapped Mangey’s shoulder as he also backed off.

Mangey acknowledged him with a glance and followed suit, keeping by Tails’ side on all fours.

Before they had time to scrutinize the vessel further, Nine’s ears twitched as he picked up a whooshing noise fast approaching. He spun around to face the source just before a mobian-sized creature zoomed into view. The others followed suit a second later.

If Mangey knew what RoboCop was, he would have an apt description for this newcomer. Alas, he was ignorant to any form of media. To him, the metal-clad “mobian” looked like some sort of beetle with shiny, iridescent carapace. He had seen one before when it nearly removed him from the competition for being overly-friendly to adversaries. Tails referred to them as “enforcers,” an apt title. This one was different from the first one. That one had multi-colored carapace with royal blue protrusions; while this one was jade green with silvery, almost white protrusions. There was something oddly familiar about this enforcer, but of course there was no way Mangey could have met the creature before. Nevertheless, he was sorely tempted to step forward and give it a good sniff, just to see. The palpable uneasiness that radiated off of his two companions made him keep his distance, though.

“Hello!” The creature greeted them with a strained cheerful voice that didn’t match its flat expression. Like the first enforcer, it had a single smooth “eye” that wrapped around its head like a dragonfly. So the expression lied purely in the mouth, which was a blank thin line. “I see you are having some trouble entering the craft. Do you require assistance?”

“Hah, uh, no!” Tails was the first to respond. “See, the thing is, we’re a bit on edge after everything we’ve been through and don’t really have faith in getting in a tiny box-“

“Cage,” Nine corrected with narrowed eyes.

“- cage after what we’ve experienced with your ‘program.’ Trust issues, you know? We might be down for some alternative transportation that doesn’t look so heinous, though. Got any options?” Tails attempted to be diplomatic.

The enforcer’s mouth turned upwards in an uncanny way, supposedly meant to be a smile. “You will enter the craft. Do you require assistance?”

Tails met the not-smile with a contemptuous look, “I already said no! Are you here to actually help, or are you just going to insist we go in the horrible little box? Because the latter’s not happening, dude.”

Nine had been silently circling behind the enforcer at this point, ready to get the drop on it if it came to a fight. Mangey had sidestepped a bit as well, nervous, but ready to back up his teammates. This was different than the battles against other contestants- they were squaring up against a game ref this time. They were supposed to be incredibly powerful. Even more powerful than the enormous boss creature that took a huge group of contestants to take down. Mangey wasn’t sure how someone so small could even compare to that beast, but he trusted the information Tails gave him.

“I will assist you,” the enforcer proclaimed after a drawn out silence. It began advancing towards Mangey, making him fluff up in anticipation. What followed happened so quickly that Mangey barely had time to process it.

Nine and Tails both lunged forward in his defense, attacking the enforcer from different angles. But before they even got close, their bodies were enveloped in a cyan glow that stopped them in midair. The enforcer plucked two small silver tubes out of its utility belt and propelled them towards its captives with the same mysterious power. Mangey’s eyes followed the one aimed at Tails in time to see it stick in his neck. He cringed when Tails let out a surprised yell. The levitating bodies of his comrades were then floated over and deposited within the craft. Once released from the glow, both foxes tried to escape, but ultimately only made it a few steps before staggering and collapsing. Having become familiar with how powerful and skilled both foxes were in combat, it was a chilling sight to behold. Both of them taken down in such a quick and clinical manner… It made his blood run cold.

“Do you require assistance?”

The enforcer repeated the question nonchalantly, idly twisting a third dart between its fingers as it directly addressed him. Mangey’s fur stood on end. If Tails and Nine couldn’t even get close, there was no way he stood a chance against this thing. He shook his head and obediently started backing up into the craft, too afraid to take his eyes off of the aggressor. He nearly tripped over one of his poor friends’ collapsed bodies in his haste to comply. Once he was past the doorway, the vessel promptly began closing up. The enforcer’s continuous cold stare prevented Mangey from even thinking about trying to stop it. And then it was gone, obscured from view by the now sealed cuboid vessel they were trapped in. Mangey immediately jumped to the side of the nearest fallen comrade- Nine- to make sure he was still alive.

Nine’s eyes were two slits, barely open, but he was definitely conscious. His hand lay limp next to the dart. “Geh thzz thing offa… me…”

Mangey complied swiftly but carefully, dislodging the small thing from his friend’s neck. Nine grunted then continued to moan in irritation, no longer able to form coherent speech. Mangey’s ears flickered towards similar sounds coming from behind him. He spun around and hurriedly removed Tails’ dart as well. The vessel shook slightly as it took off and Mangey was smooshed by the g-force as it rapidly ascended. The entirely windowless vessel offered no clues as to where they were heading.

"[I’m sorry. I didn’t know what to do.]" Mangey signed to Tails.

“’S… kay…. Yuh couldn’ really… ‘S kay…”

Mangey didn’t really feel like it was okay though, despite knowing there was nothing he could have done. That didn’t make him feel any less useless. He put a hand to Tails’ chest to make sure his heart wasn’t getting too slow. Seeing that the enforcer could have just as easily used lethal force to deal with them, he hoped they were simply stunned. But that didn’t assuage his worries enough not to check for sure. Tails’ heart rate was slower, but not scarily so. It was just very calm, like how Hangry’s heart sounded when he took an impromptu nap by the pond. A soothing rhythm that would usually have Mangey joining in on the siesta. A complete juxtaposition to the current stressful situation.

“’M kay…” Tails reassured him. “Nine…?”

Mangey gave his hand a little reassuring pat before turning to check on Nine. He had become silent, though one eye was fighting with all its might to stay barely open. Mangey reckoned he was more susceptible to the drug on account of being quite a bit smaller and thinner. Thankfully, his heart rate was about the same and he didn’t appear to be in any more danger than Tails was.

"[He’s just like you. Knocked out, but stable.]" Mangey reported back to Tails. He wringed his hands together for a few moments before asking, [What should I do?]

There was a long stretch of silence and Mangey started to wonder if Tails could no longer speak. But finally, he replied:

“Observe… If anything happen… Jus’… Gather data… T’ find a way… Escape…”

Mangey nodded in agreement. It’s not like he could do much else right now. He must have looked really distraught because Tails made a little addendum:

“’Y got this… Bud…” His mouth vaguely twitched and Mangey got the impression that he was trying to give him a reassuring smile.

Despite not quite getting it out, it did the job. Mangey felt a bit of tension leave his body, making his strained expression ease up somewhat. He gave Tails’ hand an appreciative squeeze. Even when barely conscious, Tails somehow managed to be an effective leader. As bad as things were, he was grateful for the presence of such a supportive friend. He sat by his side until the golden fox closed his eyes and fully succumbed to the tranquilizer.

Soft snores began to fill the room, accompanied only by the uniform hum of the vessel as it remained in transit. With little else to do, Mangey did as Tails suggested and attempted to gather further data. He maneuvered around the enclosed space, touching and tapping every inch of it for anything useful, but came up with nothing. There wasn’t much to explore: the space was so small that his head touched the ceiling when he stood up and he couldn’t even pace in a small circle without stepping over one of his teammates. Eventually, he just sat between the two of them, intermittently checking their vitals. He relegated one of his tails to each of them to use as a pillow so their necks wouldn’t get stiff on the cold, metal floor. And then, all he could do was wait.

~

Mangey jumped when a sudden blue light penetrated the cube, starting at one side and slowly sliding to the other. He didn’t feel anything when it swept over him, but the similarity to the enforcer’s cyan light definitely caused his heart to jump in his throat at first. The constant hum of the vessel petered out and it jolted suddenly as it went from a gradual deceleration to a sudden stop. There was another light shudder and clanking as something outside seemed to clamp down on the vessel. There was a hiss, followed by the door slowly sliding open. Mangey gingerly dislodged his tails from their pillow status. He hovered them protectively over Nine while he held onto Tails’ shoulder.

Once the door fully opened, three small creatures flew into the cube. They were smooth and metallic, but almost featureless. No faces or anything. Once again, Mangey was reminded of insects, especially with the way they hovered about. They were quite small and benign looking, but he couldn’t help but feel threatened as they neared. He growled when one shot a golden beam at his bandaged shoulder, but forced himself to stay still. Although they didn’t verbally threaten him with “assistance,” he was still wary of ending up like his friends. And the beam didn’t hurt- it felt tingly in an immensely uncomfortable way, but it wasn’t unbearable. After a moment, the creature finished with his shoulder and started shining the light on another part of his body. The other two were shooting the same beams at his friends. Mangey dared to swat one with his tail, but it simply floated back into place and continued.

As Mangey adjusted to the weird sensation caused by the beams, it occurred to him that his wounded shoulder felt… Better? Curious, he unwrapped the bandage to find a clean patch of skin where there had previously been a really rough wound. He couldn’t help but gasp, sure that it would have taken much longer to heal and left a nasty scar to boot. There was a little bit of missing fur, of course, but still. He marveled at the creature that was slowly but surely beaming away all of his numerous injuries.

‘Is this magic? Are these things… Fairies…? Benevolent fairies?’ He could think of no logical explanation for what was happening.

Lulled into a sense of security, Mangey just stared curiously when the “fairy” finished with its beam and hovered in front of his face. He offered no resistance when it extended what he assumed were its little arms to either of his shoulders. It almost seemed like it was going to give him a tiny hug. But then the “limbs” snapped to either side of his neck, curling around the contour to join each other. There was a strange searing noise as the metal pieces melded together, adorning him an unwanted fashion accessory. He yelped when something inside the collar seemed to poke his neck and scratched at it madly in an attempt to dislodge it. But it held fast.

Swiftly, the three fairies rushed out of the cube and the door started to close once more. Mangey glanced wildly between his two companions, seeing that they also donned the metallic collars. He was so mesmerized by his own fairy that he didn’t even notice them getting the same treatment. He whined loudly, angry and frustrated that he did nothing to prevent this. He felt their craft take off once more, again heading to who-knows-where.

He sat down and started examining Tails’ collar, figuring that would be more productive than aimlessly scratching at his own. This way, he could at least see what he was doing. He was sure he’d figure out how to get it off in no time, but was quickly proven wrong. There was no latch, button, or anything- the hunk of metal was somehow smooth all the way around and alarmingly flush with Tails’ neck. Well, of course it was- he could feel the uncomfortably close sensation on his own neck as well. It made him want to gag with discomfort, but at the same time it managed not to restrict his air flow at all. Whatever these were made out of, his claws made no marks on them. His bare hands couldn’t do a darn thing against them.

Mangey’s tails were still lashing in frustration when the cube came to a stop once more. This time, he faced the opening door with a scowl. He was tired of these beetles and fairies- or whatever they were- messing with them. He had to do something to stick up for his friends! He was going to fight whatever mythological creature came at them this time! Or at least, that’s what the adrenaline rush brought on by anger and frustration told him in that moment. But upon actually seeing what he was up against next, he quickly started having second thoughts.

Nothing rushed into the craft this time, giving him a chance to notice the room the door opened up to. Unsurprisingly, it was yet another cold, metallic setting: black floor, grey walls, a moody glow cast by fixtures along the crown of the hallway. There were three doors crammed into the hall; two on either side and one at the end. Despite being much larger than the cube prison, it was somehow more claustrophobic. And there, standing in the middle of the hall, was the final adversary of the day.

It was a similar shape to the enforcer, but somehow nothing at all alike. Its cobalt blue body was completely sleek, with no discernable fleshy bits at all. Even the grey muzzle was completely smooth, with a blank spot where a mouth clearly should have been. There was a weird yellow indentation in its chest and it had red shoes- er, feet? Overall, quite an unnatural looking creature. But that wasn’t what really gave Mangey the heebie jeebies. No, it was its eyes. Those scowling, glowing red eyes against ominous black sclera. Worst were the five sharp claws on each hand, gleaming with vicious intent.

Mangey swallowed the lump in his throat, but held onto his resolve. He puffed up as much as he could and loomed protectively in front of his friends, growling in as threatening a manner as possible.

The creature was unmoved by this. Literally, it stood stock still and just stared at him.

A sudden beeping noise startled Mangey. All three of their collars chimed at the same time and a red light flickered on each of them. It was then that the creature decided to approach. Despite the fear that threatened to turn his body to ice, Mangey lunged forward, hoping to knock it down with his superior size.

But like a beetle, the creature proved to be very strong for its size. It absorbed the hit like it was nothing, grappling with him for maybe one second before simply shoving him to the ground with little effort. It walked past him, scooped up Nine’s body, and slumped the nine-tailed fox over its shoulder like a sack of potatoes. It started towards Tails next. But Mangey leapt up again, this time latching onto its arm so he could sink his claws and teeth into it- hoping to pierce its carapace. He was thinking of the beetles he was familiar with- the little ones that he could pop into his mouth and easily crush for a snack. He didn’t expect to nearly shatter his teeth. He did get the attention of this “beetle,” though.

With lightning speed it dropped Nine, grabbed Mangey by the shoulders, and hurled him into the room it came from. He was thrown with such force that gravity didn’t even have a chance to kick in before he crashed straight into the wall. He wheezed as he slid down to the ground, the wind knocked clean out of him. Without so much as a glance his way, the creature snatched up the unconscious foxes and carried them out of the cube. It marched right past him, heading to the door farthest from them.

Shakily, Mangey got to his feet and followed. He couldn’t exactly throw himself at the creature now, not when its body was almost entirely covered by his friends. Not to mention its supposed invulnerability to his attacks anyway.

Suddenly, the beast nonchalantly tossed Nine aside. It left his ragdolled body in the middle of the hall like it was no big deal and continued on with Tails. Mangey gasped and darted forward to make sure Nine’s limp form wasn’t injured from the careless manhandling. The poor fox seemed fine- he didn’t land weird or anything. But that didn’t help the fact that the creature was still making off with Tails. It didn’t occur to Mangey that they might become separated again. Where was it taking Tails!?

Mangey dashed off towards the creature once more. He wasn’t aiming to attack this time- it seemed like a useless endeavor so far. Maybe he could reason with it? Its uncaring demeanor didn’t exactly give him much hope, but he had to at least try. He put a hand on its arm, making a small whine to draw its attention. It stopped. And before Mangey could even attempt to start any meaningful communication, he felt a sudden prick in his neck. Yelping, he grabbed at the source, but his hands only met metal. The collar! Some mechanism inside had pricked him! Just like…

Just…

Like…

Mangey stumbled backwards all of the sudden, feeling woozy. Slowly, he crumpled and fell to the ground. His vision started blurring at an alarming rate as his body completely stopped listening to him. The creature continued on its way with Tails still in hand. And Mangey could do nothing to stop it. He could only watch as his friend was taken away for unknown reasons, completely and utterly powerless to do anything. The two slipped through the door silently, and then they were gone. Tails was gone.

Fear and confusion coursed through his veins as he slowly lost consciousness.

Chapter Text

Tails grumbled and stretched as he regained consciousness. The cozy feeling of a soft, squishy bed beneath him lulled his half-awake mind into a false sense of security. He didn’t even open his eyes and curled back up into a ball with his tails wrapped around him. But he couldn’t get comfortable- it felt like something got tangled around his neck and was squeezing him ever so slightly. Not quite enough to be choking him, but definitely enough to make him uncomfortable. He pawed at it, figuring it must be a really twisted up blanket or something. But it was solid, hard like steel. His eyes flashed open and he sat up with a jolt. He was not in his bed, and this was not his home. He stood attention to observe his surroundings.

He was in a fairly sparse, windowless room. There was a sink on the opposite wall and three beds lined up next to him. Well, “cushions” might have been a more apt term; they were quite small and just sorta flopped on the floor like beanbag chairs. The other two were empty. He was alone. That is, until the door on the far side of the room slid open. But neither Nine nor Mangey walked through it liked he had hoped. Instead, someone who wasn’t even in the farthest corner of his thoughts did.

“Metal?”

‘Metal… Sonic?!’

Tails stared incredulously as his mind suddenly, finally, flooded with memories of the person the robot was based on. His brother. Amnesia or not, Tails couldn’t fathom how he could possibly take so long to remember one of the most important people in his life. A truckload of emotions washed over him as all of his other memories clicked into place now that this pivotal piece of the puzzle was finally restored. Although, he couldn’t help but feel there was just one small corner piece still missing. While Tails was temporarily stunned by all of this, Metal had made his way across the room at a leisurely pace. He had some sort of carboard box in his hand.

“What are you doing here?!” Tails recovered in time to point an accusatory finger in the robot’s face. Metal didn’t seem aggressive, so Tails didn’t feel the need to attack right away. “Is this one of Eggman’s schemes after all? Some… how?”

Admittedly Tails thought that was a stretch. There was the obvious reason, like how Eggman hadn’t made an appearance to boast about his genius plan. Eggman was nothing if not a huge braggart, so it was hard to believe there wasn’t any direct sign of his involvement up until now. At the very least, Tails surely would have spotted the Eggman insignia emblazoned somewhere.

But really, Tails was doubtful because he wasn’t sure if Metal even did work for Eggman anymore. He still fought Sonic now and again, but Tails never saw him under the direct control of the mad doctor. Not for a long while.

Metal stared into his eyes for a few seconds.

Tails blinked.

There was an awkward silence.

Then Metal opened the cardboard box he was carrying and poured some of its contents into a bowl. He pressed the bowl to Tails’ chest, who instinctively grabbed it. He glanced between the cereal-looking stuff and Metal’s face a few times, utterly confused.

“What the-? I don’t want this!” He then looked from the bowl to the cushion he woke up on. In that moment, it struck him that it resembled a mobian-sized pet bed. And the pellet-shaped cereal was like kibble. His eyes scrunched up in a scowl. “What, are you trying to keep me as a pet now?”

Metal shook his head.

Finally, some communication!

“Then what gives? What’s all this about?” Tails made a sweeping gesture to indicate the weird room. “And where are Nine and Mangey?”

This time Metal replied by turning and briskly walking away.

“Hey, I’m talking to you!” Tails fumed and stomped after him. He grabbed the robot’s shoulder, but was easily shrugged off. Frustrated, Tails curled into a ball and jumped on him, giving him a solid bop square on the head. He bounced forward, landing in front of Metal with his arms spread wide. He didn’t hit him very hard, moreso intending to stop him and get his attention rather than cause damage.

Metal’s optics narrowed and he stopped. Tails was fully prepared for him to retaliate in some way, undamaged or not. Instead, the badnik simply pointed to a countdown clock that Tails hadn’t paid attention to up until now. It had about ten minutes left on it. Metal then shoved the box of cereal (or whatever it was) into Tails’ hands. Supposedly because the bowl he gave him moments ago was now strewn across the floor, flung to the side when he launched his attack.

“What, are you saying I have ten minutes to eat this?” Tails threw it over his shoulder like a petulant child. “How about you do something useful instead? Like tell me where my friends are!”

Metal, the jerk, had the audacity to roll his optics at him. He sidestepped past Tails. But before Tails could make a fuss about being ignored again, Metal beckoned for him to follow. Not very hopeful with how cagey he was so far, Tails nonetheless complied without protest.

The door closed behind them as they stepped out of the bed room and into a hallway. There were a few other doors of various sizes along the walls. Notably, the closest one was a large oval hatch that reminded Tails of an airlock on a space station. At the far end of the hall, there was a smaller, rectangular hatch door with three unsettling looking stasis tubes next to it. Two of them had bodies floating in them.

This derailed his assessment of the rest of the room immediately. Not caring about anything else, Tails bolted over to the tubes. As he feared, Nine (sans his robotic tails) and Mangey were suspended in a mysterious liquid. He looked around frantically for some kind of control panel- some way to get them out- but there wasn’t one in the immediate vicinity.

“What are you doing to them?! Get them out of there!” Tails all but shouted at Metal, who had quickly caught up to him. Of course, the robot looked completely unmoved by Tails’ fury.

“I said let them out now!”

Tails didn’t give the uncooperative robot time to comply. He took matters into his own hands, revving up a spindash to bust his friends out by force. But before he could unleash himself into the tubes, a quick pair of hands grabbed him and simply held onto him like a toy ball. Unable to launch himself, Tails unfurled, but was still held fast by the infuriatingly emotionless looking robot.

“Let go of me!” Tails snarled and flailed, but was ignored. It was incredibly awkward since they were about the same size, but Metal managed to keep hold of him just fine. Thus, Tails looked like a screaming, adult-sized toddler thrashing around beneath the nonchalant, one-armed hold of his guardian.

Metal carried him back to the other side of the hallway and opened the airlock-looking door. Tails tried to slip out of his grasp by spindashing again, but Metal’s reflexes were too fast for him. He readjusted his hands before he could slip away, simply making Tails peel out pointlessly in his iron grip. Just before the airlock doors closed behind them, Tails saw his friends ascending and vanishing from their tubes, supposedly drained out to some other location.

“Where did they go?” Tails asked frantically as Metal sat him down and buckled him into a chair. ‘Wait, what?’

Tails took in his new surroundings. It was another kind of transport, but less ominous than the cramped cube. It looked more like a theme park ride: seats lined the walls of the small space, equipped with safety belts- which he himself was now fastened into. Before Tails could ask what this was about, he was smashed into his seat by sudden, unexpectedly powerful g-force. It wasn’t an unfamiliar feeling- going so fast- but it did startle him since he wasn’t expecting it. Metal was strapped in across from him, looking as calm as ever.

The ride was over almost as quickly as it began. Metal unbuckled himself and stepped over to retrieve Tails. After freeing him, he beckoned for the fox to follow once more as he exited the craft (Ride? Elevator??). Despite wanting to protest, Tails saw no reason not to follow. Ears drooping with exasperation, he tried once more to get something- anything out of the robot.

“Why can’t you just tell me what’s going on? Or give me a clue- Anything! None of this makes sense! This… Doesn’t seem like something the Metal I know would do. Are you even… You?”

The robot stopped short. He turned his head slightly towards the fox behind him. Piercing red optics cast an ominous glow in the short, dimly lit hallway. Tails held his breath as he made indirect eye contact with the silent robot. Then he spoke.

“I am keeping you safe. No further inquiries will be answered.”

With that cryptic statement, the robot grabbed his arm and tugged him down the remainder of the hallway. The door opened up to a small room that was mostly comprised of glass walls; like an enclosed spectator booth at a stadium. And suddenly, it was loud. The sound of a crowd hollering and cheering from the stadium seating all around them made Tails flatten his ears. So, they were in an actual stadium of some sort. But why? Considering the predicament the three foxes just got out of, Tails had a sinking feeling in his gut. Suddenly, his wrist started vibrating. His communicator!

“Tails, you there?”

“Nine!” Tails never thought he’d be so relieved to hear his grumpy voice. He smooshed down one ear to block out the sound of the crowd so he could hear him better. “Where are you? Is Mangey with you? Are you okay?”

“Yeah, he’s here. We’re still in the cube ship; where are you?”

‘They went from stasis tubes back into the cube?’

“I’m in some sort of stadium filled with people- but separate from the crowd,” Tails’ expression darkened when his gaze fell to the arena at the center of the stadium. The sinking feeling intensified.

“A stadium? What the f- Hold on. Something’s-” Nine’s voice cut out.

“Nine? Hello? What’s happening?”

A staticy sound suddenly overtook the comm line and Tails lost all contact. It was replaced by a loud booming voice- one that was also playing over the stadium’s speakers.

“Bots, AIs, entities between and beyond- Are you ready for some more carnage?!”

The crowd erupted into cacophony, making Tails flatten his ears once more. He hadn’t really paid much attention at first, but now that he looked into the crowd… Robot, robot, robot… They were all robots. The announcer continued to rattle on in a hyped-up voice.

“In the red corner we have a returning favorite from the Biotech Colony: Team Natura! They may be freshly baked clones, but they’re still your favorite fleshy amalgamations! Sporting the fantastic work of seasoned biologists Z-13 Hydron and Fractal, let’s give it up for Crusher and Stagthorn!”

A previously darkened containment area on the red side of the arena lit up to reveal two creatures. One was a gargantuan, furless thing with thick armor plating all over its body. Its nasty looking claws were overshadowed by the sheer bulk of its massive forearms. This one was definitely “Crusher.” That left Stagthorn, who looked eerily similar to one of the deer things the gang had encountered in the final part of the Forest Survival Zone. This one had six legs, two pairs of long horns, and a smattering of quills all down its back and legs. Crusher pounded the ground with its fists while Stagthorn pranced around, thrashing its horns to and fro. The beasts were clearly raring for whatever was about to happen.

“Aaaand in the blue corner, fresh from the Combat Zone, we have Team Too Many Tails! These wild-caught critters have shown great proficiency with their utilization of weapons and well thought-out battle plans. But do the feisty little foxes have what it takes to face off against some bona fide bioengineered brutes? Regardless if they survive their debut, make some noise for Tails and Nine!”

The blue side’s containment area lit up to reveal what Tails had feared: Mangey and Nine (thankfully reequipped with his tails) just standing there, looking around in confusion. Upon spotting their opponents across the way, both got into more appropriate battle stances.

“Oh, scratch that- the new guys are starting off their career with a bold strategy: Sending in the mascot to start the round! I can already hear the hype, but let’s get even louder for Nine and Mangey!”

“Mascot?” Tails stared down at the larger, fluffier fox with worry. Such a designation did not bode well for the fox with the least combat experience of the three. Tails flipped around and got in Metal’s face. “Why am I stuck in here instead of out there with my team? If we have to fight, we fight together!”

Metal remained unmoved, giving him no more than a dismissive glance.

Tails banged a fist on his metallic chest angrily, “Do you hear me?! I should be in there! At least instead of Mangey!”

A blaring alarm went off as the containment walls for each team slid away, releasing the fighters into the main arena. With no help from Metal, Tails could only watch helplessly as his friends were subjected to yet another sick fighting game.

Mangey and Nine stood ready as Crusher made a head-on charge for them. The two foxes dodged to either side of the explosive, two armed smash it aimed at them. Nine dove forward in quick succession, trying to stab at it with his tails. The armor-plating looked pretty all-encompassing from up here, but Tails had faith that Nine would be able to find some weak points. Now separated, Mangey lingered off to the side. He was hesitating, supposedly looking for an opening while he watched Nine dodge and stab at the furless beast. But the two foxes seemed to have forgotten their second opponent, who was dashing around the arena in the meantime, building up speed until it was nothing but a brown blur.

Tails tried to warn Mangey via communicator, but the device was still jammed. Mangey didn’t stand a chance when it finally began its attack- the hits were so fast that it looked like Mangey was stumbling around while a phantom creature struck him over and over. Tails pounded against the glass futilely, willing Nine to take notice and save him. The nine-tailed fox was holding his own against Crusher, who was slowly getting whittled down by his precise strikes. Nine was unscathed so far, but dodging a relentless barrage of pummeling fists was surely wearing down his energy levels.

Nine finally noticed his teammate’s predicament when Mangey let out a shriek and collapsed into a heap. He leapt into the path of the next attack, managing to block it with his tails and throw Stagthorn off-balance. The deerlike creature spun out for a moment like a struck car, but quickly realigned itself and resumed rebuilding its momentum. But before it could get too fast, Nine leapt up behind it, aiming for the back of its neck. The creature used its third pair of legs to brush the quills on its back, causing them to shoot out like projectiles. It happened so quickly and unexpectedly that Nine was effectively peppered with them. He missed completely, overshooting and rolling to the ground with shock and pain from the quills now embedded in his body. Stagthorn sped off to continue its speedy assault on Mangey, leaving Nine to writhe on the ground. But at this point, Crusher had caught up and was looming over Nine with its mighty fists. Tails’ heart jumped in his throat as Nine just barely rolled out of the way in time.

Meanwhile, Mangey hadn’t moved from where he had fallen. His fur was blotted with blood from the vicious deer’s relentless goring attacks. He was panting heavily, splayed out on his back in a very vulnerable position. Stagthorn seemed to notice the great opportunity and, instead of wasting more time building up speed, it went for him away. It bent its head low, aiming its already bloodied horns at his exposed belly. But right before it made contact, Mangey rolled over and fluffed out his tails, causing the creature to run into them instead. The fluffy appendages got tangled up in its horns, blinding it and making it skid out of control. Despite being jerked along by his tangled tails, Mangey whirled his body around and clamped his jaws around its front ankle. There was a snap as the fragile appendage succumbed to his bite force and it stumbled with one less limb to balance on. In a flash, Mangey jumped and snapped one of its back ankles before it could recover, causing it to collapse. Its quills flared up and it started flailing about wildly. Before it could properly utilize its last-ditch defenses, Mangey pinned it to the ground and snapped its neck with the ferocity of a wild animal. Once its body stilled, he let go and jumped back to his feet. Despite being torn to shreds, he looked ready to leap to Nine’s defense.

But there was no need. Crusher fell to the ground after one too many strikes to its weak spots. Nine was panting from exertion, but didn’t suffer any direct damage from the giant. He was, however, bleeding from the massive quills he had to rip out.

“Ooh, and there goes Crusher, down for the count!”

Tails had barely noticed the announcer in his fog of worry over his friends. It was like the sound around him faded back into existence once the immediate threat of danger was gone. They survived. They won.

“You know what that means, folks! It’s time for Natura to send out its mascot! Here comes Bloodbaaaag!”

Oooor not. A lumpy, oversized toad bounced into the arena from the red side. Its lumbering, stilted movements didn’t exactly make it look threatening, but the two adrenaline-filled foxes were understandably wary of it. They kept a cautious distance as they circled the lopsided creature for about a minute. But it seemed their hesitancy was unnecessary- all it took was a single swipe of one of Nine’s tails to dispatch the creature. It seemed anticlimactic, but the crowd went wild for some reason. Though he couldn’t hear them, Tails imagined his teammates were as quiet as he was. Seeing the toad become its namesake was more horrifying than anything. Especially if that’s what a “mascot” was intended to do.

Tails stared numbly as his friends were gathered up and the carnage was swept away from the battledome. He was brought out of his stupor by a light tap on his shoulder. Oh, right. Metal was there. He sighed and followed the robot back the way they came as the announcer was getting the crowd hyped for the next round. He could only hope that Nine and Mangey would get some much-needed medical attention before being shipped back to their tubes.

“… Now let’s make some thunder for Team Circuitbreakers!”

Before the doors closed, Tails got a very clear glimpse of a lime green tenrec and azure blue fennec being revealed to the stadium. Despite all of the worries racing through his head, he found his mind lingering on the image of the fennec. He’d come across him briefly a few times since being thrust into this endless nightmare. And each time, Tails felt an instinctive draw towards him, though he couldn’t discern why. But in that moment, it clicked. The fennec must be that little corner piece missing from his nearly complete memory puzzle.

He hoped the poor little guy could hang in there until he could remember who he was.

Chapter Text

From Nine’s perspective he had passed out in a cube, woke up in a cube, fought some weird monsters, and then got shoved back in a cube. He went from being heavily sedated, to covered in mysterious slime, to covered in nasty frog blood and deer quills. Deer quills. What the hell. He never thought he’d harbor animosity towards a shape, but cubes were really starting to draw his ire. Beyond frustrated, he was determined to escape this hell at any cost. The interior of the cube was almost completely smooth with no clear weak points. Scratching and banging on it with his tails did nothing more than leave a few pitiful scrapes behind. It was as impermeable as the damn collar glued to his neck (which, if anything, was even more durable somehow. Not even a scratch when he tried to get that damn thing off). Even though there was nothing to do, he couldn’t bear to just sit and wait. So instead he stood and waited. It at least made him feel like he was more prepared, or something.

Then something touched his hand. He jerked it away instinctively, sending a heated look towards the owner of the orange paw. His wrathful stare was more connected to his overall frustrations than the small touch, but there’s no way Mangey could have known that. He had crawled over and, like usual, was trying to offer a bit of quiet comfort with a small touch. But he was deterred by Nine’s reaction, quickly retracting the offending hand back to his chest. He held it there as if it were a dangerous weapon that needed to be restrained. His eyes were downcast, apologetic, and worried.

Nine sighed. Mangey had come a long way from giving him affectionate little touches every chance he could get. Despite not knowing him for long, it still struck Nine as weird to see the fluffier fox restrain himself so much. And that should be a good thing, especially with how much Nine balked and complained about it up until now.

But as much as he hated to admit it, Mangey’s newfound caution made him feel bad. Logically, he knew that Mangey was just trying to help. And that his actions were pure and innocent, because that’s just how he was. Nine actually even liked the affection (another thing he desperately hated to admit), but… He just couldn’t stop the overwhelming need to reject him and push him away. It’s not like he had time to sit with his emotions and work through them in a healthy way.

Even if he did, Nine had next to no experience dealing with other people in this capacity. The majority of his interactions with others involved defending himself from physical assault- both actively and preemptively. He simply did not have the emotional intelligence to deal with this. He never had the means to develop it; he wasn’t even aware of the concept of it. And so his insecurities externalized in the only way he knew how: lashing out with anger, bitterness, and fear, often covered up by snark and sarcasm. Thankfully, he at least stopped retaliating with being pointlessly hurtful and cruel by now.

But the damage had already been done. He still had to deal with the aftermath. And right now, that was Mangey backing away into the corner of the tiny vessel. Mangey trying to give Nine as much space as he possibly could even though it was in such short supply. He even had the decency to turn his head away so he wasn’t dousing Nine with the guilt-inducing puppydog stare. He simply curled his tails around himself and waited for whatever was going to happen to them next. He looked so… Defeated.

“Hey,” Nine attempted to reach out with the small word.

Mangey perked up.

“You’re not hurt real bad, are you?”

Mangey just shrugged. He was unusually untalkative. Which sounded like a dumb thing to say about someone who didn’t speak, but Mangey managed to be verbose even without the use of audible or visible words. Somehow. He was just like that. Except for right now. Of course, it didn’t help that Nine never bothered to learn any of his sign language.

Nine slowly sank to the floor next to him and looked him over. He was mostly obscured by his massive fluffy tails, but Nine could clearly see a few spots where the deer had given him some unwanted holes. He frowned. It was strange not to see little mister doctor trying to fix up his wounds right away. Normally the dude was basically the cleric of the group; always on top of that sort of thing. Nine knew he kept all kinds of medical herbs and wraps stashed in those ridiculously voluminous tails. And yet, Mangey remained relatively still, just looking at him.

Slowly, hesitantly, Nine reached a hand towards him. What he was attempting felt like the most unnatural thing he could possibly do, but he didn’t stop. Mangey’s ears perked up at the confused, approaching hand. He reached over and met Nine halfway, gently clasping their hands together. It was weird. Nine felt weird. He intended to put his hand on his shoulder. A low effort, reassuring little gesture. But he fumbled and now this was happening. He was holding the dude’s hand mid-reach like they were caught between a hand shake and a high five. It was awkward. For Nine it was awkward.

But Mangey’s eyes were shiny and sparkling. A small smile appeared on his face. Mangey was normally a very smiley kind of person; Nine had seen him with ginormous grins that would put this one to shame. But something about this little, “quiet” smile… Something about those eyes. There was an overwhelming emotion pouring out of the other fox and Nine didn’t know how to handle it.

‘Uh. Good. That’s a. Good response. What I was going for.’ Nine kept a poker straight face despite the intensifying awkwardness. ‘I’m just… Returning the favor, for once. And never again. This is good enough for forever.’

He felt so awkward that he forgot he was furious just moments before. But when the cube came to a stuttering halt, he was jolted back to his senses. He let go and stood back up to prepare himself for whatever might happen next. Looking revitalized, Mangey rose up to join him. Social affection was one hell of a drug for that fluffy fox.

Then the doors slid open and two levitating robots moseyed on in. But Nine didn’t stick around to see what they did. He smashed them both with his tails and made a run for it. The room the cube docked with was rather sparse, but that didn’t matter. Nine was only looking for one thing- yes, door! He ran over to it, but sure enough it was locked. There was a little poing! noise as another tiny robot was dispensed from a nearby tube. It barely had a chance to move before Mangey snatched it out of the air and threw it to the ground with enough force to shatter it.

Nine gave him a brief nod of approval and turned back to the door. Using all seven mechanical tails, he stabbed the door at its seam and pried it open. He didn’t need to say anything as he ran off- he could hear the distinctive sound of Mangey’s barefoot, four-legged dash just behind him. They were in sync. And they were busting out.

Nine thought about buzzing Tails’ communicator again, but decided against it. He needed to focus right now. He had no idea where the hell they were or if anyone was coming after them now that they breached the cube prison. He didn’t know if this brute force attempt would even be worthwhile, but he had to try. Once he made any concrete progress, then he’d check in on their third team member.

He skidded to a halt when another door blocked their path, not even hesitating before he began prying it open. For whatever reason, this one took quite a bit more oomph. He growled with exertion as his tails started making the metal buckle and curl from the force, but eventually it started to give. A whoosh of air flew past him as the crack widened, eventually large enough for them to squeeze through. The air continued to fly by for a few seconds, but eventually petered out. It was weird, but Nine didn’t care all that much as he kept running. Unlike all the previous rooms, this one was dotted with quite a few windows.

It must have been pitch black outside because the reflection from the interior lighting made it impossible to see anything. In fact, it started to become hard to see what was in front of him. The lights started to drag strangely with his vision, like he was underwater. He started to breathe harder, but he couldn’t quite seem to get enough air. He had slowed down considerably, but it didn’t get any better. Hell, he was just walking at this point and was completely out of breath. Despite running with his metal tails most of the way, his whole body felt fatigued. Did… His collar do something to him...? No, he would have felt something, surely?

He slumped against the wall as a spell of dizziness hit him. His body was yelling at him, screaming: ‘Not enough air! Not enough air!’

Then everything went black.

~

Nine’s eyes fluttered awake. He didn’t know how long he was out, but he felt exhausted. He wanted to jump up and run away, but all he could manage was sitting up slowly. He blinked a few times and took in his surroundings.

‘Not a cube. Good.’

The room was much bigger; with a sink, a countdown timer, and a couple doors. More importantly was the presence of both of his teammates. Tails was facing away from him, sitting next to a (hopefully) passed out Mangey who was laying on a little round mattress. He extended his metal tails to walk his tired body over to his two companions- namely to check on Mangey. Or rather, that’s what he would have done if his tails weren’t missing.

“Wh’ th’ ffuh…?” Nine was surprised by how out of it he sounded.

“You’re awake!” Tails rushed over to his side.

“Mnngh…” Nine grumbled and noticed something was stuck on his face. So of course he started trying to tear it off. Wasn’t the stupid collar enough? But Tails reached over to stop him, fixing it back in place and gently pushing Nine’s hands down.

“No, no- you don’t want to do that just yet. It’s okay; it’s oxygen.”

Nine allowed Tails to stop him from fussing, trusting the other fox to have his best interest in mind. Then he touched the thing on his muzzle more carefully, feeling that it was a mask. It was indeed attached to some oxygen. So was Mangey over there. He took a deep breath, hoping to restore more cognitive function to his brain.

“Okay… Why do I need oxygen, and where are my tails?” There were so many questions Nine wanted to ask. But Tails could only answer so many at a time, so he started off slow.

“I wasn’t there to see what happened and my source of information isn’t very… Verbose… But from what I gathered, you wandered into an area with atmosphere not suitable to organic life and, well. Essentially you were slowly suffocating. You got mild hypoxemia, but were retrieved before it could cause any permanent damage.”

That only led to far more questions and Tails hadn’t even answered the second one yet. Despite how much he wanted to know, this information made yet another worry spike to the forefront. Worry and guilt about someone he unknowingly dragged into that low oxygen atmosphere.

“Is he…?” Nine tilted his head towards Mangey’s harrowingly still body.

“He’ll be okay,” Tails reassured him, “He’s in the same boat as you; you just woke up first.”

Nine sighed with relief. ‘Didn’t get the mutt killed. Good, good…’

“And your tails, um. Basically, we’re not allowed any weapons in the living room.”

Nine raised an eyebrow at him. He was equal parts pissed and befuddled. “Living room?”

“Eh, heheh...” Tails rubbed the back of his head as he laughed mirthlessly, “That’s what I’m calling this room. It sounds nicer than, y’know, ‘holding cell’ or something.”

“Right… So, prisoners again?” Nine rolled his eyes. “Not to imply we ever had any actual freedom.”

“Yeah…”

“Do you have any idea what the fuck is going on? Or where we even are?”

“Yeah, okay, so. This might be a bit of a doozy,” Tails inhaled sharply, “But we’re on a space station. A space station mostly inhabited by robots that don’t need to breathe, hence the low oxygen area. And, uh- How are you processing this so far?”

Nine stared at him with furrowed brows for a moment, letting that sink in. They’re in space. What. Flying into space to get the fuck away from his shitty city, the Chaos Council, and everyone else in it was honestly one of his occasional fantasies. But it was just that, a fantasy. He never dreamed it would become a reality, much less put him in a place even worse than New Yoke City. But his life was just doomed to being out of his control in the most horrible ways possible he supposed. What’s new.

“I’m… Handling it. So what’s the deal with this place? Just indefinite battles with no pretense of being ‘sent home’ this time?”

“It seems that way,” Tails started to say when their combined attention was drawn to the sound of the main door sliding open. A robot stepped inside, dropped a few boxes by the door, and promptly left.

“The hell was that? One of the things running this place?”

“Uh, not exactly? Well, I’m not sure. It’s complicated?”

Nine’s eyebrow was going to get stuck in place from how much he was quirking it up today. “I’m listening.”

“This might sound weird, but I know him? He’s the one keeping us here, but it doesn’t make any sense why he would. It’s been almost impossible to get information out of him. He says he’s ‘keeping me safe.’ But if this is ‘safe’ then what’s the alternative?”

“Sounds like more bullshit.”

“Yeah! Kind of! He’s not giving me much to work with, but I’ve already got him to make some concessions, so I’m not giving up just yet. There has to be a reason why he’s involved. I just have to pry it out of him.”

“How are you going to manage that?”

“I’m… Not sure. I’m going to keep trying to talk to him for now.”

“Or we could just turn him into scrap metal,” Nine muttered bitterly. “Get my chaosdamn tails back…”

“What about all the other robots then? We don’t even know how to get back to our homes- or any kind of planet at all. I think it will be best to try to gather as much information as possible before we do anything rash.”

“Yeah, yeah, I wasn’t being serious.”

Nine was still recovering from his recent rash behavior; he didn’t need Tails to lecture him. It was more his style to be covert and work from the shadows anyway. He just needed to figure out how he could do that while being confined with such limited resources. He didn’t exactly want to wait around until they were flung into another fight.

“Not that we haven’t before. I mean, mostly Sonic has,” Tails was rambling on about something.

“Huh? What are you talking about?”

“Turning Metal into scrap metal. Me and my brother fought him before- lots of times actually. But I’m really hoping we can work together this time. It has happened before, briefly, but it doesn’t make it any less weird…”

“Oh… Huh.”

Nine knew he should be focusing on the fact that their captor was supposedly someone Tails fought with. Current situation aside, he sounded like more of an adversary than ally to Tails. He should be questioning him about that. But, damn it all, all Nine could dwell on was the reveal that Tails had a brother. Of course he had a brother. Tails was so well adjusted, so chill, so normal. He probably had a very happy family and life outside of this hell they had all been dragged into.

Nine cringed internally as a wave of embarrassment swept over him. He was once again reminded of his stupid wishful thinking that they might have been brothers. Back before his memories were restored and firmly disproved that theory. There was no possible way that Tails could know his private thoughts, but actively thinking about it while sitting right in front of him made him feel exposed. Like mind reading might spontaneously become possible just through the sheer loudness of the embarrassment alarms going off in his head. Thankfully, a welcome distraction presented itself as Mangey began to stir.

“Look who’s up.”

Mangey’s ears twitched at the sound of his voice and he blearily opened his eyes. A tired smile immediately worked its way onto his face and he held his arms out to him. No, scratch that- he was holding them out to Tails.

“Glad to see you’re- Oomph!” Tails was grappled into an unexpected hug when he went over to check on their friend. “Hey, take it easy!” Tails nonetheless returned the hug while making sure Mangey didn’t knock his mask off in the process.

Then Tails began explaining to Mangey what he just told Nine. It took longer because Mangey had a harder time fathoming being among the stars, but Tails was very patient. The two signed back and forth, punctuated with reassuring hand squeezes and a few hugs. All initiated by Mangey, of course. Because he wasn’t at all shy about asking for affection and reassurance. Well, not from Tails anyway. Nine supposed he shouldn’t be surprised that he burned that bridge. Not that he cared. He was glad that Mangey finally stopped the affection-bombing. He wasn’t some kind of touch-starved idiot that was too shy proud to admit that he craved it. So he most definitely wasn’t jealous. And he wasn’t weird for silently staring at them for the entirety of their conversation. There was nothing else to do while he sat around recovering, and anyone who might call him out on this could shut the hell up. Including his own internal thoughts.

‘You could always go back to sleep, weirdo.’

‘Fine, I will. I’m not weird.’

Nine argued with himself before lying down and forcing his eyes shut. He’d rest off the remainder of this fatigue as fast as possible. Once he could properly move about, he’d immediately work on finding solutions. He had to. Not only to escape, but to shut up the annoying voices inside his head. This was absolutely no time to be distracted by unhelpful emotions, lest of all the most useless one of all.

Loneliness never helped anyone escape from robo-captivity on a space station.

Chapter Text

The past 24 hours had been quite the rollercoaster ride for Mangey, but he was just grateful not to be separated from his friends. Sure, they might be confined to a small room, but at least they were safe within these walls. Here they didn’t have to fight, didn’t have to worry about starving, didn’t have to worry about suffocating…

However temporary these basic comforts were, he wasn’t certain. Things had been very confusing ever since they left the forested area of the Survival Zone. He was still reeling from the fact that they were apparently floating somewhere among the stars. And yet, they weren’t floating- they were walking on solid surfaces just like any other place. This was nothing like he would have imagined being up in the night sky would be like. He had no idea how to connect his knowledge of how the universe works to the reality he was currently in. There were too many missing steps in between. As much as his innate curiosity made him want to brute force connecting the dots anyway, it was just too overwhelming. It kind of made his head spin to think about it too much. So for his own sanity, he tried not to. He tried to focus on things that did make sense to him- things in his immediate vicinity.

The most grounding force was, of course, the presence of his friends. Tails was a great help; there for hugs, reassurance, and an endless well of information. But he was absent from the room most of the time, trying to talk to that scary Metal guy. That left Nine, who… Needless to say, there were still communication barriers that prevented them from really bro’ing it up. But Mangey was still comforted by his presence. Being able to physically see him and know he was safe. Being able to hear him make absent-minded noises he didn’t realize he was making (tapping his fingers, quiet hums of concentration, little puffs and growls of irritation, ect). It put Mangey at ease.

Nine didn’t talk to him much as it was, but he was especially distracted since they woke up in this room. He constantly had his face glued to a contraption called a “laptop.” He and Tails yammered excitedly about it at first; something about being surprised that it was just lying around for them to use freely. As far as Mangey understood, it was like a bigger version of the communicators they had on their wrists. Except it did more things and had access to something called “the internet.” And Nine was using this internet to research a bunch of stuff to help them get out of here. And would he please leave him alone, he’s busy.

But that was okay. Mangey would just have to keep busy, too. He took his time to thoroughly investigate the living room (what Tails called this place). Not that there was a whole lot to find, especially since he couldn’t get past the main door. Metal kept that one locked. Mangey was relieved to learn that the scary creature (called a robot) was potentially an ally according to Tails. He was just, sort of… Mean. Tails apologized for the way Metal treated him and told him he’d have some choice words for the bot the next time he spoke with him. And don’t worry, he won’t hurt you again, I promise. That’s where Tails was right now: off trying to make peace, allyship, or whatever with Metal. That just left him and Nine in the quiet, boring room.

Not that Mangey wanted to complain. There were some fascinating aspects to their prison that got him hyped up when he first came across them. The faucet that provided unlimited clean drinking water? That was nothing to sneeze at. The sophisticated waste disposal system (called a toilet) also blew his mind, even if the loud noise it made was alarming at first. The others seemed to find these things utterly mundane, though. Their blasé attitude in the face of his enthrallment took the air out of his sails a bit. It was also disappointing that he couldn’t take them apart to see how they worked. There really wasn’t much of anything for him to do after his initial exploration. His basic needs were met, but this was anything but a gilded cage.

Mangey couldn’t believe how long it had been since he saw plantlife and it was starting to weigh heavily on him. It was like everything was dead. The air was stale and stagnant without the presence of a breeze. Not to mention the absence of all the natural smells he was accustomed to. Oh how he missed the scent of pine, earth, decaying wood, rain and dew. All of the surfaces were like solid, uniform hunks of rock. How he longed to dig a hole in dirt just for the sake of it, to sink his claws into the soft bark of a tree, to brush his face against the leaves of a plant. Not being able to do these things for so long almost made him feel as if he was dead.

Hell, he couldn’t even fix his hair or markings. His coat had been in shambles for quite a while at this point. He didn’t have any supplies left in his tails to fix himself up. In addition to the small private room with the toilet, there was another one that contained something called a “sonic shower.” Despite the name, no water was involved. It just made a loud noise and vibrated your body all over. Supposedly this vibrated every little bit of dust and sweat off of you, making you immaculately clean. But it also vibrated off what tiny bits of markings and hair gel remained on Mangey’s coat. He felt so exposed without a drop of red dye in his fur, without a single stripe, and with a lifeless mop where his lovely mohawk used to be. He was “clean,” but he felt gross. It was just the icing on the cake that totally bummed him out, leaving him as nothing but a lethargic slab of meat.

‘How did I even get here…? I wouldn’t have been able to imagine any of this when I first left my village… What, a month ago now? ’ He sighed inwardly as he contemplated. ‘It’s hard to believe I set out hoping to find a mate to bring back home…’ He glanced at his dull, featureless fur and shuddered at the thought. ‘Right now I’d rather disappear.’

Alas, he remained corporeal, slumped in his cushion nest next to Nine who was typing away at that laptop. He didn’t care as much about looking bad in front of him: Obviously he wasn’t trying to court his friend. And besides, he took care of Nine when he was literally on his deathbed, looking about as unglamorous a one could be in such a state. So it was only fair that Nine got to see him looking similarly disheveled. Or so he reasoned to make himself feel less terrible.

Mangey wanted nothing more than to snuggle up against him or curl up in his lap. It’s not like he’d be in the way of his work… But he knew better by now. Nine needed his space. But this was still nice: being so close without bothering him. Mangey had his ears perked up, soaking up all the pleasant noises of Nine’s presence. There were pauses on occasion, and Mangey noticed the other fox giving him little glances now and again. His expression was cryptic, but there was no irritation (Nine wasn’t shy about showing that), so Mangey just kept up his lazy cat status. Flopped and still, eyes flickering between closed and half-lidded.

But then, there was a longer pause. Mangey opened his eyes to see that, instead of just a glance, there was a gloved hand reaching towards him. Nine’s hand. It was happening again! Was this going to become A Thing? It almost looked like he was going to pet him. Would he really? Oh, Mangey would love that so much! But Nine was hesitating again now that they locked eyes. He looked nervous, unsure. Mangey gave his tails a tiny wag to indicate his approval of the action. He could have made a whirlwind with how excited he was, but didn’t want to discourage him by being overly enthusiastic. It seemed to work, and now Nine’s hand was just hair lengths away-

Then the door slid open and Nine’s entire body snapped back to his laptop.

‘AW! What!’ Mangey’s head flipped towards the door to see what was up. If it was just a food drop off, he’d be a little miffed.

But no, it was Tails. He stepped back into the room, followed closely by an angry-eyed Metal. Or maybe he was neutral? Tails said his face just kind of looked like that.

“Hey, who’s up for a field trip?” Tails asked with clearly forced enthusiasm.

“Pass,” Nine replied without looking up from his laptop.

Mangey, on the other hand, bounded over immediately- all thoughts completely pushed aside for that one word. “[A trip to a field? Like an actual field? With grass and flowers?!]”

Tails rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. “Uh, no, sorry. ‘Field trip’ is just an expression for going out somewhere. But really, it’s more like a government-mandated spa date, so…”

“Government mandated…?” Nine raised an eyebrow.

Mangey visibly drooped. He was busy being disappointed that there were no fields involved.

“Yeah, as in, not optional. You have to go get spruced up in between each fight, apparently. And,” Tails glanced at Metal and shrugged, “Guess we’re going now. And yes, we really do have to. So come on.”

Nine pursed his lips in irritation, but closed the laptop and set it aside. He jerked a thumb towards Mangey as he walked over. “Why can’t he just ‘spa date’ us here? He loves that crap and is bored to death anyway.”

Mangey tilted his head curiously. He had never heard of this “spa,” but the way Nine spoke about it piqued his interest. He was also happy that Nine cared enough to take note of his restlessness.

“Because Nine, it’s just,” Tails gesticulated wildly, “one of the dumb things we have to do! Besides, it will be good to get out of here for a bit. You know. Change of scenery?” He flicked his eyes briefly towards Metal, indicating that he didn’t want to say too much in front of him.

“… Fine. Yeah. Let’s go.”

The three foxes followed Metal down the hall to the airlock-looking hatch that led to the community transport. Tails walked right in and strapped himself into one of the seats. Nine and Mangey followed more cautiously, unfamiliar with this setting. But Nine seemed to figure it out after a second and settled in next to Tails without a word. Mangey had no idea why they were attaching themselves to the seats, but their nonchalant attitude while doing so convinced him that he should follow suit. He sat on Tails’ other side and mimicked their actions, double-checking to make sure his setup matched theirs.

Tails gave him a thumbs up, so he must have done it correctly.

“[What are we doing? What is this?]” Mangey pawed at the seatbelt.

“This is a form of transportation, like the cube. It goes really fast, so you have to strap in so you don’t accidentally fall down and hurt yourself.”

‘Huh,’ Mangey recalled getting smooshed a bit by the pressure of the cube lifting off. If this thing went even faster than that, he could see the merit of being held safely in place by these devices. But he still had one more question.

“[What’s a spa?]”

“What’s a spa? It’s a place where you can get all sorts of things done-”

“Pffff, you’ll love it,” Nine interjected with a smirk. Then his mouth flattened back to a thin line and he looked away, as if he didn’t mean to speak out loud.

The three of them were interrupted when the transport rocketed off. Mangey couldn’t help but let out a squeak of alarm at the sudden onset of speed and g-force smashing him into his seat. Even though he was warned, he was still shocked by the intensity of it. The sensation didn’t last all that long, though. He was definitely thankful for the seatbelt when they came to a rather abrupt halt.

“[Wow.]” Was all he could think to say by the end of it.

“Heh, yeah,” Tails flashed him a little smile. It was infectious. Mangey gave him an affectionate little tail bump as he helped him out of his restraints.

Before the doors opened, Metal came over to each of them and tapped their collars in turn. A glowing chain of energy extended from each collar and tethered to the robot’s hand.

“The hell is this? I thought we were going to a spa, not getting walked,” Nine scowled.

“If you stray, you will be retracted,” Metal demonstrated by retracting Nine’s energy tether all the way over to him, bringing the glowering fox’s collar up to his palm. Nine must have known how hard Metal’s fingers were because otherwise, Mangey was sure he would have bit one off with how pissed he looked. “If you misbehave in public, you will be sedated.”

Thankfully, he didn’t demonstrate that on anyone. Although he did stare pointedly at the fox currently in his grasp. But then Nine’s tether slackened, returning his freedom of movement. The furious fox backed away haughtily, but remained quiet from then on. Now that the rules were clearly set, Metal opened the doors to the outside world.

The three foxes were led out into what resembled a busy mall. In opposition to the minimalist, industrial settings of the rest of the space station; this place was brightly lit, colorful, and full of visual stimuli. Advertisements and art were plastered on every surface, playful neon signs indicated all kinds of stores and services, and it was loaded with people. Robots and their tethered organic creatures of all shapes and sizes milled about, going in and out of the various establishments. It was a bit overwhelming for Mangey- not even the Combat Zone had been this crowded. The auditory, visual, and olfactory stimuli were overall quite pleasant in their own way, but it was just a lot.

That and his only experience with crowds thus far involved violence. Mangey half expected to be attacked at any moment, making his heart rate involuntarily increase. He slunk onto all fours and grabbed the tip of Tails’ tail between his teeth- an instinctual self-soothing action he habituated as a child. He received a worried glance from the other fox, but neither said anything as they meandered along. That is, until a passerby bumped into his hip, making him jump up and latch onto Tails’ arm with barely restrained panic.

“It’s alright,” Tails put a hand on his shoulder, “I think the ‘don’t misbehave’ applies to all these other people, too. We should be okay.”

Mangey nodded and released his grip, but stayed close enough that their shoulders and tails brushed as they walked. He studied the expressions and body language of people passing by. It seemed to prove Tails’ theory: He didn’t once see anyone with aggressive posturing. In fact, a lot of them seemed to be as timid and fearful as he was. Even more of them looked completely devoid of emotion, as if they had been sedated to the point of merely being able to shamble along. Mangey wasn’t familiar enough with robot body language to get a definitive read on them, but all of the organics were very obedient and subdued. In fact, the only grumpy face he saw was Nine’s, who was still pissy-looking from earlier.

After a bit, they arrived at their destination. The spa’s foyer had a much more soothing atmosphere: a predominantly blue and teal color palette, a floor made of soft material, and a peacefully trickling water feature in the center of the room. And it was immediately less crowded and quieter. Mangey finally relaxed enough to drift out of Tails’ personal bubble.

Metal silently stared at the robot running the establishment for a few seconds (in what Mangey assumed was some unique form of communication). Then they were then led to an enclosed lobby in the back. It was similar to the foyer, but even quieter and filled with subtle enticing aromas. A few organic creatures were lounging on comfortable-looking chairs that lined the room. Metal dissipated their tethers and walked back to the main foyer without a word, leaving them behind.

‘He’s not going to do the spa with us?’ Mangey wondered, still not entirely informed about what was meant to happen here. But Nine, of all people, said he’d love it and he trusted him.

Before they could even sit, two large cephalopod-like creatures came into the room and crowded around them. They glanced over the trio briefly before carting them off to their next destination. This would have been well and fine if Mangey wasn’t inexplicably singled out and herded off in a different direction than his companions. He whined and tried to run back to them, but his cephalopod guide prevented escape by grabbing his torso with a strong tentacle. For such a scary and sudden action, the creature was surprisingly gentle. It simply guided him along like someone patiently walking a stubborn dog.

“Uh- Hey!” Tails protested, but was also held back. “Um! Don’t worry, Mangey! I think it might just be a long fur, short fur kind of thing? Look,” he pointed at the posters along the walls.

Sure enough, all of the ones Mangey was passing were of long haired and furred creatures. And the ones rapidly vanishing from view on Tails’ side all had shorter haircuts.

“Just relax, we’ll see you in a few minutes or however long this stuff takes,” Nine waved a hand and looked rather unbothered by it all.

Mangey kept whining quietly despite their reassurances, but stopped struggling against the creature. He couldn’t help but worry; not with the memories of what happened the last time they were separated. He was attacked and beaten, sometimes so badly that he actually thought he was going to die. He thought he’d never see Tails, Nine, or his family ever again.

But this wasn’t the Combat Zone. This wasn’t supposed to be deadly; this was supposed to be nice. Even Nine said so. He’d try to relax, and hopefully everything would turn out fine.

~

About an hour later, Mangey surprised himself with how quickly his mood had turned around. Everything that seemed odd and scary at first ended up being really nice- lovely, even! Like the weird lumpy chair that moved when he sat in it: very unsettling at first, but when he relaxed into it, the little vibrations and machinations felt good. It was like an impersonal massage. While the chair did its thing, he was made to soak his hands and feet in little tubs of hot water. He found this quite puzzling and a little awkward, but it did feel pretty nice. The nail trim and foot and paw massage that followed were even better. All the while pleasant smells wafted up from the steamy hot water. At that point, he truly began to relax and enjoy himself.

His long fur was meticulously brushed, conditioned, and styled. He was getting utterly pampered! When he tried to return the favor by grooming one of his attendants, they politely declined. All he had to do was sit there and relax. And occasionally pick out styles and colors. It really was quite a blissful experience and exactly what he needed right now. Pretty soon his whole body was sparkling with rejuvenated beauty. All that remained was his hair, which was currently getting shampooed. He was purring unabashedly, barely paying attention to the other patrons that came and went.

That is, until he recognized the face of the girl getting her hair done next to him. The sight of the green tenrec with striking black face markings made his heart leap into his throat. She was as beautiful as ever, but his nose kind of hurt just from looking at her. That knockout electro-punch to the face wasn’t something he’d forget in a hurry. Luckily, she didn’t seem to notice him yet. Her eyes were closed and she seemed to be very relaxed. For now. Realizing he was staring, he snapped his eyes forward, and closed them for good measure. If he just didn’t pay attention to her, surely nothing bad would happen and they’d both go on their merry ways with fabulous new hair.

This plan worked. He kept his eyes averted for the entire style session. He didn’t so much as hear her deep, beautifully scratchy voice threaten him (or anyone else) the entire time. Conflict averted! And beautiful hair get!

Now adorned with a freshly dyed and styled flaming mohawk, he was finally led back into the interior lobby. Tails and Nine were already lounging there, looking kind of sleepy and bored respectively. Mangey was the odd one out; utterly oozing with exuberance. He dashed over to them and started talking so quickly and excitedly that his hands were a blur.

“[Nine was right, it was wonderful! They made my nails so perfectly uniform and LOOK!]” Mangey shoved his hands in Tails’ tiredly blinking face for about one second to show them off. “[They had shiny red paint that sticks to nails! Isn’t it cool?! All of the soaps smelled SO GOOD! I hope the scent lingers forever! I don’t know what they put in my coat, but it’s never been so soft! LOOK how perfect they got my do’!]” Mangey paused to make a grandiose gesture towards his stunning mohawk. “[They even styled my chest fur and elbow tufts- And they gave me new hand and foot wraps! Aren’t they pretty?]”

Tails’ mouth opened and closed a few times, but finally he just settled on, “You look good, dude. Glad you had fun!”

“Yeah, told you,” Nine said matter-of-factly, “Now let’s get back to our prison cell so I can figure out how to never come here again.”

Mangey turned to him, still beaming, “[Wow, Nine, I love your eyeliner! It looks really pretty!]”

“Uh…?”

“He said your eyeliner is,” Tails grinned as he emphasized the last word, “Pretty~!”

“Ah… Oh…” Nine scratched his cheek and looked away. “They just kind of did that.”

Mangey snaked around so he was in front of Nine’s hiding face. He wanted to admire it a little bit more. This had the unintended side effect of making Nine start to turn red under his fur.

“Okay, time to go,” he said stiffly and started marching towards the exit.

“[He’s embarrassed?]” Mangey tilted his head.

“Gee, you think?”

Mangey ducked his head sheepishly, “Heheh… [Oops! I didn’t know he was so shy about it?]” He turned his attention to Tails, whose pelt was glowing with radiance. Despite what just happened with Nine, he couldn’t help but gush, “[Tails, you have the prettiest fur I’ve ever seen. It’s so vibrant, you look like a little sun! Except I could stare at you all day!]”

Tails snorted.

“Quit flirting with your friends, you weirdo!” He joked and beckoned for Mangey to follow him to the exit.

“[But, I wasn’t…?]” Mangey started to say as he followed along, but then his eyes lit up. “[Tails! That’s such a good idea! Can I practice flirt with you when we get back?]”

“Wh- What?” Tails laughed awkwardly and looked at him like he was crazy.

“[Oh, please, please, please? What if, right after we escape, I run into my soulmate, but then I choke up and can’t think of anything suave to say?!]”

Disregarding how yucky and in the dumps he felt this morning, Mangey generally kept his goal of finding a mate on the backburner. Obviously, he needed to figure out how to get home first. But it was impossible not to have fleeting thoughts about now and again. Especially when someone attractive caught his eye. Or when he got an unexpected makeover from head to toe that made him feel like a rockstar. He couldn’t help but get whisked off into lala land for a moment, away from all of their current worries.

“Uh… Mangey? There’s kind of more important things we should be focusing on right now. Don’t you think?”

“[Oh, I know! I know! But just look at me. How can I not think about courting someone looking this damn gorgeous?]” He sighed longingly. “[And I saw that beautiful woman again today. Oh, but that would be a terrible idea…!]”

Tails couldn’t help but chuckle and shake his head at his earnest, lovestruck friend.

“[Please? Just for a few minutes when you’re not working on the important escape stuff.]” Mangey hit him with an imploring look.

“Well, I uh…” Tails fiddled with one of his tails, “It’s just. I don’t think I’d be much help anyway. I uh, don’t really know anything about romance.”

“[Surely you have more experience than me, just from being around so many other people? I never got feedback from a real person before- you know, only living with my family. I only ever got to practice with a tree!]”

“A tree…!?”

Their conversation was interrupted when Mangey had to use his yappers (hands) to open the door to the main foyer. They were both promptly distracted from the silly conversation by the unexpected scene they walked into.

Metal was being accosted by an overly friendly robot that had its arm slung around his shoulder while its other one gesticulated wildly as it spoke. And boy did it speak. A lot.

“-and that’s why- Oh, hold that thought! Your team has assembled~!” The robot released Metal in order to clap his hands together gleefully. “Ooohh, what a makeover! They clean up so nice; look at that shiny fur!”

He zipped over to poke and prod at the three while he commentated about them as if they were cool action figures or pets or something. He snatched up Nine by the shoulders suddenly and plopped him down next to Tails so all three foxes were in a row.

“If you line them all up, they form such a nice yellow to orange gradient! How charming! And the matching double tails? ALL wild-caught from different planets? That is some commitment to style! Ahhh!! You have such impeccable taste, Metty! Do you have any merch in the works yet? I’d go right into the plush market- they’re just so darn cutesy!”

Metal did not respond. Now that his team had reconvened, he beckoned for the foxes to follow him as he turned to leave. But Chaos wasn’t about to let him slip away so easily. The speedy robot click-clacked his noisy high-heeled feet back to Metal in an instant, trapping him in another friendly embrace.

“Oh NO, darling! You can’t leave just yet! You have to look at my new babies too, you know? It’s only fair after getting to show off yours~!”

Mangey stared at the sight before him. He never thought the terrifying robot that threw him across the room and menacingly carried Tails away could look so… So… Well, somehow, Metal’s optics seemed to quietly scream “help me,” but he couldn’t exactly put his finger on how.

“Um… Who are you?” Tails dared to ask the gregarious bot.

“Ohh, your middle one spoke to me! Aren’t you a friendly little guy?” The robot patted Tails’ head like a dog (but notably didn’t mess up his newly styled bangs). “The name’s Chaos! What’s your name, Golden Boy? Metal oh so rudely hasn’t told me!”

Tails grimaced during the condescending pet, but tried to keep up a friendly visage. “Tails.”

Chaos started cackling, “Tails? Really, honey? Oh, nothing wrong with it, no no! But doesn’t that get a bit confusing when all you two-tails are talking about your two tails while being on Team Too Many Tails?!”

“Uh… Not really.”

“Oh, look, here they come!” Chaos directed everyone’s attention to the two mobians exiting the spa.

Mangey tensed when he caught sight of the tenrec making her way towards them. But he brightened when he noticed the timid quokka trailing behind her.

‘Barry!’ Mangey made a beeline for the buddy he befriended in the Combat Zone. Meeting them was the only good thing that happened to him in that entire place (other than reuniting with Tails and Nine of course). They were the only person he met that didn’t try to beat him up. But he worried about Barry ever since the scary tenrec forcibly recruited them to her team.

He skidded to a halt in front of them and waved both hands in an enthusiastic greeting. “[Hi! I’m so happy you’re okay!]”

“F… Fluffy? You’re alive? O-Oh thank goodness!”

“Fluffy?” Tails walked up alongside them. He looked amused by the unfamiliar nickname.

“Y-Yeah? Hey, wait a minute… Tails?” Barry did a shocked double-take, “You’re Tails! Um. We’ve met before. On a train? I-It’s been years, though. Haha, you probably don’t remember…”

“Hey, yeah!” Tails’ eyes lit up with recognition after a moment, “The Mirage Express, right? Um… Sorry, I don’t remember your name?”

Mangey vibrated with excitement while the three of them got reacquainted. What a wild coincidence that they all met before! And this time he could actually talk to Barry with Tails there to translate his sign. For one thing, he could finally tell them his real name instead of having to rely on the nickname.

“[I don’t mind, though. You can call me ‘Fluffy’ if you want. It can be our thing!]”

“Heheh, uh, well-” Barry jumped when Chaos suddenly clasped his hands on their shoulders.

“And this little guy! Well. Honestly, they’re a bit boring for a mascot- not even brightly colored like the other two, but whatcha gonna do? Surge here is the real charmer- an absolute murderous firecracker! And she has such a filthy mouth to match! I love her!”

He zoomed over to the tenrec to sling his arms around her shoulders and lean against her affectionately with little heart eyes. Mangey cringed, figuring he was about to be blown to smithereens for such a bold invasion of her space. But she was worryingly unresponsive to his touch, her eyes listless and glazed over.

“Oh, it’s such a shame that I have to keep her soooo doped up in public! But she’d cause too much of a ruckus for polite society. She would explode everything in sight. Zip zap poof!”

While Mangey, Tails, and Barry were chatting, Chaos was zooming about and loquaciously showing off his team. Mangey was so excited about Barry that he hadn’t really been paying attention. Too many people talking at the same time. Well, except for Nine. He hadn’t said a word, actually.

‘Wait, where is Nine?’

Mangey looked around and finally spotted him huddled at the entrance. His ears were flattened and he looked incredibly agitated.

‘Did I miss something?’ Mangey started to wander over towards him.

Metal was slowly inching his way towards the exit as well, but kept getting snagged back into one-sided conversation with Chaos. Metal began making clearly irritated buzzy-beep noises each time, but Chaos didn’t seem to take the hint. In fact, he started beeping back and giggling, as if it was some sort of game they were playing.

“[You look upset. Can I help?]” Mangey asked as he came up besides Nine. He knew he couldn’t understand him, but hoped the general sentiment would come across from his concerned facial expression.

Nine was glancing around furtively, as if looking for someone. Or something. It made Mangey worry that they were in some sort of peril he was unaware of. But Nine voiced no such concern, simply muttering, “Just ready to get out of here…”

Mangey nodded and stayed by his side. As much as he wanted to keep catching up with Barry, he knew Nine had important things to do back at their dwelling. Maybe with the two of them standing by the exit, the rest of the group would be quicker to join them.

‘When we get back, I need to make sure rescuing Barry is part of the plan, too! We can’t leave them behind with that scary tenrec- Um, Surge? Well, actually, she probably needs rescuing, too…’

While Mangey was pondering that scary thought, the others finally began to draw near. Tails was still talking to Barry, with Surge numbly walking alongside them. Bringing up the rear was Metal beeping with increased intensity as Chaos remained relentless with his unwanted social advances.

“You can’t leave yet! You haven’t seen my little blue boy!” Chaos tapped something rapidly on his hand. “Why is he being so slow…! Ah, there he is!”

Chaos zipped over to the door right as it opened, scooping up the blue fennec and zooming back over to hold the small creature in Metal’s face. “Cute, right?! Oh, but he’s crazy! You should see the way he slams people around with his BIG water tentacles! Hehehe, I think he might actually be evil? I love him, too! But not as much as Surge, shhh, don’t tell.” He said the last part in a hushed tone and changed his optics to a wink. Despite the fact that everyone could clearly still hear him, including the fennec that he was swinging around like a stuffed toy.

The fennec had a blank look on his face that somewhat resembled Surge. But instead of looking a thousand miles away, he just looked… Very, very restrained. Actually, scratch that, he did look kind of pissed. But in that subtle, super scary way. Like how Prim looked when Gnarly hid her gems as a joke.

“My sweet little Kitsunami~” Chaos cooed, either oblivious to or unperturbed by the murderous look. “That’s how I got the team name, by the way! Surge, Kit: Circ-uit! Circuitbreakers! Because they do love breaking things! Didn’t bother worrying about Barry because, bah, mascot, who cares, you know? So yeah, do you love it or do you love it?”

Metal was able to back away the last couple of feet to the exit while Chaos was distracted manhandling the unfortunate fennec. Mangey was glad because Nine looked more uncomfortable that ever. He was standing as stiff as a board and his fur was fluffed up in alarm for some reason. It wasn’t very noticeable because his fur was so short, but Mangey was paying close attention. He touched his hand lightly, hoping to draw his attention and see what was wrong, but Nine didn’t react at all. He was staring at Chaos and Kit, completely frozen.

“Oh, looks like we made it to the exit…” Chaos remained sing-songy even as he pouted. “But it doesn’t need to be the end! Why don’t we take our pets for a walk in the park together, Metty~?”

Metal made a resolutely loud beep of declination and started hurriedly tethering up the three foxes.

“Oh, going back home? Do you live on this station now that you’re a trainer? Ooh, that’s so exciting! What’s your domicile address? I could pop by some time- say hello~!”

With the foxes leashed, Metal ignored Chaos for the umpteenth time and started power-walking away. But the sleek robot would catch up one last time. He grabbed Metal’s shoulder to stop him and drew their foreheads close to each other. A little spark of electricity passed between them, and then Chaos pulled away.

“Oh, I know right where that is!” Chaos let go of him and threw a limp wrist in his direction instead. “Thanks for sharing, bae! I’ll see you later! Byeeeeee~!” He struck a pose while waving goodbye, winking and blowing a kiss for good measure.

Metal resumed his path, this time all but stomping in clear frustration. Mangey didn’t really understand what just happened, but one thing was clear. He reaaallly didn’t like that other robot and was in a foul mood now. The whole group remained silent all the way home.

Chapter Text

‘Kitsunami!’ The name exploded in Tails’ head right as it came out of Chaos’s speakers. The final puzzle piece clicked into place and this one was quite the doozy. Not exactly a relationship of sunshine and roses, but still someone that Tails absolutely wanted to talk to. Kit was smart- it would be a great benefit to get him in on the escape plan, assuming he wasn’t already hatching one of his own. But gosh darn it all, he didn’t get a chance to say a single word to the fennec before they were whisked away.

Not that Tails could really blame Metal. That Chaos guy was something else and he could all but hear Metal’s gears grinding with restrained fury. The real question was why there was any restraint at all. Chaos was fast, but he doubted he was as fast as Metal. If he turned on his engine, he could have easily scooped up all three foxes (albeit very awkwardly) and blasted out of there. It’s not like Metal was the type to care if he bowled over a bunch of mall patrons in the process.

But Metal walked everywhere and it was downright uncanny. Just like Sonic, it was well known that Metal preferred jetting around at high speeds. And unlike Sonic, he wouldn’t slow down to take in the sites and be sociable. But Metal hadn’t revved up his engine even once. Not even when he was clearly desperate to escape. It was pure conjecture, but Metal almost seemed to be adhering to some sort of social etiquette by restraining himself. Because why else would he? He wasn’t damaged; his engines should work just fine. As should his weapons, but Metal didn’t try to shut the other robot up with force either.

Another thing that puzzled him was how, despite making numerous attempts to leave, Metal kept getting dragged back into conversation with Chaos. Social etiquette or not, Tails was pretty sure Metal would have no problem with just leaving without a word. He’d seen him do it plenty of times before. It was almost like he physically couldn’t. And with all of Chaos’s yammering, it almost seemed like Metal was silent (aside from beeps) the whole time. Tails got the impression that there was some sort of inaudible, peer-to-peer sharing going on between the two robots. It became more obvious right as they were leaving- that forehead zap thing? Based on what Chaos said, he was given their address in that little exchange. But Metal did not seem happy about it, almost like it was forced out of him.

That prompted Tails to be more observant of how other robots treated Metal on their way back. It was possible that Chaos was just an anomaly, so he wanted to get a better look at how Metal fit into this society. It was subtle, but he did notice numerous bots they passed seemed to turn to look at him- perhaps initiating in some unseen peer-to-peer communication as well? Metal would come to a stuttering stop, but didn’t turn his body towards them in a sociable way. His head would pivot to them while his body stayed facing forward, clearly indicating where he would rather be going. When he wasn’t being interrupted, his stiff movements were akin to angry stomping. But no one else seemed to notice these signs of irritation- it was as if his body language was invisible to everyone but Tails. Metal seemed to fit into this society about as well as a square block fit into a circular hole. But this was all pure theory based on observation. To get real answers, he would have to confront Metal with his findings.

And that was proving to be a difficult task in itself due to Metal’s complete absence the past day. As soon as they got home from the spa, Metal shoved them into the living room and hadn’t come back since. Not even to drop off their food. Clearly, the robot wanted to be alone. But Tails didn’t have time to be delicate with his feelings. Thus, he was knocking on the door and calling out his name for the third time in the last hour.

This time, he finally got a response. Metal appeared with an armful of food boxes. He shoved them at Tails and attempted to make a swift retreat, but Tails jumped into the hallway before he could shut the door on him.

“We need to talk.”

Metal narrowed his optics and tried grab him, but Tails swiftly rolled out of his way.

“I think I finally understand what’s going on!”

Metal didn’t respond other than making another lunge for him. Unfortunately, Metal was still faster and managed to snatch up the little fox-ball.

“Just listen to me for a minute!” Tails unfurled and latched onto any part of Metal he could reach. “I can help!”

Metal wrenched Tails off, but instead of throwing him back into the living room, he flopped him down where he stood. He closed the door and marched down the hall where he disappeared into the room next to the community transport. Tails blinked in surprise, but hurriedly followed. He hadn’t been to this part of the domicile yet. He only ever talked to Metal in the hall or through the closed door of this mysterious room. But this time Metal had left it open for him.

The interior of the new room was barely the size of the hallway- cluttered with monitors and built-in cabinets. Two of the monitors showed different angles of the living room. Another one was a screenshare of Nine’s laptop- like a parent monitoring their child’s online activities. Tails supposed he shouldn’t be surprised by this.

And in the center of it all was Metal, staring at him expectantly.

“Are other robots accessing your systems without your permission?” Tails blurted out.

There was a long pause and for a moment, Tails thought Metal was going to remain mute after all. Then, finally:

“Yes.”

“Is that why you won’t talk to me? Because any robot could access your memory files and if they saw you treating me like an ally instead of a, uh…”

“Possession.”

Tails scrunched up his nose at that word, “Right… Then you’d be in trouble?”

“I would not face repercussions. But you might be taken away. And I could no longer protect you.”

“Not to sound ungrateful, but why are you protecting me?” The question had been bugging Tails for a while. People typically weren’t concerned with the well-being of their enemies.

“You do not belong here.”

Tails waited for him to elaborate further, but apparently that’s all Metal had to say on the matter. To be fair, it was true. It just seemed like there had to be more to it than just that. After all, who even was he to Metal? He could see Metal getting fussed over Sonic’s disappearance, being that Metal wanted to be the one to best him personally. But Tails? He was just Sonic’s brother. Why would Metal bother? As much as he wanted to pry, there were more important matters to address. Tails would just have to push his burning curiosity aside for now.

“Okay… How exactly are you protecting me?”

“In this society, organic beings are not granted autonomy. By having you in my possession, I am preventing others from using you for nefarious purposes.”

“More nefarious than forcing us into deathmatches?” Tails gave him a skeptical look.

“Is is the safest option. You can be kept from harm entirely by entering the other two at the start of a match. The Battledome does not require execution of opponents to conclude a fight, though it is a possibility. This is an unfortunate and unavoidable risk.”

“How is it unavoidable? How about just, I don’t know, not enter us in fights?” Tails’ tone was laced with barely constrained bitterness. The thought of Mangey and Nine being thrown into combat in his stead to “protect” him made his blood boil.

“In order to acquire possession of you, I had to enter a contractual obligation to continue your fighting career. I did not have enough currency for a no-strings-attached purchase.”

“Well, can’t you get more money and pay it off the rest of the way? Get a job or something?”

“Currency is not the same as on Mobius. You do not earn wages. You earn social currency by being likeable to others. You do not spend currency. You simply obtain status to be able to do certain things.”

“Oh…” Tails let that sink in. A society where their only way to gain freedom was based on Metal’s likeability. Metal, the murderous robot with no social skills. “We’re in trouble…”

Metal was silent.

“Is that why you haven’t just busted out of here by force?”

“No. There is a dampening field in place that enforces social niceties and prevents robots from harming one another,” Metal clenched his fist. “I am physically incapable of actions that would be deemed disruptive to society.”

Tails thought of how Metal had stomped like a furious child on their way back from the mall.

“And that… includes flying?”

“Yes,” Metal’s fist was clamped so tightly, Tails was surprised he didn’t snap his fingers off from the force. There was a small whir within his engine as it begged to burst to life, but it fizzled out sadly.

Tails bit his lip. In his own way, Metal was also a victim in this society. He couldn’t help but feel a twinge of sympathy, but there was no time to dwell on that right now.

“So, what is the plan then?”

“The first step was acquiring you. What remains is a lengthy process of diplomacy and legal documentation. In order to obtain safe transportation back to Mobius, I must legally secede from this society, terminate your contract, and a multitude of other processes. These procedures are not commonly attempted and seem to have been made purposefully contrived for the sake of discouragement.”

“So basically… You have to do a ton of paperwork and jump through legal loopholes? How long will all that mumbo-jumbo take?”

“Unknown, possibly months. Or years.”

”Years?! There is no way we’re staying here that long! Isn’t there anything else we can do?”

“I am doing what I can with the resources available to me. And I have created yet another problem by sharing this information with you.”

“Oh, right, the unwanted memory access,” Tails frowned. They should probably find a way to deal with that first and foremost. “That must be really annoying. Isn’t there some kind of firewall you can set up to keep them out?”

Metal narrowed his optics. “I have tried. The robots of this society operate under an intricate social network built into them. They have an array of automated social protocols that my system simply does not possess. Without these, it seems as though I respond to all inquiries with “yes” by default. Even when peer-to-peer communication is established, the protocol still seems to override my direct messages. I have no way of opting out or blocking this. The dampening field is all-encompassing and cannot be routed around. I am programmed for combat; not deflecting unwanted social situations.”

“Yeah, this isn’t really a fight you’re used to, is it? Especially against someone like that Chaos guy…”

Metal twitched.

“Er, anyway! I could take a crack at it for you. If you give me access to your systems, I’m sure I could figure something out. But, uh, I suppose that’s a bit of a touchy subject right now…?”

Metal said nothing, but crossed his arms in a subtle defensive posture. Of course, he wasn’t keen on yet another type of invasion after having no privacy for who knows how long.

“I won’t access any of your memory files or mess with any of your coding. I’ll just work on the firewall; honest! You can trust me, Metal. We’re on the same side here. And even if we weren’t, I wouldn’t violate your privacy like that. You know what kind of guy I am by now.”

“You are a hero,” the derision in Metal’s statement was clear. But even so, it showed that he understood what Tails was getting at.

“That’s right. I’m not going to take advantage of you. You’re protecting me… Let me protect you, too.”

After a few moments of intense staring (glaring?), Metal made his move. He opened a panel in his side and connected to tablet-like device which he handed to Tails. He also handed him a tiny SD card. “I was given this comprehensive software update, but it is incompatible with my hardware.”

Tails inserted the SD card into the tablet and studied the incredibly foreign code for a few minutes. “Uh-huh… If I can’t figure out something on my own, I can try to make some sort of compatibility program as a backup... How long before we have to be in public again?”

“The next battle is in four days, seven hours, and 32 minutes. A spa visit is required within 24 hours after a fight unless there are extenuating circumstances.”

“So about five days? I should be able to get something done by then, no problem!” Tails swiped his nose confidently.

~

While Tails worked on the firewall, Metal continued with the mind-numbing task of filing legal documents. The two went well into the night (according to the standardized world clock). Tails had made progress, but his tireless nature could only last so long. He started nodding off.

Metal shook him awake.

“Hmmzzwha? Oh. My bad. Do they have coffee here?”

Metal pulled the tablet out of the drowsy fox’s hands and disconnected the wire. “You will retire for the evening to recharge your vitals. I will retrieve you to resume your work as soon as you awaken.”

“Nah, I’ll be fine for a few more hours,” Tails waved his hand dismissively and attempted to take the tablet back. “I’m really close to something here- I can’t stop now.”

“Organic beings require rest at this interval. You will function more optimally if you adhere to this cycle. Noncompliance will be met with sedation. You will not object further.”

“Jeeze, whatever, Dad! Don’t have to threaten me…”

Metal ushered him out and marched him back to the living room.

“Hey, real quick though?”

Metal tilted his head.

“Nine and Mangey… You have to start treating them better. I’m no more important than them and they deserve just as much respect. That includes putting me in at the start of fights instead of Mangey!”

Metal rolled his optics.

“I’m serious! What they’ve already had to endure is enough. Just go easy on them, okay? Nine can be abrasive, but he’s just a little socially awkward. Maybe you can relate?” Tails raised an eyebrow pointedly at him.

“And Mangey is literally the sweetest guy ever and he’s had the roughest time of us all. He can’t even talk to anyone because no one understands him. Surely you know what that’s like better than anyone?” Tails’ snarky attitude disappeared as he tried to genuinely appeal to Metal’s sense of empathy (assuming he was capable of such a thing). Metal spent most of his life without a voice chip, after all. “Just… Try to be kind? As much as you can? Please?”

“I am already being forced into the niceties of this society. I can only bear so much.”

“Well, if you need to get your aggression out on someone, I’m right here. I can take it!” Tails gave him a playful noogie.

Metal gave him a much rougher one in return.

“Yeah, just like that,” Tails’ eye twitched in an attempt not to wince. “Ow.”

“You will retire now.”

“Right, right. See you in a couple hours.”

Metal booted him into the living room and shut the door behind him.

“You were gone an awful long time,” Nine glanced up at him.

“Yeah, I-”

“[Are you okay?!]” Mangey came running up and looked him over fretfully. “[I was worried that he hurt you!]”

Tails gave him a tired smile and patted his shoulder, “I’m alright, just tired. Sorry I worried you, bud.”

“So, how’d the interrogation go? Find anything out?”

“Eheh… Yeah, I sure did. Let me get you guys up to speed.”

Chapter Text

Nine had no patience for Tails and Metal’s plan. Regardless if Tails could speed it up by assisting Metal (after he got that firewall up and running), the possibility of waiting years was just excessive. Thus, he kept looking for alternative solutions. And inbetween that, he researched the Battledome show itself. If they had to be subjected to more fights before they escaped, Nine wanted to know all he could about it. Can’t escape if you’re dead, after all.

There was an absurd amount of superfluous information to sift through. Much of it stuff that Nine didn’t really need to know. Long detailed wiki articles about the multitude of different game modes, the history behind them, et cetera. Nine couldn’t help but be drawn in. Back in New Yoke, he spent a lot of his free time reading and researching. Just learning about random things online. Going to the library wasn’t worth it with how culled and curated the literary selection was under the council’s rule. It was much more feasible to go on the dark web to find useful media and banned books. Not to mention staying in the safety of his bunker meant less chances to run into potentially dangerous citizens. And eggforcers.

He was oddly almost comfortable in his current position. It was upsetting, but familiar. Being at the bottom of the barrel in an unjust society, chilling in his confined but safe “home” while delving into the intricacies of a niche topic… Eating a diet of overprocessed food. If it weren’t for the overt control of the collars, being forced into deathmatches, and the indignity of essentially being a “pet,” Nine didn’t find it a whole lot more offensive than New Yoke. Well, it was also missing the insanely sugary juice boxes and candies he liked so much. And seeing Mangey wither before his very eyes had become more and more upsetting over time. For some reason.

Yeah, this place sucked.

And learning about the effed up history that led to this society having so many violent gameshows certainly wasn’t uplifting. Like how the majority of the current population was once organic beings, but got roboticized into mindless subservience by a megalomaniac out for world domination. Some hero overthrew the dictator and his genius sidekick found a way to restore individuality to the roboticized victims. They didn’t regain their organic forms, but they were free once more. Unfortunately, something was still lost in the process. Something not quite quantifiable: their humanity. It was a hindrance for both subservience and being a good murder bot, so it was thoroughly stripped in the initial robotization. Before the genius sidekick could find a way to reintegrate this quality, the dangerous combination of newly restored individual desires and an inherent need to destroy led to the death of any remaining organics. Including the hero and sidekick that liberated them all.

Yeah, this place really sucked.

At some point they developed protocols to inhibit robot-on-robot violence. The dampening field was a big one, but to even get to that point they first had to find ways to satiate their need for destruction. And thus, the sport of capturing and pitting organics against each other for entertainment began. The more difficult it became to harm one another, the more normalized casual cruelty towards organics became. Over the years, this juxtaposition of control and violence evolved into the freakish society of today. A bunch of well-mannered and polite robots that consumed copious amounts of organic bloodsports on the daily. And it wasn’t even perpetuated by ignorance. They knew full well how much suffering the other creatures endured, they just didn’t care. In fact, the suffering was even a focal point on a lot of these shows.

Yeah, this society could stand to be burned to the ground, really.

Not even Nine’s jaded outlook could stomach most of this shit. When he and Tails shared progress reports, he left this stuff out. Tails was already trying to convince him to play hero and get the Combat Zone and Battledome taken down as a part of their escape plan. If he knew that these shows were just a drop in and endless sea of societal cruelty, he might try to lead a crusade against the whole planet. And if they were going to actually escape, there was no time for that. That bright-eyed idiot and his damn heroics… Nine had to save him from himself by keeping him in the dark. The only thing he cared about was saving the three of them. Anything more than that would be a fool’s errand.

Thus, he continued to be disgusted in silence as he continued his research. He did discover information that would actually be useful for their fights, too. Showrunners were well aware that organic beings possessed different levels of sentience and planned around this accordingly. Intelligent beings had an annoying knack at being cooperative and working together instead of mindlessly ripping each other to shreds. The Combat Zone had its rules and contrivances in place in order to discourage teamwork, but the Battledome had something even simpler to combat this. A little substance they called berserker gas. If combatants refuse to fight, or even so much as talked amongst themselves to rig the fight so no one gets be badly injured, they’d get hit with the gas. It turns sentient beings into ferocious and reckless creatures almost instantly, guaranteeing an even more gruesome fight. The gas itself is dangerous, often leading contestants to exhaust themselves to the point of death even if they win.

“So don’t even think about trying to make nice with the other team,” Nine glared pointedly at Tails and Mangey during one of their meetings. It was a good thing he found this information when he did because his stupidly bighearted teammates surely would have gotten themselves killed trying to be goody two-shoes at some point.

Other than general information, he tried to devise strategies by watching compilation videos of previous Battledome fights. They were hard to stomach in general, but it was extra annoying when the videos were overlaid with the idiotic soliloquy of whoever uploaded the video. Just like in normal society, everyone was obsessed with adding their obnoxious and unwanted commentary to everything. Nine had to skip through heaps of dreck to find the rare, unedited clips. In doing so, he glanced at all sorts of other recommended videos popping up on the sidebar. He mostly ignored them until one caught his eye. A Forest Survival Zone video.

“Don’t Mess with Blue Pt2.”

As if controlled by an unseen force, he clicked on the video and instantly regretted it. He knew damn well what it was based on the thumbnail, but somehow he still couldn’t believe it until he saw it. After all, surely there was no way this moment actually could have gotten captured on video? He would have to have noticed at least one hidden camera when he was stuck in that wretched zone… And yet, here he was, reliving his recent trauma from a third person perspective.

Nine watched as a tiny blue fennec with demonically glowing magenta eyes grabbed him with a tentacle of water. Watched as he was smacked around, taunted, and waterboarded while the tiny freak grinned like a sicko. The video cut to a later feed of the fennec stalking him by the river before catching and torturing him once more. The video cut abruptly just as water started to envelope his entire body, giving the impression that the fennec finished him off. The words “Don’t Mess with Blue! XD” faded onto the black screen, an overly loud jumpscare noise screeched through his headphones, and the video ended.

Nine was left seething with anger and humiliation as the countdown for the next video began. Annoyingly, he was mostly just frozen as his heart beat the shit out of his ribcage from the renewed terror. He only snapped out of it a few seconds into the next video that started autoplaying. Another Forest Survival video, this time with that annoying voiceover he hated so much. It was talking about how cute the little fox was for snuggling up against the big fox. The video was a nightcam shot from when Nine curled up against Mangey when he thought he was asleep. A moment of weakness that, in the drugged-up state he was constantly subjected to in the Survival Zone, Nine had chalked up to being a bad fever dream. But no, apparently that absolutely did happen and was now immortalized on the internet for all to see. And some idiot was gushing about how cute it was and that they loved each other.

It had over a million views.

“What the fuck!?” Nine screeched, his fury overtaking the fear he only barely just recovered from.

The outburst caught Mangey’s attention and he quickly scampered over to see what was the matter.

“NO! Don’t- Fuck!” Nine flailed at the keyboard before slamming the laptop shut altogether.

Mangey tilted his head in confusion, but smartly backed away from his fuming companion and left him alone.

That was it; he needed a break.

With nothing else to do, he stomped over to the sonic shower and locked himself inside. He turned the setting up to max and curled into a frustrated heap, willing the thing to vibrate his entire body out of existence.

~

When Nine flipped the laptop open again, he was annoyed to find the same page still open. In his aimless flailing, he had paused the video and scrolled into the comment section. Against his better judgment, he started skimming a couple of them. Aside from making his blood pressure elevate from the utterly moronic takes some people had, he did end up discovering something of interest. A surprising amount of these commenters seemed to display sympathy for the two of them. People actually expressing disgust at their suffering and wishing they could rescue them from the show. It didn’t make him feel any better- he still felt violated and repulsed by these weirdos creeping on him. But clicking through these peoples’ profiles ended up leading him down potentially the most useful rabbithole yet.

That was how he came across the organic liberation movement. Apparently there were some members of this society that did have the capacity for some form of empathy. Enough that they actually advocated for the welfare of organic beings. It was a longshot, but Nine did some digging to see if there was any merit in trying to get help from these people. He sent messages to a few sources that didn’t seem completely worthless through a proxy so it couldn’t be traced back to Metal’s place. Just in case.

At this point, he was pretty fed up with research, so he refocused his efforts into hacking various systems that would essentially achieve the same goal as Metal and Tails, but faster. Hopefully. It didn’t hurt to have multiple avenues of attempts.

In the end, both he and Tails were just clacking away at computers all day. Hacking, researching, programming, filling out forms for government hoopla… Even Mangey was tapping away on a cellphone, although Nine had no idea what he could possibly be up to. Or where he even got that thing in the first place. Regardless, the living room was rendered quite monotonous and boring. That is, until Tails finally broke the silence.

“Hey. It’s time to go.”

“Go where?”

“The next fight is in ten minutes.”

That got Nine’s attention. His eyes whipped up to the count-down timer and sure enough, there were just about ten minutes left on it. He could have sworn it said 15 hours just a second ago. Alas, time flies when you’re doing monotonous work. He begrudgingly wrapped up what he was doing and joined the other two in the hallway. Since they were heading to the Battledome’s arena, they unfortunately had to take the cramped cube for transport. It did feel nice to get to reequip his mechanical tails for the fight, though.

“So… Who’s going in first this time?” Nine asked as he flexed each tail, making sure they were in working order.

“You and me, buddy!” Tails stood in an eager battle stance. “I’ve been chipping away at Metal and finally got him to let me in first. He was being so obnoxious about trying to keep me out of fights. Pff… As if I can’t handle myself, you know?”

“That’s good,” Nine nodded absentmindedly as he recalled their teamwork in the Combat Zone, “We work well together. And Mangey… Yeah.”

Mangey chirped and gave him a look, “[What’s that supposed to mean?]”

Nine shrugged, “You’re the mascot, man. It is what it is.”

Mangey harrumphed and crossed his arms.

“We just don’t want you to get hurt unnecessarily,” Tails tried to be kind, but was basically saying the same thing.

Mangey took his words better, though. He leaned against Tails and made a little murmur noise. Tails chuckled and patted his shoulder. They looked like best buddies over there. Good for them.

‘Should be thinking about the fight…’ Nine tried to focus. They didn’t get any information about their opponents before going in, so he could only devise generalized strategies. He wasn’t very worried, though. Especially since he was teaming up with Tails this time. He was a competent fighter, capable of pulling his own weight and then some. With Mangey, though… That was a distraction. ‘Would have gotten out of the last fight without a scratch if I wasn’t busy worrying about him getting jacked up by that deer thing.’

The cube came to a stop. Like last time, there was an irritating magnetic tug on his collar that pushed him into the staging area along with Mangey.

Only Mangey.

“HEY!” Tails was yelling from the interior of the cube. His collar seemed to have the opposite effect: it kept him inside as it closed back up.

“What the hell?” Nine prepared to leap at the cube, but it sped off before he could. “I thought we were fighting together!” He yelled as it disappeared from view.

Apparently that stupid robot lied and wasn’t going to let Tails start after all. What a prick.

“Hnnngh!” Nine dragged a hand over his face in exasperation. ‘So much for not having to worry!’

Mangey sidled up against him ever so slightly and signed something. Without Tails there to translate, Nine had no idea what he said. Presumably voicing his own confusion about what just happened.

Nine sighed, “It’ll be fine. You held your own last time. Just… Be careful. I can probably take most of the heat. We’ll just have to see what we’re up against.”

Mangey nodded and put on a brave face.

The announcer obnoxiously introduced them again, but Nine couldn’t be bothered to listen. He was busy trying to get a peek at the darkened holding cell their opponents were in. Then the announcer said they were fighting Kitten and Berries, or something? It didn’t sound threatening at all. That is until the opponent’s holding cell lit up, revealing that chaos-damn fennec with soulless magenta eyes. And of course, it all came flooding back. His body’s flight trigger was off the charts, telling him the mere sight of this fennec meant he was pretty much already drowning and he needed to run run run!

A hand firmly clasped around his and squeezed tightly. He had backed away a few steps, but Mangey caught him. The physical contact took him out of the panic spiral enough for him to give his attention to his partner. Mangey stared directly into his eyes with a determined, furrowed brow. He couldn’t possibly know what was going on in Nine’s head, but he reassured him all the same. He released Nine’s hand to sign something at him- which again, he didn’t understand- but the look on his face said it all. Mangey then held his open-palmed hand up to initiate a gesture he had learned from Tails. Nine stared at it for a few seconds as his body continued to struggle grounding itself, but then he met Mangey in the middle- creating a satisfying smack as he high-fived the other fox.

The feeling of the slap, the loud noise it made- it brought him back down even more. He stopped shaking as rational thought became possible once more. He was in an arena, equipped with his tails, facing off against the evil fennec. Kitsunami. When he was first assaulted, he was caught completely off guard, starving, and weaponless.

But he had control now. He was prepared. He could fight. And honestly? Fuck that guy. He wasn’t a demon, he was just some dude. A short little shit whose name was Kit of all things- literally “baby fox.” He didn’t want to cower in front of him! He wanted to kick his ass!

Mangey seemed to be on his exact wavelength because he took that moment to show off a hand gesture he learned from Nine: A middle finger was emphatically presented to the little fennec. Nine couldn’t help but smirk and feel even more revitalized. Seeing the kindhearted Mangey flipping off the douchebag that traumatized him was just a damn treat. He snorted.

“Okay, seriously though? Stay away from that bastard. He’s extremely dangerous; I got him. You take care of that guy.” Nine pointed at the quokka standing next to Kit, who was quivering and looked like they might get blown away by a light breeze.

Before they could discuss strategy further, the bell went off and Kit was flying at them with a tendril of water aimed right at Nine’s face. Nine leapt into the assault, reaching out with a few specially articulated tails that could spin rapidly and break apart the incoming stream. But that only bought him a second of relief as another tendril formed and lashed at him. They were relentless: One after another Nine broke up concentrated whips of water. The pace was fast and snappy, the bits of water much smaller than what Kit used against him before. Nine was too busy making split-second adjustments to defend himself to really think about why that might be. Maybe Kit just had different strategies for fighting versus torturing some poor defenseless dude.

But Nine didn’t want to defend. He wanted to destroy.

After deflecting a few more tendrils, Nine swiped his blade-tipped tails at Kit, sure he would get in a satisfying hit with the sudden attack. But the stubby-limbed fennec was surprisingly agile and managed to cleanly dodge the strike. Nine kept up with the offensive, swiping and even shooting with the laser-equipped tail. He actually managed to get a few light grazes on the guy, but he seemed completely unfazed and tireless. Like a machine.

Mecha tails and water tails continued to clash and deflect as the two seemed to be quite evenly matched. Despite Mangey’s sassy one-finger preamble, their fight remained focused and quipless. Neither was really in the mood to taunt, apparently. But then, the fennec finally said something.

“Ugh, why won’t you just go down? I don’t want to fight you,” Kit sneered derisively.

“Well that’s just too bad, isn’t it?” Nine countered.

He was panting a bit at this point. Constant, fast-paced combat would do that to anyone. Except this fennec, apparently. Somehow, he didn’t seem exerted at all. Nine could have sworn robots weren’t allowed in these fights, but it sure as hell didn’t feel like he was fighting a mobian right now. Not with that seemingly endless stamina of his. But endless stamina didn’t seem to translate into endless patience, because Kit suddenly let out a frustrated cry and broke off from the fight. Nine didn’t pursue him right away, glad for the chance at a breather he so desperately needed. But if Kit wasn’t getting tired, why was he the one to break away?

‘And where’s Mangey? He must have taken down that wussy-looking guy by now?’

Then his worst fear came true. He saw Mangey and the quokka, both just kind of huddled next to each other, staring with wide eyes. They must have been watching the fight. But now Kit was making a beeline right for them. More specifically, for Mangey.

“Oh chaos, oh fuck, no!” Nine darted towards them, but Kit was already there.

In a swift motion, Kit grabbed Mangey with a single massive tendril and lifted him in the air. Nine’s lungs burned as he pushed himself to close the distance more quickly: To get over there and slash that fennec’s lights out before he could hurt Mangey like he hurt him. But he just wasn’t fast enough.

Helpless to escape the watery grasp, Mangey’s defenseless body was slammed back and forth into the ground like a plush toy. Several times. The fennec’s own teammate was screaming in horror at the sight.

“Don’t kill him! Oh Gaia, don’t kill him, please!” The quokka pleaded.

Nine leapt in the air and combined all nine tails together to smash into the fennec, but the slippery bastard moved at the last second. Thankfully, this at least caused him to drop Mangey. Nine leapt over to the unmoving fox in an instant to make sure he was alive. The assault was quick and brutal, but thankfully not fatal. Mangey was just knocked out.

“Ooh, looks like the mascot was taken out! It’s time for Tails to get in on the action now!” The announcer boomed in their stupid, over-excited voice.

“Finally…”

Nine’s fur stood on end at Kit’s callous tone. Blood trickled out of Mangey’s mouth and seeped into Nine’s gloved hand cradling his head. Thick and red. It was all Nine could see. His vision blurred with a haze of hatred as he stared at the indifferent-looking fennec. He raised his tails all around him like a halo, daring the scumbag to come near so he could drive one of them through his throat.

He was too angry to realize Kit had no interest in him whatsoever. As soon as the red sneakers of his lookalike touched down in the arena, Kit’s blank expression twisted into that fucked up little grin Nine was all too familiar with. He was ashamed to admit that the sight of it was enough to freeze him yet again, making his lungs feel like they were instantly full of water.

“Kit!” Nine vaguely registered Tails’ voice calling from behind him. “Take it easy! You don’t have to be so rough! We can just-“

“Shut up!” Nine yelled, making Tails stop in his tracks with a confused look. “Don’t try to reason with him! I told you, they’ll release the gas!”

“But… Barry and Mangey were sitting together talking. I don’t think-”

“They’re MASCOTS!” Nine growled in frustration. “They’re not expected to fight, just get pulverized for the crowd’s amusement! So shut up, focus, and tell me how we kill this fuckin’ freak!”

Nine was on his feet again, facing the fast-approaching fennec. There wasn’t enough time to do anything but dodge as Kit careened past him and unleashed a multitude of tendrils onto Tails. The majority of them were broken up by spinning tails, similar to Nine’s own defense, but one managed to snag Tails’ ankle while another one went in to smother his face. The water barely touched his muzzle before he rolled into a ball and spindashed into the fennec’s chest. The impact looked violent as hell and sent the fennec flying backwards, but otherwise all he did was grunt in response. He flailed out another swathe of tendrils like it was nothing and continued the assault. Blurs of orange and cyan flashed before him as the two clashed with each other. The crowd was screaming with elation. And Nine was just aghast. He wasn’t evenly matched with Kit at all- the freak was just conserving his real power for Tails. Who, in that moment, was sent flying and crashed next to him.

“Rrrgh…” Tails scrambled back up, panting a bit. “Get his pack. Tear it off, destroy it, whatever. Once that’s out of the equation, his energy will be sapped almost instantly. I’ll distract him.”

Tails rocketed back into the action, but didn’t go for close hits this time. Instead, he stayed just out of Kit’s reach, making him smash his tendrils into the ground and walls with explosive force as he zipped around like a furry helicopter. All the while, Tails made an array of juvenile gestures towards the fennec- sticking out his tongue, making fart noises, and so on. The 180 in personality might have been a bit too much, because Nine was just as distracted as Kit. He gawked when the normally level-headed fox called out “That all you got?!” while smacking his rear like some sort of cartoon character.

“What the fuck?” Nine whispered to himself before snapping back to attention. He could mentally process the image of Tails being a silly ass later- right now he had a job to do.

“I beat your friend unconscious and your response is to act like this? What the hell is wrong with you?” Kit scrunched his nose up with distaste, just as off-put by the irreverence as Nine was.

With Kit’s full focus on the more brightly-colored fox, Nine had the perfect opportunity to slip in from behind. He aimed his mecha-tails at Kit’s hydropack and managed to sink all of them into the intended target. Kit swung his attention back to Nine right away and clapped him with several painful water lashes, but Nine held fast. His natural tails weren’t powerful enough to block the water whips like Tails could. He even held on when one of those awful tendrils smashed into his face and forced water down his throat. Tears involuntarily burst out of the corners of his eyes as he panicked, but he only dug his mecha-tails in deeper. He twisted and wrenched them as hard as he could, hoping to rip the pack clean off like Tails suggested. Through his blurred vision, he vaguely registered the pack crumpling from the force.

Suddenly, he was flopped onto the floor. Now released from the tendril, he choked and spit up the horrible liquid. He was gasping and shaking from panic for an unknown amount of time, only brought out of it by a hand touching his shoulder. He jerked away and aimed his tails at the assailant, but was met by Tails sticking his hands up in surrender.

“Easy! It’s over. You disabled his pack and I finished him off,” he gestured over his shoulder at the unmoving lump of teal fur.

The announcer was hollering excitedly, but Nine paid them no attention. He just stared at the defeated fennec in disbelief. It was over and he didn’t even witness the final blow. Water still dribbling a bit from his maw, he rose to his feet and cautiously approached. Looming over him now, it was all the more obvious how tiny the fennec really was. He almost looked sad all curled up in a puddle of his own ammunition; small and unassuming like how Nine first assumed he was.

But he didn’t care. He kicked the stupid creature. And he kicked him again. He raised a tail up to stab the dumb bitch that tortured him and mercilessly beat his Mangey-

Then he was knocked down again, this time by a ball of orange fur. Tails grabbed the mecha-tail that was instinctively aimed at his head and boffed him with one of his own. “Dude, he’s out! Get ahold of yourself! We still have to fight Surge!”

Nine growled in frustration, but didn’t retaliate further. He took Tails’ offered hand and was pulled back up. “Who’s Surge?”

Suddenly, Tails disappeared. A charge of static left in his wake caused Nine’s short fur to stand on end right before he heard a BOOM as something slammed into the wall. A green tenrec stood before the crack in the wall, arcs of electricity jumping around her fists. Tails’ body slid down from the newly formed crack, looking dazed.

‘Oh… That’s Surge,’ Nine remembered the drugged-up girl from the spa, but the tenrec before him now was a whole different animal. She had a shark-toothed grin on her face that brought a different kind of unease than Kit’s. But it quickly faded as she scoffed.

“Really? I know you ain’t shit, but not even a bit of fight?” Surge nudged Tails with her boot. “Why’d they even pit us against you? If I didn’t let Drippy have his moment, this would have been over in seconds. Lame.”

She zipped away, but instead of even bothering with Nine, she popped by the quokka’s side. They were hiding behind some rubble with the same terrified expression they had the whole match. Surge flung an arm around them and gave them a noogie. “Heyyyy, you okay, babygirl?”

“Y-Yes…” They managed to eke out as Surge continued to jostle them affectionately.

While Surge was distracted, Nine quickly made his way over to Tails. “How the hell is she so fast?” He hissed. “Any tips for this freak?”

“I… Urgh…” Tails groaned as he struggled to stand. “Not really... I think we might just be screwed.”

“What?!” Nine couldn’t believe those words came out of Tails’ mouth. “There has to be something! What about the quokka? She seems to like them. Maybe we can use them as leverage to get some sort of advantage?”

“That’s a pretty fucked up thing for a lightning rod to say,” Surge’s voice came from behind him, making his ears shoot up in surprise. Before he could do anything other than look alarmed, Surge grabbed one of his tails. And that was the end of him.

Chapter Text

The living room was filled with intermittent groans each time one of the foxes had to move around. Even after being healed up by the bots, everyone on the team was still super sore from the fight. Mangey missed half of it, but hearing that they had to go up against Surge, it made sense that they were handily defeated. He supposed he should be grateful that no one died.

A rather uneventful day followed.

Then they went to the spa again, this time with an additional visit to something called a sauna. It was a bit weird with how wet and heavy he got from all the moisture, but overall it did feel nice. Getting all dolled up was, of course, still his favorite part. And this time they didn’t run into any familiar faces on their way out. Everyone liked that part. Even though it was always nice to see Barry, the overall encounter would have been way too awkward. Especially with that Kit guy… Yeesh, talk about scary!

Apparently Chaos popped by their domicile at one point, but didn’t make it past the front door. Overall, it was mercifully peaceful since the awful battle. And, according to the timer in the living room, there were four more days until their next fight. Not nearly long enough, but Mangey wasn’t going to complain. He focused on what he could do right now; what was in front of him.

Mangey nudged Nine with a bowl of kibble. The other fox was often was so engrossed in his research that he’d go an entire day without eating if Mangey didn’t intervene. The exchange became a bit of a norm between them.

“Thanks,” Nine said quietly. A brief glance of acknowledgement and he was back at his task, munching a bit of the bland nutrients.

Mangey smiled as he usually did when he reminded Nine to take care of himself. But there was something else he wanted to add to the interaction this time. He nudged him again.

Nine raised an eyebrow as he flicked his attention back towards Mangey.

“Whud?” He inquired with a mouthful of food.

“{Hi, Nine! How are you feeling today?}” A text-to-speech voice played over the speakers of the cellphone Mangey whipped out of his tail. He pre-loaded the text beforehand so all he had to do was hit send, making for a dramatic reveal.

“Uh…” Nine blinked slowly and swallowed as he processed what was happening. “I’m good.”

“{Me too!}” Mangey’s eyes glimmered as the device continued to flawlessly articulate what he wanted to say out loud. “{I am very happy right now! Do you know why?}”

“You can talk,” Nine sounded a little surprised. His reaction made Mangey vibrate with excitement.

“{Yes! I’m so excited to finally be able to talk to you!}”

“Where’d you get the phone?”

“{Metal gave it to me.}”

“Really? That’s surprising,” Nine went back to tapping away at his laptop while he waited for Mangey to reply. It was understandable; Mangey wasn’t the fastest typer just yet.

“{I thought so too. I think he might be trying to make up for being so mean before.}”

“Hmn…” Nine mumbled noncommittally.

“{Can you tell me more about the city you’re from? Is it a lot nicer than the Combat Zone?}”

“Uh, why are you asking about that?” Nine’s ears tipped downward ever so slightly.

“{I want to learn more about you and where you’re from. I have been wanting to get to know you better since we met but I couldn’t until now.}”

“Right…” Nine scratched his ear and looked away, “Listen, I should really be focusing on what I’m doing right now…”

Mangey stared pointedly at him, waiting for him to continue his thought. He knew where Nine was going with it, but hoped he would reconsider. To aid in Nine’s decision, Mangey didn’t pull any punches: He hit him with the big puppydog eyes.

“Uh…” Nine faltered under the power of the secret weapon. “But I guess since you’re such a slow typer, we can talk a bit inbetween. But I’m mostly going to be focused on this, okay?”

Mangey nodded enthusiastically, just glad that Nine didn’t tell him to buzz off completely.

Thus, their conversation continued. Nine’s responses to his questions tended to be brief and he didn’t end up learning a whole lot more about him. Nine actually asked him a lot of questions. Mangey got the impression that he was doing this to deflect attention from himself, but he didn’t mind. Whereas Nine didn’t seem to like sharing much, Mangey was the complete opposite. He was an open book, giving all the details he could muster with his current level of written vocabulary. The only downside was the long silence that stretched out as he slowly typed each reply. This might also have been a purposeful choice on Nine’s part, but to his credit, he did pay attention to everything Mangey said. And he stayed engaged with the conversation instead of letting it peter out.

They quickly landed on the subject of home and family. Nine was as cagey as ever, pretty much just revealing that he lived in an underground lab. Meanwhile, Mangey ended up rambling all about the village he built and, of course, his wonderful family. There was so much to say that his typing couldn’t hope to keep up with his brain, so his messages were a bit all over the place. Nine asked for clarification when needed, though.

“So… Is Thorn your mom or your sister?”

“{I don’t think either word works exactly right all the time. Sometimes she’s more sister, sometimes more mother. Sometimes friend or mentor. It’s the same with my whole family. We’re multiple things to each other.}”

“Huh. You know, other than her, you all have really weird names. Who the hell names someone Hungry?”

“{It’s Hangry!}”

“Oh. I thought you made a typo.”

“{What’s a type o?}”

Nine snorted with amusement at the way the text-to-speech said “type o.” This quickly devolved into them making lighthearted jabs at each other. At one point Mangey was laughing so much that he accidentally sent the message before he was done typing.

“{You make stupid face}”

“Damn. Come back of the century right there. I don’t think I’ll ever recover from it,” Nine tried to talk in a deadpan voice, but the little smile plastered to his face made his voice lilt up ever so subtly.

“{-faces when you’re sleeping!}” Mangey finished the sentence and stuck his tongue out at him.

“At least I don’t stare at people while they sleep like a creep.”

“{You sleep like a creep.}”

“The fuck does that even mean? You’re stupid.”

“{Look who’s talking. My baby knows more survival skills than you!}”

Nine’s lazy grin vanished as he did a slow, bewildered head turn towards Mangey, “Your what?!”

“{My baby. Fern. She is one year old!}”

“You,” Nine pointed at his chest for further clarification, “Have a baby? As in offspring? That you… Made?”

“{No, she is Prim and Gnarly’s offspring. We all raise her together though. As a community.}”

“Oh… Okay. Good.”

Mangey narrowed his eyes. “{Why good?}”

“I guess I just can’t imagine you as a dad. Seems weird.”

Mangey puffed out his chest indignantly. “{I will be some day!}”

This veered them off-course entirely, leading Mangey into explaining his reason for leaving home in the first place. His mission to find a mate.

“{Sadly I had to put it all on hold. Since most other people here are trying to kill us.}”

“Yeah, that’s smart.”

Mangey started to type his next message, but then thought better of it and started backspacing instead. But somehow he ended up hitting send before he was finished deleting it.

“{But there was this one guy}”

The half sentence lingered in the air unfinished.

Nine quirked an eyebrow when he noticed Mangey was no longer typing. “There was this one guy? And?”

Well, he had to finish the thought now. He didn’t know why he got so shy all of the sudden- it wasn’t like him to get embarrassed over this sort of thing. Maybe it was because Tails kept teasing him about the tree flirting and he was a little more self-conscious than usual. He kept blushing and hiding his face while typing, which made it take even longer than usual. It also had the unintended effect of fully getting Nine’s attention.

“What the hell are you typing?” His pale blue eyes pierced him with thinly veiled amusement.

Mangey gave a little grumble, but was wagging his tails lightly despite it. Then he finally hit send:

“{There was this really cute hedgehog in the Survival Zone named Silver. He was handsome and had amazing hair. Cute smile. He even ran off to help someone that was getting attacked. So he was pretty and heroic. But I never saw him again!}”

“Huh… Weird.”

Mangey wasn’t sure if that was a judgmental “weird” or something else. ‘Maybe he’s wondering how I was able to have a civil interaction with someone else in the Survival Zone?’

Everyone in the Survival Zone was excessively paranoid and aggressive towards one another due to being repeatedly drugged by the showrunners. Of course no one had any idea at the time and their memories were also being manipulated. Even after Tails explained it all to him, the exact details were still a bit confusing. Apparently it was for “added entertainment and drama.”

“And he didn’t try to kill you?” Nine asked after looking thoughtful for a minute.

“{No! He was nice!}” Mangey was glad it wasn’t a judgmental “weird.” He didn’t need both of his friends teasing him about his attempts at courtship!

“Hm. Tough luck, I guess. Got stuck with us instead. No hot dates for you.”

Mangey grinned as this dredged up a silly memory.

“{One time Tails thought I was trying to court him. That’s why we were laughing so hard when you came up to us that morning. You called us crack heads.}”

Nine snorted, “That’s what that was all about? You guys were uh… Freaking me out a little. I kind of thought you ate some weird mushrooms or something.”

Mangey snickered as he typed his reply. “{You looked almost scared. Sorry we worried you.]”

“It’s whatever,” Nine had that subtle, amused smile on his face again.

It made Mangey’s heart melt. He was on cloud nine the whole day as they continued to intermittently chat. After all this time, they finally truly felt like friends, completely comfortable in each other’s company. So casual, so relaxed.

~

“{-and I was so happy. I thought: Yes! That’s my Baby Bird!}”

“Uhh, huh? What bird?”

“{That’s the nickname I gave you when you were unkonshis,}” Mangey wasn’t sure how to spell that word yet, so he gave it his best guess, “{I still use it sometimes.}”

“Wow…” Nine wrinkled his nose, “That makes me sound so lame.”

“{No it doesn’t! It was in honor of a bird I nursed back to health as a child. He was cool!}”

“Whatever, just don’t call me that in front of Tails. He’ll be insufferable about it.”

“{I actually don’t know if it was a boy because that species of bird is sekshilly monumoorfik,}” Mangey sent the message he started typing right after he sent the last one. He was getting a bit quicker at typing already. In response to Nine, he also tacked on, “{Okay, I won’t.}”

“Huh? The hell does that mean?”

“{I don’t know how to spell it, but it means the males and females look the same.}”

Nine didn’t respond. He was suddenly staring intently at his screen.

As Mangey started typing something else, Tails returned to the living room for the evening. He looked sleepy after yet another full day working with Metal. Before Mangey could send another message to Nine, the pale fox was beckoning Tails over.

“Tails, get over here. I finally got in.”

“Wait, really?” Tails’ tired face perked up immediately. “With someone from that group?”

“Yeah, I just got in a chat with her. Well, she’s supposed to come online any second now. I set up a firewall to block out your dumb robot from spying on us.”

“But Metal’s on our side-”

Suddenly the lights in the room blinked on and off. Then a hologram of a brown and purple lynx materialized in front of them.

“Good job with the firewall,” the lynx addressed Nine. “Your master is being fed a fake feed right now. Unfortunately, my time is still limited.”

“Who are you?” Tails asked before Mangey could type it out himself.

“My name’s Nicole. I’m here to assist in your liberation.”

Chapter Text

“I’m going to assess the security risk. Hang tight for a minute,” Nicole’s hologram vanished when she returned to pure code form.

“What is she doing exactly?” Tails quirked an eyebrow.

“Seeing how easy it is to hack into Metal. I figure it shouldn’t be hard since he has all those vulnerabilities in his system.”

“Hack into him? Why?”

“So she can take control of him and use him to transport us to the intake facility- that’s where we’re making our escape- and then dump his body off somewhere after we’re gone.”

Tails blinked slowly as he took that all in, “So, again: Why are we hacking Metal and treating him like a piece of trash? Why not just have him take us there?”

“Because we’re his prisoners…?” Nine gave him a look like he was an idiot.

“Only to keep up appearances. I explained all of this already,” Tails shook his head. Apparently he didn’t do as good of a job endorsing Metal’s motives as he thought he had. “Why are you going so aggro on him all of the sudden?”

Before Nine could say anything, Nicole’s hologram reappeared between them.

“Assessment complete. There should be no problem in taking control of your master for the duration of the escape plan. His system is quite strange. It is much more vulnerable than anyone I’ve ever seen.”

“That’s because he’s not from around here. He doesn’t belong here, just like we don’t,” Tails gave Nine a pointed look. “We’re all escaping together, so you don’t need to hack into him.”

“Oh?” Nicole glanced between the two foxes.

“Ignore him, Nicole. What’s the next step-”

“No, don’t ignore me!” Tails raised his voice, “Metal wants to get out of here just as much as we do. We’re not leaving him behind!”

“Well call me crazy, but I’m not going to take the word of some robot and throw away our only real chance to escape!”

“What about Nicole? She’s a- Um. AI?” He glanced at the hologram.

She nodded.

“She’s an AI you’ve known for five seconds, but you’ll trust her? What difference does it make? No offense, Nicole- You seem cool. Just, trying to make a point and all.”

“None taken,” Nicole calmly took a few steps back. She wasn’t going to get in the middle of these quarreling foxes.

“She’s part of the Organic Liberation Movement. What reason would they have to make a big ruse about all this? To put us in double death battles? Meanwhile your guy’s shady as fuck. He’s not even your ally, but you want me to believe he’s somehow trustworthy? I don’t buy that crap about him ‘not liking it here.’ Why wouldn’t he? It’s robo-utopia for the bloodthirsty freaks.”

Tails pinched the bridge of his nose with frustration. He didn’t relay Metal’s entire plight with this society out of respect for his privacy. It didn’t seem necessary. Up until now, Tails assumed Nine was compliant with a unified escape plan. But apparently he was way off base. And judging by Nicole subtly tapping her wrist, he didn’t have time to take the detailed route to convince him. He had to be concise.

“Look, I promise you he wants to leave- for all of us to leave. You don’t have to trust him, you just have to trust me. Come on, Nine, you’ve got to know I have your back by now!”

Nine was quiet for a moment. He took in a deep breath and dragged his hands through his hair. “If you’re wrong about this, we’re fucked.”

“I’m not wrong,” Tails spoke with conviction.

“{I think we can trust Metal,}” a text-to-speech voice piped up behind them, catching Tails off guard.

“What? Why? Just because he gave you a phone?”

“{I just have a feeling about him,}” Mangey touched a hand to his chest. “{Here.}”

“Oh, for the loath of chaos,” Nine rolled his eyes. “You stay out of this. You have no experience in the real world; you don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t talk down to him-!”

“I hate to interject,” Nicole waved a hand to get their attention, “But I can’t stay much longer. You’ll either have to come to a consensus now or wait until it’s safe for me to contact you again.”

“Okay,” Tails took a quick breath to center himself. One last chance.

“Nine,” He put a hand on his shoulder, “I wouldn’t risk it if I wasn’t absolutely sure about this. We won’t let you down, I swear.”

Mangey popped up behind him with a double thumbs up.

“Rrrrgh, ffffine!” Nine didn’t seem very reassured. With no time to waste on being pissed off about being outvoted, he redirected his attention to Nicole. “So what now?”

“Well…” Nicole put a hand under her chin as she considered the new parameters.

“Just threw a wrench into their whole damn operation…” Nine grumbled bitterly to himself.

“{Is she a ghost?}” Mangey asked as he tentatively reached a paw out to touch her, gawking when it passed clean through.

“Mangey, are you using text-to-speech?” Tails couldn’t help but blurt out, his curiosity overflowing.

“Yeah, he can do that now,” Nine answered for him. “She’s not a ghost, she’s a hologram.”

“[What???]” Mangey stared at Tails, flabbergasted.

“She’s projecting an image of herself using light-”

“Shhhjjjj!” Nine waved a hand in Tails’ face to shush him. “I’ll tell him later.”

Tails was about to retaliate to Nine’s rude behavior, but came to his senses when he noticed Nicole was clearly waiting to speak. “Right. Sorry.”

“Tomorrow, 12:00 at the park. My associate will meet you there to iron out the details.”

With not a single second left to spare, Nicole vanished.

The three stared blankly at one another. Despite never hearing the word before, Mangey’s tail instinctively started to wag in a dog-like fashion.

“… There’s a park?”

~

“Now remember, guys, we probably want to be discrete-” Tails started as the door to the park slid open.

The second artificial sunlight hit his fur, Mangey’s eyes turned to saucers and he shrieked with joy. He launched into the idealic park setting like a rocket, running and leaping around the wide open space. Grass was pretty much the only plantlife present, but Mangey was anything but disappointed. He rolled in it, buried his face in it, sniffed it, licked it. Ate it. He even picked some to store in his tails for later. Just plain, short grass… He must have just been that desperate for any sort of fresh vegetation.

Tails sighed. He supposed he couldn’t blame him: This time there really was a field. It was very constrained compared to the wild jungle that Mangey was accustomed to: evenly trimmed grass, neatly manicured shrubs, meticulously spaced trees, pristine paved paths. Aside from the plants being real and alive, it was all about as artificial as the “sun.” But none of that seemed to matter so long as Mangey could smush his clean, spa-treated face into the grass and dirt without remorse.

“So much for that…”

“We can pretend like we’re not with him,” Nine suggested.

Metal let out a single beep to usher them forward. They left a little early to scope out the place before meeting with this mystery associate, but the park was larger than expected. There was no time to dawdle.

The three less-excitable beings walked at a brisk pace down the main path, taking in the sights. They passed a few fellow parkgoers, but the other organics were very subdued in nature. By contrast, Mangey’s delighted cries could be heard echoing throughout the dome as they went. Although a bit over the top, the wild fox did seem to have the right idea about this place. The real plants made real oxygen. The air lacked that sterile, recycled quality that was very apparent on all other locations aboard the station. It just felt… Alive.

“This is pretty nice, actually. Surprised they have something like this,” Tails commented idly.

“Hm,” Nine agreed, “It’s really clean.”

At the end of their loop, they came across Mangey again. He was tearing around like an off-road vehicle, ripping up tufts of earth he trod over and collecting swathes of leaves in his fur as he dove through the bushes. He ran up a tree at a chaotic pace, only to dive out of the topmost branches like he was at a swimming pool. He broke his fall with a couple twists of his tails, but didn’t lose momentum. He looped right back around and darted up the same tree, making the dive several times over. Eventually he spun out and collapsed to the ground: sides heaving with exhilaration, tongue lolling like a pup, eyes closed with complete and utter bliss…

“Mangey-”

He shot up suddenly and began digging a hole with breakneck speed. He stuck his face in the opening and inhaled deeply, letting out a satisfied sigh.

“You know what. Nevermind. I’ll just let you do you,” Tails gave up.

Mangey finally lifted his head back up, a big stupid smile plastered on his face. Also dirt. Also a worm.

“Eugh…” Nine made a face.

“Hey buddy, what’s up?” A chipper voice called from behind them. Tails turned his head to see a black and yellow robot sauntering towards them. Once in range, the bot raised a friendly fist up to Metal, “Long time, no see.”

Metal just stared at him vacantly for a few awkward moments. Then he gave a brief, halfhearted bump.

“Lowkey as always, huh Mets?” Shard laughed and shot him with some finger guns, acting like they were old pals.

Metal and Tails both gave him an odd look for that particular use of a nickname.

“So, the new team’s pretty cool,” the robot went on, nodded approvingly at each fox. “They were really smashin’ it up in that last fight. Too bad about the OP chick at the end.”

“Yes. Their performance has been adequate so far… Shard,” Metal finally responded.

“Haha, there he is! Thought your audio chip might have gotten jacked up in that last ion storm or something.”

‘Shard? How did he- Oh, right! Peer to peer,’ Tails quickly whipped out his tablet and proceeded to interface with their private conversation. The firewall he set up for Metal worked flawlessly, but of course Tails knew how to bypass his own creation.

Metal’s head immediately flipped towards him with a glare when he felt the intrusion.

||Sorry. I couldn’t exactly ask permission when we’re being audibly covert.|| Tails quickly explained over the server.

Metal reached over and snatched the tablet away.

“Hey, come on! I need to- um. Do something on that!” Tails flailed at Metal like a little kid that had his toy taken away.

“Oh, let him have the thing,” Shard waved a hand dismissively. “If he’s smart enough to use it, let him use it.”

“It is outdoor time. He should indulge in the pristine setting,” Metal continued to glare at Tails as he replied to Shard.

“But very well,” he relinquished the device to Tails, “Waste your free time as you please.”

||Um. Nice acting?|| Tails guessed.

||You left something to be desired.|| Metal chided.

||Hey, keep shooting the shit with me. We should keep it up for a bit longer before we split.|| Shard walked over to where Mangey was carefully replanting all the clumps of grass he kicked up. “And what’ve we got here? Flametail the gravedigger?”

Tails turned off his ears to external distractions, instead scrolling to the top of their conversation to get caught up. As robots, they already had the entire exchange necessary within the first few seconds of meeting. Tails skimmed past the introductions.

Shard: The name’s Shard, by the way.
Shard: Anyway, usually Nicole overrides control of the bot in charge and uses their body to discretely deliver the squishies to the intake facility. She drops them off under the pretense of them being faulty or whatever. That’s where I come in-
Shard: Bam, wachow! Dude. On. The. Inside!
Metal: Please refrain from unnecessary embellishments.
Shard: Really, bro? Damn, you are no fun. :P
Shard: I work primarily in returns, so I’ll be there to receive them. Meanwhile she takes the body back, puts it somewhere innocuous, implants a memory-
Metal: Irrelevant. How will the plan proceed with me entering the facility alongside my charges?
Shard: Anyone ever tell you you’re kinda rude, man?
Metal: Continue with the explanation.
Shard: SIGH. Fine. You’ll come to the facility of your own accord. Here.
[Location File Shared]
Shard: And I guess I’ll just let you in with your boys. Wild catches are low at this time of year, so there’ll be a skeleton crew working at best. Shouldn’t be a problem.
Shard: We’ll go to Processing, pop those collars off, head to Transport, load up the files on your guys, get their planets all lined up. Then we crack open the portals and send you all on your merry way. Scrub the data of your planets from the system to keep everything clean. Bing bang boom.
Metal: What risks should we expect to face?
Shard: Nothing, really. Like I said, skeleton crew. And I have clearance to all the places we need to go, so there shouldn’t be any suspicion. If by crazy chance we run into someone that asks what you’re doing there, I’ll make up something on the spot. No big. Nothing to get your wires in a twist over.
Metal: It’s that simple then?
Shard: Yeah, pretty much! And we’ll do it…
Shard: Three days from now. Right after your next fight and spa. Gives us plenty of time to make sure everything will go smoothly. And it’s always best to vanish after a fight so there’s less attention on you. Nicole will get ahold of you through your fox boys. Just be ready to bounce at a moment’s notice.
Metal: Very well. Is there any other necessary information?
Shard: That’s about it!
Metal: Terminating interaction.
Shard: Hey, hold up! We have to keep up appearances for more than one minute, dude. Stick around.
Metal: Only if it is necessary.
Shard: It is! ;)

The chat ended there. Shard’s confidence made the plan seem like a done deal; easy as pie. And yet, Tails frowned. There were a few things missing from this conversation. For one thing, he wasn’t just concerned with their escape.

Tails: Hey, Shard?
Shard: Yo, what’s up, little dude? All caught up?
Tails: Yeah. I was just wondering. How long have you been doing this?
Shard: Seven years now. Why? Worried we can’t pull it off?
Tails: No, I’m sure you’re very capable. It’s just that. Well. It’s great that you’re helping people. But…
Shard: Oh no, he has a but!
Tails: I was hoping we could do more on our way out. Cause more damage to the system somehow. Completely wipe their database. Anything other than just… Save ourselves.
Shard: Hey, that’s really thoughtful of you! It’s cool that you're worried about other people.
Shard: But the thing is, that’s a no can do.
Shard: Believe me, I’d love to blow up the whole facility myself, cause an absolute ruckus! That would be sick!
Shard: But the fact of the matter is, it would just be a bandaid for the larger problem. They’ll just build more facilities. Send out extra patrols to find more planets and reestablish the old database faster than ever.
Shard: By taking tiny steps, we can fly under the radar deleting bits of the database here and there.
Shard: The thing that’s really going to turn this all around is societal change. Get to the people, change how they think about the value of life. Hearts and minds! And, you know, politics. Boring crap that unfortunately takes a loooong time.
Tails: I suppose you’re right. I just feel terrible. Normally, I can make a difference in these situations- fight to liberate the oppressed people. But instead I’m just a victim, fleeing.
Shard: Nah man, you’re making a difference! You’re one more person saved. That matters! It’s not cool or flashy, but it’s still a net positive. Just take the tiny w.
Tails: okay
Shard: C’mon, chin up, little dude. Nicole and I have been making some great strides in the hearts and minds department over the years.
Shard: Well, mostly Nicole. She’s the brilliant one, I’m just the guy in the trenches that occasionally gets to punch stuff!
Metal: I thought we could not impose violence?
Shard: Enforcer clearance. Only allowance of bot-on-bot violence.
Metal: Envious.
Shard: I bet.
Shard: Look, Tails. I’m not just yanking your chain- we have some real progress here. Nicole’s been perfecting a software update that alleviates violent urges just by having it run in the background. She got the CPU usage down suuuuper low, too. You don’t even notice it.
Shard: See this?

Shard posed dramatically as if he was doing an ad of some sort.

Shard: You’re looking at a bot running the code right now! And believe me, I wouldn’t put up with any lag on my systems. Great performance, accept no limitations!
Tails: Didn’t you just say you like to punch stuff? And you want to blow up a facility?
Shard: Only with no one in it! C’mon, who doesn’t love a good, harmless explosion for fun?
Tails: I suppose I’ll have to take your word for it.
Shard: Hey, my word’s golden.
Shard: So, got anything else for me?
Tails: There is one other thing. And this is non-negotiable.
Shard: Ooh, so serious! Hit me.
Tails: There are other people from my planet being held here: Kitsunami, Surge, and Barry. We have to rescue them, too.
Shard: Well crap, man! That sure is a thing to throw out last minute!
Tails: Non-negotiable.
Shard: Okay, okaaaay. Don’t turn into rusty old Metalhead on me…
Shard: Are they all on the same team?
Tails: Yeah- The robot keeping them is called Chaos.
Shard: Alright. You wouldn’t happen to know this Chaos’s address, would you?
Metal: Unfortunately.
[Location File Shared]
Shard: Alright, cool. Is any one of these guys savvy enough to pull off coordinating with Nicole?
Tails: Yeah, Kit. He’s plenty capable of handing the situation.
Shard: Aces. So it’ll be a bit funky, but since Metal is a good and cooperative boy, we should be able to pull this off!
Shard: Same day, be ready for the call. Nicole will give you the go, then she’ll pop over to infiltrate Chaos and get your buddies out of there. You’ll meet her, as Chaos, at the entrance to the facility, then all y’all will come in while she dumps him somewhere. That’s the new plan.
Tails: Makes sense to me.
Metal: Agreed.
Shard: I’ll run all this over with Nicole, but it should be solid. She’ll shoot you a message if there are any complications getting coordinated with the other team. But otherwise just be ready. Sound good?
Tails: Yeah.
Metal: Affirmative.
Metal: We are leaving now.
Shard: Yeah, it was nice meeting you, too. See ya soon, Tails.
Tails: Bye. Thank you for helping us.
Shard: No prob.

“Adios, muchachos!” Shard saluted as they parted ways.

Nine stood up from the bench where he was twiddling his fingers anxiously. Tails gave him a little nod- a promise to confer the details as soon as they were out of public view.

Meanwhile, Metal played the mean parent that corralled Mangey back onto the path to leave. He whined as they approached the exit, not ready to leave the brief window of greenery so soon. When they got to the airlock, he flopped onto the ground and looked up at the group imploringly.

“[Please. Just a little bit longer?]”

“You know… There really is no reason to rush back home,” Tails reasoned. “We have three days to just sit around and wait. Why not enjoy the park?”

“Enjoy what? There’s nothing to do,” Nine gave him a weird look.

“Oh, there’s plenty to do, you dang hermit!” Tails punched him in the shoulder good-naturedly.

“I’m not a hermit…” Nine grumbled in a very unconvincing manner.

Tails got on his knees next to Mangey and clasped his hands together to join in the silent plea to stay. His silly grin didn’t display nearly as much desperation, but his support for Mangey’s cause was clear.

Nine took one final glance at Mangey’s pitiful face and threw his hands up in defeat.

“Ugh, fine! C’mon, Robot, we have to please the nature freaks,” he shoved his hands into his pockets and marched back into the park.

After a pause, the robot “master” followed suit.

Mangey scooped up his buddies in a big, appreciative hug. He was going to make sure they had just as much fun as he did.

~

Tails unbuckled Mangey’s seatbelt and hoisted the passed out fox into his arms. He really made the most of every second out there- enjoying himself to exhaustion. Tails would argue that everyone ended up having even a good time (except maybe Metal, but it was impossible to know for sure). Nine’s poor attempts to look bored while tiny smirks kept appearing on his face were much easier to spot. The magic of Mangey’s enthusiasm was finally wearing him down, it seemed. It was a nice thing to see. All in all, just about the most pleasant day they all spent together since arriving on the station. And soon it would all be over. They just had to wait a few more days, endure one final battle, and then they’d finally be free.

Metal opened the airlock back to their domicile and all three of them took pause. The doors to both the living room and Metal’s private room were concaved and blackened. The few lights that were still on flickered ominously.

No one made a sound, immediately in-tune with the danger. Metal beckoned for Nine and Tails to move in first. Their rubber soles were less likely to give them away in case an intruder still remained. After setting Mangey down slowly, Tails crept along right behind Nine. It wasn’t long before the burning question was answered. Upon peeking in Metal’s room, the stark lime fur of a staticy tenrec was hard to miss. She sat atop a pile of rubble idly with Kit by her side. There was a distinct lack of silver metal around either of their necks.

Surge gave them a cocky grin.

“Sup, bitches?”

Chapter Text

Nine instinctively got into a battle-ready pose, raising his tails up aggressively. But without his mecha-tails, the display was rather pitiful. Not that Surge would feel menaced either way, given how quickly she knocked his lights out last time. Looking tough only worked when your opponent didn’t already know she could trounce your whole team in seconds. Nine could only hope that her unexpected visit was for a different reason. However, the newly scorched interior of the observation deck didn’t exactly scream “friendly visit.”

“Hey, Surge!” Tails put on an uneasy smile as he did his best to remain cordial, “Nice of you to stop by. Uh. What can we do for you?”

“Psh, so boring. At least Scrapmetal was ready to throw down,” Surge gestured towards Nine’s nonthreatening stance. “I’m looking for the cheap knockoff. Might at least be a little fun to blow his circuits out.”

“You mean Metal? Er, why do you want to fight him?”

“To free all you pansies, duh!” Surge jumped up and pushed past him. “Now where is that hunk of junk?”

“Wait, wait, hold on-!” Tails grabbed her arm, but let go just as quickly when those murderous eyes snapped to him. “Sorry, it’s just-! Same team! We’re working together! Please don’t fight him! Or any of us. Let’s just- Talk.”

Surge made it far enough past him that she was able to catch sight of Metal standing just inside the entrance. The two stared at each other for a few awful minutes. Then Surge rolled her eyes and let out an annoyed grumble, “You people and your truces…”

“Yeah, well, Metal has been on our side from the start. We’re trying to get back to the same place after all,” Tails watched her carefully as she slumped back into the observation deck. “So, we can talk then? Truce for all?”

“Whatever,” Surge looked as bored as she sounded.

‘Well, that went better than expected,’ Nine beckoned for Metal to join them.

Metal made his way over, leaving the still-snoozing pile of Mangey by the door. The robot observed Surge’s chaotic remodel of his office, gave her a bit of a hard stare, then silently walked past her to access the cracked monitor of the main computer.

“What are you doin’, bolts?!” Surge raised a charged fist when he pulled up the security system.

“Ensuring you did not trip the alarm and alert authorities of your presence here,” Metal continued in an unbothered fashion. “It appears you did not.”

“Yeah yeah, Drippy took care of all that.”

“We didn’t force our way in… I picked the lock, so to speak.”

“Then why…” Tails’ eyes drifted to the broken, blackened state of things, but then he seemed to think better of finishing that thought.

“So are you staying for a sleepover or what?” Nine asked impatiently. They still didn’t exactly explain why they were here.

“I see you got your collars off,” Tails interjected with a less sassy remark. “Did you have other plans?”

Surge’s gaze fell upon Kit, “Well, go on, Drippy!”

“R-right,” Kit stepped towards Tails and pointed at his collar. “L-Let me get that off for you.”

“Oh, sure. Thanks,” Tails crouched down slightly so the shorter mobian could reach his neck.

“Not that! Tell ‘em about your plan!”

“I-I can d-do both at once, ma’am,” Kit nevertheless paused to make sure she didn’t disapprove.

When he got an indifferent grunt in response, Kit proceeded to raise a cobbled-together device to Tails’ collar and get to work while he explained.

“I’ve been looking into the delivery patterns of scavenger ships- the ones that take people from their planets and drop them off here for processing. They have the coordinates to the documented worlds for harvest, including Mobius. We were going to hijack a ship to warp back, but…”

Surge narrowed her eyes at him.

“I-I made a miscalculation. I should have waited until I was sure a ship was docked before removing our collars. Chaos noticed when I got Surge’s off and, well. She had to take care of him. A-An alarm went off in our domicile when he was deactivated, so we had to leave right away. I figured you would have formulated your own plot for escape by now, so I mined the address from Chaos’ memory banks, and we came here. You… Do have a plan, right?”

“We did… But you might have- ow!- complicated things…” Tails began, flinching slightly when his collar gave him a mild shock.

“Sorry,” Kit mumbled while he worked.

Already familiar with the plan, Nine was preoccupied with the strange, diminutive little creature that had taken the place of the terrifying hydromancer that had been a source of such grief up until then. As much as Nine hated to even look at Kit, he couldn’t help but stare as he spoke. So meek, a stuttering mess… Was this really what he reduced down to in a normal social setting? Or was it Surge’s domineering presence that subdued him so dramatically?

‘He’s a freaking doormat,’ Nine wrinkled his nose with disgust. ‘How did I let such a loser get to me so bad?’

He went back to not being able to look at him. Then he stepped out of the room completely. He would have to go back in eventually, but he just needed a breather for a second. He took the brief break to gather a few things. He dragged one of the mattresses into the hall to lay Mangey on so he wouldn’t get stiff on the hard floor. And he grabbed his laptop. Tails was right about things being complicated now, and he should try to get a hold of Nicole to see just how messed up things really were.

He settled down in the doorway and curled up around his laptop, flicking an ear towards the others to see where the conversation was at. It didn’t sound like much progress was made.

“It’s just, won’t people be looking for you now?” Tails was saying.

“No shit, nerd- just finish telling us the plan!”

Tails sighed. “We have an out in three days, after our next fight. Nicole was going to contact Kit and coordinate a joint escape. But I don’t know if you guys can hide out here for that long without getting caught.”

“I’ll see if they can move up the date,” Nine was already tacking away at the keyboard. There wasn’t much for him to do other than covertly spam forums and message boards to show the urgency of their predicament. It was up to Nicole to get into contact with him so he could give her the actual details. If she was even available at all right now.

There was a small click when Kit finally removed Tails’ collar.

“Thanks,” Tails rubbed the flattened fur around his neck. “Ugh, that feels so much better! Nine, you up next?”

‘Am I up for having that little freak mess with my shock collar? Not really.’ Nine bit back a scowl. Unfortunately, he didn’t have much of a choice.

“Fine. But you watch him while he’s doing it.”

“You don’t need to be afraid. I’ve removed four of them with no issue. At worse, you might accidentally get sedated. Or shocked,” Kit’s voice was once again the creepy, velvety tone of a predator toying with its prey. It may have even made Nine’s fur stand on end… That is, if it weren’t for Kit acting like such a wuss just minutes earlier. Now Nine could barely hold back rolling his eyes.

“Watch him,” Nine repeated to Tails, “So you can do Mangey’s yourself. Obviously, he’s not going to ’accidentally’ shock me hard enough to fry my laptop or put me to sleep. Seeing that I’m busy making sure we all get out of here alive and that would be a stupid thing to do.”

“Er, okay?” Tails didn’t argue, instead getting in position to get a good view of Kit as he worked.

Nine internally sighed with relief. He severely overplayed the importance of his role, but Kit had no way of knowing that. Hell, he’d probably still fuck with him anyway. But it was fine; he could take it. However, he had no tolerance for even giving him the opportunity to torment Mangey. The freak would probably delight in hurting someone so sweet.

“That okay with you, Kit? I am curious to see how it works,” Tails sounded annoyingly enthusiastic.

“Yeah, whatever.”

“Where did you get the parts?”

Nine wished Tails wasn’t so friendly in that moment. He’d rather hear literally anything other than Kit’s blasé voice explaining his device to Tails. Normally it would have been interesting, but Nine just hated him way too much to care. He wanted to continue thinking of him as a talentless loser, not someone who was smart enough to put together something neither he nor Tails was able to accomplish.

With not much to do other than wait for Nine to get a response, the room got pretty quiet. Surge quickly grew restless and got up to pace up and down the hallway, not unlike a caged lion. The boys gradually scooted further into the observation deck to give her more room. Her impatience was annoying (and a little scary), but understandable. Nine was also getting pretty tense waiting to be told what they should do next. What was taking Nicole so long?

A final jolt surged through him before his collar fell away from his neck. Surprisingly, there were only three shocks throughout the procedure.

“You good to do Mangey’s?” Nine asked Tails, continuing to act as if Kit wasn’t there.

“Yeah,” Tails turned to Kit, “Can I borrow that?”

Kit let out the tiniest grumble, but handed it over without a word. Nine delighted in knowing that he took his fun away, but was even more relieved that Mangey was now in good hands. He smiled slightly at the sight of Tails carefully manipulating Mangey’s collar without disturbing his peaceful slumber.

Then Nine’s laptop pinged. He glanced down hopefully, but was instead met with dismay. It was a notification that the internet connection had been loss. His stomach dropped. There was never any problem with the connection up until this point. He could only assume it had to do with the attack on Chaos.

What the hell was he supposed to do now? They didn’t know Shard’s work shift so they couldn’t just book it for the intake station and hope to get in with no notice. If they stayed put, they risked being discovered harboring fugitives. Nine had no idea what police procedures were like in this weird robot society. What if they could just force themselves in the domicile without warning? They’d definitely be screwed.

Even if they were able to wait out the three days as planned, who’s to say the whole thing wasn’t called off now? The organization seemed to have a pretty standard procedure for helping people escape covertly. What if their current predicament made them too high risk to bother with anymore? Did they even do damage control? The more he thought about it, the more unlikely it seemed that they would put their seven year operation in jeopardy just for them.

‘We’re probably on our own again…’

“What’s wrong?” Tails gave him a concerned look as he finally dislodged Mangey’s collar.

“We… Lost contact. The internet’s down,” Nine said quietly in hopes the others wouldn’t hear. Surge in particular didn’t seem stable enough to handle bad news right now.

Unfortunately, Kit’s dumbo ears clearly picked up what he said because the fennec was staring intently at them now. There was a long silence between them. Then Tails spoke up.

“How did you guys get over here exactly?” He was addressing Kit.

“We walked. Used the outdoor catwalk and spacesuits,” Kit gestured to the helmets piled up in the corner of the room. Before anyone could ask, he tapped one of them and a complete suit unfurled from the helmet. “I made a wide-range jamming signal to block out the security cameras. So we weren’t seen coming here.”

“Where’d you get the helmets?”

“They were in our domicile’s observation deck. I assume there are some here, too.”

Luckily, the cabinet that ended up holding the helmets wasn’t the one that got horribly concaved by Surge’s antics.

Tails picked one up and flipped it around in his hands.

“What are you thinking?” Nine asked.

“I’m thinking it’s time we come up with Plan B.”

~

There were only a few hours between the conception and execution of Plan B. The number of new variables and risks in the equation weren’t ideal, but it was as solid of an idea as any.

The first step was to draw away the steady flow of security bots that started filling up the catwalk since Kit and Surge’s initial escape. Kit altered his jamming signal to be a bit more localized and started activating it intermittently, remotely shifting the location of the signal each time. This gave the illusion that the fugitives were on the move- farther and farther in the opposite direction of the residential area each time.

Metal was stationed a short stroll down the catwalk, his optics affixed to the entrance of their domicile. A live feed of his view was shared over a monitor on the observation deck, closely monitored by Tails. The gaps between stalwartly marching security bots were incredibly short, punctuated lightly by a pedestrian here and there. On occasion, one would stop to inquire about Metal’s stationary presence, to which he would respond: “Stargazing.” It might have seemed strange that this worked every time, but Metal was a law-abiding citizen in their eyes. Suspecting a fellow robot of conspiring with organic murderers was quite unfounded.

Kit began establishing a semi-regular pattern with the jamming signal. An observable pattern should mean an easier target to zero in on- and it was playing right to their favor. The frequency of bots marching by Metal’s domicile began to dwindle more and more as they were lured away to the fake hot spot. At this point the deception wouldn’t last much longer as it continued to yield no results, but it didn’t need to.

They just needed a few windows of opportunity to sneak out the extended team right under security’s noses. No jamming signal required: Just some spacesuits, a blind spot in the security cameras, and the watchful gaze of one Metal Sonic. The airlock that connected each domicile to the catwalk was just big enough to squeeze two in at a time, so they had to stagger their departure into groups. The first group (which was just Kit by himself) already made it out and secured a safe waiting spot for the others to meet at. The next group stood ready in the airlock- already depressurized and ready to go, just awaiting the right time to make a break for it.

“Go, go!” Tails ushered them out when the coast was clear.

The spacesuit-clad duo came into view on Metal’s feed as the door swung open, one dragging the other to the edge of the catwalk. Their movements were staggered due to the magnetic force in their shoes that kept them from floating out into the vacuum of space. It was nerve-wracking to watch the forcibly slow movement, but finally they slipped out of view once more.

An agonizingly long minute passed. Then:

“We’re clear,” Surge’s voice came in over the comms of their space suits, indicating she and Barry had made it to the safe spot on the underside of the station.

Nine let out a shaky breath, relieved that half of the extended team was now in the safe zone, but also full of anticipation. He and Mangey were next.

They had plenty of time to catch Mangey up to speed on the plan since he woke from his nap, but there was only so much preparation one could give to someone like him. Nine was pretty scared himself- it’s not like he had any experience doing space walks. But he at least watched enough scifi movies to be familiar with the concept. Mangey had absolutely no frame of reference for what he was about to do. It had to have been terrifying.

But if Nine could carry Mangey’s dead weight while he swam in an underwater tunnel, he could surely drag him along a zero-gravity setting. If Mangey froze up and couldn’t continue, Nine could easily scoop him up and use his metal tails in place of his occupied arms. As an extra precaution, the two foxes were tethered at the waist with a securely tied rope. Nine had no plans of letting go of Mangey for a second, but he wasn’t taking any risks. The rope also seemed to make Mangey feel safer. Unlike the spacesuits and every other foreign element to the escape plan, the rope was something familiar. Trustworthy. As was Nine’s hand in his own.

“You ready?” Nine asked after double-checking their suits one last time.

Mangey was clearly trying to look sure of himself as he nodded, but was pretty obviously fearful. His hand was iron-clad with Nine’s as they stepped into the airlock. He wobbled a little when the magnets in his shoes clung extra tightly to the metal of the different flooring. Nine wasn’t all that more graceful, finding the strange grippy feeling quite off-putting.

“You’re going to be fine. Just put one foot in front of the other. I won’t let go,” Nine gave Mangey’s hand a little squeeze as the inner door closed and the airlock began to depressurize.

There was no sound since Mangey didn’t have his comm open, but Nine was sure the poor guy let out a yelp of some sort at the odd sensation. But he couldn’t look at Mangey’s face anymore. He needed to focus the next step. Right now that was hovering his hand about the release for the outer door, being alert and ready for the signal. Unlike the others before him, he barely had to wait before Tails’ urgent voice chimed in his ear.

“Go, now!”

Nine pushed open the door and took his first stilted step out into the void. With gravity out of the equation, walking was even more awkward. That and the attraction between the catwalk’s metal and his boots was even stronger. He had to yank his leg pretty hard to separate it from the ground, the force of which flung it way up into null space. The somewhat horrifying sensation made it feel like his entire body was going to be sent flying off along with it, which made him over-correct and slam the leg back down. The reestablished grip of the magnet made him wobble like crazy, but he didn’t dwell on how stupid he must look right now. Whatever these suits were intended for, it certainly wasn’t for traversing these catwalks.

He just kept putting one foot in front of the other, just like he told Mangey to. The other fox’s paw held steadfast in his own as he kept pace with him, and that’s all that mattered right now. Being sure to stay in the camera’s blindspot, they soon reached the edge of the catwalk. Then came the weirdest step so far: They had to walk over the edge and attach themselves to the bottom of the walk. Upside down. Not that there really was an upside down in space, but it was still weird.

Nine steadied himself with his tails as he made the awkward transition, keeping his promise to hold onto Mangey’s paw all the while. Then they kept moving forward, eventually making their way to the belly of the station. The change in material underfoot was immediately apparent as walking became much easier. This was both a relief and slightly unnerving at the same time. From that point, the journey over to the safe spot was much quicker. It wasn’t long before they joined the other three spacesuit-clad mobians and could finally come to a stop.

The fur on Nine’s muzzle fluttered lightly as air from his relieved sigh was reflected back by his helmet. He took the moment of calm to finally look over and see how Mangey was faring through all this. The jungle fox’s eyes were as wide as saucers and he clearly looked terrified. Despite that, though? There was simultaneously an awestruck grin on his face. Mangey glanced between his companions in a dazed-like manner before tilting his head up towards the wide open void. And he just stared.

Nine took a little peak at the vastness above them as well, but quickly refocused his attention back to what was in front of him. Yeah, it was cool and all, but it also made him a bit queasy right at this moment. Not that anyone else needed to know that. Clearly he was just staying focused.

“Made it,” He signaled to Tails over the comm.

“Great,” Tails would have almost sounded insincere, but Nine knew that was just the voice of a very focused man. “I’ll join you soon.”

Nine nodded to no one and meant to say something in reply, but remained silent. It was fine. Tails didn’t need any reassurance; he was as cool as a cucumber. That’s why he volunteered to be the last one out, making sure everyone else made it to safety first. With no one to watch the feed for him, he would have to wait by the airlock until Metal manually signaled with a knock that it was safe to take the last trip. Together they would be the final group to arrive to the safe zone.

In the meanwhile, Nine took the time to gather his bearings. He wasn’t terrified or anything, but he was certainly uncomfortable. They were out of the weeds for being detected in the residential area, but they still had quite the trek ahead of them. And once they got in range of the intake facility, there was no telling what kind of security measures they’d face. The worry of recapture was definitely there, but Nine was far more concerned about somehow getting dislodged and flung into space. Without air to push against, his tails would be useless to save him. He’d just drift away, floating off into nothingness until he suffocated as his oxygen reserves were depleted.

That sounded like a truly awful way to die.

Suddenly, Mangey was wrapping his arms around him. The wonderment seemed to have worn off enough that his sensibilities had returned to him. Presumably the same fear that was presently eating away at him as well. Nine gave him a couple reassuring pats with his free hand. He found himself relaxing just a little bit.

‘Wait… Is he really…?’ Nine’s thoughts were a bit choppy with bewilderment.

Mangey’s touch had been the cause of a lot of negative emotions since they first met. Anger, irritation, confusion. Dichotomous feelings of desire and repulsion. He was caught off guard by the sudden realization that none of these were present at all anymore. Someone was invading his space, enveloping him with their presence, and all he felt was…

Safety.

Calm.

‘When… did that happen…?’

Nine felt the tiniest bit of momentum build up in his tails, but he stopped the wag dead in its tracks. This was no time to get distracted by such foreign feelings of comfort. He gave Mangey another little pat, but otherwise refocused his attention. He looked around to see what his other new teammates were doing.

Kit was stood alert, swiveling his head around to keep active surveillance of their surroundings. Surge’s predicament somewhat mirrored his own: Her attention was firmly planted on the quokka that was fearfully clinging to her arm. The tenrec was clearly a hothead, a liability to the stealth mission they were currently on. But for whatever reason, she seemed to have a thinly veiled soft spot for Barry and kept careful watch over them. They were like a service animal, but for anger management instead of anxiety. It was a good decision to pair those two up.

Mangey finally released his embrace when Tails and Metal came into sight.

“All good, we weren’t spotted,” Tails confirmed as he approached the group. “Is everyone alright?”

“Yeah.”

“Rrrrf!”

“Can we get a move on already? Barry’s about to keel over from freaking the fuck out,” Surge’s impudent voice drowned out everyone else over the comm.

“I-I’m fine,” Barry tacked on sheepishly. “Just ready to go is all.”

“Okay,” Tails called no attention to the ruckus, “Metal has calculated the most direct route to the intake station, so he’ll lead the way. I’ll take up the rear to keep an eye on things. Let’s move out.”

Everyone fell into place behind Metal without another word. Thus, the slow trek across the belly of the space station was a go. They already estimated the length of the trip to make sure they had plenty of oxygen reserves to make it to their destination. But there was still the worry of how to proceed once they arrived. There was no guarantee Shard would be there to receive them, or if the plan with the organic liberation was valid at all anymore. Without their collars, they had more of a fighting chance to force their way into the facility and follow the plan as best they could on their own. But without the guidance of someone who was familiar with the facility, it would be a lot more challenging to make their escape.

Nine tried not to let these worries cloud his thoughts as they made way, but it was hard not to be filled with anxiety.

‘As long as we can get in somehow, we should be fine,’ Nine reasoned with himself. ‘Then no one can get knocked out into space. Then we can fight. We have enough smarts to figure out the portals on our own once we get to that part. It’ll be fine.’

Nine glanced at Mangey, who was keeping pace with everyone else. He had a faraway yet determined look on his face. Nine wondered what he was thinking. He hoped he wasn’t too scared.

He had to make sure Mangey made it home safe. Back to his family, back to his kid.

‘He will. I’ll make sure of it.’

Chapter Text

Mangey never thought he’d miss the sensation of flying at impossible speeds through that weird tube transport. But here he was, walking with his feet glued to the ceiling, his head all but exposed to the stars… Missing the safety of that system immensely. Unfortunately, that form of transportation got locked down along with the internet that let Nine talk to the ghost-hologram girl. They were flying blind now with nothing for guidance other than Metal’s sense of direction and their own wits. Mangey could smell the collective anxiety thick in the air before they set off into the void. But that fog of worry was absent for the past hour or so. In the confines of his suit there was no sound other than his own breathing and heartbeat; no smell other than his own fur. With as alien as all of these new experiences were, he was feeling relatively calm, though.

If there was one thing he trusted above all else, it was the wits of his friends. He had faith in them to steer him in the right direction. And with the new alliance with the fearsomely powerful Surge and Kit, surely their combined might could best any foe between them and the magical gateway back home. They just had to keep moving forward like Nine said.

The repetitive scenery around them finally began to change a little as they started climbing up a wall.

‘Or is it down a wall…?’ Mangey pondered.

“We’re approaching the east side of the intake facility,” Tails’ voice played in his ear. “Stay frosty.”

The pace slowed as the group collectively stayed on the lookout for security. There were no bots in sight, but Nine pointed out a few cameras they had to circumvent. Then they came to a sudden halt at the behest of Metal’s raised arm.

After a brief pause, the robot’s overly loud and harsh voice reverberated in his helmet, “Shard is within range and has made contact. Follow my path in single file, quickly.”

Without giving anyone time to react, the robot sped off once more (as much as one could speed with sticky feet anyway). There was a brief moment of hesitation from the one closest to the robot (Kit), but Surge moved past him, dragging Barry along with her. She let go of them right as she rounded the bend in order to comply with the single-file rule. Kit quickly pushed the quokka along in compliance with Surge’s decisive action.

Tails urged the remaining foxes forward, still insistent on being the last one behind. Nine gave Mangey’s hand an apologetic squeeze before signaling that he had to let go so they could proceed. A couple robotic tails floated in front of him as a substitute and Mangey held onto one appreciatively as they marched along. The tether between them forced them to stay close enough that Mangey felt safe regardless, but he wasn’t one to pass up on a comforting tail to hold onto.

Up ahead, Metal stopped to pry open the bulky door that hopefully led to their final destination. He held it open while the rest of them filed in. Mangey tripped when the different flooring’s magnetization caught him off-guard for the umpteenth time, but was steadied by the mass of metal tails in front of him. He took the final few steps forward and looked back in time to see Metal pulling the hatch shut after Tails entered with much more grace.

The sensation of gravity returning was much more unpleasant than it felt leaving. They couldn’t have been out in space all that long, but his body didn’t seem to welcome the gradual return of pressure. But one thing he was immediately happy to face was the muffled sound of air whooshing and the groans of his comrades. Not the loveliest sound to be greeted with, but it was sound all the same and he appreciated hearing something other than his own ragged breathing.

Surge was already trying to force the next door open.

“Hey,” Tails’ voice piped up from behind, “Maybe give it another minute, Surge? Our bodies need time to restabilize safely.”

“Thought we were in a hurry!” Surge huffed, but let go of the door, instead just staring at it defiantly.

Unsure of how long they had to wait, Mangey flopped onto the floor with a grunt. Nine settled down beside him.

“Hey. I’m going to take this off now. You good?” Nine tugged the rope lightly.

Mangey gave him a nod and started undoing the knot around his own waist to save Nine some time. Part of him didn’t want to remove the safety net, as if a stiff wind would somehow pick up and blow them apart the second it was gone. But Mangey knew that was silly and it would be impractical to keep it in place. He wasn’t sure what they were going to face next, so them having independent mobility only made sense. The knot was a bit tricky to undo with their bulky space gloves in the way, but eventually the loosened fiber flopped between the now untethered foxes.

Nine’s hand lingered between them after it fell. Once again, he was hesitating to initiate something. Perhaps another reassuring pat? Even though Nine didn’t quite make the full gesture, Mangey still appreciated it. He leaned over to give him an affectionate little headbutt, forgetting the obstacle preventing such a thing. Sure enough, there was a bonk! as their helmets collided.

“Shit! What the hell?” Nine startled.

“[Oops, sorry!]” Mangey signed, feeling a bit foolish.

“S’alright,” Nine mumbled, his pissy expression quickly dissipating.

There was a loud hiss at the interior side of the airlock as the door unsealed from the other side. Everyone stood to attention as the door swung open.

“Hey, party people!” Shard gave a friendly wave, “Hope you don’t mind I didn’t have time to decorate. You are pretty early.”

“Who’s this joker?” Surge’s fists crackled dangerously even beneath her suited up gloves.

“Hey, cool it, Firecracker. I’m the guy making sure you get back home in time for dinner. Come in, come in. Take a load off,” Shard stepped aside and invited them in with a sweeping gesture.

Everyone filed into the slightly larger room and began taking off their suits. Mangey was only too happy to be rid of the thing- the constricting material did not agree with his thick fur. He discarded the garment in a heap and quickly began combing the most agitated clumps of fur back into place with his claws.

“Oh cool, you already got your party favors off,” Shard observed their collar-free necks, “Saves a step.”

“Yeah, Kit found a way to get them off,” Tails nodded towards the fennec.

Mangey did a double-take, thinking he imagined it. But no, there was a tiny smile on Tails’ face and, daresay, a look of fondness?

‘Does Tails really like Kit that much?’ Mangey pondered with scrutiny. ‘Does he… like-like him?’

Normally he would be ecstatic to notice such a thing among friends, but the thing was… Kit wasn’t really his friend. He could forgive him for the terrifying beatdown in the Battledome, scary as it was, because he knew they had to fight then. What he couldn’t quite get over was Nine’s clear distress around the little fennec. He didn’t have a chance to ask Nine about the tension between them (not that Nine would give a direct answer), but it must have been something bad.

Mangey had plenty of experience with mending relationships, grace, and forgiveness. But with all of the things that happened to him and his friends lately? He found he wasn’t in such a hurry to be buddies with that unpleasant little guy. In fact, he’d go so far as to say he didn’t like him at all outside their current alliance. And thus, he found Tails’ supposed affection just a little bit distasteful.

A pit formed in his stomach. Such feelings of animosity were foreign to him, making him feel a bit ill. He didn’t know how to deal with such tumultuous negativity coursing through his normally sunshiny veins.

‘Oh man, why am I getting annoyed at Tails? He didn’t do anything. Maybe Kit isn’t even that bad. I shouldn’t be thinking about this-’

“Feeling woozy there, champ?” Shard’s metal hand clapped amicably on his shoulder, jolting him out of his daydream.

Mangey shook his head, fishing his cellphone out of his tail to clarify, “{I’m okay.}”

“Good, good,” Shard turned to address the whole group. “Looks like we’re clear of any decompression mishaps. Let’s move out, people!”

‘Oops,’ Mangey realized he might have missed a little context while he was distracted, ‘Time to go, I guess.’

He raced along on all fours down the hall, keeping pace between Nine and Tails. He felt like a bit of a dummy for spacing out at such a crucial moment, but luckily he could rely on his friends to keep him on track. They turned this way and that down the monotonous grey halls until they made it to a room with a bunch of intricate-looking equipment. Mangey’s tails swooshed around with intrigue as he refrained from burying his nose in the fascinating technology. He settled for observing Shard as the robot began clicking away at one of the consoles.

“Like I said, Nicole got a head start scrubbing your data from outside sources. All we have left is your original files- last source of your coordinates back home. We’ll open up the gates one at a time to avoid drawing too much power- or suspicion. Let’s go ahead and start with… Mobius,” he flicked a final switch and an eruption of light burst forth from behind them.

Mangey jumped a mile as a large gate-shaped device suddenly formed a window to somewhere that clearly wasn’t the drab station interior. There were… Oh, there were trees! Glorious, enormous, gangly trees with branches that flung every which-way so wild and free. Mangey nearly smashed his face up against the window out of impulse to be closer to the beautiful sight. And this is where Tails was from? The foliage wasn’t all that different looking from some places Mangey ventured to before. If he had traveled just a little further back then, could he really have met Tails so much sooner?

Well, he couldn’t wait to find out! Despite feeling so desperately homesick lately, the mere sight of the natural setting revitalized his spirit of exploration. He didn’t need to go back to Boscage right now- he planned for a very extensive journey, after all. His time in space had been an unexpected detour, but he still had plenty of adventure left in him yet. That and he hadn’t completed his mission of finding a mate either! If he resumed his journey here, at Mobius, he would have the added bonus of Tails being there to show him around.

‘Oh, this’ll be perfect! And after Mobius, I can visit Nine’s city!’

He assumed it had to be pretty close since Nine and Tails were familiar with all the same technology. And maybe then he’d head back to Boscage, just so he’d be familiar with the route. Heck, he may as well take the whole family on a trip to meet his new friends! He didn’t know exactly how all of this would work, but he figured Tails would program the coordinates into their communicators or something.

With all the mystical technology they had, it would probably be no big deal at all. No one was even batting an eye at the wonderment of this portal appearing before their very eyes! There was mostly just a general look of relief… And scrutiny.

“How do we know this is the real deal?” Surge narrowed her eyes at Shard, who simply shrugged.

“Got a feeling my word doesn’t mean much to you, so I don’t know what to tell you. It’s Mobius according to the coordinates I got. Up to you if you want to hop through.”

“The trees look mobian to me-” Tails started.

“Drippy, get in there and check it out real quick. Give us a sign if it seems fishy,” Surge cut him off.

Well, it was a sound plan at least.

“Yes, ma’am,” Kit complied, hopping into the open gateway right away.

The fennec wasted no time running around to survey the area, briefly vanishing from view. He popped back a short time later and gave a thumbs up.

“Eh, good enough for me. C’mon, Barry,” Surge grabbed the quiet quokka and leapt through the opening without further hesitation.

“Well… I guess this is it,” Tails glanced between the portal and his three remaining companions. He walked over to Shard and offered his hand. “Thanks for everything, Shard. Please extend our gratitude to Nicole as well.”

“No prob, man,” Shard gave his hand a shake. “Take care, live the good life, and all that.”

Mangey approached Shard next and surprised him with one of his signature fluffy embraces.

“Oof! Hugs from the big guy, huh? Haha!” Shard gave him a couple pats before they broke apart.

“{Thank you for helping us,}” Mangey started politely. “{I have one request before we leave.}”

“Sure thing, bud. What’s up?”

“{Can you find someone else who was in the Forest Survival Zone and send them back home, too?}”

“Well, it depends. There are a lot of people that go through that show, so there’s no guarantee I can track them down by description alone. But I’ll give it my best shot! Who are we looking for?”

“{His name is Silver. He’s a grey and white hedgehog, about Tails’ height, I think around the same age as us. He has very unique hair. I tried to draw him, but it’s not very good,}” Mangey swiped to a crudely drawn picture of the hedgehog and held it up for Shard to inspect. “{He can make a blue glow that moves things without touching them.}”

“Ooh hey, psychic powers guy! Yeah, I remember him. They pulled him out of Survival pretty early to be a UCZ enforcer,” Shard commented.

“Let me see that,” Tails wandered over, a perturbed look on his face. His fur ruffled upon seeing Mangey’s drawing. “Silver’s here, too?! Since when?”

‘Tails knows Silver?’ Mangey started typing a reply, but everyone else started talking too quickly for him to get anything out.

“About the same time as you all arrived, I think. Your dates already got scrambled, so I can’t check for sure.”

“Shard,” Tails took the robot by the shoulders and looked very serious. “Is he alive? Can you pull up his file?”

“Yeah, I gotcha,” Shard quirked an eyebrow and brought up Silver’s file onscreen. “Still an active enforcer. Conditioning for voluntary servitude unsuccessful- that means they have to keep brainwashing him because he didn’t consent to be an enforcer- and… Oh. Also from Mobius. Yeah, that’s a problem.”

“How do we find him?”

“Can’t you just wipe his location? Swap in some other place instead?” Nine interjected above Tails.

“Oh, you’re sharp!” Shard grinned at Nine and started typing away again. “It’ll be a temporary solution, but no one should have any reason to snoop around in his file history. They like using him, with those nifty psychic powers. Won’t be long before his whole file can be deleted and then Mobius will be completely off the record.”

“What do you mean by that?” Tails gave him a wary look.

“Well… Thing is, we don’t really have the means to help out folks who got sucked into being enforcers. Totally different ballgame. Since they’re more high profile, security on them is extra tight. Too high a risk. So…”

“So, what? You’re not even going to try? What was that about deleting his file then?”

“Files are allowed to be wiped out when a unit… Dies. Which happens eventually for all enforcers, so-”

Mangey barked loudly in tandem with Tails raising his voice, “Oh no, no, no- We’re not leaving Silver to die! No way in hell!”

“He said there’s nothing they can do-”

“I mean, sorry, but-”

Metal beeped loudly to try to shut everyone up, but it only added to the cacophony.

During the chaos, Mangey peeked at the file that was still onscreen and began reading it himself.

Tails started stalking around the room as he argued with the others, grabbing random components and straight up ripping other things out of the machinery.

“Chill out, dude! What do you expect to accomplish tearing up the place?” Shard sounded exasperated, but didn’t try to stop him.

Tails started mangling the random parts together, looking somewhat like a madman. Mangey was only half-paying attention, his eyes lighting up as he found a relevant piece of information in Silver’s file. He quickly started typing something on his phone. By the time he turned around, Nine had pilfered Tails’ project and was inexplicably wrestling him to the ground with his mecha-tails.

“What the hell are you trying to do? Blow us all up?!” Nine growled as he pinned him down.

“Of course not! It’s to break in wherever they’re holding Silver! If Shard won’t do it, then I will! Get off of me!” Tails knocked himself free and they continued to grapple with one another.

“Did you really just build a bomb out of random junk in like, 30 seconds?” Shard looked bewildered. And impressed.

“{Silver is being kept below! Enforcer converting station is connected to intake facility. Not far to go.}” The message was ineloquent, but Mangey had no time to type something pretty while his friends were seconds away from full-on brawling.

Tails stopped struggling against Nine and whipped his head towards Shard, “So he’s basically right here? What’s the big deal then? Let’s go bust him out!”

“I told you, the security is next level down there. I don’t have clearance. Sure, you might be able to get in if you go in guns blazing, but I can’t. Not if I want to keep shipping people out of here after today.”

Tails held up a hand to Nine to indicate a truce. Nine relented, but he kept his tails flared as a precaution. He held onto the half-constructed bomb for the time being.

“That’s fine by me,” Tails addressed Shard. “We will go in guns blazing. You can keep your cover. It’s a win-win.”

“Look, man. I joked about blowing this place up, but there are people working here right now. I can’t let you go on a killing spree.”

“I’m not going to blow the whole place up,” Tails said indignantly. “Just, you know, some obstacles along the way.”

Shard gave him a skeptical look.

“I won’t kill anyone. If it comes to it, I know how to disable a bot without taking them offline for good.”

“I can confirm,” Metal interjected. “His heroic virtue is as true as it is annoying.”

“Thanks, Metal,” Tails shot him a grin.

“Do not thank me. I only offer this information to hasten our departure. I know you will not leave unless your foolish rescue mission is fulfilled.”

Shard let out a robotic sigh and flicked a switch. The bright window to the beautiful forest vanished from sight as the portal was shut down.

“Alright, I guess I can’t get in the way of such dashing heroics when hearts are so true,” Shard conceded. “But just so you know, you will have very little time before this place is absolutely lousy with trigger happy bots ready to disintegrate you all. Including me. I’ll be called back to defend the place and I’ll have to act the part. So…”

Tails started rooting through some more machinery and finagling together another weapon. “No problem. We’ll be in and out.”

“If you say so,” Shard drummed his fingers against the console. “Damn. I’m a little jealous, honestly…”

“You can’t actually be serious?” Nine hovered above Tails haughtily. “We have a way out, right now, but we’re really going to throw it away? All for some guy Mangey has a crush on?”

“Yeah,” Tails shot Mangey a curious look, but otherwise didn’t falter as he squared up to Nine. “I’ve known Silver for a long time and he would risk his life to save all of us, no question. I know you don’t know him; I don’t expect you to put your life on the line for him.” His expression softened. “I mean it. Metal and I can do this ourselves if you want to leave. No judgment, seriously. It would be a relief to know one of my bros made it out.”

Nine met his gaze steadily until that last bit, where he looked away. “Fine. Crazy ass. Fire the thing back up; let’s get Mangey out of here first.”

Mangey tilted his head quizzically, “{I’m going to help Silver.}”

“Don’t be stupid!” Nine hissed, quickly losing patience. “You’ll just get in the way. Go home! Tails has the robot- he’ll be fine without us.”

Mangey shook his head vehemently. “{Not leaving without Silver.}”

“Tails! Tell him to go the fuck home! Come on!”

Tails did not tell Mangey to go home. Instead, he handed him the device he just finished cobbling together and briefly showed him how to use it.

“Pretty similar to the shield generator I gave you in the Combat Zone,” Tails said before turning to an aghast Nine. “I’ll take all the help I can get. Mangey can make his own decisions.”

“But-! He-!” Nine gesticulated wildly, looking like he was about to burst a blood vessel from exasperation.

“Look, Nine. Mangey’s a grown fox. I respect his decision just like I respect yours,” Tails started fashioning another last-minute munition. “I’m really not trying to be short with you; we just don’t have time. If you’re leaving, you should get going before we head out.”

Mangey set the shield generator down and started typing out a message. He walked over to Nine and looked at the fuming fox with a gaze full of nothing but fondness. He hit send right before enveloping the other fox in a big hug.

“{I’m going with Tails no matter what you decide. But if you’re leaving now, please tell me. I want to say goodbye.}”

Mangey held onto Nine tightly. A tear formed at the corner of his eye, but he didn’t let it fall. He had complete faith in Tails’ abilities to lead him on this mission and get Silver out safely. He never met anyone more powerful, resourceful, or capable in his life. But he also acknowledged that there was still the risk that they wouldn’t make it. That they might be recaptured or, more likely, killed. He tried not to focus on that.

He understood why Nine was angry and lashing out. It wasn’t like how he belittled him in the Combat Zone before. He was being harsh because he was trying to protect him; keep him out of harm’s way. Mangey felt the same way. He would have liked Nine’s support on this mission, but he would be just as happy if he decided to return home. He would be happy knowing that Nine was safe.

Nine pushed him away, breaking apart their embrace.

His head was bowed, his ears folded back.

“I’m coming, too.”

Chapter Text

The reinforced door flew clean out of its socket and smashed into the wall with a clamor nearly as loud as the explosion that divorced it from its hinges.

Tails may have overdone it just a smidge with the amount of charges he set on that one.

Nevertheless, the infiltrating mobians wasted no time marveling at the destruction. They dashed through the opening and continued on into the depths of the enforcer converting station.

“Take this next left. Then right at the end of that hallway. Almost there,” Nine’s voice sounded over Tails’ communicator.

“Acknowledged,” Tails replied as he ran along with Mangey and Metal at his side.

Before Shard left, he pointed them in the direction of the security control room so they’d have a better chance at locating Silver’s cell before the big guns arrived. Nine’s decision to stay and help proved to be invaluable, serving as their eyes and ears as he guided them from this room.

The original plan was for Metal to take on the job since he was still under the effects of the dampening field, and thus could not fight. However, using him as a fake hostage to take over the control room was so effective it was decided that he should stay with the active team. Nine was actually the one to suggest it and volunteer to take his place. Tails knew Nine was mostly along for the ride to personally keep Mangey safe. He respected that Nine was level-headed enough to give up that first-hand protection when he realized Metal’s presence causing a cease fire was the safer option.

Oh but Metal was hating every second of it. He clearly felt that he was debasing himself, but tolerated it for the sake of completing the mission efficiently. The resistance they faced was dealt with mostly by Tails blasting them with his makeshift energy weapon from afar. As promised, Tails dispatched the bots in a manner that they could be repaired without damage to their memory cores.

Unfortunately, the guards caught wind of Metal’s involvement at some point and things got a little messier. But with Nine’s warnings, the team did just fine handling the remaining enemies. Mangey did a great job utilizing the tactics Tails taught him in the Combat Zone. Tails was quite impressed with how well-timed his shielding was- Mangey definitely was the least scathed of the trio so far.

The infiltration itself was the least dangerous part of the mission, though. The real threat was time. Outside forces had certainly been alerted as soon as they stepped foot into the station and were on their way. If they weren’t out of here as quickly as possible, they would be absolutely overwhelmed. But Nine’s directions from the security room made Tails feel much more confident with their time. They were on the most direct path, which also cut down the number of reinforced doors Tails had to blow up. With only one more door between them and their goal, he would actually end up having one charge to spare. The doors took several of them to take down, though, so there wasn’t much use for it.

‘Maybe I’ll blow up their security room as a little bonus ‘screw you’ on our way out. Or maybe I’ll…’

Tails slowed and came to a halt in front of a random door. They passed many like it on their way- entrances to the enforcers’ holding cells. It was saddening to pass so many victims without being able to help, but Tails had no trouble staying focused up until this point. But for some reason, he couldn’t run past this particular door like all the others. Something deep within his gut stirred, making him reach out towards it.

His hand made contact with the metal. And…

Nothing. It was just a door like any other.

‘Then why do I feel so-’

“Why have you stopped?” Metal beeped loudly at him from down the hall.

“Eh- Nothing!” Tails retracted his hand. He flared up his tails to boost forward and catch up with the rest of the group.

A few moments later, they arrived at their actual destination.

“This is it, Silver’s containment cell,” Nine informed them.

“One last explosion, coming up!” Tails started setting up the charges. The weird sensation still lingered within him, and he couldn’t get the image of that nondescript door out of his mind.

“Incoming from your left,” Nine warned. “Two bots. Go now to surprise them around the bend.”

As Tails continued setting things up, Mangey and Metal sped off to take care of the threat. Metal spun into a ball and rolled around the corner. It was no spindash, or anything that could harm another robot. But it certainly was a peculiar way to present himself to their enemies, and thus proved to be a noteworthy distraction.

The fast-approaching foes didn’t hesitate to fire at the conspicuous blue sphere that was rolling towards them. That left an opening for a wild orange furball to come tearing around the corner. Moving much more quickly than the distraction, Mangey closed the distance between himself and the bots. He activated his shield generator at just the right moment, mere inches away from smashing his body into them. The close proximity caused part of the robots’ bodies to be stuck within the shielding, while the rest of them was repulsed across the hallway, effectively dismembering the enemies.

“The charges are set!” Tails came running up behind them with his blaster drawn. Upon seeing the carnage, he quickly holstered the weapon and instead covered his ears.

Mangey mimicked him just in time before the hall trembled from the blast. The three made their way back to the door to find that it was mostly concaved, but still hanging on. Tails revved up and gave it a prompt spindash to finish it off, making it fall in the rest of the way.

As the last remnants of dust cleared, the holding cell came into view. It was larger than Tails expected- almost like a mini laboratory. Machinery and medical monitors lined the walls. In the center of the room, a hauntingly familiar set of iridescent armor was propped up. One might say it resembled a beetle’s carapace. A dorkier person might say it looked like Robocop’s armor.

‘Silver was the one who… In the Combat Zone…!’ Tails’ mind was racing as images of being tranquilized and thrown into the cube flooded his memory. That enforcer’s voice didn’t sound a thing like Silver and the armor covered everything but his mouth. But still… The cyan telekinesis… ‘How did I not realize?!’

His thoughts were interrupted by a mortified gasp from Mangey. He followed his aghast gaze to a spherical device in the corner of the room that the monitors were hooked up to. The limp form of a skinny white hedgehog levitated in the center of it. He had no visible injuries, but even in his slumber, he looked ragged.

Tails shared Mangey’s sentiment, deeply upset to see his powerful friend in such a horrific, depleted state. He could only imagine what horrors Silver had been subjected to while being puppeteered by the showrunners. He joined Metal at the control panels where he helped shut down the various devices keeping him in stasis.

Mangey stayed close to the sphere, his paws pressed against it with worry. As soon as the levitation was deactivated, he was there to catch Silver in his arms. He sniffed and checked him anxiously.

“He is stable, but will not regain consciousness for some time,” Metal stated as he and Tails walked back over to the fretting fox.

“Maybe you should let Metal carry him,” Tails suggested, “In case we need to fight on our way back.”

Mangey glanced at him, but otherwise didn’t seem to consider his proposal. He repositioned Silver to support his unconscious body with the utmost care, and then simply walked past them back the way they came.

Metal wasted no time joining him, so Tails just shrugged and followed along.

‘Well, alright then,’ Tails saw no need to force the matter. The way Mangey gently cradled Silver while he marched on with determination showed that he would, in fact, do everything in his power to protect the vulnerable hedgehog. ‘Nine said something about Mangey liking him? I guess there isn’t anything quite like the feeling of rescuing your defenseless crush from a perilous situation.’

Memories of carrying Kit’s worryingly limp body through the Eggperial City couldn’t help but bubble to the surface of his mind. But obviously that was completely different. He didn’t even know Kit at the time, other than as a mentally unstable victim that just tried to murder him. And that was all ancient history at this point. Nowadays Kit was- Well, he was...

‘A friend! Er, ally? Sort of. Well, not really... Anyway! He’s safe back on Mobius; that’s what matters. We’ll all be safe real soon.’

All they had to do was make it back to the portal room now. It was easy to follow the carnage to retrace their steps, but they had the added guidance of Nine’s direction as well. It seemed like they would make it back in time without having to face the huge swarm of robots Shard had warned them about. All in all, a successful mission with nothing but a few minor scrapes and burns to show for it. Tails should feel relieved.

So why was it that he again stopped at that same door on their return trip. Once again, just staring. An invisible sensation forcing him to stay in place- now screaming at him not to leave this door. Before any form of logic could try to dissuade him, he started setting up the last charges he had around the door. He skimped a little bit when taking down Silver’s door, leaving him with three instead of just the one spare. His hands were shaking slightly as he put the final one in place, feeling somewhat like a madman for his inexplicable need to get through this passage. But then they were all set.

The others were at the end of the hallway before Metal spun around to catch his nonsensical behavior once more. Mangey was too preoccupied with Silver to notice.

Tails made a dash for them as he set off the charges, calling out a warning to them. Thankfully Metal was considerate enough to clamp his hands over Mangey’s ears since his hands were occupied. Mangey yipped in surprise at the unexpected boom, but kept a firm grip on Silver.

Metal, on the other hand, released those fluffy ears and attempted to grab Tails. He beeped angrily as Tails slipped into a ball and rolled out of the way before making a beeline back towards the smoldering door. He was oddly thankful for the dampening fields that slowed Metal down; otherwise the robot would have easily restrained him by now. He didn’t blame him, though. He himself found his actions to be quite unfounded, and yet he couldn’t ignore the intense feeling to get into that room.

It took a bit more work than the last door, but he beat on it relentlessly until it finally fell in.

In much the same fashion as breaking into Silver’s cell, the smoke and debris took a moment to clear. The cell looked almost the same as the last- medical equipment, monitors, this time a set of rainbow iridescent armor on display. This room was just a bit bigger though, and sported a row of small enclosures to the left- almost like kennels at a vet’s office. But the thing that made his heart jump in his throat was the contents of the spherical holding cell. There, levitating in the center, was a cobalt blue hedgehog.

“Sonic?!”

Tails’ eyes were impossibly huge with disbelief. The unmistakable silhouette of his one and only brother was unconscious, helpless. Floating in front of him.

How long was he in here?

No.

That couldn’t be him. It couldn’t possibly be real. This adventure had nothing to do with Sonic. He had been back on Mobius, wondering where Tails was. He hadn’t just been…

.. Trapped…

… This entire time…

“Conditioning for voluntary servitude unsuccessful- that means they have to keep brainwashing him because he didn’t consent to be an enforcer.”

Shard’s words echoed in his mind.

Of course there was no way Sonic would consent to such a deplorable thing. How many times had he been brainwashed? His brother was nothing if not incredibly strong-willed. He couldn’t imagine how horrifically intense the treatment would have to be to wear someone with his spirit down.

Tails’ horrified dissociation was interrupted when he noticed Metal starting to twitch and beep next to him. The movements were erratic and strange, almost as if he were possessed. He even began to spark at some point, which thoroughly snapped Tails back to the present moment.

“Metal, what’s happening to you?”

The robot didn’t respond other than to beep, spark, and jerk even more intensely. Suddenly, there was a loud crack! as an exceptionally large spark escaped the robot. Then the movements stopped. A bit of smoke rose worryingly from his chassis. But then his eyes glowed with a familiar intensity- as did his engine.

‘What?! But, the dampening field- How?!’ Tails didn’t linger on this burning question long. Not when he noticed those intense eyes staring directly at his brother’s helpless form as that engine started revving up. ‘Wait, he couldn’t possibly want to hurt Sonic now, could he? Why would he?!’

“Metal, wait!” Tails shouted, but the robot had already shot forward with incredible speed.

//…///……////////…………/////…… 

[Memory File: Partially Recovered]

Annoying banter.

A chase.

No, a race.

An irritating ball of blue quills smashed into Metal, making him veer off-course. He corrected the error quickly and retaliated in turn, slashing his metal claws towards the laughing nuisance. Infuriatingly, the attack was dodged. No matter. He would just beat him in the race, as intended. He kicked his engines into even higher gear.

He would have certainly won if a strange light hadn’t chosen that moment to envelope both of them and pluck their mortal forms from existence. Metal skidded to a half immediately, but still crashed with quite a bit of force into a wall that had suddenly materialized in front of him. A pained grunt next to him informed him that his racing partner had suffered the same fate.

At least one good thing came out of this interruption. But then the interruption was unceremoniously extended when his systems went offline.

…/…////////////…………/…//////…

[Memory File: Partially Recovered]

“We shouldn’t be doing this to a fellow robot… It’s unethical!”

An unidentified voice. The audio input did not have visual accompaniment- his optics were inoperative for some reason.

“He keeps making a stink about returning him and that hedgehog back to their planet. We can’t have him walkin’ the streets spouting that stuff. Makes it sound like we abduct robots!”

“But, I mean, we sort of did… Accident or not-”

“And the boss just loves that hedgehog. Have you seen the ratings on UCZ? There’s no way he’s sending them back.”

Kzzzzktt!

“-been trying to get him to volunteer. Got such a great personality; it would be a shame to just brainwash all the fun out of him-”

Zzzzkktt!

“-the old-fashioned way. Find something we can use to coerce him. Got to be something in here-”

Kkkkrrrzzt!

“-loyal-”

Bzzzrt!

“-brother-”

Zzzzzzzzzz!

“Why are there so many bio-signatures? Thought there was only one brother. Some are from entirely different planets.”

“May as well grab them all just to be sure. Throw the extras into FSZ.”

Zzzmmm…

“-felt so bad rooting around another robot’s memories like that. Are we really just going to throw him out on the streets like nothing happened?”

“Don’t worry, we got him set up with a domicile on Zeldrin Starport. Nice neighborhood, good place to live. And he won’t remember any of this. He’ll have a happy-”

Kshhhhh!

///////………//……///////…//……………///…

The containment sphere shattered. Before Tails could leap to Sonic’s defense, Metal was already making his way back towards him, blue hedgehog safely in his arms.

“What-!?” Tails reached out for his unconscious brother, but Metal beeped at him urgently.

“He will be fine. We must leave this place immediately.”

“I- Yeah, but? Why?” Tails struggled to articulate his thoughts.

“Arrrgh!”

An unfamiliar voice made both robot and mobian snap to attention. The groan came from one of the kennel-like enclosures. Tails cautiously took a few steps forward and spotted a hunched over mobian occupying one of them.

A fox.

“Arrgh…” the fox groaned a bit less loudly. “Why ye got t’ make s’ much noise, mate? Can’t I least suffer in… Oh. Ahoy thar.”

A deep blue set of eyes met Tails’ cerulean. Although it was a bit hard to tell, given how incredibly dilated the other fox’s eyes were. Goofy sounding pirate-speak aside, this poor fellow was slurring his words quite badly.

‘Is he… High?’ Tails’ confusion only continued to grow.

“Oi, what ye ‘sposed t’ be? The ghost o’ me younger self? What be th’ point ‘o that?”

“We must leave immediately,” Metal repeated and began marching towards the exit.

“Yeah, okay, just a second,” Tails looked around quickly and located the release for the strange fox’s cell.

“Aw, c’mon… Not t’day. I jest want t’ nap…”

As Tails bent down to pick him up, he noticed that the pirate fox was also sporting two tails. As if things couldn’t get any stranger about the situation. Regardless, he scooped the smaller fox into his arms with ease. He was like a ragdoll, offering no resistance.

“Arg, fine… What’re ye doin’ t’ me t’day?”

“It’s okay. Your’re safe now. We’re getting you out of here,” Tails started to leave.

“Me mate! Can’t leave without me mate!” The previously limp fox started flailing wildly in Tails’ arms.

“Okay, okay!” Tails took a couple paces back and let the loopy fox wiggle out of his grasp. He put an arm around his shoulders to support him as he shuffled unsteadily by his side.

“Where’s your friend?” Tails led them back to the kennels, but they were all empty.

The pirate flung open a nearby cabinet and grabbed a robotic hand on a chain, smiling hazily as he hooked it onto his belt. Just when Tails thought this deranged man made him return for a mere trinket, he turned around and whipped the robotic hand into a small terrarium next to the kennels. The glass shattered dramatically as the pirate whooped with glee.

“What are you doing?!” Tails had half the mind to haul him out right away, flailing or not.

“I’m gettin’ me mate,” Sails reached into the broken glass and fished out a large frog that was curiously sporting an eyepatch. A pirate frog to go with a pirate fox?

The recklessly shattered glass embedded itself in the fox’s exposed fingers (and the frog), causing a bit of blood to well up. Both creatures seemed too out of it to notice. The fox had a big grin on his face as he tucked the amphibian in his tail for safe-keeping.

“Arright, carry on then,” the words escaped the dopey fox’s mouth right as he collapsed back into Tails’ arms. “Man alive… Don’t remember me bein’ so pretty…” The fox reached up and poked Tails’ cheek fluff with a wobbly finger.

There was so much strangeness to the situation, Tails couldn’t even be bothered by this behavior. The man was clearly delirious and seemed to think that Tails was his younger self somehow. Tails hoped he didn’t end up looking quite so scrungly and unkempt in his old age, but that was neither here nor there. He wasted enough time; he needed to get them out of there.

Metal already left, so he kicked his tails into high gear in order to book it down the hallway. He caught up with his companions by the security room, where Nine was urging them forward.

“Hurry the fuck up, we got that crowd Shard warned us about congregating at the west entrance!” Nine hollered as they approached. “What the hell is that?”

He scrunched his nose up at the nonsense-mumbling lump of fur in Tails’ arms.

“No idea,” Tails shrugged, gesturing towards Metal’s passenger. “But that’s my brother.”

“Huh?” Nine gave him the most befuddled look before shaking his head, “You know what- it doesn’t matter. Let’s just get out of here.”

“Agreed,” Tails said with exasperation as the group arrived back at the portal room.

He sat the pirate fox down gently and made his way over to the console, but Nine was already tapping away at it. One by one, three portals flashed to life in the room.

“This is it,” Nine said. “Once they close, our profiles will be permanently scrubbed from the database.”

Tails gave him a quizzical look.

“Why so many?” He asked right as the answer hit him like a pile of bricks. He glanced at the profiles Nine had pulled up to confirm his last-second realization: Three separate planets were listed for three separate foxes.

“Feel kinda stupid for not figuring it out earlier,” Nine murmured without looking at him. “Thought Mobius was just a different city or something. Didn’t realize it was your planet.”

Tails felt numb all of the sudden. How could Nine and Mangey both be from completely different planets? They looked exactly like mobians. Fox mobians, just like him. It didn’t make any sense! And that also meant…

“{We’re not going home together?}” Mangey was staring at them, eyes wide and shimmering.

“We’re… We’re… Well, what about this guy?” Tails gestured towards the weird pirate. Maybe if he could turn the subject elsewhere, he could stave off facing the facts for just a few moments longer. “I bet he has his own home he needs to get back to. What do we do about him?”

“Get back t’?” The dozing pirate mumbled and uneasily got to his feet. “I don’ want t’ be getting’ back t’ No Place… Terrible, awful place…”

“No, not ‘no place,’ your home.”

“Nahhh, nay,” he wobbled unsteadily next to the lush view of Mobian trees. “I like th’ look ‘o this. ‘M goin’ here.”

Before anyone could protest, the wacked-out pirate stumbled through the portal and began bumbling off into the wilds of Mobius.

“Uhhhh,” Tails just stared with his mouth agape. “Should we…?”

Nine just shrugged, “A better addition to Mobius than Kit ever was.”

“PFF!” Tails was so caught off guard by the deadpan quip that he couldn’t help but laugh. Honestly, so what if some weird pirate fox that bore a heavy resemblance to him was wandering freely on his planet? There were more pressing matters right now. Like the fact that he was about to part with two wonderful friends and likely never see them again.

“We will be set upon by numerous forces any moment now,” Metal reminded them with an irritated beep. “Do not be long.”

With Sonic still in hand, Metal stepped through the portal back home.

“Well, wait a-! Sec… Guess it doesn’t matter,” Tails grimaced as he faced the other two mobians- or whatever he should call them.

Mangey was typing fretfully into his phone, looking close to tears.

With him preoccupied, Tails faced Nine, who was still avoiding his gaze, “Hey.”

“Hey,” Nine parroted lamely. He turned his head towards him, but still couldn’t look him in the eye.

Tails would definitely have to take the lead in this farewell. And he had to keep it brief. It seemed so unfair that he couldn’t take the time to think of just the right thing to say.

“You’ve become a really good friend, Nine. I’m glad I got to know you despite, you know… Everything. I wish we got to hang out normally. Without all this. I... Well, take care of yourself, okay?” Tails held out a hand and arm, giving an invitation for either a handshake or a hug goodbye.

After a bit of hesitation and a millisecond of eye contact, Nine went for the hug. It was stiff and brief, but incredibly sweet considering who it was coming from.

“You. You too, man. Make sure Mangey’s boyfriend comes around okay. And your brother. Maybe kick Kit’s ass a few more times, if you feel like it.”

“Heh! Sure, sure,” Tails smiled at him before he was abruptly scooped up by a swathe of orange fur. “OOF!”

“{Tails! I’m going to miss you SO much! There was so much more I wanted to learn from you. So much I wanted to teach you. I’ll cherish everything we got to share with each other for the rest of my life. My life. You saved my life. Thank you. Thank you for everything. You’re such a beautiful person. I’ll never forget you.}”

Mangey began to weep unabashedly as he squeezed the smaller fox gently, but tightly, nuzzling his cheek lovingly in their final embrace. Barely able to move, Tails nevertheless managed to return the hug. He accepted the wet muzzle being smushed all over his face without complaint. With quite a lot of fondness, in fact.

“I’ll miss you, too, Mangey. You’re a really special guy,” He took in a deep breath when Mangey finally released him. “And you saved us, too. We wouldn’t have made it in the forest without your wisdom. You’ll make a great dad someday.”

“[Thank you!]” Mangey sniffed as tears continued to roll down his face. “[I have a good name in mind if one ends up with a pair of these.]”

He waved his dual-tails, getting a touched smile out of Tails.

“[Tell Silver I’m glad he’s okay. Maybe don’t tell him I thought he was really hot. That might be weird.]” They both chuckled a little at that before Mangey’s eyes softened again, “[I feel so close to you. You’re like a brother to me. Maybe different from how you use it with your blue brother, but you hold a very special place in my heart.]”

“[That means a lot.]” Tails hesitated, at a loss for how to respond to such heartwrenching sincerity and love. “[Thank you. I’ll keep you in my thoughts, always. And I’ll tell all my friends about our adventure together. Maybe Silver will get a crush when he hears about how cool you are.]”

“[Stop!]” Mangey laughed through his tears, a huge bittersweet grin on his face. He leaned forward and pressed their foreheads together, petting the back of Tails’ head a few times before pulling away. “[Farewell, my brother and dear friend.]”

“[Goodbye.]” Their gazes lingered on one another for a few more moments before Mangey turned to Nine.

Tails picked up Silver and headed to the portal back to Mobius. He really should have jumped through right away. They could be set upon by the robot hoard at any moment and Silver’s life was literally in his hands. But he couldn’t help but stay just a few moments longer. He wanted to be sure that all of his friends had made it back home safely.

Mangey wandered over to Nine, who was staring into his own portal with an unreadable expression. He didn’t seem capable of looking Mangey’s way, so Mangey did the work for him. He put himself between Nine and the portal. His arms spread around the other fox, but he didn’t make contact. It was more of a desperate plea than an invitation. But it was a plea that was answered without hesitation. Nine dove into the embrace, burying himself in the giant furball with surprising fervor.

Moments passed in silence as they simply clung to one another. Mangey was sniffling again, but no one said a word. Until finally, a message played from Mangey’s phone.

“{Come with me, Nine.}”

“W-What?” Nine leaned back to look at him incredulously.

“{Come with me to Boscage. Please.}”

“What?” Nine repeated, “I-I can’t do that! You live in like, a giant forest!”

“{You don’t like your city. I can tell. But you can be happy in Boscage! You’ll see!}”

“I… can’t. What would I even do there? There’s no technology. I… I just couldn’t live somewhere like that.”

“{We can make new technology. You’re so smart, you could do anything. It won’t be like the Survival Zone. You’ll learn. You’ll be safe. I’ll be there to protect you. My whole family will.}”

Nine just stared at him, mouth open, at a loss.

“{I know they’ll come to love you just as much as I do.}” Mangey leaned forward to nuzzle him.

A pitiful sound escaped Nine.

“H-How can you say that?” He struggled to say as he lost the battle against his tears, “After I- After how awful I treated you?”

Mangey pulled him close ever so gently. Beneath the hiccupping sobs, Tails could just barely make out the sound of a quiet, raspy, underused voice.

“Easy.”

The muffled sobs that followed were drowned out by a cacophonous slam as the door was flung open. Gunfire immediately started raining into the room. An explosive blast caused a dormant portal to crash to the ground, making the entire room shudder.

Tails flipped his head towards his companions just in time to see them fall back through the portal. Nine’s portal. To New Yoke City.

Not good- very not good for Mangey and his family that were waiting for him back home!

Tails had to think fast. He rolled Silver’s body through the Mobius portal- not very dignified, but he’d be safe. Now he just had to get over there- pull Mangey out, throw him in the Boscage portal, and-

The light from the Boscage portal petered out when another explosion knocked out its power source.

‘Shit! Shit! Okay, I just have to-’

“Erk!” Tails squeaked when one of his tails was grabbed.

He was yanked harshly from behind, causing him to fall backwards. Just before he slipped back into Mobius, he caught sight of the New Yoke portal shutting down. Then he unceremoniously fell onto his rump. The window to the intake facility promptly vanished into thin air.

“No, no, no!” Tails leapt up and flailed around at the empty space. He spun around to see Metal picking a few strands of golden fur out of his claws.

“Why did you do that?!”

“To extend your life.”

Tails growled in response. He knew Metal did the right thing, but he couldn’t help but feel frustrated.

“Mangey didn’t make it back home…”

“He perished?”

“He fell into the New Yoke portal with Nine. Not on purpose.”

“So your companions are safe and alive.”

“Yeah, but-”

“You should be grateful for this victory. Perfection is impossible, but the most important aspects of the mission have been accomplished.”

“I suppose you’re right…” Tails said as he started to cool off. “Thank you. For getting me out of there. And the words of wisdom or whatever.”

“Someone needs to be rational when such brash stupidity runs in your family,” Metal knelt down to pick up Sonic as he spoke. Despite the words themselves, there almost seemed to be a hint of fondness behind them.

Either that or Tails was exhausted and imagining absurdities.

“They should get proper medical attention,” Metal’s optics flicked towards Silver. “I will deliver Sonic to the nearest hospital.”

Without waiting for a reply, the robot rocketed off into the distance.

“HEY!” Tails shouted in vain.

He had no choice but to scoop up Silver and fly off in the direction Metal vanished. Without a dampening field to hold him back, he was clear out of sight in an instant. Thankfully, Tails could spot a town in the distance once he rose above the treetops. It wouldn’t take long to fly there.

Just long enough for him to reflect a little.

As worried as he was about his two friends who were an unknowable amount of lightyears away, he had two friends right here that needed him. Sonic and Silver were tough; he didn’t doubt their physical recovery. But there was no telling what horrors they were subjected to during their brainwashing. They could have been tortured, their brain chemistry altered in ways he couldn’t imagine. They could be haunted by the things they were forced to do.

But he’d be there for them as they recovered. He’d look out for them.

So would Nine and Mangey. Wherever they were, they’d get through it together. They’d figure something out.

And at the very least (which was actually a lot), they had each other.

Chapter Text

Fluorescent lights hummed quietly in the large hangar that was filled to the brim with crafts and vessels of various levels of wear. And completion. The workshop it was connected to flowed seamlessly into it. The properly maintained and covered aircraft in storage were right next to an array of various prototypes and nearly-finished space buoys. It would probably be a good idea to move some of the aircraft elsewhere, but Tails didn’t have time to worry about that right now. A few months had passed since he got back to Mobius and he hadn’t been wasting a second of it.

Presently, he was perched atop a ladder while he worked on one of the buoys. After he completed these, they would be ready to be replicated and launched into space. There they would surround the planet at equidistant intervals and run his planetary defense code that would protect Mobius from further robot abductions. And a myriad of other precautions he coded in just in case.

‘Then I’ll need to send out a probe to pick up all the excess junk from the prototype I have up there now. And work out whatever kinks pop up in this design… Make a backup just in case… Then maybe I can make… some progress on…’

Tails’ body became more and more lax, his head pressed gently against the buoy while he closed his eyes for just a moment. Then a wrench clattered onto the concrete floor, causing his eyes to flash open. He stared down at the tool that managed to slip from his hands while he took a nice, long, ten second blink.

“Alright, alright, I’m awake,” Tails said to himself.

“Were you not before?” A blue streak chose that very moment to zip into the workshop and materialize as a hedgehog.

“I haven’t been awake since- I mean, I haven’t slept since-” Tails shook his head to reorient himself. “I mean- Hey Sonic, what’s up?”

“Oh, you know. The usual,” Sonic knocked on the pile of parts he was standing on, making a reverberating sound. “Looks like things are coming along well!”

“That’s the scrap pile,” Tails informed him. “But thanks.”

“Yeah, obviously,” Sonic continued to drum on the metal. “I was just making some noise for your progress!”

Tails let out an amused puff and flew down to his computer. But no sooner had his butt met the chair did Sonic grab it and wheel him away. “You know what time it is.”

“I know, just let me recheck this line of code real quick.”

“Are you really going to neglect your poor, traumatized brother’s precious lunch time… For some code?” Sonic didn’t even need to make a puppydog face. Just a little head tilt and slight droop of the ears was enough of a performance for Tails.

“Pfft!” Tails laughed and flicked one of his ears back into place. “Alright, let’s eat.”

“Kitchen!” Sonic said before speeding out of sight.

Tails tilted his head curiously, but went after him. Usually they just ate in his workshop. Sure, it was messy, but you didn’t exactly need to sit at a table to eat a sandwich.

‘Maybe he brought something that needs heated up today?’

Sonic had everything set out on the kitchen table when Tails walked in. Nothing hot, but there were some additions to the usual sandwiches. They each had a stack of cookies, a glass of lemonade, and a few tupperwares with various side dishes. All of it was clearly homemade, if the fresh slices of strawberry in the lemonade pitcher and picnic basket tucked beneath the table were any indication.

“Wow, what’ the occasion?” Tails sat down and took a swig of the perfectly sweet, refreshing strawberry lemonade. He resisted going right for the cookies when he noticed they had mint chocolate chunks.

“Just a little something from Saffron and the kids,” Sonic commented idly, already chowing down on his share. “Oh- pro tip? Put the salad on the sandwich. Soooo good~!”

Tails followed his advice, loading up his sandwich with the tupperware of greens before taking a bite. All his neurons fired with absolute glee from the sheer deliciousness. He had nothing against Sonic’s coldcut sandwiches- they were a decent staple for sure. But they didn’t hold a candle to freshly cut chicken breast, avocado, and homemade honey mustard on medianoche bread.

“I didn’t know Saffron made such killer sandwiches,” Tails said between bites. “What got you over at the Bee house?”

“Do I need a reason to hang at Saf and Charmy’s place?” Sonic asked, the twinkle in his eye clearly alluding to something else.

“I mean, I guess not…?” Tails raised an eyebrow. He hadn’t seen either of them in the longest time. Sonic didn’t really tend to hang out with Charmy all that much either. That is, unless…

“Wait. You guys playing again?”

“That’s right; the old band is back together!” Sonic did a little air guitar when Tails finally connected the dots. “We’ve been practicing in the Bee’s garage. And! We have a secret new member- Who shall only be revealed if you make time to see a practice session!”

“Is it Shadow?”

“No guessing! But no. No Shadow. The Young Immortals is still severely lacking in actual immortals…”

Tails snorted. Sonic named the band as such in one of his many attempts to entice Shadow to join. All his efforts had been futile, but apparently the old name still persisted.

They continued to chat while eating. Tails took his time, savoring the food and Sonic’s company. He meant to visit Sonic himself this week, but just like the past several, he just didn’t get around to it. The guilt continued to gnaw at him, only somewhat assuaged by how quickly Sonic had recovered from his time in captivity. But still. He was being a negligent brother. And an even more negligent friend to Silver, who he only checked up on a handful of times since they got back. Lately he had just been sending him a text now and again, which was literally the least he could do.

He hadn’t really been keeping in touch with any of his friends. Unfortunately, this wasn’t even a new habit- just the result of being so busy all the time. It’s not that he didn’t care about them- he cared a lot. That’s why he spent so much time inventing, building, maintaining various systems… It was all to protect them, the world, and beyond. Even his friends stranded way out in the cosmos. His mind drifted to them constantly as he worked on the defense grid. He couldn’t help but worry about Mangey being separated from his family. If he and Nine were doing alright in general. About all the powerless contestants he couldn’t do anything for and had to leave behind…

“Hey, no thinking about work stuff during Me Time,” Sonic waved a hand in front of his spaced-out face. His concern was carefully concealed behind the jokingly severe tone, but Tails could see right through the façade.

“Sorry,” Tails smiled faintly. “Can’t help it.”

“Well, fine. I’ll bite. How’s the second project coming along- operation lost fox friends? Any progress?”

“Not really. Just a blueprint for the portal. The real meat of that project is figuring out a way to triangulate their location based on the limited data I have. But the planetary defense system is my first priority now and-” Tails yawned loudly. “That’s a big time sink.”

Sonic frowned. “I still don’t see why you can’t get some help. We’ve got plenty of capable friends.”

“I know, but this far along, it’s just easier to go at it by myself. The prototype I have up there should keep us safe until I can finish the real deal. It’ll all work out. Don’t worry.”

“If you say so…”

~

Tails yawned again on his trudge back to his workshop. Thankfully, Sonic didn’t feel the need to dig into the self-care shtick like some of his other friends. He knew it was well-meaning, but it got tiresome after so long. He took adequate care of himself. He wasn’t collapsed or starving, just a little tired. It was really no big deal.

Though, he would be lying if he didn’t consider reaching out for help now and again. For the projects, not the self-help. Obviously. Sonic was right; they had quite the network of people that could assist. But… He didn’t want to bother him…

Er- Them.

People.

No one in particular.

Certainly not a cerulean fox that would keep up with his workflow just fine, maybe even challenge him to think of even better ideas. Certainly not a short and not-so-sweet fennec who he very well knew the capabilities of. No, that definitely wasn’t an option. This theoretical person would surely send him packing if he so much as showed up in his town, much less on his doorstep, asking for help. He was pretty sure he wasn’t even supposed to know where Kit lived. He found out on complete accident of course.

Sort of.

“Ah…” He rubbed his eyes. “I must be really tired to be thinking about this again. As if he would ever help me…”

Despite the acknowledgement of sleep deprivation, Tails didn’t let himself take a nap. He plunged into his computer chair and went right back to work.

“Just… So much to do…”

For Mobius. For Nine and Mangey. For anyone but himself.

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The walls shook as a subway train roared down the depths of the scareport tunnels. A nondescript door and keypad were briefly illuminated by the passing lights. They had gotten dusty and infested with cobwebs from a few months of misuse, but were now cleaned off once more. Within its walls lied a workshop, cold and impersonal for so many years despite also doubling as a living space. As of late, the space was livened up with splashes of green: more and more potted plants kept popping up like friendly weeds. Sprawling tendrils crawled over metallic surfaces and leafy branches reached up eagerly towards the artificial lights. The once stagnant abode finally had a taste of fresh, naturally filtered air. Cluttered as ever, there were now tufts of orange fluff scattered all over the place as well.

A lonely artist’s portrait loomed behind a giant glaring monitor, as if keeping watch for the single inhabitant. But now the cold, frowning visage had a little friend: a piece of paper with a beaming orange fox was taped up proudly next to it. It looked out of place in such a gloomy setting, but certainly wasn’t unwelcome. In fact, it was exactly what had been missing all those years.

The space wasn’t quite so lonely anymore.