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“Good night Sonic!”
Those were the last words Tails had said tonight, though he never went to bed. That wasn’t out of the ordinary, with a racing mind like his and a very hidden case of consistent anxiety not sleeping was more normal than actually sleeping most nights. Though tonight, it was a little different.
Four days ago he’d been sent a text by what he had eventually deduced was a burner phone stating a string of messages.
“2:12 AM in 4 days.”
“SS Train Station”
“R, o, s”
“Do not involve anyone else”
“We can help you, as long as you help us.”
In most, or any case other than the current. Tails would’ve either ignored it or their advice and involved Sonic. However yesterday the air pressure gauge on the Tornado had gone completely missing and after hours of searching he’d given up. Inside of the hardware store he always visited when in need of new or replacement parts and tools he ran into Rouge, who didn’t seem the type to need a tool but kept moving the conversation away from that regardless and mentioned both at the start and the end of their conversation that she hoped everything had “found him well”. Coming from Shadow, this would be expected language if a little formal and outdated. From Rouge, and the initials in the texts, the realization came to him that it was code.
So, now Miles “Tails” Prower sat on the edge of his bed in a room drenched in darkness and streetlights waiting for the familiar click of a door that signified his older brother Sonic was headed to sleep. Sonic was a heavy sleeper, he would not wake until ten AM come hell or high water… Well that wasn’t exactly true, Tails had gotten him up early during the incidents with Chaos, but that hardly counts.
The young fox looked down at himself, brown boots and a black pullover hoodie covered most of him, his tails tucked up behind his back. Oil and soot covered gloves traded in for a fresh pair of white gloves. Amidst a starting rainfall the sound of a door clicking faintly hit across the house.
Tails wasted no time in pulling up his hood, putting his phone in his hoodie pocket, and making for his door. Peering out into the hallway only sought a void of light in the small suburban home, it was quaint and unassuming. Sonic liked that about the home. This was their private home, the one not even a single friend knew about. Sonic also liked that about the home. Their old home had been caved in from the roof thanks to Dr. Robotnik, who’d been silent for some time now. Sonic didn’t like that about the home. The front door unlocked, and Tails started the long walk to Station Square’s inner city.
🕑
Neon lights flicked on and off around the town, their reflections dancing in the puddles of the street and the windows of passing cars. A very soggy and hidden fox continued down the sidewalk, occasionally a car or a rather inhibited mobian or human would pass by. Though he didn’t show it externally, internally he felt entirely out of his element with these people. There was no question to him, his place was not the night. The night belonged to a different type, a different team. A different business.
Tails made his way up concrete steps under the exterior roof artificially held by marble pillars to the dry. Looking through the artistically fogged and bubbled glass, not many figures stood inside of the station, a station he now opened the door to enter into. Tails looked up towards the large clock atop the area where a train always seemed to sit, it’s absence in a way made everything a little more unnerving. So without looking directly at anyone, or around much. Tails sat down on the small square benches with brilliant green cushions and dark wooden bases. The clock had read 2:11.
Tails sat still, staring at the ground. No one gave him a second look, not that there were many around capable of doing that in their states. The once grand and inviting train station, the pride of Station Square, had become run down and grimy ever since the incident with Perfect Chaos. It had been slow and the strikes and various economic problems the city had faced while trying to rebuild everything had only hurt it further. But Tails didn’t focus on that, realistically it wasn’t something he should worry about.
Instead he wondered what Rouge could possibly need from him, or what she could possibly have ready to compensate him with. He’d known that she and her trio were very punctual people, and that when it came to being efficient they were near the textbook definition of it. All in all, not the people you’d expect to be very close with anyone or even one-another. Outside of that, even with his somewhat unpremited research of G.U.N.'s databases from time to time in aid of Sonic and his adventures to stop Dr. Robotnik, not much was known of the trio. Tails had never bothered to read up what exactly the contracts of their agency truthfully entailed, but as the clock seemed to move ever so slowly he made a mental note to take a peak some time. If only to assure his friends that they weren’t being cheated.
Blue eyes finally darted up from the ground and took a good look at his surroundings. There were signs of life on the other benches and against the walls, but not a single sign of Rouge. Wiping his face with his hands, he made to leave. A coin seemed to skid acrost the ground in front of him, stopping by the base of the wood on his right. Tails lent over and picked it up, only to find it entirely without marking. His eyes shifted towards the door, and he finally saw what he’d been looking for.
Dressed in a chocolate brown long coat was not the bat he had been waiting for, but a suitable hedgehog replacement. Tails made his way over towards the ruminating figure, to which Shadow nodded and headed outside. Tails pursued.
“We’re leaving by car now.” was all the dark hedgehog offered.
Not a moment later, a dark blue SUV pulled up with tinted windows. Shadow moved towards the back and opened the door, letting Tails take a seat before following him. The interior was a perfectly clean tan interior with wood paneling, the only marks being the rainwater dragged in by both Shadow and Tails.
“It took a lot of work to find you, foxy.”
Rouge turned back from the driver's seat, dressed in a green long sleeve sweater and jeans, the thief probably could’ve passed for any regular mobian on the street.
“Find me? But I thought you three already had my number.”
“Your number?” Rouge chuckled before continuing. “No no no, your new house. Silly.”
“Wha- why did you need to know where I live?”
“Call it stratagem.” replied Shadow, who seemed to be rifling through the seats behind them.
“The way I see it is like this. You have some stuff we want, we know what you want. We’re more than certain you’ll agree, but we just want a little bit of a… nudge.”
The fox sputtered for a moment. “What do you even want in the first place?”
“Ah ah ah. Not until we get there.”
The trio sat in silence as their car glided across dark highways. Passing silhouettes of trees and farms. City and suburb somehow long gone in the seemingly short time their conversation took. Tails looked towards Shadow, who’d brought out a small dark blue book with light blue swirls on its cover. A mahogany and gold ballpoint pen in hand scribbling something down quietly. Shadow’s once demure eyes flicked up in fire towards Tails curious stare, leaving a feeling of embers being flicked into his very soul. Needless to say he very quickly redirected his gaze as the scratching of pen against paper continued.
Knowing the nature of Team Dark, Tails internally knew that something was missing in all of this. The first thing that came to mind was the idea that his mind was playing tricks on him, but that didn’t make sense yet. Afterwards, he thought about the texts he had received. Firstly, the text the date and time which were accurate. The second text mentioned Station Square’s most prominent train station, which while not the final destination was the initial meeting point. The third text however had mentioned three initials. “R, o, s”. Now that he thought about it, those could very easily stand for the initials of Rouge, OMEGA, and Shadow. Which brought him to another train of thought.
Quietly he brought out his phone and lowered the brightness all the way to the bottom to not disturb the others. His pupils nervously swept around the car momentarily before resting on his phone again. Bringing up a search engine, he angles his phone around slightly, pretending to tap on it. In reality, angling the white glass reflection on the window shines a light behind him. Pretending to stretch his sides, he looks to the back. It’s almost empty apart from a sizable black container that sits on the seats taking up most of the space, but most damning is the faint red glow of metallic paint.
OMEGA is here too.
He puts away his phone, discovering what he needed to. The car pulls into a tight dirt path that Rouge drives without fear or flaw. Quietly she moves her hand towards the two dials to control the radio station and volume.
“Tails.” Rouge says, turning the furthest dial.
“Yeah?”
“Don’t take this part personally.”
A sound similar to a dot matrix printer began to take over the radio station. Then came an encompassing darkness before being taken out of his seatbelt and dragged towards his right. Held in a vice grip, though not one intended to harm. Tails made a kicking motion, trying to squirm out.
“Calm yourself, Prower.” Shadow whispered into the fox’s ear.
Tails didn’t listen, or rather didn’t hear. Fight or flight instincts had kicked in and knowing that it was a three on one, flight seemed far easier. He could feel his wrist slipping from the solemn hedgehog’s grasp. The SUV came to a halt, and around him he could hear the trunk opening, and then someone coming around to open his door.
“Miles, we’ve made it.”
“Made it where, exactly!?”
Shadow shushed him, helping him out of the car and leading him from behind into their ‘destination’. A door creaked open and the sound of a fire sparking to life faintly registered from acrost the room. A pair of heels gently clacked acrost a wooden floor. The dark hedgehog had moved in front of Tails, gently pushing him backwards into a highly comfortable chair for one. Finally, his blindfold was removed.
Tails sat in a cold dark log cabin illuminated by a lamp in the kitchen and the orange embered glow of the fireplace. Two similarly styled plaid single seater chairs sat acrost from him facing towards his seat. An intricately designed rug sat below the chairs, a wooden coffee table holding a few books, journals, and pens stood perfectly clean atop the surface. To his right was an empty table of his own, this one featured a small little engraving of a symbol not too unlike the one of the black arms from many years ago rest in the bottom left corner. This table was rounded and as such did not have such luxuries as a top left corner.
In the distance, the sound of water reaching a boiling point pierced the serene disposition of the kidnapping for a moment, before being moved off swiftly. The sound of various drawers and cupboards being opened replacing the loss of noise.
Shadow re-entered the room first while silently yawning, gone was the overcoat now replaced by a trio of large blankets with more intricate designs. Shadow passed one to Tails, who gratefully accepted before laying one a top himself in the chair to the left facing him. The third and final blanket sat folded in the remaining seat.
“I’m not in trouble… Right?” asked Tails with a sudden uncertainty in his tone.
“Hm? Oh,” Shadow paused for a moment in a peculiar way. As if he were suppressing the quietest, faintest chuckle in the world. “No Prower, you are not in trouble. If you were, I wouldn’t have removed that blindfold.”
“Ah.”
Tails slumped into his blanket, wrapping it tightly around his back and front, completely relaxed in the chair. It was surprisingly soft and warm, the room itself smelled of natural wood and artificially of ginger. From across the table Shadow had shut his eyes and was absentmindedly scratching his muzzle. Quietly Rouge had made her way into the room, setting down a mug next to Shadow.
“When I open my eyes that cup better be under a coaster.” Mumbled Shadow sleepily with eyes still closed.
“Put a little faith in me hun, I’m not a complete disaster.”
True to her word as she set down Tails’ cup of tea a coaster was set down just underneath. The bat herself walked back into the kitchen one last time, retrieving another cup and settling down into the remaining seat with a blanket wrapping loosely around her back and waist.
Silence washed over the room as Tails watched Shadow and Rouge watch him. The fire continued to crackle and the rain continued to pour outside. A sip of a cup broke the pseudo-silence. Shadow set the cup back down.
“Tails.” Rouge begins, readjusting herself to sit cross-legged before speaking again. Shadow took another sip. “I know that all of this situation must have been very stressful. However I’m glad you’ve been cooperative so far, because we have quite the offer for you.”
“Well, what are you offering?”
“Hun, don’t ‘cha know it’s impolite to talk about rewards before the job in an interview?”
Rouge’s tone had come off as a playful barb, but with a warning sense of animus seeded deep within. Tails eyes flicked around the room slightly, bouncing to the fireplace to the dark space behind Rouge to the carpet to Shadow, who had managed to fall asleep.
“Uhm, Rouge?”
“What’s the matter Tails?” Instead of responding, the fox silently pointed towards Shadow’s seemingly unconscious body. Rouge looked towards the usually stoic hedgehog as a smirk grew, turning back to face Tails. “Hm, must’ve been real tired I guess. He’s still listening though, don’t worry.”
The fox acrost from her merely balked at the idea.
“Nono, seriously. Shadow doesn’t sleep. Well, not without some serious effort on his part. From what we’ve figured out part of his-...” Rouge paused, schooling her facial expression back to a more businesslike expression. “Listen, all you need to know is that he’s still awake mentally.”
“Ok, if you say so. Should we get back on track?”
“Lets.”
The two paused for a beat as a louder sound that sounded like iron-weighted rain crashed upon the earth one after another. Outside the rain had managed to freeze upon entering the atmosphere creating large, baseball sized, chunks of hail.
“Alright hun I’ll keep it simple. You know Shadow, myself, and OMEGA all work for G.U.N. as a task force. Team Dark, as they assigned us. And honestly? We like our job, we get to save the world but still do it our way and have our own fun doing it. The problem is that G.U.N. is not… quite the best at designing and testing equipment.”
“And that’s where I come in?” Asked the attentive fox, taking a sip of the tea cup.
Rouge chuckled before answering. “You're quite smart, aren’t you?” Rouge paused for a moment before continuing. “That quite rightly is where you come in Tails. See knowing you and how smart you are, you’ve probably seen OMEGA in the trunk, am I right?”
Tails simply nodded, eliciting another giggle from Rouge.
“Shadow I love this boy, he’s fantastic.” Tails could feel his cheeks heat up a little as she finished her giggle fit in a smirk. “Put simply, OMEGA’s been hurt real bad and- we don’t really trust G.U.N. to fix him up right.”
“Rouge, if I may?”
“Sure thing hun, go ahead.”
“I get the feeling that- that this isn’t about just OMEGA. If it was, you’d have come to me in the day and you wouldn’t have bothered with the secret messages.”
“Hmm, seems we have ourselves a Chaotix in training here Shadow.”
Shadow stayed perfectly still, the subtle rising and falling of his chest in the blanket the only indication he was alive. Then very subtly his right ear twitched and flapped forward.
“Well Tails, your right again I’m afraid.” Rouge took a considerably long sip of her tea, possibly downing the entire cup. “We don’t trust G.U.N. to make anything, at all. So, after a few weeks of thinking we devised a- um. Plan.” Rouge’s stutter didn’t go unnoticed by Tails. The action almost seemingly an uncharacteristic failing of confidence or control of the situation.
“So, what’s the plan?” It had taken a few moments for Tails to collect himself as well, his response slow and deliberate with the slowing of the hail outside. He grabbed the tea cup to take a final sip as Rouge seemed to wait on her own words.
“We want to take you the equipment the government lends us, and then make it work. Or in other words, we want you to be a shadow member of Team Dark.” Tails was ready to open his mouth but Rouge held up a hand quietly and Tails resumed his resting position. “You should know, what we’d be asking you to do is… Not very legal at all truthfully. However, we planned for this too.”
The conversation paused for a beat, the hail finally leaving for good. The subdued crackling of fire retaking the room for a dominant sound.
“You recently lost your home, and your lab. I know your new home doesn’t have a lab, truthfully that’s why I wanted to know where you had been living. We can change this for you if you help us. I have private property on an old warehouse with a small clearing nearby over a cliffside, possibly big enough to land a plane and take off from with some clearing and effort. I can arrange for that too, and even some tools and parts you’ll need to set yourself up again.”
“Wha-” Tails was silent for quite some time, in deep thought his ears folded slightly inwards and his brows scrunched up ever so unsubtly. Quietly, Rouge mumbled something inaudible to Shadow’s ear, and slowly the dark hedgehog opened his eyes again.
“Prower, if I can for a moment?”
Tails looked up towards Shadow and nodded after a moment.
“Prower, you are one of the smartest minds I have ever met. I know you would like to use these smarts some day to better the world, and I share the sentiment if in different ways.” Shadow leaned forward in his chair as the blanket completely fell to the floor. “I will use my pay from G.U.N. to get you into higher education at a university right now. That is all.” Shadow then stood from his seat and gathered the three tea cups before disappearing into the darkness where a kitchen probably lied.
“You- you really could do all that?” asked the anxious young fox, tension and unease plaguing his facial features and body language.
“I swear on it, scouts honor.” From the distance, Tails swore he could have heard a low gravely cackle come from the kitchen. Maybe the stress of the situation was playing tricks on him. Though Rouge mumbled something about ‘thieves honor’ and it’s existence too with a smirk on her face.
Shadow re-entered the room with a single small black cookie with white filling in his hand. Retaking residence in his original seat. Tails finally had calmed himself a little, though had taken up to playing with the hem of his gloves.
“You promise you wouldn’t tell Sonic, right? I don’t know how I could live with myself if I knew I had disappointed him.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it foxy.” Rouge spoke reassuringly.
“Th-then I uh- I guess I can try.” Rouge tilted her head at this answer and Shadow looked merely unconvinced. “I… I’ll do it!” came a sudden and unwarranted burst of confidence followed by a loud yawn.
“Yay!” Rouge lifted her arms in the air and did a double fist pump. “Listen, we could talk details but I know it’s getting late for you. So, let’s meet tomorrow at the end of your street. I’ll come pick you up in the same car and we’ll go for a drive to discuss this while having lunch. Sound good hun?”
“Mm- mhm.” Tails spoke without speaking.
“Let’s get you home, Shadow if you would?”
“Miles, I ask this time you stay calm about this.” Shadow walked towards the front door and grabbed a black blindfold. Instead of tying it around his eyes, Shadow walked back towards Tails and set it in his hands.
Tails, assuming it to be a show of faith, put the blindfold on but eventually struggled with tying it, to which Shadow walked behind him and completed the rest of it. After, leading him from behind into the car and into his seat. Crickets chirping died down as the sound of a dot matrix printer once again played through the radio and the hum of the engine grew louder. The ground got a bumpy for a while, something Tails hadn’t noticed on his way in with all of the trauma he had been thinking he was about to endure. He closed his eyes behind his blindfold and shortly thereafter, the radio went silent. He felt Shadow reach around to untie the impairment but Tails kept his eyes shut regardless, feeling like his eyelids weighed a thousand pounds each.
Rouge spoke softly at some point. “Is he asleep S?”
“No, not likely.”
“Mm-mm.” was all that he could offer in response.
“Hm, it’s alright if you do fall asleep Tails. We’ll get you inside. It’s okay.”
“It’s quite the long journey Prower, you may rest.”
An unknown hand reached his back to ruffle it softly. Quietly the fox felt the sound of the radio station, that at some point had been turned on to regular music, fade to a dull nothingness along with the sound of the car moving along the road, engine and tires faded too. Soon, everything became a familiar dull nothingness, and that was pretty okay with Tails.
🕤
A plush warmth surrounded his body. Mentally he was slow to awake but his body still felt like it was in a far away dreamland. A passive yawn escaped his lips, and distantly someone somewhere made a far away noise that was too soft to comprehend. Slowly, but not too slowly, sapphire eyes flicked open to the world. Upon his chest lay a small notecard and a bundle of blankets swaddling his body. In the corner near his door his hoodie, shoes, and gloves had all been set down atop one another. Tails brought his left thumb to lift the notecard balancing precariously on his chest.
“Hey foxy! Got you home safe and put all your stuff in the corner and an air pressure gauge may have found its way in there too? :) Sorry about that, just text me on your phone when you want to do lunch. - Miss Drives You Bats <3”
Tails sat up from his bed and began untucking the covers to stand out and up from his bed. Tossing the notecard into the waste bin he put his sweatshirt up on a hanger, slipping his shoes on and reclaiming his older, oil covered gloves he found the exact gauge sitting just at the bottom of the heap. Bending down to pick it up he opens his door to find Sonic exiting his own room at the same time.
“Good morning buddy.” Sonic says to Tails, bringing him into a short embrace.
“Good morning Sonic!”