Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

NO PLACE

He couldn't hear or see anything.

And on top of that, everything around him felt like it was crushing him whole.

Sails remembered perfectly the feeling of falling into the sea and beginning to sink, with the pressure of the water suffocating him. It was a bit sad to think about, but it wasn't the first time he'd been thrown into the ocean's embrace. The difference was that now, there was someone who would help him return to the surface without hesitation.

When Sails was able to open his eyes, a hand grabbed one of his arms, pulling him upward. He immediately gasped for air, coughing up the small amount of seawater that had entered his throat and caused it to burn uncomfortably. The hand holding him steadied him carefully amidst the wild water. Sails blinked at his crewmate to focus on her, gasping out her name.

Batten.

She beat her wings hard, managing to lift him onto a piece of driftwood, unstable and buffeted by the relentless waves. It almost seemed as if the water itself were alive. Or rather, it might be, though it was strange that the ocean was so angry when just ten minutes ago everything had been calm. It wasn't until he heard the bat swear under her breath that Sails realized what was happening around them.

His eyes widened at the sight of structures completely foreign to their world emerging from the sea like enormous orcas breaching the surface to greet them. Although these weren't orcas, and they weren't returning to the water either. In fact, these structures rose as high as they could and began to block the horizon in every direction.

Sails' insides stirred uneasily as he perfectly recalled when they’d last seen buildings rise from the bottom of the sea. Experiencing this again wasn't really what he'd expected that day. Or any other day, really. Something like this wasn't supposed to happen again, right?

However, when the sky suddenly clouded over and the sea began to churn like a wild beast, he and the crew thought some curse had been unleashed, or that someone, somewhere in No Place, had angered the water god. That was why they had trouble stabilizing the ship and preparing to sail through the sudden storm. That's the reason of why Sails had thrown himself forward, without thinking, to shove Catfish out of the way before he fell overboard, though Sails ended up in the water instead.

Oh, well. His reflexes were really bad because of the violent swinging. It wasn't his fault, okay?

Sails stopped looking up, maybe waiting for moment for those old robotic birds to reappear near them and try to take them away, and instead focused on Batten, who hissed something through his teeth that he could’ve sworn sounded like damned bilge rat, though he wasn't sure. Then she took his hand again, turning to look at him.

“Quickly ! Let's get back to the ship and get out of here.”

He nodded, spinning his tails as best he could to shake off the water before taking flight with his crewmate back to the Angel's Voyage. The ship was rolling erratically as Captain Black and Dread did their best to secure all the cannons without neglecting the helm. Catfish, meanwhile, was waiting for them both on the shore, his face slightly wrinkling before relaxing as he watched them step back onto the deck.

Batten wasted no time, racing to the starboard side of the hull to help Dread tie the ropes. Sails also gathered momentum to fly up to the mainmast, pausing briefly when he noticed Catfish trotting alongside.

“I'm sorry, Sails. Didn't mean to shove you.”

He smiled, gripping a rope tightly in his metal hand. "Don't you worry, Catfish! I'm just glad you're alright." He extended his tails again to rise up onto the bonnet. "Now let's get out of this place in one piece."

At his words, his companion nodded more calmly and ran towards the port side of the hull, letting Sails finally fly to the highest part of the ship and lower all the sails to avoid being capsized by the strong winds. The only one he left even slightly furled was the center sail, this to get as far away as possible from this place of death. Especially if those old bilge rats had anything to do with it. And, in fact, if those five bothersome scallywags returned, it wouldn't be so bad to see Sonic again too.

Below, Captain Black had already taken full control of the helm while Batten and Dread finished tying down every loose barrel and closing every open hatch. Sails confirmed the completion of his own task by shouting from above, then raising his face to the sky and frowned at it.

He had a bad feeling that something like the incident with the multicolored gem was happening again. Seeing the buildings rising from the sea was obviously a bad omen, but he couldn't help feeling anxious now that there hadn't been any prior warning or sign that there was trouble. Again.

He wasn't thrilled to have those scallywags back. Ugh, weeds never die.

Sails relaxed his shoulders as the Angel's Voyage began to move more steadily, searching for an exit among the jumble of unfamiliar structures. The Captain managed to turn the ship toward an opening that still revealed a sliver of clear water when a loud crash came from somewhere within the buildings. His fur bristled inmediatly, thinking for a moment that the skies were finally collapsing. Sails clutched his chest while cursing under his breath, turning toward the sound and noticing an intense light atop one of the structures. With automatic movements, he reached for his monocular with his mechanical extra hand and raised it to his forehead, peering through the lens to figure out what in the seven seas that thing was.

Beyond the rectangular structures, a huge, luminous blue ring floated in the air. If Sails remembered correctly, these things were what they called portals, and the old eels had used them several times to reach No Place and attack them. Just like they were doing at that very moment, with all those horrible orange machines starting to emerge like fleeing fish.

Oh.

Oh, heavens!

Sails lowered his monocular, tensing his posture. "Uh… This ain’t good." He peered over the edge of his coif, raising his voice above the choppy waters. "Cap’n! Enemy fire in sight!"

Black Rose looked up, following the direction Sails was pointing. Although the portal was only a mile away at most, the invaders were dispersing very quickly among the structures that were still emerging from the water. And if Sails wasn’t mistaken now that the sun was gone and the horizon couldn’t be seen anymore, the South Island was in that direction too, precisely where they were trying to reach before all this broke loose.

There could be more ships in that direction.

Sails weighed whether that was good or bad, deciding that, from his crew's perspective, it would be advantageous. If the machines were distracted by other pirates, they could escape. Unfortunately, the seas didn’t seem to be on their side, as the number of invading robots was already exceeding what Sails could visually count. Another dreadful bit of news.

"HOLD FAST!" Black shouted at the top of her lungs, wrenching the wheel and turning the entire ship around.

Sails stumbled from the force of the turn before grabbing hold tightly to the wooden edge. On deck, everyone else also struggled to maintain their balance, managing to regain their composure as the Angel's Voyage began to move smoothly and straight ahead into the clear water.

Everyone cheered, celebrating that they’d managed to swing around one of the buildings that had surfaced almost beside them and finally escape the maze of structures. From there, Sails searched as quickly as he could for an escape route for the ship, noticing a very clear path between one cluster of buildings and another. Almost like an enormous river, though he hadn't seen rivers that big in a long time, and the ones he did see were artificial, but… ah. Right. They needed to get out of here.

He leaned out again from behind the crow's nest and took a deep breath before shouting once more, "Port side! I see a route off the port side!"

Captain Black nodded as she turned the wheel, the bow's nose veering sharply to left. It was the nearest opening to them in this artificial river. And once the ship reached open water, they could sail as far away from this area as possible. After that, well, Sails didn't really know what they would do once they were safe.

The last time they’d lived through something like this, someone had a reason for attacking, which at least told them who they were fighting against. Right now, they still didn’t have a clear sign of who might be behind this invasion. Although a simple glance to his right and Sails knew it really was the five old eels causing trouble in No Place again. That ugly picture stuck to a building, the silhouette of one of them, was proof enough.

Without a doubt, the worst surprise of the day. At this point, it wouldn’t hurt if Sonic showed up already, even just to explain what in the depths was going on. He was always there whenever there was trouble, and yet Sails was always very happy having him around.

Sails rubbed his forehead, a little worried as he looked at the poster of the leeches, and at the same time relieved that it was those bothersome scallywags causing trouble again and not—

"Ah!" Sails shuddered and again his body recoiled downwards as the same loud noise from before sounded once more without warning, startling him.

This time, Sails clearly saw the familiar shape of a peculiarly colored lightning bolt strike the water, far too far from the ship. Despite his fear, he kept his eyes half-open to witness the birth of a massive rock formation from the water, right where the lightning had struck. And that landmass was rising even higher than the Devil's Lighthouse, spraying seawater in every direction.

Sails choked at the breathtaking sight before him, his amazement interrupted by the sight of several jagged rocks rising up alongside the enormous mountain. His tails bristled when he noticed that the smaller elevations were forming a natural barrier along the river. Or perhaps unnatural, since they shouldn't have been rising up like that. Worse still, they were in the path being carved by those marine fangs.

For the seven seas.

"Cap’n! We have to veer away!" he shouted as his only warning.

Part of Sails hoped they really did have enough room to maneuver back toward the buildings. The other part knew, just by looking at the speed at which the rocks were emerging, that they weren't going to have time.

He instinctively closed his eyes, not daring to see if his crewmates could move the ship. His hands gripped the edge of the crow's nest tightly, even grasping his mechanical hand on one of the small railings. Then Sails screamed as the entire ship lurched, causing his little perch atop the mast to shake violently. The floor seemed to tilt, and that, combined with the erratic movement, was enough to send him tumbling down despite his desperate attempt to hold onto the crow's nest.

Sails gasped from the sudden change in gravity, unable to discern for a fleeting moment where up or down was until he crashed onto something that wasn't hardwood. He raised his dizzy head, instantly smiling when he saw Catfish catching him with his fluffy, steady hands. The cat nodded with an identical grin, gently setting him down on the deck floor. That was close.

Sails opened his mouth to thank his mate, but the words died in his throat when his eyes focused on the enormous, jagged chunk of rock that had ripped through a good portion of the main deck and the secondary starboard hull. The ship had been impaled and with no real possibility of freeing it. Or at least not as far as he could see. And even if they did, Sails knew the hole was too big to stay afloat. They would sink if they somehow managed to move the ship even slightly, which seemed impossible. They would have to completely wreck the wood, or… or break the rock.

Dread, in fact, dared to run up to the rocky boulder and start pounding on it with his knuckles, without any real success. Sails hesitated for a moment, trying to decide whether it would be right to abandon ship and hide among the invading buildings or look for a chance to save Angel's Voyage. Beside him, Batten also looked undecided, gripping her sword tightly as she seemed to debate whether to approach Dread and help him or pull him away from the rock. In the end, the bat turned to Black.

“Cap’n Rose, orders?”

Sails turned to his trusted Captain, noticing how she was still standing near the helm, her eyes darting around the deck and surrounding area. The place was far from safe, and they were far too exposed in that area. Worse still, Sails wanted to help suggest escape routes or solutions, but he found himself unable to do so when his fur bristled as he looked behind Black and saw several of those orange machines emerging from the cluster of buildings.

The fox drew his sword immediately, prompting the others to take up their guard as well. Even though those robots were flying over the rocky barrier and quickly moved between the red buildings, another group turned their heads toward their ship, stopping midair and beginning to approach them.

More rotten news.

Their captain frowned, looking at everyone with confidence and determination. "Let's tear these miserable buccaneers apart piece by piece and get out of here!"

For a moment here was a slight air of doubt among them all, but finally they ended up shouting in unison and raising their swords to the sky.

Sails soon took flight at the same time as the machine leading the charge stopped and, in a heavily artificial voice, said something like targets located. He really didn't understand what it said. Besides, it was better to ignore how terrifying those words sounded and instead join his mates and wipe out these metal leeches.

At least all the experience he’d gained fighting countless robots was finally going to be useful.

The machines halted in midair once they reached the ship, activating those familiar energy-spewing antennas. Sails sped toward them and dodged a blast from one of the things. He quickly mimicked Batten's move, slicing the antennas off several machines in a swift, straight line with the razor-sharp blade of his weapon. Limbs flew off instantly, plummeting into the turbulent water. Sails smiled contentedly, pushing one of the robots with his legs as Batten helped him send the things to the bottom of the sea after tearing off their heads.

Below them both came Dread's battle cry as he launched himself into a flurry of punches and saber attacks on the enemies who had landed near the deck. Sails growled instinctively, swooping down and slashing his sword with a sharp sound, driving it hard into the face of the third robot that had set its hideous feet on the Angel's Voyage. He leaped over the mangled, sparking head and then took flight again, moving out of the way, just as Dread did, so that Catfish could fire one of the cannons at the three cursed invaders.

They all came flying out like a pile of shattered wood.

Sails shouted victoriously with his sword raised high, turning his focus back to the machines still in the air to help Batten again when he suddenly froze. In that area, his Captain and Batten were doing a good job disarming the remaining flying robots, with Black having stolen one of those small blasters and wielding it again just like she once had alongside her sister from another world. However, what stopped him was seeing even more enemies, now blue, flying toward them. Many more than they could possibly handle.

His instinct told him he should warn Black, and he took long enough to react that it was Dread who gave the warning.

"Cap’n Rose! More enemies approaching!" Dread climbed atop one of the destroyed machines, maintaining his smiling expression despite his posture had become tense.

Sails drifted backward in the air, glancing nervously at his Captain. She turned her head toward the line of flying enemies, leaping back onto the deck. Everyone waited expectantly until Black raised her sword once more.

“We protect the ship! We can’t abandon her!”

A small jolt hit Sails in the stomach. He didn't think it was in their best interest to keep their foot on the cannon. I mean, it was true that Angel's Voyage was important to the crew. Especially after they returned to No Place and saw their ship intact again, as if it had never been torn apart plank by plank. It was practically their home, all of theirs, but…

Sails looked ahead as he noticed Dread approaching the Captain, his face barely tilting toward her. It was fortunate that Sails still had good hearing in his left ear, or he would have missed what his former Captain hissed to the hedgehog.

“Black Rose, sometimes there be things more important to protect.”

Their Captain perked up her ears, glancing for a moment at Dread before turning her gaze back to the line of enemies.

Sails tightened his grip on his weapon's handle, expectant. Since the echidna had stepped down from leadership, he’d had far more time to himself, which had helped him genuinely grow closer to the entire crew. Something Sails was now grateful for, as Captain Black seemed to be reconsidering her initial order. And, truthfully, if she were to ask Sails, he'd say it would be best to retreat and regroup for a counterattack later.

It wasn't like they could get their hands on a flying ship again to give them the advantage. So far he hadn’t seen a single one soaring through the furious skies. Everything about this was completely different from last time.

Finally, when the brightest colored machines were about to reach them, Black turned towards them all, raising her sword in the direction of the buildings.

“Abandon ship! Don’t let them take anyone alive!”

Relief washed completely through Sails.

He stopped flying to return to the deck, running alongside Batten before they stopped when they saw Dread brake beside the cannon that Catfish rolled near the stern.

Dread smiled at everyone, flashing his gold tooth. "But first, let’s make sure this pile of disgusting, rotten barnacles don't follow us."

Sails exchanged a glance with Batten, his face lighting up as he heard the Captain shout in agreement.

“Arr! Smartly there! Let's send this swarm of leeches down to Davy Jones!”

Everyone let out a collective “Arr!” and immediately spread out, taking up positions as quickly as possible. Catfish hauled another cannon from the port side, while Dread brought one from starboard. Sails began loading the ammunition with the help of his Captain, while Batten moved the cannons to aim at the engines.

He placed the final charge before stepping aside. Batten positioned herself in front of him, forcing him back slightly. Everyone else also took a couple of steps back, their sharp eyes fixed on the blue robots. Sails tensed his leg muscles in case they needed to run. Or fly, in this case.

He held his breath for a couple of seconds, peering anxiously between Dread's hand, which was about to activate the cannons, and the machines. They were getting closer and closer. Far too close. Sails even wondered for a moment if they were really going to fire at them. And just as he took another step back, the echidna lit the fuses and the three heavy cannons sent the ammunition flying through the air, producing a dull, intense sound.

Sails flattened his ear against his head, raising his mechanical hand in front of himself while using his right hand to unsuccessfully reach for Batten, all thanks to the force of the explosion that pushed them backward. His body slammed against the splintered wood, rolling a short distance before crashing onto the rough surface of the rock that had pierced his boat. He gasped at the impact.

He’d almost forgotten that every adventure involving those portals, robots, or Sonic hurt a whole lot.

He hissed through gritted teeth as someone pulled him to his feet, beginning to drag him away from the explosion. A faint ringing settled in his ears, muffling the voices of his crewmates. Lacking that good sense, Sails blinked several times to get his surroundings. The first thing he saw was Batten's arm, holding his and guiding him toward the edge of the deck. Then he noticed the rest of his crew, running in the same direction.

Having his senses rattled made Sails feel like they were moving in slow motion. At least the buzzing seemed to be subsiding, and thanks to that, he could hear more clearly. That's why his ear pricked up when he caught a faint click behind them. His head turned more slowly than he expected, taking advantage of being behind the entire crew to get a good look at the pile of scrap metal they were leaving behind. Although, in reality… there was no scrap metal.

Sails choked on his breath, nervously watching the cloud of smoke from the explosion as it slowly dissipated. His stomach churned as he noticed a soft blue light between the drifting fumes, revealing a kind of transparent wall that had shielded the machines from the cannon fire. And the moment that light went out and the robots raised a hand with a glowing weapon, everything seemed to move again at a normal speed for Sails.

The enemies fired.

“Move!”

Taking advantage of Batten holding his hand, Sails yanked her forcefully toward his undamaged secondary hull, hoping his warning had come in time. They both tumbled to the ground, thankfully without a scratch on either of them, except maybe for a few bruises. Seeing his crewmate unharmed brought Sails a brief moment of relief, for the next instant his blood ran cold at the sound of his Captain's sharp, terrifying scream.

“Catfish!”

Sails spun his head so fast he felt a sharp pain in the back of his neck, which he ignored. Where they had all been running together, now only Catfish stood, trapped inside a strange, blue, transparent sphere. Black quickly ran to him and slashed her sword at the blue wall, failing to even scratch him. Sails tightened his grip on his own weapon too, about to help his mate out when he felt someone pull him back. At the same time, Dread yelled at the Captain and shoved her out of the way.

Another burst of gunfire erupted, and one barely grazed Sails. If Batten hadn’t hauled him into the air, he would’ve been trapped too.

Sails spun his tails to take flight on his own, breathing a sigh of relief when he saw that both Dread and Black had taken cover behind the rock that had impaled the ship. Still, he was terrified looking at Catfish inside that blue thing. They needed to get him out of there and leave now.

The fox glanced at his two free crewmates and then at the flying machines, beginning to form a half-baked plan in his head. Sails turned to the bat and brandished his sword. "Batten! Let's tear these leeches while they get Catfish out!”

Batten hesitated for a second before raising her sword with a confident look. "Arr! You heard him, scallywags!"

Sails smiled at his mate before launching himself in sync with her against the cursed machines, confirming with just a quick glance that his Captain and Dread had also begun to move. Certain they two were close to Catfish now, he turned his completely attention back to his shared task with Batten.

The two of them clumsily dodged the new blue blasts aimed at them, performing a couple of barrel rolls that the bat would undoubtedly be proud of, since she had worked hard teaching him those maneuvers. When Sails got close enough to a robot, he raised his sword to destroy its antennae again, colliding instead with that annoying blue barrier.

He growled, immediately backing away as he saw another enemy trying to reach out for him. He slashed at the sharpened limb with his sword, narrowly dodging one of the blue shots. Behind him, Batten caught his attention.

“Sails! Catch it!”

Turning just in time, the fox used his mechanized hand and his left to catch the device Batten threw at him mid-air. Sails recognized it as one of the robots' elongated weapons that produced electric shocks. Oh, brilliant! Now he was going to destroy them without any trouble.

He sheathed his sword and properly positioned the electric weapon in his hands, strangely happy to be holding one of these things again.

Sails let out his own war cry and smashed the weapon into the head of the nearest enemy. That bothersome shield didn't activate in time, and the upper part of the robot flew violently into the water, splashing everywhere. Emboldened by his accomplishment, he slammed the rest of the flying body into the machines behind it. He didn't pause to watch them all crash, focusing his attention on the next enemy and looking to ram it with the stolen weapon.

He lunged forward and slammed the tip of the device against the shield, but that didn't stop him. Sails immediately pressed the mechanism that, according to him, activated the electrical shocks. Instead, the weapon fired a bullet of that blue energy, instantly making contact with the barrier. Sails didn't have time to move or understand what had happened, falling backward the instant the two energies reacted and caused a minor explosion. He rolled a second time on the deck, beginning to feel the pain in his back.

Blimey, it hurt more than he expected.

Feeling a sharp pain throughout his spine, Sails began to struggle to recover quickly. He straightened his posture as best he could upon hearing Batten's voice from above, hoping not to worry her too much.

“Sails! Are you alright?”

He raised his head, nodding confidently. "Yes! Don't you worry. Let's keep—Watch out!"

Sails stood up as quickly as he could, hating how slow his hands were to raise the weapon and fire at the hideous robot that was pointed at Batten. And because his crewmate was focused on him, she couldn't turn in time, changing her expression to one of surprise as she suddenly found herself encased in a sphere similar to Catfish's and slamming hard onto the deck.

"Batten!" Sails dropped the weapon, trying to run towards her and failing when something grabbed him from the back of his neck and forced him to hit the deck.

He groaned painfully from the sudden movement, lifting his head just in time to see Dread keep one of his hands on him and use the other to throw his own sword in a clean shot, striking the robot that had targeted Sails square in the head. Although the machine began to smoke and crashed to the ground, there were six or seven others still pointing at them all. Sails tried a second time to approach his friend, starting to growl when Dread still wouldn't let go and was instead dragging him backward.

Why didn't he understand that needed to free them? If he’d managed to break the blue shield with the electric weapon, then he could break the spheres too! He knew how now. Please, he just needed—

"Dread!" Batten braced both hands against the blue wall. "Get out of here! Take him away!"

No. Wait, no.

Sails thrashed in his former Captain's arms, barely hearing what he was saying or what Black seemed to be shouting amidst the commotion. He didn't even care that his vision was blurring the more he longed to get back to the prisons of his two mates.

They could still try to save them, by Poseidon. They still could.

"Black Rose!" Dread gasped, struggling with Sails. “Abandon ship!”

"NO!" Sails' voice broke. "Captain, don’t—!”

Black stood still, staring with intense fear at the two blue spheres they hadn't been able to break. Sails wanted to tell her that he could free them, that they only needed to wait a little longer and they could all escape together. But, he was unable to say anything, as Dread suddenly tightened his grip and threw Sails far away, sending him crashing to the ground for the third time.

There was a sequence of very brief, confused screams. Then, when Sails finally raised his head, he was met with an increasingly grim scene. He saw his Captain rolling across the deck just as he himself had moments ago, and where she had been standing almost moments before, Dread was now on his knees with his hands outstretched, enveloped in a new blue sphere.

Black stumbled as she stood up. "NO!"

Sails also had difficulty getting to his feet, although that mattered very little to him now that he was free and could run back to the electric weapon and use it to take everyone out, completely missing the way Dread shook his head at Black and stopped her in her tracks.

For one brief moment, Sails thought he would manage to return to the main deck and free his crew. But the next instant, he felt his Captain's iron grip on his wrist, dragging him with her familiar strength toward the edge of the ship.

“No, wait! No—!”

He stumbled, trying unsuccessfully to stop. His muscles tensed as he watched Black jump overboard, a pang of guilt sinking in him as he realized his own reflexes had made him mimic her actions without thinking.

They both fell into the water, which had calmed down enough.

His Captain began to swim very fast, still pulling him by the hand. Sails choked on the water, and the burning sensation from before returned as he struggled to stay afloat. His stomach churned, thinking he could still make it back up there and save his mates. He didn't even want to listen to his damn head telling him his tails were soaked now and he couldn't fly as fast. He still could!

Black's grip tightened as she pulled them both under the water. Sails barely managed to catch his breath, nearly losing it as he saw several shots hit the surface, right where they had been just moments before. He swam faster instinctively, grabbing onto his Captain with his mechanical arm so he wouldn’t lose her. When she noticed his grip, she finally let go of his hand and started swimming hard toward the invading buildings.

They both reached the side of a building just in time, as they were already running out of air. Sails coughed between hid gasps while Black also caught her breath. She didn't take long to grab his hand again, pulling them both even closer to the buildings and trying to find a hiding place in the tall shadows.

Sails swam more to stay afloat than out of genuine desire, as it was beginning to feel really numb. Which was strange, because he’d always been a good swimmer.

He obeyed his Captain when she motioned for silence once they were both under some kind of sturdy awning on a building, hidden from whatever cursed machine might be searching for them. The two of them stayed still in the water, listening to the sounds of those things moving about nearby.

The time they spent there could have been the same as the time he felt each time he watched an hourglass ticking away a cycle, and yet Sails still couldn’t fully process what had happened . He even wondered if this was a nightmare and he would wake up at any moment. It had all happened so suddenly and without warning that it wouldn't be surprising if he were dreaming. The worst part was that when he pinched himself underwater with his extra hand and nothing changed when he felt the pain, he began to understand that this was really happening.

Those bilge rats were causing trouble again. And they went for them. They went for his only family.

He… he didn't understand.

I mean, yeah, they were heavily involved the last time there was trouble with the multicolored gem. But… Why?

Why come back? Why hurt them?

They didn’t even have the shiny blue beauty in their hands anymore! They had nothing those scoundrels could possibly want! Not their troublesome flying ship, nor anything else they wanted.

So why…?

Sails swallowed hard, tensing his body as he felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned his head and saw his Captain looking at him sadly while bringing her other hand to Sails' face. It was then that he realized he was crying, even though his fur was still soaked from swimming, Black had noticed and immediately tried comforting him.

He felt his lip tremble, still clinging to the childlike hope that none of this was happening. That any moment he would open his eyes and be asleep in the hammock tied up near the stern, enjoying the gentle rocking of the boat until they reached the South Island and restocked supplies. And even if they were being invaded again, they could fight back, because last time they had taught those leeches a lesson and reclaimed their home.

Blimey! They were all going to meet their end because of that multicolored diamond, and they emerged victorious. Why do they suddenly appear and take away his mates? His family? They had won and exiled the five leeches. They…

“Easy now, Sails. It’s alright. I’m here.” Black whispered to him, gently embracing him as they continued floating in the water.

His throat closed up and he finally broke into sobs, clutching tightly to the only friend he had left. Nothing was happening the same as last time, which only intensified his fear. He couldn’t shake the feeling that something was truly wrong this time. And this time they took his mates. They took everything.

Sails wished, for a moment, that the others from the others worlds could help them.

More than a week had passed and No Place still hadn't received any help.

Sails spent the first few days wondering if Sonic would reappear out of nowhere, like the first time they met him, and fight alongside them again to reduce those five scallywags to a bunch of cowards. But, as time passed, he realized that this time they were going to have to save themselves.

Both he and Black had managed to return to the wrecked Angel's Voyage a couple of days after the invasion ended. Since that afternoon, the sky had remained clouded over, with no sign of the sun's rays returning. It was becoming somewhat difficult to keep track of the time. Even so, Sails had his careful record of the date among the pile of parchments he had collected, each one covered with different notes and information.

His eyes focused on the page that counted the number of times he'd seen the orange machines take prisoners through a specific door of the enormous red, metallic egg in the center of the city. He'd been spying on those things from the top of a coastal factory, managing to take note of the movements at that entrance and how often they opened it.

First, they captured the pirates who kept rebelling. Then, they locked them in those ugly blue spheres, keeping them all in the same building near the bay—or at least that's what Sails could tell. Finally, always at the same time, as far as he could tell, a whole group of robots would emerge, each carrying a sphere, and marching through the city until they reached the rotten central egg.

Truth be told, Sails felt the prisoners were kept so exposed to instill fear. And it was working, because he'd seen the same fear he felt in several other pirates when they looked at those spheres. Every time someone crossed those doors, they were never seen again. Just like his own crewmates.

He inhaled deeply, shaking his head to refocus on the data he had gathered. He already had what he needed to know where to go and when to invade. All he needed was to figure out how to get from the coastal factories to the distant rotten egg. And, of course, learning the new terrain.

Though all the waterways between the buildings (which the leeches called avenues) still carried flowing water, the annoying little scallywag controlling this side had made every form of transportation aerial. No one could move between the buildings except in his flying machines and boats. Anything that floated on the water was confiscated. And, anyway, the sea was starting to look murky and dirty, and no one wanted to sail there anymore.

Sails groaned inwardly, as he did every time he saw the beautiful waters of No Place grow darker with each passing day. Those eels were damaging his home without even blinking. It made him want to drive his sword straight through their—

Oh.

His ear twitched sharply when he heard a thud outside, cutting off his train of thought.

He turned his head toward the hatch that led to the ship's deck and stood still for a long moment, watching it. A moment later, he heard the correct sequence of knocks. Two in quick succession, a pause, and then four more. That's how he knew it was his Captain Black trying to get in, and not someone else.

Sails hurried through the dark interior of the ship to the wooden stairs, unlocking the hatch and lifting it so his shipmate could enter. She jumped in and immediately closed the opening, keeping one hand stubbornly resting on her other arm. Sails frowned, his eyes widening when he noticed a tinge of red amid the pink.

“Cap’n Black! What happened to you?”

She smiled gently at him before walking over to a barrel and sitting down on it. “Easy there, Sails. Just a cut." Black removed her hand, revealing a long gash near her elbow. "I wasn't paying attention and they managed to land a hit.”

"Who?" Sails quickly approached her, taking out the handkerchief he always carried inside his vest and trying to place it over his Captain's wound.

"Some desperate buccaneer." Black shrugged, cleaning her wound herself. "But hey. I've brought news."

He pursed his lips, wanting to keep pressing the issue and find out who had dared hurt his kind Captain. Unfortunately, he knew she wouldn't back down, so Sails sighed and sat down on the barrel next to her.

“And… what did you find?”

Black smiled slightly, brightening her posture. "Only two of those old eels are here, not all five. And they're not even together. Each one is hiding in its own egg on either side of the rock barrier."

"Oh..." Sails crossed his arms and brought his extra hand to his chin. "They… split up so they could spread farther, don't you think? Maybe that's why no one has come to help us. They could be causing trouble everywhere."

“Aye… that’s what I think too.” His Captain shrugged, leaning back against the wooden beam behind her. “Everyone’s probably in danger. And they must be using the colorful beauty, too. Folks keep talking about how the new corsairs and the blue machines have that strange light they use to attack us. Same as that scoundrel did.”

Ah.

Not again.

Sails dropped his stance, fully aware of what his Captain was implying. And yes, maybe he too had considered at some point that, uh, Nine might be involved. Still, to him, this surprise invasion and the complete lack of help didn't seem to fit with what his counterpart had done the first time.

When they fought, Nine made it clear that his purpose wasn't to conquer worlds or impose his will on them. He was… his counterpart had been… scared. And alone. After Sails spoke with him, it didn't seem to him that Nine intended to seek revenge on everyone, so it's very likely that he's not involved in this. Or at least that's what he hoped. Sails wouldn't want those damned leeches trying to hurt his counterpart too when he hadn't done anything wrong this time.

Anyway, no one had any way of knowing anything about the others, so his mates were his top priority above all else. Though that didn't mean he would remain silent.

Sails crossed his arms, raising an eyebrow. "I thought we already agreed that this time only the five bilge rats seemed to be involved."

Black snorted. Then her gaze seemed to blaze with her usual restrained anger. "You can't blame me, Sails! That scoundrel made a similar mess with that shiny gem. You tell me, how do we have proof he's not involved in this again? Not to mention he tried to take you all prisoner once, and what happened now? Our crew's prisoners! That scallywag could very well be behind this.”

Sails rolled his eyes too. “Well, we don’t have proof of the opposite either, do we? And you just told me only those old eels are here.” He lifted his chin, raising an eyebrow. “So the odds of Nine being involved are fifty-fifty, leaning more toward ‘not involved’ because he promised to leave us alone.”

The ones who didn't promise anything were the old eels. And since they let them go free, but exiled, they could have done something. Hell, maybe they should’ve locked them up in prisons instead of just kicking their backsides far away from everyone.

Be that as it may, Black had different opinions.

His Captain's eyes narrowed, piercing him with her gaze. “I don’t trust him. And if I find out he hurt my crew, this time we’ll make him sleep with the fishes.”

Sails shrank back and remained silent for a moment, weighing his Captain's words. While his gut feeling insisted that his counterpart must be innocent this time, he also didn't want to blindly trust him and put all his faith in it. There were reasons to suspect Nine.

Even so, Sails would give him the benefit of the doubt.

“Well. If… if he is involved, I won’t forgive him for hurting my crewmates either, and I won’t object to making him pay. But if he isn’t, then… you won’t hurt him, right?”

Black twitched, looking like she'd just tasted a very sour lemon. She stayed like that for a long time until she sighed and rubbed her forehead. "Argh, fine. Suppose that’s fair." Her lips puffed into a pout as she crossed her arms. "But he better not show his ugly face around here or I'll make him walk the plank."

"Excuse me?" Sails' voice turned sharp with indignation. "You do realize his face is also my face?

Black let out a short laugh, stretching out her arm to hug him from the side. "Aye, but you're far more adorable, Sails." She rubbed the tip of her nose against the side of his head.

“H-hey! Cut it out!” As much as he hated being doted on like that, Sails couldn't help but giggle at the gesture as he tried to squirm away.

They both smiled contentedly after separating, letting their discussion fade. Any serious conversation or argument was put aside for the moment. It wasn't until one of their few wax candles burned out that they both returned to the urgent matter at hand.

“We need to get them back, Sails.”

“I know.” His ear flattened as his tails slowly drooped to the floor.

"Listen." Black softened her expression, placing a hand on his shoulder. "It's going to be difficult, so we need to accomplish two objectives before we carry out our heist. First, figure out how to reach that rotten metal egg, and second, gather information about the area as we get closer to the center. We study the enemy before we send them to Davy Jones.”

"And that's what we'll do." Sails clenched his hands into fists, nodding with great determination to his Captain. “I’ll handle transportation.” He smiled, bringing his metal hand to his forehead in salute.

“And I’ll handle gathering information.” Black said, letting out a soft chuckle. "If the tides are in our favor, we could recover our crew in just a few days.”

Sails' face lit up, his tails swishing excitedly once more. Once they'd rescued the others, they were going to escape this horrible place. If that was even possible. From what he'd heard the rotten robots boasting, all of No Place had fallen under the control of those scallywags.

No one knew if it was possible to escape them, so going far away might not be the solution. The important thing is that it might be worth trying. But until then…

Sails had already begun mapping out ways to move between the buildings without being detected. Once he figured that out, and his Captain gathered the necessary information, they would set off for the metal egg.

They were going to rescue their crewmates very soon.

Four weeks had passed since the invasion, and they still hadn’t managed to rescue their crewmates.

Surviving in a world invaded by unfamiliar technology and being forced to adopt a lifestyle they weren't used to was making everything incredibly difficult. Especially since plenty of pirates were also making things worse by kissing the soles of the leeches’ boots.

After all, there are no pirates in a world without gold, and those two scoundrels who had everyone bowing down knew it. They had many eating out of the palm of their gloved, hideous hands by giving them gold. It was a pity for those canny bastards that pirates were experienced thieves and would not hesitate to plunder the traitors.

Sails smiled inwardly, twitching his ear at the low clinking of the stolen bag of gold while he checked his own little pouches containing the supplies he’d requested: a couple of grams of perfectly wrapped rosehips and a few more grams of flour. He smiled contentedly and, perhaps, with a touch of malice at the little trap he was about to set for anyone who dared enter the Angel's Voyage.

The ship may have been wrecked, but it was still an important part of his crew.

He closed the small pouches again, nodding toward his Captain before moving back to the rear of the room and sitting on the floor. Once there, Sails began to properly secure the short strap around his goods when he heard a muffled voice beside him.

“What’re you gonna use that for, Sails?”

He looked up from his seat on the floor. Beside him were the members of Captain Fang's crew, the owner of the tavern where they handled trades and to whom they practically had to pay for every map of the rotten egg’s interior.

Argh. He still hadn't forgotten the metaphorical blow he and Black felt when the old squirrel, the one who was helping them with information and understanding the new structure of No Place, asked them if they already knew how they were going to move around inside the metal egg when they went in.

Blimey, it was like a slap in the face to realize that neither of them had absolutely no idea what to do once they got past the prisoners’ entrance. It was, uh, a rookie mistake.

Sails gently swayed his tails while preparing to answer Sark, who was drawing the maps for them, when that idiot Rubber interfered, playing with his rusted knife as usual and moving his long rabbit ears, always ready to know when to start bothering him.

“Bet he wants to bake a pie, eh Sails? Maybe somebody’ll join what’s left of your crew.”

His companion, Cupper, immediately laughed through his enormous teeth, even for a marmot, ignoring Sark's reprimand.

Sails tensed, with an immediate urge to punch those damned scoundrels for daring to speak ill of his crew. Unfortunately, he couldn't do that without risking being kicked out for several days, so he forced himself to take a deep breath before bowing his head to the pair of idiots. He waited until they had finished laughing before speaking.

"And has anyone joined your crew yet? Because, as far as I know, you haven't been able to recruit anyone in years. Your Cap’n must be disappointed, don't you think?"

He ignored the rabbit's low hiss, refocusing on properly arranging the small merchandise his Captain was paying for. It took Sails time to learn that sometimes it was best to ignore loudmouthed brutes, especially now that he could defend himself and had mates to defend him.

It was precisely for those mates that he endured coming to the tavern every four days. They hadn't abandoned him, and now he wouldn't abandon them either. One way or another, he was going to get them back, no matter the cost. Literally.

The murmurs beside him fell silent when they heard the short scrape of a chair against the wood. Sails glanced up just enough to notice that Captain Fang had shifted slightly to look at his crew and silence them with a glare, immediately returning his attention to his conversation with Black and counting the gold. This action made him inwardly snort, because even though the wolf pretended to be kind to the two of them, he was actually worse than Rubber or Cupper.

Sails wasn't so naive as to not have noticed the disgust in the wolf’s eyes the first time he walked into the tavern. No matter how much time passed, he could recognize that kind of revulsion anywhere. He only treated them well because of the amount of gold they were handing over.

Bloody barnacle.

Wrinkling his face as he fiddled with the fabric of his little pouches, Sails unconsciously curled his tails tighter, his stomach churning with nerves as it always did when he came here, all because he had to leave behind his belt with the little mechanical hand back at the ship. It was too dangerous for him to go out now with his contraption.

The appearance of new pirate-shaped machines the same size as all of them, courtesy of the old eels, made people nervous, so if they saw him carrying his mechanized hand, they might attack him.

Though some didn't even need that excuse to want to hurt him.

Sails sighed, with his attention returning to the present when Sark managed to pull the other two idiots far enough away, apologizing on their behalf before asking him again what the rosehip powder and flour were for. Sails' face brightened after giving the other two pirates one last look of disgust. Sark was the only one who treated him kindly out of everyone there.

He made sure to lower his voice so only the pirate wrapped head-to-toe in cloth could hear him. “Well. These are for a trap. Remember when I told you our ship now has a huge hole?” He received a nod from the other. “Well, we can’t let anyone aboard. So I’ve been setting up a small rope-trigger system against intruders. These.” He patted the small pouches carefully. “Be the ingredients for a smoke bomb that will give a lot of trouble to anyone who wants to sneak up behind us.”

Sails smiled, knowing his traps weren’t exactly the finest crafted, but they weren't bad either. So far, they’d worked well. Those three pirate thieves who'd tried sneaking aboard days ago had been remarkably polite test subjects, slinking away with their tails between their legs when the two of them taught them a lesson. So yes, Sails was very proud of his system.

Though… while he was happy to see his creation working, he still regretted having badly damaged the Angel’s Voyage. In the end, it turned out that developing a means of transport that could blend in with those created by the scallywags took more time, and materials, than he had anticipated.

Sails' lips curled slightly as he recalled having to tear off, with his Captain's help, the secondary hull that remained intact. That was what caused the enormous hole; in protecting the wood for their future ship, the left side of what had been the Angel's Voyage was now in pieces, with a gaping hole so large that anyone could enter unnoticed. The fox knew perfectly well that covering the hole with wooden planks or pieces of cloth was best. If it was sealed, they were safe. But that would also make it obvious that someone had tampered with the ship and, therefore, that someone might be hiding there. So, the best option was to leave the opening exposed, much to his dismay.

If the ship was already damaged, what difference did an extra hole make? Thanks to that, they now had many traps near that entrance.

The other pirate nodded in agreement with everything Sails continued to tell him about the structure of his traps and how the construction of the Angel's Voyage II was progressing. He confided how close he felt to recovering his mates and thanked Sark directly for doing them the favor of mapping the interior of the metal egg and navigating it without getting lost before pausing there for a moment.

"Hey." Sails scratched his cheek. "Can I ask you something?"

"You already are, matey." Sark laughed.

Sails rolled his eyes with a small smile, knowing he was joking. "Fine then, tell me. How do you manage to get inside the metal egg and map its interior without being caught? From what I've heard, the pirates say the place is full of metal corsairs and blue robots. It's difficult to get close without the alarm going off immediately. So…" He raised an eyebrow, waiting for the answer.

“Oh.” Sark straightened up, tapping his black hat with a finger, though even then his face remained in its shadow, completely hidden.

He leaned close to Sails, glancing around and making the fox feel he was about to hear something important. Then, when the older pirate raised a hand to emphasize secrecy, Sails increased the twitching of his tails, intrigued. "That's…" He paused for a long time, heightening the mystery as he lowered his voice. "…a secret."

Ah…

Sails let his shoulders slump, his tails hanging still. He couldn't help but curl his lips as his eyebrow arched as high as it would go, sending his most annoyed glare at the other pirate. Even if the other's face was obscured by his hat, Sails could bet the pirate was smiling, or at the very least, laughing.

Without thinking much, he punched Sark, crossing his arms and hugging his knees.

"Alright, alright, I’m sorry." He whispered, laughing and throwing both hands up in the air. "But I can tell you a more important secret."

Sails wrinkled his face even more, not wanting to fall into his trap again. Still, he ended up twitching his ear, encouraging the other to speak.

The older pirate straightened his posture, looking more serious and genuinely careful that his mates didn't overhear. Sails turned around a second time, listening intently.

"Listen. That red egg isn't as safe as everyone thinks." Sark paused, glancing at the table. "I know you know more about how all those flying things work. I don't, so I don't know how they manage to make that thing float without touching the water."

"The dome flies?" Sails spoke in a high-pitched tone, opening his eyes.

"Aye. They don't let any metal touch the darkened sea even a little, so… let's just say the entire lower section it's the least secure place and the easiest to get into. Relatively speaking, because you could fall into the black water, and that would be the worst fate imaginable." The pirate shuddered. "Anyway." He leaned against the wall. "I'm telling you this in case you need another way in. Or out."

Blimey. That…

Sails perked up his free ear, blinking several times while processing the new information.

It was… somewhat true that he was beginning to understand the mechanism that allowed some of the corsairs’ transport platforms to fly. He was even managing to integrate it into Angel’s Voyage II, however… something capable of holding up many tons of metal? It must have been a really powerful system or something with an enormous energy source.

And in fact…

Sails immediately remembered the multicolored gem (by Poseidon, he was terrible at remembering the name of that thing unless it was Dread's Beauty). Whenever it came to that thing, the five leeches seemed desperate for the power it gave them to keep all their technology running. Not to mention that Nine also demonstrated just how incredibly powerful that gem was.

And Sails wasn't an idiot. It was already obvious that this invasion and the lack of signals from the other worlds were closely related to that diamond. What he didn't know was why it happened or how they would be able to overcome that power again. The only thing he could think was that, hopefully, those bilge rats had a limit to how long they could use that power.

Well, at least that's what Sails expected, given that those eels mentioned several times that their energy was running out, and that Nine also seemed to tire after using it a lot. That gem had to have some limit, right? The question was how far that limit stretched. Not even the sea could be infinite.

Sails muttered his thoughts under his breath before abruptly raising his head when he heard his Captain's voice.

“That’s all, Sails. Time to withdraw.”

"Oh!" He stood up more eagerly, adjusting his pouches. "Aye aye." He turned to the other pirate, who also stood up. "Until next time, Sark. And thank you."

He nodded. "Fair winds on your voyage." He rubbed Sails' shoulder and then bowed his head to Black. "Cap’n  Rose."

She returned the gesture, gently pushing Sails from behind. As they passed near the other two, Cupper seemed unable to resist one last annoyed remark.

“Hey, Sails. Don't forget to bring us some cake. Maybe it'll feed the dead fish.”

Their stupid laughter filled the air again, causing Sails to roll his eyes as he continued walking without giving them another glance. His Captain, meanwhile, paused for a moment to pierce them with her gaze before continuing to walk and turning towards him with a raised eyebrow.

“What’re they talking about? A cake?”

Sails sighed dramatically as they walked down the corridor toward the tavern. "Long story."

And unnecessary. Anyway, Sails was already smiling inwardly at the thought of kindly sharing what he planned to do with his ingredients. If they want some so badly, why not give them a taste.

Might be fun.

Six weeks had passed since the invasion, and the most funny thing in all this time was watching Fang's two crew idiots cough and scratch themselves like the flea-ridden creatures they are after he dumped the crushed rosehip on them.

They’d were a pair of mighty helpful test subjects to find out how much rosehip use in his smoke bombs without causing actual irritation to the intruders. He wanted to scare the looters, not give them hives.

Having fun at their expense was worth enough to being banned from the tavern for a couple of days. And Sails didn't regret a thing, if he was honest. Anyway, they only lacked two pieces to complete the map now, so he wouldn't have to see those scallyways again.

He smiled freely again as the memory of those idiots crying like sirens returned to his mind. He was alone, so he could mock them all he wanted.

He sighed contentedly after mentally reviewing their expressions one last time, letting his eyes wander over the corner he claimed as his own inside the Angel's Voyage. Several pieces of blue and orange metal rested on the barrels, while one of the robots he had stolen lay on the floor. Or at least what was left of the machine. Sails had managed to render it unusable for experimenting after bringing it aboard the ship very much against the wishes of his Captain.

It wasn't his fault he had to be occupied while Black earned enough gold to return to the tavern. Or maybe it was. Either way, he was going to make up for it with his new defensive creations.

He gritted his teeth, concentrating again as he held several pieces with his mechanized arm. On the swollen piece of wood were the other parts of one of the blue robot's limbs, scattered without any specific order, and one of the orange antennas that was already active. His fingers moved carefully, though he wasn't making much progress.

"Come on... work, you piece of seaweed." Sails hissed as he tried to reconnect the wires of one of the blue antennas, finally managing to make it spark and then the tip light up. "Aye! That’s it!"

His laughter echoed inside the Angel's Voyage as his tails wagged with joy. The small artifact now glowed with that white light tinged with blue that he now recognized as the energy of the multicolored gem. Sails knew now that everything here depended on the gem thanks to the blue-mustached eel. The idiot used to brag a lot on his screens that his 'special power source' would lead them to a technological utopia. What a fish-brained fool.

Sails set the antenna aside, its illuminated tip pointing upwards to avoid accidentally burning anything. Then he grabbed the inactive head of the machine and started repeating the process of fiddling with the wires, trying to activate the strange shield they created every time they defended themselves from attacks. He tinkered with them for several long minutes until, suddenly, the blue barrier flickered to life, startling Sails.

"Wow! Alright." He steadied the head so it wouldn’t fall. "That’ll do nicely."

A smile spread across his face again as he adjusted the wires to keep the shield powered. Once ready, he grasped the orange antenna first with his mechanical arm, holding the illuminated tip close. Carefully, he began to bring it closer to the shield, his tongue clenched between his teeth as his face creased in concentration.

It was the first time he manipulated the blue machines charged with the power of the gem. Until now he had only used the orange robots that ran on normal power, so his precautions had to be greater.

But, for now, neither the shield nor the antenna tip reacted in any way, remaining as normal as they should be: a shield protecting and a weapon ready to attack. The blue barrier didn't even flinch when Sails fired a short shot from the orange antenna, and the projectile only disintegrated upon contact with the transparent shield. So… the old machines were useless against the gem's energy, so he would have to try the blue antenna he had just activated.

Sails carefully set down the orange device and gently picked up the blue one. He brought the activated antenna cannon as close as possible to the shield, noticing that just as they were about to touch, the point of contact made his hands tremble more and more. Almost immediately, he moved the antenna away, with no intention of causing an explosion.

Yet.

Sails sighed and opened the little notebook he’d improvised for himself. "So… the gem's energy repels itself. Like when I destroyed his shield…"

He scratched his head with his graphite pencil, glancing sideways at the active antenna. While he had no idea why it reacted this way or why they repelled each other, given that they were the same type of power, it was enough for him to know that he could break the shields with a blast of that energy. If it worked before, it would work again.

He put down his pencil and paper again, shaking the dirt from his hands before placing them on his hips. He peered between the head with the still-active shield and the robot blue arm shaped like a cannon. Sails debated for a few minutes whether it would be wise to try and play with the thing before deciding that, for the sake of his knowledge and to add more weaponry to Angel's Voyage II, he would conduct the small test experiment.

Those were perfectly fair reasons.

With his tails wagging excitedly, he hurried to pull the dismantled arm, vaguely thinking it would be good to get this done before his Captain returned. Not that he felt anything could go wrong! Not at all. Not even a little. It's just that, uh, he'd prefer not to have any audience. Just that.

Sails opened the side panel of the robot's arm, finding the same amount of wires and complex mechanisms as in the orange robots. The only difference was the increased volatility from being powered by the gem's energy.

Nothing he couldn’t handle.

He began dismantling the wiring area piece by piece, destroying the metal plates that were no longer useful. It was fortunate that the coastal factories were very abandoned at this point, so no one would hear all the fuss he was making with the metal and his beatings.

Black said the lack of surveillance on all coasts was because the tides were finally turning in their favor now that they were so close to completing the map and rescuing the others. Sails, on the other hand, felt it had to do with the multicolored gem and his suspicions about the limits of that beauty's power. In other words, it seemed the signs had been there all along, and he hadn't noticed them until he thought about it.

And, yeah, he admits it. Maybe he doesn't have the ability or the resources to understand the nature of that gem as well as Nine did. There's no doubt that his counterpart has an enviable capacity to grasp these kinds of things very quickly. But Sails isn't far behind! Right now, he had mental and written notes on what could be the signs of the eels' power limit.

To begin with, Sails noticed a stark contrast between the first day of the invasion and the present day. Besides the abhorrent pollution, of course. The water no longer even resembled water; it looked like a thick, disgusting substance. It was terrible.

Though that's not the point. Uh, the real point is that the leeches lost control over many buildings far from the red egg. Currently these areas were invaded and plundered by powerful pirates, tailored to their liking. Without a doubt, something changed from the day of the invasion until now.

Second, and the best news of all. Their “infinite cities” weren't as infinite as those rats boasted throughout the city. From the inside, they certainly gave that impression. From the outside, and especially from the perspective of those who managed to escape, they weren’t.

Sails overheard plenty of drunkards and loudmouths at the tavern boasting that they already had a ship ready to return to clear waters. He didn't believe them at first, of course, as they sounded like fanciful tales of the high seas. What did change his mind, however, was meeting the old sea squirrel again, who told him very kindly that there really were pirates managing to escape the city and return to areas where the sea was still blue and the clouds were white. The squirrel had seen it with their own eyes.

Ah, by Poseidon. What Sails wouldn't give to feel the salty sea breeze again and eat a delicious sea dog instead of the things those scallywags give them. It was a lovely dream.

Anyway. Sails now knows that the total dominion the scoundrels claim to possess is a lie. So there was indeed a limit to these idiots' power, and they were focusing everything on their flying metal domes. Or at least that's what he surmised based on his observations. And if his little theory was correct, Sails couldn't help wondering what might happen if those domes lost power and sank into the dark waters.

It was the least they deserved. May the waters reclaim those who harmed them and send them to the depths of their waves.

If Sails could only have the chance to manipulate such an amazing structure as that metal egg, he would choose to sink it without a second thought. And perhaps his childish ideas led him to create the few unstable bombs from the robot materials, thinking he could blow up the base of the metal egg.

If their flight systems failed, they would sink to the bottom of the sea. He found this out himself when he, accidentally, blew up one of the platforms that was supposed to connect to Angel's Voyage II. It was lucky that the beautiful new ship wasn't damaged. And she could already fly, so everything was fine.

Sails huffed as he wiped the sweat from his brow without moving his handkerchief much. He finally looked at the robot's arm, modified to a more manageable length for him, perfect for manipulation. If he could truly explode even a small part of the red egg, he needed to penetrate its shields first. And this was the experiment to achieve that.

Satisfied that he hadn't blown up the blue arm, Sails set it aside. Then moved to pick up the head, still with the shield active, and place it on a barrel near the wooden planks on the side of the ship. Pleased with the position, he returned to the arm, which was now more like a large cannon, and gripped it with both hands.

Sails retreated a considerable distance, hoping this would work and he wouldn't explode into a thousand pieces or burst into flames. Worst case scenario, he'd end up with a bomb even more devastating than the one he'd thrown at Nine's robots. Best case, well, he'd finally have a weapon to destroy the shields and the leech's capture spheres. So… hopefully this works.

He took another deep breath. He aimed at the blue-illuminated metal head, focusing on its shield, and fired.

The blast thundered through the ship, and the force of the projectile hurled him backward instantly.

His feet left the ground as the recoil dragged him along, forcing him to dig his mechanized arm into the wood to avoid being thrown off. Sails used both hands to grip the weapon firmly. His ear pressed against his skull as he heard the metal and wood shatter, causing the ship to groan for a moment before all was quiet.

That… didn’t go too badly, did it?

Slowly opening his eyes, Sails noticed the small amount of dust falling from the ceiling after the powerful shot. Some of his belongings and pieces of wood had rolled away from the projectile's trajectory, scattering across the wooden floor. That was certainly a mess Black wouldn't be happy to see. Sails twitched at the thought of cleaning it all up as his eyes widened at the sight of the impact zone.

Where the robot's head had been, there now sat the burnt barrel on top. Beneath it was the head, covered in black and with several pieces torn off, revealing the internal circuitry. There was no sign of the shield.

Oh, by the seven seas! He’d done it!

Sails stood up immediately, setting the modified weapon aside. He started running toward his testing area before stopping abruptly, noticing that the dust and smoke were settling and now revealed a large hole in the side of the ship, just behind the barrel. It wasn't as huge as the one in front, but it was large enough that his Captain was going to notice it at any moment.

Oh, no.

"Oh, barnacles…” Sails hissed through gritted teeth, rubbing his hands together as he examined the new opening in the Angel's Voyage. Well, at least he hadn’t destroyed the new ship. Or the warehouse where they hid it. So… there weren’t any problems, right?

Who was he kidding? Black was going to be furious.

Sails looked back at the weapon that’d created the hole, unwilling to let Black confiscate it. It would be best to hide it among the supplies they already had stashed away on the Angel's Voyage II and accept whatever punishment his Captain gave him, losing all the other materials. At least this beauty of his couldn’t be lost.

Without wasting any more time deciding, Sails took his creation and left the ship, leaping onto the nearby concrete dock and running to the abandoned warehouse they claimed as their own. Inside stood their new vessel with her beautiful red paint job, filling Sails with pride every time he saw her, for he had given she her new look and life.

He flew up to the smaller deck, lighting the oil lamp before descending with his mechanized arm. Instantly, he illuminated the dark area with its warm light, entering the ship's interior. Once inside, he hurried to the crates where Black had allowed him to store his rudimentary inventions, tucking the robot's modified arm deep in the back and turning it off. Once he was certain it wouldn't fall or move, he covered it with a blanket, reassured that it didn't look suspicious.

With that done, he returned to the impaled Angel's Voyage, spending the rest of his time gathering the remaining materials and trying to figure out which artifact to blame for the new hole. Later, when he tried to hide among the upper rafters while pretending to play his little ukulele, he could only look ashamed when Captain Black Rose called out his name upon seeing the hole, proceeding to scold him and confiscate his things, just as he had expected.

In any case, Sails was satisfied knowing that his greatest technological creation was safe and ready for use when they invaded the red metal egg. Only two parts of the map remained, and soon, after a month and a half, they would go to rescue their crewmates. They were ready, and Sails would make sure they weren't caught off guard again.

They were close to carrying out their heist. They just had to wait a little longer.

The final day of the eighth week since the invasion had arrived.

That morning, what were supposed to be the last few days of preparing for the heist ended up becoming… the beginning of the heist?

Emphasis on supposed to, because it wasn't even planned. And they didn't even know if they were actually ready. Sails believed they were still in the phase where they had to load everything onto the ship and prepare it before setting sail for the open sea, toward the real adventure.

They were supposed to still have another day or two before he and Black dared set course fer the red egg. Everything was almost ready, so by that point he’d completely abandoned the idea that someone else might come to No Place to help them.

The two of them had resigned themselves to working on their own, no longer expecting, for example, Sonic to suddenly appear again. Sails knew, at this point, that his old sea matey must also be in trouble. Everyone, in fact. Which is why he stopped worrying about the other worlds and began to focus solely on freeing his home.

Whether it took months or a year, Sails was determined to bring the blue color back to No Place. It was a shame, though, that it now seemed he'd have to make some adjustments to his plans. But that wasn't so bad either; he now had the chance to bring his home back to life faster, but…

Uh, right. First things first. Start from the beginning.

Sails had been carrying out full inspections of the Angel's Voyage II, even if Black said that by this point it seemed a bit obsessive to do them almost daily. And it wasn't that he was exaggerating the care he'd given the ship he'd customized to his liking. It's just that… well, he wanted everything to be in order and for nothing to go wrong during the raid.

That, and he wanted to show off the new ship, small as it was, to his crewmates. She was beautiful, and he was sure the others would love her when they saw her. So because of that, he was taking care of the successor to the Angel’s Voyage as best he could.

Once he finished that day’s cleaning and inspection, checking the control panel that made the ship fly for the sixth time, perhaps, he decided he might spend a moment reviewing the egg’s interior map with his Captain. Or simply spend some time together.

Maybe that will cheer her up a little.

Sails didn't want to say it out loud, but he had clearly noticed how his shipmate had been fading with each passing day. It didn't matter that they were so close to rescuing everyone; Black looked paler with every passing day.

He wasn't stupid or naive. He knew perfectly well that she blamed herself a lot for what happened the day of the invasion. And the truth was, Sails also felt guilty, often thinking that because he was the youngest of them all, the one everyone protected the most, both Dread and Batten ended up trapped inside those spheres. On top of that was the unbearable guilt of knowing that he had the chance to break those things and failed to do it.

There were days when he would spend the entire afternoon mentally replaying the events, wondering what he could have done differently or how he could have acted to avoid distracting Batten or Dread so much. Maybe that's why he and Black studied the map routes tirelessly, almost memorizing them. There was a kind of unspoken agreement between them not to let anything go wrong again.

They had everything planned.

And the more confident Sails felt that the plan was flawless, the more excited he was to see his crewmates again. To hear them and laugh with them all.

He already longed to have those calm conversations back with Catfish while the cat taught him how to fish. Sails never learned very well, as it was an activity that required a lot of patience and concentration, and his mind was always urging him to try something else or he'd fall asleep. Even so, Catfish never complained when Sails chose to accompany him with his ukulele instead.

Batten also loved to hear him play any melody too. It didn't matter if they were just sitting together in the crow's nest, silent and listening to the strings; it was one of the best parts of his days. And if they weren't quiet, the two of them would fly around until one of them got tired and went down to the deck to eat a good sea dog.

Oh! And he couldn’t forget how entertaining it was to watch Batten argue with Dread over absolutely anything. Especially now that the former Captain had set aside his obsession with every shiny sea beauty and treasure rumor that reached his ears and started spending time with everyone. Sails, for the first time, got to hear every sea story Dread had lived through before meeting him or most of the crew. Each tale was the most incredible he'd ever heard, and he let the echidna know it, earning an unusual smile Sails had never received before.

It had felt good, and he missed that. Sails missed them far too much. Even Black.

Though she was right there beside him, the fox wanted her to regain her kind smile and old energy, without having to lie to him and say she was fine when she clearly wasn't. And maybe he was being a little hypocritical, because he too had pretended to be fine several times, so…

Oh, heavens. The both of them were a mess.

Well. Didn’t matter. Once they got the others back, they'll be a full crew again. Their whole family will be together again, and they won't have to carry that terrible guilt anymore. In the meantime, Sails will try to keep cheering up his Captain.

Carefully, he stepped back inside the Angel’s Voyage, dodging the location of all the traps. By now, they both knew by heart where and how to trigger each one, even with their eyes closed! Not to brag, but Sails definitely could do it.

Finally, he found Black sitting at the far end of the ship, hidden in the deepest shadow cast by the rock that still pierced the vessel. She was calm, sharpening her silver dagger. Sails flicked both tails, walked over to her, and sat down beside her on the floor. The hedgehog looked up for a moment, smiling at him in greeting before going back to grinding the blade’s edge.

Sails ignored the sad look in her eyes, moving a little closer. "So… I'm not grounded anymore?"

A smile instantly spread across Black's face, and she relaxed her entire posture. "Only if you don't blow up another part of the ship."

"It was an accident." Sails shrugged. "Besides, I keep things entertaining around here, don't I?"

Black laughed. “Aye, I suppose you do.” Her posture brightened. "Never a dull moment when you're around." She rubbed his head, careful not to touch the bandana she herself had given him and tied around him.

Sails leaned towards her hand, closing his eyes. He enjoyed the affectionate touch for a few more seconds before bringing one of his tails into his Captain’s lap.

"What?" She smiled. "You want us to brush them?"

“Aye. They get dirty faster with all the smoke in the air.”

"And your fur gets stiffer too.” Black wrinkled her face, running a hand very carefully over the fluffy tail.

Captain Black and Batten always greatly appreciated everyone's personal grooming. While the bat focused on clothing, the hedgehog took care of everyone's fur and quills. She especially liked helping Sails brush both his tails and, every now and then, make tiny braids in them.

He appreciated it more than he usually told her. Maybe he should do it more often.

“So, will you help me?”

“Oh, you know I will.” Her face softened into that affectionate expression she'd had since they met, looking at him the same way he'd always seen the mothers in the village where he lived. That's how they looked at the other children.

It warmed his heart in the nicest way.

"Brilliant!" Sails smiled. "Cause I came prepared." He pulled what was left of his small brush from inside his vest, giving his Captain a conspiratorial look.

Black let out a soft laugh, taking the object from his hands and carefully running the bristles through the yellow fur. The fox wasn't sure, but he could bet the activity was relaxing his friend too.

The two sat there calmly while the older pirate carefully untied the few knots. Sails was about to pass his other tail to repeat the process when the two of them stopped moving, twitching their ears at the sound. Sails tensed immediately, noticing that Black was also stiffening, switching the brush for the hilt of her sheathed sword. They could hear someone near the entrance, but being behind the rock that encroached on part of the interior, they wouldn't be able to see anything until they rounded the stone.

Black looked at him, pointing toward the upper beams. He nodded, understanding where to go. If there were any pirate thieves trying to sneak aboard their ship again, they'd have to wait until the traps stunned them first, and then they'd teach them a lesson so they wouldn't even think about coming back here.

It doesn't matter if they are just days away from sailing for the metal egg, this ship was still theirs until they decided otherwise.

Sails carefully made his way toward one of the beams, grabbing a couple of extra swords as he detected the sound of multiple footsteps. There was more than one intruder. He inmediatly climbed with experience to the upper beams and nimbly moved to the right side while Black stayed on the left. Just as Sails tried to focus his gaze on the ship's enormous hole to count the intruders, his traps were triggered first, creating a cloud of smoke from his traps.

Ah, blimey. Now they had to attack without knowing the number.

Mental note: take extra precautions if there are more than three or four pirates.

Sails nodded to his Captain from his position, and they both launched themselves into the cloud, inhaling deeply to avoid the first blast of the mixture in their throats. He only needed to breathe carefully enough not to let the rosehip get into his nose.

Using his sharp vision, Sails plunged into the dense cloud, drawing the first of his swords. Spotting one of the intruders caught in his trap, Sails quickly leaped forward, using the momentum of his tails, and kicked the invader in the back. Almost immediately, he heard the distinctive clinking of metal, which made him tense his muscles as he thought it might be the metal corsairs or some pirate who, like him, had dared to embrace this new technology instead of rejecting it.

That would be more dangerous.

Sails drew all his swords, using the first to thrust it near the intruder's head as a warning. His left hand moved the other weapon to keep it close to the stranger’s throat, raising the last saber with his mechanized arm, ready in case anyone else tried to catch him off guard from behind.

When he felt the intruder tense beneath him, he knew it wasn’t a corsair. Still, Sails growled, adjusting his grip on the sword.

“Don't you dare move, you filthy thief.”

That moment was 'the moment' where the intruders would start whimpering for their lives, begging for mercy and pleading not to be hurt. Then, he and Black would give them a little scare, weighing up whether to let them go or use them as bait for the blue robots. In the end, they always let them go after threatening them, warning them not to even think about coming back or they wouldn't be so lenient next time.

So, well, Sails felt completely out of sorts when the intruder he had under control didn't cry or beg for their life and instead growled back at him before throwing an elbow that nearly hit Sails.

He moved reflexively, allowing the stranger to raise his head and spit out sharp words that froze him to the spot. Though, in reality, it was the voice that truly paralyzed him.

Maybe it was…

“Get off me, damn it!”

Sails stumbled, feeling a chill as something icy moved near his feet, almost as if they wanted to move him from where he was.

Only when the smoke finally thinned enough for the figure beneath him to become visible did Sails pull back farther. His shock, however, was still very much present, even in his voice.

"W-wait..." Sails retracted his swords, noticing how the words were getting stuck in his throat. Despite that, only one managed to escape with a broken tone.

“…Nine?!”

“Who else?! Now get off!”

Oh.

Oh, by the seven seas! Make him walk on the plank and leave him in the middle of the sea.

It was—! Was it really Nine?!

But…

How?

When?

Why?

Was he actually here?

Sails blinked several times, confirming that it really was Nine. He would remember that perpetually angry face, as if he'd eaten a rotten lemon. Not to mention those fabulous and fancy metal tails, which Sails was dying to see and compare in functionality to his own mechanical arm. No one else had limbs like that.

Ah!

Oh, wow! This was… this was…

“YOU!”

Sails jumped at the sound of his Captain's intense voice. It had been a long time since she had sounded so energetic or with such fury like the kind she’d unleashed after the invasion ended and the two of them vented their frustration over letting their crewmates be taken.

She was genuinely furious.

Oh, by Poseidon. He needed to intervene.

Sails sheathed his swords as best he could and raised his hands in a pacifying gesture towards Black, positioning himself, just in case, in his path towards Nine.

He hadn't forgotten that Black was still furious with the other fox, and even if she promised him they would give him the benefit of the doubt before thinking about attacking him or making him pay for what he did, Sails knew perfectly well that if Black Rose let her anger take over, he wouldn’t be able to stop her. He had to be careful.

He softened his expression without losing the exasperation in his tone. "Cap’n Black! Wait, please!"

She narrowed her eyes further, showing no sign of relaxing her posture. Instead, she glared more intently at the other fox behind him, adjusting her grip on her sword. “Stay away from him, Sails. I don't want this scallywag anywhere near my crew.”

Blimey, she was seriously upset. And Sails wasn't quite sure if it was because of the accumulated stress of the past few weeks, or because they’d spent two whole months unable to save the others, or because she’d truly never stopped seeing Nine in a bad light.

By the seven seas. He just wants to be able to ask his counterpart the reason for his arrival and then, maybe, talk a little about everything that had happened in No Place. Two months have passed without any help, to the point that even Sails stopped caring if others were in trouble. And now, out of nowhere, Nine appeared like he’d crawled out of the black waters themselves without even saying hello before starting a fight. Which, of course, wasn't strange, but... ah, that wasn’t the important part.

What the hell was going on?

Sails took a deep breath and tried to relax his posture, silently begging Black to lower her weapon. However, Nine moved beside him, tensing Sails up again. Just in case.

The other fox looked at the hedgehog with intense aversion before speaking to her with the same venom he had used before.

“Take your foot off him.”

…What?

Sails blinked a couple of times, a little lost and slow to understand those words, as he was still on edge having his Captain and Nine in the same place and with an obvious desire to hit each other until one of them gave in.

Only when he looked back at Black and noticed her lowering her gaze did Sails realize what Nine was talking about. Oh…

This…

This was the second surprise of the day.

Sails instinctively stepped back, remembering perfectly well that, as far as he knew, there were only three foxes scattered across the other worlds. Not four! And he could easily recognize his good mate Mangey well enough to realize that whoever Black had pinned down was definitely not Mangey.

He didn't blame his Captain for having retreated as well, shouting and with the same doubtful look on her face. Now he could clearly see it really was another one of them! I mean, another two-tailed fox, simpler in appearance than him or Nine. It was… oh… astonishing.

By Poseidon. He hadn't accidentally drunk the black water outside, had he?

Sails didn't know what was happening or how to keep up for a moment. Black was practically dominating the conversation on his side. This was like sailing in the middle of a storm, feeling his stomach churn wildly with the violent rocking of the boat. A huge mix of emotions. Sails only started to react after hearing the new fox's name. 

First, his curiosity was piqued when he checked the other's name. Miles Prower. Or, for them, simply Tails. He couldn’t help thinking it was ridiculously amusing how similar their names were. It felt strange.

Then, hearing him mention Sonic, Sails perked up more than he'd expected. Too bad his insides twisted horribly when he heard those damned old eels had… ah. He didn't even want to think about it.

Now he understood why Sonic hadn’t come to help them.

Those five were filthy bilge rats.

His discomfort only worsened when Nine asked about the others. That, and the tension of his Captain exploding again. Especially now that they had touched on the most sensitive subject for both of them. While they were supposedly about to begin putting the rescue plan into action, he didn't want Black taking this badly. Sails might be trying to understand the situation and starting to believe, just as his hunch had told him all along, that Nine wasn't involved in the No Place invasion.

Or maybe it was just his sentimentality and strange sense of camaraderie toward his counterpart from another world. Who knew.

Either way, Black clearly wasn’t aboard the same ship as Sails. Not even when the new fox, Tails, offered his and Nine's help to rescue their crew.

Again, oh, wow. Since when does Nine work with anyone else without seeming to repel them the way he did with him and Mangey? Not that Sails minded, it was just a little disappointing that neither he nor Mangey had managed to do it before. At least, he wished he hadn't abandoned Nine in those cold lands he defended.

Sometimes Sails regretted not dragging him along, even if Nine had been angry.

Second. Did Nine really come here to help them? I mean, Sails had hoped for that weeks ago, not now. Though that didn't mean he was going to refuse his help. He was more than touched and happy that they'd come to No Place to finally provide the support they'd lacked for two months. Sure, there were still many things he wanted to ask, but first he needed Black aboard the same ship as him. He had to convince her.

Sails straightened up when Nine asked for a moment to speak privately with the new companion, Tails. This was the opportunity he needed to talk to Black and weigh the options this unexpected visit was presenting, including what it meant for the heist they’d been planning.

The moment he turned to face her, his Captain grabbed his arm and pulled him further away from the other two. He couldn't even utter a word before she spat one out.

“No.”

Sails blinked, slowly forming a pout. "Why not? They could help us."

"I said no, Sails." Black crossed her arms, squaring her shoulders. “I’m not trusting that traitor or some stranger. Especially not if he’s with that scoundrel.”

“Well, he said he’s Sonic’s friend.” He shrugged.

“That proves nothin’, Sails. I don’t—”

"Wait. But you liked my good mate Mangey. Why can't we trust him?" He nodded toward the other two foxes. "Besides, I thought you promised to give Nine a chance if he wasn't involved in this." He gestured with his hands toward the ship in general.

Black's face frowned even more. "I said I wouldn't attack him, not that I’d trust him. Strike me down if I ever work alongside him.”

Sails shrugged, quickly thinking of his next words. “It wouldn’t be quite the same as working together. It’s… a truce?” He smirked. “And they said those pesky rats got rid of Sonic and now they’re hurting everyone else. I…” Sails swallowed hard. “Even if we get our crewmates back, where would we go? I know there are rumors about places where the sea is still blue, but… you and I made friends in the other worlds, right? They might need help just like us.”

His Captain finally seemed to lower her shield a little, knowing as well as he did that she had formed a close bond with her sisters from the other worlds. They had saved her life several times, just as Black had saved theirs. And even without that bond between them, there was a sense of honor in repaying kindness like that. Black would do it both out of affection for them and out of a sense of responsibility to protect them.

Sails dared to test the waters further now that his Captain seemed to hesitate. "They're fighting in Sonic's name too. He helped us a lot, and the least we can do is make those rats pay for hurting him.”

That finally saddened Black's expression, sagging her posture. "Me and my sisters helped save him, and those rats just..." She closed her eyes, twisting her lips in distaste. Then she looked at him again with a worried glint. "I don't trust him, Sails."

"I know." Sails smiled sadly at her. "But you and I are together, and we'll be careful. You have my word that I won't stand in your way if Nine betrays us again or hurts us.”

Black raised an eyebrow. "You sure?"

“Strike me down if I don’t.” Sails perked up, raising his mechanized hand to seal his promise.

His Captain snorted. "I don't know, I-"

She fell silent when she noticed the other two approaching again. Instantly, Black resumed his wary, leader-like posture, eyeing both foxes suspiciously.

Sails rubbed his hands together, a nervous feeling coursing through him. He focused his eyes on the hedgehog, waiting expectantly until she looked at him again. When her tired face softened into something resembling a 'If this goes wrong, I'll ground you', he wagged his tails with joy.

She had given in.

Sails smiled, satisfied and excited like he hadn't been in two months. The help he'd longed for was finally right in front of him. He was going to work alongside Nine and the new crewmate. He couldn't have asked for better allies to get his crew back!

Now the heist would be in good hands, with no chance of failure.

Very soon, he’d see his family again.