Chapter Text
Tails is rudely woken up by the sound of incessant banging on his cabin door.
A group of foxes he's mentally dubbed The Gang has tracked him down.
Looks like it's the third strike.
The banging stops, one of them yelling for him to come out, and that they only wanted to chat.
So what if he stole a few cans of food? They'd kick him out even if he had money anyways.
Deciding to do a split-second decision, he scrambles out of bed, not even thinking about putting on textiles, and fumbles for his only ring.
Thinking quick on his feet as he turns around, he throws it at his makeshift bathroom after remembering that image of an Earth forest he saw online.
The door of his cabin bursts open as the portal fully opens as Tails is already running into the forest, strangely similar yet so different.
He can still hear the group taunting him as the ring stays open for what seems longer than possible.
"𐑒𐑰𐑐 𐑮𐑳𐑯𐑦𐑙 𐑿 𐑓𐑮𐑰𐑒! 𐑴, 𐑢𐑪𐑑𐑕 𐑞𐑦𐑕? 𐑵𐑐𐑕𐑰𐑟, 𐑦𐑑𐑕 𐑚𐑮𐑴𐑒𐑩𐑯 𐑯𐑬!"
The fox doesn't dare to look back as the ring closes just before the leader can get an arm through the ring.
While they haven't got the fox, they do the next best thing: destroying all of his equipment so that a lesson is learned.
He is not welcome here.
Tails slightly regrets that he didn't bring his prototype of his Miles Electric to learn about this new planet after finding adequate shelter.
He hasn't even learned the bare minimum of the planet's common tongue, but it's not worth dwelling on that now.
He's on a new planet, one that will be different from his.
Perhaps the bipedal creatures would be nicer here.
Despite doing the bare minimum of research, he steadily walks around the forest, intending to find some hidden shelter somewhere.
He came across loads of videos of humans finding various abandoned places, from closed down malls (a market can be that big?) awaiting demolition to bunkers and bomb shelters hidden in all kinds of places. They'd often record their journeys and take pictures and video as they would enter them, and occasionally running like crazy when the alarms sound.
So, if that serves him right, there must be some sort of underground bunker here somewhere.
The attentive fox looks around every bush, every shrub, every nook and cranny he could find for something man-made.
After a good quarter of an hour or so searching, he finds a bush with some extra foliage covering something up.
A round door with a handle is his answer, and he excitedly opens it, greeted by a ladder going way down into a (very dark, be brave) space that's more than perfect for him.
Oh, he'll have to clean himself thoroughly after stepping in here if the rusty ladder is to say anything.
The catch? The place is filthy! Moisture has creeped in, it's a little flooded, and he's certain there's other creepy-crawlies that are less that happy of his presence.
So, for the day onwards, the fox sneaks around the neighborhood and gets some well-worn cleaning supplies, dumps the flooded water into the sewage holes, carefully relocates all the (eek, scary!) critters and deals with these pesky small bugs that really want to fly in his ears for some reason, and does a thorough clean of every material, de-rusting every metal surface (especially including that ladder).
After all that work, it leaves him exhausted and hungry, and he senses rain coming. With that in mind, he makes a quick trek on all fours to one of the markets he sneaked around having the name Home Depot on its front, and after shaking himself dry in the small sheltered entrance , he walks in like he owns the place, finds a comfortable spot to lay down and lets the comforting vulnerable molasses of sleep overtake him.
He's (rudely, he might add) woken up by an employee, quietly but firmly asking him to leave.
Without thinking, he puts his handpaws up in a pleading gesture.
"𐑒𐑭𐑯𐑑 𐑲 𐑡𐑳𐑕𐑑 𐑜𐑧𐑑 𐑩 𐑓𐑿 𐑔𐑦𐑙𐑟 𐑐𐑤𐑰𐑟? 𐑞𐑧𐑯 𐑲𐑤 𐑤𐑰𐑝."
The employee looks flabbergasted. He even checks his phone a couple times.
"Y-you can talk- shit I shouldn't have stayed up all night playing CoD4X. Sorry man, I can't understand your language."
Tails has a good guess of the gist of what he said was.
So, he decides to imitate what he wants to the employee.
He vaguely draws a little box with his hands, then showcases imaginary electricity flowing through pretend wires to something.
Then, he does a screwing motion using his other hand as a pretend base, then transforms the screwing hand into a more spreading motion to convey light filling the imaginary space.
"You... you need a.. if I'm getting your illustration correctly, a power bank and a lightbulb? A lamp, maybe?"
Tails nods, storing what he thinks are the names of those items in this strange Earth language for later.
The employee light-heartedly sighs, knowing that his manager will be convinced that he's having a fever dream.
"Alright, I'll help you, as long as you leave (as rude as that may sound to you). I hate cleaning up number 1 and 2 from foxes."
Is that human implying...? Oh, EW! He would never do that!
The employee sees the oddly human expression of realisation turning into a light disgust on the fox's face. If he really was in a strange dream, the fox would-
Wave a hand and say something that (well, going from the sassy inflection), sounds like "Aw, come on, I know how to use the bathroom!" with a slight giggle.
Oh boy, if you told past him that he'd be helping a strange fox do a little shopping, he'd laugh at you.
Except he's actually doing it.
The employee picks up a good portable power bank, as he figures the fox won't need all that much. A couple USB ports and 2 electrical outlets, supplied with a couple portable solar panels for charging.
The fox does a thorough inspection of the hardware (as much as he can through the pictures of the device on the box as well as what he can read of the specifications), nodding in approval when he feels that they'll do the job just fine.
Then comes the lamp and its accompanying lightbulb. The fox chose a portable lamp that had a vintage design, which is fine by the employee.
Then came the lightbulb.
Who would have thought that a strangely earth-but-not-earth? (could he be- oh, he's definitely an alien- holy shit okay let's freak out later), anyway, fox of all... whatever you get the point, to be so particular about his lightbulbs?
The fox looked through every lightbulb in its little test display, noting how accurately the colors of his 2-tone fur could be displayed.
In the end, the fox chooses a faithful recreation of an incandescent lightbulb, complete with incandescent-like dimming technology, along with some equally vintage-style christmas lights.
The real kicker? That particular light bulb was the last one in stock.
At least it's going to a good home, or is it den? Wait, is that insensitive?
Gah, his brain. Well, now comes the point of no return, the employee directing the fox to the checkout counter, the fox (adorably) carrying the lightest items while the man carries the power bank and the lamp.
W-wait, is he flying?
Call him when he wakes up from this fever dream, but he wants to see how it ends.
They both set the items on the counter, the power bank's box doing a satisfying little plomp as it's placed down.
"So... You have any money? Cash or card?"
The employee could swear that he heard a word that felt like the equivalent of crap or even shit by the hissed yet defeated way the fox said it under his breath.
His suspicion is confirmed when the fox does a sad shake of his head with the most sorry look he's ever seen in a pair of eyes.
"Hey, don't feel down. Tell ya what, I'll pay for these. I'll deal with the hour long lecture and possible firing from my manager later."
Just like that, the surprised fox watches as the human pays for his items using his own money.
These humans actually are nice.
The employee even boxes the items up so that the fox can carry everything in one trip.
The fox takes a look outside, and the weather seems to have cleared up.
Filled with excitement, he happily grabs the (to him) giant box with both hands and thanks the man a bit more than he should, but Gaia this human was so nice to him, even if it did have a rocky start.
The employee kinda shocks himself when a proud, cheerful "Please come again!" escapes his mouth as he waves goodbye.
Seems like this fox is growing on him.
As expected, Nick's manager is rolling his eyes.
"So, an alien fox comes in here to sleep, you begin to do normal procedure, yet you let i- (oh I'm so sorry) him convince you to help him pick out a power bank, lamp and lightbulb with christmas lights to top if all off? Talk about a setup worthy for a smelly hobo."
who tf pissed in his cereal lmao
"What else was I supposed to do? Be an asshole to the little guy? Ok look, he left a little fur behind, but at least he's not like that other fox around here. He looked like I told him that I killed his parents when he realised he didn't have any money."
"Pinch me."
Sometimes he can't with this guy, and this one takes the cake.
"CCTV must have caught it in all its Game Boy camera glory, let's take a look."
Sure enough, the security cameras pick up everything in the crisp, immaculate quality of 144p.
This must be some elaborate joke, cause whoever did the VFX on this thing deserves a raise for doing who knows how many all-nighters to animate this.
But, the manager goes easy on him, and half-jokes to snap a picture next time the fox comes around as the shift is coming to a close.
All Nick thinks about when he gets home is that he hopes the fox is okay, as it only dawned on him that the little guy looked a little skinnier than usual for a typical fox.