Hey guys! It's time for another chapter here, but first, I have a review!
Bea: I enjoyed writing it as well, the Zone Cops were always something I wanted to see more of!
Alright, let's get started!
No Zone Archives: Drift
The Cripple
Ziles pulled himself up and over the edge of his bath, sitting down and replacing his leg braces. After they were firmly in place, he stood up and shook himself off, spraying water all over the tiled walls of the washroom. He wrapped a towel around him and traveled back to his quarters, he smirked at the stares he was given as he walked past.
He liked having a reputation around the Zone Cops, made it so others didn't mess with him when he wanted something. He scanned his palm on the door of his lab, it denied him access.
He hated when this happened. He quickly dried his hand on the towel and tried again, nothing. He groaned and started upstairs, he opened the door to the machinery department, Zotor was occupied at one of his work desks, he turned and couldn't help but laugh at the sight of the dripping wet fox before him.
"You look terrible! How can I help Ziles?"
"I'm locked out of my quarters, scanner's acting up again…"
"I could have sworn I fixed it just after Zamy's meeting on the new policy, I'll send somebody down, in the mean time, I'll just disable the lock, I doubt anybody will try and break into your place anyways."
That was a statement he could agree with, he rarely got visitors unless you counted Zonic that is. He returned to his quarters and the door opened for him, he put a lab coat on after discarding his towel, prepared his instruments, and got to work.
-X-
Zally meanwhile, was currently pacing up and down her office. "There has to be something!" She thought. She looked over her evidence list again, a set of dimensional travel records, a seemingly stolen pod shaped vehicle, it was listed as being from a industrial world, not the defendant's home dimension. This wasn't necessarily a negative thing, he could have gotten it legally, interdimensional travel was authorized. The thing was, it had a different set of dimensional travel records than he did, the defendant brushed it off as simply the traces on him wearing off faster than the one on the vehicle, which was true. Then there was his accomplice, there wasn't much to go off of, he ran off midway through the chase and was caught by officers, Ziles was processing his corpse now.
She didn't even want to think about what he was probably doing…
She refocused back on her work, after a while, she received a call from Zonic, he wanted to see her by Ziles' quarters, while she didn't want to, he may have found something to assist her case. She traveled down to Ziles' quarters and found the door ajar, Zonic and Ziles were waiting for her.
"You called?"
"You need to see this!" Ziles responded. Zonic just shrugged, he didn't know what this was about either. She walked around to Ziles' side of the lab, deliberately avoiding the white sheets as she did.
He held out a tablet, "Do you know what this is?"
She looked at it, it had the appearance of a set of dimensional travel records.
"Travel records?" She guessed, the fox nodded in response.
"Exactly, now, do you notice anything odd about them?"
Looking, they appeared to have the same three dimensions they had traveled to, not much noticeable. Upon closer inspection however, the arrival times were heavily spaced apart between the two of them. One had arrived almost weeks before the other.
"A bit-"
"Exactly!" Ziles interrupted, he nervously smiled. "Sorry, got carried away there…"
"You're good, so what's important about that?"
"Well, I figure, that one of them wasn't trying to escape at all! He was waiting there."
"For what?"
"I think, that the second one, the one that arrived later, was going to pass something off to him."
"Ok, so that links those two, and our defendant together. Because now we know what happened to his accomplice." Zally replied.
"Even better, it lets us link him to something bigger!"
Zally eyed him skeptically. The fox continued with his explanation. "The retrieval teams turned this in."
He handed her a small circular orb, it fit snugly in her palm, she recognized it as a data cache, variations of it were used across the multiverse to carry information between dimensions. Activating it, it contained information about multiple different dimensions. She recognized many of them as ones Nega had been investigating recently.
"This is perfect!" She exclaimed, "I'd like to see him turn this around! I knew they were related!"
"Glad I could help!"
She thanked the fox before exiting the room, she needed to prepare. Zonic walked over from his spot by the edge of the room. "I still don't know how you do it..."
"I just enjoy my work, everything else just kind of happens."
"You don't need to be humble! You're the smartest guy I know!"
"Well, it's thanks to you!"
"It was nothing, you were too smart to be stuck like that your whole life."
The kitsune blushed, his cheeks turning a bright pink. Zonic couldn't help but smile at it, especially as the memory of how they had first met resurfaced.
-X-
Zonic always hated having to go to the civilian quarters, the No Zone dedicated so many resources to the Zone Cop program and policing the multiverse that many simply ignored the existence of the civilians. They were generally given minimal help and had to fend for themselves most of the time. A group of children were currently playing tag within the large recreational area given to them, he smiled and continued on his way, as he went to walk past however, he saw something. A kid sat a short distance from the rest of the group, he was in a wheelchair, Zonic noticed the his sad expression and walked over to him. The orange fox didn't acknowledge his approach, content to stay with his blanket.
"Hey bud," Zonic spoke. "What's wrong?"
"It's nothing," He replied.
"Well clearly it's not nothing, is it something with your legs?"
The kit didn't respond, Zonic continued pressing him.
"Look, you'll be fine in a bit, don't worry about it."
Tears welled up in the kit's eyes at the sentence, he burst out into sobs, causing Zonic to jump back in alarm.
"You don't understand! They never understand!" The fox yelled. An older white vixen, whom Zonic assumed to be the kit's mother, pulled him away.
"I'm sorry! I didn't mean to!"
A brown fox, the kit's dad, stepped over to him. "It's alright. He always gets emotional with these things."
"What's wrong with him?"
"Miles was, born with a form of diplegic cerebral palsy. He hasn't been able to walk since he was born."
Zonic's heart dropped at the realization, "Why can't he?"
"His leg muscles can't support his weight, he just collapses."
"I guess me telling him it'll get better doesn't help huh?"
"We've tried, but with how it's going, he'll be in a wheelchair for life."
Zonic felt bad for the guy, not being able to walk had to be terrible. "Do you know if I can see him? I'd like to apologize."
"Let's go see, hopefully he's calmed down a bit." They followed the direction the kit had been taken and eventually found him and his mother, who was still trying to get him to calm down. The crippled fox was sobbing into his mother's shoulder, she had picked him up from his chair and had placed him on her lap.
"It's alright," She spoke. "You're alright."
The kit's legs didn't have any visible damage. Zonic assumed it to be an injury during development that caused it. Upon noticing Zonic, Miles pulled himself upward and toward his mother.
"What do you want…" He asked.
"Miles, I'm sorry for what I said, you've probably been through a lot haven't you."
The kit gently nodded, before turning to his mother. "Mom, can you put me back?"
"Sure," She replied, setting him into his wheelchair, and tucking a blanket over his legs.
"What's your name?" Miles asked.
"Zonic."
"You're a Zone Cop?"
"Yeah."
Miles' singular tail started wagging at the statement. "That's so cool! I wanted to join you guys when I got older, I don't think I could now though…"
Zonic felt sympathy for the fox, he wanted to make it up to him in some way. He seemed nice enough. "Sorry if this is too personal," He began. "But can you not walk at all?"
"Not really, maybe for like a second if I really tried…"
"Could you walk when you were younger?"
"A little, mostly because I was lighter, but now, I'm just a bit too heavy…"
"Sorry bud, I wish there was something I could do."
"You're alright, thanks for talking to me."
"No problem bud, sorry for what I said earlier."
"Apology accepted."
Zonic waved him goodbye and continued on his way. Little did he know, he would find himself visiting the kitsune more often as time passed. They became close friends, but Zonic still wanted to help him out, let him actually enjoy his life.
Eventually, one day, he managed to pull it off.
"Where are we going?" The kit asked, shifting in his wheelchair as he did. Zonic had taken him out of the civilian quarters, to where, he still didn't know.
"You'll see." Zonic replied. The kit continued to look around in amazement, maybe he saw himself as another one of the Zone Cops now. Either way, Zonic found it cute.
Zonic tuned and brought the two of them into a nearby door, a mechanical laboratory of sorts. Dr. Zave stepped over to them.
"You must be Miles!" The engineer began. Extending her hand out to the kit, who shook it.
"That's me!"
Zave stepped into the back for a bit, Miles turned to Zonic. "She seems nice."
"She's, something, that's for sure."
She returned with several silver and blue colored components, he knelt down to the kit's legs. She looked them over for a second, "Alright bud, now, let me know if this hurts."
Miles pulled his legs away in alarm, "What do you mean if this hurts!?"
"Calm down," Zonic replied. "She's just wanting you to let her know when it gets too tight."
The fox calmed down and Zave continued, pressing several things against the kit's fur, he yelped out at one point as they were tightened heavily around his ankles. Zave slightly loosened them in response. After a few minutes, Zave stood back up.
"That should be everything, Zonic, you said you wanted to do the honors?"
The hedgehog stepped around and grabbed the kit by the wrist, pulling him out of his chair. "Zonic, what are you-" The kitsune stopped, Zonic released his grip as the inevitable conclusion came to the fox's mind. He was standing.
Tear droplets of pure joy cascaded down his face as he yanked Zonic into a hug. "T- Thank, Thank you!"
"I figured there was something I could do to help."
The kit took a few slow steps backward before throwing his hands to the sky in pure joy. He looked down at his legs and found that Zave had attached white and light blue leg braces to him, giving him the support he needed to finally walk under his own power.
He took a few slow shaky steps before quickly speeding up and starting to run around the room. He had the biggest grin across his face as his distinctive footfalls echoed around the room. The metal braces echoing along with his shoes as he finally found himself freely able to move.
"Somebody's happy!" Zonic commented, Miles stopped and walked over to him.
"I can't thank you enough!" The fox responded. "How'd you do it?"
"I got Zave to help me out, she did most of the building. I just took some measurements of your legs when you weren't paying attention. It wasn't too hard really."
"Still, thank you!" The kit buried his head into the hedgehog's chest. Pulling him into an embrace so hard that Zonic had some trouble breathing.
The kit stepped back, "I've got to tell my parents!" He bolted out of the room in a full sprint, Zonic followed closely behind him, the fox continued back the way he had come and burst into his house, startling both of his parents.
"What's the big pro-"
Both of his parents paused as they realized the Miles had just ran through the door without his wheelchair. The all pulled each other into a hug, crying tears of joy. Zonic watched the display and couldn't help but feel happy. Miles' parents pulled him over.
"I don't know how you did it," Rosemary began. "But you don't know how much this means to him."
"I think I do, and, can you let him know that if he ever wants to join the Zone Cops, tell him I'll put a good word in for him."
The vixen nodded and returned to her son, who was busy showing off his leg braces to his father. Zonic took one last look and headed back toward his quarters, he was just happy to have helped out the kid as best as he could.
Alright that's it everyone! Let me know what you thought! Until next time!
