Hey everybody! Welcome to chapter seven of this story! Not going to waste any time so let's get into reviews!
Perturbo: The designs for all the new characters are certainly interesting, they've always been fun to design how to interpret their augmentations! As for how things go between all of them, you'll have to wait and see!
1TGN: The Resistance is certainly an interesting group, their dynamic with one another and especially with Four Fifteen will be explored a bit more in the future! His and Sonic's relationship seems to be patched up for now, so you'll have to see where it goes from here!
AndTails: Four Fifteen is certainly outside of his usual habitat, and he'll certainly need a moment to adjust to all the changes!
That's everybody, let's start!
Mechanized Production
Changes
Four Fifteen gently stirred from his sleep, letting out a deep yawn as his brain started to awake. Standing up and flexing the large metal appendages behind him. He felt the cold floor against his bare white furred pawed feet as he rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. Glancing at Sonic's bed, the hedgehog still seemed to be asleep, which didn't really bother the fox too much. To be honest, it gave him a moment to be alone with his thoughts.
He still wasn't sure how it felt being outside the Complex, yeah it was freedom… But he strangely felt a sort of longing for his old home. Glancing down at the barcode and identification number tattooed into his arm, memories of being back there emerged into his mind, though he quickly shook those thoughts out of his head.
The fox left the bedroom and made his way to the main living room, as he entered, he was actually somewhat surprised to find someone else there, the other was seemingly just as surprised to see him, the glowing cyan eye staring back at him across the room.
"Didn't expect anybody else this early…" The black cloaked wolf quietly spoke, her robotic voice filling the room.
"I guess we're both surprised." Four Fifteen answered, "It's Whisper right?"
The wolf nodded her head, "And you're…"
"Four Fifteen," The fox answered.
The wolf seemed a bit confused by the name, before shrugging it off and returning her gaze down toward her mechanical left arm, the cyan glow from her eye giving the dark metallic appendage a sort of glow about it as he poked around it with a tool in her right hand.
"What are you working on?" Four Fifteen asked.
"Arm isn't quite acting like it's supposed to sometimes… Doesn't always recognize the rifle." Whisper answered, nodding over to the white and cyan weapon sitting near her on the table.
"What do you mean by 'recognize'?"
The wolf grabbed the weapon and pointed to a set of small sensors on the grip of the blaster. "It won't fire unless it detects that I'm the one holding it." She explained, setting the weapon into the fox's arms.
The kitsune examined the weapon and actually tested her statement by pulling the trigger, only to have no reaction from the weapon itself.
"Well, that's certainly interesting." He commented, passing the weapon back to its owner.
"You certainly look interesting yourself, what with all the metal strapped to your back, what's it for?"
"Oh, these?" He replied, gently flicking the metal appendages. "Mainly they just help me keep control while flying."
"You can fly?"
"Yep, it's mostly because of the thrusters up here." He answered, pointing to the protrusions near his shoulders, "Really isn't much to it."
The kitsune gave a sheepish smile, gently rubbing the burnt section on the back of his arms in embarrassment.
"Well," Whisper spoke. "It's certainly interesting."
"Thanks…" The fox mused, as he did, however, he suddenly recalled it'd been a while since he'd actually used another plasma charge on his augments, perhaps there would be some around here…
"Hey, is there by any chance some of the energy charges around here?" He asked. "I mean the ones from the Complex."
"Yeah, just down that hall on your right is a storage closet, there should be some there." The wolf mused, pointing to a nearby hallway that branched off from the main room.
Four Fifteen nodded his head and made his way down the hall, checking the first door on his right, sure enough, an entire shelf of plasma charges sat in a small closet of sorts, the faint orange glow from the canisters was easily identifiable to the kit as he grabbed one of them. He sat down and gingerly set the head of the canister into the intake on his back and almost immediately felt the familiar feeling of comfort and relaxation fill his entire body. After the chaos of the past few days, it felt incredible to feel something at least familiar to the fox as he allowed it to continue past being half drained, soon, most of the canister had been drained, and the device that sat on his back was completely full of energy, despite this, the kitsune didn't want to have the feeling end just yet as now the last little bit of excess energy overflowed directly into his bloodstream, what resulted was a feeling of pure euphoria as the last remnants of the charge finished. Four Fifteen had overcharged himself before, but really only when he'd really needed to relax or had been quite stressed out, doing so was dangerous, but the feeling of pure bliss that came with it was indescribable, and considering the past few days had been filled with stressful escapes and new friends, he felt he deserved it. As the canister finished emptying itself, the feeling lingered for a bit, but eventually faded away like always. After it was mostly gone, the fox pulled himself back to his feet, trying to ignore the subtle trembling in his hand as the excess plasma energy continued to course through his system, it quickly subsided as the energy dissipated into his body and the trembling ceased. He figured he would check if Sonic was up, and so he started on his way toward their shared bedroom, his mind and body much more relaxed than he'd been this morning…
-X-
"How are you holding up?"
"Fine, I guess…" Four Fifteen responded to the hedgehog. "Been kinda crazy the past few days…" Sonic continued.
"You can say that again… I mean, I think I'm still just trying to get used to everything."
"Same thing here, but things will work out, besides, it's kinda nice not being forced to do things like back at the Complex."
The duo made their way back into the main living quarters, Sonic had woken up since Four Fifteen had last been here, and the fox was a bit more ready for the day.
As soon as the two of them entered the room. Four Fifteen was pulled aside by Cream, the small chao drone that usually accompanied her floated nearby. "Hey, Bunnie wants to talk to you."
"Why?"
"I don't know, that's all she told me."
The fox followed behind the small rabbit as she led him to the living room, where Bunnie sat.
"Here he is," Cream said.
"Thanks," Bunnie responded. "Just figured I'd take a minute to get to know you, it's Four Fifteen right?"
The fox nodded in response as Cream exited the room, leaving the other two Mobians to themselves.
"Well you can sit down if you'd like, I promise I won't hurt ya." The rabbit continued, gesturing with her non-robotic right arm toward another chair.
The fox made his way over and sat across from her as the rabbit continued. "So, I've heard from Cream you're quite the interesting specimen, what with Robotnik himself overseeing your tests. Have you ever gotten to meet him?"
"I haven't…" Four Fifteen responded, "Just always heard his voice…"
"None of us have either, stories say something happened to him long ago, nobody's seen him in a long time apparently… But enough about him, what about yourself? Cream told me you were born in the Complex but that doesn't quite seem right to me."
Tails' eyes glanced downward at Bunnie's comment, giving her the confirmation that she needed.
"Oh… You really were… Well, that's something isn't it? Certainly explains the odd choice of name. I'll call you something else, Four Fifteen is a bit of a mouthful, what if I called you Tails? On account of your… You know."
The fox was silent for a moment, "Just… Just call me Four Fifteen…"
"You don't like it?" Bunnie asked, concern seeping into her voice. "Well, maybe that'll wait for later. But how's it feel to finally be out of the Complex? Good?"
"Different, at least…" The fox responded.
"Well, did you enjoy being outside at least, getting to feel the breeze for once?"
The fox looked at her quizzically, and Bunnie's face took on a look of shock. "Oh, we're fixing that right now. Come with me."
The rabbit made her way to her feet, the large metallic piston-like structures creating somewhat loud footsteps as she gestured for the fox to follow her. The two left the room and made their way to the main living quarters and toward the ladder Four Fifteen had seen yesterday, passing Sonic and Tangle as they did. Bunnie made her way up it and Tails followed somewhat cautiously behind until they came to a small room at the top of it, there wasn't much here besides a few pairs of boots, and a door that sat across the room. Bunnie approached the door and waved the kitsune over. The fox felt his heart beating faster in his chest, though if it was anticipation or nervousness he didn't know.
"Well, are you ready?" Bunnie asked, before he had a chance to respond, she pressed a button next to the door and it opened.
Four Fifteen was somewhat taken aback as his vision was filled with several different colors. He sheepishly made his way over to the door and glanced out at the surroundings.
To Four Fifteen, it felt like he'd been transported to another planet entirely. A soft looking green material that to him looked eerily similar to fur covered the ground, and large brown colored rough looking pillar-like things that completely dwarfed the fox were scattered all around, their tops somewhat obscured by a thick mass of green that he didn't recognize at all. The entire scene was bathed in a light yellow light that strangely felt warm as it hit his face.
The fox gingerly touched whatever was covering the ground with one of his feet. It felt strange and also somewhat soft underneath his paw. He set his foot completely on the ground, and just felt the strange sensation for a moment. Despite how new and odd it was, it felt good for some reason.
He stepped out with his other foot and took a couple of steps out into the strange new world. The air here was even different than he was used to, better in a way. A nice cool feeling spread through his body as he felt it move past him, the same air seemingly affected whatever it was at the top of the large columns, as they made a nice soothing sound as they shook.
The fox's attention was drawn however to a small colorful thing at his feet. A small green thing stuck out from the rest of the ground, at its top sat a small yellow circle, and several white appendages stuck out from the yellow colored center. The fox knelt down to get a closer look at it.
"It's called a flower," Bunnie spoke, having stepped outside with the fox and kneeling next to him, being careful with her large metallic legs.
"It's… Pretty… What's all this green stuff called?" The fox asked.
"It's called grass."
"I think I remember Sonic talking about it a little bit with me back in the Complex." The fox responded before laying down on his back atop the grass. "It's really soft…"
The two continued talking about everything around them, Bunnie answered all the questions the fox had about his new surroundings. The whole time however, she couldn't help but feel sorry for him. How miserable did his life have to be that he didn't even know about something as simple as flowers or grass?
After what felt like hours, the kitsune finally seemed to have his curiosity satisfied, he simply laid himself down on the grass. Feeling what he now knew as sunlight on his face. "This… Is a lot to take in…"
"That's fine, just take your time. Lots of new things for you today huh?"
"Yeah… But… Maybe we can do just one more."
"And what would that be?" Bunnie asked, curious as to what his response would be.
"I… Kinda liked being called Tails actually… It feels kinda nice to have a name…"
Alright everyone, that's all for today! Let me know your thoughts on this chapter and I'll see you next time!