Tails crawled inside an air duct of the Extended Research Lab Spectank, using his twin tails to help push him along. He grit his teeth, swiping his forelocks out of his eyes, and kept following the smell.

Tails thought that if the person Sonic found had seen Knuckles, then he should look for a lab close to the sewers Sonic had found the Mobian in. Of course, it would have helped if Sonic had actually stayed on the channel long enough to tell Tails where he was—but Sonic had to go when Sonic had to go. It happened a lot. Early on, Tails had figured out several ways to keep track of Sonic—including how to track a walkie talkie based on the wavelength of its incoming sound waves.

Sonic had been somewhere underneath Street C-5 and sure enough, the closest lab connecting to that sewer was Spectank.

When Tails had first entered, he'd noticed two things. The first was the silence. The second was the smell. When he'd finally dared to take his gas mask off, he'd smelled it at once. Sweet, metallic, acrid.

Maybe he couldn't remember every detail of his life in New Mobius before Robotnik took over, but he could still recognize the smells of just about any chemical on Marto. He'd smelled most of them at one time or another back in his father's tech lab. He couldn't place this one though.

He kept climbing, biting his lip, and trying not to think about what would happen if he messed up—or what Knuckles might look like after this—or if they were too late altogether. But he couldn't help it.

Knuckles. Tails had always felt like a bug next to him. He'd never forget the time on Angel Island when Sonic had joked about opening the door to the relic's chamber and taking a peek inside. In an instant, Knuckles had snatched Sonic with both fists, and flung him over the side of the island with a roar. Tails, like an idiot, had yelped in shock and stood dumbfounded for a whole second before diving after Sonic. He'd caught Sonic before he'd hit the ground, and they'd straightened everything out in the end.

That was just Knuckles. Tails would never dare to laugh at him to his face, but… Knuckles hadn't had that much social interaction in his life, and the things he said cracked Tails up sometimes…

The fox paused, fisting his hands against the air duct floor. He took a deep breath, swallowing. Pain shone in his eyes and he closed them.

He hated losing people.

Tails let out sharp grunt and he pulled himself up the vent faster.

He stopped at the sixth floor and paused to catch his breath. He flicked his forelocks out of his eyes and he sniffed, wrinkling his snout. The smell was stronger.

Tails scrambled to a grate in the air duct. He peered through the bars into the nearby room and narrowed his eyes.

Jagged, empty windows, their glass panes shattered. Soot covered the floor. A smashed lab stretcher laying on its side, the body restraints frayed and snapped.

Tails caught his breath. He put on his gas mask.

Something strange had happened in there. Sonic would want to know.

The grate was held to the wall with four screws. Tails flicked on his laser knife, letting the clear blade begin to fluoresce with heat. He slid it along the back of the grate, burning through the spines of the screws.

The last screw snapped. Tails eased the grate out of the wall. He took a quick moment to stare into the room once again and for a moment, fear began to creep into his eyes. His neck fur stood on end.

Tails glanced behind him, wishing he was not alone.

He turned back to the room, gave a silent cough to clear his throat, and stretched out his gloved hands on the lab floor. He pulled himself out of the air duct and stood up, watching to make sure he did not disturb the soot.

He surveyed the room again. Equipment lined the upper walls of the lab room—hoses, gages, electricity generators with long wires and needles attached to them. A freaky mix of hospital, control panel, and kitchen. Green lights blinked along the equipment, casting shadows across the floor.

Tails' eyes widened, his ears cocking.

He couldn't help himself.

He made his way towards a shelf piled high with tech. The fox snatched up the loose, smaller machines and cut their wires free with his laser knife. He started stuffing them into the leather satchel on his back and grinned beneath the mask.

He snatched up a last panel backing, rounded the corner and froze.

The fox wrapped his tails around him, letting out a shaky breath. His fur stood on end and he stared at a bare patch of the wall.

Metal restraints ran along the wall, twisted strips of bronze and copper, pulled out into strange formations, like pulled taffy. The restraints roughly fit the shape of a creature. A chain ring for the neck, the wrists, the upper arms, the legs…

Tails stepped closer, his eyes round.

Knuckles could have twisted metal like that. Tails had seen him pick up trees before.

He glanced over his shoulder at the broken windows behind him, staring. Thinking.

He ran a hand through his forelocks and over one ear, his brow creased. His tails began to wind together.

Why hadn't Robotnik cleaned up this place? What would cause soot to cover everything when there weren't any other signs of an explosion? Was there any other creature than Knuckles who would be strong enough to tear through metal? And a creature that Robotnik would want to restrain on top of that…perhaps some robots could tear through metal, but there was no reason for Robotnik to chain a robot to the wall.

Adding that to what their informant had said…chances kept getting higher and higher that Knuckles had been in this very room...

-Movement blurred in the corner of his eye—

Tails spun his head to look up into the lens of a floating security camera. His heart leapt into his throat.

It stared down at him, hovering in the corner of the ceiling.

Tails caught his breath. He was dead.

Unless he was fast enough.

Tails grappled for the three shot blaster on his belt. And stopped. Instead he moved his hand back and ripped out the spray paint can secured next to the blaster.

The eye of the camera blinked in perfect silence.

Tails swallowed, his heart pounding. It had probably already sent out an alarm, synced with Robotnik's headquarters, or worse, Robotnik's mind—

Tails shot his arm up, pressed down and sprayed. Paint streamed up into the eye of the camera and the hover bot reeled, hissing and buzzing.

Tails whipped his tails, sprang up, and snatched the bot.

His weight brought both of them down to floor, into the soot, the bot hissing and convulsing.

Tails wrapped his arms, tails and legs around it, gritting his teeth and prying at its back control panel. It snapped open.

He yanked his laser knife back out. Ripped the transmitted wires. Plunged the blade into the authorized off switch.

The bot sagged with a hum, suddenly weighing what felt like sixty pounds.

The fox staggered, nearly falling off balance. He plunged his gloved fingers into the back panel.

"Come on, think fast, think fast," Tails urged himself, scanning the innards of the security bot. "Think fast. Like Sonic. Come on, where are you, where are you, where are-"

A slim button with the word "eject" typed on it.

Tails pressed it, biting his lip. The long, silver memory card popped out of the side of the bot.

Tails snatched up the card, whipped his satchel off his back and pulled out his flashlight. He screwed off the top and dumped the batteries inside the pack. Then he ripped a strip of fabric off his cargo pants. Wrapped it around the silver memory card. Slipped it into the empty flashlight.

It'd be protected in there.

Tails screwed the flashlight lid back on, glanced back around the room and crawled into the air duct. He did not bother to fix the cover.

He hadn't crawled for longer than five minutes when he heard them crash into the bottom story of the building.


Author's Note, 4/24/2017

Hope you enjoyed! Have any questions or comments, leave a review below please! Reviews help inspire me to keep writing. :-)

I'm open to constructive critiques too, just no hate please. ;-) If this isn't your type of story, there's a ton more out there!

Keep fighting,

Constance

Chapter Updated, 11/22/2017

A lot changed in this chapter! Still same plot though.