As Sonic and Tails ran down the corridor, the only sounds were their echoing footsteps. There wasn't even the usual background noise of Earth, whispering wind and rustling leaves and chirping birds. Just the cold silence of space. It was unnerving. They slowed to a stop at an intersection with another corridor, and Sonic glanced at Tails.
"Any idea which way we should go?"
Tails took out his Miles Electric and studied the screen. "It looks like two of Eggman's robots are straight ahead, further down this hallway."
He looked up, pricking his ears. Distant synthesized voices echoed off the walls, arguing with each other. He glanced at Sonic, who had his (now larger) ears pricked, too.
"Eggman's robots don't normally talk," Tails observed. He glanced back the way they had come. "This whole setup feels strange."
"Do you think it's a trap?" Sonic asked.
"It would almost be weirder if it wasn't."
Sonic nodded. "Alright. Then let's be careful." He started forward again, not running this time, ears pointed forward.
Tails was briefly caught off guard. Being careful wasn't exactly Sonic's modus operandi, but maybe he shouldn't be surprised after what happened last time Sonic rushed into something. Tails still wasn't clear on the details, but it had involved the Chaos Emeralds (of course) and Super Sonic, and ended with over half the world's population (including Tails himself) under the thrall of a corrupt Gaia. Not the kind of mistake you'd want to repeat.
Now that they weren't running, the space station felt much colder. Even with his fluffy pelt, Tails was glad he'd brought a jacket. Evidently Eggman hadn't felt the need to invest much in heating. He glanced at Sonic. Normally his short fur meant he didn't handle cold too well if he wasn't running, but Sonic wasn't shivering as he stalked forward with an almost cat-like gait. That was one good thing about this new form, Tails supposed: fluffier fur. Though he knew from personal experience that that could just as easily become a weakness if they ended up somewhere hot.
The voices grew clearer as they drew near their sources. It sounded like they were coming from just around the corner ahead of them.
"Wait up, ya little alien! We aren't gonna hurt ya, just put ya in a cage!"
The robot's demand was met by a strange chirping, musical sound.
"Stop talking to them and start catching them!" A second voice snapped.
As Sonic and Tails rounded the corner, the robots finally came into view. One was yellow with a cube-shaped head, the other red and spherical. They were both small, a little shorter than Tails. It had always struck Tails as odd that Eggman bothered to make his robots on the same scale as his enemies, rather than making them human size. HIs current theory was that it saved on building materials. But even with that aside, these two robots looked… nonthreatening, to say the least, compared to Eggman's usual badniks. Did they even have weapons?
There was another burst of chirping noises, and Tails's attention was drawn from the strange robots to their even stranger prey. It looked almost like a squid or a jellyfish with its round head and long tentacles. But it also had two antennae and a single large eye that looked much more like Tails's or Sonic's eyes than a squid's. And it was floating in the air, chirping in a way that sounded distinctly irritated. Belatedly Tails remembered the robot referring to an "alien". Great. Eggman was messing with otherworldly forces, again. This could only end well.
"Where did this one even come from?" The red robot demanded irritably, standing unhelpfully to the side with its hands on its… hips? as it watched its counterpart ineffectually swing a net at the alien, which easily dodged the clumsy assault. "I thought the badniks were told to keep them on their planets."
"Maybe they let it out?" The yellow robot suggested, pointing at Sonic and Tails.
The red robot glanced briefly at them, then did a double take and whipped around. "Cubot! That's Sonic and Tails!"
Tails looked at Sonic, waiting for him to make a snarky remark or a flashy introduction, but his attention seemed fixed on the alien, completely ignoring the robots that were gawking at them.
Looked like it fell to Tails to say something cool and heroic. Like… what? "Uh… hey," he said with an awkward wave. Nailed it, Miles.
The robots waited a moment longer, as if expecting something more substantial. Tails glanced hopefully at Sonic, but he still didn't seem to be paying any attention to the conversation. The red robot looked almost disappointed.
"Is he… functional?" It asked, squinting up at the not-exactly-hedgehog.
"He does this sometimes," Tails said, patting Sonic on the arm. "Sonic? Robots to smash?"
Sonic blinked, shaking himself out of whatever trance he'd been in. He glanced down at the robots. "These guys, really? They don't look dangerous."
"We aren't!" The red robot agreed. "But we are very good at getting robots who are!" And just like that, it grabbed Cubot's arm and took off down the halway.
"They're surprisingly fast," Tails observed. He looked up to see Sonic was distracted again, looking at the alien thoughtfully. The alien mimiced his pose, its chirp almost curious. "Who's this little guy?"
"I'm not sure," Sonic said thoughtfully, reaching a hand out to the alien. "But something about it feels…" The alien tapped his finger with its tentacle, and Sonic started, then smiled. The alien chirped a cheerful note, the curl on its head bobbing merrily.
"'Something about it feels…'?" Tails prompted.
"Like the Chaos Emeralds," Sonic said, glancing back at Tails.
Of course. It always came back to the Emeralds.
"How do you mean?" Tails asked, already pulling out his Miles Electric to take a reading.
Sonic hummed. "Like… their energy, I guess? It's—" he huffed in frustration and then grabbed Tails's wrist without warning, prompting a startled yelp.
Before Tails could protest further, Sonic pulled his hand from the Miles Electric and placed it on the alien, which briefly looked as startled as Tails before settling into the touch. Tails blinked in surprise. Even through his gloves the alien felt… strange. It looked perfectly solid, and he was certainly touching something, yet it felt… wrong. Like something on a different plane. He got the odd sensation that if he pushed too hard, his fingers would go right through. It was what he'd imagined touching a cloud would feel like as a child, or a ghost. But more than the strange solid-not-solid feeling, the creature seemed to hum with energy. It felt… well, it felt like it did whenever he handled one of the Emeralds, though far less intense.
"See what I mean?" Sonic said as Tails pulled his hand back. "It's not as strong as the Emeralds, but it feels similar. Like a piece or a… Wisp, maybe." He smiled again at the "wisp" in question, and it chirped cheerfully in response. "She likes that name."
"Can you… understand her?" Tails asked hesitantly.
Sonic shook his head. "Not any words. Just impressions."
"But it seems like she can understand you," Tails mused. "Is there any way she can tell us why she's here? Or why those two were trying to capture her?"
The Wisp perked up and started moving her tentacles with exaggerated gestures. Sonic and Tails watched closely, trying to decipher the message behind the charades. At last the Wisp stopped and looked at them expectantly.
"…Yeah, I've got nothing," Sonic said. The Wisp deflated.
"I guess charades don't translate so well when we have completely different body structures," Tails said. He grinned at Sonic. "She was still easier to follow than you, though."
Sonic bristled with indignation. "Untrue! You understood me perfectly fine."
"Only after asking you to slow down a dozen times."
Sonic rolled his eyes. "It's not my fault you're so slow."
Tails snorted.
The Wisp chirped again, and Sonic looked at her apologetically. "Sorry we can't be more helpful."
"Those robots who were after her looked like an Eggman build," Tails observed thoughtfully.
"Is Eggman the one giving you trouble?" Sonic asked the Wisp. "Tall guy—" he raised his hand above his head, standing on tiptoes to indicate Eggman's height. "Shaped like an egg—" he formed an oval with his hands. "Big mustache?" He mimed stroking an invisible mustache.
The Wisp bobbed up and down enthusiastically.
"I'll take that as a yes," Sonic said. "Well, don't worry. Cracking eggs is kind of our job."
"Please don't say it like that," Tails said, shuddering at the mental image of Eggman… well… cracked. Sonic grinned at him, deliberately showing off his new fangs. Tails rolled his eyes.
"What I'm wondering is why Eggman would want her in the first place," Sonic said, his grin fading to a frown. "She doesn't seem particularly threatening." He smiled as the Wisp puffed herself up, warbling in protest as she mimed flexing a muscle with one tentacle.
"You said she feels similar to the Chaos Emeralds, right? Maybe he wants to use her to power something. If there are more Wisps like her, he could use that energy for all sorts of things." It wouldn't be unlike Eggman using animals to power his badniks back in the day.
"Maybe," Sonic said doubtfully, glancing at the Wisp. "I think it's bigger than that." The Wisp chirped, flew around Sonic, then darted off down another corridor with what seemed to be a farewell wave of her tentacle.
"Where's she going?" Tails asked.
"I dunno," Sonic said, his frown deepening. "She seemed worried about something." Then he shook himself and grinned. "Good thing we're here! What do you say, bud? Ready to free some aliens?"
Tails hesitated, looking the way the Wisp had gone. Another strange creature he didn't understand, and possibly never would. If he was being entirely honest, he'd kind of hoped this whole adventure would be more of a return to form. No weird energy, no strange creatures, just Sonic and Tails vs Eggman and his robots. But then again, he reminded himself, this wasn't really so different. Sure, the aliens were… something, but it was still Sonic and Tails freeing innocent creatures from Eggman's machines. It was what they did. Just like old times.
He looked at Sonic and grinned. "Definitely!"
AN: Haven't really settled into a definite upload schedule yet, but I do plan to update at least once a week. I hope to do more than one chapter a week as well, since there are 47(!) chapters of this total and I would prefer if this didn't take nearly a year to be done with.