Tails had been wandering about the room of the factory he was supposed to
be sitting still in, bored out of his mind.
"What's taking him so long?" he wondered aloud, dropping the normal precautions he had. Normally, the place would be crawling with SWATs and other security bots, but today they were gone and had been since Sonic left him for 'a few minutes.' An eerie silence had spooked him at first, but after nothing happened for a good long while, hiding out was getting old. Either Sonic was just having too much of a good time busting robots or something bad was up. Usually it was the former, and if it was the latter his idol usually could handle it on his own, so Tails had stayed put for a while.
Then, after that while, he'd found some soldering and mechanical tools lying around, and tinkered with a security booth. An assembly line metal arm had just finished taking metal boxes from a conveyor belt it was supposed to be working on and stacking them in towers as high as the arm would go. There was also a camera he reprogrammed to stare into the corner it occupied instead of slowly swaying its field of view across the room. Oh, and also there was the lone SWAT that had been patrolling about on its own that was now stuck on its head in a magnetic junkyard clamp Tails turned on and played with.
All because he was so mind-blowingly bored.
"Enough of this," Tails decided aloud. If there were nothing around to get in trouble with, he would find Sonic himself. Maybe his hero had actually beaten 'Buttnik once and for all! That'd be awesome, and he rued it for not tagging along and then missing out. Everyone always got to do these cool things, while he sat around on his tails without providing any sort of real help.
Placing the tools he had in the backpack Sonic had let him hold onto, Tails peeked cautiously around the front door out of habit. He began to walk in the direction that Sonic had gone, making his way towards the outside of the factory. There was a spycam floating around, but it never turned in his direction as it slowly floated towards a wall and thudded in it, trying to will its way through.
The walkway made a fork and he paused for a moment, unsure which way his friend had taken. He was leaning towards the left side when a couple small crashes announced themselves from behind him.
Why did weird stuff happen ONLY when he went on his own?!
Jumping behind a pile of metal, Tails became alarmed. The crashes were followed by a few louder noises, bottoming out with a large crescendo of din that made him believe for a moment that the entire city was falling upon itself. One last clunk abruptly cut off this noise, and, after a couple minutes, he decided to take a peek around the pile.
Oh, the box stacks he'd made. They were now lying in jumbled heaps. Great, now security would come rushing in. Or would it, the place was so bare of anything robotic.
Tentatively, he tiptoed towards it, interested in the cause of his towers' demise.
"Of all the - this is absolutely ridiculous! This whole day's done nothing but burn my transistors!"
A metallic hand appeared from behind a box, grasping its edge as it pulled up its body. "Probably the work of those roboticized slaves, no less. They'll regret the day they messed with the Master's second-in- command!"
A robot chicken.
Robotnik had built a robot chicken and used it to replace Needlenose.
Forgetting for a second where he was, Tails let loose a laugh at this. The city at the hands - of a robot chicken! Sure looked like chicken wings were outlawed -
"Who's there?"
Yikes. He shut his mouth and moved to duck back under cover, hoping this thing would disregard his laughter.
"Oh, don't go hiding, I see you! Give yourself up!" The chicken's hand held a pistol and was aiming right at his face.
Great. Just great, he fumed to himself. Now Sonic would have to rescue him, again, and Aunt Sally wouldn't ever let him do anything fun or take him seriously again. Nobody was going to ever take him seriously! Probably not even this stupid robot -
Hmm...
Well, maybe he could use that to his advantage.
*****************
Status: organic
First description: Fox, juvenile, double-tail
Identity: unknown
Well, technically this character wasn't a rodent, but Cluck didn't know what to make of him. 'The' rodent, the one that Robotnik hated, he'd only seen alone thus far, without sight of any accomplice. This entity could possibly be friendly to the Master, or maybe a wanderer who'd gotten lost in here. Whatever the case, there were no commands yet given him as to how to deal with unclassified personnel, putting him in a conundrum.
And Cluck's alarm system was still abuzz. He was patrolling this sector, turned a corner, and walked face-first into a giant stack of boxes that hadn't been there before. After the things had buried him alive momentarily, this guy had laughed at him. That immediately didn't sit well with him.
"Describe yourself!" Cluck demanded as the fox raised his hands above his head in surrender.
"Huh - ?"
"You are unclassified and probably unauthorized. Describe yourself!"
"Oh, uh...well...I'm lost. I don't know how to get out of here." The kid began to look sad, as if he was going to cry. "Please, mister, I didn't mean to laugh. It just looked funny with all the boxes and I'm scared. Just let me go, please?"
"Er..." This reaction hadn't been encountered before either. The Master never cried, and had told Cluck not to worry about this reaction when describing it to him. The robot lowered his gun, weighing options and finally guessing with 97% probability that the fox wasn't a threat. "Well...fine. Go your way and try not to enter here again, okay?"
"Okay." Cluck turned to leave. "Hey, wait."
"Yes?" he responded over his shoulder. The fox's face had turned from sad to happy, something he was much more familiar with. The Great Robotnik was happy quite a bit of the time, usually when something he defined as good happened. Perhaps this meant something good was happening?
"I was wondering, if you could lead me out of here. You seem to know this place."
It appeared he was just happy to leave and wanted to get out. Cluck pondered this for a moment. Usually, he had more important tasks to do and would reply snappily as such. However, at the moment, the Master had told him to stand by, or in his own words, 'buzz off.' He was built for efficiency, so he computed that to do this would add speed to the workings of the city. This person would only get in the way of the city's processes and ought to leave as quickly as possible.
"Affirmative," he finally responded. "There are no superseding tasks that would bar my assistance. Where would you like to go?"
"Um, I came from, I think the west. Lead the way there, please?"
"Affirmative." Cluck began to walk towards the western direction, passing by the fox. "Please foll - "
The last thing Cluck heard before his back hatch was pulled open and his power switch turned off was the word, "Sucker."
"What's taking him so long?" he wondered aloud, dropping the normal precautions he had. Normally, the place would be crawling with SWATs and other security bots, but today they were gone and had been since Sonic left him for 'a few minutes.' An eerie silence had spooked him at first, but after nothing happened for a good long while, hiding out was getting old. Either Sonic was just having too much of a good time busting robots or something bad was up. Usually it was the former, and if it was the latter his idol usually could handle it on his own, so Tails had stayed put for a while.
Then, after that while, he'd found some soldering and mechanical tools lying around, and tinkered with a security booth. An assembly line metal arm had just finished taking metal boxes from a conveyor belt it was supposed to be working on and stacking them in towers as high as the arm would go. There was also a camera he reprogrammed to stare into the corner it occupied instead of slowly swaying its field of view across the room. Oh, and also there was the lone SWAT that had been patrolling about on its own that was now stuck on its head in a magnetic junkyard clamp Tails turned on and played with.
All because he was so mind-blowingly bored.
"Enough of this," Tails decided aloud. If there were nothing around to get in trouble with, he would find Sonic himself. Maybe his hero had actually beaten 'Buttnik once and for all! That'd be awesome, and he rued it for not tagging along and then missing out. Everyone always got to do these cool things, while he sat around on his tails without providing any sort of real help.
Placing the tools he had in the backpack Sonic had let him hold onto, Tails peeked cautiously around the front door out of habit. He began to walk in the direction that Sonic had gone, making his way towards the outside of the factory. There was a spycam floating around, but it never turned in his direction as it slowly floated towards a wall and thudded in it, trying to will its way through.
The walkway made a fork and he paused for a moment, unsure which way his friend had taken. He was leaning towards the left side when a couple small crashes announced themselves from behind him.
Why did weird stuff happen ONLY when he went on his own?!
Jumping behind a pile of metal, Tails became alarmed. The crashes were followed by a few louder noises, bottoming out with a large crescendo of din that made him believe for a moment that the entire city was falling upon itself. One last clunk abruptly cut off this noise, and, after a couple minutes, he decided to take a peek around the pile.
Oh, the box stacks he'd made. They were now lying in jumbled heaps. Great, now security would come rushing in. Or would it, the place was so bare of anything robotic.
Tentatively, he tiptoed towards it, interested in the cause of his towers' demise.
"Of all the - this is absolutely ridiculous! This whole day's done nothing but burn my transistors!"
A metallic hand appeared from behind a box, grasping its edge as it pulled up its body. "Probably the work of those roboticized slaves, no less. They'll regret the day they messed with the Master's second-in- command!"
A robot chicken.
Robotnik had built a robot chicken and used it to replace Needlenose.
Forgetting for a second where he was, Tails let loose a laugh at this. The city at the hands - of a robot chicken! Sure looked like chicken wings were outlawed -
"Who's there?"
Yikes. He shut his mouth and moved to duck back under cover, hoping this thing would disregard his laughter.
"Oh, don't go hiding, I see you! Give yourself up!" The chicken's hand held a pistol and was aiming right at his face.
Great. Just great, he fumed to himself. Now Sonic would have to rescue him, again, and Aunt Sally wouldn't ever let him do anything fun or take him seriously again. Nobody was going to ever take him seriously! Probably not even this stupid robot -
Hmm...
Well, maybe he could use that to his advantage.
*****************
Status: organic
First description: Fox, juvenile, double-tail
Identity: unknown
Well, technically this character wasn't a rodent, but Cluck didn't know what to make of him. 'The' rodent, the one that Robotnik hated, he'd only seen alone thus far, without sight of any accomplice. This entity could possibly be friendly to the Master, or maybe a wanderer who'd gotten lost in here. Whatever the case, there were no commands yet given him as to how to deal with unclassified personnel, putting him in a conundrum.
And Cluck's alarm system was still abuzz. He was patrolling this sector, turned a corner, and walked face-first into a giant stack of boxes that hadn't been there before. After the things had buried him alive momentarily, this guy had laughed at him. That immediately didn't sit well with him.
"Describe yourself!" Cluck demanded as the fox raised his hands above his head in surrender.
"Huh - ?"
"You are unclassified and probably unauthorized. Describe yourself!"
"Oh, uh...well...I'm lost. I don't know how to get out of here." The kid began to look sad, as if he was going to cry. "Please, mister, I didn't mean to laugh. It just looked funny with all the boxes and I'm scared. Just let me go, please?"
"Er..." This reaction hadn't been encountered before either. The Master never cried, and had told Cluck not to worry about this reaction when describing it to him. The robot lowered his gun, weighing options and finally guessing with 97% probability that the fox wasn't a threat. "Well...fine. Go your way and try not to enter here again, okay?"
"Okay." Cluck turned to leave. "Hey, wait."
"Yes?" he responded over his shoulder. The fox's face had turned from sad to happy, something he was much more familiar with. The Great Robotnik was happy quite a bit of the time, usually when something he defined as good happened. Perhaps this meant something good was happening?
"I was wondering, if you could lead me out of here. You seem to know this place."
It appeared he was just happy to leave and wanted to get out. Cluck pondered this for a moment. Usually, he had more important tasks to do and would reply snappily as such. However, at the moment, the Master had told him to stand by, or in his own words, 'buzz off.' He was built for efficiency, so he computed that to do this would add speed to the workings of the city. This person would only get in the way of the city's processes and ought to leave as quickly as possible.
"Affirmative," he finally responded. "There are no superseding tasks that would bar my assistance. Where would you like to go?"
"Um, I came from, I think the west. Lead the way there, please?"
"Affirmative." Cluck began to walk towards the western direction, passing by the fox. "Please foll - "
The last thing Cluck heard before his back hatch was pulled open and his power switch turned off was the word, "Sucker."