In the darkness, silence was heard.

Moments ago there had been some distinct, muffled voices filtering that bounced all around. There were rufflings and tings and clanks. And something strange that went hhaaaaAAAH~ then cut itself off. The last thing heard was of a soft thump on something distinctly not-metal.

10-961 shifted anxiously in his offline state. He wasn't really sure what was happening; robots had a very black and white version of 'awake' and 'asleep'. This inbetween state, caused by a damaged and sluggish processor, where doing anything took an eternity was very unnerving for 10-961. To think but unable to think clearly, to act in his head but not physically, and to feel very strange was strange indeed. He should've bolted awake by now.

Right now…

nOW!

Now?

Now

The word 'now' seems kinda weird now. Nu ow …no w… nuho.. nowww…noow?

10-961 realized his eyes had onlined while he had his little 'what are words?' moment. Oof.. Even solid items looked a bit funny looking. But then his HUD caught his attention. It was spewing nonsense with the occasional clarity inbetween.

_Err4r-Eng67#$ dO#n…. Backup Engine S^p(3* AcT!^&3$5

_12 Ma70*mAlf^(U27*0N…. …Naaa….NANI-teS Act#$*O^# REPAIRS

_Re&!2ct 20 9rOCESS0r: PriorITy

_NaNtiES LoooW…. R3Ch4# r3 NeeD3#

_WARNING! 3NiTY D373(tED!

Suddenly everything kicked into high gear just as 10-961 remember the noise, then silence. Unfortunately when he went from a setting of 'slower than a snail' to 'racing sonic in a f1 racecar'; that meant flying limbs and whacking oneself in the face multiple times. Startled by his sudden ability to move fast 10-961 thought he was being attacked! It didn't help that his HUD continued to obscure his vision with nonsense.

In Panic, 10-961 flailed at his imaginary foe. Loose rope that had kept him in relative place on a metal table were yanked and slashed at. When the rope got tangled in his flailing limbs 10,961 tried to shout for help. No noise came out of him, but the muffled voice did return.

10-961 froze.

He lifted his hand (having frozen with it covering his eyes) and looked across the room to see a sleeping Tails. The fox was slumped over a wooden bench with various paper and pencils just about on every available area. Tails was using a stack of them as a pillow currently. Curious now, 10-961 attempted to get a closer look, but rolled right off the metal table with a thunk.

Oh right the rope.

The Metallix went to use his left arm to detangle himself

…

Where the heck WAS his left arm?

10-961 looked at his empty shoulder socket where his arm should've been at and he felt his panic coming back. It had to be somewhere! It was… being sold to.. wait no.. smelted down–nO! beyond repai-STOP! Where were these thoughts coming from?! Come on it had to be in this room!

…What was in this room?

A Plane, lots of machinery, bits of scrap, an arm, blueprints, worksta-! An arm!

A blue and silver metal arm!

That had to be his! … aaannd it was right next to Tails…

10-961 started to tug at the ropes with his remaining arm in a bid to be free from the ropes. It took a couple minutes and a couple tense seconds whenever Tails shifted in his sleep. Once freed from the rope, 10-961 tip-toed his way over to the organic. He still wasn't sure what to make of them. If they weren't made of metal then what?

Curiosity got the better of him as he went to investigate, forgetting about his arm for the moment.

He figured that the twin tails would be a good start.

He was startled when his hand sunk into the fur.

Startled again when Tails' Tails twitched and brushed up against his leg.

Startled THRICE when he heard a voice coming from a (now known) door.

"Yo Tails? You still in working away in there? It's past midnight you kno-" Sonic said before catching sight of the Metallix dive-bombing behind the metal table. "Uh?" Sonic moved in for a closer look.

Sonic peeked under the table to see the Metallix look like a bomb was about to drop on him. And honestly, 10-961 didn't know why he did that. It only made it look like he did something bad.

"Good to see you up again!" Sonic whispered enthusiastically. "But um… what you doing under there?" Sonic watched as the Metallix looked at him. Though his face reveal nothing, the Metallix was slightly shaking and that's all Sonic needed.

"You scared?" Sonic asked sincerely and the Metallix nodded hesitantly. "I suppose you don't know if we're nice or not… but you can get to know us!"

Both stop when Tails mumbled in his sleep.

"In the morning though. I think everyone needs to rest from the busy day." Sonic added as he went over to Tails and picked him up bridal styled. "Your twin is over there by the way." Sonic pointed towards 274 who was leaning on the far wall; offline.

"And hey, maybe we could have a race to the mountain and back if you're feeling up to it!" Sonic added with enthusiasm.

10-961 nodded as Sonic left with a 'good night!' He seemed nice enough, but without his data… how could he be sure of his intentions? He guessed he'd have to wait to find out. He sat there for a couple of minutes, listening for any sounds, but nothing could be heard; not even a peep from his brother, 274.

10-961 made his way over to his brother; the worst scenarios playing through his head. He was dead, he lost his memories, he'd be alive but unresponsive, he'd – he'd. 10-961 mentally sighed. He sat next to his brother. He'd have to wait and see that, too. He wondered how long he'd have to wait until morning because his thoughts certainly weren't going to leave him alone.

He still had to get his arm.

10-961 mentally sighed again and got up. At least he didn't have to tip-toe this time..

It was strange to see his arm not attached to his body. Maybe he could reattach it? He still didn't have any data though. He glanced at the papers littering the workbench and decided that was a good place to look; some of them even looked like they had drawings on them.

The first one to be picked up was a note lamenting and praising the complexity of 10-961. Apparently just the arm was one big job in of itself. 10-961 didn't like his chances of repairing this himself. But at least all the dents and scraps had been fixed. A rather silly thought came to mind as he lifted his arm up.

Wouldn't it be wonderful if all he had to do was stick it back in the socket and BAM! All fixed?

Humoring himself, 10-961 stuck the arm back into the socket and started to pretend everything was okey-dokey and he was all better. When he went to remove it however, it put up a bit of resistance.

Now 10-961 was baffled. It didn't get stuck did it? He panicked slightly at the thought.

…Or was it really that simple?

10-961 held it in place a little longer to test that theory. Sure enough, it now felt more solidly in place than before. He wondered if he could move it? At first his attempts were fruitless, but after a few more minutes he managed to twitch his fingers.

It really was that simple..!

But after a while it seemed to stop, yet he hadn't regained full mobility. Did he do something wrong? Was it going to be stuck like that now? His HUD pulled him from his thoughts when it started beeping.

_ERROR: NaniTES 3X5ausTED. ReC4arge n3eDed

At least his HUD was starting to make a little more sense, but what were these nanites it was talking about? Another thing to wait on it seemed. There wasn't much else to do besides look through the rest of the papers. They certainly needed to be tidy up somewhat.

…

"You What?!" Chris cried as Sonic told them that he left the Sonic lookalike to roam the workshop – without supervision.

"Easy Chris, he was more frightened than anything. I thought he needed some time to himself to take in everything." Sonic replied. He really wasn't all that worried, but the majority was.

"He could have sabotaged or taken something in the night!" Chris continued. "What if he ran off and now we have to go looking for him?"

"Well, let's go look then!" Sonic said. "What happens happens." Sometimes Chris thought Sonic was just a bit too casual about some things; like leaving a potential evil robot to muck about in the night.

"I hope he didn't ruin my stuff in there…" Tails anxiously said as everyone made their way over to the door. Sonic carefully cracked the door open and peered inside. The room was still lit and nothing looked damaged.

"Well looks like everything's fine." Sonic said as the others peeked into the workshop as well. With that he let the door swing open. "Hey 'Mahtelles'! You in there?" No response.

"I had to take his voice chip out Sonic, so I don't think he can reply back." Tails deadpanned.

"Oh." Sonic said.

They all filed into the room in search for the robots.

"We should go to where we left his twin; I don't think he'd have gone far." Sonic said.

And lo and behold he was right. Sometime during the night, 10-961 had made his way back to his brother and was currently offline.

"Hey! My notes have been moved!" Tails said as he looked at the neat stack of papers. The shambled together blueprints had been rearranged and organized; some with new suggestions and questions that weren't there before. The notes that lamented the robots' complexity even had their own little pile. An entirely new note had been added as well. The writer was the same person who wrote down the new questions and suggestions.

"Let's see here…" Chris picked up the note that had been left behind. It was a little hard to read because it was written in chicken scratch. But it read:

'Hello! I'm "Metallix 10-961" -(not Mahtelles)- I only onlined less than an hour before

you found me and my Brother 274. I don't know much about anything -(my data is corrupted)- I wouldn't be able to answer many questions except a few little ones.

-We arrived on the island via a giant ring

-Was a spur of the moment decision to use it to warp away

-We nearly died

-My brother knows you so he can probably answer more questions (mine included)

-If he's still alive…

I hope I didn't upset anyone.

Everyone paused as Chris finished reading the note aloud. But before anyone had a chance to make any comments on the note, 10-961 woke up. He had stayed up most of the night reading over everything that had been written, but ended up frying his circuits with all the technical terms Tails had used. He almost stayed there stubbornly trying to decipher it all when 274's chest engine started.. clicking. It was 10-961's only hope that maybe, just maybe, his brother was still alive. He had immediately rushed over, to make sure if –when 274 woke up he knew he wasn't alone. That he still had a brother left.

"You okay?" Sonic asked, bringing 10-961 out of his thoughts. 10-961 gave a thumbs up in response as he got to his feet.

"So…10-961..? Wanna chat over in the kitchen? We can ask each other questions over some tea!" Cream politely said as she stood by the door; cheese nodding in agreement.

"Like if you were being attacked?" Amy said.

"Why are you named by numbers?" Chris added.

"You look like me, so do you think you can keep up with me?" Sonic curiously asked. He really wanted a good race after yesterday.

"Or what's your favorite color!" Cream added to lighten the mood further.

"You can even ask us any questions you have; I'd imagined having no data is a little bit frustrating, right?" Chuck said. 10-961 hesitated. He wanted to stay with his brother in case he woke up. But then again, besides the random clicking of his engine, 274 didn't look like he was going to wake up anytime soon.

10-961 nodded. Sure, he'd follow them to this 'kitchen' and chat. Not for long though, maybe like ten minutes at best. He still didn't want to leave his brother for too long.

"Alright! Come on it's this way." Cream said as she bounced through the door. As 10-961, stepped through the door to follow, he looked back at his brother. He lingered there for a moment before closing the door.

Yeah ten minutes was fine.

-Click click whirl-

Maybe…

"So did you have a name besides '10-961'?" Sonic asked bringing the metallix out of his thoughts. 10-961 tilted his head in confusion. Wasn't 10-961 a name? But it was the only thing he was referred to as so he shook his head; no he did not have a name besides 10-961.

"Hmm.. Maybe you don't have a name yet. You did say you only activated just yesterday." Chuck said. 10-961 could only shrug. His brother called himself 274 – a number name- so he wasn't sure if any of his brothers had non-number names like Sonic and his friends. He'd ask his brother later.

"What's with the number as a name anyway?" Amy asked. Now this was a question the metallix could answer! The metallix spotted a piece of paper and pen; he still couldn't speak so writing down his answer was obvious. When he was done he handed the paper to Amy.

"Because I'm the 10,961th brother created." Amy read aloud for all to hear. "What?! That's a ridiculous amount of robots!" Everyone was shocked like a strike of lightning at the revelation. There were that many Sonic-like robots potentially running around?! 10-961 quickly wrote down 'I know!' on the paper. Even he thought that was a lot.

"What was your brother number?" Tails asked. At least he was positive now that the two were different models – if only slightly. That many robots were bound to have tweaks and an occasionally redesign. It was probably a number like 9-800ish or something.

"274" 10-961 wrote.

"Eh?!" Tails squeaked. That was a huge difference in numbers! And there were only minor changes between the two! Either these robots or their creator weren't very imaginative, or these guys were being made at lightning speed. But why?

"How much time do you think past between the creations of the two of you?" Tails asked, though he kinda doubted the robot would know.

A shrug from the metallix answered that of course.

He did not know in the slightest. Another question to ask 274. He did, however, find it weird that Tails looked a little… panicked at his brother's number-name. He was about to ask Tails his question when Cream came over with the tea.

"Here's your tea everyone!" Cream announced distracting everyone for the moment. A round of thanks was given as everyone received their tea. Except for 10-961 of course, but he didn't know why he was excluded. He threw his arm wide then pointed at himself with his right hand; it screamed "HEY, what about me?" Tails was less focused on a robot wanting tea and more on the fact that the robot reattached his left arm – he hadn't noticed it with how it dangled at his side unresponsive. But no one else knew about the arm and continued on.

"Oh, did you want one? I didn't make it 'cause robots usually can't drink tea." Cream explained. "Or any kind of drinks actually.."

oh

10-961 felt a little silly now. The no mouth thing really should've been a hint.

"Do you even know what you run on?" Chuck asked. "You know, what kind of fuel?"

The Metallix pondered this. He really had no idea. His HUD had said something about nanites needing a 'recharge'. Before he could answer with the suggestion that it could be these 'nanites', Sonic interrupted.

"You know Tails, it will probably be easier if Metallix here had his voice back." Sonic suggested.

"Oh? OH! Right! Let me go get that! Don't worry 10-961, I'll go get your voice chip!" Tails exclaimed, having been startled from his thoughts. The voice chip had been fried and Tails had fashioned a new one. It was just about the only thing he could fix or even remove from 10-961. The arm had been particularly stubborn, but the wires had been sticking out all wrong –not to mention zapping him with loose electricity. Even the broken eyelid had been easier to slip free and that thing was thoroughly wedged in.

As Tails thought hard about the strange robot he forgot all about the other equally strange robot. So engrossed in getting the new voice chip and his theories and questions, he failed to noticed the loud, sputtering clicks and whirls of 274.

And Crimson eyes slowly flickering online.