A/N Chapter five , dur.
So probably gonna introduce the net character into the story I have planned, and maybe the next cause I did have them both planned to appear here. There's also another fifth person I will get for sure but they'll appear a bit later. There's others but I have no idea when or where to introduce them(PS none are OC's I kinda didn't want to make an OC and risk accidentally making him OP somehow(Not like a lot of the main characters in the Sonic universe aren't OP already)
In the morning Fiona woke first and looked around finding her companion still asleep. She guessed that he slept in more because he had the luxury and safety to afford to.
She was still a little angry at him for last night, what did she possible have to hide, what could she possibly do to betray him. She quite literally had nothing and as such had nothing to lose.
She rolled her eyes and got up and quickly stretched like every morning and climbed up the small incline and looked around. Looking in all directions she saw near empty wasteland, only the odd rock or hill.
With a heavy sigh she crouched down and drew in the ash until she heard something move behind her. With a quick glance she could see Tails getting up.
He groaned wiping away some droll from his face, that made Fiona smile before turning back to look out for any trouble.
Both stayed quiet, Tails would have accused her of doing something sketchy but the fact she was in plain view made him resist the urge. Had she left to scout the area he'd have thought she was betraying him. So he just let her continue her look out and got his stuff ready.
The male packed up his heater lamp, food and checked his weapon to make sure it wasn't damaged or had a chance of malfunctioning. His quick inspection brought no concern so he shouldered it and asked "Ready to go?"
Fiona hummed "I don't see anybody out there, so I guess so" she stood up with a shrug and waited for him to climb the small incline before following his lead.
Like yesterday the walk was boring but about halfway through the day they came across a patrol of egg-bots, neither wanted to be seen or have their movements reported so they waited while the robots passed.
With the danger gone they continued and Fiona tried to think of what they'd find once they got there. If they survived without help for a few months they must have either smart people there or lucky people. Either trait was useful right now.
She quickly looked over to her companion and noticed his eyes had glazed over, it was like he wasn't even there. She'd seen it before in so many people. Heavy thought, depression, memories. It all caused the million-mile stare. What was going on in his head to cause such a reaction? Or maybe he was just thinking hard about the same subject she'd been thinking of, who knows… well he did.
Continuing on the sun was starting to set again, but Tails continued on.
"We're almost there" he said, it was weird to hear his voice after not hearing it for almost twelve hours.
"We gonna scout the area?" Fiona asked knowing if the town was quarantined they'd need to find a way inside.
"Of course we are" he said lowering the face plate of his helmet and said with his synthesized voice "Stay close be quiet" he then dashed off kicking up ash. Fiona followed with lighter steps then him and slightly crouched to make it harder to be seen. His heavy armor didn't seen to slow him, he clearly had a lot of time to get stronger and adjust to it.
Just beyond the horizon as they ran they could see a wall rise and Tails slid to a stop against a fairly large rock and crouched to stay out of sight. Fiona quickly followed and also crouched. Unfortunately the rock may have been big enough to hide them but it wasn't big enough for personal space. Somehow behind the visor Fiona could tell Tails didn't like that. She wasn't crazy about it either after their last scuffle she really didn't want to be within arms reach of him.
Fiona watched as he just peaked over the rock and tapped a button on the side of his helmet. Inside his helmet magnified allowing him to see across the incredible distance.
"What ya see?" she asked staying low.
"The wall honestly looks like it's been broken a few times and rebuilt. Looks weak but strong enough to hold average people back. Not many automated turrets as I feared. Bots patrol the top, but they patrol in abusable intervals" He hummed in thought.
"Seems low budget, to the untrained eye this is not as much as Eggman could be doing, why keep them alive?" he hummed in thought aloud.
"So you think we can get inside?" Fiona asked avoiding his question for now. Something told her they'd get a better picture once they got inside.
"Looks pretty easy, just need to time it right and we can pass" he explained ducking down again "As I said the wall looks like it's been rebuilt several times. Perhaps that mean the people inside have some decent firepower"
"We need these people" Fiona nodded with a smirk.
"Might be good enough for me to get rid of you" Tails remarked harshly.
"I'm sure they'll trust you when you gun down your one ally" smirking again since she could play her hand well.
He stayed quiet acting like he ignored the comeback and thought of a plan. While he did Fiona got comfortable and leaned against the rock.
She tried picking at some new found dirt in her fur while she waited and flicked a chunk away. Then had to straighten her fur after messing with it.
Within a few minutes Tails had a plan and waited until the sun light was completely gone. That didn't make Fiona feel good, unlike him she didn't have a fancy helmet to give her night vision. He didn't really care like usually and said "Alright let's go, stay close if you don't want to get lost"
She nodded and stayed on his heels as they quietly approached the wall inch by bloody inch.
It was terrifying knowing her life was in the males hands. Consider his feelings towards her she half expected him to alert one of the turrets jump out of the way and have her take the bullets. So far he hadn't done anything like that.
She whispered "So how do we keep the turrets from seeing us?" only realizing this now.
He was a bit aggravated that she spoke at all right now and said "They stay inactive unless the guards see us, now shut up" the last two words he said with aggression.
She did as he asked and soon she could see the bottom of the wall just barely creep into sight. How long did that take to make that distance, nearly two hours, damn.
Her vision had adjusted to the dark by then about an hour ago so she could see Tails take off his pack and reach inside and pulled out another gun.
On a quick inspection it looked like just another weapon, which made her wonder if things were about to get loud. To her relief he pulled out a metal hooked attached to a tied up string. Now she got it.
He untined the length of rope and tied then end to the bottom of the weapon then pushed the hook into the barrel with a small click.
Both flinched and froze hearing that but after a minute they weren't dead so the male fox continued.
He aimed up and after a second to aim trying to guess where the top of the wall would be in the dark he pressed the trigger.
The sound of a piston was made and the hooked fired up into the dark. After a second they heard a small cling sound and Tails pulled. The first pulled felt no resistance but the second made another cling sound and Tails tugged a few times to test if it could handle weight.
Once it had been checked he looked down to his arm and looked to a small digital watch and said "We got two minutes to get up and over"
She nodded not wanting to waste time as he untied his grapple gun from the rope. She climbed finding it a bit hard but not impossible. Having a solid wall to lean against helped as she pulled herself up.
She felt Tails follow having got his equipment back and she smirked whispering "Better not be staring at my ass"
Like she expected he growled "Shut up"
Her mind laughed and joked to herself that his reaction meant he actually had. She quickly forgot about it and soon felt the edge of the wall and grinned. She climbed over panting and looked left and right, her limited vision made that almost useless. None the less she upholstered her pistols incase trouble came a coming.
Within another ten seconds Tails climbed over the wall and quickly grabbed the hook that was wedged into the wall and pulled up the rope. Since they were pressed on time he simply threw it over the edge of the other side and followed it down. Fiona did as he did and jumped down.
Hearing his heavy armor hit the ground got her worried but she quickly followed more gracefully landing. The wall was tall and it hurt her legs a lot to make that landing. Better then smashing her head or something.
In the darkness Tails had gathered his hook and as he ran away he tied it back together. Fiona heard his footsteps and followed the sound until she tripped over another large rock.
"Dammit" she growled rubbing her shin and hissing in pain.
"Shut up" she heard her companion hiss back leaning against the very same rock she had run into.
Rolling her eyes she quickly slid behind the rock and panted, from the climbing, running and pain.
"How much time did we have left?' she asked curiously.
"About ten seconds" he said resetting his watch.
She gulped "A little too close for comfort"
He grunted in response. Fiona wondered why they were waiting but after a short analysis it was because he was waiting for the patrol time to rest so they could run again.
She was right as Tails hit another button on his wrist and the timer started again and he got up and dashed away. She quickly followed ignoring the pain her legs.
Both foxes thought they were clear until suddenly Tails knocked down and seemed to be out cold. Fiona slid to a stop near his body and bent over to help but felt a sting in her side and very quickly closed her eyes. Last thing she felt was her body hitting the ash covered ground.
Hours later…
Fiona awoke and wondered if she had died. The first thing she tried to do was clear her vision. Blinking a few times she tried to reach for her eyes. On hand ws dead stopped while the other had heavy weight on it. Not to mention if she pulled too hard on either her wrist would be pinched.
So carefully she wiped her eyes and her vision cleared enough to see.
If she had died then Heaven had terrible greeting rooms… or maybe it was hell…. No fire, ok so far.
She looks to her hands, one was cuffed to a wall and the other was cuffed to an arm which she soon realized was Tails. His armor had been stripped from him and left him with no shirt and his cargo pants. She was sure there's was nothing inside them anymore.
It soon became apparent he was still ut so she looked around again. The room was dimly lit by a small light hanging from the ceiling and a door was opposite of the room from her.
She realized she'd had been cuffed and captured twice now in a short time and groaned. Her head was spinning and she felt around her body to find anything useful. Unfortunately there wasn't, her pistols were gone, again. But what seemed to irked her the most was her fur was covered in dust again "I just got this shit off, dammit"
With a sigh she realized there was nothing to do besides clean her fur once again and started picking away. It didn't do much so she looked to Tails still asleep. How he was still asleep when she was taken down second was beyond her since she had been sitting there awhile now.
She found herself looking him over with his lack of shirt. Damn he looked fit now. Back before she betrayed him he looked weak, young and short. Now he was intimidating, strong and confident. His chest fur had grown along with him, if not a bit over grown. He obviously didn't feel a need to groom himself as much since he lived alone. She even noticed he had a six pack appearing under his fur.
Fiona raised an eyebrow at what the fox had become ad surprisingly liked it, atleast on a physical level. He was still a jackass to her. It was only when he moaned finally waking she shook her mind away realizing she had been staring.
The male took his hand and held his head, she allowed him to pull her arm around to do so. He went through the same routine as she had to clear his vision and looked around weakly.
Fiona greeted him by saying "You can't blame me, I'm cuffed here too"
His groan sounded annoyed but he didn't do much else besides look around.
"How long have been here?" he asked his voice sounding distorted like it was full of saliva which he quickly swallowed down.
"Hell if I know, I woke up about half an hour ago though" she shrugged
He groaned again, he didn't like not knowing things. He looked down realized his armor was gone and all his other stuff "They took my stuff" he said growling aggressively.
Fiona almost said something sarcastic but decided staying quiet would be healthier for her and let him blow off his steam. But it was nice to know not to steal from him if he was getting this angry about it. Even though taking his equipment was logical. Seemed a bit stupid to let a prisoner keep their weapons.
His fist clenched in anger but he made no hostile motion to her so she didn't really care. In time though he slowly calmed, he was going to be easily provoked though so she chose her words carefully.
"So who do you think got us, the town or the bots?"
He took a deep breath and said looking around "The shack tells me it's the town"
"Good point" she nodded.
"They take your stuff too?" he asked looking to her.
"Yup, except I still have my shirt" she said looking away.
"I never even wore a shirt under it…. It's kinda hot in there. Adding a shirt only makes it worse" he explained.
"Makes sense" she shrugged.
"Once I nearly got so desperate that I almost shaved off my fur to make it cooler but I decided against it" he explained, apparently after being captured and looted he was talkative.
Fiona snorted hearing that "Wow, must have been super hot if you were that desperate" she realized he actually spoke to her about something normal instead of mission related or something mean to her.
"yup" was all he said going back to quiet mode.
"So do you work out or did you just naturally get that strong from the new you?" she asked hoping he'd keep talking, the small dimly lit room was depressing.
"A bit of both" he grunted out.
"Gotcha" she nodded getting quiet too.
For some odd reason it felt awkward and Tails suddenly said "They just had to cuff me to you"
Fiona didn't appreciate that but trying to look on the brighter side and too annoy him she replied "Could be worse, we could be tied together back to back"
"…. Good point" he sighed.
Fiona sat there a moment and suddenly flinched thinking of something "Tails… what if these people are renegade but crazy people and that wall is to keep them inside not to keep people away?"
They heard footsteps…
Tails just said "Guess we'll find out…"
Mumbling noises were heard outside and Fiona asked feeling no hope in her body after thinking of their captures as psychos "Tails… what if we're about to die?"
"Then I hope you die first" he said without any mercy nor thought. The fox looked away. She had slightly hoped his threats were just threats but it seemed even in the face of possible death he was still content with outliving her. She almost wanted cry, what happened to him to make him this way… apparently she was the reason. She wanted to apologize, despite her believing he was more to blame for allowing himself to slip away, but felt it would mean nothing to him. She had come to realize she truly was dead to him.
So with no comforting words from her ex-friend she waited for whatever fate was behind that door. She'd have prayed if she felt she was deserving enough to get an answer, but something told her all the choices she made in life wasn't getting her an extra life.
Her knees trembled at the thought of death, it never really came to her until now but what was on the other side of life? She had never believed in anything before but at this moment was willing to bend down and bow to whatever deity existed for a thousand years just to avoid the darkness that she had come to believe was beyond death. Like before in Tails' base when she was cuffed the darkness terrified her and being alone made it worse.
The fox held back tears of terror and wished Tails to say something… ANYTHING to comfort her but that was a wasted thought. It was over and the last thing she'd remember was how much Tails truly hated her guts.
The door knob started to turn and Fiona's pulse quickened she wanted to close her eyes but they stayed wide open to see who was behind the door. She panted as her heart rate continued to rise.
Due to the room being dimly lit as the door opened it got intensely bright for their eyes and both squinted and looked away to not hurt their eyes.
Both recovered quickly and looked to the doorway as the silhouette started to clear from the lit background. It started out black and continued to stay black and the definition started to come.
The blur went away and their eyes adjusted revealing the figure and both said in disbelief "Shadow?"
Standing before them was the hedgehog himself, he had changed since either last saw him. His right ear had a small hole in it from a bullet. A scar going vertically down the left side of his lip, and finally he had a leg brace on his left leg that resembled the one a character called Mad Max wore in a movie.
"Good to see neither of you forgot who I am" he smirked staring at the two foxes.
"Why are we cuffed to a wall!" Tails growled, he didn't consider Shadow an enemy, so he hoped the hedgehog thought same of him… maybe not Fiona.
"Because if I remember correctly you both disappeared for some length of time since Eggman destroyed everything. I also remember be told that Eggman created a Fiona bot and infiltrated the freedom fighters. So you can understand my distrust" He explained with his arms crossed. His weight was subtly shifted to the right to rest his left leg.
Tails scoffed rolling his eyes "Then how'd your darts work?" he guessed they used tranq darts or something like that.
"Perhaps your robotic bodies felt them inject it and faked being knocked out" he said being very hard to read if he was serious or not.
"Fine then cut Fiona open look for yourself. Cause I know I haven't been captured by Eggman lately" he said giving an angry side glance to his partner.
Fiona just frowned looking away but Shadow scoffed "That wound still festering? Hmmm for a second I thought you two had kissed and made up considering you were keeping each other company"
Fiona waited for Tails to explain the situation "We're only together because she has a crazy plan and needs help, only reason I agreed is because I want it just as bad as her"
Shadows eyebrow rose and smiled "Ahhhh, I was wondering why anyone would risk crossing the wall to get inside"
"I doubt you'll take any of it seriously until we prove we're real" Fiona finally spoke up.
The hedgehog nodded "Good observation. Luckily for you…" he pointed to Fiona "I won't need to cut you open and get a look inside" He then proceeded to pull out a small knife and approached.
"But you just said!?" Fiona slid back against the wall.
"Stay still" he demanded grabbing her arm and cutting a small incision which blood flowed out of. The female gasp from the sting but understood what he was doing now. He quickly pulled out some cloth and handed it to her so she could cover up the wound.
He did the same to Tails who growled at him. He wasn't intimidated and did the same also seeing blood and nodded "Alright, with that over.." he pulled out a key and unlocked the cuffs.
Both foxes held the cloths on their wounds and Fiona mumbled "Just add another to the scar collection"
Tails just huffed rolling his eyes rubbing his wound "So now what?" the fox looked to the ebony hedgehog.
Shadow stopped and his hand rested on the make-shift brace on his leg and half turned "Now you try to persuade me to join your cause"
AHHHHH it couldn't be a sonic franchise story without Shadow in it(From me atleast) he's just one of the three characters that are garenteed to appear. As I said before their may be others but I'd need to figure out how to use them and stuff.
So thanks for reading, appreciate any words(even criticism)
I also hope that people truly saw how much Fiona means to Tails… less than zero. If it changes… we'll see *Mischievous smirk*
Anyway live long and prosper
Admiralkirk