The red lighting from the wall circuits faded as the two walkers stepped into another room, replaced by green that came from brightly lit tanks filled with fluid in the color of neon. Pipes ran along the top of the canisters, feeding into the walls on either side and still circulating fluids even after all the time that had passed.
Shadow stared at the opaque depths of one of the liquid-filled pods as the Egg Walker went past, followed by the Cyclone and Rouge. He exhaled, a bit of condensation forming on the cold glass before stepping away and trailing behind the rest of the group.
"Another one…" said Cosmo, Tails looking behind him and following her gaze. A larger tank on their left side was shattered, the fluid around it long dried and mostly evaporated. It had been the third broken tube they'd seen since entering the area.
"Probably happened decades ago," said Eggman from his mecha in front of theirs. "What was in these tanks anyway, Shadow?"
"Various things," said the ultimate life form. "Most of these pods were used to contain both successful and failed live experiments in indefinite stasis, as reference points for future projects."
The seedrian looked with newfound disgust at the tanks. "You mean there are still living things in these?! We should free them! Who knows how lon-"
"No." interrupted Shadow, shaking his head and looking back up over his shoulder at the Cyclone's passenger. "The ARK had a number of failsafe protocols to minimize damage incase experiments ever got loose from the labs. One of them was to shut down life-support functions to all storage tanks in the event that main power should be lost or turned off, rather than risk them escaping onto a defenseless facility. If you drained all these pods, the only thing you'd find are preserved corpses."
Tails tasted bile as he looked upon the rows upon rows of tanks than extended both around and below the walkway they were traveling. Had Gerald known about this too? He must have, if even one of his own creations did. How could someone accept such things as necessary, yet still strive to better his own species? Did such means really justify the ends?
The walkers and their escort continued onward, passing over several more rows of stasis tanks and then a few vats filled with the same shimmering, green liquid. After that, another double-layered door opened upon a narrow walkway, white light shining under the wide-set rails running on either side. A lift platform hovered in the middle of the shaft, and Tails leaning over the side of the Cyclone saw only darkness below. Above, the red circuit-lights reappeared between the iron sheets that lined the shaft, mingling with the white coming from under the rails and along the edges of the lift to create a faintly pink hue that tinted metal, fur, and flesh.
With everyone aboard, the platform should have started to ascend. But as the seconds rolled on without automated movement and fingers tapped impatiently against iron hulls, it became quickly apparent that something wasn't working right.
Rolling his eyes, Shadow got down on one knee at flipped open a maintenance panel on the lift floor. "The weight and motion sensors are broken," he said, tapping at something unseen within the rat's nest of wires and buttons, "as well as the manual override. The only way this thing is going to move is if someone activates the controls at the top."
"Well then," said Eggman, looking over at the Cyclone and its pilot, "how fortuitous then that we have a flying mechanic with us."
"Yeah," agreed the kitsune, standing up from his seat and warming up his namesakes, "lucky me."
"Rouge!" Ivo then yelled, turning to the bat who was somehow inspecting her nails despite them being covered by gloves. "Go with Tails, just incase."
The bat glanced back over her shoulder at Eggman, and then after shrugging took wing.
"Be careful, Tails." Said Cosmo as the kitsune took off as well, responding by looking back and winking at her before the two fliers disappeared in the distance above.
A couple of minutes passed as the two ascended up the shaft and farther into the Colony. Then Rouge, with a wicked smile, broke the silence as she looked in the kitsune's direction and said quite bluntly: "So I heard you knocked up your girlfriend."
The comment caught Tails so much off guard that his namesakes stopped spinning, and he fell flailing for a few seconds before remembering how to fly. His face was flushed with red when he finally caught back up with the bat, and she didn't even give him a chance to stutter out a response before continuing on: "Oh, that's a definite yes. Don't suppose it was behind those stomach issues too, huh? Well good job kid. At least some men can put together the deeper meaning behind the stares, the smiles, and the exclusive attention. Still, if I ever got to that point with a certain echidna, I'd make sure he knew what a condom was and how-"
Mercifully, Tails was spared whatever impure place this conversation was probably headed as an electrical pulse arced between him and Rouge, overloading the crimson circuit board behind the two and sending the metal plate covering it clanging horizontally across the shaft before tumbling down below. The guilty party of the attack, a squad of GUN Beetles and a GUN Hawk, descended from above as they continued to fire yellow streaks of energy at their targets.
The duo reacted with the initiative and instinct ingrained from countless battles, spreading apart to provide two pursuits instead of one. From above, Rouge flew directly amongst the throng of beetles, thinning their ranks with both friendly fire and her trademark Screw Kick. Below, Tails flew around as an erratic target, drawing fire and occasionally slicing through one of the armed drones with his whirling namesakes.
The tactic worked for a time, but numbers still threatened to overwhelm the two fliers. Acting with daring, the kitsune swerved up into the mass of floating robots, landing atop the GUN Hawk. The machine didn't take kindly to the uninvited passenger, swerving and twisting as it attempted to throw its hitchhiker off. The twin-tailed fox would not be denied though, somehow maintain a hold while tearing off a panel and going to work on the circuitry within. Wires were cut and resistors burnt out, the golden eye on the front of the droid winking out as its chassis was hijacked.
With speed and precision, Tails reconnected another set of wires and shoved his right arm down into the GUN Hawk's central motherboard. Spreading flat as electrical blasts continued to only just miss him, the kitsune took manual control of the chassis with the movement of his hand, rotating his new weapon around as it blasted the beetles one by one with their own firepower, each one detonating in a fantastic cloud of mechanical parts and smoke.
The numbers of the GUN droids had been reduced to almost nothing when the kitsune suddenly screamed, white-hot pain searing his right tail. The beetle responsible spun around, hovering directly into Tails' face as it charged a shot, but was blown apart before it could fire when Rouge drove into its side with her heel.
The kitsune's hand, still contorting from the pain, snapped the upper circuit board it was directing in two, the GUN Hawk's turbine belching out smoke as it began to succumb to gravity and fall. Tails tumbled off the top of the droid's left side, unable to do more than plummet as it hurt just to think about moving his namesakes, let alone spinning them. His drop down would have likely been long had Rouge not been there, the bat swooping and grabbing the young mechanic around the waist, groaning as she hauled her own weight as well as his up with nothing but her wings.
Somehow, the queen of self-pampering managed to lift them both the last stretch of the shaft, depositing her baggage on the docking ledge before landing a few feet off, complaining "And I thought the Master Emerald was heavy…"
Tails, still twitching from the sensitivity of the pain, struggled over the lift controls and managed to yank off the panel, punching the emergency call before dropping to his knees. As gently as he could, the kitsune pulled his injured tail around his back so he could inspect the wound. Scorched fur was clumped and frayed near the base of his right namesake, the middle completely devoid of it with wide stretches of white blisters where the energy weapon had struck.
Suppressing a whimper, the kitsune let the appendage coil back into place as he put his head against the wall and tried to control his breathing. He'd gotten lucky; a direct hit from a G.U.N. weapon was powerful enough to cripple a person from what he remembered back on Earth. The burns he had seemed mostly superficial, though that meant they'd also be significantly more painful. He wouldn't be doing anymore flying today; it was a good thing then that he'd brought the Tornado 3.
It's funny how, when you're in pain, time seems to stop behaving normally. Each aching pulse reminds you of the seconds and how slow they are passing by, yet the nothing you do from moment to moment can make even hours blur together as you forget all about the cycles of day and night. Tails remained in such a daze as the freshness of the wound faded and the sharp stab of blood passing through dulled to a throb. Rouge either didn't notice, didn't care, or just thought him man enough to deal with it as she quietly waited with an occasional personal pruning.
The heartfelt cry of his name woke Tails from his dozing, Cosmo jumping down from the Cyclone and running between the smoking, crashed wrecks of several GUN Beetles scattered around the platform as the lift finished locking into place with the walkway. The seedrian stopped quite rapidly as she saw the cooked skin of the kitsune's tail, putting a hand over her mouth and as she got closer and examined the wound. "Ahh!" she squeaked, switching her gaze to his own, "Tails, are you alright?!"
Obviously not, he thought, but bit back the bitter remark upon seeing the genuine concern in her eyes. Even pain couldn't make him barb his words, not to Cosmo. "I'll… Be fine," he said, quoting her from earlier but unable to suppress an eye twitch as her hand caressed one of the blisters.
The plant girl didn't seem ready to take that for an answer though, reaching down and tearing a piece of fabric from the bottom of her dress, not unlike something she had done nearly a year ago. "Here," she said, "hold still." Keeping the end of fabric to the base of the wounded tail, Cosmo wrapped it around in an outward clockwise spiral until the makeshift bandage covered the burned fur and flesh.
Standing up, Tails gingerly tested the appendage and was pleasantly surprised that it no longer hurt so long as he didn't move it too quickly. "Thanks flower," he said, hugging his love and touching a butterfly kiss to the side of her head with his nose.
Eggman made a gagging noise, earning him a glare from the two that caused him to put up his hands in a gesture of surrender. Behind him, Shadow snorted as he casually stepped over the sparking remains of a former beetle. "So," he began, "I suppose there's an explanation for why it started raining outdated machinery?"
"GUN Mecha," said Rouge, standing up and folding her arms. "The military probably sent up a few platoons to guard the ARK after our little bid for world dictatorship. It wouldn't be hard to think about them getting dragged back into our world with the rest of the ARK."
"It would be hard to picture why they would attack on sight though," returned Eggman. "Myself or Shadow I could understand, but certainly not Tails." The fat man folded his arms. "Or you single-handedly wiping out a platoon of GUN bots, for that matter." He said snarkily.
"Everyone underestimates me," said the bat, closing her eyes and holding her arms out. "Most people don't even realize how hard it is to be a treasure hunter, run a club, and be a government spy all at once."
"EX-government spy," corrected Shadow.
"Regardless," said Tails, trying to trim the barbs the conversation was growing and turn it back to something practical, "the fact remains that, yes, GUN Mecha is aboard the colony. And they have been programmed to attack on sight."
"Meaning?" asked Rouge, lazily opening an eye at the twin-tailed fox.
"Meaning," continued Shadow along the kitsune's line of thought, "someone reprogrammed them."
Silence.
"It's undeniable then," concluded Eggman. "We aren't the only ones aboard the ARK."