Under Cover
A shudder ran through the Tornado as its propeller stopped spinning. Tails eased all levers that weren't already there into idle position and stood from his seat. He stretched briefly, then turned around to his brother. "There we are!"
Sonic nodded. "Good."
Tails frowned at him. 'Good'? Boy, Sonic really isn't well right now… "You sure you're okay?"
The hedgehog nodded again. "Sure. I'm just sort of tired."
"Uh-huh…" Tails hopped down from the plane. "Come on, let's go upstairs." Sonic followed without comment as Tails climbed the stairs. He stopped at the end of the treads, turning to the hedgehog again. "How about some chili dogs?"
Sonic shook his head. "I'm not hungry right now."
Tails arched an eyebrow. "Oh. I can make something for ya later then. Maybe after you had a nap?"
"That sounds good." Sonic gave another small nod and started off towards the right.
"Hey, where do you think you're going?" Tails stared at the hedgehog when Sonic turned around. "Your room's that way?" The fox pointed.
"Oh, yeah, right…" Sonic smiled a little and strolled past Tails.
The fox quickly joined his side and opened the door to his room for him. "Here. Are you sure you're feeling okay?" Maybe he'd hit his head and had a concussion? Tails had never really seen him suffer much ill effects from hitting his head against anything, no matter how sturdy or heavy or fast-moving, but maybe there was a first for all? A headache would explain the tiredness and lack of motivation to talk, Tails supposed.
"Yes." Sonic walked over to the large sofa and dropped into it so heavily it gave out a sound Tails had never thought it could until now.
The two-tailed kid watched his older friend stretch out on the couch. "Uh, I'm sure you'll be better after some rest. If you need me, you know, just shout."
"Okay." Sprawled on his sofa, Sonic didn't move.
Worriedly Tails looked at him for a moment. "Sleep tight then," he said quietly and closed the door as he walked out.
The moment the door shut behind the fox, Metal Sonic was up again. He concentrated his audio sensors towards the doorway, but the soft footfalls of the creature were leaving and for now the robot was sure he'd had some time before he would be back.
The robot stood up, not bothering to de-camouflage himself. His head turned slowly as his optics scanned the surroundings in morbid fascination. So, this was where his biological counterpart lived when he wasn't roaming the world. Metal stood quietly, absorbing the impressions into his databanks.
This room was nothing like his creator's bases, or his newly overtaken own base. The ceiling pitched at an angle of 37,89 degrees. A single window let light fall into the room; simple double glass that wouldn't provide the least bit of resistance to any explosions, bullets or high temperatures. Aside of a low energetic bulb lamp at the top of the ceiling, the room was almost empty of technology. There was a device connected to a pair of loudspeakers, a simple non-precision clock lacking five minutes, ten seconds and thirty-four microseconds behind his internal clock, and a powered-down Extreme Gear hover board leaning in a corner.
Metal Sonic turned around. Behind him was only the sofa or bed. Biological units, inferior to his own design, required long periods of rest to recharge their energies. Metal Sonic did not need such a thing as sleep.
The blue robot walked through the room cautiously, making sure he didn't make any sounds that would get the fox's attention. It wasn't too easy to march the room without stepping on anything; the floor was littered with various objects, not all of them could be quickly identified by his scanners.
Leaning down, Metal picked up a round, flat object. The silvery side of it revealed itself to be a rather primitive storage device, filled with binary data. Metal Sonic scanned it in, but the data didn't seem to be anything useful and his set the disc back down onto the floor where he'd found it.
Further scanning of the things on the floor turned up that most of them were pieces of clothing. Metal Sonic picked up a pair of gloves and slipped them over his clawed hands. He looked at the fabric closely. Of course, his hands didn't need protection like those of a biological unit did. Heat, cold or forces did not harm his metal armor as easily as the skin of a weak biological lifeform. But for now his mission was stealth and if he had to touch the fox the gloves would just add to the optical disguise his holograms provided.
As it seemed, the fox creature had not seen through his disguise, but while Metal Sonic's databanks contained detailed information files about his biological copy's fighting and running abilities and also some communication patterns he had recorded during earlier encounters, the data told little about the social interactions between lifeforms. For now it was best he tried to keep out of interactions with the fox unit, until he had completely scouted the location. Then, he strived to find out what benefits his loathsome counterpart got out of the company of the fox creature. The fox was what he was here for ultimately, and the fox would be very useful to him.
Metal Sonic finished his examination of the room with the wooden cupboard that stood against a wall. Blessed with built-in x-ray scanners, he didn't need to bother opening the doors. Just looking at the cupboard he discarded its contents as more useless junk. Apparently biologicals collected all sorts of objects the possession of which would help them with nothing. It was illogical and pathetic.
Still standing in front of the cupboard, Metal's optics fixed on its doors instead of what was behind them. Several rectangular pieces of cellulose were taped to it and Metal Sonic noticed the biological hedgehog had failed to set up any of them in clean ninety degree angles. Everything was asymmetric and unorderly.
The pieces of paper showed colorful images of the blue hedgehog and his associates. On hover boards, at a beach, in their aircraft, in front of the Master Emerald. The largest image in the center depicted the blue hedgehog in middle of the fox and echidna, all three grinning at the camera that had recorded the photo. Metal Sonic's optics bore into the face of the hedgehog and his claws fisted as the hatred he felt for him flooded his circuits. He restrained himself with the reminder that he had gotten rid of his foe for all eternity. Before anybody knew of it, he would have taken his place. It had already begun. And as soon as the fox was his as well, he'd get access to more power than the universe had seen in all its time of existence.
Metal Sonic nodded to himself and started to turn away from the photo, but stopped halfway. No, he could not stand to look at this grin!
When the laser gun in his torso ceased to fire, the detested look of his arch-enemy's face had been reduced to a circular burn mark.
Speedy's note: I am sorry for the once again rather long wait, and the shortness of this chapter. The next one will be quicker in coming, though.
And actually, this wasn't a bad point to stop. It kind of had 'End of Chapter' written all over it. ;)
