Hey everyone! It's time for another chapter! But first, the reviews from last time!
Void Reader: Robotnik is certainly still himself and has got more than a few tricks up his sleeve, and as for Sonic's connection to Chaos Energy, as well as Project Zero, you'll have to read and find out!
Perturbo: Actually competent Eggman is indeed the best Eggman, and trying to get his three lackies to feel right has been harder than anticipated. But I'm glad you're enjoying the take on him in this story!
That's everyone, so let's start the chapter!
Nightstalkers
Spectres
Miles ran as fast as he could through the snowy woodland, the sounds of the inferno and the shouting of the angry mob fading away completely as he went. Eventually, too tired to run any longer, the young fox fell to his hands and knees in the snow, sobbing uncontrollably at the one thing he didn't want to admit.
Rosemary was dead.
"She can't be dead, maybe that was someone else! It's all just a big misunderstanding!"
As much as he tried to deny what he'd just seen, he couldn't shut one simple phrase from his mind.
"This is all your fault…"
"It's not my fault…"
"Of course it is, you're the one who messed up! You're the one they were after!"
"It's not…"
"Mom is dead because of you Miles! Face it!"
The fox's thoughts were interrupted by the faint sounds of shouting, looking back the way he'd come, Miles noticed distant orange lights quickly making their way toward him.
They'd followed him.
Jumping back to his feet, the adrenaline and fear in his veins threw him forward as he broke into a run. Immediately voices from the mob cried out.
"You can't hide, you freak!"
"There he is!"
The fox barely had time to register the sound of a crossbow firing before the projectile struck him in the arm, the bolt lodging itself into his flesh and sending shockwaves of pain through his entire body as he screamed in agony.
"I'm going to die."
"Got him!" One of the voices from the mob yelled.
Fighting through the pain, Miles pressed forward. He heard a second crossbow bolt strike a nearby tree as he darted past it, and a third flew right by him and landed in the undisturbed snow nearby.
Any movement of his left arm hurt tremendously, but stopping now would mean certain death.
He just needed to keep running.
-X-
Tails bolted upright, his panicked breathing the only sound in the room as the most recent nightmare faded from his thoughts.
He took a bit to slowly calm his nerves and racing heart, absentmindedly stroking the fur where the crossbow bolt had struck as he tried to push off the emotions that came with his recurring nightmares. The fox could tell it was late, and the other two Freedom Fighters were still fast asleep in their beds.
Figuring that going back to bed was just going to end with another nightmare, he decided to see what exactly there was to explore, given there wasn't exactly anything better to do.
Putting his headband on and wrapping his blanket around himself, the fox got out of bed and started toward the exit of the trio's shared quarters, his nightmare still at the back of his mind as he felt the cold floor underneath his pawed feet.
"Don't think about it… Don't think about it…"
The hydraulic door opened and let the fox out into the small hallway outside their quarters. As he stepped out, the emotions that came with his nightmares started to surface, small tears started to form on the edges of his vision and his breathing started to grow more and more ragged.
"Y-You're alright Tails… Just don't…"
Very quickly Tails found himself unable to deal with his emotions any longer. Reaching the wall next to the elevator that accessed the rest of the structure, the fox sat down and curled up into a fetal position, pulling his blanket around himself for warmth and to wipe away some of the tears now running down his face.
"You're… You're okay… They can't hurt you… Just…"
A brief memory of fire in his mind immediately sent him into a panic, he buried his head in his blanket as he started to tremble, his thoughts running a thousand miles a minute as his brain continued to project flashes of memory into his thoughts.
It wasn't long before the quiet whimpers of his panic attack drew the attention of someone else.
"Are you alright?" The mechanical voice spoke.
Tails peeked his head out from within his blanket, his terror filled eyes eventually settled on Orbot and Cubot. The pair of machines looked at the fox with some degree of curiosity.
"You look like you've seen a ghost!" Cubot added, just before getting smacked in the back of the head by Orbot.
"Apologies for him," The red robot continued.
"H-He's alright…" Tails responded, his panicked breathing starting to calm down. Having something else to focus on and talk to was helping him to push off any remnants of the nightmare, even if that something was a pair of talking robots. "I'm… I'm fine…"
"Well maybe you should be back in bed, it is quite late."
"I… I can't sleep…"
"So you're just like the boss!" Cubot interjected.
"Robotnik?"
"He doesn't sleep very much either, maybe you two could chat!"
Tails considered it for a moment, "He won't mind?"
"He shouldn't," Orbot responded.
"He does like visitors!" Cubot added.
The fox made his way to his feet, finally pushing the rest of the nightmare he'd had out of his mind and drying the last of his tears as he did. "Well, I guess I've got nothing better to do."
The fox followed behind the two robots as they all entered the elevator. Shortly after they entered it started to descend toward the ground level of the structure.
The doors opened and the trio stepped into the workshop that the Freedom Fighters had been in when they'd first gotten here, immediately, the fox locked eyes with the mechanical blue hedgehog that Robotnik had introduced earlier. The machine charged the fox before he could even react, grabbing him by the neck and holding him a few inches off the ground. Tails tried to kick at the machine to free himself but was ultimately unsuccessful as the robot's grip tightened.
"Put him down!" The voice of Robotnik barked, looking over from a nearby work bench, "I know his arrival is unexpected, but he's not a threat!"
The automaton released the fox and Tails immediately fell to his hands and knees, gasping for breath.
"I'm terribly sorry about that!" Robotnik continued, "Still working out the bugs… I suppose he figured you were trying to sneak up on me."
"We found him outside his quarters," Cubot added. "We thought you'd like to speak with him."
The fox finished catching his breath before making his way back to his feet, giving a sidelong glance at the machine that had just barely attacked him.
"So what finds you awake this time of night?" Robotnik asked, dismissing Orbot and Cubot as he grabbed one of the tools attached to his belt from under his cloak before turning back to the project on the workbench in front of him.
"I… I just can't sleep… So I figured I'd just look around a bit."
"Well, I'm not going to send you back to bed. You're welcome to stay as long as you don't damage the place…"
A brief silence followed as the fox sat in a nearby chair, looking at a few of the other workbenches and half finished projects in the room. "So… What are you working on?"
The scientist glanced over at the fox, "Well, I suppose I can explain as long as you want to be helpful…"
The fox slid his chair over a bit closer to the workbench.
"I'm looking for a method of tapping further into the energy in that gemstone." The man explained, nodding his head over toward the now stoic and motionless Hero of Legend, more specifically the gemstone housed in his chest. "A lot of it is just sitting in there…"
Tails looked over the project on the workbench for a bit, his blanket still firmly wrapped around him as he slowly made sense of how it worked. "Well, maybe if you tried reversing the polarity for the connector between the main current and the siphon it could work…"
Looking back at the part specified, Robotnik considered the suggestion for a moment.
"That'll make it incredibly unstable… Unless… The polarity for the converter is reversed as well, that could work… Where'd you learn how to work on this sort of thing?"
"It doesn't seem too different from the mechanisms in the pistol I built, just a bit bigger."
"I'm impressed, especially from a mobian like yourself."
"T-Thanks…" The fox responded, a bit of subtle embarrassment in his voice.
"Especially when you consider your… Unique genetic makeup."
Tails' blood ran cold the moment he fully registered what Robotnik said. He looked up from the project the two had been working on as his focus shifted to the man himself, with his recent nightmare fresh in his memory, a single thought crossed his mind.
"Run."
Scrambling to his feet he immediately felt Robotnik's mechanical hand grab the scruff of his neck, the fox tried to take a swing at the scientist in a panic but found he was being held just a bit too far away.
"Easy there, I'm not going to hurt you." The scientist said.
The panic gripping Tails' chest lessened a bit as he registered what Robotnik had said. "What do you want?" He asked, looking into the man's glasses.
"I just want to talk… It's not often the opportunity to study something like this lands on my doorstep. I believe this can be arranged to benefit both of us, if you're willing to cooperate…"
Robotnik slipped the fox's headband off with his free hand, placing it carefully on a nearby workbench.
"Fascinating…" He spoke, looking over the fox's three blue eyes as he pushed the fox's thick bangs aside. "Certainly far more unique than I expected…"
Robotnik set the fox back down in the chair next to his own, examining the fox like an exhibit at a museum. While Tails figured that Robotnik didn't seem like an immediate threat, he did wonder where he was exactly going with all this examination.
"So, how does it work exactly? I imagine there are some side effects that come with it…"
"It…" Tails began, his voice trailing off. Did he really want to tell all this to a man he'd only met earlier that day? "It's complicated…"
"I can imagine… But that's not what I'm looking for… I want specifics…"
"But why?"
"Research. You are a very unique opportunity to study something different, and maybe, I can return the favor and help you with your condition…"
"What do you mean?"
"Well I'm sure there are some less desirable parts that you wouldn't mind being… Rearranged… I imagine you can't just fuse two species' DNA without some unintended consequences."
The fox knew exactly what the scientist was implying with his words. "How do I know it'll work the way you want it to?"
"It won't unless some research is done, so that brings me back to my question… How does it work exactly?"
Tails hesitated, what Robotnik said sounded too good to be true. But the prospect of never having to deal with his hunting urges again was a difficult offer to turn down, especially after what had happened last time… Besides, what did he have to lose?
"Fine… I'll tell you…"
The fox launched into an explanation of everything he knew about how being a Nightspawn worked. His hunting urges, the ability to speak with Nightstalkers, everything. The entire time, Robotnik listened carefully to everything the fox had to say.
"So, in essence, you've acquired traits from both sides, a perfect hybrid if you will."
"I guess that's one way to put it, but… How are you even going to help change that?"
Robotnik smiled, "There's more to this sanctuary than you might think."
The scientist stood up from his workbench, grabbing the fox's headband and gesturing for the mobian to follow him as he made his way to the elevator for the structure. After the two stepped inside, Robotnik held his mechanical palm to a section of the wall, immediately, the section of the wall flashed a bright green color for a second before the door closed and the elevator started to ascend. Tails couldn't tell exactly how far they traveled, but he did know it had passed the floor that contained the quarters where he and the other Freedom Fighters were staying.
The elevator opened to a laboratory of sorts. Computer screens and scientific apparatus that Tails wasn't familiar with were scattered about, and everything had a thin layer of dust on its surface. Evidently, this room hadn't been used in a while.
"You see, before creating the Hero of Legend, I tried other ways to fulfill the prophecy." Robotnik explained, "Through research, I discovered that the one that defeated Hizarn in the past had a deep connection to Chaos Energy, so I knew I needed to replicate that. I experimented on organic beings for a time, eventually culminating in what I like to call Project Zero. Modifying genetic makeup isn't hard… If you have the right tools of course."
"So… What happened to Project Zero?"
"He was rendered obsolete, overshadowed by the new Hero of Legend. Machine testing has proved much more effective and efficient. Lucky for you, I've still got the equipment to make the necessary modifications to your DNA."
The doctor sat down at one of the dusty desks, he powered on the old computer and immediately opened the information he had in Tails' file. "It's going to be some time before I can do anything, getting your DNA structure is one thing, but figuring out what parts need to be changed is something else entirely."
"H-How'd you get my-"
"The blood sample of course. It was necessary for you three to access your quarters, but your data looked specifically interesting. A little bit of poking around told me everything I needed."
Tails took in his answer for a moment, he wasn't sure how he felt about Robotnik suddenly having access to data on all three Freedom Fighters, but he figured he'd deal with that later.
"So… How long do you think that will take?"
"A few days at most, so if you're willing to stay for that period of time, I can figure out what exactly needs to be moved around to deal with some of the side effects of your monster half."
"So we just need to stay here?"
"You'll have to do some other things of course, plenty of testing to be done to make sure it's done right the first time. This is part of why I switched to machines, using organics is just far too fiddly…"
"You're sure this will work?"
"Oh, I'm positive it will work. I've modified Nightstalker DNA before, and while this is certainly a first, it can't be too much different."
Tails still wasn't convinced, something about this just wasn't sitting right with him. "Why are you helping me?"
"I'm not necessarily doing it for you, I'm doing it for science. Besides, it's good research."
While that answer still didn't have the fox fully convinced, he figured he wasn't going to get a complete answer right now. He'd have to work some more information out of him another time.
"Alright, what else do you need?"
"Nothing for now, but we'll have to continue this in the morning… I suggest you get some rest, the elevator should be able to take you back to your quarters." Robotnik answered, handing the fox's headband back to him.
The fox did have to admit he was feeling a bit sleepy, and waking up in the middle of the night was definitely not helping right now.
"We'll discuss this more tomorrow morning then…"
"Indeed we will…"
Tails made his way back to the elevator and traveled back to the floor that contained the Freedom Fighter's quarters, leaving Robotnik to his own laboratory.
The scientist looked over the data on his screen, he was going to have a lot of work to do over the next couple days. But he didn't need any more time than that.
Soon, everything would fall right into place…
Alright everyone! That's it for this chapter! Let me know what you thought of it in a review! Until next time!
