Disclaimer: All non-original characters are property of SEGA, DiC and/or their respective creators.
Inescapable Past, Act 24: Canem Ex Machina
"Cassie?" Janelly called out as she prodded open the creaky door marked 'Custodian'.
The tapir peered inside her best friend's apartment, uncertain what to make of the unlocked door. Maybe it'd just been forgotten about. Maybe Clove had had rush off somewhere and figured her little sister would be okay for a little while. Maybe not.
Janelly grabbed the cellphone tucked into her cerulean suspender-skirt's waist and turned its built-in flashlight on. Padding inside the apartment, she found the loungeroom tidy but empty. Sighing, she moved onto the kitchen.
There, she found signs of life — two unfinished meals on the tiny table, dirty cookware on the unlit stove — but no sign of any pronghorns. Casting her phone's flashlight about, Janelly felt the knot in her stomach tighten.
Finally, she checked the bedroom the sisters shared. The eleven-year-old couldn't help but giggle at the contrast between the two beds. One was immaculate made. The other looked like a tornado had struck it, strewn as it was with discarded pajamas, undies, and Princess Blaze plushies.
Unfortunately, both were empty.
"Where are you, Cassie?" murmured Janelly, nervously pinching one of her white shirt's buttons.
The tapir had snuck out not long after her daddy had come home safe. Sure, she'd been delighted to see him finally, but twenty unanswered texts in a row was an emergency all of its own. She'd run the whole way here, ducking between inert Badniks, ignoring shouts from fellow Metropolitans who'd come out to smash up the inactive robots.
Just then, Janelly heard a creak out in the loungeroom.
"Cassie?" she said under her breath, racing out of the bedroom.
There was a thud as her cellphone bounced on the loungeroom's floor. The device landed screen-side down, so that its flashlight illuminated the tatty orange plushie levitating in the apartment's front door.
Janelly didn't dare breathe, much less move, as she watched it hover there. The red glow from the octahedronal antenna protruding from between its floppy ears made its unblinking white eyes all the spookier.
After what felt like the longest few seconds of her young life, the plushie's floppy limbs and tails (why did it have two?) whirled as it spun around and floated noiselessly off down the hallway.
The very second the red glow faded from her peripheral vision, Janelly grabbed her cellphone and bolted out of the apartment. Suddenly, all she wanted to do was go home and hug her daddy.
〜
"The uniform looked familiar, at least."
Connie looked up from her console, shooting Axel a withering glare with her luminous red eyes.
"Did those eyes look bionic to you?" she asked.
The water buffalo's silence spoke for itself.
"Then shut up and let me concentrate. There's a reason he dumped this thing. It handles worse than a busted Extreme Gear."
〜
Sitting alone in an armored personnel carrier in the compound outside the South Sector Barricade, Major Maw felt an odd pang of gratitude to Robotnik as he took another bite of his bread roll.
As a child of the dusty wastes of inland Meridian, he was no stranger to stale bread. Yet it seemed with every career move he made — pickpocket, Eggman Empire field commander, bandit, guerilla, GUN officer — the bread had only gotten staler. These teeth had been worth licking Robotnik's boots for.
The thylacine gagged as his mouthful caught in his throat. He hacked violently until he'd dislodged the bread off the little extra something Robotnik had installed during his dental upgrade. It'd gotten him out of enough tight spots over the years to excuse the occasional choking episode.
"Maw? You there?"
Rolling his eyes, Maw pulled back the right sleeve of his mottled grey fatigues. The face of Axel flickered on the device strapped to his wrist.
"What?" said the thylacine, tonguing at a stray shard of crust wedged between two metal molars.
"Just to let you, Connie's—"
B'drang!
Maw's head snapped up as a deep dent appeared in the APC's ceiling. He yanked down his sleeve and snatched the radio off the seat beside him.
"Gala, what the hell was that?"
In the guardhouse across the compound, Sergeant Gala sat gawking at her radar console's screen. It was alive with swirling green dots. It was almost hypnotic to behold Maw's crackled yell brought her to her senses. She grabbed the radio from a breast-pocket on her fatigues.
"I'm not sure, sir."
Anticipating the major's next instruction, the blue spaniel scrambled out of her chair. She stopped just outside the guardhouse's door, stunned by the sight of Emerl standing atop the APC. Bullets ricocheted harmlessly off its yellow hide as it tried to heave open a roof hatch. When that failed, it resorted to stomping on the hatch, just as futilely.
"Sergeant?!" roared Maw.
Words eluded Gala. Meanwhile, the thwarted Gizoid ripped the APC's machine gun turret off its pintle mount and started shooting back at the troopers on the far side of the vehicle.
"Where's Maw?"
Gala dropped her radio as she felt something solid against the nape of her neck.
"Where is Maw?"
The blue spaniel furrowed her brow.
"Whisper?" she breathed.
She wretched as whoever it was grabbed the scruff of her neck and slammed her on her back.
"Last time, Gala," hissed Whisper, pointing a thermal blaster in the GUN officer's face. "Where's Maw?"
The spaniel stared blankly up the broad barrel of the gaudy red handgun. Terror mingled with disbelief that Whisper's toyish-looking weapon might actually be real, and that her one-time smoking buddy looked ready to kill her. She thrust out a finger, pointing to the APC.
Thank you, the yellow wolf mouthed. Then, she pistol-whipped Gala unconscious.
"He's definitely in there," said Whisper into her headset's mouthpiece.
"Great," grunted Storm over the commlink. "How do we get in it?"
Up on the airship, the albatross was standing where Jet had for most of the night. He'd somehow squeezed into the same form-fitting black haptic suit, revealing a surprisingly svelte frame beneath all that plumage. The disbelieving Tekno was still shooting him the odd glance from behind her bank of monitors.
"Shut up and shoot, big guy!" barked Infinite over the crackle of two machine-pistols as he strafed the compound. Whisper glimpsed the red exhaust trail of his Extreme Gear as he passed low over Emerl.
"You've used the thermies before," Sonar put in. "Just crank 'em up."
Whisper demurred to tell the fennec that's exactly what she was doing, adjusting the dials above the blasters' triggers.
"Cover me," she said softly, holding her weapons out in front of her.
Amid the booms of nearby explosions, courtesy of Sonar's grenade launcher, Whisper strode deliberately towards the APC, firing both thermal blasters at the same spot on the black vehicle's side armor. It started to glow orange, dimly at first, then brighter. Soon, it began to melt.
"Nice work, Whisp. Now let—"
The wolf missed the rest of what Sonar waws saying as she discarded her headset. She hadn't left her mask and hard-light rifle aboard the Babylon Guardian to mix things up.
She would handle Maw.
Just then, Whisper heard a faint keening whine. She stumbled forwards, dropping her blasters and clapping her hands over her ears. She felt her limbs go rigid as the whine intensified.
Gritting her teeth, she struggled to move a trembling hand away from her left ear. She glanced down to find it covered in blood. In doing so, she missed whatever slipped out of the hole she'd made in the APC.
From his vantage point atop the vehicle, Storm turned Emerl's head in time to see Maw pounce on Whisper. The wolf threw up her bloody palms but went down under the weight of the thylacine.
"Trouble!" yelled Storm, bringing Emerl's machine gun to bear. He squeezed the trigger. All it produced was a dull click.
Down in the dirt, Whisper jerked her head left and right as Maw literally went for her jugular, snapping his steel teeth at the neck. As the sonic-induced stiffness receded, the wolf felt her strength return. The longer they grappled, the fairer the fight became.
Then came another faint keening whine in Whisper's ears.
Whisper shut her eyes, even as she struggled harder. The smiling faces of Slinger, Claire, and Smithy passed through her mind as the whine grew in pitch. At least she wouldn't be lonely anymore.
A sudden ululation cut through the noise. Whisper's eyes shot open, only to close as the tip of Infinite's ruby cutlass pierced the back of Maw's throat. She swiftly clambered out from under him.
Getting up, she saw Infinite hunched over the dead thylacine, gripping his sword's hilt with both hands. His body was trembling, his face frozen in fury.
"Thank you," said Whisper, sidling up to the jackal. She rested her head on her shoulder.
"Stick to sniping, will you?" he mumbled, withdrawing his ruby cutlass.
Whisper unbuttoned her black poncho and threw it over Maw. Infinite sheathed his sword and looked up at Emerl. Storm had evidently fixed the machine gun's untimely jam. The firefight raged on.
"Storm, you're bulletproof!" the jackal yelled, "Go punch those assholes!"
"Huh…good point," muttered the albatross over the commlink.
With that, Emerl tossed its machine gun aside and charged headlong into a hail of bullets.
"I think I preferred Jemerl," said Infinite wearily.
Just then, both their ears twitched. Furrowing his brow, Infinite crouched down beside the late Maw and hesitantly stretched out his right arm. He tentatively drew up the thylacine's sleeve.
"Axel?!"
For a split-second, the jackal locked eyes with the water buffalo whose face flickered on the screen of the device strapped to Maw's wrist. It quickly blinked off.
"Was it really him?" asked Whisper as Infinite liberated the device.
"You forgotten how long we spent setting up that hitjob?" said the jackal, "Of course it was him."
"What do we do?"
Straightening up, Infinite looked sidelong at Whisper. There were thin rivulets of drying blood snaking out of both the wolf's ears.
"You can get your ass back to that airship before you give Sonny a panic attack," he said, "I'm done chasing Eggheads. This time, we outsource."