Nickel was not your typical cat, never mind his electric rarely purred while awake, he didn't like poultry or fish,and he was infamous among his teammates for being immune to catnip. But he was still a cat, and many of the "cat" foibles still held true for him.
There were times that his friends would mess with him just to see his antics - he supposed it was just a thing people did to cats, as Silver had mentioned that he'd done similar things with Blaze (and received several reproaches for his troubles, unsurprisingly). That didn't make the tricks any less frustrating, but there wasn't much he could do about them. It was a low price to pay for having a lot of friends.
And besides, it was fun to do to them what they had done to him.
.
On one particular day, while at home, Nickel was just reading a story and listening to an assortment of music quietly playing from his screen, when something hit his foot. He looked down; it was a rather small yarn ball. How it got there he had no idea, he supposed Lily had lost it in a session of play and it had made its way to where he was. Where she'd gotten it was another thing entirely, because he had absolutely no need for the thing.
He picked it up. Its texture was rather alike that of a worn tennis ball: round and fuzzy from loose threads - obviously a yarn ball had many more little ridges where the cords of thread were wound alongside each other, but the two were similar regardless.
Nickel wondered where Lily was. If she had been playing with it and had lost it, then she would have soon noticed its absence and come to ask him if he knew where it had gone. Even if the yarn ball had made its way to where he was at her behest, she would have come to ask for it back - either that, or she would have asked him to play with her.
He put down his reading material and tossed the ball from his left hand to his right, and then back. He supposed if Lily didn't want it, he could keep it for himself. That is, if she didn't appear in the next few minutes to retrieve it.
In the meantime, he continued flicking the ball back and forth in his hands, matching the rhythm of the music as he did. Eventually, he began to shift his position in his chair to lie supine and resumed playing with the ball of yarn, now tossing it up into the air on occasion.
On one such upward throw, a tiny pair of yellow hands caught the ball before it could reach the red feline once more; he cocked his head back a little painfully, meeting Lily's upside down smile and an accompanying giggle. "Mister Nickel," she said, "I didn't know you still played with yarn."
If he wasn't straining his neck to look at her, he might have rolled his eyes. "It's a ball," he justified. "I probably still would have played with it if it was made of steel - though I have to admit the yarn is a plus." He grinned slightly as he had a thought. "Did you just want to see me play with yarn?"
"Maybe," she replied sheepishly. The look on her face matched her tone perfectly. Nickel chuckled. He couldn't really fault her for that - it was a harmless enough investigation.
"D'you want it or can I have it back?" he asked.
"You can have it, mister Nickel. I don't play with yarn anymore," she claimed, dropping the ball onto his chest.
"Is that so?" Lily nodded yes. "Alright, then."
Nickel shifted back to his original, far more comfortable, position before feigning throwing the ball upward again, instead letting it roll off his fingers and go behind him. "Oh, whoops," he remarked slyly, turning over from being supine to see what was taking place behind him.
Lily had already pounced on the runaway yarn ball. Her tail stood upright, the white tip curling back and forth like the head of a snake eyeing up its next target.
It didn't take long for her to realise the trick he'd played, and she wheeled back around to face him. "Mister Nickel! That's not fair!"
"What?" Nickel couldn't stop the laughter welling up inside himself. "I thought you said you'd grown out of it."
She threw the ball back to him with seemingly as much force as she could muster, an effort Nickel managed to catch with one hand. "Just wait! When I grow up I'm gonna never play with yarn again."
As she left the room in a huff, Nickel called after her: "It's a cat thing, Lily! You're not gonna outgrow it!"
He didn't hear a response, but had she said something he assumed it would be along the lines of "Yes I am" or something of that ilk. Nickel laughed once more. She was so cute.
.
.
.
The Resistance was holding a sort of "Community Game Week", an arranged week off intended to raise morale with an assortment of activities. It featured everything from trivia contests to 'Charades' tournaments to nearly every Sonic game under the sun, and many more than the usual few were attending, including Nickel.
The cat was a big fan of video games, so he gravitated toward those; currently, he was embroiled in a speed battle in the game of the same name, going up against a few challengers while a small crowd consisting of waiting players and regular spectators watched on. They weren't all watching him or cheering for him, but that didn't stop him from winning a fair few races - to the ire of his opponents, of course.
"Got 'em," he mumbled as a trap he'd set collected somebody - that person was soon joined by the other two as the trap proved to be more fruitful than he'd anticipated. "All of 'em."
A smirk broke out on his face as a collective groan came from the other players and a small cheer rose up from those people watching him; Tangle, who was spectating someone else, spoke. "Nickel, stop being so good!"
He chuckled, but kept his eyes on the game, eventually winning rather comfortably and earning a short round of applause. "Well played, guys," someone congratulated while the racers got up to give conciliatory gestures.
"My turn!" a bunch of people shouted at the same time; Nickel put down the device he was playing on and left whoever wanted the spot to wrestle for it.
He was swiftly approached by another high-profile spectator in the shape of Rouge. "Well, well. You showed them," she remarked with her trademark smirk.
Nickel gave a small chuckle. "Yeah. Wasn't too bad."
The bat seemed to sigh. "You know, Nicky, you need to learn to be proud of what you do."
"What d'you mean? I'm very proud of what I do for the Resistance."
"But you don't show it off," Rouge explained. "You've gotta show off a little, you've gotta let everyone know how great you are."
"Better to downplay than to overhype," Nickel rebutted.
"You humble types are no fun," she complained, pouting rather dramatically. He rolled his eyes at her antics; Rouge flapped her wings as she prepared to take her leave. "Oh - by the way, look behind you."
Nickel swiveled to see what he'd been told to look at, seeing that a cucumber had randomly appeared there. His face swiftly turned deadpan.
"Oh no, it's a cucumber. Whatever shall I do." He picked it up. "It doth frighten me so terribly with the terrifying splendour it showeth, gleaming thus brightly in the light. I cower in fear at such magnificence - " Nickel corpsed, laughter bubbling up from his chest. "I can't even say that with a straight face." He looked up to see who was watching him do his little spiel - he spied a couple of people dotted around, shaking their heads with grins of their own. He recognised them; they were certainly used to his antics, so no wonder they weren't looking at him funny.
Nickel tried to sober up as fast as he could. "Alright. Who put this here?" His eyes immediately fell on Tangle, who wasn't looking his way. When she did eventually do so, she shook her hands and head in unison quite comically upon seeing the green fruit he held in his fingers. Very soon, after a quick exchanged word with somebody, she stepped over to him.
"Okay, I know I like to play jokes on people, but this one wasn't me. I promise. Besides, I've seen you eat cucumber."
"That's true. Do you know who it might have been, then?" he questioned.
Tangle shrugged. "Why do you wanna know? What are you gonna do?"
It was Nickel's turn to shrug. "Generic act of revenge, or something." He heard Tangle chuckle at his wording. "I guess my next guess would be Sonic. He's the only one fast enough and silly enough to do it from so far away - and since you're the only one who's over here who'd do it, and I'm about a thousand percent sure Whisper wouldn't."
As Tangle let loose another little laugh, the feline had a quick scan of the room once more, locating the wanted cobalt hedgehog having fun with his best friend Tails. They were playing Sonic 2 together as themselves; an idea sprung into Nickel's head. He made his way to a nearby mini freezer-fridge and stuck the cucumber in the colder section, waiting for a few minutes for it to get very cold, as freezers were supposed to make things.
Tangle, who had followed him, caught on to what he was planning. "Is it bad that I want to laugh at how Sonic's gonna react to this?"
"I don't think so," Nickel reassured her with a slightly mischievous tone. "Does it make you feel better if I tell you that doing the cucumber prank to cats has been known to cause severe anxiety in some cases?"
"Is it that bad?" she asked. "I had no idea."
"Most people don't," he excused her. Turning his attention back to the freezer, he half-shouted at the cucumber hidden inside: "Hurry up! So I can do the thing."
He didn't know what it was, but Tangle was laughing at a lot of stuff he did and said today - after his last statement was no different. "Nickel, you're yelling at a cucumber."
"So? I'm tryin' ta make sure it knows I'm in a hurry."
Yet another laugh. "Why are you so weird? I know there are people who think it's cute, but it just throws me off all the time."
"I mean, it made you laugh, didn't it?" Nickel replied, smirking. He always secretly enjoyed making people laugh.
"Well, yeah," the lemur conceded. "It's funny, but it's still so weird."
Nickel just smiled more.
Shortly after, the cat reached into the freezer and checked the temperature of the cucumber - it was pretty cold now. "Eh, whatever. This'll do," he muttered and he took it out, prepared to prank Sonic with it.
Nickel watched for the perfect moment, when Sonic leaned forward to concentrate on the game. He approached carefully, bidding an onlooking Knuckles to be quiet. The echidna barely concealed his chortles as Nickel put the cold fruit on the back of the chair, right within touching distance should the blue hedgehog lean back.
As he and Tails cleared Casino Night Zone, Sonic took the time to lean back in his seat, and his back shoulder met with the cucumber; he, quite literally, nearly flew to the other side of the room at that surprise contact, letting out a unexpectedly girlish sound as he did. Nickel, Knuckles and Tangle burst out laughing.
Sonic sped back over to them, seeing the offending thing. "Come on, guys! Seriously?"
"Who's scared of cucumbers now?" Nickel remarked.
"That was priceless!" Knuckles hollered. "Man, that's the best thing I've seen all week!"
While Sonic fumed, Tails spoke up. "I told him not to do it, you know."
"Tails, I had to see if it still worked!" Sonic argued.
"Sonic, I eat cucumbers. I'm not gonna be scared of them," Nickel told him.
"Besides, it's not good to do that to cats," the fox followed up, presumably saying that for the second time.
"Some get severe anxiety from stuff like that," Tangle added.
"You only know that 'cause I told you," Nickel stated lowly. Tangle shushed him.
"Alright, fine. But did you really have to make it so cold?"
"Yes," Nickel and Tangle answered Sonic at the same time, another giggle fit escaping them at the memory just made.
The quintet would end up just staying there and talking amongst themselves, any hard feelings dissipating, but certainly that was the highlight of the day for them all - though perhaps it was more apt to call it a lowlight for one Sonic the Hedgehog.
