Man, this one took almost double the time as the rest. But I got a little more motivation to finish this sucker in time for the Frontiers DLC! It's downloading right now!

This was a new one for Rouge. The basic plan was like her usual burglary: get in; get something; get out; and- optional but ideal- don't get noticed. She had gotten very good at all of those steps. But she'd never snatched a person before.

Another GUN mission, another country: some predominantly desert place, even more hostile than Chinazerbaijanistahn. At least that place had an actual government and some semblance of order. This wasn't her kind of place on any level, not the least of which for the weather: insanely high temperatures during the day? No thanks. When humans chose to live in caves instead of more comfortable homes, it MUST be bad.

Under cover of darkness the pair of agents descended upon the cave believed to be the current location of the bigshot terrorist they wanted. There had been several lookouts posted throughout the valley to spot incoming threats, well-hidden from sight but not her partner's sense of smell. It was a moot point anyway as they passed safely overhead in the sky where humans rarely ever bothered looking. The cave entrance appeared unguarded at first glance, but carefully approaching paid off: a guard stood a short distance inside, parked inside a little sandbag bunker with a sizable machine gun sitting on it. "Any ideas?" Rouge asked.

"Well, I don't think we can just sneak past this guy," Tails answered. "Or take him out quietly."

"Think we can find another way in?"

"This is the only way we've found, and I'm sure that any other entrances would be guarded too."

They remained quiet, but the fox looked very deep in thought. "Come on," she prodded, "you always have an idea."

"Well, I do, but..." His expression suggested that he wasn't so sure about whatever it was.

"But what?"

He sighed. "If we can't get by unseen, I thought maybe we could still get close even while being seen..."

"What?"

"I mean, since we're animals, not humans, maybe we could be inconspicuous... or at least..." He faltered.

She understood the logic. "Are you suggesting we could pretend we're Earthly animals to sneak by?"

"Yeah, but I know it's pretty stupid..." He didn't say it, but it seemed obvious the genius knew that idea had some flaws.

"I doubt I could pass for a normal bat, honey. They're supposed to be tiny." With a smile, she suddenly wondered if maybe there was another reason why he wasn't very keen on the idea. "But... you might be able to pull it off... You're still small enough to pass for a normal fox." Her smile grew bigger as his face grew sullen. "I like the idea. It's very clever." The only answer she got was a look that could kill. "But seriously, what then? You're not gonna go in just by yourself, are you?"

"No. I just need to get close enough to the guy to take him out."

"Sounds good, but how are you gonna get close? You just gonna hope he wants to pet you? I mean, that plan would totally work on ME, but I'm not so sure about him..." she teased.

He rolled his eyes. "You're right... maybe you actually should just go instead. He'd probably be more likely to not question an attractive girl approaching him."

She smirked back, impressed slightly by the response. "Oh, you sly little fox. Most men, sure, but I don't know about these guys. Their women are all covered up. They just might be more into you than me." He closed his eyes, scowled, and thought hard about it before taking off his gloves and shoes. "Are you really gonna do it?"

"I can't think of another way." Twisting his distinctive namesakes into what passed for a single big tail, he began lowering onto all fours... "This is so degrading..." he muttered.

"Aw," she cooed, petting his head. "Don't be so negative."

"I hate you right now."

"Hey, that's not like you." They both glanced back at an obvious problem: Earthly canines didn't have rear legs that were twice as long as the front, and they didn't walk on their knees either. He tried properly standing on the rear legs... which required doing so at an absurd angle that was arguably even more obvious. "I'm starting to have second thoughts about this, kiddo."

"I'm already up to my fourth or fifth thoughts... but I don't see a better way. I'll just have to stick to the shadows so he doesn't notice I'm a little... off."

"You think it WON'T look suspicious that you're sneaking around in the shadows?"

"Well, he'll notice me for sure, but would you suspect that a sneaking animal is actually a GUN agent in disguise?"

"No, I guess I wouldn't..." she conceded.

"There you go."

"Well, if you think you can pull it off..." she said simply.

"Okay... here goes nothing... Wait here unless I signal for help. The signal will probably be me screaming as I get shot."

"Don't be negative." Despite the joke, she was secretly worried about the dangers of this plan. Would these guys be evil enough to just shoot an animal on a whim? Crazily enough, he seemed far less concerned than she was. For someone so timid, he can be surprisingly bold when it comes to danger...

With that, he advanced into the cave, sticking to the wall and shadows left by the limited lighting, slinking around rocks when necessary and behind them when possible. All things considered, the blatant effort to minimize visibility made for one VERY suspicious-looking fox. Not surprisingly, the sentry didn't fail to notice the creeping animal. Fortunately, as predicted, the human did not seem to yet consider the possibility that the sneaking animal could in fact be a GUN agent in disguise. Nonetheless, the man still wasn't going to let a stray wild animal wander into the cave and began yelling. She couldn't understand the language, but the accompanying arm movements made the intended message clear: SHOO!

Tails froze. The man repeated the words and gestures. The fox SLOWLY turned to face the man, subtly lowering in stance. When the verbal cues failed to deter the fox, the guard grabbed one of the sandbags off the pile and raised it with both arms to throw... at which point Tails suddenly charged forward and jumped like a feral animal. Rouge couldn't prevent jumping in surprise as well. The man could only muster up a terrified face before getting tackled out of sight behind the sandbags. She almost expected to see a geyser of blood shooting up into the air as the man was torn to shreds.

Thankfully, no such sight appeared, though there was the unpleasant gurgling sound of choking... followed by silence. Then Tails rose back up into view, the limp man draped over his shoulders. As he walked back outside, she thought he looked like a hunter, if the food chain were reversed. "Good job," she said simply. "What are we gonna do with him?"

"We'll cuff, gag, and hide him up in the rocks somewhere where he won't be found for a while." They quickly did so and returned to the cave. "Hopefully he won't be missed for a while either. Now, let's sniff our way in." She rolled her eyes at the (hopefully) deliberately cheesy pun. They boldly walked, confident in their combined senses to alert them to enemies before the reverse could happen. The fox had the edge there with both hearing and smell, therefore taking point. He paused at a junction and sniffed both directions. "There's a couple this way." Every instinct as a thief said to go the other way, but on this particular occasion they were LOOKING for occupants, so they instead headed straight for them.

"Do you know if it's our guy?"

She got a blank look back. "You're kidding, right?"

"What?" she asked, bracing herself for whatever wrong assumption she had made. "You can pick their smells apart from one another, right?"

"Yeah, but how would I know what he smells like?"

She almost smacked her head. "Oh."

"Maybe I should ask for GUN's spies to start compiling a smell file for future reference." He looked back to her unamused face. "No, seriously... I'm only being half-sarcastic." While the fox could act more like a bloodhound with a known smell to work off, she figured that he was still probably being closer to 75% sarcastic. She didn't say anything back as they walked, stealth giving a good excuse not to.

Two men were in a room off to the side, talking in what seemed like casual conversation, whatever it was terrorists were possibly interested in when off duty. Fortunately, the distracted men provided a clear view that showed neither was the target- their man sported a long (and kinda gross, in her opinion) beard.

They moved on, making another detour to a room filled with cots where one human dozed. They checked him out- nope- and left him to sleep in peace. They continued to find a pair of men coming their way, ducking into a side room to wait as the men passed. Then the curious fox was sidetracked to check out a pile of boxes. "Looks like an armory," he deduced from all the guns on several racks along the walls.

"So?" she asked, not seeing any interest in the weapons.

"Lemme check it out."

She tried a more specific question. "Why?"

"It might have something cool... like... ooh, C-4!"

She did not share his enthusiasm, having spent enough time with explosives to last a lifetime. "So what?"

"It might come in handy."

"How?"

"If we need a Plan B." Before she could ask what said plan could be, he fiddled with the explosive and dropped it back into the box, then turned around with what she assumed was the detonator in one hand and a smile that somehow seemed more appropriate being worn by Dr. Robotnik. She just looked back with a concerned expression. I REALLY hope we don't need to use Plan B...

They moved on once more. A number of voices could be heard somewhere up ahead, possibly some kind of meeting. They may have just zeroed in on their target. Sneaking up to a doorway, they scoped a roundtable discussion in progress. The humans were speaking in their own language, so she couldn't understand them- probably something about death to America, the West, or infidels in general, which was basically everyone except them. Far more importantly, one man present had a beard in desperate need of trimming. The agents looked to each other in silent understanding.

However, now was not the best time to make a move- too many to handle at once without risking bringing everyone else in the caves to them. They waited and watched. Eventually the men all stood up. There was a final round of words, then the bearded man and one other walked towards them. They retreated to the nearest hiding spot and waited until the hall cleared again. The hall seemed safe but a couple people remained in the other room. The target plus one had headed deeper into the caves. They followed, sneaking past the still-occupied room.

They kept a safe distance until the pair led them to a room with an actual door. The men paused to exchange some more words, then the target went through the door alone. The other man turned and walked back. They hid and let him pass. Once he was safely far enough, they moved to the door and listened hard. Now she had the edge. She signaled that it was safe and SLOWLY opened the door. Despite her efforts, the door still made too much noise for comfort. The room beyond was fancy, by cave standards at least, clearly optimized for some long-term living. It had some carpet and a nice-looking table with chairs for eating or working on.

There was another room off to the side, where she knew the target was, out of eyeshot but dangerously close. Too close. A voice came from the other room. She couldn't understand the word but recognized it from earlier- perhaps the other human's name? The bat and fox exchanged glances. The latter looked around and flipped a switch, plunging their room into darkness. The other room remained lit. The target approached slowly, gradually coming into the doorway with a gun in one hand. Without a word, the fox and bat moved into different corners of the room. The target waved his gun at the darkness and tried calling out again. When no answer came, he stepped out, staying within the cone of light. Then he began to approach cautiously. "Stop right there," she called out.

The man nearly jumped out of his skin. He swept the gun in her direction but clearly had no idea where exactly to point. Then he spoke in English. "Who's there? What do you want? Are you American?"

Tails answered now. "Not exactly." The man turned and swung his weapon around in the direction of the new voice.

"What are you, a child?" the human asked incredulously.

"I'm a teenager."

"Why are you here?"

"Justice." It might have been a more intimidating line had it come from someone about five years older.

The human laughed. "You're here to capture me? A mere Western child and his harlot sister? Clearly this is a joke, but I do not find it funny."

Rouge took advantage of the pause to ask, "Did he just call me something bad?"

"Uh, basically," the fox answered evasively.

"What did he call me?"

"Uh... it's an archaic word that nobody really uses anymore, so I'm not sure it still means the same thing..."

The terrorist chimed in, "I called you the filthy capitalistic-"

"SHUT UP!" Tails and Rouge yelled in unison.

"Enough of this. Show yourself now, and you may be allowed to live. You can't get out of here."

"Why not?" Rouge challenged. "We got in past your friends just fine."

There was no comeback to that one. "You have five seconds to show yourself before I shoot."

Here we go... She wasn't too worried about getting hit in the darkness, but she wasn't so hopeful on their chances of getting to him unscathed. And the shooting would almost certainly bring the others running. Tails clearly agreed, whispering impossibly softly, "Get ready..." There was a slight motion in the darkness and a noise at the complete opposite side of the room, behind the target. He whirled around and fired, muzzle flash providing brief bursts of full illumination. Despite what the noise may have suggested, Tails was still on her side of the room; evidentially he'd thrown something as a distraction. The time was NOW. They made their move, flying straight at the distracted human.

She reached him first, before he could fully turn back around, tackling him to the floor. The gun was lost. Tails was next to her a moment later, helping pin the man. His eyes went wide in terror upon finally getting a partial look at his clearly not-human assailants. "Who are you? What do you want?"

Tails answered. "We're angels, and we've been sent to collect you."

She snuck a glance to the fox, who smirked back. She stood up and kicked the downed man upside the head, putting him out. "That was a good line, kiddo."

"See? I told you Angel Team was a cool name."

"Yeah, you were totally right."

Once they had bound and gagged the unconscious terrorist, the fox stated, "Your turn to carry."

"What?" she asked with dismay. "Why do I have to carry him?"

"I carried the other guy. And this one smells even worse."

"So you're sticking me with the dirtiest one? Real considerate of you. I'm a lady, Tails!"

"Hey, I've got a far more sensitive nose than you. You'll suffer less. And besides, I need my nose available for sniffing our way back out." Somehow she doubted the truthfulness of that, but grit her teeth and picked up the target. They had only made it a few feet down the hallway when reinforcements arrived: seven men, all wielding assault rifles. She moved in front of Tails, holding up her captive to dissuade them from opening fire. The fox seemed to miss the point of her actions, trying to step out in front, waving his detonator frantically. The humans yelled in their own language. Tails yelled, "BOMB! EXPLOSIVES! C-4!"

After a tense few moments, one of the humans suddenly said something understandable. "You speak English? Are you American?"

"Not exactly," the fox answered, delivering the response almost exactly the same as before, but this time added, "we're not even from this planet." Seizing the cue, Rouge dramatically spread her wings like a superhero from some movie she had seen before. The act spooked the men, who all took a step back. "But all you need to know is that I have a detonator to explosives planted throughout this cave! So you let us leave or I blow the caves!"

After a moment, the fluent human retorted, "You're bluffing."

"No I'm not!" insisted the fox.

"Yes you are," countered the man.

Another tense silence passed. "You're talking to aliens here and THAT'S the part you have trouble believing?"

"You would not kill yourself. Even if you would, WE are all willing to die for our cause." It was a stalemate. Obviously, he couldn't blow the bomb while still inside too. Three more men came running into the hallway to join the standoff. Well, shit...

Tails whispered softly, "Rouge." The agents looked to each other. She did NOT like his expression.

"Tails?" she whispered back.

"Get ready to fly... FAST."

"Tails..." she weakly urged. He's not really going to do it, is he? It's just a bluff...

He did it. There was a tremendous explosion- a series of explosions actually- that began shaking the entire cave with enough ferocity that she feared the whole place might collapse. The humans all either stumbled from the tremors or just plain panicked. Tails yelled, "GO!" Not needing to be told even once, she took flight. She had only managed to start gaining some upwards lift before he flew directly into her from behind, wrapping his arms around her stomach to simultaneously push and carry her ahead, over the men who had fallen. "JUST KEEP FLYING!" Another piece of advice that wasn't needed, and there was no time to argue. Flapping her own wings, she had no idea how much she was actually contributing to their current speed, which soon became faster than she had ever gone before. The corridors started to blur. "LEFT!" he shouted as they approached a fork in the tunnel. She didn't question the suggestion, banking her wings to accommodate the turn. Tails could go faster, but her wings allowed for much finer flying. "RIGHT!" he said at the next fork.

The caves continued to shake, sending dust raining down, though thankfully nothing bigger than a few dislodged chips of rock. Whether or not the place would hold was another question. They kept going, shooting past a few other panicked and utterly confused terrorists on the way out. Aside from the falling bits of rocks stinging on contact, it was smooth flying until they reached the exit of the cave, where another group was waiting with weapons raised. Stopping wasn't an option. She held up the unconscious human in her arms out in front for cover as they got closer... Sneaking a peek, she saw many of them lower their weapons in what looked like utter confusion at the sight of their leader flying towards them like a divine being.

They shot out of the cave, over the crowd's heads, and into the sky, unscathed- nobody had even fired a shot. They flew for several minutes before slowing down. "Let's stop and catch our breath, okay?" Tails suggested. His hands had slid uncomfortably higher during the high-speed flight, but she kept quiet and simply waited for him to let go, feeling rather conflicted about the unsolicited assistance in staying aloft.

"Sure," she simply replied.

He still didn't let go, essentially helping 'carry' her down for a gentle landing on her feet. Rouge didn't have the same level of consideration for the unconscious human in her arms, whom she simply dropped to the ground unceremoniously once her feet touched down. Tails' hold suddenly tightened to pull her back against him. She let out a startled gasp and grabbed his hands as they slid just a little bit higher until being stopped only by the curvature of the upper torso... Being the shorter of the pair, his muzzle rested at an upwards angle upon her shoulder. "Don't worry! I've got you!" It took a few moments to realize that he was trying to support her. The noble intentions behind the hold didn't make it any less... weird. Under other circumstances, she'd make a joke here. DON'T... NOT WITH TAILS... They both just stood for a few moments, still breathing hard... The muzzle moved, redirecting his breath to her cheek. "Rouge..." She closed her eyes and shivered slightly. "Are you hurt?"

Her answer came out between breaths. "No... I... feel..." Wait, that wasn't quite the right word she wanted to use. Too late to backtrack on the wording, she just rolled with it to finish saying that she was uninjured. "...good..." That was also not quite the right word she wanted to use. It was rather hard for her to concentrate while in such a gentle embrace with that fabulously fluffy foxy fur brushing against her skin through the opening in the back of her suit... "But..." She turned her head to face him, stopping when her cheek brushed his cute fuzzy foxy muzzle. She settled for simply glancing out the corner of an eye. "Tails..." Her train of thought decohered again for a moment upon making eye contact. "I... uh... think... you should move your hands." With that, she finally brought herself to pull them away.

Only NOW realizing how high his hands had drifted, he blushed. "Oh... sorry..."

"No, it's okay... I... don't mind... much..." She slowly turned around, though neither of them could meet each other's eyes for more than a moment. "But... let's not tell anyone about this either, okay?"

"Agreed."

There was another awkward pause. "And Tails?"

"Yes?"

She put her hands on his shoulders and gripped tightly as she leaned down face-to-face. "WHAT WERE YOU THINKING SETTING OFF THAT BOMB WITH US STILL INSIDE!?"

"I didn't have any other ideas," he replied nervously.

"You are one damn crazy little fox."

DVD Commentary: More risqué fun was added late in the game! And yes, this chapter largely exists for the team's name drop (whether or not GUN actually agreed to call them that yet.) The big beef I had with this one is the void of stealthing around with nothing of note happening. I also decided not to strain myself with continuing the title theming I've had so far... It was probably gonna happen sooner or later.

You may choose to think whether or not this chapter had a body count.

Full disclosure... I've been releasing a chapter per month purely for scheduling reasons. I keep mentioning getting back to work on Virtua Cops- the idea was I'd do a chapter of this, then spend the rest of the month putting some time on VC. It worked for the first few chapters, but the last couple actually took nearly all month before I was satisfied. My Youtube channel relaunch has not helped at all, though that depends on how much modding my reviews need- while it's a temporary distraction, it's gonna last past New Years with all my content... A new VC chapter has been overdue for years now (so I'm sure they don't want to hear anyone here whining...) and I also want to touch up previous chapters now that my original minimalistic writing style (the chapters are nearly all shorter than this story's) bothers me a bit considering it's more 'adult-geared' than, you know, a Sonic fic- hence why I hadn't started copying it over to AO3 until now (I've done the first 2 chapters so far.) Apparently most (if not a majority) of fanfic writers are female (or female-leaning? I am so old) but not me. I'm not exactly SICK of writing sweet little fluff, but I do feel a little incomplete going so long without getting my testosterone fix, you know?

I'll put this story on a lower simmer for a bit to mix putting some decent work back in to VC. It might be good to let me plan out more where to go from here. After all, it's good to let ideas sit and marinate a bit even as you write rather than try to get a chapter published as soon as possible, since you may just think up a new idea to work in somewhere or maybe do an idea differently if you're unsure of it.