in my hands i hold the ones i love;

Nine narrowed his blue eyes, calculating. Calculating the distance between him and the dog. Where the dog’s most vulnerable point seemed to be. The movement of the woman’s hand to her pocket.

Time seemed to slow down. He barely heard Sonic’s chattering in the background, or the woman screeching at her pet. The dog locked eyes with him. Nine drew himself up as tall as he could get on his mechanical tails, elevating two more tails still higher.

Footsteps thundered as the other humans drew closer. The dog’s leash was wrenched from the woman’s grip and it lurched forward, teeth first. Nine moved sideways, crablike on his tails, and reached out with one of his mechanical tails as the dog leapt past. There was a flash of metal as Nine jabbed the point of his tail towards the pulsing jugular in the dog’s neck. The collie hit the ground behind him and whipped around, its teeth pulled back in a snarl, blood blossoming on its neck. Not enough blood for the jugular. Nine had missed.

“Woah!” Sonic zipped between the two of them, holding one hand out to Nine and one to the dog in a placating gesture. “Let’s not – hey!”

The dog rushed forward, this time at Sonic. Nine’s heart flipped and he started forward, but Sonic had it in hand. He curled into a ball and spun at the dog, knocking it back so that it rolled between the trees. Knowing Sonic, he wouldn’t have hit it with enough force to hurt it badly. Nine kept his eyes on the treeline, but his ears pointed back, his attention split between the threats.

Sonic glanced behind Nine at the approaching humans, apparently thinking the same thing.

“We should get outta here,” he decided. “Can you keep up?”

Nine shot him a derisive look and snorted. Sonic grinned lopsidedly and bent forward. He took off, blasting past the humans in a blue blur with Nine flying a short distance behind him, his furry tails whirring. They didn’t go far before Nine’s lungs started to feel like they were being squeezed in a vice, and his tails felt like they were rotating in a vat of custard. He pushed through the burn, determined not to fall behind – but it looked like Sonic was slowing down too. The movement of his legs was visible instead of the usual blue-red distortion.

“What’s – wrong – ?” He shouted over his shoulder to Nine, wheezing slightly.

Nine frowned. They hadn’t had this problem in the other shatterspaces, but most likely –

“At – mos – ” He started, but quickly expended what little air was in his lungs. He landed, coughing, and Sonic skidded to a halt in front of him. They’d blasted into the clearing of some kind of woodland, where the humans couldn’t be seen or heard. “Atmos – pher – ic changes,” Nine stuttered out after a moment. “In this – world.”

Sonic scratched his head again. “Maybe we should try and find our friends? Like, this world’s Amy, Knucks, you…?”

Nine grimaced. “I’m not sure this is that kind of shatterspace,” he suggested diplomatically. The last thing he needed was more of Sonic’s other friends. “What we need is access to a computer so I can find out more about this world.”

Sonic glanced around, like he half-expected a computer to pop up in the middle of the woods.

“I guess we’re not gonna find one here,” he said, winning the day’s award for stating the obvious. “Should we try and go back…?”

Nine pointed upwards. In the blue circle rimmed by the canopy, a plume of grey-black smoke was visible to their left. “Let’s try there.”