The change in movement brought Maruui's bright emerald eyes darting to the man. "Are you done fixing it?" The eleven-year old asked with clear excitement. She hopped away from the tool box she'd been investigating and skipped barefoot across the cool cement floor of the garage, placing herself on the opposite end of the motorcycle Kaison had been working on.

"No." He answered back bluntly, looking past the child and to the long gravel road that stretched out from the small garage and single-story home attached to it. Gray eyes squinted for a second or two, honing in on a shuffle of movement some ways down the lane, in a spot just before the road was swallowed up by woodlands.

"Why did you stop working then?" Maruui persisted, her yellow sundress fluttering as she swiveled her arms from side to side in slow, flowing movements. "How much longer do you think it'll take?"

'Just a deer.' Kaison realized, using a combination of sight and scent to identify the disturbance. After wiping a grease-stained hand against his jeans, the man suffered a look to the energetic child and shook his head, "It's going to take all day if you keep bothering me. Does your dad even know you're out here?" He didn't hide the annoyance in his voice, nor his expression as he moved away from her and towards a nearby bench to grab a few items.

Maruui shrugged her shoulders, her own expression bright and impervious to Kaison's gruff, "Nope. Can I ride on it when you're done?"

"No." Kaison returned without hesitation, and a little more bite. It was bad enough that she'd return to Rawnak with his scent, and even worse if the dragon's little daughter returned injured while under his watch. Not that he'd chosen to babysit her in the first place, he just had no means of stopping a curious young dragon from flying to his house uninvited, much less forcing her to leave when she had no interest in doing so. His best defense right now was trying to ignore her, but that was proving as difficult as it was fruitless. "Why don't you go outside? There's a bike out there, try riding that." A mountain bike was a far safer option, and one Kaison banked on her being unable to figure out.

Maruui's brief disappointment was gone in a flash when he offered this distraction. "Ooo, can I really? Thanks, Kaisey!" Without hesitation, the girl sprinted from the garage, and towards the bike laying beneath the only tree in the large yard.

Not wasting this reprieve, Kaison got back to work repairing the motorcycle. He'd promised the customer a deadline of tomorrow, and he wasn't about to let his first paying job here be tarnished by late or shoddy work.

Beside him, Zhenn's gaze had turned to the trees that dotted the immediate area around the sheds, and the timberline beyond them. "De animals are quiet." He murmured, almost more to himself than to the group. Era looked questioningly up to the darkspear troll, then to Keedle, who was checking his phone again. "We best be careful, they know something we don't."

"Well yeah, it's probably Chloe." Keedle returned dismissively, finally giving an answer to Zhenn's earlier question, "She's had three days, she ought to be settled in by now. And you know how the critters respond to her." The phone screen went dark before he tucked it away, "Alright gang, since we're a bit early, we'll head straight across to that smaller garage, and go in through the.. erm, eastern door..? Hang on." The phone came out again, and Keedle thumbed through a few schematics and hastily typed notes. "Yeah, yeah, the eastern door. Stay away from the front garage door."

And then he was breaking cover and moving briskly across a field whose grass had been grazed recently enough to allow him easy travel. Erathun followed after, hunching down slightly despite having no real cover to drop down into. Falling in behind them both, and sharing the same unspoken questions as the boy, Zhenn'arh acted as rear guard.

The trio met no obstacles in their short journey, other than a brief delay at the eastern side-door. With Keedle's lock-picking skills, and a boost from Zhenn'arh to actually reach the lock, this roadblock was quickly overcome, and soon all three were stepping into the dusty building. "Rath, hit the lights. There, next to the door." He pointed out, directing a sharply clawed finger that Erathun couldn't actually see. "Lets see, there should also be a button for the garage doors-"

"You sure we ought to turn on the lights?" Zhenn questioned, "We got de advantage of stealth."

"Nah, we don't need to stealth this anymore. We just needed to get here first, and make sure they didn't booby-trap the place before us. Rath! You found that light switch yet?" The phone came out again, this time as a light source as Keedle fanned it about the building, giving everyone a better view of the space they were in. It looked like a standard garage, with a handful of metal cabinets stacked along the far end, a workbench beside it, and a plethora of tools, bolts, and other items scattered across its surface, beneath a thin layer of dust. The cement floor thry stood over, equally layered in dust and a few errant lengths of board and random scraps, was large enough to accommodate four vehicles, including a grey honda civic with at least one flat tire that occupied the right central spot.

Erathun was frantically looking around the door frame, trying to recall how one turned on a standard light. He so rarely utilized his human form, much less spent any time inside buildings, that the concept of a light switch currently evaded his frazzled mind. Keedle's sharp command had his cheeks flushing again, until the flashlight of the goblin's phone found and hovered over the small switch. Clumsily, the boy grabbed at it, giving it a few wiggles before flipping it up in the right direction. Overhead, florescent lights hummed and flickered to life, causing all three to squint.

Zhenn held back his concern's for Keedle's plans, trusting that the goblin had covered their bases. And though he couldn't fathom where Chloe might be, other than perhaps hiding out in the larger shed, the troll put his focus on their most immediate concerns. With the room now flooded in light, he motioned a hand in Era's direction, "Stay back from da windows."

"And the front of the room." Keedle added, without elaboration, "Anyone see the button for the garage doors? Zhenny, I might need you to lift them up otherwise."

He gritted his teeth as he spun his organic white-tipped tails, feeling the drag of his mechanical ones more than usual. They were… sort of functional? They kept twitching and jerking of their own accord, but he could at least coil and recoil them at will. Whatever that horrific noise was, it had taken out all the other electronic devices in the visible vicinity and it had clearly messed with the programming in his tails. He needed to get them into his lab in the Grim as soon as possible. That was, assuming they could even find their way back to the Grim. They had no Paradox Prism, and no Prism energy since Nine had drained it all out of Sonic.

A trickle of shame, like ice, ran down Nine’s chest and dripped into the pit of his belly. He smashed a nearby window, in part to provide an escape route and in part to vent his feelings, and glanced over at Sonic. Time seemed to slow.

His friend was stood in the open doorway atop the rubble that used to be the cannon, his blue fur clearly visible through the dust could which had been kicked up from his attack. He had turned to look at the blonde human on the floor, concern evident on his face even from here. One of the uniformed humans outside was pointing a thin-barrelled gun right at Nine’s only friend in the multiverse. The uniformed human’s hand squeezed on the trigger and fired a slim silver dart. Nine coiled his legs against his body and used the wall to push himself forward, arms outstretched. He started to shout Sonic’s name, but only part of the sound was out when the dart embedded itself into his friend’s thigh. Sonic just had time to half-twist back round in surprise when an electric charge flickered over his fur and his body convulsed. As he started to fall, he performed one last miracle – his hands threw up towards the doorframe and the second dart, which Nine hadn’t even noticed, ploughed straight into his arm.

Sonic’s body was still in the split second it took Nine to land next to him. He’d meant to grab Sonic’s arm and use his mechanical tails to hoist him to the side of the doorframe out of sight of the humans outside, but now his extra tails were not responding at all. Two of them were lying limp on the floor, two were twitching and convulsing, and the last one was pointing threateningly at the blonde man. Nine was crouched in the open, weaponless but very much looking like a threat, and his friend was motionless on the ground.

Nine grabbed one of the darts with one hand and yanked it out. Careful to avoid the tip, he threw it back at the human who had fired it. At the same time, he groped for his friend’s wrist with his other hand. There! A pulse. So these morons were looking to take them both alive, then.

The calculations ran through Nine’s brain at megaspeed. His mechanical tails would be a hindrance in battle if he couldn’t get them under control, even if he could fight without them, which wasn’t a guarantee. The last time he had tried to fight back without his mechanical tails… yeesh. If he grabbed Sonic and tried to make a break for it, there was no doubt they wouldn’t get far. This shatterspace’s atmosphere considerably knocked his top speed down. His tails being a dead weight knocked it down further, and if he also had to carry Sonic… The inevitable conclusion was a vice on his heart. They wouldn’t both make it out of here. And if the humans were using nonlethal weapons, neither of them were in immediate danger if they stayed.

Nine was not a stranger to making tough decisions. He’d already sacrificed his best friend once to save the multiverse. He just wasn’t expecting to have to do it again so soon – and this time to save his own worthless skin.

The fox pressed his hands against the ground, spun his furry tails and pushed off against the ground. He flew straight through the window he’d smashed, his mechanical tails dragging behind him, and shot upwards. His tails hurt from rotating round as fast as they could go and his eyes stung from the wind and tears. He broke through the lower cloud layer, levelled himself out and, using the clouds as cover, shot off in a random direction. It didn’t matter where he ended up. All that mattered was what he was leaving behind.

And then the door had flown open, and he was on the ground seconds later, trying and failing to keep a bag's worth of Funyuns in his stomach. He didn't properly register the whir of noise in front of him as the hedgehog dropped down and compacted his frame for an iconic attack. He only vaguely recalled a blur of blue rush past him, followed by a harsh swirl of air and a racket of metal pieces clattering behind him.

He didn't witness the cannon-wielding operative fall backwards as their weapon was pulverized, nor did he get to see a third agent launch out of the SUV, despite the clear hitch of the door and pounding of her feet as she sprang into action to backup her fallen teammate. But with the fight knocked clean out of him, the blonde man finally <i>did</i> hear Sonic's words. As he wiped at his mouth with the back of his hand, the now pale-faced fellow lifted and turned his head back. '...Buddy?' If the concern hadn't sounded so genuine, the fellow would have been certain the alien was mocking him. Uncomfortable confusion began to replace his earlier anger.

Unfortunately for Sonic and Nine, the agents didn't have that problem. The man who'd initially hauled the door open was employing a tried and true weapon that had bagged them more than a few anomalies from Laissez. He'd waited only for Sonic to turn his head, recognizing a very slim window of opportunity against an impossibly fast foe, before pulling the trigger. From the mouth of what looked like a miniature riffle, a dart flew forth, traveling straight for the blue-quilled shoulder of the hedgehog...

A second dart was flying less than a second later from the female agent, this one also aimed at Sonic. But rather than waiting to see if either dart had hit its target, she was aiming up and firing a second shot right after the first, this one angled in through the open door, and sailing in Nine's direction...

(the electro-darts pack a two-part punch if they hit! if the needle lands, it unloads a potent, fast-acting tranquilizer. it also offers a brief, powerful electric shock designed to stun the nervous system; this second feature is also triggered if the dart is picked up within thirty seconds of firing. totally up to you if it hits either of them, and how they might be affected if so ^^)

Only the rush of empty air met his grasping fingers.

Rather than getting the face-full of leaves and dirt he'd expected next, Erathun's fall was interrupted by the broad, three-fingered hand of a troll sweeping down and catching against his chest. Zhenn'arh lifted him upwards in the next moment, giving Era just enough leverage to kick his leg free before being set down on the opposite side of the barrier. Without a word, the seven and a half foot troll cleared the obstacle himself with a springing step.

"Oiy, what's all the racket? This is the stealth part of the mission, we need to come in quiet!" Keedle had only just scrapped the sticky webbing from his face, and was currently trying in vain to fling the tattered silk from his fingers as he turned back to admonish the pair.

Era looked upward at the shadow of the troll beside him, then to what he could make out of the goblin that was now wiping his hands against his shirt. He could feel a sting in his leg where the wire had cut into flesh far more fragile than his natural draconic scales. Then there was the warmth of blood, minor as it was, absorbing into the itchy fabric of his pants. A quick flex of his healing magic would seal up the scrape, but his mind was caught in the crosshairs of Keedle's criticism, and he felt that same pulse of blood bring a flush of color to his face.

"Tripped up a bit by the fence, sorry boss." Zhenn'arh stepped past the kid, and in another swing of his legs, was bypassing Keedle to peer beyond the trees and towards their destination across the second field. "You say da smaller building?"

A scoff of noise came from the goblin, but he didn't further rebuke Zhenn. He scuttled forward instead, putting a hand against the colorful leggings of his much taller companion as a sort of anchor in the darkness of the timberline, and mirrored the troll's gaze across the meadow, "Yeah, yeah, the smaller one. We're about thirty minutes early, but there's a chance they're already there, knowing them." Keedle rose up on his tiptoes, trying in vain to better see past a line of barberries that matched his own height, "Spot any vehicles?"

With slow, cautious steps, Erathun edged up behind the pair. He'd had the focus necessary to flex his magic and tend to the cut in the quiet few seconds of reprieve that had been granted him, and now he joined the others in looking out across the field. There was enough scattered moonlight to see two distinct buildings, one appearing to be a two-story facility with several small windows dotted along its upper walls, while the second looked to be a smaller, single-level storage shed large enough to park a handful of vehicles in.

Instead of letting his bruised ego do the talking, Quentin let her lack of acknowledgement for his title slide -for now- as he watched her gaze shift back to the pale, celestial body hanging above them. He didn't follow the path of her eyes, instead keeping a careful watch of the strange lady before him, but he did venture a somewhat skeptic question, "You create moons? You must not be from this world, either."

She did not recognise her moon, nor the stars, nor this new ‘species’ he supposedly was. “This moon…” she murmured, tilting her head up to look at it. Again.

He did not have the essence of divinity in him, nor scent of that corrupted thing, he was not a demon, nor a witch, nor some other hellish thing… and he was not lying.

“Is not one of mine… I did not create this one.”

The eyes stole his focus next, with the strange red hue of one orb making him question her lineage. No high elf that he knew of sported such color. And her skin was too pale to be that of a wood elf. Had her heritage been tainted by fiends, then?

These observations happened swiftly, in the space of a few broad steps. He didn't quite have time to be offended by the way the woman was staring back at him before her words did that heavy lifting. Quentin stopped abruptly, and this time a silver brow did arch upwards in a show of mild indignation, "High elf." He turned subtly on his heel to better face her, while offering his response with a note of pride and slight incredulity, as if she ought to know what he was. "Captain Evenday, to most. And you?"

She heard him before she saw him, growing closer, and still she did not take her eyes from the moon. Not until he spoke. Her head tilted in his direction, he stood in view of her good eye, sparing her the need to turn her head fully.

She stared at him the same way she stared at the unfamiliar moon. Humans did not have pointed ears nor bright silver eyes.

“What manner of hellish creature are you?”

Quentin contemplated switching across to the opposite sidewalk, and leaving the woman to her solitude. But something about her had caught his intrigue; it might have been the clothing, and how they looked far more elegant and sophisticated than the drab, flat garments most folk around here wore. It might have been the way she was looking up at the pale moon in the sky, so similar to how he'd stared up at the heavens in utter confusion and vexation when he'd first been shunted into this world. Or, it could simply be that she was another elf, like him. At least, that's what he assumed she was, based solely on those ears and petite frame.

Deciding to stay on his current path, the elf of long, silvered hair and equally bright eyes, continued his pace until he was only a few yards from the other. His white silken clothes, accented here and their by deep borders of purple and shimmering grey, hardly made a noise as he traveled. "Good evening." He greeted, offering the faintest of nods to the other as he prepared to pass by her.

A moon needed a sun to reflect light and there was no sun in her mothers realm, that moon was a crimson red that reflected light in a realm without it. She had placed it there. Picked the red simply because her mother liked that colour, because it wasn’t as bright as a white moon, and her mother had sensitive eyes… and because if they wanted her to stay there, her mother had to compromise.

She doesn’t stay in realms without a moon, not because she would die or anything dramatic, but if there was no moon there was no reason for her to stay. She hated moonless realms. His realm had no moon and she was trapped there.

Nor was it the moon in the human realm, this moon was different. It was the same colour, but the pattern was different and the size while no one else would really notice the slight difference. She did.

The question was, where was she?

"Easy, kid." The slow, accented voice from behind drew a flinch from Era, and a quick glance back at the hunch-backed form of the forest troll who'd delivered it. "Nothing out here gonna hurt you. Not in these fields."

For a split second, Erathun wanted to bristle and spit back that he wasn't afraid. That he wouldn't be so jumpy if didn't have to travel in this human guise. But the eleven-year old merely turned back around with a vague nod and a mutter, "I know." He rolled his shoulders, shifting the empty backpack that bounce against his small frame, and looked again for the tops of Keedle's bouncing ears and the spray of wild brown hair that looked just as muted and moon-washed to him as the grass they were traveling through.

"Almost there, guys!" Keedle's sharply whispered voice broke the silence a few beats after Zhenn'arh's failed attempt to ease Erathun's nerves. A bright glow of light briefly illuminated the man from the front, emanating from the phone he'd pulled out to double-check their coordinates, "Just past these trees- should be the smaller of the two buildings." While Era squinted his eyes as the sudden glare of light, and Zhenn cast a critical eye about the landscape as their modest cover was suddenly highlighted, the goblin went on, "Specs say there should be a barbwire fence in that tree line, so I might need a lift, Zhenny. Rath too."

"Right, got ya both." Zhenn took this as his cue to move forward, easily sweeping past his two shorter comrades in a few solid strides and breaking into the narrow band of trees ahead. A low-hanging branch was deftly snapped, removing an obstacle that might have clotheslined the goblin and tripped up the kid, before he stopped beside a length of fencing that was nearly obscured by overgrowth. Past his position through the other side of the trees, and across a smaller field that looked to be semi-maintained, a pair of buildings sat under the quiet glow of a partially clouded moon. "I see the buildings. You sure she's there?"

Keedle stumbled his way out of the overgrown field and over the uneven, root-tangled floor of the timberline, swatting away a matting of spiderweb from his face that Zhenn had simply stepped over moments earlier. "Erggh! Zhenn- help! Don't just stand there!"

The deep shadows of the trees hid the amused grin that lifted the troll's lips, but he held back the chuckle he felt welling in his chest. Now was neither the time nor the place for such things, so he merely reached his long limbs forward and hoisted Keedle off the ground and dropped him over the other side of the prickly fencing, while waiting for the fellow to calm down enough to answer his earlier question, "That spider wont be harming you. Just brush off da webbing." When he turned to offer Erathun a hand next, the boy skirted around his outreaching digits and tackled the fence himself, groping about in the darkness as he tried to find and finagle his way over the obstacle.

The blue hedgehog lowered his hands an inch, hopeful that he could talk them out of trouble and into a new friendship. Even Eggmen-types had to have friends, right? Unfortunately, whether the Eggman-person really would have caved and made friends was something Sonic and Nine would come to disagree over in the far future, since they never had a chance to find out. The front door flung open and a cannon wheeled into the doorframe. Nine started to yell something, but couldn’t finish the word before the air seemed to ripple toward them and a humming noise blasted from the barrel. The Eggman-type sank to the ground, clutching his stomach and groaning. Nine yelped and grabbed his own head with both hands, grinding his teeth, his mechanical tails twitching.

Sonic shivered, feeling like his bones were vibrating. He rolled himself into a ball, spun on the spot for a second and then launched himself at the cannon. It cracked on impact under his first spindash and splintered into pieces on the second. Sonic bounced to a stop on top of the rubble in the open doorway, clearly visible from both sides, and gave himself a little shake to get rid of the weird feeling the cannon noise had given him.

“Sonic!” Nine’s voice barked from behind him. Sonic glanced over his shoulder at his friend, who was up in the air and as far away from the door as possible, his organic tails spinning swiftly. “Get away from there!”

Unfortunately for Nine, turning had reminded Sonic about the Eggman-type. The latter was curled on the floor, retching. Sonic regarded him with concern while Nine smashed a back window with one of his still-twitching mechanical tails.

“Hey buddy,” Sonic called over to the man, “you okay?”

A blur of movement happened somewhere within the cloud, faster than his eyes could properly process. And then, as the air began to clear, he saw the blue one standing in the middle of it all, fire extinguisher in hand. There was little time to consider how that was possible before his attention shot back to the orange-furred alien, with its face twisted in a look that made it abundantly clear that, yes, it was very pissed off. The harsh cry it gave next, coupled with the way the shiny wooden floorboards cracked beneath the press of two mechanical tails, was enough to force the man into a subconscious step back.

The next surprise came from the blue one again, who'd dropped the canister in order to raise his hands, first to placate the the tailed monster, and then the man himself. The blonde-haired fellow took another step back, distrust and disbelief painted in kind across his features, "Hey! Don't you move any closer, either of you." Despite Sonic's attempt to bridge the gap between them, the man had no interest in stepping across it, and now darted a renewed look of suspicion towards Nine, once fox had grounded himself. Leaving the hedgehog's questions unanswered, he focused on the hybrid, "Damn right we don't want you here. Why the hell are you here, anyway?" His body language remained tense, wishing to fight, but being far too cautious of their potential strength now.

Where the man found himself in an uncomfortable deadlock and woefully unprepared to fight these aliens, the agents outside had no such problem. The SUV had found a parking spot outside, and already two of the four operatives were closing in on the building, while the other pair remained in the vehicle. With practiced coordination, one officer flung the main door open, while the other leveled what looked like a small cannon through the now opened entrance. Instead of bullets though, there was merely a faint, thrum of noise from the absurdly long barrel that flared outward like a trumpet at its muzzle. The blonde-haired man caught between them and the aliens immediately doubled over on the ground as a wave of crippling nausea hit him, while the computer that Nine had just been using went instantly dark. On the ground, the layer of yellowed foam and dust seemed to dance and ripple as intense pulses of electro-magnetic energy surged through them and the air around.

Time seemed to slow for a second. Nine glanced up in time to see the gleaming metallic cylinder emerge through the fog, hurtling towards him. There was a blue flash and then Sonic was stood over him, holding the canister. The fog dissipated, revealing the layer of cream-yellow powder covering everything between them and a red-faced, blonde-haired man opposite.

Time restarted, and now Nine was really scowling. Still coughing, he used his mechanical tails to lift himself to eye level with the man, thumping two more tails into the ground and cracking the wooden floorboards for good measure. Yellow powder dripped from his fur and dusted his robotic limbs. A wordless, guttural cry came from somewhere deep in his chest and the human man took a step back.

“Woah there!” Sonic, still in between the two of them, dumped the empty canister on the ground and held a gloved hand out behind him. “I got this, buddy.” Nine’s lip curled, but he held himself back as Sonic took a step towards the man with both hands out. “Hey! Seems like we got off on the wrong foot. I’m Sonic, this is Nine. What’s your name?”

Nine lowered himself onto his two organic feet, throwing the man a distasteful look as he did.

“We should go, Sonic.” He dusted his jacket off, frowning at the yellow powder which stubbornly stuck on. “We don’t want to be anywhere we’re not wanted.”

Inside the cabin, a door on the opposite end of the main floor began to slowly ease open. Next to a large steel refrigerator in a kitchenette, and beyond a cluster of five small tables and their accompany oak-backed chairs, the door continued to ease out from its closed position until the face of one very surprised man was able to peek past it. If only he hadn't heard the words of Nine, this facility worker might have believed these were park visitors stopping in to buy a camping spot, or ask a few questions on the various trails in the area. But with a mind already primed for alien conflicts, it didn't take much to set him on a course of cautious action.

Once he'd visual confirmed that he was in the presence of aliens, the man stepped fully out from the door. With fire extinguisher in hand - the only useful item he could find in the supply closet - he rushed boldly for Nine, unleashing the entire canister in the mechanoid's direction in an attempt to confuse and disorient his target. "You're mine! RaahhH!" Whether or not that worked, the man's next action, taken with a vocal grunt of effort, was to the throw the heavy metal cylinder at Nine...

“This is taking sooo long,” he complained, thumping his feet against the ground in an exaggerated manner and slapping his hands against his cheeks. “How much farther is it? Do we have to walk the whole way?”

Nine lifted himself up onto his mechanical tails so he could see over the gently waving rows of corn. The way he squinted and lifted a hand to shade his eyes from the sun did not fill Sonic with confidence that they were anywhere near their destination.

“Not far,” Nine said, which was probably a flat out lie.

“Ugh.”

Sonic kicked the dirt to vent his feelings while Nine lowered himself back onto his actual legs. They walked side by side in silence for what was probably only a few seconds but felt like a million years. At least it was nice to be with Nine again. Sonic glanced over his shoulder to check if anyone was following, but couldn’t see anything past the corn rows. He peeked sideways at his friend instead. Nine was walking with purpose, a slight frown creasing his yellow forehead, his blue eyes focused on the path forward.

“So uh,” Sonic scratched his head, unsure if questions were welcome. “What happened after I left? Did everyone…?”

Nine kept looking ahead. “They returned to their shatterspaces. We could probably run for a while as long as we take it slow and conserve energy.”

Sonic kind of wanted to follow up on the answer to that question, but he wasn’t about to turn down the chance to run for a bit. He kicked into a low gear and cruised forward, calming instantly as the wind rushed against his face. He could hear Nine’s tails whirring just behind him. Briefly, he debated continuing the conversation but ultimately decided against it; it felt like the kind of thing best discussed face to face.

They broke out of the field of corn swiftly (although for Sonic it still felt like it took forever) and rolled to a stop on tarmac. A couple of brightly coloured vehicles sat idle in front of a long, mahogany-brown building bearing the name Cedar Creek Visitors Center. Thank the stars it was in a language they understood. Nine had already scuttled up to the building and elevated himself onto his mechanical tails to take a peek through the windows. He gestured Sonic forward. Sonic tried the door, which was unlocked; it opened into a cozy lobby with a crackling fireplace and the kind of plush red sofas you could sink into. Nine made a beeline for the shiny oak desk sporting a desktop computer.

“Keep a look out,” he hissed, leaping up onto the rotating chair. He glanced at the screen and smirked. “Pft. Pathetic encryption attempt.”

While Nine tapped at the keys, Sonic wandered around, taking in everything from the cacti in cute little animal-shaped pots on the windowsill to posters on the walls detailing local flora. This place wasn’t so bad. Amy would love it. He tried a door near the fireplace, which was locked, and then wandered back past the desk through an archway. A couple of doors on the other side were marked with bathroom symbols, and there was a double staircase heading up.

“We’re on the outskirts of a place called ‘Meinville’,” Nine said. Sonic turned his back to the staircase to look up at him. “Okay… weather reports… humidity…”

Sonic pointed at one of the wall-mounted posters. “It says there are 42 different types of ferns.”

Nine ignored him. “I searched Meinville and I’m getting a load of news articles which describe this place as a human-only city, hostile to non-humans.” He glanced up, his frown deepening. “We could be in trouble.”

“A city of Eggmans?” Sonic shuddered. “Sounds terrible. Is it Eggmans or Eggmen?”

Nine ignored that too. “What we need is to get away from this city and regroup somewhere safer, preferably with WiFi. I’m pulling up maps now.”

From the perspective of the couple rushing to the scene, the woman's fall coincided with the blue blur and the strange, mechanoid fox rushing past her. "Hey!" The man shouted aggressively and kicked it into high gear, making a short-lived attempt to catch up to the anomalies that had attacked the lady. After only a few yards however, it had become abundantly clear that he was no match for the aliens' speed, and he'd instead doubled back to his partner who'd stopped to assist the fallen dog walker. Beyond them, the jogger was already on the phone and making contact with the authorities as he neared the scene.

-----

The raised voices of the four humans fell into silence for Sonic and Nine as they left that chaos behind to find brief respite in one of the many patches of woodland that wove through the expansive park and the areas around it. Here, they were far enough away that they couldn't hear the conversation the jogger was having with the police, or know that UECH had now been alerted and were prepping several deployment teams. In this moment at least, hidden from the locals by a wall of leaves and branches, Sonic and Nine could catch their breath and be safe.

In order to find the source of the smoke though, they'd have to leave this temporary shelter.

If they made a short journey through the woods to the east, they'd find a sizeable field to cross before reaching a long, two story building with fresh brown siding and a steep, black-slated rooftop. A small parking lot in front of the building had a single truck parked in its back corner, and if they rounded the front of the building, a sign plastered above the entrance designated this building as the 'Cedar Creek Visitors Center'.

A look through the front windows wouldn't immediately reveal anyone inside, though the edge of a large fireplace could just be seen in what looked like a central lobby area. It was from this fireplace, and its attached chimney, that the smoke Nine had spotted was escaping from.

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.”

-Woah-

Her knuckles had gone white as she gripped her dog's leash and blinked in disbelief at the creature and it's clear utterance of an English word. At least, it sounded like a word? Oh yes, it was definitely speaking, even if she didn't entirely understand what it had referenced next. This woman wasn't much of a gamer after all, and in her panic, didn't even recognize the pair for who they were.

"Get back! Both of you!" Her voice was sharp in its mounting fear, and she would have stepped back further if not for the collie holding his ground at the opposite end of the leash. "Help! Someone, help! Roscoe, get back, heel! Heel, Roscoe!!"

The woman was now using her free hand to dig a phone from her pocket, whilst simultaneously trying unsuccessfully to pull the dog back and make space between her and the aliens. That left Sonic and his volley of questions unanswered, at least from the human. The collie was currently giving him an earful, with a dangerously widened gaze and a stiff, frantically waving tail. The dog's attention soon snapped to Nine, picking up on the fox's more guarded body language, including the pair of metallic tails now pointed in his direction.

As the woman began to sweat, and the leash began to slip from her distracted grasp, her frantic shouting had finally draw the attention of the jogger, as well as another pair of walkers further down the path. In a matter of moments, three more humans were running towards the scene.