Hop To It - Advance 9

[Omochao]

Yuno pretended to take a deep breath of the salty sea air. “Ah, the open sea. Water as far as the optic can see. We’ve come a long way, friends. And you know, the joy is in the journey, not the destination. Not that we had a destination to begin with. And that’s fine, too! We meant to put our boat through its paces, and we certainly did that. We went where we wanted! We let the wind carry us wherever to would, and we ended up--”

“Lost,” Dono interrupted flatly. “We’re lost.”

“Oh no, oh no, oh no…” Ono groaned. “We can’t be lost! There has to be land somewhere!” It pulled Yuno out of the driver’s seat and restarted the engine. That, at least, was working.

“Of course there’s land,” Yuno said in a reassuring tone. “Just, you know. Not anywhere near here.”

Dono smacked himself. “Yeah, that’ll calm it down. Good job.”

Ono stepped on the gas, panicked, and started steering the boat in a wide circle. “This isn’t good, you guys! We didn’t bring any supplies, no water, no flares, nothing! We’re going to starve! I can already feel myself going mad…”

Dono growled in annoyance. “Ono! We don’t eat!”

“Oh no! It’s happening to you too!” It let go of the wheel to cover its eyes, and the boat started to straighten out.

Yuno coughed. “Ono, we are robots. We don’t eat or drink, we can’t go mad--”

“I dunno about that,” Dono grumbled.

“--and we need to stay calm while we--LOOK OUT!”

All three of them looked forward, just in time for something gray to poke its head out of the water and for the boat to run right over it.

Ono scrambled to cut the engine, and the boat drifted to a stop.

“...What did we hit?” Yuno asked.

“Dunno. It looked like a guy…”

They fell silent, struggling to understand what just happened.

Then a hand reached out of the water and grabbed the side of the boat, and they screamed.

-------------------------------

[Heyu]

Two rings, of the average size, mounted on a pair of stands I’d put together. Between them, a third ring hovered.

Previously, when I tried this setup, the middle ring fell when I took my hands off the first two. On a whim, I made the hand gestures to make the two rings spin in opposite directions, but since they weren’t able to due to being pinned in place, they instead started glowing faintly. When they were in this state, they were able to suspend rings between them like my finger rings could.

I had no idea why. I had some guesses, but no way to validate them. I just… This would be so much easier if I could sense the energy in some way. I knew it was possible; I could still remember the headache being next to the BioLizard caused, and the way holding a Chaos Emerald made me feel energized. But those were huge concentrations of the stuff, so much so that you could almost see it in the air. These smaller amounts just weren’t enough to perceive.

What I needed was a way to increase my sensitivity to this stuff. Shadow did; I’d been reading through the research documents we found on the ARK, and Professor Gerald had a lot to say about chaos energy. Shadow might have been a created lifeform but he was more Mobian than not, and his ability to sense chaos increased over time. But he also started at a higher level than I was at, and some of the things Gerald put him through before Maria all but adopted him… weren’t things I was willing to go through with myself.

I flicked the floating ring with my finger, sending it tumbling in midair. Curiously, I took a lighter from my pocket--I had to take it from Humi again--and lit it under the ring. Back on the ARK, at one point a Gohla shot a fireball at me and I was able to catch it with my rings. I watched as the flame got pulled gently into the center of the ring, twirling and swirling as it sucked more in. I cut it off when the little fireball was about an inch across.

Fascinating.

I reached out to stop the ring spinning, thought better of it, and slid an empty bowl underneath it--it was from some grapes I got earlier, it’s not important, the point was I had it nearby, okay? That done, I reached out and stopped the spinning ring cold. The flame dropped into the bowl and splashed just enough to make me scoot back in my chair before abruptly going out, not able to catch on the ceramic.

I sighed, resting my chin on my fist. Did I get these things to make sparks at some point? I wonder if I could do lightning bolts or something. That’d be cool…

My ear twitched. Someone was at the door. It wasn’t Iota, no humming machinery. Shelldon sloshed and Fry was heavy enough to make the porch creak, so it wasn’t either of them… and Humi sounded like a hundred tiny muffled things clinking against each other.

I didn’t know who this was.

Getting up, glad for the distraction from this ring stuff, I went to the front door and opened the top half.

“Oh! H-Hello!”

There was a hedgehog on the porch. A teenager, probably the same age as Sonic. He had the most outrageous quill-style I’d ever seen, and that wasn’t even the most eye-catching thing about him. I’d never seen anyone with that kind of sheen to their fur before. It almost looked like silver.

I leaned on the bottom half of the door. “What’s up, doc? Are you moving into the area too?”

He blinked, pointing to himself. “Me? Moving here?”

I nodded toward the area behind him. On the other side of Shelldon’s shack, Fry and Humi’s Hunter drone were laying a foundation. “Apparently this is prime real estate right now. Honey and Waxer over there are having their dream home built. Lovely people. A little too cheerful.”

The hedgehog blinked, watching them work as if he somehow hadn’t seen it coming in. He shook his head. “No, no, I’m just… visiting.” He took a breath. “Listen, this is the robot rental place, right?”

Now it was my turn to look confused. “What?”

“You know…” He waved his hand vaguely, looking sheepish. “You’ve got a bunch of robots, and you… lend them out?”

I tilted my head. “...We haven’t decided on that yet,” I said slowly. “Please tell me Ms. Gildenhall didn’t tell the news that we were open for business already or something.”

“She might have? I didn’t hear about it that way--I mean,” he said, panicking while I raised my eyebrows, “I’m not actually here about the robots anyway, I need some help with… rings.” He winced like he was bracing for a blow. 

“...Okay.” I did not open the door. “You’re remarkably well-informed.”

“I’m sorry.”

I frowned, because that was a strange response. “...Right, well, I’m not sure how I can help you. My own studies have kind of plateaued. What is it you need?”

“Do you know how to make… limiter rings?” He rubbed his wrists. “It’s kind of important.”

I reared back slightly. “Limiter rings… I know someone who wore those, but I never got a good look at them. Didn’t even find out that’s what they were until after the fact. I’m afraid I haven’t the slightest idea how they’re made.”

He sagged. “Oh…” He scratched the back of his head. “I guess I’ll come back another time, then.”

He looked so sad right then that despite how weird this conversation had been, I tried to give him a smile. “Sorry I can’t help, but hey,” I said, opening the rest of the door and stepping aside. I turned towards the kitchen. “I, uh… It’s hot out today, do you want some water? Or, have you gone to Shelldon’s? His experiment today was pretty good actually, he might still--”

I turned back to face him, but he was gone.

“--have some. Huh.” I stepped outside, looking around, but there was no one nearby. “...Attention shoppers, a child is lost in the store…”

He couldn’t have gone far, but then again he is a hedgehog. I stepped out down the road. 

The two newest neighbors, Honey and Waxer Vespa, were hovering over the construction site, lowering a set of boards for later. I waved to get Honey’s attention and she flew over.

“Good afternoon, Mister Fiver!” the bee said happily. “Isn’t it a lovely day?”

“I suppo--”

“It is a lovely day,” Waxer agreed, coming down to join her. He pulled her into a hug. “But not half as lovely as you, my dear.”

She blushed crimson. “Oh, Waxer!”

“Oh, Honey!”

I cleared my throat. “Wonderful, yes, uh, did either of you see a white hedgehog run past?”

The bees blinked, sharing a glance. “A hedgehog?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Nor did I.”

“We haven’t seen anyone go into the trees since Humi went out, the dear,” Honey finished.

“I see.” I puzzled over that for a moment, murmuring to myself. “Did he slip into the woods?”

Looking to the west, I saw rustle in the bushes, but that was also when I heard clinking and clanking getting nearer.

“I’m baaaaaack!”

Humi ran in from the road, and despite the weird events I let myself relax now that she was back. She gave me a quick hug.

“Good, you’re back sooner than I expected,” I said, hugging her back. “Everything alright? You get what you needed from Final Egg?”

She pointed back the way she came, just as Iota stepped into view carrying… well from this angle it looked like they’d torn out a section of wall.

I frowned, puzzled. “What is that?”

Iota approached and gently dropped the thing between us, producing a slight thud. “Explanation: This is one of the assembly rigs from the Final Egg.” He turned it around so I could see the little robot arms on the other side.

“I’m going to figure out if I can get it to make something I made,” Humi said, excited. “First I need to test it out, so I’m going to grab the Kiki head offa the Y-Nought and use it to build it a new body, then I might try to program it with the Hunter. After that, I want to use it to build that digger I’ve been thinking about.”

Shelldon stuck his head out of his shack. “That would be nice!” he chimed, before going back inside.

“More robots would make this go a lot quicker!” Fry agreed, sticking posts in the drying concrete for later support. “Ms. Vespa, you got the layout you showed me? I wanna get this done right.”

Honey pulled the blueprints out of her purse. “It’s Mrs., actually, Fry dear,” she said, fluttering her eyelashes at her husband.

Ugh. Newlyweds. I slapped myself, because otherwise I’d end up slapping someone else. I tried to steer the topic back on track. “So you’re really set on making lots of robots?”

“I like making robots,” Humi said simply. “I like making lots of things.”

“And there’s--Don’t you think--Hm.” I stopped myself and took a mental step back. How to best explain this. “Let’s get that thing to your lab, Doctor Humi.”

We turned around and went back into our home, Iota carrying the rig after us.

--------

Once back in the warehouse, Iota set it leaning against a wall and sat down to rest. Humi turned to me, looking worried. “Is something wrong? I don’t have to build more robots if you think--”

“You can do whatever you want as long as no one--” I paused. “--except Robotnik gets hurt,” I assured her. “I’m glad you’re able to keep busy.”

I looked to the side, out the window. There was miles of rock and forest between there and here, but I was looking in the direction of Station Square.

“...What you do with your time is your decision,” I said again. “But it is my opinion that you may have a few too many unfinished projects.”

She blinked, not having expected that. “What do you mean?”

“Take the Y-Mi,” I started, holding up a finger. “You were going to build a cell phone for all of our friends to stay in touch with, but you only built that change purse prototype and then moved on to the Hunter.” I held up a second finger and pointed them out to where it was working. “You were going to upgrade it to your standards, but you stopped and moved on to something else.”

“That one’s not my fault,” she protested. “We got distracted with the music video, and then Maddie’s butler!”

I shrugged. “And then there’s the submarine.”

“The sub--Okay, I actually forgot about that one,” she admitted. “But in my defense, I haven’t even seen the Omochao since I finished that boat.”

“You haven’t? Huh. Neither have I. Iota?”

He looked up. “Negative.”

That was worrying. They’d probably be fine, they vanished and popped back up all the time. “Anyway, none of this is a problem, per se,” I continued. “But I think it’s a bad idea to get in the habit of leaving things unfinished.”

Humi crossed her arms, grumbling. “I was gonna get to them eventually…”

I sat down in the nearest chair and picked her up, setting her in my lap. “Maybe. If it were me, I have trouble coming back to things if I leave them halfway. Or I’ll convince myself I did it and forget. Remember how long it took me to call my parents after the Chaos thing?”

She snorted. “Yeah. That was funny.”

“Ha. Big joke.” I chuckled. “But no, you might not have the same hangups as me. Maybe you’re just fine juggling multiple projects at once. But maybe think about sitting down and finishing one before you do anything else, yeah?”

She was quiet for a long moment, considering. Then she looked up at me. “Can I still work on the assembly rig?”

“Sure.” I smiled. “Hey, if you’re building that Kiki a body, maybe it can be your lab assistant. You might get more done then.”

Humi brightened. “That’s a great idea! A lab assistant!” She jumped out of my lab and ran into the house. “Let’s do that right away!”

“There she goes… Ah well.” I turned to look at Iota, who’d been watching silently. “What are your plans for the day?”

He beeped. “The bees told me that they want to run a flower shop one day. I wanted to ask them for their help and opinion on my gardening project.”

I clapped. “Excellent idea.” And I’ve got my own research to do… Yay.

Something crashed outside and I winced. On second thought, maybe I should go see if Fry needed help out there.

---------------------------

[Rouge]

When Rouge joined G.U.N., she was fourteen. Sometimes she wondered if Topaz would have recruited her if she knew. Thankfully, Rouge was a very early bloomer--ahem--and so the question never came up.

What was she doing that got her hired to the G.U.N. Specials? She didn’t quite recall. Oh, right--she was hunting down a specific and gorgeous gemstone, a topaz funnily enough, that had ended up in the vault of some bigshot in Empire City. Turned out that he was trafficking drugs and other, more despicable things, and Rouge took a moment in the middle of her heist to call the cops. G.U.N. had been tracking this man’s movements for a while, and a call from inside his own building was what they needed to get their warrant.

In the end, Rouge got her gem, and Topaz got a promising recruit. At the time, Rouge thought it would be a fun gag. She would use G.U.N. as a means to an end, using their resources to track down the world’s finest treasures and then leave them in the dust, laughing all the way to the bank.

It didn’t quite work out that way. Rouge was good at this job. And as one of the only… what, three? Mobians in the entire organization, she had too many eyes on her to not be on her best behavior. And now, after she helped save the world from the ARK, she was officially in this for the long haul. She had her own office now and everything.

At least Special agents were allowed their eccentricities. She’d die if she had to wear that ugly uniform.

As she looked over the latest reports, Rouge sighed, ears lowered. “This is boring.”

Tower’s reforms were taking place. Screening is continuing to sweep through the army… four soldiers have been fired and another seventeen reprimanded for possession of drugs. Cases of brutality that got swept under the rug. Resources stolen from the office--no one would care if it was just paperclips and paper or things like that, but ammunition and grenades.

This reform was a long time coming, apparently. She just didn’t understand why she was expected to be involved.

There was a knock on her door, and Rouge jerked in place. “Come in!” Hopefully it was Topaz, here to save her from this tedious, monotonous, endless paperwork and give her a proper mission-- “Oh, it’s you,” she said, disappointed.

The teal Mobian rolled his eyes. “I’ve got your mail, Rouge.” He tossed the envelope down onto the desk.

“Thanks.” She ripped it open, recognizing the seal on the front. “Eeee! The sale went through!”

The other agent leaned against the doorframe. “What sale is that?”

“The land for my casino, of course!” She hugged the document tight. Not too tight, she was going to frame this and didn’t want it wrinkled.

He arched an eyebrow. “Is that what you spent the reward money on? A casino?”

“What would you have spent it on, smart guy?” She stood and stretched. “Man, I’m famished. What’s in the canteen today?”

“Chicken.” He moved to let her pass and then followed behind her, closing the door since she didn’t. “As for me, I’d have spent the money on a romantic evening with my girlfriend…” He grinned. “Maybe a ring.”

“I didn’t know you had a girlfriend.” Though to be fair, she’d never spoken to the man before a few weeks ago. She eyed the snazzy fedora and matching vest over a white shirt he was wearing. “You don’t seem the type.”

He scowled at her but didn’t engage. Boring.

“How are the new recruits doing? Tower’s project going well?”

“More or less,” he admitted. “Most of them are going to go into the general forces, I think. But I have high hopes for the lion and the coyote.”

Rouge shook her head. “I’m still not sure what the Commander’s thinking.”

“Marshal.”

“Please, we all know that’s just temporary.”

“Nevertheless--”

“Anyway, this hero program he’s got going seems doomed to me.”

Commander Tower, after G.U.N.’s failure to stop Eggman in any meaningful way followed by Sonic’s continued ability to beat the Doctor time and time again, had professed to the upper ranks of G.U.N.--a position Rouge was startled to learn she qualified for--that he believed that some things required Heroes, capital ‘h’ and all, and that he wanted to try and cultivate their own. Greater freedom to operate, resources when they needed it; not carving them to fit the mold of a soldier but encouraging them to grow into their own. It was a bold idea, and one that might have been heavily voted against if the entire world hadn’t just seen two major catastrophes back to back solved by a handful of woodland critters.

Rouge was doubtful of the whole thing, despite herself. “Even if I buy this Hero and Villain narrative, trying to force it seems like an exercise in failure.”

Her coworker shrugged. “Maybe. I don’t think there’s any harm in trying. It’ll be nice to have more than just you and me around.”

She stopped midstep, turning to face him. “Us? Heroes?”

“Well, yeah.”

She laughed. “A little presumptuous, don’t you think?” Even if she was flattered that people thought that way about her, she didn’t think she met the criteria. What right did this guy have to claim the title?

“It’s not something to brag about,” he protested. “But I don’t know what else to call myself, after keeping Professor Uberwald from taking over the world these past twenty years.”

Rouge blinked. “I… have never heard of anyone called Professor Uberwald.”

He blinked and tapped his bill. “That’s because I take my job seriously.”

She huffed, turning back around. “If you’re going to make fun of me, maybe I’ll go somewhere else for lunch.” She was itching for a flight anyway.

“Making fun of you?” he questioned, but she was already taking off out the nearest window. He scratched his head under his hat. “...Well fine, good talking to you.” The platypus turned back the way he came, sighing. “Drat. I was hoping to get her to talk to Linus. She’d be a good influence on him.”

----------------------------

[Heyu]

Construction was going well. Fry knew what he was doing, sure enough, and with him directing us we already had some of the walls up.

We stepped back to look over the work. Fry wiped his brow and grinned. “I forgot how much fun building things is. If we keep going at this rate, you two might be moved in by the end of the week.”

The bees clapped, cheering, and I immediately went deaf once they turned to each other and started flirting. Instead I turned to Fry and clapped him on the back.

“I can’t believe they laid you off, if you can build a whole house by yourself like this.”

He grinned. “Ah, well, I’ve got you guys helping.” He faltered. “Actually, I was hoping Humi might be able to help with the wiring. I’m great at the actual structure but I was never tapped to work on the… fiddly bits.”

“She probably can,” I agreed. “Any idea when you’ll need to--”

He rubbed his chin. “Day after tomorrow, probably. Late tomorrow at the earliest. Hey, you guys?”

Honey and Waxer were lost in each other’s eyes.

Fry cupped his hands around his mouth. “HEY, LOVEBIRDS! You got a place to sleep until it’s done?”

“Oh, yes!” Honey chirped. “We have a lovely tent, don’t we Waxer?”

He nodded. “Yes, it was a gift from your mother, I believe. Delightful woman.”

Honey clasped her hands together. “So don’t you worry about a thing, Fry, dear. We will be perfectly happy snuggling together in the rough until you’re finished.”

Fry looked away. “I really hope my truck is soundproofed…”

I chuckled, turning back to the house, when I heard leathery flapping way overhead. “Huh?”

“Heyyyyy, you~”

“Hello, Rouge,” I said, looking up. “Good to see you again.”

She settled down next to me, standing on a stack of bricks so that she was eye-level with me. “I was going for a flight and thought I’d pay a visit, out here all alone in the jungle.” She made a show of looking around. “Not so alone anymore, huh?”

“Tell me about it,” I agreed, folding my arms. “I’m getting used to it. So, what brings you here actually?”

“What? Can’t I visit friends without suspicion?” she asked, affecting a look of exaggerated offense. “I actually smelled something delicious, so--aah!”

She stumbled in place, as the palette she was standing on was abruptly picked up by Humi’s Hunter drone. She flapped her wings, taking off as the robot carried the pile of bricks to where Fry had prepared a bucket of mortar.

Rouge followed after the drone curiously. “Well, hello. Is this what Humi’s done with all those parts?”

“Among other things.”

“It’s very… pink.”

I smiled. “She likes to make her mark on things, right enough. I bet the normal Hunters aren’t that strong, huh?”

She held his chin in thought. “Not that I’ve ever seen… Hm. Do you think--”

BOOM

I whirled around in time to see smoke billowing out from under the crack in the door to our warehouse. I sprinted over. Halfway there, the door opened and Humi stepped out, coughing.

“I’m okay! I’m okay.”

I leaned down to check her for injuries. “What even happened? You haven’t blown yourself up in ages, I thought you were over this.”

“It was my fault, I got excited and put the chaos drive in upside down.” She scowled. “I need to figure out how to make a fake emerald without a real one on hand. They’re so much better as power sources.” She looked around me and saw Rouge approaching, brightening. “Oh, it’s Rouge! Hi, do you have a Chaos Emerald I can borrow?”

“Humi.”

Rouge waved my concern away. “It’s fine, I was about to ask her the same thing,” she said teasingly. “Alas, no. No one’s found any trace of the Chaos Emeralds since that whole mess. And I’ve been too busy to hunt them down myself,” she finished with a scowl. “Stupid G.U.N., taking up all my free time.”

I felt my face fall flat. “Oh, no. How dare they make you do your job.”

“Right? But since you brought it up,” she said, “I saw the Hunter you put together out there. Very impressive.”

“Thanks!”

“Do you think you’d be willing to sell the design?” Rouge put on a winning smile. “I remember the Y-Nought. I’m sure now that you’ve brought the Hunter up to your standards, it blows our fifty-year-old design out of the water.”

Humi’s face fell as Rouge spoke. “Er. About that. I’ve actually, kind of been…” She glanced at me. I very carefully gave nothing away. “...distracted. Basically all I’ve done to the Hunter is boost the servos. I haven’t even given it a proper gun.”

“Were you going to give it the tesla cannon or the laser minigun?” I asked, watching Rouge’s reaction.

“Both of those AND the taser punch,” Humi corrected. “But then I found a lot of other projects to do, and--” She blinked. “There’s one now.”

We turned to look and saw a shark Mobian stomping up the path through the trees, carrying three familiar figures under his arm. He walked up to Fry and held out Ono, getting pointed in our direction. We stood still as he approached, looking angry and, incidentally, still dripping saltwater.

“I’m told these are yours?” he growled, dropping the three Omochao at our feet.

“H-hey, guys…” Yuno said dizzily.

“Hey, you three,” I answered tiredly. “What did they do?”

“They ran. Me. Over.”

I winced. “Of course they did. Sorry, Rouge, I gotta deal with this.”

--------------------------

[Humi]

Heyu went to try and calm down the shark man, so Humi turned to the little robots and poked them. “Did he beat you up?”

Dono sat up, rubbing its head. “It’s theatrics. He led us back to land when we got lost and only started acting angry when we got to the driveway.”

Rouge snorted. “Drama queen.”

“Like you’re one to talk,” Humi joked, helping Ono to its feet. “Like I said, I’ve got a lot of projects, and I think Pops is right, I should start finishing some of them. Don’t worry guys, I’m gonna build your sub first thing.”

Rouge hummed. “Fair enough. But here.” She handed Humi a card. “Once you get around to the Hunter, give me a call. I’ll make it worth your while.”

“Okay, but it might take a bit. I’m also working on a--”

A loud rumbling sound interrupted her. Rouge blushed. “Sorry. I’m here on my lunch break, and I might have forgotten to get anything. I thought I smelled something good around here…?”

“That was probably Fry’s truck, but he’s busy right now,” Humi explained. She looked over her shoulder. Iota was still vacuuming smoke out of the warehouse. “...C’mon, you can grab something from the kitchen. I don’t think Heyu would mind.”

“You’re a gem, Humi.”

Humi led her around to the front door of the house rather than go through the smoky building. As she climbed the porch steps, she suddenly turned around. She could have sworn she saw something in the bushes, something blue… but there was nothing there. Her eyes narrowed.

It was probably nothing.