By DarcNiGHT

Then he fell.

Whipping past floors, the wind speeding up past him, only semi-conscious. Memories flashed in and out of his head like old bits of film on fast foreword.

FLASH playing with his best friend as a child.

FLASH watching GMX and Nappa spar in a field near the village.

FLASH buildings speeding past him as he falls.

FLASH running from swat-bots in a forest on a dark and stormy night.

FLASH the ground coming closer.

FLASH lying under the full moon, dreaming about the future.

FLASH in a tube surrounded by flames.

FLASH falling, a brown blur coming up to him.

* * *

Down at the street the freedom fighters crept along trying to get away from the scene of their latest sabotage as fast as possible without being seen.

“I can’t wait to see the look on Robotnik’s face when he finds out what happened to his latest robotizer” exclaimed everybody’s favorite blue hedgehog. “Shhhhhhh” whispered Sally, the leader of this small band of rebels “With all the new security that Robotnik has put in these last few weeks we have to be extra careful, so be quiet.”

“Don’t worry Sal” he replied “As soon as that new bomb of Rotor’s goes off, our favorite fat dictator is going to be too busy to notice us.”

BOOOOM! As if on cue from Sonic, a loud explosion echoes through the streets of Robotropolis. “See? He’s so preoccupied now that we could throw a party right here and nobody would know.” Just then Rotor walks up with a worried expression on his face. “That couldn’t have been my device, Its not set to go off for another two and a half minutes” He shows Sonic the timer on his wrist, “That must have been some other explosion”

“What other explosion?” Sonic asks. “Uh I think he means that one” Tails the smallest of the group points out while pointing up. The whole group looks up at that and sees the last vestiges of a large fireball coming from one of the deserted towers in this part of town fade into the night sky

“You mean that there is ANOTHER group here setting off bombs tonight?” Sonic looks at Rotor and asks when the explosion has dissipated. “I’m not sure what it means” Rotor responds still looking up. “But I do know that we have to get away from this spot before the wreckage gets us” as this is said the first bits of what used to be a 17’th story wall hit the ground a few feet away. Hearing this news the entire group scrambled for cover.

“We’ve got to get out of here before our own bomb goes off” Rotor reminded everybody “Guards are probably already coming to respond to this first explosion, so we have to haul tail now!”

“Agreed” responded Sally forgetting her earlier argument with sonic “We’ll just go around this spot and continue on our --”

“HEY! There’s somebody up there!” Tails yelled. “And he’s falling fast; i've got to get him.” And before anybody can even think about responding Tails jumps up and spinning his two tails like the propellers of a helicopter, zips into the air to save whoever he saw.

“Wait! Stop!” Sally and Sonic yell at the same time, but they are two late. Tails has already flown into the oncoming debris. Rotor grabs a pair of binoculars out of the belt he always carries and looks up to where the dual tailed fox flew.

“He’s right there is somebody falling” He focuses on the small figure “and he appears to be unconscious, but he is surrounded by falling wreckage. How does Tails expect to get to him?”

Tails himself answered that question by weaving through the first bits of falling building easily as he continued on his path to meet the falling figure. “Well…silly me.” Rotor sighed as he moved his binoculars from the victim to his hopeful savior Tails.

“What I want to know” Sonic asked. “Is how is he even alive? If he had been in that explosion we should dodging pieces of that guy as well as of the building”

“I guess he can explain it himself” Sally answered looking up “If and when Tails gets him”

* * *

Falling past floor after floor out hero, (Remember? This guys the hero. Why? Cause I said so.) Still wasn’t all there. But he came too long enough to see a small brown figure flying up to meet him, dodging the pieces of lab that were apparently trying to beat him to the ground. As the figure came closer he barely make out what he looked like through the fog that was still clouding his brain. Suddenly he was there. Whoever it was grabbed his arms and started to pull him up, slowing his fall. Looking up he could just make out that it was a young fox, about 10 or 11 and that he had two tails. Also he looked vaguely familiar.

“Me…Merlin?” He muttered before he passed out again.

* * *

“He did it! Tails caught him!” Rotor exclaimed from below continuing his commentary while watching through the binoculars. “But he still has to avoid the biggest pieces of the building before he can land.” By now they were close enough that the whole group could see what was going on using the naked eye. Tails had him all right, but the momentum that he had acquired after falling 10 stories had been too much and tails was only slowing him down. But instead of futilely trying to stop the decent Tails was using it for speed and trying to beat the larger pieces to the ground so he could avoid them.

All they could do was watch and hope that Tails knew what he was doing as the wreckage fell faster and faster past him and crashed into the street, making cracks that reached from the building to the Freedom Fighters cover. Finally, just ten feet from the street Tails pulled out of the dive with his cargo safely in tow as the last of the building slammed into the street with enough force to cause a small explosion that echoed down the street and sent up debris everywhere. Also creating a shockwave that spread out from the point of impact and kicked up papers and trash all along the street, rustling fur, quills, ears, and clothes of the Freedom Fighters watching. Kicking up a cloud of dust that spread out across the street and blocked Tails from view. After what seemed like an eternity to those watching he flew out of the cloud with his eyes closed coughing from the smoke.

Setting his cargo in front of the group Tails landed next to Sonic and sat down exhausted from the exertion of his show of stunt flying. “Whoever it is” he said between deep breaths “he could use to shed a few pounds, that guy’s a lot heavier than he looks.”

“It was probably his pack that was making him so heavy Tails” Sally said as she knelt by the figure who was still sleeping. She unhooked the strap that crossed his chest and moved the pack aside so she could lie him on his back and tend to the wound on his head “It’s not as bad as it looks” she said to the group that surrounded them. “Ill just clean the wound and bandage it, then we can wake this guy up and get some answers.”

“Shouldn’t we get out of here Sal?” Sonic asked getting impatient (Not a hard thing to do.) “Before we have company?”

“We cant just leave him here Sonic whoever comes will get him, and if we take him with us like this we wont make it far before we get caught too.” She said as she wrapped the bandages around his head, put her medical equipment back in her small bag and grabbed a tiny jar of smelling salts. Waving the jar under his nose she said, “If we can wake him up now we can all get out of here.”

At that the prone figure’s eyes sprang open and he jumped up. Backing up to his bag he seemed to size them up as if they were the enemy. While he looked them over Sally did the same since he just stepped out of their cover and into the moonlight where she could finally get a good look at him.

A feline about an inch or two shorter than Sonic, covered in orange fur with black striped on his head arms and body. Wearing a loose pair of simple blue pants with an unusually long black tipped tail with the same black stripes waving from behind him like it had a mind of its own and a pair of blue and gold sneakers. Also he had on the common pair of gloves that seemed to be the fashion for everybody and their grandfather these days Sally thought to herself.

“Who…. Who are you?” He demanded twitching his black tipped ears, still a little groggy from the hit in the head. But his narrowed yellow eyes stayed focused on her never wavering. He still had enough wits about him to be suspicious of these new people surrounding him. ~He’s not a common civilian.~ Sally thought to herself. ~He’s keeping his back to us and never letting any of us out of his sight~

“And what happened” he finished bringing a hand to his new bandages and for the first time they could see the gauntlet on his left arm. The pattern of a claw was etched into the surface and in the center sat a small red gem gleaming in the light of the full moon.

While she took this in he sneaked a quick glance at the building he just made an unorthodox exit from.

“My name’s Sally” she said trying to calm him down. “What’s yours?”

“M…My name?” He said surprised then paused. ~Maybe that bump to the head was worse than I thought~ Sally considered to herself ~Or maybe he’s just trying to figure out what we’re up to.~

He seemed to come to a decision.

“My name’s Kytan.”

* * *

“My name’s Kytan” he said deciding to trust them for now, seeing as how they saved his life. He kept his attention on the squirrel. Wearing a blue vest and boots with a small pack next to her on the ground and a smaller computer on a strap over her shoulder, she seemed to be the leader of the group.

“Well now that we have done our greetings” Kytan said waving to people behind Sally who hadn’t said a thing during they’re conversation “Who’re they?”

“A reasonable question to ask, let me introduce you” Sally pointed first to an impatient blue hedgehog with bright green eyes next to her who kept glancing up and down the street and tapping one of his red and white sneakers on the ground. “This is my second in command, Sonic.”

“Second in command huh. What are you guys some kind of freedom fighter group?”

“That’s exactly what we are.” Sonic said angrily.

“Oh”

Sally took this pause to resume the introductions “If you’ll let me continue Mr. Kytan, this here is Rotor” she said pointing to a blue walrus wearing a cap and a yellow belt filled with pockets across his shoulder that was easily the tallest of the group.

“Nice to meet you Kytan” Rotor said.

“Uh…Hi” He said slightly confused at the calm these people showed considering where they were and what just happened.

“And here is Antoine” pointing to a coyote in some type of military uniform who was eyeing Kytan suspiciously and fingering the hilt of a sword he had in a scabbard at his waist. “Standing next to him is Bunny Rabbot.” Slightly taller than Antoine with a pink sleeveless shirt on and one ear flopped over her eye she would have looked like any other female rabbit Kytan had seen in his travels except for one thing – she was half robotized. Her left arm, both her legs and the bottom half of her body were machine.

“Hiya” She said waving her mechanical arm in a greeting.

~This is definitely a group with some stories to tell~ Kytan thought as he observed the introductions.

“Now what about my second question. What happened?”

“That brings me to the final member of our little group” Sally said pointing behind Sonic to a small brown figure sitting on a crate. “You already met him earlier. Tails?”

Tails got up and stepped foreword with a smile on his face “Hey, nice to see you’re O.K.”

~A little taller, a lot older and they would be the same~ Kytan snapped out of it and shook the boy’s hand. “Thanks, I owe you my life out there. I was too out of it to even try to do anything”

“Ah, it was nothing for a freedom fighter” he seemed embarrassed at getting attention for a simple thing like that. “With all the training exercises I did with Sonic dodging those things was a piece of cake.”

“Even if it was nothing to you, I’m still here to be able to thank you.”

“Just what were you doing up there anyway?” Sonic stepped foreword demanding.

“Uh…well I was just doing a little explor--”

“Intruder Alert! Intruder Alert!” A mechanical voice rang out through the night. Everybody spun around at the sound. Down the street that the freedom fighters had come, a squad of swat-bots were racing, having spotted the little group and were now attempting to apprehend them.

“Great, they’re early” Rotor said.

“What do you mean ‘early’?” Kytan called out as they dodged blaster fire from the robots.

“We have our own little explosive set to go off in a bit” Rotor responded while ducking behind the same wall that Kytan used for cover as scarlet bolts of energy splashed off the ground where they had just been standing. “They weren’t supposed to come till it, and we had both been off for a while”

“So when is your little gift for Robotnik supposed to arrive?” Kytan asked.

“Right about…”

BABOOOOOOOOOOOM! The second explosion of the night thundered throughout the street, blowing out the wall, engulfing the small team of bots in flames and giant chunks of steel and concrete while collapsing the building next to them where the blast originated.

“Now” Rotor finished with a smile after the blast had settled down.

Kytan thought to himself ~these are definitely professionals, even if they are around my own age.~ Aloud he said, “With all these fireworks going on you’d think that there was a party going on.”