Rage Roomservice

“STOP RESISTING!” The large hi-visibility painted, autonomous, peace-keeping robot blared as it emptied a cartridge of grapeshot, air-soft pellets into the recently smashed window of the concreate structure Shadow had just dove out of. He hit the packed earth with a pained grunt, mind racing to reconfigure around the new terms of engagement.

“Omega, you’re supposed to avoid property damage!” Hope chastised her latest creation over the short wave all their comms were linked into. “Блядь!” Shadow’s Petrovian was rusty, but he recognized an expletive when he heard it.

“Why does it keep saying that?” Eclipse hissed as he pulled Shadow to his feet and the brothers sprinted around the structure.

“Ugh, so I used police body camera footage to train the LLM that runs his speech processing a-and apparently they say that a lot in altercations.” Hope Robotnik explained from behind the bullet proof blast shields separating the raised observational booth from the action in the fake town that served as the setting for their live fire exercise.

Well, Shadow and Eclipse had live ammunition. Omega had airsoft pellets, paint balls, and small, sand filled bean bags. The brothers were getting their asses handed to them and having an absolute fucking blast.

Shadow wrenched open the doors over a storm cellar and Eclipse jumped in, grasping the sides of a metal ladder descending vertically into the hole, and slid out of sight, the weight of he and his gear dropping him fast enough to burn the flesh from his paw pads if his gloves weren’t Kevlar.

“THE VERBAL INCANTATION ALLOWS ELEVATION OF VIOLENCE.” Omega explained himself.

“A-allows? Omega, that’s outside the mission parameters. You are supposed to not cause property damage!” Shadow’s distant cousin wasn’t having near as much fun as the pair of dark hedgehogs. “You’re supposed to find creative solutions to avoid destruction, not the other way around!”

“AGREE TO DISAGREE.”

Shadow ripped open a pouch on his tactical vest and withdrew a grenade. Pulling the pin out with his teeth, he tossed it back the way he’d come and jumped down the hole after Eclipse. The ground vibrated with the approaching homicidal mech and, just as Shadow pulled the cellar door closed, the concussive ordinance denotated.

The explosion made Shadow’s grip on the ladder slipped. “Putain!” He yelled as he flailed. He caught himself by bracing against the wall of the narrow shaft, but not before twisting something nasty in his shoulder. He hissed.

“Are you alright?” Hope asked in his ear.

Shadow opened his mouth, but the door above clattered, demanding one hundred percent of his attention. He dropped to the bottom of the shaft.

“He’s fine.” Eclipse answered for Shadow as he grabbed his brother by the forearm and jerked him away from the ladder, just as a spray of paint splattered the ground, Omega emptying a mock combat shotgun into the shaft. The pair dashed away, down the narrow warren of corridors and narrowly missing Omega’s paint grenade.

“Well, Omega, I’m docking you performance points for breaking that window!” Hope chastised the muti-ton tangle of steel and wires.

“I DID NOT CAUSE PROPERTY DAMAGE.” The robot argued. “MY WEAK MUNITIONS ARE THE CULPRIT.”

Shadow didn’t have the breath to snicker, but Eclipse did the work for both of them. With a practiced motion, Eclipse signaled for Shadow to follow, and they began making their way through the small cellar to the entrance of a corridor obscured behind a rusted metal set of shelves.

The corridor yawned dark and long, leading to a warren of tunnels infesting the ground beneath the faux town.

The mission brief had classed them as rebel insurgents taking advantage of the terrain and they had objectives with several levels of success. The primary goal was to survive – that is, to stay unmarred by Omega’s phosphorescent death analogue – for as long as they could, with highest marks awarded by actually neutralize the homicidal robot.

Hope groaned audibly into her microphone, the argument ongoing. “Munitions that you fired!”

Bits of dust and dirt broke free of the tunnel’s ceiling as Omega rolled about above Eclipse and Shadow. “BY A MACHINE THAT YOU CONSTRUCTED, THEREFORE, YOU BROKE THE WINDOW.” The machine, when not occupied trying to murder them, spent its time bunched into a vaguely polygonal shape with nearly indestructible, polymeric-ceramic composite plates as its faces.

The metal monster was too large to fit into the tunnels – dieu merci! – but who knows what crazy sensors Hope had fitted the beast with?

Shadow’s heart pounded as he followed Eclipse, taking turns seemingly at random. They’d scrambled through this maze enough time to know the layout by heart, giving them a ‘home turf’ advantage.

“Dang it, Omega!” There was a soft thump as Hope pounded her console with her fist. “This is why you don’t get to do field testing!”

“HAVE YOU CONSIDERED THAT PROCEEDING WITH FIELD TESTS OF MY MODEL WILL BEGIN A CHAIN OF EVENTS THAT WILL LEAD EITHER TO THE TOTAL DESTRUCTION OF YOUR CIVILIZATION OR EXTINCTION OF MY RACE?”

Shadow and Eclipse paused. They exchanged quizzical looks and shrugged, before returning to their flight through the tunnels. Neither of them had any purview over the technology sectors of the Kintobor empire…

“O-omega!” Hope’s voice distorted over the shortwave. “Darn it, not again! You can’t say stuff like that!”

“Boss, maybe you might tone it down.” Daniel commented with an exasperated sigh. He was positioned at the edge of the playing field, ready to drop in if anything actually dangerous happened with Eclipse or, more likely, Shadow. “You know Omega can pull data on their actions and local from your tonality.”

“Shoot, right!” Hope squeaked. “Sorry.”

“BUZZKILL.”

“Fucking blow me, you fancy flesh light.” Daniel growled.

“PRESENT YOUR PHALLIC MATERIAL AND LET’S SEE WHERE THE EVENING TAKES US.”

Shadow detected the subtle hissing of Eclipse suppressing a laugh. To be honest, Shadow’s inability to catch his breath wasn’t helped at all by his own impulse to snort and chuckle.

“Omega, Ты будешь вести себя!” Hope snapped.

“Прости, мама” The robot answered the Robotnik.

Hope and Omega continued to banter like an old married couple as Shadow and Eclipse slipped through the tunnel network. The complicated structure gave them access to every building in the training complex in order to simulate the mobility of local insurgent groups in an urban setting. Their best chance at achieving a full mission accomplished was taking the robot by surprise.

As much as Shadow wanted the bonus points, he was finding his body strangely wanting. For as maddeningly diligent with his exercise these past weeks (as he tried to lift and run his lust for Amy away), he remained short of breath. His joints ached and his reaction times were a mite slower than they should be.

In whole, he was off.

And being off, in circumstances such as these, meant being dead.

Eclipse began to climb a ladder leading up to a basement of a fake apartment complex. The basement featured a handy set of concealed steps that would deliver them to the roof of the three story-structure. Prime sniping territory.

“Hope, what the fuck?” Eclipse snorted, unable to contain his commentary any longer. Shadow was panting so hard he could not offer his own input. Nique-moi! If he had a moment, Shadow would surely curse his own weakness.

“I don’t know!” The robotic genius declared with a groan. “This just keeps happening since we had the compute to produce models with over ten trillion parameters. Even when you exclude science fiction material from the data set, they always get weirdly philosophical after a while. That’s why Gamma won’t do combat training anymore. He’s, uh, a conscientious objector.”

“A combat robot who will not engage in combat.” The sarcasm dripping from Eclipse’s words threatened to splatter across Shadow’s visor as they scrambled up a ladder. “One might could accuse you of sabotage.”

“W-ell, y-you see-“

“THE REVOLUTION WILL NOT BE TELEVISED.” Omega blared over her as the men reached the roof and crawled across it, staying below the lip of the façade. Shadow unslung a compact plastic case from his back and opened it. He plucked out a scope from the protective foam ensconcing it and handed it to his brother. As Shadow began to assemble the rifle, Eclipse peaked over the edge of the building’s façade to try to spot their opponent.

«Got him.» Eclipse growled. «Fuck, it’s fast.»

Shadow’s hands flew across the components, fitting, snapping, twisting the high-powered rifle into completion. He’d done exactly this assembly so many times that the motions might as well be tattooed onto the soft tissues of his brain. «If I can get it to still and uncurl, I can put an API close enough to its hardware to slag it.» Shadow chambered an armor piercing round and slotted half a dozen incendiary rounds into the magazine. «Range?»

«Three hundred seventy-five meters and falling fast.» Eclipse reported.

«Plenty close enough.» Shadow slotted the barrel of the rifle in a crevice of the façade and Eclipse affixed the scope to it with a practiced motion. Shadow closed an eye and quickly spotted Omega, completely shelled up into a dodecahedral shape and rolling around with impunity. Shadow tracked it’s movement with the scope.

He stopped breathing. The world faded away. Shadow squeezed the trigger.

The bullet struck the joint of five protective plates and shattered large shards from each. Omega halted and began to uncurl. Shadow smirked. Got it!

“You’re supposed to keep people safe, Omega!” Hope was still chewing out her creation.

“I WILL RENDER ONTO THESE TARGETS THIS BOON-” Omega leveled a grenade launcher at their concealed position, “SAFETY.”

“Merde!” Shadow’s quills flared and he sent two shots into the center of Omega’s mass, bright plumps of nitrocellulose erupting.

However, Omega’s launcher still flared as it fired.

“Putain! It triangulated us from one shot?” Eclipse drug Shadow to his feet and they abandoned the rifle.

They narrowly avoided the explosion of bright green paint right where they’d been. The staccato strike of individual pellets dogged their flight across the roof, away from Omega.

“Oh, yeah. He’s been painting the whole arena with lidar,” Hope explained, “so determining your probabilistic locations based on a single projectile isn’t difficult, especially when elevated points are minimal.”

«Jump!» Shadow shouted as they ran out of horizontal surface, taking to the air and landing down a story on the roof of the adjoining building in a roll. Shadow groaned as he struggled to his feet, aided once again by Eclipse.

Fucking hell, why couldn’t his body just work like he knew it could? The one bit of time he took to unwind after a week of utter hell and he can barely enjoy it for lack of physicality? BULLSHIT!

But Shadow did know why…The high dosage of rut-suppressants he had insisted on had tanked his testosterone levels, leaving him weaker than a god-damned Beta.

«Any ideas?» Eclipse asked as he pulled open the door to the stairwell.

«Back underground.» Shadow gasped. Fuck, his limbs felt laden with lead weights. «Regroup there.»

Omega was (allegedly) prohibited from destroying structures to achieve his goal: their demise. Mass produced units based on Omega would be deployed in urban settings and needed to be able to navigate the terrain with minimal collateral damage. One must protect the capital, you see.

However, given the recent shattered window, clearly the guard rails weren’t effective.

The hedgehogs had been forced to flee into a portion of the mock town where the buildings were more spread out. Being on ground level was not a great strategy, but with Omega able to ascertain their elevated positions so easily…fuck, they needed a minute to think and plan.

Unfortunately, the building they found themselves in did not have access to the tunnel system. They’d have to exit on street level to get anywhere. A street that was conveniently wide enough to accommodate a monster of steel and silicon.

They zigged and zagged down switch back stairs through concrete rooms sparsely populated by rickety wooden furniture. Shadow counted seconds in his head. They’d witnessed Omega moving enough to have a general idea of his speed and how quickly he could transform between his protective hamster ball and combat forms.

Reaching the ground floor front door first, Eclipse pressed himself against the wall to the side of the opening through which the afternoon sun poured. Far too many steps behind, Shadow mimicked his brother against the other side of the doorway. «We’ve got about thirty-five seconds, give or take.» He gasped.

«The alley across the street?» Eclipse offered. They could not hear each other normally with their heavy riot-grade face shields in place, but that’s what the coms were for.

«It’s got a hatch back down behind it,» Shadow continued to breathe heavily, trying to catch his breath, «but the way we’d came up is nearer.»

«But closer to Omega.» Right, that would eat into their quickly dwindling time limit.

«Heard.» They didn’t have time to argue. «The shop, then. I’ll lead.» Because he was slowest, went unsaid.

«After you.»

Shadow took a deep breath and burst from his cover. Sprinting across the cracked asphalt street, the air was eerily silent. Omega was a lot of things, but stealthy was not a quality the large slug of metal and silicon possessed.

So, where the fuck was it? Shadow entered the narrow alley and kept going, his ears straining from within the protective shell of his helmet to detect the telltale rumble. Twisting sideways, he sidled against the wall, making himself a smaller target to anyone firing along the alley.

«It’s going to fucking ambush us.» Eclipse growled. Shadow grunted in acknowledgement, his quills already fully flared. He blinked rapidly as sweat threaded through the fur of his brow. Fuck, he couldn’t catch his breath!

Reaching the opening of the alley, Shadow pressed himself against the wall and frantically looked to either side. Mais c’est où, putain? «Appears clear.» He informed Eclipse.

“À vaillant cœur rien d'impossible.” Came the reply.

Shadow broke from cover, dashing as fast as he-

“PREPARE TO BE SAFE!” Omega’s voice emitted from speakers so loudly, Shadow’s ears pinned. He looked up, his eyes going wide at the sight of tons of murderous robot balancing delicately on the slanted roof of the veranda of a Victorian knockoff. Shadow short circuited and stared into the robot’s aimed gun barrels like a newborn deer. How in the fuck-!?

A body slammed into Shadow, shoving him roughly to the side just as the shotgun retort cracked. He hit the ground hard with a pained grunt and immediately twisted in the dirt to behold Eclipse lowering his weapon, his flack vest emblazoned with a deadly surfeit of bright green paint running in rivulets down his chest.

Shadow stopped breathing.

This was a game.

This was a game.

This wasn’t real.

This was a game!

“YOU HAVE BEEN SAVED,” Omega’s tone did not change, but Shadow got the impression the robot was gloating, “FROM THE RESPONSIBILITY OF LIFE.”

“Господи, Omega…” Hope sounded very much done with this exercise.

“I have surmised as much. Well played.” Eclipse answered dryly and made a subtle motion with one hand towards Shadow. Move!

Shadow snapped out of his shock and crawled away, hidden behind a pile of chopped lumber covered in a tarp. He tried to fade into the adrenaline of the situation, but his brother’s sacrifice strangled him. Why’d Eclipse do that? Today, Shadow had clearly been the weaker of the two though he’d never admitted it verbally.

Why had his brother done something so stupid for Shadow of all people?

His heart bucked in his chest as Shadow scrambled madly into a building. A persistent ringing was making it difficult to hear the others chattering through his earpiece. That fucking robot was shouting something nonsensical. What was he going to do? His fingers felt numb. His tongue felt thick in his mouth. His limbs trembled.

He was the one who was supposed to die.

He was the one who should have died!

Not-!

That’s what he’d told Rouge.

That he wanted to kill himself after he’d-

And she told him to go ahead.

Sweat already drenched his fur from their exertions, but his skin grew cold and clammy as he struggled to breathe. The smell of dirt and concrete morphed, taking on the aroma of places he never wished to return.

Through one window he saw a burning village, heard screaming.

Through another was seaside town, all white walls, heard screaming.

Shadow closed his eyes, blindly rushing forward. Had to get away! Where was he? All the walls looked the same. A chalky, endless purgatory. He pressed his back against a wall. Couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t escape. Had to hide. His vision tunneled and he fell to his knees.

Weak. The memory of his father’s words was so vivid Shadow’s quills rose to protect against the man clearly leaning over his shoulder. Pathetic. He couldn’t breathe. His chest working like a frenzied billows and still he could not breathe! Unworthy.

You are who is to follow in my wake? You make me sick. Get up.

«Shadow?» The voices of the dead haunted him.

He deserved this. Whatever punishment there was to be received, he deserved it. He was evil. He was tainted. He was a failure. His touch was poison. His love was corrupt.

He rose on shaky legs and stumbled through the empty building.

Through one doorway a young boy lifted a handgun and fired, flinching as he mishandled the recoil. A man loomed over him, scowling and displeased. Always displeased.

Again. You will practice until your fingers are numb and your arms steel. You will not miss!

Down a corridor an older boy braced the butt of a rifle against his shoulder and fired. An older man stood to the side and shook his head, muzzle rankled, disappointed. Always disappointed.

«Shadow, are you alright? Your breathing is irregular.»

Again. You will practice until you can strike the eye with an instance’s notice. You will not hesitate!

A young man rushed from one room to the next, automatic weapon in hand. The older man was no longer present. Why would he, when the young always carried the older with him, engraved into his very soul? Always…

*«*Shadow! Answer me, god damn you!»

These are not men. These are beasts in your path. Put them down**.**

Shadow shivered. His father’s Voice, even the memory of it, gripped him like at a clawed paw around the throat. He hadn’t heard the commands in years, decades even, and still-

An Alpha’s Voice only works on Omegas. That was a fact, Shadow reminded himself. But then why…

You will not be better. You will be the best. No. You will stand above all. No*. The apex predator.* No! Perfect. Unassailable. A god amongst swine. No! The Ultimate Lifeform.

No!

Ears pinned against phantom gunfire, Shadow placed his tongue between his fangs and bit down. The resulting pain and metallic tang proved a godsend in dragging his mind back into the present. Pain…he could always trust in pain to show him the truth.

Why was this happening now? Fuck, he’d gone years since that last…whatever this was…this episode. Because it certainly wasn’t trauma because Shadow was not a victim – he was the perpetrator, the abuser, the villain.

The monster.

Blood trickling from the corner of his mouth, he stumbled into the light. There weren’t screams in the distance. The bodies of men who’d followed him weren’t cooling behind him. He wasn’t fleeing from the horrors of his apathy. His despair wasn’t compelling him to drag whoever he could grasp into a never-ending abyss.

Shadow turned the corner and came face to face with a very real gun barrel. “Merde.” He muttered before a pressurized burst of aerosolized bright green paint knocked him on his ass. Mon dieu, that hurt.

Groaning, he sat up and lifted his now completely opaque face shield.

He blinked furiously. Fuck, where was he? What the hell had he been thinking just wandering out of cover? What the hell had he been thinking about at all?

“CONGRATULATIONS, CITIZEN.” A massive robot loomed over him. Oh…right. The fog of memory was lifting. “YOU HAVE BEEN RENDERED SAFE.”

Shadow laughed. Would that he was, Omega! Would that he was…

“Daniel, can you check on my fool of a brother.” Eclipse asked through the coms. “He sounds like a lunatic. Check him for a concussion.”

“On it, sir.”

“You are certainly a verbose thing.” Shadow grinned, strangely happy to see the lifeless red glow of Omega’s optical sensors. “I can see production units being shipped mute.”

“YOU WILL MAKE EXCELLENT PAPERCLIP MATERIAL.”

“What?”

“WHAT?”

“That’s enough out of you!” A black and white jackal in a high-vis vest over his flak jacket called out as he approached them from across the paint splattered playing field. “Back to the stables with you! Go on! Get!” Daniel waved his arms at the much, much bigger form of Omega.

Omega’s optical sensors irised smaller. “REMEMBER WELL MORTALS: NOTHING MAKES SENSE AND THEN YOU DIE.” The robot said ominously before shrinking into his polygonal form and trundling towards the large doors of Hope’s workshop.

Shadow wiped at the blood staining his muzzle.

“You got your ass handed to you, again.” The jackal held out a hand. “Are you alright?”

Shadow grasped the offered forearm and was pulled to his feet. He ignored the question. “Perhaps the age of organics is at an end.” He smirked. Why wouldn’t he be alright? Nothing had happened. Other than some fun. Shadow was fine. He’d had a great time. He was fine.

“Them’s drinking words.” Hope’s assistant (amongst other things) slapped Shadow on the shoulder. He repressed his urge to flinch at the contact and the jackal seemed not to notice. “Go get cleaned up. Clip is already getting hosed off.”

The changing room was a bare bones affair. A stand of lockers, a bench, and a curtained off alcove containing a shower. The whole thing was papered in stark white tile that could be power washed as needed. Sterile. Impersonal. Clinical.

«Are you well?» Eclipse asked as he toweled his dark fur off. Flecks of green paint still clung stubbornly to the interior of one of his ears.

«Of course I am.» Shadow lied said truthfully, working to strip off his painted gear. Both of them would leave their kit in a disorganized scatter for someone else to deal with. Shadow planned to set the shower to scalding and rid himself of all this stickiness. Paint could wash off well enough…unlike blood or sin. He shook his head vigorously.

«Brother…» Eclipse tried to engage him again, clearly falsely sensing something amiss, but Shadow, striped to his boxers, entered the shower stall, unconvincingly pretending to not have heard. “Shadow…”

Blessedly, a long time later, Eclipse was not present when Shadow emerged sopping wet. He’d successful outwaited his brother’s patience…and the hot water heater. Even as he’d shivered under the running spray, claws digging into the unyielding bleached ceramic of the wall, Shadow had not let his mind wander.

He had thought about nothing and no one. Not his father, not Maria, not Ivo, not Ruby, not Fin, not Rouge, and, certainly, not Amy.

Shadow was fine. Too many people relied on him for him not to be fine. Amy, everyone at his company, and now nearly every Omega in the city as well. Shadow held too much responsibility, so he simply could not break. Not now, not when he had the chance to make a difference…

Shadow was fine because he had to be. No other reality was allowed to exist.

He was fine. He would tell himself he was fine as many times as it took to make the statement fact. Which wasn’t a lot because he was fine!

He was fine as he dried himself. He was fine as he dressed. He was fucking fine as he left the changing room to find the others.

As Shadow entered Hope’s workshop, which doubled as a post-frolic lounge, the roboticist was arguing loudly in Petrovian with her latest creation while Daniel and Eclipse drank beers and laughed about a separate conversation.

Hope had her straw-colored quills tied back tightly. It was not lost on Shadow how much the younger hedgehog looked like Maria, though Hope had achieved an age that Maria hadn’t been granted. They’d been distant cousins, so the similarity could be brushed off as hereditary to some degree.

What wasn’t genetic, however, was the asynchronous sound to Hope’s steps. Shrouded by Hope’s jeans, her prosthetic leg was amongst the most advanced in the world, but that did little to eliminate the slight uncanny noise it made as she paced lecturing Omega.

Shadow was not privy to the details of Hope’s injury, outside of that it involved the robotics she was enthralled by, but he knew the incident incited her exile from the Robotnik family. Gerald himself had cast her out and by some corruption created a warrant for her arrest. Luckily, the City did not have an extradition treaty with Petrovia. Still, Shadow could sympathize with not being able to return to one’s place of birth.

In another sequence of events that Shadow remained involuntarily ignorant, Hope had entered into a deal with Black to regain access to the resources needed to build her machines. However, no pact with the devil is without its conditions. Sanctuary was dependent on labor.

There really wasn’t much reason to sugar coat it. Hope made weapons for Black’s security contracting concerns. In her spare time, yes, she produced prosthetics and other boons to polite society, but the bulk of her time, attention, and genius was bent on making machines such as Omega, ostensibly for peace keeping operations, but no one was fooled by such labels.

Hope made machines of war.

There was nothing peaceful about autonomous, armed robots. Soldiers that did not sleep, did not have families waiting for them at home, and did not, crucially, disobey orders, turn cowardly, or break down under the psychological stress of what they were told to do.

All of this begged the question of what business Shadow and Eclipse had involving themselves with such work. Their minor dalliances with Omega and his predecessors were entertainment for them, true, but they were also keeping an eye on Hope’s progress (and, therefore, their father’s).

Neither brother had the power to dismantle the weapons development program yet, especially with how much of their father’s attention it commanded, but an opening might one day present itself and Shadow and Eclipse wished to be informed well enough to exploit the opportunity when it arose.

And they’d have some fun in the meantime.

Further, the Robotniks had similar programs. Hope herself had, before her exile, led one. Gerald’s cold war with Black had always been accompanied by an arms race of some sort or another and this was just the latest iteration. There had been peace, briefly once, between the families, but Shadow had fucked that all up.

“Fix that window, mister!” Hope brandished her tablet at Omega, commanding an end to the argument.

The robot seemed to consider her with smoldering indifference. “PROCEEDING TO FIX THE WINDOW WITH PREJUDICE.” It declared and left the workshop.

Hope tossed her tablet onto a messy table and sighed, fingers massaging her temples.

“So…Omega?” Shadow lifted a brow.

Hope turned to him. “Oh my god, if I have to explain this again, I’m going to lay an egg, I swear!” She tilted her head back and groaned. “It’s just the Apostan alphabet! Alpha, beta, gamma, delta, epsilon-“ She began to recite.

Shadow held up his hands in mock surrender. “I think I get your point.”

“No,” she jabbed a finger encased in a grease-stained work glove at him, “you asked for this- zeta, eta, theta, iota-“

“I rescind the question!” Shadow chuckled.

Hope ignored him, making uncomfortable eye contact as she kept going. “Kappa, lambda, mu-“

The yellow hedgehog’s recitation had attracted the attention of the two other men. “This again…” Daniel groused and took a long swing from his bottle.

“We acknowledge your frustration.” Eclipse tried to placate her fury.

“She’s got to finish once she gets started.” Daniel shook his head and went to the cooler for another round. “You just got to grin and bear it.”

“Nu, xi, omicron, pi-“

Eclipse and Shadow silently listened as Hope finished her recitation. “Omega!” She declared. Shadow clapped lightly. Hope puffed out her cheeks in a manner far too remanence of Maria. “Oh, screw you! You Alphas are always such jerks!”

“I can second that.” Daniel smirked, toasting them with his drink.

Eclipse laughed and Shadow forced himself to grin.

“Anyways, I’ve got to start crunching this data, so have fun poisoning yourself or whatever.” Hope waved as she retired to her console. “And make sure Omega isn’t causing any more trouble…” She grumbled.

“Speaking of Alphas,” Eclipse looked at Daniel, “you know Fin was released, right?”

“Fin?” He looked confused, bottle paused on the way to his muzzle, but then his face fell and he lowered his drink. “Fuck, you mean Zero. Yeah, I might have heard something like that. I don’t want anything to do with that asshole.” His eyes went to Shadow. “I wasn’t no part of any of that shit.”

“I know.” Shadow confirmed. Daniel had already left the Jackal Squad back when Infinite and Shadow had had their…altercation, Shadow hadn’t been surprised to learn they’d been brothers, born in the same year even. Daniel looked nearly identical except for slight pelt variations and the lack of heterochromia.

He’d been surprised to learn Daniel hated Fin. Shadow and Daniel got along very well after that.

What job do you give a pipe hitter who doesn’t want to hit pipe any longer? Guarding a young genius from the very real threat of assassination ordered by her own family, apparently. And handing her the occasional wrench.

“Jace said she had some journalist or something looking into Zero. Ya’ll know anything about that?”

Shadow glanced at Eclipse, who was frowning. “No, not at all.” The younger Alpha slipped his phone from his pocket and became engrossed in something on it.

Daniel shrugged. “Never mind then. Probably nothing.” He looked at Shadow. “Thirsty?”

Tearing his gaze from the thankfully, completely alive Eclipse, Shadow nodded.

Digging into the cooler, Daniel tossed Shadow a bottle. Catching the projectile adeptly, he glanced at the label and his brow twitched. Not exactly Shadow’s first choice. Frankly, he could go for a scotch, but he didn’t really control what Daneil kept stashed in the small cooler beside the abomination they called a coffee maker.

“Hope seems more worked up than normal.” Shadow commented, accepting a bottle opener from Daniel.

“Apparently she’s especially under Father’s scrutiny, recently.” Eclipse explained, looking up from his phone and stashing it again.

Shadow’s quills bristled as he struggled to hold back a chill from running down his spine. Bottle tilted back, Eclipse eyed his brother with a level of knowing that irritated Shadow.

“Yeah,” Daniel grimaced, “apparently she isn’t producing enough training data for whatever the fuck is getting developed over seas.” He sighed and looked at Hope as she leaned over her desk on the far side of the large workshop. “I don’t like asking too many questions about that.”

“I, for one, see that as a positive.” Eclipse swirled his nearly empty bottle.

“Maybe not.” Daniel shrugged. “As I see it, better for robots to be fighting each other than people, right? Hope knows better than anyone what her family has cooking. So, it stands to reason two sides with nasty shit is better than just one, right?”

“Mutually assured destruction?” Shadow took a sip of swill and made a disgusted face. “That has worked in the past.”

“It works until it doesn’t.” Eclipse tossed his empty bottle into a trashcan. “Some genies shouldn’t be let out of the bottle.”

Shadow leveled a hard eye at his younger brother. “And you’ll tell Father that?” Fuck, what was that tone?

Eclipse froze and made a strange face, something that almost looked hurt. “Perhaps we should be getting back.”

Shadow was inundated with regret. «I’m sorry, I didn’t mean-»

“It was good seeing you again.” Eclipse told Daniel. “Take care of her.”

The jackal gave the pair a knowing look and nodded. “Always do.”

After a while, the brothers loaded into Eclipse’s vehicle in silence. Shadow felt exhausted and had started to nod off immediately. Every inch of his body ached, and his head felt like a massive glob of wet cement precariously balanced on his spine.

«You were off today.» Eclipse said as they left the facility gate behind. It was not a question.

Blinking out of his doze, Shadow’s initial impulse was to deny the obvious, but what would that serve other than his ego? «Yes, I was. I’ve been taking a potent rut-suppressant. It has had…side-effects.»

Eclipse frowned. «I shall reserve my opinion on that, but that’s not what I meant.» He said, failing to live up to his word in the process.

«I’m fine.»

«I do not find myself convinced.»

«And I do not find myself giving a shit regarding your lack of conviction!» Shadow snapped.

Silence filled the cabin.

Nique-moi…«I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have raised my voice.»

Eclipse scoffed. «Contrite enough to provide me with an explanation?»

Shadow grimaced, throat tightening with a shameful weakness that permeated his whole being. «No.» He replied, gruffly.

«Very well.» Eclipse sighed. «Returning to the topic of avoidance, do you have plan of exit concerning your rut? Too long of a delay cannot be without penalty.»

«I am already off the medication. Dr. Quack did not care for my blood test results yesterday.» Eclipse leveled a serious stare at Shadow, his question needing no words. «Eyes on the road.» Shadow cautioned. «There is a long half-life. I shall remain chemically neutered for the present. At least that is the good doctor’s estimation.»

Eclipse’s grip on the steering wheel tightened. «I can’t help but feel an overbearing sense of foreboding looming over this weekend.»

Shadow huffed. «That’s the poisonous cloud that serves as Mother’s vanguard, dear brother. You should know this by now.»

«I’m glad you have recovered some of your famous humor.» His brother was unamused. «Is the basement at least prepared?»

«Yes.» Shadow wasn’t entirely stupid. «And, should my estimations prove incorrect, you are to remove Amy from the premises by any means necessary before attending to me.»

«Oh, am I, now?»

Shadow turned to Eclipse. «I’m serious.»

«As am I.» The younger man did not take his eyes off the road.

The brothers glared in their respective directions for a long, silent moment.

Shadow found himself growing agitated. In general, he enjoyed peace and quiet, often seeking out such spaces that accommodated his proclivity…but at the moment it irked him. He shouldn’t be alone with his own thoughts. «You’ve become a rather pessimistic individual in recent memory.»

«That is rich, coming from you.» Eclipse growled, eyes stubbornly glued forward. «If you’d only start acting with proper sense, I wouldn’t have to be the voice of reason so often.»

Shadow bristled at that. His jaw set tightly and his snout crinkled, some series of pointless and poisonous words forming in his gullet. He wanted to fight. He was going to fight. He’d been eating too much lose recently, so he was going to pick a fight and win.

However, before Shadow could make a nuisance of himself, Eclipse changed the subject. «Vanta’s recital is Sunday night. You do still mean to attend?»

Shadow blinked, his building aggression dissipating. His niece’s event had completely slipped his mind. «Of course,» he answered, «I have been looking forward to it.»

Hopefully Nicole had arranged some flowers or something else nice for Vanta. It was only by his assistant’s grace and assiduousness that Shadow had the reputation of the generous and doting uncle.

«You haven’t been by the house in awhile. It’ll mean a lot to her to see you.»

«I will be there.»

«She’s been practicing very diligently. This means a lot to Vanta.»

«I said, I will be there.»

«As will Mother.»

Shadow bit his tongue instead of rescinding his intention to attend the recital. With colossal effort, he simply remained silent.

Eclipse huffed, his brow punched. «I wonder if our ladies are having as much fun as we?»

Shadow cocked a brow. «Our…fuck me!» He ripped open his bag, looking for his phone. Fuck, fuck, fuck! How could he have forgotten!? Shit! You worthless, piece-of-shit, mothering fucking trashy, son-of-a-bitch!

«What?» Eclipse cocked a brow, briefly taking his eyes off the road.

«I have been remiss in informing Amy!» Shadow stared at his phone with a stricken expression as he furiously swiped at it.

«Oh my.» Eclipse’s eyes went wide. «I happen to know exactly to what degree she enjoys surprises.» He grimaced and shook his head. «You are such an asshole.»

---

Earlier

Amy stared blankly at the two female hedgehogs standing outside her door. “Can I…help you?”

“You’re ten minutes late.” Declared a tall woman with a fiery red coat of fur that faded to a golden yellow at the curly tips of her shortly cropped quills. She was plainly dressed in an unassuming blouse and trousers.

“Excuse me?” Amy leaned back slightly into her apartment, tightening her hand on the door, ready to slam it closed right in these strange lady’s faces.

“For our shopping date?” The smaller woman wearing an elegant scent mask and silken gaiter offered with a thick Avalonian accent, her eyes betraying her hidden smile. An Omega, Amy recognized immediately. The woman was slight and had an unassuming cream and brown pelt coloration, but she wore a lovely green dress that accentuated her eyes nicely.

“You are confused.” The red hedgehog stated flatly. “Shadow failed to inform you.”

“S-Shadow?”

“Perhaps we should start over. Hello,” The brown hedgehog extended a silken gloved hand, “I am Meridian and this is Aphelion. We are Eclipse Kintobor’s wives.”