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"A good cup of coffee and you're up and running, eh Davey?" Said Bear, a brown fox with a weird name (According to Davey, anyway, but he kept it to himself), "Join the club."
"Thanks, er, Bear." As Davey sat down next to Bear, he looked into those blue eyes of his. There were deep, almost ageless. They showed a lot more age than what the rest of him shows. Davey had the impression that there is a lot more of this Bear than meets the eye.
"Antoine De'Collete's the best coffee maker on Mobius," Bear continued. "Hey, Frenchie! Anytime today?"
"Merci, I just want to give Misu Crockett zometheeng nice to welcome heem by, eef zat's all right with you, mon ami?"
"Something nice, Ant? What did I do t' deserve this honor?"
Antoine came out with a couple mugs. "Eet is like zis, David. You fulfilled your zolumn duty as a royal messenger. I always hold members of ze royal court of Acorn in high regard. Zis of course means you."
"Hey, a house latte! Thanks Ant."
"Dey have ze latte where you come from, mon ami?"
"Have 'em? Heck, I can make 'em. I used to have a small coffee shop in my old apartment."
By the time Davey's done with the latte, other freedom fighters arrived to get to know him better. Some of them already do. "Hi, Sasha. You feeling better? That flashback gave you quite a fright." "I'm okay now, Davey. Thank you for being concerned." Other critters are new to him, like Vixie Lamenta and Mighty Fox. "Hey! Ain't your left arm supposed to be roboticized?"
"It is. I just shifted it into compact mode and switched on the hologram. See?" Davey set his arm down and allowed the forearm control panel to show through.
"My oh my, talk about state of the art. Bunnie's gonna be jealous."
"She is. Good thing I plan to set Roboticizers to this model. It takes power from my own body heat, is practically non-polluting, and in every manner, looks and feels just like a real arm."
"Whoa. Wait until Sir Charles catches wind of you." Vixie turns to Mighty, and whispers to him. "So, Mighty, are you gonna tell him?"
"Tell him what?"
"You know! <elbows Mighty> That you were a human once, like he was. Maybe Dave would feel better if he know that there's another one like him."
"I'll tell him later." Mighty did so on a shooting range. He shot at a tin can with a BB gun--a childhood memory--as he told Davey about becoming a fox to rid himself of the curse of being in the same species as Robotnik. He figured Davey went the same route.
"I have never met Blubber Butt," Davey said as he fired- BRRRRRRAAAAPPP!--with a mechanized assult pistol, "the curse that bit me was <switches to a shot gun--CRACK! CRACK! CRACK!> Political Correctness, and my change of species <switches to revolver--POW! POW! . . . POW!> was purely by the fluke of a power ring. But by every other reason . . . <he stops firing, switches on the safty, and sets the revolver down> you're not that far off, Mighty."
Mighty and Davey checked their targets. Mighty was only shooting for fun, so the oil can looked like swiss cheese. Davey's steel Swat-Bot target, on the other hand, was missing it's head, arms, legs, chest, and whatever counted as its private parts. "Daaaaaamn. What to you do, sleep with those things under your pillow?"
"Well, I don't know any martial arts yet, although I'll probably pick one up while I'm here. Until then I have to stick to these guns."
"Guns? You call them guns? Dave, you've joined the Freedom Fighters, not the Ozark Malitia!"
"Mighty, you should know this as much as I do. There is no such thing as the ATF on Mobius."
"Hey, Mighty," Sonia shouted from outside. "Sasha needs ya."
"Excuse me, my appointment with Doctor Prower awaits" Mighty walked out as Sonia walked in. "Hello, Davey. Oh my gosh, look at that target! You've shot everything out of it. Not only is that Swat dead, it's going to be singing soprano for the next week!"
"Just relieving some angst, Suni." Davey notices by her red cheeks that she's been crying. "Suni, dear, what's wrong?"
"It's just . . . <sniff> . . . that stupid mudball of a planet . . . <sob> . . . y-y-you come from. . ." she collapsed into his arms and wailed. "W-why? How could they do this to you?" She looks at his left arm. "You're such a nice guy. . . <sob>"
"It's okay, child." Davey licks her face for tears again. "I'm here now. I'm alive. That's all that matters." Just as he said that, his mind's eye flashed back to that dank, dark alley, and those eyes filled with sparking rage, that heart, black as the skin color of the chest it was housed in, the killer bullet screaming out for his innocent blood. Davey Crockett would find his loss easier to stomach if it weren't for the politics involved. "I'm still healing after Piasa, my dear. <He gives her a kiss.> Let's not talk about it right now."
"Oh. . . okay. . . <She looks at his eyes> Hey, wanna have a picnic? I know this great place."
"Sure thing."
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"Hmmm, I was wondering, Dave...can I call you that?"
"Dave, Davey, David; it don't matter, Sonia, as long as you mean me."
"Well, You're name sounds kinda...familiar in a way. How'd you get that?"
"Davey Crockett was a historical figure in my world. He was an explorer of my country whenit was young. I was called that when I wore a cap made out of a raccoon hide, which Mr. Crockettusually wore, in grammar school. By my teenage years, I'd abandoned it, but then came theInternet in my world. I considered it the next wild frontier, and I felt that it too needed a DaveyCrockett, so I resurrected the persona. I found my coonskin cap, but it was too small, soI removed its tail and tied it to the back of a baseball cap I'm always wearing now, and the nineties'version of that legend was born. I've been called that so often, I kinda accepted that as my real name. I mean, I'd completely forgotten just what name I was born with. Strange."
As Sonya led Davey to her private lagoon, she asked him about 'Piasa.' "Shortly before I came to your world, I was hunting down this local legendary monster known as The Piasa Bird. It was the ugliest overglorified canary you'll ever see. He popped up a hologram of it to prove his point: It was a jaguar with wings and a tail that can do three laps around the body. "Had to use a super-powered sawed-off shotgun to take that thing out! And that's with illegal ammo and an over 800 meter drop!"
"Oh, Davey, you're so brave. You think you'd join those Power Rangers you were talking about last night. That is, if you remained in your world, which I'm glad you're not, by the way."
"I dunno."
They arrived at a picture-perfect lagoon under a waterfall. "How'd you like my little niche in the world, Davey? The flowers, the water, the trees. . . "
"Nice place you got here, Suni."
". . . the skyline of Robotropolis just down that hill . . . "
"Oh, just put that in the long-as-my-Data-Spear list of reasons to kick Snively's ass."
"<Suni giggles> Ha-Ha, that's a good one, Dear." They sit down on a grassy spot. "Okay, what would you have?" She removes her bow and lets her red Pocahontas-length hair fall.
"I dunno, what you've got." He opens the empty basket.
"Davey, have you forgotten, I use magic! What's your favorite dish? Anything."
"Well, my favorite food's Mexican . . . let's make it a chili dog burrito, so we both can enjoy it."
"Okay," she waves her hands, and with a spark, a chili dog burrito appeared.
"Thanks, Suni," Davey said as he took a bite. "Yummy."
"Ulm, if it's alright with you, I'm feeling like Italian today." Suni created a bowl of spaghetti. Davey looked a little surprised. He thought that the Mobian Hedgehog's diet is predominantly chili dogs. "Besides, I'd like to show you what my cyborg parts can do." She rolled up the fur over her arm, and punched on the control panel underneath. Her index finger morphed into a shaker cheese shaker."
"Neat trick," Davey said as he opened up one of the secret compartments in his robot arm. "What's that." "Oh, this is a packet of Taco Bell hot sauce. I have the recipe in my hard drive." "What's a Taco Bell?" "It's a Mexican Restaurant in my home planet. I go there a lot; it'll be one of the things I'll miss from my home." After emptying the packet, he looked for a place to pitch it. "That's what the basket's for, darling." Suni opened up the basket for Davey to toss the packet in, eyeing Davey's burrito.
"So, Suni, how'd you become a 'borg?' Let me guess, Ro-Butt-Nik?"
"No, I got my cyborg parts from this android named Packbell." "Never heard of him." "He used to work for Robotnik, but now he's probably Snively's right hand droid. He has his own agenda, though. He want's to take over Robotroplis for himself. Excuse me, but that chili dog looks delicious!" Davey chuckled at first, but was surprised again at how easy Suni turned a bowl of spaghetti into another chili dog burrito. "Wow, wish I had that undo command!"
"You know, hon, between you, me, Bunni, and Uncle Chuck, we can be pretty cool cyborgs." "You think so? Maybe we should team up together." "All four of us?" "Yeah, imagine us going up to Snively and say <in a monotone voice> 'PREPARE TO BE ASSIMILATED. RESISTANCE WILL BE FUTILE.'" The duo giggled.
"Aw, no," Tails can be heard from a distance, "Borg humor." Two seconds later, he was tackled by a pink enchida from behind. Suni said that her name was Chuckles, Knuckles' kid sister. "I've heard of him. Do you know where he's at?" "Probably still at the floating island, for all I know, Sonic can tell you more, but there's some bad blood between the two."
Suni changed the subject and got up close. "Y'now, Dave, I've been talking to Vixie, and we here wondering why humans-turned-foxes are so darned cute?" "I dunno, give us a built-in fur coat and a tail, and we become studs, I guess." She began to open up Davey's shirt and snuggle into his furry chest. She confessed to him that she's drawn to Foxes and Wolves, but she was a bit worried about the age difference: She's a teen, while he's in his twenties. However, Davey said that he's not the kind of guy who'd take advantage of a girlfriend sexually, especially one who can be classified as a minor in his world. That made her feel safe to trust him, and maybe she can get close for a little while. "You know, Davey, you can be just a sweet and lovable teddy fox at times," she said as they looked gray eye to red eye. "Part of my charm," he said as they touched noses. . . .
DEET-DEET-DET-DET-DEEET-DEET!
"Aw, crud," Suni pouted. That was an alarm from built-in pagers both Davey and Sonia have installed in their cyborg parts. Quite possibly, that was Sally calling everyone in for a meeting.
"I swear, between her timing and her father's aim . . . . <Taps on his control panel and activates the cellular phone> Talk to me, Sal."
"I hate to break you two lovebirds up, but I'm assembling a meeting about that CD of Davey's, and to plan our next mission. . . "