However, as soon as they walked in the door and called out for the old fox, who was watching his shows from the counter as he often was, he immediately screeched and toppled off his chair at the sight of Metal Sonic.  Neither of them had expected such a violent reaction, or recognition at all for that matter, and it took Itara a couple minutes to calm him enough to try and talk him down.  Explaining Kipper had been one thing, no one knew Tails Doll to begin with, but trying to convince an older mobian that Metal Sonic walking in his door wasn’t a sign of doom was entirely different.  It wasn’t until Ned caught onto Itara’s broken arm that he finally shifted his focus away from the annoyed bot to the small girl.

“For the love of Chaos, what happened to your arm, girl?”

Itara winced at the saying and got strange look from the old fox, “It’s… a long story…”  She shook her head when he cast a long sideways glance towards Metal and continued, “I need a favor, though.”

“And what is that?”

“A really big box… and, uh… do you… drive at all?”

Ned cocked an eyebrow, getting a feeling of déjà vu, and nodded slowly.  Itara did her best to explain the situation without giving away the finer details, but got sideways glances from him and Metal the entire time.  She got the point across enough to prompt Ned to get his keys and a box big enough loaded into the car she never even knew he had eventually, though.  It was just an old flat-bed truck, but it would be enough.  Metal decided to meet them at the base and ran off, leaving Itara to ride along with Ned so she could give him directions.  Metal didn’t seem overly pleased about taking the fox, himself, to the base, and let Itara know before taking off, but Itara didn’t see any other way to get past Lynda.

Ned led her to the truck and helped her up into the passenger side when she struggled to do so on her own, where she melted into the old torn up leather seat, though kept a wary caution about her arms.  She gave Ned their heading and closed her eyes to try and relax again once they were off. If she could just relax enough, she thought she could get the flames to simmer down.  It was how her crystals worked, after all, she figured the flames would be the same.  The dip in the flooding ocean cooled them down considerably, as well, they didn’t glow so badly and she didn’t think they’d melt through steel anymore.  They would definitely burn a leather seat, though.

When she opened her eyes again to see where they were, she noticed the old fox glance cautiously towards her every few seconds and winced.  He caught the movement and apparently decided he was done being silent.

“Alright, I want answers, little girl.”  Itara sighed.  She was getting tired of hearing that.  But for Ned, at least, it was less frustration with him and more not wanting to reveal too much.  Then again, maybe it was a bit too late for that.  “I have a heap of questions, but firstly, why are you running around with Metal Sonic?  Do you know what he is?”

Itara shook her head, “I… I know but he… look, you have to keep this secret, okay?  Promise you won’t tell anyone.”  He eyed her suspiciously, but nodded slowly, prompting her to continue, “it’s a really long story, that I can’t fully explain, but… well… he’s not… he doesn’t work for Robotnik anymore.  He was badly damaged in a fight, RK and I took him in and repaired him. He’s been with us since.”

“Why on earth would you do that?”

“Well, technically I didn’t.  I wasn’t around when RK brought him home, but it’s because…”  She debated how to explain it but was too tired to care anymore and, quite frankly, she had a feeling none of it would matter for long, anyway.  “Both of them are robots.”  She looked up to watch his expression, to gauge his response.  To her surprise, he looked more contemplative than shocked or even concerned.  “You don’t… look surprised.”

“Girly, no normal mobian has black for the whites of his eyes.”

She almost laughed.  It was just so blunt and obvious, it had always been a point of paranoia for her but no one had expressly questioned it until now. Though she did briefly wonder what everyone else actually thought.  “I suppose… you’re right,” she managed and looked down again after pointing him down another street, “RK is short for Robot Knuckles, a decommissioned counterpart to Knuckles, created for the same purpose as Metal Sonic.  I rescued him first, from a destroyed base.  Both their loyalty chips were damaged and they’ve just been with me since.  We’ve been trying to stay under Robotnik’s radar as much as possible, so he doesn’t take them back.  But he… nearly did.”  Her shoulders slumped and Ned glanced over at her curiously, keeping one ear turned towards her as he drove.

“If Kipper hadn’t… if I hadn’t been able to… they came to get me and they… they almost got caught.  Everything we’ve worked so hard to avoid almost…”  She curled up again, cringing when she accidentally moved her arm in the process and shook her head.  “They came to get me, because of my stupid, stupid crystals, because I couldn’t control them… and I almost got them captured by Robotnik.  I almost lost them.  I… I shouldn’t have… I-.”

She stopped as she felt a hand rest on her head, rubbing it carefully, and looked up at the soft-faced fox who was watching her through the corner of his eye.  “C’mon now, girly, whatever happened, I’m sure it wasn’t your fault.”

“But I-!”

“No, none of that now.  You’re fine now, aren’t you?  And the robots are back home, aren’t they?  Whatever you’re going off about, toss it away.  Everything will be okay.”  Itara’s brows furrowed up at him, wanting to argue but he shook his head the second she tried.  “Enough of that.  Instead, why don’t you tell me what happened?  Why are you so banged up and what happened to your arm?”

Itara went silent for a few minutes to think it over, but slowly explained the situation with her field trip, telling him about Sceira’s annoying persistence, the game night at the hotel, her matches against Metal, and eventually the situation at the university.  She explained the attack and the strange robot from the other world and the explosion on the carrier – even the fact that she caused it – and then RK and Metal and Kipper coming to get her.  By the time they reached the hidden base with the plane, she was explaining how they had to drag RK from the water and that he was inactive and missing a leg and needed to get past Lynda.  The old fox sat and listened quietly the entire time, his only reactions being that of shock or confusion once in a while, but let her go on uninterrupted.

When they pulled up to the plane and Ned helped her out, she was finally out of story to tell and Metal watched them both suspiciously when Ned gave no outwards response to either him, the base, the plane, or the inactive RK behind him.  Once she had a moment to breathe and think about the ride, Itara’s eyes widened as she looked up at Ned, as well, her hand going up to her mouth though she winced at the heat and put it back down.  “I talked too much!  Please don’t tell anyone!”  Metal shot her a scowl but Ned only smiled.

“Don’t worry, don’t worry, young’in, I already promised, didn’t I?”  He looked over at the scowling Metal Sonic and studied him cautiously before he folded his arms, “As for you,” Metal shifted his glance, though his scowl went nowhere, “so long as you promise to keep the little’un safe like your partner there’s been doing, we don’t have a problem.  The past is the past, right?” Metal’s expression finally shifted to confusion while Itara only stared on in shock.

Metal’s gaze became suspicious as he looked back and forth between the two, but stated, “If you expect me to Mother Hen like RK then it’s not happening.  But I suppose someone has to keep an eye on the little troublemaker when RK can’t.” He crossed his arms and looked away while Ned grinned down at Itara and winked, getting a smile from her.

“That’s good enough for me, now let’s get that boy packed up and home, shall we?”  He moved to the back of the truck to get the shipping crate open while Metal and Itara exchanged glances.  They weren’t expecting it to be so easy to convince the old fox to help out, especially once he recognized Metal, but moved to help out after a minute of confusion. They worked to get RK packed up into the crate, closed it tightly, and secured the box to the back of the truck. Once that was done, Itara gave him directions to their house and they filed back into the truck, though Metal planned to run again.  Ned rolled the window down once he got in and looked to the robot staring off in thought.

“So we’ll meet you at your house, then, and get this taken care of, but then we need to do something about the little one’s arm.  I don’t know what we can do about that burning, but we need to at least get that break taken care of, it’s already been sitting long enough.  May end up healing wrong at this point.”  Itara frowned and looked down at her arm while Metal studied them both, nodding before taking off in a run.  Ned watched the cloud of dust left in place of the robot then shook his head and started the truck to follow.

The ride was mostly silent that time, Itara lost in thought about her arm and how to get the flame to go down.  It was cooling down still, at least, but she wondered if a normal doctor could even do anything about it.  No one could touch her arms without getting burnt, themselves. Even trying to wrap or splint it would prove difficult, since she’d sear any bandage right back off.  She had to control the flame first.  She took a long, slow, deep breath, closed her eyes, and tried to reach out for the inner flame in the same way she reached for the shadows before.  It had been a fruitless venture since the reset, and she doubted it would be any different now, but she had to at least try.  If she could just calm down enough.  She just had to calm down.

Everything would be okay.

Everything was fine.

She was fine.

Metal and RK were home.

Robotnik and Chaos were an ocean away.

Soleanna was fine.

Ned was calm.

Everything would be fine.

She felt a light tap on her head and opened her eyes again to look up at the curious fox.  “We’re here, girly.  C’mon, let’s get this taken care of and get you to a hospital.”  Itara nodded and looked up to see Metal already waiting beside the driveway to take the RK-containing box inside.  They pulled in and Metal climbed up to detach the box from the back of the truck, but they didn’t get far before all three sets of ears picked up the high-pitched screech of the human woman bolting down the sidewalk at them.  Itara’s ears flattened, Metal sighed in frustration, and Ned only glanced towards the strawberry blonde curiously.

“Itara!  Oh, thank heavens, you’re back!  You’re okay! Where have you been?!”  She barely cast the others a glance as she b-lined for the hedgehog girl, giving Metal a moment to continue his work releasing the box from the truck’s latches.  Though getting it inside, he realized, was going to be more difficult than he expected.

Itara cringed at the shrill voice, shuffling uncomfortably until she had to take a quick step back to avoid getting picked up. “I…”  What was she supposed to tell Lynda, exactly?  What had RK told her?  Luckily, Lynda wasn’t well-known for waiting for an answer before continuing on as she looked over the hedgehog girl as closely as she would let her.

“Goodness, you just look a wreck.  What on earth happened?  Where is RK?”

“RK is… on his way back,” Itara lied, though struggled to keep her eyes off the box Metal was staring down in debate.  “Sparky found me first and brought me home, RK will be home soon.”

“Thank goodness, I’m so glad you’re alright.” However, her attention shifted soon enough to the frustrated bot standing over the box on the back of the truck. “I’m glad you were able to get her home, Sparky… what are you doing over there?”

All eyes fell to the blue bot as he mumbled incoherently under his breath and glanced back at the woman.  He wasn’t sure how to answer, but more importantly, he didn’t know how to get RK inside.  The box he was in was too large for the front door, by far, and the garage door was fake. If he took the echidna out in full view of the street it would only cause more problems not even he wanted to deal with right now, but he didn’t know how to deal with this in an inconspicuous manner before Lynda brought attention to him.  Even if he answered, she would likely suggest just taking it through the garage door if it didn’t fit in the front door.

With a quick glance between Metal and Lynda, Itara realized the conundrum the bot faced and almost laughed with the familiarity. She resisted, though, and considered a possible answer.  Before, when they were moving Metal, they had the excuse of moving houses.  They didn’t have that now.  Well, she was a creative liar, she was sure she could come up with something.  It was the only non-power talent her father ever taught her.  While she considered a reason for the box, she grabbed Metal’s attention and pointed to the gate, mumbling a soft, “backdoor.”  He nodded and hefted the box up onto his shoulder, jumping down from the truck to head for the fence while Lynda watched them strangely.

“What on earth is that?”

“Um, well,” Itara stammered, looking between Metal and Lynda and Ned, though jumped when Lynda followed after Metal all of a sudden, “uh!”

Metal glanced back at them and his eyes narrowed when he realized Lynda was following him.  Before he could question her motives, she piped up, “the latch is behind the gate, right?  Trying to reach with that heavy box on your shoulder would be difficult, let me get it for you.  You know, it’s funny, I had to help RK with the same thing when he and Itara first moved in.”  Metal shot a scowl back to the tiny, flustered hedgehog while Lynda reached over the fence to unlatch it, “you mobians really are a lot stronger than you look, aren’t you?  That box looks like it weighs quite a bit just on its own.  I can’t imagine anything that needs something that size is all that light, either.”

Metal only grumbled in response as Itara shot Ned a look of confusion before following after the other two.  The old fox shrugged in response, unsure how to deal with the nosy woman, either.  Itara was hoping Metal could get the box in the back and move RK inside with the cover of the fence, but once again, Lynda was making that difficult.  RK wasn’t around to deal with her and neither Itara nor Metal were all that great at dodging Lynda’s questions.  Metal only knew how to threaten her and the human woman commanded a level of social dominance that Itara couldn’t ever hope to overcome.  It was only when RK wasn’t around that the two realized how imperative he was for dealing with nosy women and questioned when and how the red bot managed to attain suburban mom levels of conversational power.

They would have to question him about it once they got him repaired, but for now, they had to deal with Lynda on their own.

Metal took the box to the back deck and compared the width of the back door to the width of the box, realizing quickly enough that Itara had misled him about the size.  With a quick scowl at the girl, he turned to face the woman that had followed him, wanting nothing more than to be rid of her.  Much to his dismay, she did her own quick survey and stated, “this is far too big for this door.  Wouldn’t have been easier to take it through the garage?”

Metal mentally sighed but, for once, the tiny hedgehog came of use as she explained with her usual stutter, “I-it’s… the garage is… the door is broken.  It doesn’t open from the outside so it’s easier to bring things in from the back door.”

“Oh, I see,” Lynda mused, “RK seems like such a handyman, I’m surprised he hasn’t fixed that yet.”

“Well, he… you’ll have to ask him about that when he gets back.  Maybe he just forgot.  We don’t need to open the garage very often, after all,” Itara offered.

“Hm, well, I suppose.  In any case, you’re not fitting that box through that door.  Are you going to be able to fit whatever’s inside through if you take it out?  What’s even in there?”

There was silence between the three as both Itara and Metal scrounged for a satisfactory lie.  It was Metal who finally answered with a simple, “A… fridge.” He knew that was a home appliance large enough to fit inside the box they’d borrowed and one that was necessary to the average household.  Sure, they already had one, but it wasn’t completely out of the question that they might require a new one.  Both Itara and Lynda shot him a strange look at his answer, though.  Itara’s was far more accusatory as there was no reason why they would be shopping for a fridge now of all times.

“A… fridge?  Odd time to be appliance shopping,” Lynda challenged, eyeing Metal suspiciously.

“It was on the way before everything happened,” Itara immediately cut in, “N-Ned owns a shop and ordered it for us.  He was just already bringing it over when we stopped by.”

“Yes.  Two birds, one stone, as they say,” Metal offered coolly, though was just hoping Lynda would leave soon.

“I… see.  I suppose that makes sense,” Lynda muttered slowly, but turned back and questioned, “though shouldn’t getting Itara taken care of be more important than a fridge right now?”

Metal’s mouth pulled back in annoyance, before he saw his opportunity and took it, “Yes.  It is.  In fact, I plan to do that now.  Come, Itara, we should get you to the… hospital.  I’ll come back to… install the fridge later.”  He waved her on rather impatiently, causing the girl to jump but once she realized it was their out, she nodded quickly and turned to walk back out to the front.  Lynda, at last, seemed satisfied with their answer and followed them both back out to the front.  Metal closed and locked the gate behind them while Itara returned to Ned, who was still waiting out by his truck.

“Well then let me know how everything goes when you get back.  I’ll give RK a call to let him know you’re both home safe and off to the hospital. Let me know when you get home again, alright?”

Itara watched in confusion as Lynda pulled her phone out to apparently call RK, wondering when she even got his number. Her unvoiced question caught the woman’s attention as she smiled and explained, “he gave me his work number so I could let him know if you came home before him.”  The confusion left Itara’s face as she realized what the ‘work’ number was and could only nod.  It wasn’t exactly a cellphone and Lynda wasn’t getting anywhere with it at the moment, considering RK – and his comm units – were offline.  But that was concern for later.

Instead, her focus returned to Metal, who looked back and forth between Lynda and the truck.  He said he would take Itara to the hospital, but he’d originally planned to just let the fox do it while he went downstairs to start on repairs. If he didn’t go now, it opened the potential for Lynda to bother him further.  He could easily run Itara to a hospital in the city and run back in no time, but that might also look suspicious on his part.  As he thought over the options, he scowled as he realized his only realistic answer was to join them in the truck, on the ride over.  He could run back on his own afterwards, likely get into the backyard and the house without anyone seeing him, but for now…

With a heavy, dramatic sigh, he reached over and picked Itara up and motioned for Ned to lead the way.  Itara watched him suspiciously, but he said nothing as he climbed in the passenger seat of the truck next to the old fox.  There were only the driver and passenger seats in the truck, meaning to fit all three of them, Itara would have to sit in his lap. As tempted as he was to tie her to the back.