They looked at each other for a moment.
"Hey?"
"Hey."
Boomer's flipper twitched toward his concealed plasma cutter—not out of alarm, but habit—as the rabbit's ears flicked in a way that suggested she'd already cataloged his concealed arsenal. Her left iris had the telltale shimmer of cybernetics, its pupil contracting with a soft hydraulic whine as she scanned him head to toe. He smelled ionized blood beneath her beetroot scented fur, same as the checkpoint rookies, but rougher—older—like she'd been marinating in it for years.
Buns' smirk widened at the rust-colored stains on his flippers, her hydraulic-enhanced claws tapping a slow rhythm against her plasma scalpel's grip. "Well ain't yah just a walking OSHA violation," she drawled, her synthetic southern lilt layering over the gravel of actual exhaustion. Boomer exhaled through his nostrils, counting the visible scars on her arms—two from Overlander shrapnel, one from a botched defibrillator implant, the rest too precise to be anything but self-inflicted training wounds.
The alley's flickering neon painted her face in jagged stripes, catching the way her right ear twitched toward distant sirens—calculating, always calculating.
"So are we going to try and kill each other or what? Because I got places to be." Buns' claws drummed against the scalpel's grip—steady, rhythmic, like artillery prep. Her cybernetic iris flickered as it recalculated Boomer's stance, tracing the micro-tremors in his flippers where they hovered near concealed weapons. The alley smelled like scorched garbage and leaking coolant—fitting, given the company.
Boomer exhaled, watching his breath curl between them like a challenge. "Wouldn't waste the bullets." His voice was gravel wrapped in glacier ice, each word measured to land like a mortar shell. The neon sign overhead buzzed, painting his scars the same rust-red as the stains on her jumpsuit.
Her smirk sharpened. "Cute. Bet you say that to all the girls with plasma cutters." She stepped closer, close enough for him to hear the whine of her servos beneath the synth-fur—close enough for him to count the flecks of someone else's blood crusted under her claws. The scent of ionized metal and burnt beetroot clung to her like a second skin.
Somewhere beyond the alley, sirens wailed—too distant to matter, too loud to ignore. Boomer's flipper twitched toward the sled's hidden compartment, but her ear flicked toward the movement before he'd fully committed. They stood there, two predators in a neon-lit standoff, each waiting for the other to blink first.
"I don't suppose yer from the Southern Tundra," Buns said, rolling her scalpel between her fingers like a gambler palming loaded dice. The hydraulic hiss of her wrist servos synced perfectly with the distant groan of overloaded transformers—city noise turned soundtrack for their little Mexican standoff. Boomer didn't answer, just let his flipper drift closer to the sled's false paneling where the plasma charges hummed against their dampeners, warm as sleeping beasts.
Neon reflections slithered across their faces, painting them in jagged bands of radioactive green and arterial red, flickering with the arrhythmic pulse of dying city lights overhead as Boomer asked his own question, "And I don't suppose you're from the Northern Baronies?"
The plasma scalpel's hum climbed another octave as Buns rolled it between fingers—her smirk widening when she noted the exact moment Boomer's pupils dilated at the scent of ionized ozone peeling off its edge. His sled's cargo netting creaked under unseen weight, betraying more than he'd ever admit, while the neon buzz overhead flickered like a failing heart monitor between them.
She inhaled—deep, theatrical—letting burnt cinnamon coolant and the rookie sergeant's dried blood fill her nostrils before exhaling through clenched teeth. "Well instead of askin' question we already know the answers to, why don't we tell each other why were in radioactive cesspool instead?"
His pupils flicked to the leaking hydraulic line on her thigh—the one that hissed like a dying viper—then back up to her cybernetic iris. "Relocation logistics," Boomer said, voice flat as a mass grave. His flipper twitched toward the sled's lead compartment, where something wet and heavy shifted with a sound like meat sliding off bone.
Buns' grin went feral when the neon sign above them spat sparks onto his parka. "Logistics," she echoed, "Wanna put that was in basic speak big guy?" The sled's false paneling groaned as Boomer shifted his weight—deliberately—letting her hear the muffled click of safety disengaging somewhere in its depths. Her cybernetic iris contracted with a wet hydraulic whine, pupils dilating black enough to swallow the alley whole.
The plasma scalpel's hum hit a frequency that made their teeth vibrate. "Cut to the chase then," she purred, dragging the blade's edge along the brickwork beside her—carving molten hieroglyphics into the masonry. Boomer's flipper twitched toward his own weapon, fingers brushing cold metal just as the city's power grid surged—flashing the alley into blinding white for one fractured second—revealing the *thing* strapped beneath his sled's tarp.
Their weapons cleared leather in sync. His plasma cutter bloomed cerulean while her scalpel dripped arterial light—both casting jagged shadows that knifed across each other's faces. The neon flickered out entirely now, leaving only weapon-glow to illuminate the way her smirk died when she saw what peeked from his sled. "Oh you *filthy* liar," Buns breathed, Southern drawl evaporating under sheer awe.
Boomer exhaled through his nose—steam curling from his nostrils like a dragon's preamble—as the tarp slipped further to expose what was inside.
The thing in the sled wasn't just a weapon. It pulsed. Faintly, rhythmically, like a dying star stuffed inside a containment unit; its surface wasn't metal or glass, but something closer to scar tissue stretched over a reactor core. Cables slithered around it like veins, feeding into jury-rigged ports that glowed the same putrid green as Rotor's failed prototypes in the Southern labs. The air around it shimmered, not with heat, but with the greasy static of a dimensional tear poorly stitched shut.
Buns' cybernetically enhanced iris whirred as it recalibrated, her claws tightening around the scalpel until its plasma edge sang in a higher register—a sound like a scream trapped between radio frequencies. The scent hit her then, worse than ionized blood or burnt circuits: the stink of wet soil and copper, the same stench that clung to the ruins of Fort Knothole.
Boomer's flipper twitched toward the containment unit's failsafe switch—not to activate it, but to remind her it existed.
"Ya wanna be friends?"
Buns' question hung in the air like a grenade pin between them, the plasma scalpel's hum dropping to a frequency that made their molars ache. Boomer's flipper didn't move from the failsafe switch, but his pupils dilated just enough to betray interest—or maybe just the instinctual calculation of how fast he could liquefy her cybernetics before she gutted him. The containment unit pulsed again, its light painting their faces in sickly green as coolant dripped from Buns' thigh wound onto irradiated pavement, hissing like a chorus of dying insects.
She tilted her head, letting her cybernetic iris whirr softly—a calculated risk—as she took half a step closer. The scent of scorched fur and rotting circuitry clung to Boomer's parka, but beneath it, something sharper: the acrid sting of Overlander biofluid, the same stench that used to waft from Maxxopolis' blacksite labs. Her scalpel flicked downward in a disarmingly casual motion, its edge carving a molten line into the asphalt between them. "Friends is a strong word, sugah. Let's start with 'partners partaking in mutually assured destruction.'"
Boomer exhaled through his nostrils, steam curling from his muzzle like exhaust from a reactor core. His sled's cargo netting groaned as the containment unit shifted, its surface rippling like disturbed mercury. "Partners implies trust," he said, voice rough as a sawblade through bone. The failsafe switch gleamed under his flipper—a tiny red eye winking between them.
Buns' cybernetic iris dilated with a hydraulic purr, scanning the unit's pulsating surface. Molten glyphs from her scalpel still smoldered on the pavement, casting jagged shadows that licked at Boomer's boots. "Sugah, ya don't wanna listen to my bullshit, an' I don't wanna listen to yours," she murmured, tapping the scalpel against her thigh—leaving seared fur in its wake. "But that thing?" The blade tip flicked toward the containment unit. "That's a conversation starter."
Boomer exhaled through clenched teeth—steam curling between them like barbed wire. His flipper twitched toward the failsafe again as the unit emitted a wet, organic *thrum*, vibrating through their soles. The sled's cargo netting creaked ominously, fibers snapping under unseen tension. Neon reflections slithered across Buns' face as she leaned closer, close enough for her breath to fog the unit's surface—close enough to see her own warped reflection in its sickly glow.
The air between them thickened with ozone and something worse—like rotting chrysanthemums dipped in battery acid. Boomer's pupils contracted to pinpricks as the unit's pulse quickened, its cables writhing against their restraints. Buns didn't flinch when a tendril of greasy light lashed out, licking the edge of her scalpel with a sound like frying synapses. Her smirk returned, razor-thin. "So," she drawled, dragging the word out like a knife from a wound, "how's to bein' 'partners partaking in mutually assured destruction'? Or do I gotta spell it out in Overlander blood?"
Boomer's laughter rattled like loose ammunition in a tin can. The laugh was the most genuine she had heard without malice in a long, long time.
"T-that gave me a really good laugh. I-I needed that after this month." Boomer wiped a tear from his eye, his flipper finally leaving the failsafe switch to adjust his parka's frayed collar. The gesture exposed the crude tattoo on his wrist—a serial number crossed out by a jagged scar. Buns' cybernetic eye whirred as it focused on the mark, her scalpel lowering another inch.
The containment unit's pulse slowed, its light dimming to a sickly emerald glow that pooled around their boots like irradiated swamp water. Buns flexed her hydraulic claws, the servos hissing in time with the distant sputter of dying city generators. "Alright, walrus boy," she said, rolling her shoulders until the spinal implants clicked into place, "let's say I believe ya ain't here to turn this shithole into a crater. What's yer play?" Her drawl sharpened on the last word—a scalpel probing for soft tissue.
"I simply want to break down the system my father thrived in, this?" He gestured to the pulsating unit with a flipper, its cables writhing like a nest of vipers. The neon's death throes overhead cast his scars in jagged relief—each one a ledger entry from Maxxopolis' blacksite accounting. Buns' cybernetic iris flickered as it parsed his micro expressions: the twitch beneath his left eye when he said *father*, the way his flippers curled around *system* like it was a detonator.
"This is just insurance. Now what about yourself?"
Buns' grin returned—slow, deliberate—as she spun the scalpel in a lazy arc, its plasma edge tracing fractal patterns in the air between them. The motion sent shadows skittering across Boomer's scars like live wires searching for ground. "Let's say I wanna watch the world learn what happens when ya push a rabbit into a corner one too many times." Her cybernetic iris flicked to the containment unit, then back to his face. "Kinda just on a revenge spree honestly. Now I'm starting with whoever put that look in yer eyes, big guy."
"How kind. I actually already did that before coming here." Boomer tapped the containment unit with a flipper, making its surface ripple like disturbed mercury.
"Well then, to either tearing the system down, or just throwing it all away." She let her hand out in the form of a handshake. The plasma scalpel's hum softened to a quieter frequency—almost docile—as she extended her claws toward him, the light casting jagged shadows up the alley walls like a fractured chessboard. Boomer stared at her outstretched hand, his flippers twitching with the ghost of old betrayals before he finally clasped it—his grip firm enough to crush bone, but hers matched it hand for hand, servo for servo, hydraulic actuators whining under the pressure.
"So then partner, where to now?"
The alley's neon corpse-light flickered one last time before dying completely, plunging them into weapon-glow and containment-unit pulsations. Boomer's sled creaked as he adjusted the tarp over the writhing mass beneath it—the fabric stretching taut over unnatural contours. Buns' cybernetic iris dilated with a wet hydraulic click, scanning the shadows beyond their makeshift alliance for movement. Somewhere beyond the alley, Maxxopolis' automated defense turrets whirred to life—their targeting lasers slicing crimson lines across distant rooftops like a butcher's prelude.
"First we need someone that has connections to the inner circle yet likely won't fight back." Boomer's flipper tapped the containment unit's surface—once, twice—before the thing inside let out a wet, organic pulse that sent ripples through the tarp.
"Well don't leave me in suspense sugah, yah got any ideas?" Buns rolled her plasma scalpel between fingers, watching the weapon's glow refract through the neon-green slime dripping from Boomer's sled. The containment unit pulsed again—an irregular rhythm, like a dying heart fibrillating against restraints—and she caught the exact moment his pupils dilated at when he got an idea.
"There is a certain hedgehog Mobian that is being raised by an Overlander doctor named Julian Ivo Kintobor," Boomer began, his voice low and grating like gravel under tank treads. The containment unit throbbed in response, its glow intensifying to a feverish green that painted their faces in grotesque chiaroscuro.
"He's about our age, a little bit younger and more importantly, he's a Mobian."
"Wow, I didn' take yah for one of them Overist types." Buns' cybernetic iris whirred as she leaned closer, catching the way Boomer's flipper twitched toward the failsafe switch—not in denial, but something sharper. The scent of ionized fur and burnt machinery thickened between them, undercut by the wet-dirt stench pulsing from the containment unit.
"That's not what I meant, let's face it, what Overlander is going to be able to have a place in King Maxx Acorn's society?" Boomer flexed his flippers, the leather straps of his sled creaking as the containment unit shuddered—its pulse syncing with distant turret scans painting crimson grids across the slums. Buns' lips peeled back from her teeth in something too sharp to be a smile as she traced the scalpel's edge along her own forearm, splitting synth-fur to reveal the alloy beneath. "So we're kidnapping kids now?" Her drawl dripped molten amusement. "Yah keep gettin' cuter by the minute."
"Oh no, we just need him to see our point of view, one way, or another."
"Well then? Lead the way sugah." She gestured out of the alleyway, her hydraulic servos hissing beneath the synth-fur. Boomer grunted something unintelligible—part agreement, part exhaustion—and shoved the sled forward, its warped wheels screeching against irradiated pavement. The containment unit pulsed irregularly, casting long, twisting shadows ahead of them as they emerged into the neon-choked arteries of Maxxopolis' slums. Above, the skeletal remains of Overlander architecture loomed like broken ribs against a sky choked with smog and distant plasma fire.
Buns kept pace beside him, her cybernetic iris scanning the crumbling storefronts with predatory precision. "So what's the play with this hedgehog anyway? He some kinda prodigy or somethin'?" Her claws drummed against the scalpel's grip—five precise taps, like a countdown. Boomer exhaled through his nose, steam curling from his nostrils as they rounded a corner littered with the charred remains of a Sector 7 patrol vehicle. "More like a loaded gun waiting for a trigger," he muttered, flippers tightening around the sled's handles.