As the trio walked, Infinite decided it would be fun to mess with his favorite wolf some more. The jackal reached down and got a good handful of Gadget’s ass, eliciting an embarrassed gasp from the poor wolf. To the crimson mobian’s further embarrassment, Gears was getting a front row seat of everything.

“Hey Zero, whatcha doing with my bro’s butt? That’s random.” Gears asked, understandably curious.

Infinite looked at Gadget for a second and smirked as the red wolf grimaced, before turning around to face the younger wolf. “Oh, it’s just something you do to someone you really love. See, when you find a partner of your own, you can do stuff like this to them.” As Infinite said that, his gloved finger made contact with Gadget’s tail hole, nudging at the opening teasingly. The red wolf held his tail down and growled quietly.

Gadget felt like he had just hit an all time low. Not only was Infinite being a huge pervert outside in public, but even worse was the fact that Gears was also being manipulated into this next level depravity.

“See Gears, if you fancy someone, this is how you show it... isn’t that right, love?” Infinite asked, tracing a finger on the blushing wolf’s chest. The cautionary look he was given compelled him to play along. “Y-yeah, they’ll love it...” Gadget struggled to say in between panicked breaths. 

Gears’ mind absorbed this information like a sponge and the dark cyan wolf nodded enthusiastically. 

With that being done, Infinite stopped torturing Gadget. The three canids continued onto their destination, reaching the school soon after. Gadget and Infinite saw Gears off, and the duo headed for the current focus of restoration. The second his brother was out of hearing range, the crimson wolf shot an irritated look at the other canine.

“Gears. Is. SIXTEEN. What in Chaos are you doing, you sicko?! You just poisoned his brain. Please don’t do that again…” 

“Hahaha… you speak as if you think he’s never had an inappropriate thought cross his mind.”

“Well you don’t need to be putting any more in his head! I don’t know what you’re up to, but please don’t involve him.”

Nothing more than a sly glance was cast in Gadget’s direction, as they had arrived at the set of buildings currently undergoing repair. The crimson mobian suddenly thought of something. He hissed at ‘Zero’. “Why can’t you just fix all of this with that stupid ruby?!”

Before the deranged jackal could respond, a red echidna was approaching them. He looked surprised and relieved. “Rookie!!! Holy moly am I glad to see you back! We were about to crack down and put off rebuilding to start a search party. Where in blazes were you?!” He eyeballed the white-striped canine behind Gadget with curiosity. Gadget internally sighed.

Here we go again… boy do I ever love lying to my family and friends!

“Ah… I was kidnapped and taken to Red Gate Bridge. It was really scary… but this heroic jackal saved me and helped me get home. He doesn’t live around here so he’s staying with my family and I for the time being. Commander, Zero. Zero, Commander.” Knuckles’ eyes were wide as they darted between the two canines, before amicably slapping the jackal on the back and offering a handshake. It took Infinite a moment to wipe the astonishment off his features before he could extend his hand. Knuckles gave Gadget a noogie.

“Dude, that’s messed! Chaos, I hope those asshats are wiped off the face of Mobius! Are you alright?!”

“Well, I didn’t mention that my kidnapper is also standing in as my saviour. By the way, Zero is actually Infinite HAHA sike! Please help me.” Was what he wanted to say.

“I’m good. Zero got to me before anything could happen. There’s a huge spike of criminal activity now, since it’s hard to get by for a lot of people who lost everything in the war.” Knuckles nodded solemnly.

“Very true, dude. I’m gonna call the others and let them know you’re back! You know the drill here, I’ll drop by and check up on you two later. Nice meeting you Z, you have our thanks for getting rookie boy back safe!”  

As the echidna walked off to help another relief team, Infinite scoffed while looking around at the scene before him. He stared disdainfully at all the mobians he cared so little for. “Tch, Z… what an annoyingly casual nickname. Who does he think he is talking to?” He returned his attention to Gadget, before caressing the wolf’s cheek. “To answer your question love, it’s not that I can’t fix everything, but rather… hmm, why should I?” 

Gadget shouldn’t have been shocked at Infinite’s callous response, but a chill shot through his body nonetheless. 

“Holy shit, Gadget is that you?” The red wolf turned to see his best friends, Fuchsia and Corvin, running up and tackling him.

“Where were you? We were worried sick about your nerdy ass!” Fuchsia yelled, demanding an answer. 

“Yeah, we were turning over every stone in Mobius to find you! The commander was getting mad because we kept bailing on him!” Corvin said while tousling Gadgets headfur with a gloved fist.

“Glad to see you too guys, I’ll tell you everything, but first could you two ease up on the hug? I’m being squeezed kinda hard here.” 


The bird and cat loosened their hold on the wolf, giving him some breathing room. 
“Okay, first I should start by introducing someone special.” The wolf gave a small sigh, knowing he was about to lie again in order to appease his captor. This was so exhausting. Stressing the stupid adjectives he’d been using to introduce Infinite with was the pettiest he could be without consequences. “Fuchsia, Corvin, this is Zero. He’s the reason I was able to make it back here without any trouble. Some group of criminals caught me off guard, and took me back to their hideout. They tied me up so I couldn’t escape by myself, but then Zero came along and helped bust me out, and together we kicked those crooks asses and bailed.”

Infinite put on his most charming smile and greeted both by raising a gloved hand haphazardly, feigning congeniality. “It’s a pleasure to meet the both of you.” 

Holy crap, he’s gorgeous! The cat and bird thought to themselves as they sized up the jackal in front of them. Fuchsia was blushing profusely, and Corvin looked jealous.

“Nice. Err I mean, nice to meet you too!” Corvin lightly backhanded the pink cat’s shoulder. He had already gotten over his awe, but Fuchsia was still too busy gawking to give him shit for it.

“So are you helping us rebuild stuff then?”

Infinite’s expression grew smug, and the avian didn’t know what to make of it. “I’ll be supervising this cute wolf… I am worried that he may overexert himself. Don’t mind us.” He flashed them a smile that bordered being sardonic, before whisking Gadget off. 

The cat and bird looked at each other for a second, before Corvin finally spoke up.


“Fuchsia, do you think they’re-” the pink cat interrupted Corvin before he could finish.

“Damn right they are, our boy is finally getting some action! He’s such a prude. Gadget just needs some good dicking down.” Fuchsia said, grinning widely. “I’m so getting details on what he’s like in the sack later. That is one smoking hot dog.” Corvin sighed and shook his head at how crass the feline’s language always was.

__________________________

The two canines headed to an unattended pile of rubble and robot parts, and Gadget immediately rounded on the obnoxious jackal.

"Don't say weird things to my friends! You didn’t even give me a chance to talk to them!”

Infinite raised a brow ridge and stared down at the crimson canine.

"I have been keeping track of all the sass you give me. Would you care to hazard a guess why?"

Gadget shivered. He had a few guesses, and he immediately regretted asking. He didn't want to think about it. His hackles had been raised by the jackal's parting words to his friends, but he assumed a more temperate posture to avoid tacking on any more points against himself.

"Good boy."

The villain was making it really hard for him to keep his composure, infinitely more so when he had the audacity to stroke his head fur alongside the degrading mock-praise.

“But I really love when you lip me off with such animosity...” The accompanying sultry look had Gadget backing up and turning towards the mess. He quickly got to work cleaning up ruins, and later moving on to helping out the construction workers. To his annoyance, Infinite didn’t lift a finger the whole day - he had opted to lounge nearby in the shadows instead. The red wolf didn’t know why he’d even bothered tagging along if he was going to be useless all day. Gadget didn’t bother taking breaks, because he knew they wouldn’t be relaxing with a psycho jackal breathing down his neck.

At some point, towards the end of his volunteered shift time, Infinite had approached him to remove the larger bits of dirt and debris from his fur. 

“Why are you cleaning me up? I thought you didn’t care about any of this.”

“You are a different case - the sight of your sleek fur matted with particles is unacceptable.” before the crimson wolf could choose a carefully worded retort, he heard a loud growl reverberate from the dark jackal’s chest. Brow ridges scrunching together in confusion, Gadget turned around to see Infinite glaring daggers at a familiar looking red striped hedgehog, who was approaching them both. Shadow gave a small nod towards Gadget, before honing his blood red eyes onto the agitated canine.

“Who are you?”

Infinite stared speculatively, and deduced that the hedgehog was trouble - he was the only one that had seen his face before the war. He either had garbage memory, or was gauging the situation. He would need to drop the hostile act, as it would only make Shadow more suspicious.

“Call me Zero. Why are you asking?”

The striped hog tilted his head minutely, his expression never changing from its original perplexion. This rodent really did have sub-par memory, but he didn’t feel like dealing with his reaction in the event that he did remember.

“Were you in the resistance?”

“No… but I was always nearby.” Half-truths were going to have to do. Shadow continued to stare, and Infinite had half a mind to wave his hand obnoxiously in front of the hog’s eyes. 

“I see. You seem familiar, and if the rookie knows you, then that makes sense.” Without so much as a goodbye, the black and red hedgehog was walking off towards a supply truck. With his mood soured, Infinite took a reluctant Gadget’s hand and dragged him into an alleyway, before warping them back to his parent’s house.

————————

Shadow was perched on a barstool in the shoddy apartment he shared with Rouge. The white bat observed her friend staring at nothing, and knew she had to intervene when he didn’t seem to be blinking enough to keep his eyes from drying out.

“What are you brooding about now?”

Said brooding being shifted his gaze to her, before checking his phone like nothing was out of the ordinary. She cocked a hip to the side and crossed her arms.

“That was over 2 minutes if you’re trying to go for a record, hun.”

Shadow sighed and put his phone down.

“Did you see that jackal the rookie was with today? Is he not strange to you?”

“What’s strange about him?”

“Just… that wolf went missing for days and is suddenly back with new company. I think he growled at me too..?” Shadow threw his arms up and snorted. “I don’t know why I even care.”

“Knuckie has taken a liking to him. He said that the jackal saved him from criminals in one of the cities we haven’t gotten around to cleaning up yet. Maybe they’re friends now? Or he’s sticking around to watch over the little wolf?”

“Knuckles has terrible judgement.”

The hedgehog checked his phone again, before getting up and leaving the apartment. Rouge rolled her eyes; he had obviously decided to do some sleuthing, and she knew his one-track mind would not be deterred.