DISCLAIMER: "Sonic the Hedgehog" and most other characters and situations in the following story are copyrighted trademarks of Sega Incorporated, Archie Comics and/or DIC Productions. Permission to reproduce this specific material may be granted by the author so long as you email first. (c)2007 native_pangean@fsmail.net. Bookshire Draftwood (c) David Pitstone.

Chapter 3: The Discovery

Robotropolis was cold and grey. The chill wind blew old, tatty paper along the streets, and the constant, heavy pollution in the sky overhead attracted enough rain that the ground was always damp and cold. Bunnie shivered and made a visual scan of the rubbish heap. She looked over her shoulder at Rotor, who was picking his way between two mountains of trash not far away.

"Whatcha say we're lookin' for, Shug?" she called.

"Anything big enough to stand inside," he answered. "We're lookin' for the main capsule. And look for broken glass, too. The front of the roboticizer has to be made of glass, and Robotnik doesn't use much of it."

She nodded. More out of habit than anything else, because Rotor had already turned back to the massive pile of scrap metal in front of him. Almost immediately she called again.

"Hey, what about this?" The walrus turned and came in for a closer look.

"Yeah-huh, it looks about right," he confirmed. He leaned a hand against the edge and leaned inside for a closer look, before walking around the back and opening a small door in its casing. "Yeah, this is definitely one of them. I wonder why it's been dumped here so recently?"

Bunnie shrugged. "Robuttnik's always workin' on somethin' nasty," she suggested vaguely. Most of Robotnik's experiments with roboticizers had been done years ago, and the associated parts further into the dump. Robotnik probably had done some more recent research, Rotor guessed. No big deal.

"Well, this isn't going anywhere for now. Shall we look further on in?" he asked Bunnie. She smiled by way of answer and they split up a little, to cover more ground.

The search revealed nothing else worth taking back, and eventually Rotor called off the search. The pair returned to the empty roboticizer cabinet and prepared to carry it away. Rotor tilted it so that Bunnie could get her robotic arm underneath. She lifted it with her usual powerful grace, and Rotor supported it by holding onto the sides. They made for the edge of the dump and began the slow journey toward Knothole.

Once, Bunnie stumbled and nearly lost her grip on the machine, but she locked her robotic arm and put her hand under the base of the shell to keep it steady. The underneath was greasy and dirty. Bunnie shivered in disgust. When they got Mobotropolis back, and she genuinely believed it would be when, it would need a serious clean.

There was a tradition in Knothole Village to have a party at least once every season and this summer was no exception. Alcohol had been brewed, special recipes had been dug out and cooked up and bets were secretly made on how long it would be before Sonic got drunk enough to get up and sing. Tonight was the night of the celebrations.

Rotor walked into the bottom level of his home wiping the last of the river water off his skin with a towel. He checked his muzzle for new bristles, pulled out a few, scraped the bases of his tusks and finally grabbed his tool bandolier and rested it back on his shoulder.

Velvet was still in her room.

"Vel? Ya want some cider before the party?" he called upstairs. She called a yes and that she'd be down in a few moments. Rotor had re-aligned a pair of scissors for Sally but had left them on the top floor, so he took her drink upstairs anyway so he could pass it to her on the way up to collect them.

The door to her room was slightly open and he glanced in, putting the cup of fermented juice on the table. He looked up to speak to her and stopped dead in his tracks.

Velvet had not noticed him at the door. She had her back to him and had a loose, vibrant red top around her chest. The back was held together with soft cord threaded through two lines of reinforced holes. She reached behind her back and drew the middle of the garment tightly, the sudden-ness of the movement shocking and erotic, the force pulling her waist in dramatically. Then she reached down and inched her fingers a little way up from the bottom, and pulled a lower set almost as snug. And up to the next one. And the next. Her lower torso was now tightly bound, and she left the strings hanging. The friction kept the strings tight.

Next she bent her arms around and felt the top of the garment, edging downwards with her fingers in a contrastingly slow and methodical way. Then, without warning, her fingers hooked into two of the loops and drew them tight, hard. She reached down to the next set, and pulled hard on them. And down... and down...

Rotor realised he was staring, but he just couldn't pull his eyes away. He watched the way her flesh drew tight as she laced herself up. As she drew the cords tight level with her waist she pulled tighter still, drawing her waist in and creating a set of female curves so extreme Rotor had never seen anything like it before. Her hands worked behind her back as she tied the remaining cord into a bow, the long strings of which dangled behind her back, hanging alongside her tail. She took what Rotor guessed should be a deep breath, which stopped far sooner than it should have done: then he realised that she had laced herself up so tightly her lung capacity was reduced. Then she stretched her arms over her head and stroked her hands down her torso with a satisfied air about her.

Now that Velvet had finished Rotor knew that she'd see him staring at her, but he still couldn't move. His stomach had knotted up and his muscles felt coiled and taut. As she turned towards him he tried to blurt an apology, but he couldn't get any words out, just a short, choking sound. A small part of him felt mortified, but the majority of his mind and body was still enraptured by the impossibly sleek, tight form of Velvet's clothing.

She had noticed him, he knew, but he wasn't looking at her face. She was saying something, too, but he couldn't focus on that, either. She stepped towards him, came within arm's length. Without his conscious direction, his hand reached out and stroked along her waist, and traced his fingers along and down her front.

Then he gained enough control to snap his hand away and look at the floor. He leaned on the door frame steadied himself. He realised he was panting, and felt so aroused he instinctively turned himself sideways so the haunch of his leg would hide anything obvious.

"I'm sorry," he panted, and closed his eyes. He felt sure she was going to go crazy at him.

"Are you alright, Rotor?" she asked. He wiped his hand over his face.

"Uhm... I... got your drink." He offered lamely, pointing at the cup on the table. "I gotta go," he said and stumbled back downstairs, where he opened the back door and sat on the rear step, trying to steady his breathing and thoughts and hoping the prolonged shade out here would cool his body down quickly.

The sun had gone down and the Knothole Villagers had gathered to line their stomachs and chat before the party began in earnest. Sally and Bunnie were sitting on the side of the grassy slope and, by the look of things to Velvet, were having a fun conversation, for they were laughing and talking animatedly. She smiled and strode over to join them.

"No way! I like those stripes, but Bookshire definitely is not on the menu, honey!" Sally insisted. Bunnie giggled as she tried to finish her current morsel of bread, which she held between the fingers of her living hand.

"Ah, what ya talkin' about, Sally-girl? You love a career man as much as I do!" The girls glanced up and smiled a welcome as Velvet settled down beside Sally, and then looked back at eachother.

"Fine, Bunnie, you go for the career man, I'll go for the Otter Brothers!" Bunnie looked outraged for a moment.

"Hey, y'all, greedy! How come you get two!?" she complained, a wicked smile on her face. Then she turned to Velvet. "So which would you go for, Vel? The doctor with the warm hands or the Work-Out Brothers?"

Velvet's ears pricked forward, a movement which made her look nervous. "Err..." But Bunnie never heard the rest of her answer because she was tapped on the shoulder by another Knothole male and shared a few words with him. Sally turned and smiled at Velvet.

"So? Your choice?" she asked mischievously.

Velvet looked like she'd been caught with her hands in the bank vault. "Err... I..." Sally's face changed slightly as she saw that Velvet was really struggling for an answer. Velvet did a nervous laugh and looked coyly at the ground. "A lady doesn't kiss and tell. You know?"

Sally was surprised that Velvet was so defensive - the question had only been a joke, after all. But the coyote looked genuinely uncomfortable and she changed the subject.

"Nice dress," Sally commented, picking up the conversation again. Velvet glanced down at the flowing dress she had changed into after Rotor's reaction to her earlier choice of outfit.

"Thank you," she replied, leaning back. "I dyed it myself..."

Rotor pretended to listen to Brookshire's narrative as he regaled the local males with a fishing story. He smiled and nodded in all the right places but was distracted. He forced his mind to stay on the party and kept well away from Velvet, who he had seen chatting with Sally by the grassy hill. He wasn't sure whether he felt relieved or embarrassed that she'd changed her outfit.

Truth was, Rotor wasn't sure what had happened earlier in Velvet's room. What he had seen was a girl putting a top on. Rotor had a small collection of porn in his room - a few magazines, three motion pictures. The movies were quite explicit, with girls doing things he doubted he'd ever get the chance to, inches away from the camera. But watching Velvet pulling her own flesh tight into that top - putting clothes on, for gosh sakes, had been just about the most erotic thing he had ever seen.

That on its own wasn't the biggest problem. He hadn't just watched Antoine's sister getting dressed. He had got so turned on his whole body had siezed up. And exactly what had got him so aroused hadn't been entirely the body inside that top.

It had been the top itself. Squeezing hard on her waist and pushing up her br-

"Yo, Rote!" Rotor snapped his head around as Sonic approached. "You okay?"

"Uh... Heh, yeah!" Rotor said, trying to sound goofy. "I was just, uh..." what had he been looking at?

Come up with something!

"Looking at that tree!"

What?! He could have kicked himself.

Sonic looked at Rotor like he'd just grown out of the ground. Rotor looked back at him with a mixture of nervousness and a hastily-built front of confidence. Something told Sonic not to persue this line of questioning any more.

"Yeah! Right! Want another beer?"

So Rotor recovered and bantered with his oldest friend. He mostly managed to forget about his worries, but the one thing that kept on coming back into his mind was the thought of those cords, drawn hard through the steel rings in the back of Velvet's top. Easing smoothly against her back and slightly burning her with friction.

Rotor wondered if he'd be able to let Velvet continue to live with him.

TO BE CONTINUED...