Crossover Escape: Gotta be more than Lucky to survive

1.39 Helping hand

During the flight Luca managed spot several group of five hounds as they patrolled through the trees. Thankfully the hounds were unable to look directly up while moving and so Luca was able to stay hidden in his small form by way of leafy branches. It was the size of the hounds that concerned Luca they looked to be nearly 100kg of solid muscle almost the size of a pony.

Luca was glad that the tentative plan meant that Tails wouldn’t be running on the ground but now Luca was seriously worried about how high the hounds could jump. Hopefully they would be able time it right so that Tails would be practically all the way across before the hounds became aware of the problem. Luca somewhat hoped that because of all the muscle and weight the hounds were carrying that they would have difficulty jumping a significant height.

Luca made his way back to Tails and settled the butterfly down on the branch in front of him. The vine rope had practically doubled in length and was braided tightly. So far as Luca could see it looked strong. However it was just a rope not a ladder or anything so that begged the question.

[Lucky: Tails how fast are you likely to be able to move over that rope if we manage to make a tight rope between a tree and the stone?]

[Tails: My balance isn’t as good as yours but it’s not bad. At the very least I can move faster than a walking pace.] Luca winced, that wasn’t necessarily a stellar recommendation, but it was better than nothing. At least much better than if it had been Rӓv instead. Tails obviously felt comfortable enough to talk now as he had spoken in a low tone so Luca responded in kind, which would also clue the others into the conversation.

[Luca: Alright then, so how to get the rope over there to make this path?]

“I can help.” Tails flinched and then looked around sharply for the source of the soft but high-pitched voice. Luca swivelled his camera just a little and found the fairy crouched amongst the leaves on a small branch beside his butterfly. Maybe noticing that Tails looked for the source of the voice the fairy sidled forward shyly and then skipped over to huddle next to Luca’s butterfly.

[Lucky: They’re who I rescued.] Luca explained to Tails.

“Who?”

“What?”

“No seriously the suspense is killing me, I’ll just bring it up on my tablet.” Luca was not surprised by Ghost and Holly’s question, but when Rӓv exclaimed at the end before Luca even had the time to offer an answer Luca just had to shake his head. That was next level impatience right there. There was an annoying beeping over the coms for a few seconds before there was a cacophony of exclamations.

[Ghost: Is not what I expected to be your type.]

[Rӓv: Is that a fairy? Like an actual Tinkerbell?]

[Holly: I thought you were rescuing another competitor…] Luca didn’t really know who to respond to the onslaught of the rabid comments, but as he watched the fairy stare at Tails with growing confusion Luca decided to be smart and just ignore them instead. The answers were obvious anyway. By the fairy’s confusion it was quite evident that it could hear everyone speaking on the coms despite the fact that Tails no doubt had the volume turned well down.

[Tails: I’m glad that Lucky rescued you, but shouldn’t you have gone home?] Tails obviously reached the same conclusion as Luca and decided to focus on the fairy as opposed to the others. A sad smile crossed the fairy’s face at the gently worded question.

“It is easy to tell that you are not familiar with us when you say things like that. Though rescuing me at all was a big give away.” Luca winced at the hollow tone to the voice and could already guess that he wasn’t going to like where this was going. “After all home was where I was rescued from.” Tails looked away slightly before he resettled his expression. Still that moment of resigned sadness and frustrated anger summed up Luca’s feelings on the matter. Luca supposed that the fairy could have done some tragic evil and that was why it had been locked up but if that was the case it was a stellar actor, and they wouldn’t be able to figure it out at a glance. Luca preferred to think better of the prisoner of the people that had carelessly slaughtered others without any explanation. They would just have to deal with the consequences later if they were wrong.

“One of you earlier said that you thought it was another person that had been rescued. If you knew anything you’d know that around here prisoners are a rare thing its normal just to kill.” There was a flatness to the tone that was disturbing in the high tone. It was just a matter of fact statement that it was all the more heartbreaking. Luca once again wished that he was there, this time to comfort the small figure that seemed to have been forced to grow up far fast than they should have.

[Tails: Alright then, it seems we might to need to back up a bit, let’s start with introductions. I’m Tails, the one driving the butterfly is Lucky while the other voices you occasionally here are our friends, Ghost, Rӓv and Holly but you don’t have to pay too much attention to them they haven’t had anything useful to say just recently.] Luca bit the inside of his lip to withhold a smile. It was rare that Tails made digs like that, but he always managed to score a hit when he did. Though Luca figured he only felt safe making that particular comment because he was outside of hands reach.

“Oh, I’m Useless…” Luca closed his eyes fatalistic realisation it seemed that issues between the little one and his settlement was worse and longer than he’d thought. As he mentally eviscerated the bastards that had called them that Luca scrambled to come up with a nice way to call them.

[Tails: that doesn’t seem like a… distancing name, our names are all nicknames so can we give you a nickname?] Tails you are brilliant. Aside from the pause were Tails struggled to come up with a diplomatic way of commenting on the name that was a superb response as far as Luca was concerned. Clearly the fairy was flattered as they stammered for a minute twisting one foot from side to side in the epitome of bashfulness.

“I’d like that.”

[Rӓv: How about Help then? Since that’s what brought you to us and that’s what you want to do?] Luca blinked at that nice turn of phrase.

[Tails: Rӓv you have redeemed yourself. What do you think?] the last part directed at the fairy was met with a blinding smile.

“I like it, it makes me seem like one of you. I tried to help some of the others, but the Roaches got them anyway. Sorry.” The happiness at the start faded as Help clearly thought of sadder things by the end of the sentence.

[Tails: If the Roaches are what I spotted when I first came it there was nothing you could have done that would have helped enough since they couldn’t help themselves.] Tails reached out a hand and gently scooped up Help and the butterfly in passing. Lucky decided that they would be better off doing more talk later and that Help could do with a distraction right now.

[Lucky: Help you said before that you could do something for our little issue?] Luca struggled with phrasing the sentence to not use help as a descriptor when it was already used for the name. That might have been a technical error on their part picking a name that they needed to use as a word. Still too late to change the matter now.