The Ice Cap mountains were benign enough in summer. They accommodated hikers, campers, and other visitors with a minimum amount of deaths. But in winter, the mountains attempted to murder anyone who set foot on them-with avalanche, blizzards, and sheer cold.

It suited Mecha's temperament.

Beneath one of the mountains lay one of Robotnik's old hideouts-a sprawling underground complex crammed with machinery, computers and generators. But its master had abandoned it long ago, and the assassin robot Metal Sonic had made it his home.

His own projects filled the old labs. He brooded over one now, stooped over a computer console like an old man with arthritis. Around him stood vats of strangely-colored fluid, and tubes of silver nanite assemblers. It smelled strongly of disinfectants, and the concrete floor was scrubbed clean.

The only thing out of place in this strange, dangerous place, with its strange, dangerous master, was a gleaming blue chao. She sat on the floor amid a pile of picture books, turning pages with a tiny round paw tipped with claws. Now she looked up from her favorite book of all. "I want to celebrate Winter's Day this winter."

Mecha's only response was to curl his fingers against the tabletop, as if he had touched something nasty.

"What?" Aleda scrambled to her feet and bounced to her beloved parent. "We've never done it before. And it's not for two weeks."

"You merely wish me to heap new toys upon you," Mecha observed dryly.

"No I don't! Well, maybe." Aleda considered. "But you have to celebrate Winter's Day with lots of friends, so the new year is a good one. Can we visit that town where Sonic and Tails live?"

Mecha did not move. Her request rolled around in his brain like a magnetic ball, gathering every negative emotion within him. He knew nothing of holidays, or making merry, or giving gifts. It would expose him to every embarrassing situation imaginable, and many more he could not.

He turned his head a fraction of an inch, and pain seared down his back. He closed his silver eyelids a moment, and held his breath until his synthetic lungs protested. The pain abated, and he cautiously exhaled.

Aleda laid a warm paw on his biometal leg. "Isn't your back any better?"

"No." The word vibrated through his skeleton, jarring the pinched nerves between his telescoped vertebrae. He drew another careful breath and added quietly, "And my research is going nowhere."

The chao scrambled up on a chair, and from there to the computer console beneath his claws. "I thought you knew how to build a new spine."

He tapped the keyboard, and a holographic model of a Mobian spine appeared, outlined in green. "I possess all the schematics, yes. But integrating a new spine simply cannot be done. I would have to construct an entirely new body."

"Can you?" Her red eyes were serious.

He stroked her with one finger, which was all he could manage without moving his arm and upsetting the delicate painless state. "I could, but it would take years. Just as it took years to build this body."

Aleda gazed at the nearest tank, then pointed at it. "But you can grow organs in there, right?"

"Yes. As I said, building it is not the issue. Installing it is."

Mecha tried to straighten up, lifting his head. But crippling pain struck him like knives in the back, and he doubled over the console again. "I am unfit for travel," he gasped.

He had incurred the injury while saving Shadow from a terrible fall. Mecha's back had been broken in six places. While the chao-Phoenix Nox had healed ninety-seven percent of the damage, the remaining three percent had been Mecha's back. And as the months passed, his condition deteriorated. He had attempted to repair the damage with nanites, but the tiny machines formed new nerve endings and muscle groups that made the problem worse. The synthetic muscles in his back had grown so tight, in an effort to protect the cracked vertebrae, that they contorted his spinal alignment.

The idea of scrapping this body and starting over looked more attractive by the day.

"Have you asked Melchizedek about it?" Aleda asked gravely.

Mecha didn't answer for a while. His master and teacher-and perhaps god-had told him to contact Tails for assistance. Mecha refused. Tails, Sonic's kitsune friend, adored Mecha and constantly attempted to become friends. The idea of suffering his cheerful chatter along with the pain was too awful to contemplate.

Aleda watched his face, and grinned mischievously. "You did, didn't you? And he said something you don't like."

"He said that Miles Prower can help me," Mecha said through clenched teeth.

Aleda clapped her paws. "Goody! Let's go, then! I'll pack my scarf and my hat!" She jumped off the console and ran off in the direction of her room.

Mecha gazed at his reflection in the glass surface of the console screen. They would not go anywhere. She was simply a ridiculous chao filled with ridiculous notions. He was in too much pain to...

What if Tails could truly help him?

No, no. It was too far. The pain was too bad. Besides, what would the Freedom Fighters make of the rune engraved on his arm? He glanced at it. It was a complex interwoven pattern, four inches across, branded into his left arm. The brand had been filled with molten chaos pearl, giving the brand a rainbow pearly sheen. His metal skin had healed beautifully, and the rune acted like a permanently-installed chaos emerald. Like a kitsune, it allowed him to use the planetary chaos field, as well as chaos emeralds that would otherwise harm him.

Tails would likely go into convulsions of joy upon discovering that Mecha needed his assistance. Disgusting. Let alone the way the Hedgehog would smirk.

Although, during the war with the Black Arms, they had all been allies. The last time he had seen the Hedgehog, he'd had his jaw broken and his mouth bandaged shut.

In the depths of his being, there arose a flicker of pity.

Pity? For the Hedgehog? No! Never! How could he allow such a horrible thing? Yet his back hurt so badly, he did not wish a similar experience on anyone. Even his worst enemy.

Aleda returned, dragging a knapsack crammed with toys and books. "Hi Mecha! I've got everything I need!"

He heaved a sigh, and moved from the desk at last. Pain needled his back and ribs. He winced and murmured, "You cannot take all that. I will assist you."

Fifteen minutes later, Mecha and Aleda were clad in warm clothing. He wore a backpack that he had painstakingly struggled into, and his coat sleeve concealed his chaos rune. The weather reports online informed him that it was snowing in Knothole, and his new android body, while massively more efficient than his old robot body, did require shelter from the elements. As did Aleda, who, as a true organic life form, required far more care.

Aleda climbed onto his shoulder, sending more pain through his back. Mecha closed his eyes until it passed, then lifted the violet chaos emerald from its lead-lined box, which protected his machines from its ambient power. He focused on controlling chaos, directing its random, harmful energies through his hand and into the chaos pearl of the rune. It dropped the power to a smooth, even output that was sheer delight to work with. Even in his pain, Mecha realized he had missed it.

"Chaos relocate," he said.

"Things are good," said Sonic.

He, Tails and Sally sat on a sofa facing the fireplace in their hut. Sonic had propped his sock-clad feet on the metal screen in front of the fire. Sally the squirrel was curled up on one side of him with a book, occasionally brushing her auburn forelock out of her eyes. Matching gold rings glittered on her and Sonic's fingers-they had been married six months. Tails nestled against Sonic on his other side, an open notebook on his lap, where he was industriously drawing a nameless machine prototype with a ruler and pen. Sonic himself had the latest handheld videogame in his lap, but he was feeling too lazy to play. It was so comfortable to watch the fire and his two favorite people.

Tails didn't look up. His concentration was so complete, he hadn't heard Sonic at all. Sally lifted her head and smiled. "Oh, I know. I'm so glad we're all in here, and not out there." She nodded at the window. Snowflakes swirled thickly outside, turning the winter afternoon a dull gray.

"A white Winter's Day," Sonic sighed. "This will be the best one ever. I get to light all the crystals this year."

Tails looked up at last. "Does that mean you got presents for the whole village?"

Sonic laughed. "Wouldn't you like to know! Actually there were a lot of people who can't use chaos energy very well, so I volunteered to light theirs."

Tails gazed at him without answering.

Sonic ruffled his head fur. "Yeah, I got presents. But they're a secret!"

Satisfied, Tails returned to drawing.

Sally laughed a little. "Imagine if Shadow was here. He'd do that explosion thing and set the tree on fire."

Sonic laughed, too, and mimed using a chaos emerald with a fierce expression. "I know right? Chaos ... destruction! Boom! Smash!"

Tails grinned and started to say something, but somebody knocked at the door. He jumped over the back of the sofa and went to answer it.

Sally sat up and looked toward the door. "Now who could that be?"

Sonic returned to his fire-facing slouch, arms behind his head. "Probably somebody threatening us with fruitcake."

"In this weather?"

Tails opened the door a crack to keep the warmth in, and peered out. Then he gasped, and his tails fluffed twice their size, like a frightened cat's.

"Who is it?" Sally said in concern.

Tails cupped a hand around his mouth and whispered, "It's Mecha!"

Sonic zipped to the door so fast, he almost sucked the fire out of the fireplace. Sally placed a close second. The three of them peered out the door.

Metal Sonic-or Mecha, as he now called himself-stood on the doorstep in ankle-deep snow. Snowflakes sprinkled his head and strange lifelike ears, and the shoulders of his coat. He wore a backpack, and his chao Aleda sat on his shoulder, clad in so many layers of clothing, she was nearly a sphere.

"Merry Winter's Day," said Mecha as if he wished anything but.

"Um," said Sonic.

"Merry Winter's Day," said Sally, but her voice rose on a questioning note.

Tails flung the door wide, grabbed Mecha's left hand, and pumped it up and down. "I'm so glad! I've been wondering how you've been! What have you been doing? Did you know I got kidnapped by the whole kitsune nation?"

Mecha grasped the door's lintel with his free hand, bracing himself against Tails's onslaught. When Tails finally released him, Mecha closed his eyes and stood still, teeth clenched.

"I think you hurt him," said Aleda, watching Mecha's face in concern.

Tails looked at Sally and Sonic, mouth open in consternation. "Hurt him? All I did was shake his hand! Mecha, did I hurt you?"

"You merely aggravated an existing problem," said Mecha, opening his eyes. His red pupils flickered, like a light powered by a dying battery. "That is one reason I am here. I need your aid."

Sonic held up a hand. "Wait just a minute. Last time I saw you, you were helping Shadow hand the chaos emeralds to Black Doom! How can we trust you?"

Mecha gave him a disgusted look. "Shadow used the emeralds to destroy Black Doom and his minions. Or didn't your tiny brain grasp that detail?"

Sonic's hands curled into fists, and his blue spines crackled with chaos energy. "I'll show you-"

"Hold it." Sally threw an arm out to hold him back. "Sonic, behave. Mecha, if you really need help, you'll have to behave, too. Understand?"

He gazed at her with a bemused smile. "Yes ma'am."

"Good. Tails, take him to your garage."

The young fox bounded out into the snow without a coat, calling for Mecha to follow him. Mecha turned, slowly and carefully, and shuffled after him, shoulders slightly stooped.

"Sonic," Sally said very quietly, "he's in pain. Look at him."

Sonic had noticed, and already regretted his response to the android's needling words. He retreated inside, and Sally closed the door.

"I made him this way, Sal. I-I broke him. He's never recovered." The memories blazed before Sonic's eyes-of Metal Sonic lying in ruins aboard the flagship of the Egg Fleet, begging Sonic to destroy him permanently.

Sonic hadn't been able to do it.

And later, after Mecha had hatched Aleda and recovered a little, he was never the same again. Of course, his old self had been an assassin robot ravaged by hate-but his defeat had been so terrible that Sonic still carried the guilt.

Sally put her arms around him. "Stop blaming yourself. He may not be as bad off as you think. Besides, at least we know he won't murder us all in our sleep."

Sonic nodded. "Well. Yeah. Honestly, if he's in that much pain, I don't think he could."

Tails's workshop was a cement-floored garage that had been added onto in various directions. Tails now lived upstairs in a comfortable apartment filled with machine parts, power crystals, and robotics magazines. He also hosted the computer network service for the whole village.

But the garage was unheated. Tails glanced around at the workbenches, racks of tools, and the Cyclone wrapped cozily in canvas. "You probably don't want to stay here."

Mecha eyed the narrow stairs. "I doubt I could navigate those." He stood near the wall and again braced himself with one hand.

The cold ate through Tails's whole body, and he shivered until his teeth rattled. "What's wrong with you, anyway?"

"My spine has telescoped."

"It-it what?"

Mecha sighed. "Greetings, Cyclone."

"Greetings, Mecha," replied the plane-turned walker. It's blue eye-lights flickered on.

Aleda squealed. "Ooo! I can hear him in my head!"

"I'm sure you two will become excellent friends," said Mecha dryly. "Cyclone, I am transmitting a holographic image. Please display it for Tails."

"Affirmative."

The plane projected a small holographic image a foot beyond its nose. Tails hurried over to look at it, hugging himself in an attempt to stay warm. The image showed a heavily damaged spine, with every disc pinched between every vertebrae. He gaped at it. "Mecha-what do you expect me to do? I'm a mechanic, not a doctor!"

"You are the only one capable of rendering me assistance," growled Mecha. "Do you realize what would happen if news of my synthetic body became general knowledge?"

"Uh." Tails clenched his teeth to keep them from chattering. "You'd be a celebrity?"

"I would be disassembled for study. As an artificial life form, I have no rights."

There was a horrifying thought. Tails tried to think, but encroaching hypothermia made it impossible. "Come upstairs where it's warm." He galloped up them two at a time.

Mecha followed, eventually, one painful step at a time. By the time he reached the top, Tails had tidied his apartment and built Mecha a bed on his second-hand sofa.

Mecha gazed at it. "Look closely at the back of my head. Do you see the three hedgehog-like spikes protruding from it? They are not kind to upholstery."

Tails waved a hand. "No big deal. Sonic's already ripped it up just by sitting there. Should I make a separate bed for your chao?"

"No. She shall sleep with me." Mecha raised an arm and attempted to remove his backpack. Tails had to help him with it. By the time Mecha had also removed his coat, his limbs had begun to shake from the pain. He settled himself onto the sofa, one limb at a time, and finally lay on his side with his silver eyelids closed.

Aleda curled up against his chest, but her eyes moved as she studied Tails and their surroundings. "I like you," she announced.

Tails pulled off his shoes. "Oh good. I like you. And Mecha."

"He knows you do. That's why he came here. I wanted to come for Winter's Day and he said you could help him."

Tails frowned at his toes. "I'm not sure I can." The spine lingered in his memory with its enormous complexity and horrendous damage. He hadn't the faintest clue how to begin fixing it.

"Well, goodnight," he said, and locked himself in his bedroom. Probably he was safe-but then again, he'd never had Metal Sonic as a roommate before.