Disclaimer: My general disclaimer can be found on my profile page. Any special credits I need to give, whether for direct quotes or inspiration, will be listed in an author's note at the end of the chapter.
Author's Note: This is set in the aftermath of the Sonic X third season, but because there's always some continuity confusion in this franchise I want to state up front that the geography is based on that of Sonic Unleashed, with some realms and characters from other games and the SatAM/Archie continuity. I think I'll leave it at that for now; hopefully I'll be clear enough in the text.
Additional Note, 11/22/13: I've made some fairly substantial additions and edits over the past few weeks, and tonight I figured I'd made enough tweaks to warrant announcing it with a fresh update. To people who've read this story before, don't worry, nothing's changed, the only differences are in how the story's told. The changelog follows the final chapter for anyone who's curious.
Klaxons split the woodland sky and irritated birds added their complaints to the sound. The long, low blasts sounded again and again, warning any being that could hear them to take cover from the coming storm. Once, that storm would have been natural, but now the growing thunderheads and even their off-green tint were secondary concerns at best. After all, there was still no such thing as a laser-guided tornado, and no lightning strike on record could burrow twenty meters into a mountainside. The three rocket interceptors slashing through the clouds were an entirely different matter.
"Everyone in?" a yellow-furred fox called into his microphone from a safely hidden security booth. Of course they were – he could see all but one of his thirty-odd friends and neighbors on the monitors that lined the room even before they started to check in, and it wasn't like anyone was silly enough to go outside anymore. Well, almost anyone, but at least the ones who were that impulsive could look after themselves just fine. Besides, he thought with a smirk, if his friend Sonic didn't get out every once in a while he'd be way more of a threat to safety and sanity than the marauding aircraft ever could,
The thought brought his attention back to the perimeter sensors. Yes, those three planes were definitely headed for his workshop, and for all that they were inefficient antique models that were basically a rocket wrapped around a cockpit they were certainly quick-moving when they wanted to be. He knew that Sonic could keep pace with them – he didn't have that name for nothing – but those planes were some of the only things the fox knew that could actually make his friend work for it. And then, of course, there were their weapons. A rad-sensor flashed red to report a missile lock and the fox sighed to himself. Well, it wasn't like the planes were charging at his front door just for a friendly chat, was it, although that would make a nice change. He flipped up a plastic panel with a white-gloved thumb and pressed the toggle under it, watching with a mixture of pride and distaste as a pair of exceptionally large turrets flopped out of the entrance tunnel's roof. He'd hated having to install the things, so soon after – no, not thinking about that now – this place was supposed to be his house, but he hadn't really had a choice in the end. The big hollow cylinders shook as they were filled with scrap and pressurized air, and they searched the skies for something to shoot.
They weren't kept waiting for long. The pilots' aim was improving, the fox conceded. The first half-dozen or so air raids had wandered off and gotten lost amid the many rocky outcroppings that dotted his little peninsula, and it had taken them fifteen more to actually find his doorways in the half-mile-wide circle of coarse rock and scrubland that his workshop and its tunnels occupied. And even now that they knew where to look, it came down to luck whether or not they'd be anywhere near him.
Two missiles spent themselves harmlessly against the rocks well above him – well, maybe not that harmlessly, judging from the gritty powder that was drifting down into his mouth and fur – but four more were dead on target for the much thinner doorway. Of course, that just made them easier for his turrets to hit, and three missiles flared and vanished in the torrent of shrapnel they belched out.
But one got through. One got through, shredding the steel barrier like so much tissue paper, and three cameras promptly blanked out. The ones that didn't were much worse, because the fox knew that the white mist drifting down the hallway on those images wasn't static. And it clearly wasn't normal smoke either, not with that bright a shade. Another button press brought the secondary doors slamming shut – and thank the Emeralds he had installed those after the first air raid – but the second or so it took could have been an eternity with that whatever-it-was swirling deeper into the workshop.
Mercifully, the backup doors stopped it before it reached his friends in the main chamber. The mist settled sulkily into the mouth of the tunnel, clearly in no hurry to leave, and even though the raiders had swept past the mountain and were already fading from his screen the fox felt inclined to leave his turrets active tonight. Their motion sensors would target anything that came close, but maybe that would warn Sonic off if the hedgehog came back before the…stuff dispersed. His friend wasn't exactly renowned for critical thinking but he had a survivor's instincts – and anyway, with no way to communicate it was the best the fox could do.
The immediate threat past, he let himself slump over the back of his chair and close his eyes for a minute. His tongue lolled out slightly as the adrenaline started to let up, but there was still tension even beyond what someone who ran a bomb shelter might usually feel. Boy, was he going to have fun explaining this.
"…And so that's about the size of it," the fox said, hands out and palms up, his voice no longer anywhere near as confident as it had been when the planes had first shown up. Definitely not as confident as it had been two months ago, but that was for more reasons than he cared to dwell on. "Sorry, I thought I could stop those missiles, but one of them took a jog on me and ducked the sentries, so we've got something bad in the main hall."
A large crimson echidna, part of the impromptu "War Council," stepped forward and looked down at the kit. "Which brings you up to, what, one miss out of two hundred? Stop fishing for compliments, Tails!" He'd been imposing once; in fact even now the fox barely came up to the bottom of the white crescent in his chest fur, but after enough exposure even the scariest people could turn into friends. And to be completely honest the echidna had never been the scariest person.
"Yeah, okay Knuckles, but it only takes one time to let," the fox paused, waving aimlessly as he fought for the right words. "Well, something like that in," he finished somewhat lamely. "I thought I could take care of this on my own, I was wrong again, and now –"
"Tails, you did just fine," Knuckles said, moving to pat down the kit's springy bangs. Tails pulled away – Knuckles wasn't exactly the best at the whole "being comforting" thing, and his idea of a reassuring pat would probably constitute assault to anyone else.
Well, it would if there was still any government to enforce it, at least. Or enough people in this part of the world to care. But as far as Tails was aware, all that was left of the Acorn Kingdom was clustered here in his underground home. The month or so since the war had really sunken in for everyone had given them more than enough time to get to know each other. For some of them – like Sonic – that was too much time in its own right, but then again the blue hedgehog's eternal hyperactivity made even Tails sneakily grateful for every break they got from his big brother.
"You know where this lot came from?" An epauletted skunk caught Tails's eye and the fox shivered a little despite himself. Geoffrey St. John was the veteran's veteran, no doubt, a former commando and spymaster and one of the lucky few who had been elsewhere when Castle Acorn and the city around it were destroyed. Unfortunately he still loomed over anyone who wasn't Knuckles and hadn't burned off that intimidation by spending four years being friendly. That said, the little fox returned the gaze as best as he could. He swallowed nervously – for several reasons – and then answered a little more steadily.
"What you're afraid of, most likely. Downunda's rocket interceptors." The skunk swore under his breath and Tails couldn't help but agree with him. Geoffrey's homeland in the southern hemisphere might lag behind the northern kingdoms technologically – mostly because they had ducked the constant string of wars and occupations that had bred inventiveness – but its wildlife was legendary. There were at least three dozen thoroughly unpleasant toxins that mist could be, and those were just the ones in the tourist brochure. On the front cover.
Not to mention the Downunda government was apparently the leading aggressor in the current unpleasantness, which had put the skunk in a difficult situation. It wasn't all that dissimilar to when Tails had been forced to choose between Sonic and Earth a couple of years ago, and the fox appreciated Geoffrey's decision to stay with the Acorn Kingdom. He had tried to explain the war to Tails a few times, something about "resource starvation," "raiding economies," "historical animosity," and "bloody idiots with their land grabs," but that all fell outside the fox's area of expertise. The skunk had been a very tolerant teacher, but trying to comprehend Acorn, Spagonia, and Downunda blowing one another apart and claiming it was in everyone's best interests made the little fox's head hurt every time. No, it was easier to just take in whoever wanted safety and do his best to provide it.
So far, that wasn't going so well.
"I keep telling you, you need to let go of that aversion you've got to putting guns on anything," Geoffrey went on. "Better we just knock out the jets than try to shoot down two, four, however-many times the missiles." Tails's left ear flicked reflexively a few times while his mouth twisted up at the corner. "You know it's safer for everyone – well, not them, I'd imagine, but this is a war after all."
The ear-flicking picked up speed; in fact, it was actually starting to hurt. This wasn't the first time that the skunk had used that argument and Tails knew it made sense, but he'd made this sort of choice two months ago. He wasn't planning to ever be ready to point a lethal weapon at someone again, no matter how awkward that might made things now. No, he wouldn't shoot those pilots down no matter the practicality, because he knew that every time he even watched his turrets in action he saw –
No! Not going to think about that! Not going back there…too late. The little fox drew the two fluffy tails that gave him his nickname tightly around himself and let his gaze fall straight down. The mountain dust that had gotten in his mouth back in the security booth suddenly felt much thicker, much harsher, clogging his throat and his lungs. He sat down hard, knowing that all the spectators – even Knuckles – would be trying not to laugh at the thud he made. Okay, Tails, that's enough, he told himself firmly, but experience had taught him that it would take more than just self-talk to break out of his little moods. For a long minute he just sat there, breathing deeply, and then shook himself like he was throwing off cold water. All right, back to – oh, grand.
Knuckles had Geoffrey pinned to the wall, one fist pressing against the skunk's neck while the other hovered ready to punch. There was definite fear in Geoffrey's eyes, but no sign of surrender, which was lucky since that would be all the justification the echidna needed to throw that punch. "Okay, that's enough!" Tails said as forcefully as he could – which, to be honest, wasn't very.
Knuckles let the ready fist fall but kept the skunk suspended as he turned to look at Tails. "He can say whatever he wants about you and I won't care," he was practically spitting, each syllable precise and harsh, "but I will not let anyone make light of what happened to Cosmo."
Tails tried not to sigh. This again. "Knuckles, thanks, but you really don't need to…" he trailed off into a nervous laugh at the echidna's glare. Obviously this wasn't something his friend was going to reconsider, not that stubbornness was anything new. "Well, you really don't need to break our top man," he said instead with what he hoped was a little more authority. Knuckles still looked mutinous, but he let up the pressure and even helped Geoffrey back to his feet. Good, that was good. Tails would have to figure out how he had gotten Knuckles to give up so easily. It had never happened before.
"Who's your top man?" a completely different voice demanded, and Tails's eyes shot open as a somewhat weatherworn blue-furred hedgehog ducked in through the rear entrance.
"Sonic!" He pounced happily on the newcomer, taking him around his cream midsection and wrapping both arms around him safely below the worst of his friend's spines. The hedgehog staggered a little but kept his balance, returning the hug a bit stiffly.
"Come on, little bro, you're losing your touch," Sonic told Tails with his eternal chuckle. "You used to be able to floor me whenever you did that. You sure you've been eating well enough down here?"
"None of us are," St. John said, completely recovered from Knuckles's attack except for what would probably be a lovely bruise around his neck. "Mountain, remember?"
"Yeah, well, I brought back a little something for everyone," Sonic said with a flourish. From somewhere in his fused spikes he produced a bag that smelled unmistakably of chili. "Had another bag, but it got splattered across the forest." His eyes flicked to Tails and that told the fox all he needed to know. In fact, now that he was looking he could see light scrapes all across Sonic's chest and arms. Those turrets must be a lot more sensitive than I thought. Guess I've got some work to do later.
Tails scuffed one shoe, shifting most of his weight onto his friend. "I'm really sorry about that, Sonic." He didn't want to meet the hedgehog's eyes, not that he thought Sonic would ever get angry at anyone but he didn't want to find out he was wrong. "We got attacked again maybe fifteen minutes back. I let a gas missile get in the front door." Knuckles looked like he might object again but stayed out of it – Sonic tended to bring out the echidna's frostier side, especially lately.
"Gas, huh?" The hedgehog made a show of thinking about it, then shrugged irreverently and waved at the bag. "Well, as long as it hasn't spoiled your appetites it's all fine by me." Everyone's eyes shot open. That was flippant even – no, especially, Tails reminded himself – by Sonic's standards.
"Ah, Sonic, we're talking about a Downunda poison that's flooded the main hall," Geoffrey clarified. The hedgehog glanced at him with a raised eyebrow.
"Well, it hasn't gotten in here, so I don't think we should let these go to waste. I couldn't believe that store was still open, but the owner wasn't interested in coming back with me. Too bad, really, we could have used his talents. And I'm sure you'll think better on a full stomach anyway, little bro," he finished to Tails. Honestly, the fox could probably have torn through the entire bag on his own, but there were standards to maintain.
"I'm not hungry, Sonic," he said with just a hint of the sulk he remembered usually made his big brother think twice.
The glint in the hedgehog's green eyes got brighter – and maybe just a little more mischievous, although the fox didn't see how one could improve on perfection. He prodded Tails's ribs and stomach gently, prompting a gurgle that completely overturned the fox's claim. "I don't think so, Tails," Knuckles chipped in helpfully. "You've been working eighteen-hour days since the first planes came over and that was five weeks ago. And you weren't eating before that because, well," he swallowed what he was about to say, "none of us were, really, but you were the worst. So if Sonic offers you your favorite, you take it!"
Sonic looked at Knuckles in mock surprise. "Knuckles the Echidna, agreeing with me about someone else's well-being? Tell me someone recorded that!" He laughed, waiting for Knuckles to do the same, and almost dropped both Tails and the bag at the completely blank expression that had replaced the echidna's habitual frown.
"Yeah, funny thing, that," Knuckles said with a bitterness that left Tails and Sonic alike completely floored. The hedgehog tried to reach out but Knuckles swatted his arm aside and stalked out into the common room.
St. John gave a little cough, dragging his two companions back to their senses. They jerked around to face him. "So, about this missile?" Sonic just shrugged while Tails shook his head mutely and darted out of the room after Knuckles. The skunk gave an exasperated sigh that echoed all through the tunnels.
Tails wandered through the den. Formerly his living room, the cavernous dome was now packed wall-to-wall with simple beds and sofas and the people to fill them. He'd never planned on having all of this space; it had started with just a little house on the reverse slope of the mountain overlooking an inlet but when your best friends were a burrower and a living drill bit you tended to end up with more tunnel space than you knew what to do with. A little flop-eared rabbit girl hopped across to him through the sullen crowd as if she was out in a field somewhere rather than halfway through a cliffside. Of course, considering Cream's imagination, she might think she is, Tails thought with a fond half-smile.
"Tails," she squeaked. "What's wrong with Mister Knuckles?"
The smile evaporated. How did you explain this to a seven-year-old, especially when you didn't want to think about it either? "Just him and Geoffrey getting each other's backs up again, nothing special."
"Was Mister Geoffrey talking about Cosmo again?" Tails swore he felt his jaw hit the floor. Leave it to Cream to see right through a problem.
"N-no, not really. He wanted me to be more aggressive in protecting this place, Knuckles got really defensive, and things went downhill from there."
"That's exactly what I mean, Tails," she said flatly. Oh, no, another round of Cream-knows-best. "Don't they realize what that means to you?"
"Honestly, I wish Knuckles didn't," Tails said before he could stop himself. The rabbit's long eyelashes suddenly looked even more like sabers than usual, and the fox scrambled frantically for a new subject. "So, um, Sonic got back. I don't know where he found them, but he brought us a bag of chili dogs too."
"Great!" Cream's peal of joy wiped away any traces of her bad mood and Tails wished he could tamp down his own issues that easily. "Make sure you eat plenty, Tails."
Had Sonic ever been able to divert him like that? Probably – he remembered triple-frosted chocolate cake had always been a good bribe. He chuckled ruefully, and a little bit hungrily. "Yeah, everyone's been saying that lately. But I don't know how many he brought with him, especially since I blew half of them up." Cream gave him a quizzical look but mercifully didn't ask. "So anyway, I want to make sure you all get a chance at them first. I can keep going off of salad for a bit longer." The concern was back on Cream's face so Tails plowed on before she could add her voice to the protests. "Speaking of food, I wonder where he is."
As if on cue, a loud thock resounded through the caves and a spiny blue ball caromed off of several walls before drilling several feet through the rock. "Oh," Tails and Cream said in unison as a hedgehog girl in a frilly red skirt loomed large in the doorway, a massive yellow-red hammer dangling from her hands. "Amy."
"What did I say this time?" Sonic moaned from his cubby in the wall and the room dissolved into laughter. Some things never changed.
Mercifully the chili dogs had survived not only Sonic's journey home but also his encounter with the wall, and soon everyone was merrily munching away. There were several artificial greenhouses in their hideout that served to keep everyone decently fed, but the Acorn citizens were famous worldwide for their love of sausage. Even Tails finally gave in, although he felt that a real leader would have protested for longer than he had. Even so, he only let himself take three, and two of those were for Knuckles. He hadn't seen him since the meeting and knew the echidna would be hungry.
Carrying one chili dog delicately in each hand, Tails walked leisurely through the inner caves of his workshop. He had been a little worried that Knuckles would be hard to find, but almost as soon as he opened the first door he could hear thudding and crunching. The fox cut through the overlapping echoes of the underground with the ease of talent and long practice. His friend had never been the stealthy one, had he?
"Knuckles?" Tails called out a little nervously as he finally saw the echidna, merrily pounding his way through the solid granite. Startled, Knuckles pivoted and drove a fist straight at Tails, pulling back frantically when his brain caught up with itself. Tails still went over backwards, frantically wrapping one tail around each chili dog and thinking rather disjointedly how proud his save would have made Sonic if the hedgehog had seen it.
"Sorry," Knuckles grunted, offering a hand and pulling Tails back to his feet. The echidna gave a half-shrug as the fox dusted himself down. "Got carried away."
"Yeah, I could kind of tell," Tails replied ruefully. "Sorry," he added immediately, thinking how rude that could sound to a distressed echidna. Luckily Knuckles just waved it off, making a visible effort to be more generous than usual. "So, ah, chili dog?"
Knuckles brushed Tails's tails away, once again nearly sending the food into the dust. The fox's face fell – he hadn't gotten fur in them again, had he? "Not if that spiky idiot's the one who brought them." Oh. Not stealthy, and also not particularly tactful. That always made conversations with Knuckles harder than they had to be. At least Tails rarely had to think about what the echidna meant.
Unfortunately this was one of those few times. The young fox had absolutely no idea what had gotten between Knuckles and Sonic since they all came back from space, but it was starting to physically hurt watching his two big brothers fight. He hesitated for a moment longer, grinding a toe into the rock, and finally decided to match the echidna's straightforwardness. "What's happened, Knuckles? Between you and Sonic, I mean?"
Tails had forgotten how fast Knuckles could move. The rock-steady hand wrapped around his chin before he had even seen his friend tense, and some corner of his mind swore it heard Sonic screaming in agony as one of the two chili dogs slipped out of his tail. "You're too smart for that, Tails. You heard what your hero said." Knuckles's voice was as unflinching as his hand, and he put more venom on 'hero' than Downunda could supply in a year.
Despite all of that, Tails had absolutely no idea what the echidna was talking about. "What he said? What did he say, Knuckles?" Could it have been Sonic's reaction to the gas attack? No, too recent, this had been under the surface for longer. "You've always tried to act like you didn't like him, but you never meant it until now." The glove tightened and Tails felt his jawbone buckling. Okay, maybe meeting Knuckles head-on hadn't been such a good idea.
Knuckles looked straight at him, but there was no eye contact. "I thought you cared for her more than that." He didn't need to explain who 'she' was. But – Tails had cared for Cosmo! No, he still did! So what was Knuckles thinking? At least a bit of it was clicking. The fox was now fairly sure that whatever Knuckles's problem was extended to him now too. So that left only one option – protest. Loudly.
"You know how hard it was, Knuckles. You know what happened." It came out as less of a denial and more of a whine. He tried to wince away, to hide his embarrassment, but that granite grip kept him still. He was beginning to feel a strain in his neck. "Sonic didn't want to do it either, but we were out of options."
"You're sure?" The echidna let him drop suddenly, and the other chili dog splattered to the ground as Tails used all six ends to catch himself. That chill in Knuckles's voice had never been there before, and the fox felt his heart shrink at the scorn that twisted his friend's face. "Look, Tails," he pointed at the hole he had burrowed. "Right now, I see the hedgehog on the left side of this wall and that idiot skunk on the right. I don't want to see you there too, so get out of here. Will you go!" he finished, voice suddenly rising.
Tails knew when he wasn't wanted and scurried back to the common area much faster than he had come, thoughts racing even faster as he tried and failed to make sense of what Knuckles had said. His ears ducked forward against his skull, and out of nowhere he wished that Cream had been with him. Or Amy, or even crazy old Vector! Someone who actually knew how to talk to a person.
Not just him.
Author's Note: Yes, triple-frosted chocolate cake is a JudasFm/Taranea reference, and yes, you should go read their work. Preferably right now.