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Sonic the Hedgehog: Fire in a Crowded Workshop

Prologue

Let bygones be bygones.

Someone, at some point, in some place, had said that. Or written that. Or so Miles "Tails" Prower believed, because he'd heard the phrase, or read the phrase, or, for all he knew, had been subconsciously implanted with the knowledge of the phrase in some lost episode of his life that lasted about twelve minutes. It was a phrase that the people of Bygone Island lived by, considering how often Eggman attacked. He was the villain, Team Sonic were the heroes. By the natural law of the universe, the heroes won, bygones were bygones, cue ad break, the next episode of their lives, or something else entirely.

But, sometimes, bygones couldn't be bygones. There were some crimes that could never be forgiven. So while walking along the sands of Bygone Island, watching a butterfly and wondering how many flaps of its wings it would take to cause a cyclone on the other side of the world, and whether it was worth his time and effort to make a time machine to find out, Tails came to a stop. The butterfly kept on flying, the waves lapped on the shore as they always did, but he found himself pivoting to the source of his distress. A smell of burning was carried on the breeze. Following the smell, it barely took him any time to see a plume of black smoke rising into the air. It took him only a second longer to realize where it was coming from.

"My workshop!"

He ran across the sand to his abode, without even using his twin tails as a turbine. What was once second nature to him was now beyond his reach. His workshop was in danger, and if someone had done that deliberately…no matter what the island said, no matter what that person of the past had said, bygones could never be bygones. His gadgets were his love, his life, his past, present, and future combined. If something had happened to them…

He picked up the pace. He'd find out. And then…then…well, he'd decide what to do next. Something appropriate. Something like…like…well, something like what Eggman or Shadow would do. Yeah. That was good enough. Clenching his fists, he ran through the billowing smoke and into the room. Eggman, badniks, whatever. He'd take them all!

John Bygone.

Yeah, that was it. John Bygone. An elephant who invented the word bygone and introduced it to the English language. He'd finally remembered. And-

Oh.

His fist unclenched, he came to a halt, and stared at the sight before him. Sonic, Amy, Knuckles, and Perci. All of them covered in soot, all of them staring at him with worry. Under normal circumstances, he would have found it gratifying to see that he could be a source of intimidation to people taller and older than he was. But entering his workshop and finding three friends and one acquaintance covered in soot, looking as if their hand had been caught in the cookie jar…these weren't normal circumstances.

"What happened here?" Tails asked.

"Can you be more specific?" Sonic asked.

A plank fell down with a loud 'thud,' as did one of Tails's socks on the line behind the hedgehog. He frowned – all of his socks were ruined, covered in black burn marks. He couldn't go outside wearing something other than red sneakers and white socks. That would be unthinkable.

"Oh, the mess," Sonic continued. "Funny story. It all began at Meh Burger…"

A/N

So as the title and content suggest, this is indeed a novelization of the Sonic Boom episode of the same name. Not the first time I've novelized an episode from a Sonic cartoon/anime, but in the case of Heads or Tails and Chaos Control Freaks, they were the pilot episodes of their respective series, whereas this is episode 43. Truth be told, I ended up writing this as an extension of The Birds and the Bandicoots, which takes place right after this story (more info's on my homepage). Hopefully I'll get to that someday, but I figure this could stand on its own regardless.